Shutting Off the Internet
POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 8, 2011 19:28
VIEWED: 2540
PAGE 3 of 3
Yeah I think your right, sides if I take it back that just comes out of the retailers pockets and it's not the retailer I'm unhappy with. For folks do don't know this game requires a constant Internet connection to run. There is no reason for this other than the theory that it will make it impossible to play a pirated version, but the pirates have already cracked it and honest gamers with Internet connections not permanent enough for ubisofts standards cannot run the game. I hope this isn't the future of computer gaming.
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Blurgh. I'll be staying away from that one. Maybe it's a good thing they left the Splinter Cell franchise off the PS3, if that's Ubisoft's way of thinking...
The new Gran Turismo wants you always signed in to the PlayStation Network (PSN), and asks you about five different times when you start up the game if you'd like to sign in, but if you don't, it still lets you play the game, at least. And I tend to sign in anyway, because how else can you make use of the "birthday glitch", the "gifting/duping" vulnerability, etc.? Besides, the weekly events are downloaded online.
This Space For Rent!
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Oh come now, you know they ain't gonna be happy till they can make you put a quarter in every time you play - this bullshit is one of the reasons I went back to console gaming from PC, cause of that crap with Mass Effect.
And now they have the notion of building a game, chopping out half and more of the CONTENT (most of which, mind you, is STILL ON THE GAME CD) and offering "downloadable content" which in most cases is just a patch to unlock what you already paid for, and paid for, and paid for...
FUCK THAT NOISE.
Firstoff, if I paid for it, everything on that CD is *mine*, and I'll use, hack, or manipulate it to my whim - the notion of anyone telling me what to do with my own property is unspeakably offensive to me.
Secondly, if your game requires me to get your permission every time I play it, you will not recieve one cent from me for it, none of my consoles have an internet connection, and it's going to stay that way - game manufacturers have proven they cannot be trusted with this, and as the fiasco with kindle showed, the notion of someone else being able to REVOKE content you paid for should fill any rational being with dread.
The only exception to that second one is MMOs, perhaps, but I keep finding that they are untrustworthy, badly-made, and I really, really don't like other human beings enough to want to associate with them on any but my own terms - which means any MMO that effectively forces you to PvP (99.995% of which is ganking/griefing anyways) or forces social interaction in order to advance is gonna run out my patience and fall by the wayside pretty quickly.
Oh yes, and another of my pet peeves is backwards compatibility - I've no intention of buying the same library of games twice, especially when they're just re-coded originals, Need for Speed:Carbon is a classic example of this, despite having gotten an Xbox360 version out of the bargain bin, the graphics and gameplay are straight Xbox, blank grey walls aren't in any way improved via higher resolution you know...
In case ya didn't know this, one reason the Wii is popular is that it'll run Gamecube discs in hardware-native mode, and you can easily obtain a GC controller for it - which I find in any case superior to that crummy gimmick remote.
(Also, don't play any of the sports games with it under a ceiling fan, I learned that the hard way, ouch!)
And of course the PS2 dominated in part because of that, a virtue Sony *promised* for the PS3, and then backed off on and went cheap about, but we all know about Sony and their promises, right ?
I *did* in fact get my hands on a CECHA01 unit, the "Holy Grail" of PS3 units, which *is* backwards compative in hardware-native mode, but loaned it to my ex so she can run FFXI on it, since it's the only PS3 unit which'll do that.
I borrowed her slimline and have been in what little spare time I got been chewing my way through Valkyria Chronicles - which is, I must say, pretty damn awesome.
Anyhow, if a games maker wants to sell me something, they gotta sell me what *I* want, not what THEY want - and if they do not learn this, then they will wind up facing the same crisis they did back in the 80's, in much the same fashion as american automakers did, for the same damn reasons.
It is the CUSTOMER who decides whether or not to shell out the dosh, and offending them, treating them as enemies to be persecuted, or victims to be fleeced, has its consequences.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Right on, Frem.
I have my PS3 online (through my wireless, not wired, connection), but that's just for the freebie races on GT5. Well, those and "gifting" cars to other accounts (some of which may or may not be owned by other "family" members such as my wife, my cats, or my dog).
There are vulnerabilities built in, and the "purists" howl in anger amid a great gnashing of teeth when people actually USE these vulnerabilities, but I say fuck 'em - if they're in the game, I'm usin' 'em! I raced and earned every credit and every car I've got; if I send myself a second copy of one of them, whose business is that? Further, the game caps you at 20,000,000 credits max - and then has several cars that cost 20,000,000 credits in it. Funny thing is, you can buy the car, send it off to another account, quit the game, delete your save, load a saved file from before you bought that car, and then use that other account to send that car back to yourself, thereby having both the car AND your 20 million!
Hey, *I* didn't code the game that way, so don't tell me it's not fair to do that with it! :)
As for PS2 compatibility, that really did piss me off, too. I was *told* that the PS3 was compatible, only to find out it wasn't. Luckily for me, I *hadn't* gotten rid of my trusty old PS2 yet, so still have both of them hooked up - PS3 to the HD TV, and PS2 to the big old tube TV. And there are several PS2 games that are far superior to any of the PS3 ones (the Splinter Cell franchise, for example, never ported over to the PS3, nor did the Ace Combat franchise; both were fun favorites of mine).
