Yeah EoE.Top guild on Vulak... was that EoE? I think Faceless was also on there but wasn't big yet IIRC.
Also, if anyone knows who Winnow is from Veeshanvault or has an account there, let them know the site directory is publicly viewable.
I stopped posting there a while ago (got out after Plane of Time, had enough of leading a guild before that and played with another before hanging it up), but that board went hyper left around the time this one started its shift to the right. Oddly, Winnow used to be a right leaning guy but abruptly went full NPC mode out of the blue. I think the dude just like arguing with people for its own sake (not that he was good at it, but more of Foler countertroll) and in that he has not changed. I peeked at the board once a while ago, and its basically a small little lefty echo chamber and all the better drama threads are gone. The Machine isn't even around anymore, just mostly a few CoE, CT, and Ixtlan/Legion poopsockers who still chat once in a while.
I do not regret my time in EQ, as I met my wife playing EQ and I mostly played with RL friends. I could never go back to that shit, though. And every MMO since has basically felt like a complete waste of my time (I got more out of my time as a Warhammer Tournament player and now as a boardgamer) that I wish I had spent better. Non MMO games? I can flatly state that Tides of Numeria is not only the worst game I spent money on, but the worst one I ever finished in my life. Complete waste of my life spending 50 hours slogging that game through. Honorable Mention goes to Star Ocean Til End of Time and Elite Dangerous. The first had the worst ending and overtuned final boss I have ever seen in an RPG. The second was basically No Man's Sky meets overly complex MS Flight Simulator that nuked my love of the original game completely.
Now that I think about it, most of the games I actually regret are the ones that were good until the ending shit the bed. Probably because you get this whole game thats fun or a good story experience, then the ending just shits all over everything that led up to it. Actual shitty games I never bother to keep playing. Thats probably why ME3 gets all the hate it does, honestly. It takes a special kind of design fuckup to make a game thats 90% awesome, only to completely ruin it with the poorly written ending or badly tuned end boss. Especially a long game with RPG elements that gets you invested.
I loved tides! The reliance on consumables was hard to get used to. I tend to hoard potions and the like in games, then forget to use them and finish games with too many. I loved all the story stuff though. I still listen to the soundtrack alot.
Off topic, this board IS pretty open to opposing viewpoints. We dogpile, but honestly if your ideas cannot survive exposure to sunlight they were not good ones anyhow and you need to do better. People here are also WAY better at compartmentalizing shit to respective sub-forums than just about anywhere else I have been. With some exceptions, most people will keep personal, political, freetime hobbie, ect shit confined to the forums they belong with out carrying over disputes to unrelated subject matter. A guy like Captain Super Spreader can have a conversation with everyone about the latest videogames and not get shit on in that thread, for example. But we also have people who cannot segregate that shit in their mind, or are so insufferable or universally retarded that they get lit up wherever they post (once they make it abundantly clear its not a forum specific issue, e.g. Chris having the worst hot takes ever). We are the exception to this, from what I can tell.
On topic: SO3 was an unexpected Xmas gift from the wife when it came out. And for the bulk of the game I loved it. Decent characters, in an anime way. Action combat, which I normally hate, that did not make me want to puke. I even liked their crafting system. But the ending was basically "We are all in the matrix and the sys admin is literal satan" and the final boss fight (which took over an hour to run down to with zero save points along the way) was completely insanely overbalanced (tons of immunities, massive HP sponge, one shotting people constantly) that just did not occur during the main course of the game. And this was not some optional fuck you round eyes boss the Japs like to put in their games, like Ruby Weapon. This was the final story boss and I had personally leveled up all my weapons, stocked my potions, and marched through the dungeon to him without issue. Then blammo dials go to 11 out of nowhere and I had to read forums to find out the expecation was that you would spend upwards of 20+ hours grinding trash in the final zone Disgea style to get to a ridiculous level to actually have a shot at winning. It left a very sour taste in my mouth and I never purchased another game in the series as a result.
This is not the thread for it, as you said, but it was your last sentence if you must know.DickTrickle Why picard?
We've got one vote for Tides!
I'm okay with hearing something good about it, because it's still "on the list" for my CRPGs and I'm going to at least give it a shot. Would be great if I found something to like. I'll often end up liking unpopular things and disliking popular things (for example, I didn't enjoy Fallout 1 at all). So we'll see.
Yeah, this board is open to opposing viewpoints and I agree with your first couple sentences on that front. Need to be able to handle/counter scrutiny (or realize you're wrong) to survive. That's why I like it. And people compartmentalizing is also cool, Ukraine feuds don't spill into the FF16 thread is a good example. I've tried to get better at staying on-topic myself.
SO3's final boss... one of my biggest peeves is when a final boss (or lategame boss) has the dial turned up to 11 over everything before it, shutting down your playthrough. RPG examples include Velius in FF Tactics, the final boss of Tactics Ogre (what a goddamn fiasco that fight was, took me 2 hours), and Miang near the end of Xenogears.
But if bringing up the time Daddy blew his load in Mommy doggy style is a cherished family memory...
You realise that's what Birthdays are right?
Would love to kick some Yankee ass in a game like this.
You realise that's what Birthdays are right?
I am pretty good at RPGs and had beaten Tactics Ogre more than once before I played FFT. but I confess I ended up having to replay the entire game my first run because I had no save file from before the Velius fight. Tactics Ogre's final boss is a lot rougher now than in the original (the no res thing is horse shit), but the trick of deliberately using screwball setups thaat the AI does not know how to play correctly remains the same (or burning him down). My worst case was FF8 which I ended up replaying the entire game because I had relied on summons and the last boss had the previously never seen ability to take away your summons during the fight. I mean I could have backed out and grinded, but by then the way my stats were when I leveled pretty much permagimped me when I analyzed it. In general, I really hate res fest fights in RPGs and you know a game/boss is shit when there are entire mechanics designed around it.
A civil war MMO would solve a lot of problems lol. Or at least a Battlefield-scale shooter.
I always wondered with the success of games like Mount and Blade why DICE hasn't made a game called "Field of Battle: 1492" or something.
How can a game released in 2018 be Early Access looooool I hate this industry.