Now, in online gaming terms I didn't arrive in the period of old school Quake and CS fragging, but a few years later in 2003. The first actual game where I was put against my fellow man online was Battlefield 1942. Looking back at it now, nothing of this kind of FPS fraggery appealed to me until I read the review of BF1942.
Back in the boring school days of 02 the thought of jumping online and sharing a virtual world war 2 themed Battlefield stocked with all the toys and guns a boy could dream of and eventually I was granted that dream the coming Christmas. I remember my first map, Operation Battle Axe. I spawned in one of the bunkers as a Medic rignt in the thick of combat in that bitter little Battlefield and quickly began my Support Career in FPS games from now on. When I fix somebodies armour in Planetside or heal somebody in a MMO I will always think of my little British Medic, trying to press the Medical Satchel against his wounded comrade under German GM fires.
BF1942 addicted me like crack, I was determined especially to Master the Engineer Class and crush all those in my wake with the one shot one kill bolt action rifle of death. The game it self was incredibly arcadey and as I grew a little older I desired more than the simple cartoony anarchnosims and downloaded Forgotten Hope, which extended me playing the game for an extra three years.
My favourite Vanilla BF1942 map was eventually, after playing quite a few several times over, was El Alamein. I always played for the home team when I could, slapping down Landmines in the middle Control Point and blasting those damn Jerry Planes from the sky in my Ack-Ack Anti-Air gun. Interesting fact, I quite enjoyed using AA guns. The satisfaction of downing those showboating Pilot clowns from the sky and watching the blackened twisted wreckage of their plane slam into the ground after was brillaint.
I was quite rubbish when it came to flying too, I somehow could not master the act of coaxing the buxom and darling mistress of gravity into keeping me steady enough when going into the air. I crashed more than a 3rd World Nation Airline Jumbo Jet and rarely hopped into planes unless they needed a gunner. The latter action saw more action with FH, Especially with the deliciously sexy Bombers.
One thing I HATED in the game was the blasted grenades. The second you saw one of the enemies grenades plink next to you while crawling on the ground over the Bocage bridge (This happens a lot) you know your fragging is inevitible and you groan as your poor avatars body is comically tossed into the air with the cartoony explosion. Another thing that drove me to FH, was the stupid act of balance in making HAND GRENADES do damage to tanks. Madness. As for weapons I loved, The Lee Enfield with the Road to Rome bayonet came the closest to my heart.
Speaking of Tank Damage, next to the Engineer the true Warrior of the BF1942 field of conflicts was that mighty manly man the Anti-Tank guy with his Slow Mo Rocket, Piddily Pistol and Combat Knife against the world of many mean lean killing machines. I remember fondly, Clutching my American issued Bazooka (?) as a Soviet in the Kursk Map hopping around and shooting a German to death easily with my Colt. Thankfully, Tanks in Vanilla Battlefield could only take Three hits to the front and rear and two hits to the side. Makes you thank god they didn't make tank armour like that in real life or the 2nd World War cost of life would have been even more terrible eh?
The most unique maps that BF1942 offered were the Pacific Campaign ones, Because of the Navy Combat. Everyone wanted to crew the Battleship or Destroyers or the sneaky Submarine (The latter requiring the most patient BF1942 player) and simply causes havoc by bombarding the enemy bases. Mastering the Torpedo Bombs during Battle of the Coral Sea was something every player wanted to do, copying the act from the rather nifty Intro Movie.
What really makes me smile, Is remembering playing against the bots of the game as general hands on practice before carting myself online. The AI of the bots in these games was incredibly dismal these days. You can NEVER replicate the random cunning of fighting against a person online (Nowadays, bots have come almost as close as possible) and the things the bots did in 1942 were so insane you would NEVER see such actions on an actual public server.
For example, sometimes Three AT Class boss would go prone and fires their missles at you, despite the fact you are foot and can dodge them like a mouse dodging an OAP driving at half a mile an hour with ease and shoot them in the head. Bots in the game all had habit of crounching and throwing themselves on the ground for no reason. Bots would also spawn camp the areas where vehicles respawned, even long after said means of transport were long taken. Bots were even more addicted to TKing or suiciding than the FF players. Bots were even more terrible at flying planes than me, you had to be careful to not get caught in a plane crash. Bots, no matter how hard the AI was were easy to kill people would only play a single player game just to try out a map they haven't played or to improve their skills. A few years later, Modders of the game managed to pound out something decent from the glitchy coding of the AI and removed all the inane smacktardation code.
Another thing I loved about BF1942, were the useful Radio Commands on the F buttons. Most of the time, people actually used these and they helped a lot to encourage teamwork. It was a custom to F5-F5 an Engineer or Medic for doing their job. The phrases themselves echo still in my brain (MEDIC!, TALLY HO and my personal favourite SCHNELL LOSS) and unlike most command menus you see in the games it is quicky and easy to use.
I played a few Mods to BF1942, All of them excellent total conversations. Battlefield 1918, Galatic Conquest and Forgotten Hope were my personal favourites. I also wanted to get around to playing Desert Combat, Eve of Destruction or the Pirate Mods of the games but never had the time or harddrive space. Most of these mods have continued onto Battlefield 2 or 2142.
Sadly, I haven't been able to play the sequals to Battlefield 1942. Battlefield 2 and 2142 need an extremely better Processor much to my grief. Battlefield 3 doesn't sound that much appealing to me too. I think it is sad EA bought DICE now and we will never see Battlefield Imperial Era or Battlefield Korea.
The influence of the game had spread very well, most FPS games these days go for the old conquest node capture mode they streamlined and the proof that several of the mods have moved on to different engines (SOURCE, Crystis etc) by retaining the streamlined team against team with lots of guns and vehicle action. PlanetSide the MMO remindes me a lot of the game, and is excellent to buy if you are an old junkie like me who wants to capture positions and appear the most on the kill message portion of the screen with your signature weapon icon.
One of these days, I must reinstall and see if a few Vanilla servers are still going...
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
City of Heroes/Villans: Best MMO ever?
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Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Memories of Star Wars Galaxies Episode II
Tonight, I'm going to post some more memories I gleaned from my past in classic SWG and entertain you all. This time I will be gleaning a few from my Bria toon. First a little background about how I started out on Bria. Like I mentioned in the previous SWG memory post the CU had hit and driven most of my friends to quitting or migrating to busier servers. Eventually, I decided I was bored hanging around the quiet Cantina in FarStar with nothing but the occasional AFK Entertainer bot for company so I created my toon on the busiest and more notorius server SWG had.That server was Bria. Bria was infamous for several things, it was the first and laggiest server SWG has ever had and it was big on PVP. It was also an AmericanWest Coast server which operated on a different time zone to my previous European server.
I cared not and created my human male (I regret not making any interesting alien toonswhen SWG finally bit the big one) named Akrady Renko. I heard that for once, The GalacticEmpire on Bria was the top dog in the GCW and from the very start when I got SWG I decidedto become an Imperial. I was finally determined to grind up and get a full suit of Stormtrooperarmour. I also decided to grind up a Ranged toon, Pistoleer, Carbineer with a mixture of Scout.
I made the toon my main after the effects of the CU became fully apparent and began playing Ak more than Rom.
I joined the Imperial Navy instead of the Army and worked hard in my training TIE Fighterand soon was wearing the full gear of an Imperial Navy TIE Fighter Pilot. Sadly, I didn't feel Imperial enough. Then I spotted groups of more than one player wearing Stormtrooper armour all around Tatooine, which was once again my playground planet. I asked earnestlyif I could join and it turned out to be an RP guild. I cared not, and begged. I was givenan interview with one of their Officers in the City Cantina where their PA Hall was.
I passed and became a fleging member of Stormtrooper Gamma Company in its glory days.With ST-G, I worked hard and RPed with them to my hearts content even getting the hang of the CUeventually and began hanging around exclusively with them in general. Several members workedhard and helped me slowly earn the FP for purchasing Stormtrooper armour (Before the CU you just neededFP to get the stuff from a recruiter) but eventully one of my friends gave me a lucky break and boughtme a full post CU crafted set of Stormie armour. I was most impressed, But I still needed an assload ofFP to equip and wear it.
One of the interesting things we did in ST-G when we got together and formed a nice littleImperial Platoon full of immaculately armoured Stormtroopers and Officers was either RP PatrolMos Eisley or help the Empire in general on the server by scouting out and removing PVEor rarely, PVP bases on the planet. The experince of storming the first base, getting into cover and shooting out the defensive turrets and then charging in ready to take on the Rebel Soldiers inside with aims to activate the self destruction sequince still is in my fond memories now.
I remember a Veteran, Clad in Clonetrooper Expansion Pack Fodder armour giving me an entireset of Scouttrooper armour for free, much to my friends envy. I loved that armour and I stillwish I wore it, even only just once before I left the game. Sadly, I needed 20k fp to wearand bind each individual piece to me. Towards the late CU, a friend in the Guild also gave me his TIE Interceptor which I never got a chance to equip up and fly.
Apparently, Our PA had to leave the city we were stationed in because the New Mayorwas Pro-Rebel and ST-G resettled on the green Gungan and Spider infested swampy plainsof Naboo in a player city known as Central Dogma. One of our PA Allies, COMPNOR had createdthe city and welcomed us with open arms. From now on, Naboo and Theed Cantina would be mynew home but the Patrols on Mos Eisley never stopped then. I got my favourite home for free for joiningCentral Dogma, before once more it was another small Tatooine Mudhut. The Medium sized Naboohome was huge and I decorated it finerly with furniture, memoirs of my travels and loot.I even kept a Pet Dewback which I couldn't ride because of the CU in the basement. I named him Billy. I used Imperial butter to get him through the doorway.
I remember as the Episode III Hype was getting big that SOE forced LA to unleash a prequal-tastic Expansion called Rage of The Wookiees. With that expansion, we got an entirelynew planet (Kashyssk) which was basically just a huge, laggy and slightly bug filled theme park.I remember reading in the Bria forums the Ryatt Trail Controversies between the ever growingnumber of J3di and Bounty Hunters. I remember myself how laggy it got on this planet for myPC and when the novelty of the new place wore off I rarely went.
