Well, I've quite given up on DX10. I get 40+fps in some areas, less than 10 in others. DX9 doesn't look as good, but with almost max settings, I get a constant 30+fps no matter what zone I'm in. I'll check in with DX10 periodically, especially after patches, but until its framerate rivals that of DX9, I'll be gaming with the latter.
I am most curious to see the upcoming December patch for the game. If you heeded the HG: L's forum boards, you'd think the second apocolypse was nigh. Yes, FFS bumbled the release of the game just about as badly as a company can. But I'm still withholding judgement for the big content push in December. My gut feeling is they have something up their sleeves. If they don't, the game might be done before it hardly started.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Jade Raymond Is Hot and We Can't Handle It
I've mentioned Assassin's Creed in past blogs, but I was surprised to get wind of a brewing controversy with the game's producer, Jade Raymond. This past week, someone made a sexually charged webcomic that depicted Raymond "servicing" male gamers. I won't link the comic, but I have seen it and can attest that it's neither witty nor insightful nor funny. I have, on the other hand, seen Raymond interviewed regarding Assassin's Creed and she seemed like any other game producer I've seen: knowledgeable, passionate, professional.
I don't know anything about Raymond beyond what I've seen in two or three interviews. But I guess others do because rumors swirl that she is unqualified to produce games and that she only got her job because she's attractive. Jane at GameGirlAdvance does a good job defending Raymond even if she unfairly directs a heap of blame on Ubisoft who, ". . . unfairly pushed her image as part of the marketing of Assassin's Creed."
I think the comic as slanderous as anyone, but I haven't seen any evidence that Ubisoft used Raymond as a spokes-model for their game. Does anyone really think Ubisoft out-of-line for asking the game's producer to conduct interviews and promote the game to the media and the gaming community at-large? It's not Ubisoft's fault that the main demographic for their product are young males, many of whom have little to no chance of getting laid anytime within the next calendar year. As for her being unqualified, I say let the game's release pronounce judgement on that. Plenty of games have failed and I doubt many of their producers were accused of getting their job for good looks and sexual favors after the dust settled.
Raymond didn't do anything that Bill Roper or Chris Taylor did for their respective games except be pretty while explaining the mechanics of a video game assassin combing the streets of a medieval town. Apparently the gaming community can't handle this, as witnessed by a distasteful comic and a community of forum trollers obsessed with the idea of courting a woman who might also make their most favorite game EVER. The comic reflects badly on Raymond because it disparages her unfairly. But it reflects on the gaming community even worse because it implies that we can't cope with the idea of an attractive woman being competent enough to make games.
For the record, I watched G4's review of Assassin's Creed this past weekend. They gave the game five out of five, praising the game for its novel setting, elegant control scheme, and immersive gameplay.
I don't know anything about Raymond beyond what I've seen in two or three interviews. But I guess others do because rumors swirl that she is unqualified to produce games and that she only got her job because she's attractive. Jane at GameGirlAdvance does a good job defending Raymond even if she unfairly directs a heap of blame on Ubisoft who, ". . . unfairly pushed her image as part of the marketing of Assassin's Creed."
I think the comic as slanderous as anyone, but I haven't seen any evidence that Ubisoft used Raymond as a spokes-model for their game. Does anyone really think Ubisoft out-of-line for asking the game's producer to conduct interviews and promote the game to the media and the gaming community at-large? It's not Ubisoft's fault that the main demographic for their product are young males, many of whom have little to no chance of getting laid anytime within the next calendar year. As for her being unqualified, I say let the game's release pronounce judgement on that. Plenty of games have failed and I doubt many of their producers were accused of getting their job for good looks and sexual favors after the dust settled.
Raymond didn't do anything that Bill Roper or Chris Taylor did for their respective games except be pretty while explaining the mechanics of a video game assassin combing the streets of a medieval town. Apparently the gaming community can't handle this, as witnessed by a distasteful comic and a community of forum trollers obsessed with the idea of courting a woman who might also make their most favorite game EVER. The comic reflects badly on Raymond because it disparages her unfairly. But it reflects on the gaming community even worse because it implies that we can't cope with the idea of an attractive woman being competent enough to make games.
For the record, I watched G4's review of Assassin's Creed this past weekend. They gave the game five out of five, praising the game for its novel setting, elegant control scheme, and immersive gameplay.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Eagle Ears
So I'm multi-tasking the other day, shuttling the girls from point A to point B and talking to my parents on the phone. I don't call them as much as I should mainly because I only ever think of it when I'm in the truck. Anyway, I'm talking to Pops and somehow we get on the topic of global warming. I tell him that I had recently saw a news blurb with a scientist discussing how the polar ice caps reflect a tremendous amount of sunlight from earth and that if they should melt, sunlight will be absorbed rather than reflected and global warming will accelerate even more. Pops dismisses this kind of theorizing; he thinks the phenomenon is a natural cycle, but I go ahead and try to convince him that it's likely we're the culprits. The girls and I pull up to the driveway and I say goodbye to Pops so I can take my two monsters into the house. I jump out of the truck and open the back door to fetch Claire when Hallie looks at me pointedly and asks, "Is Earth in trouble?"
