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[Poll] Best Pokemon?

Which edition are the Pokemon "other" and "what" from? Are they like leaked mega-evolutions of Wynaut?

Agumon's pretty cool...

#PIKACHUMASTERRACE

I dunno, I've only ever really played Gen 1-2 and their remakes so I'm probably kinda biased? I'll just... wait til someone else pitches in before I say anything serious haha.

Your MMO "chronology?"

@Ratty524

Yeah I was big into Runescape back in the "RS2" phase, but as usual I just cleared out all the F2P quests and everything else just stopped because there really wasn't anything left to do. They introduced some other minigames like that Fist of Guthix thing and that Dungeoneering stuff, which was all pretty much uninteresting to me. You were allowed to max out what levels you can in F2P, but without access to all the other armors, skills, and locations there really wasn't any point at all.

Never actually heard of Graal before, though I've always been big into Link to the Past so who knows maybe I would've liked it back then.

FlyFF (which actually stands for "Fly For Fun" if I recall) was a popular title at the time I was playing MMO's. The flying mechanic was sort of the main attraction, and was kind of a new thing to see back then. It was later visited through other games like that DoMO game I mentioned and Perfect World Online I think. But it was actually kinda funny in DoMO, as I mentioned my class was a dancer. In the other games you had more practical means of flying, broom sticks and wings right? Well as a dancer in DoMO I had to ride a big fan like a surf board... it looked rather interesting haha.

Maplestory and Mabinogi I already talked about, however Trickster I'm still wondering about. I think I really was into the vibrant art style and pixel graphics, but I don't remember getting any further than the first hub town. I think I got lost, I think it was around the same time / age as when I was trying out Maplestory so it was probably lack of patience again that made quit on the spot.

Rumble Fighter I've only caught glimpses of, it looked pretty neat. Top down 3d fighters always interested me, kinda like that Power Stone / Destrega type stuff. Though personally with fighters I guess I always just liked playing them in offline settings with friends. I dunno how to describe it, I guess it just feels different to me online.

LaTale I never tried, but I always heard people describe it as doing all the things Maplestory was trying to do more efficiently. I don't have much input on this outside of a funny story with the community you mentioned; I just remember an early friend on maplestory (as in online friend, not IRL) really liked the mini Grim Reaper pet I got and wanted to get one for his own. The trouble however was that he couldn't successfully convince his dad the difference between the Nexon pre-paid cards and using a Debit Card online. The poor kid kept trying and asking me for help on it. In the end I guess I just remembered the situation as "the dad who wouldn't believe" haha.

Oooh boy... LoL... I really don't like talking about it so I guess I won't go into too much detail. That game is awesome, well designed, for the most part balanced, and demonstrated the absolute perfect way to use Real-Money Transactions in a F2P. With that said, I refuse to play it ever again. Now it's not because I don't like it, but it is for my own mental stability. I played since season 2 as well, and things began to fall off for me around the mid to late season 3. The cause for my departure? The same sin that plagues many a player: Solo Queue Normals back to back. Even worse was that I mained AP support. The initial Orianna range nerf crippled me, I was forced into "infinite Morgana." Now Morg in my opinion had super viable mechanics but lackluster statistics, every time I hit that big red Play button I felt like the catch phrase from the FarCry 3 commercial... "doing the same f*cking thing over and over again expecting sh*t to change." It was absolutely sickening, and again it's not because of bad game design. A lot of people like to point fingers at the community, hell I know I want to, but it'd be to easy too do that. What I really blame is the mentality we all seemed to adopt that every single victory was life dependent. Like losing one match, missing one cs, missing one skill shot, forgetting one ping, forgetting one face check, doing one overextension was going to make some overlying comment about us as players for every other thousands of matches we were bound to play down the line.

To wrap up, League of Legends is a good game, a great game, an excellent game. But I choose to abstain from it because I've lost all willpower to even look for any fun in it any more. And again, I do not condemn the community base, despite how much flak it gets. Where there are ailments there are legitimate steps and discussions people have made to improve them as we see with people like Gbay99 and Sky Williams. LoL members never lacked the willingness to act nice, maybe just the guidance or the rationale, which they now have available to them should they need it.

