Interview MCA on The Onion

[laclongquan]

I donno, after playing games where some useless item in the past suddenly became extremely useful I developed a gamer sense to just keep holding on to weird trinkets, baubles, random items, etc.

Arcanum was especially terrible about that - I didn't pretend I was a hobo but I certainly scoured every rubbish bin and junk dealer I could. Torment had some moments of "better hang on to this, just in case" as well.

I feel you, man. Sometimes I camp among a particular spot just because it's near many trash cans. hobo, indeed.

And about most of the games we carry trinkets around, just in case.

 

[Kz3r0]

Gay

And I like it.
Oh noes..

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I donno, after playing games where some useless item in the past suddenly became extremely useful I developed a gamer sense to just keep holding on to weird trinkets, baubles, random items, etc.

Arcanum was especially terrible about that - I didn't pretend I was a hobo but I certainly scoured every rubbish bin and junk dealer I could. Torment had some moments of "better hang on to this, just in case" as well.

I feel you, man. Sometimes I camp among a particular spot just because it's near many trash cans. hobo, indeed.

And about most of the games we carry trinkets around, just in case.

It only gets worse when you're a technologist.

"Ooooh, an item with no apparent use! I might use it in a schematic I might find later on, so better hold on to it."

*inventory full* *overweight*

 

[HanoverF]

I donno, after playing games where some useless item in the past suddenly became extremely useful I developed a gamer sense to just keep holding on to weird trinkets, baubles, random items, etc.

Arcanum was especially terrible about that - I didn't pretend I was a hobo but I certainly scoured every rubbish bin and junk dealer I could. Torment had some moments of "better hang on to this, just in case" as well.

I feel you, man. Sometimes I camp among a particular spot just because it's near many trash cans. hobo, indeed.

And about most of the games we carry trinkets around, just in case.

It only gets worse when you're a technologist.

"Ooooh, an item with no apparent use! I might use it in a schematic I might find later on, so better hold on to it."

*inventory full* *overweight*

Just give it all to Virgil.... Hey where the hell is Virgil going?!



I loved that trash cans in Arcanum were Technologist's gold mines though.

 

[JarlFrank]

I donno, after playing games where some useless item in the past suddenly became extremely useful I developed a gamer sense to just keep holding on to weird trinkets, baubles, random items, etc.

Arcanum was especially terrible about that - I didn't pretend I was a hobo but I certainly scoured every rubbish bin and junk dealer I could. Torment had some moments of "better hang on to this, just in case" as well.

I'm with you - the trauma of 80s/early 90s adventure games takes a long time to fade. There should be a label for it - post-Sierra-kleptomanic-trauma. Counselling and an extended course of modern no-item-puzzles adventure gaming is the only treatment:-(

Heh, yeah. In most games I keep unique items even if they're obviously useless. Luckily some games give you a place where you can dump all that stuff. Early 90's item-heavy adventure games might be the cause of that since I've been playing those since I was about 3 years old. And when you've been exposed to games where every piece of crap can be important since your childhood, you just develop a need to hang on to every item that seems remotely useful or different from all the other items.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Arcanum was especially terrible about that - I didn't pretend I was a hobo but I certainly scoured every rubbish bin and junk dealer I could. Torment had some moments of "better hang on to this, just in case" as well.

Word man. I remember in torment, you needed a piece of junk in order to enter some village in the early game. Problem: There is only one piece of "junk" in the entire game, which I had dropped way earlier in a place I couldn't remember - and why not? After all, the item description said it was unremarkable junk, which shouldn't be all that hard to get even if I should need it later.

It ended with me finding some internet savegame manipulator and giving myself 6 junks. Since then I held on to all the junk I could get.

 

[Gragt]

"You have the feeling that this unremarkable piece of junk is actually quite important to the plot. We tell you that because we consider you too stupid to play this game without any sort of hand-holding. Oh, and if you decided to keep this item before you read this, you're a fucking LARPER!"