SO I STUMBLED ACROSS SOMETHING FUNNY ON THE LUEPEDIA TODAY, AND ITS CALLED CAPS LOCK FRIDAY. ORIGINALLY IT STARTED ON LUELINKS.NET TO CELEBRATE THE END OF THE WORK WEEK AND THE BEGINNING OF THE WEEKEND. ALL USERS WERE ENCOURAGED TO CELEBRATE BY TYPING EVERYTHING FROM TOPIC POSTS TO REPLYS IN ALL CAPS. LLAMAGUY TRIED TO KILL CAPSLOCK FRIDAY BY CREATING CAPS LOCK MARCH AND HE DID FOR THE MOST PART, BUT THERE ARE STILL A FEW USERS WHO STILL CELEBRATE CAPS LOCK FRIDAY.
GO CAPS LOCK FRIDAY!
Friday, September 28, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The Endless Forest
Last year me and a friend were looking for free online games to play. Yes, I know we are cheap and we didn't feel like spending $30 bucks for a retail game to play. Upon searching we found many entertaining titles such as Rakion and GunZ: The Dual, but those never seemed to hold our interest for very long because not only of the poor quality, but also because the game was pretty repetitive. Upon searching even more for these free online games we came across a title called The Endless Forest. After looking at it we thought it was probably the worst idea for a game ever.
After our class discussion about the college where you develop a virtual world every 2 weeks, I just now realised that The Endless Forest may have derived from that college. In this game you play the roll of a deer. Yes, a deer, and you are in a forest... guess what? the forest never ends! Inside this virtual world you can interact with other players who are deer, but there are no means for traditional communication. To interact with each other, you have a set number of different gestures you can make towards other deer. These gestures include tilting your head, rubbing up against trees, laying down on the ground and also making some kind of bizzar mating call. Aside from all these things that a normal deer could do, there are also ways to change the appearance of your deer by eating magic berries or laying in front of a certain shrine for a set amount of time.
After playing the game for about an hour, my friend and I decided to call the game "The Deer Game" we went on to bash it on how poorly designed it was, the lack of having anything really interesting to do, and also that the game was ultimately pointless. Not until after our class discussion about virtual worlds did I understand how this game might be used. Maybe it could give us a better understanding on how wildlife survives and why they do the things they do. again, I am not certain about the exact point of the game, but it could be usefull in certain situations, perhaps as a teaching element in school.
If you wish to look at "The Deer Game" you can find it at http://tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/
After our class discussion about the college where you develop a virtual world every 2 weeks, I just now realised that The Endless Forest may have derived from that college. In this game you play the roll of a deer. Yes, a deer, and you are in a forest... guess what? the forest never ends! Inside this virtual world you can interact with other players who are deer, but there are no means for traditional communication. To interact with each other, you have a set number of different gestures you can make towards other deer. These gestures include tilting your head, rubbing up against trees, laying down on the ground and also making some kind of bizzar mating call. Aside from all these things that a normal deer could do, there are also ways to change the appearance of your deer by eating magic berries or laying in front of a certain shrine for a set amount of time.
After playing the game for about an hour, my friend and I decided to call the game "The Deer Game" we went on to bash it on how poorly designed it was, the lack of having anything really interesting to do, and also that the game was ultimately pointless. Not until after our class discussion about virtual worlds did I understand how this game might be used. Maybe it could give us a better understanding on how wildlife survives and why they do the things they do. again, I am not certain about the exact point of the game, but it could be usefull in certain situations, perhaps as a teaching element in school.
If you wish to look at "The Deer Game" you can find it at http://tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Legend of the BloodNinja
So I was reading the article about the "rape" in cyberspace and this has really spurred some inner thoughts I've been having about the "online" community and how people use the system. To me, a virtual world is one where people can "test drive" a different person. Lets take roll playing games for an example - You might want to see what it would be like to play the roll of a woman in a virtual world if you are in fact a male player. You would first name her appropriately and then you might start thinking from you past experiences how women have reacted to some experiences and mimic that in the virtual world. I think this gives a lot of users the ability to explore social and ethnic boundaries by assuming the roll of somebody we are not.
