Tell a friend he has a bee on his hand.
Step 2:
Be holding a glossy print-out of this picture at about his chest level so that when he looks down he shits himself.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
RL Games
Step 1:
Tell a friend he has a bee on his hand.
Step 2:
Be holding a glossy print-out of this picture at about his chest level so that when he looks down he shits himself.
Tell a friend he has a bee on his hand.
Step 2:
Be holding a glossy print-out of this picture at about his chest level so that when he looks down he shits himself.
ArcheAge preview review review
I'm not altogether that interested in ArcheAge. I just haven't found anything really compelling about the game's early whisperings. Chopping down wood and riding horses don't do a whole lot for me.
I have, however, enjoyed watching certain beta videos. This one was oddly riveting to me, I don't know why. The calming music, the crazy details. It was goddamned relaxing.
When I was in high school, I'd smoke pot and watch Seinfeld to unwind, now I'm 30 and watching Russian nerds playing some Korean video game on YouTube.
The Future turned out to both be amazing and extremely sad.
But I digress.
I don't know how the hell anyone can honestly think any sort of large-scale PvP is going to be a selling point for that game. It's not happening. Big fights are going to be impossible.
Some of the ideas are things I've been a proponent of for years. Mounted combat. Playing with quest dynamics. PK Jail! Oh, PK Jail.
But I'm not seeing anything that leads me to believe any of it will be implemented very well. On paper, it sounds disturbingly like a bad mix of stuff that failed horribly in AoC, Aion, Darkfall, Allods, etc. The game is destined to be really grindy, ganky and crashy. And it seems to suffer from the sort of soullessness I despised in games like Rift - there's no strong story behind anything going on, there's no real connection you can have with the classes or races, the lore and design of everything feels whitebread. Cardboard. Look at their website, it's hysterical. Human fighter that use Haje magics. Elf priest have holy power combats. Cat People Ranger use range attacks. Seriously?
I honestly don't get it, I just don't see this game as any real threat in NA.
I have, however, enjoyed watching certain beta videos. This one was oddly riveting to me, I don't know why. The calming music, the crazy details. It was goddamned relaxing.
When I was in high school, I'd smoke pot and watch Seinfeld to unwind, now I'm 30 and watching Russian nerds playing some Korean video game on YouTube.
The Future turned out to both be amazing and extremely sad.
But I digress.
I don't know how the hell anyone can honestly think any sort of large-scale PvP is going to be a selling point for that game. It's not happening. Big fights are going to be impossible.
Some of the ideas are things I've been a proponent of for years. Mounted combat. Playing with quest dynamics. PK Jail! Oh, PK Jail.
But I'm not seeing anything that leads me to believe any of it will be implemented very well. On paper, it sounds disturbingly like a bad mix of stuff that failed horribly in AoC, Aion, Darkfall, Allods, etc. The game is destined to be really grindy, ganky and crashy. And it seems to suffer from the sort of soullessness I despised in games like Rift - there's no strong story behind anything going on, there's no real connection you can have with the classes or races, the lore and design of everything feels whitebread. Cardboard. Look at their website, it's hysterical. Human fighter that use Haje magics. Elf priest have holy power combats. Cat People Ranger use range attacks. Seriously?
I honestly don't get it, I just don't see this game as any real threat in NA.
Monday, May 30, 2011
There's got to be a better way.
The old way of questing:
You talk to some complete stranger with a big ! above his head.
There's a dialogue box you don't read because reading is for readtards.
The bottom of the box says that you need to find ten boar-rat mustaches.
Here's the fun part: maybe they drop a mustache, maybe they don't, it's a surprise!
How new-fangled "dynamic content" games work:
Exactly the same exact way except that a bunch of monsters occasionally spawn in a pre-determined spot.
Here's the crazy, fun, unpredictable part: if you don't kill them, monsters will path to your local village-thing and kill NPCs.
: O
How "dynamic content" should work:
You run around doing whatever the fuck you'd really rather be doing - killing doods, gathering stuff, exploring, whatever.
You see a gopher trying to eat a peanut. He gets zerged by some blackbirds who want his nut.
Now you've got this Choose-Your-Own-Adventure thing going on. What do you do?
A. Help the poor gopher!
B. Laugh and punch the gopher in the face.
C. Nothing. I don't stop what I'm doing for critters.
Your actions directly have an effect on the surrounding world.
A. You shoo away the birds and the gopher nods at you, saying "The Gopher Revolution is coming. You will be spared, friend." He shits out a glowing chest for you and scampers away. It contains 500 platinum coins and a Legendary sword of purest darkness.
