PC Gaming = World of Suck

I have only seen one place where I needed to save and couldn't (when I evolved and needed to create a land vehicle). I also haven't had any crashes while playing the game, though it does crash when I exit. However, it hasn't caused any problems. It's not so much that there isn't an auto save feature, but a lack of a save list rather than one generic save. The game has certainly seen and felt a lot of negativity. My experience with it so far has been positive.
 
Ah, well, I haven't gotten there yet, so I might have to gripe about it when I do. :-) I haven't had a lot of time at home to play the game, so I'm still in the civilization stage.
 
Handruin said:
Ah, well, I haven't gotten there yet, so I might have to gripe about it when I do. :-) I haven't had a lot of time at home to play the game, so I'm still in the civilization stage.
Click to expand...

I just wanted to play the game through once to get the feel first, so I was into space in about 3 hours. I then spent 3 hours in space (forgetting to save) before it crashed. I then repeated the same twice more. It is able to run for several hours without crashing, I was just dumb. Repeatedly.
 
Personally, I'm not about to install a game that won't operate if I have an ISO mounting tool installed.

Holy crap that's dumb.
 
Mercutio said:
Personally, I'm not about to install a game that won't operate if I have an ISO mounting tool installed.

Holy crap that's dumb.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there is all sorts of bad press about this game and the super crappy protection it has. Did you know you can only install it a total of three times? Apparently EVER??
 
MaxBurn said:
Yeah, there is all sorts of bad press about this game and the super crappy protection it has. Did you know you can only install it a total of three times? Apparently EVER??
Click to expand...

They did say that calling them and requesting more installs was easy. I haven't heard of anyone that has tried yet.
 
Ars Technica tried it and said they were just given more keys.
The "no daemon tools" shit is a far bigger concern.

Just like using Steam, it's punishing people who want to just play a fucking game.

Between the utter lack of fun that is console gaming (I have rented 57 Wii titles at $3.50 a pop, to discover this) and the fact that the only way to get a decent PC games is to play on in a web browser or in an MMO, I have to say that the down sides to gaming are too high for me to bother with any more.
 
Other than a crash every few hours, the Spore-RELOADED from TPB plays very well. The retail copy I bought (and opened once) now sits on my shelf, next to the other games I bought and cracked.
 
The problem with a cracked game is that you really don't know what the crackers did to the game besides remove the copy protection. How do you really know that you didn't install some remote registry hack, or a turn your PC into a spam relay?
 
Mercutio said:
The problem with a cracked game is that you really don't know what the crackers did to the game besides remove the copy protection. How do you really know that you didn't install some remote registry hack, or a turn your PC into a spam relay?
Click to expand...

Other than knowing your system resource baseline by heart? You don't. But that is what having a "gaming PC" is all about.
 
My gaming PC sits inside my network with access to all the cool stuff I've collected and have access to. It's also connected to a nice 40" Samsung 650A TV and an awesome home theater, so I kind of want to be able to trust that computer to remain uncompromised.

PC Game manufacturers have finally succeeded in making games that are so unpalatable that I can't even stand to install legal copies. The pirate release groups probably *are* more trustworthy, but do you really think it's impossible for someone to tag an "official" warez release (and the "official" MD5sum) with something nasty before it gets put in the wild?

It's just too much work.
 
Browsing around some of the *.nfo files I have here none seem to mention a MD5 sum and it is interesting you bring that up. In all my time I have never had a problem with a warez distro put out by one of the major houses. Almost without question they all work as released too. I have occasionally had problems with intrusionware on trainers or maybe a no-CD patch that I got from shady sites, but that's easily recognized, killed and really should be expected from the sites I got it from. At the moment now that you mention it I would say I have more faith in old Razor/Fairlight/Reloaded/Vitality/Myth/Hatred/Deviance/Mirror/etc than I do in the stuff released recently. I can't tell you how much money these guys have saved me from buying a game that initially looked good but just turned out to suck. At the same time I have shelves of legit stuff that I liked and I would say a good half of them I had warez distros of them first and felt it was good enough to pick up when I wondered across it in the store. I can't imagine how much more distrust and loathing I would have for game companies that jipped me countless times on crappy titles that I paid full price for.

