AoC is hard? sorry... I like the game, but the only really challenging part in it is the "death group" in Cradle of Decay, and i think even that got "fixed" later on..
Originally posted by nethaniah
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist.
I just want to mention Civilization 4 as perfect example where hard difficulty doesnt stop players from taking the challenge again and again. The game has great replayability and after you get your butt kicked you think to yourself, ok one more try, even when there is late night. Game can be superhard when designed well. I guess DS is such a game if people dont ragequit.
Dude I totally have to agree with you. All of the civilization games did their best to absolutly screw you, even to the point of cheating to make it harder in the earlier versions. I have been playing since Civilization, and still have not beaten the various versions of the title more than a few times on the harder difficulty levels. But thats what makes it so awesome. It's seeing how good you did "that time" vs. every other time. When you finally crush your enemies, or even just some of them, it is immensly rewarding. You can play it in Puss mode too, but where is the fun in that? You just get all the tech and are so far ahead of the other countries its pointless.
To continue my rant, I always felt that game "cheats" were just about the lamest thing someone could use. Cheats, and easy mode for that matter literally allow the player to bypass the whole point of the game. I play all FPS games in hard mode and all RPG's in hard mode. It takes a bit longer to get through them but when you do the experience is always that much more memorable.
Applying this rant to MMORPG's though is a little tougher. Designers want most theme park MMO's (that I have seen) to be easy to slightly moderately easy because it makes them more fast paced, and being more fast paced keeps the attention of the player and their monthly subscriptions rolling in.
the main issue i find with modern mmo's is that in their efforts to make the game "easy and accessible" the immersion goes by the board.
i agree as some have pointed out however that overly or constantly penalising players or nerfing their toons as a result of their actions is not ideal; but not offering the player a sense of risk to their actions or decisions is equally damaging in terms of playing experience.
I just want to mention Civilization 4 as perfect example where hard difficulty doesnt stop players from taking the challenge again and again. The game has great replayability and after you get your butt kicked you think to yourself, ok one more try, even when there is late night. Game can be superhard when designed well. I guess DS is such a game if people dont ragequit.
Dude I totally have to agree with you. All of the civilization games did their best to absolutly screw you, even to the point of cheating to make it harder in the earlier versions. I have been playing since Civilization, and still have not beaten it more than a few times on the harder difficulty levels. But thats what makes it so awesome. It's seeing how good you did "that time" vs. every other time. When you finally crush your enemies, or even just some of them, it is immensly rewarding. You can play is in Puss mode too, but where is the fun in that? You just get all the tech and are so far ahead of the other countries its pointless.
To continue my rant, I always felt that game "cheats" were just about the lamest thing someone could use to literally bypass the whole point of the game. I play all FPS games in hard mode and all RPG's in hard mode. It takes a bit longer to get through them but when you do the experience is always that much more memorable.
I found Civillization:Revolution pretty easy. Maybe it was just that one? But I do agree with the part of how awesome you did 'that one time' against' what you can do now.
Also play all my FPSs on the hardest mode. CoD:4 hardest one in along time. Going through that without dieing was nearly impossible,lol.
I don't think I could agree with you more on this column. In he past several years MMOs have gotten easier. The simple reason for this is the easier it is the more people will play it, the more people that play it, the more of a bottom line you have, and in the end of the day you and your investors are overwhelmingly happy, which I'm sure everybody on this tread no doubt gets.
I hope that in the future we see some more difficult games like EvE, because they are the only reason that I play, challenges that make me feel great.
I don't think I could agree with you more on this column. In he past several years MMOs have gotten easier. The simple reason for this is the easier it is the more people will play it, the more people that play it, the more of a bottom line you have, and in the end of the day you and your investors are overwhelmingly happy, which I'm sure everybody on this tread no doubt gets. I hope that in the future we see some more difficult games like EvE, because they are the only reason that I play, challenges that make me feel great.
Darkfall is very hard. But your right, overall MMO's have become easier and easier.
- I will NEVER play Demon Souls, as I do not enjoy getting kicked in the enthusiasm as a form of entertainment.
- You are a person completely different from me. When I spend $40-$60 on a game, I expect to be able to play the entirety of the content I paid for. Just because for me that meas setting the difficulty at 'Normal' to 'Easy' does not take awy fromt eh fun for me.
When I got my first chess program on my Commodore 64, I was only able o beat the first two levels of difficulty...so what. I'm glad there are some eople who like playing the most punishing games, the game industry needs the diversity of all the varous types, genres, and difficulties of games to remain vital and to evolve to the futur.
Please keep telling us which games scratch your masochistic itch, so I can avod them like a plague.
