I remember plenty of transitions in Starcraft. I even remember the noise it makes...the little beep and whoosh sounds between each one. I looked at the screen shots and see nothing that indicates that it will be that many more clicks. It just has a lot more options you can choose to ignore if you don't care about. It isn't like you have to look at your achievements to start a game.
And actually, an extra click wouldn't be bad so that you could find the specific game type you wanted. Rather than have everything one one screen and refreshing and trying to hunt down, it will probably be easier to find a game and easier to join in one with a friend. Your complaints are dumb particularly since you haven't even tried it.
All new players are going to feel left behind when they join an MMO years after it started. It isn't hard to find a group because of gear, it's hard because most people don't run lower level instances any more. At higher levels, there isn't much of a problem finding groups unless you really have no idea what you are doing.
I really don't get people like you. You don't finish a game because the artistic style is so offensive to you. I thought game play mattered more than graphics?
If I were a Blizzard employee, I would be annoyed with you too. They probably had nothing to do with the development of WC III. And you just come up and randomly trashing a game their company makes.
I think you have severe social skill problems. And that says something when you are on a tech site.
Then don't friend random people and only friend the people you know and like to play with. It just makes it easier for you guys to organize and play together. I swear, people on here complain about everything. It is like you are all 70 year old men with bad health problems.
Your argument makes absolutely no sense. You can still play against strangers. But now, if you find someone you like playing with, it is a lot easier to know when they are online, chat with them, and set up a game. There is no downside. If you don't want to deal with that side of the game, ignore it. No one is forcing you to make friends.
You must be completely blind. There are more games with great single player experiences than any other time in history. Fallout 3, Borderlands, Tales of Vesperia (or others on different consoles, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 2, BioShock (and now the sequel), Fable 2 just to name a few. There are so many great games right now, I can't keep up.
Are you completely stupid? If you can judge by the history of Blizzard which still runs battle.net for Starcraft, a 10+ year old game. Then yes. Yes it would still be up.
Ridiculous. What other company still supports servers for a 10+ year old game? What other company ignores release pressures and won't release a game until it is done? Evil my ass.
But let's talk about bnetd. Bnetd was where people went to play pirated copies of Starcraft. You can argue some minority of people owned the game and preferred playing. But the reality is, that is where people who didn't pay for the game played. If you owned a company, I am sure you would shut down anyone who did the same to you. This is where some people argue "But the bnetd people said they would do key checks if Blizzard would give them their key gen algorithm". And this is where I look at them funny for being so stupid. Do you really think a company would hand that over to some random people. Give me a break.
Never even heard of Freecraft. Sounds like Blizzard didn't like the name association and its copying of Warcraft's idea. So they changed the name and actually tried to make a unique game instead of copying. Sounds find to me.
As far as Glider is concerned...are you serious? Bots ruin MMOs. People running Glider were getting banned since you had to dig around on the site to even know that it was something that violated the ToS. It was an application made EXPLICITLY to do something that would get you banned. There was absolutely no other application of Glider but to cheat. It deserved to be shut down and was something that benefited people who actually played the game.
You can not like them for doing these things, but you have to realize from a business perspective it is all completely logical. Companies have to protect their IP. If you counter balance this with the fact that they still support and update really really old games and that they make some of the best games ever, you can't really hate them without looking like some sort of hyper-polarized buffoon.
I am not trying to convince you to buy their games. I am just saying, you aren't going to change my mind with those examples since they are all justified by any reasonable person.
I guess I don't mind if they take liberty with reality in a video game. I am more of a story person with most games. But Bioshock seems more of an FPS to me. As long as they tighten up the actual game play part of it from the first Bioshock, I will be happy. The engine felt really...slow...compared to a regular twitch-based FPS.
I game on both platforms (i.e. PC and consoles). I really have no preference, other than wanting a kb + mouse for certain genres. But people on consoles are not the LCD. The interface is different, but console gamers are no more or less stupid than a PC gamer.
Games are still a fairly new form of entertainment. Using them effectively as education tools will follow, it just takes time for that to follow since there is less profit in education.
I agree with you. Other comments are saying people aren't pro-piracy, but they must be reading another Slashdot. Typically on these threads are every excuse under the sun to justify their piracy. Maybe this is different since it is 1) Nintendo and 2) is going after the distributer of piracy instead of the downloader.
