Well... I don't know if you're entirely right there. True, fantasizing about violence, talking about it with therapist, friends, etc, dealing with it, these shouldn't be illegal. But publicly displaying artwork expressing explicit deadly violence against someone... how is that not a threat? If I paint a picture of you, dead, stabbed 100 times and write 'kill LunaticTippy'! and post it around on walls for people to see, is that okay? Seems pretty obviously not.
"Before I left EQ2 they removed spirit shards taking a lot of the fun out of the game and increased your running speed so you looked like a characters out of a slapstick movie."
Oh, is _that_ why they look so retarded? I play it now and again, but when I started, the fact people looked like hyperactive monkeys really turned me off. You get used to it eventually, but I was wondering how that could have slipped everyone's notice, that their character modeling looked totally goofy. It being a half-assed patch put in months down the line explains a lot.
Some people just enjoy experiencing things multiple times. I'm one of them; I read books over and over, I listen to music all day long, and if I think a movie is worth watching once, it's worth watching repeatedly. It's probably not possible to really understand why, in the same way that I don't understand how you could just watch a movie/read a book once, discover the ending, and then never want to touch it again.
But that's okay, no one forces you to watch it repeatedly, nor breaks my dvds when I want to see them again. **AAs excepted.
Online movie purchasing I don't get either though, you got me there.
You've got 2 & 3 right on. It's more fun to be standing and spazzing, and I'm sure there'd be more than enough market for expansion packs.
But totally for guys? Where do you get this from? Every single woman (half a dozen) that has played it has loved it and asks to play it again when they visit. And they generally choose the hard rock songs.
You're right, there shouldn't be a magic genie that makes sure I can see everything in the game because it's My Right to do so. I might as well just go watch a movie.
On the other hand... say I buy a fighting game to play with my friends. We play through and unlock most of it just because it's a natural part of the game play and fun and what we bought it for. But to get an extra character, or weapon, or whatever, say that you have to play one particular mode for an exceedingly long period of time. Time Attack or one of those sad Tekken faux-brawlers they threw in. It's not what the game is ostensibly about, it's a gimmick at best. Suddenly, to get the unlockable to add fun to the meat of the game that I _do_ like, I have to punish myself and play through a bunch of tedious exercises in patience.
Maybe that's the key difference. An unlockable that comes about as a natural part of play (finding things in an exploration-style game, fighting a lot in a fighting game, etc) will generally be achieved by people who play it enough to appreciate the unlockable. An unlockable that requires you to, say, complete obnoxious jumping puzzles in a rpg is _not_ welcome. I bought my game to Fight/RPG/Find Golden Stars. That's what it says it's about. Don't make my enjoyment of F/R/FGS depend on something wholly non-F/R/FGS.
I sort of agree. While it's true it's fun to unlock things and that it gives you a goal... what about things that you just can't unlock? You're not good enough, or don't have the time or patience to do it, because it's really, really hard. So I just paid $50 for a game that contains bits that I will never, ever see. Is that fair? That I never get to play as character X because I can't manage to beat 8 people in 1 minute, or whatever?
In that sense, unlockables suck. It's unfortunately a tricky issue, and a hard one to get just right.
"Newbie usually dies in first onslaught (often while screen is locked up by lag due to the graphics for the new system just jumped into are loading)."
When you enter a system, you are cloaked and utterly untargetable and unseeable for 20 seconds. More than enough time to get a grip on who's waiting there, if they have low security status, and for all the graphics to load.
And there are numerous ways to avoid getting ganked at gates. In a small, fast frigate? Warp away to a target that you're vaguely aligned to. Unless the camper has an insta-lock battleship, you'll be gone before they can lock on. If you're in a bigger ship, fit on a few armor or shield boosters when you know you're going through a dangerous spot. Or, use the map and notice there are 10 people and 5 kills in the past hour in a system, and go around. Or stay in empire where they'll be insta-killed by police if they fire on you. Land a covert ops ship on top of the camper, have some friends warp to you, scramble him and kill him. Laugh.
It's not to say it doesn't happen, because controlling key chokepoints is a good way of guarding your territory, or finding victims to pirate. But with a little effort, it's pretty easy to avoid being a victim.
