marelooke

Not really unexpected and well... there should be enough RPGs released to tide me over until TToN's release (unless they all get pushed to next year, of course...)

I can certainly see you point and even though they make improvements that should reduce the repetitiveness (eg. each planet is supposed to have its own distinct tileset; also the enemy pool differs between planets and, as one would expect, is more diverse in the later planets where the hard hitting enemies are also let loose) Warframe is and will remain a glorified grindfest, much like Torchlight and Diablo. So yeah, if you're not into that sort of thing then this game probably isn't your cup of tea. One important thing about XP in Warframe though is that if you're after XP then doing it solo is a really really bad idea, you'll get a lot more XP when in a group (assuming people stay somewhat together) and missions like (mobile) defense and survival give a lot more XP than regular missions and even more so the longer you keep going (not to mention that these mission are, imho, a lot more fun) That said, I always enjoyed Onslaught in UT2004 so having that back in the form of Survival missions is a big plus for me. I also avoid most of the grind for money/resources by regularly doing the alert missions, many of those provide pretty big payoffs and they are usually quick to do (unless they're defense/mobile defense).

Yups, Warframe is pretty awesome, it's my go-to game when I want to play a quick session of *something*. It does have some annoying flaws (a lot of the weapons in the game are merely affinity food as they're not practically useful except as a gimmick for low level missions) and some of the ways the devs are using to push people toward the cash store are rather obnoxious (the new Vay Hek grindfest or the expiry timer on Argon, ugh. I also rather despise how Prime parts can be traded, kinda kills their status as hard-to-get stuff imho). I'm getting close to Rank 13 now and I still have loads of gear to rank up, I think I can probably make it to Rank 14 still with the stuff that's currently available in the game. I've also just finished the one but last non-rank related Steam achievement for the game (Brawler Mastery), so now I only have the 1000 hacks one left (which I'll get in due time as I only have like 270 to go) Now that I've got the Helios sentinel I started completing the solar map and getting scans from the various bosses. Guess after that my next project will be acquiring more prime gear, something I hadn't really bothered with too much so far (even though I've been playing for a while...). Having to get a group together instead of just jumping into random matches is a bit of a hurdle for me. Aside from Warframe I've picked up my Demonicon playthrough (I'm intent on finishing this thing ). I got an immediate reminder about the awesomeness (not) of the voice acting in the game I also started Avernum: Escape from the Pit. Looks like a game I'll play a bit every now and again. So far I've killed the nuisance in the sewers (he kinda wiped the floor with me, I had to go outside and heal up before I managed to take him down). Currently I'm being sent to "The Castle".

That's good at least, though I'm wondering how they'll make it useful and still work properly on consoles (which as I recall, was the problem with DA:O, they couldn't make it work so they just stripped it). Still, untill I've seen it I'm remaining cynical, though I've changed from pessimistically cynical to optimistically cynical As whenever I play party-based cRPGs my first toon is almost always a mage, the lack of the zoom out camera was among the very first things I noticed. That was probably one of the main reasons I stopped playing a mage in DA2 (the other being the extremly limited spell selection and *pew* *pew* mage staff swinging), I often ended up at such a range that the enemies were outside my screen, so I constantly had to move closer to be able to actually do anything.

Safest bet imho is to assume that whatever they haven't shown simply doesn't exist. They promised a tactical overhead view for DA2 as well, remember?

TW1 certainly made it known that silver was not always the way to go against monsters. Aside from the often pretty clear difference in effectiveness it was also listed in the book you could buy that described the monster which sword and stances were most effective. Dunno about TW2 though since I didn't manage to finish that one (which I need to fix before TW3 is released, so I still have time )

Looking good, my chances of a pre-order just went up again. Just noticed the pre-combat quaffing of potions is still in. I guess that's okay as long as you don't end up dead whenever you run into something you didn't anticipate, though while I can understand it from a realism perspective (see the trailer of Witcher 1) I still find it a questionable gameplay mechanic. But I'm hopeful it will be better implemented than in W2 (couldn't really judge becuase I had to watch the video without sound). The rest looked like net improvements though (barring the remarks already made about the Griffon fight). Excitement++

I like the sound of the setting, beyond that I'm not so sure. I mean, the amount of reactivity they want to pull off sounds a bit over ambitious. I also generally don't like these things having PvP elements, I feel that generally balancing things around PvP tends to ruin diversity.

The whole CCP affair smells fishy. Letting go of the leftovers from White Wolf would make sense in a way, but there was a "who is who" devblog about CCP Xhagen just last month (oddly enough, by CCP Eterne, one of the other ones that got kicked onto the street). It seems really really weird to do something like that less than a month before firing someone. Then again, based on what the Guardian article says about management shifting blame to others and CCP Xhagen's job description maybe I shouldn't be so surprised he got sacked. It does, however, bode very very ill for the company's health if that actually was the reason. On that note, another interesting article about the CCP layoffs.

