By Kieron Gillen on February 15th, 2009 at 6:06 pm.
What’s Sunday for? Trying to post a compiled list of all the neat reading we’ve found online, in the gaps whilst the troublesome site is actually up, whilst trying to avoid posting a NY-bar karakoke classic. Because that’d be terrible.
- We avoided doing anything Valentines related at the site, for obvious reasons (We forgot and/or couldn’t be bothered and/or considered an evil machination of a world that strives to commercialise affection). But that doesn’t mean we’re not dirty great softies. Barry White proves that Pyro is totally a she. At least, in his case.
- I’m up for any piece of writing which begins with the word “Confessions”. Daedren writes about his experience as a bot-user in World of Warcraft.
- Last week saw the release of the latest volume of videogame-referencing instant classic, Scott Pilgrim. Here’s a review by one Kier… oh, yeah, it’s by me. Came close to posting it here, but decided it was just a touch off topic. Suffice to say, spoiler dense after the intro, and you really sould be reading Scott Pilgrim if you even like RPS in the slightest.
- Remember the recent Eve Online exploit controversy? Don’t quite get what the scam was? Well, after reading this insanely detailed overview of the whole thing, you will. It’s got graphs and everything.
- Wonder why Capcom joined the PC Gaming Alliance? Wonder no longer.
- Wonder why Battlefield 1943 has its design decisions? Wonder no longer.
- Here’s a lovely critical essay about Gravity Bone. Yeah, it cites what I wrote about the bally thing, but don’t hold that against it.
- God, it’s been a hectic Games Journalism Journalism week. Funniest was the PSX Extreme struggling with the concept of subjectivity regarding Edge’s Killzone 2 review.
. The general furore causes the Thoughtshake to explore the concept of marking and subjectivity a little more. Meanwhile, the Artful Gamer picks over the corpse of New Games Journalism in an attempt to formulate some kind of New New Games Journalism. Be careful, man. You’re going to create some kind of New New Games Journalism Journalism. And nobody wants that. - Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run. If only there was some manner of record of Al Ewing performing this on Sunday night. It was quite literally a thing.
Failed. But at least the RPS server hasn’t gone down. Quickly! Post! Post!
Is BF1943 missing its link?
report
TRAMPS LIKE US
BABY WE WERE BOOOOOOOOORN TO RUUUUUUUUN
Am I ashamed of paying £45 to go see him this summer? Hell no. Also, you appear to have forgotten the link to the Battlefield 1943 article, and thus I am still left wondering!
report
I am a swifter pedant!
report
And another also, I remember reading that PSX Extreme article when Leigh Alexander linked to it and shaking my head in utter disbelief.
report
I guess that falls out of the sphere of ‘PC gaming’ though Pags, and thus, all interest falls away like an Australian dropbear. The terrifying, adorable, fuzzy bastards.
report
I’ve been to five Springsteen shows and the best part is when the house lights come on and the band launches into “Born to Run.” That’s rock-and-roll heaven right there.
Also, I didn’t know the PCGA had a website. It makes complete and total sense, but I’d never thought to look.
report
PS XTREEEEEEEM! LOL!
Hmmm. Killzone 2: competent yet derivative multiplayer shooter with a new cover system?
7/10 seems reasonable to me.
report
He isn’t called The Boss for nothing.
report
I hope that Capcom’s joining the PC Gaming Alliance will ensure the PC port of Street Fighter IV, because I ache for it.
report
Awww, the Barry White made even this cynical Valentines hating singleton smile.
Bah, I want my player two.
report
thank you PSXE. i was getting bored and the you cheered me right up.
on a side note i wonder if PC based reviewers have any love for no PC FPS’s.
Its often apples and pears when comparing the two communities idea of the genre
report
The NNGJ thing. He seems to want writing about games that will reveal more about who gamers are: stuff revealing who he is through the way he interacts with games. Pretty much NGJ with added philosophy, which I kinda noble, I guess, although he didn’t seem to understand NGJ very well. I dropped an alternative creation story on him, which amuses me.
report
Wow. The Battlefield 1943 article…
So…many… exclamation…points.
