Columns Making Gaming Better

I see it as copying a game to be quite honest, cause your not stealing a brand new game, your playing a ripped version, which has all come from ONE disc.

And if people want to cut down piracy, how about lower prices, you lower prices, a lot more people will think "hmm actually I'd rather go out and buy that, it's a decent price" instead of "Well, I don't have £35, and I might not like it, so I'll just download it".

 

I don't believe games are horribly over-priced, however I do believe that they are over-priced. I assume some games spends millions on dev and support, and expect to make money for that. I haven't actually downloaded or used a copied game in over 2 years now. My main reason before hand was not having enough money to play the game, however now that I have a decent job I don't have problems paying for a game I enjoy. As well, the more and more I want to look into game design, the more I find myself not wanting to download, since even if something is priced at $40-50 in a store, downloading it is stealing it. It's the same thing with Movies or anything really. It's like walking out of a Safeway because groceries are too expensive only to walk into a Wal-Mart and steal the stuff.


/end Rant

However, back on topic... 2,6, and 7 really hit home for me. I don't mind joking around with friends online but it really puts me off when someone new to a game is scolded and belittled by someone for asking a question, or people are overly annoying just to get attention or a rise out of others. People that are annoying just because they can be annoying piss me off to no end. Also I've found that helping new people really can benefit you in the long run. Most of the time people asking questions and a lot of them are the ones you want to help. I know in SWG I found one of my now good friends running around trying to sell and give away his weapons so he could gain experience from it. He asked tons and tons of questions about the game and eventually became one of the First Jedi in our guild. I guess what it comes down to is that many new players will adapt to how others act in games in order to 'survive' and if everyone is an ass, if you want to play the game, you have to get thick skin and a sharp tongue or you'll be an outcast. Where ass if people are helpful and offer guidance, they're more then likely to do the same.

And for Hype games... I despise games that try to ride the wave of hype that have no substance (Game to Movies and Movie to Games) both of these tend to suck horribly since they're just slapped together for some extra cash. I would love to see more games based off a movie world (I.E. Star Wars Episode 3, you don't play through as Anakin/Obi instead you play as different Jedi's which show more storyline in a different direction which enhance your overall Episode 3 experience while still having appearances from your Star Wars fav's and still being in the Familiar environment. (*Glares at SWG*) As well, game to Movies don't really need to change much to be entertaining, however perhaps if they shot the movie from a different aspect it would give them more credibility. (Also if they weren't directed by Uwe Boll...)

 

1 & 2: the servers I admin on BF2 & Cod4 auto-ban for racism and flak, and auto-kick for derogatory comments.

3: Steam is great, and instead of pirating, why not go out and rent the game from one of the huge # of rental outlets?

4: Its the marketing people's job to tell you how smart stupid they are.

5: Navy Field Cheesecake!!

 

I agree with the whole article, but the two points which really grab my attention are piracy and purchasing direct. I'd never even thought about the difference between buying direct and buying from a store, but I think I'll try to pay attention to that in the future.

As for piracy, I'd love to see some anti-piracy measures which don't actually make piracy more desirable. If your copy-protection scheme is noticeable or irritating to your legal customers, you have failed. You have failed because removing those measures in the process of pirating will actually make the game less annoying and more desirable. Guild Wars is brilliant, and Steam is quite good about this as well. You pay them, you might enter a license key once, and your game isn't tied to a computer, it's tied to an account. From that point on you can legally play that game on any computer in the world. There are probably significant copy-protection measures in place in both systems, but the important thing is that they're totally invisible unless you're actually trying to pirate the game!

Poor anti-piracy measures promote piracy. Help stop piracy by not trying so hard to stop piracy.

 

I find people who call others "Noobs" to be fairly pathetic TBH, i generally mention this to the noob basher as i just can't understand someone being insulted at not being good at an online game, just no reason.

But i do agree that sometimes that annoying lil' idiot constantly spamming about such and such cheating or he killed me no fair does make the blood boil and sometimes it's just nice to vent.

Anonymity just seams to turn some people into douche bags strange eh?

 

I can see why people have pirate copies of expensive software etc. Sibelius, Adobe CS3, Visual Studio and why people pirate games. The fact is, piracy probably will never go away. They'll always be someone selling a 'dodgy' copy of that game, or someone who will get you that software you want.

n00b can be used in a friendly context as well, i.e. when someone's made a silly mistake and it's among friends, but, during my brief stint on Runescape, got fairly fed up of people calling me n00b as I was walking around.

