Trying out the web browser on my new Kindle 2, I decided to check the boards. It took about a minute to start really hating people who quote entire posts to add comments shorter than their sigs.
: Zubon
Category: General
General
.
Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.
.Games I wanna see remade
Reminiscing with Syncaine about Syndicate (that’s a nice pair of Syns) on my previous post reminded me about those games that urgently need to be made again for the enjoyment of today’s spoiled achievement and gamer card generation.
– The aforementioned Syndicate, because it was godly fun. A squad of four cybernetically-enhanced agents packing miniguns in a dense urban area? Sign me up.
– Crusader: No Remorse. Just think of all that property damage riding on top of a modern engine with physics and particle systems. Yum.
– X-COM (Or UFO: Enemy Unknown, depending on which side of the pond you are): Because it was one of the greatest games ever and pretty much the noble granddaddy of the tactical squad games.
-Paradroid. I don’t expect you whippersnappers to know what I’m talking about, but running around as a robot in a derelict spaceship hacking and assimilating other robots to stay alive was way too much fun.
– System Shock. This one is pretty much self-explanatory. I wouldn’t mind it one bit if someone remade System Shock 2 either.
– Deus Ex. No, don’t tell me about Invisible War. That was a bad sequel. The original Deus Ex was fraggin’ lightning in a bottle that needs to be caught again. At any cost.
– Ultima V. I know I’m getting into tenebrous territory here, but Ultima V was to me one of the high points of the series. I’m not getting into arguments about which one is better.
– Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. A dark horse in this list. Did everything right, this one. Later installments were hit or miss.
– Carmaggeddon. Good luck getting this done in today’s saccharinized society.
– Supercars 2. An awesome, awesome little top down racer with violent vehicles.
– Transport Tycoon Deluxe. Often imitated, never surpassed.
– Elite. And no, don’t tell me I can play EVE for my Elite fix because it’s not the same and you damn well know it. Also, while I’m at it, I’d just like to mention that Frontier was better than most people gave it credit for. It just had a ton of bugs. Still, remaking Elite (and remaking it properly that is) is a tall order.
I also want my very own magical pony and a Secret of Monkey Island MMO. There, I said it.
Unlockables versus Items
How many mounts do you have or have you had? My Hobbit seems to be collecting ponies, and she does not get rid of them when a new one comes along. She has a Bree pony (low-level, slower), a blonde sorrel (first real mount), a chestnut (faction mount that survives more hits), a gray pony (white horse reward for finishing Volume One), and however many seasonal event ponies she has (plus tokens for more). These will soon be replaced with a Nimble Goat, which can be used in Moria.
I could sell a pony every time I get a better one, but they are ponies. My wife might never forgive me, and maybe today I want to ride a different pretty pony. What I would prefer, rather than having an inventory item for every possible mount, is to have a single mount item or power. When I get a new mount, I get a new option for that single mount. Give me a drop-down menu on my character to set my mount choice. (I am aware that I just asked for a pony menu on my paper doll. You cannot have my man card.) If the mount color is not considered PvP-relevant, I should be able to set the appearance to any mount I have unlocked — separate functionality improvements from appearance options, and leave me all my appearance options.
That is a general principle. As with most appearance issues, City of Heroes does it right. You start with a variety of options for what your sword looks like, and when you get a new option, you get a new sword appearance option on your list rather than a new sword to carry around. You unlock costume pieces through badges, task forces, microtransactions, and veteran rewards.
If you have item sets for each class, make that a deed, accomplishment, badge or whatever you call it. Once you finish the set, you permanently unlock that set appearance. You already have a cosmetic equipment tab, don’t you? Have another option on it: pick a completed item set from this drop-down menu.
Or better yet, everyone start using a system like the City of Heroes costume designer. I am looking forward to what Champions delivers. I still need to see The Chronicles of Spellborn’s version, once my addiction to The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ Volume Two: Mines of Moriaâ„¢ fades.
: Zubon
More than the sum of its parts
I’m still in a circular mood (360, circular, get it? har har). Got Fable 2 recently just on the strengths of its many positive reviews and because I generally tend to like Peter Molyneux’s games a lot. Yes, even back to Populous. I played it when it came out. I’m old.
Well, it doesn’t disappoint and most of the praise thrown in the game’s direction is well warranted. Fable 2 does a lot of things very right, and a few things wrong. However, the more I play it I’m finding out those wrong things were done wrong essentially because they had no choice. But all in all this is one of those games in which the general feeling of the whole being way more than the sum of its parts is really strong and noticeable.
