I’m very much in favor of making the game harder. And I’ve certainly made that case in relation to mood before. Unfortunately there is at least a vocal group of Cata players and contributors who don’t want the game to be harder or more complex (at least, unless that complexity makes zombies more interesting). I’ve gotten pretty rude and unhelpful responses from GlyphGryph for making a suggestion regarding food/condiment modifiers. And gotten into sparring matches over something as simple as pointing out that there’s not enough negative pressure on mood. Because apparently any negative pressure you need to manage is a hassle and is boring/dull/whatever. Or in GlyphGryph’s immortal words ‘completely miserable’ and not worthy of a response beyond his disdain.
I’ve more or less given up on making complex suggestions. I’ve put a decent amount of effort into a bunch of posts about systems and the like. I’m not arrogant enough to assume they deserve any special attention; not having the time or skills to actually mod the game myself is a huge drawback. Usually what happens is that either the suggestion was already planned in some capacity (not identical but close enough), liked by Kevin and others but not implemented because frankly it’d probably be a lot of work and it’s tough to make people like a suggestion enough to work on it themselves (can’t possibly blame anyone for that), just outright refused for being too tedious/boring, or you get people like Inadequate who follow you around to every post you make in order to -1 it in some capacity, just because they think your ideas are dangerous or something ridiculous. Been there. It sucks. Ignore him. Don’t even respond. He exists to derail your threads.
It’s the last two that finally burned me out. It’s become evident that although I love Cata, the design is perilously close to going in a direction I don’t like. It gets easier and easier all the time, and although I’m not in favor of it turning into a game where you are constantly dying, it bugs me that there are these interesting systems at play that have become irrelevant and have little to no impact on whether or not you survive. And have less impact all the time. The entire reason I play Cata is for a zombie survival sim of sorts. It’s either a survival sim or it’s not. The impression I have been getting is that it’s really more of a sandbox dungeon crawler with a survival sim skin on it. If an element of survival gets in the way of killing zombies for fun, then it gets the axe. And people who get off on just running around gunning down zombies can’t understand why someone would actually find the process of survival actually entertaining. Like, genuinely entertaining. It boggles their mind. They say things like it’s ‘dull’ and it’s ‘boring’ and ‘tedious.’ I’d say I don’t understand why they feel that way, except that I know the world is full of games that ignore survival in favor of action and excitement at all possible times. They don’t seem to understand that tension can be quiet and slow. Dread is something which develops over time as a situation becomes increasingly dire. And in the spirit of classic storytelling, the environment itself and the very protagonist are sometimes their own worst enemies. That’s how I felt when I first played Cata: DDA, and that’s what I thought the spirit of the game was, really. Zombies were just a backdrop for a more nuanced emergent storytelling game about a character trying to survive in a bad situation. I suspect I was wrong.
These things may change over time. I’m not standing on a rooftop declaring the game is ruined. It’s not. I’ve had a lot of fun with Cata, and though I’m waiting for Z-levels before I play again, I expect I’ll have more fun with it in the future. But I have no control over what happens to the game going forward, and I’ve kinda washed my hands of that. Ultimately it’s not my game, I don’t physically contribute, and it’s free. So there’s only so much I can expect from it. Still hoping though.