CCP (you know, the guys of EVE Online and the cancelled World of Darkness MMO), lay off 49 employees. Some of them pretty key employees (CCP Eterne and CCP Xhagen were apparently among the victims) EVE Online forums thread Guardian Article dealing with the layoffs and the gross mismanagement of White Wolf and the WoD project (note that the employee they interview, known as CCP DropBear, voluntarily left the company quite a long time ago, so he doesn't qualify for "bitter just laid off employee"-syndrome) Polygon article

Meh, looks good, but so did the previous game. Until I see some actual info on how it will *play* I'm not getting excited, after all, I still need to finish part 2, which I put aside shortly after launch due to the terrible controls and UI.

Cool, be sure to keep us posted! I just went with the automap (and the default party) as knowing my drawing skills I'd have gotten lost 4 steps out of the starting room Oh wait, I didn't realize there was an automap. I only bought the graph book because I was under the impression there was no proper map. How is the automap, do you think if I use my own map it will be advantageous or rather use the automap ( I am also lacking in drawing skills ) Well, there's an oldschool mode that doesn't have the automap so I figured you were going for that The automap was more than adequate for me, the only thing I'd have liked was a way to put different types of markers on the map so it would be easier to see at a glance what was where without having to always read the notes. Especially when marking where teleporters go that might have been helpful (though frankly, the maps never get so complex that it became a major annoyance_ On thing I wish I'd done was writing down how many secrets I found from each level, so I'd have been able to figure out where I missed the two I missed.

I am about to play Legends of Grimrock, I have even bought a graph map book so I can make my own maps of each level, like I use to do when I use to DM in AD&D. Cool, be sure to keep us posted! I just went with the automap (and the default party) as knowing my drawing skills I'd have gotten lost 4 steps out of the starting room

I finished up Legend of Grimrock, took me 31 hours according to Steam (though I occasionally left the game running while not playing, so it's probably less). I ended up missing two secrets (found all the treasures and armor sets though). All in all it was an enjoyable trip, something I frankly hadn't expected when I set my first steps in the game world. The final boss was...interesting, but also a rather frustrating affair, I might at one point replay the game to grab a few of the achievements I've missed out on (and get those two last secrets, I already went through most of the levels twice, argh) though I can imagine not bothering beating the final boss twice, I'm also not confident I'd make it past some of the more frustrating timed puzzles a second time around (they're optional, but if my goal is to grab all secrets...). In other news, in Warframe I finally managed to grab an Alert Mission for the last bit of the Vauban Warframe I needed. Yay! As for my status in that game in general I'm Mastery Rank 12 currently and I've obtained all but two Steam achievements that aren't tied to mastery rank (only missing the 1000 hacks and 3 fist weapons to rank 30 ones currently)

Most likely dangling something attractive in front of their noses and having the audacity to charge money for it. I'm pretty sure that we both know very well how the music industry (as a very obvious example) has been treating both consumers as well as artists, in that light I can't help but feel that your interpretation of my words is rather disingenuous.

Picked up Avernum: Escape from the Pit at 80% off.

