I'm on vacation and in so a lazy mood that and I can't get my ass from the chair in front of the computer. Not on comunist China but Catalonia (western Europe, inside Spain).
If at least this served me to level up...
BTW, anything "might" be a normal reaction to anything else. After all, what does "might" mean?
Given 2 programmers, both with 20 years experience, it's quite likely the one with 3 different jobs has more varied experience and is *more* desirable than the one who got a single job after graduating and has kept it ever since. I hope you are really thinking into 3 different jobs and not simply 3 different bussines. If the bussines is big enough you can do 3 highly unrelated jobs without switching sides. And working at three different bussinesses does not mean that the work had to be all that different.
Yeah, thinking about my next movement after 6 years at the same place and feeling some burnout.
Publishers catering to "adult" party games are the ones who will outsell the rest. Singstar, eyetoy and guitar hero are top sellers among non-gamers. Hardcore "adult" gamers with a budget may have to get the only console with more party games and pray for some nice games to be there too. I know of girls letting their significant other get the PS2 after playing singstar.
The market is growing, and what was known as the game market is going to be interactive entertainment.
PS2 had the right cards, but it's deemed obsolete by the PS3, which is too expensive for this kind of people. If Nintendo plays its hard well this'll be a revolution.
And probably also pissing gamers if it's like the first part. The gore deaths where boring after the first few videos, after a while I did less gory deaths just to see something different. And the controls... oh... I remember one fight when the dammed character couldn't stop changing weapons and I got my ass served several times.
Traded it for FFX.
What Wii really needs to be "adult" is party games, and by party I mean dancing and singing. Non-gamers are buying ps2 to sing with singstar. Give them an affordable console with downloadable songs, so they can be local songs and not just international hits, and they'll buy it. I've got no intention to buy a ps3, but if they did a singstar for it with catalan music I would find it hard to resist.
I guess he's in the USA. Diferent countries, diferent laws, even inside the EU. In Spain, for example, the notice needs not be sooner than 15 (working) days before. Anything more and your are being generous. For leaving in good terms I'd say one or two months. With that they should have plenty of time to start to search your replacement.
Here in Spain the situation is similar. And not only Wiis are flying off the shelves. Wednesday last week there was a shelf full of wiiplay in a store. After an hour it was only half shelf. Yesterday there wasn't a single wiiplay there.
And I still haven't got one either, waiting to find one.
Thanks to "piracy" movies go to DVD much faster. Before it was between 1 or 2 years for a movie to appear in DVD, now it's like 6 months or less. And not only that, we can thank "piracy" again for the fast translations of shows.
Not long ago good foreign (american) series came to Spain when they were 2 or 3 seasons old, at least. Part of that is that they had to be translated. But they are starting to translate them sooner. Heroes will start soon in Fox (satellite, in spanish), and it's still in half their first season. There are people waiting to see it instead of watching it in english. House is also on TV, and the third season has just started. Now I can decide to keep watching it in english or wait a little and do it in spanish (I probably won't wait, I prefer to practice my english). That's good for the comsumer.
So I thank all those mighty pirates, that not only force the TV companies to react faster, but also combat global warming. Or so says the mighty FSM.
Forget action figures! Think about wargamming, specially those that play and use Games Workshop figures (I've been told they are rather expensived compared to similar ones).
I think I'd have an army at last;) Or several.
So it would be algo great for roleplayers, boardgamers, and all kind of geeks.
Who needs to illegally download? DRM'd "CDs" have a much more serious flaw, from EMI's perspective - They don't actually stop anyone from ripping them
Well, some years ago I bought a CD from Robbie Williams (published by EMI), the one with "Feel". Then, like now, CD was not the main way in which I listened to music. Now it's directly the computer or a portable MP3, then it was a minidisc.
So I bought the CD, went to my PS2, put the CD in, it worked, and proceed to copy it into the minidisc throught the digital output. Some time later it was done... the *#$!@ had sent a new track signal every two seconds or so, and now the MD was full of tracks of merely seconds, and had not much in.
