alanschu

Just thought I'd chime in briefly. Most of these points are towards Calax. There was a point where Infinity Ward wasn't owned by Activision either. They were purchased by Activision after the release of the original Call of Duty. John Carmack was famous for owning multiple Ferrari's, and even giving one of them away to a winner of one of the Quake Tournament winners. I think he even decided if he bought less Ferrari's, he could pursue is other dreams of experimenting in rocketry. There are a LOT of people in the games industry that make a LOT of money. Most people don't, but I assure you I will not be losing sleep over wondering if the heads of big studios (id Software, BioWare, Blizzard, etc. and I would definitely presume, Infinity Ward) are making enough money to be able to flash their cash around. Looking at Kotaku's legal documents posted, I see clearly on the 48th point that they feel they are owed in excess of $36 million (and this is probably related to the other part of the document where they mentioned they were seeking appropriate remuneration for not only themselves, but the staff that worked at Infinity Ward). You do realize that not everyone pays $15 a month for the game. Assuming the 11 million is still accurate (I heard it was slashed in half when they lost access to China... Did they get China back?), the thing is that Chinese subscribers do not pay $15/month for the game. They paid significantly less (I don't know the actual numbers, but GamaSutra mentioned that Activision-Blizzard would make about $140 million annually from China, and that was with an anticipated improved royalty, up from the $55 million per year they were making). IIRC, the lawsuit was written up by a respectable law firm. I did another quick skim of the article, and most of the praise they mention for the Call of Duty and Modern Warfare franchise came from either third party praise, or Bobby Kotick himself. Could you point me to the which article in the lawsuit mentions that they, Jason and Vince, state that Call of Duty and Modern Warfare are the most successful product lines in the industry? NOTE: I see your later post as I go through. The first article does mention it. However, we're not sure what their metric is for "successful." I'd argue that, given its duration and the amount of sales that have occurred early in the release (which is the most important time for sales, there could be a metric that allows them to legitimately post this claim. You talk about games like Diablo 2 and StarCraft, none of which had remotely near the sales that MW2 alone had just months after its release. Selling a lot of games over a long period of time is less successful than selling a lot of games over a short period of time. This is even in the words of Obsidian CEO, Feargus Urqhart. StarCraft 2 is not out yet, and is literally you doing the exact same thing that you accuse West and Zampella of doing. I don't think you understand how this works. Full creative control does not mean that Infinity Ward can do whatever they want. It means they have control over the content. It doesn't guarantee that Activision will fund whatever they want. If Infinity Ward comes to them with your absurd "Modern Warfare: Carebear Edition," and Activision doesn't like it, Activision can still state that they will not fund this project. Infinity Ward is free to come up with other ideas Activision will consider. It does mean that Activision does not have the right to alter game content upon its own volition without consent from the developer itself (something that does happen in video games, and probably other industries). It does not mean that Infinity Ward gets free willy nilly to do whatever they want with Activision's money. The lawsuit itself explicitly states that employees were brought to tears in article 32. You don't know what the metric they are using for successful is. The only real argument you made is World of Warcraft. You have also spat out games that don't even exist yet, as well as other games that are over a decade old that wouldn't have nearly the revenue per unit that a game like Modern Warfare 2 has had. I'll state straight up that, financially speaking, I consider MW2 to be significantly more financially successful than games like Diablo 2 and StarCraft. But when Activision themselves mention that MW2 is one of three primary reasons why Activision was able increase its net revenues from 2008 to 2009. Not bad for a game released at the end of 2009. Activision also boasted that it was the best selling console game in the US and Europe for 2009, despite its November release date.

I'm out of touch for computer components and I need a hand. I'm likely looking at a Phenom II processor. I've always been partial to Asus Mobos, and am not sure if I will go nVidia or ATI. Any mobo recommendations at a variety of price ranges. Thanks Allan

I personally don't feel I was behaving in any other way. As for my interview, the interviewers did seem impressed with my knowledge of the company. /shrug

I think the big thing is that the cost of game development was less of an issue in the past. Sales were also a fraction of the current ones. That is true. I don't think that sales have scaled well enough for the cost of development though, outside of the big sellers (just my opinion). Long gone are the days of Sid Meier sitting at a computer and being the only programmer and designer on a game. The computer industry itself is still pretty young. When my Dad opened up his office in the early 90s, he used to be able to make 100% markup on every computer sold. Now it's not even worth his time to sell computers because the markup is so low and he is too small scale. Given the cost of games has remained static (and hence, gotten cheaper when adjusted for inflation), I'd expect that the markup cost for games has gone down too. Obviously they have made up for this in terms of volume, but it also means if you don't have the volume things are certainly less good for your bottom line. It's a bit of a scapegoat, but no doubt it's becoming more difficult to turn profits (and we all know everyone here is hoping that companies don't all become like Activision), so companies are looking to combat that from as many angles as possible. At least, that's the way it looks to me.

