Blog Posts from "Gaming Rampage" - Gameriot.com

How hard it is to make PC Games

no.spam@gameriot.com (Webbstre) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:39:24 -0500

I found this old copy of an article of a blog by a developer for Titan's Quest in my Livejournal archives. Re-reading it reminds me how much trouble it is for PC developers to make games that everyone can play. It covers the dev's take on piracy, hardware conflicts, software conflicts, stupid people, reviewers, and more. Go on, read:

Boy buys Madden 09, gets called a Redneck S%&t

no.spam@gameriot.com (Webbstre) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:52:00 -0500

This stood out enough to post on my Gaming Rampage blog:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/88946-Walmart-Sells-Boy-Madden-09-With-Disc-Labeled-Redneck-S-t

The short version of the story is this little buy saves up his christmas money to buy a non violent game, but when he gets home and opens it he finds a blank disc with the words "Redneck ****" written on it.

Coulda been worse, he coulda walked in on his mom bouncing on Santa.

Obama first Black US President... KKK runs in fear.

no.spam@gameriot.com (Webbstre) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:42:32 -0500

Today the American people elected Barack Obama as their first Black US President. With his election, there appears to be a sudden convoy of SUVs and small gas efficient cars streaming into the US from Canada. Satellite counts confirm that this is the exact number of vehicles that appear to have entered Canada and not returned in the past 8 years.

In other news, the American south was surprised to find grocery and convenience stores suddenly selling out of all stock of canned and boxed food, all sealed liquids, as well as white bed sheets and scissors. Lower to middle class white Christian males in the area also appear to have vanished, leaving only a trail of dirt bike treads and muddy footprints leading into the wilderness as evidence of their disappearance. Google is expected to take new pictures of the American south with their latest high definition satellite camera to allow people to track down their lost family members.

Finally, the weather. Cold fronts are making progress through lower Hell this evening, and it appears several families of Stygian Beasts are taking their families out to make snowbeasts in the area located around Hellforge. Please be warned that this cold front may become worse before it thaws, and that all denizens are advised to stay indoors near someone hot and burning.

Diablo III Fansite Kit

no.spam@gameriot.com (Webbstre) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:41:04 -0400

Blizzard released a Fansite Kit for the community. There is some interesting little bits in there, including artwork and backgrounds and information. Some of it might be new, so take a look:

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/index.xml#fansitekit

Gaming and "The Hype"

no.spam@gameriot.com (Webbstre) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:10:55 -0400

There is only one way to avoid this snarling mess of criticism and hypothetical arguing: take a step back from it all. Unless you write for a gaming website/magazine/etc, don't spend all your time searching for every article. Try to remember that sometimes it is the surprises in playing a game for the first time that can make a uniquely fun experience for you. Don't let other people decide how you should feel about a game. The people writing those reviews are being paid in some form or another to endorse something, that doesn't mean it is as good as they say it is. Likewise, a bad review doesn't necessarily mean the game won't be enjoyable for you. Oh, and avoid spending much time on forums. What people think on forums about a game they have never played before rarely matters, and even when it does it is usually not a good thing. How many companies have you seen try to make a game that "makes everyone happy" only to water down would would have been an otherwise amazing product?

In short, when you start getting hot and heavy in anticipation of a game you haven't even played yet, take a step back and go do something else to distract yourself.Â

Die die die

no.spam@gameriot.com (Webbstre) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:01:07 -0400

Just a bit of Diablo III news that I stumbled onto that hasn't been posted here yet... Bashiok has let us in on the death mechanic they are using now. A quick quote will keep you informed:

I can see this being really good and really bad. Good, because if this mechanic was in Diablo II I might go back and play it some more. Bad, because in other games with sort of similar mechanics, you can basically lead way stronger monsters to the checkpoint and keep getting pot shots in between deaths until whatever it is dies.

The Diablo Series: Why we should have just killed everyone

no.spam@gameriot.com (Webbstre) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:15:55 -0400

First, let's talk about Hell. According to the manuals, Diablo, Mephisto and Baal were thrown out of hell and banished to the mortal plane by the four "Lesser Evils" (Andariel, Duriel, Azmodan and Belial). Obviously part of this got retconned in Diablo 2, but that is beside the point. The point is, Diablo, Mephisto and Baal all just wanted to get to Hell. Keep that in mind.

According to the manuals, the Soulstones are voids that suck the spirits of the Prime Evils into them to be contained. The only protection from the Soulstones is for the Prime Evils to possess mortals. When the Horadrim were trying to capture the big three, they had to kill many innocents who were possessed in order to catch their non-physical forms and seal them. The problem here? Well, first of all Baal's soulstone got broken into smaller pieces, none of them big enough to contain the Lord of Destruction, so Tal Rasha decides to sacrifice his body, mind and soul to hold Baal in a combination of himself and the stone, which is jammed into his body.

Wait a second, isn't a mortal body the only protection AGAINST the soulstones? Technically, that should be the most flawed plan the Horadrim ever conceived. It is no wonder that Baal had taken over the physical body by the time Diablo and Marius broke into the crypt.Â The same problem happened at the end of the original Diablo, where your hero decides his own skull is the best place for a demonic gem that contains an evil more or less forgotten to the entire world. Again, isn't this exactly what Diablo wants? He had a crappy child's body in the original, and then he gets a full grown warrior who can wander the world at will for Diablo II.

That brings up another point, it doesn't matter how many times you kill these mutant physical forms of the prime evils, because their true forms are some kind of spiritual possessive force that are trapped in the soulstones.

That being said, what is the point of Diablo II? Well you kill off the physical bodies of each Prime Evil, take the soulstones into hell, and break them. Isn't that EXACTLY what they wanted? You are basically convinced to be an escort to take each Prime Evil exactly where they want to go, and then set them free from their Soulstone prisons. After all, wasn't it a broken soulstone that caused the Tal Rasha-Baal problem? Why would breaking it more help? That is like hitting a broken television with a hammer to try to fix it.

Who is responsible for all of this? One answer is the Horadrim, but that is a bit off the mark. Right now there is only Cain, and he may or may not be an actual Horadrim. It sounds more like his Grandmother was a possible descendant who told him stories of her ancestors, and then he went and found books about them and learned more on his own. That hardly makes Cain a capable advisor for heroes saving the world.

What then of Tyreal? He started the Horadrim and gave them the mission to capture the Prime Evils. It SOUNDS like a good idea... but what good has ever come of Tyreal's actions? He lost his flaming crystal sword, his right-hand man (angel) Izual betrays him and turns into a demon, he is incapable of stopping a lone madman from crossing a rotting wooden bridge hanging over a semi-flaming pit and setting Baal free, and his good idea for how to deal with a corrupted Worldstone is to blow it up.

This brings me to my point: everthing you ever did in any Diablo game was meaningless (lore-wise). What SHOULD have happened, from the beginning, is the Warrior should have gone to Tristram, killed Diablo, left the stone there, gone mad, come out of the dungeon and killed EVERYONE in Tristram, and then broken all the entrances to keep anyone from going in. THEN, when your Diablo II heroes came wandering by they would have passed right on through. Without Diablo to set Baal free he would have sat there in his hole with no problem. The original Rogue and Sorcerer would have been killed by the Heroes, but there would have been no Duriel or Andariel to worry about. Thus, all the bad guys would be in their own respective holes, the Worldstone would have been fine, and Tyreal could have taken a vacation.

Food for thought.