Warhammer and its startup has annoyed me pretty greatly twice this launch. I prebuy the game on line through Best Buy and after a little confusion I get my open beta codes and early entry codes. So this is how the whole release/game opening went for me;

Open beta time starts and we play to basically figure out the interface and feel comfortable working in it knowing that anything we do will be wiped once the game is started officially and it went pretty well too, game looks polished with lots of stuff waiting to be uncovered later. Open beta closes and I find I can't get into the "early entry" which was a benefit of the prebuy. Sure enough read the fine print and find out that I didn't get the "special edition" game and because of that I have to wait a couple more days so I can get in a "no so early entry" which incidentally falls right square on last weekend that I was doing nothing at all when I had planned on playing the game.

Now this weekend rolls around along with official game release day Friday. I find out that I am fuked again as all "early entry" accounts were suspended, to reopen them you have to enter the CD key that is in a shipping container god knows where because I didn't upgrade to next day air shipping for the extra $19 or so for a stupid CD shipping. So UPS delivery tracking says I get into the game monday after wasting another weekend that I had set aside.

I am sure some of you are thinking keeping the open beta or early entry accounts working for a couple more days isn't technically possible. Of course that's not true and they admit it:
http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=306
Some game retailers couldn't ship on time so EA/Mythic is keeping their early entry accounts open and they can enter a CD key later on. Why not offer this for all and choose to not fack over the REST of your customers? You aren't loosing money or anything!!

SO right there screw you EA/Mythic, you completely bungled what could have been a great release and gave me a permanent initial crappy taste that may ruin the whole experience for me. I would have been FAR better off if I had simply not been as excited about the game and wondered into a local store yesterday and picked one off the shelf to buy. Even if they were out of stock and I had to wait a day or two I would be getting in the game the same day as I am now! If you think about it the people EA/Mythic are screwing over with this release crap are potentially their best customers, they are enthusiastic about the game and want to be a part of it as soon as possible, why choose to screw over your best customers? How many happy customers spend an hour thinking about and typing a post like this?

Well I'm going to find something outside to do, obviously not playing warhammer this weekend. Another weekend wasted waiting to play this stupid game. I'll play it eventually mostly because I paid for it and I HOPE long term it will redeem itself, but that first initial kick in the nuts is going to make me think twice about trusting EA/Mythic with my money again.
 
Last edited:
It sounds to me like your problem is really with Best Buy for not sending you your headstart key and for having expensive shipping.
BTW The initial headstart that opened Sunday was for Collectors Edition purchasers. The special edition pre orders (which it sounds like you got) headstart opened Tuesday. I had no problem getting into that as I got my SE HS key when I got the OB key.
Release was Thursday and yesterday Mythic said they would give a grace period so people that didn't get their box yet could still play.
I just bought it from Direct2Drive and saved myself all the trouble of waiting for a box and saved shipping.
 
Striker said:
It sounds to me like your problem is really with Best Buy for not sending you your headstart key and for having expensive shipping.
Click to expand...

Correct expensive shipping. They did send the headstart and open beta keys right away via email, but not instantly like I thought they would, no biggie. At any rate I had the codes well before open beta started so I was happy in that respect. I wish now I just had gone with one of the all electronic distros, you never get a CD and just download the game but for some reason I like to have a CD you know? At any rate BBY wasn't one of the stores that EA/Mythic extended the courtesy of playing and entering your CD key later so I feel justified in thinking they specifically chose groups of people that I belong to to screw. Why? It didn't have to be that way.

BTW The initial headstart that opened Sunday was for Collectors Edition purchasers. The special edition pre orders (which it sounds like you got) headstart opened Tuesday. I had no problem getting into that as I got my SE HS key when I got the OB key.
Release was Thursday and yesterday Mythic said they would give a grace period so people that didn't get their box yet could still play.
I just bought it from Direct2Drive and saved myself all the trouble of waiting for a box and saved shipping.
Click to expand...

Correct, but I got the standard edition so they cut me off on Saturday and I was locked out till Tuesday like you say. I can sort of see this as people paid more for me for the privilege. I just wish they were more up front with it, I read quite a bit about it but lost this little factoid in all the details about open beta, closed beta, SE headstart, CE headstart, man what a minefield of dates there so it was a surprise to me that I wasn't allowed to play for a couple days.
 
