Drowsy Emperor

The distrust isn't misplaced. A game is much more expensive than a movie or a comic but is equally likely to be bad (even more so probably) and it can even be unusable (recent War Z scandal).

People start waiting for that steam sale and refuse to buy a game until it's available there... And then forget about it. I know! But then if I could forget about it I probably didn't want to play it as much as I thought.

What about Starcraft 1 or stuff like League of Legends? (LOL has crits, but that's about it) What was random in Starcraft 1? I don't recall. DotA and LoL have crits on certain heroes as part of their abilities but they're not random in any other way from what I know. Damage outputs are constant aren't they?

Yes, the protagonist is probably a bit too much of an ****. I finished the game recently, and I have the sequel but it didn't leave me hooked enough to play it immediately. The thing is, while the characters are fun and some of the dialog is witty, the actual story is poorly explained and crappy.

I finished all of them recently and I like them quite a bit. I've also played Resonance and Gemini Rue from Wadget and I recommend the latter. The former's story is a bit underwhelming.

This is also true. With a good sale I can be tempted to buy a game I'd otherwise dismiss.

Are we expecting spin off merchandising to be any good now? That sort of thing happens against all odds, not on purpose. The fans in this case are those retards that treat their chosen game/comic/film/series like its the word of god.

The nice thing about randomness is that it allows the game to be more noob friendly. Playing against better players in a chess like game is a soul crushing and frustrating experience. Its much easier to deal with defeat if something entertaining, or unexpected happens. If you're steamrolled by a fifth minute rush and completely unable to do anything at every turn the game stops being fun. And then it loses its purpose. Which is why most people (I dare say, the great majority) never touch Starcraft 2 multiplayer.

Steam sales are pretty unreliable. There's no guarantee the particular game you want will be on sale. Its likely, but not certain. I imagine that makes quite a difference when you're dying to play a certain game. I never buy anything on day one, pre-order or kickstart anything - and the games that I would buy (like say Witcher 3) I'm better off waiting for the enhanced edition/patches. Its just not worth buying a game only to discover it'll need patches to work as you expect it to. Prices tend to drop fast (except on Blizzard games) so its not much of a wait. I'm likely to pay the full price for a retail collectors edition of a game I desire, if the package is sufficiently appealing.

Competitive RTS games aren't about realism but about planning, drilling strategies in and reacting quickly. There's nothing in any RTS game that resembles real war. What the CoH series is, is cinematic and exciting because it has unexpected elements and high production values. But not realistic.

Yeah, its one of the reasons CoH2 can't be an esport. Damage unreliability doesn't allow for detailed planning and a way to gauge outcomes. It time its possible to work around many random elements but it still makes the game unpredictable. Which is a good thing if you're out to have fun, but a bad thing if you're trying to work out a dependable build.

I was talking about windows 7 but the process is very much the same. You have to change it for every template. Silly of MS to do this but I guess it can't be helped. Thanks though

Well they did build up a consumer habit of buying consoles as the toys on which to play their games. For them to give up on console development either the consumers lose interest or the major companies decide its time to give up the business. Neither is likely to happen as even through this economic downturn the industry is still growing. The PC's "problem" is that it has no brand identity as a gaming platform. Its not that shiny box the kids talk about, that you can see on the TV, brag about. Its just a dull collection of lookalike parts that are too technical for most people to understand (if they even cared to). People have a fairly clear idea that consoles = games, but most of them have no idea that you can use a PC as a gaming platform, or how huge its catalog of games is. So I'm not trying to discuss platform superiority from a perspective that everyone can relate to. That's pointless, the PC isn't even perceived as a choice in the mind of most buyers. Its not sitting on the shelf in a shop with its neat, self contained package, surrounded by games screaming - YOU CAN PLAY THIS IF YOU BUY ME. The rare interested noob has to jump through the hoops of actually deciding what PC to buy, understanding the headache inducing difference between configurations, the inevitable troubleshooting that arises when you put an inexperienced user behind a complex machine etc. etc.

