When Gamers are Wrong

Last week, in a spat of writer’s block, I asked the moderators at MythicaHQ if they had any suggestions as to what they’d like to see me write about in this blog. Moloch came to my rescue and gave me oodles of topics to write about. Here, in the first of a series, is a post detailing when gamers are wrong.

Moloch asked:
“When gamers are wrong. Explaining (if) when and why there are times when the gaming public doesn't know what's good for them.”

This is a question that is pretty hard to answer. If I’m interpreting this correctly, this question seems to be concerning the opinions and expectations of gamers on internet forums, and whether their suggestions, if implemented, would actually be detrimental to a game, rather than beneficial.

The reason this is hard to answer is because opinions are hugely subjective, especially when they relate to entertainment products like video games.

To further complicate matters, I can’t see when either side is actually wrong. Everybody is trying to make the game better, by trying to sculpt it into a shape that seems the most fun.

However, there are times when gamers can fail to understand the implications of their suggestions.

The main error that I’ve seen in player forum posts is that the gamer fails to recognize the scope of how difficult his suggestion is to implement.

For example, many posts, usually off-handedly, assume that game developers can program in some sort of conversational ability that allows NPCs to completely understand and respond to player communication. A specific example would be to talk to a guard and con him into opening a door. With current technology, this is not a feature that could be implemented easily or well. Further, if the player could do it with one guard, they would want to be able to communicate as easily with all other NPCs, with each NPC having its own personality and resistance to being smooth-talked. Although conversational AI has come a long way since ELIZA , a world full of these things would be incredibly difficult and expensive to make, and probably would still feel very fake and pre-programmed.

Another example of misunderstanding scope is the assumption that, when one game has a certain feature, that all other game companies have the ability to instantly implement that feature in their games. For instance, a fighting game like Soul Calibur 2 has very realistic, very quick one-on-one battles between extremely detailed models. The reason these games can be as good as they are is that they basically take place in a limited space between only two combatants. To implement a Soul Calibur-level fighting ability in all the NPCs and player characters in even a moderately-sized third-person action-adventure would be extremely hard, and would definitely take away from other features, like vehicle driving, communication with and between NPCs, pathing AI and a host of other concerns. To try to implement this in a massively multiplayer world would be nearly impossible using today’s technology and internet speed.

A final example of misunderstanding scope would be when players suggest scenarios that cause an imbalance in the game’s mechanics. A lot of these suggestions have their basis in real-world physics. For instance, in the real world, it would be very hard for a fighter armed with a sword to win in a fight vs. a competent archer starting at 50 feet on a level field. Give the archer a barrier, like a tower, for protection, and he’s nearly invincible. In a fantasy game, however, you would want the fighter to have a good chance at being able to close against the archer to be able to attempt to defeat him. Otherwise, everyone would be carrying ranged weapons and no one would be carrying melee weapons (much like the real world, today.) To have realistic combat physics would defeat the game maker’s ability to create a world simulating a Dungeons and Dragons experience, or a Conan novel.


There are, of course, other examples of when player suggestions are not feasible to implement. Always remember the golden triangle: The Feature List, The Schedule and the Budget. If one of the corners grows, the other two will be affected, as well. In other words, adding to the feature list is expensive!

So, are players ever wrong in their forum suggestions? Once again, they are not wrong if the game is being built specifically for them. The error comes across when the suggestion is measured against the fact that the game has to be balanced (even if that balance doesn’t make sense compared to real life physics), has to be made with today’s technology, has to be made within a certain budget and within a certain time frame, has to be fun for the bulk of the people who play it, and has to be as profitable as it can realistically be.