N3ac3y's latest video was just posted, and as always he aims to please. This video features not only killer game play, but a myriad of advice.
If you're looking to become a better player, don't bother looking anywhere else. BingeGaming is doing some incredible stuff and is already achieving renown for their expertise in not only performing, but helping others perform as well. Check them out at their YouTube channel, you won't be disappointed.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
G4tv's Video Game Deathmatch - My Take
G4TV.com's 2012 Video Game Deathmatch is something I've been following for a few weeks now. Basically they put up the best selling titles of the year against each other in a playoff-bracket format and let anyone vote on them. It's a cool idea - in theory. I won't get into how meaningless anonymous voting is, or perhaps I will - but in another article.
I'm going to spend a few moments talking about the 2011 Deathmatch, which I've got a few mixed thoughts about.
The most obvious thought, thanks to it being at the top of the page, is "Uh... Skyward Sword won?"
This is surprising to me for a few reasons. The first is that it's a console game from the Wii (by far the weakest showing in terms of gamer popularity). The second is that most console gamers don't really care about websites like G4TV - I'm a bit shocked they turned up in force to vote the game through.
Honestly, Skyrim should've won that contest hands down. No other game is a better value, time/cost wise. The story in Skyrim is immense and largely dictated by the player, whereas the stories in Zelda are 100% on tracks, you're always headed in the same direction. This hurts replay value as well. Hell, the Skyrim material I wrote over a year ago is responsible for over 65% of the traffic to my site. That's pretty insane.
On top of that, you can't Mod Zelda games and they are never hit up with additional content via expansions. If a fan of both genre's sat down and tried to tell me they spent more time with, and enjoyed Skyward Sword more than Skyrim, I'm going to call them a liar.
Also, Fi is one of the worst characters ever created. As a species we should come together and hold her creators accountable.
You might ask me if I feel that games like Skyrim should always win 'best game' awards. To which I'd respond, "Pretty much." There's a few very rare exceptions, but honestly - if you're a fan of the genre and aren't opposed to the game as a whole, you aren't going to get more value out of another type of game (except for an MMORPG, and even then, those require $ more often than not to fully enjoy.).
The only other thing I want to say is that the 2011 contest as a whole went off pretty much as expected - EXCEPT for whoever decided it was a good idea to match Uncharted 3 against Skyward Sword in the first round. Those were both games that should've made it into the final 4.
Moving on - in the 2012 Deathmatch has a lot more surprises. I'm going to just go off bullet-points here for brevity sake. At the time of this writing, we're mid-way through round 4.
*Note that this contest states G4TV chose the challengers. Not game sales (unlike the previous year)
-Who the hell decided to put Kingdom Hearts 3D on here? It's a handheld game. It might be the best handheld game ever made, but there's very few people using those devices these days. Hence no votes and its inevitable trouncing by Diablo 3 - a game most Diablo players hate. Thankfully, we didn't have to deal with D3 long, as it was subsequently crushed by the Witcher 2 in the 2nd round.
- Mass Effect 3 somehow made it past the first round, and almost the second. I still can't quite put into words how disappointed I am with that game, and Bioware (don't even mention SWTOR). To me, Mass Effect ended when I decided to blow up the collector base at the end of Mass Effect 2.
- World of Warcraft gets laughed out of the first round, amassing only 27% of the votes and falling to a game that probably wouldn't have made it very far if people weren't dying to slam WoW and its now-tired, done-to-death gameplay. The only reason The Walking Dead made it to the third round was because it was put up against a sports game in the second, and those are played by a very small fraction of gamers.
-UFC Underground, the only title to put up a single digit (9% in the first round). Reinforcing my thoughts that nobody plays sports games (comparatively speaking).
- Halo 4 somehow got beaten by Dishonored in the third round. I had to ask around and read some reviews, but by all accounts Dishonored is a good game and deserves to be there. My shock comes mainly from the fact that Halo is a decade-old franchise and Halo 4 is a very strong installment. I think what happened here is more of a case of votes against Halo by the haters that can't figure out how to use a Battle Rifle then it is of Dishonored being a better game. That's probably the case in its current match up against Guild Wars 2 - which is also a good game, but as with all MMORPG's, has a good amount of faults and garners a lot of strong feelings.
