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[twillight]

I really wanted a "game in constant developement", meaning an MMO.
Of course I have bad taste and suspicion, and also low on money, so there were 3 cryteria:
- no regular payment. I just can't cover that. Also these games have the tendency to go into "new directions" what some - importantly: me - don't like, from what point that money is lost. Not to mention a full version "for all eternity" is usually the same price as eg. WoW for one mere month, so you see my issue.
To tell another example I very much like Adventure Quest, a tectical, turn based game with Mortal combat style battles. now there happened where (probably for higher income) they started to change the balance one day to another for the sake of entirely different builds (what means equipment, training etc.) what ment either literally hundreds of US-dollars or bloody high amount of time (where when you'd just finish they'd again make the balance upside down). So I left that game, although I already had a high level, and they always came up with a good story (of course only in the merit of brazil series or some such, but hey, it was way along serving the purpose and entertainment).
- no download. Spying on me, getting potential viruses and all nasty chances I don't ask for. Sry developer, I'm just not into that, even if you call me a fossil for that.
- attractive look/style of playing.

My greatest hope in the near past was Quest and Goblins. It looked planed a Diablo-like game where you had goblin minions as pets, or summons or something.
The game got canceled though, not that it surprised me the least. A lot of MMOs came out nowdays building your village/empire/sim city - however you want to call that. And although Quest and Goblins at least look the best of 'em, on the level of entertainment it was just another clone, thus destined to fail coming out too late and not giving enough over the others.

I got out of ideas, thus gave a thought after like 4 years, and checked out how is my Artix Entertainment account (they made Adventure Quest, and for a mere 10$ you could get a permanent account and access to plenty of side-projects and so on).
I had no intention doing anything but some ZardWars fights - a side project where you fight specific AdventureQuest monsters without any plot or reason -, and saw they released even more side-games for AQ.
So I said WTH, and checked out Oversoul, what - according to its description - is developed for a slightly mature audience. Well, that worth a 5 minute investigation I thought, and it worthed my time.

The game does not require an Artix-account to play, nor any kind of payment. And it is still in beta-fase, but this project won't be canceled that's for sure (the company is stable, and they made payment-content with strickt engagements). So it is quite early still to "rise amongst the best" fast (what is a plus for me, but checking the concept it isn't that major issue here).

It is (as basically all Artix-games) turn based 1 on 1 battles while wandering maps. Fine for me.

It has some more gory/slightly erotic etc. stuff in it already like Bikini Mail female characters (you all know what I'm talkin' 'bout), or a character called "Blood Fiend" what looks like came from the comic Swamp Thing (looks like a creature of The Rot).

By the way the concept is, you are a disembodied soul, whose "inventory" is made of possessed bodies (of defeated beings). It is promised to later include things from ArchAngels to YogSototh itself!

video

I also try to write some fanfic of it. It was sooo long I last wrote anything

[Smiling Spectre]

My one and only MMO-favorite is Kingdom of Loathing. It's Pro:

1. Free.
2. Humorous and (sometimes) very thoughtful texts.
3. Not real-time in most senses.
4. Gigatons of items and content that got updated now and again;
and
5. Great people for chat in right clans (actually, chats are half of enjoyment for me here).

Contra:
1. Monotonous. (All battles are typical "hit monster with weapon/spell/skill, wait for round 2" deal. But there are much more than battles, and it can be automated with 3rd party applications).
2. Repeating. (If, for some reason, you'll stick to main quest, it will be very similar now and again. Still slightly different for different paths - and after finishing main you can select another path. Most of content still in "side-zones" though).
3. Crude-drawing. Is simple black-and-white gif art enough for you?

As for me, game (and community) is great to keep me 2,5 years here already.

[twillight]

Originally Posted by Smiling Spectre

My one and only MMO-favorite is Kingdom of Loathing.

Contra:
3. Crude-drawing. Is simple black-and-white gif art enough for you?

As for me, game (and community) is great to keep me 2,5 years here already.

I'm afraid because of the quality of graphic it's just a 5-minute-joke for me, but definitely sounds enough fun to the right people I'm happy to hear about this.


