Re: It's Hard To Blame Them...

On 30/10/2024 20:39, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Wed, 30 Oct 2024 09:42:17 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
 

On 29/10/2024 16:07, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

That's one of the things that started putting me off. I felt the balance
been a cinematic experience and a game one was lost.

>
The original "Call of Duty" was very cinematic too; it was in fact one
of the major complaints about the game. You don't really have much
option of where to go and what to do; it's a corridor-shooter through
and through (even if the 'corridors' are cleverly disguised as outdoor
locations).

>
I thought it got a better balance between the two and also although it
is a corridor shooter it still felt like there was flexibility in what
you could do and less scripted.

 Oh, it was definitely the superior game in the franchise. It certainly
was less scripted than later games too, if only because its arenas
were slightly more open. But any freedom was definitely an illusion.
This wasn't necessarily a bad thing; by restricting the player and
guiding the action, the developers controlled the pacing of the
action. You'd get moments of extreme action followed by brief lulls;
the combination made the former all the more exciting.
 (One of my problems with the later games was that it was all-action,
all the time. Lacking any moments of quiet, the constant action
started to get quite monotonous).
 But what the original Call of Duty did well is hide how well it guided
you forward, to the point you barely noticed that you were going
exactly where the developers intended.
 

I feel that corridor shooters are somewhat unfairly maligned compared to open world games. In the latter you obviously do get more freedom in the order of which you do things but also how much of it is, oh you want to do that quest well just head towards the quest marker and once there it's a set path to follow and just to make sure we'll give you more sub-quest markers as you progress so you don't get lost.
Is it really that much different being explicitly told where to go compared to the level being designed to 'guide' you?
Something I remember from World of Tanks was the change in emphasis from more open maps to those that could effectively be considered not only corridors but also designed to suit certain classes of tanks. There was lots of complaints and WG effectively said our players prefer more corridor style maps so they don't get confused as to what they are supposed to be doing. Another way of looking at it is it's all very well having more open maps but you still end up with 75% of it being a death trap.