All Posts by CactusmanX

Originally posted by methulah

Surely you should only have to feel like a paladin if you want to feel like a paladin, not because you want to have tanking and healing abilities.

In a skill based system, if you want to be a paladin, be a paladin. Only work on skills which your conception of paladins would take, and if you really want to, join an order or act in a way which makes yourself and other identify you as a paladin.

I see what you mean and that sounds good in concept but most skill based games don't have a special melee skill that allows me to embue my weapon with holy energy for extra holy damage or release holy energy around me to do a small AoE.  If my charater can use holy magic then why stop at just healing abilities, why not use it to influence my other abilities, same with stealth or rage.  That is what kind of abilities I think paladins would have, but I have yet to encounter a skill based game where the skill didn't feel disjointed and feel like I was picking bits and pieces to make a character out of.  I don't think many developers of skill based games think, if the player has holy healing spells and melee then shouldn't the preasence of holy magic change the their melee abilities.  That is why more often than not the melee abilities of a warrior type and a paladin type are the same in skill based games.

Of course a big part of feeling like a character type is the roleplaying kind of stuff, but then few people do that so I would not expect to see any orders of paladins in game or people reacting to me like if I were a paladin, unless it were NPCs.

Yeah, ninjas do not have much personality, they are more like tools to some clan or government, silent emotionless.

But pirates, they have tons of personality and style, I mean ninjas do not get cannons or ships or booty or whenches or scurvy and pirates get to say Yarhaaar! and drink rum.

Murderous ninjas may be but they don't have pazzaz.

So anyone playing Fable 2?  I would assume so.

So far the game is great, it is what Fable 1 was supose to be, and the addition of the dog made it all the better.

Melee is actually useful now, and magic does not WTFPWN everything, it is more balanced, I also like how you can use magic as either a directional attack to hit a single target or not target anything and use it as an AoE.

Anywho, what kind of characters are people making?

Well

Better character customization is always good, in both abilities and appearence.

I don't like characters that switch between classes or can access all skill because they lack any identity and seem too generic.

Better looking gear is also good, more customization (statistical and aethetic) would be even better.

But these do not effect grinding.

What makes something a grind for me comes from how fun the action is and what I am grinding for.

To make actions more fun they need to engauge the player more.

Combat for instance could stand to be faster, not in faster deaths but faster ability execution so that players have to be more attentitive.  Making it smoother would also help, if I press three abilites quickly then it would feel much better to have my charater smoothly perform the attacks as if thery were a combo.  Making combat more flexible would also help, abilities should not be one trick ponies, they should have different effects when used in certain situations, like the target is stunned or on the ground and also in a combo with other abilities.  Variety in abilities is also a big plus.

Crafting would be more fun if the player did more than combine regents or followed recipes. Being able to have more control over the statistics of items is useful but not really fun, the fun part I think would be in visual customization, designing a sword or piece of armour would make crafting much more fun, I don't think anyone gets a kick out of watching a bar fill up or getting that 3% increase in damage protection.

Gathering abilities should not require the player to make macros and walk off from the game.  The actual act of gathering is rather dull, instead of hitting a rock with a pick the fun part would be organizing a mine.  If you could hire NPC underlings to do the boring work then scouting new areas and creating mini mine dungeons to extract minerals, while also being able to help out would be pretty fun.  This applies to most other gathering skills because simulating manual labour isn't my idea of fun.

Mob AI also helps.  If mobs were more intelligent and had a wider array of abilities to use and different mobs had different personalities and tactics it would make fighting them more fun.  And if mobs were more proactive as in they randomly attacked towns or traveled around then it would be much more exciting.  PvP does this too, and if you combined PvP with more intelligent PvE then there should be much more interesting things to do.

Variety of action.  Realize that having crafting and combat does not always make for more variety, since they are not substitutes.  If you want to fight things there should be multiples way to do so, the big thing here is purpose, some people can enjoy aimless killing but I like more purpose.  you could incorporate more random events like bandit attacks or a monster infestation that randomly happen and do not immediately respawn when complete, this adds a more dynamic degree to the game.  Again PvP and battlefield objectives do this too, giving players the unpredictability of other players with the more purpose driven aspect of open objectives.  Crafting and gathering could also have random events for them to give dedicated crafters and gatherers interesting things to do.

Another aspect is what you are grinding for.

What I hate about most MMOs is that you are forced to grind to experience the game and not grinding puts you behind, this amplifies the already dull and repetitive activies.

