Posts by Jetsetlemming

  • Wrath of the Lich King, night open release.

    So... uh, quick question. Does the two expansions mean that someone looking to get into WoW will have to plunk down a $80 to buy WoW + Burning Crusade + WotLK now, plus subscription fees? Over time for subscribers I'd imagine it's no big thing, but for a potential new customer...

    I recently played through about half a trial (got distracted by other games and abandoned it ) and played as a Hunter Dwarf Engineer, and this time actually had loads of fun with it, and could probably be convinced to pony up for a copy and subscription. But $80 + sub is a bit much...

  • Left 4 Dead

    Quote from cyberjunkie

    I hope those boxes come to India and quick! It's a lot cheaper thanks to Valve's special pricing for this region Orange box was $25

    How late did they show up on shelves? Because that's how much it is in stores here, now

  • Fallout 3

    Quote from Erratic

    What's wrong with CS?

    Both games have been on the Steam top sales lists since day one. Surely by now every man woman and child on earth already owns it.

    Quote

    ":jm439qiz]#2 most of them are banned cheaters who are buying new accounts, rotfl.

    Edit, ah just noticed you typed cs, not css!

    Anyways, yeah, remember that CS was, back in it's time, the most played game in the world.

    Either Valve's top sales are worth less than we think or Valve's busting THOUSANDS of cheaters daily

  • "casualizing" of games

    You seem to be interpreting some straight up bad design decisions or aspects of game cut back for time/whatever for making things "casual", like Oblivion's dungeon design, which was done because there are a million of the damn things and it would've taken Beth years extra to make each one unique.

    For dumbing down games though, I agree it's an awful concept and I really don't understand why publishers keep pushing it. It's not like gamers themselves are demanding it, either vocally or in sales. Really complex games, even on the consoles, still sell. Metal Gear Solid 3 for example made me giddy with delight in how much complex, detailed stuff they put into the survival aspect of the game. Camo ratings that dynamically change depending on where you are, your stance, and lighting. Catching animals or killing them and having them potentially going bad. Letting you equip items like these animals and throw them at people, and being able to poison them with bad food or scare them with a frog or something. Hidden things in the game world. Tons of dialogs and complex explanations of technical crap involved in the plot.

    JRPGs are still as complex and spreadsheet-happy as ever, and that genre's doing fine. WoW, like all MMOs, are complex and they've got 14 milion subscribers. Hell, the fucking SIMS is complex and in depth with all the options you get, all the characters you keep track of, and all the stuff that can happen, and that's the best selling game series of all time.

    Trying to make a game more accessible to non-gamers or "Casual" gamers is a losing game (lol pun) in the first place- the crowd playing The Sims and Bejeweled are either multi-interest gamers and are perfectly willing to play a "complex" game (I can't believe we consider a game complex now just for having a fucking health meter) as well at a different time, or won't touch your icky shooting game with its guns and blood and terrorism. You're not going to attract that crowd of teenage girls and stay at home moms to play your shooter just by making it more forgiving for the player.

    I wish the game industry would start ripping off better ideas more often. For health systems, systems like Max Payne and FPSRPGs of having a health bar and being able to pick up and store health restoration items for later works PERFECTLY, solves that problem I hear quoted as the reason for health regen (players getting stuck with low health and can't progress), or Chronicles of Riddick's restoring cube bar system, which as far as I know only Far Cry 2 has used.

    Another game concept I am boggled as to why we don't see more: Deus Ex's motherfucking tool belt. I haven't seen a single goddamn FPS since Deus Ex use it. Just RPGs like NWN and WoW. WHYYYY!? It works great, it allows the player to customize his character the way he wants, it's onscreen so he can easily remember which button goes where... It's pretty much the perfect way to handle live inventory usage, imo. Every time a new game comes out with the number keys locked into specific weapons or categories like "pistols", I cry a little more for the poor forgotten tool belt. [Blocked Image: https://migrationtest.mapcore.org/public/style_emoticons/default/mapcore_smilies/emot_shakehead.gif]

  • Left 4 Dead

    Ugh, lots of bad early word from people with demo access. There's no server browser whatsoever- only matchmaking, which doesn't have the slightest bit of customization besides the "play with friends" main menu option. No location/ping requirements, no listen vs. dedicated, you can't even select what difficulty you're looking to join in on. There's absolutely no reason for someone to run a dedicated server because you can't join your server at will and neither can other people.

    http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] ... 29907.html

    [Blocked Image: https://migrationtest.mapcore.org/public/style_e…t_shakehead.gif]

  • US presidential election 2008

    Quote from Izuno

    Do we really want to consume 25% of the world's energy and produce less than 5% of it? (Someone check my numbers please.)

    Hell yes!

    We're the third largest country on earth, both in population and physical size.

    Also it's not 25%, it's less about 1/5th. 3.8 million Mwh/yr out of 16.8 Mwh/yr. Still more than any other country, but not not quite 25%. China by comparison uses 2.85 million, and the entire EU 2.80.

  • Fallout 3

    Quote from dux

    I've played the first two, thought they were OK; but they're very dated now.

    So? Half-Life's really dated but it's still awesome? Doom, Quake, the list goes on. Just becasue the first two are old doesn't mean they are any less awesome than they were before. I think people are wetting themselfs over fallout 3 is becasue

    a) It's first person where you get to shootz0r t3h m0nst0rz.

    b) omg it has much more purty graphics than the first 2! The first 2 sux cuz dey have crappe graphix!11

    c) It was demonstrated as a console shooting game first, and RPG second.

    And that link stolve posted a while ago about the teacher making his students who were all OMGZ1!! for fallout 3, made them play fallout and it drastically changed their view on it. I wonder why?

    Fallout 1/2 don't have crappy graphics. They have EYE STRAINING graphics. They're simply painful to look at, especially on a modern monitor.

    Also Fallout 2 is just as shitty now as it was when it came out. It's a shitty game. Pimp ur wife omg! Be a porn star! Explore horribly designed environments! :roll:

    Quake 1 hasn't aged well either (I went back and tried it recently), though Doom and HL1 have.

    I've got a friend who was a big fan of Fallout 1/2 and is wetting himself over Fallout 3 because

    a) It's a modern 3d Fallout

    b) It has the Fallout feel and humor

    c) It has that wonderful Fallout/ES exploration focus

    d) Realistically expected options (His example: "Fuck you, I ain't sacrificing myself. You do it.")

  • US presidential election 2008

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCeD1RcJjAg

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    Blank Panthers armed with night sticks at the ready blocked the entrance to a Philadelphia polling place earlier today and were arrested.