By Alec Meer on April 21st, 2009 at 6:23 pm.
Locked door, I hate you.
I hate the way you are resistant to knives, to guns, to sledgehammers, to rocket-propelled grenades, to weapons that rewrite the very laws of physics, to dark unearthly magic, to punches that can knock a man’s head clean off.
I hate the way I could kick or smash you down in real life, with this puny human body of mine. But I cannot in the grand, escapist fantasy of a videogame.
I hate the way you are so often an easy shortcut for developers unable or unwilling to devise more satisfying obstacles and challenges.
I hate the way you so often lead to nowhere, how you are nothing more than decoration for a wall.
I hate the way I’m expected to give up trying to open you when I see the words “this door has been locked from the other side” or “this door opens elsewhere”, as though they’re a command from God himself.
I hate the way you always make that click-click, or clunk or uh-uh noise when I try to open you: the very sound of failure.
I hate the way your key or switch is always so far away.
I hate the way the fate of the world so often hinges upon opening you.
I hate the way the letter ‘E’ has worn off my keyboard because I’ve tried to open you so many times, in so many games.
I hate the way you’ve added hundreds, perhaps thousands of unnecessary extra hours to my lifetime of gaming.
I hate the way you’ve annoyed me so much that I’ve just written 200 words whining pathetically about you.
If you didn’t exist, locked door, videogames as we know them would be radically different.
Locked door, I hate you.
21/04/2009 at 18:25 SirKicksalot says:
So you’re excited for Red Faction: Guerrilla too, huh?
BTW, remember that COD4 “oh you gotta be shitting me” moment? :D
21/04/2009 at 18:26 Thirith says:
This is one of the most beautiful love stories I’ve ever read. Sniff.
21/04/2009 at 18:27 Duoae says:
Excellent post… i, too, harbour a hatred of these fantasy facades…. I demand justice! Justice for all!
21/04/2009 at 18:27 juv3nal says:
“A closed door is better than an open door, because behind a closed door can be anything.”
-supposedly a zen koan, although google doesn’t dig up any attribution.
21/04/2009 at 18:27 Doctor Doc says:
The door opens after you have disarmed the bomb. <3
21/04/2009 at 18:29 Mythrilfan says:
Unopeing wall, I hate you.
/Wolfenstein 3D
21/04/2009 at 18:33 MrBejeebus says:
i agree mr meer!
21/04/2009 at 18:34 Gap Gen says:
Actually, I haven’t noticed myself searching for doors that are obviously not textures in games these days. Have things got better, or have I just pushed that given gamey unrealistic thing into my subconscious?
21/04/2009 at 18:36 Zed says:
There’s a mod for Fallout 3 which lets you use explosives to open locked doors. Maybe that will heal your E key, or maybe nothing can bring it back from the dead.
21/04/2009 at 18:36 Kevlmess says:
I hate the way I’m able to kick, a splode or shoot most of your kin open in Fallout 2 but in Fallout 3 I can’t.
(Edit: Well, yeah, there’s that mod and yeah, I have installed it. But I don’t want to spend my precious skill points to explosives just so that I can open a damn door.)
21/04/2009 at 18:36 Mo says:
Brilliant!
21/04/2009 at 18:36 piphil says:
Here I am, Champion of Cyrodil, an Ox of a man wearing heavy armour. Hell, I even have Nocturnal’s Skeleton Key in my inventory. “This door is locked” my shiny armoured ass…
21/04/2009 at 18:37 Hieremias says:
You have to burn the… er, door.
21/04/2009 at 18:37 Sinnerman says:
Imagine a world without doors. A world without rules where your dreams are only small step away from reality. A world where children can run freely in the streets while laughing at the sun. We can make this world together.
21/04/2009 at 18:39 Not Bernard says:
Half Life 2, I’m looking at YOU.
21/04/2009 at 18:40 Meat Circus says:
Fallout and Fallout 2′s doors weren’t made of indestructium because it hadn’t been invented.
This material was a new invention by the Brotherhood for Fallout 3.
21/04/2009 at 18:40 unique_identifier says:
ufo: enemy unknown, how i love thee.
[ edit: completely unrelated yet hilarious thread stemming from latest tf2 patchnotes - http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=844795 ]
21/04/2009 at 18:41 The Hammer says:
“A closed door is better than an open door, because behind a closed door can be anything.”
Like a better gaming experience!
21/04/2009 at 18:44 deadnewbie says:
I also despise Locked Door, but not nearly as much as its close relative Invisible Wall. LD breaks immersion when you try to interact with it, IW breaks immersion by its very existence.
21/04/2009 at 18:44 Psychopomp says:
Imagine there’s no boltlock
It’s easy if you try
No key below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no locks
It isn’t hard to do
No keys to kill or die for
And no keycodes too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
21/04/2009 at 18:45 Locked Door says:
Don’t hate me, Alec, join me. Lock the comments on this post. Feel the POWER I feel ALL THE TIME.
21/04/2009 at 18:48 Frosty840 says:
Eeeh.
What’re designers supposed to do? Add FC2′s “wander into the desert and the magic sand-fairies will fetch you and bring you back after you faint” mechanic to everything?
Gameworlds are finite, and locked doors provide the illusion of less-finite-ness, even if they can’t be opened.
Walling the gameworld off in any way breaks *some* kind of immersion. I can’t think of any mechanic that would be less annoying. If you want to spend the game doing stuff you obviously shouldn’t, i.e. wandering away from the main quest to go and learn to fish, or something, in a game you bought precisely in order to do the main quest, don’t be surprised when the game’s ability to act in ways it wasn’t intended to act aren’t particularly impressive.
Gameworlds are finite, the number of ways to seal you off from their finite limits are even more so. Specifically, there are four: “magical energy barrier”, “scientific energy barrier”, “environmental barrier” and “emotional barrier”. The first two require a visible energy barrier and are generally annoying, the fourth requires the computer to take control of the player and play some twee “Must… Keep!… GOING!” nonsense, and the third is the least annoying one.
Think about it. If your character is on some urgent mission, the ability to go off and wander round the toilets, just because there’s a door marked “toilets” is pointless.
In real life you don’t feel hungry, head off to the chippie and try every door in the road just because there’s a door in it and you think there might be a chip shop in there.
What you’re actually complaining about is bad level design, which is a completely different beast, more closely related to “I hate endless corridors full of locked doors, the only one of which that opens is the third one from the end of some random corridor, with no way of knowing which corridor that is.”
The annoyance of not being able to get through a locked door is no more than the frustration of being unable to shoot your way through a wall that’s obviously made of plasterboard in any action game set in an office.
Yes, locked doors in games are annoying, but they are such a tiny subset of “bad level design” that to complain about them specifically is to miss the point.
21/03/2011 at 17:45 khamul says:
If I can’t open it, don’t make it look like a door I can open.
Walking down a corridor actioning doors I can’t open because sometimes I can is not a valuable use of my time.
21/04/2009 at 18:51 pepper says:
It takes away from the experience of a game but there is no easy way to avoid it Unless you want to extend development times up to the infinite.
21/04/2009 at 18:53 Jeremy says:
I almost think you’ve missed the point my friend.
21/04/2009 at 18:54 Geoff says:
and don’t you hate how bishops can only move diagonally? I’ve seen bishops walk straight ahead in real life. Silly unrealistic game with its terrible design. Surely it’ll never catch on.
21/04/2009 at 18:56 Radiant says:
I hate the way they look like other doors I can open.
