Videochat March 2016

[Ross Scott]

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

 

 

 

Back from the world of offline! Here's the monthly videochat from Sunday. I would have had this out sooner, but my internet went down while I was doing the chat and I didn't have any internet for 3 days afterward. My ISP got bought out by another provider and that caused a disruption to the service. Normally my internet connection is pretty good, at least the timing wasn't so bad as I was trying to wrap up the chat when I got disconnected.

 

I think I rambled in this chat more than usual, but it's mostly like the others. Some announcements worth reading about are that I do intend to have an online meetup with fans in Planetside 2 and will have details on that later (hopefully this month), also more is discussed about companies killing games. I had the thought that this practice might actually be illegal in Europe, depending on the consumer protection laws in place for the various countries. If so, maybe some action could be taken to make EA feel actual legal or financial ramifications as what they're doing may actually violate consumer law in some countries, but no one has actually called them out on it yet. If that's the case, maybe we can do something on that front. If anyone knows more about consumer law in any European countries, you're welcome to email me about it.

 

That's all for now, I'm running behind, but more videos coming this month!

 

COMMENTS

[marem]

i hope you are planing a screening tour through europe when the movie is finished !!!!!!!!!!

[Zaraki]

Dammit,my internet is slow nowadays so I couldn't get through Twitch.

[AP_Pastor]

Just a suggestion, If you want to reach out to other gaming youtubers to talk about EA killing off games, I always thought guys like AlphaOmegaSin could be the right guy for the job. He's made videos about issues like Konami's treatment of Kojima, Fine Bros., Where's The Fair Use? to name a few, and he made good points about them. He's even done a video about EA trying to trademark the word "ghost". Perhaps He might have things to say about EA's game-killing practices as well, who knows? Anyway, he's the one Youtuber I can think of who could make a video talking about this kind of issue.

[Goggles2114]

All I can think to say Ross is I don't really care about Mind of Freeman 2. Would I like it? Sure, but to be honest I want to see your movie made just to see what the hell you come up with. Everything else... is secondary.

[Heliocentrical]

Just a suggestion, If you want to reach out to other gaming youtubers to talk about EA killing off games, I always thought guys like AlphaOmegaSin could be the right guy for the job.

As much as I dislike AlphaOmegaSin he would be perfect for causing a giant stink about this.

[Tastes]

I already said this in the youtube video for Darkspore, but maybe the forum is a better place.

I think that the best people to ask for help on this issue is the EFF.

They already make a victory one or two years ago for legally removing the online verification when the game servers have been shut down.

 

I'm sure that if they can't help activelly, at least they can guide the actions on a legal way.

[mn3116 01]

So, for some reason this video chat for March has no sound for me. Anyone else having this problem? Every other game dungeon video works fine and all other YouTube videos are working, but I can't get the sound to work on this one.

 

Okay, check that, for some reason your video chats don't have sound for me, all your game dungeon and other videos work fine but the March, February and January chat vids don't have sound.

[Bman]

About the idea of being illegal to "kill" games in Europe and other places:

 

"We may, at any time, and at our sole discretion, modify these Terms and Conditions of Use, including our Privacy Policy, with or without notice to the User. Any such modification will be effective immediately upon public posting. Your continued use of our Service following any such modification constitutes your acceptance of these modified Terms."

 

I bet that all those games have this little paragraph attached to their terms of service. As i understand, almost every software and service uses this little piece of magic and rainbows to get away with anything they might want to get away with. Wound't this be a problem?

What if the terms of service are changed after the game was killed?

 

Maybe i'm just writing nonsense here.I'm no lawyer and i don't care about laws enough to know, but a fool can always hope that his actions have some meaning.

[Fric]

About the idea of being illegal to "kill" games in Europe and other places:

 

"We may, at any time, and at our sole discretion, modify these Terms and Conditions of Use, including our Privacy Policy, with or without notice to the User. Any such modification will be effective immediately upon public posting. Your continued use of our Service following any such modification constitutes your acceptance of these modified Terms."

