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Here's a tip for any would be games designers thinking of putting an escort mission in to their games. Bad designer! No! Stop that right now. It's not big and it's not clever. There's nothing that breaks the flow of a game more than having to escort some idiot from one side of the level to the other. Not least because escort missions are a constant source of frustration, not least because they're never done properly.
Even if you do insist on shoehorning one or more escort missions into your game then it's helpful if the person you're escorting isn't dumber than a bag of rocks. Granted, the whole point of escort missions is that the person you're escorting is unable to make their way through the level on their own, but they should at least be capable of independent thought. Ideally, an escort mission should go something like this - you run along, blast a few bad guys, shout for your charge to move forward, and repeat this pattern till they're safe. Or maybe just run along constantly with your escort in tow, shooting bad guys before they can do him too much damage, ending the mission with a feeling of accomplishment. Unfortunately, it rarely works this way.
Take Morrowind on the PC and X-Box for example - there are several quests that have you escorting characters between locations. So you head off towards a location, with the character you're protecting in tow. Or so you think. In fact, you turn around and find they're not there - you backtrack and find them stuck behind a rock, jerking around like a deranged Morris Dancer, apparently lacking the mental capacity to circumvent the simplest obstacle. Rinse and repeat, the same thing happening every two minutes, and the chances are you'll have put your sword through them before their foes can. What fun.
And even if the character you're escorting can traverse the level without getting stuck behind a fencepost, the chances are they'll make no effort to avoid gunfire, just standing their blindly while they're shot at, forcing you to move around the side of them to shoot the enemy that's shooting them. Or even better, just wandering into your line of fire, as seen in, Terminator 3 on the PS2 and many many other games. More often than not the problem is that the game engine doesn't contain the AI code necessary to make your charges halfway intelligent. Both Morrowind and Terminator 3 just throw dumb enemies at you and so your 'friends' are just as dense.
Presumably someone somewhere at the software companies that push out these games thinks 'Hey, why don't we add a little variety to game x by making them protect some thickie' and no-one has the guts or the brains to stand up and say no. But believe me, no matter how good the idea of throwing escort missions into the mix may sound over a few pints at the pub, it seldom works in practice. Especially when you lose the game if the person in question dies. Still, common sense has seldom prevailed in the videogame industry so I suspect we'll be seeing these tedious excursions cropping up in every game from now till the end of time. Just don't expect me do anything other than escort the game to the shop where it came from and demand my money back, or just hurl it in the bin.
Even if you do insist on shoehorning one or more escort missions into your game then it's helpful if the person you're escorting isn't dumber than a bag of rocks. Granted, the whole point of escort missions is that the person you're escorting is unable to make their way through the level on their own, but they should at least be capable of independent thought. Ideally, an escort mission should go something like this - you run along, blast a few bad guys, shout for your charge to move forward, and repeat this pattern till they're safe. Or maybe just run along constantly with your escort in tow, shooting bad guys before they can do him too much damage, ending the mission with a feeling of accomplishment. Unfortunately, it rarely works this way.
Take Morrowind on the PC and X-Box for example - there are several quests that have you escorting characters between locations. So you head off towards a location, with the character you're protecting in tow. Or so you think. In fact, you turn around and find they're not there - you backtrack and find them stuck behind a rock, jerking around like a deranged Morris Dancer, apparently lacking the mental capacity to circumvent the simplest obstacle. Rinse and repeat, the same thing happening every two minutes, and the chances are you'll have put your sword through them before their foes can. What fun.
And even if the character you're escorting can traverse the level without getting stuck behind a fencepost, the chances are they'll make no effort to avoid gunfire, just standing their blindly while they're shot at, forcing you to move around the side of them to shoot the enemy that's shooting them. Or even better, just wandering into your line of fire, as seen in, Terminator 3 on the PS2 and many many other games. More often than not the problem is that the game engine doesn't contain the AI code necessary to make your charges halfway intelligent. Both Morrowind and Terminator 3 just throw dumb enemies at you and so your 'friends' are just as dense.
Presumably someone somewhere at the software companies that push out these games thinks 'Hey, why don't we add a little variety to game x by making them protect some thickie' and no-one has the guts or the brains to stand up and say no. But believe me, no matter how good the idea of throwing escort missions into the mix may sound over a few pints at the pub, it seldom works in practice. Especially when you lose the game if the person in question dies. Still, common sense has seldom prevailed in the videogame industry so I suspect we'll be seeing these tedious excursions cropping up in every game from now till the end of time. Just don't expect me do anything other than escort the game to the shop where it came from and demand my money back, or just hurl it in the bin.
