What games are you playing now?

In addition to a couple of great singleplayer games, I'm playing a MUD!
Yes! A MUD! One called "ZombieMUD" and it has been great fun so far,
surprisingly so. It's basically a medieval fantasy hack n slash mud with some nice features thrown in there. The people there have been really nice and I haven't even seen any of those butt-munches that normally infest internet rpg's. Oh.. and there seems to be at least a hundred persons online at all times, and as bots and multiple-accounts are forbidden, I believe all of those are actual people. That's a lot for a mud nowadays.

And playing a mud is so geeky that it makes you feel good no matter what

I played zombiemud somwhere around 1996 to 1998. Its a finnish mud that was quite popular at 90s along with batmud. My char might still be there. Its called "Zakhall". Cant remember the pass though. I infact created this nick for that game and have been using it ever since.

All that time in zombiemud (and som in batmud) is propably the reason why I never got much into wow or other everquest clones (3 weeks of wow was enuff).
 
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I have played what they call rp-enforced or rp-intensive muds, I especially liked the one called new worlds.. or something like that. Currently I just want a simple fantasy hack n slash mud in which to beat the crap out of an orc or two every once in a while and do some cool exploring in a huge world. Maybe I'll be able to get a ship or a castle too someday :D

I'm playing a druid and I just made toast from a couple of evil frogs with this low level fire spell! :D Great, free, simple, multiplayer fun. And you can't whine about lousy graphics since there aren't any. If you can read a book, you can play a mud.

RP-enforced muds are a completely different thing. They are great too, I might actually go play one again some day. It would be cool to have a couple of forum members from here in a mud and go on a hunting trip together or something, whether in a rp or non-rp mud.
 
I played shortly som rp intensive social mmo too. I had to apply into it and was assigned to be a husband to som wife (som irl player) We had like a farm and stuff and my wife was moving somthing with oxwagons. You got points for roleplaying. There was no fighting that I can remember. Cant remember the name though. A somthing.

I was a builder in one kirjasto mud but I didnt really know much (reading the help files didnt really help at all) so I quit that job.

EDIT: To the contrary muds DO have graphics. Its just ascii-map (you can press button to show map) but it gets into your mind so that you form very clear pictures of areas. In the past I have had these flashbacks i.e of nice green forests/fields but cant relate it to any game until I realise its actually a hunting ground from zombiemud.
 
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The one I played had all the standard fantasy hack n slash stuff with elves and clerics and warriors and thieves, and you had to kill stuff to level.. but you were forced to stay in character at all times except on the OOC channels.. now that i think about it - it was really cool and worked well. I don't really want to get too deep into the social stuff... like marriages or shit like that. It's just easier to enjoy the combat and exploration etc when people stay in character.

edit: it was this one http://www.newworlds-rpg.com/overview.html

people were nice and helpfull, so i would recommend this to anyone interested in rp intensive muds.

But I think i'll be playing zombiemud for a while now, it is fun.
 
I love MUD's they are the pinnacle of real roleplaying, and the only game were you can truly roleplay well!

Agreed. If you want real roleplaying using a computer... rp-intensive MUDs are the only way to go (to my knowledge) - where you can REALLY roleplay. I know they've got RP servers on some of the graphical MMO's but... you know.. come on...
 
I'm moving very slowly through Tomb Raider: Underworld since I am playing it with the help of a guide that isn't finished yet. That's ok by me since I am in no hurry.

Besides TR:U I have decided to give my next few days to Far Cry 2.
 
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Working on Far Cry 2 and I just reached map 2.
I had rescued all six available buddies, completed every buddy missions except 2 (due to a bug), collected every diamond, unlocked every safe house, scouted every guard station, finished every assassin, arms dealer and underground mission... then came "map 2", which pretty much means doing all that all over again. That made me wonder if I should continue with the game. Im not so sure if I want to repeat all of that x2. I have no need for money anymore, I have every upgrade worth buying already and I have felt little progression since I unlocked my silent MP5.

Gamewise, FC2 does most things absolutely great. The engine is really superb and the gameplay is top notch. The game just feels empty due to the lack of interesting story and characters. The missions all feel the same. The game want you to either kill a character who usually look the same as everyone else, or collect an item, that also look the same. The story simply lack emotion or philosophy.
 
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Gamewise, FC2 does most things absolutely great. The engine is really superb and the gameplay is top notch. The game just feels empty due to the lack of interesting story and characters. The missions all feel the same. The game want you to either kill a character who usually look the same as everyone else, or collect an item, that also look the same. The story simply lack emotion or philosophy.

is it that monotonous and one-paced? i had been thinking of getting it after i'm done with Fallout 3, much like a bargain copy post x-mas.
 
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is it that monotonous and one-paced? i had been thinking of getting it after i'm done with Fallout 3, much like a bargain copy post x-mas.

The main story, introduced by the beginning sequence, is that you are chasing a weapons dealer known as the Jackal. To give you some perspective on the "amount of storytelling"; I have made only two encounters that progress this story after playing the game for 16 hours. You can discover "Jackal Tapes" with an interview that give you more depth on him, but they are optional and doesn't really provide any story progression. Since there are nothing else, the Jackal case doesn't feel important or mysterious.

