Use your smallest weapon possible to kill the baddie, you will need the bigger stuff later and your big ammo is limited, use it up to early and you are screwed.
When you are down to the last third of a wave, there is usually a big rush - doesn’t matter where you are or what you are doing.
It makes absolute sense not to undertake trivial tasks like delivering notes or fetching things from nearby wells when there’s passing adventurers who can do these things for you, in exchange for the plot-vital information random villagers somehow acquire in the course of… whatever the fuck it is NPC townsfolk do when they’re not waiting for passing adventurers to wander by.
The wind in many computer games sounds exactly like some heavily armed warrior assassin ninja sneaking past in crouch mode, which is why so many guards are unworried by it.
The local currency is clearly both edible and naturally occuring, since so many wild animals will yield it when killed and their carcasses looted.
You hear that dramatic music? That means some dramatic shit is going down. Strange no-one else can hear it, though. Still, more dramatic music for you to enjoy as you liberally spam fireballs/grenades/bullets/shuriken at your opponent.
Buy your armor FIRST, if you can wear armor at all. Then you can worry about weapons and other gear. Upgrade whenever you can.
Use those healing items. They are generally very, very plentiful and you can carry 99 of them with no penalty (Secret of Mana being a notable exception).
A single night’s sleep is often all you need to heal from almost any wound, even nearly fatal ones. Broken bones knit overnight, the poison/radiation wears off, etc.
When in doubt, grind. And search every kill. Try to skin every kill, too, if you are capable of this. Even non-sentient monsters will occasionally carry items, mostly the local currency, as Martini Enfield notes, but sometimes rare magic items. Just…don’t ask WHERE they were keeping these things.
Many times, the only way to get certain items is to steal them. Either you can’t buy them at all, or they are rarely for sale. So, limber up those fingers, keep your lockpicks well oiled, and save before you steal. Sometimes you can even steal DURING BATTLE! Damn, you’re good. And if you turn around and sell that rare, valuable (but useless to you) item to the shopkeeper you just stole it from, he won’t question where you got it! Stealing almost never affects your alignment, either. If YOU’RE doing it, it’s because it’s for the greater good. So the only thing you should worry about when stealing is whether or not you can carry it.
When playing in meatspace with a human DM, bribes to the DM are almost always accepted. If the DM is fair, s/he won’t let bribes affect your character. But s/he’ll accept the bribes. I have found that homemade food is particularly welcomed. I find that lasagna is very popular, as are most cookies. Do try to find out if someone keeps kosher or otherwise has dietary restrictions, though. If you collect money in order to pay for ingredients or a run to the border, the group should chip in for the DM’s share.
Corollary: there is one unit of currency. One. Not only is it used and exchanged world-wide (or even galaxy-wide); it has also been in use without any sort of inflation or deflation since ancient days, back when those treasure-filled ruins you’ve been raiding were built and subsequently filled with the phat lewtz.
Though, it’s then a tossup as to whether that unwinnable fight really is won. For instance, in the penultimate Terran mission of the original Starcraft, I managed to hold off the final “unstoppable” Zerg onslaught with literally no casualties and no buildings lost, but they still captured Kerrigan because that’s what the story says.
If you walk into a room and find tons of health/ammo/etc, brace yourself for a boss fight.
Everquest had a shining example of this. The Sleeper. A hydrid dragon, the fruit of forbidden lust between Lord Nagafen (Fire Dragon) and Lady Vox (Ice Dragon), imprisoned in a magical sleep by the very gods in a hidden temple, guarded by four uber-powerful raid-boss entities that respawn. Even waking him was a very difficult task, that could only be done once on a server. Upon wakening, he would rampage through multiple zones, slaying all in his path.
Naturally, a cult-like coalition of guilds came together to attempt the impossible…not to merely wake The Sleeper, but to kill it. Everquest designers said the mob was unkillable. It’s a one shot ever on a server deal. Fail, and you can never try again on that server.
Months of planning, raiding, farming ensued. Finally, one of the 'Zek Servers (pvp) was ready to make the attempt. It was an hours long ordeal. They arranged a temporary truce on the server for this one raid. Top players of every class came together. One by one the guardians fell…and The Sleeper awoke…even more hours of furious battle ensued, but eventually, they achieved the impossible. They killed The Sleeper.
