I can't think of much fiction I've become immersed in (whether books, games, films) because of things like characters releaving themselves. Yeah, people eat and defecate, with some frequency, but the fact in itself is not very interesting. I fail to see how constant repetition of these tasks could effectively contribute to any kind of story or role.
Now again, I understand why just eating and sleeping is not often included in games, but, clicking a repair button or buying things from a merchant is just as "boring" as walking, then why not remove the need to walk from dungeon to dungeon? (I understand this won't be a full dungeon crawler, just using it as an example)
For me, repetition of some "boring" chores can ad to the overall experience of the game, as well as add a lot of extra hours.
Combat can definitely be fun in itself but it is also interesting because of its consequences, danger and the driving you to improve your character and so much more besides, it's central to gameplay in most games because that really works. Where's the challenge in having to click a repair button? Where's the fun if you just have to do it again and again rather than for some specific purpose?
But there would be a specific purpose to repair a weapon, it would also be completely optional.
If you have a fine crafter sword, it might be more difficult and more expensive to replace it, than repair it, however if you think it's to boring to repair it, you can just toss it away and find another one.
it's fun if you want to do it.
I see your point here.
But this brings me back to the GW2 example, What I enjoyed most was dungeons, and it was possible to skip pretty much everything else than just dungeons if you so chose, but the game felt extremely shallow, and there weren't really much immersion.
Many MMOs include mounts, as a compromise to "boring" walking, and "shallow" teleporting.
With mounts, you can travel fast enough for the trip to not feel tedious, but u still get to experience the world, and see the beautiful landscapes the dev have created.
Our general intention is for every interaction to be meaningful and deliberate. It should be obvious by now that we definitely don't want a game where everything is as convenient as possible. You will be doing things that out of context might seem tedious but you'll always be doing them for different reasons and because you've chosen to.
But does everything have to have a deep meaning to it?
Kinda gets me thinking about these picture.
"You will be doing things that out of context might seem tedious but you'll always be doing them for different reasons and because you've chosen to."
Wouldn't for instance, repairing be just that?
We carefully analyse and try to capture those rare elements of games that we actually enjoy, the why we enjoy them.
This in itself seems great, but if "everything" is super epic (in need of better words) wouldn't it become standard and unmemorable?
I'm thinking a game that have greats bossfights, but if the whole game was just these amazing boss fights, wouldn't they become somewhat unmemorable?
I'm going to use one last example to try "prove" my point. But before that I want to say that; yes I understand what you're saying, I guess we just have different opinions about this.
Now for the example: I currently own 2 cars. 1 Winter/trash car I'll be using over the next 5-6 months, and 1 summer/nice car that I'll be using in the spring and summer.
This particular car is a old Japanese sports car, originally built only for the WRC, and due to the nature of WRC, this car was build with traction and acceleration in mind.
And Mitsubishi really managed to create a great car, with great acceleration and amazing traction.
Now I spend a lot of time in my garage and driveway working on my cars, and this is, in itself extremely boring and tedious.
Late summer I took the whole drivetrain down - Transmission, Transfer box, Differentials and so on.
And it's not especially fun, lying under a car, unscrewing a transfer box, which pour oil all over you face, and then while lying on you back, lifting it down to your chest (this weights around 50KG) and then trying to get out of underneath the car.
Then lifting down the gearbox, also extremely oily, and repairing whatever needs to be repaired.
It's a ton of work. But it's part of owning an old sports car.
Now the best thing about the car is just it's great acceleration and traction, so the funniest thing to do is, just before a tight corner, you shift down to third gear and stomp on that "acceleration pedal", (dunno the name) managing the corner in quite some high speed.
But if the whole experience of owning one of these cars would just be going high speed in corners, it would kinda loss it's purpose.
Just think of your profession (Ofc I dunno about it, so this is just speculations) I can imagine that, a lot of what you do is pure hell, you've probably cursed a few times over that stupid bug you can't squash, just like I curse about that freaking screw that wont get loose.
And over the course of making a game, I think there are moments of satisfaction in overcoming some parts, cursing and getting angry about others and so on.
But in the end, when the game is finished, you'll remember the whole experience, the good parts and the bad parts, and most likely be very satisfied over what you've done.
This is (imo) the same for games, not everything should be a walk in the park, there should be parts were you get frustrated, there should be parts that's annoying or boring, because it will help you remember those amazing moments after you've overcome a challenge.
Now like I said, I understand that our opinions might differ on the matter.
And I won't try to convince anyone to think like I do. I just wanted to show my side of the coin.
