Inclusion in Gaming

[heybeardo]

 

Hey guys, I've been thinking lately about inclusion in gaming. I've made a video exploring my opinions about inclusion in first person shooters, but I thought it'd be interesting to open up the discussion to other genres as well.

 

What stops you from playing a particular game, or particular genre? Are there any games in particular that feel especially tough to get into, whether due to perceived complexity or difficulty?

 

What about games that were once exclusive but have now become mainstream hits?

 

Is there a game you really want to play but can't for some reason (like it's too expensive, or it would take up too much of your time)?

 

Beardo

[clyde]

I think that Titanfall is incredibly accessible when compared to other first-person shooters as evidenced by how much I enjoy losing in that game. I think that the significant factors are the large size of the maps; grunts to shoot at and grunts that point you in the right direction; the ability to take pot-shots at large significant targets from a safe distance; and a traversal system that encourages skilled players to take different paths than novice players.

The least accessible third-person shooter I've played is Super Monday Night Combat. SMNC has made me feel like a god and made me more angry and frustrated than any other game. It's a game of incredible highs and incredible lows. Forgetting the current state of the population and its influnece on accessibility, the game was very much exclusionary by design. The ability to buy sponsorships that gave you bonuses to things like criticals was esoteric, off-putting, and just felt dirty. Because it was a Lords Management, the game encouraged half of your team to insult the weakest member until they left (to get them to stop feeding) and to have arguments about if it was a "gg" or not because you didn't have even teams. Most of the chatter during that game is about which would be worse for the team, if the new player stays and feeds or if they leave all together. SMNC also had a lot of confusing things about it for most players. It's cartoony style and apparent genre imied that it should be played like Team Fortress 2 rather than like DOTA. The grappling-system was actually an effective balancing tool for the classes, but new players had never seen anything like it and couldn't understand what it's role was.

Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 had similar problems. The resurrection system was one of the most interesting parts of the game, but it required that new players sit out for the majority of every match; when killed in Shadowrun, you must wait untila teammate rezzes you or until the math is over to play again. Matches would often conclude with one very skilled player systematically assasinating the opposing team one at a time while all of her dead teammates watched. I actually considered this part of the game to be very accessible, I enjoyed switching cameras between remaining team-members and advising them on the locations of others. You learn a lot about the game by watching the best players do their thing. But I think that spending 90% of your time not playing during your first 20 hours of a game turned a lot of people off. It should be mentioned though that something about Shadowrun's early days encouraged more team-work in chat than any other game I've played.

[heybeardo]

I keep trying to make a go at Crusader Kings II but every time I load it up I bounce off the interface. There's a lot of initial time investment required and I haven't sat down and learned it yet. One day...

[Griddlelol]

I agree with Clyde, I picked up and felt ok playing Titanfall after not playing a shooter for years. However I tried BF3 a month after it came out and felt terrible. I would die within 30 seconds of spawning and rarely even see another player. I gave up after a few tries because it was so frustrating.

 

Fighting games are something that I've felt inclusion is difficult, mainly because they're complex, and if you don't know the basics, it's almost impossible to learn them. Similar to LOMAs. I picked up DOTA2, but being told I need to put 100+ hours into a game to be average is a huge wall to inclusion. I barely have time to play the games I love. Spending 100+ hours to see if I'll eventually like a game is stupid. 

 

Finally, MMOs. This is the community aspect, when I was first learning, not having the necessary experience meant I wouldn't be taken on raids. I could understand if I was a tank or healer, but being a dps in a 25 man raid, did it matter if I had to learn each fight? Most of the fights weren't hard for dps, pick your target, beat the shit out of it. Also being told by people things along the lines of "You don't know? Well you're just a scrub, so why should I tell you?" made me realise how incredibly childish the community is. I ended up getting quite high into WoW pvp, and I made sure I never had that poisonous attitude. If someone asked how I got something, or asked how I stunlocked them to death, I would reply with tips. Getting more people interested in a game is  a good thing.