PS: the above mentioned game is a card-based thing. Currently not some direct pokemon-clone, hopefully never will be.

[twillight]

Now I remember why I left Artix Entertainment's games. The employees are total jerk.

[twillight]

I - for any reason - plan to make another journey through Might and Magic 7.

With a though to go party.

My initial idea is this:
Knight / Thief / Ranger / Ninja (=aka. Monk, but I also show I wanna be evil)

Or this'd be too much overlap? No idea, didn't look the charts (yet).


Any suggestions should consider this:
- the best healing in game is Shared Life, so no Paladin
- teleportation spells are overpower, so no sorcerer. MAYBE Town Portal could pass, so Archer as alternative will be considered
- the less protection the better, so no cleric, who is also a good healer
- the game is though and built really around developing 4 different characters, so no knight*4!


Anyone want to make a vote, will be welcomed!

EDIT: oh no, I forgot invisibility. I won't have invisibility, so there goes my archer. And druid.


Oh, ok, I shot out every alternatives. Sry guys!

[twillight]

So, here is my would-be party:

evil (as good would require invisibility, what I won't have)
1) dwarf knight
2) goblin thief
3) ranger
4) goblin monk

I'll only have 3 of the 4 races.

Here are some things to vote:
- knight's weapon: spear or sword? There are better swords in the game, but I think I'll use a shield, being the party's hp-mule, so no sword in the left hand. Spear sounds more protection.
- thief's weapon: double dagger or dagger and sword? With simply double dagger all my choices will spend a mere 60 skillpoints, so I tend towards simply double dagger with all its advantage. Too bad there is no reason using Elfbane...
- ranger's race be elf or human? Elf gets better starting stats, AND can wear elven chainmail. Humans can wear the Mind's eye artifact what boosts inteligence/personality by 15 (possibly better statboost then from the racial bonus), and give spellpoint-regeneration (what I might not need, as I'll probably mostly use my ranger to remove conditions).


Too bad the ninja isn't the same as its good counterpart, else I could go use all four arcomage-reward.


---------

EDIT: Also reinstalled Hunted: the demon's forge (on PC).
First go: The controls still feel awkward, but I remember my useable settings, so it's fine to go with. Did the first part of the tutorial where the two characters are changed by the AI, and got the first puzzle of the eight.
I'll use mainly Caddoc, the melee/barbarian character.
I won't use a walkthrough this time (for the first run I only reached the first building of the first town, so I don't have much experience here).
Despite the frequent autosave I still miss a good old save&load system.
If I manage to beat the game, I'll do a maximalist playthrough with "Old School" difficulty (yay!).

EDIT: Again H:tDF proves some unexplained design for giving you an ingame menu pretty lately (at the end of the "tutorial"-part): the special abilities.
This is - again unfortunately - unexplained, that when you gain some Crytsals to buy abilities from, you can spend the amount for BOTH of your characters separately. Also, there is no "save", just "autosave" in the game, and associated to this freakishness attached you can load back at waypoints if you don't simply "continue". Then ALL abilities (including ones unlocked by achivements, like resurrecting X times, doing Y headshots in a row etc.) at any stage are always given to you, as they are associated to your character, and not the locations.

Ok, this is not just a "little unusual", but maybe a natural thing amongst Playstation-games. The game is originally made for that platform, and THAT version has a regular achievements-section (independent from ingame features).

Uhm, well, just enjoy the story I think. An' get accustmed using the middle-button/roller for control too (I'm not used to a setting where there are 4 functions on the mouse: left click, right click, rolling the middle thingy, and clicking the middle thingy).

[twillight]

I installed Might and Magic 7. This is how you can ruin it under Win7:
1) "Shockwave" is probably not on your system, so let the game install it
2) install the game as usual, and accept the settings the game offers initially
3) set "compatibility mode" to Win98/ME. Without this you'll experience immediate crash.
4) when started New Game set under "Controls" the "Turns" setting to "smooth" instead of 16* or 32*.

