Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2013 1:33:25 GMT
Critic stared at the words as they slowly floated above the surface of the water, gracefully skimming along the surface which all of a sudden seemed still and timeless. Eventually, they sunk back down again, revealing an empty sea beyond it.
Critic was very confused, he looked around and saw landscape behind him. It was wide an expansive, well designed and a surprisingly good draw distance for what Critic imagined must be a huge MMO. He could see far off details on the rolling hills and plenty of fanciful creatures roaming the plains. He didn't see any other players however.
He decided to climb carefully up the small hill which appeared to be leading up to a cliff face and sat down at the top, one leg dangling over the sheer vertical drop and the other drawn up to his chest. He breathed in the fresh, crisp air as he admired the hard work that must have gone into such spectacular programming. He placed his fist on the ground and carefully touched every blade of bright green grass, every one carefully designed and some of different shapes, like they had grown differently, or had been trodden on by casual passers by, almost like the real world. He felt himself breathing heavily as he recuperated from having climbed up a steep hill. That was something he didn't see often, going up slopes actually felt as though they had weight, he wasn't simply gliding over them like some gloomy ghost who refused to enjoy his work. However, this 'Yggdrasil Online' which seemed to be an MMO he had never heard of, felt as though it had actual weight to its environment, as though he were there.
As he took all this in, he spied a butterfly, an aesthetic feature with no bearing on the game mechanics, flutter over with its beautiful and intricately designed wings fly over to him. Critic held out his finger and it sat on it, resting, wings shimmering in the golden sun. Critic barely had a moment to admire it further before it suddenly fell off, dropping straight down and onto the ground. Dead. It quickly turned black as if from rapid decay and disappeared into many shapes and binary numbers, gone without a trace.
Critic slumped and placed both legs over the edge, and looked at himself, at his hands. Pure black like the abyss of death its self, and similarly black smoke coming from hell fires drifting around him and the environment, a sickly smog which seemed bent on total annihilation. He could feel the wind blowing it upwards, upwards to the blue skies and in all other directions, preparing to blanket its self across the road. Then, as Critic breathed in, he felt it recede into him, and felt his chest heavy with it. As he breathed, he felt relieved that he could feel the worlds air again, if only for a brief moment.
Soon, Critic leaned over the edge and fell off the mountain, flipping as the air rushed past him, and he landed on his feet, creating a small creator which quickly repaired itself.
Diligent moderators, it seemed.
A menu popped up in front of him as he noticed a decline in HP, his life force. Its values were placed at '
' below a level also of '' however the red circle which appeared to represent it was half empty with black, which slowly began to fade as what appeared to be an auto-heal kicked in. He flicked through other menus but he appeared to have no possessions or stats that he could keep a measure on, again showing only question marks. What really caught his eye was that under under both 'character name' and 'class' Critic saw the word 'Virus' for both. That proved it, he really was a virus now. His avatar, his world, the Virtual Critic was missing, leaving a faceless husk behind in its wake.
Critic saw a wolf which looked pretty intimidating but upon beating it with a swift blow it provided nothing; Critic's stats or level progression didn't seem affected and none of the items or equipment dropped appeared to have any effect on his character. His existence in the game was a mere glitch, plain and simple the game wasn't designed to accommodate for him. Critic decided to delete the armour completely as the coding for it was likely messed up the moment he laid his hands on it. Feeling thoroughly disappointed but at the same time very interested in the stunningly designed new environment he was in, he decided to head in a random direction in hopes of finding players or a town.
"Yggdrasil online was one of the first MMOs created for the net when it first made the radical shift into the realm of virtual reality. It was, of course, pretty choppy especially compared to what we're used to from quality games today however it was technologically groundbreaking and still retains a strong player base. It's popularity has endured because besides holding all of the addictive qualities of a traditional MMO in the guise of engaging Norse mythological references such as the world tree Yggdrasil it's self, and important NPCs and administrators such as Odin being named after Norse Gods and Goddesses, it has also had many updates which constantly bring the quality of the game up to the standards of it's new competitors while still retaining that core engagement which keeps people coming back for more.
Well, sorry if I bored you. Obligation and all that, I have to give context where context is due, especially since this is an old, old game. I'm here to review the state of Yggdrasil online today after it's most recent update, version 2.56.
And let me confess something... I despised the original game when it first came out. It was utter ****! A step backwards, ******************! You see back in my time when computers didn't connect to your brain, the tail end of the semi-digital age started churning out many high quality MMO experiences past social grind fests. Many player driven narratives of a wide variety of genres and design, some on par with with the greats of the seldom seen today and dominant media forms of the day, film and literature which these days I think most only watch in passing or while already immersed in a virtual experience.
