Gaming Cliches

[Dis]

carrying a spare set of full plate mail in RPG's. I don't think so.

[Skanky Burns]

Cities where the citizens stand in the same spot for years on end.

[Kuciwalker]

Blowing up the reactor, causing a chain reaction that kills everyone but you.

[Urban Ranger]

Whole "races" of evil beings. It's so Tolkienish.

[Kuciwalker]

That's more sf/fantasy than gaming.

[joncha]

...or PA-ish, take your pick.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
That's more sf/fantasy than gaming.

Games are mostly set in Sci-fi or fantasy worlds.

To wit: Starcraft, Warcraft 3, all the games based on AD&D, etc.

[Kuciwalker]

Lots of games aren't. Granted, lots of them are, but sf/fantasy doens't have a them all by a long shot.

[Kuciwalker]

Another one - the laser gun always has unlimited ammo.

[Arnelos]

I find healing potions in the AD&D mold to present an interesting little problem:

Now, if you're playing in a game world where healing potions represent concoctions of various medicinal herbs and such, it would make sense for you (or your local apothecary) to be able to brew a healing potion.

The real problem of healing potions presents itself in the AD&D game system (or related systems) where the only magical healing abilities that exist come about due to divine prayer. This means that in an AD&D-based game, such as NWN, a potion of cure moderate wounds, nevermind a potion of heal or a potion of restoration, is a "prayer-in-a-bottle"(tm).

I mean, just try to wrap your mind around that problem from a theological point of view. Consider for a moment that within the AD&D system, a healing spell is essentially a deity agreeing to heal a wounded creature because their cleric prayed (as part of the invocation of the spell) for them to do it.

Now, consider the problem this presents for bottling such a prayer. Do the contents of the bottle represent that the deity has already given its healing power to the hand of the cleric in the instant that the cleric brewed the potion? Does it, rather, represent a "request in a bottle" that doesn't have restorative powers until the potion is drunk by a wounded creature and the deity either grants or does not grant healing?

Aside from that issue... what exactly is in the bottle anyway?

For systems that blur the distinction between apothecaries brewing potions and clerics imbuing them with divine power, it just gets even more confusing.

[Kuciwalker]

You're thinking too hard

[Arnelos]

Lag.

It's probably the chief cliche of online gaming - a perpetual game mechanic we could all live without. I think the first online games included it, so of course everyone else had to copy-cat it as part of the genre. It's really time that someone just did away with it... as a player, I have to say that I really don't need it.



Corollary: People who complain about lag by typing things like "//lag" in the text window as though everyone else needs to be informed of the reason why nothing is moving or everything is choppy. This staple gameplay element to most online games has definately become a tiresome cliche.

Oh wait, that includes me. Well, shoot. At least I've come up with some more colorful and hopefully entertaining ways of complaining about lag in the text box (most of them never read by anyone since being lagged out typically results in being disconnected).

[Kuciwalker]

I don't think it counts as a cliche in game desing, though

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I don't think it counts as a cliche in game desing, though

Game designers just need to do a better job of making new ways to annoy and slow down the player without relying on the same old jaded lag.

As for the other players that constantly complain about lag, designers should design newer annoyance classes of gamers that find a more varried means of annoying you. Designers have been relying on the clicheed formula of "player who complains about lag a lot" when making a lot of the other players rather than offering greater variety in the online experience.

[Jamski]

Void OnModuleEnter()
{
Object oTarget = GetEnteringObject();
If Name(oTarget) = Arnelos
{
CastSpell(oTarget, Lag, Duration:Permanant);
}
}

Heh, found that in the Folderol scripts

-Jam