PC Gamer UK on NMA and AoD

[whirlingdervish]

So my assumption was correct. Fantastic!

still nothing hmm?
You haven't refuted shit buddy.


I'm not a kid, and you did make an overly general statement that was a fallacy.

my alternative wasn't simplistic, it was the product of as much time as I was willing to spend typing something to a troll like you.

This is why official previews are something lacking. You can't piss off the devs or publisher. Unfortunate, yes, but I don't see a way around it.

You pretty much said "You CAN'T piss off the developer with a negative preview, and that is why official (gaming mag) previews are shitty and rarely show anything negative"

I said that you CAN indeed give bad or negative previews of a game IF you have morals and aren't entirely driven by short-term profits and the thrill of an extra paycheck for copying and pasting the same damn preview that every other gaming mag puts up for games that none of them have ever had hands-on experience with.

This way, if they get pissed, you won't have to write a bubblingly enthusiastic preview in the future when they come out with another game, because they'll try to keep you in the dark on it.

In the end, you lose nothing, and they lose media exposure.

All you need to do is tell your readers that you feel morally obligated to not lie to them with paid-off previews, and you will have customers galore, all of whom have great loyalty to you because you aren't just another lying jackass who takes bribes like the other guys.

If you do this successfully other mags will follow your example.

I have described the way to break the current system and start anew giving the media the benefit of the doubt that they have a teency bit of moral fiber, and the balls to carry out a program that would better them in the end and leave them in charge of things as opposed to being slaves to the PR machines of big companies who produce games.


BTW, simplicity is often the best option, and not the "ignorant" one.
Ever heard of occam's razor?

 

[Silencer]

I presume you mean "wheel" and not "will?"

At the wheel to make everything by his will... Crud, I hate my evening spelling problems and my spellchecker

 

[Paladin Solo]

backed up by professional gaming journalists...

...alternative is pretty bold unless you have some credentials to back it up.

Bwahaha. Hey, I'll make some bold assumptions on a game that is not to be released for another year (give or take delays) based on some puckered-up demo and call myself a professional if you want, I have the time. I'm sure if you showed me a video of some scripted woman burning her dog and saying "this is just a taste of the glorious AI that will be rampant in the game" I'll assume you're telling the truth and assume the game is going to be great. I guess being paid to make assumptions is enough credentials in your case, but only if they support your tired arguments.

If I walked into one of our powertrain engineering buildings and said "dude, you guys can up the compression from 11:1 to 13:1 in our high output 5.4L, you just need balls bro," they would first ask who the fuck I was, then throw me out when I told them I was from the IT department. It's the same type of situation.

Hah, if only you were actually making a serious analogy, I'd have the pleasure of calling you a dumbass for saying apples are lobsters (yay, more dumbfuck analogies).

 

[DarkCorp]

So my assumption was correct. Fantastic!

still nothing hmm?
You haven't refuted shit buddy.


I'm not a kid, and you did make an overly general statement that was a fallacy.

my alternative wasn't simplistic, it was the product of as much time as I was willing to spend typing something to a troll like you.

This is why official previews are something lacking. You can't piss off the devs or publisher. Unfortunate, yes, but I don't see a way around it.

You pretty much said "You CAN'T piss off the developer with a negative preview, and that is why official (gaming mag) previews are shitty and rarely show anything negative"

I said that you CAN indeed give bad or negative previews of a game IF you have morals and aren't entirely driven by short-term profits and the thrill of an extra paycheck for copying and pasting the same damn preview that every other gaming mag puts up for games that none of them have ever had hands-on experience with.

This way, if they get pissed, you won't have to write a bubblingly enthusiastic preview in the future when they come out with another game, because they'll try to keep you in the dark on it.

In the end, you lose nothing, and they lose media exposure.

All you need to do is tell your readers that you feel morally obligated to not lie to them with paid-off previews, and you will have customers galore, all of whom have great loyalty to you because you aren't just another lying jackass who takes bribes like the other guys.

If you do this successfully other mags will follow your example.

I have described the way to break the current system and start anew giving the media the benefit of the doubt that they have a teency bit of moral fiber, and the balls to carry out a program that would better them in the end and leave them in charge of things as opposed to being slaves to the PR machines of big companies who produce games.


BTW, simplicity is often the best option, and not the "ignorant" one.
Ever heard of occam's razor?

A lot of people who flame NMA members because we are "too critical". Critical means we care about the game and do intensive research on what makes it good. Somewhere in this posts didn't someone say they do worship the fallout game? So how is this a bad thng?

Why is it apologists never seem to understand a simple idea? I re-iterate and would love to hear a good solid answer on this.

