Liberal Arts Major
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~ Ogordemir ~
Buddha promised me Nirvana and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.
"Democracy is the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people." ~ Oscar Wilde
Editor
I was thinking to myself, "You know what poll I should make on TFN?"
And I came up with pretty much this exact same poll.
Anyway, for me, it depends entirely on the genre. I'm not going to start playing a 2D platformer and expect an engaging story, for example. In fact, I'd rather not have an engaging story getting the way of my platforming goodness. "Save the princess"? Sure, I can do that. Anything much more than that and I lose interest immediately.
For RPGs, SRPGs, text adventures, graphic novels, and generally text heavy games as a whole, the writing must be excellent. This cannot be confused with the story being excellent, though. The writing in Pokemon games, for example, is generally very, very good, while the story is quite simple. Contact is an example of a game that did nothing right except the writing, and thus I loved it.
Of course, in theory, poor writing can be forgiven if the story is good enough to balance it out, but I've yet to see a game where this happens. Most games with poor writing have an equally poor story.
This, of course, is assuming that the battle system, if one exists, is rather lacking. When the battle system is quite entertaining - see FFT - subpar writing and an awful story can be somewhat forgiven. Though it's better to have all three: writing, story, and gameplay (see Fire Emblem 7).
Atmosphere contributes but generally is not a deal breaker. There are, of course, exceptions. Pokemon Snap's actual gameplay was lackluster, but it was an amazing experience because for the first time we could see Pokemon in 3D. We could interact with them outside of battle! And not just Pikachu or what have you, there were like 60 different Pokemon! In this case, atmosphere does help, but such games are quite rare.
Theme is another tricky matter that I don't particularly want to get into, but let me just say that it isn't enough to save a game (Wind Waker had an amazing theme that honestly didn't help it much). Theme can mean the difference between a good game and a great game, but at that point it's generally up to personal opinion. Even more so than these issues usually are. As an example, both Castlevania and Metroid put out games that are stellar, but I have a tendency to buy a new Castlevania immediately, while I may not pick up a new Metroid at all. Why? Theme - Castlevania's is so far superior to Metroid's (in my mind) that it's hardly a contest.
Beyond that, we get into dangerous waters. Multiplayer, for example, can make or break the game depending on whether you have people to actually play against. Graphics and sound? Some people swear by them. I generally view advanced graphics in a neutral, possibly even negative light, and for music, there are only handful of tracks I can even remember, much less can say I actually care for.
Controls are generally not worth talking about except in the most extreme circumstances. Regardless, I'm not going to get into it.
...Then, there are of course, the outliers. Games whose appeal could not be replicated due to a special situation. Summoner's Seal is one such game, where I can honestly say I would not have played it had I not been around for the alpha, beta, and gamma tests, and had I not been able to offer actual input. 9:05 is another such game, a game that can only be done once, because after playing 9:05, you'll see any attempts to mimic it coming, and that ruins part of the experience. Most games based on other media fall under this rule as well, where you overlook faults in gameplay (or story, or what have you) because it appeals to something else. The Simpsons: Road Rage is a game like this, where it is simply a watered down Crazy Taxi clone with a Simpsons paintjob. It suffers from some major gameplay flaws, but I enjoyed it, because... I mean, it's Homer and Bart starting a taxi service to run Mr. Burns' new mass transit company out of business. What's not to love? Pokemon Diamond (the Telefang hack, not the official one) is a game that should only be played to laugh at the dialogue of, and cannot be copied because it is unintentionally hilarious. Any attempts to copy it would be intentional, and thus not nearly as funny.
So yeah, to summarize: Depends entirely on the genre, and often on the individual game.
Oh, and I'm not spell- or grammar-checking any of that, so I expect there to be a few errors. <_<
(IBtl;dr)
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"Allow ME to interject: TFN does not die immediately because you get banned. Your banning would unleash a disease that would slowly eat TFN from the inside until your reinstatement or the site's eventual, decidedly painful death." ~Ogor, to me
Liberal Arts Major
And I came up with pretty much this exact same poll.
Great minds! They think alike!
The writing in Pokemon games, for example, is generally very, very good, while the story is quite simple.
I was under the impression that the main draw with the Pokemon games was the Pokemon themselves, and the very simplistic (yet still somehow entertaining) combat design. Although I may have just gotten this impression because I personally haven't paid any attention to the storyline since the GSC generation, and I tend to view running around looking for the next gym so I can earn the next horrible HM and teach it to my generic whore Pokemon as a pain more than anything else.
The writing in Pokemon is good, I think, but for me it's not good enough to avoid being obscured by the infinite monotony of the story.
Most games with poor writing have an equally poor story.
This is namely because people who write poorly don't tend to have the imagination to cobble together a good story, either - and anyway, the poor quality of the writing reflects poorly on the story.