The J3di Rift that swallowed the whole game even hit ST-G, A few Commanding Officers and 3rd generation ST-G members began grinding Jedi despite the fact the already anti-canonicalpresence they had on the game and the fundemental rule of nothing BUT Stormtroopers being in a PA based on Stormtroopers. A lot of bad words were said between the Jedi Guys and theFundies and rifts opened. Old school PA members leaving the game or losing interest becausethey were free trial players was also getting common.
The PA needed rebooting and became much more strict after the storm passed.
I rememberwhen players were finally allowed to be passengers in other players speeders, severalnew Landspeeders were introduced into the game including a people carrier that could holdeight people. Two of these were adopted into ST-G and painted Imperial Colours. Our bestcampaign on Corellia involved fourteen of us blasting three PVE Rebel bases and hittingthe Alliance hard on its traditional homeworld.
I had grown to love my Stormtrooper armour so much, I rarely took it off and was eithereither wearing that or the Grey Imperial Officer uniform. I occasionaly wore my casualclothes (Especially during the rift era of the PA where I was removed temporarly) butlike with my other toon I had solidified my 'style'. I also grown attached to theE-11 Mark II Combine, Which you needed to Master Carbineer to wield.
I remember taking part in Mr Bria 2005 at Club Shim on Lok (In SWG slang, A shim is usually a female toon played by a male toon) and wearing nothing but hawtpants, Stormtrooper booties,gloves and my helmet. I sadly did not win, but I got to the semi-finals much to peoples amusement.
Another memory is receiving the Interesting Person Badge from the guy in charge ofall the events, Pex, while touring a little spice party on Tatooine with a small crowdof semi-RPers. Don't ask why an Imperial Stormie was there, he just was. Perks you know?
I remember trying out different physical features with Ak too. At first, he was pale dueto the fact he was going to wear a Pilot suit/Stormtrooper armour all the time. Eventuallyan ID friend made him less pale, gave him a tan and a new haircut. For a while, this wasAk's lady killer look. Eventually, I bored of the tan and asked for a normal pink skin pigmentation. Towards the end of the CU era I experimented and gave Ak a moustache and goatee.
Another fond memory of mine with Ak is defending Bestine during one of the infamous Sand PeopleAttack. Pre-CU Sand People were HARDCORE. I mean it, You'd have trouble with them unless youhad a decently branched skilled Combat Toon or a decent group. The Imperial City of Bestine onTatooine would be flooded with every type of Tusken Raider NPC, from the basic grunts tothe deadly Warlord Chieften who could have pwned my n00b ass easily with one hit. However playersflooded Bestine and pushed the scum back. The fighting came to a climax in the Bestine TownHall building, as small army of every type of players took on the Warlord and his body guards, followedby attacking the mighty Dark Jedi behind the invasion. I remember kneeling on the top of the raised portionof the room firing down into this massive melee with a Tusken Rifle (Oh the irony).
On the night before the NGE was going out, Me and some reformed ST-G buddies armoured up and decided to join in several mass PVP raids while we still could. It was great fun, crushingthe Rebels in Bestine and seizing the Shuttle Port before they could rally enough men to defend it.I remember even getting my first and only PVP kill in my history of the game.
Sadly, My memories with Ak ended painfully once and for all with the sudden mound of poop thatwas the NGE. One of the first blows was having to choose one of the lame 8 classes after losingall my skills from the FOUR diverse classes I had grinded hard for. I choose Officer, whichwas a mistake because it was one of the most gimped classes. Much to my annoyance most ofmy guns which I carried in my pack as a Mini-armoury did not work with Officer and all I couldwield was this piddily generic looking slug pistol. This, along with other stupid changes of the NGEmore or less made my urge to play SWG die inside me.
ST-G had to move again because the NGE sadly killed off the dwinding population of Central Dogma.Infact, ST-G formed a new city on Naboo and our HQ went to its third and final transformationinto the Mustofar bunker. I remember coming back from the little party we had opening the place, sitting downin my Naboo Medium houses bed and logging out. I never logged back in again. I sadly simply lostinterest and did something else. I really sometimes faintly miss Bria, Theed Cantina which instantly emptied after the NGE and my fellow ST-G members including the friends who stuck close to me all times. Thesame goes for my comrades on FarStar.
Maybe one day, we'll meet each other when SWG-Emu is finally completed next year. I would certainlyre-equip my Stormtrooper armour once more for the Galactic Empire.
I cared not and created my human male (I regret not making any interesting alien toonswhen SWG finally bit the big one) named Akrady Renko. I heard that for once, The GalacticEmpire on Bria was the top dog in the GCW and from the very start when I got SWG I decidedto become an Imperial. I was finally determined to grind up and get a full suit of Stormtrooperarmour. I also decided to grind up a Ranged toon, Pistoleer, Carbineer with a mixture of Scout.
I made the toon my main after the effects of the CU became fully apparent and began playing Ak more than Rom.
I joined the Imperial Navy instead of the Army and worked hard in my training TIE Fighterand soon was wearing the full gear of an Imperial Navy TIE Fighter Pilot. Sadly, I didn't feel Imperial enough. Then I spotted groups of more than one player wearing Stormtrooper armour all around Tatooine, which was once again my playground planet. I asked earnestlyif I could join and it turned out to be an RP guild. I cared not, and begged. I was givenan interview with one of their Officers in the City Cantina where their PA Hall was.
I passed and became a fleging member of Stormtrooper Gamma Company in its glory days.With ST-G, I worked hard and RPed with them to my hearts content even getting the hang of the CUeventually and began hanging around exclusively with them in general. Several members workedhard and helped me slowly earn the FP for purchasing Stormtrooper armour (Before the CU you just neededFP to get the stuff from a recruiter) but eventully one of my friends gave me a lucky break and boughtme a full post CU crafted set of Stormie armour. I was most impressed, But I still needed an assload ofFP to equip and wear it.
One of the interesting things we did in ST-G when we got together and formed a nice littleImperial Platoon full of immaculately armoured Stormtroopers and Officers was either RP PatrolMos Eisley or help the Empire in general on the server by scouting out and removing PVEor rarely, PVP bases on the planet. The experince of storming the first base, getting into cover and shooting out the defensive turrets and then charging in ready to take on the Rebel Soldiers inside with aims to activate the self destruction sequince still is in my fond memories now.
I remember a Veteran, Clad in Clonetrooper Expansion Pack Fodder armour giving me an entireset of Scouttrooper armour for free, much to my friends envy. I loved that armour and I stillwish I wore it, even only just once before I left the game. Sadly, I needed 20k fp to wearand bind each individual piece to me. Towards the late CU, a friend in the Guild also gave me his TIE Interceptor which I never got a chance to equip up and fly.
Apparently, Our PA had to leave the city we were stationed in because the New Mayorwas Pro-Rebel and ST-G resettled on the green Gungan and Spider infested swampy plainsof Naboo in a player city known as Central Dogma. One of our PA Allies, COMPNOR had createdthe city and welcomed us with open arms. From now on, Naboo and Theed Cantina would be mynew home but the Patrols on Mos Eisley never stopped then. I got my favourite home for free for joiningCentral Dogma, before once more it was another small Tatooine Mudhut. The Medium sized Naboohome was huge and I decorated it finerly with furniture, memoirs of my travels and loot.I even kept a Pet Dewback which I couldn't ride because of the CU in the basement. I named him Billy. I used Imperial butter to get him through the doorway.
I remember as the Episode III Hype was getting big that SOE forced LA to unleash a prequal-tastic Expansion called Rage of The Wookiees. With that expansion, we got an entirelynew planet (Kashyssk) which was basically just a huge, laggy and slightly bug filled theme park.I remember reading in the Bria forums the Ryatt Trail Controversies between the ever growingnumber of J3di and Bounty Hunters. I remember myself how laggy it got on this planet for myPC and when the novelty of the new place wore off I rarely went.
The J3di Rift that swallowed the whole game even hit ST-G, A few Commanding Officers and 3rd generation ST-G members began grinding Jedi despite the fact the already anti-canonicalpresence they had on the game and the fundemental rule of nothing BUT Stormtroopers being in a PA based on Stormtroopers. A lot of bad words were said between the Jedi Guys and theFundies and rifts opened. Old school PA members leaving the game or losing interest becausethey were free trial players was also getting common.
The PA needed rebooting and became much more strict after the storm passed.
I rememberwhen players were finally allowed to be passengers in other players speeders, severalnew Landspeeders were introduced into the game including a people carrier that could holdeight people. Two of these were adopted into ST-G and painted Imperial Colours. Our bestcampaign on Corellia involved fourteen of us blasting three PVE Rebel bases and hittingthe Alliance hard on its traditional homeworld.
I had grown to love my Stormtrooper armour so much, I rarely took it off and was eithereither wearing that or the Grey Imperial Officer uniform. I occasionaly wore my casualclothes (Especially during the rift era of the PA where I was removed temporarly) butlike with my other toon I had solidified my 'style'. I also grown attached to theE-11 Mark II Combine, Which you needed to Master Carbineer to wield.
I remember taking part in Mr Bria 2005 at Club Shim on Lok (In SWG slang, A shim is usually a female toon played by a male toon) and wearing nothing but hawtpants, Stormtrooper booties,gloves and my helmet. I sadly did not win, but I got to the semi-finals much to peoples amusement.
Another memory is receiving the Interesting Person Badge from the guy in charge ofall the events, Pex, while touring a little spice party on Tatooine with a small crowdof semi-RPers. Don't ask why an Imperial Stormie was there, he just was. Perks you know?
I remember trying out different physical features with Ak too. At first, he was pale dueto the fact he was going to wear a Pilot suit/Stormtrooper armour all the time. Eventuallyan ID friend made him less pale, gave him a tan and a new haircut. For a while, this wasAk's lady killer look. Eventually, I bored of the tan and asked for a normal pink skin pigmentation. Towards the end of the CU era I experimented and gave Ak a moustache and goatee.
