Gamers Rant---Trigger Warning

originally posted by: JinMI
a reply to: mikegrouchy

Ah yes, rep grinding! That was fun.

IDK if you are familiar with EQ but it had separate cities for each race. Those races had different starting factions with different cities based on the good/evil alignment.

So having say an Ogre race be in a human city was quite a feat and worth noting. Of course this was 18 years ago now.

I did not mean to emphasize the rep grind, and unfortunate pun with the word reputation, as much as the emergent game play. Here is a completely contrary example that means the exact same thing.

Angwe: the amazing Minithil Harbor ganker

His reputation space was the docks of Minithil Harbor. When he was logged on he could shut down travel between the continents. His reputation was so large and long lasting that he is the only person that Reddit ever allowed an A)sk M)e A)nything for only being internet famous.

I am Angwe the ganker god of World of Warcraft: AMA

If it's a pay-to-play, I usually don't touch it unless the storyline is hella compelling. And so far, none have actually hit that bar. I do have a major weakness for Skyrim, though, Elder Scrolls Online has been pretty tempting no matter how you slice it. That may be an indulgence this year, curiosity's been driving me nuts.
Don't get me wrong, I have zero issue paying for a single-player, I'm just really leery of P2P MMOs, especially ones with recurring charges to play & mostly for the obligation feeling.


You do seem to like the melee aspect of weaponry in particular, though, so maybe I can suggest a F2P for you to try out as maybe an alternative to impulse buys? Check out Warframe and see if it's something you'd be interested in. Without getting too spoilery about it, you're basically... well, a futuristic space ninja (the game's tagline IS "ninjas play free" after all)

Warframe is set in a distant future where the solar system is dominated between the Grineer, an empire race of militarized clones; the Corpus, a mega-corporation merchant cult with advanced robotics and laser technology; and the Infested, the name for a disease and its victims that devours all. The players takes the role of a Tenno, an ancient warrior created by the Orokin to battle a mysterious foe but left to slumber generations ago, until woken by an entity called the Lotus for the sole purpose of reuniting the scattered, war-torn colonies throughout the system.

warframe.wikia.com...

The game is named for the exoskeleton/armored suits you wear, which themselves could be appealing if you're partial to any games dependent at least partially on magic skills, as they all have 4 abilities one could liken to magic skills.

Anyway, I mention this one because of the weapons choices. Primary weapons (rifles/shotguns/bows) Secondary weapons (pistols, throwing knives/stars and the like) and Melee (swords/dual swords/daggers/dual daggers, staff/bo weapons, gauntlets & shields, etc) And if you're bold enough, you can just un-equip all of it and go hands-on only.
There's no buying anything if you don't want to, virtually everything can be made by you through obtaining (ok, grinding, but it's a fun grind you're not even aware of) materials & in-game credits which really aren't that hard to get stockpiled once you get the hang of the game.

a reply to: mikegrouchy

Ah, I get what you are saying. My comparison story is not far off the mark either. People doing things of real reputation and to be noticed. Yes those days are gone. Last one I can remember is Swifty from WoW.

I also recall a certain rogue from EQ who would shut down the noobie dungeon when he was logged on. Found a way to be friendly with the monsters who dwelled within and had full reign of the place.

a reply to: Nyiah

I'll give it a look-see. Thanks for the suggestion.

originally posted by: JinMI
a reply to: mikegrouchy

Last one I can remember is Swifty from WoW.

Happened in 2013

The kids are no longer able to find satisfaction within the context of the provided game, as emergent gameplay has been totally throttled. Now we are dealing with the fallout of emergent behavior. Somehow the kids still sense it is about reputation space, but they no longer have access to it. So they tackle the heros of old.


Consider the old first person shooter Quake, and rocket-jumping. That was never intentionally coded into the game. It emerged among high skilled players. The game designers themselves were blown away (pardon the pun) and impressed. But that is the last game I know off that didn't code out some emergent gameplay as though it was a bug.

