Posts by Thrik

More WW2? Nah, nuts to that.

I don't think it's connected. The host just seems to be delivering exceptionally poor service.

We simply need to get the forums moved to a new host. I've already demonstrated that I can do it in about 15 minutes, but for some reason it's taking weeks upon weeks to get anything done. I don't know where the administrative roadblock is, but it's demonstrating a large lack of care and respect for the community in my opinion. People are probably being infected with trojans because the site has not been moved yet, for pete's sake.

As I said on the last page: I know people are busy, but if there's no time for being able to respond to critical community problems within a day or two then perhaps it should be handed over to someone who can respond and act within a day or so like me. (I'm saying this publicly because nothing seems to happen when talk happens privately.)

We haven't moved hosts yet. I don't know what's taking so long for Mike, but it's really a 10-minute job (that's how long it took me to put up my test mirror).

I know Mike is busy and all, but if he can't spare 10 minutes to stop this community spiralling towards a hellish pit he ought to really hand any and all responsibility over to someone else. It's this kind of thing that kills communities.

This has been going on for well over a month now. I know Mojo does try hard to look after the community, but this is some serious lax administration. If you haven't got the time to sort it out then give the reigns to someone who does. I bet some people who came and got that trojan warning will never return, and maybe even some regulars too who got fed up with it happening for weeks on end.

It's clearly on its way Mazy.

Beautiful.

I wonder if anyone did buy Wii Play purely because of the game itself.

That definitely looks excellent.

Yeah, can't see any use for it myself. Screen/resolution is far too small for comfort and the hardware isn't ideal for any serious work.

I can see its market but I can think of much better ways to spend $1800. I'd rather sink that into a much more powerful but heavier laptop if it had to be a laptop.

Cool concept though and maybe in the future it'll evolve into something for more than casual use.

It trims it off once the image would ordinarily make you scroll sideways. Seems like a good feature to me, although I guess it's not so good in the WIP forum where people don't mind seeing huge pics.

I'd vote for disabling it.

The PC games market has become critically damaged though, while the console market which has little in the way of warez is absolutely flourishing. Like it or not, the PC games platform is suffering. I personally believe warez is at the core of that, both with regards to quality of the games and their sales.

Everyone can deny it all they like, but then you might as well spit in the face of developers like Fletch who have put across their side of the story.

The simple fact is that there's no excuse for piracy unless you're a kid, and even then it's questionable (seeing as kids have to wait/etc for console games as copies are so relatively hard to come by). I think just about every angle of the argument has been covered so far in this thread so there's little more we can do other than just continue living by our own beliefs.

I won't be picking up any pirated games, and nor will those who are on the 'it is wrong' side of the fence. If you want to continue warezing then go ahead. Just don't even think about moaning on IRC/forums like so many people did when more games do what BioShock do and ship with relatively aggressive activation systems (although it didn't negatively affect about 99% of people who bought it).

Definitely the best case mod that has ever been created, and I've seen every one ever made.

Games in the UK aren't really overpriced in my opinion. PC games are much cheaper here than console games; for example, a new PC game is £25-£35 while a new console game is often £40-£50. I think £35 is a perfectly acceptable price to pay for a game considering a DVD or book is only £10-£15 less in many cases and it lasts much longer. Console games are admittedly a bit expensive, but it's how they make back the costs of giving you well over a thousand pounds worth of hardware for £300-£400.

I'm guessing most arguments about overpricing come from countries where the laws might push the prices up, but I can't really get involved with that. $65 seems fine to me, although I know some countries like India get raped on prices. In those cases piracy is probably more acceptable because the people couldn't afford to buy them anyway (while in Europe/US they can -- they just choose not to).

Game quality is obviously a valid reason to not buy it, but in those cases you should just not play it rather than see it as a justification for pirating it. If a game gets shit reviews, has a shit demo, or just generally looks a bit shit, you're under no obligation to play it. Just move past it, and by not playing it you'll hopefully discourage more from being made.

