Columns Making Gaming Better

That has always been my understanding, newb/newbie refer to someone who is genuinely new to the game, but wants to get better. noob/n00b are used to slate someone, for doing stupid things, when they should know better.

Unfortunately though now that mmo gaming has reached the masses, etiquette has gone out the window. Most people just hurl "n00b" at anyone regardless of their abilities, so it has become derogatory and used to insult people. The problem is, as Cliff says in the article, to many people just want to insult people rather than giving them constructive criticism.

 

It's one hell of a lot *safer* on a console then a PC. You can lock games from consoles easily these days. They're a lot harder to chip and aren't as flexible as they used to be when chipped.

 

on the topic of piracy - you forget, in your middle-aged, middle-class lifestyle that the first decade or so of your formative gaming years - YOU'RE BROKE. You pirate because you can't afford to buy all the games you want to play, and not everyone' s mommy is willing (or able) to shell out $60 a pop for a week or two of enjoyment. Hell, I'm on my own now, in a salaried position, and I *still* can't justify $60 on a game!

on the topic of mean-ness - obviously, you've never been a nerd in a public school Gym class. Thank your lucky stars.

n00b.

 

I agree with the article. All good points. Anonimity certainly is a huge factor in people being obnoxious. Even on this forum, I find that automatically skip over posts by a few users that always come off as rude, abrasive and condecending. It's sad.

 

I'll continue to insist that selling games for less will increase sales volume dramatically. I've got a friend developing a game for the iPhone that he intends to sell for $3, and Trism (google it, see youtube video) will be $5. Of course both have the advantage of being direct sales where they get 70% of the revenue by bypassing publishers and retail stores, but download-based distribution of big games is just as plausible these days thanks to services like Amazon's S3. For a game that weighs in at a full 5GB, distribution costs per copy are no more than $0.90 per copy which goes down with volume. Charge $20 for the game, knock off 5% at the upper end for CC processing (about a dollar) and the distro costs, and you're now at ~$18 in net profit, which I expect is much better than any publishing deal.

 

People asking for cracks on developer forums are the worst of all – report them, and tell them it's not acceptable.
I disagree if that crack is for CD copy prevention which is so annoying!

Also it depends on the game but in some its ok to rip into people for been a noob as one player easily has the power to ruin a game for everyone. I take NS for an example, a bad starting com wreaks a game even if they are well meaning. They need to learn fast and the only was is by harsh critisim otherwise they might step in that chair again.

 

I always try to get my PC games from Steam unless it's significantly cheaper to do otherwise. Although I do admit that I've bought some games from eBay recently and been very satisfied.

 

Yes, well I like to steal my sofa for a day from the shop before I decide I want to keep it, AND THEN pay for it...

 

I buy games that are worth the money. If games get downloaded on this end, they are either good and will be bought or they are crap and will be deleted, those wouldn't be bought in the first place any way so no money is lost on anyone's part.

Also, more digital distribution would be great.

 

Dude! Andune stop justifying your piracy... If you need to justify it then you know deep inside that it's wrong. On the other hand, I DO understand your point. I from Costa Rica, and we are always the last ones getting the goodness... That means that when you finally see a game (new titles of course) on the shelves, resellers have already added up to $50 to the price tag! Or, let’s say I order it online, then it usually takes 2-3 weeks for the game to get here, not counting the shipping time frame inside the US. To all that, you may also add that now the game’s price tag has increased up to $25 - $50 (shipping)
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that a pirate copy of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. ($10) was a much better choice than either waiting for it or over pay for it (specially since I didn’t like the game at all… way to slow for a FPS but that’s just me)
I did buy Quake4, BF2142, and more recently CoD4, & Crysis. An original copy of the game IS required for online gaming. Not the same for Bioshock, which I consider a masterpiece that I didn’t buy since it has no multiplayer, therefore, no re-playability. I’m the kind of guy who plays single player campaigns just once

As for the n00b thingy, I used to be a n00b in BF2142… People messed with me, kicked me form squads, or just made my gaming very uncomfortable. But after a few weeks the my only n00bish thing was my rank… I developed a passion for knifing n00b bullies, dick-heads, username abusers, cheaters, POD SURFERS (if you are one then I probably already have you in my dogtag collection ), etc… So, what’s my point? We are all gonna be n00bs – or newbies – some time (I’m still a CoD4 n00b so please be gentle… lol) the thing is to prove every body wrong in the battlefield. It’s a learning curve, and depending on the game it can be tough (specially BF2142 that you start the game with nothing…) but as soon as you kill (or knife ;D) your first Brigadier General, you then realize that they aren’t as tough as they were all bluffing about.

