Games that are Overrated

[Air Master Burst]

I feel like you did this deliberately to taunt us, but:

All of the GoldBox games are actually 1E AD&D, which has some very odd changes from 2E (my half-elf can cast spells WHILE wearing armor? Rangers get 2D8 hit points?!?).

I honestly didn't realize this, but the differences between 1st and 2nd are barely even skin deep. I've DMed both, and while they tweaked some minor shit like you mentioned here and there, they play exactly the same. Then again, Moldvay OD&D was always my system of choice because AD&D had way too many stupid useless extra rules, so it's possible I'm just the wrong kind of gamer to really appreciate the magnitude of the differences.

These days I just run OSE if anyone wants D&D. I'm currently running WFRP, and I got a Mothership campaign chambered for whenever that ends.

[Vanguard]

I'm game for this, I would love to play a Jarpig that's on the same level as Jagged Alliance! Which would you recommend as the deepest without having to deal with Xenoblade levels of system bloat? ETA: That's on PC, because I only have that or a creaky old launch PS4.

ETA2: I just looked up Labyrinth of Touhou and the level cap of 12,800 is giving me PTSD flashbacks to Disgaea. I prefer tactical challenges to mathematical ones, so I tend to prefer systems with lots of terrain and elevations and environmental effects over traditional Jarpig buff/debuff shenanigans.

Labyrinth of Touhou's numbers eventually become gigantic, but it's balanced pretty well. It's definitely more of a tactics game than a grinding game. Labyrinth of Touhou 2 even has a hard difficulty that forbids you from outleveling bosses. You'll be around level 100 when you're ready for the final boss in either game. I've only completed the postgame of the first one, but you'll be about level 500 by the time you're ready for that, which will take some real grinding.

Some of my favorite TB doujin RPGs:

Labyrinth of Touhou 1 and 2: Dungeon crawlers where you control a party of 12 characters, with 4 in your active party and 8 resting in reserve. You can switch any two characters' positions on any character's turn. You lose if your active party dies even if you still have people in reserve. The 8 reserve characters gradually heal both HP and SP, which is important since your access to active healing is very limited compared to most RPGs. Each game has like 50 different playable characters, and each one feels more unique and mechanically than different classes do in the overwhelming majority of RPGs. The character switching mechanic is amazingly versatile. You use it to manage your health and magic, to manipulate turn order, to allow vulnerable characters to "dodge" incoming attacks, and more. They have very good boss design and frequent boss fights, but most random encounters you just 1 or 2 shot with AoE attacks and move on. Both games are quite long and feature considerable postgame content. If you try them, it's probably a better idea to start with the second game. It's on Steam.

Potato Flowers in Full Bloom: Party-based dungeon crawler where you make a team of 3 characters from a variety of classes. Its two mechanical qualities that make it stand out the most are that it always tells you what the enemy is about to do on the upcoming turn, and it has much, much better-thought out defensive mechanics than one usually sees in RPGs. The basic defense command cuts incoming damage to 1/4, which you will need because enemies deal tons of damage. Different classes have their own special defensive abilities as well. Rangers and rogues can do iframe dodge rolls, warriors and knights can take hits for their teammates. Every character, enemy and ally has a finite stamina gauge that depletes fairly quickly, usually it'll last you for 3 or 4 actions. Every character can rest on their turn, which will fully recover stamina, but leave you defenseless. Running out of stamina while defending also leaves you defenseless, and you really do not want that. Lots of interesting choices on when to push your luck with stamina and when to rest early to stay safe. The playable classes are all fun and doing repeat runs with different setups gives it even more replay value. Another cool thing about Potato Flowers is its experience curve. If you don't like one of your classes, just make a new level 1 character and put them in your team. Their experience levels will shoot up so quickly that after three or four fights they'll basically be caught up to your main team even in the late game. It's an incredibly good game, and extremely charming too. I would go so far as to say that Potato Flowers' tutorial is more mechanically interesting than the average RPG. It's available on a variety of platforms, complete with a free demo, and is about 20 hours long. If you're going to play only one of these games I'm recommending, I think it should be this one.

