RockyRan

I've been looking around the premium car shop and I can't seem to find any pickups, and I haven't seen them on the used car dealerships for a long time. Although this happens with other cars as well. Anything that requires oddly specific car types, like "British Lightweight Cars only" or "90's Japanese cars" or stuff like that. Can't find them on the new or used car dealership. Just wait until they show up?

I did do the Red Bull challenge and got like 6.5 million Cr, so I've been able to just do whatever I want in terms of money. What happens in cases like the pick-up truck challenge, where there are absolutely no pick-up trucks to be found for months on end? Do you just sit and wait until it feels like showing up on the used car dealer, or is there some way to get specific cars faster (trading?)?

Heavy: HELP! It's been almost a year and I'm still struggling to enjoy this game. I keep trying and trying because I see a great game that I can fall in love with peeking underneath this mountain of ass-y choices, but the more and more I play it I just can't enjoyment out of it. I just want to know how people play this game? Because I seem to be missing something fundamental. All the events from my perspective seem to be entirely about what car you pick, completely regardless of your skill level. The only way for me to ever win reliably is with either cars that are far better, or cars that I've upgraded so much I that I stick a fucking mass relay in the engine. If I try to use vanilla cars I get smoked by everyone, completely regardless of how I'm doing at the track. Even if by some miracle of god I manage to get a car that roughly matches the specs of all the other cars in that event, I'm still just a hair slower than one or two opponents, so I'm driving along trying my best and we're on this long stretch of road and they're just inching past me? How can I compete with that there? What am I supposed to do? I can't even understand how to get into the events themselves without embarking on this epic quest to find the chosen car for a race. I first look around the event menu to see what I want to do, then go into the event and look at my garage to see if I qualify, and of course I never have any cars that qualify or aren't complete ass every single time I do this, so of course I have to go on this odyssey to find this elusive car that doesn't suck. So I need a pick-up truck for pick-up truck events? Where are they? Who the fuck knows? Not in the used car place, not in the online used car place, and not in the premium car place. So yeah, impossible to get to this event until the planets align and god decides to grace me with the presence of a pick up truck some day, only to see that this truck sucks ass compared to all the other ones in that event. What. The. Hell. I hate to rant like this, because in all honesty I don't want to rant, I just want to know how people can enjoy this game. I know I'm missing something, because there's millions of people who love the game and if this was all there really is to it I know it'd be lambasted as the worst driver sim series ever. But it isn't, and people love it, and I want to know what people are doing to love it. Is there some trick that I'm missing? Some way to make races and events challenging and fun without me FFUUUUing all over the place that there's always one guy much faster than me in every race and I can't ever hope to beat him unless I hop on a fucking Ferrari and beat his (and everyone else's) ass in what I can only describe as game-encouraged cheating? Is there any other way to get the cars I need for events without waiting literally for months to get access to the car I want? I know there's some way to enjoy the game, I just need to find it. Because if everyone's experience is the same as me there's no factual way that it can sell millions.

