Xtro44

"A letter for the Devs" Hello. I love playing games, games like Warcraft, Fallout (76), Fallen Earth and Terraria. Unfortunately, these games have one thing in common. Spiders and Scorpions or arachnides if we wanna be true to the "one thing" I just wrote. This is due to a big "bleeping" phobia, one I have had for 40 years now and counting. That means that I can't play a lot of games, not until they get mod support at least. Mods though, they come with problems of their own. A patch upgrade, DLC, Expansion, a lot of thing can "out date" a mod and that it not great. I tried a "No Spider" mod for Terraria a few years ago and crossed my fingers. I gotta admit that I was nice getting into the game again, looking at my gear, seeing all the thing different patches had done to improve the game, I loved it! But I of course had to test the mod and started to move underground. Never should have done that! the spider was big, visible AND it was a very VERY fast "bleep", scary fast! I died i a few secs and quickly turned of the game. This happened maybe two years ago and it was a horrible experience to say the least. This may sound weird to a lot of people, but these thing are worthy of giving nightmares and anxiety for a day or two if your unlucky. Fallout has the same thing with their mods, they are only as good as the people who makes them and those who updates them and it is NOT fun testing them out. Now, when we talk about MMO's there are no mods. It's a big, big world with a lot of great stuff, great stories, tons of hours of gameplay. And arachnides... As to why they are so popular in games I do not know know, but there must be something about them. When we talk about Warcraft and Fallen Earth, it makes sense. There is no way around it, it just makes sense. With Warcraft it's the lore and Fallen Earth, mutants. It makes sense. But it SUCKS not being able to play the games because of it. Once in Fallen Earth I had to travel from Sector One to Sector Two and I coulden't wait! I had my motorcycle packed, my shotgun on my back and ready to go! I was driving over a desert, not much to see, a little boring but I was still having fun. I decided to take a break and got off my bike, looked around a little. Then I made the mistake of bringing out my binoculars... Just a few sec's later, just getting up from behind a dune, a big patootie spider leg!! Uggh, my poor heart went bananas and I jump onto my bike ASAP, pointed the ingame camera down and zoomed all the way in, and then I just floored it, hoping I diden't meet anything on the way... I made it without incident, but it took some time before I could continue playing again and I actually stoppet playing a few days later because "that feeling" came back every time I came to a new place. I World of Warcraft I had the worst one yet... In Plaugelands there is a shortcut through a mountian and I was with a friend. He told me about the shortcut and actually said "nothing ever happens in here". So we rode as fast a we could, talking, having fun and BOOM! A spider that filled the WHOLE tunnel cave, the WHOLE CAVE and it was a nasty ugly critter too! Now this experience, and I repeat just to be clear, THIS experience I haven't been able to shake. It happened 7-10 years ago and I STILL have problems going into cave in other games. I know that some people will see this as insane, but it absolutely did something with me, to me, THIS was THE moment where I coulden't take spiders at ALL anymore. Every time I buy a game I gotta do a search on "arachnides" and it sucks to say at least. It is super rare that phobias get taken into consideration and a part of me get it. There is this great game you wanna make and it just happens to have a big boss "insert phobia here" which makes the game unplayable for a lot of people. It's not easy to make everyone happy if not down right impossible. But I do have an idea, which of course is the reason for me writing. Well, I have two to be honest. The first one, and this would be really great for Fallout and Terraria, just built in a "No Arachnide" mod, that way we can be sure it's ALWAYS up to date and that it works as intended, like Hogwarts Legacy did. The second, which works for all the games, is some kind of in-game augmentet reality, a pair of glasses, a chip inserted in the neck or whatever one might think off. I can easily see an NPC giving away a "basic VR" googles for a new skill/quest line and then we have to upgrade them ourselfs through out the game. It also opens up the possibility of making other skins that can be sold, earned in-game or giving them away as a promotion or in achievements. But this will also give players the ability to tailor their games more to their likings. Making the bad guys into clowns, zombies, making other players into a hentai version, making a "ping" another player made for a meeting location into a big pillar of light so it's easier/funnier to see/follow. I really think these things have a lot of potential. There is without a doubt other things that can be done, I just like the idea of letting us players work a little for it. And regarding skins, it would be enough for me if they just makes the critters small, it's the big ones that makes it impossible... hmm... I think... I would be willing to try it out, no doubt. Oh, just had a thought, maybe a infrared vison, only seeing heat from the mobs while everything else is toned down/dark so we don't see spider eggs, web and so on. I write this because there are a lot of great games out there, games a lot of us can't play and it's usually just one or two things that ruins it for people. I highly recommend taking a look at a top 5/10 phobi chart, seeing if you are able to help us, the players, to help you, the developers. There are a millions of us with some kind of "damage", and that is a lot of subscriptions/game copies. Last thing before I go. I gotta admit I do not believe that this is a change that will happen with any of the existing games, but I do hope some of the things I wrote will help some of you in the future, with new games or maybe (fingers crossed) new update/expansions. The weird thing is , I still wanna play Warcraft and Fallen Earth, EVEN with the things that happened with me. Yeah, I know, I don't get it either. Regarding Warcraft, it might even be therapeutic, helping me to move on. Thanks for reading, I hope this gave someone a few ideas. Kind regards Xtro44