Wait, was it pirates or warriors?
1. Ninjas. They are good at two things. Killing and stealth. Well, killing generally implies fighting, so it will have to be stealth that we focus on.
Use your incredible shadow arts to go from place to place stealing whatever pleases you and causing mayhem. You can accept missions to steal certain things for someone or try your hand at freelance, selling things on the blackmarket.
2. You're a scout in the King's Army. Forces are invading from the South, or any direction... It has been raining heavily for the last week, so your pyre is soaked. There is no lighting the beacons tonight. But they must be warned! Get moving. -In this action/adventure game, you have no weapons (got drunk and lost a bet) so you are forced to retreat back into your territory unarmed, avoiding the enemy and getting to the King's Palace safely and hastily. Try to mount an attack or defensive by yourself and you will surely be slaughtered.
3. You are the captain of The Arr. You and your bang of scally-wags are some of the last remaining pirates. True pirates - not those modern day wankers. However, seeing as how military powers and overall authority has grown greatly, assaulting other vessels and making off with their loot isn't the greatest idea. (They will send jets to bomb you.) Instead, you and the crew have contented yourselves with merely looking for treasure. So now you sail the seas, searching for tiny deserted islands and shoveling it over a few feet. You'd be amazed at just how much treasure is hidden on these deserted islands. It's probably all from other pirates who buried it there, forgot about it and then died. If you score enough swag, you can retire from your life of piracy and move to a tropical island with a tiny hut. ..hmm.. maybe you'll move to a congested city with too much to do.
4. Napstar. Combining the qualities of Napster and Rock Band, players will make and share music illegally. -The newer version of modern day pirates. P2P piracy.. Get caught by the feds and pay a fine. Fighting them may result in getting shot.
5. A young man has spent years searching for the fabled temple. He wants to crush his enemies with the way of the assassin - leet ninja skills. He has found the ancient temple! Oh, but it took too long. The ninjas have gotten old. Fighting is no longer their hobby. At least, not what the young man was looking for. Board games. They spend their days playing board games. And they have offered you a spot in their monthly tournament! Will you accept? -See if you can defeat the old, wise ninjas in a variety of board games. Watch them closely though... you never know when one will make a chess piece shadow step across the board. If you manage to defeat them, they will reward you with an outfit and a katana. You may not have the incredibly uber skills, but you have their items. And isn't that really what you wanted anyways?
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Guild Wars turns Three!
This week / weekend marks the 3rd anniversary of the release of Guild Wars: Prophecies; the 2nd of Factions, and 1.5th of Nightfall.
To celebrate, ANet did one of their typical event weekends, with extras and what not.
For awhile now, there have been "mini-pets" in the game. They helped ruin the economy. Oh but also, they make a small version of some type of creature to follow your character around. (It is completely useless; but some are very very rare --people like to show off their "l33tn3ss" in online games, so they pay ungodly amounts of money for the rarest ones - see: ruined the economy.
There are a few ways to obtain a mini pet. On a character's birthday (works just like human ones) a little blue box will appear in its inventory. Double-clicking this box will open it up and a small icon of one of the game's creatures will appear in its place. Double-clicking on this icon will summon that thing at your feet, at a scale of oh 1/4 to 1/20 the size of the actual thing it is a mini of. (think Minime or is it Mini-me?)
There are other ways to get one.. such as buying a certain issue of a magazine, or defeating many many others in a GvG or what have you. (Guild vs. Guild)
Each year has its own set, (that might not make sense, or maybe what I next say won't) A green, 2 golds, 3 purples, and then 8 whites. The color determines the rarity and how much you can sell one for if you opt to do that.
Some mini pets cost about 500g to buy. That is .5 k. Then there are a few that go around oh, 8 mil. which is 8,000 k. Thanks for destroying the economy ANet. They also want ectos.
After seeing this year's list of mini-pets, I can't say I am all that pleased. Some are just basic re-skins of already existent ones. Others are just lame things to begin with, but ANet seems to find it so incredibly hilarious.
Seriously, get the damn Ooze out of LA, Kamadan, and KC. That thing is bloody annoying.
-They decided to make a mini Ooze. And its not even one of the whites- its a fricken purple! Omg, why!?
The Black Beast of Arrgh, is basically the rollerbeetle mini, with just the slightest change to the skin. Eh, c'mon guys. really? And its gold.
Now the nornbear, that one is pretty cool, its a purple and I'm bound to buy one if one of my characters doesn't get lucky enough for that.
-More to come. I think.
To celebrate, ANet did one of their typical event weekends, with extras and what not.
For awhile now, there have been "mini-pets" in the game. They helped ruin the economy. Oh but also, they make a small version of some type of creature to follow your character around. (It is completely useless; but some are very very rare --people like to show off their "l33tn3ss" in online games, so they pay ungodly amounts of money for the rarest ones - see: ruined the economy.
There are a few ways to obtain a mini pet. On a character's birthday (works just like human ones) a little blue box will appear in its inventory. Double-clicking this box will open it up and a small icon of one of the game's creatures will appear in its place. Double-clicking on this icon will summon that thing at your feet, at a scale of oh 1/4 to 1/20 the size of the actual thing it is a mini of. (think Minime or is it Mini-me?)
There are other ways to get one.. such as buying a certain issue of a magazine, or defeating many many others in a GvG or what have you. (Guild vs. Guild)
Each year has its own set, (that might not make sense, or maybe what I next say won't) A green, 2 golds, 3 purples, and then 8 whites. The color determines the rarity and how much you can sell one for if you opt to do that.
Some mini pets cost about 500g to buy. That is .5 k. Then there are a few that go around oh, 8 mil. which is 8,000 k. Thanks for destroying the economy ANet. They also want ectos.
After seeing this year's list of mini-pets, I can't say I am all that pleased. Some are just basic re-skins of already existent ones. Others are just lame things to begin with, but ANet seems to find it so incredibly hilarious.
Seriously, get the damn Ooze out of LA, Kamadan, and KC. That thing is bloody annoying.
-They decided to make a mini Ooze. And its not even one of the whites- its a fricken purple! Omg, why!?
The Black Beast of Arrgh, is basically the rollerbeetle mini, with just the slightest change to the skin. Eh, c'mon guys. really? And its gold.
Now the nornbear, that one is pretty cool, its a purple and I'm bound to buy one if one of my characters doesn't get lucky enough for that.
-More to come. I think.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Hedge playing
They will be posted in the next few hours as they are finalized and the last ones materialize in my mind.
The problem is that, materializing things in one's mind as I do, tends to fill it up pretty fast. My head is only 18 inches around, so all these ideas are just kind of trying to blow my head up. Mischievous little things.
----
1. Hedge-sim. Using your Wii controllers, players will act out the motions of laying hedges. It would be as realistic as possible, with the game being very critical. The game is meant as an exercise for people who want to get into the business of laying hedges. They've done the same for flying-planes. When you perform well enough, the game's on-line store will open up, where you can then purchase the items to really lay hedges in the dreaded outside.
2. You are a renowned hedge-layer. The annual Hedgefest is approaching. Lay your hedges in a most beautiful and practical way. And watch out for those neighbors... They leave miles away and you have no idea what they're scheming. All you know is that for the last 10 years, you have bested them in the hedge competition and their furor continues to grow. You have heard someone plans to ruin your hedges sometime in the week before the festival. Now you must defend your hedges from those pesky, un-skilled scamps. By any means necessary. If someone manages to destroy your hedges, you will have to quickly get a new hedge up and growing. Only once it is done and you have won Hedgefest can you exact revenge on the fools who messed with your hedge.
3. The government-council of New Orleans has hired you to protect their city from future floods due to hurricanes and the like. You don't think its the best idea in the world, but you're going to do your best anyways!
4. A simple game meant for young children whose parents want them to grow up to be hedgelayers. The game will display an image on the screen, and the player will have a certain amount of time to select which style it is. The game will get harder by taking the images off the screen sooner and reducing the time you have to make your choice.
The game will feature an encyclopedia-type area with information on all the various styles and general information on the topic of hedge-laying. (It worked in Dynasty Warriors).
5. You are a sheep. And you really really like your white locks of hair or whatever it is sheep have. Your cruel masters are barricading the entire area with hedges. You know that they're planning on shearing you soon... and also, you're a bit of a curious sheep who wants to see more than just this endless green field. Find a way out, or create one, and make it to the ocean before the masters realize 1/1000 of their herd is missing. Or, you could try to lead a massive revolt and convince the other sheep to do what you are going to do. They are sheep, after all.
Players will have to navigate their way through the field and then the treacherous hedges. You will have to be quick about it or someone will spot you.
The problem is that, materializing things in one's mind as I do, tends to fill it up pretty fast. My head is only 18 inches around, so all these ideas are just kind of trying to blow my head up. Mischievous little things.
----
1. Hedge-sim. Using your Wii controllers, players will act out the motions of laying hedges. It would be as realistic as possible, with the game being very critical. The game is meant as an exercise for people who want to get into the business of laying hedges. They've done the same for flying-planes. When you perform well enough, the game's on-line store will open up, where you can then purchase the items to really lay hedges in the dreaded outside.
2. You are a renowned hedge-layer. The annual Hedgefest is approaching. Lay your hedges in a most beautiful and practical way. And watch out for those neighbors... They leave miles away and you have no idea what they're scheming. All you know is that for the last 10 years, you have bested them in the hedge competition and their furor continues to grow. You have heard someone plans to ruin your hedges sometime in the week before the festival. Now you must defend your hedges from those pesky, un-skilled scamps. By any means necessary. If someone manages to destroy your hedges, you will have to quickly get a new hedge up and growing. Only once it is done and you have won Hedgefest can you exact revenge on the fools who messed with your hedge.
3. The government-council of New Orleans has hired you to protect their city from future floods due to hurricanes and the like. You don't think its the best idea in the world, but you're going to do your best anyways!
4. A simple game meant for young children whose parents want them to grow up to be hedgelayers. The game will display an image on the screen, and the player will have a certain amount of time to select which style it is. The game will get harder by taking the images off the screen sooner and reducing the time you have to make your choice.
The game will feature an encyclopedia-type area with information on all the various styles and general information on the topic of hedge-laying. (It worked in Dynasty Warriors).
5. You are a sheep. And you really really like your white locks of hair or whatever it is sheep have. Your cruel masters are barricading the entire area with hedges. You know that they're planning on shearing you soon... and also, you're a bit of a curious sheep who wants to see more than just this endless green field. Find a way out, or create one, and make it to the ocean before the masters realize 1/1000 of their herd is missing. Or, you could try to lead a massive revolt and convince the other sheep to do what you are going to do. They are sheep, after all.
Players will have to navigate their way through the field and then the treacherous hedges. You will have to be quick about it or someone will spot you.
Guild Wars. Running: A lost art
Back in the day, the only campaign of Guild Wars was Prophecies. It was the first and only component of the GW universe and both developers and players had not completely found what GW was destined to be nor realized what exactly they would do with it. Pardon me if that makes no sense, I often tend not to make sense to people who are not me. Please bear with me for a moment. This whole thing has been a build up to, well, just take a look at the title of this post if you have not already. Chances are you have, did you take a second look? I probably would have, so as to make sure I didn't miss something. No, the title really is that short. And by short I mean it is longer than most of the other ones (titles) but still not as long as your typical sentence. Certainly not as long as this, but Grenth knows this should have ended a bit ago. Anyways, without further ado..,
Running: A Lost Art.
The land of Tyria is a vast open one. There are many regions, such as Ascalon, Kryta, The Magumma Jungle, The Crystal Desert, The Fire Islands, and The Shiverpeak Mountains.
Traveling from place to place is rather easy.. whether it be outpost to outpost or region to region. Now, travel is made beyond easy by the use of map-travel. By clicking on your map, you can automatically teleport to any city or outpost in the world!! However, there is one catch... You must have visited that outpost before you are able to insta-travel to it. And well, that makes slightly more sense. Wouldn't you agree? You can't go right off to Colorado if you've never traveled there before; you must look at the maps and chart your route. In many areas, a player can simply walk out the gateway of an outpost and head towards their destination. But, it GW is a MMORPG and this game type is designed to handle all sorts of skill level and well, levels. The high-end areas can not be reached by low-level nubs. The high-end areas are where you can craft the best weapons and earn the most experience, as well as get the best loot. Well, the low level characters of people who have already played the game a bit will have non of that. And neither will the incredibly lazy people, or the people who don't feel like playing the game they bought. The solution - runners!
A runner is a character, typically at level 20, and one of the more durable classes who takes people in his or her group, goes out into the wilderness and runs runs runs to the desired outpost. (If one character in the group zones, the entire party zones - this is what really makes this possible) The reward-- plat's. Or so we hope... Scammers have been known to be ******* jerks who deserve death. They go with a runner who takes them where they want and then they don't pay. We don't need these types..
Standard running classes:
Originally it was Warriors and Rangers. Then monks gave it a shot (with their protective and healing prayers, and using ranger stances for the speed boost)
With Guild Wars Factions, some Assassins did a bit of running using their own skills and often a few of a different class (monk or ranger)
Nightfall got Dervishes into the running game and they are very good at it, as the class allows for some unusual / non-standard builds. (A build being the 8 skills on the skill bar and the distribution of attribute points)
Perhaps the most popular run of all Guild Wars time was the Droks run. This run went from either Ascalon City, or more often, Beacons Perch. The destination: Droknar's Forge. The main city in the Southern Shiverpeaks, one of the hardest areas in Guild Wars Prophecies, and the first place you can craft MAX ARMOR. The path to Droknar's Forge is a perilous one, claiming many noobs and idiots unprepared or less-than-skilled for the adventure.
Prices for a Droks run have varied, ranging from 2 to 6 platinum normally. One of the main causes of this fluctuation... the nerfbat. ArenaNet smacked runners in the face constantly with the changes to Lornar's Pass and AI scripts. There was a time that it seemed every month they made it harder and harder to successfully complete a Droks run. Sometimes it was hard even getting 1/10 of the way into the run. Some even say that it is near impossible for a warrior to do this run (when originally they were the only ones that could) However, the Dervish rose as the new Droks runner. They could do the run with near-ease. Unfortunately for them, they came with Nightfall. And by then Factions was out so there was already more locations to get max level armor. And getting to KC from Tyria is simply too easy. As an added blow to this run, Consulate Docks is the first place to get max armor in Nightfall. It is literally connected to Kamadan, the starting city of Nightfall, and a person can get a ferry from Kamadan to docks for 500 gold in anywheres between 5 minutes and an hour depending on what time it is and what district they are in.
In Factions, ArenaNet made running all but impossible. Gates cover the entrances to almost every single outpost in the campaign, and they will only open if everyone in the part has completed the storyline up to that point. I hate it. Both as a runner and a person with 8 PvE characters.
In Nightfall, some outposts are blocked off until the character reaches a certain point, but most are not. However, they found another way to stop people from moving too far along in that game. Mission requirements. They are ftl - the reverse of ftw, which in case you don't know is "for the win."
The glory days of running are long gone. However some runs do still exist. They are either hard to find a runner for or hard to find someone who wants the run, and they don't usually cost over 2k, if that... 500g to 1k is now the standard rate on most of the runs still done.
I'm glad I ran when I did. I made a lot of money, got to see interesting places, and the routes of many those runs still lie within my deteriorating brain. I may not be able to remember where I put my socks 10 minutes ago, but the path from LA to Sanctum Cay couldn't be clearer, and I haven't done that run in over a year and it is 3:30 in the morning.
