Do games just suck now...

[Rock-n-Roll]

or am I just getting old?

There's nothing out there anymore that really holds my interest. Many things always seem to have promise, but ultimately let me down.

Was Freespace really that good, or do I just long for the lost days of old as old folks often do.

WoW held me in its thrall for a long, long time, but ultimately, that was more addiction to the guild than it was to the game. Bought cataclysm, played it for a week and realized that I'm done with WoW.

SC2 is fun, but none of my friends are ever on, so I have not played that in a month or so. The Mechwarrior franchise is in legal limbo. What's a casual, can't commit to any partiular time gamer (former gamer now?) supposed to do?

[Kon]

Freespace was just that good.

I'm in the same boat as you, really. The only games that really ignite and maintain my interest these days are those in the Total War series. Though if you're not a strategy fan, I guess that suggestion won't help you much either.

I am anxiously awaiting Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The developers keep saying that they have listened to the numerous criticisms of Oblivion, and I hope that they deliver a quality product. We shall see. I'm also looking forward to Battlefield 3, since I think BF2 is still the best large-team FPS game, behind Tribes 2. I know many people here are also looking forward to the new Deus Ex.

As far as MMOs go, I can't say I'm really too keen on TOR. I remain interested in Black Propechy, the MMO space sim from Reakktor, but MMORPGs in general are just of no interest to me any more. It's all mostly the same grinding, raiding, and poor PvP, with a severe lack of any real RPG depth. Last week I started dabbling in an old MUD I used to play way back in the day, and to be honest, I'm having much more fun there than I ever did in WoW.

[Inquisitor]

I moved over to consoles, almost exclusively.

It's age.

[Kon]

Riddle me this, Ed.

How can it have anything to do with age when you were already older than dirt the day I first dialed on to the internet?

[Stracius]

Nah, it's memory problems. Things become better the less accurately one remembers them: childhood, television, college, politicians, ex-girlfriend/boyfriends, books, etc. That is unless one hated them to begin with, in which case the opposite tends to hold true (i.e. skunks and brussel sprouts).

So I guess we can chalk this one up to senility?



Age always changes; priorities don't. I'd say the latter is the variable here, or I'd likely be having kids and striving to be some sort of upstanding member of society by now.




And in case anyone with sproglets thought that might have been intended as some sort of insult - it wasn't. My hat's off to you for likely possessing more patience than I.

[BlueFlames]

Maybe my nostalgia goggles are on pretty tight as well, but the late 1990's and early 2000's struck me as being a bit of a golden age for gaming. There was just enough money and technology available to make some really top-notch games, without publishers feeling like a triple-A title was too much of a financial risk to try something new. Now, the number of sequels and knock-offs seems to be much higher (not that Tomb Raider sequels and WWII FPS's hadn't already gotten pretty stale at the time), on account of studios not being able to afford even a single flop.

That said, it'd be a mistake to assume that gaming's best days are behind us. Independent developers have been turning out a broad spectrum of products through digital distribution channels in recent years. Searching the Steam store's sub-ten-dollar listings is akin to browsing a list of recent releases from the 1990's, not because the offerings are that old (though there are a few classics from the era in there), but because the variety of games that's been largely lost among high-budget productions still remains among still remains among the independent developers. There's games out there to be excited about; they're just found by different avenues than we might be accustomed to.

For the sake of plugging them, here's where most of my hours have been lost in recent months:

111 Greed Corps. - A turn-based strategy game built around the notion of your resource-gathering eating entire chunks of the map. It looks like a simple game at first, at least compared to the likes of Civilization, but there's a lot of nuance to finding ways to back your opponent into a corner, without getting yourself stuck on a two-tile island ready to collapse into the mist.

111 Flotilla - A space combat game, built around maneuvering capital ships, rather than piloting fighters. In a wierd way, battles will call up memories of FreeSpace, as it's your chance to demonstrate that you're not as boneheaded as GTVA Command.

111 Minecraft - Dig, dig, dig. Build, build, build. Dig more! Build more! On the surface, that might sound like a viscious cycle, but unlike the Skinner Box crap you get from Diablo-clones and MMOs, when you finish a project in Minecraft, you're left with a towering monument to symbolize your accomplishment and ten ideas about how to add to or improve it, rather than a skill point and a higher experience threshold to break.

I'd also recommend keeping a watchful eye on the Eastern Bloc. Seriously, game developers in the former Soviet republics have been turning out some amazingly ambitious titles. They might not get a whole lot of attention, but the games are always different from the standard fare and usually pretty enjoyable (after a patch or two, anyway). The STALKER series has been one of the more memorable sets of shooters in recent history; Majesty provides an enjoyable twist on the usual realtime strategy formula, and IL-2 Sturmovik is the definitive WWII flight sim at the moment.

