Over time any game's AI will reveal flaws and open itself for exploitation. I've never played a game with AI that I would be bold enough to call "immersive", and I've played a shitload of games over the last 10 years.
WoW DOES a lot of things right, but most gamers will burn through all of its wit and charm far before they stop playing it, as I did. You will hit a wall where the only way to advance your character is through itemization, and if you choose to follow that path you're in for a long and repetitive grind where you kill the same monsters over and over again clawing for reputation points or hoping on a random drop. This part of the game is not fun, but it is HIGHLY addictive and what the majority of long-term WoW players do. I have almost 1500 hours played on my main character SINCE I hit the level cap doing just that, more than twice the time I spent getting him to that level PLUS my time played across ALL other characters.
But then again, maybe that's what makes a "successfull" MMO.
For months my Orc Warrior on Archimonde was named Dg. About 2 weeks/played into level 60, while I'm busily grinding AV reputation, I get spontaneously booted from the server. I log back in to find a "change your name" dialogue. Not wanting to lose ALL the associations I had made over 60 levels and more I go with something similar: Dgwut.
This old name, it wasn't offensive. Never have I heard a single complaint about my name. The reasoning I get for my forced name change? "Gibberish." It wasn't pronouncable? Are you fucking KIDDING me? Why the hell is Blizzard forcing RP-esque naming conventions down the throats of players on PvP servers, who ARE NOT ROLE PLAYING.
Somebody I know was in a similar boat, name was Copyright. He got a forced name change, when there's a Alliance Paladin of some fame named Trademark that had been running around for quite a bit longer.
Accell running? The only game I have tons of experience with is TFC, and what we refer to as bunnyhopping is a snake-like jumping pattern where the player moves his view in the same direction as a strafe mid-air to gain speed. You, however, seem to think that bunnyhopping is just jumping over and over again, and does not entail any air acceleration? Maybe this is what it's called in Q3, but not in my game.
In TFC, there are a few catch-phrases used for different unassisted (no weapon impetus) movement techniques:
Wall Strafing: Moving forward or back against a wall and strafing against it at the same time to bump your speed to a constant higher than normal running speed.
Strafe Jumping: Moving forward or backward, jumping continuously, and alternating holding left strafe and right strafe on each jump. Basically a newbie version of bunnyhopping, however in games like TFC that have bunnyhopping but ALSO a speed cap, it can be use in tandem with bunnyhopping to control your speed and keep it below the cap.
Gliding: Basically the same as strafe jumping, but the initial jump is given an air-accelerated assist.
Bunnyhopping: Jumping continuously and using air-accleration to make a back and forth motion where the player can gain speed indefinitely while manuevering around corners and obstacles. The most common way to do this is to start out gliding or strafe jumping, then releasing your finger from +forward mid-jump and on the backside of the jump moving your mouse in the same direction you strafe, and at the top of the next jump changing directions. Repeat.
There are a few other friction-related speed "exploits" in TFC, more noteably things like "sharking" (holding jump after hitting the surface of water at a high speed) and "chop-hopping" (hitting crouch over and over again to soften landings, and avoid the brick wall effect of the speed cap, from fast jumps).
As far as moving in an air-accelerated environment goes, the best I've seen have all been from the TFC community. A lot of the "wow" type stuff I've seen from the QW and Q3 communities is the kind of stuff that anyone good in TFC can do. Of course, I have a lot more experience with TFC than the other two, but those have been my impressions.
I don't know if this has been mentioned but bunny hopping (usually referred to as 1-word bunnyhopping) inspired what was probably the most heated debate in the history of the TFC community. For those of you who don't know, TFC is a Half-Life mod that, up until a few patches ago (1107), featured all the air control and bunnyhopping you could care for.
Most who could do it argued that it extended the life of a game whose top players had long since squeezed the game dry. Most who couldn't argued that it destroyed the class balance, as you mentioned in your HWGuy vs Scout example. I was in the second camp.
Valve heeded the community's pleas and implimented a speed cap at 170% normal running speed. However, since this has been put into effect the game changed from a game of who could bunnyhop and who couldn't to who could throw the most grenades, which is at the same time the most skilless and the most effective tactic in the game right now.
A lot of people would like to see bunnyhopping brought back, as it would lessen the grenade whoring that goes on now, and because anybody who is anyone now has it mastered and it wouldn't put many at a disadvantage.
In my opinion, Valve was looking in the right direction with a speed cap, but it wasn't done right. Whenever you land (hit the ground) after a jump or whatever, the game checks your speed, and if it's at or above 170% your class's running speed it throttles you back to 110% immediatly, giving you a sort of brick wall effect. What I would personally like to see is that same checking, but being throttled to 170% rather than something so substantially below the max. This would speed the game up and turn it into something more than the tossing-grenades-around-corners contest that it has become.
Bunnyhopping in and of itself though, is so joyously fun. Any arcade type shooter should feature it as part of its physics.
My TFC clan uses Ventrillo. I have been more than satisfied with it since we implimented it into our practices and matches, and can say it is definitely more flexible and feature-rich than in-game Half-Life voice.
Anyone serious about online gaming competition has a broadband connection, that is how it works. Thusly, bandwidth is rarely an issue, I've not met anyone that has had problems with Ventrillo. Most of TFC's top clans use it.
