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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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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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/_spoilers, I guess_/ yeah, the second part was rather boring. I keep wondering what the general consensus regarding the different cuts is over here, though - should he die? should he live (and go on without his daughter)? I sort of like the idea of him getting out of the room, left to deal with reality in any way he sees fit. /_no spoilers left at all_/ 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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Also, "We've only just begun" is one fucking scary song. 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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Also, the janitor guy is Senator Clay Davis from The Wire. Any jackass can see there's no fucking this sort of shit up! 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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Yes. "The best experiences are generative experiences. The best stories are player stories." - Will Wright
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lwf is a fucking douchebag. |
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Speaking of death to all: apparently Gordon Freeman works at CERN. "I buy Captain Crunch because I like a man in uniform." - BobJustBob
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