Shrapnel wrote:Shit, man, I was disenchanted with Kingdom Hearts from the moment I first learned about it. What a stupid fucking concept.
I got Legend of Zelda: Windwaker HD for the Wii U recently. Darth said that I shouldn't get it because of the large amounts of Tingle, but I decided what the fuck I'll give it a try. So far, it's one of the best Zelda games I've played since Oracle of Ages.
I've gotten to the part where I have to collect all the pieces of the Triumph Forks of Courage, which, I'm told, features the most amount of Tingle. I've also been told that the HD version makes this part of the game less tedious, and presumably less Tingly.
I thought the same thing about Kingdom Hearts. Disney + Final Fantasy. What the hell is with the moneygrab? The execution is good.
Wind Waker is really solid. It's not Majora's Mask, but it's good. My main complaints on the game were weak enemy AI and the map having one and only one island per grid square.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Yeah, the Great Sea is pretty sparse for such a large game world. But I still have fun travelling around and discovering and exploring the various islands.
Is this wretched demi-bee
Half asleep upon my knee
Some freak from a menagerie?
No! It's Eric, the half a bee
I've been watching Steven Universe. I went in not sure what to expect but needing context for the newest Tumblr fandom.
It's actually pretty awesome.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
Space Station 13 is a game that I didn't think I'd play as much as I did. The premise, "you are a crewmember on a space station", is much simpler than the reality. The true goal is more along the lines of "survive the round until the escape shuttle is called in this PvP-Roguelike" gives the game the adrenaline-tinged edge that got me hooked on net-PvP in the first place.
Now, the game isn't pretty; at all. Its almost downright ugly by any post-1990's standards (let alone 2000's standards). Its UI is clunky, and almost intentionally obtuse (mostly it's just that the "Hands" mechanic is a pain; for almost anyone I've seen play it; and managing items into 'containers' is just sperglord levels of repetitive acts). However the fact that the player can really interact a lot with the environment (you can dismantle every part of the environment, and cause breaches along the hull/floorplates if you're careful/careless) and stealing/using/combining objects they find within it is something that appeals to ones desire for player agency within games. Sometimes you want a soda for the caffeine/calories (being hungry makes you move slow, caffeine also speeds you up a bit; one can understand how those would matter with PvP eventually coming into the picture almost every round). Sometimes you want the soda because with some junk that is found laying around the station you can make a variety of IEDs (timed, voice-activated, radio-signaled) out of it.
I found out about it some time in the beginning of 2014 from a friend who had heard about it on 4chan. I started playing on some BYOND servers that run their own version of the SS13 code. So far, I've tried a variety of servers styles (pureRP, grief/PvP, actionRP) but the server I was last regularly playing on was a custom code server where new content has been regularly added to (i.e. Paradise Station). With SS13 being a game that's been relatively the same since it came out in 2003, it's hard to not be interested in seeing what additions a server team could put together. The fact that this server is willing to perma/IP-ban blatant/deliberate griefers, and has a player-voted karma mechanic to restrict access to juicier character options helps with finding a balance between Action and RP.
With the help of the various SS13 wikis I've tried a variety of duties on different servers (Cargo Tech/Quartermaster/Asteroid Miner, Warden/Head of Security, Head of Personel/Captain/Blue Shield (i.e. Captain's Bodyguard), Non-specialist Scientist/Research Director, Atmospherics Technician/Engineer/Chief Engineer, (a (super rare) non-griefing) Clown, (a non-griefing) Mime, Bartender, Internal Affairs Officer, Chaplain). However there are several jobs that I've never tried or played often because either I didn't want to take on the responsibilities that come with them, haven't read the wiki sections for them enough to understand them well enough, or simply didn't interest me (Roboticist, Robots/AI, Medical Staff, Specialty Scientist roles (Toxins/Bombs, Telescience, Xenobiology, Xenoarcheology, Geneticist), Chemist, Cook, Hydroponics, Librarian). I haven't been a Traitor in many rounds, despite always flagging myself for any possible Traitor role; and even then, being a Traitor is honestly more challenging than playing a regular round; mostly because I don't go for the easy (but blatant and griefy) strategy of: "get an Ebow, get an E-sword; ambush & kill Captain, take their ID card, give my own ID card their access at an ID terminal; then complete mission with full station access."
