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So is Planetcrap dead then?
April 8th 2008, 02:18 CEST by Chunkstyle In #planetcrap the question came up of whether the site is finally dead. Post counts are down to the level of when the Crap started, the number of posters is way down (especially when you include Joker alts), and the level of discussion has dropped as well. So is that it? Have the multitude of other gaming sites and forums removed the need for the crappiest place on the web? Will the last one to leave forever please turn off the server? |
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Topic: So is Planetcrap dead then?
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I'm really enjoying Age of Conan so far. Game Developers: Don't forget the zombie monkeys.
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Anyone in the Mythos beta? The protruding upper halves of the letters now appear, in the local language, to read “Go stick your head in a pig”, and are no longer illuminated, except at times of special celebration.
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TreeFrog (#1258): Anyone in the Mythos beta? <------------------- "the concept that a happy worker is a productive worker is hardly an entry from Matt's Big Book Of Things The Fairies Said." - Dum
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So how is it? I read they're making some big changes at the moment. I tried to sign up for the beta months ago, but I guess they're full. The protruding upper halves of the letters now appear, in the local language, to read “Go stick your head in a pig”, and are no longer illuminated, except at times of special celebration.
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Is the big change to make it fun, or unfun? |^^^^^^^^^^^^ |||__
| こんにちは | ||'|"\,__. |_..._...______===|=||_|__|...,] (@)'(@)"""*|(@)*(@)*****(@) |
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Well, I hate to do this and all, but here's a link to qt3 where one of the developers/designers is talking about it. It's a good read if you're interested in Mythos. What they are doing, in a nutshell, is taking the instance only nature of it giving it an overworld. Which basically means you see a lot more people before...because you're now walking your ass over to the same place you used to be able to hit a teleport and jump to. I'm not real sold on it myself. I've got some complaints about Mythos, that I list in that thread, but it boils down to the skill tree not being interesting/rewarding enough imo. Not everyone agrees with this, but I found the skill trees in TQ and D2 a lot. *shrugs* "the concept that a happy worker is a productive worker is hardly an entry from Matt's Big Book Of Things The Fairies Said." - Dum
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were you looking for these trees that you found them so much, or where they just kind of sprouting all over the place? "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
"LP, your big balls are a religion." - Jibble |
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More thoughts and notes: The reason, they say, is to make it more social. I think it's to make it take a bit longer to level up myself, but it could be both too. The shift in focus is interesting. They are still keeping it free, but you'll be able to barbie up your character for real world dollars (I think that's the plan anyway). And the beta keys are done for the moment. They disabled them with new change in focus. If you aren't already in, you can't get in currently. "the concept that a happy worker is a productive worker is hardly an entry from Matt's Big Book Of Things The Fairies Said." - Dum
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+better. Smart ass. "the concept that a happy worker is a productive worker is hardly an entry from Matt's Big Book Of Things The Fairies Said." - Dum
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eh, skill trees. I still say diablo 2 would have been infinitely better if you could eventually learn ALL of the skills. Screw this character inside of a character nonsense. If you feel the need to diversify further have Burning sorcerers with red clothes and Cold Sorcerers with blue clothes. It stops you from fucking shit up because you're limited only to their useful skillset while removing the illusion of choice, plus it makes your character look better no matter what because all of their items are themed. Not that I really want that sort of thing, give me all of the skill pages but let me use them all. |
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That's silly bishop. Why bother having character stats and building at all? If you aren't looking for that, don't play an RPG...even an action RPG. "the concept that a happy worker is a productive worker is hardly an entry from Matt's Big Book Of Things The Fairies Said." - Dum
