Off Topic Discussion Megathread

[Nishira]

That sucks StormChurro, I can imagine it’s quite disrupting if it’s messing up your sleep. And it’s generally not great fun to be held ‘hostage’ by feelings like that. If there are any reasons in the real world why they’d act up, maybe observe that and understand why a part of you strongly wants to feel a sense of control. Usually a feeling of understanding, and then compassion for yourself, will help a bit already If there are no stressful outside sources like that, perhaps life is too predictable atm and it needs some shaking up? Experiencing new and unpredictable things can loosen the bonds of control a bit. I’d definitely talk to someone about it, it’s good that you’re noticing it and it would probably be a relief already just to not have to struggle with it alone.

[Nishira]

It’s more that it could be uncomfortable to ask about real life private details on a public forum and expect answers Choco And I do care, I’m afraid that already undermines your depiction of women haha. But you made me laugh (not recommended while drinking coffee) so thank you for that!

[SturmChurro]

*mumbles* Something something new world... something something jeff bezos... /lh

So many people are going to leave New World, so many people are ALREADY one foot out the door. It's... poorly executed and poorly planned. On top of this, MMORPGs are a saturated market (...) It's nearly impossible for indie MMOs to make a dent in the market, and the AAA companies that try quickly realize they have NO IDEA what they're doing and their MMOs go under extremely quickly.

Sad, really. I'd love an MMO with the amazing graphics of kMMOs, the story-driven nature of JRPGs, and the ability to understand their audiences wants...

Maybe I really just want a graphical overhaul of FFXIV :P

I never even tried that game, and have only seen some clips on YouTube on it. I'd rather just play ESO or something if I was gonna play an mmorpg like that, frankly. Either way, yeah I think it'll take a real hit game to actually revitalize* the mmorpg market, I'll give some others a good try, if they come out at a good time (maybe), but even then I highly doubt it would be an indie game. Those are always way too niche, and don't even look fun, like I'm sorry, but the gameplay just looks bad in most of the indies I've seen. I'd rather just stick with what I know. The hardcore ones sound cool on paper, but only a couple people actually play those in reality.

Yeah, I'd like a graphical overhaul for FFXIV too, it definitely needs one. I've always thought this game looked pretty decent, but it needs some improvements to textures, customization variety, etc. to stay up to date, for sure. Especially with this soon to take (or already) the number one slot for played mmorpgs.

*Continues being one of the drum beaters that's kept FFXI going for 20 years*

I'm always sort of surprised when new MMOs without anything longstanding to back up a guaranteed starter playerbase hit the market. I hear about them, and they don't catch my interest at all.

I'll check them out, maybe watch a video if it hits my YouTube recommended, but otherwise, yeah. Just nothing really that cool, the majority of the time.

You can look at it from a different angle. At least you care about the game and want to be playing.

I'm at a point where the story does nothing to me in most of fiction. Once you notice all the writing tendencies and all the animation repetition, play a lot of games.. you start to deconstuct and be more critical. But to me the biggest blow to "fantasy being important" was also, well, the reality and lewd fictional content. (..)

It depends on the game, good writers can make very believable worlds. Sometimes you just have to be less critical, or overlook things, to not hamper the experience though. I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Fanfiction? It's not canonical, it therefore doesn't have any bearing on the canon of a game. Not that I have ever read much of it in the first place. I don't really care for it, especially any of that type.

That sucks StormChurro, I can imagine it’s quite disrupting if it’s messing up your sleep. And it’s generally not great fun to be held ‘hostage’ by feelings like that. If there are any reasons in the real world why they’d act up, maybe observe that and understand why a part of you strongly wants to feel a sense of control. Usually a feeling of understanding, and then compassion for yourself, will help a bit already If there are no stressful outside sources like that, perhaps life is too predictable atm and it needs some shaking up? Experiencing new and unpredictable things can loosen the bonds of control a bit. I’d definitely talk to someone about it, it’s good that you’re noticing it and it would probably be a relief already just to not have to struggle with it alone.

I'm pretty used to it. I'd say a lot of my tendencies can be pretty positive, I just need to take my mind off it. Just try and ignore it, and avoid instances that set off a negative compulsion. Probably not what a doctor would say, but it's worked so far!

The gaming stuff is just because it's a gaming forum, on FFXIV. I can handle that quick, by just quitting out of any particular game and uninstalling it if it actually got bad. They aren't actually big deals, I might delete a save, but I am choosing to waste my own time, or rather spend it doing these things over something else. I find satisfaction in it, when it's done right. It's why I enjoy making glamours in FFXIV, or playing RPG games.

[Thaciscokidd]

They'll have to develop it sooner rather than later, because the MMO market revolves around time investment. The longer and more people that flock to XIV are potential losses for a new MMO before it even breaks ground.

Right but they don't need to rush or they'll end up with a FFXIV 1.0.

[Reinha]

I want to know what the next Moogle event rewards are so I can start farming the other wolf mounts. One more week of waiting...

[Theodric]

I want to know what the next Moogle event rewards are so I can start farming the other wolf mounts. One more week of waiting...

If the pattern follows, we should be getting Byakko's wolf mount next. Though the development team might shake things up.