Running: A Lost Art.
The land of Tyria is a vast open one. There are many regions, such as Ascalon, Kryta, The Magumma Jungle, The Crystal Desert, The Fire Islands, and The Shiverpeak Mountains.
Traveling from place to place is rather easy.. whether it be outpost to outpost or region to region. Now, travel is made beyond easy by the use of map-travel. By clicking on your map, you can automatically teleport to any city or outpost in the world!! However, there is one catch... You must have visited that outpost before you are able to insta-travel to it. And well, that makes slightly more sense. Wouldn't you agree? You can't go right off to Colorado if you've never traveled there before; you must look at the maps and chart your route. In many areas, a player can simply walk out the gateway of an outpost and head towards their destination. But, it GW is a MMORPG and this game type is designed to handle all sorts of skill level and well, levels. The high-end areas can not be reached by low-level nubs. The high-end areas are where you can craft the best weapons and earn the most experience, as well as get the best loot. Well, the low level characters of people who have already played the game a bit will have non of that. And neither will the incredibly lazy people, or the people who don't feel like playing the game they bought. The solution - runners!
A runner is a character, typically at level 20, and one of the more durable classes who takes people in his or her group, goes out into the wilderness and runs runs runs to the desired outpost. (If one character in the group zones, the entire party zones - this is what really makes this possible) The reward-- plat's. Or so we hope... Scammers have been known to be ******* jerks who deserve death. They go with a runner who takes them where they want and then they don't pay. We don't need these types..
Standard running classes:
Originally it was Warriors and Rangers. Then monks gave it a shot (with their protective and healing prayers, and using ranger stances for the speed boost)
With Guild Wars Factions, some Assassins did a bit of running using their own skills and often a few of a different class (monk or ranger)
Nightfall got Dervishes into the running game and they are very good at it, as the class allows for some unusual / non-standard builds. (A build being the 8 skills on the skill bar and the distribution of attribute points)
Perhaps the most popular run of all Guild Wars time was the Droks run. This run went from either Ascalon City, or more often, Beacons Perch. The destination: Droknar's Forge. The main city in the Southern Shiverpeaks, one of the hardest areas in Guild Wars Prophecies, and the first place you can craft MAX ARMOR. The path to Droknar's Forge is a perilous one, claiming many noobs and idiots unprepared or less-than-skilled for the adventure.
Prices for a Droks run have varied, ranging from 2 to 6 platinum normally. One of the main causes of this fluctuation... the nerfbat. ArenaNet smacked runners in the face constantly with the changes to Lornar's Pass and AI scripts. There was a time that it seemed every month they made it harder and harder to successfully complete a Droks run. Sometimes it was hard even getting 1/10 of the way into the run. Some even say that it is near impossible for a warrior to do this run (when originally they were the only ones that could) However, the Dervish rose as the new Droks runner. They could do the run with near-ease. Unfortunately for them, they came with Nightfall. And by then Factions was out so there was already more locations to get max level armor. And getting to KC from Tyria is simply too easy. As an added blow to this run, Consulate Docks is the first place to get max armor in Nightfall. It is literally connected to Kamadan, the starting city of Nightfall, and a person can get a ferry from Kamadan to docks for 500 gold in anywheres between 5 minutes and an hour depending on what time it is and what district they are in.
In Factions, ArenaNet made running all but impossible. Gates cover the entrances to almost every single outpost in the campaign, and they will only open if everyone in the part has completed the storyline up to that point. I hate it. Both as a runner and a person with 8 PvE characters.
In Nightfall, some outposts are blocked off until the character reaches a certain point, but most are not. However, they found another way to stop people from moving too far along in that game. Mission requirements. They are ftl - the reverse of ftw, which in case you don't know is "for the win."
The glory days of running are long gone. However some runs do still exist. They are either hard to find a runner for or hard to find someone who wants the run, and they don't usually cost over 2k, if that... 500g to 1k is now the standard rate on most of the runs still done.
I'm glad I ran when I did. I made a lot of money, got to see interesting places, and the routes of many those runs still lie within my deteriorating brain. I may not be able to remember where I put my socks 10 minutes ago, but the path from LA to Sanctum Cay couldn't be clearer, and I haven't done that run in over a year and it is 3:30 in the morning.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Beat Games
1. The cop you were assigned to follow was slain by the Mafia. Now you must avenge his death. Take up his weapons and gear and prepare for a full assault on the Mafia. There will be blood this day. And you could consider providing live coverage of this fire-fight if you like multi-tasking.
2. Write the most interesting stories and get the greatest pictures. You work on commission for now, but hope to move up. The better your material, the faster you'll get moved up and the more money you'll make. ...You may want to consider creating some situations for stories...
3. Getting to know the routines of cops.. use this knowledge for your own benefit. When not working, use your knowledge of the police paths and response time to rob places blind when the cops are across town or otherwise preoccupied.
4. There is a dire situation.. Backup is 10 minutes away. The cop you've been following throws you a shotgun and a bullet proof vest. Now the fun begins. Help your new partner and stopping the largest drug cartel and gun running gang in Oklahoma. Or maybe a more interesting place.
Use your reporting abilities to help (mainly blinding foes with your giant camera's flash)
-First to third person shooter on the consoles and PC. Up to 2 players, with the second playing the cop.
5. You've gotten to know Steve pretty well (that's the cop you've been following). Well, he hates to do this, but something has come up. He must leave town for a month. He has asked that you take his place.. He doesn't want anyone to know he's gone and you two kind of look alike. Whatdaya say? Will you help ol' Steve out? (If you said no, don't buy the game..) He has left you several of his uniforms and the keys to his apartment and car. You had to get to know him, now do something useful. You will have to fool all the other cops into thinking you're actually him and carry on with his duties as well as your own
2. Write the most interesting stories and get the greatest pictures. You work on commission for now, but hope to move up. The better your material, the faster you'll get moved up and the more money you'll make. ...You may want to consider creating some situations for stories...
3. Getting to know the routines of cops.. use this knowledge for your own benefit. When not working, use your knowledge of the police paths and response time to rob places blind when the cops are across town or otherwise preoccupied.
4. There is a dire situation.. Backup is 10 minutes away. The cop you've been following throws you a shotgun and a bullet proof vest. Now the fun begins. Help your new partner and stopping the largest drug cartel and gun running gang in Oklahoma. Or maybe a more interesting place.
Use your reporting abilities to help (mainly blinding foes with your giant camera's flash)
-First to third person shooter on the consoles and PC. Up to 2 players, with the second playing the cop.
5. You've gotten to know Steve pretty well (that's the cop you've been following). Well, he hates to do this, but something has come up. He must leave town for a month. He has asked that you take his place.. He doesn't want anyone to know he's gone and you two kind of look alike. Whatdaya say? Will you help ol' Steve out? (If you said no, don't buy the game..) He has left you several of his uniforms and the keys to his apartment and car. You had to get to know him, now do something useful. You will have to fool all the other cops into thinking you're actually him and carry on with his duties as well as your own
Guild Wars Pv_
In MMORPGs, there are a few types of gameplay. PvE, PvP, and PvX.
PvE is Player versus Environment.
PvP is Player versus Player.
PvX is both.
Technically, there is no PvX playing... actually, nevermind there is. It's just not as much as the others. However, the majority of players in Guild Wars and nearly any other MMO are PvX players. They enjoy both the PvP and PvE aspects of the game and have players capable of doing both.
There are still hundreds to thousands of players who will only play PvE. And that is fine. They do not have to PvE- it effects no one but themselves. At the character creation screen, they will always select a PvP character.
Now this leads me to what I've been going to.
PvP - it is a very intense game (normally). Because I've sort of lost my mind, I'll just list some factoids about whats going on, and then describe some of them shortly after.
A PvE character can do PvP (and PvE obviously).
A PvP character can not do PvE.
ANet was insanely kind to the PvP'ers of their game (and still are.. they tend just to get kinder, but for now I think that's reached its limit.)
Why make a PvP char when a PvE one can do both? (PvX)
PvP characters automatically start at level 20. No spending a few hours getting up those levels.
A PvP can use ANY skill that is unlocked on your entire account!! (that is the biggy).
PvP characters can create armor/weapons at no cost, with whatever mods the player has unlocked on their account. This is also very important. A PvE character often is lacking (compared to what they could be) because they don't have unlimited armor.
The armor and weapons a PvP char can make are very general / (that word that means the opposite of unique.. damn it brain, you suck.)
For accounts, there are hundreds of skills to unlock, about 20 heros, and many many runes / insignias/ inscriptions.
Now it used to be that, in order to unlock these various things, a player would either have to identify the rune or spend Balthazaar faction to unlock it. To unlock skills, the player would have to have a PvE character learn the skill, or they could also be unlocked with balth faction - 1k for a standard skill, 3k for an elite.
When I first got the game, I made a PvP warrior. I had a PvE necro, mesmer and ranger at the time. This made that PvP char worthless. (It had no skills to use other than like 10 basic ones..)
I later remade this war as a PvE char.. much better.
Well, ANet, being the kind, greedy company they are, decided to make things very, very easy for the PvP community. At the online store, you can buy... whatever the hell you want for PvP. For 5 to 10 dollars, a person can unlock every skill in a particular campaign. There is a special thing, to unlock everything you need to get into PvP, while leaving the entire PvE experience alone. -This allows you to buy several skills, several mods, and some other things. From then on it should be easy enough to earn the rest of the faction you need/want to buy various skills.
If you ask me, they have made things way too easy. Paying 20 dollars so you don't have to play the game you bought seems kind of.. ridiculous and/or stupid. Perhaps I see it this way because I went and unlocked essentially everything I need through learning skills and earning balth faction. (which can take quite awhile depending on what you're doing.)
Now, a PvE char can make it by just fine in some PvP. (there are a few different levels.) In Alliance Battles, Random Arenas, and even Team Arenas, a PvE char should have no problem getting by. However, those are rather simple / easy. They are not the places you tend to find the most skilled/ practiced PvP'ers. In Hero's Ascent / HoH and Guild Battles... you will usually need a PvP char. Reason being that the people there are very demanding /coordinating / jerk-ish. In order to do well, you will have to do what the group needs you to do. There are certain builds that you're PvE chars wont be able to run (as they wouldn't make much sense in PvE) but are "great" in high-end PvP.
I spent the day doing some intense research of HA (Hero's Ascent) and even got to the Hall of Hero's. First time I have ever been there... I went with a randomway PuG... which.. well, it was a PuG, and randomway no less. How did we manage to get to Halls? And we damn near won too! Lost by 1 point, and tied the other group.
I had to buy a char slot and make a PvP char to do this... my PvE necro, as great as it is, is not entirely designed for HA.. and I don't want to spend the virtual money to make it so.
PvE is Player versus Environment.
PvP is Player versus Player.
PvX is both.
Technically, there is no PvX playing... actually, nevermind there is. It's just not as much as the others. However, the majority of players in Guild Wars and nearly any other MMO are PvX players. They enjoy both the PvP and PvE aspects of the game and have players capable of doing both.
There are still hundreds to thousands of players who will only play PvE. And that is fine. They do not have to PvE- it effects no one but themselves. At the character creation screen, they will always select a PvP character.
Now this leads me to what I've been going to.
PvP - it is a very intense game (normally). Because I've sort of lost my mind, I'll just list some factoids about whats going on, and then describe some of them shortly after.
A PvE character can do PvP (and PvE obviously).
A PvP character can not do PvE.
ANet was insanely kind to the PvP'ers of their game (and still are.. they tend just to get kinder, but for now I think that's reached its limit.)
Why make a PvP char when a PvE one can do both? (PvX)
PvP characters automatically start at level 20. No spending a few hours getting up those levels.
A PvP can use ANY skill that is unlocked on your entire account!! (that is the biggy).
PvP characters can create armor/weapons at no cost, with whatever mods the player has unlocked on their account. This is also very important. A PvE character often is lacking (compared to what they could be) because they don't have unlimited armor.
The armor and weapons a PvP char can make are very general / (that word that means the opposite of unique.. damn it brain, you suck.)
For accounts, there are hundreds of skills to unlock, about 20 heros, and many many runes / insignias/ inscriptions.
Now it used to be that, in order to unlock these various things, a player would either have to identify the rune or spend Balthazaar faction to unlock it. To unlock skills, the player would have to have a PvE character learn the skill, or they could also be unlocked with balth faction - 1k for a standard skill, 3k for an elite.
When I first got the game, I made a PvP warrior. I had a PvE necro, mesmer and ranger at the time. This made that PvP char worthless. (It had no skills to use other than like 10 basic ones..)
I later remade this war as a PvE char.. much better.
Well, ANet, being the kind, greedy company they are, decided to make things very, very easy for the PvP community. At the online store, you can buy... whatever the hell you want for PvP. For 5 to 10 dollars, a person can unlock every skill in a particular campaign. There is a special thing, to unlock everything you need to get into PvP, while leaving the entire PvE experience alone. -This allows you to buy several skills, several mods, and some other things. From then on it should be easy enough to earn the rest of the faction you need/want to buy various skills.
If you ask me, they have made things way too easy. Paying 20 dollars so you don't have to play the game you bought seems kind of.. ridiculous and/or stupid. Perhaps I see it this way because I went and unlocked essentially everything I need through learning skills and earning balth faction. (which can take quite awhile depending on what you're doing.)
Now, a PvE char can make it by just fine in some PvP. (there are a few different levels.) In Alliance Battles, Random Arenas, and even Team Arenas, a PvE char should have no problem getting by. However, those are rather simple / easy. They are not the places you tend to find the most skilled/ practiced PvP'ers. In Hero's Ascent / HoH and Guild Battles... you will usually need a PvP char. Reason being that the people there are very demanding /coordinating / jerk-ish. In order to do well, you will have to do what the group needs you to do. There are certain builds that you're PvE chars wont be able to run (as they wouldn't make much sense in PvE) but are "great" in high-end PvP.
I spent the day doing some intense research of HA (Hero's Ascent) and even got to the Hall of Hero's. First time I have ever been there... I went with a randomway PuG... which.. well, it was a PuG, and randomway no less. How did we manage to get to Halls? And we damn near won too! Lost by 1 point, and tied the other group.
I had to buy a char slot and make a PvP char to do this... my PvE necro, as great as it is, is not entirely designed for HA.. and I don't want to spend the virtual money to make it so.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Weekend Camping Games
1. Knowing you're not too thrilled by spending a weekend in the woods, your parents have decided to make it at least a little interesting. They have spread gold doubloons in a 3 square-miles area around the campsite. (They are exceedingly wealthy and only come on these outdoorsy trips as a way to get away from the city life and see how the homeless live?) Scour the area with your shovel searching high and low for the gold coins (you'll also have a rope and grappling hook -to get up into trees). If you're going to be stuck in the woods for 2 days, you might as well get rich. The game would have single-player modes, as well as cooperative and competitive multi-player (work with a friend/sibling to find the gold faster; work "against" them to collect more gold than them.)
