ROSS'S GAME DUNGEON: BATTLEFORGE

[Ross Scott]

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

 

 

 

Subtitles: English

 

Here's a new episode that's been a while in the making! I actually started on this as soon as I finished the last episode, so I'm behind on seeing what all the responses to that one were. I was working pretty hard to get this episode up today for reasons you'll find out. This is easily my most "dramatic" episode so far, but it's not a trend I plan on continuing. This episode actually contains more that I edited out of it than any other episode since while writing and recording, I noticed the tone of it kept veering in a direction I didn't want, but I'm pretty happy with how it finally turned out. In any event, I'm sure this one will spark some interesting discussion!

 

Expect another experimental video later this month with two more in the works (but no set release dates).

 

EDIT:

I may be late on the other video I was planning for this month, but it's not far behind.

 

 

LINK TO COMMENTS

[Blightmare]

You know Ross, every game dungeon you do this thing I really like: You identify and call out companies and designers for cutting corners. I'm willing to bet that the reason NfS uses those tint filters is less out of trying to achieve the mood and more out of because actually doing the proper lighting manually would take them a lot longer. Every game cuts corners in one form or another, some are just more shameless in how they do it.

 

The whole killing games thing can be explained very easily: It's no longer profitable. Sure they could patch it before taking the servers offline but option number 4 (Go fuck yourself) is the fastest, and most money efficient option so that's why they go with it. Do I like this or agree with this? Hell no. This tactic pisses me off just as much as it does you.

 

As for EA coming to get game series' I love, they already have. Command and Conquer. Not even clean about it, just bullet to the back of the head and left it's remains for us to deal with.

[TMAD83]

The games that EA killed that I am still upset about are the Battlefront games. They just shut the servers down, and now the new one is online only, I guess that they don't want me to play the new one. I talk to people I know about this and they say "those games are old" well tell that to all of the people playing Quake 3.

[gauntes]

I should show this to my friend who thinks EA is redeemable

[Eratosthenes]

Holy shit, this is amazing. I've been avoiding online-only games ever since 2004, when they first shut down Survival Project. This includes MMOs and DRM fests like everything that uses Origin. Even when I purchase games on Steam (sorry GOG, you can't compete with Steam sales), I download a pirated copy of them via torrents just so I'll have a safe backup. I'm THAT paranoid, but I can't stand the notion of games going to the trash after some sort of apocalyptic event with the delivery service.

 

Thanks Ross for addressing this. Finally someone isn't talking about the "game experience" of online games when confronted with their limited longevity. Even MS-DOS games can be played nowadays! There are freaking Windows 95 emulators for the dark time of Voodoo graphics cards, Pentium III and FMV-infused adventure games! So why would I be able to play 20 year old games that runs on hacks and shouldn't for any reason work, but I can't play a 3 year old game that should work without any modifications done to it? It's ridiculous.

 

I signed up just to say that. It's an issue with the industry as a whole, and I hope this video will spark an argument abolishing those bad business practices.

 

Edit: Also Flash. Remember Newgrounds? eBaumsworld? Titans of the early internet days, without any backups. You've addressed this on The Last Stand's video, but now EVERYTHING that ran on Flash is in danger because browsers are dropping support for it. This really disturbs me, because if I'll get stricken with nostalgia some years down the line, I won't be able to see or play anything. ALL OF IT WILL BE GONE, and you couldn't backup a good portion of it because it also contains online DRM. This is not a company or a service being dropped, it's a fucking platform. It's like having the NES erased from existence. It's inexcusable, and I don't know if anything could be done to fix it.

[Song]

Well, there is something we can do about it:

 

Stop buying games from publishers like this!

 

Business practices like full games chopped into DLC, underpaid, overworked developers or

broken games on release, these will continue so long as profit keeps coming in regardless.

 

To the publishers, there's no point in changing any of their practices since they get their money

anyway. Usually the little outcry against them get silenced with some PR work or connection in

gaming journalism quickly enough. And by the time the next game from them comes along

marketing will have made sure enough people will buy it, again.

 

So the easiest way to change this is to not buy their games! Resist the temptation to preorder

or buy one release, wait a week or two, watch or read a review and see if the game turned out

alright. And if not, it's better to pass it anyway, no?

 

Once publishers realize they won't make enough profit anymore, they'll either change or get

left behind by those who did.

 

Frankly it's that simple.

Of course, getting enough people to boycott entire publishers is another matter...

[Qwerty3781122]

Ross, what do you think about the cancellation of Silent Hills and the removal of P.T.?

[DonRadkos]

I hate seeing games dying.

Now I will quote after someone well known in the angry reviewer world because EA is the devil.

"FUCK YOU EA, YOU KILLED ULTIMA ,FUCK YOU"

[ScottD.Betson]

That sucks that Battlefield heroes, BF Play For Free and NFS world shut down today.....I played alot of BF heroes and NFS world back in the day but now I sort of feel like aww.....man why EA?! but then again that is life, I mean it would still be nice to have BF heroes and NFS world but then again prolly not with my PC

[Ross Scott]

The games that EA killed that I am still upset about are the Battlefront games. They just shut the servers down, and now the new one is online only, I guess that they don't want me to play the new one. I talk to people I know about this and they say "those games are old" well tell that to all of the people playing Quake 3.

Yeah this crap is scary. My guess is they'll probably regret it later on, but who knows, maybe it's this weird dystopian shift.

 

NfS uses those tint filters is less out of trying to achieve the mood and more out of because actually doing the proper lighting manually would take them a lot longer.

