Random Gaming Thoughts

[casterofdreams]

I can remain hopeful I suppose.

[noiseredux]

hmm, so Mega Man Legacy Collection came out w/ a whisper. I know we've talked about this already - the lack of 7 & 8 (and 9 and 10 for that matter), but... I'm probably still gonna end up getting this. Or rather, I'm still getting this at some point.

[isiolia]

I have a random gaming thought: do MMOs with a single player story really have to be rendered unplayable after servers go under?

I don't think they necessarily need to be, but there'd be quite a lot most of them would need to do in order to remain playable.

For one, the servers are handling significant portions of game management - to keep the game going, they'd likely need to recreate that in a form that works for a single machine/etc.

Second, there's the degree to which the game actually depends on other players. Not, necessarily, just in terms of content targeted towards groups, but things like the economy. It'd be likely that vendor stock would need to be expanded (at least) to cover things that other players would be crafting/selling otherwise. If there are aspects of the game that rely on PVP results or accumulated player activity, adjustments would need to be made there too.

More or less, it's not keeping games running per se, but creating/distributing a private server for players to use. Certainly not impossible, but, generally unlikely if the game is at the point of not making enough money to be worth keeping online to start with.

[casterofdreams]

Interesting stuff on the economy. I haven't played Star Wars in a few months but the very high level stuff required currency from group activities If I remember correctly. If they make those tokens as rare drops that would solve that problem. A small portion of the quests require people so those are unplayable or extremely difficult.

Never thought about private servers though. EA or Bioware would have to release tools for that I assume. I don't see that happening.

[noiseredux]

I had this idea for this thing where I play some games... Each year PC Gamer puts out an issue with their Top 100 (PC) Games of all time. Which is to say the 100 is revised each year. Games are cut, added, order is swapped around. The 2015 list is in the newest issue which has XCOM2 on the cover. While going through this year's list, I had a thought about trying to play all 100 games. I don't necessarily mean beating all 100, but playing all 100 and getting a good feel for it enough to form a solid opinion. And I'd of course be aiming to chronicle the whole experiment.

Now obviously I'd never be able to play all 100 in a year (before the 2016 list came out). So picking this 2015 list is arbitrary. I suppose it could be any Top XX list right? But I do like PC Gamer a lot, and respect their opinions and XCOM2 is on the cover of this magazine. It could sort of be my go-to list for "hmmm what do I play" when I'm between games.

Though I'm not sure how I'd attack it... the easiest thing would just be to pick whatever game I wanted to play in any order. But working from 100-1 or 1-100 would be more randomized and interesting I think. It would force me to replay some games I've already played and pick stuff that would be lower on my own list of what to play first. The problem there is chronology: meaning if I went from 100-1 then it would have me play ME3 before ME2. And going 1-100 has similar issues. I could go alphabetical I guess, though then I'd have to go thru stuff like the whole ME trilogy in a cluster.

/ramble.

[Ack]

Well, the thing is noise, if you manage to knock out a good chunk of the list one year, it is likely that many of those games will be on next year's list. Not all, but many.

So what you could do is start going from #100-#1, get as far as you can this year, and then when the next list comes out, go back and play the new games that have appeared on the list to bring you back up to your current number. So if you play games #100-#75, and then the new list comes out and has a new game for numbers #87, #83, and #76, you go back and play them in descending order and then hop over to the new list at #74 and continue playing down the list. With each new revision, you go back and do the new additions before picking up where you left off on the new list.

Once you reach the end, you can then start backfilling all the games that were bumped off the list over the years, or you can stop worrying about it and just look to the new titles.

[noiseredux]

^that's actually really good and makes me even more intrigued about the idea. Hmm.

[Gunstar Green]

I have a random gaming thought: do MMOs with a single player story really have to be rendered unplayable after servers go under?

It's a dumb thought I know but hear me out: first hand experience with a game like Star Wars The Old Republic seems like it can be done. I've logged in a hundred hours without speaking to a single soul. Just doing the single player story arc.

Newer games like The Elder Scrolls Online (I have not played but have watched footage at launch) and Elite Dangerous (has a single player instance but still online dependant due to "economy") are some other examples.

I thought the same thing particularly in regards to SWTOR. Thousands of hours of story and voice acting will simply be lost to time when it eventually goes offline. The next expansion is also focusing solely on the single player story.

Interesting stuff on the economy. I haven't played Star Wars in a few months but the very high level stuff required currency from group activities If I remember correctly. If they make those tokens as rare drops that would solve that problem. A small portion of the quests require people so those are unplayable or extremely difficult.

Never thought about private servers though. EA or Bioware would have to release tools for that I assume. I don't see that happening.

Heroic quests, flashpoints and especially operations would range from extremely difficult to impossible but at least the main class story lines which are intended to be played alone would still be intact.

The gear you're talking about is the endgame operations gear that's only needed for the operations themselves. Since operations would be impossible anyway that gear wouldn't be necessary. The gear necessary to clear the main class stories is available in the stories.

Private servers are possible and hackers have found ways to make them in the past. I think there are a few out there running Star Wars Galaxies. It's a sketchy, gray area way to have to preserve a game though.

[noiseredux]

So what you could do is start going from #100-#1,

I'm still not sure if I should do 100-1 or 1-100. Either way I'll be forced to play some stuff out of chronological order (shrug). If I start w/ 100 then I'm starting w/ more esoteric stuff, which can be fun/interesting. If I start w/ 1, then I'm starting w/ Half-Life 2 which I'm already pretty close to finishing anyway.

[MrPopo]

Start with 100. If you do that and follow Ack's plan you'll get even more experiences, whereas if you start with 1 then the top 50 are just games shuffling around, and you won't play any of the games that fall off the list.