The Joke(r)'s On You

I just finished seeing The Dark Knight for the first time (finally). Upon some reflection of that movie, and movies in general, I've ended up thinking about plot holes. Mind you, I enjoyed The Dark Knight very much, but there are a few unanswered holes. Namely, where did the Joker come from? Now, in this case, it actually works in the movies favor. Giving us nothing to go on (the Joker gives us a couple flashbacks, but really he can't be relied on) actually makes the character creepier. That something like this could just spring into existence is quite a shock, and adds mystery to the character and the movie as a whole.

This is a rare case where such a tool is used appropriately. Too often in games plot holes try to breeze by unexpected. Unfortunately, it either completely fails to do so, or does only the first time. The latter case only makes you feel like an idiot when all your friends point it out, or you're attempting to explain the game to them only to realize you can't (thank you Geist).

The alternate side to being unable to explain your own plot, is covering up a hole when you shouldn't. As I said at the beginning, not knowing the Joker's background makes him scarier. What if, right after the first couple of scenes with the Joker, Batman figured out who he was and read off his whole backstory to us? The mystery would be lost, and the character would be less powerful. In the game Condemned, the people of the city go mad and start attacking each other. Even after the horror game is finished, no explanation is given. In Condemned 2, they explain in the first chapter that someone has hung hubcaps on the walls which make a loud and annoying noise, driving sleepless people crazy (never mind how you get hubcaps to make noise 24/7). As one of my favorite reviewers said, "Thank you Condemned 2, I was just about to get interested."

Plot holes, when they don't add needed mystery, usually only make the developers look bad. As I implied before, can't you explain your own plot? I've noticed an increase lately in plot holes, Super Mario Galaxy 2's complete failure to acknowledge the first game being the largest and most recent. I think writers are trying too hard to come up with new and exciting plots (or in Mario's case recycling the same one for the last fifteen years or so) that they lose track of their own loose ends. Having a complex plot is fine, but make sure people can still follow it. And personally, I can't accept the "It's open to interpretation" excuse. In that case, I feel like I'm supposed to make up half the plot myself. Braid, I'm looking smack at you.

Of course, gameplay is the central most important thing to a video game. But, like so many other things, the plot can make the difference between a good game and a great game. Between a game people play once, and one people play year after year. Between a game people are over, and one people clamour for a sequel to. Between a bad game that everyone returns after an hour, and one people force their way to the end of (an ugly possibility, but still...).

One of the most out there (not there) plots I've ever heard of. Fortunately, the game itself is awesome.

The One Ring

In playing Dungeons and Dragons Online, I have run into a dilemma. There is a series of dungeons that you must do one right after the other, each of which can take about 45 minutes depending on difficulty and how well your group performs. With three of these in a row, it is quite a time commitment to get through to the end. I was lucky, and got a good group on my first run through, allowing me to complete the entire series on the highest difficulty, thereby earning the best rewards. Now I am poised to level beyond that content, and seek new quests. But, I don't want to. Why not? Because I didn't get a Ring of Feathers.

The Ring of Feathers, when worn, causes you character to fall slowly, allowing you to steer better in midair and take no damage upon landing, regardless of the height you fell from. The advantages of this are obvious to a player, since there are a large number of places that require accurate jumping to get to and also one could then just leap down a wall at no risk instead of climbing. This ring is the only item in the game to grant this effect permanently while worn at level 1. Other rings with this effect exist, but the require very high levels and are randomly generated, meaning you have an equal chance to pull that as any other item from any given chest in the game. This is the only ring with no level requirement, and to have a set chest. Ergo, the ring is highly sought after, not just to use, but to sell.

The usual cost of one of these rings when buying from the player based market, is a staggering 1,200,000 gold pieces. In the many hours I have spent playing this character, I have only saved up 8,000 gold pieces.

So, you either have the choice to farm up 1,200,000 gold, or rerun this quest series over and over until you get the ring. That's about two hours worth of questing for a CHANCE to find this ring (in of course the very last chest). I can't even fathom how long it would take to get a hold of 1,200,000 gold.

And then, the player has a final choice, don't get the stupid ring.

There are many rings with much more useful effects for many characters. There are plenty of easily obtainable items that provide the effect temporarily with limited uses, which would leave you a free ring slot. There is only one place where the ring is frequently considered required, a dungeon properly named The Pit.

