It seems like most of the arguments being put forward have a hard time thinking about the reasons why the United States invaded Iraq. People seem to think it was just a "mistake" and tend to chalk it up to George Bush incompetence, and/or making the defense industry rich, etc.
Haven't any of you played Civilization?
If you're running a country, and then there's this other little pest of a country that has a track record of attacking people, is technologically inferior, AND is sitting on a nice resource such as oil, wouldn't you want to invade it and make your country stronger (even if you knew there was a chance of some of your military units dying in the process)?
People play games such as Civilization and don't realize that this stuff happens in the real world too.
I was a huge Deus Ex fan and played through it repeatedly like many of you. Recently I picked up Half-Life 2 Episode 1 (from the Orange Box package from Valve) and started playing it, and I was reminded of Deus Ex. It is a little heavier on action-based gameplay and puzzles, but it does sort of follow the Action RPG model in the sense that you're not just mindlessly blasting away at things. There's a real story going on there with NPCs to talk to, etc.
Plus there are some cool weapons, and you've got the whole ammo conservation thing going on throughout the game. And the graphics are much better than Deus Ex of course.
I'd recommend it for any of you Deus Ex lovers who are looking for a new game.
And of course, all these games borrowed liberally from online text-only MUDs.
The interesting thing being that many of these still exist, run on a totally free volunteer-run model as opposed to a commercial model, and have 15 years of quality user created content... Plus they're much easier to play at work. Doing a raid in a text-based environment can be interesting to say the least.
One of the key elements of the MMORPG genre is the notion of a persistent world, or persistent state gaming. Continuum/Subspace doesn't have that. It's really more akin to a FPS than a RPG or MMORPG.
They wouldn't have to because if they accidentally priced an item at 100% over the usual retail price they wouldn't sell any.
Not necessarily true.
I think you'd be surprised at how many people go online and buy something without comparing prices. They don't know whether that cute sweater they've spotted online is really $25 or really $50, but they'll buy it at either price if they want it.
My question to anti-advertising folks like you, then, would be something along these lines:
Let's say your local cable company has a great new deal on a cable/tv/phone service combo that is $30 per month lower than what you're paying now. No strings whatsoever, they aren't trying to screw you over, they're just trying to steal market share away from their competitor.
What is the best method of communication for them to alert you to offers like these?
I think that eventually the gamer society will gravitate toward free or independently-owned games, instead of going to WoW which is the current Wal-mart of online games. There are plenty of free, community-driven pursuits out there (such as non-commercial MUDs) that can offer up the same sort of gameplay, and when a player belongs to one of those communities, it's got a sort of lifetime involvement aspect that they never have to pay continuously for.
Those types of games are the ones that are truly going to last forever, because people can play them forever, off and on throughout their lives, and not be obliged to pay anything... unlike a game like WoW where they have to pay so much per month/expansion, even during periods of their life when they tire of the gameplay or don't have as many hours to play.
It's nice to know that there are still independently-run, noncommercial games out there like this one, where they don't claim they are free and then tempt you into paying big bucks later.
Surprised nobody mentioned Deus Ex yet. That's a VERY immersive game and one I would recommend people try even though it's got to be about 5 or 6 years old by now. They got a lot of things right in that game. You can download the 1st mission demo freely online.
The 1st mission isn't so scary, but... I can think of several times that I just got totally freaked out. Icarus talking to you through the infolink, MiB's bursting through the apartment door, pretty much all of Area 51...
I always thought WoW did a good job of providing instance content for almost all level ranges. In my experience, most people who want to speed to 70 seem to want to do so because of the instance content, but really, there is plenty to see at all level ranges. Either that, or they want to get rich quickly, but I've not yet seen a game design where one's material wealth is based on some form of either time or skill, so we can't really fault WoW in that regard.
Of course, there are plenty of free permanent state game options for those of us who are not keen on spending a monthly subscription on anything. (Non-commercial MUDs come to mind, as do games like Kingdom of Loathing.)
WoW actually has a faster leveling-to-max pace than many other MMORPG games, plus there are no "trial quests" that you must complete before advancing, etc.
If you look at it from a game designer standpoint, you might sympathize with the general idea that if your game revolves entirely around content, once a player reaches 50, it becomes hard to retain them because you can't churn out content fast enough that players can't complete it. So it becomes attractive for a game designer to prolong the leveling as long as possible.
I doubt the player council will have any real powers. This is just going to be a recipe for more drama, and subsequently more publicity for the game. Which is fine, since people love drama, and drama is a main reason why people still continue to play an online multiplayer game.