 

I hate to say it but you have no idea how much Guild Wars has saved me in money spent on games - even with two accounts and some of the add-ons. Every time I see a new game I tell myself I'm going to finish the next campaign - sadly I've only got to finish the expansion now (I can't be arsed to get all 40+ titles (though I once saw a guy with over 30 - I didn't know whether to cheer or tell him to get a life outside the game)).

</OffTopic>

-and yes, I bought some of it direct.

 

One: Don't act like a jerk online.
Reasonable and realistic but that goes beyond gamers dose it not?

Two: Confront bad behaviour online
The trouble is confrontation can get you banded no matter the intention, I might be part A hole but I am a nice my exp for online is confrontation leads to trouble more often then not, if you are polite and subtle you might can defend and distract from the flaming or word fighting but still....

Three: Buy the games
this dose not work for me on 2 levels I buy used at heavy discount becuse I no longer buy into the hype of shallow poorly made modern gaming, after a few broken PC ports and crapfests on the console I will check out any game first before I buy unless I can get it for under 20, but my point is mediocre 40$+ un returnable games suck and are hurting the industry more than the small proration of the consumers that buck the herd don black paint and wear tinfoil hats.

Four: Don't believe the hype
Oh god yes....Bioshock was frist billed as a FPS RPG and by the time launch rolled around it was a consoletard shooter with training wheels....it almost makes deus ex 2 lok good....

Five: Seek out niche games
How about seek out B and beyond games, even tho they have a ton of issues I enjoyed Infernal and Alpha prime,Infernal has some great bad dialog and decent game mechanics it could polish but its surprisingly fun,Alpha prime has a ton of issues and is truly built like a AAA title(bland level design wonky weapons,ect,ect) I even got the stream infected version...i found it had steam after I bought it >< oh well thats what non steam versions are for, still tho ti has issues and bugs, all in all get away from AAA over hpyed titles and try the B range of unknown sadly it dose not get worse than the rushed over hyped AAA titles...

Six: Don't defend the indefensible
And don't defend anti consumer practices by the game industry.

Seven: Embrace newcomers
I don't mind newcomers its the Gdamn casual focus of the industry thats rushing products and not finishing or polishing them or pulls a Bioshock and waters stuff down so much its like it has training wheels, its clear casuals need there own level of difficulty and us "real" gamers need our games back not these short sighted crapfefests.

Eight: Try to buy direct
Ya? when you are given a choice between a physical copy of your mediocre title that you can crack and make sure it works out of the box 10 years from now or pay 10+% more to download something thats needs the net to "work", sorry until they offer full offline modes with digi distro I can live without the bloat/spy/mal ware known as steam, even D2D has gone online activation, IMO digidistro should be half price of retail boxed items simply because you are getting less product with more quirks.


pendragon
I believe it will work as well drop game prices 20-30$ you will almost double new game sales, at this point and time I fight hard for my consumer rights because games cost to damn much,if they would lower the price I would be less inclined to buy used and rail agnist bad games.

 

Some things I think should be added...

server admin who abuse their power. Battlefield is notorious for this. "jets and choppers are for clan members only." "we can tk you with impunity, tk us and you get booted, if you tk out of retaliation, you will get banned." and ofcourse my favorite, the hurt epeen admin. this rambo dude kicks all of our asses, so we kick him so we can get back to wtfpwnage.

trolling... people who simply want to get their rocks off to pissing in someone else's oatmeal. purposefully doing things to inhibit the playing of other people. backstabbing team members to give an edge to the other team so that your team has no chance of winning.

exploiting... "cartillery" and "crate drop arti" and, IMO, using crates to repair commander assets in BF2, abusing the way the game is coded to circumvent the way the dev's wanted the game to be played. the one exception is humor or as with BF42, xpack jumping. engine and programming limits can be a hinderance. In reality it is not impossible or unheard of to climb up a building to get the advantage of higher ground, you cant "climb" in most games, unless there is a ladder. xpack jumping allowed you to get past that. its still alot of fun in BF2 if FF is off. but other than that, abusing poor coding to get an upper hand is just sleasy.

FotM'ing. people that make a science out of getting the upper hand in MMOs and such are such a pain in the ass. the bandwagoning dirt bags that copy and paste someone else's work so that they can "wtfpwn" are worse than hemroids covered in acid.

the purchasing of video game currency "gold, platinum, rubies, whatever" or assistance as in PLs and what have you... the guys that profit off this are scumbags that have no care for the Mplayer aspect other than making cash. when you pay for this crap you give them incentive to keep doing it, making it harder for the honest gamers. the coop server for DAoC, Gaheris, was pretty much ruined by a couple of guys who dominated realm point gathering, and im sick of chinese farmers overcamping something or camp blocking or camp stealing or even kill stealing. they are a bane to videogame economies, and as with drugs, the more people willing to buy from them, the more they are going to do it, and even more will try to become "dealers"

multiboxing and "botting", Team Wizzy from DAoC and all the little fanboiz he inspired, the 5 man lock teams on WoW, the sniper in BF2 that has a medic hiding around the corner to revive himself if he gets killed, this kind of crap is blatantly unfair, and the companies allow it for $$$$$$$. keep the playing field level, please.

