No doubt, I totally agree that their public image is pretty sullied. But Valve makes the vast majority of their money from Steam, a product that was initially forced on users as a crappy service that improved over time. They don't make very much money from their own games, which we see maybe one release per year of.
Most of the launch DLC stuff we see is for console games, where the used game market is a huge cut into their profits. If Valve relied solely on game sales and released more multiplatform games, I imagine they'd be doing something to try and "hook" new game buyers and keep them from selling their copy, or buying a used one. Anyway, that's a whole other discussion there.
Valve gives free content because it encourages going back to old games people stopped playing, which in turn encourages use of Steam, which in turn encourages more purchases. It's not a completely benign act.
Steam wasn't having big sales and free updates and such until well past product launch. What they did do was force PC games to use their service (like Origin,) and their product keys had to be "consumed" and thus unable to be resold. EA goes and adds a $10 optional DLC to new copies only mildly hampering a used game sale and the world goes apeshit nuts, calling them the devil.
Anyway I don't totally disagree with you. In my mind, Steam > Origin. But that doesn't make Origin into absolute crap.
I wasn't replying to you with that "so what" comment ;)
I understood what you were replying to.
Okay... but so what? That doesn't counter my point. It's a bundle sale that gives you a free game. When Steam does things like that, people sing their praises.
I tried it about 4 months ago when I got a networked HDD and wanted to use it to backup, and then use that backup to put games on my new laptop.
After restoring, it then went on to redownload everything anyway.
Upon closer examination, it had compressed everything into files labelled Tomb Raider Guardian of Light.
Just doing some quick searching, I find threads dated October 2011 saying the feature isn't working for them.
I just resorted to copying files from the steamapps folder.
Not to mention the way they handle MMOs is beyond retarded. They should at the very least recognize that the game is updated more often than the Steam version and not attempt to validate when migrating to a new computer. I think I've downloaded about 40gb of extra files over the lifetime I've played DCUO or Rift because of migrating to another computer or the "Always Update" option toggling back on (which has since been fixed.) Then when Steam does update their server version, it's still out of date compared to the actual live version, meaning it unpatches entire files while I'm sleeping, at which point the real game launcher goes "wth is this" and then redownloads mass quantities all over again.
It seems Steam doesn't do delta patching, it just says "hey, this file isn't right, so I'll download the entire thing." Which works great for some games, not so much with MMOs that have packed files that contain 5gb of data.
My main concern isn't power or weight or size or the extra gimicks (though they are pretty cool.) I'm mainly worried about heat.
My previous gaming laptop cost me $3000 and died off due to constant heat issues. If I didn't have it on a cooling mat on top of a solid desk, it would heat up enough to inflict serious burns and eventually led to the death of the GPU.
And yes, I maintained it properly. Air blowing, even bi-yearly taking apart to properly clean it top to bottom. Granted, this was a while back, when multicore processors had just hit the market, so I'm sure tech has improved.
But I want a laptop that I can actually put on my lap, or at least on a pillow on my lap without a) leg burns b) pillow melting c) overheating and shutting down.
Right now, I'm gaming on a $500 Acer that I got for work, and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised with how well it games.
AMD 4x 2.3Ghz
6GB DDR3 RAM
Radeon HD 6520G
I run most games around medium with minimal issue. I'd rather use a laptop that runs games okayish this time around, than fork out thousands for something that is rife with issues and will burn out in two years.
I think most of the hate boils down to EA yanking their games from Steam. No, I don't need a list of the other reasons you all hate Origin. Not interested in discussing that.
As much as the move pissed me off, it's a fully rational business decision.
- EA is one of the biggest game publishers in the world.
- Valve publishes fewer games, and also offers a storefront where people can buy lots of games. Said store does very well due to variety and sales.
- EA wants to launch their own store as well, and to encourage a return on the investment to create said store, their games are changed to be exclusive to that store once launched.
- It also allows EA to create the tools and features for their games the way they want, instead of piggybacking on Steam's features that may not do what they want them to. Take a look at things like BF3's BattleLog system. It's got a ton of neat features that could be brought into Origin over time for all their games.
I'm no Origin fanboy. I have it installed for the 2-3 games I own on it and bypass it when I play SWTOR. But to outright hate on it just seems absurd to me.
As much as people go on about how Valve loves their customers, they're not going to do things that are financially crippling. Of course money comes first for them. If it didn't, they would have tanked years ago. They just do a better job of customer satisfaction, and thus EA gets branded as "hating" their customers.
