Cassylvania's Miserable Little Pile of Platinums

[AJ_Radio]

On 5/4/2020 at 9:18 PM, Cassylvania said:

If you ask me why the MMO formula didn't last, it's because developers would eventually and inevitably move to only catering those players still playing the game, which would always be a shrinking number. Their "solution" for newer players was just to catch them up to the veterans as quickly as possible. When I quit the MMO scene, you could basically start a character at max level. Like, what the shit?

 

@Cassylvania

 

The MMORPG formula didn't last because people got tired of grinding for dozens and hundreds of hours at a time. The reason the formula was wildly popular was because MMOs were the first games in which you could interact with a mass amount of people. The PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox were NOT capable of having games that would give you that option to interact with thousands of different players, or have over 100 friends on your friends list. So for a long time, MMOs were the go to games for multiplayer, and the PC gaming world thrived from them.

 

I stuck with two MMOs: Runescape and World of Warcraft.

 

With Runescape, the entire game from start to finish was grinding. If you wanted to get say, 99 Fishing, you probably had to dedicate a good 100 - 200 hours alone on that skill. That was utilizing the best and fastest XP methods to be the most efficient. For many, the fastest way to grind XP was Barbarian Fishing, which gave you 50 - 60K XP per hour. Now there was a commonly known technique called Mouse Keys, which is probably still in use today if I were to go back. Many skills were basically sitting at a spot all day and gaining XP. I always felt combat was the best thing about Runescape. Jagex, the company that made the game, has made updates in recent years to incorporate co-op in combat, such as the Raids update in Old School Runescape that allows you to fight a series of monsters with a team of 3 - 5 people. This is a good thing, because for ages the game was seen as a single player MMO, yet you could interact with players, do trades, etc etc.

 

World of Warcraft was basically a multiplayer MMO from the start. In the old days of The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, you basically had to get a team that was good and coordinated enough to take down a boss. Raid teams varied, but that was the meat of World of Warcraft. The endgame was the most important aspect of the game and that was what Blizzard Entertainment focused on the most. There was also PvP along with Dungeons. Doing the dungeons, especially the Heroic ones, could be a bit tough and sometimes I would end up with a team that wiped out because some idiot would aggro an enemy that didn't need to be killed. For a while I would rush through the dungeon, share the loot with my teammates, then teleport the fuck out.

 

Cataclysm was basically when Blizzard made the game more casual. They added a Dungeon Finder and later a Raid Finder tool, so it was easier than ever to play dungeons from past expansions. Usually a lot of the teams I ended up with were bad because they didn't know what they were doing. It was the same thing with Raids, anybody that played Cataclysm in World of Warcraft knows that Deathwing was the main antagonist. Much like the Lich King was in Wrath of the Lich King expansion. But the same problem plagued the Raid Finder tool, you got a lot of players that didn't know what they were doing. It was frustrating.

 

As to why the MMO formula was failing, the games did not evolve. By the time the PS4 hit the shelves we got games that offered full scale multiplayer, which is what MMOs were doing a decade earlier. The problem was, many of the games in the MMO genre were nothing more than boring grinds, such as Runescape and having to rely too much on team work, such as World of Warcraft.

 

Nowadays, you STILL have to pay monthly subscription fees to Runescape and World of Warcraft. That's the way it's always been. Back in the early - mid 2000s this worked in the companies favor because like I said, MMOs were the only games to feature multiplayer on a mass scale. Could you really compare Halo 2 in it's heyday circa 2004 - 2005 with World of Warcraft? No you could not. Nothing in the console market could compete with MMOs.

 

Because of things like PlayStation Plus, the offerings from Xbox One, and the countless multiplayer games on Steam, MMOs are mostly outdated at this point. World of Warcraft is 16 years old now, the only people who really play and care about that game nowadays are the veterans who have stuck with it all these years. Runescape is approaching the 20 year mark, granted there is Runescape 3 (or whatever it is now) and Old School Runescape, but neither appeal to me in the slightest.

 

They didn't evolve, while console gaming caught up and has far overcome what MMOs used to be. The big draw was interacting with players all over the world, now there are thousands of games that do just that and then some. World of Warcraft is not the juggernaut it once was, and that is why it along with the entire MMO genre is failing.

 

There was a lot more that contributed to the decline than just newer players having to catch up to the veterans.

[Rune_Crys]

I read the rest of your post, Spaz, and I sort of agree with you. Let me cite my own examples of MMOs I played: MapleStory and Wizard101.

 

MapleStory was fun for me because of its presentation - all gameplay was done in 2-D Sidescrolling fashion. Unfortunately, there are guides now that show the best spots to grind out monsters for EXP, so nobody cares about doing the side-quests and I've seen grinders just ignore their class quests - there are over 20 classes now and they are split into five groups based on their talents - because quests don't give as much EXP for hour as grinding out Moon Bunnies in the Korean Folk Town. If you thought Runescape was bad, you haven't being hopping around a map for 2 hours, button mashing to kill crowds of enemies while tapping a button to glug down a elixir to restore your mana and health every ten seconds, less if you are fighting monsters stronger than you as they are damage sponges and hit like trucks. I think the 'dungeons'(Ellinel Fairy Academy, Rein Strait, etc) had great stories but since there is no voice acting and has text boxes, the game gets boring fast. It's like they made a fan game of FF7 with Shantae mechanics. Add in that the game was constantly updating and therefore was unable to be accessed for twelve hour brackets and you see why I quit. If I wanted to grind enemies in a side-scroller, I would play Shantae and the Seven Sirens(which isn't out yet ).

 

But at least it was completely free to play to travel anywhere. You just needed an account and once you got out of your starting area, you could go wherever the hell you wanted... sure you would get fragged by Level 100 enemies if you went to the sands of the desert region but at least you weren't forced to pay cash in real life to open up areas...

 

Which is the exact thing Wizard101 does. Wizard101 doesn't allow EXP grinding - you get crappy experience from killing mobs and bosses. If you want to get good EXP, you have to do the quests. But the game doesn't encourage you to do side-quests much so people just ignore the side-quests. However you have to buy a subscription(which is only $9.99 a month) or buy areas to unlock them... and having a sub is so much better as you get benefits from time to time that let you empower your character skills like gardening or fishing or pet training. Yes, monsters can be pets that fight by your side and randomly cast spells to help you. The problem is that if you want a good pet, you have to spend lots of money and time to hatch the best pet and get the best talents on it, because RNG can laugh at you and curse your new baby pet with worthless talents like HP boost when you wanted defense boost (and you will want universal resist as worlds get progressively harder and enemies can cast high-level spells out of the gate after World 5) and now they made it more expensive to hatch pets so yeah, really not enjoying that.

 

MMOs like MapleStory and Wizard101 have one motto: If you don't want to spend real life cash for our coin to buy the best stuff, you have to farm boss monsters to get a 1% drop of the best loot... and then you have to socket it to make it any good. So that means more grinding and a high chance of wiping out. MapleStory restricts how many times you can farm a boss, and Wizard101 bosses for the best loot are insanely capable of TPK so you need a full party of four, which can be done with the Team Up Kiosk, but it's like Warcraft's Raid Finder - you might get a team of idiots.

