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Author Topic: XBox Live Arcade, Status?  (Read 4387 times)
Admiral Zeratul
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Re: XBox Live Arcade, Status?
« Reply #15 on: August 27, 2010, 01:46:03 am »

That's why I will say it again.  I SPECIFICALLY REFER TO GUILD WARS.  When I want you guys to look at the theory of how the Online MMO portion would play out.
And I will say what I said again. Give a more convenient multi-player system in Super Melee but, dangit, leave the single-player story mode alone. You do not have to play Star Control, you know. If Guild Wars is so great, why don't you just go back to that game. Oh, that is until it goes out of business. In such a public system, you are at the mercy of whomever runs the game servers and gives you the game. That is one great flaw of MMO's. If the company that runs the servers goes out of business or otherwise shuts down, you no longer get to play. The company controls everything, there are so many "heros" so as to make the term meaningless, plus you have to pay regularly to continue playing. You must be suffering from some kind of delusion if you think online gaming is in any way superior to single-player games. Single player DOES NOT mean that you only play through it once and then forget it. It means you can play by yourself and go at your own pace, all without signing up. So, seriously, just go back to your MMO and grind some n00bs, because you obviously are not happy with the game we know and love.

Draxas, I couldn't agree with you more.

If you haven't played it, then you have NO business trying to make MMO's out to be some kind of plague that turns games into big grinding machines.
I have every right to debate this with you. You, however, have no business dragging everything we love about Star Control through the mud. I must say, I am offended.
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Re: XBox Live Arcade, Status?
« Reply #16 on: August 27, 2010, 10:10:06 am »

And in terms of people coming in late and missing some story elements.  So what.  If all the elements were able to tell a coherant story from the moment they started playing the game, would it really matter if a portion of the player base never got to the ending of that story?.  I don't think so, because it's not the end that matters...its the journey.  And your just a character in that story.  Whether or not you become the Hero of that story is up to you.  If you actually finish the story within the 6 months, then maybe you can get rewarded with a Hall of Fame type deal.  That gives a hell of incentive to play the game if you ask me.

Oh, I see. So screw all you guys who are still debating the intracacies of the story from a 15+ year old game, if you're late to the sequel, it's your problem, go read the wiki to catch up? That's real sweet, thanks, way to respect the fans.

But then, I guess I have no right to talk, seeing as how I haven't played your MMO of choice and never will. So please, carry on.

You should really try playing a good MMO once Smiley. World of Warcraft is in my view the best game ever made, so that's a good place to start Wink.
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Draxas
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Re: XBox Live Arcade, Status?
« Reply #17 on: August 27, 2010, 04:04:54 pm »

You should really try playing a good MMO once Smiley. World of Warcraft is in my view the best game ever made, so that's a good place to start Wink.

I reject your suggestion, as I have done many, many times in the past. I will never play a game that requires a monthly subscription fee, as I do not want to feel like I'm wasting actual, real life money (as opposed to just the "time is money" that I usually waste) if I don't want to play on a given day. When I buy I game, I want to own it, not rent it.

That said, I've played a few other MMOs (and MUDs before them, including some quite excellent ones) and inevitably found them lacking. While I realize that those games were not made by Blizzard, there are still certain constants; I can only grind my skills, levels, and outlandish mob quest drops for so long before that part of my brain starts itching, telling me that I could be spending this time playing a game that's more fun and provides a more fulfilling experience.

Of course, the irony of my previous statement is that I enjoy playing JRPGs. But then again, I don't have to deal with griefers, real money traders, ninja looters, PKers, scrubs, SHFGs, general idiots, and all of the other BS that stems from online games being on the Internet. Because let's be honest, 99+% of the folks online fit under my neat heading of "people I'd rather not be dealing with," and so any game that forces me to do so falls several notches in my esteem.
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Re: XBox Live Arcade, Status?
« Reply #18 on: August 27, 2010, 08:36:33 pm »

You should really try playing a good MMO once Smiley. World of Warcraft is in my view the best game ever made, so that's a good place to start Wink.

I reject your suggestion, as I have done many, many times in the past. I will never play a game that requires a monthly subscription fee, as I do not want to feel like I'm wasting actual, real life money (as opposed to just the "time is money" that I usually waste) if I don't want to play on a given day. When I buy I game, I want to own it, not rent it.

With WOW, you have way more 'value for money' than any other game. You can play it for a 1000 hours and still not 'solve' the game or get bored. Besides that, paying a monthly fee (which is not much at all) ensures that new content is added almost every month.

