A Case of the Blahs

What's a fella gotta do to get an interview with Splash Damage, the maker of QuakeWars. I've sent two or three emails to their press relations group and all I score is a big goose egg. Gamespot and Gamespy are of course running huge articles today at the same time meaning I must've missed whatever press cycle for Splash is occurring right now.

Perhaps I'm not asking the right questions? Here, you be the judge:

In regards to an interview posted on http://www.quake-wars.nl/content/view/132/171/ I was hoping to do a follow up to some of his questions then ask a few of my own.

1. In the interview there is a question about the global ranking system. The question states:

"Can you tell us more about the announced persistent global ranking system? BF2 has such a system and I liked it a lot...."

Now at Quakecon '06 I thought it was stated that while there would be a ranking system similar to how it was done in ET with status resetting after a few rounds, your answer to this questions suggests there is a global ranking system of some sort. Are there two methods of scoring in the game (match play rank and global)? Also, do these global rankings just give bragging rights or do they indeed help your game ability across servers now?

2. You have stated that you are not using per-poly hit detection except on vehicles? Why have you gone back to hit boxes on the characters? Were there performance issues, development issues, or something else preventing the use of per poly hit detection on the soldiers?

3. In question seven of the same interview it is asked about tweaking the game for performance. Will there be hard limits on just how far the game can be tweaked like there was in ET or will the ability to scale down graphics, manipulate gamma, brightness, and other aspects of the map be more liberal as was offered in RtCW where people were often washing out the surrounding landscape to high extremes in order to see their targets better.

4. In regards to the in-game setup, with ET you all incorporated many of the features of the excellent third party mod for RtCW called Orange Smoothie Productions (OSP). Have you all brought OSP to Quake Wars?

I'd like to ask some questions about server side administration as well.

1. Have some baseline specs been determined for running a dedicated server? I believe the ideal "sweet spot" you all have said for server population would be 24 people? Given that, what type of hardware would you all suggest a server admin have to run a 24 player server in terms of processor, RAM, and bandwidth? Can you tell us what type of bandwidth usage you all are seeing for a 24 player server both upstream and downstream?

One assumption I'm making is that a 3D card would not be necessary for running a dedicated server, is that correct?

2. Will a separate download be necessary for installing and running the dedicated server or will those files be on the game media?

3. I personally felt that the documentation for setting up a server in ET was a little bit sparse. Has work begun on documentation for the dedicated server piece? As a personal plea, please make some good ones.

Misc. questions
1. Quakecon's date has been set for August 2nd - 5th. First, will you all be there? Second, will we all have QW burning a hole in our hard drive by then? Third, if you all are there and we do have the game, where do I sign up to kill you!? Yes, some schmuck on the Internet just called you out!

2. What about Voice-over IP? I heard rumblings at one point that it might in the game? If so, will the VoIP be server wide, team wide, squad based, or what? Finally, what sort of bandwidth utilization will it use?

3. In RTCW and ET there was a very handy shortcut system for quick chat messages using the keyboard? Can RtCW and ET vets use the same keys for similar commands to make the transition painless or will they have to learn a new system of quick chat keys?

4. It has been stated that the game will be ported to other systems which is pretty common. But, what about having cross platform multiplayer? For example could I -- on my shiny PC -- frag a limp wristed Xbox360 player?

5. It was accidentally slipped out at Quakecon 2006 that bots were being developed for Quakecon, how's that coming along?

6. I personally am very "pro-teabagging" as I consider it a fantastic insult (mostly because I'm immature). But then I am thinking, "Do Strogg even have teabags?" Your thoughts?

7. Aren't you impressed, nearly 15 questions and not one about MegaTexturing or when the demo is coming out?

Lethargy in gaming

How was your weekend? Yeah I know, not too great here either.

Medieval 2: Total War will soon have an expansion and I definitely won't be one to buy it unless I can find it on the super cheap. I don't have anything really against MII:TW at all. Visually it is a great looking game of course and the strategy aspect is top notch. But after a while it just becomes information overload and I have enough of that at work.

Even the mention of more focused campaigns in smaller areas doesn't really appeal to me unless there's a way to compeltely eliminate the some of the more frivolous aspects of the game from the discussion. If you can play a campaign without the Pope, merchants, or princesses crowding up the map and trying to interfere then I might be more open to this game but otherwise I think I'll have to pass on this one.

Also, they mention hotseat multiplayer but what about full multiplayer over the Internet? How, for example, are you supposed to play at the tactical level with your friend in a hotseat multiplayer setup? Each of you get one side of the keyboard? I don't think so. Come on CA and Sega, drop all these extraneous crap and give us fully realized campaign multiplayer.

News sites are hungover on Monday

News sites are obviously hung over on Monday mornings since some of their news can easily be called less than groundbreaking or exciting. Let's take a look at two examples.

First, the Register interviews some drone from Intel who admits that "Hey guess what! Tech is hard sometimes." Also, are you sitting down for this next one. The guy who helped craft the DMCA legislation admitted that it doesn't quite work right.

Hopefully by the middle of the week they'll be running on more energy drinks and have more interesting things to write.