I was so in anger that I even registered to the Robbie Williams forums just to rant.
If at least that had happened to me while ripping good music like Metallica... oh wait!
They don't need a thin client. Heck, they don't need to make and sell an OS. All Google has to do is provide a set of bookmarks.
They already have an almost complete office clone, email program and several other interesting things (video, calendar, calculator,...). With some personal bookmarks (games, news, interesting links and/.) you almost don't need the real OS that you are using except for saving things for offline use and for some games.
The GoogleOS is already out, it's called internet, and it's open to everyone. The average person needs a browser and a IM program of his choice and it's set to go (well, and P2P applications for "educational" purposes).
It makes more sense to see that, specially, the newly retired are from the generation that was a young adult in the 70's. That generations has been fabled for their open mind when using new forms of recreation. Also that was the time when the first videogames were created (1972-Pong).
Heck, my father is from that generation (but Spain is different, take that into account) and he plays games for fun, much to the despair of my mother.
I wouldn't find it strange if in 10 years discos, catering the taste of the early retired from these last years, started to appear. I was gonna put 20 years, but there are almost starting to appear now, so even 10 is too much.
And this makes people like me not participate in a discussion after certain threshold of messages has been post. There'd be not point to waste my time just for the person to whom I reply, or the stray reader that reads it all.
Would it be not a "news" system, but something more lasting I would care to explain my point. So it's not, per se, a fail of the moderation system, but rather a handicap of the newspages, were people care about new things, not the 6 hour old discussion (they may read it, but not bring anything new to ponder on).
I, for one, would like to play an RPG, even a japanese style one, where the character was an adult! Seriously, I'm fed up with those angsty kids.
When looking that video I was thinking "Can I skip that animation? Oh, I like this character. Oh noes! The main character is surely that other one that is a Cloud-Clone. The fighting is half nice and half phony. What is that? A Dragon? Ah, it must be the fire invocation that is in every game. Oh, in this FF the invocations are transformations, cute."
Yep, nice FF-like game, but is just that. But what about old-fart gamers?
Sorry, but WoW like every MMORPG rewards those who can/want to play the most hours. Oh and EVE fans. Think about this for a second. While getting new skills is not based on the amount of time logged in, nonetheless you HAVE to login every now and then to select a new skill to learn plus the game is heavily based on equipment wich is gotten by money wich is only earned while you are playing. So EVE just moved the focus from grinding XP to grinding money. Still the player that can afford to put in the most amount of time gets an advantage.
The difference is that a friend can give you 1 million gold/isk, while a friend cannot give you even 1 XP. Helping to powerlevel is not equiparable.
But even with the money you need to know how to fight, too many people lose lots of money because they don't know how to do it right.
WoW ain't a better game then Everquest. It is just Everquest done right.
I agree completely with this. WoW is an easy game to play. 2 minutes into it and I was already PvEing against 2 to 3 NPCs and killing them, with a cleric. It's a light games in which you can play without much worries, either solo or in a group. Fun gaming = more sales.
Imagine if you could have a stealth enabled caster who could equip heavy armor and knows the strongest magic in the game? It'd be unstopable but some open skill systems basically allow that.
And this character would have played for so long that has seen the birth of Elminster, as this is roughly the equivalent of a level 60 D&D character (level 20 wizard + level 20 thief + level 20 fighter). Yeah, skill based systems let you with this kind of combination, but not without a fee, mostly time (or experience, needed to have played A LOT).
So, what you end having most of the time, is a third wizard, a third thief and a third fighter, worse than any one of those if specialized, but versatile and more apt for solo play, or playing with few people in a group. And for some it's easier to find a friend and play with him than get with 4, or 40 other people.
Also, most skill based systems, keep the HP at reasonable values, so even that "unstoppable" character could die against a determined army of enemies. This is a pet peeve of mine. Why the hell can't I, with a 10 level fighter, kill easily a nude level 60 wizard that gives me some starting time. I have not tried in WoW, but I expect the fighter to lose there, hard.
