What's your game?

Post by **John** » Tue 27 Nov, 2007 7:42 am

Occasionally I will while away 5-10 minutes on Google Earth or You Tube, or playing Minesweeper, Sokoban, or one of the solitaire type games.

A neighbour plays a game (forget the name) online for hours at a time, sometimes even whole days, where he inhabits a fantasy world of wizards and warriors accumulating wealth that apparently can be changed for hard cash in the real world.

I don’t have the time to get that involved, but I am wontering what other fun cyber diversions are there that don’t require much in the way of commitment?

w00dward · Post by **w00dward** » Tue 27 Nov, 2007 7:55 am

Your friend is probably playing WOW (World of Warcraft). I play another online game which is a little more cutthroat and ruthless called Eve Online.
Hours and days can be lost to it and it is an open ended game. You can be whatever you want. You can be a manufacturer, trader, scientist, pirate etc etc. When you loose things or get killed in Eve you really do loose it, there is no carebearing like in WOW where you get your stuff back. Average age in Eve is 27, in WOW its 14.

From a tecnical POV Eve is played on just 1 server. It is one big setup they have! Currently there are 37,000 people on this one server at the same time. Each and every one of them is a possible target for me.

Post by **prospero** » Tue 27 Nov, 2007 8:08 am

Severance:Blade of Darkness.

Best Hack'n'Slash ever made.

You can play online with it, but only 1-2-1 deathmatch.

What I like about it is that a lot of the code is open source so you can make your own adventures.

Here's a scrap I had eariler.....

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Tue 27 Nov, 2007 10:21 am

Google Earth is one favourite. It started out life as "Keyhole" and required a 12 month subscription of about US$24. It was a bit annoying when Google bought it and made it free, having paid my money to Keyhole.

My current favourite is "Stumble", which is a plugin for Firefox, which I've been using as my browser for a long time. For those who haven't seen Stumble, its free and you select a number of topics you are interested in when you register.
When the 'Stumble' button is clicked, it takes you to a random website that relates to one of the topics you have selected.

Stumble is probably one of the most useful things I have found on the net. Because we all know there are uncountabajillion web sites out there and there has to be some really awesome ones, how do you find them? Stumble is how!!!

These are a couple I have looked at tonight that have some awesome content:
http://ericjoisel.com/Site/home.html - click on the different page links at the top to see some staggeringly, unbelievable origami.
http://cubeme.com/blog/2007/10/31/ron-m ... yn-museum/

This one I found last night:
http://www.linkinn.com/_HQ_Photos_of_Japan_at_night

Post by **John** » Tue 27 Nov, 2007 12:53 pm

Three cracking links Ormond, please share anything else you happen to sumble upon.

Bill Henry · Post by **Bill Henry** » Tue 27 Nov, 2007 4:59 pm

I keep Random URL in my IE “Favorites” bar. It appears to be similar to Ormond’s “Stumble” but I can’t filter it. Frequently it takes me to sites that have no interest to me like Japanese Anime or Swedish Universities, but every now and then there are some interesting ones like “Extreme Croquet” (played with a volleyball on the side of a hill) or Czech site on “hamsters breeding”.

Most often the sites are interesting if for no other reason than to see what other people have come up with for their web design.

When I need a quick fix I just click on it to see what comes up.

If my wife has been cooking and I dread going home, I sometimes play “Virtual Pool” (it is Mac specific, I think). Best played with a trackball you can get topspin, side spin, adjust the “kiss” on the cue stick, etc. It is very realistic, although it hasn’t helped me much in the real world of pool.

I generally stay away from “shoot ‘em up” type video games. They make me too tense.

I got through every level of Sokoban except one. It’s driving me nuts! It appears fairly simple, but I have been working on that one stupid level for years.

kaptain.kopter · Post by **kaptain.kopter** » Wed 28 Nov, 2007 10:50 pm

Okay, don't blame me if you don't clear all the Christmas orders.

http://www.bass10.com/flash-games/puzzl ... zzle-game/

Time to put on a tin hat and not visit the forum for a while methinks.

Spit · Post by **Spit** » Wed 28 Nov, 2007 10:54 pm

My personal favorite is civilisation 3. Sod diplomacy & trade, I build up me armies (and my legsies) and invade everyone

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Wed 28 Nov, 2007 11:38 pm

A long time ago I played a game called 'Elite' on a computer called a BBC-B

Most games, in those days came about 20 to a disc - discs were five and a half inch floppy and really were 'floppy'

Elite took a whole disc.

You were an intergalactic trader, starting off with a very nice ship, 100 credits, no cargoe and a basic laser gun - a skill rating of 'harmless' and a crime record of 'clean'

The idea was to go from planet to planet buying and selling, avoiding those that may want to steal your cargo (pirates) - or - if you were buying dodgy goods, like weapons or narcotics, also avoiding the police and bounty hunters - or having to take them on. Points awarded for kills etc.

The aim was to get 'Elite' status - upgrading weapons systems etc on the way and enabling travel not just between planets, but galaxies.

I got seriously addicted to it - found myself with full elite status and 'public enemy No 1' - all the weapons that you could think of and a ship to die for - (I could even mix it with the Thargoids - an evil race of beetles that lurked in witch space) - hanging about outside space stations taking out the filth ad-lib, if the old shields got a bit low I'd just do a hyperspace in to the next galaxy - what did I care - I had a neutron bomb and an escape capsule if things got really tough!

What a sad world!

