Games Discussion Thread

[Chibichibi]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

I've never posted in the bioware forums. -shrug- I see it as a waste of time, because the people I want to talk to about games are right here.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Also this bullshit really makes me want to go back to pirating games.

You've just justified everything they're doing to stop pirating. As bullshit as it is to the legal users, they are trying to stop pirates. So "Oh it's hard to play, I'll just pirate" means they'll just bring out more and more bullshit to try and stop pirates.

Yes it will never work, and yes it will push more people into pirating... so really going to pirating just creates a downhill slide that could really harm the game industry because people want shit for free. They want a product that costs millions of dollars to develop and publish... for free.

GTA IV's budget was estimated at around $100 million. That's a lot of money, so of course they're going to keep pushing out bullshit to try and make that money back.

You want the bullshit to stop, find a way to stop the pirates.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

You've just justified everything they're doing to stop pirating. As bullshit as it is to the legal users, they are trying to stop pirates. So "Oh it's hard to play, I'll just pirate" means they'll just bring out more and more bullshit to try and stop pirates.

Yes it will never work, and yes it will push more people into pirating... so really going to pirating just creates a downhill slide that could really harm the game industry because people want shit for free. They want a product that costs millions of dollars to develop and publish... for free.

GTA IV's budget was estimated at around $100 million. That's a lot of money, so of course they're going to keep pushing out bullshit to try and make that money back.

You want the bullshit to stop, find a way to stop the pirates.

Sure, let's stop all the wars while we're at it.

 

[Newbie]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

The problem with DRM in general is that it punishes consumers for the acts of those who are getting pirate copies. That's why there's this slippery slope:
Customer: I can't play this because of DRM! I'll download a crack, and play what I bought.
Companies: Look there, on the horizon! Pirates! We clearly need more stringent DRM methods.
Repeat as necessary. Granted this isn't representative of every pirate ever, or even most of them, but I'd probably say it's true for the majority of new pirates.

What you need is a DRM that somehow manages to punish the pirates. Batman:Arkham Asylum managed to tie the disc verification in with the code to make Batman jump, so it you had a pirated copy you couldn't jump and couldn't complete the game past a certain point. That's the way to do it.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Sure, let's stop all the wars while we're at it.

I never said it was possible, I'm just saying that jumping to pirating is not going to fix the problem, only make it worse. Pirating can't be stopped completely, but it can be made less of an issue. As it becomes less of an issue, protecting a game against pirates becomes less of a priority.

The problem with DRM in general is that it punishes consumers for the acts of those who are getting pirate copies. That's why there's this slippery slope:
Customer: I can't play this because of DRM! I'll download a crack, and play what I bought.
Companies: Look there, on the horizon! Pirates! We clearly need more stringent DRM methods.
Repeat as necessary. Granted this isn't representative of every pirate ever, or even most of them, but I'd probably say it's true for the majority of new pirates.

What you need is a DRM that somehow manages to punish the pirates. Batman:Arkham Asylum managed to tie the disc verification in with the code to make Batman jump, so it you had a pirated copy you couldn't jump and couldn't complete the game past a certain point. That's the way to do it.

I didn't know they did that. That's a rather interesting way of doing things.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

I didn't know they did that. That's a rather interesting way of doing things.

There's a few others, such as FADE, present on Operation Flashpoint. The disk has artificial scratch marks on it, copying it or making a digital image will fix them. If the game doesn't find the scratches, the AI will slowly get more and more bonuses until it has 100% accuracy and super vision.

I dunno what they did for the new Pokemon games, but so far I've hear no one's been able to get it running on an emulator well, and on top of that, you can't gain exp on a pirated version

 

[SirOni]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

I dunno what they did for the new Pokemon games, but so far I've hear no one's been able to get it running on an emulator well, and on top of that, you can't gain exp on a pirated version

Not completely true, there had been a cracked version of a translated version of the Jap verion of B/W that allowed you to gaine exp floating around on /vp/, that's how most of them knew all about the story before it came out over here. But yeah, the way they tried to stop pirates was by making it so that if it's not an authentic copy exp gain is impossible.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Not completely true, there had been a cracked version of a translated version of the Jap verion of B/W that allowed you to gaine exp floating around on /vp/, that's how most of them knew all about the story before it came out over here. But yeah, the way they tried to stop pirates was by making it so that if it's not an authentic copy exp gain is impossible.

They're still unstable as hell, though, so much so that many major emulators have stickies on their forums saying their not even going to try and fix it.

 

[Incubus]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Reminds me of my experience with a cracked copy of Battle for Middle Earth, and sadly, a legitimate copy of Red Alert 2.

In both of them, a short period into any given game mode/map, all of your units would self destruct, causing instant defeat.