Helen's Mysterious Castle: Unique combat system where all fights are 1v1 duels and all character building is done through equipment. Helen can carry up to 8 items and every item in the game has some distinct ability. Every action you can perform has a different defense value and startup time. Using a shield gives you a bunch of defense, but that's all it does. The broadsword is slow, does a bunch of damage, and protects you fairly well. The idea is that you want to manipulate your actions and timing so that you land big hits while the enemy's guard is down while preventing them from doing the same to you. The game has great enemy variety and basically no filler content. It's about 5 hours long and a blast from start to finish. It's a steal at $2. Unfortunately, since Playism's store has closed down, I don't believe there's an official way to get a DRM-free copy of the English version. I've got a longer review and a replay up here: viewtopic.php?p=1399670#p1399670

Demon King Chronicle: The combat system here is serviceable and not much more than that, but the way the game expects you to stretch your limited resources while the enemy AI tries to surround and overwhelm you makes it shine. It also has excellent exploration, and an interesting setting and story, told with minimal dialogue. It's about 20 hours long. It used to be a free download on the Playsm store. Since that has shut down, the English version is no longer officially available, but I've uploaded my own copy which you can get here: https://files.catbox.moe/l02ghi.zip
I've also got a longer review up here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=23939&start=11940

Liar Jeannie in Crucifix Kingdom: A short, third person dungeon crawler where you control two human characters and can summon two defeated enemies as undead for a party of 4. Quality combat and character building, and in particular its status ailment system stands out as the best I've ever seen in any RPG. I want to say it's about 5 hours long.
You can get it for free here: https://vgperson.com/games/liarjeannie.htm

Hat World: A perfection of the formula used in Squaresoft's SFC Romancing SaGa games. Great combat and character building. Likable characters and interesting stories (though it is pretty dialogue heavy). Choose from one of six main characters, take the other 5 down in any order and claim their powers, Rockman-style. Unlike most JRPGs, here you explore the game's world in sidescrolling platformer format. It's full of interesting side content (I love the fighting tournaments in the World of Battle) and challenging boss fights. Like in Romancing SaGa, your characters grow faster while facing challenging enemies, so as long as you keep pushing forward you won't need to grind. Your first route should take about 30 hours, beating everything including the unlockable 7th route (of course it has one!) will take about 100 hours.

Here's the translation team's image they've created to advertise the game, complete with a download link.

Spoiler

https://i.imgur.com/oQwnpxC.png

For Demon King Chronicle and Hat World, you'll want to switch to Japanese locale and/or enable UTF-8 encoding before unzipping the game files. This is not nearly so intimidating as it may sound:

Spoiler

In Windows 10:
Go to the control panel
Click region
Select the administrative tab at the top
Click the change system locale button
That will open a window where you can either check a box to enable UTF-8 and/or change your system locale to Japanese

Personally I just leave UTF-8 encoding enabled permanently. There's no real reason not to.

I've seen a few people worried about changing their system locale, so I'm just gonna say here that it won't do anything bad. You shouldn't even have to restart Windows. It's not going to reinstall windows using the Japanese version or rename any of your files or folders with kana or anything like that.

None of these are bloated messes like Xenoblade or Star Ocean-style cringefests.

[TransatlanticFoe]

The acronyms and initialisms going on the past couple of pages... it's like being in a shitty corporate presentation. Please just write out what it means the first time you use it and every so often. Stuff like this honestly feels like being at work:

These days I just run OSE if anyone wants D&D. I'm currently running WFRP, and I got a Mothership campaign chambered for whenever that ends

There are obviously really common ones that everyone knows, but RTwP - what even is that? It's tiresome to go off Googling everything and some of it's just randomly abbreviated titles that resolve to nothing in particular. It makes it utterly impossible for a casual observer to follow.

