Gaming features which should be common, but aren't

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Asher

Did World of Warcraft ever get around to including mounts?

Yeah. There's the normal mounts (+60% speed), one for each race (8 races total), each with 3 color variations.

Then there's also Epic Mounts (+100% speed), one for each race.


There are also 2 class-specific mounts (Paladin Warhorse, Warlock Felsteed).

http://wowvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Mounts.List

The Undead Epic mount is cool.

My god, that's cool.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Adagio
Trash this

Most racing games I've played all have indestructable cars. Driving with 200+ kmh into another car who's also driving 200+ kmh (face to face) doesn't do any damage at all. Most of the times the cars just jumps a few meters into the air before they land again, ready to continiue the race... if they land upside-down it just goes a few seconds then magically it has all wheels on the road and facing the correct direction (even though your car landed in the opposite direction in the dirt next to the road)

I'm sorry, but I'd like to be able to trash the other players cars. It's always fun to see the enemy car driving around with no doors and no roof, while one of the wheels are long gone... Of course making an attack on the other cars can be dangerous

* Adagio hopes the next Carmageddon games doesn't have as much randomness as all Carma games until now... And that they release it to a real computer, not some X-box (or was it paystation?)

Of course, games like Mario Kart should be exceptions to this sort of thing.

[Adagio]

Sure, some games have to be exceptions... it's mostly just for games that was ment to be realistic

[DrSpike]

I hate realism arguments. If you want a reasonably accurate driving Sim then play any one of the many good Formula 1 games. Most games are more fun if you get a penalty but not end of race for crashing at 200MPH.

[Dis]

fun

[Adagio]

I don't want to go into the "realism vs fun" debate... of course fun is most important in games, but often realism can add more fun...

What I ment with saying "mostly just for games that was ment to be realistic" is that having cartoon cars (like in Mario Kart) trashable would often make the game less fun, while in the more realistic racing games (where the cars looks as real as possible) it's often not fun not to be able to scratch the car... at least make it possible for the windows to get destroyed...

[DrSpike]

Play a simulation game then. There are lots of them, like the Geoff Crammond games.

[Adagio]

I hate to drive around in Formel 77 (or whatever) "cars"... when I play racing games it should either be:

1) "Normal" cars (like you see on the streets)
2) "Fun" cars (like Carmageddon or Mario Kart)

[Ari Rahikkala]

Originally posted by Adagio
This might not be a gaming feature, but it's a feature most games "forget" to include:

Why is it that EVERY TIME you start a game you have to watch 10+ video's. Yes, often you can just click, press space or press ESC to end the video, but why do you have to do that every time? Why don't they just have a "show startup video = false" in the ini file? And why is it sometimes it's not possible to avoid seeing the video?
Being forced to see the EA logo everytime I start some EA game only have a negative effect (for each time I see it I hate EA even more)

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[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I hate realism arguments. If you want a reasonably accurate driving Sim then play any one of the many good Formula 1 games. Most games are more fun if you get a penalty but not end of race for crashing at 200MPH.

Depends on the genre. Interesting how in flight sims realism is a big factor, but not so much in driving sims. Kinda makes sense, huh? Flying, to really do it, takes scads of money for lessons, plane rental and all that. And then you only get to fly a Cessna, or whatever. Instead for the price of a game and a joystick you can fly your choice of planes. Driving OTOH, is something we all do - if i want to drive around the streets of a city, i can get in the car and do that (assuming youre old enough) Otherwise theres racing - (which I DONT really get the appeal of) or driving around crashing - which loses its appeal if its not spiced up with unrealistic elements, i suspect.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Re: Quick Reply to Kassi:

Originally posted by Ari Rahikkala
- You're never in a hurry when playing a roguelike. When you're in a bad situation you can go away, perhaps have a coffee or, if you want, read a book, and when you come back, press exactly the right button that will get you out of trouble.

Hmmm... that's not true at all. One of my major complaints wrt rogue-like games is you get killed most of the time by a confluence of events though no fault of your own. Running out of food happens often and there's nothing one can do.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sandman
Nothing wrong with luck. Most multiplayer FPS' have lethal headshots - is that game-spoiling?

