Someday, a hand shall reach down and bear the lost knowledge that perception really is reality. What I see (the King’s I, which is really you), is what I believe, and what I’ll tell, and shout from the rooftops; how something is presented is more important than how it actually works. And, really, how I see things is more important than how you see them, since, as the consumer, you really rely on me for your filet mignon. Or Easy-Mac.
So, when Killed in a Smiling Accident talks about what is massive and the first thing that comes to mind is what is not massive, perhaps it’s time to elaborate. Cryptic Studios isn’t massive. Everything they’ve done is compartmentalized tom-foolery, an Xbox Live experience, dolled up with the plea of “look at the bigger picture” with the promise of adding another title to our growing repertoire of unfinished day one MMOs.
Let me paint a clearer picture. Just because your MMO has X thousand subscribers, my MMO has a solid hundred. Your game might
be large but mine is small. And, frankly, who’s the one paying for their copy here? I think the deal is pretty raw, to be honest. I mean, I’m getting the same shifting sea of 10 faces I’ll get in any game but, in yours, I’m only getting those 10 faces. Doesn’t seem very massive, compared to Darkfall’s several hundred at once.
You see, the truth is, we make our impressions early. Just because Warhammer claimed to have a robust crafting system, my perception said it shallow, tacked on, and poorly integrated. So, the truth isn’t in the marketing line. I say it sucks, so from then on, my truth is that crafting isn’t worth the time. In WoW, they say I can live in a virtual world, except I run into carbon copies of myself almost daily, which really makes me think that the Grand Creator must need some new options.
See, I’m not sure if it’s wrong to ask for less transparency in making games but I think that’s exactly what the problem is. Veil some of these limitations and I might just think your game is cool before being slammed in the face with why it sucks before I even play.
I want to believe that “the only limitations are my own.” That would be pretty damn cool. I want to feel like I can conquer the world. Hell, I even want to feel like my game was made for the PC and not the Xbox.
When we can come to a point where games are developed with the idea of making the player believe instead of research, instance might just fade into the periphery.
1 ping