Kyoto Kid
Jul 28 2005, 08:50 PM
QUOTE (Cheops) |
That's why I say that SR is doing really poorly in my area. Very little shelf space is given to it whereas other companies/games such as White Wolf, Rifts, D&D get tons of space and recognition. |
...I find the same thing here in Portland, TT...er OR as well. Even when FASA still published Shadowrun, it was given less than a quarter of the shelf space that Battletech (another FASA product) was given. I have often been forced to either travel up to the Seattle Metroplex or place a special order with my local shop & wait for several weeks.
Funny you mentioned Rifts. Yes Shadowrun has a "few" supplements, but when a friend of mine showed me his entire collection of Rifts rule and source books (roughly 4 feet tall when stacked), I'm just glad he failed to lure me in to playing. Between D&D, Shadowrun and various other game systems (current & out of print) I think I've been spending way too much on books already.
As an aside (but somewhat related) I think it would be neat if Fanpro published Shadowrun material in CD format (Indexed of course). It would make the trips to the various gaming sessions a lot easier. and since I routinely use a deck..er notebook when I run my campaign It would also speed things along when looking things up. I have heard about the PDF formats out there, but I am not sure if my local shop can get them even on special order.
Kagetenshi
Jul 28 2005, 09:13 PM
No, your local shop probably can't get the PDFs. Well, they might be able to strike a deal. Either way, though, they're for online distribution—if you want a CD, make it yourself.
~J
Bigity
Jul 29 2005, 12:11 AM
Yea, my local stores don't really carry SR3. They get one or two of the new books as they come out, but they don't really support it. I find I can get them cheaper online anyway, and I do when the store is out.
You can sure buy all the damn CCGs or Warhammer you want though.
bclements
Jul 29 2005, 01:51 AM
QUOTE (Bigity) |
Yea, my local stores don't really carry SR3. They get one or two of the new books as they come out, but they don't really support it. I find I can get them cheaper online anyway, and I do when the store is out.
You can sure buy all the damn CCGs or Warhammer you want though. |
I got my 3rd at the freaking Barnes and Noble here, of all places. It was the only copy that store had, but even the FLGS here didn't have it (though, I can get you a great deal on the Germany Sourcebook if you want. They're clearing out all the books except for D&D 3.5 to make room for more CCG's and figureine space).
The aformentioned FLGS point blank refused to order any more books for me and the guy behind me, who was ordering some GURPS books, because "we're not ordering any more books. You sure you don't want some M:TG cards?"
Bigity
Jul 29 2005, 04:13 PM
Nice. I guess all the old gamers can shove off now that they found something that 5 year olds can buy.
I want to retire with enough to open a game store..that doesn't sell any CCGs..well, maybe Magic, but no Pokemon or whatnot. With demo copies of games for people to use, tables, snack bar kinda thing, come networked computers for LAN gaming, etc etc.
And then I can kick out anyone I want. It will be great.
Bigity
Jul 29 2005, 04:14 PM
QUOTE (bclements) |
QUOTE (Bigity @ Jul 28 2005, 07:11 PM) | Yea, my local stores don't really carry SR3. They get one or two of the new books as they come out, but they don't really support it. I find I can get them cheaper online anyway, and I do when the store is out.
You can sure buy all the damn CCGs or Warhammer you want though. |
I got my 3rd at the freaking Barnes and Noble here, of all places. It was the only copy that store had, but even the FLGS here didn't have it (though, I can get you a great deal on the Germany Sourcebook if you want. They're clearing out all the books except for D&D 3.5 to make room for more CCG's and figureine space).
The aformentioned FLGS point blank refused to order any more books for me and the guy behind me, who was ordering some GURPS books, because "we're not ordering any more books. You sure you don't want some M:TG cards?"
|
Yea, I gotto look at Hasings and places like that for books usually, unless it's WotC or GW. They do have some WarMachine lately though.
Otherwise, online or go to another town.
Kyoto Kid
Jul 29 2005, 09:01 PM
QUOTE (Kagetenshi) |
No, your local shop probably can't get the PDFs. Well, they might be able to strike a deal. Either way, though, they're for online distribution—if you want a CD, make it yourself.