You said it brother.

You still won't see Sony titles on PC. So essentially the status quo will be the same. Well here is a list of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment#Software_development_studios. Now I'll agree that some titles are indispensable to certain genres (like Gran Turismo in racing) and some of the other studios are very popular - but honestly, the list isn't all that long. These are the only studios (practically) guaranteed not to make ports. Most others will make multiplatform titles because that's a very sensible business decision. One of my favorite games, SoC is a PS2 exclusive, so I recognize that Sony can sometimes offer something other competitors cannot, more often than MS surely. But its shrunk from the glory days of PS2.

Getting all excited on the potential of the hardware isn't a bad thing but hardware really doesn't mean anything in the long run. The PS3 had the best hardware and it could be called the failure of its generation comparatively speaking. Either the Gamecube or the original XBOX (I can't remember which) had the best hardware of their generation and the PS2 left them in the dust. We've already seen that there won't be a great leap in graphics quality. From this point onwards its going to be a slow upwards climb, that is probably nearer to its peak than we imagine. There are only few AAA projects pushing those boundaries and their number isn't climbing - but development costs are. Hoping for better AI is probably pointless as well. There aren't many competent AI programmers in the industry and it has never been the focus of any game company, ever - regardless of what their marketing says. As soon as the AI is serviceable (and much of the time, even before that) games are shoved out of the door. I'm not all that interested in hardware anyway. Its all about games and so far, all three major players have failed to announce groundbreaking exclusives.

Does anyone know how to make all folders open in a certain view (like list view for example). The OS seems to use different templates for folders and I can't find a single option that will change them all in one stroke.

Someone on the dev team likes ebony that's for sure

It does look horrible. Its probably done to make the body look better in power armor, which doesn't look truly massive unless you have a smaller head on a large body. If you keep everything proportional the impressive visual effect vanishes. However, I've no idea why the hips are so massive by default.

Thankfully, it is not average. The GPU of the PS4 will have access to the 8GB of system memory--the super-fast GDDR5 RAM--at the same time as the PS4's CPU, unlike the same components in a PC. The RAM in your PC is slower DDR3, unavailable to your GPU, which itself has only 2GB of VRAM. The potential for future-proofing the console's performance is very exciting. And it will be upgradeable, at least the hard drive, possibly with a sizzlingly-quick solid-state drive. I honestly don't think the custom ram will make much difference. Console games are made by the lowest common denominator, in other words the hardware limitations of the XBOne are the ones you want to look at. The supposedly super fast RAM and memory sharing could just as easily turn into the cell processor. An advantage on paper but rarely visible in practice, if XBOne stays the primary platform for development. Even in the hypothetical situation where the PS4 takes the lead, its still just RAM memory. The value for money disappears when you start buying games. The new Tomb Raider game retailed for 30 euro on the PC and 60 on the consoles. It does not take even a dozen games to make up for the additional cost of the PC. This is day one difference, in two months the price for PC TR will likely be cut down in half. Down the line it just gets cheaper and cheaper, with CDKey sites, Steam/GoG sales etc.

