When players ruin games…

[Madigan]

Avoid cheats, Earning your way thru the game provides much greater rewards than the quick fix that burns bright for an instance only to drop you on your bum.

Avoid Spoilers and walkthrus to the point just before you throw your'e CPU out the window. A glance at a walkthru when the situation demands it is cheaper than a new CPU.

Avoid Mods on your 1st play thru to experience the game the way it was meant to be played. There are some various exceptions for certain gamers. Example Oblivion: after clearing a Dungeon i did not appreciate having to run from the Dungeon to town and back 20 times to sell off all the loot so i got the bag of holding mod. Limited inventories are great with games of limited drops like the Infinity games but some weight limitations are just unbalanced with the loot that is provided in the game IMO.

Keep an Open Mind. Put faith in the developers ability to entertain you. Better to start out this way than be dissapointed from the start. At least that way if the game stinks you would have gotten some value from it.

Fill in the Blanks. Let your imagination take you there, believe it or not it improves the immersity of the Game.

RPG Type: If it's a Linear Rpg, play as open as you can. If it is an Open RPG try and make it somewhat linear or the story will get lost in the shuffle. The best RPG's have a good balance of Openess and Linearity out of the box. You can always play it again from a saved game point to complete all the multitudes of quests that have nothing to do with the storyline.

 

[roogame]

hmmm, you wrote quite a great article, Fadista

 

[Grimlorn]

I agree with some of the things in the OP. I think it depends on how certain things affect you. Spoilers can be a pain in the ass. Also, trying to learn game mechanics so you can min/max your character might be a bit stressful or spoilerish at the beginning of the game.

I kind of wish, in general, games did a better job of explaining mechanics so you understand exactly what abilities/stats/skills do and you don't have to look in a character creation faq/walkthrough to find out. They usually spoil the game a bit.

I do think as we get older we're less sensitive to enjoying new things like gaming. I mean I can go back and play a game on the NES I grew up playing and enjoy it. However, if I go back and try to play the same kind of game I played when I was young, (but missed playing) it will fail to hold my interest. (Even if it's a good game) Nostalgia is weird like that I guess.

Another thing, is ignorance is bliss. When you're a kid you can play crap games, watch flashy, bad movies and enjoy them because you don't know any better and it's completely new. You have no experience to compare it with something else. It's easier to please.

But once you're an adult you learn what's good and what's not, what you enjoy and what you don't and it becomes more difficult to please you. Sucks getting old

 

[Gokyabgu]

I have some gaming habits that I really hate.

Most important one is 'I have to set foot everywhere, kill every monster, loot every chest, do every trivial side quest' syndrome. When I'm playing a RPG, I feel an obligation about that. Now in good old days, when I was a student it wasn't a problem. I had lots of free time to invest in RPGs and games like Ultima 7, Might&Magic 6, Fallout, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate or Morrowind offers over 100 hours of gaming. But, they fill this hours with lots of real content. Nowadays when I see the PR page of an RPG boasts 50+ hours of gaming, I really fear. Because, most of those gaming time passes with clearing same looking areas with same monsters with random loot. I know this, but I can't suppress the urge to visit this areas. And because of that sometimes later playing a game become a boring job more than a entertaining hobby. I felt this much while playing Gothic 3, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and most recently Two Worlds 2. And I don't have enough time like I used to because of my work. Usually it take 4-5 months to finish a game like this. I also read every text, dialogue and books in the game, sometimes reload a cutscene or a dialogue in order to fully understand what is going on. And all this 'I had to see everything' can be a real pain sometimes.

My other habit is to collect everything in the game. This also can be really annoying sometimes. I gather every bit of useless junk and sell to a vendor. I know that it's nearly worthless but I collect them anyway. You don't want to see me while playing a Diablo style game because of that. All this travel to town, sell stuff and return routine.

My Fallout New Vegas copy is waiting in my computer, it's icon is winking at me. But, because of the things that I mentioned above, I hesitate to do that. Because I know I will spend hours gathering junk in randomly generated areas.

So I prefer relatively short games (40 hours and less) that provides somewhat limited exploration. There're at least five RPGs waiting in my PC right now to be played and I spend my time running behind randomly generated loot in Two Worlds 2.

There're people on the net that claims finishing The Witcher 2 in 20 hours. I said to myself how they can doing that. But one day I will achieve that too. I'll begin a game and do only main quest and visit only main areas without straying from the path, and also I won't care what the character's said, the main lore of the world, etc. One day I'll do that. Perhaps Skyrim will be a good choice for that, don't you think?

 

[xSamhainx]

I'm totally OCD about my games too, that's why I dont care so much about the quoted "time" that most games are given. I'll even re-fight a particular battle over and over if I liked the fight, or think that I could have done it better. If a game is quoted as 30 hours, I know I'm going to get at least 45 or even up to 60!

It would be an interesting personal experiment to try playing the exact opposite once as you mentioned - go straight thru only worrying about the main quest, use a walkthrough, quick-save constantly. Like a lot of reviewers probably play the game!