I'm on the fence about that, I rather they mirror exactly like one another aside from asthetics. WAR tried the mirroed classes but different abilities and then some sort of combat style swap between class roles. It would be easier to balance between the two fractions and allow their respective stories be the major difference between mirrored classes.
yeah - a lot of Warhammer's combat problems came from mirror classes not really being mirror classes and having completely different skills and abilities that they got at different times.
the up shot of that was the mirror classes had advantages and disadvantages over each other that weren't always balanced. and even worse, if a skill was broken or bugged, it only impacted one side and not the other.
you literally had the ebb and flow of combat on a server determined by what was broken that week and which side could take advantage.
I'm on the fence about that, I rather they mirror exactly like one another aside from asthetics. WAR tried the mirroed classes but different abilities and then some sort of combat style swap between class roles. It would be easier to balance between the two fractions and allow their respective stories be the major difference between mirrored classes.
None of the classes seem to mirror each other much at all, honestly.
I LIKE that.
Really? From anything we've seen, it looks like the Jedi/Sith classes are basically 1:1 mirrors, with just different spell names and graphics.
The other 2 aren't as obvious right now, but I'd bet it's the same there. Different names and flavour, but same function.
Which is what you want cause non-mirrored sides is a clusterfuck of non-balance and basically shits all over pvp.
shryke on
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ArrynAsk not the InnkeeperFor destiny is thy name!Registered Userregular
Which is what you want cause non-mirrored sides is a clusterfuck of non-balance and basically shits all over pvp.
exactly this. Think of how much crying there was in vanilla WoW over Shaman and Paladins from the sides that didn't have them. And that's only two classes!
Or the cluster that was DAoC class balance, where there were no true mirrors between 3 factions. Fun game? yes. Remotely Balanced? No.
Even slight differences in WAR produced some ridiculous results. Take for example KotBS and Chosen, where for awhile everyone wanted one around, no one on the other side wanted the other.
It is going to be interesting to see how they mirror or balance the Trooper and Bounty Hunter. One has a Giant gun while the other has a jetpack and rockets.
What seemed to happen in Warhammer is that because skills were different it was harder to mathematically create balance. IE. sustained dmg vs burst on a longer cooldown.
I can see the conversation now.
Trooper abilitiy called "Full Auto" vs BH "Wrist Rocket"
FA-high damage channel for 3 seconds so you gotta sit there while your gun shoots (thing arcane missle from WoW)
WR-Instant rocket from the wrist that does damage initially set to mirror FA
"Well since it's instant we'll give it a longer cooldown"
"But what about the fact that once you shoot it you can use other abilities and even move around?"
"You're right we should up the damage on FA to mirror the damage potential of the global cooldowns the BH can use"
I can only imagine how hard it is to do this shit over and over again. Not to mention you start to loose the ability to support your decisions using math and hard numbers. Not to mention that potential it has to snowball.
Edit: tweak any on variable to much and you break it.
That'll be my retort to anybody touting their awesomeness in TOR at launch. It's a marathon, not a sprint. We'll see where you are in six months.
This was a great post and a great realization you made. And its great when people who have "raced to the top" call out its futility, cheers for that.
But I'd also like to add that it isn't even a marathon. In fact, it's not a race of any kind what so ever. It's amusement. The idea is to have a good time, laugh, smile and enjoy a little recreation. Enjoy them, but one should never delude themselves they are "winning". The only "winners" in MMOs are the people who collect your subscription money.
These games are distractions, not accomplishments.
As for PvP balance, it's part of the ballet of MMOs. By building a system that is constantly tweaked and adjusted to accommodate the trends and exploits developed by the players, you ensure your players are constantly revising, adjusting and rebuilding their toons. Which means, they continue to subscribe and fork over cash.
These systems are complex, because we want them to be complex. If we didn't we'd all play chess. Chess remains balanced because it is simple in its design and elegant in its execution. Nerd games go the other way, they are relatively simple to execute but are complex in their design. Magic the Gathering is the poster child for this. Here we have a game that is really more about exploitation of a system, than a complex execution of strategy.
We nerds love this stuff. When asked why companies keep feeding us this diet, we must ask ourselves why we consume it in the first place.
The answer is simple: because it is fun. We love this stuff much more than we care to admit I think.
1.5 second cast time on WR with a 1.5 sec recoil time on player = same dmg over same time with same inability to perform other actions.
