Thread View: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
13 messages
13 total messages
Started by Spalls Hurgenson
Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:44
What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:44
Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:44
258 lines
15861 bytes
15861 bytes
Do you Usenet? I Usenet; I Usenet on a daily basis. I sometimes even Usenet in public. Look, now I am even restarting our monthly thread in order to encourage others to Usenet. Yes, I have verbified Usenet. Because the holidays are over and I need /something/ entertaining to keep me going through the dark and dreary winter days, and what am I going to do if I can't verbify or Usenet? Oh wait, right, playing computer games; I can do that too. Let's talk about computer games instead. You all know the drill, I won't bother going into the usual spiel. To the games! -------------------- Short and Sweet -------------------- * Lost Eden (replay) * Warhammer End Times Vermintide (new) * Star Wars The Old Republic (new) * Abzu (new) TL; DR ---------- * Lost Eden (replay) To understand "Lost Eden", you need to understand its origins. In 1984, David Lynch completed the unenviable task of translating Frank Herbert's sci-fi opus to the silver screen. Although critically panned, it became something of a cult classic. In 1992, Cryo Interactive - under the aegis of Virgin Games - released a game that owed as much to the movie as the original novel. The game - simply entitled Dune - was an odd mixture of adventure and strategy, but is probably better remembered - especially its later CD-ROM release - as being one of the earliest true multimedia experiences, with speech and video prominent parts of the game. Although only a moderate success, it was enough to keep the franchise alive until Westwood games took over the license and created Dune II, which set the template for all modern real-time strategy games and is far better remembered. Meanwhile, Cryo Interactive, having lost the Dune license, decided to create a game based on their own intellectual property, a strange pre-historic world where dinosaurs and humans co-existed. It was, essentially, a clone of the original Dune albeit one where they doubled-down on the multimedia aspects that won them so much praise. Thus was born "Lost Eden". Unfortunately, their efforts were largely for naught. While "Lost Eden's" production values still hold up well - if you take into account that there has been twenty years of technological advancement - this isn't enough to save the game. Yes, the computer-generated backgrounds, CGI animations and techno soundtrack are still appealing, the gameplay itself is completely lacking. The adventure-game sequences are totally linear, with "puzzles" that are little more than knowing to click the right thing in the right order (albeit with very little clues ever given as to what that order actually /is/). Nominally there is a strategy element as you strive to build up your armies to beat off the ravaging "Tyran" hordes, but this too is extremely superficial. It is entirely comprised of stumbling upon your allies by randomly clicking on a map and giving them the necessary items - also found by randomly clicking on the map - required for them to build citadels and armies strong enough to withstand the barbarian onslaught. Actual battles are all fought off-screen. The story is equally poor, with forgettable characters and goals and a dull deus-ex machina conclusion. "Lost Eden" is an interesting historical footnote and its visuals and music still have some appeal, but none even when it was new this was not enough to carry the game, much less two decades on. * Warhammer End Times Vermintide (new) It's obvious that the developers of Vermintide were big fans of the Left4Dead franchise; while it would be unfair to call Vermintide merely a re-skin of that co-op classic, it bears the influence of Valve's game quite proudly and it is nearly impossible to review - or play - without making comparisons. Like Left4Dead, Vermintide is a four-player co-op shooter and many of its rat-men monsters bear a close correspondence to the varied forms of Valve's zombies. But Vermintide plays with this formula, adding a Team Fortress-like class-system, some light role-playing elements and a stronger campaign, all of which - on the surface - seems like some great additions. And - generally - they are; fans of the Left4Dead series will find a lot to like. Nonetheless, all this added extra chaff does take away from some of the addictive simplicity of the older title. The worst offender were the maps, which are significantly larger than Left4Dead's levels but received far less iterative testing, as evidenced by the number of times I found myself inadvertently backtracking thanks to poor presentation of which direction I was supposed to head next. It didn't help that so much of the levels looked alike, an issue not assisted in the