I Am a Gamer

I question whether or not I'd like the Dark Souls series. On one hand, I love really hard games, and I loved the first Devil May Cry, which was a similar sort of action-game-that-wants-you-to-suffer-scream-and-die, at least on the harder difficulties. But on the other hand, I rarely like action games. I'll honestly probably try it at some point - it sounds like something that's at least worth giving a shot to.

Ninja Gaiden Black was my favorite. Impossible game on the hardest difficulty. For difficulty, pretty much any online shooter will do it, imo. Good 'ol Halo on the MLG server. But yes. I think the best games are the ones that force you to be a total badass in order to survive. These days, many of the games are so casual, trying to appeal to the majority of gamers to make more of a profit, instead of making a good game.

And I mean, I'm fine with games going for a difficulty curve that appeals to the majority. I just want those people to be able to choose normal or easy difficulty, and maybe hard if they're feeling bold, and for me to be able to choose impossible difficulty and then refuse to use any weapon but the pistol for the whole game (Perfect Dark, Falcon 2 only runs FTW). I love how certain series, like Ninja Gaiden and Dark Souls, have made it okay for games to murder you again. I played the original Ninja Gaiden games on the NES - if anything, they were harder than the modern ones.

o.O You have not played Ninja Gaiden black on Master, I take it. I spent a year of my life trying to beat that damn game. Well, a friend and I mutually spent a year trying to beat that game, taking turns. Literally doing nothing every day except playing Ninja Gaiden. No way the original was harder. Nooooo way. Oh, he said Bayonetta was equally hard.




And I guess. Still. It's like WoW. Dunno if you've played. But, they just make everything more and more and more simplistic. I dislike that. Not just the difficulty, but the level of intricacy. But, when a game is that hard, you get a big sense of accomplishment. And, like you said, become a badass to beat it.

I've played WoW quite a bit off and on. It definitely scratches a different kind of itch than crazy-hard games do. You're right, I haven't played Ninja Gaiden Black on master. but now you've got me wanting to try it. Did you and your friend ever beat it? It would almost be better if you hadn't - like a dragon that's still waiting to be slain.


And yeah, I played WoW back in vanilla, and even it used to hold your hand a lot less. There were actually regular questing areas infested with elite enemies where you *had* to group up (manually, with no automatic grouping ability) in order to survive. Every expansion has moved it more and more in the direction of reward-people-for-time-played-rather-than-challenges-overcome. Now everything is streamlined - you just queue for every raid your stats let you unlock every day. You don't have to analyze or think - everything is automatic. So I know exactly what you mean.


Have you ever tried a no alert no kill run on Metal Gear Solid 3? Or any of the MGS games really? It was one of the most enjoyably hard gaming experiences I've ever had, in a way that was different - more strategic and cerebral - than most other more difficult gaming challenges.

Nope. Never. We got past Alma. Barely. Took a month or two something--can't remember--and I was probably exaggerating a year. Can't remember back then very well. But, months, at least. A lot of time. Hmm. Looks like the 6th, 7th, or 8th boss. From what I vaguely recall, that's about 1/3rd through the game, maybe halfway through. But yes, it was hell. But, like awesome hell. Amazing game. One of my favorites.




I have to admit, the new Mythic difficulty is appealing to me. If WoW wasn't just a parasite on your life. It's like, they totally pissed me off with the pandas, pokemon, and further self-denigration. Then, they come out with Draenor to get back their lost subs. It's tempting. But ehhhhh.




Nope. :/ I've always wanted to play MGS, but I never had a playstation. Well. I had a PS2, but never PS3. I went from PS2 - Xbox - 360 - PC. I think I do prefer more strategy than tactics these days. I've sorta switched to RPG over fast paced action.

Wow, only a third of the game after all that. I know in Devil May Cry, beating Dante Must Die mode would have been impossible if you started on that difficulty, but the game let you play easier difficulties first to gather items and whatnot. I've often found that if I go back to seemingly impossible gaming challenges years later, I'll sometimes spot new angles that I can approach it from, that I was too young to recognize before. Dunno if it would help, but it's a thought.


Do you still have your PS2? MGS3 is a PS2 game, at least that's the console I played it on. Yeah, I prefer RPG's over action games too, and traditional MMORPG's over Action MMORPG's. Action games are about each fight being a big deal - which is the opposite of 99% of MMO gameplay.


