f13.net

So.

Hardcore Mode.

Oh man.

Oh, that feels good.

I remember when Diablo 2 first came out a buddy of mine decided to try that hardcore thing.

I was there when his level 24 paladin died.  He almost cried.  It was tragically funny.

And now you get to pay them to have them hammer your nuts into pancakes!

Hardcore mode. Time for a new Trammel/Felucca derail.

Jokes aside...


Oh queues are a feature now.

No, being able to bypass a queue is a feature.

I bet this payment system shows Guild Wars what they SHOULD have done.

Doesn't Archlord do something similar, or do they have escalating subscription tiers instead of a free/paying difference?

I think this is great.

Also, I loved hardcore mode.  I think I might be the only on who never had a Diablo 2 character over L75 (I miss my firewall sorcy).  Hell, me and the bud used to have L1-45 down in one sitting.  Basically, it appeals to my altitis to be able to just say "ah well" and move on.

Yup. And you're not the only person to get a character over 75. I got at least 4 over 75. Diablo 2 was good to me.

(http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/7250/diggler20dirkmb2.jpg)

 I think I might be the only one who never had a Diablo 2 character over L75 (I miss my firewall sorcy). 

Hey. Look at that.

I can't read.

Yeah. Potentially.

Hmm. Pay for decent support and features that should be in the shipping client. Nifty. I don't buy the whole 'continuing content' shit. Put out an expansion, bitches.

Also, thanks for reminding me it'd be filled with Diablo players (dupers and pks). And made by Diablo people.

So I can pretty much pass on this one.

You're not paying for features that should be in the shipping client. It's all extra shit. People are still getting what was originally promised in the regular non-elite edition IN ADDITION to persistant server-side characters and mmorpg gameplay.

I just wonder how painful they will make it to insure people pay.

Why won't the demo come out?  Why?   :?

Demo won't hit until Mythos (http://www.mythos.com) beta is over... probably.

Ten bucks a month for battle.net?  If the game's good enough, people will pay I guess.  Blizz should ram out a D2 expansion as an excuse to offer a "premiere" battle.net for 10 bucks a month.  An absurd number of people are playing that still (I've recently been re-sucked into it, which happens once or twice a year -- I'd probably pay for them not to wipe my characters every 3 months or whatever).

It's not just Battle.net. Why do people keep saying this? Go look at Mythos - which is an MMORPG version of Fate. It's a little more than Battle.net. The server isn't just a hub for matching people up.

Because of the hate.  You know.  Any excuse not to sound optimistic, cuz that ain't cool.

I'll give this a go on free mode and if it is good, I'll pay.  Seems pretty simple to me.  I also like that method better than GW.  I bought the first two, but just can't get over that $39.99 hump when I see it on the shelves.  Now I'm two expansions behind and never going back.  I suppose if they ever put out a 3 pack special or something, but I'm basically not paying or playing until then.  Not good for them.

If all I have to do is go sign up again, to see what's changed since my last play session, I'll be right there.  If they have a game that is truly a D2 MMOG, $9.99 a month will not stop me for even a second.  We shall see.

They should tier the content releases too.  If you pay the $9.99 you are a month ahead on the content. The peons get it a month later.
 
"I'm sorry - only first class tickets are available to XYZ zone, we should have more flights available next month." Then have the pop-up saying this content is only available to "Subscribers currently and will be available to the general public on XX/XX/XX". And then when the each subscriber only month is just about over, put out a patch notes that state, "Drop rates in XYZ zone were decreased due to balance issues." To tick off the non-subscribers.

In my case it's ignorance.  I always thought HG:L was going to be played on a battle.net-esque system.  There's no info I can see on that Mythos site telling me what the nature of online play there.  Fate was a diablo clone imo.  Are Mythos and HG:L supposed to be more like Guild Wars (battle.net with common areas instead of chat rooms for trades and matchups?)  Or will they actually be MMOGs?  Because I can't imagine they are hosting real MMO servers for free, and you only pay for a bigger bank and the ability to found a guild.  The line is admittedly slippery.

Hellgate: London was supposed to be The Next Diablo from day 1. Just saying.

That's a respectable pricing scheme. I see myself playing a Diablo-style game just as much as I'd play an MMO, if not more.

I'm more then willing to pay that price, considering it's still 5 bucks a month under the current MMO pricing schema.

Does never finishing the game count?   How about being so bored 1/2 way into the first mission of act 2 you fell asleep and uninstalled the game.

Some people don't get MMOs, I don't get Diablo.

Comedy Gold going on here...about the fee.

http://hellgateguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3873 (http://hellgateguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3873)

Guys.

What part about I miss my firewall sorcy implies that I didn't have a character over L75 because I didn't enjoy the game.

I'm done w/ posting for the day.  Nothing I say is making sense to anyone.

I should've just written: "Due to the overwhelming fun I had while playing Diablo 2 in hardcore mode....blahblahblah".

...which may be why "people keep saying" that its online play system will be very much like battle.net?  I'm asking you to explain to me how it is different because I honestly don't know.  I'm not being an ass (yet).  I really don't know but would like to know (so I could proceed to be an informed ass on this topic in the future).

