OT: What other games are people playing??

[Aku]

Magic the Gathering was a great card game until Wizards of the Coast ruined it. I quit when they bought it and started making it like Pokemon by changing the rules, throwing foil cards in, and made it that you had to have a certain deck type to win and being a good player didn't matter anymore. I even tried going back to it a year later and EVERYBODY had the same exact deck and I asked why and they said it is the only good deck you can make right now. Oh and it happened to be with the most expensive cards also. Wizards of the Coast did the same thing with AD&D. I am still a 2nd edition player.

[Lex]

hehe, i actually went to a few local Magic tournaments. never won though. What I remember from those days is you had to have a "millstone" deck (make your opponent run out of cards) and "moxy" deck (achieve the ultimate by winning on the first turn by having the rarest cards all in the same hand on the first turn). there where others, but those two where the only ones that really stuck to memory

Edit: I of course always played a fire deck.. favorite card of all time: the Shivan Dragon. totaly sucks in the game, was only worth $16 at the time, but the artwork for Magic cards where really cool!!

[condors]

championship manager
nhl eastside hockey manager
front office football
Sick as a parot

(i like my sports text sims)

I still fire up medieval total war sometimes on the weekend when i have a good amount of time

still play dom2 as well (its a much needed change from my normal gaming)

[Arryn]

Lex said:
What I remember from those days is you had to have a "millstone" deck (make your opponent run out of cards) and "moxy" deck (achieve the ultimate by winning on the first turn by having the rarest cards all in the same hand on the first turn). there where others, but those two where the only ones that really stuck to memory

Millstones were easily countered by several different strategies. Speaking of countering, there were/are purpose-designed "counter" decks (blue, can be frustrating to play against), and "protection" decks / white weeny-creature decks (my favorite), colorless (all-artifact) decks, and the list goes on and on (and on and on ...). MtG, the game that gave us the memorable term "fork you".

[Borg]

PC Games I enjoy very much :

Dom2
Civ3 conquests
Heroes of Might and Magic4

[Ed Kolis]

I've got to be the only person around here who enjoys Unreal Tournament 2004, aren't I? (Though I haven't played any Internet games yet - I hear the kiddies out there (what are kiddies doing playing this game anyway ) are pretty awful when it comes to manners ... I need to find more people I *know* who have this game... LAN games aren't quite as trash-talk filled as Internet games, are they?)

Oh yes, there is Angband and all its variants (current Favorites: Oangband and ToME)... ADOM is cool too but I haven't played it in a while...

You say there's a new Version of Anacreon? Wow, I'll have to check that out! I loved that game's varied stellar manipulations and constructions! Even if you couldn't design your own ships... I wonder if it supports PBEM or any other form of Online play?

Hmm, someone mentioned text-based sports sims... I'm going to pull a Gandalf Parker here and suggest that he check out Shrapnel's very own Coliseum game Never played it myself (not even the demo) but it might be worth checking out

[JaydedOne]

Aku said:
Magic the Gathering was a great card game until Wizards of the Coast ruined it. I quit when they bought it and started making it like Pokemon by changing the rules, throwing foil cards in, and made it that you had to have a certain deck type to win and being a good player didn't matter anymore. I even tried going back to it a year later and EVERYBODY had the same exact deck and I asked why and they said it is the only good deck you can make right now. Oh and it happened to be with the most expensive cards also. Wizards of the Coast did the same thing with AD&D. I am still a 2nd edition player.

Heh. As a former WotC employee, I might be considered biased. However, the facts are the facts.

Wizards of the Coast never "bought" Magic: the Gathering. They invented/developed it long before they ever got around to developing Pokemon. As a Magic player from the beginning, it's always been a fact that the Rare/Expensive cards tended to be the game-breakers, although I'd argue that they've moved away from that element rather than towards it in recent years.

Oh, and to stay relatively on-topic, what I'm playing right now is Dom2, HoMMIV (which I'm rapidly giving up on), Madden 2005, and awaiting with horrid anticipation the US release of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne.

[Aku]

Well yeah the bs stuff in the beginning of magic like channel and a black lotus and a fireball you die first round stuff got Banned etc from tournaments.

I think Magic was perfect when the deck minimum was 60 cards not when it used to be 40.

Maybe Magic is balanced again I have no clue. I basically lost track of it when it did the 6th edition classic.

[Pickles]

Well if you include computer games (of which Dom2 is the only one just now)
I am playing Bloodbowl, various D20 roleplaying games, Shadowfist, Call of Chtulhu CCG.
I also regularly play Alien vs Predator2 Warcraft III and Rise of Nations but am in hiatus.

Looking forward to the 40k RTS, Call of Chtulhu (though it sounds too "consoley", Vampire Bloodlines & GTA San Andreas.

Pickles