[ SECRET POST #5096 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5096 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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03.
[The Great British Bake Off, series 11]


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04.
[Story of Yanxi Palace]


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06. [SPOILERS for Once Upon a Time]






















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #729.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

What the hell, why is there so much gatekeeping itt.

What looks like anon said + I agreed: Modern RPGs designers often try hard to give an aspect of non-linearity and multiple choices to their games but I'd rather have a more linear RPG with great story and heart over an open world with a hundred forced quests without a good point story-wise.

What people assume anon said: non-linear games absolutely suck!! 100% In the trash it goes!! Ur mom sucks!!!

Calm tfd, nonnies.

BTW, I am the person whose comment starts with FFVII over modern RPGs any day. I also happen to be an indie game dev and have actually studied game design for a few years. I am not just spewing some random opinion here. I do agree with OP.

To me, it does seem like nowadays many devs seem to think that quality = immersion = obsession, and that it can be measured numerically by the number of hours people spend on their games but ... I will disagree. I think the point of a game should be being fun and that = Quality.

Well, I AM old. Back in my days cartidges could only have so much data. We had to fill in the blanks with our imaginations. The wet dream was to have ANY unexpected, inventive game mechanic. On above comment Chrono Trigger was the wet dream in many ways - the Fair with minigames? Square outdid themselves!

Back then, RPGs were still interactive despite having linear plots. In early Final Fantasy games you could still choose between grinding hard and beating a boss with a team of powerful mages in a sec, or just struggle your way with a more diverse team. Even back then, with a very linear mechanic, an RPG was still a ROLE PLAYING game. Being linear never made it less of an RPG. It was just not well a modern RPG which seems to be exactly what OP is talking about. It was more linear but not less fun, interactive or playable. This is the point I feel most comments here seem to be missing entirely. Most people here do sound like their first RPG was The Elder Scrolls, Witcher or Dragon Age. Which is fine but there are others. And don't forget that, no matter what you are making yourself believe, old RPG are RPGs too. So are JRPGs

When games began to allow for more playability, that was great. I remember being SUPER excited about stuff like raising chaos in Sonic Adventure (DC), only because that was so unexpected and made what could have been a linear 3D platform game a lot more exploitable.

However, since then, videogame systems have become that much more complex in a short timespan. And well humans kinda work like this in many ways: we want complex up until a certain point, where it becomes hard to proccess and suddenly it's not cool anymore.

So I can tell some game designers of nowadays struggle with complexity of design / non-linearity. There is a story they want to present and there are SO MANY ways to present it in modern systems, that designers' jobs are also more complex than ever. And it does seem to me like sometimes they feel so pressed to create something NON LINEAR (because some gamer dudebros decided that games with more linear plots are simply Bad, which is particularly funny bc the same fuckers are into some Very linear VN/Adventure shit...) and ""immersive"" (like, say: cocaine ??) that they spend a lot of time and energy reinventing the wheel. (I AM looking at people creaming themselves over Cyberpunk 2077, which brings absolutely NOTHING new to the table but japonisme lol.) Some mechanics are not inventive and we still treat it like it's the best thing since sliced bread bc at least it is better than having a bunch of random quests and goals so players can fetch infinite achievement trophies like a dog! (and I wanna say "for unemployed dudebros who are willing to spend 600 hours in a single RPG for achievement's sake only" but I will digress!)

To me, I get REALLY annoyed when I am expected to do a lot of side stuffs for little "reward" - ie. in-game mechanic changes in the long run - because designers felt they had to throw it in so the game would present itself as less linear. Or when the story presents multiple options, branches and quests but ultimately the end result is less what you want and more what the designer wants. Which often happens in modern RPGs where everything is so clearly defined it doesn't leave much space for creativity: You can't imagine a cutscene if you're seeing it in 4K. I hope game designers aren't afraid of linear paths or open endings if they feel it is due, because I like it. Give me a good story + fun gameplay and I'll eat up that linear plot. "It's not using all of the system's potential!" yeah fuk u too.

It also feels like small designers have no place in the industry anymore and bigger ones are afraid of getting adventurous or inventive as they were in the past tbh. Which is probably why I am more into indie games nowadays. My PS4 is dusty rn. It all comes to personal taste though. I wanna say some of Cyberpunk 2077's mechanics are Very tasteless, like "so... We reached this stage of hardware capacity and game development studies so we could be a delinquent...?" but well, GTA and Bully were also popular back then. Nothing new under the sun, and s* burns.

Clearly mad here, sick and depressed, also struggling to English today but anyway, sorry if anything wasn't clear.