E3 Killjoy 2010
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
Are you kidding Shamus? Really? You seem to know at least something about this industry, and you're jumping on the "Motion Controls=Shovelware" bandwagon? Motion Controls don't equal shovelware, being the highest selling console does. The Wii is the highest-selling console, and it has tons of shit for it. Last generation, it was the PS2 that had piles of shit... And no motion controls! It was shovelware for the (utterly devoid of motion control, although they DID try to make a controller that worked via telepathy) Atari 2600 that caused the first Video Games crash!
Honestly, I expect this kind of crap from the leet kiddies that populate this site (and seem to have replaced the "I hate humanity" crowd...), but I thought you would have known better...
Honestly, I expect this kind of crap from the leet kiddies that populate this site (and seem to have replaced the "I hate humanity" crowd...), but I thought you would have known better...
Before dissing games, you should do your homework!!!
I looked up The Old Republic on youtube and guess what the first thing I found was?
A(and get this next part) 20 MINUTE(hard to miss) video of gameplay filmed by the game's creators!!!
Please do your homework on games before dissing them to pieces.
Yours Sincerely,
The Guy Who Knows How to Look Things Up on Youtube.
I looked up The Old Republic on youtube and guess what the first thing I found was?
A(and get this next part) 20 MINUTE(hard to miss) video of gameplay filmed by the game's creators!!!
Please do your homework on games before dissing them to pieces.
Yours Sincerely,
The Guy Who Knows How to Look Things Up on Youtube.
X-Com is probably gonna blow, yes.
That's the one I'm hung up on, actually.
We've gone from jumpsuits to vests, from scary zombie aliens to generic shadows, awesome laser weaponry you need to pay people to invent to... shotguns and from turn-based to FPS.
Just call it "X-Nom-Your-Money" or something sarcastic like that and get it over with.
That's the one I'm hung up on, actually.
We've gone from jumpsuits to vests, from scary zombie aliens to generic shadows, awesome laser weaponry you need to pay people to invent to... shotguns and from turn-based to FPS.
Just call it "X-Nom-Your-Money" or something sarcastic like that and get it over with.
Epic first post! Love that picture!naruhodo said:Thanks for putting things in some much-needed perspective. Hysterical consumerism is a no-no. As neat as Kinect seems, that novelty definitely doesn't justify the price.
I'm starting to get a bit worried about the cost of the 3DS too. Notice how they've announced everything about it but the price?
P.S. That drag queen analogy is dumb and a bit offensive; it takes a REAL man to do drag!
Starke said:
Alliance Syndrome is a term for factional MMO imbalances, usually afflicting the good faction. It's come about in various game reviews and such over the years, for example when "Aion" was coming out, in the "Game Informer Review" they said under one of their pictures "let's hope the angelic faction doesn't suffer from Alliance Syndrome".
It comes from World Of Warcraft where especially early on The Horde had a great number of advantages, the designers liked that faction better and it REALLY showed. This involved simple things like racial abillities, and the Shaman class (compared to the alliance exclusive Paladin class), and other things like the positioning of towns and flight points, to the rate at which certain kinds of loot were aquired. A Horde character starting "fresh" will for example find quests that grant rings a lot earlier than alliance characters will, meaning that they will be able to fill up that equipment slot and have better gear granted stats earlier than Alliance characters will.
You also saw it in PVP battles where you had things like how a druid shapechanged into cat form could walk inside the graphic of a mounted tauren (due to the sheer size of the mount) and cap flags and such. Not to mention the fact that to begin with Undead had the abillity to remove fear (massive PVP abillity) along with Shamans having "earthbind totems" that were a massive advantage for things like flag running.
Right before BC came out Blizzard more or less admitted to the stat imbalances, and said they were going to correct them. However they mostly engaged in some slapdash fixes by allowing both factions to have access to the other one's former exclusive class. They also tinkered around with some of the racials, though The Horde still wound up a bit better off on that side of the spectrum. Not to mention the fact that all of the benefits accrued from the time period of imbalance were still there, nothing was stripped, nor was compensation given to the Alliance. As a result even when things evened out more you still had The Horde leading by quite a bit due to simply having more stuff accumulated.
