Gone Ashore: Rant

Showing posts with label Rant. Show all posts

From the desk of RUFKM comes Michael Pachter's Pach-Attack and his take on subscription multiplayer as a reality coming. Hey Mike, how about a glass of STFU already? Gamers will have to accept that sub-based multiplayer is coming and just take it? No, sorry, we don't!

I love the comment "it's crazy" that MW2 players can just pick up the game and play for free. Well Mike, Activision is not providing jack for that service, the games are P2P and it's costing the players bandwidth for that. What's next? It's crazy that customers can just create a free forum account for support! It's crazy that patches should be provided for free! It's crazy that buying a game should entitle you to the privilege of playing it whenever you want! Hell, why stop there; It's crazy that people can send text/voice without paying per msg/talk time like cell phones! It's crazy that owning/registering a username doesn't have a monthly charge! It's crazy that any douchebag with a webcam can just spew a random stream of consciousness and people take it as gospel!

No Mike, gamers don't have to take it! We can just boycott the whole process or simply invent a way for gamers to play for free. Oh yes, possible and likely, thanks largely in part to the consummate greed that companies show and the anger that it will instill within many talented programmers and pirates. The mammoth money and attention that games and companies are getting is lulling them into the idea that they are invincible and can start charging anything they want for anything they want.

This wasn't the focus of the piece, it was in answer to ~~piracy~~ the used game market that is somehow completely bleeding every game company dry. Come on already, if games weren't so overpriced to begin with there wouldn't be ~~piracy~~ a used games market - next stupid question. The fact the people quote this guy is a problem, getting the idea out that getting raped for every facet of a product is perfectly legitimate and should be expected is preposterous.

It's crazy that authors aren't charged for their video bandwidth!

Excerpts from an interview with Mike Capps by Edge Magazine has been making the rounds on the interwebs. In this interview, Mr Capps states simply that PC is a no-money maker and that is why Gears of War III will once again be a 360 exclusive. To further hammer home his point of view, he jabs at the current state of PC gaming as nothing more than FaceBook games that most don't pay for.

Well Mr. Capps, I don't FaceBook.

On my machine this minute is over 50 PC games, bought and paid for, and another 17 in shrink wrap waiting for their turn - all purchased within the last year. None of them have the word "Farm", "Casual", "PopCap" or "Hidden" in their title or genre. I paid an average of $30 a piece for these titles, so you do the math. I'm not buying them used, giving the developers $0 for my purchases, nor am I flashing my drive firmware so I can avoid giving money to anyone. Piracy on the 360 is so ridiculously simple, even a 12 year old #!%$ing some other person's grandma "out the window" can do it.

For the record, I own all of the Unreal/UT Games (except for 2003) as well as Gears of War, all on PC. As a matter of fact I purchased a used copy of the Gears Collector's Edition on 360 just for the extras DVD and the steel case, giving away the 360 copy to a friend. I would have purchased it for the PC, but alas it didn't exist.

These developers are releasing games for the PC because the PC is, has, and will continue to be a superior platform and not everyone gets the privilege of having Microsoft write them a blank check for exclusivity.

There has been mucho blabo about BFBC2, especially concerning the PC vs Console debate. For instance, the GameTrailers Review (06:40 approx) states that the PC version "lags behind" in visuals compared to the consoles. Yet on their very site a PC Walkthrough video states pretty plainly that the graphical enhancements are beyond their console counterparts with features such as unlocked framerate, FOV adjustment, multi-monitor support, HBAO and DX11 soft-shadowing enhancements. Comparing a PS3 to a POS, years old and off the shelf at a discount store, is not a real comparison. This doesn't even take into account the UI specific enhancements that highlight the superiority a mouse and keyboard provide or the PC's 32 vs Console's 24 man servers for multiplayer. Clearly stated: Advantage PC.

Through blind ignorance, console cowboys continually try touting their hardware's superiority. It was barely on par with the available PC hardware at release and while the PC's FOV and multi-monitor support seem to be up in the air at the moment, it's hackable and more importantly, technically viable. The consoles have low FOV and framerate locks to compensate for the lower computing power - less screen draw equals lower requirements. Technology didn't stop at the creation of your specific console as a Mans Greatest Achievement unlock resounded across the world. It advances as time progresses much like everything else and believe it or not, firmware updates are not hardware upgrades - your console is not faster now.

Next up on "Catch a Clue" we have an interview with Patrick Bach on Gameasutra where he explains that the first Bad Company didn't come to PC's because they thought it wouldn't appeal to PC gamers. A previously PC-specific brand that is still active after a 5 year release and you thought we wouldn't want it? So now that the PC version of BFBC2 has surpassed both of the consoles for number of players, will we get BFBC3? Will our "more forgiving when it comes to certain types of technical polish" outweigh our "not as forgiving of certain design aspects" when the sequel arrives?

