Video Games

[Lago PARANOIA]

Perhaps I'm too harsh. The graphics were cool the rules mechanics... Ok those were an inferior inconsistent meshing of the old school germanic rpg system from the earlier games with bloody annoying modern MMO real time combat.

Ughhh... that sounds terrible.

Though I hear you about the game mechanics. Like I said, I have the original rules-set. It's playable but it's not very good. There are some blatantly useless spells and skills in both the book and the game and neither give you any indiciation that they would be useless. I mean, Witch's Eye. That sounds like it would be useful, right? Well, guess what, it's not.

And the story line, adventures and fixed additional party member characters... MAN those were bad. I basically gave the stupid game up when it became clear I was going to need to go and do at least an entire additional branch of the main plot line just in order to level up and get better gear to complete a side mission against FUCKING RATS.

How'd they fuck this up? The RoA trilogy had nice plots. Okay, the third one had this weird homophobic angle I'm trying to block out, but still. The quests weren't all that earth-shattering, but they still had that 'presence' to it like a real tabletop game, where you were following a string of plot hooks and eventually ended up saving the world. You know, like you're going to rescue a bunch of dogs but then you find out that the wizard of the tower was in conspiracy with demons from another quest you're doing to blah de blah.

[Draco_Argentum]

I can't get Demigod's multiplayer working. And its not an isolated issue either. Extremely frustrating since 1) its clearly using an undocumented port and 2) its P2P so it only works if everyone gets their networking right.

[PhoneLobster]

How'd they fuck this up? The RoA trilogy had nice plots.

As much as I liked the originals their plots and story lines weren't exactly great I mean "Go ask around this dude's descendents, get his sword and stab an orc"...

And they were plagued with annoying "And then you need to go to this door in this village three villages over, If you know that or get lucky it takes five seconds, if you don't (and there are no clues) then good luck because you may have to scour the entire map several times. Oh and when you get there get the dialogue combination right OR YOU ARE SCREWED...

But that was fine, its what games DID in those days. Well. Lets just pretend that is the case.

The new one has a plot which goes a little like this... (I'm giving you all the details I got!)

An amazing story of scripted events you can't meaningfully interact with!
Once upon a time there were dragons, they had a war, a cyclops tells you this in the intro. oooohgabooga!

Anyway, turns out you know this guy, some "mentor" sort of dude. He is all like writing this letter with "come see me, the game is afoot" (though not nearly as snappy and cool sounding)

But there are murders going on in the gritty medieval city! Everyone is SHOCKED (which is amazing considering less people got killed that you slaughter before you leave the intro chapter map.

So some asshole guard won't let you leave the intro map and go see him until you get references and run a bunch of piddly quests.

You pick up some side kicks including a swashbuckly rogue guy (who is an incredible dick) and an annoyingly gruff amazon warrior woman (who is an incredible dick). You also meet a high level eccentric wizard NPC (who is an incredible dick AND ultimately blissfully leads his innocent suffering apprentices to horrible horrible deaths as part of his hilariouseccentric routine)

Side Rant!!!
Hey did you know? You only make one character, all the others are specific NPCs you meet and pick up in a specific order. And sometimes they leave or you have to take a specific one with you and so on.

So if you say... want to play an amazon warrior, well, that's also your first NPC and likely one of your guaranteed companion slots for the next million years!

Better still its a system with limited skill points and various specialist roles that require bundles of skill points in bundles of skills. So you don't KNOW if investing in those skills with any given character is a good idea because you don't know when or if they will be around.

Or you invest your primary character with some social skills then next thing you know some fucking NPC joins your party with all their skills invested in them...
and now back to the "plot"

Anyway, you go to the city, mentor dude is dead! Solve the murders. (PS Swashbuckler bastard pisses off and sits in prison for most of the next FIVE MILLION YEARS because he really really enjoys emotionally distressing his on again off again hot gypsy bimbo).

You recruit a dwarf warrior who used to work as dude's body guard. He is also annoyingly gruff, and a bit of a dick. If for no other reason than it's his damn fault you are in this crappy plot line.

All the murder victims had boondoggles! I mean magic dragon jewelry. You trustingly give it to some scholar priest bimbo, who totally isn't tricking you into something (which actually despite the fact I was sure she was, she really wasn't, she was just setting herself up for a fall, the bimbo girlfriend)

You recruit some illusionist thief swashbuckle girl. She is a tiny bit of a dick, but mostly she is about as character filled as a cardboard cut out. She also seemingly sucks at basically everything she does, but I took her for the lock picking since swashbuckle guy was still hilariously freaking his hot gypsy out by cooling his heels in the slammer. Did I mention that hot gypsy has a hanger on who is a jester that is also a total fricking dick? So much so I suspect at some point you end up killing him, probably because he will have just killed HER, psycho jester, haha! great! Or maybe not.

