Games Discussion & Community Multiplayer Matches

[GX-WarSpite]

Got questions?  Flames?  I'll ban you, because you suck too.

[yoda_blues]

Jake, you suck.

[yoda_blues]

BTW, you stick it to 'em! Don't let the man get you down!

EDIT: Ok , read the article, my thoughts;

1.) CD-Protection - Overrated and it doesn't work. It ends up costing the consumer more in the end as developers pay the licensing fees for SafeDisc or whatever crap is being used now which doesn't work anyway. Although, a little clarification on the CD-Key portion. While CD-keys don't do jack about single player games, they have prevented pirated copies from being played online where games verify legal CD-keys, ala BF1942 or Half-Life. Didn't stop the game from being copied, but at least people who pirate can't utilize it fully.

2.) Old games - Yes, I think after a 3-4 year shelf life, its safe to assume a game has run its course and more popularity would be derived from just giving it away. The source code alone would give young programmers a powerful instructional tool to learn and grow from.

3.) CD Jackets - Ever since Max Payne, I've been waiting for the switch to Amaray DVD cases. Guess I'll be waiting longer.

4.) Christmas - Meh, overrated holiday anyway, but Christianity sells, what can you say?

Message Edited by yoda_blues on 03-03-2004 01:34 PM

[Zeatrix]

You were right on, except posting the link to that crappy pirate site...

[constable2]

I'm just waiting for them to put DVD's in the DVD cases for PC games.

[Oddyssey]

The whole game industry has become to Empire-istic, too many wars being fought and not enough people just making games these days. ATI and Nvidia are at war with each other, playing some stupid giant game of Risk, "I got Half Life 2", "Big deal I got Doom3" and blah blah blah.

Stop wasting so much money on marketing (creating fanboi asses) and spend it on development! (read a forum and see what you created!)

Stop buying up all the good Developement companies and closing them down in a budget cut! (Vivendi 1s teh suxx0rz)

Stop being retarded! (EA axes UO2 and now is making UOX? WTF?! Axes Origin?!)

Good article though! I like gripe articles, they are more honest than most "reviews"!

[Grey]

I realize this was a "rant" and not to be taken too seriously, but my rant is that author is pretty arrogant to think that all marketing departments and executives are so stupid that he can simply tell them they are wrong without examining the reasons.

Believe or not, most executives know more about managing a company than you do. Sure, maybe for you copy protection is trivial, but I bet most people just don't want to bother. Hell, most people just play platform games because PC games are too complicated and it is a pain to install them. That is the audience that companies must keep in mind, not jaded game reviewers.

[nojopar]

"I don't care what your marketing department says. They're tools."

For some reason that just made me laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.... I think I might use that in our next design meeting

Few thoughts...

Whomever is keeping the industry from moving to DVD cases should be taken out back and have the crap beaten out of them.  Look, here's what happens with me.  My PC games end up in a 3 ring binder and I never think about'em unless I happen to be thumbing through the binder.  My Xbox games sit on a shelf that I can see from time to time, which leads me to say, "Huhhhmmm.... wonder if they're making a sequel to such and such game?"  Stop being jackasses - tell you what, pass the DVD case price onto me and I'll pay it for my copy.  Can't be more than, what, $1 extra per game?

I've been **bleep**ing about having to switch CDs for a looooonnnnngggggg time.  Combine this with aforementioned CD sleve garbage and you end up with a bunch of scratched CDs.  News flash - if I have to buy another copy of your game, your game and your company IMMEDIATELY go into my "stupid game" nomenclature... as it, "oh, yeah, I had to buy another copy of that stupid game."  It just builds ill will.  And really, in this day and age of severly competing entertainment dollars, do you REALLY want to build ill will?

I simply DO NOT CARE who is distributing whatever game.  I'll buy a game that's a good game.  I care who made it, because I follow developers.  If a development company makes a good game, I'm likely to buy their next one.  If they make a lousy game, I'm libel to not buy their next one.  No matter what a publishing company does, it probably isn't going to impact me in any fashion whatsoever.  So please, publishers, stop trying to "brand" yourself.  You aren't a brand.  You'll never be a brand.  If EA Games tells me they're publishing a game by some game developer that I know sucks, it ain't gonna make me buy the thing, even though I loved BF1942. 

