I was mostly talking about competitive play between two humans. Computer opponents are too predictable, and in fighting games that's exactly what you want to avoid. The entertaining part, for me, is still being able to find good combinations of strategy in games that are over 15 years old. This is depth.
The ability to put a trap within a trap within a trap and then successfully bait your opponent into seeing only one or two of those traps only to succumb to the third one is depth. It gets deeper with the amount of traps you can encapsulate with that one piece of bait.
This is why some fighting games, like the early Dead Or Alive games were considered to be horrible fighting games. There were very few moves that could be setup and used in this manner because many of them (primarily the counter system) could be defeated entirely at the first trap. Even if you did setup a clever trap string for your opponent, you could easily be frustrated to discover that it was all for naught as a single counter can completely reverse your trap before it is even sprung.
That's what I mean by depth.
As far as replay value goes, no two matches are exactly alike against a human opponent, and for this reason the re-play value in most fighters is near infinite. I still look in awe at some matches of a highly skilled Japanese player named Daigo attempting completely impossible feats right in front of his opponent and totally succeeding. To use my before-used basketball analogy, it's a lot like a player who can stuff every shot an offender makes against you. Only he allows you to *think* you are going to make the shot, and that is your true folly. The trap is actually your own self for going after what you thought to be something good. If you think that gameplay in a competitive game like Brawl can get boring simply because you've mastered it, then you're limiting yourself, which is fine if you are satisfied, but for me, competition is defined by the ability to go ever higher, so I never stop trying to master whatever game I'm playing competitively.
LOL it does Basic strategy: watching your opponent to know what physical "tells" they give when making particular moves. Advanced strategy: memorized statistical analysis of your opponent. I don't see why it's very much different than basketball. For instance, trying to read Jordan's crossups were near impossible unless you'd studied hours of footage.
In this case, depth is literal. the amount of choices that one move can spawn. There are LOTS. Learning how to respond to a threat is the first step. When you learn that your opponent knows that you know how to respond to his threats is step two... Does he know that you know that he knows? Multiply that by the number of moves possible. Depth.
Combos are not and never will be equal to tactics. Zoning, baiting and trapping are much more important than combos. Combos are just ways to get quick damage. Those aren't the way to win. You win by creating the situation to land those combos. You know, tactics. I'd very much rather eat a 6-hit Akuma combo in Third Strike than get tricked into a 3-hit reset combo. This is because the damage-scaling makes the 3-hit combo much more damaging. Combos actually limit your damage output. Nasty players know how to trick you into thinking you can block the wrong way. Trick into thinking you're safe when you're not. In I play Urien in Third Strike and all I want to do is build my meter and get a single knockdown or air reel that I can capitalize on to start an unblockable chain. Combos are great if I am simply HANDED the opportunity to land one, but otherwise, I want a launcher or a close-standing knockdown situation. Those are tactics. Anyone can do combos, but landing them on a thinking opponent is very difficult.
That's good, because the worry is that eventually with fighting games, exploits come out. I don't know if you have any sense of what those might be, or if you've totally gotten on top of all of them. Because... in CVS2, people would constantly roll and throw. Do you think that you've gotten them all out of the way so far?
In CVS2, rolling was not the problem, nor was it the throws. Throws actually beat rolling every time. The problem was that rolls were invincible, and more importantly, they were also considered special moves, which are cancelable into other special moves. And you kept the invincibility. Oops. It only lasts 3 frames, but that's enough.