I will however admit that I have a preference for being an Asteroid Miner; mostly because in a game where "outer space" is the truly greatest danger to the player's character; the player whose character is expected to be wearing a space suit and O2 tank is at a decided advantage. The added benefit of being expected to carry super dangerous items like bombs and mining drill/lasers helps when its time to throw down against any of the nearly dozen Traitor monster types that the game can generate from round to round. The space suit & helmet also acts as a tiny bit of armour, which can be the difference between being quick & dead.
Also, mining on the asteroid keeps one away from much of the bullshit that the stupider/grief-causing players and Traitors will do in a round. Only Research Director, Head of Personal and Captain are roles I'm as willing to take on; but miner is the least stress; and frankly, the most important role on the whole station. As end of round points are heavily affected by how much the miners excavated that round; even if the whole station is a write-off, the round can be a net-even or profit if the miners hauled in enough plasma/gold/diamonds/etc. before the escape shuttle was called.
The appeal to the game for me are: every living character in the game has a human player behind them; being able to play a "space game" that actually makes the environment as dangerous as it should be; having mind-boggling amounts of customization to the objects/environment/characters* in the game; trying to survive/traitor through a round while having PvP on one side, and PvE on the other, both trying to kill you.
*:With the ability to implant people for "Loyalty", surgically install bombs to their bodies, give them robotic body parts, place their brains into cyborg bodies, clone from death, acid erase faces, and gene-alter/gene-wreck; there's quite a bit more ways to customize other players characters than one would initially expect, but ultimately one isn't incredulous of the options once they learn of them.
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Fri Apr 03, 2015 5:59 am, edited 2 times in total.
The Gaming Den; where Mathematics are rigorously applied to Mythology.
While everyone's Philosophy is not in accord, that doesn't mean we're not on board.
I recently picked up Battle for Wesnoth again.
Haven't played it for almost 10 years now.
It is quite entertaining and there are some really good fan made campaigns for it.
I'm absolute shit at that game though. I have a hard time even if I'm playing on easy.
Battle for Wesnoth has a weird kind of mentality towards it.
You have to simultaneously view units as ultimately disposal for tactical gains like in Advance Wars but you are also forced to provide long-term concern for certain units like in Fire Emblem. It's a very difficult balancing act, especially in the mid-game in which you can't just spam your way to victory but you don't have enough uber-units to let them smash through the enemy line without sacrificing anyone.
It's a very unique experience.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Yeah, Wesnoth makes you constantly second guess whether you really suck or whether those casualties are mostly just the cost of doing business. I doubt your'e supposed to feel confident while playing it.
I don't know if that's done purposefully. Even in games like Advanced Wars I value keeping units alive as long as possible. Hell, I don't even like losing people in Starcraft. In Wesnoth though I can't ever feel 'safe' about sending any of my units to battle because bullshit seems to happen more often than not.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
Shrapnel wrote:I got Legend of Zelda: Windwaker HD for the Wii U recently. Darth said that I shouldn't get it because of the large amounts of Tingle, but I decided what the fuck I'll give it a try. So far, it's one of the best Zelda games I've played since Oracle of Ages.
I've gotten to the part where I have to collect all the pieces of the Triumph Forks of Courage, which, I'm told, features the most amount of Tingle. I've also been told that the HD version makes this part of the game less tedious, and presumably less Tingly.
Is there a specific reason why "Americans Hate Tingle" is a thing?
Gary Gygax wrote:The player’s path to role-playing mastery begins with a thorough understanding of the rules of the game
Bigode wrote:I wouldn't normally make that blanket of a suggestion, but you seem to deserve it: scroll through the entire forum, read anything that looks interesting in term of design experience, then come back.
In Majora's Mask, Tingle is ugly, annoying and kind of creepy, seeing as he's a stereotypically gay manchild who stalks a young boy. Most of his problems are the unfortunate implications arising from that. Also, he dances around like a dumbass.
