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Without the contributions and crowdfunding Elite: Dangerous might not have happened! There are a huge number of people who have made this happen (including myself)! That money , not only gets you early access to the game but to actually help shape the games development. The reviews so far , despite the fact that were still in Beta have been amazing , some commenting that the game is remarkably polished for this stage in the game. Others have said its occulus rift support is possibly the best showcase of the hardware out there at the moment. http://www.pcgamer.com/uk/2014... N

Well, my biggest time waster is now on Linux, without having to fiddle with WINE or anything. I guess I can now relegate this commercial OS to a seldom used secondary partition. Woot!

Also:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/06/10/sid-meiers-civilization-v-now-available-for-steamos-and-linux/?ns_campaign=article-feed&ns_mchannel=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/06/11/civilization-5-linux/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rockpapershotgun%2Fsteam+(Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%3A+Steam+RSS)

mod parent up

** What we've learned now:

http://www.reddit.com/r/h1z1/c...


PC Gamer at 00:33 on 10 April 2014
Story: http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04...

Archived: https://archive.is/kbRot

If you're talking shit in the lounge or common area, then you deserve a banhammer right to the forehead. And if you're playing a non-violent or otherwise cooperative game, then nasty epithets really aren't cool.

But combat games? Actually shooting at other player opponents? Nuh-uh. Anything goes, jungle rules and survival of the fittest. If you're hunting other humans, then you should not only expect such nasty talk, but you should desire hearing it. When you've just flung a knife halfway across the map and skewered some n00b in the eyeball, then hearing them call you a bitch faggot is just icing on the pwncake.

There's also something else to consider? Being a nasty little troll can come with some really horrible, but incredibly spectacular consequences.

This isn't quite the same as that old "well, just don't use it" canard.

Valve was engaging in a set of behaviors which you considered acceptable, and so "purchased" (more on why "purchased" is in quotes in a second) some games from them.

They've changed their behavior. Let's say you don't want to do business with them anymore. You could, of course, stop using Steam ... and lose access to all your games, which you probably thought you "purchased" in some sort of "I can use it for the rest of my life" sense, but actually just got a license to use for as long as they feel like it. This is different from a "service" where the expectation is that the benefit you're getting from them is recurring on some sort of cycle.

Someone will, doubtlessly, point out that you can put the Steam client into offline mode. To which I'll say that you can't do it indefinitely. To which they'll say "but Valve says you should be able to do that," to which I'll point to http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/11... which basically says "Valve says they want to make offline mode work 'forever', but they're not there yet."

It doesn't really matter, IMHO, that the scope of what they did here was relatively minor. The issue is that Valve, much like Sony, feels like they can trawl through your computer in areas that have nothing to do with playing the game. Today it was minor because it makes sense to start small; but if they feel comfortable trawling your DNS history -- and Newell clearly says that he has no problem with this practice -- what else do they feel comfortable doing?

I think GP might be referring to AMD's Mantle API. Apparently Battlefield 4 supports it.

The fact that digital goods are effectively infininite and people are talking moronically about selling 'used digital games'

While physical goods are inherently limited, digital goods can be limited artificially.

For instance:
1) the only reason the phoenix mount in WoW has value is that it's hard to get and people want it. Blizzard could make the supply endless, but chooses not to.
2) Furthermore, the reason items have significant value in Eve Online is that developers manage an economy which artificially limits supply.
3) Similarly, "cold hard cash" is limited in "real life" in the same way.

The government could easily print 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bills and give them out to every US citizen, and the value of the US dollar would plummet.

The supply of a good can be limited by something other than the physics of the natural universe.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/22/eve-online-lost-cargo/
http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/eve-online-battle-costs-thousands/

Steam doesn't allow you to buy or sell used games.

yet
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/01/valve-sued-by-german-consumer-group-because-steam-users-cant-resell-games/

Specifically, the European Court of Justice ruled last year on a case involving Oracle and UsedSoft, with the latter wanting to resell used Oracle software. The court found that licences could be resold, notwithstanding a claim to the contrary in Oracle's licence agreement. Interestingly, they also ruled that if Oracle was offering free maintenance updates to the original purchaser then they must continue to offer the same to the purchaser of the used software licence.

