Tension

[DooMBoy]

You know that feeling you get when you're in trouble with your parents or somebody that is a lot bigger and older than you? Well, that's called tension, or nervousness. I think the entire mood of Doom3 should be one of unrelenting fear and dread, and overall tension. So much so, that if something stirs in the shadows while you're playing, you should jump about six feet or more.
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[Lüt]

Wow, the Computer Discount Warehouse returns! Have any Voodoo5's for me??

[Zaldron]

That's why I always said saving should be limited to the "entering" autosaves. I have tested limited saving in SoF, and I must say the tension indeed can make you jump from your seat, and that's in a game generally played at bright levels and no "monsters".

[Arioch]

Ugh, did I just hear someone defend one of the crappiest limitations of console gaming as a tension-inducer? Sure, it might, but it's a damned wrong way to go about it.
Ugh Ugh Ugh Ugh.

[Zaldron]

That's true Arioch. Actually DooM3 should not limit the saving, but instead give you options.

The reason I'm saying people should play all games like this is because of the big impact it does in both the media and community. A reviewer that plays the game like this will absolutely love it (if it's any good).

I'm pretty aware now that people blindly follows what the media says, and that's mostly wrong. Saving&Loading takes all the fun out of a game, and with the rush most reviewers finish a game, it's quite evident that there's something missing. The fun factor.

[Renegade_Style]

This"saving" thing is right, but when you say something about this, everyone says: NO thats so console-type,not for DooM 3!
I think i will love it,if the saving function is limited.
just like the difficulty-settings,the saving style could be chosen.

[Malice Rancor]

Personally I mostly played doom on a console and did just fine without being able to save on ultra violence. So I would brether not have it at all. You could just let people save on lower difficulties but make the higher difficulty levels not allow you to save. But I can't imagine many people needing to save on a low difficulty level. But since Doom3 I think will be much harder and so many people like to be able to save all the time I think it would be best to allow people to do it until getting up into the higher difficulty levels. I think there should atleast be one difficulty level that doesn't allow you to save for those of us that would brether play it that way at that time or eventually when they get better at the game or just have everything memorized. It is possible to give enough difficulty options to make everyone happy though, so why not.

[Zaldron]

Not because of me, but because of the gameplay. If people out there saves all the time, they'll make the wrong conclusions about this game.

[Zoost]

I don't think only the number of saves creates the tension in a game. It is the predictability. For example in Max Payne...You save and know, two enemies from left, 1 from right.

So if Id can put in more intelligent attacks.. please!

And i like the idea of 'save havens' from where you can save. For example you can save only in a 'savebooth' so you have to fight yourself to the end of a corridor before you can save. And the ennemies will attack you (or you have to attack the ennemies) in different ways. They choose to attack in teams or split up in sub teams.

It is also a nice idea that if a part of a corridor is blocked by e.g. a fallen wall (from a rocket attack) ennemies will wait you up at the only entrance, or so.

[GollumGlitch]

The limited saving idea might help to raise tension. However, if I die in a game with limited saves, usualy all I have to do is replay the part of the game that didn't save. This knowledge dosn't cause me much tension. In fact, after I die I feel more confident, because I have been there before and know what to expect. Now, what would cause me tension is if the enemies that you killed (or that killed you) in part of a level changed when you replay that level after dying. For example, imagine walking down a dark corridor in D3, and your health is low. You enter into a chamber, and are killed by a fireball from an Imp hiding in the shadows to your left. You respawn at your last save, and come upon the area you died in, only instead of an Imp to the left, you are attacked by two cacodemons from above. Of course, this is just what I would like to see in a FPS game, and probably won't be in D3.

[Zaldron]

That screws up TOTALLY the game flow. Nope, the key is to have all the enemies follow some path in order to alterate the experience given the amount of time you spend replaying that part of the game.

[DiSTuRBeD]

Savegames kills all elements of skill in a game. Savegames started showing up when games became too long to be played in one sitting, but noone ever saw that it gave people unlimited extra lives as we called them. You were actually supposed to use saveing when you had played for an hour, had to do something else, and didn't feel like starting over again.

My great idea is, don't limit saving too much. Limit the loading to say.. 5 times throughout the entire game. This allows the savegames to work as they were intended. You need more skillz than just moving a finger up to f7\f9 to complete the game.

Then, the 'extra life' powerup from wolf should be brought back to allow extra game loadings.

It would be fairly hard to implement, but not really too tough if you think about it. Hacks would be a problem, but hey, cheaters are cheaters :-)

[Zoost]

I've been thinking about this save/load shit, And I realised that there is another way. You could implement something like 'real damage' so if you're dead. you have to wait a long loading time to start again (problably this will happen annyhow on most computers)you start like being 'born again' with no weapons on the beginning of the game. (this way you get value for money).

Real damage will consist of blurry vision, etc....

[GollumGlitch]

you start like being 'born again' with no weapons on the beginning of the game.

So basicly what you are saying is to do away with any type of save feature. I don't think that would work, although I do think it would raise tension if when you die you have to refind all the weapons you had collected before being killed. However I doubt this idea would be very popular, however it would deffinatly raise the tension.

The best way to raise tension is to give the gamer a reason to be afraid of being killed other than having to start over from the begining or last save point.

[Dark Fox]

You know that feeling...

If its in your pants I don't care to experience with you..