I Hate and Despise Arcade Games

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Sigrdrifa, Dec 26, 2022.

  1. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Howdy devs. Hope you had a great holiday.

    I want to talk to you now about the next expansion. Last expansion we had Donkey King. I have no idea which arcade game that the Grave Grange is based on.

    Regardless, if I wanted to play arcade games, I would not be paying my monthly subscription to DBG. I'd have bought an XBox and be playing arcade games. I loathe and despise these kinds of games. I'm in Norrath because I want all the quests, and lore, and storylines. Not ridiculous arcade game ripoffs, err, I mean tributes.

    If you just MUST include arcade game tributes, put them in a side quest somewhere. Don't make them part of the content that we run for a sig line, or that we will have to run over and over in weeklies. Please!
    Mowse, Miauler, Soara2 and 19 others like this.
  2. Cusashorn Well-Known Member

    Plants vs. Zombies. There's a Nights of the Dead quest based off PvZ that's been in the game for a decade now as well.

    Row one: Cactus shooter
    Row two: Snow shooter
    Row three: Corn poppers
    Row four: Mega shooters, also replace the cactus shooters with mega shooters at this point.

    I don't know why people are having such a big problem with this zone.
  3. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    I can do the zone, I just find it jarring and profoundly unpleasing. The Donkey Kong business you could at least bypass in the solos if you wanted.
    Alioha, Stormkat, AOE1 and 2 others like this.
  4. DENSER Well-Known Member

    A rant from sigr ?!
    It's the the begining of the end !! ;)
    but it's understandable, I can't imagine a part of D and D with notices on harry potter lol.
    A lack of originality surely, or devs believing that humor, these winks, like motds, will erase linear content
    Aterskia, Juraiya and Pixistik like this.
  5. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    Completely concur.
    Alioha, Flatline, Geroblue and 2 others like this.
  6. Chrol Developer

    It will stop the day I get fired! (Or if we collectively just decide not to do such nonsense again…)
    ConcealFate, Zeoni, Mezaka and 8 others like this.
  7. Wildlord New Member

    I agree that it ruins immersion in lore. I used to play this game as an escape from reality, like going to the movies or reading a book. I remember years ago coming across the NPC Bindi the Croc Hunter in a cave in the Sinking Sands. It totally killed the immersion for me, in that moment, even though I was a Steve Irwin fan.
    Alioha likes this.
  8. Taled Well-Known Member

    Why would that ruin the immersion? Because it is impossible for an online game to involve anything similar?

    Geez.
  9. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    To me, it trivializes the gameplay--that's why I don't like it.
    Alioha likes this.
  10. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Reiterating: I didn't ask for it to STOP, just to not be on the main pathway. As a sideshow, go for it!
    Miauler, Athenia, Alioha and 5 others like this.
  11. AOE1 Well-Known Member

    I despise the zone. It may be easy for some but for others it is not fun at all for any number of reasons. Another issue is, why does every encounter now include half a dozen adds? Enough already. Some classes can do them easily and some have much difficulty. Do the devs even try these out before they put them out? I mean try them with ever class and not geared to the max.
    Mowse, Alioha, Stormkat and 4 others like this.
  12. AOE1 Well-Known Member


    That sums it up nicely.
  13. Cusashorn Well-Known Member


    All of pop culture is built upon the pop culture that came before it. Do you know Bugs Bunny's voice and his love for carrots? His voice was inspired by one scene from "It Happened One Night" where Clark Gable is leaning against a tree, quickly talking to his co-star while munching on a carrot. One scene ended up creating the personality of one of the most recognized characters in all of media (and also ended up misleading generations of rabbit owners into thinking that rabbits love carrots. They don't. Carrots can actually make them sick.)

    EQ2 has had pop culture references from the very beginning.

    --You can buy "Ruubica's Cryptic Cube" from a City Merchant. It's a Rubik's Cube, and it's been in the game from the very beginning.

    --There's a Ratonga in the Commonlands named ZaZa Lenska, an homage to Zsa Zsa Gabor. She even talks like her.

    --Nights of the Dead has a Plants vs. Zombies quest.

    --In Butcherblock Mountains, there's a bear hunter named Trapper Colbear, who always rambles on about how dangerous bears are to society -- a reference to The Colbert Report starting Stephen Colbert.

    --In Lesser Faydark, there's a questline named after Ren & Stimpy. "It's Big, It's Heavy, It's Wood", "It's Better Than Bad, It's Good".

    --In Loping Plains, when nighttime comes around, the message "What a horrible night for a curse" appears, a reference to Castlevania II.

    --Another Castlevania reference can be found in Mistmoore Catacombs. A vampire hunter named Simone Chelmonte gives you a quest called "Bloody Tears", which rewards you with a whip.

    --Various vampires all across the Loping Plains and associated zones like Varsoon's Crypt all speak lines from the song "One Night in Bangkok".

    --Over in Steamfont, you have Gnomeland Security Headquarters, a pun that wouldn't have happened if not for the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11.

    --Those familiar with Aqua Teen Hunger Force will find two gnomes named Emory and Oglethorpe (named after the aliens, who themselves are named after colleges) who are trying to create a clockwork designed to create tasty cakes, but ends up in a feedback loop saying "Do what now?" over and over, then eventually goes haywire. You're told to go dismantle it with the Ancient Bone Saber of Zoruzagoth.. and the saber doesn't have to be bone.. and you can probably just stab it anywhere and that'll kill it.

    --In Klak'Anon, all the clock works are named Klakdyne, a reference to Cyberdyne Systems from the Terminator franchise. The ruler of the Clockworks is a reference to the Master Control Program from Tron.

