"It may be more work for the lawyers, but the programmers are definitely not going to be involved in this. No, it was clearly just an excuse, because they were way behind schedule."
If you don't see how this effects the release of the game you obviously have no grasp of what "integrity" is. With the code leaked to hackers, hackers will make cheats A LOT quicker and likely harder to patch against and/or detect, which will then sacrifice all integrity of the online portion of the game... some of us don't want HL2 to be just like CS on the first day of release, thanks.
"I get anticipation fatigue and move on to something else."
Now wait a minute... being that I hang out with a lot of geeks, and am a bit of one myself... I know quite a few people that have been anticipating that whole Virginity thing for a REALLY long time... and they don't seem to be showing any signs of fatigue.
But in all seriousness, yeah, this manufactured hype thing is horseshit. It really gets me when they do it with Console systems (Anyone remember the first 6 months of the PS2 release?).
I agree to an extent... but, take GTA3 for example... This game in and of itself was brilliant and original and a blast to play. Then in addition to fantastic game design it got the voice acting support of Hollywood names (Michael Rappaport, Joe whatshisfacefromTheMatrix, etc), which made it a whole helluva lot better. Granted they didn't seem to really even use these as a selling point of the game but I remember the first time I played it and was showing it off to all my friends that was always one of the first things I showed 'em (after the hookers and beating random people on the street with a baseball bat).
Vice City on the other hand did advertise the names (and music) that were attached to it. Now would either or both of these games done just as well without the Hollywood influence... probably, but it may have taken longer for the mainstream folks to get over the lower quality of voice acting that the no names would have been more likely to provide.
I played it a bit too. Their class make ups and things were really cool sounding on paper, but when you actually tried to play the game and found that half of the classes weren't available yet, and half of the ones that were available's defining skill was NOT available... kinda got to feeling like I was playing beta... so I never started my payed subscription, just played the free one for like 3 days and quit because of the lack of features and the extremely cumbersome interface.
I hope someday someone does release a full featured game with a class system similar to this though, because it really did have a lot of potential in that respect.
There's a few subtle differences here... a: Microsoft's auto updates automatically update MICROSOFT Products, not go in and turn off a service that is not their own, and (while most say it is worthless and just a big security hole) actually may be in use by some people. 2: Microsoft Auto Updates while enabled by default still CAN be disabled, before they even do anything, as the default setting is set to prompt you before it even downloads.
While I have no sympathy for any sap using AOL and getting their computer fussed with by their ISP run by shaved apes, I also disagree strongly with said shaved apes thinking it's ok to just go in and fix things their way. I also agree that the Messenger service SHOULD be disabled... but not by an ISP.
I didn't word that very good I guess... Halo was just the most recent game I've played (on PC), that was a little short for my liking so it came to mind really quick. Don't get me wrong the story was fantastic and it was one of the few games that was absolutely as much fun the second time through as the first. So I guess you're right it was a bad example because it had so much replay value... I guess a prime example to prove my point would be, as mention by someone else farther down in the thread would be ICO for the PS2. Absolutely beautiful game with a fantastic and innovative story, and quite unique gameplay, but WAY too short, and no real replay value.
Yeah... Remember Shenmue? Great concept but in reality it turned out to be total crap because you spent 20-30 hours on the first episode but got virtually nowhere in the story... in fact just when you're starting to get into a good bit of the story that actually feels like you're accomplishing something "Fin" scrolls across your screen and you have to wait a year to fork out another 50 bucks to buy chapter 2, and then a year after that to get what was to be the 3rd and final chapter...
but what really ended up happening (at least for me) was I played through Shenmue and was irked by the ending (or lack thereof) then the Dreamcast all but died, and I didn't want to go buy Shenmue 2 when it came out kuz I knew the 3rd installment would never see the light of day.
Elder Scrolls: Morrowind is also pretty good (PC and XBox). Very open ended, beatiful graphics, and just plain fun because of how open ended it is, you can literally do or be anything in that game.
I much prefer the epic games that I pay 50 bucks for and then play for a solid 3-6 months (30+ hours actual play time).
I hate nothing more than buying a game and beating it within the first week, or less than 10 hours of play time.
My main complaint with most games recently have been their lack of story/game length (Halo for instance).
Just my 2 cents I guess.
Slashdot Mirror
"It may be more work for the lawyers, but the programmers are definitely not going to be involved in this. No, it was clearly just an excuse, because they were way behind schedule."