 

I bet that all those games have this little paragraph attached to their terms of service. As i understand, almost every software and service uses this little piece of magic and rainbows to get away with anything they might want to get away with. Wound't this be a problem?

What if the terms of service are changed after the game was killed?

 

Maybe i'm just writing nonsense here.I'm no lawyer and i don't care about laws enough to know, but a fool can always hope that his actions have some meaning.

 

The question is does that line actually do that in a court of law. All ToS can be challenged in a court of Law if they are in a conflict with existing Laws or Constitution (or the appropriate name in your country). E.g. You cannot write in ToS of a site that offers some services and requires that you deposit money into your account that "all your money belong to us and we can take it whenever we want without reason". That would surely violate Laws and constitutions in most western countries. You will be able to challange it in court and most likely will win (depending on the situation, maybe you broke some rules).

 

All these ToS have to be in lign with Laws and constitution.

[Ross Scott]

I already said this in the youtube video for Darkspore, but maybe the forum is a better place.

I think that the best people to ask for help on this issue is the EFF.

They already make a victory one or two years ago for legally removing the online verification when the game servers have been shut down.

 

I'm sure that if they can't help activelly, at least they can guide the actions on a legal way.

When I do a dedicated video to this topic in a few months, I hope to be able to contact the EFF, plus I'll reach out to every popular Youtuber I'm able to in hopes that I can spread the message. I also hope to set up a homepage where people can get data on just how many games have been killed and which ones are currently at risk.

 

 

About the idea of being illegal to "kill" games in Europe and other places:

 

"We may, at any time, and at our sole discretion, modify these Terms and Conditions of Use, including our Privacy Policy, with or without notice to the User. Any such modification will be effective immediately upon public posting. Your continued use of our Service following any such modification constitutes your acceptance of these modified Terms."

 

I bet that all those games have this little paragraph attached to their terms of service. As i understand, almost every software and service uses this little piece of magic and rainbows to get away with anything they might want to get away with. Wound't this be a problem?

What if the terms of service are changed after the game was killed?

 

Maybe i'm just writing nonsense here.I'm no lawyer and i don't care about laws enough to know, but a fool can always hope that his actions have some meaning.

I'm going to be lazy and copy / paste what I wrote on Youtube:

 

"

I think what you may not realize is that EULAs are not legal documents. They can say anything. They are attempts of the parent company to protect themselves in the event of a dispute, but they don't supersede the law. In Europe, it's entirely possible they are in violation of consumer laws in many countries, and perhaps simply no one has bothered to call attention to it. Raising awareness about EULAs won't stop companies from continuing to write draconian ones, nor will it stop the average gamer from ignoring them. Companies like EA need incentive to change anything. That has to either come from relentless complaints from their fanbase, or actual legal action. In the USA, I think there is no legal protection for consumers in this manner, but in some European countries, there could be. If not having an end-of-life plan for their games means EA has to give up their entire European market, that could be enough of an incentive for them to stop killing games.

"

[Dextro]

I don't mean to disrespect in any way, but I think whoever screens the questions sent beforehand to be answered by Ross should do a better job.

 

Last time I sent maybe over 5 or 6 good questions that I think would be really interesting for many people to hear Ross talk about and only about 2 or 3 got selected, and the one that I wanted to hear the most got the context cut out of it. Now on this chat the questions run dry towards the end to the point where Ross rarely has anything interesting to talk about.

 

It kills me not being able to make it to the live chat, but I do watch the youtube replay religiously. So it would've meant a lot to have had those answers at least seen by Ross, and if he decides they're not interesting then is all good. But for them to get past over because there might not be enough space or time, but see Ross having time to show his floor lamp is frustrating.

 

Again, far from disrespect or animosity, I want to see the videochats and Ross' interactions with fans evolve and improve.

So I'll try my best to be around for the next chat since I think I have some very interesting topics that I believe Ross would enjoy talking about.

[danielsangeo]

I'm the one that "screens" the questions. Which questions did you think I did wrong on? I will try to rectify any error. Also, just because the question is posted doesn't mean Ross will answer it. He sometimes will skip questions. Either way, I don't want to be the one at fault so if you could point out where I did wrong, that'd be great, so I don't continue to do wrong in the future.