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I've been in the Mythos beta for a long time and after a period of adjustment like the new overworld a lot. The old version felt like it was trying to be Fate, with all of the game happening in the dungeons and the town just being a place to buy/sell/heal/organize between missions. The problem with that was the dungeons were only a level or two deep, so they were over practically as soon as you started. I felt that it was inferior to Fate and stopped playing. I tried out the new overworld stuff last month or whenever they added it, and at first felt like Matt does. You're just trekking further to do the same dungeons. But then I tried it out again this week and finally saw the light. What they've done is made the overworld no longer 'that place you go between gameplay'. Basically, they turned it into a proper little MMORPG. It was when I had three quests that all relied on me going to the next town down the road that I realized I was being pushed along quest lines that would eventually have me explore the whole world. Just like WoW, only free and with less downtime and with better loot. So now the overworld is a valid part of gameplay, with many quests taking place entirely above ground. And there's also a new system that I'm not high-level enough to try yet that involves you generating your own random dungeon with certain characteristics, including length, which the dev at Qt3 says may scratch that itch for deeper dungeons. In short, I really like the game now. It went from "that game that's like Fate but worse" to "that game that's like WoW but better". "The best experiences are generative experiences. The best stories are player stories." - Will Wright
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Do you ever just think something is ok? "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
"LP, your big balls are a religion." - Jibble |
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I'll definitely give Mythos another try, but why is it good that it's trying to fit into the common MMO package? I like it a lot for not trying to do that. "the concept that a happy worker is a productive worker is hardly an entry from Matt's Big Book Of Things The Fairies Said." - Dum
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LP: WoW. WoW is okay. "The best experiences are generative experiences. The best stories are player stories." - Will Wright
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Huh, WoW is okay. Bob was right. Kickass, I need to go put $10,000 on the Cubs. Game Developers: Don't forget the zombie monkeys.
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I said I wish I could go back in time, put a little money on the Cubbies! Lady, people aren't chocolates. But you know what they are, mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.
Blog. 190 lbs. 10 to go. |
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I don't like having meaningless choices in games. It's why my primary necromancer used a two handed sword. |
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bishop (#1274): I don't like having meaningless choices in games. It's why my primary necromancer used a two handed sword. It's not about meaningless choices, it's another layer of strategy on the game. Instead of being able to do everything, you have to make choices that both limit and enable your character. I love that aspect of RPGs personally. Take Fallout, for example...without all of the perks and so on and using your character based on those selections, the combat and roleplaying wouldn't have been half as much fun. "the concept that a happy worker is a productive worker is hardly an entry from Matt's Big Book Of Things The Fairies Said." - Dum
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In fallout, I agree. In Diablo 2, I do not. The argument you're making doesn't really apply to Diablo 2, which is what I was mainly talking about. |
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Think about it this way, deus ex offered multiple skillsets for use through the game. But no matter what you developed, your progress through the game wasn't really negated, you were just shuffled down different paths depending on which skills you took. Compared to diablo 2, where it's possible, quite easy in fact, to 'break' your character by choosing the wrong skills. Even then, you're still only going to find the same seven or eight character builds at the highest tier end-game, despite the total number of character types available being somewhere in the teens. |
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So you're just talking about the practical implementation that was in Diablo 2? Because from here it sounds like you're ragging on the entire idea of the skills. Instead of saying they should remove the skill-trees, which I also don't agree with, how about we change that to they should revamp it? Revamp it so each skill is meaningful and you can't fuck your character? Because that really is an issue. I never placed skill-points in WoW without googling for what was the best build, out of fear of selecting something dumb. I can't quite remember the specific skills available in Fallout, but surely the law of averages must dictate some would be better than others? Though I do actually recall that I made characters in those games without fretting about the choices. Hm maybe it really was a better system? "You can produce nuclear reactions directly through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration."
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For some god forsaken reason D2 seems to be the game upon which class skill based systems seem to be based, when it was a terrible, horrible system to begin with. |
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So, you're saying sub-class specialization is a bad thing? "You can produce nuclear reactions directly through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration."
