Forbin

I don't know what you were expecting, but I feel like maybe you've got a higher standard for this game for some reason. Maybe it's because Blizzard is so in love with it's story, and I'd say that's a fair complaint. But when you hold this up to other games, there's nothing really that jumps out at me and says "this game has shit story".I can name a few that are better, certainly in the dialogue department, but I wouldn't say SC2 is sub par. On an overall level, the setting is fairly unique (or at least was when it was first established for SC), the plot is fairly straightforward, but the sub-plots provide some variety. The characters (other than maybe Valerian and the Doctor) have some semblance of reason and motivation. There are cliches, terrible one-liners and some crude allegory, but in my opinion it doesn't really ever get in the way of the game. I don't think it's great, but I don't see why you think it's so bad. Especially when you compare it to any other game. Mass Effect 2 had better dialogue in general, but it also had all the same weaknesses that SC2 has. Some characters were just painful to interact with. It's ending was a fucking mess, with the . And though I enjoyed the world, the plot really was kinda simplistic. I could list more, but my point is that even the games that people consider to be the highest quality have a lot of weaknesses, and are just as guilty as StarCraft of being video games.

Though I'd say it's not impossible to have great works of art that aren't very accessible, and often some of the really good stuff is. I think I could say confidently that any work that's able to have that complexity as well as an avenue of accessibility is better off. Sometimes it seems impossible to pull it off, but it bugs me when people use the high barrier of entry as a velvet rope and claim they don't have to cater to anybody who isn't hip.

It's called a "baneling bust"

http://kotaku.com/5611523/id-unleashes-rage-on-the-iphone the guy is a wizard.

I wouldn't exactly call ZeniMax the big boys. I'm still curious what's going to come out of Id under their ownership, but it seems like they're kinda laid back.

So it's mint in box?

I heard Ken Levine say the words Final Fantasy, I just can't remember if it was in the Joystiq interview, or the GWJ interview.

Based on the interview Ken did with Rabit on GWJ, I'd say it's going to be more like an Alex situation. She'll be pretty powerful and use her powers to augment yours.

Infinite Horizon?

So jakes projections imply that as the series goes on, it gains in altitude exponentially. However, it is also going backwards in time and forward in technology. So when we do get to Bioshock: Moon Rising in 2015, I believe we know where we'll be: 60BjkUtqxPE

I'm going to be very dissapointed if there is no fighter plane combat. Based on the comments ken has made about re-inventing the engine to handle the building movement, and the name "infinite" it seems the implication is that you'll be able to move around in something with a bit more control than a train cart.

I'm beginning to appreciate the naming convention here. By naming it Bioshock Infinite, they've prevented 2K from serializing the franchise further without breaking out the "Redemption" "Rising" etc bullshit.

Not into what looks like JRPG style combat, but I think the premise is cute.

The game was linear, in the way that those Billy adventure strips in Family Circus were. You had this crazy world to explore, and the corridors and courtyards were wide, but you were still on a train track. Which IMO, is all you can really ask from most games. The illusion of open world while controlling the experience was pulled off masterfully, and allows the developer to focus your attention in places that they choose to polish rather than having you examine the 4th wall. I'm very much looking forward to this new game.

Just finished listening to Chris on Three Moves Ahead talking about SC2. I feel like everyone was playing Devils Advocate a little too much. Tom Chick has a serious problem, he's playing the game on normal. The recommendation when you start a new game is that Normal is for people who aren't very experienced with strategy games, and he's not only a long time gamer, but he co-hosts a strategy game podcast. WTF was he thinking, of course the missions are simple to him. Thankfully SC2 allows you to always select the difficulty before you start a mission, I have no idea why Tom didn't ever decide to increase it on his end. I also greatly dispute his claim that DoW2 or other games are "better" than SC2. I agree that it's something that you should question, but it seems like he's reacting to an assumption with a poorly thought out idea. DoW2 has an embarrassing story line, even compared to starcraft. There are Orcs voice acted like Chavs, and space marines with even bigger shoulder armour than Blizzard is capable of. And in terms of multiplayer, it doesn't really seem to be much of a deep game. Just because something includes cover mechanics and control points, doesn't make is better. Blizzard devs talked about their experimentations with cover mechanics and decided that it detracted from the gameplay, it's not like they were oblivious to developments made in the industry, they just felt they didn't belong in the game. Brood War had a stamp on strategy games that nobody could replace, so the entire industry adapted by building new unique features to try to find a niche. Anybody who tried to go up against SC as a traditional RTS was shot down, not because the gameplay is dated, but because they're trying to compete with a product that is better than whatever they could come up with, no matter how old it was. So when Blizzard returns to the scene, they're expected to pick up these "innovations" as if they were proven to be better? That's like saying that because someone has invented control points, there's no point in playing capture the flag. There may not be victory points on the maps, but between elevation, grass, xel'naga watch towers and gold expansions, there's enough in the game that intrinsically encourages map control. I'm sorry I liked DoW2, but I don't see how you could say it's a better game than SC2 to anybody other than an absolute Warhammer 40k enthusiast. If you, like the guys on 3 moves ahead find you're not challenged by the single player, feel that the upgrades aren't meaningful,and feel the missions don't require much dynamic play, then for the love of god up the difficulty. Normal is a great setting, and will probably be best for most people, but hard or even brutal is what you need to be playing if you think it's a cake walk.