[Merus]

I find it very difficult to get into Western RPGs because I keep falling into decision paralysis. I've built my character! I've started the plot! Have I already made completing the game extremely unpleasant? Probably! >Quit

 

This is probably a personal problem - I've got this weird habit where if I have several different options for things to do in an RPG, and there's one that's clearly a quick way to get XP and money to tackle the rest, I'll instead treat them all as equally legitimate, pick one, and then try and do that, instead of doing any kind of reconnaissance or strategising. I do the same thing in MMORPGs - I won't run a dungeon because I'm not 100% guaranteed to be ready for it. I can barely handle job systems in Japanese RPGs because they're probably going to want me to tailor my party to the encounter which means I have to deliberately give up seeing what this thing does. Which is the opposite problem!

 

I love the idea of RPGs but apparently I can't handle them.

[clyde]

I really appreciate it when games look simple and easy to a beginner and include optional complexity that the player can approach when ready. I often mention how Chime does this superbly. At first the game appears to be an easy Tetris, but then scoring elements and optional multipliers become apparent through play and the perception of skill-potential increases gradually.

Something I find difficult about Crusader Kings II is that it initially looks like the skill-potential is incredibly high which makes me feel like I need to know how to play it, even if it is willing to mostly play itself and allow me to optimize at my leisure.

[heybeardo]

I agree with Clyde, I picked up and felt ok playing Titanfall after not playing a shooter for years. However I tried BF3 a month after it came out and felt terrible. I would die within 30 seconds of spawning and rarely even see another player. I gave up after a few tries because it was so frustrating.

 

Fighting games are something that I've felt inclusion is difficult, mainly because they're complex, and if you don't know the basics, it's almost impossible to learn them. Similar to LOMAs. I picked up DOTA2, but being told I need to put 100+ hours into a game to be average is a huge wall to inclusion. I barely have time to play the games I love. Spending 100+ hours to see if I'll eventually like a game is stupid. 

 

Finally, MMOs. This is the community aspect, when I was first learning, not having the necessary experience meant I wouldn't be taken on raids. I could understand if I was a tank or healer, but being a dps in a 25 man raid, did it matter if I had to learn each fight? Most of the fights weren't hard for dps, pick your target, beat the shit out of it. Also being told by people things along the lines of "You don't know? Well you're just a scrub, so why should I tell you?" made me realise how incredibly childish the community is. I ended up getting quite high into WoW pvp, and I made sure I never had that poisonous attitude. If someone asked how I got something, or asked how I stunlocked them to death, I would reply with tips. Getting more people interested in a game is  a good thing.

 

I loved playing World of Warcraft but I hated interacting with people. I'd always try to do everything solo. Maybe that's why I love Skyrim so much. MMORPG without the MMO.

[Griddlelol]

Luckily I found a guild of nice people who took me in as a complete noob, (although it was because I had honed my DPS skill to be in a similar range as their top player) and I had a blast learning fights and picking up PvP. That said, I still believe today that the collective MMO community is possibly the worst in games. 

[taterdactyl]

Fighting games are something that I've felt inclusion is difficult, mainly because they're complex, and if you don't know the basics, it's almost impossible to learn them. Similar to LOMAs. I picked up DOTA2, but being told I need to put 100+ hours into a game to be average is a huge wall to inclusion.

Finally, MMOs. This is the community aspect, when I was first learning, not having the necessary experience meant I wouldn't be taken on raids. Being told by people things along the lines of "You don't know? Well you're just a scrub, so why should I tell you?" made me realise how incredibly childish the community is. I ended up getting quite high into WoW pvp, and I made sure I never had that poisonous attitude. If someone asked how I got something, or asked how I stunlocked them to death, I would reply with tips. Getting more people interested in a game is a good thing.

The Dota community can also be quite foul. I almost never use voice chat because I've had a few bad experiences with my team finding out I'm a girl (which they somehow don't notice from my avatar pic). A few weeks ago, an 0-6 Sven found out I was a girl after I said something and he and another guy spent the rest of the game blaming the loss on me because I was a girl, naturally. Never mind the fact that I was 6-3. Sometimes I notice my boyfriend becoming the 'elitist a*hole' (to a small degree) while playing Dota and I quickly call him out on it, but it makes me realize how easy it is to slip into that role.

