The Top 10 Games Of All Time

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Finsternis
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Post by Finsternis »

pinback wrote:According to Finsternis, SC2 is a 4X game. According to Finsternis, Eve Online is also a 4X game.
My exact quote to you was "It's more like a 4x game than it is like any other genre. It's not exactly like one."

I stand by that. You're basing your judgment on the 3 hours you've spent playing it versus the hundreds of hours I have. You also fail to understand the concept of "macro" versus "micro" levels of gameplay. Eve is a 4x game at the macro level.

In fact, I retract my statement about SC2. That one is not a 4x game.

Vitriola

Post by Vitriola »

pinback wrote:According to Finsternis, SC2 is a 4X game. According to Finsternis, Eve Online is also a 4X game.

Here is a list of other games which Finsternis considers to be 4X games:

The Sims
Gears of War
Guitar Hero III
Mr. Do's Wild Ride
Freecell
Hunt the Wumpus
Chinese Checkers
Editplus
Tiddly Winks
Rock, Paper, Scissors
Playing frisbee with a dog
I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10
Global Thermonuclear War
Shoe repair
Recycling
Looking both ways before crossing the street
Spelling
*snicker* BWA-HAHAHAAAAAAAkeekeekee

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pinback
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Post by pinback »

Finsternis wrote:It's more like a 4x game than it is like any other genre.
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Finsternis wrote:It's much closer to a 4X than an MMORPG.
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Finsternis wrote:It's not an MMORPG.
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I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

draalr

Post by draalr »

Eve Online is an asteroid mining simulator with an integrated irc client.

Worm
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Post by Worm »

Honestly all MMOs are far closer to IRC than games.
Good point Bobby!

draalr

Post by draalr »

Worm wrote:Honestly all MMOs are far closer to IRC than games.
It isn't nice covertly bashing every asidine halfwit who writes about defining the "formula" or creating a "template" to bash out a specific type of video game.

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Finsternis
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Post by Finsternis »

Pinback, here's a little education for you regarding computer games. The term "massively multiplayer" refers to how many people are playing the game at the same time, not any particular style or game genre. "massively" (large) "multiplayer" (many players).

For example, you can have a game that's a massively multiplayer First Person Shooter, like Planetside. There are even some Massively Multiplayer RTS games.

See how that works? See how "the number of people who can play the game" and "what the game is about and which genre it is" are two completely different things? Please do try to grasp that.

Eve Online is more like a 4x game than it is like any other genre, but it isn't exactly like the ones you're used to. I'm sorry you appear to lack the creative imagination to think a game can exist that doesn't fit neatly into the boxes of the few, limited games you've played.

It's much closer to a 4X than an MMORPG. See those three letters at the end? The letters" RPG"? they stand for "role-playing game". Now, Eve does call itself a roleplaying game in the title bar of your web browser, but it's about as much a roleplaying game as Monopoly is. After all, in Monopoly, you select an icon to represent yourself in the game, so I must be "playing the role" of a shoe when I play Monopoly with that piece, right? And since it's a roleplaying game, it can't have anything to do with finance or money, I guess.

For your reference, the term "4x" refers to "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate.". All of those things are integral parts of Eve Online.

I realize that, in your very limited view of computer gaming, you hear the term "MMORPG" and immediately think of elves and wizards. Therefore, according to your flawed "logic", anything that refers to itself that way can't have any elements of any other genre.

Here's a concpet that will "blow your fucking mind": Some games cross genres. Imagine that! A game that doesn't fit into any of your silly little rigidly-defined concepts of what you think game genres are.
"I’d rather have questions I cannot answer than answers I cannot question."

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

draalr wrote:
Worm wrote:Honestly all MMOs are far closer to IRC than games.
It isn't nice covertly bashing every asidine halfwit who writes about defining the "formula" or creating a "template" to bash out a specific type of video game.
I have given you shit in the past for some of your posts, but I think I have cemented my position in e-mail that this place is a frigging free for all at this point, so don't feel shy about ripping into Worm. It actually takes the edge off now.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

Worm
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Post by Worm »

I'd like to be overt then.