How can you say fighting games don't have a lot of depth? They are the one video game that I immediately think of when I think of depth. One move can have over a dozen different possible responses, each with their own consequences and benefits. Virtua Fighter is a game that is FULL of 50/50 situations where either player really can't win, only not loose so much and the player who successfully baits or guesses his opponent out will probably win. These are games, situations where you have to think not only about what beats what, but exactly why it beats and how to maximize the use of it. Sorry, but FPS games may have their share of tactics, but it's nothing like a fighting game where the situation is always constantly changing and you are being challenged mentally every move you make.
no way the old days will be back. People still complain about a fireball + shoryuken trap, even in 3 when they could just parry out. Games aren't supposed to be complex anymore, just fun for about 2 hours so SF4 won't re-create the scene because everyone's moved on. Sure, we'll still have Evolution every year, and it will be dominated by the same players as every other year, and new tactics will be on display, but that is the large scale, which doesn't change very much. On the small scale, at home and in the arcades (wherever they may still exist), scenes that are established will flourish for a bit, but I see nothing that is going to start up an explosion of smaller, new scenes around the country. Online will be interesting, but without the social aspect, it will feel cold and empty. Street Fighter was just meant to be played by hardcore enthusiasts person-to-person, much like chess, as Mr. Ono equated it.
Music Producer/Composer. I load up several gigs of sample libraries into memory at once. The more the better. Latency is good enough to be tempo perfect and sync with my MIDI controller on either USB, Firewire, and of course through the MIDI bus on my sound card. Having the ability to utilize 8 gigs would be awesome, but I'm limited to 4 on XP right now. Upgrades are coming, and you can bet that my options will be decided on warranty, price, compatibility, capacity and then finally speed. Speed doesn't matter for what I do. In the old days, we didn't get an option in the first place and it never mattered then either. Sometimes I think we're getting bamboozled as consumers in this industry.
did Rock Band get a reality show before Dungeons & Dragons did? the first thing I thought about when these stupid shows became popular (I.E. Survivor, actually a really GOOD game design) was taking a celebrity party through a campaign and having them act out things in character and show the gaming sessions as well. Seriously, if this can make it, if Who wants to be a superhero, for crying out loud can make it, then why not D&D?
Actually, I hope they're doing it on purpose so as to:
1. establish the false fact they cannot access a router without having the proper U.I.D./Pword when they really CAN. -or- 2. establish the fact that they NEED the ability to access a router without knowing the proper U.I.D./Pword and that the companies should comply with their needs.
"I've already figured that you'd do that, subverted your other servers and instructed them to shout for all to mimic should the CDROM tray be opened remotely." In other words, thanks for giving me another idea for my book!
because they take too long, they aren't memorable enough, are full of soul-sucking DRM, the hardware isn't stable enough and online features won't be online long enough to truly re-create the experience. Unless you're talking about fan mods and third party servers, which don't really count.
Re:No "call home" DRM even if the game was great.
on
Review: Spore
·
· Score: 1
While I clearly see the argument you're making and somewhat agree with it, there's a lot of stuff I can't afford to buy but I don't steal them. And I even call myself a thief. I think like one and I'm training to be a security specialist, but I don't steal. If you have a system that can run Spore and a broadband connection to download it, then you can probably scrape up 50$ to buy the game. It funny to me that hardcore gamers that often pirate single player games are always able to quickly acquire the new MMOs and other online games that require a legitimate purchase to play online. Not trying to bash pirates. My motto is to do what you please, but don't complain if you get caught. But the mentality that stealing something as justification for it being priced too high is just as much a fallacy as the "nothing to hide argument."
The apostle Paul used discretion on a number of occasions. He thanked those that housed him illegally many times in his letters. I cannot properly quote the scripture, as I have no bible handy and my memory fails me, but "be cautious as serpents yet innocent as doves" comes to mind.
Re:No "call home" DRM even if the game was great.
on
Review: Spore
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Of course the DRM servers won't be up in 10 years. That's because you're supposed to buy it on the Xbox 720 arcade and get all sorts of cool achievements and icons and character skins!
I TOLD people that this is the sort of thing that allowing Microsoft into the console gaming market would bring about. Now you can't play your old games without hacking them or happening to still have the original hardware around and in working condition - another feat to perform since today's consoles, while vastly more superior in performance, fail like racecars made out of lead in comparison to old consoles like the NES/SNES. Not to mention that BROADBAND (a great subject for a completely different rant) is now used to support these companies crippling implementations as if everybody has it and has it turned on all the time and doesn't even check to see what's coming in or going out. Let us do what we want with the crap you allow us to buy from you, publishers. We are getting tired of this and this is why there is a desire to pirate your games in the first place. Release good games and play fair and people will want to be able to play their games online with an legal key and experience everything instead of torrenting them and then uninstalling them an hour later because it wasn't worth it in the first place.
