Thursday, December 16, 2021

Chrono Trigger is this many years old and it's still not normal to be able to walk away from text boxes. 

Never take control away from the player unless you absolutely have to. (E.g. A game over. Also, archive the cutscenes, e.g. FF Tactics.) If your player isn't paying attention to your story, that's your fault, not the player's problem.

Is the above principle some 200 IQ galaxy brain transcendence that nobody can possibly understand? Is the purpose of NPCs, as far as game studios are concerned, to waste your time and/or browbeat a captive audience? Or is advancement really this hard?


6 comments:

  1. Lol no, user interface design is hard for engineers.

    >textbox object instantiated
    >default property of textbox requires user input to close

    So then the problem is solved by either

    >override default property
    >user input

    Since they know the user is playing the game...

    But it really is a very good observation. The human side of designing interfaces really has been declining recently.


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  2. Also - try telling an engineer that they have to change the code to make it easier for the user.

    Always ends up in an argument. Software design needs a king to control the engineers and the designers, turns out the principle applies everywhere.

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  3. Ah, so the point of software is to stroke engineers' egos. Makes sense.

    Only reason you have to sell the software (apply any discipline at all) is because lowering their wages would not be an ego stroke. The money has to come from somewhere.

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  4. Hahah in (current year) what is the point of (x) other than to stroke (y)'s ego?

    Theres always a march

    80's - people coded because they liked computers. Literal artist/engineers. Some deferral to experts in humans needed.
    90's - 00's - Some coders-for love, but games and other useful software pieces begin the creep towards "I code because its a good career"

    (current year) grrrl coders.

    That's a large problem with our economic model, the cash incentives to put less than competent people into roles that require competence. Because you're GONNA give that high salary to your buddy.

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  5. Lack of competition, because the competition has been outlawed. It's not quite true, but you can model the American economy as 100% government-owned and operated.

    Plus if someone is a genuinely good coder, they're going to inspire Envy in all the ego-obsessed pseudo-coders. Can't have that, now can we? Have to fire them for not being a "team player" unless you can build an entire team of superstar coders, which is statistically improbable.

    Bonus round: they'll inspire Envy in the poor and homeless too.

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  6. >they're going to inspire Envy in all the ego-obsessed pseudo-coders.
    And there we have it, this is why we can't have nice things.

    >" unless you can build an entire team of superstar coders,
    Can happen sometimes, but then the diversity police Notice a Certain Something your team is lacking. State sponsored Envy.

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