~J |
I'm aware of the link from the Fanpro site for Shadowrun PDFs. Only thing is, not being a member of the plastic wielding set, ordering on line is not an option.
Yeah, I'm a bit old school, but I enjoy what little privacy I have left and the fact I'm not paying 18+% on every purchase I make.
mintcar
Jul 29 2005, 11:43 PM
I know internet has taken on a lot of the rpg sales, but it still strikes me as sad that genuine rpg stores cant exist anymore. In Gothenburg, we had 5 straight up rpg stores in the 90´s. A few of them frequently visited conventions and one even published a luxurious catalog with over 50 pages that they sent out twice a year to all customers that signed a list in the store (It had reviews and articles and stuff, and glolious covers. I still have those catalogs). They sold mostly rpg´s, with a little warhammer figures and magic. Good stores that I miss. Social spaces too.
Now we have a few rpg books in a book store and even less in a videogame store (that used to be a rpg store), thats it. Not a single store profiled towards the rpg crowd. From five to zero in less than ten years.
Bigity
Jul 30 2005, 01:18 AM
Ah, the evils of CCGs, the internet, and a generation of gamers raised on Grand Theft Auto and the like.
Not that those games are bad, but they aren't quite the same as games like Fallout, Zork, or even old Final Fantasy games.
Ellery
Jul 30 2005, 01:37 AM
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid) |
Yeah, I'm a bit old school, but I enjoy what little privacy I have left and the fact I'm not paying 18+% on every purchase I make. |
Um, you could pay off your bill in full every month, or get a debit card that lets you use the Visa or MasterCard network to withdraw money from your checking account.
Then you wouldn't have to worry about 18+%, just a lack of privacy.
Bigity
Jul 30 2005, 04:27 AM
18 percent? Huh? Are you talking about interest? Maybe you shouldn't be defaulting on loans or writing bad checks.
Bull
Jul 30 2005, 05:45 AM
You do know that just about every bank offers free debit cards for your checking account, and that darned near every one of these can be used exactly like a credit card (They even have the Visa or MasterCard logos on them), but the money comes right out of the checking account. Most banks I know of around here, it's totally free. No fee's or anything.
Makes life a LOT easier...
Bull
Ellery
Jul 30 2005, 05:45 AM
Credit card interest rates vary by state (and country, of course, and to some extent even within states). In some locations in the U.S., 18% is actually a very good interest rate.
(Added in edit: nope, I'm wrong. See later post(s).)
Bigity
Jul 30 2005, 06:07 AM
No...that's not good, anywhere.
bit_buckethead
Jul 30 2005, 07:10 AM
One word. "Paypal." Tie it to a checking account.
Bull
Jul 30 2005, 10:34 AM
You will end up paying for paypal at some point... They loves tehir fees, they do. BUt it's pretty cheap compared to a credit card. And you can get a Paypal Debit Card that will draw cash out of your paypal account, as if it was a full on checking account.
Of course, this brings us once again back to getting a Debit Card from your bank.
Of course, if for some reason (possibly the above suggestion that there were lots of rubbery checks involved) you can;t get a checking account... Well, that's a whole other issue and set of problems. Ask a friend to help you in that case.
Bull
mintcar
Jul 30 2005, 11:53 AM
I like using a virtual debit card from my bank every time I make a purchase online. You get a fresh virtual card every time, that you can only use for one month and only with the amount of money you specified. Makes you feel a bit safer, and its free.
Ellery
Jul 30 2005, 07:35 PM
Hmkay, credit card interest rates have gone down since I checked last. 18% is average in some states, not good.
Heh, maybe even a bit worse than average. Jeez, I'm out of date.
Critias
Jul 30 2005, 11:28 PM
Time to download a new patch! Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade!
kelvingreen
Aug 1 2005, 07:29 AM
QUOTE (TheOneRonin) |
I keep most of the target numbers hidden in my games. What I do is have players group and call out their die results, starting with the lowest. It would look something like this:
Player 1: I shoot the guard. GM: Roll your pistols skill. Player 1: I get one 2, two 4's, one 5, one 7, and three 8s.
