Do you know what kind of choice that took me 30 min sitting in front of the game doing nuthing but think? When they ask me to pick a name.

@AgentCamtho1

8 жыл бұрын

+Avira Rosalita Name is rather easy, just get used to using a pool of 2 names for your characters, 1 male, 1 female (only gets a problem on your 3rd playthrough) There, took 20 seconds, now lets get into the game! Character creation? Shouldn't be too bad... Sliders... Crap...

@stuffystuffclub

8 жыл бұрын

The Elder Scrolls games are off-limits for precisely this reason. If you don't actually put a knife to my throat, I'll be searching up tamrielic translators before you can say Caius Cosades.

@FantasyAngel-zj7bw

7 жыл бұрын

I usually just call myself 'Angel' or use my real name, to be honest, and rarely my middle name.

@wakajoekoe8736

6 жыл бұрын

it's easy for me, I only choose wakajoekoe oh, it's an RPG? it breaks immersion? so?

@dephenistratordephenistrat8510

4 жыл бұрын

@@stuffystuffclubCaius Cosades reference makes you a morrowing fan, high five to ya there!

That's admittedly one thing I didn't like about World of Warcraft, and games like that in general. I hate when there's a "Best build" for any given class, and how people will actually hate you for going against the grain and doing something else. I like having the choice to make myself however I want to be, and the ability to make my own personal playstyle work.

@paulstaker8861

10 жыл бұрын

Then you'll love the new talent system WoW has now.

@kijuaxel3791

10 жыл бұрын

Paul Staker Can you be a Sword-and-Board Paladin that can run end-tier dungeons as DPS and still stay competent?

@paulstaker8861

10 жыл бұрын

Kiju Axel Everything's possible if you're a Pally.

@kijuaxel3791

10 жыл бұрын

Paul Staker Joking aside, can you actually do that?

@paulstaker8861

10 жыл бұрын

Kiju Axel I have no idea, I play Priest :P

That's something I really liked about morrowind. Choosing a faction altered people's perception of you. Choosing to become a werewolf was a crippling decision since if anyone found out you were ostracized. There was more to choose than good or bad.

@SeantommyE

8 жыл бұрын

+Jack Hume That's an important aspect of choice to note, and one that a lot of "choice-based narrative" games seem to miss: consequences. If the player doesn't experience consequences for their choices, then the choices are shown to never have been choices at all. In more mechanics-oriented choices (chasing the mushroom, for example) the consequences are fairly natural, but more complex or narrative-oriented choices don't always offer such natural consequences, and developers have to pay particular attention to providing meaningful consequences for all of their choices. For as flat as the actual writing could be in Morrowind, it felt more like a holistic world than Skyrim to me and many other players. Part of that has to do with the way exploration is handled, for sure, but part of it is also the way they handled choice. In Skyrim, there are almost never consequences for any choice you make. In Morrowind, however, there are.

@jackhume1525

8 жыл бұрын

Agreed, and I feel like I've had no impact on skyrim because of it. It feels like the game wants you to be the hero but you're more of a camera on legs with tools to defend yourself while everything unfolds around you.

@SeantommyE

8 жыл бұрын

Yeah. It should be noted that there's no real conflict in Skyrim either. You can do anything and everything. Conflict and consequences are all but gone in Skyrim.

@jackhume1525

8 жыл бұрын

The other thing that upset me about skyrim, a technical issue to admit, but it felt unfinished. A lot of the scripted events lacked finish and seemed to still be in their storyboard phase. Most specifically when Aela becomes your forebear. Her wrist is slit and then you just hear a splat and the bowl is full of a red liquid that doesn't move and that's it. Even the final battle with alduin is very flat. You can face him at level one if you never choose to level up, and you can literally just stand there and let the NPC's kill him. Its all very unfortunate and made me rather sad.

