Is there any value in allowing characters to walk rather than run in an isometric RPG?

[rusty_shackleford]

No need; unlike player movement, there is no point or benefit to watching —nothing—.

how is there a benefit to watching your character move slowly?

 

[Glop_dweller]

Read (it is answered in) my previous posts...

*Aside from, of course, the reward of having the option itself; for roleplay purposes.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Read (it is answered in) my previous posts...

Why should players be forced to watch their characters move slowly but not sleep?

 

[Glop_dweller]

Read (it is answered in) my previous posts...

Why should players be forced to watch their characters move slowly but not sleep?

Who ever said forced? The player usually chooses whether their PC runs or walks —when it's an option.

In the post further above, I said that there should not be an option to disable walking—not that the PC should never run.

**Strictly speaking though, if the game is sadly indifferent to either, then there is no reason not to have an 'always run' option; many games do.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Read (it is answered in) my previous posts...

Why should players be forced to watch their characters move slowly but not sleep?

Who ever said forced? The player usually chooses whether their PC runs or walks —when it's an option.

*In the post further above, I said that there should not be an option to disable walking—not that the PC should never run.

"you either walk or you miss noticing things" is the equivalent of forced in an RPG

so you either watch your character sleep for 8 hours or your character dies. You aren't forced to sleep!

 

[Glop_dweller]

"you either walk or you miss noticing things" is the equivalent of forced in an RPG

Yeah, that should be so, but it's not forced; it's a trade off.

*One that could be alleviated with increased skill; making the most of the passing glimpse.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

"you either walk or you miss noticing things" is the equivalent of forced in an RPG

Yeah, that should be so, but it's not forced; it's a trade off.

What other ways of real-life time should we trade for in-game benefit?

 

[Glop_dweller]

What other ways of real-life time should we trade for in-game benefit?

Hmmm. Let's see...

• Skill checks for secret doors, but only in Iso/third person via PC skill. In FPP (though counter intuitive) it plays better in practice if the secret buttons are plainly visible if looked for, but easy to miss if not looking.
• Blacksmiths making custom items; these should take a bit of time rather than be instantly crafted.
  Offhand, Realms of Arkania did this, and even Outcast did the same.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

What other ways of real-life time should we trade for in-game benefit?

Hmmm. Let's see...

• Skill checks for secret doors, but only in Iso/third person. In FPP (though counter intuitive) it plays better in practice if the secret buttons are plainly visible if looked for, but easy to miss if not looking.
• Blacksmiths making custom items; these should take a bit of time rather than be instantly crafted.

Require watching your character perform an 8 hour shift at Ye Olde McDonaldse so they can pay the rent at their inn room.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Require watching your character perform an 8 hour shift at Ye Olde McDonaldse so they can pay the rent at their inn room.

Actually offering the option of jobs to pay for a room is not bad; in this specific case I do think that it should be at least a bit onerous for the player, seeing as their PC is saving money, or otherwise spending money they don't have. Tedious, or difficult; not Herculean labor that bores to tears. In Fallout 2, there was that quest to deliver food, and the other quest to find the junkie that owed a debt; made tough because all junkies use the same sprite graphic.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Magic Candle had jobs and some tedious stuff. It has been a while.

I can't find a vid showing just that but be it known that the Magic Candle series tried stuff other games at the time may have ignored. In the first game TIME is extremely important.

 

[Zombra]

rusty_shackleford Glop_dweller I have strong feelings on the walking issue.

Players who are fine with their characters running everywhere are the kind who generally think the point of gaming is to get it over with.

Players who like the ability to set their own pace are those who have a sense of tone, atmosphere, place, immersion.

rusty_shackleford Your analogy of sleeping is completely inapropos. We don't need to see every moment in the realistic life of a character for them to look good. We don't need to see them sleep, shit, tie their shoes, or even eat - we can just watch the "fun part" of them doing the action scenes, fighting the monsters or whatever, and handwave that the dull stuff happens "offscreen". Like in a movie, it's silly to question "But how did he get to the parking lot? We didn't see him walk every step to get there!" We don't need to see it because we can assume it happened but just wasn't important enough to have to watch every second of it.

However what we DO see on the screen SHOULD make sense and fit the environment. In a movie, if we actually saw someone teleport to the parking lot in a puff of glowing smoke, we'd rightfully say, "OK, that needs to be explained." They just did something weird.

In an RPG, or any game that is paced to have action balanced with downtime, the "fun part" is more than just stabbing a dude with a sword. When we see characters who sprint everywhere they go, every step of their lives, like they're being chased by angry wolves, we are seeing something on the screen that is jarring and doesn't fit. Sprinting recklessly across a restaurant to buy a sandwich, sprinting a couple of feet to pick up a piece of paper on the floor, standing there and reading it for half a minute then sprinting a couple of feet to stop dead and open a door, sprinting down a poorly lit staircase into a spooky, mysterious trap-filled dungeon ... it all looks terrible right there on the screen. Imagine seeing a movie, even an action movie, where everyone did everything at the maximum possible speed all the time. No walking allowed! It would be fucking bizarre. If a game is trying to not look bizarre, it should at least give the players the option to have their characters act in non-bizarre ways.