With that said, why should it be a big deal if a male player decides to make a female character in World of Warcraft? In the game you are interacting with avatars, there is no physical contact between the players, but you can kind of get there by using voice communication but I'm going to leave that out for now. You don't play the game (well maybe you do, but I don't) thinking about who is controlling that avatar, you just think about interacting with the avatar. Some may think that when you play World of Warcraft you should project yourself as your character. Whats the point? Taking the roll of yourself in a virtual world? I can see how this would benefit with online dating sites, but the choice to decide a character should be unlimited in virtual worlds.
Also if you think about it, there would be some games that female players would not be allowed to play if they must choose the matching gender. Counter-Strike for example has no female characters. All the characters in Counter-Strike are male... and then theres the chickens in cs_italy. Also whenever I played Counter-Strike I always muted all the players in the game from using voice communication, because terrorists don't sound like little kids. Overall, I'm just trying to brainstorm more ideas for why people should be "playing" themselves online.
Getting back to the reading... So aparently the creators of this text based virtual world made an object where you could "do" anything you wanted (voodoo doll). I could have told you right from the start that not EVERYBODY would use this object as it was originally designed for. Whenever you give power to somebody or a group of people, there will be at least one person who is immature or power hungry and they will push it to the limits. I personally have a hard time believing that any "rape" actually occured. The definition of rape is to be forced against your will to perform sex. The actual characters in this game couldn't "do" anything except what the text on the screen told them, and furthermore I'm sure that each of these users has the ability to log out at any time they wanted thus overcoming the "rape"
Now as I wrap this blog up, I will circle back to the title - The Legend of Bloodninja. As I was stating before that people will be immature, Bloodninja is a GREAT example!
http://www.adamchance.com/funny.htm
This link is a chatlog from a cybersex site (don't ask me where I got this plz) where Bloodninja abuses the policies of the cybersex site. Its actually quite a funny read and I find nothing wrong with it. First off these people are "cybering" so technically anything can happen right? I won't say that Bloodninja is completely innocent from abusing the policies, but I don't understand why this is a big deal.
All in all, these are solely my opinions and I don't expect everyone to agree with them, all I ask is that you think about these different scenarios and decide for yourself whether people should be playing their sex online. Also just a last not to ponder on... As long as there is a way to log out of a game or virtual world, then there will never be a cyberspace rape.
With that said, why should it be a big deal if a male player decides to make a female character in World of Warcraft? In the game you are interacting with avatars, there is no physical contact between the players, but you can kind of get there by using voice communication but I'm going to leave that out for now. You don't play the game (well maybe you do, but I don't) thinking about who is controlling that avatar, you just think about interacting with the avatar. Some may think that when you play World of Warcraft you should project yourself as your character. Whats the point? Taking the roll of yourself in a virtual world? I can see how this would benefit with online dating sites, but the choice to decide a character should be unlimited in virtual worlds.
Also if you think about it, there would be some games that female players would not be allowed to play if they must choose the matching gender. Counter-Strike for example has no female characters. All the characters in Counter-Strike are male... and then theres the chickens in cs_italy. Also whenever I played Counter-Strike I always muted all the players in the game from using voice communication, because terrorists don't sound like little kids. Overall, I'm just trying to brainstorm more ideas for why people should be "playing" themselves online.
Getting back to the reading... So aparently the creators of this text based virtual world made an object where you could "do" anything you wanted (voodoo doll). I could have told you right from the start that not EVERYBODY would use this object as it was originally designed for. Whenever you give power to somebody or a group of people, there will be at least one person who is immature or power hungry and they will push it to the limits. I personally have a hard time believing that any "rape" actually occured. The definition of rape is to be forced against your will to perform sex. The actual characters in this game couldn't "do" anything except what the text on the screen told them, and furthermore I'm sure that each of these users has the ability to log out at any time they wanted thus overcoming the "rape"
Now as I wrap this blog up, I will circle back to the title - The Legend of Bloodninja. As I was stating before that people will be immature, Bloodninja is a GREAT example!
http://www.adamchance.com/funny.htm
This link is a chatlog from a cybersex site (don't ask me where I got this plz) where Bloodninja abuses the policies of the cybersex site. Its actually quite a funny read and I find nothing wrong with it. First off these people are "cybering" so technically anything can happen right? I won't say that Bloodninja is completely innocent from abusing the policies, but I don't understand why this is a big deal.