RPG != FPS. As I pointed out, it takes hours and hours of gameplay to build up the main character or party in an RPG.

Originally posted by Sandman
You can wear a helmet, anyway.

Critial hits ignore armour, I am afraid.

Originally posted by Sandman
????

Very few games bother to make it necessary to feed or wash your main character, why the heck would these things not be abstracted for the horse as well?

If you are not bothered by the fact that your characters don't need to eat, wash, pee, or even sleep, why would you be bothered by the lack of mounts?

Originally posted by Sandman
Well, you can overcome this 'problem' by not having any two-exit dungeons.

Putting the cart in front of the horse, aren't we?

Originally posted by Sandman
Or making horses easily acquired and disposable, like the cars in GTA.

You steal cars in GTA. OTOH, most people don't steal horses, and they are usually well guarded.

Originally posted by Sandman
Sod exotic mounts. I want a game where horses aren't a poor man's dragon. A bit like games where tanks aren't a poor man's battlemech.

What? You don't let the local orc to ride his warg?

Originally posted by Sandman
Besides, who said anything about parties? I'm not necessarily advocating it be an multi-character RPG. A one-character RPG, an action game, anything.

Okay, your griffin ate the king's prized horse. Fine with you?

Originally posted by Sandman
Yeah, and you could eliminate the vehicles from GTA, Halo, etc to kill all the petty details of fuel supplies and never-ending ammo.

If mounted combat is an integral part of the game, you have a point. Otherwise, you're just comparing fishes to watermelons.

[Tassadar500]

Simply because, mounts can add more fun and depth to the game, while cleaning, going to the washroom, shaving, and the like, are just boring, tedious tasks that we do in real life all of the time.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

If you are not bothered by the fact that your characters don't need to eat, wash, pee, or even sleep, why would you be bothered by the lack of mounts?

Mounts are important in movement and combat, which are part of the focus of RPG games. The things you listed aren't the focus of the game.

[Dis]

Re: Gaming features which should be common, but aren't

Originally posted by Sandman
This is the opposite of the thread on games cliches I made a while back. What features do you think ought to more common in gaming? What great ideas just never seem to have made it into the mainstream?

Area-specific character damage

As with so many great ideas, this was in Deus Ex. If your character gets hit in the arm, your accuracy suffers. If you step on a mine, you can hardly walk. Headshots mean a quick death. And the health meter shows the condition of each body segment.

Deus Ex was years ago. This sort of thing should be standard by now. But it's not. Most games still just have a health bar or hit points, rather than a more involved system. Maybe gamers can't be bothered with the extra management needed, or maybe they don't like playing by the same rules as the enemies. But I'd like to see games with more involved health systems. Imagine how cool it would be if your game character could get broken bones, blood loss or burns, rather than just suffering 'health loss'.

Some games are making steps in this direction - you can get scars in Xbox RPG Fable, for example. Maybe there are others.

Horses

How many games have a medieval or pseudo-medieval setting? Loads and loads of them. How many of those games have horses? Hardly any.

I don't know what it is, but for some reason games designers seem to go out of their way to avoid putting horses in their games. Maybe it's because the mechanics of riding sit poorly with the mechanics of your average RPG (too 'arcadey'). Maybe it's because games which have RPG settings tend to have prolonged sections underground, where horses make little sense. Maybe it's because horses are 'girly'.

But I'd like to see more horses in games. Someone, somewhere must be able to do make a decent representation of horseback combat. I mean, you could just port over the free-roaming GTA gameplay, and replace the cars with horses. Knock a highwayman off his horse, steal it, and go and do some robbing of your own. There could be all sorts of different horses to steal or buy; cheap ponies, wild horses, warhorses, racing horses, etc. Of course, with this system, it'd be difficult to have your 'own' horse - only a small drawback.

Did World of Warcraft ever get around to including mounts?

the problem is, horses are hard to implement into a game.

Neverwinter Nights was supposed to have them. Nothing. Even games like star wars galaxies was supposed to have mounts, and didn't (note: these were later added in a patch). Some of it is technical problems. It requires a lot of graphical resources to make a horse.