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PC Gaming's 10 Commandments

Posted by Soulskill on from the thou-shalt-not-use-a-trackball dept.

An anonymous reader tips a Tech Report article laying out ten sacred conventions of PC gaming. Quoting: "VI. Keep thine configurations options exposed. PC gamers are used to being able to configure things. That comes from both necessity and whim, and while one doesn't necessarily need to cater to the latter, the former is a must. Games don't have to expose a 1000-line menu for every conceivable detail level on the torches of King Whatever's castle entrance, but we'd like at least some amount of granularity. ... X. Honor thine modders and mod communities. Not every game benefits from mod support, mind you. When they do and the tools exist, however, the result is almost invariably a much bigger and more pervasive community (especially on the multiplayer front). That, in turn, leads to a constant stream of sales. It truly is a win-win situation."

7 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Good list... by RogueyWon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Good list. For once (and this doesn't happen often with these things), I don't think I disagree with a single entry. If I could add an eleventh, it would be:

    "XI: If thou art an fps and if thou art not a realistic military simulator, thou shalt stick any ideas regarding two-weapon limits quite firmly where the sun shineth not.

    Seriously, even console players seem to be getting sick of this particular convention, judging by the fact that one of the highest profile console fpses on the horizon, Resistance 3, is going back to the weapon-wheel system."

    And while it's not a commandment, one thing I would really love to see on the PC is some kind of system (perhaps implemented via Steam or something) which carries my control bindings between similar games, so far as is possible. I like my mouse inverted, and I am quite insistant that my right mouse button makes my character jump, while "use" is always assigned to the space bar. Zoom/aim lives on the middle mouse button - never the right mouse button (even if the game in question doesn't feature jumping). It would be extremely nice if, even if only between games from the same developer, those settings could be carried over automatically.

    1. Re:Good list... by JosKarith · · Score: 4, Insightful

      User-remappable controls are a neccessity. It's less of a problem now but there's plenty of games that I never bothered with more than 1/2 hr of because of idiotic control schema.
      Oh, and if you insist on 5 minute long unskippable cutscenes followed by a hard bossfight for the love of Xenu have an autosave between them. Your beautifully rendered cutscene gets really tedious when you've heard the joke half-a-dozen times.

      --
      'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
    2. Re:Good list... by dintech · · Score: 5, Funny

      Seriously, right click binds to jump?

      And that's just his IDE bindings.

    3. Re:Good list... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yet Bethesda brings to market some of the most moddable and configurable games ever created, with a construction set for pc users. Skyrim is likely to follow most of the commandments in this list. Gameplay in oblivion, morrowind, and fallout is still going. I think you can make an exception here.

      Also it is not a console port. The development is parallel.

    4. Re:Good list... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "XI: If thou art an fps and if thou art not a realistic military simulator, thou shalt stick any ideas regarding two-weapon limits quite firmly where the sun shineth not.

      While you're a lot more knowledgeable about games than I am, RogueyWon, I think the good thing about this list is that it avoided making "commandments" about issues regarding the actual play of the game. Every commandment is about technical issues, like interface conventions, key bindings and modding communities.

      I think when you start talking about how many guns you can carry, it becomes trickier to force any commandments. Military sims aren't the only games where you might want to place some arbitrary limit on the player's ability.

      But I understand where your frustration comes from. I played Duke Nukem Forever too (at least I started it - I doubt I'll finish it). When you have a game that revels in over-the-top silliness, having a limit on weapons is kind of pointless (as you have pointed out in your excellent journal review of the game).

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  2. Cut scenes by david.given · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Don't forget these:
    • All cut scenes shall be skippable, or else the FPSers will hunt you down and kill you.
    • All cut scenes shall be repeatable, or else the RPGers will hunt you down and kill you.

    Corrolary:

    • Thou shalt not put a five minute unskippable cut scene immediately before a boss fight. Or else everyone will hunt you down and kill you.
  3. Re:GFWL, DIAF by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Steam is like a vasectomy. It's intrusive and it looks like it will hurt a ton, but in reality it's painless and not a big deal.

    And it also leaves you somewhat less a man for having accepted it.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.