Well a resurrection spell later and boom! Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition is now available in your local gaming stores. I am most likely going to pick these up at some point as my players handbook is rather worn down and I would definitely like a refresh.
I have a special place for 2nd edition as this is the edition I started with and probably have the most fond gaming memories concerning games played on the system. Good times indeed.
Well today for video gamers everywhere was the day Microsoft showed XBOX One to the world. Usually every time a system goes into next gen it stirs up tons of rumors, anticipation and even fears. The Wii U has been out for awhile now to tepid sales and worries, Sony announced the PS4 and seem’s to be on the right track and today was Microsoft’s big day.
Being a big fan of the XBox 360 as my platform of choice last generation I had some optimism going into today. Though it was peppered with some worries. There have been these persistent rumors of always online connected system with a type of digital rights management scheme built in to prevent piracy. It’s all the rage these days. Ask EA all about it. But it was so over the top that it almost seemed unbelievable. Talking to friends, there would be laughs at how crazy any of these big brother type schemes would be if it happened. Well…they are going in that direction.
During the unveiling today we got a glimpse of the system. It’s not awesome looking to be sure. It’s not ugly either. Really it looks to me like a giant PVR as when it was first invented. Grant it the system might find some alterations to it’s look by the time it rolls out but suffice it to say many people are not thrilled. But that is cosmetics and not the heart of the issue.
It was said the if you tried to have an always online system you would be basically shooting your company in the head. Argument is that not everyone has the same type of service, there are download caps, bandwidth issues, outages to take into consideration. Well Microsoft says to hell with all your fears and yeah the system is always connected. There is some contention as to what consists of always online. Even Microsoft themselves seem uncertain. The general idea is that every 24 hours, your system checks if it’s online. If it isn’t then too bad, you can no longer play your games. So it’s not “always online” but you better have a connection at some point during the day.
This day and age I see less of a probably being connected online at some point however the implementation of a system where I cannot play a game on my $400-$500 device because I have no internet connection is mind boggling. It’s actually pretty offensive to consumers really. It’s not the end all be all however I see the inherent dangers of such a structure for it to fail.
Speaking of games, another point of contention has been the used game market. Companies seem to be really bothered that when you buy a game, you might want to sell it. God forbid you get some money back and get another game with it. Game Stop or EB Games have been the hub of all used game activity and it’s really their bread and butter. Well as a giant middle finger to them and consumers, you can trade your comes…online via a Microsoft concocted service to be announced and further detailed. Even lending a game to a friend seem’s to be out of the question. Well, I say out of the question but you can lend the game. However Microsoft wants your friend who borrowed your game to actually pay the MSRP to play it. So that means purchase it right.
All of this early information is quite scary and definitely not the Hello World for a new product you want to do. In fact probably this type of marketing is polar opposite to what any sane company should be doing. However that being said, I should stress that this is very very early news that is coming out and communication on Microsoft’s side from what I have been reading is out of whack with conflicting statements. It will probably take a week to get everything somewhat clarified but if this is indeed all factual then this generation of gaming seem’s to be in quite some trouble.
I wrote an entry on digital rights mismanagement around the time the Sim City fiasco was going strong but I think the idea applies to this. At what point as a consumer who purchases games do we lose the right to that game. Do we even have rights when we buy the game? Technically you buy a game and it should be yours right? I should be able to give that game I spent my hard earned money on to a friend or family member right? And what about your system? Isn’t that the same concept? Very troubling indeed if all these measures come into effect.
Kotaku article on your ability to trade your XBOX One games
Kotaku article on requiring an internet connection for XBOX One
I’m a little ambivalent about this. On the one hand, yay, more fantasy movies. On the other hand, the D&D movies were… bad. I guess I’m more optimistic. Cautiously optimistic. Cauptimistic.
Warner Bros has acquired rights to make a movie based on Dungeons & Dragons, the perennially popular role-playing game fantasy game. The studio is actually quite far along in the development of the project, as it will use a script by Wrath Of The Titans and Red Riding Hood scribe and Frank Darabont protege David Leslie Johnson. That script, Chainmail, was acquired last year as a free-standing project, based on an obscure game that was also hatched by D&D designer Gary Gygax before he and Dave Arneson launched D&D. It is being retro-fitted to fit the much bigger game creation. The film will be produced by The Lego Movie producer Roy Lee and Courtney Solomon. The latter actually directed a 2000 Dungeons & Dragons feature, a film that starred Jeremy Irons and did not do well.
Read the rest at Deadline.
Having just run a game of the incredible Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game on the weekend, I’m saddened to learn today that while it and the recent Civil War event books have performed well, it hasn’t performed well enough for them to produce more content for the license, and it will expire very shortly.
You can get the PDFs from DriveThruRPG until they disappear on Tuesday, April 30th.
In brighter news, they talk about the Firefly and Leverage licenses as well as the upcoming Cortex Plus.
MWP detailed this in a sort of “state of the union” post that you can read here.
Forbes has a two-part article detailing Torchbearer, the newest RPG from Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard RPG creators Luke Crane and Thor Olavsrud. In the past, Luke has taken the lead with development while Thor did the editing, but this time the roles are reversed. The game itself is a heavily modified version of the underlying system in Mouse Guard, retooled for spelunking and dungeon exploration. Resource management is key, and oftentimes you’ll be dealing with challenges involving what you’re carrying just as much as you are dealing with traditional dungeon-delving challenges like traps and monsters.
You can read part one here and part two here.
The game is aiming for a GenCon release with a Kickstarter before it to drum up funds to complete the game.
If your a gamer you probably heard about the now famous Sim City crisis. If not then to quickly sum things up you have this game which recently released however it is an always online games. It was being billed as designed specifically to be played online so that your part of a greater community and share ressources, etc. Basically a more communal Sim City where everyone lives in harmony.