 

Sorry for the lengthy post but I agree with Spaz, MMOs are no longer the top banana in multi-player fun now that we are getting PS5 and XBOX Series X soon which will probably have better Networks than even our current computers! And with games like Dragon Quest Builders 2 and Animal Crossing allowing you to visit each other's islands and have fun together, It won't be long before Animal Crossing Next Generation of Smite will come out with a spin-off MMORPG that is fun and doesn't need a subscription because you're paying the low price of $20 for Nintendo's online service anyways. That's why I quit Wizard101, it isn't evolving properly and only those who are loyal and stick with it for PvP and house parties keep the game from shutting down.

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Rune_Crys
Complete overhaul

[AJ_Radio]

14 hours ago, Rune_Crys said:

MapleStory was fun for me because of its presentation - all gameplay was done in 2-D Sidescrolling fashion. Unfortunately, there are guides now that show the best spots to grind out monsters for EXP, so nobody cares about doing the side-quests and I've seen grinders just ignore their class quests - there are over 20 classes now and they are split into five groups based on their talents - because quests don't give as much EXP for hour as grinding out Moon Bunnies in the Korean Folk Town. If you thought Runescape was bad, you haven't being hopping around a map for 2 hours, button mashing to kill crowds of enemies while tapping a button to glug down a elixir to restore your mana and health every ten seconds, less if you are fighting monsters stronger than you as they are damage sponges and hit like trucks. I think the 'dungeons'(Ellinel Fairy Academy, Rein Strait, etc) had great stories but since there is no voice acting and has text boxes, the game gets boring fast. It's like they made a fan game of FF7 with Shantae mechanics. Add in that the game was constantly updating and therefore was unable to be accessed for twelve hour brackets and you see why I quit. If I wanted to grind enemies in a side-scroller, I would play Shantae and the Seven Sirens(which isn't out yet ).

 

I played a bit of Maple Story in the past so I know how that game works. Both Runescape and Maple Story were very long grinds.

 

Trust me, I did a lot of horrible, boring grinds back in the day. Nowadays I mostly play games that take anywhere from 5 to 50 hours to finish. MMOs that are overly long to grind out just don't appeal to me anymore.

 

I couldn't imagine grinding all those hours for that one trophy in Orcs Must Die: Unchained. I know the feeling, because I went through that with Runescape and Maple Story. I just don't find it fun like it used to be for me.

 

14 hours ago, Rune_Crys said:

But at least it was completely free to play to travel anywhere. You just needed an account and once you got out of your starting area, you could go wherever the hell you wanted... sure you would get fragged by Level 100 enemies if you went to the sands of the desert region but at least you weren't forced to pay cash in real life to open up areas...

 

There's a free to play section in Runescape, but Jagex has barely done anything in many years to really expand on it. Everything is focused on paid membership, from the content you get via PvP and PvM to buying bonds in game which give around around 14 days of paid membership. They implemented a way to spend the money you made in-game to buy these bonds which guarantee a membership period. Good strategy, because players buy those all the time. Much less hassle than setting up a PayPal account or using your credit card information to buy membership.

 

14 hours ago, Rune_Crys said:

MMOs like MapleStory and Wizard101 have one motto: If you don't want to spend real life cash for our coin to buy the best stuff, you have to farm boss monsters to get a 1% drop of the best loot... and then you have to socket it to make it any good. So that means more grinding and a high chance of wiping out. MapleStory restricts how many times you can farm a boss, and Wizard101 bosses for the best loot are insanely capable of TPK so you need a full party of four, which can be done with the Team Up Kiosk, but it's like Warcraft's Raid Finder - you might get a team of idiots.

 

That's a lot more generous than Runescape.

 

There are drops in Runescape that are 1 in 30,000. I used to camp Abyssal Demons in Old School Runescape back in 2013 - 2014. The requirement to kill them was 85 Slayer, so you already had to grind for dozens of hours before you reached that milestone. The popular drop was Abyssal Whips, one of the popular weapons in the game that solid for 1 - 3 Million GP. The drop rate? 1 in 512.

 

It was all left to chance. I got as many as three whip drops in 100 kills, I went as far as 2000 kills without getting a single drop. Completely luck based, anybody who has played Runescape knows that grinding and getting lucky are big aspects of the game. That was part of what drew me in for several years.

 

I wasn't a trophy hunter nor was I active on these forums until late 2015. That was when I quit Old School Runescape and decided to hunt for platinum trophies. Funny enough, I play games much like I played Runescape back in the day, for the same purposes.

 

World of Warcraft in contrast has much more generous loot drop tables, but it's much more team focused. They did the same thing with Heroic Dungeons, every week you could grind out Valor Points until you hit your weekly cap. Then you had to wait until the next week, usually Monday to farm for more points. This in turn gave you access to better equipment you would buy from NPCs. If you were with the Alliance faction you had to go to Stormwind Keep. For the Horde faction, you had to go to Orgrimmar.

 

Yes, if you used Warcraft's Raid Finder you got a lot of idiots. I got a lot of guys who would rage quit halfway through a dungeon/raid, then we all had to sit around waiting for somebody else to queue up and take their place. Very annoying.

 

14 hours ago, Rune_Crys said:

Sorry for the lengthy post but I agree with Spaz, MMOs are no longer the top banana in multi-player fun now that we are getting PS5 and XBOX Series X soon which will probably have better Networks than even our current computers! And with games like Dragon Quest Builders 2 and Animal Crossing allowing you to visit each other's islands and have fun together, It won't be long before Animal Crossing Next Generation of Smite will come out with a spin-off MMORPG that is fun and doesn't need a subscription because you're paying the low price of $20 for Nintendo's online service anyways. That's why I quit Wizard101, it isn't evolving properly and only those who are loyal and stick with it for PvP and house parties keep the game from shutting down.

 

Games like Minecraft and Rocket League have already surpassed what MMOs set the standards on.

 

Runescape, World of Warcraft, Maple Story and Wizard 101 are failing because they can't keep up with the modern games. Most players who do play these games are old veterans. We used to get a lot of new players, but those days are long over.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Spaz

[Rune_Crys]

4 hours ago, Spaz said:

I wasn't a trophy hunter nor was I active on these forums until late 2015. That was when I quit Old School Runescape and decided to hunt for platinum trophies. Funny enough, I play games much like I played Runescape back in the day, for the same purposes.

At least Platinum trophies require you to do all of the other trophies and you KNOW what you got into as you can do the research now on the Web. In my first account I did not research the trophy lists and ended up playing a lot of games I couldn't stand getting trophies on, like Rayman Origins and... *looks up his very first account* I only got one platinum on my very first PSN account, LEGO Batman 3, and I didn't do the DLC. However, I had 19 games I didn't finish, including games that I could easily go back into that account and finish, like Clockwork Tales, which only is 50% on that account which I should be ashamed of.

 

In fact, I actually had 99% trophy completion on the PS3 version of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix. The only trophy I needed was to get all of the blueprints... and that's not happening because I suck at gummi missions. I am glad the PS4 version only requires 30 blueprints. I am surprised how I managed to get that far considering how bad the trophy list was(you have to play the entire story on all three difficulties because difficulty trophies there do not stack. I am shocked at what my 2014 self was able to accomplish back then.

 

On that first account I had several games I regret playing. Back then I just got my PS4 so I only had LEGO Batman 3 and Clockwork Tales for that, the rest were on PS3.

