Syntax Error post=6.71296.735689 said:
@hooby:
The article was about her being afflicted with OCD (Obsessive Completionist Disorder). Basically, she can't exercise the necessary amount of self-control to NOT do a sidequest, and that's what's keeping her from holding her interest in a game. She even said that she absolutely must get everything, leaving no stone unturned.
Exactly my point.
"everything" = full version of the game.
shortened version of the game = NOT everything.
Syntax Error post=6.71296.735689 said:
she absolutely must get everything
So she MUST get the full version of the game. Even if there was the possibility to play a "gamers digest"/shortened version of a game (choosable at game start), she just couldn't do it, since that would mean a whole lot of unturned stones.
Having the possibility to play the shortened version of the game is the same thing as having the possibility to skip side-quests. You just skip all side-quests at once rather, then one after the other. But if you are not able to skip one single, tiny side-quest, how could you possibly be able to skip them all at once?
Susan Arendt post=6.71296.735343 said:
Again, that's not the way the game was intended, or the "true" experience. It's rather a lot like watching the movie versus reading the book: Both might be entertaining, but the book is the real version.
Exactly. Your suggested "shortened game" version wouldn't be the "true" expierence nor the real version either, would it?
(It's not that i think it is a bad idea, or that it shouldn't be tried or anything. It's that i think in this special case, it wouldn't help your problem at all.)
But about this "true" experience... you talk about "padding". This is done to lengthen the game, and in most cases will be something that has been decided by the companies management, by the publisher ("there must be at least X hours of gameplay.."), oder some sort of market research department. If these things were planned by the games inventor from the very beginning, as a part of the game itself (which you refer to as "core game"), it wouldn't be a "padding".
I don't think that a side quest can be "padding" (which per definition is something additional) AND part of the "true" experience at the same time.
So you can't skip side-quest since you would be missing a part of the "true" experience, but then you complain, that all these sidequests you don't skip, are NOT a part of the "true" experience.
Well either these sidequests are a part of the true experience, than you can't skip them. Neither during the game, nor at the start of the game.
Or this sidequests are extraneous padding that can be skipped without missing the "real version", then it doesn't matter when and how you skip them.
I still believe a shortened Version wouldn't change anything.