Now the game should run as intended.
The only problem I suffer is some sound-infinity blooper, but for this old game I think this is a fair trade. If anyone knows where are sound-settings for the game, I'd still be greatfull.

[twillight]

So many great hopes, so little result - that's me trying to play nowdays.

Where I DID achieve some progress is Tumblebugs.
Simple little game about mostly your reflexes, but needs some skill to get far in it.
Lacking any guide on the net for it, I put here my results, ever growing. I have hopes in my skills, and this is rly just some casual-gaming: 10 minutes here or there.

garden 1.
1-2 sublocation: just be fast and try to aim the bigger packs.
3. getting the all-killiing bonuses is key to get good result.
4. here are 2 holes where the friendly bugs are led. You have to keep reaching them any of those.
5. try to aim the places between two colours.

garden 2.
1. shoot your balls where you see the same colours in the row. Also try to cut holes into the row to aim the covered things.
2. beware the times when the row goes backwards (if you eliminate some balls and the free ends remaining has the same colours the balls ahead roll back). Also watch out for the turnings (try to do some time trial before touching this level).
3. use the catapult/ballista bonus as key element
4. be cautious aiming where the balls go below the surface!
5. same as 1.5

garden 3.
1. here you'll seriously notice that each time you shoot a ball the row is pushed forward!
2. because of the many turnings try to catch the bonuses to ease your life
3. the beggining part of the road is hard to shoot at, and the covered area won't make your life easier. Still, far from impossible, but worth enhanching your skills on this level in the Time Trial mode.
4. the problem is here, the initial row is long. Also don't be kamikaze at places things go below. Bonuses help a lot.
5. the initial row is long, there won't be many big packages to shoot out, and the game isn't generous here (usually) with the bonuses. Learn to use the space to swap place!

Time Trial Mode:
you can try out new levels before you'd actually play them in the ~adventure mode. This is strongly suggested if you wish to pass the whole game sooner or later.
The problem is, the levels here differ from the adventure-setting this way:
- you only get initially the basic colours, gaining purple balls when the timer reaches 20, and oranges when it reach 30.
- the initial speed here is the basic speed from adventure mode 1.1, what gets fastened at a certain time (not sure when).
- bonuses have the same chance for all Time Trial levels, what differ from adventure mode's chances. Also EXTRA letters do not appear.

garden 4.
1. you get one more colour (purple), and the many twists can make hard to reach the bonuses - fortunately they are not that important this time.
2. The field is the same as 1.2, but the extra colour makes things noticably harder. If things get covered, make new plan along the way!
3. not really anything new
4. Now here is the first level I have to mention a strategy: while you can rotate and choose what to shoot from 3 bullets on your back, unnecessary balls can be dismissed if you shoot them to a direction where there are no balls on the road. They'll simply disappear. This is also true if you shoot an obstacle (or the evil black bugs). Now as this level's road is an inward spiral, you can't do this here, what WILL be a problem.
5. this is similar to 3.5, but now it even has 2 holes to protect. Ballista will come real handy. Otherwise the map seems very generous giving only a short initial row and such.

SOME TIPS:
one of the best bonuses are "roll back" bonus. Do NOT confuse this with "roll forward" bonus, what is BADD, unless you aim for a good time (what isn't necessary).
Also do not underestimate colouring bonuses what puff a cloud re-colouring everything the same colour. If you can shoot out the result of this in any way (the superbg can initiate this to happen too for example), you can get multiply bonuses the same time!
If you remove a ball what is in touch with the black bug (and only then!), the black bug will be stunned, giving your precious seconds without pushing the row ahead. Use this to your advantage.