2. You had a real bad feeling about going on the camping trip your parents insisted you all go on. Turns out, they should have listened to you. Your parents were eaten by bears during the first few hours in the woods. (Meat frisbee = not good idea). Now you and your sibling(s) must fend for yourselves. If you can manage to get by till winter, the leaves will fall down and a helicopter has a chance of finding you. Defend yourselves against bear attacks (this will continue throughout the game, as they will only hibernate when winter draws near, at which point the helicopter might find you. You do have flare gun... but only a limited number of flares, so while you could use it to shoot the bears, it'd be better not to. For whatever reason (your parents were insane) they did not bring fishing poles, or most any other normal camping items (but flares were needed. We must have flares.) Create some fishing poles, or possibly spears using your ingenuity and whatever materials you can scrounge up in the woods. If your tent gets destroyed (say, from bear attacks), you will have to create a new form of shelter (say, maybe from bear hides?) Why? - the car is locked, the keys? -digested in bear stomach acid. You're not even a teenager so the thought of using a rock to break the windows never crosses your puny mind. (If you try to break the windows, your "mind" will not let you.) Also, it will set the car alarm off, angering all the bears and sending them on a killing rampage your way before any people would be able to locate you. Sad thing is, you asked your parents for a cell phone last month, but alas, they said you weren't old enough for one. And now theirs' share the same fate as the car keys.
-Single player and multi player modes. Available on the consoles and PC.
(If you survive through to the end, you find out in a cut scene that you were Bear Grylls.)
3. Virtual boy scouts. Perform all the tasks asked of you by your cruel scout masters, only this time its in a virtual world. Just as easy to quit though, in fact, its easier to quit, but then why would you want to? This game would be for the Wii, making use of the controllers to act out such tasks as wood carving, setting up tents, and whatever else they did once I decided to stop going. See if you can get that shiny medal before the weekend is over. You will level up throughout the game, earning new abilities and objects (such as a Swii-ss Army knife and compass.)
4. Even at your young age, you have a great attunement with nature. The parents have deemed this the weekend to go outside and on a long trek into the woods. Well, thats great and all, but you aren't too fond of humans, especially those older ones who keep telling you what to do and what not to do. Once camp is set up, desert them. It is time to go on a courageous adventure! Explore the woods and befriend all matters of forest life.. (the bears who ate the other children's parents last week, wolves, whatever you find.) Do not leave a trace... or the humans will find you; also you want to preserve the natural settings.. if there are signs of human abuse towards nature, fix the problems. In return for your kindness and service to nature, the bears will not eat you.
5. You have no interest in going on a lousy camping trip. What a waste of a weekend! Since your parents decided to ruin your life, ruin theirs. In this game, primary mission = piss your parents off to no end. You can repeatedly ask them as to where your location is relative to their destination during the excruciatingly long 3-hour car ride. When you get to the camping grounds, eat all of the food you can, leaving none for no one else for the next 2 days. Sabotage their attempts at putting up a tent. Break the fishing poles so their is no early morning activity tomorrow. If you hear bears, try to lure them to the campsite, possibly by leaving any left over meat outside, in a trail. You can also climb a tree and jump off, hopefully breaking a limb, forcing your parents to take you to a hospital, leaving this awful, awful place behind.
2. You had a real bad feeling about going on the camping trip your parents insisted you all go on. Turns out, they should have listened to you. Your parents were eaten by bears during the first few hours in the woods. (Meat frisbee = not good idea). Now you and your sibling(s) must fend for yourselves. If you can manage to get by till winter, the leaves will fall down and a helicopter has a chance of finding you. Defend yourselves against bear attacks (this will continue throughout the game, as they will only hibernate when winter draws near, at which point the helicopter might find you. You do have flare gun... but only a limited number of flares, so while you could use it to shoot the bears, it'd be better not to. For whatever reason (your parents were insane) they did not bring fishing poles, or most any other normal camping items (but flares were needed. We must have flares.) Create some fishing poles, or possibly spears using your ingenuity and whatever materials you can scrounge up in the woods. If your tent gets destroyed (say, from bear attacks), you will have to create a new form of shelter (say, maybe from bear hides?) Why? - the car is locked, the keys? -digested in bear stomach acid. You're not even a teenager so the thought of using a rock to break the windows never crosses your puny mind. (If you try to break the windows, your "mind" will not let you.) Also, it will set the car alarm off, angering all the bears and sending them on a killing rampage your way before any people would be able to locate you. Sad thing is, you asked your parents for a cell phone last month, but alas, they said you weren't old enough for one. And now theirs' share the same fate as the car keys.
-Single player and multi player modes. Available on the consoles and PC.
(If you survive through to the end, you find out in a cut scene that you were Bear Grylls.)
3. Virtual boy scouts. Perform all the tasks asked of you by your cruel scout masters, only this time its in a virtual world. Just as easy to quit though, in fact, its easier to quit, but then why would you want to? This game would be for the Wii, making use of the controllers to act out such tasks as wood carving, setting up tents, and whatever else they did once I decided to stop going. See if you can get that shiny medal before the weekend is over. You will level up throughout the game, earning new abilities and objects (such as a Swii-ss Army knife and compass.)
4. Even at your young age, you have a great attunement with nature. The parents have deemed this the weekend to go outside and on a long trek into the woods. Well, thats great and all, but you aren't too fond of humans, especially those older ones who keep telling you what to do and what not to do. Once camp is set up, desert them. It is time to go on a courageous adventure! Explore the woods and befriend all matters of forest life.. (the bears who ate the other children's parents last week, wolves, whatever you find.) Do not leave a trace... or the humans will find you; also you want to preserve the natural settings.. if there are signs of human abuse towards nature, fix the problems. In return for your kindness and service to nature, the bears will not eat you.
5. You have no interest in going on a lousy camping trip. What a waste of a weekend! Since your parents decided to ruin your life, ruin theirs. In this game, primary mission = piss your parents off to no end. You can repeatedly ask them as to where your location is relative to their destination during the excruciatingly long 3-hour car ride. When you get to the camping grounds, eat all of the food you can, leaving none for no one else for the next 2 days. Sabotage their attempts at putting up a tent. Break the fishing poles so their is no early morning activity tomorrow. If you hear bears, try to lure them to the campsite, possibly by leaving any left over meat outside, in a trail. You can also climb a tree and jump off, hopefully breaking a limb, forcing your parents to take you to a hospital, leaving this awful, awful place behind.
Stuck in the past.
...Is this about Guild Wars..? It sure is.
After clicking random page on Guild Wiki, I was taken to "The Hunter's Horn". This is a quest that I did over two years ago and it reminded me of the.. "niceness" of Pre-Searing Ascalon. Some people find Pre-Searing to be so nice, that rather than continue on with the game once the 2 handfuls of tasks to be done there are done, they stay.
These people are sometimes referred to as Perma-Pre's, and they have actually effected the game quite a bit. Now, most of these effects have no real significance outside of Pre-Searing, but it can make someone's extended stay there much more enjoyable.
It is common to leave Pre-Searing by level 8. Some people only stay till level 2 and some will stay there until level 12 even. (Now, remember, there are 20 levels to characters.) And then there are the insane people. They will stay in Pre-Searing until their character reaches level 20, and sometimes after! Now, months after people started getting to level 20 ( I have seen only one or two while there) ANet realized what kind of determination was required to do this. To honor people who met this "test," characters who make it to level 20 while in Pre will earn the title "Legendary Defender of Ascalon". It is a very rare title and usually found on people who have no problem leaving their computer on for hours while they are AFK.
In Pre, there is no Storage and no runes of holding available at the merchants. With bags topping out at holding 5 items before a rune is applied, people with extended stays in Pre often found themselves without room in their inventory. To alleviate this, ANet introduced Charr Bags. These are (green-item) bags capable of holding 10 items (what a bag will normally hold in Post.) Now people could stay there and continue getting their less-than-phat loot. (It's Pre, the items aren't exactly good.. except for the amazing amount of dye that can be farmed.. (on of the reasons people tend to stay there longer.. great dye drop rate.))
For a very long time, there was no way to salvage items in Pre. People who stay there till level 20 may manage to come across some decent "mod's" on items they loot, but would have no way of using them (if the weapon itself sucked). To be kind, ANet introduced a salvage kit in Pre. It has only 5 uses, compared to the 25 or even 100 uses you'd get from a Post-Searing salvage kit, but nonetheless, it let people take good mods out of bad weapons.
Although, some of this was done as a way to re-stabilize the economy in Pre, as after an update, characters in Pre could port to their Guild Halls, which have access to Storage. This allowed people to take high-end items and weapons back to Pre. ANet soon realized this, and promptly ran another update that disabled Pre char's from getting to the Guild Hall.
After clicking random page on Guild Wiki, I was taken to "The Hunter's Horn". This is a quest that I did over two years ago and it reminded me of the.. "niceness" of Pre-Searing Ascalon. Some people find Pre-Searing to be so nice, that rather than continue on with the game once the 2 handfuls of tasks to be done there are done, they stay.
These people are sometimes referred to as Perma-Pre's, and they have actually effected the game quite a bit. Now, most of these effects have no real significance outside of Pre-Searing, but it can make someone's extended stay there much more enjoyable.
It is common to leave Pre-Searing by level 8. Some people only stay till level 2 and some will stay there until level 12 even. (Now, remember, there are 20 levels to characters.) And then there are the insane people. They will stay in Pre-Searing until their character reaches level 20, and sometimes after! Now, months after people started getting to level 20 ( I have seen only one or two while there) ANet realized what kind of determination was required to do this. To honor people who met this "test," characters who make it to level 20 while in Pre will earn the title "Legendary Defender of Ascalon". It is a very rare title and usually found on people who have no problem leaving their computer on for hours while they are AFK.
In Pre, there is no Storage and no runes of holding available at the merchants. With bags topping out at holding 5 items before a rune is applied, people with extended stays in Pre often found themselves without room in their inventory. To alleviate this, ANet introduced Charr Bags. These are (green-item) bags capable of holding 10 items (what a bag will normally hold in Post.) Now people could stay there and continue getting their less-than-phat loot. (It's Pre, the items aren't exactly good.. except for the amazing amount of dye that can be farmed.. (on of the reasons people tend to stay there longer.. great dye drop rate.))
For a very long time, there was no way to salvage items in Pre. People who stay there till level 20 may manage to come across some decent "mod's" on items they loot, but would have no way of using them (if the weapon itself sucked). To be kind, ANet introduced a salvage kit in Pre. It has only 5 uses, compared to the 25 or even 100 uses you'd get from a Post-Searing salvage kit, but nonetheless, it let people take good mods out of bad weapons.
Although, some of this was done as a way to re-stabilize the economy in Pre, as after an update, characters in Pre could port to their Guild Halls, which have access to Storage. This allowed people to take high-end items and weapons back to Pre. ANet soon realized this, and promptly ran another update that disabled Pre char's from getting to the Guild Hall.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Professional Games
Oh damn. I have options. I hate options. They leave too many things open for my uncreative and indecisive mind-brain.
First we'll start by picking a profession.
~dies~
Well, I got one of my monk friends to rez me, so back to work. Being dead has given me time to think. Mostly about the.. unpleasantness of life. We've gathered enough information. The profession for which the games are to be about: janitor. Or maintenance /custodial worker.
1. You work as a janitor for a large corporation in New York City. Skipping some other details for now... terrorists have planted bombs throughout the building! It is late at night, and the bombs are set to go off at 10:00am. You've tried warning the police, but they just think you're some cracked-out fool who is just blabbering nonsense. Make your way through each of the 100 floors searching for and disabling bombs. To make matters worse, you still need to do your normal functions too; like replacing light bulbs and fixing doors. Save the day and keep your job!
2. While cleaning up the office of one of the head-bosses you overhear a conversation... Your company's leaders are plotting to take over the world. You can not let them get away with this! Unfortunately, you were doing some dusting at the time, and as a result, sneezed just after they finished their evil laughing. Your presence has become known and now they have sicked the guards on you! (As well as some horrible abominations that were created in the labs). Get out of the building alive and make this shocking news known!
3. You had such high hopes. Everything was going to be great. Sadly, thing did not turn out the way you planned. You've been working as a custodian for the last 8 years for the company you planned to run. After 8 years, you've grown tired of doing the same labor day after day.. you're going to get out of this position! Work your way through various levels of employment, and seek some additional education. (some phases: janitor, intern, get your GED, temp, 2-yr college, secretary, manager, head-honcho.)
4. Janitor by day, cat-thief by night! Use your impressive knowledge of the various buildings you've cleaned and fixed to rob them blind during nights. You'll have to study the floor layouts, security measures, create alibis and several other things to get through this stealth-game. Also, don't hit every place you've worked, and try a few that you haven't worked off to keep those pesky detectives from looking your way. (You might even consider working at the police station and destroying their files when no one is watching..)
5. You've just been notified. Your union is going on strike. While you may not be the most pleased by this, you must reluctantly go along with it. Needless to say, the company isn't too happy. There is a mob of people outside with signs and flickering lights inside. So what do they do? They sent ninjas after you. They even stooped so low as to hire some ninjas to replace you and your comrades. They leave the place spotless and fix everything without even being noticed! Fight off the ninja's as they try to kill you and then lead the offensive against the scabs!
They may have ninja stars and katanas, but you have your broom and trusty cleaning supplies. Nothing stops a ninja faster than bleach to the face. (it makes their black outfits white, and then they can no longer hide in the shadows.)
First we'll start by picking a profession.
~dies~
Well, I got one of my monk friends to rez me, so back to work. Being dead has given me time to think. Mostly about the.. unpleasantness of life. We've gathered enough information. The profession for which the games are to be about: janitor. Or maintenance /custodial worker.
1. You work as a janitor for a large corporation in New York City. Skipping some other details for now... terrorists have planted bombs throughout the building! It is late at night, and the bombs are set to go off at 10:00am. You've tried warning the police, but they just think you're some cracked-out fool who is just blabbering nonsense. Make your way through each of the 100 floors searching for and disabling bombs. To make matters worse, you still need to do your normal functions too; like replacing light bulbs and fixing doors. Save the day and keep your job!
2. While cleaning up the office of one of the head-bosses you overhear a conversation... Your company's leaders are plotting to take over the world. You can not let them get away with this! Unfortunately, you were doing some dusting at the time, and as a result, sneezed just after they finished their evil laughing. Your presence has become known and now they have sicked the guards on you! (As well as some horrible abominations that were created in the labs). Get out of the building alive and make this shocking news known!
3. You had such high hopes. Everything was going to be great. Sadly, thing did not turn out the way you planned. You've been working as a custodian for the last 8 years for the company you planned to run. After 8 years, you've grown tired of doing the same labor day after day.. you're going to get out of this position! Work your way through various levels of employment, and seek some additional education. (some phases: janitor, intern, get your GED, temp, 2-yr college, secretary, manager, head-honcho.)
4. Janitor by day, cat-thief by night! Use your impressive knowledge of the various buildings you've cleaned and fixed to rob them blind during nights. You'll have to study the floor layouts, security measures, create alibis and several other things to get through this stealth-game. Also, don't hit every place you've worked, and try a few that you haven't worked off to keep those pesky detectives from looking your way. (You might even consider working at the police station and destroying their files when no one is watching..)
5. You've just been notified. Your union is going on strike. While you may not be the most pleased by this, you must reluctantly go along with it. Needless to say, the company isn't too happy. There is a mob of people outside with signs and flickering lights inside. So what do they do? They sent ninjas after you. They even stooped so low as to hire some ninjas to replace you and your comrades. They leave the place spotless and fix everything without even being noticed! Fight off the ninja's as they try to kill you and then lead the offensive against the scabs!
