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Lego Bucket vs. Lego Set

So there are two schools of thought that every single game can fall into, these being linear and nonlinear in design. Both of which have their strengths as well as their inherent weaknesses. What I’m gonna talk about in this article is how more and more games are wanting to be a Lego Set rather than a Lego Bucket in their structure.

So what do I mean by Lego Bucket and Lego Set huh? Well if you’re over the age of 18 you just might have grown up with both in your house so let me explain what they mean in relation to video games. The Lego Bucket is a full sandbox where the developers give you the tools to craft whatever you please. That can come in many forms but the most basic and easiest example of this design philosophy is Minecraft. Sure there is a sort of main plot where you just have to go and kill a dragon but beyond that the game is basically if the Lego Bucket was a video game. Mojang gave us, quite literally, all the building blocks we would need to build whatever we want, however we want. This design can also be seen in Grand Theft Auto Vice City. A good example is on a certain mission you have to chase a guy, he gets in his car so you chase him in his car, then you kill him after that car chase. A player was getting frustrated with this mission so he had the idea to steal the guy’s car before the mission started, put a bomb in it, then initiate the chase and watch him explode when he got in the car, and he succeeded in the mission. This wasn’t Rockstar telling him to do this he just had the idea to do it with the tools he was given.

The Lego Set if the complete opposite, think of it like the Telltale games or Uncharted. Very heavy in their stories and while in Telltale’s case there are branching narrative paths you’re still following the story that the developers want you to. These games are closer to interactive movies, kind of like choose your own adventure books, sure you have a choice in the matter but the developers don’t give you the tools to craft what you want, they give you directions to get to the end. These are much more linear in their nature rather than the Bucket’s non linearity.

The Lego Set has instructions that you follow to get to the end goal, making certain that your creation will be almost identical to someone else who bought the same set. The bucket however is way more fun in the long run, because you can build whatever you want assuming you have the pieces and the imagination. The set is over once you’re done with the instructions. The bucket is closer to Minecraft, Vice City, and Breath of the Wild, where as the set is closer to the Telltale games, every Bethesda RPG since Fallout 3, and Red Dead Redemption 2, at least in terms of the story missions in that game. The Set has things that happen to you, the Bucket has things happen because of you.

So now that you know what I mean by the Set and the Bucket lets bring it further into games. I feel that most games today are all trying to do the same thing, they are trying to have and infinite amount of side activities, a huge sprawling open world, lots of RPG elements, and a sweeping epic main story. The problems come when you try and do everything is instead of honing down onto a few things you just water down every aspect of your game. Every game wants to be the next Skyrim, but also every game wants to be a movie. The problem with that is that not every game series should have an open world with an infinite amount of side quests, nor should every game try and be a movie. There are markets for those things but it isn’t for everyone. In my opinion the gameplay of a game is the most important part of a GAME, if your game isn’t fun but looks super pretty then you should have just made a movie instead. On top of that when it comes to the infinite amount of side activities, the idea is that they want you to keep playing your game forever, especially now that you have single player games with micro transactions, the more people that keep playing your game for a long time means that you are more likely to get more money. The problem is when you have every game trying to be a forever game then people won’t be buying as many games because they’ll be stuck on one forever.

For the most part games are trying to be linear, and sure you have open world RPGs but they are still ridiculously linear. The only choice you have in Skyrim is how you look, what armor you wear, and what you smack Alduin with. In Fallout 3 the only choice you have is a black and white good vs evil. Case in point when you get to Little Lamplight either you have a certain perk, a high enough speech skill, or you do their bitchy little quest. Those are your only options because Bethesda has a story that they want you to see. Another sort of case in point is that you can’t lose, in Fallout 3, Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 4, or Fallout 76. The only real failing you can do is if you die, but then you just reload a save. You can’t fail quests, even if you really want to, unless it is scripted in the case of killing the Dark Brotherhood or the horn that the Greybeards send you to fetch. In Fallout 4 the only real choice you have is again, what you look like, what you wear, what weapon you use, and which faction to pick at the end. That last one seems big and it does decide your ending but still it is just one choice and in the end it is really the same choice no matter what, every faction kills the Institute, unless you are the Institute, then you kill the Brotherhood and the Railroad. You’re only choosing which linear path you want to go down.