In that vein, please, I understand companies wanting to put their brands on startup screens.  That's cool.  I'll watch it a couple of times, I promise.  But if you don't allow me to ESC out of it or something on the 20th, 30, or 50th time your game has launched, I'm going to get irritated.  Take BF1942 again.... yes yes, I know it's EA Games and DICE Games.  I got that the first 10 dozen times.  Now I'm just in the habit of doing something else when that screen loads.  In fact, I'll have to say I'm slighly less disinclined to buy an EA Games game (thus contradicting myself slightly from my last point) because I don't want to see that stupid startup splash screen anymore in any other game!

I hate that the entire gaming universe comes to a halt right around E3, then speeds up like mad around Christmas. 

I agree 100% there Jakub.

[B3owulf]

Hahaha LOL! Damn that was funny! Jakub you need to get into ranting mode more offen. This thing needs to be a regular.

hehe *Whipes a tear from the corner of his eyes* he
Ok, enough laughing now.

I would also have to agree 100% with what ya said Jakub. And yeah, constable2, where the hell are those darn DVD games. Lame developers! Instead they serve us four-CD orgie installations. Bah!

And man, did I love Battlezone when that came wrapped (in a CD sleeve I might add) with my purdy Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo II back in the day. Was helluva fun in multiplayer too.

And gawd! The only CD protection that kicks is that new stuff from CodeMasters. Yikes! That stuff is nasty. It's impossible to crack Conlin McRae Rally 3. Good job there, ey.

[Zeatrix]

I thought the insdustry had allready moved to DVD cases? At leaste all games (and I mean 100%) of the games here in Sweden are released in DVD cases...

Message Edited by Zeatrix on 03-02-2004 10:25 PM

[yoda_blues]

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Zeatrix wrote:
I thought the insdustry had allready moved to DVD cases? At leaste all games (and I mean 100%) of the games here in Sweden are released in DVD cases...

Message Edited by Zeatrix on 03-02-2004 10:25 PM

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Goddamned Swedes...now, not only are your women hotter, but you have DVD cases for PC releases? GODDAMNED SWEDES!

Message Edited by yoda_blues on 03-02-2004 04:28 PM

[zeke009]

anyways.. well written rant.  you presented their screw-ups but didn't shove it down their throats.  I supposse hell would have to freeze over before they realized there was some merit in what you said.

I did enjoy the rips on safedisc and the like.  What a racket they have going!

[konrad_arflane]

Yeah, I live in Denmark, and we get a lot of games in DVD cases, though not on actual DVDs. In that regard, I have to say "be careful what you wish for". While I can see the publisher's side in switching to DVD cases - lower costs, lower shelf space requirements - it is a mixed blessing for the consumer. Why? because with  old-fashioned game boxes, you'd take out the manual and the CD in its jewel case, and throw away the box. These days, I have to resort to buying jewel cases if I want to have my game CDs within reach in the handy CD rack I've installed next to my computer, or just don't want the DVD cases taking up a lot of unnecessary space. I mean, I've never understood why DVDs don't come in CD cases, except so one can tell the difference between the two formats. DVD cases just seems like a waste of space to me.

[Harvester]

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konrad_arflane wrote:
Yeah, I live in Denmark, and we get a lot of games in DVD cases, though not on actual DVDs.

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Same here, at least 50% of all PC games here in Holland have a DVD case.

Message Edited by Harvester on 03-02-2004 03:18 PM

[Millerboy]

It's because Americans are stingy. Europeans are more liberal with many issues including money, nudity, ethnic minorities, helping the poor, hating on big business, freedom of speech, etc.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. For example, the SuperBowl boobies incident. Many Americans were outraged at the display of Janet Jackson's left boob. But all of my European friends laughed at us, they see nudity all the time in Europe. In television, on the beaches, movies, TV commercials. They even have vulgarity and cussing on the radio.  They're like, "OMG, STUPID AMERICANS, OH NO IT'S A **bleep**.... GET OVER IT, EVERY WOMAN HAS A BREAST!! AHAHA." But they don't realize that America was founded on Puritan ideals. We are more conservative in nature according to the Puritan religion.