[Selfsurprise]

Thanks for answering both of my questions in detail Ross And I guess I should thank you too danielsangeo for cherry picking them.

 

I think if anybody made Eternam into a TV series it would be like some bizarre French language equivalent of The Prisoner.

[Dextro]

I'm the one that "screens" the questions. Which questions did you think I did wrong on? I will try to rectify any error. Also, just because the question is posted doesn't mean Ross will answer it. He sometimes will skip questions. Either way, I don't want to be the one at fault so if you could point out where I did wrong, that'd be great, so I don't continue to do wrong in the future.

 

Well the thing is, I think there should be questions saved for moments where there's nothing interesting in the chat. I understand when Ross skips questions in the chat that he has talked about before, or that he needs time to think about (that's why I sent my most interesting questions ahead of time last time btw), or that are simply not worth answering.

But if it's a good question, like one I had about the turn they gave to the story in the LoK sequels, and what would he think silicon knights' direction had they developed it.

So what I think would work better is if you screen the questions people send so that you take out non relevant ones, and the ones that are, you can give them to Ross so he can answer the best ones and if towards the end of the chat, as it has happened, questions run dry then he can maybe answer 1 or 2 more while people submit others. I just thought it was frustrating seeing questions I thought were interesting get past over because there wasn't enough time, then see Ross spending minutes in silence because people didn't ask interesting stuff.

As I said before, far from disrespect or bad criticism, I just want to give my thoughts and hopefully help everyone involved have a much better experience in the videchats. I do appreciate the work and time that goes into them, and since I have been asking for this for ages I just want to see it be as good as it can be.

[Bman]

I'm going to be lazy and copy / paste what I wrote on Youtube

"

 

I could quote both answers for my dumb question, but there's no need for it, since i have nothing meaningful to add.

Instead i'm going to focus on something that i have something helpful to say about:

 

About Sunless Sea Ross. Play Fallen London first: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/

Sunless Sea is a game for people who played Fallen London...the game expects that.

When Playing Sunless Sea,the game says that you'll die a lot, that's not necessary.

 

 

 

 

I've been playing for quite some time now and there's one thing i would recommend against the game mechanics : You can save. Just don't save it too much.

The game start with the save feature turned off, and that's brutal for a newcomer. I don't like how the game tries to shame people for wanting to save, but i understand that saving can be a bad habit in this game.

Be cautious, avoid fights, venture the world slowly.

Sail only close to the shore at the beginning.

the beginning part goes on until you have a bigger ship and a better motor.

the beginning has some grinding to be done, but it's about trade routes, so it makes sense.

Personally i think the game is better played in "episodes". Finish part of a story line or reach some distant destination and then stop. The suspense it's interesting. It was the way i reached so far into the game.

It's not the best game around,but i think it deserves a chance.

 

 

And i would love a RGD on Sunless Sea.

 

[Nz17]

Ross & crew, these are questions for the next video chat.

 

1) Do you prefer to use FLOSS (free, libre, open source software)? What are some FLOSS programs or apps which you use? (e.g. Firefox, Chrome, VLC) What do you think about the philosophy behind the GNU GPL?

 

2) What do you do to verify the benevolence of the CD and DRM cracks that you use? Do you have any recommendations for alternatives to Game Copy World?

[valkyr3003]

Can anyone tell me which city in Poland Ross lives in?

 

Im visiting Poland at the end of April and making a stop in Wroclaw. If Ross is in Warsaw or Wroclaw Id love to meet for a pint

[Bman]

Can anyone tell me which city in Poland Ross lives in?

 

Im visiting Poland at the end of April and making a stop in Wroclaw. If Ross is in Warsaw or Wroclaw Id love to meet for a pint

 

Or maybe you're thinking about giving him the "John Lennon fan treatment"...who knows....

 

 

Only kidding here...but why won't you just send him a pm and talk to him?

 

[danielsangeo]

Can anyone tell me which city in Poland Ross lives in?

 

He has mentioned it in his videochats before. It's where I learned it. He lives in or near Gdańsk.