You find out who is next! Some girl or other, you CAN'T save her, you get to pretty much watch her die. Then you do a scripted chase where the bastard who was being a bastard in the street when you entered town (and for whom this was not a sign he would join your party)

You catch him, and then have to let him escape while fighting his cultist underlings in the temple just barely preventing him from ALSO killing scholar bimbo. Scholar bimbo's dicky pimp high priest comes in and bitch slaps you all for making a mess in his temple, confiscates evidence and scholar bimbo herself and generally manages to be so uncooperative and dicky that you suspect he is working for the evils.

Then you remember how the rest of the characters are and how you thought that about scholar bimbo, and then you realize he might just be like that.

But it's OK the baron rewards you! Oh yeah, also that guy who did the murders? Gone, scarpered, you will have to wait more chapters than I played to see him again. But he was working for an evil dragon cult. They are evil because... well they were killing agents from some other super secret dragon cult who were good because... ?????Underpants gnomes???

Also there is a totally public dragon cult in town who just magically finished renovating their shop front. They invite you in for a cup of tea and a mission to kill freaky slime and giant insects in their basement. Turns out if you listened to their boring monotonous instructions (which I didn't) the slime clean up is part of a job to re-activate their dragon-god intercom statue just in time for the appointed once in five hundred year "chosen ones meet and greet" at which you, and all your party NPCs including ones you haven't met yet turn out to be the chosen ones, which is convenient because you were the only ones who were invited to the meet and greet.

So now you are on a mission to save the world. Number 1 objective? Find that dementia riddled old wizard again and drag his ass out of a swamp because he is like the last member of the secret good dragon cult. And he has like info on something uninteresting sounding I forgot about. You can hardly blame me, this chosen one thing was rather out of the blue and everyone was very vague about it, even when you save the guy he isn't very informative.

Anyway so its off to the undead swamp of undeath. Which is convenient because one of the only other gigs you have going is a mission to find some female swashbuckle rogue lady (who is an incredible dick) who stole some inkeeper's shit.

So you turn up, you save some peddler you previously met from being executed as a spy for the undead by a pitchfork wielding mob of red necks. He immediately then reveals he is trying to report to the high priestess of death. I immediately suspect him of working for the evils and being a total dick and a spy for the undead.

Turns out he wasn't evil or a spy, that was just the way he was (much like everyone else). Also the high priestess is missing and probably a good guy (though when you eventually meet her she is an unco-operative bitch to the degree that you suspect she is working for the evils).

I immediately suspect that it was the dicky mob leading sherrif of killing her and working for the evils since he is a murderous red neck asshole and clearly up to something and even has a retarded guard keeping an eye out to see if the priestess of bitchyness has returned with ominous orders to report to him immediately. As it turns out though, he is just a total dick.

You meet your (what third or forth) dicky swashbuckler thief and she declares it a fair cop, only see she has like an evil undead coughing curse. She is unique as a character and not interchangable with the other swashbucklers, see she has this cough, and a sort of Pantomime Spanish accent, and a body consisting mostly of cleavage. But it's clear she is a total dick, a thief, a liar and up to some sort of plot. I immediately suspect her of working for the evils.

You find the wizard in the swamp, but not before you re-murder the wailing zombie corpse of one of his underage nephew apprentices that he willfully let die. He sends you on a collect three things in the three other monster filled corners of the map quest to try and get you killed while he freaks out his other apprentice and makes him very ill by mixing a terrible potion within a confined forcefield surrounded by undead hungry for the apprentice's tender boy meat.

The apprentice is grieving for his buddy, his boss could care less (the dick). Good thing you killed the stray appentice though, because he had this super important magic book that the wizard just sent into the swamp of doom with a helpless 14 year old boy FOR NO REASON. Did I mention this asshole can teleport and flesh to stone basically at will? And he has ties to a rich public branch of good dragon cult. But he needs you to walk around like a monkey picking herbs from right beneath the cleavages of very angry harpies.

Then when you give him the potion he uses it to nick some magic gem from a statue, lets you keep the stick the gem used to be attached to, and then lets you fight the statue which turns out to be an ancient evil lizard man from the evil dragon cult with evil wizardly Boss Monster powers and nasty undead minion raising.

I immediately suspect the dick wizard of working for the evils. But then, I always did.

But it turns out he was just like that, and all the (immediate and plot based) evil in the swamp is caused by one faceless nameless necromancer you never met before and promptly kill.

Also you eventually find the swashbuckling cleavage's plot hook out in a crypt somewhere and take her for a cough-jiggle to see her own undead spanish swashbuckling theif ex boyfriend who she betrayed and left in the swamp (she is such a swashbuckling incredible dick) and he want's to doom her to his rotting company for all eternity (because he is such a dick). And it can turn out a number of ways with about five different avenues for yourself to somehow be a dick (and almost none that aren't dicky) But eventually I paid a lot of money to him to buy the cleavage back, then I set the cleavage free because apparently paying for her doesn't entitle me to any portion of the cleavage or it's future profits.

