| World of Warcraft | |
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Bubu - Hubbub  |
Come on. Admit it. I know you got into the beta. So tell me, how is it? Oh and don't forget to "donate" it to me when you're done. k thx. _______________ make install -not war |
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_cmad_ - Ex-Student 
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i hate telnet games, i could never play one :/ _______________ Your friends of today, are your enemies of tomorrow. |
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Mookie - Ex-Student 
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I want JavaGuy to design the next massive MMORPG.  |
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JavaGuy - Student 
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If your graphics card can't quite handle the WarCraft MMORPG, open a command window and try this one: telnet 212.93.157.201 23 _______________ My signature is only one line. You're welcome. |
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JavaGuy - Student 
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OMG! Guess what I just found? Fire up your telnet client and connect to gt.gamingmuseum.com for some Galactic Trader! Register your username, the log back in and hit M)ultiplayer. Type W to see who's online.Disclaimer: It's text-based (hence the place at gamingmuseum.com). It's also a lot more fun when there are a lot of people playing at once (I was almost alone when I tried it this morning, not exactly "massively" multiplayer  ). I'm getting ready to e-mail the guys I used to play this with.A feature I had forgotten but rediscovered quickly: If your character dies right away it says "You SUCK big time ROOKIE!" _______________ My signature is only one line. You're welcome. |
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Bubu - Hubbub 
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Haha so do I. You rawk my world JavaGuy  _______________ make install -not war |
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Steinin - Student 
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I now feel like trying a game with permanent death.  _______________ 362 Ohi on! |
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JavaGuy - Student
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Death for non-game related reasons is a completely separate issue, but as a general rule I'm a fan of "You pays your money, and you takes your chances." This is not out of hard-heartedness but just an acknowledgement that most attempts to make life "fair" tend to result in someone getting screwed even worse. In very clear cases, and only in very clear cases, where the problem is obvious would I support admin intervention. Hacking is hacking, of course, and if it can be proven the hacker should be banned forever (if it's pay-to-play I bet a hacker could actually be sued successfully in a real-world court of law). In that case I see no problem with the person who got royally screwed being "made whole," as the lawyers say, by the admins. High ping attack, I'm not sure. It's possible for software to monitor ping, but there are also lag hacks that a player can use to make himself lag out. If a player got a break for high ping, some industrious players with a little socket programming experience could get a break much of the time. It's entirely possible, of course, to monitor the aggregate level of network throughput on a server. A period of intense lag would be obvious in such a case, and everyone who arguably died as a result could be compensated. But that's a very clear case of everybody on a server getting screwed because of lag. Part of the problem with trying to make everything "fair" is that if admins have to spend time investigating every "unfair" death, that burns up time and money that could be spent developing content and new features, since admins cost money. Plus, every death would end up being investigated because almost every player is going to try to get the admins to resurrect him; every death is "unfair" according to the player whose character died. Given a choice between A) once in a while dying because of local lag or B) having a game that is (supposedly) "fair" but has a lot less content and a lot more admin meddling, I'll choose lesser evil A. Again, this is a case of how trying to make life "fair" for a few people results in a lot more people getting royally screwed. I'd rather suffer an ocassional lag-death, fair or not. The world is imperfect. The 70-90 percent figure I'm not sure really applies to MMORPGs. It's a completely different kind of game. I'm thinking back again to Galactic Trader. Those who are so shocked by the thought of permanent death I think have a very wrong picture of how such a game works. They have it in their minds that in such a game you sit down, play a character until he's mega-powerful, then die and get mad that you'll have to start all over and give up in frustration. For those of us who actually have played such games, the reality is nothing like that. What really happens is that you play a lot of short-lived characters, especially at first. When one dies, it's not a big deal. Then when you start to get the hang of it, one of your characters lives to accumulate a little power and wealth before he dies, and you say "That rawked!" and create a new character, convinced that this time you'll do better--and sometimes you will. When you're doing well and die, yes it's frustrating, but the frustration factor is, surprisingly, what keeps people coming back to try to do better, rather than give up and never play again. The give-up-in-frustration argument falls flat in the face of any pinball machine. When you have a bazillion points at pinball and lose your last ball, do you give up and never play pinball again because you'd have to start over with zero points? Hell, no. You gloat over how far you got before you lost the last ball, and you start again, convinced you can do even better. Galactic Trader had that sort of just-one-more-character addictive nature, and it was because your character could actually die. Accumulating power and wealth was not guaranteed, so when it happened it was really rewarding. Back to the 70-90 percent figure, in Galactic Trader, I'd estimate that about 70 percent of my characters lived past the first couple of days. Of those that did, about 70 percent of them lived to purchase a decent ship. Of those that did that, I'd say about 70 percent lived to achieve the next significant step (what that step was varied according to your goals). And so on. (This was after I got to be fairly good at the game. When I was first starting out I was interstellar roadkill, a new character every half hour.) The other thing that occurs to me about games with no permanent death is that it's a crutch for designers whose games have no replay value. In StarCraft, the first five minutes of a game were as interesting and exciting as the last five minutes, even though you didn't have all the high-tech stuff (hell, sometimes the first five minutes were the last five minutes). In an RPG, starting over again with zero skills should be interesting, not a drag. If it's a drag because you don't have high-level magicks (or whatever), then acquiring more powerful stuff was the only real appeal the game had, and there's no replay value. A good RPG should be interesting at all levels, not just an accumulate-power fest. It should have replay value. _______________ My signature is only one line. You're welcome. |
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Steinin - Student
