Morning Caffeinated! Blizzard, Bioware gone bad, Valve frustrated, and dying MMOs
Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for September 5, 2012. Topics include: Blizzard and BioWare aren't as bad as they seem; the MMO may be dying; and Valve shows its disdain for the PC hardware scene. Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!
A shrinking Tera
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replyJohn Keefer posted a new article, Morning Caffeinated! Blizzard, Bioware gone bad, Valve frustrated, and dying MMOs.
Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for September 5, 2012. Topics include: Blizzard and BioWare aren't as bad as they seem; the MMO may be dying; and Valve shows its disdain for the PC hardware scene. Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!-
Telltale has gotten better. Sam and Max season 3 is definitely better than 1 and overall their games have just improved. Jurassic Park was a miss but The Walking Dead is the best thing they've done so far
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+1 for Telltale
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I'd like to add Volition. Specifically the Saints Row line.
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On another note Red Faction was headed in a positive direction up to Guerrilla, but completely lost it with Armageddon.
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Technically you're wrong because nothing can ever top the Freespace series but Saints Row has definitely improved.
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After trying and trying to think up a different one that I'd want to play new again this is still it. Now, I love and will continue to replay certain old games that were and continue to be awesome, but if I could relive one for the first time this would be the best choice.
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Freespace 2 was one of the most amazing games of its time.
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You would have seen this then?
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/09/05/0537248/battlestar-galactica-community-game-diaspora-has-arrived
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WoW, but I'd play it as it is now. The sense of exploration was just fantastic, and with the more streamlined quest progression they added with Cataclysm, it would be even better. I can't imagine how someone who is new to that game would feel going into it right now. Just so much stuff to do!
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yeah old EQ before every map, quest, item, and mob was documented on the web was fantastic.
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Star Control II - because it owns
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Both of them because they did something I'd never seen before; they allowed you to approach the majority of your objectives largely how you saw fit. And the atmosphere in Thief was just incredible. I realize graphically it doesn't hold up today, but that's almost the only thing I'd want updated.
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Toss up. Either Planescape Torment (because the ending is fucking amazing, especially if you beefed up the Nameless Ones intelligence), or KOTOR because it had one of the best "HOLY SHIT" moments in gaming history.
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System Shock 1
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Dark Forces: Jedi Knight.
Huge spaces and the feeling of really being a jedi! -
Deus Ex. and I would tell myself to make sure I get past the first level
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Gotta go with Morrowind as well.
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Homeworld was really ahead of its time.
OK, story time: Before I actually had a full-time gig in games, I wrote about games as a side just for fun. I worked for a newspaper in Fort Lauderdale and I usually offered my writing to the paper first before offering it out as a freelance piece to gaming sites. I got an assignment from GameSpy to review Homeworld, which in and of itself was a fun experience, but being a writer, I always felt the need to do more.
So I hope on the phone and call Relic Entertainment and ask to chat with Alex Garden, then head of Relic and one of the brains behind the game. Since I was still fairly wet behind the ears when it came to game protocol, it never dawned on me to go through PR first. I got Alex on the phone and told him I worked for a local newspaper and also wrote as a freelancer, then proceeded to ask him all kinds of in-depth probing questions about the game and development.
In the end, Alex answered everything and I got a great side piece to go with the review that GameSpy ended up posting. Years later, however, when I finally met Alex in person, he told me he had gotten in a ton of trouble for giving that interview because it wasn't "cleared" first. No one from PR ever contacted me so I never knew, but it became something Alex and I would joke about when we chatted going forward. He'd ask "Did you clear this first?"
Fun stuff.-
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Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn - I believe it is hands down the best RPG ever made (console, PC, or otherwise) .. I know the favorite here on the shack is Torment, but I just honestly was more impressed and blown away by BG2.
If we're talking multi-player - It would definitely be Thunderdome II MUD or the original MercMUD... man those were the days, online rpg'ing has only gone horribly downhill from there, EQ / WoW / etc. can't hold a candle to the originals.
