THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: teh pwn queen on 27 Mar 2008, 01:53
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I'm doing some research for a project I'm working on and I decided to go on some forums and ask this question:
What do you believe are the worst sins done by (or to) gamers?
List off as many as you can think of.
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tk
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Metagaming if it's a very in character sort of game.
Not metagaming in every other case.
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Spamming in game chat channels.
Speaking in 13375P34K.
Gloating about overwhelming victory over a slain opponent.
Doing all 3 of the above at once.
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Being an XBox Live player.
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Condemning another gamer for their favoring of genres.
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Back tracking.
I hate, HATE backtracking. There are obvious exceptions with timed escapes and such, but just being told that you need to go back 3 levels to use the key is just a waste of time.
Easy game, Impossible boss.
If you've done RPGs enough you'll run across this game. You go, defeat the ultimate power, destroy the baddies and get to the main boss with the ultimate gear, all at level 20. The boss one hits you, toast. You now have to grind 40 levels to beat him. Heh, I hate that.
While on RPG's
Male character exiled from home with only his sword to redeem himself at which time he'll meet a girl and two others who will lead him on a quest to save the world ultimately defeating said evil after multiple multiple close calls. Cliche death.
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Teabagging
Knifing
Kill Stealing
etc
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Being an XBox Live player.
Do you mean that we have to pay or the people in general?
If it's the latter, then rabid fanboyism.
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What specifically do you mean by sins here? I need an example to give a more concrete answer.
If you mean things that are truly evil, then we'll say the general poor sportsmanship of people online. Those who grow up playing basketball, football, soccer, or just any kind of sport in general are taught good sportsmanship. How gloating just makes you an asshole, how playing dirty and unfair ruins enjoyment and is illegal for the most part. People who's first form of competition is online gaming do not learn such rules. They learn the best way to win is to exploit game flaws. They learn you're supposed to teabag dead enemies. They learn you're supposed to taunt in crude ways.
The above also ties in to why I despise most team-based games anymore. Everyone is so caught up in being a poor sport, it ruins any semblance of fun.
If we're talking poor game design, I second everything already mentioned by Scruffy. I'll also add a few to that list.
Worthless NPCs: This one is especially true in Baldur's Gate, but quite a few JRPGs suffer this. Do not give me a character who I am never, ever, ever going to use. Don't give me a guy who doesn't have the correct stats for a class combination, don't give me a character that's incapable of scoring any significant damage with the attack button.
Nonsensical monetary systems: Honestly, what's the point of gold in Final Fantasy Tactics? You accumulate it so fast, you'll never be in want or need of anything you ever might need to purchase (which frankly is quite little, as the game spoon-feeds you grandiose equipment). There's games with the other extreme, as well. Another Final Fantasy, in fact, this time #12. Without loads of grinding items for cash, you'll be behind on either equipment or skills unlocked on the job board thingy doober. In fact, the only games I can think of where the money systems actually make sense (as in you can afford necessary upgrades, but might have to spend a little extra time to get that something special) are the Namco Tales games.
Ammo conservation: Oddly enough, the only games where this would factor in realistically, it's never used. How awesome would a stealthy first person espionage shooter game be if you only had 5 clips for your silenced 9mm? That'd be realistic. Far too often in FPS games, you're swimming in ammo and never have to worry about picking and choosing your targets. Then you get survival horror games (*cough* resident evil *cough*) where you'll spend the majority of the game running away because you have to save all your ammo for the boss in order to actually take him down. Lame.
Next-to-Impossible goals: I appreciate a challenge as much as the next guy, but I do not want to resort to an FAQ for a fucking fighting game to read the ONE possible strategy for scoring a 100 hit combo in a game where a typical above average player can get a good 13 hits in, tops. I don't care if it's technically POSSIBLE; I don't want to spend 5 years perfecting some string of buttons and input press timings to unlock, say, an extra costume. Guitar Hero 3 is very guilty of this. RAINING BLOOD IS TOO HARD FOR THE CASUAL PLAYER. To anyone that says a casual player shouldn't be playing on expert, I say "go die in a fire."
Time Investments: This one especially applies to MMORPGs, but many other games fall in the category. There should never be anything in any game which REQUIRES more than 15 minutes of contiguous play. This means there shouldn't be any 4 hour long exercizes in futility (raids in early World of Warcraft, for example), there should not be any section of a first person shooter which takes more than 15 minutes without a way to save your progress within, there should not be any dungeons in any RPG that take longer than 15 minutes to complete unless again there is a way to save your progress within.
If something DOES take longer than that, at least give me a fucking pause button.
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Being an XBox Live player.
Do you mean that we have to pay or the people in general?
If it's the latter, then rabid fanboyism.
This:
How gloating just makes you an asshole, how playing dirty and unfair ruins enjoyment and is illegal for the most part. People who's first form of competition is online gaming do not learn such rules. They learn the best way to win is to exploit game flaws. They learn you're supposed to teabag dead enemies. They learn you're supposed to taunt in crude ways.
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we're not all like that, i swear. some of us manage to be good people and play on xbox live!
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Yeah, I won't be the first to say that people who play on Xbox Live aren't automatically assholes. Less than 5% of the people I come across are rude in any way. Some games it shows more (*cough cough* shooter of the month) than others, but for the most part, the people you play with are pretty nice guys.
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It does seem to be more rampant in FPS games. It's almost as if the more popular it is, the more everyone on it is a complete asshole.
I've had pleasant experiences with FPS games, even when new. Call of Duty (the original) was pretty awesome when it came out, and Battlefield 2142 was pretty awesome as well. You didn't encounter as many dipshits and assholes because servers almost always had an admin on at some point and because the game was very team-based without gimping you yourself (as in, making it so you're only capable of doing one thing well while having lots of weaknesses *coughTF2cough*), people learned to work together better. You didn't want to piss off someone because you don't know if he's going to be on your team next round, helping you get that unlock you've been trying for a month to get.
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It does seem to be more rampant in FPS games. It's almost as if the more popular it is, the more everyone on it is a complete asshole.
You have no idea how right this statement is. I remember playing Halo 2 when it was really popular and modding or "standby-ing" or "glitching" or what have you, was in, about 5% of the people I played with were nice. That pretty much turned me off of Xbox Live entirely.
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i play alot of CoD4 and the biggest problems i encounter would be people singing, yelling, being annoying in general; in which case i just mute them and all is well. i actually encountered 'teabaggers' for the first time the other day and did not not have a problem with the actual teabagging itself as it temporarily disctracted them, earning more kills for my team. the only problem is that the type of people who do this are also the loud, rude, and usually stupid people you hear so much about. however, as with most things you can just ignore them and everyone is better off.
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The more popular the shooter is, the more likely it is to have a mute option.
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I would say have to agree with Scruffy when he says Tea Bagging. That is pretty much an automatic black listing in my book. Also, I make it my job to personally fuck the person over for the rest of the match. Where ever they are I make sure I find them and kill them in the most humiliating way possible.
With the problem of having to listen to other people, I am mostly voice chatting with my friend so I never have to hear it. Sure, I lose the ability to discuss tactics, but that rarely comes up.
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Having personally played games for nearing 17.5 years of my valuable life (started at 18 months with some flight game which my dad tells me I adored, involved capturing bases and they reinforced regularly.)
Well in all my time, I can express several views. Single-player, Multiplayer(Lan and Online) And MMO (Massm ultiplayer online, not limited to RPG!).
Singleplayer;
In my experience of singleplayer games I think the worst case scenario as previously stated is RPGs, where you need to grind god knows how many levels to proceed. (Even worse in mmorpg, must be level xxx to proceed!In retrospect, thats not to bad, at least your warned!) In singleplayer your only warning is where your last savepoint was, (Worst case scenario, the gorgous game of final fantasy 7, I missed the save point (I simply forgot to save to be honest) And decided I should grind a bit and take on this boss!.... BIIIG mistake. I lost a valuable 16 levels from each character which took me some 6 hours.
(Sin = Self stupidity)
Multiplayer LAN. Well the ultimate sin here is cheating, you can see where everyone else is on a splitscreen, also the blatant stealing of controllers (Thankfully the 360 got rid of unplugged controllers for easy gankage). So that sin of LAN party cheating in part was solved but still present.
(Sin = friends cheating!!!)
Multiplayer Online, Heres where it gets interesting. My first ever online experience was through a game called Diablo 2. I played this on a 56k dialup which i thought was amazing, i rarelyi f ever lagged inthe game, if I did lag, I thoguht it was the games fault and simply waited or logged out and back in. Thats okay. The PROBLEM is when you get the "griefers" Those players who come in, kill you, then leave, stealing your ears in the process.
(Sin = sadistic behaviour)
Now onto the more ... colourful experience of FPS gaming online.
List of FPS's played online;
Halo 1,2,3
Counter strike
Half life
Half life 2
Far cry
Doom 1,2,3
Rainbow 6 (Urgh too many gametypes to even start, but Vegas 1 + 2 are msot recent)
Call of duty 1,2,3,4 (3 on the xbox)
Every one of them I have been exposed to probably the most horrible sin of gaming. "N00bs". Now I have actually left games from the abuse these people give, the torrent of abuse (only on games where I can't mute I add). Is just horrible, I wil lactually list what was said to me tonight while playing Rainbow 6 vegas 2.
"u fukin nub u retard u cnt use a p90!" (I had 17 kills and 3 deaths)
"OMG GET A LIFE!" (Leading the match with 9 kills 0 deaths on a 3 vs 3 with 4 lives each. I got banned for being "Too good" My friend was on his side, and I was in private chat with him, no not cheating, he was giving me insults to, but friendly ones.)
These ones were given after gameover.
"u suk u suk u suk!"
"omfg i fuk you mom!"
"Haha u suk i win!"
"omg dude ur mum was as bad as u!"
