"You found a secret area!"

[Humodour]

Can you please not quantify secret areas or kills? It cheapens the game and shifts the focus from atmosphere and being in the moment, to worrying about your kills and accuracy, reloading if you're a perfectionist.

 

What I don't want to see:

"Secret area found!"

"You killed 79 out of 89 enemies"

"You scored 73% accuracy with 38 hits out of 52 shot"

"You scored 13 headshots"

"You found 5 out of 7 secret areas"

etc.

 

Bad.

[Musopticon?]

I can't right now remember an rpg with something like that.

[Humodour]

I'm playing No One Lives Forever and it has it. As did Jedi Knight 2.

 

It's not a big issue. Just putting it out there; just in case one of the programmers decides "oh this will be a fun tidbit for the gamer". Heh heh.

[Zoma]

Looking for secret areas in the in-game internet similar to Front Mission series would be awesome.

[Musopticon?]

I'm playing No One Lives Forever and it has it. As did Jedi Knight 2.

And those have been rpgs since....?

[mkreku]

Deus Ex did it right. You didn't get any "You found a secret area!" type of message, but you knew immediately when you found something hidden because you were exploring thoroughly: it was always a weird weapon (usually a great one) or a bunch of ammo or some other stuff you sorely needed. I absolutely loved it!

 

It might not make much sense in a game of this type though. I mean, in Deus Ex you were basically going from warzone to warzone so there it would make sense to find weapons caches and hidden stuff. I'm assuming this game take a lot more realistic view on the game world though. It would probably be a little weird if you were crawling around on the outside of a skyscraper and suddenly found a sniper rifle lying on a niche.. Unless they had really weird window washers in that place

 

Might work if you got to explore urban areas, to find a hidden revolver in some cupboard or other.. Hmm.

[Aram]

Deus Ex gave you bonus experience points for finding secret areas.

 

I think it just said "Area Location Bonus" but we all knew what it meant.

[Humodour]

I'm playing No One Lives Forever and it has it. As did Jedi Knight 2.

And those have been rpgs since....?

 

You have an inanely narrow definition of RPG.

 

The point was games like those share much more in common with an RPG (especially of the type AP is likely to be) than a typical FPS does; and that's assuming you're going to limit the definition of 'RPG' to 3rd-person dice-roll (or rand(), whatever) based games, which again seems arbitrarily narrow.

 

Deus Ex gave you bonus experience points for finding secret areas.

 

I think it just said "Area Location Bonus" but we all knew what it meant.

 

That was nice though because it subtle and could mean various things (like you found your contact). Further, it gave a tangible reward for effort; you got skill points which made you seek out secret areas and explore further in the future.

 

Bloodlines had something similar.

[Tale]

*pointless argument*

Edited March 17, 2008 by Tale

[Humodour]

*pointless argument*

 

Mine? The thread is pretty pointless I guess. I was just venting I gripe I have with a small subset of games.

[Tale]

No, not yours. The post I had but edited out. I was arguing against something you said in a way that's really not relevant to the topic at hand.

Edited March 17, 2008 by Tale

[Morgoth]

I don't need these statistics, either. Always reminds me of playing a silly old-skool game instead of something fashionable.

[Kelverin]

I can't right now remember an rpg with something like that.

Icewind Dale has it for each character. Number of kills, % of kills, experience.... I think all the IE had those stats as does TOEE. Not saying I am in favor of them, just providing information

[Humodour]

I can't right now remember an rpg with something like that.

Icewind Dale has it for each character. Number of kills, % of kills, experience.... I think all the IE had those stats as does TOEE. Not saying I am in favor of them, just providing information

 

Ah yes! I knew I'd seen them in RPGs before. Fallout also had it as enemies killed, but that was extremely innocuous.

 

I guess the reason the IE games didn't bother me was because they too were very innocuous.

 

It's only when it pops up in my face at the end of every level/mission that it bugs me.

[Dark_Raven]

They need a Reptile hidden level.

[Master Assassin]

I like statistics like that; for instance in COD4 I would've loved to have known how I did but never could figure it out. I guess I just like to know how many kills I rack up over the course of the game, as well as how I did it. The GTA series was really good about collating all of that data; but it doesn't really take away from the game if it isn't there.

 

That might be seen as off topic so let me add that secret areas, I can take'm or leave'm. If they're in the game, its only gonna make me have to be more careful in my movements about the gameworld- which may or may not be really feasible depending on the situation.

[Humodour]

That might be seen as off topic so let me add that secret areas, I can take'm or leave'm. If they're in the game, its only gonna make me have to be more careful in my movements about the gameworld- which may or may not be really feasible depending on the situation.

 

Yeah that's kind of my point. When somebody starts worrying about whether or not they've missed a secret area, then as a game developer you've made a mistake.

 

I think that holds for things like accuracy in FPSs, too; if you give figures for shots that hit, a fair chunk of people will begin to concentrate on not missing shots rather than the atmosphere and immersion of the game.