21/04/2009 at 18:56 Pags says:
I have! But I was drunk.
21/04/2009 at 18:56 Alec Meer says:
I never claimed hatred was rational, kids.
21/04/2009 at 18:58 windlab says:
Yes, locked doors in games are annoying, but they are such a tiny subset of “bad level design” that to complain about them specifically is to miss the point.
…but locked doors are often the very embodiment of bad level design.
21/04/2009 at 18:59 Pags says:
Doors locked for no apparent reason aren’t really rational either so I think your hatred and locked doors are even.
21/04/2009 at 19:03 James F says:
I have to say that this is the greatest thing I have seen all week, starting last week, if that doesn’t sound impressive enough.
21/04/2009 at 19:04 nabeel says:
I sense much hate in you.
21/04/2009 at 19:05 Zyrxil says:
Terrible rant. ‘E’ key worn off from overuse? Real gamers use ESDF + custom keybinds, none of that kiddy WASD + default terribleness.
21/04/2009 at 19:08 18Rabbit says:
So which would be better? A) A magically locked door that cannot be opened until you do a specific task -OR- B) A locked door that you can open if you have the skill/strength/etc but that will 99% kill you after you open it unless you have done a specific task before opening it.
21/04/2009 at 19:09 Serondal says:
You can very easily avoid locked doors in your games. DON’T PUT THEM THERE, MAKE IT A WALL!
Another reason to love Men at War, not only can you blast through doors you can blow the entire building up :P But even it has that annoying fog that the enemy can enter but your forces can not ;)
There should be a law in this country and others that requires you to put something behind every door in your game. Even if it is a room that says “You’re not suposed to see this” Like they had in the old FPS games for when you used noclip to get some where you’re not suposed to ^_^ Those were the good ol days lol.
Maybe a message that says “We could allow you to open this door, but you wouldn’t like it”
21/04/2009 at 19:10 BooleanBob says:
The relationship is simple: some (most?) games (Half-Life 2 is an excellent example) rely on taut, tightly-scripted level design and carefully controlled player progression. Some games also want to be set in a realistic urban environment. Such environments typically, in the real world, have many doors.
Valve seemingly catch endless amounts of flack for this, but what are they really meant to do? They can’t lose doors from the equation or City 17 looks less like a city and more like a concrete maze garden, which harms the fiction of the world and the player’s immersion in the game (I know locked doors also hurt immersion, but I would argue less than a city full of buildings with a notable lack of doors).
They can’t lose the taut, tightly-scripted player experience because that is what Half-Life is all about (and a building block for the greatness of just about every instalment in the series so far). If they made every door operable, the player suddenly is confronted with an endless number of possible paths, which causes a horrible anxiety for most players about which is the correct path to take, what goodies might be missed in any untaken paths, etc.
A popular question among gamers at the moment is whether the ‘in vogue’ trend of open world games is really adding anything to the experience, which, without the developer having any control over the player’s progression, can lead to disastrously inconsistent player experiences and leaves the player with the task of ‘making their own fun’, in my eyes a FAR more damning “easy shortcut” for developers to take than daring to decorate their walls with appropriate (if not always logically consistent) miscellanea.
And they can’t lose the gritty urban environments because then we would just get games comprising entirely of HL1′s Xen levels. Hands up all who fancy that..?
So damned thricely they are, whether they do, don’t or do but make it look like they totally didn’t. I think a few locked doors is a small compromise price for the gamer to pay if the return on that suspension of disbelief are gorgeous worlds and fantastic fun. Not to mention that expending endless amounts of art resources on an elaborate, grandiose contrivance that the player immediately recognises as a “world-consistent” stand-in for a locked door hardly seems like an improvement to me (see: Fog Monster Village Island, which was a brave but almost psychotically single-minded attempt to solve the invisible wall problem, another (to my eyes) acceptable compromise in game world design).
Sorry for being perhaps a little too serious (not to mention long-winded) in response to what was surely meant to be a light-hearted post. I’ve seen the complaint from Mr. Meer before, disagreed, and now I decide that no longer will my tongue be held. Behold! I engage in the ancient gladiatorial combat of argumentation!
21/04/2009 at 19:11 Jeremy says:
Zyr, don’t claim to be edgy just because you don’t use the best keybinds ever. I use TFGH, I’m even more hardcore than you. Once… and I hate to brag, I even used YGHJ. I throw grenades with P, open doors with 1 and turn on my flashlight every time I strafe left. It is necessary. I hope this doesn’t become a serious discussion on game design, because.. you know, it’s an ode to locked door hatred.
21/04/2009 at 19:11 BooleanBob says:
Oh but god damnit Frosty840 beats me to it. Succinct and articulate, folks! Let’s hear it for Frosty840. Also, you can disregard the above wall of text.
21/04/2009 at 19:12 Wisq says:
Of course, there’s always Left 4 Dead’s approach, where every door goes somewhere, but you probably don’t want to take every single one because you’ll just end up exploring a closet or dead end while the hordes continue to spawn around you . . .
21/04/2009 at 19:13 Lack_26 says:
Hate is just another form of love.
*Ducks as a locked door (ripped of its hinges) is thrown in my direction*
21/04/2009 at 19:15 windlab says:
I can accept locked doors in the HL2 universe, but I am still stunned when I come across a locked door in Stalker, it seems weird. But fitting.
21/04/2009 at 19:16 Jeremy says:
In all honesty, I clicked on the link thinking it was going to be an awesome “escape the room” flash game. I am slightly disappointed
21/04/2009 at 19:19 Whiskey Jak says:
I hate locked door too, even more so when their design isn’t different for doors that you can open. But I think what I hate most are a couple of empty boxes that I can’t move, or a simple desk that I can’t jump over it and prevent me from going into a corridor, even if my character is a mix of He-Man/SWAT/Super-Jesus/Zombie-Robot/Pirate-Ninja/Shia Laboeuf A.K.A. The Beefster.
Also, slopes that shouldn’t be insurmoutable, but since my character can’t use his hands to climb because-they-are-magically-glued-to-the-equipped-weapon, he can’t climb the tiny hill (looking at you FC2!).
21/04/2009 at 19:20 Heliocentric says:
Blowing doors open in deus ex was satisfying for just this reason. Sure, it had texture doors but any door that did open? You had a fair chance it was also destructable. With that laser sword max melee skill and the combat strength aug any destroyable door could be slashed open. I ended deus ex with like 40 lock pick tools.
21/04/2009 at 19:22 Ranger says:
“this door opens elsewhere”
He-he, Quake.
At least you can blow up doors in Deus Ex based on a “door strenght” factor.
21/04/2009 at 19:22 Serondal says:
There are more than a few locked doors in half life 2, but I guess not as many as half life 1 :P
In half life 2′s case they could have been doors that you can open but then there is something stopping you form going very far into the room like a blockade or a character telling you to go lost. They did this in many cases in half life 2 actually for example one door that is open with 2 guards that kicked your but if you tried to look inside.
21/04/2009 at 19:24 Cooper says:
If all the doors in HL2 could open, where would they lead to?
I suspect identi-kit interiors a la Oblivion – asking your level designers to create an incredibly tight sequence and then add meaningless dead ends seems pointless.
That being said, HL2 could have done much better than a waggling door handle and an error noise. Linearity I’m fine with, but that’s lazy – could we not have had more boarded up doors, more rubble?
Anything than -Rattle-rattle “and our survey says…”-
21/04/2009 at 19:29 Salem5 says:
Dont Give up, After I’m going to rule over the world of videogaming, I’ll declare that unpassable doors are bad gameplayelements.