When I had cable for a while, there was a 'feature' where the cable company could send my cable box little ads in a kind of faux-email. It was just annoying. They came so fast that the damn little light was always on. I don't need more LEDs shining in my apartment, and I don't need a kind of answering machine that is guaranteed to only get crap I don't care about.
I would have had to logged on daily to have cleaned out all the garbage. And let's face it, you don't want screenshots, demos or movies of every game that is coming out for a system. I don't care how much you play, there are dozens of games that you just aren't interested in. Fake-email-video-game-ads are not a good idea, especially to your console where the interface is often kludgy or slow.
"The fastest way to make it suck is to focus on 'beating' the game like you would say half-life or dungeon-seige."
I agree with you. Unfortunately, even on RP servers, people are not taking a leisurely, smell-the-roses stroll. Doing anything but the most optimal path is considered a waste of time. Figuring out something on your own never happens. Guildies, pick up groups, friends, they all have done it already and will guide (i.e., rush) you through. It's almost as if level limits trigger a 'get to the end' response in people, and all they want to do is get there. Nevermind that once you're there, the challenging bits of the game are few and repetitive.
So yeah, I dunno. I don't have that much of a point here, just pointing out that what makes the game the most fun is hard to find:(
You missed the most important feature! (well, one of them...) Newbies are not helpless against the mighty.
Take WoW for example. Say you have a group of 30 lvl10s. You will never, ever kill a level60. They will just resist, dodge, absorb or tank all your damage and one-shot each of you without breaking a sweat. A level 30 in the 30-39 bracket? Welcome to hurting.
But in eve... big ships have penalties to hit smaller ships. Now, smaller ships can't really put out the damage to kill a big one, so a battleship vs a frigate would basically be a stalemate, as long as the frigate keeps its speed up. But a tiny fleet of frigates can easily pin down and kill a battleship. Some corporations base their operations on that: large groups of cheap ships that always lose a few members when taking on big game, but end up doing much more damage monetarily speaking. (You lost 8 250k frigates, they lost 2 100mil battleships. You win.)
It's such a refreshing change that you can be actually useful in a short period of time, I figured it'd be a shame not to mention it.
The submitter would be guilty of plagiarism for just copy/pasting some text from the article. The editors may be guilty of laziness for not double-checking. They are not, however, passing off other people's work as their own. In fact, the site is entirely about highlighting and discussing neat stories from other sources. To imply plagiarism by saying 'oo, you just take other people's stories' is rather missing the point.
"While I will wholeheartedly agree that the price is about $100 too much on the PS3, is it really THAT big of a deal? Nope. Everyone planning on getting one before the announcement will continue to do so. They're early adopters who pay for the masses to buy at cheaper cost. How is this different from any other product launch?"
This is untrue. I make plenty of money, I am an early adapter, and I buy video games and video game systems at the drop of a hat, if there's something that I like on it. The price tag for the non-gimped PS3 is really, really high. There's no way I'm buying a cheaper system that is unupgradable to a better version. I am the target audience, and I no longer want it at that price.
Woah, dude, good choice! It works really well. I've been trying it out! I won't kill the president today, I won't kill the president today, I won't kill the president today, I won't kill the president today. Try it out!
Your first point is true. Although I agree with the grandparent that going and looking everything up online and acquiring it kind of defeats the point, sometimes it's nice to have a resource when you don't want to run around in circles for 4 hours.
On the other hand... one of the things I hate most about MMORPGs (and I actually kind of like them, mind you) is that in a group, you're never experiencing anything new. Everyone else is just rushing ahead because they've done it a dozen times, and you have to just keep up and go through the motions as you're supposed to. That doesn't seem fun. When I explore the Mighty Dungeon of Everlasting Night in a party, I'd want us all to be exploring and seeing what's there. As opposed to 'Oh, yeah, I killed Lord Demonfangtooth 4 times last week looking for his magic dagger, take a left at the next shrieking corpse, we're almost there.' I want an adventure, not a guided tour.
In short, I think that the sites can be useful, like a game guide, but overusing them is like buying the walkthrough to your new game, and following it step by step. Why bother?
