Status update
I had planned to write at least one more post on Skyrim, possibly several, but enough is enough. Haven’t been in that world in a good while, so it has not been on my mind for some time. I feel no inspiration.
So instead I’ll post a minor status update.
Andromeda: Been on hold for a while, but I’ll get back to it soon.
Started playing around with Civilization VI a bit, but only the free and rather restricted version, which, among other things allows for only 60 turns. It’s on the iPad, but it’s the complete game and no flimsy downgraded tablet port, which is great, but also means it’s currently being sold at full price (it was released recently), so I think I’ll wait for a discount before making a purchase. (Edit: it’s now temporarily sold at half price, think I’ll go for it!) (Edit 2: I did.)
In the last few days I’ve been playing a small tablet puzzle game that’s kind of amusing and engaging but not really that special. Much of the enjoyment and meaning lie in figuring out a methodic way to beat the challenges, how to think. Not quite all the down to the level of a step by step algorithm, though that’s certainly would be possible if required (e.g. for making a computer program do the work), but more like identifying a set of useful principles, questions and ideas, a system of sorts.
For the most part, so far, this way of going about it is probably more time consuming than figuring out the solution by trying things by semi-random intuition, but it’s also a lot more meaningful and less amorphous and intractable. And later on, when I expect the puzzles to become significantly harder — too hard for semi-random method — it’ll probably pay off in terms of time and energy as well. Either way, the more interesting and fun challenge is figuring out the approach.
And that’s it for now.
Skyrim #6, Quest Soup
Another post that’s nominally about Skyrim, but actually about a broader topic related to game design, using Skyrim as an example and as a springboard. Here we go.
So there you are in Skyrim, going about your business, stealing, killing, saving the world. Maybe on a mission, maybe just wandering about. Maybe new in town, talking to people trying to get a sense of the place, excited by the prospect of making some profit, ehhh I mean helping the poor.
You’re an offbeat outlander wearing a ghastly mask and a blood soaked armor, but they deem you worthy all the same, their very own watershed moment, and they tell it all within seconds. About family feuds and curses, about private messages to be delivered, some by word and some by the sword, about stolen heirlooms and dark secrets of sadness and cruelty; they tell it all, because they need your help, urgently. You are the perfect stranger, a strand of silver hanging through the sky.
So now you get another quest. They stack up, time passes, attention goes elsewhere many times over. Naturally the details start to blur or get lost entirely in the fog of fading memories, especially since many of the quests aren’t that interesting or relevant to begin with, and since it might have been tens of hours since you got some of them.
As the quest list grows longer, a curious phenomenon emerges: you start to accidentally make progress on, even completing, quests.
You talk to some random guy, and suddenly you’re unexpectedly informed that you’ve taken the next step in a quest you’ve long forgotten. Turns out some women gave you a quest 27 hours ago to inform her brother about some herbs or something, and now you’re unknowingly talking to that brother for some other unrelated reason, maybe trying to get a sense of a new town, and in the course of the conversation delivered the message and made that old forgotten quest progress.
Well, that was easy, but, needless to say, advancing a quest in this manner doesn’t feel very meaningful. Completion still gets you the in-game reward, and to the person you’re helping you may very well be a savior, but you clearly aren’t immersed in the quest narrative.
Heck, even deliberately trying to get engaged in these (to you) small and sometimes rather pointless quests is often a challenge, and you run the risk of completing them by simply going through the motions following the quest arrow, rather than actually caring.
And this, all of it and more, is quest soup, bon appétit. A chaotic unwieldy mess of many forgettable and forgotten quests that are being stacked up in a ten mile long list and completed without immersion, by accident or otherwise. (Which is not to say that Skyrim doesn’t also have some quests that are more interesting and more inherently immersive, but they’re not central enough to the experince as a whole to dissolve the soup.)
I’d like to think quest soup isn’t inevitible in a game like this (Mass Effect compares favorably, for one thing), neither in terms of game design or playing style, but that’s a topic for another day.
Meanwhile, ponder the fact that I’ve said quest more than one hundred times in this short post. I just don’t feel “mission”. And “investigation”? Are you kidding me, what is this, a detective game?
End captain’s log.