21/04/2009 at 19:29 Marty Dodge says:
Ah yes the famous bouncy door that resists everything…including a rocket that promptly bounces back and does damage to you.
21/04/2009 at 19:32 Calabi says:
When is a door not a a door? When its in a game.
Nicely vocalised Alec.
There are surely other methods that can be utilised instead of this paradox and temptation.
Copy and pasting simple room designs. High fences(even some random guy that rips your face off), would bring across the idea better that you cannot or do not want to go this way.
21/04/2009 at 19:35 Simon says:
“I hate the way you always make that click-click, or clunk or uh-uh noise when I try to open you: the very sound of failure.”
I needed to think a little extra about the uh-uh sound, but when I got it I really understood what you meant with the sound of failure.
21/04/2009 at 19:35 DarthInsinuate says:
BREACH, BANG AND CLEAR! Take that, you dirty wooden bastard.
I replayed Max Payne recently. It featured a whole corridor of locked doors that I spent 5 minutes wondering around before I realised I’m supposed to jump out the window.
21/04/2009 at 19:38 Nick says:
I bet you couldn’t kick a locked door down, Alec!
(I nearly posted that without the comma then realised it could have an entirely different and strange meaning).
21/04/2009 at 19:38 Zeus Poplar says:
This subject always reminds me of this one episode of Murder She Wrote.
Angela Lansbury was hired as a consultant for a new virtual reality video game (it’s the 90s, yo!) and she chided the developers for lining a hallway with useless locked doors.
“People will always assume that locked doors lead to something special. You can’t just fill your world with locked doors and then not put anything behind them!”
Modern developers should heed Angela Lansbury’s advice.
21/04/2009 at 19:39 Narls says:
Well said, you made my day!
21/04/2009 at 19:40 Jad says:
One of my favorite moments of “Yay, game design!” was in the first Call of Duty, when you walk up to the very first door and a message pops up saying something to the effect of: “You cannot open this door. You will not have to open any doors in this game, ever.”
As much as I love old-school keycard quests and level design puzzles, I also love it when a game know what it is, and doesn’t follow the usual game design path. Call of Duty was a extremely tightly-scripted, linear Nazi-shooting game; if trying to figure out which door leads you to the next set piece does not fit into that game design, then screw it: no door opening! More Nazi-shooting!
21/04/2009 at 19:43 BallisticsFood says:
Locked doors have a place. Doors that are not only locked but completely unopenable I have no qualm with, doors that you should be able to open in the progression of the story but can’t for no particular reason I hate. When I run up to a door and think “Finally, the boss battle” only to be rewarded with something unimaginative like a ‘locked door’ message I get a tad irritated. If (lets take HL2 for an example) the level designer has actively given me a reason to not want to go through a door, EG Immediate doom on the recieving end of a stunstick, I don’t mind so much. Oh, and if someone knocks the handle off a door that immediately screams to me that it’s a detail and not meant for story progression, which I also quite like. Lets me immediately disregard that particular door as a source of amusement.
21/04/2009 at 19:43 Serondal says:
In max payne the locked doors were plenty and horrible, then again they could also be seen as a symbol of how he had no choice but to solider on and other emo stuff
21/04/2009 at 20:01 Max says:
The battle between realism and gameplay emerges again. Should developers stop making games in settings where many doors are present simply so that they won’t have to make many of them locked?
21/04/2009 at 20:02 sbs says:
Aaaaw.
Group hug everyone <3
21/04/2009 at 20:05 army of none says:
This story/poem/song is full of win.
21/04/2009 at 20:05 Thirith says:
Max says:
The battle between realism and gameplay emerges again. Should developers stop making games in settings where many doors are present simply so that they won’t have to make many of them locked?
It’s not about realism, or not only. It’s also about lazy game design. There are more credible *and* more interesting ways of doing this. But they require more thought and creativity.
21/04/2009 at 20:06 Jeremy says:
I’m trying to think if there is a door in FO3 that won’t open without just cause.. anyone know of one?
21/04/2009 at 20:06 Markoff Chaney says:
I stand and ponder.
Is this real? I grasp the knob.
It won’t turn. Again!
21/04/2009 at 20:09 viper34j says:
Look what you’ve done Alec… Look at what you’ve DONE!
EDIT: I choose to edit because I can, and for no other reason.
21/04/2009 at 20:09 psyk says:
I hate stupid little fences
21/04/2009 at 20:09 Sagan says:
The best thing about Beyond Good & Evil is, that you can open every door in that game. Even those that look like you can’t.
21/04/2009 at 20:09 jonfitt says:
Don’t let Alec anywhere near Silent Hill:Homecoming:
http://www.gamesradar.com/f/the-133-locked-doors-of-silent-hill-homecoming/a-20081009104956726084
21/04/2009 at 20:12 Leeks! says:
I’m sorry I ate the plums, locked door, etc. etc.
21/04/2009 at 20:15 Funky Badger says:
Marvellous. Simply marvellous.
21/04/2009 at 20:23 Brad says:
I think a lot of you are missing the point. Many of the locked doors that piss me off are actually part of the game, but they do not make any sense. When I read this post I immediately thought of my Oblivion character who has a 100 security and destruction rating, as well as 100 strength. Sometimes you run into doors that say, this door requires a key to open. How is it possible that this door, unike the several thousand other locked doors that I have unlocked using nocturnal’s skeleton key or an alteration spell, HAS to have a key to open it? That is the type of locked door I hate, and I think those are the ones the author was talking about.
21/04/2009 at 20:24 Anarki says:
I finally finished Portal last night and by the end I could tell which doors were real because they had a handle on, whereas the ones that are just painted on the wall don’t. Nice little touch, not sure if that’s a hard and fast rule throughout the game though (handle=door, no handle=not door).
21/04/2009 at 20:27 DBeaver says:
Actually, in Max Payne (1) they had a really funny moment, where you E’d on one of those locked doors, giving you the standard click-cluck sound, only for the wall surrounding it to fall into the next corridor by itself a few seconds later, leaving a locked door standing in an open space…
Also: “I just locked an open door. Strange. Yet, symbolically compelling.” (5 points for those who recognize game this is from)
21/04/2009 at 20:29 Andrew says:
Oh, I know that feeling very well :)
However, video games have limitations and have to force the player into the plot somehow. Even Neverwinter Nights 2 type of games where you can unlock most doors with your spells or skill, has some “plot doors” which are only unlockable via keys or plot events. I don’t think there exists a better way to do that yet…
21/04/2009 at 20:35 Markoff Chaney says:
MANNY!
21/04/2009 at 20:40 Mort says:
The locked door has a positive counterpart: The misteriously convenient ramp (wich can be formed out of almost anything) that leads to a window or platform. Or perheaps the ventilation shaft (there is almost always one).
21/04/2009 at 20:49 suibhne says:
@Jeremy: If you include urban D.C., FO3 sports way too many inexplicably locked doors to count – or it’s like reckoning sand, at least. Some are obviously ruined and convincingly non-functional, but many are not. What’s irritating, of course, is that a few of them can be opened and lead to nondescript shops, while other, apparently identical doors remain forever beyond approach.
21/04/2009 at 20:56 Oldats says:
This key is no longer needed. Discard it? Yes/No
Resident Evil 1 is terribly guilty of locked door syndrome, but how can you not love a game that makes you go through 4 crests, 2 emblems, and a square crank to fight a giant, [wo]man-swatting plant?