All in all, these are solely my opinions and I don't expect everyone to agree with them, all I ask is that you think about these different scenarios and decide for yourself whether people should be playing their sex online. Also just a last not to ponder on... As long as there is a way to log out of a game or virtual world, then there will never be a cyberspace rape.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
OMG I CAN'T WAIT FOR XXXXXX TO COME OUT!!!!
alright, so while I was doing the assigned reading I really started thinking about the part with people waiting in huge lines to get a videogame. I admit that I used to get really excited about a videogame coming out but I never remember getting so anxious I would wait in line for it. Now that my interest in videogames has significantly declined I can honestly say that I will probably never wait in line for a videogame, or any product. Maybe I might wait in line for the next Next-Gen consoles but only to sell them. I wouldn't wait in line just to get it and play it.
Besides waiting in line to be one of the first to get the game, I have now decided that I won't even think about getting the game until it has been out for at least a week. Why? well thanks to user controlled news sites like Digg.com and Slashdot.com I can see reviews from real customers who did not wait and got the game the minute it came out. I now know if the game is worth getting later or not. Especially after the release of Bioshock, I will always wait at least a week. I actually thought about buying Bioshock right when it was released, but something told me to wait and I did. Later I checked digg.com and found that lots of people were having trouble installing the game and getting their serial keys to work. Besides just the serial keys not working, the game will only let you install it 5 times before your copy becomes invalid. I will not stand up for this at all. I constantly install and uninstall games and format my drives etc etc.
A recent news article caught my eye too. Apparently Valve was offering people a chance to play a beta version of Team Fortress 2 on Monday if they pre-ordered the orange box. I will never buy the Orange box because I saw an ad for it while playing Counter-Strike last year and despise anything that takes away from the game, so this doesn't effect me. But in the article (http://www.tomsgames.com/us/fringedrinking/2007/09/pre-purchase_the_orange_box_play_team_fortress_2_when.html)
aparently Valve told customers who bought the orange box that they could play the beta on monday. Valve took customers money, gave them a promise, and didn't hold up to it. Many gamers were anxiously waiting to play their pre-loaded beta version of Team Fortress 2, but Valve never unlocked the game. Not only did Valve not unlock the game, but they didn't post any updates on their site saying the game might be delayed. I honestly think it is ridiculous that people canceled plans, and took off work to play the beta of this game, but then for Valve not to give any updates or reason for the delay is just wrong.
I'm glad I'm not a fan of Valve anymore, and after this I never will be. Valve has slowly been disappointing me, but this was the last straw. Half-Life was awesome and so was Counter-Strike, but ever since valve released Steam my loyalty and confidence in them has significantly diminished. Steam is a very good idea, if it worked like it should. I think it cuts down on piracy a lot, specifically a majority of people who don't know how to use a computer REALLY well, but we shouldn't have to connect to the internet in order to play a single-player game.
Now you can probably see where my loss of interest in videogames is coming from and how its becoming greater every day. Am I the only one who is getting tired of this or what? How much can valve screw its customers over before they get fed up like me? are valves customers just used to this and don't mind anymore? After the release of Halo 2, and hearing lots of people complaining about how short the campaign was and faults in the multiplayer, I'm actually shocked to see that people are going back to getting Halo 3 as soon as it comes out. I've never been impressed with Halo, but whats that expression? Fool me once shame on you, Fool me twice shame on me? It seems like almost all gamers are still loyal to Halo and will get it upon release. I just don't understand people sometimes, why must you have it "now" why not wait a little and think about it? or is it srsly that important? its just a game!
But then again, there are other popular titles that are not games and get launch parties/people lining up for hours. Books like Harry Potter have had the same effect on loyal readers. I read the first 3 but lost interest while waiting for the 4th book.
I don't know anymore... maybe I'm just weird, different, or moving on in life? I guess things that don't effect my future career just don't hold very high priories to me at all any more. I mean honestly, I work almost all waking hours of the day. Not just my 3 jobs but also I have classes and homework. I rarely get a chance to play a videogame any more and when I do, I bet it averages to about an hour or 2 a week.
Besides waiting in line to be one of the first to get the game, I have now decided that I won't even think about getting the game until it has been out for at least a week. Why? well thanks to user controlled news sites like Digg.com and Slashdot.com I can see reviews from real customers who did not wait and got the game the minute it came out. I now know if the game is worth getting later or not. Especially after the release of Bioshock, I will always wait at least a week. I actually thought about buying Bioshock right when it was released, but something told me to wait and I did. Later I checked digg.com and found that lots of people were having trouble installing the game and getting their serial keys to work. Besides just the serial keys not working, the game will only let you install it 5 times before your copy becomes invalid. I will not stand up for this at all. I constantly install and uninstall games and format my drives etc etc.
