As hard as it is to say, WoW just isn't doing it for me anymore. I got my Hunter to 70, got my Flying Machine and started leveling my Warrior. I got him to 64 and just kind of went 'bleh.'
It was just the same quests, only harder.
So, I need a new game. I don't care if it's single-player or an MMO, but I gotta hankerin' for somethin' new.
I have been playing Painkiller: Overdose, but it doesn't quite grab me. I play through a level now and again, but I feel no overwhelming drive to complete it (unlike the original Painkiller that I played through 4 times).
I was also considering going back to City of Heroes/Villains, but you can't solo past a certain point and I always find that frustrating. Well, you can, but you can't complete the AV story arcs.
I have been considering Pirates of the Burning Sea, but while the combat sounds fun, the whole economic model doesn't seem particularly interesting. I'm also considering Tabula Rasa, but I've heard pro and con on that one.
So, tell what's good out there right now. I like FPSs (I've played CoD 4 through 3 times already) and RPGs, but will play most anything if it's interesting.
Are there any hidden gems out there? Any little games, even 'casual' ones, that deliver serious fun? Let me know.
Cheers,
-Jason
Showing posts with label RPG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RPG. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Adventuring is Hard: Part 3
You almost never do proper quests in RPGs. Quests, as defined by an online dictionary are ‘an adventurous expedition undertaken by a knight or knights to secure or achieve something: the quest of the Holy Grail.’
Killing 12 Vapid Rats is not a quest. Neither is escorting some brain-dead moron who attacks everything in sight out of a dungeon (that’s more of a trial aka ‘pain-in-the-butt’). These are really just Tasks, which are appetizers to the feast that is a real quest.
Tasks tend to be weirdly number intensive. Somebody lost an eye to a Frosted Bat and now he wants you to kill twenty of them. Is that the going rate for an eye? What would a hand be worth? Fifty? It just all seems rather arbitrary.
Real quests are things like taking the One Ring to Mount Doom, defeating the Evil that has Enveloped the World, or even Cleaning my Bathroom. Hint: you can tell ‘real’ quests by the number of words being capitalized.
Understandably, RPGs are limited in their scope. The Baldur’s Gate series has an actual quest as the overarching plot. The old Betrayal at Krondor game also had one (fun game, hard though). I’m sure that many others also have them. MMORPGS are a bit different, as not everybody can throw the One Ring into the fires from whence it was forged. They’d have to queue up on Mount Doom to throw the rings in. Orcs would set up souvenir stands and sell 9-fingered gloves. “I destroyed the One Ring and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”
It’s all rather silly, once you stand back and take a look at it. This doesn’t keep me from playing though :)
And here’s one last look at Garin and Co. before we go.
“So, what’s Garin doing now?”
“Killing Murderous Mud Mammals.”
“Okay. Why?”
“Oh, some guy will give him three gold if he brings him twenty Murderous Mud Mammal Molars.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Oh, and some other guy thinks that a Murderous Mud Mammal may have mauled his mother’s magic maple margarine minder. He’ll give him 8 gold and a sword if Garin finds all the pieces.”
“That’s silly.”
“Nope, that’s 11 gold and a new sword.”
“Can I do it too?”
Cheers,
-Jason
Killing 12 Vapid Rats is not a quest. Neither is escorting some brain-dead moron who attacks everything in sight out of a dungeon (that’s more of a trial aka ‘pain-in-the-butt’). These are really just Tasks, which are appetizers to the feast that is a real quest.
Tasks tend to be weirdly number intensive. Somebody lost an eye to a Frosted Bat and now he wants you to kill twenty of them. Is that the going rate for an eye? What would a hand be worth? Fifty? It just all seems rather arbitrary.
Real quests are things like taking the One Ring to Mount Doom, defeating the Evil that has Enveloped the World, or even Cleaning my Bathroom. Hint: you can tell ‘real’ quests by the number of words being capitalized.
Understandably, RPGs are limited in their scope. The Baldur’s Gate series has an actual quest as the overarching plot. The old Betrayal at Krondor game also had one (fun game, hard though). I’m sure that many others also have them. MMORPGS are a bit different, as not everybody can throw the One Ring into the fires from whence it was forged. They’d have to queue up on Mount Doom to throw the rings in. Orcs would set up souvenir stands and sell 9-fingered gloves. “I destroyed the One Ring and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”
It’s all rather silly, once you stand back and take a look at it. This doesn’t keep me from playing though :)
And here’s one last look at Garin and Co. before we go.
“So, what’s Garin doing now?”
“Killing Murderous Mud Mammals.”
“Okay.
“Oh, some guy will give him three gold if he brings him twenty Murderous Mud Mammal Molars.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Oh, and some other guy thinks that a Murderous Mud Mammal may have mauled his mother’s magic maple margarine minder. He’ll give him 8 gold and a sword if Garin finds all the pieces.”
