Kingdoms of Amalur managed to seamlessly merge MMORPG and single player RPG together. Is that a good thing? No. What it ends up is a game where the quests are stupid fetch quests, boring quest hubs, quests having nothing to do with the main storyline. Hell I had more fun doing MMO quests than the quests in KoA. MMO are about playing with others while single player RPGs are about the story and following the story of the hero as he/she does shit. When KoA was announced everyone was excited to see big names such as Ken Rolston, the lead developer of Morrowind and Oblivion, R. A. Salvatore an actual real fantasy writer, and Todd McFarlane a comic book artist. Such big names for such a small game. Too many chefs in the kitchen maybe. But the worst part of this is, to start this company the city of Rhode Island gave them a 75 million loan to make this game and another MMORPG based on KoA. Not only does this suck they are simultaneously making KoA and KoA:MMO at the same time not even sure if KoA would be a hit or not. If they do suck and go under, it would be Rhode Island that loses money. Too bad.
KoA plays like an action RPG. It sounds really nice because action RPGs are fun as shit but there is a flaw. All the ideas for KoA are alright, but every one of them is flawed in a way. There are many types of weapons and magic and you can reset your hero at any time by talking to an NPC. The monsters you fight in this game are the same from the beginning of the game to the end of the game. There is no variance other than boosting their health or damage. They do the same predictable moves and attacks. Difficulty does not rise. The game itself is the easiest action game I have ever seen. Blacksmithing breaks that game even more by making your character invincible. Even without blacksmithing it is easy. You keep learning new moves, the monsters never do. Big bosses you would think would be hard, but they made it so easy you can beat it with your eyes closed. Mainly because they don't want people who suck at games to not be able to finish! Even on the hardest difficulty a giant boss the size of a city would bite you for maybe 10 damage. While a regular Niskaru Bloodhunter would do 100-150 damage a hit and hit 10 times by the time the big boss takes to bite again. Why so easy? Its not like you have to fight the boss anyways. You automatically win when you go into fate mode because you automatically do an execution and kill it.
After playing around for an hour you notice that combat is boring and repetitive, what about the quests? Think of this game like an MMO. You have quest hubs where you can collect boring side quests. These include, killing 10 creatures, collecting boxes, deliver shit, and other boring fucking shitty quests you see in MMOs. You go into dungeon that are nothing but a long hallway as you stab your way though everything, reach the end and then turn around and go out back the way you came in. You must think not every quest is like that. No every quest is like that. There are like 500 side quests in the game and they are all exactly like that. I managed to get halfway into the game before I gave up on all side quests. They don't do anything but give you exp/rewards. They add nothing to the story, to the lore, to the world. They are just pointless exp/reward farms. Another thing about the game is loot is randomized. Like a MMO where you have random statistics on your gear. These drop randomly from monsters, looted from chests, or bought from NPCs. These can be broken down by blacksmiths and salvaged for parts to craft something. In the first quarter of the game I crafted a weapon that was stronger than anything I could find in the game already. And it was just a tier 2 dagger. When I reached the final tier I was so powerful that nothing could stand in my way. You don't really need to pick up those garbage to salvage anyways. The best crafting loot are from killing harmless crabs and cows. Apparently dried guts added to anything grants critical %. As a rogue I have bonus critical damage from talents, skills, passives, gears, everything. I crafted all my gear with bonus critical % and bonus critical damage. My backstabs were doing 98k a hit when monsters at the end of the game had around 2k-3k health. My regular swings had 100% critical rate and I was doing 1.5-2k a hit, 3k if I use my bow. I had a 15% chance to fully heal myself everytime I swing my daggers, which are fast as shit. Do I ever die? No.