"lol ur gay"
And assorted racial slurs. Needless to say in playing vegas 2 for the past few days i've probably tripled my avoided player list.
( sin = Abusive behaviour)
MMOs, now these I like to think i've had a fair amount of experience in. Warcrack being the best. Especially from stories im sure other players can relate to. Such as the groups to go travel a dungeon with, now I used to spend a good hour looking for a group, as soon as I found one, travelled to the instance, got on in, getting ready....The healer would say "BRB dinner"... I swear every time something happened, was either the Tank or healer... The ones vital to the groups success.
(Sin = Other players lack of foresight)
Other stories, Going hunting for materials to craft, killing monsters, and look.. a chest/mineral vein. Oh yay I got here first, noone else around, lets start collecting.. oh no wait im being attacked argh!.... Then you realise a hunter has trained a group up to you and is now stealing your loot. This happened 3 times in one night, you'd have thought i'd have learned but i'm stubborn, I got my revenge, I died 4 times but I got her in the end!
(Sin = Other players greed)
I could go on, but lesee... what of the seven sins could I muster up here....
Wrath, Pride, Greed, Sloth Oh AND Envy...
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Pride can be the most annoying gamer sin outside of any game environment. Honestly, some of the most annoying conversations I've had start with I mention some game I enjoy, and the other gamer chimes in how not only did he beat it but he can beat it with world-record-esque speed and everything found. Even if I do looked impressed, the person just starts going through their mental gaming library, stating how any game they've touched, they've beaten in every way imagined. Not only does this stop being impressive after they go onto games you've never heard of, but you know they're feeding you some bullshit to try and stroke their own ego. I think spending so many years playing with themselves, they've forgotten no one cares about it unless you can youtube the speedrun with a damn high-quality recording system.
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It really depends on the game. Serious online games, the only sin is not winning. Do whatever you need to, but only extend it out of game if that's what you really need to do to compete. Use every advantage and border-line exploit to your advantage because your opponent is sure as hell going to do the same.
Playing for fun the only real sin is being a dick.
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. Even if I do looked impressed, the person just starts going through their mental gaming library, stating how any game they've touched, they've beaten in every way imagined.
Well just to expand on this bit, im guilty of.
Although in honesty the worst I've ever said was I completed final fantasy 10 in a day (its true, the part I don't say is , I cheated.) I hated the sphere grid, so that was totally lame ass I know. But it was unfulfilling so I stopped after that and decided I would play games properly, unless I just plain suck but want to have fun (Lets use half life 2 for example, ravenholm, I got way too scared and decided the ONLY way for me to get through was to cheat, become invincible or so the enemies can't see me. (Hey I'm being honest) But, AFTER I cheated, i went through normally to see if i could do it, so it balances out. (Mainly becauseI saw how fun ravenholm could be!)
Okay drifting, but my point was that I am guilty of pride myself. (Hell in my previous post I bragged about 24756753 - 1 kill ratio, sure I do but its believable and probably you will never ever see it, it still makes me happy I've done it, heck i can't prove much except give my gamer tag to show that in most games I just plain suck except a few!
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I'll take this as a repenting for your ways and you're forgiven. Though honestly, we all have games we're actually good at and love to boast about. For example, I've actually achieved 10 endings in Chrono Trigger and nearly completed the sphere grid for one character in FFX. Oh yeah, and I've beaten every GuitarHero song on Expert except Jordan.
I can't stand the people who tell that story about every game they've played. I think it's the rough edges that make a person interesting anyway. To put this in the context of another gaming example, I can't beat Megaman X and I've never beaten Final Fantasy 6, though the latter is because I hated the final fortress and the split-party system.
Gah, I'm going off-topic! Um... I've also noticed gamers speak of gaming-characters as real people in their life. But that's less a gaming flaw and more of a taking-modern-entertainment-too-seriously thing.
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you want to knwo something scary? it took me 6 years to complete final fantasy 7. SIX YEARS! Thats because I got lost.... afterI had to go find a key, i had no idea where I was supposed to go, I thought I had to kill emereld weapon (I never did, I never even killed ruby, I weas only succesful inbreeding a gold chocobo in my sixth year, thats when i completed the game I got knights of the round, and absoloutely owned sephiroth in the easiest way possible.
Repenting my sins? of course thats what im good at, I am honest, I am a great gamer, I have gamed as said previously the majority of my life, I like to think of myself as excelling in any game I touch, which is basically lying to mysefl, i usck at so many games. What is BETTER to say is im good at some games over others.
I am so derailing this thread, I know it but I can't stop myself.
I mean, I am 100% sure you have encountered the l33t "n00b" I say noob as the definition of these players, not newbie, not l33t speaker, just simpley noob.
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13 year olds and teabaggers and noobs aside, I think the one most irritating thing I've ever had to deal with in any online game, was Grammar police.
Stay with me on this one.
Playing Warcraft3, one of the Tower Defense custom maps (I've always preferred coop to vs. in multiplayer) About 25 mins into the game, everyone's screaming at me, and the guy who's hosting is threatening to kick/ban me.
Why?
Because I'm using capitals and punctuation.
Yeah.
They were so freaked out by forming sentences properly, that the host was willing to essentially lose the game (It was a very "all-spots-must-be-defended" type of TD) just so that they wouldn't have to read Capitals and Periods anymore.
....
Oh, and I really hate tea-bagging. Stuffing your bits into the mouth of a male corpse (in the case of gaming anyways) is no way to prove how masculine you are, and how gay you aren't.
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Wow, when you said grammar police, I thought it'd be the opposite. You're talking about grammar-haters? That sounds absolutely insane. I mean, I was one of those proper-response people in my time on World of Warcraft and the worst thing I suffered never speaking in combat because I would take too long to respond.
Siert, noobs have been around way before the invention of the internet. They're just easier to identify when they're forced to express themselves in writing.
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Worthless NPCs: This one is especially true in Baldur's Gate, but quite a few JRPGs suffer this. Do not give me a character who I am never, ever, ever going to use. Don't give me a guy who doesn't have the correct stats for a class combination, don't give me a character that's incapable of scoring any significant damage with the attack button.
Honestly, this wasn't so much an oversight on Bioware's part as it was a conscious decision to make Baldur's Gate adhere as closely to orthodox AD&D as possible. If you weren't allowed to reroll stats indefinitely or add / subtract from rolls (as in Temple of Elemental Evil, for example) when you created characters you'd have PCs with similar stats to those of Khalid or Xzar. In AD&D an 18 stat (let alone 18/97 strength like Minsc's) is supposed to be considered exceptional and rare. Of course, us powergaming tabletop players would always fudge our rolls anyway, and it's practically unthinkable to have characters whose primary stat with less than 17. Honestly, I consider 3rd ed point buy to be even worse. Min-maxing really sucks.
Some things I can think of:
- In racing games, oftentimes there will be "rubber band AI" implemented, meaning that if you are ahead of computer opponents, they will get an extra, improbable burst of speed allowing them to catch up with you. Other times, this manifests in computer opponents actually slowing down when a player has fallen behind.
- Grind levels in normally grind-averse games. Example - Baator in Planescape: Torment. All fighting none of the character interaction or attention to environment detail that the rest of the game benefits from.
- Level scaling. This is a pretty rare thing, but it plagued Oblivion something fierce.
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He who uses the n00b tube must be slain!
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Grinding: Final Fantasy is BY FAR the worst offender of this. That's all the game is. I have NEVER been killed in that game by anything other than a ridiculous boss. I get to spend another 2-3 hours levelling up and getting ready, fighting the boss, and then getting to the next place.
Bad Voice Acting: Euuuuuuuugh, boring voices bug the hell out of me. Overacting is a common occurence in a lot of games and should be shot.
FPS's: I have played a fair number of FPS's and honestly, there are SO many out there that are TOO similar and just boring. There have been some good ones recently, but the rate that they're pumped out is insane.
Non-Skippable Videos: Ever hate having that in a game, where you sit through a 5-10 minute video before a boss, fight the boss, die, and then have to watch the same video again because the makers of the game didn't think of allowing you the option of skipping videos? There were a fair number of PS2 games I had where I would get owned by a bass 4-6 times and be forced to watch the video again...and again....and again.
Racing Games: Nascar is not fun....GT is not fun either....really.
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Grinding: Final Fantasy is BY FAR the worst offender of this. That's all the game is. I have NEVER been killed in that game by anything other than a ridiculous boss. I get to spend another 2-3 hours levelling up and getting ready, fighting the boss, and then getting to the next place.
A few people have mentioned this so far, and I have to say I disagree. Of course, back when I was a kid, this was the solution but now that I'm older and have a much better grasp of what I'm doing, I can beat most JRPGs without resorting to a level grind. I think I was like level 34 or something when I beat FF4 last time I played it because I actually ran away from most random encounters in XP-heavy zones like the tower of babel. Zeromus was a bitch but I got him in the end.
Bad Voice Acting: Euuuuuuuugh, boring voices bug the hell out of me. Overacting is a common occurence in a lot of games and should be shot.
Oh god, yes. I wish more companies would invest in worthwhile voice actors because it makes or breaks a lot of games. The Namco Tales series, for example, all have wonderful voice acting, which makes it so it's not a tedious grind through all character interactions. Then you've got Star Ocean 3. OH GOD. OH GOD MAKE HIM SHUT UP.
FPS's:
Racing Games:
That's just personal opinion there. You can't call an ENTIRE GENRE a gaming sin. I agree that there's far too many FPS games coming out too frequently with little to no innovation, but that doesn't make the GENRE worthless.
Racing games can be quite fun. I enjoyed the hell out of all the Gran Turismo games so far, although I never really did care for the endurance races. Granted, I think the Nascar ones are pointless and silly, but that's because I think Nascar in general is pointless and silly. YOU GO IN AN OVAL TRACK FOR 500 LAPS. GEE WHIZ. YOU ARE A DRIVING ACE THERE, BUCKO.