“That’s silly.”
“Nope, that’s 11 gold and a new sword.”
Cheers,
-Jason
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Adventuring is Hard: Part 2
So, I have established that going to the bathroom can be a horrible experience. Yet, there is one worse than that: fighting.
Fighting is the bread and butter of the adventurer and is typically undertaken by the warrior, paladin, barbarian, or whatever. Fighting, though, hurts. No matter how good you are or how well armored you may be, eventually, someone is going to stab you with something sharp.
To counter this problem (namely bleeding), there are healers. Those who faithfully bind wounds, cast healing spells, and generally see to the health of the party.
These people are great for the party, but horrible for the fighters.
I can hear the hue and cry now. “But healers keep the melees alive!” “But without healers, melees would never fight!”
Both are true, but consider this: A warrior fights, gets injured (if not dead), has to heal up and then fights again. It is a slow process, but one wherein the warrior does not spend the majority of his time being stabbed.
Now, put a healer into the mix. A melee fights, gets injured, gets healed, fights again, gets injured again, gets healed, etcetera. Basically, what the healer does is ensure that the melee is in nigh constant pain.
Have you ever been punched in the face? It was probably unpleasant. Now, imagine that you knew you were going to get punched. It was inevitable. Bad, yes? Now imagine that you were going to get punched 100 times, only someone would make you feel better in between punches. Welcome to the life of the warrior.
Even worse is considering that the majority of healing is done through spells and that to maximize the healing spells, you had to be injured a certain amount. It might go something like this.
“So, who’s that Garin’s fighting?”
“Not sure. Looks like there’s about twenty of them though.”
“Yeah. I won- oooh, that looked painful.”
“Meh. Nothing a Cure Critical won’t fix.”
“Huh. Wow, Garin’s really taking a beating. Shouldn’t you be healing him or something?”
“Nah, I’ve got a Cure Massive ready. He needs to be really injured though; otherwise it’s overkill.”
“I think his arm just came off.”
“Not yet.”
“Ummm, he’s screaming and I think I can actually see his lungs.”
“That’s about right.”
Healing happens and the battle ends.
“Garin seems a touch upset.”
“He’ll get over it. Besides, there’s another group coming over the rise. Don’t worry, I’ve got another Cure Massive.”
Tomorrow: Quests and the People that Love Them
Fighting is the bread and butter of the adventurer and is typically undertaken by the warrior, paladin, barbarian, or whatever. Fighting, though, hurts. No matter how good you are or how well armored you may be, eventually, someone is going to stab you with something sharp.
To counter this problem (namely bleeding), there are healers. Those who faithfully bind wounds, cast healing spells, and generally see to the health of the party.
These people are great for the party, but horrible for the fighters.
I can hear the hue and cry now. “But healers keep the melees alive!” “But without healers, melees would never fight!”
Both are true, but consider this: A warrior fights, gets injured (if not dead), has to heal up and then fights again. It is a slow process, but one wherein the warrior does not spend the majority of his time being stabbed.
Now, put a healer into the mix. A melee fights, gets injured, gets healed, fights again, gets injured again, gets healed, etcetera. Basically, what the healer does is ensure that the melee is in nigh constant pain.
Have you ever been punched in the face? It was probably unpleasant. Now, imagine that you knew you were going to get punched. It was inevitable. Bad, yes? Now imagine that you were going to get punched 100 times, only someone would make you feel better in between punches. Welcome to the life of the warrior.
Even worse is considering that the majority of healing is done through spells and that to maximize the healing spells, you had to be injured a certain amount. It might go something like this.
“So, who’s that Garin’s fighting?”
“Not sure. Looks like there’s about twenty of them though.”
“Yeah. I won- oooh, that looked painful.”
“Meh. Nothing a Cure Critical won’t fix.”
“Huh. Wow, Garin’s really taking a beating. Shouldn’t you be healing him or something?”
“Nah, I’ve got a Cure Massive ready. He needs to be really injured though; otherwise it’s overkill.”
“I think his arm just came off.”
“Not yet.”
“Ummm, he’s screaming and I think I can actually see his lungs.”
“That’s about right.”
Healing happens and the battle ends.
“Garin seems a touch upset.”
“He’ll get over it. Besides, there’s another group coming over the rise. Don’t worry, I’ve got another Cure Massive.”
Tomorrow: Quests and the People that Love Them
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Adventuring is Hard
So, while I was playing WoW the other night with my 5-man instance group, I was sneaking along with my Rogue through scores of MOBs (the end boss in BRD, if you happen to know where I mean) and I thought to myself, as a patrol passed by, ‘Man, it would suck if I sneezed right now.’