The main quest has you traveling all over the world and you may find something called faction quests on your way. There are 5 factions in the world of Amalur. The House of Ballads of the summer fae, the Warsworn warrior guild, the Travelers thief guild, some dumbshit mage guild I can't remember, and the House of Sorrows of the winter fae. You would think these quests would be better than the average but it really isn't. The only decent one is the House of Ballads, the rest are just standard quests you find in any MMO. The mage guild ends suddenly for no reason and you become the archmage for no fucking reason. The real Archmage gets imprisoned in a prison and suffers for all eternity and no one gives a flying fuck to rescue him. They just replace him with you and you go on your merry way while he's imprisoned in the mage guild. Great story eh? Warsworn you follow some dumb random chick around all day and then suddenly a bad guy appears and is like "kill your friends and you get power!" I was like fuck off I don't wanna do more quests and I turned around and left and then suddenly I was the hero of the Warsworn, a Truesworn even though I didn't do anything to the fucking Niskaru Lord. Travelers you go around following orders from some dipshit until a fucking plot twist sends you to frame the Heirophant. GUESS WHAT!? She knows of your plan to frame her and what does she do? Tell you to frame your friend instead of her. What do you do? Frame her. She gets framed and the quests magically end. House of Sorrows you follow a bunch of dipshit winter fae around who wants you to find the guy who stole a milennia of sorrows and is going to use it to cause people to kill themselves from sorrow. Turns out the guy has been tricking you and you managed to kill the entire House of Sorrows from your dumb naiveté. You go around find out that dumb chick that has been following you the whole time was the reincarnation of the weeping king and she uses her magical powers to seal the sorrow in the magical fae world and you become the last remaining member in the House of Sorrows. Way to fuck up everything asshole. Better to not bother getting involved in the first place.
These quests have you traveling all over the fucking world. The worst part is the zones are like MMO zones. Pretty to look at but really nothing there. You walk around with nothing to interact with and barely any monsters around. You find random quest hubs or quest areas and dungeons. Other than that traveling around is like going around in WoW without a mount or flight point. You get to fast travel by clicking the map on a location you've been to before, thank god, but that doesn't help when you only need to visit a place once because its far as shit away and take like 20 minutes to walk there. The main quest basically have you walk around and follow some dumb slut elf and some drunken loser around all game then fight and kill a God. The End.
There are also quite a few bugs I found. Using the reckoning mode before a cutscene will cause the monsters to freeze there forever unable to loot or kill them with just the F button highlighted when you walk close. Hitting F does nothing they are just stuck there in limbo for all eternity. Using different reckoning moves can get monsters stuck in walls or the sky where it is impossible to loot them, while other times reckoning mode makes you end up on top of a dead monsters making you unable to walk around like in ME2 where touching walls make you walk upwards and get stuck in the walls. Its like that for monsters instead. Backstabbing sometimes cause you to backstab a different enemy than the one you have selected. For example, there were two kobolds one at the other end of the room and one infront of me. I sneak over backstab and a mini cutscene appears where I grab the guy throw him on the ground and stab him on the neck. Next thing you know the guy at the end of the room explodes in blood and flies away and dies while the guy infront of me start stuttering fading in and out of existence like some kind of existence seizure. I go what the fuck? And I backstabbed again killing him this time.
The only positive thing I can think of in this game is that gear looks the same on men and women. You don't have chainmail bikinis. I made sure to play a female so I could see for myself. People said it was a positive portrayal of women. I thought that was a right step. Then you have the loser Alyn Shir the slut elf who walks around wearing nothing but leather bandages with half her ass exposed. The developers made sure to add ass jiggle physics like breast physics and its the first and only game to have ass physics in a game. What the fuck?
Overall the lore had potential, the combat was fun for the first hour then got boring, the quests were a mess, the storyline was interesting enough to finish but not memorable or good at all. Worst part is they claimed the game would take 200 hours to finish without doing any side quests at all. WHAT THE FUCK!? Its not even 200 hours if you do all the side quests in the world. Are the testers so bad that they fucking take 200 hours to do something or they shitting out their mouth. I think its the latter. This game felt more like a MMO that halfway went "you know people might not wanna pay 15 bucks a month for this" and changed to a single player. The worst part? They ARE making a KoA:MMO. It is currently in development and has been since KoA started. They are working on it simultaneously. Am I the only one that is going what the fuck? Why would you make an MMO version of a game where you have no idea if anyone wants to play. After this shitfest of a game what makes you think people would want to play KoA:MMO? Its like if Bioware decided to make a DA:MMO while making DA2. Looks like Rhode Island is going to lose 75 million.
Never ever trust reviews on EA games either. They are known for bribing the reviewers.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Dear Esther - A game without gameplay
I heard about this game I think about an year ago. Someone had a LP of the game and I scanned through the description and then didn't bother watching it. After seeing the remake come out I decided to give it a try. What is this game to be exact? Well, its not really a game. Its an experiment. They were trying to use video games as a form of art. While the game is beautiful to look at, the narration amazing, and the music hauntingly melancholic, it was lacking. Perhaps what it was lacking was length. The story is so short that you can barely feel an attachment to it.
