Fantasy Wasteland - 14 - HD
Added 2019-05-09 04:00:09 +0000 UTCSarah, nonchalantly tapping her head with the wand, has failed to realize that each tap has a small cumulative effect that can add up quickly...
Commentary
I feel personally attacked right now.
Games have a tendency to mark one's objectives, which can be good or bad depending on what you want out of a game. These days with my schedule, I tend to appreciate them, but with time set aside, I can definitely see the appeal of having to figure out where to go rather than having it be clearly marked on your compass and/or map.
Like this one time, at Skyrim camp, I made it so there wasn't even a compass on screen, and I avoided using the map. I had to figure out where I was going via landmarks, and would even use the direction of my character's shadow to figure out which way to go. That's not at all something I'd want to do in the evening at the end of a long day, but at the time, and if I had a day free? There's something great about it.
As for Sarah and her transformation, I just wanted to draw it. Plus, Sarah just casually transforming herself with Tedd's wands for fun and to build up her own magic power muscles seems like a thing she would canonically do, up to and including that form.
Comments
I get what you're saying. But your quest target was generally just "go do Ashcroft house in Havorford" or whatever, and you had to run around town asking passers by for directions, going whatever direction they said, until one of them decided to mark it on your map.\
Daryl Sawyer
2019-05-11 02:00:57 +0000 UTCnot a fan of using "crutch" as a metaphor in this context (accessibility devices are good, dammit) but we agree with your point otherwise
The Sunroses
2019-05-10 11:47:33 +0000 UTCI didn't mean to imply that it was a problem with the mindset itself. What I meant was that it's a problem *for* people with this mindset, because the poor design makes it hard to play such games when you refuse the help they provide.
coredumperror
2019-05-10 06:23:06 +0000 UTCcoredumperror that is a problem with the games, and their design not a problem with the desire to find stuff on your own/more organically.
IvyReed
2019-05-10 04:15:10 +0000 UTCIf the NPCs move in more or less the same fashion as they did in Daggerfall, I'd say it's totally fair for them to have knowledge of where each other are at. I mean, they can't move a muscle apart from turning around to face you until you turn in a quest... and then sometimes they're suddenly hundreds of miles away. Since all of the nobles automatically know exactly where you are on your nobles quest chain (otherwise they wouldn't know where to be or when to give you quests), it's only fair for them to know where everyone else (who they deem worthy to concern themselves with, at least) is, too. The same goes for most of the other factions, too. Admittedly, it gets a bit weird on guild quests, because they're not linear. And I know that you can have sideline quests with the nobles, but I vaguely remember most of those quests being annoying. Though maybe that was just from playing it too much on buggy versions which made it too easy to fall out of keeps, and if you don't have a continual levitate spell going yet, that's basically instant death.
Some Ed
2019-05-10 02:18:24 +0000 UTCI personally found it more interesting when the straight line was decidedly not the best way to get there, so that it mitigated the disadvantage of having the quest marker. "Hey, there's the quest marker right over there. The quest says to take this circuitous route, but I'ma just gonna go straight there... Um, hello, Ms. Skull Level Dragon, pardon me while I run away..."
Some Ed
2019-05-10 01:37:51 +0000 UTCI had a dream in which a game similar to WoW gave access to the world in states of having not performed various quests you'd performed by looping around and around various caves that you were liable to get lost in without the map, so you'd just sort of do this. There were also various quests that were hidden in those alternate layers as well. Really useful quests, like bonuses to intrinsic stats. They weren't *huge* bonuses, mind you, generally just a +1 to a stat or a skill cap, but if you did a lot of these quests, the cumulative effect could get quite ridiculous. And the dream lasted long enough that the cumulative effect did get quite ridiculous. And *then* I happened on the first quest that allowed me to pick up a second class... but that's about where I woke up.
Some Ed
2019-05-10 01:34:52 +0000 UTCTo be fair, the original Mankirk quest line was much better than later quests. I know this because I'm psychic. A quest told me so. Admittedly, *that* quest was a lampshade on worse quests that happened earlier in the game, but later than the Barrens. Quests where, if you didn't tell the game to display the objectives, you wouldn't know what you were missing, because the quest giver never told you. And since this was WoW 1.x, the game didn't flash something on the screen to tell you when you were accomplishing quest objectives, either.