SINGLE PLAYER SPOILERS IN POST Finished the single player yesterday. I was impressed with the puzzles, the voice acting, the quality of the cutscenes, the physics scenery porn, and the music. Individually. I actually didn't like how they gelled together. Of note is the story side of the game. Didn't like the story at all. Given how much larger in length the sequel was and how Portal 1 ended it was obvious they needed to "crank it up" in general, but they did it far too much. As I see it, Portal 1 is to a Simpson's episode from season 2 as Portal 2 is to an episode from season 22. The characters, setting, and characterization are there, but they're just barely there. I can say with confidence that GladOS's character was completely butchered in the second game, and since she was the only character with a voice in the first game it made a tremendous difference in the overall tone. What's more lamentable is the fact that the story itself is just marginally more complex overall than the first game. It was just that they made the second far more bombastic, less funny, and borderline obnoxious in some places for reasons beyond my comprehension. It's not like the story of the second game is really that much more complex, it was just handled poorly. First was that the humor was fairly witless, which is disappointing especially given how Valve are usually really, really good at humor. Far more slapstick-y, far too many jokes that simply fell flat, and too much humor in places that didn't need any. Portal 1's humor was just as abundant, but not nearly as "in your face" but rather far more subtle. Portal 2's humor started off fairly well but right when you revived GladOS it took a gigantic tumble and just kept falling until it hit rock bottom with the turret "opera" (it was seriously cringe-worthy) at the end. Subtlety was really what the game's presentation in general lacked. There really was no need to make the game "epic", but for some strange reason Valve tried far too hard to make it that way. The first game was about subtlety and quiet realizations that all is not well in this clinical "testing" facility, whereas the second was about BLAH BLAH BLAH HERE'S A FUNNY JOKE BLAH BLAH OH LOOK HERE'S A PLOT TWIST COMING 3 MILES AWAY LET ME EASE YOU INTO IT A HALF AN HOUR BEFORE WE SHOW IT. Had Portal 1 been done in Portal 2's style we would've had some squawkbox companion pointing out every last minutiae that the game laid out for you. "OOOH LOOK OVER THERE!! THERE'S NO SCIENTISTS BEHIND THAT GLASS WALL OVER THERE. ISN'T THAT MYSTERIOUS?? I WONDER WHY NOBODY'S WATCHING YOU QUESTION MARK QUESTION MARK?????????" No need for that at all. Valve is the king of subtle detail and for some mysterious reason they instead of opted to have chatterbox characters pointing everything out. It was even worse when they turned GladOS herself into the annoying chatterbox character to replace Wheatley. Seriously? Game-wise, it was fantastic. Can't think of anything they did particularly wrong, except maybe they shouldn't have bogged down the middle part with pixel-hunting puzzles so you could place a portal so you could get to the next puzzle. I understand they were trying to go for the whole "it's a patchwork of ruined testing sites and you have to venture out in this hostile area", but it didn't have to be so frequent or annoying. Everything else, though, was ace. Puzzles were of the perfect length with a few head scratchers, but even when they were easy they were designed in some way to make you feel great for figuring it out. Layering elements like using the anti-gravity beam (or whatever it's called) to transport gel to remote areas, using light walkways as protective walls against turrets, combining gels to make crazy acrobatic courses were great. I loved loved LOVED the creative uses of the white gel. Using portals to splatter white gel in walls so you could use those walls to splatter more white gel across more walls had me smiling. Despite the fact that it wasn't the most creative mechanic I absolutely loved it for some reason. All in all, I think the game is far more interesting in terms of the gameplay. For me, a NeoGAF post summed up my statements perfectly: (Looking forward to the co-op. I heard the puzzles in it were even better. Can't wait )

"Somehow"? That's awfully dismissive of the point, don't you think? You know exactly what point we were trying to make when saying that.

Uh, yes? I do believe there are several consumer protection laws to prevent that kind of situation (as in, force people to buy a product blindly, refuse refunds under all circumstances). Books are an odd situation, because you CAN actually go to Barnes and Noble and read the book in its entirety without buying it at all. Same for public libraries. And we don't cry DEATH TO PIRATEZ for people using a library.

OK...not sure how that changes my point. You originally said it was "wrong" to pirate a work against the will of the creator, did you not? Now I gave you examples of creators encouraging people to pirate the game, and now you call even the creators "wrong". You're shifting your argument now that I've pointed out that the "poor victims" aren't really always "poor victims". I mean the blanket statement that piracy is always wrong no matter what, even if it benefits both the creators of the content and the consumer, and even if the creators actually encourage it. Looks to me like you're insisting that piracy is "wrong" simply because it's illegal. I don't know how you can possibly say this when we've given several examples of the industry itself supporting and benefiting from piracy in a variety of different scenarios. We've gone beyond just talking from the pirates' side of things. It's like you're not even listening to anything we're saying.

I feel you're tiptoeing around my point. You asked for examples of where the ends justify the means, and I gave you several. Now, instead of acknowledging said examples, you're claiming even the creators of the content are "wrong" by either not caring or outright encouraging piracy. Previously you painted the creators as the "victims", but now that I've suggested that even the "victims" don't care sometimes you're saying even the "victims" are wrong. You've said it's morally "wrong" no matter what to pirate a creator's work against his will, but I've given several examples where it's not even against the will of the creator and now you're battling everyone, consumers AND creators, because they're behaving in a way that doesn't suggest that piracy is 100% "wrong" all the time. I just want to know how long you're going to keep making the same blanket statement. We've proven it to you several times already, and your'e just repeating that everything is "wrong".

