As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

Explain this to me

2

Posts

  • ScooterScooter Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Second Life isn't a game. It's a graphics-based chat room.

    Scooter on
  • DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
    edited November 2008
    No, EVE is a graphics-based spreadsheet.

    Unknown User on
  • NightslyrNightslyr Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I have two major complaints about how the genre has progressed.

    1. The grind. WOW is actually pretty fun for the first 20 - 30 levels. You progress pretty quickly from level to level, and new kinds of equipment become available early on as you get enough gold to visit the weapon masters. It's at that the end of that level range where the game bogs down. I'm not a fan of instances, although that's probably because I never joined a guild (see point 2 below). So, I'm forced to run through them with a PUG. Some have been great. Others...not so much.

    Normal PvE questing becomes a lesson in tedium at this time, too. I need to collect 10 feathers for you? Really? Even though I vanquished demons in Ragefire Chasm and the evil wizard Arugal in Shadowfang Keep? I couldn't be of more use by, say, sacking the local village?

    2. Social retardation, in all forms. MMOs, by there nature, are supposed to be social games. Games like EVE force the player to be in a Corporation, even going so far as to place new characters in a generic, pre-made, race-oriented corp. Other games, like WOW, have content (like end-game raids and whatnot) that's really only available to you if you're in a guild. Yet, none of these games have any real in-game services that allow the player to make intelligent decisions on what guild to join.

    So, BoB is (well, was) fighting against the Goons...WTF does that mean? How does it relate to me? Why should I care, or choose a side in the war? What do each stand for? There are a ton of guilds on each WOW server. Which are RP-focused guilds? Raid guilds? Casual guilds? How successful are they? What are their PvP records? I shouldn't have to spend the time I was setting aside to play the game in order to research these things outside of it.

    And, of course, the few guilds/corps I did join have been annoying in and of themselves anyway. I don't take orders about what I do during my play time very well. No, sorry guild leader, you don't have the authority to decide my trade skills. Sorry corp leader, I'm not going to both pay dues and donate to the "Let's build a fuckton of battleships" fund since I'm not going to directly benefit for it, given I only have the skills to fly a cruiser at the moment, and prefer smaller ships anyway. So stop guilt tripping me, and be happy that I donated a ton of skill books and decent equipment to the corp locker for new recruits to use.

    *sigh*

    I don't think it's a mystery why my most memorable MMO-esque memories come from Dragonrealms and AOL's free-form RP rooms (before it became furry central). Each had a small, loyal following, generally filled with good people, and not a lot of time-wasting bullshit (other than Dragonrealms' skill system...yikes).

    Nightslyr on
  • Anon the FelonAnon the Felon In bat country.Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    High-Five, Nightslyer.

    Those are pretty much my feelings about it now....almost verbatim.

    Anon the Felon on
  • magikmushrmmagikmushrm Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    first GM mage took I think 14 months

    uhm no, 14 months for 100 magic skill (I left well before the added the 100+ skill abilities, scrolls and stuff so if you are referencing past that forgive me)?

    wtf were you doing to raise it? casting tier 1 spells over and over?

    man I was 7xGM (7x100 skills, was the old cap at least) on multiple chars and never had a problem getting it raised to 100 quickly, I think one took a couple weeks and that was due to resource issues



    on a separate note losing everything when you die gives death a little value, gives you a little extra incentive to NOT fuck up and get blasted

    or run when you see the horde of blood red names running your way (lolpk)

    I liked having to plan to lose everything in my bags and all my armour

    I set up little premade bags of gear regents and runes and just dropped like a couple dozen of those around houses in the major cities to allow for deaths and a quick restart. You die, get your ass home and grab a gear sack and get the fuck back out there and kill whatever just killed you.

    I was pretty disappointed with modern mmos removed complete item decay (ala diabo/UO) and loss of xp/items on death (ff11 still does xp loss and some others have limited skill loss and penalizes for death but nothing as severe as UO was)

    anyways if UO was re-released with a semblance of the stuff that made it awesome in the original (tabula rasa was a complete fuckup) I'd be all over that in a heartbeat.

    magikmushrm on
  • Anon the FelonAnon the Felon In bat country.Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Maglk, I am talking about UO at release, before power hour, and 8x8.

    Yes the first GM magery skill took about 14 months, if you did it quicker, good for you, but I sincerely doubt you did it prior to T2A, when they made skill gains a little easier.