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You've certainly got a point there, Javaguy. But what would happen if the player died from "not game related" causes. Such as hacking, ping attack during a very important fight and similar situations. I think there should be a few exceptions to the death rule. And by never succeeding a mean when a player keeps trying and trying but won't be able to create a high-level PC (Player Character). I've read somewhere that to keep a game interesting you have to succeed 70-90 percent of the time. Don't know if it's true or not. _______________ 362 Ohi on! This comment was edited by Steinin on Mar 27 2004 06:08pm. |
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JavaGuy - Student
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Quote: Could get the players (kids ) angry if they never succeed. What do you mean by "never succeed?" Blizzard also makes StarCraft and WarCraft, both games in which it is possible to lose. Doesn't that get frustrating? It does for me, and I was pretty good at both, but even the best lose. I think if the game had permanent death people would just get used to the idea that even the most powerful characters eventually die...unless you get a character to a high level and then decide to sort of "retire," hang around taverns talking to other players, not go out adventuring. I would probably do this if I got a powerful character, but for a powerful character the temptation to go for just one more "big score" would be tremendous.  If by "success" and "failure" you mean living or dying, well every character lives for a while, and every character dies. Is there some arbitrary level of power one has to reach before death in order to have "succeeded?" In my Galactic Trader days I always just tried, firstly, to have fun and, secondly, to do better than my own personal best. What exactly does "success" mean if you live forever? The other thing is this: For people used to live-forever games, the notion of a game having permanent death is horrifying, unthinkable, blesphemous. But they'd get used to it very quickly and probably get a lot more out of the game. I've heard a lot of people argue that a player who accumulates power and wealth over a period of weeks and then dies will get frustrated and never play again, but I know from personal experience that just the opposite is almost always the case. Your very first character will not become mega-powerful, or even any of your first few. You keep trying and dying until you hit the big time, and when your ride is over you just can't resist trying again. I know this from experience: The quit-from-frustration syndrome is a myth if it's a good game. In a live-forever game, I'd be more likely to quit from boredom. _______________ My signature is only one line. You're welcome. |
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Steinin - Student
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I both agree and disagree with Javaguy here. First I think a player never should be able to do the same quest over again. Next I think there should be some kind of penalty for death. A big one... Such as loss of a level. (Now that sucks ). But permanent death... Could get the players (kids ) angry if they never succeed. _______________ 362 Ohi on! |
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JavaGuy - Student
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I checked out the FAQ. Characters live forever! How lame can you get? And the whole point of combat is what exactly? They say they don't want character death to be "frustrating" to players. Well I find it frustrating to join a game in progress and find that almost everybody around me is mega-powerful, not because they've done anything extraordinary but just because they've logged thousands of hours playing and can keep retrying the same missions or fighting the same villain over and over until they succeed. I said this already, but I'll reiterate it: Getting a powerful character is not fun when it is guaranteed. It is fun when it is something special, something that doesn't happen all the time and something that is not guaranteed to last forever. When you take your 30th-level (or whatever) wizard on an adventure to try to advance to 31st level, there should be a chance that he'll actually die. That should be why not everybody makes it to the 31st level and why having a high-level character is impressive. When you're guaranteed to reach that level eventually it just isn't exciting. _______________ My signature is only one line. You're welcome. |
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Xavier - Student 
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yeah i didnt get it either, but i signed up _______________ ~Xavier |
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Steinin - Student 
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Quote: Lies!! ok... so it doesn't make you happy. _______________ 362 Ohi on! This comment was edited by Steinin on Mar 26 2004 04:10pm. |
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n00b - Student 
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I think the graphics look cool and all, but I don't have the beta so I can't tell you if the game is any fun. What I do want to say is that they need to make Diablo 3 and forget that Warcraft nonsense. I want to hack and slash until my eyes can't stay open. I need to kill massive amounts of monsters to feel satisfied _______________ Gone but hopefully not forgotten... |
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JavaGuy - Student
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I want to play a sci-fi MMORPG. A good one. SWG sucked. Failing that, I'd like to play a good fantasy MMORPG, preferably one in real-time, not with turn-based combat. And one in which character death is permanent, i.e. a no-whine game. When a character automatically gets to live forever, then advancement is simply a matter of time, and having a powerful character is not meaningful. I remember the days of Galactic Trader on the VAX/VMS--that was a text-based MMORPG, and when you died, you died, so everybody was duly impressed if they saw you pull into the spaceport in your very own Star Destroyer. Those were the days. _______________ My signature is only one line. You're welcome. |
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Lian Del Rey - Student 
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Quote: Another stupid mmorpg to keep the kids happy. Lies!! _______________ slorp |
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Steinin - Student
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Another stupid mmorpg to keep the kids happy. _______________ 362 Ohi on! |
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Darkwood - Student 
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didn't get in _______________ -Darkwood- |
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Bubu - Hubbub
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how could they do this to us? hmm maybe it's coz i dont live in north america... nah that's not it. _______________ make install -not war |
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Orion - Retired 
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i signed up and didnt get in _______________ When a Man lies he murder's some part of the world. These are the pale deaths which men misscall there lives. All this I cannot bear to witness any longer. Cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home? -Cliff Burton Owner of Smily's 1900th comment | <Lady_Catherine> i love your sexy white socks! | (Lady_Catherine) i adore u! | (Lady_Catherine) onion (Lady_Catherine) i lub u |
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