• Skyrim with five bronze trophies(I played to the first village).
• Jak and Daxter(I guess I got bored after a while as I only was at 54%)
• All of the PS3 Ratchet and Clank HD ports up to 50+%
• Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time (Hated the arcade game trophy because I suck at Robotron)
• Both PS3 LittleBigPlanet games - I loved playing the stories but I can never ace all of the stages, the final boss stages broke my soul and then there was the online only trophies which are stupid, hopefully Dreams is more forgiving
• Final Fantasy X on PS3 - before I realized that I had hated the 200 lightning bolts and chocobo race on the original version and hate them noiw as soon as I got to Kilika and quickly banished that remaster.
• Tales of Symphonia - I loved the GameCube original but realizing that I had to do tons of replays and earn enough Grade to get bonuses sucked the life out of the enjoyable experience. When I beat the GameCube version, one of my party died and stayed dead in the Grade Shop.
• And both PS3 Disgaea Games - I have platinumed Disgaea 4 Complete+ and wish I could go back to 2014 and tutor my younger self to help him Platinum Disgaea 4 for the PS3.

A rogue's gallery of failures and regrets. However, nowadays I am more capable of handling games I have a hard time with and research those games which are supposed to be easy platinums before I commit. Wizard101 does not let you stumble about. You have to basically scour the Wikis to find any information on how to raise pets to be ideal or how to fight a boss. The early bosses are no problem as you can exploit school advantage to hit them with their weakness(storm magic against myth enemies, etc) but once you hit Arc 2 and enemies are blasting you with high-level spells turn one, the game gets less fun. Bosses can be challenging without having to deal with annoying gimmicks(you can't use blades or you'll get hit with a proc attack that defeats you and you lose the battle, etc.) or having over 30,000 health to chew through. What's worse is that the Team-Up Kiosk doesn't restrict new players from high-level content; there are special raids called Skeleton Key bosses and if someone has the right key, they can team up and people can join them at the team-up kiosk...including players who are Level 1. I got a lot of hate from a group because I was sent my Level 40 Storm Wizard to join their Level 120 group. I know people are going to say that you shouldn't be tempted to do that, but I think the game company needs to take some responsibility.

 

4 hours ago, Spaz said:

There's a free to play section in Runescape, but Jagex has barely done anything in many years to really expand on it. Everything is focused on paid membership, from the content you get via PvP and PvM to buying bonds in game which give around around 14 days of paid membership. They implemented a way to spend the money you made in-game to buy these bonds which guarantee a membership period. Good strategy, because players buy those all the time. Much less hassle than setting up a PayPal account or using your credit card information to buy membership.

 

Peh. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt. Wizard101's free to play area is so dang small that it discourages anyone who doesn't spend $10 for a monthly sub. (I know they give a discount for the first month but they make you pay $10 a month and you have to manually end the subscription or it'll renew every month on the same date which is bad if you have a budget as your bank account gets deducted and you forget about that. ) You only get to play in the non-battle areas of Wizard City(the first world), and two battle areas, and once you exhausted all of the quests there, and since as I said you won't get any good EXP from battle, only from quests, you will be stuck at Level 12 while your friends who pay $10 a month go to the next world. You can't even fully explore Wizard City as you have to buy the rest of the city with Crowns(which are usually obtained by buying them with your credit card, and the exchange rate sucks - $20 for 10,000 Crowns is not enough for half of the worlds as the world area costs get higher and higher - 750 for a Wizard City area, 1995 for an area in the final current world.)

 

And boy howdy do they try to get you to pay for subscriptions! If you are free-to-play, you have:

• An inventory that holds only 80 items which includes all gear, housing items(and there are a freaking lot since you can own up to three pieces of real estate) and pets, while members get 150 item slots.
• Only two dance emotes while members get seven.
• Only access to half of Wizard City while members can go anywhere in the game world, meaning they can get to higher levels while you are stuck at a low level forever as you won't get any more quests. There are housing items which have mini adventures that give EXP but they nerfed that after the sixth mini-dungeon so now you only get 100-700 EXP if you complete a mini-adventure.
• Bupkis while members get special seasonal benefits like double EXP for gardening and free no-energy cost fishing. (Energy is a measurement of how much fishing, gardening and pet training you can do and it regens slowly, so you basically have to spend half a dollar of Crowns money to buy a elixir to fully refill it, meaning you are giving more money to KingsIsle.)
• To pay crowns to do PvP tournaments (held in the arena) while members only have to pay with in-game currency. So you have to spend more real money to get into a PvP tournament, and PvP is horribly messed up - you could get paired against a Level 130 wizard and you're only Level 5. That means you have only low-level spells which chip damage while your opponent can one-shot you with their ultimate spell. (I never played PvP in Wizard101.)

So yes, KingsIsle is a money-grubby cash shark that wants your cashola$$$$. Think I'm being mean? 60% of their profit comes from their MOBILE GAMES. Yes, they have five MOBILE GAMES and two MMOs, which do you think gets the most profit for them?

 

KingsIsle is doing First-Time User Upgrades to their free-to-play areas, but once the saps get in and complete the quests in Unicorn Way and Triton Avenue and then hit their first paywall, you can bet that those new players are either going to sell their souls to the company to get more adventure and find out that combat is boring as heck(it's a card based turn-based RPG combat system) or cancel and go back to FFVIII Remastered. I predict that Wizard101 and Pirate101(which got even worse treatment, the main story arc has not ended yet and they haven't added any new worlds for two years, which is a shame as I like the tactical grid combat much better) will get shut down in two years once KingsIsle announced that they are dropping their MMOs like hot sh** and repurposing the money they stole from players of the MMOs to become a complete 100% mobile game company. Once that happens, I am burning my life with them like hot trash, deleting all of my fanfics I made with screenshots(which I could on the internet for markups to old fans who want to remember the good times ) and start developing my own indie game which has online multiplayer that is much more fun and doesn't require anything more than a PS5+ subscription, which would get you a lot more fun games to play than just my little wedge of the universe. Eh, I'm rambling. I am sure Runescape is horrible but you play Wizard101 for a week and you see how hard it is to play solo without a membership. I have played with two memberships so I could have my character have a virtual friend to help out.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Rune_Crys

[AJ_Radio]

13 minutes ago, Rune_Crys said:

I am shocked at what my 2014 self was able to accomplish back then.

 

You were younger, you were less experienced and more stupid.

 

Reminds me what I used to do with PS2 games. Nowadays I can probably plow through a lot of them because I'm a lot more experienced now with gaming in general.

 

15 minutes ago, Rune_Crys said:

 

• Jak and Daxter(I guess I got bored after a while as I only was at 54%)

 

How can you get bored with one of Naughty Dog's all time classics?

 

With Jak 2 and Jak 3, I can understand. The mission layouts in both games were annoying, they even took you back to the city for a short while in Jak 3.

 

I had maybe 5 - 10 collectibles that I struggled with in the original Jak and Daxter. For the most part it was fun and easy. Definitely a solid 3-D platformer that holds up.

 

17 minutes ago, Rune_Crys said:

• Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time (Hated the arcade game trophy because I suck at Robotron)

 

That arcade game is extremely overrated. I followed what people were doing on YouTube and I got the trophy within 10 - 20 minutes.

 

Keep in mind that Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time was an early PS3 game to have trophies. 2009 was the first year in which Sony gave just about all their games with trophies. Those who played the game early on probably found My Blaster Runs Hot fairly difficult. Still a bit challenging for casual players.

