Dungeon Master Forum

The point is that you could play DM *without* needing to read the manual; and the main game play was intuitive and encouraged exploration and "what if" by the player. Perhaps you'd need the manual for the runes, but beyond that it was pretty intuitive. With todays gaming style, you'd enter the Hall of Champions and there would be a bloody great bubble pointing at a mirror saying "Click here to wake a champion" or a bubble pointing to a key on the floor saying "Pick this up and put it in that there lock." No one needs that, unless they are incredibly stupid. I guess it's the difference between show and tell, but I'd argue you don't even need to show.

Many modern games *do* dumb down far more than they ever did. Take the newer Tomb Raider games: these games are all about exploration, yet the path through many levels was clearly mapped out with stupid metal rings that give off that "throw your grapple at me" shine. It completely destroyed any sense of exploration on the part of the player. And the main gameplay sucked because all you needed to do was throw Lara in the general direction of something and she'd cling to it no problem. Where's the sense of danger? All gone, and the whole premise of the franchise destroyed by modern dumbing down sensibilities. I stopped playing it because of these, it was no longer fun.

Exactly. Exploring the gameplay and interface and learning how to play a game was always a great part of gaming for me. In DM, the only thing I needed to know were the names of the runes.

But people today have too little time for such an exploration... or the average IQ of game players went down (which is very likely too - I'm pretty sure that the average intelligence of a game player 25 years ago was higher than today). And, of course, the game designers were making the games more intuitive.

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't have the patience to bother trying to learn something that doesn't come with a nice simple explanation on exactly what you're supposed to do. Well, sod those people - if I want to have fun with these games that came out 20+ years ago, I shall do so and they can stick with their boring "go here, click this, now move here" games .

i do think the strategy has been reduced to point and shoot gangs of thugs. DM is so appealing when you watch players of the new games today. even the old MUD games are a little messed up, i use to play Trade Wars all the time BBS, before the internet. i think Doom screwed it all up. the kids that grew up in that time just fell head over heals for a shoot em up game. it has been run like that ever since. even the simulators were wiped out. time to bring back games like DM. i can see people playing it on the tube/bus/street on their little hand help devices. wouldn't that be the day.

While I generally prefer older games, I don't quite think that these in-game-tutorials really do dumb the games down. You could play most of today's games without a manual, just as you could 20 years ago. The games where you really should read the manual are the complex ones with lots of info needed - RPGs, economy games, stuff like that. But that didn't really change in the past 20 years as well. Many of these in-game-tutorials are done rather cleverly, and are usually nothing more than a minor nuisance, if that.

The main problem for me in today's games is that games are too extreme in their linearity - they are either extremely linear where you cannot deviate from a given route or are so open that the game just swallows you whole and you feel clueless what to do next because you have too many options. Morrowind was a game I turned off after 30 minutes of playing because I felt totally overwhelmed and saw no sense of direction. I'd like something in the middle - a path you can deviate from, but mostly have a rough idea what to do or where to go next.

One more thing: nostalgia is a bitch. Today's games are probably not as bad as some old fart like me thinks they are. I just played so many games that somehow, I always think "Oh, this game is like a combination of games X and Y, only the graphics are prettier." There is nothing new to discover, no sense of wonder and amazement anymore. I was much more easily pleased when I was 13, and innovation was much easier to achieve for designers in the 80s and 90s. Many of the games I loved back then wouldn't really be interesting for me if I played them for the first time today. Obviously, DM is an exception, but that is because this game is a true stroke of genius, a one-of-a-kind miracle of gaming.

