Article: Kids Can't Handle Old-School RPGs Anymore

[tobymanhattan]

He should do the same with Kings Quest 6. If they don't read the manual, they can't get past the cliffs!

[Erik_Twice]

I don't think accessibility is an ugly trend.

Never argued otherwise, accesibility and involvement are different things. Sure, less involvement makes it more accesible, but it also makes that access meaningless.

Note that my example, Pac Man, is very accesible.

[isiolia]

I don't think accessibility is an ugly trend.

Never argued otherwise, accesibility and involvement are different things. Sure, less involvement makes it more accesible, but it also makes that access meaningless.

Note that my example, Pac Man, is very accesible.

They are different, but within the context of games they can be fairly intertwined.

With most other forms of media, a lack of accessibility doesn't prevent someone from enjoying what they can out of the work. You can watch a movie with half the plot flying right by you, a lack of appreciation for the cinematography, and possibly not even remembering most of the character's names. You're still free to enjoy what you do pick up.

With games, your access to the entire work usually depends on ability to play.

For something like Pac-Man, accessible as it is, about the only thing it does is get harder. Practicing to get better and better so you can play a perfect game is basically all there is to do.

With RPGs, or many modern games in general, there's a lot to see. Possibly several novels worth of story and side quests, many square kilometers of game world to explore, characters/items/powers/etc to unlock, and so on.
Making that (or a good portion of it) accessible to all/most levels of player means lowering the bar in terms of minimum investment in the game for an entire playthrough. Not just what it takes to get past level three.

It might make the simple fact that you beat a game less of an accomplishment (such as it is), but most games also provide more challenges for players who want them, and enough depth to satisfy those who like them enough to put in more than the minimum effort.

[J T]

I'm not sure I can handle Ultima IV anymore, but this article has inspired me to try. It's a free game on GOG.com if you didn't know:

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/ultima_4

I have installed it, but I still need to RTFM and play the game.

[Vita Mayo]

I think there's an ugly trend nowadays where it's expected for games to bend down and instantly provide gratification. The audience doesn't want to get involved, they do not want to understand the game and it's very difficult to make a good game without that. It's not about difficulty, it's all about involvement.

Let me use PacMan as an example. Mainstream audiences nowadays want a new maze after every level, even if they haven't actually understood it.

It's now unthinkable a game like Defender can be popular, nobody would even bother to understand the controls.

I strongly disagree with the notion that the trend of providing instant gratification from video games started in this modern age. There are lots of retro games that as dumbed-down as the dumbed-down modern games. The only problem I see that is prevalent in this modern age is, these dumbed-down games today would have certain targets (kids, parents, casuals) if they were released back then. In today's case, even the games marketed to hardcore gamers have paradigms that are insulting for those who seek challenge or the fanbase. Example would be TES IV: Oblivion with its level-scaling and teleportation where the previous titles would force you to go the distance.

[theclaw]

Needing TES IV: Oblivion type concessions, means a game's design structure is flawed. Reducing instant gratification won't magically transform them into better games. It'll just expose the underlying tedious nature their creators had no choice to disguise.

To actually fix problems of that sort, they'd have to make extensive changes like having world travel be more enjoyable/rewarding.

[Vita Mayo]

Needing TES IV: Oblivion type concessions, means a game's design structure is flawed. Reducing instant gratification won't magically transform them into better games. It'll just expose the underlying tedious nature their creators had no choice to disguise.

To actually fix problems of that sort, they'd have to make extensive changes like having world travel be more enjoyable/rewarding.

Thanks to the modding community, Oblivion became so great of a game. But I didn't find fault in Bethesda's decisions, they released a game so that it could gain fans from the more casual crowd since the hardcore gamers are going to mod the hell out of the game anyway.

The world travel did have rewarding elements in its vanilla form but the modded version exponentially made the walkathon much rewarding. You can stumble on ruins, caves, that house treasures and sidequests that you would otherwise not discover if you just teleported all over the place. With the right mods, walking increases your Athletic stats (the vanilla does this also) but since the stats structure had been modified, the ignored Athletic stat has more value and will be needed in wearing armor, etc. etc.

But really, I should've not used Bethesda as an example.

[isiolia]

Objectively, Bethesda's original design with fast travel effectively did that too - you can jump around the map, but only after you'd walked there first. Doing so meant you wouldn't be accidentally running into anything or skilling, same as after mods.

Plenty of games have fast travel, and it's not usually a bad thing.

The level scaling is probably a better thing to point at - not that an open world game like that shouldn't use some form of it at all (not very "open" if there's a scripted order to do everything), but more that the way the vanilla game does it removes any real sense of progression or need to level.

[Erik_Twice]

I think there's notably more dumbing down for instant awesome nowadays, I can't think of any notable games pre-2000 that have that issue.

Anyways, to me one of the best eaxmples of instant gratification is auto-aim. What's the fun of shooting if you don't actually need to do anything? But it tells you how awesome you are so you can brag about how "pro" you are. And it's no mistake, it's like the severe spawncamping issues CoD has. The developers are aware of it, but decide to leave it in so everyone, no matter how unskilled, can get awesome killing sprees. It's instant gratification, but a shallow one.

[isiolia]

Auto-aim is more a concession to the less accurate control of a gamepad. Not like it's an aimbot.

If you're looking at it competitively...everyone has access to it (unless they disabled it). Again, not like an aimbot where someone is gaining an advantage unfairly over other players.

Spawn camping has existed in basically every competitive FPS that had spawns. I wouldn't really call it something that's intended, more something people can abuse.