Awful Crimes of Beloved Games

[Venkman]

The mother of all cockpunches that gave birth to entire communities that last in their diasporas to this day: Everquest

That probably would top my list, but I didn't get there until Velious, and by then enough of it was workable that all my personal angst is from the game rules, not the unplayable broken mess I hear it was at launch.

If I had to pick, I'd probably go DAoC. It only became retroactively beloved for what the players fondly remember bringing to it themselves, years after it had any real market relevance. It's like the ST:DS9 of MMOs  I can't see why any remake of that would have any appeal.

[Tebonas]

Ah, Everquest. You missed most of the "fun" then.

My personal favourites is the "if you try to loot a second lore item when you already in possession of one it gets destroyed and nobody can take it ever again" feature. People online lives were destroyed by that one and they had to wander around lonely and hated after destroying a rare and important item.

No wonder people have Stockholm syndrome about that one.

[Yegolev]

Talking about going back to any of these MMOs is just a very sad, sad thing to expose about yourself.

[Malakili]

Talking about going back to any of these MMOs is just a very sad, sad thing to expose about yourself.

Honestly it is more a statement of how much of a failure modern MMOs are.  Most people would happily forget those games if they had something more appealing to play.  But nothing new has really captured imaginations the same way, even if they were dreadful mechanically.  Something with modern mechanics, but the old games worlds/player interactions would be fantastic. But nothing has emerged.

[Goreschach]

There are no modern MMO's. They've all become Massive Lobby Wait In The Queue Until Your Group Of Half A Dozen People Go Do Your Instanced Mission Multiplayer Games.

[Phred]

There are no modern MMO's. They've all become Massive Lobby Wait In The Queue Until Your Group Of Half A Dozen People Go Do Your Instanced Mission Multiplayer Games.

Except the half a dozen might be 50 like in WoT or WoWP or there's no lobby like in GW2 or Secret World you might be right.

Na, your entire statement is wrong.

[Yegolev]

I don't really buy into the idea that you need to play old MMOs because new ones suck.  The old ones sucked, too.  Also, there are other game types to play.  Some of these games are outside.  So, two things:
1) Modern MMOs suck because MMOs suck.  People are allowed to like things that suck, by the by.
2) Lack of a good modern MMO doesn't mean you have to pine away for a shitty non-modern MMO.

[Malakili]

I don't really buy into the idea that you need to play old MMOs because new ones suck.  The old ones sucked, too.  Also, there are other game types to play.  Some of these games are outside.  So, two things:
1) Modern MMOs suck because MMOs suck.  People are allowed to like things that suck, by the by.
2) Lack of a good modern MMO doesn't mean you have to pine away for a shitty non-modern MMO.

Its less about how "good" the games are and more about how they make you feel when it comes to MMOs.  The moment to moment playing of Counter Strike or Team Fortress or Starcraft is engaging and fun to me.  The moment to moment playing of EVE is not particularly engaging and fun, but as an experience  it captures what I am looking for.  It is that overall experience that modern MMOs have generally lacked, whether they hit or missed on the good moment to moment gameplay.  Older MMOs seemed to get that overall experience right, even though their mechanics were clunky and I actually generally wouldn't want to put up with them today (which is why I'm not playing any of them right now).  A good modern MMO would be able to get both of these things right.  Incidentally, I think this is one of the reasons that WoW continues to hold strong.  It still has just enough of those older influences to give a bit of that experience, while giving some of most responsive combat, engaging combat out of the tab-targetting combat style games.

[Venkman]

As far as I recall, MMOs have been tied to online forums more intrinsically than any other genre, talking like BBS/MUD days if you trace it back. That being the case (or, because I'm old: if that's the case) then I'd say that's the reason MMOs are more a special place in a lot of people's hearts than whatever crap ass FPS or RTS game launched that whenever year.

Because unlike that crappy game we bitched about to a few people around school or the office, that MMO was right on the cusp of being awesome if they only did [a few thousand armchair design ideas] since the days the MUD operators could find their top 100 players in a lineup.

Beyond MMOs though, I'd go with Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Screw you super sekret moves fighting game that only the cool kids knew all the right moves for because they ripped them from the BBSes.

[Surlyboi]

The Burger King Creeper game was better than Vanguard.

To be fair, shitting yourself in public is better than Vanguard.

[Yegolev]

Beyond MMOs though, I'd go with Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Screw you super sekret moves fighting game that only the cool kids knew all the right moves for because they ripped them from the BBSes.

Oh, I mostly figured these out for myself, but yes.

