RockyRan

Which is even worse, IMO. Rather than provide an actually desirable product that people want to buy on its own merits, EA just takes away major components of the products people have already paid for. That's not the way to do good business.

That's the silver lining I'm seeing in this. This most definitely will force MS and Sony into releasing their next console sooner than they expected, because they simply can't market their consoles as well knowing that there's a console that's more powerful than theirs, even if it's just marginally more powerful.

The bigger problem is that half these people don't even secure your information properly, based on Lulzsec's antics a couple of months ago. They want everyone to register for their own proprietary online services, but aren't willing to secure them properly or otherwise put any real effort into them. Not to veer the conversation off-topic again, but it's kind of like EA's shutting down servers of games. They want to run their own system, but aren't willing to actually invest time and money into doing it properly.

So EA has gone ahead and shut down more multiplayer servers: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/07/14/next-round-of-ea-server-culling-includes-army-of-two-battlefiel/ Does anyone else think that this...erm..."tradition" won't be stopped despite the Project 10 Dollar thing? I mean it IS EA. They've had no qualms about having their cake and eating too at the expense of the consumer.

I honestly agree with this. Everyone is vilifying the guy based on speculation and theories. Theories which could be right or way off the mark. Despite the accusation being... pretty insane, I would also be upset if someone published my emails just like that. I would be far more upset if someone accused me of seriously threatening to kill children. Just saying.

Exactly, there's no pleasing everyone. You should read some of the comments on finalfantasyforums.net, now granted they're mostly all European teenagers, but still, there's no pleasing them. The only Final Fantasy I'd say is not good, would be II, as there was a lot of things broken about that game, somethings have been fixed in various re-releases but it's still hard to play. There's other games I don't like but that's all personal preferences. Final Fantasy fans seem to mix up their opinions with facts. This is a dangerous mindset to take. There is always a happy medium between two extremes. You can't say that people hated FF12's big world (I actually do not recall ever hearing this) And say that Square's only alternative to this was remove all towns, and cramp up the entire game. No product out there can ever made everybody happy, what you should shoot for, is to keep improving though. And FF13 was NOT an improvement. Exactly. I've never really understood the whole "people complain about EVERYTHING" mindset. The FF series is played by a very large amount of people, no? That means that there are millions of players with different tastes and things that they each want, no? It's not reasonable to think that response has to be UNIVERSALLY positive just because Squeenix has gone from one polar extreme of the gameplay spectrum to the other. There's a whole bunch of people who like FFXII, and there's a whole bunch of people who liked FFXIII. It boggles the mind that some people think that NOT thinking like collective sheeple is somehow "bad". Popular series always have whiners. Doesn't mean that the people who whine about one thing are exactly the same people who are whining about another. And even if they were, what's the harm, really? So people wanted more linearity after FFXII, doesn't mean they are suddenly obligated to like it when Squeenix then releases what seems to them is a glorified hallway simulator.

My connection between ME and CT was a whole lot more superficial. I simply thought that CT and ME did one thing very well that every other game can't even begin to do: make really good characters, give them really good backstories, and engage the player with said characters in a meaningful way. But yes, I'm also one of those people who was reminded of CT for one reason or another when playing ME.

