Let's (Listen to Pr0nogo) Play: Flame Knives

[Taeradun]

also the Aeon of the Hawk tilesets owned

[Lavarinth]

What did you update?

And I'm not playing it, just reviewing it. Didn't you listen to the review? I even talked about you and your tacos.

I did listen to it, which is why I wondered why you used words similar to "Let's Play" for your thread title considering it was a review, not actually you playing.

[Pr0nogo]

The first two or three lines concerned why the review was coming out and the LP wasn't...

[mark_009_vn]

I agree completely about the difficulty; the campaign was made when I used to play Starcraft somewhat competitively, plus I had an unreliable supply of beta testers who were pretty much just there to play content ahead of the rest. So, multiple testing of one's map can harm his perception of difficulty, and coupled with people telling me it was just fine... yeah. They probably cheated all throughout it as well.

It's retarded how you went out of your way to make shit "difficult". Not to mention all the mechanics have nothing to do with playing Starcraft, competitively in that matter. I mean really, pass 4 invincible bunkers loaded with Firebats without loosing units? It sounds like something from a cheap platform game rather than an RTS, and all the arbitrary and worthless gimmicks you add to weight on the "difficulty" just makes the gameplay felt out of place.. and abusable..

The medieval/semi-magical nature of the plot makes it far more like a fantasy story than something in the SC universe, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. It's not sci-fi per se, but rather its own thing.

The problem is the the setting of the campaign is much more fitting for a JRPG than Starcraft, be noted that the graphics/lore for the Protoss is very much sci-fi, so the campaign really just felt "out there" for the most part, even though I admitted that Blizzard lore had elements more akin to fantasy than sci-fi..

I believe that the strongest points were the ambience and whatever minigames aren't completely imbalanced.

The leisurely slow pace of the campaign, the rather "off" settings, and the cliché story seriously does not build up much interest for the player in the beginning, it was rather boring in my opinion...

If I made anything resembling FK these days, it'd have a lot more background lore, several difficulty levels and would be much less punishing on players (even on the hardest level). The player would be able to roleplay some of the events, choose alliances and alter the outcome as well.

I should have much more open ended maps IMO, the linearity of the campaign really does sucked... Also less gimmicks, I can't see how the walls of lasers would add anything new except bloating play time... And yes, a tad more RPG elements is good in terms of developing the story, just don't go overboard with it though...

[Pr0nogo]

Mark, how would I go about pronouncing your signature?

Does anyone have any comments about how accurate or comprehensive my review was? I would like to be more concise but also keep that kind of delivery for future reviews.

Also Dungeon Siege II crashes upon starting a game, so that game's out of the question.

[Krazy]

Pornogo, you should do a video. The whole point of a let's play is to hear the person screaming semi-coherently with vitriol and pus. Without the audible vitriol its just not the same.

[mark_009_vn]

Mark, how would I go about pronouncing your signature?

WANTED

DANGEROUS AND BANZAI PRONE.

[Pr0nogo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN6ZgVcLPW0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ciC8OgBz60

Things deteriorate at segment 2, which had balanced audio but began the lag train that culminated in segments 3 and 4 being retarded and unreleasable, though I still do have the recordings somewhere.

[Lavarinth]

... Massive ridiculous rant here...

Okay, and what did you LIKE about it, jerk?

[Pr0nogo]

Lav, I had almost nothing but harsh words for Meta. How come you're singling mark out here?

I don't think it makes you a jerk if you're willing to tell someone how you feel about their work - especially since this project was released so long ago that any offense taken by the original creator is just laughable.

[mark_009_vn]

... Massive ridiculous rant here...

Okay, and what did you LIKE about it, jerk?

I'm not a casual, I always look at things from a designer's standpoint, very methodologically, so my judgements are always harsh. I don't tolerate mistakes and design errors, because the basic foundation of the design, be it in gameplay, story, atmosphere, etc etc.... and the execution of that design, will gauge how good the end product be. Now, I may be a guy whom have never created anything decent in all my time here.. But at least I know what a good campaign/mod needs...

About Flame Knife.. It's hard to say what I like about it.. I mean it have potential, and there were lots of quality work put into it by CC veterans. But the direction the campaign was heading, which was to make the most masochistic, gimmick oriented commando campaign to ever existed, simply just throw all that potential out of the window...

I don't think it makes you a jerk if you're willing to tell someone how you feel about their work - especially since this project was released so long ago that any offense taken by the original creator is just laughable.

I once rant so hard and so harsh.. I managed to convince a group of modders that I'm a perfect member in their mod team... Well, then again, those guys are just as docent and gentle as a butterfly anyway.. They never get mad at harsh critics...