Honestly The question is more what works best in your game? In a single player game do you want there to always be a solution to the problem so you can beat the game? Then you'll want classes. Do you want the character to possibly placed in a situation where they can't complete the game? Then skills will be you're option.
Here you are stating the oposite as your previous point. Specially that in some class based games, if you forget to bring in the thieves, you have to put a tank in front, they eat all the traps, and pray for the best. In a skill based system even the cleric could easily have a little of trap spotting, just in case a thif was not at hand. Either way, if you get stuck somewhere it's either a designer's problem, or probably the problem rests between the keyboard and the chair.
Or instead you can constantly play the game and change the rules over and over but by the third rule change many of your fans will start walking away because if there's one thing the fan's want is stability, especially stability with their own characters.
This makes me chuckle. There have been plenty of changes in classes in class based games. Usually when a skill works it works, period. You can refine your changes and additions. If a class works, but it's nerfed, or another one is powered, then it loses some of its appeal.
Both systems are difficult to calibrate, but in a skill based game, if a skill is too good, you'll see everyone get it, so no one will have a problem. If the same happens in a class based game there'll be more problems, as the favored class will have more players, while the less favored will struggle to compete in that field, if it overlaps utility.
Both systems have their drawbacks - characters are boring to make in class based systems, skill based ones tend to be too much jack-of-all-trades,... - but both have their place, and depending on the feel you want to give the game you'll tend to favor one over the other.
Eve isn't really a skill based game. You don't need to pick between skills because you eventually get them all. You just pick which one to get first. A skill based game generally assumes that you need to pick some, but not all, skills to have at any given time.
Say what? So for you a skill based system is one of those that when you choose a skill some skills are then forbidden to you? That's not a typical skill based system, mind you.
Read Call of Cthulu, GURPS, HERO and other skill-based RPG to discover how are they typically described by people who have been playing since before MUDs.
Skill based keep those doors opened to you, and if you really want to specialize, you will be able to, but if you want to dabble a bit on everything you can. That makes an specialist a rare, and wanted, ocurrence.
In class based games specialization is easier and almost mandatory, in skill based games is the way the newbies have to compete with the veterans. It's too easy to be a jack of all trades, but most people know not much of many things so we're used to it.
As I see it class based systems are easier to undersand, but usually a bit more boring to build characters, as in "look, I'm the typical fighter #5, and I have to be so in order to play". On the other hand you know what to expect and what do people expect from you.
Class based are usually tied to level advancements, while skill based are usually not (Fallout is an exception). Thus class based games tend to have a level limit, while skill based tend to have a skill level limit, not a skill limit, that would be like having a level limit, N skills at the engame is equivalent to M levels. Thus skill based games have to be balanced for people having vastly diferent skillsets, and the difference between an experienced character and a new one (in any given skill) is relatively small, if you compare with the differences in class based games.
So, if WoW was a skill based game you'd be able to play in 40 man runs since day one, but you would probably be a hindrance, and joining ten other newbies you could harrass most lone veterans. It'd be completely different, because the focus of the game would have to be different too.
Hey, I was without internet for some days and I had to play solitaire spider. Luckily not enought to get addicted;)
Playing too much sometimes it's ironic, like once, playing the sims, when I was trying to keep a thight schedule on my sims and made them sleep 8 hours at night, or they'd be useless the next day. It was 2 o'clock in the morning and I had to get up at 8. Irony detected and went to sleep shortly after (just one day more please).
And those sympthons could be related to too much work or other stressful situations where an imaginary world is better than the real one, be it (the imaginary) a mmorpg, drug induced or watching too much TV. But some non-gamers don't get games, so they attack them.
Between a book and spending a year or two, you should be able to be competent in just about any martial art. I'd put this on the same level as a pet rock(tm).
Still untrue. You get better interacting with the best. You get better with someone who knows pointing your flaws. You get better with the knowledge were you suck and where you excel. Be it either gaming, music or sport.
The longer the games are expected to last the more we'll see of this movement. Just wait and see.
