why is linearity so bad?
- Thread starter Raiha
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Linearity isn't bad. One thing you'll notice is that nobody bitches about linearity in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Uncharted, Gears of War, God of War, Call of Duty, Halo, Half-Life 2, Ico, Castlevania, Mega Man, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid, Super Mario Bros, or any Final Fantasy prior to 10.
IE: Nobody complains about linearity when a game doesn't suck. When it does, though, gamers can and will ravenously glom onto anything they can in order to demean the product to the point of complete invalidity. Final Fantasy 13 was horrible, so both Final Fantasy and RPG fans in general responded by trying to make it philosophically flawed on a fundamental level in order to discourage the developer from ever making the same mistake again. The reality is that the RPG fans don't give two shits and a fuck about nonlinearity in their games, because they'll turn right around and play any number of games from the list I posted above quite happily minutes after posting their vitriol on a forum somewhere.
Even when games are nonlinear, they aren't about having a branching story or giving authorship to the player. Rather, the goal is to provide a sense of personalization, giving players a firmer connection with the game, its characters, and its story through their interaction and experiences with the game's world and associative identity. The goal is to provide a player with a means to explore the game's themes for themselves to better understand them.
Final Fantasy 13 keeps players pretty well in the dark on everything and is basically the second half of the game that Square was trying to make with the first half sloppily disseminated throughout as flashbacks. This is of course to cover up for the development nightmare that it really was and make it look like they knew what they were doing. The reality was that they were making the story up rather hastily as they went along, Crystal Tools was a piece of shit engine that they wasted boatloads of money on but doesn't have the functionality or versatility of something like Unreal 3, and their art asset pipeline is archaic and led them to produce a game that looks more like a launch title than a game that took 300 people and 4 years to make. Oh yes, their character models are splendid as usual. Have you looked at those environments' textures, though? Compare that to other games with a similar schedule, like God of War III. Compare it to ones with lesser schedules and fewer resources. Even Sonic Unleashed has a greater technical mastery of texturing and environment design than FF13.
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Sorry about that, every time I see mention of FF13 I just RAGE OUT on this stupid thing...
The point is that it's just not a very good game in ANY respect, and THAT'S why people complain about it.
IE: Nobody complains about linearity when a game doesn't suck. When it does, though, gamers can and will ravenously glom onto anything they can in order to demean the product to the point of complete invalidity. Final Fantasy 13 was horrible, so both Final Fantasy and RPG fans in general responded by trying to make it philosophically flawed on a fundamental level in order to discourage the developer from ever making the same mistake again. The reality is that the RPG fans don't give two shits and a fuck about nonlinearity in their games, because they'll turn right around and play any number of games from the list I posted above quite happily minutes after posting their vitriol on a forum somewhere.
Even when games are nonlinear, they aren't about having a branching story or giving authorship to the player. Rather, the goal is to provide a sense of personalization, giving players a firmer connection with the game, its characters, and its story through their interaction and experiences with the game's world and associative identity. The goal is to provide a player with a means to explore the game's themes for themselves to better understand them.
Final Fantasy 13 keeps players pretty well in the dark on everything and is basically the second half of the game that Square was trying to make with the first half sloppily disseminated throughout as flashbacks. This is of course to cover up for the development nightmare that it really was and make it look like they knew what they were doing. The reality was that they were making the story up rather hastily as they went along, Crystal Tools was a piece of shit engine that they wasted boatloads of money on but doesn't have the functionality or versatility of something like Unreal 3, and their art asset pipeline is archaic and led them to produce a game that looks more like a launch title than a game that took 300 people and 4 years to make. Oh yes, their character models are splendid as usual. Have you looked at those environments' textures, though? Compare that to other games with a similar schedule, like God of War III. Compare it to ones with lesser schedules and fewer resources. Even Sonic Unleashed has a greater technical mastery of texturing and environment design than FF13.
...
Sorry about that, every time I see mention of FF13 I just RAGE OUT on this stupid thing...
The point is that it's just not a very good game in ANY respect, and THAT'S why people complain about it.
Awww. I thought this was about mathematics :-(
But in games I really don't mind linearity if the game itself is well put together. Like many responces above also indicate. Even the sandbox games have linearity in the missions that must be done to proceed in the game. And like I have sometimes said. Truly open and causal story as worlds are just freaking hard to code.
But in games I really don't mind linearity if the game itself is well put together. Like many responces above also indicate. Even the sandbox games have linearity in the missions that must be done to proceed in the game. And like I have sometimes said. Truly open and causal story as worlds are just freaking hard to code.