Skyrim #5, item micromanagement
There are a number of different parts of a modern big game like Skyrim. You create and develop your character, you explore, you fight, you meet and befriend allies, collude with strangers, and bear witness to the strange behavior exhibited by the people who populate the world (see earlier posts), you enact the story and experience its unfolding events, you get lost among the myriad of side-quests, and generally just forge your own journey from humble beginnings to savior and hero.
And then there’s item management, lots and lots of item management.
Item micromanagement, even. Too much, one might argue. Except that items are fun and meaningful. Looting is delightful. Sort of. Occasionally. Actually, not as much or as often as one might assume, not when you’re well into the game. At that point much of it is more like a unnecessary chore you’re somehow still compelled to do, a fleeting reward at best. There’s just so much items and loot, and most of it isn’t particularly useful or valuable, though enough of it is to make it difficult to ignore.
To make matters worse, there are obstacles in your path of dealing with items, most notably the weight limit and the cash limit at merchants, pushing the player to perform additional dreary actions, like having to put a quest on hold just to go sell some items, or having to visiting several merchants in a row because you have more items than a single merchant can afford. I’ve seen people hoarding piles of items in their in-game home. It‘s an understandable restriction, in order to prevent the player from growing rich and powerful too easy and fast, and maybe to add some realism, but as a side effect there is even more focus and time spent on item management.
There is also the ever present option and incentive to switch back and forth between items for some minor advantage — e.g. equipping the Volsung to get a better price at merchants, and then another item to get better at archery, and another to get better at magic, and so on. Seems ridiculous to pass up on that advantage, but that‘s the problem, that they’ve probably built too much incentive into the game to focus on and micromanage items, and too few constraints. The balance is off.
It should be noted that it‘s not just a matter of amount and frequency, but what kind of tools they implement to let you manage it all — a big deal. For example, the favorites list in Skyrim does make life easier, as does the “to sell” list in Dragon Age, or the ease or difficulty by which you compare items. The better the tools, the less the friction, the more you can throw items at the player without it becoming annoying.
To combat excessive item management I have implemented a rather strict policy of only picking up the most useful or valuable loot, but even so, even leaving the vast majority of the loot, I still sometimes mysteriously end up with more loot than I care for. Heck, even just *checking* loot and not taking any, to make sure you’re not missing out on something good, is annoying. Or for that matter even feeling the *temptation* to check should you decide not to, or even having to consciously decide to create a policy of dealing with items. It disrupts the flow and directs your attention undesirably.
It’s a matter of economics with attention as the currency — you want to spend it where it matters, on the interesting elements, and so you don’t want the game to work against that by directing your attention elsewhere. trying to shove less interesting elements down your throat.
For comparison I think Mass Effect has better system for items, where it’s a meaninful and fun part of the game while being far less intrusive.
All that said, Skyrim‘s item management isn’t terrible by any means, it’s more like part fun and part aggravating, a mixed bag. But that‘s bad enough, especially since the game is pretty great in certain other areas, though truth be told it also pretty bad in others.
And how exactly does the Volsung help procure a more advantageous exchange anyway?
Somewhere in Skyrim: Son, wear this mask and go to the nearest bank and politely ask for a withdrawal.
In the meantime
Been hard at work on a post that isn’t coming along very well, so I’m buying myself some time by bringing you this short update instead.
Though I still have a few posts coming related to Skyrim, I‘m definitely done actually playing it. In fact, I got really tired of the game toward the end. Going for a platinum was probably a mistake, as it was far more time consuming than expected, but once you start going down that path, the Daedric prince of sunk cost will make sure you see it through.
Now I’m immersing myself in Mass Effect: Andromeda, hoping it isn’t a big letdown in the making. I mean, I‘m well aware the game wasn’t particularly well received, but it’s also a game by Bioware, and a Mass Effect game at that, the trilogy being one of my favorite games. So there has to be some kind of lower bound of quality below which Andromeda cannot fall, right. Until proven otherwise I refuse to believe it is a dud, but whatever the case may be I will know for sure soon enough. As for the critique, I won‘t even skim it, let alone carefully analyze or engage with it, until finishing at least the main quest, though I did hear there were some wonky facial animations (now patched, I believe.)
