deanb

I'm looking into GW2. edit: then again I'm the OP so I guess that kind of goes without saying.

Well dawdle is to go slow.

Don't blast through it. I've found it's a good game to sort of play on and off over time. Just load it up and doss about in it for a couple of hours.

This was the still used in EG RSS feed for a Gameplay video I know who that is. And I want him on my team. Though he would be a bit OP in a detective game

4chan don't do hot linking. You got anything a bit more solid (It's why I love Dropbox, just save it and you've got it yourself forever, no issues the source site will go down)

Well Dave has applied for a press pass. So that's a few of us down.

http://blip.tv/file/2075548 Never a good idea.

http://www.metacriti...3/dragon-age-ii http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-ii http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/dragon-age-ii lol. I assume something is up?

We are saying that moral choices in Mass Effect are not based on the consequence but the 'attitude' of the player, but earlier you said: And I don't think BioWare are telling you off (for the most part, they've always been about 'power' to the player). Then, later, you said something contrary to the idea of the consequences being labelled as good/bad, which led me to think you had (rightly) reconsidered. I'm guessing you're meaning this?: But yeah, it will more than likely pan out bad. You got Paragon for rescuing council, renegade for letting them die. Come ME2 if you let them die you may as well of blown them up yourself the way folks react to that. Whereas saving them in the paragon option you can even be a good enough boy to be reinstated as a SPECTRE.

You said things like saving the Collectors base wouldn't pan out because renegade points meant it was evil. Yep still confused. True, it's not perfect, but they knew what they were doing. A lot of the choices are pretty simple and obvious (which is probably what helps make it so popular) and it's only rarely that you get into the sort of grey areas that The Witcher does. Trouble is, I can't ever see them changing it if they wanted to try something a little more mature and complex like The Witcher. Which is why I'll find Bioware games enjoyable but generally feel they fall short.

I posted an article about a week back that mentioned as much. It was Biowares intention that Normal should be possible to complete with using just Hawke.

Never heard Lemon Difficult before.

http://board.pressxordie.com/topic/847-game-news-feed/ http://board.pressxordie.com/content/gamenews/

Since this is pretty much becoming the "DIY Game Development" thread with subtitle of "Where Dean Dumps Suggestions" http://createdigital...lously-awesome/ I assume at least a few of you have heard of Adruino? Basically it's a console/game dev platform built on that. It's more a hobby thing that anything much practical. Kind of to teach you the basics. Also I guess I'll toss in this http://www.rpgmakerw...ct.html?prod=xp There's non-trail versions out there if you're interested in really digging in. And also this: http://developer.and.../sdk/index.html Which it's free to make for. Free to release too. Only costs if you use the market afaik. Oh and it's based on Java which some of you may know.