A recent news article caught my eye too. Apparently Valve was offering people a chance to play a beta version of Team Fortress 2 on Monday if they pre-ordered the orange box. I will never buy the Orange box because I saw an ad for it while playing Counter-Strike last year and despise anything that takes away from the game, so this doesn't effect me. But in the article (http://www.tomsgames.com/us/fringedrinking/2007/09/pre-purchase_the_orange_box_play_team_fortress_2_when.html)
aparently Valve told customers who bought the orange box that they could play the beta on monday. Valve took customers money, gave them a promise, and didn't hold up to it. Many gamers were anxiously waiting to play their pre-loaded beta version of Team Fortress 2, but Valve never unlocked the game. Not only did Valve not unlock the game, but they didn't post any updates on their site saying the game might be delayed. I honestly think it is ridiculous that people canceled plans, and took off work to play the beta of this game, but then for Valve not to give any updates or reason for the delay is just wrong.
I'm glad I'm not a fan of Valve anymore, and after this I never will be. Valve has slowly been disappointing me, but this was the last straw. Half-Life was awesome and so was Counter-Strike, but ever since valve released Steam my loyalty and confidence in them has significantly diminished. Steam is a very good idea, if it worked like it should. I think it cuts down on piracy a lot, specifically a majority of people who don't know how to use a computer REALLY well, but we shouldn't have to connect to the internet in order to play a single-player game.
Now you can probably see where my loss of interest in videogames is coming from and how its becoming greater every day. Am I the only one who is getting tired of this or what? How much can valve screw its customers over before they get fed up like me? are valves customers just used to this and don't mind anymore? After the release of Halo 2, and hearing lots of people complaining about how short the campaign was and faults in the multiplayer, I'm actually shocked to see that people are going back to getting Halo 3 as soon as it comes out. I've never been impressed with Halo, but whats that expression? Fool me once shame on you, Fool me twice shame on me? It seems like almost all gamers are still loyal to Halo and will get it upon release. I just don't understand people sometimes, why must you have it "now" why not wait a little and think about it? or is it srsly that important? its just a game!
But then again, there are other popular titles that are not games and get launch parties/people lining up for hours. Books like Harry Potter have had the same effect on loyal readers. I read the first 3 but lost interest while waiting for the 4th book.
I don't know anymore... maybe I'm just weird, different, or moving on in life? I guess things that don't effect my future career just don't hold very high priories to me at all any more. I mean honestly, I work almost all waking hours of the day. Not just my 3 jobs but also I have classes and homework. I rarely get a chance to play a videogame any more and when I do, I bet it averages to about an hour or 2 a week.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Behold! Real time virtualisation!
So I found a pretty neat gadget while surfing the web a few days ago, and it just now occured to me that this nifty little thing relates exactly to what we are talking about in our class about virtual worlds. I am not exactly sure what this product is called, but under this link http://englishrussia.com/?p=1377#more-1377
They call it Matrix Goggles. If you watch the video it will show you what it would look like to wear these goggles. Remember the Predator's vision, or Neo looking into the Matrix? Now you can do that too in real time with these goggles.
I've seen this done before and its actually quite simple. All this is doing is adding color filters over video. I used to do this stuff all the time with an old Handycam and some basic video editing software, but that was accomplished via post editing. I'm guessing that the goggles have a small camera on them, which takes in everything you would normally see, then it runs through the small computer adding the specified filter, and then relays that image onto the screen inside the goggles.
I was thinking for a minute that this product is worthless, it acutally doesn't "do" anything except alter your perception of the outside world. But then I began to think, what if you could set the filters to point out skin tones? If this could be accomplished, Soldiers could use this technology on the Battlefield and it could mean the difference between winning and losing a war.
The military already uses Thermal vision on vehicals, but what if we integrated this for every individual soldier to use? Essentially we would be fighting a real war inside, and outside of a virtual world at the same time. It sounds crazy, but you would be looking at the real world through a virtual world, and all of your actions follow out to the real world. Exciting isn't it?
They call it Matrix Goggles. If you watch the video it will show you what it would look like to wear these goggles. Remember the Predator's vision, or Neo looking into the Matrix? Now you can do that too in real time with these goggles.