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This is great guys... keep it coming!!!
And to answer Narr's questions...
I'm not looking for anything specific... I'm just curious as to what the masses believe are bad, stupid, horrible, dumb, etc. things done by or done to gamers... no matter what type of game.
As said before, please keep posting.
Thank you.
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I'm not looking for anything specific... I'm just curious as to what the masses believe are bad, stupid, horrible, dumb, etc. things done by or done to gamers... no matter what type of game.
Well if theres any area of your report / thesis / dissertation that your lacking in just say im pretty sure you could get your information here.
Todays encounter with gaming profanity!
Halo 3 (I walked into this one, I actually wenton halo 3 matchmaking, so this is self inflicted).
When walking in Halo3 you have an option of turning on the enemies radio, so you can hear them when you get close. This proves strategically vital if you are sneaking around intending on getting a silent kill. But when your in a little hidey hole and one of their team is singing "LAAA LAALLAALAAA LALALALALAAAA YOUR GAY YOU GAY YOUR A FAGGY *racial slurs here* LAALAA" I just sat jaw agape, sure I am meant to be de-sensitized to it, but it wasn't that, it was the fact that the people on his team that had no idea how ot mute were suffering this.
Do people actually care what they say? or do they simply think the world revolved around them? Are they the number one people on this planet?
Sins used today?
"Sloth + Pride"
OH and greed, I got teamkilled because I picked up the rocket launcher, (Got to love the betrayel kick system!)
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John Gabriel's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory (http://www.pennyarcademerch.com/pat070381.html)
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Any game that judges you on your score, in like a platformer or beat-em-up that has the score reset if you die.
Basically, in order to get the top rank for performance (not high-score list, just if the game says "Great job" or "You suck" to you on how you played) you cannot die.
I would be willing to put up with this if the score did not reset when one died.
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A few more
Tutorial Missions: Having a completely seperate tutorial mission for games is almost always useless. What I mean by this is having like a tutorial "obstacle course" where you learn to do things as you move through the course. Give me a relatively simple first mission and teach me from there....then everything is cool.
Easy Mode is Too Easy And Hard Mode is Too Hard: I like my games to be playeable. I went through Kingdom Hearts II in easy and normal mode and I only died once. Easy doesn't mean that you should be invincible. It should just mean that the game doesn't kill you so many times you want to chuck your console out of the house. Hard Modes are sometimes fun, sometimes. Generally Hard modes mean there are more enemies and are stronger...I'm fine with that, but when there are twice as many enemies, who have twice as much health, do more damage, and added to that your own health is a tiny fraction of normal mode you have a serious problem.
No Side Quests: Almost every game needs sidequests, or even just little stuff you can mess around with. The reason why RPG's like Final Fantasy can be so fun is because there's so much stuff you can do without having to advance the plot. I've played a few RPG's that have little to no sidequests (don't ask for names, they were 3rd party crappy PS2 games that my friend lent me) And it drags the game down so much. Any FPS could be made a million times more fun if they gave you some sidequests.
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I'm not sure I have much of a problem with that personally, muteKi. I know that for me, one of the things that made the Megaman Zero series so fun compared to the other Megaman games is that in order to get all the extra spiffy moves, you had to beat every mission with an A rank. Not only did dying make it next to impossible to get an A rank on that mission, taking too much damage (usually more than your average life bar, assuming you've picked up health packs) made is super hard, too. And there was usually a very strict deadline.
Go back and try playing a game like as you described until you finally CAN beat a stage without dying. Once you get into "hardcore" gaming (as defined by me and my friends at PlayItHardcore.com), it's hard to hate on a challenging yet beatable game.
But like I said earlier, when the game expects the insanely difficult (as in the next to impossible), then I draw the line.
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Easy Mode is Too Easy And Hard Mode is Too Hard: I like my games to be playeable. I went through Kingdom Hearts II in easy and normal mode and I only died once. Easy doesn't mean that you should be invincible. It should just mean that the game doesn't kill you so many times you want to chuck your console out of the house. Hard Modes are sometimes fun, sometimes. Generally Hard modes mean there are more enemies and are stronger...I'm fine with that, but when there are twice as many enemies, who have twice as much health, do more damage, and added to that your own health is a tiny fraction of normal mode you have a serious problem.
Ninja Gaiden avoided the Too Easy trap... by having a normal mode that's tough as balls and a hard mode that will kill your family.
I believe this is the Penny Arcade comic (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/08) that depicts that, but I'm not sure because their server is down.
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Hacks, LAG, people whining about cheap shots/camping/melee kills/humiliation.
I play at LAN alot and there are LAN rules or "The LAN Commandments" if you will.
Basic stuff - no AFK in tourneys, no sexual orientation hatred, no dickery etc.
But yeah, LAG is the worst thing in the world outside of gamers control. After that hax but they are in gamers control.
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Hacks, LAG, people whining about cheap shots/camping/melee kills/humiliation.
But yeah, LAG is the worst thing in the world outside of gamers control. After that hax but they are in gamers control.
Here I have to add my own review of this. LAG oh my I agree, do you notice it seems to benefit the other team? They jump around all the time your bullets won't hit, or even register leaving the gun! Such a mess... empty billions of bullets and realise that NOTHING happened except you got hit in the back of the he ad and have died on the other side of the map...
I detest lag... Althouhg my friend educated me on how pings work and how people exploit them, i don't ping he never taught me how to do it (Doubt I ever wold, im a fair gamer).
I play at LAN alot and there are LAN rules or "The LAN Commandments" if you will.
Basic stuff - no AFK in tourneys, no sexual orientation hatred, no dickery etc.
Oooh got to tell me more abotu this, lan commandments? intriguing, so im guessing similar antics to what happens with us, glaring at others screens ,insulting each other and of course jerking out controllers...
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I'm not sure I have much of a problem with that personally, muteKi. I know that for me, one of the things that made the Megaman Zero series so fun compared to the other Megaman games is that in order to get all the extra spiffy moves, you had to beat every mission with an A rank. Not only did dying make it next to impossible to get an A rank on that mission, taking too much damage (usually more than your average life bar, assuming you've picked up health packs) made is super hard, too. And there was usually a very strict deadline.
Go back and try playing a game like as you described until you finally CAN beat a stage without dying. Once you get into "hardcore" gaming (as defined by me and my friends at PlayItHardcore.com), it's hard to hate on a challenging yet beatable game.
But like I said earlier, when the game expects the insanely difficult (as in the next to impossible), then I draw the line.
Well, I think its a problem when the game is designed to kill you 10 ways to Sunday, like Sonic Heroes often is. That would have made the super tight controls a feature rather than an occasional limitation.
Also -- games without fully customizable controls.
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Easy Mode is Too Easy And Hard Mode is Too Hard:
Bioshock did an amazing job of avoiding this. the hard modes were much harder but they were actually alot of fun rather than ridiculously frustrating and impossible.
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Bioshock had the "infinite respawns" your only punishment was you had slightly over 1/3 health and mana. But you didn't loose anything and enemies still has reduced health from the last attack.
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No punishment for death is a big issue with me. At least with Bioshock, you can turn vita-chambers off. It's just kind of stupid to me that you'd have a game, which is usually some sort of test of skill, and not have any penalties for failing. The ONLY game I can think of where this doesn't really matter to me is Planescape: Torment because the reason you play it is to be immersed in a world and a universe, where the story is vastly more important.
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Hmm, I think there needs to be a line between suitable punishment and unfair.
Let us take MMORPGs, these are a worthy choice, they are businesses, thus a death penalty is a reasonable "Stall".
Which would you rate as worse. Loosing 10% of your exp (Someimtes loosing a elvel, depending how cruel the game is)
OR
Gaining a debuff that lasts between 10 minutes and two hours that reduces your statistics (And capability of preventing you dying, again!)
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I don't think Bioshock's intent is to be a test of skill either, to be honest. I'd argue that it has a similar goal to Planescape: Torment, it's just in a genre that is more action-oriented.
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I go online and the people on my team and the opposing team both tell me GTFO NOOB and no one tells me what I should be doing and I just get killed a million times and they tell me how stupid and retarted I am.
People tell you that even if your brilliant... believe me I get it for using a gun that everyone thinks sucks.
(The infamous P90) ... I seem to do fairly well with it, but I get told im retarded, gay, need a life, faggot...and racial slurs... its a lovely experience!
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The P90 is considered a bad weapon? really?
Fuck that. You unlock the damn weapon, you deserve to use it.
@ roxie_vinyl: Yeah, Blizzard fans are notorious elitists. Be glad you've never discussed class talent tree specs inside World of Warcraft. That's an excersize in futility.
That actually brings me to Elitism. It's pretty prevalent outside of gaming as well, really. It's just extremely noticable inside gaming, as everyone has to voice their opinion. Before I go further, I must say I am incredibly guilty of this sin.
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Tutorial Missions: Having a completely seperate tutorial mission for games is almost always useless. What I mean by this is having like a tutorial "obstacle course" where you learn to do things as you move through the course. Give me a relatively simple first mission and teach me from there....then everything is cool.
I missed replying to this earlier, though as I think about it I have to disagree.
I think that making a tutorial mission or level COMPULSORY is a very bad idea overall.
HOWEVER, if I don't have a manual for the game I don't know how to do anything at all, just hope that the controls are very intuitive or GameFAQs has something on that matter. Even then I might miss out on more advanced techniques.
If the game gives me the opportunity to become accustomed to how it plays while not punishing me and making sure I actually know how to use the controls, I am happy. I may not even ever have to consult the manual.
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I hate games that have all these incredibly destructive weapons but then you get stuck by a door.
Half-life 2 is extremely guilty of this. I still love the game however.
