I got back into pen and paper a few years back, we do it all online, our character sheets are digital. It looks more like a slacker's teleconference than anything. We started with AD&D 3.5, but switched over to Shadow Run and have kept with that.

We've also been getting into card games, both physical and digital. My wife plays Headstone. We also party a couple varieties of flux, and of course cards against humanity. One of my friends plays a co-op one with superheroes that's pretty fun. We're looking for Anachronism in stores around our area, but haven't found it yet.

Done get me wrong, there are some games that go full cinematic and are amazing like your Elder Scrolls and later Fallout Titles. But having every game like that? Unnecessary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nkay7-7LAzQ

God...this is so cheesy..I remember when games like this used to try and add "theatrical graphics" to games.

This one was my favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4nQbLO82cQ

Originally Posted by Felix5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nkay7-7LAzQ

God...this is so cheesy..I remember when games like this used to try and add "theatrical graphics" to games.

Holy shit, I think I'd blocked that brief era of gaming out for a long, long time. Now that I think about it, that was about when the arcades were crashing and burning. Since everyone had a console at home, they tried to aim for the high end of processing potential on that generation of arcade cabinets. There was a cartoon fantasy style game like that, and uhh I remember a hologram game with some kind of futuristic cowboy who kept telling you not to do drugs. They ended up costing like a dollar to have one chance to make one specific move at the exact right time. If you achieved that one task, the movie scrolled on to the next screen. When the player failed to hit it exactly (as was much more likely) the machine would instead play a short death scene and ask for another dollar.

Then the arcades all went out of business.

This one was my favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4nQbLO82cQ

That's just... why? How? Who thought a trivia game needed highly pixilated gif loops and annoying animated sidekicks? Like, did they have a meeting that starts off with some executive asking "How can we get more Scrappy Doo in to our trivia game?"

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

There was a cartoon fantasy style game like that, and uhh I remember a hologram game with some kind of futuristic cowboy who kept telling you not to do drugs. They ended up costing like a dollar to have one chance to make one specific move at the exact right time. If you achieved that one task, the movie scrolled on to the next screen. When the player failed to hit it exactly (as was much more likely) the machine would instead play a short death scene and ask for another dollar.

Dragon's Lair and its lesser known younger brother Space Ace. It was pretty amazing technology at the time.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Out if curiosity, what are you guys opinions on voice acting? My personal opinion is that it's actually reduced the level of innovation in games by forcing them to be more linear due to cost and data size constraints. There are a few examples where that hasn't been the case, but those are major, major games.

One of the previously mentioned games was Chronotrigger, and the thing is that for a long time, that was the most varied game play experience you could get in a game for a long time, and even now, it's rarely exceeded, and that's mostly because you can only afford so much (decent) voice acting. A widely varied series of outcomes would be exceedingly expensive.

What's making indie development so good right now is that they're capable of avoiding the trappings of being cinematic, which allows them to tell non-linear stories, or tell more than one narrative in one story. I like some aspects of cinematic game play, And I think some games handle it well and others would be better off without the trappings of trying to establish a film like environment.

I recently bought a cinematic-style game in the style of a "choose your own adventure" promise... that really feels as constraining as a CYOA title. I don't know why but a CYOA type story, while promising, never really works for me because most of the time the choices presented aren't ones that I'd actually make or are so obviously dumb to be ridiculous.

I can understand the limitations of such an idea--and theoretically it's an idea with much promise but I don't think it's found the medium yet in which it can really shine--and I think it will have an opportunity to do so later when it does find that medium. It's a great idea but the forms of art available to express that idea limit it far too much. Video Games comes the closest though of any for getting CYOA better than previous incarnations--but as you mentioned with programing limitations and voice acting, it too is limiting.

One day though CYOA will find that medium... probably when we invent the holodeck.

~Chas'88

That's just... why? How? Who thought a trivia game needed highly pixilated gif loops and annoying animated sidekicks? Like, did they have a meeting that starts off with some executive asking "How can we get more Scrappy Doo in to our trivia game?"

lol...who knows? When I was a kid I thought it was great, now it looks ridiculously cheesy. I've always hated game shows too, I've always suspected 3do as trying to appeal to the "family" demographic. It was a lucas production.

Then the arcades all went out of business.

I think a part of that killed the arcade game. Arcades were always places where kids could meet up, play games, but also socialize. Gaming consoles took that out of gaming in general and started to appeal more to the loner or alienated kid.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

One day though CYOA will find that medium... probably when we invent the holodeck.

