"sawdust;c-17041185" wrote:
So you can imagine and mold as much as you like but EA will stomp on your sand castle the minute your back is turned. :(
I don't think this is that far off from a sandcastle in RL and the tides of the ocean on a beach, nor does it seem to me like what you're describing is a disagreement (though you may feel more passionately about its flaws than I).
I think, perhaps, that in attempting to be too many things at once, the game loses a sense of identity, which is part of where the impermanence comes from. I don't know if that makes sense without an example to anchor it. Off-hand, I would say an example that relates to what you're saying might be the intersection of NPC roles at venues and player customization of NPCs in the world. Both are working systems in isolation, but like in the example of frustration you gave, they don't necessarily work together; in fact, they can contradict each other, with the one overriding the other. Theoretically, they could be redesigned to work together (perhaps by allowing the player to create/manage NPCs specifically for certain roles and lock them into said roles), but probably not without having anticipated such a clash of priorities in the game's early design.
But then, considering the example I wrote just now based on your frustrations, perhaps the issue is not so much trying to do too many things, but having tried to do too many things without having properly communicated between teams in the beginning on how those systems may intersect.
