Sins of Game Design
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I agree with most of the ones presented thus far.
When making an RPG, include a New Game+ functionality.
When making an RPG, include a New Game+ functionality.
I'd like to add a fewHT_Black said:
9. Thou shalt not use excessive cursing to feign maturity
10. Thine 3rd person action games must useth the right stick to control thine camera
11. Thou must end franchises before even thy fanbase has abandoned thee
12. Thine characters must haveth better names then "Jet Brody"
Please god game developers stop sending me on vacuous fucking side missions to unlock main missions. The two biggest culprits at the moment? Saints row and Red Faction. If, as a game dev. you're paid to come up with game ideas and yet you settle for sending players off on delightful jaunts to complete the same mind numbing cunting tasks over and over in order to get some actual fucking mission progress, mabye its time to find a different career?
TsunamiWombat already did it the way I wanted to but here goes still:
As these are deadly sins, I'll go with the traditional seven as well. We have:
Greed - Churning shovelware for the sake of making a quick buck. People will still buy them and we spend much less in production, so why bother?
Pride - Arrogance over success from previous titles, which leads to a sharp decline in quality expecting fans to still purchase your games.
Lust - Oversexualised aspects of the game. Boobs and ass don't (always) make it good; sometimes it just kills a franchise.
Sloth - Evident lack of effort in design and development. Unfortunately this is the rule of the day with all the space marine FPS games we're surrounded with.
Envy - Attempting to be like a more successful game, often to the point of plagiarism. Don't even bother, gamers will notice and will scorn you for it. Unless of course you are Alundra.
Wrath - Use of excessive violence and shock value. It's not a bad thing per se, however this is not the rule but the exception. Don't force redundant features or they'll make the game cheesy.
Gluttony - Excessive demand for resources/tools to run. This of course includes MMORPGs where new players would have to spend a lot of money for the client and expansions AND subsequent fees to keep playing.
As these are deadly sins, I'll go with the traditional seven as well. We have:
Greed - Churning shovelware for the sake of making a quick buck. People will still buy them and we spend much less in production, so why bother?
Pride - Arrogance over success from previous titles, which leads to a sharp decline in quality expecting fans to still purchase your games.
Lust - Oversexualised aspects of the game. Boobs and ass don't (always) make it good; sometimes it just kills a franchise.
Sloth - Evident lack of effort in design and development. Unfortunately this is the rule of the day with all the space marine FPS games we're surrounded with.
Envy - Attempting to be like a more successful game, often to the point of plagiarism. Don't even bother, gamers will notice and will scorn you for it. Unless of course you are Alundra.
Wrath - Use of excessive violence and shock value. It's not a bad thing per se, however this is not the rule but the exception. Don't force redundant features or they'll make the game cheesy.
Gluttony - Excessive demand for resources/tools to run. This of course includes MMORPGs where new players would have to spend a lot of money for the client and expansions AND subsequent fees to keep playing.
And thus Iron Mal spoke, with the eternal hope that the great unwashed may learn from his wisdom.
Seriously though,
1- No more health regeneration, it was ok in the first Halo because it didn't get in the way, as it stands at the moment most games will fill your screen up with red the second an enemy lands a glancing hit on you, finding cover in a firefight is hard enough as it is, there's no need to jack up the difficulty by effectively blinding me in the process.
2- Knock it off with protaganists in the US Marine Corps, can we honestly not think of somewhere more interesting to pluck a worthy protaganist from? (as for Sci-Fi shooters, how about a good old fashioned Warhammer 40k Space Marine? When was the last time we revelled in being a badass, overpowered demigod?).
3- 'Make your own adventure' games, I'm not opposed to the idea of an open world game (I enjoyed Crackdown) but I do find it tiresom when a game will give you a brief tutorial and then boot you into the big, bad world without so much as a vague idea of what you're supposed to be doing or what your ultimate goal is (famous examples of games with this issue being Oblivion and FarCry 2). I also enjoy the idea of being able to create your own narritive or path (I do play DnD after all) but I think that this has a limited capacity in games since it often feels restrictive (in the case of Oblivion/Fallout 3) or pointless and aimless (in the case of FarCry 2).