hacks/cheats in MMOs.... go play doom and iddqd idkfa if you dont want to play fair, 3rd party programs are not cool, and they dont make you special, just pathetic.




thats all i can think of... as for piracy.... well, you dont buy a car simply because you see the name and emblem and maybe the hood and headlights. You get in it, you drive it, you get to know what your expecting, you know what kind of warranty you get. Videogames? hah! Hell, even movies and music. I hate paying for something that I do not enjoy. Would you pay for a kick in the nuts? I sure as hell wouldnt. I will no longer purchase mortal kombat games, because the last THREE that i bought were ****ing garbage. They got great reviews, and no demos were available, atleast not without subscribing to a magazine to learn the same **** i can get for free on the internet. If Tekken 6 or GT5 are junk, ill never buy them again, no matter how great the game is hailed to be. Demos are great, but not always available. And many pc games have piss poor support. With that said, I dont pirate videogames. I have pirated music and movies, and if I LIKED what I heard/saw, I either watched the movies again in the theater, or i bought them on DVD, as for music, ill buy the album, if it has more than 1 song I like, otherwise ill buy the single, if that isnt available, ill delete your song from my HD. unless ive bought an album more than once or paid album price for 1 song before. which leads me to my next point.

Can you make the mediums in which you get your product to us anymore fragile? Ive purchased Metallica Black 3 times, i think I have the right to pirate it when my disc gets too scratched or if some thief takes it. 99% of the music Ive pirated is music I have purchased before or isnt available to me unless I fly to japan or europe and buy the damned albums then fly home. CDs and DvDs break way too easily. The paper booklets that have our CD keys for video games are even easier to lose or ruin. If i lose my BF2 cd keys, I have to rebuy the ****ing game, that is weak. I paid for it, I deserve to play it when I want.

Make the mediums more durable, have a registration database so I can retrieve my CD keys or get new ones if I lose or damage my medium, FOR FREE and in a timely manner. Stop charging outrageous prices for mediocre products. Why is it that games that suck or dont last long rarely offer demos, yet games that have lasting value give you free trials? WoW and DAoC each give you atleast 10 days to try their game. Most other companies full games dont have replay value of even 5 days, after that Im left wishing i rented the game. cant rent PC games tho, no sir, and blockbuster doesnt carry every game, only the popular ones. back in the N64, PS1, SNES, Sega genisis, NES days... I never bought a game withou renting it first. I got to preview it myself. Computers and programming has come a loooooooooooooooooong way. Servers are everywhere. Put your product up for free and put a decay timer on it. Until I register my Microsoft word, I can only use it a total of 20 times or 2 weeks, whichever comes first, afterwards it will NOT allow me to run the program.... GENIUS! If you have faith in your product, that the masses will enjoy it, give us a "test drive" of it. Those of us who are decent human beings will buy it. As it stands right now, Im worse than the "pirates" youve gotten mad at, Im xenophobic about new games. Ive been burnt by too many crap games to buy many games anymore. the last game I bought for my PS3 was Armored Core 4. I loved armored core 1 and 2 was ok, after they started releasing xpacks for 2, it started sucking. I stopped buying it. AC4 came out and boasted that it went back to the way the game used to be, well they lied. AC4 is worse than AC3. I will not buy AC4's expack. I purchased my PS3 for 3 games and blue ray movies, that is it. GT5, Tekken 6, and AC4. AC4 flopped. I hope Namco and Polyphony digital dont drop the ball too. ive never liked bandai, which appearently now is somehow afilliated with Nacmo, so we will see. Time Crisis 4 wasnt a bad game, but it wasnt Time Crisis or Time Crisis 2. Tekken 5 wasnt Tekken 3 or Tekken Tag. GT5 is changing a lot of things, it needs to, but those changes could ruin the series, which is growing stale. That said, if the games were $20, Id buy them alot more often. When I go to Bestbuy, I spend atleast 30 minutes deciding WHICH really good movie i want to spend $15 on. When I go to walmart or blockbuster, and they have $5 movies to own, I buy movies ive never seen and spend $60.

 

BTW, when registering to your forum, it asked me the name of the nearest star to earth. I said "Sol" it said "incorrect." Lol, n00b!