Ygrassial online felt like a step back, back into the vapid grind fests. I know they were using new technology and designing a world but there was never any reason to role play or care about the world, it was *******! ****!
They could have at leat added some of those archaic even for then dialogue options or some of the better developed AI systems, but the game always just felt so... so... *****************! Just ******! Once you get past the wow factor of "Wow! I'm really here!" It's just as vapid as it was for our ancestors playing these games, in essence.
The game has improved dramatically, or, at least, it's gotten bigger ****** and all, whats good is good, whats bad is... *****. Just *****. ****!
The game uses all your standard stats: Strength to determine damage you deal, defence to determine how much damage you receive, and magic attack and defence are exactly the same except different attacks use different stats, such as melee for the standard and magic spells for the magic variants. Agility used to determine attack speed, however since in virtual reality that is mainly determined by the player their self, it instead determines how much your armour weighs you down. This always bugged me, I mean, it makes sense and it was a necessary change but it's **** to see a rogue who traditionally boast high agility to be walking around in a thick suit of armour traditionally associated with knights, whilst the knights who boast high defence run around in loin cloths because it's almost impossible to walk around in the armour their supposed to be walking around in. Other, better games fix this by granting bonuses based upon class and greatly reducing the effect of encumbrance, whilst still retaining the same basic design elements. To this day however Ygrassial online has neglected to fix this conman complaint, another thing that infuriates me. ***** lazy designers, add new areas and monsters but **************!
Ugh, there are many bad design elements I could ******************* and rant about, mostly pertaining to slow leveling and how ****** tedious the whole experience is but I don't have much time remaining and I want to talk about all the new environments in the coming weeks. See this episode as an introduction to all the crap I'm going to be pulling up on Yggdrasil online. I'll go over all of the new worlds added, as they are expansive, new, and provide lots of admitedly pretty interesting variations of gameplay, along with another ***** design choice and a ****** designed NPC **** such as the 'rulers' of each domain. During these coming weeks I'll also be spending much time in the game, terrible though it is, in Asgard exclusive to the game's staff members. Thus, I wont be talking about this really nice place, the senses are coded really well here and the food and scenery are simply divine. The administrators see this ****** of a review I'm going to be laying on them as an opportunity to improve their game, so there may be some changes to the game during and immediately after these few weeks. Stay tuned for more Vritual Critic! Only at sever 2-56! Goodnight you ******! I hate the world so that you can enjoy it more!"
The Virtual Critic who had been stamping around on stage took a dramatic bow and the camera panned out and followed him as he sat down for food and conversation with some grand looking avatars, presumably staff, in a grand room presumably in Asgard as the episode ended and began to roll the credits.
"Guess he is getting better with context and evaluation. Still, I cant understand what he's saying when he swears like that. He'd be alright if he wasn't THAT angry..." Critic said to himself as it ended.
Critic had been watching from a tavern, which didn't seem to mind to much about his appearance or the unpleasantness of his smog. He had now been in Yggdrasil online for just under a week, and had been staying at a town called 'hollow root' which apparently was a far out root from the great tree Yggdrasil, although Critic still hadn't layed eyes on the so called tree. Either way, this was the imposter's first review since their encounter and Critic was going to watch him every step of the way. It seemed odd though, how he was reviewing the game that Critic appeared stuck in, with no way to log out or return to reality, and after he had been confined here no less. Furthermore, he stated that the game was supposed to be old and groundbreaking. Critic had never heard of it, and he was a virtual reality nut in all areas. Guess even the most knowledgeable of people are blind to some information.
Critic finished his drink and deleted the cup. He had a deal going on with the bar tender, who was a player, that if he defeated enemies and dragged in the corpses without looting the bodies, the looting holding the possibility of corrupting the loot, he could get some things for free as well as free lodging. Critic was able to defeat high level monsters who many players couldn't tackle too easily, so the loot which was worthless to Critic considering he couldn't carry anything made him very feared and respected amongst hollow wood, and it made the bar tender very happy with his new items, and as such and quickly stopped probing Critic for information on his background and virus traits, especially since Critic responded with silence and hostility. Last time Critic had tried to explain himself, he had been publicly humiliated and almost killed. No point trying to call foul on his imposter now.
"Hey, Critic. You here? Anyway, heard someone called Helen will pay cash for a certain dungeon to be cleared out with her. Wants the EXP. The reward looks alright so I'll give you a days break if you go get it for me. Game?" Asked the bartender, breaking Critic from his trance.
"Yeah. I'll go right away. Do you have data for a quest marker?" He asked.
"Already transferred. See you later."
