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to touch on the Discourse about elden ring quests being exactly like other soulslike quests (i.e., unmarked and unlabled) i think there's this whole trend of like, gamer passivity? gamers needing blaring text telling them HEY YOU CAN DO THIS or HEY THIS IS IMPORTANT to construct a model of what they can do in the game. b/c... games make these unreal worlds that are always a shoddy facsimile of reality, right? most things you can do in a game will have no meaningful effect on the game world; gamers expect the games to explicitly say so when they do something that will have a consequence, because actions having consequences is very much the exception in game worlds.
like, for example, there's a minecraft mod that adds temperature mechanics to minecraft. let me list some facts about temperature that might be relevant:
you can probably imagine how each of these things might have various impacts on how you design stuff in minecraft with regard to temperature. the temperature mod in minecraft implements about half of those. which half? there's absolutely no way to tell without the mod explicitly telling you.
this isn't really something minecraft-specific, this is about any conception of reality as represented in a digital environment. people have intuitions about how reality works, and they bring those into games. these are usually not correct, because game worlds are deeply unrealistic: physically, socially, whatever way you want to think about it.
there's a bunch of bits in final fantasy 8 where people be say things like "remember to head to the [2ND FLOOR CLASSROOM] to meet up before you head out", because it just so happen that that one room, in all the game world, is the one place with a plot trigger to advance the story, and if you forget it there will be no reminder. nobody's gonna come find you if you're late, because time doesn't pass. they're not gonna send out a PA message asking for you. to a gamer these are pretty absurd concepts: like, what, a game that's programmed to have a million fallback plotline reminders? a game that's on a time limit? gamers hate that kind of thing. but bringing in real-world intuition is like, well, if you're at a school and you're expected there at a certain time, why wouldn't the staff come find you if you're late? and the answer is, because it's a game, of course.
gamers have prior intuitions about how games work, and they bring those into other games. this is a problem because those intuitions are mostly "nothing i do really impacts anything unless the game tells me it does in a very obvious way". they expect meaningful actions to have feedback. clear, immediate feedback, generally.
this leads to the condition of 'gamer brain', where gamers get really mad if a game doesn't take every effort to make itself as explicit as possible. after all, why would you expect for actual intuition to apply to a game world? the game needs to put its cards on the table and tell you what it's doing, so you can understand the system you're engaged with. at it's core this isn't fundamentally unreasonable, but like everything is with Gamers it ends up being a total nightmare in practice b/c you get people who get incredibly mad & upset if a game ever like, doesn't hilight the way forward with bright lights and glowing arrows. much less actively lies to them about what mechanics are in play.
so idk i think people getting upset about "hey maybe you'll need to actually take notes" is wild. what do you mean you might need to bring yr human consciousness to bear on some of the problems the game presents to you.
like, for example, there's a minecraft mod that adds temperature mechanics to minecraft. let me list some facts about temperature that might be relevant:
- temperature is local and time-dependent; different places are different temperatures, and the same place can be a different temperature at different times
- humans have a range of tolerable temperatures, that they can shift slightly mostly by putting on more clothes
- weather & climate are major drivers for temperature changes
- fire is really hot
- surface temperature varies a lot; underground temperatures tends towards a lower, constant temperature that slowly rises as you go deeper
- places with lots of foliage, like forests, have a smaller day/night temperature swing than places with no foliage
- it's hotter in direct sunlight than in shade
- indoors are generally cooler than outdoors, because it takes time for heat to penetrate through the thermal mass of a building's walls
- hot air rises
- wind can funnel hot air and cool air around through semi-open structures
- being wet lets you lose heat through evaporative cooling
- water contains a lot of thermal mass and so can soak up heat or remain hot for long periods
- machinery like furnaces, engines, and computers generate heat and can be damaged by excessive heat
- HVAC systems that can control the temperature of a sealed area exist
- lava is really hot. no, like, really, really hot
you can probably imagine how each of these things might have various impacts on how you design stuff in minecraft with regard to temperature. the temperature mod in minecraft implements about half of those. which half? there's absolutely no way to tell without the mod explicitly telling you.
this isn't really something minecraft-specific, this is about any conception of reality as represented in a digital environment. people have intuitions about how reality works, and they bring those into games. these are usually not correct, because game worlds are deeply unrealistic: physically, socially, whatever way you want to think about it.
there's a bunch of bits in final fantasy 8 where people be say things like "remember to head to the [2ND FLOOR CLASSROOM] to meet up before you head out", because it just so happen that that one room, in all the game world, is the one place with a plot trigger to advance the story, and if you forget it there will be no reminder. nobody's gonna come find you if you're late, because time doesn't pass. they're not gonna send out a PA message asking for you. to a gamer these are pretty absurd concepts: like, what, a game that's programmed to have a million fallback plotline reminders? a game that's on a time limit? gamers hate that kind of thing. but bringing in real-world intuition is like, well, if you're at a school and you're expected there at a certain time, why wouldn't the staff come find you if you're late? and the answer is, because it's a game, of course.
gamers have prior intuitions about how games work, and they bring those into other games. this is a problem because those intuitions are mostly "nothing i do really impacts anything unless the game tells me it does in a very obvious way". they expect meaningful actions to have feedback. clear, immediate feedback, generally.
this leads to the condition of 'gamer brain', where gamers get really mad if a game doesn't take every effort to make itself as explicit as possible. after all, why would you expect for actual intuition to apply to a game world? the game needs to put its cards on the table and tell you what it's doing, so you can understand the system you're engaged with. at it's core this isn't fundamentally unreasonable, but like everything is with Gamers it ends up being a total nightmare in practice b/c you get people who get incredibly mad & upset if a game ever like, doesn't hilight the way forward with bright lights and glowing arrows. much less actively lies to them about what mechanics are in play.
so idk i think people getting upset about "hey maybe you'll need to actually take notes" is wild. what do you mean you might need to bring yr human consciousness to bear on some of the problems the game presents to you.