So that's probably why U.S. stores still strive for cheapness while Europeans strive for efficiency. Neither way is wrong. It's preference. It's having the bigger profit or having the happier customer. In America, money is God.

Message Edited by millerboy on 03-02-2004 08:02 PM

[grandmaster b]

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konrad_arflane wrote:
Yeah, I live in Denmark, and we get a lot of games in DVD cases, though not on actual DVDs. In that regard, I have to say "be careful what you wish for". While I can see the publisher's side in switching to DVD cases - lower costs, lower shelf space requirements - it is a mixed blessing for the consumer. Why? because with  old-fashioned game boxes, you'd take out the manual and the CD in its jewel case, and throw away the box. These days, I have to resort to buying jewel cases if I want to have my game CDs within reach in the handy CD rack I've installed next to my computer, or just don't want the DVD cases taking up a lot of unnecessary space. I mean, I've never understood why DVDs don't come in CD cases, except so one can tell the difference between the two formats. DVD cases just seems like a waste of space to me.

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I live in New Zealand, where almost all games are sold in DVD cases now, and I far prefer DVD cases to the old "box and jewel case" method they used to use. I actually find the DVD cases far easier to collect and store, since they are all the same size, whereas cd cases come in all makes and models, and can be really poorly designed (anyone remember the original Baldurs Gate packaging *shudder*)

The real problem has been the non-existant market for DVD games in an era where most games come on 3 or more cd's, resulting in all sorts of retarded methods of packaging said cd's.  

[Trogdor]

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konrad_arflane wrote:
Yeah, I live in Denmark....

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Hvordan gaar det, Konrad?  Hvor boer du i Danmark?  Du maa undskylde hvis jeg taler ikke saa godt Dansk, men der er naesten ingen herovre som kan Dansk.  Jeg boede i Danmark i taa aar, men det er snart ti aar siden jeg flytede tilbage til Amerika.  Naar man ikke har tjancen at tale Dansk, saa gaar evnen forbi, ikke?  Okay, jeg har brugt alt det som jeg kan huske for at skrive dette hilsen.  Du maa hav' det godt.  (Een dag, jeg vil gerne rejse til Danmark med min hustru og datter, men jeg har ikke raad til det lige nu....  Maaske om ti aar hvil det gaar bedre.)

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The preceding was brought to you by the (probably full of grammatical and spelling errors) language Danish.  If you understood it, you are one of about twenty million people in the world that can do so, and 15 million of those are Swedes and Norwegians.  Be thankful, for you have some of the best looking women in the world.  For the rest of you, just move along.  You will probably never know the joy that is Danish pastries.  Mmmmm..... trekant, kanelstang, even studentebroed.....  (Hey, cut me some slack!  A guy has to take every chance he gets to practice language skills that he's forgetting.)

As for the Rant, Jakub, it was great.  Laughed my butt off at some of the comments.  Having worked as a software developer (which is pretty much worse than being a game programmer), the rant brought back a lot of bad memories.  It's amazing what management types that don't understand programming will often suggest you do.  Feature creep has killed more projects than most people ever will realize.  "But we really need this feature, and it doesn't look very difficult to me....."  Right.  That's because everything looks easy to a non-programmer.

[Millerboy]

Feature creep can be avoided very easily. Don't include the feature in the original release of the game. Add it later in the expansion pack or a big patch. That's what I would do.

[Trogdor]

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millerboy wrote:

Feature creep can be avoided very easily. Don't include the feature in the original release of the game. Add it later in the expansion pack or a big patch. That's what I would do.

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Try working as a programmer and then try telling the guy that is writing your paycheck that you can't put in feature X when he tells you to.  When you're in that position, you basically take it up the butt, and when the end result sucks, you still get blamed.  It's a lose-lose situation that can only be avoided if the manager is either willing to accept a "no" answer or if he knows better than to suggest the idea at a late stage of development.  Blizzard and the other successful game companies are successful because they have managers and designers who know how the industry works.  Unfortunately, good managers are not as common as you would like them to be in the software industry.  Games are sometimes worse, because new ideas are a lot more common.  "Wouldn't it be great if we could...." is fine when you're creating the design document, but once the real development begins, you just need to learn to stash those ideas away for future reference.  Easier said than done.