The game itself would last about an hour if you go where you are supposed to. You might be able to drag it out by exploring a lot and at most you'd spend maybe two hours. Such a short game for 10 bucks? Is it worth it? No. Would I recommend it to anyone? No. If it was cheaper perhaps. However if you want to see new "art games" come out then the 10 bucks would go to a good cause. Good graphics and good narration alone cannot possibly make up for the 10 dollar price. Most of the complaints about this game is the pricing. Even though they earned back whatever they spent on it in a little over 6 hours by selling 16000 copies, many had buyer's remorse and felt cheated. Its why I never buy games without playing a demo or "trying it out" first.
I cannot possibly go into the game without spoiling things. You are basically a nameless narrator on a uninhabited island. You may wander anywhere but there is always visual clues on where to go. Such as paint on the walls, a blinking aerial in the distance, or the moon lighting a path. Its impossible to get lost really, but if you do go off the main path you can hear more about the story. Every time you reach a certain point, the narrator will start talking giving a little about the story. Its never in chronological order and its purposely vague and ambiguous. Some points will have random prose that differs every play through. As you get closer to the end you see the paint on the wall become more erratic and common, the narrator's voice becomes more agitated and the prose become more confusing. Until you reach the climax and the ending where everything makes sense, or it doesn't.
The story is well written and I really enjoyed it. It fits perfectly with the background and the music. Will more of these games come out? I don't know. Do I want to see more? Why not. If no one experiments then we'll never get anything new. Its a nice idea, but its a little flawed. I wouldn't call it a good game because that would imply that there is some form of game play. However I cannot say that its completely bad because that would imply the game pissed me off or was annoying as fuck. Its sorta stuck there not really wowing anyone nor is it disappointing anyone. Its like stuck in perpetual limbo. Perhaps one day this will be the game that creates a revolution but don't count on it. Its probably just going to be forgotten under the weight of Call of Duty, Final Fantasies, and other copy paste games.
The game itself would last about an hour if you go where you are supposed to. You might be able to drag it out by exploring a lot and at most you'd spend maybe two hours. Such a short game for 10 bucks? Is it worth it? No. Would I recommend it to anyone? No. If it was cheaper perhaps. However if you want to see new "art games" come out then the 10 bucks would go to a good cause. Good graphics and good narration alone cannot possibly make up for the 10 dollar price. Most of the complaints about this game is the pricing. Even though they earned back whatever they spent on it in a little over 6 hours by selling 16000 copies, many had buyer's remorse and felt cheated. Its why I never buy games without playing a demo or "trying it out" first.
I cannot possibly go into the game without spoiling things. You are basically a nameless narrator on a uninhabited island. You may wander anywhere but there is always visual clues on where to go. Such as paint on the walls, a blinking aerial in the distance, or the moon lighting a path. Its impossible to get lost really, but if you do go off the main path you can hear more about the story. Every time you reach a certain point, the narrator will start talking giving a little about the story. Its never in chronological order and its purposely vague and ambiguous. Some points will have random prose that differs every play through. As you get closer to the end you see the paint on the wall become more erratic and common, the narrator's voice becomes more agitated and the prose become more confusing. Until you reach the climax and the ending where everything makes sense, or it doesn't.
The story is well written and I really enjoyed it. It fits perfectly with the background and the music. Will more of these games come out? I don't know. Do I want to see more? Why not. If no one experiments then we'll never get anything new. Its a nice idea, but its a little flawed. I wouldn't call it a good game because that would imply that there is some form of game play. However I cannot say that its completely bad because that would imply the game pissed me off or was annoying as fuck. Its sorta stuck there not really wowing anyone nor is it disappointing anyone. Its like stuck in perpetual limbo. Perhaps one day this will be the game that creates a revolution but don't count on it. Its probably just going to be forgotten under the weight of Call of Duty, Final Fantasies, and other copy paste games.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Persistent Progression - So noobs can feel better about themselves
A lot of updates recently, mainly because so many stupid shit is happening at once. What is persistent progression? Persistent progression is when the more you play the more achievements or unlocks or progress you get. For example, TF2 and its million of hats. This is different than experience points for MMOs. This is literally, the more hours you log into a game, the bigger your penis gets. A lot of people swear by it while others hate it. If they don't have any kind of progress whats the point of playing right? Whether its for unlocking that spiffy avatar or getting runes for LoL, its something that people can look forward to. A carrot in front of their head basically.