LOL, what? People will flip there shit if there is a cast time on something like WR beyond a simple animation of lifting one arm and fireing. Then you effectivly suggest the ability actually stun the BH. "Using Wrist Rocket stuns the Bounty Hunter for 1.5 seconds." Are you insane? This is the very opposite of the more exciting and heroic combat they are trying to project.
You could be being sarcastic it's just a little hard to tell.
That'll be my retort to anybody touting their awesomeness in TOR at launch. It's a marathon, not a sprint. We'll see where you are in six months.
This was a great post and a great realization you made. And its great when people who have "raced to the top" call out its futility, cheers for that.
But I'd also like to add that it isn't even a marathon. In fact, it's not a race of any kind what so ever. It's amusement. The idea is to have a good time, laugh, smile and enjoy a little recreation. Enjoy them, but one should never delude themselves they are "winning". The only "winners" in MMOs are the people who collect your subscription money.
These games are distractions, not accomplishments.
/clap
Well said.
I'm definitely taking my sweet time with this one..reading all the quest text, talking to NPCs, exploring every nook and cranny..I'm doing this with every singleplayer RPG and I'm gonna do it with this MMO as well.
Maz- on
Add me on Switch: 7795-5541-4699
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ArrynAsk not the InnkeeperFor destiny is thy name!Registered Userregular
Yeah, I hate when people have fun leveling as quickly as possible. People who enjoy different things than me are stupid.
Edit: I mean if you want to go slowly and take in all the content as much as you can, that's awesome for you. But to shit on powergamers for being powergamers seems hypocritical, even if you think none of it matters. Long story short, everyone would be better off if they just stopped caring what other people were doing and focused on their own game experience. So long as it doesn't directly impede someone else's, anyway.
Yeah, I hate when people have fun leveling as quickly as possible. People who enjoy different things than me are stupid.
Edit: I mean if you want to go slowly and take in all the content as much as you can, that's awesome for you. But to shit on powergamers for being powergamers seems hypocritical, even if you think none of it matters.
I'm not sure they are shitting on the powergaming more the fact that the powergamers get burnt out or decry the 'lack' of content.
Yeah, I hate when people have fun leveling as quickly as possible. People who enjoy different things than me are stupid.
Edit: I mean if you want to go slowly and take in all the content as much as you can, that's awesome for you. But to shit on powergamers for being powergamers seems hypocritical, even if you think none of it matters.
I'm not sure they are shitting on the powergaming more the fact that the powergamers get burnt out or decry the 'lack' of content.
You just wonder why powergamers still plow through the content at warp speed and seem genuinely shocked when it runs out, as if it's never happened before.
I think my biggest beef with powergamers, is that it seems a lot of the time they're the people that end up spreading the rumor that a game doesn't have enough end game content. Soon it's all over official forums, then it's elsewhere and people actually believe it. When in reality, they just chose to plow through not only the leveling, but everything at the level cap with such a disgusting efficiency when most people would be fine working through all that in a less hurried manner.
Yeah, I hate when people have fun leveling as quickly as possible. People who enjoy different things than me are stupid.
Edit: I mean if you want to go slowly and take in all the content as much as you can, that's awesome for you. But to shit on powergamers for being powergamers seems hypocritical, even if you think none of it matters.
I'm not sure they are shitting on the powergaming more the fact that the powergamers get burnt out or decry the 'lack' of content.
You just wonder why powergamers still plow through the content at warp speed and seem genuinely shocked when it runs out, as if it's never happened before.
It makes me laugh every time and it always happens
I'm definitely taking my sweet time with this one..reading all the quest text, talking to NPCs, exploring every nook and cranny..I'm doing this with every singleplayer RPG and I'm gonna do it with this MMO as well.
I was gonna say that I might powerlevel on alts, but really I think I'd probably go slow with them also. Well, maybe not through world quests, but through the class stuff for sure. This game is going to be great.
1.5 second cast time on WR with a 1.5 sec recoil time on player = same dmg over same time with same inability to perform other actions.
LOL, what? People will flip there shit if there is a cast time on something like WR beyond a simple animation of lifting one arm and fireing. Then you effectivly suggest the ability actually stun the BH. "Using Wrist Rocket stuns the Bounty Hunter for 1.5 seconds." Are you insane? This is the very opposite of the more exciting and heroic combat they are trying to project.
