I thought the Saturn was reverse compatible, and it was the same generation as PS1. So how was it 'the first home console in a long time that was backwards compatible'?
Actually, Atari made the first backwards-compatible console - the 7800, in 1986
I don't think the Saturn was backwards-compatible at all with the handful of Sega-CD games that were produced.
I'm not quite sure how the revolution controller may "snag" a demographic that has never been interested in console gaming? If anything it seems more likely to push them further away as it's yet another "new" technology that they've never encountered before.
No, NCSoft didn't create the game, Cryptic Studios created it. However, we aren't talking about how wonderful the game itself is, we're talking about the account management side of it, cost of subscriptions, etc..
things which are controlled by NCSoft. Everything related to your Account(s) in CoH, CoV, Lineage and Guildwars is controlled through PlayNC.com
They could have gone the SOE route: Continue to charge you a monthly fee for CoH, collect money on purchase of CoV plus a seperate monthly charge for that. Then when the player decides which one he/she likes more and tries to cancel one of the monthly subscriptions, continue to charge the player for both subscriptions for 6+ months while they continuously relocate the "cancel" link on the website, all the while sending misinformation to the player who they're ripping off.
They already decided not to screw over customers with the current CoH upgrade schedule. SOE charges for extra zones, regular(minimal additions) "expansions", etc..(even charging an additional monthly fee for such "expansions"). NCSoft regularily adds brand new content(zones, character classes, etc.) and charges nothing more for them than what the players are already paying.
What NCSoft has done here is tell the players that they understand we might not have time to play both games at once, or that we wouldn't feel the justification for paying double fees just to login to CoH a few times a month. Instead of creating a new sort of monthly package that includes multpile games at an increased monthly price and cramming the advertisement for it down your throat everytime you login to a game or to the official website, NCSoft rewarded those who have both titles at zero increase in costs(minus the $$ for the CoV Box).
If it's a marketing ploy to grab the attention of people stupid enough to keep rewarding MMORPG companies that routinely screw over their playerbase, what's wrong with that?
That NC-Soft seemed to be toying with considering it a separate game rather than just a giant expansion pack, is what is "stupid".
It is a separate game. You don't need CoH in order to play CoV. Calling it an expansion would imply that in order to even think about purchasing and playing CoV, you must first purchase CoH.
The problem with that(not buying RIAA label CDs), is that the more people who participate in a 'boycott', the more the RIAA whines about loss of sales to piracy.
Even if *everyone* stopped buying RIAA label music, from any source, they'll find people to sue. Be it Karaoke singers, scout troops, high school bands, etc..
The MPAA started doing that when movie ticket sales kept declining, until someone pulled their head out and realized that it had nothing to do with piracy, it was just that hollywood produces nothing but crap anymore.
Then why is he going after the producers of these games instead of the parents who buy them for children or the stores that sell them to children?
Why isn't he going after Florence Cohen, the 85-year old woman who bought GTA:SA for her 14-year old grandson, instead of supporting her lawsuit against Rockstar?
The idea of an upgrade to combat was something everyone wanted. Some tweaks to armor, chnges to buffing, some class changes to balance things out were all we were looking for. What's being forced on us is in no way, shape or form an "Upgrade".
The day testing began on the Test Servers(there was no closed alpha test. "Alpha" consisted of a handful of people being emailed some excel sheets), SOE placed a Poll on the forums asking for people to rate the CU. It was reset everyday, and sometimes after a patch was applied to the Test servers. Every single poll resulted in 65%-85% of the voters choosing the lowest possible rating. Everyday. Without Fail.
SOE's public stance was that the majority of players loved the CU and couldn't wait for it. Recently, at C3, the Community Relations Director for SWG stated that only 50 vocal people were against the CU.
We already knew these public statements by SOE were lies, which became painfully apparant the day the CU went live and the community responded.
While the CU was still on the Test servers(TCs), those players who were actually testing posted detailed, comprehensive discussions to both the Test Center Forum and the In Testing - Dev forum. A large percentage of the bug reports were ignored. Many which detailed the reasons why SOE's attempt at importing a Level-based combat system into SWG's Skill-based character system was flawed were deleted without comment. Since going live, this Level-based system, has shown it's inherent flaw in SWG, and all further posts by players experiencing it for the first time get deleted from the SWG forums as well.
