f13.net

They also pinl WoW's End Game an online casino with three slotmachines - Raid, Instance, and PvP (http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php?date=2005-7-30)

I wonder how much it cost. I found it odd they did that whatwith the last few days of server issues. Knowing they have contact with Blizzard and did the comics  for the strategy guide, I find it less than coincidental. Yes, I'm calling them dirty whores.

If they had been payed off, I think they would have done it sooner.  I mean, Blizzard is already raking in cash hand over fist and the rough patches (i.e. the first few days of the honor system) are mainly past, so why now?  Why bother?  How many PA readers would it gain them who arn't already players? Also note the lack of game-centric comics and posts on PA in the last few weeks. 

My guess is that for a combination of reasons, such as not having other pressing big name games to play, and perhaps wanting something familiar to relax with after their recent con appearances and such, they started playing more WoW recently and felt that it would be good filler material to talk about.  They arn't talking about it like its the second coming of robot jesus remember, only syaing "yea it has its flaws, but we are still playing 7-8 months later.  So, uhh, yea its cool."

The instant an artist starts appearing at cons is the instant I stop reading their posts and just read the comics.

To you this is just the collision of two things you've decided to hate, so of course its filled with deception and backroom deals between evil entities plotting to manipulate the masses.  WoW is successful.  PA is popular.  Get over it.

He's got you there schild.

But schild's right in this case. The problems PA complained about originally when they revoked the award are still there in WoW and there are some new ones as well. Yes they have fewer problems compared to launch but that's only because people have moved off the really crowded servers onto less crowded ones -- they still haven't fixed the fundamental problems with their crappy server architecture. So login queues still exist, servers and instances still crash (8 had to be restarted in the last 3 days), mail and AHs still have problems, and now we have BGs that have queues (though Blizzard swears up and down there is no population imbalance problem) and crash constantly.

Oh for sure it's quite the switch without Blizzard changing anything that denied them the "award", but I just don't see a conspiracy either. I just see Gabe and Tycho being too wishy-washy and fanboyish to stick to their guns.

No, he's not right.  He is in fact wrong, because he's trying to say that PA is taking money under the table just to begrudgingly "regive" an imaginary item to WoW after having rescinded it - and thats assinine. I suppose the original retraction was an extortion?

 PA has been talking about WoW for months, constantly referring to it as Gabe climbed up to 60 and Tycho played it off and on.  And yet this stupid award thing is a conspiracy?  Give me a break.  Isn't it just possible that PA actually enjoys a popular game?  Tycho even said that WoW still has issues but that since Gabe plays the damn thing every night since beta, there must be something there.

Compared to the glowing praise of most review sites, the overall PA reaction was mixed.

I guess I should've been more clear since I never take schild literally when he's talking about things he hates. I saw what he wrote as an accusation of PA being a bunch of sellouts in the figurative not literal sense (in other words what Calantus said). It's not like Blizzard needs PA's endorsement of WoW at this point in WoW's lifecycle like Daydreamer said -- they are too busy trying to find more storage for all their new money hats to care what Gabe and Tycho think.

Edit: fixed typo

I don't think Gabe and Tycho took money from Blizzard. They make about $30-$40k a month in advertising. They don't need any of that poorly programmed money. I just think they're being pussies by giving the award back when not a single thing they complained about got fixed.

Oh, and they're dirty whores.

I never even said WoW Blizzard didn't deserve success. They do. WoW is the best treadmill. The Blizzard title attached to it opens it up to a market no one else can tap. A market of millions of people. I've decided to hate WoW (mind you, not Blizzard, I loathe their programming, but they gave me Diablo II and Warcraft II so I can't hate them) because it threw the MMORPG genre back 1,000 years. As far as hating Penny Arcade, neg. I used to love them. Hell, I love them up til pretty recently. About a year ago, they made a post on a subject - and I don't even remember what it was - that really rubbed me the wrong way. But that was long after they became another comic trying to be edgy to keep it's fanbase. Fruitfucker is funny. T&C is funny. Very funny. Their gaming commentary? Not so much anymore. Just edgy. Like Southpark was in it's second and third season when they felt the necessity to push the envelope (which they've gotten over since then). Or the last 3 years of the Simpsons. Don't mind us, we're just going through the motions. I'd rather read Sexy Losers or CAD or even Applegeeks.

