Geek Syndicate
to do and after awhile, the player really feels little need to drive around and explore it any more than is necessary for the main plot of the game. If I had been a player who had used fast travel throughout, I would have been none the wiser about this lack of depth. Two ends of the spectrum but both linked with a simple question. Would we need fast travel if games were designed more sensibly and actually warranted your time. Now even Skyrim, my positive example, is guilty of giving you countless quests that send you all over the realm and back again like some armour clad orienteer. Even with the best will in the world, it can challenge your resolve to role-play your “Antimagic anti-horse” character. When two thirds of a quest is retracing your own steps, it doesn’t matter how interesting the world might be, you are going to get a little bit bored and want to get to your destination quicker. Should game designers be filling the world with these kinds of quest just to stretch out your playtime and then help you to skip some of this by giving you a system that will bypass a chunk of it? That comes across as more than a little self-defeating to me. One element that might contribute to this mentality is the inclination of some gamers to judge a game by its length over some of its other qualities. While it’s sometimes valid when a game may only be three hours long but is still a full price release, this holds less water with something like Skyrim which offers tens of hours of enjoyment at the least. The flip side to this argument is this: does the drudgery add to our enjoyment? Many of the oldest philosophies of the world acknowledge the power of opposites and their dependence on each other. Would the exciting parts of the game be as exciting and enjoyable if they weren’t sandwiched between two periods of nothing much happening? In real life, some people sadly only live for the weekend. Would they enjoy it as much if they didn’t have five days of (potentially) dull, mundane work or school to get through first? Maybe the art, when it comes to games, is in balancing the tempo of these peaks and troughs, their length and severity, and trying to get all of those to give the gamer a satisfying experience. I certainly find that if I use fast travel to remove the “troughs”, I end up tensely playing the game and doing things faster and faster. I cannot sustain this pace for very long before I feel burnt out on the game and indifferent to finishing it. It is also hard to achieve this balance when there are so many different kinds of gamer. There are the hardcore speed runners who blitz through a game in a few sittings for achievement points and kudos, and then there are the role-players who might write fan fiction about their character’s adventures as they progress. There will of course be countless others who fall somewhere betwixt the two. A game would find it hard to please al ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????q??????Êt????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????$?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????e???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????%????????????????????????????????????????????????%?e???????????????????????????$?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????e??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????$??????????????????????????????????????????????????Q????????????????$????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????%???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????()
??????????((??((0