[RANT] No Winning With Lets Players

**JetlinerX** · 06-03-2012, 04:21 AM

Hey all-

So, as we are creating our story, I had a thought...

There is no winning with the lets play community. I will be using one prime example for this rant, so here we go.

[rant]
Say we have a sewer, with a very quickly running stream heading through it. (as most sewers have). Us developers, would not want the player jumping in there, so we add a fence around the water. Then we get you lets players who decide to jump over the fence, and complain that they found a bug, and us developers were not diligent enough to prevent that.

Fine.

So next time, we put fences, and then we add block boxes on top to definitely prevent you from entering the water. So, lets players get their hands on it, and what do we get this time?

"Oh great, invisible walls"

Well, kind lets player, either you are smart enough to not try to jump over a fence, that is put there for an obvious reason. Or you understand that we have restricted the areas for a reason. I would prefer you wise up so you dont try to jump the fences, because block boxes tend to pull away from immersion.

[/rant]

Thanks for reading!

**Adny** · 06-03-2012, 04:30 AM

One thing I take extreme care to do is what I have dubbed "idiot proofing" my maps (no offense to LPers though). It's basically doing the most illogical things, such as intentionally trying to cause bugs or look in the most ridiculous of places for clipping textures.

Ideally, in your case you'd create a logical reason as to why the player couldn't jump over the fence (although it's hard to visualize what you mean through your description), you could add spikes at the top (and a collide callback to cause damage) or add wooden boards from "static objects/debris" in addition to the block box.

I think that as modders, because we know how everything works, we can sometimes over complicate things when there are simple solutions.

TL;DR: its the modder's fault, not the player.

**JetlinerX** · 06-03-2012, 04:35 AM

Spikes and boards aren't exactly going to appeal to every setting though. When you go to the Grand Canyon (if you live in the US, if not, think of a better example) do you try to jump over the fence? Or do you realize that you shouldn't?

To me, it just seems like these types of LPers are trying to find ways to break immersion for the sake of humor. Some of them need to realize, their fear, is humorous to their audience.

I humbly dis-agree, I feel its the players fault for trying things they wouldn't just because there are no consequences in virtual reality.

**Traggey** · 06-03-2012, 07:58 AM

I'm with Andy on this one, it's all about creative level design. Floating block boxes that make no sense is a terrible terrible thing. How could you possibly blame the player? That's silly sir.

I you use blockboxes, you must create a logical reason to as why the player can't pass there, if it looks like you can jump over the fence people will try to do it, and if there's an illogicaly placed invisible wall it's going to bugg'em. I know it certainly gets on my nerves, so all in all, it's a question about good level design.

**Bridge** · 06-03-2012, 12:01 PM

Yeah, it is an invisible wall even though you can see it. You need to have some in-game reason for it to be there. Why are fences (especially with barbed wire on top) put up? To keep people out for security and/or safety reasons. In a horror game (at least in Amnesia) the security element can safely be discarded so the only real thing that remains is safety. If it was really dangerous, would your character go there unless he knew what he was doing? If you can come up with creative situations, you won't even need to put up a fence, just have some sort of death trap preventing the player from proceeding.

**spukrian** · 06-03-2012, 09:56 PM

Bridge is right, just make it so that the player drowns when jumping into the water, that'll teach them.

**JetlinerX** · 06-04-2012, 05:39 PM

We did that in Chapter 2, and got complaints as well. One in specific said:

"why are you letting players jump into water if they just going to die when they do! Please add blocking boxes or something so that we dont ruin our progress like that."

Hence why I am getting so annoyed.

**Bridge** · 06-04-2012, 05:52 PM

(06-04-2012, 05:39 PM)JetlinerX Wrote: We did that in Chapter 2, and got complaints as well. One in specific said:

"why are you letting players jump into water if they just going to die when they do! Please add blocking boxes or something so that we dont ruin our progress like that."

Hence why I am getting so annoyed.

That's annoying. Maybe come up with some back story that explains why the protagonist has super drowning skills, or just have an actual wall there. I'm not sure what you should do, you have yourself a bit of a conundrum there.

**Traggey** · 06-04-2012, 06:09 PM

Jump into water, fade to black, play crawling back up sound, fade player back onto the edge. YAY

**Acies** · 06-04-2012, 06:09 PM

Ultimately you can't satisfy 100% of the player base, it's nothing to get upset about. Put some thought into it, then take the decision which you find best.

Alternatively you could program the player using the experiment "pavlov's dogs" and ring a bell each time they enter an area they shouldn't be. My spider-sense is tingling.