- When I scroll through the list of games, there aren't too many surprises. But where is Call of Duty: Black Ops 2? It was released just after Halo 4, and last I checked, it wasn't 2013 yet. It's sold more games then anyone else this year (nobody else is even close). Gamers talk with their wallets, and much like my argument for best movie every year, you need to take a moment to remember that video games are a business. Businesses succeed on how well they achieve their goal; in this case, to entertain. The nifty chart below shows that COD is the most successful franchise this year, along with the other top-10 sellers:
Source: VGChartz
Final thought: It's pretty obvious that Borderlands 2 will continue its rampage of the competition and come out on top. While I don't totally agree with this, not only because it posted dismal sales numbers compared to its competition - it says something that a game impassioned its audience so much that it brought them out in droves to vote for their favorite game. An early congratulations to Borderlands 2 - it's a hell of a game, and I had a blast playing it.
I'm going to spend a few moments talking about the 2011 Deathmatch, which I've got a few mixed thoughts about.
The most obvious thought, thanks to it being at the top of the page, is "Uh... Skyward Sword won?"
This is surprising to me for a few reasons. The first is that it's a console game from the Wii (by far the weakest showing in terms of gamer popularity). The second is that most console gamers don't really care about websites like G4TV - I'm a bit shocked they turned up in force to vote the game through.
Honestly, Skyrim should've won that contest hands down. No other game is a better value, time/cost wise. The story in Skyrim is immense and largely dictated by the player, whereas the stories in Zelda are 100% on tracks, you're always headed in the same direction. This hurts replay value as well. Hell, the Skyrim material I wrote over a year ago is responsible for over 65% of the traffic to my site. That's pretty insane.
On top of that, you can't Mod Zelda games and they are never hit up with additional content via expansions. If a fan of both genre's sat down and tried to tell me they spent more time with, and enjoyed Skyward Sword more than Skyrim, I'm going to call them a liar.
Also, Fi is one of the worst characters ever created. As a species we should come together and hold her creators accountable.
You might ask me if I feel that games like Skyrim should always win 'best game' awards. To which I'd respond, "Pretty much." There's a few very rare exceptions, but honestly - if you're a fan of the genre and aren't opposed to the game as a whole, you aren't going to get more value out of another type of game (except for an MMORPG, and even then, those require $ more often than not to fully enjoy.).
The only other thing I want to say is that the 2011 contest as a whole went off pretty much as expected - EXCEPT for whoever decided it was a good idea to match Uncharted 3 against Skyward Sword in the first round. Those were both games that should've made it into the final 4.
Moving on - in the 2012 Deathmatch has a lot more surprises. I'm going to just go off bullet-points here for brevity sake. At the time of this writing, we're mid-way through round 4.
*Note that this contest states G4TV chose the challengers. Not game sales (unlike the previous year)
-Who the hell decided to put Kingdom Hearts 3D on here? It's a handheld game. It might be the best handheld game ever made, but there's very few people using those devices these days. Hence no votes and its inevitable trouncing by Diablo 3 - a game most Diablo players hate. Thankfully, we didn't have to deal with D3 long, as it was subsequently crushed by the Witcher 2 in the 2nd round.
- Mass Effect 3 somehow made it past the first round, and almost the second. I still can't quite put into words how disappointed I am with that game, and Bioware (don't even mention SWTOR). To me, Mass Effect ended when I decided to blow up the collector base at the end of Mass Effect 2.
- World of Warcraft gets laughed out of the first round, amassing only 27% of the votes and falling to a game that probably wouldn't have made it very far if people weren't dying to slam WoW and its now-tired, done-to-death gameplay. The only reason The Walking Dead made it to the third round was because it was put up against a sports game in the second, and those are played by a very small fraction of gamers.
-UFC Underground, the only title to put up a single digit (9% in the first round). Reinforcing my thoughts that nobody plays sports games (comparatively speaking).
