

The Borderlands Gun Collector's Club - abyx
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2012/03/borderlands-gun-collectors-club.html

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smacktoward
Oh, man. I played _Borderlands_ all the way through (once, anyway), and my
reaction to all the things Steve praises was exactly the opposite.

* I had no idea that there was a special benefit to playing the game through a second or third time. That's because _the game doesn't tell you that._ So the only people who will ever discover this are the hardest of hard-core OCD types.

* Even if it _did_ tell you that, it's ridiculous that it would push the "good stuff" out to the second or third playthrough. Old Man Murray said it best, more than a decade ago (<http://www.oldmanmurray.com/longreviews/63.html>):

 _> Here's a note to developers regarding what we hope will become an
industry-wide policy: if your game has some good parts, try to put them at the
fucking beginning. It takes us ten hours of dismal labor to earn enough money
to buy your game, so please commence the entertainment early on. If possible,
pack something fun right into the box, for instance a balloon..._

 _> Developers have one goddamn job: entertain us. And we mean now, goddamnit,
not in six hours._

* The huge number of randomly generated guns may create a token economy, but it also forces the player to spend way too much time trying to figure out whether Gun # 712,924 is better than Gun # 712,925. Sid Meier is supposed to have said that "a game is a series of interesting choices," and the problem with Borderlands' guns is that choosing between them is usually _not interesting,_ because the differences between most weapons you encounter contemporaneously are so tiny.

This wouldn't be so bad if you could carry an unlimited number of weapons, but
you can't, so you're constantly having to compare weapons to decide which ones
to discard and which to keep; which means you're constantly being forced to
make _uninteresting choices._ It's the opposite of fun.

And on and on. Don't get me wrong, I liked _Borderlands_ ; as a shooter it was
OK, and its unique aesthetic was fun. But all the things that Steve is raving
about here are things that I experienced as reasons _not_ to like it.

~~~
Lewisham
Agreed, this is a very odd piece which hinges on the idea that the number of
hours you put into a game is indicative of its quality, but you'll find people
ploughing hundreds of hours into very poor games. Every game has its fans.

Borderlands balancing itself to only being interesting after 50 hours
(assuming the author is correct) is odd and does not help it sell copies or
win mindshare. It sounds like the author actually liked Playthrough 2.5
because it didn't have any of the MMORPG trappings, but was actually a
balanced first-person shooter.

I've been researching "retention" mechanics (dark patterns/addiction patterns)
in games from the POV of behavioral economics for my PhD thesis for a while
now. My intuition (no data yet) is that what people seem to miss is that the
tricks work for a while, but then they stop working. I'm reaching a conclusion
that the tricks work just long enough to keep people playing until their
social network joins, and then they're locked in until the game gets boring,
and then they jump to the next game, where it seems the retention patterns
work again.

What these patterns don't do is make a game enjoyable. The Borderlands gun
mechanic, in particular, is not a very good retention mechanic. It'll work...
for a time, until players see the inevitable archetypes of variation, and then
it won't. The guns are not really valuable, because Borderlands will always
give you another one in five minutes. If the player isn't being given
something of value, it's not a very good mechanic. The value in the guns isn't
the gun itself, but the surprise from the variation, and when that dries up,
I'd expect it stops working.

It seems to me the author just really liked Borderlands, which is fine, but is
confusing some of the trappings of Borderlands with why she likes it. I think
some deeper introspection through the MMORPG smoke and mirrors will find that
she just likes the gameplay.

This is not to say MMORPG stuff doesn't work, just that it tapers off. And I
think for most people, it tapered off way before Playthrough 2.5.

~~~
Androsynth
I've played these games and worked in the Addictive Game industry. In my
experience, every time the addiction is wearing off, you have to 'up the ante'
(either by introducing new content, new mechanics, upping the difficulty curve
etc). But the problem is that the addiction is mildly stressful on the player,
and every time they increase the addiction mechanics, they increase the
stress.

This inevitably leads to burnout and it usually happens in one of two ways:

1-they run out of content or master the learning curve, therefore they run out
of stuff to be addicted to; this usually causes a general tapering off of play
time

2-the stress overcomes the addiction and they flat out quit, even though they
are still addicted

It would be interesting to examine the play patters of various games that have
different variations on addiction vs stress vs fun.