Critic opened up his mini map, thankfully one of the few functions which had remained intact, and he headed in the direction the red arrow was pointing him, leaving the pain of his dark discontent and fury behind him, locked up with rusted chains in a finite void.
Critic was very confused, he looked around and saw landscape behind him. It was wide an expansive, well designed and a surprisingly good draw distance for what Critic imagined must be a huge MMO. He could see far off details on the rolling hills and plenty of fanciful creatures roaming the plains. He didn't see any other players however.
He decided to climb carefully up the small hill which appeared to be leading up to a cliff face and sat down at the top, one leg dangling over the sheer vertical drop and the other drawn up to his chest. He breathed in the fresh, crisp air as he admired the hard work that must have gone into such spectacular programming. He placed his fist on the ground and carefully touched every blade of bright green grass, every one carefully designed and some of different shapes, like they had grown differently, or had been trodden on by casual passers by, almost like the real world. He felt himself breathing heavily as he recuperated from having climbed up a steep hill. That was something he didn't see often, going up slopes actually felt as though they had weight, he wasn't simply gliding over them like some gloomy ghost who refused to enjoy his work. However, this 'Yggdrasil Online' which seemed to be an MMO he had never heard of, felt as though it had actual weight to its environment, as though he were there.
As he took all this in, he spied a butterfly, an aesthetic feature with no bearing on the game mechanics, flutter over with its beautiful and intricately designed wings fly over to him. Critic held out his finger and it sat on it, resting, wings shimmering in the golden sun. Critic barely had a moment to admire it further before it suddenly fell off, dropping straight down and onto the ground. Dead. It quickly turned black as if from rapid decay and disappeared into many shapes and binary numbers, gone without a trace.
Critic slumped and placed both legs over the edge, and looked at himself, at his hands. Pure black like the abyss of death its self, and similarly black smoke coming from hell fires drifting around him and the environment, a sickly smog which seemed bent on total annihilation. He could feel the wind blowing it upwards, upwards to the blue skies and in all other directions, preparing to blanket its self across the road. Then, as Critic breathed in, he felt it recede into him, and felt his chest heavy with it. As he breathed, he felt relieved that he could feel the worlds air again, if only for a brief moment.
Soon, Critic leaned over the edge and fell off the mountain, flipping as the air rushed past him, and he landed on his feet, creating a small creator which quickly repaired itself.
Diligent moderators, it seemed.
A menu popped up in front of him as he noticed a decline in HP, his life force. Its values were placed at '
' below a level also of '' however the red circle which appeared to represent it was half empty with black, which slowly began to fade as what appeared to be an auto-heal kicked in. He flicked through other menus but he appeared to have no possessions or stats that he could keep a measure on, again showing only question marks. What really caught his eye was that under under both 'character name' and 'class' Critic saw the word 'Virus' for both. That proved it, he really was a virus now. His avatar, his world, the Virtual Critic was missing, leaving a faceless husk behind in its wake.Critic saw a wolf which looked pretty intimidating but upon beating it with a swift blow it provided nothing; Critic's stats or level progression didn't seem affected and none of the items or equipment dropped appeared to have any effect on his character. His existence in the game was a mere glitch, plain and simple the game wasn't designed to accommodate for him. Critic decided to delete the armour completely as the coding for it was likely messed up the moment he laid his hands on it. Feeling thoroughly disappointed but at the same time very interested in the stunningly designed new environment he was in, he decided to head in a random direction in hopes of finding players or a town.
"Yggdrasil online was one of the first MMOs created for the net when it first made the radical shift into the realm of virtual reality. It was, of course, pretty choppy especially compared to what we're used to from quality games today however it was technologically groundbreaking and still retains a strong player base. It's popularity has endured because besides holding all of the addictive qualities of a traditional MMO in the guise of engaging Norse mythological references such as the world tree Yggdrasil it's self, and important NPCs and administrators such as Odin being named after Norse Gods and Goddesses, it has also had many updates which constantly bring the quality of the game up to the standards of it's new competitors while still retaining that core engagement which keeps people coming back for more.
Well, sorry if I bored you. Obligation and all that, I have to give context where context is due, especially since this is an old, old game. I'm here to review the state of Yggdrasil online today after it's most recent update, version 2.56.
And let me confess something... I despised the original game when it first came out. It was utter ****! A step backwards, ******************! You see back in my time when computers didn't connect to your brain, the tail end of the semi-digital age started churning out many high quality MMO experiences past social grind fests. Many player driven narratives of a wide variety of genres and design, some on par with with the greats of the seldom seen today and dominant media forms of the day, film and literature which these days I think most only watch in passing or while already immersed in a virtual experience.
Ygrassial online felt like a step back, back into the vapid grind fests. I know they were using new technology and designing a world but there was never any reason to role play or care about the world, it was *******! ****!