 

20 minutes ago, Rune_Crys said:

Peh. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt. Wizard101's free to play area is so dang small that it discourages anyone who doesn't spend $10 for a monthly sub. (I know they give a discount for the first month but they make you pay $10 a month and you have to manually end the subscription or it'll renew every month on the same date which is bad if you have a budget as your bank account gets deducted and you forget about that. ) You only get to play in the non-battle areas of Wizard City(the first world), and two battle areas, and once you exhausted all of the quests there, and since as I said you won't get any good EXP from battle, only from quests, you will be stuck at Level 12 while your friends who pay $10 a month go to the next world. You can't even fully explore Wizard City as you have to buy the rest of the city with Crowns(which are usually obtained by buying them with your credit card, and the exchange rate sucks - $20 for 10,000 Crowns is not enough for half of the worlds as the world area costs get higher and higher - 750 for a Wizard City area, 1995 for an area in the final current world.)

 

Of course, these companies need to make their money. That's why I thought those Bonds in Runescape were a good idea because you don't need a PayPal account to pay for membership.

 

World of Warcraft was offering trials for free, but you were extremely limited. You couldn't access any content added through the expansions, there's a lot more I'm not mentioning but you get the point.

 

My complaint is the subscription prices are far too much in contrast to what other gaming services give you. PlayStation Plus is a hundred times better than what World of Warcraft gives you for $15 a month, and it's much cheaper.

 

As I said already, this business model worked back in 2004 - 2007. Nowadays it is failing. The subscription price, along with the fact that these games are now old, is a good reason why there's barely any new players.

 

MMOs are a dying genre.

 

25 minutes ago, Rune_Crys said:

I am sure Runescape is horrible but you play Wizard101 for a week and you see how hard it is to play solo without a membership. I have played with two memberships so I could have my character have a virtual friend to help out.

 

I played just about all of Runescape and World of Warcraft with a paid membership. It was literally hundreds of times better than being stuck in free to play.

 

I helped out a lot of people in MMOs. That was one of the big draws and the reason why I stuck with them for so long. Were it not for MMOs, I probably could of started trophy hunting back in 2008 - 2009 and built up a nice collection of games.

[Briste]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…

[Rally-Vincent---]

I am reading all of this, and man - I seemed to have played a whole set of different games than you guys "back then" in the good ol' days, and not just because of the Amiga, but also on PSone and PS2. Nobody did play the Suikoden series, for example?

[Grotz99]

1 hour ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

I am reading all of this, and man - I seemed to have played a whole set of different games than you guys "back then" in the good ol' days, and not just because of the Amiga, but also on PSone and PS2. Nobody did play the Suikoden series, for example?

 

That is a great RPG series. The amount of characters you can get is pretty awesome. I played a lot of RPGs on PSone and PS2, but also played more World of Warcraft than what was probably good for me.

[AJ_Radio]

5 hours ago, Briste said:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…

 

In other words, 'nostalgia' is just a term used by people to describe something that really wasn't a bed of roses while they were wearing rose tinted glasses.

 

4 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

I am reading all of this, and man - I seemed to have played a whole set of different games than you guys "back then" in the good ol' days, and not just because of the Amiga, but also on PSone and PS2. Nobody did play the Suikoden series, for example?

 

I couldn't afford to get too many PS2 games. I played Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid 3 among other titles that were made by a Japanese developer. Never played the Suikoden series.

 

I mostly stuck with MMOs in those days.

 

2 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

 

That is a great RPG series. The amount of characters you can get is pretty awesome. I played a lot of RPGs on PSone and PS2, but also played more World of Warcraft than what was probably good for me.

 

Yeah I went a bit overboard too. Affected my college studies circa 2007 - 2009. The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King were just too good to pass up. Had a lot of fun playing those expansions.

[Cassylvania]

I don't think I ever really got addicted to MMOs. They were just a better sell to me than traditional video games because I could pay $15/month (or whatever it was) to play the only game I needed. That's a lot less than I pay now for all the PS4 games I buy. ? Just picked up Aven Colony and Gris from the latest sale.

 

But yeah. I'm actually a little excited for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. I mean, it's in development hell and will probably meet the same fate as EQ Next, but it gives me something to look forward to. I just want that old school MMO experience. I don't know what their plans are, but it'd be nice if the entire game doesn't shuttle you through a series of boring, repetitive quests to level up your character. That's what I didn't like about WoW. It just felt like you'd go to a new area, take on a few quests, and gain just enough experience from those quests to be ready to move to the next area or town. EQ2 was a bit like that, but quests were rare and almost exclusively saved for epic weapons in EQ1. You'd mostly be focused on exploration, leveling up, and the social aspect. It was fun to sit with the same group for like five or six hours and just chat about nonsense. Sorta like we do here. Except we'd be killing things at the same time.

 

I dunno. I guess that's what the kids do today in CoD. But then they scream and cuss out each other. That almost unheard of in early MMOs. Like yeah, you'd encounter an asshole every now and then, but sometimes it'd just be funny shit, like a guy would be playing as a monk and he'd bring an entire mob of enemies to your location and then faint so they'd think he was dead and attack you instead. Most players were great. And even though it was a social game, I had just as much fun soloing or trying to solo. I think the only character I had who could reasonably do that was a bard, and I'd just run in circles while cycling through three or four songs that would slowly damage the guy chasing me. They called it kiting, but it took forever. My brother played a druid who could root an enemy in place and basically cast spells that would do the same thing.

 

What I liked in other MMOs, though, was that I could "multibox," which I think is the term they use to describe having two or more accounts open at the same time (usually on a separate monitor). I'm sure you could do it in EQ1, but I primarily used it in EQ2 and WoW. It was almost like having a little pet that follows you. What I really liked about it was how many different and yet effective combinations you could have. For example, you could have a tank on one computer and a healer on the other. You could also have a pet class and a ranged class, which was my favorite because it was almost like having three characters at once, but only the AI (the actual pet) would be tanking the enemy. That would allow me to control the other two characters from a distance. It gets harder when you try to box positional characters like a rogue, because they need to be behind an enemy to do maximum damage, or a crowd control class like an enchanter or bard, because they require too much concentration, but there's something very cathartic about playing a multiplayer game by yourself. It's kinda like when you go skiing with your friends, but you're wearing headphones the entire time you're going down the slope. It's like you're with them, but you're also lost in your own little world.

 

Anyway, I have way too many active games going on right now. I started Subnautica and The Walking Dead: Season 2. Indivisible and Shovel Knight are just going to have to wait. I have to get back into Spider-Man, but...I don't know. There's nothing wrong with that game, but for those of you who have played it...does it seem a little too AAA-y for you? Like yeah, the graphics are great, the story is surprisingly good, the voice acting is top-notch, the gameplay and combat are about as good as I think they could be, and yet...it just feels average. I don't know if I'm burned out on the open world format, but it just seems like the game is trying too hard to be (coincidentally enough) like Spider-Man 3. Which is a movie I hated. And the reason I hated it is because it tried to be too much at once. I feel like every time I go to play this game, I'm bombarded with things. Go here, your phone's ringing, somebody is robbing a store, grab that collectible, there's another over there, ring ring ring, stolen car, Jameson says something bad about Spider-Man, another robbery, the bloody phone again... It's just nonstop. Even when the game is like, "Okay, Pete... You have a little bit of time before you have to meet with MJ. Let's explore the city!"...you get like thirty seconds before the storyline pushes you forward. Does the game think I'm going to get bored if I'm not constantly being assaulted with things to do? Is that what kids need these days? CAN I HAVE A MOMENT TO MYSELF?