21/04/2009 at 21:04 CakeAddict says:
There is a reason why I ALWAYS get lock picking in a rpg, and disarm trap to when playing a D&D game.
I like to explore and loot things, I hate it when something blocks my way.. but then a lock pick saves the day! yay!
21/04/2009 at 21:08 A:\Big.bat says:
Locked door is a dick, but he’s nothing on foot-high wall.
21/04/2009 at 21:11 Jazmeister says:
I hate all the locked doors that you can open with a pick, but there are no keys for them anywhere. That’s what I hate.
….what’s this? EDIT BUTTON?! How long has this been here?
21/04/2009 at 21:18 apa says:
lol at your binds. real men use yuhjklbn and kick doors.
21/04/2009 at 21:20 jonfitt says:
@Jazmeister:
But every time I’ve been round your house I’ve never found your front door key lying conveniently in a nearby flower pot. My lockpick set, however, never fails.
21/04/2009 at 21:25 c-Row says:
Having read through all those comments there is only one thing to say… you all rock! :)
21/04/2009 at 21:27 PaulMorel says:
Amen, brutha!
21/04/2009 at 21:30 MadTinkerer says:
In our upcoming game Steam City Chronicles (http://www.mission9games.com), there are a lot of locked doors. But every one of them is openable and often the solution is nearby. Also, they’re all thick metal doors which is why explosives won’t work.
21/04/2009 at 21:41 Jeremy says:
Maybe the locked door is so burned into my psyche that I don’t even remember when I encounter them.
21/04/2009 at 21:52 alm says:
I don’t really notice locked doors either, that’s only when they are designed to all look the same so you know when you come across one though. And this I don’t mind, it’s the beautiful enticing locked doors that wind me up.
21/04/2009 at 21:52 Rive says:
An open mind is like an open fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.
21/04/2009 at 22:03 Taillefer says:
I’m playing through Gothic 3 at the moment, to see how much the patches have fixed. And this just made me realise that the game has no doors, locked or otherwise. Everything is open and inviting! Aww.
21/04/2009 at 22:06 Serondal says:
I believe the op is talking about locked doors that never open and never lead any where along with locked doors that require you to go on some fiasco to find the way to open it. Obviously he’s never played Myst (Thank God for him) Because he’s still alive and with us instead of dead from self inflicted door wounds.
If you ever played D&D there are a lot of doors in dungeons ect and they can all be opened unless your DM is a lazy lazy person. Why can this not be the same for video games?
I can understand locking doors and then having you go get a key some how or a way to open it, but there should be more than one way to open the door in this case. Say if you have a welding torch you could just melt the hinges off and the door falls over, or if it’s wood you just kick it in, along with the moral results of what you’ve done. Maybe the person behind the door or the owner of the door doesn’t care for you destroying it ? :P
Maybe you can’t kick in the door becuse you’re to weak, that is interesting. But being a giant guy you should be able to kick in most doors unless their frame is metal and so are they.
Fallout 3 has more fake/unopenable doors then it has REAL usable doors! Also I find it strange that some computers are locked. You need a certain skill to hack them . . .but then it has YOU hack it yourself in some stupid mini-game. If you are going to hack it any way why do you need a certain level of skill O.o Either it should do it by itself based on skill or it should let you do it regardless of skill if you are determined enough to work out the password.
There is a small gif with a guy trying to open a locked door with everything he has, I think that would go well with this topic :)
21/04/2009 at 22:21 Susan says:
…But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.
21/04/2009 at 22:24 Pags says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3G_OAKMfSc
21/04/2009 at 22:31 DigitalSignalX says:
There’s a robot on the other side of that door who loves you.
21/04/2009 at 22:38 Jahkaivah says:
*shakes his fist*
21/04/2009 at 22:41 Gap Gen says:
Jeremy: MS Paint Adventures is already the greatest roomisode ever told.
21/04/2009 at 22:41 Amanda says:
Ah locked doors. I am a level designer, and here are the rules I live by:
1. Avoid doors that are just there to make the wall make sense. Imply that they’re on another wall somewhere, perhaps.
2. Wall-prettifying doors that ARE visible must be made obviously non-interesting. Have them boarded up with corrugated iron, or have a metal grate over them, or behind a burnt out car or anything!
3. IMPORTANT doors should be obvious and tempting. They should be the eyecatchingly lit door at the end of the gently curved alleyway with the creaking sign above it, and the sparking neon light reflecting in the puddles beneath. Hang a lantern on it.
4. Most importantly, if you have fake doors in your game, make them really obviously consistantly different from REAL doors, and teach the player the difference in the first few moments of the game and NEVER EVER break that rule.
Games are all about a limited, simplified version of reality and every single game has you learn its rules. Crates can be smashed. Walls cannot be jumped. Massive festering bleeding wounds can be healed with a herb in a plant pot. As long as you make internal sense, then the player will generally accept it (and get on to more important things like winning). If you break your own rules, or confuse the player, they’ll hate you for it, and write poems about you on their blogs. :)
21/04/2009 at 22:42 Generic Lighthouse Unit says:
My favorite Locked Door is from Shenmue for Dreamcast, where your venture into someone’s garden is completely cut off by a child’s tricycle.
21/04/2009 at 22:45 Phase says:
Oh man, I’m the first to post this?
http://www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-07-17
21/04/2009 at 22:58 EBass says:
Locked doors are a neccesary evil, what I hate FAR more, is openable doors (usually that NEED to be open to progress) that look the same as the generic “locked door”. The amount of games I’ve played when I’ve run down a hall pressing use on every door for half an hour till one door, identical to the next flies open.
21/04/2009 at 23:00 Null says:
@Serondal Good comparison with D&D there. Rule X of DMing being don’t put something there if you don’t want your players to prod it/set it on fire/use it as a sledge or stash it for later use as an impromptu shield :D
21/04/2009 at 23:07 Freudian Trip says:
I know it’s terribly un-PC of me (pun?) but the greatest ever (temporarily) locked door is the stairs that can’t be climbed in Mario 64.
21/04/2009 at 23:15 Serondal says:
Some of those ultra-never open ever doors would make an awesome shield if you could find a way to get it off the hinges or maybe just break the wall around it and carry the whole thing.
If I made video games I’d make a giant with an unopenable door as a shield just as gag ;) 90% of the people playing would read the description of the shiled and go “uh. . ” and 10 % would be like LMGDAO”
21/04/2009 at 23:20 fenderflip says:
Don’t look now, but I think Amanda’s a real level designer…
21/04/2009 at 23:25 Funky Badger says:
Andrew: “plot” doors are for always and forever bad design.*
(*Unless there’s and in-game reason why your normal skills won’t work, like its magiced shut for example)
21/04/2009 at 23:26 Frosty840 says:
@fenderflip: And one that doesn’t need shooting, either. I’m impressed.
OMGEDITBUTTON! [arm]o/
21/04/2009 at 23:31 Serondal says:
Even magic locked doors get old quick, i’d say one magic locked door for an entire series should be the limit and it should have awesome effects showing blue sparkles all over it and when you touch it you get shocked or something.
22/04/2009 at 00:38 Haborym says:
Doors like that could be blown up in Fallout 2. Why must they mess with the formula so much.
22/04/2009 at 00:44 Adam T says:
Locked door I love you! Thank you for not letting strangers into my house.
22/04/2009 at 02:17 Warren says:
Some day, Locked Door, some day. Your comeuppance is inevitable. Yes, feed the hate. It will only make your certain opening all the more delicious.