I‘m not far into the game, and my only serious complaint so far is the ridiculously small text, and in searching for a fix (there is none) I learned of many others feeling the same way, some even refusing to continue the game because of it. How curious to spend years and untold resources to develop a game, only to then noticeably undermine the playing experience and needlessly aggravating their own customers by neglecting to spend three seconds to add the option to change text size.
Skyrim #4, the happy couple
All hail Skyrim, mighty generator of amusing and bizarre little episodes. This is probably the most absurd one yet.
I was doing a quest for the thieves guild, collecting a few old debts of theirs. One argonian female innkeeper wouldn’t listen to reason, and a fist fight broke out.
Landed a few good punches, and maybe she fell badly on the floor or something, but she unexpectedly passed away. I took the money she owed — our business is hereby concluded, ma’am — and returned to the guild.
They became rather mad, as I wasn’t supposed to kill the target. But you got the money, right? No no, not being cavalier at all, just trying, to… yeah yeah, bad for business, and our sacrosanct code of whatever and all that, but it’s not easy being in the trenches, things go down and, well, you know how it is, and stop that yelling.
To dramatize the exchange a bit.
In any case, their faith in me remained intact, courtesy of Bethesda’s unwillingness to allow failure, since failure might hurt the feelings of kids who are in it for the power fantasy and being the supreme king of winning. But I digress.
Later I returned to the scene of the crime, and now an argonian man was running the inn in her place. Apparently he was her boyfriend, so naturally he wasn’t too happy about what had happened, or about me returning, which he made very clear.
Hadn’t expected this situation. The game came alive for a moment, felt a pang of guilt. But I am the dragonborn, and I am on an important quest to get a shiny and useless platinum, the show must go on.
Then came the quirky turn of events.
His voice softens, eyes becoming dreamy. This was a man deeply and hopelessly in love. He informs me he’s going to marry that woman, and asks whether I would kindly get them some gems for the wedding.
Why yes, that’s the least I can do for having killed the bride.
Probably won’t though, but I like stacking up quests for a rainy day.
A theater should act these scenes out and post it on YouTube.
I‘m done with the game now, playing wise, but I still have a few more posts coming up.
Skyrim #3, my build
In my first run I distributed my skill points in a rather diverse fashion. That usually doesn’t result in a particularly good build, although Skyrim is easy and safe enough that it’s nearly impossible to screw up completely. Gradually over the course of playing I converged toward a few chosen skills, in particular archery since that became my preferred way of fighting (ranged fighting with slow motion, I’m a sucker for that.)
This run I’m drawing upon my experience of last time, and I‘ve right from the start focused my build somewhat more. For a long while I used archery — like last time — as my main way of fighting, with light armor, restoration and a bit of conjuring as supplementary skills. However, recently I started to develop other skills as well, including destruction, now that I’ve reached the end of the archery skill tree. Seems expedient, considering that archery no longer grants experience points toward levelling the character, impeding progress.
Well, at least that’s the case until the skill is made legendary, but making it legendary also means making it crappy again, so you want to have raised the level in another battle oriented skill in preparation (as well as having made corresponding changes in attribute distribution), into which you then put those freed up skill points. Hence the time spent developing destruction and conjuration, embarking on a new mid-game path as a mage.
So I made archery legendary and put those points into destruction and elsewhere, and now during fights I alternate between destruction and archery, as well as conjure up a friendly atronach now and then. Don’t take me for a conjurer of cheap tricks though, I’ve slowly developed conjuring for a good while, and those atronaches are pretty good by now. Both destruction and archery are pretty easy to develop quickly, esp this late in the game with plenty of magicka and stamina, and plenty of health and protective gear.
I enjoy switching between the two. Early in the game it’s probably best to specialize, but mid-game and onward it’s perfectly viable to go dual. It’s still a pretty focused build, all the parts work well together, and I use them all.
I optimize primarily for enjoyment and getting an appealing playing style, not power. For example, enchantment, once you‘ve become a truly deft enchanter, could very well have the best skill tree (having two carefully chosen powerful enchantments on each item is insane), but I don’t care for that style of playing, no matter how effective. I don’t want to collect enchantments, I don’t want to collect souls, I don’t want to recharge items frequently. I don’t want to think about enchantments at all, except as a pleasant surprise when I find a good weapon or gear with a powerful enchantment to play around with for as long as the charge lasts.