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Grinding: Final Fantasy is BY FAR the worst offender of this. That's all the game is.
Ha ha. Ah ha ha ha.
(Honestly, the only Final Fantasy where grinding is most of the damn game would be 1, 2, maybe 3 and 11 [haven't played them], and 12 but mostly for cash. The FF series is pretty sane when it comes to grinding most of the time)
I'm an old-school JRPG player, so I can stand a lot of bullshit, but fuck FF7 for bringing clunky, stupid, and inappropriate mini-games in vogue.
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For rainbow six vegas 2. ALL guns are bloody awesome, they each have strengths.
Just people hate P90, Famas, M468 + aug Para. because they fart bullets.
I mean i killed 8 people withh all 51 bullets of a P90 (One in the chamber, ssh.)
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Non-Skippable Videos: Ever hate having that in a game, where you sit through a 5-10 minute video before a boss, fight the boss, die, and then have to watch the same video again because the makers of the game didn't think of allowing you the option of skipping videos? There were a fair number of PS2 games I had where I would get owned by a bass 4-6 times and be forced to watch the video again...and again....and again.
I can see where you're coming from but I basically love cutscenes. Basically if a game has good cutscenes it could make or break the entire game for me. That said, I get pissed off when you can't skip cutscenes that you have seen before! I happily it through the 10 minutes of exposition for the first time around because I'm interested but if I want to play that level again at a later date I already know the story! Just let me kill bad guys!
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MGS3 had it right. You could go through the game skipping the cutscenes, but at a certain point it bit you on the ass (skipping a cutscene prevents you from gaining a very useful radio frequency)
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Someone earlier made me think of another thing older RPGs tended to do that still bothers me.
Unintuitive stat systems.
Face it. If you didn't read up on stats in AD&D, you were probably going to make a crap character. The first time I played Baldur's Gate, I didn't realize how it worked as all I knew at the time was 3rd edition. I made a character that would have whopped ass in 3rd, but didn't have a single bonus to anything inside AD&D rules. I couldn't kill anything. It was pretty bad.
The worst offender of this one is BY FAR the Fallout games. To this day, I am incapable of making a good character. I just do what my friends tell me to do who know the innards of the game like the back of their hands.
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Non-Skippable Videos: Ever hate having that in a game, where you sit through a 5-10 minute video before a boss, fight the boss, die, and then have to watch the same video again because the makers of the game didn't think of allowing you the option of skipping videos? There were a fair number of PS2 games I had where I would get owned by a bass 4-6 times and be forced to watch the video again...and again....and again.
I can see where you're coming from but I basically love cutscenes. Basically if a game has good cutscenes it could make or break the entire game for me. That said, I get pissed off when you can't skip cutscenes that you have seen before! I happily it through the 10 minutes of exposition for the first time around because I'm interested but if I want to play that level again at a later date I already know the story! Just let me kill bad guys!
That's essentially what I'm talking about.
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The worst offender of this one is BY FAR the Fallout games. To this day, I am incapable of making a good character. I just do what my friends tell me to do who know the innards of the game like the back of their hands.
Seriously?
I mean if you want an easy and powerful character, you follow three rules -
1. Gifted. Take it.
2. Tag small guns. This will pull you through the first 80% of the game.
3. Tag energy weapons. This will pull you through the last 20% of the game.
It just makes the most sense. You even get a bit of variety in choosing your third skill, the only detriment is that you can't have a full-on "rogue" character because you aren't awarded enough tag skills. You could probably drop energy weapons, but it'll make the endgame a bit harder (although taking the Tag! perk later on can fix that) #2 is the biggest thing. Going without Small Guns tagged is for seasoned players only.
That's really all you need. The SPECIAL system is pretty great in comparison to something like the TES system, conceptually and practically. As far as the worst CCS, that would probably go to Arcanum. At a certain point in the game 80% of all character builds became gimped, because of a lack of thorough design.
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haha, well, then let me rephrase.
Unintuitive game builds because there's only one or two viable options despite the fact it's toted as something where you can toy around with different builds.
At least you can play as whatever you want in Neverwinter Nights 2 and not feel like you went down the wrong path. The game will take care of your character creation if you're new to the whole 3rd ed thing, and for people who like to metagame, there's plenty of options that are all viable. (My personal favorite: Enchanter Red Mage. I lost out on most defensive spells in the game but my DC vs. enchantment spells was absurd. I just charmed most everything I fought or put it to sleep for a coup de grace.)
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Only a couple of viable builds? Dude, you can go through the ENTIRE game of Fallout without even fighting a single enemy, if you want to. There are at least 3 methods to get through the game, whereas pretty much every D&D game's method is : kill the enemies.
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By LAG I am including "Connection errors/interrupts" and stuff, ping reg interpolation etc. are most likely what you were told about. LAG is an unstoppable force of evil when packets are dropped or connections are lost, you can replicate *some* of the stuff by messing with how you send packets, this is known as rates hacking.
The LAN Commandments
1- Honor thy admins and thy organisers
2- Honor the tournaments and keep them holy
3- Thou shall not eat fish pies or any sort of higgehfidel foods, lest the angel of the lord admin smite thee with his divine backhand
4- Thou shall not be a drama llama, for it is the way of noobs and satan.
5- Thou shall not leech forth from others during designated game time
6- Thou shall not play Single player games, during the sabbath hours.
7- Thou shall not covet thy neighbours CD-Keys
8- Thou shall not host a network game with a password unless it's an arranged mix or tournament
9- Thou shall not use 1337 in vain
10- Thou shall not commit adultery, by raping the bandwith of a shared net connection
We don't really count hacking because nobody does it. at our LANs.
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Only a couple of viable builds? Dude, you can go through the ENTIRE game of Fallout without even fighting a single enemy, if you want to. There are at least 3 methods to get through the game, whereas pretty much every D&D game's method is : kill the enemies.
Yet again,
UNINTUITIVE.
If you loaded the game for the first time, even with the manual, would you have known that? Or would you have just guessed as to what you should do for a character (like I did) and end up making a really sorry guy?
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well, as long as you knew the distinction between small and big guns (I originally thought Assault Rifles and such were big guns) it's just one of those things. Melee characters are advanced builds in all games where automatic ranged weapons are prevalent. It's sort of like going through Baldur's Gate expecting to kick ass as a dagger specialist.
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It's easy to beat Baldur's Gate with a dagger. You're losing a potential 4 damage off every attack as compared to most other one handed weapons. Big-whoopty-doo.
i tried Fallout and discovered it was impossible to actually succeed in hitting anything unless you maxed out your agility and perception scores, meaning he sucked at everything else, which made me rather angry at how completely unintuitive the character creation is.
it's a problem with most older computer RPGs, really.
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Narr, it's ok if you suck at a game. We all have our shitty games.
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I suck as said earlier at beat-em-ups. I also suck at platformers, althouhg im doing pretty good in mario galaxy.
Back on point. LATEST encounter, this one made my ears bleed Halo 3 online, me and a few friends were aplying online, then our party got split with others (Not enough for 4v4 so 3v3, guess who joined the other team? Yours truley.
Right it goes well, i get in the Warthod (3 man vehicle with a massive cannon on the back) A guy get in and becomes gunner, he gets me a few medals for being a good driver, then we blow up... I get out kill two people and hear this over my headpiece.
"OMFG I PWN THESE FAGGOTS LAWL! OMG I KIK ASS!"
Score at moment, my team : my friends
5 : 3 (Remember I died in the warthog, killing three people, and i killed another two So technically thanks to me i got those 5 kills)
I decide to go into my hiding place, so I sneak back hide behind some concrete and make art.
Score at end of match? 5 : 50 ... My friends obliterated them. And I made soem fancy equipment art, I made a box!...with boxes! (I refuse to do what other and giver free kills, so I simply hid and waited, cowardly? no, I just don't appreciate my friends being insulted by skillless pricks.
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Yeah, in those situations I tend to do everything in my power to make it suck for the not-my-friends. I'll throw Flares and Radar Jammers down like nobody's business, and try to destroy all the vehicles and deplete the ammo of the good weapons.
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i tried Fallout and discovered it was impossible to actually succeed in hitting anything unless you maxed out your agility and perception scores, meaning he sucked at everything else, which made me rather angry at how completely unintuitive the character creation is.
it's a problem with most older computer RPGs, really.
I didn't find that at all.
I did however, get completely mauled in Arcanum my first two times in a row. I still have no idea how to build a character for that game.
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The main problem with Arcanum was probably that the experience system was really fucked. It was a level system but it used a gain-by-use system similar to TES. As a result, a guy running around with a dagger capable of 8-10 hits in a round could be counted on to gain levels much faster than a guy with a sword or a magic-user. Tech users would be completely fucked even if the experience system was coherent, which begs the question why they set the game in a steampunk setting in the first place.
That wasn't the worst part, though. The worst part was that party members didn't have their own experience, they leveled up with you. This would have been fine were it not for the fact that you didn't get experience when your party members scored a hit. So if you built a character based off of speech and charisma who would assemble a team of loyal followers to do your bidding, you gained exponentially less experience the more people you had in your party, and thus your party became exponentially less effective against the progressively tougher enemies in the game. It was a complete mess. The best character build was a half-ogre with maxed out strength and no charisma / intelligence.
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Yeah, in those situations I tend to do everything in my power to make it suck for the not-my-friends. I'll throw Flares and Radar Jammers down like nobody's business, and try to destroy all the vehicles and deplete the ammo of the good weapons.
ACtually thats a good idea but i don't want to give free kills or ruin my awesome K/D spread with them shooting at me. So hiding was the best call there :) Also the fact its a new map so.... I know where none of the awesome gadgets are :*(
ALSO. I hate.HATE HAATE!
leeches, the people who join a match and do NOTHING expecting you to pick up the slack, not being newbie, newbie i udnerstand, jsut the peopel who join but put their controller down.... I ahte the mso much.