ETA: I know how you hate having to grind and "level up" to get to the good stuff in games, so I'll warn you ahead of time: Stay away from Gran Turismo 5! Not only do you have to keep grinding (and grinding, and grinding, and grinding) to get to the good cars - NOW you have to grind yourself more and more money, AND you have to "level up" your "driver level" before you're even allowed to BUY such cars, much less DRIVE them.
So if I have 20,000,000 credits (enough to buy the best car in the game), I *still*can't buy it until I reach a "driver level" of 40 or better (which is the highest level you can achieve in the game). I can *win* that car at Level 35, or I can do "challenges" to win it at Level 30, but I can't BUY it until L40.
Ironically, though, I can *drive* the car at any point in the game at all, if I could just get my hands on it. And that's where the vulnerabilities come in handy - it seems once you've got the car, you can "gift" it to anyone at all, as long as they send you a friend request and you confirm it. I can send it to someone who has a driver level of 0, and he can then go out and win any race he enters with it.
So I've gifted it to five different accounts, and used them to amass more millions in credits and nice cars, all of which I then give back to myself. :)
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill
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Ah, ridiculous exclusiveness...
I could tell you a tale of that, but I think I shall let TV Tropes do it for me..
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LootDrama?from=Main.TheRidi
ll
I *did* mention my ex plays FFXI, did I not ?
Did I mention she forced me under threat of hours-long-shouting match to play it, since having a dependable, expert White Mage is kinda critical to getting any goddamn thing DONE in that game ?
Oh yes, I've seen the Ridill drama, and Kraken clubs, and HNMs and Dynamis drops, point blank and as ugly as it can every get online, and sometimes offline.
Yanno what, TAKE the damn cars, Mikey - any way you can exploit those damn artificial limits, fuck em, fuck em good, cause the bastards that set up that kinda drama deserve a poke in the eye for it.
Since you like racing games, save for one major and minor flaw, I found Juiced for Xbox to be one of the most fun racing games ever, fairly deep customisation, nice balance between real and arcade physics, and without too much of that rubberband bullshit...
Problem is that it runs on a respect system, and refusing a pink slip race costs you, which the other factions exploit the living shit out of by BOMBING you with pink slip requests when you're trying to get into something like, a race with a prototype part - the minor flaw is of course one of the factions requires stunt/drift type stuff, which isn't what I was interested in.
Juiced 2 sucks ass, though - and for the same reason as too many of these games.
If I wanna circuit race, then I WANT to circuit race, I do NOT want to drift, I do NOT want to do checkpoints or chases, I WANT, what I wANT.
In fact that's how I rate a game - how much bullshit that I DON'T want to do, do I gotta put up with in order to do what I wANT to do, and one reason FFXI fails so utterly is that the ratio there is about 60-to-1.
You can imagine I was unhappy about that.
The fact that Squeenix was actually forced to APOLOGIZE for FF14, after years of lies, damn lies, blame the customer and pure malicious contempt for their own fanbois (of which my ex is one) sent me into hysterics, but my hatred for them is also biased on the notion that they helped destroy the relationship, though we're better friends than we ever were mates.
Also you might look to Split Second - I was rather impressed by it graphically, even if they didn't bring anything new to the gameplay, somehow they managed to render that without dipping the framerate, and it was pretty neat.
Although I will say this much...
Gameplay > Graphics - one of my favorite comments is, yeah, it's pretty, but so what ?
Hell, a lot of folks are going retro cause gameplay these days is taking such a hit.
One of the best in-depth RPG type games, Betrayal at Krondor is in fact freeware now, and will run even on a damn 286.
Although Valkyria Chronicles throws a new spin on that, kind of like somewhere between Range Murata and storyboards come to life - here's a quick taste of it for ya.
That and the characters just make the game for me, the story is excellent and endearing indeed - but each character has their own quirks, foibles, personality, it makes you really care about em.
Jann walker won me over even if he is a completely stereotypical "Flamboyant" homosexual, he's also a mother hen type and generally nice fellow, not to mention he stacks imperial tanks in PILES, man... pulling out a near failed mission by one shotting a tank from range kinda of ups your opinion of a person, heheh.
And speaking of hehehe, Wendy cheslock is adorably terrifying - since your people are militia, you get all the rejects the army wouldn't take, and miss gen-u-ine super psycho was too SCARY for them, she likes her job wayyyy toooo much.
I've most partial to Nadine though, both for gameplay reasons and cause she really does manage to project a certain inexplicable something which I rather cotton to - besides being damn handy with a wrench.
-Frem
I do not serve the B
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Quote:
Wulf, I never, NEVER accused Fox of "censorship". There is a HUGE difference between censorship and slanted news--which every single MSM practices. If you can't tell the difference, that's terribly sad.
The CNN report was SLANTED. It may not exactly BE censorship, but it IS controlling the debate.
Which is therfor controlling how news is perceived.
And therby censoring the free exchange of ideas.
You complain about it all the time with Fox, Nicki. Its not a complete erasure of information, but a controlled directive of that information. Which is somehow worse.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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