There is a another way to do this, Call of Duty 4 for example, though not a MMO does have grind technically but it does not feel like grind.  For one shooting people is fun so that helps a lot.  But another aspect is that unlike MMOs if you do not grind you are not useless and you can still play with your friends.  In CoD4 you grind for little perks but there isn't much statistical advancement.  In MMOs you grind to get higher levels or skills and since the focus of grinding is statistical advancement not grinding means your character can not participate with players that are higher than them or they will auto-lose, infact there are many areas you can't set foot in because you auto-lose from being too low a level.  If the power gradient was smoothed and grinding gave players access to unique abilites and gear and more character customization then grinding would be something you do while you are having fun and not grinding would not be penalized.

As for crafting I think that crafting needs to hold much more weight, where player crafted items are the main source of items for other players, but NPCs could craft too and compete against the players for sells, to add variety.  Then again I do not like stat increasing items, it makes gear too important and creates too much power difference which has adverse effects.

Maybe it is just me but I don't get it.

I mean it is a game where you can build and destroy things.  That would be like playing Garry's mod minus the mod powers.  What is the point of building when it is just going to be destroyed?

And if everyone can build things it seems like the lore and enviroment will suffer from everyones structures which will vary in quality and clutter up things.

I wouldn't expect to see organized cities arise or anything either, more like random buildings that people keep building for themselves and other half-assed structures.

I guess we have to wait for more information but conceptually it sounds wonky.

I supose that is true, also why I did not like it, especially the end game.

I guess I am one of those fabled ultra casual gamers, it wouldn't bother me if a game didn't have any statistical advancement, so I could focus on fun rather than leveling.  I mean I consider WoW to be really grindy, even with the changes they made to speed after the expansion came out.  Also why it took me 4 years to get max level and only with the urging of my friends.

But the majority of people that play it are rather hardcore about, everyday for multiple hours a day, raiding and PvP are hugh time sinks.  These are also the people that will continue to WoW.

I like the concept of a game reaching longengevity based purely on fun, but it does seem that most MMO players need a degree of mindless grind to keep them playing.

Yes it should, and so what if it is commercialized and lost its meaning, it is still fun.  I mean no one celebrates the 4th of July because of historical signifigance, they just like fireworks and no one celebrates Christmas for the winter solstice, they just like presents.

Also Saint Patrick's Day should be too.

Originally posted by deviliscious

Originally posted by CactusmanX

Originally posted by deviliscious

 

Yes you can choose who you love, and some people do not even ahve the capacity to love. JUst because I kiss a girl does not mean I am a lesbian. All of that is silly. Yes it is totally a choice. SOme people like leather it turns them on, some like fur, some like both...it's all the same.

No actions does not equal desire but there is a problem with grouping orientations with kinks.  Being heterosexual isn't a choice of course you are born that way.  Prefering leather or something of the like is a kink and is developed as a pychological attraction.  You don't have much choice in the matter but you could change your kink, your orientation, not so much. 

Also why does it matter if homosexuality is a choice or not?

 

It should be the states choice to accept and not accept this.  Not impose laws that force states to accept this when clearly the voters who voted the people into office that oppose this do not accept this, all this asks for is civil war.

And I think it is more important to protect people's right of equal treatment under law, no matter how much people protest.  It is not so much imposing law as it is keeping the state and federal governments from stripping rights away from people.  If people want to suceed over this issue then maybe it is for the best they harbour very unamerican ideas anyway.

 

I think anyone who wants to jointly file taxes should be able to, though I do not think they should get a tax break from doing so unless the other person is a dependant. Taking care of your sick mother , you can claim her as a dependant,  this should be no different.

I agree

 

State laws vary on alot of things, why should marriage be any different , I mean why should prices on houses be any differnt in texas than california? this is not an issue of money this is an issue of states being controlled by the people who live there and not being controlled by people who do not. If they don't agree with the majority of people in their state  feel free to get enough people in that state to vote them out of office, if you do not have enough people to do that in your state move to one that does. That is how democracy works.

We don't just live in a democracy where majority wins, we have a constitution and bill of rights that superceed the whims of the majority.  This is an issue of people being controlled by the majority, trying to discriminate against them and bar them from participating in a public contract.  When it comes to civil rights the state should have no say to it, it should be granted to all people regardless.

 

so if you gfelt like marrying your mom you should be able to?

Yes as should anyone
 

Marriage in it's religious purpose is for reproduction.  to "bring your multitudes upon the earth"  Yes we can reproduce without marriage but in the eyes of those who created marriage that is sin.. so why on earth would anyone who are considered sinners in the eyes of these religous organization want to partake in their cruel religious practices?