    Anon the Felon on
  • magikmushrmmagikmushrm Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I played beta and right afterwards
    I quit once the secound age came out
    came back briefly

    edit: the game was buggy as hell and it was extremely easy to get 7x7 if you knew the right....tricks so to speak
    100/100 tank mage ftw

    magikmushrm on
  • INeedNoSaltINeedNoSalt with blood on my teeth Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    i picked UO up with a Renaissance box, I think.

    It was a fun game, but I'm never going to get over the whole 'don't bother playing anything except a tamer if you plan to kill anything' bit.

    LOOK AT MY DOZEN DRAGONS.

    INeedNoSalt on
  • magikmushrmmagikmushrm Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    i picked UO up with a Renaissance box, I think.

    It was a fun game, but I'm never going to get over the whole 'don't bother playing anything except a tamer if you plan to kill anything' bit.

    LOOK AT MY DOZEN DRAGONS.
    oh god
    some of my best memories of that game were running nekking with a 9iron and a dragon in tow through the old world dungeons

    man....goodtimes

    magikmushrm on
  • INeedNoSaltINeedNoSalt with blood on my teeth Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    i played a naked swordsman and i stand by the decision

    INeedNoSalt on
  • DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
    edited November 2008
    i picked UO up with a Renaissance box, I think.

    It was a fun game, but I'm never going to get over the whole 'don't bother playing anything except a tamer if you plan to kill anything' bit.

    LOOK AT MY DOZEN DRAGONS.

    Watch these dozen dragons turn on their master as you cast mind control spells on them!




    Also last time I played there was a limit on 2 dragons, and they were really hard to control.

    Unknown User on
  • DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
    edited November 2008
    Maglk, I am talking about UO at release, before power hour, and 8x8.

    Yes the first GM magery skill took about 14 months, if you did it quicker, good for you, but I sincerely doubt you did it prior to T2A, when they made skill gains a little easier.

    Sitting in Jhelom or Wind for days raising resist off of evil-aligned NPC mages

    Unknown User on
  • magikmushrmmagikmushrm Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    i played a naked swordsman and i stand by the decision
    agreed
    katana of vanq with deadly poison on it
    agi monkey (100str/100ag) ftw


    you see a nekkid blue haired chick with a katana run up
    thwapthwapthwapthwapthwap
    *dead*

    OoOoOooo OOOo

    magikmushrm on
  • Anon the FelonAnon the Felon In bat country.Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    robothero wrote: »
    Maglk, I am talking about UO at release, before power hour, and 8x8.

    Yes the first GM magery skill took about 14 months, if you did it quicker, good for you, but I sincerely doubt you did it prior to T2A, when they made skill gains a little easier.

    Sitting in Jhelom or Wind for days raising resist off of evil-aligned NPC mages

    I remember me and some friends figured out the demons in wind would mana dump harder then the mages, and gain you more resist in a shorter timer period, so we (being all either tank or dex mages) would stand down by the double demon spawn 1 guy would get targeted, and 3 other guys would heal the snot out of him while he gained.

    Much laughter was had when some one messed up the healing cycle and the guy gaining exploded.

    I some times think about going back to UO. Hell, a little bit after ML I made a warrior that could solo Dreadhorn/Parax/Shimmering (shimmering was really really hard to solo, only managed to do it 2 times out of a dozen attempts) was so much fun...I quite dearly loved that warrior, and all the adventures I had with him (this was prior to the vamp form warriors that are doing it now, I used discord to do it...in conjunction with a crazy powerful collection of gear I had amassed over the years, not one artifact though [didn't need them/thought they where underpowered if you configured your other stuff well]).

    Anon the Felon on
  • risumonrisumon Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Nightslyr wrote: »
    I have two major complaints about how the genre has progressed.

    1. The grind. WOW is actually pretty fun for the first 20 - 30 levels. You progress pretty quickly from level to level, and new kinds of equipment become available early on as you get enough gold to visit the weapon masters. It's at that the end of that level range where the game bogs down. I'm not a fan of instances, although that's probably because I never joined a guild (see point 2 below). So, I'm forced to run through them with a PUG. Some have been great. Others...not so much.

    Normal PvE questing becomes a lesson in tedium at this time, too. I need to collect 10 feathers for you? Really? Even though I vanquished demons in Ragefire Chasm and the evil wizard Arugal in Shadowfang Keep? I couldn't be of more use by, say, sacking the local village?

    2. Social retardation, in all forms. MMOs, by there nature, are supposed to be social games. Games like EVE force the player to be in a Corporation, even going so far as to place new characters in a generic, pre-made, race-oriented corp. Other games, like WOW, have content (like end-game raids and whatnot) that's really only available to you if you're in a guild. Yet, none of these games have any real in-game services that allow the player to make intelligent decisions on what guild to join.