Games on the PC sell really badly in general at the moment, much less than they do on consoles, so from the publishers' perspectives all their games sell badly. How are they meant to know which are good, and how are they meant to be convinced it's worth investing loads into a great PC exclusive when it's ultimately going to sell pretty badly anyway because of people who've been habitually warezing for years? Remember, it's the sales figures at the launch of a game that largely determine its success. If they're bad, which is what the 'pirate it and then buy it if I like it' mentality causes, it basically says to the publisher "People don't want more games like this" -- even if it's great!

I see the point you're trying to make about how people might pirate less if the games were better, but in all honesty I don't think they would. People will always get away with as much as they can get away with -- just look at the music industry, where a lot of people have entire collections of music they love but have never paid a penny for. And music is priced incredibly cheaply, so there's even less excuse for it than with games! IMO the 'if it's good they will buy' it argument is false.

The only way to stop piracy is to make it difficult for people. BioShock did this in a way that didn't really affect anybody who bought the game, but effectively stopped the piracy for a few weeks and thus those people dying to play it bought it rather than doing the usual "Oh I'll just get it off BitTorrent tonight because I want to play this game sooooo much and can't bear to wait!". It's just like how even though music is very cheap and samples almost always exist of each track on an album, if people can get away with just getting the whole thing for free in high-quality off BitTorrent, they will. Sure, some might do that then buy it later, but most won't The only way to stop it is to deny both of them that luxury.

I just hate the whole PC piracy mentality in general. The platform really is going to shit, and I think the gamers aren't as willing to take as much of the blame for it as they should. There's a reason consoles continue to get loads of great games while the PC just gets ports and shitty games, and I believe piracy sits squarely in the middle of that reason.

Quote from hessi

both suck big time, but i'd prefer a pirated copy since i want to judge a game from the complete basis. not only a 10 minute extract. you cant judge a book or movie from just spending 10 minutes on it. the best solution to this problem comes from valve: those free weekends are genious. you can legally check out as much stuff as you want. and if you want to continue palying, you can buy the damn piece. thats how things should be done.

But you don't get to legally watch an entire book or movie unless it's in your local library or you wait until it's on television. Just like with games, you can usually get a very small glimpse (trailer, blurb, etc) and then have to buy it for the rest. Games cost more than both, but that's because they last a proportionate amount longer. It doesn't mean you can't do some basic review/demo research to get an idea of whether or not you'll like it. You're not fucking entitled to try out every game in full to decide if you like it, and then give the developers some money if you feel they deserve it. It's a product. Good and sucky products exist in every industry, but you're not entitled to just have them all.

Valve's weekends are a good idea, but they don't apply to the concept of single-player games very well. While some people (mostly on MapCore) are decent people and will buy something if they enjoy it even after completing it, most people won't. You start letting people play full single-player games for a weekend and they'll just all go on a binge during that weekend, finish the game, and then never return to it again.

As far as I'm concerned there is no valid argument for pirating games. I have absolute confidence that I can smash apart any and all arguments you throw at me. The simple fact of the matter is that anyone with a job has no excuse to be pirating games, and those who're younger can wait for their birthdays/etc and ask for one instead of a toy or whatever (they cost about the same) if you're a lazy fuck not willing to get a paper round or something.

I recommend that those MapCore members who pirate games just keep quiet about it and don't even attempt to justify it in this thread. All you're going to do is piss off those industry members who work hard on these games, and make people like me waste time pointing out why your arguments are flawed on every level.

I personally see pirating as something reasonable when you're in school/college as games are relatively expensive, but once you're out of your teens and have a job it's time to grow up and start paying for your shit, regardless of whether or not it might be a bit crap. Almost all games have demos, including Crysis, so there's no excuse for not getting the demo and seeing how it runs/plays/etc.