[Millerboy]

Blizzard was founded by 3 men who graduated from UCLA. I don't know what their majors were but I'm guessing it's something dealing with computer sciences. That's probably why Blizzard is such a great company; it's not run by some CEO with a business administration degree from some Ivy League college and no knowledge, other than MS Word, in computers. Pffft!

Message Edited by millerboy on 03-02-2004 11:40 PM

[Shadore]

Man, did anyone like Sacrifice?  The game was brutal.  As soon as you lost 4-5 guys to the enemy and he was an average player you were DONE because that's how hard it was to get back in the game.  I bought the game a month after it came out and there was 3 people playing it online.

It also used that god awful Messiah engine which made polygons appear and dissapear all the time like the entire game was done with that "Dr. Katz" shaky animation stuff.

Message Edited by Shadore on 03-03-2004 01:47 AM

[LORD ORION]

Hehe, we need more of this on FiringSquad.

There are so many things wrong with this industry, that you could probably do a rant twice a month and never run out of nasty things to say.

[konrad_arflane]

Trogdor wrote:

Hvordan gaar det, Konrad?  Hvor boer du i Danmark?  Du maa undskylde hvis jeg taler ikke saa godt Dansk, men der er naesten ingen herovre som kan Dansk.  Jeg boede i Danmark i taa aar, men det er snart ti aar siden jeg flytede tilbage til Amerika.  Naar man ikke har tjancen at tale Dansk, saa gaar evnen forbi, ikke?  Okay, jeg har brugt alt det som jeg kan huske for at skrive dette hilsen.  Du maa hav' det godt.  (Een dag, jeg vil gerne rejse til Danmark med min hustru og datter, men jeg har ikke raad til det lige nu....  Maaske om ti aar hvil det gaar bedre.)

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Ikke dårligt, Trogdor! God hukommelse, må jeg sige. Og ja, der er en masse stavefejl, men man forstår dig, og det i sig selv er da noget af en præstation efter ti år. Og jeg bor i København, og hedder ikke Konrad. Men du hedder selvfølgelig heller ikke Trogdor (håber jeg).

[Druga Runda]

he he he...

not bad...

#1. copy protection - money wasted... there has to be a better way, I'd go into that but havent got much time now... no matter what there are better ways it's only that they need to be exploited

#2. old games - spot on... I wish someone listened

#3. the rest... well cd sleeve never thought of, Christmas bah... and yes we gamers are in part responsible too.. unfortunately this all is called capitalism and the short-term perspective kills the long term one and with it the ultimate "more profits" goal which would actually result with good games being made all the time.

Still ppl it's good to have companies like Bioware - as in the interview they said - we all have limited resources so when you buy a game you can only play so many games a year, therefore make sure its Bioware or ID or similar... there will always be good games ultimately as there are still good films coming out

[constable2]

I'd like MPS or whoever owns the rights to rerelease Transport Tycoon and Colonization with slightly upgraded graphics and XP compatibility.  I can't find my TT CD anymore so I have to "borrow" it from the internet and there always seems to be a problem with it everyonce in a while.

[ripfire]

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yoda_blues wrote:

4.) Christmas - Meh, overrated holiday anyway, but Catholicism sells, what can you say?

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Christmas is a pagan holiday. Blame Constantine for that.

[konrad_arflane]

Also, next to all Christian faiths celebrate christmas, so why single out catholics?

[Millerboy]

That's because Christians are better than Roman Catholics. "Only Christians go to heaven." -George W. Bush, 1993

[yoda_blues]

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konrad_arflane wrote:

Also, next to all Christian faiths celebrate christmas, so why single out catholics?

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My mistake, edited. hehe. I'm always so antsy to stick it to the Catholic church.

[nojopar]

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millerboy wrote:

That's because Christians are better than Roman Catholics. "Only Christians go to heaven." -George W. Bush, 1993

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I don't know how this trend started but I really really really really really want it to go away.  Catholics are the ORGINAL Christians.  It irritates the heck outta me when people go, "All the religions of the world should unit - Christians, Catholics, ...."  And I say this as someone who isn't Catholic whatsoever.

