Idle Thumbs 67: Dot Gobbler

[Urthman]

  On 8/4/2012 at 4:22 PM, shammack said:

Like what? I've seen that argument made a few times, but I can't think of a lot of examples of in-game rewards that would actually motivate me to do a difficult/weird task like that just for the sake of getting the reward.

Deus Ex and Deus Ex HR do a pretty great job of giving you a reward for every secret or difficult-to-get-to place you find. Even when I feel like I've got tons of everything in my inventory, the games pretty regularly manage to say, "Oh yeah? How about one of these?" and I go, "Oh, yeah, I do want that. Great."

[SometingStupid]

On the topic of dialogue choices in The Walking dead, I've only really played the demo, but this is how I thought of them.

Every line of dialogue that your character says has to have a reason behind it being said, you may be trying to coerce a small girl out from hiding in order to learn more about what happened and try and protect her, which is why you (and the character you have assumed control of) may choose to pick convincing lines of dialogue along the lines of,"Everything's going to be ok, you can come out now." and etc...

So with that in mind, when we think back to the whole murder conversation, why on earth would someone admit to a crime that they didn't commit under those circumstances?* Sure, there might be a reason, and if you can come up with it then it can sit in your head and it'll change the character that you see in front of you. But keeping in mind what was discussed on the podcast, that dialogue options cannot change what has already happened, and the things they reference are all canonical, I think we have to be looking at a murderer.

That said, Lee is not inherently evil. After all, you're going around bashing in some former-human's heads with hammers and whatnot, and that's not particularly nice either.

*Just as I was writing this, I came up with a justification as to why these events might happen, but my thoughts - especially considering I haven't played the game - might be worthless.

[Merus]

I feel like a lot of the frustration with achievements is less to do with the achievement system itself and more that it's done poorly by so many developers. The point of achievements is to serve as a publicly accessible distillation of an experience you've had with a game, as well as a way for developers to flesh out the scope of experiences they expect players to have. They're a reputation tool that handily doubles as a way for developers to influence players. Story achievements are worthless (and everyone here recognises that) because for most games your experience with the game has nothing to do with the plot of the game or how many dudes you kill. They should be awarded for specific experiences that would be notable without the achievement.

Also pun names are a really dumb convention.

[Sean]

  On 8/7/2012 at 1:12 PM, Merus said:

I feel like a lot of the frustration with achievements is less to do with the achievement system itself and more that it's done poorly by so many developers. The point of achievements is to serve as a publicly accessible distillation of an experience you've had with a game, as well as a way for developers to flesh out the scope of experiences they expect players to have. They're a reputation tool that handily doubles as a way for developers to influence players. Story achievements are worthless (and everyone here recognises that) because for most games your experience with the game has nothing to do with the plot of the game or how many dudes you kill. They should be awarded for specific experiences that would be notable without the achievement.

Also pun names are a really dumb convention.

How would you handle that in a game likeThe Walking Dead, Dear Esther, or the game equivalent of a quiet drama?

[Merus]

To start off with, the platform holder would have to allow you to silently award achievements - I don't think announcing to the player that an achievement is awarded necessarily has to be part of the design pattern. I'd guess then you'd tie achievements to parts where your players would ask each other if they saw a particular bit; if it's not something you want players to do the first time through, hide it. The rule of thumb I think works is to ask whether players would ask each other if they did x in a game. For something like Dear Esther I think perhaps silent achievements that trigger when you hear enough about circumstances on the island to piece together part of the story - if they're noisy then all that subtlety would be lost. I think it's okay if the achievements list prods people to believe that there's more to discover, but it's not okay to be telling people mid-game they can stop caring now because the game has decided they have enough.

That said, I acknowledge silent achievements are really not common - I think Apple might allow it, but that's it - and that without it there's basically nothing you can do that wouldn't be awful. So I guess maybe I was wrong about the achievement system not really being the problem.

Edit: wait, hang on. Encouraging people to think of their experience with Dear Esther as being 'done' because they've ticked off the achievements list undermines the game, because it notably doesn't have a point where it tells you you've seen all the content. In that case, I'm hard pressed to think of any achievements that wouldn't undermine the game.

[Synnah]

Dot Gobbler. I'm quite disappointed that it doesn't evoke anything that's suggested by its cover. It's a wholly substandard Pac-Man clone.

[subbes]

  On 8/8/2012 at 9:28 PM, Synnah said:

a wholly substandard Pac-Man clone.

Actually, it appears Dot Gobbler is being chased around by multiple Hungry Horaces, which would be a bit of a turnabout.

[Twig]

The best Pac-Man clone was CD Man and it's the best because it's better.

This is not at all based on nostalgia.

[Fauwf]

So I just bought my first fight stick. Unfortunately the artwork it came with was completely hideous. So I made a small change!

