RPGamer - Letters for May 18th, 2002

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Ask Chesh

Wo Qui Non Coin

Chris Martin - May 18th '02- 2:00 Eastern Standard Time

It's been an interesting week for me. Spending my free time playing Sonic Adventure 2 and trying to beat the Chocobo mini-game in FFX has driven me to heights of rage I've never experienced before. Not the good kind of rage either. The good kind of rage is the righteous kind that Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson experience when Nazis/Aliens/Terrorists/Corporate Goons/Ninjas/Britons kill their loved ones. Their righteous fury drives them along a single-minded purpose to avenge their lovers and, in the process, conquer England, blow up a busload of terrorists, and screw Jennifer Lopez.
My rage is the not so healthy kind. It's the "I will murder you and your children if you cut in front of me in line, asshole." type of rage. That state of mind that will make you punch a hole in your monitor because IE took 2 seconds longer to load a page than it should.
As any sane person will tell you, the chocobo minigame in FFX is grounds for dropping a few more nuclear weapons on Japan. In order to get the sun sigil, which is needed to get Tidus's super-k3wl-l33t ultimate weapon, you have to play this maddening minigame where you have to steer a visibly retarded chocobo across the calm lands. Along the way, you must collect balloons and avoid birds.
OOPS! Did I say birds? I meant freaking Stinger Missiles with Feathers. Birds, who must be mistaking Tidus for Squall with a bleach-job, will fly at you in a kamikaze flight pattern and smash headlong into your chocobo. At the same time, you're racing against this woman who exists solely to take MY BALLOONS! MY BALLOONS, bitch!
I'll never understand the logic involved. She has a piece of a weapon that will help the heroes save the world (including her worthless carcass.) Because our heroes are "Lawful Good" alignment, they don't attempt to buy the sigil or (and this is my idea) strangle her and take the stupid sigil.
So if you see anything on the news about a young man from Evanston murdering birds with a lighter and a can of lysol, you'll know it's me.

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The Thunder Plains Game is Hell too.

Puns like that are grounds for death in most civilized nations.

Hey there, got a couple of questions for you:

1) Is it just me? Or does it seem that there are way too many first-persons games out there now? Not just those, but one's classified as "rpg". I find this terribly upsetting, I mean, if I really wanted to battle monsters in that manner, I would stick my arm out in front of my face, close one eye and walk around. (If you haven't tried this, I recommend you do. It will change your outlook on life, really) What do you think about this madness?

2) What is the most annoying thing to happen to you in a game? For me it was a tie between getting to the bottom of the Ancient Cave in Lufia 2 only to find the game was glitched, or attempting to reach level 99 on FF 2 (IV) only to have my game save get erased (GRRRR! Death to game batteries!)

3) Did you ever own a colecovision?

4) If a parsly farmer doesn't pay his taxes, can they garnish his wages?

Whew thats about it, you have a terrific day!

Ragnar!

Cheshire Catalyst:
1. First Person shooters are popular. I'm not sure what you mean by "too many." Granted, as with any medium, one must carefully separate the wheat (Counter Strike, Duke Nukem, Unreal Tournament) from the chaff (Super Noah's Ark 3D, Daikiatana). RPG elements have seeped into many non-rpg games. All sortsa games now have elements of skill progression, item buying, and NPCs whom you don't kill. If you want a good FPS/RPG, then go get Deus Ex. I cannot stress the goodness of this game enough. It sinks Judge Limbaugh's arguement that "games aren't free speech" all by itself. It's a FPS/RPG with all kinds of political overtones. (Fans of the game surely remember the discussion between the republic-defending JC Denton and the leftist bartender. Any game that includes dialouge options like "Gimme a beer", "Maybe later." and, "The separation of powers acknowledges human weakness. That's its(The US Government's) strength.
2. Ragnar too has fallen to the evil rage. Read above.
3. Nope. The console that I owned that forever cements my status as mad old-skewl was my Commodore 64.
4. Groan.

An important lesson

Hi Chesh! This is long, so truncate as needed...

Bah, bet you're desperate for questions because Google accidentally made the "Ask Chesh" link point to googleshng@rpgamer instead of to you. Bwah ha ha.

Anyway, I've got a question for you. Do you actually enjoy modern online RPGs? I mean, for me, it held a 1-2 year fascination back when "online gaming" meant MUDs and MUDs alone, but, well, I got tired of it, because of the egos, politics, and many other things. You know. People acting like annoying people instead of like friendly people - forgetting that the idea is not to become all powerful, but to tell a story, which is half the fun of an RPG. Personally single-player (console) RPGs and paper-and-pencil RPGs will always win out far and above online RPGs for me because the online RPGs don't have any decent story, since there's far too many egos involved.

Have things changed? I mean, I'm reluctant to try any of them (UO, EQ, and FFXI) because if they're full of lame people pulling all the old munchkin tricks (see Google's column on the short short version of FF11 for examples) then I'm not going to bother at all. I play console RPGs because they have a cool story, and the game is fun. Do any of the current MMRPGs have a comparable story? And if they do, then what's the point of the online portion? How do you have a persistent world with people who have been there for such varying lengths of time that still has a coherent story?

