![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Visited with a friend last night. We went out, ate at a Chinese buffet, then went back to his place to watch 'Miracles'. I had forgotten just how damned /disturbing/ that show is, which is why I was up most of the night, tossing and turning and thinking strange thoughts. But that's okay, for there's a virtue in strange thoughts, no matter how dark.
Less so in the persistent image of a strange, distorted face following me into sleep. Rrr.
Happy St. Pat's Day to all! How's the Friday treating you?
Less so in the persistent image of a strange, distorted face following me into sleep. Rrr.
Happy St. Pat's Day to all! How's the Friday treating you?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Yay for couch assembly!
From:
no subject
Hoshi: "This Friday is OK, but doomed to being uneventful."
This has been another episode of "You Asked For It!"
From:
no subject
Apropos of very little, I hear FF XII has come out in Japan. I wait eagerly for it to make its way across the ocean!
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Oh! Hey, have you played Atelier Iris? If not, I highly recommend it. Very excellent game!
From:
no subject
I really do want to play Ateller Iris. I'll keep your recommendation in mind next time I see it and have money. What did you like about it?
From:
no subject
1. Role Reversal: The male main character is the fragile healer/magician type, and the main female character is the kick-ass warrior. It makes me the happy.
2. Tactical but Intuitive Combat: You have various moves, some of which take two rounds to power up, some of which are area effect (and you get to see the area before you choose it, allowing you to play with different tactics), different kinds of damage, and all of that...but it all makes /sense/.
3. Cut-scene Tutorials: You can choose to skip them, but whenever you get a new ability or discover a new power, you get the option for a tutorial that explains exactly what it can do and how to use it. The tutorials are also /funny/.
4. Do-It-Yourself Enchantment: You buy or find base weapons, and then using alchemy, can refine elemental crystals, combine them, and then forge them into the weapon to give it all sorts of different powers. You can compensate for characters' specific weak spots by custom designing a weapon just for them. And the weapons aren't set in stone, either. If you want to remove enchantments from one weapon, you can, and then can use that enchantment for another. Also, your main character is an alchemist: he can make healing potions and attack items on the fly, and use them in battle without expending MP. Or, if he really needs one, he can make the same items /in/ battle, although it costs more.
5. Fun, fun characters. Aside from the obligatory cutesy cat-girl, none of the characters are generic or same old same old. (They're still archetypes, but they interact in fun ways.) There's also a fair amount of in-game character interaction, giving you a real sense of who they are, without bogging the game down in constant cut scenes. And NPCs can elicit real sympathy, outrage, or amusement.
6. Difficulty: The difficulty of the game is challenging, but not frustrating, and as far into it as I've played there haven't been any battles that rely on cheese procedures that you can only learn from a strategy guide or playing the same battle five hundred times until you hit the esoteric combination or correct moves.
7. Sense of Humor: Although there are certainly serious parts within the plot, the characters retain a sense of humor, both IC, and occassionally in breaking the fourth wall. That kind of occassional metahumor amuses me.
From:
no subject
From: (Anonymous)
no subject
Hey, apropos of not much, I was thinking about MMORPG's this morning on the bus -- I blame you! ;) -- and I figured out what really bugs me about them: You can't win them.
When I play games, I like to win. It's not essential, I can still have fun if I lose but it's nice. For me, games are a nice vacation from the complexities and gray shades of real life. Whether it's Crazy Eights or Axis & Allies, or even an RPG, I want to know who wins and who loses.
In most CRPG's you get to be a hero. You play somebody who matters. In MMORPG's you're just one mook in a huge crowd of mooks. Nothing you do matters. Even in games like Dark Age of Camelot or Guild Wars where players compete for territory there are continual resets, so if something you did one night should matter it will probably be washed away the next night.
In an MMORPG, I don't matter. At least when I'm playing Neverwinter I'm the star. Basically, I guess I'm saying that I want to have a big swollen head when I play a computer game. Huh. That makes me a closet megalomaniac, I think...
From:
Log in?
From:
Re: Log in?
*laughs* Yes, that bugs me, too. It's hard to enjoy a game when you have no effect on the world, and aren't really any different from thousands of other people out there. Some of this can be helped by finding a good RP group (although those are rare), but a lot of it is just...complete disaffection. If I just want to play for loot and killing, then I fire up D2 or something, and wade through bodies. No worries about kill stealing, or grouping, or any of that.
The more I think about it, the more the question becomes: What do MMORPGS offer that other games don't?
From:
no subject
What do MMORPGS offer that other games don't?
Good, good question. Something, obviously, or they wouldn't have so many people paying to play. Lessee...
a) PvP - I don't really like it, especially since MMORPG combat is really pretty lame, usually.
b) Phat Lewt and the ability to Lord it over other, lesser peons - yawn. I don't have the time or the desire to grind, and I can't get that excited about digital boots no matter how well-rendered they are.
c) Companionship? - If you find a good guild, yeah, I'll buy that. Personally, I've always had more fun playing tabletop no matter what the game is.
d) I'm out... what did I miss?
From:
no subject
f) A huge world to explore. This appeals to me, I admit, but not enough to override my disgruntlement in dealing with the griefers out there.
g) ...um. Hmm. Now /I'm/ out.
From:
no subject
I have to admit that I had forgotten about crafting. I have never personally played a game that had decent crafting (Star Wars Galaxies was horrible) but, yes, there is definite potential there. The problem I've always found is that only high-level characters can make good stuff and to get there you have to either level-grind or make 1000's of useless laser barrels. And then throw them away. And then make them again...
From:
no subject
I rather liked Ultima Online's crafting...there just wasn't enough to /do/ with what you made. It's the laser barrel syndrome that you mentioned. The lower level stuff often has no purpose except to be a speedbump to the higher level crafts.
From:
no subject