As to mainstream titles, there's not a whole lot that I'm anticipating. I do squeal like a schoolgirl, whenever there's good news to be heard about the Mechwarrior reboot. I plan on getting Civilization V in another year or two. (I'm aiming to get a compilation pack, instead of allowing myself to be nickle-and-dimed buying each civilization as a separate DLC pack.) Deus Ex looks pretty good in the trailers, but every time I see the Square-Enix logo, I vomit just a little bit. First-person shooters (well, most shooters, if we're honest) have gotten into this nasty habit of being less than ten hours long, so I typically don't bother even looking at them, since that little content doesn't justify the price tag. (Seriously, five hours for Homefront? Eight hours each for the Modern Warfare titles? Eight hours for each of the last couple of Halo releases? Screw that.)

Mainstream publishers and developers seem pretty obsessed with making safe bets right now. Unfortunately, that means the big companies aren't putting out very interesting titles with any degree of frequency, but with smaller developers more readily able to distribute their work, it's actually getting easier to find interesting and ambitious titles. I'll always fondly remember gaming in the late 1990's, but I'd say better days still lie ahead.

[Isileth]

Last week I started dabbling in an old MUD I used to play way back in the day, and to be honest, I'm having much more fun there than I ever did in WoW.

Which MUD is that? I keep popping back into some I used to play as well as trying new ones now and then, cant find any im really happy in but still shows just how much appeal they can have. Problem I'm finding is most of them now seem to degrade into the exact same grind as you find in most MMOs. This is the area for lvls 40-50 stay here killing the exact same mob 250 times to level then move onto the area for lvls 50-55.

Only one ive sunk a massive ammount of time into is my very first MUD, must have played it for 3 years straight and another years worth on and off since then. Level less, non fantasy world, brilliant combat system however a playerbase now that cant be more than 10, even at its peak it was maybe 200 at its best.

[Kon]

Achaea, from Iron Realms Entertainment. I believe it is one of the biggest MUDs around, and has been for a while. Population is around 150-200 at any given time. There is leveling involved, but there are a number of areas which are appropriate for each level bracket. Additionally, there is a lot of things you can do for your city or House (sort of RP-based guild) that are not too contingent on being upper level. This very may well be one of the MUDs you have tried, but if not, I would recommend it.

What was the name of the one you played again? I remember you mentioning it to me at one point way back when.

[Isileth]

Yeah ive played Achaea and it wasnt really my thing I as far as I recall.
The one I played is Blood Dusk. Sadly the low or non existent playerbase now makes huge areas of the game out of bounds. But it really does have some great things ive yet to find in any other MUD. The combat is done in rounds rather than the standard all out chaos and no char levels just a class tier system. Those 2 are the main things ive been looking for but never found, however it also has a great setting and the general stats/eq system etc is all very good.

[Futile Resistance]

I think it's cause we're all older gamers and we were there at the beginning experiencing the "new" ideas which later became industry norms. Not many games introduce new exciting gameplay mechanics nowadays.

[Ozone]

Things become better the less accurately one remembers them: childhood, television, college, politicians, ex-girlfriend/boyfriends, books, etc.

I argue that logic on the fact that I have an ex-wife, time with whom I find hard to recall, yet, if she were drowning tomorrow in slow working acid I would beg her to keep alive long enough that I might have time to find a lounge chair and bag of popcorn.

I think it's cause we're all older gamers and we were there at the beginning experiencing the "new" ideas which later became industry norms. Not many games introduce new exciting gameplay mechanics nowadays.

I gotta go with that. First game I was introduced to was a Telstar Pong console, bout the size of a cinderblock (breezeblock). Was amazed and astounded through the years at progression of titles from Shamus to Mechwarrior, to Deus Ex, etc...
Now it's almost become cookie cutter - combine some type of leveling, some type of unlock, maybe some type of co-op, then drop in a re-rendered CoD environment and interface for RPG, or WoW environment and interface for MMORPG.
Grab an idea, bleed it dry for as much cash as possible, add on content to make it appear to be progressive, and avoid any true experimentation or creativity as it may interfere with profit (see Hollywood, medical research, etc).

[BlackDove]

Development structures are different today, thus the games are different.

The idea shifted from simply trying to make new games, evolve the features (prototype technology) or do something original, to simply trying to milk as much money as possible out of one product and casting as wide a net as possible over the largest demographic you can market to (white bald space marine).

There are still good games being made. They are however, very few in number.

You can apply much of this industry deconstruction to VIDEOOOOOO GAEEEEEEEEMS as well.

Starts at about 3:40

The actual section dealing with it starts at 5:46

[Futile Resistance]

Have to agree with BD's example using RLM. Cast as wide a net as possible and rake in as much as possible.

AAA titles just don't come cheap anymore. No publisher is going to make a multi-million dollar investment on a chance idea unless the game includes elements that're already popular. You'll still get maybe one or two unique gameplay elements or ideas here and there, but overall it will feel rehashed with prettier graphics.

[SoulSeeker]

Its all been downhill since Robotron 2084 (1.5mill pts high score) tho NC and Wow was good .....