I've listened to every vox and am well versed in the subject matter, while I haven't finished the game, because it didn't start well I don't care what happens to anyone.
In 1 it felt like you were dropped into the middle of a world and were trying to figure out what was going on/how to survive. It engaged you from the beginning. Infinite strings you along with a bunch of boring fights that have no meaning, introduces and drops topics like crazy, and forces you to look at the ground 90% of the time.
That's the short list of problems... graphics tearing, horrible audio levels (footsteps are louder than crashing waves!?), audio overlays that make the dialogue unintelligable, etc etc etc.
Most of all: The game is BORING! I couldn't have been more disappointed in the story. I've played for 8 hours or so and still don't know why I'm doing anything I am other than "someone hired me"... uhh ok... the world's story was going all religion then took a hard right into weird cult ville ala Resident Evil then took a U turn into racist land and now I just don't know.
I'm pretty sure it was "meh" because of EA again... I remember reading an interview saying that a good chunk of what the game ought to have been was pulled and the game dumbed down significantly to "broaden the audience".
Exactly... That and what's to limit the scope of their claims? Canipre has already said it has, discredited, data (software they use was thrown out of a German court due to it's failings) on over a million IPs in Canada.
It seemed to work just fine before everyone tried to commercialize things. The quote is "If you build it, they will come" not "If you build it, you will make money"
They could give me their entire catalog for free and I still would never buy another one of their future titles.
Their entire catalogue consists of 51 titles currently, the majority of which either require online DRM or have already had their servers shut down. Just what people pissed off about online DRM want.
No, my argument is that "Obama rules by executive order" is a fallacy - really nothing more than a conservative talking point (why I brought up Bush Jr. as a counter point). While I didn't notice the consolidated numbers initially, thanks to drinkypoo for the correction, 20 presidents have signed more executive than Obama. The average is 350 orders signed. It'd be fair to say Roosevelt, Wilson, and Coolidge ruled by executive order, but not Obama.
lol - I heard a stat once, not sure if it's true, however, it was said that Bush Jr. signed more executive orders in last term than all previous administrations combined... I'll have to see if I can verify that.
lol touche. By the first point I mean that they know ahead of time how many DLCs they're going to release and how much they're going to release them for - let people know so they can make an educated decision at the time of purchase.
The thing that bothers me is that all the arguments that are made, do make sense from a business perspective but in reality people just want to know a few simple things:
1) How much is this going to cost me at the end of the day? I may outlay $60 when I buy the game but then get an incomplete experience because 1/3rd (exaggerating) of the game has been held back for DLC. Call of Duty games now cost up to $180 for all the content. I'd rather everything be included up front with that price tag so I can decide if I want to blow my money or not.
2) How long are the servers going to be online if the game has multiplayer - give me a date at the beginning, I don't care what it is but let me know
3) If it is microtransactions am I realistically going to be able to complete the game without outlaying shit tonnes of cash? No one really has an issue with optional content - pay to be able to progress is what really pisses people off.
That's where things get twisted - it's not just "maximizing revenue", it's maximizing revenue over time.
There are two ways this gets lost in our system
1) Selling too cheaply in order to sell volume. This saturates the market and while a lot of people will have your product, because they all do you lose the ability to sell over the long term. If everyone has one, no one will buy one.
2) Gouging. People may fall for it once, maybe even twice, but they'll catch on that they're spending too much on one product and stop buying and possibly leave the market altogether. If people expect to be gouged they won't buy (unless they have to... damn Canadian internet prices)
a) I prefaced with "given the assumption..." b) You may not, and not everyone will, but people certainly do. Personally, I won't spend more than 5% of my income on entertainment - 3% of that is earmarked for games. 0% goes to EA, Activision/Blizzard anymore. It mostly goes to used game stores, Valve/2k/Zenimax/Ubisoft/Microsoft though I'm considering dropping Ubisoft from that list due to their abruptly discontinuing servers without notice.
They're trying to maximize revenue from every game, which on the surface seems like a good thing for them as a company. Unfortunately it's incredibly shortsighted.
Given these assumptions
- People only have so much money to spend on entertainment.
- Given finite resources, if you spend more money on one title you have less to spend on another.
There are two real possibilities that I see
1) In a market with little/no competition where gamers spend their money in fewer games because they are concentrating their resources on the games they play most. This means that there will be fewer titles produced because fewer will succeed - the blockbusters will dominate. Fewer games = bored gamers or danger of a massive investment in a blockbuster flopping (see Too Human, Kingdoms of Amulur, etc)
2) In a market with lots of competition they will make themselves less relevant. Smaller publishers do and will offer better deals on games that are just as entertaining. The big publishers are really backing themselves into a corner by rehashing the same game over and over.