BONUS NOTES:
If you get an all-colour bonus, that gives you 3 all-colour ball.
If you get a comet-bonus (destroys all colour in its way in multiply rows) you get only 1 ball.
For the rest (eg. stop or ballista bonuses) I don't know if the duration is real-time or number of shot based.

garden 5.
1. same field as 2.2
2. same field as 1.4
3. same field as 1.1. With all advancement try to aim the middle of the row, not the tip of it!
4. a level what starts to be hard. Aim to roll back (by the bonus), and when you start to encounter them aim for comets. If you can hit a comet with your comet you can get insanely lot of kills!
5. on this level you'll again feel the problem that the row is just pushed ahead with each shot, so watch out for rollbacks. This is a map where you won't hit things you see, but are actually under the surface, so get accustomed to this level in Time Trial I say.
6. This is a special map (meaning initially you'll get a lot of all-colour balls, and the black bugs do not move), what isn't just that easy. Do not push things further too much, especially not behind the black bug. Start to eliminate the top of the map. Try to reach rollbacks aiming the proper balls. Not easy, but finally a good bonus level.

garden 6.
1. don't let yourself confused by the spots the row goin' underground, and try to reach rollbacks the way you did the previous level (so not by bonus, but by merging loose ends).

[twillight]

Well, instead of listing each level for Tumblebugs I reached a point where general advices worth more. And that means I've reached Garden 8.

So:
Garden 1-4 solely depends on skill. With average skill you'll be able to pass these levels w/o loosing any life.

Garden 5-6: they depend on extreme skill. You must learn for these levels to pass that w/o concentrating on bonuses your lose is encoded. With perfect skill you might be able to pass these without loss of life for sure, but I think even the best can make a wrong move sometimes. So prepare to loose 1 life during these.

Garden 7: Here you'll face the game depends a lot on Real Life Luck. If things don't go the right way, you'll loose, no matter your skill. Be ready to loose up to 5 lives!

Now to tell how to save yourself from DOOM:
when you play a garden, you must pass all levels before being able to play in a different garden.
If you do not continue your current game, you'll be put on the garden-choosing screen with 3 lives. You'll get this result too if you loose all your lives.
You may only quit to the Main Menu if you are playing in a garden.
You may replay any garden you already passed once. This is a way to collect more life!!


On shooting balls:
- concentrate on the farthest part of the row on most maps
- use bonuses. Try to chain-use them. On later levels, where are many colours the re-painter bonuses are TREMENDOUSLY useful colouring (and many times eliminating) large amount of balls.
- only shoot to the end of the row if you must shorten the row imediatelly
- when the black bug appears, stun it constantly during the endgame
- if a ball is very close to the hole and there is a big gap between it and the main part of the row it can help you shooting a ball the same colour as the far-ball to pull back that rogue ball


Wish me luck with the rest of the gardens

[twillight]

Starting with Garden 8 (in Tumblebugs) you'll not want to re-play the levels (at least not in story-mode).

New terrain (shown in Time Trial) you'll get in 8-6, and it is awefull.
Heck, the whoile of Garden 8 is awefull, as all row are initially long, and the +2 colours (purple and orange) really gets in the way.

Your only chance to win is:
- real life luck to get the balls not just 1 of each colour in long lines but many
- real life luck to get many special balls in position you can catch them
- clever use of bonuses
- 1 or 2 missshots at worst
- try to avoid longing the rows too much (so try to shoot at balls only at places what causes balls to disappear)
- for Garden 8 get 15 lives. At first try I passed this garden loosing 7 lives, at second try I lost 14. It is just real life luck, I swear, but with enough tries you must be able to pass.


For Garden 9 you get 3 new levels amongst its 7. So I suggest preparing 20 lives, although less might be enough.
The first new level has very short route until fall, and 2 position to launch from, although you can almost surely shoot to both row from either. Shoot to the middle (where they'll get lost) the balls you can immediately reach something.
The second has lots of twists, and two rows (again). The key is to shoot each ball you get immediately to something with the same colour.
For both of the above you'll also need tons of bonuses, depending on RL luck.

For the third new level you again get 2 holes and rows, and this time the rows cover each others. But there is a place where the row closer gets below ground, thus giving you a big gap to aim the one behind, what means at least this new level shouldn't be too demanding.

EDIT: the only thing with Tumblebugs, that even if it's portable, AND even if you make your HDD unwritable, it still manages t put it's saves on your HDD. This means bringing your saves with you to another computer is problematic.