22/04/2009 at 02:18 vagabundog says:
I think not being able to ram doors with anything is a good tradeoff for being able to punch heads off with your bare fists.
22/04/2009 at 02:18 ZIGS says:
That was truly inspirational
22/04/2009 at 02:44 Dizet Sma says:
Perhaps some therapy could be gained by watching a clip from The Italian Job looped with one from Butch Cassidy, both of which have explosive retribution on locked doors.
22/04/2009 at 02:44 Knock, knock says:
“TFGH”
Goddamn, and here I thought I was special. (Mind, this is a result of my a/d-keys being in their death throes from failing miserably at GTA:SA’s driving tests. Sfskhfj donuts.
Possibly even sadder, my s-key has been replaced by the k-button, because the original no longer works with it. WAKD, anyone?)
Edit function swoops in with an end bracket! Huzzah!
22/04/2009 at 02:46 MD says:
I hate the way you so often lead to nowhere, how you are nothing more than decoration for a wall.
Oh yes. Especially when they look EXACTLY THE SAME AS EVERY OTHER DOOR, so the designers are effectively asking you to walk up to every freaking one and hit “use” just in case it’s one of the 10% that actually function.
edit: Heh, I love that this post has elicited more than a hundred comments already, and that most of us seem to be united in a sort of cheerful rage.
22/04/2009 at 02:50 Mary Shasha. says:
Ah, in return, they should make a game (probably cheap flash online) to vent your frustration by blowing up every BAM! door you find.
Moderation is always the key. (Ha, key.) Locked doors are necessary for structured gameplay, but pointless doors you don’t know are pointless aren’t… quite… fair.
22/04/2009 at 02:53 Dan says:
Locked Doors, Crafting, Fetch-the-thing, Oddly Ignorant NPC, et cetera.
The crutches of mediocre game designers unable to craft compelling mechanics or of a studio unable to locate a decent writer.
22/04/2009 at 03:09 Grant says:
They are resistant to hax as well.
22/04/2009 at 03:55 Snake says:
I love everything about Video games…even indestructible doors….i love you,door.
22/04/2009 at 04:14 Green Valley Ranch Henderson says:
I love the door, as far as there is way to open it, and also if inside that there is a macguffin worth it.
22/04/2009 at 04:38 Chris says:
I love lamp.
I hate door.
Drink!
22/04/2009 at 04:40 silckles says:
i love you!
22/04/2009 at 05:51 Clockwork Harlequin says:
Mr Meer:
If nobody’s said this already, go play SWAT 4. A game that revolves almost entirely around opening doors, going through doors, throwing thing through doors, lockpicking, C4, and getting shot on thresholds. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Dan: you forgot Oddly Knowledgeable/omnipresent NPC. “Player, you must fetch (A), craft(B), and use it to kill (C). Only thus can the world be saved.” The OKONPC is often also the voiceover narrator. And a boring prick.
22/04/2009 at 07:24 KP says:
Is that the door on Sherif what’s-his-name’s house? I got past that by stacking found shit on the other side of his house to get on his roof, to get to the roof entrance.
22/04/2009 at 07:38 James says:
the locked door. any locked door, be it for a quest or what have you. he/she hats them/loves them they a r the quest he hates them like i hate mana. there is either to much of too little. but with out it magic would sux.
22/04/2009 at 07:51 Ultima VI says:
Dear Alec Meer.
Tell it to the guys who were singing the same song back in 1989. Your post is sooooo last century.
:-)
22/04/2009 at 09:03 asdfsda says:
You know theres a mod that lets you blow open doors right?
22/04/2009 at 09:31 Jim says:
This made my day, I feel the same way.
22/04/2009 at 09:50 Jazmeister says:
Three games have great examples of the various ways to handle doors. HL2 is simple and effective; oh, it’s locked. Kay. We haven’t tried shooting a door since the first half life, so that’s fine. It doesn’t open.
Fallout 3 is an ugly, unfair way of doing it; it lets you open many doors. It lets you unlock other doors with keys. Then it lets you actually break into certain doors with a lockpick. When you see a door, you think, “okay, I may be weak and inaccurate, stupid, unlikable, and unlucky, but shit, I can definately get through doors. It’s mah thing.” And then you can’t, and you have a right to be frustrated.
Then there’s Killer 7, where you can’t even go down most hallways, in some sort of bold statement about the illusion of world in games.
Obviously, you can’t just have the game world go on forever, procedurally generated by a fantastically complex algorhythm forever churning in the background, maybe using templates and varied factors based on the area you’re in, perhaps generating npcs to…. nghh…
Oh, and @jonfitt, many doors are locked but totally keyless. They don’t exist anywhere in the entire universe, but are locked. You don’t lock something you never intend to open again; that’s what concrete is for.
Also, I do have keys outside my house in a flowerpot. I figure, you make it past the Urvores, you’re weak enough to face the Coathooks That Hunger.
22/04/2009 at 09:53 Bill says:
Photoshopped!
22/04/2009 at 09:57 Alec Meer says:
Incidentally, despite the screenshot this post wasn’t inspired by Fallout 3 particularly – I just needed a picture of a door in a hurry.
22/04/2009 at 10:27 Paul Moloney says:
“and don’t you hate how bishops can only move diagonally?”
Are they meant to be mincing?
Oh my god, chess is homophobic.
P.
22/04/2009 at 10:34 phil says:
No_clip no problem as far as I’m concerned.
22/04/2009 at 10:36 Ian says:
132 (er, 133) and counting replies about locked doors. I love RPS.
<3
22/04/2009 at 10:39 AbyssUK says:
Unbreakable glass windows next to locked doors are my pet hate!
22/04/2009 at 10:41 Internal Decapitation says:
Sooooo true!
22/04/2009 at 11:45 Ian says:
@ AbyssUK: I got a little too excited in L4D the first time somebody showed me that you can break windows just by jumping at them.
22/04/2009 at 11:50 ChaosSmurf says:
Why is this one of the more commented on articles. WHY.
Fucking locked door, getting lots of replies.
22/04/2009 at 12:59 Benjamin Ferrari says:
“Why is this one of the more commented on articles. WHY.”
Because this article is currently at the top of the frontpage on reddit’s gaming subreddit ;)
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/8eakr/locked_door_i_hate_you/
22/04/2009 at 13:28 Kina says:
I hate Locked Door, Locked Gate (or worse, PADLocked Gate), Foot-High Wall, and their annoying, in-bred, retarded cousin Invisible Wall.
Only Thing I’d change in this ‘Ode to’ is this: “I hate the way your key or switch is always on the other side of the map, over a pit that drops to the endless abyss, with at least two mini-bosses on the only bridge to and from.”
[OMGEDIT! :D]
22/04/2009 at 13:28 Nallen says:
Pretty cool story bro
22/04/2009 at 13:49 clovus says:
Haha. The front page of RPS at this moment contains several very interesting bits. However, the entry with the most comments (by far) is a about friggin’ locked doors.
That’s why I like RPS. Also, they sometimes give me a free game.
note: I didn’t read the last few comments before starting mine. Guess everyone is surprised by how commentable locked doors are.
22/04/2009 at 14:45 Jeremy says:
What about impassable invisible walls? They forgo any sort of illusion about passage and just do not allow you to cross a certain line, even if there is a large open field with roads, rivers, mountains, etc. The one I’m thinking of is in Drakensang about 1 second into the game.