Side rant 2!
Did you know? Frequently various quests, including major plot line ones will require you to shell out dozens or HUNDREDS of Ducats of gold for like no reason. And there is almost NO way of getting around it.

And if there is a way to get around it it requires some random specific social or knowledge skill totally maxed out and a one chance only roll now with no warning and never again lucky roll.

And then MAYBE you get like a 10% discount or something.

But it still requires you to shell out all your cash and makes it hard for you to buy real power in the form of stupidly ugly armor and laughably ineffective weapons. Also "combat powers" which are the MMO element that the game uses require vast MMO expenditures of cash AND experience points!

The plot seems to love giving you some big cash reward, then moments later demanding you pay it all back to some anonymous guy for a passport or some shit or the game won't progress.

And you can't just go grind for cash because the only random encounters are during inter map travel and you only ever travel between maps at appointed times in the plot and can never go back and forth between them again!

Mind you I didn't have serious cash problems. The MMO powers were the only thing I couldn't always afford, the ugly armor shops only had limited ranges and numbers of stuff and if they ever fucking restocked so much as a single second "chain mail limb armor" item it was on a scripted event several chapters in I never actually encountered.
back to the plot

ALSO in the swamp you recruit your new swamp party member, only she is this totally hot "blond elf"... with questionable powers based largely off archery (which was ass to use due to ever shot using one or more arrows and the once ever world supply of them apparently being in the very low hundreds). She seems nice enough, if kind of bland. But then you remember that her mission in the swamp is actually to kill an ancient elf spirit and steal his magic elf items. And that she failed at this so badly that when you meet her she is having bondage sex with an evil tentacle tree (well, I don't think that's what they INTENDED it to seem like, but still).

Hilariously you can be a total dick and just leave her there writhing and moaning for like ages while you wander around doing your other quests or stocking up on potions and buffs and junk before fighting the tree.

ANYWAY.

Having achieved the wizard's mission of horribly killing his apprentice, nearly losing a book of ancient wisdom needed to save humanity, unleashing an ancient evil snake man, nicking a gem and teleporting himself home leaving you in the swamp, and nearly killing you like five times in the process. Well, having done that and potentially worked out your issues with the undead swashbuckler dick and the walking cleavage swashbuckler dick your work here is done.

So you return to big-city-ville but before you can continue you are forced to ass about a bit with some bitchy trade dispute on the docks that started as an unfinishable side quest last time you were in town, only you aren't allowed to finish it even now.

And by the way let me talk about RAT MISSION. RAT MISSION is an annoying mission given to you by fucking dwarfs. Like every dwarf related thing in this game it is all about ALE. The basement in the ale works is full of FUCKING RATS. About the size of you. These are the same fucking rats that you have been fighting on and off while chasing cultists in sewers, finding evil crazy old wizards in mine shafts and swamps, and generally interacting with for about one in every 4 or so combat encounters.

RAT MISSION then requires you to slog through a no exploration, no turns shooting gallery on rails map (well, actually that's what almost all indoors maps in this scriptfest happen to be like) that goes down for like SIX DAMN BASEMENT SUB LEVELS of ever tougher but cosmetically identical rats.

You slog through them all fine, but then the boss rat is a big bastard which also periodically spawns lots of the toughest regular rats (standard boss behaviour for this game), and I think he regenerates. And frankly with what I thought was upper mid range RoA style gear and character skills I couldn't come close to taking him.

Also one of the dwarfs who employs you is like an expert basement spelunker. And every time you slog through a sub level of rats he is WAITING for you at the next set of stairs because he took the unpickable lock short cuts. THE TOTAL DICK. I'm sure he was working for the rats, and the evils.

So. Compulsory Merchant madness and several humilating deaths trying to complete optional RAT MISSION out of the way you can continue the script.

Now the public good dragon cult guys, I think, seem to want you to go to some forest and check out some ruins for some reason. I can't remember why. I think they wanted an orb or something. I didn't care and it didn't sound interesting.

You arrive in the forest and promptly meet a witch. She might be able to help you get past THE IMPENETRABLE MAGICAL FUCKING FORCEFIELD inexplicably surrounding the ruins.

Hey, here is an idea Good Dragon Cultists, mention that before I go. Give me a magic forcefield key, or hey, why don't you get that crazy fucking asshole teleporting super wizard to teleport me in, hell I saw him making forcefields before, maybe he knows a thing or two about them, unless the forcefield on the ruins is his doing, I wouldn't be surprised, I bet if I actually go in there his other 14 year old apprentice is being eaten by god damn orcs.