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That said, I've played a few other MMOs (and MUDs before them, including some quite excellent ones) and inevitably found them lacking. While I realize that those games were not made by Blizzard, there are still certain constants; I can only grind my skills, levels, and outlandish mob quest drops for so long before that part of my brain starts itching, telling me that I could be spending this time playing a game that's more fun and provides a more fulfilling experience.

So how did you like grinding planets in SC2? I had the same feeling there, I cheated with some program to get unlimited money so I could get away from the planet lander business and on towards actually solving the game Wink.
Besides that, WOW doesn't involve much grinding unless you really want to play at the top level. Most of it is just doing quests with other people.

Quote
Of course, the irony of my previous statement is that I enjoy playing JRPGs. But then again, I don't have to deal with griefers, real money traders, ninja looters, PKers, scrubs, SHFGs, general idiots, and all of the other BS that stems from online games being on the Internet. Because let's be honest, 99+% of the folks online fit under my neat heading of "people I'd rather not be dealing with," and so any game that forces me to do so falls several notches in my esteem.

That's bullshit, when you're in a good guild (which I was) you'll only hang out with mature people (we actually had an age restriction, you had to be damn good to get in below 18) who know how to enjoy a game. Surely there are some frustrations here an there, but that's with any multiplayer game. If you're a social person you'll navigate around these problems easily Wink. Oh, and if you DO play WOW, play Horde. If you play alliance I'll have to kill you.
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Admiral Zeratul
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Re: XBox Live Arcade, Status?
« Reply #19 on: August 28, 2010, 07:44:25 am »

If you're a social person you'll navigate around these problems easily Wink
I can see you're operating under the assumption that most of us want to be social. I cannot speak for everyone else, but I enjoy playing solo so much more. Don't get me wrong; I have met good friends playing MMO's. However, the need to have connections with other people to really prosper is severely limiting. Let us not forget about Captain Zelnick! By taking out the single hero and introducing a ton of human players each usually with less wit than phytoplankton, you completely destroy the deep meaning to the story and the game. I mean really, how the (censored) is someone supposed to concentrate when people constantly send messages back and forth like "i iz l33t" and "LoLz!! WtF NO0bsZ!!!". There are already enough MMO's, and many of them no doubt already supply everything you have described.
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Re: XBox Live Arcade, Status?
« Reply #20 on: August 30, 2010, 04:34:28 pm »

With WOW, you have way more 'value for money' than any other game. You can play it for a 1000 hours and still not 'solve' the game or get bored. Besides that, paying a monthly fee (which is not much at all) ensures that new content is added almost every month.

You know, some games released in a finished state or that get periodic free infusions of content easily provide an equally or more fulfilling experience. My favorite current example is Dragon Quest 9: New quests are added each week, multiplayer is a major feature of the game but is not at all necessary to progress in the game, and there's none of this "keep paying me" crap that causes me to reject games with a monthly fee. I paid for the game, and now I can play the entire thing, plus whatever additional content they decide to add, which in my esteem, is a far better value for my money than WOW could ever be. Plus, I'll still be able to play it when Dragon Quest 10 comes out, which may not be the case when Blizzard decides to focus their resources on a different MMO. Distant possibility, but very real.

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So how did you like grinding planets in SC2? I had the same feeling there, I cheated with some program to get unlimited money so I could get away from the planet lander business and on towards actually solving the game Wink.
Besides that, WOW doesn't involve much grinding unless you really want to play at the top level. Most of it is just doing quests with other people.

I'm not ashamed to admit that when I first played the game, grinding planets was a terible chore and I used the infinite lander cheat to get the game moving. However, coming back to the game after that and understanding why my first attempt failed, it became less of a grind and more of a puzzle minigame: are these resources worth the fuel I'll spend to retrieve them? Can my lander survive these conditions in its current state, or should I come back later with more upgrades? Now that I have figured out the underlying mechanics of resource gathering, it's no longer a grind for me.

Really, are you saying that you've never had times where you've thought "Oh, I need to reach X level before I can activate / survive X quest chain, better go kill some mobs" while playing WOW? If not, you really must be managing your time exceptionally well (or perhaps grinding without thinking about it).

Quote
That's bullshit, when you're in a good guild (which I was) you'll only hang out with mature people (we actually had an age restriction, you had to be damn good to get in below 18) who know how to enjoy a game. Surely there are some frustrations here an there, but that's with any multiplayer game. If you're a social person you'll navigate around these problems easily Wink. Oh, and if you DO play WOW, play Horde. If you play alliance I'll have to kill you.

See, I wouldn't want to join a guild. What does the game have for me now? Random morons from the internet.

I don't have friends that play WOW. So whose guild would I be interested in joining? Maybe I would be enticed to throw money at the game for a couple months if I thought the social interactions would be worthwhile. As it is, though, I can get the full spectrum of the sorts of people I would be dealing with on any popular, poorly moderated forum: Idiots, trolls, spambots, etc.

