The Escapist - Killjoy
 

An interesting piece in the latest Escapist tackles the issue of death in games, and RPGs in particular. Titled Killjoy: How Inconsequential Death Took the Fun Out of Virtual Life, the article argues that the quick-death mechanics often found in RPGs have resulted in a culture of quick-save creeping and destroyed narrative tension:
More information.

Everyone plays differently and it is, in fact, your own responsibility as a gamer to decide when or how often you can save before you start killing your own fun. The thing is, the possibility is there and it is a means to something that it even worse: the unbearable frustration of having to play through the same piece of dungeon you have been through, doing the same actions, inventory management, party reforms and combat, because you are stuck on this one encounter.

Who cares if the game lets you quicksave? In the same vein, you can just as easily set the game difficulty to 'easy' or even go out and grab yourself a cheat off the internet. I've really never understood the part where "when it's part of the game, it's not cheating" anyway. You provide for your own fun and if you decide to ruin it for yourself, it is your own decision, be it by use of the quicksave button, a difficulty slider, a cheat, powerleveling, or whatever. I personally don't play games "to beat them" so I can go on the internet and boast about it, so it's a non-issue.

Except that resorting to a hint or walkthrough on the internet can become extremely addictive and since it's so easy to do these days… you run the change that you make your game essentially a chore where you follow directions. Where are the good old times where you needed to connect to a BBS and spend long minutes downloading a zipped text file with a 2400 baud modem for your walkthroughs?

Ah, an old timer who remembers the days of dial-up BBS's!! The good old days!! :) Wish they still played BRE.

I don't think the point of the article is to criticise quicksaving per se, but rather the design and use of death as a "consequence" in games. And I agree. What is the point of a trap that potentially instakills, for example? The player simply reloads until they survive. Better to make death more meaningful as a gameplay element (PS:T) or find some other way of "punishing" the player for losing a battle or taking the wrong choice.

An interesting read. Save game styles must always be determined by the dev's-gamewriters i think?
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@Corwin.
I found this site for 'older' buddies :) re: BBS and a BRE forum
(registration is required)
http://www.bbsmates.com/bre.asp

Thanks Wulf, I signed up!! Inter BBS Bre leagues were a blast last century!! :)

Designers design games differently that have quicksaves. Gothic 2 is a good example. I think my character died more times playing Gothic 2 than any other RPG I have ever played. They used death not as a consequence but as an indication that you weren't supposed to go somewhere yet. Turn a corner and something killed you? Whoops, reload and go a different way.

I for one remember instadeath traps or similar as common fare of my early crpg forays in the late 80ies. I do not remember this happening much to me anytime lately, and neither do I move down corridors with a party these days anymore. In fact, I would welcome more of that, as long as it is not just a die roll that may improve after reload but something that requires a different approach by the player in order to yield different results.

The worst example of this I can think of is Ultima 8. One second you are walking along and the next second the floor of the cave collapses and you fall to your death. RELOAD. Fall through the floor again due to the crappy control mechanism. UNINSTALL (at least for me).

Good article with a lot of excellent points. I don't know that I want to be unable to save, but I would like to see something besides instant death as a plot enforcer. Consequences are important, but it's more fun when they require a little more wit to resolve than pushing the quick load button.