Rate the Last PC/Console Game You Played

[Duckman]

We'll see.  The classic community thinks that it will replace retail.  For what retail is, it *should* replace retail.  As you (Pax) said, you don't play it to play with others...  That means that it would better meet your needs/wants if it is was a single-player, stand-alone RPG.  Nothing wrong with that or anything and I play a number of those myself but for an MMORPG that defeats the purpose.  WoW should be multiplayer the whole time and in Vanilla and TBC it was.  You had a social community in all zones, not just camped in the capitol and porting to dungeons.  They've moved to smaller and smaller continents and zones because they've eliminated those as player areas which is tragic.

[Guest]

On 8/3/2019 at 7:10 AM, Duckman said:

We'll see.  The classic community thinks that it will replace retail.  For what retail is, it *should* replace retail.  As you (Pax) said, you don't play it to play with others...  That means that it would better meet your needs/wants if it is was a single-player, stand-alone RPG.  Nothing wrong with that or anything and I play a number of those myself but for an MMORPG that defeats the purpose.  WoW should be multiplayer the whole time and in Vanilla and TBC it was.  You had a social community in all zones, not just camped in the capitol and porting to dungeons.  They've moved to smaller and smaller continents and zones because they've eliminated those as player areas which is tragic.

Yes and no. I do play it mostly single player, but there are certainly benefits to a MMORPG that's constantly being updated vs one of those single player games that's ditched after they sell enough copies (like my fallout 4 is kinda a dead game because they stopped making real content).

And I do play with people, from time to time. It's just not my focus.

I ran a guild at one point. I think I called it, "Pain." It was a horde guild, so that's probably where most of the name was. Message of the Day was always a George Carlin quote.  It was fun at first, then devolved in bureaucracy. And I disbanded it.

And you are correct, we used to have a better social community on WoW.

Part of the problem is that the game got more user friendly. You used to have to be social to get help with quests, not go online and find a guide or use in-game waypoint, but actually have to talk to people and ask for help. Kinda like the Ordo 40k forums, used to debate rules more, then GW got better at writing rules and our forum is more dead as a result. Plus now there's lots of sites with in-depth help guides, for both game, which detract from people needing to ask questions and, in doing so, interact with other people.

And it's not just WoW or 40k. The more we everything becomes user friendly, the more we run into issues where people don't learn to interact with other people in a positive way. Why ask questions of people, when you can look it up on the internet?...And it's great that the information is there, but removing the social component definitely hinders our social skill development. Don't need to be polite to google or ettiquette or dress a certain way or have patience - and look, surprise surprise, people these days don't typically learn patience, politeness, etiquette, or even adhere to much of a dress code.

[Duckman]

Keep in mind that the biggest way that the game has eliminated the need to play it is by making everyone teleport everywhere.  There's no reason to leave a city (or garrison) now.  You can teleport to anything you want to do without ever setting foot in the wilds.

As for the "additional content", note that you never paid a sub fee for Fallout 4, you never bought an expansion for it and you could, if you wanted, download mods for it.  Arguably you could get much more for your dollar from Fallout than you ever could from Warcraft *unless* you spent all your gaming time on WoW.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, Duckman said:

Keep in mind that the biggest way that the game has eliminated the need to play it is by making everyone teleport everywhere.  There's no reason to leave a city (or garrison) now.  You can teleport to anything you want to do without ever setting foot in the wilds.

Why would that be a problem? Real life is like that. We can do just about anything without leaving the city, a fantasy game for city-dwellers is probably teleportation heavy if they spread out their setting. I mean, if we actually wanted the journey, we wouldn't be sitting at home playing PC games....

I always hate the game mechanic that add mounts and then just spread everything out further. Like, why not just make things closer together? Rhetorical - I think the reason is a computing thing, that putting lots of users and objects in tight confinement is hard on the system, so spreading things out is probably more a hardware thing. Still, it's annoying.

I suspect that if they making every do-able in one spot, it's more that the hardware is now able to do that. They probably would have started there if it had been an option from day one.

EDIT: I think I'm bias, though. My main is a Mage, and we've been able to teleport (and portal) from very early WoW.

 

[Duckman]

6 hours ago, paxmiles said:

Why would that be a problem? Real life is like that. We can do just about anything without leaving the city, a fantasy game for city-dwellers is probably teleportation heavy if they spread out their setting. I mean, if we actually wanted the journey, we wouldn't be sitting at home playing PC games....