~Chas'88

That day is the end of civilization.

Originally Posted by Felix5

I think a part of that killed the arcade game. Arcades were always places where kids could meet up, play games, but also socialize. Gaming consoles took that out of gaming in general and started to appeal more to the loner or alienated kid.

The atomization of culture, which has carried on into the PvP of today's gaming playstyle.

The internet culture of griefers, in short.

I'm playing Elite: Dangerous, nowadays. It used to be OK.

The combat/PvP crowd has taken over. They had claimed that the AI's were pushovers. The dev's have turned the dial up recently, and suddenly odds of 8:1 against you are not looking so good. They openly admit that the AI's cheat. But the hardcore PvP'ers claim anything short of Guadalcanal (the real one) isn't "challenging" enough.

What happened to playing games for fun, instead of a live-fire, insta-death job? (Hint: the generation following mine)

Originally Posted by Bad Dog

That day is the end of civilization.

But what about the theory that our universe is nothing more than a projection of a 2D process?

Please note that RL training and experience *are no good* against the twitch crowd. I'm a former USAF tactical driver, and it's been of only marginal utility. And the AI's have gotten good enough to be *feared*. Within the last week, groups of up to eight NPC ships are attacking single players, because the hardcore, twitch, PvP crowd claimed they were bored.

As a pen and paper GM of four decades standing, I would say that the campaign has gotten way out of control. But, you cannot communicate that to players who would not last five minutes at a real table without being punched out, or ejected from the party.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Dragon's Lair and its lesser known younger brother Space Ace. It was pretty amazing technology at the time.

Yeah, Dragon's Lair. And the other one I was thinking of was called "Hologram Time Traveler." Turns out it was very successful - for a very short amount of time. It was really amazing technology: until you tried to play it and realized said technology had little to nothing to do with whether or not it was fun to play!

And it looks like the "hologram" effect was just a curved mirror pointed at a CRT TV.

Originally Posted by Kepi

But what about the theory that our universe is nothing more than a projection of a 2D process?

If we're stuck in a bad sitcom, we're already screwed.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Yeah, Dragon's Lair. And the other one I was thinking of was called "Hologram Time Traveler." Turns out it was very successful - for a very short amount of time. It was really amazing technology: until you tried to play it and realized said technology had little to nothing to do with whether or not it was fun to play!

And it looks like the "hologram" effect was just a curved mirror pointed at a CRT TV.

I bought a lot of my games in a shop called Dragon's Lair, that had both of these arcade games installed, naturally. Gone now, replaced by a sports bar.

Originally Posted by Bad Dog

I'm playing Elite: Dangerous, nowadays. It used to be OK.

The combat/PvP crowd has taken over. They had claimed that the AI's were pushovers. The dev's have turned the dial up recently, and suddenly odds of 8:1 against you are not looking so good. They openly admit that the AI's cheat. But the hardcore PvP'ers claim anything short of Guadalcanal (the real one) isn't "challenging" enough.

What happened to playing games for fun, instead of a live-fire, insta-death job? (Hint: the generation following mine)

Sorry, that might be my cohort. Ya gotta remember, we were raised on the original Super Marios, Ninja Gaiden, and all these stupid hologram/movie games that one-shot you and ate your dollar.

And you got me thinking about just how ruthless my favorite game can be. It's a text MUD RPG where combat rounds go off every five seconds and a lot of spells can be cast in between those combat rounds. The monsters are all ripped straight from the AD&D 2.0 monster's compendium.

When you died, all of your character's gear and carried items would just fall on the ground but your character would be set back hundreds of rooms to the starting town's temple halls. Anyone in that room could pick up the dead character's gear, so every death turned in to a mad rush to find new gear strong enough to recover your old gear. And you had to be fast enough to be the first one there, so you could pretty much forget everything you had on you if you died in PVP. You could hide backup stashes or even rent a ganghouse, but any thief of sufficient level could break in and even crack the vault. A dedicated ranger could also track you down to your hiding places. (Oh, and if you died with a ganghouse key on you, or someone in the gang betrayed you, well, you can't just change the locks)

But what really makes it ruthless are the limited items. The really powerful weapons and armor are limited to one per realm. So, once the boss monster drops the epic sword, you can only get that sword by killing the player who took it. Except now your target has a bunch of powerful items that are quite unbalancing.

