Gamers? Are you out there Gamers?

[Shi no Tenshi]

Heh, never done the pokemon thing myself. Is it worth it?

[Neinteen]

Originally Posted by Shi no Tenshi

Heh, never done the pokemon thing myself. Is it worth it?

why would someone your age play pokemon -.-

[App13]

Originally Posted by Shi no Tenshi

Heh, never done the pokemon thing myself. Is it worth it?

Its pretty big over here in NE, its incredibly addicting and actually pretty deep. If you have a NDS I strongly suggest picking it up

[Shi no Tenshi]

Originally Posted by Neinteen

why would someone your age play pokemon -.-

See, notice I said I've never played it. That would be why. Granted, I've seen similar arguements leveled against playing video games in general.....

[App13]

Originally Posted by Neinteen

why would someone your age play pokemon -.-

Well, on one hand I have my Half Life, portal, tf2, SC etc. On the other I have my Diamond, viva pinata and Marios.

I just basically like a lot of games. I say, if the game is fun, play it.

[Phrogger]

P]retty much console games only. My favorites:

The Onimusha series (PS2)- I played all but the original. When's the next one coming out?

The Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 1 & 2 (PS2)- My husband and I lost a lot of sleep playing these games in co-op mode. Still Waiting for the next sequel.

Okami (PS2)- really awesome, unique game.

For the record, Pokemon's quite fun and addictive if you get into it. (Please, if you play video games at all you've got no right to make fun of anybody for which games they like!) I never did catch all of them, though...but I did get pretty far. I'm embarrassed to say how many hours I spent wading back and forth through the tall grass trying to catch something that only had a 1/100 chance of appearing. And THEN you have to disable it, but not kill it, and you'd better have a Master ball (only one in the game) or you're never going to catch it. And if you don't, go right back to wading in the grass. Darn those programmers!

[Shi no Tenshi]

If you like the dark alliance games, you should get Diablo 2 and play with us.

[VELISARIOS]

I am gamer,
I like Oblivion, and the Neverwinter nights series, and at the online univerce Lord of the Rings and Age of Conan.
I am also and tabletop gamer, my best is Dungeon and Dragons, and I'll try the 4th edition soon with my friends.

[App13]

Anyone play Sins Of A Solar Empire?

[Shi no Tenshi]

So, anybody else in the Red Alert 3 Beta? I am.

[Timberwolf_CY]

I was playing X-Wing a lot when I got it working on an old comp of my grandmother's...but it got old after awhile...I did however get a lot farther than I ever did when I was younger. TIE Fighter is a great game too, I'll probably install that soon also. Unfortunately games like those I think would only work on older systems that accept the pin-adapter joysticks, so eventually I run out of computers to put the games on, I worry.

I've been been playing a lot of Dawn of War: Dark Crusade lately with a friend, playing team battles against the AI. We just upped it to Harder (4/5 difficulty) but it came up as Tau, which in the hands of the AI suck, so it wasn't a true test of our collective mettle. It's a fun game, but the play balancing isn't quite right.

I have many older PC games, and a few newer ones.

I only wish I had a PSP to play the new FFT, I have the original on my old Playstation, and I've beaten it twice now. Go Lancers!

MechWarrior II is where I got my screenname, which I have been using since...hmmm...well, ever since I can remember, god, like 1996 (not necessarily on the Internet only, I used it elsewhere as a sort of nickname for myself).

As far as tabletop/pen and paper goes, I play DnD 3.5 occasionally, Star Wars sometimes (but not in the last year). I have a full Tau army for Warhammer 40,000 (with everything tooled up, WYSIWYG, about 1800 pts) but I haven't played in about a year...definitely not since the new "5th ed." came out, which I've heard generally good things about. I also play BattleTech whenever I get the chance, but I also haven't played that in a year or so. I also just invented a medieval-fantasy boardgame for use with Legos, of which I have a ton (probably about 70 or so minifigures just for the Castle series alone). I playtested it for the second time tonight; the first time it was horribly lopsided loss for the defender of the castle, this time it was a horribly lopsided defeat for the attacker...heavy revision remains necessary.

Fun times...

[bob46]

360's and pc's rock!

can't say the same for vista though...

maybe that comes from my 1.5 gigs of RAM...

is this NOT ENOUGH to run the damn windows vista on my system??? (w/o lagging like hell)

sheesh...

ooh btw go halo!

i has an xbox too, i followed halo from the start!

it went downhill from halo:ce

I don't get the peestation systems and the wheee!

[Shi no Tenshi]

Halo sucked from the beginning. It is a weak FPS that only sells because it is on consoles.

It's hard to go very far downhill when you start at the bottom.

[AdamH]

Many, many years ago I dabbled in these computer game things:

Head over Heels
Batman
Street Fighter 2 Turbo
System Shock
TIE Fighter

Then, things suddenly got better

Was in the no.1 UK Quakeworld clan, Quakelords, but not 3r33t like some of the other chaps in international dueling. I was a mean DM6 specialist.
Won the Tribes league run by Wireplay with a lovely bunch of boys in Kiluminati.
Quake 3 Arena I stopped playing after a year and a tournament win in London's Shoot n' Surf meant I was one of the first in the UK to possess an Athlon 650, so ditched the Abit BP6 with dual celerons which was perfect until then for Q3.
Anything other than QW was simplified, slow and shallow. Counterstrike? No thank you.
A little game called Subspace Continuum; was running the tip top cast of British Squad and in my season we were number 1 in the world

Have to go where the competition exists, so...