Here we go again. it isn't what they have to hide, it's the things that you don't want to tell people. Just because it's the government *gasp!* it doesn't give them the right to force everyone into revealing what kind of underwear they're wearing. You might not value your privacy and have no problem giving out information, but at what point will you start to have a problem with it? At that point, you're no different than those of us who prefer to give out no unnecessary private information at all. And still, neither group has anything to hide. Does it make sense now?
This would be sweet for any data operators who wish to telecommute. We could do anything but swap tapes and install, reboot, or repair servers. With a remotely controlled robot, however, we could do all that. And have litle battle with them when we got bored. Okay, that last part is what we really want them for. But still. We COULD theoretically get work done with them too!
with what's happening in Arkansas. No, not the assassination of that congressman, but rather what's happened in the small town of West Helena, Arkansas.
They have a crime problem there and the government imposed a "curfew" that eventually ended up becoming what is practically all out martial law. It started out as a teen curfew and now people are reporting that they're being told to not come out of their houses by the police. They're not simply advising it, but ordering it by punishment of law. Enforcing it via men with guns. Now with the ability to know where you go and what you do there is absolutely nothing stopping a situation where an entire population is under constant monitor.
It's beginning. No, scratch that, it's began. I wouldn't be surprised if a full force take over of the government occurred before the next president is sworn in. Before the end of the year, even. Normally, I'd question myself for saying such outlandish things, what with my active, run-away imagination and all, but this time it's all adding up. I gotta get my family out of here.
Slashdot Mirror
I was mostly talking about competitive play between two humans. Computer opponents are too predictable, and in fighting games that's exactly what you want to avoid. The entertaining part, for me, is still being able to find good combinations of strategy in games that are over 15 years old. This is depth.
The ability to put a trap within a trap within a trap and then successfully bait your opponent into seeing only one or two of those traps only to succumb to the third one is depth. It gets deeper with the amount of traps you can encapsulate with that one piece of bait.
This is why some fighting games, like the early Dead Or Alive games were considered to be horrible fighting games. There were very few moves that could be setup and used in this manner because many of them (primarily the counter system) could be defeated entirely at the first trap. Even if you did setup a clever trap string for your opponent, you could easily be frustrated to discover that it was all for naught as a single counter can completely reverse your trap before it is even sprung.
That's what I mean by depth.
As far as replay value goes, no two matches are exactly alike against a human opponent, and for this reason the re-play value in most fighters is near infinite. I still look in awe at some matches of a highly skilled Japanese player named Daigo attempting completely impossible feats right in front of his opponent and totally succeeding. To use my before-used basketball analogy, it's a lot like a player who can stuff every shot an offender makes against you. Only he allows you to *think* you are going to make the shot, and that is your true folly. The trap is actually your own self for going after what you thought to be something good. If you think that gameplay in a competitive game like Brawl can get boring simply because you've mastered it, then you're limiting yourself, which is fine if you are satisfied, but for me, competition is defined by the ability to go ever higher, so I never stop trying to master whatever game I'm playing competitively.
LOL it does Basic strategy: watching your opponent to know what physical "tells" they give when making particular moves. Advanced strategy: memorized statistical analysis of your opponent. I don't see why it's very much different than basketball. For instance, trying to read Jordan's crossups were near impossible unless you'd studied hours of footage.
In this case, depth is literal. the amount of choices that one move can spawn. There are LOTS. Learning how to respond to a threat is the first step. When you learn that your opponent knows that you know how to respond to his threats is step two... Does he know that you know that he knows? Multiply that by the number of moves possible. Depth.