Brand Loyalty, if you move the letters around and change a few and remove the space and uncapitalize one, is a secret code for Idiocy. There's nothing wrong with prefering PS2 over Xbox, or Xbox over Gamecube. Maybe a system just doesn't have enough of the games you like to play. Maybe you bought three and they all died from bad drives and you don't want to buy any more from that company. There's tons of good reasons to prefer one thing over another, or to like them all for different reasons. Making your choices because you're loyal to Sony products or you've only ever bought Nintendo before is just lunacy. Sadly, it's not that uncommon.
And yes, I know you know that, I just felt like venting and hopefully annoying someone who is Loyal to a Brand.
I'd _hope_ they'd have something from BioWare to show off. (I'm sure I heard about BioWare coming out with something for the 360 in the next decade or two). Otherwise you're right, the 360 is unfortunately lacking in really great titles at the moment.
"It's not that I haven't tried to like Halo for the sake of Co-Op and competitive play with my friends but I always feel like I am playing in a vat of Jello.
After playing the great PC first person shooters growing up I guess I have higher standards."
No, but you seem to have a well-developed sense of arrogance. Just because a game is _different_ does not make it _worse_. I personally prefer Halo's speed to, say, Half-Life 2 or Farcry. I don't get nauseous playing for long periods, big open areas actually _feel_ big, etc.
When I play half-life 2 I feel like I'm running around like a spastic rodent on speed, and I don't find it enjoyable. On the other hand, I don't go around saying I have more refined taste than everyone else because of it. Nor do I hop in on articles and expound on how much I don't care about the topic. I guess I have higher standards, eh?
I mean, the Haliburton case looks like something that's filled with toy-tools for your 6 year old nephew. And the Oakley? Mad max? Nothing says post-apocalyptic to me than 'Oakley'. And the 'level 4 restricted'? I see we have moved on from the 6 year olds to the 14 year old marketing category.
Finally... the number one spot. A case that looks like a reject from a 70s design company. Who would walk around like that? Can you picture someone on the street carrying one of those? Exactly what suit or outfit would one be wearing to match a cedar briefcase? As much as I love wood-paneled station wagons, I never wanted to _look_ like one.
Don't get me wrong, the padded-grey-yawn that most laptop cases could do with a lot of improvement. But these aren't it.
You know, surprisingly, the game does not crash that much. Tweaking the ini file can introduce crashes, but in the stock configuration (and on a multi-core CPU no less, which I have had many headaches with with other games) Crashes are rare enough to still be surprising.
And the balance is trickier, yes. But instead of the game getting too easy, it's possible to let it get too hard. The trick is basically to make sure that your combat/damaging skill (be it blade, or destruction, etc) is generally your highest. If you shoot up the levels via alchemy, but your blade skills suck... it'll be a world of pain.
Google for BG TUTU. It's a mod that allows you to play BGI in BGII's engine. Makes it much more bearable to go back and play! (I love BG and the story, but after the conveniences and beauty of the BGII engine... it gets frustrating sometimes.)
I'm not sure what kind of bizarro world that you live in, but around here it's considered good when you know what your problems are. I'm as dubious as anyone that Microsoft will come up with an iPod killer. However, claming 'they know what they're doing wrong' as the reason they will do it wrong seems... well, wrong.
Why don't we write a loose grammar/spelling filter anyway? That was we block spam, viruses _and_ people who write things like 'lol u n33d v14gr4 dood' in everyday conversation. Who would miss them?
Not to rain on everyone's parade, but... doesn't he have a point? I quote: "To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers."
In what way is this statement false? I love games, I play them constantly. I think some are beautiful, others enthralling, and others make you think. Some are finely-tuned fun for ways you can't quite explain, but keep going back to play.
But there are none that are masterpieces. None that will still be enjoyed by our grandchildren, and mentioned in schoolbooks. And until there are, he's right. I'm not saying it's _impossible_ that there could be such a thing, just that there isn't right now.