You could be being sarcastic it's just a little hard to tell.
No, I was being sincere. It's called aiming. And 1.5 sec to aim a rocket is pretty short. Combined with a 1.5 sec delay to adjust to a rocket being fired from your wrist I'd say 3 secs to fire a rocket isn't all that much. Especially if, according to the aforementioned hypothetical scenario where a trooper going full auto is going to take 3 secs. But, I think the comparison itself is a little off. As if I recall troopers get a grenade launcher. So it would be smarter to compare explosion skill to explosion skill. I'd see a BHer equivalent to full auto being more akin to a rapid fire of a BHers dual pistols.
Yeah, I hate when people have fun leveling as quickly as possible. People who enjoy different things than me are stupid.
Uh no, that's not what was said.
What was said is people should remember this for amusement. If it amuses you to stay awake for 60 hours straight so you can claim you were "first" to hit cap level on Trooper, then fine.
But in fact, so many people who race to be "first" later confess how futile it was and how much they damaged their sleep pattern in the process.
What tends to happen to extreme power-gaming is it becomes obsessive, rather than amusing.
Naturally, if you like to grind like a madman go for it, it is just that there's this perception that this is ALL there is and worse, that grinding fast is how you "WIN the GAME".
See numerous gamers who boast how many toons they have at max level, how fast they got them there and even openly brag about how much the repeat the same content over and over again to achieve it. There's little in these posts that discuss how much fun it was for them, indeed it seems to have been done for the sole purpose of bragging about it.
The point was essentially that if you are driven by envy, usually your actions aren't that healthy. And its pretty evident to me, that some power-grinders aren't having fun, they are fueling a deeply rooted obsession. And they compensate for their lack of enjoyment by bragging about the "pwnage".
Well nobody really pwns in games like these, the only one who pwns is the person collecting the subscription money. I've said it before, I'll say it again: bragging about how well you play a video game is akin to bragging how well you masturbate. It is all fine and dandy, but trust me, nobody is that impressed.
Have fun, whatever way suits you in a game, but there's no denying there's dangerously obsessive gamers out there (heck and entire industry has sprouted to council these power souls), and there's no denying those obsessive types tend to brag a great deal about their power accomplishments, or at least it was the power-chase that kept them glued to the game, (at least all articles I've read on gaming addiction seem to indicate that).
I don't preach because I am better (I am most distinctly not), I preach because I think it helps us all stay healthy. These games can produce a dangerous amount of obsession and so when I see an extreme power-gamer admit that racing to be first on a server was largely futile, I applaud. It bursts the illusion that these things matter and are worth sacrificing our health for them. They are not worth doing that at all.
That's a very different point, than saying "people who don't play like I do suck".
Fun is fun, I get that, but there's a different kind of gaming that goes on, that isn't about fun, its about obsession. That's dangerous and unhealthy and I think it is unwise to lower your defenses enough, that the obsession cuts you in half, leaving just a brown cloak on the floor.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: bragging about how well you play a video game is akin to bragging how well you masturbate. It is all fine and dandy, but trust me, nobody is that impressed.
Yeah, this is the second time in like a week you've said this and I still think it's a terrible and insulting analogy. When does a "skill" (putting it in quotes because I know referring to the process of game improvement as skill offends you in some way) become ok to boast about? Being good at sports? Music? Writing?
It's perfectly fine to be proud of being good at games. You shouldn't have to be embarrassed about enjoying what you do recreationally, and I don't think it's remotely akin to walking around telling people you spend 99% of your time masturbating.
That said I don't think bragging about anything is a fruitful endeavor, I'm just curious what you have against gaming in particular.
The skill required to play a sport, versus the "skill" to play a video game is the more terrible analogy. It requires a lifetime to get good at a sport. To get good at most MMOs requires only a monolithic amount of free time, a completely sedentary lifestyle and a lot of repetition of simple, basic patterns. People become good at video games in mere weeks, but in order to stay on top must now feed the game 15 dollars a month and spend at least 40-hours a week invested in the game. Not to mention the legacy of the activity. Most modern sports derive from games that go back centuries, so you can conquer an activity that has a deep and rich history. Most video games, by contrast have an 18 month window. I mean seriously, who gives a flying fuck about how good you are at Viva Pinata? Is that really comparable to Lionel Messi or Argentina? If you think it is, you're more deluded than I thought possible.
