Icarus wrote:Using excuses such as "I only play for survival as I'm a noob" doesn't fly with me either, considering you can get pretty decent scores just going the distance - and posting your score would give you a visible marker for progress, and would start some kind of discussion with other players that could lead to better play.
Not that anyone really cares what I have to say, but I actually do this. I've posted a score in pretty much every game that I've put a decent amount of time into, except Gunbird 2 (only because I wasn't on the forum when I was playing that, and I haven't for a while). I find that it encourages me to try harder, which is cool. but I gotta say that I feel kinda intimidated doing so b/c I feel like people are getting mad that some n00b is posting his kusoscores. I am the sort of person who cares little enough about that that I still do it, but I imagine that other n00bs don't post for similar reasons. I doubt automation would make much difference. Also, after reading this topic, I suspect that there are more people on this forum who think you shouldn't post scores unless you're seriously playing for score than otherwise (hence the intimidation felt is warranted).
Other points:
I tend to agree with Despatche, I think, about seperating different ship styles. Part of the appeal of a game like Gunbird 2, to me, for example, is that it's kind of actually several games, because each of the characters plays notably differently. I feel like I probably will never actually use all of the characters, but I'd like to be able to see how I'm doing compared to other people playing as Morrigan, or Tavia, or whatever. Probably just personal preference. Also: having a combined high score list and individual ones, as suggested by chum, strikes me as a good compromise, especially for games that are not as popular as Gunbird 2, for example, and therefore don't have a significant number of people playing each ship
On the other hand I can't agree with Despatche about games being easy. Have you tried getting through stage 4 of Mars Matrix or Gunbird 2? That takes dedication in its own right. Probably the only games I've put enough effort in to be able to definitively say are really hard to clear (especially as a n00b), but I bet most arcade shmups are similarly difficult to get the 1cc on.
As far as human maintained score threads goes, I must say that I've gotten a lot of useful information from reading the discussion, mostly in the Mars Matrix thread. Unfortunately I can't really participate since nobody plays the same games as me [/emo], but it's definately a significant thing. Surely there could be discussion in the strategy thread, but it seems like there's a good kind of dynamic when people are playing the same game and trying to help eachother with what they're struggling with for good discussion. A bit like arcades probably used to be.
Finally, I've only had one instance where my score didn't update (Trap15, but I don't particularly care about my Blade Buster 2 minute score, anyway, so it's not really worth PMing), and that includes both times that I posted new scores in the Mars Matrix thread, and Rob doesn't even post anymore. This may be because I haven't posted that many high scores, but IDK. still seems worth noting
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