Maybe that's unfair, it's very true that PC gamers don't want a watered down console port. Nobody is pining for PC version of BF2: Modern Combat but we as PC gamers want the choice. Watching the barrage of games that are console specific really chaffs our outrage and "console games are starting to be more like PC games, and PC games are starting to be more like console games" is just another way of saying that.

Again, the PC gamers prove that we buy games - given the chance to do so.

*Edit* It seems the PC is not the leader in most players according to GamerZines, this is due to European PC players being included. So Europe doesn't have 360's or PS3's that would likely have also been counted?

A tweet prompted me to read an Editorial of Stuart Campbell of World of Stuart. I have never read anything by said person and this site maintains a $2/mo paywall for content. The editorial is free and if it is a sample of what the site has to offer, he can keep it. The title is pandering hyperbole and meant to do exactly what it did, make you want to read more. The editorial itself is half-cocked pretension, not surprising from a person who names his site worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com - Ummm, really? A quick summary of said editorial is simple: Stagnation of the PC gaming market is killing sales and pirating everything, buying only what you enjoyed, is the solution to the problem. Ummm, No.

First off, the PC is swimming in console ports so this stagnation would not be platform specific. Next up, the most innovative gaming you will find today is in the indie market - most of which never hits consoles. Variety in gaming is something that the PC does not suffer from. If anything, it's the console market slathers itself in repeated ideas - God of War 3/DarkSiders/Dante's Inferno anyone?

Piracy is not just the copying of software, it's the freedom that PC users have to mod, develop, backup and play again 10 years later without having to repurchase the same content. Consoles come and go, when a new one is released you can slap a new coat of paint on an old game for a quick buck. Not to mention the free content that many people develop and give away when the developer is trying to sell horse armor for $5. Piracy is not just about the game itself, but the potential income that can be squeezed out of it in the future.

Private servers is another sore point, why let modifications be free when we can gouge another buck for a new gameplay type when the existing one becomes stale? Again it's about the freedom that PC gamers have with their content and how it impedes the devs ability to get more for less.

We as PC gamers are going to have to deal with less and less when it comes to mods and servers as it encroaches on possible revenue. Smart Devs will use this to their advantage by promoting and including these abilities to bring a larger and longer lasting community for a game they don't want to milk for the next year. The few hardcore PC devs still available will include it as a matter of principal, and you can expect it from the indie market as they can't afford to support continued development.

Again, the solution to the dwindling commercial arm of the PC games market is simply to make it lucrative by buying your software. It's the money they care about, not your $2/mo opinion.

Complete hard drive failure thanks to a Samsung 1TB 2700.11, a model that apparently everybody knew was faulty but me. I had backups of my programs, but lost my save games for everything. Maybe I should look into building a save game backup program.

GamingBolt has a BlogPost on the once-again death of PC gaming. It's selective hivemind hyperbole like this, sprinkled with single-minded facts, that perpetrate this nonsense. Let's take a closer look at the FUD shall we?

"the PC gaming market has thrived over the past few years, and showing no signs of letting up. However, it has come to the attention of many that the naysayers may finally be right."

Can we pick a side here? If the PC Gaming market is thriving, the naysayers can't be right.

"it is cheaper and easier for them if they focus on the masses; console owners."

The console owners are not the masses. There are more PC's in use around the world than the 3 leading consoles combined. Old, new, schools, offices, government facilities, the list goes on. Companies gravitate toward the consoles for two reasons: fixed hardware and less piracy.

"PC games require mod support, dedicated servers and both off-the-shelf hard copies and downloads."

No, these are pluses in the PC Gaming court. They don't require mod support, they allow mod support - free community created and supported mods. Even games that don't support mods get modded due to the PC Gamer's generally more adept technical skills. Dedicated servers are also a plus; no PC gamer wants strictly vanilla server access, we rent, mod and serve custom games that are too varied for a single entity to encompass. Finally the distribution model, specifically digital distribution, is the future. PC Games (and console games for that matter) will be available less and less in retail boxes - it's cheaper and more secure (a.k.a. less piracy) to distribute through a download service.

"Is anyone else beginning to realise how games are coming out unfinished and buggy as hell these days? It’s almost like there is no point buying a game on the day of release, because there is bound to be some major issue or hardware compatibility error."

Are you kidding me? Console games are patched constantly and it's a closed and fixed hardware platform, how could you overlook a compatibility issue? Also you will find that the issues that PC Game Developers face most is on-board hardware. Crap video card and/or sound card chips that were cheap to include don't do the job that hard core (a.k.a. not casual) games demand. Simply not supporting this garbage and adding a single line "Requires Dedicated Hardware - See Back for Details" on the box would go far to eliminate patching.

"Of course, it’s not all bad. We still have Valve, who have created (and are still creating) some of the best PC games ever. And Blizzard. And BioWare. But how long will they stay as loyal PC developers?"