Most of the issues I've had to contact EA CS about have been resolved very professionally, except one or two where I ended the conversation mad. But that's the nature of CS in general. I've had similar situations with Valve CS as well as government and utilities.
Good customer service != putting customers above profits. Hating a company for wanting to make a profit is like hating a baby for pooping in its diaper. Sure, it's not the most attractive side of the experience, but if it didn't do it, it'd die.
The one that only lets you backup a single game at a time, or else it becomes corrupted and unusable?
So, something goes on sale on Origin, and it "cheapens the purchase."
But I'm guessing if something goes on sale on Steam, you're ready to throw them a parade.
I'd be all over that deal if I didn't have all my ME1 and 2 save files (and my two kids') on my 360.
I don't see any great disadvantage to Origin besides the typical cry of "it's not Steam" or "it's another program I have to run." Most of the rest are unfounded or just plain silly accusations.
I'd say go for it, unless you had save files on a console from prior Mass Effects, as they will allow a level of character importation and choices made in priors will affect things in 3.
Ezio's story ends there. We still have to figure out Desmond's story presumably. I haven't finished Revelations yet, so I'm not sure how it ended.
Actually, there is a huge technical reason the headset won't do voice recog. The Kinect has built-in voice recog firmware, meaning it can calculate and interpret on the fly quickly. In the end, this costs the actual Xbox almost no processing power to accomplish.
In order to do voice recog via headset, the Xbox would have to do all the processing. This would have a large impact on game performance given how pushed to the limit the system already is this late into its life cycle.
The bonus LE character will probably be a crappy one, like that scarred bounty hunter guy from ME2.
Don't preorder from Best Buy. They will take 500,000 preorders for something that they will only get 1000 of.
Yeah, definitely. I'll admit that TT has given me inspiration for some changes to a Windows Phone game I'm working on. No ripoff type things; just in terms of how to pace some aspects of the game, focusing on infrequent check-ins but still having some gameplay available constantly.
I was trying to do a version of the Camelot song to fit Amalur, but it either drifted too far from the original or just made no sense...
+1 for effort though, I suppose.
They don't mean social in terms of social conversation, but rather social networking. Getting friends to click things for you, etc. It's just a buzzword for these Facebook-like quasi-multiplayer games.
It's a good format for smartphone gaming, though. While games that you actively play for an hour or more at a time have their place, the ones with better longevity via short bursts of play work better in that medium, in my opinion.
Yeah, I suppose if we're deviating away from playing as Paul (or whatever other main character,) then we definitely have combat open to us. While the books didn't focus on the combat, there was plenty. Fremen vs Harkonnen, Sardukar, etc.
My original thought was making a common opening scene(s) that branched into adopted houses, but I suppose creating a character initially in a house/faction would be easier. Allows for better storytelling.
Yeah, I had hoped to see more as well. I think they were by far the best I could have hoped for in a visual adaptation. They didn't try to cram everything into a single movie and didn't have to force an "ending" after two hours for the next sequel movie.
They also had some stellar acting with a few exceptions.
I haven't watched them in a couple years... I think I might just dig out the DVDs now :P
My issue with a new Dune game would be that it would be forced into a genre that it doesn't deserve. The RTS games, regardless of their quality as games, took a big hefty dump all over the source material. The books weren't about epic wars and explosions and building bases that pumped out soldiers and tanks. They were mainly about politics, humanity and the evolution of societies through the use of religion.
In order to make what I would consider a "proper" Dune game, it would have to be mainly an Adventure game with little to no combat. Perhaps take a cue from modern games like Heavy Rain or Sam and Max; both games that have managed to do well in an age that turns its nose up at games with a beginning, middle and end that don't last 40+ hours.
Then in an age of Mass Effects, we have the issue of choice. How close to source material can we be if there are choices to make with branching paths and all that? Is it even worth exploring as a possibility, or do we force the user down the "right" path? This has the potential of being alleviated by making the game focus on a new character that lives during the events of the books, creating and affecting their own destiny and watching it run parallel to the stories we are so familiar with.
Running with the new character idea, we could explore the idea of telling the story of an orphaned child adopted into any number of the Dune universe's families or factions. Imagine playing as a member of the Bene Gesserit or Spacing Guild or the Tleilaxu. You spend time in the beginning doing things for your faction as you hear whispers of things from the books, eventually finding yourself on Dune itself as the Atreides arrive...
Multiple playthroughs, check. A level of freedom of choice in how your story plays out, check. Creating a story that can surprise the fans without defecating all over the source material, check.
Hmm... I think I'm on to something here. Send me your moneys and it shall be done! :P
