Yahoozy wrote:I don't really understand the desire to keep the glitches unchanged, especially because N 1.4 is going to remain untouched and still attainable. Mario 64 was a great game, and was made great partly by the number of glitches and exploits the game had. Mario Galaxy is also a great game and gains merit by being air-tight from a programming standpoint while maintaining (basically, I know this metaphor is kind of a stretch) its core gameplay. I'm definitely all for fixing everything and releasing the game that you guys had "intended" to make, more or less.
Hm. Personally, I'm against glitch changes. (although I'm a tiny bit curious to see exactly what M&r intended for the game, just not enough to want it)
You are right that comparing N v1.4 and v1.5 to Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy is a bit of a stretch, mainly because the glitches in super Mario 64 weren't such a huge part of the game that completely removing them would make it so much less fun to play... (I'm going to switch over to Super Metroid for this however, since I'm more familiar with that)
In Super Metroid, there is a major glitch known as the reset glitch, which, by using a certain combination of beams in certain rooms, then saving the game after performing the glitch, you can play through the entire game from the beginning, with all the items you had when you performed the glitch (minus regular missiles) -- Allowing you to recollect items over again, fight bosses with weapons the developers never intended you to have at the time, achieve item collection percentages over 100%, etc...
It's a pretty fun glitch to exploit, and it does make the game quite a bit more fun, particularly if you're bored of just playing and beating the game normally over and over again or something. However, if this glitch were removed, the game would still be quite fun -- Mainly because it has several other elements in it to keep it so. Things such as atmospheric music and graphics, suit and weapon upgrades, and a complex and continuing storyline mean that the game doesn't rely mostly on the gameplay itself to be any fun. (Although yes, the gameplay is (always) a major contributing factor.)
N, on the other hand, is much more simplistic than that. It doesn't have the atmospheric music and graphics of Super Metroid. Your ninja doesn't collect weapons and upgrades that ultimately improve it's skill (the closest thing to this in N is getting better as you play). The storyline consists of, roughly: "you are a ninja with a thirst for gold that keeps you alive for longer than 90 seconds. Many robots are out to make sure that you don't reach the exit of the room you are in and prevent you from ultimately reaching transcendence." -- It's a pretty basic storyline that basically just tells you the ninja's purpose and a few basic details of the game. If this story weren't in the game, very little would be lost, because everything in it is discovered while playing the game itself.
For this reason, pretty much all of the fun of the game relies on the gameplay and design of the levels itself (coincidentally, the design of the levels hugely affects the gameplay) This is where the "glitches" come in -- particularly the ones in the actual gameplay. Although I don't think anyone is exactly sure what tricks are considered glitches, it seems to me like people generally consider anything that M&R don't display in the help file nor display in their demos -- so let's go with that definition. As a
bit of shameless advertising reference, my
simple-challenge-esque series should provide a fairly accurate list and demonstration of such tricks. Some other tricks that aren't directly in that series (if any) should be common enough for just about anyone who's been playing for more than a few weeks to know.
Now, let's say that removing all glitches in the game means that all of those tricks are rendered impossible. This would basically mean that the only skills the ninja would have left are running, walljumping, surviving falls with slopes and wallslides, perpendicular jumps, corner tipping, and your ability to control how high, far, and fast you can do these tricks. Gameplay, especially highscoring and speedrunning, would obviously be drastically affected by this. Try to imagine it from a highscorer's perspective. Imagine if there was no corner jumping, double bounceblock jumps... no triple jumps. Several routes on various levels would be lost, the gameplay would become quite a bit more linear, and highscores and speedruns would eventually consist of all the same methods and routes, with little to no room for innovation, and pretty much the only area of competition being whoever can pull the route off the fastest. Does this sound as fun as how the game is now?
There are also the various glitches used in DDAs, puzzles, and overall a good majority of user created maps. So many maps on NUMA would be rendered impossible if gameplay glitches were removed.
Of course, it's probably not the best method to say that removing all glitches would mean removing all tricks, (since, as I mentioned before, I'm pretty sure nobody is exactly sure what tricks are considered glitches) - However, there are still the gameplay glitches that we know for a fact were not intended. (going through oneways, chimneying through doors, gold delay, random chaingun bullet dodging, false and glitch tiles, getting switches through doors, etc...) Even if no highscore tricks are removed, and it's just the (known-for-a-fact-that-they-are) glitches like these that are removed, there are still a good amount of maps that would be rendered impossible or less fun to play because of that.
You did mention that v1.4 would still be around for people who want to play the game with all of it's current glitches, bugs, and oddities. This is true, and a valid point -- however, assuming that v1.5 adds several new features to the game, I am personally going to want to switch over to that version to utilize those new features. I don't, however, want to constantly switch between v1.4 and v1.5 just to utilize the features of v1.5 and play the game with the glitches and bugs of v1.4. It would seem impractical to me.
Even if the glitches are fixed however, I (and other people) can always hope that the possible v1.4 classic mode in v1.5 means that the gameplay and glitches remain untouched, but the new features of v1.5 are still included. I think if anything, this would be the most ideal solution.
All in all, I'm against removing most of the glitches (particularly the in-gameplay ones) because too much would be lost if they were.
That's my opinion on it.
