EvoG said:
I ask this with a lot of confidence; do I appear to have anything other than the best interests to game design, my game and to players enjoyment?
No - but that makes it much worse if you start unconsciously making bad design assumptions. I don't think that you have bad intentions, but I'm sure that you have a few dodgy unconscious beliefs (as I'm sure I do).
In so far as "A good game must aim to keep the player playing" is one of them (and hopefully it isn't), that's not a good thing.
Certainly good games tend to keep the player playing, but that shouldn't be an aim. It's much better to knock the player's socks off with entertainment for a while, then even
encourage him to do something else.
Again, it's like a mini-game / game activity - if each activity tries to grab the player and keep him playing for as long as possible, the player only leaves that activity on a downer (e.g. Morrowind). In a game, the ideal situation is to interrupt the player while he's still having a lot of fun, and send him somewhere else -
before things get stale. That way he'll be actively wanting to go back to the first activity, rather than bored with it.
When designing a game, there's no way to make the rest of the player's no-doubt pitiful life more interesting. Therefore the ideal situation would be to detect when he's not having so much fun, and positively
encourage him to quit. The aim isn't to keep the player playing for as long as possible - rather to give him the most favourable impression of the game.
Putting in positive reinforcement systems which aren't intrinsically entertaining (or are much less interesting/entertaining than most of the game) is likely to keep the player playing when he's having less fun (of course it shouldn't, but people are hostages to their warped psychologies). This is a bad thing. Having the player think "I wasted a day on that drawn-out game" is much worse than having him think "That was one hell of an hour!".
Anyway, perhaps you weren't thinking that in the first place - but some people do, and it's harmful.
I know you added a smilie, but can you see why I'm going to see this as terribly arrogant?
Oh sure - I certainly have arrogant episodes.
you can't fairly turn it around on me.
Not my intention. Just saying that it's not
entirely my fault.
Oh to be perfectly honest, I have made up my mind with all the evidence given, either here, emperically or historically.
Ok, but most previous systems (in my very limited experience) have put emphasis on the process of finding food itself (which is almost always dull - occasional hunting aside). That's really not an issue of an eating system - it's simply a dull, choiceless mechanic which requires abstraction.
Then you have the hunger-as-poison comparison. I'd say that usually comes about when the designer has first decided to use an eating system, then decides he needs to make it important - without radically changing the game. The obvious way to do this is to make death-through-hunger faster than makes good sense.
The better solution would be to design the game so that the possibility of running out of food were naturally a frequent consideration. You don't need poison-like fast starvation for this, but you do need an environment (including enemies etc.) which makes starvation/hunger/the-means-of-acquiring-food an issue.
If you don't have many situations where food acquisition has a really significant cost (e.g. time, avoiding detection/pursuit...), then there's no point including such a system. Hunger-as-poison is a problem when a designer wants to include a harsh eating system without giving it the necessary support.
I hoped that would impress upon you exactly how much thought I put into all this stuff.
I don't think the "have-the-player-get-item-X-for-positive-reward" mechanic is a bad idea. I just wouldn't apply it to food. Food in many RPGs is already abstract, simply because it's never mentioned. The assumption is that the character eats, but this just isn't part of the gameplay. Once you put food in the game
without requiring the character to eat, you've turned an abstract (non)system into a concrete one which makes little sense.
I'm sure the player can explain things to himself with a "Well - my character doesn't
only eat the food I give him, but other stuff too.", but by bringing this kind of explanation to mind, you're inviting the player to critique the game world where usually he wouldn't. Leaving food out invites no thought/criticism from players. Putting it in, in such a way that it half makes sense, is more likely to.
I don't think this is a good thing, and I don't see the upside - when compared with a similar mechanic not based on food.
Again, in a light-hearted dungeon-romp / GTA-type-game, I wouldn't say this is much of an issue. In a TES/Gothic type game, I think it is. It's not something that'll make or break the game, but it is something I'd consider unfortunate.
Give me some material and I will consider the hell out of it...if it leads to fun gameplay, absolutely...but gameplay has to be first, not just realism for the sake of reality.
I'm never for "reality" (i.e. emulation of the real world), but I am for coherence (i.e. the game world - allowing abstractions - making sense within its own system). I don't think it helps to attack coherence on an anti-"realism for the sake of reality" basis - the two concepts are very different.
Also, I'd agree that what's important is a mechanic
leads to entertaining gameplay. That doesn't mean it needs to be entertaining in itself - indeed it can be simply annoying (like getting shot / stabbed / clawed). To know whether something will lead to entertaining gameplay, you need to consider the whole game - not simply the mechanic in question.
With an eating mechanic, it can fairly simply lead to:
Incentives to be in some areas over others (low cost food gathering) over others (high cost / no food).
Time requirements (area/skill/method dependent).
Exposure to danger (vulnerability while getting food).
Exposure to discovery (through time spent / environmental disturbance...).
Ability to use all of the above against NPC groups.
[[Possibly: optional manual food gathering (e.g. manual hunting could reduce the time needed for automatic food gathering). This would need careful balance to avoid incentivizing it so that players who don't like it feel compelled to do it.]]
Achieving the above doesn't require any laborious task.
Once you have those effects (and possibly others), you only need to make sure that they're often important. Design many systems with time as a factor, and time requirements become important. Create clear pros/cons of attack, and exposure to danger becomes important. Make subterfuge/surprise/escape central aspects of gameplay, and exposure to discovery becomes important. Have NPCs who travel, then give them a wide variety of motivations, and applying all this to NPCs becomes important.
A "realistic" eating mechanic is very unlikely to be intrinsically interesting, or provide great gameplay in isolation. It's all about how you tie it in. Personally, I believe that it can be tied in very effectively.
Note that in all of the above, the actual process of finding food is almost irrelevant in itself. It's important due to its implications. The player isn't even likely to think "I need to go that way to get food", or "NPC X will go this way because he's hungry". Rather it'll form a natural part of his considerations about NPC actions / his own.
Quite often the player might not consider the mechanic for long periods - and that's fine. A mechanic should stick out where it's interesting, and fade in to the background where it isn't.
The idea of my pos-only food is that you WILL have to maintain your diet regularly if you want to get the boon. Its free to do, has no adverse effects and the rewards are worth it.
I'm not too keen on that as it stands (even ignoring any coherence issues). Where is the interesting decision? Why would anyone choose not to eat? Unless there are good reasons not to eat, you're punishing the player (and absence of a standard reward
is punishment) for not continuing with a mundane mechanic.
I'd rather a system where the player chooses PC behaviour once, then he follows that course until the player reconsiders. You could have various food types providing different virtues (preferably in a setting where this made some sense), and give the player the option to choose his "standing-order custom-menu". This way every player gets a bonus without any busy-work; the character is doesn't stop eating merely because the player forgets (so there are fewer coherence issues); and the player can make meaningful, interesting decisions at a time he chooses, by altering his menu. [you could discourage constant menu switching (probably not fun) by having the bonus build up only when you stick to the same for a while; you could encourage occasional switching (hopefully interesting) by having the bonus slowly fade after a long time]
I still think it'd be preferable to do the above using some other conduit (since then you could use food in the afore-mentioned more interesting [IMHO] way). I definitely think it's a mistake to incentivize dull behaviour (i.e. the player actively clicking for each meal).
We are creatures of habit too, and this does not preclude gaming.
Absolutely - but in gaming the designer has the option to get the player into
interesting habits, rather than dull, non-decision habits. Why not get the player to habitually think about some interesting and significant issues, rather than habitually click a button?
.... That's right - it must have been the best game evar!!11!!!".
):
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