MaxBurn said:
At any rate BBY wasn't one of the stores that EA/Mythic extended the courtesy of playing and entering your CD key later so I feel justified in thinking they specifically chose groups of people that I belong to to screw. Why? It didn't have to be that way.
Click to expand...
I didn't realize the grace period wasn't extended to everyone. That is pretty odd.


Correct, but I got the standard edition so they cut me off on Saturday and I was locked out till Tuesday like you say. I can sort of see this as people paid more for me for the privilege. I just wish they were more up front with it, I read quite a bit about it but lost this little factoid in all the details about open beta, closed beta, SE headstart, CE headstart, man what a minefield of dates there so it was a surprise to me that I wasn't allowed to play for a couple days.
Click to expand...
They certainly didn't make it easy on themselves with all the various keys and start dates.
At any rate, the game is still what I would consider beta with its various problems but I'm still enjoying it.
I hope you get your copy soon.
 
Mercutio said:
Between the utter lack of fun that is console gaming (I have rented 57 Wii titles at $3.50 a pop, to discover this)
Click to expand...

I can't understand this. We have a blast playing the Wii. Our latest addiction is boomblox. I finally finished Super Mario Galaxy. I had to take a long hiatus because our disc went bad.
 
Will Rickards said:
I can't understand this. We have a blast playing the Wii. Our latest addiction is boomblox. I finally finished Super Mario Galaxy. I had to take a long hiatus because our disc went bad.
Click to expand...

Console games apparently don't meet my idea of satisfying entertainment. I generally dislike the control schemes and the types of gaming available. I'd categorize most Wii titles as annoying at best. I don't even particularly like gaming on the couch. I prefer to by at a desk.

I've owned a Wii and an Xbox 360. The only reason I still own the Wii is that I break out the Wii Fit maybe once every 10 days or so when I get home and I'm neither exhausted nor so annoyed that I'm willing to tolerate the 'Fit berating me for going 10 days without using it.
 
What I find interesting with the Wii is that people who generally don't like gaming like it, like your parents or young children. A coworker mentioned to me that her parents visited and got addicted to bowling on it. They have an interesting thing started in doing that, lets see if they can keep that going.

War is going full strength now. Some outages and patches coming around on a regular basis. I find that rather strange when you consider the game was in closed beta for about a year. Some things I imagine are simply scaling with more people and servers. Leveling seems a little slow though, I'm generally not seeing a level a night with a couple hours play time. Actually last night I realized I have no idea how the channels and group chat works, my friends and I are all on vent.
 
Oh and PA today has a nice little mention of the EA Spore copy protection fiasco.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/

I actually like steam, it seems to solve more problems than it creates. You loose or damage your disks and you can just download the content. For download only content there is a backup provision so you can move to a new computer and not have to download again. For some old games like original half life, blueshift etc. all I had to do was enter their CD key and it download the whole thing patched to work under XP. Works well for me. Any opinions on steam out there?
 
Fallout 3 comes out tomorrow. I remember the first one as a great action role playing game with a really unique aesthetic. I've been so disappointed by recent PC games and especially by game publishers that I'm not sure I want to buy it.
 
From what I've read the game format sounds a bit like Oblivion, but without some of the negativity people have complained about in that game.

I have Fallout 1 & 2 from GoG that I started playing through, but I won't be done before fallout 3 comes out.

<rant>
I've recently bought the rockband 2 special edition which includes all the instruments. I'm rather disappointed with the quality of the drums. This is their second attempt after having such a large number of problems with the original set. Like many who played RB1, there was hope of substantial improvement, but in many cases they are actually worse than the originals. This time around EA has stuck it to their customers (big surprise) with their RMA policy which is new and revised to protect them from their crappy equipment. They've given a 60-day warranty (with a receipt required this time). Once you get your replacement part back from the mail, you only have 5 days of warranty to replace it if it breaks again and then you're done on your entire warranty.

Some of the problems seen with the drum kit are so basic that it's obvious no one even tested them. The new set is wireless and while playing it...the batteries shake loose from the compartment and the unit disconnects during game play. It only took a couple hours for this to happen while playing and tons of people have this issue...so had then even spent a couple hours testing, they would have seen this issue. There is a simple fix which involves a small piece of cardboard or napkin being stuffed into the unit...but I shouldn't have to do this.

