Thursday Next

Agree with this pretty much entirely. If the game without the "on the disc DLC" is good value for money, and the "on the disc DLC" is also good value then it shouldn't matter how or when it is delivered to you.

Actually, and this is a bit of a leap, it makes me think of "Shades of Grey" - Set in a future distopia where one of the must see attractions is "The Last Rabbit". To see something that is the last of its kind (which is how I thought of each colossi) and then to destroy it... that game made me feel all kinds of conflicted. I mean, at first there's the apprehension as you enter the beast's lair, then once you've disturbed it there's the thrill of the battle, then once you've slain your foe there's this sense of, loss, sort of. Especially in a land where there are only what 20? creatures bigger than a dog, it seems such a pity to make a desolate landscape even more barren. :'(

No they don't. They close old, inactive services. I think you're getting your chicken and egg mixed up. EA close the servers on e.g. FIFA 09 because people have moved on to 10, World Cup and 11. They will close FIFA 10 once most of the people that play that have migrated across to World Cup, 11 and 12, and so on, and so on. They do not close old games to force people on to new ones.

EA always provides a 30-60 day sunset notice before closing servers, when they do it's because less than a fraction of a % of EA online users are on the service. I imagine that when EA start to sunset products that have used online pass they will stop selling passes that same day so you would have a minimum of 30 days playtime for your £10, and given that a month subscription to WoW is around that figure you'd struggle to argue that it wasn't a fair price. I don't know why you are talking about the number of players at the end of the cycle. The lifetime sales are in the millions, if £10 from each sale is for server upkeep then that's tens of millions of pounds. Enough to run the servers for some time. If you add on to that the number of second hand online passes, then it's even more.

The ending of most FF games make me well up a bit. Especially IX , X and X-2, surprised no one else has (seriously) said FFXIII actually, I found the end of that quite emotionally charged. I think part of it is because you invest so much time (comparatively) getting to the end of RPG's so you feel the more emotionally invested. Also, plus one me for Crisis Core and MGS4. And MGS . EDIT: On the subject of SotC, I felt a little sad inside every time I dropped a colossus. The music did a great job of making you feel like you'd just done something really rather bad. When you think about it, the colossi are really innocent in all this, they haven't sacked any towns or razed any villages, they're just hanging around in their part of the world till you rock up and bleed the life out of them. ^I don't think that's a spoiler.^ Feel free to mod it if you wish.

I'm guessing

I'm okay with stuff like that. To me that's just people writing how they speak, and in informal settings like the forum, twitter, instant messaging, etc, that doesn't bother me, because functionally it's the same as an informal conversation with a friend. So I've been known to say things like "gonna" (apparently enough other people do that Chrome spell check recognizes it as a word) and "wanna" (that too), even though ordinarily I'm a grammar nazi. Somewhat relatedly, I don't think I've ever seen someone write "Imunna", even though people say that quite frequently. Somewhat related to this... I love P Diddy's text in "Get Him to the Greek" I now always read "smiley face" in my head when I see

Yeah, it makes sense. Unfortunately there's no such thing as a perfect system, EA need to make sure that the costs of running their servers are met, this is one way of doing that. At least it's not as restrictive as PC serial codes which can limit the entitlement to the whole game.

Perhaps I wasn't clear, I agree that pre-sell / launch day DLC is there to boost pre-orders. More pre-orders = more bulk orders from retailers = more money for the publisher. DLC that is released soon after launch is for retention to keep new sales numbers high. The online pass code downloads a 106kb file to "unlock" online access (at least it does on PS3). I'm pretty sure that this entitles any user on the console to go online with the title (not 100% on that though - I can check if you want?). Customers still have a choice, cheap second hand with no online, or full priced new with online.

Loved hearing Journey kick in when the dude in Tron: Legacy turned on the arcade. I think I was the only one in the cinema who knew that Journey had done a song other than the one that they copied from Glee.