Well, first we can say that knowledge is not all. I can know all the moves, the rights and wrongs, but practice is what makes perfect. But playing with your friends can get you up to a nice level, but to get really good you have to play with the best.
This relates to my experience with gaming tournaments, Tekken 3 in fact. Before my first tournament I had played a lot with friends, and I was relatively good. Not the best of the loot but the second or third of them. We knew the moves, we knew some tricks, we were naive.
Then came a tournament and we went there. We were obliterated. The only one that went throught to the second day was me, and only because I knew how to play Eddy Gordo without mashing the buttons and the people didn't expect that. The second day I lasted seconds.
After that we really knew how it was meant to be played, and had some meetings with the best players of the region, we grew better. And all these because we were playing against better people. Now a friend who went more with those players can win easily against me, and we both have to relax playing with the rest of our friends. You can't have it all;)
In Spain, and I guess in France it's the same, you pay for all your calls. Local calls, regional calls, national calls, international calls, calls to mobiles,... errr and that's all of course. And AFAIK in America you don't that's why you don't find it quite a deal.
Now they are starting to make offers in which they make some of these calls free, usually all of them but international and to mobiles. So then you can have internet and pay for your phonecall to the pizza guys, or have internet and spend the phonecall's money that money to get the useless "extra cheese" option. It's your call (pun intended).
About your gripe, there are several responses from people that have no problem with it, and prefer it that way.
1) When you fly a ship there's so much that you can do, and no more, so the rest of the skill points are "wasted" (not used).
So, when a veteran from the beginning is flying an interceptor (fast but small ship) what matters is the skills used by the ship and the modules, but not, for example, the industrial skills.
2) Player skill is much more important than character skill.
If you fit your ship incorrectly you can die if fighting a newbie that knows how to fit. If you fight aggainst the odds, because you ignore them, you can die. If you transport something really expensive in a ship that can be easily destroyed, it might be destroyed (even if it causes the destruction of the agressor) just for the agressor's friends to get the contents of your ship.
3) A group is better than an individual.
So, a group of newbies can join and kill a veteran, no problem. How many level 10 would be necesary to kill a level 60 in any other game? There's a new aliance, called GoonSwarm, that is about 9 months old that is manily comprised of people coming from somethingawful. Mostly they are newbies, from these 9 months that it's been functional, and they are attacking veterans, and winning.
4) Most veterans are not so veteran as you might think.
From http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid =310 ----- between 0 and 1 million skillpoints: 358353 between 1 and 2 million skillpoints: 14035 between 2 and 3 million skillpoints: 8149 between 3 and 4 million skillpoints: 5826 between 4 and 5 million skillpoints: 4696 between 5 and 10 million skillpoints: 14859 between 10 and 15 million skillpoints: 9875 between 15 and 20 million skillpoints: 7861 between 20 and 25 million skillpoints: 6194 between 25 and 30 million skillpoints: 4373 between 30 and 35 million skillpoints: 2568 between 35 and 40 million skillpoints: 1313 between 40 and 45 million skillpoints: 257 between 45 and 50 million skillpoints: 4 between 50 and 55 million skillpoints: 7 between 55 and 60 million skillpoints: 1
Not as many high skillpoint players after 3 years as you would have thought. We should also remember, that time is in favor of new players, the average EVE player only stays for 7 months.
However, this doesn't say very much about the character behind the skillpoints, since skillpoints are quite relative, some fields have more higher rank skills than others and some are simply hard to train for a lot of players.
As an example, a person might be really good in leadership, but that person would have spent a lot of time training that ability if he has low Charisma. The next person might have high Charisma and can easily train the leadership skills, but at a faster rate. Therefore, both end up having the same amount of skillpoints, but one spent 1 month to achieve the ability, the other spent 3.
So, in a way, does the number of skillpoints really matter? ----
5) Skillpoints are used to diversify, because there's a limit to the growth of each skill.
Once you reach level 5 in a skill that's as good as you, or anybody else, can get at it. Yes, there are suporting skills and all that, but, in fact, level 4 is almost as good as level 5 (mostly a 5% increase) and going from 4 to 5 takes more than going to 0 to 4.
