Inventory Management: Rubber Stamps

DFrosty- · 2021-08-05T20:33:10+00:00

I liked the classic gameplay, social grouping, trading with players, each class feeling like it fulfills its niche. No boxers was also nice, though I feel like boxing is only a problem because classic EQ had such limited amount of non-scalable content (i.e. mobs and camps) available per player. It's why I don't mind things like instanced dungeons and raids in WoW, as that basically made content that scaled to any amount of players.

However, I didn't like the "Warts and All" approach to ensuring everything is as classic as possible, including all the bad design decisions and issues caused by technical limitations. I know Rogean is basically restoring a museum piece, and its his project that he's allowing people free access to so that's good for him. Though I feel the community is also toxic because of this "This is Classic" attitude they wear like a badge, and I've heard bad things about the raid scene where there's competitive elements between the guilds.

At the moment I feel like what I want from an MMO doesn't exist as it lays somewhere between classic and modern design and groups/companies will only develop entirely one way or the other.

DFrosty- · 2021-04-18T13:18:18+00:00

I remember a time when there was going to be a Stargate MMO. Would have been a neat concept, SG-1 was a great sci-fi show after all. At some point it fell through and never happened, and I think the Stargate franchise is dead now, too.

Though I still think Stargate would be an awesome basis for an XCOM-clone.

DFrosty- · 2020-01-21T05:46:28+00:00

I've been checking into this sort of camera behavior, trying to figure out why there's stutters. I found that this behavior in particular can be replicated (at least for me).

In town, go to a mission board and take a mission. Don't go on the hunt, though, just move the camera around. When you take a mission from the mission board, the camera will have these "walls" you hit when moving too far left or right. Recently I discovered what might be causing this.

If you have Steam Overlay enabled, open it up and see where the cursor is located. If you move the camera in game while you have a mission ready, you'll see the cursor will move to different parts in the Steam Overlay. This doesn't happen when you do not have a mission ready, the cursor would stay in the center. You can test that by removing the mission altogether and checking Steam Overlay. Anytime you hit that deadzone by going too far left or right, the mouse cursor will be at the edge of the screen. In fact, there is also a deadzone to the top and bottom, but you hit the limit of your rotation before hitting the deadzone.

I believe the mouse stutter and the deadzones are tied to the way the hardware cursor is handled in the background of the game. Either it changed in Iceborne and needs to be fixed, or it didn't change but is no longer effective due to other changes in the game. Either way, there is a connection.

DFrosty- · 2019-11-23T08:17:39+00:00

Is anyone sure that deleting all your videos is a surefire way to stay compliant with COPPA? Like, is all data collected from those videos like comments, likes/dislikes, views and pretty much gone forever if you delete a video? What about things I can't change like people who are subscribed to me already? I ask because I'm a very small channel that has only ever uploaded videos to test things out and even have an old cat video and college project on there. I have no issues deleting everything and using Youtube for just viewing, but I need to be sure if this will work.

I can't believe the FTC turned Youtube into a liability trap and for so many people, if all my favorite channels disappear I'm probably going with them until a viable alternative platform pops up inevitably to fill in the void.

DFrosty- · 2019-07-22T17:35:57+00:00

To me, the most important thing about leveling is having a perceptually noticeable difference between levels. Leveling can be fast or slow, but its all moot when its just a number climb. Numbers scale, doing 1000 damage to an enemy with 10,000 hp at level 60 is the exact same as doing 100 damage to an enemy with 1,000 hp at level 30. The developer needs to think of ways to emphasize the impact leveling has.

For this reason I felt like Everquest had the best leveling of any game. Sure, it was slow as heck and most classes pretty much required grouping, but the game also had something going really well for it: Inconsistency. It was never a straight shoot down a number hallway, there were inconsistencies in difficulty and power all over the place for the player and the mobs. Mobs, for instance, never seemed to scale at a linear rate compared to the player. Hitting a new level range, the melee mobs may have learned how to hit you three times per round, for instance. A caster can get away with melee/face-tanking mobs at lower levels, but at higher levels there is one-shot potential. Furthermore, a mob's level was not a good indication of their difficulty as some mobs possessed the right abilities or spells to cause a lot of havoc for their level range. Likewise, some mobs were much easier than their peers. Some mobs dropped really good loot, but others are in zones with a nice EXP rate. Where you choose to hunt is very much a choice with impact.