    So, BoB is (well, was) fighting against the Goons...WTF does that mean? How does it relate to me? Why should I care, or choose a side in the war? What do each stand for? There are a ton of guilds on each WOW server. Which are RP-focused guilds? Raid guilds? Casual guilds? How successful are they? What are their PvP records? I shouldn't have to spend the time I was setting aside to play the game in order to research these things outside of it.

    And, of course, the few guilds/corps I did join have been annoying in and of themselves anyway. I don't take orders about what I do during my play time very well. No, sorry guild leader, you don't have the authority to decide my trade skills. Sorry corp leader, I'm not going to both pay dues and donate to the "Let's build a fuckton of battleships" fund since I'm not going to directly benefit for it, given I only have the skills to fly a cruiser at the moment, and prefer smaller ships anyway. So stop guilt tripping me, and be happy that I donated a ton of skill books and decent equipment to the corp locker for new recruits to use.

    *sigh*

    I don't think it's a mystery why my most memorable MMO-esque memories come from Dragonrealms and AOL's free-form RP rooms (before it became furry central). Each had a small, loyal following, generally filled with good people, and not a lot of time-wasting bullshit (other than Dragonrealms' skill system...yikes).

    First off I don't understand the gripe about the grind. Are you saying the grind has gotten worse? Because EQ, DaoC and AC were a lot more grindy then WoW or WAR. EQ and DaoC leveling was pretty much entering a zone or dungeon and calling out for a camp check to see what mobs were currently being camped and then either trying to get into one of these groups or moving your group to an open area.

    However, I think losing this is what made the second point so prevalent. WoW was really a solo game, and then you grouped up and no one knows how to play with other people. I was hoping WAR would alleviate some of this, but it seems like just a common place thing now. Being forced to group to level was good in at least you were talking to other people while grinding away instead of being a solo player in a huge world.

    risumon on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ScooterScooter Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    My position on loss/decay/etc is that I will not play a game where it's possible for me to be worse off when I log off than I was when I logged on. I want to look back on those three hours as time I enjoyed, not hitting myself with a double whammy for not doing schoolwork instead.

    I'm already annoyed in CoX that when enhancements lose effectiveness when you go up in level, meaning in some cases leveling up makes you weaker.

    Scooter on
  • s3rial ones3rial one Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    EQ was a far sight less forgiving than WoW, too. Experience loss, de-leveling, corpse recovery... it made death an altogether distasteful thing, and people would generally try to avoid it by not being a bunch of blithering fuckwits. A bad PuG by EQ standards is about the best thing you can hope for in WoW.

    CoX has this problem as well, but the game is so bloody easy that it's largely moot.

    I remember the danger in EQ being a lot more palpable, too. Making the run from Halas to Kelethin at level 4, for example. It took two hours, and if you aggroed anything before EC, you died.

    Also, as lame as camp checks were, it at least gave you the sense that other people were out there in the world. That seems to be missing today.

    I think a lot of the dynamic was how reliant the EQ classes were on each other. Yeah, it sucked having to wait a long time and then pay some spell caster to bind you, but bind stones have made it almost too convenient. It sucked begging for a shaman/ranger/druid to cast SoW on you, but now, it's irrelevant; everyone's got a mount, and 8 other classes probably have the same ability, anyway.

    It's not like the ease of travel and binding are individually horrible things. But they're part of a larger system of homogenization of classes and abilities that have served to deplete the need for players to cooperate and socialize. And the ultimate end of this is WoW: a single player game with a bit of group content bolted on at the end.

    I don't advocate corpse runs or permadeath or level loss or anything like that. And obviously I look back on EQ through the nostalgia filter, but it'd be really nice to have a game that made adventuring and exploring interesting and exciting again.

    s3rial one on
  • TheUnsane1TheUnsane1 PhiladelphiaRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Scooter wrote: »
    My position on loss/decay/etc is that I will not play a game where it's possible for me to be worse off when I log off than I was when I logged on. I want to look back on those three hours as time I enjoyed, not hitting myself with a double whammy for not doing schoolwork instead.

    This.

    I can't waste my valuable time playing a game where things sometimes outside of my control can just totally screw me. Getting ganked is fine. Losing items/exp in the gank is a totally different story. The systems in place in some MMO's act on a negative reinforcement system where generally poor play is punished to the point where the game is like being in an abusive relationship. When I see people wanting things like permadeath item/exp loss or other things the "old school" mmo's(d2 hardcore also included) offered I often wonder if they cut themselves too.

