User talk:Shard/MMORPGs

RoM

It's the same all across MMORPG: the healer gets blames without consideration of what he did/does. Of course, it's not the healer's fault about... almost anytime. People should learn to have a brain. Titani Ertan {{Snappy the Turtle}} 21:33, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

That tank clearly isn't familiar with such complex thing... - J.P.Talk 21:40, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why this goes under unfair really. It's more like "noobs that blame others for their failures." Chain stunning is funny too. Wizard 101 had the same problem in PvP where the stuns were mostly AoE and did wtfbigdomages. I'm not fond of RoM since most of the bosses 1 hit anyone that is not a Knight.--Underwood 21:34, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Ragnarok Online was fun until I had to get into parties and discovered that the majority of the people were amazingly stupid, and just played to kill jelly. Titani Ertan {{Snappy the Turtle}} 21:57, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I tank in WoW. I never blame the healer. Because of that, I rarely have troubles finding the other half of the party (the healer). As it turns out, sometimes the tank makes mistakes. If they blame the healer, they will fail to learn. StatMan 03:08, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

People with brain advance. People without brains get Power Level'd and die from level 4 mobs. Titani Ertan {{Snappy the Turtle}} 11:29, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Just noticed your newest update: I don't really know about you, but making a five minute spell recharge in a game where you can only have 8 skill slots.... who would take it? You can make better use of that slot. I still agree that this invincibility is overpowered, but look at all the skills that have more than 30 seconds recharge: they have their duration to match. Titani Ertan {{Snappy the Turtle}} 11:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

k. is for Raine, etc. 06:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

RoM

I played since cb and never EVER seen such behaviour. :o Anyway, did they make you heal as M/P at Bernok? oO --Super Igor flame my shove sin bar! 10:13, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes that was it. I think I'll wait until I'm level 30ish. ~Shard 20:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Your comment about Holy Aura and Ether Prism reminded me of what I consider the most significant balance mistake in the history of Guild Wars: using limited skill bar space as a balancing factor. A skill with a 5 minute cooldown would need to be obscenely powerful to be worth the opportunity cost of tying up 1/8 of your skill bar, and it's difficult to balance skills with narrow niches such as countering shouts or ritualists against skills with broadly applicable niches such as damage, healing or interruption. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:02, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that. The only reason why a huge cooldown works as a balancing factor, is if there is no limit to the amount of skills you can bring. But I'm sure Shard knew that...145.94.74.23 06:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Y'know, that's interesting, because I find that limited skill slots adds life to the game and makes (or at least made, before only 40-50 skills were viable) finding new builds an actually important part of playing. But like Auron once told me, since we can only carry around 8 skills instead of 12-15, there's no room (for example) on an ele bar to bring both Make Haste and Song of Concentration. Perhaps the design would have worked better if we had, say, 10 skills, two from column A (elites or equivalent), five from column B (staple skills), three from column C (niche skills), and a "free" slot for a res? (Default to res sig, but could be replaced by any other res skill, or something like that.) Obviously, numbers would need tweaking here and there, but I'm interested as to thoughts on the general idea. -- Armond Warblade{{Bacon}} 06:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I always thought of having 9 skill slots. The extra skill slot is for the Build Wars you never encounter or the shittiest skills that you never find room for. Titani Ertan {{Snappy the Turtle}} 06:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Shard You already have more exp on RoM then I do since I didn't play it for that long but Why did you go priest instead of mage ? Mage is the ace class.Seriously if you go on a PvP sever just watch how many times you'll get fragged by a mage if your a non*mage class by the time YOU GET CLOSE you're dead Lilondra *poke* 07:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm a mage primary, priest secondary. When Adrin and I were starting and I got my new spells, I was 1-hitting things and he was like "mages are imba dude" lol. ~Shard 01:36, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I kinda noticed that when I was lvl 2 :p Lilondra *poke* 06:26, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

M/P aren't supposed to be rimary healers in rom, unless they have uber equipment and even then they lose out on buffs. :o Kinda late here but w/e. xP Nectarines // 17:45 26 September 2009(UTC)

MMORPGS, and their over-simplicity

I blame RuneScape.