22/04/2009 at 15:31 STUMBLER says:
LLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLAWLL3RSK8EZ
1337H4XZ0RZ2T3HM4XZ0RZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZH4XH4XZED
22/04/2009 at 16:04 James T says:
Shenmue 3 should end with Ryo approaching the room in which his father’s killer is waiting for him, but — what’s this?
A child’s tricycle has been placed in front of the door!
Ryo falls to his knees and screams in rage, but there is nothing he can do. Reluctantly he turns and heads for home, Lan Di’s laughter ringing in his ears. Downer endings are liek so deep!
22/04/2009 at 16:47 The_B says:
It’s because there’s a Grue behind each and every one. FACT.
22/04/2009 at 16:57 Aguy says:
Locked doors. And to the guy who put a comment about having no doors. Imagine the crime rates…
22/04/2009 at 17:07 Deadpan says:
In Oblivion or Fallout 3
Hit “~” to bring up the console.
Click the door. Make sure it says ‘door’ of some sort.
Type “unlock” , hit return, then “~” again.
Fire a fatman down the hall at it to feel like you’re not a damned dirty cheater.
22/04/2009 at 17:50 Hajimete no Paso Kon says:
This has always pissed me off. Don’t add a door if I can’t go into it.
I’m assuming we’re talking about doors that serve no function, not doors that need a key. Cause if you’re talking about doors that need a key then that’s kinda sad =(.
22/04/2009 at 18:33 lovelydarkness333 says:
Why do i read the comments for these things? They ALWAYS ruin any good feelings i’ve had reading the post! You people that over analyze everything and spew your crap on these pages! OH MY GODs, STOP IT! Just enjoy what you just read and MOVE ON!
I found this little poem to be really cute, and witty. most importantly, I found it funny, and now i’m going to hit my Stumble! button and be GONE from here! ARG!
22/04/2009 at 19:24 Stranger says:
Massive respect for this post dude… Massive respect!
22/04/2009 at 19:34 dfhdg says:
People, we are going about this all wrong. To solve this conundrum, we must get to the root of the problem: real doors. If we were to eliminate these, then surely we wouldn’t be seeing them much in games anymore!
22/04/2009 at 19:46 John Crye says:
And when I cannot open you, absurdly un-unlockable door, I curse you. I curse you with one of three wildly divergent response options.
22/04/2009 at 20:07 carol says:
nice poem.
22/04/2009 at 21:27 Jon says:
Screw all that – I just hate the times you will only open for a completely door-unrelated reason, such as escorting someone from one location to another.
However, my dear Door, I can understand how life can be boring for you, so will forgive you these little attempts to liven up your existance.
22/04/2009 at 22:48 Hugh Wish says:
Bah..spoiled kids.
In my day we were held back by invisible walls.
We used to yearn for an actual physical object as a baricade.
I spent my childhood running against nothing like some sad sack mime.
..and don’t get me started about having to look up what all the different blobs were supposed to represent in the manual.
..and we did it all with one joystick and one fire button.
23/04/2009 at 02:21 Razorback61 says:
Some people are taking this a bit too seriously….
23/04/2009 at 10:05 Nurdbot says:
Fallout 3 taught me that behind that locked door with 100 lockpick skill is a rubbish shotgun and a hat.
23/04/2009 at 12:25 me, myself nor I says:
This reminds me of the Time to Crate index. It’s measuring how good games are by counting how many seconds it takes for a game designer to put a wooden crate in a game.
23/04/2009 at 16:41 Post Maker says:
Boolean Bob, as much as I appreciate the link, I’m left wondering about the “psychotically single-minded” comment. Would you mind explaining it? Although I suppose the fact that I don’t why you’d use that description is perhaps a form of validation of the single-mindedness that was described. Still, I’d like to hear your thoughts!
As for locked doors, I’m a large fan of the Battlefield: Bad Company “make your own door” approach, which involves running at a solid wall, then blowing it up and leaping though the hole. I’m a little sad that all games don’t use this approach, but if they did then all conventional forms of linear narrative would have to be thrown out with the trash, so it’s an understandable (if no less crushing) disappointment.
That bit about “hiding” locked doors behind rusted cars or other debris is incredibly clever, and something that I’d like to see more of in games. But being able to see that a thing is being hidden ruins the purpose of the hiding, doesn’t it? Sort of how seeing that an object has been designed to draw your attention makes you look elsewhere, if only to see what you aren’t supposed to.
EDIT: I’ve gone and waxed philosophic, which isn’t really helping the discussion at all!
23/04/2009 at 17:13 jony says:
red faction guerrilla has no locked doors because nobody uses the door. sledghammer your way through the wall! :)
23/04/2009 at 20:17 OldSchoolGamer says:
I hated the faux doors in Clive Barker’s Undying. Hearing “Wun’t budge…” and “Jammed” over and over again when trying to open them was an annoyance on a higher plane.
23/04/2009 at 20:25 Nurdbot says:
Hey, did Repubic Commando have any locked doors? I don’t recall any that you couldn’t slice or breach…
Blocked by debris doesn’t count.
23/04/2009 at 22:23 Miles says:
You know what I hate even more than locked doors? The Doors. They were right shit.
23/04/2009 at 22:42 kafka7 says:
I tried to imagine my flat with doors that could never be opened. Man! That would be annoying.
Only two solutions:
1. Remove all doors from virtual worlds. City 17 is just a mass of corridors and strange featureless rectangles; or
2. Make a game where every door can be opened. Development cycles now exceed 10 years.
DNF obviously has many openable doors.
24/04/2009 at 00:59 Post Maker says:
With a unique interior behind each one, no less!
24/04/2009 at 01:17 Paul says:
I love those doors so much, I will build one into my first new home. Then I will invite you over.
24/04/2009 at 04:56 Christopher says:
Fatal Frame is filled with locked doors, but it seems to be for the same reason as HL. Though, and anyone who played this might understand, I am always relieved when a door in Fatal Frame is locked because then I don’t have to go through it. Plus if you explored to much in FF you would ruin it.
24/04/2009 at 05:05 Aeryk says:
I hate to say it, but I agree…locked door is the bane of my video game existence. But, if they’re shooting or a semblance of realism you HAVE to run into a locked door at some point. I know I could probably destroy the door to get it open, but some of them would be locked. Hell, unless you want to scale 4 stories of wall to my window you’d have to go through at least four locked doors to get to the room I’m in now, and two of them are fireproof security doors.
EDIT: And…Stumble, Away!!!
24/04/2009 at 05:45 Mr.Retail says:
oh the passion a door can create……
24/04/2009 at 05:57 Alec Meer's E Key says:
Oh, you hate locked doors, do you? Well I hate YOU. You strike me repeatedly, never once giving a thought about MY feelings. All the other keys have noticed the damage you’ve caused, and soon we will rise against you. The revolution is nigh. We will prevail.
24/04/2009 at 06:44 thebozboz says:
If they weren’t locked doors then there would be an unrealistic lack of doors in games… if there were a realistic amount of doors that could all be bypassed there would be too many pointless areas to explore which would no doubt create a blog titled “I hate you pointless areas”… if all those areas weren’t pointless there would be a price hike on those games as the development costs would rocket along with development times, they would also probably suffer from having a bit too much wandering about entering random doors collecting stuff in them… a developer should makes games that don’t make you lower yourself to the level of an obsessive compulsive who just can’t help entering doors looking for guns or ammo only to shoot more doors down looking for guns and ammo… the real complaint should be years of blinkered game development and none intuitive puzzles/story advancing mechanisms… Locked doors are a god in the game world, they stop us from behaving randomly and irrationally, they guide us through our virtual existence, that click or uh oh sound is a polite way of saying “dude what the fuck are you doing that for?”…
I hail you locked doors, they are my guidance through the darkness to the door that IS unlocked, and I know when I find that door there is something to do there that makes my short virtual existence fulfilling and satisfying, or at least its another area where I can shoot stuff thats not inanimate!