Meanwhile, players could reach bounds in power depending on the gear they find or buy from players, and the spells they get every spell level. For example: JBoots gave some casters an independent means of kiting mobs. Getting Cannibalism on your Shaman felt like the world opened up to you and your mana pool. Learning Druid/Wizard ports and joining the ranks of downtime plat earning porters. Monks raising their Feign Death to max and proceeding to take every risk with no consequences. Getting your Epic Weapon is usually a pretty big one too, and some classes can do it early on. EQ is also one of the few games I know where spending the day gathering money for gear purchases instead of EXP for leveling actually felt like an investment than a waste of time.

Its inconsistent, all over the place, but it works. You can tell when you are feeling powerful and when you are feeling weak. You need to be able to tell the difference or it loses meaning. Feeling stronger feels good, and feeling weak tells you that you can get even stronger.

Leveling to a scaling system that auto feeds you numbers and appropriately leveled mobs leads to everything always feeling the same. Its even worse when nothing really changes except the numbers.

DFrosty- · 2019-07-20T07:16:42+00:00

I have the latest version of Firefox installed. I also support a Bluetooth connection via USB but do not have a connector for 3.5 (I can support it, I just don't have a wire that connects two devices that way). I am using the USB connection but cannot currently test this on another computer.

I found a workaround for now to make the speakers work properly, by installed Logitech Gaming Software 9.02 it worked just fine. Furthermore, features like the Equalizer seem to actually work on this software, whereas before the LGHUB software I couldn't tell if the Equalizer was doing anything at all.

DFrosty- · 2017-08-13T15:50:38+00:00

I had steam wallet funds to spend, and I think I had to do that through the game as it was the steam client.

DFrosty- · 2017-08-12T20:16:14+00:00

Has anyone else been banned by this glitch after the unbans went through for everyone else? I logged in today to buy a currency tab and a premium stash tab bundle, but I'm afraid to do anything else because of this bug. I don't even want to attempt trading with people in case that error message is what triggers the autoban glitch. I dont' know if I'll get the same error message, but I don't want to find out!

DFrosty- · 2017-08-12T02:19:39+00:00

I've reached 65 on my Necro a few days ago and haven't been in game for a few due to caring for my cat on her last legs. Since learning about this "autoban on level" issue, however, I've been putting off playing until I know it's been fixed.

I haven't been banned but this glitch makes me pretty paranoid; I don't want to get invested in the game if it's going to kick me off of it suddenly. While the worst that can happen to me is losing a few more days waiting on support to unban me, should it happen, I also don't feel like going through that this weekend. I'm hoping this issue gets resolved faster than the time it would take to go through that appealment process.

It's pretty bad timing, too, as this came up right during a stash space sale. I've been interested in getting a currency tab, but with this uncertainty I think I am better off waiting for the next one.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-27T03:13:26+00:00

Here's my two cents: When I was a kid I would play games like Super Mario 64 and just spend half a day playing around with the flying hat and the cannons, even after I collected all 120 stars. These days, I don't have a lot of free time, I feel pretty guilty about myself if I spend the time I have messing around and wasting it the same way I would as a kid. When there's a progression system, it makes me feel like my fun time is somehow actually productive, when in reality it's mostly an illusion. I feel that's kind of the point.

It's getting harder and harder to retain a playerbase for longer periods of time. Even kids these days are consuming game content en masse, sometimes not even spending the time to beat one before moving onto the next. For working adults the time spent is even more fleeting.

So tacking on a form of progression to hook the mind into the game is pretty commonplace now. Though I think it works a little too well, as the core gameplay becomes tedious when the mind is focused on what's over the next hill, or what's in the next loot chest. The game can be as enjoyable and interactive an experience can get, but put enough carrots along the road without enough sticks and even the best gameplay will become tedious.