ANYWAY witch lady is also a pig herder and has a terribly ugly deep voice with a hillbilly accent. She also totally hates the patriarch mainstream priest guys (like pimp priest and scholar bimbo) and wants you to humiliate one of them before she lets you save the world by introducing you to her coven leader who likely will want you to do her dry cleaning by holding it above your head and base jumping from the nearby mountain before SHE lets you save the fucking world. (can you tell I'm pretty much about to quit this shit here)

Anyway, then you roll around the only fucking other path in the fucking forest... And you get dumped in the middle of Bandit Intrigue! Two bunches of bandits (groups of Swashbuckling total dicks, surprisingly) act like total dicks to each other, and to you, they both want to rob you.

Your options, if you have the skills (and I did) are A) Join the dicky new comers against the other dicky lot. B) Join the dicky we were here first crew against the other dicky lot. C) Anger them both into ganking you because you can't take both at the same time.

You CAN'T and I repeat CAN'T trick them into fighting each other, then kill the survivors. Who ever you help is now your "forest side quest buddy faction" for some sort of bullshit bandit war sequence of side missions or something, I don't care and never found out.

And that is the climax of our exiting story because I stopped playing.

But I have one more note to add.

Side Rant 3 FUCKING COMBAT
OK. So you can tell from the hints I dropped about bosses, RAT MISSION, and the Bandit Gang Gankfest that there is something... wrong with combat.

Well see the old RoA games fucking rocked when it came to combat. (within the confines of old school style assumptions of low standards)

That was what it was REALLY all about. Turn based, tactical, all about position, you built walls with tanks and shit like that. It wasn't very tactically diverse beyond "take a lot of archers" or "take a lot of guys with heavy armor" but it worked.

DRAKENSANG!!111!! uses realtime combat. from the same third person perspective you do everything else. one minute you are running through rat mission, next thing there are rats all over the place biting the shit out of you.

And they bite everyone they don't bite the guy up front, they seemingly randomly pick targets and run right past or through other targets to get to them, and you got NOTHING that can stop them.

So weak guys totally go down if there is any kind of challenging opponent or challenging numbers of opponents.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE.

Drakensang uses a wierd combo HP, Dodge, Damage Soak, Wound Penalty, Fixed number of wounds system.

No really ALL of those.

So you have HP.

And when things attack you they might hit or miss (they seem to always do so, but whatever).

And if you wear lighter or no armor you are supposed to be better at dodging (no evidence of that in my experience of the game).

But heavier armor though making you easier to hit reduces the damage you receive.

Also you can't wear certain armor and cast spells. So some guys HAVE to go light with dodge and no DR. Unless you want to be an all warrior party, but good luck waiting the 15 hours of game play before you collect the PCs for that. Not that I recommend it because the best damage seems to come from spaming maxed out ignifaxus and fulminictus spells.

And that being ranged avoids having to use the totally unusable manual character maneuvering or spasming automated path finding to walk over to your targets (monsters can seem to walk right to anything they want to, you are compelled to walk around in circles while unpaused being attacked and not making attacks).

And since it runs off mana you don't have to worry about using up the last set of 7 arrows available on your current map.

But I digress.

So, hit for damage miss, dodge or DR for light or heavy armor, OK?

BUT also if a hit damages you a lot (and a lot is actually not all that much) then you suffer a WOUND.

You can only suffer a fixed number of wounds before you KO (and I think it was 3, or maybe 5).

Also every wound you has makes you crap, like weaker defense and attack and junk.

Healing wounds in combat may as well be impossible, you CAN do it, but it takes long enough that by the time you do three other guys have wounds. Not that it matters much because the same goes for healing hit points and you pretty much can't bring back a guy who has been KOed.

No the boundary for dealing a wound is... odd. Almost anything can seem to do it on a critical hit, which is common enough in any kind of multiple opponent scenario. But some critters just WON'T do it on their normal hits while others WILL do it on pretty much EVERY normal hit.

So when you hit anything remotely challenging, like a large mob or anything close to your level, Wounds rain down on all your characters, especially the lightly armored ones, who are the best ones at dealing damage.

So challenging monsters and large mobs, TPK you almost without variation. You can't do what you could in Star Trail and earn some bullshit amount of loot and XP in a harder than appropriate encounter using skill or anything, you just get ganked.

And oddly almost EVERY damn human opponent in the game seems capable of dealing wounds left right and center. Fighting with all your characters against one ooze? No problem. 4 oozes? Well, that's a coin flip for TPK even if you pause like a bitch and spam out your MMO spells and combat powers every time they refresh (man I hate that MMO refresh and click bullshit).

But even ONE fucking cultist, a guy wearing a god damn red pants suit and throwing steak knives at you, AT LEAST as hard as 5 or 6 oozes. 4 fucking dick head swashbucklers of the like the world seems almost exclusively inhabited by are a major challenge.

