Egregoros

It's probably not news to anyone here but it still is really aggravating when you play a modern game and like 90% of the time spent is not doing something challenging/interesting/cool. It's literally crazy to me how people can stand it.
I made a point to go back to quake with 8 bit graphics enabled.
It's really not a big deal compared to all these fucking games that have animations for everything, have you press F constantly, have you drive around from mission to mission. And then the combat ISN'T EVEN FUN.

I could probably pull off a big schizo elaboration how this relates to the just world hypothesis, communism, and/or democracy, but you can probably fill in the blanks here

@WandererUber SO TRUE. I've actually started liking arcade-style games much more than I used to precisely because I can pick up my chinkheld console and play. The older I get the more I dislike games that feel like watching a movie or ones where you're forced to "play" (walk) while characters yap about bullshit nobody cares about.

>boot game
>"oh no Mr. Main Character, there are aliens invading or whatever, who cares, go kill those guys"
>play

More should be like this.

@Kerosene it has to do with how they think hard work is rewarded and how you are entitled to a level up for putting in time. It's the mindset that began with the boomers. Those types frequently demand you take them seriously because they've "been here for thirty years sonny" even though they don't know shit.
So when someone infected with this pro-democratic commie mind virus makes or plays a video game they feel like if they aimlessly wander around the map they deserve to get something for it, which then naturally collapses the game space under the pressure of putting out content. If only a small fraction of players and devs even understand that it's cool to be good at something instead of just showing up, they will dish out the items and XP for nothing and they will tell you exactly what you need to do every time to "not be unfair" to you.
And it can also not be hard to do because that's also unfair. It can be grueling but it can't be hard to figure out. So hold F to remove the dog that is biting you instead of circlestrafing out of the way, and hold F to mine the minerals and hold F to open the door and hold F to uhh... Does not matter at this point here are 45000 XP!

This is not the essay this is the vomit draft please excuse this

@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