It's not skill, it is, and always will be "skill". Gamers insist otherwise, only because they can't confront the realities of their own obsession (which is bad), or because they engaging in bravado for the purposes of having fun. In other words, they know damn well it ain't worth a damn, but they brag about it anyway to generate a laugh or two.
In other words, idiots brag they drank 22 beers the night before and how "hard" they partied. But its all for a laugh, because everyone knows its a stupid thing to do.
Similarly, people brag about how they hit max level in 32 hours of straight playing and were "first" on a server, and everyone laughs because they know its a stupid thing to do.
And in both cases it is likely dangerous to your own health.
It is okay to brag, it is wrong to delude yourself that your "accomplishment" is relevant, worthy of envy or a sign of your "skill". It is more a sign, that you became so wrapped up in gamer hype, that you bought into the BS too hard and too fast.
Nobody will care and later you will realize that you wasted your time. Because that's what video games are, they are a waste of time, an amusing waste of time to be sure, but a waste of time none the less.
The skill required to play a sport, versus the "skill" to play a video game is the more terrible analogy.
Yeah, see I completely disagree. I think games have the capacity to teach you teamwork, situational awareness, visual reflexes, problem solving, and strategy. Do all games encourage the development of these skills? Not necessarily, but they are certainly skills and you can absolutely build them through the medium of games.
Not that we're ever going to see eye to eye on this, apparently.
I gotta give props to a world first max level or boss down. No, it's not going to make a difference in anyone's life, but it's impressive and cool in its own right.
I concede there are elements to a game's design that are positive, but the positive elements of a game can be acquired without having to "race to be first" or brag about accomplishments. Indeed, both of these things counter the very things you suggest are positive. Like anything in life, it is best enjoyed in moderation. That's just common sense, there's no reason to be argumentative about it. Even the gaming companies admit this now and encourage you to PUT THE TOY DOWN - and experience life itself.
Look, you can have a few beers with an old friend and enjoy yourself and benefit from the experience, but if you binge on 22, don't delude yourself the positive aspects outweighed the damage you did to yourself.
Gaming obsessively is NOT healthy. I think this is pretty hard to dispute. There's a reason why people seek counseling about it. That's because it goes too far and hurts their health and their lives. And if we're all honest, we all know gamers who take a game too far, and those are the people I am talking about. And one way to help those people is to puncture this myth that "gaming skills" are this mythic thing, worthy of envy, instead of just a flimsy extension of over-indulgence.
And lets face it, to pwn an MMO completely, is to damage others in your life in the process. They are designed to take a lot of time so that you keep subscribing to them. In fact, they are designed to NEVER end, to NEVER be completed. And you can't continually spend 80 hours a week in a video game and deem that investment of time, "skill" or "healthy". It is neither. If you game at this level, every week for a long period of time, you stopped reaping the positive aspects long ago and you've just become obsessed, likely at the expense of marriage, a job or real friends in the process.
I agree video games are an underrated medium for the purposes of teaching. I'll even say, that on aggregate, video games are a far healthier activity than television. And TV can be educational too, but watching TV 80 hours a week is a waste of time. Bragging you watched all episodes of "Arrested Development" without sleep or rest, is also a pretty stupid thing. And I happen to love that show.
Admit it, power gaming to be "first" on a server isn't about "building skill through the medium of video games". It's about bragging you were first, or acquiring some item that you've deluded yourself into thinking it has value. And you'll waste a lot of your time to accomplish it. And when you do, you'll realize nobody cares. And indeed a few years later, you'll even struggle to remember the details of it. And certainly EVERYONE will have forgotten you did it.
I love video games. I have since the days of the TelStar Ranger (and that reference should open your eyes to how ancient I am). I take pride in my hobby and I am advocate of it. But I also know these games are addictive, dangerously addictive and can be very unhealthy once you obsess over them so utterly that you squander diet, sleep, rest, friendship and income to play them. And so many people who race to be "first" do exactly that.
I think being the first to experience content is fun. Usually gamers who hit the level caps first and experience everything first are generally more skilled than others. It's not something that accidentally happens, it is something that is planned and calculated usually. That is fun for some people.
To say it irritates you and that nobody cares is kinda silly and ignorant. You enjoy the game at your pace, and they will enjoy or not enjoy the game at their pace. Who is to say which pace is right? Why must the game be balanced around those that take forever and may or may not ever see the end game. Both are a waste of time and that's the point.