God, I know, right? I mean, WoW, and Blizzard games in general, have always had a strong humor element, but it was always done in a way that let you still take them seriously too. I will never, ever take anything involving Pandarans seriously. And the top level zone in Draenor is so visually boring. It's just relatively normal colored trees everywhere, with toxic-waste-green thrown in here and there, with some battle scarred areas. Where are the purples and violets and *interesting* shades of green from Burning Crusade? Where are the zillion-different-high-level-zones-so-you-can-choose-the-ones-you-like of Vanilla? Even WotLK had an enjoyable sort of pure-white, bleak-but-somehow-not-depressing snow vibe going for it that I found enjoyable. For all intents and purposes, Draenor gives you exactly one max-level zone - a visually boring one with only a tiny number of dailies for the infinity-grind you need to do to earn the right to fly - which is ridiculous. I get wanting to make things more story-ified, and needing to limit player's movement in order to do that - but bloody hell, just give us the fracking sky once we've finished all the main storylines in all the zones. It's not that hard. </end rant>

Na. I've lost all my consoles. All I have is my upper-mid computer which I decided to get over any new gen, because Microsoft pissed me off with the kinetic thing and Sony pissed me off with not enough games. And the only thing I really wanted to play was Dragon Age Inquisition and Dead Rising 3, and both of those were on PC. I bought DA:I, but didn't even like playing it because they also fucked the PC tactical camera. -.-;;; Though, I'm thinking I'm going to give Dark Souls another try. The first one I bought awhile ago. Never played it because the PC controls are fucking shite. I was planning on buying a PS3 to go over all the exclusives I missed while I had my 360; but, I ended up losing my job. rofl.




Oh, well that's good to know. I won't waste time and money (and my life) on it, then. I really miss Heroic raiding, though. :/ The first half of the Firelands I really enjoyed; I was with a top server guild, so it was efficient and difficult. My parents called WoW satanic black magic when I was 17, so I couldn't play with my friends, then. So I missed out on woltk. Like you said, with vanilla. I really liked Hellfire Peninsula. The Abyssal Depths was pretty cool, too. An entire section just underwater. Most of WoW's zones look pretty different from one another. A lot more of an immersive quality to them, too, when contrasted with Rift--even though Rift technically has better graphics, it really doesn't mean much in contrast to WoW's simplistic but intricate aesthetics, imo. It's a shame they only have the one zone for WOoD. Ha. Wood. Earning the right to fly. That really is ridiculous.

Yeah, I haven't bothered getting an 8th gen console either. I've been a PC gamer first and foremost since I was 6. Consoles were relevant back when most console games weren't released on PC, but nowadays nearly everything released for console is available on PC, so what's the point.


We have similar tastes - I've tried a zillion MMO's, but the only modern one that I played for an extended period of time besides WoW was Rift. It was good when I was between jobs and had other priorites besides paying 15$ a month for an MMO, like, you know, eating and stuff. Yeah, even though the graphics were technically better than WoW graphics, the zones were boring and colorless compared to the multitude of different WoW asthetics. WoW isn't the best selling MMO because of gimmicks or some unique gameplay element - it's the top MMO because Blizzard put enough time and money into every element of the game to make it awesome. The cities have a zillion unnecessary npc's, the zones and dungeons are visually impressive and have their own feels. There are a zillion PVP instances. Both the quantity and quality of all of the WoW content is impressive. It's an MMO designed to appeal to the widest possible audience, which means that there are a lot of things it's never going to provide to me and others like me who are looking for a challenge, which limits how much I want to play it - but I'll always have a lot of respect for Blizzard and what they've accomplished with that game.


Your parents sound... fun. Yeah, lets go with that. I liked Hellfire peninsula too. It was bleak, but in a way that... I dunno, it just worked. The Fel Reavers walking around were awesome. I've always liked having murder-you-instantly high level mobs wandering around in lower level zones - it forces you to be more aware of your surroundings and really adds an element of risk to the moment to moment experience of the game. It reminded me of some of my experiences with Devilsaurs in Ungoro Crater (though, it was a lot easier to see Fel Reavers coming, what with the lack of trees everywhere and all... not to mention the fact that they were friggin gigantic). My favorite was the Netherstorm. I was a warlock and a Scriyer, and a mild RPer who had a particular distaste for Kaelthas, so being able to AoE huge groups of blood elves for their rep items didn't hurt my enjoyment of the zone. And I LOVED the purples/violets/other-exotic-magical-colors that made up most of the zone's aesthetic.


