Cutter wrote on Nov 1, 2012, 11:19:
Good. Stick with what you know. Adventure games they know. MMOs they don't.

They've been making terrible MMOs for a long time. The people who remember how to make good adventures games may no longer work there.

Beamer wrote on Sep 27, 2012, 11:47:
Even thinking beyond this, why do private companies get acquired?
1) The owners want out (retire, start something new, etc.)
2) The owners want to cash out while the price is high (I think this is part of why Epic sold - it gives the aging owners liquidity they really haven't had over it's 20someodd years)
3) They need capital and need it badly

Well, we don't think Gabe is going anywhere, so 1 is out. He's already independently wealthy and probably drawing a huge salary, so I would guess 2 is out. And they are stupidly profitable, so 3 is out.

We don't even need to speculate on why they'd choose this particular company - there's no real need for them to sell at all.

Your first reason probably be the reason why Valve eventually does get sold. Not any time soon mind you.

The other thing, is if you are buying Valve you are basically buying it for the Steam platform and the IPs. Anything the company once was will immediately crumble to dust the second some corporation takes over and tries to run it. Gabe himself even said he suspects the employees would quickly scatter to the winds the second the company was sold.

Tumbler wrote on Sep 24, 2012, 13:25:
Steam Summer Sale 2013 here I come!

Edit: To be fair there is something you could do to this that might make be buy it sooner and closer to $50. I've heard that the dLC packs are these little separate mini games that use a lot of interesting stuff but you can't use that stuff in the main game.

Change that so everything is inside the same "game" and I might just buy this for my pc. (I believe it is this way because memory limitations of consoles meant anything they added in these dlc packs had to had something removed from the main games memory for it to work.)

That's not likely to happen. The console version is the lead version. They were originally going to have all that stuff available in the main game, but they couldn't get it all loaded on a console due to memory constraints.

Creston wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 14:42:

Tumbler wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 14:40:
A company that size should have maybe tried one new IP or possibly focus'd on improving existing IP like Sins or Galactic Civ 2. Instead they jumped head on into Elemental and Demigod (I believe) and possibly others we never heard about with no concern for how those products would sell. Maybe there was more work being done on demigod and they canned that team or perhaps they just got rid of the elemental team and put the remaining funds into Sins Rebellion? The sale of impulse must have freed up some funds and maybe that is why we're seeing elemental and Sins Rebellion now.

Stardock didn't fund either Demigod or Sins. They just published them.

Creston

Stardock did the netcode for Demigod, which was its greatest failing. A huge chunk of the responsibility for Demigod's atrocious state at release belongs squarely on the shoulders of Stardock.

descender wrote on Sep 2, 2012, 14:18:
The loot drops in Borderlands were atrocious... I didn't find a new weapon on my entire second playthrough. Think about that for a second.

This "we won't hotfix it" thing screams of "we can't afford to lose anymore players, so keep using these broken features until we break everything else".

Borderlands has a lot of good weapons, some great weapons, and a handful of absolutely dominant weapons. Particularly Volcano snipers and 4x SMGs.

HorrorScope wrote on Aug 31, 2012, 10:32:
"Please use the subject heading of "Karma Weapons Exploit Appeal", then confirm in the body of your ticket that you will delete any items/currency that you gained from the exploit. You should submit only one ticket. Once you have done so, we will lower your ban to 72 hours, and following your re-activation we will check your account to make sure that you have honored your commitment. If that commitment is not honored, we will re-terminate the account."


Oh f'in k dad!

How about this, first it was your fault GW2 to begin with. And since somehow you know who did it and if they will follow through, how about your program takes care of it and deletes the gains? I like how they think they can make the mob have morals like this, say "I'm sawries, I promises never again". It's still just a game Anet, sheesh.

I agree here, the bans are in poor form. They need the ability to trade-lock players. Then they can give the player the choice between being trade locked or having their items/money rolled back.

In fact, the game could auto trade-lock people who have an unusually high accumulation of wealth.

John wrote on Aug 30, 2012, 14:33:

Verno wrote on Aug 30, 2012, 14:27:
They need to rethink parts of this, some fans are going to nominate games that are potentially stolen. I hope they have some oversight on this.