    I can see the allure but man if I wouldn't go into a freaking rage every time some major shit went down. I don't want that stress built into my gaming I can get enough of that at home or work.

    TheUnsane1 on
    steam_sig.png
  • SpongeCakeSpongeCake Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    UO was the shit. There was a roleplaying guild of militia on Europa that took over a crossroads in one of the woods, built a tavern, keep and church there and would build massive roadblocks to tax people who wanted to pass through.
    The whole process was just such an awesome example of the freedom of the whole game: all the shitty little trainees would get axes and go chop trees down for wood, the craftsmen would turn the wood into crates and then everyone else would stack hundreds of these things on top of each other to block the whole road off.

    Shit was epic, man.

    SpongeCake on
  • INeedNoSaltINeedNoSalt with blood on my teeth Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    what did you do if people tried to steal your road blocks :p

    INeedNoSalt on
  • SpongeCakeSpongeCake Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    You got your roadblock stolen is what.

    Occasionally people would come at the thing with an axe and chop it all down. It was soon discovered that you could insert a trap on a crate which would trigger if the crate was destroyed, meaning anyone trying to hack the thing down would get a face full of deadly poisoned dart and die within seconds. Ahhhh memories.

    SpongeCake on
  • DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
    edited November 2008
    http://www.aschulze.net/ultima/


    This dude played on my old stomping grounds of Catskills, lots of cool stories.

    Unknown User on
  • INeedNoSaltINeedNoSalt with blood on my teeth Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Man that is awesome

    UO was so great

    INeedNoSalt on
  • noir_bloodnoir_blood Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Nightslyr wrote: »
    I don't think it's a mystery why my most memorable MMO-esque memories come from Dragonrealms and AOL's free-form RP rooms (before it became furry central). Each had a small, loyal following, generally filled with good people, and not a lot of time-wasting bullshit (other than Dragonrealms' skill system...yikes).

    I never gotten into MMO, simply because I don't think I have the patience for them, but man, during 99-02 i loved doing the whole chat roleplaying. I think I only tried AOL for a bit, usually I did my rp in yahoo chat. It actually sparked my current love for writing, and also made me a hell of a fast typer.

    noir_blood on
  • OptyOpty Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I remember as a kid doing AOL roleplaying in something like "The Red Dragon Inn" or whatever. I think I also played that Dragonrealms thing before they decided to force you to pay extra for it.

    Opty on
  • ThomamelasThomamelas Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Nightslyr wrote: »

    I don't think it's a mystery why my most memorable MMO-esque memories come from Dragonrealms and AOL's free-form RP rooms (before it became furry central). Each had a small, loyal following, generally filled with good people, and not a lot of time-wasting bullshit (other than Dragonrealms' skill system...yikes).
    I remember as a kid doing AOL roleplaying in something like "The Red Dragon Inn" or whatever. I think I also played that Dragonrealms thing before they decided to force you to pay extra for it.

    The free form rooms could be fairly hit or miss. You still could get massive douchebags who were quite capable of ruining people's experiences. Where there is humanity, there is griefing. And I think there was a small gap where DR was included in the flat rate plan, but it was somewhat extra at first, back when you were paying by the hour it tended to add a few.

    Thomamelas on
  • AccualtAccualt Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    s3rial one wrote: »
    EQ was a far sight less forgiving than WoW, too. Experience loss, de-leveling, corpse recovery... it made death an altogether distasteful thing, and people would generally try to avoid it by not being a bunch of blithering fuckwits. A bad PuG by EQ standards is about the best thing you can hope for in WoW. <snip>

    That whole post is a perfect example of why no MMO has captured my heart like EQ1. Thing is I don't have the time nor patience for an EQ1 MMO anymore but I sure do have fond memories. Now I feel like a drug user bouncing from one new drug to the next trying to find the perfect high just one more time.

    Accualt on
  • magikmushrmmagikmushrm Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    robothero wrote: »
    http://www.aschulze.net/ultima/


    This dude played on my old stomping grounds of Catskills, lots of cool stories.
    man
    thats almost tempting enough to make me reinstall
    too bad I know whats waiting for me once I do...
    /sigh, its so hard to start new in a MMO much less start over in one where you used pretty much own/have everything.

    edit:I do remember a bunch of player hosted shards that were pretty cool for a while, original rule sets. I even had one hosted on our schools LAN for a while before I graduated.

