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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1486 Posts |
 Posted - 08/29/2012 : 18:02:11
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For those into the MMORPG games, I have been enjoying the new Guild Wars 2. It's pay once (per the first release and each subsequent expansion), as opposed to World of Warcraft that has an additional monthly payment.
Differences from other MMORPG games include effective levels, meaning that your level gets adjusted depending on your location. So if you are low level and wander into a high level area, you can survive though difficult. And high level players can go back to low level areas and still have good fights.
If you care to join me, I'm on realm Gate of Madness in guild Storming the Castle. My main character is Snuggle Paw.
http://guildwars2.com
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 08/29/2012 : 19:29:49 [Permalink]
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We have (sort of) a GW1 guild.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 08/29/2012 : 21:43:58 [Permalink]
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| I haven't picked it up yet, but probably will soon. JT from WWJTD has been instrumental in setting up an atheist guild for the game. The guild is called "Godless" also on the Gates of Madness server. The plan is to be a visible atheist faction in the game. This is the guild's Facebook group |
"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 08/29/2012 21:45:27 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2012 : 04:56:16 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by ThorGoLucky
For those into the MMORPG games, I have been enjoying the new Guild Wars 2. It's pay once (per the first release and each subsequent expansion), as opposed to World of Warcraft that has an additional monthly payment.
Differences from other MMORPG games include effective levels, meaning that your level gets adjusted depending on your location. So if you are low level and wander into a high level area, you can survive though difficult. And high level players can go back to low level areas and still have good fights.
If you care to join me, I'm on realm Gate of Madness in guild Storming the Castle. My main character is Snuggle Paw.
http://guildwars2.com
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 Both of these things are very bad for gaming, this is the type of thing which makes leveling up a complete joke and mostly pointless. The Nerfing continues and will never end until we stop buying these games... Pass. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2012 : 06:07:37 [Permalink]
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A level one ex-farmer with a rusty pitchfork should not be able to approach an evil Storm Giant castle and have "difficulty", it should be swatted down in one shot by the guards for being stupid enough to approach such a place without asking someone if it was safe.
Let me tell you a story about corpse retreival.
Set the Wayback Machine for 1999, Everquest is released. Everquest is a first-person grapical MUD, the first and last of its kind. Before Sony ruined Everquest with it's Luclin expansion it was some hardcore tense action.
It would hardly even qualify as a game nowadays as it was sorely lacking in many areas, the one major thing it did have was consequences.
In Everquest if you died your corpse would sit there where you croaked with all of your hard earned equipment on it, if you failed to retreive your stuff within a week, your corpse would rot. For most of the Everquesters, it was a terrifying prospect and one to be respected. This is hard earned equipment that took a full year(thats 8760 hours of play time) or more to acquire, not something you risked lightly.
So if you were to get together with a poorly trained or underleveled group and attempt to infiltrate a dragons lair you might find yourself dead at the feet of said dragon with no forseable way to get it back considering the people who helped you get there are also dead and naked. This means you do not go such places without people you trust and a small army of them at that. Careful planning and plan B's and C's were a nessesity.
I played about 10k hours and was not max level, hadnt seen most of the legendarily difficult areas, never killed any of the Gods or uber-dragons and did not have a single peice of top equipment. Yet I am more satisfied with my time on EQ than any other game, this is because accomplishments on EQ were really accomplishments.
They then Nerfed every single aspect of the difficulty and tension away by making it a minor penalty for dying and allowing anyone to travel anywhere easily. A model that WoW ran with and all* games now follow... /deathofgaming
An analogy for you older gamers: the gaming world is now run by people who think that DMs shouldnt punish players for using a 'Wish' spell and asking for "all the money in the world"
*Eve is an exception, man there are some lovely consequenses in that one, check out the Cracked.com article "The 7 biggest Dick moves in the history of on-line gaming" Hi-larity |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
| Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 08/30/2012 06:15:49 |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1486 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2012 : 12:08:50 [Permalink]
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H. Humbert, I'll keep an eye out for the Godless guild and say hi. Do they know you as "Humbert"?
BigPapaSmurf, the majority of experience, money and karma* are gained by completing events, and the more you participate, the more you get (gold, silver, vs bronze). You will still definitely want to level, so as to unlock traits and learn new abilities. Not much XP is gained by just bopping baddies.
I love the effective leveling so I can participate and learn the PvP and WvW (world vs world) without being utterly useless. I'm definitely at a disadvantage and must hang back, heal, repair, and operate the defensive mounted guns. No, I cannot storm the gates and survive, as I learned. In the case in World of Warcraft, you must spend a ridiculous about of time per character before becoming the least bit competitive. The contrasting casualness of GW2 is so welcome.
Another advantage of the effective leveling is that I can join new players without ruining their XP gains and cheapening the experience with one-shot kills.
*Karma is another kind of currency in the game. I joked that it's too bad that I can't use that karma to save terminally ill children, and wow the shitstorm that comment created ("you are a bad person", one wrote). I'll have to do that again!
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2012 : 13:21:12 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
...and allowing anyone to travel anywhere easily. |
If this means what I think it means, missing out on all the random encounters between points A and B would mean missing half the fun.