I know the TN for this test is 5, so I start counting at 5. That gives him 5 successes. It's not as slow as you might think. Though my players are in the habit of sorting their dice immediately after rolling them, so I don't really have to wait too long for them to do it .
Here's a tangent...if the TN in SR4 is fixed at 5, and all that really changes is the number of dice rolled, how can you have any hidden tests? Won't the players ALWAYS know exactly how many successes they get on a given test? I suppose opposed rolls is one way, and maybe having a hidden success threshold is another, but otherwise the players always know how well they do on every test. I suppose it will speed things up substantially, which is a good thing. |
In every game I've run, no matter the system, I've had a sheet of pre-rolled results for use in hidden TN situations (usually perception-type tests). Just a list of numbers that I tick off as I/the players use them. Yes, I could implement "phantom rolls" so that they never know whether this test is a real one or not, but this way is much easier and doesn't break up the game so much.
The best thing about it is that the players then don't know when/if they're making the tests. The whole process is completely hidden from them.
The other best thing about it is that it's great for armchair roleplaying and/or games where you use lots of dice and you can't be arsed to roll them all.
hobgoblin
Aug 1 2005, 08:50 AM
and with a computer and a bit of code you should be able to generate a full page of those in a matter of seconds
Gildashard
Aug 1 2005, 05:51 PM
21% is high end for credit cards and 18% isn't much better. Of course if you have NO credit, then that's what you'll get. Also you have to bug the hell out of the credit card companies to get lower rates, or switch to other cards. Sometimes threatening to switch will make them lower it, other times you go through the whole process of cancelling the card and they stop at the end with a better rate.
Mine are at around 5-6% thanks to my wife who likes to play hardball with them.
Of course, as someone here said, you can pay it off at the end of the month for no fee.
Cheops
Aug 1 2005, 08:41 PM
QUOTE (mintcar) |
Now we have a few rpg books in a book store and even less in a videogame store (that used to be a rpg store), thats it. Not a single store profiled towards the rpg crowd. From five to zero in less than ten years. |
Just give MMO's another 5-10 years...pen and paper gaming is going to slowly disappear
Kagetenshi
Aug 1 2005, 09:22 PM
QUOTE (Cheops) |
Just give MMO's another 5-10 years...pen and paper gaming is going to slowly disappear |
I call bulldrek. It may not involve pens and paper anymore, but there are things that are offered by decidedly non-massive role-playing environments that are not duplicated by MMOs and won't be duplicated by MMOs in anywhere near that timeframe.
~J
Ellery
Aug 2 2005, 03:59 AM
I think the long-term future of RPGs is actually in exactly the opposite direction from where FanPro's been going with SR4--i.e. trying to appeal to younger, less sophisticated players with a simplified, less realistic ruleset. That direction forces traditional RPGs into conflict with increasingly sophisticated MMOGs. Eye-popping 3D graphics are more compelling that a good imagination in many cases.
Where MMOGs cannot compete (or at least not for a very long time) is in the crafting of stories. If you view RPGs as collaborative fiction rather than an action game then MMOGs aren't even on the map. Rules are used to help guide outcomes along in ways that are characteristic for the world, but the drama and excitement comes from the players, from plot and story and shared history more than "lol 8 hits the gaurd is so dead lol rofl".
Anyway, I don't think collaborative fiction will be dead in five to ten years, and I don't think all gaming companies will try to compete in the action/excitement genre that MMOGs live in, so I expect that RPGs will be alive and well although probably with a reduced market. The industry probably will feel the squeeze, though, and I expect increasing casualties as game designers forget that they can't compete with accelerated 1600x1200 24 bit graphics with hardware vertex shaders and physics engines.
Cheops
Aug 2 2005, 05:20 AM
Ellery you're also forgetting the convenience factor. Not only does the MMO look slick and is fun to play but it is also hella easier to play. You don't have to invest as much time or effort just in creating and running the world nor do you have to go through the difficulty of trying to schedule a bunch of people to show up in one place at one time to play.
