psulli wrote on Nov 20, 2011, 12:28:
The idea that the payola-laden, ethically-challenged industry of video game journalism is indicting their own customers is revolting.

As soon as game journalist establish some balls versus handing out 5 STARS or 10 out of 10 previews/reviews so that they will be given advanced copies of FILL_IN_PUBLISHER's next AAA release ... I will listen to them talk shit about their customers not one whit. Until then this type of fanboi scree from customers is going to be the standard response to game journalists. Either grow a pair of journalistic integrity-balls or shaddup and enjoy the lifestyle being a shill affords.

Crustacean Soup wrote on Nov 19, 2011, 18:32:

Why should the gaming industry, which is a first class industry providing first class entertainment, be accorded a third-class award show year after year?

Because Spike said "hey, let's make a video games award show, no one else is doing that", and then they did it. No one else has stepped up, so they're the de facto "video games award show".

CommunistHamster wrote on Nov 16, 2011, 17:06:

Quboid wrote on Nov 16, 2011, 12:20:

CommunistHamster wrote on Nov 16, 2011, 11:29:
Completely in the spirit of battlefield; wing walking was always a valid tactic in 1942. Hell, wing knifing (flying extremely low and clipping an enemy standing on the crest of a hill with your wing dealing collision damage) was a valid tactic.

Fuck realism, battlefield is about arcadey gameplay in a semi-realistic setting.

Completely against the spirit of Battlefield, and against the spirit of gaming.

Exploits are never a valid tactic. Wing walking in BF1942 wasn't a valid tactic and should have been patched out. Bunny hopping has never a valid tactic either. What is different about these and exploiting outside the level, which would typically get you kicked/banned?

It's not an exploit (like hiding in buildings, making you invulnerable), it's an unintended gameplay quirk (like skiing in Tribes) that takes skill to pull off and still leaves you vulnerable.

CommunistHamster wrote on Nov 16, 2011, 11:29:
Completely in the spirit of battlefield; wing walking was always a valid tactic in 1942. Hell, wing knifing (flying extremely low and clipping an enemy standing on the crest of a hill with your wing dealing collision damage) was a valid tactic.

Fuck realism, battlefield is about arcadey gameplay in a semi-realistic setting.

nin wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 12:00:

Creston wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 11:27:
I keep TRYING not to, but then I stumble on another bandit camp, and five minutes later I'm loaded with all kinds of loot again.

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/11/14

wonkawonka wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 11:38:

Quboid wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 11:36:
So, yes, some PC gamers are entitled shits. I knew it was too much to hope for.

Some of the textures close up are quite low resolution, but that's what we paid for. That's not a bug and Skyrim wasn't mis-sold. When I saw it was about 6GB I thought the textures probably wouldn't be great but if they brought out a 15GB, parallax mapped patch then I would be very happy, but I'm not entitled to it and I've no right to clamour for it.

I didn't know it was 6GB and in fact I was sold a totally PC experience, no consolitis. I'm not really pissed off because I know that the shit UI will get modded to death, but I would very much appreciate the (by now) usual "click here to download hi-res textures".

Verno wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 11:27:

wonkawonka wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 11:25:
Are you kidding? While the game doesn't "look like crap", it still does look dated, circa 2008. The textures are weak, weak, weak. So yes, I for one will be clamoring for higher res textures.

Calling them weak seems a bit much. I'd love for higher quality ones but they don't detract from the experience in any way and thematically most seem to fit very well.

Nope. The launcher requires steam, the game itself doesn't. You can fudge down the skyrim stats by simply running the skyrim.exe, it's not encrypted. And doesn't require steam to run.

Right but everyone has to at least activate on Steam was his point I guess. Sure there will be people running it without Steam but I don't think that'll be significant numbers. The concurrent figures are impressive but don't tell the whole story, I'm sure the figure far surpasses it considering all of the timezone nonsense, differing routines and so on.