So, after all I prefer this kind of gameplay than the level grind, and think that anything that would give an avantage to playing newbies versus casual veterans will give an avantage to playing veterans vs the rest (skills increasing on usage is being proposed by a player on a monthly base, and it was like this in the beggining, and players abused it).
was developed in-house, in which case the respective team should be shot
Well, in my actual job we don't have time to document. You'd be lucky to find a nice comment. When more and more is demanded from less people that is what happens.
Meanwhile a boss, who needed to give concrete times, asked a coworker how long certain "feature" would take:
- How long?
- But we don't even know what they want, just this vage description.
- How long?
-...
- Let's say two months?
-... ok.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm on vacation and in so a lazy mood that and I can't get my ass from the chair in front of the computer. Not on comunist China but Catalonia (western Europe, inside Spain).
If at least this served me to level up...
BTW, anything "might" be a normal reaction to anything else. After all, what does "might" mean?
Yeah, thinking about my next movement after 6 years at the same place and feeling some burnout.
Let's see:
Inferior product -> check
Ripoff price:
from the fnac france preorder: price 599.99
599.99 - 17.5% = 494.99
494,99175 = 649,18168 US$
check
Not many games -> check
Is there any reason, apart from having tons of money to burn or desperately wanting a bluray player, to buy this shitty console?
I don't think so.
Publishers catering to "adult" party games are the ones who will outsell the rest. Singstar, eyetoy and guitar hero are top sellers among non-gamers. Hardcore "adult" gamers with a budget may have to get the only console with more party games and pray for some nice games to be there too. I know of girls letting their significant other get the PS2 after playing singstar.
The market is growing, and what was known as the game market is going to be interactive entertainment.
PS2 had the right cards, but it's deemed obsolete by the PS3, which is too expensive for this kind of people. If Nintendo plays its hard well this'll be a revolution.
And probably also pissing gamers if it's like the first part. The gore deaths where boring after the first few videos, after a while I did less gory deaths just to see something different. And the controls... oh... I remember one fight when the dammed character couldn't stop changing weapons and I got my ass served several times.
Traded it for FFX.
What Wii really needs to be "adult" is party games, and by party I mean dancing and singing. Non-gamers are buying ps2 to sing with singstar. Give them an affordable console with downloadable songs, so they can be local songs and not just international hits, and they'll buy it. I've got no intention to buy a ps3, but if they did a singstar for it with catalan music I would find it hard to resist.
I guess he's in the USA. Diferent countries, diferent laws, even inside the EU. In Spain, for example, the notice needs not be sooner than 15 (working) days before. Anything more and your are being generous. For leaving in good terms I'd say one or two months. With that they should have plenty of time to start to search your replacement.
Here in Spain the situation is similar. And not only Wiis are flying off the shelves. Wednesday last week there was a shelf full of wiiplay in a store. After an hour it was only half shelf. Yesterday there wasn't a single wiiplay there.
And I still haven't got one either, waiting to find one.
Thanks to "piracy" movies go to DVD much faster. Before it was between 1 or 2 years for a movie to appear in DVD, now it's like 6 months or less. And not only that, we can thank "piracy" again for the fast translations of shows.
Not long ago good foreign (american) series came to Spain when they were 2 or 3 seasons old, at least. Part of that is that they had to be translated. But they are starting to translate them sooner. Heroes will start soon in Fox (satellite, in spanish), and it's still in half their first season. There are people waiting to see it instead of watching it in english. House is also on TV, and the third season has just started. Now I can decide to keep watching it in english or wait a little and do it in spanish (I probably won't wait, I prefer to practice my english). That's good for the comsumer.
So I thank all those mighty pirates, that not only force the TV companies to react faster, but also combat global warming. Or so says the mighty FSM.
"Hey! The Iphone is comming!"
/ignore
drooling, rage, deception
"Hey! The Iphone is trully comming!"
drooling, rage, deception
"This year it is! The Iphone is comming!"
welcome to
surprise?
