I think there were at least three conversations which we named “the best part of the game”. If there was one episode that I’d like the writers at Bioware to see, it would be this one.
More like this, please.
Link (YouTube) |
As promised near the end of the episode, here is my epic 5,000 word journey through the Mass Effect lore as it pertains to Mr. Mordin Solus, MD: Part 1 – Part 2 –Part 3 – Part 4.
I do not have another series lined up. Right now the plan is to return to Stolen Pixels. No date is set on that just yet.
This is actually a pretty meager time for MMO games. Consider:
DC Universe Online
DC Universe is the diet cola of the online world right now. Nothing offensive about it, but it’s thin and insubstantial. To its credit, the writing is up to normal comic book standards. Which is to say, a bit dumb, but not brain-meltingly idiotic.
Champions Online
Champions Online went free-to-play, but the transition was executed in true Cryptic fashion: With much fanfare and little skill, showing almost no understanding of how to hook people and entice them to pay. I returned to the game to discover that I couldn’t log in with any of my old characters. Because they had custom power sets, they were “gold” characters. I had to downgrade them to silver before I could use them. This downgrade is done before login. It just lists the archetypes and you have to pick one without knowing how they work, what energy builder you’ll be using, what block power, what travel power, etc. I had no sense of what sort of changes I was in for. These characters were all made with specific themes and concepts in mind, and there was no point in downgrading them if it was just going to ruin them. Fine, I thought, I’ll roll a new character and get to know these power sets before trying the downgrade. Except, the game only gives you two character slots, and I had eight characters. I would need to delete seven of my characters before I could even open the builder, just to play around and see how it worked.
I realize the point of a game going F2P is not to give the game away for free, but to simply get revenue in a different way. But this was absurd. I couldn’t even get past the login screen. The goal is to get people hooked, and then tempt them with baubles. If you’re asking for money at the front door, then you didn’t make the game free to play. You just made it a pain in the ass to pay for. I never even got in to play the game.
“Oh, they just rolled it out. There’s bound to be some bumps in the system.”
That’s the Cryptic way. Make a messy, ill-conceived system, fix half of it, and then drive it into the ground. You could give Cryptic a shipment of gold bars, and their first thought would be to make doorstops out of them. Only, they would make them too light to actually hold open a door. And they would paint the outside with ugly latex paint. And the website to order the doorstops would be horrible and confusing to use. And when nobody wanted their solid gold mafunctioning ugly doorstops, they would blame the bad economy.
I suppose I could just create a brand new account so I could experiment with the builder, but I think I already endured more hassle than the game is worth.
Star Trek Online
Meh.
City of Heroes
This game is still $15 a month, while lot of games are coming in at $10 a month. The fact that this seven-year old game is still charging premium prices while the one year old Champions is free-to-play says a lot about the relative quality of these titles.
I loved this game. But I just don’t think the game has a lot of potential of a Let’s Play. Or at least, I’m not feeling it. If I signed up, it would be to play for the sake of playing. Not a bad reason to re-sub, but I should probably be focusing my time elsewhere. I have a lot on my plate right now, and taking on an MMO just to have fun would be… irresponsible.
The Future
The Old Republic, Tera, Guild Wars 2. Lots of cool titles coming up. It will be interesting to see where things go this year.
Rutskran sings in this episode. You are honor-bound to listen to it in its entirety. No cheating, no skipping ahead. No turning down the volume or leaving the room.
Link (YouTube) |
Really interesting conversations in this one, near the end. The change in quality and depth between this part of the game and the main storyline is simply shocking. The story is more coherent. The characterization is better, and there’s more of it. Even the fights are more interesting and better staged.
The main story is so quarantined from the rest of it, and so brief, and so much worse. I would love to know how this game was constructed.
A positive, coherent, thoughtful look at several aspects of the game. Sorry. I don’t know what came over us.
Link (YouTube) |
Reminder: Keep those questions coming for the 100th episode. Also, don’t worry about repeating questions. Seeing a question appear more than once will help us to see that it’s a popular question.
Next Monday will mark the 100th episode of Spoiler Warning. We’re going to do a mailbag episode. So post your question below, and we may or may not choose to answer it during the show. These questions can be aimed at specific cast members, or at the group as a whole. They can be about other videogames we haven’t covered, about making the show, (although I think we’ve beat that dead horse into a paste) or about us personally. Have us write poems, or talk about comic books, or do impressions, or whatever. We’ll pick our favorites and make a show out of them.
Examples of good questions:
1) How did you guys get to be so awseome?
2) Given that all of you are brilliant, witty, and strikingly attractive, what was the best part of System Shock 2?
3) I would like to send you money. What is the largest denomination of U.S. currency in circulation?
4) I would like Rutskarn to compose a poem about HEPA air filters. Is there any hope for me, or should I have myself committed?
5) What’s the deal with the typo in #1?
Examples of bad questions:
A) What is your credit card number, expiration date, and name, just as it appears on the card?
B) Do you feel consent is overrated when it comes to sex? Also, where do you live?
C) How loud can Rutskarn sing?
D) I understand Mumbes is an expert on Batman. Can she explain why he sucks so bad?
E) No, seriously, what IS up with that typo in #1?
Please try to keep the comments focused on questions. We’re going to be reading through this when we make the list, and that will be easier if we don’t have a 100 comment thread on the metric system or the Timex Sinclair.
For our one-year episode, we wanted to do something really special. We didn’t just want 15 minutes of footage from a game we’ve already talked about or played, so we decided to spoil an entire game, all in one go. We played Amnesia: The Dark Descent for well over an hour, and we made a highlight reel of the result.
Link (YouTube) |
Please rise for a message from the hosts:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Spoiler Warning: Happy Adversary”
Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of Spoiler Warning. Today, we’re going to wrap up the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC with a special two-part episode.
I know this is longer than most of you prefer, but if you can tough it out you will reap the following rewards:
Link (YouTube) |
Link (YouTube) |
Aside from the fact that he was a new, unique alien, I really had no idea what the Shadow Broker was like. I guessed that he looked like Bowser, as a joke. Later I guessed that he was Dr. Claw, as a joke. I guessed that he had a throne room, as a joke. I made these guesses for humorous effect, because of how stupid and absurd they sounded. Then at the end we found out he looked like Bowser, sounded like Dr. Claw, and sat around a throne room.
BioWare is like your high school sweetheart that you marry right after graduation, and then wake up one day years later and realize you simply don’t know this person anymore. Where did it all go wrong? It’s hard to say. Their attention seems to be elsewhere, and you suspect they might be wooing someone else behind your back. The only thing to do now is to start drinking and feeling sorry for yourself.
On the upside, the hook at the end was pretty cool and I can’t wait to see how the consequences of this play out in the next game!
Most stories have plot holes. The failure isn't that they exist, it's when you notice them while immersed in the story.
Fidget spinners are ruining education! We need to... oh, never mind the fad is over. This is not the first time we've had a dumb moral panic.
My first REAL published book, about a guy who comes back from the dead due to a misunderstanding.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2015.
A look at the main Borderlands games. What works, what doesn't, and where the series can go from here.
I'm not surprised a fighting game has an absurd story. I just can't figure out why they bothered with the story at all.
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.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2012.
An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.
Be careful what you learn with your muscle-memory, because it will be very hard to un-learn it.
T w e n t y S i d e d