Oh, and did I mention that it takes ~200 hours of play time to go up a level? So we started writing scripts and programs to run around in circles, killing monsters, collecting loot, and avoiding serious threats. A character would need about 8-9 months of uninterrupted scripting to get top level, and any character could be destroyed permanently by dying more than five times per level.

I used to look forward to a graphical MMO version of it, until I realized no one's going to make it until the later-wave of the next nomad generation is in their target audience.

These days I've been playing League of Legends on the advice of a 13 year old. While there are a lot of griefers and immature players in the lower ranks, the whole premise of the game actually relies on strong teamwork and maintaining a positive attitude. If you're the greatest player, but you have a bad attitude and big ego, you're not going to win a lot of games. But a patient player who clicks a little slowly or in not quite the right place, can win a lot just by staying calm, playing carefully, and working to build up the team's coordination, strategy, and morale.

Of course, all of the people who don't realize that end up in "ELO Hell," an inescapable abyss of angry, immature, and low-talent players.

John you might like worlds of magic. It's on steam. It's basically the game Master of Magic updated, and it's Civ meets D&D (minus beholders) and you're a Sorcerer Lord fighting for control of all 5 realms. It's 40 bucks, but I've already spent 80 hours on it, to me, worth the money.

Re MMO's: It could be worse. It could be EVE or MWO.

I feel like I've gone full circle. I'm back to playing board games and D&D instead of video games. D&D was something that I remember trying to play as a kid but never really "getting". I had the black box D&D beginners set that walked you through DMing a basic D&D game and ran a party through Zanzer's Dungeon. I was 10 years old and trying DM a game and failing miserably. But recently I dusted the game off and started running it with my friends and I have to say it's better than any video game I've ever played. There's nothing like the freedom of a table top RPG.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Which is really funny because when I was in college, a cheap bottle of vodka, a case of beer, and Canasta or Spades was often the entirety of our weekend entertainment budget - split between four to six people. It's incredibly... practical. Not exciting, not extreme, just practical. Something to focus a gathering toward, something to fix the awkward moments and keep everyone on the same page.

My feelings toward video games are getting very similar. I am not a fan of the voice-over work and theatrical cut screens, because that tends to eat in to other parts of the development budget. Movies and plays just deliver a more authentic theatrical experience.

I used to love watching the technology advance, but I've come back around to the idea that a game should last a really long time and offer a lot of replay time like Civilization, Sim City, etc. Realism is also kind of... overrated. Real life already has an ultra-realistic, HD, multiplayer game going on - and games are supposed to be a short, refreshing break from that. (It really kicked me hard in WoW, working away in their ultra-realistic trading economy, when I realized I could be working on a "real" online business instead - doing all the same things, but earning USD instead of WoWgold. What's the point of the game, again?)

I also don't like the fact that modern games try to hand everything to you and overwhelm your senses. Older games relied on more abstract and symbolic graphics, and left the majority of the audio/visual work to be done in the players' heads. On that thought, I've actually been getting back in to the paper and pen D&D stuff after almost 20 years of being unable to find anyone to play with. 5th edition is still new, but it is definitely my favorite version since AD&D 2.0 - and it seems to be hitting at a time when a lot of gamers are getting jaded with video games. There are also a LOT more women who are interested in playing a game like D&D than there were 20 years ago, so the total community is much bigger than ever before. In a lot of ways, the newer version of D&D is also just better thanks to ancillary technology: photoshop to make maps, smartphones to cross-reference rule disputes, and large online communities to exchange ideas and content. It can be a cheap game, but it doesn't have to be.

I have noticed that the quality of the plot in J-RPG type games have gone down the tubes over the past 20 years. FF7 and Chrono Trigger were the peak, FF8 was a bore, and FF9 was a fucking childish joke, I haven't played any later FF game out of disgust.

It really kicked me hard in WoW, working away in their ultra-realistic trading economy, when I realized I could be working on a "real" online business instead - doing all the same things, but earning USD instead of WoWgold. What's the point of the game, again?

This is why I could never get into WoW.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Sorry, that might be my cohort. Ya gotta remember, we were raised on the original Super Marios, Ninja Gaiden, and all these stupid hologram/movie games that one-shot you and ate your dollar.

You forgot Zelda II! I have never made it past Death Mountain.

Originally Posted by Odin

You forgot Zelda II! I have never made it past Death Mountain.