In other news, I remember reading something in EGM about an MMOFPS for Xbox and PC. IIRC, there was cross-platform play (PC players playing with console players...and no, it was not Shadowrun.)

I found the concept interesting, but I never did hear anything more of that game. --Riddle 05:33, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I blame the gaming industry as it is now. Seriously, it has NEVER been this bad.

I would say (and I know you will agree with me) that the SNES-era was the golden age of gaming. The game industry was not as large as it was now, and many games were made by small companies mainly consisting of people who were excited about making a game. They wanted to make good games, so they made good games. Super Metroid, Shining Force, and Secret of Mana were awe-inspiring, and in return, they inspired other companies to follow their footsteps, and so the era was prolonged with games as Illusion of Gaia, Actraiser, and Chrono Trigger, to leave a gaming experience to last forever.

Now, things are different. The industry is no longer defined by people who care about games. It is about making money. Nobody wants to make a masterpiece like Secret of Mana 2 was. For the development costs you make, you are getting little in return. Compare that to, say, Assassin's Creed Online, where you take an overhyped game, add some bland game mechanics, generic flavor, and imbalanced classes to it, and there, you have your million-copies-selling game, and the kids will not notice it because they only pay attention to the graphics anyway!

Now why am I a retro gamer again? Yea, that is why. Koda Kumi 09:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

You have to wonder, though, at what point did the industry get bad? There must have been a precedent in order for shitty games to be successful. Probably the starter of this trend were the Madden games, crapping out sequels every year that were barely any different than the year before.

However, I argue that RuneScape started the shitty MMO trend. I mean, bad graphics coupled with bland gameplay, and it's been chugging along for 10+ years—and with a Members subscription option for almost as long, IIRC. How the hell does that happen?

I think that's where a lot of the bad MMO's try to build their base ("Our gameplay is a little less bland—but we have pretty graphics!"). A lot of the RuneScape mechanics are simplified to the point that they are all the same "point & click, wait for action to be done, okay action done." Where a lot of these MMOs fail, though, is their ability to provide content.

Those other MMOs can't compete with JaGEx's ability to push out content, partly due to the fact that everything in RuneScape is so simple. JaGEx releases content roughly every two weeks, and the minimum released is a quest. That's just for RuneScape. If the devs have projects that don't fit the scope of RuneScape, they stick it on their spin-off site FunOrb. That site is regularly updated also, though I can't remember how often they update it.

tl;dr JaGEx keeps putting out low-grade sugar for the ants, other companies try the same but aren't as successful. --Riddle 18:23, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

money corrupts everything. if you want something to stay pure and without pretense, you don't get money involved. Previously Unsigned 22:46, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually Shard, I'm a faggot either way. =p --Unending ♥ fear 13:32, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

@OP, I believe that game is DUST 514 and links in with EVE Online. They recently started updated EVE Online with the basic stuff to integrate with the new game. Shadow Runner 18:25, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Although I could be wrong. I think there was another one as well. Shadow Runner 18:27, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

DUST 514 seems too recent. But whatever, I don't worry about it anymore. --Riddle 22:38, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I find it ironic that no one else sees the Occam's Razor here. ...Girls.
Shard specifically points out that TOR is pussy repellent and I think for the most part he's totally right (unless you're into manatees). Girls and mainstream in general don't care about gameplay quite as much, and they were the largest untapped market for the decade before this one. The male ego has always been the proprietary division that validates itself along carefully compartmentalized but violent competition. ...which is usually best served by hardcore gaming for those easily bored by more traditional venues like sports or fancy car ownership. So it's all about demographics which is just a bullshit marketing terms for stereotyping dorks. And the typical breakdown of any american highschool still has an increasing amount of dorks outnumbering jocks & preps while it doesn't break any differently along sexes either. IE: they are the majority, and the female sex is the majority on top of that. And this is showing up more consistently in games that provide a means of obtaining superficial aesthetics through social gameplay. For instance almost half the members I regularly play with in my guild are female and more than half of the TF2 players I play against on a certain server are female too. (this is probably helped by the fact that there is moderated Voice chat in both these areas making them more social) ...both these games have strongly trended more towards straighter skill curves and collectible personal aesthetics while the remaining playerbase gravitates towards social groups that are basically just whatever remained after many of the hardcore male gamers fell away and bought a steady stream of new games instead for their violence-fueled validation. (MW2, moar GTA, etc, etc.) ...then there's facebook gaming and sims-type games and other things that focus on social and casual aspects above hardcore gameplay. As a result, many MMO investors can be satisfied and milked out their investments simply by the notion that the source material already has mainstream personal aesthetics to be grinded for in a highly graphic chatroom by its prospective playerbase. And as long as it "looks pretty"... Girls will play it too. ...that's not my belief o/c, that just the industry's conclusion b/c the industry loves focusing on demographics, aka: stereotyping; and in this case, a very sexist version.
>>>> In other words, it's all about Growth-industry speculation. These games aren't getting funding b/c they actually have content appealing to Girls too, they're gettng funding and being announced merely by the vicarious transitive property that they focus on the social and aesthetic elements that male dorks should *want* to focus on just to be occasionally adjacent to female dorks. --ilr 23:11, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

