Perfect.

Why aren't there more witty cutout comics like this? I read DM of the Rings which is also hilarious but not as good as Darths and Droids.

Is there no god?
http://au.gamespot.com/news/sh...hp?topic_id=25996562

Why do people constantly keep making these Mmorpgs? They're all stupid and all exactly the same.

It's like a really crap apartment. No matter how you dress it up or move things around, it's still a crap apartment. Unless you get new stuff, redo the whole building or move out, you're going to keep living in that same crap apartment.

A fun Mmorpg would be something like Garry's Mod, but more mmorpg-y. Not all this willy nilly 'click on enemy til they die' stuff. More like a 'shoot giant fireballs into a happy forest and let fire physics take over'

WOW, Conan, and any of them for that matter, would be a lot more fun if it was less grind and more screwing around with overpowered and retarded spells and weapons.

Imagine taking your +50 Sword of Bloody Horrible Ruin and re-enacting Happy Gilmore with the NPCs.

Because ever since WoW everybody with so much as a working knowledge of BASIC has had dreams of swimming pools full of caviar from MMORPG profts?

I fail to see the question.

I happen to enjoy Guild Wars. I find combining my skills and having to be clever about it, and fighting to gain those skills to be quite enjoyable. I'd be bored very quickly if every battle was just a case of Fireball > dead forest. I mean, what do I look like, Lina Inverse?

Could do without the grinding though. >> I like the feeling of having earned something, but there's a point where it just turns into yet-another-defeat-at-the-hands-of-massive-dps-monsters. ><

I'd hazard a guess that it's got something to do with just how many people are willing to not only pay full price for a game up front, but also a monthly fee to keep playing it?  It clearly makes a lot of people very happy to play games like this, and these people are willing to pay for it - give me one good reason for a game developer not to make an MMORPG if they can.  :p


And, from what I've read and seen about this game so far, the KotOR MMO looks pretty cool, and like something I'd try, if only I had a proper computer and enough cash to afford it.

That's not what I meant. Intelligent fighting is exactly what MMORPGs need.
Using daggers for climbing trees to escape foes or releasing electricity into a watery environment.

I'm not saying mmorpgs need to abandon their formula all together, but at least mix it up a bit. Good gamers should be the ones that have strategies, not a quick finger and a bunch of spells set to 'spam til mana runs out'.

What I've been ranting about is the old 'spam same thing at the same thing over and over again so you can spam slightly different sized and coloured things at bigger things' that ALL mmorpgs have been following.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic demonstrated what I mean perfectly. Using an ice spell to create slippery floors for enemies to fall off tall buildings. Casting fire spells on wooden boxes and throwing them at enemies. Yeah, the game was easy as hell most of time and it did turn into "Sir. Kicksalot's adventures in the land of suspiciously placed spike racks" at times, but it was awesome and one of the funnest games I've played in a while.

Even grinding could be fun using this:
The current grind is 'click 10 times on "Small Imp" till you level up and are now able to defeat "Medium Imps" without your health going dry'

A fun grinding session with these Imps would just require something that makes them a little bit smarter. When a big dude with a sword comes at impy, he runs up a tree. When sword-dude is trying to cut down tree, jump behind him and slash at his shins then hide up another tree.

That would make the creatures less boring, and a strategy for killing them would have to be formed. Perhaps scare the imps out into the open so they cannot hide? Or lead them to believe you are weak by having a temporary stat cripple, then returning to normal when they are close enough?

And in response to Palpentine: Just because people are willing to settle for less doesn't mean developers should do the same!

A KOTOR mmorpg does sound like fun, but not if it turns into another repetitive Wow-clone.
I'm not saying the system is the devil's own and must be destroyed immediately. I'm only saying that it's been done to death by now, try adding something different to the mixing pot. FPSs are always trying this and they are the dominant genre in gaming because of that with their diversity and uniqueness.

Sometimes they end up shooting themselves (see Timeshift) but sometimes they end up as amazing pieces of fun (see Bioshock). As far as I can see, Mmorpgs so far are just reskinning themselves, which isn't horrible but it is just lazy and unimaginitive. Just a quick grab for cash.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:11, Wed 22 Oct 2008.

No, but the developers' main goal is this:  create a game that as many people as possible will pay us for playing.  You don't win points for being 'unique' or 'original' in the gaming world, when nobody outside a small core of gamers actually plays your game.  And, for the most part, the un-inspired games that are basically copies of last years' big game, tend to sell the most, while a lot of really great, fun games have been doomed to obscurity because the mainstream audience doesn't want to play them.  And if you're in the business of making games - doing it for a living, to get the money you need to feed your family and pay your bills - you need to go for the biggest audience.  And you don't do that by being creative and unique - you do that by giving them something that feels familiar to them.  And, hey, if the game ends up good enough for the 'hardcore gamers' to play it, too - that's just an added bonus.

That's the sad truth. Noone but a few developers seem to be trying to stand out anymore.

This comic sums the whole situation up perfectly:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=269

I live in a happy magical land where people care about making something amazing and fantastic rather than something with a 2 after it and made for easy money-making. Sort of why I have a bias against Halo and an undying love for Valve.

