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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.
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As part of the latest Steam sale, I picked up a couple of the indie game packs. This has been a good reminder that “indie” is in no way synonymous with “good,” “fun,” or even “worth the $2.” Major publisher filters may lead to pap, but at least they take a first pass at filtering out the 90% crud.
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
— Carl Sagan
: Zubon
The Steam event also gives them a chance to exemplify my recurring theme of “don’t make achievements that reward people for seeking out the worst parts of your game.”
Demonstrating a greater extreme of something I discussed last month, I tried a bit of Champions Online. Steam says, “13 of 713 Achievements Earned.” 713.
Oddly, within an MMO, that seems unexceptional. When you port it out to Steam, where most games are in the 2-digit range with monsters like Team Fortress 2 at 394, you wonder what Champions is doing to find 713 tasks and points of advancement worth special notice.
: Zubon
You pay for your game and expect it to have a certain amount of content. There are many ways to pad that with fake longevity, most of which amount to adding gameplay flaws to hide the “flaw” of being short. Character advancement is the currently popular version, because grinding takes time and your players are happily watching their numbers increase.
Dungeon Defenders has more real and fake longevity than Orcs Must Die! The longevity extension measures, however, are better in Orcs Must Die! These are both action/tower defense games released around the same time, so they provide a good basis for comparison. Continue reading Longevity
I will now get the highest score of any MMO pundit making predictions. Ready? “It will not go live in 2012.” Whatever we’re talking about, I’m predicting that it will slip into 2013, or later, or just never ship. The game, the expansion, whatever: not in 2012. I’m going to lose a few points, since something will ship in 2012, but I don’t see how anyone can beat my accuracy rate here.
: Zubon
I picked up Bastion at a nice discount recently and played through it last week (playing time; ~10 hours, 6-8 without repeating content and acing the proving grounds, 15-20 with completism, new content recently added). A surreal side effect is that I have the songs of M2M in my head as spoken word poetry in the narrator’s voice. It’s kind of like how you can go all week reading everything in Isaiah Mustafa‘s voice.
: Zubon
Related. Closely related, thanks Winged Nazgul.
Steam has encouraged people to use their wishlist function by occasionally giving away the top 10 items on folks’ wishlists. This is a good tactic. This year, they had the added wisdom to do so in early December. Stock those wishlists for holiday gift-giving, and oh, come and visit every day for your chance to win (and to see what you could get your friends at a great discount, nudge nudge). It’s a great marketing tactic.
And it works, because Ethic got me Guild Wars Trilogy. Thanks! I may have some comments on the game sometime. Because you know I would review Casablanca as if it had just come out.
: Zubon
Orcs Must Die! reverses decades of video game tradition. You can build knee- and waist-high barricades that the hero can jump over perfectly fine. The orcs have not mastered jumping and must take the long way around.
: Zubon
On sale for $5.35 with all DLC? Had to. I played through the base game this weekend, with several things still available to me after beating it (DLC maps, 5-skull every level, Nightmare difficulty, achievements). That took on the order of 10 hours, repeating some levels to try for better scores. It’s a worthwhile bit of game, solid tower defense with a bit of action. This is more strategy/tower and less action than Dungeon Defenders. It is also a single-player game without levels or grinding, so it has a limited lifespan but higher play value within that lifespan. Continue reading Orcs Must Die!
$3.74 on Steam today, $6.20 if you want all the DLC. Most of you have paid more for beverages, so your only real question is whether it is worth the time to play (to you).
: Zubon
Since I frequently post about economics and flaws in our perceptions, I cite favorably Tobold’s post applying both of those to World of Tanks. His consideration of the incentives reverses the assumptions behind some complaints about who plays the RMT tanks, how they play, and how well.
: Zubon
My benefit-cost analysis professor used to say that you could not refute general economic principles with “yeah but my cousin knows this one guy who…” See the comments for “yeah but this one guy I met on the internet…”