A note on sandbox games and playerdriven stories.

[Tekei]

Games, or at least sandbox games have a way of putting players in difficult, uncomfortable and sometimes frustrating situations. I'm not talking about bugs here, just situations where the game decides to do things that aren't in your favour.
When you're digging and happen to find lava on the other side of a block, when you can't find your way back out of a particularly large cave or when you realize after a long walk that you forgot to bring a compass and don't know in which direction your base is. These kinds of situations, and the threat of them ever happening again, is often what give games like Minecraft their suspense. It's what keeps these kinds of games interesting for far longer than they "should be" and it is also one of the reasons I love certain Lets Plays and hearing stories from other players. In short, these situations provide us with the events that shape our worlds and characters. They're the interesting parts of our own stories within the game.

I doubt I'm alone viewing games in this manner but I've on multiple locations met people that are acting quite to the contrary. People install minimaps to not get lost or to avoid getting ambushed by mobs. People use TMI to replace lost items, or simply because they "cba" to stray further in search of a particular resource they're lacking, yet I fully enjoy those moments as part of gameplay. Without them my base would feel a lot less like the achievement I think it is and maybe I too would be infected by this new-world-syndrome that I keep hearing about. Don't get me wrong. I hate dieing and loosing even the tiniest bit of exp but those events, and the overhanging shadow that is the threat of them repeating themselves keeps the game so much more interesting. Ofcourse I'm not here to tell people how to play their games but rather to get my view of the subject out there. I think what I'm trying to say is that I truly believe that many players are doing themselves a disservice in the end by trying to avoid something that might seem like just an annoying mechanic, but actually is part of what gives Minecraft it's spirit.

That's it from me for now :)
(This thread was written on my phone so please forgive any spelling mistakes I've made)

[Ulfengaard]

In that very spirit, one of Bethesda's big tips in Daggerfall was NOT to reload a save every time something bad happens. Mistakes, blunders, plain bad luck: it's part of shaping the game experience, and it's practically the only way emergent play ever happens. Human beings get their most creative when the chips are down and the vat of shit hits a jet engine.

The more difficult achievements are to attain, the more intrinsic value they have to the player... unless they're four or something.

[warmist]

I totally agree with this kind of emergent play. Being a long-time dwarf fortress player what i miss is regional difficulty. That is choosing a place where it would be difficult to survive. I guess Big biomes would give that to some extent. Either way rebuilding due to random creepers, forgetting that swimming in lava with SFS armor is bad idea, putting out fires on gearboxes and etc is a bit annoying but having dealt with those situations you get way bigger mental reward.
That is also the reason why i stopped playing all other mods: they give you ultra-safe sandbox. That in short term could be cool (e.g. i am the god of this world, destroying everything i see, then recreating in my ideals) but quickly stops being interesting.

[Extreme Boyheat]

If a game is not player-driven it is not a game.

It is an asset tour.

This does not preclude any conceivable genre, or necessitate that all games be simulations or RPGs or grand strategy games.

It does, however, necessitate that player agency is the central tenet of the design in all cases.

This is not a trivial issue, but people think it is because people don't actually understand these terms.

Chess is still a vastly systemically superior game to most , because it doesn't bog itself down with Narrative or Unfolding Gameplay or The Potential Of Gameplay .

It is a heavily abstracted, highly elegant war simulation.

It has a defined ruleset, a defined play-space, and defined mechanisms of interactivity, and all of these, in chess's case, are actually quite simple.

But the gameplay that emerges from them is exceedingly complex and has challenged and entertained people for literally centuries.

That is good games design.

Boy, I got a bit carried away here... :(

[Tekei]

I was talking about playerdriven narratives, not playerdriven games and Chess is far from simulation but that is a whole other discussion. While we are in the Off-Topic section I would like to ask people to at least try to stick to the topic. :)

[Extreme Boyheat]

By throwing the narrative and ludic elements of the work into opposition, the game seems to openly mock the player for having believed in the fiction of the game at all.
The leveraging of the game’s narrative structure against its ludic structure all but destroys the player’s ability to feel connected to either, forcing the player to either abandon the game in protest or simply accept that the game cannot be enjoyed as both a game and a story, and to then finish it for the mere sake of finishing it.

[Extreme Boyheat]

Agh, I've lost myself at your second paragraph and my mind just went to Ludonarrative Dissonance mode.
Don't mind me.

[nmarshall23]

Games, or at least sandbox games have a way of putting players in difficult, uncomfortable and sometimes frustrating situations. I'm not talking about bugs here, just ( unexpected ) situations where ( the player has to react to a permanent change of circumstance. )

I've kinda clarified your thought there. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

To answer your question why do people mitigate those unexpected situations?
They are playing a game, and they have limited time, and sometimes something happens that spoils the fun.

So why not change the rules of the game? These are Solo-games after all.

For example, I play with a mod that changes creepers, so that they don't blow up.
I find that feature, that a Mob will unexpectedly blow up your work, not to be fun.
I'm not completely happy with this solution, but for now, it works.

I guess one of the best things about Minecraft is that it's modable. you can change your game. And that means making it easier. Or removing feature that spoils your fun.