People will always say there isn't enough content, that is just the way it is.
I have purchased and played every Bioware game since Baldur's Gate 1. That should earn me a spot in beta methinks.
You wish, im in the same boat, and ive had an account there forever.
No dice.
I've done every one except mdk2 and sonic. And shattered steel, though that was before bg1.
Honestly even if buying those games (and the accompanying systems that I never owned) guaranteed me a spot in the beta I wouldn't do it. I want to start fresh from day 1 and have my first experience be the full game in all its server crashing over crowded zone glory.
Posts
yeah - a lot of Warhammer's combat problems came from mirror classes not really being mirror classes and having completely different skills and abilities that they got at different times.
the up shot of that was the mirror classes had advantages and disadvantages over each other that weren't always balanced. and even worse, if a skill was broken or bugged, it only impacted one side and not the other.
you literally had the ebb and flow of combat on a server determined by what was broken that week and which side could take advantage.
Empire - Veela Server
So no one is allowed to stop playing until I do.
Yeah, most of the time maybe.
I cackled with glee whenever I caught one on their own with my Marauder though. No chance in hell for them!
The "Ewoks" cartoons were worse. They were a sequel of sorts to the movies and made invisibility soap canon.
invisibility soap canon vs. break-dancing (we're talkin Electric Boogaloo style here) R2D2 canon. go!
Really? From anything we've seen, it looks like the Jedi/Sith classes are basically 1:1 mirrors, with just different spell names and graphics.
The other 2 aren't as obvious right now, but I'd bet it's the same there. Different names and flavour, but same function.
Which is what you want cause non-mirrored sides is a clusterfuck of non-balance and basically shits all over pvp.
exactly this. Think of how much crying there was in vanilla WoW over Shaman and Paladins from the sides that didn't have them. And that's only two classes!
Or the cluster that was DAoC class balance, where there were no true mirrors between 3 factions. Fun game? yes. Remotely Balanced? No.
Even slight differences in WAR produced some ridiculous results. Take for example KotBS and Chosen, where for awhile everyone wanted one around, no one on the other side wanted the other.
can you change the name of your companions? if so you should totally make a companion named jenkins.
What seemed to happen in Warhammer is that because skills were different it was harder to mathematically create balance. IE. sustained dmg vs burst on a longer cooldown.
I can see the conversation now.
Trooper abilitiy called "Full Auto" vs BH "Wrist Rocket"
FA-high damage channel for 3 seconds so you gotta sit there while your gun shoots (thing arcane missle from WoW)
WR-Instant rocket from the wrist that does damage initially set to mirror FA
"Well since it's instant we'll give it a longer cooldown"
"But what about the fact that once you shoot it you can use other abilities and even move around?"
"You're right we should up the damage on FA to mirror the damage potential of the global cooldowns the BH can use"
I can only imagine how hard it is to do this shit over and over again. Not to mention you start to loose the ability to support your decisions using math and hard numbers. Not to mention that potential it has to snowball.
Edit: tweak any on variable to much and you break it.
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
This was a great post and a great realization you made. And its great when people who have "raced to the top" call out its futility, cheers for that.
But I'd also like to add that it isn't even a marathon. In fact, it's not a race of any kind what so ever. It's amusement. The idea is to have a good time, laugh, smile and enjoy a little recreation. Enjoy them, but one should never delude themselves they are "winning". The only "winners" in MMOs are the people who collect your subscription money.
These games are distractions, not accomplishments.
These systems are complex, because we want them to be complex. If we didn't we'd all play chess. Chess remains balanced because it is simple in its design and elegant in its execution. Nerd games go the other way, they are relatively simple to execute but are complex in their design. Magic the Gathering is the poster child for this. Here we have a game that is really more about exploitation of a system, than a complex execution of strategy.
We nerds love this stuff. When asked why companies keep feeding us this diet, we must ask ourselves why we consume it in the first place.
The answer is simple: because it is fun. We love this stuff much more than we care to admit I think.
LOL, what? People will flip there shit if there is a cast time on something like WR beyond a simple animation of lifting one arm and fireing. Then you effectivly suggest the ability actually stun the BH. "Using Wrist Rocket stuns the Bounty Hunter for 1.5 seconds." Are you insane? This is the very opposite of the more exciting and heroic combat they are trying to project.