As for light armor and restoration, my thinking is along these lines:
Light Armor adds some extra protection, and has a great perk which makes stamina regenerate twice as fast, which is really good when doing archery (though when I finally got that perk, archery was no longer my sole way of fighting — I do run a lot though, for which stamina is also useful). Restoration has healing, which is useful pretty much all the time, and it also has a few nice passive perks like having healing applied also to stamina, and magicka being replenished faster, and not to mention a perk that basically lets you survive a deadly attack once a day. Dying isn’t fatal for the player, or even much of a setback, but it’s annoying, and getting rid of it is an enjoyment boost. Dying just isn’t my style.
In any case, I’m nearing the end of this run (not the end of Skyrim mind you, that’s practically unattainable.) It will likely be my last. I‘m done with the main quest, done with the Dragonborn DLC, done with the civil war, done with the Magnus staff quest, just to mention a few. I consider going for the platinum and then quit, would give me a final reasonably comprehensive objective and a solid note to quit on, while not involving too much work, given how far I’ve already come.
Skyrim #2, I robbed him blind
More on the topic of odd and unearthly NPC behavior (see last post).
So I was seeking the help of a venerable sorcerer to find some secret and hallowed tomes, to aid me in my quest to end the powerful Miraak and his cult of servitude. Went to his house, entered without knocking, and found him standing around in silence, not even looking at me until I addressed him. He indeed knew of these books, and I was told there was a specific book I needed. He hadn’t been able to retrieve it by himself, but knew where it was located. Together we’d stand a good chance of retrieving it, he thought.
Sure, why not, lead the way, sorcerer.
And he did. He told me to follow, and he left the house. His house. I didn’t. You see, I had noticed that he had a lot of potions and other valuables. Venerable or not, with his prying eyes out of the way I robbed him blind, stuffed my bags to the brim with his stuff. For the Cause and the common good of course, Dragonborn’s privilege.
Met up with him later, what were you doing staying at my place he didn’t ask.
Imagine having a dinner with your friends at your place, and then when you’re all supposed to leave, they just… stay. You ask what they’re doing, they stay silent, just standing there in your kitchen eyeballing your valuables. Your beloved childhood friends, a real kodac moment.
Not that this is a particularly egregious example of weird behavior in a video game. Anecdotes like these abound and we hardly react to them, but it gets kind of funny when you take it seriously and think about it.
I keep wondering how hard it would be to patch some these behaviors. Not by hardcoding each instance one by one, that’d be a fools game for a huge game like this, but more like adding flexible AI routines that make the NPCs more concerned with things like watching over their property, but also relating that concern to other concerns and values, so as to make the actual outcome depend on the circumstances, more unpredictable and interesting, emergent. That’s a journey and a frontier in game development that‘s barely begun, but it will be glorious.
Skyrim
I’m on my second playthrough of Skyrim.
First time was years ago, went on for about 150 hours. Wasn’t done, but the game had become unbearably crashy because of that old buggy game engine. Reluctantly, I called it a day, but I had an inkling I would be back. And back I came, already last year actually, got the remaster upon release.
Played for a good while, then a supposedly short break became a not so short break, lasting until recently. Now I’m at it again (along with Planescape: Torment and No Man’s Sky, more posts on those coming up), currently playing the DLC Dragonborn, doing quests and exploring the new area. It’s not bad.
I encounter many strange things on my journey, and sometimes the most peculiar ones occur in a mundane situation.
Let me illustrate.
A certain irresolute blacksmith enlisted my help to retrieve a special pickaxe of his from a miner who wouldn’t part with it. So I went to the miner, convinced him to give me the pickaxe, returned it to the blacksmith. Turns out he didn’t really want the axe, all he wanted was to teach the unwilling miner a lesson. So he gave the pickaxe to me as a gift.
So far so good, nothing particularly strange going on. Then the following happens.
