Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Comments
I can't stand renting because I tend to prefer digital games, and if I like a game, I'll replay it a lot.
The other option is to pirate games from objectionable publishers or is otherwise something you don't want to support financially. In fact, it might be the most effective course of action, since publishers tend to track the rate of pirates against the rate of sales. So if a lot of people are pirating a game and not so many are buying it, there's clearly an issue external to the game itself, which would often send exactly the right message.
I have Origin, so pirating games from EA isn't really an option anymore, sadly.
On the bright side, EA aren't publishing as many great games as they used to. Or perhaps I'm biased, given my interest has gradually shifted from American games to Japanese and European ones.
Yeah, I don't think there's an EA game I'm looking forward to at the moment anyway.
Shit just got real.
Awesome, Morph Ball time! Going through a corridor...hey, what's the deal? The music's
oh
oh no
oh no no no no no NO
NOT HERE
NOT NOW
-looks up Origin-
So... why exactly is it legal for an EULA to include clauses saying that the user can't sue the company?
Because the US supreme court ruled that that was the case. It's standard practice now. I was actually referring to the fact that it scans your hard drive.
Well, yes, but the Supreme Court saying something is okay doesn't mean, like... it's actually okay, or that I shouldn't think it's ridiculous.
As for scanning your hard drive, yes I know that's what you meant, and yes that's ridiculous too.
^Yeah, but it means it's legal.
Note, though, that it only applies to class actions. You can still sue them as an individual.
Well, you asked why it was legal, not why it was okay.
Well, yes I did, but >implying that I ever think before posting
Or, for that matter, >implying that I ever think
This is true, but if so, the game ought to have something else to make me want to play it.
This sounds like a design point of metroidvanias.
Not sure whether we're still talking about RPGs, but does this even count as an RPG?
The thing with this statement, however, is that one game that's enthralling to one person might not be to someone else. I'm not saying that games with things that are not to my taste are bad games, but I think it's in my right as a consumer to focus on games with traits that I like.
lololololol furniture room in castlevania harmony of dissonance
----
Is this an RPG? I was under the impression that it's just an action game with a very distinctive style of (literal) storytelling.
Is there anything wrong with me being willing to throw money at Carpe Fulgur even though the demo of Chantelise wasn't the most entertaining thing in the world (granted I only played like ten minutes of it and haven't even gotten the controls straight) but not wanting to pay EA for Mirror's Edge even though I expect I'll like the game (well apart from the fact that I don't expect it to work on my computer)?
Financially, both are identical for the publisher, right?
I'm just concerned that the publisher won't get the right message, that they'll think that they need to clamp down on piracy rather than increase the quality of their output.
Uninstall Origin, even if you don't plan to pirate EA games.
I have just one EA game that I want, and that's Mirror's Edge.
I hear it doesn't require installing Origin. Hopefully.
Of course, but I can guarantee that every gamer with a penchant for story-driven fare also holds a few non-story games close. There's no doubt that a strong story can contribute a lot to a game as an experience, but it's null and void without the foundations that make a game a good gameplay experience in the first place.
Yes, they will get the wrong message.
On the other hand, movie/game/etc. rentals are outdated and the sooner we get rid of them, the better. There is no reason whatsoever to spend money (that doesn't go to anyone involved in making the game) to play a game when you could do exactly the same thing for free. I guess piracy in this case would hurt companies that do game rentals, but that doesn't actually matter since those companies don't need to stay around anyway.
It kinda is one, though it's less "get this powerup to get past here" and "be this much of a badass to get past here."
Yeah, it's an RPG. Though you can rebuild your character at any time.
And they will suffer for it. See: Ubisoft's attempts at releasing PC games.
But then I couldn't play ME3, and I really like playing ME3.
@MadassAlex: Yes, of course.
However:
A turbo button for traditional JRPGs also helps.
@DYRE: I'd rather rental places exist than see a further monopolization of IP power in publishers, currently.
@INUH: Wait for pirates to make a cracked version that doesn't require Origin?
Actually, it's quite the opposite. A game with a good story and not equally good gameplay can make a game exponentially more tedious because the actual game becomes a chore that you must get through to advance the story.
