Reasons to be cheerful
Many games claim to be the best of it’s genre, you will certainly find their descriptions littered with buzzwords like ‘unique’,'sandbox’,'cutting edge’. Of course many of a games features don’t appeal to all players and one persons holy grail is anothers poisoned chalice, Pinning down the qualities that make a game good isn’t a simple task.
I, like many, have sat and played a countless number of games over my gaming history, with a varied mixture of on/off line, single/multi player games. I like to feel my hype-amour is well worn & rusty at the edges, taking a game on it’s own merits not those pumped out by the PR machine.
I’m interested in what elements people find makes a game good, what makes it stand out from the crowd. I plan to list the elements of those games that have given me something different and the items that make you coming back for more.
I’ve highlighted games that I believe fit the bill for the game qualities I like. To make life easier I had to split out MMOs from other games due to their unique natures.
Non-MMO
- Pretty graphics is a poor substitute for good gameplay
- Too much dependence on the hottest new engine or graphical twist, games should be just as fun running on the lowest settings as well as the top settings (Assassins Creed)
- Re-playability
- Whether you dive back into a new game straight away or in 6 months time, it’s the interesting and exciting elements that draw you back in, these tend to be RTS games that I have long term addictions with. (Roller Coaster Tycoon, Dawn of War II )
- Make it tough not impossible
- Nothing is more annoying than getting deep into a game only to get stuck on a seemingly impossible area, Left4Dead is good example of this in action, the Director controller manages overall gameplay making adjustments on the fly to enhance the overall player experience.
MMO
- Not level dependant
- Games that don’t care about max level in a traditionl sense, where there is still plenty of content once you get to the maximum level. (Guild Wars)
- I also found the idea of a game were levels don’t equal more power, just increases the diversity of the avatar and game-play (Guild Wars, Planetside)
- Enjoyable without Goals
- I enjoy a game were I can play for 6 hours straight and not really achieve anything, but I can still walk away with a smile. Entertaining games that make the time fly.
- Grouping with friends of any level/skill
- As gamers become more social it’s only natural for them to want to play alongside friends both online and real-life, systems and methods that all (Planetside, City of Heroes)
Both
- Realistic achievements
- Increasing more game ship with a slew of merits that drive players to go out of their way to obtain a predetermined goals.
So what game elements appeal the most to you?
What drives you to fireup a game time and time again?
Gaming in december
Xfire-GamerDNA Data
Having more information about my gaming habits than usual I thought it maybe worth talking a peek at the figures and try and create something meaningful.
So I dug back through the posts that GamerDNA creates based on my XFire account information. Handling this information is something that GamerDNA manages very well, without it I’d have no way of tracking this data.
As you can see I’m now the proud owner of a rather swanky looking graph (that took me far too long to generate with the Google Chart API). I am hoping to automate the process for future versions, allowing me to track this over the next year.
On closer inspection of my graph you will notice that 2 games appear very briefly Medal of Honor: Airbourne and Battle for middle earth 2.
I have to admit that neither game delivered much for me to sink my teeth into. I was unable to retain interest once the main story/campaign mode was finished.
An important note to self : I must remember to turn on XFire before I start gaming. I shall try and generate a graph over the upcoming months based on the same information source.
Gaming in 2008
Sadly over the past few months there appears to be a massive problem of cheaters in my all-time favourite game Planetside. Sadly the problem hasn’t been combated as SOE first indicated it would. There are a few reason that for this, maybe it’s difficult to track those using software to cheat, or perhaps the revenue from these players is in the end money and why would they want to ban accounts of perhaps half of the remaining players.
A saddening fact but one that me and my fellow clan members feel is the most likely.
What for our clan in online games in the future.
It seems alot of people are waiting for Warhammer to either send them a Beta invite or be released. In the meantime there are loads of different games that has drawn my gaming friends attention.
These has included Dark age of Camelot/ Everquest 2 and more recently Lord of the Rings online.
Can Warhammer be the title that can take and existing game type and and existing highly detailed universe and combine them into a Multiplayer RPG game succesfully. But how can this success be judged?
Do we judge based on the number of accounts like WoW does? Surely indicating active and inactive accounts isn’t required, right?
Do we match it up with Tabula Rasa? Sadly the would be flagship for scifi/mmorpg games of the future didn’t quite live up to the hype.
I think that WAR will be judged by comparisions to existing games and that is the important point, Is the game able to provide something that can pull in hundreds of thousand of players yet still remain original and unique in the ever-changing world of Online gaming.
As for me I’ve been quite happy playing the City of games as I feel there is enough diversity for my attention not to wander too much, I also like to jump on Planetside/ World in Conflict or Guild wars if i want a change of pace.
There are a few promising titles in the pipelines sadly none of them aimed at replacing planetside, but they look good all the same.
