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Platinum Shell

Do you reload (your game) in Doom?

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If it is necessary to adhere to some nebulous honor code, I think we are talking about a toy rather than a game. Quicksaving is explicitly a part of normal gameplay, not an exploit or cheat or secret. It is common for games to reward very tedious behavior, and I would argue that this is simply a design failure. How many RPG's reward the player for wasting his real life endlessly killing the same monster in the same room, or conscientiously hauling every spoon and napkin in the realm to a pawn shop? In college I had a friend with severe ADHD, and sometimes after missing his meds he'd start in on Baldur's Gate . . . it was shocking.

Along the same lines, haven't many doomers observed that some of the most exciting fights result when one is a bit reckless? I commonly go down in a blaze of glory, then return to my quicksave and realize the situation can be solved more efficiently, aided by a large dose of precognition. Should I behave more honorably toward my imaginary foes? Even then, I can't choose to forget where they are "hiding" and who they are. Should I "stay in character"?

If you are walking down a hallway and encounter a lone imp, what you should do is hit f6, pull out your chainsaw and kill it without taking any damage. If a fireball hits you as you're charging in, you should hit f9. As Doom is designed, this un-fun strategy is the correct answer. And, again, if you respond "Well, don't play that way!", then I say we are no longer gaming but playing with a toy.

And, you know, if you have a plastic dinosaur on your desk which you occasionally pick up and go "Rar! Rar!" as you wave it around, pretending it's having an awesome dinosaur battle, that's absolutely fine.

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ComicMischief said:

Dude. Games are toys.


LOL - thats actually a very true point :)

Well I tend to use quick saves regularly, but not after each monster encounter, just when I am doing well and dont want to redo it if I accidentally rocket splash my self or evil monsters do end up getting their way.

After a hard bit a quicksave is in question, but this also has to do with my time. I like playing doom but real life dictates how long I can play it for. As a result if I aim to complete a Doom episode before starting another game, then saving regularly so I dont end up repeating too much is nice :)

Sometimes though I like to see how far I can get in Nightmare mode before being eating alive.....so no qucksaves makes this fun :)

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bcwood16 said:

Sometimes though I like to see how far I can get in Nightmare mode before being eating alive.....so no qucksaves makes this fun :)


Doing this is, I feel, very akin to firing up an '80s arcade ROM on MAME and seeing how far one can get on one credit, as those old arcade games had no quicksaving (a feature I argue has ruined game design ethos) and were literally designed to rob the player of quarters.

Having said that, I used to be able to get through Ghosts 'n' Goblins one-and-a-half times (since the game repeats, but tougher) on just one life. There's a certain joy to be had in getting so proficient at an unfair game -- a joy that the saving and reloading grind takes away.

So, where 'pretending' the game has no save feature (or variants thereof) may make it more arbitrary and like a toy, it can also (like a toy) provide more fun than originally intended. After all, who didn't occasionally make their toy Diplodocus occasionally fly? ;)

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Belial said:

I've gotten used to practicing routes with saves and I use them frequently.


I don't get what you mean here. Could you explain a little more? I'm interested.

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I do it quite a bit, but it fits my play style. I prefer to be able to make it through a map without restarting, enjoying the challenges the author throws at me but not being too frustrated when they pull cheap tricks. I usually save after every major battle, or if it's been a few minutes. I kicked the habit of reloading a save if my health got too low in a battle though, opting to continue through a map as long as I'm alive. I've been revisiting the original IWADs, trying to get through them without saving, and it's been pretty fun. I can see the appeal of it, but I don't have the persistence of some other players.

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It's not like there's only one right way to play the game. Just because you have the option to quicksave doesn't mean you have to use it. Just as you also have the option to play the game on skill 1 only, you don't have to use that (I mean, unless higher skill levels are too difficult for you). Heck, you could even load the map in an editor before playing, stick a bunch of plasma cells and guns everywhere, and take out most monsters. That's an option too, but you don't have to use it.

The idea that because you can do something, therefore it is the correct universal way is ludicrous. It doesn't make sense in DOOM, and it doesn't make sense in other games, including RPGs. I mean, the whole point of RPGs for me is to "get into my character", and enjoy his experiences (good, bad or indifferent), not be some kind of accountant who hoards anything of value so he can level-up. Well at least in real RPGs (tabletop, not CRPGs) you get rewarded for good roleplaying and accomplishing goals, not just picking up gold or slaying monsters along the way. In fact, a devious DM can use those to distract you from the real mission, so that you waste time and resources and end up failing the mission.

