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Streamlining is optimizing repetitive functions by weighting them with more importance than other less common workflows. For example, a units action menu, has given priority to things like move and attack, while leaving less common actions bellow the fold. They've also created a contextual action area in the lower right, swapping in suggested actions, which not only makes the game easier to play, but easier to learn.

I don't want to straight up say you're wrong, because there is a subjective element to it, but from a usability stand point they're adopting best practices. You have been trained to use a complex interface, so you find the streamlined one worse.I'm not too sure about the multiplayer chat interface though, that doesn't sound good though.

Yeah fuck these guys, they're clearly just doing this as part of their launch out of "beta".

Blame whoever the UK equivilant of Walmart and Best Buy is. The best solution to break their hold on release schedules is to support digital distribution.

I want to hear Carmack go off on a tangent about tangents.

No I'd say that's disaster recovery. I'm still convinced they thought it would be a cool way to generate buzz about their new launch. Get 2 or 3 extra blog posts about it on joystiq kotaku destructoid et all.

Shawn Elliott already does an irrational podcast. It'd be cool if Chris helped with that.

Kingz, you should make one of those permanent fires, it's the only thing missing.

It looks like a PR stunt. I'm glad these guys are re-injecting paranoia into the digital download market, it's exactly what it needs.

yeah it's steamworks so it's going through steam no matter what

It looks like they're imitating a famous painting that I should know, but do not.

I popped on around 8:30 only saw people playing WoW. I'll log back on now

And if you want to be Horde, go to Mal'Ganis. It's a high-full pop realm that basically has no alliance. There are PUGs that clear the highest raid content the night it's unlocked.

Civ V developer walkthrough, really sums up the changes well: inHRNCgRYNA

Ok, what about this Tuesday for another North American SC2 night?

But you agree, that they said he "guaranteed" tears? Setting the timer: http://free.timeanddate.com/countdown/i28j1vx3/n24/cf100/cm0/cu4/ct0/cs0/ca0/cr0/ss0/cac000/cpc000/pcfff/tc66c/fs100/szw320/szh135/tatTime%20left%20to%20Event%20in/tac000/tptTime%20since%20Event%20started%20in/tpc000/mac000/mpc000/iso2010-11-01T00:00:00

Some developers like Ken Levine have been outspoken on the negative impact of building a multiplayer component to your game. Even if you're building on a robust engine it steals developer hours, and can mean the difference between a good single player experience, and a great one. What's even worse is that most games are shipping with the same modes that were popular in the 90s, and could never possibly build up a community to support online play for more than a couple months. What do you think of the idea of a common arena multiplayer component that any game could package into their game? Developers don't spend their time making a huge lineup of maps, and building an engine, they just add their own custom models and a weapon or two to an existing game. They could focus on making one really fun map that represents their game and add it to the rotation that everyone plays. TF2 has played around with cosmetic crossover pieces. People who bought Sam & Max have bunny ears, Alien Swarm players an alien, Worms players get some holy hand grenades. WoW players get special pets if they bought the collectors edition of StarCraft 2. Xbox players get Avatar clothing for buying games and completing achievements. I think it shows the potential marketing opportunities of crossover gaming. If a company like Epic, made a simple arena deathmatch multiplayer game that was free to play on top of a popular engine like UE3, studios could use it as an excuse to advertise their game, and get a multiplayer experience without having to dedicate a bunch of artists and developers to full time multiplayer development. Even if the game was fun, and developers were convinced to participate, I can think of two major hurdles. First, would be the question of who is the gatekeeper. The game doesn't really need to be super balanced, but you wouldn't want somebody to create Oddjob with a rail gun. And if you structure it so the majority of custom coding is scripted in the maps, you don't have to worry much about a developer pushing out a bad build that breaks everyone else's game, but then again would want to control how much content they push out. The second major hurdle would be IP control, even if the stars aligned some executive would prefer it if you did not put Mickey Mouse in a crossover death match arena. Ultimately I think the only people that could pull it off are platform holders.

My source is the GWJ podcast. I thought it was in the Warren Spector keynote at PAX, but I don't feel like watching 58 minutes of that.

I'd say the good ones these days don't really do that much differently. But my intent was to thin the heard of the modes that neither the developers or the players seem interested in. As to elmuerte's thought that development time would be the same. The idea is that a developer would create a character model (which probably exists in their game assets anyways), maybe a gun model (which would again most likely exist), a simple definition file/LUA script to define gun behaviour from existing interfaces, and maybe a map or two to show off the level design of your game. That would certainly be less work than having to put together multiple maps, deal with net code and matchmaking systems, and all the other garbage that comes as part of even creating a UE3 game or Source mod. Maybe writing the post right after I woke up wasn't a great idea.

That's why I believe a platform holder could potentially pull it off. Marketing teams are already successful at giving xbox avatars halo helmets, and creating rooms in Home. On a simple level you could pull something off like a cart racer, but I really think you could make a shooter arcadey enough to work.

Web surfing has taken over a lot of my gaming time recently. There's not a lot out there to play right now that's interesting, and the stuff that is new is more involved than I can commit to sometimes. I can't exactly wind down after work with a game of StarCraft2. Civ V will be the first game this fall to pull me out of the funk I think.

Yeah I know. The explanation was more confusing than just knowing that it was a time elevator though. Still, makes more sense than sideways purgatory world.

It's more than just knifing though, Call of Duty and many other shooters these days want you to focus on your kills and ignore your deaths. Lethality of attacks has increased, and explosion density has... exploded, over the past few years. There was an excellent article on the tf2 blog, about how they focus on the frustration of player death. They want you to know when you die, why you died, and how it was your fault rather than an unavoidable side-effect of massaging some other players ego. IMO at a philosophical level CoD is committed to creating situations like the witch-a-lock/shotgun balance issues.

I think it's interesting that your appearance will be determined on the main perk. I think MW2 went way too far with the perks breaking the balance of the game, but if they're acknowledging the truth about their class system maybe they can balance it a bit better. I still think speed boost + knife is unfair when the interpolation and hit registration are so poor. But that kind of thing will always be unbalanced because CoD will always give players a cheap power trip.