[Setanta]

World of Warcraft (Vanilla). Levelling Horde side when you run out of fucking quests and don't even get to kill 10 rats, just grind mobs until you could hit the next swt of quests. Horde Onyxia chain. Fucking barrens runs with no mount. All of that was bullshit but it didn't stop me grinding my fingers down to hit 60. Hunter and warlock classes on release were screwed up messes... but I played both and had fun doing so.

Black and White - fun for a bit especially learning the pets but fuck that game was a shitty sandbox and flawed in really giving you open reign on what you could do. I still played it.

I'm not getting the Homeworld hate - the UI was it's biggest flaw but I got through the campaign fine and still play it today for a bit of nostalgic fun. Homeworld Cataclysm is still enjoyable too.

Then again, I don't get the LoL hate (but can't stand HoN and that has prejudiced my view of DOTA2).

[Venkman]

Ok, here's where I show my age:

You're complaining about WoW! Shit man, that was easy mode on rails dinggratz compared to DAoC 

Beyond MMOs though, I'd go with Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Screw you super sekret moves fighting game that only the cool kids knew all the right moves for because they ripped them from the BBSes.

Oh, I mostly figured these out for myself, but yes.

I never had nearly enough quarters to pay2learn all those moves.

And by the time they came to consoles, I was burned out on the very idea

[Margalis]

Each SF and MK character has like 3 special moves, many of which use the same inputs. It's not exactly rocket science.

[ezrast]

Each SF and MK character has like 3 special moves, many of which use the same inputs. It's not exactly rocket science.

Physically manipulating your controller just to get your character to do their built-in moves shouldn't be rocket science. Fighting games reify some pretty stupid and arbitrary design.

[rk47]

Yeah 360 circles makes me mad. Wish i can just bind a button to each move

[Rasix]

I've never been able to pull of a 360 circle move.  I just avoid those characters.  My dragon punches were always shit too.

[Fordel]

You guys are old. 

[Setanta]

Ok, here's where I show my age:

You're complaining about WoW! Shit man, that was easy mode on rails dinggratz compared to DAoC 

I can go back to early 80s and complain about Rescue at Rigel on a tape driven Apple ][ if you like :D

Not to mention Rocketeer on my Amiga 1000 and that stupid decoder wheel!!!!!!

[Venkman]

Each SF and MK character has like 3 special moves, many of which use the same inputs. It's not exactly rocket science.

It is if the only way to learn is through one round every 30 minutes in the arcade at the beach because of the row of quarters left by the other 20 kids waiting to take their turn at the local pro. Maybe if I lived near one of those fancy arcades with 20 MK2s in a row and fewer kids...

They are technically straightforward, as I learned in whatever turbo/reboot/sequel/version/bullshit SF one that launched on X360. But that was decades after I burned out.

[Lucas]

heh, if we're talking about "awful crimes" related to copy protection, I think almost nothing beats this:

http://xboxmeagain.blogspot.it/2006/08/chrono-quest-retro-review.html

Another unusual aspect of the game was the copy protection in the shape of a grease proof paper grid (see above), which was placed over the boxes cover art. At certain key points of the game you were asked to enter the colour code corresponding to a grid reference, which was all very fine unless you were colour blind. The box cover art was done by renowned artist Roger Dean

Nonetheless, Psygnosis: I miss you  : your fabulous game covers, your weird and difficult games and cockpunching UI (Obliterator, Barbarian...ugh)

[Yegolev]

I sort of miss the physical puzzle DRM.  It wasn't very effective, but at least it didn't shit up my computer.  Also I got a neat toy.

[Kail]

I don't miss it, it was clunky as fuck keeping track of that stuff.  Even when I had like, six games total, I lived in mortal terror of my decoder wheel getting thrown in the garbage by my parents or something.  And nowadays it just causes headaches.

For example, I think I've mentioned this before, but the Space Quest Collection is an anthology of the six space quest games, and the documentation is a mashup of the documentation for the old Space Quest Anthology (which itself was a frankenstein of the documentation for the first five games) plus the basic control manual for SQ6.  Unfortunately, the docs excluded one of the fluff lore pamphlets, which had an article towards the end titled "how to convert your datacorder in to a homing beacon".  This is unfortunately required to solve a puzzle in the game.

To top it off, it's not one of those "Hey, kids, go enter the solution found on page 197 of your manual!" type setups, either, the puzzle was originally supposed to be solvable in game, and there's references to it lying around the place you need it, so if you don't have the book and don't know the puzzle is missing, you're probably not going to know that it's even supposed to be copy protection.