RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS THREAD!

[Serrano]

CoH2 sounds fantastic. I'm really curious to see how the new snow system is going to work and also quite hopeful for what this might mean for the Dawn of War series as well,.

Edited May 4, 2012 by Serrano

[entrerix]

i still keep hoping that dawn of war will be made more like the tabletop game. a digital warhammer game would be so awesome, and they could make recurring money off it by charging for codex updates alongside the actual tabletop game. I still paint, but none of my friends are interested in the hobby anymore, and a digital version i could play online would be great fun

Edited May 4, 2012 by entrerix

[Morgoth]

CoH2 to be officially revealed on May 7th

 

Hmm.

 

CoH2, Generals 2 and the SC2 expansion pack? This could become an interesting 2013 for high-profile PC exclusive strategy games.

 

Generals 2 and SC2: HoTS are probably gonna suck though.

[sorophx]

I want you to ACTUALLY SUFFER from death.

 

you should play Day Z

[Morgoth]

http://www.develop-online.net/news/40703/Exploitation-of-developers-is-getting-worse

 

Yo, just fabricate some bull**** requirement for a milestone, refuse to pay for 6 months, developer gets broke, pass on the project to another developer. Repeat the same process again. Profit.

 

Scumbags. All of them.

[entrerix]

devs should start rebelling against the publisher system. make a smaller more streamlined game that you can self publish, build up income and growth by successfully releasing good products. self publish larger games. DO NOT SELL OUT.

 

see its that last part that really gets em...

 

but maybe people have learned now, and as new companies rise, they will learn the lessons of their predecessors and keep 100% control and ownership in house

Edited May 4, 2012 by entrerix

[Rosbjerg]

Not to play the devils advocate, but the comment in that article was interesting.

 

If you'd seen the state of project and how long it had been going you'd not be surprised they cancelled it on them. It was many months late and only a tiny fraction of what was promised by them appeared. I challenge them to show the 'almost finished' game to the press!

 

It's downright immoral to withhold pay for service rendered, but if the product really was detrimentally inferior to what was promised, then I have to say the blame rests with the developer as well, who took the job knowing they might not deliver.

[Tigranes]

Well the point there is, who judges whether the product met the previously agreed guidelines? Can you have an objective set of milestone guidelines? No - even something like a 'playable level' is very fluid. Do you then have third party bodies that judge whether the dev should be paid for x milestone? No. Are there clear industry standards on the writing and interpretation of milestones? I don't know, but I suspect not. In that case, what you say Rosbjerg - which common sensically is 100% correct - just becomes a white paper for the publisher (who has all the bargaining power) to do what they want.

 

I have no idea whether I'd agree with the publisher or developer for that particular project and the state it was in. But given publishers have all the power in this negotiation, it seems sensible to try and redress that.

 

Edit: example of trying to implement an objective milestone: metacritic. Result: utter failure.

[Mamoulian War]

Not to play the devils advocate, but the comment in that article was interesting.

 

If you'd seen the state of project and how long it had been going you'd not be surprised they cancelled it on them. It was many months late and only a tiny fraction of what was promised by them appeared. I challenge them to show the 'almost finished' game to the press!

 

It's downright immoral to withhold pay for service rendered, but if the product really was detrimentally inferior to what was promised, then I have to say the blame rests with the developer as well, who took the job knowing they might not deliver.

 

You forget, that there is still a chance that this comment was made by a person paid by LA to write comments like these. I am not siding with any side of the story, but I am more prone to agree with Tigranes in here...

[Humanoid]

The only milestone that really should matter is the final one, because any earlier ones attempt to tie the contract to some sort of nebulous definition of "completion level." If a dev overpromises on delivery time then it's unfortunate but it's their problem. Anything earlier has a whiff of publisher meddling and is vulnerable to "having its numbers rearranged" to have it look like what the publisher wants it to look. Unfortunately I have no idea what, besides Kickstarter, would give the average developer enough bargaining power to negotiate a balanced contract.

 

 

Also if the project was really that far behind schedule, one wonders if it may have had something to do with the non-payment. Working for six months without pay tends to have a detrimental effect on morale....

