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Re: NO more loops!
Posted By: Steve LevinsonDate: 2/20/05 5:20 p.m.

In Response To: NO more loops! (ukimalefu)

: I stopped playing eternal when I got trapped in a loop for the 3rd or 4th
: time. Fail and succes story branches are ok, but I hated the "keep
: trying until you do it right thing". Any plans to change that?

Even Infinity had opportunities for infinite loops, but these were more of a secret, with one notable, fairly disasterous exception. There obviously is a balance here - at one extreme is what we had in Infinity - a nonlinar plotline that is in fact totally linear, with the player having virtually no choice at any point in the game. At the other extreme is Eternal, where the player succeeds, or they fail and repeat one or many levels until they succeed. In between are scenarios like Fell and Rubicon where there is no success or failure - merely choices that are better than others - but the player reaches a conclusion at some point, regardless.

I think that Eternal's approach is valid, but it will lose players along the way who can't figure out what they're doing wrong and eventually give up. I'm sure there will be a spoiler guide to help people in your situation, but telling the player exactly what to do takes away from the overall message of Eternal, which is that failures are necessary to eventually succeed. There is a potential compromise solution - to split the decision levels into first and second time companions in which the chance of success is much greator the second time around. I'm not thrilled with that idea as the player may succeed, even when they've done nothing differently; hence they'll learn nothing. I think the best solution would probably be to make it impossible to save a game in which the outcome is already determined. For example, it's too easy to save a game in Moontanning in which it's too late to succeed. My solution would be to eliminate pattern buffers outside of the starting and ending rooms and to seal off the starting room once the player leaves it. I would also make sure that the pattern buffer in the ending room is only active if you have succeeded. That way the player would have to go on to the next level in the failure branch and be stupid enough to save their failed game to get stuck in a loop. It still wouldn't be perfect, but better than the current situation.

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Pre-2004 Posts

Replies:

Eternal Mappersgoran 2/20/05 1:02 p.m.
     Re: Eternal MappersSteve Levinson 2/20/05 3:16 p.m.
           Re: Eternal MappersForrest of B.org 2/20/05 4:00 p.m.
                 NO more loops!ukimalefu 2/20/05 4:38 p.m.
                       Re: NO more loops!Steve Levinson 2/20/05 5:20 p.m.
                             Re: NO more loops!Forrest of B.org 2/20/05 5:50 p.m.
                       Re: NO more loops!Forrest of B.org 2/20/05 9:41 p.m.
                             Re: NO more loops!RyokoTK 2/21/05 3:16 a.m.
                                   Re: NO more loops!Steve Levinson 2/21/05 5:57 a.m.
                                         Re: NO more loops!; Or....luke9 2/21/05 8:11 p.m.
                                         Re: NO more loops!Forrest of B.org 2/21/05 8:26 p.m.
                             Re: NO more loops!ukimalefu 2/22/05 7:43 p.m.

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Pre-2004 Posts

 

 

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