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I did however, get completely mauled in Arcanum my first two times in a row. I still have no idea how to build a character for that game.
You just need the skill to make molotov cocktails. Then wonder around the cities farming the materials. I think this is the easiest way to get yourself through bits where you're thoroughly outgunned and out-hped.
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Any game that judges you on your score, in like a platformer or beat-em-up that has the score reset if you die.
Basically, in order to get the top rank for performance (not high-score list, just if the game says "Great job" or "You suck" to you on how you played) you cannot die.
Yeah I hate that, especially when I'm quite a tactical player a lot of the time. I don't go rambo all the time, probably not even most of the time, but I play to help my team/side win and a lot of the time I get ranked badly because of it. I guess that's why when I do play games, it's usually Enemy Territory, because of the good support aspect.
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ACtually thats a good idea but i don't want to give free kills or ruin my awesome K/D spread with them shooting at me. So hiding was the best call there :) Also the fact its a new map so.... I know where none of the awesome gadgets are :*(
ALSO. I hate.HATE HAATE!
leeches, the people who join a match and do NOTHING expecting you to pick up the slack, not being newbie, newbie i udnerstand, jsut the peopel who join but put their controller down.... I ahte the mso much.
WoW has a similar problem, people will enter a bg just to get the marks for winning (or not winning). Though Bliz has made some progress with deterring people from doing that, you can now target a member as AFK and if they don't attack the opposing team they'll be marked as AFK and will be soon kicked out. What makes it even better is if you leave a bg as AFK, you you become a 'deserter' and can't enter again for 15 min, which is long in game standards.
Although once I got marked because I was guarding a node along with the other ones who were too and we threw a fit, luckily we broke the tag and were able to stay in the game, we were all really pissed.
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Oh god, Alterac Valley AFKers made me hate life.
There's a good reason Horde lost on every battlegroup known to man. It's because 90% of those who joined just sat in the tunnels.
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If you afk you leave BG now though which is awesome.
You can also report people for being afk.
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I used to do that in the old days, for reputation, I would hide behidn the tank in Dun Baldur (I think... or Alguz.. its Dun something!) and just sit for hours earning reputation, thats how I got my exalted with those dwarves. was an easy way around it but I mean I was a "Healadin" Raid specced, so the most i could do was scrap a bit of armour, noone liked a healer either.
"OMG STOP HEALING NUB I R IMBA!" Seriously, i got so many insults for healing.... I mean ...what?
Then after they cntinually nerfed it and I heard of the burning crusade me and a friend made a warlock. Took us about 2 months we got to elvel 60 each, we roleplayed, we PvPed (I was usually number one due to my obsession with spell damage > survival) and hurrah, then the portal opened and me and my friend went forth. Took us .. I think it was 7 days and we were both level 70 and we had achieved numerous goals by ourselves (He actually turned into his warrior, he couldn't be bothered levelling the warlock, which benefitted us nicely, I also had my summoned pet to help out.
We killed The giant spider, Sand worm, big frost wyrm, the Grull in the ... green bit, the one that circles the rock Osh...Osh something. We achieved a lot, there was very few monsters we couldn't figure out how to kill with just the three of us (Demonolgy Warlock, Arm Warrior and Felguard.) It worked well , I just made lots of healthstones and soulstoned regularly, and well, it worked wonders.
I did well up until I became obselete in a single PVP patch where my gear could be replaced in 2 days... seriously my gear ... well is insane i've not updated it since i quit. *shrugs*
New encounter today!
Playing halo 3 onlin with me best bud, doing some Ranked Team doubles. We start it up all merry and cheerful. it comes up "construct" were like "Fantastic we know the tactics on this map inside out!"
So it starts, we rush we start shooting and jump in some teleporters, we gear up and wait for them to chase....nothing... noone, not even a smidge of motion on our scanners, we start gearing up, looting some of the powerful weapons (A super sword (MEIN!) and a sniper rifle (MAtes speciality, although you wouldn't think it from the next match...). So we get ready thinking "right they must be planning to rush us".
Timer ticks on, "Five minutes remaining!" ..on a ten minute match that was slow... we figured out where they were, we had scouted the entire upper floor of the map, and we caught motion sometimes, they were beneath us!
So my mate knows a sneaky path and just jumps (yes jumps) down off the ledge and plants a perfect headshot, absoloutely gorgous on the guy who is crouched in a corner looking up at where we were.
So then all hell breaks loose in this last minute, and the two enemies rush me!! So I pull out my sword and hack and slash, it ends with us on 5 points them on -1 (One jumped off the ledge....)
Point?... Camping sunsa bitches! We kept running around, being careful trying not to give it away throwing frags round corners.... So we won it but it was quite upsetting :(.
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Hm, that makes me think of another sin:
Poor level design in multiplayer matches.
Honestly, I think Valve is guilty of this. It hurts to say it, but they do not know how to make a fun CTF map. Honestly, I don't know a single person that enjoys a round of 2fort. There's a few people who CLAIM to like it, but if you ask them to explain what specifically they like about it, they cannot come up with an answer more in-depth than "It's fun?"
As much as I love Call of Duty 4, spawn camping is entirely too easy. Spawn camping should be next to impossible to properly pull off, if levels are designed properly. Firstly, spawn nodes should NEVER be in the complete open. That's just redonkulous. Secondly, make multiple exit strategies for any one side of a map so that if you ARE getting pinned down, you can try to escape another way. I can think of oh-so many FPS games that can't seem to get this part right. Battlefield 2142 had a lot of infantry maps where it was too easily pigeon-holed toward one route, Call of Duty 4's random spawn policy doesn't seem to ever randomly keep you out of the line of fire, and TF2 has too many maps where you can't even leave the starting location without dying unless you're a spy, and even then it's a crapshoot.
It's most obvious in FPS games as they are the most commonly played competitive online game, but it's not just beholden to them. Seeing as lots of people have mentioned World of Warcraft lately, let's talk Alterac Valley. You cannot ever start on the opposing side as you are locked into your faction. Because the map was, for no good reason, NOT mirrored for both sides, this puts one ahead of the other due to sheer logistics, always. The Alliance have it easier. It's just fact. Their towers are harder to raid (as ALL archers shoot you at any given time, because of how open it is. Their final base is harder to raid because there's a long bridge you MUST pass in order to proceed, making it an effective bottleneck and a staging ground for a stonewall. The Horde city isn't defended by their towers, anyway, meaning it can be wiped out without any alliance player breaking a sweat. There's more paths through their little town, too, so it's impossible for Horde defensive players to bottleneck Alliance raiders.
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Fake obstacles is one that I really, really hate. It happens in a lot of games. Halflife has already been mentioned, but pretty but every FPS is guilty of it to one degree or another. I've had scenarios where I couldn't progress due to a large glass window. I had guns, rockets, grenades, etc. The window was marked as indestructable. It shits me. That plus this other thing is one of the reasons I have a love/hate relationship with Guild Wars. The other thing is spawning/re-spawning out of nowhere bad guys. Fuck that noise. I don't mind the odd ambush, but getting stopped every 10m by some motherfucker popping up out of the ground like magic is really fucking annoying, especially if I just walked by this way a few seconds ago and cleared it out.
While I am bitching about MMORPGs I'll mention requirement creep, the multitude of little time-slowing phenomena that occur (mostly in MMORPGS) whereby everything starts to take longer and longer as you level up. For example, a low-level PC can utterly destroy a similar level beastie, but once you start passing a certain level an "even con" encounter will start getting harder, forcing you into a group. Let's set this straight, game creators - I like grouping up with other players on occasion, but I don't want to be forced to group. Most people online are morons. I do not want to be forced into interaction with them just to play the game. I want to be able to pop online, kill some bad guys for an hour or so and see some kind of progress, then pop off for tea. I don't want to get online at 7pm and look for a group for the next half-hour only to wind up with a pack of half-witted cretins who don't know one end of a sword from the other.
Another example of this is that things tend to become more and more spread out the higher the level. At lower levels you're told "go hit that thing over there and come back" or "go kill cute little seals and bring me back their delicious eyes" and you do, and it's great. Once you start to hit the middling levels it's all "go three areas across, pick a flower, take it to another continent and show it to Grand Inquisitor Fuckface, and then he'll give you the real quest." (eg: kill larger, not-so cute woolly mammoths, bring back their delicious spleens). "Oh, and on your way back be a good lad and pop over to the inn and grab me an ale, I figure I'll be thirsty from all this rigorous sitting I seem to enjoy doing".
It's not really even the travelling I mind, it's that it's all a contrivance. I don't need to be slowed down in a game I am enjoying. I will stay with the game longer if I enjoy it and can sense some kind of progress without devoting my life to it. When I have a limited amount of time to play with I want to be able to get on, have fun, then leave. I don't want to jump through hoops to be able to do things I used to do just fine at a lower level and I don't want to have to run/gallop/hitch a ride/take a boat for half a fucking hour to get to where I need to be to do it. Slow down the rate at which I gain experience if need be, but just let me play the game and have fun as opposed to slowly turning it into a second job.
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I totally agree.
If I made an MMO, group dynamics would never require more than 3 people, ever. I'd also try to make a system where "guilds" couldn't have more than, say, 15 people. Basically, I'd aim for casual from the get-go, and institute "hardcore" things later on in successive patches if there was enough demand for it.
Sadly, MMOs are a terrible genre simply because World of Warcraft has such a majority of the market share. Every other MMO out there right now is PURELY a substitute for WoW players looking for something new, I swear to god.
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I don't get MMORPGs. They have no plot, story, memorable characters, or anything like that - instead, they have a long grind to get to the next level. If I wanted to go out and mindlessly kill people, I'd play a FPS or an action game.
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Games in which we don't mindlessly kill people:
-Tetris
-Katamari Damacy
-???