I don't know, a lot of the evening and night scenes looked decent to me. I think it was literally just an issue of using the wrong colors.

 

Ross, what do you think about the cancellation of Silent Hills and the removal of P.T.?

Nobody likes cancellations, but those can happen for all kinds of reasons. As for PT, I don't like seeing any game die, however this is one reason I'm kind of anti-console nowadays. It's not that I don't think people shouldn't have the functionality and convenience of a console, they should, it's that I don't think companies should be in that sort of position where they can kill games at a the press of a button. With old consoles that would never happen, new consoles you have stuff like P.T. I'm generally against anything that allows companies to kill games.

[Blightmare]

NfS uses those tint filters is less out of trying to achieve the mood and more out of because actually doing the proper lighting manually would take them a lot longer.

I don't know, a lot of the evening and night scenes looked decent to me. I think it was literally just an issue of using the wrong colors.

Idunno then. Maybe someone on the dev team just added it one day on a whim and a few of them liked it so it stayed. Not an uncommon occurrence.

[BidetoftheDead]

Maybe we should try to get a petition going to get this practice illegal. It's like buying a dvd of a show or a movie and the studio decides "We don't want these people watching it, time to make it so they can't"

 

It's just a really crappy practice and just talking about hope that it becomes illegal won't do anything, we need to take action.

[Frostiken]

Ross, you mentioned not knowing any other RTS games that used 'decks' and let you customize what you bring to the game. The more modern Wargame series of RTS games lets you pick what units you want to bring to battle too. It's not quite as varied as Battleforge for several reasons (unit balance, not having to 'earn' units, and being able to take so many cards that you'll have like 80% unit commonality between decks) but it's interesting nonetheless. Plus, modern warfare RTS games are cool. Everyone likes F-15s and tanks and explosions.

 

Ross, what do you think about the cancellation of Silent Hills and the removal of P.T.?

Nobody likes cancellations, but those can happen for all kinds of reasons. As for PT, I don't like seeing any game die, however this is one reason I'm kind of anti-console nowadays. It's not that I don't think people shouldn't have the functionality and convenience of a console, they should, it's that I don't think companies should be in that sort of position where they can kill games at a the press of a button. With old consoles that would never happen, new consoles you have stuff like P.T. I'm generally against anything that allows companies to kill games.

 

I think it's interesting how much Kickstarter is such an exclusively PC scene for 'well the assholes in charge don't want to make this, but we're doing it anyway'.

[Sexypotato]

Can i get a list of the music tracks you added into this video?

[Blightmare]

Maybe we should try to get a petition going to get this practice illegal. It's like buying a dvd of a show or a movie and the studio decides "We don't want these people watching it, time to make it so they can't"

 

It's just a really crappy practice and just talking about hope that it becomes illegal won't do anything, we need to take action.

I wish it was illegal as well but getting that law considered would be all kinds of difficult.

 

The problem is that when you "buy" a game you usually don't actually buy the game, but a license to play the game. Usually an indefinite license but still a license. And unfortunately these licenses allow them to legally do whatever they want when it comes to the product. Probably why so many companies are trying to do away with games on disks is because they can more easily control what happens with the licenses to their products. Including pulling them off the market so even those who've already payed can't play it. The worst part about it is they aren't even legally obligated to do refunds in these situations(in regards to new releases getting pulled.) They could just as easily tell everyone to fuck off and they'd legally be in the right.

[skeropo]

I like how so many people anticipate release dates for games, soon we'll need to be adding death dates to them as well

[Mikail]

I am constantly enthralled in how passionate you get about these things. Yeah, corporate decisions are the worst. I work at McDonalds so I'm reminded of that constantly. This companies bringing in billions worldwide daily, yet we can't fix our ice machine because it's not in the budget. Once minimum wage went up, hours get cut. Any dip in profit, no matter how miniscule, results in drastic budget cuts for everyone. No one is safe from this, even gamers.

[alstanbery]

Where did you get the time machine? (No, really how did you play the game?)

[krouton3]

this is one of the many reasons why i wish i had any form of political power lol

 

shame that game is dead and relied on microtransactions(which i think is another video game evil all together)... looked like it would be a rather fun rts

[chiefwhosm]

I used to play Project-Torque, an excellent online only racing game, bought one car in it, it closed.

I used to play Level-R which was an online only racing game clone (modified base code) of Project-Torque, it closed.

I used to play Heat-Online which was an online only clone of the base code of Level-R and Project-Torque, bought one car in it, it closed.

I used to play NFS World when it first came out, bought one car in it, it closed.

 

No I don't see any pattern emerging here at all

 

Thing that annoyed me about NFS World is it was only last week I booted it up for the first time in yonks and actually found myself thinking, well at least this one isn't closing, I'd expected EA to have closed it down by now...

 

I didn't even know it was closing down until I watched the game dungeon, either I'm blind or there was absolutely nothing on the game launcher or in game to even imply it was closing down. Sure it wasn't the greatest game and was no match for Project-Torque et al, but it was at least something free to play.

 

I played NFS World when it first came out and maybe it's my memory but when I loaded the game up last week my first reaction was, URGGH what have they done to the graphics. I just don't remember the tint being as extreme wayyyy back when compared to how it is "now" and I always played the game maxed out on the highest settings.

 

Well, another one come and gone, all I can really say of them is that I'm sure gonna miss owning an E-Type and mx-5 - that and the Project-Torque music I may be wrong but I suspect you'd have found it more enjoyable than the dark NFS World style:

 

 

Chief (Burnin' Rubber)