WyldKat wrote on Jan 3, 2012, 14:30:
EDIT: Disregard, apparently according to Bioware via Reddit, low-level farming of Ilum is okay.

Unless they decide it isn't. They said if a lowbie goes and opens a chest he won't be banned, but if you repeatedly "exploit" the resources you will be.

That is even worse, if you cross some moving, arbitrary invisible line, they can temp ban you. Basically, you can open chests and you only get banned if they feel like banning you.

Just fix the mechanic, it is so easy. Level limits on the chests, area, scaling the loot to level, ect.

This is the worst of the culture that infests MMOs. If you don't play the way people think you should, you are cheating and should be banned. It is like people who try to put arbitrary "no spawn camping" rules in games. Either the supposed spawn camping isn't a problem or the map is crap and no one should play it.

DarkCntry wrote on Dec 30, 2011, 11:59:

Halo wrote on Dec 30, 2011, 10:59:
Is this also a question of poor passwords or actual hacking? If your xbox live account password is 123456 then you're to blame. The password system is there for your protection and is up to you as an individual to maintain a level of security for yourself.

Considering mine was a 16-digit randomized alphanumeric with case-sensitivity password, then I doubt it was due to a poor password. Of course, I am not even sure Live supports case-sensitivity.

As per that article it took me actually contacting the BBB for them to even give me information regarding the status of my migrated account, which over 38 days since I originally involved MS and well past the 25 day statement, had not even been started on the investigation.

Now I've been in contact with them for a couple weeks now with constant updates.

Was there any chance what-so-ever you fell victim to phishing? Microsoft/EA's go to excuse is that the people are victims of phishing. However, a lot of people are saying it is not due to phishing, but some sort of major security flaw with EA's account system.

Both Microsoft and EA deserve the blame for how poorly they have been handling this.

Nucas wrote on Dec 22, 2011, 23:44:

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Dec 22, 2011, 21:04:
Normally I like to pick sides when spectating this sort of thing but here I couldn't care less; it's one shitty company suing another shitty company. I suppose I consider EA to be the slightly more shitty company, so I hope it ends up with massive legal bills and huge damages awarded against it.

i've kind of slipped the other way, i hate what i've read of bobby kotick's actions sufficiently to want to see his awful fucking decisions hurt activision. it honestly kind of pisses me off how good MW3 did (how could it not?) and the back patting kotick must have given himself for trying to fuck west/zampella out of their royalties.

Yeah, but EA has the bullshit about banning users from playing games on Origin for forum posts. Heck, someone in the BF3 forums got a lifetime ban because someone cursed him out and used his username in the post.

Overon wrote on Dec 19, 2011, 14:21:
This contest is so convoluted and it just hides the fact that your odds of winning are so low.

No one thinks they have a chance better than winning the lottery or getting hit by lightning. You get good steam deals, maybe some free DLC, and the fact that they add a prizes to their sale is the icing on the cake.

This announcement feels kind of like "You may remember Jack in the Box from that time we gave a bunch of people E.Coli." If you haven't played Brink, yes, it was that bad.

Making a game that can be played by five year olds, but is still entertaining to an adult is a great piece of design. Think of a Pixar movie vs Dreamworks releasing another Shrek sequel.

Beelzebud wrote on Nov 15, 2011, 12:12:
Rage was definitely the most disappointing game in recent memory. The sad thing is that id has shown no indications that they really care.

They've actually taken the tactic on twitter of feigning ignorance of people having widespread problems.

I'm sure working on rockets in your hobby shop is fun, but when you charge $60.00 dollars for a game, you owe it to the customers to get it working properly. Stop blaming drivers, and other companies, and do your job...

Don't forget Brink, another massively disappointing game.

Dev wrote on Nov 8, 2011, 00:03:
As for the bad faith, why in the world would they do that? Beth stands to get 12% royalties per the contract even IF interplay does an MMO, and thats with no risk and no work. Why in the world would they be unhappy if interplay got some investors and got off their butts and did a game and starting kicking them some free money?

Bethesda wants 100% of the Fallout money. They wanted the MMO rights, but they didn't want to pay for them. So they thought they could get them by default with the "must be in development clause." Then they starting throwing lawsuits at interplay, interplay escalated and both sides are now trying to make sure the other side loses all rights.

A warning, the campaign is pretty short, criminally short really. It absolutely screams, we left it unfinished on a cliffhanger so we could do DLC and then they never released the DLC to finish the campaign. I wouldn't drop the full $40 on it.

DG wrote on Nov 2, 2011, 11:26:
Somehow a brief review of a comment thread has always told me more than thousands of words on a multi-page in-depth professional review.

Most reviews never really get across well whether the game is fun.

Specifically multiplayer, I don't often see a review get this right. Maybe because many have to review pre-launch, so presumably any play they get is like what you get in closed betas: sterile and uncreative.

Somewhere along the lines the goal of video game writers stopped being informing their readers and they became a PR division of the publishers. I think the internet had a huge part in this because their source of income became ads and it is easy to get hits online, even if you writing quality is crap.

As much as an asshole Jim Sterling can be, I will give him credit for having fairly good taste in games and being one of the few reviewers that will give you an honest, quality review. He's just wasting his breath defending something that doesn't deserve to be defended. People know most of these reviewers are shills and are constantly manipulated by the publishers. If a publisher can demand an 8 why can't the readers?