@Goldfire345

8 жыл бұрын

Jack Hume most if not all of skyrims problems can be mostly modded out. there is a mod for just about every problem. Dragons too weak deadly dragons mod makes them epic or even ridiculously powerful if desired. No consequences for joining a factions enemy well there are mods that make the other side turn on you if u are a member of their enemy And so on and so forth. What makes skyrim a good game in my opinion Is really just how much freedom the devs give to let people change it. Because of that it can go from the game a person can't stand to the game that feels just right.

I feel like this is exactly what made the Pokemon franchise successful. The simple amount of viable team builds and move sets (in single player) allow for so many choices and different approaches to how you can progress.

I find watching extra credits gives me ideas on how to be a better DM for my D&D games

@angelwhispers2060

4 жыл бұрын

As a DM you're basically the Game Dev for a tabletop so I can understand the overlap. I watch them because I want to be a college professor someday. And I I'm looking for hints about how to make class Not suck. Make students excited to sit in a classroom environment because the discussion between students is often more interesting than the material. And as long as I can keep them discussing the material it's good for their learning.

@Nightflare-ij4wl

4 жыл бұрын

angel whispers Thats why I watch DnD videos to make me a better game dev

"We were having a great time this few months and the show is only getting started" ooooh boy, how much you were right :D

Still, often even this calculating has value. In the fact that it pushes you to develop more specific technical skills that can be usefull in problem solving in other areas than gaming. Just wanted to say I'm a recent follower of your page and I just love your work! Keep it up! All the best from Brazil!

The real fun starts, when you later learn that actions you took weren't actually linear, but choices. The best example I have for this is one scene in Spec Ops: The Line, where a crowd of civilians is blocking your way and isn't going to let you pass. So I took my weapon and slaughtered them. A few month later I saw a video featuring this exact scene and one of the designers playing it: He just pulled out his pistol and shot 2 or 3 times in the air and the crowd fled the scene. To be totally honest: I was devastated after that - I had killed civlians without need at this point and even though they were just part of a game I felt guilty.

that's why I hate that armor looks and stats are often stapled together. I can't choose the look I like, 'cause the game expects me to choose the best stats; thus, what appears to be a choice becomes a calculation BOOO

@kobalt_ren01

8 жыл бұрын

I like Terraria's system where you have armour and social slots (Social slots are cosmetic, the armour is purely stats)

@DakanMisty

7 жыл бұрын

You ever heard of Transmog?

I love the bit where you're talking about how objectives in games these days always line up. My favorite space game is Freespace 2. One of the reasons I love it so much is because before each mission you go through a briefing of what to expect and what your goals are, but the missions don't always go as planned. A mission that has you escorting one ship might destroy it right off the bat, changing things around instantly. I want more games with that level of unpredictability.

I think Sc2 LoTV really nailed it about choices,from what units to what planets to go on.

At 2:30 , I just screamed "Oh my god!"

"Do I want enemies to explode into gooier chunks or do I want to carry moar schtuff? Laughed much harder than I should have xD

This is brilliant! It really makes me appreciate certain games more, if even for the most subtle and simple reasons.

I have barely any experience with video games, but I’m actually finding these viseos really interesting and helpful as an aspiring novelist, and I think I might be able to improve my storytelling by emulating the gaming medium and blurring the line between character and audience to enhance immersion, and you’ve actually given me a much more profound respect for gaming, so thank you an awful lot

@zawsrdtygbhjimokpl6998

4 жыл бұрын

similarly, I no longer play games but I just find these entertaining. I wonder what portion actually are game makers...

I was playing RE5 just minutes ago, and it got me thinking that the item management screen in between chapters might fit as a choice moment in the first playthrough by having the player chose between what weapons and items the player will take into the next unknown mission.

5:19 "you hamstring your ability" haha, I see what you did there.

Wow, I just discovered these guys, and they're brilliant.

Wow that is a heck of a coincidence, back in my grade 10 art class we had to find a photo of a simple landscape and paint it...now I'm watching this video and what pops up at 3:40 ...the exact photo I painted in that class, I still have the painting too, weird.

