Interview Pete Hines on Fallout 3

[Zomg]

Shut up, you. If my dessicated corpse is rotting on the floor of a Korean internet cafe, I must have just liked WoW *that* much.

 

[User was nabbed fit]

I think the only reason I played Morrowind and Oblivion is that I'm a kleptomaniac when it comes to stuff in video games. I just have to collect everything I come by, to the point of using an unlimited weight cheat (just saves time from going back and forth all the time).

That is one thing those games did right for me: provide enough objects, fat loot, et cetera.

Hopefully you realize that this makes Morrowind and Oblivion horribly designed games with respect to you.

Indulging players' unfortunate compulsions doesn't (necessarily) keep players entertained - it just keeps them playing. The ideal game for any player with a compulsion to do X, is a game entirely without X. This way the player is either entertained, or he stops playing: the two desirable outcomes for a moral designer.

If the only reason you kept playing was a compulsive need to steal - regardless of entertainment -, then that is something those games did 100% wrong for you. A poor game that keeps you playing for 100 hours is worse (for you - and thus for a moral designer) than a poor game you quit after a few hours.

If you kept playing because you always really enjoy stealing, that's a different matter. I doubt that's the case though - even if a dash of cognitive dissonance persuades you otherwise.

True. But I don't think they did that on purpose. Or did they...