Fire Emblem 7
And Golden Sun, sort of.
Atmosphere contributes but generally is not a deal breaker. There are, of course, exceptions. Pokemon Snap's actual gameplay was lackluster, but it was an amazing experience because for the first time we could see Pokemon in 3D. We could interact with them outside of battle! And not just Pikachu or what have you, there were like 60 different Pokemon! In this case, atmosphere does help, but such games are quite rare.
These situations are created when there's some sort of incredible technical innovation to be found in the game.
Golden Sun, as I stated above, was a very, very pretty game, and it had a relatively good theoretical basis for its combat system - but the story was exceedingly long and troublesome, and each of the many, many classes you could assemble was too underpowered to match the Djinni, so for the most part all you did when you had nothing to unleash or set was heal. Yet, everyone loved Golden Sun, because it had t3h gr4fiks and an innovative concept. (Also good writing.)
Pokemon Snap was neat-o because it brought the rhythm of the already popular Pokemon concept to a more easygoing tempo (no need to IV train your camera!) and it was visually appealing.
Multiplayer, for example, can make or break the game depending on whether you have people to actually play against.
So true. This is an even greater problem for traditional role-playing games and card games, where nobody to play with means you can't really even play at all. Hence, good games like the Call of Cthulhu CCG die just as quickly as bad games, like that Harry Potter TCG travesty.
... and for music, there are only handful of tracks I can even remember, much less can say I actually care for.
I've never seen the attraction of fixed music in games, websites, or anything, really. I much prefer playing my own music, if I need it.
9:05 is another such game, a game that can only be done once, because after playing 9:05, you'll see any attempts to mimic it coming, and that ruins part of the experience.
I have exactly 0 idea what this is.
Most games based on other media fall under this rule as well, where you overlook faults in gameplay (or story, or what have you) because it appeals to something else. The Simpsons: Road Rage is a game like this, where it is simply a watered down Crazy Taxi clone with a Simpsons paintjob. It suffers from some major gameplay flaws, but I enjoyed it, because... I mean, it's Homer and Bart starting a taxi service to run Mr. Burns' new mass transit company out of business.
I usually don't enjoy games based on television, movies, and so on if they rely on that concept heavily and have nothing interesting to offer otherwise. For instance, I'm a big fan of the now-defunct Lord of the Rings TCG, because it offers an entertaining combination of Nazgul and rules which make Nazgul not suck - and boy do I like those Nazgul. I also have a soft spot for a GB (or GBA) game based off The Grinch - it's a simple, entertaining time-waster.
Pokemon Diamond (the Telefang hack, not the official one) is a game that should only be played to laugh at the dialogue of, and cannot be copied because it is unintentionally hilarious.
The Diamond hack is a game that provides hours of laughter for everyone, for all sorts of reasons. It's like Zero Wing, only less iconic.
Summoner's Seal is one such game, where I can honestly say I would not have played it had I not been around for the alpha, beta, and gamma tests, and had I not been able to offer actual input.
I saved this one for last because I think it's important.
SS doesn't really have anything special going for it currently outside of the fact that it's, as far as I know, one-of-a-kind browser game genre; it's just a generic, turn-based game, with very little content, a ridiculously tiny player base, and only a few fragments of a story. It's a game I personally would not play. The driving force of the game is the fact that anyone can contribute to it (like Legend of the Five Rings, except less Japanese); and it looks as though that will be its driving force for the entirety of the foreseeable future.
My desire to tend to this particular trait of the game has caused me to implement features before they could be adequately developed (case in point: PvP) and to add content before the already-existing features could really handle it (e.g., certain spells, special classes, the entire Quest system). These decisions resulted in a slight increase in activity and interest in the game, but I did not (and will not ever) have enough time to both add content AND features to the game, so development slowed to a near halt, and now I also have to spend most of my update writing time making older systems not suck so they can be expanded.
What I should have done from the start was put the Quest system and PvP on hold and focus mainly on more necessary features. This would have been a far better plan economically - TFN isn't profitable until I sign on to some generic advertising service, such as GoogleAds, and I won't do that until I turn 18 in October, so I have plenty of time to implement features now (which generates little to no traffic/interest) and content when visitors actually matter somewhat. Features also take more time to plan, debug, and revise than they take to actually write, so updates are way farther apart (and optimizing the features that already exist takes a good chunk of time as well) than they would be if content were the only thing being added - even more reason to get that out of the way now.
So, if you've been disappointed at the drop in the rate of content and the horrible lack of frequency in the updates as of late, that's essentially the rationale.
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~ Ogordemir ~
Buddha promised me Nirvana and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.
"Democracy is the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people." ~ Oscar Wilde
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