Kill Ten Rats

A “dev” speaks on Star Wars: The Old Republic’s cinematic trailers. The trailers are beautiful, expensive creatures, especially the newest one Return. There is a point though in the accompanying satire. Those creatures are an extravagance especially when the actual gameplay is so lackluster. I do appreciate the entertainment the trailers provide in the compressed amount of time.

On the other hand, we have the Trackmania 2: Canyon trailer, which was done by alpha testers. Of course Nadeo (Trackmania developer) is about 15 times smaller than BioWare, and being French there is little fat to trim. PCGamer was so impressed by it that they gave it a whole dedicated paragraph in a press conference filled with giants like Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry 3, and another Tom Clancy game. More on this game later.

Oh, and if you love or hate Desktop Dungeons, they have an updated version coming out and the demo of this version is up for only three days!

–Ravious

Spinks, the 8th-best blogger on the internet, was kind enough to link to Destructoid’s list of games announced for E3 2011. As I type this (there may be updates), there are 14 games that are not sequels, remakes, or tie-ins to previously exploited intellectual properties. That is from a list of 80 games. This is followed by a list of rumored but unconfirmed games, weighing in at 9 new properties of 32 games.

I would list the new games after the break, but it feels rude to re-print part of their list. Instead, I will link to a non-sequel tie-in, Gotham City Impostors, a Batman-themed FPS with the unusual premise of playing folks dressed up as Batman or the Joker. I hereby rate this as sufficiently amusing. As far as I know, the Walking Dead game on the “rumored” list is the first video game exploitation of that property, although I am not sure how much is left to be said in zombie survival gameplay.

The fact that I commented on two tie-ins rather than talking about the new games probably demonstrates why there are so many tie-ins and sequels rather than new properties.

: Zubon

The governor of Tennessee is such a brilliant man. According to the Associated Press “Republican Gov. Bill Haslam told reporters earlier this week that he wasn’t familiar with the details of the legislation, but given the large recording industry presence in Nashville, he favors “anything we can do to cut back” on music piracy.” One step closer to Idiocracy.

This Tennessee law makes it illegal to share account information with others so that they can piggyback on your account. It’s actually an expansion of a law covering such things as stealing cable and leaving a restaurant without paying, and now it covers “entertainment subscription services.” As the case may be, it would likely cover subscription MMOs (and possibly any MMO depending on the wile of the shysters).

The most interesting part about this law is it makes criminal (illegal) what was already covered by all the license agreements and contracts users have to agree to as customers. In other words, the recording industry is basically asking the government, with this law, to do their contract policing (and lawyering) for them. This will, of course, protect Nashville.

I hope that Tennessee prosecutors have better things to do, like you know, prosecute actual criminals instead of economy-destroying, job-killing password hussies… like the ones going to college right now. I would bet dollars to donuts that each month prosecutors are going to get a list from their friendly recording industry lawyers of potential password sharers anyway. Using taxpayer money to defend private contract terms is a nice way to save Nashville some attorney fees. God save the recording industry.

–Ravious

 

I re-installed TrackMania this past holiday weekend. I needed something a little fresher and more action oriented than what my current MMO, Rift, was providing, and to be honest, I am more than a little excited about TrackMania 2: Canyon. My buddy found a decent United server (all game modes instead of just the freeware Nations with only Stadium races). It was great fun, especially one butterfly-shaped ultra-high speed Island race. About the time my mind was shutting down the map changed, and my fun went full stop.

Continue reading Full Stop

I have found the solution. If you have been following our series on what is wrong with your primate brain, you already know that the brain does not record and re-play memories so much as keep a sketch and then reconstruct them each time. Human brains are known to insert untrue things. And, here is where we get the solution, our brains will incorporate vivid imagery and not realize that the relevant “memories” never happened to us.

Here is the other half of the solution: some game developers make really awesome trailers, and some players make really awesome gameplay videos. MMO gameplay has a really lousy rate of fun per hour spent, except when you are in the mood for grinding and repetition, so why don’t we get a few really good videos of people playing, perhaps with some voiceover work about how fun it is, and then watch those a few times instead of playing? Fast forward a few weeks, and you will have opinions about how much you enjoyed that game you never played. It is like the sci fi stories about recording sensory experience and playing it back on some sort of experience machine, except that your brain will merrily mock up the whole process for you!

Granted, the economics do not quite work out, as we all get enough enjoyment from the trailer without actually buying the game, but we will work on that problem next. Also, my great respect to the many who figured this out ahead of me, hallucinating quite devout opinions about games while they are still in development. I think we can all appreciate the amount of love and hatred already inspired by Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Dawn.

: Zubon

Previously from Jonah Lehrer

The Guardian, a fairly reputable United Kingdom newspaper, came out with a story about Chinese prisoners forced in to gold farming for MMOs. There are questions about the truth of the matter since it appears that this is coming from one ex-prisoner whose incarceration was from “illegal petitioning” of the government, but even if true, I am not sure anything new was really learned.

(1) The Chinese government uses prison labor, or laogai (“reform through labor”) as a lucrative means. It’s pretty rough in comparison to U.S. and E.U. prisons that have prison labor systems. Check.

(2) Chinese factory labor, regardless of whether it is used to create virtual gold or real-world jeans, is usually pretty rough in comparison to U.S. and E.U labor standards. Check.

(3) Buying virtual currency on a gray-to-black market fosters negative secondary effects such as viruses, account stealing, and, in this case, use of any “inhumane” labor. Check.

Wrapping up all three things together in one story really doesn’t change much does it? I guess the one thing this story could be used against is the argument that the consumer is altruistically supporting the life of a poorer human by buying virtual gold. I haven’t seen this one used yet, but I guess I now have this response in my pocket.

–Ravious

EDIT: Here’s a video version for those interested. It pulls from many journalistic sources, rather than just The Guardian.