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[emag]

I hate rat killing!!! In Shard of Spring, I had to kill dozens of rats, snakes, kobolds, and bats before I could get back to the tower after a Wind Walk to safety. In Wizardry, the rats were Murphy's ghosts, which I pummeled for hours when developing a new character. Ultima IV was perhaps the ultimate rat-killing game of all time; hour upon hour was spent in tedious little battles that I could not possibly lose and that offered little reward for victory. Give me a good battle to test my mettle, but don't sentence me to rat killing!

I hate being stuck!!! I enjoy the puzzles, riddles, and quests as a way to give some story line to the real heart of the game, which is killing bad guys. Just don't give me any puzzles I can't solve in a couple of hours. I solved Rubik's Cube in about thirty hours, and that was nothing compared to some of the puzzles in The Destiny Knight. The last riddle in Knight of Diamonds delayed my completion (and purchase of the sequel) for nearly six months, until I made a call to Sir-Tech.

Perhaps the worst aspect of being stuck is the clue-book dilemma. Buying a clue book is demeaning. In addition, buying clue books could encourage impossible puzzles to boost the aftermarket for clue books. I am a reformed game pirate (that is how I got hooked), and I feel it is just as unfair for a company to charge me to finish the game I bought as it was for me to play the games (years ago) without paying for them. Multiple solutions, a la Might and Magic, are very nice. That game also had the desirable feature of allowing you to work on several things simultaneously so that being stuck on one didn't bring the whole game to a standstill.

I hate no-fault life insurance! If there is no penalty, there is no risk, there is no fear — translate that to no excitement. The adrenaline actually surged a few times during play of the Wizardry series when I encountered a group of monsters that might defeat me. In Bard's Tale II, death was so painless that I committed suicide several times because it was the most expedient way to return to the Adventurer's Guild.

When you take the risk of loss out of the game, it might as well be a crossword puzzle. The loss of possessions in Ultima IV and the loss of constitution in Might and Magic were tolerable compromises. The undead status in Phantasie was very nice. Your character was unharmed except for the fact that no further advancement was possible. Penalties can be too severe, of course. In Shard of Spring, loss of one battle means all characters are permanently lost. Too tough.

I hate being victimized. Loss of life, liberty, etc., in a situation I could have avoided through skillful play is quite different from a capricious, unavoidable loss. The Amulet of Skill in Knight of Diamonds was one such situation. It was not reasonable to expect me to fail to try the artifacts I found — a fact I soon remedied with my backup disk!!! The surprise attacks of the mages in Wizardry was another such example. Each of the Wizardry series seems to have one of these, but the worst was the teleportation trap on the top level of Wizardry III, which permanently encased my best party in stone.

I hate extraordinary characters! If everyone is extraordinary then extraordinary becomes extra (extremely) ordinary and uninteresting. The characters in Ultima III and IV and Bard's Tale I and II all had the maximum ratings for all stats before the end of the game. They lose their personalities that way.

There are several more features which I find undesirable, but are not sufficiently irritating to put them in the ”I hate" category. One such feature is the inability to save the game in certain places or situations. It is miserable to find yourself in a spot you can't get out of (or don't want to leave because of the difficulty in returning) at midnight (real time). I have continued through the wee hours on occasion, much to my regret the next day. At other times it has gotten so bad I have dozed off at the keyboard. The trek from the surface to the final set of riddles in Ultima IV takes nearly four hours. Without the ability to save along the way, this doesn't make for good after-dinner entertainment. Some of the forays in the Phantasie series are also long and difficult, with no provision to save. This problem is compounded when you have an old machine like mine that locks up periodically. Depending on the weather and the phase of the moon, sometimes I can't rely on sessions that average over half an hour.

Tedium is a killer. In Bard's Tale there was one battle with 297 bersekers that always took fifteen or twenty minutes with the same results (this wasn't rat-killing because the reward was significant and I could lose, maybe). The process of healing the party in the dungeon in Wizardry and the process of identifying discovered items in Shard of Spring are laborious. How boring it was in Ultima IV to stand around waiting for a pirate ship to happen along so I could capture it. The same can be said of sitting there holding down a key in Wasteland or Wrath of Denethenor while waiting for healing to occur. At least give me a wait command so I can read a book until something interesting happens.

I don't like it when a program doesn't take advantage of my second disk drive, and I would feel that way about my printer if I had one. I don't like junk magic (spells you never use), and I don't like being stuck forever with the names I pick on the spur of the moment. A name that struck my fancy one day may not on another.