They may have ninja stars and katanas, but you have your broom and trusty cleaning supplies. Nothing stops a ninja faster than bleach to the face. (it makes their black outfits white, and then they can no longer hide in the shadows.)
Give Me MMO!
I've said the thing I like the most about MMORPG's is that you can not defeat them. The thing I like second-most about them is the MMO. RPG's are fun, ..er not always.. but can get old fast. There are people who call them MMO's or MMOG's rather than MMORPG's, and actually, that is probably more accurate. Probably less than 5% of people playing these games are role-playing... And those that are, are laughed at / not understood. I've done some, no one has any idea what I'm talking about when I do. XD
The big draw to these games is the community. It's basically a chat-room. I often use it simply for that too now (and in the past)
Massively Multi-player Online. All words, true. It provides the kind of experience you will not get anywhere else. I know people across the world, we've discussed many things and I have learned much about different cultures and what is going on in the world.
Now, I have also met and talked with people closer to home.. I know 4 others in the game from Connecticut, 2 others from Ithaca, one who is usually a yard away from me during class, the other I have not seen in awhile..
I know someone from Seattle, Oregon, a few from Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Arkansas, Idaho, Texas, Edmonton (Alberta), and Montreal Canada. I type with a Brazilian every day and have discussed things with people from the UK, Greece, a self-called "crazy one" from Africa, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, and Australia.
I've waited for an Australian to eat dinner before continuing with an area. From this I learned that 4am my time = dinner time in Australia.
It is funny to see people say good night and then 2 minutes later see one say good morning. (Our alliance has two European guilds) It has shown some differences in our cultures as well.. in some aspects, Europeans seem to be much more open about things than some of the Americans I know.
I take my orders from a bi-lingual French Canadian. We've talked about tuques and the greatness of snow.
Being online allows you to be who you are. Or at least, who you like to be. My persona online is very, very different from that irl. I find it hard to stop typing and always want to do something with my comrades. (well almost always) While irl, I just want to get away and back on my favorite game...
Oh, yes, ummm these kinds of games make you very heavy with the use of acronyms, l33tspeak, or just shorthand. The faster you can communicate the better. Which is why some use Voip's like TS or Vent. In case you don't know -- those are voice-over programs (lets ya do with the talk-talk) Team Speak and Ventrillo. I have used TS a bit, it is fun. Easy to use, had a hard time understanding my Brazilian friend, but hey, he's speaking English, thats more than I can ask... I can't speak Portuguese (other than a few words I have learned from him) Also, I think he can type English faster than me lol....
If it weren't for the people I game with online, I would have quit playing a long time ago. (I've known some of them over 2 years now)
The big draw to these games is the community. It's basically a chat-room. I often use it simply for that too now (and in the past)
Massively Multi-player Online. All words, true. It provides the kind of experience you will not get anywhere else. I know people across the world, we've discussed many things and I have learned much about different cultures and what is going on in the world.
Now, I have also met and talked with people closer to home.. I know 4 others in the game from Connecticut, 2 others from Ithaca, one who is usually a yard away from me during class, the other I have not seen in awhile..
I know someone from Seattle, Oregon, a few from Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Arkansas, Idaho, Texas, Edmonton (Alberta), and Montreal Canada. I type with a Brazilian every day and have discussed things with people from the UK, Greece, a self-called "crazy one" from Africa, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, and Australia.
I've waited for an Australian to eat dinner before continuing with an area. From this I learned that 4am my time = dinner time in Australia.
It is funny to see people say good night and then 2 minutes later see one say good morning. (Our alliance has two European guilds) It has shown some differences in our cultures as well.. in some aspects, Europeans seem to be much more open about things than some of the Americans I know.
I take my orders from a bi-lingual French Canadian. We've talked about tuques and the greatness of snow.
Being online allows you to be who you are. Or at least, who you like to be. My persona online is very, very different from that irl. I find it hard to stop typing and always want to do something with my comrades. (well almost always) While irl, I just want to get away and back on my favorite game...
Oh, yes, ummm these kinds of games make you very heavy with the use of acronyms, l33tspeak, or just shorthand. The faster you can communicate the better. Which is why some use Voip's like TS or Vent. In case you don't know -- those are voice-over programs (lets ya do with the talk-talk) Team Speak and Ventrillo. I have used TS a bit, it is fun. Easy to use, had a hard time understanding my Brazilian friend, but hey, he's speaking English, thats more than I can ask... I can't speak Portuguese (other than a few words I have learned from him) Also, I think he can type English faster than me lol....
If it weren't for the people I game with online, I would have quit playing a long time ago. (I've known some of them over 2 years now)
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Guild Wars Titles and Replayability.
The thing I like most about MMORPGs is the fact that you can not exactly beat them. Yes, you could finish the story-line on some of them, but its an ever changing world.. (Think Everquest and its name.. Ever - quest ..you'll forever be questing) I have played Guild Wars for thousands of hours... and there is still so much I must do that it is overwhelming and I often don't know where to start.
I have defeated the 3 campaigns and the expansion (the main mission/storyline) with one character ( I have several others who have some, or should..) Then they introduced Hard Mode, so i get to challenge myself and beat all the missions again at a more difficult level of play..
But perhaps Guild Wars gets most of its (well it's not exactly re-playability, but it is also) from its titles. Titles did not always exist (unfortunately; I would have tried for others that I now can not), but were introduced not too far into the game's life. At first there were quite a few, but they keep on adding new ones every so often. At the moment, there is about 30-35 titles a character can achieve. Or rather, title tracks. In each title track is a varying number of tiers, each with a slightly different, or even very different name that you can display beneath your characters' names. Some title tracks have one tier, and you only earn it once you achieve the end goal of it, some have 2 tiers, some have 10, and a few even have 12 tiers! Titles tend to take forever to achieve (top tier ones), can require a lot of skill of the player, or even just a lot of money.
While many titles do nothing, some have practical purposes, such as increasing your abilities with certain skills, or improving your salvaging chance of not breaking an item.
There is even a title track about titles! The first tier of this track is called "Kind of a Big Deal," which is what most people will call it, or KoaBD. This tier of the title requires you to have 5-9 maxed titles. When you get 10-14 maxed titles, you will earn "People Know Me." After that is, "I'm Very Important," which you need 15-19 maxed titles for. Then there is "I have many leather-bound books," "My Guild Hall smells of rich mahogany ," and finally, "God Walking Amongst Mere Mere Mortals." -All of these title names are quotes from Anchorman, lol...
Some other titles are the "Protector of ..." ones, which require you to beat all primary and secondary objectives of every mission on a different continent on Normal Mode. -there is one for Tyria, Cantha, and Elona.
"Guardian of..." is similar to the protector ones, but requires you to do the same tasks, but in Hard Mode. Once you get all 6 of these, you will earn "Legendary Guardian," a title that the only person I know with it is my Brazilian friend. -He also has the "I have many leather-bound books" title; he plays too much and is very good.
There are skill hunter titles, that require you to get every elite skill on a given continent. When you get all 3, as a bonus , you earn "Legendary Skill Hunter"
There are cartographer ones, with several tiers.. ranging from 60% to 100% of a continent explored. At 100%, you earn " ...ian/an Grand Master Cartographer" When you explore 100% of each of the 3 maps, you earn "Legendary Cartographer."
There are also titles for drinking booze (Drunkard, and then Incorrigible Ale-Hound), consuming sugary goods (Sweet Tooth), and using festival items, such as fire works (Party Animal).
The Friends titles are Factions-based and require you to earn points among either the Kurzicks or the Luxons.. these titles have 12 tiers and take bloody forever to get anywhere at higher levels.
The desire to earn titles keeps many a player going when they would normally not know what to do with themselves anymore.. and is a good way of showing off your l33t skills.
I have defeated the 3 campaigns and the expansion (the main mission/storyline) with one character ( I have several others who have some, or should..) Then they introduced Hard Mode, so i get to challenge myself and beat all the missions again at a more difficult level of play..
But perhaps Guild Wars gets most of its (well it's not exactly re-playability, but it is also) from its titles. Titles did not always exist (unfortunately; I would have tried for others that I now can not), but were introduced not too far into the game's life. At first there were quite a few, but they keep on adding new ones every so often. At the moment, there is about 30-35 titles a character can achieve. Or rather, title tracks. In each title track is a varying number of tiers, each with a slightly different, or even very different name that you can display beneath your characters' names. Some title tracks have one tier, and you only earn it once you achieve the end goal of it, some have 2 tiers, some have 10, and a few even have 12 tiers! Titles tend to take forever to achieve (top tier ones), can require a lot of skill of the player, or even just a lot of money.
While many titles do nothing, some have practical purposes, such as increasing your abilities with certain skills, or improving your salvaging chance of not breaking an item.
There is even a title track about titles! The first tier of this track is called "Kind of a Big Deal," which is what most people will call it, or KoaBD. This tier of the title requires you to have 5-9 maxed titles. When you get 10-14 maxed titles, you will earn "People Know Me." After that is, "I'm Very Important," which you need 15-19 maxed titles for. Then there is "I have many leather-bound books," "My Guild Hall smells of rich mahogany ," and finally, "God Walking Amongst Mere Mere Mortals." -All of these title names are quotes from Anchorman, lol...
Some other titles are the "Protector of ..." ones, which require you to beat all primary and secondary objectives of every mission on a different continent on Normal Mode. -there is one for Tyria, Cantha, and Elona.
"Guardian of..." is similar to the protector ones, but requires you to do the same tasks, but in Hard Mode. Once you get all 6 of these, you will earn "Legendary Guardian," a title that the only person I know with it is my Brazilian friend. -He also has the "I have many leather-bound books" title; he plays too much and is very good.
There are skill hunter titles, that require you to get every elite skill on a given continent. When you get all 3, as a bonus , you earn "Legendary Skill Hunter"
There are cartographer ones, with several tiers.. ranging from 60% to 100% of a continent explored. At 100%, you earn " ...ian/an Grand Master Cartographer" When you explore 100% of each of the 3 maps, you earn "Legendary Cartographer."
There are also titles for drinking booze (Drunkard, and then Incorrigible Ale-Hound), consuming sugary goods (Sweet Tooth), and using festival items, such as fire works (Party Animal).
The Friends titles are Factions-based and require you to earn points among either the Kurzicks or the Luxons.. these titles have 12 tiers and take bloody forever to get anywhere at higher levels.
The desire to earn titles keeps many a player going when they would normally not know what to do with themselves anymore.. and is a good way of showing off your l33t skills.
Negative Space Games
1. This game would be about testing the player's recognition of objects. It would display an image (like the 2 people or candlestick one) and the player would have to choose the correct object. There would be several levels of play, from easy to hard to impossible. Harder levels of play could be timed, and if the player is stupid enough to select Impossible Mode, no matter what they guess, the game would tell them that the other option was correct. On the reverse, there could be a level for 5 year olds, where no matter which option they choose, the game says they are right. These 2 levels of play would hopefully not be used very much, but would be more of a joke. There could be internet-connectivity, and players could create their own images to send to others or just put out in the internet tubes and let others download a new batch of images once they played through the retail copy.
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this topic is quite difficult..
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2. You play as a ninja. Like any good ninja, this one is skilled in Shadow Arts. Take advantage of the shadows and your ability to morph into one to sneak past guards or whoever is in your way. When you need to kill someone, you can switch back into a solid form, dispatch your enemies and move on.
If you switch forms too many times or stay in one for too long, you start to lose your perception of which is real and which is just a shadow world.
This idea is already confusing me.
3. This is a game similar to Tetris, however, the shapes only come in two colors rather than the various ones in some versions: black and white. In order for a row to disappear, not only does the entire line have to be covered by blocks, the blocks must all be of the same color. In order for this game to actually be possible, some more game mechanics must be changed or created, such as the ability to change an objects color properties every so often.. Game would be very difficult and a brain-challenger.
4. Racial tension is still very much a problem for some blacks and whites. For the black guy, there are white obstacles everywhere he looks, but he must overcome them! The white guy thinks affirmative action is going to stand in his way from achieving his goals. In a game world, where everything is literally split in two, choose a character to play and get them through the levels while keeping the other character from getting anywheres. Different levels would have different characteristics, for example, in some levels the character you don't choose to play as will be controlled by the computer, but in other levels, you will also control this character, and every action you do with your character will result in a equal (and sometimes opposite) of the other character. There would be some "live play" as well as turn-based strategy components.
5. You live in a gray and dreary world. You are a general contractor / builder. You have been commissioned by the city's government to create buildings and other architectural items that will please the community and get the people out of the doldrums. However, this city is split into two tribes: the Whities and the Blackies. It was their feud that cast the world into grayness. Each side has different preferences when it comes to the appearance of things that surround them, so find out what they all like and construct buildings and landscape that each side will like. (some things the Whities should like 100% while the Blackies like 0%; some things the Blackies should like like 100% while the Whities like 0%; and some things should be split 50-50.)
As soon as there is enough black, white, and gray in the city, other colors might soon venture back (believing it to be safe once again) and you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.
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this topic is quite difficult..
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2. You play as a ninja. Like any good ninja, this one is skilled in Shadow Arts. Take advantage of the shadows and your ability to morph into one to sneak past guards or whoever is in your way. When you need to kill someone, you can switch back into a solid form, dispatch your enemies and move on.
If you switch forms too many times or stay in one for too long, you start to lose your perception of which is real and which is just a shadow world.
This idea is already confusing me.
3. This is a game similar to Tetris, however, the shapes only come in two colors rather than the various ones in some versions: black and white. In order for a row to disappear, not only does the entire line have to be covered by blocks, the blocks must all be of the same color. In order for this game to actually be possible, some more game mechanics must be changed or created, such as the ability to change an objects color properties every so often.. Game would be very difficult and a brain-challenger.
4. Racial tension is still very much a problem for some blacks and whites. For the black guy, there are white obstacles everywhere he looks, but he must overcome them! The white guy thinks affirmative action is going to stand in his way from achieving his goals. In a game world, where everything is literally split in two, choose a character to play and get them through the levels while keeping the other character from getting anywheres. Different levels would have different characteristics, for example, in some levels the character you don't choose to play as will be controlled by the computer, but in other levels, you will also control this character, and every action you do with your character will result in a equal (and sometimes opposite) of the other character. There would be some "live play" as well as turn-based strategy components.
5. You live in a gray and dreary world. You are a general contractor / builder. You have been commissioned by the city's government to create buildings and other architectural items that will please the community and get the people out of the doldrums. However, this city is split into two tribes: the Whities and the Blackies. It was their feud that cast the world into grayness. Each side has different preferences when it comes to the appearance of things that surround them, so find out what they all like and construct buildings and landscape that each side will like. (some things the Whities should like 100% while the Blackies like 0%; some things the Blackies should like like 100% while the Whities like 0%; and some things should be split 50-50.)
As soon as there is enough black, white, and gray in the city, other colors might soon venture back (believing it to be safe once again) and you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
GameShip Wrecks in 1941
1. You are the captain of a submarine. It is your task to search the dark depths and find the ancient ships that lie at the bottom. You are doing this for money, glory, and the thrill of uncovering lost artifacts. You will have to avoid obstacles such as rocks, whales, other sea-life, the competition (others in submarines, but for some reason they thought in necessary to have torpedoes, and they don't like you...) Every ship you uncover will earn you fame and money, slightly dependant on how important the ship was.