Slashdot Mirror
Well... I don't know if you're entirely right there. True, fantasizing about violence, talking about it with therapist, friends, etc, dealing with it, these shouldn't be illegal. But publicly displaying artwork expressing explicit deadly violence against someone... how is that not a threat? If I paint a picture of you, dead, stabbed 100 times and write 'kill LunaticTippy'! and post it around on walls for people to see, is that okay? Seems pretty obviously not.
"Before I left EQ2 they removed spirit shards taking a lot of the fun out of the game and increased your running speed so you looked like a characters out of a slapstick movie."
Oh, is _that_ why they look so retarded? I play it now and again, but when I started, the fact people looked like hyperactive monkeys really turned me off. You get used to it eventually, but I was wondering how that could have slipped everyone's notice, that their character modeling looked totally goofy. It being a half-assed patch put in months down the line explains a lot.
It's a list of worst game _names_, not worst games. I'm sure some other ones are perfectly fun as well.
Some people just enjoy experiencing things multiple times. I'm one of them; I read books over and over, I listen to music all day long, and if I think a movie is worth watching once, it's worth watching repeatedly. It's probably not possible to really understand why, in the same way that I don't understand how you could just watch a movie/read a book once, discover the ending, and then never want to touch it again.
But that's okay, no one forces you to watch it repeatedly, nor breaks my dvds when I want to see them again. **AAs excepted.
Online movie purchasing I don't get either though, you got me there.
You've got 2 & 3 right on. It's more fun to be standing and spazzing, and I'm sure there'd be more than enough market for expansion packs.
But totally for guys? Where do you get this from? Every single woman (half a dozen) that has played it has loved it and asks to play it again when they visit. And they generally choose the hard rock songs.
You're right, there shouldn't be a magic genie that makes sure I can see everything in the game because it's My Right to do so. I might as well just go watch a movie.
... say I buy a fighting game to play with my friends. We play through and unlock most of it just because it's a natural part of the game play and fun and what we bought it for. But to get an extra character, or weapon, or whatever, say that you have to play one particular mode for an exceedingly long period of time. Time Attack or one of those sad Tekken faux-brawlers they threw in. It's not what the game is ostensibly about, it's a gimmick at best. Suddenly, to get the unlockable to add fun to the meat of the game that I _do_ like, I have to punish myself and play through a bunch of tedious exercises in patience.
On the other hand
Maybe that's the key difference. An unlockable that comes about as a natural part of play (finding things in an exploration-style game, fighting a lot in a fighting game, etc) will generally be achieved by people who play it enough to appreciate the unlockable. An unlockable that requires you to, say, complete obnoxious jumping puzzles in a rpg is _not_ welcome. I bought my game to Fight/RPG/Find Golden Stars. That's what it says it's about. Don't make my enjoyment of F/R/FGS depend on something wholly non-F/R/FGS.
I sort of agree. While it's true it's fun to unlock things and that it gives you a goal... what about things that you just can't unlock? You're not good enough, or don't have the time or patience to do it, because it's really, really hard. So I just paid $50 for a game that contains bits that I will never, ever see. Is that fair? That I never get to play as character X because I can't manage to beat 8 people in 1 minute, or whatever?
In that sense, unlockables suck. It's unfortunately a tricky issue, and a hard one to get just right.
Uh... have you played Eve?
"Newbie usually dies in first onslaught (often while screen is locked up by lag due to the graphics for the new system just jumped into are loading)."
When you enter a system, you are cloaked and utterly untargetable and unseeable for 20 seconds. More than enough time to get a grip on who's waiting there, if they have low security status, and for all the graphics to load.
And there are numerous ways to avoid getting ganked at gates. In a small, fast frigate? Warp away to a target that you're vaguely aligned to. Unless the camper has an insta-lock battleship, you'll be gone before they can lock on. If you're in a bigger ship, fit on a few armor or shield boosters when you know you're going through a dangerous spot. Or, use the map and notice there are 10 people and 5 kills in the past hour in a system, and go around. Or stay in empire where they'll be insta-killed by police if they fire on you. Land a covert ops ship on top of the camper, have some friends warp to you, scramble him and kill him. Laugh.
It's not to say it doesn't happen, because controlling key chokepoints is a good way of guarding your territory, or finding victims to pirate. But with a little effort, it's pretty easy to avoid being a victim.