Portal is a good example of sort of wat they were talking about and the model that's a pretty good idea. Especially for new IPs. It was a cheap title, lasted roughly 6hours, bit more if you did the challenge rooms or got some mods. Cost either free with OB (pretty much) or £20 (I think) on it's own. Game went on to win multiple GOTY's and now has an upcoming full fledged sequel with more things build on the base concept and co-op tossed in and priced like a regular release. So yeah the model is there, it's worked (helped Portal was pretty good), it gets franchises out and testing the water for a low price and the consumer is buying a cheaper game (or part of another game) and getting exposure to it. Or make a cheap game, build it up with DLC if the game suits it and folks re receptive to the game. That's more a kind of episodic model. You buy the game in stages. Maybe a bit of like how Fable 2 was sold as well. I assume that didn't go to plan (was put into action well after the main release though) Just to sum up my stance rather quickly (picture says a thousand words) (btw 7 of the games on there... I had once pirated* . And one on long term loan from housemate) I'm a fan of cheap games.And these days cheap games are on par with their quality. Sometimes exceeding. I'd say some of the cheap games kick ass on many games publisher attempt to sell for £40. I don't go in expecting world class voice acting. high-res graphics or tight game mechanics. But generally they are pretty good. And through these indie titles they can go on to make something bigger. And generally if it goes tits up then it's not a huge loss on most of these. Whereas AAA games if it goes tits up that can close the studio and cancel other games to be greenlit. Rather than making places like Ubisoft Montreal, factories for churning out high cost, potentially high risk, AAA games, publishers should divert some of that funding and resources on setting up or funding smaller studios working on smaller games. Make them in smaller maybe rural areas, thus giving you access to a much larger talent pool across the globe too. Sure it won't knock out huge profits, but overall you get to churn out a bunch of IP's cheaply, maybe suck dry the ones that do well, and they can work out to be a good cash flow, a sort of constant drip. Heck you might be the next MC and get 1.5million guys buying it (more copies than most 7th gen games for 10's of Smillions make). And for the average cost of a game at $28million you could comfortably fund about 30 or so of these studios with pretty damn good budgets. And if a handful fuck up then it's no overall loss as if that one $28million game went tits up. I'd say the advantages far outweigh any potential downsides (that's diverting cash from a game that may make a few hundred million...may.) You can put out a new game on average once every fortnight. Then have your main studios do games once a month (on average) that maybe last longer or with long term playability, these small games as snacks in between. Rather than waiting and gambling on next months game only. The market is there for these games. Steam is constantly showing that (check the top 10 then realise that for every copy of Cod Blops sold for £40, magicka below/above it has to sell 5.) Iwata even had a huge speech on how the markets moving to cheaper games (though we're talking the 99p stuff, and he was a bit upset on that) I reckon many folks here would be open to it as well. Just a case of a publisher realising the opportunities and taking the leap. @Peter: You'd have to ask Thursday but I believe it's a percentage based thing than a set cost. On physical games set cost is stuff like disc production, shipping and returns. That will set a minimum price since a game in a PS3 case sold for £40 will still cost the same to deliver to the store as the one for £5. http://latimesblogs....video-game.html Worth a looksy. The big chunk isn't profit. What part of that is profit depends on if the game is $100million GTAIV or $27million L4D2. So there's a large variable there. Your next big chunk is to the shop, and so you need to convince them to accept a bit less there. Thing is the game still takes up the same shelf space. Maybe if you can point out more units will be moved then they might do it. Anywho on console royalty as fixed or a percentage, pretty much every other platform seems to be a percentage. 25% cut on UDK, 30% cut on apple Apps, 5% cut on Web Store apps. etc. I'd guess console follows same thing. The middle class thing CliffyB touched upon was harsh but oh so fucking true. I think now there's only a handful of developers will touch movie games, they're pretty much out the window. If a games not going to be near COD then it doesn't get greenlit. If it's not COD it doesn't get sold. And part of that is at pricing it for $60 it's putting itself up on the same pedestal as AAA games. It's like Vickys Cafe selling their stuff the same price as some fancy Michelin star restaurant. You're pretty much shooting yourself in the foot there. And I guess nevermind on the "Ask Thursday part" Yeah johnny as Rocky said, it's probably just padding. Some insane thought process of the developers on trying to make a $40 game a $60 one. *more than 7 if you include the contents of bundles edit: It's too big to fit on News Feed and kinda of approraite for here: http://nohighscores.com/node/182 "Shorter is Sometimes Better- The 10 Hour Campaign versus The Illusion of Content"And ties with what Johnny said too.

£33 on Zavvi versus the £27 on Steam (or £25 on Zavvi for PC version) £6 for a PS3 game? Not a bad deal. Not bad at all. Even if I don't personally touch it and only play the PC version.

Hmm? Also pessimist/optimist is still a label on the choices and therefore massively flawed by design. Labels on these things are BAD and massively restrict your narrative freedom and can lock you out of certain things. Imagine this scenario. Geralt is passing through a village and a mother n daughter have some plague thing. He uses his alchemy to rustle up a cure but only enough for one of them. Your choices are as such: 1. Give to daughter 2. Give to mother. (and maybe down the line it'll turn out the mother has info on some dude you want to talk to. Dunno) or Shepard and crew find a colony and a mother n daughter have some plague thing. Normandy synthesize a cure but only have enough time to make one jab. You choice is as such - Give to Daughter (o) -Give to Mother It just doesn't work out as well. You can't really label one as good or bad (or paragon or renegade, chaotic or lawful, etc) They are equal parts of both. (okay there's the third choice of shoot em both but then you'd still have to cram one onto neutral). The system for a black and white, either/or, system is built into the foundation of ME and similar systems by design. It means no matter how morally grey you try to make your choices, your system built into the game stil forces them as being one or another. Sure it makes 90% of the choices you toss into the game pretty simple and obvious to pick for those folks who don't quite get the grasp of making decisions, but it means when you want to try to be fancy you're a bit fucked. And they have no one to blame for that but their shitty initial design decision. What really fucking sucks is they ran through it on two games and would have to be fucking retards to have not noticed it's limitations but still went ahead and chose that system over the old in DA2.

