GLOBAL BULLSHIT OF VIDEO GAMES

author=Craze
happy: i THINK you can save ads save data to your sd card as a back-up. i THINK. that sucks though, which stratum were you on?

I wish I had even realized it only had 1 slot. I was only on the second field area, though, as in the second tier of dungeons, so I only lost 7 hours of progress, or so, so it could've been worse.

author=Craze
i love mobile games now that my job keeps me busier than college/hs ever did. my biggest metric for whether i not i bother is "does putting in time let me progress"? for something like final fantasy record keeper or tower of saviors or crusader's quest, i absolutely can. for puzzle & dragons or SimCity BuildIt? ehhhhh

Wait, there are games where putting in time has no effect? Do you mean that progress is, like, based purely on inserting dollars? Or just that grinding doesn't work and you have to actually play better to win?

LockeZ: You could spend a week or more grinding away the currency to upgrade a thing to let you continue for a little while... or just drop money on it. SimCity BuildIt was one of the cruelest in my opinion because every other "level" or so (gain levels by upgrading residential zones, levels unlock new buildings) your sims need something new. While the gameplay was compelling at first, by the time it was clear everybody would leave or die before I could afford to build hospitals around the city, I had uninstalled the game. "Give EA money or else your virtual people will die!!!!" does not really appeal to me.

Basically, you COULD grind it out in those sorts of games, but all you'd get by doing so was another obstacle saying "feed me monies." What's the point!?

In something like FF:RK, your characters actually earn XP by, uh, playing the game. You can get good equipment and better characters by playing the game. There's some grinding but it always feels like you're progressing SOMETHING. You could easily play it totally free. I know that I haven't bothered with the ~relics~ yet (the IAPs) because I'm saving up premium currency for when Balthier's weapon comes or something. My first week I spent $3 for some stamina resets to get Sephiroth before his event ended, and I've been able to get every character and do some of the Elite dungeons without any other money (and could easily have done it if I didn't have Sephiroth, too).

There are other games that are more subtle about their paywalls (well, maybe not subtle, but more tricky). I've dropped puzzle games before because you had to bug friends to play the game and send you magic maps in order to unlock later puzzles, or pay money to get those maps now. lol no thnx buh-bai

FINE KENTONA

Can't stand it when games make you play through some tutorial sequence before you get to the main menu. Especially when it's a multiplayer game. I just have to look at my sister sitting next to me and be all "you will get to play EVENTUALLY". Honestly, when I boot a game up, the first thing I want to do is go into the Option menu and adjust the sound levels, turn subtitles on, change/look at controls etc before really getting in to anything.

Then there's people like my sister, who don't have the gaming skill necessary to make it past the tutorials and get to the main menu of GTA V...


Also, back on the slow death of local multiplayer, when I was reading a GameFAQs thread where someone was asking if a game had it, some guy was like "lol split screen? this isn't 1996. nobody plays split screen anymore" ... ugh.
I'm trying to imagine an individual so alone in this world that the idea of playing a game with a nearby flesh-and-blood human being is some incomprehensible relic of the past like Blood Humors or something. I mean, I guess he could have multiple systems, televisions, and game copies to do "local" multiplayer, but somehow I doubt it.

I had a list of 30 things and I decided to delete it all because quite frankly I got tired of typing after number 10. Needless to say the main offenders are pay to win games, level scaling being handled by idiots, everything mentioned before this post specifically, ailments that slow gameplay but don't make things challenging like blindness in a tactical game, and finally the biggest problem I have is people wanting shit taken off market because they don't like it or they find it offensive.

It's not that local multiplayer is useless. It's more that they've systematically conditioned players to artificially replace the demand for it with demand for online multiplayer. This is highly beneficial to game developers: it means that people who want to play with their friends have to buy multiple copies of the game. It effectively triples all sales to kids.

On the other hand, I am the lonesome individual you speak of. I don't think I'm alone, though. I just think that the internet has made physically being around other people obsolete.

Modern laptops don't have DVD drives any more because software doesn't come on DVDs any more. It comes on the internet now. Saying they're "requiring" the internet is ridiculous; there's no longer a reason to even own a personal laptop if you don't have the internet. It makes the laptops a little lighter, which is worth more to me (and almost everyone else) than a spinning floppy drive.

You can still buy laptops with DVD drives but I don't know why you'd want to. You're not watching movies on DVD any more. You're not listening to audio CDs any more. If you're a stubborn old codger you might install one or two programs from DVD a year, but you can do that with an external drive instead of a built-in one. Why lug around an extra six ounces with you the rest of the time?

author=LockeZ
You're not watching movies on DVD any more.?

You're right, I'm watching movies on VHS now. I have uh... Close to 200+ tapes I think. I have a slight problem when it comes to retro media.

But the main draw (for me) for buying DVDs or Blu-Rays as opposed to digital is that they're getting seriously cheap now. Can't wait till they're as retro as VHS tapes, so I can pick them up for a dollar a pop and have even less space to store literally anything. I recently found both Shawshank Redemption and Goodfellas on Blu-Ray for 5$ each, like shit, how am I supposed to pass that up?

But you're right though, nowadays you should just get an external drive or build your own computer with as much retro input as you want. Everyday laptops don't really need to have them anymore.

author=LockeZ
I just think that the internet has made physically being around other people obsolete.

Damn, dude.