IPLY Meeting today!

I don't think a whole lot more needs to be said about this stuff, but I did change the prison from being a tutorial level. I loathe forced tutorials at the beginning of games, especially if the designers are trying to create an atmosphere of tension or alarm. Nothing breaks "being there" like fumbling around and trying to figure out controls or, worse, having the game stop and hold your hand as you try to deal with an imminent threat.

Instead, our demo levels were intended to become the tutorial levels. You could access them at any time from the front menu and play through them with pre-made characters. The narration in the demo was supposed to be the persona of an announcer who is narrating a pre-war survival flim called "Getting to Your Vault!"

I know some people hate those tutorials even more than the "integrated" tutorials. However, given general reactions to the Temple of Trials in F2, I thought I should go in the other direction.
 
I know some people hate those tutorials even more than the "integrated" tutorials. However, given general reactions to the Temple of Trials in F2, I thought I should go in the other direction.
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Yep, good point.

Damn Pope, indeed damn...
 
J.E. Sawyer said:
I know some people hate those tutorials even more than the "integrated" tutorials. However, given general reactions to the Temple of Trials in F2, I thought I should go in the other direction.
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The Temple of Trails wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't horribly out of place, kind of screwed certain character types, and so on. It was basically a tutorial that really didn't fit the setting of the game or even the setting of the town in which it was located. Hell, there's even been jokes made about the Vault Dweller burning out the fusion power unit in his PA carving the thing in to the side of the mountain.

But it also didn't fit the game. If you wanted to be a low strength sniper, focusing on luck and perception, those ants and things would rip you apart. Likewise, if you focus on INT and CHR for a high speech/high doctor/science type, those ants and scorps would get you. You can't just run passed all of them because of the bomb setting bit.

So, that's one reason why I hate the Temple of Trials. It's out of place and not even a good tutorial. Okay, two reasons.
 
Ultimately, I think tutorials are for people who really need to be walked through how the game works in baby steps. Even though the game we were making had some different interfaces, skill sets, etc., I never had any doubt that a Fallout or Fallout 2 veteran would be able to pick it up and either know or quickly intuit what everything was and how it worked. Don't make those people go through a tutorial; it will simply piss them off.
 
I have to agree with you there.

And frankly, if someone buys a game and they don't plan on learning how to play it, then they're pretty dim. Most interfaces are straightforward, have help elements moreso now, and if they do have a demo available, the person should have tried it before they got the game. In fact, that was pretty much one purpose of demos in the past.

Making someone go through one part that is tooled for one kind of character is...ugh.

If anything, they should be done like in System Shock 2, with the holospace there.
 
Well, at least it wouldn't have had one of my big pet peeves, tutorials that try to blend with the story and end up breaking any immersion you're trying to work towards.. You know what I mean.

OH NO! The orcs are attacking the village! They're battering down the gates and laying siege to our towers! Here, let me show you how to adust your camera using your mouse.

Man, I hate that.
 
Saint_Proverbius said:
Man, I hate that.
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Still not as good as the torture bit in the first Metal Gear Solid.

"Tap square to gain energy points. If you run out of energy points, you lose"

OOH, SCARY SUPER-VILLAIN TELLS ME TO TAP "SQUARE"!!!

PS: Rosh ánd SP agreeing with J.E. Sawyer is a sign of the apocalypse, right?
 
Kharn said:
Still not as good as the torture bit in the first Metal Gear Solid.

"Tap square to gain energy points. If you run out of energy points, you lose"

OOH, SCARY SUPER-VILLAIN TELLS ME TO TAP "SQUARE"!!!
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:rofl:

That game still rocks, though.
 
Kharn said:
PS: Rosh ánd SP agreeing with J.E. Sawyer is a sign of the apocalypse, right?
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We've successfully rescued him from Interplay's version of The Matrix. They imprison people under guise of employment, sucking out their intelligence as they live a dream of working in game development.

Unfortunately, since the people in charge are the mental equivalent of bread mold, the parallel ends here.
 
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