Before:

After:

[Badfinger]

I think the largest issue with achievements is they're required inclusions of the platform, and have a fixed min/max value and count. That means that EVERY game on the platform has a fixed "value" outside of the experience of playing the game itself. But because every game is ostensibly worth playing for your sweet-ass Gamer Score, we're now trapped in a position where if you were permitted to ship a game with no achievement points there is a visible section of gamers who would view your product as inherently less valuable because you have 25 less intrusive popups during your playtime.

If you've ever heard "That game is an easy 1000 points, you should play it", that is the neat 5-second bow on the garbage pile of why achievements are bullshit.

[Twig]

  On 8/9/2012 at 2:13 PM, Badfinger said:

If you've ever heard "That game is an easy 1000 points, you should play it", that is the neat 5-second bow on the garbage pile of why achievements are bullshit.

Uh, no, that's why gamers are bullshit.

But anyway! Attaching arbitrary point values to the things is stupid. That doesn't mean achievements are inherently stupid. What blows my mind is that Microsoft clearly has the statistics available to determine which achievements are hardest to get (simply based on played-versus-earned ratios), and yet they still force a flat value. It'd be so much more interesting if they used those stats to dynamically alter the value of achievements, thus making those "easy 1000 points" more like "easy 50 points". I probably still wouldn't give a shit about the point values, but they'd certainly be far less arbitrary at that point.

EDIT: And here's a site that actually does exactly what I'm talking about! (But for Steam games.) http://astats.astats.nl/astats/index.php

[Salacious Snake]

  On 8/9/2012 at 8:38 AM, Fauwf said:

So I just bought my first fight stick. Unfortunately the artwork it came with was completely hideous. So I made a small change!

Hah, that is terrific!

[Leovinus]

This morning I got Rock Lobster stuck in my head, except instead of Rock Lobster it was Dot Gobbler. Now I can never listen to that song again. Thanks, Thumbs.

[Synnah]

  On 8/9/2012 at 8:38 AM, Fauwf said:

So I just bought my first fight stick. Unfortunately the artwork it came with was completely hideous. So I made a small change!

Yesssssss. That is fantastic.

  On 8/9/2012 at 4:39 PM, Twig said:

What blows my mind is that Microsoft clearly has the statistics available to determine which achievements are hardest to get (simply based on played-versus-earned ratios), and yet they still force a flat value. It'd be so much more interesting if they used those stats to dynamically alter the value of achievements, thus making those "easy 1000 points" more like "easy 50 points". I probably still wouldn't give a shit about the point values, but they'd certainly be far less arbitrary at that point.

TrueAchievements does this kind of thing for 360 games, where the site's users link their gamertags to their profiles; the site collates which achievements they have and assigns new points values based on how easy or difficult it is to get them. It only ever increases the value, however, so an easy 200-point achievement will still be worth 200, whereas a super-hard 10-point achievement might go up to 100. This kind of meta-game tracking is more interesting to me than most achievements are in themselves.

[Twig]

  On 8/12/2012 at 4:23 PM, Synnah said:

TrueAchievements does this kind of thing for 360 games, where the site's users link their gamertags to their profiles; the site collates which achievements they have and assigns new points values based on how easy or difficult it is to get them. It only ever increases the value, however, so an easy 200-point achievement will still be worth 200, whereas a super-hard 10-point achievement might go up to 100.

Yeah I'd heard about that, too, at some point.

  Quote

This kind of meta-game tracking is more interesting to me than most achievements are in themselves.

Hah, I actually completely agree. As I said earlier in the thread somewhere, pointless stat tracking is one of my favorite things to have in a video game.

[Merus]

So long as they handle the edge case where someone gets an achievement that becomes easier for whatever reason - for instance, if someone discovers a technique that trivialises the requirement - I would be all for that as well.

[toblix]

[Colourful Stuff]

I can't handle that image. It poses too many questions about Pac-Man's motivations. It does explain why eating pills slows him down, he needs time to chew.

[BigJKO]

Wait, eating pills slowed Pac-Man down?

[Colourful Stuff]

Yeah, he moves slower while eating.

[BigJKO]

Wow, protip! Didn't know that.

[Chris]

I didn't know that either!

[toblix]

Pac-Man never really interested me much, as it was already technologically outdated by the point I became actively interested in video games. Later, though, I've become fascinated by how much depth it actually has. For example, the ghosts all have different names and actual personalities/behaviour patterns. Also, the amount of detailed strategic information that exists to allow record-breaking playthroughs is amazing.

[Colourful Stuff]

The ghost AI stuff is really fascinating. It shows an attention to mechanical detail that isn't often associated with that era of video games. I wonder how the developers came to the decision to program specific behaviours for each ghost.

[Gormongous]

I wonder if it isn't just the attempt to make all the ghosts follow Pac-Man in a straight line everywhere because they're all making the same decision every time.