The same would happen with Duke Nukem, if it was ever released. Nobody would believe that it had finally hit the streets.
And still most products are sold at parity ($=) or worse. And no, VAT doesn't account for all that difference.
Well, now that really valuable assests are being converted to euros we'll finally overule your economy. What?, PEDs are not comparable to oil?
Damm.
Forget action figures! Think about wargamming, specially those that play and use Games Workshop figures (I've been told they are rather expensived compared to similar ones).
;) Or several.
I think I'd have an army at last
So it would be algo great for roleplayers, boardgamers, and all kind of geeks.
I'd buy one almost right away.
Well, some years ago I bought a CD from Robbie Williams (published by EMI), the one with "Feel". Then, like now, CD was not the main way in which I listened to music. Now it's directly the computer or a portable MP3, then it was a minidisc.
So I bought the CD, went to my PS2, put the CD in, it worked, and proceed to copy it into the minidisc throught the digital output. Some time later it was done... the *#$!@ had sent a new track signal every two seconds or so, and now the MD was full of tracks of merely seconds, and had not much in.
I was so in anger that I even registered to the Robbie Williams forums just to rant.
If at least that had happened to me while ripping good music like Metallica... oh wait!
They don't need a thin client. Heck, they don't need to make and sell an OS. All Google has to do is provide a set of bookmarks.
...). With some personal bookmarks (games, news, interesting links and /.) you almost don't need the real OS that you are using except for saving things for offline use and for some games.
They already have an almost complete office clone, email program and several other interesting things (video, calendar, calculator,
The GoogleOS is already out, it's called internet, and it's open to everyone. The average person needs a browser and a IM program of his choice and it's set to go (well, and P2P applications for "educational" purposes).
It makes more sense to see that, specially, the newly retired are from the generation that was a young adult in the 70's. That generations has been fabled for their open mind when using new forms of recreation. Also that was the time when the first videogames were created (1972-Pong).
Heck, my father is from that generation (but Spain is different, take that into account) and he plays games for fun, much to the despair of my mother.
I wouldn't find it strange if in 10 years discos, catering the taste of the early retired from these last years, started to appear. I was gonna put 20 years, but there are almost starting to appear now, so even 10 is too much.
And this makes people like me not participate in a discussion after certain threshold of messages has been post. There'd be not point to waste my time just for the person to whom I reply, or the stray reader that reads it all.
Would it be not a "news" system, but something more lasting I would care to explain my point. So it's not, per se, a fail of the moderation system, but rather a handicap of the newspages, were people care about new things, not the 6 hour old discussion (they may read it, but not bring anything new to ponder on).
Sure, it's a big niche, but...
I, for one, would like to play an RPG, even a japanese style one, where the character was an adult! Seriously, I'm fed up with those angsty kids.
When looking that video I was thinking "Can I skip that animation? Oh, I like this character. Oh noes! The main character is surely that other one that is a Cloud-Clone. The fighting is half nice and half phony. What is that? A Dragon? Ah, it must be the fire invocation that is in every game. Oh, in this FF the invocations are transformations, cute."
Yep, nice FF-like game, but is just that. But what about old-fart gamers?
I am a mature gamer, hear me roar!
But even with the money you need to know how to fight, too many people lose lots of money because they don't know how to do it right.
I agree completely with this. WoW is an easy game to play. 2 minutes into it and I was already PvEing against 2 to 3 NPCs and killing them, with a cleric. It's a light games in which you can play without much worries, either solo or in a group. Fun gaming = more sales.
So, what you end having most of the time, is a third wizard, a third thief and a third fighter, worse than any one of those if specialized, but versatile and more apt for solo play, or playing with few people in a group. And for some it's easier to find a friend and play with him than get with 4, or 40 other people.
Also, most skill based systems, keep the HP at reasonable values, so even that "unstoppable" character could die against a determined army of enemies. This is a pet peeve of mine. Why the hell can't I, with a 10 level fighter, kill easily a nude level 60 wizard that gives me some starting time. I have not tried in WoW, but I expect the fighter to lose there, hard.