These can be done right, or they can be done wrong, most of the time though its done wrong. When you play a game, what is the most important thing when playing multiplayer? Fairness. Sure you can argue that skill is superior to progression but sometimes the advantage gets so big theres no point in trying. Its like fighting a max level guy as a brand new guy in a MMO. No matter how skilled you are, if you have to hit him 2000 times to kill him and he can kill you in 1 hit from across the map, you're fucked. An extreme example but unfortunately its not that far off. Look at something like League of Legends. A free to play dota-like made by the creators of the original dota. They wanted to innovate the game and added in persistent progression. The more you play, the more summoner (player) levels you can gain. Each time you gain a level you unlock a rune slot to add in permanent stats for all your champions and talent points to boost your champions. The more you play you can buy runes from the shop from points earned from playing the game. With these both you have a huge advantage over someone new, someone who didn't play as much as you. So high that they can literally kill you in 2 hits 20 seconds into the game while he can shrug off all your hits from the massive runes and talents he has. This makes it impossible to win.
What is the point of that? Why not have a skill based game rather than a MMO. If I want a game where I get more powerful the longer I play then I'll play a fucking MMO. Even FPS nowadays add shit like 10% more damage to guns or other retarded upgrades. Even if you think it looks tiny and insignificant, it can easily skew the game in your favor. Hell I talked about how Bloodline Champions completely fucked themselves over by adding persistent progression. It was a game where it advertised skill based arena style gameplay with no RNG. But they caved to the people begging on the forums. After adding that patch and milking money, most of the people quit. When the advantage is that big what can you possibly do to fight people that have already played for so long? All it does is alienate new players. What if tomorrow SC2 added a new talent tree that gives you permanent +2 damage +2 armor with 10% move speed for all your units for people who played over a year. Then double that bonus for people who played for two. How in the fuck do new people compete? By playing more? Eventually catching up them?
Another thing people insist on having is achievements. These are also part of persistent progression. The more you play the more you unlock these achievements to feel good about yourself. It may be something to do when you're bored, other times it unlocks items, but the biggest reason is to show off to all your friends. A bigger achievement completion means you have a bigger penis. This is what it all comes down to, E-Peen. People like persistent progression because it makes them look pro. It lures them into a false sense of superiority. And to reward them with a false sense of superiority are achievements that congratulate you every time you do something correctly like an aide for a retard. Each time the achievement pops up your friends and everyone around you go "congratulations!" and clap for you. Why? They're mocking you. You're a big fucking retard and you don't even know it yourself. And every time you do this they'll give you a little toy. A better toy than the other kids because you're special.
These can be done right, or they can be done wrong, most of the time though its done wrong. When you play a game, what is the most important thing when playing multiplayer? Fairness. Sure you can argue that skill is superior to progression but sometimes the advantage gets so big theres no point in trying. Its like fighting a max level guy as a brand new guy in a MMO. No matter how skilled you are, if you have to hit him 2000 times to kill him and he can kill you in 1 hit from across the map, you're fucked. An extreme example but unfortunately its not that far off. Look at something like League of Legends. A free to play dota-like made by the creators of the original dota. They wanted to innovate the game and added in persistent progression. The more you play, the more summoner (player) levels you can gain. Each time you gain a level you unlock a rune slot to add in permanent stats for all your champions and talent points to boost your champions. The more you play you can buy runes from the shop from points earned from playing the game. With these both you have a huge advantage over someone new, someone who didn't play as much as you. So high that they can literally kill you in 2 hits 20 seconds into the game while he can shrug off all your hits from the massive runes and talents he has. This makes it impossible to win.
What is the point of that? Why not have a skill based game rather than a MMO. If I want a game where I get more powerful the longer I play then I'll play a fucking MMO. Even FPS nowadays add shit like 10% more damage to guns or other retarded upgrades. Even if you think it looks tiny and insignificant, it can easily skew the game in your favor. Hell I talked about how Bloodline Champions completely fucked themselves over by adding persistent progression. It was a game where it advertised skill based arena style gameplay with no RNG. But they caved to the people begging on the forums. After adding that patch and milking money, most of the people quit. When the advantage is that big what can you possibly do to fight people that have already played for so long? All it does is alienate new players. What if tomorrow SC2 added a new talent tree that gives you permanent +2 damage +2 armor with 10% move speed for all your units for people who played over a year. Then double that bonus for people who played for two. How in the fuck do new people compete? By playing more? Eventually catching up them?
