November 18, 2008 by Matt.

A few key things have happened since my last post (wow, over a year ago), so I guess I should write stuff here now.  I’ll follow this up later with interesting things!

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August 24, 2007 by Matt.

Have you noticed with this current trend of MMOs that…

everyone looks the same?

Seriously, look around.  There’s like one body type per race nowadays, and only five or six races.  Perhaps I’m a bit spoiled with EQ and DAoC (for number of character races), SWG pre-NGE (for customization) and various MUDs (see previous) but when you’re just like everyone else the character itself loses its flavour.  Apparently it’s British flavour, imported.

I’ve always been more willing to play a character that I crafted more than a character I just slapped together.  Five faces,one body type just isn’t cutting it for me anymore.  This goes double for more of the Korean-style MMOs where you’re playing a character with this backstory, that everyone else can pick from.  It’s like a cloning machine went amok!  And that just screams “hey, you could play NWN2 and make a better character” to me.

If I’m going to play an MMO, I want a character that is *different*, and not just in mannerisms.  Heck, most of my early MMOing I made friends with people by starting conversations with “Wow, that is an awesome [loot item here], it makes you look sharp!  What is it?”.  Note that I have no problem with one item looking the same way, but if you can have five “fighters” standing in line, all be relatively the same effectiveness and look completely different then you have a winner.

I WANT TO BE AN INDIVIDUAL!

POR FAVOR NOOOOO!

Posted in Rant, MMORPGs | 1 Comment »

August 17, 2007 by Matt.

I don’t know how I feel about it, honestly.

The Pros:

• They can fix their issues.  Fixing the grappling rules?  Fighters getting things to do other than roll to-hit/damage?  Whee!
• Getting access to stuff you buy online when you purchase the paper version is very tasty.  No more scanning for yours truly, and hopefully it’s freakin’ searchable.
• A legitimate chargen program that hopefully won’t act/look like it came out of a monkey’s butt.
• A digital table that hopefully won’t…. etc etc.

Cons:

• Monthly fee for online content?  For what, specifically?
• Whenever you touch something, you have a chance at breaking it.  They’re going to touch polymorph and wildshape, but what exactly are they going to do to it?
• Actually, I’m still a bit nervous about the online thing.  Online is for MMOs, PnP is for sitting at the table with friends.
• Buying more books. *grumble*
• The books are coming out in a staggered manner, which will bite horribly. PHB, then MM, then DMG.
• The idea of the SRD’s supposed to come with as well.  Now some good things have come from letting anyone play in your sandbox, but there’s been some damn scary things out there too, and I’d rather see cheaper licensing and some quality control than everything becoming part of everyone.

Of course it’s all speculation until next May and like the little sheep I am I’ll probably buy the PHB at least, but I get this feeling that unless that book’s an orgasm on paper people will be a bit slow to switch.

Posted in PnP, News | 1 Comment »

August 1, 2007 by Matt.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/30/dragon-quest-iv-v-vi-remakes-bound-for-ds/

This makes me happy - If memory serves, 5 didn’t make it over here and I’m not sure if 6 did either.  I’m pretty sure it was 7 that was here in PS1 format, and we all know about 8.  Let’s hope they continue this tradition.  Old games are new again!

Posted in Console, News | 1 Comment »

July 30, 2007 by Matt.

We played this on Sunday when we weren’t able to have game:

http://www.elsewhere.org/discordian/bwcards.html/

It was a lot of fun, with cards ranging from the Monty Python foot to Lag to Rain.  If you have a bunch of 3×5s, some pens and some friends who are bored then it’s worth the pirce of admission.

Posted in Fluff | 1 Comment »

July 26, 2007 by Matt.

Of course, you read that and think “well duuuuh, you have a link to GamePolitics right over there.” When you actually see what a psychologist hands you for a “survey”, you’ll wonder if they’ve ever touched a controller.

It started off with the usual demographics - age, gender, race, married or not. It asked daily how much time you spend gaming (4 hours a day nowadays) and how much today (30 minutes, jumped in to play a little Beyond Good and Evil) which brings me to my first issue. This is the list of games they apparently know about:

• First Person Shooter
• Sports
• Simulator (Sims, Real Life? Real Life isn’t a game!)
• Real-Time Strategy
• MMORPG

I wrote in “Other - Adventure - Beyond Good and Evil”. Note also how they listed FPSes and MMOs at the top and bottom, for ease of selection.