But I'm not sure CRPGs really qualify as roleplaying, as they're too limited in scope. They're more like strategy games mostly, but even there you can choose to handicap yourself (non-optimal character build) just as you can handicap yourself in traditional games (go, etc.) for a more interesting challenge.

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ComicMischief said:

Dude. Games are toys.

Yeah, I don't really get what he was shooting for there. All I know is saving before even the tiniest threat takes any challenge out of the game.

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hex11 said:

But I'm not sure CRPGs really qualify as roleplaying, as they're too limited in scope. They're more like strategy games mostly, but even there you can choose to handicap yourself (non-optimal character build) just as you can handicap yourself in traditional games (go, etc.) for a more interesting challenge.


Like playing through Final Fantasy VII and making Tifa the heal-only non-attacker, Barrett the no-heal berzerker and Cloud the all-rounder? I suppose even that is arbitrary and not allowed too because god forbid we actually play roles in a role-play game. :v

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It's still just basically a strategy game at its core. I can also roleplay like that in a tabletop wargame or boardgame, by naming my units, leaders, even down to the lowliest private, giving them each their own quirks, etc. and imagining what their life is like, but ultimately I'm bound by the rules, by the immutable system that controls the game. These nice little touches only go so far before running into a brick wall. They're really just cosmetic in nature.

Now, with a real actual tabletop RPG, the rules are merely guidelines for the DM to craft his campaign. You can trully do anything imaginable, or at least attempt it. That's because the system is secondary to the actual campaign and a good DM knows this and reacts accordingly. If you want to go off the beaten path (even if it's travel to an alternate dimension or plane of existence), do something completely unexpected, something not covered by the rules, you have that option. It's completely open-ended, not bound by anything but mere guidelines, and the ability of the DM. You'll never, ever experience that kind of roleplaying in a CRPG.

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Macblain said:

Along the same lines, haven't many doomers observed that some of the most exciting fights result when one is a bit reckless? I commonly go down in a blaze of glory, then return to my quicksave and realize the situation can be solved more efficiently, aided by a large dose of precognition.

My thoughts exactly.

@40oz: I save and reload often. Never really understood the whole no saves ever approach. When optimizing a demo route I've always used tons of saves. It carried over into my casual playing. That's about it.

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Macblain said:
Quicksaving is explicitly a part of normal gameplay, not an exploit or cheat or secret.

You may say saves are "part of the game" but they intrude into its internal mechanics just as much as cheats. The closest thing to saves that I use is Doom's level restart, on the current level, but it cuts you out of the experience where you died, as if you were someone else. It's only barely related to anything you did in the game, from an in-game perspective and aside from memory. When a level set is not too hard I sometimes even play it all the way: if I die, I just start at level one again.

I actually use iddt occasionally, but never saves. (Never meaning not since a long time ago because, like most people, I just took them as part of the game initially, because they were there and since I was rather eager to see what lay beyond in the then-new game.) Thing is, to me the experience of being immersed in the "game world" is more relevant than the results now. Even in what I've done of speed running, I've haven't really used saves, cheats or tool assistance (other forms of cheating but done openly) to practice. I dare say this is because I'm more interested in recreating the type of fun I had when I played with toy guns against imaginary foes or my friends when I was little. It had a role-playing function that, I if I'm not mistaken, I also apply to DOOM. This function works in a mechanic and practical way, I am not saying I believe I'm the marine :p

How many RPG's reward the player for wasting his real life endlessly killing the same monster in the same room, or conscientiously hauling every spoon and napkin in the realm to a pawn shop?

The latter sounds more like getting 100% kills, items and secrets than whether you use saves or not, but in the former a sheer action game is not the same as an RPG and you're implying a high player death rate. I often quit WADs if they're simply frustrating, or prefer other workarounds to saves, such as lower skill settings, skill 1 or even a DeHackEd patch making things easier (though I admit I haven't used this last option very much).

Along the same lines, haven't many doomers observed that some of the most exciting fights result when one is a bit reckless?