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D2's sub-class specialization wasn't the problem. The problem was that you'd play for 30 hours with a build in your head before you found out it completely blew and once you hit that point there was nothing that could be done about it other then start from the beginning. What would have helped a lot is if you could actively get to the higher level skills while playing on normal and if you where allowed unlimited respecs on that difficulty level. That way you could try out every thing and experiment a bit before hitting a 'your fucked' wall. Don't forget garnishes such as: Fish shaped solid waste.
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Asheron's Call eventually introduced a quest that was effectively a giant UNDO button for skill choices. It was awesome - suddenly all those characters that you'd unwittingly gimped or that had been nerfed by some update, but you didn't want to delete since you'd sunk hours into them, became viable again. Also you could switch to a high-level template when the time came without having to suffer a crappy skillset on the way there. The protruding upper halves of the letters now appear, in the local language, to read “Go stick your head in a pig”, and are no longer illuminated, except at times of special celebration.
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Blizzard addressed the issue in WoW by allowing respecs, which imo is a more or less adequate solution. At least it treats the symptom of gimping your character due to shitty spec, the ideal solution of course would be not gimping your char. in the first place though that's kind of a tall order. "You can produce nuclear reactions directly through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration."
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That still leaves the basic issue of most of the 'skills' being nominally useless because you're still going to see the same five or six varients of every class, despite the fact that there are several different types you could create / use. Which is why I was contemplating the idea of strict sub-classes for each class, with a specific skillset to build upon. Sure, ever fire fucko will be like every other fire fucko, but seeing as how that is already the case, it saves everyone a lot of time. Choice is an illusion. |
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gaggle (#1283): Blizzard addressed the issue in WoW by allowing respecs, which imo is a more or less adequate solution. At least it treats the symptom of gimping your character due to shitty spec, the ideal solution of course would be not gimping your char. in the first place though that's kind of a tall order. It's also really hard to gimp your character in WoW. Sure some talent builds are more effective than others, but there aren't really any BAD choices (at least not anymore, and not with the classes I've played). |
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Hm, I started out disagreeing with you but a few googles later and messing a bit with the talent-calculator I guess I agree. There are builds that makes you optimal in fulfilling a role, i.e. if you're a healer you better pick these exact 50 talents or be laughed at, but I guess you can't really genuinely fuck your character. That's nice. Still though I think bishop has a point. His conclusion, replacing skill-trees with just strict sub-classes, is too aggressive though… but it highlights how important it is to have the skills actually mean something. WoW would be even better if there weren't that one healer build for Shamans but multiple equally important ones. I've been playing a Hunter and for the most parts there's one build for maximum DPS. My role was DPS, so that's the build I took. A few skills were up to me, but in large part the skill choices were indeed an illusion. I think it's inherent to WoW's three groups of skills, by that design you will almost invariably end up with three specialized sub-classes that most people will use. If you want your game to be free from that you'll have to come up with a more free paradigm. Ala Fallout perhaps. "You can produce nuclear reactions directly through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration."
