thanks for the chuckle (Destiny)

by electricpirate , Tuesday, December 17, 2013, 20:30 (4000 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I'm actually directly answering what you are saying. These games *could not be* what they are without investment systems. If you remove the investment systems the entire core design wold be something else. Dark Souls generates a huge amount of tension by giving you an investment system that can be used as a reward, but that you can lose at any time. EVE battles, scams, and schemes are meaningful because the actual result of hundreds of hours of game play are on the line.

Oh I'm not disagreeing with you. That's absolutely true. Designing these games without investment systems would fundamentally alter their design for sure.

But I'm convinced that the result would end up being better.

That seems like a meaningless opinion; you have absolutely no clue what those games would be like if they didn't have investment systems. Because they wouldn't be the games that got released.

It's like saying "I'm convinced my sister would be a better person if she'd been born to different parents."

I'm not sure it's so meaningless, because we have the entire history of video games to give us SOME idea of what an investment-less system would look like. I mean, you can see what was trying to be accomplished, and imagine doing that without such a system, using past examples as guidance.

Your inability to answer says more about the weakness of your arguments than staying silent would have.

Or, imagining something forward thinking like my save-less RPG / MMO.

It's still just the most labor intensive version of Nethack ever envisioned.