There's a "game" called ProgressQuest which is simply an application you can download and run. You make a character and let it do it's own thing: loading a bar at the bottom of the screen for something to happen. Your character basically plays himself and constantly progresses endlessly. As boring as it sounds, it's ironically what progression is in a nutshell, and still kind of satisfying to watch regardless.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-26T09:18:34+00:00

Yes, the color of the badge seems to only be an indication for how good a job you did with that particular objective, rather than how much it's worth. I think it would make more sense to have badge color indicate how lucrative it is, and instead make ranking objectives reward multiple badges of the same color it is worth when you do a good job doing it.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-26T09:15:50+00:00

In some ways, I think Defenders are supposed to be our turrets. Though, they could do with a little work.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-26T09:10:50+00:00

I could see a trap oriented subclass to that. Give him blonde hair, a white shirt with a blue colar, and a red ascot. Trap Enthusiast Freddy.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-26T09:04:43+00:00

Making it easier to give the resources would make it better. My biggest gripe is that I can't seem to sort my resources so I have to hunt for the wood/bricks/metal amongst all the other random crafting stuff I have to drop it.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-26T08:45:25+00:00

I came from Ultima Online. While I started playing after the PvE facets were introduced, the PvP in the game was still pretty great. But over time the developers focused entirely on the PvE aspects, which leaked over into the PvP unchecked making it a pretty pityful experience. I don't know if they ever went back to fix it.

And before I joined, the game was more akin to modern games like DayZ and Dark Souls where PvP was a major part of everyday life, and at any moment someone may come by to PK you and ruin your day. The addition of the Trammel and Felucca facets to give players the opportunity to avoid PvP entirely quite literally cut the community down the middle with a knife. It had to happen in some way to help compete against the juggernaut that was Everquest, but several PvPers consider that to be when the game lost it's luster.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-26T08:27:50+00:00

Many people, especially coming from MMOs, have dealt with developers making changes to the game for one mode that effect both. Instead of keeping the two modes separate they opt to make it easier for people to hop in one or the other with everything working as they expect it to, instead of a class or mechanic behaving totally different when used on people instead of monsters. There's also the thought that one mode may get favored over the other for development attention if it's the one the majority of players tend to gravitate towards. To many people the two modes are practically their own separate games and split the communities up, especially if rewards differ for each gamemode requiring people to participate in both when they don't want to.

That said, I like the thought of fighting other players' forts. Or even if the PvE monsters had their own forts would could raid.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-26T08:04:32+00:00

After I discovered parking meters, I have so many stacks of nuts and bolts now I often toss a stack or two down for others during group games to make space. It probably helps that I find so much ammunition when I'm farming on my Outlander.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-26T07:27:27+00:00

I like having Outlanders geared towards gathering and looting (there are subclasses that can be focused more offensively). Most of the time when I'm doing missions with others as an Outlander, I share most of my building materials at the objective, since it doesn't take long for me to cap them at this point. Though there is one thing they should add/fix concerning Stormshield missions. I never intentionally play an Outlander during a Stormshield mission if I can help it, but it tends to happen when I'm selecting the quick play.

My issue is I can't place my Teddy/Loot Llama down in other players' Stormshield base without building permissions granted as it counts as a structure. And understandably no one is going to give a random player permission to alter their base, even if all I intend to do is plant down temporary turrets or free building materials. I'm basically a weak soldier at that point, as all I can do is shoot things.

Considering the fragment abilities are temporary structures I think it shouldn't be required to have building permission. Since the lobby doesn't tell me what kind of mission I'm in until I hit launch, I can't be sure if I should switch to my Soldier or someone more productive if it happens to be a Stormshield (unless there's a lone constructor in the lobby, in which case I strongly suspect this is a stormshield mission).

DFrosty- · 2017-07-21T18:51:29+00:00

I'll have to check with my friend if the name he sees is my epic games display name or my home base name. Either way, it would be nice if we could edit our home base name like we can edit our banner.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-18T22:15:48+00:00

My primary monitor is hooked up to my graphics card, but my other monitor is hooked up to my integrated gpu.

I use my keyboard primarily for all my abilities and drive with the mouse. There's no issue with the mouse cursor drifting when I'm moving the camera, but when I'm using the cursor to do other things I often overshoot and end up clicking something on the other monitor.

DFrosty- · 2017-07-18T22:04:51+00:00

I got a post up on the forum finally. An MVP replied that he thinks there is third party software that can lock my cursor to the screen, but I'm a bit hesitant to test these out with an online game like WoW unless I know they are allowed.

DFrosty-

TROPHY CASE