When I had cable for a while, there was a 'feature' where the cable company could send my cable box little ads in a kind of faux-email. It was just annoying. They came so fast that the damn little light was always on. I don't need more LEDs shining in my apartment, and I don't need a kind of answering machine that is guaranteed to only get crap I don't care about.
I would have had to logged on daily to have cleaned out all the garbage. And let's face it, you don't want screenshots, demos or movies of every game that is coming out for a system. I don't care how much you play, there are dozens of games that you just aren't interested in. Fake-email-video-game-ads are not a good idea, especially to your console where the interface is often kludgy or slow.
"The fastest way to make it suck is to focus on 'beating' the game like you would say half-life or dungeon-seige."
:(
I agree with you. Unfortunately, even on RP servers, people are not taking a leisurely, smell-the-roses stroll. Doing anything but the most optimal path is considered a waste of time. Figuring out something on your own never happens. Guildies, pick up groups, friends, they all have done it already and will guide (i.e., rush) you through. It's almost as if level limits trigger a 'get to the end' response in people, and all they want to do is get there. Nevermind that once you're there, the challenging bits of the game are few and repetitive.
So yeah, I dunno. I don't have that much of a point here, just pointing out that what makes the game the most fun is hard to find
You missed the most important feature! (well, one of them...) Newbies are not helpless against the mighty.
Take WoW for example. Say you have a group of 30 lvl10s. You will never, ever kill a level60. They will just resist, dodge, absorb or tank all your damage and one-shot each of you without breaking a sweat. A level 30 in the 30-39 bracket? Welcome to hurting.
But in eve... big ships have penalties to hit smaller ships. Now, smaller ships can't really put out the damage to kill a big one, so a battleship vs a frigate would basically be a stalemate, as long as the frigate keeps its speed up. But a tiny fleet of frigates can easily pin down and kill a battleship. Some corporations base their operations on that: large groups of cheap ships that always lose a few members when taking on big game, but end up doing much more damage monetarily speaking. (You lost 8 250k frigates, they lost 2 100mil battleships. You win.)
It's such a refreshing change that you can be actually useful in a short period of time, I figured it'd be a shame not to mention it.
The submitter would be guilty of plagiarism for just copy/pasting some text from the article. The editors may be guilty of laziness for not double-checking. They are not, however, passing off other people's work as their own. In fact, the site is entirely about highlighting and discussing neat stories from other sources. To imply plagiarism by saying 'oo, you just take other people's stories' is rather missing the point.
"While I will wholeheartedly agree that the price is about $100 too much on the PS3, is it really THAT big of a deal? Nope. Everyone planning on getting one before the announcement will continue to do so. They're early adopters who pay for the masses to buy at cheaper cost. How is this different from any other product launch?"
This is untrue. I make plenty of money, I am an early adapter, and I buy video games and video game systems at the drop of a hat, if there's something that I like on it. The price tag for the non-gimped PS3 is really, really high. There's no way I'm buying a cheaper system that is unupgradable to a better version. I am the target audience, and I no longer want it at that price.
Woah, dude, good choice! It works really well. I've been trying it out! I won't kill the president today, I won't kill the president today, I won't kill the president today, I won't kill the president today. Try it out!
One sec, someone's at the door.
Your first point is true. Although I agree with the grandparent that going and looking everything up online and acquiring it kind of defeats the point, sometimes it's nice to have a resource when you don't want to run around in circles for 4 hours.
On the other hand... one of the things I hate most about MMORPGs (and I actually kind of like them, mind you) is that in a group, you're never experiencing anything new. Everyone else is just rushing ahead because they've done it a dozen times, and you have to just keep up and go through the motions as you're supposed to. That doesn't seem fun. When I explore the Mighty Dungeon of Everlasting Night in a party, I'd want us all to be exploring and seeing what's there. As opposed to 'Oh, yeah, I killed Lord Demonfangtooth 4 times last week looking for his magic dagger, take a left at the next shrieking corpse, we're almost there.' I want an adventure, not a guided tour.
In short, I think that the sites can be useful, like a game guide, but overusing them is like buying the walkthrough to your new game, and following it step by step. Why bother?