    I'd totally get back into UO if there was still an active player base and shit but now I just dont even know what the deal is with that game.

    magikmushrm on
  • NightslyrNightslyr Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    risumon wrote: »
    Nightslyr wrote: »
    I have two major complaints about how the genre has progressed.

    1. The grind. WOW is actually pretty fun for the first 20 - 30 levels. You progress pretty quickly from level to level, and new kinds of equipment become available early on as you get enough gold to visit the weapon masters. It's at that the end of that level range where the game bogs down. I'm not a fan of instances, although that's probably because I never joined a guild (see point 2 below). So, I'm forced to run through them with a PUG. Some have been great. Others...not so much.

    Normal PvE questing becomes a lesson in tedium at this time, too. I need to collect 10 feathers for you? Really? Even though I vanquished demons in Ragefire Chasm and the evil wizard Arugal in Shadowfang Keep? I couldn't be of more use by, say, sacking the local village?

    2. Social retardation, in all forms. MMOs, by there nature, are supposed to be social games. Games like EVE force the player to be in a Corporation, even going so far as to place new characters in a generic, pre-made, race-oriented corp. Other games, like WOW, have content (like end-game raids and whatnot) that's really only available to you if you're in a guild. Yet, none of these games have any real in-game services that allow the player to make intelligent decisions on what guild to join.

    So, BoB is (well, was) fighting against the Goons...WTF does that mean? How does it relate to me? Why should I care, or choose a side in the war? What do each stand for? There are a ton of guilds on each WOW server. Which are RP-focused guilds? Raid guilds? Casual guilds? How successful are they? What are their PvP records? I shouldn't have to spend the time I was setting aside to play the game in order to research these things outside of it.

    And, of course, the few guilds/corps I did join have been annoying in and of themselves anyway. I don't take orders about what I do during my play time very well. No, sorry guild leader, you don't have the authority to decide my trade skills. Sorry corp leader, I'm not going to both pay dues and donate to the "Let's build a fuckton of battleships" fund since I'm not going to directly benefit for it, given I only have the skills to fly a cruiser at the moment, and prefer smaller ships anyway. So stop guilt tripping me, and be happy that I donated a ton of skill books and decent equipment to the corp locker for new recruits to use.

    *sigh*

    I don't think it's a mystery why my most memorable MMO-esque memories come from Dragonrealms and AOL's free-form RP rooms (before it became furry central). Each had a small, loyal following, generally filled with good people, and not a lot of time-wasting bullshit (other than Dragonrealms' skill system...yikes).

    First off I don't understand the gripe about the grind. Are you saying the grind has gotten worse? Because EQ, DaoC and AC were a lot more grindy then WoW or WAR. EQ and DaoC leveling was pretty much entering a zone or dungeon and calling out for a camp check to see what mobs were currently being camped and then either trying to get into one of these groups or moving your group to an open area.

    It's not that the grind got worse in WOW. You're right in that it was significantly easier to level there than, say, in DaoC. The problem I had was that most of the quests never evolved past what I was doing at levels 1-10. At level 30+, quests should be a bit more involved than:

    "To the north there's a cave filled with yetis. Some are wearing blue silk loincloths. Bring me back 10 of these, and I'll give you a crappy sword you can't auction to lowbies because it's soulbound."
    However, I think losing this is what made the second point so prevalent. WoW was really a solo game, and then you grouped up and no one knows how to play with other people. I was hoping WAR would alleviate some of this, but it seems like just a common place thing now. Being forced to group to level was good in at least you were talking to other people while grinding away instead of being a solo player in a huge world.

    There is that, too.

    Maybe my server was really anti-social (ironic, given that it was a RP server), but hardly anyone I grouped with talked. Most communication was either about treasure, or if we were ready to continue on with the quest/instance/whatever. It was like fucking a hooker - efficient, results-oriented, and completely cold and impersonal.

    People were more engaging in EVE. Unfortunately, during the hours I played, nothing ever happened. The most excitement I ever had was using my frigate - the only ship I had at the time - as bait for a pirate in the system. It worked, and we kicked their ass, but that was it. The rest of the time people were mainly AFK, merely waiting for whatever skill they were training to ping.
    I remember as a kid doing AOL roleplaying in something like "The Red Dragon Inn" or whatever. I think I also played that Dragonrealms thing before they decided to force you to pay extra for it.

    Those two activities were pretty much my computer life during high school (93 - 97). There was a short span of time, somewhere between 94 and 96 where the RDI was fucking fantastic. Yeah, you had your Drow rangers named Drist, and those creepy 40+ year old guys pretending to be buxom 16 year old girls just dying for cock, but the vast majority of the people there were cool, and we tended to police our own, keeping the pedophiles at bay and reporting the idiots.