Wow. From what I've read of your description of the game, you are a masochist. To each his own, but there's no chance I'd set a virtual foot in that game ever. For me to enjoy a game, all my characters have to slowly, steadily, make progress or improve in some way. They may hit walls, but that progress should never be backwards. But, whatever floats your boat.
In Demon's Souls you and your character slowly progress and improve in many ways every minute you play.
But the way the game works make you feel much more rewarded it in a way you will probably never feel in any other game.
Even when you lost souls you learn something, your progress in Demon's Souls is never backwards.
Demon's Souls is one of the best games ever made. I would love if they made an MMO based off of it.
I disagree.
The way multiplayer works in Demon's Souls is original and unique and the way the game is "saved" every second make the game somehow persistent for the player. If they made it into a traditional MMO, a lot of the special details of Demon's Souls will be lost.
But a new MMO with similar atmosphere and combat would be very interesting.
I am not even sure they should create a second Demon's Souls. I don't think it would be easy to create such masterpiece two times in a roll...
I think im one of the few who dislikes Dragon Age. I disliked how the story was flat, how combat was dull (Including killsyncs do not make it epic) and how OP the mage class was. Take a look at Baldurs Gate II, an old game with epic combat. It was also not full blown cheese fantasy like Dragon Age. The romance scenes were so cringe worthy in Dragon Age I almost quit the game there and then. Ofc the game had its merits, great back history and musical score. But back to the topic! Current games, excluding Demons Souls, have become 'hold the gamers hand' and 'kiss the poor sore spot if hurt' kinda gaming. But look at the defenition of hard gaming. To increase the difficulty to epic does not make the game 'hard' but gives the computer an unfair advantage. Hard for me is skill based, platforming, tactics, timing on certain events. Its down to YOU to pass the area, kill the boss, jump that timed jump. And if you fail, YOU DIE! You re-step to the check point which is FAR back. Death is now a joke for games. Spirit walk to your corpse :O Such a harsh life. I wish games would take EVEs approach to death.
While I understand the fondness toward "ye old games of yore" (trust me, I really do...I'm old, and played a lot of those old games), I've come to the conclusion that there is plenty of death, struggle, and misery in REAL life. Myself, (and I know I'm not alone in this) I would prefer LESS pain and misery in gaming. To me, it's not FUN to have to repeat something over and over and over and over to succeed. That is just way too fucking much like real life. Have I always felt this about games? NO. This opinion has actually changed with age.
Yes, in real life, every failure teaches you something, hopefully, that will bring you closer to success in the future. But seriously now...I don't want to "learn life lessons," necessarily, from games. I want to be interactively ENTERTAINED. For some people, I suppose (maybe those who haven't had that much struggle in real life, I don't know) struggling and painful deaths are entertaining and fun in a game. But since every gamer obviously doesn't agree....this is why I think having games that both do and don't have that required "suffering for success" in them....is a good thing. Otherwise....just give people the OPTION of painful or easy gaming mode....problem solved.
Any game that gives lots of options on HOW you play it, is probably apt to be more successful than a game that doesn't afford anyone any options. That goes for single player games AND MMOs, I believe. The more you allow a player to formulate their own way of playing and having fun...the better, imo.
Thanks for the article. I learned: - I will NEVER play Demon Souls, as I do not enjoy getting kicked in the enthusiasm as a form of entertainment. - You are a person completely different from me. When I spend $40-$60 on a game, I expect to be able to play the entirety of the content I paid for. Just because for me that meas setting the difficulty at 'Normal' to 'Easy' does not take awy fromt eh fun for me. When I got my first chess program on my Commodore 64, I was only able o beat the first two levels of difficulty...so what. I'm glad there are some eople who like playing the most punishing games, the game industry needs the diversity of all the varous types, genres, and difficulties of games to remain vital and to evolve to the futur. Please keep telling us which games scratch your masochistic itch, so I can avod them like a plague.
^^^^^ I just met my virtual TWIN. Hi there, Sis or Bro! And yes...I couldn't have stated it better (trust me...I've been trying). lol
I've heard about DS... No way in hell am I going to waste my time(and spike my blood pressure) with such a sadistic game. I'm in this hobby for entertainment and relaxation. There is a difference between a challenging game, and one that is more the Dev's playing sadistic head games with the player. From the sounds of it, its much like a game called The Void. Which is also one sadistic head game after another.
I understand what you said about sadistic head games, this is not the case.
Every challenge in Demon's Souls is fair, always fair. If you know your character, the weapon you are using and pay attention to all "hints" and details Demon's Souls will be fair with you.
There are a lot of games with unfair challenging that in the end are very annoying, Demon's Souls only ask you concentrate and do your best without fooling around.