 

haterade
come over to the eca forums, us fuzzy noobs(that would be me) and the higher life forms there are workign ona gamers bill of rights.
http://forums.theeca.com/showthread.php?t=4485

 

there is only one thing that can make gaming better (for pc) :

DEATH TO CONSOLIFICATION




I would add something more constructive but meh, I don't feel like it

 

Ghys
its not "CONSOLIFICATION " persay its the corporate casual cash in rush mentality that is...they they would no water down and make buggy broken games things would be a lot better.

 

Zippy, I read that topic on those forums. Im too lazy to register so I can post. This is marginally OT for THIS thread, but it seems like it's a dead thread and Im just going to bump it with my post, lol. Admin can delete this post if they like, as Im sure they would even without my pretentiousness in giving them leave to do so

speaking of pretentious, a "bill of rights" for us gamers is, IMO, pretentious. It boils down to simple economics, if we arent happy, we act with our wallets. Dont buy from EA if you dont appreciate what the company is doing. How many gamers hated EA for how they handled BF1942 and BF:V? especially after SWOWW2 and BF:V released.. DICE: Canada was a horrible studio, they released crap product, and EA bought out Trauma studios because a popular mod castrated their Xpack sales, especially after SWOWW2 was totally trash. So they paid Trauma half a million bucks to stop making the game. Then they hired some of Trauma's staff to help make BF2. They also seemed to effectively c*ckblock modders from modding BF2 well enough to release their mods before the xpack and both booster packs had finished their primary sales rush. They also held back on many BF2 features and engine upgrades and shoveled them into BF2 part 2, BF2142. MY guess is that BF1942 did so well because of the mod scene. Vanilla BF2 was ok, but the availability of mods is what made the game survive so long. BFV's only sales aside from hype were because of the potential of mods, I personally only bought BFV for POE. But BF1942 had so many popular and successful mods, more so than BFV, BF2 and BF2142 combined and then doubled. Half Life suffered the same fate, and Valve and Sierra embraced the mod scene from what I've seen. BF:BC is on console only, because consoles are much less likely to be modded. The game will have it's initial playability, and yeah EA is riding solely on hype for initial sales, and since DLC has been gutted by angry reactions (DLC is a crock if you ask me, corporations are going to destroy gaming, it doesn't take very much effort compared to developing a whole game to design a car or rifle or shotgun, a model, a skin, and 5 minutes coding, yet they charge atleast a buck per, when the game sells for $40-$50, gran turismo 5 will have probably close to 1K cars, and well over 20 tracks, but I doubt DLC will charge $.01 per car, probably something like $3 if EA had control of the series.) But EA will hope their game does well enough so that gamers will pay to play expanded content in the form of expacks and booster packs. If a company like Black Sand Studios could mod PS3 and Xbox 360 games and release the mods free, Im sure EA would throw a hissy fit. My guess is, BFBC isnt on PC and the mentioned next PC installment of the series will be held off, because EA/DICE cant prevent modding yet. They release solid engines with a ton of potential, but the replayability isnt there without mods. Anyways, what Im getting at, is that EA is blatantly cash cowing Battlefield, without any regard for customers, EA is known as the popculture producer, they make a great deal of the movie to videogame type games, they make yearly Sports games for the popular sports games, they rode on the coattails of Fast and Furious series with NFSC and NFSPS, they purchased the rights to put Porche in games so that noone else could. EA is capitalism in the gaming universe, more so than Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft, much less Ubisoft, Sierra, ID Software, Activision, Epic, Atari, Namco, Sega, etc. If everyone who enjoys battlefield that hates EA's method STOPPED buying BF games, Im sure EA would just toss BF in the trash and think that the sandbox combat/FPS is just a dead fad and pursue the next fad.