Also, the Killzone thing is an impressive bit of head up assery.
report
Oh dear I see New New New Games Journalism being released soon after the failure of New New Games Journalism.
When will they ever learn.
report
I found it hilarious that PSX thinks that Edge would give KZ2 a low score to get attention.
Really hilarious.
My God, what is the world coming to when someone not liking a game is called a disservice to consumers, because its simply NOT POSSIBLE that the game might not be that great.
report
Are PSX Extreme big? I’ve never heard of them, and would believe you if you told me they were actually Hard Casual.
Now: before we run out of all the ‘new’s in the English language, i suggest calling it ‘Hot Lesbian Porn’.
report
You’d need to modify the content some, though.
You know, to avoid confusion.
report
Mad clix though.
report
Re: Porn. “Nude Games Journalism” is my standard gag.
KG
report
Much love to you RPS. Much love to you.
report
@Daedren
“Botting is fun!
Yes, it is. Some might even argue that it’s funner than actually playing the game.”
QFT.
The only thing that has me even vaguely interested in playing WOW again is the prospect of running a DK bot.
EDIT: Does anyone remember off the top of their head if you need a CC to be able to make a new WOW account even if you pay with prepay cards?
report
Eh what’s with the psxextreme guys?
“Botting is fun!”
Get bent, cheating fuckerrrrrr…!!
report
NNGJ? Destroy your safe and happy lives, before it is too late. It’s just a phase man. When the old school is to old, and the new school turned down your application, you set out to repeat the errors of the past generation.
Tell me when it’s over:
Industry. Consumer. Journalists. Check out the ease with which he transforms these terms and fuses them to the substrate of ignorance.
But in an industry geared to the teenage male consumer, maybe Logan’s Run is the way. Has Michael Bay eclipsed Jerry Bruckheimer yet? Many reviewers pan their films as trite shallow and loud, but they still churn out blockbusters. Why? Because while we know they’re trite, shallow and loud, like so many other films before, and not as good as half of them, that bit of comparative perspective is lost on the enthusiastic newcomer, who doesn’t like old movies with Clarke Gable.
It’s that blissful ignorance that can’t tolerant endless yapping about how good Choplifter was, that faces each morning unaware that it was preceded by millions of others, that can honestly accuse others of dishonesty.
Welcome to your generation. Lament that video game writing has become “a game.” Change the world. One day you’ll wake up and find the world’s changed you; then you’re realize that this is not the newest industry you signed on for.
report
Can you write follow this NNGJ fallout and write a summary of it later this week Kieron? I want to see the world’s first New New Games Journalism Journalism, and there’s no-one else out there who could write it without imploding in a vortex of irony.
report
Like it or not, opinions exist on a sliding scale, and we’re not saying everyone is going to enjoy KZ2, but this review is akin to saying something similar about “The Godfather II” or “Citizen Kane.” We all know that Guerilla’s title is one of the best FPSs ever made; anyone who knows this industry and has a functioning brain will admit to this. They may not like it, but they will admit to its quality. This is what good reviewers do.
report
HA!
You’re such a card bhlaab! Citizen Kane. What a kidder.
… You are joking, right? Right?
report
Edge giving a long awaited blockbuster game with obscene production values a good but not perfect score is just Edge being Edge. Nothing to write home about. We’re talking about a magazine that gave Final Fantasy X a 5 out of 10 (something for which I still love them).
So anybody calling out Edge for doing exactly what their readers expect them to do is just trying to get a few easy clicks on his site…
report
Yeah, Killzone 2 is the Citizen Kane of FPSes.
Overrated and a bit dull.