I always hate the game mechanic that add mounts and then just spread everything out further. Like, why not just make things closer together? Rhetorical - I think the reason is a computing thing, that putting lots of users and objects in tight confinement is hard on the system, so spreading things out is probably more a hardware thing. Still, it's annoying.

I suspect that if they making every do-able in one spot, it's more that the hardware is now able to do that. They probably would have started there if it had been an option from day one.

EDIT: I think I'm bias, though. My main is a Mage, and we've been able to teleport (and portal) from very early WoW.

I'm not sure you grasp the concept of story-telling.

Let's assemble the Fellowship and go to Mt. Doom and destroy the one ring!  Click "find group", teleport to Mt. Doom and have the epic battle with...  Ermm, we skipped Gollum since he was introduced in a side-quest in a zone you never went to...  "Oh well, throw the ring in and have done with it then."

At what point do are you still experiencing the game?  You're essentially eliminating the need to have a world map at all so why not go play Overwatch against an AI opponent?  That game exists and it is *not* an RPG.  The difference between an arena combat game and an RPG is all the things that happen between arenas.  The concept that, among other things, travel matters and gives you a sense of scale.

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, Duckman said:

I'm not sure you grasp the concept of story-telling.

Let's assemble the Fellowship and go to Mt. Doom and destroy the one ring!  Click "find group", teleport to Mt. Doom and have the epic battle with...  Ermm, we skipped Gollum since he was introduced in a side-quest in a zone you never went to...  "Oh well, throw the ring in and have done with it then."

At what point do are you still experiencing the game?  You're essentially eliminating the need to have a world map at all so why not go play Overwatch against an AI opponent?  That game exists and it is *not* an RPG.  The difference between an arena combat game and an RPG is all the things that happen between arenas.  The concept that, among other things, travel matters and gives you a sense of scale.

I understand storytelling well enough, I'm just not sure I grasp what you were originally talking about, given your response above.

Not sure your point on the world map. Typically, RPG-described games feature a "map" which essentially just teleports between pregenerated maps/zones. They aren't really any more connected than a teleportation spell does, given that it only goes to or between existing predetermined points. Removal of the World Map doesn't really prevent an RPG from being engaging.

If you are comparing an MMORPG to an adventure novel, I'm lost. LotR and WoW are only similar in setting, and they've never been more similar. WoW isn't a story, it's a game. WoW has a story, but it's flavor text to explain the game's mechanic. Kinda like the plot/setting in a porno. Meanwhile, LotR is a book, with the focus being on the story itself.

Quote

The difference between an arena combat game and an RPG is all the things that happen between arenas.

No. Just no. The presence of gaps between arena combat has nothing to do with it being an RPG or not.

An RPG is just a role-playing game. Basically, the RPG is any game that you start to consider your character as your character. Overwatch isn't an RPG because the game expects you to play a different character if your character is being used by someone else.

I mean, there is a school of thought that considers any game with a leveling system to be an RPG, but I'm not really in that crowd.

I very much like RPGs with dialog options, but choice in dialog doesn't make or break it as an RPG.

And then the MMORPG really isn't an RPG, it's an MMORPG, which really is it's own genre. Not sure exactly where the line is between those two, but there are rather obvious differences between MMORPG games and RPG games. I think a lot of it has to do with players being able to apply outside knowledge into the RPG in meaningful/harmful ways - that's still present in an RPG, but it's less problematic when only a few people are doing it.

 

As an aside, Overwatch is more of a board game. I know, it's 3d, but it plays like a boardgame. You set up the board, gather the players, each player selects a token character, they play the game, and then it repeats as such the next time they want to play a game. It can be fun, but there's no roles to play. It's like Clue with more maps and more colored pawns.

[Duckman]

Given your definition of RPG we have nothing more to discuss.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Duckman said:

Given your definition of RPG we have nothing more to discuss.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game

Have you read this link?

Quote

A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game;^[1][2] abbreviated RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making regarding character development.^[3] Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines

Mine is more simplistic, but I think I got it.

Regarding Computer RPGs:

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Several varieties of RPG also exist in electronic media, such as multiplayer text-based Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) and their graphics-based successors, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). Role-playing games also include single-player role-playing video games in which players control a character, or team of characters, who undertake(s) quests, and may include player capabilities that advance using statistical mechanics. These electronic games sometimes share settings and rules with tabletop RPGs, but emphasize character advancement more than collaborative storytelling

And then MMORPGs specifically

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Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) combine the large-scale social interaction and persistent world of MUDs with graphic interfaces. Most MMORPGs do not actively promote in-character role-playing, however players can use the games' communication functions to role-play so long as other players cooperate.^[29] The majority of players in MMORPGs do not engage in role-play in this sense

 

Or rather, it's a game where you take the role of a character and it becomes your character. Or a team of characters, or a specific city, spaceship or something like that. And then there's a story in it, but the emphasis is on character advancement, which could be levels or some other system.

