Well, it would seem that we have an irreconcilable differences, as it would appear that you're all pretty adamant on the "Unlockables Features as a reward" stance. Let me just say this however:
Unlocking things and improving one's profile is a huge draw for many people. It's one of the main reasons kongregate has been successful, compared to other flash gaming sites that don't have challenges or medals. It's one of the reasons for goldeneye's huge popularity back on the nintendo64. Going back even further, it's comparable to completing challenges in order to unlock characters in fighting games- in tekken for example, every character has a sub-boss character they must fight before the last boss. Those subbosses are all unlockable by winning the game with the character that fights them, and then the last boss by winning with all of the subbosses.
The idea, I guess, is that it's that process that is the draw. This is why some modern games have absurd numbers of unlockables. Smash brothers brawl is an example of a game that does this well. There is an insane amount of unlockable content, but there are multiple ways to unlock the most important content, (the extra characters) and much of the content would be meaningless to people that don't care about being a completionist (stickers, medals).
In my case, I haven't played doomrl in a few months now because I've been eagerly anticipating the new release, and don't want to waste my time on my old profile that won't be transferred. ;)
This may just be me, but I don't think it's acceptable that a game do something just because other games, on different systems, targetted at different audiences, and are different genres altogether did them, and were aggravating even then. I know I would have enjoyed the games you listed much more if there were no unlockables.
Comparing DoomRL to Nethack is a pretty hard sell, you don't have to unlock anything in Nethack, you just start and everything is there.
No it isn't. I played a lot of it, and still didn't manage to "unlock" access to Gehenna. Moreover, it's a stupid kind of access, because I need to do all the needed dungeon level challenges again each time I die or ascend, instead of just hopping into Gehenna game.
I'm glad to hear that you've played Nethack as well. I've beaten it 3 times now, but let's not get sidetracked by superfluous analogies.
I hate to be rude Mr. Kornel, but I must say that that is an absurd assertion. Things which are part of the game, are fair challenges, and are by no means arbitrary don't seem to me to be what I'm talking about. That would be like me saying "How come I have to unlock access to Hell's Armory in DoomRL? Why can't I just start and be in there already? Every time I die, I have to play the game and complete it's challenges to get there!".
I don't wish to argue with you on needless points Mr. Kornel, as it would appear that you want to design your game in your own way. I can respect that, and if you have no intention of listening to me, then just say so and I will be gone.
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Topic: Purpose of Unlockables (Read 17154 times)