Oh, and C&C3 went gold. What the press release failed to mention in the press release was that the really good looking girl, Linda Park, from Battlestar Galactica is in the game. That alone is probably worth an extra 10,000 units sold. Bad omission EA, you completely ignored the sexually frustrated nerd group (i.e. every computer gamer).

Correction: Grace Park not Linda Park. Someone out nerded me. Either way, both are good looking.

A team based beta for Quake Wars?

According to Voodoo Extreme id opened up team based testing of Quake Wars for active clans who compete. I contacted people I know to see if I can get entrance for myself and a friend via some back alley door that smells of cat piss and used heroin vials but I really doubt anything will come of it.

What I don't quite understand right now is why is the testing limited to teams only? Shouldn't a game that will be sold to the general public include lesser mortals who don't quite grasp the concept of teamwork immediately? In other words, why no love for the noobs? The way I see it that will be the majority of people who will play this game and hopefully give it a long fruitful life. Heck, how many of us were really bad at RtCW before getting the grasp of things and the same for Enemy Territory?

Hopefully Splash will open the testing further as release date gets closer.

Fashionably Late to Company of Heroes

I had heard of Company of Heroes as one might hear about the theory of General Relativity. One is aware of such a thing but applying it to one's life everyday in some conscious way doesn't often occur.

But, I can't deny that after having played the demo I can see why this game earned all sorts of rewards and kudos. I've been told that the single player becomes a matter of completing a mission how the computer wants you to complete it but such things do not deter me since the last RTS I played through an entire campaign was the original Command & Conquer. RTSes are made to play with friends, preferably with beer and foodstuffs containing a high salt content.

Be that as it may, I'm very excited to try this game out as I have not given the Nazis a good thrashing in quite some time. Seeing a gaggle of Nazis get obliterated by an artillery strike during the demo with bodies tossed like acrobats, immediately made money fly out of my wallet and land in some person's coffers on E-Bay this weekend.

I was about to purchase this off of Best Buy's site since they had it for $30 but by the time I double-checked their site the price had gone back up to $50. I'm sure Best Buy won't miss the cash.

More sites think they're above the fray

It seems that gaming sites are lemmings. If one starts bagging on the methods of game reviewers others need to slap in their two cents. This means they assume they are possibly above the fray (hint: they're not) in some way, shape, or form.

The argument this time is the same old story: scoring with numbers are jacked up, reviewers might be getting kickbacks or more likely told to "gloss over" problems. Knowing these various issues, let us review then why my site should be viewed and adored by you masses of people. In fact I will call this Sphinx's-narricistic-list-of-love-my-site and we'll use this list as my measuring stick.

Game reviews, according to the article suck because
1. A lack of journalistic integrity
Response: Since I have no integrity I can't lose what I don't have. If EA came to me and offered some cash for a few nice words about PokemonSims 3000 I would do it since my opportunities to make cash running this pesthole are few and far between.

2. Video game reviewers are not impervious to hype.
Response: These are weak minded mortals with no long-term memory. Must I remind everyone about the hype surrounding Black & White which still maintains the second slot in my top two list of worst games ever? I've learned my lesson. Sure I'm excited about Quake Wars but if it blows up while running all bets are off for sure.

3. Interactivity alone makes a game better
Only a person who's never been touched by a woman in a pleasing way would think like this. In fact, you know what, no, even before I started getting some I didn't think like this. This point is stupid. Just because you get to touch it doesn't make it better. Again, look back at Black & White. It sucked watching or playing.

4. Loving video games is unlike loving film or literature.
What the hell kinda weepy, group therapy statement is this? Holy crap if I was a doctor I'd prescribe you two testicles.

5. Reviewers are pussies.
Yeah, if they have thoughts like number four they are.

6. Most video games are above average.
For every one Defcon there's fifty Sims games.

7. We're all morons.
I don't know why they only put this in one sentence because yes, game reviewers (including this one here), like sports columnists, are morons living on the coat tails of those who we only wish we could develop or design the games like the big names in our little part of the world. Some might do it out of respect and awe towards the Carmacks of the world while others might review games out of spite because they think they could do a better job if someone just gave them a shot or they were humiliated in a game tournament at the local LAN and decided that their voice would make "a difference against the tide" or some such bullshit. Get over yourselves morons, your reviews aren't that important and hopefully someday when nukes from China start obliterating our cities the servers housing sites like this will be the first to go.

8. Is the inflation of video game scores a bad thing?
Yes, why was so much time wasted on this point?

The author then suggests getting rid of scoring but says it will never happen because
"Most gamers don’t have time to wade through paragraphs of text to discover whether a game is worth their time or not (which will no doubt be shown when this article is not half as popular as the much shorter one that preceded it), and, as such, review scores will most likely stay around for quite some time."

Let me make that clear: he's saying kids (or even adults) with no jobs who sit around in the living room or looking at porn all day don't have time to read a 10 paragraph review that if printed in a magazine or book would comprise no more than two pages of true printed text. You, Mr. Game Reveiwer, are not probably writing the War & Peace of video game reviews nor will a dictionary be required to look up the grown up words. Again you ain't that important and you ain't above your own criticism.