And as for first-person shooters... I can't really play them because they make me nauseous. :/ I have zero motion sickness issues otherwise, but first-person games just wreck me. I recently started BioShock Infinite and it's going to take me forever to finish since I'm playing it in 30 minute chunks.

[Griddlelol]

From what I recall about any PvP game is that people will blame anything or anyone for any reason except themselves. Playing wow PvP I had some major personal growth, where I would analyse my contribution to the battleground or arena match and work out how I could have done better. Even if one of my team mates was playing poorly I'd work out how I could have made it easier for them. Make me a better player, and is a good attitude to have in life.

I rarely used voice chat outside of groups of friends. When I did it was to bark out basic orders like "healer at the back" or "focus Mage." People really appreciated short sharp orders rather than chit chat.

[heybeardo]

And as for first-person shooters... I can't really play them because they make me nauseous. :/ I have zero motion sickness issues otherwise, but first-person games just wreck me. I recently started BioShock Infinite and it's going to take me forever to finish since I'm playing it in 30 minute chunks.

I used to have the same issue when I played Modern Warfare 2. Turned out that running around like an idiot isn't conducive to avoiding a headache.

 

I also found that higher FPS helps me avoid motion sickness. Since upgrading my GPU I've experienced it a lot less.

[taterdactyl]

From what I recall about any PvP game is that people will blame anything or anyone for any reason except themselves.

So true. They're always going to find some way to pin it on someone else, regardless of whether it's a legit reason or not.

I used to have the same issue when I played Modern Warfare 2. Turned out that running around like an idiot isn't conducive to avoiding a headache.

I also found that higher FPS helps me avoid motion sickness. Since upgrading my GPU I've experienced it a lot less.

I've heard chewing ginger helps. Haven't actually tried it though...

[Twig]

I picked up DOTA2, but being told I need to put 100+ hours into a game to be average is a huge wall to inclusion.

Haha, 100 hours and you think you're average? Get out, scrub. PLZ.

 

Number one factor in preventing motion sickness in FPS for me was turning up the field of view. In fact, I just realized something. I think Half-Life 2, the first video game that ever gave me motion sickness (THAT AIRBOAT, C'MON), like debilitating, could not play for more than five minutes in that fucking airboat section... was also the first game I ever played on a widescreen. And I had no idea what field of view even was until a year after that and read about it somewhere on the topic of optimizing your FPS=experience or whatever. What I'm getting at is field of view wasn't an issue for me before I got a widescreen monitor. This is relevant.

 

Anyway, it doesn't always help ENOUGH, but it often helps significantly. There are still some games that make me go bworf. Mostly older games, but whatever.

[taterdactyl]

Interesting. Is this a common setting? I don't know that I've ever noticed a 'field of view' setting.

And yea, I'm almost at the 1,000 hour mark in Dota and I'm still just average. Meep merp.

[Twig]

On PC it's common, or used to be, but less so as more and more FPS games are console ports without standard options.

[Dosed]

Luckily I found a guild of nice people who took me in as a complete noob, (although it was because I had honed my DPS skill to be in a similar range as their top player) and I had a blast learning fights and picking up PvP. That said, I still believe today that the collective MMO community is possibly the worst in games. 

 

I'm surprised that people were so openly aggressive towards you whilst raiding. How are you supposed to learn without experiencing it first? I went on 1000's of raids, organised guild raids and PuG's, and most of the time they'd be more than happy to explain fights to new people. Although, I think I must have been quite lucky with stuff like that as I transferred to one of the better EU PVE servers. I'm surprised we even got through Molten Core with my pre-TBC guild. I was a terrible, terrible Paladin and my brother was an even worse Hunter (we both improved one million percent after TBC), and we just didn't really care about, or commit to, most of the boss fights and we still managed to do it somehow. Although, BWL fights really kicked it up a notch when it came to difficulty. 

 

I was also really lucky in regards to who I played with too. I played with about 8-10 friends from school and I guess a lot of the time we would just kind of shield ourselves from any particularly aggressive player behaviour by trolling them. A lot of the time narratives would form between us and the server community like when we almost financially destroyed one of the best guilds on our server, or when we made nemesis' with characters from the opposite team and would spark full on 60 man fights outside of instances just to kill them. The community on MMO's was what made it for me and it makes me sad to think that it puts people off from playing. Maybe we were part of the problem... 