least by the gloomy grey graphics. The sheer size of the levels was problematic too; my interest waned long before the I got to the end of each map, and the lack of save-points meant that a total-party-kill required us to traverse the entire tedious map from the start. On the other hand, I did enjoy that the maps all had unique goals to them beyond merely surviving to the end. Nor was I particularly warm to the class system, mostly because there wasn't enough difference between the classes. Yes, the Witch-Hunter was mainly a ranged-class that relied on his flintlocks, the Dwarf a melee tank, or the Bright Wizard a finicky glass cannon prone to overheating, but in actual gameplay all the classes were all focused on killing; there were no support classes, or healers or stealth classes. The RPG elements - mostly consisting of weapon unlocks as you level up - seemed mostly added as an excuse to make the players grind-up, extending the length of a game which had a dubiously small number of maps to begin with. I mostly played in single-player and the AI was satisfactory, if lacking in the character and uniqueness that made Left4Dead's heroes so memorable. I did make a few excursions online and found the gameplay largely the same. While the community seemed largely friendly, Vermintide is more forgiving of soloing heroes, which reduced the need for co-operative play and a lot of the time the other players just seemed to run off and do their own thing. The game felt lonelier for that. Vermintide is an acceptable clone of Left4Dead, but it lacks the polish of its obvious inspiration. The developers seemed to believe that "more" equaled "better" as evidenced by how they tossed in new gameplay elements almost wily-nily, but in doing so ruined the careful balance introduced in Valve's game. The end result was a rather shallow and unmemorable title and while Left4Dead had retained a position on my hard-drive for close to 8 years, I've no regret uninstalling Vermintide after a single month. * Abzu (new) Apparently "Abzu" (which is Sumerian for "Ocean of Wisdom") was developed in part by the art-director behind the PS3-exclusive "Journey", which I played a few years back. Both games share a similarity in style and tone, but where Abzu fails is in its gameplay and character. Abzu has you take on the role of a nameless and faceless diver (as opposed to Journey's nameless and faceless wanderer) as s/he/it traverses the wilderness and ancient ruins of beneath the sea after some unmentioned apocalypse (Journey was similar, except its environ was the desert). Both games lacked any conventional storytelling, relying only on un-translated pictograms scribbled on the walls of the aforementioned ruins, leaving it to the player to decide what it all meant at the end. Environmental effects - fish and currents in Abzu, wind and sand in Journey - are major components of the game, although both are more about the, well, journey than any struggle against monsters or puzzles. But there the similarities end. Abzu lacks in direction and character. In Journey, it immediately becomes evident what your goal is; there's a giant mountain in front of you and it is clear that the point of the game is to reach the top of this peak and - by doing so - discover something of the history of the world. There's no such driving force in Abzu; you eventually stumble across some giant doors and game-logic dictates that's you are probably expected to open them (because that's what you do in games) but there is little pushing you forward beyond that. Similarly, your diver avatar emits none of the same charm - evidenced through its animation and sounds - as the robed wanderer of Journey, resulting in far less attachment to the character. Simply stated, I was given no reason to care whether or not my avatar succeeded at its goal, which made it hard to keep playing the game to the end. The developers obviously hoped that the wonder of the environment would replace this lack, and admittedly the giant schools of fish were impressive... but only briefly. There's only so long that you can watch virtual fish swarm around before the excitement dims; for me, it took about ten minutes. The variety of fish might have been more impressive except for the fact that most fish look like other fish, and the few exceptions - the blue whales, the ichthyosaurus - just didn't offer enough in the way of interaction to keep up the required level of interest. The end result was another fairly dull "walking sim" that once again hoped that its environment could make up for its lack of story or gameplay. Once again, it could not. It's a game that - beyond its momentary and initial moment of colorful wonder - was a dull and purposeless trek through an unimaginative world. * Star Wars The Old Republic (new) So I hereby name Star Wars The Old Republic the best MMORPG I've ever played. Which, grandiose as it sounds is nonetheless damning it with faint praise, because in