They could have at leat added some of those archaic even for then dialogue options or some of the better developed AI systems, but the game always just felt so... so... *****************! Just ******! Once you get past the wow factor of "Wow! I'm really here!" It's just as vapid as it was for our ancestors playing these games, in essence.
The game has improved dramatically, or, at least, it's gotten bigger ****** and all, whats good is good, whats bad is... *****. Just *****. ****!
The game uses all your standard stats: Strength to determine damage you deal, defence to determine how much damage you receive, and magic attack and defence are exactly the same except different attacks use different stats, such as melee for the standard and magic spells for the magic variants. Agility used to determine attack speed, however since in virtual reality that is mainly determined by the player their self, it instead determines how much your armour weighs you down. This always bugged me, I mean, it makes sense and it was a necessary change but it's **** to see a rogue who traditionally boast high agility to be walking around in a thick suit of armour traditionally associated with knights, whilst the knights who boast high defence run around in loin cloths because it's almost impossible to walk around in the armour their supposed to be walking around in. Other, better games fix this by granting bonuses based upon class and greatly reducing the effect of encumbrance, whilst still retaining the same basic design elements. To this day however Ygrassial online has neglected to fix this conman complaint, another thing that infuriates me. ***** lazy designers, add new areas and monsters but **************!
Ugh, there are many bad design elements I could ******************* and rant about, mostly pertaining to slow leveling and how ****** tedious the whole experience is but I don't have much time remaining and I want to talk about all the new environments in the coming weeks. See this episode as an introduction to all the crap I'm going to be pulling up on Yggdrasil online. I'll go over all of the new worlds added, as they are expansive, new, and provide lots of admitedly pretty interesting variations of gameplay, along with another ***** design choice and a ****** designed NPC **** such as the 'rulers' of each domain. During these coming weeks I'll also be spending much time in the game, terrible though it is, in Asgard exclusive to the game's staff members. Thus, I wont be talking about this really nice place, the senses are coded really well here and the food and scenery are simply divine. The administrators see this ****** of a review I'm going to be laying on them as an opportunity to improve their game, so there may be some changes to the game during and immediately after these few weeks. Stay tuned for more Vritual Critic! Only at sever 2-56! Goodnight you ******! I hate the world so that you can enjoy it more!"
The Virtual Critic who had been stamping around on stage took a dramatic bow and the camera panned out and followed him as he sat down for food and conversation with some grand looking avatars, presumably staff, in a grand room presumably in Asgard as the episode ended and began to roll the credits.
"Guess he is getting better with context and evaluation. Still, I cant understand what he's saying when he swears like that. He'd be alright if he wasn't THAT angry..." Critic said to himself as it ended.
Critic had been watching from a tavern, which didn't seem to mind to much about his appearance or the unpleasantness of his smog. He had now been in Yggdrasil online for just under a week, and had been staying at a town called 'hollow root' which apparently was a far out root from the great tree Yggdrasil, although Critic still hadn't layed eyes on the so called tree. Either way, this was the imposter's first review since their encounter and Critic was going to watch him every step of the way. It seemed odd though, how he was reviewing the game that Critic appeared stuck in, with no way to log out or return to reality, and after he had been confined here no less. Furthermore, he stated that the game was supposed to be old and groundbreaking. Critic had never heard of it, and he was a virtual reality nut in all areas. Guess even the most knowledgeable of people are blind to some information.
Critic finished his drink and deleted the cup. He had a deal going on with the bar tender, who was a player, that if he defeated enemies and dragged in the corpses without looting the bodies, the looting holding the possibility of corrupting the loot, he could get some things for free as well as free lodging. Critic was able to defeat high level monsters who many players couldn't tackle too easily, so the loot which was worthless to Critic considering he couldn't carry anything made him very feared and respected amongst hollow wood, and it made the bar tender very happy with his new items, and as such and quickly stopped probing Critic for information on his background and virus traits, especially since Critic responded with silence and hostility. Last time Critic had tried to explain himself, he had been publicly humiliated and almost killed. No point trying to call foul on his imposter now.
"Hey, Critic. You here? Anyway, heard someone called Helen will pay cash for a certain dungeon to be cleared out with her. Wants the EXP. The reward looks alright so I'll give you a days break if you go get it for me. Game?" Asked the bartender, breaking Critic from his trance.
"Yeah. I'll go right away. Do you have data for a quest marker?" He asked.
"Already transferred. See you later."
Critic opened up his mini map, thankfully one of the few functions which had remained intact, and he headed in the direction the red arrow was pointing him, leaving the pain of his dark discontent and fury behind him, locked up with rusted chains in a finite void.