Lets not forget German consumer protection agency (VZVB) suing Steam for the exact same thing this year.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/01/valve-sued-by-german-consumer-group-because-steam-users-cant-resell-games/

We might be able to finally resale DRM riddled Steam games in a year or two.

Yes. Germany also hates Valve because they are jealous. It has nothing to do with consumer rights.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/01/valve-sued-by-german-consumer-group-because-steam-users-cant-resell-games/

Those silly socialist Germans with their free health care and consumer rights.

introduced by Brad Wardell of Stardock? That certainly went well for them with Elemental : War of Magic, that was completely unplayable on release and basically not complete. It was so bad that they had to give away the expansion, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress for free?

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/03/elemental-launch-was-catastrophic-poor-judgment/
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/26/fallen-enchantress-free-elemental-stardock/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamer's_Bill_of_Rights
http://www.destructoid.com/crashes-and-drama-surround-elemental-s-launch-182350.phtml

introduced by Brad Wardell of Stardock? That certainly went well for them with Elemental : War of Magic, that was completely unplayable on release and basically not complete. It was so bad that they had to give away the expansion, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress for free?

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/03/elemental-launch-was-catastrophic-poor-judgment/
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/26/fallen-enchantress-free-elemental-stardock/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamer's_Bill_of_Rights
http://www.destructoid.com/crashes-and-drama-surround-elemental-s-launch-182350.phtml

This is true, we always knew that the game would shut down at some point. However...

The MMO genre of game is especially conducive to getting people to invest enormous amounts of time, effort, and money into the product. The average City of Heroes launch day veteran has probably spend between $1,500 and $2,000 on this game, many much more. And many have spent thousands of hours playing--not just mashing buttons, but coming up with creative stories, even contributing to user-generated content areas such as the Mission Architect system that allowed players to create their own custom enemies, contacts, mission objectives, dialog, etc. In other words, what NCsoft doesn't realize is that at this point, we have just as much stake in the game as they do (some would argue more), yet they hold the ultimate authority to unilaterally declare, "Okay, game over, we're going to destroy years of your effort and a large monetary investment." Not because the game wasn't making money--it was--but because they're undergoing a corporate "realignment".

Not only that, but in the process, they laid off over 80 employees at Paragon Studios, the Mountain View, California development studio that built and maintained City of Heroes. Before the shutdown announcement, a group of employees and investors tried to acquire the IP from NCsoft to keep the game running, but NCsoft wouldn't sell it. After the shutdown announcement, thanks to the SaveCoH movement, another attempt was made, but again, NCsoft wouldn't play ball, even releasing a statement that they had "exhausted all options" in trying to sell the game. Excuse me? Exhausted all options? They hold the IP. Now that the shutdown has come and gone and the community has largely dispersed, practically speaking, it's worth zero. It's impossible for them to have "exausted all options" unless and until the ink is dried on the page transferring the game and its IP to another company or organization that can run it.

Not only that, but this isn't the first time that NCsoft has done this. This is the fifth game in as many years. Auto Assault. Exteel. Dungeon Runners. Tabula Rasa. Now City of Heroes. Clearly to me, the company is an MMO killer. The players of City of Heroes aren't the first group of people to have their hard work and investment destroyed, and apparently, NCsoft doesn't really care very much that it's systematically destroying communities and the output of people's creative expression. As a gamer, why the hell would I ever want to buy a game like Guild Wars 2 or any of NCsoft's other games? Answer: I wouldn't, and they won't be seeing any money from me again.

So does NCsoft have the legal right to shut down City of Heroes, lay off everyone at Paragon Studios, and carry on as if nothing happened even though the company's own investor relations statements indicate that the game was steadily profitable and it had the overwhelming support of its development staff and management? Sure, no one is disputing that. However, I do firmly believe that NCsoft, and MMO game companies in particular, have an ethical obligation to do everything they can to plan for a game's sunset ahead of time and be willing to release the game property to another company or third-party organization willing to take over running it if one is willing to (which, in this case, there were multiple parties interested in doing so). To not do so shows an immense amount of disrespect for your customers, and you run the risk of generating the negative publicity and outcry such as the one NCsoft is facing right now.