I would write more but it's early in the morning and I'm tired.
Seriously though,
1- No more health regeneration, it was ok in the first Halo because it didn't get in the way, as it stands at the moment most games will fill your screen up with red the second an enemy lands a glancing hit on you, finding cover in a firefight is hard enough as it is, there's no need to jack up the difficulty by effectively blinding me in the process.
2- Knock it off with protaganists in the US Marine Corps, can we honestly not think of somewhere more interesting to pluck a worthy protaganist from? (as for Sci-Fi shooters, how about a good old fashioned Warhammer 40k Space Marine? When was the last time we revelled in being a badass, overpowered demigod?).
3- 'Make your own adventure' games, I'm not opposed to the idea of an open world game (I enjoyed Crackdown) but I do find it tiresom when a game will give you a brief tutorial and then boot you into the big, bad world without so much as a vague idea of what you're supposed to be doing or what your ultimate goal is (famous examples of games with this issue being Oblivion and FarCry 2). I also enjoy the idea of being able to create your own narritive or path (I do play DnD after all) but I think that this has a limited capacity in games since it often feels restrictive (in the case of Oblivion/Fallout 3) or pointless and aimless (in the case of FarCry 2).
I would write more but it's early in the morning and I'm tired.
A game should be FINISHED before release.
It's happened to me before that I got a game that was very unfinished and in the end the story mode was so buggy I wasn't able to complete it.
Also hire an actual writer for a story, it couldn't hurt.
It's happened to me before that I got a game that was very unfinished and in the end the story mode was so buggy I wasn't able to complete it.
Also hire an actual writer for a story, it couldn't hurt.
Thou shall add unique unarmed attacks to otherwise generic melee combat
seriously how cool would it be to add a mechanic into halo that allowed you to dodge or parry an incoming attack then punch (a significant number of times) through the visor and crush master chief's unseen face! Or sidestep a knife in COD4, grab and quickly break the arm then force it into the guy's throat.
seriously how cool would it be to add a mechanic into halo that allowed you to dodge or parry an incoming attack then punch (a significant number of times) through the visor and crush master chief's unseen face! Or sidestep a knife in COD4, grab and quickly break the arm then force it into the guy's throat.
Don't know if anyone has posted these yet but.
Here are some sins
Not doing following these commandments: http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html
Creating these characters and in the future when they create more characters like these: http://www.cracked.com/article_15902_15-most-annoying-video-game-characters-from-otherwise-great-games.html
The fact they won't fix these: http://www.cracked.com/article_17442_5-things-gaming-industry-will-never-fix-why.html
Here are some sins
Not doing following these commandments: http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html
Creating these characters and in the future when they create more characters like these: http://www.cracked.com/article_15902_15-most-annoying-video-game-characters-from-otherwise-great-games.html
The fact they won't fix these: http://www.cracked.com/article_17442_5-things-gaming-industry-will-never-fix-why.html
I'm not reading the whole list, but how about Stealth levels in games that don't allow the character to hide from the enemy. A few disgraces off the top of my head that did this was:
Zelda:WW
Rainbow six
Rainbow six 2
No One Lives Forever
Deus Ex
Keep in mind I didn't hate these games, but they either required stealth at some point, or hinted that stealth was an option. I never was able to enjoy Deus Ex because everyone around me was touting it as a stealth game more than a run-and-gun game. Loading it up, I found trying to pretend that I'm Garret from Thief just doesn't work when the baddies have guns instead of swords.
Zelda:WW
Rainbow six
Rainbow six 2
No One Lives Forever
Deus Ex
Keep in mind I didn't hate these games, but they either required stealth at some point, or hinted that stealth was an option. I never was able to enjoy Deus Ex because everyone around me was touting it as a stealth game more than a run-and-gun game. Loading it up, I found trying to pretend that I'm Garret from Thief just doesn't work when the baddies have guns instead of swords.