Consider how bitter many "Melee Smash" players were when the sequel intentionally coded out wave-dashing.

Consider how many explorers unsubed from WoW when wall walking was "fixed".

Consider DOOM 3, the great grand child of quake and how soon it became just another game, because all the loose ends had been nailed down tight, and no new emergent gameplay was possible. Sure, rocket jumping was still there but it was easier and less damaging. Coded for.




I remember a guy.
He had a level one character in an MMO called "Dark Age of Camelot" who ran around outside Camelot helping people, and asking them to vote for him as the town mayor.
There was no voting system, no such rank in the game, and no title to get added to his name.
But after a month everyone started calling him the mayor in chat. Being famous for being so helpful newbies were told to "go to the town outside Camelot and ask for the Mayor." The kid was a walking help manual. And people loved him for it.

He created his own reputation space. And it emerged from the simple functionality of the chat window.

A year later the Game Company added official titles that characters could place before their name, and would appear over the players head.

His reputation in chat died, and he stopped playing.

Once again the company fixed the bug, provided the service the thought the players wanted, and destroyed what was best about the world.

a reply to: mikegrouchy

Interesting story and take on the whole MMO sphere. My theory has always been that if you create a game the allows for emergent gameplay (as you have coined it to this discussion), I've always thought of it as a true sandbox, and made the progression slow and tough, it would equate to plenty of players and dollars to the developers. A win win if you will.

In their rush for dollars they have trampled persistence.

They games feel "over" sooner and sooner now.
The emptiness afterwards larger and larger.

The only games worth playing now are first person shooters.

Heresy?

The skills one develops will actually transfer to the next shooter to come along.

Unlike MMOs with their mud-flation, or fremium games and the DLC.

No one gets to keep their reputation space anymore.

a reply to: mikegrouchy

I'll not disagree. I was an original CS player within a fairly skilled clan. I'm talking 1.4 days. Clan tags meant something and your skill stood out on its own.

Played one of the Modern Warfare games and enjoyed it. I just couldn't take hours of random music, swearing kids and all the other random talk that goes on there.

I am considering the newest doom or BF1 single player campaign. I have a RX480 with the vulkan architecture and it should be a very awesome visual experience.

originally posted by: JinMI

Played one of the Modern Warfare games and enjoyed it. I just couldn't take hours of random music, swearing kids and all the other random talk that goes on there.

A'yup.





It's all emergent behavior now instead of emergent gameplay in the online communities.

Even in the shooters.

Though the military has made some progress in using shooters to train soldiers. Bringing down the casualties and increasing the teams effectiveness.

a reply to: mikegrouchy

Twitch and the others certainly validate your claim. The personalities have replaced the actual game.

I will say this however. With the advent of Minecraft came a slew of new gamers and a emergent gameplay. Voxels allow for creation to take over like never before in games. Have you seen the title 7 Days to Die? There are a few more, Rust among them.

Being able to build villiages/towns/castles/empires and then being able to absolutely decimate them are the new thing. For how long? Time will tell.

Minecraft.
Supposedly a game for little kids.
This video sums it up.

Creative people still want to create.

100 million views.

They expressed peoples feelings well,
but never did indicated the solution being reputation space,
because in Minecraft your reputation space can be erased with dynamite.

Videos of Minecraft became greater than actually playing Minecraft.

a reply to: mikegrouchy
I'm not speaking of Minecraft specifically. To my knowledge they were just the first.
store.steampowered.com...=0&tab=TopSellers

Within a small co-op scenario these style of games could really be something. Given the massive movement of the video streams, that is the replacement for the here and now.

For the future? I can only speculate but if history is an indication it will not be something new but a return to the old with slight variances.

Absolutely.

There was an explosion in new code after Minecraft.

Both for the game and for the games you mention that followed. Coders were out there carving out new reputation space. I have followed many of them with great interest.



Space engineers and the survival co-op series.





Poly bridge.






Besiege.