- Halo 4 somehow got beaten by Dishonored in the third round. I had to ask around and read some reviews, but by all accounts Dishonored is a good game and deserves to be there. My shock comes mainly from the fact that Halo is a decade-old franchise and Halo 4 is a very strong installment. I think what happened here is more of a case of votes against Halo by the haters that can't figure out how to use a Battle Rifle then it is of Dishonored being a better game. That's probably the case in its current match up against Guild Wars 2 - which is also a good game, but as with all MMORPG's, has a good amount of faults and garners a lot of strong feelings.
- When I scroll through the list of games, there aren't too many surprises. But where is Call of Duty: Black Ops 2? It was released just after Halo 4, and last I checked, it wasn't 2013 yet. It's sold more games then anyone else this year (nobody else is even close). Gamers talk with their wallets, and much like my argument for best movie every year, you need to take a moment to remember that video games are a business. Businesses succeed on how well they achieve their goal; in this case, to entertain. The nifty chart below shows that COD is the most successful franchise this year, along with the other top-10 sellers:
Global Yearly Chart
2012
| Pos | Game | Weeks | Yearly | Total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
2 | 7,449,821 | 7,449,821 | ||||
| 2 |
|
2 | 5,794,449 | 5,794,449 | ||||
| 3 |
|
23 | 5,220,715 | 5,220,715 | ||||
| 4 |
|
3 | 5,158,526 | 5,158,526 | ||||
| 5 |
|
9 | 4,704,392 | 4,704,392 | ||||
| 6 |
|
18 | 3,513,560 | 3,513,560 | ||||
| 7 |
|
9 | 3,398,064 | 3,398,064 | ||||
| 8 |
|
28 | 2,876,537 | 2,876,537 | ||||
| 9 |
|
108 | 2,851,355 | 17,929,022 | ||||
| 10 |
|
4 | 2,840,396 | 2,840,396 | ||||
Final thought: It's pretty obvious that Borderlands 2 will continue its rampage of the competition and come out on top. While I don't totally agree with this, not only because it posted dismal sales numbers compared to its competition - it says something that a game impassioned its audience so much that it brought them out in droves to vote for their favorite game. An early congratulations to Borderlands 2 - it's a hell of a game, and I had a blast playing it.
Anonymous, 'Revenge Porn', Morality, and The Internet
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Monday, December 3, 2012
Five Tips About Returning to Older Games
I recently made a valiant, but ultimately ineffective attempt to return to Everquest 2 (EQ2). It's a game that I feel never really got a fair shake (not just from me, but from the gaming populace as a whole) - mostly because it was released within three weeks of a little known game called World of Warcraft. Quite honestly, because of that alone, it never really had even half the chance it should have gotten.
So what's the game like now? Well, let me start from the beginning by stating that I'm starting from the beginning. I began with an entirely new character because I didn't remember anything about my old ones and knew that the game had undergone some pretty heavy changes - I wanted to start fresh.
Truthfully, I had a blast. They've done away with a lot of the archaic methods of MMORPG's past; like forcing you to visit a trainer to get new skills, or leaving you in the dark regarding quest locations and how to complete objectives.
Now - a part of me still holds onto a significant amount of nostalgia for the first Everquest simply because of the fact that questing was actually hard. Crazy hard. You were often left with no idea where to go, who to talk to, or what to say - and when you did know, you needed a LOT of people to help you, and even more spare time to wait for the thing you needed to spawn into the game.
I can't imagine what it was like for the first players attempting to get their epic weapons - it must've been a nightmare - but eventually they figured it out and their knowledge found its way to all corners of the internet. I digress.
While I enjoyed the gameplay in EQ2, after about 20 hours and a few dozen levels passed, I began to notice something I was somewhat unfamiliar with; I hadn't really seen anyone else playing the game. I panicked for a second and logged out to make sure I had created my character on the correct server (the most popular one), and I had. I logged back in and immediately headed for Freeport, one of the game's major cities. Also empty. 7 people total, which is a dismal amount at best. Throughout the first 35 levels of the game, I never saw more than 15 people in a particular area - that includes towns and the starter zones, which as far as I can tell are are completely abandoned.
