Bored Druid ThreadFollow

Video games are srs business, Aethien!

That's beyond ****** up Aeth.
I just started Hell @ lvl50.

I wish they'd make RCT4 already, I need some new campaigns to play through.

Also, I was just mucking around with the custom rollercoaster builder.

Edit: As far as D3 goes, I doubt I'll reach hell before the end of the summer, knowing me I'm going to be rerolling a bunch of times and whatnot, I'm really not in a rush.

Edited, May 17th 2012 3:14pm by Aethien

BBQ'd some steaks today, omnomnom.
Now it's raining so I'm inside listening to VH's second album and drinking coffee.

My reaction to Diablo 3 became nonexistent about eight years ago.

Apathy or indifference. Pick your poison.

My main reaction to it was "oh, I'd have to install Windows, cba."

And then, "I wonder what hilarious ways there are to misspell the game's name."

Yeah, as I said, cba. my Windows bluescreen'd ... I dunno, half a year ago? and I can't be bothered to fix it.

I pretty much had a reaction guys comic situation going on, just stretched out.

And Fishy, thanks for that post. The article is really interesting, and Xsarus and Delinja, you both might really enjoy it if you really want to see what our problems with the current Blizzard model are. I actually want to link a few quotes that drive my issues home:



This is what Blizzard used to be. Now, we get games that aren't polished to a satisfactory degree until months after launch, promised features trickle in or are cut entirely, etc. This is what I'm feeling the loss of. Blizz games were never the best in the industry where it came to innovation or story telling, they were the best when it came to the polish. Now... IDK.



This.



This is my issue with the RMAH, for instance. The trend toward total control is a trend towards microtransactions. Blizzard wants to make their audience fully dependent on them, and I'm not okay with it.



I'm just not interested. I don't really care whether I'm buying a license or the game, what I care about is my ability to use that license on reasonable terms. Demanding a constant internet connection is firmly outside what is reasonable for a single player experience, in my opinion. Blizzard's failure to provide solid servers is completely unacceptable--I bought a license to play the game, I sure as hell better be able to play it. You lay out the ToS, and I'll agree to them. I shouldn't have to check in with you regarding everything I do. That's f*cking crazy. The state gives me a drivers license to operate a vehicle, something I could kill someone with. They don't bug my car so they always know how I'm driving, where I'm driving, and how fast. They trust me not to abuse it, and will take it away if I do.

Internet connections make sense for multiplayer purposes, where my interaction with the game client can have any affect on Blizzard or other players. Fact of the matter is that it is impossible for Blizzard to lose money by allowing me to access the solo game experience without checking with them first.

This isn't about piracy, it's about them wanting total control over the player. It's ridiculous, and it's a completely different philosophy than the company had six years ago--the philosophy that made them the huge company they are today.

Response in piecemeal...

1) Yeah, they don't have the need to prove themselves anymore, and seem to be on autopilot a bit there. If they keep it up it'll come back to bite them, at least I can imagine it happening.

2) Online content seems to be less of an issue for this generation a little behind us. They're used to not owning a CD; music, game or otherwise. Everything requires a connection that can be spotty at times for reasons that many people don't understand. Is it with my computer, Battlenet, the ISP? etc. I don't think this idea of 'not owning the game' will be nearly as big of deal to them as it is to us. Myself I feel a little uneasy about it at times, but hey youtube, bring on that music I never bought back in the 90s... *shurgs* pros and cons

3) Blizzard seems to be better at coming up with innovative ways to make money, more-so that innovative game play ideas. If that's their strength let it be so. I feel a little like an experiment honestly. Of course I feel the same way when I log onto facebook.

4) Yeah I think they just figured they wouldn't try and absorb the number of people trying to login on the first day. Parallel to my complaints about the auction house, I get the impression things will work a lot smoother with less people. My guess is that having too many casual users doesn't work well with their model with D3. They'll bog down the system and not generate as much money on the RMAH or something I dunno, I'm just pulling this out of a warm dark place atm. But part of me figures they decided not to absorb most of those potential numbers figuring many WoW players who got it for free would check it out once and not log in much after that, similar to what happened with the MoP beta. Better to cater to those that are actually going to be worth your while I guess.

Edited, May 17th 2012 9:41am by someproteinguy

My only gripe with Blizzard's business model right now is that they're forcing me to be online to play offline games. I don't see why I should have to connect to their servers to play StarCraft 2 or Diablo 3 single player modes. It limits my use of the product to my home and only as long as Blizzard maintains server access.

Pirating is a problem, no doubt, but this is not the solution. They're punishing the ones who aren't pirating and that can't be a healthy business model. I've pirated some of my games because it was the only way to take them with me to places without internet access (or to avoid having to dig up a disk and insert it every time I wanted to play). If I want to play AC2 while I'm not online, I'm just sh*t out of luck. Cracked game enables me to play wherever I want.

I don't feel bad about pirating it, because I already paid for it. If they want me to not pirate it at all, they might want to look into why people are pirating instead of just going "Pirate evil! Must punish, grrrr!" and adding another DRM layer on top of it all.

They keep saying that people pirate the game because they don't want to pay for it, which is likely true for some pirates. The majority, I believe, pirate a game because of DRM restrictions and/or because they want to experience the single player content and then buy the game for the multiplayer content if the game is good. You know, like we used to do back when video game companies actually released demos and not just "sign up for beta key, lol" events, or required their customers to pay for the demo.

Their sales aren't down because of pirating. Their sales are down because they've been making sh*tty games for too long and pirating punishes this. They won't ever stop people from pirating, but if they want their sales to go up, they should start by redirecting their attention from slapping their paying customers around to developing new and interesting games.

Edited, May 17th 2012 7:12pm by Mazra

For what it's worth, I think the multiplayer options make the game more fun. My main gripe so far is that you can't change the keybinds for your two main abilities. That annoys me a lot. I don't want to use my clicker buttons to use my abilities, I want to use the side buttons on my mouse, and my keyboard. It's especially irritating that the button to move is the same as your primary ability. Why should I have to press shift down to avoid moving while using that ability, when I could just use a different button altogether?