MMO RPGs are going to cause a large consolidation in the paper and pen RPG industry over the timeframe I mentioned and it's going to be very difficult for the genre to survive. CRPGs haven't had the desired effect for the tabletop gaming industry--a few CRPG gamers have crossed over from just computer gaming to regular gaming but those numbers are very small. It hasn't had the desired effect of introducing the games to the video game players and then those players purchasing the paper version.
As technology progresses the computer games will get better and better at simulating the paper and pen gaming. Someone even mentioned over on the Shadowrun video game thread that they should have made it an MMO instead of a FPS like they've leaked. I can guarantee that there would be lots of players on this forum that would essentially stop playing the pen and paper version of Shadowrun if they and their groups could play something that simulates the game on-line. I've already seen that with City of Heroes--no one seems to run Mutants and Masterminds anymore. Why go through the bother of arranging a game when they can all meet online and adventure together anyway?
Pen and paper RPGs have to do something in the next few years to react to this trend I think. Now, I don't know what the solution is but the general downturn in the overall RPG market, which is partially responsible for SR4, is not going to reverse itself on its own because it isn't just another normal economic cycle. I suggested to a friend who freelances and playtests for L5R that the pen and paper gaming companies should start buying booths at video game conventions and promoting the genre--not just their own products--to raise awareness and interest. I don't know if they do this already and it probably wouldn't cause massive numbers of people who'd play both CRPGs and regular RPGs but it would probably stop the bleeding.
Critias
Aug 2 2005, 05:25 AM
I disagree. "Pen and paper" RPGs aren't in the same world as MMO's, for the simple reason that it's a social gathering and a group storytelling, every bit as much as it's a "game." I've played my share of MMO's, I've played my share (and his share, and her share, and their share) of on-line RPGs, and I've played my share of sit-down face to face munch on pizza drink sodas and BS with my friend's pen and paper RPGs...
The former shit's just there for when you can't play the latter. No fancy whiz-bang graphics are gonna change that. The lacking attention span of a new generation might wear down the popularity a bit, but they aren't goin' the way of the dinosaur for a lot, lot, longer than a 5-10 year window.
Taki
Aug 2 2005, 08:04 AM
QUOTE (Cheops) |
Not only does the MMO look slick and is fun to play but it is also hella easier to play. You don't have to invest as much time or effort just in creating and running the world nor do you have to go through the difficulty of trying to schedule a bunch of people to show up in one place at one time to play. |
huh ? are you really speaking of MMORPG ????
If you want a really consistent world you will need to have a playing group, to have really big quest, some of my friends have to reserve their place more than a week in advance.
Even when I was younger and completely addict to rpg it was only part time.
A lot of people play more time in MMO than if it was a full time work.
The MMO will still be really really limited in 10 years. Because you need to program each thing, when a gm can adapt the world to pc's action
Wireknight
Aug 2 2005, 03:18 PM
MMORPGs also, at least in the case of World of Warcraft, have a random potential reward system (i.e. superior, rare, and epic drops that occur ~5%, ~1%, and ~0.1% of the time respectively) that mimicks the reward structure for a number of types of gambling, and can prove highly addictive to people who are similarly susceptible to the lures of, say, slot machines. That gives them a real edge in maintaining user base.
My problems with MMORPGs, in their supposed role of pen-and-paper replacement, are as follows:
1. Monthly fees. Once I've gotten the basic rules, I can play a P&PRPG for an indefinite period of time with no further monetary investment. Any future investment I make, through additional sourcebooks, is purely voluntary. I needn't even pay for additional sourcebooks if a cohesive enough group exists that a mutual library may be assembled from all members' collections. This is not the case with a MMORPG. If I wish to continue playing it, I must pay a monthly fee.
2. Immutable world. While you might gain rep among other players, there is virtually nothing that anyone can do, ever, to shape the current or future development of the virtual world of a MMORPG. The designers attempt to grant you the feel of doing this by presenting increasingly global-scope/metaplot-rich quests, but the illusion of making a difference fades pretty quickly when you head to face the uberboss or get the uberartifact and meet six other groups who are on their way to doing it, in the process of doing it, or are heading back after doing it before you. Likewise, participation in "world events" does not equate to actual influence on the manner in which the world develops. These events are scripted, and their outcomes predetermined.