I've seen this done before and its actually quite simple. All this is doing is adding color filters over video. I used to do this stuff all the time with an old Handycam and some basic video editing software, but that was accomplished via post editing. I'm guessing that the goggles have a small camera on them, which takes in everything you would normally see, then it runs through the small computer adding the specified filter, and then relays that image onto the screen inside the goggles.
I was thinking for a minute that this product is worthless, it acutally doesn't "do" anything except alter your perception of the outside world. But then I began to think, what if you could set the filters to point out skin tones? If this could be accomplished, Soldiers could use this technology on the Battlefield and it could mean the difference between winning and losing a war.
The military already uses Thermal vision on vehicals, but what if we integrated this for every individual soldier to use? Essentially we would be fighting a real war inside, and outside of a virtual world at the same time. It sounds crazy, but you would be looking at the real world through a virtual world, and all of your actions follow out to the real world. Exciting isn't it?
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Graphics gameplay and sound
After reading the articles on Doom 3, I reminisced back to the days when I was eagerly awaiting its much anticipated release. These articles did a great job on informing gamers what they would need to experience the true Doom 3 experience. I even liked how they emphasized how sound was going to play a key role in the gameplay. I read in my old PC Gamer magazine that you should forget about playing Doom 3 with anything less than a 5.1 speaker setup, unless you use good headphones. already having a 5.1 speaker setup I began playing the game, but decided to try the headphones just to see what the difference was. I personally liked the game better with the headphones just because I could hear more and tune out everything around me, like the time I was playing late at night with my dad's noise cancelling headphones and my mom was trying to get my attention so she decided to grab me... yeah, at the time I was hunting for an imp somewhere in the vicinity and I could hear him clanking around the metal space station. Needless to say, combining the two is NOT a good idea (I pretty much freaked out and dove under my desk)
I also recall an older LAN we had shortly after the games release in a barn. After having huge frag fests in quake 3 and other classics, the night began to die down and some of the people with more beefier machines decided they wanted to see what all the hype was about with Doom 3. I leant out my game to a friend sitting a few seats away from me. After about 20 minutes he jumped out of his seat and was about to kill the hosts mastif who had decided to sniff the back of his neck.
As we approach newer and better looking games comes newer and better ways for immersion. I think the first game we can really say actually immersed the player would be Castle Wolfenstien (also released by ID) This was the first game to put the gamer in the perspective of the character they were controlling. before we had text based games and side scrollers but now we were inside the character.
I am predicting that we will see more and more of the articles being published with the upcoming release of Crysis and Unreal 3. Games have made incredible advances in the 4 years that even Doom 3 has been released, and 4 years before the release of Doom 3, we would have laughed at the thought of a game actually looking THAT good. After the next 4 years we will see another bold paradigm shift to a new type of game engine that makes even Doom 3 look embarrassing. I am eagerly awaiting the future... who knows, maybe Final Fantasy 15 will have in game cinematics that look 50x better than any of the past prerendered ones.
I also recall an older LAN we had shortly after the games release in a barn. After having huge frag fests in quake 3 and other classics, the night began to die down and some of the people with more beefier machines decided they wanted to see what all the hype was about with Doom 3. I leant out my game to a friend sitting a few seats away from me. After about 20 minutes he jumped out of his seat and was about to kill the hosts mastif who had decided to sniff the back of his neck.
As we approach newer and better looking games comes newer and better ways for immersion. I think the first game we can really say actually immersed the player would be Castle Wolfenstien (also released by ID) This was the first game to put the gamer in the perspective of the character they were controlling. before we had text based games and side scrollers but now we were inside the character.
I am predicting that we will see more and more of the articles being published with the upcoming release of Crysis and Unreal 3. Games have made incredible advances in the 4 years that even Doom 3 has been released, and 4 years before the release of Doom 3, we would have laughed at the thought of a game actually looking THAT good. After the next 4 years we will see another bold paradigm shift to a new type of game engine that makes even Doom 3 look embarrassing. I am eagerly awaiting the future... who knows, maybe Final Fantasy 15 will have in game cinematics that look 50x better than any of the past prerendered ones.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
a new type of blog
Ok, so apparently I haven't been doing the blog thing right. I thought I could just write about anything videogame related and I apologize for not following your instructions. So I have to find something in the news related on videogames and comment on it right? Ok, here I go and please tell me if I'm doing this wrong or what I could do to improve.