(Actually, I haven’t played it and I don’t believe that about Citizen Kane either, but I’m testing to see if anyone reads this bit before exploding).
report
You link to these things so we can appreciate RPS and each other more, don’t you?
report
And thus the wizened, one-toothed sage spoke: “Seven Games Journalisms, each built upon the ruins of the other!”
report
Also, an Edge 7 is much better than a 7 from anyone else. Someone knows how to use the scoring scale to its full potential, at least (given that pretty much no-one will play a game that scores below 60% in most magazines, you might as well make the higher end of the scale more defined).
report
PSX’s editorial, translated: “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA KILLZONE 2 IS THE BEST GAME EVER WHY DIDN’T THEY BEND OVER AND GIVE THEM A 10/10 WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
Somebody call the wambulance, these fanboys are crying up a storm!
report
“We all know that Guerilla’s title is one of the best FPSs ever made”
Faith in humanity -9999999999999999999999999999999,7
report
The opening action on our part regarding the exploit included the total destruction of all the POS complexes involved. This entailed flying to each one and basically nuking everything in sight – a fireworks show of epic proportions but with no witnesses except the GMs in the demolition team.
Now that’s awesome. Ordinary developers would just delete the offending complexes in a database somewhere. CCP blow them up in-game.
report
Best quote from the comments of the nxe piece: “I was reading a couple of the low low score reviews on metacritic. One of them says, “This game is spactacular from start to finish,” then goes on to give the game an 87. WTF?!!?”
The Eve article is interesting reading – I guess they didn’t just delete the items from the database due to how they’re interlinked, it would probably have meant taking the servers offline, doing the removal then having to ensure that the removal hadn’t adversely impacted anything else. It’s also pretty scary that the entire output of the exploited setups was only 0.7% of the annual total trade in a year.
report
Already laughed at the PSX Extreme thing thanks to Leigh Alexander, but it’s well worth a reread – the whole antagonism towards reviewers thing seems to be hotting up all over. Kieron’s FEAR 2 review being a prime example (although there’s less obvious fanboy motivation there).
Born to Run is a classic. Gotta love Springsteen.
report
Although I should point out that it’s not as good as Downbound Train or Darkness on the Edge of Town.
report
Nebraska-era Springsteen is quite clearly the superior Boss.
Has anyone played Killzone 2 yet? I almost don’t want to play it out of principle, and I probably would’ve ignored it had there not been so much furore about it, but now I almost feel like I need to play it just so that I can be free to put down people like the PSX Extreme guys.
report
There’s been a demo and a multiplayer beta. That’s it.
report
On Scott 5:
The name of Chapter 31 is “World of Ruin.” This felt appropriate. Same with “The Universe Strikes Back.”
report
@ “eyemessiah” re: botting is fun
the best fun I had in a month of playing EVE was writing an external tool to analyse exported market logs and schedule sequences of trades to maximise profit / jumps.
it’s sad how eve’s eula and api allow this kind of semi-automation of the interesting aspect of trade, but disallow the automation of the boring part – namely the drudgery of buying x units of item alpha from station beta, jumping to system gamma, and selling at station delta.
wow’s moddable lua interface is a step in the right direction, but why not go the whole hog – an mmo where third party client-side modification, enhancement and automation is not only allowed, but encouraged
i’m not at all convinced that running bots is fun, but writing them sure is, and it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than mmo-grind
report
@Gap Gen
Actually, a Edge 7 isn’t significantly different from a Eurogamer 7.
Don’t mind me, I’ve spent the last couple days geekily teasing the score fetishists.
@Pags
KZ2 is, in essence, the MoH/CoD FPS in space with the addition of a nicely executed first-person cover system and realistically weighty player physics (remember the hyperactive way running and turning worked in Q3A? KZ2 is at the opposite extreme). Polished, technically accomplished, short on creative ways to actually turn all that stunning tech into an actual play experience.
report
I don’t think I could award a console FPS anything higher than a 7. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark not included, of course.
report
Thanks for that link to the Daedra piece. As a non-MMO-er, it made for great readings. The mouthbreathing hate in the comments thread is just gold.
report
Man, review scores has to be the dumbest talking point ever. Yet somehow it’s tolerable when it’s angry 14yr old internit conformobots doing it in the comments or where ever. You figure one day they’ll work out that subjectivity is tough like that, or better yet, that it just doesn’t matter all that much and says vanishingly small things about jounalistic integrity or…well, anything really.
But when the Journos start doing it as well the end is truly nigh. The chilling downside to what ‘by gamers; for gamers’ really means.