If you don't see how this effects the release of the game you obviously have no grasp of what "integrity" is. With the code leaked to hackers, hackers will make cheats A LOT quicker and likely harder to patch against and/or detect, which will then sacrifice all integrity of the online portion of the game... some of us don't want HL2 to be just like CS on the first day of release, thanks.
Good point.
Ummm... Pirates of the Carribean and... that's all I got.
Anybody else noting a trend in almost everyone's responses?
THEY'RE ALL SEQUELS! They all end in a freakin' number. Looks like '04 is shaping up to be the year of rehashing and revamping. =/
"I get anticipation fatigue and move on to something else." Now wait a minute... being that I hang out with a lot of geeks, and am a bit of one myself... I know quite a few people that have been anticipating that whole Virginity thing for a REALLY long time... and they don't seem to be showing any signs of fatigue. But in all seriousness, yeah, this manufactured hype thing is horseshit. It really gets me when they do it with Console systems (Anyone remember the first 6 months of the PS2 release?).
I agree to an extent... but, take GTA3 for example... This game in and of itself was brilliant and original and a blast to play. Then in addition to fantastic game design it got the voice acting support of Hollywood names (Michael Rappaport, Joe whatshisfacefromTheMatrix, etc), which made it a whole helluva lot better. Granted they didn't seem to really even use these as a selling point of the game but I remember the first time I played it and was showing it off to all my friends that was always one of the first things I showed 'em (after the hookers and beating random people on the street with a baseball bat).
Vice City on the other hand did advertise the names (and music) that were attached to it. Now would either or both of these games done just as well without the Hollywood influence... probably, but it may have taken longer for the mainstream folks to get over the lower quality of voice acting that the no names would have been more likely to provide.
That's my opinion anyway.
Yeah but if a martian trips over the damn thing it's bound to get some footage of it... even if it is blurry!
I played it a bit too. Their class make ups and things were really cool sounding on paper, but when you actually tried to play the game and found that half of the classes weren't available yet, and half of the ones that were available's defining skill was NOT available... kinda got to feeling like I was playing beta... so I never started my payed subscription, just played the free one for like 3 days and quit because of the lack of features and the extremely cumbersome interface. I hope someday someone does release a full featured game with a class system similar to this though, because it really did have a lot of potential in that respect.
There's a few subtle differences here... a: Microsoft's auto updates automatically update MICROSOFT Products, not go in and turn off a service that is not their own, and (while most say it is worthless and just a big security hole) actually may be in use by some people. 2: Microsoft Auto Updates while enabled by default still CAN be disabled, before they even do anything, as the default setting is set to prompt you before it even downloads. While I have no sympathy for any sap using AOL and getting their computer fussed with by their ISP run by shaved apes, I also disagree strongly with said shaved apes thinking it's ok to just go in and fix things their way. I also agree that the Messenger service SHOULD be disabled... but not by an ISP.
I didn't word that very good I guess... Halo was just the most recent game I've played (on PC), that was a little short for my liking so it came to mind really quick. Don't get me wrong the story was fantastic and it was one of the few games that was absolutely as much fun the second time through as the first. So I guess you're right it was a bad example because it had so much replay value... I guess a prime example to prove my point would be, as mention by someone else farther down in the thread would be ICO for the PS2. Absolutely beautiful game with a fantastic and innovative story, and quite unique gameplay, but WAY too short, and no real replay value.
Yeah... Remember Shenmue? Great concept but in reality it turned out to be total crap because you spent 20-30 hours on the first episode but got virtually nowhere in the story... in fact just when you're starting to get into a good bit of the story that actually feels like you're accomplishing something "Fin" scrolls across your screen and you have to wait a year to fork out another 50 bucks to buy chapter 2, and then a year after that to get what was to be the 3rd and final chapter... but what really ended up happening (at least for me) was I played through Shenmue and was irked by the ending (or lack thereof) then the Dreamcast all but died, and I didn't want to go buy Shenmue 2 when it came out kuz I knew the 3rd installment would never see the light of day.
Elder Scrolls: Morrowind is also pretty good (PC and XBox). Very open ended, beatiful graphics, and just plain fun because of how open ended it is, you can literally do or be anything in that game.
I much prefer the epic games that I pay 50 bucks for and then play for a solid 3-6 months (30+ hours actual play time). I hate nothing more than buying a game and beating it within the first week, or less than 10 hours of play time. My main complaint with most games recently have been their lack of story/game length (Halo for instance). Just my 2 cents I guess.