alanschu

If it was just demos, I agree that there'd be less reason to restrict it to friends and family. If it's the full game (even with interruptions), the restriction makes a lot more sense. Do you have any information regarding demos and their success/failure to improve sales? That whole area seems kinda muddy to me.

Are you certain you aren't just seeing what you want to see? The first thing I do in any MMO is leave general chat, because it's filled to the brim with complaining individuals. I also have a coworker that worked on a different MMO, where forum accounts were linked to in game accounts. The people that complained the most about mictrotransactions being stupid and overpriced were the ones that bought 90% of the microtransactions.... I think on some level, it's some people thinking they're savvy and simply hoping that the price will go down/get removed since that would only be of benefit to them, since they have shown that they want the content.

If the Pastebin is to believed, they were undecided as to whether or not a session could simply be restarted (meaning the 60 minute interrupt was mostly there as a reminder/annoyance to encourage the full purchase of the game). I was very intrigued at how this would go, and hope that MS does not actually suspend the service (even if it does end up just being a 60 minute demo).

Although I think this is gone (which is too bad IMO) with the recent changes.

Maybe the ME team uses smaller font If the Deus Ex one is in French, all bets are off!

The bulk of the microtransactions comes from people with subscriptions, so it seems as though subscriptions and the microtransactions are symbiotic for a lot of people. I'm not sure what you mean by "breathing room" however (since the new model introduced has been successful, including the number of subscriptions going up). Further, I'm not sure why you care that there are subscriptions. Would it make for a better experience for you if they were gone? I'm not sure how, since you don't seem to be a subscriber and hence would be unaffected by it.

I admit I was curious to see how it was going to all shakedown with MS sticking to their guns. Alas, less consumer rage to eat up now

The way I read Gaider's comments, they come across more generally in that the threads regarding female characters tend to balloon up a lot more than threads on male characters (for a variety of reasons). I didn't really think they were directed specifically at the thread itself, although there was some facepalming "Morrigan looks less attractive and less interesting now" types of comments. There are definitely some that I feel want the game to fail because it'll grant them some level of schadenfreude. I think some people continue to frequent the BSN simply because it's where they have historically gone, so it's kind of just habitual now. Actually, one thing I liked about the games not really being direct sequels to one another is that it'd let us try mixing things up somewhat (IMO Square did this to pretty good success with the Final Fantasy games, although you could probably argue that they deviated less so than we did - and I'd probably agree with you).

In case this hadn't been answered yet, DAO and DA2 were built upon the Eclipse engine, which in many ways was an extension/evolution of the Aurora engine.

My favourite is "intellectually dishonest". If you want to call someone a liar, just say so. Being intellectually dishonest is not the same thing as lying. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_honesty Obviously citation is a pipe dream (and probably shouldn't be necessary anyway) on a casual internet forum, but it's not lying to present things in a biased way (not factoring in that sometimes it's born out of ignorance).

I know there are some Witcher fans that have concerns because CDPR have very much bought into the console platform, something they weren't expecting.

The reason why it appears "so popular" is because, for a change, we're feeling the other side of the coin... a perspective we aren't used to seeing. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't need to bother you. You can go all Bill O'Reilly and lament that "the white establishment is now the minority" but frankly even if that is true (and I have no information on whether or not it is), I don't care. I don't believe that it will lead to me being oppressed. I don't believe that having increased disparity in female (and male) representations, both in terms of sexuality/attractiveness and even racially. It's fine to be unimpressed. When you equate it to "surprise buttsex," it tells me you're afraid. If you didn't care, it wouldn't bother you. Yet it does, so you must care. Evidently adding it isn't for your benefit. You're perfectly entitled to liking big breasted bombshells. I'm perfectly entitled to judge you on it, just as you judge me (and evidently my company) for doing stuff you disagree with. I'm entitled, as you are (and have been doing) to share such distaste. Equating Massive Chalice having gay relationships as "surprise buttsex" is perceived as a criticism, so I actually put forth that you not only are okay with said criticisms, you feel that you should be immune from such criticisms yourself. This is the behaviour of someone that in fact, feels he is privileged.

I think playing up the pride and so forth of the American armed forces is actually much, much lower than Microsoft's decision to make a product that may not be ideal with the lifestyle of the Armed Forces. It comes across as a desperate play, and comes across like White Knighting. Should *ALL* products be perfectly suited for people serving in the Armed Forces? If not, then Microsoft is free to do whatever they will with their console. People serving in the Armed Forces can still buy PS4s. The "think about the armed forces" is somewhat equivalent to "think about the children" and, in my opinion, is equivalent to the people that use "think of the children" as a form of misdirection because the misgivings are actually personally held.

