escort missions

[Piecewise]

for a while now I've been writing for small magazines and the like but I'm gonna try my hand here a bit and see how people react. First article is a rant on escort missions.

A mission in patience

One of the glaring problems these days is when game developers think they can take an inherently annoying aspect of gameplay and make it fun and new through subtle or even ground breaking changes. No where else is this as evident as in escort missions. Lets get this straight shall we? Escort missions are good once or twice a game and they had better be for good god damn reasons too.

"Oh noes" spouts generic action hero man "my love interest, the beautiful princess Kidnapme, has taken by the very plain forces of double plus ungood. I must pull/carry her through this level to safety."

That is an example of an expectable usage of an escort mission. However this

"Oh noes, that dumb as a bottle of stupid juice survivor is standing around in a crowd of unoriginal monsters. I better go get him to follow me and dawdle behind only to be poked to death while I fight every monster from here to Styx."
(here's looking at you dead rising)
Is unacceptable.

Ok 3 things have to happen for a good escort

1. Tight and intelligent AI, or at least one that will stay with you like the memory of walking in on your parents fornicating. That unfortunate party in need had damn well better either be no more then a foot away at any point in time or at least know when its time for a tactical retreat. Countless times a easy mission has become a exercise in keeping your sanity as your escortie wanders into clusters of enemies, land mines, spikes, angry llamas or just about anything else that can do them serious harm. Seriously, tighten the AI or give us a leach

2. I know you want to make it cinematic and exciting, dragging your ward through hails of gunfire or legions of hell's finest or mutant poodle ranchers or whatever, but lets keep it reasonable. Its not uncommon to see MORE enemies then normal in an escort mission raising the question "do developers think we can actually perform better when having to juggle keeping an moronic absent minded cart driver alive and killing swarms of enemies?" The short answer is no. So if you really do wish to make it very nerve wracking while not completely impossible, try these simple ideas. If you want to add a butt brick worth of enemies, make them weaker then normal, if you want hails of bullets, make sure they're non interactive and ALWAYS land a few feet away from the main character.

3. They have to be few and far between. Lets face it, even if everything is done right, they still get boring, and if not it just makes it an insufferable delay between sections of real gameplay.


There are exceptions of course, Ico being the most prominent one, but by and large escorts are a pariah of gamers, a time we tend to like to forget about. So do us all a favor developers, either kick it into gear or stop with the damn things.

Now if you excuse me, I have to help some midgets get a magical doodad somewhere

-piecewise

 

[Damn Dirty Ape]

I like it, I think we can all agree on the fact that escort missions are a pain in the buttocks.

 

[Melaisis]

I was going to criticise this thread as a repeat, but it seems you've actually bothered to extend the point of the aforementioned game mechanic to a greater extent than simply asking for our opinions, and yer gotta praise that (albeit small) level of originality. Instead, I'll get stuck in on the constructive aspect of a reply:

I've written for many magazines and other productions myself. To date, my game-related work has appeared on the front page of Game Revolution four times, inside PC Gamer UK, and is in the fairly popular 'zine ran by Gaming Radio Network. I've been following games journalism for years; especially when it comes to featured columns, which have content similar to this in 'em. More importantly, I edit 3scapism [http://3scapism.com], which - in Joe's words - 'highlights exceptional content produced by The Escapist community'. In all honesty, I wouldn't feature your post for a few reasons. Amongst which are the unoriginality of it (c'mon, how many threads do we have about escort mechanics already!?), the blindingly obvious points you bring up and the tremendously boring style it is written in.

However! You do definitely feel passionate about what you write, and there are some genially amusing parts to that post ('llamas'?). I just feel that it was quite unnecessary to start a whole new topic about it, especially when the likes of the forum regulars make this sort of length in the actual appropriate threads. Still, a little elaboration on some of the points and you could make for a fairly decent writer. Keep at it, kidda.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[Piecewise]

as per the above I would like to sheerly state that if one is going to criticize a style as boring he must not write in an obscenely boring way himself. I believe that while I may be able to fool around with comedy I still have to deliver the point. If I have to degenerate to arbitrary actions and uses of lower diction then its obvious I'm writing above the collective heads of my audience. In which case I would rather find an audience with slightly higher standards rather then lower my own.


But what do I know I'm just a can of sheep eyes typing with an overgrown carrot that is sprouting from my 3rd kidney. Its a truly sad existence with nothing more to do then to ponder the mechanics of a quantum universe while also posting on gaming forums. Oh pity be upon me great lords of ocular majesty

 

[Gigantor]

Wow. Testy reply, much?

The problem here is that everyone who reads this post will have thought these very things already, having carried out umpteen dozen escort missions themselves. Pick something more obscure and run with it.

Like Mel, I think you obviously have passion. But I would suggest that channeling that passion into snarky and frankly weird replies to people offering criticism is not the best way to introduce yourself to a forum.

Incidentally, don't worry about writing over people's heads. I think most people here can keep up. They may even surprise you.

 

[Piecewise]

not meaning to sound rude but when one replies to a "boring" post in a "boring" fashion it seems to be a rather inviting opportunity.

as well as if you're going to call my work blindingly obvious or tremendously boring, I am going to counter back in an equally pretentious manner.

if you want to tell me its been done before then say "its been done before try a new topic" rather then use thinly veiled insults.