[Vanguard]

There are obviously really common ones that everyone knows, but RTwP - what even is that? It's tiresome to go off Googling everything and some of it's just randomly abbreviated titles that resolve to nothing in particular. It makes it utterly impossible for a casual observer to follow.

Real Time with Pause. The type of combat one used to see commonly in western role playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons games such as Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights.

I believe OSE is Old-School Essentials, seems to be some kind of alternate Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. WFRP appears to stand for Warhammer Fantasy Role Play.

[BryanM]

One thing I like about Warhammer Fantasy Role Play is the jobclass tree. Starting as a garbage Rat Catcher and working up to a knight or a mage or whatever. It just seems a lot simpler than the videogame skill munchkinery of DnD 3rd Ed+.

Last Bible Special uses something similar, and is probably the highlight of the game. Besides the beaten-down grimey dirty medieval art style.

All of the GoldBox games are actually 1E AD&D, which has some very odd changes from 2E (my half-elf can cast spells WHILE wearing armor? Rangers get 2D8 hit points?!?).

Order of the Griffon and Warriors of the Eternal Sun are OD&D.

THAC0 was a 2nd edition thing. You're right about armor in Pools of Radiance (it's different in later games), the rules forbid it, but they weren't perfect about translating every rule. As well as how every game group picks and choose how they want things to be done, weapon proficiences were always intended to be optional, etc.

Dungeons and Dragons was a completely different product from Dungeons and Dragons. One was a very basic version of a game with its roots in Chainmail, that had three classes and called the fighter Fighting-Man (like Magic-User), which was updated with a bunch of add-on rules a few years later in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The other was a stripped down, simplified version of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons for newbies to learn. Races being classes and all Elves being Magic Fighter guys being a defining feature.

Pools of Radiance was being developed concurrently with 2nd edition, so a lot of developmental flux was expected, as well.

I think by coincidence, Ruins of Myth Drannor was also the first game to use 3rd edition rules, starting development as intending to use 2nd and changing course during development.

All of these rules are a hodge-podge hotpot soup, is what I'm getting at. Little elements of each would often intermix.

I think that's to their credit: a living game should constantly morph and change a bit, if it's really alive. Sweeping overhauls and casting off of what was made before, are better off being a different game entirely.

But of course, $profit. There is only one card game, Magic the Gathering. There is only one dungeon crawler RPG, Dungeons and Dragons. A dollar put into anything else is a dollar wasted. : (

[Vanguard]

Oh yeah, and now that I've successfully subverted this into becoming the underrated games thread, I recommend that any fans of immersive sims such as Deus Ex check out Cruelty Squad. It's basically Biopunk Deus Ex: The Arcade Edition. I dig it!

[Lethe]

Labyrinth of Touhou 2 is probably the most fun I've had with a turn-based RPG. The combination of planning and ad-hoc execution, almost no wasted time in combat, just enough wiggle room in difficulty while many fights somehow remain open-ended. The trivial random encounters are the only big problem. A character available very early on has an encounter rate reduction passive which I highly recommend taking.

The attitude of the game shifts around substantially with progression (main -> post -> plus -> post-plus). Some stages are more tactically demanding than others. The grind spots are in the two postgames, level 100-150 range and >500. For everything else, even if you haven't developed the specific tools for a boss, you'll be able to catch up to speed in a few minutes; later on, you always have the tools to handle everything anyway, you just need to apply them properly. You only need to pay attention to level recommendations, no nerd shit like optimizing stat breakpoints.

[Sima Tuna]

Oh yeah, and now that I've successfully subverted this into becoming the underrated games thread, I recommend that any fans of immersive sims such as Deus Ex check out Cruelty Squad. It's basically Biopunk Deus Ex: The Arcade Edition. I dig it!