Combos are not and never will be equal to tactics. Zoning, baiting and trapping are much more important than combos. Combos are just ways to get quick damage. Those aren't the way to win. You win by creating the situation to land those combos. You know, tactics. I'd very much rather eat a 6-hit Akuma combo in Third Strike than get tricked into a 3-hit reset combo. This is because the damage-scaling makes the 3-hit combo much more damaging. Combos actually limit your damage output. Nasty players know how to trick you into thinking you can block the wrong way. Trick into thinking you're safe when you're not. In I play Urien in Third Strike and all I want to do is build my meter and get a single knockdown or air reel that I can capitalize on to start an unblockable chain. Combos are great if I am simply HANDED the opportunity to land one, but otherwise, I want a launcher or a close-standing knockdown situation. Those are tactics. Anyone can do combos, but landing them on a thinking opponent is very difficult.
In CVS2, rolling was not the problem, nor was it the throws. Throws actually beat rolling every time. The problem was that rolls were invincible, and more importantly, they were also considered special moves, which are cancelable into other special moves. And you kept the invincibility. Oops. It only lasts 3 frames, but that's enough.
Street Fighter 4 is already out in Japan and in some arcades in the U.S.
How can you say fighting games don't have a lot of depth? They are the one video game that I immediately think of when I think of depth. One move can have over a dozen different possible responses, each with their own consequences and benefits. Virtua Fighter is a game that is FULL of 50/50 situations where either player really can't win, only not loose so much and the player who successfully baits or guesses his opponent out will probably win. These are games, situations where you have to think not only about what beats what, but exactly why it beats and how to maximize the use of it. Sorry, but FPS games may have their share of tactics, but it's nothing like a fighting game where the situation is always constantly changing and you are being challenged mentally every move you make.
no way the old days will be back. People still complain about a fireball + shoryuken trap, even in 3 when they could just parry out. Games aren't supposed to be complex anymore, just fun for about 2 hours so SF4 won't re-create the scene because everyone's moved on. Sure, we'll still have Evolution every year, and it will be dominated by the same players as every other year, and new tactics will be on display, but that is the large scale, which doesn't change very much. On the small scale, at home and in the arcades (wherever they may still exist), scenes that are established will flourish for a bit, but I see nothing that is going to start up an explosion of smaller, new scenes around the country. Online will be interesting, but without the social aspect, it will feel cold and empty. Street Fighter was just meant to be played by hardcore enthusiasts person-to-person, much like chess, as Mr. Ono equated it.
CRT, my friend.
Music Producer/Composer. I load up several gigs of sample libraries into memory at once. The more the better. Latency is good enough to be tempo perfect and sync with my MIDI controller on either USB, Firewire, and of course through the MIDI bus on my sound card. Having the ability to utilize 8 gigs would be awesome, but I'm limited to 4 on XP right now. Upgrades are coming, and you can bet that my options will be decided on warranty, price, compatibility, capacity and then finally speed. Speed doesn't matter for what I do. In the old days, we didn't get an option in the first place and it never mattered then either. Sometimes I think we're getting bamboozled as consumers in this industry.
Ads can at times be entertaining, but they are definitely not intended as entertainment.
My CVS2 Bison has been killing people for years now. Fresh can of paint! Paint the fence!
did Rock Band get a reality show before Dungeons & Dragons did? the first thing I thought about when these stupid shows became popular (I.E. Survivor, actually a really GOOD game design) was taking a celebrity party through a campaign and having them act out things in character and show the gaming sessions as well. Seriously, if this can make it, if Who wants to be a superhero, for crying out loud can make it, then why not D&D?
Actually, I hope they're doing it on purpose so as to:
1. establish the false fact they cannot access a router without having the proper U.I.D./Pword when they really CAN.
-or-
2. establish the fact that they NEED the ability to access a router without knowing the proper U.I.D./Pword and that the companies should comply with their needs.
Hopefully they're that smart. Hopefully.