Verno wrote on Oct 31, 2011, 14:27:
I don't understand their attitude that this is some kind of accidental mishap or something. Some of the stuff people are listing on the forums is basic shit you'd know about if you ever played your own game at any point during development. I don't care how large or small a developer you are, it's inexcusable behavior and in other industries would probably be borderline fraudulent if they didn't process refunds.

From what they've mentioned elsewhere, this seems like it may have been a case of releasing an unfinished game because they had no money and their choices were release it now or release it never.

Prez wrote on Oct 26, 2011, 13:35:
Normally I'd be happy for Lord British, but after he wasted all that time on the piece of crap called Tabula Rasa, I'd say he deserves to be out millions.

It was in his contract he had 10 years to hold onto stock options. NCSoft bought into him and gave him way more resources than he should have had with little oversight. Largely because his brother had a fairly high position in the company. NCsoft had huge issues with giving developers lots of money with very little oversight. It resulted in Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault, two spectacular failures. However, it also resulted in Guild Wars, one of their biggest successes.

He was effectively ousted from the games industry and isn't coming back unless he does it on his own dime. He deserves his money, even if he should probably never make games again.

Cutter wrote on Oct 23, 2011, 17:29:
Valve shouldn't TM DOTA...because Blizzard wants to. It'll be free...apart from all the stuff they monetize.
I never thought I'd see the day when I start to actually hate Blizzard. There you go, Kodick. Hell of a legacy, dickhole.

He's running out of studios to ruin on the Activision side of things. They killed the * Hero games and blew up infinity ward. Call of Duty is all the Activision side has left, Kotick has to screw with something to justify his obscene paycheck.

Beelzebud wrote on Oct 23, 2011, 15:48:
I hear id Software is now working on "id Team Fortress", and Epic Games is working on Epic Red Orchestra. Makes about as much sense as this scenario.

There still isn't a solid name for the genre. Riot tried to coined MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) because they didn't want to be called DOTA. It means absolutely nothing and is stupid. Personally, I prefer Valve's name for the genre, Action RTS. You actually thing of something like DOTA when you hear it.

Tanto Edge wrote on Oct 21, 2011, 18:47:
I want Richard back in action.

Did you not see the last game he put out? Tabula Rasa wasn't exactly successful and I've never heard it described as good. UO was more a testament to the talent at Origin Systems.

A school superintendent got in trouble for using software to spy on students through their webcams. Makes you think that webcams should come with a physical off switch as an added protection layer.

Fibrocyte wrote on Oct 20, 2011, 11:10:
Is this game any good? I haven't played any of the series.

I would skip it. The core concept is good and actually could have been the next great RTS model. They have some rather obnoxious technical issues that hamstrung them. It just isn't worth playing with the game slowing down to the framerate of the slowest player. One idiot is always trying to play with settings way too high and as a result the game freezes for everyone while it waits for him to catch up.

Plus they ran off a massive chunk of their multiplayer player base with a disastrous launch. They left game destroying bugs (units permanently ate up pop cap after they died) in the game for over 2 months.

Bumpy wrote on Oct 18, 2011, 13:26:
Yeah, anything less than Mech2 quality and features, then I could careless.

I want a technical, badass Mech sim, not stupid, dumbed down arcade crap.

This is probably the best bet because the Mechwarrior license was acquired by former Microprose employees.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Oct 13, 2011, 13:34:

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Oct 13, 2011, 01:47:
Those guys USED to rock.

Dawn of War 2 was a joke, Space Marine is barely tolerable.

I much preferred DoWII to the original. I mean, it's not like base building really suited the W40K universe anyway - they just went that direction because all RTS games did. With DoWII they actually pushed something new. The RPG-elements really added to the singleplayer, while the multiplayer became much more enjoyable, unlike normal RTS games where it's all about rushing bases early on.

So yeah, I'd like to see a sequel to Homeworld but you've got to admit that it's not exactly a well known IP. I'm more interested in seeing DoWIII, as I have a much stronger attachment to the brand.

I think the things that led to DoWII being a disappointment were the horrific bugs at release and the use of GFWL crippling their ability to fix these game destroying bugs. They left a bug in that made units permanently eat up population cap for at least 2 months, completely destroying the multiplayer.

It took them 2 expansions to finally start to fix their game, and it still has major issues. For example, it only runs at the framerate of the slowest player and is extremely hesitant to kick a player pulling 2 FPS out of the game.

There is a reason Blizzard is the only RTS game in town. They are the only company who bothers to even try and polish and balance their RTS.

Mechanically DoW II had some great ideas, that's why the lead designer behind it is now working at Blizzard.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Oct 13, 2011, 01:47:

Kosigan wrote on Oct 12, 2011, 21:40:
It's alright Relic. You guys rock anyway. <3 Homeworld

Those guys USED to rock.

Dawn of War 2 was a joke, Space Marine is barely tolerable.

They should be knocking out Homeworld 3, and a real DoW sequel, not this various 3rd person shooter and fake RTS nonsense.

They aren't the same relic that made Homeworld 1/2. Do you really want Homeworld 3 if it would end up being bad?