[yoda_blues]

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millerboy wrote:

That's because Christians are better than Roman Catholics. "Only Christians go to heaven." -George W. Bush, 1993

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Catholics ARE Christian chowderhead. I can't believe he got 50% of the popular vote...

Message Edited by yoda_blues on 03-03-2004 02:03 PM

[constable2]

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yoda_blues wrote:

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millerboy wrote:

That's because Christians are better than Roman Catholics. "Only Christians go to heaven." -George W. Bush, 1993

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Catholics ARE Christian chowderhead. I can't believe he got 50% of the popular vote...

Message Edited by yoda_blues on 03-03-2004 02:03 PM

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I didn't think he did.

[Millerboy]

Catholics are not Christians. Christians are Protestants. A derivative of Roman Catholicism.

[yoda_blues]

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MiLLeRBoY wrote:

Catholics are not Christians. Christians are Protestants. A derivative of Roman Catholicism.

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Jesus...I can't believe I need to explain Chrisitianity to a zealot like you.

Christianity is the root of all religions that recognize Jesus Christ as the savior or believe in him as the son of god. Protestant, Catholic, Lutheran, are forms of Christianity.

Christianity, as defined here Dictionary.com
1.) The Christian religion, founded on the life and teachings of Jesus.
2.) Christians as a group; Christendom.
3.) The state or fact of being a Christian.
4.) pl. Chris·ti·an·i·ties A particular form or sect of the Christian religion: the Christianities of antiquity.

Stop being a douche and learn about the beliefs you always say you hold so dear.

[Millerboy]

Catholic www.dictionary.com

a.Of or involving the Roman Catholic Church.

b. Of or relating to the universal Christian church.

c. Of or relating to the ancient undivided Christian church.

d. Of or relating to those churches that have claimed to be representatives of the ancient undivided church.

Christians divided from the Catholic Church hundreds of years ago. I don't consider myself Roman Catholic anymore. It's a separate branch. Christians are usually a commonly used term for Protestants. I was wrong to say Christians, I meant Protestants. But Roman Catholics are different from Christians. I don't like Roman Catholic people or the Catholic Church.

[constable2]

You know protestants as christians because you are american.  The protestants started up over here because they didnt like the church of england.  They are all christians though.  Don't be a retard.

[nojopar]

Actually, it started with Martin Luther in Germany before Henry VIII break from the Roman Church.  Luther's reformation was more a true reformation.  Henry the VIII more or less just wanted a divorce.  Prior to the early 1500's, whenever you said, "Christian", you meant "Catholic".  Catholcism IS Christianity for the first 1500 years of Christianity's existence.  After that, all these splinter groups formed with various and sundry reasons for existence.  Most have some sort of spiratual basis that differitiates them from Catholicism, but more or less it boils down to autonomous nation-states who no longer want to have to bend to paple decree.  In other words, it's politics.

So, anyone that says Catholicism isn't Christianity is.... well.... just ignorant.  They should be looked on much the same way as someone who still believes the Earth is flat.

[constable2]

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Nojopar wrote:

Actually, it started with Martin Luther in Germany before Henry VIII break from the Roman Church.  Luther's reformation was more a true reformation.  Henry the VIII more or less just wanted a divorce.  Prior to the early 1500's, whenever you said, "Christian", you meant "Catholic".  Catholcism IS Christianity for the first 1500 years of Christianity's existence.  After that, all these splinter groups formed with various and sundry reasons for existence.  Most have some sort of spiratual basis that differitiates them from Catholicism, but more or less it boils down to autonomous nation-states who no longer want to have to bend to paple decree.  In other words, it's politics.

So, anyone that says Catholicism isn't Christianity is.... well.... just ignorant.  They should be looked on much the same way as someone who still believes the Earth is flat.

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I agree.

[Millerboy]

constable2, you don't even know when OR where Protestantism started. Damn it, you should not be giving me religious advice. You're a scatter-brained Atheist. Protestantism was started in Europe and there are 6 main branches of Protestantism. And also hundreds of subbranches too.  Now, I don't like the Roman Catholic Church because of many of the reasons that Martin Luther posted on the door of the Church back in the 1700's or whatnot.

[yoda_blues]

I rememeber when this thread was about VIDEOGAMES...