Consoles have typically always been technologically stomped by the PC in a year or two. Console advantage here is consistent platform. This particularly helps developers. That they are the same technology as the PC will make development less cumbersome too. Eh, I just bought a new computer (yesterday) and it still cost me $1400 (Canadian). i5-3550, Radeon HD 7950 3GB, 16 GB of DDR3-1600 memory, 128GB SSD, 2 TB HDD. Now some of that stuff is beyond spec for the console (the SSD in particular). Now if I was ridiculously diligent and shopping around, I might get a better price, but I went to the local Memory Express because they also build it for me cheaply and it's super convenient. Which is how most people do their shopping. I agree that the PC architecture will make games more likely to come to the PC. I like this, as I'm a PC gamer. It's still not a costless endeavour, however, and you will still get games that are console exclusive. It'd still require me to hook my computer up to the TV. I'm a gaming enthusiast, and have virtually no interest in doing this because moving my box is not something that interests me. I don't know how unique I am in my perspective. Hmmm, I don't know if this is necessarily the case. There's still a multitude of hardware configurations, and by the sounds of it they still want console games to be able to run off the disc (not necessarily an advantage, IMO) however. This could go either way. Not all equipment is built equally, and if Sony/MS cut corners (or definitely do not) then rates of failure will not be consistent. Spoken from someone that had a motherboard with poor capacitors that died horribly on me in 2010 (although I did get 4 years out of that computer). Steam sales and whatnot could be an issue. Though at release PC gaming for the big titles is pretty much the same $60 at this point in time. PC gaming is more affordable in the long run if people are willing to be patient, but I think that that is an uncommon trait among a large chunk of the gaming population. There's also perspective and simply habit. People need to see the gaming PC as an equivalent alternative. I'd be skeptical if they will en masse. And I still think that they'll have improved reliability, simplicity, and comfort for the majority of people that will use them. I certainly think that they'll still have the perception that those traits are true, however, even if they aren't. Oh I'm not saying people will start jumping ship en masse - I'm just listing my own reasons, as someone who can afford to invest only in one these things - so value for money is an issue. I don't think much will change overall, if the new generation of consoles takes off as Sony and MS are expecting. I'm just saying that consoles and the PC are converging towards offering a similar gaming experience, to the detriment of the consoles as less flexible/closed platforms that are also weaker in the hardware department. It sounds like components are very expensive in canada. The PC I'm slowly building for myself is about 10-20% weaker than that but the core components don't cost more than 600 US$ (CPU, GPU, RAM, ATI 7850).

You still won't see Sony titles on PC. So essentially the status quo will be the same. That may be the case, but the PS2 years where Sony was drowning in must play exclusives is long gone. The PS3 exclusives list isn't all that long...

Actually I've given that some thought. After my initial enthusiasm for the PS4 I've come to some conclusions. The only console that's guaranteed to have true exclusives this generation is Nintendo (and its not doing well so far, but that's another story). A PS4 or XBO might be completely pointless buys for anyone with a gaming PC. I see three major reasons for this: 1) For all intents and purposes they're an average PC in a custom (parts not replaceable) box. Thus they're not easy to fix and sure to be technologically stomped by the PC in just a year or two. This is a problematic investment in particular when you consider the following: 2) A gaming rig is not as expensive as it used to be. I've calculated the difference down to an approximate 200$ only (not counting the monitor), which is a small price to pay for the unmatched versatility the PC offers. And any household is likely to need a PC anyway. In other words, even though this generation of consoles is cheaper than the last (more or less), you're getting less for your money. Weaker hardware and no fancy new features to make up for the difference (like the now affordable blue ray player) - on a closed system - you're still not going to get to play any of the PC centric genres (that due to being impossible to replicate on a console, or too niche, will never be ported). A further assumption can be made that makes this difference even bigger: 3) In this generation of consoles we got to play almost everything worthwhile on the PC. The new generation is made on a pc friendly architecture that is going to drive up the likelihood of any successful game getting a port by about 100%. In fact, most games will probably be multiplatform, even more than they are now. Other minor (or not so minor) reasons: 4) comfort issues no longer apply - you can now play pc games on the couch, in front of the TV, just as easily 5) console games require much the same process to get running as PC games installation, etc. 6) since they're using the same hardware that PC uses, made by the same mass-manufacturers, a console and a PC should have similar rates of failure - but the PC, unlike the console out of warranty, is replaceable 7) huge difference between price of games makes PC gaming more affordable in the long run I've concluded that any of the new consoles are a bad investment vs a gaming PC. They offer less for more money and the advantages they used to have (reliability, simplicity, comfort) have evaporated.

The easier alternative is unplugging your pc but look on the bright side, at least it isn't: XBOX, CLOSE WINDOWS PROGRAM

Good point.