oooh flight sim would be interesting, though i doubt it given the market for them. I know Shawn Elliot is a big time air combat dude as well, logging a lot of time in IL-2 and Battlefield.

Re: achievements again. Would this be as much fun if it was tied to an achievement? G2MLl7n3Ts8 I think it would be interesting to create a framework in your game to have community driven events/notes. So if anybody ever experienced something crazy, they could lock in some information and when other people did something similar an achievement style popup would spawn the note. I guess sort of like Demon's Souls, but more for open world events. When saving a note, the system could examine recently recorded data and prompt the user what it thinks they did, and have them confirm which measurements are relevant. ie: fell 1,000 feet and survived. Killed 10 enemies. Hijacked a helicopter. A top speed of 120mph. A website could be used for users to vote, promote and comment on interesting achievements, as well as fine tune their triggers. Possibly creating new ones from zero seeded data. Something like that would be interesting in a game like Tony Hawk, where you could say "create a combo beating X points, within this zone, without using a manual." Value of the achievements could be based entirely on community feedback, so that something that's trivial and spammy would be downvoted to a tolerance point that it wouldn't be tracked anymore. Achievement hunters could be fulfilled by browsing the popular achievements list, while casual players would be rewarded with fairly regular positive re-enforcement. And the completionists would be faced with a list so long they wouldn't be able to obsess over checking every box.

Some guy in the audience asked about MMOs and social games, about how their rewards are often tied to social status, and what the studies had to say about that. Hecker's response was that there were studies, but they weren't very mature yet and most people are still debating.

Given his pedigree maybe it's a new Dark Forces/Jedi Knight game?

Oh it's absolutely a good thing for everyone, but maybe not the player. Studios sell games, and Microsoft sells licensing, there's no benefit in creating a game that people buy and replay in their business models. The only people that seem interested in that, are free-to-play micro-transactions developers, MMO developers and Valve. Everybody else wants you to buy their game, play it enough to remember it for the sequel, then move on to their next game.xbox definitely created the concept of achievements, steam picked them up for TF2, then the PS3 made trophies. I think the best implementation of achievements by far has been World of Warcraft, but that's because an MMO's scope is so huge that you don't have to look far to reward something that intrinsic to the experience. They expose people to things they may have never focused on before, set challenges for people that are reasonable, and the high-end ones can be used as proof when forming pick-up raids that someone is a competent player. Also, achievements are a little more natural in an MMO because the question of "what's the point?" is applicable to most actions. What's the point of leveling? What's the point of earning reputations? What's the point of getting gear, when all it does is make you better at getting more gear? If you've already developed a healthy relationship with these concepts, and know the real answer is "beacuse it's fun" or "i guess I don't want to do this particular grind", then the idea of another possible goal is enjoyable. Plus the achievements in WoW are so vast that only one person in the world has ever completed them all, and recently more were added so I'm not sure if that's still true.

Mark Hamil has said he'll play Joker, but he says it will be the last time. He thinks the first game was so good he doesn't want to run it into the ground. This is the king of typecasting we're talking about though.

I wonder if Microsoft already knows that achievements can lead to less replay rather than more. They create an end-game to what was a previously endless experience, which encourages people to move on to a new game.

Taking a bio in MMOs means taking a break to go to the washroom. So dropping something from bio 2 conjures a fantastic image.

I've heard that Blizzard is planning on adding community support for battle.net, to do chat channels "properly". Which would be good, because though 3 digit codes aren't terrible, it'll be a lot easier to find a game with the community. We should set up an event for a BGH FFA some time.

Something is oddly wrong about Jake saying "dropped from bio 2".