Another fond memory of mine with Ak is defending Bestine during one of the infamous Sand PeopleAttack. Pre-CU Sand People were HARDCORE. I mean it, You'd have trouble with them unless youhad a decently branched skilled Combat Toon or a decent group. The Imperial City of Bestine onTatooine would be flooded with every type of Tusken Raider NPC, from the basic grunts tothe deadly Warlord Chieften who could have pwned my n00b ass easily with one hit. However playersflooded Bestine and pushed the scum back. The fighting came to a climax in the Bestine TownHall building, as small army of every type of players took on the Warlord and his body guards, followedby attacking the mighty Dark Jedi behind the invasion. I remember kneeling on the top of the raised portionof the room firing down into this massive melee with a Tusken Rifle (Oh the irony).
On the night before the NGE was going out, Me and some reformed ST-G buddies armoured up and decided to join in several mass PVP raids while we still could. It was great fun, crushingthe Rebels in Bestine and seizing the Shuttle Port before they could rally enough men to defend it.I remember even getting my first and only PVP kill in my history of the game.
Sadly, My memories with Ak ended painfully once and for all with the sudden mound of poop thatwas the NGE. One of the first blows was having to choose one of the lame 8 classes after losingall my skills from the FOUR diverse classes I had grinded hard for. I choose Officer, whichwas a mistake because it was one of the most gimped classes. Much to my annoyance most ofmy guns which I carried in my pack as a Mini-armoury did not work with Officer and all I couldwield was this piddily generic looking slug pistol. This, along with other stupid changes of the NGEmore or less made my urge to play SWG die inside me.
ST-G had to move again because the NGE sadly killed off the dwinding population of Central Dogma.Infact, ST-G formed a new city on Naboo and our HQ went to its third and final transformationinto the Mustofar bunker. I remember coming back from the little party we had opening the place, sitting downin my Naboo Medium houses bed and logging out. I never logged back in again. I sadly simply lostinterest and did something else. I really sometimes faintly miss Bria, Theed Cantina which instantly emptied after the NGE and my fellow ST-G members including the friends who stuck close to me all times. Thesame goes for my comrades on FarStar.
Maybe one day, we'll meet each other when SWG-Emu is finally completed next year. I would certainlyre-equip my Stormtrooper armour once more for the Galactic Empire.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Stupid RTS Mission Objectives!
Okay, I'm a little angry at Homeworld 2 right about now after wasting almost forty five minutes just trying to complete the second mission and in general, hundreds of RTS games who more or less have used the same sort of attempts at gameplay that makes me want to punch them in the face with steel gloves with sharp rusty spikes on the knuckles covered with the Ebola Virus.
So below is a list of things in RTS Mission Campaigns that piss me off and make me want to hurl something in the wall in general frustration when I fail the goddamn mission for the fortieth time forcing me use to cheats just to get to the less crappy parts of the campaign. Pay attention future game developers:
The Frustrating As Hell Escort Mission:
The plot of the damn story usually at the early part or middle parts of the games campaign ALWAYS sticks you with some weak ass convoy or units to escort in the middle of a dangerous war zone. Excuse me, But I am the Goddamn Head Commander General of the Pwnsauce National Gun Bang Armed Forces! I am not a goddamn baby sitter. I REFUSE to escort this tiny, slow weakass bunch of units through the RTS version of Baghdad and former Yugoslavia combined. Couldn't you morons in HQ stick this on somebody else? Or, GASP send me to clear this oddly small but heavily held bit of enemy land to the objective and bring the fricking escort later? Why do you NEED to use lightly armoured barely armed vehicles when we can haul this stuff on the back of a plane or something anyway?
The Time Limit:
Gaming is about relaxing, and taking ones time while enjoying myself. So the last goddamn thing I need to is quickly rush and grind out troops, gather resources and get my shit together in only THREE MINUTES before a massive, heavily experienced and odd undetectable to the last second sweeps and crashes into my base while HQ demands me to hurry up. Goddamit, this isn't fun! Time Limits are never fun! Who ACTUALLY likes being rushed in real life? Nobody but sado-masochists I suspect. How about some goddamn recon for a change HQ? Or a decent amount of resources for a decent defence to be slapped together instead just the contents of my piggy bank.
Terribly coded and dumb as a brickwall AI:
Oh goodie, Reinforcements! The cavalry has arrived! we're not going to die! Wait, why are they just standing there, scratching there ass? We're getting overwhelmed down here. Keep going you dumb bastards! NO, DON'T CHARGE TOWARDS THEIR BASE YOU CAN'T TAKE THEM NO NO NO ARGH! Mission Failure!? Seriously, The arrival of your buddies is SUPPOSE to be good a sign that the tide of battle is turning for you at last. Instead, you usually get some meagre forces that somehow think that their Commander is just as good as the main characters and suicide charge either the enemy HQ and their overwhelming numbers and wipe themselves out. They have an annoying habit of standing or leaning against the Escort ignoring the enemy smashing it or getting stuck in the scenery. Instead of hope, we end up with bloody stupid cannon fodder. Just give us new resources instead, HQ.
Endless Objectives:
Nothing is more irritating that arriving on the battlefield, Army freshly assembled and resources strongly rolling it when HQ phones up and changes PWN TEH ENEMY to a massive weekly sized shopping list of main and miniature objectives. Stupidly, 75% of them require you to complete these to the maximum result or suffer the inevitable and punishing mission failure screen and a bruised knuckles for abusing your monitor in the face in frustration. This attempt to mimic the changing face of warfare fails simply because in real life, Napoleon did not have to rescue fifty men unarmed men and their Caravans, Defend several Columns and fight the whole Battle of Austerlitz on his goddamn head.
The AI Backstab:
So, it seems we're finally winning the battle at last right? We've just overcame the cowardly and weak Supply Train Escort, built out defences up, dragged the AI Reinforcements to not kill themselves all at once and JUST managed to finish the ever growing list of must complete tasks. All clear from here right? Nope, prepare for the Allies that sent you the earlier reinforcements to turn on you and send an equally large hoard of enemy soldiers alongside the enemy. Both the enemy and traitor AI will gang up beautifully and crush you in an unstoppable tide of onslaught.
Done! Now RTS Developers, learn to fix your campaigns by removing all crap like these or consider my long time love of RTS gaming dead. And than means, I won't be buying anymore.
So below is a list of things in RTS Mission Campaigns that piss me off and make me want to hurl something in the wall in general frustration when I fail the goddamn mission for the fortieth time forcing me use to cheats just to get to the less crappy parts of the campaign. Pay attention future game developers:
The Frustrating As Hell Escort Mission:
The plot of the damn story usually at the early part or middle parts of the games campaign ALWAYS sticks you with some weak ass convoy or units to escort in the middle of a dangerous war zone. Excuse me, But I am the Goddamn Head Commander General of the Pwnsauce National Gun Bang Armed Forces! I am not a goddamn baby sitter. I REFUSE to escort this tiny, slow weakass bunch of units through the RTS version of Baghdad and former Yugoslavia combined. Couldn't you morons in HQ stick this on somebody else? Or, GASP send me to clear this oddly small but heavily held bit of enemy land to the objective and bring the fricking escort later? Why do you NEED to use lightly armoured barely armed vehicles when we can haul this stuff on the back of a plane or something anyway?
The Time Limit:
Gaming is about relaxing, and taking ones time while enjoying myself. So the last goddamn thing I need to is quickly rush and grind out troops, gather resources and get my shit together in only THREE MINUTES before a massive, heavily experienced and odd undetectable to the last second sweeps and crashes into my base while HQ demands me to hurry up. Goddamit, this isn't fun! Time Limits are never fun! Who ACTUALLY likes being rushed in real life? Nobody but sado-masochists I suspect. How about some goddamn recon for a change HQ? Or a decent amount of resources for a decent defence to be slapped together instead just the contents of my piggy bank.
Terribly coded and dumb as a brickwall AI:
Oh goodie, Reinforcements! The cavalry has arrived! we're not going to die! Wait, why are they just standing there, scratching there ass? We're getting overwhelmed down here. Keep going you dumb bastards! NO, DON'T CHARGE TOWARDS THEIR BASE YOU CAN'T TAKE THEM NO NO NO ARGH! Mission Failure!? Seriously, The arrival of your buddies is SUPPOSE to be good a sign that the tide of battle is turning for you at last. Instead, you usually get some meagre forces that somehow think that their Commander is just as good as the main characters and suicide charge either the enemy HQ and their overwhelming numbers and wipe themselves out. They have an annoying habit of standing or leaning against the Escort ignoring the enemy smashing it or getting stuck in the scenery. Instead of hope, we end up with bloody stupid cannon fodder. Just give us new resources instead, HQ.
Endless Objectives:
Nothing is more irritating that arriving on the battlefield, Army freshly assembled and resources strongly rolling it when HQ phones up and changes PWN TEH ENEMY to a massive weekly sized shopping list of main and miniature objectives. Stupidly, 75% of them require you to complete these to the maximum result or suffer the inevitable and punishing mission failure screen and a bruised knuckles for abusing your monitor in the face in frustration. This attempt to mimic the changing face of warfare fails simply because in real life, Napoleon did not have to rescue fifty men unarmed men and their Caravans, Defend several Columns and fight the whole Battle of Austerlitz on his goddamn head.
The AI Backstab:
So, it seems we're finally winning the battle at last right? We've just overcame the cowardly and weak Supply Train Escort, built out defences up, dragged the AI Reinforcements to not kill themselves all at once and JUST managed to finish the ever growing list of must complete tasks. All clear from here right? Nope, prepare for the Allies that sent you the earlier reinforcements to turn on you and send an equally large hoard of enemy soldiers alongside the enemy. Both the enemy and traitor AI will gang up beautifully and crush you in an unstoppable tide of onslaught.
Done! Now RTS Developers, learn to fix your campaigns by removing all crap like these or consider my long time love of RTS gaming dead. And than means, I won't be buying anymore.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
The General State of HL2 Multiplayer Mods
First off, before we begin this little rank have a look at this:
http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=stats&
Click the bit below the graph and scope out the numbers and come back and read. Done it? Good. I guess you have noticed the Counter Strike three, CS, CSS and Condition Zero being the top dogs when it comes to the most amount of players and active servers. If not, awesome it means finally the HL2 and VALVe gaming community has decided to freaking branch out a little.