But where, I ask you, is the shared space.
The shared reputation space.
The sense of community.

You mentioned it earlier.
Your CS clan.

What happened to our guilds?

Public education is what happened.
The newer generations are consumers.

I have been seeing this a lot from gamers lately. Gamers complaining they're buying lots of games and never playing them.

Am I the only weirdo. Who buys lots of games but then only plays one game at a time until its beaten. Which allows me to eventually get through every game I buy. Even if it takes years.

The only exception being highly randomized games like Civilizations or Kerbal. Which you never really beat. And are always re-playable. Those types of games I rotate in and out. Usually having two installed on the computer. Then I have one game I am playing by myself until its beaten and one game that I play multiplayer, usually a FPS, which also gets rotated occasionally.

Single player games that have a story I usually only ever play once.

I guess I'm lucky. I'm not into any MMO timesinks right now. And I never got into all these survival games that have become popular. They become a second job. You have to constantly play everyday or you fall behind and/or someone comes around and straight up destroys you and takes all your stuff.

a reply to: mikegrouchy

You sneaky, crafty grouch! I knew there was a CT being formed!

Where is the reputation space? It is held briefly on smaller servers usually privately owned by an admin/gamer. Subject to the rules and wipe procedures of said admins. Hardly something of a metric to judge progress.

Sense of community is around. Albeit much smaller and fragmented. Within game they don't last long as my OP is not something created in a vacuum.

Consumers...I'd have to agree. Burn through the content then..next! Rinse repeat.

Another case in point is the current system of game building. Paid for Alpha releases. Crowd funding. Indie developers with a buy-in program.

a reply to: karmicecstasy

Am I the only weirdo. Who buys lots of games but then only plays one game at a time until its beaten. Which allows me to eventually get through every game I buy. Even if it takes years.

You possess a skill that I have yet to perfect or even to achieve the basic mechanics of! Kudos to you.

originally posted by: ketsuko
I just completed my first full playthrough of XCOM 2 yesterday. I had several abortive attempts -- one even all the way up to the final fight at the end where I realized I'd done it all wrong and wasn't going to pull it off.

I was proud of that, finally finishing and winning. It literally came down to one shot all or nothing at the end for this first success. The XCOM games are tough.

Just to piggyback off of this. If anyone is interested in XCOM 2. You can get it in this months Humble monthly for 12 dollars. Or if you have ever bought something from the Humble store before. You probably have a 10% off coupon for Humble monthly. Which makes it even cheaper.

That's what I did. I got it for 10.80, plus you get a bunch of other games with it. XCOM 2, gets sent right away, the rest of the games in ten days, when the rest of this months bundle unlocks. Then you can stay subscribed or cancel immediately, which is what I did, with no penalty.

That is the best deal on XCOM 2. The cheapest its been up to this point.

originally posted by: karmicecstasy
I have been seeing this a lot from gamers lately. Gamers complaining they're buying lots of games and never playing them.

Am I the only weirdo. Who buys lots of games but then only plays one game at a time until its beaten. Which allows me to eventually get through every game I buy. Even if it takes years.

The only exception being highly randomized games like Civilizations or Kerbal. Which you never really beat. And are always re-playable. Those types of games I rotate in and out. Usually having two installed on the computer. Then I have one game I am playing by myself until its beaten and one game that I play multiplayer, usually a FPS, which also gets rotated occasionally.

Single player games that have a story I usually only ever play once.

I guess I'm lucky. I'm not into any MMO timesinks right now. And I never got into all these survival games that have become popular. They become a second job. You have to constantly play everyday or you fall behind and/or someone comes around and straight up destroys you and takes all your stuff.

I have great respect for my fellow humans that chew their food slowly.


Mike Grouchy

originally posted by: JinMI
a reply to: mikegrouchy

You sneaky, crafty grouch! I knew there was a CT being formed!

I now realize that I have said too much and I should say no more.

Thank you for reading.


Mike Grouchy