Topic: Some Serious Gaming

[D2Disciple]

Not so long ago, there was a time where people chose the games they played. It was a time when you'd run out to the local Wal-Mart or Target and shell out fifty bucks for one game, take it home, and play it until the cartridge or CD drive started smoking. It was a time when you bought only one console and never got bored with the mere two games you had for it. It was a time when you spanked every one of your friends in one particular game, because you were awesome at that one - and they spanked you in another, because they were awesome at theirs.

These days, it seems many gamers tend to take themselves far too seriously. It's almost like a career choice - to be the best at everything they play. Gamers rush to the local store and shell out hundreds - or even thousands - of dollars in every title imagineable and play all day and all night to conquer everything. Or they pay hundreds of dollars a year for the chance to play through MMORPGS and become the strongest, highest level character that they can be. People sit around the house with headsets and gigantic televisions speaking to people they don't know over the 'net while spending hours and hours a day bloodletting their enemies freely with guns, mines, and grenades.

And very soon, thousands of games people spent a lot of cold, hard cash sit on the "Used" shelves of stores nationwide for just a few dollars (or even pennies). And suddenly, the newest thing is getting all the attention as people drain the shelves of those games, as the stores make room to stock them back in just as quickly as they sold out.

Which is why I love Descent.

It's simple. It's easy. It's hectic. You can be a master at it, but you don't have to sacrifice your life on it to make it happen. Plus, it's old, and that means that the community is dedicated. A dedicated community doesn't rush out for the newest thing or spend their lives making one or two maps for the newest game before pledging their allegience to something else "better." The Descent community enjoys Descent for what it is. Everyone understands that while they might be the very best at Descent, at the end of the day, everyone has had fun. It's not about crushing the competition or owning your opponents. It's about being able to sit down for 5 minutes or 3 hours and have a smile on your face during both - just like old times, when you invited friends over to sit down with a couple of pizzas and spend all night wearing out those two games you had.

And you know what? I spent a buck-fifty for Descent 2. And you know something else? Most of my friends have gone through at least 6 Call of Duty games, 3 Halos, 4 Splinter Cells, 5 Guitar Heroes, 2 Rock Bands, 3 Metal Gears, and 4 Resident Evils since then.

Let the good ole' times roll!

[Ronin RedFox]

Im simple too, i stick with descent, and cheap games. And just recently ive been getting into free games. (lol) And every now and then ill buy one of those new games. But that dosnt happen often. I play for fun, not competition. Like some guy will say "You are getting killed alot, you arent doing it right. Do it this way." ill just happily say "I just play for for fun" and in a few mins, he will keep bothering me. And then i finally get tired of hearing/seeing it. So then he starts getting kicked all over the place. Thats when i get competitive. No one really "Plays for fun" anymore. Just like D2Junkie says. Thats why i like dedicated communities such as descent. They are nice and somewhat behaved. (Not talking about you guys, talking about Geordon.) And i have some of the best freinds ill ever have here. 

I dont care about being the highest level in mmorpgs. (though it would be kind of nice, but i still dont care. i am rich though, hehe  ) I dont really play those anymore anyway. I still have like 100 freinds on Runescape that probably either wonder where i am or hate me.  But still i like the Descent community more than any other. (The Nexuiz community would probably come in second though.) But yea you guys get get the point. Enough of my rambling.

(Thats probably the most ive written in a forum, ever. )

[D2Disciple]

I am duly impressed that you are a Nexuiz fan. Open source rocks!  

I might join a game with you someday whenever I have time to poke around on my Linux partition. I'll be playing as **IntallyMensane**. We should schedule a fight.

[Ronin RedFox]

YEA!  

Ok, im usally on the "NexuizNinjaz" servers. But i cant play for a while. Really busy with the ending of school and summer projects ect. But i will be able to fight soon!

Did you know Zico plays Nexuiz too? He was the one that told me about it.

[-<WillyP>-]

The only other game I play (much) is Go (Weiqi). It gets pretty intense. My son just kicked my a$$, right after I kicked his. (he gets a big handicap against me.)

[SaladBadger]

When it comes to games, I like older stuff like Doom and Descent. If I want to play doom on a certain level with a certain WAD, all I need to do is tell my launcher to load the mod, and then set the warp command, and it's ready to play. Descent is the same deal. Set the mission, specify the level, and jump in. Usually after playing a levelset for either game I'll usually replay single levels every once in a while.

Descent 3 online is basically the same thing. Jump into a server with a good level and start blowing people up. I don't dedicate myself to it, so I'll usually play only 2-4 games (games being time until killlimit or timelimit is hit). Even that alone is enough to be good.

I don't like many modern games. It isn't as easy to jump into a random level in SP, especially since many, many more games have important story elements that happen earlier in the game. Me, I like to be able to jump to Phobos Anomaly in doom and just quickly be able to beat the boss, without having to worry about previous events that might add to the story of the level.

[Ronin RedFox]

I like stories in moden games, it seems like an interactive movie.  

Ok not all of them, just some like the FPS' Like the one im waiting for.

Wii + Quantum 3 + Great Level Design + Great Story = Awesome.

[Scyphi]

I like Descent for it's unique gameplay and rather open-ended plot (complex enough to understand what's going on, but simple and undetailed enough that parts are left entirely up to the player's interpretation.) There's just something...special...about Descent that has made it the long-lived classic it is. And I have never found another game that has quite managed to replicate that attitude.

As for playing new, more modern, games, I usually ignore them for a number of reasons. One of the most predominate is the fact that  I just don't have the technology to support those modern games. Other facts is that these games seem stuck in a rut these days. Namely dull and overdone groundpounders or RPGs or MMORPGs that are both usually excessively violent, bloody, and either have too little storyplot, too much storyplot so that it takes forever to get through it all and figure everything out, or all of that and have too far-fetched plot. That's another thing Descent had about it's storyline that other games don't. It's plot was believable; all it's about is mean mining bots infected with a computer virus that you have to blow away. What's not to believe? :p Granted, some of the technology shown in Descent presses the believability factor a touch, but even that's justifiable. Descent never states what the date is, so you never know when in the future it's supposed to take place in, other than the fact that it's "the future". That's also what had helped it make it immortal. Decades could pass by, and Descent could still be depicting an unseen future from then.

I will admit, though, that when looking at some of the graphics these more modern games have, I always imagine Descent having these graphics, and I like what I see.