NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[taltamir]

My harddrive died and I lost all my hyperborea saves... I played it foreever, and was just about to be high enough level (lvl 40) to get the end game quests...

I don't think I have it in me to start all over again from scratch... maybe after I finish mageworld a couple of times.

[Kilarin]

blessed are the pessimist, for they hath made backups.

So sorry to hear about the crash.

Have you tried hooking up the old drive as a slave? You may be able to recover some data from it depending on how bad the crash was.

[taltamir]

well... it was completely dead. It will not spin up, it will not be recognized by BIOS, nothing.. completely fried... and I already send it to the manufacturer to get a warrenty replacement...

I really should have backed that up.

[Kilarin]

I don't think I have it in me to start all over again from scratch.

Well, here is the good news. I've started over from scratch in LOH 3 times, the last time on hard mode. And it was GREAT FUN all 3 times. Each game was a bit different, each game was fun.

So delve right in and start over. All the things you learned your first time through can be used this time, OR, if you want a challenge, deliberatly take a harder path this time (like playing hard or a nature mage).

In any case, you will find that LOH is not just a game, but a world and a story. Going back to it is like re-visiting your favorite vacation spot or rereading your favorite book. Well worth going over again.

[gfb]

Look at it this way: a game of LoH is shorter (timewise) than a game of Mageworld.

[NARAYAN]

Why you want to just complete the game.The game has its own fun and each repetition makes the game more accurate than previous one.It means if anybody wants to correct the mistake at the end of map , he will have to play it again.I don't know how much times I have played this map and still thinks that more accuracy needed.
The game doesn't only mean to complete only , it means to reveal everything exists in game most importantly the story of the map.It is something that you have to read a story book by playing maps.I want to have all the secrets of game in my hand but it is not easy.If you have any trouble in any place of game ,tell me I will tell you what to do in that condition.T'vril is the best guide in game.Just follow her instructions and you will never defeated.Good luck

[taltamir]

i actually HAVE read everything and I did complete the main quest... i was at the part of exploring the map for nooks and things I haven't yet seen... like the level 40+ only quests (holy see of azunai anyone?)... but meh, why not. It was a good game and is worth another play. (as soon as I can find the time to actually play it...)

[NARAYAN]

It was a good game and is worth another play

That is what everybody should understand.

[taltamir]

hard not to understand... especially with newer games just getting WORSE AND WORSE, and less and less fun. I wish game companies started making games like this precious gem.

[NARAYAN]

This is very hard cause Xaa is creating these maps for all his fans but companies are making for money.But most of gamer are not paying money to these companies ,so in less money quality of game decreases and very hard to get this type of maps.

[Xaa]

The basic question: Why do most modern games all seem to be written to please ADHD teenage boys?

Answer: Because ADHD teenage boys form the largest market share, and the lowest common denominator. Jiggly boobies that make the teenage boy drool will make the 40-year-old man grin. Flashy lights, explosions and a game that can be completed in a few hours make the ADHD kid happy, and please the 40-year-old because he can finish the game over a weekend and go back to work on monday. That hyperactive, hormone-driven ADHD teenage boy forms the lowest common denominator for the videogame market, as well as the action movie market, the horror movie market, and the music market. People who want to make a game that sells quickly and pays off the investors fast target him as their intended audience.

That, unfortunately, is the real answer. It's all about making money fast, and moving on to the next project. Only a few game designers still think about long-term playability. Sid Meier and Wil Wright are two, but there are others.

[taltamir]

indeed. There is no real secret or conspiracy. A game company is just that, a company, a buisiness meant for making money, and that means sales. I understand why, I am just saddened by it since I do not enjoy those type of games.

I'd say my least favorite type is the MMO, and by extension, the hack and slash.
Which, incidently are NOT ADHD targetted and do NOT take a weekend. They take monthes of your life away with innane contentless repetition for the sake of increasing your stats. Yet for some reason those games are the most popular out there. Far more popular then the "few hours of plain plot".

The plain plot also disappoints, the game companies are afraid to aliente people with any type of plot beyond "kill bad guys, you can tell they are bad cause they are nazies"

[Xaa]

taltamir said:

Which, incidently are NOT ADHD targetted...

Actually, they're targetted at the exact same market single-player and LAN-based multiplayer RPG's are. See the screenshot, below:



See what I mean? That isn't armor, it's cheesecake to lure the hormone-driven teenagers into playing.

The key difference is in what you said - though you don't realize it. The objective of the company making an MMORPG is NOT to get you to buy it, play it, enjoy it for a weekend and then move on. Instead, their objective is to get you hooked, so you'll continue paying the monthly fees and play the same game for years and years. So, they hook that market using a different strategy.