When you say "push people hard enough they'll take matters in their own hands" what do you mean? Who is pushing people and in what way are people being pushed and how are people taking matters into there own hands? Both artists as well as customers were being squeezed for every penny, before the advent of CD writers the channels you could get stuff from were extremely limited so they got away with it. As I see it piracy (or at least, the widespread kind in the early days of this millennium) was a consumer reaction against that abuse. On the other end you had the artists that were often being squeezed just as hard by the record companies as the consumers (I had the chance to talk to some members of a band that quit after a long time because of the abuse they received from their record company and their story wasn't exactly unique). Digital distribution made it possible for artists to keep the rights to their work and self-distribute. Indeed, this is not a new thing and typical for most industries, with cycle shaped from supply and demand to various competition laws. The major difference with the internet is the lack of physical product and anonymity which and thus poor enforcement which lends into what I said before "if they can break the law and get away with it, they are far more likely to break it". (ETA: the best "real" world equivalent I can think atm is the looting that happens during blackouts ) The anti piracy campaign was just typicalgood ol' stick and carrot, discouraging illegal use while at the same time making legal alternatives much more attractive. Ah, but the legal alternatives didn't come from the established business, they came from outsiders. As such I still maintain there was no successful anti-piracy campaign. There were various businesses that understood the trend that resulted in the widespread piracy and built a business around it. This then got picked up by the "old farts" because they saw it worked and drove piracy down (due to reasonable prices and more convenient distribution, the stuff that was lacking and drove people to piracy in the first place) I'm not quite sure where I said I condoned piracy. Anyway what was happening in your example though was that my agent got $40, the gallery got $15 and I got $5 (totally made up numbers). Oh, and if you, the customer, wanted a similar product, tough luck because there is nowhere to get one. And if, as artist, I wanted a bigger cut: tough luck, there's no reasonable way to get one (other agents demand the same cuts and they're the only way to get exposure). I would say that if piracy occurs on the scale it occurred at the start of the millennium it's a clear indication that something is broken. If you have very little faith in humanity you could argue that half the population has a totally broken moral compass (and not even *I* have that little faith in humanity). Personally if I see something on such a scale I'd first wonder whether it actually isn't the system that's broken. Now, current day piracy is an entirely different matter, while I won't claim everything is perfect right now (and the powers that be are still actively trying to mess with us, see all the trade agreements the EU has rejected recently, and they keep coming...) the power has clearly shifted back in the direction of the customer (where it belongs) and if you try to sell me something for $60 I have plenty of options to get it somewhere else for less or just buy a similar product at a more reasonable price. And right now, as artist, it is perfectly viable for me to just cut out the middle man and sell you that product for $10 (since I'm no longer forced into a possibly abuse contract giving up all the rights to my product to a 2nd party) which makes both of us happy as I get paid double and you only pay 1/6 of the original price. That said, the type of piracy I was talking about and the kind that's still "rampant" (I really don't think it's all that bad anymore, but it's kinda hard to get numbers on something that's not officially happening ) today are rather different, the first was a result of a bad situation the second is just disrespect for creators or various personal reasons people have, far be it from me to judge people's motivations. I'd also say that the original question is one of the hard nuts to crack in the debate on copyright reform. Sure it might be tempting to keep a copy of the book and it's easy to state that you "copy" it by keeping a copy (and indeed, that's how it's likely currently defined in law), but what are the chances of reading the same book twice? For most books I'd say they are fairly slim. So does this rule still make much sense? For books maybe not, but then where do you draw the line between what is reasonable and what isn't? And for music, games and the like I'd say it is even more complicated.

Those are good examples of why anti-piracy campaigns works. Some people think its about stopping it, but there is no wining with crime, it is always about marginalizing the undesired activity. In these case it requires to understand that most are selfish pigs, who care mostly about their convenience/cost and if they can break the law and get away with it, they are far more likely to break it. The crime here was keeping an outdated business model alive in spite of the consumers. If you push people hard enough they'll take matters in their own hands, which is what lead to such widespread piracy. As far as I'm concerned there was no successful anti-piracy campaign but a successful piracy campaign that forced a stale industry to get its act together by hitting it where it hurts: their profits. The results seem a pretty obvious win for the consumer: fairer prices and more convenient access to the product. This is just typical for any industry really, sooner or later they find a business model that works and when they do they'll want to stick with it at all costs because change = risk and risk is the antithesis of big business. So they'll defend their business model tooth and nail until someone else demonstrates a working way to make money with a new business model, which they'll then gleefully copy (the Netflix/Spotify/Steam idea, though I'm unsure if either of them was the first to do what they do). I'm hoping that the Internet will be able to keep forcing businesses to reinvent themselves on a regular basis so we won't end up with some outdated business model hardcoded into the law again (after we finally get rid of this stuff that was added for book publishing before telecommunication was invented). After that I'd just like to point out that I'm a firm believer in providing fair reward for effort done as such I've never been much of a pirate, but being a software developer I am of course interested in the entire software patent debacle, an interest in the copyright system was a natural result (which isn't to say that I'm an expert, far from it, ianal etc). EDIT: typos

Making headway in Legend of Grimrock, I made it down to level 9 and suddenly I find myself fighting blue dinosaurs As I suspected the timed puzzles can get really annoying at times (I especially recall the trapdoor one with the timed switches and the beams of light on level and combat has gotten pretty old already (ends up as either a square dance or a RNG based "whoever rolls better wins"-affair). I've also found I'm pretty much ignoring my wizard once combat has actually started as having to tap in rune combinations for every spell just tends to take too much time.

