Agent.X7 wrote on Jun 10, 2014, 22:54:
That was my thought as well. Uh, guys? Zelda has pretty much always been open world. Good job reporting that non-story. Bonus points for misusing industry catch phrases.

The series started requiring you to complete dungeons in a certain order to progress the story and access new areas since the transition to 3D with Ocarina of Time, and has since maintained the same relatively rigid structure apart from the recent A Link Between Worlds which brought it back to fundamentals and was all the better for it.

Yes, you could explore any given area once you had access to it but it was limited and usually only for optional side stuff.

But don't take my word for it or anything, it's not like the director of the series basically said the same thing as the source you are directing your groundless cynicism at or anything.

Edit: I don't know, maybe this is a misunderstanding of the context "open world" is being used in? It does have a different meaning/connotation in videogames depending on what's specifically being referred to, the subject of which I thought was rather clear in the trailer and the accompanying article. /shrug

This comment was edited on Jun 10, 2014, 23:51.

Wow, I didn't realize innovation was merely instantiated out of thin air by an arbitrary engine swap! The things you learn here!

Dr. D. Schreber wrote on Aug 13, 2012, 06:12:
Hmmm...

Gray Mann...

Gray Mann...

G-Man...

COINCIDENCE?!

Even his first name "Gray" lends some credence to this link since gray = short-term for "alien", with G-Man himself already suspected of being some sort of pseudo-omnipotent inter-dimensional "being", i.e., an alien.

I wonder though, has it ever been confirmed whether TF2 takes place in the same universe as HL/Portal? Though I guess it wouldn't really matter, if G-Man did have the ability to jump from one to the next.

This comment was edited on Aug 13, 2012, 07:56.

Oh, I don't know, I guess I got the idea based on the fact you plainly called it a "bogus" term?

And then you gave the impression that people who value it "usually" (i.e. more often than not, a generalization) do so for one small factor instead of everything else I just listed.

I did not say that was your view, that character was the defining factor for you, merely that your assessment of other's value of immersion was too fixated solely on character; because for all I know (due to your own previous statement), to you, "immersion" is a bunk concept.

It's not either/or. Also, intent isn't magic. I can only read and respond to your own words, not what you really meant to say.

The ad hom at the end was really not at all necessary either, "feeling a part of it" is a fuzzy concept at best and means different things for different people.

Nobody is talking about literally thinking they're a character in a videogame, except you, that's a straw-man you constructed.

This comment was edited on Jul 13, 2012, 07:43.

Beamer wrote on Jul 11, 2012, 12:00:
I think immersion is a bogus term, anyway. It's about if a world is believable, not if you believe you are the character. You're sitting on your couch, or office chair, while your character is getting shot and jumping off cliffs.

Usually people complaining about "immersion" are the ones saying "I can't play a human other than a white male because I don't get immersed and feel like the character."

It always seemed fairly straight-forward to me that what you call world believability, a consistent internal logic, those little aural/visual/tactile details that make a game-world feel alive, lived in, and dynamic, etc. are also contributing factors to the level of player immersion.

Your view is, to me, a little black and white and lacks nuance. You're too fixated on immersion relating only to the player's character, to the exclusion of other ever-present factors.

This comment was edited on Jul 12, 2012, 16:44.

LOL. Yep, pretty much.

PHJF wrote on Jun 12, 2012, 12:57:
Didn't need Wii to play Zelda, just bought it for GCN instead. And as for Skyward Sword... well, after TP, SS just looked like fucking shit.

Sadly, I gotta agree, though not in as strong terms. I still haven't played SS, and this is saying something for me. Everything I've read about it has turned me off as a Zelda fan. The combat seems interesting, but the exploration/progression seems super gated for a Zelda game.

I don't want individual areas that play like a dungeon, only then to move on to the actual dungeon and rinse/repeat.

The open-world reprieve (and access to new areas you could tackle at your own leisure) after each dungeon was something to be savored in past games. From what I've read, there's a lot less of that in Skyward Sword; everything's more linear and the game supposedly takes 3 hours just to get past the tutorial phase.

Then there's the art style which seems to not know what it wants to be and Link's creepy doll-face.

I'll eventually buy it though next time I come across it cheap. Even average Nintendo games are still usually worth checking out.

Also, sign me up for another 2d-Metroid game. Prime was sublime, but now I think it's time. Other M doesn't count! A 2d-Metroid (in the same vein/treatment as their excellent DKC Returns) by Retro would be just the ticket.

This comment was edited on Jun 13, 2012, 07:35.

Luke wrote on Jun 12, 2012, 23:23:

Trevellian wrote on Jun 12, 2012, 19:03:
Yey, now I can use this game for the only reason I paid for it.

Ripping off people who are lazy and have too much money to part with.

And while you do that blizzi is ripping you , who is smarter

A 15% gratuity/tax for arbitration of services (notwithstanding the near identical rates for other, virtually analogous real-world applications) you can still make a hefty profit on, a service without which you wouldn't be easily making ANY real money and still be doing the same repetitive, time-consuming farming tasks for in-game currency with little else to show for it.