But yeah, League of Legends, that's my short version. Heh.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by Ratty and sharing your experiences! See you around!

Your MMO "chronology?"

author=TheUltimateUmbreon
Digimon Masters. There ends the list of MMOs I've played.


Hey, like I said, all's welcome! :D I've only just now heard of that game, I see it's also with Aeria Games now, who I used to frequent a lot (in fact the game I'm trying now's under them as well) Anyway, was it any good?

Your MMO "chronology?"

Really neat stuff guys!

@RyaReisender

A.) Yeah I definitely have similar views on this point. I suppose some people might call it the "TES4: Oblivion effect" (though oblivion's actually still my fav TES...) It can be just so easy to ignore the story altogether and just depend on the big exclamation marks and quest markers. A lot of the ones I've played even go as far as automating your movement to the next objective with a click of a button. And I've always been too apprehensive to do the whole "lfg" stuff, haha I tended to just idle assuming someone else would have to make an invite sooner or later (which they do haha!)

But on the topic of party systems here's a funny story: I was recruited (well, more like randomly thrown into) a guild. They called themselves "Chicken." On day one we greeted each other, and ever since I didn't type a single word in their guild chat. It was at that point where I was wearing their guild title as a hat pretty much, they were all mid to end-game and I was at the bottom so it wasn't like we were going to cross paths anytime soon. But of course, I was going to need help sooner or later. So on a forum (I think it was a gaiaonline guild back when I still went there) I found a guy in late game who was willing to help me out. But of course... as me and this guy walk into the dungeon hub THE WHOLE GUILD is in there and sees me. I believe the next day I was kicked, and no longer had the "Chicken hat" haha.

B.) This one I totally agree with as well, that system always lead to headache's over KS'ing and spawn zone idling. And respawning field bosses always took out their thematic element for me, like I can't with a straight face say I "slayed the dangerous monster" when he comes back every 3-4 minutes. "Production line heroism" as I call it. The hardest thing with the story that many MMO's try to do: "You are the most unique grand hero that this land shall ever embrace... just like the 1400 other unique grand hero's walking about in the same outfit around you... take this to the grocery store for me okay?"

1.) Yeah I played MS back then as well (it's what introduced most of us to nexon, and what eventually lead me to Mabinogi) I can't really say what my opinion on it was, keep in mind this was when I was pretty much a kid and we saw those commercials for the game on TV. I guess you can say I wasn't quite "desensitized" to MMO's yet, the repetition was probably a bit too much for my young impatient mind. But I dunno, this was a lil' before I had a gamepad and controlling sidescrollers with space + ctrl just felt a little weird to me. But as you said, the restrictions of the time could have improved by now. (Can't remember how far back it was that I played... maybe before Pirates / Cygnus Knights came to NA? Eh, don't remember D: )

2. - 3.) From what I can remember I've only ever glimpsed at Rose online through steparu's channel. It's around this point where I realized just how hard it is to market these types of games. While many might be engrossing to play, they might not be the most interesting to watch through straight-up gameplay videos. I think the only time I ever got super-hyped was when they were releasing the early Vindictus promos under the "Mabinogi Heroes" moniker. (That's the last time I'm mentioning that franchise I promise haha!) As a fan of the original, seeing the shift from the cell-shaded graphics to the source engine was mind blowing, but more importantly seeing all the fluid visceral combat really drew me in. Like you said: the new trend. Following right after was the hype around that Blade and Soul game, and one other one about Kung-Fu I think... Aside from that though, I feel a lot of MMO marketing just gave me a lukewarm feeling. I think the only marketing in recent years that seemed "enticing" was that Wildstar stuff. In #7 you mention how you like what the dev team is doing, and I feel it revolves around one important step: balancing and emphasizing the game as both a product and a community.