Next they go on this long list using very big words about how you were able to “control” the game session. Whether you could interactively look at stuff, how natural it was to do things, all in very clinical terms as if we could lift boxes, bring them to the screen and spin them around or something. They did ask some of the important questions like “how engaged were your senses”, but the rest just didn’t seem like they had ever played a game. I’d love to see a chess player with the same questionnaire and see how they’d answer some of that part.

The last part was the real clincher. How do you answer “Given enough provocation, I may hit another person” or “If I have to resort to violence to protect my rights, I will”? ONOS HE WILL DEFEND HIS RIGHTS WITH HIS FISTS, HE IS AN ANGRY GAMER. Or worse, if someone threatens your loved one with bodily harm and you step up, that also apparently makes you a violent gamer. Also, disagreeing with someone can be a flag - “When people annoy me, I may tell them what I think of them.” Yes, if they’re annoying I’ll say “hey man, that’s… a bit annoying”. “I tell my friends openly when I disagree with them” is called being open and honest, not violent.

I must say I’m boggled.

[edit] After speaking to the person who handed out the survey, the one who wrote it is a friend’s friend and no, she hasn’t played games before.   Based on some of the other responses I’ve heard, she’s going to get some very interesting feedback concerning it.

Posted in Rant, Fluff | 1 Comment »

July 25, 2007 by Matt.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6556&Itemid=2

So he says that MMOs these days are following the Old Code of Online Gaming, that the gameplay is lacking and everyone is too busy watching statistics to have fun.

I gotta say I agree, to a certain extent.

Being able to see yourself get more powerful has always been a big draw with MMOs. It’s the power factor - that orc that turned you into a grease spot three levels ago is now a challenge, and in three more levels it’ll be his turn to be grease. That spell you just cast, with two more intellegence, will do 8 more points of damage! Whoopie! Huzzah! But is it real character development? Does that little boost equate to good gameplay?

He says that Tabula Rasa isn’t going to be the best thing since sliced bread (smart man, lest TR become the next Daikatana) but he hopes for it to be a blueprint for the next generation’s games, with choices that really affect your character. While some would argue that you’d not be able to experience the full game if you’re limited by that, well… them’s the breaks. That character made that decision. You sided with the Pink Flamingos and now you’re an enemy of the Purple Trousers. You killed that character instead of saving him, congrats, you have the “merciless” quality and moved two points to the WTF alignment. I’m all for having characters be able to switch sides and be a traitor to your other team but I’d like to see some big choices made story and character-wise that really matter other than picking a realm/city/faction.

One can hope, at least.

Posted in News, MMORPGs | 1 Comment »

July 24, 2007 by Matt.

So I just reactivated my Sony Station Pass. Now most people raise their eyebrow when I do that, I can explain!

Everquest - I used to be completely freaking addicted to this game. It was my first, and like your first you keep thinking back and saying “damn, that was actually pretty good”. Of course it’ll take me a good 30 minutes to say “wait, why did I just do that?” at which point I’ll be chastised for even wasting the three hours of freaking patches for it.

Everquest II - They’ve done a lot of changes to this game since its release. It’s overall a fun game, but it’s probably a lot more fun with a guild and such. The graphics aren’t bad, the classes are pretty fun… Worth the price of admission, if the quests weren’t odd sometimes. I can’t put my finger on why I haven’t devoted myself to this game yet.

Star Wars Galaxies - No, I didn’t install this. After they completely changed everything about how the game worked I have no interest at all in it. The game, the way it was, was fun and unique. Your character could really do anything they wanted, and the Galactic Civil War really loomed. You could have player towns and while there were flaws with the game design (tradeskills and some of the weapon skills come to mind) but hey, I’m a Kosterian at heart, and I thought it was freaking awesome.

Planetside - I like shooting things. FPSes used to be my “thing” and I spent a LOT of time playing Team Fortress Classic online. The game was rough to play on less than a top-of-the-line machine (much like EQ2 and SWG) but being able to actually arrange an Outfit, a Squad and getting XP for leading was a huge draw for me.

Matrix Online - Okay seriously, stop laughing. The martial arts moves look great and being able to leap from building to building is fun. If you nerd out to the IP, it’s fun.

Now I’m being very optimistic, but then again I usually am about MMOs. That’s a rant for another time though. I’m gonna go play my froglok now.

Posted in MMORPGs | 1 Comment »

July 24, 2007 by Matt.

Hello!

This is my blog, that I will be using to muse on all things gaming.  So here you go.  Yay!

Posted in Fluff | 2 Comments »