 

IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK, SPIDER-MAN!?

[Sword]

My MMO of choice was Tera from 2012 to 2019. Game sucked the absolute life (and money) out of me. To date it's the single most money sucking game I've ever played because I was too stupid back then to realize it. Then again, fighting depression with loot boxes is one hell of an addiction. Too bad I can't go back and undo that though. Lessons learned I suppose. I could have bought a car with the amount of money I poured into that game. Least I had all the cool cosmetics though right? Oh, silly, silly me...

 

To date though, Tera still has the most addicting and fun combat system in an MMO that I've ever played by far. I really wish someone made like a Tera 2 and fixed all the internal game code and took the game in a different direction. Alas... Waifu customization was bonkers as well. All about that fashion. Especially being a Lancer (tank) main for the entire time I played the game. Finally realized how much the game was ruining my life and quit it in 2019. Ah well. At least I got to end it on the best note ever: I bought the actual name "Lancer" in the game (for a freaking hefty price) from someone and got to run around (finally) as the OG Lancer in the top guild on the best server.  Being priority pick for all the raids was ego prick boosting as hell. Then poof. Gone. 

 

Now I enjoy the retired life of completion hunting and single player games in this shiny new community. I don't think I can ever go back to a multiplayer game like that again. One of the primary reasons I no longer play any multiplayer game at all. If I do play any multiplayer game from now on it's 100% with friends and usually on PC. Something like Factorio or Terraria.   

[Rune_Crys]

8 hours ago, Briste said:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…

7 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

I am reading all of this, and man - I seemed to have played a whole set of different games than you guys "back then" in the good ol' days, and not just because of the Amiga, but also on PSone and PS2. Nobody did play the Suikoden series, for example?

 

Sorry everyone! I tend to get a bit preachy whenever a subject I am familiar with gets talked about. I am trying to break the bad habit of wall-texts discussing the pro and cons of stuff. Let's just drop the MMO discussion. You can't get trophies on most MMOs anyways, except FFXIV, and people say that it's the most time consuming FF platinum ever. (Speaking of FF, I am working on FFVIII right now and enjoying my own rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, especially now that Headmaster Cid and Squall don't look like disfigured zombies. Seriously, go check out a FFVIII speedrun using the original PS1 game and tell me that the character updates aren't gorgeous! Why can't Wizard101 update lpayer characters to look more HD than the crappy zombie dolls they are? At least update them to look like the Pirate101 models, those look much better. Sorry, I am rambling about MMOs again. This is Cassy's thread, we're just guests. )

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

I don't think I ever really got addicted to MMOs. They were just a better sell to me than traditional video games because I could pay $15/month (or whatever it was) to play the only game I needed. That's a lot less than I pay now for all the PS4 games I buy. Just picked up Aven Colony and Gris from the latest sale.

Okay one more thing - this is the only benefit MMOs have over regular games - with FFVIII I will delete the game when I get the platinum as I don't desire to play any more. Once you've gotten 100% or the platinum, there is nothing left for you. Only a few games(like Dragon Quest Builders games) give you stuff to do after you beat the main story thanks to online multiplayer options. MMOs continuously update their story.

[AJ_Radio]

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

But yeah. I'm actually a little excited for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. I mean, it's in development hell and will probably meet the same fate as EQ Next, but it gives me something to look forward to. I just want that old school MMO experience. I don't know what their plans are, but it'd be nice if the entire game doesn't shuttle you through a series of boring, repetitive quests to level up your character. That's what I didn't like about WoW. It just felt like you'd go to a new area, take on a few quests, and gain just enough experience from those quests to be ready to move to the next area or town. EQ2 was a bit like that, but quests were rare and almost exclusively saved for epic weapons in EQ1. You'd mostly be focused on exploration, leveling up, and the social aspect. It was fun to sit with the same group for like five or six hours and just chat about nonsense. Sorta like we do here. Except we'd be killing things at the same time.

 

It's just mind numbingly boring at this point.

 

I played WoW during it's prime, 2007 - 2012 era. Friends I had in college played it extensively, I was part of a guild that partook in raids and dungeons. It was fun to get together, see ourselves struggle, and finally overcome that hurdle to take down a boss. All of The Burning Crusade bosses were cool, and a bit original.

 

Last I played, it just wasn't the same. People quit out of raids halfway through, part of the problem being the Raid Finder tool attracted too many randoms. I lost count of how many times I ran through a dungeon, get through a section, and have some asshole aggro a bunch of enemies that didn't need to be killed. Obviously, DPS is very important, I had a few mods active when I played WoW because that was the only real way to play the game. I went with a Frost Mage, probably one of the easiest classes and easiest specs to learn. I found the Warrior to have too steep of a learning curve, but I found some pretty talented players in WoW who knew the ins and outs of tanking with the Warrior.

 

I did that too with Runescape. Sit there for several hours of a time grinding out a skill like Fishing, while we talked about the sports we played and what we watched on television. I can't do five hours of that anymore without having to turn a game off. To think I spent thousands of hours on Runescape and World of Warcraft alone. Also did Maple Story for a while, that got boring after so many hours of grinding.

 

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

I dunno. I guess that's what the kids do today in CoD. But then they scream and cuss out each other. That almost unheard of in early MMOs. Like yeah, you'd encounter an asshole every now and then, but sometimes it'd just be funny shit, like a guy would be playing as a monk and he'd bring an entire mob of enemies to your location and then faint so they'd think he was dead and attack you instead. Most players were great. And even though it was a social game, I had just as much fun soloing or trying to solo. I think the only character I had who could reasonably do that was a bard, and I'd just run in circles while cycling through three or four songs that would slowly damage the guy chasing me. They called it kiting, but it took forever. My brother played a druid who could root an enemy in place and basically cast spells that would do the same thing.

 

Call of Duty has always been that way, people have just forgotten.

 

I was definitely one of the younger kids on WoW. A lot of players I ran into were married, had a family and were in their 30s. This was back in 2007 - 2008, some of those guys today are pushing 50 years old. They were more mature and patient.

 

I found a lot of kids in games, especially MMOs to be far too impatient. The same type of kids who spawn camp in games like Grand Theft Auto V, and obviously do the same thing in Call of Duty. I don't tolerate that crap.

 

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

Anyway, I have way too many active games going on right now. I started Subnautica and The Walking Dead: Season 2. Indivisible and Shovel Knight are just going to have to wait. I have to get back into Spider-Man, but...I don't know. There's nothing wrong with that game, but for those of you who have played it...does it seem a little too AAA-y for you? Like yeah, the graphics are great, the story is surprisingly good, the voice acting is top-notch, the gameplay and combat are about as good as I think they could be, and yet...it just feels average. I don't know if I'm burned out on the open world format, but it just seems like the game is trying too hard to be (coincidentally enough) like Spider-Man 3. Which is a movie I hated. And the reason I hated it is because it tried to be too much at once. I feel like every time I go to play this game, I'm bombarded with things. Go here, your phone's ringing, somebody is robbing a store, grab that collectible, there's another over there, ring ring ring, stolen car, Jameson says something bad about Spider-Man, another robbery, the bloody phone again... It's just nonstop. Even when the game is like, "Okay, Pete... You have a little bit of time before you have to meet with MJ. Let's explore the city!"...you get like thirty seconds before the storyline pushes you forward. Does the game think I'm going to get bored if I'm not constantly being assaulted with things to do? Is that what kids need these days? CAN I HAVE A MOMENT TO MYSELF?

