june gloom on 4/3/2011 at 07:55
Quote Posted by pdenton
Just curious why you say that about the unlocks?
Because it's fucking stupid. Unlocking weapons of any sort in a multiplayer game is basically stupid, because it necessarily brings an element of behind-the-curve that's endemic in MMOs where you're constantly playing catchup and it's going slow because with your weak and pitiful equipment you can't perform well enough to get the better weapons quickly, and by the time you've got them everyone else has moved on to bigger and better things.
catbarf on 4/3/2011 at 14:33
Quote Posted by pdenton
Just curious why you say that about the unlocks?
I agree with dethtoll, my usual example is that even after putting something like 40 hours into the game, I'm still going up against people who have +25% damage or health with no drawback. A lot of games, like CoD, start you out with useful stuff so that you just get more options, but lately some games have taken an MMO-like power progression.
Quote Posted by pdenton
I'll throw down Operation Flashpoint (Cold War Crisis, not that unplayable heap of garbage known as Dragon Rising).
I got Dragon Rising cheaply during a Steam sale but haven't touched it, is it not worth my time?
Womble on 4/3/2011 at 14:48
Quote Posted by catbarf
If you have Half-Life, there's an old mod called The Specialists that essentially turns it into Matrix-styled hollywood action. Guns, kung fu, crazy jumping everywhere.
I played that mod for a good 3 years. Great fun. The game was pretty broke, but it was fun.
Cod 4 ain't too bad, no annoying overpowered killstreak crap and alot of people still play.
lost_soul on 4/3/2011 at 17:22
Just for the record, I hate unlockable weapons too. It is bad enough when you pick up a new game and everyone else has been playing it forever... They shouldn't have bigger badder guns too. :) At least with UrT, all weapons and gear are readily available to everyone at any time.
Compare this to Tremulous, where when you join a game at stage 3, you're a dretch with 25 health fighting heavily armored humans with 200+ hit points and very large guns... not fun! The best tactic here is to follow the big aliens and get the occasional bite on the humans. As the dretch, you're not the largest threat, so they're most likely going to focus on your bigger teammates first. Nobody suspects the dretch! :)
...and another vote for Nexuiz. My most fond memory of this game was being shot off the map during a game of CTF when I had just grabbed the flag. I used the grappling hook and started swinging back to my base underneath the map, and the guy came down there after me. So, we were both shooting at each other while still making sure to stick close to the bottom brush of the map so as not to fall into the void! It was so much fun! I eventually knocked him into the void and captured the flag.
Nameless Voice on 4/3/2011 at 18:05
At least in TF2, all the weapons, standard and unlockable, are roughly equal. In fact, the original weapons are often better than the unlockable ones.
catbarf on 4/3/2011 at 21:22
Yeah, but now TF2 gives set bonuses to anyone willing to pay cash for the set, and some of the items just seem straight-up better (who uses the Bonesaw?), or like more useful versions of existing items (gloves that reduce damage > KGB).
Nameless Voice on 4/3/2011 at 21:31
Yeah, the Polycount set hats are a horrible idea. They're also rather useless, since you have to use the other items in the set to get the bonus, and most of the Polycount weapons are awful.
june gloom on 4/3/2011 at 22:15
The Polycount thing is one of the many reasons I'm never going back to TF2.
Yakoob on 5/3/2011 at 09:00
Wait, what's this polycount thing? TTLG teach me, for the google search bar is too far.
Nameless Voice on 5/3/2011 at 11:39
A set of fan-contributed items, the Polycount Pack.
They came in sets, with hats.
For example, the sniper got a crocodile set: crocodile-skin shield (+25hp), jarate-shooting sniper rifle, crit-on-jarate knife, and a crocodile-head hat.
The entire set as a bonus: when the sniper has all those items equipped, a headshot cannot kill him.
The bonuses are all rather cheap, all require a rare hat to acquire, and also require you to use the entire set of mostly worthless weapons.
The really bad thing about it is that they require a hat, and hats are really rare - you can either find them (extremely rare), trade them, or pay real money at the TF2 store to buy them.
Later updates added more sets, but the hats didn't count towards the sets in those cases.
