Attention to Detail: It is the little things that count.

"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted."  Albert Einstein.

As a designer this a quote that rings home time and time again, in today's gaming we see a lot of promotion for simply counting things, they say the possibilities are endless or that their are millions of different combinations but when it comes down to it the player is still doing the same action (just millions of times).  I am all about player choice and allowing the player to play as they choose but I would like to see more creativity, not just different tools at the players disposal to kill enemies.

I get it, the Borderlands franchise is a First Person Shooter/Role Playing Game hybrid with tons of customization for the player for both their characters and their weapons but since when did RPGs start giving us item counts?  Which again brings me to another wonderful quote, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts", attributed to Aristotle.  This is subjective to all games, all depends how big of a hole a missing part leaves. Say weapon customization is completely taken out of the Borderlands franchise and replaced with the player simply finding weapons or gaining weapons through the completion of quests, still a FPS/RPG hybrid? Check.  Then why is the number of weapons combinations touted so highly?  Simple, feature touting, the bigger the number the better it sounds.  Now what happens if we make a bigger hole?  Something that is a direct visual impact. 

The above picture is from the latest (that we know of) build of Halo 4s multi player map Warhouse, what do you notice first?  Yes, I hear you it looks way to pretty to be part of the Halo franchise but more importantly what do you feel when you this picture?  Where does the map take place?  Wherever Warhouse is located it looks baron, possibly abandoned, there is a very eerie feeling to this battleground.  It wasn't always like that though, there was a time when it resembled the bright vibrant Halo that most are familiar with. 

Ah there it is, does that look familiar to you now?  Did you know that was a mech in the center without being able to give it a good once over with some hands on time playing the game?  Probably not, above we have what looks like some sort of dormant tool of war and below we have a bright vibrant functioning command center with a mech that it appears you can jump in and ride right out of the building.  This visual story telling, the atmosphere and the feelings they are trying to impose on the player in a multi player map of all places is what should be touted, what should be talked about and ultimately what should be counted but as Einstein said everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.