I would think they (Steam) checks for stuff like that before they allow it to be voted on.

They probably check it after they have been approved, it is easier.

dj LiTh wrote on Aug 25, 2012, 15:59:
Its deffinitely got me interested, but i'm holding off about a month until the newness wears off and the truth starts to trickle through. I'm hoping its still just as good as people are making it sound, and ill be picking it up then.

GW1 veteran here, it depends on what you are looking for.

PvE is superior to GW1. The world is very pretty and explorable, the exploration feels rewarding (full clearing an area gets you a treasure.) Quests are kind of weird, most of them are locational. If you enter a quest area it automatically pops up, when you leave the area it disappears. The problem is the game doesn't give much navigational help.

PvP has to be looked at by category.

I haven't got to play WvW yet, it has been having issues and I rolled on the GW1 players server. They gravitate towards other things.

PvP on the pub servers isn't very good, it is an 8v8 trainwreck. Too many players for the map, uninteresting in general. People tend to zerg the points. It is okay for learning the maps, but too many people makes a lot of things unviable.

Instant Tournament PvP is probably the best. The maps play way better in 5v5 and player quality is superior. It takes a bit more time to get matches though. It isn't a good at GW1 GvG, but it can still be interesting. You also don't need 5 people to play the tournament. You can solo queue and get into a random team. You just likely won't make it past round 2.

It doesn't live up to the hype because the hype is massive. However, it is above average. The PvE will probably make people who like generic MMO PvE happy. The PvP is probably on par with WoW.

Silicon Avatar wrote on Aug 16, 2012, 11:27:
Stardock sure does come across some weird problems. It is hard for me to feel too sorry for them though. This sort of thing is very preventable and any competent IT group would have had that data back online in a day.

Smells like bad management to me.

The game sucked too.

Wardell is known to have a bad temper and to do some pretty stupid things. A bunch of people got banned from Demigod for complaining about the terrible state of the game at release.

I wouldn't be surprised if he pushed an employee to the breaking point.

Mashiki Amiketo wrote on Aug 14, 2012, 12:00:

ASeven wrote on Aug 14, 2012, 11:27:
They are actually defending Day-1 DLC. This is how rotten, irresponsible, hostile to consumers and morally bankrupt the gaming industry has become.

Well, you can defend day-1 DLC, the reality is. If you're going to have it, you bloody well better make sure it's worth the money. $10 for a single NPC, and a mission that takes 6mins to beat won't cut it. It needs to add something to the game itself, to make it worthwhile. And in turn, the content has to add to existing content, not seem like it was removed from the game itself, in order to say "hey-hey, I'm here to fuck ya over!"

I can see situations where day 1 DLC would be fair. For example a game adopting a model where the initial game is cheap and you buy the rest if you like it.

The problem is companies like Bioware keep releasing crap DLC. A character very clearly shoehorned in and most likely cut from the original content specifically to sell to players. In the case of Dragon Age it was a blatant power sell, you buy the DLC and get stuff better than you get in the rest of the game.

Companies like EA, Activision, Bethesda (horse armor), and Ubisoft have proceeded to ruin the name of DLC with their blatant cash grabs.

deqer wrote on Aug 10, 2012, 20:58:
Team A vs Team B vs Team C? not sure how that works. sounds like a messy Free For All experience; which doesn't help since teamplay usually already lacks team coordination anyways.

Team A vs Team C / Team B vs Team C? sure.

Team A/B vs Team C? sure.

They added a bunch of files for robot models and a "Man vs Machine" mode has been referenced before. It will likely be a players vs bots mode.

Cutter wrote on Aug 10, 2012, 12:46:
Well, I'm sure both fans of this game will be very stoked about this while everyone else is playing PS2 and GW2.

They definitely missed their window and it is going to hurt them.

ItBurn wrote on Aug 8, 2012, 14:21:

Sepharo wrote on Aug 8, 2012, 14:11:

ItBurn wrote:
Having played CS as much as you did, I don't think I can take your arguments as valid. :P

Of course. It would be silly to value the opinion of an experienced long time player over someone who likely played the game 10 years ago and possibly revisited briefly over the years. Everyone who doesn't play CS is always an expert on it.