If you want to talk about two things I hate, at least understand why I hate them. And it's certainly not because of their money hats. Blizzard was already rolling around in them and PA makes their cash via subtle shilling in Tycho's posts and that big banner to the right and the one over their comic. Just recently they started making them by doing comics for things like Brothers in Arms and Splinter Cell. The latter of which I actually thought was pretty damn cool. Even some of their stuff in the WoW guide was funny. Not original (the same jokes are made in Every MMOG strategy guide) but funny.

Edit: Some clarity at the beginning there. I have said WoW didn't deserve success. For the exact reason I said - setting the genre back.

Huh, I just had a thought. 

Look at RTS games post Starcraft - which ones succeeded?  Kohan (Large scale stratagey), Total War (Realism and depth), Age of ... (Breadth, multiple victory scenarios), and C&C (Drawing on the existing IP's success, since the series has gone down hill), and War3 (also by Blizzard).

Look at Action RPGs post Diablo II - which ones succeeded?  Dungeon Seige (mod-ability), Divine Divinity (old school hardcore), and Freedom Force (Original IP and art).

Have you ever considered the fact that WoW might force innovation by gobbling up the polished traditional treadmill marketshare?  Everytime Blizzard steps into a  genre, everybody else seems to scurry away and differentiate themselves from the pack.  In every major genre of media, from movies to games to whatever, people set gold standards around which they orient future products.  For over a decade Squaresoft was the standard to which RPGs were compared to and measured against, and successors had to differentiate themselves to stand out (Tales ... with real time, Xenosaga with the sci-fi setting, etc.) as were action movies compared against Terminator 2 or True Lies.  With a bit of luck Blizzard won't be an anchor pulling MMOs down, but may just give the industry the swift kick in the pants it needs.

I thought of that. And then thought of the designers in the MMOG genre and who was getting money. Then I wrote the word "McQuaid" in blood on a mirror and passed out.  I don't remember anything after that.

Same thing I've thought in the past.  You can't get away with just doing yet another graphical Diku in this era, because Blizzard will fucking eat you.  Warhammer?  If it really is just DAoC 2, it's going to get owned.

That's an interesting thought but you have to keep in mind the devs times and lifecycles of these projects, many of which were well underway before WoW shipped.

I do think Starcraft is a great example though. Remember a year or two before SC, there were tons of random RTS floating around - WarWind, KKND, a couple different earth vs. aliens, Dark Reign, etc. Then SC came in and made them all look sort of second-rate, and a lot of games that came out later (Impossible Creatures for example) were just non-starters because they didn't bring anything to the table. The basic "Starcraft style" gameplay got used up.

I do think it will be hard for another WoW style game to do well, but given how long MMORPG projects take the positive effects of that may be a long time coming.

Personally I'm hoping Square makes FF11-2 at some point. A lot of things about FF11 were really nice, but the game was just WAY WAY WAY too slow. Everything from levelling to travel times is just so tedious. But the overall feel and graphics are great, the animation is great, the enemies cool, combat fun, etc. It's no secret that FF11 was basically a copy of EQ, and unfortunately they copied the slowness. FF11 with WoW pacing would be phenomenal.

I see Diku games pretty much becoming the norm (as they already are). I see failure for anyone who doesn't follow suit. I see the end of the genre, not necessarily because of WoW hijacking all of the potential customers, but because all successful games from now on will be pretty much be the same thing.

EQ started the trend, and has already made the genre bad enough. Now WoW solidifies it. When millions of gamers think "MMO", the only image that'll come to their minds will be that of EQ and WoW. At least for another 10 or 15 years, I think. Anything else that departs from the Diku model will be an alien concept, and barely catch on. Successful games will be around, perhaps, but it'll be because of setting. Not mechanics.

Huxley.

I had a long reply to the Huxley comment that got raped when my office network went haywire for 5min yesterday.  So instead I will say this:

If Dark Iron is a pvp server, I think f13 should have a horde guild there so they can kill PA fanboi's without mercy.  In fact I think I would consider buying another copy of the game (I sold my last account) just to witness the slaughter.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about go read their latest news piece.