If you make drugs legal, it just give drug cartels incentive to go overseas to avoid paying taxes whatsoever. Huh? You see how what you wrote doesn't make sense?
Parent post was a bit misguided. The Wii is the king of local multiplayer...no doubt. The 360 does multiplayer over the Internet much better. It's good to have competition.
The drawback for the Wii is that (at least with people I know) we don't have people over every day...so most people's Wii's are gather dust until they have a party every few months whereas people are always playing their 360. Also, the 360 tends to attract people who buy more games. Where the Wii hit a whole new market of people who buy maybe a game or two a year.
In any case, it is nice to have a choice...for people who like local multiplayer, get a Wii, for people who like competitive Internet play, get a 360. I guess if you want a bluray player, get a PS3;) I've never run in to a scenario where I wanted to have multiple consoles to play a 360 game though. If I have friends over, we just play some version of rock band.
And everything in history repeats itself exactly, right? Right?
There has never been such a hardware disparity between a console gen than this gen. Quite frankly, the Wii was very smart for staying in the price range it did, but it needs to have a shorter life cycle because there are many games that skip over the Wii because it can't handle the graphics or the amount of AI require to play a game. Ports are stripped down and barely resemble the original. It's fine for games only designed for the Wii...but due to its control scheme makes it so that you would only develop for the Wii. A lot of companies want to mitigate risk by going multi-platform. Combine that with the weak attach rate third party games get with the Wii and it just isn't that compelling of a platform for anyone but Nintendo and people who want to make party games.
The Wii is not going to tank, obviously. Nintendo is flush with cash. If I were an investor, I would think it was great thing. But I am a gamer, and I don't really care who is the most profitable, I care where the best games are. And let's be honest, the Wii's third party games suck. If you really don't feel like having Mario in pretty much every game you play, you aren't really left with much.
I think it is great that Nintendo is doing well, but it really is moving away from its core audience (I grew up play my NES and SNES to death). It is just full of party games and platformers now...almost ignoring all the other genres.
No, it isn't the same for any console developer. It is cheap and much less restrictive to develop for the 360. Nintendo has always been overly careful with their developers. But they do it in strange ways because there is probably more shovelware on the Wii this generation than any other console.
You make absolutely no sense in the context of this thread. The Wii sells some party games. Some of them sell very well. What does that have to do with developers abandoning the platform? No one but you really cares about your own pet peeve.
"But I get an impression from other Slashdot users" You might not want to base your opinion on what a few people on Slashdot say.
Having a network connection is new territory for consoles. Traditionally multiplayer meant you would gather a few mates and play together at your house. That really still is the same in this sense...you can still go back and play the games you enjoyed. The multiplayer component will be missing, and if that is what you wanted, then it really sucks.
I wouldn't be surprised if the community of gamers don't figure out a way around this and make their own private servers. I would hope MS would be smart enough not to shut this down.
Uh, source? I have not heard Blizzard say anything like that...and it doesn't even make sense considering how long they have supported battle.net without charging.
Horrible analogy. Fender couldn't do that even if they wanted to. Consoles are a closed platform. It makes PC gamers smile to see this so they can say "I told you so." (I am both, so personally not saying it, just not surprised) It's great that there are other options. But not everyone is technically savvy enough to know how to do it...or even that they exist.
Exactly. And this also why I look at people who hate Blizzard a little funny. How long have they been running their servers for their customers? I guess a counter point to myself, though, is if they did shut down, it would sure be nice to have private servers so people could still play. But as long as they still support it, I will stay impressed. If/when they finally do shut down, I am sure someone won't have too much trouble writing bnetd 2.0.
You can get modded up and swear too. Just, the person didn't really bring anything to the discussion. If they talked about what bugs they encountered and their frustrations, others might empathize. Instead, they just came off as a troll. These open western RPGs are hard to pull of without bugs. That's why I prefer to get them a year after they have been out on the PC so a lot of them have been worked out. I have had no problems in my play through of Fallout 3. I guess as you get older, your expectations become more reasonable. At least mine have. Helps that I am also a programmer and know how hard the business is.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember plenty of transitions in Starcraft. I even remember the noise it makes...the little beep and whoosh sounds between each one. I looked at the screen shots and see nothing that indicates that it will be that many more clicks. It just has a lot more options you can choose to ignore if you don't care about. It isn't like you have to look at your achievements to start a game.
