Quote from FuryoI find it funny that anyone on these forums would be looking for "a point" in gaming. The point is to entertain you. There is no other point to any other game out there.
Intellectual stimulation. For real. TV = sit back in my chair and go braindead. Gaming = sit forward in my chair and use my brain to figure something out...while being entertained.
I have to say too many game marketers often fixate on BIGGER LOUDER INTENSERER FASTERER EXPLOSION-Y-ER and etc. since generally they are creatively and intellectually bankrupt, and just plain lazy so they have no idea how to smartly market product, let alone offer any useful advice to game developers on how to make their games better. (omg shocking insight 
) So for shooter games, the marketing side often says "................................well what about Call of Duty? Can't we just do what they did but cheaper?"
My point: not all shooter oriented games need to be so fucking intenserer and explosion-y-er...sometimes a slow pace where you have to be patient and think and plan rather than simply react to the shooting gallery before you is a nice alternative.
Sorry, just ranting... [Blocked Image: https://migrationtest.mapcore.org/public/style_emoticons/default/mapcore_smilies/emot_shakehead.gif]
Interesting...though (a) i like Minecraft (b) i like building things © i haven't actually tried this.
So we saw it tonight. And yes I read the book (dur i started the thread).
1) I thought the casting was excellent. Every actor seemed at worst good enough but most of them were great choices.
2) I didn't like the shaky cam cinematography. Not every scene had that (thankfully) but the those that did didn't need it. Shaky cam does not create cinematic intensity. Shaky cam is a means to cover up how a cinematographer has no talent for cinematography. Must. End. Now.!!!
3) The movie did an okay service to the book. It's hard to get every detail in there but since the book was such a page turner it tends to make you feel up close and personal with everything in it, especially since it is told in the 1st person. I think the bigger issue is the concept of the book, while not totally original, is still an original take on, um, the concept in the book 
I think they could have done a better job with the writing to get the emotional intensity/tone just right, and in some parts they did a great job but in others it was totally flat.
Overall, I liked the movie and felt it captured the spirit of the concept enough but it wasn't the spectacular awesomeness I was hoping for but not expecting anyway.
Hey, beats the fuck out of whichever Twilight movie I was forced to sit through a DVD rental of.
Quote from Tailgunner
I've met people who got fired for exactly that. Scary.
":146v0mbf]mojang had a one hit wonder. Don't put it up there with valve and blizz plz.
I'm not comparing their importance. Sounds like you are doing that. The commonality is they all started out focusing on making great games, not making great profits. And their respective returns on investments have been pretty good. Sure, Mojang has 1 game that's been a hit and its next game may suck for all we know. But you gotta start somewhere. [Blocked Image: https://migrationtest.mapcore.org/public/style_emoticons/default/mapcore_smilies/emot_shakehead.gif]
Quote from Rick_DI'll start.Videogame companies are motivated primarily by profit.
The rare videogame companies motivated to make great games and provide great gaming value for the money are often the ones that make significant long term profit:
A few examples (of different sizes):
- Valve
- Blizzard
- id (well, back in the day, anyway)
- Mojang
- etc.
We were in the theater for our 2:55 pm showing...and at 2:50 the lights flicker, then the emergency lights came on. A staffer from the theater came in and told us the entire block had lost power due to the rather mild rainstorm in our region. Thus, I wasn't able to see the movie today after all that.
So we are seeing it this Wednesday...guess I'll find out then if I like it or not.
I'm seeing it this weekend. $30 for two movie tix. Better be damn good...
btw the movie comes out today...
Quote from c0wI have a comment about the audio of the "Full Length" trailer... it had just the right amount of orchestral BRAAAAAR to it. You know, the kind that's real deep, and makes you wish you had two subwoofers sewn into the seat of your pants.
The problem is these days that a lot of film trailer makers get lazy and abuse the BRAAAAR principle, and use it throughout the entire trailer. Not so here.
For reference here is a trailer with too much"BWAAARRRR"
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eh....needs more BWRAAAAWWW
Quote from ChopperDaveI survived! But many didn't and our team took a nasty hit. We're doing our best to soldier on and work around any bottlenecks we have, but it's definitely a setback.Thanks for the support guys.