P.S.  Yes I read PA, I find them mildly amusing and occasionally almost insightful but I hate fanbois of anything..

That is a sad, sad commentary on a particular time when RPG's of any stripe just weren't being made. I mean, I liked FF2 on the SNES, but goddamn if that's the standard for good RPG's, fucking shoot me now.

The only game of Blizzard's I've played long enough to care about before WoW was Warcraft 2 back in the day, and I can safely say the real-time RTS genre has barely moved a goddamn inch from that point. TA was great, only all it really added was LOS and ASSTONS of units (which were both good things). Total War is NOT AN RTS. It just is not. The two types of gameplay are totally different. For that matter, neither is Freedom Force.

I hate Blizzard like a junkie hates the fucking shot. They make decent games. THEY PROVIDE A SHITTY SERVICE AND GOD HELP ME, I'M AIDING AND ABETTING THE CRIME. This game has been out almost 10 months now, and my server was completely unavailable to me during my playtimes for 2 goddamn days of this week. I've had to queue up almost every time I want to login lately. I'm not so worried about producing yet more DikuMud clones, because that's going to happen whether WoW was a 3 million seller or a 400k seller. It's just shown itself to be the most sellable formula, regardless of the fact that it's been almost the only formula anyone has used. But I do agree it's going to take some more high-profile failures of the DikuMud paradigm (HEY BRAD, HOW'S THAT VANGUARD COMING? ASS) before the genre gets some new blood.

Heh, Scott Kurtz and PVPonline set up a horde guild to battle PA already.  I don't think I've read PA in like 6 months.  ><

I'd rather not throw myself into that.  Web comic fanbois en masse.. eewwwww.

PA counters with an alliance guild and breaks the guild system.

Yea. They were up to 400 members in a matter of hours. Somehow, I don't think they raised the battle.net IQ bar even one notch.

FF2 was good, and FF3 was the GOD OF ALL RPGS EVAR.  Thou shalt not criticize it, even indirectly. 

I agree with Triforcer. FF2 and 3 were gods among men. I'd put them with, if not above, Planescape and Fallout 2 in the Valhalla of RPG games.

No.

Samba de Chocobo.

Bitchcakes.

Since I played planescape and fallout in their day it gives me extra gamer cred that they are teh best evar RPGs. I will not have that taken away from me schild, not by you or anyone else!

Don't get me wrong, I loved Planescape and Fallout. But FFIV and VI should have been the last monsters on one side, good guys on the other, take turns whacking eachother RPGs ever. As they were perfect.

Fuck Sake, you appear to have forgotten the very definition of a roleplaying game.

Fallout 2 allowed you to make your own role from scratch.  Whatever you wanted to do, more freedom to you.
Planescape made it a role of self-discovery where your avatar started knowing just as much as you and knew just as much as you at the end.

These were quintessential role playing games, distilled to the finest perfection.  The Baldurs Gate games got up there too (well, 1st and second.  Not so much the God one.

Putting the abortions of Final Fantasy (any version) beyond them strikes me as further rantings of a madman who's already proven his madness beyond question.

.
.
.
IMO.


Feel free not to disagree with me.  Really.

In Fallout and Planescape:Torment, the roleplaying aspect is self-discovery.  In the FF games, it's about assuming the role of a character that already exists and then experiencing the events that transpire around said characters.  Both games involve playing a role, whether it's one you create or not.

I'm not sure it's self-discovery when you have a blank canvas to paint on.  Or perhaps it is.  The fact that the games are art in my mind is telling.

I can't stand games that say they're role-playing games and say specifically - you are Link, he was born here and he is good there and he carries that there.  That's not role-playing.  That's acting.

Ooooh, my head hurts.

Yet you are still talking about character creation and not playing out a role.  I've had this argument/debate for as long as I can remember so many times in the diaspora, and the only conclusions I can come to is that the term role-playing is too broad for many it seems, and that people are very stuck on the idea of role-playing as we learned in D&D, which included character creation all throughout the process of adventuring.

EDIT: Let me specify what I'm coming from.  Do you consider Deus Ex a roleplaying game?

Yes.