Now don't get me wrong. I don't hate CS. I love it, my first article on this thing was about CSS! But I can only play the game now and again and only a few maps before getting satisfied or bored. Occasionally, a new map spices things up a little but that is as exciting as things get with CSS. Shoot the baddies and save the same four terrorists/stop the bomb with uber guns. Nothing else. Yet, I seem to be one of the few these days that actually bothers looking around for alternatives to my online shooting people in the face action.
And apparently, a lot of free very well done Mods and cheap Independent games are out there these days. However, only recently TF2 has barely come close to beating the three CSS games off the chart after years of development. A lot go equally good games however are floundering. It is pretty sad when the most highly populated mod out there is based on an anime where grown muscle men with weird hair scream at each other for majority of an episode before shooting LAZER BEAMZ at each other endlessly. What the bloody hell?
It isn't like there isn't variety, Mr Nurdbot you cry! WRONG. HL2 CTF pretty much spices up HL2 DM which gets old after a few hours with adding two different flag capture modes, Unreal Tournie Runes and some new weapons to main the opposite team with. Insurgency is a Realism based mod set in the curret Iraq Crisis, The Ship is Hitman meets Cluedo with cartoon graphics and style just as good as TF2! Battlegrounds 2 is the only FPS with freaking muskets! Zombie Master and Empires, Fight with or against your RTS god! Hell, Fortress Forever is an excellent Mod for those who want a more gritty old school Team Fortress Classic. Sometimes, Even Garrys Mod Player count is low! Hell, I am surprised one of the daddies of modern Death Match Goldeneye SOURCE has such a low player count too!
How do I know this? Because I have played MOST of those mods on that damn list over the last few years. And uninstalled them sadly when the numbers drop to the point where only a few decent servers remain. I am a little guilty of that too, but sadly my HD space isn pretty small these days. All of these mods have taken years to put together with extreme dedication by their developers. Occasionally, a Mod gets lucky and is mentioned on STEAM or in a big named PC Games Magazine though sadly sometimes some Mods only get word of mouth via Mod DB and a few hardcore fans. This worries me, if gamers keep on playing Counter Strike and not make the effort to at least try and download and play something new before returning to their comfort food of FPS gaming then why should these people care? Aside from the happy few hoping their hours of their lives going into this free quality entertainment get plucked and employed by VALVE like the creators of Counter Strike and Day of Defeat.
Oh yeah, CS was a Mod once. The sick irony eh? So people do me a favour if you can. If you have the right specs, time and room check some of these Mods out on YouTube or Mod DB. Consider at least giving them a try, you might like fragging somebody outside CSS! who knows?
http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=stats&
Click the bit below the graph and scope out the numbers and come back and read. Done it? Good. I guess you have noticed the Counter Strike three, CS, CSS and Condition Zero being the top dogs when it comes to the most amount of players and active servers. If not, awesome it means finally the HL2 and VALVe gaming community has decided to freaking branch out a little.
Now don't get me wrong. I don't hate CS. I love it, my first article on this thing was about CSS! But I can only play the game now and again and only a few maps before getting satisfied or bored. Occasionally, a new map spices things up a little but that is as exciting as things get with CSS. Shoot the baddies and save the same four terrorists/stop the bomb with uber guns. Nothing else. Yet, I seem to be one of the few these days that actually bothers looking around for alternatives to my online shooting people in the face action.
And apparently, a lot of free very well done Mods and cheap Independent games are out there these days. However, only recently TF2 has barely come close to beating the three CSS games off the chart after years of development. A lot go equally good games however are floundering. It is pretty sad when the most highly populated mod out there is based on an anime where grown muscle men with weird hair scream at each other for majority of an episode before shooting LAZER BEAMZ at each other endlessly. What the bloody hell?
It isn't like there isn't variety, Mr Nurdbot you cry! WRONG. HL2 CTF pretty much spices up HL2 DM which gets old after a few hours with adding two different flag capture modes, Unreal Tournie Runes and some new weapons to main the opposite team with. Insurgency is a Realism based mod set in the curret Iraq Crisis, The Ship is Hitman meets Cluedo with cartoon graphics and style just as good as TF2! Battlegrounds 2 is the only FPS with freaking muskets! Zombie Master and Empires, Fight with or against your RTS god! Hell, Fortress Forever is an excellent Mod for those who want a more gritty old school Team Fortress Classic. Sometimes, Even Garrys Mod Player count is low! Hell, I am surprised one of the daddies of modern Death Match Goldeneye SOURCE has such a low player count too!
How do I know this? Because I have played MOST of those mods on that damn list over the last few years. And uninstalled them sadly when the numbers drop to the point where only a few decent servers remain. I am a little guilty of that too, but sadly my HD space isn pretty small these days. All of these mods have taken years to put together with extreme dedication by their developers. Occasionally, a Mod gets lucky and is mentioned on STEAM or in a big named PC Games Magazine though sadly sometimes some Mods only get word of mouth via Mod DB and a few hardcore fans. This worries me, if gamers keep on playing Counter Strike and not make the effort to at least try and download and play something new before returning to their comfort food of FPS gaming then why should these people care? Aside from the happy few hoping their hours of their lives going into this free quality entertainment get plucked and employed by VALVE like the creators of Counter Strike and Day of Defeat.
Oh yeah, CS was a Mod once. The sick irony eh? So people do me a favour if you can. If you have the right specs, time and room check some of these Mods out on YouTube or Mod DB. Consider at least giving them a try, you might like fragging somebody outside CSS! who knows?
Friday, December 7, 2007
Mario Kart 64 and Double Dash
Tonight, we're going to discuss how awesome Mario Kart 64 was and how the Gamecube successor didn't do so well readers.
First off, a little information about Mario Kart. The first Mario Kart was for the Super Nintendo and was released in the early nineties. Mostly sprite based but cutesy, addictive and being of the Super Nintendo games you could play against thee other people it was one of the more successful games Mario tied himself in between saving Princess Peach in the years. A few years later, around 1998 Super Mario Kart 64 came into being. It was bigger, badder and chuck full of eye candy and other up to date things.
Mario Kart 64 was the game that came with the family Nintendo 64. Back then readers, Game Consoles shipped with at least one launch title. I am not sure games consoles still do that, since I haven't bought one myself in years but it was a throwback from the 2D years where a game came installed in the console it self. I loved the game. My family loved the game. People who I didn't know as a kid came into my house and loved the game with us. It was the game that encouraged us to get more than two N64 Controllers.
We all had our favourites. Myself, I loved the Grand Prix racing against the AI as Wario and simply stocking up on Red Shells of Doom or Banans. I could have played the Mushroom Cup forever in those days, simply for the joy of shooting the crap out of Toad from point blank range. To this day, the music for those courses still pounds in head. The quirky theme from Luigi Stadium, The Tropical Music of Calamari Beach and that irritating country crap that played during Moo Moo Farm. And for the first time, you heard the main players of the Mario Saga actually speak. Well, Roar, Honk or Oook in DK, Yoshii and Bowsers case. And to the Voice Actress who did and possibly still does Peach, please stop. You are terrible at this.
A year later, The game had a main competitor (Diddy Kong Racing) made by Rareware that tried to beat Mario Kart 64 by throwing us the PG Conker, Planes and Hovercraft. Aside from spawning several thousand furries and having the most irritating known courses to man it failed and Mario Kart 64 remained strong. It even got a port to the Gameboy Advance. Does anyone still remember the Gameboy Advance?
A few years back, The Family bought a Gamecube for Christmas 2004 and Mario Kart Double Dash was one of the games that came with it (A case of History Repeated I know) and it was fun. I want to be clear, I don HATE Double Dash. I really do like playing it, it looks pretty and it has some of its moments but it made one crucial silly mistake. And that mistake was....
SOLO KART mode. Seriously, would putting in ONE Grand Prix of a few Updated Mario Kart classic maps have hurt dammit? It would have certainly improved the sales for the console a lot more I would think. Sadly, Double Dash was also effected by the Gamecube Stigmata like all Gamecube games at the time strugging against the X-Box and PS2.
Double Dash was still fun though, seeing some of the older Mario Kart characters returning to the game and a few new faces from the more recent Gamecube Mario games popping up too. It also had more Karts, all of which were nicely detailed and felt unique when driving. And you could pick your riders as well as the Kart! Customisation will always be the key to unlocking the key to my heart with most games.
Now a days, The Wii is just behind the X-Box 360 in the so called Console Wars and Nintendo is once more doing good. The question is, Will there be a Mario Kart Wii coming? It seems quite possible. If so, I will certainly by myself and the Family it with the Wii to finish the epic modern Mario Kart trilogy once and for all.
First off, a little information about Mario Kart. The first Mario Kart was for the Super Nintendo and was released in the early nineties. Mostly sprite based but cutesy, addictive and being of the Super Nintendo games you could play against thee other people it was one of the more successful games Mario tied himself in between saving Princess Peach in the years. A few years later, around 1998 Super Mario Kart 64 came into being. It was bigger, badder and chuck full of eye candy and other up to date things.
Mario Kart 64 was the game that came with the family Nintendo 64. Back then readers, Game Consoles shipped with at least one launch title. I am not sure games consoles still do that, since I haven't bought one myself in years but it was a throwback from the 2D years where a game came installed in the console it self. I loved the game. My family loved the game. People who I didn't know as a kid came into my house and loved the game with us. It was the game that encouraged us to get more than two N64 Controllers.
We all had our favourites. Myself, I loved the Grand Prix racing against the AI as Wario and simply stocking up on Red Shells of Doom or Banans. I could have played the Mushroom Cup forever in those days, simply for the joy of shooting the crap out of Toad from point blank range. To this day, the music for those courses still pounds in head. The quirky theme from Luigi Stadium, The Tropical Music of Calamari Beach and that irritating country crap that played during Moo Moo Farm. And for the first time, you heard the main players of the Mario Saga actually speak. Well, Roar, Honk or Oook in DK, Yoshii and Bowsers case. And to the Voice Actress who did and possibly still does Peach, please stop. You are terrible at this.