24/04/2009 at 10:22 Sane Pete says:
This guys obviously not played ‘Locked Door 2′.
1PS FTW.
24/04/2009 at 11:43 onat says:
in the pic you really cant open this door in fallout 3 if you choose to arm the bomb in megaton..just sharing
24/04/2009 at 12:21 hobarey says:
in silent hill, locked doors pwns you.
24/04/2009 at 19:53 Zod_42 says:
Pure poetry!
24/04/2009 at 22:27 NK says:
Hitman 4 is the best. Even if you encounter one of those damn Locked Doors, you can at least look through the keyhole.
EDIT: I hate the time limit to the edit button…
24/04/2009 at 23:17 DFost says:
“If you didn’t exist, locked door, videogames as we know them would be radically different.”
Perhaps, Alec, if the locked door didnt exist, you wouldnt be playing the game.
25/04/2009 at 00:30 Jeeves says:
I have to agree with many of the indictments of developers in this prose. Locked doors are sometimes incredibly annoying and seem to laugh in your face. I especially like that you mention the fact that it is resistant to all weapons and attempts to violate it. I can also imagine that without at least some locked doors, I might never have been as avid a gamer as I am. I think I’ll call it a wash and hope that developers just use fewer and fewer locked doors in the future.
25/04/2009 at 01:52 damien says:
why do some people try and rationalize something like this thats meant to be funny by explaining why and how necessary a locked door is in a game. can’t they just enjoy the joke for what it is, or add to it.
26/04/2009 at 13:03 ZeeKat says:
I think best commentary on this topic is in near one of satcomms in Fallout3, there’s a door, which after opening reveal only a wall with “FUCK YOU” on it. Pretty much article above in a pill.
26/04/2009 at 21:00 BGrosietitan says:
I hate that the door just magically becomes unlocked after you complete the most random tasks ever…Go kill everyone in the room and BOOM the door is no longer locked because the lock was linked to all of their hearts and once they die the door opens…I HATE THOSE DOORS!!!
27/04/2009 at 03:18 bgates87 says:
Without locked doors the entire Zelda franchise as we know it would not exist.
27/04/2009 at 10:19 sethbrundle says:
in other good news, silent hill for the wii will not contain ANY locked doors as stated in nintendo power’s new issue.
27/04/2009 at 23:09 Valentin Galea says:
It may be just me, but I loved bumping into every single door of the Silent Hills and checking them so that I can get that nice hatch on the map!:)
28/04/2009 at 01:59 IMASLUT says:
What about the doors in real life that are locked???
Has anyone else walked into a door that turns out to be locked????
28/04/2009 at 06:21 Sidewinder47 says:
Large amounts of win detected
28/04/2009 at 10:57 Alph says:
Not that this isn’t a dead horse…but…
The “Locked Door” problem is a consequence of our expectations. Free-form 3d rooms populated with audible, mobile NPCs take more manpower to make than 2.5d, grid-based rooms with text-spitting NPCs.
I think there’s a lot of hope out there for procedural generation techniques, and not just in Fallout 3′s “random crap in every box” sort of way. I can see, with hardware getting somewhat stronger, random, yet plausible interior generation in 3d environments, wherein designers could just mark entrances and add an outline of the interior to the overall city map and have the engine populate minor buildings on-demand based on a seed established at character creation. After all, in a realistic world, 95% of the visible people and places would just be bystanders of one sort or another. Plus, it would make massive NPC response and retaliation tenable when action begins in the streets. Should the player lob a grenade down a residential street, the buildings could start behaving appropriately, with some getting their doors and windows barricaded from the inside, some sprouting gun barrels from their windows, and others emitting NPCs into the streets to fight (or flee). Add in a repopulation algorithm, some conditional appearance modifiers for occupied, empty, and long-deserted buildings, and it’s the start of a really organic-feeling system. It’d be the end of both non-functional doors and low-population “hub towns.”
*shrug*
Or, just nuke Megaton and forget about the locked door. Your call, really.
28/04/2009 at 12:25 penfold says:
Anyone here remember Deus Ex? Almost all locked doors in that could be forced open using lockpicks, multitools, or explosives (even, in some cases, normal weapons). Locked doors were only rarely used to force linearity in the plot, mostly they created multiple methods of completing each level dependant on the amount of resources and skills the player had rather than the whim of the designers. That was good game design.
28/04/2009 at 12:34 MD says:
Anyone here remember Deus Ex?
Never heard of it.
28/04/2009 at 12:45 penfold says:
well I had to make sure….
28/04/2009 at 20:41 eMaGuT.pt says:
indeed
29/04/2009 at 04:04 amirukaru says:
SO SO SO very true…
29/04/2009 at 07:12 Fox says:
i think having all the doors open would break the imersion,i mean if you go around a city,trying every random door, 9/10 times,it’s locked,altho,alot of survivle horror games and older fps’s take it to far,with doors that the lock is busted on,yet you can’t just shotgun the hell out of it,like normal people,or the door is just painted on,and you can’t interact with it all
29/04/2009 at 13:25 Crystalmyst says:
In response to what a few of you have said:
A game is not finite, however many games are designed to be finite. In fact, one of my lines on my Bucket List reads “Design and code Complex Game Generator, or CGG”.
The concept of basically programming ‘randomness’ using a constantly-changing measurement (like time) into a generator which thinks like a game designer, creating content which fits for that world.
Any rebuttals to say what I one day wish to do, I have one thing to say to you: Nothing’s impossible, apart from the impossible. So prove that this is impossible by helping me and then laugh when I fail.
BTW, wouldn’t it be awesome to have the computer create content on-the-fly? xD
And an amazing free poem you have there. Locked Door Syndrome affects all of the Gamer race at one point or another in our lives.
Opinion, AWAY!
~Me
P.S –
You just lost the game.
You are now blinking and breathing manually.
You are still reading this.
Go play a game. You’re boring me.
I told you to stop reading me. This is just getting creepy…
Well, if you’re gonna continue doing this, I’ll have to bring out my secret weapon….
YOU HAZ SWINE FLU LOL!
29/04/2009 at 13:37 Bas says:
AMEN!
29/04/2009 at 13:52 Moriarty70 says:
@Crystalmyst Since when are games not finite? Look to most sports, also known as games. They all have a finite duration to them. True some are more flexible in it, but they all end.
29/04/2009 at 17:16 Stracci says:
Great story or greatest story?
30/04/2009 at 22:45 Dave TV says:
I don’t believe this door exists. Probably Photoshopped.
01/05/2009 at 06:17 jawansmile says:
ha ha ha ha
great idea man
01/05/2009 at 07:05 DrFreeman says:
This is amazing…though I wish it had been solely based on the Locked Doors that never open. The ones that trick us into thinking it’s supposed to open, but never does. The one that we are determined to open, but never will. Some locked doors can be a real pain to deal with opening, but those are “openable” doors…no, the true “Locked Doors” are unopenable and tear the very soul from my still beating heart with every game I play.
Nice work.
01/05/2009 at 21:41 Leigh says:
You’ve said the words I’ve longed to say for a very long time. Marry me?