Usually people die in D.S because of their own mistakes, not because enemies are overpowerd or unfair. The balance in this game is very impressive.
Difficult game. Cruel old school difficulty, excellent graphics, amazingly created "gloomy environment" with a very dark mystical lore. Overall, the best RPG I have ever played, because while it is unforgiving, it is also, in a way very fair. As long as you THINK about every step forward that you take and involve some damn strategy in your sword fights, the sense of achievement you get is greater than level'ing an 80 in WoW. In other words what I'm saying is, and you can take this for a fact, that if you actually think and play this game, you'll find it nowhere as hard as people make it out to be.
Also, best PvP EVER.It would be crazy if this was actually a real MMO.
Demon's Souls. Also, Gamespot.com's Game Of The Year 2009, very deservingly so :
Originally posted by mmosnark elocke: I don't think I bashed WoW at all in that article. In fact, I think I was probably a bit harsh on EQ (1 and 2). I have a lot of respect for the decisions Blizzard made during development of WoW. The point I did want to make is that WoW is definitely "easier" than most of its precedents ... and that it being easier is part of a slow 20-year trend. However, the main reason I wanted to reply to your comment is that your animated banner is awesome. Thumbs up!
Fair enough and thanks! I guess I just knee jerk half the time these days when WoW is even mentioned. I'm not a crazy fanboi, haven't played it since December, but so many people tend to just use WoW as the epitome of bad gameplay when it is by far no where near that.
elocke: I don't think I bashed WoW at all in that article. In fact, I think I was probably a bit harsh on EQ (1 and 2). I have a lot of respect for the decisions Blizzard made during development of WoW. The point I did want to make is that WoW is definitely "easier" than most of its precedents ... and that it being easier is part of a slow 20-year trend.
However, the main reason I wanted to reply to your comment is that your animated banner is awesome. Thumbs up!
Fair enough and thanks! I guess I just knee jerk half the time these days when WoW is even mentioned. I'm not a crazy fanboi, haven't played it since December, but so many people tend to just use WoW as the epitome of bad gameplay when it is by far no where near that.
I enjoyed the heck out of WoW but take a top end raiding guild from Everquest- transport them to WoW at level one and they beat all the content in one month - if they played as much as they played EQ. The same guild, if you whiped their memories of raid strategy would probably take 18 to 24 months to finish the content on EQ set at the original difficulty level.
Ok, this was bothering me a little. Call me nit-picky.
Your description of demon's souls is a little off. You can exit the level without beating it. You just have to go back to the beginning. Of course then the monsters respawn, but it's your choice.
Also, nothing kills you in one hit in the first level. Maybe they can stun you with their first hit and then hit you again and get you almost-death, but not kill you. Even if you're a barbarian (no armor).
Also you can kill that "unkillable" thing. You just need a higher block and a better shield. You can't kill him at level 1. Although I stayed away from him the first time I saw him. He's glowing red. When everything else in the level is tan or brown zombie like guys or regular soldiers, or maybe someone who glowed blue a little, that slightly large suit of armor wielding a javelin on a bridge with a giant sheild MADE OF GLOWING RED ENERGY in an area clearly not made for a boss, kinda dissuaded me from attempting to kill him.
Not to say this game isn't hard, though. It's kinda refreshing to get punched in the face by a game. And it's fun. Really fun. The PvP creates some EPIC battles, too. I was fighting this one guy for so long that both of our weapons broke and most of our armor was gone. I finally Got him trapped in a corner and firebombed him into the ground, but it lasted a good 45 minutes or more. It was awesome. He's now my friend.
In the Mega Drive / Sega Genesis era E.A. was very different.
They published "Shadow of the Beast" too (created by Psignosys) an incredible and vey hard game, unfortunatelly unlike "Demon's Souls", "Shadow of the Beast" is an unfair game, but the artstyle made up for it (and the immortality cheat).
Originally posted by Lord_Alexion five words: LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE
Awesome game. Not sure why you brought it up.
Another thing. RPGs at their very core are built so that at some point, you progress your character far enough that content does become "easy" that's the point of "experience" points.
I have to say, in regards to Demon's Souls, the game may be unforgiving at times but it IS overwhelmingly fair. If you pay attention and read other player's messages you REALLY can keep yourself from dying. When I played through it, I only died 5 to 6 times total. Once during the reaper puzzles, once in the swamp (my two most abhorred levels), once on MY most hated boss in the game, once from the dragon, and once or twice on the first level... I can guarantee you, all of those deaths were MY fault. If you keep a cool head on your shoulders and focus, the game is actually more fair in YOUR direction, after about 10-15 hours of playing I really felt the game was being unfair to the NPCs... then again, there were more than a few encounters that I came out of with sweaty palms and a sigh of relief. Given, I was a ranged character and was VERY careful, so that may have contributed to my success...