And boss characters, like mamma rat (who I suspect of secretly working with alcoholic spelunker dick head dwarf) spawn mildly tough lesser monsters periodically, and not at certain health levels, but ever so many god damn seconds. If you don't spam out your fulminictus fast enough to drop a boss before or during the third spawning (by which point the boss has probably dealt enough wounds on their own to cripple or KO 1 or 2 characters) Well, then you are well screwed.

Also, the mobs on the slightly more open maps (what little of the game can be said to be like that), they are quiet aggressive, tend to wander around a little, often end up overlapping with other mobs, and sometimes have preexisting mobs that overlap in location with mobs that spawn based on plot events. And if you don't clear the initial mobs before the event then you may have to fight both at once.

I mean in the swamp I could take on a giant crab OR some zombies, and I could coin flip the TPK from the harpies. But all at once was DOOM. And some save games were totally screwed as a result.

HECK one time for no god damn reason I went to fight the harpies at their harpy nest and they mysteriously did some weird path finding error thing and flew right across the other side of the god damn map. Where they camped on not one but TWO giant fucking crabs on the only road back into god damn town! When I eventually found them on the way back I had to reload and go do the proper harpy fight in the proper damn place.

I knew that them all running off so I could steal their unborn babies for that nice psycho wizard dude's potion to unleash an evil monster on me was too easy.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Because they are filled with fail. Chrono Cross is an absolute train wreck that should have never been released. Aside from producing a remix or two of the original Chrono Trigger BGM, it gives nothing of value back to the universe. It's one of those games that allows people to instantly assess the character of a fellow gamer - if someone reveals that Chrono Cross is one of their favorite RPGs, it's a good sign that their judgment shouldn't be trusted.

I've been wondering what other games fit this criteria.

[PhoneLobster]

I've been wondering what other games fit this criteria.

Off the top of my head.

Starcraft, Warcraft, World of Warcraft, and Halo.

Plus every second game based on world war 2 (and there are a lot of them).

[Neeeek]

I've been wondering what other games fit this criteria.

Off the top of my head.

Starcraft, Warcraft, World of Warcraft, and Halo.

Plus every second game based on world war 2 (and there are a lot of them).

Remind me to never listen to you on games ever.

[PhoneLobster]

OK, fair enough, my hatred of Halo may be a little excessive considering my experience with it.

But really, the various craft games are genuinely bad. And deeply derivative and uncreative.

Are you seriously going to sit down and tell me there is something about the settings, stories, graphics, or game play that any of those three games have that wasn't ground broken earlier and better by someone else?

Dune 2, Command and Conquer, Everquest, Blizzard makes a living off ripping off other peoples material and making blander more derivative copies.

Being popular means nothing. Other than I get to call them "lowest common denominator populist shit".

[Murtak]

Are you seriously going to sit down and tell me there is something about the settings, stories, graphics, or game play that any of those three games have that wasn't ground broken earlier and better by someone else?

Dune 2, Command and Conquer, Everquest, Blizzard makes a living off ripping off other peoples material and making blander more derivative copies.

As for gameplay, as far as I know Everquest pretty much had the first raids (20+ players versus a single boss mob/event). Not that Everquest is a *craft or Blizzard game - accidental hatred spillover on your part?

By the way, something like "damn good balancing" counts as a major selling point for multiplayer for me and from what I have seen you state you don't even seem to regard it as noteworthy.

[Draco_Argentum]

Finally got Demigod working in multiplayer. I have to force it to use non default ports with the port picker utility it comes with. Since the ports its force on are the same range I had open to work with the default settings its some bug with their code.

[PhoneLobster]

As for gameplay, as far as I know Everquest pretty much had the first raids (20+ players versus a single boss mob/event). Not that Everquest is a *craft or Blizzard game - accidental hatred spillover on your part?

I think you are miss reading, everquest and co are just some of the prior art examples that undermine Blizzard's credibility as any kind of creative group.

By the way, something like "damn good balancing" counts as a major selling point for multiplayer for me and from what I have seen you state you don't even seem to regard it as noteworthy.

It isn't note worthy, a lot of games, especially in those era's were very well balanced. Game play back then WAS the big selling point, cause back then the graphics and such weren't so amazing (and many of the games were more fun and engaging as a result).

Certainly for all the touted balance of say, star craft, TA actually predates it and is significantly better balanced for actual playability, where as star craft has serious tipping point issues that make it a dead boring game to actually play for anyone who isn't a retarded click monkey.

I mean fuck "balanced" haven't you heard of the "zerg rush" star craft is the poster child of bad game play balance! If you look "bad RTS game play" in the dictionary there will be a damn picture of a zergling next to it.

[Murtak]

The existence of an early rush strategy does not make a game unbalanced. I haven't played TA myself, so I can't comment on that game, but C&C is a piece of shit in terms of game balance, unit variation and gameplay in comparison to Starcraft.

[Surgo]

I mean fuck "balanced" haven't you heard of the "zerg rush" star craft is the poster child of bad game play balance! If you look "bad RTS game play" in the dictionary there will be a damn picture of a zergling next to it.

