The Stanley Parable and the Illusion of Choice in Video Games

I don't even know where to begin.

As of a few minutes before writing this post I had finished playing The Stanley parable. Normally I would write about something I had planned to talk about but in this instance I felt I should just get all of my thoughts down now.

Honestly I really enjoyed my time with it and plan to revisit it. It's very short but it's definitely a title that I can see myself sinking my teeth into and showing off in the future. I felt it was a good idea to go over the general feeling I got from The Stanley Parable or what I feel the overall point is. It's actually something I've had many conversations about and that is the illusion of choice in video games.

Pick a Shepard. Any Shepard.

I see a large amount of conversations pop up over how video games in general need to allow the player complete freedom. People will then give examples: Mass Effect, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls and essentially every other choice based video game that you could shake a stick at. But what people don't understand is that these titles don't actually offer "choice" as one would consider real life. A game can never offer you total and complete choice due to the restrictions set by the programming. Rather, you are given the illusion of choice. And that is honestly a beautiful thing. You as a player will never be able to deliver yourself from the constraints the game offers whether that be in the gameplay or the writing or the character creation. But a developer constructing an experience that makes you feel like you can do that is incredibly impressive. It's not easy to craft an experience that allows a person to feel that way.

Never has a choice so simple resonated so strongly with me.

I'm not going to spoil the experience for all of you but instead will talk about the first big choice of the game and nothing else. I got the point of the game right at this segment and had an enjoyable ride the second, third and fourth times I ran through it. In the first segment you are presented with two open doors. The narrator simple says, "When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left." The presentation here is absolutely brilliant. You can either choose to do what the game tells you to do or you can disobey and stray from the beaten path. But even in straying from the beaten path you can end up exactly where the game had intended you to go anyways. And that's it. That's the point. Some individuals say games are bad that games "don't have enough choice" but the simple fact is that there is no choice. Regardless of what you as a person choose to do you are still limited by what the designers have put into the game. But does this realization lessen the impact that the Stanley Parable has on you from this point? No. The experience is still great beyond this point. And the same can be said about any other title out there as well. Maybe it's time that we stopped asking developers to give us more choices and just simply ask for a solid experience. The Stanley Parable, the Witcher, Mass Effect, all of these titles, they all had "choice." Did a lack of actual choice lessen this experience? I think not.

So what do you guys think? Are you ok with "choice being in games rather than choice? What else do those of you that have played The Stanley Parable think it was trying to say? Will you play it after reading this post? Let me know in the comments and I'll see you all next time.

Competition is Healthy! Competition is Unhealthy? Well Which is It!?

JUGGERNAUUUUUUUUUUT!

Over the last few weeks I've been playing DOTA 2 and have really enjoyed it. To me it has effectively rid itself of almost all of the issues I've had with League of Legends. I've asked plenty of people to join me (so I can get more multi-kills) but some people haven't been so keen on it. And for some of these people the reason is very clear: They're just not that into player vs. player video games. Something about them just doesn't click. So I thought I'd take today to look at some of the pros and cons of competitive games based on my own personal experiences. I may reaffirm some beliefs or I may change some minds. But let's dive right in.

Pros

Competition Promotes Friendship

"Don't worry man, that scrub won't get away with this."

I know this isn't going to sound right at all after I have spoken of the toxic community of League of Legends but even there I have had friendships foster purely through our mutual desire to defeat our opponents. "Hey man, nice job there." "Don't worry, we'll end that guys kill streak on you." "You guys get out of here. I can afford this death." There have just been so many instances of friends and even strangers on teams banding together to beat the odds in front of them that I can't help but think that this is truly what competition is about. It's about a group of people working together to surmount the odds before them.

Competing Teaches You How to Talk to People

This has almost nothing to do with the obscenities you may scream during a session of Street Fighter.

I'm aware this doesn't seem like the case, especially after all I've said about the toxic community of League of Legends but I'm sure we all actually learned this over the course of the competitive games we've played. Whether or not you choose to or not to practice this with the people you meet online is a different matter entirely. Let's think about it, what option would most likely lead your team to victory?

A) "Wow kid you're so bad. Everyone knows you're supposed to do X with character Y. You should probably quit this game and then stick your head in the oven for an extended period of time."

or

B) "Hey man I see you're not doing so hot. It might help if you do X with character Y. I've seen a lot of people do it and it generally works out in their favor. Give it a shot."

Option B seems pretty nice in comparison right? Now, whether or not that person will listen to you is another matter entirely but it's clear that generally the teams that work well together and win in games don't talk angrily or spout obscenities at each other. The highest success rate comes from being kind and courteous. And this doesn't just apply to cooperative competitive games. Even when it's just use versus one other human being learning how to lose gracefully is a valuable life skill that quite a few people lack. Don't be that guy that rages or gets angry at losing and storm off. Be the man that helps your team. And if you lose be the man that doesn't throw a hissy fit and has their day ruined by it.