Oh crap.
"No, no. Earth is fine."
"But you just told Papa that water is going to rise and flood cities. And that it's going to get hotter."
Crap, crap, crap.
"Oh, never mind that. I was talking about something else. Earth is fine. Okay, out you go."
But from the look she gave me, I could tell I had dodged nothing. She didn't say anymore and skipped happily inside the house, but I forget too often that she is getting older and smarter and that she's more than capable of understanding and processing the content of discussions she overhears. What bothers me in this particular instance is the global warming issue concerns her generation even more than mine and definitely more than her Nana and Papa's. I'm torn between wanting to honestly share with her the future she will inherit and protecting her from things she can't do anything about. At least right now. As you can see, I went the protection route; I just don't see any use burdening her with something as large scale as climate change.
I think I'm going to take a page out from Old School and Vince Vaughn and have Hallie start applying ear muffs when I'm talking of things so serious.
Oh crap.
"No, no. Earth is fine."
"But you just told Papa that water is going to rise and flood cities. And that it's going to get hotter."
Crap, crap, crap.
"Oh, never mind that. I was talking about something else. Earth is fine. Okay, out you go."
But from the look she gave me, I could tell I had dodged nothing. She didn't say anymore and skipped happily inside the house, but I forget too often that she is getting older and smarter and that she's more than capable of understanding and processing the content of discussions she overhears. What bothers me in this particular instance is the global warming issue concerns her generation even more than mine and definitely more than her Nana and Papa's. I'm torn between wanting to honestly share with her the future she will inherit and protecting her from things she can't do anything about. At least right now. As you can see, I went the protection route; I just don't see any use burdening her with something as large scale as climate change.
I think I'm going to take a page out from Old School and Vince Vaughn and have Hallie start applying ear muffs when I'm talking of things so serious.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The Slippery, Sliding Slope to Hell
Patch .5 for Hellgate: London is due out in the next couple of days. It's mainly a clean-up patch, fixing bugs and whatnot, but it also includes a controversial change to the number of available character slots: twenty-four for everyone now, including non-subscribers. FFS also added Nighmare mode for non-subscribers as well.
This has the subscriber community in an uproar. They quite rightly call foul for having paid for features that are now free to non-subscribers. I don't think this bodes well for FFS. It's a slippery slope they slide by shifting paid content to free play. Granted, I think it's the right thing to do, but it should have come out-of-the-box like that, not two weeks into the game's release. My gut instinct tells me that FFS doesn't really have substantial content waiting in the wings, at least nothing that justifies $10 a month, and that a tsunami of subscribers are going to bail. And now with this latest change in player slots and Nightmare mode, I see that flight solidifying even more.
Despite HG: L's controversial release, I can testify that the game has been running better lately. I've slowly been adding video options, like enhanced weather, dynamic lighting, and triple-buffering and I still average around 25 fps. Certain zones witness my fps plunge down to the low teens; these areas have a lot of fire strewn throughout the level and I think that causes the slowdown. But other areas, especially the enclosed bunker zones, see my fps top 40. I foresee future patches and driver updates improving that considerably. My goal is to be able to run the game on the highest texture setting.
I know many people are unhappy with the game and even unhappier with FFS. I understand their frustration and don't fault them for their criticism of the game's current state even if some of their forum posts indulge in hyperbole. But personally, I'm enjoying the game. It's not an MMO, no matter what others or FFS state, but an action RPG that allows the gamer to burn twenty minutes or twenty hours at a time, depending on their individual schedule. If more people approached it with that mindset and stopped expecting it to have the same gameplay and gargantuan content as WoW, I think more gamers would begin enjoying the game as well.
This has the subscriber community in an uproar. They quite rightly call foul for having paid for features that are now free to non-subscribers. I don't think this bodes well for FFS. It's a slippery slope they slide by shifting paid content to free play. Granted, I think it's the right thing to do, but it should have come out-of-the-box like that, not two weeks into the game's release. My gut instinct tells me that FFS doesn't really have substantial content waiting in the wings, at least nothing that justifies $10 a month, and that a tsunami of subscribers are going to bail. And now with this latest change in player slots and Nightmare mode, I see that flight solidifying even more.
Despite HG: L's controversial release, I can testify that the game has been running better lately. I've slowly been adding video options, like enhanced weather, dynamic lighting, and triple-buffering and I still average around 25 fps. Certain zones witness my fps plunge down to the low teens; these areas have a lot of fire strewn throughout the level and I think that causes the slowdown. But other areas, especially the enclosed bunker zones, see my fps top 40. I foresee future patches and driver updates improving that considerably. My goal is to be able to run the game on the highest texture setting.