But oh noes, it's information super-highway robbery I tells ya!

You guys might want to look at the design diagrams showing the controller from all angles before writing it off as uncomfortable.

The backside is ergonomically molded and the majority of people in the industry who've actually held it in their hands have been, for the most part, positive towards it as far as comfort/weight goes.

The pic is to show that one of the main early complaints about the thing, the old 3DS-esque circle pads, have been replaced (along with some secondary buttons that were previously in awkward places) with actual analogs.

"And that final battle in Ep 2 was just retarded. "Hey guys, know how you've always been able to kill Striders with a rocket launcher? Yeah, now we're gonna make you shoot big floaty bombs onto them to blow them up, and you can only carry one, and you have to keep running back to get more, and the striders are all over the landscape spawn one at a time until the final wave, and it's time-limited, oh, and to make it even better, we're putting 900 2-3 of those mini-striders with each big strider, and they blow up your bomb, so you have to kill all of them first, and they each still take 415 clips surface contact at all of 3 MPH with your vehicle each to die! FUN RIGHT?"

Fixed, for poor accuracy's sake.

According to various sources, if a truly public stress test does happen, it'll be on the 1st of May.

Guess we'll find out soon enough...

Gah, maintenance pushed back again to approx. 5 p.m. PDT.

nin wrote on Apr 18, 2012, 13:28:

Hopefully I'll be able to log-in when the maintenance time is up. Not sure if an actual account invite/activation is needed to partake in this "open" beta. Worth a shot at least. Please work, please work!

Yeah, if your account isn't flagged, I'd be surprised if they let you in. But keep us posted...

Yeah. Got the game running, getting a "Battle.net servers still down for maintenance message". An update on server status (they may even be up by then) and/or possible clarification on the terms of the expanded beta is expected in a little under a half hour. I'll report my findings!

For anyone who didn't get an invite via their B.net Account (I've been kinda miffed about that, since I've bought and registered nearly all of their games over the years), you can download the installer for your specific region here
.

Apparently a few people are having issues with the setup process freezing; further down the page you can find a supposedly legit fix if the need arises.

I'm downloading/installing now through Blizzard's launcher at the moment, everything's going smoothly so far (though I assume the B.net servers are still down atm)!.

Hopefully I'll be able to log-in when the maintenance time is up. Not sure if an actual account invite/activation is needed to partake in this "open" beta. Worth a shot at least. Please work, please work!

mootant wrote on Feb 19, 2012, 01:31:
apparently activision doesn't know what googlecache is.

Or the Streisand Effect.

J wrote on Jan 29, 2012, 15:18:

the indie sensation that everyone digs so much

*groan*

Personally, I don't dig it but I also don't mine it.

I don't know what to think of RE6.

I have, however, just played the RE:Revelations demo recently released on the eShop. I'm happy to report that it's way more survival-horror-y than RE5, and noticeably more-so than even RE4 (which seems to have been, up until now, the ideal balance between the two play-styles). There's scarce ammo and health, tense/thick atmosphere and ambiance, a bigger emphasis on surviving/figuring things out rather than making everything go boom, etc. and some musical/thematic throwbacks to RE1/RE2.

Scanning for scant hidden ammo/items or secrets/investigative information (a la Metroid Prime) is also a nice addition which makes perfect sense in the context of survival-horror. There's also a nice Alan Wake-eque dodge (unsure of how to use it reliably though) to get away from creeping enemies in tightly confined spaces.

Too bad it's only 3ds/Vita at this point, because I came away fairly impressed.

changes, changes, changes... my god, stop changing mechanics, and let the players play and become familiar with the mechanics. Players cannot build a strategy upon mechanics of a game if the mechanics keep changing.

This applies to literally every online game ever, WoW is far from unique in this regard.

This comment was edited on Dec 21, 2011, 19:24.

You mean sports, and well shit everything else? I mean why pick on geeks, which was my exact point. A shit stain has more substance.

I think it's because this is one of the few mostly male sub-cultures that claims immunity/exception to criticisms of inherent sexism, because the "poor besotted nerds are really smart and meek and worldly and can see women for who they really are because the assholes always get the girl" and all that nonsense.

Except the nerds/geeks usually end up wanting some big-titted airhead over what they claim their ideal women is when they're off whining about how bad they have it. At least sports are in the open about their double-standards.

This comment was edited on Dec 18, 2011, 18:33.

ShowEQ wasn't even that easy, you had to have a second box running Linux to even do it. I did have a buddy who ran it, and it was neat to look at, but the only real advantage it gave you was allowing you to know if a Rare Spawn was up in the zone. Not exactly the greatest of advantages for what was required to run it.

There's a crap-ton more applications in being able to see every player/NPC/mob on the map than simply knowing if a Rare spawn is up, especially on pvp servers where camps are contestable and large guilds can be ready to mobilize against each other at a moments notice.

On a solo/PVE basis, I'd agree it's maybe almost not worth the hassle but still valuable.