As was already mentioned, money is the reason the game industry is sucking. We've been seeing a large surge in video game shittiness for at least the past 5 years, or at least ever since the current generation of platforms came out. Before video games became mainstream (this happened about the time PS2 came out, at least the way I see it), game companies had to make good games because their customer base was smaller - they needed to sell their game to say 10% of gamers to break even. Today, now that game companies make more money than film studios, they can code random buggy-ass game mechanics, slap their favorite intellectual property's logo on it and make quick cash. You know all those games made from movies nobody ever buys (especially the disney ones)? It turns out people actually buy them.

It's much easier to make games now that most studios just buy engine licenses from someone else, or use the same ones over and over again. All you really have to do is make models and textures and put a $50 price tag on the box and you're pretty much guaranteed to make a profit.

I'll wrap this all up with a little joke: Superman 64. ~Shard 02:24, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

"Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse" and "The Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse" were actually rather good. Granted, those were SNES platformer games, and I was only maybe...8 or 9 at the time. "DuckTales" for NES was also a totally kick-ass game, and still pretty fun today; I'd almost call it a classic except that it's pretty unknown. Also, although arguably a movie from a book is different than just a stand-alone movie such as Star Wars, there have been a number of really excellent games that come from certain movie, like Lord of the Rings for example. Yeah, there's a ton of crap ones too, but a few gems. I can think of at least three pretty good LotR games just off the top of my head.

One thing you didn't address (or indirectly anyway) is that MMOs have entered the "trendy" phase, in addition to gaming in general. Like Facebook, Twitter, and all those other trashy things that everyone seems to be fapping over these days, if you can't make <x> into an MMO then it doesn't deserve to be made into a video game anyway. And part of that is because at least for the forseeable future, there will always be more computers than consoles...until the PS4 comes with its own OS or something. Vili 点 04:31, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The only good movie game was Goldeneye for the N64, and that game was a beast. And not to mention THIS. InfestedHydralisk 13:19, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wii port gets no woots from me. Daniel Craig isn't the GoldenEye Bond, so that just seems like a dick move on his part (Re-interpreting the storyline to fit with the Daniel Craig Bond, wtf?). And Activision is publishing it.

I'll be sticking with GoldenEye: Source. Even if they've been making the game for five years. --Riddle 15:02, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

It's a first-person shooter, why do you care what your face looks like? elix Omni 17:15, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

B/c nothing does faces (or sequels) like Source engine. <img>GENTLEMEN.GIF</img> --ilr 21:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Goldeneye was the best game in the last 20 years. --Frosty 10:03, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Remakes Rule: Good games aren't made nowadays, mainly because of the reasons Shard outlined before. Companies want to make money, not good games. Who want to make and play good games are the people. But as long as companies have the power and people don't, we will barely see any really good games. BTW It's not necessary to have hundreds or thousands of gamers on one server interacting with each other and doing their own things. Simple games like X-com Ufo Defense are still sold nowadays (it's older than Starcraft) and can deliver the same if not more fun than any of these new DX10-11 games. Also X-com is for some reason accepted as the best game of all times. I don't know why. It's not even a windows game. But hell it is damn good fun, and is currently getting a remake finished. Yup 10th of July. --Boro 19:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

One of the other reasons games are stale now is because nobody is trying to be original. You've probably noticed a lack of new genres and a lack of new IPs. The newest genre out there is Spore. MMORPGs and FPSs seem to be the fad right now, still trailing on WoW and Source.