In Wind Waker, he's has all of the problems from Majora's, and he is also literally an escaped criminal who uses slave labor. It's like they were trying to make a character with as many negative qualities as they could cram in and no redeeming ones. If he was supposed to be the villain of the game this might almost work (if not because of the satisfaction one would get from killing such an asshole) but I think he's supposed to be comic relief. You are actually forced to help him in a really long and tedious segment of the game (it's where the game lost me, actually).
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).
Yeah, the Tingle segment of Wind Waker is incredibly terrible. You have to go to these dungeons to retreive a bunch of sea charts, then you have to go to Tingle and pay him an outlandish amount of money to decrypt each one, then actually go to those places and pull stuff off the ocean floor. IIRC, there are eight of the charts.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
It'd help a lot if Tingle was actually funny, but he isn't. Character design aside, it's still Nintendo and he's dull as dishwater in-game. Extrapolating wild back stories based on his wanted posters is about the most entertaining thing you can do with that asshole.
MGuy wrote:I don't know if that's done purposefully. Even in games like Advanced Wars I value keeping units alive as long as possible. Hell, I don't even like losing people in Starcraft. In Wesnoth though I can't ever feel 'safe' about sending any of my units to battle because bullshit seems to happen more often than not.
I had to boot up my copy of Battle for Wesnoth and played a bit of the final campaign to refresh my memory of this aspect.
I think that the key thing that causes players problems is that their sense of what is happening in the flow of gameplay. Static units breed static thinking. Much of what you imagine is based on the superficial perceptions that the game presents. Since you aren't seeing the units move with your eyes in real time, your perception of the "flow" of the battle is thus affected; appearing static when it's actually not.
One solution could be to play more turn/tile-based games where strategic and tactical movement affect gamepla:; Civilization, Dominions, Mini-centric D&D, Chess, Go, etc.
The other solution would be to play games where the skill level is simply higher than in others. Dawn of War and Homeworld were both highly dynamic games that are punishing if you fail to take the initiative and cannot perceive the flow of battle; Dawn of War with control points; Homeworld with fleet/fighter maneuvering.
Sadly, the hardest players I found were the AI on Hard->Insane; and playing DoW against humans got tedious, as everyone played some sort of Marines, and the concepts such as flanking of any sort were lost on them. I actually hate to think of what they thought of my grinding up their bases by repeatedly Deep Striking upgraded dreadnaughts and full sized squads of marines/terminators; or using assault squads jump-capability to melta-bomb control point structures in the middle of their base before jumping them back out.
I found that playing a lot of Dawn of War against Hard->Insane difficulty AIs on the largest maps (where your armies unit cap prevents you from covering the map in your forces, and maintaining initiative is the only way to not slide into eventual defeat) was really good at teaching me how to get out of old 2nd tier asymmetrical conflict thought patterns (i.e. flood the theatre of battle with troops; hold the whole map); and more into 1st tier asymmetrical conflict (i.e. who has the troops at critical locations; wins); with the occasional use of 3rd tier asymmetrical (i.e. advantageous raiding) tactics.
Reading lots of Sonshi has also helped me with wargames in general. As I started understanding bits and pieces of it, I've found their application very helpful almost everywhere.
The Gaming Den; where Mathematics are rigorously applied to Mythology.
While everyone's Philosophy is not in accord, that doesn't mean we're not on board.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:To elaborate on what Shrapnel said:
In Majora's Mask, Tingle is ugly, annoying and kind of creepy, seeing as he's a stereotypically gay manchild who stalks a young boy. Most of his problems are the unfortunate implications arising from that. Also, he dances around like a dumbass.
Eeeerrr, I don't remember Tingle ever stalking Link in MM.
If anything, it's the main character who shoots Tingle out of the sky, but Tingle always remains in the same area and never goes after you.
Also it's not like Tingle is running a business aimed at young boys like a toy store or junior couch or even a photographer. He simply draws maps of the lands.