Some Ed
2019-05-10 01:19:22 +0000 UTCTotally agree on this. I miss the way it was done in Morrowind, and feel like one could get around the fact that NPCs move around more by giving NPCs access to psychic knowledge of where other NPCs are and letting the player ask them about it like in Daggerfall, That said, it was a *little* frustrating hunting around for that cavern called "Milk". The directions to the Hostile Mudcrabs could have used some work, as well.
Daryl Sawyer
2019-05-10 00:58:57 +0000 UTCI love the Elder Scrolls games, never use fast travel and only look at the map when I have spent the last two levels exploring dungeons instead of doing quests. Poring over the map for objectives feels tedious, though if I'm playing a Nord, I don't see why I wouldn't know the general direction of everything by adulthood.
Lia
2019-05-10 00:53:11 +0000 UTCOf course Tedd has a Tea Wand. The Tea Wand is much more granular than the V5 remote.
IvyReed
2019-05-09 21:57:54 +0000 UTCBut, what if how about she did get buried in it?
IvyReed
2019-05-09 21:54:36 +0000 UTCRapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair. But don't get buried in it.
WillowD
2019-05-09 20:12:01 +0000 UTCReminds me of the incessant question from general chat in The Barrens of World of Warcraft: "Where's Mankirk's wife???" When they re-did the zone for the Cataclysm expansion, they even incorporated a reference to that question being so incessant in the updated quest text.
coredumperror
2019-05-09 17:48:15 +0000 UTCSkyrim Camp. What a thought.
Stephen Gilberg
2019-05-09 14:04:41 +0000 UTCHollow Knight's is especially great because you can enable (and therefore choose to leave it disabled) in degrees: want to stick to only what the cartographer added in the original map(s)? Don't buy the ink+quill. Want to have to figure out where you are *on* that map yourself? Don't equip the compass charm. etc.
Fenrir
2019-05-09 12:08:59 +0000 UTCIt's a tea wand. :)
M.
2019-05-09 11:55:17 +0000 UTCIn Morrowind, my brother and I used to pour over the physical map that came with the game, planning out routes and hunting interesting locations. In Oblivion and Skyrim, not so much...
James C
2019-05-09 11:00:10 +0000 UTCIn early days of Star Trek Online, part of the tutorial involved talking to Admiral Quinn, who then told you to talk to Commander Sulu. Because the Commander was in the same room/office, the quest marker on the minimap did not change - but people ran all around Earth Spacedock hunting for him, and asking "Where's Sulu"
James C
2019-05-09 10:57:04 +0000 UTCYes, we need to see more of Sarah expanding her magic reserves
James C
2019-05-09 10:52:31 +0000 UTCHollow Knight's map is completely optional, as you need to purchase each one. Breath of the Wild's map is optional aside from the Great Plateau, Hyrule Castle, and any other dungeons you want to complete. There's a number of other games with optional maps, but those two stand out to me.
Dragon Writer Luc
2019-05-09 09:23:08 +0000 UTCYou know, weights. Attached to her chest muscles.
Brooks Moses
2019-05-09 06:22:31 +0000 UTCHave you played Subnautica? It’s another game all about exploration. It has location markers in the start of the game, and you can set your own beacons (after you manufacture them). But after the initial area exploration, you’re basically on your own, especially once you start exploring the deep caves.
Thisguy
2019-05-09 05:41:06 +0000 UTCI personally have little issue with having quest markers, or location markers. Then there’s games where a straight line isn’t the best way to get there, so the marker is less helpful.
Thisguy
2019-05-09 05:37:57 +0000 UTCI've always thought it would be fun to put something in a game where there are places you can't find unless you turn off the map.
Paul Lenoue
2019-05-09 04:25:09 +0000 UTCThe problem with this "I don't want the game to help me" mindset is that modern games use the help systems as a crutch so heavily that they often *don't* tell you where the objective is in the quest text. They just expect you to use the map markers.
coredumperror
2019-05-09 04:23:12 +0000 UTCYep.
Dan Shive
2019-05-09 04:10:28 +0000 UTCSo, Sarah doing that is the magical equivalent of just idly lifting weights?
Michael Brewer
2019-05-09 04:07:09 +0000 UTCKeep going, Sarah
Matt R
2019-05-09 04:05:44 +0000 UTC
