Here we go again. Last time, I pitted a woman (my lovely wife) against some FPS’s (read about it here) This time, and RPG, Oblivion in fact. The reason I picked this is because I think if she can bond with the character through actually creating him/her, she may feel a little more immersed in the whole affair. It has quite a steady learning curve, with an easy to get on with introduction/tutorial, and she can take what she likes from the game, be it sight seeing, stealthy fighting, magic, chatting to people, whatever.
So I loaded it up, sat her in front of the ‘New Game’ button and told her to get on with it…
You’ll be disappointed to know my last attempt at a ‘proper’ game has not spurred me on, or converted me into a hardcore gamer, and this time I am against ‘Oblivion’, a fantasy RPG or something…great. This time I’m left unenthusiastically to my own devices, as apparently it’s the best way to play it.
To start there’s a cut seen, I like the graphics, its dark and sets the tone for the game, graphics are pretty good too. I like the music, tis piratey!!
I’m very impressed with the character building feature. A lot of my gaming time is allocated to this, I’m amazed at how complex it is. Theres about five different sliders just for the mouth, more puckered/less puckered, fat lips/narrow lips. You can change every feature, size, shape and position. Then you’ve got different facial tones and colorings, then hair length, style and color to play with…after playing for about half an hour on this I come up with a very good looking young male Imperial – I am quite proud of what I’ve created. I click ‘done’ and am told I need to name my character. Fine…but where do I do it? I get really stuck, I just can’t find where to put the name in. I even try just shouting it at the screen, but nothing. I finally concede and shout for help. Then I’m stuck on what to actually type. “Gary the great” doesn’t really suit him, and I’m not really into this fantasy stuff… this could take a while. I finally name him Henry the Hunk, Harry for short. Well, you didn’t expect me to take this seriously?!
Now, Harry is in a room, a small prison cell, and the door is locked. I am there for a few minutes, looking around at what to do, some guy in the cell opposite starts rambling on at me, but doesn’t help. By now, I’m already frustrated, about to call in Waste_manager when some royal looking people come and open the door, I then follow them through a secret door, then down some stairs, I get lost….
I’ve had no training, I don’t know what any of the icons are for. Just now and again a box will come up and give me yet more buttons that I have to remember. Being a noob, I’m still learning the mouse and keyboard thing, now not only do I have my directions, W, A, S and D, I’ve got F – to ready my weapons (which i don’t think i have), L – to attack (which seams too far away for me), R – to block and TAB for my journal, I don’t know what that is or what its for.
I still have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing, I just seam to be stuck, the door needs a key. I have to call in the ‘mighty one’ waste_manager who points out a hole in the wall, and tells me i should pay more attention to what I’m being told!! Apparently I would of been told to go through that hole….
I’m lost again. This is beginning to do my head in. I’ve figured out how to steal things though, so I’m off on a bit of a rampage.
Waste_manager pops his head around the door ‘you only there?’ he says in a ‘I’m so clever your so stupid’ tone…then another box comes up, something about magic, and another button I need to learn, press C to cast your magic spell. Another button?!
I give up.
This Isn’t a game for a novice gamer, or anyone with little enthusiasm about games. Its confusing and stupid, so I stamp my feet and refuse to play anymore.
So there you have it, she doesn’t even get so far as to pick a class for Harry. What happened? I feel a complete lack of patience and interest in the world were the culprits. From the outset, she seems to be waiting to be told what to do. There seemed to be no intention of settling into the world, and seeing what happened. Instead she wanted instant feedback, and objective straight away…a ‘casual’ game.
I’m not going to over analyze what happened here anyway, I’ll leave that to you. I will say this though…wtf with ‘L’ to attack and ‘R’ to block…did it not mention the mouse? I’m sure it would of. Bloody women….
*runs away*
LOL… perhaps it would have been more benoficial to load a post escape from prison game… IE after the tutorial.. let her have a fell of running wild and do what she wants..
Give her a heads up on keys and let her free. The tutorial section of oblivion is very boring and i suppose can be confusing to those that have not encountered the elder scrolls…
I know I hate that part and feel is could be better if they just allowed you to skip that part in a sort of interactive movie way, ie, “your character finds a bow does he/she….”
then you actually start game play in the country side afterwards. This would give the begining story and none of the boardom/confusion….
To load post-intro would of skipped her making a character, which isn’t what I wanted to do. When she was playing FPS’s, there was no bond with the character. An RPG forces this by you moulding your character to be something like you want to be.
Oblivion should give her adequate introduction to the keys by itself. If she had just gone to a shop to buy it, and I wasn’t there to tell her, she would have to struggle on, so it’s more a design flaw.I suppose developers can’t design for newbies every time, as it would annoy the rest of us, but there should be a way of educating the uneducated.I think it alike to getting a job where everyone expects experience. No job – no experience. No experience – no job.
To let her do what she wants from the get go might of been a little intimidating. With no ground work or introduction into the game, I think she would of overloaded straight away.
Also, I think the tutorial is ingenious. It lets you do what you want, then suggests what you should probably play as. To just be asked questions would break the immersion, and I would say the age old “judge them by what they do, not what they say” or something like that. It’s great for people who don’t really ‘get’ the whole leveling and numbers side of it. I have to disagree with it being confusing as well, its no more complicated than the rest of the game, and sets a feel for the world you are about to be thrown into.
I agree with your points, however as your lovely miss’s pointed out, “noobs” dont.. We, as the experianced gamer take a lot for granted, the imersion (not sure if thats spelt right) is one thing.
I think from a noob’s point of view a game such as oblivion is like a wine taster, eg a normal “Chav” (noob in the gaming world) would drink wine to get pissed as its cheap, however the seasoned wine taster (pro) drinks it for its taste and sophistication/depth…
I supose the only real conclusion her would be that gamer’s in there true sence prefer details, imersion, depth etc where as new gamers (i really hate the word noob, its degrading and makes me feel like a 4yr old chernobyl victim) what instant action, instant imersion, the ability to know whats going on and where/why.
if games where rated from noob to hardcore, oblivion would be around the hardcore. Gameing is like growing up, you learn to crawl (buy a game and play it) then you learn to walk (get better at said game and look for mods etc) then you find that running is the best (feel that games are a little samey and want something more indepth, imersion, something that tells you in the manual that you are a person and have to eat/drink/shit)
However i have drank 1/2 bottle of Glenfiddich 12 year old special reserve and im home alone, so this could just be the rambleing of a drunken gamer, it could be holy!
now now boy’s this’ll turn into a cat fight
i think i now what’ll solve the problem, a cooker shaped keyboard and a sink shaped mouse!!
Dragons den here i come!!
lmao