http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLWsK1ZFunA
Some comments that may be off because things might not be in context, it is a trailer after all. That never stopped me. Currently, I'm not hopeful about this film.
-
The exchange between Fury and Cap sounds a lot like the typical
Hollywood attack on preemption, the War on Terror, and heck- even having
a significant military with Cap taking the role of the liberal leftist.
If it really pans out that way, it will wreck the franchise. Leftists
don't go to a Captain America movie, so making it for them is a very
bad idea (unless like the comics you think marketing to less than 10,000
fans is a good idea).
- Checking out IMDB, too many characters.
What is it about superhero movies that cause them to stuff too many
villains into the same film? Winter Soldier, OK that is the name of the
move and while I personally thought it a lame story I can see...
Crossbones too? Why? And Batroc? Now we're just being... Machete? Good
frickin grief, who in the heck even remembers him?
The same on
the hero side to be honest. Sharon Carter and Nick Fury with some
flashbacks to Peggy Carter and Howard Stark is to be expected. But do we
really need the Falcon in this movie too? Maria Hill? Black Widow (talk
about overlap with Sharon Carter). Hawkeye didn't make the cut, color me
surprised.
Too much, most these characters will get shafted and
made insignificant. There's enough here for two or three movies, maybe
they should have waited for those movies. Doing it right each time might make the chances of more movies in the
future a better bet.
We're due for the Marvel Avengers
franchise to go south. They started with movies in the spirit of the
originals, and their success has made them bold enough to further
modernize the characters and the stories. That will end them. Sad, I was
hoping things would last a bit longer before we started getting the
likes of Spider-Man 3.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
How Senseless Things Continue
Richard Bartle made an very interesting post* on his blog concerning the Trinity in MMORPG design, how it doesn't make any sense in any true context, including that of desired game design- but rather came about as an artifact of limits- first of the game, and then the players.
The table-top world suffers greatly from the same type of evolution (or rather it's lack). D&D style Hit Points were a quick fix for the problem of players not wanting their characters to die- and we've (both table-top and then MMORPGs) have stuck with a nonsensical game mechanic ever since to the point where people will tie themselves into logical knots trying to justify them.
I long for the day when people will be willing to wipe the slate clean and reboot the hobby. That it hasn't happen isn't due to a lack of people offering other options- it's from the inertia of an hobby whose mainstream is completely uninterested in trying different approaches.
For the more open minded, we likely lost our best chance at it when WotC released the OGL ensuring that the core market will always be D&D. Now instead of waiting for D&D to die (something it's almost done at least twice now) leaving an opening for something new- we have to wait for the entire hobby to die.
In the meantime, we'll have to be happy with our own personal groups and homegrown rules- for they couldn't care less about the wider hobby because they don't need them. In that way, we have a huge advantage over the MMORPG world whose player base is still strongly tie to what companies are willing to produce.
*hat-tip to Vedron over on Vedron's Potion for calling this to my attention.
The table-top world suffers greatly from the same type of evolution (or rather it's lack). D&D style Hit Points were a quick fix for the problem of players not wanting their characters to die- and we've (both table-top and then MMORPGs) have stuck with a nonsensical game mechanic ever since to the point where people will tie themselves into logical knots trying to justify them.
I long for the day when people will be willing to wipe the slate clean and reboot the hobby. That it hasn't happen isn't due to a lack of people offering other options- it's from the inertia of an hobby whose mainstream is completely uninterested in trying different approaches.
For the more open minded, we likely lost our best chance at it when WotC released the OGL ensuring that the core market will always be D&D. Now instead of waiting for D&D to die (something it's almost done at least twice now) leaving an opening for something new- we have to wait for the entire hobby to die.
In the meantime, we'll have to be happy with our own personal groups and homegrown rules- for they couldn't care less about the wider hobby because they don't need them. In that way, we have a huge advantage over the MMORPG world whose player base is still strongly tie to what companies are willing to produce.