4.) Allods I know of, I think this was around the time that there was a sort of "resurgence" with the western devs. The sort of late 2009 era I guess, people looking for potential WoW alternatives with Runes of Magic, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, RIFT, and I guess you can say Tera (I dunno if it's entirely western but I feel the target audience was.) The only one of these I ever actually played was RoM, and not for long. I thought it was alright, I'm actually a sucker for dual-classing, but I think everyone just felt it was to susceptible to meta-builds. (I mean, why wouldn't you pick Mage / Priest?) It was before they introduced any new races, but I heard things just went downhill since then.

5.) DnD online always looked appealing to me. I don't know if you've heard of the guy but I first saw it through Ciruss Epix's "questing" show. (The guy actually got quite a following with his MMO reviews... and then this happened.) But yeah, was real interested in what they were doing for immersion, the way they had a virtual DM who narrated everything, the real-time combat and dungeon puzzles. It all looked cool, however as you may have guessed I've never been a subscription type of guy. It was around this time that a lot of companies were trying out that system and soon being forced to migrate over to f2P in the wake of... well, you know... anyway, stuff like Rift, Tera, Aion, All Points Bulletin, SWtOR (kinda), were all changing their action plan. That sort of environment was just too confusing for me at the time (I think that's when I was actually playing that aforementioned moba, but that's a different story on its own...) so I never got around to trying out DnD's free release.

6.) The Secret World is another instance where I remembered that epic cg teaser, then it fell under the radar for a long time and when it was finally released I had forgotten what it was. Not much to say here actually, never got around to it.

7.) Yeah, similar case here. Just felt too taxing to "investigate" other mmo's at the risk of being disappointing.
(Register account > Download Installer > Install Client > Update Client > Launch game > Pick server > Pick secondary pin > Create Character > Tutorial section > Play for a couple hours > Get bored > quit and uninstall > Rinse and Repeat)
I don't have any real "hype" for any mmo's. I mean, just look at the expectations for SWtOR and TES:O, I don't want to risk the grief.
Though, I guess I might be interested in Black Desert Online just so I can f*ck around with its character creator.
(Because it looks like they're trying to make the best one ever.) Other than that, I guess I'll just see how this Aura Kingdom thing goes, I don't expect to be amazed in the slightest but maybe it'll be something that can scratch the little "mmo-itch" in the back of my head haha.

Thank you so much for sharing Rya! It's always really neat to see and discuss such an expansive history!

@Kylaila

I can definitely see myself agreeing with this, as it makes sense. The only difference though between our situations was probably that WoW is generally considered the epitome of mmo's. If you played WoW, then yes in essence you have played them all. My mentality at the time was that since I couldn't pay for the WoW subscription I would have to "treasure hunt" my way to find what the WoW players were getting, thinking in only the terms of game mechanics instead of social interaction. My naivete at that point pretty much had me registering the other people playing as just more assets of the game. My favorite thing about what you said is how "it's not the games, it's the people." This really helps me reflect on what was really drawing me to these games, the fact that it was other people looking to engage in something together. Which may be why my curiosity has been sparked again, a part of me wonders if my more experienced outlook can approach MMO's differently. We'll see I guess. But yeah as you said, though it may be an extremely engaging way to have fun with others, it probably will never be the most practical.

But nonetheless, thanks for pitching in Kylaila! I'm now even more interested in what other views / experiences others may have on the matter!

-----

Welp, yet another wall-o-text from skaiano. If anyone else has some history they'd like to share (large or small, anything's welcome) feel free to shoot! Til' then folks!

Your MMO "chronology?"

I was over at a thread in MyAnimeList where a guy was asking for some recommendations of Anime MMORPG's, and out of nowhere I just spilled out like my whole life's experience with them since I played so many. It was late at night and the post wasn't the most thought through, but it did trigger some of these reminiscent feelings.

(Post from MyAnimeList, warning it's kinda long...)


(Nostalgia incoming, just scroll down if you just want the recommendations)
I've slowed down on MMO's but I remember being into Mabinogi (as previously mentioned) and Dream of Mirror Online (DoMO)

I think Mabinogi is the better of the two but I only played when the F2P was a lot more restrictive. There were a lot of neat little details with Mabinogi, from watching your character's weight (I remember a cutscene where you literally go to heaven from eating a food that was "too good") and the combat system I think was the one I really liked out of all the F2P MMO's I played back in the day. It had a "rock-paper-scissors" type of strategy going for it. Lots of immerse stuff like that, you can even play instruments and arrange the notes in-game. I'd also recommend it's "spiritual sequel" Vindictus (originally titled Mabinogi Heroes) but only for the gameplay, as it makes a departure from the more Anime-style cell-shaded graphics. I think the AFK / pay to win stuff's always been there but it never bothered me. There's a good enough amount of content to keep occupied even on your own.

