alanschu

I think that's it though. You have to qualify it. It probably helps that I haven't actually seen that video in probably 12 years, but you can definitely tell it's 14 years old. If not older. Err, what? I'm petty and disrespectful now? I think you're getting a bit defensive. Are the people that "liked" my post also being petty and disrespectful? Fact is, a lot of stuff in video games doesn't look nearly as good 14 years later. The only way someone can say it looks good is through the glasses of nostalgia. Take that video and show it to anyone that hasn't touched Baldur's Gate before and they won't be impressed. It's just a fact of life. It doesn't take much (if anything) away from the game though. It's just an intro video. It's why people play Baldur's Gate with Tutu and stuff like that. If they still were forced to play it in 640x480 it'd be a barrier of entry to those playing it. Compared to the rest of the game, the originals ARE jarring. You can dislike the new ones (it doesn't look that good either. Am I being petty and disrespectful to Trent now?). It's more a reflection of how far the industry has come in doing those types of things. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and maybe Trent shouldn't have bothered trying to change it, but having your nostalgia call me petty and disrespectful accomplishes little. For instance, I loved Crusader's intro when I first played it. It's dated now though. Unsurprisingly, compared to today's stuff, it doesn't look good anymore. Having said that, for a 1996 game I'd argue the animations in it are probably still better than Baldur's Gate's. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvAt3hDcNT4 The fact is, I completely forgot those intro videos even existed until they were mentioned here. I could then recall the Kobold one, but I had to see the Friendly Arm Inn and Beregost ones. Yet I remember the actual layouts of the game and the places I actually go in the game. To me, the videos were not a big aspect of the game. Neither the original nor the new one would provide a barrier to me replaying Baldur's Gate at this time.

Neither intro looks particularly good IMO hahaha.

There are advantages to having deadlines and deliverables to meet. I wouldn't at all be surprised if some of these games (especially those that brought in much more money than expected) have run into some serious scope creep issues.

Pirating a game is a headache? Especially a DRM-free game? Why spend 20 seconds and $20 to get it on Steam when you can simply spend 20 seconds and get it for free. I agree that Steam's accessibility is a boon, but it's not like acquiring pirated games has remained as inconvenient as it was in the past either. The ironic part, however, is you're now stating the opposite argument that pirates use to justify their piracy in the first place: it's more convenient to pirate. I also think you're understating how many people are simply leeches. (Whom even the groups that crack copy protections dislike) Err, many of the Starforce complaints are in fact quite exaggerated. It became the catch all that if someone had an issue on their computer and a game with Starforce was installed, it was Starforce's fault. The creator of Daemon Tools actually spoke out IN SUPPORT of Starforce, indicating that many of the claims people made were just outright incorrect. Unfortunately I never buy this argument as a valid justification for piracy. All it is is entitlement. If you're a man of principle and feel DRM is too prohibitive, then stand by your belief and don't play the game at all. Except, people really, really want to play it, so they come up with whatever rationalizations that prevent any cognitive dissonance because they simply must play that game. Or rather, they simply want to and don't care to do it legitimately, so they pirate it. No sale lost though, so no foul. It's hard to respect people like this. I actually have a coworker that plays a decent amount of games, that hates DRM. Refuses to buy any game that has DRM (even a CD Key). He doesn't pirate games though. He just buys and plays ones that don't have DRM. What those that pirate to avoid DRM don't realize they are doing is providing justification that tighter DRM could be a possible solution. If a game sells poorly and has been downloaded 10 million times, someone will see "lost sales." If a game sells poorly and hasn't been pirated at all, you don't give any excuse to the developer. The game did poorly because it was a poor game. If a game has zero pirated downloads, there's no need to spend time or money on DRM. So while there may be the irony that tightening their grip will have more slip through their fingers, the cause of DRM is piracy. If people stopped pirating and just didn't buy games they didn't feel were worth the price that they are listed at and waited until price drops if necessary, $0 would be wasted on DRM. There's no sense attempting to combat anything if it's not there. Unfortunately, it's a tragedy of the commons issue where some people ruin it for everyone, so other people further justify their actions by indicating that they are just a drop in the bucket. They'll say "It's not like if I stopped pirating that DRM would go away." Unfortunately, for many it seems, people seem to feel that the ability to play video games is something they are entitled to do. So they do. Rather than standing up for what they believe in, they tell themselves that they play the game they want while sticking it to the man, without realizing they further compromise their hobby by doing so. As a game developer, my dislike of piracy has shot up, while my support for DRM has actually gone down. I agree that it's typically not worth the trouble (especially since I'm in QA and often have to deal with these issues on release), but I recognize that the cause of DRM is piracy. If piracy didn't exist, neither would DRM. People will then justify that piracy helps keep prices down, which still isn't true. The only way that perspective would be true is if the people pirating would, in fact, not only buy the game if they couldn't pirate it, but also be willing to buy it at a higher price than what it currently sells for. Which undermines the cost reason for piracy. TL;DR If you want DRM to go away, stop pirating video games.

Why don't you like CK2?