Years later I got just as addicted to Super MarioKart on the Nintendo 64 - I was so good that if we played in pairs I could go back, rescue the wife and still win the race.

Then I got bought a PS2 and one day, whilst playing Grand Theft Auto - Vice City - I saw myself in the mirror - as I was limping to the loo on my dead leg (From how I had been squatting) - veins sticking out of my neck - red face - screwed up in anger.

Never played a computer game since - bar the odd silly thing someone may send me a link to.

Now I have my luverly forumz - MMMMMUAHAHAHAHAHA - and soon I vil get to meet ze luferly vorum membez - YA!!!

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Thu 29 Nov, 2007 1:36 am

Roboframer wrote:A long time ago I played a game called 'Elite' on a computer called a BBC-B

That's a co-incidence, John. I loved to play Elite on my Commodore 64, back in about 1985/6. The sequel to that was 'Frontier', but I didn't get to play that one much.

Back in those days I also played text adventure games like Zork I, II & III, then several primitive graphic adventures. I think I enjoyed mapping them out as much as any other part of those games.

One of my all time favourites on the Commodore 64 was 'Boulderdash' which has been since remade for other platforms, but never as good. The graphics ability on that puter were ahead of it's time.

Also got heavily into Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Rise of the Triad, Rise of the Triad, Heretic, Hexen I & II, Quake, Descent and my favourite shootemup Duke Nukem 3D,
Then Age of Empires in a few varieties to wind up my obsession with computer games!
These days there are way too many constructive and learning experiences available to get stuck into.

kev@frames · Post by **kev@frames** » Fri 30 Nov, 2007 5:40 pm

team fortress 2, call of duty united offensive, call of duty 2 and call of duty modern weapons, medal of honour airborne.

but mostly team fortress 2, just for the flamethrower.

Grand Prix legends (1968 mod) and of course MotoGP3

reeling in the years- it used to be Doom, quake 1, quake 2, unreal tournament, Tribes, Tribes 2 battlefield 1942, battlefield 2, battlefield vietnam... - pretty much anything team-based multiplayer online with a sniper rifle or a flamethrower.

Oh, and Arma Armed Assault (operation flashpoint)
a pattern is forming

Spit · Post by **Spit** » Fri 30 Nov, 2007 5:47 pm

John, Ormond,

If you want to 'blast into the past' there is an open source version of Elite called Oolite - same gameplay, improved graphics. Free to use!

http://oolite.aegidian.org/

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Fri 30 Nov, 2007 7:01 pm

Nooooooooooooooooooo!

w00dward · Post by **w00dward** » Fri 30 Nov, 2007 8:22 pm

Kev, I used to be in a community which had our own BF1942, BF2 servers. One of my favourite mods for it was Forgotton Hope. Forgotton Hope 2 has just ben released for BF2 and it is fantastic.

I always specialised in snipers or special forces. Anything which involved sneaking around and head shots.

I used to play elite on my first PC. An Amstrad 1512 with dual 5.25" floppies. Those where the days. I'm sure Eve Online was based on Elite, the more I think about it the more it appears to be Elite Evolved! I'm going to have to download that open source version now.

My actual first computer was a Dragon 32. It wasn't long after that I upgraded to the Spectrum. I spent ages trying to write the programs from the magazines and then spending hours trying to find out why the thing wouldn't compile and run.

Spit · Post by **Spit** » Fri 30 Nov, 2007 9:08 pm

My first was a ZX80, had to assemble the bugger meself! Wish I still had it, they'll be worth something one day. Vic 20 after that, got heavily into writing machine code (all on paper, had to work out the values & poke them in until I wrote my own assembler), amazing that I thought the 3k expansion pack was loads of room back then! C64, Amstrad 128, Atari ST, Amiga, Acorn Archimedes and various others before I got into PCs. One of my favourite languages was Forth - confusing to read, but fun to write.

kaptain.kopter · Post by **kaptain.kopter** » Sat 01 Dec, 2007 12:08 am

I was so excited to get a ZX80, then ZX81. Then came the massive jump up to the mighty 48K Spectrum. This became my 'Elite' playing machine for many years, even when I'd got an Amiga 512 followed by the 1200 and eventually a full blown PC.

I'm now using a £2500 pound top of the range machine. However, I have on occasion used a Spectrum emulator so I can play Dynamite Dan again.
Just how sad is that.

When I was at college, circa 1984, I was taught how to program Fortran which was pretty obsolete then. The weird thing is, I saw a job advert for a Fortran programmer just 6 months ago. I bet they had a hard job finding someone.

Grahame Case · Post by **Grahame Case** » Tue 04 Dec, 2007 1:48 pm

i am a big First Person Shooter fan, such as the Medal of Honour Series, and Battlefield Series, and used to play them all the time, but before graduating from university i got into the world of MMORPGs and more specifically, Disney's Toontown http://www.toontown.co.uk/

you may laugh but there is a much bigger adult following than kids!

Post by **prospero** » Tue 04 Dec, 2007 2:33 pm

I like a thrash at MOH now and then.

I like the way you can snipe a distant enemy and his mate who is standing right next to him doesn't take a blind bit of notice.

Spit · Post by **Spit** » Tue 04 Dec, 2007 4:53 pm

After 20 years in retirement, Commander Narmy has blasted his way back into the galaxy. Thargoids beware!

Been playing that Oolite since yesterday - ah, the memories!

Frame Faery · Post by **Frame Faery** » Fri 07 Dec, 2007 9:17 am

World of Warcraft