Here you are stating the oposite as your previous point. Specially that in some class based games, if you forget to bring in the thieves, you have to put a tank in front, they eat all the traps, and pray for the best. In a skill based system even the cleric could easily have a little of trap spotting, just in case a thif was not at hand. Either way, if you get stuck somewhere it's either a designer's problem, or probably the problem rests between the keyboard and the chair.
This makes me chuckle. There have been plenty of changes in classes in class based games. Usually when a skill works it works, period. You can refine your changes and additions. If a class works, but it's nerfed, or another one is powered, then it loses some of its appeal.
Both systems are difficult to calibrate, but in a skill based game, if a skill is too good, you'll see everyone get it, so no one will have a problem. If the same happens in a class based game there'll be more problems, as the favored class will have more players, while the less favored will struggle to compete in that field, if it overlaps utility.
Both systems have their drawbacks - characters are boring to make in class based systems, skill based ones tend to be too much jack-of-all-trades,
Have fun.
So for you a skill based system is one of those that when you choose a skill some skills are then forbidden to you? That's not a typical skill based system, mind you.
Read Call of Cthulu, GURPS, HERO and other skill-based RPG to discover how are they typically described by people who have been playing since before MUDs.
Skill based keep those doors opened to you, and if you really want to specialize, you will be able to, but if you want to dabble a bit on everything you can. That makes an specialist a rare, and wanted, ocurrence.
In class based games specialization is easier and almost mandatory, in skill based games is the way the newbies have to compete with the veterans. It's too easy to be a jack of all trades, but most people know not much of many things so we're used to it.
As I see it class based systems are easier to undersand, but usually a bit more boring to build characters, as in "look, I'm the typical fighter #5, and I have to be so in order to play". On the other hand you know what to expect and what do people expect from you.
Class based are usually tied to level advancements, while skill based are usually not (Fallout is an exception). Thus class based games tend to have a level limit, while skill based tend to have a skill level limit, not a skill limit, that would be like having a level limit, N skills at the engame is equivalent to M levels. Thus skill based games have to be balanced for people having vastly diferent skillsets, and the difference between an experienced character and a new one (in any given skill) is relatively small, if you compare with the differences in class based games.
So, if WoW was a skill based game you'd be able to play in 40 man runs since day one, but you would probably be a hindrance, and joining ten other newbies you could harrass most lone veterans. It'd be completely different, because the focus of the game would have to be different too.
Have fun whatever you play.
Hey, I was without internet for some days and I had to play solitaire spider. Luckily not enought to get addicted ;)
Playing too much sometimes it's ironic, like once, playing the sims, when I was trying to keep a thight schedule on my sims and made them sleep 8 hours at night, or they'd be useless the next day. It was 2 o'clock in the morning and I had to get up at 8. Irony detected and went to sleep shortly after (just one day more please).
And those sympthons could be related to too much work or other stressful situations where an imaginary world is better than the real one, be it (the imaginary) a mmorpg, drug induced or watching too much TV. But some non-gamers don't get games, so they attack them.
Between a book and spending a year or two, you should be able to be competent in just about any martial art. I'd put this on the same level as a pet rock(tm).
Still untrue. You get better interacting with the best. You get better with someone who knows pointing your flaws. You get better with the knowledge were you suck and where you excel. Be it either gaming, music or sport.
The longer the games are expected to last the more we'll see of this movement. Just wait and see.
Well, first we can say that knowledge is not all. I can know all the moves, the rights and wrongs, but practice is what makes perfect. But playing with your friends can get you up to a nice level, but to get really good you have to play with the best.
;)
This relates to my experience with gaming tournaments, Tekken 3 in fact. Before my first tournament I had played a lot with friends, and I was relatively good. Not the best of the loot but the second or third of them. We knew the moves, we knew some tricks, we were naive.
Then came a tournament and we went there. We were obliterated. The only one that went throught to the second day was me, and only because I knew how to play Eddy Gordo without mashing the buttons and the people didn't expect that. The second day I lasted seconds.