My guild back then was a rinky-dink but close knit guild who never got past running Kara (mostly because we didn't quite have enough well geared max level members to field a team of 25). But we had fun, and I loved them to death.


Personally, I was fine with the DA:1 PC version. But then again, I've never seen the tactical camera on any console version of it, so I don't have any point of reference.

That was exactly what I was thinking about when I was thinking about Hellfire peninsula. xD The first time I spotted them, I was like "Hmmm." *Slowly back away.* The size of some of the mobs is really awesome. You know. Tera was an absolutely beautiful MMO. The story was absolute shit, beyond shit. But I really liked the unique combat mechanical, too. Except the whole little girl class. -.-; Why? Why?




lol. Yeah. My parents are a blast. I was a warlock, too. rofl. Top affliction warlock on the server, at one point. Of course, I had the legendary staff, too. My guild made me switch from destruction to demonology for raiding, and I was just like "ehhhhhh." And that's something. If you're with a close-knit guild, then they don't force you to do things you don't want to do for progression purposes. And it's not as strict or serious. I swear. Some people get absolutely livid when things don't go their way in hardcore raiding. It's like a job more than a game, at some points.




And yep. WoW is still the king, despite their stupid pandas. I'm going to talk about them again, just because I hate them so fervently. They lost almost half their subs when Pandaria was coming. In 2010, they had 12 million subs. In 2012, they had 7 million. smh. I don't know what they were thinking. I guess you have to admire their dedication to switching things up, but...Redonkulas




Netherstorm was really cool. I loved PVP in it as a Frost Mage. :D




Yeah, DAO was great on PC. They geared Inquisition more towards console players. Or, completely towards console players. And the fucked up part is Inquisition can't even be modded. Not easily, anyway. So no fixes. No easy fixes, anyway.

Oh, I didn't even realize it. There's another WoW expansion coming out this year. Legion. Do you still play?

Little girl classes, cute little animal classes, gnomes, and the like - I will never, ever play any of them. I don't get the appeal. Then again, I've always got at least a little RP going on, which means I need races that I can take at least a little bit seriously. I tried Tera, only for an hour or so, granted, but at least at the lowest levels the combat system didn't appeal to me. Maybe it gets more interesting once you get more abilities and start fighting more difficult enemies, especially with how good the reviews are for it, but it seemed slow and simple to me.

Yup, that's why I always avoided those kinds of guilds - based on who I am, I'm not someone who feels driven to make my numbers big. I enjoy getting stronger, but my first priority is to have fun. I enjoy soloing, and I enjoy connecting with the right group, but raiding at that level is just not for me. Heh, I played demonology too - 40/21 demonology/destruction. it worked well for pvp and raiding. 30% natural aggro reduction as long as I had my imp out, bumped up to 60% with that one raid buff. I could unload shadowbolts with crazy crit chance/crit damage bonus, at max speed and still never grab aggro. I had myself set up so that crit chance was actually better than hit chance for me in raids, which was great since hit chance is useless in pvp, and I wanted to do both. Rogues were also really fun in pvp, once I figured out how to time things out for the first 20 seconds of the fight.

Yeah, I think at this point most companies have figured out that they can't just make one almost identical version of their games for both console and PC - they actually need to put in some work on making the PC menus and interfaces take advantage of having more than just a handful of buttons.

I've had 5 long periods of time where I played WoW, with the last one ending maybe 8 months ago. I play until I get bored of the current content, then stop playing until the itch starts coming back. I don't play now, but I'll probably read about Legion when it comes out and then decide if I want to dive back in again.

Heh - I've been on EP for years, and yet I still sometimes forget that I need to double space my paragraphs in comments or else it'll all clump together :\

Oh haha. I didn't even notice you were doing that, too. Yeah, most people don't know about that. xD 4 spaces. smh. EP needs to fix that.




Yeah. The only reason I pushed past the stupid classes was because a childhood friend told me about it, so I was like "Well, it has to be worth it eventually." Ehhh. The graphics were the best part.




My affliction sustained DPS was beastly. I always sucked at burst deeps, though. But that's why I made a mage, rofl. Ohhhhhhhh. Rouges in PvP. Don't remind me. @_@

You've got more patience than I do, I've never been able to push to a high level in a class I didn't (mostly) enjoy playing from moment to moment, though I'll admit there were certain level ranges where I had to go to zones I hated (the old, water-less Thousand Needles, for instance) because there weren't enough good zones to get the levels I needed.

