MMO Discussion - Real and fiction (SAO for example)

I play LOTRO because the dame in single player wouldn't get funding.

 

Well I have now.

I have very mixed feelings about Tera. On one hand the combat is very good. Awesome, fun, dynamic combat that is absolutely not tab targeting. The questing is pretty well done - after playing a lot of The Secret World, it's not a patch on full voice work for every quest, but it's still head and shoulders above 'bring me 10 boar asses.' Questing gets you one of the quest items every time you kill one of the related mobs, and there's just a general bounty on killing 10 <Monster> in every area, as well as 5 <Big Ass Monster> in certain areas. In some ways it's a step back toward WoW questing, but it's still better than WoW in pretty much every way. Also, GIANT QUESTION MARKS over people's heads are restricted to only people who are part of the story chain you're on or about to start, or people who are relevant to a quest you are on. You have to actually talk to NPC's to pick up local quests. All good stuff.

But on the other hand... playing the game leaves me feeling kinda dirty. The female armors and animations are absolutely ridiculous. Jiggle physics, strut-walking, crazy exaggerated hip and ass sway. The game has a slot for your underwear. You are greeted at the entrance to the main city by the bust of a goddess with her tits out. A straight up race of lolis. It's all kinda skeezy feeling. Like it's trying really hard to be a hentai game while not actually stepping over the line. Likewise, the fact that the game has come out with 4 new classes since the game launched is awesome! But... every single one of them is locked to female characters. Brawler is Human Female only, Reaper and Ninja are Elin (loli race) only, and Gunner is Elf or Castanic (Tiefling) Female only. There are zero male locked classes.

I'm still playing.... but I also feel kinda weird about it. Like I shouldn't enjoy it. That said, I'm not stopping yet. I'm on Celestial Hills. What servers are you gents on?

 

Too much fanservice Dakkaface?

 

Yes. WAY too much fanservice. I'm cool with fanservice being available - buying alternate walks, choosing the skimpy costumes, etc. I'm kind of uncomfortable with the game not containing anything at all in the 'sensible' category for costumes, walks, etc. for women. Like... I tried to preview different armor types at character creation and got 6 options, 5 of witch were battle bikinis with tiny crotch plates, and one heavily armored one-piece. I don't think I've gotten a single piece of clothing thus far that isn't skintight or skin revealing. Granted, gunners aren't a heavy armor class, but seriously. The walk especially is frustrating. Every so often I'm playing and notice it and it just bothers me, because nobody should be adventuring in hooker heels and running in that goofy knock-kneed/toes pointing inward run that anime seems to assume all women share. That goes triple for an adventurer looking to be carrying a 150 kg cannon on their back as they tromp through a marsh. Fanservice should be a portion of your aesthetic, not the WHOLE THING.

 

I would try Tera but I'm pretty sure I'd get put on a watchlist if I did.

 

Goddesses topless busts do have a counterpart IRL, but I agree some stuff is oversexualized as hell. Still a damn fun game. Then again, I played Scarlet Blade. Kind of dislike Male Elf and Castanic appearances as to homo and Human unreasonable large, I ended up with all my Chars Female. No choice for me but enjoy or embrace the Fanservice.

I barely have time to play nowadays, but I love exploring remore areas of the map. Look for the 'Wall of Wordcraft' points, they award you an achievement if all 3 are found.

Currently have a Gunner (V2), Reaper, Mystic, Sorcerer, Ninja and a Brawler.

 

I'm liking blade and soul a lot so far. Has fanservice issues but no where near Tera. On phone but it's issues are minor, imo and it is so fucking wuxia.

 

I guess "Tera" would do better with less overbearing sexiness. Then what is included would be less desensitizing and more alluring. Bah, fools without taste among those game designers!
*shakes walking cane*

Ayup. Played it while still had the time. Cool, and it is extacly fucking wuxia!

 

Yes, but topless ancient statues that we're familiar with are usually person-sized. The thing in central Valkia is like... the Statue of Liberty from the tits up.

I tend to have a primary character of one sex and a secondary character of the other in most MMO's. That's not feasible in Tera because all the classes I'm most interested in playing are the female locked ones. Gunner, Brawler, Ninja and Reaper in that order. And honestly, the focus on shoehorning more females into the game seems to have hurt it, at least on the RP side. Despite rolling on the RP server, I've noticed zero RP going on, and every Area chat is absolutely chock-full of Barrens-level inane chatter. I can't imagine it's easy to have anything but lesbians and pedophilic lesbians at the top end on the RP server, so people seem to have given up.