Seems like the case.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/16/valve-makes-steam-for-linux-official/

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/09/13/steam-linux-client-release-looks-imminent-games-and-beta-spotted/

http://tech2.in.com/news/pc/steam-greenlight-lists-games-for-linux/435732

"Casual" in the "here's a DVD-R or ISO of the game disc and a keygen, just install it" sense.

Sure, various cracking groups have cracked Steam DRM for quite a few games. They always will, and I'm sure Valve (and others) take it into consideration. There's always some group of people who will never pay for anything, but there's nothing effective that one can do about that.

Steam provides a decently-priced integrated marketplace for games from a variety of producers. They have well-connected download servers all over the world (I often can download from Steam faster than I can from well-populated torrent swarms), and I can buy a game legitimately, download it, and have it up and running through Steam faster than I can get it illicitly. There's also no worries about unwanted malware with games from Steam -- that's always a concern from torrent sites.

Yes, the game being locked to one's Steam account can be a bit annoying, but I generally buy games and replay them for years rather than selling them so it's not a huge concern for me. Other than GOG.com (which tends to have more older games rather than new releases), Steam is pretty much the least-evil distribution system for games. I'd much rather deal with the relatively minor drawbacks of Steam (and benefit from its advantages) than deal with the crap from Ubisoft: Securom, StarForce, etc. are all horrible.

PC gamer has an article about the subject in which they quote Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve:

It seems other games companies who had tried to penetrate Russia hadn’t done so due to a the infamous levels of piracy. “The people who are telling you that Russians pirate everything are the people who wait six months to localize their product into Russia,” said Newell. “It doesn’t take much in terms of providing a better service to make pirates a non-issue.”

[...]

Of course, a lack of internet access could have contributed to Russia’s sky-high piracy levels, with cracked black-market DVDs offering many an offline gaming experience. But the inevitable, interminable spread of internet access across the country comes with improved anti-piracy measures on most titles.

This wasn’t Valve’s approach, though – it offered the carrot instead of the crowbar. “The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work,” Newell said. “It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”

Consider the depth of a $50 or $60 game in 2012 compared to the depth of a $50 or $60 game in 1985.

If by "depth" you mean "pretty pictures", then, yes, the 2012 game has more. If, on the other hand, you mean "broad non-linear story, great replay value, and 100 or so hours for first-time play", then maybe the 2012 game beats the 1985 game, but try comparing to the 1990-1995 era, and the 2012 games pale in comparison.

Seriously, try something playing something like "Darklands" (1995, available from GOG) with no reference to any walkthough/item database/etc. on the Internet and see how long it takes you to completely "finish" just the main quest. Then, try and complete pretty much every type of side quest, too. The sad part is that although I loved that game, it's pretty bad compared to many that were released in the next 5 years or so, since many of the side-quests are randomly generated and generic. The number of "all time great" games that come from before 2001 is pretty large considering how bad the graphics are at times. Take this list from just last year, and you can see that single-player games from the last century are well-represented.

Since about 2003, though, pretty pictures and multiplayer became more of a focus for developers, and only games that break through beyond those features are considered as "deep".

A sniper game that involves hiding in the one place for 2 days straight, for instance, may be realistic, but why would anyone want to play it?

Because that is one of Peter Molyneux's 21 experimental games... And will include a £20,000 sandwich, and a £100,000 bed. http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/07/peter-molyneuxs-new-game-curiosity-will-feature-a-50000-dlc-chisel/

BTW OT but anybody know when the big summer sale starts? My youngest has been saving up for it and I swear every other question is "Has it started yet?" so knowing the date and time would be nice, thanks.