See, back in the 1950's, there was a behavioral psychologist named B.F. Skinner. He experimented with pidgeons, and discovered quite a bit about how the brain works. For example, in one of his experiments, he discovered that pigeons could have superstitions, just like people. See, he set up the cages so that food would be dropped entirely at random. Random time intervals, and literally nothing the animal could do to get the food to come faster. What ended up happening was that pidgeons ended up believing that whatever action they had been doing at the time the food dropped must be the action that caused the food to drop - pigeons, like people, look for causality in their environment. So, some pigeons ended up spinning around in circles, some poked their head into the corner, etc, etc - all random actions, just actions they happened to be doing when the food dropped. And they would repeat this action, the same way people repeated superstitious actions that they believed would lead to a payoff.

Skinner also ended up teaching pigeons how to play toy pianos. The experiments were set up so that if they pecked at the right key, food would drop. Then, after they'd figured that out, the experiment was changed so that now they had to peck two keys in order. Then, after they figured that out, three keys. Then four. And so on. Very quickly, he had pigeons that could peck out lengthy symphonies on a toy piano.

Now, you may already see where I'm going, but bear with me anyway.

Years ago, one of the first MMORPG's came out - it was called Ultima Online. Rochard Garriot was looking for a way to keep players hooked playing Ultima Online. He had heard of Skinner, and decided to try including things like that in his online RPG. So, unlike the single-player games he'd sold before, Ultima Online included many repetitive tasks that, if you did them long enough, eventually would pay off (particularly in the skill system). At first, the payoffs were quick, but as you advance in the game, you have to repeat the same task over and over and over again to receive the payoff, until a top-end character will be fiddling with making goodies with his skills system literally for months, collecting stuff here, combining it, then combining it again with other stuff, failing, having to start all over again - click, click, click, click...

Well, UO was massively addictive, and nobody knew why. Garriot, in an interview, compared the tasks he'd set up for the players to do to tasks like BF Skinner's pigeons - it's addicting because eventually you know it will pay off if you just keep clicking the buttons.

Well, then the cat was out of the bag. From then on, ALL online RPG's had some element of repetitive activity to them that paid off fast at first, then had a payoff that was slower and slower and slower. The first Everquest took this to the level of an art form, incorporating this style of gameplay into literally every element of the game - fighting, meditating to recover mana, crafting food and equipment... Everything was based on the notion of slowly increasing numbers of clicks to get your reward. And EQ was so successful at it, it literally drove UO out of business.

So, you see, MMO's still targeted at the same audience, and every one of them has large-breasted scantily-clad women to get the kids interested in trying it. Then, it hooks them with BF Skinner's methodologies, which bypass the whole ADHD issue by promising that if you just keep clicking long enough, you'll get that big treasure/next level/secret spell/etc.

All the major game companies target the same market - they have to, that's where the money is. Games that don't target that market just don't sell well, since once you exclude the lowest common denominator of gamers (the hormone-driven ADHD Teenage Male), the gaming market is made up of a very wide swath of society - from young people to old, from intellectuals to sports fanatics. There are literally hundreds of "niche markets" that some game companies shoot for on a regular basis. But, the game companies that make the big bucks shoot for the lowest common denominator.

[Kilarin]

Xaa:

That isn't armor, it's cheesecake to lure the hormone-driven teenagers into playing.

Thank goodness Xaa isn't immune to a bit of cheesecake... (thinking Natures Vestiture, Cenobite Leather, Amazons, etc...)

Of course, Xaa ALSO included much more realistic armors for female characters. Best of both worlds?

Xaa:

it's addicting because eventually you know it will pay off if you just keep clicking the buttons.

The secret behind the Mageworld Training system is revealed!

[Xaa]

kilarin said:

Xaa:

That isn't armor, it's cheesecake to lure the hormone-driven teenagers into playing.

Thank goodness Xaa isn't immune to a bit of cheesecake... (thinking Natures Vestiture, Cenobite Leather, Amazons, etc...)

Of course, Xaa ALSO included much more realistic armors for female characters. Best of both worlds?

Both Mageworld and LoH are set up so that you can have your female characters dress scantily or not, as you choose.

The secret behind the Mageworld Training system is revealed!

Mmmm... Not exactly. The training system is more an ordeal than anything else. You pay for improved abilities with your character by undergoing the training. Real life martial-arts training is boring (I should know, I've done it). Becoming a master in a martial art requires endless years of work. The Mageworld training system was intended to at least give you the feeling that you'd *earned* improved abilities with your character.

As you may already know, you can shorten the time by holding the shift button at the right moment in 2.0. The mechanics of this is that the amount reduced from the "things I don't understand" number is doubled each time. In 3.0, it's squared, so I guess it becomes kind of a mini-game to get the timing right. Ah, well - it's something you only have to do once with each character. Once done, you've got all the boring parts out of the way, you're ready to start beating on things.