Were you referring to me, and Far Cry 2?

The respawn is triggered when you finish a mission, I think. Or could be actually that they don't respawn right after a successful mission either, but only after you accept a new mission.

And at the same time, the goodies (ammo, health, possible extra vehicles) seem to respawn too. Also, it is usually quite simple to avoid fighting the same checkpoint enemies, if you don't need the goodies they are "guarding". I was first annoyed by the reappearing enemies, but after awhile it started to make sense (from the gameplay point of view at least).

I think in GTA games it was even "worse". If you started shooting enemy gang members on the street, I think they just kept coming and coming. Same for the policemen also of course, if you pissed them off. And that damn boat mission in GTA Vice City.

Far Cry 2 didn't have that kind of continous "on the spot"-respawning at all, as far as I remember. If you cleared an enemy base of all enemy soldiers, it would remain empty, until you revisited the area on a later mission.

It always drove me crazy when you fought a gang war over a region and a girlfriend called you that if you don't have a date with her immediately, she'd dump you. That meant to drop the minutes of gameplay, having a date and fighting for the region all over again >_>.

Now I'm confused if you are talking an in-game girlfriend in GTA games, or a real one? Or does it even matter, from the gameplay point of view? :)

(So far I don't recall any GTA in-game girlfriends at least in GTA3 or GTA Vice City, unless they come later in GTA: San Andreas or GTA4 (yet to play GTA4)).

No. I always leave at least a bit of the replied to post in my own to be clear about that, given GOG's lack of nested posting.

That said, Far Cry 2 was ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE for respawning. So you've got some serious rose tinted glasses on there about that. It was actually a very good game apart from the checkpoints and respawning.

I remember encountering one enemy vehicle on the road, getting into a shoot out with them, then before I knew it I had three of the buggers on me. I was already very bored of the constant interruptions by then. It was a very tiring game to play.

Also, the worst thing about the checkpoints was the fact that they shot you on sight, even if you were working for their faction. There was no AI at work there at all.

^ This.

Ryder white wasn't all that bad, especially when you went through buildings, no zombies would bother you in "safe" rooms.

I totally agree that the outposts needed to respawn eventually. I just wish they didn't respawn while you can still see the base in your rear view mirror! :D How about a 5 or 10 min timer?

Final Fantasy 1-10 where you cannot see where they are coming, along with Wizardry and Bard's Tale and Dragon Quest.

Sure, often. There's cases where it doesn't work well but personally I think that many gamers just are wusses when it comes to this (like people who refused to play games without quicksaving/loading). Of course the respawning has to be designed accordingly to the genre and the most important thing is not to make it feel like you're killing the exact same guys standing in the exact same spot over and over but if used well it will help to maintain all kinds of emotions and illusions.

Whaaat? That's not the Far Cry 2 I recall playing. I think they respawned only when you completed a mission, or was it when you accepted a new mission. If you were still on the same mission, the same outpost or base would stay wiped out, no matter how many times you revisited it.

I don't ever recall new soldiers reappearing from thin air in my vicinity like that in FC2. If I made sure all enemies near the checkpoint were killed, they stayed that way. Could it be that you had not just noticed some soldier(s) earlier which were a bit further away from you, which arrived there a bit later?

Or, not sure if this was changed in some patch then? I played the GOG version (Fortune's Edition).

Then again, there were those car and boat patrols as well which seemed to sometimes come bug you. I am unsure how they appear, e.g. do they have real in-game routes they'd go over and over, and would they respawn only for a new mission as well. I think so, at least I never got an impression that there would have been an endless supply of the vehicle patrols either inside any given mission.

So overall, to me FC2 always seemed like that if I combed the area and killed any enemy I saw, they would stay dead, and no more enemies would appear there. Until the next mission, that is.

The only complaint from me was that it wasn't very realistic or believable that you knew what exactly would trigger the outposts and bases to be repopulated (basically resetted, as also the extra ammos and health would also appear to them at those points), ie. that you successfully finished a mission. But purely from the gameplay point of view, it worked fine IMHO.

As with nearly everything, it depends on the situation.
In my opinion in a game like Dishonored, respawning enemies are terrible.
You should be able to spend an hour clearing the level of enemies if you so desire and enemies should only be able to be revived by other enemies or spawned if an alarm is sounded.
In a frantic shooter or Doom-like or roguelike, it's not that bad assuming of course they also spawn new ammo.
It should be done intelligently as well, I hated the way Doom 3 would spawn them behind you all the time in such a predictable lame way.
And I also think random encounters are way worse, nothing is as annoying as those seizure inducing flashes that draw you into battle with giant enemies that should've been visible.

Spawning in my rear view mirror is a slight exaggeration, very slight. If I started driving away, but then back tracked after 200 metres, I had to fight the outpost all over again! I don't remember my mission status when it happened, just that it happened all the time, consistently. This was 6-9 months after the game was released. Maybe it was a bug? Honestly, it just seemed like a crappy game mechanic...

If it really was like that, then I think the respawning mechanism was changed at some point with a patch. I think I played the game through late last year (the GOG version), which I presume has gotten many updates since the original release, plus the Fortune's pack.

But as said, in many cases there seemed to be (foot) patrols and such a bit farther away from outposts, which would arrive to the outpost a bit later while you were fighting with the other enemies, regardless of whether you drove away or stayed at the outpost. Unless you really mean the whole outpost was resetted whenever you drove away a bit, ie. all the vehicles and houses that you may have had destroyed were back in the original condition, the same number of soldiers had respawned back, and any collectibles (ammo or health) would have reappeared to the outpost.

People have different taste, I think you just want people to like what you want a little too much. :P

Anyway, give a few examples where you think it's justified to have severe respawning and lay out reasons why other than "because I've the skill to survive" or anything like that.