My only saving recourse is that I actually spent the $29.99 at bestbuy for a 2-year full replacement plan on the whole kit...knowing that this is something you must literally beat on in order to use, I thought it might not be a bad investment. I believe I'll be using it more than once.
</rant>
 
I bought Sins of a Solar Empire yesterday, and it won't even install on my PC. Comes up with some error about being out of memory (unlikely with 8GB in the system). Somewhere on a forum I read that this can be fixed by installing the Demo first, then uninstalling it, then installing the game. Whatever. So I download the demo and it says that it won't run on XP x64. But the game itself doesn't say anything about it.
 
It's a fun game multiplayer if you can ever get it working. I'm running the classic 32-bit XP and it works fine so I don't have any useful help, sorry.
 
Fallout 3 has annoyed me. The original games were fun and had a lot of humor. Fallout 3 has basically five indoor tilesets and three outdoor tilesets (one of the outdoor ones is only used in one place). There are by my count 12 kinds of bad guys in the game, and with sub-types differentiated by name rather than even a minor graphical distinction. "Wow, a room full of identical super mutants."

In other words, it's the same thing over and over and over and over.

The world is HUGE, and it's pretty cool that in some places they model the game world after actual places (e.g. the Metro stations are really close to real ones but I've been to the Air and Space Museum and the capital building and they don't look like that. The Lincoln Memorial is astonishingly close, though). It's frustrating to travel through various locations to find the one thing that makes it unique from all the other locations with exactly the same tile set.

Previous versions of Fallout were turn based. The current game can be played in a super, super easy turn-based mode called VATS, which more or less renders combat an annoyance, or as a straight-up FPS. Depending on your FPS skills I suspect that might be even easier than the turn based mode.

When I started the game I just set out exploring, ignoring the main quest. I still haven't started the main quest but by walking into the wrong area at a low level, I also fast forwarded through about 60% of the game content. I still haven't tried to do any of the main quest, but my character is level-capped and in most cases skill-capped. I've visited almost all the in-game locations except the place I actually need to go to officially play the game and the only annoyance I have is that my character has been carrying around a suit of super-awesome power armor for 15 levels that I can't put on because I haven't learned how to put it on yet.

I have a dog. My dog is probably my favorite part of the game. I can tell him to fetch things and he will do it. "Find ammo, boy!" and he will wander as far as he needs to to bring me some kind of ammunition. Hilarious. He will even unlock doors and safes to do it. I suck at unlocking doors and safes, so I abuse the hell out of this.

At first the exploration was awesome. I would go in a ruined town and into all the ruined homes to find little pieces of people's lives. As you get farther away from the starting area, there's less and less of that. Which is sad, because to me that's the fun part.

The weapons in Fallout 3 are quite frustrating. Some of them are awesome. Mini-Nukes, for example, or the Railway Rifle that lets you pin pieces of bad guys to walls, or the Rock-It gun that lets you shoot all the random crap (tin cans, teddy bears, vacuum cleaners) you find strewn about the wasteland. The regular guns unfortunately aren't sufficient to kill the late-level baddies quickly, so I end up hording one particular type of ammunition for one particular type of gun.

Another minor point of awesome, something I know that's been in the various GTA games for a while, is the radio. It alternates between upbeat 1940s-era pop music (Danny Kaye, for example) and updates on your in-game actions. Sometimes the radio follows up on a storyline that you've finished. I thought that was a nice touch.

I can't say that I haven't been entertained, but having explored everything in the game I'm not sure I'm going to bother to finish it. I don't know how many identical sewers, metro stations and ruined offices I can bring myself to slog through.

---

Yes, I'm bored at work today. Why do you ask?
 
I read a news article that Crayon Physics Deluxe will be available tomorrow.

While watching a video blog by the developer, he made mention of an inspirational game which lead him to develop his game. The name of the game is Armadillo Run. If you've ever played Crazy Machines or that bridge/physics game, you'll like this game. They have a demo of the first few levels which is worth trying if you're into the physics of building contraptions to solve a small puzzle while being efficient at using resources.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top