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Failout

 

so edgy. teach me your ways

Walsingham said:

I was struggling to understand ths until I noticed you are from Finland. And having been educated solely by mkreku in this respect I am convinced that Finland essentially IS the wh40k universe.

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The press and others generally don't cover 'indie' level stuff for the same general reason they don't cover the local store but will cover Walmart or McDs or Ford, there's tons of info and interest about large entities and a lot less about smaller ones. That's especially true for E3 which is unashamably a AAA event, and the big gaming news sites which are big game focused.

 

The recent past has not been particularly kind to the smaller "1999" type publishers either though. Paradox and 1C seem to be doing OK, but Jowood and dtp have folded for example. I have no doubt that a lot of indies fold too, it's just that you hear mainly about successful ones rather than the ones which sink without trace or where two years work results in a few hundred sales.

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Well, aside from web based communities there's the good old word of mouth. It's not an unknown example for a mod to become popular enough to spawn its own game, or for cult classics that now have a dedicated following. Anyways, i'm holding my breath for someone that's going to create an event or series focused on games outside of the norm of the AAA. Sort of like a Sundance festival of video games.

I'd say the answer to that question is kind of like the answer to "who's the sucker in this poker game?"*

 

*If you can't tell, it's you. ;)

village_idiot.gif

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What I'm realizing is that there is a smaller PC gaming scene where there isn't DRM and it isn't in the media or covered by the hype. These publishers don't sell in the numbers that the large publishers do...but they don't need to. What's fascinating is that they are popular in their own right. It's more like the old late 80s and early 90s style of gaming has returned with small house publishers that none of the media, the masses, or anyone with popularity knows about. However those that are into those games know all about them.

 

It's in that scene where remarkably over the past half a decade it appears adventure games have been thriving (like the old adventure games that I hated to tell the truth, but my wife loved), and turn-based games still are doing well. I suppose Paradox is on the top end of that group (as in, the VERY top, almost so popular as to be out of the stream of that group...so basically the Sierra of the early to mid 90s? in relation to popularity and how well they are known, not the games they put out). It's like an entire underworld of PC gamers are out there, but no one realizes about them and the mainstream gamers don't even care as it's not the pop...pop...action and see the graphics are so wonderful type crowd.

 

Some must be successful just seeing how many have been released and keep being released (another of the top tier almost too successful games like this would be the Nancy Drew games by Herinteractive). Others I think are now moving more towards the mobile scene. Just interesting how there's a thriving gaming underworld on computers that is just about completely ignored by gaming sites, mainstream gamers and just about everyone (sort of like PC gaming all the way up until it's hey day around the mid 90s).

Part of this is digital distribution. Means that a lot of the overhead costs of having the game sent to gamestop/bestbuy, and even printing the disks are gone, so the games can be sold at a lower price but earn more per capita. Only issue is it requires a stable internet connection to receive the game in question.

 

Much of Paradox' more current success can be attributed to Steam, and that, mixed with a dedicated fanbase for their "more complicated than an excel spreadsheet trying to give you Ford Motor Companies financial info" games, mean that they have a consistent ability to create a growing fanbase at a lower rate.

 

Now if they could just get their heads out of their rear ends on things like King Arthur 2 (held to 24 frames per sec or so, HATES duel core... and duel monitors) they might actually be able to take on THQ and win.

 

One thing I think we'll see over then next years is more revivals of old gaming classics, rebranded, remarketed, and rebuilt under at least a member of their original team. I mean Twisted Metal probably got greenlit because David Jaffe really wanted to get the franchise back to life, and finally had enough pull with SCEA to get it up and running. And as time goes on, more of the money guys will start being hustled out the door (at least in terms of creative overlords of things like Acti, EA, THQ, and Nintendo) in favor of the project leaders behind the more successful games.

 

As to true Triple A titles? They'll still be around. But I think they're going to become SIGNIFICANTLY more limited in number per year. So instead of a constant stream of 30 or so games with 100 million dollar budgets per year, it'd go down to 12-15, with the backups being competant games that don't need the over the top graphics, voices, soundtrack, or scope. Another thing that's going to help with this is the fact that we aren't progressing NEARLY as fast for graphics upgrades, so an "A" title and a "Triple A" title won't be TOO different between how they look.

Victor of the 5 year fan fic competition!

 

Kevin Butler will awesome your face off.

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Well the Rob Dougan was a nice touch.

Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

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Might be good.

 

My only fear is that history has instances of a studio making a terrific game, becoming a hot property, then the publisher forcing them to rush out their next project to cash-in. Hopefully, Eidos/Square Enix aren't going to do that, but there's no assurance.

 

Not to say that's necessarily common. But I'm going to be prepared for it.

"Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater."
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Just be prepared for any game made by anyone to be garbage, works out better in the end

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Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

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Might be good.

 

My only fear is that history has instances of a studio making a terrific game, becoming a hot property, then the publisher forcing them to rush out their next project to cash-in. Hopefully, Eidos/Square Enix aren't going to do that, but there's no assurance.

 

Not to say that's necessarily common. But I'm going to be prepared for it.

SqueEnix isn't that type I think. What with having 3-4 FF titles announced at once usually, Versus XIII being waporware to the point that XIII-2 has already come out.
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Receiver released today.

 

This was thrown together as part of some 7 day FPS challenge. The mechanics seem very cool. I already bought it to show there's an audience for this kind of thing.

 

Is it any actual fun? I'll report on that to the What are you playing now? thread later today.

"Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater."
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hmm, Receiver looks interesting. your next step should be to buy ArmA2 Operation Arrowhead and install ACE and DayZ, which work very much the same

Walsingham said:

I was struggling to understand ths until I noticed you are from Finland. And having been educated solely by mkreku in this respect I am convinced that Finland essentially IS the wh40k universe.

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Edit: Or rather. I no longer want a game that is written by Motomu Toriyama.

 

Except they weren't? Well, he worked on the scenario and probably wrote the original story and setting (the second being pretty good imo), but the Lead Writer for both games has been the same guy that wrote X, X-2 and XII. Daisuke Watanabe.

 

XIII-2 was pretty good imo, too.

 

And while 3rd Birthday was terrible I still really liked Bahamut Lagoon.

 

Edit: Also Versus is written by the same guy that wrote Advent Children and FFVIII. Personally, ranks lower by me.

Edited by C2B
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Edit: Or rather. I no longer want a game that is written by Motomu Toriyama.

 

Except they weren't? Well, he worked on the scenario and probably wrote the original story and setting (the second being pretty good imo), but the Lead Writer for both games has been the same guy that wrote X, X-2 and XII. Daisuke Watanabe.

 

XIII-2 was pretty good imo, too.

 

And while 3rd Birthday was terrible I still really liked Bahamut Lagoon.

 

Edit: Also Versus is written by the same guy that wrote Advent Children and FFVIII. Personally, ranks lower by me.

 

The thing about FFXIII is that I actually thought the story could have been very interesting, Toriyama or not. They just waste it all by having most important bits in a codex. Other games have codexes, but they are there to flesh out story and lore. In FFXIII, they have all the important bits in the codex. I was lost before reading the entries you unlocked.

 

I can't comment on Versus yet, but if it lets me explore and not just run through (beautiful) corridors, I'll be happy. I don't care if they do it like FFXII or like the old FF games with a world map. All FF games are linear, but FFXIII took it to a new level in the first half of the game.

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Edit: Or rather. I no longer want a game that is written by Motomu Toriyama.

 

Except they weren't? Well, he worked on the scenario and probably wrote the original story and setting (the second being pretty good imo), but the Lead Writer for both games has been the same guy that wrote X, X-2 and XII. Daisuke Watanabe.

 

XIII-2 was pretty good imo, too.

 

And while 3rd Birthday was terrible I still really liked Bahamut Lagoon.

 

Edit: Also Versus is written by the same guy that wrote Advent Children and FFVIII. Personally, ranks lower by me.

 

The thing about FFXIII is that I actually thought the story could have been very interesting, Toriyama or not. They just waste it all by having most important bits in a codex. Other games have codexes, but they are there to flesh out story and lore. In FFXIII, they have all the important bits in the codex. I was lost before reading the entries you unlocked.

 

I can't comment on Versus yet, but if it lets me explore and not just run through (beautiful) corridors, I'll be happy. I don't care if they do it like FFXII or like the old FF games with a world map. All FF games are linear, but FFXIII took it to a new level in the first half of the game.

 

XIII-2 improved on all that stuff. The main story is a bit convoluted but if you use your head not that hard to understand. Also has a really well done take on Time Travel (And they do fun stuff with it. Like re-attempting unwinnable boss fights later on or in post-game). There's still important bits in the codex but its side stuff like learning what other charachters from XIII have been up to. It's also not nearly as linear and opens up quite a bit.

 

They really did an admirable job at listening to fan critisism and in such a short development time too.

 

 

And about XIII that's partly the cutscenes fault which basically directed the whole game (had to be done first and then basically the entire game was done around them), that's also why the postgame in XIII was as big as it was.

Edited by C2B
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the more i hear about the next console generation, the less interested i am.

 

cloud gaming on xbox? wonder how much the monthly fee for that will be...


Killing is kind of like playin' a basketball game. I am there. and the other player is there. and it's just the two of us. and I put the other player's body in my van. and I am the winner. - Nice Pete.

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