Iove the music at the end of these episodes.

3:40 Cave Story's Hell stage. The safest path is the slowest path. Death comes easy. Unless you are amazing, or you take it slow, you WILL die. And then the game asks you to do it 4 times faster than seems reasonably possible.

Hearing this video gave me some clarity on an issue I often run into in some of my hobbies: Competitive games with highly variable customization based off of differing set values will always have a Metagame present that conditions Calculation into the game. Generally for me to enjoy these games I've had to restrict myself into formats where diversity is an at least enjoyable option versus what would otherwise be a sea of mechanically superior, homogenized builds a la Commander for MTG or UnderUsed for Pokemon. I'm still going to play these games despite the issues with Calculation they provide (especially since a bad habit of mine is to crank Calculative thought into how I play games regardless of whether or not it detracts from my actual ability to have fun), but having it phrased in a way like this gives me solid food for thought on the matter

I love your show, guys! Two thumbs up! :-)

"If you find yourself just mindlessly mashing buttons to make the game progress, we're not doing our job." - Or the player is just ignoring the work you did do.

Thank you! This video very clearly demonstrates a highly appealing factor of the value of character creation on my website. I will use this.

Comfort Misha? That is an incomplete information scenario that I screwed up my first time.

@Fuyu_Sei12

9 жыл бұрын

Alex Havener As a fellow Katawa Shoujo player, I know how it feels. I was trying to be the nice guy and comfort her but ended up fucking it up in the scenes that followed.

@Panory

9 жыл бұрын

Fuyu_Seishin12 "She's a friend, of course I'll comfort her. Wait a second. What are you doing? That's not what comfort means. THAT'S NOT WHAT COMFORT MEANS!"

@Fuyu_Sei12

9 жыл бұрын

Alex Havener Well I keep on forgetting how one thing could lead to another when it's a guy and a girl in a situation like that. The game makes you think hard about your decisions. The devs on that VN are geniuses on that.

@applepie4287

7 жыл бұрын

Have you checked out full hearts a group of fans decided to make a game inspired by it as 4leaf studios wouldn't. PS nearly choose to comfort Misha too. XD

doctors recommended you make 8 choices a day.

@inserisciunnome

4 жыл бұрын

Four years late, but: Stanley! Why didn't you tell me you were a real Person?!

Heavy Rain. Choice at every turn, no clear outcome, definitive punishment for failure--and one of the best games I've ever played.

You sounded like Mordin Solus when explaining logical calculations

love your stuff

The reason the mushroom moves in Super Mario Bros., is probably just because they played the game with the mushroom not moving at first and thought it was boring so they made it move. They probably didn't think about all of this. ( : One reason I'm saying this is because in SMB3, the mushroom will move in different directions depending on how you hit the block, giving the player some control on its movement. Not necessarily moving toward the unknown (right). Bottomline: Playtesting = Very important

@Alienrun

9 жыл бұрын

they probably thought about it a little bit

@josemiramontes3283

9 жыл бұрын

Alienrun I agree, it might also be because they always add something different to each mario game so its not exactly the same as the last.

@MegaPhilX

9 жыл бұрын

***** Really? I didn't think it was annoying. In fact I thought it was cool once I knew how to control it. ^_^

That is what Bioware and Obsidian does well, They give you choices that impact the outcome of the whole gameplay, which feels rewarding and complex each time you play it. :3

@jasonneu81

8 жыл бұрын

+LordBloodySoul The choices don't really change the gameplay (or the central mechanics for that matter) at all. They only change the narrative and some minor gameplay elements, and even then the narrative branches only for a short time usually.

@LordBloodySoul

8 жыл бұрын

***** Still it is feeling like the story is far greater that way. The Witcher series is one that actually can end in over 60 different ending scenarios, which is a lot considering that it only branches over 3 games.

@jasonneu81

8 жыл бұрын

LordBloodySoul Yeah, my point was just that it technically doesn't change anything. But the way it feels is obviously what really counts imo.