We got started on some trade, and for good coin I sold him the special pickaxe he had just given me. The pickaxe he didn’t want for free a moment ago. No comment was made by either of us, no amused laughter, just business as usual, both perfectly composed.
These games generate a lot of these bizarre but amusing anecdotes, and we think nothing of them. Until we do. Imagine something similar happening in real life, or even in a fictional story that isn’t a video game. Jon Snow is given a precious gift by Daenerys, and two minutes later he’s trying to sell it to her, and she accepts. They’d both come across as bona fide weirdos.
As amusing as these events can be, if you care enough to notice, one might justifiably wonder to what extent they break immersion, especially as being immersed is far more important than being amused (in my humble opinion.)
Of course, there are a plethora of situations that are anything but realistic, and we do take them for granted, but wouldn’t it be pretty interesting and immersive, and rather surprising, if the blacksmith would react more realistically, like saying “did you just try to sell me the pickaxe I gave you a moment ago?” Then only the player would seem like a weirdo, and through no fault but his own.
That would require extra work and resources during development, but probably not all that much, relatively speaking. It’s a trade-off, and maybe there’s a compelling reason not to do it, but it does seem like a fairly low-hanging fruit, though I’m sure some would just get annoyed by having the blacksmith reject the pickaxe.
Occasionally games do insert realistic details along these lines. In one game — might actually be Skyrim — the characters in the vicinity react when you drop your loot on their floor. That’s unexpected, normally we’re allowed to drop any loot anywhere without reaction, which isn’t all that realistic. And don’t get me started on people not reacting when you’re lurking about, like entering someone’s house in the middle of the night looking around or just standing there and possibly dropping low value blood-soaked loot on their floor. Completely normal behavior.
But anyway. For all its faults, and what I describe above is not even close to the top, I still enjoy Skyrim.
Planescape: Torment #4
After a hiatus lasting a few moons I’m back at playing Planescape: Torment… for now.
Just a short update on where I’m currently at, which I think still isn’t that far into the game.
The time had come to explore the catacombs, so I did. Turns out they are inhabited by two rivalling factions that hate each other’s guts. Luckily they were both more or less amicable with me, although I did have to prove myself at one point. This was actually several months ago and before the break, so I don’t remember the nature of their conflict, probably some petty bullshit. I mildly favored one side over the other and was hoping I could be of some assistance, but no offer was made and no opportunity arose, save perhaps from going rogue and just exterminating their enemy on my own initiative, which isn’t what I had in mind. I wanted an official side-quest, naturally. The other faction, on the other hand, wasn’t shy about trying to enlist my help, wanting me to infiltrate the inner circle of their enemy and kill the leader, or something.
What a dilemma. As an actual side-quest that would have earned me some tasty experience points and maybe procured me some wondrous loot, but I’d have been selling my soul supporting the wrong side, a collective of… telepathically connected magic-wielding hive mind rats (yes, let’s once and for all dispel the myth that there are no such thing as telepathically connected magical rats.) Who knows what they might do once freed from the constraints of balance of terror, maybe proliferate to the point of becoming a serious threat. Can’t have that, right. Not that I particularly trust the other side either, perhaps best keep letting them cancel each other out.
I decided to put off deciding for a while, and went on with my main quest instead.
That led me to Annah, my latest companion. I had been looking for her (see earlier post), but now she was handed to me by the main quest, as it were, for which she’s required in order to progress. Turns out she’s the daughter of Pharod, the guy I spent the first part of the game looking for (as far as the main quest is concerned). So now I have three companions — Morte, Annah and Dakkon — and I have set off to do the next step in the main quest, which is to look for the place I was found dead, looking for clues of some sort. Remember, the main quest/mystery of the game is finding out who I am and why (and perhaps how) I keep being brought back to life every time I die.
With the help of Annah we’re now able to go to a new part of the map, a whole new area for me to explore for clues and resources. This is basically as far as I’ve come, save for having talked with a few nearby people in my new location, and in the process finished a minor quest or two and gained a few new friends and few new enemies. That happens a lot.
Did I say I have three companions? Well, not exactly, not any more, because Morte got kidnapped, which someone is going to regret. I’m not even sure I particularly like Morte, but he’s my talking floating skull and he’s a vital part of my current team, so whoever took him is going to feel my wrath. I also hope they have some good loot, and maybe even some pertinent clues related to my main quest. Sometimes I learn the strangest things in the unlikeliest places.
