T w e n t y S i d e d
Today is my birthday. I’m skipping regular DMotR. There is a reason for this.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DMotR Special 4:
Let’s Go Crazy”
DMotR Special 4:
Guess Who is Having a Birthday Today?
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But more importantly, I turn thirty-six today. This is not the worst thing to happen to me this year, but clocking another birthday is not among my favorite events. I know I’m smiling in the picture on the left, but that’s only because stress and angst don’t make for good portraits. Birthdays make me want to go coffin shopping.
Two days ago I mentioned to my 9-year-old daughter Rachel that despite her dark hair, the hair on the back of her neck was blond. (I forget how THAT came up. Parents say the darndest things.) She looked at me a moment, then pointed to my forehead, “Look daddy, you have blond hairs too!” Sigh. No kid, those hairs… those are grey.
One year ago my wife got me copy of Comic Book Creator for my birthday. This gift led to the creation of DM of the Rings. I won’t be posting a strip today, but I will have a little screenshot fun at poor Denethor’s expense. This will be the last time I do this. After today, strips will appear uninterrupted until the end.
And while we’re on the subject of birthdays: Twenty Sided will be two years old on September 1st. DMotR will be a year old – and will also end – on September 7th.
Bioshock: DRMShock
Thanks to Taffer for the link to this news item. It’s swiped from the PC Gamer Blog, but I’m linking to Taffer and not the original source because the PC Gamer blog doesn’t have permalinks. (Come on guys! I KNOW you can do better than that. Blogs are not mysterious devices. The functionality is well established and easy to comprehend.)
The upshot of the article is that:
- You must activate the game on-line to play it.
- It can only be activated on one machine at a time. I hope you weren’t planning on playing on your home computer AND laptop, or your home AND work computers.
- You can only activate the game twice.
In order for the following to have the proper impact, I should establish my love for this series. The original “Shock” game – System Shock – affected me so strongly that I wrote an entire novel based on the game. The sequel is one of my all-time favorites. I’ve been waiting for this one for the better part of a decade. I’ve been following the story since the first hints of it dropped way back in February of 2006. I’m not just a fan of this series, I’m an avid, nearly rabid fan of this series.
Dear 2kGames. I’ve got sixty bucks right here. And you guys will never see it. Never. I don’t care if I see the game in the bargain bin two years from now for $5. I don’t want it. I also don’t want to hear your crying about pirates ripping you off. You started it. Your box claims “This game requires Online Activation to play”, but if you were honest about what that really means – if you let people know what you were really selling – it would demolish sales. And you know it. I don’t use pirated software, but my fond hope is that the pirates give you the quick humiliation you deserve.
Activating the game twice? I picked up Doom 3 a couple of years ago, and I’ve reinstalled it four times since then as I’ve shuffled games around or upgraded my computer. There is no excuse for thinking like this.
And this just backs up my earlier post on the uselessness of game reviews. This should be the first thing mentioned in every review. PC Gamer talked about it on their blog, but I’ll bet this never makes it into print. It is my hope that gamers pass this along, so that nobody buys this game without knowing what they’re getting into.
EDIT: More here. Looks like you get an activation “back” when you uninstall? How magnanimous of them.
EDIT: More here on the 2k forums. They have flatly claimed that secuROM isn’t a rootkit. That announcement is followed by about four pages of angry responses from users talking about how it is exactly that. I can’t say one way or the other, but if they have added lies to the mix then I think it ought to act as a Tony-Hawk style multiplier on the negative feedback and publicity they might be experiencing.
In the comments below someone points out that the number of installs has been upped from 2 to 5. I will admit that 5 is indeed larger than 2, although it is less than inifinity, which is the number of installs most games permit.
EDIT: More on this at other sites:
The Daily Jump
consumerist
Completely Random Thoughts
hylomorph
Kotaku has a response from Ken Levine
And even the demo installs the rootkit.
EDIT: Looks like The Rampant Coyote is giving the game a pass as well.
Game Reviews: Reviewed
Jay has an excellent post talking about the manifest uselessness of game reviews.
I would take it a step further and suggest that game reviews go far beyond merely useless, and are in some ways actually counter-productive when it comes to the secondary goal of fostering creativity and encouraging developers to make better games.
