New & Upcoming game discussion.

[Taeradun]

already used origin once for ass effect 3 (looooool) but yeah I'd already decided to give simcity 5 a miss because of always-online DRM, the fuckaround with all the different versions, and generally having EA's name stamped on it. looks like i've been vindicated now that it's been released with all the reports coming in of error 37s, bugs and crashes, the tiny city size limit etc.

guess I might pick it up for a fiver during the origin going-out-of-business sale

[bajadulce]

These are some fancy looking games! I stopped buying games around 2009ish (Civ4 most recent game I own?). Haven't even played Sc2 yet lol. So I'm TOTALLY out of the loop of things.

Nonetheless, I wanted to post a game that I stumbled on that is in development from a small group of "nerds". One of which, Kovarex, who started BWAPI. As expected this is a low budget affair and cannot compare to anything listed above. It is tied to Starcraft in an indirect way however (through BWAPI and its offshoots such as Scraft plugins etc) and just thought others might have some interest as well.

Maybe this isn't the most appropriate place to post this Or perhaps it has already even been discussed. If so please moderate as needed. But here's some more... check it out!

Here's some links and videos:
http://www.factorio.com

Spoiler

generic video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V1qOCAM9Syw

a "let's play" from an animated caster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk_WiERRCfM

Edit/Update:
I played a few levels of the tutorial/demo and had a good time. I could see how hours could easily slip away playing this game. Movement via the keyboard was quite foreign to me and had a difficult time adjusting, but I'm sure everyone would eventually get used to this. Look forward to trying some more soon.

[Mr.]

Anyone else here getting SimCity? Not an Origin hate topic, there's a group of us that'll be playing and we're looking to see what size region to make.

So how did that work out for you?

[Lavarinth]

Anyone else here getting SimCity? Not an Origin hate topic, there's a group of us that'll be playing and we're looking to see what size region to make.

So how did that work out for you?

Amazing :3

[wibod]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9MiMjQwd2VE

[Hercanic]

A (quick) moment to rage: Website Language "Detection"

So my wife asks how much SimCity costs. I go to the Origin website. It's all in Korean, because I'm Korea. Okay, whatever, I should be able to switch it to English... somewhere. Anything obvious at the top? Nope. At the bottom? Nope. Okay, time to allow Google Chrome to translate. There's an "EA.com (English)" link buried at the bottom left, but it only says "English" because Google translated it. On the raw site, the word English is in Korean!

EA English is not English.jpg

Click that, and a popup comes up all in Korean.

EA English is not English.jpg

Google can't translate it because they're fucking images. Huge paragraphs and columns of text, all as images.

EA popup dragging text image.jpg

See those three blue links? Well, I'm on Origin, I want to see Origin, so I click the link at the bottom of the Origin column. NOPE! Takes me right the fuck back to Korean Origin. This confused the fuck out of me. I then noticed the flag icon in the top overlay bar. Clicking that also brings you to this fucking popup. If you hover over the three links, the one I clicked lists "store.origin.com", which is what I want but fuck no that doesn't work, while the other two are "ea.com/asia#" which doesn't seem like it'd be what I want.

Well, it turns out that's exactly what I have to click on if I want any English. But it's actually a different website!

korean origin website.jpg

asian english ea website.jpg

It's EA Asia in English, not an English version of the Origin site I was on! That's right folks, EA has essentially locked me out of their American Origin website. I have no option to navigate to it. I am forced to dwell within their "Asia" sector.

Fuck Origin. Fuck EA.

[IskatuMesk]

I regularly get notified of Google's unusual ability to detect Russian as English. So, nothing new to me.

[Hercanic]

Huh? What I wrote was not about Google Translate. Some companies have regional websites, and they redirect you based on your IP address. The problem arises when you live abroad and can't read the language they redirect you to. Usually, websites that do this have a way to swap languages, region, or at least offer a default English option since it's the international business language. What makes this whole thing aggravating is the lack of any kind of standardization. Every website is different in where their language selector is located on a page, how it looks, how it works, and even whether it is composed of text or untranslatable images. This makes even finding a language changer very difficult when you can't read anything on the site that would help you change the language. So it pisses me off when this is done in a terrible, stupid way, like in Origin's case.

In actuality, Origin's website doesn't even have a language or region changer, as the EA Asia link is in fact a separate site that just happens to be in English. The tiny, nondescript flag icon isn't to change your language at all, completely defying my expectation on what a flag with a dropdown arrow is supposed to mean. Then they decided to position that icon toward the unconventional top left on Origin, making it easy to miss, while the EA website has (non-interactable) flag icons on the far right. They can't even be consistent within their own network!

As a side thought: I really wish there was a web standard where you could set your language preference in your browser, and sites would use that over your IP.