    Unfortunately, three things, in quick succession, killed the RDI for me:

    1. Furries. For some reason, anthropomorphic animal characters jumped through the roof in the mid-to-late 90's. I don't know if this is because more people discovered what cat girls were, or what, but it was shocking.

    2. Castlevania: SotN and, later, Buffy. All of a sudden, everyone was either an Alucard clone, or a vampire hunter.

    3. Dragonball Z. The horror.

    So, a room that once had people actually having real, interesting (if cliched) characters became a den of 13-15 year old fantasies. It wasn't uncommon to see something like (spoilered for your sanity):
    AngryVamp: ::the vampire enters the room, his red eyes searching for prey::
    XNaughtyGirlX: ::the cheerleader watches the new person enter the inn, mesmerized by his eyes.::
    AngryVamp: ::he bites XNaughtyGirlX on the neck::
    XNaughtyGirlX: No! ::she screams in her meow-ish cat girl voice::
    AngryVamp: ::sucks her blood::
    XNaughtyGirlX: Oooh.... ::her breasts heave::
    GokuRoxMySox: I'll save you! ::fires a kamehameha wave at the vampire::

    Interestingly, both Dragonrealms and The Red Dragon Inn are still around today. DR is largely unchanged from what it was 10-15 years ago. They added some new locations, equipment, and spells, but it's the same game. The shipyard is still the place for newbies to go, so they can gain skill by killing rats. I last played it a few years ago, and was surprised by how little had changed.

    The RDI was brought back to life by former RPers and former AOL staff who loved the room. It's now separated from AOL, and is accessed by a special chat client they have available for download. I haven't tried it yet, because I'm not sure if I still have the chops. But, it's nice to see that the community is still alive in some form.

    Nightslyr on
  • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Meh, my old 'good' MMO memories all come from MUXes, specifically the Shadowrun ones (well a couple of em).

    I beta tested UO but didn't play it, as I was not a huge fan of the source material. I hated EQ, meh to AC. The first one I really liked was Anarchy Online.

    Bigity on
  • LoneIgadzraLoneIgadzra Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Jesus so much to respond to, I will probably use multiple posts for easier quoting (by people who I answered looking to answer me). One of the problems I am having is trying to separate my own personal tastes from objective comparison so take it easy if I say "your tastes are wrong" and just call me an idiot or something, but I am trying to avoid it.

    LoneIgadzra on
  • LoneIgadzraLoneIgadzra Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Morskittar wrote: »
    Morskittar wrote: »
    What does a sandbox game hold over a more restricted competitive game like Halo?

    Apples to oranges. I'm a pretty big Halo fan tbh.

    I didn't ask that well. Objectively, without judgement, what is quantifiably different between competitive multiplayer games versus cooporative multiplayer games? If one ignores mechanics (RPG, FPS) I think the methods of player interaction and goals bring some MMORPGs more in line with something like Halo than the traditional EQ or UO model.

    In a competitive multiplayer game, your opponents are more inventive and amusing because they are human, not dumb mobs. Don't get me wrong - I love coop games, if they are challenging and fun. I feel like a lot of MMO's make the experience pretty boring, braindead, and antisocial though. And there's ultimately no point to it whatsoever except to get better loot. Which, for me, is a "been there, played Diablo non-stop for most of my life, why should I care about this game" situation.

    I am still really not seeing the comparison though.

    LoneIgadzra on
  • LoneIgadzraLoneIgadzra Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    I did not mention Eve Online because, while I have quite a bit of experience in the game (about 3 years), its basis on real-time progression...while unique IS a form of forced progression, plus I have constantly found myself disagreeing with CCP's nerf/boost tactics, constantly. Eve is a good game if you don't mind logging in playing for a few hours and having nothing to show for it in the terms of character progression...which I like to do. Never did I get to go "Whooo! killing that <NPC type> got me to Grandmaster/new level/earned progression!" it was always "yay.....more isk...." or in my later days "yay....a new kill....".

    Part of the reason I don't mind what EVE is, is I feel pretty meaningless about character progression at this point since I've played so many RPG's where it was the central focus, and so many MMORPG's that were way less fun than Diablo 2. I just play games at this point for whatever moments of fun the game will bring me, and EVE has that extra bonus of letting me feel like my actions are part of what's making the galaxy the way it is.