(is there some larger, more worrying aspect to all this in just how quick people will feel the need to react to the sight of dissenting voices? You see it in movie reviews all the time as well. That lone negative review of popular-maudlin-tearjerker or saccarine-cutesy-animated-musical gets its site inundated with people apparently furious at that lone tomato splotch. Predictable accusations of bias, hit baiting and failed journalistic integrity usually thrown. Major cognitive dissonance on display. Strange stuff. Maybe it was always like this).
report
I writted once a bot for OGame. It was fun.
report
The WoW botting article was an eye-opener.
“I didn’t have a lot of time to play WoW – 4-5 nights a week and 3-4 hours on average per night. Maybe sneak in during the afternoon on a weekend or something when the kids are asleep.”
That’s “not a lot of time”? I’m glad I never got into WoW. I tend to side with the reasons of the guy in question, but it doesn’t abvolve botting, only people who don’t do it for monetary gain. I’m sure Blizzard are looking to shut it down for two very important reasons:
1. It allows people to gold farm and destabilise the in-game economy
2. Most importantly, it removed a lot of the unneccessary grind/reward in WoW and saves you time. To Blizzard, time is money, because it means you’re spending months and months’ less of your subscription money grinding out these rewards. I think more than anything this is why they’d want to stamp out the Glider app: it’s hurting their business model.
report
To me writting a bot is analizing how to play logically, what is the optimal way to play (theorycrafting) and follow simple rules, that a idiot (your code) can follow. MMO’s are somewhat (already) like spreadsheets, so there are lots of numbers to crunch and calculate things. Hell.. there are skins that calculate how much more boards you have to kill to ding :-)
So, I think botting is a way to meta-game. But MMO’s players also meta-game. Create a strategy for optimizing PX. Normal players have to play the boring thing.. bot players can play the fun thing (theorycraft, strategize) , and let the computer play the boring thing.
And all this is because most MMORPG games are RPG’s of the bad style: Hack & Slash. There are good CRPG games, but are singleplayer…
report
@Crispy: “Most importantly, it removed a lot of the unneccessary grind/reward in WoW and saves you time.”
Since the bot is online, it pay as much as a human player will do. The flat subscription rate. I guest what Blizzard want is stop a beavior players don’t like. There are people that avoid games with bots, and thats what Blizz want to stop.
report
Yet another “I am not the strange mysterious outsider you all think I am but just a normal guy” confession from a botter. Is there something that goes with being a botter that makes you think that others think you are some grand nefarious villain?
Botters, get over yourselves, we know you are just normal gamers like the rest of us, we just think you are selfish pricks who don’t care if you crap all over our enjoyment as long as your own goes up a little.
People who try to defend botting and gold farming and argue that it should be supported within the game just don’t get the point. It doesn’t matter that people will do it anyway.
I would liken botters in a game to having a flatmate who whenever he had a bowel movement just stood up and took a dump in the middle of the sitting room floor to save himself a little time. It is not doing anyone any harm but damned if it doesn’t make you want to live elsewhere when every now and then you encounter a giant turd in the middle of the living room. When confronted he suggests that if you do the same thing then you won’t need to get upset. The inequity in the situation is only a part of the problem, the big issue is that most people don’t want to live in a house where somebody keeps planting a brown one on the living room floor.
report
I think it’s not so much an issue of time being money as much as it is one of time being, as Daedren mentioned, the currency for success in the game. The quality of one’s strategy and optimizations aside, how powerful/successful you are in the game is directly proportional to how much time you invest in the game.
This is a good model for hardcore players who are the types to invest a lot of time in a game; it provides rewards for this, and allows them the satisfaction of knowing that they’ve achieved something for their time. They’ve put in countless hours of work, and have gained something out of it others who haven’t don’t have. In many ways, this is the game; you progress by spending time playing, and if you play enough, you win. And then you move on to the next goal.