Or in short "Alliance Syndrome" is when one of the factions is signifigantly, and noticibly gimped compared to the other factions when viewed from an impartial perspective. While many WoW players of course insist that there wasn't any balance issues, it's been common knowlege both among players (comments aside) and the gaming culture/industry for quite a while, and the subject of many jokes.
Warhammer Online is sort of an example because it was pretty obvious leading up to things which side the developers spent more time on, and despite the arguements about 'equivilents' which side wound up having the better abillities in most areas.
In Warcraft there have always been more Alliance players, in part because of the typical fantasy feel, but also because the Horde imbalance was not well known until the game had been out a bit. Still min/maxers (those who care nothing for RP or lore, and just want to dominate the game) have gone Horde, which also contributes to the domination because comparitively less of the real hardcore players go Alliance (far more casual) due to the numbers involved.
For the most part numbers don't matter that much in WoW because battlegrounds are set based on teams with the same number of characters on each side. World PVP didn't really get serious for a long time on the normal servers. Having more alliance players pretty much giving no signifigant advantage.
In Warhammer however the problem was especially irksome because it involved world PVP from the very beginning, and actually gave global benefits based on controlling regions. That meant that Destruction not only having better stats, but more players (due to those stats and people being more Savvy than when WoW came out) lead to problems as well.
If "Old Republic Online" plans to involved world PVP, they are going to need to carefully look at the interest and number turn outs. Ideally they need to balance the stats, however if there are far more bad guys than good, at least when it comes to PVP the good guys are going to need to be a lot beefier to prevent one sided steamrollings.
Things were so bad for so long, and the problems are so integral to the game, on a lot of servers you'll find Alliance can barely ever take and hold "Wintergrasp". Warcraft is broken on such a fundemental level that I honestly don't think it could be fixed... or at least not without chasing off a lot of players who would need to be heavily nerfed.
I'm a bit tired, so sorry if this rambling is unclear and contridictory.
The bottom line is that my major concern with "Old Republic" is that like other MMOs it seems like the bad guys have received far too much attention, and are being promoted too heavily... something we've seen before with other games.
It's not just the canon either, because technically during this time frame The Sith should be about to get so badly wtfpwned that a few thousand years later nobody will even know for sure what a bloody "Sith" was. The Republic not just pimp slapping this fleet despite the initial surprise attack, but also heading off to it's "empire" of Origin and decimating it. If you can't make the Jedi/Republic cool knowing what is supposed to be happening, I think there is a serious problem at work with the design team.
Despite how that might sound I'd like the two sides to be balanced for actual gameplay. The thing is that we aren't even seeing any real equality, either in concept, or in implementation so far.
As far as the Sith seeming cooler in the movies, consider that the movie timeline is the exact opposite story of the one being told in these games. The Star Wars universe works in cycles. Good was dominating, a period of balance is thus destinied to happen, followed by another empire of evil. As such "bringing balance" involves tearing the good guys down, so the good guys have the force being very cloudy, and the bad guys are much stronger because the universe is literally on their side. This is why Papaltine is able to take on multiple Jedi masters, and Darth Maul is able to take down a Jedi Master despite being an apprentice. It's not that Sith are inherantly more powerful, or better fighters, it's all about a prophecy.
This is also integral to the storyline of KoTR 2, and why Kreia wanted to kill The Force (even if the details were sketchy). Ending it, would end the cycle, and give everyone free will. She was neither Jedi OR Sith in her objectives, arguably she was probably one of the more heroic and philanthropic characters in the series if you really pay attention to her motives, even if her techniques were rather brutal.