Not sure when it starts, but the game list was leaked all over yesterday if that helps at all - http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/07/09/possible-steam-summer-sale-details-arise/

And then you have something like TF2, which not only quintupled it's player base by going free-to-play, but has a conversion rate of free players buying items of 20-30%. Lesson? Make your game fun and make the premium content a) worthwhile but b) not absolutely necessary to play the game, and you can make a lot of money. This makes for an interesting read (like how they found highly advertised 75% off sales increased revenue by 40x for Counter-Strike).

Does this have something to do with the stupid EA Origins tie-in that caused Valve to pull the stupid game from Steam? http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/16/crysis-2-steam-removal-not-an-ea-decision/

They should take a leaf out of the Valve Software marketing handbook.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/25/gabe-newell-on-piracy-and-steams-success-in-russia/

This summary quite literally illustrates exactly what is driving away gamers, and which nothing to do with the games but instead the various companies behind it and their various little pay-as-you-go niches (map packs, songs, excessive subscriptions, etc.). It's all about the various companies involved in the development and marketing of a game, who nearly always turn out to be greedy little pigs. Take, for instance, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and their Double XP Promotion. This really pisses off real gamers (the ones who play a lot and get better through time and practice), and especially pisses off those who had to work hard for their last prestige. One mere example, but, regardless, they really need to knock it off.

Not all US developers are bad. Runic Games for example.

Nintendo DS 4%
Nintendo 3 DS 1%
PC 11%
PLAYSTATION®3 19%
PSP 2%
Wii 27%
XBOX 360 36%
Other 1%
TOTAL 100%

Of note is that the PC figure was 7% for Q1 last year, up to 11% this year. So the PC, while not comprising most of Ubisoft's sales, has been increasing in marketshare even while their DRM was on hold.

I would be interested in seeing a profit breakdown by platform, though. With some publishers saying that 90% of their sales are digital, it wouldn't surprise me if PC games are making more profit.

How about $70 for an monocle, that does nothing but show up in your ingame avatar.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/22/eve-online-now-sells-70-monocles/

GRID PC servers saved by GameRanger

This game is dead on arrival to me. I was looking forward to a new "Quake" (read: multiplayer awesomeness) and it seems like they are giving us a single player only (for all intents and purposes) game instead.

Now, single player games are fine. I really like Mario, Zelda, a lot of the games on XBLA (Castle Crashers, Limbo, etc, etc) and I could name a ton more games that are fun single player/co-op experiences. That being said, id isn't a company I expect great single player games from. I expect great multiplayer games from them! Games with lasting power.

Sure, playing a great single player game could take 12 hours to complete, and another 10 to replay if it's that good, but multiplayer games can make me want to play for _years_. Quake 1/2/3, I don't want to know how many hours I put into those with friends on a LAN. When RAGE was announced, I was excited for new IP from id! What new things are they going to think up for multiplayer to push themselves ahead of all the rest in the competitive scene? It seems, so far, there are no dedicated servers! no deathmatch! and NO CTF!!! That's grea..... wait, what? The only multiplayer they are going to have is vehicle combat and co-op? Who is creating this game again?

No Dedicated Servers: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95955-John-Carmack-Says-No-Dedicated-Servers-for-Rage
Co-Op/Vehicles with NO DM/CTF: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/04/19/rage-multiplayer-modes-revealed-no-deathmatch-or-capture-the-flag/

Ok, so, it's pretty much a single player game only. I'll save my $60 thank you. I was sincerely looking forward to another AAA awesome multiplayer title. I guess if you want to play a multiplayer shooter, go grab CoD#12 or whatever they are up to now.. shudder.. id software is apparently removing themselves from the running. Movie style, linear games, seem to be the RAGE.. I think I'll get off my own lawn now..

So, Valve is going to file for bankruptcy soon right? All their games are being pirated and Steam was a total bust.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/02/14/steam-controls-up-to-70-of-the-pc-download-market-and-is-tremendously-profitable/

Any day now...

The Tribes franchise was purchased by HiRez Studios. Their current game is Global Agenda, an fps/mmo hybrid, focusing on smaller squad based team combat. Their first Tribes title will be Tribes Universe.

An article with more information.

He was involved in the creation of Wurm Online before Minecraft as well. He did fantastic things as a one-man army working on that client to do things that hadn't been done before in cross-platform 3D Java gaming.

