A Rant

[justin20031009]

After buying KOTOR II, I

[Master Dahvernas]

After buying KOTOR II, I

[adrich81]

That's a real shame - there area some great PC games out there, and in my experience they always look and perform far better than the console version (by all accounts the XBox version has it's own problems). I totally agree with you about Vampire Bloodlines - it has a great plot but has to be one of the worst coded games I have seen - it's slow even on my machine and has a major memory leak. To make matters worse Atari deny most of the performance bugs and blame it on people running it with machines below minimum spec, then released a patch which fixed only the most superficial bugs. The problem isn't PC gaming IMHO, it's developers who for one reason or another release a game without full testing, and hope they can patch the issues at a later date.

[Hudson]

Vampire was such an amazing game, shame i only saw it in 10 frames per second. Vampire ran better on higher settings than low on mine how silly !!

[Crusader]

why not just boycott games then? or start a protest at their headquarters. i might never buy certain games from certain companies. Bliizzard can always be counted on :D.

[Master Dahvernas]

why not just boycott games then? or start a protest  at their headquarters. i might never buy certain games from certain companies.

 

Because just like any protest or boycott, it only works if you have enough people on a massive scale to actually get major companies to sit up and take notice.

 

I hate to be a jackass... But part of the problem is gamers themselves to some degree.

 

What I mean by this is:

 

1) As gamers, this IS our hobby.

 

This is our "vice". Sure, we may have more important things to do in the real world and other hobbies as well. But that's just it. Gaming is a distinct and unique hobby and I enjoy it just as much as a lot of people who love to go sailing, golfing and anything else they chose to spend their free time doing and can afford.

 

How can you ask them (us) to just stop cold turkey?

 

2) You have a segment of the gaming population that, I am sad to say, really does not care that games are released in faulty states and see it as a challenge to get the game to work... And often blame everyone else who can't get it to work on "user error" -- Even other fellow "expert gamers" and tech gurus.

 

You know who I mean.

 

These people will never just stop "cold turkey" to have an impact on large companies because their attitude is "If it works for me... Shut up! You're obviously a NoOb who should stick to Nintendo 64!"

 

Again. You know who I mean.

 

Also, while I applaud their efforts (and I used to be one of them) of trying to get a game to run when it is obvious it needs a patch...

 

There does come a time when you say, "enough is enough!" -- Mostly, when you get older and it is YOUR money (versus parents) that you are spending on these games that aren't worth it considering the relatively expensive price tag most games come with at launch -- And it isn't "fun" anymore to have to tweak your system because you just want to play and have less and less time to do it as you get older (family; friends; work; etc).

 

Bottom Line: I would love it if gamers would unite in a large boycott of games (across all genres/developers/publishers) to force the industry to sit up and take notice... Possibly even enact some kind of standards and business practices... Especially, if it started to hurt them in the pocket book...

 

But because of some of the reasons I listed above that just will not happen. I think it SHOULD happen because the writing is on the wall with what is going to happen to this industry in the next 5-10 years and it doesn't look all that great from the consumer end.

[Lendorien]

I for one have returned KOTOR2 to the store I bought it from. Thankfully, they accepted it and refunded my money readily.

 

I too am getting sick and tired of game companies dumping crap on the market and expecting me, the consumer to bend over and take it. The game mags are complicit int his too. KOTOR2 has gotten outtstanding ratings, despite the fact that the end is cut to pieces and it has incompatability and crash issues galore.

 

As gamers, we need to start making our voices heard in both our responce to unfinished games, and in how we spend our money. I trusted Lucasart to not screw Kotor2 up because of the excellent original. I made the mistake of buying it based on reviews and hype. The last time I did that was with Master of Orion 3, and we know how that turned out. I trusted LA to not screw us over. Whoops.

 

I've started making my voice heard with how I spend my money. I'm not spending it on Lucasarts any more. Unless KOTOR2 is patched and fixed to the point that it's not a half-finished pile of garbage, my money stays in my pocket. Furthermore, now Lucasarts is marked. I'll be very wary with any of their games in the future.

 

I'd advise other gamers to start doing the same. It's about time we stopped being victums and made ourselves heard with how we spend our money. If enough of us did it, you can be darned well sure the companies would starttaking notice.