ThunderPeel2001

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Posts posted by ThunderPeel2001

  1. Posted

    Microsoft couldn't force their way into the Bluray market, after they already committed to HD-DVD and it failed. That's why they didn't release a Bluray add-on for the 360. Now that next-gen is coming around, they're including Bluray so they can have big games without having them come on a million DVDs.

    So you might say they're reluctantly adding Blu-ray support?

  2. Posted

    Please, explain the bill to me.

    The bill does not require games to undergo "Government Evaluation". The ESRB is an organization run by the games industry itself. It's self-regulation. Therefore Chris's evaluation that it was "gross" to be forced to submit entertainment for "government evaluation" is completely wrong. (Unless he's referring to Dewar's preferred solution, where he suggested government evaluation as an alternative... Which is why I asked.)

  3. Posted

    The ability to teleport to certain locations or to other characters would probably have affected the puzzles too much. At least your companions catch up with you once you reach a "checkpoint".

    I finished the game two times. I like the character specific puzzles a lot. I have yet to experience the hillbilly story, but I think that will wait a little bit, because 5/6th of the playthrough would be repetition. Have they talked about DLC yet?

    I wonder if they could have at least allowed you to teleport objects between characters?

    It seems like you've completed it using the same characters I have, except I'm currently stuck... Any help?

    I'm stuck on the island with The Twins, The Monk and The Adventurer... but I can't find the Femur anywhere. Therefore I can't get Sparky to bark, to record it on Parrot, to make the Hermit leave the boat. Did I miss something? The Femur definitely is not where you find the explosive barrels... :(

    Here's an example of what they've done with the artwork, too. I've no idea why they did this. It just ruins the awesome art.

    Original artwork on the left, screenshot on the right.

    original-cave_zps5e7f56b0.jpg

  4. Posted

    So when you opened with:

    You really meant to add "That's a rhetorical question guys, it's because hardware is low margin, and their long-term strategy was online"?

    I already answered this ages ago: http://www.idlethumb...140#entry220348 (and again for Thrik).

    I, uhhh, think we see eye to eye on this one, but we characterize it differently: Microsoft's online strategy wasn't some kind of power-move. It wasn't them "wanting the format to die, so they could try and muscle in on its replacement", or "pig-headedly refuse to adopt the industry standard, using whatever leverage they could to try and kill it". They just saw where the industry was heading, thought it wasn't profitable for them, and went another way. Ignoring Blu-ray was just apathy.

    Yep, this is where we definitely disagree. Everything I've posted supports the notion that MS were trying to strong arm the industry into adopting VC-1 (via HD-DVD) as part of a larger strategy to capitalize on the inevitable online market. (I.E., "Imagine if we could go back in time and patent the MP3 or JPG algorithms -- we'd have made a fortune! Maybe we can do it for the next iteration of online...?")

    Secondly, MS have a long history of trying to use one market to control another. Using the 360 to do this seems like a no-brainer to me. (Wouldn't you try and do it, in their shoes?) Creating an online marketplace for content is a way of trying to leap-frog Blu-ray, and get an early jump in the Online movie/TV distribution market. (You still haven't explained how you think MS could force their way into BD, btw.)

    Not creating a Blu-ray add-on for the 360 in 2008 seems like an obvious attempt to doing this: All their customers can watch movies/TV over their network, encoded using their standards -- and most importantly, in HD. It's like MS saying, "No need to worry about that Blu-ray stuff, we've got everything you want right here!". Again, this just seems like common sense to me.

    MS have such a poor history of playing nice with others that I'm actually kind of surprised that Durango (if the leak is real) doesn't support their own format for high-capacity games. They have the HD-DVD format to fall back on, after all. I'm surprised they didn't just rebrand that technology as "XBOX FILE FORMAT", or something like that, and insist that it was better for consumers in some way. Again, wouldn't this be better for MS? (You yourself seem to agree that high-capacity is the most important thing, and movies are secondary, after all.)

  9. Posted

    That's way less exciting than I imagined! I thought there was maybe different solutions to the puzzles.

    Anyhow, this is still one sweet game. It might actually be my favourite DF game outside of Psychonauts. I don't understand complaints about the narrator or animation (unless there's some glitches I'm not getting on my system). It's a very charming game. Love the graphics and especially the sound. The stories are great and the humour is good, too. (Loved the future's interpretation of simple items like keys.)

    Lots of Mi references in this game as well: Getting a monkey to follow you with bananas. Getting a parrot to follow you with crackers. A hermit on a desert island. Although that was more surreal than anything else.

    On the bad side, yes there's far too much traipsing around. Exploration is fun, but solving the puzzles shouldn't be a chore. I keep thinking I've missed some teleportation option. Also, having to complete the same three "bridge" puzzles is a chore, too.

    The story cards are beautiful, or they would be, but they're partially ruined by the scaling algorithm they've used. It obliterates the artwork and makes it hard on the eyes. I really hope they fix that - why have beautiful artwork and then present it in such a poor way?

    In all, this is still a personal fave thanks to the concept and the stories.

  12. Posted

    Maybe it got improved but when I got it at launch performance was horrible, and I recall it was one of the first games to use a console FOV and provide no way of changing it. On top of that, high-DPI mice had all sorts of weird acceleration and sensitivity issues that made aiming feel weird at best, and 2D sections (menus, hacking) almost impossible.

    I was a first day player. *shrugs*

    What do you mean about FOV, btw? There was some nonsense nerd rage regarding widescreen losing the tops and bottoms of the screen compared to 4:3, but that was intentional: they designed the game for widescreen, and just added extra to 4:3 screens. (It was sad when they patched that -- people believed that widescreen ALWAYS means more to the sides, which of course, it doesn't.)

  17. Posted

    I guess this is where I see things differently. Online *is* their long term strategy. They ditch the low margin hardware, low margin physical discs, and replace it with high margin annual subscriptions and online purchases. Their service works on a much larger variety of devices (smartphones, tablets, etc) and therefore has the potential to reach a much larger audience. And unlike games, streaming movies is by-and-large a solved problem (it's also a much easier problem) that many customers are already comfortable doing, and that number is growing.

    So the long term outlook for digital is bigger audiences, bigger margins, and an alignment with Microsoft's "three screens" strategy. Sounds pretty good to me.

    Right, which I believe is why they didn't invest in releasing a Blu-ray add on in 2008 -- something you seem to feel is controversial?

  19. Posted

    People were complaining about the Steam Greenlight fee of $100, and you're wanting to put out a barrier 8 times that size?

    It doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Remember, this only applies to games people wish to sell. I personally can't imagine it will extend down to indie games, in reality, though. It's impossible to realistically enforce.

  20. Posted

    Number one, this system already self regulates. Major stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart generally refuse to carry games that are rated Adult Only, or Unrated. This makes it an easy choice for any major developer to send everything past the ESRB because the lion's share of sales comes from these stores.

    That's all well and good, but I see why the system couldn't or shouldn't be improved? Isn't it more important that adult content isn't sold to minors?

    Smaller companies that can't afford the ESRB stuff are limited as to where they can publish (generally Steam or self-published.) Why change a system that already works?

    According to Joystiq, if your game's budget is below $250,000 you only have to pay $800 to have your game rated by the ESRB. That seems well within the reach of anyone who's seriously hoping to make money off an indie game.