A world map is not required. Teleportation doesn't make it not an RPG.

[Guest]

53 minutes ago, Duckman said:

Let's assemble the Fellowship and go to Mt. Doom and destroy the one ring!  Click "find group", teleport to Mt. Doom and have the epic battle with...  Ermm, we skipped Gollum since he was introduced in a side-quest in a zone you never went to...  "Oh well, throw the ring in and have done with it then."

As an aside, I agree that this example would be a lackluster story.

Though for WoW, before teleportation, my complaint would be "repeatable" dungeons. Let's assemble the Fellowship and go to Mt. Doom every tuesday because the item we wanted didn't drop...

[Guest]

And for that matter, I've always thought it was odd that PCs go on so many quests. I mean, realistically speaking, the same person probably only has one big quest in them, both because of physical limitations of their body, and just because the setting shouldn't be able to quickly create lots of epic quests.

Realistically, you should get to the point where you have about 100gp (maybe more), buy a house, get married(if you want), and retire. Let the next generation deal the next big quest.

JRR tolkien got this. Bilbo Baggins isn't the main protagonist in both series. He does his one big adventure and retires.

 

[Duckman]

No, I didn't read it...  I just linked it because I thought it looked pretty... (/sarcasm)

Did *you* read it instead of just clipping quotes you liked?  The term immersion does not appear (happens to be a strong component in my definition) but you happily ignore all the ramifications of

Events, characters, and narrative structure give a sense of a narrative experience

. 

As I said...  You gave your definition.  I disagree with you and I don't think that you get the article that you so blithely dissected because you say yourself

I mean, there is a school of thought that considers any game with a leveling system to be an RPG, but I'm not really in that crowd.

and then use a definition from the article that you've just stated you disagree with.  You're no different from all the people who don't get the Classic WoW community in the first place and it's not my job to convert you but since you asked about it I told you what Classic WoW is, why it differs from retail and why I don't think retail is an MMORPG.  YMMV.  Peace.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Duckman said:

No, I didn't read it...  I just linked it because I thought it looked pretty... (/sarcasm)

Did *you* read it instead of just clipping quotes you liked?  The term immersion does not appear (happens to be a strong component in my definition) but you happily ignore all the ramifications of

Quote

Events, characters, and narrative structure give a sense of a narrative experience

As I said...  You gave your definition.  I disagree with you and I don't think that you get the article that you so blithely dissected because you say yourself

Quote

I mean, there is a school of thought that considers any game with a leveling system to be an RPG, but I'm not really in that crowd

and then use a definition from the article that you've just stated you disagree with.  You're no different from all the people who don't get the Classic WoW community in the first place and it's not my job to convert you but since you asked about it I told you what Classic WoW is, why it differs from retail and why I don't think retail is an MMORPG.  YMMV.  Peace.

So regarding the level system, if you read the whole quote, you'll note that leveling is not innately part of it being an RPG. Yes, a form of character advancement is a must, but it doesn't have to be levels. Likewise, I think there are games which use a level system, but aren't really RPGs and are just using the level system because the illusion of advancement helps to sell a product.

As for immersion in the narrative, I consider that covered by you role playing your character. If you don't feel the immersion, it doesn't feel like your character. Just another colored token on a board. So, yes, I agree, immersion is important.

As for the narrative experience, I feel that goes back to your character's experience. Maybe your character is obsessed with combat or narrative adventures, maybe mine is looking for a calm, effortless journey. Yeah, the game's narrative affects your character, but since it is your character, the narrative is largely what you make of it. The game's narrative can differ from the narrative you play with.

Anyway, classic WoW sounds good, but i don't think you'll get the experience you wanted when they re-release it. There's just too many guides for WoW out there, too much outside game knowledge. Heck, even people using a 3rd party chat function are ruining the game that was classic WoW. Really, you need to go back to 2004....I miss a lot of the old WoW functions, but many of the changes are re-actions to out-of-game changes, like 3rd party quest finding apps.

[Duckman]

You're right.  I'll never get the experience I want.  You haven't even figured out the experience I want but you go right ahead and tell me what I want.

Tell it to the hand.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Duckman said:

You're right.  I'll never get the experience I want.  You haven't even figured out the experience I want but you go right ahead and tell me what I want.

Tell it to the hand.

