Johnny

This post started as a reply to Yantelope above and... kind of got out of hand. I feel like such a nerd now. I haven't played most of the games I will be talking about in ages, so if I'm wrong on anything, feel free to point it out. Also, consider this your spoiler warning. As I see it, trying to pin-point exactly where every title fits is pretty futile, because some of them are so vague. Various sites and groups have tried to compile a complete timeline, and they always end up disagreeing on the finer points of games that do not directly reference each others. What we know: My interpretations. Read this entire section as an "In my opinion": So if I were to actually draw up a timeline... *opens photoshop* I did not really want to have to deal with Oracles and Link's Awakening, but it's the only way that both Wind Waker and A Link To The Past can fit.

I don't get what the big deal is, this is already editable with texture packs...

That nobody cares on the zelda team is evidently not true, because most of the games contain hints as to where they would fit in a timeline with the other games. It is however pretty clear to me that they do not intend to ever have it be obvious or set in stone. It's there for those fans that care, without intruding on the story for the fans that do not give a shit. I think, in general, it's pretty well-done.

So, like importing but without the shipping fees, and PC only? Could be useful. Incoming legal threaths from publishers in 3...

Well that won't make pirating 360 games seem more appealing at all.

The whole game is mirrored on the wii version. Because they wanted it to be consistent with Link being right-handed instead of left-handed. They were probably smoking something mind-altering while coming up with that one.

Where's the choice for "A Link To The Past"? It beats out all of the mentioned titles imo. I loved the graphical style in Twilight Princess, but I'm not a fan of the visuals in OoT or MM. I also liked the graphical style in Wind Waker, but I thought the poor hardware of the DS completely wrecked it in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. The DS should really stick to 2D graphics imo.

So what you mean to say was that you didn't post in honesty before, you were just trolling? I think that actually IS an offense according to our rules.

Oh, there is a can of worms. Now you're going to talk about how we should spend all the money we have on content and "acquire" everything we don't have money for and then we can pick and choose who is the most deserving of the money we do have right? Ooo, maybe it's like a battle of the bands where all the bands play but only the one that wins gets the prize money. Sucks to be the band that loses though. I... Yantelope, you're not making any sense right now. Because each and every one of us (I think. Maybe someone here is secretly hilariously rich) has a limited amount of cash to spend on games, we have to pick which games we want to give money to wether we pirate or not. If we pirate, however, we have a better understanding of how good the games are so we can with certainty pick the games that actually deserve our money, instead of making the educated guess we're forced to make if we do not pirate.

Quite frankly, Yantelope, what dean said. Also, I don't know anyone who has enough cash to buy everything they like.

Why shouldn't they be different? Wouldn't that be a GOOD thing? Why the hell should we let how previous technology functioned limit the functionality of today's more advanced technology? If possible, all entertainment media should do as much as possibleto make sure people know what they are paying for. If people only pay for things they actually consider good, isn't that good for EVERYONE?

I'd like to just mention something real quick. As a pirate AND a legitimate consumer, it's very hard to retain any sympathy for big publishers with the amount of times they point their fingers at pirates and blame them for all the evils in the gaming industry. I know more than one person who will refuse to buy anything except the odd online title because he's had enough of spending money on an industry that hates him. Not saying I agree with those who do that, but I see why they do it. I still buy games when I can afford them - hell, I buy them a lot of times when I really shouldn't spend any money - but it's often been VERY tempting to just stop doing that.

A pity then, that "for my own entertainment" seems such a weighty reason. Remind me to never give analogies a second of my attention. It's like giving people a "feel free to ignore the core of my reply" card.

@TN So you're actually saying that disregarding wether it harms publishers/devs or not, even if the scenario I laid out in my post was true, you'd still hold the opinion that it's bad because publishers don't want you to pirate? Despite all the advantages? As to your "stay off my lawn" analogy... I'd run over anyone's lawn if I had a reason outweighing whatever disadvantages that held. Precisely how I view it.

I can honestly not take the idea that piracy is bad wether it causes harm or not seriously at all. Fuck, man. If we could prove that piracy never lead to a lost sale, I would claim piracy to be a wonderful, purely good thing. Piracy lets the consumer well and truly know how good a game is before he pays for it. Piracy has led me and many I know to purchase great games we wouldn't have known were great if we hadn't pirated them first. If everyone who pirated a game he could afford and ended up enjoying, ended up buying it, then piracy would be a tool allowing consumers infinite access to all games, movies, tv shows and music while still allowing maximum possible revenue flow to the entertainment industries. If this was true, then you can take whatever the content creators' wishes are and shove it up their asses, because piracy would be an amazing, perfect part of the system and opposing it would be akin to taking a huge dump on the consumers head just because you wish to. Unfortunately, it isn't like that. And that's why it's worth discussing in the first place. So stop pretending it's not about wether it harms devs/publishers or not.

The technology is pretty much not going further than the companies owned by ZeniMax. It's been stated numerous times by people like Carmack.

I've already played the games, so I'd just be buying it for the Collector's Edition, but I don't want to do that with all the DRM stuff. I don't particularly know exactly what they did with AC2, if they did anything, when they decided to tone their DRM down. I remember when it launched it threw you out on the singest blip in your internet connection.

@Dean: It's possible to create a US account. I did so for the beta. I don't remember how, though. It was back in the beta. =P Personally, I'm a bit of a fan of Dominion. Summoner's Rift, to me, is just a very meh clone of DotA, retaining very little of the depth that made DotA so appealing to me. Dominion, on the other hand, is a fast-paced, fun game mode that's probably the closest cousin of World of Warcraft's Arathi Basin. Honestly, if Riot Games were to shift focus to Dominion and making that balanced, I could even see this game surviving once Dota 2 hits. Becuase Summoner's Rift and Twisted Treeline doesn't stand a chance, to be totally honest.

I recommend this to absolutely everyone with any kind of interest in online rpg gaming stuffs, once it goes free to play. It's a pretty unique MMO, and certainly the best action-ish MMO I've tried by far. At launch, my main gripes was that it ran out of content just below max level (reminds me of WoW at launch, heh) and that there weren't enough costume pieces (compared to Champions Online where you could create whatever twisted abomination your heart desires)

@Dean: I fail to see how Rage is anything of a id Tech 5 advert, considering they aren't licensing the Tech 5 tech to anyone, unlike their previous engines.

What actually amuses me about Ubisoft is that the Assassin's Creed titles are actually really goddamned well-ported. They run amazingly smooth with fast load times on my PC (which is crap) but then they go and release DRM. There's an AC2 White Edition PC box sitting at my local gamestop, in a little corner of the store. It costs like 20 dollars and I'd buy it if it wasn't for the DRM. =)