3) The free to play trap. Certain games do very well with offering a solid game with optional purchases, but then greedy companies like EA and Microsoft twist that to offer as little as possible to get a person interested and then try to gouge them on "optional" purchases. So called micro transactions running as high as $20 when full retail games can be purchased for less.
By doing any one of these things they alienate their customers, shrink their market (not to be confused with their revenue), and the end result is fewer people playing fewer games. This has already happened to the movie industry where prices are too high to bother, sequels dominate, big budget movies are the name of the game and there are fewer and fewer every year. End result: The demise of the rental industry, fewer people in theatres, and rampant piracy.
Study after study has shown: the more people do something, the more they talk about it with their social circles, the more people become involved. While you may not get as much out of each person, by keeping prices as accessible as possible and a diverse product line you safeguard against major losses and increase the chances of major successes.
Step 1) Hire a second, unpaid, intern Step 2) Give all the current responsibilities the 1st intern has to the 2nd intern Step 3) Have the 1st intern do nothing but beautify your existing code, with the understanding that he can't change how any of it is written.
Windows always had this. Any program could make itself full screen if the developer wanted to - just so few did because unless you were doing something immersive (game, movie, etc) you really didn't want it to take over everything on screen.
Windows 9x through to 7 had solid interfaces. It was incredibly simple to teach someone to use 9x - "Left click to select, double left click to activate, right click to see what your options are"
7's biggest UI annoyance for me was focus sensitive context menus, obscured controls/HTML style menus, and lack of an up button in windows explorer. Had they kept the core of the 9x interface and improved security/visuals/etc it'd be a far better operating system today.
Slashdot Mirror
I've listened to every vox and am well versed in the subject matter, while I haven't finished the game, because it didn't start well I don't care what happens to anyone.
In 1 it felt like you were dropped into the middle of a world and were trying to figure out what was going on/how to survive. It engaged you from the beginning. Infinite strings you along with a bunch of boring fights that have no meaning, introduces and drops topics like crazy, and forces you to look at the ground 90% of the time.
That's the short list of problems... graphics tearing, horrible audio levels (footsteps are louder than crashing waves!?), audio overlays that make the dialogue unintelligable, etc etc etc.
Most of all: The game is BORING! I couldn't have been more disappointed in the story. I've played for 8 hours or so and still don't know why I'm doing anything I am other than "someone hired me"... uhh ok... the world's story was going all religion then took a hard right into weird cult ville ala Resident Evil then took a U turn into racist land and now I just don't know.
Big prettyish world with crap all to do in it.
Why do you assume he's white? ;)
No, he confused silicon with sulfur. Can't find a good article but here's an example:
http://www.coml.org/discoveries/discoveries/new_species/sulphurbacteria.htm
I'm pretty sure it was "meh" because of EA again... I remember reading an interview saying that a good chunk of what the game ought to have been was pulled and the game dumbed down significantly to "broaden the audience".
Exactly... That and what's to limit the scope of their claims? Canipre has already said it has, discredited, data (software they use was thrown out of a German court due to it's failings) on over a million IPs in Canada.
You mean extortion. Blackmail involves extortion by keeping a secret/returning information/etc.
They mail it to a different address.
It seemed to work just fine before everyone tried to commercialize things. The quote is "If you build it, they will come" not "If you build it, you will make money"
They could give me their entire catalog for free and I still would never buy another one of their future titles.
Their entire catalogue consists of 51 titles currently, the majority of which either require online DRM or have already had their servers shut down. Just what people pissed off about online DRM want.
It doesn't seem to work at all on my system
Highlight more than 25 whatevers.
It works on left mouse up.
Right-clicking before left-mouse up negates the mouse-up action.
It doesn't seem to work at all on my system, I wonder why: http://www.wikihow.com/Disable-%22No-Right-Click%22-Scripts-in-Firefox
No, my argument is that "Obama rules by executive order" is a fallacy - really nothing more than a conservative talking point (why I brought up Bush Jr. as a counter point). While I didn't notice the consolidated numbers initially, thanks to drinkypoo for the correction, 20 presidents have signed more executive than Obama. The average is 350 orders signed. It'd be fair to say Roosevelt, Wilson, and Coolidge ruled by executive order, but not Obama.
And wiki comes through...