See, my arguement is that we should not be seeing trailers with Jedi getting plastered, and multiple heroes having to combine forces to fight one Sith. For the purposes of the game it should be pretty well balanced. However if they wanted to be accurate to how things should be "canonwise" , going back to the original "Sith crash ship into Jedi HQ on Corsucant" trailer, despite being outnumbered each Jedi should have been taking down as many Sith as Papaltine did to the Jedi because that's what the universe has decreed is going to happen. We're talking 3-4 Sith going down for each Jedi "storywise". Bioware of all companies has demonstrated it SHOULD know better.
Generally speaking they are creating "Sith Mania" and in a factional game, that is going to create a massive imbalance. "Alliance Syndrome" again afflicting the good guys due to less time being spent on them, the designers liking the bad guys better, and more players gravitating towards the superior/more promoted side.
I want to see the two sides balanced in play, and honestly my big fear is that it's not happening just going by what I've seen.
Sorry about the length, congrats if you (or anyone) read this far. Sorry again if it's unclear or contridictory.
he can't say anything bad about 3DS because it will make all your dreams come true
nintendo has owned the handheld marker for like 100 years, no reason to think they won't hit this one out of the park also
I was super skeptical about the DS and honestly the first iteration didn't appeal to me, but the DS lite fixed everything. I might wait a year or 2 for version 1.1 of the 3DS but im definitely getting one.
nintendo has owned the handheld marker for like 100 years, no reason to think they won't hit this one out of the park also
I was super skeptical about the DS and honestly the first iteration didn't appeal to me, but the DS lite fixed everything. I might wait a year or 2 for version 1.1 of the 3DS but im definitely getting one.
I don't know if I subscribe to that view. Darth Maul can be explained by Obi-Wan being a neophyte at the time and Qui-Gon being, charitably speaking, oblivious. Palpatine was an unknown quantity and took massive advantage of the institutional hubris of the Jedi.Therumancer said:
Kinect is $150, but nobody seems to ever do the math on Move.
For one person to play a Move game (depending the game) You will need 1 Move controller, 1 Controller or a nunchuck, or 2 separate move controllers.
EyeToy bundle: $100
Extra Move controller: $50
"Nunchuck" addon: $30
So what it comes down to is you needing an EyeToy, 2 Move controllers, and a nunchuck in order to play all of the games that come out for it. It comes to $180 for ONE person. But, what if your siblings/friends want to play with you? I'll leave that math to you, just remember that you don't need they EyeToy bundle for everyone.
I'll take a $150 Kinect that works with (rumored at 4, but at least 2 is known) out of the box than being nickel and dimed on the Move.
For one person to play a Move game (depending the game) You will need 1 Move controller, 1 Controller or a nunchuck, or 2 separate move controllers.
EyeToy bundle: $100
Extra Move controller: $50
"Nunchuck" addon: $30
So what it comes down to is you needing an EyeToy, 2 Move controllers, and a nunchuck in order to play all of the games that come out for it. It comes to $180 for ONE person. But, what if your siblings/friends want to play with you? I'll leave that math to you, just remember that you don't need they EyeToy bundle for everyone.
I'll take a $150 Kinect that works with (rumored at 4, but at least 2 is known) out of the box than being nickel and dimed on the Move.
In point of fact, I haven't seen many Nintendo-made games that "shoehorned" the motion controls in. What I have seen are reams of third-party developers doing that. An example of it working: Metroid Prime. Once I got the hang of it, it took me forever to get the hang of manual aiming in the other games when I went back to replay the story.
Actually some got to play ToR at E3. At least a PC Gamer employee did. He said:Shamus Young said:
"In a private meeting room above the E3 showfloor, I had the chance to play many of the zones in The Old Republic: the massively anticipated, massively multiplayer Star Wars game. And guess what? It's the most polished game at the show."
Also, they wrote a XCom preview.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/06/15/xcom-invades-e3/
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/06/17/star-wars-the-old-republic-e3-hands-on/
OT: Hiding the url didn't work. Can I only hide url withing www.escapistmagazine.com?
