Swordsmith
2016-02-10, 09:10 AM
I'm a gamer from way back, I used to love D&D and Traveller, then GURPS and COC and so forth. I got into computer based games running on mainframes, before getting my own C64 and playing stuff like the Gold Box AD&D Games (Pool of Radiance!), reluctantly moving to Windows. Eventually I tried Everquest when it first came out, hated it, went back a couple weeks later to try it again since I still had a little time on my free month, and loved it. Played it for most of a decade, quit, went back again, quit, went back again. I tried other MMOs, in particular I also really enjoyed Anarchy Online and LOTRO, was not as fond of WOW. And I really enjoyed Neverwinter Nights (but not so much NWN2) I'm back now in a situation where I can dedicate some serious time to gaming, and I'm looking for something... but I can't figure out what.
I'm not looking here for tips as to which game to try next (wouldn't mind that either, but that's not the point), but rather -how- to find a game. More to the point, how -you- find a game. Is it all word of mouth?
Back in the day before EQ, I would buy games based on the look of the box it came in, I'd read the cover and the blurbs on the back, try to get a feel for the thing, but eventually I would plop down the money and try it for myself. MOST games, I didn't really like, or I'd play through them in a day or two and be done. EQ, at $40 or so for the box and $13 or so per month, with another $40 expansion a couple times a year, was much much much cheaper than $40 for a new game every few days, most of which sucked.
NWN was a great find, what I'd always wanted in the gold box series, which is to say it used real tabletop game rules (well more or less) but had vast vast quantities of modules available, all of which were in one well organized place with lots of information and reviews, and of course they were free, so if I didn't like one, no big loss. Sadly the NWN vault is gone now and it's replacement isn't really up to that level of cool. But I've also played NWN so very much that I'm not that enchanted by it any more.
I tried Skyrim, hoping for the same thing, but when it first came out there wasn't much in the way of player made content out there. Now, I guess it's there, but it's really over my head as to how to find and install it, and again lacks the organization NWN had.
I've tried reading reviews and hunting down games to try, but I'm finding each game takes hours to download, and then I don't tend to care for them. I can't find info in advance on how characters work, how the mechanics work, what gameplay looks like. Should I be searching Youtube for that? I was very disappointed in Neverwinter Online, which seemed like D&D, but which plays more like Diablo set in the Forgotten Realms, with classes, abilities, and mechanics I simply don't recognize at all, lacking the feel of D&D completely. Is there some way I could have figured that out before investing the hours of download time?
I'm not looking here for tips as to which game to try next (wouldn't mind that either, but that's not the point), but rather -how- to find a game. More to the point, how -you- find a game. Is it all word of mouth?
Back in the day before EQ, I would buy games based on the look of the box it came in, I'd read the cover and the blurbs on the back, try to get a feel for the thing, but eventually I would plop down the money and try it for myself. MOST games, I didn't really like, or I'd play through them in a day or two and be done. EQ, at $40 or so for the box and $13 or so per month, with another $40 expansion a couple times a year, was much much much cheaper than $40 for a new game every few days, most of which sucked.
NWN was a great find, what I'd always wanted in the gold box series, which is to say it used real tabletop game rules (well more or less) but had vast vast quantities of modules available, all of which were in one well organized place with lots of information and reviews, and of course they were free, so if I didn't like one, no big loss. Sadly the NWN vault is gone now and it's replacement isn't really up to that level of cool. But I've also played NWN so very much that I'm not that enchanted by it any more.
I tried Skyrim, hoping for the same thing, but when it first came out there wasn't much in the way of player made content out there. Now, I guess it's there, but it's really over my head as to how to find and install it, and again lacks the organization NWN had.
I've tried reading reviews and hunting down games to try, but I'm finding each game takes hours to download, and then I don't tend to care for them. I can't find info in advance on how characters work, how the mechanics work, what gameplay looks like. Should I be searching Youtube for that? I was very disappointed in Neverwinter Online, which seemed like D&D, but which plays more like Diablo set in the Forgotten Realms, with classes, abilities, and mechanics I simply don't recognize at all, lacking the feel of D&D completely. Is there some way I could have figured that out before investing the hours of download time?