the end SW:TOR is still an MMORPG, and I've yet to find one that's ever been worth the price of admission (well, maybe the late and lamented Ultima Online, and only because it was so novel at the time). Of course, I also say this as somebody who is far more interested in a strong single-player game than somebody who has much interest in a multiplayer game, which is a facet most MMORPGs sadly lack. SW:TOR, however, has a surprisingly strong single-player component... for an MMORPG. I played the game as freeloading non-paying customer and spent a good chunk of the month doing so. The free-to-play game has three campaigns for each of its eight different characters (although there is some overlap between the 24-total campaigns, this is still a huge amount of content. While the game obviously pushed its premium features, it was never so onerous to be annoying, or even a requirement; I played and completed the whole first campaign without paying a dime or ever feeling that coughing up the cash would significantly change my experience. For a free-to-play game, that's not only unheard of, that's amazingly generous. The back-story was suitably developed and overwrought - it is Star Wars, after all - and the questline was sufficiently full even in comparison to a "proper" single-player CRPG. The various quests and missions were well-integrated into the storyline; it never resorted to anything so cliche as "kill 10 monsters to advance" missions common to other MMORPGs. Nonetheless, all the missions still ultimately relied on monster killing to advance the plot; while some of the missions featured dialog choices at the end to sway the karma meter one way or the other, none of the quests could be solved by puzzle-solving, dialogue or stealth. It was a non-stop slaughter from one side of the galaxy to the other. Fortunately, the combat itself was flashy enough to distract from this deficiency, although - like other MMORPGs - too focused on the mechanical aspects that resulted in a screen covered with quickbars. I did found that the colorful combat effects too often made me lose track of my mouse-cursor; a serious flaw in a game that required me to constantly click the enemy to ensure my character keeps attacking. Although the game lacks in traditional methods of grind, it does find another way of artificially padding out the game's length: it couples its huge maps with an extremely slow movement rate. 95% of my time was spent walking slowly from one quest point to the next, something not helped by the tremendous number of monsters scattered across the level (the game does have quick travel points, but they are too far apart to make much difference) . Traversing the levels was tedious and boring. Had the game cut its maps down to 1/4 the size I would have enjoyed the experience far more. The game also featured guilds, crafting, strongholds and all the usual MMORPG nonsense. These are all available to F2P players, although the best parts of those features are reserved to paying customers. The only one I found marginally interesting were the "Space Missions", which were an extremely simplistic space-shooter that nonetheless offered a fun alternative to the usual on-foot questing; alas, non-paying customers like myself were limited to only three battles per week. It still wasn't enough to make me want to shell out any cash. Actually, none of the premium features seemed worth the price of admission; none of them really added or improved the core gameplay, they just made them slightly less annoying. Still, I did stay with the game for a full month, even though it was sometimes only by sheer strength of will that I returned. That's more time than I ever spent with World of Warcraft, or Guild Wars, or D&D Online, or Conan, or Elder Scrolls or any of the other MMORPGs. That might be partly due to the fact that it was a Star Wars game, but as much because it was the most single-player friendly MMORPG I've played, so kudos to Bioware for their effort. It still isn't enough to make me want to keep playing, much less pay for the damn thing. -------------------- And that's my gameplay list for this month. So, aside from Usenetting, what's been occupying your time? That is to say - What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: rms
Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2017 17:08
Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2017 17:08
12 lines
2405 bytes
2405 bytes
>What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Fallout: New Vegas
I feel like I'm wading through a swamp and plethora of side-missions in this
game, that are totally obscuring the bigger plot and picture. I am enjoying
resolving each situation, usually by negotiation or exploring to find the
needed key or info, and the shooting is great fun, but I'm definitely
feeling hints of burn-out. But hay! this is a good first-world problem to
have, and I'll keep plowing through and exploring every location I can find.
