So true.
September 2, 2009
I’m not really keen on buying many things before I get the opportunity to test them out. Cars, for example, I won’t really buy until I drive. Music, I won’t buy until I listen to.
So why is it that so many developers expect us to buy games sight-unseen? Or, rather… game unplayed? It’s a problem that’s plagued the industry for a long time, and it’s often cited as one of the reason for rampant piracy among the industry. I’m far more likely to buy a game I’ve tried for a few minutes and feel good about than one I am just hoping will meet my wild expectations.
Case in point: I’ve had an eye toward NCSoft’s newest MMO, Aion, for a long time. This week, on Sept. 6, the much-touted “Open Beta” commences.
You’d think “Open Beta” would mean that anybody who wanted to jump in and try it could, right? Hardly.
Via Brian Knox, aka @aion_xaen, on Twitter:
@Kravock open beta is for preorder folk, closed beta folk, as well as additional keys we will be handing out.
By “Open” what they really mean is that you can have access to it if you were in “Closed” beta. Or if you preordered the game. So, ultimately, rewarding the people with blind faith instead of trying to win over those with doubts. Gotcha.
Finally, they have “additional keys” but no mention has so far been as made as to how they’ll be getting distributed. A cursory search turns up Fileplanet as a distributor of client and keys… and we all know what that means: subscribers only.
So unless you were hand-picked by Aion staff long ago, the only way to test drive this game is to fork over the green stuff. That sounds like just the thing to keep me from taking the plunge. Maybe in a few months, if the game hasn’t done a Conan or a Warhammer on us, I’ll be able to come back and try it out.
…then again, even if it has, I’ll still be able to come back and try it out. Hrm…
It’s no secret that Internet Explorer is constantly playing catch-up to Firefox when it comes to not just meeting web standards, but surpassing them. Today, I ran across another interesting problem made manifest by IE’s inability to do perform any better than “just good enough.”
Certain ad images in our system were not properly rendering in Internet Explorer, but they were rendering just fine in Firefox. Obviously, as far as ads are concerned, this isn’t an ideal situation, but none of our software appeared to be at fault.
Furthermore, IE seemed to actually download the file, but when it came time to display, all one could see was the big red x of death.
Turns out IE can’t display images that are encoded in CMYK colorspace – only RGB. According to a three-year-old post I found, Firefox didn’t used to either – but today that’s clearly no longer the case.
So, lesson learned: save your JPEG images in RGB if you plan on putting them on the web. Otherwise save them in PNG, which has no CMYK support. You’ll thank yourself later.
I’ve managed to resurrect my blog from the ashes. We’re now on a new, dreamy host and running a brand-spankin’ new WordPress installation.
Lots to do yet with plugins and other things. Like content. But things are good – I even managed to port over most of my old content. Hoo-ah!
Arcane Tinmen, of Denmark, are still attempting to work out the details to revive the too-soon extinguished fires of The Spoils – at least, according to an email I recently received from them. From what I’ve been able to gather, the fight is still strong … and still completely up in the air.
I’m pulling for a win, but I know how rapidly deals can fall through. It’s disappointing not to have seen success yet, but at the same time, I’m relieved that any hope yet remains for a card game that died before its time.
I suppose going a month without blogging isn’t really a good way to keep the dream alive, is it? A true testament to its predecessor, I blame the fantastic Peggle Nights as my primary source of procrastination (and I’m still going to do that review I promised). I’ve finally finished the challenges and I’m working my way on to the aces before tackling the clears.
It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
I also managed to take the time to finish Final Fantasy XII, which is very likely the greatest Final Fantasy experience SquareEnix has produced to this day. FF7 and FF9 fans, meet me out back. We’ll rumble old school style. Bring your posse. FF10-2 fans, the three of you can be the cheerleaders. (Really, I have no idea what VGPub was thinking with a 62 rating, other than an attempt to undercut this magnificent game in order to attract attention.)
But I digress.