    Also I still suck at PvP and mostly die in it, so getting kills has not lost its luster for me by a long shot. When I do it's as fucking satisfying as counter-strike used to be. And getting killed doesn't suck all that much because I plan for it, and in many cases I feel less frustrated than getting killed in WoW because I can just upgrade my clone, grab another ship, and get back out and play whereas in WoW I have to point at my corpse, hit the autorun button, go make a sandwich, etc etc etc.
    TheUnsane1 wrote: »
    Scooter wrote: »
    My position on loss/decay/etc is that I will not play a game where it's possible for me to be worse off when I log off than I was when I logged on. I want to look back on those three hours as time I enjoyed, not hitting myself with a double whammy for not doing schoolwork instead.

    This.

    I can't waste my valuable time playing a game where things sometimes outside of my control can just totally screw me. Getting ganked is fine. Losing items/exp in the gank is a totally different story. The systems in place in some MMO's act on a negative reinforcement system where generally poor play is punished to the point where the game is like being in an abusive relationship. When I see people wanting things like permadeath item/exp loss or other things the "old school" mmo's(d2 hardcore also included) offered I often wonder if they cut themselves too.

    I can see the allure but man if I wouldn't go into a freaking rage every time some major shit went down. I don't want that stress built into my gaming I can get enough of that at home or work.

    See above. I think it depends on the game. I found progression in WoW to be totally hollow for example, but in games where real loss is a mechanic that people actually thought about and made not too terrible I prefer the sense of danger and satisfaction. Death in WoW is just fucking boring. That's it. Death in EVE gives you something to think about because the pvp game is so strategic, and, depending on the situation, you can recover very quickly, and even though you just lost a bunch of real game assets you probably got a lot of money back with insurance and most of those mods from your ship were cheap and mass-produced things that are lying around everywhere.

    LoneIgadzra on
  • DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
    edited November 2008
    I have to point at my corpse, hit the autorun button, go make a sandwich, etc etc etc.

    I don't see how this is any different than having to make 15 jumps in EVE to get to the place where you want to go. Because if anything, EVE is the absolute pinnacle of hitting the auto-whatever button and going to do something else for 9 hours.

    Unknown User on
  • LoneIgadzraLoneIgadzra Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Nightslyr wrote: »
    I have two major complaints about how the genre has progressed.

    1. The grind. WOW is actually pretty fun for the first 20 - 30 levels.
    I heartily disagree, that fucking boring, tedious and unsatisfying experience and then logging in to see the 9999999 WoW topics was what prompted this topic in the first place, but you read the OP so do continue:
    Nightslyr wrote: »
    You progress pretty quickly from level to level, and new kinds of equipment become available early on as you get enough gold to visit the weapon masters. It's at that the end of that level range where the game bogs down. I'm not a fan of instances, although that's probably because I never joined a guild (see point 2 below). So, I'm forced to run through them with a PUG. Some have been great. Others...not so much.

    Normal PvE questing becomes a lesson in tedium at this time, too. I need to collect 10 feathers for you? Really? Even though I vanquished demons in Ragefire Chasm and the evil wizard Arugal in Shadowfang Keep? I couldn't be of more use by, say, sacking the local village?

    2. Social retardation, in all forms. MMOs, by there nature, are supposed to be social games. Games like EVE force the player to be in a Corporation, even going so far as to place new characters in a generic, pre-made, race-oriented corp. Other games, like WOW, have content (like end-game raids and whatnot) that's really only available to you if you're in a guild. Yet, none of these games have any real in-game services that allow the player to make intelligent decisions on what guild to join.

    So, BoB is (well, was) fighting against the Goons...WTF does that mean? How does it relate to me? Why should I care, or choose a side in the war? What do each stand for? There are a ton of guilds on each WOW server. Which are RP-focused guilds? Raid guilds? Casual guilds? How successful are they? What are their PvP records? I shouldn't have to spend the time I was setting aside to play the game in order to research these things outside of it.
    You choose a side based on which group you prefer playing with.

    I agree with you that MMO's need better social tools though. It's one of the reasons I never beat Guild Wars, a game I enjoyed quite a bit for a while - I couldn't find a guild to play with and had no friends that played. I had some pretty cool pickup groups sometimes, but really luck of the draw.

    This is why in EVE, since there was a PA corp to join, that became my group. Period. I would never have gotten back into the game if Merch were not available, and I would probably not play EVE if I couldn't be in GoonSwarm at this point.
    Nightslyr wrote: »
    And, of course, the few guilds/corps I did join have been annoying in and of themselves anyway. I don't take orders about what I do during my play time very well. No, sorry guild leader, you don't have the authority to decide my trade skills. Sorry corp leader, I'm not going to both pay dues and donate to the "Let's build a fuckton of battleships" fund since I'm not going to directly benefit for it, given I only have the skills to fly a cruiser at the moment, and prefer smaller ships anyway. So stop guilt tripping me, and be happy that I donated a ton of skill books and decent equipment to the corp locker for new recruits to use.

