Recent posts by Bahaumaut on Kongregate

Topic: Kongregate / Kala Moor Quest?

Got ‘hit’ by the icon as well. I lost connection to Kong, restarting got the ‘We are down, here is a random game’ screen, then later it came back up, with the icon next to my ID. “Kala Moor” seems to be the setting of Hunted, a new game from web searches, so it’s probably another quest similar to Portal 2. Probably got triggered by mistake, and probably related to badges already snagged. We’ll know soon enough.

Topic: Technical Support / Unearned badge option doesn't work

So, the problem’s been going on for two months now. The issue HASN’T been stickied to let us know it isn’t working, nor have they given any updates in a location where you can actually find info on it.

Solutions:
1) Fix it (after all, is it really two months to move to the new servers?)
2) Remove the drop down option entirely, especially if you never intend on implementing it again.

Right now, little things like this make some wonder what attention is actually being devoted to the site.

Topic: Dream World / 'This game is a failure.' Thread.

I skimmed over a lot, but having played through a good bit of the game (all badges but the last quest, currently in Phoenix), I have a few thoughts which point to a 2/5 rating.

1) This does appear to be a Facebook-Style game; turn-based, limited playtime, easy mechanics, PvP, and a moneysink to try and get your cash to make said game easier.

2) The addition of badges to another game that makes it easier for you if you pony up cash (last point of #1. Not too keen on this, particularly when there’s a PvP mechanic involved.

3) It’s a very close rehash of LORDs, or Legend Of the Red Dragon. It’s an old BBS (Think Internet where you dialed a phoneline instead of an IP/DNS name) game, primitive in comparison to today’s gaming world. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there’s been much advancement on some fronts.

I understand the turns as a game design philosophy. It does try to make you want to come back the next day to pick up where you left off, with more turns to work with. My personal annoyance is that the # of turns you can have banked is low, so if you are unable to connect for 16 hours (work, sleep), you lose out on all those turns.

I’m still playing to get the last quest for the badge, but after that, I’m not sure I’ll stick around. Maybe I’ll try my hand at the guild/clan thing to see if it’s anything special, but most likely I’ll jump back to finishing Sacred Seasons (which I’ve rated worse; its own game design is broken in so many ways it saps the fun), again just for the badges.

Topic: Kongregate / A little bit of knowledge, please.

Gamasutra.com if I recall. Specifically, an article on Kong implementing an Achievement system. Which was the reason I started coming here.

Topic: Kongregate / Misleading Level Up Badge Description

JohnSteel:

1. is possible, and #3 is extremely likely (though I have yet to find the ‘end’ of the race myself).
   There are achievements at Newgrounds for these exact tasks, and they will pop up at the bottom of the game when you perform them.

Semi-SPOILER:
Per Danaroth’s list:
For #1: there’s only two requirements that I know of: access to the area with the end-game object you need to interact with, and the levels required to navigate to it. You can get both somewhat quickly on day 0.
For #2: though you don’t have much health, you CAN get skills to help compensate somewhat, as well as level up your regen and fortitude to help survive a bit. I’ve managed to do it myself, though it took a few tries.
For #3: There appears to be a skill you can learn that would be an immense help with this.

So all three are quite possible; 1 is more of a medium, 2 and 3 would be closer to hard.

Topic: Sacred Seasons MMORPG / List off Sacred Season Bugs

Regarding the enemies that stay alive with 0 or less health, it may be related to ‘poison’-style Damage-Over-Time attacks, as well as a bug I experienced. If you attack when the poison ‘fires’ (usually when the enemy attacks), your damage is added to the poison’s damage when it reports it… then does your normal damage right after. The next time poison hits, it’ll correct it by healing the enemy N points. But if you do damage that doesn’t quite kill before it fixes their health, they’ll stay alive with the 0 health. If you do over the mis-reported damage, they’ll die normally. Still, shoddy work.

Topic: General Gaming / A reasonable topic on runescape for anyone who doesnt just want to flame

Granted, Merlin’s Revenge is a ShockWave game. And given of how trusting I am of that whole codebase, I quickly shut down the browser. But apparently it is allowed, as given my “… sheer majority…” comment. (As an aside, the whole mess with the ShockWave being applied to more than just “ShockWave”, including “ShockWave Flash”, is deserving the marketing gurus that came up with one of the lower circles of Hell.)

