The moment that inspired this question:

A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.

The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.

One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”

I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.

… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.

I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.

  •  wolf   ( @wolf@lemmy.zip ) English
    18•1 year ago

    X-COM (from the 90’s, not the remake):

    I totally sucked at playing X-COM and died a lot, until I learned about real world squad tactics.

    In X-COM, the members of your team can get scared/lose it, and behave in random ways like throwing away their weapons/fleeing the fight or just going berserk and shooting around.

    So, after I improved my game with my newly acquainted knowledge of real world squad tactics, I had a terror mission. Terror missions are missions, where the aliens attack and which are harder than the other missions.

    I managed to survive the load out from the helicopter and kill nearly every alien on first contact, thanks to very careful and orchestrated movement of my squad.

    There was one alien left, I tried to shoot it several times from a distance, and of course (this being X-COM after all), all of my shoots missed…

    … THE ALIEN STRESSED OUT AND BERSERKED…

    I didn’t even know that it was possible. After weeks of loosing and frustration, this one moment is the most satisfying moment of my entire gaming history (more than 30 years now).

    Haven’t found any modern game, where this would be even possible!

    Mandatory link to OpenXcom

    •  interolivary   ( @interolivary@beehaw.org ) 
      3•1 year ago

      of course (this being X-COM after all), all of my shoots missed…

      Oh gods the hit probability was just such an irritating mechanism; you could practically have your gun’s muzzle on an alien’s forehead and still manage to miss several times with 80% chance to hit.