[IskatuMesk]

I'm just saying that translation related stupidity isn't anything new.

Ask HKS about EB.

Also I'm surprised all the fiasco around that simcity game didn't warn you about impending rectal ragnarok before hand.

[Hercanic]

Oh, I haven't bought SimCity. This excursion of curiosity into Origin just reaffirmed my desire to steer clear. It's unfortunate, though, because I've heard good things about SimCity itself, minus the small city size to force multiplayer, unjustifiable always-on DRM, D3-esque launch disaster, and the obvious plan to milk every last DLC opportunity a la The Sims.

Total Biscuit here makes some excellent points about the current strategy of some publishers to force a service platform onto consumers by requiring you to always be online in the game, so they have more control over what you do with their game and you are more likely to buy drip-fed DLC.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Z5MdT2U1s[/youtube]

[IskatuMesk]

All of that should be super obvious by now, though. I think everyone know what's where publishers have been pushing games forever.

Good thing nothing stops us from playing old, decent games, right?

Also, on translation - HKS was trying to get a hold of EB to change some shipping information, but they ONLY have a French Canadian line, and he has to phone to the US to get an English speaking line for CANADIAN shipping.

[Lavarinth]

I also believe in the theory that always-online is a "scheme" by publishers forced into developers, who in some cases aren't prepared with server infrastructure to handle what they were clearly unaware would be a hit-of-a-game. They are loaned money by the publisher, and they can't exactly ask for more as the publisher says it should only cost this much to make. So, spend some in development and the rest on servers. Result: Not enough servers. No stress test could of tested this in comparison to their sales.

Origin itself is EA's product, SimCity is Maxis. Maxis is forced to use Origin in SimCity to find your friends, and it's clear even EA's own servers can't handle the traffic when it says that my friend has been playing for the past 3 days.. Straight. And never stopped.

SimCity itself, the game, has been wonderful. There are expected bugs that they likely could not of experienced in QA as they appear quite rare, and there are issues with "pathing" for vehicles or emergency responses that I wonder HOW they passed by QA, but my guess is they simply underestimated gamers (this is not just something Maxis alone is guilty for; look at Blizzard's easily beaten hard modes for their games as an example).

I hate to say it, but without purchasing the product you can't support the developer. Unfortunately, the profits also go to the publisher, who you hate. All you can hope for is that by purchasing and being a customer, your opinion is more respected than those who avoid it. The next few days may or may not make a huge impact on EA's board of representatives.

Herc, your issue with Origin's language is clearly a glaring oversight by the developers. Did you bother to contact EA about it? How do you expect them to fix it without them knowing about it if you haven't? We're all human, man, everyone makes mistakes, even big ones you couldn't imagine anyone doing, point is if no one mentions it, they're never fixed. In the meantime, I recommend using a proxy to appear like you're in the US. Extra steps, yes, but if you're not going to be proactive in informing them, there's an alternate route to take. Unless your goal was to steer your wife clear of the game because of "evil Origin and their evil agenda," haha. :3

[IskatuMesk]

After seeing EA's responses and general communication surrounding SimCity, if you were at any point not convinced they are beyond hope, you should be now.

[Lavarinth]

Yeah, Reddit has covered a lot of the bad publicity (as well as updates directly from Maxis posted on Reddit), it's funny to watch, honestly to me, since I personally find the always-on function of games to be something unavoidable considering dial-up is something of the past now, so we are always online unless we are traveling or simply don't have internet at home, among other minimal exceptions. To those instances of being offline, yes there are complications to always-on games. Putting those aside for the moment, the transition to always-online is going to happen, it just is.. There's no avoiding it. These past few years has been the transition to it, and it hasn't been pretty and will continue to not be until finally they get it right. When that is, who knows. I bought SimCity for the online play, so I can't complain much considering I probably would of not bought it if it was single-player only, in fact I wouldn't of played the single player feature if it had an option for it since my ultimate goal is online. So being I got it for online, I can compare it all the way back to D2, which had stability issues for weeks if not months to play on Battle.net. Sure people could play offline, but.. That's not what I bought it for, I bought it to play with friends and couldn't. But I sucked it up and waited. Eventually, it all sorted itself out. It's a matter of taste, and it just happens that with SimCity, most people want it for single-player since all prior versions have been. At least this time people weren't asking for their Sims to be imported into the game or their ability to post their one million population achievement on Facebook and Twitter.

On the plus side, what little chance there is of this occurring, they just said they are looking into enabling an offline feature (in the FAR future).

[IskatuMesk]

Reddit is in itself bad publicity. It's like icky, moldy toothpaste you discovered under the cupboard from 20 years ago, still somehow alive even after you crucified it with holy wood from the remains of Jerusalem and doused in buckets of holy water.