Re: Recently Found
Posted by French Toast on Wed Nov 28th at 2:23am 2007
I jsut started a character on Urban Dead.... cool little game, thanks for introducing me. I'm still kinda lost, mostly wandering around using all my points doing stupid s**t and trying to find a place to sleep...

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by OtZman on Wed Nov 28th at 5:16am 2007
I was also lost when I first tried it. You can find a lot of information in the Urban Dead Wiki. Also there are two old Urban Dead threads here on snarkpit - too old to post in though unfortunately.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by reaper47 on Wed Nov 28th at 10:37am 2007
With these browser games, I always start playing for a few days, thinking it's pretty cool, but then I realize that in order to reach any higher levels I have to do the same boring stuff over and over again and it's all just a simplified MMORPG like UO or WOW.
Looks like one of the better ones, though. Definitely.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by Crono on Wed Nov 28th at 11:06am 2007
I hate level grinding. It's the reason why I hate MMO games. I have a mind to make a better MMO game ... and it'll be about moral choice and the only character you build is your self ... and there'll be time traveling and and factories and GUNS ... yeah ... lots of guns ... and ...
I probably should have kept that to my self ...

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by Cash Car Star on Wed Nov 28th at 11:39am 2007
There's no level building in Puzzle Pirates.
And it's perhaps my biggest disappointment in the otherwise fairly enjoyable Kingdom of Loathing.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by RedWood on Wed Nov 28th at 7:35pm 2007
I have never played a game like Final Fantasy or Wow and i all ready know i would hate them. How do i know you ask. Well, when i was younger (like 11) i used to watch others play them for hours on end. (I had nothing better to do.). What did i learn, Watching that video of your monster attacking some other monster is cool the first few times you see it but after seeing it 50+ times in a row for a singe battle is awful. Then after a 1:15 battle, consisting of the same 25 sec animation over and over again, you walk around a stupid little map for 15 min until you run into someone els and do it all over again (o that was quick, this battle only lasted 20 min). Its not even like your doing anything, your selecting crap form a menu. select attack a, b, or c, ohhhh.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by Crono on Wed Nov 28th at 8:49pm 2007
It's a little more complicated than that.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by reaper47 on Wed Nov 28th at 9:58pm 2007
I once tried Ultima Online for the sake of it. I decided to train my wood-chopping skills because I found it cool to make my own stuff. After 2 hours of clicking on trees (literally) to get enough wood to make a stupid STAFF, I realized this game was totally making fun of me. The worst part of course is when you start realizing that all the things other players brag with, like their cool swords or magic-skills are just the result of clicking the same object on the screen for hours upon hours upon hours. Maybe calculating the best mana/healing-potion ratio first - or finding an exploit of the game that can be used as an advantage. But ultimately everything that's cool in the game requires hours of clicking the same friggin' thing over and over again. To my lacking knowledge this hasn't even changed with WOW.
There are these cool aspects though, like feeling to be part of a huge, persistent world that can be explored with others. If there's any way to have that minus the hours of level-pushing... I might even give it a try again.
It's an interesting thought actually. How can you give players a persistent world without risking them playing through it in a 6-hours session? Should playing time alone be rewarded or are there better aspects of gameplay to be encouraged in a RPG? There are still new genres to invent I guess.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by Cash Car Star on Wed Nov 28th at 11:26pm 2007
? quote:
I have never played a game like Final Fantasy or Wow and i all ready know i would hate them. How do i know you ask. Well, when i was younger (like 11) i used to watch others play them for hours on end. (I had nothing better to do.). What did i learn, Watching that video of your monster attacking some other monster is cool the first few times you see it but after seeing it 50+ times in a row for a singe battle is awful. Then after a 1:15 battle, consisting of the same 25 sec animation over and over again, you walk around a stupid little map for 15 min until you run into someone els and do it all over again (o that was quick, this battle only lasted 20 min). Its not even like your doing anything, your selecting crap form a menu. select attack a, b, or c, ohhhh.
Sounds like you're describing FFVII in particular. Honestly, minus the extremely long flashy graphics sequences, there's a really great game underneath there, with easily one of the best narratives to ever hit a console RPG. But it'd be a lie to say the flashy graphics in no way enhanced its massive commercial success.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by Naklajat on Wed Nov 28th at 11:41pm 2007
I enjoy the exploration aspect of RPGs, I like to go everywhere I can and find all the loot. But the standard combat paradigm of MMORPGs is so damn boring to me I'd rather run from everything, causing my characters to develop slowly and eventually hit a wall in moving through the world where I'm not high enough level to survive the next area. So then I have to run around this area that I've already explored every nook and cranny of, and kill 400 spiders and trolls to level up. In the end these games just make me feel like there's a much better way I could be spending my time... doing anything but clicking on spiders and trolls.
IMO, The final fantasy series is pretty good about having new places to go without having to grind levels to get there. The Castlevania games on PS2 as well. Oh and Prince of Persia, that game kicks ass. But ultimately the fast-paced skill vs. skill action of an online shooter is much more appealing to me than clicking on virtual trees and rocks and most every other type of game, it's what I keep coming back to.
Since this summer I've discovered that just about everyone involved in the game design program at Austin Community College plays World of Warcraft. To the point where two hours of a three hour Design 1 class might be spent relating design concepts to WoW and analyzing the design decisions Blizzard made in it. Some people even play WoW on their laptops in the back of class. Then, when people are standing around after class, the conversation is about WoW by default.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by reaper47 on Thu Nov 29th at 12:03am 2007
? quote:
Since this summer I've discovered that just about everyone involved in the game design program at Austin Community College plays World of Warcraft. To the point where two hours of a three hour Design 1 class might be spent relating design concepts to WoW and analyzing the design decisions Blizzard made in it. Some people even play WoW on their laptops in the back of class. Then, when people are standing around after class, the conversation is about WoW by default.
That game is eating brains.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by Yak_Fighter on Thu Nov 29th at 12:12am 2007
That sounds like a nightmare. I played WoW for a year and a half and I would never ever talk about it with other people in real life. The current weather and celebrity gossip is more interesting.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by omegaslayer on Thu Nov 29th at 3:48am 2007

