Oxymoronic Game Moments-Had Any?

[magerette]

Life-and gaming-is full of little ironies and inconsistencies that can be either frustrating or amusing depending on your POV. Right now I am having a little problem with a well known game convention--the health potion. I can only regard the following situation(a composite of several games) as oxymoronic:

Playing along last night, I was killing Undead(oxymoron#1) while cleaning out the sewers(oxymoron#2) when (o.m.#3)a "slain' skeleton dropped a health potion.

My immersion level immediately dropped to -5. :p

I can understand an animated skeleton with a strong lust for living blood perhaps having in his possession a rusty sword, some tattered rags, a tarnished gold piece or two, or a bit of formaldehyde-drenched flesh clinging here and there, but what was he planning on doing with a health potion? I mean, isn't it a little late for that? And if he did drink it, wouldn't it simply pour out through his ribs a la Pirates of the Caribbean?

Also, when did it become impossible to finish a combat without one or more of your characters guzzling red potions like a wino sucking up Mad Dog 20/20? With that amount of liquid sloshing around in your insides, I doubt you could even breathe, let alone fight.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Anybody else have any sterling moments of game silliness?

[VPeric]

Maybe the skeleton got it from a previous adventurer he killed and wanted to keep it as trophy? Maybe the skeleton HAS a wierd sense of irony, hm? ;)

[txa1265]

That was one of my favorite things about the new Bard's Tale - the early part when the irony of having a broadsword left behind when killing a wolf or something ... hilarious stuff!

[dteowner]

Loot drops have often been silly. I think it was Wizards and Warriors where I killed a rat and received leather armor.

[Fez]

It's very fashionable in rat circles these days. They wouldn't be caught dead in anything else.

[Corwin]

Yep, gold, weapons and armour from animals is ridiculous!!

[magerette]

Maybe the skeleton got it from a previous adventurer he killed and wanted to keep it as trophy? Maybe the skeleton HAS a wierd sense of irony, hm? ;)

That's an excellent explanation. I feel much better about it all now. ;)

@dte-re: Wizards & Warriors-
well, I guess if you can accept a race of intellectual elephants, a mere armoured rat is nothing to balk at. :)

[Jaz]

Don't get me started about the Diablo flies. They left human-sized plate mail behind. :biggrin: Had it been fly-sized stuff, well okay, but...

[Corwin]

I always thought the way the original U5 did it was best. After you killed something, it might have been guarding a chest which contained the loot. You had to open the chest (often with traps) to get anything after defeating the monster!!

[Sorcha Ravenlock]

I killed a wolf once and got a fork.... that was odd :D
Also, loot I wouldn't want to find:
http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip025.html

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Also, when did it become impossible to finish a combat without one or more of your characters guzzling red potions like a wino sucking up Mad Dog 20/20? With that amount of liquid sloshing around in your insides, I doubt you could even breathe, let alone fight.

Olnigg recently wrote about an MMORPG (I think it was about Archlord (http://www.olnigg.de/jahr2006/olg132.htm) ), where he wrote that battle mainly consists of kind of a "drinking contest" with the question "who is able to swallow more health potions, me or the enemy ?"
We call drinking contests in German language "Wett-Trinken", which captures the image Olnigg created a bit better. ;)

[txa1265]

Also, loot I wouldn't want to find:
http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip025.html

Definitely - that kind of guilt you don't need, there are enough people who want to tell you that playing games is a waste of time / life ...

[magerette]

Don't get me started about the Diablo flies. They left human-sized plate mail behind. :biggrin: Had it been fly-sized stuff, well okay, but...

Yes, you can't start questioning things like that in Diablo or it will make you give up. My big issue there is how can all those monsters have such a death wish? At your feet lies a pile of their slain compatriots the size of North Dakota, yet they keep coming in a suicidal jihad. And where the heck is everybody else on the planet--oh, forgot--turned to zombies which must be killed so they can drop a few health potions.

@Alrik--well I guess drinking does increase some people's belligerance level. And it helps you not notice that wolves are dropping forks and broadswords, as well.;0

@Sorcha-hilarious link. At first i thought the young man's child had written the note--Daddy come home from the computer room! That would really guilt you out!

[Jaz]

Also, loot I wouldn't want to find:
http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip025.htmlBack then I half-expected the lightning guards in RotT to drop wallets with pictures of their family. I mean, come on, if seriously wounded, these guys fell to their knees and begged for their lives...
http://www.schuhmacher-net.de/~nicole/beg1.gif

[titus]

Another thing done wright in the gothic series. The only thing you will get from an animal are animal suff: meat claws etc.
Maybe the skeleton or zombie still had the life potion from when he was alive

[xSamhainx]

Don't get me started about the Diablo flies. They left human-sized plate mail behind. :biggrin: Had it been fly-sized stuff, well okay, but...

omg hilarious comments

true tho, so true!

The only logic I can come up with, is that purrhaps it was leftovers in their digestive tract from the last adventurers they ate. Ever try and pass a spiked plate helmet?

[dteowner]

That would help answer magerette's aggressiveness issue. Between the dislocated jaws and the severe constipation, they're bound to be a little cranky.

[Corwin]

Good point Dte, good point!! In our NWN campaigns, we use CM for a similar purpose!! :biggrin:

[Korplem]

It usually bothers me when I'm saving the world from the darkest of evils and people still treat me like a regular customer. Those jerks should be offering to fix my armor for free! Also, why is it that most games have a fairly low amount of people in cities yet, there can be countless monsters?

[xSamhainx]

Yeah, Ive always had a problem with people's treatment of me in games. I mean, all the way from the top, you know. Hook me up with some coin there, King Midas.

In RPGs, youre given charge of this huge undertaking to save the world. Not only do you get no breaks from the people offering services, etc, you dont even get set up by the totally rich king, lord, or whomever it is sending you on the quest!