Massively Online games are about community and not gameplay. When they do try to shoehorn in gameplay aspects it's usually min/max, stat ceilings(you can't do x until you have x strength), or just rote instance running.

The games don't expect you to be able to deal with the unexpected, if you run into something unexpected you have in fact made a mistake in your play.

Until the majority of players can admit that they like the involvement, we're not going to have a really great massive multiplayer game. People want to bitch about their class nerf, they want to have guild drama, they want to sit in front of their computer and miss out on going out with friends.

I still remember playing EQ2 for a bit, the best thing about that game was a little pokemon-type arena they added in as an after thought. It was hands down better than everything else in the game.

I don't know if everyone is too proud to admit that they're playing WoW because they are bored and lonely, but you fucking are bucko, man up.
Good point Bobby!

draalr

Post by draalr »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I have given you shit in the past for some of your posts, but I think I have cemented my position in e-mail that this place is a frigging free for all at this point, so don't feel shy about ripping into Worm. It actually takes the edge off now.
I've given myself more shit for my posts than it is possible for anyone else to give. And I'm not ripping into Worm, merely pointing out that his observation that...
Worm wrote:Honestly all MMOs are far closer to IRC than games.
Basically outlines against the idea that the current crop of interested game developers (people who for some reason, believe that a creative process can be... Streamlined into a template) have tried to create an outline for creation that completely negates the fact that the process is essentially recreation.

Or the attitude that everything before must have got it right, so we may as well keep doing that over and over again.

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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

draalr wrote:Eve Online is an asteroid mining simulator with an integrated irc client.
I am normally with you, in regards to MMOGs, but if you haven't already, block out an hour and read and digest this:

http://www.wirm.net/nightfreeze/part1.html

It is AMAZING. Even if half of it is made up, all of it is plausible in Eve. That right there is why Eve Online is one of the best fucking games ever made. I can't think of any other thing that blends the real world and a fake one so seamlessly. Actually, only the following come to mind:

1) Majestic, by EA. If I remember right, this was the game that would send you e-mails and so forth while you were at work, advancing the game's plot outside of the actual game. Amazing concept and I would love to get involved in a kind of ARG like that in this day and age.

2) Grant Theft Auto 3, because you instantly want to run over pedestrians

3) Legend of the Red Dragon, because you'll eventually get hot jerk-off messages from the various girls-turned-whores that call up and play. HONK HONK!
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

draalr

Post by draalr »

Worm wrote:The games don't expect you to be able to deal with the unexpected, if you run into something unexpected you have in fact made a mistake in your play.
Its tiring to see gaming become a highly propagated idea, and then see this idea become expected and witness those who create, base their process around a vague notion only because it has become popular and thus expected.

The current crop of video games, in becoming more ah... Mainstream, appear to also have become infused with one overall style, and that is a approach of complete control over the framework of the game.

With the new found knowledge of how games work, that people do form communities around them, a sort of half breed bastard system that tries to organize people in a certain way and fully expects a community instead of it being self organizing, tries to control the interaction you appear to be talking about. Most games now feel overly engineered to be a certain way, with certain controls being put in place to ensure only the possibilities and the limits become what the company behind the game believe in, instead of what the player can create.

An example of this would be the modification and general game communities around most new video games; now that the companies who create have more control, they have the ability to only allow what they percieve can be done to their product and how people interact with it. Instead of mods being just a byproduct of developers not being aware of how their game is played, and someone else trying to rectify the problem.

Basically destroying the idea that anything new can come about, and trying to create a controlled enviroment that is completely tied into the notions and whims of those who created it.

draalr

Post by draalr »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:It is AMAZING. Even if half of it is made up, all of it is plausible in Eve.
I remember forming my own bank in Ultima Online, running trade routes in Asherons Call, and then two years after I quit Ultima, had someone e-mail me because of incurred interest they were owed.