Speaking of remakes, I'm looking forward to the new Donkey Kong Country. If there's one thing Nintendo can do, it's make good platformers. I enjoyed NSMBWii a lot. ~Shard 21:00, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

It's a shame it requires so much money to make a video game, otherwise I imagine there would be a lot of really good independently developed ones out there. On the other hand, maybe there are: very few professionally made video games are half as addictive as some of those flash games that probably took 2 hours to make. –Jette 22:36, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I like it that oldskool stylish games are coming back. InfestedHydralisk 23:12, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Spore isn't a new genre, it's just a combination of terribly executed older ones. Morphy 09:08, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

The great innovation of Spore was that it allowed the player to fully customize their characters while being as user-friendly as possible. The idea is great, but as you say, the execution was terrible. Still, there is more more to do with this concept, like Portal's. However, chances are slim that such a thing will happen. Koda File:User Koda Kumi UT.jhttp://wiki.guildwars.com/skins/common/images/button sig.pngpeg Kumi 10:23, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

What computer games need is more depth. Games so deep that normal decent folks look down at them and think "holy crap, that's deep." Games so deep you think if you read all the way through the source code, you'll wind up in China. You ever played Dwarf Fortress? It's absurdly detailed (except for the graphics). –Jette 10:53, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

[Shameless plug]I know a NWN mod with a deep story! Yasmin would love to tell you all about it. I just wish we were using an engine whose combat and effect mechanics I could change. ~Shard 21:42, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Rumor has it that Source engine 2.0 will launch with Portal2 and it will include "blob" physics and many other direct item environment (particle pattern) interaction mechanics that could make it the perfect Modder's choice for deep RPG game building. It probably wouldn't have a trading/retail/crafting system right off the bat but that doesn't mean one wouldn't eventually be added. --ilr 22:24, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Source was an FPS engine, not a general game engine. You could probably make something similar to fallout (4?) with it, but not a third person adventure-RPG. I'm really waiting for a multiplayer version of Dragon Age with a toolset. You know, something like NWN2, but not bad. Being able to change passive feats and character leveling would also be nice, since you can't do that in NWN without forcing your players to download more files. This means monks in our module are as invincible as 3.5 monks.~Shard 23:29, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I spend more time playing older games than newer ones, and I'm a girl. My top ten is littered with older titles. Currently I'm deep in Zelda 2: Adventure of Link about to face Carcock in the Maze Island Dungeon. The whole reason I have a Wii is to play NES and SNES games.--*Yasmin Parvaneh* 20:13, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Fucking yellow texts floating through space

Well if that was on a starwars game, that's understandable. It's kinda Lucas Art's trademark. However, if other games use that, they've got serious issues. →[ »Halogod (talk)« ]← 04:08, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it ironic that Lucas Arts protects that part of its movies, when it stole 99% of the movies from other places? ~Shard 04:40, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Everybody steals from everybody. Hell, 90% of my books are lifted wholesale from other people's works. Anybody who claims to have created an "original work" in hundreds of years without any inspiration from others is a filthy liar. MMO looks like crap, though. I haven't liked anything to come out of the Star Wars universe since the original trilogy, except maybe some of the breakfast cereals, which had tasty little marshmallows inside. When I was a kid, I would pour out a whole box of the cereal into a big popcorn bowl and pick out all of the marshmallows, then throw away the sawdust cereal parts and have a bowl of marshmallows for breakfast. My parents always wondered how I barreled through boxes of Lucky Charms so quickly. If they ever did find out, they probably didn't care: the cereal is about as healthy as the marshmallows, which is to say about as good for you as eating the cardboard box. Actually, I think the cardboard box would be healthier, since at least that would have some protein. –Jette 09:07, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Eh your diet only has to be like 10-12% protein iirc, I get that from the flesh of small children I sacrifice in the hole I dug below my singlewide and laced with lye. Bring on the raine. -- Tha Reckoning 19:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

You called? — Raine Valen 22:04, 24 Jul 2010 (UTC)