Notes

Modern video games have a number of expectations placed on them by consumers

• Players expect Novel situations

  If Pac Man came out today reviewers would say it had no replay value

  the ghost AI is repetitive and predictable

  there's no exploration, no story and the mission goals are always just 'Eat everything'

• One method of achieving Novel situations is through Heavy scripting - Medal of Honor

  Positive aspect of this method is that the game feels like a movie

  negative aspect is that it feels like a movie, not a game

  players get the sense that everything is pre-ordained

  this method is also time-consuming and technically demanding on level designers

• Players also expect Total Interactivity

  People are tired of "one man against the mindless evil horde"

  They want every character to acknowledge them and react to them

  the Player wants to be able to manipulate other characters

• A common method to accomplish this is through an Extended interface - Unreal Tournament Bots

  Unfortunately the Player is often forced to be a manager instead of a hero

  the end result is that the Player often ignores this option

• Players also expect a significant challenge

  Gamers have become sophisticated

  many of them have played games in your genre for years and they want a challenge

  this is especially true of reviewers and early adopters, so it's even more important

• Some games provide this challenge through omniscient and relentless enemies - Quake III

  This method feels like bullying

  nobody wants to have a reflex competition with an electron

  it requires precise tailoring to player's reflexes (which can be difficult in solo campaign)

  and it also becomes a barrier to the mass gamer because they can't improve their talent level and there are no alternatives offered to achieve success

Please don't take this slide to be criticisms of the games I mentioned, I intentionally only chose games I really enjoyed as examples it's just an attempt to briefly explain why we decided not to use any of these methods