Yet, despite this, when the ring goes up on the market, it is usually sold in a matter of hours, if not minutes.

I have seen full groups of level 20's (the quest is level 4-7) blast through the quest line over and over until they get one.

I have heard people cry (literally) over the voice chat when the ring doesn't drop for them.

I have run this series about 8 times over multiple characters, I have never seen this ring drop for anyone.

The last group I was in for this spent most of the time discussing addiction to games, how you could spend that time raising a family, how people in Everquest 1 died from playing instead of eating, and yet: this was their third run that day.

Speaking of addiction, this is where it comes from. Highly sought after rewards that never appear in that chest. Without rare drops, there would be no prestige to owning a piece of gear. There would be no one better than anyone else. So we have to have rare rewards to give players something to strive for, otherwise there's no sense of achieving anything. But, there still needs to be ways to reward the player with a sense of accomplishment that doesn't drag on for hours. You might think at first that this is exactly what keeps people playing MMOs, and you'd be right. But I've also seen so many people leave because they realize that these games are nothing but a massive time sink.

We need to improve the Rewards VS Time ratio. It'll let people move on through you game, and stop them from losing interest. A possible solution to my particular example? Give the ring a descent chance to drop (say 30%) but change it so that it cannot be traded. You want your ring? Go get it yourself.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a ring to hunt.

My... Precioussssss....

Lights! Camera! Act... Wait, where's the camera?

The camera, friend to players and foe to developers. In case your not quite sure, the camera is what the player sees "through". It is their viewpoint on a given situation. The friend and foe idea comes from the fact that a good camera system can be rather hard to make, but the player needs to see what is going on. Therefore, a well designed camera system is critical, and a poor camera can cripple an otherwise great game.

Example One, Bad Camera: Neverwinter Nights 2. Simply put, the camera in NWN2 is abysmal and really drags the game down. There are three camera modes. The first (theoretically) gives you the ability to look any way you want, while your character moves in any direction independent of the direction of the camera. Problem, you must click where you want your character to go. How do you click where you're not looking? The second is a pure top down view called strategy mode. Again, you click but at least you usually can with this view, though you must keep pushing the mouse to the edge of the screen to see what's ahead. Problem, when you're looking down from kinda far out on a dark field at night with slow moving zombies, how do you tell what/where anything is? The last mode, which I use, is driving camera. Now you steer the character with the keyboard and the camera follows behind. However, the pitch of the camera up and down is very sensitive, making it very hard to change accurately when pushing the mouse against the top or bottom of the screen. The camera is also bound by any roof you may be under, making it ridiculous to use inside. You can also push  right or left with the mouse to look around, but then the camera either swings sickeningly back into place, or your character flips around in place. Good one guys. Several times I've charged into battle facing the wrong way.

Example Two, Okay Camera: Dungeons and Dragons Online. I've been playing this a lot lately and so it comes to mind when thinking of video game things. The camera in DDO is as I said, Okay, nothing more. And here, Okay is much better than bad, and perfectly functional. The camera is locked behind your head. You can move it up or down quite accurately and left and right. However, if you move your character the camera will stay put but your character will move in the direction the camera is now facing. If you hold both the mouse buttons and the movement keys you can look around while moving. A bit impractical, but there is rarely a reason to watch constantly to your character's right while running full speed. There is a bit of an exploit with this camera though. You can zoom rather far out. With the camera zoomed out, I can look around a corner to see if there is a group of orcs ahead. The orcs have no way to see me, I can thoroughly examine them and prepare, and my character is facing a wall. Um... yeah.

Example Three, Good Camera: The Legend of Zelda Windwaker. For the most part, all the Zelda games have a good camera, but WW sticks out for an extra feature. First of all, the camera generally stays behind Link, but if you make a major change in direction it will only adjust when Link starts to run off screen. It's smooth and slow, but not too slow. You can also with the touch of a button (that your finger is probably already on) snap the camera right behind Link's head again. You can also lock onto a single enemy keeping the camera always focused on it. Where WW breaks away from the style of every other Zelda is that hitting the C stick breaks the camera into free mode. By tilting the stick you can rotate the camera all the way around Link, at a speed varying by how much you tilt the stick. By tapping that button again, you return to normal camera. This pretty much allows you to look at whatever you need to or explore your options easily.