Here I am, sent out by some bigshot as the last hope. Youd think he'd purrhaps hook me up with a decent set of armor and a sword or something, right? No, here I am, spending my time rummaging thru back alley barrels for a few coins and whatever junk I can sell so I can maybe get a few scraps of armor and a rusty dagger! There's gratitude for ya!

[Corwin]

Yes, and after you succeed, if you're really lucky, you might be rewarded with a nice sword that's about half as good as the one you needed to defeat the final boss!! :)

[txa1265]

Y'know, I don't want to bring up Oblivion here, but while playing the Knights of the Nine modules, I found it hard to bother looting anybody because it is all crap that they were carrying.

So for me the irony (ok, not an oxymoron) is that while I am *always* a completist and loot everyone and everything in RPG's, I found myself having to repeatedly double back because of missing a key or component that I should have looted ...

[magerette]

Yes, well--all you need is a rusty dagger to kill rats and bugs, which is the integral first step in saving civilization from the Great Unknown Evil. Not being franked by The Man is probably a touch of realism--or a foreshadowing of the corporate consciousness: "We've had to phase out our Champion of the Realm position and combine the Service Tech II and Maintenance Lead positions; your contract states 10 gp per rat, plus an initial sign on bonus of 120 shares of stock, payable upon saving the world."

[Horst Wessel]

I always thought that a token machine in BGII was an idiotic idea

[Dez]

It usually bothers me when I'm saving the world from the darkest of evils and people still treat me like a regular customer. Those jerks should be offering to fix my armor for free! Also, why is it that most games have a fairly low amount of people in cities yet, there can be countless monsters?

Thats something which i never understood.

A very typical rpg discussion with a merchant whom you saved from a certain death...

"wow man thanks a million for saving our village from those evil monsters! We all are in a great debt to you"

"So would you like to see some of my trades?"

I can't remeber that i got even once a full suit of armor for free. And if I happen to be out of money nobody gives a damn. I still have to pay for those potions, weapons, food and armor like everybody else!

For once show us some respect :) 100 gold coins for a heroic deed isn't enough. Like when i slew the dragons in g2. Nobody in khorinis gave a damn.

[Corwin]

The reason there's so few people and so many monsters:- the monsters ate the people!! :)

[Alrik Fassbauer]

As I was playing through Dungeon Siege (just had to try it out :D ), I was thinking :

One law hat is as solid as sstone, iron and eternity altogether is this :

Evil sorcerers, withches, mages and similar evil creatures just need gold to summon or call their minions (or even to create them).

This is the only logical reason I can think of why monsters, creatures & critters of all evil type, no matter what shape, height or smallness, are dropping gold,. when defeated.

So - an evil sorcerer does have his own economy : His minions want to be payed too : With gold. Nothing else.

And Gold is seemingly even used when *creating* minions ! (Demons, Elementars etc. . )

*sings* "Gold makes the evil world go round ..."

[Dez]

Not even an evil creature from hell does free labour :)

[magerette]

They're undoubtedly union--lawful evil would be I think;)

[Lucky Day]

gah

you never read the Secret of Nimh? Where do you think the phrase "ohhhh..Shinies" came from? Small rodents and animals are very much attracted to shiny things like gold and +2 crossbows. Its why they are called pack rats. If they are giant packrats they're attracted to even bigger shinies, like knights in full armor.

--

What was Raven ranting about in Ultima 9? She freaked out that her father was dead or confesses her love for Avatar ( an "avatar" that can't seem to wait till marriage :P ) then belts out, "Where do you wanna go now?"

[Dr. A]

In Oblivion, caves have doors. I guess, the wildlife have Radiant AI too.

Making of Oblivion, Part XIXX. How fauna inhabit caves...
http://arvada.org/photos/1158079327OttoDoorknob.jpg

[themadhatter]

Oxymoron = Class-specific items and traits.
I cannot recall how many games I've played where I decide to play as a "Warrior" only to chance across a bow. Naturally, this long-distance armament would come in handy, right? Of course not, because my Warrior, for all his finess with blades, is incapable of wielding a bow.
I can understand something like that occurring with magic (hey, if you lack the training for thaumaturgy, don't count on practicing any), but we're talking about a bow here; you nock an arrow, grab the tip, pull back, and let go. He can pull off a blitz-of-the-infernal-demon-fury-slash attack, but he can't use anything unless it is long and pointed.
This, of course, applies to all class-specific traits and items. Why can't my character sneak? Or wear a robe?

[Alrik Fassbauer]

That's why some programmers *strictly* stick to class systems - whereas others don't have classes at all ( I always wonder when I read at the Larian boards questions like "which class is the best", although they did a classless system).

This is, in fact, a matter of definition of the term "class".

[Corwin]

Yeah, I can do wonders with my sword, but dagger, hammer, axe, I can't even hit the side of a barn door!! :)

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Just written by me on the "mostmemorable dungeon list" :

But the "sewer syndrome" leads me to a weird thing ...

The only logically looking swer I know of appeared in Return to Krondor (sadly I never played the first game). It really looked as if someone had used actual logic in building it.

The worst example was to be found in Summoner : There are openings of *huge* tubes in the ceilings of various rooms within the sewers of the town, so huge that they must've been at least 2 metres in diameter.

So, the scary thing about these openings (and the accompanied holes beneath them) is the amount of water floweing through them. I mean, there is a really *huge* waterfall with thousands of litres of water falling down meanwhile the town itself is so small that it simply CANNOT produce these masses of water !

The only explanation would be the water surrounding the palace, and the river. But this just looked absurd.

So, what I mean to say is, that most sewers are looking as if they are built for incoming adventurers, NOT for letting dirty water out of the city !