Another thing people insist on having is achievements. These are also part of persistent progression. The more you play the more you unlock these achievements to feel good about yourself. It may be something to do when you're bored, other times it unlocks items, but the biggest reason is to show off to all your friends. A bigger achievement completion means you have a bigger penis. This is what it all comes down to, E-Peen. People like persistent progression because it makes them look pro. It lures them into a false sense of superiority. And to reward them with a false sense of superiority are achievements that congratulate you every time you do something correctly like an aide for a retard. Each time the achievement pops up your friends and everyone around you go "congratulations!" and clap for you. Why? They're mocking you. You're a big fucking retard and you don't even know it yourself. And every time you do this they'll give you a little toy. A better toy than the other kids because you're special.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Ubisoft - Biggest supporters of piracy
Remember Ubisoft's awesome idea of always online gaming?
http://theorycrafting.blogspot.com/2011/11/ubisoft-pc-pirating-no-more-releasing.html
Remember how they hate PC gamers because they're all pirates? Remember how proud they are when they showed the world their always online policy? Guess what? They decided to move around some servers so their games will NOT be available for the next week or more. This includes both multiplayer and singleplayer games. Why don't they make a backup server or something so people can keep playing? Why? Because fuck them thats why. Why the fuck should they care about their customers. They should be lucky they get to rent Ubisoft games for 60 bucks. Those thieving fuckers even invite friends over to play with them. Thats fucking stealing. Assholes steal their games and they don't even have to pay 60 bucks to rent it! Such assholery needs to be punished the only way possible. By shitting on the servers for as long as possible. This should teach those shit ass customers not to steal Ubisoft games. They should feel happy Ubisoft is even letting them play whenever they want.
When a series start becoming unpopular, Ubisoft can just shut it down. Oh people still wanna play? Fuck you why you playing old shit! Go buy the next Ubisoft game, wait no my mistake, go rent the next Ubisoft game for 60 bucks! Customers are so stupid they'll just keep shoving money in Ubisoft's face right? Ubisoft is so smart they should go around publishing all the good games and drive them to the ground. Milk as much money as they can and then leave them to die. If people complain then they'll just blame the pirates. Thats whats causing problems anyways. Its the pirates fault. So all the customers should be mad at the pirates for this inconvenience. Never mind the fact that only pirates are able to play the game now. See how much as an asshole they are? Playing the game while you can't. Now you're forced to download cracks and pirate the games so you can play too. Ubisoft is the only company in the world where its easier to pirate a game from them than to buy it.
But why! Because by fucking over the customers will they earn the most money. A kid finished his game and he wants to resell it? NOPE. Don't think about doing that you little fucking piece of shit. Trying to sell the 60 dollar game you rented. RENTED. This shit doesn't belong to you asshole. You fucking leave Ubisoft's fucking property alone. Ubisoft doesn't take shit from assholes trying to resell. What else also stops resell? CD-Keys? WELL FUCK THAT SHIT! Why the fuck do they wanna waste their time making CD-Keys when they can fucking milk as much money out of the next person all while pissing them off and blaming the pirates. Because they need to make the customers mad at the pirates while milking their money for maximum effect. Pirates are the assholes here. Fuck them.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/07/28/ubisoft-our-drm-is-a-success/
Look at how fucking successful they are! Those fucker pirates can't touch the game with their grubby pirate hands now that they have the best DRM ever made.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/07/opinion-ubisoft-piracy-and-the-death-of-reason/
Sales down 90%? Well those fucker pirates must have done something about it then! Ubisoft's DRM is foolproof. There is no way those fucker pirates got past! It must be a conspiracy the other companies must have roused up the pirates to fuck over the paying customers. Those assholes pirates are the cause of everything. Better not release games for PC anymore! Too many fucker pirates there. What about the PC gamers? Fuck them. There are no PC gamers there are only pirates. If their DRM causes people to pirate more then that just proves their point. Pirates are ruining games! Look at Ubisoft. Such a sad pitiful way to die. Get ripped to shred by the pirates they are so desperately trying to protect their customers from. Now these pirates will rape their customers with their illegal copies. Then infect the world with cracks and hacks. Oh the humanity. We're all lucky a company is trying this hard to fight the pirates.