I took to the forums, I found a guild, I made friends. All of them pretty much confirmed my previous, all-but-certain conclusion; the entirety of the game's population occupied the higher levels. I was faced with getting another fifty levels on my own before I had a chance of finding a group. And even then, those chances were slim unless I wanted to raid full time. Which I don't.
And that's that for EQ2. I'll never go back, simply because as much as I enjoy a game I have no desire to play an MMORPG completely alone, walking through vast ghost towns and abandoned cities that are teeming with eerily-robotic NPC life. That's just not for me. What a shame; these vast, detailed worlds are all but forgotten now. So much time wasted.
This is a problem I've experienced before. When Everquest (1) opened their time-locked progression servers I played there and enjoyed the resurgence of players starting over on squeaky-clean servers without decades of work tainting the new-player experience. This faded quickly as 'content locusts' sped through areas, abused bugs and exploits, and ruined the game for many people. They left in droves. Now, Everquest's servers are a more-or-less mirror image of EQ2's, vast barren ghost worlds sparsely inhabited by bored individuals that occasionally want to raid.
So what do you do to avoid this? Sadly, there's only a handful of things you can try in order to shield yourself and your free time. It's worth noting that if you're the kind of person that enjoys the journey more than the destination, and doesn't mind playing alone 95% of the time, then this entire article probably doesn't apply to you. Carry on. If you're not that way, read below, maybe I can save you some time.
Tip #1 - Check the server status for that particular game.
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) makes this easy for us by putting a ton of information about multiple games all on one page, that updates in mostly real-time. Now, if you were trying to go back to a game on that list, you'd hopefully noticed that most of the servers sit at the low population mark (doesn't matter which game, in SOE's regard). A few are dotted with medium-levels during key points in the day, and a very rare few hit high.
Why so many servers are still running for EQ1 baffles me - but these days server mergers are taken as signs of impending doom by stupid, nonsensical forum trolls everywhere. Server mergers are always a good thing. If you're waiting for a server merger to tell you that a game is failing, you're probably stupid.
Server status can give you a good indication of where you want to play, if that's an option. If you're picking up an older character, it's an equally good indicator of what to expect. If it's your prime gaming time and that server status is low on a Friday night, you're on a dead server my friend.
Tip #2 - Check the forums.
Forums leave a bad taste in my mouth. I honestly believe them to be a complete waste of time and a detriment to the internet as a whole. Coming from a blogger that's a big statement. But 99.9% of all the junk you read on forums is a waste. Meaningless, incorrect information and/or unrelenting hate spewing from the mouth of someone that can't tell their ass from a hole in the ground.
The VERY few people that get helped on forums could've gotten their questions answered somewhere else, easier, if software designers would just do their jobs and write meaningful tooltips and descriptions. I digress again.
Yeah, sometimes they're productive. Again, in comparison, that's win-the-lottery rare.
But, if the forums are inactive, there's a GREAT chance the game is inactive as well. If you hit up a popular fan site, or the official forums, and see the last post was weeks ago, warning bells should be going off.
Asking about the population in the game never hurts either.
Tip #3 - Is there any up-to-date, detailed information about the game out there?
Most of the information on fan sites pertaining to games that are 5+ years old is completely outdated and utterly worthless. Some of it is so incorrect that it might actually do more harm than good.
If fan's aren't actively participating in their own community, and neither are the developers, you probably shouldn't be either.
Tip #4 - Don't listen to Xfire.com
If you head over to http://beta.xfire.com/games (which is still in beta, after years. . . ) you'll notice a few games in the lower right hand corner. It shows how many hours people using xfire played those games.
I have been a hard-core video game junkie, addict, nerd, and/or gamer for the better part of twenty years. I have never once met someone that has used Xfire. Nobody has suggested it to me. Nobody has mentioned it. The only reason I know it exists is because I read a comment about it on a site similar to mine a few years ago.
Xfire is kind of good at showing you trends - and that's about it. While it's 100% correct that League of Legends is the most popular video game in the world at the moment, pretty much everything else on there is unbelievably misleading and/or flat out inaccurate.
