The Dink Network

Well, I suppose if you're pissed off, then at least it means you're paying attention.

Tal, it would probably do well for you to not take me too seriously, as I am usually somewhat kidding in what I say.

I was just trying to spark a friendly(?) argument here, and it looks like I succeeded, with perhaps some dissent and revolution as well.

Clearly some of you are on the same page I am. POTA used to be my favorite as well, until Stone of Balance more or less blew that one out of the water.

And a few people hit the nail on the head. The graphical innovations and polish are precisely the reason his D-mods stand out, not to mention the sheer volume of content. I'm just not sure how you could get bored with his work. It seems like he takes a classical genre (my comfort zone), then revamps it totally (my high mark for being impressed).

And if any of you found PQ boring, or couldn't get into it, then one of two things must have happened: Either you found the beginning too difficult and gave up, or you just weren't paying attention.

I agree with the sentiment that BFTG would have been one of the greatest of all time, IF it had been finished.

Also, I'm not really sure where Legend of Tenjin gets all this acclaim from, if not for its sheer size. The plot was OK, but I didn't think the game mechanics were very good, and I've played many that were better, a lot of which were way smaller. Different strokes, I suppose. I'm not trying to slam Wesley here, but FB3 was the only one of the series I found tolerable. FB3/LoT was kind of a let-down for me.
[I was most disappointed that there was really nothing to do with the doll. The choice of dolls seemed a lot more important than it was. ]

As to replay value, I get bored easily and always need to explore the new and the unknown, therefore almost nothing has replay value to me. PQ is the only one I've played straight through twice (that I recall), and there was a long period of time in between.

I mentioned redink earlier, because I consider him one of the "great" D-mod authors as well, if only for Initiation. That one had a novel innovation as well: SOUND, with words in it (i.e. speech). I was so taken aback by that one. It just made me wonder why no one had ever tried that before. Not completely necessary, true, but cool.

And again, I am not trying to claim that my opinion is gospel. Unless, of course... you all want to bow down and start worshipping me, in which case we'll rethink that. I am right, but that's another matter entirely.

And as for Sabre's comment, well, there is a list of 'great' D-mods and authors, and most of the ones you mentioned qualify. However, that list IS pretty small in my opinion. And I'm sorry, but CC2 falls a little short of great in my opinion. I liked it. It was good, and 'innovative' even. I liked the use of multiple characters. Maybe, if you had made it a little longer...

As for Tal's comment, I'm only critiquing the final releases of each game, as that's all I've been playing. I think that's fair. I don't think it's fair to look at someone's work at each step of the process and call it "buggy". Whatever they leave to the public, and stop actively working on, that's going to get the criticism. If you leave something half-finished, so be it. And I never said SimonK was perfect, if you got that out of my earlier posts, you were completely mischaracterizing my statements.

So there. Some of you are taking this way too seriously. Get in your pot-shots while you can, but put away the pitchforks and witchbane.

-rcbanks