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Jake

Idle Thumbs 117: Sir! Sir!

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I don't want a higher encounter density, and I hope I didn't say or imply that on the podcast. What I was trying to say was that I hope there is a heavier density of things to do moment to moment in the final game. Those things don't have to be enemy encounters and probably shouldn't be. They can be something tangible, they can even just be things in my head (eg time spent formulating a plan, or speculating about a long-term trap or other thing I set into motion earlier but can't see), just... anything. I don't care, I just felt emptiness of a non-deliberate-feeling type while playing the alpha.

Again, it could be that I just don't know all of the moment to moment actions that ARE available to me, but right now I run into periods of literally nothing: no threat to evade, no goal on my map or on the horizon or on my mind, no plans to make, nothing already set in motion to wait for. I don't want my time filled with robot fights, but I want them filled with SOMETHING, and with the game as early as it is its hard to tell if those things are there but aren't exposed to new players, if they aren't in but are coming soon, or if this is all there is and the game isn't as much a game for me as I'd hoped. Fortunately the jury is fully out because the game isn't.

 

i think that is a problem that most open world games have, especially randomly generated ones, maybe if they added some more crafting type things to do or maybe survival things it will add enough so that there is always something to do, maybe its a bad comparison, but it's a bit like minecraft or terraria and now starbound in that the more things they add the more there is to do on a moment to moment basis

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One thing mentioned on the Big Robot forums yesterday was, "We've got a bunch of equipable items lined up waiting to go in (the blunderbuss, a torch, cricketbat, scanner, toy train etc)" -- so I think there will end up being a lot more useful things to hope for when you're ransacking houses, which hopefully means that the beginning of the game will be focused around avoiding conflict while scavenging a respectable arsenal. =)

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I think a big problem right now is that the crystals are just scattered around apparently at random. If, in order to get each crystal, you had to go up against some sort of specific challenge, ideally itself generated procedurally, and you had to spend time preparing to tackle that challenge, I think the whole experience would feel a lot more intense and directed. Trying to evade patrols while scraping up the materials you'd need to bypass a security system, or even just finding a juicy steak to distract an animal, or whatever. It could be pretty rad.

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Is it true that the will-o-the-wisps are there to guide you to vaguely defined Interesting Things (towns, machine pieces) or did I imagine that?

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If you guys do livestream Far Cry 2, I highly recommend playing where you only save at safe houses and other designated points. I went through the whole game not realizing you can save anywhere, and it made for so many great moments. Getting back from missions was often more tense than the mission itself, since I was acutely aware of the danger of losing progress.

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If you guys do livestream Far Cry 2, I highly recommend playing where you only save at safe houses and other designated points. I went through the whole game not realizing you can save anywhere, and it made for so many great moments. Getting back from missions was often more tense than the mission itself, since I was acutely aware of the danger of losing progress.

 

Unless I am mistaken, that's how it is on consoles.

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True this was a sub par teen horror that ripped off the best part of The Evil Dead for its main gimmick, but i feel on name alone it needs a mention

 

In the first few months that i had become aware of the Idle Thumbs, every time i heard the name, i remembered this movie.

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I have to say it was an incredibly surreal experience to hear Chris say 'Aardwolf' - that MUD was responsible for me basically wasting almost an entire year (1996/7) of my university studies, along with IRC.

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Nick ID'd it from Louie but I was thinking of the end of the restaurant scene in the Blues Brothers.

 

Just listened to this ep, and am so glad to hear this, Jake. I was very disappointed when it (apparently) turned out you guys weren't thinking of BB.

 

I just replayed CoMI and a particular line by the tarot woman reminded me of a movie line but I couldn't grasp it until I checked the cast and realised that woman is played by Kathleen Freeman: her line-reading had reminded me of one she did in Blues Brothers.

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