deanb

Oh come on. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/04/let-the-wookiee-waltz-swtors-god-cheat/

I bet you people are the types that stay stone cold sober at an open bar. I wouldn't necessarily say "lack of import & region locking = okay to pirate" but I would say it's a situation where the publisher shouldn't be surprised their game gets pirated so much.

Yeah while I like what The Verge write it has a front page that has surpassed Gawker Media in terribleness. There is a reason why the traditional blog format won out. Why RSS feeds come in the same blog type format. Why books go in order of chapters. Why facebook is laid out the same way. Google searches, etc etc. At this least this new site lumps people all in one place I can actively ignore.

@eleven: Game save manager, the program mentioned second post in, has a feature to backup the save archive to dropbox. But you could manually add individual saves too if you wanted. Personally I wouldn't use it to save directly to mainly cos of the bandwidth issues you'll start to encounter. Personally when I've plonked a Game Save Manager Archive in there I've trimmed it of certain games due to their size (it'd quickly push me up to my Dropbox limit and I've a pretty big free account) So I'd just set certain games to auto-backup periodically then it's less of a hassle with Dropbox.

As I said before, the new look suits you.

AFAIK it's up to the game. Some save to the game cart, some save to the Vita memory cards.

Yeah I feel that "8% of folks are gay therefore 8% of NPCs should be gay" would be lousy reason to add stuff in. If you were to make a game population statistically, it'd actually end up pretty weird since IRL people tend to bunch up, not be evenly distributed. (and then it comes down to which nation do you base it off? e.g in US 13% of pop is black, in UK it's ~2%.)

I wouldn't be surprised if Crecentes departure is tied up with the Joystiq staff leavings a week ago. The timing is certainly close. However I know on the Joystiq end AOL is apparently terrible with its writers, hence the mass leaving of Engadget last year. Doesn't help that Joel RT'd the Verge(founded post-Engadget) EiC about on "wonder what he'll get up to next!".

I'd say the character development was sort of okay then about 75% in just goes..I don't even have an analogy for it. The only way I could describe it is to say exactly what happens. It's very jarring, I'll leave it at that.

Yeah there's more harm to be done through cramming something in because being politically correct demands it, than just making the character straight or just leaving it unsaid altogether. Games just suck in general for most stories, and I'd rather they get the simple stuff down to pat first before wading into the deep pool held sacred by the LGBT community. 15 years after Barret people were still apprehensive about Sazh in FFXIII. 15 years and people still didn't feel the games industry could do blacks well. WTF. At least with the current state of bad writing it's because you could drive the USS Enterprise through the plot holes and not (as often) because of some retarded stereotype bullshit.

I think the Amazon Market needs to come over before the physical Fire does. There's no content network over here to support the Fire.

Brian was always Editor in Chief. Joel joined in a newly made position of "Editorial Director" above EiC. Basically steering Kotaku and what it posted n such. Which I've a feeling is why he's being dumped upon Jaloponik, rescue a possibly sinking ship (I've no idea on Jaloponiks status mind)

The Irish I've met are rather nice. We also went on holiday to Ireland when the Irish Nationals( that mini racing I did) were on, and really nice folks. Very quick to making friends n getting in rounds n all that. Very hospitable.. One day I may take you up on the offer should I scrounge enough for a ferry n such.

I'm not really misrepresenting you, you did actually say he "doesn't count". I'd want to know what you were correcting me on though, unless you repeatedly dodging the question of "how is he not gay" by stating he's a blank slate is what you're meaning. You're perfectly free to not answer the question, but to declare him a non-sexual (not even asexual) undefined slate is dodging the question however you attempt to frame it. All it did was reinforce the point that for the majority of gamers to accept or "count" a gay character as gay it would have to be obviously pointed out and defined. Anyway this wasn't posted to bring it up again with you, I just felt it worth bringing up with the rest of the forum. Just because you were the one responding to me on Twitter doesn't give exclusive discussion rights edit: @TFG: The problem in the writing section is that with a straight (or undefined) characters when it's bad writing then it's bad writing. If you fuck up with a gay character you end up doing more harm than good, reinforcing stereotypes, making it all a bit of a joke. There's already being recent issues with Other M so it's not just with LGBT writing. I'd say the problem is (apart from the games industry at large not giving two shits about writing anyway, most of the time being an afterthought) most writers are male. I only know of two female writers in the games industry off the top of my head (who also do some of the best female characters too..) and that'd be Amy Hennig of Uncharted fame, and Rhianna Pratchett of Mirrors Edge. (I did some googling, and while I can't find who did Gears 1 or 2, Gears 3 was written by a lass) I'd say Video games aren't useful platforms for social change because they're games. Game mechanics kind of get in the way. Chronixal made a joke with regards to my "Gay Gordon" thing saying how it's not very progressive that he does what he's told n doesn't open his mouth. It was a joke, but it was a good point none the less.