You didn't do it alone, dammit! Don't take all the credit! We've all been shitposting hard to make this thread less lame than it was originally!

Cruelty Squad is definitely on my list. I like those "immersive sims." Prey 2017, Dishonored (the first one,) Deus Ex (I even like Invisible War,) and System Shock 2 all get recommendations from me.

If we're gonna recommend more underrated games, anyone here a fan of stealth games? ImSims scratch a similar itch, depending on the game. But for a hardcore "u don't see me" experience, nothing beats pure stealth. No RPG mechanics and no fighting your way out. Chaos Theory, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven and Hitman Blood Money are my Holy Trinity. Sniper Elite 4 is also fantastic if you're in the mood for more of a stealth shooter. Getting stealth kills with a sniper rifle (by masking the sound with ambient noise) feels amazing every time you pull it off.

[Lander]

Cruelty Squad is sick. There's a definite adjustment period from "what is this mspaint vomit" to "ah yes, that nightmarish face represents a door", but given the appropriate time it's so much more than the playable shitpost it presents itself as. Genuinely great game.
Also, I have code in Cruelty Squad - a DLL right there in the application folder. In-game, it does nothing but it's there.

Stealth-wise, Thief Gold and Thief 2: The Metal Age are pinnacle to my mind. Neither perfect, but each with its own distinct burgle-em-up flavor buoyed by Stephen Russell's charismatically roguish voice work.

[Air Master Burst]

MGS2 on Extreme is still the best stealth experience in gaming, even after all these years. The toolset at your disposal is truly massive, the level design is top notch, and the enemy AI is brutal. The first 3 Thief games are pretty great too, as is Hitman. Hitman 2 still has the distinction of being the only stealth game I've played that makes you contend with old hardwood floors!

As far as immersive sims go, Consortium and Deus Ex Invisible War are still the pinnacles of the genre for me. Ultima Underworld also rules, but the age can make it a hard sell, so check out Arx Fatalis if you need something slightly less archaic. Basically anything Arkane makes is gonna be pretty great, although I'm still disappointed that Death of the Outsider doesn't have a Flesh and Steel equivalent.

[BryanM]

Good morning Dungeons and Dragons thread. Hasbro had a presentation today to let you know you've been getting off too easy, just making up stuff to entertain yourself, so they'll be digging for ways to properly monetize ya'all.

[Lander]

MGS2 is cracking, of course. Replaying Tanker through to Extreme and gradually mastering the mechanics was a pleasure, though I got distracted by something shiny (probably MGS3) and wandered off before pulling off the full dog-tag run. Those last few awkwardly-crowded buggers in the hold - sublime trolling in difficulty design

Though I still can't fully come to terms with Plant. It has some great moments, and I know I can skip all of the Jack Jack Why Don't You Own Any Posters Jack content, but Raiden's shoes are still awkward and ill-fitting.

That said, honourable mention to Snake Tales from the Substance rerelease. For the most part they're fun and challenging what-if fluff missions, but External Gazer is low-key one of the finest portions of Kojipro meta wankery ever put to disc - a captivating puppet show of the game's characteristic themes by way of a year or so of hindsight.

[Air Master Burst]

MGS2 is cracking, of course. Replaying Tanker through to Extreme and gradually mastering the mechanics was a pleasure, though I got distracted by something shiny (probably MGS3) and wandered off before pulling off the full dog-tag run. Those last few awkwardly-crowded buggers in the hold - sublime trolling in difficulty design

Though I still can't fully come to terms with Plant. It has some great moments, and I know I can skip all of the Jack Jack Why Don't You Own Any Posters Jack content, but Raiden's shoes are still awkward and ill-fitting.

That said, honourable mention to Snake Tales from the Substance rerelease. For the most part they're fun and challenging what-if fluff missions, but External Gazer is low-key one of the finest portions of Kojipro meta wankery ever put to disc - a captivating puppet show of the game's characteristic themes by way of a year or so of hindsight.