If you want to know about the latest expansion's effects on the player population, Xfire is a good place to go. Noticing that their numbers ran up about 50% when a major event in a game's life happened is probably close to correct. Thinking that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the second most popular game in the world is not. And Call of Duty 2 isn't 3rd either. I didn't need to say that, did I?
Tip #5 - Don't play games that are 4+ years old and still require your money to try.
If it costs $15 for a monthly subscription, and that's the only way you can get back into the game, it's probably not worth trying. Good games, popular games, have free trials, or some way for you to get back into the game, albeit briefly, for you to try it out again. Don't do what I've done in the past - it's not worth it.
Look, ultimately you know what you like. You've got a good idea of what to expect when you return to an older game. Truthfully, I've rarely found the experience to be worth anything more than a few-days-long nostalgia rush followed by an overwhelming feeling of sadness for what used to be, and of course the time I wasted.
Hopefully, this'll save a few people some of that time. Thanks for reading this long, drawn-out entry about my recent disheartening experiences into games long-past. One day, they'll all be up in that big server in the sky together.
So what's the game like now? Well, let me start from the beginning by stating that I'm starting from the beginning. I began with an entirely new character because I didn't remember anything about my old ones and knew that the game had undergone some pretty heavy changes - I wanted to start fresh.
Truthfully, I had a blast. They've done away with a lot of the archaic methods of MMORPG's past; like forcing you to visit a trainer to get new skills, or leaving you in the dark regarding quest locations and how to complete objectives.
Now - a part of me still holds onto a significant amount of nostalgia for the first Everquest simply because of the fact that questing was actually hard. Crazy hard. You were often left with no idea where to go, who to talk to, or what to say - and when you did know, you needed a LOT of people to help you, and even more spare time to wait for the thing you needed to spawn into the game.
I can't imagine what it was like for the first players attempting to get their epic weapons - it must've been a nightmare - but eventually they figured it out and their knowledge found its way to all corners of the internet. I digress.
While I enjoyed the gameplay in EQ2, after about 20 hours and a few dozen levels passed, I began to notice something I was somewhat unfamiliar with; I hadn't really seen anyone else playing the game. I panicked for a second and logged out to make sure I had created my character on the correct server (the most popular one), and I had. I logged back in and immediately headed for Freeport, one of the game's major cities. Also empty. 7 people total, which is a dismal amount at best. Throughout the first 35 levels of the game, I never saw more than 15 people in a particular area - that includes towns and the starter zones, which as far as I can tell are are completely abandoned.
I took to the forums, I found a guild, I made friends. All of them pretty much confirmed my previous, all-but-certain conclusion; the entirety of the game's population occupied the higher levels. I was faced with getting another fifty levels on my own before I had a chance of finding a group. And even then, those chances were slim unless I wanted to raid full time. Which I don't.
And that's that for EQ2. I'll never go back, simply because as much as I enjoy a game I have no desire to play an MMORPG completely alone, walking through vast ghost towns and abandoned cities that are teeming with eerily-robotic NPC life. That's just not for me. What a shame; these vast, detailed worlds are all but forgotten now. So much time wasted.
This is a problem I've experienced before. When Everquest (1) opened their time-locked progression servers I played there and enjoyed the resurgence of players starting over on squeaky-clean servers without decades of work tainting the new-player experience. This faded quickly as 'content locusts' sped through areas, abused bugs and exploits, and ruined the game for many people. They left in droves. Now, Everquest's servers are a more-or-less mirror image of EQ2's, vast barren ghost worlds sparsely inhabited by bored individuals that occasionally want to raid.
So what do you do to avoid this? Sadly, there's only a handful of things you can try in order to shield yourself and your free time. It's worth noting that if you're the kind of person that enjoys the journey more than the destination, and doesn't mind playing alone 95% of the time, then this entire article probably doesn't apply to you. Carry on. If you're not that way, read below, maybe I can save you some time.
Tip #1 - Check the server status for that particular game. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) makes this easy for us by putting a ton of information about multiple games all on one page, that updates in mostly real-time. Now, if you were trying to go back to a game on that list, you'd hopefully noticed that most of the servers sit at the low population mark (doesn't matter which game, in SOE's regard). A few are dotted with medium-levels during key points in the day, and a very rare few hit high.
