Egregoros

@Azur_Fenix @Kerosene These people just assume the player trusts them but I don't and I don't want ten minutes of you explaining how to hold a controller and I don't want ten minutes of people I do not yet care about talking.
The protagonist can be voiced, the game can have cut scenes but there needs to be a serious value proposition. Demonstrate that the fundamentals of gameplay are fun, then you can talk.
A lot of good RPGs start with simple "bottle episode" type deals for this reason. You have enough variety to keep you busy because you don't immediately lore dump about the age of Endralionusby and can see the consequences of your actions (the writing quality) immediately. You make the feedback loops short in the beginning and then you can have longer ones when you won player trust.
This is a big reason why modern games have this weird statistic about so many people not even going through the first act or whatever. Because it SUCKS ASS!

@WandererUber @Azur_Fenix @Kerosene there is definetly something to be said how games add difficulty incrementally through extra mechanics and variables, there is really nothing that quake "introduces" besides the weapons, of course they are not really all that different, you point at a guy long enough and he dies.

you do the exact same thing you do in level 1 except you do it faster harder and smarter, it's not arbitrary difficulty in that there is more to juggle or that it's super punishing and precise, it's that the game demands mastery of it's mechanics and understanding on a gut level rather than the brain level.

i can't tell you shit about quake in how to deal with situations, but i have the intuition to shimmy in and out of the ogres melee range while maintaining the shamblers distance and sight, no brain used here it's all gut, and it feels great.

@themilkman @Azur_Fenix @Kerosene I was thinking about the fiends today. How they charge you and if they hit you take damage and when you compare "dog" enemies in modern games, you're really not supposed to dodge them, but rather "press F" once they get to you, to rip them off your arm.
So lame in comparison.

Like you said, in Quake you just get the mechanics and it's clear what you are "allowed" to do with them. Because everything is in the mechanics. In modern games, it feels lame when you cheese an enemy like a dog, by for example standing on some ledge or whatever. But it's all fair game in Quake. Why wouldn't it be?

I played Q1s singleplayer for the first time btw, and I executed a skip with a strafe jump because that was interesting to me. Didn't feel like cheese, just fun