Competition Teaches You to Set Goals and Reach Them

If your goal was to master Frank West and you succeeded then my hat is off to you.

We've all been there in at least one game. An object seems insurmountable. A boss can't be beaten. It seems like it's unfair. But with the rise of the online scene in gaming players have been met with a new dilemma. No longer do players sometimes just get trounced by their friends (though that is still a concern.) Sometimes you just keep running into people online and they keep just pushing you down. Some would just quit but for those that choose to continue onward they find they have something to work for. They find they have a goal. Maybe it's researching that perfect item build. Maybe it's finally nailing that combo. Maybe it's finally figuring out what trick your buddy's been using to take you down. But no matter what it is if you've accomplished any of those things then congratulations. You set a goal and you met it. And that's a beautiful thing. There's so many people that would just give up when the going gets tough but competition stirs something in a person. Being able to surmount a computer is cool. But being able to surmount another person is just fulfilling in an entirely different manner. And in setting that goal and achieving it you have learned a valuable life skill. Quitting when the going gets tough is easy. But realizing where you fail, taking steps to correct it AND succeeding at it? That's an awesome thing.

Cons

The Drive to Win Can Bring Out the Worst in People

Goddamn invaders.

Now competition can have those positive effects on people. That is true. but in some individuals it can bring out a darker side. Sometimes the drive to win is so much that this leads to people developing tactics that some would tend to see as....well as unfair. Beating an opponent when on a fairly equal playing field is one thing. But competition in games has brought up some tactics such as spawn camping. Now it's technically not against the rules in any capacity, but to a lot of players, myself included, it can seem a bit underhanded to just lock a player into a situation where they can't do anything and defeating another player just for the satisfaction of it. Sometimes players will needlessly prolong the game just so they can make these other players feel worse. Sometimes players will target the same individual over and over again, hoping to get them as angry as possible. Regardless there is in fact plenty of scenarios where a competitor could be achieving victory not for the satisfaction of victory, but for the satisfaction of making another person feel bad by doing it.

A Focus on Competition Can Lead to Winning Being the Only Satisfaction

"If my KDR goes below 8.0 I'm breaking this disc in half."

Winning is definitely the primary objective when you compete in any capacity. But competition can foster the unhealthy feeling that winning is everything. I've experienced this issue myself in a number of online shooters. I've asked to play with players who will outright refuse to play with me if my Losses outweigh my Wins. There's no guarantee that all of those losses are my fault but those players will not risk another person staining their perfect record. But the thing that got me ruled out of the most games was KDR. KDR stands for Kill-Death Ratio. It determines you average kills versus deaths. If my KDR is 2.0 then that means that I usually average two kills before I die in a game. To some players KDR means everything and this is a problem. This can lead to instances mentioned above where players intentionally target others with a low KDR seeing them as easier targets. But I have also experienced players refusing to party with me because of a low KDR, seeing this as a liability. This even mattered to them in games where the objective was not to get kills but to capture an objective of some sort. In the end KDR was the magic number that determined a person's fate. If you had a low KDR then other players saw that you weren't likely to win and would avoid you, either choosing not to help you or targeting you, reducing this magic number that was supposed to determine your skill level.

Do you fight to win or simply fight to prove you're better?

 If winning is all that matters then how will new players to be expected to learn? If a player can't take another under their wing to teach them the ropes because they're so worried about a potential loss then I have to ask: What's the point of community in these games anyways other than just a group of targets to pick from? If winning is the only satisfaction then regardless of the experience would a person really say they had a good time losing? This is not a healthy mindset, be it in gaming or in the real world. Losing gracefully is important but sometimes competition can just foster the exact opposite.

Well there you have it. I have tried to be as fair as possible and consider many angles but in the end I think competition is a good thing. Being able to have fun with or against your peers when trying to reach a goal is healthy. it's not something a person is going to escape in the real world, whether it be competing with co-workers to give the best presentation, trying to become the employee of the month or just a simple bike race with friends. So why fight it? Embrace the competitive spirit within you in a healthy fashion and I promise you will not disappoint yourself.

WHat do you guys think? is competition good or bad in games? Is there anything I missed? Let me know in the comments and I'll see you all next week.

It Just Needs That Special Something

Sorry about the lack of a post this past week. My computer wasn't working but now it's all fixed and we can get right back into it. But my computer being out of commission wasn't all that bad. It led to me jumping into more console games that I still need to finish, one of those being the absolutely phenomenal Dark Souls II. I've always thought about the core reasons that the series has appealed to me and I feel one of those reasons is that special something: perfect ambience.