But not as 'free form' as PST or FO2.  A role playing game on rails if you like.

(But you can save your brother...)

I would agree.  But what makes it roleplaying at all?  J.C. Denton is as preexisting a character as Sabin, Faris, Cecil, or Zidane.

Ironwood is just being kooky. The Final Fantasy is not an RPG debate is old as the hills and has never been won by those who think it's "something else."

But really, Zidane? ZIDANE? Can we just replace him with Red XIII? Cool? ok.

Hah.  I admit he's a weaker character than others, but it's a pretty powerful gesture to save the life of one who has spent the greater portion of his trying to destroy everything you love.  I think people dismiss FFIX too quickly sometimes as nothing but nostalgic remembrance.

I never played FFIX for some reason... and I really have no idea why. Although it might have something to do with the abortion that was the FFVIII magic system. I should go play that some day.

I found all of my still packaged Final Fantasy VII and VIII action figured today.

Also, a complete set of desert storm trading cards.

WIN.

Thank god you've got the night vision.

No, he's not.  He's just popped out of a Vat and has training which, er, you've picked.

He's yours from the get-go.  Sure, the storyline is preset and will carry you along, but you are your own JC Denton.

And Schild ?  Kooky ?  Don't ever use that word as an adjective if you visit this hellhole - you'll end up strung up by your balls.

heh.

I don't care if you like FF alot, but you can slob a stiffy if you think they are comparable to FO2.

FF games you have no meaningful choices, its like super mario minus the jumping with XP and a better story.  The series is in no way compareable to a game where not only do you have differing dialog choices that can effect outcomes, but thier are actually multiple ways to progress and change the world, multiple ways to overcome obstacles and solve problems.  A game where you had a choice between being good, evil, or something in-between, and that choice mattered.  It even had multiple endings for the various locales you could effect, and some cross-relationships between the different locales (though the thing with the intelligent deathclaws was bugged, even if you saved them it always says  you slaughtered them).

On that note, do any of u know of a reputable software vendor that you can still buy planescape from?  Much to my shame, i never played it. 

Fry's used to carry it as one of their budget CD titles (just a CD case no extra packaging). Dunno if they still do -- I'll check next time I'm there.

I'm not being snide here, but isn't Planescape proper abondonware now ?

(Note, I still have my original purchased copy.  I'm just asking...)

Amazon for the win.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00002EPZ2/104-1466428-6431110?v=glance

Planescape:  $8.99.

<3

Please note that you're buying Through Amazon, not From them.

I'm guessing these are pirated copies.

I never thought of JC Denton or The Nameless one as my own. I mean really, you can play through each game and no matter what you do, as long as you save at the right spot near the end, you can get all the endings with selective playing. Let me say this - they are wonderful masterpieces of gaming with very few opponents. They might possibly be some of the best games that will ever be made. They are the alpha and omega. But in terms of roleplaying, it's no different than Final Fantasy. Deal with it.


I thought it was accurate.  :-D

I bought one of the 9.99$ ones that from the "new" section, you think those are pirated too?  Its not a huge deal imo, i can just return it threw amazon or get my money back threw visa if it comes down to it.

Role Playing is not about 'Getting the Endings'  It's about how you play the game.

With DE, you could go mental with a Rocket launcher or, as I did, never actually kill anyone you didn't have to.  Tranq ftw.
With PST, you could be a wizard, or a fighter, or any class - or you could just realise that classes were pretty fucking pointless in a game where you didn't die and PAY ATTENTION TO THE STORY.

There's too much console thinking here - I don't really give a fuck for unlocking my seventeenth suit of clothing or breeding the chocolate fuckstick chocobo.  I wanted to develop my character the way I wanted him to develop.  That's Role-playing.

Arg.  Who cares ?  I reinstalled Total Annihilation tonight to realise that the graphics were so bad my eyes were bleeding.  Major letdown.

Then don't breed and don't do sidequests. Also, don't upgrade Cecil from the Ancient Sword. I mean, shit man, the choices in Deus Ex weren't that huge. Seriously. Go back and play it again.

Zinedine Zidane is in a role playing game? I guess he is a Knight of the Legion of Honor.

He can play a bit of football as well, I hear.