Uhh, Half-Life 2? Yeah, and that's pretty much it in a nutshell. I'd bet every last cent in my bank account that the vast majority of people using steam are doing so because of 'blockbuster games exclusive to the platform' rather than having optionally downloaded the client and deciding to do their purchases there in a manner completely free of influence or compulsion. Getting steam from HL2 or Skyrim or whatever is every bit as much being 'forced' to use steam as origin is for recent EA games or Uplay for Ubi games, but for some reason people seem to think it's been freely chosen because... well I'm never sure exactly why, there's certainly no logical reason for it except Valve being the first to do it and most successful at it. Defaultism is not free choice, quite the opposite. True, I forgot about HL2, though I can't get enough data from Steam to verify if that actually was my first Steam game (it probably was, although I remember jumping through hoops for my account details at some point early on). And I was pretty majorly annoyed by Skyrim (I especially ordered a disc to avoid any of the walled gardens, ugh, that'll teach me to do more research). You forget one thing here though, Valve is a game developer (well, they were anyway), while EA/Ubisoft are publishers, so we're talking about *a lot* more games in the latter two cases (not to mention the reputation the former has vs the latter two) Also my first Origin game (DA2, according to my email archive) got Origin applied to it retroactively, it wasn't an Origin game when I got it from the EA webshop. They later removed that download instead forcing the use of Origin (and installing Origin then tied my already installed game to that platform). Luckily many Kickstarters provide an option to avoid the walled gardens. And as I mentioned, there's developers like Larian that regularly provide keys for multiple platforms for the same price (it's not like not doing it will help against piracy if you're releasing DRM free, so might as well make it as convenient as possible for your paying customers) For now. They all want as big a piece of that same pie as they can get, after all.

I'm guessing that most people prefer Steam because they chose to use it because it was convenient (and there were no alternatives) whereas UPlay and Origin were crammed down our throats by their respective publishers (by making their "blockbuster" games exclusive to their platform, see Dead Space 3 and Mass Effect 3 as examples in the case of Origin). I avoid UPlay due to some bad experiences with limited activations on that platform, I'm not sure if they still do that crap, avoiding it has more become a matter of habit (although istr something about having to release a key for Far Cry 3 or somesuch before uninstalling so I guess they do) I dislike Origin because (on top of it being forced on me by EA as stated above): - it freezes my desktop for up to a minute when it starts - they keep displaying my profile in French, even though it's set to Dutch in the settings. I have to switch it back every damn time I use the application. Just using English (as I do in Steam) isn't even an option (nor is using German for that matter, which is also an official language in this country). That said, nowadays I tend to prefer games that are also available outside these three walled gardens though either Gog or the Humble Store. The best option is when I can get a game at once through both a direct download channel (Gog, Humble Store or download from dev site) and Steam (so I can have the convenience of Steam without necessarily being locked into it), Larian, for example, tends to hand out Steam keys on top of making their games available through their own store (eg. the Divinity Anthology box included a Steam key for all three games on top of the non-Steam installer).

I should probably start finishing some games instead of serially starting new ones that are on my backlog. The last victim being Legend of Grimrock. I should note that I've never played any of the "old school" games it's getting its mustard from, so I'm fairly unlikely to appreciate any of the mechanics based on nostalgia alone Anyway I made it to level 4 and am enjoying it so far though I think I'd have preferred if it were turn based, especially the time based puzzles can be rather annoying in my experience. I quit my current session (due to it getting rather late, or early, depending on your point of view) in some puzzle room with trapdoors in level 4 (I solved the other 3 puzzle rooms you can access from the lvl4 entrance hall already), from the looks of it this bit could become a rather frustrating trial and error affair (I tried running through twice, first time I got stuck before a closed door and fell down to the floor below, second time I noticed a hidden door and fell through the floor there somewhere) I'm also still mucking around a bit with Dragon Commander, I had to restart the campaign (because of other computer and no Steam Cloud support) and accidentally left the difficulty on normal. I think the correct terminology for what happened is that I got "wtfpwnd". Restarted on "easy" and I'm moving forward again. Still in Act I though since I'm metagaming and stacking up on research points and gold to start Act II with (not doing so was the mistake I made the first time though...).

Eh, I can't (and won't) blame them for trying to get out of that political mess. I can (and will) blame them for trying to rip off their customers though. Especially since the former is only speculation. So far nothing I've heard from a purely gaming perspective properly justifies these "Redux" versions. Here's to hoping they clarify things a bit, preferably soon before the backlash reaches truly epic proportions.

Too bad the devs went bancrupt and the map was never properly fixed for the PC version (running it on a way lower res is not an acceptable workaround for me). But yeah, I enjoyed The Saboteur more than just about every other GTA style game, until I got fed up with the map issue. Shame really.

Nothing they say in the article really makes me want to buy the Redux versions. I mean, having improved stealth in 2033 would be nice, but not "only 50% off if you already own the games"-nice. The cynic in me is wondering how much truth there is to the rumour of the developer wanting to make an easy (certainly easier and faster than developing a new game) buck on their existing games in order to be able to escape from the mess that is the Ukraine-situation.