See also notch on pcgamer.

According to this month's PC Gamer, yes.

Well obviously for overall computer operation SLI'ing is probably the last thing on the list. But, as PC Gamer's The Vede pointed out in the March 2005 issue you can get top of the line frame rates with an SLI'ed system.

They tested a system with two 6800 Ultras SLI'ed together and raised the specs of Far Cry to full on -- they turned everything to the max. AA, AS etc. Average frame rate? 60 FPS. Compare that to a system with just one 6800 and you only got 21 FPS.

Like the original submission said, SLI'ing cards is only really for the hardcore gamer in all of us. I get by fine on High settings in Far Cry. AA is really overrated to me.

Umm, maybe if I didn't use a PC at all and instead played games on a console of some kind, you could draw the conclusion that I was a "console gamer". Since I use my PC for games, one might instead come to the conclusion that I am some kind of "PC Gamer", or something like that. Heck, in an ideal world there might even be a magazine dedicated to people like me.

Regardless of what you've chosen to label me, I fail to see your point. If you're suggesting that I could simply swap my PC for Console X and rid the world of a copy of Windows XP, I'm sorry to inform you even though I'm the happy owner of three other game systems (PS2, GameCube, GBA), I still generally prefer PC titles over those released for consoles.

This game earned one of the lowest PC Gamer score ever. I think it was 6 % but I'm not sure. Reading the review was quite entertaining :)

...[in 1993] id Software unleashed "Doom" on the world. Millions of people downloaded and enjoyed the free, abbreviated version of the game...

Am I the only person who in 1993 would get his shareware buy buying the latest copy of PC Gamer, which came with a disk with one (maybe two) games on it? Admittedly, I lived way out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, but still. I'm not even sure I had put a modem in my computer yet.

You forgot to mention PC Gamer.

PC Gamer Holiday Gift Guide

Is there a gamer in your life who seems to have everything? Want to drop any subtle hints to family or friends about what you'd like for the holidays? We've decked out the house with the kit and goodies that'll make any gamer's wintery dreams come true. From the gameroom to the bathroom, cool gifts and gadgets can be useful everywhere you look.

Some dude that went by Thresh won it. PC Gamer even gave him a job as a staff writer, with a monthly column on multiplayer gaming. Yeah, because winning a quake tournament makes you qualified to write a magazine column.

PK
"Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?"

The February issue of PC Gamer has UT2 as its cover story. The website hasn't been updated yet, but the magazine's already hit bookstores.

Actually, PC Gamer did review Ultima IX the way you mentioned, and gave it a strong 80%, stating things like "Playing Ultima IX is one of the most immersive experiences you'll ever have on your PC" and "one of the best roleplaying games ever created."

http://www.pcgamer.com/reviews/reviews_592.html

Hmmm. As I recall, the filtering software at my old school ( WebSENSE , I think it was called) filtered domains (e.g. http://www.pcgamer.com ) but not their IP addresses (e.g. 209.246.21.46 ). All one would have to do to get around this would be to write a script to output the IP address of a domain given to it and write a utility to replace all outgoing TCP/IP requests for domains with IP addresses stored in a database on the user's computer. Is this typical of filtering software, or do most companies have blocked domains also block their IP addresses?

XCOM: A full, working version of this was on the PC Gamer July disk, along with Wing Commander and a buncha other stuff.

Rememeber, if the gameplay isn't better than the graffics - bitch to the publisher, the retailer, online reviews, wwwhatever it takes.

This is why I don't mind the paltry selection of Mac games, I only need a few GOOD games not thousands that don't even rate a negative review.

There really was a lot going on at E3. Free software is a pretty small part of it in some ways, but an important one not covered much elsewhere. Sort of like that bumpersticker that says "it'd be nice if one day the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy weapons and the local elementary school gets all the books it needs" (heavily paraphrased of course) ... Free Oses make what I hope will eventually become the platform of choice for games. The best example of what I'd like to see is the elusive but rad-looking FlightGear ... I want that, but for submarines:)

timothy