So, I went full authoritarian dictator on my group to get my project done. Suffice it to say none of them like me very much after it, but I don't think that will matter when we get our B or A and move on from each others lives. These are the types of things that exhaust me. In other news, I actually got into a really interesting discussion on the self with a good friend of mine that stemmed from the IRC chat we all had it was pretty cool to get their perspective on the matter. This probably doesn't interest many, but I noticed a bad? trend that has been growing in the gaming community. Fallout 4 is this huge game, and one of my friends beat it in like two days. When I talked to him about it he seemed lukewarm about the game. I have this other friend who works and goes to school who only plays like an hour a day or so. His reaction to the game is incredible makes me want to go out and get it. It's crazy how my generation has become so caught up with the rapid consumption of content, but at the same time it is to our detriment because we miss out on what makes that content worthwhile. This could of course be expanded beyond just games, but I thought it was an interesting observation.
That's an interesting observation about fallout. The weird one that I noticed was people getting upset about the radiant quests piling up in their quest log. I'm not sure, but it feels like they're saying they can't cope with having something on their to-do list that won't get done. I understand the desire for a clean interface, but I also think it says something about the mindset of players to want to be able to check everything off.
I think in a way that feeds into my perspective on the community. This incessant need to just complete everything, and just consume it for the sake of being able to say you completed everything. The second friend I mentioned literally spent a day messing with the rag doll mechanics by setting up mines and blowing himself half way across the map haha. Has that sense of completion in games become too large of a focus that we are beginning to miss out on the enjoyment of the game?
My hunch is that it all hinged on minecraft. With minecraft there came an entire genre of true sandbox games that didn't have stories or missions or any real goals outside of creating. As that niche grew, we started to see games as true sandbox games and story games. Sandbox games don't have a real point other than to play for pleasure, story games have a narrative drive. I think fallout was trying to blend the two. So you have this sandbox in settlements and with the modding community, and there's a story that you can follow, but the point isn't to focus on one or the other. The point is to try to blend the story into the sandbox so that you can mess with your environment through physical building or emotional interaction. It's not the best game ever, but after playing Ark and Rust and a couple other building games that don't have real stories, I think it blends the two in a really novel way.Has that sense of completion in games become too large of a focus?