Try the Blizzard-created Enslavers missions if you're looking for a Starcraft single player challenge... particularly Enslavers 2 - Dark Vengeance. I still haven't been able to legitimately beat a couple of those missions even after all these years.
I'm surprised nobody's picked up on what has got to be the main reason why the single-player RPG genre is on a comparatively downward trend.
Single-player games = can be pirated Multiplayer games = cannot be pirated
This is the main reason why resources are being shifted to MMO's these days, not because of any inherent gameplay difference between the two.
It's a good case for copyright if you think about a game like Deus Ex. Who is going to put all the mammoth effort into creating an awesome story, plotline, engine, graphics, AI, speech from voice actors, etc if the rest of us can just download it from eMule?
In a text-based multiplayer game, it's easy for players to contribute content, anything from renaming their items to writing and building large areas that are checked by administrators and then added to the game world. MUDs have been doing this for years and with very good results. It allows the continual creation of new content by people who care about what they're doing.
This is one of the benefits of spending your life playing an independent online multiplayer game, run by players, for players, instead of picking some commercially-marketed corporate game out of Wal-mart (with another benefit, of course, being that there's no monthly subscription to play).
The funny thing is that there are plenty of free, independently-owned, player-run mass multiplayer games with no advertising... too bad all these MMORPG kids don't realize they can get a very similar online experience (with a much more stable community) without paying for expansions and monthly fees.
Nethack is a great game and is still very playable today. It makes a great time-waster in case any of you need one. You can either download and run it locally, or play via telnet at a site such as nethack.alt.org.
My favorite way to die would be...crushed to death by a falling drawbridge. I hate those drawbridges.
Interesting that you're okay with posting your picture for all to see, yet don't want people to know your name.
The questions are... why are people so concerned about privacy in this sense? Do you also object to phone books listing everybody's name? Do you accept that with the advent of technology, some loss of privacy is acceptable in order to get the much greater benefits technology has to offer? Do you think Martians are going to invade your brain or something? (Just kidding on that last part.)
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It seems like most of the arguments being put forward have a hard time thinking about the reasons why the United States invaded Iraq. People seem to think it was just a "mistake" and tend to chalk it up to George Bush incompetence, and/or making the defense industry rich, etc.
Haven't any of you played Civilization?
If you're running a country, and then there's this other little pest of a country that has a track record of attacking people, is technologically inferior, AND is sitting on a nice resource such as oil, wouldn't you want to invade it and make your country stronger (even if you knew there was a chance of some of your military units dying in the process)?
People play games such as Civilization and don't realize that this stuff happens in the real world too.
I was a huge Deus Ex fan and played through it repeatedly like many of you. Recently I picked up Half-Life 2 Episode 1 (from the Orange Box package from Valve) and started playing it, and I was reminded of Deus Ex. It is a little heavier on action-based gameplay and puzzles, but it does sort of follow the Action RPG model in the sense that you're not just mindlessly blasting away at things. There's a real story going on there with NPCs to talk to, etc.
Plus there are some cool weapons, and you've got the whole ammo conservation thing going on throughout the game. And the graphics are much better than Deus Ex of course.
I'd recommend it for any of you Deus Ex lovers who are looking for a new game.
And of course, all these games borrowed liberally from online text-only MUDs.
The interesting thing being that many of these still exist, run on a totally free volunteer-run model as opposed to a commercial model, and have 15 years of quality user created content... Plus they're much easier to play at work. Doing a raid in a text-based environment can be interesting to say the least.
Insert mandatory game plug here... try it out, you'll like it:
telnet://realmsofdespair.com:4000/
www.realmsofdespair.com
One of the key elements of the MMORPG genre is the notion of a persistent world, or persistent state gaming. Continuum/Subspace doesn't have that. It's really more akin to a FPS than a RPG or MMORPG.
You managed to get your kitten all the way to the final altar? And then you got killed by it? Was this something you were deliberately trying to do?
Not necessarily true.
I think you'd be surprised at how many people go online and buy something without comparing prices. They don't know whether that cute sweater they've spotted online is really $25 or really $50, but they'll buy it at either price if they want it.
My question to anti-advertising folks like you, then, would be something along these lines:
Let's say your local cable company has a great new deal on a cable/tv/phone service combo that is $30 per month lower than what you're paying now. No strings whatsoever, they aren't trying to screw you over, they're just trying to steal market share away from their competitor.
What is the best method of communication for them to alert you to offers like these?
I think that eventually the gamer society will gravitate toward free or independently-owned games, instead of going to WoW which is the current Wal-mart of online games. There are plenty of free, community-driven pursuits out there (such as non-commercial MUDs) that can offer up the same sort of gameplay, and when a player belongs to one of those communities, it's got a sort of lifetime involvement aspect that they never have to pay continuously for.