If Bethesda so wanted to do their "own thing" why not make their own game with their own name?? If your gonna revive something, do it right, or atleast listen to the fans who are going to ultimately decide whether it tanks or not. Call it Fallout, then make it Fallout.

History is repeating itself and NO, most of us don't like it. We all remember when somethin like this happened. People using the same old apologists rhetoric with "artistic liscensing" as its main theme. They wanted to put a new spin in something that was already done well. How the hell can anyone say we want to make Fallout, keep it Fallout, but then do a complete 180? Saying that its THEIR game, so they do not have to listen to the fans or even the ideas of the original developers.

Brotherhood Of Steel tanked, much like many people here predicted (Roshambo) among others. Furthermore, the predictions were correct even before the final product was released (Gasp). Why did this happen, because of "artistic liscensing". Wonder where all the apologists for that game are now eh?

On my last note, I have heard the saying that "we should wait till the final product comes out". Come on, not only did we hear the same shit about BOS, but do I really have to re-iterate that once something comes out, it is too late to fix anything.

 

[Per]

Can everyone who quotes a post several screens high and then replies to it only in general terms or to one specific sentence please practice the art of trimming?

 

[Odin]

Lots of cat fights

*takes out popcorn*

 

[Kyuu]

Whoa, Odin still lives?

 

[SuAside]

Odin is eternal.

he just lurks a lot.

 

[bonanza]

The guy has reached a new low in gaming journalism, but

NMA has partially to blame itself for feeding its enemies strawman fooder.
Im talking about the "being able to kill children" fuzz. I understand that the ability to kill children is part of a broader concept (kill all NPCs in a game and still be able to somehow finish the plot vs. a NPC centric plot design with immortal NPC, which are needed because the plot doesnt work without them).

However, what if Beth just made every NPC killable with the exception of kids? That would be quite ok. Kids are almost never plot critical, and they are never required to be killed in quests (nobody writes such quests).
So all you would lose would be the occasional mindless fun of shooting children to pieces. Well, uh, big deal.

NMA shouldn't have raised the topic of killable children at all, and made post like "but can you kill children? without it its no fallout" a bannable offence.

Less strawman fodder, less of a target.

You should critise the implementation of plotcritical nonkillable NPCs (adults), and just leave the children thing alone. It just sounds like a bad running gag.

 

[Black]

Jack Thompson, is that you?

Mortal kids are big part of credibility and in-game-world.

 

[Sander]

The guy has reached a new low in gaming journalism, but

NMA has partially to blame itself for feeding its enemies strawman fooder.
Im talking about the "being able to kill children" fuzz. I understand that the ability to kill children is part of a broader concept (kill all NPCs in a game and still be able to somehow finish the plot vs. a NPC centric plot design with immortal NPC, which are needed because the plot doesnt work without them).

However, what if Beth just made every NPC killable with the exception of kids? That would be quite ok. Kids are almost never plot critical, and they are never required to be killed in quests (nobody writes such quests).
So all you would lose would be the occasional mindless fun of shooting children to pieces. Well, uh, big deal.

Good to see that you entirely missed the point of killable children.
It isn't the ability to kill children that's the issue, it's the ability to kill *anyone* in the game. It's a form of realism and freedom that was essential to Fallout. The only reason children are brought up, is that they are living entities in the game. As such, they should be killable. That's it.

 

[bonanza]

Uh, yeah. Not being able to kill children in games isnt such a big deal....OMG JACK THOMPSON!!!111
Wait, didn't I just advocate games where all (adults) NPCs are killable? Does this sound like something OMG JACK THOMPSON would do?


Credibility and immershun it is then huh? I agree with you that, lets say you crosshair blocking out when aiming at kids, would not be very elegant and somehow damage crediblity. But to a major extent? No.
In every game there's some potentially immersion breaking stuff you just have to swallow in order to uphold supencion of disbelief.

See it this way: If Fallout 3 turns out the actionized, setting raping xbox kiddie shooter it promises to be, all killable children of the world won't safe it.

The other scenario: If suprisingly it should turn out a hardcore, genuine Fallout successor (pretty much impossible right now but lets just assume), with the small flaw that you can't kill children - would you really bitch about it then?

In both cases, this "feature" doesn't make or break the game.
Making all that fuzz about the _weakest_ point of your argumentation (and there is a bunch of good arguments against Beths FO 3 as seen in your preview and hundreds of post in this forum) just weakens your own position.

Not saying that "journalist" is excused for being a dipshit and just picking out the stuff he needs to discredit the FO fanbase, but sometimes I think youre making it way to easy for thse kinds of idiots.

 

[Sander]

Uh, yeah. Not being able to kill children in games isnt such a big deal....OMG JACK THOMPSON!!!111
Wait, didn't I just advocate games where all (adults) NPCs are killable? Does this sound like something OMG JACK THOMPSON would do?