Really enjoyed the game

I think the big thing is that the cost of game development was less of an issue in the past.

Help yourself to a cookie. I didn't say you were lying. I asked if that was the case. The best case I could do was to look at the release dates of the games, as well as the core staff in the credits. Combine that BioWare also released MDK 2 in the year 2000, I was finding it hard to determine how BioWare would have the manpower to dedicate to NWN a year before their breakout game was released. I played Baldur's Gate so long ago I certainly do not remember the frumpy guy on the road to Nashkel mines (so I couldn't even make any assessment to its context), and I certainly do not know of any "books" that showed up on Interplay's website, so as I said, the list was "that I think of." NWN could very well have taken 5 years. I'm just skeptical that that is the case. Though it's certainly possible (and probably likely) that I could be wrong on this. It likely is a game that fits more along the lines of the 3-4 year cycle mentioned by Morgoth. As for the hiring test, I'll just assume you're being facetious. I'd be very surprised if we didn't agree that quizzing people on their knowledge of the development times of past BioWare games would be unnecessary for hiring employees.

The woes of a free market economy. Adapt, survive, thrive. Couldn't you argue that that is what developers are doing by limiting second hand sales?

Blasto? No, try again Volourn? Close but no cigar. Remember this is Edwin we're talking about. For all those irritating cameos. Isn't it Elminster?

It'd be more of a mistake than me being dishonest. I intentionally prefaced my statement with "that I can think of." I don't know how long NWN was in development because I didn't really start following BioWare as a company until after I played Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 in 2000. However, since NWN came out in 2002, that would mean that a 5 year development cycle had them starting the game a full year before the original Baldur's Gate was released. Is this the case? I specifically mentioned Dragon Age. And I think 4 years is probably a conservative estimate. As for SWTOR, I don't know how long that game has been in development. It was officially announced in 2008 IIRC, but I would expect that some time has already been spent on the game.

Kind of like the amount of time from Baldur's Gate to Baldur's Gate 2. Few of BioWare's games have "3-4 years of development time." In fact, the only one I can really think of that took that long is probably Dragon Age.

Given a post of mine has been deleted and my inbox seems to be rather void of any explanation, I'm probably not. I guess TwinkieGorilla's commentary is A-OK and my responses to it are not.

That played some part. I regret my decision to share it because I didn't fully realize the ramifications. I knew that I would become in part a representative of the company, but I didn't realize how "official" people would take it. So when I shared my impressions about Dragon Age, some people felt it was fair game to insinuate that I had misled them when they didn't share the same impressions of the game. Being called a shill simply because I work for EA, even though I doubt I'd talk any differently about DA if I didn't work for BioWare, doesn't exactly make one feel superbly awesome. It's mostly my mistake. Since I now work for the company, people are going to treat me differently simply because I work for them. So outside of a few friends, I try to limit work discussions because it just makes things easier. Prevents me from needing to deal with inquiries and requests. Having to be silent about some stuff does make it a little more difficult. I knew about the expansion pack before it was announced and would have liked to share it, but couldn't. So I opted to limit my discussions about work and the games we make.

You'd guess wrong. The decision was mine.

Hehey alanschu, did you escape from your overlords at bioware before you got the DLC stuff fixed? ?? I'm not on DLC. And I don't discuss work anymore either.

I'm skeptical. There could be some predispositions to particular types of thought, but I think culture plays a very strong effect. As for the subjugation of women, I think a lot of that comes down to one thing: strength. Looking back at history, but all the intellect in the world doesn't matter very much if someone has physical domination over you. And men are stronger.