Why so many servers are still running for EQ1 baffles me - but these days server mergers are taken as signs of impending doom by stupid, nonsensical forum trolls everywhere. Server mergers are always a good thing. If you're waiting for a server merger to tell you that a game is failing, you're probably stupid.
Server status can give you a good indication of where you want to play, if that's an option. If you're picking up an older character, it's an equally good indicator of what to expect. If it's your prime gaming time and that server status is low on a Friday night, you're on a dead server my friend.
Tip #2 - Check the forums.
Forums leave a bad taste in my mouth. I honestly believe them to be a complete waste of time and a detriment to the internet as a whole. Coming from a blogger that's a big statement. But 99.9% of all the junk you read on forums is a waste. Meaningless, incorrect information and/or unrelenting hate spewing from the mouth of someone that can't tell their ass from a hole in the ground.
The VERY few people that get helped on forums could've gotten their questions answered somewhere else, easier, if software designers would just do their jobs and write meaningful tooltips and descriptions. I digress again.
Yeah, sometimes they're productive. Again, in comparison, that's win-the-lottery rare.
But, if the forums are inactive, there's a GREAT chance the game is inactive as well. If you hit up a popular fan site, or the official forums, and see the last post was weeks ago, warning bells should be going off.
Asking about the population in the game never hurts either.
Tip #3 - Is there any up-to-date, detailed information about the game out there?
Most of the information on fan sites pertaining to games that are 5+ years old is completely outdated and utterly worthless. Some of it is so incorrect that it might actually do more harm than good.
If fan's aren't actively participating in their own community, and neither are the developers, you probably shouldn't be either.
Tip #4 - Don't listen to Xfire.com
If you head over to http://beta.xfire.com/games (which is still in beta, after years. . . ) you'll notice a few games in the lower right hand corner. It shows how many hours people using xfire played those games.I have been a hard-core video game junkie, addict, nerd, and/or gamer for the better part of twenty years. I have never once met someone that has used Xfire. Nobody has suggested it to me. Nobody has mentioned it. The only reason I know it exists is because I read a comment about it on a site similar to mine a few years ago.
Xfire is kind of good at showing you trends - and that's about it. While it's 100% correct that League of Legends is the most popular video game in the world at the moment, pretty much everything else on there is unbelievably misleading and/or flat out inaccurate.
If you want to know about the latest expansion's effects on the player population, Xfire is a good place to go. Noticing that their numbers ran up about 50% when a major event in a game's life happened is probably close to correct. Thinking that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the second most popular game in the world is not. And Call of Duty 2 isn't 3rd either. I didn't need to say that, did I?
Tip #5 - Don't play games that are 4+ years old and still require your money to try.
If it costs $15 for a monthly subscription, and that's the only way you can get back into the game, it's probably not worth trying. Good games, popular games, have free trials, or some way for you to get back into the game, albeit briefly, for you to try it out again. Don't do what I've done in the past - it's not worth it.
Look, ultimately you know what you like. You've got a good idea of what to expect when you return to an older game. Truthfully, I've rarely found the experience to be worth anything more than a few-days-long nostalgia rush followed by an overwhelming feeling of sadness for what used to be, and of course the time I wasted.
Hopefully, this'll save a few people some of that time. Thanks for reading this long, drawn-out entry about my recent disheartening experiences into games long-past. One day, they'll all be up in that big server in the sky together.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Pathfinder Online, Crowd/Cloud Fundraising, and Kickstarting
Before I get off on too much of a rant, let me assert that I feel Pathfinder is a fantastic system. I've played it and enjoyed every moment of it. It not only provides an outlet for players to both run and experience unique content outside of the boundaries computer-programming sets before us, but gives us a place where we, as friends, can relax and be nerdy without the need to feel judged or ostracized for our interests.
Kickstarter.com is - at its roots - a website that allows users to post projects (ranging from video games, to digital media, to books, charity causes, etc.) to the internet with the hopes of receiving funding towards its completion. There's a good amount of guidelines that those projects have to follow, but that's not entirely what I'm here to talk about.
