Sunday, September 29, 2013

Does every Game need an Experience System?

In the wake of 2005's Battlefield 2, Infinity Ward capitalized on DICE's experience system with Call of Duty 4, and to great effect. So much so that this sort of carrot-stick incentive-based system has gone rampant. Games that trailed off of Call of Duty 4's explosive success are Lost Planet 2, Gears of War 2, Battlefield: Bad Company (although it's arguable whether or not Bad Company's inclusion of the experience system was a reaction to Call of Duty 4 or it was fully intentional from the start of development), Far Cry 2, Crysis Warhead, and Fear 2. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by how much you might have to earn to play at a reasonable level these days, especially if you're playing multiple shooters at once? And do you imagine yourself dividing your time between shooters given the time-consuming nature of the RPG-like experience system that is seemingly duck-taped in most modern online shooters? Personally, I find the ranking systems in some games truly unecessary, but then again, I'm certainly not someone who can plow through all the ranks in a few days, which
is something that may color my opinion.

The bad thing about this whole situation is the fact that fans don't seem to be getting bored of this experience system, no matter what game it's hastily botched on to. That's not very good in terms of the growth of the industry. As far ad I can see, people are eating any game up that has an experience system in it, and that's not encouraging any revolution. All I can hope is that Infinity Ward implements on some new gimmick before the experience system truly loses its luster.

5.5.09

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