http://kotaku.com/5881867/some-of-ubisofts-pc-games-wont-work-next-week-not-even-singleplayer
A small price to pay to beat the pirates!
http://theorycrafting.blogspot.com/2011/11/ubisoft-pc-pirating-no-more-releasing.html
Remember how they hate PC gamers because they're all pirates? Remember how proud they are when they showed the world their always online policy? Guess what? They decided to move around some servers so their games will NOT be available for the next week or more. This includes both multiplayer and singleplayer games. Why don't they make a backup server or something so people can keep playing? Why? Because fuck them thats why. Why the fuck should they care about their customers. They should be lucky they get to rent Ubisoft games for 60 bucks. Those thieving fuckers even invite friends over to play with them. Thats fucking stealing. Assholes steal their games and they don't even have to pay 60 bucks to rent it! Such assholery needs to be punished the only way possible. By shitting on the servers for as long as possible. This should teach those shit ass customers not to steal Ubisoft games. They should feel happy Ubisoft is even letting them play whenever they want.
When a series start becoming unpopular, Ubisoft can just shut it down. Oh people still wanna play? Fuck you why you playing old shit! Go buy the next Ubisoft game, wait no my mistake, go rent the next Ubisoft game for 60 bucks! Customers are so stupid they'll just keep shoving money in Ubisoft's face right? Ubisoft is so smart they should go around publishing all the good games and drive them to the ground. Milk as much money as they can and then leave them to die. If people complain then they'll just blame the pirates. Thats whats causing problems anyways. Its the pirates fault. So all the customers should be mad at the pirates for this inconvenience. Never mind the fact that only pirates are able to play the game now. See how much as an asshole they are? Playing the game while you can't. Now you're forced to download cracks and pirate the games so you can play too. Ubisoft is the only company in the world where its easier to pirate a game from them than to buy it.
But why! Because by fucking over the customers will they earn the most money. A kid finished his game and he wants to resell it? NOPE. Don't think about doing that you little fucking piece of shit. Trying to sell the 60 dollar game you rented. RENTED. This shit doesn't belong to you asshole. You fucking leave Ubisoft's fucking property alone. Ubisoft doesn't take shit from assholes trying to resell. What else also stops resell? CD-Keys? WELL FUCK THAT SHIT! Why the fuck do they wanna waste their time making CD-Keys when they can fucking milk as much money out of the next person all while pissing them off and blaming the pirates. Because they need to make the customers mad at the pirates while milking their money for maximum effect. Pirates are the assholes here. Fuck them.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/07/28/ubisoft-our-drm-is-a-success/
Look at how fucking successful they are! Those fucker pirates can't touch the game with their grubby pirate hands now that they have the best DRM ever made.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/07/opinion-ubisoft-piracy-and-the-death-of-reason/
Sales down 90%? Well those fucker pirates must have done something about it then! Ubisoft's DRM is foolproof. There is no way those fucker pirates got past! It must be a conspiracy the other companies must have roused up the pirates to fuck over the paying customers. Those assholes pirates are the cause of everything. Better not release games for PC anymore! Too many fucker pirates there. What about the PC gamers? Fuck them. There are no PC gamers there are only pirates. If their DRM causes people to pirate more then that just proves their point. Pirates are ruining games! Look at Ubisoft. Such a sad pitiful way to die. Get ripped to shred by the pirates they are so desperately trying to protect their customers from. Now these pirates will rape their customers with their illegal copies. Then infect the world with cracks and hacks. Oh the humanity. We're all lucky a company is trying this hard to fight the pirates.
http://kotaku.com/5881867/some-of-ubisofts-pc-games-wont-work-next-week-not-even-singleplayer
A small price to pay to beat the pirates!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
CDs, Boxes, Manuals & More - Digital distribution's impact on physical copies
I like boxed copies. If I am doing a day one purchase then I exclusively buy physical copies. Theres something about holding a box in your hand and digging your fingernail into the tape and cutting it open. Then you stick your finger into the cardboard skeleton and pull out the inside but not before placing the opening to your nose and giving yourself a sniff of the new game smell. After you flip over the contents inside on the carpet and see a paper sleeve and a piece of paper, you remember why no one buy physical copies anymore.