All of these problems were fairly moot back in the 2D days, but now 3D has been the standard for a long time, and the player needs to be able to see things (often quickly) in order to succeed. A little extra time and polish on this aspect of your game will keep your player's frustration level down a bit. A lack of time and polish here and your game will be notorious for a bad camera. It's one of those things that usually goes un-thanked when done right, and draws a lot of hatred when done wrong. Just like an IT job.

Look out below! (Or judging by Link's expression, maybe we'd rather not see what's down there.)

Atmosphere

Recently, I finally bought Dragon Age, and more recently I got back into Two Worlds. Layer that with the Everquest II and Dungeons and Dragons Online I've been playing, and that's four RPGs I've had my head stuck in a lot this past week. Quickly switching between the four has not only given me difficulty in remembering which buttons do what right now, and what my character can do, but has really given me stark comparisons between them.

What are the big differences between these games? The answer, as you might expect if you've played any of them, is a lot. In terms of core game play, they actually paint an interesting spectrum of differences. Personally, I love options when it comes to how to build and play a character. Dragon Age comes in last in this area having only three classes to choose from. EQII has 16. DDO only has 11, but you can greatly customize your ability choices within those classes and maintain up to three different classes on one character. Then there's Two Worlds, which has no classes, only skills you put points into at level up. Since you can put your points in any distribution you want, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination and the total number of skills available. With about 40 skills, that's not a small number.

I think that's the reason I keep coming back to Two Worlds, despite my issues with it. All of my friends, who convinced me to buy it on release day with them, wrote it off as a bad game and only a few of them finished it, which is not hard to do. I too was disappointed. I don't call it a bad game, rather I call it: A game with great potential that wallows in mediocrity. What causes the mediocrity? For the most part, the core gameplay is solid, with the foremost issue most run into being repetition. The only real gameplay problems are: 1. Don't make an archer, they are HACKED and can destroy most foes in a single shot. 2. Don't make a sneak attacker, because it's nearly impossible to sneak up on something and then it's very hard to actually hit with the attack. Your character lunges forward often stabbing the air in front of the target, and even if you do kill it the thing screams as it dies drawing all his friends onto you. So much for a silent kill.

But besides those issues, what prevents me from having as much fun as I should with Two Worlds? Why do I play it intensely for two days before I go back to Dragon Age for two months before I touch Two Worlds again? Well, it can't be because you slow down to 5% movement speed if you enter swim mode which you do if your toe so much as touches the water. It shouldn't be the way that 99% of the NPCs in the game serve absolutely no purpose. It's not the way the entire town comes after you after you accidentally pick a lock because you didn't realize the door was locked. It's not that most of the wilderness is boring and pointless to explore. Not that you never make any friends or have companions to help you. Can't be that using illegal magic in street causes no one to bat an eyelash. Nor is it... wait... or is it all of these together? There's so little real interaction with the world around you. You don't feel like you're a part of this world. In short, the atmosphere is lacking.

And this is where we come to the heart of the issue. Any developer will tell you (should tell you) that gameplay is the most important thing in a game. What is the player doing? How is he fighting monsters? How is she solving puzzles? Whatever it is, what drives this game? But there's more to it than that, certainly in an RPG but not necessarily in a typing tutor, how is the player part of the world? Lack of atmosphere prevents a game from drawing the player in. When a player's not drawn in, they tend to lose interest. It's why I keep leaving Two Worlds.

The other side of the atmosphere coin is the world itself. Of course, every world should be different. This also varies by game and genre. A horror game will have a creepy and dark world, while the Care Bears Adventures will have a bright and rainbow filled world. This all should be obvious, but the world should be interesting to help the player feel like they're really there. This should go beyond just having every different area look drastically different, there should be some mystery, make the player want to explore. Why do I still prefer Everquest I to Everquest II? Because, unlike EQII, I saw things every day in EQ that I could not explain how someone had done that. How did she get herself to look like an orc? How did I turn myself into a skeleton? Why is that wheelbarrow looking at me?

In short, the problem that holds back some (too many) games is lack of atmosphere. I can appreciate that the core of the game is great fun, but I want to have fun in the  down time too. There's more to gameplay than just the combat, puzzles, or being scared by zombies. There's also interaction, playing a role (particularly in RPGS, they're called Role Playing Games for a reason), and just plain having fun.

Two Worlds 2, set to release in September, battles with Atmosphere issues!

Will they be fixed in the sequel?