Mind you, when I was playing Skyrim, I needed the fast travel because my machine was crappy and slow (frame rate of maybe 5-8 on good days). But I would have been fine with a fast-travel feature that stopped if there were something aggressive along the path, too.
Years ago, I was creating on a text-only game in which players were thugs moving around in a post-apocalyptic city, and the randomly generated cities were going to have around 10,000 city blocks. I remember thinking that players were going to get terribly lost and traveling from one side of the city to the other was going to take a long time IRL, but decided only to add a GPS Unit as a functioning item into the game. No bikes, buses, cars or taxis in the game, either. Players needed to take every grueling step, just in case something jumped out of an alleyway.
Oh, each city was going to have an arena in which for-fun-and-small-prizes PvP could occur, and you could instantly teleport to the arena from anywhere in the 15 IRL minutes leading up to a tournament to make participation and/or viewing easy, but you'd be on your own for getting back home. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2012 : 14:46:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
They then Nerfed every single aspect of the difficulty and tension away by making it a minor penalty for dying and allowing anyone to travel anywhere easily. A model that WoW ran with and all* games now follow... /deathofgaming |
I could not disagree more passionately. Having to run back and loot your corpse was one of the WORST game mechanics ever invented. Consequences are fine, eye-gouging frustration which makes you hate the game is not. It's counter productive. Games are supposed to be fun. They aren't jobs and should not feel like work. World of Warcraft is hugely successful for a reason. They removed a lot of the hassles that kill the fun. There are still challenges, but you no longer have to be a masochist to tackle them. Death of gaming? Hardly. The changes are welcome improvements.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2012 : 14:48:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by ThorGoLucky
H. Humbert, I'll keep an eye out for the Godless guild and say hi. Do they know you as "Humbert"?
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I'm not a very active commentator over there, so it's doubtful they know me at all. But it seems to be an inclusive guild who takes on anyone who's interested in joining.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2012 : 19:34:05 [Permalink]
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In Mechwarrior 2 and 3 you could use autopilot. Useful if you wanted to go somewhere, and needed to run to the bathroom...
In GuildWars, you could order your party away to another location within line-of-sight or on the radar-screen but you could get stuck, and follow only works until you catch up with your target. In GW case, one of your henchmen you ordered away. Which is a bit unreliable. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2012 : 04:58:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
They then Nerfed every single aspect of the difficulty and tension away by making it a minor penalty for dying and allowing anyone to travel anywhere easily. A model that WoW ran with and all* games now follow... /deathofgaming |
I could not disagree more passionately. Having to run back and loot your corpse was one of the WORST game mechanics ever invented. Consequences are fine, eye-gouging frustration which makes you hate the game is not. It's counter productive. Games are supposed to be fun. They aren't jobs and should not feel like work. World of Warcraft is hugely successful for a reason. They removed a lot of the hassles that kill the fun. There are still challenges, but you no longer have to be a masochist to tackle them. Death of gaming? Hardly. The changes are welcome improvements.
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It's not about the actual mechanism of corpse-retreival, it's about consequences, you could make them lose a random peice of gear and have the same tension. I don't expect anyone to really understand, just ranting. Also I have no issues with fast travel or any mechanics on single-player offline games, such as Skyrim.
Also not all chalenges need to be maschochistic as you say but WHY CANT SOME OF THEM BE?! Why does every single thing need to be geared so that "Johnny only-got-five-minutes-a-day" can participate? |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2012 : 10:05:58 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
It's not about the actual mechanism of corpse-retreival, it's about consequences, you could make them lose a random peice of gear and have the same tension. I don't expect anyone to really understand, just ranting. |
I don't think most people enjoy the prospect of losing a piece of gear that may have took them a long time to earn. Same goes for losing experience. I get that the prospect of disaster kept the game edgy for you, but for anything other than hardcore gamers the grind becomes unbearable. Unless organized by a guild, a properly balanced dungeon group can take hours to organize. And then all it takes is for one player to be called away for supper or rage quit after a defeat to screw over the entire group. That usually meant wiping in some inaccessible corner of some deep cave filled with elite mobs. It was possible to play for hours and actually have less money and experience than when you started. That's bad game design.
Also not all chalenges need to be maschochistic as you say but WHY CANT SOME OF THEM BE?! Why does every single thing need to be geared so that "Johnny only-got-five-minutes-a-day" can participate?
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WoW did make a effort to appeal to hard core gamers. Dungeons could be switched to harder difficulty levels with more exceptional rewards for players who wanted a steeper challenge. What I don't understand are the players who don't find a game enjoyable unless "Johnny only-got-five-minutes-a-day" can't participate. They make it seem like a game isn't fun unless there are other players left behind to gloat over.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 08/31/2012 10:16:46 |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1486 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2012 : 12:17:35 [Permalink]
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I have experienced a dick move by a few players in GW2. When your character dies, it's in a downed state and can be revived by other players. So there I was, downed and not yet wanting to respawn at a waypoint, when a player began healing me. How nice. But just before my health level was enough for for me to revive, they stopped and walked away. Grrrrr.
It turns out that the effective leveling up in the environment only happens if the area level isn't too much higher than your level. I thought I'd take a short cut through an area that had a much higher level and it did not adjust my level up. I got crushed just trying to pass through. Oops.
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| Edited by - ThorGoLucky on 08/31/2012 14:50:18 |
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Guild Wars 2