A year later, The game had a main competitor (Diddy Kong Racing) made by Rareware that tried to beat Mario Kart 64 by throwing us the PG Conker, Planes and Hovercraft. Aside from spawning several thousand furries and having the most irritating known courses to man it failed and Mario Kart 64 remained strong. It even got a port to the Gameboy Advance. Does anyone still remember the Gameboy Advance?
A few years back, The Family bought a Gamecube for Christmas 2004 and Mario Kart Double Dash was one of the games that came with it (A case of History Repeated I know) and it was fun. I want to be clear, I don HATE Double Dash. I really do like playing it, it looks pretty and it has some of its moments but it made one crucial silly mistake. And that mistake was....
SOLO KART mode. Seriously, would putting in ONE Grand Prix of a few Updated Mario Kart classic maps have hurt dammit? It would have certainly improved the sales for the console a lot more I would think. Sadly, Double Dash was also effected by the Gamecube Stigmata like all Gamecube games at the time strugging against the X-Box and PS2.
Double Dash was still fun though, seeing some of the older Mario Kart characters returning to the game and a few new faces from the more recent Gamecube Mario games popping up too. It also had more Karts, all of which were nicely detailed and felt unique when driving. And you could pick your riders as well as the Kart! Customisation will always be the key to unlocking the key to my heart with most games.
Now a days, The Wii is just behind the X-Box 360 in the so called Console Wars and Nintendo is once more doing good. The question is, Will there be a Mario Kart Wii coming? It seems quite possible. If so, I will certainly by myself and the Family it with the Wii to finish the epic modern Mario Kart trilogy once and for all.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Fun with Garrys Mod 10: Screenshot Showcase 1
Today my readers I feel simply like posting and commenting some of my favourite little pieces I have down in Gmod 10 in the last few months. I'll talk majorly about the game it self and some of the Online Mini-Mods some other time but for now lets take a look at my portfolio of madness!
I call this one Zombie Crowd Surfer, As you can see this man is accomplishing one of mans wildest dreams ever, to surf a crowd of Zombies. It was beautiful as it was brief as seconds later he fell on the floor and the zombies eated him to death. A shame friend, you will live in my Zombie Surviving heart.
Death By Orange Box shows that not even Barney Calhoun, Everyones favourite chirpy and witty former Black Mesa Security Guard and former Civil Protection Officer can resist the binding grip of Team Fortress 2 or Porta and the mantra of frags not foodl. Poor poor Barney, another one for the Tabloids.
Even the girls of DOA with access to a time machine and teleportation devices help fight the war agains the Combine Fascists in the near future of Half Life 2. Truly these brave young scantily clad armed tank riding women should be saluted when they pass in the Earth Liberation victory parade!
Alyx here finally finds out why drinking the tampered Combine Water is a vital rule of survival in the future.
As we see, Doctor Kleiner here has no qualms in rocking out royal on this Piano infront of Lamarr, part of quite the intricate human headcrab mating process we assume.
It seems Alyx had quite the cleft palette before Eli finally paid that Vortigaunt dentist to zap some pretty back into her mouth.
This little piece I call Old Fools, capturing the drunk madness that takes the mind of the most strongest of men when submerged into the pits of Alchoholic stupidity. For once, Eli seems to be enjoying himself too.
I call this one Zombie Crowd Surfer, As you can see this man is accomplishing one of mans wildest dreams ever, to surf a crowd of Zombies. It was beautiful as it was brief as seconds later he fell on the floor and the zombies eated him to death. A shame friend, you will live in my Zombie Surviving heart.Soft Drink Wh0re captures the greed and gluttony of Male 6 when he finally discovers that change in the post Combine World is no longer needed. However, his weight gain makes him perfect Poison Headcrab Zombie fodder for the Legions of the Undead.
Death By Orange Box shows that not even Barney Calhoun, Everyones favourite chirpy and witty former Black Mesa Security Guard and former Civil Protection Officer can resist the binding grip of Team Fortress 2 or Porta and the mantra of frags not foodl. Poor poor Barney, another one for the Tabloids.Even the girls of DOA with access to a time machine and teleportation devices help fight the war agains the Combine Fascists in the near future of Half Life 2. Truly these brave young scantily clad armed tank riding women should be saluted when they pass in the Earth Liberation victory parade!Alyx here finally finds out why drinking the tampered Combine Water is a vital rule of survival in the future. The Gman and Eli have no qualms in jumping on this fresh bed they find in the middle of nowhere, as they say you cannot take the boy out of the Quantom Physics Scientist and Mysterious Alien Fed.
As we see, Doctor Kleiner here has no qualms in rocking out royal on this Piano infront of Lamarr, part of quite the intricate human headcrab mating process we assume.It seems Alyx had quite the cleft palette before Eli finally paid that Vortigaunt dentist to zap some pretty back into her mouth.
Right, that is all the pics I'll share at the moment. Expect more of these little show cases for the future when I don't have time to knock up a bird slightly amusing wordy article about gaming okay? For now, drink, get fat and jump on a bed readers.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Mod Play: Zombie Master
Welcome to the first Mod Play, a semi-review/rant/analysation of whatever Mod for whatever game has taken my fancy.
So, Lets begin shall we?
Name: Zombie Master.
Game: Half Life 2.
Type: Multiplayer FPS/RTS Hybred.
Status: Public Beta.
The only way to survive a Zombie Apocalypse it with a man pile!
Now I have been playing ZM for quite a while now, since it was first announced it was going to do the public Beta. That is right, if you were part of the first wave you like me will remember no Mac 10, Endless Servers playing Docks Of The Dead and the wall spawn bug.
But anyway, what is Zombie Master about? Simple. A team of survivors (FPS bit) fighting off a huge crowd of different types of Zombies controlled by a player (The RTS bit) while completing to pull off objectives on the map. The ZM wins by obviously, killing them all. The ZM receives the magic evil resources from Satan I assume when he finally kacks off a player. At the start, ZM has pretty meagre amount of can only spawn the classic Dawn of The Dead style Shambler Zombies (All moaning ammo sponges only good in ganking crowds). The ZM is limited to the amount of Zombies, A hoard (Around fifty-sixty at the most) is currently allowed to be spawned for server and connection reasons.
Now that the Mod has been out for quite a few months, the really shabby amateur mod maps have mostly vanished from the servers and some quite well done ones have popped up in their place. Good maps is THE selling point for ZM, since everything else still is its limited beta form I sadly must say. Map Objectives are usually long and sometimes require team work not camping which is always a plus. You don't HAVE to have a full set of Survivors but enough trigger pullers with decent intelligence and co-ordination to make it out alive is fine. And as if they had enough to worry about, the ZM can manipulate the map setting many traps including devious physics based ones. He also makes a mean Caesar Salad I hear. Caesar Salad of the Damned! Oh, and prepare to stay bleeding if you get hurt. No Medkits/Medics/Medical Dispensers in the Zombie Apocalypse People.
This fellow thinks that camping will save his sorry ass. No. It won't.
The reason why Survivors have such a hard time is because aside from the Shamblers, The ZM has some pretty hardcore Legions of the Dead under his Command. There is the annoying screaming climbing and leaping Banshee (Inspired from the HL2 Fast Zombie) the terrifying deformed giant known as the Hulk or can rip out your lungs with his flick of his wrist and a wiggle of his deformed spinal cord, The Blood Acid hawking floating Drifters (Death by spit, icky) and two more promised Zombie buddies for the future (One who buffs and one who creeps out of nowhere and sets him and things around him with FIRE, sweet sweet fire). The Living have a few tools to hold back these rather hungry corpses.
The Rustic Rifle, The Shotgun, The Mac-10, The Pistol and the Crowbar or Sledgehammer are the current Arsenal of doom for the game at the moment. Each does his own thing, and each one has its own weakness. For example, the Sledgehammer is slow as hell but it sends most Zombies flying with a single manly blow. The Pistol is the jack of all trades master of none weapon and the Shotgun is the ideal defensive weapon while the Mac-10 is the shredder of rotting flesh. You can sort of guess what the Rifle does. Most of the weapons have their own skins, minus Crowbar and Rifle but it IS beta and the Games Forums offer clientside weapon reskins in their custom section if you are that fussy. The gun weapons also chew up their ammo, which is a tendency when fighting a never ending army of undead minions so players are encouraged to conserve, GO FOR THE HEAD or risk trecking back to an ammo spawn point on the map where ammo slowly respawns. I have to say, taking out Zombies with melee weapons is indeed quite a manly thing to do if you can master the timing.
A group of Survivors, Doing what Survivors do.
The average server count for ZM servers is around 10-11 Survivors which is quite balanced, because on the bigger servers the ZM starts off with more resources and gets an arseload more when the more clumsy players meet their horrible ends. Being the ZM is slightly tricky at first, but the games forum has quite a few written and video guides worth looking up. Both the FPS and RTS experience in this game isn't bad at all when you get the hang of it. ZM also has a decent amount of players for a STEAM Mod (Some which sadly suffer from something I'll rant about in the future) and there will always be a nice amount of players online when you connect.
This toilet, a horrible horrible trap by the looks of it!
Now we get to the point where I have to say some mean stuff to keep this thing neutral. ZM is a great mod, and it IS Public Beta so what I have to say isn't bad and all the stuff will forever be cast in stone. Changes will happen in the next update. First complaint, the ever suffering cast of HL2's minor characters are dragged once more into the role of being a players avatars in the FPS world of the Source Engine. Yes, they have the haunted desperate look of survivors but it is sort of weird the fact they are all wearing matching Denim Jumpsuits or dirty Sweaters. Just because it is the apocalypse doesn't mean your guys can dress like members of the Janitors and Beggars Guild people! The Zombies also suffer from HL2 Skin-itus. The Shamblers are all reskinned Sweatshirt dudes who now look quite palid with horrible choice in clothes (Lime Green Shamblers argh) and the Zombies themselves are either HL2 Zombie skins or the corpse skins on the frames. The game also lacks more spooky gruesome sounds which is a must for the horror survival thing.
Another complaint is for the weapons. Now, I kind of understand the Mod wants to level the playing field out a little and not include Military Hardware like Submachine Guns, Assault Rifles or Missile Launchers. But weapons need more variety. In a FPS game, weapons NEED to be interesting because they are the main way you interact with the environment. The current amount of weapons are great, they just need a few tweaks and reskins. Adding a few more weapons would be indeed bitching indeed.