A day before the CU went live(a week earlier than it was supposed to, with all bugs intact), every single "official" bug thread on the In Testing - Dev forum was deleted. None of the bugs had been fixed, and the players/testers were basically told to do it all over again. However, posting any bugs which were originally posted in the deleted threads(and never fixed) resulted in more deletions, and some bans.
To be honest, it appears that SOE has no desire to hear about bugs, expecially those which show the basic design flaws in the CU, and no desire to fix said bugs.
Besides the Bugs, and broken Combat system, there are a number of other reason why players are so upset and cancelling.
The UI has been changed dramatically. It now resembles a Fantasy MMO more than anything else. Colorful hotbar Icons have replaced the funtional, datapad-like buttons. They don't resemble the actions they're supposed to represent, many of themlook like they were exported straight out of a fantasy game(horses for 'mounting' vehicles, archery arrows to represent range attacks, etc..). When asked if the players would have the option of using the old icons instead of the new ones at a recent Dev chat, we were told "no" without any reason why.
The other graphical changes further create the Fantasy-based atmosphere which has no place in a Sci-Fi game, particularily a Star Wars game. "Magical" particle effects now go off for every possible action in the game. Every basic punch shows a dazzling effect. Mounting and dismounting from a speederbike displays an effect. Medics(clerics?) wave a hand and a cloud of sparkly magical dust surrounds everyone for a PBAoE Heal. None of this was ever asked for by the players. Especially when the accompanying special effects result in FPS loss on a grand scale.
All Crafting professions and Entertainer professions have been decimated by the CU. There's no reason for anyone to master an Entertainer class as the lowest Novice can now give the same single buff as anyone of higher rank. RPing these entertainment classes is no longer as "fun" as it was prior to the CU since a change was put in to make the largest available group consist of 8 players(from 20). This means it's no longer possible to create a full band of musicians with accompanying dancers. What Nerfing the Entertainers had to do with "Upgrading" Combat, I'll never know.
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I don't think the Saturn was backwards-compatible at all with the handful of Sega-CD games that were produced.
I'm not quite sure how the revolution controller may "snag" a demographic that has never been interested in console gaming? If anything it seems more likely to push them further away as it's yet another "new" technology that they've never encountered before.
No, NCSoft didn't create the game, Cryptic Studios created it. However, we aren't talking about how wonderful the game itself is, we're talking about the account management side of it, cost of subscriptions, etc..
things which are controlled by NCSoft. Everything related to your Account(s) in CoH, CoV, Lineage and Guildwars is controlled through PlayNC.com
They could have gone the SOE route: Continue to charge you a monthly fee for CoH, collect money on purchase of CoV plus a seperate monthly charge for that. Then when the player decides which one he/she likes more and tries to cancel one of the monthly subscriptions, continue to charge the player for both subscriptions for 6+ months while they continuously relocate the "cancel" link on the website, all the while sending misinformation to the player who they're ripping off.
They already decided not to screw over customers with the current CoH upgrade schedule. SOE charges for extra zones, regular(minimal additions) "expansions", etc..(even charging an additional monthly fee for such "expansions"). NCSoft regularily adds brand new content(zones, character classes, etc.) and charges nothing more for them than what the players are already paying.
What NCSoft has done here is tell the players that they understand we might not have time to play both games at once, or that we wouldn't feel the justification for paying double fees just to login to CoH a few times a month. Instead of creating a new sort of monthly package that includes multpile games at an increased monthly price and cramming the advertisement for it down your throat everytime you login to a game or to the official website, NCSoft rewarded those who have both titles at zero increase in costs(minus the $$ for the CoV Box).
If it's a marketing ploy to grab the attention of people stupid enough to keep rewarding MMORPG companies that routinely screw over their playerbase, what's wrong with that?
It is a separate game. You don't need CoH in order to play CoV. Calling it an expansion would imply that in order to even think about purchasing and playing CoV, you must first purchase CoH.
It's a seperate game *and* and expansion.
you don't need CoH to play CoV or to participate in PvP against other players in the PvP zones.