That and I hate leaving the cars with their huge kickass guns to fight solo for the entire, presumably, human race.

This is why, while I love Halo, I refuse to play it as anything except co-op now that I know the plot. Well, except for 3. I haven't had a chance to play with that at all yet.

Still, I loved Star Wars: Republic Commando, just because while the gun battles were pretty annoying (HOW many bullets can a Geonosian Elite take?! I mean, I can understand it when you're shooting them with the ion gun you get as a default weapon, but...), the squad chatter (and Morrison's voice. I don't like men, and I still think it's sexy) completely made the game.

I hope beyond hope that someday people will look at what they're doing and the game market will wake up. They're realize that they're paying fistful's of dollars for shitty remakes of games they already played.

But that hope is dies when you look at the sales numbers and realize that the Madden's (etc.) games are the best selling games out there. They're the same game every year with slightly new stats and maybe a new dunk or new touchdown leaps.

Yahtzee said it better than most:
"If, in the future, we all end up playing Captain Bland's Monotonous Adventure in what little spare time we have between toiling in the Microsoft overmine offworld mining complex, then I want you to know that I fucking called it!"

I have hope for people like Tim Shafer though.

I bought Psychonauts after hearing that review and haven't regretted it at all..well, a little.

I friggin hate the artist work of most of the game. All the characters look retarded. Other then that it's an awesome game.

It's a cartoony game, it's supposed to distract from reality by a planet-sized length.

Psychonauts had it's fair share of annoying problems, but then again you got to light squirrels on fire.

I am currently on the level where you're a giant monster rampaging through the fish metropolis ala Godzilla

ignore this, not really my post. Please delete.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:42, Thu 30 Oct 2008.

I forgot who said it, but the dark side of the force is considered unnatural, an abomination, and a corruption of the force. Just like howdruids don't burn down forests to bring "balance", the light side users don't have to off themselves to "balance" the force.

Any dark user unbalances things because they weild powers that they shouldn't be able to, because they "cheated the system"

Also, what power level do you suppose Anakin was right before getting whacked by Obi-Wan? I mean, those younglings surely were worth some decent XP for the RP bonus :D

Actually, that whole scene reminds me of something out of Darths and Droids.

GM: "You come across a jedi temple. All the adults are out fighting in the war leaving none behind but the younglings.

Anakin: "Wait, no Jedi to fight? That mean's no XP...wait a second. How many younglings are in the temple?"

GM: "Ummm, about a hundred or so."

Anakin: (does math) "Wait...if each one nets me just 10 XP, that's enough for me to level up. I put on my game face and walk inside."

GM: "Wait...what?"

Anakin: "I kill younglings until I level up!"

GM: "WTF?"

Anakin: "Hey, you're the one that stole all the real enemies away..."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

They never said that but it does sound like something they'd do

In reply to PC praguepride (msg #39):

That's pretty funny.  You know who your Anakin just reminded me of? Jim (Qui-Gon's player) He's gonna get killed in the next strip or two...  I’ve been wondering how they planned on handling that...  my bet is they'll have Annie take over Padme and give Anakin to Jim... Jim does seem to have the right mentality for the part... ^_^

Changing the subject slightly, I'm a bit bugged by how typecast SW creatures are.  Every Hutt is a rich gangster with a string of scantily clad slaves, every Jawa is a desert dwelling nomad, every Wookie is a proud warrior race guy, etc.  I know all sci-fi has this to a degree but I was just leafing through a Clone Wars comic and came across a section where Ayla Secura mentions that Twi'Lek females have a genetic disposition to become slave dancers. . . unbelievable.  Even Vulcans aren't that horribly typecast.

There are some exceptions; like not all Hutts are gangsters, just some of the ones on Tatooine (and even then I've only seen 3 gangster hutts on tatooine). The genetic disposition to be slave dancers is probably just another 'medichlorine' fact. Having a disposition to be dancers maybe.

Jawas end up as scavengers because they are suited to that lifestyle, sort of like the wookies and sandpeople, but I see your point.

I know you read TVTropes with the reference to the Proud Warrior Race Guy :) so you'll know it's a Planet Of The Hats type situation.

This sort of thing comes from trying to extrapolate an entire culture based on one or two insignificant facts gleaned from a minor role in the source material. With one or two supporting characters to go by, writers assume that they are typical for their species, and use them as a model for the rest, whilst being unwilling to go against what they perceive as the official canon version. They're afraid to invent anything new, particularly when it comes to somebody else's creation (ie George Lucas's).

Jabba is a gangster, so all Hutts become gangsters. Bothan spies stole the Death Star plans, so all Bothans become spies. Bib Fortuna was a gangster's henchmen, so all male Twi'leks become gangster types, whilst that Twi'lek dancer of Jabba's became the model for all the female Twi'leks. And so on, and on, and on.

I wanna see a Wookie Scientist. That'd be funny. Or a Jedi Hutt.

there have been Hutt Jedi. In fact there is even Hutt Jedi Armour