New & Upcoming game discussion.

[mark_009_vn]

The feature list is mostly promotional, I've heard like a hundred of RTSes that said the first two on the list just that with different wordings...

#3. Seems like unit chassis is detached from weapon type, so any unit can use any weapon. The first problem I see with this is readability. If I scout the enemy's army in that "bugs and templars" game, I can tell what he can do from his unit composition. Every unit was designed with a unique silhouette, to be distinguishable at a glance. In this new system, how do I tell if the enemy units are using rocket launchers or plasma cannons?

Not to mention how broken and hard to balance that would be...

[DrumsofWar]

One-man dev team

Where did you read this? Looking at the developer's site, I get the impression that there are multiple people on the team.

This was from an interview over on RockPaperShotgun who had been following it a little bit. It doesn't seem that thrilling but it's the only substantive RTS I've seen lately, and even if it's this tiny effort, a developer's muscles get flexed for a better project in the future.

There's plenty of lauded alumni who sharpened their teeth on mediocre games first.

I'm sniffing a little bit at Divinity: Dragon Commander which is a turn-based strategy map with realtime combat and an actual good story where you have to make political decisions between battles on stuff like making a stance on issues facing your people or picking the right Queen. May buy it at some point and post screenshots to see if it's good but the review buzz is above average so for an RTS, that' s gold to me.

Let me know your thoughts on that game if you have a moment, Herc.

[IskatuMesk]

Is the buzz the sound of cash moving between hands?

[Hercanic]

This was from an interview over on RockPaperShotgun

I see. I wonder if he's the last one left in Elder Games, then.

I've been developing games for more than 6 years now. My first completed project is with my team, Elder_Games, and the game is called Arcan. I'm currently working on our second project, Shattered Origins. I'm the lead designer, the musician, the programmer and the story and storyboard writer for that project.

a developer's muscles get flexed for a better project in the future.

There's plenty of lauded alumni who sharpened their teeth on mediocre games first.

Sure, even the huge success that is League of Legends started out looking pretty crappy, but they soldiered on with an intelligent mindset and continually improved.

Even so, I can only judge what I am presented with. I would prefer to see one thing done extremely well, over many mediocre things. In the case of LoL, they had strong design sense and a solid business model, with tech and art following up over the years.

Show your strengths, and hide or avoid your weaknesses. Or, recruit someone to fill what you lack. In the end, a one-man team will only be a selling point if the package is already impressive.

I'm sniffing a little bit at Divinity: Dragon Commander...

Let me know your thoughts on that game if you have a moment, Herc.

I have not played Dragon Commander. I keep up with interesting games through video reviews, such as from Yahtzee, TotalBiscuit, GameTrailers, and whatever I might Google. I prefer video over articles because I can see with my own eyes, rather than through the interpreted lens of a writer. Yahtzee is just plain hilarious, TB often plays while giving his impression so you see any problems, in context and in the moment, rather than them being referred to, and GameTrailers tends to deliver even-handed reviews.

If I had the time, I'd pick up Dragon Commander. The interactions with your crew and those representatives were intriguing, and flying around as a dragon with a rocket-pack burning massive armies looked satisfying. The RTS aspect seemed the weakest of the three, unfortunately, but as a whole the formula holds promise.

[IskatuMesk]

lol gametrailers ahahahahaha

tb is a casual

dunno about yahtzee (probably also a casual/paid reviewer)

[Hercanic]

dunno about yahtzee (probably also a casual/paid reviewer)

If you haven't seen his work, why cast any opinion at all?

Yahtzee doesn't give games any kind of score. He just rips them apart and cracks rapid-fire jokes at their expense. You might actually like his work.

lol gametrailers ahahahahaha

I watch reviews of games I've already played, to see how their observations mesh with my own. Consistency on these test cases is one method I use to determine trustworthiness.

tb is a casual

I don't even know what that means in this context. He plays the game, rants about a UI element, I can see said element and agree or disagree with his assessment. Obviously, take everything with a grain of salt and use your own head, but not everyone out there is a paid shill.

Regardless, I don't use reviews to make my purchasing decisions. That is, I don't care if a game is "good." I care if it's interesting. As a tinker of game design, bad design can be just as valuable to me as good design. I pick through the whole carcass, to see what makes it (not) tick. Video reviews give me exposure to a game's art, sound, and mechanics with minimal time investment. I treat reviews the same way I do games, faults and all -- as a learning experience. Anything else, like arbitrary scores, can be ignored.

[Lavarinth]

Ducktales Remastered coming out next week. Instant buy.