2. A terrible war has started. You are a member of the Royal Navy and your commander has given you the objective to fly out and sink as many ships in the Kriegsmarine as possible before your inevitable shooting-down. (You fly a plane.) Obey your orders and help insure victory for England. But also try to avoid the last bit of your commander's assignment. You aren't up for a suicide mission just yet.. Drop bombs, avoid missiles, and end the day of the aircraft carrier partying it up with the other surviving members of your unit.
3. You are the captain of the Bismarck. Upon hearing word of Churchill's order to sink the Bismarck, you have decided not to let that happen. Command your way through the Atlantic Ocean back to Germany. Defend against the attacks of the Royal Navy and their allies, and then lead an offensive. In this what-if game, the player would try to experience what might have happened if events did not unfold the way they did.
4. In a game, similar to Battleship, players would chose locations to bomb and try to sink the other player's ship. The game would have many more ships than the current Battleship, and there would be several sides. It would be an online game, with up to 4 players in a single match trying to defeat their enemies. You could choose to ally with another side to help bring the other's to an end sooner. The game could also be played 1v1. Instead of a number+ letter system, players would have to use the global coordinates. The game would probably take several hours to play and would not exactly be for children. There would be a voice-communication program to talk with the others playing, and a chat box on the screen so you could have secret talks with another player. You would be placing specific ships at locations, not just "destroyer" or the other types. There would be a time-limit on how long you can spend to choose a location to bomb.
5. You have been commissioned to produce a documentary about war-ships lost during 1941. You will have to hire people to take you in a submarine under water to discover the wreckage and film it. Going through records and finding survivors will also be a task you must perform. Locate where they are now and try to interview them. They are getting rather old and have some bad memories of the time, so convincing them to speak with you will be quite difficult. They also want you to discover the plans for the ships and reconstruct one or two of them, You will have to raise funds, find the lost plans, hire capable workers to complete this task in a timely manner.
But it turns out it wasn't the BBC who hired you.. it was a secret organization who seeks to restart the war and they have named you commander of the fleet you created. If you do not do as they say now, they will kill you. Find a way out of this difficult and very strange situation...
2. A terrible war has started. You are a member of the Royal Navy and your commander has given you the objective to fly out and sink as many ships in the Kriegsmarine as possible before your inevitable shooting-down. (You fly a plane.) Obey your orders and help insure victory for England. But also try to avoid the last bit of your commander's assignment. You aren't up for a suicide mission just yet.. Drop bombs, avoid missiles, and end the day of the aircraft carrier partying it up with the other surviving members of your unit.
3. You are the captain of the Bismarck. Upon hearing word of Churchill's order to sink the Bismarck, you have decided not to let that happen. Command your way through the Atlantic Ocean back to Germany. Defend against the attacks of the Royal Navy and their allies, and then lead an offensive. In this what-if game, the player would try to experience what might have happened if events did not unfold the way they did.
4. In a game, similar to Battleship, players would chose locations to bomb and try to sink the other player's ship. The game would have many more ships than the current Battleship, and there would be several sides. It would be an online game, with up to 4 players in a single match trying to defeat their enemies. You could choose to ally with another side to help bring the other's to an end sooner. The game could also be played 1v1. Instead of a number+ letter system, players would have to use the global coordinates. The game would probably take several hours to play and would not exactly be for children. There would be a voice-communication program to talk with the others playing, and a chat box on the screen so you could have secret talks with another player. You would be placing specific ships at locations, not just "destroyer" or the other types. There would be a time-limit on how long you can spend to choose a location to bomb.
5. You have been commissioned to produce a documentary about war-ships lost during 1941. You will have to hire people to take you in a submarine under water to discover the wreckage and film it. Going through records and finding survivors will also be a task you must perform. Locate where they are now and try to interview them. They are getting rather old and have some bad memories of the time, so convincing them to speak with you will be quite difficult. They also want you to discover the plans for the ships and reconstruct one or two of them, You will have to raise funds, find the lost plans, hire capable workers to complete this task in a timely manner.
But it turns out it wasn't the BBC who hired you.. it was a secret organization who seeks to restart the war and they have named you commander of the fleet you created. If you do not do as they say now, they will kill you. Find a way out of this difficult and very strange situation...
Weaponry. And at this point I won't bother telling you what game it is...
Every class has its own set of attributes, and this attributes not only improve your skills, they determine what kind of weapon and possibly offhand you should use and how effective it will be.
Each type of weapon has its own traits which can effect game play quite a bit.
Warriors:
Swords - max damage: 15-22. attribute- Swordsmanship
Axes -max damage: 6-28. attribute- Axe Mastery
Hammers- max damage: 19-35. attribute- Hammer Mastery
--
Shields- Strength and Tactics. max armor = 16
--
Swords provide the most consistent range of damage and tend to have a higher damage per second (dps) than axes until you reach 11 in axe mastery (compared to 11 in swordsmanship, or equal thereafter.)
Axes have a wide range of damage and become almost exponentially better at higher ranks in axe mastery. Swords and axes have the same hit over time trait, 1 swing every 1.33 seconds.
Hammers deal much more damage than axes or swords, but the downside is that they are two-handed weapons, meaning you can not use a shield or other offhand. They are also slightly slower than axes and swords with one swing every 1.75 seconds.
----
Rangers:
Bows- max damage: 15-28. attribute- Marksmanship.
Bows are the only real ranger weapon, however there are five types of bows all with different traits. They are all two-handed weapons so you can not use a shield or offhand. You do not need to carry arrows, everyone has an unlimited number of arrows. Hooray!
Here is a graph with bow statistics, this graph was taken from Guild Wiki.
Depending on the situation one or two types of bows may be better than the others.. so carry a few different ones with you if you can.
As all bows have the same max damage, the only things that effect dps are the refire rate, arc size and the armor penetration on the hornbow. Flight time and range do not directly effect dps, as once you start shooting, its a constant stream of arrows that depends on your refire rate, however, a target has more time to move and dodge an arrow that has a longer flight time.
Staves and wands.
All of the caster classes use either a staff or wand + offhand linked to their attribute, or sometimes, a one-handed melee weapon that can have special mods on it.
Staves and wands both deal 11-22 damage. The damage type depends on what the attribute for the weapon is (what type of class it's meant for). For example, necromancers have blood, curses, death and soul reaping attributes. Their weapons deal either dark or cold damage. The type of damage can be very important depending on what you are fighting, as some things are armor-ignoring and some are not. Also, holy/light damage from a smiting staff/wand will do double damage versus undead creatures.
There are weapons for every spell casting attribute, which have been mentioned before so I won't waste your (or mine) time again by listing them all. Even though I probably could have in the time it took to write these last two sentences. Oh well, I never claimed to be the smartest person out there.
---
Assassins use daggers that have a max damage of 7-17, but swing very fast and can also double-strike. This lets them have a respectable dps (with the right build and high enough points in dagger mastery.) For daggers, a vampiric or zealous mod would be much better than sundering (will go into this aspect at some later time) Daggers are meant to be used to kill one target at a time, due to the linking skills you must use.
Dervishes use scythes, large two-handed bladed weapons with an incredible max damage, 9-41.
What a range! It is much better to have a lot of points in Scythe Mastery so that your hits will be in the 41 area rather than the 9.. Scythes probably have one of the highest dps's and just to add onto the glory, they can hit up to 2 adjacent foes to your target! Hitting three people with a single melee attack is very nice. As scythes are two-handed, you can not use a shield or offhand while wielding one. They tend to do slashing damage, but that can be changed with a modifier.
Since there damage is so high, they can hit multiple targets, and since its a two-hander, scythes are not the fastest weapon around, with "one" swing every 1.75 seconds.
Paragons use a spear + shield combo. Their spears have a maximum of 14-27 damage. They are a ranged weapon (like the bow) and have an attack interval of 1.5 seconds. I don't play a paragon so I don't know everything about them, but it seems that even with the lower damage range, their dps is higher than that of the bow. However, they can not interrupt a foe as the bow can.
A paragon's shield's maximum armor level is also 16 and can be linked to the Command or Motivation attributes.
Each type of weapon has its own traits which can effect game play quite a bit.
Warriors:
Swords - max damage: 15-22. attribute- Swordsmanship
Axes -max damage: 6-28. attribute- Axe Mastery
Hammers- max damage: 19-35. attribute- Hammer Mastery
--
Shields- Strength and Tactics. max armor = 16
--
Swords provide the most consistent range of damage and tend to have a higher damage per second (dps) than axes until you reach 11 in axe mastery (compared to 11 in swordsmanship, or equal thereafter.)
Axes have a wide range of damage and become almost exponentially better at higher ranks in axe mastery. Swords and axes have the same hit over time trait, 1 swing every 1.33 seconds.
Hammers deal much more damage than axes or swords, but the downside is that they are two-handed weapons, meaning you can not use a shield or other offhand. They are also slightly slower than axes and swords with one swing every 1.75 seconds.
----
Rangers:
Bows- max damage: 15-28. attribute- Marksmanship.
Bows are the only real ranger weapon, however there are five types of bows all with different traits. They are all two-handed weapons so you can not use a shield or offhand. You do not need to carry arrows, everyone has an unlimited number of arrows. Hooray!
Here is a graph with bow statistics, this graph was taken from Guild Wiki.
| Weapon | Refire Rate | Range1 | Flight Time2 | Arc Size | Special Feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Longbow | 2.4 seconds | 1.6 | 0.59 seconds | Medium | None |
| Flatbow | 2.0 seconds | 1.6 | 0.88 seconds | Large | None |
| Hornbow | 2.7 seconds | 1.4 | 0.59 seconds | Medium | 10% Armor penetration |
| Recurve Bow | 2.4 seconds | 1.4 | 0.40 seconds | Small | None |
| Shortbow | 2.0 seconds | 1.05 | 0.59 seconds | Medium | None |
As all bows have the same max damage, the only things that effect dps are the refire rate, arc size and the armor penetration on the hornbow. Flight time and range do not directly effect dps, as once you start shooting, its a constant stream of arrows that depends on your refire rate, however, a target has more time to move and dodge an arrow that has a longer flight time.
Staves and wands.
All of the caster classes use either a staff or wand + offhand linked to their attribute, or sometimes, a one-handed melee weapon that can have special mods on it.
Staves and wands both deal 11-22 damage. The damage type depends on what the attribute for the weapon is (what type of class it's meant for). For example, necromancers have blood, curses, death and soul reaping attributes. Their weapons deal either dark or cold damage. The type of damage can be very important depending on what you are fighting, as some things are armor-ignoring and some are not. Also, holy/light damage from a smiting staff/wand will do double damage versus undead creatures.
There are weapons for every spell casting attribute, which have been mentioned before so I won't waste your (or mine) time again by listing them all. Even though I probably could have in the time it took to write these last two sentences. Oh well, I never claimed to be the smartest person out there.
---
Assassins use daggers that have a max damage of 7-17, but swing very fast and can also double-strike. This lets them have a respectable dps (with the right build and high enough points in dagger mastery.) For daggers, a vampiric or zealous mod would be much better than sundering (will go into this aspect at some later time) Daggers are meant to be used to kill one target at a time, due to the linking skills you must use.
Dervishes use scythes, large two-handed bladed weapons with an incredible max damage, 9-41.
What a range! It is much better to have a lot of points in Scythe Mastery so that your hits will be in the 41 area rather than the 9.. Scythes probably have one of the highest dps's and just to add onto the glory, they can hit up to 2 adjacent foes to your target! Hitting three people with a single melee attack is very nice. As scythes are two-handed, you can not use a shield or offhand while wielding one. They tend to do slashing damage, but that can be changed with a modifier.
Since there damage is so high, they can hit multiple targets, and since its a two-hander, scythes are not the fastest weapon around, with "one" swing every 1.75 seconds.
Paragons use a spear + shield combo. Their spears have a maximum of 14-27 damage. They are a ranged weapon (like the bow) and have an attack interval of 1.5 seconds. I don't play a paragon so I don't know everything about them, but it seems that even with the lower damage range, their dps is higher than that of the bow. However, they can not interrupt a foe as the bow can.
A paragon's shield's maximum armor level is also 16 and can be linked to the Command or Motivation attributes.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Paradise as a game.
Well, calm things don't make good games (IMO) so let's shake things up a bit, ja?
1. The game starts out with you at some fancy resort/ spa, having the best two weeks of your life. You order another drink while at the open bar when all of a sudden, ninjas drop through the roof. No one knows why, but these ninjas seem intent on ending your holiday. You don't know how to fight and are a bit too tipsy to do so even if you did, so you must flee from the ninjas in terror. Make your way out of the resort and to a place of safety, such as the airport, because, as far as we know, ninjas still lack the ability to fly.
Bonus points if you manage to save your children or others from the ninjas' deadly wrath.
This would be a third person game for the consoles or PC.
2. You have been living in a room by yourself, so you watched what you wanted to, listened to whatever music you liked, kept the temperature at what pleased you and followed a sleep schedule only suitable to you. And then res-life got you a roommate. He/she is deeply religious, goes to bed at 9, is up at 6, enjoys country music exclusively, and likes the temperature 80 degrees for whatever reason. There's only a few months of the semester left, can you make it without killing yourself? your roommate? getting written up? How will you get through this?
Try to change your roommate's ways, do what you like as much as you can, and avoid having the roommate call the police, or worse, public safety.
3. You're on a beautiful island, in the middle of nowhere. You're a vegetarian so you're fine with just eating the local fruits you can find, and they are everywhere. You no longer need to pay taxes and you can forget about going back to your job. But the best part about the whole thing is that you happen to be stuck on this island with some lovely companions... But there's just too many for you and they are fed up with your spread-out attention. You can have only one to spend your private time with. You must make them compete, but push them too hard and they'll push back. And watch out for jealousy; you don't know how dangerous some of them might be.
4. AHHHH Finally!! Summer vacation is here and your folks no longer care if you get a summer job or not. You can do whatever you like with your summer, go on a trip, hang out by the pool, or even sit in your room and play computer games. Well, that was a nice month and a half. Now school starts up again in 4 days. You have 3 books to read, each with massive reports to do. You lost the list of books and topics for the reports weeks ago, your internet just happened to go out yesterday, and your computer succumbed to a virus anyways. While texting at the pool the day before, you dropped your cell phone into the water. Now thats broken too. Its a test against time. Find the list of books, get them, read them, report on them, fix your computer, get a new cell phone, and perhaps most importantly, find an apartment to live in for the next year. Be wary of that mother though, she doesn't want you to leave for months and will try to hinder your progress. Also, your girlfriend is kind of angry you spent 95% of your time over the summer without her and she is considering a break-up. Can you manage to keep her too?
5. You recently made it big with your #1 album. Now you can buy what you like, go where you please and just do whatever you want. Though that money is starting to disappear and due to some recent activities, a lot of people no longer like you and its going to be really hard to get another record deal. Lay down some good tracks, stay out of public view for awhile, and keep your possessions from getting repossessed from the IRS. This game would have elements similar to Rockband, in that you'd have a band, but you must play good music so you can sell more albums, make some cash and not lose everything you have. Mini-games such as getting to the store without being spotted by paparazzi and placing bets at casinos.
