Dungeons in games have to do two things: serve as spaces of play, and provide verisimilitude, suspension of disbelief. Most often, the first takes high priority, and the second shows up only as set dressing: cells in a prison, waterways in a sewer, altars in a temple, etc.
If you look at classic tabletop dungeons, though--the games that gave us the modern meaning of "dungeon" as "enclosed space full of loot and danger" as opposed to the dictionary "underground prison"--you're more likely to see a balance between the two. Everything still serves the needs of play, but within that framework you'll find bunkrooms, kitchens, storage rooms, training areas, etc, etc, sometimes even with discussion of schedules and which characters are likely to be where when, which the players can attempt to learn and take advantage of. It's more work, but it does make the gameworld feel more immersive, more real.
Either approach is perfectly valid. In a fast-paced hack-and-slash game, you're not likely to stand still long enough to notice the set dressing; you just need a space in which to kill monsters, and anything more is a waste. In a more thoughtful/exploratory RPG, the game can really benefit from a thoughtful layout.
Now isn't it nice when we can disagree without getting all huffy and belligerent?
I agree with both him and you. But I think part of his point is that often times HN comments tend to focus on kind of irrelevant stuff. I'm the author of this post and the top comment here bothered me a bit because it has nothing to do with the content of the article itself, it's just the top commenter giving his opinions on what types of dungeons he likes better. I didn't even post the article to HN myself because my past experience with comments here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7540555) were similar in that discussion tends to not be that meaningfully related to what was written.
Thanks for making the post. Sharing knowledge is great and I appreciate it.
I've written a handful of educational posts as well. I swear the majority of comments only exist to make the commenter try to show off how much smarter than the OP they are. Reddit is the absolute worst. But HN isn't far behind.
I'm sorry the top comment doesn't actually provide any value to any one. Please don't let dingleberries like him prevent you from writing more in the future. Thanks for sharing.
If you look at classic tabletop dungeons, though--the games that gave us the modern meaning of "dungeon" as "enclosed space full of loot and danger" as opposed to the dictionary "underground prison"--you're more likely to see a balance between the two. Everything still serves the needs of play, but within that framework you'll find bunkrooms, kitchens, storage rooms, training areas, etc, etc, sometimes even with discussion of schedules and which characters are likely to be where when, which the players can attempt to learn and take advantage of. It's more work, but it does make the gameworld feel more immersive, more real.
Either approach is perfectly valid. In a fast-paced hack-and-slash game, you're not likely to stand still long enough to notice the set dressing; you just need a space in which to kill monsters, and anything more is a waste. In a more thoughtful/exploratory RPG, the game can really benefit from a thoughtful layout.
Now isn't it nice when we can disagree without getting all huffy and belligerent?