Hanging Up The Cape

[MNRA]

The only thing that really disappointed me about this series is that your information was so outdated it really felt like a speed bump to even reading this. You have one single disclaimer at the start of the series, and make some very slight attempts to clarify later. I'm both surprised and disappointed you didn't bother to do the slight work it would have took to brush up. Your info is a good....7 months out of date, coming from the period of time recently after the game went live, which, I don't remember a game that didn't have messed up annoying stuff at the beginning. If you hadn't wanted to bother updating your info, it would have at least been helpful to see more clarificaton, and less sensationalism.

I ran into you and helped you fight Viper X on my main and you actually had a clever toon (not star on chest). I remember it because the toon itself was interesting and I only noticed it was your handle after I'd looked at your info to read its bio.

The slap stick stuff is one of the major things that's killed me about the game as a player. It's that classic Bill Roper "make fun of the player for playing a game" immersion murdering thing.
They fired Roper and the writer that did all that lame slapstick. The new guy, and new adventure pack, Demonflame, has actually been a nice change of pace, grim, dark, serious, not a single cringe worthy piece of humor, and some actual appropriate clever funny stuff.

As someone that plays the game and is bothered by the same thing, it bothered me because I felt like I should have been agreeing with you awhole lot more, but instead there were too many times where it felt like you looked for excuses and tried a bit too hard to go Yahtzee.

Will your WoW article be actually up to date, or will this be from 5 years ago?

I think the WoW will be up to date. The only reason that this one was old is due to it being a repost from long ago. I mean he didn't write it at the same time as it was posted on the escapist, he had it on his own site from the time when the game was this buggy.

True, a bigger disclaimer MIGHT have been warranted, but by the time one has read enough or Shamus plays, any reader will realize that he only engages the most retarded quest-lines and picks at the bugs because that is where the humor lies. So when going through this "episode" anyone reading will know that what is show in not the totality of the game. A disclaimer at the beginning of every episode would IMO take away from the fun because this kind of humorous critizism has to sting a bit, and being overly appologetic (i.e. having abig disclaimer) would lessen the impact of the jokes.

 

[MattRooney06]

You should give champions another look theyve improved a fair few of the wonkier missions and questlines and added some new stuff that star on chest may find fun (serpent lantern for instance is basically kicking vipers arse in africa) plus i cant see how WoW is gonna be anywhere near as fun as the adventures of star on chest were.

I said the same thing about stars on chest after I read Lulzy's adventure...and i was wrong

you might as well give it a look

 

[viciouspen]

The only thing that really disappointed me about this series is that your information was so outdated it really felt like a speed bump to even reading this. You have one single disclaimer at the start of the series, and make some very slight attempts to clarify later. I'm both surprised and disappointed you didn't bother to do the slight work it would have took to brush up. Your info is a good....7 months out of date, coming from the period of time recently after the game went live, which, I don't remember a game that didn't have messed up annoying stuff at the beginning. If you hadn't wanted to bother updating your info, it would have at least been helpful to see more clarificaton, and less sensationalism.

I ran into you and helped you fight Viper X on my main and you actually had a clever toon (not star on chest). I remember it because the toon itself was interesting and I only noticed it was your handle after I'd looked at your info to read its bio.

The slap stick stuff is one of the major things that's killed me about the game as a player. It's that classic Bill Roper "make fun of the player for playing a game" immersion murdering thing.
They fired Roper and the writer that did all that lame slapstick. The new guy, and new adventure pack, Demonflame, has actually been a nice change of pace, grim, dark, serious, not a single cringe worthy piece of humor, and some actual appropriate clever funny stuff.

As someone that plays the game and is bothered by the same thing, it bothered me because I felt like I should have been agreeing with you awhole lot more, but instead there were too many times where it felt like you looked for excuses and tried a bit too hard to go Yahtzee.

Will your WoW article be actually up to date, or will this be from 5 years ago?

I think the WoW will be up to date. The only reason that this one was old is due to it being a repost from long ago. I mean he didn't write it at the same time as it was posted on the escapist, he had it on his own site from the time when the game was this buggy.

True, a bigger disclaimer MIGHT have been warranted, but by the time one has read enough or Shamus plays, any reader will realize that he only engages the most retarded quest-lines and picks at the bugs because that is where the humor lies. So when going through this "episode" anyone reading will know that what is show in not the totality of the game. A disclaimer at the beginning of every episode would IMO take away from the fun because this kind of humorous critizism has to sting a bit, and being overly appologetic (i.e. having abig disclaimer) would lessen the impact of the jokes.

I both understand and agree with your points, to a point.
I mean I've read other "shamus plays", the reason I posted this about this one was that very aspect felt sorely "off".
There are incidents of information towards the end of this series that are down right false. I wouldn't go so far as to say Shamus was purposefully lying to create interest in his series, but, still, the info was false. One in particular that comes to mind is when he speaks about the Help A Citizen missions (or HACs as we call them). He first says that things have changed and been fixed and tweaked but that the one thing that's still the same is that ALL HAC missions are this and this and that. Problems was he had more stuff wrong than right, and that bothered me because the way he wrote it, was him saying "hey, I'm letting you know how it is right now" by referencing that.

I do like the points you make and I can see that to an extent. The way in which I guess I have to disagree is that as a reader, it felt like he kept going past that line to a point that made it less and less fun to read, and more uncomfortable, not because it was my game, but because it just felt too purposefully sensationalistic and false. The problem is that this series is not just jokes, he writes it with a certain tone in the field reporting as well. If he's going to do that, he has a similar responsibility as anybody that is expected to report on anything legitimately. This time I personally feel he sacrificed and fell short of that to play to the crowd. So yes, jokes are awesome, otherwise I'd go read some tax forms, and yes you're right about big disclaimers could have been a speed bump, but, that's his job, not ours. If he'd went back and made the effort to make his writing up to date, or would have at least spoken consistently about how the game was drastically different now than it was at launch, and perhaps made it a joke more about how we all know MMOs near after launch are chock full of messed up stuff, then awesome. It instead feels like he attacked a straw man because anyone that wasn't currently playing the game would just buy whatever was said without question, because it's not exactly hard to get people on the internet to point and make fun of stuff.

I feel as if this were a college term paper I'd written I'd been failed for lack of citing and misleading information.

 

[raankh]

This entire saga of Star on Chest has been an awesome read for me, as someone who doesn't play MMOs. I'm still hoping to find a mmo that suits me, I really buy into the concept; despite only making it to lvl 16 in WoW before throwing in the towel in sheer disgust.

Looking forward to your experience!

 

[ThreeWords]

No! Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon!

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

I just got through reading the entire saga of Star On Chest, and let me say, that was the hardest I have ever laughed on the Escapist in a long time. Being that I have been getting into Champions Online as of late, it was quite humorous to read of the rise and fall of a proud and honest hero who punched things. Well done.

You are a talented writer, Shamus. I applaud you.