3. Time and effort. In a P&PRPG, you can take a pretty significant break and not fall behind your fellow players. A generous GM can even allow you to develop non-played backstory that could justify powering your character up enough to keep them in the same league as more regular players. In a MMORPG, if you fall behind, you will find that you cannot play with the same people that have advanced their characters into a league where attempting to join them will slow them down and result in little progress and lots of deaths on your part.
4. Immersion. In a P&PRPG, it's bad form to rattle off the damage your desired weapon does or your various stats or other metagame rules-level talents, or to break character. In a MMORPG, on the other hand, refusing to do these things is the aberration, and it's hard to ignore the majority of players who do so. It's hard to reinforce the idea that you are a troll shaman braving the perils of the world of Azeroth when all channels are being spammed by "LFG Scholo holy spec priest PST" and "WTS icy weapon, blue glow, stun proc, 45G".
MMORPGs are fun, but they don't fulfill the same entertainment/creative expression niche, for me, as P&PRPGs. I do not think that they ever will, for that matter.
Nikoli
Aug 2 2005, 03:47 PM
Well, Blizzard is attempting to make WoW mutable. There are supposedly one time events in the game world that when accomplished successfully NPC's will react to the party/raid responsible and remember them as the heros or villains they are. No one on that server will be able to do the event again. I can't cite and specific examples just yet, but I think they haven't put them in.
Now, I think P&P RPG's will be in serious trouble when MMO's allow for radical outside the box thinking or at least thinking more in terms of players of said P&P RPG's. How many of you have said, if only I had a rope and a grappling hook I'd climb this and get the treasure in an MMO? I have ye tto see an MMO with a good climbing system DAoC came closer than any but not quite there yet as MMO's go (Haven't played CoH so it might have climbing, I know they have free form flight which is definintely a first for MMO's).
The fact is the programmers have already determinied every possible action you as a player can take and have programmed specific events for those actions, so that one maybe two viable strategies exist outside f raw brute strength zerging and anything else is usually deemed an explot of the system.
Cheops
Aug 2 2005, 05:00 PM
AND...lots of people from the pen and paper gaming industry...such as writers and developers are making the crossover to video gaming...as a lot of the smaller companies start dying off there's going to be a big, unemployed talent pool for those MMOs to start drawing on.
Oh look the new SR MMO has all of the developers and main writers from the p&p game working as storywriters and game world editors on the video game...hmm...wonder if I should give it a try?
Look at how far MMO rpgs have come in the PAST 10 years...CRPGs in general for that matter. And MMOs are just starting to catch on IN THE MAINASTREAM. As companies start making more and more money with them then more and more money will be invested in making the latest and greatest MMO. P&P really has a cap--the imagination of the group and the lack of other social opportunities. MMOs, at the most basic level, are something you can just sit down for half an hour and have fun playing before you go out to the movies with your partner or sit down to dinner with your family. You can't do that with P&P (which is the convenience point I was trying to make that a lot of you seemed to miss).
The last time I sat down and said "hmm I have the afternoon free, wonder if the guys can get together for a game?" and they actually could was back in high school. As opposed to "I wonder if some of the dozen plus people I know on this MMO are playing right now and want to team together?" which happens all the time.
chevalier_neon
Aug 2 2005, 05:45 PM
It's been something like 10 years that I am hearing that Pen and Papers RPG were dying... And indeed they are, but not as fast as some pretend.
Why are they dying ? Because of the competition of some other kind of games, and of the increasing laziness of the people (don't want to think, don't want to do anything, me just want to have fun).
But basically, if Pen and Papers RPG die, they won't be replaced by anything else.. because MMO cannot reproduce the imagination of a human being, and we are still far away from that (and the day such a deu... haem, such an AI will be created, it won't be used by MMO companies in my opinion).
