.report

Just had to share today's gem of a report. Always so entertaining reading these. FYI I do read ALL of these almost everyday, unless we're in open testing and beta and then I tend to focus on those. Here goes:

2007-09-14 21:36:06  playerNameWitheld   German 8. Zerstörerflottille maniacm mission cell#145 near Dordrecht N51.49.11 E4.38.51
   "silent bombing/straffing should be an exploit"
2007-09-14 21:46:08  playerNameWitheld   German 8. Zerstörerflottille mwhitman mission cell#145 near Dordrecht N51.48.35 E4.38.47
   "WTF MFING PANHARD FIRING THROUGH A FING HILL AT DORD, ALLIED BIASM"
2007-09-14 22:01:34  playerNameWitheld   German brigade scrn last nearDordrecht N51.49.28 E4.39.4
   "rename the game to allied and crs loser idiocy online"

Ahh, Loser Idiocy Online. Now that's catchy! All from the same player; all in a row. I love my job...

News Flash! Escapist magazine Doesn't All Suck!

Ok so the head lines a little over the top but honestly, I can rarely read all the way through the fluff pieces that fill up the latest trendy industry web-zine blog-thingie. That's probably as much to do with the gawds awful layout that they use to give it that whole 'zine-thingie. Yuck.

Anyway, today they talk about gold farming:

Then there's the question of the game designers' intent. Having worked with designers, I know they hate farmers more than a lot of players do, because the farmers are finding and exploiting design weaknesses in products they've worked on for years. Some people would say, "Hey, tough luck. If your design is weak, it's your own fault."

Well, Darius pretty much nailed that one. He goes on to add:

Others would take the stance that people who agree to play a game are entering in an implicit contract to not only play by the rules, but to play reasonably within the designer's intent.

These "others" are the same ones who believe that there is some sort of code of conduct among the player community and not following this unwritten code constitutes cheating. Most of these codes come into play in PvP and VW's where game rules are largely up to the player. You can see where that all leads. Yeah, when someone else isn't playing the way you want them to play that's cheating... uh huh. Let's invite 7 million kids over to the house this weekend and tell them not to get into any trouble while we go to the movies. Here's a thought for an AGC talk: "If you don't want people doing RMT in your game, design it out of the economy."

I really can't get designers or players who have an issue with the concept that my best friend Kevin wants to give me some gold because I need to buy a mount and since I play a hell of a lot less than he does so he's got the scratch among his 7 alts.

Does it really make any difference if the above scenario is altered to a worse case and I don't know Kevin and his name isn't Kevin and I used my lunch money so he could buy lunch and pay his light bill? "Others" might think so.

Makin' games in Tejas

Seems them thar legislators down in Austin want us to make more of them thar video (rhymes with rodeo?) games and moving pictures here in the great state as long as they are all nice and don't portray no violence and have good ole family values. Values like "Don't mess with Texas!" or how about the ole timey favorite "Remember the Alamo!" or the ever popular modern classic "Dallas Cowboys!". Yeah those are a nice set of non-violent family values if I ever heered 'em.

Rodney Gibbs, who makes games I've never played, like porting the Sims to the DS (does porting count as MAKING games? Can you get a grant for that!?) says...

What we do is mass-market mainstream family-friendly stuff. [The incentive program] is helping to overcome that stigma we still suffer from: ‘Oh, games; that’s shooting people.’ That’s just like saying all films are Quentin Tarantino films.

They sure aren't Rodney...only the good ones.

Link

"Games for Windows" My Ass

I've had it with Vista and vVidia driver restart errors so naturally I rant.

As a producer for a game company I can't express my displeasure on this issue enough. Of the machines that I have built to test out on Vista, fully half of them suffer from restarting nvlddmkm errors.

My experiences on multiple machines are very similar to the posts in these threads in that each machine seems to have a different set of symptoms. Some machines crash if you do anything in windows or even when you do nothing.

Some machines are identical except for a single part such as the mobo and one will crash and one will not. Some only crash on 3d etc.

The deeper problem is that I cannot go in and "fix" these machines to get them working.

I have to assume that my customers are not even technical enough to find a forum like this let alone derive which of the 20 posted possible fixes might be right for them and execute that fix without bricking their machine and calling my tech support.

I can say with all honesty that for the last 6 years I have exclusively recommended nVidia graphics cards starting with TNT2's.

I recommend a mid level card every season to our playerbase (7600GT right now) and I always recommend nVidia chipset motherboards.

I can currently not recommend "Games for Windows" using Vista nor can I recommend nVidia with any conscience.

Fortunately for the games business, most gamers are quickly learning NOT to upgrade to Vista. It will be a real shame if they learn not to purchase nVidia while they are at it. Like me, they have long memories and as early adopters they often set the tone for the more casual in the space. Every hardcore or technical person has a particular brand that they shy away from for life (ECS anyone?) because of a single bad experience.

Please don't let this be that experience for me nVidia.

-Gophur

Ok, so it's a weenie of a rant but I've learned that screaming like a baby doesn't actually make anyone who can do anything about it want to bother to read it. You learn those kinda things in this biz. Anyhoo, if you're having these issues, and if you are running nVidia and Vista I'd say it's 50-50, please take a moment to post.