You sure get easily offended. You've been treating me the way I've been treating you in this thread, but I'm not offended and it sounds like you are.

Sorry that I offended. Really didn't mean to.

[Romans832]

On 8/7/2019 at 9:46 AM, paxmiles said:

Though for WoW, before teleportation, my complaint would be "repeatable" dungeons. Let's assemble the Fellowship and go to Mt. Doom every tuesday because the item we wanted didn't drop...

That's the whole point of a MMORPG... keep doing the same dang thing to get the gear you've never gotten... or ten of you need

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Romans832 said:

That's the whole point of a MMORPG... keep doing the same dang thing to get the gear you've never gotten... or ten of you need

You could be right, it might be just me complaining about the inevitable....sigh.

Ever see one of those anime set in an MMORPG where they actually accomplish something? And then it stays accomplished. It feels more meaningful. I guess I'm looking for that degree of meaningfulness in my RPG experience.

I know, that's real life, the one RPG I really don't play much....sigh...

 

[Guest]

Regarding WoW classic rebooting the expansions or not, looks like they are adding things in phases:

https://wow.gamepedia.com/World_of_Warcraft:_Classic

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Content

In order to reproduce the original Classic experience, content will be added via multiple stages like back in the day:

• Phase 1 (Classic Launch): Molten Core, Onyxia, Maraudon
• Phase 2: Dire Maul, Azuregos, Kazzak, Honor system (including dishonorable kills), PvP Rank Rewards
• Phase 3: Blackwing Lair, Darkmoon Faire, Darkmoon deck drops begin, Alterac Valley, Warsong Gulch
• Phase 4: Zul'Gurub, Green Dragons, Arathi Basin
• Phase 5: Ahn'Qiraj War Effort begins, Ahn'Qiraj raids (Ruins and Temple of Ahn'Qiraj) open when the war effort dictates, Dungeon loot reconfiguration: Tier 0.5 Dungeon gear, Relics, drop rates and location changes
• Phase 6: Naxxramas, Scourge Invasion, World PvP objectives in Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands

A new technology known as layering will be temporarily used - similar to sharding, but not cross realm.^[8] The technology will try to sticky you to a layer so that you see familiar names often. Layering will be discontinued or replaced no later than the release of world bosses with Phase 2.^[9]

So, after all that, might get Burning Crusade again, perhaps. Or might restart again. Or maybe an entirely new expansion going into an unexplored alternate reality.

 

I have been wondering if the Achievements will be enabled in "classic WoW" and will carry over in between the two games. I really like the idea of having the option for a second chance to gain some of the legacy achievements.

[Duckman]

No, they will not.  Nor will cash shops, transmog, new models, etc. etc.

It's a museum piece and they have stuck true to that so far.  It's possible that in a few month Activision will step in and reverse these decisions (and all the people who have been playing on private servers for 15 years will leave again and the game will fail).

[Guest]

20 hours ago, Duckman said:

No, they will not.  Nor will cash shops, transmog, new models, etc. etc.

It's a museum piece and they have stuck true to that so far.  It's possible that in a few month Activision will step in and reverse these decisions (and all the people who have been playing on private servers for 15 years will leave again and the game will fail).

Or they'll keep as is just long enough to kill the private servers, then make sweeping changes once people lack an alternative.

[Duckman]

Except that the private servers are neither throwing away their code nor going away...  They are eliminating their vanilla servers but they are keeping the rest.  I suspect that Blizzivision knows that.  The question is whether or not Activision is stupid enough to alienate their playerbase in hopes a flash-in-the-pan revenue up-tick.  I refuse to speculate about that because that's all I could do, is speculate.

For now, the model is simple.  They are building a museum piece...  It's 1.12 as true as they can make it running under a modern, battle.net-based client.  They're using old models and graphics with original (1.12) numbers and they've even put batching back in with the 2004 time-window.  This prevents any questions or arguments about what should be included or should not and they've managed to stick to their guns so far with this.  No QoL changes, no balancing changes, no cash shop, no "you get retail perks for playing this"...  With two weeks to go to launch it looks like they have actually managed to not let Activision push them into making it some monstrous hybrid of old and new.

[Guest]

Weird thinking about something digital being a museum piece....

[Guest]

I've created a monster: Got my mother playing Pokemon Go....

[Guest]

WoW Classic is live. Haven't tried it, but I hope others enjoy it.

[Romans832]

My friend has been streaming Classic... I'm kind of jealous

 

[Duckman]

I took the week off and have been having a blast.  Good community and honest-to-goodness slow, grinding progression.