Remind me to never listen to you on gaming, ever.

Starcraft is one of the best-balanced games ever created and is practically the best balance you can ever get without having everyone play the same character. If you look at the top levels of play, you will find people playing an equal distribution of all three races -- and a good variety of strategies run for each race throughout individual games.


Everquest itself was a derivative work, yes with the "raids" aspect too. There's rarely anything 'new', and it really doesn't matter, a work can be derivative and still awesome.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you have a Nintendo DS and you don't have Henry Hatsworth then you're a double weiner.

[violence in the media]

If you have a Nintendo DS and you don't have Henry Hatsworth then you're a double weiner.

My buddy did the music and sound for that game. It's quite a lot of fun and surprisingly challenging.

[Draco_Argentum]

Certainly for all the touted balance of say, star craft, TA actually predates it and is significantly better balanced for actual playability, where as star craft has serious tipping point issues that make it a dead boring game to actually play for anyone who isn't a retarded click monkey.

TA has very similar units on each side and lots of them were not useful. Its only really mods like uberhack that put in some differentiation between the sides and make more units worthwhile.

[PhoneLobster]

TA had a game balance that permitted game play to be decided by more than a single combat encounter.

Star craft doesn't. One encounter and extremely limited (and crap) resource model will cause a tipping point event and the game is over.

End of story.

The problem with the zergling rush wasn't that it was a rush or too soon, it's that because of the poor resource model and game play (not fucking unit, actual game play) balance the zergling rush was the end of the game.

You can wank all you want over unit balance (which wasn't), the game play was shit.

TA has very similar units on each side and lots of them were not useful.

TA did have very similar units on both sides. But pro 'craft' wankers were touting balance, and that similarity was part of some very good balance.

As for "many not being useful". Bullshit.

You wouldn't build incredibly diverse forces, but then you don't in star craft either. You build the appropriate 2-3 unit types based on your strategy, tech level and to counter your enemies strategy, and basically every single damn unit had a role within some strategy, counter strategy or phase of game play.

And since TA had some actual playable game balance it could easily see you expend time and resources on an early game rush, AND a mid game battle force AND a late game army, AND forces to counter a specific enemy threats you could very well build the majority of the available units at some point in even a single game.

But you know, fuck star craft.

ALL the "craft" games were like this.

Dune 2 predated Warcraft and was a better more fun game with greater playability. And the only game play elements introduced by war craft were BAD developments.

Command and Conquer predated Warcraft 2 and was also better.

TA Kingdoms predated Warcraft 3, and did everything it did earlier and better.

And though I won't comment on Everquest and all its clones doing better or not, they certainly did exactly the same thing that WoW did earlier. And it definitely is a wholesale clone of Everquest itself.

[PhoneLobster]

Starcraft is one of the best-balanced games ever created

Really? Why? care to explain in some detail or are you just parroting the same mantra chanted by moronic Starcraft fan boys since BEFORE it's god damn release?

I mean what exactly is good about its horrific unit micro management issues? worker drone attack rushes? One hit wonder economies? Ridiculously annoying "unit upgrade" research? It's minuscule unit caps?

"A bunch of it's biggest fan boys play a bunch of factions and strategies and declare it the most balanceded gamez eva!" Is frankly a moronic argument.

Everquest itself was a derivative work

But it was THE derivative work of the genre at the time and the exact game that Blizzard chose to "imitate" (cough cough, steal wholesale, cough cough).

And SURE being derivative is OK. But being NOTHING but derivative isn't. Being nothing but derivative, then getting it wrong (AKA Warcraft 1 and 2 especially) is even worse.

But craft fanboys, especially beyond WoW, don't even KNOW their much worshiped games are derivative, they think they are originally kick ass shit! They don't think starcraft is a poor setting clone of the already derivative and candy ass 40K setting with a poor implementation of RTS mechanics ripped whole sale from a bunch of Westwood studios games.

Seriously, ask half those guys and they'll tell you that star craft and war craft invented the genre because those guys don't know dick, and that's why being a star craft fan boy indicates your incredible poor taste in games and poor knowledge of games, games history and game play.

[Surgo]

Really? Why? care to explain in some detail or are you just parroting the same mantra chanted by moronic Starcraft fan boys since BEFORE it's god damn release?

How about some results from top-level tournaments in Korea since about 2001? This is, obviously, the highest level of competitive play. These numbers are for tournament winners only, and will balloon when you add non-winners to the mix.

Ongamenet Starleague
Z: 8
P: 8
T: 11

MBC Starleague:
T: 9
P: 4
Z: 7

World Cyber Games:
P: 2
T: 4
Z: 3

Damn, that looks extremely balanced to me! How about we compare to some popular fighting games. We'll take tournament results from the winners of Evo, which represents the highest level of competitive play in the world for Capcom fighting games. Results are from Evo 2007.

