What are you playing at the moment?

[Lukasz]

So I managed to fail a territory fight in GTA:SA
not lose
fail

cause that territory is now nomans land. no gangs there at all. It happened when bunch of ballas run away from the territory and got stuck far away across highway. after cleaning up everyone else seven of those guys were left. i had to run towards them, away from fighting ground (could not snipe them) but before i killed the last dude who was nowhere to be seen (he was on minimap) i was told that i failed takeover because i run away from the fight.
and now that area lost its color on the map and no gangs spawn there.

doesn't matter much but it was weird.

[Heliocentric]

Odd point about gang wars in GTA San Andreas, at one point the slate is wiped clean like you had done no territory. Doing territory before you need to to progress the story is pointless.

[MadJax]

Yeah, I HATED that the first time I went through SA. Spent hours doing the gang wars, just to have it wiped clean and redo the whole lot towards the end-game :(

[Gorzan]

Why did that damned depression kill me? now everything is going to hell! vassals and old allies are declaring war on me! I'm going to lose Ireland!
EDIT: Well, that was appropriate, just a month after getting to 16 years old, and as my kingdom was being torn to shreds, I fell to my own death due to a badly built railing. It's almost like the game understood what was going on...

[kstress71]

So I’ve finally followed through and started trying out an MMORPG, which is a brand new genre for me. I’ve never played WOW, EQ, SWTOR, LOTRO, or any of the other titles over the years. I’m too addicted to gaming as it is, but screw that, I’ve decided to risk it anyway.

My first foray was into Vindictus, and I chose it because I like action RPGs in general and it seemed to have a lot of depth in that combat mechanics. Unfortunately I think I chose the most boring of the character class options (Kai, the archer), because none of the skills were particularly engaging after 20 levels. I thought about rolling a new character in a different class, but have ultimately decided to walk away from the game because (A) the dungeon designs are boring and repetitive, (B) the story is uninteresting, and (C) some of the character designs are creepy. Seriously, I don’t play videogames to stare at scantily-clad women. It’s probably a culture thing, but not for me.

My next try was Realm of the Mad God. Yes, I know it’s not an MMORPG. It’s an MMO bullet-hell shooter with retro styling and for what it is, I liked it very much. But that’s not really what I am looking for. Fun distraction though.

I also picked up The Secret World for $10 during the Black Friday sales. I’m having fun with it so far, but I find some things just maddening. The interface designs are unintuitive to the point of just being obnoxious (I have to manually unstack every resource I want to use in crafting... SERIOUSLY?!). The controls suck to the point that I find myself twisting my hands into uncomfortable contortions just to manage the battles with any level of strategy. I do like the environments so far though, and the backstory is intruiging as well and that’s what is keeping me playing through the steep learning curve. I’d like to check out the PvP, but don’t want to do that with my piddly little underpowered character at the moment.

Forgive me if the above things I’m griping about are standard for the genre (the controls in Secret World, for example). I’m still very much a noob and can’t yet differentiate standard design and bad design.

Oh, and on community suggestion that I at least give WOW a chance (being that it is the 500lb gorilla in the genre), I’m currently playing through Warcraft III because I heard that that story leads into the MMO. Yes, that’s probably unnecessary, but I’m a very story-oriented gamer and I hate not knowing what is going on, how it came into being, etc., etc. So I’ll probably check out WOW once I’ve completed that playthrough.

[gundato]

I have no idea how bad the f2p aspect of The Old Republic is right now, but I definitely enjoyed it while I played, even if it did lack "heart" as it were. And most complaints against it boil down to "It is WoW... with Star Wars... and fewer people", so if you never played WoW and pick a populated server, you should be good.

That being said, give Guild Wars 2 a shot. It is not an action RPG by any standard, but it does have a combat system that makes you feel like you are involved and actively need to dodge attacks (even if I suspect most ranged attacks are hitscan).

[kstress71]

Haha, thanks. I needed that, been staring at the desktop trying to decide for an hour!

My first thought when I read this was "Really? Is it that hard a decision?" Then I remembered how starting a new game of either of them feels to me like such an investment. I don't start a new CK2 or Civ5 game unless I DAMN WELL MEAN IT, because God knows how much of my life either one will drain away.

[Rauten]

Oh, and on community suggestion that I at least give WOW a chance (being that it is the 500lb gorilla in the genre), I’m currently playing through Warcraft III because I heard that that story leads into the MMO. Yes, that’s probably unnecessary, but I’m a very story-oriented gamer and I hate not knowing what is going on, how it came into being, etc., etc. So I’ll probably check out WOW once I’ve completed that playthrough.

That could've been true... in vanilla WoW. After all the expansion and events and whathaveya, you're still gonna have trouble making any sense of it all, if you do ever manage to find any sense in it. WarCraft's lore is extensive, twisted, convoluted and has had a few small retconings and bunch of so called "lore-lols".
Checking online wikis might be your only option, unfortunately.