It depends what kind of excitement we are talking about. Occasional attempts to record max demos have produced pretty exciting moments once I had a hang of the level. That excitement was all adrenaline and the feeling of power I had over the monsters whose asses I could kick. But then there's the tension of surviving, which is reinforced when there's nothing like saves and cheats to fall back to. But, basically, I mostly save the type of excitement you imply for deathmatch and CTF, where that is much more effective due to the human opposition.

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Role-playing is really why we play games, is it not? Certainly there's a degree of escapism from my viewpoint; and I dare say that if you're simply playing a game with the sole focus of 'getting through it', then fucking off outside and/or learning a productive skill would be a far less-deluded use of time.

After all, what are videogames if not pretend?

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The first time I played arcade games (long ago as a kid), I was hooked because they were fascinating and challenging. But it was the challenge that kept me coming back for more. I wanted to beat the end bosses in Phoenix, get highest score in Galaxian, etc. Same thing with pinball games, it was just me, the flippers and that steel ball... Trying to see how far I could go before having to insert another coin (this was long before the "Insert coin to continue" stuff - when your 3 lives or balls were gone, it was just GAME OVER). There wasn't really much roleplaying going on, compared to playing with army men, legos, cowboys & indians, etc.

I think DOOM has an element of adventure/exploration (more in some maps than others) but I never actually roleplay that I'm the marine. I don't get into his head and do things a particular way because that's how I think he is.

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ComicMischief said:

Role-playing is really why we play games, is it not?

Nope.

1. Challenge/Hi-Score (Doom, X-Com: TFTD, Slam Tilt, Mirror's Edge)
2. Story (recently Alan Wake, Max Payne 3, Alpha Protocol)
3. 15 minutes to waste (Crimsonland, Beat Hazard)

Recent example, Dishonored. It got boring for me around the Golden Cat (no kills no detection game), and I played it to the end just to "get through it" and see the ending. Story was generic blah made worse by having a silent protagonist. Has some speedrunning potential but I'm not going to bother with it.

The thought of role-playing a steampunk assassin never crossed my mind.

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The general rule of the thumb for me is that I use saves in maps / projects I'm not familiar with... or at least I try to. I often forget about it in a heat of battle.

On maps I know well I often don't save at all, unless they're really challenging and I have no intention of restarting a long and tiring map because of one mistake.

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As I think I discussed before, my playing skill is inversely proportional to my health - so on really low health I'll play at my best. However, I'm not immune to mistakes at low health and I generally only play maps that are new to me.

As a result, saving happens. A lot. I'm after a bit of fun, I'm not interested in getting the perfect run and that means I don't want to have to keep redoing a section (or worse, redo a lengthy map).


General rule of thumb is that any map with over 100 monsters is presumed to take a while and therefore will see some saving. If I'm walking into what it obviously going to be a massive ambush, I'll probably save before it. If I'm subjected to a bullshit trap that kills me, I'll save when I make my way back to just before it. If health is low and the map has proven to be unforgiving, I'll be saving and a lot of trial and error will ensue. If there's a damaging pit that seems to lead off somewhere, I'll save before throwing myself in there, so if I end up being wrong and I've just waded through nukage for nothing more than masochism or suicide, I don't have to have that kill my playing experience. I may well play recklessly and ignore my saving instinct... Probably the dying and remembering to save at the point before it got out of hand.

Saves are my friend.

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Phobus said:
I'm after a bit of fun, I'm not interested in getting the perfect run and that means I don't want to have to keep redoing a section (or worse, redo a lengthy map).

But this brings to mind that the key reason to use saves is more emphasis on moving on, and eventually reaching the exit, than on enjoying the ride. That is, you use saves because you wouldn't enjoy parts of game otherwise. People supporting saves said it in different ways, such as Belial implying not using them would just limit his ability to compete with speed run demos or Macblain feeling that many parts of playing DOOM are dull or repetitive.

In my case, stemming from those imaginary childhood gun games I mentioned above, I enjoy playing DOOM in way similar to that of listening to music or taking a walk in the park, where the enjoyment is in the process, not so much in any goal or objective, notwithstanding that the goals and objectives in the game provide a framework for that, at least in single player mode. That childhood immersion remains in being "carried" by the game events, as opposed to speculating on them externally and manipulating their sequence. By saving you can escape the events, without it you're stuck in the game world. If you don't like it, all you can do is leave altogether (perhaps to return at a lower skill setting, if the dislike wasn't boredom or disgust).

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