I have recently read in the news that the original Command and Conquer game released in 1995 has just been announced as Freeware. Anybody can go to the Command and Conquer website (http://www.commandandconquer.com/intel/default.aspx?id=61#NewsMain) and download this game for free. This relates back to the original Hacker ethic of giving your programs out for free. Although I don't think the source code is available to edit for the game (correct me if I'm wrong) but it is none the less free. The older that games get, the less of a market there is to sell the game. Judging from my own friends and many others, the majority of people (I guess I can be excluded from this group) only want to see new games.
I love the idea of releasing old games for which there is little to no market as freeware. There are so many older games that I would love to go back and play but for one reason or another have lost the cd over the years and don't feel like buying something twice. I hope more companies start doing this because a lot of people like the idea of getting free stuff and like companies more when they give them free stuff.
I have recently read in the news that the original Command and Conquer game released in 1995 has just been announced as Freeware. Anybody can go to the Command and Conquer website (http://www.commandandconquer.com/intel/default.aspx?id=61#NewsMain) and download this game for free. This relates back to the original Hacker ethic of giving your programs out for free. Although I don't think the source code is available to edit for the game (correct me if I'm wrong) but it is none the less free. The older that games get, the less of a market there is to sell the game. Judging from my own friends and many others, the majority of people (I guess I can be excluded from this group) only want to see new games.
I love the idea of releasing old games for which there is little to no market as freeware. There are so many older games that I would love to go back and play but for one reason or another have lost the cd over the years and don't feel like buying something twice. I hope more companies start doing this because a lot of people like the idea of getting free stuff and like companies more when they give them free stuff.
Monday, September 3, 2007
omg its the cpl
So yeah, I used to be into the CPL and other competitions like WSVG etc etc. Until last night when I just happened to stumple upon a radio talk show (America today or something) I listened to an interview with Angel Munez (founder of the CPL) and thought to myself, oh yeah I used to follow that.
So why don't I follow the CPL and other events like that? To be quite honest I don't care for the games their playing anymore. After the major tournaments stopped supporting CS1.6 and the major teams started switching to Source, I was so fed up with everything that I pretty much stopped playing multiplayer games altogether.
I was fed up with people thinking that they are good at bad games. I see now that there are professional tournaments for Source, Call of Duty 2 and Halo 2. What is wrong with this? First off, CS Source is easy. I played it for a couple hours when it was first released and didn't touch it for over a year before I went to Dink's cafe with some friends of mine. At this Cafe everybody was playing CS:S and talking about how good they were at it too. I was tempted just to leave but my friends (who's also a hardcore CS1.6 player) convinced me just to try it against them. The end result was embarrassing (for all those kids who thought they were good). I do recall joining half-way through a came on De_aztec and having an ending score of 40-6 and one round I knifed 1/2 of the opposing team. I was actually more pissed about this than anything. Here I come into a cafe and play a game that I had only played for a couple of hours and destroyed everybody. It was also so sad playing the game because it felt impossible for me to not get a headshot on somebody because the player models were that huge compared to the tiny 1.6 models.
Within 2 hours of playing at this cafe I was ranked 8th on their top LAN players. The funny thing is, the people playing there were not 13 year olds, they were between 16 and 25 years old and I just felt bad about raping everybody as bad as I did. I mean honestly I felt bad about it. During that one game of CS:S I had people yelling at me across the room and insulting me. One person even swore I was using some kind of cheats and left. I guess that was a compliment? After the game I didn't say anything to anyone, I just got up and left. by the time I got out of the cafe I felt like I had actually gotten worse at games altogether and could feel my skill fading away.
This is the problem I have with new games, and the reason I prefer old games over the new ones (PAY ATTENTION GAME DEVELOPERS!!!!!). First - the issue with graphics... WHO THE FUCK CARES? honestly I could care less if a game looks shitty or not. Second - the issue with gameplay... I can see more and more games being developed to show off graphics instead of creating fast and fluid gameplay - Halo 1+2 and Quake 4 are excelent examples. Halo has an awesome storyline and a great musical score... it lacks good solid gameplay - the shields - like what the fuck? after I get hit with shit I can just hide for a couple seconds and wait for them to recharge and go right back into the battle... umm... thats pretty gay and it keeps the game from being fast paced by slowing down the movement of the character because the game developers want to show off their graphics. Quake 4 - AWESOME GRAPHICS!!!!! GAMEPLAY SUCKS ASS!!!!!!!!!! I felt like a kid with downs while my mommy was holding my hand while playing this game, and thats how it felt playing Halo too. So pretty much ID took everything that made Quake 3 good and turned it bad, and everything that made quake 3 bad they made good. The gameplay was horridly slow paced, the player models are bigger (easier to shoot) and the environments are smaller (slowing down the movement). These are the exact same things that plague CS:S and almost every new game coming out.