Those types of games are the ones that are truly going to last forever, because people can play them forever, off and on throughout their lives, and not be obliged to pay anything... unlike a game like WoW where they have to pay so much per month/expansion, even during periods of their life when they tire of the gameplay or don't have as many hours to play.
That sure wasn't blatant advertising or anything.
The flash version doesn't do justice at all to the real Orange Box version. Plus it's only $19.99 for Portal standalone.
This one is easy to play while at work. (Unless you have Vista in which case telnet apparently isn't enabled by default.)
telnet://game.org:4000/
It's nice to know that there are still independently-run, noncommercial games out there like this one, where they don't claim they are free and then tempt you into paying big bucks later.
Surprised nobody mentioned Deus Ex yet. That's a VERY immersive game and one I would recommend people try even though it's got to be about 5 or 6 years old by now. They got a lot of things right in that game. You can download the 1st mission demo freely online.
The 1st mission isn't so scary, but... I can think of several times that I just got totally freaked out. Icarus talking to you through the infolink, MiB's bursting through the apartment door, pretty much all of Area 51...
I always thought WoW did a good job of providing instance content for almost all level ranges. In my experience, most people who want to speed to 70 seem to want to do so because of the instance content, but really, there is plenty to see at all level ranges. Either that, or they want to get rich quickly, but I've not yet seen a game design where one's material wealth is based on some form of either time or skill, so we can't really fault WoW in that regard.
Of course, there are plenty of free permanent state game options for those of us who are not keen on spending a monthly subscription on anything. (Non-commercial MUDs come to mind, as do games like Kingdom of Loathing.)
WoW actually has a faster leveling-to-max pace than many other MMORPG games, plus there are no "trial quests" that you must complete before advancing, etc.
If you look at it from a game designer standpoint, you might sympathize with the general idea that if your game revolves entirely around content, once a player reaches 50, it becomes hard to retain them because you can't churn out content fast enough that players can't complete it. So it becomes attractive for a game designer to prolong the leveling as long as possible.
I doubt the player council will have any real powers. This is just going to be a recipe for more drama, and subsequently more publicity for the game. Which is fine, since people love drama, and drama is a main reason why people still continue to play an online multiplayer game.
Try the Blizzard-created Enslavers missions if you're looking for a Starcraft single player challenge... particularly Enslavers 2 - Dark Vengeance. I still haven't been able to legitimately beat a couple of those missions even after all these years.
I'm surprised nobody's picked up on what has got to be the main reason why the single-player RPG genre is on a comparatively downward trend.
Single-player games = can be pirated
Multiplayer games = cannot be pirated
This is the main reason why resources are being shifted to MMO's these days, not because of any inherent gameplay difference between the two.
It's a good case for copyright if you think about a game like Deus Ex. Who is going to put all the mammoth effort into creating an awesome story, plotline, engine, graphics, AI, speech from voice actors, etc if the rest of us can just download it from eMule?
In a text-based multiplayer game, it's easy for players to contribute content, anything from renaming their items to writing and building large areas that are checked by administrators and then added to the game world. MUDs have been doing this for years and with very good results. It allows the continual creation of new content by people who care about what they're doing.
This is one of the benefits of spending your life playing an independent online multiplayer game, run by players, for players, instead of picking some commercially-marketed corporate game out of Wal-mart (with another benefit, of course, being that there's no monthly subscription to play).
The funny thing is that there are plenty of free, independently-owned, player-run mass multiplayer games with no advertising... too bad all these MMORPG kids don't realize they can get a very similar online experience (with a much more stable community) without paying for expansions and monthly fees.
Nethack is a great game and is still very playable today. It makes a great time-waster in case any of you need one. You can either download and run it locally, or play via telnet at a site such as nethack.alt.org. My favorite way to die would be...crushed to death by a falling drawbridge. I hate those drawbridges.
Osram Sylvania does sells lamps in the United States. They're one of the top three lamp sellers alongside GE and Phillips.
Interesting that you're okay with posting your picture for all to see, yet don't want people to know your name.
The questions are... why are people so concerned about privacy in this sense? Do you also object to phone books listing everybody's name? Do you accept that with the advent of technology, some loss of privacy is acceptable in order to get the much greater benefits technology has to offer? Do you think Martians are going to invade your brain or something? (Just kidding on that last part.)
Various kinds of MUDs.
Nethack.
Subspace/Continuum.
Console emulators with save state features.
The list goes on and on...
Why don't all of you complainers play a free MMO instead?
Yes, there are free MMO's, and they're much more stable than what you're describing.
Try out my favorite one here and discover a game that many people have been playing for years without any fees.