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8 replies | 1637 views | +5 rating | January 27, 2010 4:50pm | ||||
Vita-Chambers and Quick/Auto SavesWhat was the initial inspiration behind the vita-chambers, both in System Shock 2 and in BioShock? I've been doing some thinking about the function of saving/loading and how obtrusive it is for the user's experience, and I felt that in most first-person shooters quick-saves and auto-saves strip a lot of the emotion out of the game. Vita-Chambers, although disliked by a lot of people, are a great workaround for the checkpoint dilemma that we see in Call of Duty games in pretty much all FPS (where we see people forced to defeat the same enemy over and over again after reloading at a checkpoint). So, again the question I have for anyone at Irrational is: What was your reason behind implementing the vita-chambers? |
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Link | January 27, 2010 5:25pm | ||||
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Just poking my head in to say vita-chambers are just a metaphor for checkpoints that leave world changes intact post death. I think, personally, they sapped a lot of fear out of the game. Removing the absoluteness of death lowers the stakes tremendously. |
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Link | January 27, 2010 5:30pm | ||||
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SS1 and 2 handled them better, in my opinion. You had the option of ignoring them; it made the game a bit more of a challenge if you neglected to turn them on. In Bioshock, they triggered as soon as you got near them. |
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Link | January 27, 2010 5:38pm | ||||
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I think both systems worked for what the story would allow, and for what it wanted them to do. But I always turn off Vita-Chambers in BioShock and do my best not to hit too many Quantum Replication Chambers in SS2. (Is that what they're called? I never remember...) |
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Link | January 27, 2010 6:00pm | ||||
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Yeah. If i die, i have failed, and i LIKE that. |
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Link | January 27, 2010 8:40pm | ||||
Right, but what I love about the vita-chamber is exactly that, the fact that what I do still remains; I have a cohesive experience. Quick-saves and auto-saves, like vita-chambers, remove the stakes tremendously as well, however formal checkpoints don't keep your changes to the world, resulting in a situation where I experience a dramatic moment, but the game doesn't recognize that anymore. For me, I guess it is upsetting that whatever I experience didn't actually happen with a standard checkpoint, while the vita-chambers allow me and the game to remember what I've done. It is more of a mental issue. Checkpoints offer a bit more stakes and they force you to get through an area perfectly, while vita-chamber-type checkpoints offer a more cohesive narrative. But again, I reiterate the question: what was irrational's reason for going with the vita-chambers? |
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Link | January 30, 2010 7:30am | ||||
Agreed, most times I ended up reloading. |
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Link | February 01, 2010 4:40pm | ||||
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Vita chambers are just checkpoints that allow the game to keep its immersion. Instead of big, white letters saying "Checkpoint Reached," they used a device that actually had a place in the game's setting. |
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Link | February 01, 2010 9:07pm | ||||
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What I would have liked w/ The Vita Chamber is if a player dies, all enemies in the are re-generate their health instantly. I want it to feel like them Big Daddies a tough, dammit... |
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