Paul returns to the show to drown his sorrows in the discontinuation of a game series he loved, and the podcast ran so long it has to be split into two parts.
The first half of this podcast includes the following news items:
Stay tuned for Part 2.
Episode 425: Paul’s Return Part 1
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Episode 320: Like This Like ThatEpisode 320: Like This Like That
The posting of Monday’s podcast has been delayed a day, sorry about that. This week is fairly long, and the Gaming History gets into the venerable Sega Dreamcast, which still has some developers making new games for it.
Otherwise, this week’s news items include:
- Assassin’s Creed series will have end, assures Ubisoft
- EverQuest Next gameplay revealed, accepting beta registration
- Blizzard confirms Project Titan overhaul, “unlikely to be subscription-based”
- EA claims freedom of speech in NCAA lawsuit appeal, court rejects it
- Region-based factions will be in The Crew
This week’s Question of the Week: “What makes you decide to preorder a game or console?”
Episode 234: An Episode to ForgetEpisode 234: An Episode to Forget
A microphone issue during the podcast made Jonah’s voice thin and tinny. That, and Paul not in the podcast, flying to California to enjoy Disneyland, makes this an episode to forget. It’s unfortunately, since it’s one of the better podcasts in terms of content. The Gaming Flashback this week is Leisure Suit Larry in The Land of the Lounge Lizards.
The news this week includes:
- Netflix drops Qwikster
- Xbox 720 popping up on LinkedIn resumes
- 320GB hard drive announced for Xbox 360
- Rocksteady: Superman “bad fit” for videogame
- Bethesda: We were “forced” to sue Mojang
We also received some great Reader Feedback as well. Next week, we promise to have great sound – or at least not so tinny.
Evolution of RPG’s – Gamers Don’t Want an End?Evolution of RPG’s – Gamers Don’t Want an End?
I remember a day when old RPG games had either a level cap or a definite ending. From Pool of Radiance to Secrets of the Silver Blades to Final Fantasy the game had a final boss or stage and often had some type of level cap. Today, gamers don’t want it to end, they’d rather have the option to wonder around aimlessly or completing minor quests in order to soak up every ounce of money they spent on the title.
Now even Bethesda is saying “we’ve learned our lesson” from the whiplash of ending their game title and capping levels. Gamers want to go back and re-try content they missed, they want to run side quests and talk to everyone in the world they want to grind themselves to über powerful levels and become a god in their fantasy world. Can you blame them?
You can’t really blame them for wanting to maximize the content, although it’s slightly more evolved than RPG’s of old. Perhaps it was World of Warcraft and other MMORPG’s that brought us to the stage in life where we all want to squeeze every last RPG dime out of the title. As a kid I wondered the world of Hyrule and covered every tile of graphical color, burned every bush, bombed every stone looking for all the content. However, even Zelda had an end with scrolling credits – you didn’t just land on a platform with your master sword and a dream.
Other titles have used level caps to limit you and draw you into the next release of the game. This was popular in the D&D world because the game is designed to target specific levels of difficulty. They may only allow you to gain level 10 because the enemies are no tougher than level 13, allowing the challenge to be good but not overwhelming. If they allow you to get to level 50 they’d have to design the game so all the enemies grow powerful along with you — that’s not always a desired result.
Final Fantasy is a popular franchise that typically allows you to grow infinitely powerful depending on how much time you want to spend repeat killing the same enemies. Gamers aren’t always into the grind, they just want to grind “enough” to make the challenges a little more do-able.
Today, however, with larger storage capacity, larger development teams and the desire to build more value into your gameplay experience titles have dozens of side quests and sub-plots that are totally optional. The result of so many sub-quests results in a player who is much more powerful at the end of those quests compared to a player who sticks to the narrow path of the main plot. So, games much grow dynamically challenging to keep the fun per dollar high.
Do you like your RPG’s to have a definite end and a high but capped level?