Boss Fatigue

I'm into the rhythm of playing a new game. Getting new weapons. Exploring new environments. Then it happens. The almost inevitable Boss-Fight. I've grown to loathe these end-of-level clichés over the years. So much so, that their appearance is increasingly a trigger for my shelving of a game.

Now, I do understand that one of the fundamentals of game design is allowing the player to feel accomplishment from overcoming challenges. As gamers we've all had those air-punch 'yeah!!' moments upon progressing through a difficult section of a game. This is a good thing. But the Boss-fight has become frustration incarnate. Rather than feel like a part of the narrative, or the next step of the gameplay, the boss too often feels like a tacked on 'hard bit' to slow the player's advance.

The Boss typically has one or more of the following traits :

1. A health bar that is staggeringly long. Sure, it makes sense that a 'Boss' is healthier than his underlings. But increased resilience to the point of withstanding dozens of hits from a previous uber-weapon of choice just breaks the internal rules of the game world. A bigger torso, or more elaborate looking coat should not mean near-immunity to a rocket launcher.

2. The Puzzle Boss. Puzzle games are expected to have puzzles. If I play Portal, I can rest assured I'll be scratching my head at some point. But Gears of War? Ok call me a 'noob' but having to scour the Internets to find the 'riddle-me-this method' of progressing past a boss is not fitting with the rest of the game. As with point one, my ass-kicking high velocity weapon that has downed legions of bad guys, suddenly turns into a pea-shooter because the Boss is armed with a puzzle? Its Gears of War - let the weapons do their job consistently.

3. The Super Weapon. This is probably the least objectionable, as badder bad guys deservingly get kitted out with a better arsenal. That said, its often out of balance with the rest of the game. Take Kameo on the XBox360. Its an easy game, allowing most younger players a good shot of experiencing steady progression. Well until that lightning equipped Cthulu-styled giant Octopus boss hits the scene. A sluggish underwater control scheme, coupled with an enemy that is several degrees tougher than the rest of the game saw Kameo voted off the playlist in my household.

I relish games that dont have bosses, or at the very least correctly context their bosses within the difficulty and narrative of the game. Fable II and Halo come to mind. Whilst these two games had their difficult moments, (ok Fable II. Easiest. Game. Ever!) they didnt inject a foreign game breaking element just to mess with the player's patience. The narrative was allowed to get on with the job unhindered. And if games are really the next generation of storytelling devices, then we might need to closely examine if 'The Boss' should be permanently deleted.

Star Wars : The Old Republic. What are we hoping for?

I've just been watching the mini-video documentaries over at Bioware's Star Wars : The Old Republic website. I'm excited. Star Wars gaming fans are excited. At last we get to adventure in the Star Wars mythos, MMO style. This is a dream come true. What can possibly go wrong? A lot unfortunately, if history is any guide.

Star Wars Galaxies had the potential to be where World of Warcraft is now. Back in 2003, the MMORPG market was not saturated and Star Wars done right is a license to print money. The problem is that Galaxies is Star Wars done..well wrong.

The game has never tempted me, and frankly if a Star Wars game cant get the likes of me, its prospects are not good. Jedi Master Lucas can usually mind-trick me into any Star Wars purchase, but the aura of 'new gamer experience' (aka fan-base screw-over) and a general fail-vibe has kept my interest level low. And Im not the only one apparently, going by the reported mmogchart cellar-dwelling subscription numbers

So here's an action plan to make sure Old Republic stays strong with the Force:

1. No over-instancing. Star Wars is about a universe of mythology. Its a world. Age of Conan showed what happens when you instance everything. You suddenly lose any immersion in a world, and your game starts to look like a bunch of levels hacked together.
Loading Screens = Dark Side of the Force.

2. Working together is fun. Disturbing trend see I do of late. Yes. Massive multiplayer games are morphing into single player experiences. World of Warcraft's success and its design mantra of being able to solo to maximum level is probably at the heart of this situation. Lets get back to relying on each other to have fun. If we are soloing this , a disturbance in the force will be.

3. Space and lots of it. Im yet to see any information about space action. Light Sabre fights are of course compulsory. More the merrier. We also need space-faring adventure as well. And Im not talking about relegating space as just a 'cut scene' travelator between locations - planets. Warhammer Online guilty as charged.

A Galaxies type mis-step is unlikely at this stage, considering BioWare's strong pedigree. I'm just uneasy. The Star Wars franchise has taken a lot of 'Jar Jar' hits of late, it needs some tender loving care, my inner-Star Wars kid needs this one to be a home run.

Do MMORPGS feel too safe and comfortable?

I played Everquest back in the 'old school' days. That time was defined by danger. Everquest players back in the day would sweat, scream and be turned into shivering wrecks. All due to the result of being able to lose items upon death. All was happy if you could run to your corpse and recover. No problem, goods intact. Things took a dark turn if your avatar happened to buy the farm at the bottom of some hardcore underground labyrinth that was impossible to solo. The result being, your hard-earned loot was locked on that corpse. No magical reset key to save the day. Cruel you might say? Difficult you might say? Terror-inducing you would be correct.

A whole scene emerged of players hiring (or begging) other players to host rescue missions to recover loot. Friends were made, and loot was recovered. But not always. To this day, those Blackburrow Gnolls permanently hold some hard-earned loot of mine, I'm sure of it.

Now this scenerio would be completely foreign to the now-a-days MMO players. Death means a short run and a trivial penalty. Death has become the slightest of irritations. I've partied with players in World of Warcraft that will even use death as a quick teleport method of travel.

There's something not right with all of this. Death in gaming has a tradition of being something to avoid. We've spent money in arcades playing against it. There are high-score leaderboards on XboxLive to demonstrate victories over it. And now we have MMO's treating it as 'meh'.

Everquest was harsh, granted. I'm sure as World of Warcraft players, having our epic items corpse locked at the bottom of Naxx would induce some sort of temporary psychosis. That said, Everquest was fun. There was no plodding through dungeons, with one eye on the screen and the other watching TV. As a player, you were focused and nervous. Excited at the challenge of playing with skill so you didn't have the embarrassment of running around naked asking for help in getting your stuff back. It was a fantasy world with risk and danger. Modern MMOs feel too safe and cosy in comparison.

There's no going back to the hardcore days at this point. Corpse locking items would be seen as madness by a player-base cultured towards more methodical gameplay. But is it too much to ask for some sort of increased ambiance of danger in MMOs? Dungeons should feel a touch nerve-warcking surely? A group should have to run away from a dragon sometimes. These are classic fantasy conventions that are being lost in the treadmill of leveling that has taken over game design.

Lets feel scared again shall we?

And it begins...

Gaming is fun. Gaming takes us to new horizons. Gaming is good. Ive been at this for a long time now. I saw Frogger as a new release. I was stunned with the two dimensional speed of Sonic the Hedgehog, before being wowed by the three dimensional speed of Doom. I even got serious for a time, becoming a freelance journalist for a print gaming magazine.

Nowadays the issue that crosses my gaming hobby, is a growing irritation with 'features' of games. Save points that take me back to the beginning of a level. Boss Fights that break the enjoyable rhythm of a game. MMORPGS that are increasingly trying to become single player experiences.

This is not going to be a cranky old-man gamer Blog. Ok it might be sometimes. Other times we'll be looking at games from a sideways, sometimes upside down reverse angle viewpoint. And have some fun along the way.