I believe that gaming is so fundamentally different now. Twitch, YouTube and other services have produced instant access to streams of the best players in the world and thousands of players crowd sourcing all of their knowledge online in discord, comment sections, subreddits, YouTube, and wherever else…
it’s produced a phenomenon where a community for a game inevitably speed runs everything about it within like 7 days. Any new meta or piece of content can go from novel to completely documented in no time at all.
This changes the way developers think about competitive gaming and even cool story games where you might hide Easter eggs. It changes how they build the game and their choices.
The onus is on the player to actively not seek that info out in games. And in competitive shooters that is to their detriment.
I’m just an old guy yelling at clouds, but it removed some of the magic of the experience when now you just Google (game)“current meta”
My son just got a switch for Christmas, and his uncle leant him a bunch of games including Breath of the Wild.
Since the hype is over, we can game without spoilers. It’s really nice. I feel like I’m playing Ocarina of Time again, where we have to just use our wits rather than rely on people to figure it out for us.
Yes, I could look up how to do things, but I’ve resisted so far. It makes it a lot more fun.
So far, though, I find the puzzles pretty easy and somewhat feel like devs have watered everything down as a result of the non-thinking gaming being much more prevalent
BotW was such a a good game. I had to get used to using and destroying my weapons. I always ended up ‘saving’ them for monster that I didn’t really need them for.
That’s how I played Hollow Knight and it was awesome. Just exploring and taking my time. It was nice. I did it again with Disco Elysium. I would suggest you check out those 2 games. Hollow Knight is better for kids as you don’t have to read a bunch. One tip about HK is you can down slash on enemies and spikes.
I also was last to BotW. I had it and then didn’t play it for 3+ years, maybe 5. I think I received it before my son was born. I finished it before he turned 6.
Anyway, I enjoyed it, but it was less about figuring stuff out and more about the adventure. I did enjoy the puzzles in the area-based dungeons and a few of the shrines. I nearly always forgot about one of the abilities.
I’m considering the expansion pack subscription just so I can catch up on all the Zeldas I missed in my 20s. There’s a lot of good games there I need to play
Yes, you have a point. I didn’t want to pay the money, but I do want to play the games. I missed SS and WW. I have OoT and TP, but my N64 needs to be cleaned and my Wii isn’t hooked up right now.
This reminds me of ARMS, a fighting game by Nintendo (they tried to launch a new IP).
A couple of months after the game came out the best player of the game got crushed at an event … by a developer of the game.
I feel the same about this. For me, It kills the best aspect of games, the playful learning. You just can’t go into any competitive game today without reading meta or you get crushed. But this is my free time. I want to spend it like that and just be creative and find my own solution to problems and still stand a realistic chance without having to have a second job studying the games meta. It’s the try and error discovery that made games fun for me and the feeling when you found your unique way to do things and others couldn’t counter it easily. But today it’s just about mastering a technique somebody else showed you.
You’re exactly right. The playful learning. It’s so bad now that sometimes just knowing you haven’t googled the most optimal way to play can linger in your head and ruin the experience lmao
I believe that gaming is so fundamentally different now. Twitch, YouTube and other services have produced instant access to streams of the best players in the world and thousands of players crowd sourcing all of their knowledge online in discord, comment sections, subreddits, YouTube, and wherever else…
it’s produced a phenomenon where a community for a game inevitably speed runs everything about it within like 7 days. Any new meta or piece of content can go from novel to completely documented in no time at all.
This changes the way developers think about competitive gaming and even cool story games where you might hide Easter eggs. It changes how they build the game and their choices.
The onus is on the player to actively not seek that info out in games. And in competitive shooters that is to their detriment.
I’m just an old guy yelling at clouds, but it removed some of the magic of the experience when now you just Google (game)“current meta”
My son just got a switch for Christmas, and his uncle leant him a bunch of games including Breath of the Wild.
Since the hype is over, we can game without spoilers. It’s really nice. I feel like I’m playing Ocarina of Time again, where we have to just use our wits rather than rely on people to figure it out for us.
Yes, I could look up how to do things, but I’ve resisted so far. It makes it a lot more fun.
So far, though, I find the puzzles pretty easy and somewhat feel like devs have watered everything down as a result of the non-thinking gaming being much more prevalent
BotW was such a a good game. I had to get used to using and destroying my weapons. I always ended up ‘saving’ them for monster that I didn’t really need them for.
That’s how I played Hollow Knight and it was awesome. Just exploring and taking my time. It was nice. I did it again with Disco Elysium. I would suggest you check out those 2 games. Hollow Knight is better for kids as you don’t have to read a bunch. One tip about HK is you can down slash on enemies and spikes.
Thanks for the recommendations! HK is on my radar because I only hear good things
I also was last to BotW. I had it and then didn’t play it for 3+ years, maybe 5. I think I received it before my son was born. I finished it before he turned 6.
Anyway, I enjoyed it, but it was less about figuring stuff out and more about the adventure. I did enjoy the puzzles in the area-based dungeons and a few of the shrines. I nearly always forgot about one of the abilities.
I’m considering the expansion pack subscription just so I can catch up on all the Zeldas I missed in my 20s. There’s a lot of good games there I need to play
Yes, you have a point. I didn’t want to pay the money, but I do want to play the games. I missed SS and WW. I have OoT and TP, but my N64 needs to be cleaned and my Wii isn’t hooked up right now.
I sincerely hope you’re smarter now than when you played ocarina :p
This reminds me of ARMS, a fighting game by Nintendo (they tried to launch a new IP).
A couple of months after the game came out the best player of the game got crushed at an event … by a developer of the game.
Huh, that’s neat.
I found a video of it: https://youtu.be/lYs6Bwt0e7o
If i understand it correctly the dev is the/a producer of the game and the other player just won a championship.
I feel the same about this. For me, It kills the best aspect of games, the playful learning. You just can’t go into any competitive game today without reading meta or you get crushed. But this is my free time. I want to spend it like that and just be creative and find my own solution to problems and still stand a realistic chance without having to have a second job studying the games meta. It’s the try and error discovery that made games fun for me and the feeling when you found your unique way to do things and others couldn’t counter it easily. But today it’s just about mastering a technique somebody else showed you.
You’re exactly right. The playful learning. It’s so bad now that sometimes just knowing you haven’t googled the most optimal way to play can linger in your head and ruin the experience lmao
Having separate queues for competitive matches and casual matches is the best thing to happen in gaming.
I’ve found that meta isn’t usually what’s best anyway, meta is usually some combination of good and easy to use/pull off.
Some metas feel like they are caused by content creators hyping something up because they had some good games with that setup.