And actually, an extra click wouldn't be bad so that you could find the specific game type you wanted. Rather than have everything one one screen and refreshing and trying to hunt down, it will probably be easier to find a game and easier to join in one with a friend. Your complaints are dumb particularly since you haven't even tried it.
Um, which would be to make a horrible game. It's Starcraft 2. It is going to be pirated even if they priced it at 5 bucks and washed your car.
All new players are going to feel left behind when they join an MMO years after it started. It isn't hard to find a group because of gear, it's hard because most people don't run lower level instances any more. At higher levels, there isn't much of a problem finding groups unless you really have no idea what you are doing.
I really don't get people like you. You don't finish a game because the artistic style is so offensive to you. I thought game play mattered more than graphics?
If I were a Blizzard employee, I would be annoyed with you too. They probably had nothing to do with the development of WC III. And you just come up and randomly trashing a game their company makes.
I think you have severe social skill problems. And that says something when you are on a tech site.
Then don't friend random people and only friend the people you know and like to play with. It just makes it easier for you guys to organize and play together. I swear, people on here complain about everything. It is like you are all 70 year old men with bad health problems.
Your argument makes absolutely no sense. You can still play against strangers. But now, if you find someone you like playing with, it is a lot easier to know when they are online, chat with them, and set up a game. There is no downside. If you don't want to deal with that side of the game, ignore it. No one is forcing you to make friends.
You must be completely blind. There are more games with great single player experiences than any other time in history. Fallout 3, Borderlands, Tales of Vesperia (or others on different consoles, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 2, BioShock (and now the sequel), Fable 2 just to name a few. There are so many great games right now, I can't keep up.
Are you completely stupid? If you can judge by the history of Blizzard which still runs battle.net for Starcraft, a 10+ year old game. Then yes. Yes it would still be up.
Turn in your gamer card for not knowing that.
Ridiculous. What other company still supports servers for a 10+ year old game? What other company ignores release pressures and won't release a game until it is done? Evil my ass.
But let's talk about bnetd. Bnetd was where people went to play pirated copies of Starcraft. You can argue some minority of people owned the game and preferred playing. But the reality is, that is where people who didn't pay for the game played. If you owned a company, I am sure you would shut down anyone who did the same to you. This is where some people argue "But the bnetd people said they would do key checks if Blizzard would give them their key gen algorithm". And this is where I look at them funny for being so stupid. Do you really think a company would hand that over to some random people. Give me a break.
Never even heard of Freecraft. Sounds like Blizzard didn't like the name association and its copying of Warcraft's idea. So they changed the name and actually tried to make a unique game instead of copying. Sounds find to me.
As far as Glider is concerned...are you serious? Bots ruin MMOs. People running Glider were getting banned since you had to dig around on the site to even know that it was something that violated the ToS. It was an application made EXPLICITLY to do something that would get you banned. There was absolutely no other application of Glider but to cheat. It deserved to be shut down and was something that benefited people who actually played the game.
You can not like them for doing these things, but you have to realize from a business perspective it is all completely logical. Companies have to protect their IP. If you counter balance this with the fact that they still support and update really really old games and that they make some of the best games ever, you can't really hate them without looking like some sort of hyper-polarized buffoon.
I am not trying to convince you to buy their games. I am just saying, you aren't going to change my mind with those examples since they are all justified by any reasonable person.
I guess I don't mind if they take liberty with reality in a video game. I am more of a story person with most games. But Bioshock seems more of an FPS to me. As long as they tighten up the actual game play part of it from the first Bioshock, I will be happy. The engine felt really...slow...compared to a regular twitch-based FPS.
I understand your concerns. But honestly, consoles are a form of DRM.
Clearly, Hurricane is not destined for management if he thinks golf is played on the court.
I game on both platforms (i.e. PC and consoles). I really have no preference, other than wanting a kb + mouse for certain genres. But people on consoles are not the LCD. The interface is different, but console gamers are no more or less stupid than a PC gamer.
Games are still a fairly new form of entertainment. Using them effectively as education tools will follow, it just takes time for that to follow since there is less profit in education.
I agree with you. Other comments are saying people aren't pro-piracy, but they must be reading another Slashdot. Typically on these threads are every excuse under the sun to justify their piracy. Maybe this is different since it is 1) Nintendo and 2) is going after the distributer of piracy instead of the downloader.