I really enjoyed the first two Fallouts. Though perhaps because I was still young, a large part of what appealed to me was the splatter effects of the demo set in Junktown haha. The first two are better than the most recent, but there are definitely things that I like about Fallout 3 as well. I'd love nothing more than to be able to experience Fallout 1 and 2 with the high quality 3D graphics and first person perspective that Fallout 3 provides. Walking out of the Vault in Fallout 3 and looking into the landscape (and having my eyes adjust to the light) was a big plus. I didn't care as much for the countryside stuff, but whenever I had to go into the city I was pretty giddy. I loved the barren, blown out buildings with rebar sticking out and debris everywhere. In Oblivion I fast traveled all over the place. In Fallout 3, I hardly ever did. I just liked walking around the environment, watching the reload animations of my weapons get more elaborate as they degraded in quality and so forth. As for Killian, the thing that most surprises me about him is that prior to playing Fallout 3, he pretty much was what TwinkieGorilla is now re: Fallout 3. I know I really got sick of all the "IT'LL BE FALLOUT IN NAME ONLY!" posts and general hate on for Fallout 3. Glad you had fun with the game Killian. I did too. Fallout 1 and 2 are superior games IMO, but I certainly wouldn't trade away my experiences as a lonely wastelander wandering through the blown out streets of downtown Washington D.C.

Disagree. There is no way I'd consider a player that averaged a little more than half a point per game as being a "great player." Great players are the Sakics, Leetch's, and Yzermans IMO. Marleau is a very good player (heck, I'd be more willing to call Marleau a great player over Graves), but I don't consider him one of the best players to play the game simply because he is having a very good season. For the same reasons I wouldn't compare Jonathan Cheechoo one of the best players, nor players like Rob Brown (1 fantastic season and faded into obscurity and now Oilers telecasts), Jim Carey (the former Vezina winner that only played 4 seasons in the NHL), or Bernie Nicholls (zomg I'm playing with Gretzky and saw a 72 point improvement over my previous season). Those a great seasons, but ultimately not great players. I see Marleau more along the lines of an Ales Hemsky (whom I think highly of). A player that is good for getting you around a point per game, and a 1st line player on most teams, but ultimately not the driving force behind an excellent team. You can see this as a knock on Marleau, but it really isn't. If he can maintain numbers like he has been for some more seasons, he'll likely start to be considered for the Hockey Hall of Fame. But his career high prior to 2005-2006 was 57 points. The year Thornton joins his team, he's finally hit that PPG status that we all expected him to be at. I feel this is for two reasons: Marleau continued to grow and develop as a player, and Thornton-Cheechoo provided significant scoring depth that it made it meant Marleau wasn't always facing the top defensive matchups (or he was playing with Jumbo Joe directly). Thornton and Heatley this season continue to make Marleau's life easier, because defenses cannot key on Marleau due to options. Depth is a wonderful thing and I am jealous jealous jealous because of it.

It doesn't have to do with ideology at all, which is a bifurcation (or more clearly, a false dichotomy, as bifurcation has multiple definitions) on your own part. Believing that someone is lying doesn't have to do with ideology. In Rostere's case, it comes from his belief that Iraq didn't actually have weapons of mass destruction. This belief isn't really that far fetched, because unless I am mistaken, weapons of mass destruction were never found. Now this doesn't mean that Rostere's perspective is necessarily the correct one, but based on what he knows of the entire scenario. He believes, presumably based on the lack of evidence of that weapons of mass destruction existed, that Iraq probably didn't have weapons of mass destruction. He's making a logical assumption here, but it has nothing to do with ideology. He is making the assumption that had weapons of mass destruction existed, they would have been found. Is this an unreasonable assumption given the numerous investigations for the weapons, as well as the occupation of Iraq by US Forces? I'm not very knowledgeable about weapons of mass destruction, nor do I remember (or really care) what types of weapons of mass destruction it was believed Iraq had. Therefore, I do not consider myself an authority on whether or not these weapons would have been able to have been moved/hidden/destroyed, especially if the CIA did have accurate intelligence of their existence. With an assumption that, had the weapons existed, they would have been found, it's easy to deduce the following: The CIA/US's intelligence was incorrect, or the US was not being entirely honest about it for whatever reason. An option such as "they were moved" cannot exist, if the observer assumes that the weapons would have been found if they existed. Is it possible for someone to come to this conclusion because it paints the United States in a negative light? Yes. Is it essential? Absolutely not. All you need is a reason to assume that, had the weapons existed, they would have been found. If the only reason you can think of why someone can come to that conclusion is because they are ideologically opposed to the United States, then you're using a false dichotomy yourself, likely induced by your own biases which makes assumptions that if someone doesn't support a move by a US Republican government, it is probably because they are not ideologically in tune with that government. Going further, this is probably accented because you support that government, and hence get defensive of it, because it prevents your own cognitive dissonance. Ergo, based on Rostere's assumptions, he feels as though the weapons didn't exist based on the assumptions he has made based on what little he knows of the situation. Because of this assumption, he felt their were two conclusions, and would prefer that the government was being dishonest rather than incompetent and making bold moves based on poor intelligence. For the record, I am not ideologically opposed to the United States, but tend to feel the same way with respect to the motivations behind the Iraq war. What little I know of weapons of mass destruction, I am skeptical that had they existed, they would have been successfully removed from their locations without a trace. I'm entirely open to the fact that I could be wrong. While the CIA has been incorrect about things in the past, given some other extenuating circumstances, I don't rule out the possibilities that the United States was looking for a Casus Belli to use as a reason to go to war either. Personally I don't care much for the matter because what's done is done, and I think with some luck some actual good might come out of it for that region. But your original assertion that the only reason you can see that someone would prefer to believe another is lying is due to ideological differences is a false dichotomy. There's other reasons aside from ideological differences for preferring to believe that somebody is lying. Especially since Rostere says he prefers that because he is skeptical that the United States would invade and occupy another country in a preemptive attack based on the mythos surrounding the US intelligence capabilities (which are rather complimentary, rather than skeptical, IMO). By the same token, your interpretation of events, as well as the explanations you will make for the government, will be slanted with your own biases as well. What makes your explanation more valid than Rostere's? /wall of text

