COZZER'S PROFILE

author=Max
But I mean what can we take as obvious? Should I explain that the arrow keys move you and that enter examines and escape opens the menu too?

That is the core of this discussion, and that's where "what is your target audience" really comes in.

Do you want your game to be played by people who have never seen an RM game?
By people who have never seen a RPG?
By people who have never seen a video game?
By people who have never seen a computer?

Trying to pander to one of those categories will probably annoy others, though: if you want people who have never seen an RPG to play, you'll have to explain them the very basic conceps of "stats", "turns", "levels", etc., which will probably annoy more expert people who don't want to lose time (and also somehow annoy hardcore games who consider an insult to their pride if the game is not always trying to kill them by any means possible, lack of information included).

If you want people who have never seen a video game to play yours, you'll have to explain them that pressing the "left" arrow makes their character go left, with similar (but bigger) results.

How I would resolve it: before the beginning, I'd ask the player which kind of player he is (more or less between the categories I mentioned above), and change the amount of tutorials according to his answer.
Also, I'd keep an "help/guide" funcion always available (that wouldn't be very important in a standard jRPG, but in the kind of game you're making, it is).

(In this particular case: if you don't want to set auto-run to on, the next logical step would be to ask the player before the beginning, or at least point out exactly how he can change it.)

author=Max
Or is it perhaps reasonable to suggest that in a better world players might be a bit more patient and respectful of games?

You know, I feel it is you that have no respect to the player.
I don't play games to "have patience". I play games to have fun.

If you can convince me that having a little patience will gain me more fun, I'm ok with it.
If you ORDER me to have patience and act all high-and-mighty when I refuse, I'm out.

(Note: not a personal attack. I'm trying to explain why this attitude may seem justified to you, but seems just arrogant to me)

author=Max
As for Dark Souls, this is the quote about it I like best. It's really quite a beautifully succinct piece of writing:

"If adventure is to surprise and mystify you and invite you to uncover the secrets of a forgotten world, then Dark Souls is a great adventure game. If entertainment is fun without failure and progress without pain, you'll have to find it somewhere else. But you'll be missing out on one of the best games of the year."

I find it one of the most arrogant thinly-veiled insults I've ever read about a game. (Hyperbole: actually, gamers are a VERY arrogant kind of people and VERY prone to insults; this one probably doesn't even make it into the top 10. Still.)

Yes, if you are not a horrible person, X is the game for you, while if you are a horrible sucky sucker then don't play it because you won't like it; but I'm not judging you or anything!

author=kentona
(or at least, there are players that identify themselves as part of the target audience who just can't or don't have the skill/skillset/mindset/playstyle conducive to being successful at the game)

But... why should this make them "bad players"?
They try the game, they don't like it, they stop playing.

I mean, it seems like if a guy doesn't like a game, then somebody (either the developer or the player) MUST be at fault. °°

(As Max asked, I'll end my section-derailing too and continue this discussion in that thread.)

You know, if I cared about things like these, I'd find "lowest common denominator" a pretty offensive definition for the kind of players you're talking about. (Which at least partly includes me so yeah, it's kinda personal).

There is NO such thing as a "bad player". There are such things as "player inside of your target audience", and "player outside of your target audience".
Either you accept your target audience is smaller than you'd like it (which means your game will receive less attention than it could), or you take measures to enlarge it. Nobody has any kind of "duty" to be in your target audience, nor would it make him a "better player".

For example: in your latest game, people who can't figure out that pressing shift makes them run are outside your target audience. That is not that strange: it's a feature that became common only with RMVX, and not everybody has experience with that (the first time I played an RMVX game, I didn't discover it myself for a while and I was about to stop playing because of the slow walk speed).

So, either you accept it (which is NOT a bad thing: after all, you can't please everybody) or you change your game. For example, you could activate the auto-run by default: one of the basic principles of Human Computer Interaction is making the most used option the default one.
But you never, in any way, shape or form, shift the blame on the player.

(Sorry for the rant, which is actually pretty off topic, but I feel very strongly about this subject)

Ban our new editor-in-chief, Solitayre.

MOAR gays and lesbians.

Our new editor-in-chief, Solitayre, fills the graveyard.