Street Fighter 3 3rd Strike:
Akuma: 1
Chun Li: 4
Ken: 6
Ibuki: 1
Makoto: 1
Ryu: 1
Urien: 2
Yun: 4

That's not even half the characters in the game. Seriously.

I'm tired of copy/pasting now. Look at Super Street Fighter II tournaments and you'll see less than half the characters in the game. Look at Marvel vs Capcom 2 tournaments and you'll see lots of Magneto, Sentinel, Storm, Cable, Psylocke, Cyclops, Captain Commando and some Iron Man and nobody else (and there are over 50 characters in that game). Look at Super Smash Bros Melee tournaments and you'll see lots of Fox and Marth with some Falco, Sheik, Peach, Captain Falcon, and occasionally Ice Climbers and Jigglypuff. Which doesn't even make up half the characters in that game. I'm not sure what other random game statistics you want me to check, I mostly know fighting games and there's not even a concept of "balance" in most shooters because everybody starts with the same damn weapons. (Call of Duty 4 and Counterstrike being notable exceptions; the former is pretty well balanced, the latter not.) Then look at Starcraft. You'll see Protoss, Terran, and Zerg in roughly the same numbers (Terran tends to come out on top a bit, but there will never be perfectly even numbers).

When it comes to game balance, Starcraft has hit the nail on the fucking head. At least compared to just about every other competitive game out there.

I mean what exactly is good about its horrific unit micro management issues? worker drone attack rushes? One hit wonder economies? Ridiculously annoying "unit upgrade" research? It's minuscule unit caps?

What the fuck does that have to do with game balance?

Seriously, ask half those guys and they'll tell you that star craft and war craft invented the genre because those guys don't know dick, and that's why being a star craft fan boy indicates your incredible poor taste in games and poor knowledge of games, games history and game play.

What the fuck does this have to do with game balance?

[RandomCasualty2]

Yeah as Surgo has said, Starcraft is incredibly well balanced, even at the top levels of play, and you're talking people who are ridiculously good at the game and know every little trick.

Command and Conquer predated Warcraft 2 and was also better.

Honestly, Command and conquer?

Have you ever played that game... it fucking sucked.. horribly. It was just all tanks, tanks and more tanks, with no way to counter them. At all.

And that's pretty much the way it goes with most RTS.

Starcraft is fucking awesome and the proof is that it survived for so long. It was released in 1998. The graphics are primitive as all hell, but people still play it because it's that fucking awesome. We're talking a game that was released 2 years before the PS2 came out. And it's still running strong.

As far as derivative works: everything is conceptually derivative of something. I don't give a fuck what it is. You're going to be able to point to some obscure novel or game or whatever that got ripped off.

But to the best of my knowledge the craft games were the first ones to use that RTS style interface with attack move, patrol and unit spellcasting. Command and conquer had a horrible interface in comparison. Combine that with unit balance and you get a great RTS game.

The problem with the zergling rush wasn't that it was a rush or too soon, it's that because of the poor resource model and game play (not fucking unit, actual game play) balance the zergling rush was the end of the game.

If you lose to zergling rushes, you're just not good enough. Honestly, the zergling rush is pretty much a newbie strategy. If you learn how to micro you shouldn't lose to it.

It sounds like you're bitter against the game because you got your ass handed to you a bunch of times.

[PhoneLobster]

How about some results from top-level tournaments in Korea since about 2001?

And how about how I already told you that having the biggest star craft fan boys in the world effectively express their opinion on the matter in such a way is pretty fucking stupid as a point in your favor?

How about you address a single of the playability concerns star craft has that something as incredibly shallow as prefered faction of the ultra fan boy elite effectively don't even begin to address?

Seriously, unit balance, faction balance, I don't give a shit if the game play and resource model means the game is over based on a drone rush micro management exploit in the first fucking minute.

What the fuck does that have to do with game balance?

A game can be the most fair game in the world, like a totally fair coin flipping machine, and be NO FUCKING FUN.

Getting your game play balance right means among other things balancing your resource and micro management within boundaries that create actual fun outcomes.

All those points are points on which star craft fails abysmally. It balances your required micro management and economy in such a way as to create undesirable outcomes from zerg and drone rushes and otherwise break the game down to a single lame battle encounter that sufficiently depletes the resources of one side as to decide the rest, no matter how early, no matter how small the encounter.

What the fuck does this have to do with game balance?

That's bringing it back to the point, about games indicative of someone who shouldn't be listened to about games.

Every person I have ever seen wanking over star craft knows shit about what is or what makes a computer game fun and playable.

Such as for instance you, who defends the fun playability of star craft by quoting faction distrubution among the most die hard fans who are SUCH incredible wankers as to still be playing it today, and indeed to play it competitvely. I can't imagine a sadder sub category of modern computer gamer as them. Except perhaps those who hold them up as a shining example.