As if nails provide an obstacle... 1960's. When a computer scientists discovered he could duplicate digital things. at first lines of code, but obviously anything in digital form can be easily duplicated. Then it became pretty much a given that this would eventually happen. It's infinite goods, it has no value. At best all you can do is try n convince people it's worth something. Just an example but there is only one Mona Lisa and it's pretty much priceless (or $720million). There's roughly 1024 units of Modern Warfare. It's pretty much worthless. It's amazing that Activision are attempting to get 50p out of you for it let alone £50. And this is the part where this tab gets forgotten in order to make a tea and I come back hours later Its essentially a case of changing times. A balance of sorts will arrive. At the moment it's a clash of ideals. Many folks growing up in a world where things cost what folks charge for, and many folks growing up pretty much used to digital goods been an infinite and free thing. Just to go back to one of my old, but continually ignored points (yeah I'ma bit butthurt on this), but it's not just digital goods either. We're a decade or so away from basic objects being "infinite" too through things like RepRap and other 3D printer projects. Half a century and nanotechnology would be at a point where more complex things could be possible too. Thus bringing what is affecting digital goods now on physical goods too. Basically it's now a fact of life and it is never ever going to go away unless someone turns off the internet or goes uber-global fascist. And while it's technically against the law it's my understanding that there's generally allowances within the law on things that the public don't pay attention to. Unenforceable laws. Like all boys under 16 having to do archery practice. tl;dr: Everything digital is worth fuck all, nadda, zip, zilch. It only costs something cos someone somewhere has said it does. It's you choice if you agree with them on that or not. Now to read what Frag wrote cos it was long and I had thoughts bubbling in my mind: That's pretty much the take home point. As is continually shown the most pirated games are generally the best selling too. It is a physical impossibility that piracy causes bankruptcy or I would suggest everyone download CoD about 10 times each. BO pirated 8million times and the game made $1billion so by my guestimates pirating about 1billion copies should push them into debt using their accounting methods. But we all know that won't happen. The publishers who rattle on about lost sales must know this won't happen. Piracy is an issue of sorts. But it's not where large enough to be causing the issues publishers suggest it is. Console game revenue dropped 20% last year. PC revenue increase 20%. (just before we continue, they're not directly related with one going from other like some finite shared pool of cash. Just make sure folks understand that). 99% of console games cost £40/$60, and roughly 30%+ have some kind of DLC model on, maybe a reliance on multiplayer. PC on the other hand for several years has been heavily experimenting in business models from massive sales on steam, a large selection of sub-£20 indie class/small studio games, some games sold mid-production at a discount, some with F2P. Also Piracy is a much larger thing on PC than on console. Piracy isn't an issue. Holding onto the old system of "we say this is worth X amount, you will pay this or else" model just doesn't fair so well when you're amidst a sea of free or cheap goods on other platforms. At the moment most console publishers are sharing a very close relational space with the dodo. And it's up to them to evolve, or die. The modern consumer, aka "the dog", has arrived. And looking at piracy numbers for your games is insane. Gmaes cost me £40 a pop and I only have a finite amount of £ in my bank account. Pirated games cost folks $free and I think everyone has a healthy bank balance of $free. So while your £200 will buy you 5 games, your $free will buy you every single fucking game in existence. Now there's no way you could expect someone to afford that with their £200 on the real deal. So of course the numbers of pirated to sold copies will always be skewed.

Didn't ignore it. It in fact kinda proves several of our points that attributing a point/stat scale on choices within games is just retarded. Other games would have had you free her, and she turns out to be a killer. And that would be it. but ME sticks a "scoring" on the action to. Presenting actions, regardless of potential reaction, as black and white, +1/-1.

I've used it in the past, but when I'm using my PC it means I'm not staring at my desktop. So yeah it makes pretty screenshots but in the long run it's pretty useful. It's also mighty fiddly to get it set up like in the Star Craft stuff. Most of what you can make will look like the water flame one. Just the default set up arranged about a bit. Generally it means making new icons, using a very specific wall paper, and putting in a fair bit of work to line it all up looking nice. It's losing usability over improved aesthetics. But should you get something nice made do share. anywho: http://rainmeter.deviantart.com/ http://ca.lifehacker.com/tag/rainmeter/

As I commented on twitter: English Villain?

What are you basing this off exactly? It wouldn't be the first time your companions in a BioWare game have been wrong on something. I think that makes it pretty clear how Bioware stands on the issue. See I knew there was something a bit more solid on it but wasn't up for installing n booting up my saves to check. It's why I think that these kinds of things shouldn't be called "moral choices" cos it kind of sticks in a immediate thought for the dev to split it between good or bad. If it was just a simple choice it makes it much more flexible on what they can do. I think the faction stuff is good idea. So the game doesn't track any stats based on what the dev's set, but on how people within the world react. making things much more interesting and flexible, easily including the shades of grey fairly easily.