I hate that game you’re playing, so let’s play together.

Instead of writing an epic explanation of my idea, like a normal person would, I’ve written a fictional narrative about a bunch of friends (and friends of friends) playing a bunch of different games together… It’ll make sense, trust me.

***

Chip is an old-school, hardcore gamer; he love simulators. He recently purchased a game made by That Studio. Chip’s game is a Space-Fleet Simulator, and Chip is technically the commander of the fleet. In the game, he oversees every aspect of the fleet; from transporting colonies, to engaging in space warfare. One of the major aspects of Chip’s game has him survey vacant planets, as well as invade occupied ones.

Chip’s friend, Huey, also bought a game made by That Studio, but its not as “full on” (as he likes to say) as Chip’s game.

Huey mostly plays RPG and RTS games. The RTS game he recently bought, has him commanding an Armed Forces battalion of a space-faring civilization. The game primarily focuses around dropping Huey’s battalion onto numerous worlds where he fights different enemies.

Chip and Huey recently paired their game profiles; meaning when Chip finds a world to survey or invade, Huey receives that world as a mission. In return, any resources and salvage Huey is able to find, is sent to their civilization’s home-word.

Huey’s brother, Dewey, doesn’t consider himself a gamer. But he’s a sucker for Facebook games. It started with Farmville, then moved onto Cityville. Huey recently noticed Dewey playing a lot (almost too much) SimCity Social on Facebook. He decided to get him a game from That Studio; a city building game. Dewey wasn’t crazy on it at first, but after discovering how easy it was to load up and get into, he was hooked!

Within a week, Dewey had built a massive metropolis. He noticed he was getting a lot of random bonuses and asked Huey where they were coming from. Huey explained that both Chip and himself were sending them from their games! During the following week, communication between the three ramped up; as each of them started sending request for specific missions, materials and intel. Co-ordination was simple, as That Studio had implemented the same “Profile HQ” UI across all the games.

Things got really interesting when That Studio released their new game. It was a Squad-based Military-based FPS game; and it was huge. Dale, chip’s brother, got straight into. He loved shooters! He played online a lot. Dale recently started a clan with one of his online gaming buddies, Kit. Dale and Kit were making serious progress in both their skill and level, and their little clan was getting noticed.

Dale eventually decided to pair his clan with his brother’s (Chip) civilisation; which not only included Chip’s space fleet, but Huey’s battalion, and Dewey’s home-world.

Suddenly, Dale’s clan stated receiving a number of new missions. Some had them fighting along side Huey’s battalion, resulting in epic, battalion-size engagements; others (from Chip), had them boarding rival vessels (kind of like Space Pirates!), resulting in tight, CQC skirmishes.

One day at work, Kit told his boss, Baloo, about this new game he was playing online. Baloo thought it sounded awesome (he used to be a huge gamer), but he didn’t have any spare time to play games like that anymore. He showed Kit a game he’d been playing on his phone. Kit remembered That Studio recently released a game for Baloo’s phone! Baloo downloaded the game and tried it out.

The game was a casual puzzle game that threw various challenges at Baloo, which he resolved by choosing from a varied amount of actions. The more he played, the more actions he unlocked. The more he progressed, the more complicated the challenges became.

Being a That Studio game, Kit got Baloo to send a request to pair his profile to Kit’s group. Chip saw the request that night and accepted. Overnight, Baloo’s challenge list sky-rocketed. The game’s puzzles were actually coming from the other players; intel and R&D projects sourced and generated from the various games they all played. Baloo found that when he cracked a number of puzzles, it completed a major project for a kid named “Dewey”.

The next morning he got a quick message from Dewey which read, “thanks heaps dude! My R&D team said that would take 2 weeks to complete that, but your input helped them finish it in 4 days! Legend!!”

Baloo had no idea what he meant, but he laughed and replied “no problem bud.”

– Chip likes Space Simulators,
– Huey plays RTS games,
– Dewey’s not a gamer, but his “inner-architect” loves building cities.
– Dale & Kit play FPS games on their consoles every Friday night until sunrise,
and Baloo plays an occasional game on his phone, on the way to work.

They don’t play the same game, but they still play together. Because “That Studio” made it so they could.

Smart fellas if you ask me 😉

YOU ARE OVERBURDENED

I get burnt out when a video game gives me too much to do.

Does that make sense?

Quest lists that I have to scroll through?

They kill me.

Many game epilogues I have yet to witness, because of this problem…  Fallout: New Vegas, Oblivion and possibly Skyrim; if its not careful.

My most recent investment: Borderlands 2, has presented a unique version of this issue of mine; an issue that also plagued its predecessor. But maybe a little background on me, before we really get into it…

I have even less time to put into my video games these days. The combined result of moving into a new house with my girlfriend 5 months ago, and not wanting to ruin our relationship by isolating myself from 7pm-midnight (like I could when I lived by myself.) This situation has generated the lingering perception: My video game time is precious. Thus, wasting that time with tedious gameplay is no longer an option.

Where once I would play a sub-par game to experience its sprinkled moments of quality; I now banish to the bookshelf (…gameshelf?), never to be seen again.

Now back to the show…

Both Borderlands titles were purchased on the provision of their co-operative gameplay, in which I have consumed with fervent enthusiasm. However (and as with the original), I have been unable to invest the same hours as my digital brothers; as a result, I am now at a level much lower than they, and have chosen to apply additional hours to “grind” solo.

Yes… Catch up.

It was not until entering my own campaign, did I realise I had accumulated a substantial amount of incomplete side quests. This; I believe, was most likely due to my loot-addicted cohorts playing these side quests whilst I was offline (as I commonly chose to join their games; to reduce lag-spikes from my less-than-stellar internet connection, on their end.)

Please note: I don’t blame them for this. An enjoyable game is there to be enjoyed.

The bulk of these side quests were now in the “Trivial” gradation. And due to having roots in the “Completionist” skill-tree, my “grinding” method was a process of “hey you’re a lower class than me, so I’m just gona run past and bee-line to the objective yo.”

After completing two quests like so; that recently acquired, lingering perception came forth and spoke.

‘Why the hell are you doing this?’ it said.

And like that, Borderlands 2 hit the shelf.

So, through a combination of “my time is precious!”, “why can’t I cancel this quest?” and “I must see everything!!” I forego a game that does not offer the appropriate feature to overcome (what I see as,) one of the biggest issues in RPG-esque games.

Quest. Management.

There are already a half dozen ideas I can think up to tackle this issue, but here’s one…

QUEST SUGGESTION AI

For the next few minutes you will read a transcript between Buck and Chad; two XBROX gamers, who recently decided to leave their video game “comfort zone” of Madden, Halo and Call of Duty.

‘Duuude, I don’t know what I’m doing…’ said Buck.

‘Turn on the Quest Suggestion thing man,’ replied Chad.

‘What’s that?’ questioned Buck.

‘It’s a check-box in the options dude. Turn it on and once you finish a quest, the game will bring up two new quests for you to choose. Just use left-trigger or right-trigger to pick one.
‘Oh but don’t forget to pick whether you’re a “completionist” or not. If you select that, it presents your oldest quest as one of the options… It helps you complete all your quests if you want to.’

‘…sweeet.’