I like to explore too, but the mounted speed is surprisingly low, even for the cash shop mounts. I've been focused more on completing quest chains at the moment than nosing around the map.

 

More Tera commentary. I seem to have found some actual lewd in game. Duke Nukem level lewd, but lewd nonetheless. Certain female models appear to have a really bizarre vag as part of their crotch texture. They make this semi-obvious when they fall over and die, as their death pose splays their legs out, and they don't wear panties.

 

Heh, so it would be better with them having no textures in the crotches? The things they do ... game devs, the things they do.

 

Annnnnd I'm back to my old standbys again. Guild Wars 2 and Mechwarrior Online.

Thankfully, ArenaNet seems to have pulled it's head at least partway out of it's ass on GW2, since the progression system has changed yet again from what I remember, and it is FAR better than the last cock up. I don't have Heart of Thorns, but with how many people I see gliding around the core game maps, it might be worthwhile to pick up. I'll wait for a sale or see if I can find a discounted retail box copy locally.

MWO continues to be... well, MWO. It's a glorified arena shooter with big stompy robots and a dev team that has a hard time deciding what they are going to do with the game.

 

If you think Tera is bad check out Scarlet Blade(or was it Skarlet Blade?).

 

On the note, anyone knows if there is chance of "Warhammer; Dark Omen" outside of a good emulator and some disks?

Noice! Although I admit that too little clothed these gals from Scarlet Blade. I do have some standards. *huffs haughtily*

 

You are not the first to say this to me, and you are far too late, as Scarlet Blade shutdown earlier this year. When it was first mentioned to me, I had a look at some reviews and retrospectives. To be honest? I'd probably have preferred Scarlet Blade's level of lewd over Tera's. Scarlet Blade didn't have any pretensions of being an average game. It was directly lewd, didn't even let you play a dude, and kept it's tongue firmly in cheek about it. Tera gives you both male and female choices, and presents the choice like it's all equal and this is a serious, big boy pants MMO. But all the new, clearly superior classes are female-only. The male classes look like average MMO style characters, sensibly dressed and outfitted. The female classes are incapable of wearing sensible outfits and get locked into hooker heels and crotch plates.

It's not so much that Tera is lewd, but that Tera tries to be a goofy lewd MMO and a serious RP MMO at the same time and it comes off as the creepy fedora guy instead of the frat bro who's clearly out to get laid or the academic who wants to talk about the structure of myth. Which is disappointing, because it's battle mechanics are rock solid.

I'm back in Guild Wars 2 for the time being, though I still have yet to pick up a discount copy of Heart of Thorns.

 

It shut down? Also before it shut down a male class got added, called Chaser(or Cyberblade outside of Korea). High speed ninja. Did not dress like a stripper.


EDIT: there is also Skyforge, which has boob, hair, and cloth physics. If I ever play that one I may pick the dude preset that is in a suit, and go all Yoshikage Kira.

 

There was actually an in-universe reason that the Chaser wore normal clothes.

IIRC All the other classes were basically hastily retrofitted sex-bots( and fully sapient ones at that) that are forced to obey their "operator"(IE You-the-Player) on threat of "termination".
But the Chaser was a purpose-made warrior created after the fighting had already started.

 

I used to want so badly to be part of the design team for an MMO. But now, it's been so long since I played a good one that I'm not sure it's my favorite genre any more.

 

Anyone actually interested in Guild Wars 2 - Heart of Thorns is 50% off this week, and 25 bucks gets you the original game + expansion, and a boost of one character straight to L80.

I picked up a copy, and have mixed feelings about it. The power creep from the new specializations is palpable, but not overwhelming. The expansion seems like it has a much heavier focus on group and map events, and a lot less of 'discovering stories and event chains by wandering around. It also has a very heavy Metroid-vania vibe at the outset, what with needing to spend time training how to use your glider, training how to use the bounce mushrooms, etc. so you can actually gain access to the upper canopy and lower forest. This is both a positive - you can really see how your mastery points change a map for you, and a negative - you've gone from being able to go wherever in the Central Tyria maps to being very limited at the start of the Heart of Thorns maps because the design is very different, and progress isn't exactly fast. It's definitely fun to unlock new areas and options, but it's difficult going from L80 - I'm awesome! to I have no masteries and must hump my ass over hill and dale to get everywhere.