Assuming this is directed at me: I'm trying to think of an example where the ends would justify the means but I'm not really seeing it. Well, I've given you a couple of examples (well, one and a half) where the ends of piracy most definitely justify the means. There's plenty of other situations where the creators don't even care. Tim Schafer once said he'd rather have people pirate Psychonauts and instead buy merchandise off the Double Fine site, since they make more money off that anyway. Valve says they absolutely don't care and don't even look at piracy numbers because they know it doesn't ultimately affect them. Several music bands also say they don't care and would rather get the exposure from pirated songs and have people go to the concerts instead, since they make far more money off concerts anyway. A Microsoft exec (I forget his name, it might've been Gates himself) once said that if people are going to pirate software, he'd at least want them to pirate Microsoft's software. There's a whole bunch of instances where even the creators don't care or actively encourage pirating. That doesn't justify freeloading but at the very least there's several people on the industry side of things who DON'T view things so black and white. I think we all understand both sides, but at least for me I see absolutely nothing productive by using blanket statements like "piracy is always wrong, always, never ever right, because never no always wrong". It's such a black-and-white, unrealistic stance with so many exceptions that it doesn't even reflect accurately in real world scenarios.

I was generally talking about the people buying a game on day 1, or buying a PC game they're not sure will run on their system and it turns out it really doesn't. In specific cases like in RAGE, where some people have horrid problems and not at all, I still maintain that the gamer is doing iD a favor if the gamer is willing to pirate the game to see if it works with their system so that they can buy it now rather than wait months until it's fixed for everybody (although pirating a 22 GB demo is pretty insane...). Taking a car by force for a test drive might be...uh...a "little" unorthodox, but at the same time you're still doing them a favor by insisting on having an interest in the car despite the seller not giving a shit. Piracy can and definitely has led to more purchases, however. I think it was Naruto that was a Japan-only anime/manga for the longest time, and the series got a tremendous explosion in popularity after its materials were rampantly pirated through the rest of the world. The company then saw an honest interest in the series, started publishing everywhere, and the rest is history. There's another example of a relatively obscure game that got pirated heavily but became so popular that its sequel(s) sold through the roof. I'd give you specifics but it's late over here and for the life of me I can't remember the exact game.

For me I have to look at the outcome, not the action, to determine if piracy or any form of "stealing" is "wrong". If the victim of the "theft" (in this case, the developer) actually benefits from this action it is in no way wrong. If the person who pirates a game, likes it, and still doesn't pay for it, it's completely immoral and unjustifiable. A person who pirates a game for demoing purposes and decides it's no good for them does no actual harm to the owner of the work. I'm looking at this from a consumer perspective. I've seen many, MANY cases where people pay full price for a game that had no demo only to be served with a broken, buggy, unoptimized, or just plain bad game with absolutely no way of getting a refund. Despite this transaction being "legal", it's 100% "wrong" in my eyes. Now, I'm certainly not advocating for eye-for-an-eye tactics using full, unrestricted piracy, but at the end of the day I just cannot and will not fault any consumer for simply trying out a product before committing money to it. Even if it's deemed illegal by some law somewhere, the consumer is in no way being morally flawed by making sure he/she's not getting gypped into playing a shit game. Especially when there are barely any demos (especially on PC) and the ones that do exist are incredibly poor indicators of the actual quality of a product. If the market is in such a state that it's driving people to pirate a game just to see if they want to buy it, something went wrong. In fact, consumers willing to pirate a game before buying are actually giving the developers of the game a bigger chance than they deserve, because if a consumer is wondering about the quality of a game and its developers outright refuse to offer their own product to potential buyers, that developer really shouldn't even deserve demo-by-piracy. A developer brazenly taking a "buy this blindly or hit the road" stance should not be met with sympathy but with a middle finger. At that point the consumer who pirates to demo a game is putting in far more effort than the developer themselves to sell the game. If it were me (and this happens a lot), the lack of demo on a game I'm unsure about means an automatic no-sale. People who instead go out of their way to download the game to demo it are outright doing the devs a favor, because if it were up to the devs only there wouldn't even be that second chance in the first place.