Then there are your companions to whom you can do missions. Each one gives you two missions (24 in total) and I guess that some of them at least gives you a deeper reason why you do them ("for justice"), but having done the first 10 I didn't felt them to be unique or inspiring and they do not have any effect upon the game.

The bonus missions, assassination, helping weapon dealers, doing underground missions, are the same over and over again, have you done one you know how the next one will be.

The real progression is made by doing faction missions that will bring the story ahead. Those missions have some diversity but I wouldn't say that there's anything new, spectacular or epic about them. Most of the time you run to a waypoint, kill some stuff, then return back home to maybe receive a thanks.

What Far Cry 2 offers is a large area with lots of things to do in an advanced toybox engine. In the end however, it's the lack of quality and depth of it's story content that brings it down for me. That may be personal. Im just the kind of player who finds the story and the storytelling to be one of the most important aspects in a game.

Then there's also the problem with "wasting time on nothing". There are four busstations per map, so it's possible to cut down travel time a bit, and there are vehicles, but all the vehicles in the game and only four busstations cannot reduce the problem with being forced to go very long distances that simply suck up time without entertainment. Then there's the problem with the dreaded "respawning guardposts" which you might read about in most reviews. You cannot get far without ending up in a carchase and when that happens you have to get out of the car, risking an insta-death (being run over by a car), kill your opponents, repair a car and take it to continue your travel. Doing that over and over again like 2-3 times whenever you want to go somewhere gets old rather quickly.
 
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is it that monotonous and one-paced? i had been thinking of getting it after i'm done with Fallout 3, much like a bargain copy post x-mas.

There's no need to sugar-coat anything here, FarCry 2 is very mediocre. If you can get it for a bargain then by all means do it, but don't even think of paying full price for it.

Unless you enjoy doing the same fed-ex quests over and over again, in a sandbox world that is almost completely lifeless, and terribly unrealistic. Not to mention AI that is almost laughably bad.
 
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i was not a big fan of the original Far Cry but when i heard how Ubisoft had done a sequel which is sand-box style of free-roaming play, i had been thinking of Assassin's Creed which i enjoyed immensely.

speaking of fed-ex quests, isn't it time developers realize that they are terribly annoying. now i'm having second thoughts and i wonder where is the review that sang praise of Far Cry 2.. ;)
 
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i was not a big fan of the original Far Cry but when i heard how Ubisoft had done a sequel which is sand-box style of free-roaming play, i had been thinking of Assassin's Creed which i enjoyed immensely.


It's funny that you mention Assassin's Creed, because that's what I happen to be playing right now. Trust me, there's no comparing those two games. You will be sorely disappointed if you're expecting FC2 to be anywhere near as good as AC.

I'm loving Assassin's Creed btw, this game never got the attention it deserved imho. Read my 2 posts about it on the previous page.
 
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initially Assassin's Creed got some bad rap for being a console port and that it needed 3gb of ram due to un-optimisation for PC and so on but the game itself was well-behaved with very smooth graphics. moving through rooftops in such a manner had to leave some kind of impression.

JDR13 said:
It's hard to believe this came from the same studio that coughed up Far Cry 2.
maybe now you'll understand why i had thought of AC when looking into getting Far Cry 2. :)
 
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I finally stopped trying to force myself to work on a serious game and reloaded PuzzleQuest. It's just as fun the second time around. I'm approaching the half-way point, IIRC.
 
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The statistics in Far Cry 2 claims that I have played for 28 hours.

I have tracked down every diamond in the game, scouted every guardpost, found and returned every tape, secured every safe house, finished every assassin mission and every weapon dealer mission.

I have finished 34/40 side missions and I believe the last six are given by buddies but I need to find more of those to get to play them.

This means that the only thing left for me to do now is to continue on the main quest in which I have 6 missions to do until Act III which is the "endgame". I believe that also forces me to finish another 3 underground missions.
 
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I am delaying installing Sacred 2 for a couple of days to finish up some other stuff ... got Hexplore, which I am just starting but is having crashing issues.

My biggest time-sink ... Arcanum. Absolutly loving it ... again.
 
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initially Assassin's Creed got some bad rap for being a console port and that it needed 3gb of ram due to un-optimisation for PC and so on but the game itself was well-behaved with very smooth graphics. moving through rooftops in such a manner had to leave some kind of impression.

I only have 2GB in my rig and AC runs perfectly with everything maxed.


My biggest time-sink ... Arcanum. Absolutly loving it ... again.

I still have my original big box release of that game.

One of these days I'll get around to playing it.....
 
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I still have my original big box release of that game.

One of these days I'll get around to playing it.....

The amazing thing is that I have been playing it while going back through Fallout 3 for my review as I am replaying Arcanum ... which isn't fair I suppose since it makes Fallout 3 look like it was written by kindergarten kids ...
 
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I only have 2GB in my rig and AC runs perfectly with everything maxed.

so do i as you can see the system specs from my sig but i was just mentioning that due to that inaccurate news that it needs 3GB of RAM, many were reluctant to try the game.
 
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