B. The birds turn on you and try to peck your face off. You stave them off and, impressed with your prowess, they decide to ally themselves to you. You gain a "Bird Swarm" combat buff for an hour, the birds follow you around and attack anything you attack. They then get bored and spiteful and kill you, rob you of your belongings and promise to hunt down and kill all that you love.
C. The gopher was actually Jesus Christ in disguise, testing you. You fall into a pit of fire and burn for all eternity. You are locked from playing on that server for all time.
You talk to some complete stranger with a big ! above his head.
There's a dialogue box you don't read because reading is for readtards.
The bottom of the box says that you need to find ten boar-rat mustaches.
Here's the fun part: maybe they drop a mustache, maybe they don't, it's a surprise!
How new-fangled "dynamic content" games work:
Exactly the same exact way except that a bunch of monsters occasionally spawn in a pre-determined spot.
Here's the crazy, fun, unpredictable part: if you don't kill them, monsters will path to your local village-thing and kill NPCs.
: O
How "dynamic content" should work:
You run around doing whatever the fuck you'd really rather be doing - killing doods, gathering stuff, exploring, whatever.
You see a gopher trying to eat a peanut. He gets zerged by some blackbirds who want his nut.
Now you've got this Choose-Your-Own-Adventure thing going on. What do you do?
A. Help the poor gopher!
B. Laugh and punch the gopher in the face.
C. Nothing. I don't stop what I'm doing for critters.
Your actions directly have an effect on the surrounding world.
A. You shoo away the birds and the gopher nods at you, saying "The Gopher Revolution is coming. You will be spared, friend." He shits out a glowing chest for you and scampers away. It contains 500 platinum coins and a Legendary sword of purest darkness.
B. The birds turn on you and try to peck your face off. You stave them off and, impressed with your prowess, they decide to ally themselves to you. You gain a "Bird Swarm" combat buff for an hour, the birds follow you around and attack anything you attack. They then get bored and spiteful and kill you, rob you of your belongings and promise to hunt down and kill all that you love.
C. The gopher was actually Jesus Christ in disguise, testing you. You fall into a pit of fire and burn for all eternity. You are locked from playing on that server for all time.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Spider's Game Reviews
Darkspore - I bought this and spent 8 hours trying to get it to work. It didn't work.
Brink - Everyone told me not to get it because it was a pain in the balls that didn't want to work. I didn't get it.
The Witcher 2 - I haven't gotten it yet because I feel like I would be embarrassed buying something called "The Witcher".
Fable 3 - I was going to buy it but I'm waffling because it looks a lot like Fable 2, just with more farting.
LA Noire - I already have a cool mystery-thriller face-reading game. It's called "Is my girlfriend telling the truth or is she going to fucking murder me in my sleep tonight?"
Brink - Everyone told me not to get it because it was a pain in the balls that didn't want to work. I didn't get it.
The Witcher 2 - I haven't gotten it yet because I feel like I would be embarrassed buying something called "The Witcher".
Fable 3 - I was going to buy it but I'm waffling because it looks a lot like Fable 2, just with more farting.
LA Noire - I already have a cool mystery-thriller face-reading game. It's called "Is my girlfriend telling the truth or is she going to fucking murder me in my sleep tonight?"
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Ohh Yeahhh: Return of the Bad Idea Dept.
In honor of the Macho Man Randy Savage, I'm going to again make the argument for entrances in PvP.
To give you an idea of what I'm taking about, this is an entrance.
This is an introduction, possibly the greatest way to make an entrance possible:
I don't think we'll ever see individual entrances in a MMO, but it could be something pretty fun for any game with team PvP. Fun for the players and fun for the devs too, because it's something that you could make profitable.
As it stands now, most games that feature Group v. Group PvP put little to no thought in the build-up to the fight. The way it usually works: players zone into the Scenario / Battleground / Warfront instance and stare at a transparent barrier or ridiculous glowing prison bars for ~45 seconds while everyone files in. This time is generally spent picking your nose, checking buffs, telling dick jokes in Vent. Nothing about it is really any fun or exciting. You watch a clock tick down.
How it could work:
- First off, let's not call it an "entrance" or refer to it as "entrance music". That immediately brings to mind wrestlers wearing feather boas and neon tights. Call it a "War Anthem" or something. Although the inspiration for this is WWF, the actual rationale behind it should be war. In war, you don't play music to rile up a stadium of fans. However, music does have a place in war - whether it be psyching out the enemy with war drums, chants and blaring horns or modern-day soldiers psyching themselves up by blasting Megadeth and Iron Maiden.