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Both of which are games which could be improved by the addition of killing.
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I was going to post a retort outlining the meaning of the word 'mindless', but the idea of violent Tetris is just too awesome to ignore.
Camelpimp, you are going to be rich and famous.
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Well, we need something to balance out that pornographic pac-man game.
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Violent Tetris: There is a bad guy on the right in the bar thing & every time you complete a line it shoots him in the head & drags another bad guy onto the screen.
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Well, we need something to balance out that pornographic pac-man game.
please don't tell me this is true.. that pacman promotes pornography?
Personally I thought it promoted going "Wakka" whenever you ate from a pez dispenser...
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It exists -- though it's not with Pac-Man. You're basically a clit and the ghosts are now (animated) penises. The pills are the same but are now called "contraceptives".
Man, some people come up with CRAZY shit.
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Are you SERIOUS!?.... dear me you msut be.... i'm disturbed now...
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I know Ms. Pac-Man is special. She's fun. She's cute. She swallows.
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Reminds me of Pussycity Pimps, which was a remake of Rivercity Ransom. Everyone walked around with boners and the women were topless.
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I remember Pussycity Pimps. If I remember correctly, the "plot" had something to do with the protagonists "ho" having been kidnapped or something like that.
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Tetris Blast for the original Gameboy
Perhaps the best Gameboy game ever.
There is a mode where you kill mosters by strategically blowing up tetris lines.
Also, perhaps the best Tetris game.
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Things I hate.
The fucking rubber band effect in fighters. I could be a punch away from winning, with a near full health bar, and all of a sudden, the CPU decides it's a virtual god and destroys me. Yeah, I'm looking at you Street fighter, and most of you capcom family members, and those that cloned you.
Uneven characters.....Fuck you M. Bison. being uber fast and uber strong doesn't make you challenging, it makes you cheap. Cheap like a prostitute's self respect.
Bad music. This is thing for me. I've played to many RPG's where something sad happens, and the score is great, but when the party agrees that it needs to forge on, the score gets peppy, and upbeat, and poppy....like they just decided to go to the mall, instead of a journey to avenge whoever/whatever/some stupid ass town. It's not hard to make short little epic bursts of music. Fucking do it.
Cliffhangers....I hate them in movies, games that cost fifty bucks makes me want to punch a kitten in the face. MGS, after the credits. Everyone I've played. Hate them.
12 year olds playing Halo 3 at two in the morning....so many things wrong with this that I'm just gonna move on
This next one is one I've noticed in the WWE games. The story modes, why can't I do more? Like, run ins, or stop a promo mid sentence and start a brawl. This seems pretty odd.
Horrible unlockables. If I just spent 12 hours playing a game to get something that ends up being worthless (concept art, something that doesn't enhance gameplay) then I don't want it.
RPG's where the main character is a liar, and cross-dresses, and ends up being emo towards the end, and the villian ends up being nothing more than a over-hyped moma's boy with issues and a big ass sword, who kills off a main party member a third of the way into the game.....that was oddly specific.
All RPG's should have a punch in the face option for any spoken dialoge. If I have an annoying party member, I should be able to punch them in the face.
Shooters that have locked doors made of wood or glass that I can't simply shoot, or blow up.
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What are people opinions on random battles in RPGs?
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I think they are okay. They help keep the game interesting when you play it again after completing it.
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Random battles can be okay. It's just when they are every other step that it gets annoying. I remember this one game, every time you get to a door, every time you open a chest, every time you walked along a wall or whatever, it was you're being attacked.
To be honest, in FF12, I wish they had random battles. Without any surprise and being able to walk around badguys, it just wasn't as interesting.
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Spawn camping
This!
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Truly random encounters (as in the map just spontaneously enters battle, like in every FF game up to 9) are a thing of the past and unwanted. I suppose there is something to be said about not knowing when you're going to enter battle, but considering most games that employ that style of random encounter are boring in terms of combat, then I'd rather be able to pick and choose my battles.
Games like the latest few Namco Tales games and Earthbound did it right. Have random monters, but the battles can be avoided because the monsters have to touch you to initiate combat.
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A good article on the flaming dickwad that is gamer (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3604/fixing_online_gaming_idiocy_a_.php).
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There's no random encounters in BG2. O_o
Unless you consider the fights that can potentially occur while sleeping in wilderness areas?
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There were random encounters, you just seldom, uh, encountered them. There were the pre-scripted ones (the Harper Hold quest initiation, the slavers with the red shortsword, etc.) but there were also slaver packs with something like 12-15 orogs, which is what Anyways is referring to. They were pushovers.
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I agree with the bad music part, and Anyways might also be talking about all the wilderness encounters that involved weak monsters like kobolds...
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Those encounters aren't technically random. They're very scripted. Very scripted.
And again, none of them are terribly difficult because they were beatable right out the gate with a level 8/9/10 party.
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Again, I don't think the scripted encounters (the poisoned Harper, etc.) are the problematic ones, but rather the different slaver encounters, like the swarm of orogs or the 3-fighters-and-a-mage encounters. But I think the monotony of those encounters has more to do with the power of the party than anything else. In BG1 many of the random encounters were difficult. There are actually a number of mods that implement more sensible REs. Yuan-ti around De'Arnise Keep, wild animals around Trademeet, shade wolves around Imnesvale, etc.
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I'm just at the end of Gears of War and up until now it's been great. But it shits me to tears that instead of an interesting end-boss that is difficult to fight but has some kind of eventually identifiable weakness you just have to shoot the dude until he dies. I'm not saying it needs to be easy but it needs to be fucking possible!
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I don't really like random encounters. I touched on this in an earlier post when I talked about bad guys spawning/respawning out of nowhere. Ambushes are ok, but seriously, if you're an adventurer I expect you have some sense of what is going on in the world around you. If you are blindly crashing through the undergrowth then quite frankly you deserve whatever you run into.
I'd like to imagine that any character or party I would be bothered to control would have eyes and ears and therefore the ability to see monsters from afar, giving me the option to either engage them or skirt around them as I see fit. I find it hard to see why random encounters make the game more realistic or "roleplaying"-like. To me it's completely unrealistic unless, as I said earlier, it comes in the form of an ambush.
So long as the ambush idea was not over-implemented it would keep a game interesting. Most of the time if you are in an area populated by monsters at an appropriate level for your character you would be able to pick and choose your targets unless it was an aggressive monster with good senses. Even still, not every bad guy/monster would want to engage you immediately. However, I would think that if you went into an area you were not ready for then you would get jumped more often due to the superior skills/senses of the creatures in that area.
This could also be a non-bullshit way of slowing an eager player up. You want to get to the next town? Ok sure, you can try. No tree fallen across a path, no broken bridge or any other such hard-coded bullshit impediment. You simply have a very high likelihood of getting your ass handed to you. Up to you, Mr Adventurerman. It's your ass.
Similarly, if you were to go into an area where the monsters are massively underpowered compared to you I would expect that even the most aggressive of monsters would take pause if it were smart enough to be able to gauge your strength. Excessively stupid animals would probably still try to engage you unless you were visibly glowing with might, but everyone else would probably get a glimpse of your Dragonscale Armour and Flaming Sword of Fucking-them-up and wisely remember they've left the oven on.
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That's another problem with games. Monsters that can't see as far as you can - wtf is that? If you're not hiding, and you see a monster, I expect at least 75% of the time the monster will see you as well. No more of this bullshit metagaming finding the path around them that means they won't attack you, even if you're in plain site.
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I could have swore I wrote another response.
re:BG2 -> The encounters aren't random. They are highly scripted, and are coded to occur at certain times. All of them. The slavers where there's the caster that has a short sword of free action always happens relatively early (usually as soon as you leave the Slums), and the orogs don't pop up until sometime after that, depending on how you did the Slave Ring questline. Just because there's no dialogue doesn't mean it's a random encounter.
I've always considered "Random Encounters" to be monsters that just seem to pop up from nowhere, like in Final Fantasy games. Where you walk and it's all SURPRISE: BUTTSEX now kill these 5 rabbites.
The proper way to do it, as est was talking about, is how Earthbound or the Namco Tales games handle it. You can see a battle as represented by a monster on the overhead map. Avoid or attack at your leisure.
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I can agree with that, Spluff. I am all for having more intelligent beasties. As fun as it is to be able to take on a whole camp of monsters one by one if you know their respective aggro ranges, etc I would much prefer a scenario in which I were forced to take on an entire camp of lesser monster at once because y'know, the guards aren't fucking stupid and they call for help instead of deciding to take me on solo. In such an instance I'd expect that I'd get experience from the camp as a whole and not have the game tell me that I can't get exp from the fight due to arbitrary level-based cut-offs or someshit.
The key there would be to construct the camp in such a fashion that there is a strategic way to go about the fight. Maybe a warrior could take them all on at once by finding a choke-point so they couldn't get behind him. Perhaps a mage could erect a flame wall at a key point, cutting off half the camp from the other (and the AI was intelligent enough to fear jumping through the flames) or freeze some of the camp. Perhaps a rogue could take out a few patrollers before the alarm roused the rest of the camp, and a Ranger could take some of them out from afar with arrows (if they chose the right ones) before the camp realised what was going on.
If this were a multi-player RPG we're talking about then obviously you could take the camp out more safely in a party and partying up would also allow you to take on higher-levelled camps. This is still similar to the concepts in current MMORPGs of course, but at least with decent AI the mobs would not stand around like dipshits while you murdered their mates.
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I definitely agree with you there. It's an aspect where games are very often, falling short. It's why I love the combat in such games as the Total War series or Fallout: Tactics - games where it's not just number crunching, where even if you are the weaker person you can still win due to playing smart.
There's nothing better than, say, beating off a few thousand men with an excellent flanking manoeuvre in Rome: Total War, or laying a successful trap in Fallout: Tactics and shooting a very powerful enemy in the back as he rushes through the door towards your bait.
