T w e n t y S i d e d
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Funny song. The video is a disappointment, though. Even just random game footage would be better than looping the same 2 seconds of footage over and over.
Lyrics:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Those Minerals”
Experienced Points #55:
DRM Systems and the Publishers Who Love Them
This week’s article is a run-down of some publishers and the DRM systems they’re using.
Blizzard (Activision, technically) is conspicuously missing from my list. I’ve noticed that being critical of Battle.Net2 is a flame-inciting topic. There’s this whole subset of the StarCraft fanbase that employs the following reasoning:
1) I never played single-player or LAN, therefore nobody did.
2) I have ubiquitous always-on internet, therefore everyone does.
Anytime the topic of Starcraft 2 LAN or single-player is introduced, and whenever someone complains about having to connect to Battle.Net to do these things, these fans show up and try to convince everyone else that their differing priorities and preferences make them stupid. “That’s the way it is now so stop bitching about it.” The time will come when we will have to attempt the fruitless task of explaining the civilized world to these people, and how sometimes people like different things and that’s okay. But we should probably wait until the game is out.
We don’t know exactly how the new Battle.Net will work. (Unless you ask a Blizzard employee, in which case it will give you free candy and cure cancer.) But the upcoming launch is going to answer a lot of questions about what this service offers in return for its price. We’ll finally get to see if it’s more like Steam (a set of golden handcuffs) or like UbiSoft’s current system, which is an attempt to make single-player games work like an MMO.
For further thought, it might be useful to compare the community reactions to the UbiSoft announcement. Check out the comment threads of the following posts, all covering the same news story on UbiSoft’s new DRM:
* Rock Paper Shotgun
* The Escapist
* Gamespot
The first two articles are followed by comment threads that are white-hot with fury and indignation. The latter contains a lot of people defending the new system, or blaming the harshness of the new system on the pirates. They’re basically people who haven’t been a part of the DRM discussion during the last five years, and haven’t grasped the crucial principles that drive the debate. As long as the game runs for them when they insert the disc on launch day, they’re happy.
I read those two comment threads before I wrote the article, and left feeling invigorated. I was so happy that other gamers were coming around. Then I read the third article and I remembered:
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| Graph courtesy of Alexa. |
When we say “gaming community”, we mean the other people on this site or The Escapist or wherever else our friends are. When UbiSoft says “customers”, they mean those people at Gamespot. PC is a tiny slice of the market, and those of us informed and concerned about DRM are a subset of that. In the article I predicted UbiSoft would cave or comprimise, but it looks like I was proven wrong before the article even went live. Earlier today they issued a clarification of their policy. Their statement demonstrates that the people in charge actually have no idea in the world what we’re upset about. The two sides are so far apart that discussion isn’t even possible. Gamers are going to shout at the wall and UbiSoft will plow forward, heedless of the damage they’re doing to their own name and the mess they’re making of the hobby.
Stolen Pixels #170: Humans First
Another Mass Effect 2 comic. I don’t want to give away too much about who you’re talking to, but there are some who call him… TIM?
TAGES
When you are asking to install system drivers with administrator-level access, this:
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…is not good enough. Any installer – no matter how large or small the software – should make a point to inform the user what is being installed. The word “TAGES” conveys nothing to the user. I actually had to look it up on Wikipedia to know what I was about to put on my computer.
And while we’re at it: Why the crap is it installing a system for dealing with CD and DVD discs, when I’m installing a digitally distributed game with no physical media? (Funny how these DRM systems are so often broken or sloppy, yet their problems always create additional burdens for the user. The bugs and oversights are never in our favor.)
Whoever came up with this: Go microwave your face, you drooling imbecile.
For the record: The game is Far Cry 2. (Review copy. Wouldn’t normally put up with this much DRM for a game of this… caliber.)
Shamus Plays LOTRO: Part 5
Never has losing a battle and seeing a village sacked been so much… “fun”.
I’m still not decided on just how long I want to run this series. The content under level ten is good (for my purposes) as is some content approaching level 20. But there’s a gap in the middle where the material is either too dry or just not good comic fodder. (Or the jokes would simply be too similar to material I’ve done already.) I should probably play through the mid-teens stuff a bit more before I decide.
(And yes, these should probably be filed under “Let’s play”, but that would make a mess for people in the archives. Spoiler Warning is twice weekly, and that content is actually on this site. So someone paging through the archives would find that every third post would just be a link to a series unrelated to the one they’ve been watching.)
Spoiler Warning:
Mass Effect Part 6
So far our policy has been to include all gameplay – even the boring bits. But we do cut the inventory management screens. I don’t think anyone who has played the game would fault us for this. We could easily burn a several episodes worth of footage during the course of this series doing nothing but sorting and selling. There’s a reason the inventory is the most maligned part of the game. We might eventually do an episode where we talk through the system and demonstrate why it sucks. We’ll see. There’s a fine line between showing how boring and tedious something is, and passing along that boredom and tedium to the viewer.
A lot of people have noticed the short little “loading” pauses in the game. I gather these are not normal, and I’m assuming they’re an artifact of playing, recording, and streaming the game all at the same time.
Near the beginning of this episode I say, “If the Normandy can’t take on that thing, we shouldn’t trust ourselves in it flying through space.” Where “that thing” seems to be “Sovereign”. Uh. I have no idea what I was trying to say there? I don’t remember where I was going with that, but it came out as nonsense. (Really Shamus? You shouldn’t trust yourself in any ship not capable of taking on a Reaper? Well, good luck walking back to Earth, then.) The perils of this sort of series: Words are difficult to edit once spoken.
Stolen Pixels #169: A New Man
They should totally do this for Mass Effect 3.
From The Archives:
Chainmail Bikini
A horrible, railroading, stupid, contrived, and painfully ill-conceived roleplaying campaign. All in good fun.
A Star is Born
Remember the superhero MMO from 2009? Neither does anyone else. It was dumb. So dumb I was compelled to write this.
Borderlands Series
A look at the main Borderlands games. What works, what doesn't, and where the series can go from here.
The Biggest Game Ever
Just how big IS No Man's Sky? What if you made a map of all of its landmass? How big would it be?
Batman v. Superman Wasn't All Bad
It's not a good movie, but it was made with good intentions and if you look closely you can find a few interesting ideas.
Silver Sable Sucks
This version of Silver Sable is poorly designed, horribly written, and placed in the game for all the wrong reasons.
DM of the Rings
Both a celebration and an evisceration of tabletop roleplaying games, by twisting the Lord of the Rings films into a D&D game.
The Best of 2014
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2014.
Programming Language for Games
Game developer Jon Blow is making a programming language just for games. Why is he doing this, and what will it mean for game development?
How I Plan To Rule This Dumb Industry
Here is how I'd conquer the game-publishing business. (Hint: NOT by copying EA, 2K, Activision, Take-Two, or Ubisoft.)