In this sense, botting is specifically cheating; it’s allowing players to gain rewards they didn’t work for. The reason the rewards require grind to achieve is to allow the sort of players who invest a lot of time into games to reap an exclusive reward from their hours of work. Blizzard wants to stop botting because it invalidates the time investment/reward system; it spoils the fun of having a really shiny bauble that you’ve earned with hard work if tons of people are getting it without work at all.
On the other hand, this isn’t the game a lot of people playing WoW want to play. They want to play the game where they fight big monsters with their friends, but that game is for high-level players, and the “grind to get more powerful” game is in the way. They also want to play the game where they develop characters and find ways to make them more and more effective, and the grind is in the way of that, too.
Blizzard’s been doing quite a bit to reduce the barrier to entry for these other games, and it’s worth noting that Daedren’s experiences botting were before a lot of these streamlining elements were introduced. But WoW remains several different games juxtaposed over one another, and as long as this happens, players will find some of the games far more interesting than the other ones.
And they won’t mind cheating at the games they don’t care about, since they’re only really getting in the way. The people who don’t really care about these games either won’t really mind . . . but the people who put a lot of stock in those games, and success in them, will really, really dislike this. Especially if they’ve already put a tremendous amount of work into them.
. . .
The PSXE article was good for a chuckle. Though I read the Edge review it’s aimed at afterwards, and didn’t think it was very good. Hmm.
report
I wanted to ask. Does killzone 2 have mouse support? Does the ps3 do that? I mean it has mouse support. But . Remember the 1 up show complaining about the avatar’s turning speed, so probably not.
Console manufacturer pricks. Your exclusives are useless to me if you want to use an analogue controller for an action game.
Now patch mouse support into your premier titles so i can desire your systems.
Ds you can go home you are fine, i think i like touch screens better than mice… Not you wii! You are staying behind after class.
The rest of you fail!
report
mister slim: Yes, but it’s better than, say, a PC Gamer 65-74%, I’d guess. Although it sounds like you have a better idea of what scores are awarded than me.
report
I have already laughed heartily at the “objective” Killzone 2 commentators that Leigh Alexander linked to, but consider it done here as well.
And I liked the botting article, though I don’t know if I agree.
report
Also, is he called The Boss because he shoots rockets and has a weak spot on his arm, or something? Just wondering.
report
KG:
I still have that issue of PCG somewhere. Don’t make me use it, Gillen.
In fact, I think it predates NGJ, so I wouldn’t put it past you that you were using that manifesto purely as a massive set-up for nudey jokes for years afterwards.
report
I’d like to second Kieron’s recommendation of Scott Pilgrim. It’s a comic every gamer will love. Can’t wait to pick up volume 5 this afternoon. Any word on Singles Club issue 2?
report
Is that the time?
KG
report
People getting to the point of justifying their own cheating is pathetic
The ‘point’ of the game, if there even is one, is to make progress by gaining levels and better equipment, and hopefully do it better than everyone else. When you’re not playing the game your progress doesn’t mean anything. If you become so obsessed with progressing that you’ll do anything for it then you should just stop instead
Cheating is cheating and will always be cheating. There are certain set rules within the game and if you can’t follow those then you suck. The basis for any competition or comparison between things is rules. Break them and it all becomes pointless
It’s no different from cheating in anything else. Stealing money from the bank in monopoly, using your hands in football, starting before everyone else in a sprint race or whatever you’d like. It’s just that people become to obsessed with the game that they don’t see it anymore
report
About the EVE punishments: does that mean the devs have a fleet of ultra death-star muderships? Would those ships then not be the ultimate end-game goal for cheeky buggers like the Something Awful lot?
So how does it work?
Also Bruce Springsteen is nothing but a boring Meatloaf.
report
They belong to a race that players cannot play as and their space cannot be entered normally
report
Typically Dev and GM ships have skill requirements based on skills not in the game, making it impossible for a player character to fly or otherwise use them.
report
@fulis
They fly Polaris and CONCORD, not Jove.
report
I used to play muds purely with the intention of killing the Admins.