"Games are a series of interesting decisions." Allthough und not complete, I like that definition.

There is also the issue of overchoice. Overwhelming the player with so many choices when they just want to play the game. Which explains why perks are unlocked slowly in Call of Duty games.

Amazing video! What are the sources for the concepts of reactions, calculations, choices and conflicts? I wish to read more about the theme...

There's also those skills/items/characters on some games that are kinda the best thing you should use JUST if you can handle it. Some examples are bad made, complicated character on fighting games that have waaay more potential than other limited-characters when you know how to use it. Or a skill that ends up doing more damage than every other skill when used correctly. There are plenty of choices, but when you get experience with the mechanics, all choices are thrown into the garbage because now there's no point in using the complicated item which, because you now know how to use it correctly, it's the best item.

That outro song is sick!

@thingonometry-1460

8 жыл бұрын

***** Thanks!

Thank you, I'll have to check that out. :)

Nice outro music for this EP

Thanks, I didn't even realize this was happening.

Seeing these during college lectures and looking at the videos now makes me wonder what the hell happened after Max left

Spelunky is amazing at achieving this mario type of choice. The game is incredibly difficult, but there are helpful items you can buy that make the game way easier. To buy those items you have to collect gold, seems simple enough, BUT searching for more gold increases the risk of taking a hit. You can decide to kill off the shopkeeper and take all his things for free, but THEN he will be waiting for you at the end of every next level, holding a shotgun. BUT ALSO you have a limited number of hit points, and the only way to replenish them is to find a damsel and bring her to the end of the level. BUT ALSO each level has a timer and when it runs off - The Ghost comes in, and if it touches you it's instakill. So you always have to balance how much you want to risk for the damsel, the gold and the items while the clock is ticking. Oh, and did I mention the game has permadeath? Which makes all your desisions REALLY matter, since you will start all over? Spelunky is awesome.

Bob is INCREDIBLY hit and miss. Sometimes he makes sense, sometimes... well sometimes...

not only the mushroom in SMB is choice and conflict ALMOST EVERY (which means approaches to infinity) obstacle in this game uses it with nice use of enemies, powerups and platforms

"Without conflict, there is no choice- only decisions."

Sooo it's 2020 and we have iterated through a couple of "talent tree" options in WoW and none was as fun as the original one. While there were certain best builds in terms of damage output, there were enough fun builds that came really close. There were also builds to horse around (mage POM instant pyroblast for example) that were not great for raids. Which, in your words, would also be a choice between two things the player wants and has to decide for one.

I don't know if they can, this episode was made back when they were on the Escapist and that's a touchy subject.They did a sort of cross over a long time ago with Yahtzee, Bob, and James giving their perspectives on some gaming topics and well Bob probably shouldn't have been there.

I love what you do here! dont't ask us is not worth it!

I noticed this episode talked more about what isnt choice than about what is choice. Maybe a few more examples on what a good choice is would help quite a bit to further the episode as there are diferent ways to present choices (through gameplay, story, menus, etc.)

Obviously, when you get down to it, any decision that effects the mechanics of a game has a calculable solution to achieve the desired result the most effectively. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the comperable decisions have an insignificant disadvantage to the calculable ones (Fighter and Rogue do the same damage with a different coat of paint), or, perhaps the better scenario, the desired result changes with the situation, forcing a recalculation and different approach (different enemies have different weaknesses magic/melee/etc.).

First time playing LISA has very tough choices. You walk into a cave, BAM! It's either your second party member's life (which removes their skills and abilities from the game permanently) or your arm (reducing damage output, defense, health, and increasing withdrawal symptoms for the main character permanently). It's much easier the second time, because then you can tell which cave to be careful of, and then change put your party member for a useless one.

@Raganoxer

7 жыл бұрын

Lisa is at least the best RPG ever made c: But no really making the selfish choices and facing off with Terry the Terrible was heart breaking..

