Comments on: Going To A Better Place

By: FaceOmeter

FaceOmeter — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:36:46 +0000

Does 36 sound like an incredibly small sample group to anyone else?

I propose an experiment to disprove this: put a long, agile blade on the table and stand next to me while I play TF2. Watch what happens.

By: Eric Hendricks

Eric Hendricks — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:07:13 +0000

The researchers are simply reading this data wrong. Killing someone in game doesn’t elicit sadness, it is the depression to a normal brain state caused by the resolution of conflict. The so called happiness created by death isn’t happiness at all, it is excitement caused by the creation of a conflict, in that the player is prompted to kill his killer back. Team Fortress 2 reinforces this effect with the kill cam which shows your enemy immediately after they kill you, and with the implementation of the “nemesis” system.

By: papergoose

papergoose — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:23:34 +0000

The first time I died in STALKER, I raised my fist into the air, wide-eyed, and yelled “YES!”, because I was so happy to at how hardcore everything went down. It killed me, mercilessly, and easily.

By: Fat Zombie

Fat Zombie — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:11:43 +0000

I tend to enjoy dying in multiplayer games, but that’s probably because in multiplayer games I tend to do a lot of it. It does help to give you time to think “Well, that was brilliant.”

Of course, could this be a reason why driving jeeps covered in explosives into tanks and such in the Battlefield game is so entertaining? Or is that just me?

(Frontlines really performed a coup d’etat in that league, where RC jeeps covered in explosives for driving under enemies come as standard)

By: Windlab

Windlab — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:01:27 +0000

@ Suraj
I would get the same feeling in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory as an engineer, knowing full well the bridge needed to be built / or dynamite needs planting, but unless I did it, nobody else would, and the team I was on would lose.

It’s a nice feeling to know that you have altered the course of the game – possibly caused your team to win: flush with that sense of achievement, it’s no sacrifice to die.

However, I very much doubt that was the cause of such elation at death with this test group.

By: Suraj

Suraj — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:50:30 +0000

After killing that sniper or sentry I can always die in peace :)

By: phuzz

phuzz — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:03:53 +0000

I’ve definitely felt relief after dying in a game, especially after a really tense five minutes with no ammo, little health and enemies closing in, just knowing the stress is over makes me feel better, it’s almost painful restarting back in.
‘course, the best time is when you’ve got mates watching you, something bad happens and everyone assumes you’ll be dead in 5 seconds, but somehow you keep stringing it together, just reaching health kits in time, before finally taking out your pursuers in a final, suicidal, explosion.
great fun that :)

By: Lu-Tze

Lu-Tze — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:53:16 +0000

Of course they had superior players, I was on that team ^_^

Regardless, it still felt damn good at the time. It harkened me back to CSS days where you’d get a lucky “whitewash” round all to yourself.

TF2 lacks personal glory, and a taste of it was a welcome refreshment.

By: Feet

Feet — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:31:23 +0000

Dude.

You had superior numbers and superior players on your team. I wasn’t playing seriously either you know. Totally.

If I’d got “my game” on I would totally have WTFPWN’d you in the face.

Yeah.

By: Lu-Tze

Lu-Tze — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:46:22 +0000

I agree with Elyscape on the “that was awesome!” feeling… although I think I actually had glee coming out of my ears the other day when I had the entire opposing team Dominated at the same time. Pyro 4 lief.

By: Dinger

Dinger — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:34:37 +0000

In the manner of an American using “like” and “you know”, death and killing form essential yet non-signifying parts of the vocabulary of first person shooters. Their ubiquitous but discriminate arrangement helps establish and break the rhythms of the games. Commonly, we don’t fully enjoy a rapid rhythm until it goes away: think of the graveyard in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: fast cuts and Morricone’s soaring soundtrack through the graveyard, then the music stops and we get a long shot of The Grave. Builds again with fast cuts and more extreme close ups until the shooting. The pause gives us the reflection of “Wow that was cool”. (I suppose Mr. Barthes would disagree)

But it doesn’t always happen that way, especially in multiplayer games. Take spawn camping. Spawn Camping inverts the order. Death becomes a time to reflect on the no-skill pubescent jerk who offed ya; yet I’ll confess to greatly enjoying shooting someone right as they spawn in (the best was a Joint Ops demo a few years back, where you and a buddy could engineer mass slaughter by driving a Jeep/MG through the enemy’s base, or a solo sniper could park in a zodiac just at the limit of visual range, and shoot people trying to board the helo). Spawn camping fills the camper with glee, and the campee with lead. We disapprove of spawn camping because it perverts the game. But if death were in itself enjoyable, spawn camping wouldn’t exist, or people would be begging to be camped.

So I do think that design can inflect the terms killing and death so that the former brought pleasure, and the latter remorse. It would probably mean lots of John Woo action sequences though.

By: beeber

beeber — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:20:19 +0000

If you’re any good, then dying will probably occur in the most exciting bits of the game.

But Alec, I’m like you. Killing is about getting those obstacles out of the way so I can see what happens next. I think that’s why graphics are so important in FPS. I want to see more of the pretty world.

And yet the stories are still so crap…