[kstress71]

My only gripe is that there is no built in way to reset your skilltree. You can do it with mods but you will be labeled a cheater online upon doing so. I just think it negates experimentation in favor of sticking with known qualities.

I agree with this soooo much. I find it infuriating that more games don't allow you to re-spec your character. I for one am not going to play through the game enough times to really enjoy what the skill trees have to offer, and so I feel unnecessarily penalized for wanting to experiment. Even if they made it expensive as hell (in game currency, that is), it would be worth it to the players that want to enjoy more of the content the designers worked hard to create.

[qizarate]

That could've been true... in vanilla WoW. After all the expansion and events and whathaveya, you're still gonna have trouble making any sense of it all, if you do ever manage to find any sense in it. WarCraft's lore is extensive, twisted, convoluted and has had a few small retconings and bunch of so called "lore-lols".
Checking online wikis might be your only option, unfortunately.

I second this. The story is complete and utter nonsense. On the other hand, Warcraft 3 is a great game, so you should just enjoy it on its own merits. It's probably the last blizzard game i really, unashamedly enjoyed. It also has a much more compelling and focused narrative than exists in WoW.

[kstress71]

WarCraft's lore is extensive, twisted, convoluted and has had a few small retconings and bunch of so called "lore-lols".

"Lore-lol"... Never heard that term before. HA! I'm gonna use that.

I'm definitely seeing what you mean about the lore, Rauten. I even tried a few times to read the backstory in the manuals (from the retail Battle Chest) ... what a quagmire of cryptic terminology. Reminds me of Warhammer 40K, although I actually like that.

[vinraith]

I agree with this soooo much. I find it infuriating that more games don't allow you to re-spec your character. I for one am not going to play through the game enough times to really enjoy what the skill trees have to offer, and so I feel unnecessarily penalized for wanting to experiment. Even if they made it expensive as hell (in game currency, that is), it would be worth it to the players that want to enjoy more of the content the designers worked hard to create.

To repeat myself from the previous page:

http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=43248

A tool that allows easy respeccing and, as long as you leave the "legitimacy" boxes in the lower left checked, prevents you from cheating so that you don't end up cheat-flagged.

[Faldrath]

"Lore-lol"... Never heard that term before. HA! I'm gonna use that.

I'm definitely seeing what you mean about the lore, Rauten. I even tried a few times to read the backstory in the manuals (from the retail Battle Chest) ... what a quagmire of cryptic terminology. Reminds me of Warhammer 40K, although I actually like that.

That being said, if you do try out WoW (and don't mind playing the "bad" guys), I'd recommend creating a Forsaken - they have by far the best starting areas story-wise.

[arathain]

I enjoyed Warcraft 3 a lot, and some of that was the story. There are some very nice character moments. I recommend Frozen Throne, the expansion, for being an expansion done right, and also for including Blood Elf Engineers, which have some of my favourite humorous voice-work outside of a Relic game.

[eRa]

Far Cry 3, Mass Effect 3 (Omega DLC), Battlefield 3 (Aftermath DLC), Diablo 3. That's all the 3s I could manage.

And Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition.

[Serenegoose]

That being said, if you do try out WoW (and don't mind playing the "bad" guys), I'd recommend creating a Forsaken - they have by far the best starting areas story-wise.

The bad guys? And yeah, I noticed the quote marks. I just always seen the forsaken (and the Tauren) as the overall series 'good guys'.

And yeah, post cataclysm (and even pre, let's be honest) the Forsaken areas are amazing. Not played in over a year though.

[Labbes]

EDIT: Well, that was appropriate, just a month after getting to 16 years old, and as my kingdom was being torn to shreds, I fell to my own death due to a badly built railing. It's almost like the game understood what was going on...

If it's any consolation, the railing means someone was plotting your death...and succeeded. No bad luck at least. When underage, make sure your regent and your spymaster really, really like you or they will use their insane plotting power against you.

[Faldrath]

The bad guys? And yeah, I noticed the quote marks. I just always seen the forsaken (and the Tauren) as the overall series 'good guys'.

Well, ever since Blizzard decided they wanted "war" back to "warcraft", they've been depicting the Forsaken as crazy evil guys who will do anything for revenge. But they've always been my favorites as well.

[LTK]

Quake. Got high-resolution textures to work and all that fluff. It feels decidedly uncanny to play a game that has 100,000,000 pixels on a polygon with 6 surfaces. I think I do prefer Classic over this. For the same reason, I never used Minecraft texture packs with resolutions higher than 32p.

[Gorzan]

If it's any consolation, the railing means someone was plotting your death...and succeeded. No bad luck at least. When underage, make sure your regent and your spymaster really, really like you or they will use their insane plotting power against you.

Hmm, I guessed it was an accident because when I was still a child someone tried to push down a tower. Who would've guessed they'd try such a similar trick.