Fact.

lol gametrailers ahahahahaha

tb is a casual

dunno about yahtzee (probably also a casual/paid reviewer)

And we're supposed to listen to who for "legit, professional, outstanding" reviews that aren't by "ahahaha," casual, or casual/paid reviewers..?

[IskatuMesk]

In no instance does a for-profit reviewer become legit. Therefore, you start off by searching for someone who gets no revenue whatsoever from reviewing, and then it all comes down to opinion. In TB's case, not only is he a casual, he gets money from reviewing through advertisements. Therefore, he is biased towards what gets him the most money. Nothing against the guy personally, but not a single thing he says can be considered unbiased due to the fact he is monetarily involved in what he does. Whether or not you agree with what he says in any given review is irrelevant.

All games journalists are shills until proven otherwise, because the entire industry of game journalism is a complete joke with zero regulation and zero drawback for pandering and backpatting practices.

Usually just looking at how a studio presents their game is enough to tell me whether it's decent or not. In the case of dragon commander, the RTS aspect looks like a total mess because of the complete inexperience in texturing units, the obnoxiously large icons, and no clear RTS-like elements like resource management or macro. I know that Divinity games tend to have decent dialogue, but I also know that Divinity 2 has very rough around the edges gameplay. If I wanted to go further and look for video examples, I'd search for let's plays, NOT reviews, because review videos are almost always tailored and edited. In many instances reviewers are not even allowed to show more than X portion of Y game.

Also I know who Yahtzee is, and I know his style, which is what makes me believe he is for-profit. Even if I end up agreeing with a lot of things he says, I don't necessarily consider it accurate.

I mean if you are just taking the videos at face value that's no problem, but too many casuals think of reviewers as honest folk when they are most certainly not.

[UntamedLoli]

Ducktales Remastered coming out next week. Instant buy.

Fact.

lol gametrailers ahahahahaha

tb is a casual

dunno about yahtzee (probably also a casual/paid reviewer)

And we're supposed to listen to who for "legit, professional, outstanding" reviews that aren't by "ahahaha," casual, or casual/paid reviewers..?

Ask someone that's actually played the game and not part of some paid media group to justify their opinion.

[wibod]

lol at people thinking Total "I HAVE AN IQ OF 150 AND A DEGREE IN LAW BUT I MAKE YOUTUBE VIDEOS" Butthurt is good at all.

Every video of his is basically:
-spend 10 minutes bitching about lack of FOV slider
-spend 10 minutes stuck on a very easy puzzle
-spend 10 minutes talking about how awesome he is with his dual titans and 2000 dollar recording setup

Gametrailers has gotten better in the last 18 months, they're one of the least shit game journalism groups now. Marcus Beer is also a pretty cool dude for making Phil Fish kill himself.

Yahtzee is just a social justice warrior who doesn't actually talk about the games flaws.

[Hercanic]

In TB's case, not only is he a casual, he gets money from reviewing through advertisements. Therefore, he is biased towards what gets him the most money.

I'm not going to pretend I know TB's financial setup, but assuming he is only based on YouTube then the revenue from ads comes from viewers, not the company of the game he's reviewing. He gets and maintains viewers by being entertaining, informative, and maintaining a level of integrity. If viewers don't feel a sense of trust in his words, they stop watching -- and that ad revenue dries up.

So if he does have a strong motivation to make money, sacrificing his integrity would run contrary to that goal.

Back in the heyday of physical magazines, getting early access to a hot game before anyone else would drastically boost magazine sales. When publishers realized they could control access to get favorable reviews out of magazines, the seeds of taint were planted. Game reviewers were just dudes with jobs, accountable to a boss, who in turn was under the heel of the magazine's owner, board of executives, or stockholders. They still needed to cater to their readership with some level of honesty, but it became tempered by a greater pressure from the powers upstairs.

With someone like TB, who is his own company, his own brand, with no boss but himself, he is accountable only to his personal ethics and his viewers. I'd trust that relationship over a detached executive hierarchy any day. For TB and small operations like him, I would say money is just a means to an end, not the goal itself.

Nothing against the guy personally, but not a single thing he says can be considered unbiased due to the fact he is monetarily involved in what he does.

I would never claim reviews of any sort were unbiased. Even a penniless webcam kid that you recommend is going to be biased in some fashion. It is the very nature of opinion itself. I know I'm biased against sports games -- in my review I would repeatedly bemoan how boring it is. That doesn't mean a sports fan would feel at all the same way.