These sensible days, my poison is Go (specialising in 10s blitz), poker and fencing. Interestingly, even after 10 years there are a large proportion of Quakeworld players that have taken up go and several who are now professional poker players (unlike me)

[Shi no Tenshi]

I'll agree CS is slow, but like any other FPS in competition, it's as shallow as you make it. And if you are telling me all FPS's aren't simplified, you're full of it.

I'm guessing you're anti-UT as well.

[AdamH]

Originally Posted by Shi no Tenshi

I'll agree CS is slow, but like any other FPS in competition, it's as shallow as you make it. And if you are telling me all FPS's aren't simplified, you're full of it.

I'm guessing you're anti-UT as well.

It's a bit like comparing Connect 4 and chess where the game's rules produce depth. In the case of 1v1, 4v4, etc shooty-shooty games the rules encompass, but are not limited to; physics, maps, weapons and how the playing entity gets to interact with these features. Perceived shallowness is practically limited by the range of possible successful strategies employed by expert players.

In the case of CS, relative to certain games (ie, Quakeworld) the maneuvering options were/are limited. Possible routes around the accepted maps are pretty linear, ie the maps are simple. This means the opportunity to employ technical maneuvering skills to navigate a complex environment and thus present decisions with respect to a gradient of risk is small. Therefore, the learning curve for movement plateaus much earlier, ie the game is more accessible or 'easier'.

The relative speed of the playing entity to the size of the environment produces an increasing demand for skill and acts as a multiplier for the above consideration and...

Weapon effects; where in CS the majority of player tools are hitscan, ie instahit, considerations of the three body problem is eliminated and the majority of fighting is limited to line of sight with visible opponents. This is in contrast to area of effect projectile weapons, like say a rocket launcher which...

if these weapons produce displacement or other effects on an opponent, this results in additional choices in the risk spectrum for the basic damage objective. Also, these add another dimension in effective disorientation and recovery between players, specifically with respect to maneuverability. A sufficiently complex environment also factors in this as a capability, ie rocket-jumping or knocking an opponent into a hazardous area.

Finally, powerups will, depending on the effect they produce, define a map in terms of local and short-term objectives of the players and alter the balance of the total map continuously.

If anything, ID Software is to blame in creating the railgun to make Quake 2 a game which is more accessible to beginners but creating a far shallower competitive platform. UT was more complex than Q2, far less than QW but possibly more than Q3 prior to CPM and other mods which aimed to increase the complexity of the vanilla Q3 game.

CS was and is a simple game with simple maps utilitising simple hitscan weapons with simple physics. It is certainly massively popular, but so are Big Brother and Eastenders.

Interestingly, established QW players successfully transitioned to CS for specific cash tournaments but continued to mostly play other games, ie 4K and SK.

Games which have attempted to address these issues on a commercial scale such as Painkiller and Warsow have had varying degrees of success technically and in terms of audience. Perhaps Quakelive may present something interesting with regards to audience draw by utilising more sophisticated matching frontends.

I have not played these games going on for four years now and probably won't in the future but these arguments came forward pretty easily

[Shi no Tenshi]

Basically, you prefer your personal games set of rules that you can work in, versus another games rules. While you try to justify that fact with a variety of specifics, in the end it comes down to your preference, and your suggested high ground in relation to that.

While yes, projectile weapons that have a longer travel time do present you with different choices and tactics, you also have those choices to make in the other games. Would you say that your rocket launcher is easier or harder to use than a grenade in CS? They both have travel time, both take into account movement of your prey, and your ability to outthink them in the terrain. If you honestly think that rocket launching adds that much depth to a game, I don't know what to tell you. It's an extra trick in your arsenal, yes, but there are other tricks in other games that you can't do in QW.

You make the comment that CS has simple weapons, simple physics, and simple maps, etc. While the maps are definately more bizzare in QW, I can't say the physics or weapons are exactly the most complex. The physics engine employed for CS at it's base level is more complex than was even possible when QW was made.

Now, I don't have anything against QW vs any other FPS, and I would say it is definately in the top tier of them, definately above the crap that is on consoles(Halo and it's ilk), but your percieved superiority of it seems a bit shallow.

[AdamH]

Hi Shi No Tenshi,

Thanks for taking the time to put together a reasonable response. I appreciate semi-intelligent discussion.

You are right when you describe player preferences. Personally, I prefer games where there exist winning strategies involving high intensity movement, decision-making and interaction. Especially games where there exist a valid counter-strategy of a more peaceful and measured approach by a suffiently skilled opponent.

I'm sorry if I did not make the point regarding movement physics clear. By physics I mean specifically events like trickjumping - strafe-running and wall-hugging in Doom, rocket jumping in UT, double-jumping in Q2, plasma climbing in Q3, bunny-hopping in Warsow. Now, some these activities are possible through the application of non-hitscan weapons and further enhanced and complicated by them. Furthermore, air-acceleration is a critical property which must be present to permit individual and combinations of some of these actions.

How the architecture of a map is permitted to be interacted with by the player is another interesting feature. If a map is all finger ledges, outcroppings and slopes but the clipping is to result in an effective flat box, the potential field of play is clearly simpler than if these invisible walls were not in place.

Painkiller was an attempt to present the QW experience to a modern audience, and it was interesting to see Q3 players like Voo take a step up.
Warsow is an attempt to further extend the influences of speedrunning and trickjumping into a game where such spatial dexterity is a required learning aspect.

Where QW has, or had, these features, it had them in such quantity that by necessity the complexity permitted the emergence of playing styles that, while different through specialisation by individuals, were variously successful. And it was -fast-. Moreso than many subsequent games, as by design these were 'dumbed down' to make them more accessible and thus shift more units to go with the pretty graphics.

I don't know your background in these kind of games, I hope I am pitching this at the right level but I think you understand.