Yes Pen and Papers RPG will die, and nothing will success to 'em... they call that natural selection... even dinosaurs have to leave one day
Synner
Aug 2 2005, 06:41 PM
QUOTE (Cheops @ Aug 2 2005, 05:00 PM) |
Look at how far MMO rpgs have come in the PAST 10 years...CRPGs in general for that matter. And MMOs are just starting to catch on IN THE MAINASTREAM. As companies start making more and more money with them then more and more money will be invested in making the latest and greatest MMO. |
Actually that's a common misconception. Less than a third of MMOs are making any money and most are losing it left and right. Suprise hits like COH have started losing ground and others like Anarchy Online are going through serious revamps to keep up with SOTA. Studies suggest new games are cannibalizing sales from older games much faster than they are attracting new gamers and so are killing established "success stories". Accordingly investment in the genre in 2004 has already dropped by 20% and looks to drop further in 2005 as companies begin looking for alternatives - source: Edge mag article April 2005, Wired had a similar article in March.
Strangely enough P&P sales are up - not by much, but up nonetheless - according to pretty much state of the industry report I've seen this year.
Shadow
Aug 2 2005, 06:56 PM
Thats because MMO's have a very finite life. They nee dto make %90 of their sales in the first month before the word gets out that they suck. And to be honest most of them do. Even WoW and CoH have serious playability issues. Namely that you are doing the same thing over and over and over again. Some games hide this so that you don't really spot it till a few months have gone by (WoW) other embrace is (CoH) but manage to hold their audiance a different way (costumes).
But when it comes down to it there all the same with different graphics, the same cannot be said for RPGs. D&D and Shadowrun are as about as different as it gets.
Kagetenshi
Aug 2 2005, 07:05 PM
Also, as has been mentioned, MMOs are a serious time investment. Contrary to what others have been saying, they're much more time-costly than pen-and-paper—trick is, the up-front cost is lower while the long-term cost is much higher. As a result, while I as a first-person shooter gamer buy all sorts of different games, a MMO player is unusual if they play more than two—even two is a bit uncommon.
~J
Kyoto Kid
Aug 2 2005, 09:10 PM
QUOTE (Bull) |
You will end up paying for paypal at some point... They loves tehir fees, they do. BUt it's pretty cheap compared to a credit card. And you can get a Paypal Debit Card that will draw cash out of your paypal account, as if it was a full on checking account.
Of course, this brings us once again back to getting a Debit Card from your bank.
Of course, if for some reason (possibly the above suggestion that there were lots of rubbery checks involved) you can;t get a checking account... Well, that's a whole other issue and set of problems. Ask a friend to help you in that case.
Bull |
I actually had all of that , Checquing, Debit, etc...& never went over balance until my small savings bank was inhaled by a big insensitive, for profit national institution. Suddenly there were so many hidden fees taken out that I felt It came down to me serving the bank instead of the bank serving me. (the customer).
My small local cable company was likewise swallowed up by a huge corporate communications network which loved playing the old Bait & Switch routine.
I won't even go into what the regional phone company (we used to call it US Worst for short) & utilities have been doing.
It seems as if the Shadowrun world in real life is closer than we think.
Long Live Seder Krupp...
Cheops
Aug 4 2005, 12:25 PM
yeah I did a study too with a bunch of friends who are business savvy...about marketing PDAs with all the GM and player info on them plus various utilities that groups could use
most of the RPG industry is privately owned so they don't have to tell you how much money they are investing and losing...whereas the CRPG and MMO industry is publicly owned so they have to truthfully report how much they are losing
pen and paper rpgs have been losing money for years...not necessarily the company but the industry
I realize this is the wrong board to say this harsh truth but...we're all going the way of the dinosaur and as bad as I think SR4 is going to be...I hope they find a way to keep it alive for my son's/daughter's generation
Synner
Aug 4 2005, 02:27 PM
QUOTE (Cheops @ Aug 4 2005, 12:25 PM) |
pen and paper rpgs have been losing money for years...not necessarily the company but the industry |
This is also an incorrect or at least incomplete analysis. "Losing money" can mean a lot of things. Right now and in the past few years the industry has been slowly making a comeback from the late-Nineties slump and its actually pretty stable - the reason it hasn't is that aside from the two big boys most RPG companies these days have minimal overhead and have learned to play the field they're given (sort of what's happened to the comics industry). The D20 glut and dieback we've been seeing is not an industry trend, it comes from an over optimistic misunderstanding about niche market dynamics on the part of far too many small publishers, and it resembles the way the RPG industry bloated in early 90's (when many companies had more than 12 full-time staff as opposed to the current reality) - the market was good and that led to a lot of wrong decisions in the long-term.