I'll vote forever. Console games are still developed on a PC and I'll lay good money that these developers don't go home and play around on their consoles. The PC is a breeding ground for budding developers to jump into coding through Modding, Flash, ClickTeam and even RPG Maker. Many will one day make the jump to the commercial scene and what platform do you think will be close to their heart? The same one that thrives in the developers of the above companies.

What this article completely ignores and what will truly place the PC into serious running with even the next generation of consoles is services like OnLive. When the owners of those laptops and outdated desktops can simply log in to a service to play the latest games without having to spend a dime on hardware, the tides will change dramatically - both on the developer and consumer side.

Until that time, I'll give you a very simple measuring stick for the death of PC Gaming: Steam recommends you backup your purchases due to their eminent termination of service.

Been having some problems with my internet as of late in that sites seem to take forever to resolve. Refreshing IP's, rebooting routers and cable modems having zero effect on the situation. A call to tech support, first playing Mr DumbAss hoping I could finagle a simple reset of whatever shaping software they have running, then playing Mr TooMuchInformation and asking questions about VOIP bottlenecks and unthrottled torrent ports vs encryption. Neither approach garnered me a solution that lasted longer than 5 minutes after the call. Having just recently upgraded the firmware in my router, it occurred to me a new setting or feature may be the culprit so I dove in for a closer look.

Seems the router defaults to using a third party DNS resolver with little or no information on who or why, "a security ready DNS server" isn't exactly information. So I removed the DNS servers, placing the correct IP's in their place and jumped back on the web. Same resolving issue, slow and painful. After a little research, there appears to be a large group sharing this problem with said provider. Remembering good old OpenDNS that I suggest to anyone looking to stop porn traffic for their youngsters, I filled in their DNS server IP's.

It worked.

I created an account for OpenDNS to remove the filters as I for one want all the results when I search the term beaver. Like DynDNS, OpenDNS needs to be informed when your IP changes so I examine the software they have for just that. Inadyn is a handy command line updater that can be run as a service, even better it can update DynDNS servers as well. Strangely the version on OpenDNS's Support Page is newer so grab it from there instead and as a side note, the command line "--iterations 1" will run it once and exit instead of staying resident.

Update: On further inspection the "security DNS server" IP address 204.194.232.200 resolves to 302DirectMedia.com which in turn is a division of OpenDNS so I may have gone full circle back to my problem. I will post more after further testing...

Seriously, I bought this retail, paid retail. Avoid at all costs, the porting is horrendous on even the newest systems out there. Settings mean nothing and do nothing but make the game look worse than it already is. An official announcement stated that no patch would be coming, period. $40 down the drain? Swish!

If you are not playing one someone you know is and, like pushers, they are forever trying to get you to take your first hit. While that is a drug reference, I do not buy into the whole addiction theory regarding MMO's or any other gaming habit for that matter. There are two types of gamers: the casual and the hardcore. Casual players are like casual sex partners, they flock to light and simple, something that can be picked up anytime and put down whenever - no strings attached. Hardcore on the other hand want the Full Monty, I want you and your problems so I can be a hero and solve them. That is where the semblance of addiction can be viewed.

Hardcore gamers want the adventure and fame that their life doesn't have. If that's an addiction, we are all addicted to this same thing. Everybody wants more: Some buy lottery tickets, some watch exotic TV shows or read books, games are no different; they just allow you to fool yourself into believing you are accomplishing something.

So what does that have to do with why I don't MMO you ask? Well, it's not addiction; I'm addicted already, there's no fear of that. I enjoy the hardcore and the casual but what I don't enjoy is continually paying for it (I'm a recovering pirate for the sake of Piper's Pit, I'm used to paying nothing and you want a monthly fee?) So you buy the game, you pay for your internet, you own... Thirty days of free play before you have to cough up more to keep playing. Wait - isn't that called a demo? An Open Beta? You can't play what you've bought without first buying it again, and you're ok with this? What the hell did you buy to begin with? If you bought a car, straight up, and the dealer told you that part of the agreement was to pay 1/3 of the cost every month to continue to drive it, what would you tell them?

Worst of all, the more you pour into your character, the more attached you become to this imaginary object. Why do people love the Portal Companion Cube so much? They spent nary a level carrying it around and found it hard to let go at the end of ten minutes. Imaging those who spend months, hell years with their character? Sure you can stop playing anytime, but you can't back up your character. The best you can do is continually pay to keep them around. For all your efforts, in the end is an erasure of your existence and a blank character page. Any wonder why it's so popular? Nothing evokes the aspiration for life quite like Death.

So what do I tell every MMO player I know when they try to lull me in? The same thing I would tell that fictional car dealer, "I don't buy something for the privilege of renting it every month".

Gone Ashore

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