More incentive talk

by Xenos , Shores of Time, Tuesday, July 09, 2013, 11:07 (4198 days ago) @ Stephen Laughlin
edited by Xenos, Tuesday, July 09, 2013, 11:44

This part troubles me a little bit. I along with many other people obviously did go back and replay Halo many, many times. Why? Because it was fun as hell. The AI and level designs were setup in such a way that encounters would never play out exactly the same way. Most levels were open-ended enough that exploration was always exciting and in many cases you could approach areas from multiple directions (Silent Cartographer and Assault on The Control Room were goddamn masterpieces). Discoveries like the power of grenades and the Warthog jumping came out of the game mechanics of the game itself, even if they may have been unintentional.

Jason mentions that it was just a shadow of an attempt at incentives, but I definitely thought the skulls in the later Halo games felt pretty artificial and gimmicky. I don't want to be encouraged to replay boring sections of a game for the satisfaction of earning a neato little prize or to fulfill some kind of artificial desire to "collect 'em all!". Make the game fun and I will come back to explore it again, just because.

Yeah I see why that would be worrisome to some people. I also have played Halo 1 innumerable times because it's fun, but I didn't think the skulls felt gimmicky personally. I'm really hoping what he means is the point systems from campaign in Halo 3 and Reach and the armor unlocks. I enjoyed those without feeling like that was why I was playing the game. I understand what he means though, for quite a number of people out there they will keep playing a game that has unlockables and not play one that the only real purpose to replay it is fun.

In my purely personal opinion I feel the best is to combine both. Make the game ridiculously fun, but give incentives to replay the game for those that want it. I know many people on here disagree with that, but hey, it's the Internet, we can't all agree.