The dog tags are kind of annoying because you need to play every difficulty to get them all, and also raise your grip level to 3 every time you do (or at least until you get enough of them to unlock the orange wig).

I always liked the switch to Raiden, because Solid Snake is supposed to be a badass and 90% of players are basically Raiden anyway.

I should go back through and try the Snake Tales sometime, but I vastly prefer the original Sons of Liberty release to the Substance version. The uncensored cut scenes and classic red thermal goggles just do it for me!

ETA:

Good morning Dungeons and Dragons thread. Hasbro had a presentation today to let you know you've been getting off too easy, just making up stuff to entertain yourself, so they'll be digging for ways to properly monetize ya'all.

This is literally why TSR had to sell them the IP in the first place, so you'd think they would know better. I mean I guess that was before Hasbro bought Wizards, but still!

[evil_ash_xero]

Sons of Liberty has a lot of flaws. Like, a lot.
The story and dialogue are pretty awful, despite kind of predicting the future. My "favorite" is that black dude who acts like he has a busted leg, but really doesn't.
The reasoning behind that was pretty comical. For anyone who doesn't know, he acted as if he had a prosthetic leg. Reason was, he was a bomb expert who was called
in to diffuse a bomb at a church. He panicked and ran off, and the church and a nearby playground were blown up. So, to save face, he acted as if he lost his leg trying
to diffuse it. It was so stupid.
And that's just one of the many goofy bits in this game (well, I guess it's no more goofy than being possessed by an arm).

It also interrupts you constantly.

It has it's moments, and seems to have really garnered a following... but it's not a favorite of mine. Also, making you play as wimp Raiden can't be
commended.

Does Kojima take acid or something? For every good story idea he has, he has like 3 insane/bat shit ones.

[Steven]

Everyone will disagree with me, but I always thought that Raiden is better written than Snake is, although I am not sure if I'd really be able to explain why if someone asked me about it, so please don't ask me to explain. Yes, I actually like Raiden, including his goofy cartwheel.

[Sima Tuna]

Everyone will disagree with me, but I always thought that Raiden is better written than Snake is.

The first part is right at least.

Snake is a snarky spy guy who cracks jokes about smuggling cigs in his asscrack.

Raiden whines like a baby to his wife/fakewife and gets cucked by an old man.

The best version of Raiden was the one from Revengeance. It took losing most of his body for Jack to stop crying all the time.

[Air Master Burst]

Raiden is great because he's the most accurate player stand-in character of all time.

His insistence that he knows what he's doing because he's done a bunch of virtual simulations like it. His constant calls to ask where to go or what to do next. His initial inability to figure out anything more complex than A to B routes. His unhealthy and singularly-focused domestic life that causes issues with his partner. Raiden's a capital G Gamer!

Also, it's hilarious how everyone wants to play Snake because he's a badass, and then proceed to get his clumsy ass spotted and killed repeatedly like the exact opposite of a badass.

My "favorite" is that black dude who acts like he has a busted leg, but really doesn't.
The reasoning behind that was pretty comical. For anyone who doesn't know, he acted as if he had a prosthetic leg. Reason was, he was a bomb expert who was called
in to diffuse a bomb at a church. He panicked and ran off, and the church and a nearby playground were blown up. So, to save face, he acted as if he lost his leg trying
to diffuse it. It was so stupid.

This was actually a pretty accurate portrayal of survivor's guilt, I met a few people who did this exact same thing when I was in the army.

I think the writing still holds up ok despite Kojima's penchant for monologues. By early PS2 standards it's high literature. Rose does get pretty annoying, though.

[Lander]

Raiden and his part in the information control themes go in the same boat as Alfie (1966) for me; well-formed art with lots of strong components to pick apart and analyze, but not something you put on for a fun time.

I should go back through and try the Snake Tales sometime, but I vastly prefer the original Sons of Liberty release to the Substance version. The uncensored cut scenes and classic red thermal goggles just do it for me!

