Borimor the Apprentice
1/15/2012 – 2/14/2012
The video game gods are cruel when they take away our characters before our time. My boyfriend and I hoped dear old Borimor would pass away peacefully from old age (aka when we lost interest in Dungeon Defenders), but no. He was snatched away from us just shy of his 40th level, all because of an accidental bump of a controller and poor menu design. He will be fondly remembered, even though my boyfriend always called him Boromir by mistake.
Seriously though, Dungeon Defender’s menu designs are just awful. The game is fun enough that we’ve been totally addicted, but I could really do without the insane menus. Especially when the difference between selecting your character and deleting your character is a single click on the joystick.
Thankfully after a day of mourning, we moved on. My boyfriend started a new Archer, I started a new Monk (named Mendel). And because we’re dorks, we keep my old Squire on a third controller because we need his blockades in order to beat the levels.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about…just nod and move along.
What a horrible design! No confirmation of the choice to delete? Ack! As someone who gets totally invested in her characters and can’t bear to let any of them go, I very much sympathize. :(
You press x to select your character. You click the joystick and press x to confirm the deletion. Boyfriend was about to press x to select but accidentally hit the joystick a millisecond before…and gone. :(
You expected a critter named Boromir NOT to die horribly of death?
Biromir, not Boromir.
;þ
We also lost our Dungeon Defenders characters when the game crashed. So, much sympathy.
When I saw ‘RIP Borimor’ on the title, the first thing I though was that it was a pity he lost all his souls.
Then I realized I’ve been playing way too much Dark Souls.
Sorry to hear about the lost character. I’ve had several ‘cusp of victory’ cases as well, like when my memory card got tossed in the washer when I was at the last save point in Fatal Frame II, on my second playthrough. Or when my Xbox crashed and killed my Mass Effect and Dead Rising saves.
Dark Souls is a lot like that, just being repeated over and over again.
Goodnight, sweet mage.
I haven’t had a chance to get any of my characters up to level 40. But, if I accidentally burned my Countess after she hit that level, I’d kill something a lot–probably with fire.
“And because we’re dorks, we keep my old Squire on a third controller because we need his blockades in order to beat the levels.”
On the subject of less than stellar interface design, did you realize that you can swap characters during a level without needing a third controller? So you can start with the squire, lay out his defences in the first round, then swap to another character to do the actual fighting / receive the XP. It really isn’t obvious. I think my partner and I were half-way through the game before we realized.
This must be something specific to the console version. I don’t remember the interface being quite that bad in the PC or mobile phone version. Of course, the controls are terrible in the phone version.
Nodding and moving along…
er, backups.
Get a Nethack character to level 9, get poisoned, have no items to cleanse poison. You pray to your god, because really, that’s your only chance of surviving long enough to get five spaces.
Then you are struck down for arrogance because you had prayed too much.
Welcome to permadeath.
Borimor.
Always double-tap.
Nodding and moving along….
Ahh, Rogue-likes. Proof that the video game gods are cruel masters.
I actually have that game because I saw it offered as a suggestion here.
It’s awesome.
OTOH, I’ve stopped playing it for now (Lvl 60ish) because I just can’t see anything much else coming from it.
You might try “Orcs Must Die!” which come close to the fun level in a Tower Defense Game.
My condolences to your loss, of course, but you now can have the fun of power-leveling a new character. Try the Throne Room. You can use Squire weapons to do most of the damage. but Monk Auras on Survival can make all the difference.
If you find somebody willing to help you do it, you can easily power-level a character from 1 to 70 in two runs through Glitterhelm on Insane; I don’t know the math of it, but I think a single run will get you to level 60-ish. You just need to stay in a safe location to get giant bonuses from not taking damage and not using towers.
(Me? Obsessed much? Never!)
Seconding the vote for Orcs Must Die!
Similar in concept, but a little more “castle-appropriate” with arrow traps on the walls, springs on the ground, giant swinging maces and archers. Feels much more frenetic than Dungeon Defenders in part because there are fewer breaks, the third dimension comes into play a bit more, the traps cover less, there are really fast runners and monsters who come gunning straight for you and the initial setup is more woefully inadequate (though to be fair, I haven’t been through Dungeon Defenders quite as far :)
The “oh why do we get stuck with the IDIOT defender” storyline is a bit of fun, though since he doesn’t level and there’s no weapons to collect (per se), you just can’t get as attached to him.
My favorite thing to do in that game – when possible – is to use a mess of spring traps aimed towards lava and upgrade so that they work on ogres. Thoroughly satisfying.
Ah, yes, that menu bit. Accidentally deleted my own character by moving the mosque right as I clicked.
The fun of a high level character in that game-one tiny mistake due to not great menu design, and a lot of work gets lost.