Don't pick that up! - about the acquisition of inventory items

[jetxl]

I have seem said examples in adventure games before. Runaway comes to mind. I consider said examples a lazy and forcefull way to propel your plot. Why not let the player play your as they want to, and let them finish the game even if they don't want to talk to the guard.

[miguel]

Hello to all,
I think everybody said something true here and I just want to add somethings that we can all agree:
- if the remarks are well written about even useless items then one would like to examine/pick them up, it adds to the character personality;
      Example:  Examine- Blonde Girl waits for a bus - 'Someone waiting for a bus'/'A hot mamma needs my assistance!'
      Example: Interact - Man behind counter - 'I don't want to.'/'In this part of town that could be dangerous.'
      Etc...
- huge amounts of inventory items although unrealistic add to the lenght of the game and people like to have things, I think that the ideia of allowing the player to colect everything he sees and then have him punished for stealing or dangerous acts is brilliant(radiowaves);
If you don't agree with me then it means someone thought about this more and better and that's what makes us better!

[twin-moon]

- if the remarks are well written about even useless items then one would like to examine/pick them up, it adds to the character personality;
      Example:  Examine- Blonde Girl waits for a bus - 'Someone waiting for a bus'/'A hot mamma needs my assistance!'

Calling a blonde girl a useless item isn't the first description I would think of 

After the initial negative reaction, I'm glad that there are people who think the main character should have a personality. Thanks for the responses, guys, there's lots of useful insights.

About the friends house, he shouldn't be getting the message "no I won't steal from my friend", but a message "HEY!!!! WTF??? Are you doing?" Second time message he's out of the house and a new puzzles comes up to find a way back in in order to get help from his friend.

This opens up a whole new range of more realistic puzzles, great suggestion. More games should use this, if only for comic sidetracks.

[Stupot]

Sometimes this kind of gameplay needs to be used for the progression to make sense.
For example, I'm coming towards the end of The Dig and...

Spoiler

... there is a piece you need to activate the machine for the 'eye'.  This piece is hidden in a rock on the beach.  Realistically nobody would ever bother to search that part of rock, and in the game that part of rock remains unclickable  right up until the point where you are told where it is by the map machine.  After that you can go back to the beach and click on the rock to find the piece.

[close]

It's much more realistic, and if I had been able to pick that item up from the get-go then it would have spoiled the gameplay somewhat.

[Nostradamus]

The question is do we really want a game to be realistic?   For realism we have reality!  In reality and boring and limiting!
In games we want to have a world different from our real world. We want to do things we wouldn't or couldn't do in the real world!

I guess it can be ok to withold the player from having one key item that is an anchor in the plot but give freedom with all the other items. But basing a game on strict linearity and rules about what you can and cannot do would just turn out boring and and\or annoying.

[miguel]

''Calling a blonde girl a useless item isn't the first description I would think of'',
Your right TwinMoon, and I apologize to all the blond girls in the forums,
Sometimes when posting in a rush I just overlap my thoughts!!!