What got censored? I've only played Substance and HD, so I guess I've not seen the original cut.

My "favorite" is that black dude who acts like he has a busted leg, but really doesn't.

Ahem

I KILLED MAH SOUL

Everyone will disagree with me, but I always thought that Raiden is better written than Snake is, although I am not sure if I'd really be able to explain why if someone asked me about it, so please don't ask me to explain. Yes, I actually like Raiden, including his goofy cartwheel.

I'd say that depends on the goal of the writer - if it's the creation of a likeable war dog with enough experience for the audience to walk behind in confidence, then Snake takes it easily.
On the other hand, if it's about building a narrative device that exists almost solely in service of the core themes, then Raiden is the dweeb for the job.

The non-complimentary nature of those approaches is the crux of most MGS2 fanbase bellyaching, I'd warrant

[evil_ash_xero]

My "favorite" is that black dude who acts like he has a busted leg, but really doesn't.

Ahem

I KILLED MAH SOUL

It was the only way he could "diffuse" his sins.
This is real dialogue, folks.

[BIL]

What I remember most of ol' Petey is 1) his noticing Snake's SAS reference - an astute fellow, unlike poor dumb Jack - and 2) his "UUUUUUAAAAAAAHH!" dying scream, which sounded less like he was getting blown up, more like he was cumming furiously - cumming day and night, even. Struck as a bit odd, after he soulful acceptance that his wascally former student FATMAN had well and truly snared 'im.

[BryanM]

Diablo is a slot machine glued onto a middling action game. Drop the loot system and it wouldn't be 1% as popular as it is.

That's like saying Mario wouldn't be popular if he couldn't jump, or like my rants about how Star Wars would have been nothing without the special effects : D

Diablo is a legacy franchise that had good fortune to come out at the right place, right time. There was more special about the first game than just the gacha mechanics:

The aesthetic and art were quite appealing to the teenage males who were the bulk of PC Gamers back then. The edgy demon stuff was cool and stood out amongst the DnD copypasta snoozefest everyone else was doing. It was like DOOM.

Multiplayer games on PC back then.... were complete and total ass. Ass. ASS. The standard solution for remote play on PC at the time? Why, you'd use GameSpy's multiplayer plug-in, of course! Wasn't that great?! (It was not great.)

With the launch of battle.net, you just clicked a couple buttons and you were playing with other people. It was truly revolutionary. Grinding games like Diablo are a lot like Monster Hunter or Gauntlet: they're often at their best when played with other people. Higher highs and lower lows.

They had literally no competition when it came out, and no serious competition for perhaps decades. All the energy for client-server games went into Everquest clones, and outside of Korea there was squat until Path of Exile.

[BIL]

Multiplayer games on PC back then.... were complete and total ass. Ass. ASS. The standard solution for remote play on PC at the time? Why, you'd use GameSpy's multiplayer plug-in, of course! Wasn't that great?! (It was not great.)

That shit didn't work in my country, at least not without horrific overseas calling charges, so us wealfeh coolege kidz would pile our rigs into the trunk and proceed 2 LAN it up ERREH WEEKEN.

But there was trouble even in this paradise You see, a schism of FPS and RTS players developed; the stalwart HONEYS and the bitch-assed KISSIES... so named after a previous enmity, when we were Goldeneye 007-crazed, but those bitch-assed KISSIES (heretically shooting with the *ptoo* A button) insisted on half the controllers being set to their subhuman creed... despite we valorous Z-triggering HONEYS outnumbering them 1.5 to 1! And generally killing the shit out of them too, although they had a couple of real top shottas amongst the dross - the fiends having somehow adapted their deviant brains to the likewise monged control scheme.