Credibility and immershun it is then huh? I agree with you that, lets say you crosshair blocking out when aiming at kids, would not be very elegant and somehow damage crediblity. But to a major extent? No.
In every game there's some potentially immersion breaking stuff you just have to swallow in order to uphold supencion of disbelief.

This is a neat break of logic. How is an irrational setting okay, since you can just mentally ignore it? That's bullshit.

See it this way: If Fallout 3 turns out the actionized, setting raping xbox kiddie shooter it promises to be, all killable children of the world won't safe it.

The other scenario: If suprisingly it should turn out a hardcore, genuine Fallout successor (pretty much impossible right now but lets just assume), with the small flaw that you can't kill children - would you really bitch about it then?

Yes. Because it *is* a flaw. And you are supposed to bitch about flaws, regardless of whether or not there are any other flaws. That doesn't mean that 'OMG the game is now completely ruined', but it *does* mean that one of its features is flawed.

In both cases, this "feature" doesn't make or break the game.
Making all that fuzz about the _weakest_ point of your argumentation (and there is a bunch of good arguments against Beths FO 3 as seen in your preview and hundreds of post in this forum) just weakens your own position.

What 'all that fuzz'? Are we only supposed to complain about the 'big' points? And who decides what the 'big' points are? Unkillable children didn't get any special mention or extra attention in the news here, and it didn't get anywhere near the bitching that a lot of other features got.

 

[bonanza]

The guy has reached a new low in gaming journalism, but

NMA has partially to blame itself for feeding its enemies strawman fooder.
Im talking about the "being able to kill children" fuzz. I understand that the ability to kill children is part of a broader concept (kill all NPCs in a game and still be able to somehow finish the plot vs. a NPC centric plot design with immortal NPC, which are needed because the plot doesnt work without them).

However, what if Beth just made every NPC killable with the exception of kids? That would be quite ok. Kids are almost never plot critical, and they are never required to be killed in quests (nobody writes such quests).
So all you would lose would be the occasional mindless fun of shooting children to pieces. Well, uh, big deal.

Good to see that you entirely missed the point of killable children.
It isn't the ability to kill children that's the issue, it's the ability to kill *anyone* in the game. It's a form of realism and freedom that was essential to Fallout. The only reason children are brought up, is that they are living entities in the game. As such, they should be killable. That's it.

Good to see that you once again proved your severe reading disabilites.

From my own post you quoted:
"I understand that the ability to kill children is part of a broader concept (kill all NPCs in a game and still be able to somehow finish the plot vs. a NPC centric plot design with immortal NPC, which are needed because the plot doesnt work without them)."

I may have centered to much on plot-npcs in my descirption, but my post implies that I have fully understood that its not just the ability to "shot kids in pieces lol" you guys advocate, but the freedom concept that the world should have no unrealistic constraints just of plot or ther reasons.

Were fully on the same page. What I am saying it that the inability of killing a few children in the game, under the condition that every other NPC is killable, would not hurt this concept THAT much, if its really needed to ensure that moral apostels like Jack Thompson dont chose your game as their next poster child for video game violance.

 

[Sorrow]

The guy has reached a new low in gaming journalism, but

NMA has partially to blame itself for feeding its enemies strawman fooder.
Im talking about the "being able to kill children" fuzz. I understand that the ability to kill children is part of a broader concept (kill all NPCs in a game and still be able to somehow finish the plot vs. a NPC centric plot design with immortal NPC, which are needed because the plot doesnt work without them).

I like playing raiders/chaotic evil knights that kill everyone in village from time to time. So no unkillable characters in RPGs, please.

NMA shouldn't have raised the topic of killable children at all, and made post like "but can you kill children? without it its no fallout" a bannable offence.

Why? To appease filthy censorship lovers?

 

[Sander]

Good to see that you once again proved your severe reading disabilites.

From my own post you quoted:
"I understand that the ability to kill children is part of a broader concept (kill all NPCs in a game and still be able to somehow finish the plot vs. a NPC centric plot design with immortal NPC, which are needed because the plot doesnt work without them)."

And again: missing the point. I wasn't talking about plot design, at all, *anywhere*. Please try to read what I write instead of reading into what I write.

I may have centered to much on plot-npcs in my descirption, but my post implies that I have fully understood that its not just the ability to "shot kids in pieces lol" you guys advocate, but the freedom concept that the world should have no unrealistic constraints just of plot or ther reasons.

And again with the plot. Plot has *nothing* to do with this. Which is why I said you did not get the issue, or at least you haven't shown you got the issue.