I'm with the issue that pretty much everyone has moved away now that Uni is completely done for. Tom is only one still in Uni and he's off to America when done n Ben is making plans to move down south to find fame n fortune.

So I seem to be vexing Johnny a bit. To get folks to speed I've postulated that Gordon Freeman is in fact gay. The point I'm trying to put forward is that 1. It doesn't hugely matter what orientation the character is. 2. Gordon Freeman is the best damn gay character ever written. It's never a huge part of his character; his beating up Combine, his saving the world, his MIT graduation, that he's gay. Which is how it should be. Problem is that he doesn't "count", because he's undefined in that area. Which 99% of VG characters are undefined. It seems the only way a gay character would count is if it's straight up declared: This person is gay. Which unfortunately leads on to stereotypes. Because apparently gamers won't accept Gordons homosexuality because he's wearing an industrial containment suit and shooting a shotgun instead of wearing biker leathers and blaring out Lady Gaga. People don't want LGBT characters, they want obviously LGBT characters. Why would you say something like that? Look you've made Zevran all edit: Forgot to add this the first time around: The main point you'd want to target if you're wanting to make folks accept gays would be the publishers, ratings boards and online community. When developers have "Fight Against Grenade Spam" and it takes it being released, then the backlash to come before they go "you know maybe not a good idea" then there's a fundamental flaw in the industry. (of course it's from a company that uses controversy as a bow to expertly play the violin that is the games press) Sterlings last point for example is that he'd want Drake to be outed as gay just to get the reaction from the homophobic parts of the gaming community.

Oh yeah, get a partner would be nice too. Not really sure on that one though. Especially as my social circle is massively shrinking this year.

As I said on twitter, as it currently stands I don't think it's something that needs to be added in games. Having a gay NPC/protag adds very little to the game, either in mechanics or storyline. As I noted on twitter, and it seems Strangelove has the same line of thought, game writing sucks at the moment anyway. Trying to get them to add in non-stereotypical queer characters would be asking a lot. Especially if your aim is to improve acceptance of LGBT relations. You'd both make it worse and turn off LGBT community. The games industry is a massive commercial entertainment industry, it's not really in their interests. The only reason they'd add it is for bullet points on the box. Mention Shepard can be gay n poof free marketing as everyone brings that up. It also becomes "a thing". No one would make a point of saying their main character is straight would they? It's putting a spotlight on it being different. It wouldn't improve the games either. Is Uncharted any worse off for Nathan not being gay, would it be any better if he was? Would it make a lick of difference to his shooting and climbing abilities? If Chell was a lesbian would it change Portal in anyway? Gordon the gay mute, Jack the wrench wielding adoptive gay dad. Would it change these games in anyway if sexual orientation of the characters was defined? Yes there's gay rights to improve the world over, but video games are one of the last choices I'd go for when looking for a platform for change in that dept.

Yeah Borderlands was pretty messed up (definitely not helping I played the terribad PC port) but it was fun for co-op. My main issue would be it's kinda hard to co-op something that long. Any attempt at playing it with guys in the Steam group tend to fail rather quickly.

PS3 can take screenshots (and video too) it's just up to the games to implement them. (Modnation Racers and WipEout come to mind)

Maybe good news after all (Shame McWhertor left. A double Brian leaving would have done wonders for kotaku)

http://www.duckandcover.cx/archives.php?topstory=131 They've reached a settlement. Details of which coming later this month.

Except for the whole Joel Johnson thing, who is still both crappy and one position on top of EiC.