The thing that actually snapped my streak of failing to blog was an article on Joystiq that appeared to be faux-disgusted as to how “nobody noticed” Talisman got cancelled, as if Capcom did the smart thing by letting the project drop in favor of continuing to work on reviving a ton of old franchises.
Again, I digress.
Didn’t I write about this back in August? I suppose I’m a victim of my own failure to “pimp my blog” as it were, but at least I can feel a sense of accomplishment that even the boys at Joystiq are two months behind me. Maybe I’ll try to tip somebody next time I unearth exciting news instead of keeping it here for all of six people to read.
I wasn’t expecting it until this Thursday, but a hopeful load of PopCap.com rewarded me with what will likely be the downfall of my productivity for the rest of the day: Peggle Nights!
http://www.popcap.com/games/peggle-nights
I’ll be picking it up and posting thoughts and impressions later. Less talk, more Peggle.
Gordon Freeman, in the house:
http://www.shacknews.com/screenshots.x?gallery=10698&game_id=
http://blog.reddit.com/2008/09/crowbar-headcrab-and-half-life-strategy.html
Godspeed, Mister Freeman. The fate of the free world rests squarely on your shoulders.
I’m not sure how it is with other carriers, but I have recently discovered that even an accidental, no-idea-how-it-happened breakage will not move Verizon to replace your phone without insurance… unless you can prove it’s a manufacturer’s defect. That’s another story. If not, tough noogies.
I had the inner LCD screen on my phone break randomly, while I was carrying it in my pocket. The story goes that they will replace broken LCD screen phones for $50 … instead of forcing you to buy it new entirely. While terribly generous, it still leaves a sting in the mouth. Yeah, yeah, gripe, gripe, buy the insurance.
By the time you pay the insurance, you’ve paid a considerable portion toward what could have been a new phone. My last phone survived two years no problem – with lots of wear and tear and riding around in my pocket, which seems to have done in the Chocolate. I’ve only done a very minor amount of research on the problem, but it also seems as though I’m not the only one.
And yet, I recently met someone who’s had her LG Chocolate for coming up on 9 months now. So perhaps there’s hope for this phone yet. I’ll be attempting to replace it soon for the $50 fee at a Verizon store (since the lady I talked to on the phone was absolultely clueless).
I’ve never been a huge fan of CCGs, for one reason or another. I mean, I could never see the appeal of a game like Magic: the Gathering, for instance. I’ve never fully understood the rules, I’m not that crazy about the fluff, and it costs more money than I’m willing to spend in order to stay competitive. I could never really find a game that met all my requirements, so that was that.
And then came “The Spoils”. This card game revolutionized the way I thought about CCGs, and it brought along an entirely different mindset regarding play styles. The basic rules, while different from M:tG, were easy enough to follow, and the designers claimed to be constructing the game in such a fashion that would “fix” the things they thought were wrong with other similar CCGs. Finally, the background and setting was rich; the cards were carefully crafted and steeped in humor – especially geekdom humor. Just reading a set was about as entertaining as playing a game. Not only that, but the tournament scene was hot. This had been heralded to me by my friends as the Next Big Thing in terms of card games.
One demo and I was hooked. And then, months later, Tenacious Games – the company that produced The Spoils – announced on their forums that they’d run into problems with their investors and the company would no longer be putting out any new sets or holding any more tournaments. Well, what a bummer. I played in a small tournament put on by my alma mater’s gaming club, and that was that. I haven’t thought about The Spoils in months.
And then today, on a lark, I decided to check out the website. Interestingly, the front page would have the uninformed web surfer believe that the game was still “healthful and dandy” (to hear Mr. Saturn tell it). Not the case – all the juicy news is broken in the forums.
To cut to the chase: a company from Denmark called “Arcane Tinmen” has been in talks with TG and other involved parties to take over – and revive – The Spoils. No small undertaking, to be sure, but the word got out sometime in June. According to forum posts, talks are still in progress, but no one is certain how they will progress.
It’s my ardent hope that Arcane Tinmen will find a way to salvage the game and breathe some life into this otherwise lugubrious tale of a great game that died before its time.
