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Full headline, because honestly, I don't know if the problem is actually that Dreamwidth's subject field isn't long enough, or if it's just the case that these websites make their headlines too long: "Devs casually expose far-reaching loading bar conspiracy: 'People just don’t trust one that's too quick'"
For me, while I think it is pretty dumb to fake loading bars or whatever, it's not the end of the world to me, one way or the other. There are only two types of loading bars/screens that bother me.
The first is the loading screen that comes with a bunch of lore/tips/art/whatever to read or look at... which vanish after only a second or two because the game loaded too quickly. If you're going to do that shit, make it pause and allow the player to press a key to continue at their leisure. Some games have learned this lesson, and I appreciate it.
The second is the loading bar that fills up after <insert arbitrary amount of time here>, whether that's smoothly or in "fits and starts" or whatever, reaches the maximimum/100% value... ...and then just continues to sit there for an additional <insert arbitrary amount of time here that's sometimes way longer than however long it took the bar to fill up>. If you're going to do a loading bar at all, even if you're going to fake the animations on it or whatever, at the very least make it so that the bar reaching the full point coincides with the game actually being ready to go. With that said, though, and perhaps even more annoying to me, there are the bars that fill up only as far as anywhere from 50-98% or whatever, and then just sit there, not moving, same as above, and then fill the last 2-50% in the blink of an eye when the game finally finishes loading, an arbitrary but "too long" amount of time later. Even if loading bars are faked, I still want at least an attempt at accuracy, otherwise I'd rather not have them there at all.
Honestly, I'm fine with just a spinner or doodad or whatever that indicates loading is happening but doesn't necessarily show a percentage progress to it. Just something that shows that the game hasn't locked up entirely, at least. Hell, I'm okay with just a string of text showing filenames being accessed or something.
For me, while I think it is pretty dumb to fake loading bars or whatever, it's not the end of the world to me, one way or the other. There are only two types of loading bars/screens that bother me.
The first is the loading screen that comes with a bunch of lore/tips/art/whatever to read or look at... which vanish after only a second or two because the game loaded too quickly. If you're going to do that shit, make it pause and allow the player to press a key to continue at their leisure. Some games have learned this lesson, and I appreciate it.
The second is the loading bar that fills up after <insert arbitrary amount of time here>, whether that's smoothly or in "fits and starts" or whatever, reaches the maximimum/100% value... ...and then just continues to sit there for an additional <insert arbitrary amount of time here that's sometimes way longer than however long it took the bar to fill up>. If you're going to do a loading bar at all, even if you're going to fake the animations on it or whatever, at the very least make it so that the bar reaching the full point coincides with the game actually being ready to go. With that said, though, and perhaps even more annoying to me, there are the bars that fill up only as far as anywhere from 50-98% or whatever, and then just sit there, not moving, same as above, and then fill the last 2-50% in the blink of an eye when the game finally finishes loading, an arbitrary but "too long" amount of time later. Even if loading bars are faked, I still want at least an attempt at accuracy, otherwise I'd rather not have them there at all.
Honestly, I'm fine with just a spinner or doodad or whatever that indicates loading is happening but doesn't necessarily show a percentage progress to it. Just something that shows that the game hasn't locked up entirely, at least. Hell, I'm okay with just a string of text showing filenames being accessed or something.