I may be new to this forum but I will demand the same respect I will give its other users, and if they attempt to deny me that I will deny them that.

that being said I do know this has been done before I was personally just writing it us as a test of style and formating. Criticizing is allowed and appreciated, but flaming, regardless of how well they use high level diction, is not appreciated.



AS PER ANYONE OFFENDED BY MY COMMENTS
sorry, not exactly the most tactful person and not exactly in a good place in my life as per now, so if I seem rather snippy its because of that.

 

[stompy]

Well, I can't anymore constructive criticism to help you. So, All I'll say is "Nice 1984 reference".

- A procrastinator

 

[The Franco]

Sometimes developers will make things an escort mission without even trying, such as Rainbow Six Vegas Two [Barcelona 7, sorry I just couldn't help it]. I remember telling my team "Throw a grenade at this location that is now a glowey cylinder thing" to which my mandatory racially diverse team then proceeded to throw a grenade into a pillar, causing it to bounce back onto the team. Since I'm not operating by binary code, I had the common sense to run like a little girl in a random direction from the grenade. But my team, being run off of computer code, decided it would be a nice time for a picnic. Long story short, I had to shoot some steroids into their racially diverse asses.

But the cake taking of all escort missions in my book has to be Ashley from RE4. I seriously just gave up on that game due to her. I have never been that frustrated in a game before, and I was even patient enough to beat Pilotwings 64 nearly 100% (Rounding Error for the win). I know she's the president's spoiled daughter in a miniskirt, but maybe, just maybe, I could give her a gun. Yeah, she might not be trained how to use it, but so long as she's really, really close all matters of accuracy go out the window. Or maybe the developers could put in a "Okay, listen. I'm going to go kill monsters, you stay here and run around in circles. If anyone comes near, run the fuck away and try and find me. Now please, please don't do anything stupid." command.

But so long as the thing that you have to escort isn't a complete dickwad, then I don't get super pissed. Challenging and "Nintendo Hard" are two completely different things, and it just so happens that most escort missions fall under the "Nintendo Hard" category.

 

[L4Y Duke]

I found escorting people through Dead Rising a lot easier when I can give them weapons.

To be honest, this method would probably fix a lot of the problems with escorting people. Sure, they might not be able to use it effectively, but it gives you more time to help them out, and you wouldn't have to constantly worry about them, even if all they're being attacked by is a 3-legged zombie mouse.

my game-related work has appeared on the front page of Game Revolution four times

Hubba-wha? You're a GR member? I'm known as Tyrranis over there.

 

[Piecewise]

Personally I only liked the ones you can carry. Its faster, easier and for some reason zombies will never grab you. Apparently a sack of bleeding, twitching man flesh carried on another sack of man flesh is some sort of zombie repellent

 

[Knight Templar]

In all my life only COD4 hase done a good escort missions, ergo I hate them.

 

[Conqueror Kenny]

I agree evry escort mission in every game fails. You will always get a retard working with you thinking that bullets+you=fun.

 

[Break]

We've done this already. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_124/2644-Escort-Missions-Suck]

Except that article isn't boring. Mel was speaking truth. Learn to distinguish constructive critisism from flaming. Or stop being so touchy. In fact, do both. They'll come in handy for not looking like an ass.

 

[Melaisis]

Hubba-wha? You're a GR member? I'm known as Tyrranis over there.

My main account is 3scapism (which gets the hits) but my personal is Melaisis.

I'm sure you've added me at some point?

 

[L4Y Duke]

I'm sure you've added me at some point?

Strangely, not yet.

 

[Dealin Burgers]

For me, i'd say that dead rising was the most fun i've ad escorting people. Though this was mostly due to the "piggy back" escorts where i was in complete control of where they were, closely followed by the "holding hands" escort crap because i was still directly steering them even if they tended to get snagged on a pot plant. And the worst of the lot, the standard "follow me" escorts ended up giving me the most fun in a game for awhile: I gave the guy who was following me a pistol so he could better fight off the hordes of undead, but i got a little ahead of him. Then i realised i had left him halfway across the plazza(?) and turned tail to rescue him. Just as he came into view the game entered a cinematic showing the poor old fool surrounded by zombies, to which he concluded the only way out was to shoot himself in the head. This in turn made me say "fucking awesome" and become distracted long enough for some wandering undead to chow down on my arm, drag me to the ground and kill me.

 

[mwhite67]

the only escort missions I like involve prostitutes

 

[Najal]

always helps if you can direct your escortees in some way.

Best escort mission i've played is that bit from Half Life 2, Episode 1 (i think?) where you have to escort groups of rebels to the train station. Their pathing was good, and the enemies werent impossible, plus you could always tell them to wait, while you went ahead and put a few bullets into the combine's faces before proceeding.

 

[richasr]

I've always hated escort missions, I can't even name one that's made me think "that was good, lets do it again" rather than "thank fuck for that".

I imagine the best ones would be where you're in a shoot-out and your partner/team-mate has taken a bullet in the arm/leg/wherever and you fend off the attacking mob, only to divert them for a short while with a very well place grenade/shot to explosive barrel and then having to drag your wounded partner to a car and get the hell out of there, and to safety.

If it was done well then that would be some escort mission, not a traditional one but a good one.

 

[Dalisclock]

In all my life only COD4 hase done a good escort missions, ergo I hate them.

If you are meaning the tank escort, than know this: that tank escorts you, you don't escort the tank

I think he meant "Death from Above", which was awesome.