Chompie

I can't use Walk. It distracts me too much.

Spewing up theory here: How about a Dark/Elec Scrapper? (or Elec/Dark Tanker I guess)

Elec has good resistance to Psi, that covers wisps.
Elec has abominably good resistance to Energy, that will laugh off Ranged attacks from Brutes and Eyeballs.
Dark Melee can help mitigate the pain from incoming smashing attacks with -tohit and the godly Siphon life.

Mmm, I want those powersets now.


Also, I seem to have had a lot of luck mobbing through hordes of Rularuu with my Ice/Fire Tanker. Everyone says this shouldn't be the case, but it is!

Man, this is a hell of a deep conversation.

For starters, I'm going to have to agree with Smash Zone- I couldn't have put those ideals into words better than he did two posts above.

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However, I really only think those thoughts when thinking about What Could Be. The current MMORPG genre still feels imperfect; incomplete.
I have many things to say on the subject, but I am guaranteed to forget some and fail to put many of the others into comprehensible words. So I'll just ramble away now.

Immersion is important. I feel a purely excellent MMORPG should really immerse the player in it. It's the perfect setting for it, right? A setting in which many, many people, each controlling a unique character - not just an avatar but a character - having the glorious adventures that only imagination and games can provide. And afterwards, they can talk and reminisce about how awesome an experience that was. It sounds absolutely divine, but is just.. not a part of this reality. It just doesn't happen like that. Something in the MMO genre is off-kilter, it must be!

A big part of the problem is the same one that plagues (yes, PLAGUES!) modern video games like minor head injuries plague a tall guy. Gameplay and Story Segregation. It's a big problem! People just aren't encouraged by the game to connect with their character in any way (apart from the controller/mouse/keyboard. I know you were thinking that, wise guy)- they've got to do that of their own accord, and even if they do, few games can possibly support that. I should go into some examples now.

Iji - A great example of a game with Gameplay+Story that actually felt connected. Simple and short (and not an MMO, sorry), but you actually feel a connection to your character, and things you do while playing do matter in the outcome. I feel it's a great step forward and any designer who cares about the story in their game should look at it and ponder the implications of having Cause and Effect beyond just object collision detection and dialogue trees.

Sort of relevant at this point- remember that there is a difference between a Sandbox game, a Simulation, and one that allows your actions to affect the game. It's subtle but it's true.

Facade - Sepeaking of dialogue trees, Facade (I don't know how to type a circonflex accent) is a game we studied in my game design class. No dialogue trees. You type things to say, you say them, they affect how the story changes. Again, short, because this sort of thing takes a million billion years to code, and coding and bugfixing is already the time-limiting factor in game creation. I think I'm officially off topic by now though.

Okay, how about Mabinogi? Yes, one of those FREE TO PLAY LULZ games that are a dime a dozen and you periodically see advertized on every website on the entire interweb. Well, back in its early days, it apparently was designed to be... I don't even know the words to be describing the concept, really. But I played it and it was... an immersive environment! I was shocked, really. The game really felt like it was something truly different.. I suppose the term I want is "encouraged the human element"- as vague and artsy-fartsy as that sounds.
But everything really immersed- I had a character, in a setting that made sense and felt right, and then found out that the developer who was responsible for making it like that was taken out back and shot for not putting in enough korean MMO grindy elements. Cause they abruptly faded away into nothingness, especially after actual-release. A pity indeed- it felt like everyone in the game, NPC's included, were actual characters interacting with each other (like characters are known to do). Even while going into dungeons to hunt down beasts that threatened the town (sounds familiar), it still felt more.. "human elemented" than anything I had previously encountered. *sigh* So close, but so far away.

Also- Harvest Moon - Remember the version of that game you liked? It is no amazing feat of game creation by any means, but I feel it did have one of those "humanoid elementals" that I think MMORPGs might be missing.

I think that one of the tidbits wrong with present MMORPG's (whatever they are) is the lack of a Persistent World. Which is pretty ******* funny when you think about how they all say they have persistent worlds.
Because you know what? A persistent world isn't one that remembers how long it's been since Mineral Node X has been tapped or waits Y hours for Epic Boss Man to respawn. It's one where what players do has an EFFECT on the world.
The unbelievably-long-running webcomic Sluggy Freelance commented on this a bit. The only thing in an MMO that you can really affect is the playerbase. Killing an NPC or doing their quest changes nothing. But interacting with another PLAYER does. Kill enough, and you gain the reputation of a brutal PKer. Help enough, and you gain the reputation of a wonderful, nice person.
If you rescue the king's lost son? He'll be captured by the same villain very shortly. If you rescue a noob in trouble? He'll be so very happy, and you've made a friend in the game. If you cast Earthquake a thousand times on a supposed faultline? Nothing happens at all. Maybe players think you're a malfunctioning macro-botter, but that's it.

One of the things missing, in fact, is CHANGE. Generally in video gaming, things in the game do not change until the game wants them to. You have no say in it. Linear storylines aren't bad! No, not at all! But this medium is capable of allowing choice and change and repercussions, and yet I can't think of any games that actually do it. "Allow bombing to happen? [Y/N]" doesn't freaking count.