This isn't really about religion, they do not want laws to force religions to perform marriage rituals for them, they just want the same abilities as hetero married couples have.  Believe it not marriage isn't the creation of religion, it is a societal concept.  So if churches want to hate homosexuals and marry to fornicate then fine have fun with that but that isn't the only purpose and concept of marriage and it should not have any effect over peoples legal abilities.

I have no idea why there should be any benefits to being married legally vs not being married, Yes I can understand receiving tax breaks due to dependants but not due to being married, Instead of making marriage legal to everyone why not remove the benefits and tax everyone equally. Having dependants = more mouths to feed on less income, and  that has nothing to do with marriage. keep the tax breaks for dependants.

I agree, but then there is the issue of wills and visitation still which comes with marriage, abilities that same sex couples still don't have.

 

Originally posted by deviliscious

You are born male, female or hemaphrodite.  You do not choose that, you do not choose your hair, eye, skin color.  You choose whether or not you want to love a man, woman, chimpanzee, your sister your brother, your mother.

Can you choose whom you love?  If you can then stop loving whoever you do and if you are sexualy attracted to them choose not to be.  If you are thinking, "thats stupid" well that is my point.

  That is a "preference" not a born condition.  Marriage as defined by the church is the "combining of a man and a woman to become one in the eyes of God, they become a single entity a bridesgroom in the eyes of God"  well every other choice of sexual preference cannot do that  from what the church says, so why would they want to?

The only law that matters in our country is that of the Constituion, Bill of Rights and the amendments, so it does not matter how marriage is defined by the church.  However marriage is different than a civil union in the eyes of the law.  Civil unions only exist in Vermount, New Jersey and Connecticut, other states do not have to recognize civil unions, marriage they do however. 

I mean If it is just partnership rights they want I say let them have it, but it should be determined by the state,

All marriage is determined by the state, try getting a church ceremony done without a marriage license then try to jointly file taxes.  Do you just have something against it being called a marriage, because at this point it is semantics.

if people in that state disagree to it they can move to a state that agrees to it.

That is a very expensive way to get married, why should they have to move to recieve equal treatment under law?

Why exclude mothers from marrying daughters? why exclude brothers from marrying brothers? Why exclude sisters from marrying sisters? IF we allow for same sex marriages should we not also allow for these consenting adults to do as they wish? IT is the same thing, what you propose is to discriminate against those relationships but allow for same sex relationships.

Actually no I am all for people marrying their relatives if it is consentual.

Why should the others who want to get married to also be excluded from these "benefits?"  How much money someone has or how dark their tan here is not in question, whether or not their sex is capable for reproduction is.

Why does it matter if they can reproduce or not?  The purpose of marriage is not reproduction, marriage's purpose is a personal matter, marriage is a legal contract that entails joint ownership of property and joint responsibility of children if you have them, the reasons for entering in this contract is up to the individual and you can reproduce just fine without being married.
 

Originally posted by deviliscious

they should leave it up to the states rather than have other states dictating what is best for them. When we take the power from the states to make their own decsions we will have civil war.

No they shouldn't, the states should not have the right to take away the rights of homosexual people nor should Congress.

I am going to use some of your reasoning here.

If the States have the right to ban same sex marriage then why not interracial marriage or prevent the marriage of people from different social classes.

Same sex marriage seems to me to be one of those things that would be unconstitutional to ban on any level.

It would be like banning marriage between black people, unequal treatment under law.

Then of course there are those people that get pissy if you call it marriage and demand for it to be called civil unions, but I say drop marriage entirely and everyone gets civil unions.

I thought the combat was horrendous, like if your character just woke up from a year long comma and endevoured to fight legions of theives, with severe muscle stiffness and reflexes of a cow.

Originally posted by Ravanos

if you can only play for 30 minutes a day

An hour or two and then not even every day.

If you can't stand dungeon crawls or slaying tons of mobs

They are kind of dull and pointless, maybe if they where a little more interactive than just wandering through a cave killing everything that isn't you.

if you are antisocial and think everything should be doable solo

Most things should be doable solo, can't always team with people and playing by yourself does not mean that you can't contribute to an overall group goal, there is also a certain sense of uselessness when you need a group for most things.

if you don't like to raid ... because god forbid you might have to deal with another human being

Raiding isn't really fun, might be better if it didn't require a guild, a schedule and it wasn't a massive grind.

if all you want to do is kill other players

I like fighting other players or mobs, why not both at the same time.  Other activities like crafting might be more fun if it wasn't just navigating menus.

if you hate the fact that there are consequences to dying and its not just a free port back to your home.