I used to love reading PC Gamer. I have a heap of old issues from 1998-2003, which I still read from time to time. The reviews read more like a collection of thoughts on the game itself. How does the combat work? How is the story? Where could it have been better? What new gameplay elements are there? I remember those reviews. I loved those reviews. Outside of blogs, I haven’t seen a review like that in ages. They weren’t all great, but there were some gems in there that were insightful and interesting, even when I disagreed with the reviewer’s conclusion or score.
Here are five ways reviews work against the common goal of making and playing great games: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Game Reviews: Reviewed”
DM of the Rings CXXXVIII:
Another Cunning Gambit
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings CXXXVIII:
Another Cunning Gambit”
Blogging Cliches
Steven links to Thirteen Blogging Cliches. It’s an interesting list. I’m pretty guilty of #10 – blogging about blogging – although I think this isn’t that much of a sin. I write about what interests me, and one of the things that interests me is the dynamics of blogging and the culture that has risen up around blogs.
I agree with Steven that you don’t need open comments to have a blog. I don’t read comments on other blogs, unless it’s at a place like Chizumatic where I’ll likely be familiar with most of the people leaving comments. I never read comments on political blogs, because even when it’s polite it’s tiresome. Even when everyone agrees, it’s still tiresome. (The difference there is that usually political posts are informational or philosophical, which the comments tend to be nothing more than opinion.)
I see comments as the place for “small feedback”. Substantive, lengthy feedback is optimally placed on another blog, where it can be linked to, quoted, excerpted, highlighted, and annotated. It sucks trying to do that sort of thing in a comment box. In this case, I had a lot to say about Steven’s post, so I wrote here and linked him there. If I had a smaller comment like, “I relly like point #9”, or perhaps a correction like, “I never actually said I’d be doing another screencap comic” then usually I’d put it over there. Another way I think of it is if I want to address readers in general then I post here, and if I want to address Steven himself then I comment there. I know lots of people view this very differently, but that’s how I run things.
Blogs can run just fine without small feedback. (Although a smart author will give some way for readers to let him or her know about factual errors and spelling blunders.)
Number 3 on the list is “No Information on the Author”. This is a pet peeve of mine: Many times I’ve avoided linking to somebody that had something interesting to say because I didn’t know what to call them. No name. No gender. It sucks trying to refer to someone without proper nouns or gender-specific pronouns. I tend to gravitate towards writers who use their real names and have a picture of some sort available. I like to know who I’m talking to. Barring that, I like for them to have a handle and a gender. Barring that, at least a name would be nice. If a blog lacks both then I usually don’t bother reading it. What? Is this a young girl? An old man? A couple? A group blog? Oh forget it.
LATER: I also enjoy it when I get to link to other posts joining in the discussion. For example.
DM of the Rings CXXXVII:
Let’s Get This Parley Started
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings CXXXVII:
Let’s Get This Parley Started”
From The Archives:
The Witch Watch
My first REAL published book, about a guy who comes back from the dead due to a misunderstanding.
Deus Ex and The Treachery of Labels
Deus Ex Mankind Divided was a clumsy, tone-deaf allegory that thought it was clever, and it managed to annoy people of all political stripes.
This Scene Breaks a Character
Small changes to the animations can have a huge impact on how the audience interprets a scene.
Steam Summer Blues
This mess of dross, confusion, and terrible UI design is the storefront the big publishers couldn't beat? Amazing.
In Defense of Crunch
Crunch-mode game development isn't good, but sometimes it happens for good reasons.
Who Broke the In-Game Economy?
Why are RPG economies so bad? Why are shopkeepers so mercenary, why are the prices so crazy, and why do you always end up a gazillionaire by the end of the game? Can't we just have a sensible balanced economy?
Stolen Pixels
A screencap comic that poked fun at videogames and the industry. The comic has ended, but there's plenty of archives for you to binge on.
What is Piracy?
It seems like a simple question, but it turns out everyone has a different idea of right and wrong in the digital world.
A Lack of Vision and Leadership
People fault EA for being greedy, but their real sin is just how terrible they are at it.
Resident Evil 4
Who is this imbecile and why is he wandering around Europe unsupervised?