I suppose you are wondering why I play these stupid games if there is so much about them I don't like. Actually, there are more things I do like, particularly when compared to watching Gilligan's Island or whatever the current TV fare is. I suppose it would be appropriate to mention a few of the things I do like.

I like variety and surprises. Give me a cast of thousands over a fixed party anytime. Of course, the game designer has to force the need for multiple parties on me, or I will stick with the same group throughout because that is the best way to ”win" the game. The Minotaur Temple in Phantasie I and the problems men had in Portsmouth in Might and Magic and the evil and good areas of Wizardry III were nice. More attractive are party changes for strategic reasons. What good are magic users in no-magic areas or a bard in a silent room? A rescue mission doesn't need a thief and repetitive battles with many small opponents don't require a fighter that deals heavy damage to one bad guy.

I like variety and surprises in the items found, the map, the specials encountered, in short in every aspect of the game. I like figuring out what things are and how they work. What a delight the thief's dagger in Wizardry was! The maps in Wasteland are wonderful because any map may contain a map. The countryside contains towns and villages, the towns contain buildings, some buildings contain floors or secret passages. What fun!!!

I like missions and quests to pursue as I proceed. Some of these games are so large that intermediate goals are necessary to keep you on track. Might and Magic, Phantasie, and Bard's Tale do a good job of creating a path with the ”missions." I like self-contained clues about the puzzles. In The Return of Heracles the sage was always there to provide an assist (for money, of course) if you got stuck. The multiple solutions or sources of vital information in Might and Magic greatly enhanced the probability of completing the missions and kept the game moving.

I like the idea of recruiting new characters, as opposed to starting over from scratch. In Galactic Adventurers your crew could be augmented by recruiting survivors of a battle, provided they were less experienced than your leader. Charisma (little used in most games) could impact recruiting. Wasteland provides for recruiting of certain predetermined characters you encounter. These NPCs can be controlled almost like your characters and will advance with experience. Destiny Knight allows you to recruit (with a magic spell) any of the monsters you encounter, and requires that some specific characters be recruited to solve some of the puzzles, but these NPCs can't be controlled and will not advance in level, so they are temporary members. They will occasionally turn on you, an interesting twist!!!

I like various skills, improved by practice or training for various characters. This makes the characters unique individuals, adding to the variety. This was implemented nicely in both Galactic Adventurers and Wasteland.

Eternal growth for my characters makes every session a little different and intriguing. If the characters ”top out" too soon that aspect of the game loses its fascination. Wizardry was the best at providing continual growth opportunities because of the opportunity to change class and retain some of the abilities of the previous class. The Phantasie series seemed nicely balanced, with the end of the quest coming just before/as my characters topped out.

Speaking of eternal, I have never in all of my various adventures had a character retire because of age. Wizardry tried, but it never came into play because it was cheaper to heal at the foot of the stairs while identifying loot (same trip or short run to the dungeon for that purpose). Phantasie kept up with age, but it never affected play. I thought Might and Magic might, but I found the Fountain of Youth. The only FRPG I have played where you had to beat the clock is Tunnels of Doom, a simple hack-and-slash on my TI 99/4A that takes about ten hours for a game. Of course, it is quite different to spend ten hours and fail because the king died than it is to spend three months and fail by a few minutes. I like for time to be a factor to prevent me from being too conservative.

Enough of this, Wasteland is waiting.
--Wes Irby
October 1988
Plano, TX

Emphasis is mine. Additional commentary at the always fantastic The Digital Antiquarian , which is where I found this letter.

I think it's interesting to see how cRPGs have evolved -- or not -- over the last 30 years by taking stock of each of Irby's points. Mapping (not quoted), of course, is gone outside of ultra-niche games like Etrian Odyssey, and building whole parties instead of a single protagonist is limited to the odd indie game. Even having to really select party members to fit the occasion is rare. Puzzles are largely gone or simplified into self-contained Tower of Hanoi /pressure valve/hacking mini-games. Of course, the foremost complaints, those of tedium and grinding, are possibly worse today than ever before, as developers shove crafting, mining, and looting into every available crevice (often with unwieldy UIs). So there's even more junk magic/items. Sorry, Irby.

Irby's comments on fair character deaths and penalties are still applicable today, although few games actually penalize death to the degree he seemed to prefer. As cRPGs have grown more narrative-focused and less mechanics-driven, characters still don't age (except for the convenience of the story) and time limits are exceedingly rare (the notable exception, perhaps, being Mass Effect 2's finale).

