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The giant spider trope in games has to stop

I'm not saying it should be required but developers would be nice to keep that in mind that arachnophobia is one of the most common phobias in the world, unlike those you mentioned. I haven't met any people yet that can't play games with horses in them, but I know some who leave all games with spiders alone despite them being 0,1% of the playtime.

Some can't even say the word spider.

If someone is that scared of innocent animals than he has bigger problems than video games.
 
Replace all spiders with Rachnera

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Yes.
 
I agree OP. I'm mildly aracnaphobic, and the building infested with spiders leading up to the final boss of the Brightstone Cove Tseldora area had me pretty freaked out. When you have to navigate your way across webs down to the bottom, I had to shut the game off, and come back later. I just couldn't do it. That's not great game design IMO. On the other hand, the actual "giant spider" boss of the area didn't bother me at all from a phobia standpoint. It was the least believable giant spider I had seen, with lasers coming out of her lady parts, and all. Now, her minions scurrying around were not pleasant, but the giant boss herself was ok.

Same with Rom in Bloodborne. Didn't even look like a spider, and really didn't behave like one. But bloodborne had it's own spider themes, and they gave me the creeps on more than one occasion in the chalice dungeons.

Bottom line, just don't need to see anymore of this type of enemy. It's overdone.
 
Get rid of packs of wild rats and dogs first. The only way someone could think spiders are a more overused trope than dogs and rats (in video games, I'll give you that cobwebs and spiders are overused in PG-13 horror movies) is if they had arachnophobia.

Personally, I want more arachnids, make them intelligent shapeshifters like dragons and make the dragons dumbass lizards for a change.
 
"I don't want these unrealistic fantasy/scifi creatures in my unrealistic fantasy/sci fi video game."

It's tough to create genuinely original designs. Spider-like creatures, monsters or beasts have an innate fear factor and are accessible. I just accept them as part of the culture in fantasy works or science fiction.

I think what you want is original designs or simply original creations. This late into humanity that'll be tough to find. Zombies are done to death, Nazis the same, dragons to an extent, skeletons, robots. May differ in their aesthetics but the basis is the same.
 
I agree OP. I'm mildly aracnaphobic, and the building infested with spiders leading up to the final boss of the Brightstone Cove Tseldora area had me pretty freaked out. When you have to navigate your way across webs down to the bottom, I had to shut the game off, and come back later. I just couldn't do it. That's not great game design IMO. On the other hand, the actual "giant spider" boss of the area didn't bother me at all from a phobia standpoint. It was the least believable giant spider I had seen, with lasers coming out of her lady parts, and all. Now, her minions scurrying around were not pleasant, but the giant boss herself was ok.

Same with Rom in Bloodborne. Didn't even look like a spider, and really didn't behave like one. But bloodborne had it's own spider themes, and they gave me the creeps on more than one occasion in the chalice dungeons.

I'm incredibly arachnophobic and Rom, Amygdala and Brightstone Cove don't affect me a single bit.

Don't call it bad design. It's all individual and I enjoy killing spiders in video games.
 
I'm incredibly arachnophobic and Rom, Amygdala and Brightstone Cove don't affect me a single bit.

Don't call it bad design. It's all individual and I enjoy killing spiders in video games.

The thing that bothered me about spiders in souls-esque games was the element of surprise. Navigating that spider infested room in BCT, it was dark, and I had no idea where the spiders were. If one of them dropped on my head I would have had a heart attack. Once I played through that section once, it no longer bothered me.
 
I feel like it's a Tolkeinian thing. And most of these games just glom onto a generic fantasy trope and that kind of imagery is already there.

Plus, sure, arachnophobia. Spiders are fucking scary as fuck. Anything with multiple limbs and fangs and a lack of sclera.

Couple weeks back I dreamt a spider was crawling on my head and I smashed it on my face and then I thought nothing of it, but when I later got up for work, THERE WAS CRUSHED SPIDER ON MY FACE.

Y'know what would terrify me? An orangutan with 8 arms and 8 eyes, all burning red. Riding a giant yellow jacket. That's some horseman (horseape?) of the apocalypse shit.
 
Spiders are the only enemies for which i will close my eyes and mash attack buttons or set my party to auto attack and come back a few minutes later. Fuck everything about them forever. I don't even like the spider pokemon .

I understand they have a place in gaming and there are some great examples of uniquely crafted boss fights but they are way too often just shoved into games for no reason as a filler enemy . It'd be nice to play more games without the persist thought that eventually I'm going to have to fight a giant spider.
 
Giant spiders are fine when they aren't realistic. But the Nightmare Apostles in Bloodborne legit creep me out and scare me more than any other enemy in the game because they're too much like real spiders. Duke's Dear Freja? No problem, it's a weird spider that shoots lasers. But those Bloodborne spiders, ugh.

I do have an arachnophobic friend who can't play games with serious spider enemies, too. So I get that.
 
I wouldn't mind seeing more inventive giant spiders, especially an actual Shelob-style encounter where you are being hunted and trapped by one spider. But they're usually just reskinned giant rats with an added poision debuff.
 
As an arachnophobe I say keep 'em coming so I can keep killing them.

Yeah, I'd think people who are afraid of spiders would love killing them in the safe confines of a video game.
Only extreme arachnophobics and wussies are afraid of digital spiders!
 
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news OP, but Witcher 3 had these:

http://i.imgur.com/tYq2jFwl.png[ /img]

The arachas. Derived, I assume, from the word arachnid. They are basically spiders. Some varieties look more like a crab, but the first one in this set of images is nothing more than a spider with a fancy name.[/QUOTE]
In Polish they're simply called crabspiders, which does imply that the spider part is supposed to be dominant (they look like crustacean-ass crustaceans to me, but I'm no post-conjunction zoologist).
 
Limbo and the spiders from Legend of Grimrock are the two that got me the most. Spiders are inherently evil. They make great enemies.

How about playing as one?

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Is this a mod or is Watch_Dogs way more crazy then I was ever led to believe.
 
I always had an idea for a level in an RPG or Souls game as life went on about a library staffed entirely by spiders. It'd be like the Duke's Archives in DS, just wall to wall books and the giant spiders would go around carrying books and putting them on shelves and taking them off and organizing stuff and they'd all have these neat little patterns they'd follow. And if you came in and left them alone they'd just carry on their business but if you attack them they'd drop all their books and just kinda skitter back terrified of you and not understanding why you're hurting them.

Or if it was an RPG some character tells you the book can be found in the Spider Library and your characters are like "...excuse me wat" and you go and they're super friendly and helpful and just normal NPCs just giant librarian spiders. And all the time your party members are just so freaked out and trying not to scream and the spider is all "I found your book! Hoo boy it was really lost in the back there. You can return it any time!" It'd be so cute! :3

...also I want Giant Spider party member. It would get depressed no one wants to do team attacks with it and keep trying to win the favor of the girl who's terrified of it. And then when the evil villain is going to wipe the party the spider sacrifices himself to save everyone and the girl finally accepts all the shit they've been through together and his friendship and flashes back through all the times she treated him bad and flips out and swears revenge and her most powerful attack is "Super Spider Strike" except with a cooler name. And she stabs the villain in his fucking FACE. For spiderbro!

Dammit, where's Robert from Zeboyd?! Gimme a spider party member the main girl is tsundere for! You're the only company that does nonhuman party members right!

I may...have spent too much time thinking about this.
 
I am tired of people throwing the word trope around. It has quickly become the cliche go to word when complaining about something in entertainment.
 
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