10 worst stuff in games

joxer

The Smoker
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Stumbled upon this page, and am linking to it just because the #1 spot of the most useless/annoying feature belongs to - Skyrim:
http://leviathyn.com/games/editorials/2012/04/23/why-did-they-add-that-10-terrible-game-features/

Check the other ones if you want, but this one I'll quote:
Skyrim’s wood cutting is the worst feature in one of the best games. Bethesda wanted to “immerse players in the daily life on Skyrim’s citizens.” But I don’t want to spend time in a video game doing every day activities when there are dragons to fight and adventures to be had. The repetitiveness of chopping wood at least gives you planks to sell, but the saw mill? You move some logs around and get no benefit out of it. Couldn’t developers spend more time fixing bugs and adding content instead of making an interactive saw mill?
Couldn't agree more.
 
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I thought it was a wonderful and immersive feature. I would have liked a much more expanded crafting system - with a less gamey and exploitable nature.

Very few games handle crafting well - and I really appreciate that Skyrim tried something there. Much better than past TES games, including the awful Fallout 3/NV crap.
 
I liked the sawmill. Not every object in a game has to exist to make the player character more powerful. As for the other items on that list, the author is way too riled up over trivial things.
 
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Drithius, perhaps you should buy Sims then. ASAP. :)
 
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I already work in real life, I have zero interest in simulating work in a game.
 
I'll reiterate: Not every object in the game has to exist simply to make the player character more powerful. In fact, for a sandbox game, Skyrim offers surprisingly little in the way of interaction that doesn't involve going from one battle to the next.

So, as simplistic and mundane as it is, the sawmill at least tries to give some dimension to the game beyond what dungeon you'll clear out next.
 
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I'll reiterate: Not every object in the game has to exist simply to make the player character more powerful. In fact, for a sandbox game, Skyrim offers surprisingly little in the way of interaction that doesn't involve going from one battle to the next.

So, as simplistic and mundane as it is, the sawmill at least tries to give some dimension to the game beyond what dungeon you'll clear out next.

Yup, I have to agree with Drithius there.
 
Immersion elements like

baking bread in Ultima,
cooking in Gothic,
sawing wood in Skyrim,
eating rations in Realms of Arkania

adds the little extra to the atmosphere of games - I want more of this :)
 
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I like a little simulation for added flavor, but not at the expense of meaningful gameplay or bug fixes. It's probably different people doing each task though...
 
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Immersion elements like…
+1 for me on everything from this list ! Although I'd agree on Skyrim offering very little on the interaction aspects as Drithius said, I encourage devs to dig that way in their open world games as it's a huge plus IMHO. Mimicking a real world, with its useful and useless items and activities is a good way to go.

And instead of what Joker implies, I think The Sims is definitely one of the best games ever created. I actually spend some hours on it before being bored but I think it's really an amazing game and I can't find a reason why a role games player would despise it, other than by sheer ignorance (no offense meant here !) or to follow a curious conventional trend ?
 
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I'm with HiddenX with that.

I really really really want an RPG with my own farm !

And no, that's no joke. I actually want to grow my own food in an game. And I'm soo much tired of the "saving the world, slay dragons" cliché already …

Crafting is already there, although almost exclusively in MMORPGs - I want that in offline games as well, and farming and "player housing" is only the natural evolution from there.
 
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Immersion elements like

baking bread in Ultima,
cooking in Gothic,
sawing wood in Skyrim,
eating rations in Realms of Arkania

adds the little extra to the atmosphere of games - I want more of this :)


I don't know the case of Realms of Arkania that I didn't played. If what I read and remember is right, this one ins't repetive but there's no reminder for an element vital to do.

In all other cases it's more than just some brainless repetitive clicks:
  • Baking bread was involving some thinking or at least experiments, or perhaps instead of "real life" analogy there was also a recipe somewhere, I don't remember.
  • Cooking was later changed to allow cook multiple pieces in 1/2 clicks, I don't remember if in 1&2 there was a hidden shortcut to make 10, I think the 2 had that. But also there was behind a little bit of management, hunting, meat, find a pan, find a fire, make a break/pause, cook, save some sleep or even heal a bit between two fights. I felt it wasn't that bad despite the repetitive click because it was a break/pause both in real and in game with the mood.
  • sawing wood, very repetitive, no thinking and no management. But few bits of dialogs around it totally save the thing, you just need not do it again after to have tried once.

Perhaps a bit questionable but seen in many games, is a bit of healing through drinking at a water source, and involving many clicks for a larger healing. But it could be justified by arguing that it can help some helpless players and others shouldn't use it more than 1/2 times.

It becomes wrong when it's mandatory repetitive basic clicks or if most players will feel forced to do it, typical are MMORPG. Otherwise it's just 2/3 clicks, or when there's more like management, find the trick, some dialogs around, a good mood build, and so on, it's cool.
 
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Not a terribly impressive list - the guy kept pointing to specific games instead of generalizing.

I thought it was a wonderful and immersive feature. I would have liked a much more expanded crafting system - with a less gamey and exploitable nature.
I didn't like it much... so I didn't do it. There's nothing forcing anyone to do wood working or any of the other crafting activities.

The guy seems upset because they developed this instead of spending time on other stuff. Sheesh. I play most RPGs just one time through which means I use just one class. Should I complain because they developed more than the one class I was interested in at the time??
 
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I think that minigames in Alpha protocol are far more annoying than anything on this list.I don't think wood chopping is big deal, since you don't actually have to do it at any point.Thing that I find most annoying in Bethesda's games are too long unskippable tutorials.
 
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Let's face it : Hack & Slay Action-RPGs have dominated the whole genre so much that doind something apart from hacking & slasghing becomes rather a niusance in most "RPG" players of today who follow the mind set of "I kill monsters, therefore I play a role".
 
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Let's face it : Hack & Slay Action-RPGs have dominated the whole genre so much that doind something apart from hacking & slasghing becomes rather a niusance in most "RPG" players of today who follow the mind set of "I kill monsters, therefore I play a role".

I disagree with that.I read somewhere on Beth blog that smithing was favorite new feature in Skyrim, according to player feedback, Hearthfire DLC was also very popular.
Also games like Witcher and Mars war logs are praised for having good crafting system.
Players like additional stuff like crafting, player houses, marriages and stuff like that they are very requested features.Problem is that it's expensive to implement and it doesn't incise sales much in most cases.
 
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I disagree with that.I read somewhere on Beth blog that smithing was favorite new feature in Skyrim, according to player feedback, Hearthfire DLC was also very popular.
Also games like Witcher and Mars war logs are praised for having good crafting system.
Players like additional stuff like crafting, player houses, marriages and stuff like that they are very requested features.Problem is that it's expensive to implement and it doesn't incise sales much in most cases.

take your smithing and give me back my spellcrafting. If there is one reason why I like all previous TES games more than Skyrim, that would be it.
 
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