 

IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK, SPIDER-MAN!?

 

You're juggling between 3 - 4 games @Cassylvania, which is a bit too much honestly.

 

Don't get me wrong, Marvel's Spider-Man is a good game, both of us can admit to that. I think the acting was far too typical. The story from beginning to end is your typical Hollywood superhero blockbuster, rated PG to PG-13. The heroes and the villains are pretty cliche. You could of replaced the Spider-Man characters and threw in Ratchet and Clank instead. They draw a lot of parallels to each other, considering the same company made the Ratchet and Clank series.

 

I definitely think Batman: Arkham Knight had a better story. Marvel's Spider-Man felt like a more lighthearted, casual version of that. The Arkham gameplay is apparent in Spider-Man. The only positive I can give is New York City, particularly the Empire State Building, look impressive. All of Arkham Knight takes place at night, so it didn't give us much in terms of giving us fantastic scenery as seen from afar.

 

Spider-Man 3 was pretty bad. I think Tobey Macguire is a rather weak actor to be honest. Didn't like him in some other movies he was in.

 

You can definitely tell Peter Parker and his girlfriend in Marvel's Spider-Man are pretty young. Early 20s yeah, but I felt at times their conversations were like the conversations you got back when you were a Junior - Senior in highschool. Casual conversations, with some rough spots here and there.

[Rune_Crys]

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

What I liked in other MMOs, though, was that I could "multibox," which I think is the term they use to describe having two or more accounts open at the same time (usually on a separate monitor).

Actually, I did that multiboxing on Wizard101, I had two or three accounts with different Wizards of different schools to have a party that I controlled fully. I am a bit of a social hermit who can't associate with people online directly but man, I made some really great stories. Go Google "The Tightwad Conjurer and check the older posts, those were all my posts of my adventures in the game. Of course, it meant more money I had to pay for subs but it was thrilling. You can't get that with multiple people as everyone just wants to get the loot and get out, not stand around while you take screenshots.

[Darling Baphomet]

2 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

What I liked in other MMOs, though, was that I could "multibox," which I think is the term they use to describe having two or more accounts open at the same time (usually on a separate monitor). I'm sure you could do it in EQ1, but I primarily used it in EQ2 and WoW. It was almost like having a little pet that follows you.

 

I used to do this as a kid in this free to play MMO called Grand Fantasia. It was kinda fun, took a lot of multitasking though. I remember I had two accounts that I'd pretend were teen sisters and then just talk random dudes into grinding to level me up. It was kinda funny honestly. Good times.

 

2 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Anyway, I have way too many active games going on right now. I started Subnautica and The Walking Dead: Season 2. Indivisible and Shovel Knight are just going to have to wait. I have to get back into Spider-Man, but...I don't know. There's nothing wrong with that game, but for those of you who have played it...does it seem a little too AAA-y for you? Like yeah, the graphics are great, the story is surprisingly good, the voice acting is top-notch, the gameplay and combat are about as good as I think they could be, and yet...it just feels average. I don't know if I'm burned out on the open world format, but it just seems like the game is trying too hard to be (coincidentally enough) like Spider-Man 3. Which is a movie I hated. And the reason I hated it is because it tried to be too much at once. I feel like every time I go to play this game, I'm bombarded with things. Go here, your phone's ringing, somebody is robbing a store, grab that collectible, there's another over there, ring ring ring, stolen car, Jameson says something bad about Spider-Man, another robbery, the bloody phone again... It's just nonstop. Even when the game is like, "Okay, Pete... You have a little bit of time before you have to meet with MJ. Let's explore the city!"...you get like thirty seconds before the storyline pushes you forward. Does the game think I'm going to get bored if I'm not constantly being assaulted with things to do? Is that what kids need these days? CAN I HAVE A MOMENT TO MYSELF?

 

IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK, SPIDER-MAN!?

 

It's definitely kind of an over done game style? Because it's really just a better version of Ubisoft's games where you play as Spider-Man, but somewhat shorter. By the time I got to the end of the game, I had set it to easy because the combat had started to really annoy me. The story is absolutely fantastic, though, and I think it's worth playing through for that reason alone. I could totally see it not being everybody's taste.

[Together_Comic]

8 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I have to get back into Spider-Man, but...I don't know. There's nothing wrong with that game, but for those of you who have played it...does it seem a little too AAA-y for you? Like yeah, the graphics are great, the story is surprisingly good, the voice acting is top-notch, the gameplay and combat are about as good as I think they could be, and yet...it just feels average. I don't know if I'm burned out on the open world format, but it just seems like the game is trying too hard to be (coincidentally enough) like Spider-Man 3. Which is a movie I hated. And the reason I hated it is because it tried to be too much at once. I feel like every time I go to play this game, I'm bombarded with things. Go here, your phone's ringing, somebody is robbing a store, grab that collectible, there's another over there, ring ring ring, stolen car, Jameson says something bad about Spider-Man, another robbery, the bloody phone again... It's just nonstop. Even when the game is like, "Okay, Pete... You have a little bit of time before you have to meet with MJ. Let's explore the city!"...you get like thirty seconds before the storyline pushes you forward. Does the game think I'm going to get bored if I'm not constantly being assaulted with things to do? Is that what kids need these days? CAN I HAVE A MOMENT TO MYSELF?

 

IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK, SPIDER-MAN!?

 

I think that may be kind of the point.   One of the major themes of Spiderman as a whole is the balance between being a professional super hero and maintaining a regular life.  Spiderman constantly has to make decisions about whether to stop the crime in progress, meet up with MJ, work, etc. etc.  I think the game does a really good job at giving you an idea of what it would actually be like to be Spiderman, Even the webslinging  feels right.  That being said, I do agree that it is a bit sterile.  Nobody took any risks with this game and it does show.

[Grotz99]

10 hours ago, Rune_Crys said:

Okay one more thing - this is the only benefit MMOs have over regular games - with FFVIII I will delete the game when I get the platinum as I don't desire to play any more. Once you've gotten 100% or the platinum, there is nothing left for you. Only a few games(like Dragon Quest Builders games) give you stuff to do after you beat the main story thanks to online multiplayer options. MMOs continuously update their story.

Before I got into MMOs and didn't have an income, I'd play games (including the Final Fantasys) multiple times. I think I played through FF Tactics and FF9 at least 3 times each, getting everything in the game. Now a days I have some income to spend on games and with trophies or achievements being a thing, it is very rare that I will go back to game I have gotten the platinum on, unless the game had fun multiplayer or they release DLC that is worth buying (looking at you overpriced KH3 DLC, hopefully has a sale sometime).

[AJ_Radio]

16 hours ago, Together_Comic said:

I think that may be kind of the point.   One of the major themes of Spiderman as a whole is the balance between being a professional super hero and maintaining a regular life.  Spiderman constantly has to make decisions about whether to stop the crime in progress, meet up with MJ, work, etc. etc.  I think the game does a really good job at giving you an idea of what it would actually be like to be Spiderman, Even the webslinging  feels right.  That being said, I do agree that it is a bit sterile.  Nobody took any risks with this game and it does show.