Hehe, I tend to like open-ended games. I loved Morrowind - mainly because there is so much to do. There is a Main Quest, a storyline you should play through in order to "finish" the game, but you don't have to even touch it. You can play through a zillion other quests, if you want, and never visit the first bloke you're supposed to go to to get on track for the Main Quest. Last time I played the game, I left visiting that bloke until I'd done every other faction quest (and achieved the highest rank in every faction/guild it was possible for me to join), and then went and saw him and got on with the Main Quest. Areas are levelled, meaning when you zone into a place, the monster levels there are determined (or at least partially determined) by your own level. So you can usually find a challenge. At least, until you level past the levle caps of all the other creatures. Which takes quite a while, unless you use some of the various game-exploit-type-things to get yourself uber. Oh there are so many ways to get yourself uber in that game through completely legitimate ways of using the various trainers and stuff. Enchantment is just fantastic .
I don't mind an open game like that, where you're told "You should go to such-and-such a place" and basically then sent forth into the world, as long as there is some indication as to where that place is. A map of the game world is plenty enough in order that I can navigate and have some clue as to where the smeg I'm suppose to be going/where I am at the time. That or some kind of in-game note-keeping/quest-log thingy that notes down important names and places and other such information (Morrowind does both - there is a paper map that comes with the game, an in-game map that's uncovered as you visit places, and a nice quest journal thing in which pretty much any conversation topic can be re-read at your leisure). If I'm just told to go to some place and find someone and given no directions and then expected to remember all the weird details I was given as I blindly try to navigate my way to somewhere I have no clue how to get to, that's not fun. Being given a super-easy-to-follow breadcrumb trail-type-thing isn't too fun either. I like a bit of exploration. Then again, some games I've played have areas laid out with a particular kind of pathway through but loads of sort of off-rooms and stuff that you can poke into and find extra stuff, and loads of extra zones that aren't necessary to the main plot (not to mention tons of extra quests) that just make the game feel really huge and give many, many hours of enjoyment. Okay, I am really talking specifically about Dragon Age here because I'm still at it and it's therefore a rather recent memory, but that's a very fun game .
Hmm anyway, I think I may sidetracking myself from whatever point it was I was originally trying to make, so I'll stop now and hurry through checking the rest of the forum so I can go to bed .

i can feel my neck tightening

yeah, if a game has many extra missions, a map should be available. i found conflux such an example on proper use of a map.

dum-dum-dum---dum-da-dum---dum-da-dumm...... Excellent stuff

Are laserswords allowed in the insult-(s)wordfight-arena?

Indeed they are. But only those turned off.

Lol, random .

That all starts getting pretty rude as you click through the rest of the pages....

LInked from someone else, I hold no responsibility to anything else

Nonsense, Beo. If I get fired it's all your fault! It's horrible, it's crude, it's base, it's... Hmmmm. Thanks!

Wow, rude is an understandment O.O. Probably best if no-one with any sensibilities clicks on any other part of the links.

Wonder how many comics this has...

It gets a thumbs up from all of my wierde friends.... Uff, I guess that means I'm strange too!

I can't really link to some of the funniest, because they tend to be running jokes, and also deplorably filthy, but here's some of the cleaner ones:

http://oglaf.com/kingshaped/1/
http://oglaf.com/badfalcon/1/
http://oglaf.com/alsoelves/1/
http://oglaf.com/princess/1/
http://oglaf.com/ulric/1/

I went through all of them from the start. It's quite naughty.

Yeah. It's also repetitive and not too funny.

But OK, that one with the "purple" worms was DM-related, so perhaps Trantor won't be banned for too long from these forums for BW posting it.

EDIT: Did you notice that this was my 1000th post?

Congrats on levelling up! Although Mon Master is actually 910 posts, so you only need another 50 for Archmaster. You also need 86,808 more posts to get our special, hidden top rank

Thanks. Heh, Gambit, only now I've noticed that your rank is "Banned user". You don't seem to be too much banned... unlike Trantor. I haven't seem him here for a while now. Poor old little German fellow.

Oh, I didn't notice that! Some naughty little tinker banned me, hmm, that is likely to be Beo bonce. I have an itchy rank finger upon me!

(Um, that sounds quite horrible!)

Not me, last I looked you were misunderstood!

Hmmm.... the plot thickens! No matter, I'm now going by my real name. *Schwing!*

Dr. Love? OMG!

*runs*

They should call you Dr. Mophus!

Happuy 1000!

@Gambit: you had been "banned user" for some time...I assumed you had changed it yourself. Just goes to show how often people read the ranks!