The problem with that(not buying RIAA label CDs), is that the more people who participate in a 'boycott', the more the RIAA whines about loss of sales to piracy. Even if *everyone* stopped buying RIAA label music, from any source, they'll find people to sue. Be it Karaoke singers, scout troops, high school bands, etc.. The MPAA started doing that when movie ticket sales kept declining, until someone pulled their head out and realized that it had nothing to do with piracy, it was just that hollywood produces nothing but crap anymore.
Then why is he going after the producers of these games instead of the parents who buy them for children or the stores that sell them to children? Why isn't he going after Florence Cohen, the 85-year old woman who bought GTA:SA for her 14-year old grandson, instead of supporting her lawsuit against Rockstar?
Title says it all..
e ws.asp?pf_id=220541&intDeptTab=2
/ B000067FDY/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/104-7186807-6655907?_e ncoding=UTF8&s=toys
Got banned from the SWG forums for one single post directing people here to read the article.
Anyway, players are fighting back by posting reviews to sites such as EBgames and Amazon
http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/editorial/reviews/revi
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews
The idea of an upgrade to combat was something everyone wanted. Some tweaks to armor, chnges to buffing, some class changes to balance things out were all we were looking for. What's being forced on us is in no way, shape or form an "Upgrade".
The day testing began on the Test Servers(there was no closed alpha test. "Alpha" consisted of a handful of people being emailed some excel sheets), SOE placed a Poll on the forums asking for people to rate the CU. It was reset everyday, and sometimes after a patch was applied to the Test servers. Every single poll resulted in 65%-85% of the voters choosing the lowest possible rating. Everyday. Without Fail.
SOE's public stance was that the majority of players loved the CU and couldn't wait for it. Recently, at C3, the Community Relations Director for SWG stated that only 50 vocal people were against the CU.
We already knew these public statements by SOE were lies, which became painfully apparant the day the CU went live and the community responded.
While the CU was still on the Test servers(TCs), those players who were actually testing posted detailed, comprehensive discussions to both the Test Center Forum and the In Testing - Dev forum. A large percentage of the bug reports were ignored. Many which detailed the reasons why SOE's attempt at importing a Level-based combat system into SWG's Skill-based character system was flawed were deleted without comment. Since going live, this Level-based system, has shown it's inherent flaw in SWG, and all further posts by players experiencing it for the first time get deleted from the SWG forums as well.
A day before the CU went live(a week earlier than it was supposed to, with all bugs intact), every single "official" bug thread on the In Testing - Dev forum was deleted. None of the bugs had been fixed, and the players/testers were basically told to do it all over again. However, posting any bugs which were originally posted in the deleted threads(and never fixed) resulted in more deletions, and some bans.
To be honest, it appears that SOE has no desire to hear about bugs, expecially those which show the basic design flaws in the CU, and no desire to fix said bugs.
Besides the Bugs, and broken Combat system, there are a number of other reason why players are so upset and cancelling.
The UI has been changed dramatically. It now resembles a Fantasy MMO more than anything else. Colorful hotbar Icons have replaced the funtional, datapad-like buttons. They don't resemble the actions they're supposed to represent, many of themlook like they were exported straight out of a fantasy game(horses for 'mounting' vehicles, archery arrows to represent range attacks, etc..). When asked if the players would have the option of using the old icons instead of the new ones at a recent Dev chat, we were told "no" without any reason why.
The other graphical changes further create the Fantasy-based atmosphere which has no place in a Sci-Fi game, particularily a Star Wars game. "Magical" particle effects now go off for every possible action in the game. Every basic punch shows a dazzling effect. Mounting and dismounting from a speederbike displays an effect. Medics(clerics?) wave a hand and a cloud of sparkly magical dust surrounds everyone for a PBAoE Heal. None of this was ever asked for by the players. Especially when the accompanying special effects result in FPS loss on a grand scale.
All Crafting professions and Entertainer professions have been decimated by the CU. There's no reason for anyone to master an Entertainer class as the lowest Novice can now give the same single buff as anyone of higher rank. RPing these entertainment classes is no longer as "fun" as it was prior to the CU since a change was put in to make the largest available group consist of 8 players(from 20). This means it's no longer possible to create a full band of musicians with accompanying dancers. What Nerfing the Entertainers had to do with "Upgrading" Combat, I'll never know.