Take Fallout 2 for a good example of what the bucket is in modern gaming. Yes you have a goal, get the GECK, and yes if you follow the story line beat for beat it does appear linear, but it really isn’t a main quest in the sense that you really have to follow it. Sure if you wanna save your village and get beat up by Frank Horrigan you can but the game just throws you out there and it is up to you to find your way in the wasteland. The developers gave you a target but gave you the tools to go about the entire game however you want. You can run around and become a porn star and drug dealer in Reno if you want instead. You see what I’m getting at? Bethesda wants you to experience their story, where as Black Isle lets you do whatever you want.

Another great example of the bucket is The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. It just drops you in a huge world and yes there is a main quest but like I said before the developers gave you the option to not do it and instead do whatever you wanted. Nowadays you’re the Chosen One who is forced down a path that was chosen by the developers because the want you to go down it, not necessarily because you want to. Unlike before where the developers dropped you in the world which let you do whatever you want, which allowed you to go about the main story because you wanted to.

I mention Red Dead 2 earlier in this article so let me talk about that. Rockstar has two sides, the open world crazy whacky funtimes Lego Bucket, and the scripted linear story movie Lego Set. In one you can essentially do whatever you want to and in the other your hand is being held by the developers, because they want you to go about the story how they have laid it out for you. The story missions are just you following a yellow line on your minimap, shooting some dudes, getting some money, repeat. The only choice you have in the matter is which gun you wanna use, and what outfit you’ve got on.

I think I’ve gone on long enough about it all so I hope you catch my drift. If more games took the bucket route, giving players more freedom to go about the world how they want, then the players would have a unique experience which will make the game that much more enjoyable, instead of going down the scripted linear Set path where if you and your buddy play the game then you both will have the exact same story give or take a bit here and there. A little tidbit that I thought up on my drive from Florida back to Texas is that there is a 3rd thing in this Set and Bucket debate, that being the people who take the Lego sets and break them down into their own new creations, those being the modders that, in some cases, arguably do a better job with Bethesda’s own tools than Bethesda themselves.

All in all the Bucket style games, especially in Minecraft’s case, treat their audience like adults, allowing them to make their own decisions in how they use the tools they are given, and the Set style games, Red Dead 2, treats their audience like kids by holding their hands and telling them what to do at every corner. If you want to hear more on this topic, especially in the case of Red Dead 2, watch this video by NakeyJakey on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvJPKOLDSos

He does a wonderful job at explaining all of this plus he is a wonderful dude. Thanks for reading.

Bethesda: Creation Grounded in Destruction

Todd Howard once explained his creation process in an interview back when Skyrim was the new kid on the block. He talked about how instead of looking at how to add things into the game, he would rather take something out that he, or rather his team, would view as boring, redundant or not necessary. This means that, when crafting a new game, they sit down and take out things before they add things in, or they at least build a new game with what they want to take out from the previous game in their heads.

Now they obviously do add things to their games, but at the same time they do take things out. Going from Oblivion to Skyrim they took out several skills that you could build your character out with. They took out attributes that helped specialize your characters and they took out the entire class system, which helped you feel specialized. Sure you could just build your character out to being an archer but when you went to your character screen you actually saw that under your character’s name, they had a definitive title that helped you feel someone unique. On top of that they took out weapon and armor degradation which meant that the gear you would run around with in game would never break. This made Skyrim lose a majority of it’s Role Playing elements. They took out some of the skills so the pool of skill your character could use was smaller, attributes were no longer a thing so now when you leveled up you just chose whether to increase your health, stamina or magicka, and the class system wasn’t there so now you could just build out whatever character you wanted. It just made Skyrim feel less of an action RPG and more an action game where Bethesda was just trying to wow you with spectacle and the world rather than giving you a deep Role Playing experience.

On the flip side though they did add a lot to the experience. Now you could craft your own weapons and armor which was super fun since, unless you felt like buying all of your supplies, you would have to go out and actually tan the hides of animals for leather, or mine the ore you would smelt into bars for crafting. The implications of this system, though, meant that all of the legendary Daedric artifacts that were literally items given to you by Gods weren’t as useful as the gear you could craft yourself. You basically just did those quests for the quest’s sake and through the gear on a display case or shoved it in a chest.

I’m not saying that Skyrim isn’t an RPG because it absolutely is but it was way watered down from it’s predecessor, Oblivion, to which that game was watered down compared to Morrowind. See the trend that I’m talking about? With each installment of the games they add new features but water down the RPG experience.