 

Besides my nostalgic ramblings about a game, and a part of my life I will never return to, Lords Management/DOTA/LOMA/LOL is just something I know I will never, ever, ever get into simply for the time I'd have to sink in just to get less than average results for 100+ hours. 

[clyde]

Besides my nostalgic ramblings about a game, and a part of my life I will never return to, Lords Management/DOTA/LOMA/LOL is just something I know I will never, ever, ever get into simply for the time I'd have to sink in just to get less than average results for 100+ hours. 

 

You should try Awesomenauts.

[kaputt]

I find it very difficult to get into Western RPGs because I keep falling into decision paralysis. I've built my character! I've started the plot! Have I already made completing the game extremely unpleasant? Probably! >Quit

 

This is probably a personal problem - I've got this weird habit where if I have several different options for things to do in an RPG, and there's one that's clearly a quick way to get XP and money to tackle the rest, I'll instead treat them all as equally legitimate, pick one, and then try and do that, instead of doing any kind of reconnaissance or strategising. I do the same thing in MMORPGs - I won't run a dungeon because I'm not 100% guaranteed to be ready for it. I can barely handle job systems in Japanese RPGs because they're probably going to want me to tailor my party to the encounter which means I have to deliberately give up seeing what this thing does. Which is the opposite problem!

 

I love the idea of RPGs but apparently I can't handle them.

Thank you. Never had the right words to express this.

 

I really have a hard time with RPGs, specially the western ones. I found them to be too complex, so many fucking options... I never know which weapon is the better one (so many stats), if I should upgrade my armor or craft a new one, how should I craft stuff, where do I get the materials to get stuff... I have a constant feeling that I'm doing something wrong.

 

I miss Chrono Trigger, it was a simple RPG in that aspect. I remember it had an arrow to indicate that the equipment was better or worse than the one you're using. It's nice.

 

Also, lately I've also been very unwilling to play RTS games, despite being a fan when I was younger. I think it's because I don't have time for it anymore.

 

I think that time is my biggestt issue with playing games nowadays. I really won't play a game that in which I won't make progress if I only play 45 minutes of it. 

[Merus]

Regarding MMO raids - players in WoW worked out by Wrath that you can tell the difference between a noob and a moron. You tell the noob how the fight works, they won't be a liability. If you catch them doing something they shouldn't, and let them know, they'll keep an eye on it.

 

GW2 introduced a world boss (which is now permanently dead) a few months ago that tried to force the community to self-organise. It was on a platform above a series of gullies, and minions would stream into the gullies to try and power its megalaser. Every three minutes, one of the gully's teleporters would malfunction, and players would be able to go through it, to be randomly sorted into groups to fight one of five bosses. To do damage to the world boss, they had to kill all 5 bosses in one go, which meant that if there were enough players who were surprised by the encounter, everyone would lose.

[thorn]

I've heard chewing ginger helps. Haven't actually tried it though...

Other people have already said what I was going to say about FPS and FOV, so I'll just add that these pills got me through Bioshock and both Portal games. They work well and don't have the side effects of chemical anti-nausea pills.

[SecretAsianMan]

Ginger is a good general anti-nausea cure.  I drink ginger tea when I'm sick, helps me a lot, but I don't have any problems with FPS games.

 

As for the topic itself, I'll mostly second the stuff that's been said about MMOs/LOMAs/any kind of PvP game.  Time is a big factor in that I don't have much so a requirement of 100+ hours is simply out of the question.  Also the fact that most interaction with people in games is pretty terrible unless you actually know them.

 

DayZ is a particular game that I think has a lot of cool things in it, but the combination of all of them makes me never want to play it.  I know that I would be constantly stressed out and frustrated.  Even watching the Least Dangerous Game stream was somewhat uncomfortable for me and was pretty much only tolerable because of this community and the presence of the Thumbs themselves.

[Codicier]

I've been playing WoW  2 nights most week for years now as part of the same small raiding guild and one thing you notice is that overtime long periods of time the desire of dev's to create interesting/challenging encounters for long time players is huge strain on any social group as slowly but surely players within the group hit differing levels of mastery.