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Here's a tip for any would be games designers thinking of putting an escort mission in to their games. Bad designer! No! Stop that right now. It's not big and it's not clever. There's nothing that breaks the flow of a game more than having to escort some idiot from one side of the level to the other. Not least because escort missions are a constant source of frustration, not least because they're never done properly.
Even if you do insist on shoehorning one or more escort missions into your game then it's helpful if the person you're escorting isn't dumber than a bag of rocks. Granted, the whole point of escort missions is that the person you're escorting is unable to make their way through the level on their own, but they should at least be capable of independent thought. Ideally, an escort mission should go something like this - you run along, blast a few bad guys, shout for your charge to move forward, and repeat this pattern till they're safe. Or maybe just run along constantly with your escort in tow, shooting bad guys before they can do him too much damage, ending the mission with a feeling of accomplishment. Unfortunately, it rarely works this way.
Take Morrowind on the PC and X-Box for example - there are several quests that have you escorting characters between locations. So you head off towards a location, with the character you're protecting in tow. Or so you think. In fact, you turn around and find they're not there - you backtrack and find them stuck behind a rock, jerking around like a deranged Morris Dancer, apparently lacking the mental capacity to circumvent the simplest obstacle. Rinse and repeat, the same thing happening every two minutes, and the chances are you'll have put your sword through them before their foes can. What fun.
And even if the character you're escorting can traverse the level without getting stuck behind a fencepost, the chances are they'll make no effort to avoid gunfire, just standing their blindly while they're shot at, forcing you to move around the side of them to shoot the enemy that's shooting them. Or even better, just wandering into your line of fire, as seen in, Terminator 3 on the PS2 and many many other games. More often than not the problem is that the game engine doesn't contain the AI code necessary to make your charges halfway intelligent. Both Morrowind and Terminator 3 just throw dumb enemies at you and so your 'friends' are just as dense.
Presumably someone somewhere at the software companies that push out these games thinks 'Hey, why don't we add a little variety to game x by making them protect some thickie' and no-one has the guts or the brains to stand up and say no. But believe me, no matter how good the idea of throwing escort missions into the mix may sound over a few pints at the pub, it seldom works in practice. Especially when you lose the game if the person in question dies. Still, common sense has seldom prevailed in the videogame industry so I suspect we'll be seeing these tedious excursions cropping up in every game from now till the end of time. Just don't expect me do anything other than escort the game to the shop where it came from and demand my money back, or just hurl it in the bin.
Even if you do insist on shoehorning one or more escort missions into your game then it's helpful if the person you're escorting isn't dumber than a bag of rocks. Granted, the whole point of escort missions is that the person you're escorting is unable to make their way through the level on their own, but they should at least be capable of independent thought. Ideally, an escort mission should go something like this - you run along, blast a few bad guys, shout for your charge to move forward, and repeat this pattern till they're safe. Or maybe just run along constantly with your escort in tow, shooting bad guys before they can do him too much damage, ending the mission with a feeling of accomplishment. Unfortunately, it rarely works this way.
Take Morrowind on the PC and X-Box for example - there are several quests that have you escorting characters between locations. So you head off towards a location, with the character you're protecting in tow. Or so you think. In fact, you turn around and find they're not there - you backtrack and find them stuck behind a rock, jerking around like a deranged Morris Dancer, apparently lacking the mental capacity to circumvent the simplest obstacle. Rinse and repeat, the same thing happening every two minutes, and the chances are you'll have put your sword through them before their foes can. What fun.
And even if the character you're escorting can traverse the level without getting stuck behind a fencepost, the chances are they'll make no effort to avoid gunfire, just standing their blindly while they're shot at, forcing you to move around the side of them to shoot the enemy that's shooting them. Or even better, just wandering into your line of fire, as seen in, Terminator 3 on the PS2 and many many other games. More often than not the problem is that the game engine doesn't contain the AI code necessary to make your charges halfway intelligent. Both Morrowind and Terminator 3 just throw dumb enemies at you and so your 'friends' are just as dense.
Presumably someone somewhere at the software companies that push out these games thinks 'Hey, why don't we add a little variety to game x by making them protect some thickie' and no-one has the guts or the brains to stand up and say no. But believe me, no matter how good the idea of throwing escort missions into the mix may sound over a few pints at the pub, it seldom works in practice. Especially when you lose the game if the person in question dies. Still, common sense has seldom prevailed in the videogame industry so I suspect we'll be seeing these tedious excursions cropping up in every game from now till the end of time. Just don't expect me do anything other than escort the game to the shop where it came from and demand my money back, or just hurl it in the bin.