 

[bonanza]

Uh, yeah. Not being able to kill children in games isnt such a big deal....OMG JACK THOMPSON!!!111
Wait, didn't I just advocate games where all (adults) NPCs are killable? Does this sound like something OMG JACK THOMPSON would do?


Credibility and immershun it is then huh? I agree with you that, lets say you crosshair blocking out when aiming at kids, would not be very elegant and somehow damage crediblity. But to a major extent? No.
In every game there's some potentially immersion breaking stuff you just have to swallow in order to uphold supencion of disbelief.

This is a neat break of logic. How is an irrational setting okay, since you can just mentally ignore it? That's bullshit.

One flawed element makes the complete setting irrational?! ? Will you tell me know that FO 1 had absolutly _nothing_ which could be seen as absurd from a realism point of view?
I remember the consequences of regular and severe drug abuse being magicly gone after a few days in FO 1. OMG THE SETTING IS IRRATIONAL!!

See it this way: If Fallout 3 turns out the actionized, setting raping xbox kiddie shooter it promises to be, all killable children of the world won't safe it.

The other scenario: If suprisingly it should turn out a hardcore, genuine Fallout successor (pretty much impossible right now but lets just assume), with the small flaw that you can't kill children - would you really bitch about it then?

Yes. Because it *is* a flaw. And you are supposed to bitch about flaws, regardless of whether or not there are any other flaws. That doesn't mean that 'OMG the game is now completely ruined', but it *does* mean that one of its features is flawed.

There's hardly any game without flaws. You can mention them, but you will surely see that there is some kind of hirarchy of importance when it comes to certain game aspects?

In both cases, this "feature" doesn't make or break the game.
Making all that fuzz about the _weakest_ point of your argumentation (and there is a bunch of good arguments against Beths FO 3 as seen in your preview and hundreds of post in this forum) just weakens your own position.

What 'all that fuzz'? Are we only supposed to complain about the 'big' points? And who decides what the 'big' points are? Unkillable children didn't get any special mention or extra attention in the news here, and it didn't get anywhere near the bitching that a lot of other features got.

I actually wasn't accusing the NMA stuff for setting wrong priorities. What I am saying it that forum posts like "OMG you think unkillable children are not that IMPORTANT YOU EVIL JACK THOMPSON YOU" are as damaging for you as random "bethesta sux lol fo3 will suck" comments from users.
Both statements may be true, but both are unreflected and childish and as far as I know the latter example is banable here.
A good articled post describing how Bethesda is wrong with their vision of FO 3 is superior to "LOL FO 3 will suck". A well argued post which talks about the concept of freedom (embodied partially by the baility to kill everony in the game) while admitting that especially today there may be different kind of reasons which could make killable children a difficult and dangerous decision is superior to "I WANT MY KILLABLE CHILDREN, WITHOUT IT ITS NOT FALLOUT".

It makes it pretty easy for enemies to find strawman fooder. That was my point, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Tagaziel]

I advise you to watch your tongue, young man. Insulting other users via "fucking idiot" (and it's a rhetorical question you asked, so don't defend yourself with "I just asked").

Further insults are unacceptable.

 

[bonanza]

I edited it out before even reading your comment,in fact not more than a few seconds after I posted it, so calm down.

 

[Sander]

One flawed element makes the complete setting irrational?! ?

Nicely ignoring my point.
Again: the fact that you can ignore a flaw doesn't make that flaw any better.

There's hardly any game without flaws. You can mention them, but you will surely see that there is some kind of hirarchy of importance when it comes to certain game aspects?

Yes, and this still has no impact whatsoever on those flaws.

I actually wasn't accusing the NMA stuff for setting wrong priorities. What I am saying it that forum posts like "OMG you think unkillable children are not that IMPORTANT YOU EVIL JACK THOMPSON YOU" are as damaging for you as random "bethesta sux lol fo3 will suck" comments from users.

Most of those statements are tongue-in-cheek.

Both statements may be true, but both are unreflected and childish and as far as I know the latter example is banable here.

Only if it's just trolling.

A good articled post describing how Bethesda is wrong with their vision of FO 3 is superior to "LOL FO 3 will suck". A well argued post which talks about the concept of freedom (embodied partially by the baility to kill everony in the game) while admitting that especially today there may be different kind of reasons which could make killable children a difficult and dangerous decision is superior to "I WANT MY KILLABLE CHILDREN, WITHOUT IT ITS NOT FALLOUT".

It makes it pretty easy for enemies to find strawman fooder. That was my point, nothing more, nothing less.

Yet this is not anywhere near what you said in your first post about killable children in this thread. You just started bitching that we should stop making a fuss about killable children, never mentioning the *way* in which that fuss is created, which is actually what your gripe is.