I'll have to admit that my only exposure to King's Quest is through Retsuprae's riffs on them (V and VI -- EDIT: whoops, forgot to mark these for NSFW language), which paint them in very unfavorable lights (though Cedric is an easy target).
That being said...somewhere in that mire of awful game design and fantasy cliches I can see the appeal of the series. I don't know, may be worth keeping an eye on.
Those guys are pretty funny - I'm hooked. Watching other stuff by them now.
But yea, the old games are pretty dreadful. The dead-ends Sierra let's you walk into are ridiculous. And some are just plain insane - for example, the cat chasing the mouse outside of the pie shop in KQV. You need to have the correct item in your inventory when this scene occurs and you need to use it in the span of about 4 seconds, or else you dead-end your game. And worse, you have no idea it's a dead-end. All you saw was a cat quickly jump out and grab a mouse and then scurry away. Hope you enjoy spending the next 4 hours walking in circles with nothing to do!
What's even funnier is the game pops up a warning when a cutscene is about to occur, basically saying "THERE ARE IMPORTANT STORY ELEMENTS IN THIS CUTSCENE, DON'T SKIP IT". Oh OK, thanks for the heads up. Couldn't give me a warning about the pie-house cat though, could ya?
Other than the sometimes-alright-fairy-tale writing, the only thing the series really has going for it is the nostalgia factor.
My favorite (most hated?) moment is the dwarves in King's Quest VI after you wash up on the beach. All that OCD grabbing of stuff really pays off with them. What are your favorite moments?
I lost untold hours to not picking up the mint in King's Quest VI. UNTOLD. HOURS.
Despite being incredibly frustrating, the desert scenes in V are really memorable for me. Those bandits ran me over at least a hundred times.
Good game, when it let's you play it. As one review that I thought was spot-on said, the game felt like it was saying “You might play the game wrong! Let me do it!”
The game's soundtrack is also pretty fantastic (here's the title theme, for example).
Absolutely one of the best game soundtracks ever. I occasionally fire it up on Grooveshark. Listening to 'Tell a Strange Tale' now. The Nostalgia! You can immediately see Gold City.
But yea, the co-op completely made this game. Without it, it's still a very good RPG, but noticeably behind the other SNES-era greats. With co-op, it's a completely unique experience and definitely amongst the best all-time. It's actually aged pretty well - played through it recently with a buddy. The SNES generation as a whole has aged well. Amazing what focus on gameplay and good pixel art does for ya.
- Dragon Age: I haven't play DA2, but I sort of liked the semi-tactical combat of DA:O. Was the move to generic action fighting with bull*****ty high jumps already present in the second game, or is this new?
DA2 combat played out like a medieval Mass Effect, I thought. It didn't have bull*****ty high jumps that I recall. At the end of the day, I didn't mind it, but I did still miss the classic RPG combat of DA:O.
It's funny how video games nowadays with the same budget as Triple A titles are nowhere near as cheap as buying individual songs/albums on iTunes or Rhapsody, this is also without having to pay extra money for DLC's and DRM's.[/color]
Hm, I guess I don't follow? AAA titles should cost $0.99?
But yea, I think we're basically in agreement. Whether or not it's the right time for it, it's gonna get pushed, simply because it's the next hot gimmick.
Well, MOBAs are pretty complex when you get down to it. I was trying to quickly explain the basic rules of them to a friend that had never tried the genre the other day. I was about 4 pages into the email and finally just started posting links. There's a lot going on. A lot of moving parts.
If I were in Riot's shoes ~5 years ago, I think I would have taken the same approach. Peeling back one layer of complexity on all of it isn't a deal-breaker for most and there's a huge benefit with your product being more approachable.
Basically, Chess is good and plenty complex without there needing to be differences between White's Pawns and Black's Pawns.
Fair enough. The issue this raises with me is that, if you really don't need to unlock all the champs to play competitively, doesn't that mean that champs are bad/lazy design? (also kinda plays into the stale meta thing above). I compare it to dota again, where counter-picking is incredibly important, and where not having full access to heroes would severely impact your team's competitiveness. Either way, I think that that would be a massive flaw with the game.
I don't know if I'd say bad/lazy, but it's definitely 'safe' design. Riot is very rarely a risk taker when it comes to champion design in the last couple years.
I guess it's more an issue of when your champion pool starts to matter. I've been out of the League ranked scene for awhile so maybe I'm not qualified to comment on this anymore, but I'd say until you reach Diamond+, you're way better off mastering a select few champions than trying to be the smartest guy in the room and counter-picking everything. So it does matter at some level of play, but by the time you get there, you likely have enough IP anyways.