- The different elements of the entrance would all be customized by the team/guild leader. It wouldn't have to specifically be some sort of registered arena tournament team, it would be something that takes place any time a full group of guildies enters in a single match. The entrance would all be based on customizations made beforehand in a menu tab, basically 4-5 different things you could select or slot.
- Things you could customize:
If a horde is getting ready for an epic fight to the death, you shouldn't see Barbarians standing stock-still, or worse, breaking out into a effete, disco-boogie /dance out of desperate boredom. You should see guys wildly screaming and beating their chests, chanting, offering up blood sacrifices. Have a fucking fiery altar in there. Have Imperial cannons belching death into the sky. Have some fun with it.
PvP players want something to fight for, here's a whole mall of shit they could work for, and none of it is gear that imbalances combat.
To give you an idea of what I'm taking about, this is an entrance.
This is an introduction, possibly the greatest way to make an entrance possible:
I don't think we'll ever see individual entrances in a MMO, but it could be something pretty fun for any game with team PvP. Fun for the players and fun for the devs too, because it's something that you could make profitable.
As it stands now, most games that feature Group v. Group PvP put little to no thought in the build-up to the fight. The way it usually works: players zone into the Scenario / Battleground / Warfront instance and stare at a transparent barrier or ridiculous glowing prison bars for ~45 seconds while everyone files in. This time is generally spent picking your nose, checking buffs, telling dick jokes in Vent. Nothing about it is really any fun or exciting. You watch a clock tick down.
How it could work:
- First off, let's not call it an "entrance" or refer to it as "entrance music". That immediately brings to mind wrestlers wearing feather boas and neon tights. Call it a "War Anthem" or something. Although the inspiration for this is WWF, the actual rationale behind it should be war. In war, you don't play music to rile up a stadium of fans. However, music does have a place in war - whether it be psyching out the enemy with war drums, chants and blaring horns or modern-day soldiers psyching themselves up by blasting Megadeth and Iron Maiden.
- The different elements of the entrance would all be customized by the team/guild leader. It wouldn't have to specifically be some sort of registered arena tournament team, it would be something that takes place any time a full group of guildies enters in a single match. The entrance would all be based on customizations made beforehand in a menu tab, basically 4-5 different things you could select or slot.
- Things you could customize:
- Music. Selected from songs from the game's soundtrack. Probably wouldn't be the largest library in the world to choose from, but most games would offer plenty of good options.
- Heraldry. You could have guild banners flapping in the wind all around you. You could even have this be something you could upgrade with a giant flag in the backdrop that screams "We're better than you", maybe as a PvP reward or microtransaction bullshit.
- FX. A good entrance has some spectacular visual shit going on. Pyrotechnics spitting flamejets into the air, smoke billowing out from the shadows, lasers of red light cutting through the air. All fluff stuff that you could have as PvP rewards or cash shop fodder. Most MMOs have fireworks, why not put them to use and have them automatically fire off in a set entrance display?
- Companions. Usually non-combat "pets" are pretty short-lived fad gimmicks - tiny squirrels and monkeys that trip over your feet. Why not have Entrance Companions to accompany your posse? No, I'm not talking about having little baby penguins flex their muscles and hoot and holler around you. I was thinking more like trumpet-blowing flag bearers and war drummers. Maybe a giant brown bear rearing up and howling, or a pacing tiger, a small phalanx of armored undead, all wearing your team's coat-of-arms and guild colors. You could have your 'mascot' be a pissed-off, life-sized black dragon. All fluff crap you could grind for with PvP 'Renown' or exclusive shit you could buy at the "Entitlements Store".
- War dance. There's usually at least one guy who gets bored at the beginning of a match and does a /dance. Problem is, most dances are designed to look like Travolta or Carlton doing the Hush Puppy, and it's just horrible. Horrible. Death Knights don't do the Dougie.
If a horde is getting ready for an epic fight to the death, you shouldn't see Barbarians standing stock-still, or worse, breaking out into a effete, disco-boogie /dance out of desperate boredom. You should see guys wildly screaming and beating their chests, chanting, offering up blood sacrifices. Have a fucking fiery altar in there. Have Imperial cannons belching death into the sky. Have some fun with it.
PvP players want something to fight for, here's a whole mall of shit they could work for, and none of it is gear that imbalances combat.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)