It'll probably take another month or two
rms
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: Anssi Saari
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2017 08:57
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2017 08:57
28 lines
3099 bytes
3099 bytes
Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> writes: > What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017? Surprisingly, I went back to Shadow of Mordor. If Steam is to be believed, I played it for 20 hours earlier but it was mostly just random orc killing and collecting the collectibles. I remember I didn't do that great in the fights, I got killed a bunch of times and got annoyed when dead orc captains would show up for a rematch. A misfeature of the vaunted nemesis system, you have to kill the orc captains kinda hard for them to stay dead, an arrow through the head just doesn't seem to do it. I guess it was the mention on Gamers with Jobs podcast that made me try it again. Well, the combat is solid and I've now done the grindy bits and have almost filled out my skill tree. And I'm somewhere just over half way on the main plot missions. I've also gotten a lot better with the combat and now that I have most of the powers, killing the orcs is pretty easy. I dunno, I guess a Tolkien(ish) world has an appeal. Also it feels like the game has reasonable amount of collectibles and such and collecting those gets you money for other upgrades. Other than Shadow of Mordor, I played just a little Deus Ex Mankind Divided. Started the previously pre-order exclusive "Desperate Measures". Annoyingly you don't have much of augmentations or weapons so it's sneak city. I'd at least like to have a choice on how to approach this.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2017 14:15
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2017 14:15
29 lines
3306 bytes
3306 bytes
On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 10:57:24 +0200, Anssi Saari <a...@sci.fi> wrote: >Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> writes: >> What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017? >I dunno, I guess a Tolkien(ish) world has an appeal. Also it feels like >the game has reasonable amount of collectibles and such and collecting >those gets you money for other upgrades. I need to try Shadow again. According to Steam, I've played it for... 91 minutes, and I don't recall particularly enjoying myself. IT played too much like a bad reskin of Assassin's Creed, and seemed more focused on the mechanics of the game than atmosphere or story. But it probably didn't help that I had just come off another huge open-world game (Witcher 3), so I think I should give it another chance. Which I will... some day. >Other than Shadow of Mordor, I played just a little Deus Ex Mankind >Divided. Started the previously pre-order exclusive "Desperate >Measures". Annoyingly you don't have much of augmentations or weapons so >it's sneak city. I'd at least like to have a choice on how to approach >this. DE:MD was added to my collection during the recent holiday-sales buying frenzy, but I've held off from playing it, largely because reviews indicated it had a lackluster story with a disappointing ending. I think I am waiting for the publishers to release the DLC that adds a proper conclusion to the tale before I play.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: Anssi Saari
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2017 09:42
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2017 09:42
30 lines
3056 bytes
3056 bytes
Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> writes: > I need to try Shadow again. According to Steam, I've played it for... > 91 minutes, and I don't recall particularly enjoying myself. IT played > too much like a bad reskin of Assassin's Creed, and seemed more > focused on the mechanics of the game than atmosphere or story. But it > probably didn't help that I had just come off another huge open-world > game (Witcher 3), so I think I should give it another chance. Which I > will... some day. I think Shadow sucked me in because I can play it in short bouts. Start the game, kill some orcs. Or maybe do some side mission which are mostly short. Not that it's that quick to start and I have no space on my SSD to help... But compare to GTA V which I seem to have dropped again and that's mostly because it takes so long to start up. > DE:MD was added to my collection during the recent holiday-sales > buying frenzy, but I've held off from playing it, largely because > reviews indicated it had a lackluster story with a disappointing > ending. I think I am waiting for the publishers to release the DLC > that adds a proper conclusion to the tale before I play. I don't think any such DLC was ever planned. Hoped for but AFAIK the conclusion was supposed to be in the next game which may not happen with Eidos Montreal working on Tomb Raider Next and some Avengers games. Still, this is just basically rumors from Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-30-dont-expect-another-deus-ex-game-anytime-soon) Anyways, DX:MD is 70% off on Steam this weekend if anyone is looking.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: Justisaur
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2017 21:24
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2017 21:24
142 lines
9493 bytes
9493 bytes
