Topic: Worst Stray Thoughts Ever (Read 66870 times)

Norondor · « **Reply #320 on:** October 01, 2009, 06:34:40 PM »

Quote from: Geo T. Hermal on October 01, 2009, 03:03:23 PM

I heard Titan's Quest failed because it sucked.

I heard that casters were super overpowered, the game was really repetitive, even more so than Diablo, and everyone's PC looked the same all the time.

I heard something similar about how the expansion totally unbalanced the game and made it pointless to have any character at all who wasn't dream/---, no matter what kind of character you wanted to make in the game.

Kazz · « **Reply #321 on:** October 01, 2009, 06:54:41 PM »

also i heard that the maps weren't randomly generated and therefore running through the game more than once (to get friends up to level) was the most monotonous bullshit in the world

Brentai · « **Reply #322 on:** October 01, 2009, 07:22:57 PM »

Quote from: Bongo Bill on October 01, 2009, 03:47:30 PM

It's as I once predicted - the company that could make DRM tolerable to end-users would bring in megabucks. It just turns out that company was Valve, and they only managed to do it by inventing a DRM scheme that adds features overall.

The DRM was pretty secondary to what they actually accomplished, though. It's really just a nice bonus.

JDigital · « **Reply #323 on:** October 03, 2009, 11:00:25 AM »

A NetHack/Dwarf Fortress style game where you build and decorate temples and monuments to your deity. Your power depends on the layout and decoration of your temples. You adventure for treasures, gems and rare things to decorate your temple and increase your god's power.

If MMO character generators are a socially acceptable equivalent to dressing up dolls, this game would be a doll house.

Brentai · « **Reply #324 on:** October 03, 2009, 01:09:57 PM »

Oh that's a fabulous idea!

Brentai · « **Reply #325 on:** October 20, 2009, 09:14:57 AM »

I get RPS's feed since it basically came with Google Reader, so I'm privvy to their bitching about the general pacing of co-op RPGs while rendering the verdict on Borderlands. I think it's an interesting, legitimate problem, especially because I'm generally the jerk who takes too much time juggling shit and eventually gets left behind to try and solo 8x Hell Difficulty mobs. So I'm thinking of a compromise that lets faster players actually accomplish something while allowing the slow damn idiots Jesus Christ don't you know how to play this game you noob to not feel so pressured to slam their build together haphazardly and run out the door half-naked.

Basically it comes back to the town-hub/instanced-dungeon idea I've been wanting to see implemented correctly (think Guild Wars, only... uh well actually Guild Wars probably did it exactly right, nevermind). The obvious problem with that is that the faster players end up standing impatiently by the instance gates while their cohorts run around like idiots buying Orange Dye. One solution would be to allow players to enter the instance whenever they like, and drop a portal to their position whenever a new player arrives while scaling enemy strength/experience to however many players are active (like Diablo does, only it doesn't count people stuck in town when calculating difficulty). The only problem with this is that noobs tend to get a little butthurt when people start a run without them.

Another idea is to have sort of a "waiting room" area between the town and field proper, which has appropriately leveled monsters wandering around for players to beat up while waiting for the rest of their team to arrive. A good example of this is implemented in, of all weird things, .hack's virtual-virtual world. From the little demo I played there seems to always be a "surface" where you can run around bashing little respawning enemies until you're ready to get down to the business of running to that big treasure chest or whatever.

I suppose what I'm talking about is really no different than hanging around instance entrances in WoW and picking off wandering trash mobs, but I'd like to see it done in a way that's less funky/irritating.

Norondor · « **Reply #326 on:** October 20, 2009, 12:35:47 PM »

Maybe like the training stage you go to when waiting on people in Brawl? The game throws more/bigger stuff at you to test your limits. You don't get XP or money for winning or any penalty for losing, and the game tracks your best performance in practice land.

Doom · « **Reply #327 on:** October 20, 2009, 12:43:21 PM »

It's a fantastic idea, though does not actually exist in WoW. Wandering trash mobs are not worth the time it takes to find and kill them and many instance entrances are separated from possible trash mob spawn areas.

What you might consider instead is a way to intelligently use this time. As an engineer, I can produce Bank or Mail access from anywhere in the world, so if I have to wait on derp-a-doos, I can craft bandages, disenchant random garbage and mail it to my bank alts. So maybe if your profession system has a plausible time-waster, like you can play peggle to polish a jewel into an improved state...

Or hell, to polish your weapons and armor for a +bonus to whatever you do. But that gives you the danger of everybody standing outside the instance entrance and being forced to complete a round of polish your plated boots...

Yeah, a room of monsters with actual rewards is the ticket.

Brentai · « **Reply #328 on:** October 21, 2009, 11:59:29 AM »

Quote from: Norondor on October 20, 2009, 12:35:47 PM

Maybe like the training stage you go to when waiting on people in Brawl? The game throws more/bigger stuff at you to test your limits. You don't get XP or money for winning or any penalty for losing, and the game tracks your best performance in practice land.

That's basically what I was going for, but the idea that you are making real (if probably minor) progress in the meantime is important. You can probably get away with PRACTICE MODE in something like Borderlands where there is actually a real game buried under all that numerology, but when it's just grindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrind people are going to be just as annoyed being stuck in the waiting room as they are stuck pissing around town or the Hellmouth. Giving people a chance to soak some XP will mollify the waiters a bit and probably encourage the slowpokes to hurry the hell up.

Waiting Room should probably never drop anything of value though. Then you're just going to get drama.

Disposable Ninja · « **Reply #329 on:** October 21, 2009, 12:17:31 PM »

Probably retarded idea: what about a minigame? Like a competitive game in which you gamble small amounts of Gold or Copper Pieces or whatever. How about a few rounds of Rock-Paper-Scissors? Play some Dice, or maybe Black Jack.