Edit: Also the un-killable boss IN the tutorial IS killable, you just need to dodge and stay to his right (swinging arm) side. He's slow and big so there's a bunch of spots right around him that he can't hit you without doing a predictable easy to avoid AoE attack, after you kill him though you get insta-gibbed in a cut scene... XP
While I understand the fondness toward "ye old games of yore" (trust me, I really do...I'm old, and played a lot of those old games), I've come to the conclusion that there is plenty of death, struggle, and misery in REAL life. Myself, (and I know I'm not alone in this) I would prefer LESS pain and misery in gaming. To me, it's not FUN to have to repeat something over and over and over and over to succeed. That is just way too fucking much like real life. Have I always felt this about games? NO. This opinion has actually changed with age.
Yes, in real life, every failure teaches you something, hopefully, that will bring you closer to success in the future. But seriously now...I don't want to "learn life lessons," necessarily, from games. I want to be interactively ENTERTAINED. For some people, I suppose (maybe those who haven't had that much struggle in real life, I don't know) struggling and painful deaths are entertaining and fun in a game. But since every gamer obviously doesn't agree....this is why I think having games that both do and don't have that required "suffering for success" in them....is a good thing. Otherwise....just give people the OPTION of painful or easy gaming mode....problem solved.
Any game that gives lots of options on HOW you play it, is probably apt to be more successful than a game that doesn't afford anyone any options. That goes for single player games AND MMOs, I believe. The more you allow a player to formulate their own way of playing and having fun...the better, imo.
Agreed.
I've never really understood the whole "challenge me with video games" mentality. Games are escapism, the good ones are like interactive novels. Folks that are measuring themselves against high scores and hard mode should probably put that kind of time and effort into their professional lives instead.
Games are, you know, games. Diversions, distractions, ultimately meaningless and frivolous unless you're a pro athlete.
Agreed. I've never really understood the whole "challenge me with video games" mentality. Games are escapism, the good ones are like interactive novels. Folks that are measuring themselves against high scores and hard mode should probably put that kind of time and effort into their professional lives instead. Games are, you know, games. Diversions, distractions, ultimately meaningless and frivolous unless you're a pro athlete.
You know "onetruth", every game has some kind of challenge, challenge can entertain.
But you know what is really sad about your words? You presume that every good game is like "interactive novels", you presume that folks who enjoy challenging but fair games are not able to put "that kind of time and effort" into their professional/personal lives.
Even the games that really work as interactive novels like Heavy Rain, Syberia, Myst have some kind of challenge.
For some people it is really hard to understand what does not belong to their personal taste, the funny thing about the subject is that Demon's Souls is probably one of the most escapists games relased in the last years, but it seems you are busy trying to judge others to make you and your personal opinion sound better.
Fair challenge make you pay attention to every step you take, make the escapist experience more intense for some players.
It’s sad to say “face-meltingly difficult MMOs” are unfortunately a thing of the past. The first MMO I was interested in was Anarchy online released in 2001. Logging into the world I was amazed at the sheer splendor of a virtual world, not including all the people running around talking and killing things. There was no tutorial, I just click a bunch of icons to see what was what, then pulled out the manual for some character control mechanics. The game had a max level of 200, I eventually hit 80 on my metaphysicist which unlocked a whole new world to me. My character could cast a nano spell that let me fly anywhere. I was so amazed at this accomplishment that I just stopped earning exp and flew everywhere I could. It took me months to get to 80 and I couldn't handle another 120. The game was very difficult, I had trouble soloing mobs and the character development was complex. Not only did I have to get armor and weapons, but I had to get body implants and a little floating ball for light in dark places.
I eventually switch to Dark Age of Camelot, and basically went through the same scenario, but the good news is it was only 50 levels and I learned that if I paid for 2 accounts I could have an advantage of a buff bot. Without a buff bot the game was almost impossible to solo, you had to be very good at your class and your gear needed to be near or higher than your level to be effective against equal level mobs. A normal mob in Dark Age of Camelot is the same as an elite mob in World of Warcraft, if not harder. Some Dark Age of Camelot mobs repeat instant cast Direct Damage Spells, killing you in a matter of seconds. Let’s not forget the first release of the epic zones. Everyone on the server ran to Dartmoor when they logged in and started gathering groups together. With a horde of players close to 200, all the groups rushed to the destroyed castle that Golestandt was supposed to be, just to find out that he wasn’t there, he was busy flying around the zone taunting people. He finally landed, everyone held their composure, and three full groups of tanks ran to the front of Golestandt, healers and casters standing behind the tanks as considered the standard position. In one breath attack he wiped 120 players leaving only the most geared standing to fight off the horde of trash mobs that spawned shortly after the first breath attack. Players ran in terror and it wasn’t a fear spell, it was actual fear that this huge creature was going to eat you next. The funny thing is people didn’t bitch about how hard it was, they were too busy trying to figure out a new method of attack. It takes a collection of mature minds to organize a 100 player raid, but without these challenges then the game lacks luster. You’re left with repetitive game play yearning for new content and ideas. That is what it used to be like; the game has taken a turn for the worst in the trend to simplify games.
