Mynd Hed
07-13-2007, 06:23 PM
"Emergent gameplay" is one of the big buzz words in gaming right now. Essentially it's a shorthand way of saying, "if you make a game that's complex and non-linear enough, and don't put in too many artificial restrictions on what can happen when, sometimes stuff happens that neither the programmers nor the player intend, and sometimes that stuff is really cool."
That's what happened to me the other day, in (what else?) Oblivion. A while back I freed some ogres from slavery as a favor to a demonic prince who's, well, really into ogres. All I got for it was a lousy mace, which I promptly sold-- my character's more of a knife-in-the-shadows type.
Being the stealthy type, I didn't bother killing the ogres' dark elf guards; I just snuck in, picked some locks and undid their chains, and ran like hell while the ogres did the hard work of beating the dark elves' asses.
A couple days later, I'm doing another stealth quest, breaking some fool out of prison. We're almost in the clear, when I open a door and see the harsh light of day streaming through. Oops. My character just happens to be a vampire ("not that there's anything wrong with that"), and I've taken too long busting my client out of the slammer and run out of nighttime. So we backtrack, find a nice hidey-hole that nobody's likely to stumble upon for the next few hours, and I hit the "wait" button and instruct my character to wait until dark so I can complete the breakout then.
Well, that doesn't work out too well. Turns out the ogres didn't do as good a job of beating the asses of their dark elf captors as I'd anticipated, and a number of survivors have been hot on my trail ever since, just needing me to stand still for a few hours to give them a chance to catch up. Crap. There are quite a few of these guys, very heavily armed and armoured, and my character is not built for close-range combat. I've got zero chance of survival trying to take them on inside this cramped prison, but if I can lure them outside I might-- just might-- be able to keep my distance long enough to pick off a few with my bow, or reach my horse and and flee to my faction headquarters for backup.
Out the door again, but-- OOPS!-- it's still daytime. The sun will kill me way faster than these dark elf mahfuhs. Just turning around and getting my vampiric ass back inside costs me valuable health, and now I'm in serious trouble; just one or two hits and I'll go "poof!" into a pile of dust just like in Buffy.
So now I'm doing the only thing I can: running. Fortunately, I have the presence of mind to hit the "sneak" button as I pass relatively near some prison guards to try and avoid bringing their wrath down on me, too. Sneaking is harder in this game when you're moving quickly, but my character is a helluva padfoot, so I figure it's worth a try.
Turns out it's worth better than that. I can't hide from the dark elves, since they've already spotted me, so they chase right after me... right into the heart of the prison, right past quite a number of equally heavily armed and armoured prison guards. My sneaking works, and the prison guards don't notice me... but they DO notice a gang of dark elves clanking around in their plate mail, not making any attempt at all to be stealthy, apparently trying to break into the prison by force.
The cry of "Intruders!" goes up, the prison guards attack the dark elves, and in no time it's a bloodbath. In the confusion it's no problem at all for me to get back to my hidey-hole where my client is dutifully waiting, chug a few healing potions, and wait to see who comes out on top. The dark elf captain manages to break away from the fighting and come after me again, but this time it's one-on-one and he's already heavily injured, so it only takes a little knifework to get him to go down, and quietly enough that the prison guards still don't notice me. A couple hours of hiding until the sun goes down, and I'm in the clear.
It was one of the most exciting, unexpected, and suspenseful sequences I've ever had the privilege of playing through, and all because the good folks at Bethesda spent more time making sure that the world they created obeys some simple rules of logic than crafting a tightly scripted, linear experience in which nothing unexpected ever happens like SOME developers I could name.
So, damn. When's Fallout 3 coming out?
That's what happened to me the other day, in (what else?) Oblivion. A while back I freed some ogres from slavery as a favor to a demonic prince who's, well, really into ogres. All I got for it was a lousy mace, which I promptly sold-- my character's more of a knife-in-the-shadows type.
Being the stealthy type, I didn't bother killing the ogres' dark elf guards; I just snuck in, picked some locks and undid their chains, and ran like hell while the ogres did the hard work of beating the dark elves' asses.
A couple days later, I'm doing another stealth quest, breaking some fool out of prison. We're almost in the clear, when I open a door and see the harsh light of day streaming through. Oops. My character just happens to be a vampire ("not that there's anything wrong with that"), and I've taken too long busting my client out of the slammer and run out of nighttime. So we backtrack, find a nice hidey-hole that nobody's likely to stumble upon for the next few hours, and I hit the "wait" button and instruct my character to wait until dark so I can complete the breakout then.
Well, that doesn't work out too well. Turns out the ogres didn't do as good a job of beating the asses of their dark elf captors as I'd anticipated, and a number of survivors have been hot on my trail ever since, just needing me to stand still for a few hours to give them a chance to catch up. Crap. There are quite a few of these guys, very heavily armed and armoured, and my character is not built for close-range combat. I've got zero chance of survival trying to take them on inside this cramped prison, but if I can lure them outside I might-- just might-- be able to keep my distance long enough to pick off a few with my bow, or reach my horse and and flee to my faction headquarters for backup.
Out the door again, but-- OOPS!-- it's still daytime. The sun will kill me way faster than these dark elf mahfuhs. Just turning around and getting my vampiric ass back inside costs me valuable health, and now I'm in serious trouble; just one or two hits and I'll go "poof!" into a pile of dust just like in Buffy.
So now I'm doing the only thing I can: running. Fortunately, I have the presence of mind to hit the "sneak" button as I pass relatively near some prison guards to try and avoid bringing their wrath down on me, too. Sneaking is harder in this game when you're moving quickly, but my character is a helluva padfoot, so I figure it's worth a try.
Turns out it's worth better than that. I can't hide from the dark elves, since they've already spotted me, so they chase right after me... right into the heart of the prison, right past quite a number of equally heavily armed and armoured prison guards. My sneaking works, and the prison guards don't notice me... but they DO notice a gang of dark elves clanking around in their plate mail, not making any attempt at all to be stealthy, apparently trying to break into the prison by force.
The cry of "Intruders!" goes up, the prison guards attack the dark elves, and in no time it's a bloodbath. In the confusion it's no problem at all for me to get back to my hidey-hole where my client is dutifully waiting, chug a few healing potions, and wait to see who comes out on top. The dark elf captain manages to break away from the fighting and come after me again, but this time it's one-on-one and he's already heavily injured, so it only takes a little knifework to get him to go down, and quietly enough that the prison guards still don't notice me. A couple hours of hiding until the sun goes down, and I'm in the clear.
It was one of the most exciting, unexpected, and suspenseful sequences I've ever had the privilege of playing through, and all because the good folks at Bethesda spent more time making sure that the world they created obeys some simple rules of logic than crafting a tightly scripted, linear experience in which nothing unexpected ever happens like SOME developers I could name.
So, damn. When's Fallout 3 coming out?