I, personally, generally rate the ‘demo’ flashes low, unless the content they have is really worthwhile (akin to the free episode 1’s of shareware games of yore).

Given the all-coding languages, it’d be interesting to see in which direction they take it. I’m somewhat interested in SilverLight myself as a possible environment for gaming, once they straighten out the licensing, the codebase, and the programming environment for it. But as it stands, RuneScape seems more like a hack connecting their own website than something that feels ‘hosted’ by Kongregate. I do understand that online multiplayer requires someplace to act as the server, but the way it’s done is no different than an IFRAME tag. Now the fact that they’re selective of Java (another language I’m not too fond of, given that it systematically kept blue-screening my Win2K machine until I figured how to disable some of its features in a command-line fashion), with Runescape being the first addition (particularly as it already has its own ‘portal’ of sorts at its homepage) just feels ‘odd’. As more games get added that use Java, I’ll probably warm up to it, but it’s jarring compared to the general “gestalt” of the place we have here.

I know there’s a bit of complaining here, so I’ll try to provide something positive as an aside (constructive criticism, after all). Food for thought, re the expansions of languages: wonder if Kongregate can spin off a smaller version geared towards devices like smartphones. I believe I read that the IPhone isn’t well-adapted to Flash, but as they and similar products become more ubiquitous, with a standard multimedia format (JavaScript? Java? Flash?) being allowed, Kongregate could probably enter that realm as a portable portal.

Topic: General Gaming / A reasonable topic on runescape for anyone who doesnt just want to flame

For me, I don’t have a hating of RuneScape. Used to play it years ago, particularly in college (given the 1400 days since last played, it probably was in college). But there’s a few issues that are irksome.

1) Non-Flash: The sheer majority of games here are Flash-Based. I can’t say that Kongregate can’t allow non-flash games, as I don’t own or run it. However, my experience has always been that K is a Flash Portal, with the benefits of a Live-style API for achievements, high scores, and chat. RuneScape is different in two major ways. The obvious is Java, complain as you want. The other is that the ‘Game’ is just a HTML page pointing to the main Jagex page for RuneScape. So basically, Kongregate is now a Portal to a Portal to a game? I don’t think this is what GLaDOS had in mind.

2) Pay MMO: Multiplayer capability in a game is not a bad thing; neither is a persistant world. The fact that there’s been heavy restrictions unless you become a ‘member’ with the requisite fees to enjoy the most of the game smacks against the whole “Free games” up there in the upper right of your screen. I’m pretty sure that the ad that popped up while loading goes to Jagex’s coffers, rather than Kongregate’s, too. Though if Kongregate gets a cut, it’d be worthwhile to let us know, as the ads are supposed to be supporting this as a free site.

Maybe if there was some ‘draw’ to the whole thing, like special benefits (even if of no use in the actual game) through playing through Kongregate, it might ‘feel’ more appropriate. But as it stands in my experience, RuneScape is the oddball of the group, sticking out like a sore thumb in comparison to everything else that has been done so far with Kongregate.

Topic: Technical Support / Odd DNS Address/security issues?

I’ve been experiencing something odd in the past day or two, including today, that has my red-flag risen to three-quarters-mast.

I believe it was yesterday that I couldn’t change the # for the posted messages for Pandemic 2. I could get it for other games, but I’m not sure what was going on. I finally realized that there was a period after the ‘com’ in www.kongregate.com, like so: “www.kongregate.com.”

A similar issue came up when I went to play Platform Racing 2. A message in the chat window indicated there were achievements I could get if I were logged in. Sure enough, I wasn’t. And sure enough, there was a problem with the address. This time, it was pointing to an IP address: “65.74.171.4”

The IP addy was in all the links for the box that rotates between the recent ‘active’ achievement/card games. When I reloaded the page, it was back to Kongregate.com

I’m not sure what’s going on, but as I said, it was terribly suspicious, and I do get a bit worried when DNS fakery occurs, particularly with recent tech news about DNS issues.