Massively recently ran a story about Pathfinder Online's newest Kickstarter project. This made me think for a moment - Kickstarter projects must have finite goals, therefor having more than one Kickstarter related to the same over all project didn't really make sense to me - until I read further.
It appears that the 300k (6x the 50k goal they had initially asked for) goal raised by the first Kickstarter was merely for the Technology demo - which you can view part of on the top of their new Kickstarter.
That's a good place to start really digging into the meat of my beef with this whole thing. That tech demo is one I'd expect to have seen years ago. Maybe even so far back as a decade. It looks like a dozen already released and now-dwindling games. But I digress. It's only a tech demo after all.
WAIT A MINUTE, that's the whole point! A tech demo is usually shown to investors in order to garner interest and future investment in your game. It shows the people that initially tossed you a few $ that it was money well spent. That tech demo sucks! It's short as hell and looks like crap! Didn't you guys get SIX TIMES THE AMOUNT YOU ASKED FOR?!? AND STILL DELIVERED THAT.
Where's the WOW factor, Goblinworks? That video is the most underwhelming thing I've watched in a long time. It looks like something I'd have expected around 2004. (In fact, it bears a VERY strong resemblance to Everquest II.) I realize it's a demo of your tech, a display of your competency in developing your game, but what you did was take the money and show me something that really gives me little-to-no desire to play your game.
Dungeons and Dragons Online is considered by most 'hard core' D&D players to be a miserable failure. And while I'm not one to harp on its free-to-play conversion, it's something that I want to briefly touch on. Converting your business model after launch is a sign of failure - you can argue about degrees of failure all you want, but changing something means that what you had before wasn't working.
Today, DDO is a ghost town, even though it's free to play. I can't wait for someone to tell me about how I'm wrong on this one - so don't take my word for it. It's free and a relatively short download on broadband. Go try it out, let me know how many people you see talking, wandering around the starter area, or any area really. Feel free to come back here and tell me I'm right, I love that kinda stuff.
Or maybe I'm wrong, and the game has somehow received a resurgence of new players - truthfully, I love being wrong about video games and seeing them thrive - but the fact is that this happens RARELY. Most games are money-grab gimmicks to pick up some fast cash in the onset, and then languish in limbo for years providing scarce, buggy updates that most players will mow through in a few weeks, if that.
Why go off on that rant? Because D&D and Pathfinder are essentially the same thing with different rules. The game didn't work once - it doesn't translate well into a programmatic system of absolutes. Part of what makes the D&D experience so versatile and engaging is the human factor. That is completely lost when played in a video game and bound by its constraints. Unless they have a living, breathing person on-staff to constantly ensure my game play experience is as unique and engaging as the pen-and-paper version, this title will ultimately disappoint me and many others. Why set yourself up to fail like that, Goblinworks?
So where did this all come from? (The rant, not the goblins) A few comments on that original Massively article I linked bluntly stated that what Goblinworks (and to an extent Kickstarter as a whole) is doing is nothing more than "Cyber-Begging", even going so far as to state that it has no place on the internet. That one made me laugh.
*NOTE Many of these comments have been removed or deleted by the users as of this posting.
Entrepreneur.com did a great, albeit a little dated, article on Angel investing. In case you've never heard of NYC's Broadway, Angel investing has been around long before anyone reading this today was even alive. It's not something new, and everyone posting on Kickstarter has just as much right to post their goals and ideas on there, asking for funding, then Broadway does to operate today on the backs of people anonymously (or publicly) donating money to their shows so they can operate.
So when I say this, you should understand that it's not about the "Cyber-Begging" nonsense some uneducated fucks have begun spouting across the internet. There's really just one reason why I'm even writing about the second Kickstarter Goblinworks put up for Pathfinder Online:
You got 6x what you asked for the first time, and I walked away with a "Meh - seen that before" impression.
Sorry guys, I'm all for helping new games develop. But a short tech demo that had extra funds to really make an impression on me failed to even make a dent. Good luck.