1. The game starts out with you at some fancy resort/ spa, having the best two weeks of your life. You order another drink while at the open bar when all of a sudden, ninjas drop through the roof. No one knows why, but these ninjas seem intent on ending your holiday. You don't know how to fight and are a bit too tipsy to do so even if you did, so you must flee from the ninjas in terror. Make your way out of the resort and to a place of safety, such as the airport, because, as far as we know, ninjas still lack the ability to fly.
Bonus points if you manage to save your children or others from the ninjas' deadly wrath.
This would be a third person game for the consoles or PC.
2. You have been living in a room by yourself, so you watched what you wanted to, listened to whatever music you liked, kept the temperature at what pleased you and followed a sleep schedule only suitable to you. And then res-life got you a roommate. He/she is deeply religious, goes to bed at 9, is up at 6, enjoys country music exclusively, and likes the temperature 80 degrees for whatever reason. There's only a few months of the semester left, can you make it without killing yourself? your roommate? getting written up? How will you get through this?
Try to change your roommate's ways, do what you like as much as you can, and avoid having the roommate call the police, or worse, public safety.
3. You're on a beautiful island, in the middle of nowhere. You're a vegetarian so you're fine with just eating the local fruits you can find, and they are everywhere. You no longer need to pay taxes and you can forget about going back to your job. But the best part about the whole thing is that you happen to be stuck on this island with some lovely companions... But there's just too many for you and they are fed up with your spread-out attention. You can have only one to spend your private time with. You must make them compete, but push them too hard and they'll push back. And watch out for jealousy; you don't know how dangerous some of them might be.
4. AHHHH Finally!! Summer vacation is here and your folks no longer care if you get a summer job or not. You can do whatever you like with your summer, go on a trip, hang out by the pool, or even sit in your room and play computer games. Well, that was a nice month and a half. Now school starts up again in 4 days. You have 3 books to read, each with massive reports to do. You lost the list of books and topics for the reports weeks ago, your internet just happened to go out yesterday, and your computer succumbed to a virus anyways. While texting at the pool the day before, you dropped your cell phone into the water. Now thats broken too. Its a test against time. Find the list of books, get them, read them, report on them, fix your computer, get a new cell phone, and perhaps most importantly, find an apartment to live in for the next year. Be wary of that mother though, she doesn't want you to leave for months and will try to hinder your progress. Also, your girlfriend is kind of angry you spent 95% of your time over the summer without her and she is considering a break-up. Can you manage to keep her too?
5. You recently made it big with your #1 album. Now you can buy what you like, go where you please and just do whatever you want. Though that money is starting to disappear and due to some recent activities, a lot of people no longer like you and its going to be really hard to get another record deal. Lay down some good tracks, stay out of public view for awhile, and keep your possessions from getting repossessed from the IRS. This game would have elements similar to Rockband, in that you'd have a band, but you must play good music so you can sell more albums, make some cash and not lose everything you have. Mini-games such as getting to the store without being spotted by paparazzi and placing bets at casinos.
Friendly AI in.. you guessed it; Guild Wars
Let us start back at the beginning, in a land called Tyria, a chapter called Prophecies. After leaving Pre-searing, players will find a lot of changes. Two of those changes are an increased party size (2 to 4) and a couple of people hanging out by the door of any outpost / city. These fellows are quite the useful thing. They are called henchmen and you can grab as many as you like (until there are no more or your party is full) and go out killing. This means a lot less PuGing! Nobody likes PuGs! and in Guild Wars you almost never really have to. The henchmen start out at low levels, but as you get farther in farther in the game, their level increases and eventually they have Elite Skills as well.
Cantha also had a wide variety of henchmen and an interesting system with some of them as the nation is essentially split in two factions, the Kurzicks and the cowardly Luxons. A few henchmen belong to one of these groups so you won't find them in the other side's territory, but there will be someone else to replace them over there.
With the introduction of Nightfall came the... magnificent inclusion of heros. Heros are similar to henchmen, but about 83x better. You control their actions, their skill choice, their weapons and to some extent, their armor. And unlike henchmen, heros level up with you, or from you.. They start out at a low level but as the levels go up, they stay at that level, meaning you can have a group of 4 level 20's to wipe out some level 8's in seconds.
They can be set to attack, defend, or avoid combat.. which henchies can not be, and this is so incredibly helpful. However, you must remember to change their settings when you need to. The same goes for flagging - marking where you want the heros/henchies to stand.
Eye of the North introduced 10 more heros, one for each class, and I tend to prefer these ones over the NF ones. They also start out at level 20! And many of them are not humans, always a plus in my book.
Cantha also had a wide variety of henchmen and an interesting system with some of them as the nation is essentially split in two factions, the Kurzicks and the cowardly Luxons. A few henchmen belong to one of these groups so you won't find them in the other side's territory, but there will be someone else to replace them over there.
With the introduction of Nightfall came the... magnificent inclusion of heros. Heros are similar to henchmen, but about 83x better. You control their actions, their skill choice, their weapons and to some extent, their armor. And unlike henchmen, heros level up with you, or from you.. They start out at a low level but as the levels go up, they stay at that level, meaning you can have a group of 4 level 20's to wipe out some level 8's in seconds.
They can be set to attack, defend, or avoid combat.. which henchies can not be, and this is so incredibly helpful. However, you must remember to change their settings when you need to. The same goes for flagging - marking where you want the heros/henchies to stand.
Eye of the North introduced 10 more heros, one for each class, and I tend to prefer these ones over the NF ones. They also start out at level 20! And many of them are not humans, always a plus in my book.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
DS Game Ideas about the little ones.
Seeing as how I have never used a DS and generally don't like hand-held consoles, I'm not entirely sure how they operate.
This one has a little poking thing right? Some call it a stylus? Little utensil for the moving, that's what I'll call it.
1. Your teacher says it is time for the ritual of mass-napping. But you are not tired and very mischievous. Sneak around the class without waking the other children and avoiding the teacher's line of sight. You are to pull pranks and do other things a person with limited physical capabilities could do. Mix up some of the teachers paperwork, hide your "friends' " shoes, steal their chocolate pudding snacks. Get caught and its boarding school for you bud.
2. This game is for people who wish to learn a new language. You play the kindergarten student and the teacher is trying to teach your small mind the alphabet. Eventually you'll get to phrases, then sentences, leading to paragraphs, and soon enough you'll be writing essays with your tiny stylus. The game will work on a grading system and penmanship will count. If you fail, don't bother taking those citizenship tests yet.
3. This time you are a child who wants to sleep, but you can't. Its not that you have insomnia, its that there's a ninja jumping around the class room! Is he lost? It's of little concern to you, you just want him out of there. He scares you. I mean, he's a ninja, ninjas are scary. They have throwing stars. Lead your fellow tykes in the offensive against this ninja. You'll have to raise the greatest Kindergarten Army of all time and employ all your resources to defeat the ninja. As well as hiding from his throwing stars, caltrops, and smoke grenades.
This game would have an overhead view perspective giving you the layout of the entire battle field err I mean classroom.
4. Are you smarter than a kindergartener?
In this game similar to one featuring children at the fifth-grade level, the contestants (players) would be in elementary school rather than college or out of college. The questions would be rather simple and hopefully the children will get them right.
Suggestion: Middle school teachers give your students this game. If they fail, keep them back a year. If it is within your power...lower them another year. If they win the game, say "Congratulations, you've proved me wrong, you're not a complete idiot." It may sound harsh, but its true. Okay, its probably not true. Sure would be funny though.
Topics would be: letters, numbers, colors, shapes, and astro-physics.
5. Finally! It's time for recess. Go outside and play some games. No, not you, your character.
There's a brand new slide, a ..whatchama-callit.. there's 2 ends and people sit on them... wait? whats the point of that thing? I'm glad I don't know the name of it! You can also get into a rock fight with the first-graders. Ah, now that's fun. There will be a checklist of goals to accomplish/ activities to do. Once you have done them all, recess is over and you lose the game. So don't stop with the things to do! This game will help teach people procrastination and waiting, very valuable skills that will serve them well as they get old. There will be different things to do from day to day and season to season. If you manage to get through all the recesses, you will reach summer vacation, where you will spend most of your time twiddling your thumbs. The game will log the number of hours you wasted and translate it into things you could have done instead.
"You have been playing for 50 hours, if you had a job, you could have made $400. Congratulations."
This game would pretty much be for people who hate themselves.
This one has a little poking thing right? Some call it a stylus? Little utensil for the moving, that's what I'll call it.
1. Your teacher says it is time for the ritual of mass-napping. But you are not tired and very mischievous. Sneak around the class without waking the other children and avoiding the teacher's line of sight. You are to pull pranks and do other things a person with limited physical capabilities could do. Mix up some of the teachers paperwork, hide your "friends' " shoes, steal their chocolate pudding snacks. Get caught and its boarding school for you bud.
2. This game is for people who wish to learn a new language. You play the kindergarten student and the teacher is trying to teach your small mind the alphabet. Eventually you'll get to phrases, then sentences, leading to paragraphs, and soon enough you'll be writing essays with your tiny stylus. The game will work on a grading system and penmanship will count. If you fail, don't bother taking those citizenship tests yet.
3. This time you are a child who wants to sleep, but you can't. Its not that you have insomnia, its that there's a ninja jumping around the class room! Is he lost? It's of little concern to you, you just want him out of there. He scares you. I mean, he's a ninja, ninjas are scary. They have throwing stars. Lead your fellow tykes in the offensive against this ninja. You'll have to raise the greatest Kindergarten Army of all time and employ all your resources to defeat the ninja. As well as hiding from his throwing stars, caltrops, and smoke grenades.
This game would have an overhead view perspective giving you the layout of the entire battle field err I mean classroom.
4. Are you smarter than a kindergartener?
In this game similar to one featuring children at the fifth-grade level, the contestants (players) would be in elementary school rather than college or out of college. The questions would be rather simple and hopefully the children will get them right.
Suggestion: Middle school teachers give your students this game. If they fail, keep them back a year. If it is within your power...lower them another year. If they win the game, say "Congratulations, you've proved me wrong, you're not a complete idiot." It may sound harsh, but its true. Okay, its probably not true. Sure would be funny though.
Topics would be: letters, numbers, colors, shapes, and astro-physics.
5. Finally! It's time for recess. Go outside and play some games. No, not you, your character.
There's a brand new slide, a ..whatchama-callit.. there's 2 ends and people sit on them... wait? whats the point of that thing? I'm glad I don't know the name of it! You can also get into a rock fight with the first-graders. Ah, now that's fun. There will be a checklist of goals to accomplish/ activities to do. Once you have done them all, recess is over and you lose the game. So don't stop with the things to do! This game will help teach people procrastination and waiting, very valuable skills that will serve them well as they get old. There will be different things to do from day to day and season to season. If you manage to get through all the recesses, you will reach summer vacation, where you will spend most of your time twiddling your thumbs. The game will log the number of hours you wasted and translate it into things you could have done instead.
"You have been playing for 50 hours, if you had a job, you could have made $400. Congratulations."
This game would pretty much be for people who hate themselves.
Events. Where? Guild Wars of course..
A particularly fun thing about Guild Wars is the occasionally events that Arena Net programs into the game. There is a wide range of things, from Halloween, to the Chinese New Year, to Saint Patrick's Day even. Different events provide for different things, and the significance of the real-world event directly correlates to the in game event. (Chinese New Year is bigger than St. Patty's day.) What they do is usually introduce a few new temporary drops, usually some manner of alcohol or sweets, sometimes something that will boost your attributes / statistics. Everyone looks forward to these events and spend hours on end farming the special goodies. Some events provide hats during the ending ceremony. Yes, hats. People love hats. I have a yule cap, a jesters hat, some antlers, and many more. Hats can help determine a person's life in Guild Wars. (Yule caps were from Wintersday 2005, in 2006, there was a modified version of this hat, and in 2007 some kind of crazy snowman skull. I'm rambling aren't I? My apologies. The events can provide quests which are almost always fun, and usually insane. (at least on the developer's part) A reindeer named Rudi and his nose can glow red? I love it! Sometimes there is even a new type of PvP that players can enter (such as the Dragon Arena or Snowball Fight) These make for great fun and provide a change of pace from your usual high-end, make you feel like a noob PvP that most PvPers are involved in.
Many a weekend has been lost to these wonderful events (sometimes even a week) for thousands of people across the world.
It does not stop there though! On every single weekend, there is a small, tiny event.. its not really an event in the typical sense of the word, but there is something special happening. It normally involves doubling or tripling some aspect of the game (such as faction points, experience, gold, what have you..) To name a few, there are: Double Alliance Battle Faction weekends (one of my favorites.. and it is this weekend, explaining why this post is being written now and not at some sensible hour), double experience and gold for vanquishing weekends, 2x unique/rare drops weekends, double hero battle's points weekends. If I were to list them all, I'm afraid the internet would run out of space.
Depending on what you like, you'll be a slave to the GW machine for a weekend or two every month or so. I spent my time wisely and earned tier 8 of the friends title, making me a Warden of the Kurzicks. When I say wisely, I am lying terribly. But I can not help it and I do not mind. Though I think my laptop does.. it'll learn though.
And they let you (they being ANet) know whats up through the message box at the log-in screen. It was difficult to read in German though. Perhaps I'll talk about that next week..
Many a weekend has been lost to these wonderful events (sometimes even a week) for thousands of people across the world.
It does not stop there though! On every single weekend, there is a small, tiny event.. its not really an event in the typical sense of the word, but there is something special happening. It normally involves doubling or tripling some aspect of the game (such as faction points, experience, gold, what have you..) To name a few, there are: Double Alliance Battle Faction weekends (one of my favorites.. and it is this weekend, explaining why this post is being written now and not at some sensible hour), double experience and gold for vanquishing weekends, 2x unique/rare drops weekends, double hero battle's points weekends. If I were to list them all, I'm afraid the internet would run out of space.
Depending on what you like, you'll be a slave to the GW machine for a weekend or two every month or so. I spent my time wisely and earned tier 8 of the friends title, making me a Warden of the Kurzicks. When I say wisely, I am lying terribly. But I can not help it and I do not mind. Though I think my laptop does.. it'll learn though.
And they let you (they being ANet) know whats up through the message box at the log-in screen. It was difficult to read in German though. Perhaps I'll talk about that next week..
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Photo Album Game Ideas
1. Each picture in the photo album represents a level to play. You go through the pictures, find a level and enter it. You must then make your way to the spot where the picture was taken and retake the picture. (You are not a member of the family, you are just jealous of all the fun times they have and want to do the same things they do). The game play on each level will be different based on what the location of the picture is. (Survive attacks by lions, defend the Great Wall from Mongols, don't freeze to death at the North Pole, and so on.) This would be a third to first person action /adventure game for the consoles and PC. (sorry Mac users)
2. Ninjas, saddened by their mysterious and lonely life, have decided to steal photo albums from peoples' houses and pretend that it is their family in the pictures as they have long ago lost connections to their own. You choose what side you want to be on - a ninja who must stealthy break into houses and steal photo albums or the families who must protect their precious photos as they'll never relive those memories. Wait... who wouldn't play a ninja? Maybe we'll disable the option to play as a family member.. This game would also be third to first person, and can be played one player or multiple players.