World of Warcraft started this trend in 2004 and even if my tone is a little negative towards the constant production of easy games, I respect the fact that their raids offer challenges for the casual MMO player. I’m sure there are people out there that will disagree with me, but if you don’t raid on a scheduled basis you’re a casual gamer. Getting back on track, I would love to see an insanely difficult MMO, this easy trend is like bringing a Nerf gun to the shooting range. Now developers are making virtual stores instead of game content to pay their bills. An easy way to make revenue, how about we make a bunch simplistic games and repeat the process, easy games make easy revenue. Games built on complex mechanics and insanely crazy mobs are like cult classics, they are loved or hated, but never appealing to the masses.
While I understand the fondness toward "ye old games of yore" (trust me, I really do...I'm old, and played a lot of those old games), I've come to the conclusion that there is plenty of death, struggle, and misery in REAL life. Myself, (and I know I'm not alone in this) I would prefer LESS pain and misery in gaming. To me, it's not FUN to have to repeat something over and over and over and over to succeed. That is just way too fucking much like real life. Have I always felt this about games? NO. This opinion has actually changed with age.
Yes, in real life, every failure teaches you something, hopefully, that will bring you closer to success in the future. But seriously now...I don't want to "learn life lessons," necessarily, from games. I want to be interactively ENTERTAINED. For some people, I suppose (maybe those who haven't had that much struggle in real life, I don't know) struggling and painful deaths are entertaining and fun in a game. But since every gamer obviously doesn't agree....this is why I think having games that both do and don't have that required "suffering for success" in them....is a good thing. Otherwise....just give people the OPTION of painful or easy gaming mode....problem solved.
Any game that gives lots of options on HOW you play it, is probably apt to be more successful than a game that doesn't afford anyone any options. That goes for single player games AND MMOs, I believe. The more you allow a player to formulate their own way of playing and having fun...the better, imo.
Agreed.
I've never really understood the whole "challenge me with video games" mentality. Games are escapism, the good ones are like interactive novels. Folks that are measuring themselves against high scores and hard mode should probably put that kind of time and effort into their professional lives instead.
Games are, you know, games. Diversions, distractions, ultimately meaningless and frivolous unless you're a pro athlete.
Maybe to you, and maybe now, but they were not always so. The "fun" of games for a considerable time was the challenge provided and rising to defeat said challenge. You used to have to actually MAKE CHOICES and TRY to win things. It has been taken to a complete extreme now where games pander to the lowest skill level. Things feel meaningless and frivolous because the choices are gone and your wins are just being handed to you. Demon Souls is a great example, because there is not a damn thing in that game that isn't EARNED with sweat blood and tears. There's no "press start for an achievement!" in Demon Souls. If you have a trophy from that game, you can be damn well sure someone worked their ass off for it. I'm not saying everything should be taken to the same unforgiving extreme, but theres a difference between making things less difficult and the pure dumbing down that is happening to games today. I'm a big boy, I won't cry because I didn't get a medal for losing.
Comments
AoC is hard? sorry... I like the game, but the only really challenging part in it is the "death group" in Cradle of Decay, and i think even that got "fixed" later on..
Dude I totally have to agree with you. All of the civilization games did their best to absolutly screw you, even to the point of cheating to make it harder in the earlier versions. I have been playing since Civilization, and still have not beaten the various versions of the title more than a few times on the harder difficulty levels. But thats what makes it so awesome. It's seeing how good you did "that time" vs. every other time. When you finally crush your enemies, or even just some of them, it is immensly rewarding. You can play it in Puss mode too, but where is the fun in that? You just get all the tech and are so far ahead of the other countries its pointless.
To continue my rant, I always felt that game "cheats" were just about the lamest thing someone could use. Cheats, and easy mode for that matter literally allow the player to bypass the whole point of the game. I play all FPS games in hard mode and all RPG's in hard mode. It takes a bit longer to get through them but when you do the experience is always that much more memorable.