Just Cause 3: Appetite for destruction
Explosions, mayhem, Rico. Through storms of fire and death Rico persists and thrives.
I enjoyed playing Just Cause 2 some years ago (link), so I felt pretty certain I’d enjoy the successor Just Cause 3, and I do. It’s similar but better.
Just like in the previous game you’re playing as the carefree and cheerful action hero Rico Rodriguez, a man bereft of fear and of obedience to the law gravity, and once again the overall mission is one of rebellion against a tyrannical dictator and his grip of a group of tropical islands. Or at least that’s how I recall the last game, but my memory is a bit fuzzy on that point, to be honest. This time an oppressive regime has seized control of Rico’s place of birth, and he becomes a key figure in the revolt, or something.
You see, I don’t really keep track of things like “story” and “characters” and “deeper meaning” in a game like this. It may nominally be about bringing revolution and salvation to the oppressed and downtrodden, but it’s actually about Rico’s proclivity, compulsion even, to blow things up and cause mayhem, bless his heart. And if an innocent bystander or ten gets caught in the crossfire? Well, that’s just too bad, but Rico doesn’t care, Rico doesn’t give a shit. He’s an artist of destruction and an orchestrator of chaos, as well as a wielder of rationalizations and cheesy one liners, and he loves it. He may pay lip service to the idea of rebellion and freedom or whatever, but when you see the tears of joy in his twinkling eye as he mows down both those in his path and those who are not, you know where his heart is really at. Guilty and innocent alike, watch out. Viva la revolution of mowing things down and blowing stuff up.
The game is fairly similar to its predecessor, but it is running on next gen hardware and has a number of improvements, big and small, such as the addition of the wingsuit, which is a piece of clothing shaped like wings allowing for flight. A great addition as travelling is frequently required, and fast travel is not always available or desirable. There are plenty of vehicles of course, but you end up using the wingsuit a lot. It’s both practical and fun to use.
The story and characters are forgettable and pointless, but do work as a delivery mechanism to give you a parade of spectacles to act out. Doing the story isn’t exactly mandatory, there are many other activities available — a true sandbox game — such as taking out military bases, but doing the story does provide with some practical benefits as well as a wide variety of different scenarios and challenges that are fun and that you won’t find elsewhere, so it’s worth pursuing even if you don’t care about the story and the people as such.
When you’ve liberated the entire territory you can choose to have areas of choice re-oppressed in order to liberate them again, Rico-style. Told you he loves that shit.
Part of the fun is the many ways to get the job done. Take out the military base with a tank? Check. Another type of tank and using another tactic? Check. Helicopter? Check. Parachuting with a rocket launcher? Check. Throwing yourself in the middle of a swarm of enemies for some high-intensity action? Check. Sneaking around the edges sniping people and objects? Check. And so on, the list is long, there’s a large assortment of weapons, vehicles and approaches. You’re a one-man-rebel-army.
There is a certain compelling and player-driven feedback loop that’s going on between you and the environment, as it reacts to your actions and you counter-react to those reactions, on and on, strikingly fluidly. The circumstances unfold and you make quick tactical decisions adjusting to them and, sometimes, bending them to your will. It’s largely possible to regulate the intensity of the encounter by how you approach the situation. I often make the intensity sway back and forth, sometimes throwing myself into the thick of things (a high risk, high gain gamble), and sometimes approach the mission with more calm and thoughtfulness. The game really do support a wide variety of approaches and tactics.
So yeah, it’s a fun game, but what about negatives? For me, the unseriousness of it all prevents any deeper sense of immersion in the world, which is actually quite a drawback. You do get flow, but not true immersion or a real sense of meaning. You don’t believe in the world so you can’t truly imagine yourself being a part of it. And that’s fine in a way, it’s not a failure of part of the developers as it isn’t something they aim for, and changing this would basically require remaking the entire game, but if that’s something you crave, then playing this game too much might start to feel like eating too much candy — tasty but not really nourishing. But moderately and maybe intensely once in a blue moon, absolutely.