Kickstarter.com is - at its roots - a website that allows users to post projects (ranging from video games, to digital media, to books, charity causes, etc.) to the internet with the hopes of receiving funding towards its completion. There's a good amount of guidelines that those projects have to follow, but that's not entirely what I'm here to talk about.
Massively recently ran a story about Pathfinder Online's newest Kickstarter project. This made me think for a moment - Kickstarter projects must have finite goals, therefor having more than one Kickstarter related to the same over all project didn't really make sense to me - until I read further.
It appears that the 300k (6x the 50k goal they had initially asked for) goal raised by the first Kickstarter was merely for the Technology demo - which you can view part of on the top of their new Kickstarter.
That's a good place to start really digging into the meat of my beef with this whole thing. That tech demo is one I'd expect to have seen years ago. Maybe even so far back as a decade. It looks like a dozen already released and now-dwindling games. But I digress. It's only a tech demo after all.
WAIT A MINUTE, that's the whole point! A tech demo is usually shown to investors in order to garner interest and future investment in your game. It shows the people that initially tossed you a few $ that it was money well spent. That tech demo sucks! It's short as hell and looks like crap! Didn't you guys get SIX TIMES THE AMOUNT YOU ASKED FOR?!? AND STILL DELIVERED THAT.Where's the WOW factor, Goblinworks? That video is the most underwhelming thing I've watched in a long time. It looks like something I'd have expected around 2004. (In fact, it bears a VERY strong resemblance to Everquest II.) I realize it's a demo of your tech, a display of your competency in developing your game, but what you did was take the money and show me something that really gives me little-to-no desire to play your game.
Dungeons and Dragons Online is considered by most 'hard core' D&D players to be a miserable failure. And while I'm not one to harp on its free-to-play conversion, it's something that I want to briefly touch on. Converting your business model after launch is a sign of failure - you can argue about degrees of failure all you want, but changing something means that what you had before wasn't working.
Today, DDO is a ghost town, even though it's free to play. I can't wait for someone to tell me about how I'm wrong on this one - so don't take my word for it. It's free and a relatively short download on broadband. Go try it out, let me know how many people you see talking, wandering around the starter area, or any area really. Feel free to come back here and tell me I'm right, I love that kinda stuff.Or maybe I'm wrong, and the game has somehow received a resurgence of new players - truthfully, I love being wrong about video games and seeing them thrive - but the fact is that this happens RARELY. Most games are money-grab gimmicks to pick up some fast cash in the onset, and then languish in limbo for years providing scarce, buggy updates that most players will mow through in a few weeks, if that.
Why go off on that rant? Because D&D and Pathfinder are essentially the same thing with different rules. The game didn't work once - it doesn't translate well into a programmatic system of absolutes. Part of what makes the D&D experience so versatile and engaging is the human factor. That is completely lost when played in a video game and bound by its constraints. Unless they have a living, breathing person on-staff to constantly ensure my game play experience is as unique and engaging as the pen-and-paper version, this title will ultimately disappoint me and many others. Why set yourself up to fail like that, Goblinworks?
So where did this all come from? (The rant, not the goblins) A few comments on that original Massively article I linked bluntly stated that what Goblinworks (and to an extent Kickstarter as a whole) is doing is nothing more than "Cyber-Begging", even going so far as to state that it has no place on the internet. That one made me laugh.*NOTE Many of these comments have been removed or deleted by the users as of this posting.
Entrepreneur.com did a great, albeit a little dated, article on Angel investing. In case you've never heard of NYC's Broadway, Angel investing has been around long before anyone reading this today was even alive. It's not something new, and everyone posting on Kickstarter has just as much right to post their goals and ideas on there, asking for funding, then Broadway does to operate today on the backs of people anonymously (or publicly) donating money to their shows so they can operate.
So when I say this, you should understand that it's not about the "Cyber-Begging" nonsense some uneducated fucks have begun spouting across the internet. There's really just one reason why I'm even writing about the second Kickstarter Goblinworks put up for Pathfinder Online:
You got 6x what you asked for the first time, and I walked away with a "Meh - seen that before" impression.
Sorry guys, I'm all for helping new games develop. But a short tech demo that had extra funds to really make an impression on me failed to even make a dent. Good luck.
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