Sounds great right? Well in theory it does however a large portion of fans wanted a solitary Sim City experience. All the other Sim City games were offline. But as gamers we know something is generally amiss these days when a game is always online and that’s DRM. Yup, this is rearing it’s ugly head again.
Whenever I hear about DRM I cringe. I just cannot understand this concept. I cannot understand that a company intends to sell me a game that has either a limited use (number of activations) or needs to always have an active connection to the internet (to verify the authenticity). Essentially these days with DRM your not really owning your games anymore. I avoid these types of games at all costs as I think it is pretty bold on the publishers part to be so insulting to it’s consumers.
So let’s take Sim City. Ok so we know in the back of our heads DRM is really what they are aiming for. It’s the proverbial elephant in the room. Well so does this EA employee who had comments posted on Forbes. In his comments he bashes his employer for not following their core values and not respecting the consumers. Kudos to him! More companies should follow their core values but corporate politics tends to take precedence.
So consumers rightfully cried fowl at EA for this in which they then pointed to finger of blame to Maxis which is humorous when you think of it. It’s like seeing a shit storm coming and then going whoa, it was the other guy I swear. In the end all are to blame as this was in the planning all along. But that wasn’t the end of Sim City miserable life.
So you bought your always online game, you pop it in on release days and….servers not functioning. Not only were they not functioning but it took about a week or so to get things playable and playable is a strong word as from what everyone has been saying. The game is still not very playable.
Maxis went on the defensive claiming online was all along planned, nothing further to see here, sorry about the disturbance. They also said that Sim City is like an MMO. Yeah I face palmed on that one too. They also tried selling us on the idea that their servers behind the scenes were working wondrous magic making computations and simulating. It could not possibly be played offline and how dare we demand such nonsense.
But Maxis and EA have forgotten that gamers are geeks. Geeks are coders sometimes. Sometimes geeks can find out that your game has a line of code that forces a termination of the game after 20 minutes.Ouch!!
That was embarrassing. But then again, Maxis and EA were still saying how online was the vision and that the servers were still needed to make the magic happen. Well maybe they should find out who from Maxis basically confirmed at Rock, Paper, Shotgun that servers were not handling anything serious.
But with all these problems it’s not just a symptom of a bad game design and not listening to your customers. It’s about controlling their purchases and plain faced lying to them in any conceivable manner to hide what is really going on. What is really going on is that the consumer is getting screwed.
Since computers became so popular there has always been piracy. We don’t condone it at all but it happens and will happen. There has never been any anti piracy method that has not been cracked by someone which means every attempt at control has failed. And for what? Has the investment in these methods not outweighed the gain by now. Loss of consumer confidence, boycott’s and almost indirectly encouraging people to pirate their games out of spite.
It still doesn’t seem to resonate with companies though. They are still trying and even the new Xbox seem’s to be heading towards the always-on, always connected method. Which begs to question will we even be proper owners of the console of the future? And do we really own our games anymore? I feel like it’s the most expensive rental from Blockbuster ever.
To top it off when these servers all come down eventually we are stranded with a $60 plastic case and a disc of a game we can no longer play. At least there will be no mistaking who own’s that plastic case. We do and it is not nearly as fun as the game we thought we owned.
And that is some food for thought
Well some of you have might have heard about this site called MiniWarGaming who have been selling Warhammer miniatures for a long time. Not only do they sell miniatures but they release tons of videos on modelling techniques. Really these guys are hardcore and pretty awesome.
Well they recently announced they are closing
But the real story is not so much a company that has been in trouble but more like a company who has been doing good but because of recent policy changes at Games Workshop, they essentially are killing this company and probably many others.
So your probably wondering how are they doing this? Well for one, only Games Workshop is now allowed to sell their products online…period. Which pretty much alienates everyone. Both businesses and customers. The idea behind this all seem’s to be corporate greed.They are sugar coating it all under the illusion that they are offering a better service, more streamlined, better for retailers. But really when you buy your Warhammer miniatures online you can generally get them at a little discount. I think we can all agree that Games Workshop products are absurdly expensive. But they were the big kid on the block for so long that people are generally used to the high prices. But now they absolutely want you to buy it full retailer price.
I get they want to make money. All companies do and I don’t blame them. But I don’t think that this is so detrimental to their sales that they need to take this action. I also have a feeling they are a bit full of themselves. If you read their retailer policy provided by MiniWarGaming here, it comes off as being a bit smug.
To make matters even worse, Games Workshop has disabled their Twitter, Facebook and ability to post via YouTube on their channel. It’s like they know they are being assholes and decided the best way to avoid criticism is to close their eyes and pretend everything is all right.
In the end I don’t think that Games Workshop is going anywhere anytime soon, but stunts like this only damage their image and looking at a lot of comments around the internet, it sure looks like their competitors will be having a surge in their sales thanks to them. A bit ironic all considering.
But I highly recommend you look at the MiniWarGaming video explaining the situation of their closing and their thoughts on all this.
Over at Omnivoracious there is a little response by R.A. Salvatore to a question on how to write in both perspectives in a story. It’s a great read and highly recommend anyone who dabbles in writing or does so professionally to take a gander.
R.A. Salvatore on Using First and Third Person in the Same Book via Omnivoracious
Green Ronin took the opportunity to provide an update on the Kickstarter which focused on some questions concerning Freeport’s use of the Pathfinder rules. It’s nothing that wasn’t particularly expected but may be a good read for those interested.
This falls into a bit of random news territory but awesome nonetheless. Babelglyph proposed to her girlfriend but this was no ordinary ring. No this was a special ring made of pure awesome. Head on over to the link below to view the ring, a video of the proposal and a look at the chainmail box it came in. Oh yes, I said chainmail box.