This random thought made me reflect on what life would be like to be an adventurer, not just in WoW, but in any of the scores of MMORPGs and pen-and-paper based games
Being an adventurer would be hard. Think about it. You constantly travel, routinely fight horrible things with fangs that want to eat you, basically camp-out 90% of the time, and would probably know which leaves made the best toilet paper. Actually, you would eventually learn which leaves made the best toilet paper. There would have to be a certain amount of trial and error involved, which would probably lead to some really interesting (read painful) rashes. Just hope you have a cleric with you, otherwise life would be hell for quite a while.
And just when you came to know which leaves worked best and which leaves needed to be avoided, what would happen? That’s right, you’d wind up on another continent, planet, or plane of existence and you’d have to start all over again.
Imagine a camp of stalwart adventurers, hardened by years of combat and eating things that tried to eat them first, at camp on a new continent.
“Hey, why is Garin standing in the bushes crying?”
“He can’t decide whether to use the blue leaf that smells funny or the green one that looks like a top hat.”
“You’re kidding? That’s Garin the Destroyer! He once bit an eyestalk off a Beholder on a bet and called the Minotaur King a pansy to his face!”
“Well, last time he tried the soft purple leaf and discovered it was actually alive.”
“And?”
“It bit him in the . . . err, little Garin and wouldn’t let go. Let’s just say I had to cast Cure Critical Wounds. Twice.”
“Oh.”
Tomorrow: Warriors: Having a Healer Means Getting Stabbed More Often
This random thought made me reflect on what life would be like to be an adventurer, not just in WoW, but in any of the scores of MMORPGs and pen-and-paper based games
Being an adventurer would be hard. Think about it. You constantly travel, routinely fight horrible things with fangs that want to eat you, basically camp-out 90% of the time, and would probably know which leaves made the best toilet paper. Actually, you would eventually learn which leaves made the best toilet paper. There would have to be a certain amount of trial and error involved, which would probably lead to some really interesting (read painful) rashes. Just hope you have a cleric with you, otherwise life would be hell for quite a while.
And just when you came to know which leaves worked best and which leaves needed to be avoided, what would happen? That’s right, you’d wind up on another continent, planet, or plane of existence and you’d have to start all over again.
Imagine a camp of stalwart adventurers, hardened by years of combat and eating things that tried to eat them first, at camp on a new continent.
“Hey, why is Garin standing in the bushes crying?”
“He can’t decide whether to use the blue leaf that smells funny or the green one that looks like a top hat.”
“You’re kidding? That’s Garin the Destroyer! He once bit an eyestalk off a Beholder on a bet and called the Minotaur King a pansy to his face!”
“Well, last time he tried the soft purple leaf and discovered it was actually alive.”
“And?”
“It bit him in the . . . err, little Garin and wouldn’t let go. Let’s just say I had to cast Cure Critical Wounds. Twice.”
“Oh.”
Tomorrow: Warriors: Having a Healer Means Getting Stabbed More Often
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Freedom: $19.95: Part 1
I’ve been playing Hellgate: London lately. Overall, it’s okay. The cool stuff (fighting demons, lottsa loot, cool graphics) is balanced out by the bad stuff (performance issues, bad UI, broken single-player campaign) which gives it an over-all score of ‘meh.’
However, one aspect of the game that amuses me is the fact that you can buy and sell things from a merchant. This might not seem particularly noteworthy, as buying and selling stuff has long been a staple of RPGs, but consider that the plot of Hellgate goes like this:
The Doors of Hell have been opened and demons by the untold millions are streaming forth. Humanity is pretty much circling the toilet, fighting desperately to prevent that final flush. You, as the stereotypical hero, must fight off the demon hordes, defeat the Big Bad, close the Doors, and save the day. The fate of the world, as you are told rather frequently, hinges on you.
The local merchants, however, charge you for healing packs.
Yep, you collect money, both by picking it up and selling loot, and you can then BUY stuff from the merchant. You would think that they would be happy to give you what you needed, but no, all the merchants seem to have gone to the Ferengi School of Retail. Profit is apparently more important than the fate of humanity.
Tomorrow: Merchant: 1, Fate of Humanity: 0
However, one aspect of the game that amuses me is the fact that you can buy and sell things from a merchant. This might not seem particularly noteworthy, as buying and selling stuff has long been a staple of RPGs, but consider that the plot of Hellgate goes like this:
The Doors of Hell have been opened and demons by the untold millions are streaming forth. Humanity is pretty much circling the toilet, fighting desperately to prevent that final flush. You, as the stereotypical hero, must fight off the demon hordes, defeat the Big Bad, close the Doors, and save the day. The fate of the world, as you are told rather frequently, hinges on you.
The local merchants, however, charge you for healing packs.
Yep, you collect money, both by picking it up and selling loot, and you can then BUY stuff from the merchant. You would think that they would be happy to give you what you needed, but no, all the merchants seem to have gone to the Ferengi School of Retail. Profit is apparently more important than the fate of humanity.
Tomorrow: Merchant: 1, Fate of Humanity: 0
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