Arguably this is what has become the "metagame" (a term for describing how people interact in an enviroment that isn't percieved to inherently have that ability) and it has always been the players who create the interest and excitement around the subject.

Exactly the same with Eve Online; its the interactions that are obvious and outside a certain enviroment, that then become associated with that enviroment, and so create a sort of artificial interest in that world. I mean, what you describe is how people interact, not an inherent facet of the game world and one as I've said, has become rarer because the people behind the game are trying to control the interactions that take place around that game.

Its more an idea about how people get along and the systems they create from just being together, then what or what not a certain game is.

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Post by hygraed »

Star Control 2 is still more of an RPG than a 4X game

draalr

Post by draalr »

hygraed wrote:Star Control 2 is still more of an RPG than a 4X game
Are actually talking about how the game is (I mean, do you play a role in it?), or are we just comparing it to every other game that are associated as RPG's or x4's and hash out how similiar they are?

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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

draalr wrote:Its more an idea about how people get along and the systems they create from just being together, then what or what not a certain game is.
Ah, BUT, but... in either Ultima Online or Asheron's Call, can you call somebody an asshole?

I rest my case, sir.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

hygraed
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Post by hygraed »

draalr wrote:
hygraed wrote:Star Control 2 is still more of an RPG than a 4X game
Are actually talking about how the game is (I mean, do you play a role in it?), or are we just comparing it to every other game that are associated as RPG's or x4's and hash out how similiar they are?
In Star Control 2, you control a customizable ship (character) that may or may not be accompanied by one or two smaller ships (hirelings). You fly your ship from system to system, interacting with representatives of each alien race either through dialogue or real-time ship-to-ship combat, eventually uncovering the mystery behind the Ur-Quan invasion and wresting control of the galaxy from their claws.

Sounds like an RPG to me. The only thing that makes it ever-so-vaguely like a 4X game is the fact that some systems have resources which you can harvest and sell. Even in this respect it is much more like Pirates! than any 4X game.

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Finsternis
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Post by Finsternis »

Worm wrote:Massively Online games are about community and not gameplay. When they do try to shoehorn in gameplay aspects it's usually min/max, stat ceilings(you can't do x until you have x strength), or just rote instance running.
Which is why I like Eve so much - because it's not like that. there is no "I win button". And the community is better than the community in any other MMOG.
Worm wrote:The games don't expect you to be able to deal with the unexpected, if you run into something unexpected you have in fact made a mistake in your play.
Not in Eve. Another good point. Totally free-form. If you aren't smart and careful, bam! You die.
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Finsternis
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Post by Finsternis »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I am normally with you, in regards to MMOGs, but if you haven't already, block out an hour and read and digest this:

http://www.wirm.net/nightfreeze/part1.html

It is AMAZING. Even if half of it is made up, all of it is plausible in Eve.
It's a decent read, and I agree with you that the stuff that happens is plausible, but there are so many errors of fact that it really makes me wonder if it wasn't just made-up. For example, there is no "Your engines have been disabled" message in Eve - especially in a pod. There are tons of other similar mistakes, mistakes that no experienced player would make when writing about Eve, so I'm very skeptical about this story.

Yes, the basic outlines things he talks about could all have happened, theoretically. But they most definitely didn't happen to this guy. He talk about a Moa having "3 long-distance laser racks" (Caldari ships don't even use lasers), his pod's engines repairing themselves and "operating at 1/3 efficiency" (which can't happen). There are just way too many things that are completely wrong for me to believe a word of it.

Still, not a bad read as long as it doesn't matter that it didn't happen. Stuff just like it really does happen every day.
Last edited by Finsternis on Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"I’d rather have questions I cannot answer than answers I cannot question."

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Post by Worm »

Finsternis wrote:If you aren't smart and careful, bam! You die.
Don't you just cower in secure zones to stay alive?
Good point Bobby!

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