kobayashi-maru
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The Road to Mordor: Anatomy of a failed quest
After last week's column on the 10 most memorable quests in Lord of the Rings Online, I had a couple of people ask for the polar opposite: the 10 worst quests. While I know that there are many -- stupid Sara Oakheart escort! -- they don't stick in my mind the way the best ones do. However, I think it's worthwhile to examine one such quest to see how game design can fail the player in small but meaningful ways. The quest in question? Rise of Isengard's Taking a Stand, which, coincidentally, was the only quest I've done this past week, and not because I was super-busy but because every time I'd log in I'd hit my head against it, try it a half-dozen times, and then give up out of frustration. Rinse and repeat. Since it was part of a chain and I am trying to do all the quests in RoI, skipping it wasn't a possibility. It had to be done, and it stood between me and the remainder of the content like a bully that's four times my size and has no compunction against shoving me to the ground. So what was it about Taking a Stand that failed me so badly? And what could Turbine learn from this quest for future reference? Hit the jump as I break it down, piece by stupid piece.
Gaming's Kobayashi Maru and how to enjoy it
Loss and set-back are part of dramatic storytelling. Gamasutra has a piece exploring how gamers can experience these concepts without feeling like they've done something wrong. Obvious examples of confusion caused by games trying to be dramatic with loss are any early boss fight you are expected to lose in Final Fantasy (although that's become cliché), the last scene in Shadow of the Colossus, the case file appointment system in Dead Rising, or any other time you were two seconds away from hitting the reset button because you didn't realize you were supposed to lose.The article brushes over numerous concepts which can be summed up most easily to any geek as: How do you make gamers experience a Kobayashi Maru scenario and enjoy it? The article says what needs to happen is "the creation of a language of game drama ... a set of established conventions that will allow the player to read a setback as good storytelling, and not a slip-up on their part. A grammar of subtle cues to create the distinction." The language will take a while to develop, the first part being to wean gamers off constant positive reinforcement, then introducing setbacks, "thus opening the door to more nuanced and authentic dramatic experience." How will gamers know that we've reached this place described in the article? It looks like the answer is when gamers enjoy the loss and don't go reaching for the reset button or accessing their last save file.
