T w e n t y S i d e d
Yesterday I asked “how long is WoW?” I asked that question as a result of making this comic.
How Long Is WoW?
While working on a comic for the coming week, a question came to mind. A sort of “how long is a piece of string?” type question…
How long would it take to get to max level in WoW? About how much time would it take to finish the raiding stage of the game after that? (I know it’s almost impossible to really finish all the raids, but I’m just asking for a ballpark “how long to get the most common / interesting gear that most players want?)
Yes, I know the question is vague. Answers will no doubt be all over the place. For extra fun, try giving your answer without reading anyone else’s first. I’m curious what the numbers will look like.
Experienced Points: Zynga’s Wringer
This week’s column might make a small step towards pacifying the people who were outraged that I discussed Zynga without going out of my way to enumerate their treachery. I’ve written a bit about Zynga now, and there seems to be some impression that all Zynga conversations must open and close with a litany of their sins. There was a comment at one point where someone suggested that (paraphrase) we should hound him until he apologizes for this. Meaning, I guess, that I should be punished for not sacrificing a few inches of my column space in the interest of telling people what they already know.
This column should not be viewed as an olive branch to those enraged parties. I am not a fan of mandatory conversations any more than I’m a fan of forbidden conversations. I think it’s important that we be able to look at Zynga’s impact on the industry without working ourselves into an emotional froth over what jerks they are. That’s a dead horse, and there are more interesting targets to which I would like to apply my weekly 1,000 word beatstick. In fact, I think the Zynga rage will look fairly quaint a couple years from now, for reasons I explain in the column, which was linked in the previous paragraph as well as at the end of the sentence you are reading now.
Part of the problem is the March Mayhem voting and the way Zynga trounced several established industry fixtures like Square Enix and Rockstar. This drove people into an enraged frenzy. The epicenter of the clash took place in the epic 598 page, 20,000 comment long thread regarding Valve vs. Zynga, which was a sewer of open hostility and irrational hate.
Hopefully now the blood has cooled and people will be in some kind of shape to talk about this in the framework of one [unpopular but successful] business in a changing industry instead of a discussion about the the idolatry of the unbelievers.
Stolen Pixels #186: Well Lookie Who We Have Here
Here we have some thoughts on the whole X-Com / XCom… situation… thing.
I don’t know what I was thinking when I made this. The new (to Stolen Pixels) character is one I’ve had sitting around for ages, and I’ve been waiting for a special occasion to use him. But this wasn’t a very special occasion. Sort of an absurd conversation. Not really the sort of bang he deserves.
Ah well.
A bunch of rambling about Stolen Pixels itself below, for those who are curious why I do what I do…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Stolen Pixels #186: Well Lookie Who We Have Here”
C&C 4 Cover Art
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Man, it’s really cool of EA to put The Escapist’s editor-in-chief Russ Pitts on the cover of Command & Conquer 4. Their rendition is pretty accurate as well. I have it on good authority that he’s always brooding and swiping the free Tiberium out of the dish in the Lobby.
More seriously: The resemblance is kinda uncanny.
Spoiler Warning Episode 18: Bow Chicka Wow Wow
Warning: For reasons we still don’t understand, this episode contains Mass Effect’s infamous XXX hard core porno sex simulation*.
We joke about wanting to romance Tali, but I have the sense that this is a pretty common preference among male gamers. Tali seems to be a lot more popular than either Liara or Ashley. And I think she’s more popular because she’s simply more interesting. Liara is smart, Ashley is capable, but Tali is both. Yes, she has a skin-tight body suit, but so does just about everyone else in the game. More importantly, she’s got chicken feet and you never see her face. So I think her popularity is due to her personality far more than sex appeal.
Having said that, there seems to be no end of speculation (and photoshopping) concerning what we would find under the mask:
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(The real Tali model is actually pretty ugly under the mask. Her face is just there to hint at the shape with faux-lighting. I can’t find it now, but someone managed to move the camera close enough to look through her helmet using the clipping plane. They showed that her head is low-poly and sort of mannish. EDIT: Found it.)
We’re not ready to announce the next series, but I will say it’s not going to be Mass Effect 2. Not right away, anyway. We don’t want this to turn into “The Mass Effect Show”. We’re going to do one or two other games before we head into Mass Effect 2: Cerberus Goes Bananas.
* And by “XXX porno” we mean, “a side view of a bare female bottom”.
X-Com Sequel on the Way.
Yes, they are making a sequel to X-Com.
Described as a “reimagining” of the series that was created by MicroProse in the mid-90s, players in the new XCom game (that’s right, XCom, not X-Com) will take on the role of an FBI agent in charge of identifying and eliminating a deadly threat posed by “an unknown and faceless enemy that is violent probing and plotting its way into our world.” The game will maintain the “strategic core” of the original X-Com games, combining it with the natural intensity of a first-person experience.
So, they have decided to honor the legendary turn-based strategy sim by reimagining it as a shooter. Perfect. Perhaps next they can reimagine 12 Angry Men as a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced buddy cop movie with car chases and explosions. Let’s reimagine the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of T-Pain’s pimped-out mansion with an image of T-Pain doing a fist-pound with a deified Vanilla Ice. Citizen Kane can be reimagined as an anime harem comedy about a Newspaper Tycoon / Mech pilot and the bevy of hot young girls who come between him and his robot maid Rosebud. And then let’s reimagine the Audrey Hepburn / Gregory Peck movie Roman Holiday, using Pam Anderson and Ben Afleck.
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We had to destroy the franchise in order to save it. Except, it was already destroyed. So, I guess we had to use the wreckage to build cheap, shallow mockery of the original.
Is there anything on this planet you idiots won’t turn into a shooter? I’m a fan of shooters, but isn’t there room in this hobby for something else? You guys have successfully euthanized the turn-based strategy genre, but is it completely necessary for you to rape the corpse?
Dang kids. Get off my lawn.
From The Archives:
PC Hardware is Toast
This is why shopping for graphics cards is so stupid and miserable.
Overthinking Zombies
Let's ruin everyone's fun by listing all the ways in which zombies can't work, couldn't happen, and don't make sense.
Project Octant
A programming project where I set out to make a Minecraft-style world so I can experiment with Octree data.
Gamers Aren’t Toxic
This is a horrible narrative that undermines the hobby through crass stereotypes. The hobby is vast, gamers come from all walks of life, and you shouldn't judge ANY group by its worst members.
Grand Theft Railroad
Grand Theft Auto is a lousy, cheating jerk of a game.
id Software Coding Style
When the source code for Doom 3 was released, we got a look at some of the style conventions used by the developers. Here I analyze this style and explain what it all means.
Video Compression Gone Wrong
How does image compression work, and why does it create those ugly spots all over some videos and not others?
The Dumbest Cutscene
This is it. This is the dumbest cutscene ever created for a AAA game. It's so bad it's simultaneously hilarious and painful. This is "The Room" of video game cutscenes.
Ludonarrative Dissonance
What is this silly word, why did some people get so irritated by it, and why did it fall out of use?
Megatextures
A video discussing Megatexture technology. Why we needed it, what it was supposed to do, and why it maybe didn't totally work.