You could be being sarcastic it's just a little hard to tell.
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
/clap
Well said.
I'm definitely taking my sweet time with this one..reading all the quest text, talking to NPCs, exploring every nook and cranny..I'm doing this with every singleplayer RPG and I'm gonna do it with this MMO as well.
Think they've taken care of that one for you :P
Woops.
Yeah..then I guess I'll be listening to all the voice acting and not skipping any lines.
Unless the aliens go "Smeeliaa! Muchu chaka paka!" again like in KotOR.
Edit: I mean if you want to go slowly and take in all the content as much as you can, that's awesome for you. But to shit on powergamers for being powergamers seems hypocritical, even if you think none of it matters. Long story short, everyone would be better off if they just stopped caring what other people were doing and focused on their own game experience. So long as it doesn't directly impede someone else's, anyway.
I'm not sure they are shitting on the powergaming more the fact that the powergamers get burnt out or decry the 'lack' of content.
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
You just wonder why powergamers still plow through the content at warp speed and seem genuinely shocked when it runs out, as if it's never happened before.
You wish, im in the same boat, and ive had an account there forever.
No dice.
It makes me laugh every time and it always happens
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
Me too.
No, I was being sincere. It's called aiming. And 1.5 sec to aim a rocket is pretty short. Combined with a 1.5 sec delay to adjust to a rocket being fired from your wrist I'd say 3 secs to fire a rocket isn't all that much. Especially if, according to the aforementioned hypothetical scenario where a trooper going full auto is going to take 3 secs. But, I think the comparison itself is a little off. As if I recall troopers get a grenade launcher. So it would be smarter to compare explosion skill to explosion skill. I'd see a BHer equivalent to full auto being more akin to a rapid fire of a BHers dual pistols.
Uh no, that's not what was said.
What was said is people should remember this for amusement. If it amuses you to stay awake for 60 hours straight so you can claim you were "first" to hit cap level on Trooper, then fine.
But in fact, so many people who race to be "first" later confess how futile it was and how much they damaged their sleep pattern in the process.
What tends to happen to extreme power-gaming is it becomes obsessive, rather than amusing.
Naturally, if you like to grind like a madman go for it, it is just that there's this perception that this is ALL there is and worse, that grinding fast is how you "WIN the GAME".
See numerous gamers who boast how many toons they have at max level, how fast they got them there and even openly brag about how much the repeat the same content over and over again to achieve it. There's little in these posts that discuss how much fun it was for them, indeed it seems to have been done for the sole purpose of bragging about it.
The point was essentially that if you are driven by envy, usually your actions aren't that healthy. And its pretty evident to me, that some power-grinders aren't having fun, they are fueling a deeply rooted obsession. And they compensate for their lack of enjoyment by bragging about the "pwnage".
Well nobody really pwns in games like these, the only one who pwns is the person collecting the subscription money. I've said it before, I'll say it again: bragging about how well you play a video game is akin to bragging how well you masturbate. It is all fine and dandy, but trust me, nobody is that impressed.
Have fun, whatever way suits you in a game, but there's no denying there's dangerously obsessive gamers out there (heck and entire industry has sprouted to council these power souls), and there's no denying those obsessive types tend to brag a great deal about their power accomplishments, or at least it was the power-chase that kept them glued to the game, (at least all articles I've read on gaming addiction seem to indicate that).
I don't preach because I am better (I am most distinctly not), I preach because I think it helps us all stay healthy. These games can produce a dangerous amount of obsession and so when I see an extreme power-gamer admit that racing to be first on a server was largely futile, I applaud. It bursts the illusion that these things matter and are worth sacrificing our health for them. They are not worth doing that at all.
That's a very different point, than saying "people who don't play like I do suck".
Fun is fun, I get that, but there's a different kind of gaming that goes on, that isn't about fun, its about obsession. That's dangerous and unhealthy and I think it is unwise to lower your defenses enough, that the obsession cuts you in half, leaving just a brown cloak on the floor.
Every day the game is not released is a day spent in limbo.
I want a release date so bad!
Yeah, this is the second time in like a week you've said this and I still think it's a terrible and insulting analogy. When does a "skill" (putting it in quotes because I know referring to the process of game improvement as skill offends you in some way) become ok to boast about? Being good at sports? Music? Writing?