I saw him more of an extreme hobbyst. Definetely crazy, a bit creepy perhaps with his fairy obsession, but pretty harmless overall. Just give him the rupees for his map and walk away.
He becomes more of a saturday cartoon pseudo-villain in Wind Waker, with henchmen and being wanted by the authorities.
Last edited by maglag on Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
It's not that he's a stalker, it's that his dialogue towards Link is extraordinarily uncomfortable and creepy.
Also, his henchmen are his brothers... who (whom?) he's enslaved to forever push the spinning thingy at the top of his tower.
On the topic of the Triforce charts, Wind Waker HD made that much less tedious. The number of charts has been reduced to three or four, and the rest of the shards you can find without the need of charts. It's amazing.
Last edited by Shrapnel on Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
Is this wretched demi-bee
Half asleep upon my knee
Some freak from a menagerie?
No! It's Eric, the half a bee
He's a fairy fanboy and Link happens to have the first real fairy he's ever met. So not more disturbing than that of a furry cosplayer who suddenly met a real furry I would say.
Judging__Eagle wrote:I think that the key thing that causes players problems is that their sense of what is happening in the flow of gameplay. Static units breed static thinking. Much of what you imagine is based on the superficial perceptions that the game presents. Since you aren't seeing the units move with your eyes in real time, your perception of the "flow" of the battle is thus affected; appearing static when it's actually not.
You are the dumbest person to have ever existed in the universe.
As far as I can tell the biggest stumbling block newbies seem to have with Wesnoth or Fire Emblem is a simple failure to recognize that you don't always need to be attacking in a game that features a tit-for-tat engagement system.
Whipstitch wrote:As far as I can tell the biggest stumbling block newbies seem to have with Wesnoth or Fire Emblem is a simple failure to recognize that you don't always need to be attacking in a game that features a tit-for-tat engagement system.
The biggest trouble that I have with Wesnoth is that I am cautious, and the campaign levels rarely have enough time for me to finish them. Also, I just suck at the game, so playing things where I have to reload every attack to make sure my guys don't damage, otherwise my shitty tactics lose, is kind of boring.
That being said, I really enjoy playing survival maps. (I always start with 800 gold and +18 income, and I still manage to lose half the time.)
Whipstitch wrote:Yeah, Wesnoth makes you constantly second guess whether you really suck or whether those casualties are mostly just the cost of doing business. I doubt your'e supposed to feel confident while playing it.
Back when I was playing it actively, the Wesnoth designer wanted there to be a constant tension between upgrading your Lvl 1 units and needing to replace your Lvl 3 units. By mid-campaign, if you're not losing a Lvl 3 unit on every map you're either very skilled or playing too cautiously. And if you're not replacing that Lvl 3 unit and promoting 3 Lvl 1s to Lvl 2 and another Lvl 2 to Lvl 3, then you're not playing well enough.
But that's only most of the original campaigns. Plenty of the fan campaigns take a different attitude.
That jibes pretty well with my experiences. I developed a decent feel for such things, but by no means was it something you could really know intuitively going in, so the newbs still have my sympathies.
Another random thought: I would be shocked if I was the only newbie who initially failed to understand and abuse the forgiving nature of the upkeep system. Zealously hoarding gold is just no longer a thing I do in Wesnoth.
Whipstitch wrote:As far as I can tell the biggest stumbling block newbies seem to have with Wesnoth or Fire Emblem is a simple failure to recognize that you don't always need to be attacking in a game that features a tit-for-tat engagement system.
I believe the FE designers intended for you to sacrifice units here and there.
Why else would they keep throwing you new recruits basically every map when you can usually only deploy a dozen units?
Ditto for Wesnoth campaigns. Yeah, it hurts to lose that lv3 dude you spent so much time training, but you can hire and train replacements.
Fire Emblem is most definitely designed to be played with casualties, though the extent varies depending on the installment. There's a number of guys whose clear purpose is to make sure you've got an army of promoted units who are at least vaguely competitive if you suffer heavy early losses.
However, it is the consensus of fans that if you have to do that you have lost morally.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