Now DoMO I'm having some trouble remembering. I do remember it had a real vibrant visual style, and a pretty unique asia-influenced setting. I'm recalling some flying mechanics like from FlyFF, and for the most part pretty standard MMO stuff. But I think I really liked the classes in that game, I played as a "dancer" which was basically like a bard / support. It's been so long, in fact just looking it up now it came to my attention that it was actually discontinued. Haha... uh... Eh, memories. The guys usually hit on the girl characters that bought all the sexy outfits from the item shop. Memories.

I think some have mentioned Grand Chase, I found that one fun as well, I think that Elsword game is the sequel to it, never got around to playing it. :P Similarly I tried Dungeon Fighter Online, but couldn't personally get into it.

From there it was hard to find games that I appealed to me. Tried Aika, looked alright graphically but something about it just felt stale I guess. Rappelz I think I liked, but I got a similar uninterested vibe from it. Tried Lunia. Nope. I heard high praise for Ragnarok, so when RO2 was released as F2P I was interested... and then immediately disinterested.

I remember also playing Trickster Online like a billion years ago. Can't remember a thing, but the aesthetics definitely there! Neat vibrant sprites in an isometric style. I don't recall how combat and skills worked in that game, something about tokens? I dunno... Looks like they're still active, but I don't know what's changed since then.

And most recently I've tried this game called Asda 2. This game I think I really like, but will probably NOT reccomend its gameplay. I found the art-style and sort of laid back writing charming for some reason, and I like that costume system where you can stack aesthetic items on top of your armor. But lately I've heard the population's dropped so yeah...

But yeah... that's my history... Recommendations: Mabinogi: Yes. Trickster: Maybe? Asda 2: I really liked it but might not recommend.

Sorry for the long post, guess I just got too reminiscent. I used to love these games but have sort of lost all time and energy to play them... kinda miss them you know? If anything this should tell you just how well Mabinogi has aged against all the other stuff I've played throughout, lots of anime MMO's out there, but as you've seen many really tend to point to good ol' Mabi as the pinnacle.

But hey, if none of this info helps you, you can always check out Steparu for all sorts of reviews and previews of foreign MMO's.

-------------


And now look at me, about to install and try this other anime mmo called Aura Kingdom... sigh...

In any case, I was wondering if there was anyone willing to share their own "chronologies?" What games you played throughout, what impression they made on you, why you left? Were some you played discontinued? Have you been hacked before? Did you ever lose money on one? Was there one you left you wish you could revisit? Was there one you loved but can no longer seem to stomach? A lot of mmo's can feel the same, which one stood out to you immediately as you started playing? What are your views on subscriptions vs. item malls? Any friends that you made / lost through these online games? Etc.

Just keep in mind this is mainly for personal reflections and not really to debate what was the "best" mmo or anything. I'm wondering more about people's memories, good and bad. And no, this isn't limited to anime-mmo's, just whatever mmo you happened to play throughout.

X-Noir

It's at 665 downloads.... O_O CANNOT RESIST! *downloads* (But seriously, neat looking game from the two of you again!)

Luxaren Allure Demo with New Art is Live!

*instant download* Let's get this party started! xD

Anyone know how to get an event to effect the menu without closing it?

Actually , the simple answer works perfectly! I guess I tend to overthink these types of problems, I guess I assumed I needed to do all that eventing stuff because of a similar thing I had to do with a toggle-dash effect, I spend too much time trying to manipulate actors / items on the map screen that I easily forget just how much you can do in the database.

Anyway, that just wraps it up I suppose, thanks for the help! It's good to know it was just a matter of overlooking something instead of trying to do something too complex. Cheers!