Musings on basic character development issues

[LyndonL]

I meant “kinda online” as in it’s played online, but not in a multiplayer versus environment.

[Baumbo]

To me, challenges seem like a way the designers can go wild. They said one challenge was to race around the map as a light character, and you probably won’t be racing for time in stop watch or objective. It allows the designers to make short little bursts of stupid fun, for gear that applies to the rest of the game.

Like in Portal, the timed missions after you completed the game had nothing to do with the main part of the game, but they were still loads of fun and as you played them you got better.

In Halo:Reach there was an achievement that was to jump off a 50ft high cliff, land on an elite and kill him. Now, I’ve never seen that in multiplayer, though that can be done. It was still tons of fun to repeatedly jump off a cliff to either a hilarious death or a sweet cinematic kill, even though it had nothing to do with the main game.

Both of these examples were just for bragging rights or gamerscore. Brink is trying to entice you into playing fun little minigame like missions by giving you sweet loot. I would have done them regardless of the loot, because they would just be fun. Maybe, Splash Damage is trying to get the hardcore to try out some of best of co-op and single player. Just as they did trying to get the casual gamers to come online.

I mean, we all know those people that get a game and never play the campaign.

[H0RSE]

I meant “kinda online” as in it’s played online, but not in a multiplayer versus environment.

As long as you are playing over the internet, regardless if it’s against others or with them, it is online.

[H0RSE]

To me, challenges seem like a way the designers can go wild. They said one challenge was to race around the map as a light character, and you probably won’t be racing for time in stop watch or objective. It allows the designers to make short little bursts of stupid fun, for gear that applies to the rest of the game.

Although the Challenges may be “stupid fun,” they do serve a purpose.

They are designed to show players the ropes with different aspects of the game - to essentially train them to better play the game. Using the “Parkour This” challenge as an example, it is a way to train players to better use and understand the SMART system.

[tokamak]

Are you saying you won’t be interested in going offline at times and trying your skill at these challenges?

Yes, don’t get me wrong, I loved the MW2 challenges, great stuff. But these shouldn’t have any bearing on the multiplayer gameplay. The clothes and stuff are all great, but stuff that has a gameplay impact like weapons and modifications should be earned in the multiplayer.

Edit: Just noticed that this message is stuffed with ‘stuff’, you subconsciously start to use that word a lot if you want to avoid the profanity filter.