Does gaming with Vista have staying power?

A recent article about Valve has some of their people saying that Microsoft is only doing this Games for Windows certification thing to push sales of Vista and will not stick to it over time (several years at least).

Personally I'm not planning on using the fact of whether or not a game is Microsoft certified to determine if I'll play a game but I suppose the more casual gamer might want to use this or accidentally be led to believe that a game won't work unless it has a GfW certification on it. I could already see less than scrupulous sales people trying that trick at a retail store to fool the wayward mother or grandparent who just wants to get their kids the newest game on the shelf.

C&C 3 for $50?

Dang EA why the hate on my wallet? $40, sure, but $50? Come on guys, cracka gotta eat.

A Quake Wars release date?

Now let us not get too excited here but if Gamespy's site here is correct then Quake Wars will be out at or around June 7th of this year. I hope this is right but after a few push backs and sometimes bizarre release dates being issued elsewhere (Christmas 2006, what the hell Amazon?) I certainly hope this date is something we can hang our hat on and run with for now. Given this early of a notification it would allow us all to take care of important tasks like kissing our loved ones goodbye for a week or so, make sure the bills are paid ahead of time, and write our distant relatives to say that no we have not died but are really, really, busy with ah.. "work." Yes that's it.

Ars attempts to justify its own existence

An opinion piece on Ars is an attempt at rebuttal from this piece on Sony's blog regarding whether or not reviews are still relevant anymore. To Ars credit they state one of the big problems with most reviews is that they add a scoring index onto their game review. I agree that this is flat out dumb since a review, by its nature, is a subjective issue and not something that can be charted on a line graph. If you recall the movie Dead Poet's Society they try to chart poetry on a 2-d graph and the teacher calls such an idea to be excrement. The same holds for game reviews.

Here's a choice little tidbit too from the Sony opinion piece:

"There [is] another reason why game reviews may have lost some of the regard and influence they once held - slant. Many people comment on how they feel certain journalists/publishers have a particular lean towards one platform over another."

So what if a review site does? I mean there are entire magazines geared just towards PC or just towards Xbox, right? Excuse my stupid thought here but a review is just that, one person or group's opinion about something. A synonym for such a thing would be 'slant,' wouldn't it? Revies are just editorial pieces approved by a publisher/editor. For the sake of open disclosure, I despise most console games except racers and football. Everything else can be done better on a PC.

But back to the Ars article. He went on to state:

"...there is a ton of available media on the net that can help you get a look at a game as it develops, but the problem with videos and pictures is that often the intangible elements are impossible to understand simply from seeing the game in motion—only the written or verbal communication of a person can adequately capture these details."

There's something even more important: demos of games. I'm not talking about trailers I mean a hands on touching of the goodies. Let me twiddle with the user interface and maps. Let me setup a standalone server and see how the game plays. THAT is the most important thing a developer can do to let me see if I want a game. Videos and pictures are nice but until you could actually use the gravity gun in Half-Life 2 there's no way of knowing if it would be fun or not (hint: it was).

The blogger on Sony states that reviews aren't relevant because,

"We also have access to much more opinion than ever before, through countless forums and blogs, and of course, we get views from our trusted friends in our online social networks...[and demos]."

I think the last part, demos is what matters. Sure we have a ton of opinions about games but remember that old saying, "Opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one and they all stink."
Besides which game sites are on payrolls and I don't blame them. This Sony blogger speculates about whether or not game sites are on payrolls but come on, get real, of course they are. If EA comes to a site and offers to buy up ad space and all they have to do is 'gloss over' some of the flaws in their latest game you can bet they would. Oh sure the sites might say they are concerned abuot their readership but don't try to foll us. The bottom line is making money and in publishing that means selling ad space even if it means selling out your fans a little. In fact, I've seen this in action before.

In a review for Rome: Total War a few years ago, IGN, Gamespy, and Firing Squad all sang its high praises but only gave passing reference to some rather large bugs in the game dealing with the flaw in how the generals behaved in battle and the problem of squalor choking your cities. Those things were fixed in a patch eventually I believe but for someone who might be waiting on those reviews to determine their purchase decisions it really leaves something to be desired.

Also note that these sites get their games for free unlike you so their tolerance for flaws in a game might be a little higher than schmucks like you and me who shell out $40-$50 a game.

With game review sites I'd just suggest being careful. Your best resource in the end is your own eyes and ears so any time you can get a demo before playing do that and ignore the blogging and hype machines.

FiringSquad posted an article about the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ chip today and while the price savings against the Core 2 Duo E6700 is pretty impressive I think I'll easily sacrifice 15 frames per second in Doom 3 based games to save close to $200. I think this E6400 is still the best bang for the buck.

On a tangent since it is a slow gaming news day, what the hell could possibly be put on Conservapedia that can't already be seen on FoxNews? Perhaps they'll put Ann Coulter's comments on Edwards in a positive light? More and more the farce of the Colbert report is becoming a reality. That's not funny either, that is just sad.