    This has not been my EVE experience in Merch/GoonSwarm at all, and WoW guild leaders like that are just being douches.

    But, to be fair, a lot of the time a group in a game will have as its purpose getting "big" or "meta" things done, and you need to be a little organized and "rig" the game for that stuff to work out. It's a mechanics issue.
    Nightslyr wrote: »
    *sigh*

    I don't think it's a mystery why my most memorable MMO-esque memories come from Dragonrealms and AOL's free-form RP rooms (before it became furry central). Each had a small, loyal following, generally filled with good people, and not a lot of time-wasting bullshit (other than Dragonrealms' skill system...yikes).

    Good people can be found in the more main-stream games though - even WoW. Especially with these forums as a starting point.
    Nightslyr wrote:
    People were more engaging in EVE. Unfortunately, during the hours I played, nothing ever happened. The most excitement I ever had was using my frigate - the only ship I had at the time - as bait for a pirate in the system. It worked, and we kicked their ass, but that was it. The rest of the time people were mainly AFK, merely waiting for whatever skill they were training to ping.

    Yeah, you may want to try Merch. We have a war on our doorstep at the moment, and people don't just log in to change skills (though that's a running joke).

    LoneIgadzra on
  • LoneIgadzraLoneIgadzra Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    robothero wrote: »
    I have to point at my corpse, hit the autorun button, go make a sandwich, etc etc etc.

    I don't see how this is any different than having to make 15 jumps in EVE to get to the place where you want to go. Because if anything, EVE is the absolute pinnacle of hitting the auto-whatever button and going to do something else for 9 hours.

    If you don't have a clone or extra ships where you just died. There no fucking reason to ever have a clone 15 jumps away from where you might die. And like I said, you can have replacement ships line up to go and everything with zero downtime, and who said you had to return to where you were?

    In WoW there's just no good choice. Run forever back to your corpse, or resurrect and pay a penalty.

    LoneIgadzra on
  • TheUnsane1TheUnsane1 PhiladelphiaRegistered User regular
    edited November 2008
    If you don't mind me asking did you play WoW alone or with people you know? I find in all the mmo's I have played that this above all decides if the game is good or bad. Really all games with online in general. Personally Counter Strike is junk imo. Why? I tend to prefer deathmatch games in fps's for one, but bigger then this NONE of my friends at Counter Strikes hayday played it. We were into Starcraft WC3 Diablo 2 mostly which also goes a long way to why I like WoW. It's really about finding games you have a good time with your friends in no matter how good bad or otherwise it is.

    TheUnsane1 on
    steam_sig.png
  • magikmushrmmagikmushrm Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Bigity wrote: »
    Meh, my old 'good' MMO memories all come from MUXes, specifically the Shadowrun ones (well a couple of em).

    I beta tested UO but didn't play it, as I was not a huge fan of the source material. I hated EQ, meh to AC. The first one I really liked was Anarchy Online.
    I actually got back into AO recently, I really enjoyed being a NT, Doc or Meta in that game and the implant/upgrade system was fun as well, if not challenging to get right

    the graphics are horrible though. The game is not pretty at all, even in the pretty areas its still kinda fugly, but i stick around for game play and mechanics of the game tho. They've made it real interesting with the alien invasion and addition of vehicles and such.

    magikmushrm on
  • magikmushrmmagikmushrm Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    If you don't have a clone or extra ships where you just died. There no fucking reason to ever have a clone 15 jumps away from where you might die. And like I said, you can have replacement ships line up to go and everything with zero downtime, and who said you had to return to where you were?

    In WoW there's just no good choice. Run forever back to your corpse, or resurrect and pay a penalty.
    EVE was all about contingency planning, WoW....not so much planning....some might even say none at all

    magikmushrm on
  • NH03NH03 Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    Generally speaking, the best of the best MMOs have the very toughest of penalties creating a high risk vs reward balance. Much like when gambling, the more you risk, the more you win and therefor the better game you get. Doesn't really have to be pvp, it can be pve also.

    Why do you think the "best" MMOs have always had the harshest penalties?

    Everyones paying 15$ at the penny slots now.

    NH03 on
    vincentsig.jpg
Sign In or Register to comment.