A truely genius admin will make it near impossible, but still possible, thus making it appealing. Its not like they cant undo it.
report
Thanks, everyone, that took the time to read my article on botting in WoW. As some of said, the comments alone are good entertainment and probably better than what I wrote. ;)
I wrote the piece in an attempt to bring closure to a game that I’ve played off and on since 2005. It’s true I’ve tried to justify my reason for botting, but I’m not looking for acceptance from anyone, even myself. I never felt bad about doing it. The reason for the “confession” style, or playing the apologist, is simply because the subject is taboo. Most people associate botting strictly with gold selling and maybe it helped explain exactly what is going on.
@fulis: AIMbotting in an FPS is cheating. Botting in WoW is not. You can’t “bot” a full set of epic PVP gear or bot through raids to get stuff either. Botting only gets you money and/or reputation. I saw it as a tool that allowed me to actually compete at the same level as other people (in PVP) without having to get a divorce or become unemployed. I’m a PVPer / FPSer at heart, and maybe I was just delusional for thinking that WoW could ever be a skill based PVP game (it’s not).
Anyway, that’s why I’m back to playing Left 4 Dead and TF2. I would never think about using any maphack / aimbot / texture hack in any FPS game. The only thing you grind for in any FPS is achievements or maybe a weapon unlock, and the path to get to them is usually fun.
report
@Daedren
The aim of a FPS is to get Kills. Aimbots help you cheat at getting kills.
The aim of WoW is to improve your character’s stats, gear and gold. Botting helps you cheat at gaining these.
report
@Catastrophe: Botting can’t improve stats. Yes, you get gold, but most (if not all) of the end-game gear is obtained via either Raiding or Arena, and to a smaller extent running Heroic instances. You can do none of this via botting.
A character in purchasable “bottable” items is severely disadvantaged. Botting allows you to have money for enchants, gems, etc to put on the stuff you obtain legitimately. If you’re a player that spends all of his available game time playing (either raiding or PVPing, like I did) this leaves no time for “grinding” to get money.
The practicality of these mechanics basically said that I had to give up my time playing (and enjoying the game) to do something I didn’t like (mindless, repetitive grinding) to compete at the same level as other players.
I last excuse: I played a healer. Ever try killing something as a healer? Yeah, you can’t. 100 gold gone every time I wanted to actually go and do something solo or play a different spec in PVP. Yeah, I know they’re changing it soon, but that’s 3 years of expensive as hell respeccing just to be able to play and experience the game. Like hell I’m going to spend my time paying for their broken mechanic.
report
“Actually, a Edge 7 isn’t significantly different from a Eurogamer 7.”
Depends on your definition of significant. Eurogamer gives a lot more 10s than Edge, and a few more 9s. But it’s true that once you get below that, there’s relatively little difference. Still – those two outlets are definitely outliers. How I wish game scores would just go away.
report
@Daedren
I understand your reasoning behind it, but it is still cheating.
The aims of WoW is gaining gold and increasing your stats (level) and gear. Admittedly you need to Raid/Instance for decent endgame gear which cannot be done by botting but Gold and Leveling can be done by botting (and you admitted doing so).
To gain this you would normally need to invest alot of time into WoW, yet you do not, thus cheating.
You may aswell buy a pre-leveled character or some farmed gold… oh wait, no you’re essentially getting FREE pre-leveled characters and FREE gold farmed by your own bot.
report
@Catastrophe: Actually, I never botted (level wise) on my main character. I always hand leveled through; 1-60, 60-70 and finally 70-80. The content is so great (sarcasm) that I can understand other people wanting to hand level multiple characters. Some, however, don’t have the time nor inclination (read: slit wrists) to do the same thing over and over. So yes, in regards to leveling my “alts” – you’re damn right I botted them.
Also, as I’ve said before in the comments in my article, having gold in WoW doesn’t mean much. It buys enhancements to your gear, but you can’t get the gear itself for money (same goes for PVP gear – the honor grinded stuff sucks). Money allows you to get stupid mounts or little cute pets and stuff, but I hardly think that’s a big deal. (And, for the record, I never bought any pets / mounts or whatever, not really my thing)
My personal bot code was to be reasonable and only do it when I needed stuff. I needed money to pay for the 5/6 respecs per week on my main character (Healer, had to spec different for Raiding / PVP) and for things like a flying mount or insanely expensive enchants/spellthread/gems. To do that I farmed mini-pets or did skinning, both on my DK. (Yes, I botted him up 60+, to save respec costs that my main character would have had to do in order to kill stuff) – I sold the pets or leather I got at reasonable, fair prices. I never flooded the market. I gave some pets away to my friends who knew I botted (yep, member benefits!).
