Does modding ruin the fear of the game?

**palistov** · 01-08-2012, 11:24 PM

Yeah I tried playing The Dark Descent a few months ago. Was too scared. Modding definitely waters down the experience slightly because it can make it easier to break immersion, but a lot of the feelings are still potent enough. That just goes to show how well the game and story was made.

**Sel** · 01-08-2012, 11:59 PM

All playing the game does is get them used to the mechanics, you can use this as an advantage or let it hurt the quality of your work.

For instance, you can introduce more interesting and complex mechanics with less worry that players won't understand the basics. As long as you can innovate, and introduce new mechanics to the player you should have no trouble making a story that doesn't suffer from players having played the original story.

On the other hand if you're just repeating things that have already been done over and over, and not going beyond that, your story will suffer from being a mod.

**BlueFury** · 01-09-2012, 01:37 AM

Also i recommend for experienced modders to try or start working with texturing and modeling, it can totally change the atmosphere, gameplay and experience.

**flamez3** · 01-09-2012, 02:42 AM

(01-09-2012, 01:37 AM)BlueFury Wrote: Also i recommend for experienced modders to try or start working with texturing and modeling, it can totally change the atmosphere, gameplay and experience.

Off-topic but I do agree to an extent.

**GreyFox** · 01-09-2012, 02:49 AM

I Find Modding (Personally) Does Make the Horror Go Away,

For Example when you first play amnesia and you see the grunt you don't even realize what it looks like your just so scared. From me modding for the past 5 Months, I've named the Grunt "Frank" and He doesn't scare me anymore I more just toy with him in custom storys and such.

So I Personally Find Modding Makes it less scary, though there will always be those times that you still get scared. For example even though I know what the grunt looks like If a similar thing to the Part in the Morgue Where the Brute Breaks down the door, If that happened in a custom story that would still scare me just becuase how unexpected it is.

That's my Opinion

-Grey Fox

**Elven** · 01-09-2012, 02:50 AM

Imo, it certainly will bring it down, but even so, scares still scare you and you may still panic... You just don't panic that much Tongue

...

After amnesia - None of the scare games are so scary... After I started modding, (And I mean scripting, creating the scares), even the scariest games aren't as scary as they would be normally... But that only stands for pro scripters, because map making =/= making scares... You are safe there... If you make scares via scripting, you have to go through that EVERY TIME...

What is actually scary is that when every you do scare 100th time through, you start thinking, is that even scary to other players? Because for you, it is really nothing much anymore, you just have to believe that it is scary Tongue

...

**Kman** · 01-09-2012, 03:01 AM

It wasn't as much modding that ruined it for me, it was more of just repetition. You KNOW the monsters gonna spawn, he's gonna walk around, and then leave (or it's gonna appear out of nowhere and run striaght to you, then poof into dust if you're talking about more recent custom stories :/) it's no different, so eventually you just don't get scared anymore.

**strattoni** · 01-09-2012, 03:14 AM

Here is what you do:

Step One: Have your story lead up to the idea of there being a monster.

Step Two: Have the right music to make the character expect the monster.

Step Three: Have noises in the background sound like there is a monster.

Step Four: Don't use a single monster. Just make sure everything looks good enoug, the ambiance plays at all the right moments, and include a lot of dark corners. No one will see it coming.

I made a map just to test ambiance, but I can't get it to load, so I am sure it sucks.

**Elven** · 01-09-2012, 03:22 AM

+rep for that last post...

The real masterpiece is giving the fear of monster appearance, even tho it never makes appearance and make monster appear where you actually would least suspect him to appear.

I can easily say that custom story which has zero monsters can or maybe even is way more scarier then story which has many monsters... Just from that fear that monster will appear. More later the game goes, more person will fear about monster appearance, what will make game more scary, what will make player more careful and scared, what makes custom story more scary.

Edit: Oh, and developer don't have to worry about things like check-points ;P...

**flamez3** · 01-09-2012, 03:57 AM

(01-09-2012, 03:14 AM)strattoni Wrote: Here is what you do:

Step One: Have your story lead up to the idea of there being a monster.

Step Two: Have the right music to make the character expect the monster.

Step Three: Have noises in the background sound like there is a monster.

Step Four: Don't use a single monster. Just make sure everything looks good enoug, the ambiance plays at all the right moments, and include a lot of dark corners. No one will see it coming.

I made a map just to test ambiance, but I can't get it to load, so I am sure it sucks.

I agree, the suspense of a monster is sometimes scarier than the monster itself.