Darks wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 10:53:

Quboid wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 10:44:

Doma wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 10:03:
PC Gamer says:

While only 14% of those copies sold were on PC, those figures don’t include digital download numbers, which are sure to be substantial considering the enormous numbers of people playing Skyrim on Steam.

I'm surprised it's as high as 476K units sold on the PC if this doesn't include digital downloads. Does anyone know what percent of PC game sales are digital? Can anyone even make an educated guess? I would have thought it would be several times the number who buy physical copies, but that guess isn't even educated.

I think Skyrim requires Steam, so even people who did buy physical copies will show up on Steam's stats.

I think we can guess that Steam sold well over 300 Thousand units, the other day they posted a record of 231,593 concurrent users on Steam for Skyrim. So i would imagine that they sold around that amount if not more.

Fibrocyte wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 10:42:

Halo wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 10:38:
How long before PC gamers demand a D11 patch?

The game looks quite amazing. I can't imagine anyone stomping their feet demanding a DX11 patch.

Doma wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 10:03:
PC Gamer says:

While only 14% of those copies sold were on PC, those figures don’t include digital download numbers, which are sure to be substantial considering the enormous numbers of people playing Skyrim on Steam.

ASeven wrote on Nov 14, 2011, 18:00:

Agent.X7 wrote on Nov 14, 2011, 17:30:

ASeven wrote on Nov 14, 2011, 16:54:
Well, right at the start of their article they say this:

We are receiving information from a number of gamers who have received forum bans for a variety of reasons who are finding they’re unable to play Battlefield 3 (or indeed any other game tied into the EA user account), and worse, when they try to contact EA for help sorting this out, they are either ignored or told it’s tough. So what’s going on?

So maybe that's why they are putting so much weight in James' story, because they also have many more like his, judging from their second paragraph.

Do you know how many cheating bastards play BF3? I wouldn't doubt that you could find thousands of people who have had their accounts banned because of cheating in multiple games. And I sincerely doubt that any of them would actually man up and tell the truth about why they got banned. They'd all claim to be wronged by EA, even though they know they deserved it.

I'm not saying that it isn't possible that it happened just the way James says it did. I'm saying it's piss poor journalism to post what someone tells you in an email as fact with no proof. Oh, shit, gotta run, the aliens just landed on my roof! Please tell the Times and have them report it!

Though you are absolutely right that journalists should report confirmed events and facts, how do you propose to have a regular gamer that was indeed banned to show proof? Anything he could send, pictures, videos, transcripts, could also pretty much be labeled as fake as well. Also, as unlikely the chance that James' story is valid, it's also pretty unlikely that everyone writing to RPS is a cheater or hacker as well.

deqer wrote on Nov 14, 2011, 16:10:

Agent.X7 wrote on Nov 14, 2011, 15:55:
Note that RPS, like most of their media buddies, is taking people entirely on their word about this shit. James is free to write in whatever bullshit he likes and RPS posts it up as fact. I find it hard to believe that he got his entire account banned due to a forum posting. Like others have said here, there's more to the story that we aren't hearing.

What exactly are you expecting to hear from an EA representative, and how are you going to know that whatever the rep. says is true?

Honestly ... don't bother.

Beamer wrote on Nov 14, 2011, 14:36:

DG wrote on Nov 14, 2011, 14:33:

PHJF wrote on Nov 14, 2011, 12:16:
I've never met anyone who owned a $1000 processor.

They're for people with more money than sense, for people with a hobby and a lot of disposable income, but mostly for workstations. 10 minutes off a compile/render/whatever each day can pay off a $750 premium in about 3 weeks if you've a $300/hr charge rate.

At what point does "more money than sense" just become "a ton of money."

I mean, plenty of people have Ferraris, which do nothing cheaper cars can't do, but I wouldn't call all of them "without sense."

Dirwulf wrote on Nov 13, 2011, 22:11:
I just can't get into Skyrim. Its Oblivion all over again. Same shit, different game.