The DLC included as part of DA2 is Project 10 Dollar. There's no point doing an online access code for DA2 because it's single player. Don't see why you are happy with first purchaser content for DA2 but not an Online Pass for online multiplayer titles. It's the same thing. Buy it new, get everything, get it second hand and you have to pay for the extras. As to why DLC is released early, it's basically to convince people to hang on to their copy of the game as long as possible. A lot of people complete games in the first week, sometimes first day of release. Unless it is like BFBC2 or GT5 with plenty of depth and replay value and online you're going to get a lot of trade ins, which reduces the publishers profit (but not the retailer's of course bloody Chewie s.o.b.) when the market is flooded with second hand copies.

1. I didn't say he was wrong. I said he was being a prick. 2. QA aren't "low cost", they are "low paid". QA costs a significant amount because while the individual wages are pathetic, even internally billed QA man hours are quite high (£30 - £70/QA Man Hour depending on the specific test group... functional, certification, etc.). 3. You need to increase QA hours by a huge amount to capture and fix a high number of graphical issues. Graphical Issues (especially minor ones like dodgy textures and screen tearing) are waaaaaay down the bottom of the ladder when it comes to bug severity, so even if hundreds of people are on a project, they will be focussing on more serious errors like networks falling down, crashes, hangs and so forth. 4. With regard to his comment about "doing some basic QA on PC" to prevent shoddy ports. It is impossible to test every configuration of hardware and software on public PC's, especially when a lot of that software will never be formally supported (like virtual DVD drives and such). It's not QA's or Epic's fault, it's just an issue inherent with PC as a platform. 5. If you had an infinite number of QA staff working for an infinite amount of time, they wouldn't make the graphics (or the game) better. They can only spot what is broken and ask Dev to fix it. If the graphics, controls, audio, storyline etc. are lame by design then that is how they will stay. In summary. Jon should never speak about QA. I do agree that Noelviga is not 100% on the money. Selling games for £150, while great for developers and publishers, won't necessarily mean better games. A number of times the publisher I worked for tried throwing loads of people and money at a project to get it done quicker and up to standard. It doesn't work. In game development Time > Money.

Prefer Separate Ways tbh.

Dragon Age DLC, much like FallOUt DLC generally gives you a fairly decent bang:buck ratio. There's normally new areas, new characters and additional voice work so most people don't feel ripped off. Unlike MW2 dropping the same maps in the same engine into a new game and charging you £15 for the pleasure.

Jonathan Blow's next game 'The Witness'? Although that's an island not just a desert. Journey. By "That Game Company" of FlOwer and FlOw FaMe.

She's been a bit mental of late so...

@CyberRat: Jon's being a prick. QA are one of the most undervalued, underpaid departments in the industry. No one in QA in the games industry is in it for the money. I left an office job on £18k to get a job in QA for £12k, one of my former colleagues recently left his QA role (he was on ~18k after 7 years in the job - yay progression!) to get a job testing financial software and immediately got a salary over twice that. Everyone who hasn't done QA thinks it's a doss, that you cock around all day playing games, well that's bullshit. It's a job that requires a lot of expertise to do well and you NEVER get thanked for it (dev always get pissy when you "break their game" rather than being thankful that you saved them from releasing a broken piece of shit). Seriously, don't fucking rag on QA.

Most anticipated? Call bias if you will, but BF3 all the way.

2 x iDevice, but no Android. Tut tut. I've just got a PSP, PS3, DS lite and HTC Desire HD. I do have a PC/Laptop and I do play some games on it (mostly BSG Online) but I don't really consider it a gaming machine.

Was just looking at some old Portal stuff when I stumbled upon this...

Oh yeah. Blur was quite a fun "racer" too. That does split screen. I love split screen!

...says "hi" Pisses me off. WoW is the only sustainable MMO. EVE says "Hi". No it doesn't, it doesn't say anything. Also, the CSI meme. *Takes off glasses* Needs to die in a fire. (especially when suffixed by) YEEEEAAAAH! I fucking hate it.

http://www.ubi.com/UK/Games/Info.aspx?pId=9414 (Sorry, had to be done). Trine is a good coop game, not too fast paced and very team-worky. If she's into the rough stuff then Shank is a pretty cool side scrolling beat/shoot 'em up. Little Big Planet is an obvious choice too.

Back to the tilde thing. What effect does "~" Have on "Kawaii desu~!" or what ever it was...