All administrations from 1800 to 2000: 67
Bush Jr. 2001-2009: 291
Obama: 148
He's got quite a ways to go to catch up.
lol - I heard a stat once, not sure if it's true, however, it was said that Bush Jr. signed more executive orders in last term than all previous administrations combined... I'll have to see if I can verify that.
lol touche. By the first point I mean that they know ahead of time how many DLCs they're going to release and how much they're going to release them for - let people know so they can make an educated decision at the time of purchase.
+1
The thing that bothers me is that all the arguments that are made, do make sense from a business perspective but in reality people just want to know a few simple things:
1) How much is this going to cost me at the end of the day? I may outlay $60 when I buy the game but then get an incomplete experience because 1/3rd (exaggerating) of the game has been held back for DLC. Call of Duty games now cost up to $180 for all the content. I'd rather everything be included up front with that price tag so I can decide if I want to blow my money or not.
2) How long are the servers going to be online if the game has multiplayer - give me a date at the beginning, I don't care what it is but let me know
3) If it is microtransactions am I realistically going to be able to complete the game without outlaying shit tonnes of cash? No one really has an issue with optional content - pay to be able to progress is what really pisses people off.
That's where things get twisted - it's not just "maximizing revenue", it's maximizing revenue over time.
There are two ways this gets lost in our system
1) Selling too cheaply in order to sell volume. This saturates the market and while a lot of people will have your product, because they all do you lose the ability to sell over the long term. If everyone has one, no one will buy one.
2) Gouging. People may fall for it once, maybe even twice, but they'll catch on that they're spending too much on one product and stop buying and possibly leave the market altogether. If people expect to be gouged they won't buy (unless they have to... damn Canadian internet prices)
a) I prefaced with "given the assumption..."
b) You may not, and not everyone will, but people certainly do. Personally, I won't spend more than 5% of my income on entertainment - 3% of that is earmarked for games. 0% goes to EA, Activision/Blizzard anymore. It mostly goes to used game stores, Valve/2k/Zenimax/Ubisoft/Microsoft though I'm considering dropping Ubisoft from that list due to their abruptly discontinuing servers without notice.
Here's why it's bad:
They're trying to maximize revenue from every game, which on the surface seems like a good thing for them as a company. Unfortunately it's incredibly shortsighted.
Given these assumptions
- People only have so much money to spend on entertainment.
- Given finite resources, if you spend more money on one title you have less to spend on another.
There are two real possibilities that I see
1) In a market with little/no competition where gamers spend their money in fewer games because they are concentrating their resources on the games they play most. This means that there will be fewer titles produced because fewer will succeed - the blockbusters will dominate. Fewer games = bored gamers or danger of a massive investment in a blockbuster flopping (see Too Human, Kingdoms of Amulur, etc)
2) In a market with lots of competition they will make themselves less relevant. Smaller publishers do and will offer better deals on games that are just as entertaining. The big publishers are really backing themselves into a corner by rehashing the same game over and over.
3) The free to play trap. Certain games do very well with offering a solid game with optional purchases, but then greedy companies like EA and Microsoft twist that to offer as little as possible to get a person interested and then try to gouge them on "optional" purchases. So called micro transactions running as high as $20 when full retail games can be purchased for less.
By doing any one of these things they alienate their customers, shrink their market (not to be confused with their revenue), and the end result is fewer people playing fewer games. This has already happened to the movie industry where prices are too high to bother, sequels dominate, big budget movies are the name of the game and there are fewer and fewer every year. End result: The demise of the rental industry, fewer people in theatres, and rampant piracy.
Study after study has shown: the more people do something, the more they talk about it with their social circles, the more people become involved. While you may not get as much out of each person, by keeping prices as accessible as possible and a diverse product line you safeguard against major losses and increase the chances of major successes.
This needs to happen. Especially in Canada.
The answer is really simple:
Step 1) Hire a second, unpaid, intern
Step 2) Give all the current responsibilities the 1st intern has to the 2nd intern
Step 3) Have the 1st intern do nothing but beautify your existing code, with the understanding that he can't change how any of it is written.
I thought that's what Fix Or Repair Daily cars were ;)
Windows always had this. Any program could make itself full screen if the developer wanted to - just so few did because unless you were doing something immersive (game, movie, etc) you really didn't want it to take over everything on screen.
Windows 9x through to 7 had solid interfaces. It was incredibly simple to teach someone to use 9x - "Left click to select, double left click to activate, right click to see what your options are"
7's biggest UI annoyance for me was focus sensitive context menus, obscured controls/HTML style menus, and lack of an up button in windows explorer. Had they kept the core of the 9x interface and improved security/visuals/etc it'd be a far better operating system today.