Thread:Vorknkx/@comment-31165294-20180115013148/@comment-3547390-20180116132410

Tea and sausages... definitely sounds unappealing.

Shrugs, I guess it depends how much you like high fantasy and lengthy books that go nowhere. WoT is pretty much known for having quite a few books where next to nothing happens. Fantasy bores me anyway, it all reads like a high-schooler's fantasy. The main character is basically a guy who sleeps with three women who want him no matter what he does and who essentially can defeat anybody in an instant. With that latter point, we get a short blurb of plot, then we get him whining while the women nearby ruffle their skirts and tug their braids.

Indeed, the Quake 1 area is especially solidified, though of course I shall continue my endeavors there once I stop having to play terrible flight sims. Now I just need to stop being tired so I can play them.

Then again, I am not sure if I am being entirely motivated. It feels like I have had to do all this work to get to the game proper, yet it still isn't much fun. I think I am procrastinating, sleeping is better than trying to put up with this game. I felt fine last night until I went to try to play the game, then I felt overwhelmingly exhausted. I don't think it coincidence. It feels miserable, yet I hate stopping since I like having commitment to what I do. Playing this just isn't entertaining, I can't even find much to entertain myself with. So I end up feeling like I can't win.

It isn't the difficulty. If it was a fun game, I would wish it to last forever, and go out of my way to add extra challenges just to do that in my favorite games. It is the fact that this game is highly mundane. Float for giant expanses of nothingness, wait for something to happen, rely on a terrible AI. It is all the atrocities of an escort mission, but if it was done in a black void without a pretty world to check out. I rather play a modern game, that at least would have some pretty mountain range to look at. This has blackness. Blackness, enemies coming at you from one direction that makes it mandatory to go that way to protect the AI, and literal escort missions. The game seems to lack variety, it is quickly becoming "protect your team" every time, and the problem is my team is terrible enough where I just as soon blast them out of the sky myself.

The copy protection makes it feel like a game I can't just start and play. I need to minimize the title, go to my PDF, find the right code, and enter it without mistakes or the game will crash. None of this is a fun experience, instead it makes it more of an inconvenient gateway. Also, think about Quake or other FPS titles. You start it up, it works. Here, you have to wait for an intro cutscene. But that might be tolerable if not for the clunky DOSBox, if not for the controls feeling like my mouse is broken half the time. DOSBox is never fun, it is a clunky and tedious experience, but I am willing to tolerate it for a fun game like Quake. This is like the opposite of Quake. It is over-complicated in controls, and yet so simplistic in the world. I feel like the entire appeal would be just the freedom to balance shields. Time limits aren't free, mandatory AI protection sure isn't making me free. I am not doing anything on my own pacing, when that is how I generally enjoy my games. I am not having anything to explore, which is generally what I play games for.

Flight sims aren't my genre. It isn't my lack of being able to do them. It is the fact that they are innately designed in an unappealing way. They are based around fast paced action as you zip through an environment. Same reason I dislike Hexen, you need to rush through an environment and can't smell the roses. The more I play, the more I see you just have a taste for constant action and things happening. I don't like that. I like breathing periods, to think things out.

Thief pretty much is designed to appeal to my style. Quake, Unreal... even Minecraft falls back on this simple rule that I will have a point where I don't need to rush around like a maniac. Every game I can find tolerable at the least follows this formula, it might just be one of the biggest things tied to my enjoyment. Escort missions play against this because you need to keep rushing around to protect the escort. Thief, I can hide in the shadows. Quake and Unreal are great examples of most titles I find I can enjoy, nothing is just going to show up. Minecraft has spawning, but you can easily make yourself safe. Yet be in the patrol route of a guard, I will be found, keeping tension. Move forward, a Shambler can appear behind me with no cover around, there is still challenge. I can run in the areas monsters spawn and end up in a chaotic fight for my life, there is choice in that matter and thus it is not imposed, and I can always flee if I can handle the situation enough to get a breather.

The prime factor through all my examples, regardless of how they function, is that I am fully in control of when I have chaos happening. Compare that to Hexen, where things keep spawning and if you don't keep moving things will show up to attack you. X-Wing, where you have escort mission after escort mission, the breather is the briefing and after that you are spending half-hour gauntlets in paranoia the AI doesn't fail on you, especially since nothing notifies you when it happens. Compare this with most NES titles, where there are usually timers or things pushing you forward constantly. Compare this with arcade titles, where you have timers or need to rush forward.

When I play a game, I do it to be invested in a world, to explore something, which is why mazes frustrate me (because that is just seeing the same things over and over). Possibly to collect random garbage. Challenge is important, I don't value RPGs highly as I feel it is based on grinding and time devotion instead of actual skill, but it is not the sole factor that will cause me to enjoy a game. If anything, it just makes me hit a roadblock and makes me question if I should even be devoting time to trying to beat it. Why put a bunch of effort into beating something you aren't having fun with? And rushing against a time limit to get a high score is not fun, I feel pressured enough in my life with time constraints and having to rush around (we are known in America as the place where we never stop rushing), I don't need that experience in what is supposed to be down time. I might do that in a flash game out of boredom, but it isn't real fun, and it isn't how I like to spend my time.

There are exceptions, sure. I can enjoy a racing game, for example. But generally it isn't the actual races that intrigue me there, it is more the RPG-based improvements. Gran Turismo was fun because I could buy a car and customize exactly how I wanted it. Pod Racer had unlockables, plus upgrades you could get. There is no such driving force here, you just keep using the same X-Wing and the only sign of progress you can get is a word on the title screen. Plus, unlike both, there is no choice in what I am getting. X-Wing feels more like an arcade game, kill enough and you get a new ranking, all within the semblance of levels that feel all too alike. So I got no variation or things changing, no customization or feeling of real freedom that way, and am being rushed around everywhere in a world much like Star Wars Droids. That had visible enemies that didn't all look like the same ship. Otherwise I might as well be playing that. It may be graphically superior and have fancier sounds, but who cares about that? The gameplay and what is offered might as well be the same.

It seems everyone else but me likes the feeling of having to rush around like a madman without stopping. That is essentially what multiplayer is and why I probably don't devote more time to playing with others, because it works so innately against what I like. This is why I can't do speedruns, that is essentially playing the game counter to the way I get enjoyment. If you like rushing, you are in luck, you have mass communities and hundreds of games for it. Me, I need to look around to find games with controlled pacing, where I can sit somewhere and know nothing will force me into action until I am ready.

Yes, I know for 1993 it may have been fun. But what does this mean for 2017? Should I be putting up with unnecessary suffering because it was good for its time? That would be like forcing yourself to use those old DOS computers that cause undue headaches. Yes, they were normal for their time, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't look back and realize it wasn't a headache. In the middle ages it was common to shit in a bucket and dump it out the window. I don't see anyone enjoying that for nostalgia's sake. Maybe shitting in a bucket brings back good memories for you, but I am not rooted in such nostalgia, and so all I am getting out of it is the frustrations. Maybe I am spoiled because I don't appreciate the history of shitting and how important buckets were, but I feel like moving on and not having to deal with such inconveniences.

At what point can I admit to myself that this is accomplishing nothing? That I am wasting all this time on stuff I am not even finding enjoyment in? I don't know what to do. At what point is stopping even justified and not something done in haste? At what point am I stopping things too frequently?