I really don't mean to beat the drama horse past its expiration date, but accusing Dean of all people of death threats isn't exactly the most rational or intelligent thing to do whatsoever. That's the truth. I've never really had any respect for Crecente, and it's instances like these that solidify my reasoning. Aside from maintaining a tremendously arrogant air about his writings and opinions, he holds irrational grudges and is completely unable to distance criticism from personal attacks, and because of this he goes out of his way to silence anyone critical of himself or how the site is run. His typical "e-mail me instead of posting concerns" response is simply a ploy to get people to privately e-mail him so he can privately ignore them, and should anyone make public suggestions they're taken as "trolling" as an easy way to dismiss anything that isn't in accordance to how he runs the site. Such are not the inner workings of a rational individual, I'm sorry to say. He and the rest of the writer staff knew perfectly well who Dean was, because Dean made a very large impact and following within the site's community. Crecente himself knows perfectly well who Dean is, and he should know perfectly well that Dean would never make any death threats, even in jest. The fact that Joel blatantly and abruptly changed to subject to throw such a nonsensical allegation, then even more abruptly cut off the line of communication when Dean shared this accusation (and rightfully so) with others reeks of intervention from a certain individual. Death threats of any kind, even made on the internet as a joke, are completely deplorable and neither Dean nor anyone else in this community would ever make them, and just in case...some other 3rd party is reading these posts, the purpose of this topic is, never was, and never will be a series of personal attacks or threats of any kind on the Kotaku writing staff. We only criticize the site or their jobs as writers, never on a personal level. And to be perfectly honest, I find that falsely accusing anyone of making a death threat against children is just as offensive to the accused as it is to the reciptient such a threat, because it means Crecente has absolutely no respect for Dean if he seriously believes that Dean would be so mentally deranged as to make a threat of that kind. So forgive me if I came off as "aggresive" when I said those allegations were "batshit insane", but I genuinely believe that's what they are. I'm not saying he personally is, I'm saying his allegations are. If Crecente actually did receive a death threat of that kind (I wouldn't doubt it. There are millions of sick people on the internet who get off on making those kinds of threats), that's really his problem and he doesn't need to accuse Dean of making them. He knows perfectly well how Dean behaves and says due to the sheer popularity of his posts. Dean's well-known likability, Crecente's well-known antics in trying to censor criticism and holding grudges, and Joel's incredibly conspicuous change of attitude don't give me confidence that Crecente was acting rationally when telling Joel of said "threats". I'm going to give Crecente the benefit of the doubt (for the umpteenth time) and assume he didn't just make that "threat" up, and I'm going to assume he simply got two people mixed up. With that in mind, he really didn't act rationally, because even five seconds of cursory thought over this would've easily let him realize that, no, the guy on Kotaku who commented rationally for several YEARS and was well respected by the community really wouldn't have made a threat of that kind. If I ever took a death threat seriously you bet your ass I would remember very well who it is and wouldn't get it mixed up the way I mix two regular Joes on any random forum. Things are just a tad different in that case. And either Joel was massively gullible or he was simply looking for an excuse to end the conversation abruptly. In short, neither of them acted rationally. As is typical.

Did you reply back to him? I know those "accusations" are batshit crazy, but all you really have to do is make Crecente look like a jackass. Something along the lines of "It's quite possible that Crecente mistook my account for someone else's, because I never made any statement like that at all. It's completely understandable getting people mixed up, though, considering just how many people move in and out of Kotaku's commenting pool" You know, fight batshit insanity with calm rationality. Looks like Joel hasn't been around Crecente enough yet to get as retarded as he is, so you can probably talk some sense into him. Again, not that it matters. TAY and Kotakuites is dead for all intents and purposes so talking to Joel isn't really going to accomplish much other than "ok, he really WASN'T going to kill children".

So long as the community can mod the UI however the hell it wants, I really don't care what the vanilla interface looks like.

I'd agree with that. Doesn't look like Nintendo's interested in modest sales on anything anymore.

Huh. I've never really noticed that before. I tend to just look at the sales, decide what to get then and there and not look at the list again.

Wow that's just...wow. Just curious, what other game has done this before?

Bingo. I'm not talking about CoD/Halo/MW type of "hardcore", I'm talking about the actual gaming enthusiast. If I misinterpreted it and took their E3 presser to mean "we're appealing to the dudebro gamer", then so be it. If they were actually trying to appeal to the enthusiast I don't see how these recent decisions are helping. There's no money in appealing to the enthusiast so there's no way Nintendo would do it. I always interpreted Nintendo's E3 efforts as "hey, did you see all of those AAA multi-plats that came out on everything but the Wii? Well, now we're getting those too for you 'hardcore ' players!" If there was "no money in appealing to the enthusiast", why are we still seeing said niche games, sometimes coming from Microsoft and Sony themselves? It's a bit silly to think that Nintendo is in no position for some experimentation. They can, they're just too lazy and/or greedy to actually try to spread their wings, even a little bit.