Anyway, we can call it cheating, but it’s good cheating. In my humble opinion at least. ;)
report
@Daedren
Its cheating for the same reason people cheat on The Sims. They hate the time consuming grind and wanna get to the “good stuff”.
The only thing that makes it slightly more reasonable to do than Aimbotting is due to Aimbotting impacting directly on other players (headshot headshot headshot headshot…. FFS!!1), while Botting really only impacts on your own gains.
Thats why I think its more similar to cheating in a single player game (The Sims) as oppose to a Multiplayer game that effects other players.
report
@Catastrophe: Ah, well, I’d agree with that. I never played the Sims but I use trainers / hacks and stuff on RPG’s that I’ve already played through naturally. Now that I’m thinking about, I use them for the same reason: to save time and play the part of the game I want without having to wade through the boring stuff first.
report
Summary of my post on NNGJ:
More self-critical analyses of game-playing and games within wider socio-cultural systems a good thing.
Couching it in academic-speek not a good thing.
Deconstructing gender in GoW in rleation to historiographic examples and cultural media more generally is possible without resort to terms such a ‘ludonarrative’…
report
The EVE DevBlog made me chuckle:
report
See, that’s exactly the sort of thing that mystifies me about people complaining about botters: unless the botter is directly interfering with what -you’re- trying to do (and that’s not really any different than a callous player at the keyboard), or gaining some major advantage at competitive parts of the game (i.e., PvP), what’s the big deal? Sure, you can be jealous of people with rare drops or higher levels or phatter lewt, but you’re not competing with them. You’ll either get those or you won’t.
It’s like people scoffing at cheaters in singleplayer games. Okay, you wouldn’t cheat in that game. Bravo. Neither do I, mostly. But what does it matter if they do? It’s no skin off your nose.
Mind you, I’d never bot myself. If I find that WoW requires me to do time-intensive things that I don’t enjoy to get ahead, then I’ll stop playing and go do something else. So far that hasn’t been a problem. And I’m not obsessive enough to want to grind for uber-rare minipets or mounts or the like, so meh to those.
report
@Gap Gen
Which PC Gamer are you talking about? Though yeah, I think both PC Gamers tend to score a bit higher than Edge and Eurogamer.
@Ginger Yellow
Well, Eurogamer does actually score things “1″, while I can’t remember Edge ever going below a “2″.
report
UK. Never read the US one. I guess one aspect is that a percentage system naturally gives you more granularity to mark in, so it doesn’t matter if you mark different games 92% or 93%. That said, whether or not this is desirable is another debate altogether.
report
I’m suprised no other pathologically angry internet men are getting up in arms about Capcom joining the Anti-PC Gaming Alliance.
Is it me or is this creepy cabal comprised entirely of the game developer/publisher companies that either do not make many PC games, do not have a significant share of the market or otherwise do anything they can to encourage PC owners migrate to consoles? The hardware companies we know have a very vested interest in the PC, but every bit of behaviour from Capcom, Microsoft and Epic in the last couple of years has been nothing but destructive or non-contributional to PC as a platform.
report
See Cooper, that’s exactly the problem. You say:
But you can’t do it. Even in claiming it’s possible to escape ‘ludonarrative’ (In 0145/0146, no less!), you bring in historiography, deconstructionism and the notion of ‘cultural media.’ I thought this was maybe a joke, so I went back to have a gander at what you wrote originally:
So, last night, in the RPS chatroom, in discussing what would be an effective reaction to the PSX piece, I proposed the only thing that would make sense would be something written from the perspective of a moronic PC-games fanatic. But then I tried to give an example:
‘Academic speek’ may be a bad thing, but if we forego it, we end up, like Mr. Gillen writing for fourteen-year-olds, in the uncanny valley of drunken disingenuity. There’s no coming back.