Is it just me or are gamers getting worse and worse at games and now game developers are having to make games really really easy to appeal to the norm? I don't play games as often as I used to, but I like games (especially ones that involve COMPETITION) to be challenging.
The game of my dreams would be one with Crysis graphics, Fast paced action similar to Quake 3 (and tiny models and bunnyhoping) and a fan following popular to Halo. That way lots of people would play the game, think they were good until they played against people who actually know what they are doing and then shut up because they don't know what they hell they are talking about.
So why don't I follow the CPL and other events like that? To be quite honest I don't care for the games their playing anymore. After the major tournaments stopped supporting CS1.6 and the major teams started switching to Source, I was so fed up with everything that I pretty much stopped playing multiplayer games altogether.
I was fed up with people thinking that they are good at bad games. I see now that there are professional tournaments for Source, Call of Duty 2 and Halo 2. What is wrong with this? First off, CS Source is easy. I played it for a couple hours when it was first released and didn't touch it for over a year before I went to Dink's cafe with some friends of mine. At this Cafe everybody was playing CS:S and talking about how good they were at it too. I was tempted just to leave but my friends (who's also a hardcore CS1.6 player) convinced me just to try it against them. The end result was embarrassing (for all those kids who thought they were good). I do recall joining half-way through a came on De_aztec and having an ending score of 40-6 and one round I knifed 1/2 of the opposing team. I was actually more pissed about this than anything. Here I come into a cafe and play a game that I had only played for a couple of hours and destroyed everybody. It was also so sad playing the game because it felt impossible for me to not get a headshot on somebody because the player models were that huge compared to the tiny 1.6 models.
Within 2 hours of playing at this cafe I was ranked 8th on their top LAN players. The funny thing is, the people playing there were not 13 year olds, they were between 16 and 25 years old and I just felt bad about raping everybody as bad as I did. I mean honestly I felt bad about it. During that one game of CS:S I had people yelling at me across the room and insulting me. One person even swore I was using some kind of cheats and left. I guess that was a compliment? After the game I didn't say anything to anyone, I just got up and left. by the time I got out of the cafe I felt like I had actually gotten worse at games altogether and could feel my skill fading away.
This is the problem I have with new games, and the reason I prefer old games over the new ones (PAY ATTENTION GAME DEVELOPERS!!!!!). First - the issue with graphics... WHO THE FUCK CARES? honestly I could care less if a game looks shitty or not. Second - the issue with gameplay... I can see more and more games being developed to show off graphics instead of creating fast and fluid gameplay - Halo 1+2 and Quake 4 are excelent examples. Halo has an awesome storyline and a great musical score... it lacks good solid gameplay - the shields - like what the fuck? after I get hit with shit I can just hide for a couple seconds and wait for them to recharge and go right back into the battle... umm... thats pretty gay and it keeps the game from being fast paced by slowing down the movement of the character because the game developers want to show off their graphics. Quake 4 - AWESOME GRAPHICS!!!!! GAMEPLAY SUCKS ASS!!!!!!!!!! I felt like a kid with downs while my mommy was holding my hand while playing this game, and thats how it felt playing Halo too. So pretty much ID took everything that made Quake 3 good and turned it bad, and everything that made quake 3 bad they made good. The gameplay was horridly slow paced, the player models are bigger (easier to shoot) and the environments are smaller (slowing down the movement). These are the exact same things that plague CS:S and almost every new game coming out.
Is it just me or are gamers getting worse and worse at games and now game developers are having to make games really really easy to appeal to the norm? I don't play games as often as I used to, but I like games (especially ones that involve COMPETITION) to be challenging.
The game of my dreams would be one with Crysis graphics, Fast paced action similar to Quake 3 (and tiny models and bunnyhoping) and a fan following popular to Halo. That way lots of people would play the game, think they were good until they played against people who actually know what they are doing and then shut up because they don't know what they hell they are talking about.