But we're talking the bias of money, right? Well, in the grand scheme of things, how many companies are actually large enough to be able to afford payouts to the multitude of game reviewers and magazines out there? Especially now, with the Wild West that is the internet? Okay, so we can reasonably rule out direct manipulation from anything but the largest publishers to the most popular magazines and websites. What else can publishers do? Restrict exclusives? Not send a free review copy? Deny beta invitations? Bar from press events? Turn down interview requests? They've got some options, but is it really adequate? In the end, journalists are the ones with the true power. Any overt intimidation by the publisher can simply be reported on by said journalists, resulting in a PR nightmare for that publisher. Not to mention the loss of what is essentially a free advertising venue.

But, as a rule of thumb: If you don't know enough about the author, treat any glowing review as an ad and take that for what it's worth. Like a celebrity endorsement.

Whether or not you agree with what he says in any given review is irrelevant.

It is relevant to what I aim to get out of a review, and which reviewers I choose to spend time on.

All games journalists are shills until proven otherwise, because the entire industry of game journalism is a complete joke with zero regulation and zero drawback for pandering and backpatting practices.

The drawback is a mass exodus of their readership. The internet has made this exceedingly easy.

If I wanted to go further and look for video examples, I'd search for let's plays, NOT reviews, because review videos are almost always tailored and edited. In many instances reviewers are not even allowed to show more than X portion of Y game.

I lumped TB in with my usage of "video review" to minimize needless details, but in fairness most of his work that I watch is what he calls "First Impressions." Several times he has remarked that he does not consider his "WTF is..." series a review series because he has not played through the full game and so cannot give a true game review. They are closer to Let's Plays than reviews.

Also I know who Yahtzee is, and I know his style, which is what makes me believe he is for-profit. Even if I end up agreeing with a lot of things he says, I don't necessarily consider it accurate.

He is employed by The Escapist website. They send him a paycheck. Yahtzee has stated they're hands-off with his content.

I mean if you are just taking the videos at face value that's no problem, but too many casuals think of reviewers as honest folk when they are most certainly not.

So you thought me a 'casual', eh? Tsk, tsk. =oP

[IskatuMesk]

So if he does have a strong motivation to make money, sacrificing his integrity would run contrary to that goal.

I get the feeling you don't know what a casual actually is. They don't actually think for themselves, they're like a hive mind of lard. They're the same kind of people that let companies like Blizzard and EA stay in business. They're the reason why the RIAA/MPAA and other illegal operations continue to suck money out of retards who, for some reason, form contracts with them under the misguided belief it's in their best interest.

With someone like TB, who is his own company, his own brand, with no boss but himself, he is accountable only to his personal ethics and his viewers.

With the advent of botnets and paid for viewer/like boosting on youtube, google, etc, that hasn't been true for years. No one is accountable for anything because too many people like you are still under the false impression that these business models are legit and don't think they need some kind of regulation.

I'd trust that relationship over a detached executive hierarchy any day. For TB and small operations like him, I would say money is just a means to an end, not the goal itself.

I don't know how you can say that with a straight face in the knowledge that the goal of every business is to make money. It is very much a business, an extremely lucrative one at that. TB rakes in tons of cash and everything he does is to that end, just like every other person like him. That doesn't necessarily make him a bad person, just a capitalist. I am of the opinion that capitalists should be burned at the stake.

But we're talking the bias of money, right?

All reviews are biased and no review is conclusive no matter the origin of the person or the subject material. This is why I don't talk about ratings or numbers or any of that horseshit. A review is only worth as much as an opinion and an opinion is only worth as much as what value you put in that person. Money skews this even further because the opinion of the reviewer is influenced by monetary involvement whether he accepts that fact or not. Any and all individuals monetarily involved in a review cannot be trusted to have an undiluted view of their own opinion because quite frankly money is satanic and Jesus would be very upset with your kind.

Well, in the grand scheme of things, how many companies are actually large enough to be able to afford payouts to the multitude of game reviewers and magazines out there?

A lot of review sites are dependent on ad revenue and this is another thing that can easily be manipulated.

The drawback is a mass exodus of their readership. The internet has made this exceedingly easy.

Again you underestimate the gullibility of the casual. All sensible people have abandoned these things a long time ago. Alas, casuals are numerous and the night is full of terrors.

He is employed by The Escapist website. They send him a paycheck. Yahtzee has stated they're hands-off with his content.

Fair enough. All content of his is now invalid as far as I am concerned.

So you thought me a 'casual', eh? Tsk, tsk. =oP

It is within logical probability that you are a casual by extension of putting value in internet personalities influenced by monetary gain.

[wibod]

With someone like TB, who is his own company, his own brand, with no boss but himself, he is accountable only to his personal ethics and his viewers.

Tuberculosis has repeatedly said that his viewers are a bunch of retards that he hates.

[Pr0nogo]

He also likes Space Marine.

[IskatuMesk]

He also likes Space Marine.