Hi, It isn't that the ideas are stupid, but more a difference in opinion how the game should be created. One person might view a suggestion/idea one way, and I may view it completely different. It doesn't make that persons idea dumb or stupid, but may be something I don't want to do as it conflicts with my own ideas, or limits my creativity in unforeseen ways.
For example, one feature a lot of gamers wanted is random monsters and treasure items. Ok, it is not a bad idea, but there are certainly times where that wouldn't be desirable. There are always pros and cons for randomly placing monsters and items. Here is a simple example of what I mean. Let's assume you have an underground lake or something filled with water. Angela has to dive into it and gather up gold coins and precious jewls like diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, etc from the bottom of the lake. Well, not just any monster can be randomly placed there. You can't stick a centaur or harpy there as they can't breath underwater so it would have to be something that can survive underwater like a skeleton or a hydra. That rules out picking a random monster unless the random generator is area specific. Since creating an area specific random generator is completely inpractical it rules that idea out. The same goes for placing random items in the lake. If I only want gold coins and jewls to be in it why randomly place them there? You see my point? When a gamer tosses an idea out there like let's have random monsters and items they are only thinking how this feature will add replay value or something for them personally. What they may not have conciddered is that very same feature restricts the developer from doing something else he might have done instead. You just unintentionally limited the developers creativity by not allowing him to create that underground lake filled with lots of gold coins, jewls, and nasty skeletons. They just don't stop to consider how their suggestion or feature request might drasticly change the game like that. There suggestion for random monsters etc has hurt the game in other ways maybe not so obvious like balancing the game out so some rooms are challenging and some are easy to pas through based on what is in it. There might be a burial chamber filled with hundreds of gold coins guarded by two very powerful centaurs. Given the treasure inside obviously you would expect the challenge to be intense, but not impossible. The developer can balance the fight through trial and error so it is the way he intends it to be. If you stick any random monster there you are never going to get the type of challenge you want because two skeletons, for example, aren't going to put up the same kind of a challenge as two centaurs. Might make the game more random, more replayable perhaps, but never going to provide the same degree of challenge from game to game. It is also harder to test, because the variables are never the same. In other cases it just boils down to preference. I myself enjoy games that are challenging. If they aren't reasonably challenging I won't play them. That is just how I am, and why I want to create games that have a high degree of challenge in them. However, I constantly get requests to make this or that easier for gamer x, because he/she finds the game too hard. Most recently I have gotten quite a number of requests to have some indication when to jump when the player gets close to a fire, spikes, whatever. In my personal opinion that would make the game too easy, and if I have to tell a player when to jump, rather than letting them discover that on his/her own, i might as well take all the traps out of the game. Why have them at all if they are just going to cheat anyway? Of course, they often don't see such a request as cheating, but in my opinion if you have to have a certain sound or the main character say something to tell you when to jump over a trap then that's cheating in my book. I don't like game cheats, never have, and never will. So obviously that opinion is going to conflict with any kind of suggestion or idea that allows a person to cheat or simplify a trap I intentionally tried to make challenging to jump over. If someone doesn't want to play my games as designed, play by my rules, then go play Super Liam or something else. I shouldn't have to compromise with customers over the games design and difficulty level. However, as you said this attitude/opinion will likely turn some customers away. Turn them off simply because they can't have their way. However, who is the primary person that I'm creating the games for? Me or the customers? Well, if you answered the customers you would be absolutely wrong. I never started USA Games to create games simply for the customers. I started it up because I wanted to create games that I liked, I wanted to play, and make a little cash on the side by selling those games to the public. That's why I am so sorely bent out of shape over how MOTA came out. I wasn't planning on creating it for the customers. I was planning on creating it for me personally. However, no thanks to the copyright issues over Montezuma's Revenge I was stuck, and had to create something to make good on my preorders. Ever since then I have had to put up with an endless stream of player input like I want a side-scroller not a FPS game, I want random monsters, I want random items, I want this, and i want that. I want, I want, I want. Can you imagine how sick I get of hearing that when I was planning on creating this game for myself not them, and the only reason I have created the game as it currently is happens to be because I got screwed over the Montezuma's Revenge copyrights? Cheers! On 6/23/10, Milos Przic <milos.pr...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Tom, > I would also be annoyed with those requests that are often stupid, and > more often unwanted. You say that it is your game, but still, you sell it to > the custommers. And there are people who would think this way: If the > developer doesn't add the feature I requested, I will not buy the game most > likely. And if you insist on refusing the requests and if you say openly and > publicly "it's my game", you will make less money from it. > Don't understand this as an attack, just a thaught. > Regards! > Milos Przic > msn: milos.pr...@gmail.com > skype: Milosh-hs --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