The game with the hardest decision that I've ever played? Oneshot. That was brutal.

that is actually true, mostly what i had meant are the side-quests, since depending on which ones you do, when you return later (ie:the next day) things will actually be affected. although to be fair, when i wrote that i had only just got the game, and was all blinded by exitment.

This makes me think of Bravely Default's job system. Each time I obtained an asterisk from a boss and gained a new job, I would immediately want to implement the abilities from that job into my team. However when I would do this, it would often compromise my build in one way or another, causing me to think of a new build and a new strategy. Either that, or I simply couldn't find a place for that job in any build I could make at the time, and the job would go ignored.

1:36 makes my laugh so hard every time i hear it, i have to watch that same 1 seconds over and over again.. Buuurning.

Bob is best when he leaves his personal preferences at the door, and analyzes in combination with all his background/trivia knowledge... he is hit and miss in that regard, but when he hits, he hits it good ;D I think he's gotten better at it, at least with "At the Movies" and "The Big Picture", I don't watch gameoverthinker so I can't say

Maaan, this brings back memories, remember the days when Moviebob didn't completely jump the shark on the Game Overthinker? Those were the days...

I was just commenting a couple videos back about how this show reminds me of the Game Overthinker.

When it comes to choice in games, Yahtzee's version of self contained narrative is an interesting route. A game that starts off with more and more branching paths that leads to a wide array of scenarios and possibilities, while it also ties up loose ends and ultimately leads to the same conclusion in the end. The Walking Dead is a prime example. Multiple paths and different decisions to make that all comes to a cohesive whole.

5:37 my experience of final fantasy (i've only played some of the newer ones)

I really like the mop talent Tree now :)

Ahahahah, I know that feel. Love when that happens. I hope ExtraCreditz is more known to the triple A industry so they take lessons from them, Teddy Loid and James are talkin' some great stuff.

4:30 I might add that as a roleplayer This was a Major pain in the but to get around. my Hunter was a Marksmen and the way I made her(how my tree looked) was well not close to a decent or viable build. I recall stories from early wow day(didn´t have internet or a compute to run it so I missed it). About paladin Plate wielding warriors running around whit cloth becos that was a odd but still viable choice to make. Nowdays (cata-wrath not sure about burning crusade) there is even less of a choice it more or less have become are you a DPS, tank or healer thous 3 talents specs are what we can offer there is no other option.

Heartily agree. And seeing that the last choice of the game was built in a way that resembles the colors of the moral wheel, I highly suspect that the choice you've made might play a crucial role in the next post-Shephard title, as the Bioware team is asking players to keep their saves. Mere speculation on my part, however. :)

They have a separate video for that. It's on Daniel Floyd's channel; look up "Video Games and Moral Choices". :)

They all work in the industry already, especially James as he's a game designer and a Digipen lecturer. Industry people knows Extra Credits, but whether or not they agree with them is their decision.

i love darkness of days it did have interesting points when it comes to improve the shooter genre and also it reminds me of assassin creed when moving from time periods i played this before assassin creed it is a good game and had interesting concepts.

i spent too much time on several character creation screens (most notably TERA) for reasons very different from the choices it presented. hint: calculations are for the head, choices some might argue you do with the heart, and another thing happens way downstairs...

I can agree. Best example of that for me was in his review of Avatar where he said something like "It's possible that they didn't write a deep complex story so as not to distract from all this immersion." I'm still not sure what he meant. Surely a detailed, intricate story HELPS immersion as long as it's clearly conveyed, like with LotR or Bioshock. But whether his points are right or wrong, they are quite interesting. :P

Coming back to these videos over a decade later because of how irreplaceable they are to reference. Miss you EC classic

Because of you guys, I learned about Bob and his Game Overthinking, and then I learned that he is weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeird, but in a good way, kinda like a Proto Extra Creditz, seriously why don't you get him aboard an episode, that would be an awesome crossover

"Chase the mushroom" sounds like a euphemism

I once spent 1 hour on the perks screen in new vegas as I was really stuck on what I wanted more at that level when if I had invested that time into play id probably level twice so I could get the next perk

Wait, did you really just put "intelligent" in the same sentence as "moviebob"? Oh Teehee, you guys always make me crack up

at least he uses logic and explains his position.

is that a remix of the cheetah men theme at the end? xD

I spat my coffee upon seeing the screen of Emperor of the Fading Suns!