"I've already figured that you'd do that, subverted your other servers and instructed them to shout for all to mimic should the CDROM tray be opened remotely." In other words, thanks for giving me another idea for my book!
because they take too long, they aren't memorable enough, are full of soul-sucking DRM, the hardware isn't stable enough and online features won't be online long enough to truly re-create the experience. Unless you're talking about fan mods and third party servers, which don't really count.
While I clearly see the argument you're making and somewhat agree with it, there's a lot of stuff I can't afford to buy but I don't steal them. And I even call myself a thief. I think like one and I'm training to be a security specialist, but I don't steal. If you have a system that can run Spore and a broadband connection to download it, then you can probably scrape up 50$ to buy the game. It funny to me that hardcore gamers that often pirate single player games are always able to quickly acquire the new MMOs and other online games that require a legitimate purchase to play online. Not trying to bash pirates. My motto is to do what you please, but don't complain if you get caught. But the mentality that stealing something as justification for it being priced too high is just as much a fallacy as the "nothing to hide argument."
The apostle Paul used discretion on a number of occasions. He thanked those that housed him illegally many times in his letters. I cannot properly quote the scripture, as I have no bible handy and my memory fails me, but "be cautious as serpents yet innocent as doves" comes to mind.
Of course the DRM servers won't be up in 10 years. That's because you're supposed to buy it on the Xbox 720 arcade and get all sorts of cool achievements and icons and character skins!
I TOLD people that this is the sort of thing that allowing Microsoft into the console gaming market would bring about. Now you can't play your old games without hacking them or happening to still have the original hardware around and in working condition - another feat to perform since today's consoles, while vastly more superior in performance, fail like racecars made out of lead in comparison to old consoles like the NES/SNES. Not to mention that BROADBAND (a great subject for a completely different rant) is now used to support these companies crippling implementations as if everybody has it and has it turned on all the time and doesn't even check to see what's coming in or going out. Let us do what we want with the crap you allow us to buy from you, publishers. We are getting tired of this and this is why there is a desire to pirate your games in the first place. Release good games and play fair and people will want to be able to play their games online with an legal key and experience everything instead of torrenting them and then uninstalling them an hour later because it wasn't worth it in the first place.
Here we go again. it isn't what they have to hide, it's the things that you don't want to tell people. Just because it's the government *gasp!* it doesn't give them the right to force everyone into revealing what kind of underwear they're wearing. You might not value your privacy and have no problem giving out information, but at what point will you start to have a problem with it? At that point, you're no different than those of us who prefer to give out no unnecessary private information at all. And still, neither group has anything to hide. Does it make sense now?
Animal science. Would you by any chance mean Biology, perhaps? God, you really DO need this technology, don't you?
This would be sweet for any data operators who wish to telecommute. We could do anything but swap tapes and install, reboot, or repair servers. With a remotely controlled robot, however, we could do all that. And have litle battle with them when we got bored. Okay, that last part is what we really want them for. But still. We COULD theoretically get work done with them too!
with what's happening in Arkansas. No, not the assassination of that congressman, but rather what's happened in the small town of West Helena, Arkansas.
They have a crime problem there and the government imposed a "curfew" that eventually ended up becoming what is practically all out martial law. It started out as a teen curfew and now people are reporting that they're being told to not come out of their houses by the police. They're not simply advising it, but ordering it by punishment of law. Enforcing it via men with guns. Now with the ability to know where you go and what you do there is absolutely nothing stopping a situation where an entire population is under constant monitor.
It's beginning. No, scratch that, it's began. I wouldn't be surprised if a full force take over of the government occurred before the next president is sworn in. Before the end of the year, even. Normally, I'd question myself for saying such outlandish things, what with my active, run-away imagination and all, but this time it's all adding up. I gotta get my family out of here.
... No, really. Toothpaste. http://lifehacker.com/software/cds/macgyver-tip-fix-scratched-cds-with-toothpaste-155741.php It works!
This is one of the best posts in /. history and quite possibly the best AC post ever.