My comments interleaved with yours.
-----Original Message----- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Dakotah Rickard Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 8:07 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Swamp reflections. There, at least according to Jeremy, is a consequence of death, at least once the safe zone becomes a storehouse. Unless I misread something, you drop whatever you were carrying when you die, once that's in effect. Imagine you're walking around with a rather difficult to find, rather expensive weapon. You die, and it's gone. That'd suck enough to discourage death, even if you do just go back to the last save state. Add to that that if the save hasn't happened anytime soon, as has happened to me on a crash situation, you may lose a lot of collected ammo and earned kills. Death sucks, even without it being permanent. I don't find that an emotionally satisfying argument, which is subjective and I'm not saying you're wrong. But this is a horror genre game. A game tells a story. Horror is by definition about, well, horror, which means it's about facing tremendous odds and either dying horribly or triumphing against those odds. Death is a sine qua non of the genre. Now it may be that I'm bringing literary tropes over into the game world, and that may be inappropriate. I have less than zero interest in a game that doesn't engage my emotions. This is why I have tended to not care about FPS style games, since they seem to be about technique. Here I have a chance to have input on the ground level of such a game. I don't personally find the loss of an assault rifle to be a sufficient consequence of dying. That may be because I'm not steeped in the tropes of mainstream gaming. If that's true, sobeit, I'll accept that critique. Now, I do say this. I personally love the idea of permanent death, just not in this setting. I don't have anything explicitly against it, just that I think it doesn't add to the story line or really too much to the setting, although it does make you more careful. Instead, it can frustrate longtime players, if their awesome character dies. That's why so few games include a really permanent death. The frustration of losing a carefully built-up character is part of the emotional consequences I'm talking about. Why is this different from getting through five and a half sectors of GTC, or to level 9 in SOD, or hell, even getting eleven catapults built in Castaways, then having it all go wrong? Is this a genre thing? See previous comments for the role of death in the horror genre. As for the fatigue aspect, I'd like it for people to be tired after running a lot. I know I'd be. Granted, I'm not in the best shape, but I imagine anyone would be tired after running/jogging around for hours. The game Alone in the Dark features a fairly in shape detective who eventually starts staggering if you make him run too much, because he gets fatigued. I don't know that fighting should add to this, as most fighting is done with guns. True, firing a gun isn't necessarily easy, but it isn't truly strenuous on its own. It makes, I think, more sense to just include fatigue for running. It's a bit more work on the server, what with it needing, probably, two timers for each character: a "how long you've been running" and a "how long you've been not running." Still, walking rocks and it makes sense. Your technical comments are apt, and I can't speak to them. But fighting with guns is, according to anyone I've ever spoken to or read who has actually done it, quite fatiguing, not so much because of the physical strain, but because of the constant dumping of adrenaline into the system and its subsequent usage. The body can only do so much of that before it begins to tell. Still, I think your idea is probably a good compromise. I like the idea for the medkits to be less effective, but I don't think it should involve the safe zone. If the zone becomes so important, people won't leave it. it's already the store, warehouse, save point, and possibly doctor's office. If it becomes the reset point for your medkits' effectiveness, people may not leave. However, I can suggest an alternative that may be acceptable, though it would involve another timer. Medkits should maybe have a cool down period. Not that you can't use another one, just that it loses, say, 20 percent of its effectiveness if delivered within a certain time, or that percentage of loss could depend on how soon. *lengthy example deleted for space*. But if you never leave the safe zone, what's the point in playing the game? The reset idea makes it likely that you have to come back to the safe zone every so often, but it doesn't keep you there. your idea is also a good one though, and let's see what other people think. Chris Bartlett --- 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://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