It wasn't until his death that I realized what kind of impact he had. I'm decidedly anti-Apple and disliked Jobs' way of running his business (he was, reportedly, a massive asshole to lower-level employees), but at the end of the day, despite my dislike for the Apple brand in general, I can't help but feel the industry has lost a big chunk by losing him. I suppose it's because his work was built on by countless other software companies that it's hard to imagine where consumer electronics would be without that initial push from Apple. Like cell phones, for instance. Despite the fact that my WP7 phone's OS is absolutely nothing like iOS, there's no denying MS would've even released the OS had the iPhone never existed. I never really quite realized the butterfly effect Jobs' work had until now.

So then it's essentially a "It's always wrong because it's wrong due to it being wrong" thing? Having such a primitive outlook on "stealing" distills the argument beyond recognition. You're ignoring every single real-world case where piracy actually benefits the creator of the work out of a binary concept of morality.

yes. A long time ago I quit this topic because someone just admitted "I know what I'm doing is wrong but I don't care". That's all I really cared to hear. So even if this method of trying out games results in direct profit to the creator of the content where there wouldn't be otherwise, you're still morally against it? That's an incredibly simplistic attitude, I have to say.

No what they're doing is illegally acquiring software and applying a "taste test" analogy to justify it morally. The problem which you guys are all again glossing over is this "Game companies generally don't offer this though because they're not selling you enjoyment. They're selling you the opportunity or an attempt at entertainment. That's not good enough for pirates and they take matters into their own hands. I'm fully willing to argue that even if you played a game that you didn't enjoy and you didn't pay for it then you're still doing something immoral" Oh yeah, and BTW: I thought we weren't allowed to use analogies with physical goods or oh, does that not apply to your arguments, only mine? That's an incredibly cynical attitude you're having over what amounts to a simple taste test. "Stealing then justifying" is certainly an argument that can be made, albeit one with heavy amounts of subjectivity injected in it to further a particular point. Trying a product by force before making a purchase isn't an "immoral" act on any plane of reality. It's illegal, sure, but immoral? Forgive me if I don't buy into that notion. You seem to be engrossed with the specific instance where a person downloads a game to try it, doesn't like it, and deletes it. Does your subjective opinion have any moral qualms about the opposite, in which a person downloads a game, likes it, and buys it? Or are you simply focusing on the worst case scenario to make your point? And yes, physical analogies are perfectly valid where appropriate. I'm putting your argument to the test against other situations where it is applicable, and needless to say it does not hold.

Completely agree, so stop pretending like you can know the future by saying that you know you wouldn't have bought the game. The more I think about this the more silly it sounds. "I know for a fact that I wouldn't have bought the game if I could never try it first but then by playing it I usually do buy the game." At this point, aren't you arguing against the very concept of "try before you buy" as it is applied to every good and service? Your quote can apply to practically any product of which you unsure and it doesn't sound nearly as absurd as you tried to put it. It's precisely the reason why grocery stores have grandmas on a makeshift stand giving you cups of sausage. People generally don't buy things they're completely unsure about, and the store is going out of its way to give you a taste of a product. Walk into a store and see the next product you see being sold by the granny manning the stand. Would you have bought the product right then and there, without tasting it? No? Then the "you can't know the future" argument is completely null and void. It occurs all the time, every time you walk into a store. It's likely you're just not even realizing how often your brain does this line of logic for you. All of our brains do it. It is precisely what some pirates like Dex are doing. They're tasting a product. Making their own stands, and eating their own cups of sausage to see if they want to buy. How is this in any way fallacious or absurd?

I have penny pinching tendencies. I even pinch on gift cards. I look out for deals even on store credit such that I can maximize my goodies as much as possible. Buying something then seeing about 10 different deals on that same thing flying by just chaps my ass. Could've used those monies for something else. Many, many other things. I need therapy.

Try reading Faiblesse.

*sigh* This is what I get for pre-ordering on Amazon. I could've very well bought the collection with my own cash for $25 instead of pissing away a gift card I had been hoarding for almost a whole year trying to cherrypick the best deal. First time in years I preorder anything too. I was just reminded of why I don't preorder things anymore.