You can't argue with a guy that a game sucks when it's his favorite one. You also can't expect someone who's been so close to something for so long to have an unbiased opinion of the thing. I'm not saying I know more about CS than you do, just that, in MY mind, you're not really a reference one should use to decide if it's better than other games.

Isn't possible that you simply do not know what you are talking about? Counter-Strike endured for so long because of its aim system. The first bullet will always go pretty much dead on where the center of your crosshair is. The next two will be pretty close. You are criticizing counter-strike on what is widely accepted to be its strength and then saying modern games (which are far more random in their spray) do it better.

They got at least 5,000 extra players per day when it was added to steam. Now just over 2,500 concurrent players from steam alone.

Draugr wrote on Jul 31, 2012, 20:39:

Cutter wrote on Jul 31, 2012, 19:51:
In a "free-market" system we have corporations. Those corporations are all intent on creating monopolies where possible because that means they get everyone's money for the monopoly they've created. No, America is actually moving more toward an oligarchic and/or plutocratic system where the wealth and power is concentrated by a small group of people - the 1%. This is why you a reduction or outright elimination of competitors and compatible good goods and services.

This needed to be said, thanks. It boggles my mind how the word gets thrown around yet most (seem to be) totally clueless.

It is actually kind of interesting. Most of the people throwing 'communism' or 'socialism' around as a slur are products of the propaganda from the cold war era. That kind of hate stays with a society and is passed down from generation to generation.

Think of the stigma attached to Nazi. Yes, the Nazis were truly awful people and the crimes of the original Nazis cannot be understated. However 'Nazi' carries a lot more stigma than 'racist' or 'bigot.' Modern Nazis are really just racists, but the Nazi name seems to draw a lot more disgust than the KKK or other equivalent hate groups.

Another great example is the whole "Chinese food is made from cats and dogs." That was basically anti-chinese propaganda from when Chinese workers came over to build railroads (and consequently opened up Chinese restaurants.)

Communists and socialists are bad because they were the enemy and it still lingers in our society.

ASeven wrote on Jul 31, 2012, 22:32:
Disappointing, Valve. Very disappointing. I've always been neutral towards Steam though I don't like the idea of it having a monopoly over digital PC sales since monopolies are never good. I thought Gabe would be above this sort of tactics since he does have sensible points towards piracy and other issues. A shame really, would have thought Gabe would hold a sensible position over this as well.

A bit of a dick move on Valve's part, but this is way bigger than Valve. If Mandatory Binding Arbitration isn't made illegal when one of the two parties is a consumer literally every single contract ever will have this in it. Cell phones already have it, software companies are following suit, and some car dealerships use it.

It is a huge win for corporations because they can basically write lawsuit immunity into all their license agreements. In 20 years times this will seriously fuck everyone over.

ASeven wrote on Jul 25, 2012, 19:09:
I'll take a risk and say that Win8 may be the least sold Windows OS version for desktop PCs ever. I can't see anyone who cares about their PCs getting Win8, it offers nothing compared to Win7, in fact it takes away stuff.

Business computers are a huge market for windows. The people running companies tend to be older and not as technologically savvy. It took people time and effort to learn how windows works. The forced Metro interface is going to throw all that out the window. The VPs and CEOs are going to take one look at this and want the desktop back.

Dev wrote on Jul 20, 2012, 18:26:

SimplyMonk wrote on Jul 20, 2012, 18:15:
Normally, I am the master of patience. Still waiting for Skyrim to hit the $5 I paid for Oblivion plus all of its DLC. My patience, in this case, lost out to me getting a loot chest.

Based on the popularity of skyrim, how long its taken to get any DLC (remember how they rushed a bunch of silly DLC like horse armor in oblivions?) and how long they've taken to even put it on a 33% sale on steam, let alone finally doing a 50% for this sale...

I'm going to predict 2+ years from release until it hits $5 for the GotY edition.

Anyway, what loot chest are you referring to?

Edit: Oh, the whole golden key thing from the poster linked after me?
It also includes an exclusive item that essentially boosts "magic find"

That's about what it was for Borderlands 1. You had about a full years worth of DLC releases. There is also the option of buying the game (or buying it on discount) and then picking the DLCs up on discount every 6 months.

ochentay4 wrote on Jul 20, 2012, 13:17:

Warskull wrote on Jul 20, 2012, 13:10:

ochentay4 wrote on Jul 20, 2012, 12:54:
This is fantastic... On the old days thet would release that unfinished class to E V E R Y O N E on a later PATCH. YES. A PATCH. NOT DLC. A PATCH.

