HacknSlash why so popular?

[Cristian]

im just wondering why have it gotten so popular?
im addicted 2 but the only thing u do is kill ... O_o

[spydar]

what is this hacknslash you speak of? it sounds like a good catharsis.

[Attalus]

Why search? Just play Diablo. [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by spydar: what is this hacknslash you speak of? it sounds like a good catharsis.

A style of play that has been around as long as AD&D.

"Hack-n-slash" players don't want to waste time with story plots or character development...they only have one goal in the game - IF IT MOVES, KILL IT!!!!

It can be fun - at least for awhile - but it does tend to get old. Most "1st person shooter games" are this style. You're not on a quest to interact with the locals and do sub-quests in order to have characters join your party. Nope, you just go in with your own personal armory and start blasting away at anything that moves.

Why do people like it? Because it's FUN!!!! It also gives a sense of POWER!!! You become a lean, mean, killing-machine...and woe to the foe who dares stand against you.

Personally, I prefer games like BG 1 and especially 2, where there are MANY different paths, options, and quests for your character to undertake. Some require serious firepower skills - others require subtle finesse. It's a good mix and much more enjoyable over the long term (IMHO, of course).

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When I played PnP AD&D, Cerek was one of my favorite characters. He was a barbarain as outlined in the Unearthed Arcana and was a pure fighting machine. He had an ungodly number of hit points and figured he could take any damage the DM dished out - so his style was straightforward and simple. He could detect traps on a door or portal. Toss a warhammer at the door...if it blows up, gets burned, electrified, frozen, or disintegrated...then the door was trapped. A hammer may not work an open portal - so grab the party mage and throw him instead...that works just as well (besides, they're supposed to have all those magical protections up to avoid damage anyway). Yep, Cerek was definitely a lot of fun. [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

On the other hand, I had another character - a halfling thief - that once saved the entire party. He got separated from the main party, and they ended up getting captured by the enemy. My thief had to use all his stealth skills to sneak through the enemies keep without being seen. If I had been playing Cerek (or any other fighter-type), then he would have been captured too and each of us would have been in danger of actually losing our characters that night. That game is far more memorable than any "hack-n-slash fest" I ever had with Cerek

[Kakero]

Cerek sums it up pretty good, yeah it's fun alright. no long english sentense to read. no micromanagement. no AD&D rules. and most importantly no headache!

[Harkoliar]

by Cerek: A hammer may not work an open portal - so grab the party mage and throw him instead...that works just as well (besides, they're supposed to have all those magical protections up to avoid damage anyway). Yep, Cerek was definitely a lot of fun.

haha .. i can just imagine that.. too funny!!

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Harkoliar: quote: by Cerek: A hammer may not work an open portal - so grab the party mage and throw him instead...that works just as well (besides, they're supposed to have all those magical protections up to avoid damage anyway). Yep, Cerek was definitely a lot of fun.

haha .. i can just imagine that.. too funny!! [/QUOTE]Glad you liked it. To be honost, I never actually used the magic-user to detect for traps..but I did use him once to invent a new attack.

It's called Barbarian Magic Missile and is a very simple attack. Just grab the party mage and throw them at the nearest monster. Either way, something good is bound to happen. [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

But these examples just illustrate the benefits of roleplaying over "hack-n-slash". This was a personality trait I developed in Cerek. He distrusts all mages and tolerates them only out of necessity. If there is a chance to use them for to his advantage (as mentioned above), he doesn't hesitate. This made him a LOT of fun to play, but it was because of character development....not his ability to stand toe-to-toe with whatever monster the DM threw at us (although he did a lot of that too ).

[Niadh]

Cerek sounds like he had a lot in common with an Ogre I used for a short while in Warhammerr Quest. He eventually had enough brains to smash the partly leader and take the lantern to lead them.

One big move was tossing the beserk Barbarian into a pile of orcs, that went well. Dead orcs. And just for fun I saved an elf, by tossing him across the room.

[Ronn_Bman]

Another reason hack'n'slash is so popular is because of it's simplicity. Creating and developing characters in D&D or any gaming system is time consuming and can be extrememly confusing or even a big turn off to non-RPGers. Worse than that, is not knowing how things work within a certain gaming system so you can figure out a party based strategy to win those super tough battles.

[sylent]

I had a rather serious addiction issue with Diablo 2 for a fairly long time, and have since got over it (and no, I didn't go to "Diablo addicts anonymous"), and I recently went back on... and pretty much realised that its all about treasure hunting. Sure HackAndSlash comes at the expense of good gameplay in most cases (ie. spellcasting, or something other than just rapid-fire mouse clicking) but after the first couple of weeks, I wasn't really concerned about how the baddies looked or how they were animated when they died... just what kind of succulent booty I could pilliage from their tattered remains.

Thats my theory on it anyway... see the reason I kept playing was because I wanted the best stuff, and that seems to be what everyone wants. Blizzard (diablo creators) did it well, they were obviously thinking ahead, when they made items which would only drop in the last levels of the game, and had a chance of about 1 in 10,000... or something equally ludicrous.
It sure kept me enthralled for over a year... I'm so embarassed about it now