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Comment by inigyou

3 days ago

The post-Microsoft meta is that glitches are valid game mechanics. TNT duping has been in the game longer than Notch controlled the game. But some other glitches get fixed.

This goes for most games where glitches end up becoming protected features. Being fun is more important than being correct.

  • How do you measure fun? People will always rush to that excuse if it's not properly defined. And not everyone finds the same things fun. Especially if you are looking to try and 10x your audience.

    • Most won’t fix bugs in non-competitive games are things that don’t prevent players from engaging the intended gameplay loop and are unlikely to be encountered randomly. Who cares if you can endlessly pickpocket that one npc in oblivion. No one but the people who want to exploit will ever be affected and why stop them if that’s what they want.

      In competitive games unintended mechanics are much more frequently patched but there are plenty of examples that are straight up iconic. Wave dashing in melee, magnum damage in Halo CE, sword cancelling in halo 2, b-hopping and surfing in CS.

      And when you get to games like mmos where saving time is of major value glitches are like gifts. I am still mad they patched out logout skips in classic wow.

    • TNT duping is a good example. It’s basically impossible to accidentally run in to this glitch, but the community has built tons of mechanisms around using it and generally like it.

      Patching it out would be more “correct” but serve to only limit user creativity and inventions.

      7 replies →

    • If you’re trying to quantify fun, you’ve already well and truly missed the point.