So, I had a really awful match in SMNC recently. The problem didn't lie with my own preternatural skills (naturally), but with my team. My team literally spent $0 during the course of the entire match with the exception of a few ejectors. So instead of rage-quitting like a regular griefer would do, I actively chased the other team for them to kill me. I know that what I did was absolutely deplorable and unsportsmanlike. I should be banned from ever playing the game again for what I did. The community should lift it's collective banhammer and remove from my steam account even the original MNC. I'm sorry for what I did, I will beg for your forgiveness if I must, and it won't happen again.

All that being said, how do you combat ignorance of a game's mechanics when you can't communicate fast enough? Teammates who don't know the power they hold in their hands, how do you tell them about when they refuse to do anything but type? If they would only heed my pleas, we could do a lot better than we did in that match, heck, we could even win one sometime. Alas, it was not meant to be. So I carry on, misplacing my anger on the assassin and all of my seething rage upon teammates who refuse to spend their money.

Anyway, I finished Orcs Must Die! recently. That was a very refreshing experience, similar to Borderlands. Like Borderlands, it mixed two things that I love very much (fast-paced action games with real-time strategy/tower defense) and made it into a brand new experience that I also enjoy a lot. The best parts are when you realize you can use a new strategy that you never thought of before. However, that strategy is no longer a static thing that requires little input from the player (like in tower defense), but a multi-layered batlle-plan that requires pinpoint accuracy and timing on the part of the player. I think Orcs Must Die! is a pretty special game because of that synergy.

So, I had a really awful match in SMNC recently. The problem didn't lie with my own preternatural skills (naturally), but with my team. My team literally spent $0 during the course of the entire match with the exception of a few ejectors. So instead of rage-quitting like a regular griefer would do, I actively chased the other team for them to kill me. I know that what I did was absolutely deplorable and unsportsmanlike. I should be banned from ever playing the game again for what I did. The community should lift it's collective banhammer and remove from my steam account even the original MNC. I'm sorry for what I did, I will beg for your forgiveness if I must, and it won't happen again.

All that being said, how do you combat ignorance of a game's mechanics when you can't communicate fast enough? Teammates who don't know the power they hold in their hands, how do you tell them about when they refuse to do anything but type? If they would only heed my pleas, we could do a lot better than we did in that match, heck, we could even win one sometime. Alas, it was not meant to be. So I carry on, misplacing my anger on the assassin and all of my seething rage upon teammates who refuse to spend their money.

Anyway, I finished Orcs Must Die! recently. That was a very refreshing experience, similar to Borderlands. Like Borderlands, it mixed two things that I love very much (fast-paced action games with real-time strategy/tower defense) and made it into a brand new experience that I also enjoy a lot. The best parts are when you realize you can use a new strategy that you never thought of before. However, that strategy is no longer a static thing that requires little input from the player (like in tower defense), but a multi-layered batlle-plan that requires pinpoint accuracy and timing on the part of the player. I think Orcs Must Die! is a pretty special game because of that synergy.