Another example is Fallout. Bethesda bought the franchise from Interplay and turned it into an 3rd person RPG from an isometric RPG. In Fallout 3 you had the SPECIAL system along with skills and perks. You can actually build your character out to specifically be good at some things while being bad at others. Sure the actual main story only offered the black and white good or bad choices and the Karma system only reinforced it but since it was their first crack at the series it was a success in most people’s eyes, mine included.

I won’t be touching on New Vegas since that wasn’t Bethesda’s creation so after 7 years of waiting in the dark ages we finally got Fallout 4. I like this game, hell I’m playing it right now as I’m writing this. Fallout 4’s way of leveling up though is that when you level up you can add another point into a SPECIAL stat or pick a perk. Sure you can have a build from this but seeing as there is no level cap there is no real reason to do this because eventually you can have every perk in the game. Sure it would take forever and usually everyone runs with a build but the idea that there is no hard system to run with means that there is no real reason to stick with the build that you are running with. Its all wishy washy and watered down.

The biggest watering down though is that there are essentially no choices in how you do the quests in the game. This is especially noticeable if you download the mod that allows you to fully see all of your dialogue options. It is crazy how often your character will actually say the same things, or that the quest doesn’t care which option you pick, the game just gives you the illusion of choice, which is why I think that the default dialogue system is so vague in your options. Most of the time your options consist of, yes, snarky yes, a little more information which will advance the quest as if you said yes anyways, and not right now but still yes I’ll do it later.

But sure they did add a whole as settlement system where you can build little towns and shit while also making the weapon and armor customization all kinds of wild which means that all the random junk you find in the world actually useful. On top of that the combat in the game isn’t that bad, especially when you compare it the Fallout 3 or New Vegas and they brought back individual armor pieces like we saw way back in the days of Morrowind which is one of the best things the game did and I will always applaud Bethesda for it’s inclusion. Sure that stuff is awesome but in the end they’ve just turned the game into an action first person shooter with super duper light RPG elements which really only determine which gun you use. They add a little building mechanic with weapon and armor customization but drop just about all of their RPG elements. They add a little haha fun things but take out the stuff that their core fan base fell in love with back in the days of Fallout 3 and Oblivion or Morrowind. They make RPGs right? That is Bethesda’s thing they’re the RPG boys right? Not anymore.

This idea is super exposed when it comes to their newest game Fallout 76. They made the settlement system into the new CAMP system which is essentially one scaled down settlement with no people in it but you can put it wherever you want so long as it isn’t near a location or quest. They added in plans and recipes so you have to grind for the weapon and armor crafting which I do like. They added in ammo crafting and just crafting in general seeing as in Fallout 4 you could just craft drugs and that was it. Now you can craft weapons, armor, ammo, food and drugs so long as you have the plans or recipes for it. I do like this part of the game and on top of that they added in multiplayer which is super sick when the game decides to work for longer than 2 hours which is kinda rare these days. You know what they took out? Dialogue, skills, real factions, companions, human NPCs, and choices. Fallout 76 did put a lot more emphasis on the legendary items side of things so you could really have an actual build in this game which is wonderful and I do think they did good in that regard. And on the topic of roleplaying you can do a lot with this game but you’ll always be fighting the game in doing so. Say you just want to be apart of the Brotherhood of Steel, well in the main quest you do end up joining them but you also end up joining the Responders, you become a Firebreather, you join the Free States, and you join the Enclave which is the same faction the Brotherhood fights in Fallout 3. You have to join the Enclave to beat the game as well, hell you have to become the general of the Enclave.

On top of that there are no choices in the quests or events in 76, you just follow a quest marker and shooty shooty bang bang your way through the game. With the only real roleplaying that they game itself supports you in doing being your weapons, armor, and perks. They tried to sell this game as the ultimate roleplaying experience because you weren’t tied down by any sort of dialogue at all. You could run around and be Preston Garvey from Fallout 4, you could run around and be a travelling merchant, but nothing in the game supports this.

By this I mean in Skyrim if you wanted to be a thief there were perks that would help you do so, sets of armor that would give you the look and boost your abilities in that field, and an entire faction and quest line that you could follow. In Fallout 4 if you wanted to join the Brotherhood you could, you’d get a slick suit of power armor with some awesome paint, you could call in a vertibird, and there were radiant quests in the game that would help support the fact that you were in the faction. You could run around with scribes and protect them while they found some technology, or take a kid from the faction on a sort of ride along, parts of the game reinforced your ability to roleplay but the most you’ll get from 76 are events that repeat over and over and over.

I don’t know I just feel that Bethesda’s mentality when it comes to creating something seems way too backwards to actually be stable in the long run.