Doesn't help that I'm not actually a particularly social peron, as you say, and have a low tolerance level for BS. I come from the ancient school of oldschool gaming; my ideal multiplayer experience is getting a few friends around the TV or PC monitor, and going round robin on one of the old favorites. We grew up playing games on NES, SNES, Genesis, and DOS PCs, and consequently tend to enjoy only playing multiplayer with people we know. Most of the MMOs I've tried have driven me away from needing to deal with the GIFs in GIFT.

Yeah, thanks for pointing out another aspect of MMOs that I hate right at the end there. My idea of fun is not getting randomly killed by other players just because I happen to be in the wrong faction. I have absolutely no desire to deal with PKers and griefers when I play games, because that is about as far from fun as I can think of getting. I like to feel like I'm accomplishing something, not feel like I'm lucky to sneak between safe zones without being slaughtered by someone with a powerful character and a sick sense of humor.

It's probably worth mentioning that this is getting WAY off topic now, and I would suggest a topic split if you want to discuss WOW and other random MMOs further.
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Re: XBox Live Arcade, Status?
« Reply #21 on: September 02, 2010, 09:29:44 pm »

I hope you realize that there are a large number of MMO's that are going the Free-to-Play route lately?

So your argument of paying a monthly fee if SC2 were to become an MMO is null and void of any substantial reason not to consider the possibility.

Plus,  if people chatting on an MMO bothers you.. you can Minimize the chat bar.   Brilliant idea, I know!

You act as though just because a game has a possibilty of Multiplayer, that you're absolutely FORCED to use that aspect in order to enjoy the game.  You're wrong.

I NEVER once had to rely on Humans to get through the entire story that was Guild Wars.   Although I did prefer to play it with humans.


The issues you bring up is the same retardedness that I have witnessed on  Bungie.net as of late.    People talking about going dark, because they don't have enough self control to IGNORE all the threads that are trying to spoil the story for them.  It's like you either click on the video to watch it, or you don't.   Same here, you either ask a few human players for help,  Or you play the game BY YOURSELF.  What I have envisioned for the MMO portion of this game, would in no way require you to HAVE TO interact with other players to play.  It's just there as a possibility to add more substance to the game,   Because humans, add more substance to a game than any AI you could ever program.  

And if you need an example of  how to make an MMO function as a full fledged Single players game.  Then look no futher than Guild Wars.

To put it another way, I'd like the possibility of playing Star Control in an MMO fashion without forcing other players to rely on the human to enjoy it.
You on the other hand would prefer to leave the possibility out entirely, FORCING us to have to play it by ourselves, for the entirety of the game.

What if I just labeled it co-op Campaign, up to 8 players...would that make you feel better about it?  The only difference is.  The lobby where you ask people to join in your campaign is a space station..instead of your average Diablo 2/FPS lobby system.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2010, 10:10:23 pm by Mr Eos » Logged
Mr Eos
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Re: XBox Live Arcade, Status?
« Reply #22 on: September 02, 2010, 10:21:19 pm »

Since some of you have admitted to not playing Guild Wars.  I'll give a brief description.

You have quests, and Missions

Quests are your average run of the mill grinders.
Missions on the other hand, were the story line.
Missions always advanced you through the story, and the landscape at a very rapid pace.
About 75% of the time you did a mission, it would lead you right into the next mission.
These missions even had in-game cutscenes and spoken dialogue to enhance the story.


Now on to the actual Multiplayer aspect of that game.

Instances.
The only way you would ever see another human player in your game, is if you actually invited them into your group.  
Because once you leave towns/stations.  You are all alone.  Inside your own instance.  No POSSIBILTY WHATSOEVER of some random dude coming in to grief you.
All PVP in this game is done in a fashion that guarantees all parties are consenting to PvP at that time.  Or rather, it has a Mode that lets you make a full level character just for the PVP Arenas. (Doesn't that sound familiar to you? It Should.)


At the very least, the MMO possibilty should be considered just because of the Economy aspect of the game.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2010, 10:24:08 pm by Mr Eos » Logged
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Re: XBox Live Arcade, Status?
« Reply #23 on: September 03, 2010, 01:54:00 am »

Doesn't sound like an MMO. How many people can fit in an instance?
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Admiral Zeratul
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Re: XBox Live Arcade, Status?
« Reply #24 on: September 03, 2010, 08:46:18 pm »

That's it. I am splitting this thread. http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4848.0

I thoroughly enjoy debating this, but we really should get back on-topic.
You're welcome.  Cool
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