*hat-tip to Vedron over on Vedron's Potion for calling this to my attention.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Only War- House Rules
My son is running a Only War campaign for us for a while, doing a good job at it too. It's sort of interesting in some ways to see how things change from one generation to the next, what we share and want we don't.
He's not as concerned as I about having perfect rules and he's willing to accept 'The Rule of Cool' to some extent, but he also doesn't buy into the rather sloppy approach to them that characterizes modern gaming either.
The result is a small set of House Rules for Only War that I've put up on my website here. They are still a work in progress, and some vehicles will likely be uploaded tonight.
May as well make them public for others to consider or ignore as they wish.
He's not as concerned as I about having perfect rules and he's willing to accept 'The Rule of Cool' to some extent, but he also doesn't buy into the rather sloppy approach to them that characterizes modern gaming either.
The result is a small set of House Rules for Only War that I've put up on my website here. They are still a work in progress, and some vehicles will likely be uploaded tonight.
May as well make them public for others to consider or ignore as they wish.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Design Zombies - Part II
We're continuing the series about game mechanics that failed when they were first
developed, failed in every game they were used in thereafter, and fail
in games designed today. But they are still used for mysterious reasons beyond the understanding of mortal man.
Today we take a quick look at the Game Breaking Stat. I'm going to focus on one type related to damage, but the concept applies beyond that single area.
Let's use FFG's Only War as our standard bearer. Want to create a character for this dark vision of future war where life is cheap and death is close? What's that you say? You want to be an nearly invincible titan on the battlefield?
Grab a character sheet, use point allocation and throw as many points as you can into Toughness. You'll hit 40 points easy and maybe even more depending upon home world and other factors. Now select the Stormtrooper as your archetype and get five points of armor free. Build the right type of regiment with the right aptitudes and using your starting experience add another 10 points to Toughness.
Out of the gate, nothing special and you're already immune to anything less than max damage from many common weapons. Make attaining Best Quality armor (much easier than it sounds with the system) and gain a another point of Armor. Work towards the Armor Monger Talent for yet another point of armor. Should only take a handful of adventures.
Gratz! You are now immune to nearly all the common weapons your foes should be using. Las Rifle fire will roll off you like rain water. I've watched characters wade through the mass fire of 20 NPCs in the open just to pick up a piece of dropped gear- because he could.
Of course the GM may respond with giving every opposing grunt Heavy Weapons, Sniper weapons or the like. Sucks to be you I guess, but it sucks for the setting and campaign more and it has to suffer the intense violence of mainstream weapons being worthless.
As a side note, the Toughness stat is far more effective than armor, because armor is subject to penetration by the more potent (and less common) weapons. Toughness isn't.
This one error in the overwhelming effect of a Stat dates all the way back to 1st edition Warhammer way back in 1986 where the invincible dwarf (due to toughness and armor) became a legend in gaming circles.
It also dates back to the original Star Wars RPG in 1987 where a common Wookie could make himself all but immune to the typical Imperial Blasters.Yep, you could get through armored doors with those things ('lock the door and hope they don't have blasters'), but couldn't take down a wookie with one. Oh well.
How and why this is still happening is beyond me. Give any gamer who understands mechanics five minutes with the rulebook and he'll find this hole immediately. But it seems that a game designer will never see the problem, even if it's been around for decades.
Today we take a quick look at the Game Breaking Stat. I'm going to focus on one type related to damage, but the concept applies beyond that single area.
Let's use FFG's Only War as our standard bearer. Want to create a character for this dark vision of future war where life is cheap and death is close? What's that you say? You want to be an nearly invincible titan on the battlefield?
Grab a character sheet, use point allocation and throw as many points as you can into Toughness. You'll hit 40 points easy and maybe even more depending upon home world and other factors. Now select the Stormtrooper as your archetype and get five points of armor free. Build the right type of regiment with the right aptitudes and using your starting experience add another 10 points to Toughness.