Norondor · « **Reply #330 on:** October 21, 2009, 03:24:13 PM »

How about as your record increases in the training room, you gain access to tiered vanity crap? Everyone likes fancy hats and furniture and crap.

By which i mean, not everyone. But enough people.

Brentai · « **Reply #331 on:** October 21, 2009, 03:55:32 PM »

Oh HELL no. That's pretty much begging for a massive drama clusterfuck.

Imagine all the people going apeshit about hats in TF2.

Now multiply that by stupid shit like "Dude if you hadn't connected right then I could have gotten my Water Buffalo Grand Imperial Poobah Hat! GKICK!"

otoh you may actually want players to get worked up over ridiculous vanity shit if you're a corporation. Assholes.

Doom · « **Reply #332 on:** October 21, 2009, 04:38:59 PM »

Actually, you'll just end up with groups forming with one "AFK" guy and four people grinding funny hats. There would probably even be bots to fill the role of the "AFK guy, and failing that, good old fashioned double accounts could probably do the trick.

Brentai · « **Reply #333 on:** October 21, 2009, 05:15:45 PM »

Either way it doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

Kazz · « **Reply #334 on:** October 21, 2009, 07:34:45 PM »

DISPUTES SHOULD BE SETTLED WITH PACHINKO

Classic · « **Reply #335 on:** October 21, 2009, 09:44:45 PM »

Quote from: Kazz on October 21, 2009, 07:34:45 PM

DISPUTES SHOULD BE SETTLED WITH PACHINKO AND COSPLAY

... I I kind of liked that dirty game frocto was playing.

Superface · « **Reply #336 on:** November 04, 2009, 09:02:14 PM »

Ok, I have like three. First: an RPG musical.

Not a musical RPG, like Rhapsody, more like an RPG with an epic scope, real, colorful characters, as much full voice work as possible, and SONGS, meaningful ones with fantastic lyrics that are integral to the story.

This could be so BEAUTIFUL. I've been cooking it up in my head over the last three years or so.

How come games don't matter more to players? There need to be more striking emotional scenes in games, like there are in movies. And this needn't be 100% cinematics, either, a huge amount of dialog could just get woven into gameplay. Just look at the narration for quests in D&DO, for heaven's sake.

Characters should be real. They should do things that real people do, like be uncertain, be afraid, have hangups, laugh at things that are funny. They should have natural reactions to the things that happen in the story, the kinds of reactions real people would have. The hero should get depressed and cry. The main love interest should like another person, romantically. Her parents shouldn't already know the hero.

And the songs. The world map song should be sung by all four characters. It should be an inspiring, hearty song, like the kind that plays during the climactic public crowd lovers reunion scene in romantic comedies.

There should be an Introductory Sequence with it's own solemn song, sung by the brave-hearted child protagonist. It should have kettledrums and low, powerfUl cellos backing. It should have words that immediately throw your heart onto the story. I have a very rough first draft:

I was a lonely boy,
My heart lay in the land,

They were a world away,
Tyrants in shifting sand,

But now the war
Has bastardized our farms,
And now her life
Rests plaintive in my arms

And so
We stand alone
And thrust this sword against the evil of the day,

We vow as one,
Scabbards bereft,
We promise all our strength enrolled against the fey,

And on, we march,
Our paths so long
They stretch in front of us forever and a day,

We sing aloud
This battle-song
And we forsake the fear with which we used to lay,

We've bigger things
To rage against,
We gird our flanks,
We rise as men

Foretold in age,
Our cornerstone,
We make this vow our own to keep:

To Morrione.

To Morrione,
To Morrione.

Superface · « **Reply #337 on:** November 04, 2009, 09:13:50 PM »

Also: shop takeback in RPGs.

How many times have you bought something in a shop, only to find out it doesn't fit on the character you bought it for, or they already have something better on, or you find a free one in a treasure chest five minutes later?

You can't sell it, because you'll only get half it's value back. But what the fuck else would you do with it? Unforge it, so you can get a peice of iron and a leather square worth 1/10 what you spent on the damn thing in the first place?

So, we introduce shop takeback, or the ability to undo the last n transactions you made at shops. Don't like that weapon? Hit undo on that transaction and it's gone, and the money's immediately back in your account-ALL of it. Why penalize the player for a mistake YOU helped them make?

"What about consumeables?" Easy; if you don't have it anymore, you can't undo buying it. Buy a potion, drink it. Hit undo on that transaction, and you get a "You don't have it now, you used it up! You can't return something that's all used up!" error message.

"What about list transactions, like from the Tales games?" What about them? Those are more the exception than the rule; it wouldn't take a lot to get players used to buying one thing at a time again, especially if they can get shop takeback as a result.

What do you think, wouldn't this be a lot better? Do you know how simple it would be to implement in code? And you don't even have to go crazy with it, if you just provided it for as few as the last 10 transactions players would love you for it, and for a bare minimum of bookeeping/memory.

Kazz · « **Reply #338 on:** November 04, 2009, 10:25:58 PM »

I'm levelling
I'm levelling
I'm levelling a lot

I'm a high level now
And I'll be higher tomorrow
And one day, I will hit the cap

And when I get there
I'll have the greatest gear
And out of the final boss I shall beat crap

Brentai · « **Reply #339 on:** November 04, 2009, 10:46:47 PM »

I wanted more stuff like Luna's Boat Scene, yes.

I think you're more likely to get Finny Fun though.

News:

Author Topic: Worst Stray Thoughts Ever (Read 66870 times)