It's perfectly fine to be proud of being good at games. You shouldn't have to be embarrassed about enjoying what you do recreationally, and I don't think it's remotely akin to walking around telling people you spend 99% of your time masturbating.
That said I don't think bragging about anything is a fruitful endeavor, I'm just curious what you have against gaming in particular.
It's not skill, it is, and always will be "skill". Gamers insist otherwise, only because they can't confront the realities of their own obsession (which is bad), or because they engaging in bravado for the purposes of having fun. In other words, they know damn well it ain't worth a damn, but they brag about it anyway to generate a laugh or two.
In other words, idiots brag they drank 22 beers the night before and how "hard" they partied. But its all for a laugh, because everyone knows its a stupid thing to do.
Similarly, people brag about how they hit max level in 32 hours of straight playing and were "first" on a server, and everyone laughs because they know its a stupid thing to do.
And in both cases it is likely dangerous to your own health.
It is okay to brag, it is wrong to delude yourself that your "accomplishment" is relevant, worthy of envy or a sign of your "skill". It is more a sign, that you became so wrapped up in gamer hype, that you bought into the BS too hard and too fast.
Nobody will care and later you will realize that you wasted your time. Because that's what video games are, they are a waste of time, an amusing waste of time to be sure, but a waste of time none the less.
Yeah, see I completely disagree. I think games have the capacity to teach you teamwork, situational awareness, visual reflexes, problem solving, and strategy. Do all games encourage the development of these skills? Not necessarily, but they are certainly skills and you can absolutely build them through the medium of games.
Not that we're ever going to see eye to eye on this, apparently.
Then I demand they listen to my opinion. Beta invite please.
Also, Im now tempted to change my info so theyll think Im a 37 year old mother of 3.
Look, you can have a few beers with an old friend and enjoy yourself and benefit from the experience, but if you binge on 22, don't delude yourself the positive aspects outweighed the damage you did to yourself.
Gaming obsessively is NOT healthy. I think this is pretty hard to dispute. There's a reason why people seek counseling about it. That's because it goes too far and hurts their health and their lives. And if we're all honest, we all know gamers who take a game too far, and those are the people I am talking about. And one way to help those people is to puncture this myth that "gaming skills" are this mythic thing, worthy of envy, instead of just a flimsy extension of over-indulgence.
And lets face it, to pwn an MMO completely, is to damage others in your life in the process. They are designed to take a lot of time so that you keep subscribing to them. In fact, they are designed to NEVER end, to NEVER be completed. And you can't continually spend 80 hours a week in a video game and deem that investment of time, "skill" or "healthy". It is neither. If you game at this level, every week for a long period of time, you stopped reaping the positive aspects long ago and you've just become obsessed, likely at the expense of marriage, a job or real friends in the process.
I agree video games are an underrated medium for the purposes of teaching. I'll even say, that on aggregate, video games are a far healthier activity than television. And TV can be educational too, but watching TV 80 hours a week is a waste of time. Bragging you watched all episodes of "Arrested Development" without sleep or rest, is also a pretty stupid thing. And I happen to love that show.
Admit it, power gaming to be "first" on a server isn't about "building skill through the medium of video games". It's about bragging you were first, or acquiring some item that you've deluded yourself into thinking it has value. And you'll waste a lot of your time to accomplish it. And when you do, you'll realize nobody cares. And indeed a few years later, you'll even struggle to remember the details of it. And certainly EVERYONE will have forgotten you did it.
I love video games. I have since the days of the TelStar Ranger (and that reference should open your eyes to how ancient I am). I take pride in my hobby and I am advocate of it. But I also know these games are addictive, dangerously addictive and can be very unhealthy once you obsess over them so utterly that you squander diet, sleep, rest, friendship and income to play them. And so many people who race to be "first" do exactly that.
To say it irritates you and that nobody cares is kinda silly and ignorant. You enjoy the game at your pace, and they will enjoy or not enjoy the game at their pace. Who is to say which pace is right? Why must the game be balanced around those that take forever and may or may not ever see the end game. Both are a waste of time and that's the point.
People will always say there isn't enough content, that is just the way it is.
I've done every one except mdk2 and sonic. And shattered steel, though that was before bg1.
Honestly even if buying those games (and the accompanying systems that I never owned) guaranteed me a spot in the beta I wouldn't do it. I want to start fresh from day 1 and have my first experience be the full game in all its server crashing over crowded zone glory.