0:40 Dishonoreddishonoreddishonoreddishonoreddishonored

Mass Effect 3's skill trees are a good example of choice.

02:07 Found it hilarious. xD

5: 47 when i hear those words im like wtf they make videos 1 year a time?

you should've mentioned the suicidal mission in mass effect 2

pulling your hand away from fire is a choice? Challenge Accepted.

Actually the mushroom head in the opposite direction you came from, so by simply going forward and turning back they will go towards the known rather than the unknown.

making a character in a game with a deep customization option would take me hours, too many things to choose !

"Intelligent guy that bob" this is the first thing i have ever heard you say that i disagree with.

@silvershocknicktail6638

8 жыл бұрын

+geasslordzero I wonder if they'd still make that recommendation 4 years on with post-meltdown Bob?

@Mankorra_Gomorrah

8 жыл бұрын

+Silvershock Nicktail wait what?

@geasslordzero

8 жыл бұрын

Silvershock Nicktail what kind of meltdown did he have?

@AndroidPhantom

8 жыл бұрын

+geasslordzero there was no meltdown, and the EC crew still like him

@geasslordzero

8 жыл бұрын

AndroidPhantom just because they like him doesn't mean he is intelligent.

reminds me of monster hunter, I love bhenabra armor (insect armor) but low damage and not all that good, but i wear it anyways knowing i will have to do more effort to stay alive due to its lower defense

Gears of war has some choice elements. Do I take the right or low road. Do I keep my shotgun or take the sniper. Chooses that affect gameplay

I love it when games do this!

I can agree with that, there's alot of really intelligent things going on in that ending(which one can expect from a bioware game), but it was the Deus Ex Machisma that occurred at the end with the kid, and the characters who were just with you on earth suddenly in space, and the Normandy leaving for no particular reason, these were all fixed for the most part with the recent free extended cut, but that doesn't make it any less satisfying. Great game nonetheless though.

Funny escapist plug there

you just described the entirety of Bastion's upgrade system, and just so everyone knows, it is on mobile now for iphone.

I was wondering if anyone out here knows of any subreddits or other sites or boards where hobby writers can publish or share work with other writers or independent game dev's? Thanks for your time.

That's the point. Besides what the people say (which they won't know) nothing else would let you know what happens. So add to what I said originally mutes the game.

I'm sure you'll be getting plenty of hits from the WoW community about this as the "Talent Points = Choices!" crowd gathers in the wake of the talent trees becoming 6 3-point CHOICES to be made and changed as needed. This explains the whole choice issue quite well.

I thank MoP!

1:45 I won't follow your rules I'm a rebel!!!! *slams hand on stove*

Is there anything like this for writing stories?

And sometimes you get the "Why MovieBob likes videogames videos"

I think WoW is really instructive for choice, if you compare how it does it now with how it did it when this video was published or even before. The old MMO hardcore mindset was that choices were challenges to be overcome. Make the wrong choices, and your character would be 'gimped' - the ultimate failure state of the game, or at least a position that was hard to come back from. But as WoW has tended towards greater accessibility, it has also tended towards balancing those choices so there are not 'right' or 'wrong' choices, which has in turn made the choices more interesting in themselves (at the expense of the meta-game of not gimping your toon). You will choose between mediocre but guaranteed boosts, more powerful but chance-driven boosts, and situational abilities. You will also be called on to make choices that suit your playstyle - some talents are clearly more for the solo player, while some are only of any use in raids.