...Kldr thoughts...: 2014-08

I tried playing Neverwinter. It made me laugh, and also confused me. What I found so funny, was how the game tried so hard to look and feel like an action game, yet underneath the surface it was clearly using standard MMO mechanics. What I found confusing, was that the animations seemed much worse than I'd expected. Champions Online has better animations. Both games were made by the same company: Cryptic. Aside from the animation issues (mainly the run/walk animations and the tails... and the fact that archers don't shoot like that...) Neverwinter was very pretty.

Sadly, I'm not a big fan of standard MMO gameplay, so I didn't play Neverwinter very long. It felt very much like a standard MMO, with some heavy instancing, and tons of polish. It also, really, did not feel like DnD. It felt like a standard MMO paying lip service to DnD ideas.

P.S. Not being able to move and attack at the same time was frustrating. Not being able to fire my cone attack unless an enemy was under the targeting cursor was even more annoying. I have to stop attacking if I want to dodge anything... I liked TSW better.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Even atheists have sacred cows

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/08/13/even-atheists-have-sacred-cows/

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Defiance (the game, not the behavior)

Started playing some of the game Defiance. I'm not really sure what to think. Many of the game mechanics and design I'd wanted to see done in an MMO are there, yet the overall quality of the game is somewhat lacking. It's like there's a lot of good ideas executed poorly.

The core element that really sets Defiance apart, and makes it special, is the way everything is built with open missions, which anyone can show up and help with. If someone else is already doing a mission I've been sent to do, I can join them, and we'll both get credit when it's done. I've never had to wait for a boss to respawn because someone else beat me to it.

The core problem with the open mission structure, is how easily it leads to certain missions being swarmed by players in such numbers that the missions become trivial. Other missions are simply ignored, and I end up having to avoid them because I can't handle them solo. Thankfully, most of the plot missions I did were both soloable, and often one or two other players would help out.

Personally, I'd like to see MMOs take advantage of the ability to give each player different mission requests to try and spread players out more. Would probably require a kind of AI director (*cough-L4D-cough*).

P.S. while I have enjoyed the shotguns that shoot grenades, I don't really understand why they are in the game, when there are also grenade launchers. Wouldn't it make more sense to just have a larger variety of grenade launchers instead?

P.P.S. I'm running out of articles to link. I guess I'll have to write more stuff myself. Unfortunately, all I really have to write about, is video games. My life isn't very exciting, and I don't do anything of importance.