Thou shalt create using interesting and bizzare concepts, no matter how cute they end up being. (Katamari Damacy, World of Goo...)
Making things easy (come on, at least give us -some- challenge)
Morality systems (*kills*)
Flat enemies (the original Metal Gear Solid had very interesting, complex enemies, ones who managed to make you feel kind of bad for killing them - this is what made the game so very awesome, for me)
Simple storylines (I'm not an idiot. I can follow a storyline. Even if it has something like time travel and altered histories (Legacy of Kain) or psychotic government conspiracies (Metal Gear Solid). Give me substance!)
Worlds that depend on you (if the enemies are waiting for me to do stuff before they do stuff, there's no sense of urgency, no reason to move on. If the enemies all level up along with me, the entire world feels exactly the same. Do NOT make an open world that relies on the one character - then it may as well be a game as linear as the latest JRPG. If you make it open, make it also a real world - one where I have to struggle against time to build up my own forces or weaken my enemy's before he has outdistanced me.)
I hate the way games are going. I actually spend more time playing Vagrant Story than any other console game I own, and I spend more time with Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines than most of my other PC games. Things are getting dumbed down, when they should be getting more complex. Blarg.
Morality systems (*kills*)
Flat enemies (the original Metal Gear Solid had very interesting, complex enemies, ones who managed to make you feel kind of bad for killing them - this is what made the game so very awesome, for me)
Simple storylines (I'm not an idiot. I can follow a storyline. Even if it has something like time travel and altered histories (Legacy of Kain) or psychotic government conspiracies (Metal Gear Solid). Give me substance!)
Worlds that depend on you (if the enemies are waiting for me to do stuff before they do stuff, there's no sense of urgency, no reason to move on. If the enemies all level up along with me, the entire world feels exactly the same. Do NOT make an open world that relies on the one character - then it may as well be a game as linear as the latest JRPG. If you make it open, make it also a real world - one where I have to struggle against time to build up my own forces or weaken my enemy's before he has outdistanced me.)
I hate the way games are going. I actually spend more time playing Vagrant Story than any other console game I own, and I spend more time with Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines than most of my other PC games. Things are getting dumbed down, when they should be getting more complex. Blarg.
I hate games that allow players to just sprint into a heated firefight jumping around and soaking up fire. (I'm looking at you halo) I prefer games that force people to take cover and plan their actions, but at the same time keeping the pace frantic and intense. It's just as bad to have everyone sitting behind cover as it is to have nobody taking cover. Red Faction: Guerilla adds the quick deaths and cover mechanic, but keeps everything moving by having your cover reduced to dust every few seconds.
Maybe it's just me... but:
RPG's - Single player forced level grinding is a HUGE no no. It should be part of the playing experience, not a chore that I have to do to later enjoy the game and not die a million times at one damned boss.
RTS's - No more unit spam. Rise of Nations, Heroes of Annihilated Empires..... no, just no.
FPS's/TPS's - Don't sacrifice playability for multiplayer, if the multiplayer isn't working don't include it. (Fallout 3 is a great example of this)
MMO's - More progressive areas (if I kill off 5 million worgen, I wanna see a difference dammit!).
Indie Games - good job, way to stay innovative in at least some areas.
Big Box Companies - Stop with the over usage of legendary characters (Please no Master Chief goes lingerie shopping..... seeing as this is about the only avenue that is left for him).
RPG's - Single player forced level grinding is a HUGE no no. It should be part of the playing experience, not a chore that I have to do to later enjoy the game and not die a million times at one damned boss.
RTS's - No more unit spam. Rise of Nations, Heroes of Annihilated Empires..... no, just no.
FPS's/TPS's - Don't sacrifice playability for multiplayer, if the multiplayer isn't working don't include it. (Fallout 3 is a great example of this)
MMO's - More progressive areas (if I kill off 5 million worgen, I wanna see a difference dammit!).
Indie Games - good job, way to stay innovative in at least some areas.
Big Box Companies - Stop with the over usage of legendary characters (Please no Master Chief goes lingerie shopping..... seeing as this is about the only avenue that is left for him).