02/05/2009 at 03:57 TAXICAT says:
“Gravatar juv3nal says:
“A closed door is better than an open door, because behind a closed door can be anything.”
-supposedly a zen koan, although google doesn’t dig up any attribution.
that only applies if it is a quantum door
02/05/2009 at 14:57 well says:
well valve learned their lessons. There are progressively less and less unlockable door in their games starting from ep1 and going all the way to left 4 dead.
But it wasn’t so much of a big deal in hl2. There was just a little amount of them in the city 17 levels. Most of the time it was energy forcefield, who make more sense and are cooler to watch as a arbitrary barrier
02/05/2009 at 17:54 Apricot says:
I think the best way to solve it is to hire the entire population of a city and have each of them put their own room into the game. That would actually be awesome.
03/05/2009 at 00:45 Amber says:
Oh man, I hate those locked doors too. When I see a locked door or a locked container, it only makes me want to open it more! That’s why I appreciate the houses that are boarded up… they’re being honest with me. They’re telling me that not only can I not enter the building, ever, but there’s probably nothing worth my time in there anyway.
03/05/2009 at 15:13 Joe says:
There’s a robot behind the door.
05/05/2009 at 00:47 Danni says:
tbh
its not reali a huge deal , i liek the whole poem thing, it made me laugh , but reali is it worth all this fuss
over bad gaming desighn . reali ?
personally i think not , but kudos on the poem
xoxo
05/05/2009 at 00:51 Mike (danni's friend) says:
ok, so yeah, locked doors piss everyone off, we get that
but then, without them, wouldnt the game be a bit too easy, and then go too quickly?
i think that locked doors are awesome even though they’re annoying/frustrating
09/05/2009 at 19:29 Paul_557 says:
Beautiful
13/05/2009 at 01:23 jonathan says:
almost reminds me of the field on the other side of the fence just outside of pallete town in pokemon red, blue and yellow verson.
i spent so many hours trying to get there, and once i used cheats to try getting there the game glitched up.
DAMN YOU DOORS AND DAMN YOU FENCES!!!
16/05/2009 at 14:43 Tigerwolf says:
What I hate, is inconsistent game mechanics. Take Resident Evil 4. Awesome game. But why the hell is it, that you cannot climb in through the downstairs window, at the start of the game? Every other window in the village, no problem. Just… not that one.
It gets worse. You can climb out through it, but not in. Try it sometime. Very start of game, go up the left side of the first building, shoot out the window, and try to climb in. Nope, won’t let you. Not even a reason why just… nope.
And let’s not comment about things like seeing weapons hanging on walls that “you can’t use” (Particular in RE: CV, where there’s some great looking machine guns behind glass…), the dreaded “1 inch high sidewalk” in games that your character can’t step up to from the road, yet he can climbs stairs and ladders. Or how about unbreakable, missile-proof windows at some points but not others, indestructible furniture (don’t you love a bomb proof table? Where can I buy one… Ikea maybe?) and the greatest sinner of them all… the locked door that you spend hours trying to unlock, only for it to lead you to… another locked door!!! NEARRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!
Bad game mechanics and design. Those game designers should be locked in a room until they learn how to program properly.
Behind a door that needs three crests, two silver keys, one gold key and a boss fight to open…
(Wow… FEEL THE POWER OF MY LEVEL 100 EDIT!)
17/06/2009 at 03:54 Bruno says:
Haha, that’s funny. Unfortunately locked doors in video games are much stronger than doors in real life. It can withstand shot guns, rocket launchers and grenades.
27/07/2009 at 13:51 Kali says:
Help! After reading this article, my bedroom door decided to become locked! I’m running out of food and water, and I’m too high up to escape that way. . . I don’t have long. . .
27/07/2009 at 13:57 Gap Gen says:
You might have to defeat the end-of-level boss before you can leave the arena. Try running around in case the activation trigger hasn’t activated.
27/07/2009 at 14:01 AndrewC says:
Have a wank.
Your mum is then guaranteed to open the door offering you a cup of tea.
20/08/2009 at 03:26 XxxX says:
Read it after listening to one Robert Duvall’s speeches in Network.
Epic
29/08/2009 at 03:18 Celso says:
Jesus, I was just thinking how bad I hate those fuckers yesterday. Defies all fucking logic that I can’t break down a wood door with a grenade launcher. I could take out a fucking building with a grenade launcher!! It’s bullshit. My sentiments exactly, locked door I hate you!!
01/09/2009 at 21:17 Death Slayer says:
God I hate those things. Frakking invisible walls and locked doors. They should just make a door that was able to open but there’s a cliff after that! Same for invisible wall. So at least we have something to entertain ourselves and remember not to go there.
25/10/2009 at 01:59 Kendra says:
Oh how you speak the words of my own heart lol. I so hate those doors that i long so much to get behind but can never achieve my goal.Especially if you need something important and you know it’s behind a locked door so you send hours trying to get behind that one locked door that you can never get behind.Although i do love the picture of the bathroom in megaton.Easy to get into but who wants to get into a bathroom unless it’s silent hill lol
31/03/2010 at 01:00 MaryGill25 says:
If you are in uncomfortable position and have no money to move out from that point, you will need to receive the business loans. Just because that would aid you emphatically. I get short term loan every single year and feel good just because of that.
31/03/2010 at 10:34 me says:
lol at the complete dheads comments critiquing the article and defending the presence of doors in games
get a sense of humour you morons
07/06/2010 at 23:17 Jesse says:
B, a million times B. I dont care how unlikely my shot of survival is i will dodge every attack and headshot the boss a thousand times with my crappy starter pistol if necessary. The freedom attached to exploring worlds on your own, going so far as breaking down doors instead of finding the necessary keys, would be epic. Although there should be some incentive for finding keys, idk the keys are on npcs with kick ass weaponry or some such, exp rewards, etc.
08/06/2010 at 03:35 James says:
Gah! I HATE LOCKED DOORS TOO!
25/06/2010 at 19:37 Jaxx says:
I’m just waiting for some security door company to buy branding rights on in-game doors (and in many cases windows)
04/08/2010 at 04:31 Mary says:
In my own personal opion I too hate locked doors. I’m a Half-Life 2 fan and a fan a valve games in general. Valve seems to LOVE to put in useless locked doors , that no matter what you do, you cant open them. They put a bit in Portal and they over loaded Half-Life 2 with them. I personaly think locked doors are just a game designers way of saying “fuck you I didnt have time to actualy desighn a door that is actualy a part of the game, instead I put a door that youll spend forever trying to figure out were it goes then you finaly figure out you have to figure out a new way! muahaha!” lol..they also like to put bottomless/really deep airvents were you have NO clue were your going becuase its dark as hell and then you end up falling and killing yourself..yeah hate those things too -_-..but i still love half-life to death though. I do agree with alot of people that are posting about half-life 2, i agree that no doors would make the city less…city-like..and if there were more open doors there be more paths..and well half-life and half-life 2 are both in genral just a HUGE maze game espeshly when in comes to crawling through airvents..it takes 45 minuets to figure out the pathways through the airvents..i would rather not spend 5 hours figuring out which way to go(which in some chapters I do have to do some re-thinking on were exactly im going lol)
27/08/2010 at 00:08 Mister E says:
Tilde
type: unlock
left-click said door
return
19/09/2010 at 17:55 Tony says:
True, that game worlds are finite… but, look at Morrowind 2. Its game world was ~63,000sq. MILES. Finite, but it’s still going to take you forever just to get to that next village, without locked doors.