Saturday, October 23, 2010

Unconcious Vs the total toughness of being like totally killed...then cloned...

There was a post over at mmocrunch, which mentioned this, and it was worth making a post of here...
"Honestly, I don’t care what Bioware chooses, as long as it’s not this sissy “oh you don’t actually die you’re just unconscious” garbage."

If this is garbage, then the whole 'oh, your cloned' is absolute sewerage! How dumb is cloning - hey, do you treat identical twins as being the same person? No? Then a clone of your character is not your character. You cannot continue to play the guy as if your continuing the characters story (sorry, EVE, you can't), because as much as identical twins have their own seperate personalities from each other, so would a clone. Your character died and anyone who's playing the character as if it's the same person is really missplaced in their fantasy. Hey, instead of Luke getting his hand cut off and going semi unconcious (which is lame apparently), he dies - and the rest of the story is about a clone of his. C'mon, you know that's even lamer!

Seriously, if going unconcious is bad, cloning is about twenty times worse. Even if you buy it, what's the point - there is no real death in that case. Why bother having death in the game, then adding rediculous setting elements to basically remove death again? It's a pointless two step dance! Just don't have death in there, then you don't have to tack on this cloning malarky to counter that first bad move.

There's no hard, macho thing about death if you clone factory it all away a moment latter. Don't bother trying.

If you come back, it's not death. You can't have death be in the game, yet also get to keep playing your character no matter what. Make a choice, instead of a weak ass 'Oh yes you can die...oh, but then there's clones'.

Eve, I'm looking at you as well.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Endless Running...



Endless running? Does it, under the guise of exploration, let developers pad out the time of a mmorpg or even a single player RPG?

One of the things about grand theft auto is that if you wanted to get out and jog amongst the roses, you could. Or you could steal a car and put your foot down on the accelerator. I think that choice is pivotal myself. I really hate seeing the opening of a cave mouth, for example, and knowing all I'm going to be doing is waiting for it to come, then outside there'll be a stretch of empty land no doubt, which I'll just be waiting for that to go past.

I guess in fallout 3 I went with it, but there seemed to be more stuff crammed into a smaller space there. Mmorpg developers think making a world means simply incrementing the space between interesting things by ten or twenty times what it was before.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

World of Crevice Craft!

WE HAVE CREVICES!

I was going to post the video and then caught myself, realising I was passing around the advertising. So I'll just link it, which is entirely different (not)

I mean, watch the video. This is the real voice over.

"See this!?? THIS!?? WE PUT A CREVICE THERE!!!! And that? That!? WE PUT A CREVICE THERE AS WELLS!!!!!1!!!"

$60 at a retailer near you. And buy our newest sparkle pony....NOW WITH A CREVICE IN IT!!!!1!!!

Crevices! Because an absence in the ground makes for content, not a hole!

I think the rest would be better if a guy with a ripped shirt, a chick and a plucky little kid hid in the mouth of a cave while two slightly badly animated dinosaurs had an awesome fight. Because B movie is good when you embrace it, rather than try and pretend it's something bigger.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Fallen Earth : Gratuitous screen shot

Ah crap, I parked around here somewhere...

Fallen earth looking good. Back when I started tabletop roleplaying and there were no fancy computer games (sprites had pixels that were an inch across and all one colour! And we liked it!), this is how we'd imagine our bad ass antics. I even remember we invented the bullet dodge way before the matrix, by rolling a natural 20 to dodge we were so good at dodging we could walk around the bullet and look at it as it went by...well, that's what we said, anyway!

Sadly though, could you actually go and peel metal away from one of those cars (no, a single node out in the middle of it all doesn't count)? Or work on one to at least get it rolling (if only foot powered)? Graphics may have improved, but in a way were still just working with pixels an inch thick. In a way minecraft shows that, as it is more of a genuine 3d world - but with very, very, very grainy pixelisation of each fragment of the world (note: I'm not talking about graphical pixels, but more like physics pixels...perhaps I should say molecules...)

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Mitey Dynasty Worriers!

Helecopter, helecopter, please come down! Do your duty on the ground!
The upcoming dynasty warriors mmorpg has a certain thing in beating a bunch of guys at once. However from the animations I've seen, the guys all clip into each other, when they get knocked back the all go back the exact same distance and all do the exact same 'been hit' animation. Which makes it look like a sort of esher-esque line dancing.

As usual, no doubt, the mmorpg will also absolutely drain any fun in doing such an attack, by having you do it eighty million times before it accomplishes something. I mean, the idea of beating the crap out of a dozen guys at once is that it feels as if doing so is meaningful and will lead to something. But that feeling of meaningfulness actually needs to be matched by what actually happens in terms of game conditions. Or does it? For you, is just the feeling of meaningfulness enough? Even after the seventy millionth time?

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Massive Suck : Social gameplay leads to grind?

Quick thought for the day - do MMORPGs actually need to be unfun to play?

More specifically, do socialised MMORPGS (which perhaps some would say they all are) need to actually be unfun to play and...essentially suck?

The thing is, the whole emphasis on social means player skill can't get you out of suck ville.

No, for a social game, the way out has to be social. That you have more friends, or have a big guild, grants you resources that get you out of suck ville.

So the game has to suck. Not at the most shallow level (thus explaining why gamers seem to fetish graphics), but the heart of the game has to suck. And not suck in a 'your the last starfighter and only pure skill will get you out from the aliens evil grasp, even though it sucks to be put in such a position', because as said, it can't be player skill.

So it just has to be plain, out and out suck. Just in a way that you don't have X and...that's it, you don't have it. No zing, no surprise twist on aquiring it. It takes ages. It's grind. It sucks. Unless you got other players on your side to give resources or make it go faster.

Having socialising first and foremost as a priority of the game necessitates having grinding, sucky gameplay.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Nice legs, shame about the cash

I will avenge my greenhouse!!1!! With my knee gun!
I've heard a few people around the net comment on player vs player games and the cash shop crisis that lets some people effectively buy their victories by buying the better weapons with real money - weapons you can't get without spending money. It's often described with some bitterness.

I think I get the bitterness now, as it comes from actually finding some attraction to the game, only to suddenly find that attraction scoured away unless you pay cash. It's a bit like one of those stories you hear where a guy gets picked up by a chick and he's feeling pretty big - then he finds an enormous bill at the resteraunt she drags him to, as it was a honey pot operation.

I was playing epic duel, which for a slow connection is good for PVP as it's turn based. I was quite enjoying the game...but then you realise how much cash stuff there is. Not only that, you find you only have one character slot and if you want to change class, cash it up, my friend. Do they tell you this choice is permanent unless you have cash? No. Wanting money is fine - but put the price sticker up front. You don't get shops where there are no prices and when you hit the register they charge whatever (well, perhaps in boutique stores, but this isn't boutique, is it?)

But beneath all that there is a chirpy, likeable game. It's just that that game has a pimp.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

A Show Called Dungeon Crawl

If your in Australia, specifically Melbourne, there's a show on called Dungeon Crawl. I've seen these guys do a show called +1 sword, where they talk about D&D and roleplaying, but here they seem to actually be running a game. And I've really wanted to catch up to a session. Hoping to get there this saturday at the bedtime friendly (lol) time of 6pm. I'm really keen to see it! Three shows only - I would have liked to have gotten to the first, but as I don't drive it's a long way out for me. Anyway, excuses excuses - hopefully this saturday I'll see it!