Some talent you have there, Lazlo....Still, Zombie Master is an awesome mod. Get it. It doesn't take up much room, and you will have to download a majority of maps before connecting but nothing can beat the experience or building a shoddy barricade out of the many crates and other jump on the map and holding a huge hoard back, being chased by leaping Banshees while carrying that needed can or fuel or luring some boob of a Survivor a poorly propped up bridge with a car underneath. My favourite maps that come to mind is Gasdump, With the Tornado trap and the rush to plant the C4 and Blue Velvet when you hold the Zombies off a player trying to take a door down with the wield torch with nothing but a Pistol and bloody Crowbar. ZM should update soon and give us two new weapons, (A Magnum Pistol and Molotov Cocktails) and the Pyro Zombie. See you on the servers!
Monday, December 3, 2007
Remembering Star Wars Galaxies: Episode I
A long time ago, in a MMO far far away something called fun was happening. That fun was maintained by a rather large amount of players any decent MMO could have wished for playing all sorts of reasons and paying what they owed to the Overlords of that MMO in return for more better quality fun.
Then the Dark Lord, John Smedley stuck with the Combat Upgrade and stunned the community. Of course, being happy resourceful gamers a majority went with it and recovered. Sadly, Dark Lord Smed was jealous at World of Warcrafts Popularity and wanted to pay off the new Boat he bought so he struck again with what is known as the hated NGE, ripping a huge amount of fun from the game and replacing it with cheap copied gimmicks from WoW thus killing at least 95% of its player base overnight.
This, the insanely stupid lag and the fact that 99% of the free land was covered in abandoned houses, towns and harvestors of long quit players was part of the death knell of SWG. Despite all this, the game still is incredibly just surviving today.
The tale of Star Wars Galaxies is indeed a tragic one, one of Alpha Classes Professions going over the top, a tale of overpriced and buggy Expansions and tale of loyal suffering for many players. I was one of them.
But what out weighs the memories of the bad side of the modern Star Wars Galaxies is the good memories. The fun I had, shooting Gungans with my Novice Commandos Flamethrower on Naboo as well as the hours of chat madness in the Mos Eisley and Theed Cantinas come to mind along with many other examples we'll talk about.
In the year 2004 Star Wars Galaxies was doing fine, what with no other alternitive of Star Wars MMO goodness on the market and the up coming Jump To Lightspeed Expansion pack where everyone could finally go into space. There was plenty of things to do including Mastering the 32 diverse Professions and exploring the massive Galaxy with your friends as I discovered when I began my two week free trial in August which I got with my copy of PC Gamer. I choose the European Server FarStar (Well, It was reccomended after all) and breezed through the surprisingly detailed character creator and tutorial. Back then, the SWG Tutorial was pretty neat.
My toons name? Romuski Til. His Profession? Marksman of course. Why wouldn't he use a Blaster Pistol like Han Solo? the starter Planet? Tatooine duh! I AM a big Star Wars nerd after all. Despite the restrictions of the two weeks trial (Not allowed more than 20k credits in your pocket or allowed to own property) I had oodles of fun. After wandering around Eisley, gawking at players and NPC alike I accidently picked up mission where I had to deliver a package to some guy in Mos Espa. Off I went, utterly confused about waypoints and walked a massive circle around the area outside Mos Eisley avoiding death by running like a coward at the slightest hint of a red named NPC. I almost blundered inside the infamous Tusken Bunker, and had a chat with an armoured TKA Twi'lek and his Speederbike outside. I eventually returned to Eisley and ignored the mission. Later, I found out I had a hired Landspeeder (Luke Skywalkers cruddy one from ANH) which I was overjoyed at owning. I remember flying around later in the hunts in first person view.
I remember trying out the turn based combat, and enjoying it. The HAM system, the epic music that played as my character ran about like Benny Hill trying to shoot something that looked like the lovechild between a Toad and Louie Anderson was hilarious yet epic at the same time. Everyone who has played SWG or any pre-WoW MMO has experinced this.
The first thing I did was try and ditch the rather cruddy looking n00b clothes and get myself a sexier blaster. Sort of went well. I traded my Jumpsuit top for a n00b Brawler jacket on the bazaar and bought myself a cruddy CDEF Carbine and spent half an hour playing city outskirts pest Control. Bored of that, I stumbled into the Eisley Cantina to watch an Entertainer to rid the battle fatigue making my n00b skills suck and chatted with a friendly Axe Wielding Brawler. We teamed up and took a mission together. We had to destroy a Kreetle nest. I remember us slowly ploughing through the defending Kreetles, me quite the way away from the next kneeling on my belly sniping with the n00b laser Rifle while Brawler boy chopped away at the Kreetles and nest. Mission done, credits in the back and team disbanded.
I never saw the guy again on FarStar. Maybe he was another free trial guy? A day later, I had saved up enough credits and got my first skills I joined my first Hunt on Tatooine. Now, SWG hunts were EPIC. In the old days, you could have up to twenty players on a single team. Seriously. I am not kidding. These weren't hunts, these were freaking Safari Expeditions into the deserts. Seeing a Column of Speederbikes and Landspeeder (Back then, there was only one. And it only had one seat sonny!) whizz through the desert like some Futuristic Hells Angels was breath taking. The amount of experince and credits on these hunts was well damn worth it, as well as the sights you saw because of the ramdomly placed mission beacons. It was always a delight in seeing all these uniquely dressed and armoured people, including the aliens of SWG (Rodians, Mon Calamari and Wookiees were the favourites) punching, blasting, stabbing or trapping the crap out of the poor creatures of Tatooine.
In between killing colonies of these creatures, we'd stop and make camp thanks to one of the guys who was a Scout or had Novice Scout and a few amateur Entertainers would step up and flaunt or play our battle fatgiue away. There would be jokes to share, trade deals struck and the odd amateur duel (I always remember getting my arse handed to me with these). We even lived off the land, Scouts could always use the bones and hide of the creatures they just killed for the camp tents for example.
The greatest places to go to Tatooine for Experince if you were a Noob in those days was either Fort Tusken or the Squill Cave. Both were popular with n00b, medium and heavy Profession toons as well as both crammed with loot, POI and badges. You HAD to go and explore the entire Squill cave if you dwelled on Luke Skywalkers homeworld. Squill are not nice, they are one of the most agressive damn creatures on the planet too. The mansized Green types were nothing compared to the massive Red ones at the bottom of the cave though. Teams in the Squill Cave that broke up casually risked a lot of damage to their equipment if they died because there is no chance of escaping the place alive without being knocked out more than three times by the huge gank fest crowds inside. I remember seeing my first actual Jedi in action in the Squill Cave, this was before the wave of Jedi that simply became Jedi by visiting POI I may add. I and many players were not yet embittered and Bounty Hunter Jedi conflict was still quite tiny.
Speaking of conflict, I was eventually pulled into the Galactic Civil War. I wasn't much of a PVPer, but I did like the hang with the Rebels in Anchorhead. This was before JTL mind you, and Anchorhead was a pretty hot spot. The Cantina especially. Sometimes, Imperial Players that were overt loved lurking beside that Cantina waiting to gank the foolish n00b that went overt for fun. I certainly didn't go Rebel for the ugly ugly faction armour that is for certain. When JTL rolled around (By now, I was paying subscriber) it was worth it because I joined the Rebel Navy, learned the basics in my Z-95 Headhunter and Y-Wing to finally learn to pilot an X-Wing. A close friend of mine gave an X-Wing chassis away for virtually nothing, I had to fit the parts myself which were cheap to buy or loot from space. I still sort of miss Hurricane, My X-Wing named after the fighter Hawker Hurricane.
I also remember starting my own PA (The games name for Guilds) The Neutral and Pro-Rebel Outlaws and Spaces or as we called ourselves OaS. We eventually became a Rebel PA and has Rebel Officer uniforms tailored for all active members which we wore ocassionaly. By now, I had chosen a proper set of clothes for my toon. Camoflaged Duster Overcoats, Matched with a dark long sleeved shirt, Camo trousers and leather boots. Sometimes I also wore Bone armour gloves to complete the Desert Gunfigher look.
I remember dabbling with my skills when I finally discovered I could have as many as I wanted as long as I had the skill points to pay for them (Those were the days, 160 skills points the sky was the limit...) and I picked up Medic to help me and my party on those long hot action packed hunts through the planet of Tatooine. I also recall having Scout for a brief peroid, but dropping it. I Mastered Marksman Eventually and took up the basic Hand To Hand combat of Brawler which was needed for Commando. I also, for fun, became an entertainer. I would bemuse many players in my cantina clad in Blue Winged Hawpants, boots and gloves and play with my Snizzlehorn which was the name of the musical instrument, you rude rude people. Me and a few of my friends busked outside Mos Eisley Cantina in hawtpants and our underwear, using the /sing speak command and singing made up music. Won't see that even in the Special Edition cuts of the Star Wars movies eh?
I remember during the last week of my two week free trial deciding to at least see as much as the Galaxy as possible. I bought some Greener Camo stuff from the Eisley Bazaar and boarded the shuttle for Naboo first, then Corellia and finally Dantooine. It stunned me how each planet was incredibly different. Corellia was full of wild yellow plains and brown earthy beaches as well as the most laggy and densely populated city in the game (Coronet in its Corolag days) and Naboo, green hills and swampy forrests with Spiders (Ugh) and Gungans (KILLKILLKILL).
I also remember, with great pride owning a home in the game. In the free trial, I wasn't allowed to actually own property but a nice lady Twi-lek put a house down for me and let be the co-owner. I tried to decorate the thing at first but I was so busy exploring the game I just logged out there and dumped neat stuff I wanted to keep I looted or bought off the bazaar. I named it Romuskis Dacha. When I finally got the game, I was given the actual house and the contents to me and I searched for a place to plant it myself. I found a rather empty area at the foot of the series of hills surrounding Mos Eisley and dumped it there. A player town was nearby too, with a shuttle port so it was indeed a great place. I started decorating the house too a lot better, even through the thing only had two rooms I managed to fill it up with some spartan furniture and mount my most prized loot and weapons on the wall like a proud space Redneck. As times changed, I too changed my home and its location as well as the property inside the house that grew with my toons experince and wealth. My most prized items in that house were two rugs I had gathered pieces of glue and thread throughout the Galaxy to complete. I remember being offered hundreds of credits for them which I always turned down.