That is our RIGHT as a consumer. It's presumptuous to think we can tell them how to make their games and handle the sales. Gaming is a luxury, a privilege, not a RIGHT. The Bill of Rights does not include "freedom to play videogames how we want." This is the kind of thinking that has lead to the neo-communist-pretending-to-be-capitalist government we have. Florida and many other states, I state florida because I live here, has a law that bans smoking in any public establishment that makes 10% or more of its sales from food. Basically, if you go to a sports bar that sells wings and burgers, you have to smoke outside. True and fair economics would allow the owner of such establishments to decide, and if they allowed smoking, the non-smokers could CHOOSE not to go there to eat/drink, and then the OWNER would decide if losing that set of customers is worth in the continued use of smoking in his establishment. Removing yourself from your group/date/tv/meal to step outside for a cigarette is an inconvenience. Not being able to smoke while playing the arcade games, pool, darts, or what have you, is undesireable. Having to go outside to smoke when weather isnt fair is a big discomfort. The city of Abilene in the state of Texas has completely banned smoking within 20 feet of any public establishment. You cant even smoke in the bars, because of whiners who BELIEVE it is their RIGHT to be able to go whereever they want and NEVER have to deal with smoke. They can choose to go to a different bar or restaurant. The bars in abilene have lost quite a bit of business to people that will go to bars outside of city limits or simply drink at a residence with friends. That's economics at work. Forcing rules that not everyone cares to abide by for a LUXURY is not a solution, it just further ruins the experience. Im sure bar owners would make it illegal to drink anywhere but at bars, restaurants would love to make it illegal to eat at home, stouffer's would love to make it illegal to prepare a meal on your own, cab companies would like to make it illegal to drive yourself, etc etc. As im sure Midway and Namco would love to make gaming only legal in arcades. EA would probably love to stick to consoles, especially after the mod scene "raped" their sales in the battlefield PC market. Console gamers dont expect as much out of a game as PC gamers. For so long PCs offered so much more than consoles, better graphics, downloadable fixes or addons, cheats were easier back in the day for SP games, and multiplayer. Until the proliferation of broadband and the power of computer chips was manageable to use with consoles, Mplayer of more than usually 2 (4 with N64 and up to 8 with PS1 and PS2 on a handful of games) was unheard of away from PC. AI can always be figured out and outsmarted, but human opponents can learn and continue to be challenging, but where the most potent AI is perfect and nigh-undefeatable unless a blindspot is found and focused on, even the best human player makes mistakes and has off days, but can also adapt and overcome it's weaknesses. AI are still not up to par with gamers. Hence why Halo, CoD, BF, etc do so well. Even Madden has a big online community, playing against players without giving up your screen is "hawt." EA now has consoles that they can throw their sandbox first person combat with (compared to most console games) high numbers of players. Im surprised Blizzard, EA:Mythic, and Sony havent made a new attempt at bringing MMORPGs back to consoles. Im sure the PS3 and Xbox360 could handle WoW, WAR, CoH, EQ2, etc. The one hinderance I perceive is that console gamers are probably reluctant to pay monthly fees for a game they already purchased, especially when all the other games are free online, because they dont understand how MMOs have to keep up to date with support and content and community control and running their own servers and everything else that keeps MMOs separate from FPS, sports, and fighting genre games.

Anyways, act with your wallet. THAT is your right.

That said, I do personally dislike how things are going, and I know many others do. What I said above is in reply to the complaints against piracy and other things that stop developers from getting money for a good product, like 10 yr old kids spending their money on spiderman 4 instead of trying a new revolutionary game that is by all standards great, just lacking hype. This whole thread has been about, at its core, what is hurting developers from getting money. Blizzard no longer receives money from me because of griefers. EA:Mythic no longer receives money from me because of two-boxers(or more) and griefers. I will not play counterstrike because of cheaters. Blackballing hurts game sales.

The problem isnt the customers, its the corporations you developers cater to. You works are appreciated, but you push out unfinished products because your financial backer wants to meet a date for his investors and get the kids just getting out of school for summer, or because its near christmas time, or because a big competitor with a lot of hype will be releasing at the same time, whatever. Their politics over money is what causes gamers to not pay. if BF3 flops, EA will blame DICE or whatever company develops it, even if it's because the community hates EA and their business practice, and probably dump the lead designers. The fundamental cause of most complaints is the producers. They bought you so they have the right to do whatever they want with your baby. It's not art to them it's a product. Not saying you dev guys should, but Id just like to point out that some of the highest quality work ive seen in games was in the mod scene for the battlefield franchise. Look at the success of Desert Combat, Battlefield Pirates, Forgotten Hope, etc. Newer age mods like Point of Existence, AIX, USI and PR. These mods put thousands of man hours into using pretty much just the engine, and then released it for free. The quality in these mods was never diluted to meet a release date, when asked they say "when it's ready." They dont limit their content so producers can break it up into booster packs and expansions and milk it for every dime they can get. Im just waiting for the day when someone designs an engine and releases it free to the community, and allows the mod developers to run amok with it, and provides real support to develop them. OH NOES111! free high quality games!? I can see the outrage now. Shame it wont be available for consoles eh? lol.

 

quite true.


I will agree with your point that some of the best quality games I have ever played have all been mods of existing games, and not commercially released games.

standouts: FS2:SCP, AIX, Desert Combat, FS2004/FSX (with about 20GB of mods combined together)

the best I ever encountered was the Thirdwire series: wings over europe and wings over vietnam. after a quick check of the folder size its now sitting at 30GB, original game size: 2GB or less