What happened? I remember in the past you would get a huge box and inside you get a CD case with a mini manual and the game CD. Then you get a thick book of a manual, some of the even older ones are in leather and had a nice smooth touch and smell to it. There would also be non important things included like art, catalogs, and other useless stuff. I'm not old enough to know about the floppy disk games but aren't those in big huge thick plastic cases with a bunch of stuff? Even those are better than today's boxes. Nowadays you're lucky to even get a flippy cover on your box. Inside is a paper slip with your DVD shivering inside from exposure. A piece of paper called a manual and a catalog thats at least 10x bigger than the manual. Thats fucking it? You can totally see the effort they took.
Nowadays everyone is using digital distribution. Its fast, its easy, and you will never have the risk of losing your shit. Why drive down to your local store wait in line and buy a physical copy. Then you'd have to pull the DVD out and install. Digital distribution you can predownload it before the day it is released and you just wait until the clock hits midnight and start playing. I can see why its so popular. But for people like me who likes the feel and the looks of the boxes, we're willing to put up with having to drive down to the store. But with the game companies desperately trying to get as much money as they can, the boxes end up suffering.
I have never been a fan of collector editions. I don't know why but they just never really appealed to me. I can see why people would want them. Theres a lot of stuff in them that are pretty cool. Walking out the store while everyone is holding a tiny box and you are carrying a huge beast of a box makes you feel like either a huge dork or the king of nerds. But unfortunately, what is found inside the box are usually not worth the big price increase. Some exceptions like Witcher 2 and a few others give a ton of shit and their collector edition boxes are twice as big as the next. The rest like all the other lazy companies give a slightly bigger box with exclusive ingame items! Why the fuck do I want these retarded ingame items when they can either be modded in if its single player or in an online game be completely useless because they are nothing but vanity items.
Another thing about ingame items are preorder bonuses. Seems like every company is adapting that model. Preorder and you can get in our exclusive beta! You'll get garbage that no one gives a shit about! Honestly, the reason 90% of the people preorder is because of early beta access. Why? Because betas are nothing more than a marketing tool now. I mentioned it in my beta post before, betas are now used as demos and way to get preorders. They don't fix shit, they don't test shit, and theres no stress testing. Half the time betas keep what progress you did giving people who preorder a huge advantage. One game seems to take this to the next level. Tera a new action MMO coming out has preorders giving beta access. A beta that is 15 days long over a series of 6 weekends. Each weekend is 60 hour long of beta and after every weekend all progress is wiped and a new set of 1000 people are allowed in. What could they possibly test in that limited amount of time? Nothing. Its used for nothing but hype and to suck in preorders.
To make things worse. they even add a 10 dollar "mini preorder" which gives you beta access but not the game itself. Its deducted once you purchase the full game. Those who preorder get to get in all betas and allow you to keep all progress during the beta. And at the very end there is a 5 day head start where people who preorder can play. Is this what gaming has been reduced to? What happened to the boxes? What happened to the cool shit. Now its just ingame items and beta access. Even Blizzard is doing it. Buy 12 months of WoW subscription and get into Diablo 3 beta!
Then theres the digital collector editions. Those are laughable. You get more exclusive ingame items and digital artbooks and digital novels. Yes, those are very nice indeed. So nice I'm going to sit here and laugh at everyone who bought them.
Consoles on the other hand, haven't changed too much. In fact I think they gotten better. Before you get a box with a cartridge inside with a manual, then it changed to a tiny plastic CD case after the introduction of CD games, but now its a big plastic case with a bigger manual and cover art. Size isn't everything though, but at least they feel superior to the lame PS2 plastic cases. I like to admire cover art. Its getting rarer these days for nice cover art. Most games are just a big lameass title front and center with a bland single color background. Then there are those that are beautifully and artistically created. And of course there are the retarded ones that gives you second hand embarrassment just being in the vicinity of. Scariest part of that is where is says partial nudity. It could be anything from prepubescent girls naked or a hairy ogre ass.
I don't hate digital distribution, in fact I find it very convenient. It fits perfectly with today's fast paced world. I'm afraid after a few more years, these video game boxes might disappear completely. Never again will we be able to breathe in that new game smell, run your fingers through the pages of the manuals, or admire the visual art on the cover. Consoles might live on but digital distribution might be winning the fight for PCs.