Haha *Murders your mage and warlock from behind and dances over their corpses* So what have you been playing lately?

Yep. That was it. @_@ Damn rouges.




Eh. Nothing much. Civilization 3; I tried Europa Universialis 3 or 4 or something, but I hate it. When other countries are in alliances, they use their forces brilliantly. When you're in an alliance, your allies hardly do shit for you. I teamed up with the French one time, they took a giant force right next to an enemy that was invading my territory...then they just turned around and went back to France. I was playing a free FPS, Dirty Bomb. It's not bad. Sort of like a parkour fast-paced shooter.




Played Fallout 3 again. Saints Row IV which I got bored of somewhat quickly. A bit of Transistor: beautiful music, beautiful game; but the game just doesn't maintain my attention: turn-based action strategy. A couple months ago I was playing Skyrim modded out the ass. But, I played through like two characters fully, put like 400 hours in, so I'm pretty burnt out on Skyrim. :/ Most recently trying Dark Souls again, despite the shitty PC controls.




What about you? What have you been playing?

Haha - yup, you cloth-ies make it way too easy. At least I was nice and never camped corpses - murdering someone once was always enough for me. Though if I ran into you again later on... *evil smile*


Yup, AI's are dumb. I tend to either turn off the ability to ally, or create fixed, balanced alliances, in any sort of strategy game where it unbalances things - either by letting me exploit it in order to isolate enemies, or where it screws me over because my allies are dumb and don't know how to coordinate with a human.


Skyrim is superb - I've put in maybe 200 hours total on it, but a lot of that was finding new mods I *had* to have, and then creating new characters and redoing the same things I'd already done, so there's a lot of core content that's still completely new to me. I'm actually playing 2 characters right now - one traditional one, and a "mage" who's not allowed to use any weapon except a single dagger, not allowed to use shields, not allowed to have any companion except a fellow mage, and not allowed to give that mage any non-cloth armor or any weapon except for a single dagger. I can still raise corpses and summon things, but one of my mods adds reasonably-well-balanced-but-nonetheless-extra-powerful enemies to the higher level spawn-lists, which means that when I encounter them, my summoned/raised minions tend to fall over and stop moving a lot :/


That, Enemy Within Longwar, and the Sims 3 are my main trinity right now. Aside from RPG's (ususally western, though I've liked some JRPG's over the years too) and shooters, simulation games are my other main genre. I'm a derp, so it took me until recently to realize that there was a whole modding community for the Sims 3 that I had never even explored. Though once I bite the bullet and lay out the cash to get Fallout 4, I imagine my gaming priorities will shift quite a bit.


Overall, are you a Fallout 3 person or a Fallout New Vegas person?

Skyrim is one of the best games, ever, imo. I've only put 400 hours in on the PC version. I put another 160 on the console version. :P Oh, I have no life. Oh that reminds me. I haven't beaten the Ebony Warrior in Skyrim, yet. Summoning and destruction mage was my first toon on Skyrim. God, it's OP. I ripped through everything. I think that's why I like warriors more on Skyrim. The only thing I really haven't messed with is illusion. You really need to boost damage with summoning.




I tried Requiem, the mod for Skyrim. Jesus. Talk about difficult. They tried to make it more like Morrowind. So that means farming mudcrabs for, like, the first 15 levels. -.-;; Fucking hardcore. But, I didn't like it. Too much farming. I just got some Legendary damage upgrader. I was at 5 times normal Legendary damage and still not taking any damage. -.-;; Of course, one issue I had was the armor cap of 80% damage reduction. You reach it too quickly. And you reach it with cloth. There's really no advantage to wearing heavy armor--and you run more slowly. You might get more armor more quickly, but that's useless by mid-game. Somehow wearing leather is just the same as wearing heavy armor, except without the movement penalty.




Haha. Yeah. I didn't even know about mods for a good while, growing up as a console player namely. But hey. What's you're excuse as a native PC gamer? :P




Oh God yes. God yes. oanfd;ognarfg I can't wait. You know. I think I have to say New Vegas. I feel like they did a lot better job on New Vegas, and that's having just recently played Fallout 3. I absolutely loved Mr. House. I tried playing through by killing him, after taking his side twice already; but every time I was there I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Fallout 3 was a great story. But New Vegas really resonated with me because of Mr. House, I think. Man. I really want to replay it. I think I might replay New Vegas before getting Fallout 4.