I know many people are unhappy with the game and even unhappier with FFS. I understand their frustration and don't fault them for their criticism of the game's current state even if some of their forum posts indulge in hyperbole. But personally, I'm enjoying the game. It's not an MMO, no matter what others or FFS state, but an action RPG that allows the gamer to burn twenty minutes or twenty hours at a time, depending on their individual schedule. If more people approached it with that mindset and stopped expecting it to have the same gameplay and gargantuan content as WoW, I think more gamers would begin enjoying the game as well.
Monday, November 19, 2007
1-60 In Less Than a Mouse Click
Before I had even read the 2.3 patch notes, I intended to write a blog about easing the leveling requirements for new WoW toons. I'm not going to claim I was prescient, only that after reading some of the ideas being thrown around for Wrath of the Lich King, I thought why not apply that to the early leveling portion of the game?
Not long after the announcement of the Wrath of the Lich King, I read an article in Games for Windows highlighting the proposed features. The article included an interview with the Blizzard developers about the Death Knight, the new character class included in the expansion. The dudes at Blizzard first toyed with the idea of having players turn their level 80 characters into the new class. So, you have your mage or priest or warrior become a Death Knight, through quest chains and dungeon runs I imagine. But then they thought better of that, realizing that perhaps people wouldn't want to part so drastically from the characters. Instead, the developers mention that players will unlock the Death Knight class through a quest chain similar in difficulty to that of the warlock mount quest line. After unlocking the new class, players won't start with a level one Death Knight, but with one around level sixty.
Good stuff, that.
Which got me thinking, with so much of the game's focus on the Burning Crusade content, why not apply the Death Knight class concept to the original part of the game? Perhaps allow players to unlock character slots that would allow them to create a new toon at level 30? 40? Hell, why not level 58 so you can jump immediately into the BC stuff? Or if that seems to drastically generous, then why not allow players to level faster in Azeroth? Maybe have quest rewards be worth more experience or lessen the amount of experience a toon needs to level? Or perhaps both?
Well, before I could actually write that blog, Blizzard was already implementing some of those very changes, and with Patch 2.3 out last Tuesday, players can now level lowbie toons faster than ever before. Here's what the 2.3 patch notes say:
Now leveling from character levels 20-60 is faster, with less experience needed per level in that range as well as higher quest experience rewards for quests levels 30-60.
I've got a 27 pally I've been neglecting these past few months, mostly because I had no interest in the grind it would take to get him to 60. I dusted him off this past week though, after the release of 2.3, and sure enough, that xp bar is climbing faster than it ever has before; after killing a mob, I can actually see the bar inch forward. I think I actually have a shot of getting him to sixty now, especially if I keep him rested.
So I'm looking to level my third 70 toon, only because Blizzard excels at examining and reexamining its game and adjusting it accordingly. It's game design like this that continues to make WoW the premier MMO on the market today.
Not long after the announcement of the Wrath of the Lich King, I read an article in Games for Windows highlighting the proposed features. The article included an interview with the Blizzard developers about the Death Knight, the new character class included in the expansion. The dudes at Blizzard first toyed with the idea of having players turn their level 80 characters into the new class. So, you have your mage or priest or warrior become a Death Knight, through quest chains and dungeon runs I imagine. But then they thought better of that, realizing that perhaps people wouldn't want to part so drastically from the characters. Instead, the developers mention that players will unlock the Death Knight class through a quest chain similar in difficulty to that of the warlock mount quest line. After unlocking the new class, players won't start with a level one Death Knight, but with one around level sixty.
Good stuff, that.
Which got me thinking, with so much of the game's focus on the Burning Crusade content, why not apply the Death Knight class concept to the original part of the game? Perhaps allow players to unlock character slots that would allow them to create a new toon at level 30? 40? Hell, why not level 58 so you can jump immediately into the BC stuff? Or if that seems to drastically generous, then why not allow players to level faster in Azeroth? Maybe have quest rewards be worth more experience or lessen the amount of experience a toon needs to level? Or perhaps both?
Well, before I could actually write that blog, Blizzard was already implementing some of those very changes, and with Patch 2.3 out last Tuesday, players can now level lowbie toons faster than ever before. Here's what the 2.3 patch notes say:
Now leveling from character levels 20-60 is faster, with less experience needed per level in that range as well as higher quest experience rewards for quests levels 30-60.
I've got a 27 pally I've been neglecting these past few months, mostly because I had no interest in the grind it would take to get him to 60. I dusted him off this past week though, after the release of 2.3, and sure enough, that xp bar is climbing faster than it ever has before; after killing a mob, I can actually see the bar inch forward. I think I actually have a shot of getting him to sixty now, especially if I keep him rested.
So I'm looking to level my third 70 toon, only because Blizzard excels at examining and reexamining its game and adjusting it accordingly. It's game design like this that continues to make WoW the premier MMO on the market today.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Could Be He's Twiddling His Thumbs
Wifezilla reminded me that the creator of 24 might have a lot of time on his hands right now with the writer's strike bringing the series to a grinding halt. Still, his time would be best spent finding a way to reinvent Jack Bauer. And hashing out a somewhat plausible plot line. I'm not asking for ultra-realism here, just something that doesn't have me spitting out chunks of popcorn while screaming at the TV.
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