As a game designer myself, I know how tempting it is to fix badwrongfun. But what is badwrongfun? If you keep reading this term on the forums, but have no idea what it really means, then here is an explanation using Google rather than a game, for clarity. I am then going to explain why fixing it could be a dangerous trend for EUIV.
Ever play that game where you type "X is the..." into Google?
A classic example of this is where Google would return "Did you mean French military defeats?" when you asked about victories. Or you'd put "America is the..." and predictably get "... fattest nation on earth" (This is no longer true, by the way but I digress).
This is badwrongfun. It can be defined in the Google case as follows:
1) The system works perfectly
2) The result is the expected result (in Google's case, the most popular or regular)
3) 1 + 2 generates something funny or fun, but is stereotypical, "unintended" or possibly offensive to a certain audience.
Google has fixed the badwrongfun in a lot of their search results now. So for example, if you google "X is the..." where X is a country name, you will get "X is the best", "X is the size of what state", etc as the top results, every single time.
So what is the problem with fixing it? Well, badwrongfun is actually fun.
In the case of games sometimes it is more fun than the actual game.
Sometimes the badwrongfun becomes the actual game.
So I'm going to show my age here and give you a game example now. There was a game in yonder years gone by called Quake. Until this point, most games had some basic scripted physics for big damage weapons, but mostly on flat 2D worlds. Quake was unique in that it was possible to make maps very vertical, over "lots of tunnels" and that knocking people around with grenades and rockets was more readily a thing over doom, where it was possible but irregular.
Soon, "Barrel maps" in doom were created, where you could blow up a barrel and make a chain reaction that'd explode its way through the map. However, in quake, the idea for using explosions to launch the player around like a ping pong ball was becoming a thing. Then Quake II turned up.
In Quake II, it didn't take long for players to realise (which their new found power to jump) that they could launch themselves up the new and more vertical than ever maps to get powerups, dodge shots, etc. This had always been an exploit, after all it makes no sense in the game universe that you could use a rocket launcher like jumpjets (and survive).
Rocketjumping was born. It was badwrongfun to the extreme. But it was fun. Of course, developers wanted to patch it out, but back then developers could not force the issue. No-one would install the patch that took their badwrongfun rocket jumping away and eventually, the developers relented. Realising the game was a better, more fun game with the badwrongfun left in.
The badwrongfun had become the reason to even play the game at all. Now there are games out there that owe their existence to the exploit and badwrongfun that was rocket jumping.
I feel at times that EUIV is walking a dark path, which I jokingly refer to as the "Apple path". When you have complete control over a product and forced updates, like Apple does, it gets all too easy to remove anything you don't approve of. There is a reason why getting out of the Apple updates and firmware is called "jailbreaking". It's like being in a prison where the fun is not allowed because Apple disapproves.
The little "exploits", the "tricks" the clever strategy that is somehow too "clever" gets removed. What you are left with sometimes is a game with no soul, or is simply less fun. Knowing all the gamey tricks is what makes me a better gamer.
After all, is EUIV not a game?
Ever play that game where you type "X is the..." into Google?
A classic example of this is where Google would return "Did you mean French military defeats?" when you asked about victories. Or you'd put "America is the..." and predictably get "... fattest nation on earth" (This is no longer true, by the way but I digress).
This is badwrongfun. It can be defined in the Google case as follows:
1) The system works perfectly
2) The result is the expected result (in Google's case, the most popular or regular)
3) 1 + 2 generates something funny or fun, but is stereotypical, "unintended" or possibly offensive to a certain audience.
Google has fixed the badwrongfun in a lot of their search results now. So for example, if you google "X is the..." where X is a country name, you will get "X is the best", "X is the size of what state", etc as the top results, every single time.
So what is the problem with fixing it? Well, badwrongfun is actually fun.
In the case of games sometimes it is more fun than the actual game.
Sometimes the badwrongfun becomes the actual game.
So I'm going to show my age here and give you a game example now. There was a game in yonder years gone by called Quake. Until this point, most games had some basic scripted physics for big damage weapons, but mostly on flat 2D worlds. Quake was unique in that it was possible to make maps very vertical, over "lots of tunnels" and that knocking people around with grenades and rockets was more readily a thing over doom, where it was possible but irregular.
Soon, "Barrel maps" in doom were created, where you could blow up a barrel and make a chain reaction that'd explode its way through the map. However, in quake, the idea for using explosions to launch the player around like a ping pong ball was becoming a thing. Then Quake II turned up.
In Quake II, it didn't take long for players to realise (which their new found power to jump) that they could launch themselves up the new and more vertical than ever maps to get powerups, dodge shots, etc. This had always been an exploit, after all it makes no sense in the game universe that you could use a rocket launcher like jumpjets (and survive).
Rocketjumping was born. It was badwrongfun to the extreme. But it was fun. Of course, developers wanted to patch it out, but back then developers could not force the issue. No-one would install the patch that took their badwrongfun rocket jumping away and eventually, the developers relented. Realising the game was a better, more fun game with the badwrongfun left in.
The badwrongfun had become the reason to even play the game at all. Now there are games out there that owe their existence to the exploit and badwrongfun that was rocket jumping.
I feel at times that EUIV is walking a dark path, which I jokingly refer to as the "Apple path". When you have complete control over a product and forced updates, like Apple does, it gets all too easy to remove anything you don't approve of. There is a reason why getting out of the Apple updates and firmware is called "jailbreaking". It's like being in a prison where the fun is not allowed because Apple disapproves.
The little "exploits", the "tricks" the clever strategy that is somehow too "clever" gets removed. What you are left with sometimes is a game with no soul, or is simply less fun. Knowing all the gamey tricks is what makes me a better gamer.
After all, is EUIV not a game?
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