LoL -high fun, high stress, low addiction

WoW -med fun, med stress, med addiction

farmville -low fun, high stress, high addiction

edit: the stress of a game like LoL is very different from a game like FV. LoL
is high because you must play perfectly in order not to be ridiculed by your
teammates. FV is high because you are given a dozen new things to do every
time you just want to do the basic stuff, but your compelled to do
_everything_ , which generally requires you to keep a large mental queue of
everything it throws at you every time you log in.

~~~
Lewisham
I'd love to talk with you more about this offline :)

I looked at your site and noticed you don't make your email address available
(which I am sure is by design), so could you ping me at chris {{{at}}}
chris.to ?

------
bane
I actually never finished playing Borderlands. And by God I tried. I had
reached a point in the game where I had ended up with very powerful weapons,
more powerful than anything I could buy and 99.999% of those that I found. Gun
collecting became boring.

Going on fetch quests and fighting the same few enemies? Boring.

Driving around in a weirdly physic'd car that didn't have at least proper
driving sound effects and damage models fighting enemies that weren't even a
token match? Boring.

Slaying skags by the thousands? Boring.

etc. etc. etc.

Eventually I just gave up. I had "beaten" the game only insomuch as having
leveled up a character to the point that he had achieved virtual godhood in
the game. Nigh-impervious to damage, wielding weapons Zeus would have feared,
there was no progression anymore, I had beaten the difficulty curve simply by
grinding my way ahead of it.

~~~
Random_Person
That's where it goes until around New Haven on the second playthrough. THEN it
starts getting crazy again. You start feeling vulnerable and excitement picks
up.

I'm not saying it's a good thing that you have to trudge through the game 2+
times for it to really shine, but I absolutely HATE grinding and gave up MMO's
because of it... and I can't even begin to guess how many hours I have spent
grinding this game because it's so damn fun.

~~~
bane
That's what I've heard, but I just couldn't see putting the hours into it to
find fun days or weeks later...when I could just play something else that was
fun now.

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klausa
I played Borderlands and enjoyed it, but I had to stop playing after first act
(when you leave first town to go to desert, I don't know whether it's really
first act) - because of my severe case of arachnophobia (and worm-and-bug-
looking-thins-phobia) - I literally panicked and mashed escape key to pause
game, had talk myself to calming down, shoot six bullets and then panic again
when this bug suddenly changed direction or second one appeared. After half
hour of that I was so mentally exhausted, I quit and never looked back.

I wonder if I'm the only one with such problems.

~~~
vibrunazo
Interesting, I have a friend who also have arachnophobia, but he loves
Borderlands. I'll ask him about that.

Have you thought of maybe using the game as a therapeutic means for trying to
alleviate the problem? I've heard of treatment where they try to get the
patients used to their phobia, until it goes away. So I'd suppose the game
would be a good opportunity to do that virtually. Would that even make sense?

~~~
DanBC
There's something called "Cognitive Behaviour Therapy" which is a carefully
controlled exposure to the thing that causes fear, with a lot of thinking and
feeling.

Your example (Let's call him Bob, scared of spiders, and Ann, a therapist).

Ann would explain that Bob is in a safe space, and there are no spiders, and
that she's not going to bring any out. Then she'd ask him to think about a
spider. She'd ask him what his "hot thought" was; what his "emotion" was; and
she'd ask how strongly he felt those.

Bob might say Fear, 50%; "I might get bitten".

Ann would then ask him why he thought that. Is it a reasonable thought?
There's some discussion about the probability of being bitten, and so what if
you are, and etc. She then asks Bob how he feels, and if it's as strong.
Hopefully it's not as strong.

This continues each week; next week she draws a scribble (not even a spider)
on a piece of paper; then a spider; then a picture of a spider; then a dead
spider; then a live spider but in a sealed box; then a live spider in a box
with the lid off; eventually building up to Bob being able to touch a live
spider.

Note that all the time Bob is in control of how much exposure to spiders he
gets, and it's all very gently progressing. CBT is a very effective treatment
for phobias.

Compare this to "FACE YOUR FEARS" - Charles hates elevators, but he decides to
face his fears. He goes to the mall. His palms start to get sweaty, his
breathing gets faster, his heart beats harder. He's having an adrenaline
reaction. He walks up to the elevator. He's really stressed now. He pushes the
button to call the elevator. He waits. His stress and fear levels are pretty
high now. The elevator arrives, and he gets in. It's small, and he's really
panicked. The door closes, and the elevator starts moving with that little
jerky clunky move they make. It goes up one floor. Charles is on the verge of
a full blown panic attack, and is very uncomfortable. The doors open, and
charles leaves the elevator.

As he leaves relief -endorphins- flood through him. He sits, head in his
hands, so pleased to be out of the elevator.

All Charles has achieved is to strengthen his fear of elevators - now they're
more scary because he's had a really unpleasant experience in one, and he was
rewarded when he "escaped" the situation.

Your idea of a virtual computer driven way to introduce people to something
they fear is excellent, but only if done carefully.