 

[Faarbaute]

One day I'll share a boring writeup I did about the importance of navigation in games and how it must not be treated as an aside to "real" gameplay. When I do, it's gonna blow your socks off!

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Now I want to see that movie. Curse of Flashpoint and the Speed Demons. Can the speedforce be stopped before the universe ends in the blink of an eye?

The title screens starts and as the movie starts you see uber fast forward ending credits and then its over.

the slower version is them doing that sprinting everywhere but "slowly" the fast forward starts to speed up until credits.

The slo mo putz Edition is just them sprinting around. No matter what you wasted your time and money on the film.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Players who are fine with their characters running everywhere are the kind who generally think the point of gaming is to get it over with.

Players who like the ability to set their own pace are those who have a sense of tone, atmosphere, place, immersion.

I demand to see your research for these conclusions.

I get the point in certain cases of allowing your characters to choose whether to walk or run, when it's a meaningful distinction. AKA you run up to the enemy to get close to him faster so you can whack him with your sword, vs walking so you can better defend yourself against the arrows his companions are shooting, for example. But... there's nothing whatsoever gained from me walking across goddamn amn for the 500th time instead of running. There's nothing gained from the slow slow walk from Adria's house to the cathedral in Diablo 1.

Walking in games is usually a filler, so why on earth should the filler go any slower than is necessary? In the few cases where it's not filler, i.e. in tactical combat scenarios, the distinction makes sense, but in that case, why limit it to just walking or running? Real gamers who like games and aren't bad zoomers who play games wrong obviously prefer games that can be played entirely in the prone position. If you're not crawling across a mile of empty field on your belly what are you even doing here, you poser?

 

[wishbonetail]

Last time I played Fallout 1 without savescumming some stupid rat broke my leg, so I was foced to crawl for hours looking for a doctor. No doctors i had found would help, so i had to resort to doctor bags and my meager doctor skill. It was a very immersive experience.

 

[mediocrepoet]

All games should implement realistic walking in order to sustain immersion. Also, all travel between cities, such as by horse, should be realistically modeled for distance and time taken. If I'm traveling across the kingdom, it should take at least a solid month of play time. At least.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

The thread is a lot more entertaining when you replace every instance of walk/walking with wank/wanking. It even makes more sense at times.

 

[smaug]

Walking is gay and for fags. I will always auto-run if I have the option.

No one has time to watch a character move like a slug.

 

[Lim-Dûl]

Walking is more entertaining than running

 

[wishbonetail]

Take it slow, it ain't a race.

 

[Zombra]

I demand to see your research for these conclusions.

You. Your existence is my research. You are a textbook case and you're proving everything I'm saying.

You don't see any value to anything in the game unless it advances your narrow focus on stabbing the monster with the sword. Anything that does not help you stab the monster with the sword, get the xp and "beat the game" should not exist according to you.

It's certainly fine for some games to be like that, but some of us like our games to have more.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I demand to see your research for these conclusions.

You. Your existence is my research. You are a textbook case and you're proving everything I'm saying.

You don't see any value to anything in the game unless it advances your narrow focus on stabbing the monster with the sword. Anything that does not help you stab the monster in the sword should not be in the game according to you. It's certainly fine for some games to be like that, but some of us like our games to have more.

So I take that as a confession that you do not, in fact, enjoy crawling prone across empty fields on your belly. Meaning you're a damn casual. I fucking knew it.

I need to be able to stand up and walk so I can hurry up across this field so I can get back to my idle clicker games, poppa ain't got no time for belly crawls when there's idle clicks to be had!!

Meanwhile I've been crawling across this field for like, three hours. Fucking casual.

Take it slow, it ain't a race.

Exactly! I knew I wasn't the only one who purposely underclocked my computer so my games run at 1/10th speed. That's 10 times the immersion that normal casuals get.

 

[Zombra]

All games should implement realistic walking in order to sustain immersion. Also, all travel between cities, such as by horse, should be realistically modeled for distance and time taken. If I'm traveling across the kingdom, it should take at least a solid month of play time. At least.

I know you're fucking around, but again, it's not about modeling the realistic chronological totality of the characters' lives. It's about allowing stuff to happen on the screen that doesn't look bizarre.

 

[King Crispy]

good response, people who turn on walking in video games just so they can "roleplay" are weirdos

I don't count good, honest computer roleplaying games as just video games. I think they rise above "normal" video games, and, as much as you may scoff at the notion of LARPing -- and, for that matter, the dreaded "immersion" -- it is a factor and quite an important one to many who play RPGs.

Thus, the ability to walk in RPGs is often valued and appreciated, despite your personal preferences or lack of caring.