What happened? I remember in the past you would get a huge box and inside you get a CD case with a mini manual and the game CD. Then you get a thick book of a manual, some of the even older ones are in leather and had a nice smooth touch and smell to it. There would also be non important things included like art, catalogs, and other useless stuff. I'm not old enough to know about the floppy disk games but aren't those in big huge thick plastic cases with a bunch of stuff? Even those are better than today's boxes. Nowadays you're lucky to even get a flippy cover on your box. Inside is a paper slip with your DVD shivering inside from exposure. A piece of paper called a manual and a catalog thats at least 10x bigger than the manual. Thats fucking it? You can totally see the effort they took.
Nowadays everyone is using digital distribution. Its fast, its easy, and you will never have the risk of losing your shit. Why drive down to your local store wait in line and buy a physical copy. Then you'd have to pull the DVD out and install. Digital distribution you can predownload it before the day it is released and you just wait until the clock hits midnight and start playing. I can see why its so popular. But for people like me who likes the feel and the looks of the boxes, we're willing to put up with having to drive down to the store. But with the game companies desperately trying to get as much money as they can, the boxes end up suffering.
I have never been a fan of collector editions. I don't know why but they just never really appealed to me. I can see why people would want them. Theres a lot of stuff in them that are pretty cool. Walking out the store while everyone is holding a tiny box and you are carrying a huge beast of a box makes you feel like either a huge dork or the king of nerds. But unfortunately, what is found inside the box are usually not worth the big price increase. Some exceptions like Witcher 2 and a few others give a ton of shit and their collector edition boxes are twice as big as the next. The rest like all the other lazy companies give a slightly bigger box with exclusive ingame items! Why the fuck do I want these retarded ingame items when they can either be modded in if its single player or in an online game be completely useless because they are nothing but vanity items.
Another thing about ingame items are preorder bonuses. Seems like every company is adapting that model. Preorder and you can get in our exclusive beta! You'll get garbage that no one gives a shit about! Honestly, the reason 90% of the people preorder is because of early beta access. Why? Because betas are nothing more than a marketing tool now. I mentioned it in my beta post before, betas are now used as demos and way to get preorders. They don't fix shit, they don't test shit, and theres no stress testing. Half the time betas keep what progress you did giving people who preorder a huge advantage. One game seems to take this to the next level. Tera a new action MMO coming out has preorders giving beta access. A beta that is 15 days long over a series of 6 weekends. Each weekend is 60 hour long of beta and after every weekend all progress is wiped and a new set of 1000 people are allowed in. What could they possibly test in that limited amount of time? Nothing. Its used for nothing but hype and to suck in preorders.
To make things worse. they even add a 10 dollar "mini preorder" which gives you beta access but not the game itself. Its deducted once you purchase the full game. Those who preorder get to get in all betas and allow you to keep all progress during the beta. And at the very end there is a 5 day head start where people who preorder can play. Is this what gaming has been reduced to? What happened to the boxes? What happened to the cool shit. Now its just ingame items and beta access. Even Blizzard is doing it. Buy 12 months of WoW subscription and get into Diablo 3 beta!
Then theres the digital collector editions. Those are laughable. You get more exclusive ingame items and digital artbooks and digital novels. Yes, those are very nice indeed. So nice I'm going to sit here and laugh at everyone who bought them.
Consoles on the other hand, haven't changed too much. In fact I think they gotten better. Before you get a box with a cartridge inside with a manual, then it changed to a tiny plastic CD case after the introduction of CD games, but now its a big plastic case with a bigger manual and cover art. Size isn't everything though, but at least they feel superior to the lame PS2 plastic cases. I like to admire cover art. Its getting rarer these days for nice cover art. Most games are just a big lameass title front and center with a bland single color background. Then there are those that are beautifully and artistically created. And of course there are the retarded ones that gives you second hand embarrassment just being in the vicinity of. Scariest part of that is where is says partial nudity. It could be anything from prepubescent girls naked or a hairy ogre ass.
I don't hate digital distribution, in fact I find it very convenient. It fits perfectly with today's fast paced world. I'm afraid after a few more years, these video game boxes might disappear completely. Never again will we be able to breathe in that new game smell, run your fingers through the pages of the manuals, or admire the visual art on the cover. Consoles might live on but digital distribution might be winning the fight for PCs.
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