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For all of the games that I have played and love, if I could go back and play a title like it was brand new, it would be Halo. It's one of the very few games who's pace and feel made me want to marathon all the way through it.
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I think I would put Platinum games as one that's improved. They haven't been around to long but have a nice diversity of titles and the only WiiU game that's even appears interesting on the launch titles list.
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Jedi knight II: Jedi Outcast
OR
Republic Commondo
It's both a tie and a coincidence they are both sw games.-
Damnit, meant to respond to Haxim. God damn fat fingers.
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The last Blizzard game I put more than 5 hours into before shelving : Starcraft Broodwar
The last Bioware game I put more than 5 hours into before shelving : Baldur's Gate 2 - Throne of Bhaal
For whatever reason I haven't been moved to invest much time into games like Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, etc. However I still play Valve games like Portal and HL2 repeatedly so I'll say that Valve has improved over time.-
What exactly DO you play? HL2 came out eight years ago, portal five.
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I still play HL2 DM and still have some of the most fun with it compared to the mandatory bolted-on DM of so, so many games.
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I still have Crescent Hawks Revenge in the original box. I'd love to give it a shot but the thing is on 3.25" floppies! I want to see if that game was as brutal difficult as I remember it being. I was fairly young when I played it but I only got about 5 missions in until I hit a point where I just couldn't go further.
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If you guys are in to turn-based strategy, I loved Empire, Wargame of the Century, and Empire Deluxe ...
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I would go back and play "Dungeon Keeper" and "Command & Conquer". I really miss Bullfrog and Westwood.....they made such great games. One of my life long goals is to do a remake of Dungeon Keeper...
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Populous, Dungeon Keeper and Magic Carpet are the kind of amazingly creative and well-executed gaming experiences that I feel like we're just not seeing anymore but are begging to be remade.
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Did you ever play Populous: The Beginning? it was made in the era of Bullfrog's iso-pseudo-3d, kinda trippy in that way.
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What, no one for M.U.L.E? Star Control 2, The Bard's Tale?
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IMO many should just take the "MMO" out of it ever since the push to single player friendly game play. The next best mmo on the scene will fully incorporate group game play. Kind of like some L4D of MMO's.
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Very true, but the RPG is the most developed and the most popular. RTS and FPS are still in their infancy and it remains to be seen who will be the first to do it right AND have it resonate with an audience. The latter is key.
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In my experience, PvP in MMOs wears out the game with too much need for "balance." The ever-elusive grail of Balance stretches games so thin that experienced players sit there waiting for the opponent to come into range first, while inexperienced players jump in and die instantly.
You're right, what we need is true participation in MMOs, strong co-op and parties in the classical D&D mold, not just throwing spells at each other but at smart critters and demigods.
Leave the PvP to MOBAs...hell, even they have strong solo/team play support in concepts such as the Junglers...
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Wouldn't CD Project Red be a company that has gotten better? I mean sure they don't have too much to their name, but Witcher 2 is 30x better than Witcher 1 IMO, and Witcher 1 was awesome. Can't wait for Witcher 3 or that steampunk game. (and I hate steampunks)
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I disagree. Witcher 2 was better as an action game, but not at all as an RPG. Having said that Witcher 2 was fucking awesome. CD Projeckt Red deserves the love.
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I think I must be the only person on the planet who thinks that the Witcher 2 sucked. I really don't understand why everyone thinks that game is so awesome. I occasionally try and play it again, and I just can't stand anything about it. Which is strange, because there are very few RPG's out there that I don't like.
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When I think of nostalgia and games, I think way back - Commander Keen, ROTT and Duke3D, Blake Stone, Wolf3D.. stuff like that. Then getting into Quake 2, Jedi Knight, and Unreal (not unreal tournament!)
The first Unreal was so innovative. Smart AI, situational music, not to mention the engine and game mechanics. It remains one of the best, most immersive single player experiences ever.
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