* There was one guy whose first day was Monday and got hit in the layoffs on Tuesday. I'd imagine he's probably angrier...
No. MS was the publisher of the cancelled project. Everything is still continuing full steam ahead on South Park.
Ah. Well...I am biased because I love South Park and well, I once worked at THQ, so I am hoping for the best for the project and that it comes out well. Hang in there.
Ugh indeed. Has this anything to do with THQ since it was the slated publisher of the South Park RPG?
If they published ACTIVE players, the numbers would be very different, as many people bought 3 month sub at release. And now with the 1.2 patch, the game is more like how it should've been at release but it's too late, giving you the sense that it was rushed for Christmas release. They are going to have a tough time trying to get people to come back to it, now that Diablo III is around the corner, Guild Wars 2 is breathing down its neck, and some are even waiting for TERA release in May ... buuut I don't think you can charm that many people to return when the game feels like a singleplayer game.And this aint helping either : http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20120308-0
lol yeah I'm looking at a very accurate usage model (shit, my colleagues and I think so but hey we built it so we're biased) and the active users are certainly not what EA is saying as the subscriber number...but that's just a rehash of what we've been saying.
Anyhoo...Blizzard had a ton of celebrity endorsements over the years, but that only happened after WoW became culturally relevant and cool more or less. Case in point: Make Love not Warcraft episode of South Park:
"This could very well be the end of the world...
...of Warcraft."
and etc.
In other words, I'm saying STWOR ain't there yet no matter how hard EA tries. WoW became cool (er cool enough..) because the fans and gamers said it was. EA is trying to tell gamers SWTOR is cool in order to make it cool.
Shit don't work that way.
Maybe that's why I hate Assassin's Creed? 
I guess it's time for me to get over myself and my Uncharted fanboy-ism. BTW I'm playing Uncharted: Golden Showers (wait...?) and it's pretty good...because I like Uncharted and dual analog sticks on my mobile gaming devices just like the way my iPad has awesome dual thumbst...oh, right. Anyway, guess I'm now obliged to try AC again.
Back on topic...after watching "The Journey" trailer on youtube I'm left with the impression the devs and/or marketers decided to glue together the following ideas, some of which were mentioned in this thread already:
- Battlefield 3 visuals (mainly the speeding road thingy in the beginning)
- MW3/BF3/Inception/etc "BWHHAAARRRR" sound as we've discussed to death already
- The sandstorm level in MW3 which isn't that much different from the poison gas level in Black Ops...
- Sheppard from Mass Effect
- Charred bodies in the nightmare and "flashforward" scenes from Terminator 2
- Lord of the Rings...you know...Sauron's flaming eye...look a the last shot in the trailer...
Even so...I have to admit I'm interested. Maybe it will rip off a ton of Call of Duty and BF and whatever else. I don't care. It's just the premise of a big "city meets sand" environment in a sand storm that seems interesting, and it seems like it has sense of drama to it in the trailer presentation but we all know that can go out the window in a heartbeat once the actual gameplay starts.
I can only except Nolan North as Nathan Drake. He has a supporting generic bad guy role in Arkham City...I can barely tolerate that but every time I hear him in that game I cringe a little. Made me turn off Assassin's Creed II (or which AC game did he do VO in?) Anyway...I thought he was so good as Drake that to hear him in any other role ruins the role for me.
Long hair....the final frontier in video game animation...
Quote from Senturamaybe people are subscribed but not playing?
Yeah that's the obvious question here...but the pattern with MMOs now is with the 30 day free included trial, people roll off in masses after their 30 days are up. Given the game launched officially on Dec 20, two months is a lot of time for the initial players who would have rolled off...to have rolled off and canceled subscriptions. It's very possible indeed that people have been lazy and forgot to cancel their sub. Usage is a leading indicator of subs, so I suspect, assuming the usage data and anecdotal data is true, subs contraction will follow. Shit just doesn't add up even with usage-drop to sub-cancel lag.
Really? I thought they had less than half of that, with the constantly dwindling number of players since release, and statistics showing constant decline in server population.
Yeah just doing the math on every source we have and it just seems really...really........reallllly odd how they can claim 1.7 million paid subscribers at end of Feb.