That depends on what perspective you're talking about. When making a game, the game system itself should be the first and most important factor to consider. Having a good story to begin with and then deciding to express it in game format works in theory but often finds a lot of hitches, especially given that strong stories are about strong characters and how they interact. If you want those kinds of linear interactions in their purest form, then a book or film is a much better way to express that kind of thing.
So making a game is never really a case of slapping gameplay mechanics into a story. In fact, it's generally about allowing gameplay mechanics to inform a story, be that on the micro or macro scale. I find the best game experiences find a theme that works both in terms of mechanics and narrative and correlate the two in order to strengthen the experience. While Bioshock was a great game, for instance, the gameplay mechanics themselves aren't about objectivism -- they're about shooting down bad guys. So while Bioshock has great shooting mechanics and a great story about objectivism, there's a divide between the core mechanics and the story that prevents it from really expressing the point in direct terms. It did some clever things -- especially the whole "would you kindly" thing -- and is by far and large a better story than most games, but it's still essentially a story where the gameplay mechanics themselves don't have much to do with it.
This is why, for instance, Dark Souls is such an intense experience. Its story is the gameplay mechanics, essentially. In a game about an immortality curse, you are immortal via both the mechanics and the narrative. Most of the lore of the game isn't learned through logs or anything, but learned first-hand, and sometimes things you can simply observe without any associated text tell their own stories. By all accounts the plot of Dark Souls is a world-saving cliche, but there's no diversion between the story and the gameplay, which drives the experience home that much better.
Again, I would like to point out that it depends entirely on what you expect and desire from a game. If you value story over gameplay, then it makes it a lot easier to play a game with hideous gameplay in order to enjoy the story, but if you're not interested in a good story because you seek to have fun, then awful gameplay can't and won't be glossed over, simply because the game is not having the desire effect
Bioshock's story wasn't about objectivism; it was a criticism of the tendency of shooters to remove the player's free will, and the disturbing way in which the players tend not to notice. The objectivism thing was setting flavor at most, and was really more about extremism in general than about that one particular type.
You'll notice that the biggest criticism people have about the game is that it keeps going for another level after the "would you kindly" plotline is over. That's because, at that point, it doesn't really have any story left. There's just a guy who's screwed with you and you want to kill him, but you have to play for ages before you get to do it.
Btw, have you guys played a game called Arcanum?
I'd argue that Bioshock is about free will and what men do or don't according to their definitions of free will, which colours and informs both the story and the gameplay.
I feel that the free will angle relies too much on the reveal towards the end, whereas the objectivism angle is with you pretty much the entire time. If you changed out that bit of dialogue with the reveal, the game wouldn't have been altered to a great degree, but the objectivism informs the entire setting and context of the game. It's with you the whole time throughout the general happenings and the audio logs you pick up. But the free will angle is a curveball that probably should have been commented upon within the game a bit more, especially given that the game includes the vestige of a choice when it comes to the Little Sisters and even provides two endings dependant on those choices.
As it stands, though, the political commentary of the game is what I feel really comes through while the gameplay itself offers a violation of the "no free will" rule in FPS games. Even though it's slight, it undermines the point by not only providing choice but the possibility of different endings -- essentially, the game being about the lack of free will isn't mechanically supported via the game providing a moral choice system.
That's a valid point, but the plot still isn't about objectivism, given that Rapture only went downhill because Andrew Ryan started acting like a crazy tyrant because he thought a couple of people in the city weren't quite objectivist enough. That's why I say "extremism" rather than "objectivism." Ayn Rand isn't exactly the best role model ever, but Ryan seemed to be making things work up until he went nuts.
Yeah, that's a huge flaw. Originally, the bad ending was the only one, but the publisher didn't like that.
What I meant by free will is not just free will within the perspective of a gamer and his previous experience in games, but as a concept at all. If you notice, many characters in Rapture have a conflict that is related to free will and how it relates to objectivism itself. Andrew Ryan believes in the free will of man, yet he controls others because he fears them turning into rebels, which goes against his very principles. Frank Fontaine is more than willing to fight for other people's free will if it nets him a benefit, and so on.
The meta commentary is an aspect people bring out a bit too much as if it was central to the game, when it wasn't. Because nothing is central to Bioshock. Every single aspect contributes to the experience in a meaningful way.