    --In Kylong Plains is a quest called "The Legend of Roger Goldie" which rewards a yellow and red swashbuckler hat. That's a reference to Gol D. Roger and the straw hat that Luffy wears in One Piece.

    --The entire Swashbuckler epic questline is one giant reference to The Princess Bride.

    --In Frostfell Wonderland, you can see Nathan Ironforge with his tongue stuck to a metal pole, a reference to "A Christmas Story"

    --Also in Frostfell Wonderland is Acorn Cornelius, a reference to the prospector Yukon Cornelius from "Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer"

    --Skymaster Ruffle Lahlkaptr in Sinking Sands is a reference to the internet slang ROFL LOLCOPTER.

    - The Rubble-Rabble Burynai in Kunzar Jungle fire Hadoken fireballs at you. The Bruiser class even gets the Hadoken as a skill. Does it break your immersion to have mystical fireballs from Street Fighter in this game?

    --For the Guardian epic, you can find Dolph, Kearney, and Jimbo over in Windstalker Village -- three of the school bullies from The Simpsons.

    --At Kerra Isle in Sundered Frontier, you'll find a Kerran named Mik'roe, who offers you a job of feeding the tigers. Referencing "Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe".

    --Also on Kerra Isle is Hitus Sharpclaw, who speaks like the "I can has cheezeburger?" meme by reversing Has and Have in his vocabulary. The Kerran Chieftain even says it's cute that he can't really control that speaking mannerism.

    --One of the bosses inside the Tower of Frozen Shadows is a zombie named Romero, a reference to Night of the Living Dead director John Romero.

    --Referencing Mongo from Blazing Saddles, out in Mahngavi Wastes, the mercenary Frunk says that he's "only pawn, in game of life."

    --Blood of Luclin introduced Diaku Corral, where we found an entire race of warmongering ogres facing an existential crisis after learning that their god and creator had been slain, so now they all pretend to be cowboys while the bosses reference numberous Spaghetti Westerns. Even I thought it had no place in Norrath's setting, until I saw that reasoning.

    Honestly, those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. You're going to tell me that all of those break your immersion?
    Breanna, Mezaka and Taled like this.
  14. Bramdar Active Member


    That is an impressive list!

    To reply to the topic, I found this zone to be very frustrating the first time I tried it, but once I completed it the first time, I found that subsequent runs weren't as bad. Placing and replacing the plants is time consuming, and I wouldn't be upset if a "replace the entire row" option was available, or something like that. This zone will be the RoR version of Suite of Screams, I guess - I wouldn't be surprised if it comes up several times over the next year.

    And I'm with Cusashorn - I play a character sometimes, and I like the lore and story, but it's just not something I want to do all the time so I'm struggling with how pop culture references affect immersion more than things like game mechanics and the like.

    For most of my EQ2 time, my main has been a dark elf shadow knight of Innoruuk. He's a bad guy, and staying in character as him with my guild would be exhausting. So instead, he hates everything. He hates Grave Grange, but he also hates that he hates Grave Grange. Good luck dealing with that one, Chrol!
  15. Cusashorn Well-Known Member

    Why do people hate Grave Grange so much? I find it both easy and fun... but then again I'm a monk with a dragonfire AOE with a diameter large enough to cover 5 of the 6 rows and it slows down the targets while burning them... so....
    Tyrval, Breanna and Taled like this.
  16. Smashey Well-Known Member

    Oh no something slighty new being added to eq2. Even just a single zone can make the roof collapse. How sad.

    Be happy they finally added something new that have not been in the game before. Its rare these years.
  17. Mezaka Active Member

    This thread reminds me of the whole 'You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.'

    Personally, I love the wide differences in the different zones across the decades. There are math puzzles, logic puzzles, color puzzles, references to song titles and lyrics, TV shows, movies, celebrities, etc. scattered across the game.

    Go to some game conventions like GenCon or Origins, and even the DM's there have inserted some modern pop culture or dad jokes into the campaigns - it's all meant to be in fun.

    If I can suspend my disbelief in the two really bad science things I've found in this game, you can also suspend your disbelief in a zone paying homage to a classic video game.
    Taled likes this.
  18. Tyrval Active Member

    I dunno, I never played PvZ but it's pretty much personal taste. Everyone I know really likes Grange and thinks it is fun.
  19. Grandavi Active Member

    The table at the top of the rope in BBM is my favorite little throw-back. (Princess Bride)

    There is a lot of incredible history to this game and the little sidebars just add to character.

    It's like Daiku Corral in BoL... if you don't "get it"... watch "the 3 Amigos" with Steve Martin...
    I giggled like a school girl my first time running through that area....

    I enjoy the little ties to outside sources... the only thing I find annoying is the occasional tossing in of weird verbiage that doesn't fit the game theme that occurred in RoS... But... that's a personal thing.. and I just take it as part of the eternal development of this game.
  20. Heresford Active Member

    I agree with Sigrdrifa. I don't like the game within a game stuff, where suddenly you're playing a mini-version of something else. Parts of Diaku Corral could be amusing, but the Candy Crush (I assume it was Candy Crush) mini-game inside it was endlessly annoying.

    And sorry, Cusashorn, but I agree with Wildlord. Each and every one of the things on that list (the ones that I have encountered) ruins my immersion in the game. I tend to find the pop-culture references annoying rather than clever. I will admit that I'm not a fan of pop culture generally, so that likely colors my reaction. "Groaner" jokes are a definite non-starter. I've spent too many years doing improv with truly funny and talented people to find those jokes entertaining.
    Miauler, Juraiya, AOE1 and 2 others like this.