Sadly, When the CU hit sadly FarStar became much more quiet due to the exodus and some of my friends were among them. I closed the PA down because most members were quit, sold the furniture inside and kept the deed for one of the players who bought the Hall from an Architect and started investing more time on my Imperial Bria toon, Akrady Renko.
That toon, dear readers we shall hear from another time in another entry.
Then the Dark Lord, John Smedley stuck with the Combat Upgrade and stunned the community. Of course, being happy resourceful gamers a majority went with it and recovered. Sadly, Dark Lord Smed was jealous at World of Warcrafts Popularity and wanted to pay off the new Boat he bought so he struck again with what is known as the hated NGE, ripping a huge amount of fun from the game and replacing it with cheap copied gimmicks from WoW thus killing at least 95% of its player base overnight.
This, the insanely stupid lag and the fact that 99% of the free land was covered in abandoned houses, towns and harvestors of long quit players was part of the death knell of SWG. Despite all this, the game still is incredibly just surviving today.
The tale of Star Wars Galaxies is indeed a tragic one, one of Alpha Classes Professions going over the top, a tale of overpriced and buggy Expansions and tale of loyal suffering for many players. I was one of them.
But what out weighs the memories of the bad side of the modern Star Wars Galaxies is the good memories. The fun I had, shooting Gungans with my Novice Commandos Flamethrower on Naboo as well as the hours of chat madness in the Mos Eisley and Theed Cantinas come to mind along with many other examples we'll talk about.
In the year 2004 Star Wars Galaxies was doing fine, what with no other alternitive of Star Wars MMO goodness on the market and the up coming Jump To Lightspeed Expansion pack where everyone could finally go into space. There was plenty of things to do including Mastering the 32 diverse Professions and exploring the massive Galaxy with your friends as I discovered when I began my two week free trial in August which I got with my copy of PC Gamer. I choose the European Server FarStar (Well, It was reccomended after all) and breezed through the surprisingly detailed character creator and tutorial. Back then, the SWG Tutorial was pretty neat.
My toons name? Romuski Til. His Profession? Marksman of course. Why wouldn't he use a Blaster Pistol like Han Solo? the starter Planet? Tatooine duh! I AM a big Star Wars nerd after all. Despite the restrictions of the two weeks trial (Not allowed more than 20k credits in your pocket or allowed to own property) I had oodles of fun. After wandering around Eisley, gawking at players and NPC alike I accidently picked up mission where I had to deliver a package to some guy in Mos Espa. Off I went, utterly confused about waypoints and walked a massive circle around the area outside Mos Eisley avoiding death by running like a coward at the slightest hint of a red named NPC. I almost blundered inside the infamous Tusken Bunker, and had a chat with an armoured TKA Twi'lek and his Speederbike outside. I eventually returned to Eisley and ignored the mission. Later, I found out I had a hired Landspeeder (Luke Skywalkers cruddy one from ANH) which I was overjoyed at owning. I remember flying around later in the hunts in first person view.
I remember trying out the turn based combat, and enjoying it. The HAM system, the epic music that played as my character ran about like Benny Hill trying to shoot something that looked like the lovechild between a Toad and Louie Anderson was hilarious yet epic at the same time. Everyone who has played SWG or any pre-WoW MMO has experinced this.
The first thing I did was try and ditch the rather cruddy looking n00b clothes and get myself a sexier blaster. Sort of went well. I traded my Jumpsuit top for a n00b Brawler jacket on the bazaar and bought myself a cruddy CDEF Carbine and spent half an hour playing city outskirts pest Control. Bored of that, I stumbled into the Eisley Cantina to watch an Entertainer to rid the battle fatigue making my n00b skills suck and chatted with a friendly Axe Wielding Brawler. We teamed up and took a mission together. We had to destroy a Kreetle nest. I remember us slowly ploughing through the defending Kreetles, me quite the way away from the next kneeling on my belly sniping with the n00b laser Rifle while Brawler boy chopped away at the Kreetles and nest. Mission done, credits in the back and team disbanded.
I never saw the guy again on FarStar. Maybe he was another free trial guy? A day later, I had saved up enough credits and got my first skills I joined my first Hunt on Tatooine. Now, SWG hunts were EPIC. In the old days, you could have up to twenty players on a single team. Seriously. I am not kidding. These weren't hunts, these were freaking Safari Expeditions into the deserts. Seeing a Column of Speederbikes and Landspeeder (Back then, there was only one. And it only had one seat sonny!) whizz through the desert like some Futuristic Hells Angels was breath taking. The amount of experince and credits on these hunts was well damn worth it, as well as the sights you saw because of the ramdomly placed mission beacons. It was always a delight in seeing all these uniquely dressed and armoured people, including the aliens of SWG (Rodians, Mon Calamari and Wookiees were the favourites) punching, blasting, stabbing or trapping the crap out of the poor creatures of Tatooine.
In between killing colonies of these creatures, we'd stop and make camp thanks to one of the guys who was a Scout or had Novice Scout and a few amateur Entertainers would step up and flaunt or play our battle fatgiue away. There would be jokes to share, trade deals struck and the odd amateur duel (I always remember getting my arse handed to me with these). We even lived off the land, Scouts could always use the bones and hide of the creatures they just killed for the camp tents for example.
The greatest places to go to Tatooine for Experince if you were a Noob in those days was either Fort Tusken or the Squill Cave. Both were popular with n00b, medium and heavy Profession toons as well as both crammed with loot, POI and badges. You HAD to go and explore the entire Squill cave if you dwelled on Luke Skywalkers homeworld. Squill are not nice, they are one of the most agressive damn creatures on the planet too. The mansized Green types were nothing compared to the massive Red ones at the bottom of the cave though. Teams in the Squill Cave that broke up casually risked a lot of damage to their equipment if they died because there is no chance of escaping the place alive without being knocked out more than three times by the huge gank fest crowds inside. I remember seeing my first actual Jedi in action in the Squill Cave, this was before the wave of Jedi that simply became Jedi by visiting POI I may add. I and many players were not yet embittered and Bounty Hunter Jedi conflict was still quite tiny.
Speaking of conflict, I was eventually pulled into the Galactic Civil War. I wasn't much of a PVPer, but I did like the hang with the Rebels in Anchorhead. This was before JTL mind you, and Anchorhead was a pretty hot spot. The Cantina especially. Sometimes, Imperial Players that were overt loved lurking beside that Cantina waiting to gank the foolish n00b that went overt for fun. I certainly didn't go Rebel for the ugly ugly faction armour that is for certain. When JTL rolled around (By now, I was paying subscriber) it was worth it because I joined the Rebel Navy, learned the basics in my Z-95 Headhunter and Y-Wing to finally learn to pilot an X-Wing. A close friend of mine gave an X-Wing chassis away for virtually nothing, I had to fit the parts myself which were cheap to buy or loot from space. I still sort of miss Hurricane, My X-Wing named after the fighter Hawker Hurricane.
I also remember starting my own PA (The games name for Guilds) The Neutral and Pro-Rebel Outlaws and Spaces or as we called ourselves OaS. We eventually became a Rebel PA and has Rebel Officer uniforms tailored for all active members which we wore ocassionaly. By now, I had chosen a proper set of clothes for my toon. Camoflaged Duster Overcoats, Matched with a dark long sleeved shirt, Camo trousers and leather boots. Sometimes I also wore Bone armour gloves to complete the Desert Gunfigher look.
I remember dabbling with my skills when I finally discovered I could have as many as I wanted as long as I had the skill points to pay for them (Those were the days, 160 skills points the sky was the limit...) and I picked up Medic to help me and my party on those long hot action packed hunts through the planet of Tatooine. I also recall having Scout for a brief peroid, but dropping it. I Mastered Marksman Eventually and took up the basic Hand To Hand combat of Brawler which was needed for Commando. I also, for fun, became an entertainer. I would bemuse many players in my cantina clad in Blue Winged Hawpants, boots and gloves and play with my Snizzlehorn which was the name of the musical instrument, you rude rude people. Me and a few of my friends busked outside Mos Eisley Cantina in hawtpants and our underwear, using the /sing speak command and singing made up music. Won't see that even in the Special Edition cuts of the Star Wars movies eh?
I remember during the last week of my two week free trial deciding to at least see as much as the Galaxy as possible. I bought some Greener Camo stuff from the Eisley Bazaar and boarded the shuttle for Naboo first, then Corellia and finally Dantooine. It stunned me how each planet was incredibly different. Corellia was full of wild yellow plains and brown earthy beaches as well as the most laggy and densely populated city in the game (Coronet in its Corolag days) and Naboo, green hills and swampy forrests with Spiders (Ugh) and Gungans (KILLKILLKILL).
I also remember, with great pride owning a home in the game. In the free trial, I wasn't allowed to actually own property but a nice lady Twi-lek put a house down for me and let be the co-owner. I tried to decorate the thing at first but I was so busy exploring the game I just logged out there and dumped neat stuff I wanted to keep I looted or bought off the bazaar. I named it Romuskis Dacha. When I finally got the game, I was given the actual house and the contents to me and I searched for a place to plant it myself. I found a rather empty area at the foot of the series of hills surrounding Mos Eisley and dumped it there. A player town was nearby too, with a shuttle port so it was indeed a great place. I started decorating the house too a lot better, even through the thing only had two rooms I managed to fill it up with some spartan furniture and mount my most prized loot and weapons on the wall like a proud space Redneck. As times changed, I too changed my home and its location as well as the property inside the house that grew with my toons experince and wealth. My most prized items in that house were two rugs I had gathered pieces of glue and thread throughout the Galaxy to complete. I remember being offered hundreds of credits for them which I always turned down.
Sadly, When the CU hit sadly FarStar became much more quiet due to the exodus and some of my friends were among them. I closed the PA down because most members were quit, sold the furniture inside and kept the deed for one of the players who bought the Hall from an Architect and started investing more time on my Imperial Bria toon, Akrady Renko.