Ah Zelda II. That last castle was my bane. All that time spent on that game only to fail repeatedly on that final castle. I eventually just gave up. So sad. As for WoW. I used to play it quite a bit, as well as Final Fantasy XI before that (which had an even more difficult economy to advance in). Those games were great, but yeah were very demanding on your time. The economies were ultra-simplistic though, and it is kind of like playing real life on easy mode, which is why they were so much fun. You actually could get very rich in WoW, whereas getting very rich in real life was extremely difficult. Still, I love how games like WoW are used by economists to for modeling.

https://youtu.be/fDfNoCjtXvQ

Originally Posted by Odin

I have noticed that the quality of the plot in J-RPG type games have gone down the tubes over the past 20 years. FF7 and Chrono Trigger were the peak, FF8 was a bore, and FF9 was a fucking childish joke, I haven't played any later FF game out of disgust.



This is why I could never get into WoW.

I actually really liked FF8 because it actually had real character development. The gameplay was kinda dull, granted, but J-RPG combat was as dull as revolutionary war era English army battle tactics. "Look, they stand there and get shot, then we do the same, and then we do that until were all tired, then we count the dead and whoever has the most leftover at the end wins." Terrible. I did like the Guardian Force system better than the Materia system from 7, for what it's worth. What 8 really lacked was side content (no chocobo breeding, no character side arcs), and a really identifiable villain.

9 was annoying in parts, and lacked enough solid characters to create a solidly enjoyable party, but the good characters were really good, and the aesthetic was childish but it was also very pretty and it really pushed the PS1 to it's limits in terms of presentation. The plot wasn't great, but it was kinda standard fare for Final Fantasy, which I think they wanted specifically because between 7 and 8 the fan base was really tweaked wrong by the sci-fi look and feel of major parts of 7 and pretty much all of 8.

Really, to me, though, the peak for the franchise was 6, and 7 represented a decline in quality, namely because it had so many clearly broken points in code that certain points are an obvious rush job. It was pretty, especially considering it's era, and the world was immersive, but most of the PCs were annoying and because there were so many obvious points where certain plots had just been stitched out, it made the inadequacy of your more annoying characters to be more irritating. Plus I think that this is the point where I can first point to where tedium was mistaken for achievement.

Where in previous installments comprehrnsive story line completion got you the rewards, this game started the theme where putting in a lot of tedium really got you the goods. Leveling up the Materia to make master materia? Yeah, that's not happening. Ultima weapon? A boring million hit point fight? Get real. And while it's not necessary to get either of these to complete the story line, it's there just kind of taunting the player as if your unwillingness to sit through the boredom of 100+ hours of repetitive combat meant you weren't "hardcore", enough.

By comparison, even the most expansive beloved RPGs of today have relegated the tedium to more ignoranble features like achievements. Even though games like Fallout 3 and New Vegas had collection quests, they were relatively small, not marked, and fairly short (the bobble heads in 3 totaled what? 20? Even with all the DLC, the snow globe collection in New Vegas was merely 11) and they've become more oriented towards total game completion, such that the masks in Skyrim were mostly found in locations where you were already going to be for quests anyways.

Crafting might be the most tedious aspect of the new school experience, and that's basically more or less a shopping list. Personally, I think there are better ways to manage it than that, but at least I'm not locked in a stupid 3 hour battle.

Lots of verbose posts. Video required!

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Lots of verbose posts. Video required!

Yeah, sorry still in shock here, all these n00bz and quitterz never got to the best fight in the whole damn game.



He's got a good strategy, but you can get the shadow Link to stand still and block high if you jump in with the sword-pointing-down attack rather than the regular jump. Then you hit the sword attack button just when an attack is lined up against the tiny spot where Shadow Link's head pokes above the shield graphic. I have no idea how or why I remember that.

Getting up Death Mountain to the Great Temple was the hardest part. I think Nintendo Power suggested skipping all the 1UPS in the game until trying to cross Death Mountain, but I would just waste all of my mana and health by going in fairy form and flying through the badguys that guarded those tiny little cracks in the rock. The last temple itself wasn't that hard, but it was designed to frustrate you by being big and requiring a little bit of mapping and unconventional exploration. There was one place you had to fall in to what looked like a deadly pit, and the only clue was that the pixelation at the bottom of the screen was a little different from other pits. Otherwise, you could run around in circles indefinitely..

Once you were inside it though, you could "Continue" from inside no matter how many times you died (as long as the power stayed on).

Crafting....

I know Minecraft addicts who are on 12 hours a day.