Had to re-install the latter to fix it. Several times. :|

I fall into the basket of "I'm getting real sick of being unable to play games I've legitimately bought because of your DRM crap." I'm also more than a little tired of having to signup for an account somewhere to be able to play it. I understand the idea behind it, but I bought this game through steam, there's already a password and internet access required to log in to access the game, why do I need another one?

And the needing an active net connection to play is a pain in the ass if I've run over my bandwidth for the month, as I'm just as likely to time out trying to log in as I am to make it in. Worse when the game is one of the ones who forces me to relog if I lose that constant connection.

And this is before you add in my country's recent trend of charging twice as much for a digital copy of a game as the US is charged "just because". The games industry needs a fucking wakeup call. I think a wave of piracy out of control might be able to teach them; it sure taught the music industry to clean up their act.

 

[noman]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Anybody following the DA forums? The shit has hit the fan. DA2 got a whooping 37% user reviews on major websites, and the composer even went on an IGN interview saying that the game is rushed and has loads of bugs left in it. (E.g. the game won't save on comp with single core CPU).

Furthermore, someone from bioware came out and said that they don't care about user reviews. As for the metacritic score, if you actually read the reviews, you will realise that most of them are actually quite negative.
"Though it doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor when it comes to sheer breadth, Dragon Age II has quite a bit more soul."
"Unfortunately, Dragon Age 2 has not met my expectations. The epic story of Dragon Age: Origins made me play the game for hours, but Dragon Age 2 lacks a gripping story."
"Dragon Age 2 is a long, epic adventure that will give you your money's worth. It's just that some of the execution didn't feel spot-on. The story needed work, and the characters sometimes felt flat."
"It's a shame that these intricacies were tempered by unnecessary simplification and unfocused storytelling."
"On all platforms, Dragon Age II caters to an audience that didn't connect with Origins, while alienating those who did. This may result in a better console experience, but considering that Dragon Age: Origins was a love letter to old-school PC RPGs, BioWare's neglect of the sequel's PC release is tragic."
All of them still give a score of above 80 though, which makes me wonder if the system is skewed - a score above 90 means good, and a score below 90 means crap.

And to put the final nail in the coffin, someone accused another person of "selling his soul to EA" on the bioware forum, and his account got banned. So now he can't even activate DA2. Essentially he lost every single DLCs he ever paid for, and he can't even play the game anymore.

So FUCK YOU Bioware. I have been a loyal supporter, but I won't be buying any more games from you any more. (I am still buying all my other games though.)

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

I'm not surprised that Bioware doesn't care about user reviews. I've tried to find opinions on games before and found user reviews giving games a 0 because "They pushed it back a week".

So really what I'm seeing is a lot of people who think they should have creative control over someone else's property, and think that because DA2 is different they've ruined the entire franchise... it's the second game in a rather new IP and its been trashed because BioWare is doing some experimenting.

And you can't really blame BioWare for all the account suspending and DRM, that's EA's bag of toys.

So basically you've said "Fuck you BioWare" for what EA's doing, and for a bunch of guys making what they want to make. Have you played the game yourself? Or are you just jumping on the fury band wagon of the internet?

 

[Nunu]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

also not to mention it was a 3 day suspension and not a banning.

 

[Incubus]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

its been trashed because BioWare is doing some experimenting.

I'm not sure I agree with that. Having not played Mass Effect 2, I can't really make an accurate call, but it seems like they're bringing the game more in line with that, which is hardly experimentation.

And it's certainly true that Bioware could probably afford to stand up to EA, I doubt it'd be that difficult to find a different distributor if they really were dicking them around. But that said, it's their game and they can do what they want with it.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

I'm not sure I agree with that. Having not played Mass Effect 2, I can't really make an accurate call, but it seems like they're bringing the game more in line with that, which is hardly experimentation.

And it's certainly true that Bioware could probably afford to stand up to EA, I doubt it'd be that difficult to find a different distributor if they really were dicking them around. But that said, it's their game and they can do what they want with it.

I've yet to play Dragon Age 2, so I can't say how close they are either... from the demo though, not as much as people are claiming. They are experimenting with the way they tell the story though, and as a writer that part is quite intriguing to me.

Also as someone who makes their own original content, it just rubs me the wrong way when someone is basically telling someone else that they've ruined their own franchise. BioWare made Dragon Age, it's their universe, their world. Story wise and game play wise they can take it in various different directions, and shouldn't have to worry about people who think they have a bigger stake in the way things should be run.

From what I heard from BioWare, they didn't want to do a whole saving the world plot, they wanted to follow this one character and their impact in this one area of their world. Yes it may not be as epic, but do we really need a world spanning tale and then saving it each and every single game? I'm personally intrigued by a more down to earth story that they said they wanted to deliver, especially in the fantasy genre.

And I don't know much about BioWare's finances, or who they could turn to, to publish their games should they piss of EA. Activision? Bethesda? Epic?