That toon, dear readers we shall hear from another time in another entry.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Original MMO Game Suggestions!
Okay, people of the Massive Multiplayer Online Game industry, listen up. It is time to get serious. It is time, as they say to Express Yourself. Like the NWA song, but without the Hip Hop and Drug uses references. Oh wait, you guys at SOE can forget about that bit. Keep snorting that crack and hoping your latest re-attept at making SWG 'Hip' succeeds because it won't.
Lets get to the point. Enough with the Fantasy shite. No more swords, magic and Elves for christ sake. You have defiled Tolkien enough already. No more World of Evercraft VIII clones. Please. I'm begging you guys from the bottom of my heart. That goes for you too, South Korea. We'll take about your MMO games another day.
At the moment, the only original interesting MMO games going are City of Heroes, Second Life, PlanetSide, EVE Online, and Tabula Rasa. The rest are Fantasy Clones, Failed Attempts at cashing in on Franchises of Matrix Online (Cough SOE Cough). Other worthy mentions are A Tale In The Desert 2 and Battleground Europe.
But there is hope for the Industry, as we can see with Pirates of The Burning Sea, Huxley and several other interesting projects being formed. At last it is leaving the Dark Ages of Swords and Magic. If people are going to waste time in front of their PC, they might as well be having fun right? So below, I've composed some crude but slightly detailed descriptions of MMO games I'd like to subscribe too, and waste a few months of my life on in the cold Winter and Spring nights.
Napoleonica Era!
Title a work in progress, Napoleonica Era is set in the late 18th century and early 19th century of Europe during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars. This is a mix of MMO RPG and MMO FPS, so turn based combat, with a little clicky shooty action with lots of PVP. You can choose to fight in the British, Prussian, Russian, Spanish, Austrian Armies or take up the Golden Eagle with the French, Italian and Polish Armies led by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The players will all start out as Junior NCO Officers and fight for experience, which will eventually promote them up the ranks. The real appeal is creating the Cannon, Cavalry and Musket Heavy action on the battlefield with hundreds or even thousands of men in combat. A majority of the petty grunts will bots, all commanded either by the Players themselves (Who are Officers) or the Big AI Generals. The Battlefields will some of the coasts and Inland Areas of Portugal, Spain, France and Northern Germany. Weather and Supply Wagons as well as day and night will play key features in combat. Player avatars can choose and customise their uniform (Want fresh off the sewing machine laced up Cavalry jackets or a faded bloody Redcoat?) and looting the corpses of the dead will be encouraged. The French or Coalition will win the game if all the Forts and Cities of the Battlefield Areas have fallen!
Democracy: One Player, One Vote!:
A game based on the sleaze, corruption and general chaos of the British Government (US and Asian version of the game will bet set in the Senate or Diet) the player can create a Politician using the heavily detailed character creator (40 different kinds of tweed) and lie, cheat or embezzle their way to the top and become Prime Minister for a Month! The player can either join established Political Parties or form their own, with their own crazy batpoop insane policies and irrelevant Party Symbol (Over 400 to choose from!). PVP and Competition is obviously the main priorities of this game and you will have many ways to annoy your opponents with blackmail, Propaganda, In chat Mud Slinging during Parliamentary Sessions (Sir John L33t is a fag!) and Umbrella on Briefcase on combat. You must all gain influence in the district of London, now renamed Bestminster by also harassing the public NPC. The fun never ends, until the Public finally riot and force you out of your seat. Blackmail, Influencing the Tabloids, Sucking up to the Royal Family and running Irritating Press Conferences non stop on the news, you can do it all with D1P1V. Sort of Republic The Revolution meeting Spitting Image of crack in other words.
The Rusty Wild West:
A game set in a Victorian Era Steampunk Wild West setting, where everyone outside the towns and cities has to fight nature or their fellow man to survive and everyone is out for themselves. This game will be unique, because your player will have the ability to help build your Posses (Guild) Tank Mech and fight for the Gold Mines and Town Supply nodes. Vehicle Combat requires moving fast and taking out key parts of your enemies Fuel Supply, Gear Box or go for the heavily armoured chassis containing the player themselves. The game will also be very player Oriented, Towns need to be actually occupied, lived and stocked by players. NPC presence determines how successful and rich the town is as well as hard it is to be attacked. The character creator will be of course, obviously detailed. This a modern MMO requirement.
Civilization V: Civ Online:
At last, Civ V online. Yes, I know you can play Civ IV online but compared to this, the scale is tiny. Civ V Online will be epic. Each Server will have a massive randomly generated map which changes at the end of each game, each game will go on until a series of players win either by conquering a huge portion of the world under their banner, uniting it or developing massive space colonies outside the world. Instead of the already developed Civilizations the player himself gets to choose his own Leaderhead (Sort of like Eve Online facial features, crossed with the clothes of COX costumes) and either choose a stock flag or upload one from his own PC. His nation will also be randomly assigned a unique unit for each Era with Random stats. Players must struggle with war, diplomacy and surviving the random events and tasks given by The Creator (Server admins). The Tech tree will be expanded and broken up a little to make it last longer, Religions, Corporations and Spying would be also be made more detailed and Relevant. This game would be epic.
Phew, those were only a few suggestions. But I would love to see any of these and play them even just a four day three trial. And just in case, HANDS OF SOE. You are NOT touching any of them.
Lets get to the point. Enough with the Fantasy shite. No more swords, magic and Elves for christ sake. You have defiled Tolkien enough already. No more World of Evercraft VIII clones. Please. I'm begging you guys from the bottom of my heart. That goes for you too, South Korea. We'll take about your MMO games another day.
At the moment, the only original interesting MMO games going are City of Heroes, Second Life, PlanetSide, EVE Online, and Tabula Rasa. The rest are Fantasy Clones, Failed Attempts at cashing in on Franchises of Matrix Online (Cough SOE Cough). Other worthy mentions are A Tale In The Desert 2 and Battleground Europe.
But there is hope for the Industry, as we can see with Pirates of The Burning Sea, Huxley and several other interesting projects being formed. At last it is leaving the Dark Ages of Swords and Magic. If people are going to waste time in front of their PC, they might as well be having fun right? So below, I've composed some crude but slightly detailed descriptions of MMO games I'd like to subscribe too, and waste a few months of my life on in the cold Winter and Spring nights.
Napoleonica Era!
Title a work in progress, Napoleonica Era is set in the late 18th century and early 19th century of Europe during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars. This is a mix of MMO RPG and MMO FPS, so turn based combat, with a little clicky shooty action with lots of PVP. You can choose to fight in the British, Prussian, Russian, Spanish, Austrian Armies or take up the Golden Eagle with the French, Italian and Polish Armies led by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The players will all start out as Junior NCO Officers and fight for experience, which will eventually promote them up the ranks. The real appeal is creating the Cannon, Cavalry and Musket Heavy action on the battlefield with hundreds or even thousands of men in combat. A majority of the petty grunts will bots, all commanded either by the Players themselves (Who are Officers) or the Big AI Generals. The Battlefields will some of the coasts and Inland Areas of Portugal, Spain, France and Northern Germany. Weather and Supply Wagons as well as day and night will play key features in combat. Player avatars can choose and customise their uniform (Want fresh off the sewing machine laced up Cavalry jackets or a faded bloody Redcoat?) and looting the corpses of the dead will be encouraged. The French or Coalition will win the game if all the Forts and Cities of the Battlefield Areas have fallen!
Democracy: One Player, One Vote!:
A game based on the sleaze, corruption and general chaos of the British Government (US and Asian version of the game will bet set in the Senate or Diet) the player can create a Politician using the heavily detailed character creator (40 different kinds of tweed) and lie, cheat or embezzle their way to the top and become Prime Minister for a Month! The player can either join established Political Parties or form their own, with their own crazy batpoop insane policies and irrelevant Party Symbol (Over 400 to choose from!). PVP and Competition is obviously the main priorities of this game and you will have many ways to annoy your opponents with blackmail, Propaganda, In chat Mud Slinging during Parliamentary Sessions (Sir John L33t is a fag!) and Umbrella on Briefcase on combat. You must all gain influence in the district of London, now renamed Bestminster by also harassing the public NPC. The fun never ends, until the Public finally riot and force you out of your seat. Blackmail, Influencing the Tabloids, Sucking up to the Royal Family and running Irritating Press Conferences non stop on the news, you can do it all with D1P1V. Sort of Republic The Revolution meeting Spitting Image of crack in other words.
The Rusty Wild West:
A game set in a Victorian Era Steampunk Wild West setting, where everyone outside the towns and cities has to fight nature or their fellow man to survive and everyone is out for themselves. This game will be unique, because your player will have the ability to help build your Posses (Guild) Tank Mech and fight for the Gold Mines and Town Supply nodes. Vehicle Combat requires moving fast and taking out key parts of your enemies Fuel Supply, Gear Box or go for the heavily armoured chassis containing the player themselves. The game will also be very player Oriented, Towns need to be actually occupied, lived and stocked by players. NPC presence determines how successful and rich the town is as well as hard it is to be attacked. The character creator will be of course, obviously detailed. This a modern MMO requirement.
Civilization V: Civ Online:
At last, Civ V online. Yes, I know you can play Civ IV online but compared to this, the scale is tiny. Civ V Online will be epic. Each Server will have a massive randomly generated map which changes at the end of each game, each game will go on until a series of players win either by conquering a huge portion of the world under their banner, uniting it or developing massive space colonies outside the world. Instead of the already developed Civilizations the player himself gets to choose his own Leaderhead (Sort of like Eve Online facial features, crossed with the clothes of COX costumes) and either choose a stock flag or upload one from his own PC. His nation will also be randomly assigned a unique unit for each Era with Random stats. Players must struggle with war, diplomacy and surviving the random events and tasks given by The Creator (Server admins). The Tech tree will be expanded and broken up a little to make it last longer, Religions, Corporations and Spying would be also be made more detailed and Relevant. This game would be epic.
Phew, those were only a few suggestions. But I would love to see any of these and play them even just a four day three trial. And just in case, HANDS OF SOE. You are NOT touching any of them.
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