Anyone who's past their teens and still pirates games needs to grow the fuck up IMO. Try the demos and/or read reviews before buying -- it's not hard, and it's how consumers of most other industries buy stuff. For example if you're buying a kettle and want to know how fast it boils and such, just ask the shop for a demo and read some reviews (online, kitchen magazines, etc) about it.

Unless you've got a seriously wank job it's not difficult to pay for one or two games per month, if that. You just have to get into the habit of doing it and decide you're going to start helping the PC platform instead of killing it.

The most amusing part for me is that when a game like BioShock finally comes along with some solid anti-piracy measures, all the people who've been pirating games for years start getting on their high horses and saying that's why they pirate them! As if somehow games starting to stop them is justification for doing it for all those years, and a reason to carry on doing it -- even though the games have only started doing it because of their piracy. Absolutely fucking hilarious.

I think the concept and marketing alone could probably get the game its sales. Even after knowing the gameplay was meant to be a bit mediocre, I saw huge magazine spreads for it and it just made me want to play it regardless. The characters (both how they look and their backstory) and plot is really compelling.

Quote from JohnC

Er..... why is it in first person? Games with focus on movement and environmental interaction usually work better in third person. I'd at least like a choice in the matter, but then again I'd like that in most any game.......

That's kind of the point.

They're trying to take first-person shooters beyond running, crouching, and jumping. If they can do it, it could be a new way of playing games. If they fail, it'll be a disaster.

It's easy to be sceptical, but there was a lot of development shots taken in the article I read and it really does look like they might be able to pull it off. The two shots in this thread don't really show it much (you can see her right leg as she's jumping onto her side and that's about it).

I'm aware that vulnerabilities exist, however if you actually look into the vulnerabilities the majority of recent-ish ones are due to third-party software or other such add-ons, and the problems were patched quite quickly. Most of the real problems occurred ~2006.

I meant to say that phpBB 3 is more inherently secure above. None have been discovered in phpBB 3 to my knowledge yet, and if they are they will most probably be patched quickly as the phpBB community is very large and vulnerabilities are reported quickly. An SMF exploit could go undetected for months on end before someone finally notices it, just like they have in Windows and Mac OS X.

Indeed, the reason there are so many listed vulnerabilities for phpBB is because it's so popular. There are quite simply infinitely more phpBB forums out there than SMF forums, and thus less interest from dedicated programmers to find security exploits. Exactly the same is true of WordPress, which has had a large number of vulnerabilities found yet is used on an incredibly wide scale without problems.

As long as the vulnerabilities are patched quickly when they're found it's fine. The simple fact is that vulnerabilities exist in all software, regardless of how much their high horse developers might say it's secure. It's no coincidence that the 'most secure' applications are usually also amongst the least popular.

Quote from Chunks

pre-rendered shadows doesn't really bother me... probably means there isn't going to be any kind of day-night cycle, though.

Just to clarify, I'm fairly sure this game isn't a GTA clone and is a fairly linear story-based adventure like a traditional FPS. The magazine article I read about it totally implied that, anyway. As such, day/night cycle probably isn't too important -- there's most likely loading screens.

phpBB really isn't that bad, and there's no evidence to suggest it's phpBB that's caused the security breach. phpBB is a lot more inherently secure anyway, and this trojan shit was appearing before we upgraded and on non-phpBB pages. Plus, people went mental over even upgrading to phpBB3 because of the changes -- nevermind whole new software!

Thanks for having a look, guys. I'll talk with Mojo about moving forward from here.

It's set in a futuristic utopian city, D3ads. It's meant to look very vibrant, and in the Edge Magazine article about this game it was said it's actually part of the storyline (the bastards in charge put such colours everywhere to try and calm the oppressed population).

It's a shame the article isn't online. It's totally the storyline, concept, and actual player physics that'll set this game apart, not the eye candy. Not every rendition of the future has to be dark and grimy D3 -- they have a vision.