Bingo. I'm not talking about CoD/Halo/MW type of "hardcore", I'm talking about the actual gaming enthusiast. If I misinterpreted it and took their E3 presser to mean "we're appealing to the dudebro gamer", then so be it. If they were actually trying to appeal to the enthusiast I don't see how these recent decisions are helping.

While I definitely agree with the business reasons I have to say the consumer reasons simply win out. As a consumer, seeing Nintendo feed us with the "WE CARE ABOUT THE HARDCORE GAMER NOW" malarkey throughout the entirety of their E3 press conference only to turn around and say "we're not doing niche titles because they're not profitable enough" reeks of hypocrisy. They do realize catering to the hardcore doesn't necessarily mean unicorns made of money that shit $100 bills, right? It requires ample room for experimentation and pandering to niche audiences in addition to their portfolio of tried-and-true heavy hitter titles that will sell millions regardless of the content on the actual game. Look at Sony and see just how many things they've put their name on, whether they're games they've published or games they invested in. Things like Demon's Souls, Fat Princess, Wipeout HD, ModNation Racers, Folklore, them HD collections like the Sly Cooper/Team ICO/God of War. This stuff isn't guaranteed to sell millions. In fact, a few of these didn't sell past one million. But the truth of the matter is that they expand their portfolio to complement their heavy-hitter titles like Uncharted and LBP. Not everything is guaranteed to sell, but there's a healthy amount of experimentation going on. I don't see that kind of commitment from Nintendo, at least not NOA. NOA seems to be fixated only on what's guaranteed to sell millions, not even looking at experiments that may or may not sell, or may just break even. But it's not only about the short-term goals of that specific game being released. It's the long-term effect that these titles has, where Nintendo can gain an expanded range of titles that they have a hand in, whether they're funded by them or simply published. If Nintendo isn't willing to take a risk with three JRPGs whose release would certainly clear a bit the drought of their dying console, I really don't see how they're going to devote an entire console catering to the hardcore. Because the "hardcore" aren't just looking for Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. They're also looking for the obscure, more experimental games on niche genres. It's not like Nintendo's exactly strapped for cash either. I look at this poor decision and use this to look into the future. They're not willing to take such a small risk now, why would I expect them to take a large risk later?

Yeah, I didn't mind Mater in the first movie either, but I definitely do see an issue with making him the protagonist of another movie. It's like when Michael Richards got a new show about him playing a detective and the idiot producers were like "MAKE IT MOAR LIKE KRAMER FROM SEINFELD. EVERYBODY LIKES KRAMER FROM SEINFELD". Then he did, people realized the character of Kramer was incredibly shitty and shallow when put right at the forefront as the protagonist, and the show bombed shortly thereafter. There are some background characters that really should be just that. Background characters.

So Dean's point is all the more true now

Agreed. Looks to me like they only want their commenters to act like trophy wives. Talk and chatter and keep an air of being "sociable", but shut up when your "superiors" tell you to and don't talk back.

I remember that day. I was out literally wine tasting in Napa. So while soft classical music played in the background of some classy winery you peoples were killing each other over there. I found it amusing when I came back and saw the place in shambles. I was like "I leave for one afternoon and everyone kills themselves".

I'm gonna go with the Dualshock 3, with the 360 controller a close second. The only thing I truly dislike about the DS3 were the triggers, which was solved by buying those plastic clip-ons. I also like the weightlessness of it. Makes playing much more effortless in my opinion. I find the 360 controller to be far too bulky, and the battery tumor on the back (yes, Yante just invented that term) really annoys me. D-pad is crap, and the bumpers are, to put it simply, uncomfortable. Games that rely very heavily on shoulder buttons (like Demon's Souls) would be an absolutely disaster with those bumpers. And strangely enough, I prefer the DS3's looser joysticks for shooters. The stiffer sticks on the 360 makes me less accurate at shootin'-and-tootin' than the 360. So yes, DS3 for me. I also liked the GameCube controller just because of the epic rumble on that thing. That thing shook like no other.

And once again, Crecente proudly displays his idiocy, this time completely missing the point of the Daily Show segment. I like how he "updated" the article with an "I'M NOT GOING TO ADMIT I'M WRONG" bit.