The true problem with the industry is its target audience has stagnated and isn't recieving much new blood. That's where MOGs and MPORPGs (and CCGs etc for that matter) really do pose an obstacle. They represent a strong alternative for a starting individual because you don't need a group to start playing. Play itself is tailored to be simple and straight-forward (requiring little prior experience) and the learning curve isn't too steep. You don't need to have a FLGS for updates. All this makes them a short term alternative. In the long term however they pose problems and lack a lot of the entertainment value that a serious roleplayer looks for in a P&P RPG.
There are no numbers out there to back us up, but do you honestly think WotC/Hasbro would have come forward to say 2004 was D&D's best year ever if there were any chance they'd be caught out?
Does this reflect the reality of your local FLGS? Probably not, but then again they apparently haven't bothered to order Loose Alliances for what appears to be a regular client, when even the only RPG store in my end of the woods (and that's the ass end of Europe) has had a couple in stock for a week.
Nikoli
Aug 4 2005, 04:40 PM
Well, short term, yes MMOs will slow down some players. However the ones that want a story driven, dynamic game will eventually find their way to P&P games. Every MMO I've played bored me to tears after a couple of months or so. I've been playing P&P games as regular as life allows every weekend for the last decade. there isn't an MMO that can compete with that staying power.
Kyoto Kid
Aug 4 2005, 09:06 PM
QUOTE (Cheops) |
I realize this is the wrong board to say this harsh truth but...we're all going the way of the dinosaur and as bad as I think SR4 is going to be...I hope they find a way to keep it alive for my son's/daughter's generation |
I agree. all the graphic glitz & special effects mean nothing when there is no imagination behind it. Just look at what has been happening in Hollywood lately. I'd rather shell out $30.00 for a good hardback at my local book shop instead of having my hopes dashed (at about the same price when you add concessions) for three hours at the local megaplex.
Ellery
Aug 4 2005, 09:47 PM
Why do people always add concessions? Bring your own, or eat beforehand
Kagetenshi
Aug 4 2005, 09:53 PM
Well, there's the pretty large concession to mediocrity you need to make to see most movies nowadays…
~J
Ellery
Aug 4 2005, 10:23 PM
Indeed, but at least that concession only devalues your soul, not your bank account.
Eldritch
Aug 5 2005, 04:01 PM
Have you been to the movies lately? Try with a family of 6 - movies, pop corn, snacks, drinks - it's just not possible unless you go to a matinee (sp).
Movie going is definetly the sport of the single and childless these days. Dunno how it is across the country, but here in NorCal it's up close to $10 per person.
Nikoli
Aug 5 2005, 05:46 PM
Netflix my friend, Netflicks. Sure you don't see them when they come out but the company is more pleasant, the atmosphere is usually to your liking the candy, soda and popcorn are all exactly what you want and it's tones cheaper.
Eldritch
Aug 5 2005, 07:00 PM
Yah - blockbuster over here.
But you know, when I was a kid - I loved going to the movies - big screen, big sound. Very cool. Hell, for 5 bucks I could walk down, get in and grab a candy bar. I saw empire strikes back several times that way. My kids are lucky to get into the theater twice in a year.
Nikoli
Aug 5 2005, 07:25 PM
I know the feeling. i suggest you save your theatre money and invest in a good home theatre system, around 1200 watts and then you can have your own sound, etc.
Eldritch
Aug 5 2005, 08:43 PM

thats the plan - one bit at a time. Got a big room. Got a big screen tv. Decent dvd player. Surround sound is next. The a big-ole popcorn machine. And soda fountain
Nikoli
Aug 5 2005, 08:52 PM
I so want a soda fountain in my house. My gaming buddies keep probably two bottling companies in business as it is. A fountain might be cheaper for me in the long run, but it's tough to justify
Kagetenshi
Aug 5 2005, 09:28 PM
Charge them. 25¢ a litre or something. If you get the syrup wholesale, you'll still be making a profit.
The bottle/can is by far the most expensive part of a soda to produce.
~J