Another question: isn't the pay-to-unlock champs thing an issue for you guys? I couldn't imagine playing on such an uneven field.
As someone that absoutely HATE HATE HATES pay-to-win models, I find League's model very tolerable. I often cite it as 'free-to-play done right' nowadays. I do remember being put-off by this when I had just started, though. In my experience with the game, if you can't unlock the champions you want with IP, then you're probably not experienced enough for ranked anyways. It ends up not mattering.
As to the original question, LOL was my first foray into MOBAs. I gave DOTA2 a fair shake - I realize it's the faithful successor to the original and it seemed OK, but I also didn't see anything there that said 'you should switch to me'. I pretty much don't have time for one MOBA anymore, let alone two. If my friends moved games, then I probably would to. So basically, DOTA-2 is just a victim of being late to the party for me.
5 more years til Virtual Reality becomes a bigger deal isn't very long, you do realize that 5 years is a short amount of time right?
I'm aware. Are you saying you disagree, then? You don't think Virtual Reality will be any bigger in 5 years than it is now? My bet is that it will be the 'motion gaming' for this generation of consoles when the machines start to show some age and the console companies need that monetary invigoration.
Ultimately, just vote with your dollar. Don't like it? Don't buy it. I did the same with motion gaming and have never regretted it.
Im more talking about things like pokemon red, where if you run out of money trying to find the gold teeth in the safari zone you can literally get into a position where you have no choice but to restart. Or a fps game where you get to the final boss with no ammo and no way to get any other than restarting the level because you just hit a checkpoint. Hali did tyat a lit, minus the boss bit.
Gotcha - yea, that kind of stuff used to be staples in old Point & Click Adventure games. Gotta love dead-ending your game because you didn't pick up a dead fish way back on the first screen.
Of the more recent games I played, Dream House Story was a bad offender. I finished a playthough and was going, "what, that's it?" I look up FAQs and found out that 75$ of the characters and items in the game can only be obtained by playing real money. And it wasn't one time payment, either.
And Capcom really dropped tha ball with SFvT.
This is a good point - the payment model can definitely make or break a game for me. I usually do that kind of research before I start playing a game these days, though. If it smells like Pay-to-Win, I'm out.
1 -
If I'm on the fence about a game, I will definitely look up gameplay videos to help make the decision. Most of the time my mind is already made up by this point, however.
2 -
Sometimes, but I hate that 'canned' feeling these videos often have. If I can feel the blatant hand of marketing in the videos, it can be a turn-off. I very nearly bailed on Dragon Age 2 because of this, despite loving Dragon Age Origins.
3 -
All the time. I'm a chronic Let's Play watcher - I perhaps watch more than I actually play these days.
4 -
Many times. Most recently, Dark Souls. This game wasn't even on my radar until one of my favorite Let's Players picked up the game. I was hooked pretty quickly and ran out and purchased the game myself later that day.
or a save point that makes you do something you're unprepared for that won't you leave will quickly result in me disliking a game simply due to bad game design.
I don't think that's necessarily bad game design. For example, I absolutely love that Mass Effect 2 has numerous events that spring up on you as you play that must be immediately resolved.
e.g. Collector ship attacks the Normandy and abducts your crew.
Almost all single player games revolve around the player. Nothing happens when you're not there to trigger it. Events like this generate a sense of urgency and make the game world feel a bit more real - it gives the illusion that you're a part of the world.
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Those guys are pretty funny - I'm hooked. Watching other stuff by them now.
But yea, the old games are pretty dreadful. The dead-ends Sierra let's you walk into are ridiculous. And some are just plain insane - for example, the cat chasing the mouse outside of the pie shop in KQV. You need to have the correct item in your inventory when this scene occurs and you need to use it in the span of about 4 seconds, or else you dead-end your game. And worse, you have no idea it's a dead-end. All you saw was a cat quickly jump out and grab a mouse and then scurry away. Hope you enjoy spending the next 4 hours walking in circles with nothing to do!
What's even funnier is the game pops up a warning when a cutscene is about to occur, basically saying "THERE ARE IMPORTANT STORY ELEMENTS IN THIS CUTSCENE, DON'T SKIP IT". Oh OK, thanks for the heads up. Couldn't give me a warning about the pie-house cat though, could ya?
Other than the sometimes-alright-fairy-tale writing, the only thing the series really has going for it is the nostalgia factor.
I lost untold hours to not picking up the mint in King's Quest VI. UNTOLD. HOURS.
Despite being incredibly frustrating, the desert scenes in V are really memorable for me. Those bandits ran me over at least a hundred times.