I've never been more attached to a "home base" as I have been to Majula.

This is a shot from early in the game. You walk out of the dark and musty cave you started in and face the seaside town of Majula. Up until this point all the game has told you and shown you is that there is no hope for you. You wander through a dark and musty cave, filled with monsters and insane men who wear equipment that looks exactly the same as what you are wearing. It's implied that these men are the same as you, who gave up all hope shortly after their journey began. But as you exit the cave and first gaze upon Majula you are filled with this serenity, this pure feeling of contentedness that you haven't felt at all in the game thus far. And this feeling sticks with you upon each subsequent return to Majula. If it wasn't for this stark contrast between the warm sunlight and colors of Majula to the darkness and mured tones of the previous area, Things Betwixt, it's safe to say that this wouldn't feel like home as much as it does the second you first encounter it and its colorful characters.

But this is the main place we're going to talk about. The corpses burning are actually the least unsettling part!

What prompted me to write this particular article was my experience in an area called Brightstone Cove Tseldora. This is an area that comes along fairly late in the game. But it's been the area that has had the most profound effect on me in the entire series so far. When you arrive in the Cove this is the first thing you see: a deserted camp with broken scaffolding and piles of burning corpses surrounding it. Since you've spent the entirety of your game fighting creatures that seem to be some sort of soldiers in the old king Vendrick's army you pretty much expect something of that nature to come charging you. But as I explored the area around the camp what ambushed me shocked me. A lone man with a pickaxe charged me and tried to strike. I dispatched him without too much trouble but it made me come to a realization. I had not thought that any of the peasants of Drangleic had been affected by the curse of Undeath. So I traveled through the rest of the Cove, slaying the peasants that tried to cram a pickaxe into my skull, but it made me sad as I continued onward. These men had no means to fight against the Dark and it consumed them and drove them mad. Compared to the previous people I fought that actually could fight against the curse somewhat it struck me as a shame that I had to see these men in this state.

Here's the area boss. Isn't he cute?

You continue traveling through the area, eventually getting to the homes of the peasants you fought earlier, now infested with spiders. You pass a clergyman and his congregation on the way there, now undead and insane but still praying for hope. You need to kill them too. Eventually you enter what seems to be the lair of the spiders and you find this thing at the end. This is The Duke's Dear Freja, who at first seems like a hideous monster. But after you vanquish this giant two-headed spider you learn the truth. This is the Duke's pet. It attacks you, defending its lair and you are forced to slay it to progress. It's hard to say who's right in this situation but you slay it, press onward and slay the now-insane Duke because that's what you're supposed to do. The whole area's design, from enemies to building to ambient sounds, just exudes this feeling of hopelessness and compounds regret on you as the player, moreso than any other area of the game.

But why does Dark Souls II and other games evoke these feelings in players whereas others do not. There are plenty of next-gen games out there that look absolutely gorgeous: Call of Duty, Titanfall, Assassin's Creed, the list goes on. Yet when exploring these areas they lacked that special something, something that made me really appreciate that world, that area, the characters residing in it. And it's funny that Dark Souls manages to bring out those feelings considering that most of the characters aren't named and any lore about the area must be discovered through conversations and items. So why does Dark Souls succeed at this where other games with arguably prettier visuals and more named and developed characters fail? Well it's a combination of things to be sure and it's really hard to pin down.

Silent Hill 2 achieves this too. The entire time you're in this world you just feel unsettled.

Gone Home achieves this too, not only do you manage to be unsettled but the layout of the house still makes you eager to explore.

It's not all sad and somber either! Proteus' world in delightful!

So what's leading to these worlds being interesting? What's making them great to explore, terrifying, and absolutely wonderful? It's simple everyone. It's just a case of great level design.

Whenever I speak to a person about great level design they seem to take it as just a mechanical conversation. Enemy placement is well done, puzzles are spaced correctly and are challenging, that platform you need to jump to is perfectly in reach instead of being impossible to get to, etc. But people often forget that these important things are just part of great level design. If you're trying to bring the player to feel a certain emotion whether it's sadness, happiness, a sense of wonder, pure terror or anything in between there are more things than an impassable wall or a puzzle with a time limit that brings that out in the player. Lighting alone can do so many things. Entering a dark hallway after a lighted room in incredibly unsettling, while just the opposite will fill the player with a huge sense of relief. Enemy design is the same thing too. Games like Silent Hill and Fatal Frame keep you horrified when you see the monster because their design is horrifying, whereas enemies in Rayman: Origins are colorful and comical so you simply chuckle when they explode.