That is a narrow definition of the word "priviliged [sic]" http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privilege Being born rich can be construed as a privilege. A synonym for privilege, on the same link, is: Privilege can be equated to advantage. "white male privilege" doesn't mean "white men are rich" but the idea that being a white male can afford a person advantages in life. Being rich is certainly an advantage, but it's not the sole requirement of whether or not someone has special privileges. Your welcome to disagree with the idea, but it's important to actually understand what is conveyed with the term. Being privileged doesn't mean something is even necessarily wrong. It's can simply be an advantage. I love basketball, but as a 6'0" player that is not particularly gifted in athleticism, my teenage dreams of NBA success were disadvantaged. The 6'6" player, even possessing the same level of skill as myself, will receive greater consideration based purely on his genetics. He's taller, and height does grant an advantage in basketball. First, the parenthetical remark is inappropriate, and undermines your stated acceptance of being okay with the scenario. Being homosexual does not mean "surprise buttsex" especially considering that two women in a relationship are also homosexual. Further, in a game about family lineage, discussing (hardly 20 minutes worth....) how a homosexual couple will impact the game is a bit more impactful than "is the person attractive?" A homosexual couple cannot combined their genes into a child. How will the game respond to that? As for whether or not females (or males) are attractive, from a gameplay perspective, there's no need to even actually display a graphic at all.

Indeed I am. I've not followed The Witcher 3 too closely though. Though I did enjoy the second one. Just remember to tighten up the graphics on level 3! It is funny, how my own preconceived notions led to my assumption as to which product you saw gushing for

Hang out on the BSN more if you want some more common, not so gushing, types of comments regarding BioWare games. Although it is often one extreme or the other.

Just in case some people aren't aware, Play 4 Real is a hoax site.

I don't think I quite understand.... It's not like I said "this is a glorious idea." I don't think it's a good idea. I can understand what he thinks, though it's not a position that I think is a good one. If you want to make your player not fail in that situation, fine. But do it in a better way. At this point, it just means that the game is not for people like you and me. And that's okay. I just think that they could do a better job with the group they do seem to be aiming for.

Microsoft might be able to change the situation if publishers end up selling the games for cheaper costs (or at least accelerate the decrease in costs, and allow for hyper sales). They'll have to really, really push the digital service (which is a service I tend to greatly prefer, and see as the future of gaming... sorry console fans). The "problem" with those that feel discs must be maintained, is that margins can definitely allow a digital platform with a smaller install base still be more profitable. So on some level, businesses will still be okay if some people say "not for me." And the pragmatist in me agrees with the sentiment that, if the 24h online checkin is a deal breaker, then don't buy an Xbox One.

Huh! I could totally see this being "by design" for the E3 demo, but after reading the article, I'm very surprised that they seem to feel this is ideal for the game in general. If you want to make the button press not necessary for progression, at least allow it to provide variation.

That women may not have an issue playing any individual game as a male protagonist, nor that the idea of a game having a female protagonist should cause disappointment in men in order for the complaints to be justified. I think on some level, you see more outrage with character creation, the same way you get people going "I can't play an elf?!" when a character can be created. It probably doesn't come up that you can't play as an elf when you're assigned Geralt. I remember an old poster on this forum inquiring about whether or not there was a female protagonist option for Alpha Protocol, because she found it difficult to play as male characters because she preferred to play as a self insert. There wasn't, she said thanks, and moved on. If there were a 50/50 split in games that featured male and female protagonists, for example, the sex of protagonists wouldn't be a topic for discussion. There's a disparity with gaming as whole, however. Now you can (probably rightly) argue that a large part of this is based on the target audience, as well as typical developer, in a lot of cases. Though gaming in general is growing, and there's now some impetus for increasing the variation in protagonists because some of those new camps (and some from the older camps) want it. Note that this doesn't mean that the ratio MUST be 50/50 or anything like that. It's just that some people want to be able to play more female protagonists.

Hadn't heard anything about this, sorry if it's a double post. XBox "Family sharing" lets users share libraries with up to 10 people By the sounds of it, it's not really "family" but just similar to those "My 10 people" plans phones have. Article shares some potential reservations too. Someone Cheezburger'd an infographic that seems to indicate that only 1 friend can play on a friend's library at one time, though presumably the owner of the game can still play regardless (i.e. it could effectively work as a "spawn copy" for MP gaming too).

Isn't MS about to start giving away games to XBox Live users?

Well, in a 2 horse race, if one of the horses is considered to stumble, then I guess yes, Sony are "winners" haha.

Depends on how successful they are financially, for the idea to permeate to large publishers. I don't know how much most people are affected by most types of DRM. Some even willfully embrace it (speaking of Valve fanatics in this regard). Others will feel that the DRM is worth the service's that they feel Steam provides.