If you make drugs legal, it just give drug cartels incentive to go overseas to avoid paying taxes whatsoever. Huh? You see how what you wrote doesn't make sense?
Parent post was a bit misguided. The Wii is the king of local multiplayer...no doubt. The 360 does multiplayer over the Internet much better. It's good to have competition.
;) I've never run in to a scenario where I wanted to have multiple consoles to play a 360 game though. If I have friends over, we just play some version of rock band.
The drawback for the Wii is that (at least with people I know) we don't have people over every day...so most people's Wii's are gather dust until they have a party every few months whereas people are always playing their 360. Also, the 360 tends to attract people who buy more games. Where the Wii hit a whole new market of people who buy maybe a game or two a year.
In any case, it is nice to have a choice...for people who like local multiplayer, get a Wii, for people who like competitive Internet play, get a 360. I guess if you want a bluray player, get a PS3
And everything in history repeats itself exactly, right? Right?
There has never been such a hardware disparity between a console gen than this gen. Quite frankly, the Wii was very smart for staying in the price range it did, but it needs to have a shorter life cycle because there are many games that skip over the Wii because it can't handle the graphics or the amount of AI require to play a game. Ports are stripped down and barely resemble the original. It's fine for games only designed for the Wii...but due to its control scheme makes it so that you would only develop for the Wii. A lot of companies want to mitigate risk by going multi-platform. Combine that with the weak attach rate third party games get with the Wii and it just isn't that compelling of a platform for anyone but Nintendo and people who want to make party games.
The Wii is not going to tank, obviously. Nintendo is flush with cash. If I were an investor, I would think it was great thing. But I am a gamer, and I don't really care who is the most profitable, I care where the best games are. And let's be honest, the Wii's third party games suck. If you really don't feel like having Mario in pretty much every game you play, you aren't really left with much.
I think it is great that Nintendo is doing well, but it really is moving away from its core audience (I grew up play my NES and SNES to death). It is just full of party games and platformers now...almost ignoring all the other genres.
No, it isn't the same for any console developer. It is cheap and much less restrictive to develop for the 360. Nintendo has always been overly careful with their developers. But they do it in strange ways because there is probably more shovelware on the Wii this generation than any other console.
You make absolutely no sense in the context of this thread. The Wii sells some party games. Some of them sell very well. What does that have to do with developers abandoning the platform? No one but you really cares about your own pet peeve.
"But I get an impression from other Slashdot users" You might not want to base your opinion on what a few people on Slashdot say.
Having a network connection is new territory for consoles. Traditionally multiplayer meant you would gather a few mates and play together at your house. That really still is the same in this sense...you can still go back and play the games you enjoyed. The multiplayer component will be missing, and if that is what you wanted, then it really sucks.
I wouldn't be surprised if the community of gamers don't figure out a way around this and make their own private servers. I would hope MS would be smart enough not to shut this down.
Uh, source? I have not heard Blizzard say anything like that...and it doesn't even make sense considering how long they have supported battle.net without charging.
Horrible analogy. Fender couldn't do that even if they wanted to. Consoles are a closed platform. It makes PC gamers smile to see this so they can say "I told you so." (I am both, so personally not saying it, just not surprised) It's great that there are other options. But not everyone is technically savvy enough to know how to do it...or even that they exist.
Exactly. And this also why I look at people who hate Blizzard a little funny. How long have they been running their servers for their customers? I guess a counter point to myself, though, is if they did shut down, it would sure be nice to have private servers so people could still play. But as long as they still support it, I will stay impressed. If/when they finally do shut down, I am sure someone won't have too much trouble writing bnetd 2.0.
Good catch. I think an apple fanboy got his feathers ruffled a bit. Blind loyalty is blind.
You can get modded up and swear too. Just, the person didn't really bring anything to the discussion. If they talked about what bugs they encountered and their frustrations, others might empathize. Instead, they just came off as a troll. These open western RPGs are hard to pull of without bugs. That's why I prefer to get them a year after they have been out on the PC so a lot of them have been worked out. I have had no problems in my play through of Fallout 3. I guess as you get older, your expectations become more reasonable. At least mine have. Helps that I am also a programmer and know how hard the business is.