This is one of the huge reasons why so many indie titles are able to evoke feeling within the player. Their art, music, lightning and level design are all working in tandem to make the player feel a certain something. Call of Duty or Titanfall may make you feel pretty badass but even though the levels are pretty and the gameplay is frantic I want you to ask yourself something. Is this game really going to stick with you? Are you really going to remember or appreciate this experience? Or will you completely forget it and move on to the next big thing?

So readers let me ask you? What games have you played that had excellent level design? What games have you played that had a world that sucked you in and just refused to let go? What games had areas that really stuck with you and made you think or feel? Let me know in the comments and I'll see you next week.

Those Guys I Play With. They're Pretty Cool.

Have you ever asked someone why they play a video game and had their response be "Well all my friends play it," "The community is really fun" or anything of that sort? Of course you have. A great deal of us have. Some of us will even go as far as saying "Well this part of the game is lame but whatever, my buddies play it." Why is that so? Why are some of us willing to overlook a game's flaws just because our friends play it? Why will people play a game that they're unskilled at just because the community is good? Well honestly, a great community is a gameplay feature and can often be just as important, if not more, than even things such as balanced classes and great mechanics in some titles.

I've played plenty of online titles with my two mainstays right now being Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and League of Legends. The first game is one I continue playing and enjoy a lot. League is another story however. A big part of they I continue playing Final Fantasy as well as why I've stopped playing League stems from the community.

Here's Costello. He's a Monk on the Brynhildr server. Still not perfect until I become a giant green Roegadyn though.........

I've talked a lot about Final Fantasy XIV. But one of the main reason I've stuck around is because my friends and the community are just great. Things have gotten a little worse with the launch of the PS4 version (more tanks dropping out of dungeons, I actually run into random people insulting me, etc.) but for the most part everything is still great. My guildmates, who consist of both real life friends and people I have met over the game, are all very friendly, helpful and just generally fun to be around. The interactions I have with them are a integral part of the gameplay experience. When the player encounters people that are generally rude, unhelpful and just plain terrible to be around their gameplay experience is usually not as enjoyable because odds are that this person was encountered to help them finish content and they are making tackling that challenge more frustrating than it should be. In games that are single-player this is no issue but when surmounting a challenge is so heavily dependent on everyone working together it's truly best if all of the players can get along.

Plus friends make enjoyable things like Ghost Beach Parties happen. If you can't see the enjoyment to be found in a Ghost Beach Party then we're probably not friends. Credit to my friend Pumpkin Spice for this picture by the way.

Now let's look at the game that I have stopped playing and that I'm really not sure I'll ever open again without a friend asking me to.

League of Legends on its own is honestly a pretty enjoyable game. I came from DOTA back on Warcraft III and it was pretty easy for me to hop in. The champions are pretty unique and most of them are fun to play. The graphics are pretty good, music is good, and the gameplay on its own is pretty awesome. But the defining factor that is keeping me from returning of my own volition is the community.

You cannot expect to enter a League of Legends game without someone getting angry and taking it out on the team. You cannot expect to enter a League of Legends game and not see one player insulting another. You cannot enter a League of Legends game and honestly expect at least half of your team to be people you would ever consider playing with again. This is League's main issue.

League is a pretty enjoyable game on its own merits or with your friends. But the second internet anonymity is introduced that all goes downhill really quick. League is a competitive environment. one team must win. One team must lose. And it is something about this environment that tends to bring out the worst in people. Losing can lead to frustration. But so many people on league take it to new heights that it is almost unreal. And this hyper-competitive nature is leading to an incredibly toxic environment. I have tried many different ways to facilitate a better environment for my teammates personally.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• Giving a fellow player advice when they are doing poorly
• Not intentionally attempting to antagonize the other team
• Not intentionally attempting to antagonize my fellow teammates
• Always trying to have a positive attitude
• Always trying to be the one who facilitates teamwork between my teammates

Unfortunately, most of the time none of this works. A player may spurn the advice and see it as someone talking down to them. A player may be antagonistic anyways and catch one of your teammates in his attempt to make them angry. A player may just feel so badly about their performance that there is no way to bring them out of their funk regardless of how hard you try. The list goes on. Riot has tried many ways to facilitate better player interaction such as using a system to punish/ban toxic players and an honor system to help reward players that aren't hurting the community. These are nice attempts but unless every player makes a conscious effort to do so it's not actually going to work. 

But why the difference? From what I can surmise there is a big distinguishing factor between Final Fantasy and League. Final Fantasy is for the most part a cooperative game while League is a competitive one. It may be that the competitive nature of League simply ends up frustrating players more than Final Fantasy when a fail state is reached because they know they haven't lost to a computer, they've lost to another person. This fact that another person has bested them tends to get under a lot of people's skin.

So what do you guys think? Is the competitive nature the cause of the communities of these games being like night and day? Or is it something else? Let me know in the comments and I'll see you all next week.