Applying this rant to MMORPG's though is a little tougher. Designers want most theme park MMO's (that I have seen) to be easy to slightly moderately easy because it makes them more fast paced, and being more fast paced keeps the attention of the player and their monthly subscriptions rolling in.
the main issue i find with modern mmo's is that in their efforts to make the game "easy and accessible" the immersion goes by the board.
i agree as some have pointed out however that overly or constantly penalising players or nerfing their toons as a result of their actions is not ideal; but not offering the player a sense of risk to their actions or decisions is equally damaging in terms of playing experience.
Dude I totally have to agree with you. All of the civilization games did their best to absolutly screw you, even to the point of cheating to make it harder in the earlier versions. I have been playing since Civilization, and still have not beaten it more than a few times on the harder difficulty levels. But thats what makes it so awesome. It's seeing how good you did "that time" vs. every other time. When you finally crush your enemies, or even just some of them, it is immensly rewarding. You can play is in Puss mode too, but where is the fun in that? You just get all the tech and are so far ahead of the other countries its pointless.
To continue my rant, I always felt that game "cheats" were just about the lamest thing someone could use to literally bypass the whole point of the game. I play all FPS games in hard mode and all RPG's in hard mode. It takes a bit longer to get through them but when you do the experience is always that much more memorable.
I found Civillization:Revolution pretty easy. Maybe it was just that one? But I do agree with the part of how awesome you did 'that one time' against' what you can do now.
Also play all my FPSs on the hardest mode. CoD:4 hardest one in along time. Going through that without dieing was nearly impossible,lol.
I don't think I could agree with you more on this column. In he past several years MMOs have gotten easier. The simple reason for this is the easier it is the more people will play it, the more people that play it, the more of a bottom line you have, and in the end of the day you and your investors are overwhelmingly happy, which I'm sure everybody on this tread no doubt gets.
I hope that in the future we see some more difficult games like EvE, because they are the only reason that I play, challenges that make me feel great.
Darkfall is very hard. But your right, overall MMO's have become easier and easier.
Thanks for the article.
I learned:
- I will NEVER play Demon Souls, as I do not enjoy getting kicked in the enthusiasm as a form of entertainment.
- You are a person completely different from me. When I spend $40-$60 on a game, I expect to be able to play the entirety of the content I paid for. Just because for me that meas setting the difficulty at 'Normal' to 'Easy' does not take awy fromt eh fun for me.
When I got my first chess program on my Commodore 64, I was only able o beat the first two levels of difficulty...so what. I'm glad there are some eople who like playing the most punishing games, the game industry needs the diversity of all the varous types, genres, and difficulties of games to remain vital and to evolve to the futur.
Please keep telling us which games scratch your masochistic itch, so I can avod them like a plague.
In Demon's Souls you and your character slowly progress and improve in many ways every minute you play.
But the way the game works make you feel much more rewarded it in a way you will probably never feel in any other game.
Even when you lost souls you learn something, your progress in Demon's Souls is never backwards.
I disagree.
The way multiplayer works in Demon's Souls is original and unique and the way the game is "saved" every second make the game somehow persistent for the player. If they made it into a traditional MMO, a lot of the special details of Demon's Souls will be lost.
But a new MMO with similar atmosphere and combat would be very interesting.
I am not even sure they should create a second Demon's Souls. I don't think it would be easy to create such masterpiece two times in a roll...
While I understand the fondness toward "ye old games of yore" (trust me, I really do...I'm old, and played a lot of those old games), I've come to the conclusion that there is plenty of death, struggle, and misery in REAL life. Myself, (and I know I'm not alone in this) I would prefer LESS pain and misery in gaming. To me, it's not FUN to have to repeat something over and over and over and over to succeed. That is just way too fucking much like real life. Have I always felt this about games? NO. This opinion has actually changed with age.
Yes, in real life, every failure teaches you something, hopefully, that will bring you closer to success in the future. But seriously now...I don't want to "learn life lessons," necessarily, from games. I want to be interactively ENTERTAINED. For some people, I suppose (maybe those who haven't had that much struggle in real life, I don't know) struggling and painful deaths are entertaining and fun in a game. But since every gamer obviously doesn't agree....this is why I think having games that both do and don't have that required "suffering for success" in them....is a good thing. Otherwise....just give people the OPTION of painful or easy gaming mode....problem solved.
Any game that gives lots of options on HOW you play it, is probably apt to be more successful than a game that doesn't afford anyone any options. That goes for single player games AND MMOs, I believe. The more you allow a player to formulate their own way of playing and having fun...the better, imo.
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I understand what you said about sadistic head games, this is not the case.