You could argue that the Destructible Environments fad is a way of tying in gameplay and repercussion and such but you'd be so freaking wrong. Because I have yet to see a game where it actually mattered if you accidentally levelled half the city while doing your objective thing.

Speaking of repercussions, that is part of why so many people enjoyed the gameplay of Grand Theft Auto <insert subtitle>. It's not just that you can mug people and steal cars. It's that the game takes notice when you do. It certainly has no realistic or long-lasting repercussions- if you could cast Earthquake, the place would probably be healed in an hour... But still, it's something to consider, you know?

Speaking of repercussions, here's an easy one to implement: in standard JRPG's, what if characters got miffed when you never used SteveDave, or hoarded all your money and didn't buy enough Phoenix Downs, or always gave the best equipment to the main character? I mean, *I* implemented that sort of thing in a game I designed, and I bloody hate programming! Little things like that make a game SO MUCH more immersive. And getting back to MMORPGs again, I did say, I think, that immersion was missing. Even the littlest things can help. I know an adaptive persistent world is hard to create, but goddamnit it is possible!

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So there's something (or somethings) to think on. The whole post doesn't necessarily LOOK relevant, but if you've read through it all, I want you to chew it up, and keep in mind the stuff I brought up while you think about MMORPGs.

I'm sick of all these ******* lasers and moonbases. Seriously, once was interesting, this is way too much. When are we going to get a Jungle zone? And how bout that Brachiation travel power?

Hehehehehe! He looks pretty silly!

I have this vague recollection of a thread called something like "The Powerset you really want but know will never happen". Castle posted there saying he really wished growth powers were feasible, but they just aren't.

Or it could just be me feeding myself false information while I sleep. Again.

A nice bonus- The Exemplar scaling-down calculation is calculated *before* Enhancement Diversification. If you have three Lv50 Accuracy IOs, it calculates out to you still having quite a lot of that accuracy bonus even when exemplaring.

"Another Computer Virus? WHY?! I have ten already! They're valueless! I'm a blaster, I don't need RechRedux cause I have twenty attacks! And not only that, my character's a ROBOT! God damnit!"

Pffffahahahaha! Brilliance, all of it!

Also, why the hell don't I read Penny Arcade? I LOVE Penny Arcade. And yet I do not follow it, despite following some forty (literally) other webcomics.

Yeah, my normal searches for random arcs goes "Four Stars, 15-100 votes"

That's where the best stuff is.

I've experienced this forever- it's just a quirk of how the Council is. Council Bosses are exceedingly rare in most missions- I'd say they're even well-known for having hordes and hordes of little boogers without bosses in sight. Through all my time playing, I'd say Council Bosses have spawned in big missions maybe one out of every four times.

It's always wonderful to get happy new players!

Even if they aren't on my server. I'll save the dirty glare for next year. *shakes fish*

Going off of W Peace's observations on this one...

I'd say the restriction has to do with the likelyhood that strange, straaange bugs would show up if you finished a story arc in ouroboros, and then later in your heroing career tried to get that arc from the contact for the FIRST time. Time travel is screwy.

I suppose you can't be recieving Contact reputation and the Arc Complete/Merits Awarded bool-Variables *before* it is even available normally.. I can see that just ending up really screwy.

Your list of bullet points basically describe how I play my Mind/Fire Dominator.

A dominator must choose whether to spend their time hunting and locking down trouble-causing mobs: ones with particularly strong abilities or just ones that have escaped your team's cascade of AoE controls or debuffs; or you can choose to hasten the demise of the enemies with straight-up damage.

The choice, as always, is yours, but you might find yourself switching styles several times in the same mission, as long-recharge abilities come and go. If AM is on you or Fiery Embrace is ready, destroy everything in sight. If Domination is up, you can lock down the whole group far easier, and give your team a bit of breathing time for one or two easy fights.

Solo, your optimal playstyle is to shut. down. everything. And once they are down, you can destroy them with all haste and not a worry about your health bar.

A good Dominator can keep a team from even *realizing* that there are such things as Sappers- you can Hold AND kill them with just about everything you've got.

As with controllers, you can protect specific teammates with single-target mezzes, as well as ease pressure on the full team with area mezzing.


Many similarities to controllering, but when added together, the sum is far removed from its parts.

Agreed. Vivid colors on the area-effect Forcefields and Sonic Shields makes for badness.

Now, more even than before, I avoid searching for Controllers to add to my team. At least Defenders only have ONE excessive-visual set.

My eyes work mostly based on color. Too many flying colors means I'm effectively blind. =/

Either I'll be playing mah Mind/Fire Dom and kicking serious *** while helping out anyone in the helpchannel, or I'll be doing something else, cause I generally avoid DXP weekends. Too much of the "failed to create instance, went to sleep waiting for server response" sort of thing.

Maybe I'll work on my TD. Or whip up an unusual Draft-style league for CMC.

(QR)

I'd consider myself a fairly casual player.

I don't rush to level, I don't bother with high-end content or purples, I frequently take one or two weeks off from the game for no reason, and I just generally don't consider the game SRS BZNZ.

On the other hand, I come to the forums frequently, I use Mids to make theoretical builds or plan out a character, and most of my characters have a medley of strategically-placed sets and/or frankenslots on them.

It doesn't mean I'm a hardcore player. It just means that I enjoy thinking about the game as well as playing it.