 

Marvel's Spider-Man set what it wanted to do with great execution. But if you played a fair amount of open world games this generation (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Assassins Creed Origins, Batman: Arkham Knight, Watch Dogs 2, etc etc) then this is basically the same fare.

 

Story wise it is comparable to the Spider-Man movies, but I found the acting in this game to be better. I don't like Tobey Macguire, I think his acting skills aren't that great and I found him rather whiny in most movies he's been in. All of the voice acting was solid.

 

Most of the side content I felt was boring to be honest. You basically beat up Fisk's henchmen in the same fashion as you do with all the others, then Spider-Man calls the police department to tell them he's taken care of the problem. I agree with Cassylvania, this game was definitely too AAA-yy. In my opinion the side content in Batman: Arkham Knight was better, I think Marvel's Spider-Man (Insomniac Games) borrowed a lot from that game, including the combat system that made the Arkham games popular.

 

It's still a good game and a solid exclusive. I just wouldn't call it absolutely fantastic. Bloodborne and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt are still my favorite big titles in the PS4 generation.

[Rune_Crys]

On 5/12/2020 at 1:12 AM, Darling Baphomet said:

I used to do this as a kid in this free to play MMO called Grand Fantasia. It was kinda fun, took a lot of multitasking though. I remember I had two accounts that I'd pretend were teen sisters and then just talk random dudes into grinding to level me up. It was kinda funny honestly. Good times.

You'd love my Wizard101 story blog, then. It was about a Myth-school wizard who had a dream to build her own houses without spending a single Crown. (Failed miserably on that account ) She met a Storm Wizard I modeled after some African female detective in a book series I read a long time ago. It was fun having that character talk like the character in the book.

[Cassylvania]

Good read there, guys. As usual, I'm too lazy to reply to everybody individually, so I'll just highlight some of my thoughts...

• I'm watching a review of Factorio now. I'd probably give that a shot if it ever comes to consoles. (I mean, I could do it on PC, but I always feel like I'm giving up a perfectly good computer screen if I'm using my monitor for gaming.) What I like about it is that it looks like a game about getting a game to play itself. There's just something I love about finding a hands-free solution to manual labor in games. I even loved that about MMOs, while we're on the subject, where your character continues to advance in some way or you build up bonus XP or money while you're offline. I get a rush knowing that I'm making progress in something without actually doing anything. Because I'm lazy, guys. I'm really lazy.
• I never played Suikoden. Again, I mainly played Nintendo games as a kid. My brother's older, so he had the more "mature" PlayStation console. I know I played some games on it. Twisted Metal comes in mind. The original one, I mean. It was just one of those games where, you know, if I'm already sneaking into my brother's room to play on his console, I might as well be playing a game I wasn't allowed to play at that age anyway. Never got very far. Probably because I liked that chick with the car that turned into a tornado and hurt herself.
• I remember a lot of older players in EQ1 too. I was a teenager and I think everybody in my guild was married with kids. Part of that might've been the fact that I was more of a casual player, though, so I didn't join one of those top tier or raiding guilds. Funny that I really haven't changed in twenty years. Once I moved to WoW, it became obvious that the game was catering to a younger audience.
• I do need to chill on the multiple simultaneous games. I blame this virus. I just wake up and do a few things and it's like I really don't want to play the same game I played the day before. I'm working about 25-30 hours a week now, though, so things are starting to get back to normal, but I think I'm going to be part-time again by the end of June. I might not even have a job by the fall.
• I'll need to do some thinking on why the Arkham games were so good and Spider-Man feels so underwhelming for a game that should be a 9/10 or higher in every major gaming category out there. Is it just that it's been done before, because it's PG-13 at best, that Batman's world and rogues' gallery is that much more interesting, or something else?
• Yeah, the story is definitely good. It has emotion and charm. I think they could have achieved a better result by getting rid of a lot of the side activities and instead focusing on character relationships or Peter's struggles to juggle multiple things at once. Like, what if you had to make a decision between meeting MJ for dinner or stopping a robbery? If you go with MJ, your relationship with her increases, but so does crime in the city, which hurts your reputation. If you stop the robbery, your reputation goes up, but MJ starts giving you the cold shoulder. I think something like that, stretched across the entire game, would be a lot more interesting than bleep de bloops. They could advertise it as, "BE THE SPIDER-MAN YOU WANT TO BE."
• I'd be the Spider-Man who shags MJ.

Anyway, guys! I finished The Walking Dead: Season 2. I've never seen the show and I barely remember the first game, but I'm hooked. Probably going to start A New Frontier soon. What's really nice about these games is I can hop on my exercise bike and play through an entire episode in about the time it takes me to pedal 20 miles. I might try to find more games like that in the future. Of course, there's no platinum, so I won't be writing a review. What would I review anyway? It's a Telltale game. You press buttons. Anything else I say would be a spoiler.

 

I will say that I can see why the Telltale formula is getting old for some people, though. I think it's more obvious in TWD than other Telltale games because so many characters are going to die, even if you try to make attempts to save them. That's basically a spoiler to the player because once you know a character could die at a particular point in the game, you know they can no longer be a central character for the rest of the game, as the writers now have to account for that character being both alive and dead. The exception to that, I think, is the last chapter in each of these games, as you can tie a nice bow around any ending the player is going to get.

 

I liked my ending (as much as you COULD like an ending in a zombie apocalypse world, I guess), but I'm not sure where the story is supposed to go from here. There are at least four endings I know you could get, and each of them would lead to a drastically different outcome for the surviving characters. Season 1 didn't really have that issue, but...I dunno. It'll be interesting to see what they do in Season 3.

 

We all agree I can skip Michonne, right?

[AJ_Radio]

I don't feel like going through this entire thread since there's over 100 pages by this point and I would have to spend several hours to find game recommendations.

 

I asked you @Cassylvania last month or so for strategy recommendations. I won't get Cities: Skylines because there's just too much DLC and I absolutely hate random luck based trophies. Farming Simulator 2019 I just got from Plus, should be fairly easy. Already got This War of Mine: Little Ones even though you told me you didn't recommend it.

 

They're charging a lot for some of these newer strategy games from 2015 - 2019. Obviously they were put on Steam years before they got a PS4 release, some of them I never even heard of before. I just want something that's a bit different because I feel like I've played over 100 open world games, 100 sidescrolling platformers, and 20 - 30 first person shooters. I want something different. Having a few different genres on your account to mix up things a bit is always a good thing.

 

4 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

• I never played Suikoden. Again, I mainly played Nintendo games as a kid. My brother's older, so he had the more "mature" PlayStation console. I know I played some games on it. Twisted Metal comes in mind. The original one, I mean. It was just one of those games where, you know, if I'm already sneaking into my brother's room to play on his console, I might as well be playing a game I wasn't allowed to play at that age anyway. Never got very far. Probably because I liked that chick with the car that turned into a tornado and hurt herself.

 

I suspect your brother and my sister are the same age. My sister turns 39 years old in June, so she definitely remembers the time when those games were considered violent and inappropriate for smaller children, including myself. She was the reason I got into console gaming.

 

Twisted Metal has aged terribly, I've seen the actual original game and it just looks awful. Funny that teenagers and some older kids never thought of that back then, it was considered state of the art. Spyro the Dragon on the PS4 is very good, I'm quite impressed with how the graphics look and how fluid everything is. Spyro on the PS1 looks awful, I can't think of anything on that console that has aged all too well. The Nintendo 64 on the other hand, has a good number of games that have aged fairly well. Super Mario 64 still looks good despite being rough on the edges. Gameplay is still as satisfying as I remember it over 20 years ago when I was a kid going to middle school and junior high.