Every challenge in Demon's Souls is fair, always fair. If you know your character, the weapon you are using and pay attention to all "hints" and details Demon's Souls will be fair with you.
There are a lot of games with unfair challenging that in the end are very annoying, Demon's Souls only ask you concentrate and do your best without fooling around.
Usually people die in D.S because of their own mistakes, not because enemies are overpowerd or unfair. The balance in this game is very impressive.
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Difficult game. Cruel old school difficulty, excellent graphics, amazingly created "gloomy environment" with a very dark mystical lore. Overall, the best RPG I have ever played, because while it is unforgiving, it is also, in a way very fair. As long as you THINK about every step forward that you take and involve some damn strategy in your sword fights, the sense of achievement you get is greater than level'ing an 80 in WoW. In other words what I'm saying is, and you can take this for a fact, that if you actually think and play this game, you'll find it nowhere as hard as people make it out to be.
Also, best PvP EVER.It would be crazy if this was actually a real MMO.
Fair enough and thanks! I guess I just knee jerk half the time these days when WoW is even mentioned. I'm not a crazy fanboi, haven't played it since December, but so many people tend to just use WoW as the epitome of bad gameplay when it is by far no where near that.
Fair enough and thanks! I guess I just knee jerk half the time these days when WoW is even mentioned. I'm not a crazy fanboi, haven't played it since December, but so many people tend to just use WoW as the epitome of bad gameplay when it is by far no where near that.
I enjoyed the heck out of WoW but take a top end raiding guild from Everquest- transport them to WoW at level one and they beat all the content in one month - if they played as much as they played EQ. The same guild, if you whiped their memories of raid strategy would probably take 18 to 24 months to finish the content on EQ set at the original difficulty level.
Give the old timers a whip and give the new gamers WoW - everyone's happy.
Ok, this was bothering me a little. Call me nit-picky.
Your description of demon's souls is a little off. You can exit the level without beating it. You just have to go back to the beginning. Of course then the monsters respawn, but it's your choice.
Also, nothing kills you in one hit in the first level. Maybe they can stun you with their first hit and then hit you again and get you almost-death, but not kill you. Even if you're a barbarian (no armor).
Also you can kill that "unkillable" thing. You just need a higher block and a better shield. You can't kill him at level 1. Although I stayed away from him the first time I saw him. He's glowing red. When everything else in the level is tan or brown zombie like guys or regular soldiers, or maybe someone who glowed blue a little, that slightly large suit of armor wielding a javelin on a bridge with a giant sheild MADE OF GLOWING RED ENERGY in an area clearly not made for a boss, kinda dissuaded me from attempting to kill him.
Not to say this game isn't hard, though. It's kinda refreshing to get punched in the face by a game. And it's fun. Really fun. The PvP creates some EPIC battles, too. I was fighting this one guy for so long that both of our weapons broke and most of our armor was gone. I finally Got him trapped in a corner and firebombed him into the ground, but it lasted a good 45 minutes or more. It was awesome. He's now my friend.
In the Mega Drive / Sega Genesis era E.A. was very different.
They published "Shadow of the Beast" too (created by Psignosys) an incredible and vey hard game, unfortunatelly unlike "Demon's Souls", "Shadow of the Beast" is an unfair game, but the artstyle made up for it (and the immortality cheat).
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Awesome game. Not sure why you brought it up.
Another thing. RPGs at their very core are built so that at some point, you progress your character far enough that content does become "easy" that's the point of "experience" points.
I have to say, in regards to Demon's Souls, the game may be unforgiving at times but it IS overwhelmingly fair. If you pay attention and read other player's messages you REALLY can keep yourself from dying. When I played through it, I only died 5 to 6 times total. Once during the reaper puzzles, once in the swamp (my two most abhorred levels), once on MY most hated boss in the game, once from the dragon, and once or twice on the first level... I can guarantee you, all of those deaths were MY fault. If you keep a cool head on your shoulders and focus, the game is actually more fair in YOUR direction, after about 10-15 hours of playing I really felt the game was being unfair to the NPCs... then again, there were more than a few encounters that I came out of with sweaty palms and a sigh of relief. Given, I was a ranged character and was VERY careful, so that may have contributed to my success...
Edit: Also the un-killable boss IN the tutorial IS killable, you just need to dodge and stay to his right (swinging arm) side. He's slow and big so there's a bunch of spots right around him that he can't hit you without doing a predictable easy to avoid AoE attack, after you kill him though you get insta-gibbed in a cut scene... XP
Agreed.
I've never really understood the whole "challenge me with video games" mentality. Games are escapism, the good ones are like interactive novels. Folks that are measuring themselves against high scores and hard mode should probably put that kind of time and effort into their professional lives instead.
