I have been working for years on the idea that the way to learn is to teach. I have been developing a variety of techniques and approaches to help me learn, and I hope you do the same.
I’m not saying we should all just sit and watch TV for hours and hours and never learn a thing. It would be great if we could all just sit down and stare off into space and not know a thing. But, that would be a lot harder than it is. We need to develop ways of being aware, and being aware requires more than just watching TV or staring at the wall.
Maybe we’re too wrapped up in the technology that drives us to forget that we’re being led by forces greater than us. Maybe we need to be more open to life and the world around us. The problem is, we’re not only being led by forces greater than ourselves, but they are also more complex than we are. The only thing we have to do is to notice them.
The thing that we can be aware of is the world around us: events that unfold on our TV screens, our social media feeds, our computer screens, and the many other things we use to be aware. We should always be aware that we are being led by forces greater than ourselves. We should also always be aware of our own actions, because actions are the result of events that precede them, and we can only be aware of these events if we notice them first.
If you’ve ever played a game with a large cast of characters you probably know the concept of “leading by example” which is an attempt to teach the player something about the game that they can actually use. For instance, if you’re taking a class and you have to shoot an enemy, you have to shoot the enemy first, and then you have to shoot it again.
I know commando quotes are a little bit different, but the concept is the same. You’re leading the players by example, and you tell the player to shoot it (the enemy) and then you shoot it again (the enemy). In this way you’re teaching the players about the game and the consequences of their actions.
Commando quotes are a great way to quickly establish a little bit of meta-cognition and show the player that you know what your players are thinking and you know these commands are going to be effective. But if youre not using these quotes, then youve got a lot less of a chance of making use of them.
In a game that has almost entirely social communication, it would be great if you could teach an NPC to do it, but unfortunately they dont have that option. Instead, if you want your NPC to do something, you have to teach them how to do it, and then they have to do it themselves. This can be very frustrating to play.
To be fair, I think there’s probably a good reason why the command quotes don’t work in the same way that they do in a game like Command & Conquer. We’re dealing with a situation where you’re commanding a party of 2 or more people to do a specific task, but instead of doing the task, you’re telling them to use these commands. As a result, you’re not giving them any information.
This is exactly how commando quotes are supposed to work, so I’m not sure why they’re not working the same way. The only way to get a good commando quote is to go full-on commando, which is probably one of the hardest things to do in the world. The whole point of commando quotes, after all, is so you can say something like, “I’ll do it!” and then do it.