Great responses, guys. I think we must have quite similar views on the topic.
Chris Kennedy wrote:
I think the enjoyment of a game's art and atmosphere is diminished by the distraction of having to manually make a map on pen and paper and navigate your world via your auto-map/manual map. If you eyes are constantly checking your status bar, status screen (which involves pausing the game), or the paper in front of you, it distracts you from the artwork.
I would perhaps say that using a cloth map or some sort of authentic-looking map that came with the game or was purchased separately would add to the experience of a game's atmosphere, but the exploration and adventure aspect would still be lost.
I agree. Indeed, perhaps automapping and autojournaling are both signs of the same problem--meaningless content. I'm probably off here, but let's go with this a minute. So, if the game world, story, quests, and so on were really well designed, we wouldn't need to automate any part of them because they would make enough impact that we would simply remember them. That makes a certain sense to me.
On the other hand, I can see another argument that the automation reveals how little such things really matter to a game. Again, I come back to Rogue. Perhaps people don't really "need" the story/quest structure and vivid gameworlds of games such as World of Warcraft as much as they think they do. If you're heavily relying on the game to track your quests (via the journal) and locations (via the maps), it probably means you're paying very little attention to the story and world. That is definitely true in my case. I don't like "at" so much as look "through," to use a bit of Richard Lanham's discussion of writing style. Perhaps omitting maps and journaling would *force* us to look AT rather than THROUGH, at least until we had memorized enough of what was going on. This would require very careful design so that we don't get lost or lose track of our objectives (or perhaps even re-thinking what it means to game in the first place.)
Great responses, guys. I think we must have quite similar views on the topic.
I think the enjoyment of a game's art and atmosphere is diminished by the distraction of having to manually make a map on pen and paper and navigate your world via your auto-map/manual map. If you eyes are constantly checking your status bar, status screen (which involves pausing the game), or the paper in front of you, it distracts you from the artwork.
I would perhaps say that using a cloth map or some sort of authentic-looking map that came with the game or was purchased separately would add to the experience of a game's atmosphere, but the exploration and adventure aspect would still be lost.
I agree. Indeed, perhaps automapping and autojournaling are both signs of the same problem--meaningless content. I'm probably off here, but let's go with this a minute. So, if the game world, story, quests, and so on were really well designed, we wouldn't need to automate any part of them because they would make enough impact that we would simply remember them. That makes a certain sense to me.
On the other hand, I can see another argument that the automation reveals how little such things really matter to a game. Again, I come back to Rogue. Perhaps people don't really "need" the story/quest structure and vivid gameworlds of games such as World of Warcraft as much as they think they do. If you're heavily relying on the game to track your quests (via the journal) and locations (via the maps), it probably means you're paying very little attention to the story and world. That is definitely true in my case. I don't like "at" so much as look "through," to use a bit of Richard Lanham's discussion of writing style. Perhaps omitting maps and journaling would *force* us to look AT rather than THROUGH, at least until we had memorized enough of what was going on. This would require very careful design so that we don't get lost or lose track of our objectives (or perhaps even re-thinking what it means to game in the first place.)
Hm. Lots to think about here.
Matt Barton, Managing Editor
Location: St. Cloud, Minnesota, USA
Email: matt@armchairarcade.com