On 2/1/2017 7:44 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote: > > * Star Wars The Old Republic (new) > So I hereby name Star Wars The Old Republic the best MMORPG I've ever > played. > > Which, grandiose as it sounds is nonetheless damning it with faint > praise, because in the end SW:TOR is still an MMORPG, and I've yet to > find one that's ever been worth the price of admission (well, maybe > the late and lamented Ultima Online, and only because it was so novel > at the time). Of course, I also say this as somebody who is far more > interested in a strong single-player game than somebody who has much > interest in a multiplayer game, which is a facet most MMORPGs sadly > lack. SW:TOR, however, has a surprisingly strong single-player > component... for an MMORPG. SW:TOR I'd rate a bit above average, but not anywhere near best. > Although the game lacks in traditional methods of grind, it does find > another way of artificially padding out the game's length: it couples > its huge maps with an extremely slow movement rate. 95% of my time was > spent walking slowly from one quest point to the next, something not > helped by the tremendous number of monsters scattered across the level > (the game does have quick travel points, but they are too far apart to > make much difference) . Traversing the levels was tedious and boring. > Had the game cut its maps down to 1/4 the size I would have enjoyed > the experience far more. Of the couple months I played (non-consecutively), this is why I almost immediately subbed, as you can traverse about 2x as fast. > The game also featured guilds, crafting, strongholds and all the usual > MMORPG nonsense. The crafting nonsense is pretty much what killed it for me. Well, two other reasons: I liked playing sith better, they seemed to have a far better story but I found my mood actually darkening and becoming irritable. That and the usual 'can't log off right now/have to be on at this time.' stuff, I don't want a game telling me when I have to/can play (pretty much same reason I stopped with SW:HotG). > These are all available to F2P players, although the > best parts of those features are reserved to paying customers. The > only one I found marginally interesting were the "Space Missions", > which were an extremely simplistic space-shooter that nonetheless > offered a fun alternative to the usual on-foot questing; alas, > non-paying customers like myself were limited to only three battles > per week. It still wasn't enough to make me want to shell out any > cash. Actually, none of the premium features seemed worth the price of > admission; none of them really added or improved the core gameplay, > they just made them slightly less annoying. The solo space missions are pretty nice, the main reason I keep thinking of going back. There's also two side PVP space missions at higher level too, but I found those a bit confusing and not fun. > Still, I did stay with the game for a full month, even though it was > sometimes only by sheer strength of will that I returned. That's more > time than I ever spent with World of Warcraft, or Guild Wars, or D&D > Online, or Conan, or Elder Scrolls or any of the other MMORPGs. That > might be partly due to the fact that it was a Star Wars game, but as > much because it was the most single-player friendly MMORPG I've > played, so kudos to Bioware for their effort. It still isn't enough to > make me want to keep playing, much less pay for the damn thing. > Er what? No CoX? Well, yeah, none of those other ones were terribly good in my opinion either, but then MMO... EQ in the olden days used to be pretty amazing too, but that age is long gone, as is the opportunity to try CoX. Now to what I played: --------------------------- * Dark Souls II (new, PC): I read a lot of reviews that said if you had played DS there was no reason to play II, but it's been a couple years, and the hankering was still there. And it was on sale on Steam. I've been playing it non-stop since the beginning of the month, so obviously it's quite playable and different enough to keep me interested. I quickly succumbed to walkthroughs and spoilers after having a very difficult time with my sorcerer with the first areas and boss and not finding any more sorceries than the one I started with... at which point, I found that wasn't the first boss, but more like the fourth, and that the covenant I'd joined was for people who wanted the game to be more challenging and made all the mobs about 2x as hard. I started up two more characters - a quality (physical) and a paladin (heavy/str/faith) and decided to switch between them every time I lost my souls. My str/faith is doing best so far, is farthest in the game and highest level, oddly I only use the healing spells (don't really need much faith), and don't even use a lightning (faith) weapon, as a straight str one does more damage. Even with all the spoilers, there's a lot of questionable information out there, and frequently am finding out things I could've/should've done differently, that may have messed me up, and followed builds and weapon upgrades that seem far from optimal at the point in the game I'm at. I'm also finding there's far more people playing this game still than I would've thought, and quite a lot more than there was when I played DS a couple years ago. I like to help people (as you help them so you help yourself) and put down my summon sign often, and frequently get summoned. Unfortunately