3. Your photo album is empty! Get out there and fill it up already. This game would have an open world environment where you'll walk around until you see something interesting or just really strange. Take a picture. Keep doing this till your camera is full then return home and upload it to your electronic photo album. If you are satisfied with the pictures, upload them to the internet, where they will be judged against the other people playing the game. Are you the greatest photographer or just some rook unfit to hold a camera? First person game, there will be some obstacles and challenges (such as finding new batteries) to slow down your pursuit of amazing photos.
4. You're a spiteful 12-year old who hates pictures of himself. Go through your family's photo albums and remove all traces of your existence. But don't get caught or you'll be in big trouble and they'll just take more pictures of you. The Commie bastards! You can use scissors to cut yourself out, you can burn the pictures, whatever you like. This would most likely be a mini-game in some larger game about a pre-teen /pre-teens who hate themselves and the world.
5. It is time to reminisce about the past. Go through old photos and tell the tale behind the picture. This is a game for the creative and fast of mind. (Improv like) You must keep the attention of the young ones who got stuck spending the day with you, but don't make the stories sound too crazy, your family has been begging for a reason to put you in a home or asylum. You can play this off-line or online. Off-line and you'll be judged by the NPCs who will determine your sanity and level of interestingness. Online and you will be rated by other people bored enough to play a game about story-telling from old pictures.
2. Ninjas, saddened by their mysterious and lonely life, have decided to steal photo albums from peoples' houses and pretend that it is their family in the pictures as they have long ago lost connections to their own. You choose what side you want to be on - a ninja who must stealthy break into houses and steal photo albums or the families who must protect their precious photos as they'll never relive those memories. Wait... who wouldn't play a ninja? Maybe we'll disable the option to play as a family member.. This game would also be third to first person, and can be played one player or multiple players.
3. Your photo album is empty! Get out there and fill it up already. This game would have an open world environment where you'll walk around until you see something interesting or just really strange. Take a picture. Keep doing this till your camera is full then return home and upload it to your electronic photo album. If you are satisfied with the pictures, upload them to the internet, where they will be judged against the other people playing the game. Are you the greatest photographer or just some rook unfit to hold a camera? First person game, there will be some obstacles and challenges (such as finding new batteries) to slow down your pursuit of amazing photos.
4. You're a spiteful 12-year old who hates pictures of himself. Go through your family's photo albums and remove all traces of your existence. But don't get caught or you'll be in big trouble and they'll just take more pictures of you. The Commie bastards! You can use scissors to cut yourself out, you can burn the pictures, whatever you like. This would most likely be a mini-game in some larger game about a pre-teen /pre-teens who hate themselves and the world.
5. It is time to reminisce about the past. Go through old photos and tell the tale behind the picture. This is a game for the creative and fast of mind. (Improv like) You must keep the attention of the young ones who got stuck spending the day with you, but don't make the stories sound too crazy, your family has been begging for a reason to put you in a home or asylum. You can play this off-line or online. Off-line and you'll be judged by the NPCs who will determine your sanity and level of interestingness. Online and you will be rated by other people bored enough to play a game about story-telling from old pictures.
What sets Guild Wars apart.
Guild Wars is an MMORPG unlike many that are out there and that is part of what makes it so very great.
The developers wanted to make a game that a person could play, enjoy, and be good at without having to devote their life to it (unfortunately I have anyways).
To do this a variety of aspects were changed from your standard MMORPG.
As mentioned not too long ago, there is a level cap of 20 and it does not take very long to reach this. (It can be done in a single day if you play too much or within a week if you are a somewhat casual player).
Traveling. Perhaps one of the most annoying and time-consuming parts of most MMORPG's is trying to get someplace. If you want to get across the world, be prepared to press your auto-run key and guide your character through zones for an hour or so. In Guild Wars, if you want to get to the far end of a distant continent, it takes about 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on how fast your internet connection is. Although the method of traveling doesn't make a whole lot of sense, the players really appreciate it. You open up your map, find your destination, and click on it. Loading screen -> you're there. Lovely. All you need to do to be able to travel back to some place instantly is travel there once by foot. But there are outposts and cities everywhere so finding a place to leave from is not at all difficult and there is a chance you can even find a person to run your character there!
Death Penalty. Ugh, I just lost a level and half a bubble of experience. I'm going to go kill myself now. Woah, woah, woah! Not in Guild Wars my friend! Put the sword down. In many MMORPG's, your death led to much anger and loss of time by stealing away experience equal to the last 3 hours of killing you did and placing you someplace perhaps far away. You might even lose your inventory! Don't settle for this! In Guild Wars, a death leads to a temporary reduction of maximum health and energy. When you die, you get a 15% death penalty, lowering your health and energy by 15%. If you keep dying, you will continue to get / raise your DP. Two deaths = 30%, 3 = 45%, and 4 =60%. And thankfully 60% is the highest DP you can get. Originally, the only ways to remove a death penalty were by killing things or finishing quests to gain experience. (I believe it is either 75 or 125 experience to remove 1% of death penalty). You could earn a morale boost by killing a boss or doing objectives, or you could simply rezone to an outpost and remove all your DP at once. If your entire party is wiped, you will be resurrected in about 10 seconds at the closest rez shrine. In Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North, there are several rez shrines in each outposts, while in the original Prophecies there tends to be one or two. (ANet kept making the game easier every week...)
Bosses- Killing a boss would grant you and your party a 2% morale boost (maximum being 10%), some nice exp, hopefully some phat loot, and if you brought a Signet of Capture, the ability to take a skill from their arsenal and put it in your skills list until time ends... or until you stop playing the game..whichever comes first. For me, it will be time ending.
The developers wanted to make a game that a person could play, enjoy, and be good at without having to devote their life to it (unfortunately I have anyways).
To do this a variety of aspects were changed from your standard MMORPG.
As mentioned not too long ago, there is a level cap of 20 and it does not take very long to reach this. (It can be done in a single day if you play too much or within a week if you are a somewhat casual player).
Traveling. Perhaps one of the most annoying and time-consuming parts of most MMORPG's is trying to get someplace. If you want to get across the world, be prepared to press your auto-run key and guide your character through zones for an hour or so. In Guild Wars, if you want to get to the far end of a distant continent, it takes about 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on how fast your internet connection is. Although the method of traveling doesn't make a whole lot of sense, the players really appreciate it. You open up your map, find your destination, and click on it. Loading screen -> you're there. Lovely. All you need to do to be able to travel back to some place instantly is travel there once by foot. But there are outposts and cities everywhere so finding a place to leave from is not at all difficult and there is a chance you can even find a person to run your character there!
Death Penalty. Ugh, I just lost a level and half a bubble of experience. I'm going to go kill myself now. Woah, woah, woah! Not in Guild Wars my friend! Put the sword down. In many MMORPG's, your death led to much anger and loss of time by stealing away experience equal to the last 3 hours of killing you did and placing you someplace perhaps far away. You might even lose your inventory! Don't settle for this! In Guild Wars, a death leads to a temporary reduction of maximum health and energy. When you die, you get a 15% death penalty, lowering your health and energy by 15%. If you keep dying, you will continue to get / raise your DP. Two deaths = 30%, 3 = 45%, and 4 =60%. And thankfully 60% is the highest DP you can get. Originally, the only ways to remove a death penalty were by killing things or finishing quests to gain experience. (I believe it is either 75 or 125 experience to remove 1% of death penalty). You could earn a morale boost by killing a boss or doing objectives, or you could simply rezone to an outpost and remove all your DP at once. If your entire party is wiped, you will be resurrected in about 10 seconds at the closest rez shrine. In Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North, there are several rez shrines in each outposts, while in the original Prophecies there tends to be one or two. (ANet kept making the game easier every week...)
Bosses- Killing a boss would grant you and your party a 2% morale boost (maximum being 10%), some nice exp, hopefully some phat loot, and if you brought a Signet of Capture, the ability to take a skill from their arsenal and put it in your skills list until time ends... or until you stop playing the game..whichever comes first. For me, it will be time ending.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Rain Drop character Game ideas.
1. It is a 2D side scroller that goes down instead of to the right. You are a lonely rain drop who just wants to be with others. Make your way from the clouds to the ocean far, far below. There will be birds, planes, and other things in your way as you plummet to Earth. Don't hit anything or you'll splatter all over the place. Also, try to avoid the sunlight as it will dry you out.
2. Wild fires are running rampant across the mid-west and there appears to be no end in sight. Locate your fellow rain drops and lead them to the problem areas. Get up in the sky and perform the noble task of kamikaze-ing into the flames. Extinguish the flames before all is lost and your name will be remembered for all of H2O's history.
It would be a 3rd person action/adventure game.
3. A shooter game where you are a cloud, your ammo: rain drops. There will be various tasks for you to complete, namely watering crops, ending droughts, causing floods and putting out fires. If you run out of rain drops, you must go through the timely process of reloading by evaporating water from lakes and oceans, storing it in yourself and then continuing with the task at hand. ( The process will be sped up so the player can enjoy their 12th birthday, the 4th of July and Halloween. There will be several levels, and you'll get your assignment from some being of higher power, lets say the Cloud King, at the begining of each level. The amount of rain you drop will effect what happens.
4. You're a particualry malicious rain drop with the ability to reincarnate upon death. In this first person game, you must find the most "displeased because of the rain" people you can find. Targets include: people without umbrellas, people reading the newspaper, women with newly done hair, people with new suits, people playing sports, parades, picnics, sun-bathers, and so on. It is your duty to ruin their day! What do you get from this? The satisfaction of causing others misery.
5. Your friends keep trying to commit suicide by jumping out of the cloud. You must save them! Go after them and make sure they don't hit solid ground, at least not as a drop of rain. You can either push them over a lake, pond, ocean (some kind of body of water) so that they will be able to reform after impact, or find some place nice and chilly and turn into snowflakes so that you can make a nice, soft landing. Once you are out of the air, you'll have to stop them from evaporating again because they'll just try to off themselves all over again. (It was being so high and condensed that depressed them.) This would be in the third-person.
2. Wild fires are running rampant across the mid-west and there appears to be no end in sight. Locate your fellow rain drops and lead them to the problem areas. Get up in the sky and perform the noble task of kamikaze-ing into the flames. Extinguish the flames before all is lost and your name will be remembered for all of H2O's history.
It would be a 3rd person action/adventure game.
3. A shooter game where you are a cloud, your ammo: rain drops. There will be various tasks for you to complete, namely watering crops, ending droughts, causing floods and putting out fires. If you run out of rain drops, you must go through the timely process of reloading by evaporating water from lakes and oceans, storing it in yourself and then continuing with the task at hand. ( The process will be sped up so the player can enjoy their 12th birthday, the 4th of July and Halloween. There will be several levels, and you'll get your assignment from some being of higher power, lets say the Cloud King, at the begining of each level. The amount of rain you drop will effect what happens.
4. You're a particualry malicious rain drop with the ability to reincarnate upon death. In this first person game, you must find the most "displeased because of the rain" people you can find. Targets include: people without umbrellas, people reading the newspaper, women with newly done hair, people with new suits, people playing sports, parades, picnics, sun-bathers, and so on. It is your duty to ruin their day! What do you get from this? The satisfaction of causing others misery.
5. Your friends keep trying to commit suicide by jumping out of the cloud. You must save them! Go after them and make sure they don't hit solid ground, at least not as a drop of rain. You can either push them over a lake, pond, ocean (some kind of body of water) so that they will be able to reform after impact, or find some place nice and chilly and turn into snowflakes so that you can make a nice, soft landing. Once you are out of the air, you'll have to stop them from evaporating again because they'll just try to off themselves all over again. (It was being so high and condensed that depressed them.) This would be in the third-person.
Some Game Mechanics (Guild Wars)
When Guild Wars was first released, there was a total of six classes a person could play. Over the next year and a half or so, Anet introduced 4 more classes. Each class is very different from the last with certain ones having strengths in one area and weaknesses in others. As with any MMO, balancing is one of the key aspects that the developers work on before releasing the game and in the case of online games, well into its life. Balancing requires attention to be paid to the armors of a class, the damgage output of weapons, and skills/spells. Below is a list of each classes standard settings at level 20 and unique aspects/attributes.
Warrior - 80 armor, 2 energy regeneration, primary attribute = strength (adds an overall damage, improves strength related skills)
Ranger - 70 armor, 3 energy regeneration, primary attribute = expertise (lowers energy cost on a variety of skills, improves expertise related skills)
Necromancer - 60 armor, 4 energy regeneration, primary attribute = soul reaping (character gains energy equal to level in soul reaping whenever something dies -- this was nerfed in an attempt to balance the classes -> became once every 5 seconds could you gain energy, now it its 3 times every 15 seconds. (this caused much anger for me.) also improves the FIVE soul reaping skills.
Monk - 60 armor, 4 energy regeneration, primary attribute divine favor (adds additional health to a character whenever healed or "protected" equal to 3 x level of divine favor, improves divine favor spells)
Mesmer - 60 armor, 4 energy regeneration, primary attribute = fast casting (does what it says, for each level in fast casting, the mesmer casts their spells and signets a little bit faster, also improves the two handfuls of fast casting spells)
Elementalist - 60 armor, 4 energy regeneration, primary attribute = energy storage (for each level a ele has in e storage, their energy raises by 3 points, and as with the others, improves energy storage related spells)
That covers the core classes, the others will be discussed at a later date. Now for the purpose / things about the classes...
The warrior is a tank. They are the ones who are hopefully taking the damage in the group and can utilize a few different melee weapons (swords, axes, and hammers). They have a few "shouts" which can be used to help the warriors group or handicap foes. They have both low energy attacks (normally 5 energy) and adrenaline based attacks, which build up as the warrior hits and gets hit.
The ranger is one with nature. They have the ability to charm a "pet" that will aid them in battle and can summon nature rituals that have either good or negative effects. They are the master of the bow, and while usually lower in DPS than some other classes/weapon types, have the ability to interupt a great many skills helping yourself and team out tremendously. They can also set traps that will bother an unsuspecting enemy to no end. To improve on their bow attacks, rangers have a dozen or so preparations that make them even more effective and irritating.
The necromancer. Well here's a complex class. They are the masters of death, often making their newly dead foes serve them in whatever way they would like. The necro has three major attribute lines: blood, curses, and death magic. Blood magic allows you to take your foe's health and give it to yourself. It can also be used to sacrifice your own health for a specific purpose, such as dealing damge, healing/helping a friend, and healing yourself. In the curses line there are a great many hexes that really put a damper on your foe. You can lower their damage output, slow their attack rate, cause them to miss frequently, and make them lose health if they do ANYTHING. It also has a few ways in which to heal yourself. Death magic focuses mostly on corpses, but there are some other uses as well. With death magic, you can create a minion army to slaughter all who stand in your way, exploit a corpse to steal health, teleport to a corpse (teleporation is unique to necromancers), spread disease among enemies, and deal cold damage.
Necromancers, as with the other caster classes, normally use a staff or wand + offhand combo. The damage from which is really on the low side.
The monk. They are the healers and protectors of the games. Some foolish or bored ones however turn to their smiting prayers line of spells every once in awhile. Healing prayers - direct heals either through health regeneration or instant health gain (helped a bit by divine favor). Protection prayers are a bit more passive. They stop or reduce damage from happening, remove hexes and conditions, and can even stop a foe from attacking for a short while. You can even raise your maximum health with a spell. Smiting prayers deal a bit of damage to most foes, however versus the undead / summoned, that damage is doubled! It can be very useful to have a smite monk in an area with undead, however it is rare to see one and even rarer that someone will want one in a group.