[Tekei]

I guess that is where we disagree. My point in the OP is that while it might seem like creepers only exist to "spoil your fun" they actually serve a much higher purpose in putting the player in situations that help building exciting, unscripted stories.

Once, when I was out cutting wood, I was surprised by a creeper that sent me flying into a small hole that lead to a cave. Wearing only a battered suit of iron armor, a few logs, a sword and an axe along with about 20 torches it took me hours to find my way out. That was certainly a very memorable experience, and wouöd never have happened if I played on peaceful, or with a minimap that shows mobs, or if I modded creepers to not blow up.

People are ofc entitled to do whatever the hell they want in their single player worlds but I am hoping to inspire people to at least think twice about the mods they install.

[Gareleus]

Whenever I play any game (even BF3) I always have a degree of RP in it, like pretending to be a heroic soldier reviving someone or simply "hurrying up and waiting". Every aspect I do I try to connect to a degree of realism. Yes I probably feel this way and do this because I have thought about joining the service as more of an eventuality then a choice. When I first played Minecraft I spawned on a beach, and like every other RP'er out there I pretended to be a survivor of a ____wreck. When we no longer spawned on the ocean I became some lost explorer who now had to start his own Civ. I don't think I could play a game and not RP at all. So when a game like minecraft throws me the challenges my mind just simply says this is part of the story. Its these kinds of events (creeper attacks, etc) that make my RP'ing much more enjoyable and eventful. Without attacks that could actually scare and affect me It would become like every other uneventful game. Monotonous and unplayable beyond an hour. This is one of the reasons I stopped playing WoW, the game just became grinding and by lvl. 50ish I could not RP anything to make it fun. This is also why anarchy servers would appeal to me. It is the ultimate RP. As close to real life as possible with no rules except the ones we enforce on ourselves. For me every game is an RP game, ad I believe almost all games are dependent upon a story, and playerdriven story is the best story because it is an endless book.

[Ulfengaard]

When a game becomes boring, chances are you aren't being challenged or asked to think... at all. Granted that can happen to any game, over the long haul. But, I've encountered too many one-week lifespan games in recent years: they're simply not fulfilling because nothing was sacrificed and/or no serious effort was required.

[DocHussey]

A game should be challenging, on this I agree with you. However, and this might sound like whining, but IDC; I missed a jump across a canyon by my home that I never bothered to bridge over. Down into the water I went, right next to a creeper. Boom, there I died, whatever. Just jump down and get it back, right? Nope! Another creeper, backed up by a skeleton. Fine, toss it, whatever, I'll start again. Just gotta go out my door and through the fence- TWANG! Suddenly skeletons, many many! Dead. Again. Fine. Wait till morning, should have done that in the first place. Sun-up, off to the mine. Down the ladd-BOOM! FINE! F THIS PLACE! NEW WORLD!
Sometimes, you can get really frustrated and decide new slate is best slate. Oh, and if Minecraft didn't have BTW, I'd have gotten sick of it well over a year ago. It adds a story to the game that is not really player driven, more like player created. I narrate my world (which drives my fiancee nuts) and make my own story. The end is only what I make it to be. There aren't many games that give you this kind of freedom, which is why people are attracted to Minecraft. Minecraft 2:BTW (r) makes it harder than the original, but keeps it entertaining and fun.

[Ulfengaard]

I suppose you're right in a sense. I can see how that sort of situation could be very frustrating. Then again, I guess it depends on personality. When things get that ridiculous, I usually start laughing. Sometimes I will take a coffee break or do something productive since I figure the videogaming gods are trying to tell me to go away. Then, I come back to it later or the next day, refreshed.

[DocHussey]

Yeah, I tend to start laughing uncontrollably and commence a massive killing spree. Sometimes however, in this specific case, I had a crap day at work, come home to play some BTW, and this was the last straw. However, I learned alot, and decided to build bigger and better. Windmill farm out in the Desert transmitting power to the neighboring Extreme Hills, all connected by a suspension bridge. Looked freaking awesome. But that's the whole point, isn't it? Starting anew might just be part of your story. You learn, you adapt, you begin anew with that knowledge, you become Alpha.

[Ulfengaard]

True, and I can see how that experience which was supposed to be relaxing and ended up aggravating... well, I can see how that might be disappointing.

[Tekei]

[Evil Creepers]

While what you described is far from a pleasant story it did give you a story to tell. Had you modded your creepers to not explode or in any other way gotten rid of "the annoyance" it wouldnt have been a story at all. You wouldve learned nothing and gained nothing, thats my point.
Its a shame that you felt you had to restart rather than grab your things and move elsewhere but it doesnt matter much. Ive started a few worlds myself and sometimes it does feel better to start out fresh.

On a completely different note: I expected a lot more people to disagree with me, but this is a happy surprise :)

[Ulfengaard]

You may have picked the wrong forum if you were looking for disagreement. Take it to MCF, and you'll get plenty of ehiners to debate with. :D

[DocHussey]

Quoting me and suchforth

I tend to want to start anew when FC releases a new awesome feature, I don't have the patience sometimes to tear and rebuild just to implement that feature, like the tipping cauldron and the awesomness that is the Infernal Enchanter. That and the new world gen stuff. I'm holding off even playing MC til our Eldritch Lord sees fit to bestow his blessings upon us for 1.3.Evil