cRPG and Emergent Gaming (And Fun): Where It Went Wrong

[Tindel]

The game gets better every damn patch, it keeps evolving and expanding. The future is forward, stop living in the past.

Yes some decisions might not have been for the best, but stagnation is deadly to a online game/community, we must change or die the slow death.

[Yachdiel]

No one here is living in the past, we would like to expand by bringing back some things that the mod did right.

And to those who don't like these posts:
And its easy to squirrel out and say that we are bitching/whining/nolife essay writers; but, you know, there are comments some others would like to say without being deduced as a bitchpost. Its not as though we were intrusively forcing your eyes the millisecond of burden to see this topic in general discussion.

Some of you should get real with the fact that other people play this game and love it enough to want to make sure its right.

[Smoothrich]

What some people really need to understand is that griefing and trolling is not something we want.

I understand how that pertains to cRPG, but I think it's pretty funny recalling chadz's brief explanation of the concept for that space sandboxy game they were thinking about.  It was basically nothing but a template to grief.  Of course some people would play for the sake of building stuff and flying around or whatever with friends, but he talked a lot about permadeath and an open-ended style of playing.

Naturally most of my friends immediately began thinking of ways to deceive and grief people in-game, such as pretending to be skilled space engineers to upgrade ships and install slow-acting destructive things that would suck all the oxygen out, detonate the ship, give us control of of it so we could fly them into a sun, or whatever.  I'm sure most of the scams or pirate raids we could think of would end in our own permadeaths but it certainly seemed to be an intended style of gameplay with surely hilarious consequences. 

Of course open ended options like that don't have to be used to grief and people could create all sorts of gameplay and ideas and whatever was fun or popular would stick and resonate out with the community of the game.  I simply think that the random, player-driven chance of havoc, mayhem, betrayals, whatever is pretty damn hilarious in games and that type of experience is seen often in Strategus, despite the game being mostly an overbearing pile of buggy facebook crap that appears to be dead already for EU but still flaring in NA at least.

Mostly I wanted to just bring up how these things crop up in games and how interesting they can be, and how cRPG had its own share, even if a lot of it was just stupid bugs that could be used to ruin the game.  Just the environment for unique fighting styles, creative strategies on maps, funny weird builds, all of that has been slowly phased out of cRPG and I think its highly detrimental to making a truly effective game that people get connected with.  Now its just a bland deathmatch with a sweet (but overfucked with mechanic nerfs) combat engine for better or for worse.

[Miley]

I read most of what you had to say Smooth, and I agree AND disagree with you.

Sure I miss old cRPG, but I also like the current cRPG. I don't think we should revert to old cRPG though because:
1. I don't want new people knowing what old cRPG is.
2. I've gotten used to this cRPG.
3. Having alt characters is easier on this cRPG.
4. I don't feel pressured to level up and stuff because everyone is around the same level because of the retirement system and exp system.

I do agree that some things from old cRPG (or just older versions of cRPG) should be added again:
1. Unblock all roofs, and stop blocking every roof--it's just so annoying.
2. Bring back ladders.
3. Sure, bring back some old cRPG weapons like Boulder on a Stick.
4. Buff Horse ARCHERY.
5. When ATS controlled the servers they made an AWESOME site that had kills and rankings, etc. This disappeared when official told them to take it off.
6. Give some more weapons crushthrough like they had before (ex: Bar Mace).
7. Fun city maps, Native maps, less cav maps...
8. ETC.

I like how fast I can get items compared to the grind of getting items in old cRPG, but in old cRPG it felt so rewarding to finally get that thing you were saving up for. SO KINDA TWO SIDED THERE...

Another thing, I think what was fun about old cRPG was the stuff you don't expect and was kind of random if you know what I mean, mostly caused by different level people and builds. (Ex: high level throwing build, Beatrix, crymoar, horse archers, etc.) It was fun, there were so many builds and stuff and varied. This all caused This cRPG is kind of like uniform and not as exciting.

[Kafein]

1. Unblock all roofs, and stop blocking every roof--it's just so annoying.
2. Bring back ladders.
3. Sure, bring back some old cRPG weapons like Boulder on a Stick.
4. Buff Horse ARCHERY.
5. When ATS controlled the servers they made an AWESOME site that had kills and rankings, etc. This disappeared when official told them to take it off.
6. Give some more weapons crushthrough like they had before (ex: Bar Mace).
7. Fun city maps, Native maps, less cav maps...
8. ETC.

...


...



and now a good reason ? Except the boulder on a stick I mean. Also the website was brought down due to a problem with people taking over accounts with unpassworded alts.

[Tibe]

(click to show/hide)

I read most of what you had to say Smooth, and I agree AND disagree with you.