I'm slowly working on the Triple Triad mount, so I hope some of the cards I don't have are on offer.

[Lauront]

Well, I don't mean 'right' or 'wrong' in sense of morality necessarily, but literally out of order. For example, when I hit whiterun in Skyrim, I always have to talk to certain NPCs out of routine. If I don't.. it makes no sense. My character always has to go there in this order, and everything has to be organized this way. I cannot play alternate start mods, because it makes no sense in the majority of dialogues; the game wasn't made for it. So I spend 6 hours every single character doing the same thing, because it's the the right way to do it.

My characters in any game will not wear or use items that do not match - whether they are BiS or not. Luckily games like FFXIV allow me to glamour over it. I should say, morality choices can be an issue. If I cannot resolve a situation the way I think this particular character would do it: that's a deleted character. In other RPGs if I don't do things in the right, meticulous order, I might not be able to resolve a situation the way I think that character would do it. If I want to play a game like the Witcher 3, I have to play The Witcher 1, and 2 first, so I can have continuity. Any RPG with direct sequels. In pillars of eternity 2, I had a character I spent over 100 hours that I transferred to it from 1. It made one choice I didn't like after further thought. So I deleted it, and restarted anew in 1, and have been working on that character for a couple years now, and I cannot play the second again until I finish it in the first.

In FFXIV, it doesn't hit as hard because it's actual canon or whatever that they have this weird time thing, so I can go back and complete old content out of order. Choices are effectively non-existent (let's be real), I can glamour most things acceptably, etc. I have put so much time in this game, that I can ignore a lot of what would stress me out in other games. That isn't to say I don't get annoyed by some things. Like on my character profile, I have BLU leveled to like 16 or something. It's an ugly number, it's bad. Same with some of the crafters. I either need to finish it, or not do it at all. That's part of the reason I haven't touched others (they are also boring to me). That, and my inventory organization is really bad, I've been ignoring that for a very long time, and that needs to be cleaned up badly. I don't want to touch crafter/gatherers because it will only make that worse, and I'll have to actually deal with it to play them. I do get annoyed by the lack of organization, but as long as I can ignore it, I don't have to stress about it as much. Once I start actively having to look at it, like finding crafting mats, that's when I have to stress about it.

I have the same compulsion to sometimes replay games from earlier saves if I don't like the outcome and to look up how to achieve specific outcomes in the game. Like you say, in XIV it matters far less (and if the story is boring me at any time I can just mostly ignore it anyhow), but in single player RPGs I'm much more driven to play the story the way I want my character to, and if the game forces storylines or decisions I don't like, I will eventually bore of it and jump to something else. It definitely does make it harder to play many RPGs concurrently; bit less of an issue with genres where the story is secondary, like city sim, TBS, 4x or RTS games, which I tend to play on the side.

The MMO market is super saturated and aren't as profitable vs. maintenance cost. So the risk of a bust is real in an age of gaming where companies are scared to innovate and want to stick with formulaic titles or just go for the easy money with gacha games and Surprise Mechanics in $60 releases.

When(if) it comes out, I think the League of Legends MMO is gonna show what the future entails for the MMO genre. Riot has the money, the expertise, the lore to supply a online world(even if you don't like the LOL or Legends of Runeterra). Do they stick to the current MMO formula, go the more RPG-MMO route like 14 or try to strike at something new and original and take that big chance. If it succeeds maybe another AAA sized company or two with a storied series(wishful thinking Nintendo doesn't have a mainline MMO) will give it a go.

Yes, I'm eager to see what they do with that one.

[ItMe]

When(if) it comes out, I think the League of Legends MMO is gonna show what the future entails for the MMO genre.

I hope so.
I'm worried the future is all this NFT shit bubbling up. I didn't realize NFTs had made their way into gaming but now it seems like every few days I'm hearing about another new NFT/crypto based MMO.

It makes sense for the businesses as it's a safe way to maximize profits... but that's kinda why I'm worried they're here to stay.

God I hate NFTs.

[Lunalepsy]

I thought this was going to be a forum game! Sad

[TheMightyMollusk]

Finally got broken of that in Mass Effect 1 with the asteroid DLC. The Batarians were gonna drop an asteroid on a human colony with like 4.4 billion people. The way I read what was going on the first time, the option presented was to stop the Batarian and let the science team hostages die, or let the asteroid hit the planet. I was quite miffed when the Renegade option was saving the 4.4 billion colonists(you'd think saving 4.4 billion vs. saving 5 individuals would be Paragon, but nooooooo). Turned out that saving the scientists was Paragon, and all that happens is the Batarian leader gets away. We succeed in stopping the asteroid. It pissed me off, because it made me realize it was really a non-choice, especially when in the third game, you can run into that Batarian again, only now he's dying painfully and slowly in a refugee camp from some illness.

That's not the same Batarian. The one in the refugee camp is an unnamed terrorist who's lashing out because he blames humanity for the fall of the Batarian Hegemony. Balak (the guy from Bring Down the Sky in ME1) shows up in a different side quest, where you find out what really happened to them.

Of course, as so many things ended up in ME3, the only difference that really happens if you do or don't kill Balak in 1 is a notch on your galactic readiness rating (if Balak dies, you can't get the Batarian Fleet asset).