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Gear matters far more in WoW than talents, at least, in terms of levelling. But heck, at least you can redo them if you feel like it (ends up costing a lot if you do it constantly, but at least now there's very easy ways of getting money). Gaggle - sure, you do almost end up with people being one of three trees (doubtful by design), but there's enough points vs. the maximum skill tree size that there's always wiggle room from "cookie cutter" builds. (at level 70 you have 61 talent points, and the trees only go 41 points deep) |^^^^^^^^^^^^ |||__
| こんにちは | ||'|"\,__. |_..._...______===|=||_|__|...,] (@)'(@)"""*|(@)*(@)*****(@) |
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er (doubtful it wasnt by design) |^^^^^^^^^^^^ |||__
| こんにちは | ||'|"\,__. |_..._...______===|=||_|__|...,] (@)'(@)"""*|(@)*(@)*****(@) |
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I did a small respec in WOW, but Squeaky is right. There were very few choices I could have made that would have gimped my warlock. Every RPG or MMORPG needs a way to do it, either forcing you to pay or making it a quest. I'd have loved to try that out in Mass Effect. |
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Bish We're talking about two different things too. I played maybe two hours of multiplayer D2. I played far to many hours to count of coop D2. So my builds were all based around working with one other person and what I could do in conjunction with them. So there were many different possible builds even on the same char. I do agree with the idea of being able to respec though. Every game should allow that for some cost or at some regular interval. Not so much you don't think about and value your choices, but the option should be there. "the concept that a happy worker is a productive worker is hardly an entry from Matt's Big Book Of Things The Fairies Said." - Dum
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If all the skills are useful in some way, then who gives a fuck if some other dude does .3 DPS more than you? Just pick the ones that augment your playstyle and sound fun and fuck the numbers. "The best experiences are generative experiences. The best stories are player stories." - Will Wright
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The problem is the skills will never all be useful in some way. In fact you can actually throw most of them right out the window half of the time. |
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It depends, in Warcraft almost all the talents are useful at some point (levelling vs pvp vs raiding). Being able to respec is absolutely necessary, and really choosing points to begin with should bring up some sort of confirmation. They've gotten the first part right, which is an improvement over Diablo 1/2, but they don't have the second part down yet. |^^^^^^^^^^^^ |||__
| こんにちは | ||'|"\,__. |_..._...______===|=||_|__|...,] (@)'(@)"""*|(@)*(@)*****(@) |
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Too bad none of us will ever see it thanks to the stupid and pointless unlocking mechanisms. |
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whoops! |
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You need the 3% extra DPS at endgame because WoW is all about specialization at that point. By design. On purpose. There's no easy simple answer on how to avoid that, it's just what Blizzard does, and hell I don't even really mind it. But if your role amongst 9 or 24 other people are to do as much damage as possible then you better believe those percentages start mattering. Partly because at that point it's really the only way to make you any different from someone else. There's how you play and there's your gear, two fiercely competitive elements in the game, you're not helping yourself if you also throw weird unoptimized skills on top of that. And 3% matter plenty when a fight takes like 10 minutes. Crazy weird boss-fights. That very competitive nittygritty numberfucking is partly why the endgame really doesn't appeal so much to me. I can do it when I can clearly read and/or be told what to do and where to do it, but even that's a stretch. "You can produce nuclear reactions directly through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration."
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If you raid then you deserve whatever you get. "The best experiences are generative experiences. The best stories are player stories." - Will Wright
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phat loot? |
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Poop sock? blog | photoblog | PlanetCrap Flickr group
"It was a little hard to tell how bad I was bleeding on account of the salsa" -- Jibble |
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Poop sock is closer. The only reason you need those specific builds is because everyone has already seen the content a dozen times and they merely want the most optimal group for clearing the content as quickly as possible because they'll have to do it another 50 times before everyone completes their purple sets. Chodes. "The best experiences are generative experiences. The best stories are player stories." - Will Wright
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"Most optimal" is not at all redundant. If you think it is you are WRONG. "The best experiences are generative experiences. The best stories are player stories." - Will Wright
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And Bob knows wrong! Game Developers: Don't forget the zombie monkeys.
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I have been wronged! "The best experiences are generative experiences. The best stories are player stories." - Will Wright
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Wrong! <Hugin_len> Basically, cheesy doesn't have awful taste in music, he's simply very white.
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You know - on repeated watchings, I still love 1408 to death. Even though making the original story into a full-fledged film feels like a bit of a misjudgment, both Jackson and Cusack deliver a surprisingly good performance. I wish I could think of a more authentic scare-flick from the last 3-4 years or so. Dust. Anybody? No? High in fat, low in fat? Dust. Anybody? No? Dust. It's actually very low in fat. You can have as much dust as you like.
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The first half or whatever was fine, sure. "You can produce nuclear reactions directly through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration."
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