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There's nothing better than, say, beating off a few thousand men
It had to be done.
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You don't wanna know what 'flanking manoeuvre' is a euphemism for, either.
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I don't particularly mind random encounters, to be honest. Unless the encounter rate is so ridiculously high it takes forever to get anywhere. Or if the game has a lot of backtracking so you chew up time in random battles against monsters you're far stronger than. Earthbound had a good solution for this: if your party is clearly stronger than the enemies, it just defaults to victory, gives you the EXP, and cuts out the time-consuming transition to the battle screen for a meaningless battle.
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Expanding on the idea of random encounters, I was playing Blue Dragon for the 360, and like the above said that earthbound missed battles, it missed battles by, you simply knocked enemies over with a shield. Althouhg you needed the right skills for it. But the same jist applies although you only get the "Specialist points" to level up your skills, you still needed to grind for hours to level up.
This moves onto my next point, is it just me or are the vast majority of JRPGs and asian-orientated-MMORPGs
grindfests? I mean theres lineage, RF online, Ragnarok, final fantasy (Already been mentioned earlier), blue dragon... alright those are a few, but well each I've played involved farming for hours to get anywhere.
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Est had a great point. Forgive me for being a fanboy but Persona 3 is probably exactly the game you're looking for. When you are adventuring around, you kind of have to sneak and watch the monsters. You can avoid them if you like, but only sometimes. Usually you'll want to sneak around, wait until they turn they're back to you, and you can run up and smack them with your weapon. In this case, you get the advantage in the following turn-based battle. The enemies have pretty good senses, and if they can see you they'll come after you.
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Where you walk and it's all SURPRISE: BUTTSEX now kill these 5 rabbites.
This is more along the lines of what I was talking about. Not actual random encounters, but the enemies just appear either via teleportation or digging up from the ground or flying down from the sky. Like Ankhegs in BG1, and Cliff Chasers in Morrowind. When you're trying to get somewhere in a hurry and then you've got to stop and possibly die because you didn't see these guys. This kind of thing is perfectly alright in a horror shooter, but in an RPG it tends to piss me off. I'll be running low on health due to a dungeon I just left, forgot to save, and a wimpy little turd with wings will manage to kill me.
And the sole reason I stopped playing turn-based (and also random battle) RPGs is because of the backtracking part. Especially when there's a sudden ramp up in difficulty...case in point: Legaia 2: Duel Saga (which wasn't very fun to begin with, I thought it was gonna be more like the first one). There's a part where you're in this volcano fighting monsters that can kill you in 3 rounds if you're not careful. And then you fight the boss(es) who have 89,900 and 92,000 hp at the same time. The previous boss had only 55,000 hp. So after you realize that there is no way you're going to survive this fight, and that you need healing items, you have to walk all the way back out of this dungeon which can take up to 45 minutes without the some-battle-avoiding item). And then grind.
A lot of those RPGs tend to do this. I'll have fought every battle I've come across in the game, and maybe an extra 50 or so on the side for good measure. And then I'll come up to an enormous dungeon in which the designers put a boss expecting the player to have done nothing but grind for around 10 hours after the last plot point, find out the hard way, and have to go back out again to get healing items and just grind around for a bit.
While I'm at it, sudden ramps in difficulty. Star Ocean 3, you get to Styx, and the average enemy HP jumps about 20,000 or so. Which is just fucking stupid. I've sat through half-hour cutscenes and fought every monster in every dungeon at least twice to try and get better equipment, and they throw something like that at you. Had to grind for at least 5 hours in the moonbase just to survive my frantic dash to the exit while hopefully avoiding the enemies.
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Persona 3 was mentioned earlier but I felt in needs more mention, simply due to the fact that if you go to earlier portions of the dungeon to get Persona's, the weaker enemies will shit themselves and run. And that is fucking cool. More Turn based RPG's need to do this.
Oh, and also.
Excessively stupid animals would probably still try to engage you unless you were visibly glowing with might, but everyone else would probably get a glimpse of your Dragonscale Armour and Flaming Sword of Fucking-them-up and wisely remember they've left the oven on.
Quoted for sig-worthyness
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MOAR Sins:
Sidekicks: When you have RPG or Fantasy games where the character is transported into a completely new and different world. They like to pair you up with an annoying sidekick who knows everything and just happens to be a: child/animal/gargoyle, who spends all their time making fun of you and gasping at how little you know. I remember playing Primal and EUUUUGH this bugged me so much.
Playing Fetch: Who wants to make 100000 deliviries? I know I don't. I don't mind collecting stuff or chasing things around for a while. But some games are structered on doing the same things over and over and over. However this isn't always a general sin. Animal Crossing is a game where you basically do the same thing for most of the game, but it's still incredibly fun. But there are a few games that make playing "fetch" or "tag" really boring.
Games That Need Multiplayer: I own Trauma Center: New Blood and it's one of my favourite games. I love it so much, and I'm pretty good at it when I try. However there reaches a certain point in the game where the mission just gets WAY too hard, seriously. The game is centered around multiplayer play and as much as I love playing with other people I believe that I should not be forced to have to have someone helping me to beat the game. Guitar Hero has a Co-Op Career where you can unlock new songs to play, I think that's incredibly cool, I think that's awesome. It's not necessary to beat the game, but it's an option.
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Noticed in Lost Odyssey Xbox 360 RPG.
Save points, you will come across one every building for the first hour of playing, then you will fail to come across another for 4 hours.
This length in-between savepoints is quite disturbing for me, especially when I have a life :oops:. Also, does anyone know any cooperative games for the PC (Lately, online works and isn't MMORPG). Just lately i've nto really found any that are satisfying.
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Nothing new, I think. I'm pretty sure the mentality is that the PC community thinks Co-op = MMO, and the console community thinks co-op = co-op. I can't even remember the last PC co-op game I played. Odds are you're not gonna find any, unfortunately.
That's another sin. What's the deal, PC devs? Why the lack of 2-4 person co-op?
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While we're on multiplayer type things, I've noticed that a lot of Xbox 360 games being released don't have multiplayer options OR are only multiplayer online over the Xbox Live thing. I don't use that so much because then I have huge wires hanging from my ceiling and people will trip up on them. I just want to play games with my brother, not some halfwit on the other side of the planet!
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I remember you talking about this earlier, and I have to agree. There needs to be more splitscreen co-op console games that aren't necessarily shooters.
Edit: I do understand there are technical limitations, but they could always do what Halo 3 did for their multiplayer (lower graphical quality just a little bit, like turning off the HDR and the anti-aliasing). Just a thought.
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I feel like game devs aren't making use of good opportunities for co-op games.
For example, how BADASS would Oblivion have been with a 2-player mode? A game like that would be so fantastic with 2 people.
It's like they make it so it's MMO, or that there's one other person who can sort of tag along with you that's slightly retarded.
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Nothing new, I think. I'm pretty sure the mentality is that the PC community thinks Co-op = MMO, and the console community thinks co-op = co-op. I can't even remember the last PC co-op game I played. Odds are you're not gonna find any, unfortunately.
That's another sin. What's the deal, PC devs? Why the lack of 2-4 person co-op?
Would Diablo qualify as a co-op?
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IIRC, there was something in the 360 hardware that made it difficult to implement splitscreen play. Don't know if that's actually the case. Halo did just fine.
Oblivion didn't have co-op because it was ostensibly a "role playing game", and RPGs are pretty retarded co-op candidates, given their usual focus on a single character. You either have a silent, non-interactive second PC who fights with you throughout the game while you do all the talking or you at least double the development workload trying to make the narrative coherent with two PCs. Oblivion makes some sense for co-op, though, because it has more in common with Diablo 2 or Icewind Dale than any character-driven game. But there would be some complications. How would guild advancement work? Can both PCs be grandmasters at the same time?
Josh Sawyer, game designer, re: co-op / multiplayer, when confronted by forumgoers who demanded co-op in a game.
Multiplayer, whether co-op or head-to-head, requires a lot of time and effort from both programming and design. Even when implementing a split-screen solution, it can have a very large impact on the schedule of the team. I just wanted to make clear that adding multiplayer can be quite an undertaking. Not that anyone here was assuming otherwise, but it's something that really has to be a big focus of the development team. Otherwise, it winds up being an enormous complication. When I was working on Gauntlet at Midway, we had four-player same-system and four-player peer-to-peer online co-op. It was done pretty well, all things considered, but it took a great deal of time.
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Diablo was like, 7 years ago, wasn't it? Just saying, the pickings are pretty slim.
I understand games not having co-op from their perspective, but there are a ton of games that make use of co-op across XBL or System Link, but not splitscreen. I don't think there's a hardware conflict keeping splitscreen from working, because there are at least two games that do have splitscreen co-op, and several more that have splitscreen multiplayer. I don't know much about DirectX code, but it can't be that hard to port over that code and turn down graphics settings to make it work.
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So in retro-fact the only decent cooperative games are the ones you subscribe to? Thats quite limiting in the fact we want our own little game to play when we wish and that limits it to.
Dungeon siege 1 + 2
and
Diablo 2.
Shame the list seems so short. How about MMORPGs then? I do know though, a lot of games are leaping on the cooperative band wagon lately, I read an article somewhere about it (Pre Halo 3) I think it was when halo released 4 player coop.
Anyway, I recentley re-subscribed to city of heroes for a month on union Server to play with a couple friends.
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MMORPGs don't count, because what we're looking for is Co-op play in a world full of NPC's, not co-op play in a world of PCs who interrupt your immersion to hawk their wares on the chat channels. I think there's a sizeable amount of people who still stick to the "I just wanna play with my friends" part of social gaming as opposed to "I wanna play with people I don't know" side of it. Even on Xbox Live, I will RARELY jump on if one of my friends isn't playing something I feel like playing. I also limit my friends list to the friends I know in real life and my clan, which includes some of the same people. So although I'm getting Too Human and Left4Dead in the future, whether or not I play the online co-op depends on whether or not any of my friends got it.