Brand Loyalty, if you move the letters around and change a few and remove the space and uncapitalize one, is a secret code for Idiocy. There's nothing wrong with prefering PS2 over Xbox, or Xbox over Gamecube. Maybe a system just doesn't have enough of the games you like to play. Maybe you bought three and they all died from bad drives and you don't want to buy any more from that company. There's tons of good reasons to prefer one thing over another, or to like them all for different reasons. Making your choices because you're loyal to Sony products or you've only ever bought Nintendo before is just lunacy. Sadly, it's not that uncommon.
And yes, I know you know that, I just felt like venting and hopefully annoying someone who is Loyal to a Brand.
I'd _hope_ they'd have something from BioWare to show off. (I'm sure I heard about BioWare coming out with something for the 360 in the next decade or two). Otherwise you're right, the 360 is unfortunately lacking in really great titles at the moment.
"It's not that I haven't tried to like Halo for the sake of Co-Op and competitive play with my friends but I always feel like I am playing in a vat of Jello.
After playing the great PC first person shooters growing up I guess I have higher standards."
No, but you seem to have a well-developed sense of arrogance. Just because a game is _different_ does not make it _worse_. I personally prefer Halo's speed to, say, Half-Life 2 or Farcry. I don't get nauseous playing for long periods, big open areas actually _feel_ big, etc.
When I play half-life 2 I feel like I'm running around like a spastic rodent on speed, and I don't find it enjoyable. On the other hand, I don't go around saying I have more refined taste than everyone else because of it. Nor do I hop in on articles and expound on how much I don't care about the topic. I guess I have higher standards, eh?
Or are their tastes a little backwards?
I mean, the Haliburton case looks like something that's filled with toy-tools for your 6 year old nephew. And the Oakley? Mad max? Nothing says post-apocalyptic to me than 'Oakley'. And the 'level 4 restricted'? I see we have moved on from the 6 year olds to the 14 year old marketing category.
Finally... the number one spot. A case that looks like a reject from a 70s design company. Who would walk around like that? Can you picture someone on the street carrying one of those? Exactly what suit or outfit would one be wearing to match a cedar briefcase? As much as I love wood-paneled station wagons, I never wanted to _look_ like one.
Don't get me wrong, the padded-grey-yawn that most laptop cases could do with a lot of improvement. But these aren't it.
You know, surprisingly, the game does not crash that much. Tweaking the ini file can introduce crashes, but in the stock configuration (and on a multi-core CPU no less, which I have had many headaches with with other games) Crashes are rare enough to still be surprising.
... it'll be a world of pain.
And the balance is trickier, yes. But instead of the game getting too easy, it's possible to let it get too hard. The trick is basically to make sure that your combat/damaging skill (be it blade, or destruction, etc) is generally your highest. If you shoot up the levels via alchemy, but your blade skills suck
Google for BG TUTU. It's a mod that allows you to play BGI in BGII's engine. Makes it much more bearable to go back and play! (I love BG and the story, but after the conveniences and beauty of the BGII engine ... it gets frustrating sometimes.)
I'm not sure what kind of bizarro world that you live in, but around here it's considered good when you know what your problems are. I'm as dubious as anyone that Microsoft will come up with an iPod killer. However, claming 'they know what they're doing wrong' as the reason they will do it wrong seems ... well, wrong.
The Logitech G5 Gaming Mouse has this feature. I have it, it's wonderful. Nice rubberized-grip, slippy bottom, comfortable feel.
Why don't we write a loose grammar/spelling filter anyway? That was we block spam, viruses _and_ people who write things like 'lol u n33d v14gr4 dood' in everyday conversation. Who would miss them?
Not to rain on everyone's parade, but ... doesn't he have a point? I quote: "To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers."
In what way is this statement false? I love games, I play them constantly. I think some are beautiful, others enthralling, and others make you think. Some are finely-tuned fun for ways you can't quite explain, but keep going back to play.
But there are none that are masterpieces. None that will still be enjoyed by our grandchildren, and mentioned in schoolbooks. And until there are, he's right. I'm not saying it's _impossible_ that there could be such a thing, just that there isn't right now.