After that we really knew how it was meant to be played, and had some meetings with the best players of the region, we grew better. And all these because we were playing against better people. Now a friend who went more with those players can win easily against me, and we both have to relax playing with the rest of our friends. You can't have it all
In Spain, and I guess in France it's the same, you pay for all your calls. Local calls, regional calls, national calls, international calls, calls to mobiles, ... errr and that's all of course. And AFAIK in America you don't that's why you don't find it quite a deal.
Now they are starting to make offers in which they make some of these calls free, usually all of them but international and to mobiles. So then you can have internet and pay for your phonecall to the pizza guys, or have internet and spend the phonecall's money that money to get the useless "extra cheese" option. It's your call (pun intended).
About your gripe, there are several responses from people that have no problem with it, and prefer it that way.
d =310
1) When you fly a ship there's so much that you can do, and no more, so the rest of the skill points are "wasted" (not used).
So, when a veteran from the beginning is flying an interceptor (fast but small ship) what matters is the skills used by the ship and the modules, but not, for example, the industrial skills.
2) Player skill is much more important than character skill.
If you fit your ship incorrectly you can die if fighting a newbie that knows how to fit. If you fight aggainst the odds, because you ignore them, you can die. If you transport something really expensive in a ship that can be easily destroyed, it might be destroyed (even if it causes the destruction of the agressor) just for the agressor's friends to get the contents of your ship.
3) A group is better than an individual.
So, a group of newbies can join and kill a veteran, no problem. How many level 10 would be necesary to kill a level 60 in any other game? There's a new aliance, called GoonSwarm, that is about 9 months old that is manily comprised of people coming from somethingawful. Mostly they are newbies, from these 9 months that it's been functional, and they are attacking veterans, and winning.
4) Most veterans are not so veteran as you might think.
From http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bi
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between 0 and 1 million skillpoints: 358353
between 1 and 2 million skillpoints: 14035
between 2 and 3 million skillpoints: 8149
between 3 and 4 million skillpoints: 5826
between 4 and 5 million skillpoints: 4696
between 5 and 10 million skillpoints: 14859
between 10 and 15 million skillpoints: 9875
between 15 and 20 million skillpoints: 7861
between 20 and 25 million skillpoints: 6194
between 25 and 30 million skillpoints: 4373
between 30 and 35 million skillpoints: 2568
between 35 and 40 million skillpoints: 1313
between 40 and 45 million skillpoints: 257
between 45 and 50 million skillpoints: 4
between 50 and 55 million skillpoints: 7
between 55 and 60 million skillpoints: 1
Not as many high skillpoint players after 3 years as you would have thought. We should also remember, that time is in favor of new players, the average EVE player only stays for 7 months.
However, this doesn't say very much about the character behind the skillpoints, since skillpoints are quite relative, some fields have more higher rank skills than others and some are simply hard to train for a lot of players.
As an example, a person might be really good in leadership, but that person would have spent a lot of time training that ability if he has low Charisma. The next person might have high Charisma and can easily train the leadership skills, but at a faster rate. Therefore, both end up having the same amount of skillpoints, but one spent 1 month to achieve the ability, the other spent 3.
So, in a way, does the number of skillpoints really matter?
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5) Skillpoints are used to diversify, because there's a limit to the growth of each skill.
Once you reach level 5 in a skill that's as good as you, or anybody else, can get at it. Yes, there are suporting skills and all that, but, in fact, level 4 is almost as good as level 5 (mostly a 5% increase) and going from 4 to 5 takes more than going to 0 to 4.
So, after all I prefer this kind of gameplay than the level grind, and think that anything that would give an avantage to playing newbies versus casual veterans will give an avantage to playing veterans vs the rest (skills increasing on usage is being proposed by a player on a monthly base, and it was like this in the beggining, and players abused it).
Have fun whatever you do.
Meanwhile a boss, who needed to give concrete times, asked a coworker how long certain "feature" would take:
- How long?
- But we don't even know what they want, just this vage description.
- How long?
-
- Let's say two months?
-