 

[Nunu]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

you also got to be able to step the epic down once in a while because eventualy you end up with nowhere to go. A good example of this is doctor who, which has currently saved the entierty of existance from destruction each of the past three season finalies. so a reduction in scope is sometimes necessary.

 

[Incubus]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Given the popularity of their last few releases, I'd say they'd be getting plenty of offers for a publishing or distribution deal. The trick is finding someone right for them, however.

 

[Exofluke]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Dropping by to mention that ArenaNet has announced the sixth profession for Guild Wars 2:

You must be registered to see the links

.

Also, just to throw down a random thought towards this DA2 debate...

I don't believe opinions on fictional content will ever have merit outside of personal thoughts, unless one has to give up something like money. Even then, it's still a choice and if you can't decide to have interest in a game based on it's trailers and game-play videos... then why play games at all?

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

you also got to be able to step the epic down once in a while because eventualy you end up with nowhere to go. A good example of this is doctor who, which has currently saved the entierty of existance from destruction each of the past three season finalies. so a reduction in scope is sometimes necessary.

Someone once told me that building all your towers at max height is for noobs. Agreed before, agreed then, agreed now.

 

[noman]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

I'm not surprised that Bioware doesn't care about user reviews. I've tried to find opinions on games before and found user reviews giving games a 0 because "They pushed it back a week".

So really what I'm seeing is a lot of people who think they should have creative control over someone else's property, and think that because DA2 is different they've ruined the entire franchise... it's the second game in a rather new IP and its been trashed because BioWare is doing some experimenting.

And you can't really blame BioWare for all the account suspending and DRM, that's EA's bag of toys.

So basically you've said "Fuck you BioWare" for what EA's doing, and for a bunch of guys making what they want to make. Have you played the game yourself? Or are you just jumping on the fury band wagon of the internet?

I have spent 6 hours on the game, and here are some of the things I found disagreeable.

Merchants - instead of interacting with the merchants directly, you talk with a chest to buy from it. Feels more like buying from a vending machine than from a shop.
Normal NPCs - You can't talk to most of them anymore. In DA:O you can talk to every single NPCs. Sure most of them only mumbles some generic line, but at least you can still interact with them. And oh, you can have a giant battle next to them and they won't react at all. Pretty sure that in DA:O they will run the hell away when that happens.
Companions - you can no longer change your companions clothings, just like what happened to ME2. It's an arguable point since some players have defended this by saying that they didn't like having to check every single piece of equipment for stats, but that's what I liked about RPG games - having to manage a huge inventory. It's a matter of personal taste I suppose, but I am find the change unacceptable.
Storyline - not much of a storyline there. DA:O was about an outcast branded as a traitor trying to save the world. DA2 was about a guy just trying to get by his life. Even ME2 had a better story than this. Something went wrong with the story writing department?
Tiny world map - the DA:O world map was huge. Freaking huge. Just like the first ME where you can roam for hours. In comparison, DA2 is tiny. Bigger games does not equal better games, but you lose the feeling of being part of a bigger world.
Character facial expression - may be it was partly because I played Fallout 3 before playing DA2, but the characters really can do with better facial expressions.
Ridiculous quests - some of the quests involve you finding a random item in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly you know that you are supposed to deliver this to someone in town, with absolutely no explanation of the significance of the item or how the hell you know who to give it to.
No more potion brewing - like brewing poisons and potions? Too bad. Bioware removed all of that completely. Now you have to buy them from shops instead of being able to make them when you need them.

I can live with DRMs, Securoms, and even the dialogue wheel. But in the end what ticked me off the most is the lack of companion clothing options, and by extension the inventory system. May be I am just old fashioned, but I like having massive inventories with hundreds of items.

And the worst of all is that you can explain every single one of the above changes by cutting down development time. I just can't help but feel that might actually be the real answer.

 

[JohnDoe]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

I agree with Noman on most of what he said.

DA2 lost a lot of the freedom that DAO had, they took out or simplified a lot things. You can't chose your race anymore and classes have become more character specific, taking away a lot of the personalization you could do.

The story is more focused on your character then on events, and this can be a good idea if done right, but at the same time the character's past is barely mentioned big leaps in time gives a feeling that you'r missing something, especially when you meet someone that you supposedly knew during a jump(kind of a wtf moment), a some scenes are just cut in without preparation, the direction is lacking in this, the ingame storytelling is fine, but the actual game story-telling feels weak.

It's like a transitive situation from what you came from to what you wanted to become. You want to do something new, but you don't want to give up on what worked of the old. The result is an indecise work, the players can feel that while playing and that's what piss off most people, especially old style pc rpg fans that really loved DAO, it's like they have all received a big slap in the face after being promised some cake, but i'm not just talking about the gameplay.

Also the skill tree is a pain and they kicked out the arcane warrior, which was the most fucking awesome class of DAO.