It actually is quite coherent. The only place I've run into it was in STO, where it is somewhat debatable (except for the mk VII-X store that's bugged). Klingons have almost no access to PvE content (and actually had none at launch) which means they have to build their characters completely of PvP winnings. While Federation characters can pull in high end gear from drops.Therumancer said:
To be fair, if this is a direct response to my comment I did mean it strictly in regards to the visual aesthetics in Star Wars. Visually Darth Vader is more interesting than Luke, Maul is more interesting than Qui-Gon, and even in KotoR 1 and 2, Malek is more interesting than Revan, and Nihilis and Scion are more visually interesting thanTherumancer said:
This even extends outside of the Sith, Boba Fett and the other Bounty Hunters in ESB are enduring images because they're so visually interesting, in contrast to the Rebellion.
Can I haz cookie?Therumancer said:
Some of the second section is a little weird, but for the most part it's coherent.
EDIT: Sorry, the quote frames seem to have bjorked themselves.
Exactly. You said it really well. I still don't understand this rage against motion controls. I'm honestly not sure what sort of crap-ass games these people are playing because the ones I've played on the Wii have all been acceptable at worst and quite fun for the most part. I can understand a preference for a certain type of control scheme, but the blanket rage against motion controls sounds more like an "It's popular so it sucks" kind of mentality, like somehow they'd be lowering themselves to the level of the 'unwashed masses of casual gamers' by enjoying it.Chipperz said:
So is this based on the marketing so far? I can understand your concern, because marketing can have a lot to do with public perception of a game's factions and I see how that could snowball into a preference for one side. However, you may be worrying preemptively. I'd save this post for later on. You may be able to use it as a "told ya so" response to the game's balance, but right now you might just perceiving an imbalance in the game's PR thus far.Therumancer said:
The reason this latest cinematic has the good guys struggling against tough odds is because that's compelling story-writing. Some fans may be stoked either way, but basic story technique advises against letting the good guys stomp all over the bad guys constantly. A hard-won victory is more satisfying. And actually, all those flares at the end suggest that the good guys ARE stomping all over the bad guys, but we lucky viewers got to see the epic battle against a powerful foe. Much more compelling that way.
I feel the same way. The lack of research for this is absolutely stunning. A quick search brings up a ton of SW:TOR game play from last year. Plenty of info about this game is available, it isn't some closely guarded secret, Shamus just seems too lazy to go look. Being lazy isn't a good enough toCowabungaa said:Really Shamus, I can only say 1 thing about this little article:
Plenty of games have both single player and multi player, some of them are good and some of them are bad. Apparently because AC:B will have bit of both it will immediately suck because... well because. Whatever.
Most people have already decided that the new XCOM looks like shit, you're hardly a killjoy for bring up week old opinions. In fact you say it could still be a good game, that sounds more like a createjoy than anything else.
Everyone knows that Kinect and Move are looking terrible. You aren't killing joy, just confirming everyones previous opinion.
I completely agree with motion sensor gaming, pointless and I don't like it all! Persoanlly there were only two games at E3 that I'm excited about; Fallout: New Vegas and the Twsited Metal remake, also you're wrong about TOR, there have been plenty of actual gameplay videos, which people have already proven before me.
This kinect motion controllers have encapsulated everything I have come to dislike about modern times. It's all a money making exercise with great hype and a bland product.
The trouble with these motion controllers is that you can do the same thing anywhere at any time, without a 150 quid price tag. Games should ideally be relaxing and not trying to justify themselves as a keep-fit tool within today's politically correct social climate. (All because it's afraid of the fat-gamer / violent gamer stereotype.)
Sorry if my post appears inflammatory. I'm just very disappointed that Microsoft has wasted all that money on that god-awful Kinect and the inevitable array of shovelware that's coming with it.
The trouble with these motion controllers is that you can do the same thing anywhere at any time, without a 150 quid price tag. Games should ideally be relaxing and not trying to justify themselves as a keep-fit tool within today's politically correct social climate. (All because it's afraid of the fat-gamer / violent gamer stereotype.)
Sorry if my post appears inflammatory. I'm just very disappointed that Microsoft has wasted all that money on that god-awful Kinect and the inevitable array of shovelware that's coming with it.