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Over time any game's AI will reveal flaws and open itself for exploitation. I've never played a game with AI that I would be bold enough to call "immersive", and I've played a shitload of games over the last 10 years.
Color me surprised that Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul wasn't even mentioned in that top 10.
WoW DOES a lot of things right, but most gamers will burn through all of its wit and charm far before they stop playing it, as I did. You will hit a wall where the only way to advance your character is through itemization, and if you choose to follow that path you're in for a long and repetitive grind where you kill the same monsters over and over again clawing for reputation points or hoping on a random drop. This part of the game is not fun, but it is HIGHLY addictive and what the majority of long-term WoW players do. I have almost 1500 hours played on my main character SINCE I hit the level cap doing just that, more than twice the time I spent getting him to that level PLUS my time played across ALL other characters.
But then again, maybe that's what makes a "successfull" MMO.
For months my Orc Warrior on Archimonde was named Dg. About 2 weeks /played into level 60, while I'm busily grinding AV reputation, I get spontaneously booted from the server. I log back in to find a "change your name" dialogue. Not wanting to lose ALL the associations I had made over 60 levels and more I go with something similar: Dgwut.
This old name, it wasn't offensive. Never have I heard a single complaint about my name. The reasoning I get for my forced name change? "Gibberish." It wasn't pronouncable? Are you fucking KIDDING me? Why the hell is Blizzard forcing RP-esque naming conventions down the throats of players on PvP servers, who ARE NOT ROLE PLAYING.
Somebody I know was in a similar boat, name was Copyright. He got a forced name change, when there's a Alliance Paladin of some fame named Trademark that had been running around for quite a bit longer.
Doom 3 was successful?
Accell running? The only game I have tons of experience with is TFC, and what we refer to as bunnyhopping is a snake-like jumping pattern where the player moves his view in the same direction as a strafe mid-air to gain speed. You, however, seem to think that bunnyhopping is just jumping over and over again, and does not entail any air acceleration? Maybe this is what it's called in Q3, but not in my game.
In TFC, there are a few catch-phrases used for different unassisted (no weapon impetus) movement techniques:
Wall Strafing: Moving forward or back against a wall and strafing against it at the same time to bump your speed to a constant higher than normal running speed.
Strafe Jumping: Moving forward or backward, jumping continuously, and alternating holding left strafe and right strafe on each jump. Basically a newbie version of bunnyhopping, however in games like TFC that have bunnyhopping but ALSO a speed cap, it can be use in tandem with bunnyhopping to control your speed and keep it below the cap.
Gliding: Basically the same as strafe jumping, but the initial jump is given an air-accelerated assist.
Bunnyhopping: Jumping continuously and using air-accleration to make a back and forth motion where the player can gain speed indefinitely while manuevering around corners and obstacles. The most common way to do this is to start out gliding or strafe jumping, then releasing your finger from +forward mid-jump and on the backside of the jump moving your mouse in the same direction you strafe, and at the top of the next jump changing directions. Repeat.
There are a few other friction-related speed "exploits" in TFC, more noteably things like "sharking" (holding jump after hitting the surface of water at a high speed) and "chop-hopping" (hitting crouch over and over again to soften landings, and avoid the brick wall effect of the speed cap, from fast jumps).
As far as moving in an air-accelerated environment goes, the best I've seen have all been from the TFC community. A lot of the "wow" type stuff I've seen from the QW and Q3 communities is the kind of stuff that anyone good in TFC can do. Of course, I have a lot more experience with TFC than the other two, but those have been my impressions.
I don't know if this has been mentioned but bunny hopping (usually referred to as 1-word bunnyhopping) inspired what was probably the most heated debate in the history of the TFC community. For those of you who don't know, TFC is a Half-Life mod that, up until a few patches ago (1107), featured all the air control and bunnyhopping you could care for.
Most who could do it argued that it extended the life of a game whose top players had long since squeezed the game dry. Most who couldn't argued that it destroyed the class balance, as you mentioned in your HWGuy vs Scout example. I was in the second camp.
Valve heeded the community's pleas and implimented a speed cap at 170% normal running speed. However, since this has been put into effect the game changed from a game of who could bunnyhop and who couldn't to who could throw the most grenades, which is at the same time the most skilless and the most effective tactic in the game right now.
A lot of people would like to see bunnyhopping brought back, as it would lessen the grenade whoring that goes on now, and because anybody who is anyone now has it mastered and it wouldn't put many at a disadvantage.
In my opinion, Valve was looking in the right direction with a speed cap, but it wasn't done right. Whenever you land (hit the ground) after a jump or whatever, the game checks your speed, and if it's at or above 170% your class's running speed it throttles you back to 110% immediatly, giving you a sort of brick wall effect. What I would personally like to see is that same checking, but being throttled to 170% rather than something so substantially below the max. This would speed the game up and turn it into something more than the tossing-grenades-around-corners contest that it has become.
Bunnyhopping in and of itself though, is so joyously fun. Any arcade type shooter should feature it as part of its physics.
Haha hey PK, long time no see.
My TFC clan uses Ventrillo. I have been more than satisfied with it since we implimented it into our practices and matches, and can say it is definitely more flexible and feature-rich than in-game Half-Life voice.
Anyone serious about online gaming competition has a broadband connection, that is how it works. Thusly, bandwidth is rarely an issue, I've not met anyone that has had problems with Ventrillo. Most of TFC's top clans use it.