Comments on: The Sunday Papers

By: phuzz

phuzz — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:59:21 +0000

MMOs:
I enjoyed that Man vs Horse thing, too many reviews of MMOs are either pitched at someone who’s played WoW to death, or at people who need the acronym MMO explained. This was a comfortable middle ground.
I kind of agreed with their opinion of Eve (not played the other two), just by being a space MMO, it gets my interest, and while the complete lack of user friendlyness should be a turn off, it really just makes me want to find out how it all works.
At the end of the day it’s effectively having to buy the game again every month that really puts me off MMOs (although obviously I understand why they have to charge subscriptions).

By: itsallcrap

itsallcrap — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:14:14 +0000

Be Aggressive is a brilliant track.

What’s the story there, though?

By: Mman

Mman — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 01:24:27 +0000

“without giving you any indication that that is the mission.”

Actually it does; there’s a bug that makes the game not give out missions sometimes; I had it in the second level, as there was only one path to follow at the time it didn’t take a genius to work out the route, but it could be bad on one of the more complex missions.

From what I’ve played so far (and everything I’ve read and seen suggests that it does not go downhill at all), this is shaping up to be my “episodes” of this year, in terms of taking an already good formula and refining it.

By: Arathain

Arathain — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:21:32 +0000

I enjoyed the MMO article. About a year ago I did a similar bit of MMO tourism- going through all the free trials and just trying stuff out. I had much the same experience as they did. City of Heroes spoiled WoW for me in the same way- character customisation, FX laden, kinetic combat, feeling like a real hero. EVE showed its enormous potential, but was a bit too daunting for my life schedule.

I surprised myself by ending up subscribed to City of Heroes/Villains, and I keep coming back to it. I do see complaints about low server populations, but there are several US servers (Freedom and Virtue in particular) with tons of people, and little trouble finding groups.

I enjoyed the comments, too. The advocates always show up and try to gloss over the faults, and boy do all of those MMOs have faults.

By: A-Scale

A-Scale — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:40:44 +0000

An additional word on Warhead after further playing- This game has terrible level design. Three times now I have been dumbfounded as to where I was supposed to go next. I have played FPS games since MOHAA, but this one really takes the cake for zany routes. Just wait until you hit the portion on a ship which requires you to apparently enter a ship, kill some dudes for no good reason, and then leave the ship the same way you came in, without giving you any indication that that is the mission.

By: DSX

DSX — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:05:19 +0000

Must be a slow poke, I’m still working on Clear Sky. Warhead and Witcher Enhanced are both still in the shopping bag under my desk.

Some mods I found that are making Clear Sky a much better game imho: a Trader fix for slightly better sell price on scavenged junk, and a “gift” to myself of the -6 rad and +6 life artifacts. What this does is essentially turn the game into a COD style health system, where I can take a few hits and not die instantly if I find cover or retreat quickly. Otherwise I was finding the game to be a series of quicksave/load screens as I was getting killed every 5 minutes.

It’s not blatant god mode though. I still die, and I still use plenty of bandages and med kits, but it places my frustrations back into the realm of “doh shouldn’t have done that” rather then “WTF Killed me?!”

Some misc: removal of the startup intro screens, a real guns names fix, and a scope fix that gives you limited peripheral vision around the eyepiece / ocular sight.

By: weirwood

weirwood — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:48:42 +0000

If you get all excited about Sterling, you might want to read some Vernor Vinge and Charles Stross. Rainbows End and Halting State, respectively.

By: RichPowers

RichPowers — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:45:32 +0000

@subedii: You’re right. This is from EA’s FAQ on “Warhead on Steam”:

The Steam and retail versions both use SecuROM product activation online … The Steam version of Crysis Warhead has the same activation limit as the retail version of 5 activations.

The Steam Store’s Crysis Warhead page doesn’t mention SecuROM or install limits, which is disingenuous on Valve’s part. What the hell is the point of buying games over Steam if I’m unable to download them to as many computers as I want?

As much as I like Steam for Valve products, this, along with the Bioshock DRM fiasco and Frontlines glitches, reminds me of why I still refuse to rent third-party games from the service. Valve and the other publishers really need to get their shit together with regards to redundant DRM and quality control.

By: shon

shon — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:33:04 +0000

Regarding Man vs Horse, I found it interesting how their non-mmo expectations ran smack into the limitations of MMOs. Their description of EVE mining cracked me up.

I also think this article proves once again how important avatar construction is for new player enjoyment. They lost their screenshots of their WoW characters and I don’t think they even cared while they still knew what their CoH characters looked like.

By: subedii

subedii — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:34:51 +0000

Crysis Warhead is Awesome.

But having install limits, even on the Steam version? Frikkin’ ridiculous, not to mention redundant. If someone would care to explain how this kind of DRM stops piracy, I’m all ears.

Or perhaps I should be thinking more along the lines of how these measures help tackle that “other” problem the publishers want to put a stop to: the second-hand market.

By: Pace

Pace — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:50:09 +0000

Hmm, was the Sterling bit that had 3/4 of RPS ranting the virtual banking bit? That was what caught my eye. Games as a virtual front for real-life commerce? Rather, becoming real-life commerce?

By: Mman

Mman — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:48:08 +0000

Groglvr: “to me”

Ever consider that might be the part of your opinion where the emphasis lies?