Good game, when it let's you play it. As one review that I thought was spot-on said, the game felt like it was saying “You might play the game wrong! Let me do it!”
Absolutely one of the best game soundtracks ever. I occasionally fire it up on Grooveshark. Listening to 'Tell a Strange Tale' now. The Nostalgia! You can immediately see Gold City.
But yea, the co-op completely made this game. Without it, it's still a very good RPG, but noticeably behind the other SNES-era greats. With co-op, it's a completely unique experience and definitely amongst the best all-time. It's actually aged pretty well - played through it recently with a buddy. The SNES generation as a whole has aged well. Amazing what focus on gameplay and good pixel art does for ya.
Absolutely. I still find it hard to convey what early DAOC RvR was like to people that missed the boat.
DA2 combat played out like a medieval Mass Effect, I thought. It didn't have bull*****ty high jumps that I recall. At the end of the day, I didn't mind it, but I did still miss the classic RPG combat of DA:O.
Hm, I guess I don't follow? AAA titles should cost $0.99?
But yea, I think we're basically in agreement. Whether or not it's the right time for it, it's gonna get pushed, simply because it's the next hot gimmick.
If I were in Riot's shoes ~5 years ago, I think I would have taken the same approach. Peeling back one layer of complexity on all of it isn't a deal-breaker for most and there's a huge benefit with your product being more approachable.
Basically, Chess is good and plenty complex without there needing to be differences between White's Pawns and Black's Pawns.
I don't know if I'd say bad/lazy, but it's definitely 'safe' design. Riot is very rarely a risk taker when it comes to champion design in the last couple years.
I guess it's more an issue of when your champion pool starts to matter. I've been out of the League ranked scene for awhile so maybe I'm not qualified to comment on this anymore, but I'd say until you reach Diamond+, you're way better off mastering a select few champions than trying to be the smartest guy in the room and counter-picking everything. So it does matter at some level of play, but by the time you get there, you likely have enough IP anyways.
As someone that absoutely HATE HATE HATES pay-to-win models, I find League's model very tolerable. I often cite it as 'free-to-play done right' nowadays. I do remember being put-off by this when I had just started, though. In my experience with the game, if you can't unlock the champions you want with IP, then you're probably not experienced enough for ranked anyways. It ends up not mattering.
As to the original question, LOL was my first foray into MOBAs. I gave DOTA2 a fair shake - I realize it's the faithful successor to the original and it seemed OK, but I also didn't see anything there that said 'you should switch to me'. I pretty much don't have time for one MOBA anymore, let alone two. If my friends moved games, then I probably would to. So basically, DOTA-2 is just a victim of being late to the party for me.
I'm aware. Are you saying you disagree, then? You don't think Virtual Reality will be any bigger in 5 years than it is now? My bet is that it will be the 'motion gaming' for this generation of consoles when the machines start to show some age and the console companies need that monetary invigoration.
Ultimately, just vote with your dollar. Don't like it? Don't buy it. I did the same with motion gaming and have never regretted it.
It is definitely part of gaming's future, but I agree that it's much farther away than most people seem to think. I give it at least 5 more years.
I really don't think anyone is trying to "get back" at Nintendo for their success in the 80s/90s, though.
No shame in that. I haven't played anything other than ARAMs in months.
Gotcha - yea, that kind of stuff used to be staples in old Point & Click Adventure games. Gotta love dead-ending your game because you didn't pick up a dead fish way back on the first screen.
This is a good point - the payment model can definitely make or break a game for me. I usually do that kind of research before I start playing a game these days, though. If it smells like Pay-to-Win, I'm out.
If I'm on the fence about a game, I will definitely look up gameplay videos to help make the decision. Most of the time my mind is already made up by this point, however.
2 -
Sometimes, but I hate that 'canned' feeling these videos often have. If I can feel the blatant hand of marketing in the videos, it can be a turn-off. I very nearly bailed on Dragon Age 2 because of this, despite loving Dragon Age Origins.
3 -
All the time. I'm a chronic Let's Play watcher - I perhaps watch more than I actually play these days.
4 -
Many times. Most recently, Dark Souls. This game wasn't even on my radar until one of my favorite Let's Players picked up the game. I was hooked pretty quickly and ran out and purchased the game myself later that day.
I don't think that's necessarily bad game design. For example, I absolutely love that Mass Effect 2 has numerous events that spring up on you as you play that must be immediately resolved.
e.g. Collector ship attacks the Normandy and abducts your crew.
Almost all single player games revolve around the player. Nothing happens when you're not there to trigger it. Events like this generate a sense of urgency and make the game world feel a bit more real - it gives the illusion that you're a part of the world.