~~~
klausa

      >Bob might say Fear, 50%; "I might get bitten".
    

That's the weird (or is it common?) thing - I'm not afraid that they will hurt
me or bite me - I realize that they are mostly harmless (at least where I
live.).

I just find them... _repulsive_. I don't know how to put it differently, I
just think they're ugly and unpleasant.

~~~
DanBC
That's not weird. Very many people are repulsed by bugs for the same reason -
bugs are just horrid.

But, if you wanted to work on it you'd be able to get to point where you
wouldn't freak out every time you saw a bug and it would only take a few
weeks. There's probably something online to help guide you through it.

------
DanBC
Holy crap he needs an editor.

"Gamification works - give people things to find / build / collect / modify;
then count those things; then allow them to display those things; and display
your counts too."

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rdl
I don't really understand this. I'd rather have a 10h of actual fun game vs.
hundreds (or thousands) of hours of meaningless grinding for tokens. I think I
am exactly the opposite of what she thinks is the motivation of a game player.

I do like games with "completion mechanics", but not open ended token
counters. But the only reason I'd play Borderlands is for the story -- it
looks like a horrible game from a mechanics standpoint.

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koko775
Oof. Hard to let that Fallout 3 comment slide. New Vegas was a spiritual
successor to Fallouts 1 and 2, and was an amazing sequel. I'd like to know
more about how she believes Fallout 3 exceeded New Vegas, as New Vegas was
arguably closer to the original vision for Van Buren, and a heck of a lot of
fun (and funny) to boot.

That aside, I've beaten Crawmerax probably nearly fifty times by now, so
everything she says about addiction, I'll agree with. Multiple pearlescents
and armory abuses for the win! :D

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kveykva
I'd agree that Borderlands was a "more fun" game than Rage, but I think Rage
actually entered development before Borderlands?

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hef19898
How he's right! I have one soldier with outmaxed stats (only 2 skillpoints
missing), and how was it fun! Then day job and family demanded their share...
but still farming, YEAHHH!

And yes, all the rest about addcition, token economies etc... he' right, too!
^

What a read!

P.S.: Nicely written, completely in line with the game, I almost pissed myself
Chaz... mina!! :-))))) And typing errors, well who cares!

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cturner
Interesting article, but the constant juvenile sexual references count against
it. I wanted to send this to a girl I know for the addiction topic, except you
can't send junk like this to girls. Grow up.

If you like jumping have a look at Cobalt. Quake had rocket jumps and good
grenades and you could hack the physics and was way more fun than quake2,
which dumbed them down.

~~~
wbobeirne
Totally agree on the jumping front. Rocket jumps have gone out of style
unfortunately, but they're still my favorite damn thing. Team Fortress 2
scratches that itch, but I always love me some good explosives assisted
jumping.

As for the maturity of the article, it's an article about Borderlands. It's
kind of to be expected. And expecting someone to read through that who doesn't
care for that style of humor is a lot to ask. Cherry pick the info if you want
to get straight to the message, but the bulk of the article's entertainment
value is not the message, but the delivery.

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illumin8
I never finished Borderlands... Killing tons of skags with an automatic weapon
is only fun for about the first 30 minutes for me, but reading this article
makes me want to play to the end-game. Then again, the time investment getting
to playthrough 2.5 is probably not worth it.

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CPlatypus
Anybody who enjoys Steve's thoughts about gaming addiction will probably enjoy
this "hidden gem" too.

<http://www.nickyee.com/hub/addiction/addiction.pdf>

It's a decade old now, but IMO it does an even better job explaining the
dynamics of game addiction.

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jpdoctor
> _All this is just another way of saying that rarity creates desirability._

Hmmm. I notice that the iPad3 pre-orders are sold out. Hmmm.