[LadyCrimson]

Elder Scrolls MMO "sounds like just another fantasy MMO" http://kotaku.com/59...her-fantasy-mmo

 

Not that this surprises me. I wouldn't be very interested anyway, since I'm not an MMO person these days, but if true, it's a shame they seemingly couldn't figure out a way to do something more interesting with this instead of same ol' same ol'.

 

(edit)Still, just a preview. Could sound better later.

Edited May 5, 2012 by LadyCrimson

[Humanoid]

My position is about the same, yeah - that said, I'd take a generic fantasy setting over Star Wars which I've grown to dislike even more since my venture with TOR (it's just too limiting a setting to develop a character which I'd be comfortable with).

 

That said, given both the limitations of technology and Bethesda's dismal track record of creating even remotely compelling combat, I don't think it's a horrible thing to copy that aspect - though perhaps with a greater emphasis on skill with a particular weapon or school of magic rather than having combat ability solely based on class and level. Note I don't actually know if ESO will have any notion of either class or level but anyway.

 

NPC handling is subject to the same limitations - in this case also by the reality of human behaviour. If you make an NPC anything other than an indestructable signpost, players will inevitably grief each other.

 

 

One thing I would genuinely be disappointed about however if the mooted three-faction split approach just apes WoW's system of total isolation from each other except in cases of PvP. I don't like the system in general because I prefer free association from both a character standpoint and from a game viability standpoint. After all, if you split your clientele from a userbase which is dominated by an 800-pound gorilla game in the form of WoW into three, it's just going to decrease population density and make it that much harder to reach that critical mass where your game is commercially viable. Creating for example the concept of Imperial cities vs Thalmor cities and having access to them be mutually exclusive makes the game effectively half the size it actually is for a given player, despite there quantitatively being more content.

 

A much better approach would be a softer approach to factions, such as having the option after some time playing the game to join the Fighters' guild or whatnot, and have the guild send you on tasks which may directly conflict with what players from the Mages' guild at some points. But players would still fundamentally have access to the same cities, the same NPCs, same non-denominational quests, etc.

[Morgoth]

Some more Hobbit game rumors: WBI to have registered several domains; The Hobbit: Guardians of Middle Earth

[Morgoth]

Lucas Arts to release Kotor 1 + Kotor 2 bundle this summer; speculation about coming Kotor 3?

 

Most probably an internally developed Kotor 3, which judgin by LA's lousy past work, is most probably gonna suck.

 

But hey.

 

Hope the re-release bundle gets at least some modifications and Hi-Res Textures....but nah, it's Lucas Arts.

[Malcador]

And they used to be so cool. Well, ok, pre-2000.

[Zoraptor]

Is LucasArts in the "everything developed internally" or "everything developed externally" section of its bipole at the moment, since I've lost pretty much all interest in them I haven't been paying attention. Swapping directions completely every 18 months has not worked wonders, to say the least, and they've been doing it since... 2007?

[entrerix]

i'd still love a real followup to tie fighter. xwing vs tie fighter was ok, but tie fighter still reigns as my favorite space flight sim type game ever.

[greylord]

Loved the X-wing Trilogy of games, though the X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter was probably my favorite (though I don't think it was officially part of the trilogy, those I think were X-wing, Tie Fighter, and X-wing alliance).

 

X-wing alliance was pretty spectacular as well, but overall the end missions were harder then anything else.

 

I enjoyed The Force Unleashed series from LA most recently, the rest of the stuff they've released as of late has not really caught my attention.

[Majek]

I don't think they'll follow up that unless someone else does a successful space sim.. :/

[Morgoth]

I'm totally for Totally Games making a totally new X-Wing space sim.

 

Totally.

[Hurlshort]

I could see a decent space sim kickstarter getting some attention. Some sort of spiritual successor to Privateer.

[Azdeus]

Mmm... Privateer. I've got pleasant childhood feelings from that game. Learning to count in hexadecimal numbers just to be able to haxxor money together. Mmmmm... Nostalgia.

[Morgoth]

Alan Wake 50% off @Steam.

 

You guys think it's worth it?

[Flouride]

Alan Wake 50% off @Steam.

 

You guys think it's worth it?

 

For others yes, for you... no.

[MacMichael]

Alan Wake 50% off @Steam.

 

You guys think it's worth it?

 

For others yes, for you... no.

 

Also on sale at GoG.com for the same price.