the opposite doesn't seem to be true, and when looking for help rarely find it except for from the NPC summons. Also the Bell area for PVP is extremely active... I was just trying to get through it to get the bosses, but even though it's extremely short to get to the bosses I was getting killed almost every time by invaders. --------------------------- * Disney Infinity (2.0?) (Xbox 360, new): Got this for my son, I haven't played it much yet, but had to a bit to get it set up for him (downloading patches is a pain on the Xbox as I have to be logged in, the children can't dl patches). I ended up playing it more than him so far. Not all that much, maybe 4 hours total. I'd rather be playing DS, but give the kid a chance to play some of the Lego games I have on my PC. It think it's a bit too advanced for him yet too, it has too many text bubbles, and he's not a good reader yet. The set we got was Star Wars with Anakin & Ashoka, and I like SW, so there's that too. I did one of the races, and found that a bit uninspired though, it's just a time trial, you aren't racing against anyone, you have to 'drift' to fill your turbo, and drifting consists of holding both buttons down and not having much control of your vehicle - mostly just drifting in the same direction you were going. It took me about 7 tries to get through the time trial, and that seems to be all there is to raceing... --------------------------- * Android: I'm just going to lump this all in here, I'm still looking for something to do on my walks, and still been very bad about taking them. I picked up Talisman as I like the board game, and it's a faithful computer version, but it's very poorly optimized on the phone, and runs like a slide show. Waiting for the AI opponents is also a major bore because of that. Star Wars Force Arena - billed as a turn based game, but seems more real time 3rd party view, not what I was looking for. Star Traders RPG, seems a bit like the old elite, but I've just done a quest or two so far and haven't got in any battles to see how it goes yet. - Justisaur
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: rms
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2017 00:06
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2017 00:06
8 lines
1842 bytes
1842 bytes
>* Star Wars The Old Republic (new)
>So I hereby name Star Wars The Old Republic the best MMORPG I've ever
>played.
Wait! So this is not the old TOR that's been in my steam library for
years?
rms
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2017 14:43
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2017 14:43
24 lines
2749 bytes
2749 bytes
On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 17:06:50 -0700, "rms" <rsqui...@MOOyossmanMOO.net> wrote: >>* Star Wars The Old Republic (new) >>So I hereby name Star Wars The Old Republic the best MMORPG I've ever >>played. > > Wait! So this is not the old TOR that's been in my steam library for >years? >rms (can't tell if you are being serious or not, but just in case... ) No, that's KoToR; the "Knights of the Old Republic", a stand-alone single-player RPG; it received an unimaginatively-named sequel, "Knights of the Old Republic 2". The Old Republic is the MMORPG, developed nominally by the same guys (Bioware) and sort-of maybe a distant sequel to the originals. The Jedi campaign had a number of nods to specific quests in the original KOTOR, which was fun. But dated and limiting as it was, the original KOTOR games are far better products if you prefer single-player and a strong story and characters. Also, "The Old Republic", being both an MMORPG and an EA game, isn't on Steam.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: rms
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2017 17:07
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2017 17:07
8 lines
1967 bytes
1967 bytes
>No, that's KoToR; the "Knights of the Old Republic", a stand-alone
>single-player RPG; it received an unimaginatively-named sequel,
>"Knights of the Old Republic 2".
Thanks for the clarification! I've only played one SW game, Republic
Commando
rms
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: Zaghadka
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2017 21:12
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2017 21:12
44 lines
3066 bytes
3066 bytes
On Sat, 04 Feb 2017 09:43:57 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Spalls Hurgenson wrote: >On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 17:06:50 -0700, "rms" ><rsqui...@MOOyossmanMOO.net> wrote: > >>>* Star Wars The Old Republic (new) >>>So I hereby name Star Wars The Old Republic the best MMORPG I've ever >>>played. >> >> Wait! So this is not the old TOR that's been in my steam library for >>years? >>rms > >(can't tell if you are being serious or not, but just in case... ) > >No, that's KoToR; the "Knights of the Old Republic", a stand-alone >single-player RPG; it received an unimaginatively-named sequel, >"Knights of the Old Republic 2". > >The Old Republic is the MMORPG, developed nominally by the same guys >(Bioware) and sort-of maybe a distant sequel to the originals. The >Jedi campaign had a number of nods to specific quests in the original >KOTOR, which was fun. But dated and limiting as it was, the original >KOTOR games are far better products if you prefer single-player and a >strong story and characters. Also, "The Old Republic", being both an >MMORPG and an EA game, isn't on Steam. > > I saw cover mechanics in browsing TOR, which were sorely missing in KoTOR, making firefights look completely ridiculous in that game. How's the cover system? Am I right that TOR has one? Is it annoying or well done? Lack of a cover mechanic was one of my main criticisms of KoTOR. It sorta works to elide it with crossbows and longbows (in D&D titles), but with semi-automatic weapons, it was clearly ridiculous. -- Zag No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2017 14:18
Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2017 14:18
49 lines
4193 bytes
4193 bytes
On Sat, 04 Feb 2017 15:12:40 -0600, Zaghadka <zagh...@hotmail.com> wrote: >On Sat, 04 Feb 2017 09:43:57 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, >Spalls Hurgenson wrote: > >>On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 17:06:50 -0700, "rms" >><rsqui...@MOOyossmanMOO.net> wrote: >> >>>>* Star Wars The Old Republic (new) >> >I saw cover mechanics in browsing TOR, which were sorely missing in >KoTOR, making firefights look completely ridiculous in that game. > >How's the cover system? Am I right that TOR has one? Is it annoying or >well done? There are no cover mechanics in The Old Republic. It's uses standard MMORPG mechanics, so its combat consists mostly of clicking on an enemy and watching a canned animation which results in a number (the number of hitpoints lost the target has just lost) floating above their head. For variety, you can click on an icon on your quickbar to use a special attack for bigger numbers. MMORPG combat is boring (in TOR's case, flashy and visually attractive... but still boring). >Lack of a cover mechanic was one of my main criticisms of KoTOR. It sorta >works to elide it with crossbows and longbows (in D&D titles), but with >semi-automatic weapons, it was clearly ridiculous. KoToR is built upon old-school RPG mechanics and - as such - the likelihood of hitting a target (or getting hit) is dependent on the character's statistics rather than the player's ability to dodge or take cover. All combat systems in computer games are ridiculous in one way or another; it really comes down to a matter of taste. Personally, I dislike more action-based RPGs (like the Mass Effect games) where it was more often player skill rather than the growing abilities that determined whether or not my avatar was effective in combat, so I rather enjoyed KoToR. Like the previous poster, RMS, you may be thinking of Republic Commando, which was a third-person shooter where you had tactical control over a squad of three other soldiers. It utilized a cover-based system with all the requisite waist-high walls conveniently dotting the battlefield. I didn't enjoy that one very much either, less because of the mechanics and more because its weapons were severely underpowered, and taking down even the weakest enemies required a clip of ammunition (a lack of variety in content didn't help either).
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: JAB
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2017 09:08
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2017 09:08
24 lines
2768 bytes
2768 bytes
I've restarted Pillars of Eternity as I played it when it first came at and when I returned to it I realised that I had both forgotten what I was doing and also paid little attention to building my characters or how to 'play' the game. Finding it rather enjoyable now I've done a bit of background research and although much of it is standard D&D affair it does play out differently. Priests in particular aren't you're secondary damage dealers/healers but are far more squishy than that. Still, once you get the hang of it combat becomes a lot easier and so far hasn't degenerated into the clash of magic that many RPG's tend to. The plot, well again fairly standard with lots of side quests to do. One thing it does suffer from, and this is true of most CRPG's, is that you do really have to play the good guy. Of course you can play a neutral in it for the money but if you want to do quests then it's still the hero role for you. Oh and you get a Castle to run. To be honest this just seems a bit of a distraction which I can't say really adds to the game. Anyone who's a fan of Balder's Gate etc. should certainly give it a try but I do somehow feel isn't it about time with had some originality in CPRG's?
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JANUARY 2017?
Author: rms
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2017 17:06
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2017 17:06
11 lines
2288 bytes
2288 bytes
>I've restarted Pillars of Eternity as I played it when it first came at and
>when I returned to it I realised that I had both forgotten what I was doing
>and also paid little attention to building my characters or how to 'play'
>the game.
Ha, I had just this hurdle to overcome when trying to play the 2nd
Dishonored1 DLC, before moving to DH2. I hadn't played DH1 in at least a
year, and finding that I'd forgotten all gameplay mechanics and much of the
lore, made me just drop it again. I'll come back to it later.
rms
Thread Navigation
This is a paginated view of messages in the thread with full content displayed inline.
Messages are displayed in chronological order, with the original post highlighted in green.
Use pagination controls to navigate through all messages in large threads.
Back to All Threads