Ps. Links to the sources would always be nice.Raiha said:
It kills replayability, nobody would keep playing Fallout 3 if you could only do certain actions, It kills the plot!
There's nothing wrong with linear games or in fact most game formats.
Linearity at its best provides a tight well driven far more cinematic pace for a game, something which an open-world game can't. You only have to look at your Uncharted and your Resi 4 to see this format works, and works well.
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In games I've seen which are far more open-world the story can suffer incredibly and the gameplay can become mundane and uninteresting. By the time I reached the end of Fallout 3 for me it was more to do with the fact I'd already done so much than a drive to find out the ending - due mainly to the broken nature of the narrative as I flitted about with side-quests.
with linearity the developer can immerse the gamer in a different way to the large open world, by having your full attention on the single plot - the thing really driving the gamer onward, the story-telling or set pieces of well placed action serve to keep you hooked.
From Dead space to Fallout,Uncharted to Bordlands they all were created to make for different experiences, so to tag linearity as a reason for being a bad game just isn't right.
Linearity at its best provides a tight well driven far more cinematic pace for a game, something which an open-world game can't. You only have to look at your Uncharted and your Resi 4 to see this format works, and works well.
n
In games I've seen which are far more open-world the story can suffer incredibly and the gameplay can become mundane and uninteresting. By the time I reached the end of Fallout 3 for me it was more to do with the fact I'd already done so much than a drive to find out the ending - due mainly to the broken nature of the narrative as I flitted about with side-quests.
with linearity the developer can immerse the gamer in a different way to the large open world, by having your full attention on the single plot - the thing really driving the gamer onward, the story-telling or set pieces of well placed action serve to keep you hooked.
From Dead space to Fallout,Uncharted to Bordlands they all were created to make for different experiences, so to tag linearity as a reason for being a bad game just isn't right.
Exactly. Thers nothing wrong with it its just RPG's aren't meant to be linear. I never played a linear RPG until FFXIII (well maybe FFX) and I'm not liking it at all.bloodshed113094 said:
* At least in FFX you had sities and stores and such. You could at some point control what you wanted to do. I don't want to play fucking 30 hours to be able to explore the world. Thats why most people said "fuck this shit" and moved on.
RPG's aren't meant to be linear. Thaats why FFXII is so poorly recieved by fans.WilhelmsBrick said:
Agreed, i am sad that was my first FF and it will ruin the series forever for me XP JKIamSofaKingRaw said:
p.s. you need to use the spell check a little more
Linearity is not bad. It's just that nowadays people are now used to open-ended, open-world games. Before, all we really had were linear games, so when games came along that gave us more than one choice, they were welcomed as a refreshing change. At least, that's the way I see it.
There's nothing wrong with linearity in games, but there's everything wrong with every game being linear.
There's also such a thing as too much linearity. I recall being really disappointed by Brothers in Arms when it first came out because the game was constantly railroading me down a single path; there was almost always one single "correct" path for you to send your dudes, and if I decided that I wanted to flank right instead of left, I'd end up with an impenetrable waist-height fence or downed tree blocking my path.
There's also such a thing as too much linearity. I recall being really disappointed by Brothers in Arms when it first came out because the game was constantly railroading me down a single path; there was almost always one single "correct" path for you to send your dudes, and if I decided that I wanted to flank right instead of left, I'd end up with an impenetrable waist-height fence or downed tree blocking my path.
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The problem with FF 13 (no, I am not typing the huge Roman numerals that Square Enix wants me to use, I like my Arabic numbers just fine) was that it was saying it was none-linear. Now, if a game is not going for linear (like, oh say, Star Wars: Republic Commando) and is linear, that's great. It means the company didn't fall into the sway of "GIANTE WRLD LOL" that is the current game market. Sometimes the game can even be better than most none-linear games (such as Star Wars: Republic Commando), but if a game is shooting for none-linearity and it ends up being a completely linear game, it is failing on both accounts, as the company probably put too much effort into making the game seem none-linear and it ended up being half-assed.
Linearity isn't bad its just how the game was designed FF has always seemed to be about from the beginning to be a non-linear story and travel. Plus a lot of games benefit from linearity with tight complex storyline and creative levels, its just how the game is advertise, if you say its open ended they expect GTA if you say its level based then they want creative levels and mission not just a huge sandbox that tries but fails (just being there to drive around in). and my brain just turned off so ill stop talking here. GOOD NIGHT PEOPLE IM GOING BED.