They do not add anything to the game, I am not a masochist that needs reminding that losing is bad, and adding more penalties does not make a game more exciting or challenging, just annoying especially with FFA PvP.

if constantly questing, killing for new gear is not fun to you.

Quests can be lots of fun as long as they are not just menial tasks, and I do not like gear grinds and don't think gear should be that much a factor so it does not excite me.  Being able to customize my own set of gear now that would be fun, fighting in battles is fun and exploring the landscape is fun.

Actually I am having lots of fun with WAR at the moment.

And really those are just some possible features in MMOs, they do not have to be in a game to make it a MMO, so there is lots of room to diversify.  I am hoping someone will make a casual, action based, sandbox MMO in the future, not something you see combined but that is why I like MMOs, for the potential.

Originally posted by ironore

 Why have property disappear if people quit?  This is one of the factors that breaks most MMORPG economies.  Items should always be in the game, and although they can be secured in certain ways, they should never be 100% secure.  If a person quits, their items are still out there and accessible to others.  Perhaps their guild mates open the vault and divy them up, perhaps they sit in their abandoned house and a theif breaks in and takes them.  Of course it won't work in an item centered game.

 My idea isn't item centric, not in the sense that items make you more powerful, but items are highly customizable, one problem with circulating items around too much, beyond trade that is, is that items are not degradable in my idea, they can be damaged to the point of non-use but they can be repaired at the cost of resources, however they never dissapear.  There is one exception though, items created for NPCs, like weapons for soldiers, NPCs buy items too and unlike player owned items NPC items dissapear at some point to insure more constant business.

But houses, I can either delete the old ones or leave them there but either way in a mass exodus of the game population there is the problem of cities losing large ammounts of players over time, making ghost towns that clutter up the landscape.  I guess I could leave the houses after someone leaves and let other players buy it, but also let them salvage it too, so it does not set there and rot, and allow players to pay to have their house moved, instead of having to lose their property in order to move.

Also I am weary about features like sabotaging the developement of a city or letting players break in and steal things though.  I think it gives players too much ability to ruin others fun.  If breaking in and stealing things could only happen to property and items marked that were abandoned then it would not be that bad, but not to inhabbited player housing.  And if sabotaging involved setting people back to slow progress and give incentives for them to relocate then it would be ok, but making it so that they couldn't settle there for whatever reason would be annoying.

If you want to add some fear into the game instead of having a rule system designed to incite fear and excitement through punishment you could try and improve the immersion of the game.   A big part of what makes something exciting or fearful for me is the atmosphere, the controls and my ability to be immersed into it, risk doesn't really factor in, I mean I am pretty much garunteed to die in game so I just resign myself to it, losing XP or gear is more of an annoyance than a source of fear.

There are plenty of single and multiplayer games that that do the whole fear and excitement thing much better than any MMOG I have ever played and they do not have any death penalty.

I was trying to do something like that with special bars, of which I would have to design a lot of.

These would also work with the talents concept.

Like a paladin uses a bar called righteous fury which is used to perform and bolster certain abilities, to build righteous fury the paladin can employ talents like Comfort the Sick and Rousing Psalm, they do have some beneficial effects on other players and NPCs but they also give the paladin righteous fury, which decays very slowly, righteous fury can also be gained by striking and killing unholy things.

Except if you do not use these talents to build righteous fury your abilities do not become weaker, you are just limited to abilities that do not consume or use righteous fury.  And they are not so much minigames as simple actions that can be performed, some even on the battlefield.

My idea isn't fantasy by the way I am just using it as an example, this is more of a general concept.

I hated the old MMOs, including WoW, that make me grind for months to get gear that I don't care about, it is like putting in lots of work for no reward, or none that I have interest in.  I also don't feel like leveling up something is an accomplishment.  I am not an achiever type so something taking forever to try and make me care about the reward doesn't do anything for me.  The fun part is exploring and fighting stuff, forcing gear grinds and level grinds just hampers that.

Also time consumption does not make challenge to me unless you are challeging your patience and sense of boredom, neither is risk, they are just nuisances really, now if MMOGs wanted to start making NPCs more intelligent so that they did more than just set around waiting to be attacked then I would welcome that.

If the main point of the game is to level your charater on a long treadmill so you can get the uberloots, then that is when I stop playing.