marelooke

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.

Got some time to continue my Dead Space 3 playthough, get near-ish to the end now (I'm in chapter 13 or 14 or so). There is some seriously cringe worthy situations in there. Cringe worthy in the sense that you go "Seriously? Are you for real?" not the "Ewwww, gross" type of cringe worthy. Still annoyed by Ellie's make-over, not (just) because of the make-over per se but because her face model seems bad... somehow. The other characters don't seem to have this problem but hers looks "off" in a way, almost as if they'd been messing with it until the very end and then ran out of time to finish it properly. Oh well, can't say I care much for any of the characters I'm dealing with anyway (big difference with DS1), I'm more interested in more background on the markers and what exactly happened on Tau Volantis.

Could be the way you play the game, but I've also noticed I've become less critical towards certain games as time go by. Dragon Age for example, almost hated the damn thing when it came out but year or two later I actually liked it when I went back to it. So it's kind of learning to take things as they are, at least in my case. Might be because the game is properly fixed when you come back to it (it's also why I no longer bother playing most games at release) Oh, and I finally started playing Portal 2

I'm well aware of that Going to Larian tomorrow for some Original Sin goodness... So. Very. Psyched. Cool, keep us updated! (And don't forget to ask about the reloading for better loot ) *runs like hell*

Is that sarcasm? I haven't played the game but it got pretty bad reviews. It looked pretty cool though. But yeah, I remember now, Hunted was the reason I was wary of Tides of Numenera at first, exactly because Hunted looked great and then got bad reviews. Let's hope Tides of Numenera won't end up the same way (especially since I backed it). By the way, it will be very interesting to see whether all those new Kickstarter-funded RPGs will make the list in the next years, and whether they'll get a good ranking. I have high hopes for Divinity: Original Sin, Tides of Numenera and of course Pillars of Eternity. And Wasteland 2 is apparently excellent already, but it's not my cup of tea I think. Personally I enjoyed Hunted. I got it cheaply in a Steam sale knowing very little about it. It's a fun little romp through lots of winding corridors all alike (quite literally). The story is pretty weak, though the ability to actually fail and only find out at the very end was pretty interesting (and probably pissed off quite a few people). The story just serves as an excuse to shoot (I liked the "archery") or hack down enemies in a rather arcady fashion. The combat mechanics were very simple but effective imo, combat also wasn't terribly hard, so if you're looking for a challenge you probably need to look elsewhere. It's not a game I'd have expected inXile to make and if I'd have bought it at full price I'd probably have felt cheated. I also don't know anything about how it was marketed or anything, so maybe people's expectations at release were off due to promises that were made. I didn't have any expectations as I wasn't even aware who made the game when I bought and played it.

On that note, the original Shadow Warrior wasn't too shabby either, even though I never got too far in it (back then I only had access to the demo). I should probably go back to it and try to finish it (it got re-released shortly before the new game came out).

*cough* Valve? *cough* Looking forward to Divinity: Original Sin and Unrest as well. Not sure when Planet Explorers is due, but that's high on my list as well. There might be some other KS games but I'm not really following them enough to know how close to release they are ( they'll be done when they're done )

Played a few different things a bit recently. Rerturned to Guns of Icarus Online for a single match, graphics seem to have improved since I last played quite some months ago. Can't say much else since the game I ended up in wasn't particularly interesting. The addition of keyed voice commands seems rather useful, not everyone has or wants to use a microphone in random groups and communication is key in this game (at least, assuming the match ends up being somewhat of a challenge) Also gave my friend a little demonstration of how much harder XCom: Enemey Within is compared to the original (assuming you don't (ab)use the overpowered stuff). We ended up in a rather pickly situation involving a cyberdisc, a mechtoid, a sectopod and some mutons. Ended up being a rather challenging and fun fight. Good thing it wasn't on iron man though We also had a look at Dragon Commander, the first act was pretty fun, the second pretty frustrating. Apparently you just have to squeeze everything you can out of the first act so you get a proper chance in the second (otherwise you start outgunned, outnumbered and with pretty much no gold or research points). I'll see if I can manage anyway with what I have, but the fact that "gaming" the first Act is the accepted and recommended solution to the start of Act 2 points to some questionable design decisions there imho.

Also worth knowing that if you sell the book to a vendor they will then stock it indefinitely, as such you can get two points out of each book. (istr reading somewhere that Tripp somehow didn't work for this, though in my expreience doing this with Tripp worked fine)