Short version: are there any MMRPGs out there that DON'T feel like a graphical MUD with a much higher percentage of oversized egos? Any hope for FFXI not becoming exactly that? All the big players seem to be convinced that 'online gaming is the wave of the future'. I don't - not unless things have changed. Give me a well constructed coherent story with believable characters any day.

Thanks bunches.

Patrick

Cheshire Catalyst:
Patrick, there's an important lesson that applies here. Technology advances, but people remain the same. EQ and UP are basically big MUDs with graphical interfaces. Neither has any real story outside of it's minor quests which are overshadowed by the "purpose" of each game: acquire, acquire, acquire! More gold, more weapons, more magic... I played Everquest for two weeks before quitting permanently. It's like an AOL chat room with Orcs.
And an AMEN to that story/character preference.

Quickies

::smites gargamel or whatever his name was that hosted with Google:: SaGa does not suck!!!! I pity fools who can't handle non-linearity, go back to movies! ::returns to playing LoM while fondly glancing at SaGa 1 CD case:: - Galvatron	You sure showed Garcon. His fool self is indeed pityed.
Spiderman or Episode II? -Adam Rippon	Bastard for making me choose! I'll start by giving you my brief review for Star Wars II. It'll be brief because, and let's be honest here, I could prove that this movie causes instant brain cancer and all yunz would still go see it. When reviewing Clones, I must use two personas. My first persona is never seen without his black beret and turtleneck. He spends most of his time in Starbucks drinking mocha-double-frappa-latte-espressos and debating Spinoza with a woman who's a dead ringer for Doug Funnie's older sister, Judy. He thinks that the high school play caliber acting coupled with inane dialouge was disapointing. Only Ewan McGregor, of the main characters, acted like his character had a third dimension. At times, you could even picture him as a young Sir Alec Guiness. Scene order was also questionable as we jump back and forth between plot points. The plot was forced and Anakin and Padme's "love" came across as incredibly contrived. "Hey, person I met ten years ago and haven't seen since! I think I'll fall in love with you just because!" Fortunatly, he isn't the dominant persona here. The one in charge is the dopey fanboy who treasures his copy of the 2nd ed Star Wars RPG and often wonders if Prince Xizor or Grand Admiral Thrawn was the better villain from the book series. The cityscapes and other eye candy was nothing short of breathtaking. He's also especially pleased that this movie put the "Wars" back in Star Wars. The music was more of the excellence we;ve come to expect from John Williams. (Yes folks, the Imperial March is back)Oh, and Yoda with a lightsaber. Yoda and his LIGHTSABER! How the hell is that NOT cool? Both movies are about the same when it comes to plot/battles/acting/etc. If I had to pick one, it'd be Spiderman simply because it stands on it's own as a good movie while Attack of the Clones requires the viewer to have seen four other films prior to this one.
You can do it! --ALL NIGHT LONG!! ....joke from marching band. Could resist it. guifa	Actually, I think that joke is from The Waterboy. I recall that being a popular phrase when I was in band too...
Heya Chesh: I am wondering if someone at RPGamer might post the correct answers to the Ogre Battle Trivia contest soon. I know the winners will be announced soon enough but will the correct answer list be posted as well? -Rahlious	I'll pass it on.
Big FFX Ending Spoiler. Highlight to read. Hey, In FFX, after the credits roll for beating the game, you see an FMV of Tidus, swimming all happily...why is he so happy, he just had his life taken away, or is it just a pretty filler...or am I missing something?? Also, I was just wondering what HP I should have before battling with Sin, Yu Yevon etc in Final Fantasy X? Genocrakhore	Ever since Tidus found out about the fact that his Zanarkand was the dream of a fayth, he'd accepted his transitory fate. When he dies, he's not happy about leaving Yuna, but he is happy about being able to reconcile with his father and go with Auron. The swimming scene you refer to is similar to the earlier scene when Tidus first arrives in Spira. Again, he's gone to another world and he happily seeks whatever awaits him. Having about 6000 HP should be enough. The most important thing is to get one of your character's Ultimate weapons. This will break that character's damage limit and allow him/her to rain unholy smackdown upon the final bosses.
To: Chesh, Are They Making The Bouncer 2 ? I Just Like The Game So Much ! I Was Wondering If They Will Make It Longer Or Not And Etc. Thanks :-)	Sorry, but it doesn't look like it.
At first I thought it was FF7’s honey-bee inn. Then I remembered Washu’s best scene in tenchi ever. “I’ve got magic fingers!” -Joshua Hime	As much fun as Tenchi is, I'm getting a bit tired of anime heroes who have at least three other women chasing after him. I'm supposed to feel sorry for these guys? Yeesh. Also, mad props to Josh for doing an excellent column in this week's Chronicle about his roommate. It's not a happy story either.

The Last Laugh:

Night Night.

Chris "Phenominal Cosmic Power! Itty Bitty Living Space." Martin

Robin Williams at his best

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