MacMichael

Newer article: http://kotaku.com/5488372/denial-of-servic...eed-ii-playtime Seems the downtime was an attack, according to Ubi.

Just finished Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. Not bad for the $7.50 I paid on Steam this weekend, but the single-player campaign is short and it feels like they didn't make use of half of whats in the game.

Just came across a video someone shot of Silent Hunter 5, which is also using the Ubi DRM. According to the video description, it took five to six minutes after pulling the cable for the game to detect it wasn't connected.

What about the fact that Blizzard has never mentioned it anywhere? Are you suggesting I'm being too cynical? My cynicism keeps me warm at night, would you really take that away from me?

* Every player will create a battle.net character. * Everything you do in game will be saved to your character profile * campaign progress synced to battle.net, pick up where you left off on any computer I see no reason to doubt it's any different than Ubi's system. It's main points are the same. It seems like a natural next step for DRM. Move away from the third party software running on customer's computers, that the people that complain about DRM like to complain about (SecurROM, etc.), to an always online solution that a large segment of the gaming population has already become accustomed to, in the form of MMOs and developer hosted multiplayer servers like battle.net. I'm still not sure how I feel towards the move. I have a stable broadband connection, but there's still something uncomfortable for me with this move. Also makes me wonder how the economics of it works out when they consider the lost sales to people in areas that don't have the sort of connection that would make this sort of mandatory service possible, assuming that Blizzard is making it mandatory.

Looking at my own save files, I'd be inclined to say the strangely named "Char_##_##_#_#_#_###_#.masseffectsave" files. There's just enough human readable text in the file for me to make out that they belong to the three times I've gotten through the whole game.

There's a new ME2 trailer out now.

My top ten of the night. System Shock 2 Master of Orion 2 Fallout 2 Knights of the Old Republic 2 Privateer 2 X-Com 2 Ultima 2 Wing Commander 2 Civilization 2 X2: The Threat I really like the number 2. ... Or not. Though there are still a lot of 2s in the real list. System Shock 2 Master of Orion 2 Fallout 2 Knights of the Old Republic 2 Privateer X-Com: UFO Defense Ultima 6 Ultima 7 Parts 1 & 2 Wing Commander 3 Civilization 4 Going over ten, I'd have to add X3: Reunion, Freelancer, and probably a dozen other games that just aren't coming to mind right now.

I'll be starting DA the same way I've started every fantasy RPG for at least the past five years, female human rogue. Though I've been tempted by a male dwarf noble warrior or rogue as a starter. Just waiting for my D2D preload to unlock now.

Uh, so what? TV ads are absurdly expensive, too, and they purchase time on air for the big hits. TV ads have a far different purpose though. TV ads are meant to increase your pool of potential buyers. They get people that haven't heard of the game interested. And for those people, there's already a lot of information about the game available in many different mediums. Demos really do the opposite. They're for people that already know about the game. And while they can push some people towards a firm "buy it", they can just as easily shrink your pool of buyers too. I don't think the piracy argument works. A demo can just as easily tell a person that the game isn't worth buying, but is just interesting enough to pirate, as not having a demo tells a person that they need to pirate to "test it out" because they can't make a decision based on the information already out there.

The D2D pre-load is 7.85GB.

Yes, but only outside North America. Unless it's changed again.

The Michael Thorton twitter feed chimes in on MW2.

This may just be the most pathetic thing I've ever read. http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/27/advis...-husband-h.html Even married guys are getting some virtual love.

Seems BioWare is doing something similar for their DLC on Dragon Age. From what the devs are saying, it sounds as though the quest givers for the DLC expansions will be placed in world, and if you come upon one of them without the DLC installed, they bring up a menu that allows you to make the purchase, if you decide you want it. Then it downloads in the back and installs and opens up access to it all without having to leave the game. If it is already installed, then its seamless with the original content. It's triggered a pretty long thread (this in just the dev posts) over on their forums, with everything from, "It sounds like a good idea," to "It's the end of gaming as we know it!"

As far as I know they've already explained where the darkspawn come from in like 50% of the trailers that have been shown. Something about mages becoming corrupted and becoming monsters or some other nonsense. According to Chantry legend, mages destroyed Heaven and they were punished for it by being turned into the first darkspawn. The same Chantry that kills mages that aren't under their control and who gain their power by being the prime human religion that saved us all from the evil of mages. Maybe it's true, or maybe it's just them holding on to their power.