I stated my perspective on the situation, in what I would consider a decidedly "nice" manner. I certainly could have been much more aggressive (from the very first post, in fact). The "obviously lost on you part" quote was done for effect, though the enlightening comment is pretty much just a barb. Oh wells. As for Return to Ostagar, it has apparently been delayed. I am not on the DAO DLC team, so I don't know why.

Yeah, I've been limiting myself from the board, though lurking from time to time. Things are just reallllly slow at work right now that I got bored and the train wreck pulled me back in.

Aren't we defensive? Given your obvious hostility towards Oblarg, and your defensiveness to me calling your example unfair, I was wondering if you were lumping me into a pro-gun control crowd and wanting to hit me (and Oblarg and others) to "knock some sense into us." Unsurprisingly, you are dismissive by stating your silliness is lost on me, without accounting for the fact that, perhaps on the internet, things get read differently by other people. Given you have been both defensive and dismissive when I stated the unfairness of your example, it seemed like you were continuing to be unreasonable. Perhaps the idea that I interpreted your frying pan as continued deflection of the point I was trying to make was "obviously lost on you." That you felt it was unfair for me to call you on it is enlightening.

Why?

Accidents occur on a daily basis that do result in people calling for controls of some sort. The first thing that came to my head was bicycle helmets on children. Where I live, parents can be fined if their child doesn't wear one, yet while I grew up in the 80s I never wore one. I'm not 100% sure if it was passed, but I know some parents wanted to ban tag at school because some kids were getting hurt when someone aggressively tagged another person. The reason why your comment is unfair is because it's an aggressive appeal to emotion. Instead of posting the links that you eventually did post, you made an emotionally charged post, complete with an insult and an anecdote that appeals to emotion. In my opinion, you'd have been better served simply posting your links. As for your links, I already found most of them. Finding people against gun control with links (especially the UK and Australia examples) isn't difficult. Filtering through it with some due diligence is the time consuming part.

There are no doubt going to be individual situations where someone having a handgun saved an innocent life by shooting a criminal. By the same account there are no doubt individual instances where accidents have happened by law-abiding citizens owning handguns that had disastrous results (Note: at no point am I stating that these situations have equivalent occurrence rates). Personally I find your appeal to emotion as unfair, because one could easily come back and state something like "Try telling that to a family that lost someone because some neighbor had an accident with a firearm." Frankly, finding the facts in general for stuff like this is very, very... cloudy. It's a polarizing issue that is hotly debated. Wikipedia's article in general states the ineffectiveness of gun control through citing statistics that certainly don't paint it in a positive light (murder rates increasing, etc.). I do have some issues with it, but in the limited amount of research I have done on gun control (i.e. the past hour or so), finding a source that does not have me questioning bias has been difficult. Though from what I could piece together, it does seem at first glance that gun control is ineffective on controlling violent crime rates, and possibly even a detriment to them. I'll definitely need to spend more time on the subject, but I don't have much time at the moment.