(no subject)

[pyrephox]

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?

Comments

Re: Log in?

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

It's attack of the Anonymous Mouse!

*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?

[dreadmouse.livejournal.com]

Attack of the Anonymous Mouse! I like that. If I ever go back to City of Heroes I think I'll make up an "Anonymous Mouse" character. /grins/

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?

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

e) Crafting and Paper-dolling: This is the big appeal of it for me. MMORPGS have better crafting systems than nearly any single-player game I know of, and they also tend to offer greater visual customization. (This is why I LOVE Morrowind.)

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.

[dreadmouse.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmm... Morrowind. I have to admit, I haven't really gotten into the series in the past, but the screenshots and dev writeups I've seen for the new one look astounding. I just hope I'll have the CPU horsepower and the time to devote to it once it comes out. Huh, and I see that Neverwinter 2 is coming out soon, too. Uh Oh. Time to kiss up to my wife!

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...

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Oblivion looks...amazing. I am very much looking forward to it. Neverwinter 2 is intriguing, but I'll admit that the real-time combat makes me cry. I often end up playing either a big buff warrior with lots of automatic feats, or a summoner mage who can hide behind her summons and have time to actually cast stuff.

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.