The mesmer is just there to piss you off. Through the first few months of Guild Wars, the mesmer was more often found in PvP rather than in PvE. Why is this? They are the masters of annoyance. Mesmers have 3 lines of magic that are used: domination, illusion, and inspiration. Many of the domination spells are interupts. Your foe tries to do something, you stop them, the swear at you to no end (if you continue to interupt them, which you most likely will be). They also have a few dd (direct damage) spells to boot. The illusion line features several spells that cause health degeneration, causes enemies to miss with attacks, and slow their movement speed (very annoy two spell lines). Inspiration is mostly used for health management. There are stances to prevent/reduce damage and give you energy, and spells to steal a foes energy and turn it into health for you. What makes them even more annoying is the fast casting which makes their interupts seem almost instant, giving you no chance. Also, some of their more powerful skills take a bit long to cast.. but not for them, for the classes with a mes secondary.
The elementalist is one of the best damage dealers in the game. They have 4 lines of elemental magic to go along with their energy storage: earth, fire, water, and air. Each has unique characteristics/abilites, but they all do mega-damage. How did Anet decide to balance this class? Well, many elementalist spells require massive amounts of energy. For example, there are a handful of spells that a warrior could not cast even if he/she were at their maximum enery. Their spells also take longer to cast (many 2 seconds or 1 second, some 3 seconds, a handful 5 seconds. The recharge time on many spells is also very long (from 30 to 60 seconds in many cases.) Elementalists also have the unfortunate side effect of giving themselves exhaustion with lots of their spells, which lowers their maximum energy for a short time. They can do a whole lot of damage, but their down time is also the greatest among any class and you will often find yourself waiting while the ele pings, "My energy is 11 out of 96!"
Warrior - 80 armor, 2 energy regeneration, primary attribute = strength (adds an overall damage, improves strength related skills)
Ranger - 70 armor, 3 energy regeneration, primary attribute = expertise (lowers energy cost on a variety of skills, improves expertise related skills)
Necromancer - 60 armor, 4 energy regeneration, primary attribute = soul reaping (character gains energy equal to level in soul reaping whenever something dies -- this was nerfed in an attempt to balance the classes -> became once every 5 seconds could you gain energy, now it its 3 times every 15 seconds. (this caused much anger for me.) also improves the FIVE soul reaping skills.
Monk - 60 armor, 4 energy regeneration, primary attribute divine favor (adds additional health to a character whenever healed or "protected" equal to 3 x level of divine favor, improves divine favor spells)
Mesmer - 60 armor, 4 energy regeneration, primary attribute = fast casting (does what it says, for each level in fast casting, the mesmer casts their spells and signets a little bit faster, also improves the two handfuls of fast casting spells)
Elementalist - 60 armor, 4 energy regeneration, primary attribute = energy storage (for each level a ele has in e storage, their energy raises by 3 points, and as with the others, improves energy storage related spells)
That covers the core classes, the others will be discussed at a later date. Now for the purpose / things about the classes...
The warrior is a tank. They are the ones who are hopefully taking the damage in the group and can utilize a few different melee weapons (swords, axes, and hammers). They have a few "shouts" which can be used to help the warriors group or handicap foes. They have both low energy attacks (normally 5 energy) and adrenaline based attacks, which build up as the warrior hits and gets hit.
The ranger is one with nature. They have the ability to charm a "pet" that will aid them in battle and can summon nature rituals that have either good or negative effects. They are the master of the bow, and while usually lower in DPS than some other classes/weapon types, have the ability to interupt a great many skills helping yourself and team out tremendously. They can also set traps that will bother an unsuspecting enemy to no end. To improve on their bow attacks, rangers have a dozen or so preparations that make them even more effective and irritating.
The necromancer. Well here's a complex class. They are the masters of death, often making their newly dead foes serve them in whatever way they would like. The necro has three major attribute lines: blood, curses, and death magic. Blood magic allows you to take your foe's health and give it to yourself. It can also be used to sacrifice your own health for a specific purpose, such as dealing damge, healing/helping a friend, and healing yourself. In the curses line there are a great many hexes that really put a damper on your foe. You can lower their damage output, slow their attack rate, cause them to miss frequently, and make them lose health if they do ANYTHING. It also has a few ways in which to heal yourself. Death magic focuses mostly on corpses, but there are some other uses as well. With death magic, you can create a minion army to slaughter all who stand in your way, exploit a corpse to steal health, teleport to a corpse (teleporation is unique to necromancers), spread disease among enemies, and deal cold damage.
Necromancers, as with the other caster classes, normally use a staff or wand + offhand combo. The damage from which is really on the low side.
The monk. They are the healers and protectors of the games. Some foolish or bored ones however turn to their smiting prayers line of spells every once in awhile. Healing prayers - direct heals either through health regeneration or instant health gain (helped a bit by divine favor). Protection prayers are a bit more passive. They stop or reduce damage from happening, remove hexes and conditions, and can even stop a foe from attacking for a short while. You can even raise your maximum health with a spell. Smiting prayers deal a bit of damage to most foes, however versus the undead / summoned, that damage is doubled! It can be very useful to have a smite monk in an area with undead, however it is rare to see one and even rarer that someone will want one in a group.
The mesmer is just there to piss you off. Through the first few months of Guild Wars, the mesmer was more often found in PvP rather than in PvE. Why is this? They are the masters of annoyance. Mesmers have 3 lines of magic that are used: domination, illusion, and inspiration. Many of the domination spells are interupts. Your foe tries to do something, you stop them, the swear at you to no end (if you continue to interupt them, which you most likely will be). They also have a few dd (direct damage) spells to boot. The illusion line features several spells that cause health degeneration, causes enemies to miss with attacks, and slow their movement speed (very annoy two spell lines). Inspiration is mostly used for health management. There are stances to prevent/reduce damage and give you energy, and spells to steal a foes energy and turn it into health for you. What makes them even more annoying is the fast casting which makes their interupts seem almost instant, giving you no chance. Also, some of their more powerful skills take a bit long to cast.. but not for them, for the classes with a mes secondary.
The elementalist is one of the best damage dealers in the game. They have 4 lines of elemental magic to go along with their energy storage: earth, fire, water, and air. Each has unique characteristics/abilites, but they all do mega-damage. How did Anet decide to balance this class? Well, many elementalist spells require massive amounts of energy. For example, there are a handful of spells that a warrior could not cast even if he/she were at their maximum enery. Their spells also take longer to cast (many 2 seconds or 1 second, some 3 seconds, a handful 5 seconds. The recharge time on many spells is also very long (from 30 to 60 seconds in many cases.) Elementalists also have the unfortunate side effect of giving themselves exhaustion with lots of their spells, which lowers their maximum energy for a short time. They can do a whole lot of damage, but their down time is also the greatest among any class and you will often find yourself waiting while the ele pings, "My energy is 11 out of 96!"
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Some rules/restrictions in Guild Wars
To keep the game play "fair" a level cap of 20 was established for players. It is not hard to get to this level, so people in PvP have a chance to compete. NPC's often have higer levels than players but they are not the brightest and sometimes you can outnumber them. It is all about balance. The majority of high-end areas allow for paties of 8 people so they are capable of dealing with the groups of 28's that lie right outside the zone. A few areas allow for parties of 12 people, but this are among the most difficult of places to fight.
There are NPC's with levels even higher than 28, going up to 32. These tend to be the bosses and range in difficulty. A level 30 might be easier to kill than a level 26, based on how many people are in the party and if they were properly prepared or not.
Some high-end NPCs can even be soloed if you know what you are doing.
While many players are unhappy with the level cap of 20, it was simply practical for Anet to do, as there are not an unlimted amount of expansions and only so much content. Everything in the game can be accomplished with level 20's.
Another reason for this cap was that the developers wanted it to be about skill, not time played. And in many situations this is true.
There are NPC's with levels even higher than 28, going up to 32. These tend to be the bosses and range in difficulty. A level 30 might be easier to kill than a level 26, based on how many people are in the party and if they were properly prepared or not.
Some high-end NPCs can even be soloed if you know what you are doing.
While many players are unhappy with the level cap of 20, it was simply practical for Anet to do, as there are not an unlimted amount of expansions and only so much content. Everything in the game can be accomplished with level 20's.
Another reason for this cap was that the developers wanted it to be about skill, not time played. And in many situations this is true.
Witch Librarian Game Ideas
Many of the patrons have decided not to obey the rules of the library. Teach them a lesson by casting spells on them and as you can not stand disorder, do it in a promptly manner. But be careful not to bother the ones sticking to the rules or you'll be fired.
Click on the people who are talking, running, or trying to leave without checking out their book. Different sprites for the various people, and a random effect/sprite when you click on a person breaking the rules. (make them a frog, turn them into stone, and so on..)
----
It is a very busy day at the library and you don't even have time to get up from your desk. Process returns and find books people wish to check out without getting up from the desk. There will be several areas of different types of books, when you get a book back, you would click on it and then the proper area. There will also be people asking you for help in finding a book. Scroll over the right area, find the book, click it and then click on the person. There are many people, all impatient Americans, so do your tasks with great speed. Your pay depends on it.
----
You just got a job as a librarian and in order to keep it, you must not let people find out you are a witch. As they enter the building, keep them under a spell so that they will not see your true, hideous form. Your spells only last so long though, so you will need to keep casting it. To make matters worse, after each time a person has the spell put on them, it lasts for shorter and shorter periods of time. More people keep coming in each minute, keep them all entranced until they exit.
Click on a person as they enter and there will be a way to tell how much longer they will be under your spell. As time goes by there will be many people in the library, several of whom have short durations on the spell cast time. There is also a limit to how many spells you can cast in an amount of time, so cast wisely. You can spend some time hiding from people without spells, but eventually people will notice you are not there and start wondering.
----
You work at a particulary run-down library with falling over bookshelves and a leaky roof. Keep the place in order without stepping into a puddle of water or under a drippy part of the roof.
The library would be laid out as a maze, with puddles of water and drippy areas placed about. Books will fall off the shelves or the book shelves themselves may fall over. You have to get to each and fix the problem without stepping in the puddles or under the dripping ceiling. Stepping in a puddle will kill you instantly and the dripping water will take off 10% of your health. There will sometimes be other obstacles in your way just to make life even more difficult. You will be fired if you don't fix the problems soon enough.
Arrow buttons would control movement, space bar replaces a book to the shelf, there is a timer, and a counter for money you have earned.
----
A new rule has been made, all library employees must wear a photo id while working. This poses quite a problem for you as in any picture taken of you, your image would not appear. Now you must convince your boss not to make you get a picture taken. After that, his/her's superiors must be convinced to undo their new rule.
It would be a sort of dialouge game. You would start up a conversation with your boss after avoiding the cameraman. There would be several options for each time you would say a line, each giving a different result. Choose the wrong one and you'll either have to get back in the right track or get your photo taken, revealing your witchy-ness. When you try to convince the superiors to undo the new rule, you must be careful not to offend or bother them or you will lose your job.
Start the conversation, pick a line, they reply, pick the next line to say and so on.
Click on the people who are talking, running, or trying to leave without checking out their book. Different sprites for the various people, and a random effect/sprite when you click on a person breaking the rules. (make them a frog, turn them into stone, and so on..)
----
It is a very busy day at the library and you don't even have time to get up from your desk. Process returns and find books people wish to check out without getting up from the desk. There will be several areas of different types of books, when you get a book back, you would click on it and then the proper area. There will also be people asking you for help in finding a book. Scroll over the right area, find the book, click it and then click on the person. There are many people, all impatient Americans, so do your tasks with great speed. Your pay depends on it.
----
You just got a job as a librarian and in order to keep it, you must not let people find out you are a witch. As they enter the building, keep them under a spell so that they will not see your true, hideous form. Your spells only last so long though, so you will need to keep casting it. To make matters worse, after each time a person has the spell put on them, it lasts for shorter and shorter periods of time. More people keep coming in each minute, keep them all entranced until they exit.
Click on a person as they enter and there will be a way to tell how much longer they will be under your spell. As time goes by there will be many people in the library, several of whom have short durations on the spell cast time. There is also a limit to how many spells you can cast in an amount of time, so cast wisely. You can spend some time hiding from people without spells, but eventually people will notice you are not there and start wondering.
----
You work at a particulary run-down library with falling over bookshelves and a leaky roof. Keep the place in order without stepping into a puddle of water or under a drippy part of the roof.
The library would be laid out as a maze, with puddles of water and drippy areas placed about. Books will fall off the shelves or the book shelves themselves may fall over. You have to get to each and fix the problem without stepping in the puddles or under the dripping ceiling. Stepping in a puddle will kill you instantly and the dripping water will take off 10% of your health. There will sometimes be other obstacles in your way just to make life even more difficult. You will be fired if you don't fix the problems soon enough.
Arrow buttons would control movement, space bar replaces a book to the shelf, there is a timer, and a counter for money you have earned.
----
A new rule has been made, all library employees must wear a photo id while working. This poses quite a problem for you as in any picture taken of you, your image would not appear. Now you must convince your boss not to make you get a picture taken. After that, his/her's superiors must be convinced to undo their new rule.
It would be a sort of dialouge game. You would start up a conversation with your boss after avoiding the cameraman. There would be several options for each time you would say a line, each giving a different result. Choose the wrong one and you'll either have to get back in the right track or get your photo taken, revealing your witchy-ness. When you try to convince the superiors to undo the new rule, you must be careful not to offend or bother them or you will lose your job.
Start the conversation, pick a line, they reply, pick the next line to say and so on.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Ideas for a winter themed game.
You are a child, it is Xmas Eve and you must sneak a peak at your presents without getting caught by your parental units.
---
Winter Olympic games for reindeer. You play the red-nosed one. Prove you're better than the others in such events as the 100 meter dash, roof-top landings, sleigh pulling, and eating the noses off of snowmen.
---
Due to overpopulation, the elves of the North can not keep up with production needs. They call upon you for aid! Help them find materials and craft goodies.
---
There is an all out war in the schoolyard between the sixth graders and the fifth graders. Choose your side, pick up some snow, and smack your enemy in the head with the cold justice that is a snowball.
---
It is December 24th, a particulary cloudy night with severe gusts of wind. Rudolph has had too much eggnog and is incapable of guiding your sleigh. You end up lost in the Amazon Jungle after losing control and plummeting to Earth. Navigate through the think jungle wilderness picking up any presents you come upon (they fell out of your bag during your trip downwards). But hurry! Midnight draws near and you can not let down the thousands of children who still believe in you!
---
Winter Olympic games for reindeer. You play the red-nosed one. Prove you're better than the others in such events as the 100 meter dash, roof-top landings, sleigh pulling, and eating the noses off of snowmen.
---
Due to overpopulation, the elves of the North can not keep up with production needs. They call upon you for aid! Help them find materials and craft goodies.
---
There is an all out war in the schoolyard between the sixth graders and the fifth graders. Choose your side, pick up some snow, and smack your enemy in the head with the cold justice that is a snowball.
---
It is December 24th, a particulary cloudy night with severe gusts of wind. Rudolph has had too much eggnog and is incapable of guiding your sleigh. You end up lost in the Amazon Jungle after losing control and plummeting to Earth. Navigate through the think jungle wilderness picking up any presents you come upon (they fell out of your bag during your trip downwards). But hurry! Midnight draws near and you can not let down the thousands of children who still believe in you!
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