 

We had a Windows 98 computer hooked to dial-up internet, and what I used to do when I was growing up was download shareware games. It wasn't until I was 10 - 12 years old that I really started using the internet, but I did nothing back then but download files. Not known to my parents, I downloaded Duke Nukem 3D, DOOM and Wolfenstein off of some shareware website, played them to completion. Kids my age were not allowed to play those games back then. Parents at that time weren't all too familiar with gaming, many didn't see the point in it. I knew my mother would ban me from using the computer if she caught me playing Duke Nukem 3D. So whenever I heard somebody come to the room from the hallway, I would quickly exit out of the game and pretend I was doing school homework. Kids nowadays can't do what I did back then. There is too much parental supervision, television (or what's left of it) has much more effective parental controls, and the same goes for other media devices.

 

5 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

• I'll need to do some thinking on why the Arkham games were so good and Spider-Man feels so underwhelming for a game that should be a 9/10 or higher in every major gaming category out there. Is it just that it's been done before, because it's PG-13 at best, that Batman's world and rogues' gallery is that much more interesting, or something else?

 

Spider-Man doesn't do anything Batman: Arkham Knight and other open world games haven't already done. The graphics are great, the gameplay is rock solid and fluid, everything works to good execution. But it just didn't take any risks.

 

That is a big reason why I don't like Ubisoft a whole lot anymore because they rinse and repeat the same formulas for their games. I consider myself an Assassin Creed fan, but when you haven't even finished Origins at this point, something is up. I absolutely adore and love Assassins Creed II and Brotherhood. Gives me a dose of nostalgia, might even play those games again on another account if I had more time.

 

I never liked Marvel as much as DC. If anything I think Wolverine deserves his own game for current gen or next gen. A Superman game if done right would be pretty good also.

[Grotz99]

11 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Anyway, guys! I finished The Walking Dead: Season 2. I've never seen the show and I barely remember the first game, but I'm hooked. Probably going to start A New Frontier soon. What's really nice about these games is I can hop on my exercise bike and play through an entire episode in about the time it takes me to pedal 20 miles. I might try to find more games like that in the future. Of course, there's no platinum, so I won't be writing a review. What would I review anyway? It's a Telltale game. You press buttons. Anything else I say would be a spoiler.

 

I will say that I can see why the Telltale formula is getting old for some people, though. I think it's more obvious in TWD than other Telltale games because so many characters are going to die, even if you try to make attempts to save them. That's basically a spoiler to the player because once you know a character could die at a particular point in the game, you know they can no longer be a central character for the rest of the game, as the writers now have to account for that character being both alive and dead. The exception to that, I think, is the last chapter in each of these games, as you can tie a nice bow around any ending the player is going to get.

 

I liked my ending (as much as you COULD like an ending in a zombie apocalypse world, I guess), but I'm not sure where the story is supposed to go from here. There are at least four endings I know you could get, and each of them would lead to a drastically different outcome for the surviving characters. Season 1 didn't really have that issue, but...I dunno. It'll be interesting to see what they do in Season 3.

 

We all agree I can skip Michonne, right?

I played season 1 of Walking Dead on PS3 and have season 2 of Walking Dead sitting on my PS4 from PS Plus sometime back. I looked at starting it a couple weeks back, but then decided not to because there is a pack that has all of them, which goes on sale sometimes. It has graphical enhancements apparently and some extras, as well as a platinum, so I might get that in the future.

 

As far as Telltale games though, they have been more of interactive stories than choose your own adventures. Sure, some characters might have different thought about you based on actions, but the trip from point A to B is the same. I don't remember it being as much in the first one I played, Wolf Among Us, but it has been a long time. it might have been because some achievements required 2 playthroughs, so I had to play both paths, but the end might have ultimately ended up the same. In any case, I'm looking forward to the 2nd Wolf Among Us, the first was probably my favorite Telltale game.

[Rune_Crys]

12 hours ago, Spaz said:

Spider-Man doesn't do anything Batman: Arkham Knight and other open world games haven't already done. The graphics are great, the gameplay is rock solid and fluid, everything works to good execution. But it just didn't take any risks.

 

That is a big reason why I don't like Ubisoft a whole lot anymore because they rinse and repeat the same formulas for their games.

Are we talking about the recent Spiderman game? Because that was done by Insomniac.

 

Anyways, Spaz, if you want to break into a new genre, let me introduce you to RPGs. Try Cat Quest, it's very short and simple and fun and you might get into the RPG genre. Sure, the RPG genre is sort of slow-paced due to how much content these games can have(take it from someone who's platinumed both FF7 and FF& and swore never to do those games ), but believe you me, every moment is meaty and filled with good stuff and there is an RPG for everyone.

[gruffiiti]

18 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Anyway, guys! I finished The Walking Dead: Season 2. I've never seen the show and I barely remember the first game, but I'm hooked. Probably going to start A New Frontier soon. What's really nice about these games is I can hop on my exercise bike and play through an entire episode in about the time it takes me to pedal 20 miles. I might try to find more games like that in the future. Of course, there's no platinum, so I won't be writing a review. What would I review anyway? It's a Telltale game. You press buttons. Anything else I say would be a spoiler.

 

I will say that I can see why the Telltale formula is getting old for some people, though. I think it's more obvious in TWD than other Telltale games because so many characters are going to die, even if you try to make attempts to save them. That's basically a spoiler to the player because once you know a character could die at a particular point in the game, you know they can no longer be a central character for the rest of the game, as the writers now have to account for that character being both alive and dead. The exception to that, I think, is the last chapter in each of these games, as you can tie a nice bow around any ending the player is going to get.

 

I liked my ending (as much as you COULD like an ending in a zombie apocalypse world, I guess), but I'm not sure where the story is supposed to go from here. There are at least four endings I know you could get, and each of them would lead to a drastically different outcome for the surviving characters. Season 1 didn't really have that issue, but...I dunno. It'll be interesting to see what they do in Season 3.

 

We all agree I can skip Michonne, right?

 

I just recently played through the entire Clementine Saga and really enjoyed my time with them. The final season may be a little tougher to play on your exercise bike with the introduction of combat. Its not hard but I probably got eaten more times than I should have.

 

I did play through Michonne as well and being that it is a totally separate story line and IMO not near as strong I probably should have left it alone. The flashback sequences did nothing for the story either except confuse the hell out of me with whats going on.

[AJ_Radio]

3 hours ago, Rune_Crys said:

Are we talking about the recent Spiderman game? Because that was done by Insomniac.

 

Anyways, Spaz, if you want to break into a new genre, let me introduce you to RPGs. Try Cat Quest, it's very short and simple and fun and you might get into the RPG genre. Sure, the RPG genre is sort of slow-paced due to how much content these games can have(take it from someone who's platinumed both FF7 and FF& and swore never to do those games ), but believe you me, every moment is meaty and filled with good stuff and there is an RPG for everyone.

 

Your trophy account leads me to believe you don't do anything that poses a challenge, such as Vanquish that I generally regard as difficult due to the challenges. You prefer to play games to relax and have a good time. Which is fine, we all have different priorities.

 

I've played my share of RPGs in my time, I may end up playing more racing games. Monster Energy Supercross I may consider getting, Riptide might be an option.