Sure I miss old cRPG, but I also like the current cRPG. I don't think we should revert to old cRPG though because:
1. I don't want new people knowing what old cRPG is.
2. I've gotten used to this cRPG.
3. Having alt characters is easier on this cRPG.
4. I don't feel pressured to level up and stuff because everyone is around the same level because of the retirement system and exp system.

I do agree that some things from old cRPG (or just older versions of cRPG) should be added again:
1. Unblock all roofs, and stop blocking every roof--it's just so annoying.
2. Bring back ladders.
3. Sure, bring back some old cRPG weapons like Boulder on a Stick.
4. Buff Horse ARCHERY.
5. When ATS controlled the servers they made an AWESOME site that had kills and rankings, etc. This disappeared when official told them to take it off.
6. Give some more weapons crushthrough like they had before (ex: Bar Mace).
7. Fun city maps, Native maps, less cav maps...
8. ETC.

I like how fast I can get items compared to the grind of getting items in old cRPG, but in old cRPG it felt so rewarding to finally get that thing you were saving up for. SO KINDA TWO SIDED THERE...

Another thing, I think what was fun about old cRPG was the stuff you don't expect and was kind of random if you know what I mean, mostly caused by different level people and builds. (Ex: high level throwing build, Beatrix, crymoar, horse archers, etc.) It was fun, there were so many builds and stuff and varied. This all caused This cRPG is kind of like uniform and not as exciting.

This is the crap im talking about. You seriuslly think this is gonna make the game more fun? I mean most of you guys have always exactly the same suggestions, that should count as regular reposts: Nerf this, buff this, add maps, add items. I quarantee its maximum 3 days more fun in Crpg nomatter how many maps or items added, nomatter how many buffs or nerfs done. And dreaming about something further than that is just too much codingwork. Kudos for Rageball and strat thou. Those were freaking genius.

I still sometimes dream of that Fortress or whatever gamemode. Sounded freaking awesome, too bad its not realised yet.

[jasonjay543]

Here's my opinion, don't like it, don't play it.

[Osiris]

yes because all we need is for the 5-10 grey order guys running around in a group all stacking str and crush barmaces again ^^

[Vibe]

I do agree that some things from old cRPG (or just older versions of cRPG) should be added again:
1. Unblock all roofs, and stop blocking every roof--it's just so annoying.
2. Bring back ladders.

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[Templar_Ratigan]

It went wrong the second people started becoming entitled ego-pigs, bloated on their own sense of self-importance.

Ive always been annoyed at the sheer arrogance of the player base. This ridiculous ideal of difficulty only within ones style of play and all others are easy by comparison and should therefore be reduced so as not to pop the precious ego of the self.

Im tired of the sheer torrent of abuse you receive if you even so much as deviate from the masses. It's really fucking pathetic.

[Joseph Porta]

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lold

[Tindel]

Ladders are a part of strategus, they work there.
I have a hard time seeing ladders work on a public server in a random game of battle/siege. The balance issues are huge, maps, classes, clans.
It is way to easy to grief and fuck up everything.

Even though ladders are really fun i think the game is better without them

[Miley]

This is the crap im talking about. You seriuslly think this is gonna make the game more fun? I mean most of you guys have always exactly the same suggestions, that should count as regular reposts: Nerf this, buff this, add maps, add items. I quarantee its maximum 3 days more fun in Crpg nomatter how many maps or items added, nomatter how many buffs or nerfs done. And dreaming about something further than that is just too much codingwork. Kudos for Rageball and strat thou. Those were freaking genius.

I still sometimes dream of that Fortress or whatever gamemode. Sounded freaking awesome, too bad its not realised yet.

Tell me, did you play cRPG? If you didn't, then you shouldn't be talking. And if you did, then how could you argue that old cRPG was less random than this cRPG?

[Rumblood]

Good points and bad points. This is the one that matters though:

Hilarious to some = griefing and fuck this game for others.

How hilarious will it be when only the trolls are playing the game? Not at all. Once they've sucked the life out of a community, they move on. Dead mod isn't hilarious at all.

[Tibe]

That randomness you knew and loved so much will not solve squat.  Your suggestions filled with buffs, nerfs and adding more stuff will not bring *the good old days* back. If the basic gamemechanic is the same, if the grinding is basically the same and if all the classes still somewhat exsist there is little profit to be had by bringing the old crpg back.

Miley I highly doubt you seriuslly think, that bringing that randomness back would give you lots of more months filled with enjoyment in this mod. Id give you a week, tops, till you either start calling bullshit on many balancingissues or you just get bored like with this crpg.

An example: Its like me(and my mates) and the PW mod. We got sick of it a year ago, nomatter how much stuff they added and things they putted in there since then, we dont want to play it anymore. We know its wastly improved and more fun than the times when we played it, but we are just sick of it entirely. Its normally the basic gameplay that bores us, not the stuff, not the classes and not the maps.