Games are, you know, games. Diversions, distractions, ultimately meaningless and frivolous unless you're a pro athlete.
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You know "onetruth", every game has some kind of challenge, challenge can entertain.
But you know what is really sad about your words? You presume that every good game is like "interactive novels", you presume that folks who enjoy challenging but fair games are not able to put "that kind of time and effort" into their professional/personal lives.
Even the games that really work as interactive novels like Heavy Rain, Syberia, Myst have some kind of challenge.
For some people it is really hard to understand what does not belong to their personal taste, the funny thing about the subject is that Demon's Souls is probably one of the most escapists games relased in the last years, but it seems you are busy trying to judge others to make you and your personal opinion sound better.
Fair challenge make you pay attention to every step you take, make the escapist experience more intense for some players.
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It’s sad to say “face-meltingly difficult MMOs” are unfortunately a thing of the past. The first MMO I was interested in was Anarchy online released in 2001. Logging into the world I was amazed at the sheer splendor of a virtual world, not including all the people running around talking and killing things. There was no tutorial, I just click a bunch of icons to see what was what, then pulled out the manual for some character control mechanics. The game had a max level of 200, I eventually hit 80 on my metaphysicist which unlocked a whole new world to me. My character could cast a nano spell that let me fly anywhere. I was so amazed at this accomplishment that I just stopped earning exp and flew everywhere I could. It took me months to get to 80 and I couldn't handle another 120. The game was very difficult, I had trouble soloing mobs and the character development was complex. Not only did I have to get armor and weapons, but I had to get body implants and a little floating ball for light in dark places.
I eventually switch to Dark Age of Camelot, and basically went through the same scenario, but the good news is it was only 50 levels and I learned that if I paid for 2 accounts I could have an advantage of a buff bot. Without a buff bot the game was almost impossible to solo, you had to be very good at your class and your gear needed to be near or higher than your level to be effective against equal level mobs. A normal mob in Dark Age of Camelot is the same as an elite mob in World of Warcraft, if not harder. Some Dark Age of Camelot mobs repeat instant cast Direct Damage Spells, killing you in a matter of seconds. Let’s not forget the first release of the epic zones. Everyone on the server ran to Dartmoor when they logged in and started gathering groups together. With a horde of players close to 200, all the groups rushed to the destroyed castle that Golestandt was supposed to be, just to find out that he wasn’t there, he was busy flying around the zone taunting people. He finally landed, everyone held their composure, and three full groups of tanks ran to the front of Golestandt, healers and casters standing behind the tanks as considered the standard position. In one breath attack he wiped 120 players leaving only the most geared standing to fight off the horde of trash mobs that spawned shortly after the first breath attack. Players ran in terror and it wasn’t a fear spell, it was actual fear that this huge creature was going to eat you next. The funny thing is people didn’t bitch about how hard it was, they were too busy trying to figure out a new method of attack. It takes a collection of mature minds to organize a 100 player raid, but without these challenges then the game lacks luster. You’re left with repetitive game play yearning for new content and ideas. That is what it used to be like; the game has taken a turn for the worst in the trend to simplify games.
World of Warcraft started this trend in 2004 and even if my tone is a little negative towards the constant production of easy games, I respect the fact that their raids offer challenges for the casual MMO player. I’m sure there are people out there that will disagree with me, but if you don’t raid on a scheduled basis you’re a casual gamer. Getting back on track, I would love to see an insanely difficult MMO, this easy trend is like bringing a Nerf gun to the shooting range. Now developers are making virtual stores instead of game content to pay their bills. An easy way to make revenue, how about we make a bunch simplistic games and repeat the process, easy games make easy revenue. Games built on complex mechanics and insanely crazy mobs are like cult classics, they are loved or hated, but never appealing to the masses.
Maybe to you, and maybe now, but they were not always so. The "fun" of games for a considerable time was the challenge provided and rising to defeat said challenge. You used to have to actually MAKE CHOICES and TRY to win things. It has been taken to a complete extreme now where games pander to the lowest skill level. Things feel meaningless and frivolous because the choices are gone and your wins are just being handed to you. Demon Souls is a great example, because there is not a damn thing in that game that isn't EARNED with sweat blood and tears. There's no "press start for an achievement!" in Demon Souls. If you have a trophy from that game, you can be damn well sure someone worked their ass off for it. I'm not saying everything should be taken to the same unforgiving extreme, but theres a difference between making things less difficult and the pure dumbing down that is happening to games today. I'm a big boy, I won't cry because I didn't get a medal for losing.
[Mod edit]
Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.
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