Or, put it another way, John Madden speaks in germanic monosyllables, and yet manages to convey an idea.That makes him a successful sportscaster. Yet the rumour is that, outside of football, he doesn’t really talk much about anything.
At one point, a US network (ABC) brought in comedian Dennis Miller to do commentary on Monday Night Football. Miller’s whole schtick was to spew out a series of empty cultural references (e.g., if the team would dunk Gatorade on the coach, he’d yell something meaningless like “and it’s Watership Down for the Colts!”)
Miller got axed after one, maybe two, painful seasons. Madden is still making money.
So if Madden were to reflect on his job, or even to increase his vocabulary or interests, he wouldn’t appeal to such a broad audience, and he’d be worse. He’d probably also lose the association of his name with one of the most successful video game franchises ever.
You can’t go back.
report
Mister Slim: Edge doesn’t give 1s – or at least I can’t remember it doing so – because it doesn’t review anything which is that shit.
KG
report
If someone has a job and they use the bot to grind while they’re at work so they can do the fun stuff in their spare time, they are reducing the overall time spent in the game, thus reducing their overall money spent on subscriptions. IIRC subs make up the majority of Blizzard’s annual turnover, so if botting were to become mainstream they would be losing out on a considerable proportion of their yearly earnings.
Botting does have other negative effects. Gold mining or flooding the market with valuable items for sale can destabilise the in-game economy. There’s also the fact that by botting for rare items, even if not sold, their perceived value is decreased. It’s like how in TF2 in the first two months of the Medic achievements anyone who actually got them legitimately without resorting to organised farming on specialised servers was not regarded as highly as they would have been otherwise. Bragging rights were nullified by the common perception that most people with all of the achievements unlocked had done so through farming.
However, I will accept that -like the WoW example- this was down to the developers of the game making unreasonable expectations of the players. Here are some upgrades you will WANT to try out, and here’s a list of achievements you have to get before you can unlock them all (most of them achievable during normal play, some of them grindsome, some of them actually counter-productive to gameplay).
Let’s see there was:
Grindly
Accumulate 10 million total heal points (since reduced to 1 million)
Tardly
Kill 5 enemies in a single life, while having your ÜberCharge ready, but undeployed.
Twatly
Assist a fellow Medic in killing 5 enemies in a single life.
and Pratly
Assist in killing 3 enemies with a single ÜberCharge on a Scout.
People farm those achievements. People bot through the grind in WoW. Is it wrong? For those reasons, no.
report
@Dinger:
I’m tempted to agree, to an extent. My comments were bound up in the language I know to approach such issues – which is why I write academic stuff, not games writing. I maintain that it is possible to write critically socially reflexive pieces on any cultural medium, but I’m not the guy to do it. I would point to some of the stuff on the Iris Gaming Network: theirisnetwork.org
As for the atomisation of gameplay and experience; in the manner in which it is brought up in the article, seems to suggest an approach by whch, as you say, ‘there is no going back’. To reach the kind of philosophically motivated calls in the article suggest a vocabulary beyond that you would find on any widely read blog.
Which is why I would ask again what I commented in the article. Is this kind of writing still journalism?
I would prefer a more modest call – for the ‘I’ of NGJ; the ‘personal experiences’ to be grounded as a reflexive, intersubjective experience. That being said, being reflexive and self-critical in such pieces can end up seeming as adolescent soul-searching; but asking for the ‘I’ of gaming experiences to be a (socially, culturally, materially) situated knowledge I don’t think is too much to ask of NGJ – it requires a form of socio-cultural reflexivity that doesn’t require specialist vocabulary. You may run the risk of having politically charged pieces, but that is no bad thing.
report
@Kieron
Eh, any publication can use that rationale, for whatever range they score between. Hypothetical example: ‘Nintendo Power doesn’t score below 4 because…’
report
Kabuki Warriors got a 1 in Edge (same year as Halo got its 10)
report