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Hmm I see your point, to playwith your friends is quite pleasent.
Unlike some encounters, Rainbow six vegas 2 online matchmaking.
(My username is gryphongod08)
player 1: Haw you gryph ya faggot!
Playes 2-7: *misc laughing/gryph faggot*
Player 1: I'll fucking own you yeh faggot!
Game begins.
Gryphongod [G36C] Player 1
Gryphongod has been kicked from the match.
Player 1 has sent you a message.
Message: OMG U R HACKING LAMER U FAGGOT!
Bad rep on me = unsporting.
Thats what I get for joining a random match today...
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in the vein of co-op games, i'd like to mention Army of Two. i had little to no expectations for this game and didn't really care one way or the other about it, but a friend of mine rented it and it was actually pretty fun! (surprise!)
it's something you can do by yourself, or splitscreen with a friend/sibling/roomate, or online with friends/strangers.
okay, the aiming is kind of shitty but the pros easily make up for this con. you actually have to think tactically and plan attacks with your partner! it's surprisingly fun.
anyway, i don't know if i'd recommend buying it (i say go right ahead if you find a cheap, used copy though) but i'd definitely recommend renting it at least once if you're looking for a good co-op experience.
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Unfortunately, that's not a PC game, and Jimmy is looking for non-shooters. Except for maybe Timesplitters 4, whenever that comes out.
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Considering that Free Radical is finally finishing Haze within the next few months, and I'm pretty sure they're big enough to have parallel development going on, I'd guess Timesplitters 4 is probably a 2009 game. Looking forward to that, Timesplitters 2 is still one of my favorite multiplayer FPSes ever.
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(stuff about co-op play)
I do agree, and I see why they did it, but come on! It would be so freakin' badassedness to the umpteenthmillionth degree.
I had to make up 2 words just to get across how awesome I would find such a thing.
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To further illustrate the dev quote I posted up there, it was recently announced that the upcoming sandbox monster game Prototype was shedding its co-op aspect because they wanted to get the game finished and shipped by the end of the year. Which is a shame, because their last game (Hulk: Ultimate Destruction) was a fucking blast and would've been doubly so multiplayer.
GTAIV should turn out pretty awesome with the multiplayer.
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Considering that Free Radical is finally finishing Haze within the next few months, and I'm pretty sure they're big enough to have parallel development going on, I'd guess Timesplitters 4 is probably a 2009 game. Looking forward to that, Timesplitters 2 is still one of my favorite multiplayer FPSes ever.
Did you ever play 3? Because 3 was at least twice as good.
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I'm okay with companies delaying games for even years if need be in order to up the awesomeness.
See: Smash Bros Brawl.
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You aren't a publisher. Blizzard / Valve / Nintendo gets away with that stuff because they've had enough success to dictate the terms of development.
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Hey, I can dream.
That's what this whole multiplayer debate really is, one way or the other.
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Serious Sam had some pretty fucking fun co-op.
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Fable 2 (Whenever it decides to release) is said to have co-op play. Both split-screen and online. I'm really looking forward to that.
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I read a couple of articles about the co-op play in Fable 2 and they were talking about how the other guy can kill your family and it's a permanent thing as if that's some kind of cool feature.
Hey guy. Leave my fucking family alone, you cunt.
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Yeah, but you know how Molyneux is. It's not even funny anymore.
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I read a couple of articles about the co-op play in Fable 2 and they were talking about how the other guy can kill your family and it's a permanent thing as if that's some kind of cool feature.
Hey guy. Leave my fucking family alone, you cunt.
Well, the safeguard against this is to not play with dicks.
And I think Molyneux is a great and creative game designer, he just lets his imagination get ahead of him sometimes and then flaps his mouth before he actually finds out that what he's talking about wouldn't work within the technology/context of the game. Co-op is definitely a feature in Fable 2, though, and I think the permanent consequences thing is also an actual feature. What I think is especially neat about the co-op in Fable 2 is that if you play through as another dude's henchman you can take all the money and experience you earn back to your own save file.
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Have you guys heard what he's said about Dmitri? About how it's gonna change everything about AI and will be featured in nature and science journals?
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biggest sin of all: PLAYING RUNESCAPE
If you are a n00bscape player, thou shalt be sacrificed to Gunpei Yokoi...
The only good reason to play is to troll tards with shock sites (Goatse still works there!)
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I used to play runescape a few years ago, it was kinda fun back then, you could actually find decent people to play with. Then it just kept getting more popular and it was full of morons and I realised how tedious it was. The end!
The best MMOs I've played have been Guildwars (MMORPG) and Planetside (MMOFPS). Thinking about it, Planetside is probably the best game I've played (and it takes a lot for me to rank something above Enemy Territory) since most of the people I met on there were really cool.
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Is anyone else slightly pissed that Sega is working on a new Golden Ax game, and it's limited only to single player?
Why remake a game in which the biggest draw was that it was fun to get a friend and kick some ass and then not put that draw in?
If they remake Streets of Rage (I can still hope) and do that, I'm shooting people.....in the face.
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I used to play runescape I got pretty high, this was before the 3d alteration, I quite enjoyed it I mean I was able to get full rune, some of the best skills, then gave up becasue I had got all the free things sorted except max magic (Only thing I never really did well in)
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Is every post you make in the computer forum going to include bragging of some kind, Siert? Because so far it's looking pretty close to it.
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I only ever brag about CoD4 because I am mediocre at everything else, but HC CoD4 I have the skills to back it up.
Don't talk smack unless you can back it up, if you can then feel free to do so.
It's the same for all other LAN gamers I know.
I might be shit at WoW, any game that requires heavy tactics over aim&reflexes and all RTS but DAMN I will sit you down at HC CoD4.
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it`s not bragging if you can back it up, but that still doesn`t mean we want to hear about it
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If you can back it up, it's bragging. If you can't back it up, you're either bragging or lying.
Any which way it's pretty obnoxious.
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He's bragging about runescape. That's like anti-bragging.
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I'd say it's more dark bragging (in the vein of dark matter). We know it's out there, and that it exists, but if we come into contact with it, shit will hit the fan.
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Gaming commandment #1: There shalt not be an ultimate weapon. High powered weapons are okay. A weapon that allows you to kill everything on a map is not.
Gaming commandment #2: Thou shalt not force your players to buy the game for installation, then force your player to pay to play the game they just installed. Seriously, if you pay $60 for a game, you shouldn't have to pay $15 a month for continued play. At least offer some type of "$200, lifetime membership" thingy.
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MMOs seem that way on paper, but honestly, you can't expect them to make money, continue development for the games, AND maintain multiple multiples of servers without the monthly fee.
I do think the idea of making people pay for it initially and then charging them a fee on top of it is pretty stupid, though. Free to download and install, pay to play? Makes sense to me, at least.
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I am hoping that at some point we'll get to that stage, Narr. I think that for a while there when they were first tanking vs WoW Sony were allowing people to download EQ2 for free, then sign up for a couple months free trial to boot. It would have been a good model for them if EQ2 wasn't such an utter piece of shit, which leads me to my next "gaming sin" ...
"Cutting edge" graphics are not a substitute for interesting artwork (EQ2) or game-play (too many games to mention). I downloaded the EQ2 trial to see if the in-game feel was as bad as what was indicated by their screenshots. It was. They were pushing the uncanny valley (or whatever it is called) in regard to the quality of the graphics. They were very good in some areas, but seriously lacking in others.
For example, if I remember correctly they had realtime lighting & shadows, large textures, fairly high polygon models, nice-looking water, etc. However, you couldn't turn anti-aliasing on with some features like the lighting and shadows. As a result the shadows all looked shit. You could turn the lighting on, but all the shadows looked super-crisp and unrealistic. That plus the uninspired artwork and HQ plasticky textures made everything look like action figurines come to life, which was really fucking creepy. In addition, the animations for everything looked jerky and shithouse.
By contrast take a look at WoW. Cartoony characters and tech that doesn't need a supercomputer to drive. It has typically excellent Blizzard artwork and focuses on the fun aspect of the game. For the most part they succeed and as such people flock to it.
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That's like comparing Spirits Within to The Incredibles; the results are the same.
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Free to download and install, pay to play? Makes sense to me, at least.
It is noted here that this is where gold farmers / adverts get their way in, for free. Although due to warcracks popularity it was hard to go five minutes with "Buy gold at xxxgold.com 5000 gold for $200".
I think some companies force you to buy the game to lower the amount of gold spammers but its a tough road to travel, punish legit players with spam or with a lighter wallet.
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People have already been through grinding. This is evil. And boring.
But one thing I really hate is things not beeing properly done. If you're going to ass something to a game, think it through, and do it properly. Half-finished parts is always sad. Like Morrowind's shadows. That was awfull. And maps that's designed a bit too fast. Some levels on RTS-games have forests around the map. But if you played for a long time, and chopped through a bit of the forest, there was nothing beyond it. They hadn't even bothered to fill the whole map with trees, there were this sandy, empty, boring area behind it.
Another thing; if you need a tutorial, it needs to be good. And underestimating the players intelligence is bad. I remember the first time I played Age Of Empires II, the tutorial part tells you how to select and move a unit three times. In a row. You introduce every aspect of the game in one five-minute level. This means 35 minutes of (pretty much boring) tutorials that you have to play through to actually be able to play the game properly. Which is bad. A tutorial should last for maximum five minutes, and if the game is really complicated, the complicated things should be gradually introduced.
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Even worse: the 10 hours of gameplay that had you walking- not running, flying, or transporting- to all ends of the map to deliver a package to Mr. X so he can deem you worthy to take on the next quest.