Starcraft is fucking awesome and the proof is that it survived for so long. It was released in 1998. The graphics are primitive as all hell, but people still play it because it's that fucking awesome.

Wankers play it because it was the game that made it big and remains alive, to a limited degree based on that momentum.

And it made it big primarily due to a purely lucky break in demographics by entering the Korean market at an insanely fortunate moment.

It has a cult following that will simply never play another RTS unless it has Starcraft in the name and so the original continues its zombie shamble until a sequel is released. Hopefully the sequel will suck badly enough to put the silver bullet in that zombie skull once and for all.

But to the best of my knowledge the craft games were the first ones to use that RTS style interface with attack move, patrol and unit spellcasting. Command and conquer had a horrible interface in comparison. Combine that with unit balance and you get a great RTS game.

They weren't.

Except possibly the micro management spell casting. But since that is a BAD development in RTS design I'm happy to give that to the craft games.

If you lose to zergling rushes, you're just not good enough. Honestly, the zergling rush is pretty much a newbie strategy. If you learn how to micro you shouldn't lose to it.

It sounds like you're bitter against the game because you got your ass handed to you a bunch of times.

Lets say you are right. Which you aren't since you are really just resorting to ad hominem.

But lets say you were right.

You've described one of the most incredibly major game play problems it presents.

Unless you conform to its incredibly BAD micromanagement requirements you will be tipping pointed out of the game before you begin.

How is that a good point in your favor to be raising? Really?

Especially when, might I add the hate of the zergling rush, for the reason you described is so wide spread as it is the FIRST thing you will hear anyone say when someone mentions star craft. It is that much of a game play problem.

That is a serious fucking issue with the game being playable. And frankly I don't care if you over come it because even if you want to handle star crafts shocking micro management issues the tipping point issue never goes away.

Whether its Zergling rush or any other attack even mid or late game the resource tipping points mean that the one single encounter will pretty much win or lose the game for the attacker regardless.

Star craft sucks.

You want to defend it then don't try the miraculous "Why yes this is a widely, hell legendary, hated issue with the game. Therefore it isn't a game play problem!"

It just makes you look stupid.

[Murtak]

Ok, this is going to sound a little harsh, but I can't put it any other way.

PL, just because you suck at the game it is not unbalanced. Yes, Zergling rushes exist. But good players are able to deal with them and counter them. There are also Terran and Protoss rush strategies, mid-game strategies, you can flank your opponent and have it be useful, you can go for massed units or elite units - in short, there is an incredible variety of useful and diverse strategies. The keywords being variety, useful and diverse.

You seem to judge game balance by how long it takes the worse player to be ousted from the game and diversity by the number of units. So to you a game which takes to play out and has a ton of units will be a good game, even if 90% of the units are objectively useless and even if all of the important decisions are made within 2 minutes and the rest of the game is just someone slowly losing.

I am a bad Starcraft player myself - not horrible but certainly not good. But I can recognize a good game when I see balanced tournament results, when I see playbacks with incredibly varied tactics and when the game has a counter for every move.

You instead dismiss tournament results as fanboyism. Frankly, that is an incredibly shitty thing to say. You dismiss the results of dedicated players because they like the game? Can you name a better rubric to judge a game's balance by than tournament results?

[PhoneLobster]

bullshit

I've covered all that you're just wanking, get your dick out of your hand star craft fan boy.

[Murtak]

You might want to read this:

Notice that the good players are reaching higher and higher levels of play. They found the "cheap stuff" and abused it. They know how to stop the cheap stuff. They know how to stop the other guy from stopping it so they can keep doing it. And as is quite common in competitive games, many new tactics will later be discovered that make the original cheap tactic look wholesome and fair. Often in fighting games, one character will have something so good it's unfair. Fine, let him have that. As time goes on, it will be discovered that other characters have even more powerful and unfair tactics. Each player will attempt to steer the game in the direction of his own advantages, much how grandmaster chess players attempt to steer opponents into situations in which their opponents are weak.

Zergling rushes are seriously not a problem, even for bad players like me. They are only an issue if one player uses the build (which is admittedly easy to copy once you have seen a single replay) and the other player is just aimlessly clicking. Honestly, it's not even a very good rush, it's just the fastest rush. Learn to counter it and the game will only get better because of it.

Also:

Can you name a better rubric to judge a game's balance by than tournament results?

[PhoneLobster]

Again, wanking, read my post or get your jiz rag already.

[cthulhu]

We did, and we concluded that it is a bit silly. Every RTS has massive micro issues - because 'micro' is the tactical level of the game, and due to the way these things work you need to rentlessly optimise your focus fire. TA has these issues except more so, because you need to compensate for the movement of the units more.

Starcraft has three viable teams with a number of viable strategies and no degenerate strategies. TA, your counter point, while a game I like, has a number of degenerate strategies.