 

I hate it when ppl shun noobs, we were all there, plus they're fun to kill so why get rid of the livestock? Secondly, if game Devs want my money they're gonna have to charge $25-30 for a game no more! I'd be happy to buy direct for that price. Secondly, if they sold games at that price a lot more people would buy them maybe they should consider that video game piracy has increased dramatically with the huge increase in price, imbeciles!

 

Sorry this isn't the forum view so I can't put this with my last one

Actually this is a try before you buy tactic, it improves sales significantly and quite a few furniture brands do so along with several other product groups including speakers, TV's, whatever.

 

100% agree with the list, although I feel alot of piracy is due to half ass demo's.

 

“Four: Don't believe the hypeâ€
You’ve just hit the spot! Great article by the way
The best example of this has got to be Crysis. Sure it’s beautiful, sure the nano suit adds some incredible gameplay features, however at the end (literally) is just another FPS. What amazes me the most is the fact that I bought a new rig just for this game!!! Not the rig I wanted, but the one I could afford (say Core2 Duo, 8800 GTS, 2 Gigs of RAM, X-Fi XtremeGamer + Vista) At the end, I’m left with a high-end rig (not a bad thing at all) specifically tailored for what was going to be “the best FPS everâ€, but on which I only play BF1242. As you read early, I’m still getting used to CoD4’s fast-paced muliplayer.
Bottom line is, sometimes you CAN believe the hype - take a look at Bioshock or CoD4. Amazing overly hyped games that actually DELIVERD. Or sometimes, you just choose to believe it in order to justify a $2000 rig… (that’s right! that’s the least you’ll have to invest in order to play Crysis at playable framerates with the eye candy set on High)

 

So true yet I see that way too often (every time those are brought up here).

Also it reminds me of this article on ExtremeTech: (Link) Different points but valid as well.

 

Something that pretty much sums up the article's first suggestion:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/

 

pirating's bad mmmkay.

Like the sig says buy old over clock and spend some damn money on the actual game!!!

I agree on the buying straight from developer's point, find them can sometimes be difficult but you can generally find the best games that way. Live For Speed (www.lfs.net) for instance I incourage anyone who is into racing sims to give this a go. Plus my favorite crazy critter and sincere police dog Sam & Max (www.telltalegames.com).

I think the problem is that pirating has become so mainstream that everyone thinks it is ok, I agree that demos need to be more available for the bigger games, but the smaller developers usually have several alpha, beta, pre-release demos for there games, in fact most of them rely on the community feedback throughout the development of the games.

It is a lot like open source development the community makes the product what it is. Put nothing or crap in, get nothing or crap out!

 

i'm always downloading a lot of games. The reason for this is the steep prices. I know it's stealing, i know it's wrong and hurting the industry, but there is just no way i can spend €50 on every game i want to play. The difference is too steep. On one hand we have the hassle of going to the store, waiting waiting and waiting untill the game i want is finally released in my country while everyone else i know has already finished it, filling up my house with boxes and getting CD's damaged, not to mention dishing out the cash. On the other hand we have click - wait 2 hours - click - click - click - play.

THAT is why i download. It's not right, i'm not defending it, i'm merely explaining it. I'm not going to hide behind the demo-excuse either. There's always demos, reviews and almost all games stores let you play it in the store for hours and hours if you really want.

Therefor i encourage one point hugely: buying direct!
The inflated prices because of retailing, advertising and publishing a game doesn't add a penny to it's value for me, yet over half of what i pay goes to people that do these things. Next time i'm getting into some new games i'll have a look around to see if i can buy direct before i download.

Another note: instead of fighting the torrent community, why dont game developers use the vast networking and distribution capabilities? Put a distribution on torrent, and make keys available, payment through paypal. Sure, it wont be watertight, but none of todays games are. Cutting on distribution, publishing and marketing costs this way, i'd MUCH more happily pay what's left of the price. If devs started doing this, they'd see me buy a lot more games.

[EDIT]
sorry if i'm making this thread a bit single issue
I really do agree a lot on the n00b-point you make too. I've always been a big helper of complete and utter n00bs, even if they were idiots. We need idiots to shoot at in games, so the better they like it, the more fun i'll be having aswell. We agree too much on that point to have an interesting discussion though.
[\EDIT]

 

Here are a few more points that would really help:

• Stop assuming all the jerks are 12 years old. Older players need to start taking responsibility for their own bad behaviour online.
• Stop using the word noob. Even if it's said in jest, the fact is that it's a word with an extremely derogatory connotation. Someone who's new to the game is a newbie.

UT3?

 

^ UT3 was just a reskinned clone.

i don't agree with piracy, unless it's music... they can go to hell i am not paying a cent for them.

I buy all my games, but i hardly buy any games through retail, steam Cheesecake.