On the other hand, multi-part quest logs are now commonplace. So at least one of Irby's points has been addressed.

 

[Major B.S.]

That's super compelling. Like opening a time-capsule.

 

[Haunted]

the more things change...

fascinating how many of his criticisms are still completely applicable thirty years later

 

[Plywood]

One such feature is the inability to save the game in certain places or situations.

This is still a problem*, saving anywhere is a huge timesaver.

Spoiler

read: gripe for me

 

[Plumpbiscuit]

Reading all the trolls and complaints from 1996-1998 with Daggerfall is a treasure, as well as the anticipation of MGS2 from pre-2002.

Threads like this make you look at the scope of time:

Elder Scrolls: Arena?
1 post by 1 author

KX...@psuvm.psu.edu

12/21/93

Anybody heard anything about when bethesda's Elder Scrolls: Arena is due
to be released? "Previews" of beta versions sound pretty interesting.

* Dr. Kevin Murnane Cognitive Science *
* Department of Psychology KX...@psuvm.psu.edu *
* Penn State University (814)863-3921 *
* University Park PA 16802

A 1993 post of some guy hearing about Elder Scrolls I: Arena through a beta version. 18 years later, Skyrim released.

Another Daggerfall thread about a lawsuit covering Daggerfalls' "obscene" content, and an argument breaks out.

 

[WarRock]

I like variety and surprises in the items found, the map, the specials encountered, in short in every aspect of the game. I like figuring out what things are and how they work. What a delight the thief’s dagger in Wizardry was! The maps in Wasteland are wonderful because any map may contain a map. The countryside contains towns and villages, the towns contain buildings, some buildings contain floors or secret passages. What fun!!!

What a goddamn treasure. More people should read this.

 

[NewGame]

WRPGs pretty much embrace a lot of the problems here. Maybe it's just legacy from D&D issues translating into the video game medium.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

Just goes to show no matter how hard you try, there's always rats.

Such a great letter though, I believe it was rumoured to have done the rounds of several development houses back in the day. Worth pinning to the wall even today.

Also, Digital Antiquarian is a fantastic blog. I found it recently while looking for material on the SSI Gold Box games and spent the next week reading everything there.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

I don't really play WRPGs so I can't relate to this stuff, but it's interesting to read.

 

[TheBowen]

The fact that alot of these problems are still prevelant in games, espcially with thr switched focus on making open workd style games, is pretty amazing

The only one i dont think it applicable is the puzzle one.

 

[The Albatross]

This holds up pretty well to today, except for a handful of things that have gone out of style like the reliance on clue books for essentially impossible "puzzles." Clue books and tip hotlines were the DLCs of the day for game makers and publishers, easy ways to make extra revenue on a game that's already been shipped.

Thankfully the industry mostly did away with impossible arbitrary puzzles, and it sort of went side-by-side with the emergence of the internet where solutions to puzzles and walkthroughs were widely available, so developers/publishers stopped using them as a way to arbitrarily lengthen a game or sell more books.

 

[Hastati]

Seems like a lot of these issues hold true because they latch on to the regular problems of storytelling through videogames, like showing versus telling in writing. They will probably always remain and always have to be tackled by developers until we get to the point that videogames are really just hyper realistic VR sandboxes without a narrative (at which point they aren't really videogames anymore I guess?). I know it's reached saturation already but Breath of the Wild seems to have intentionally tackled each of these points head on in its core design.

I also really want to frame this letter and send it with a box of Maison du Chocolat and some fine wine to Bethesda so they can read it a few times in a good mood before they start developing a new elder scrolls.

 

[mclem]

The trek from the surface to the final set of riddles in Ultima IV takes nearly four hours.

I did that multiple times, and I really don't recall it taking that long. Running from a slow floppy drive, maybe?

The fact that alot of these problems are still prevelant in games, espcially with thr switched focus on making open workd style games, is pretty amazing

The only one i dont think it applicable is the puzzle one.

As a puzzle fan, I strongly disagree with him on that one - although I will concede that many puzzles back then were poorly-designed, and I'll agree with him on that note; I just disagree with the idea that they shouldn't be extra-challenging... but I fully accept that I'm a minority there! Legend of Grimrock had a good approach, I think, with reasonable puzzles to get through the main quest, but tougher ones to open secret areas.