Minecraft PALADINS

The new Minecraft server is up and running. It's an RPG world, so we run McMMO, jobs, gods, Magic Spells, and tons of other plugins to make the game as awesome as possible. You can check out the official page, here:

http://mcpaladins.blogspot.com/

the page is straightforward, but Vellusian (server owner) has uploaded a cool video of him running around showing off a few sites in the world. It's a multiverse, with a PvP realm, Adventure/survival realm, generated City World realm, Superflat, creative world, money, and soon to have a large bimoes survival world.

You might currently play an McMMO server, and the thought of restarting may seem like a drag. Well, we knew that would happen so we run a modified exp system for it. You'll gain levels at 10-20x the exp you would on your old server. With some dedication, maxing a MC character on PALADINS is actually an accomplish-able goal, unlike the 10,000 hour grind you'll find on other servers.

There are also shops in spawn from which you can buy Spawn Eggs for very cheap. Want to summon skeletons, Townspeople, or Ender Men? Go for it. These stores are built by admins into some of the many, many NPC villages which have been found, and improved by the admins.

The rules are simple as well, don't harass others, grief, destroy needlessly, or steal. Try to keep the place looking nice. Treat generated structures like public property. No spawning Wither Bosses yet, however we will build a Wither arena if someone wants to fight one.

FINALLY NOW ZOMFG TL;DR:

Connect to: 

75.65.252.229:9000

We're running Dynmap here:

75.65.252.229:8123

RPG Town, Adventure

All Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar Dungeon Maps

An elegant and compact set of all the dungeons in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Ultima 4 is probably the most imitated game of all time, and pretty much every RPG since has been a failed attempt at mimicking the greatness of Ultima 4. 

The Top 5 Things Wrong with Mainstream RPGs of the Last 30 Years

Five: Having a stupid fucking "epic" story. 

General Fuckface just captured the courtly guard and is leading an airship rebellion in an attempt to control the flow of magical resources powering streampunk army robots while young white guy farmer learns about morals and philosophy 101 while fucking up a clichéd, emotional romance.  Giant ragtag bunch of heroes saves the world and learns exactly one thing about themselves, solving many of the psychological problems haunting the characters. There is twist, after twist, after twist in this "epic" plot, but by the end of it you just wish it was over.

Four: Being easy as hell. 

Pretty self explanatory--if you're not dying you're not playing a good game. Notable exceptions: Ultima, Roguelikes, Diablo 1, Diablo 2, Diablo 3, Quest 64.

Three: Lack of Scope. 

Seriously guys, Ultima I has 8 Castles, 32 towns, and 26 dungeons to explore. What the fuck. Notable exceptions: Ultima, Quest 64, World of Warcraft, Everquest.

Two: No Randomization. 

Why is it many games continue to drive the player through the same dungeons over and over? I'm looking at you, Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy. Notable exceptions: Crawl, Nethack, all roguelikes, Diablo, Diablo 2, Diablo 3.

One: Having a party instead of one character.

Why do so many games have a party of adventurers? Are we so schizophrenic? Even Ultima eventually fell victim to this unfortunate trend. What seems like an avdance is actually a cleverly-designed artificial game extender. Battles take 4 times as long, and you need four times the supplies and gear. Things become watered down, and I don't even think game developers are aware of what a drag parties in RPGs can be. Notable exceptions: Roguelikes, Ultima 1 and 2, Moraff's World, Quest 64.

It's pretty simple when you look at it. Good RPGs will tend to have a single character, gigantic scope, and a lot of randomization. It almost seems like cheating, because any game made with this formula sounds pretty damn fun.

Instead, gamers get railroaded down a single boring path of 12-15 hours of time-destroying brainrot.

Pixel Art: RPG Sprites 10

The latest in my long-going series of 8-Bit RPG Sprites. Some of these are inspired by Realm of the Mad God, an MMORPG/twin-stick shooter that I plan to review very soon.

The sprite "classes" are:

Knight, Mage, Rogue, Hero
Ranger, Gladiator, Skeleton, Space-Warrior