Out of the gate, nothing special and you're already immune to anything less than max damage from many common weapons. Make attaining Best Quality armor (much easier than it sounds with the system) and gain a another point of Armor. Work towards the Armor Monger Talent for yet another point of armor. Should only take a handful of adventures.
Gratz! You are now immune to nearly all the common weapons your foes should be using. Las Rifle fire will roll off you like rain water. I've watched characters wade through the mass fire of 20 NPCs in the open just to pick up a piece of dropped gear- because he could.
Of course the GM may respond with giving every opposing grunt Heavy Weapons, Sniper weapons or the like. Sucks to be you I guess, but it sucks for the setting and campaign more and it has to suffer the intense violence of mainstream weapons being worthless.
As a side note, the Toughness stat is far more effective than armor, because armor is subject to penetration by the more potent (and less common) weapons. Toughness isn't.
This one error in the overwhelming effect of a Stat dates all the way back to 1st edition Warhammer way back in 1986 where the invincible dwarf (due to toughness and armor) became a legend in gaming circles.
It also dates back to the original Star Wars RPG in 1987 where a common Wookie could make himself all but immune to the typical Imperial Blasters.Yep, you could get through armored doors with those things ('lock the door and hope they don't have blasters'), but couldn't take down a wookie with one. Oh well.
How and why this is still happening is beyond me. Give any gamer who understands mechanics five minutes with the rulebook and he'll find this hole immediately. But it seems that a game designer will never see the problem, even if it's been around for decades.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Design Zombies - Part I
No, not that type of zombie. Here I'm referencing game mechanics that failed when they were first developed, failed in every game they were used in thereafter, and fail in games designed today. But they are still used. It would be baffling if one didn't expect people to be stupid, but sadly they are and so I imagine we'll never outgrow bad game design.
So in this post (the first of a series) I want to take a quick look at Design Zombies.
First up, spending your XP in exchange for altering or changing in-game events. One simple example is classic Deadlands where you spend your hard earned chips for re-rolls or instant healing.
It’s a meta-game decision that pulls you out of character, and doesn’t in any way relate to anything ‘real’ to the character. Think about it, does James Bond put off raising his driving skill in order to keep Goldfinger from killing him? I never saw him consider that exchange in the movie or book. Perhaps I missed it.
I think this mechanic results from a game design that fails to represent the genre by providing too many non-genre results. To correct this the designer puts in a player controlled ‘override’ ability but doesn't want to give away 'freebies'. Thus he charges him the one currency the player always values (XP) to make sure it's not 'over-used'.
Alternatively, the designer loves to have his players make meta-game decisions (mistaking such things as a type of resource management), puts the mechanic in and then designs his game to *fail* at providing genre appropriate results so that the players must purchase them with XP.
Both reasons are terrible. The whole concept should be avoided like the plague it is and the designer should just design a good game that provides good results upfront.
But that would be hard I suppose. And why do hard when people will still buy easy?
So in this post (the first of a series) I want to take a quick look at Design Zombies.
First up, spending your XP in exchange for altering or changing in-game events. One simple example is classic Deadlands where you spend your hard earned chips for re-rolls or instant healing.
It’s a meta-game decision that pulls you out of character, and doesn’t in any way relate to anything ‘real’ to the character. Think about it, does James Bond put off raising his driving skill in order to keep Goldfinger from killing him? I never saw him consider that exchange in the movie or book. Perhaps I missed it.
I think this mechanic results from a game design that fails to represent the genre by providing too many non-genre results. To correct this the designer puts in a player controlled ‘override’ ability but doesn't want to give away 'freebies'. Thus he charges him the one currency the player always values (XP) to make sure it's not 'over-used'.
Alternatively, the designer loves to have his players make meta-game decisions (mistaking such things as a type of resource management), puts the mechanic in and then designs his game to *fail* at providing genre appropriate results so that the players must purchase them with XP.
Both reasons are terrible. The whole concept should be avoided like the plague it is and the designer should just design a good game that provides good results upfront.
But that would be hard I suppose. And why do hard when people will still buy easy?
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