Shockwaves reverberated throughout all of Everquest. The Sleeper dropped no loot, because the designers never intended him to be killed.
I was not involved in the raid, but I along with thousands of other gamers followed the event on an IRC channel one weekend. The guy who put it all together played a Wizard, and by stroke of poetic justice, he got the killing blow with his manaburn.
Obviously you just haven’t made it yet to the Broom Dungeon.
I do have to admit that picking up all the torches and skulls I find and dropping them on the floor of my house one at a time so it turns into an infernal ball-pit is kind of fun.
Multiplication is better than addition. If you have a choice between something that adds some number to one of your stats, and something that multiplies that stat by some number, you’re almost always going to be better off with the multiplier, in the long run.
Randomness is the player’s enemy. In the normal course of events, the typical result is that the players win. Upsetting the normal course of events (which randomness can do), on either side of the table, means the monsters win. Hence, it’s better for the PCs to use greatswords instead of greataxes, but it’s also better for them if the orcs use greatswords instead of greataxes, too.
LOL While stuck in bed with my laptop dead I find myself playing Glitch because it plays OK on my netbook - there is a useless item made by poking old cheese that I am currently making to border the path on my street:D
I find that while I consider myself part of the gamer community - having started with sand table games back in the 70s [I liked playing the napoleanic armies, I preferred the uniforms on the tiny placeholder figures] and progressed through D&D, AD&D and then to RPG on computer, then MMORPG online, I really have trouble mentally understanding someone having a meltdown over inconvenienced electrons. Sweet Jumping Jesus, I lost a full set of snake implants, my ship and cargo - a total of 5 billion ISK or about $200 real world money in about a minute and a half in game, and pretty much the only thing that I said was ‘fuck. I just got killed and podded. I need to build a new ship.’ I have done massive dying and loss of stuff in various games, and to me it is all electrons. I once made a bet that I could take my character in EVE, strip down to no implants and be given a newbie frigate and mine and mission my way back into a full set of midrange implants, a fully equipped hulk and accomplished it in the 30 days allowed. I really don’t are if I lose my stuff, I can always get back to where I was in gameplay.
Even if you are entering a tomb that has been lost for centuries, someone has been swapping out the candles/torches/braziers and keeping them lit.
Wait… you mean that’s not a combat-specced rogue’s main skill, pickpocketing?
I still say that it’s a pity WoW rogues don’t need to level up their lockpicking any more, because damn it, it was a fast way to tell the poseurs from the truly dedicated. Never trust a rogue who hasn’t tried to pick your pockets or a hunter who hasn’t tried to tame the druid.
Or an achievement in Half-Life 2 Episode 2. I Played Through Episode Two Holding A Goddamn Gnome - a post on Tom Francis' blog
If you are expecting frenetic close-quarters, the most effective weapon to bring is probably a six foot sniper rifle.
Not to mention keeping the traps in perfect working condition. (Also known as the Indiana Jones Rule.)
Also, those bags & crates of food and potions deep in an unexplored monster cave, or a rat-infested sewer? Perfectly safe to eat.
Bring lockpicks, because bandits never carry the key to their own treasure chest.
If you don’t know where you’re supposed to go, try the sewers.
And if there is a key, make sure to use it to open the chest first. All keys are master keys to the particular house, dungeon, tomb, or area of disconnected wilderness they’re found in. However, when used – potentially as a perverse security feature – they instantly shatter, ruining your chances of exploring elsewhere before finding another key (which will probably be in the room you just opened, or in a room connected to the room you just opened).
ETA: The shattering may or may not be due to dispelling the powerful magic barrier around the wooden door that prevents your caster from leveling it with a well placed fireball.
No matter how big it is, it will always fit in your backpack (you may not be able to carry several units, but at least one). Fallout, Might and Magic or UFO don’t, but MMORPGs even let you put a mount in your backpack - so, this mount is big enough to carry you, or even you and a friend, or even you and three minions, yet it fits in your Mary Poppinssup[/sup] backpack. Perfectly logical and damnit I want a backpack like that (it might make passing through airport security a bitch, though).
Oh, and 99 bottles take up as much space as 1 bottle. 100 bottles take up twice as much space as 99 bottles.
“Ma’am, I’m afraid TSA regulations require that we hold you for several hours in order to properly survey a Bag of Holding’s dimensional space properly.”