The weird thing was, the RTS dudes were almost all Kissies, and the FPSers (like ME ) Honeys. Anyway, even today, decades on, the names HONEY and KISSY inspire love and hatred amongst we middle-aged weebs. Because those LAN parties were when we realised we were actually broke-assed shitbirds with a paltry FOUR top-of-the-line gaming PCs imported at hideous import tariff to our names. Several were lost to higher education and even, God forgive me, marriage in the fallout, seeking mo moneh and tbh halal pussy. 3;

Anyway, while C&C and Quake had us ready to commence race war, everyone liked Diablo. Except me, I've never played it. I'm a one-track guy, took me twelve years to boot up a Souls game and say "WAOW THIS IS SHAWEEEEEET." Sounded cool though. Butcher man gon cut your weewee off! Aieee!

[Vanguard]

That's like saying Mario wouldn't be popular if he couldn't jump, or like my rants about how Star Wars would have been nothing without the special effects : D

Yes but you see, Mario's jumping and Star Wars's effects are pure and good, while the loot slot machine is foul and wicked. Diablo's aesthetics and multiplayer were cool, sure, people still played it for the skinner box more than for its other mechanics.

[BryanM]

The hardcore fans, absolutely it was core. The majority that played one of them, just beat the game once, maybe twice and never think of it again.

Most of my conversations with normies was like "Oh yeah, I played that with my roomies in college!" and they have zero idea wth I mean by "unique item".

The average player of anything mainstream is always casual. Like the kitchen table Magic The Gathering players..

That shit didn't work in my country, at least not without horrific overseas calling charges, so us wealfeh coolege kidz would pile our rigs into the trunk and proceed 2 LAN it up ERREH WEEKEN.

If it makes you feel any better, it pretty much never fuckin' worked here either. You'd be lucky to get a slideshow at one frame every third second.

FPS's were completely unplayable with dial-up. It wasn't until Starcraft and Diablo 2 that you'd be able to play some shit that it'd be playable. No wonder Blizzard created such a loyal fanboy monopoly, they were the only assholes making games that'd actually work.

Ah, this reminds me of games like Homeworld, Ground Control, Dungeon Siege, etc. It's crazy to think the AAA of that era is now like the equivalent to dross on itch.io.

Perfect Vermin shoutout I guess? $0 fifteen minute game for u. On Steam or Itchy-o.

[Air Master Burst]

FPS's were completely unplayable with dial-up. It wasn't until Starcraft and Diablo 2 that you'd be able to play some shit that it'd be playable. No wonder Blizzard created such a loyal fanboy monopoly, they were the only assholes making games that'd actually work.

I dunno, I played a lot of Doom and Descent and Warcraft 2 over kali around 95-97 and it worked pretty well on the old 28k and later the 56k. Heck, even HL2DM and Counter-Strike played great on 56k if you were close enough to the server.

[BryanM]

Did you live in the city? Dial-up latency there could get a little lower than 200ms. Outside there, you're lucky to get 400. 600 to 800 was what we got. In flesh and blood was the only way we had to play anything that required reflexes. This ~22ms of cable is warlock magic.

Ooif, Dungeon Fighter Online came out in 2005? I could have sworn I heard about that back in high school..

[rapoon]

Lol, 800ms.

Roommate and I split our 56k connection and played EQ with few hiccups for a solid year. The networking models were built for it, transferring the least amount of data, as infrequently as possible.

The real issue came down when Bryan with his 800ms connection, or a mooninite joined. We’d all inherit that 800ms behavior to ensure a level playing field.

[drauch]

Did you live in the city? Dial-up latency there could get a little lower than 200ms. Outside there, you're lucky to get 400. 600 to 800 was what we got. In flesh and blood was the only way we had to play anything that required reflexes. This ~22ms of cable is warlock magic.

Ooif, Dungeon Fighter Online came out in 2005? I could have sworn I heard about that back in high school..

Yeah, CS was 'playable' for me, but god, it fuckin' suckedddd. I'd always freeze in place constantly, then come to dead.

[Stevens]

1.6 bunny hop posse.