Dont forget everyone who likes this game will get RAPED by PAID DLC. I will not make the same mistake with Borderlands 1. I will buy the game a year and a half later as a GOTY for 5 bucks with all DLC.

I'll never ever ever ever buy a game at launcha again. NEVER. PERIOD.

EDIT: Of course they announced on Twitter they just began making DLC!!!! Why not fixing the bugs that slipped through gold (of couse they game will have bugs, remember Borderlands 1? It still needs an external config tool made by people to improve the game) Of course they can make further changes to the game!!!!!!!!!!!!

EPIC RANT hahahahahaha

The paid DLC for Borderlands 1 was a pretty good deal. Moxie's underdome was weak, but General Knox and Claptrap's Robot revolution gave you about 10 hours of extra gameplay each.

Pretty good deal? 10 bucks for each DLC? 40 bucks for DLC? Are you mad? I've got DAYS of fun playing Witcher series that cost half of those 4 DLC. I cant stress enough how important GOG.com/CD Projekt RED are for the industry and PC gamers. They are an example to follow for multiple reasons. Thet still make lots of money. Their games still sells like hotcakes, are really cheap, and they have added more content to their games for free than any company developer I know in recent times.

And please dont get me started with "certification" on PC.

The fact that Microsoft and its business model damages the industry in the long run is terrible.

Look at FEZ developers. They cant release a patch cause it costs A LOT of money to "certificate" it on the 360.

Look at Valve and its games: Team Fortress 2, L4D1/2, Portal2. They cant bring the same level of commitment on the 360.

There are a lot of examples.

PS3 developers have it easier/cheaper.

The fact that Borderlands is 360 centric bothers me to hell.

I hate paid DLC. I hate Microsoft. I hate G4WL. I hate unpatched games.

Whooooa rant of the week I guess! hahaha time to spend more time playing Witcher 2!

You clearly have no clue what you are talking about. Borderlands 2 isn't using games for windows live. Borderlands 1 didn't use games for windows live. There was no certification process, there were no delayed patches.

All the Borderlands 1 DLCs were created post-release. They were well written, fully voice acted, fully fleshed out, and fairly entertaining. It was actually a great example of how to do DLC right. There was a significant amount of content there, General Knox+Clap Trap was argueably the best part of the game.

You Witcher comments are completely irrelevant here. Using your logic could say for $5 Dungeons a Dredmor is still fun a full year after release, therefore Witcher must suck. Sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it?

There are legitimate criticisms to be raised about Borderlands 1, for example the way they handled FOV, the menus not using the mouse properly, and the always on voice you had to disable. Instead of mentioning any of those, you scream about how GFWL is ruining gaming despite the fact that Borderlands doesn't use it. You complain about certification patch delays which never affected the PC version of Borderlands.

Just ranting about random things that are completely irrelevant makes you seem like a crazed idiot. Try to organize your thoughts. Think about what is relevant and what is a random rant.

ochentay4 wrote on Jul 20, 2012, 12:54:
This is fantastic... On the old days thet would release that unfinished class to E V E R Y O N E on a later PATCH. YES. A PATCH. NOT DLC. A PATCH.

Dont forget everyone who likes this game will get RAPED by PAID DLC. I will not make the same mistake with Borderlands 1. I will buy the game a year and a half later as a GOTY for 5 bucks with all DLC.

I'll never ever ever ever buy a game at launcha again. NEVER. PERIOD.

EDIT: Of course they announced on Twitter they just began making DLC!!!! Why not fixing the bugs that slipped through gold (of couse they game will have bugs, remember Borderlands 1? It still needs an external config tool made by people to improve the game) Of course they can make further changes to the game!!!!!!!!!!!!

EPIC RANT hahahahahaha

The paid DLC for Borderlands 1 was a pretty good deal. Moxie's underdome was weak, but General Knox and Claptrap's Robot revolution gave you about 10 hours of extra gameplay each.