Yeah, EA2D if I remember their name right, which I hope I do considering how short it is.

This was not what I was expecting wandering into a Dragon Age thread. Fortunately, my professor had just left class before I literally LOLed.

Not paying attention, are we? We've been using our super sekrit decoder ring for awhile now. Like with the "wait for a press release or an international incident" meaning we need to wait for a press release before they can tell us anything, or the "my illness is believed to be even less of an illness than than the usual form of the illness" meaning that everyone is dying of swine flu... Or maybe that had something to do with the less of an rpg than ME comment from Sony. It's hard to tell sometimes. I think I may have gotten a defective ring.

You have no idea. And I even heard it might possibly rain next week. I've already broken out the jackets.

I've been waiting for this game for awhile now, and I find myself more and more confused about this possible delay. So, let us begin the scrying, bring forth my tea. The Sega store (Oct 6, 2009), Obsidian (Oct 2009), and the AP site (Oct 2009) are all still listing the game in October. Other sites have a range of dates, Oct 7th at gogamer.com, they just added the game about a month ago, maybe two now, though they don't list a PC version, Oct 27th at Amazon.com, and others that range all the way out until Q3 2010. On Aug 27, 2009 Gamespot posted an interview with Rorie: And in the Sega boards, someone says they heard it was complete: Then you have the ad put out in, what was it, Game Informer? Why do you pay for ads for a game that you're not releasing for 8 months, if the June 2010 date is true? Then you have Obsidian's viral marketing, the Twitter feed, which they began on Aug 11th. A month and a half to two months before the game is scheduled, makes sense. Nine or so months before a game is scheduled, not so much sense, at least to me, unless it's to introduce an Alternate Reality game, like I Love Bees, but it's not looking like that. I, personally, am willing to give Obsidian the benefit of the doubt that if they felt the game was going to be ready/was ready, that it was. So bug issues probably aren't the hold up, not for that long anyway. And Obsidian clearly seemed to believe that they were aiming for this October considering what they were saying and doing. If we believe that the twitter feed is now being used to vent, it seems that Obsidian is a little annoyed by Sega's silence. But, is it because it's being released and no one is talking about it, or is it because it's delayed and, maybe Obsidian wasn't even informed. Can that happen? Someone mentioned a bus, I think, at a concert saying Summer 2010, when was that? I of course don't know what any of this means, but my ideas are: 1. Not actually delayed. Did Bioware ever announce the DLC they failed to announce when it was released? Maybe stealth releases are the new black in game publishing? I'm starting to lose hope on this one. 2. Delayed until who knows when. a. Sega made a decision when the market was packed, to move the game to a more open time, only for everyone to delay as well. Maybe forgot to inform Obsidian. b. Financial reason. I don't know how contracts for games work, but I know in the ones I'm familiar with, a certain amount of the payment is held until completed. Could Sega be pushing the game to a different financial year because the contract says they don't have to pay until it's published, rather than completed? Do they think the economy will be better next year and just want to wait it out for people to have money again? c. They want drastic changes for one reason or another, which seems strange, as it would suggest they weren't paying attention before. I kind of get the feeling that if it is delayed, its the opposite of the Lucas Arts thing. Rather than the publisher saying, "We want it early, make it happen," we're getting a "we're done," from the developer and a "we'll deal with it when we get around to it," from the publisher. And yes, I had too much time on my hands today, blame the CSU budget cuts.

I wandered into the closest Gamestop a while back looking from something that had just come out. All I found was a small rack of used PC games. When they asked what I was looking for, I said, "So, you don't have any new PC games?" He turned around and unlocked a wall of console accessories and opened it. They had a small cabinet with three or four shelves filled with games. So, they have them, but they hide them.

So, what you're saying is that we... *gasp* need to make friends?!

I'll agree that they could certainly be used better. Fallout 3 suffers from what you mentioned, before you ever exit the vault. You have a pip-boy, here's an achievement! You chose your skills, here's another achievement! You got out of the vault, wow, you're already at three achievements! I could be cynical and wonder why they didn't give you one for being born in the first seconds of the game, but just as games that are utterly pointless and not worth playing don't make games as a whole pointless, some pointless achievements don't make achievements as a whole pointless. They just aren't utilized to their potential yet.