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by BlisTer on Thu Nov 29th at 8:30am 2007
? quoting Baron von Snickers
But ultimately the fast-paced skill vs. skill action of an online shooter is much more appealing to me than clicking on virtual trees and rocks and most every other type of game, it's what I keep coming back to.
You're making it sound like thee are 2 types of games
thinking+developing= MMO/RPG vs. fastpaced skill-shooting= FPS.
What about RTS or TBS, or a combination of both. Whenever i got a bit bored with FPS, i played one of the Total War games. You've got character development and thinking-ahead strategy and it's not repetitive clicking.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by reaper47 on Thu Nov 29th at 1:58pm 2007
Halo 3: Homophobia Evolved
Granted you could do that with pretty much any online game out there (especially HL-mods like CS), bashing Halo wouldn't really make sense here. But think about someone naming himself "BlackBoy" and getting reactions like that. I never thought about it that way...

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by Cash Car Star on Thu Nov 29th at 7:33pm 2007
I think it's XBox Live thats the accessory to idiocy here, more than any particular game in question. This is what happens when random bored frat boys are allowed online. And why I refuse to use general voicechat in a game.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by RedWood on Thu Nov 29th at 8:16pm 2007
? quote:
It's a little more complicated than that.
I believe you. (not trying to sound sarcastic)

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by reaper47 on Thu Nov 29th at 8:23pm 2007
? quote:
I think it's XBox Live thats the accessory to idiocy here, more than any particular game in question. This is what happens when random bored frat boys are allowed online. And why I refuse to use general voicechat in a game.
I also think it's one of the main reasons Valve never followed the "Commander Mode" idea of the early TF2 concepts. Just think of getting a "command" by a guy like that. *shivers* It's what drove me away from Natural Selection as well. It might be fun if you play with a clan and do it all organized but pub games with voice chat are the worst.

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by Yak_Fighter on Thu Nov 29th at 10:45pm 2007
I never really saw the point in voice chat. I mean sure, you can communicate with people without typing and interfering with your gameplay, but very few games require complex communication to the point that voice comm is necessary. Including it and focusing on it like Live has done just induces idle and pointless chatter. It is one of those 'its great in theory' things that is pretty terrible once implimented, just like MMORPGs and communism.
Besides, there's no better typing training than typing long typo-free orders as fast as you can while in the middle of battle, as my current 80+ wpm would attest 

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Re: Recently Found
Posted by RedWood on Thu Nov 29th at 10:59pm 2007
It would work miracles if people used it efficiently. In Counter Strike, no one ever rounds a corner and jumps back shooting and then says "1 on the left, 2 on the right". Usually people use it as a tool to annoy people (ring ring ring ring.....mute).
I'm sure it's a great tool if your in a clan though. I imagine they use it much more efficiently.

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