Thoughts follow.
Infringement Meme
A comment at The Volokh Conspiracy, pointed me to “Infringement Nation,” a paper discussing the gap between copyright law and our social norms. The part you should go read is IV.A. “Infringement Nation,” which starts on page 8. Due to extensive footnotes, the 1000 words are spread across six pages.
The shorter version is that common activities are technically illegal, and the only things stopping billion of dollars of lawsuits (per person, per year) are good will and the difficulty of enforcement. If you include the text of an e-mail in a reply, that is an illegal reproduction of someone’s original work. If your game or music volume is too loud, that could be an illegal public performance of a copyrighted work.
On one hand, hey, can we track down those jerks who copy others’ blogs to generate faux content around a bunch of ads? Every single post on there is a potential $150,000 offense. How about those jerks who play their car radios loudly enough to rattle your windows? Illegal public performance, clear infringement.
On another hand, how many gaming blogs are posting their sixth screenshots? Did you contact the publisher for permission to reproduce artwork from their game? You are also making a derivative work, and your chat box may show infringement of other players’ copyright in their (short) textual creations. You are also distributing said illegal works, and engaging in contributory infringement by linking to other infringing blogs. Given the web of sites participating, there may be grounds for conspiracy or racketeering charges. That the developers want your free publicity right now does not mean that they have granted you legal permission to violate their copyrights.
Many people take the high ground on not stealing music or engaging in file sharing. Have you considered how you might be “a little pregnant” on violating copyright law?
: Zubon
If you read this post aloud, you created an unapproved derivative work. If someone else was around, you also conducted a public exhibition. Where is my royalties check?
Kindle as Portable Web Browser
On the Cusp
For the first time in an MMO, I feel I am on the cusp for forthcoming content. I am no longer catching up to the masses. I have always been a more casual gamer in MMOs. The aged Bartle Test would classify me as an EAKS. In Lord of the Rings Online, I am finally max level, nearing the end of the current epic quest line, and finishing up the current zones. Being on the cusp does not mean I have nothing to do; rather, the anticipation to forthcoming content is a bigger deal. It’s a bittersweet place to be.
Photon Phasing
Marc Nottke at Massively writes his last column on “phasing” for MMOgology, a column that had a very good run. Phasing is a mechanic in a persistent MMO world where prior to some event horizon players are all in phase alpha of a zone. After the world-changing event, players belong to the phase beta club. A town that players once loved is burnt to the ground, there may be new mobs, new quest-givers, etc. in the beta phase.
The problem with the big MMOs current use of phasing (namely World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online to a much lesser extent) is that the community is partitioned. The door goes one way, folks. When you raised the ire of the enemy and your city was burned, well you can’t go back in time to see the city unburned. That would be silly. Now it’s time to eke the new world order out of the ashes.
Guild Wars phased the world between the starting area and the rest of the game with the first offering, Prophecies. Players refused to leave. They stayed in phase alpha, and to some degree – as much as is possible in Guild Wars – built a community there. This is an extreme, but it does highlight the dangers of phasing. People are not happy when people in the beta phase club cannot come back and group up with the slower alpha phase club. Developers therefore have to be careful to limit the scope of the alpha phase in width and depth. Areas unaffected by the event should not be partitioned, and players should not have to spend inordinate amounts of time trying to pass through to beta phase. More thoughts after the break.
6
I’ve been tagged by Ysharros over at Stylish Corpse to post my sixth screen shot so I looked into my storage drive to see what was there. Asheron’s Call 2? Dungeons & Dragons Online? EVE Online? Nah.
I decided to go with my World of Warcraft folder because the 6th image in there comes right out of the end of beta event and includes three Magmadars in a place where they just don’t belong. Without any further rambling, here it is.
This is a tag-free post so relax. You may pretend I tagged you if you want to play along.
– Ethic
Locusts and Lemmings
“Montana Sucks! Now go home and tell all your friends!”
Recent discussion of WoW tourists brings to mind the problem of all tourists: “let’s go somewhere different and whine about how things are not like they were back home. The food here is funny. The toilets are weird. They act like they don’t even speak English.”
The tourists go looking for virgin wilderness, something pristine and untouched. Then they leave tire tracks, litter, and poo; they call for modern conveniences, ideally heated cabins with indoor plumbing and room service; they mock the locals as yokels and wonder why they are not friendlier.