It was originally a pre-order bonus, that could be played a couple of weeks before release while waiting for the core game. They later released it as a DLC "Dead Legions" or something like that, I think. It adds quite a bit to the game because it is a prelude to what happens, explaining quite a bit of what is going on and fleshing out a couple of npcs that otherwise may have you go "Huh?" (though it probably had a lot of people go "Huh?" when they started up the prologue and where playing romans with no mention of Camelot or anything arthurian ) The real problem? It is probably a better story than the main campaign and set up better. You actually go through a character creation process with multiple choice scenarios that define your stats, class and starting troops. Well, I did go through the character creation process (choose archers, am a champion, and helped all refugees)

I think this is just a convenient excuse to justify piracy. It's easy to make an unfalsifiable claim. If these people exist, then you are stating that these people not only wouldn't buy the game, but actually have no interest in acquiring the game at all (that is, their demand for the product would be 0). If the demand is non-zero, then there must be a value placed on the product. This is evidenced in that people do spend their time acquiring and installing said product (since time in and of itself is a resource). There ARE people that pirate simply because it maximizes the amount of content they get for the investment they put in. Saying that they simply wouldn't buy any games if piracy stopped existing is as naive as hoping that piracy disappears.

If something is worth literally nothing to you, why is it worth your time? I stopped pirating eons ago, but even then I have realized that while actively buying games, I have absolutely no shortage of games to play. There's no point in my pirating something when I have a Steam backlog with over 50 games I haven't even touched yet. Coupled with things like Steam sales, it just means I have to wait and be opportunistic if I am super desperate to play a game. I don't even get mad if I buy a game at 50% off and learn it was 75% off the next day, because I obviously attributed the game to be worth at least 50% off (otherwise I wouldn't have bought it).

XCOM. Though I would like to play Spec Ops.

@melkathi I agree that they simplified KA2 too much. I actually don't mind the army limitation, but I do miss owning the strongholds and whatnot. There are aspects of the infrastructure building that would've been great WITH the stuff from the first. Stand alone it's just not quite as good. Aspects of the research are interesting, but again underutilized by the underwhelming strategy game. I don't think I played the prologue. Was it a DLC? I rarely buy DLC so if so, then I am not playing it haha.

Just for reference sake, here's the Nashkel Mines intro (these do not contain spoilers for any that haven't played the game): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T_yyLmRqFI And Beregost: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxuXeToyAW4

Suffering from extreme gamer ADD, but Mark of the Ninja seems to be able to capture my attention! Also finished up King Arthur (dragged on down the stretch, but ultimately I enjoyed it). Playing the second one, which is lacking the strategic component I really enjoyed in the first one. Although I feel the combat engine is significantly improved (although flying enemies are a bit cumbersome to deal with I find).

It's inevitable that some of these will "fail." There's one I read about (Link that has been creatively salvaged) that was just tragic as the guy lost all of his programmers and learned it was actually a pretty challenging scenario. Fortunately his honesty seems to have garnered some degree of empathy (and really, any hopeful programmer should recognize that this is a great way to get your foot into the door, if you have the time to spend) and he's fully open sourced the project. I can agree that blocking out updates for everyone that didn't contribute is probably also not the best way to go about things. I suppose it works if you wish to employ a kickstarter model (that is, using kickstarter to develop all of your projects), but I think you do alienate those that were interested but not able to contribute for a variety of reasons. I do agree that Obsidian had the most grounded release date.

No clue whatsoever. At best I could ask a friend that works for them though.

There was a time during Jade Empire development where the building they were in received catastrophic flooding and caused a lot of intense damage including server damage. Much of Jade Empire's finaling occurred in a hotel as a result. I wouldn't be surprised if something like that is what caused those original things to be lost.

Because not all gamers have the same interests as Morgoth. Seriously, it's an absurd statement and your defense of it is equally absurd. Someone bought it because they'd rather play it first hand than watch a Youtube video of it. If they wanted to just watch the content, they would have.

Why bother when you can see just as well on Youtube. Why play any game?

I really enjoyed that one too. The Imperial Agent is also pretty well done IMO.

Ah yes, western poverty. I was thinking of people that were actually unable to actually meet their basic needs.

Mark of the Ninja is fantastic!

It has nothing to do with me being concerned I'd be lost or confused. Video game sequels tend to be decently self-contained.

@Wrath of Dagon You should actually read the article you linked. Shortly after the top line:

The original or The Witcher 2? Both have bad combat, imo, but for fairly different reasons. The second is definitely a lot more enjoyable and involved though, although the difficulty curve follows a Gothic-like progression where at the beginning you get repeatedly beaten up and brutally murdered, and by the end even the final boss is a breeze. I haven't played the second at all yet (though I do own it) since I want to finish the first.

Mostly manpower, as well as a desire to stay mostly true to the original. I also heard there's an issue that the original artwork resources that were used to make the final 2D images don't exist anymore unfortunately, which means changing any of the background art would be pretty close to impossible with their team. This is my hang up with the original. I still want to play it, but I have a feeling I'll be switching to "easy mode" and just experiencing the story. The combat was not at all enjoyable IMO.