Drink some coffee or something, I didn't say you didn't enjoy it.

You asked if you were the only person not to hit 75, I asked if never finishing counted as being one of the people to never have a 75.  The implication being that I never finished. :-P  See, it's a case of you misunderstanding me here, not the other way 'round.

Yer right.

I need more coffee.

Stupid Patent Bar Test.

Someone get me in Mythos alpha/beta/gamma, please.

Thanks.

/agree

I never got to 75 either. I always liked it for a while, got distracted by a different game, restarted with a new character.

I never quite hit 75 with my Amazon after several years of on and off playing.

I wonder if a cancelled subscriber keeps any of the elite goodies up to the point they stop or if they lose all access.  I'm also still waiting to hear if there is LAN play.  Networking has come a long way since the first Diablo, but the option is still important to me.

I told you not to drink that glass of koolaid. Now look at what you did.

If it has Diablo level of quality(unlike Dungeon Runners), if the content updates are worthwhile, if the maps are random than it'd be worth it.

What they should do is let you subscribe for a month, download all the updates and shit, then let you cancel the sub. That way you could buy like 2 months worth a year and keep up to date. Or if something super cool just came out and you want to check it out, pay your $10, grab it, be done with it.

There are a few types of people when it comes to obsessive/compulsive games like Hellgate and Diablo. 1) casuals. 2) addicts. 3) the in-between guys.

If you let the in-between guy throw you $40/year (buying a sub every 3 months to batch-download the updates they're missing out on) and you let the casuals throw you $20/year (once every 6 months) - you might end up getting more money than making everyone pay the addict price ($120/year) and scaring them away.

No, not really. You just have to make it worth subscribing. The hardcores will make everyone else feel like an asshole anyway. They're gonna make money off the box alone, so there's no incentives to letting casuals get anything out of the affair. I'm going to shine my armor with their tears.

Has anyone ever looked at what percentage of X-box 360 players have a Live account?

I'm going to guess there is a large portion of the game playing audience that says, "I bought the box, why should I pay $10.00 a month."

And they will bitch about those stupid people who pay. Afterall, B-Net was free111!!!11!

This pricing model is fine, you fucking people do protestith too much me thinks.

If you dont pay, you get everything but hardcore, extra bank and character slots, if you like the game enough to NEED the extra stuff, then stfu and pay $10/month.  The only shady thing is the whole queues bit, they need to take that out of the PR speak and hide it somewhere deep on their website.

This is a nice new pricing scheme that I think will work well if people can stop shoving sand into their vagina's w/ a fucking tonka truck just for the sake of wanting something to cry about.

No the shady bit is your appearance changes with the pay version. (Not that I care one way or another.)

No, I'm talking about this stuff.




http://hellgateguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3873 (http://hellgateguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3873)

Ahhh ok that's just total fucking bullshit then, basically this is the equivalent of the no HD 360, you can pay less but you would have to be fucking stupid.

They were on the right path, but they got way too greedy.  Stupid fuckers.  But I'll give them money if I can socket magical powers into a magical shotgun and blow the bejesus out of demons, for the promise of rare color coded shiney goodies.

AMEN BROTHER!

For all the pissing about the elite pricing I'm curious - how many people who don't pay for the elite membership are going to hang around more then two months anyway?

I think I saw that one.

I got a laugh: Today's Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/05/11)

Sounds like a bunch of kids crying because they can't do what they want for free.


Also, I for one was always sort of surprised that b-net was free once Blizzard moved to client-based services, running the games on their own servers.

Well, for one, i would imagine it is a really, really good way of remaining popular and having great word of mouth.

Do they expect you to buy a retail box for this?

Is the game online-only?


If the answer to both of those questions is Yes, then they can go fuck themselves and stuff their queues and character slots and added (read: held-back) content up their arses.

Yes

No

Sounds like they are pulling a RuneScape to me. Mind you the Box won't be free but basic online will be. Want more? $10 please.

Also IMHO people should stop bitching about the fee. Yeah you payed $50 to get the game but something has to cover development costs, and servers cost money to buy and keep running. Also assuming they deliver on their promise of regular updates I'm quite happy. Hell as one poster said if Bliz had done the same for Diablo2 I would have been all over it.

I played the shit out of Diablo 2, but I did it all offline.  All online play ever added was lag and the company of total mouthbreathing dumbfucks.  They can cram this "Let's make everything a pseudo-MMO so we can charge a subscription fee!" strategy up their ass.

A big part of me agrees with this. Yes I know dev time costs money. Yes I know infrastructure costs money. But don't fucking fool yourselves, MMO's (particularly post-WoW) reinforced one important concept to the business community: games can have recurring revenue. Recurring revenue =  :heart: for investors and managers. So I'm pretty skeptical how much of this is 'for the good of the game' and how much is 'because that's what we said in our business plan'.

As schild said - if the value is there, fine. After all it would be hard to offer something crappier than the current $20 MMORPG's. So if it's a fucking amazing game with a huge and extended online component, fine. But if it's 1/3 of a finished game requiring a subscription to actually play in a worthwhile manner - well fuck it. PC gaming's dead after all isn't it? :P

It's sounding an awful lot like the second of those, really. Additional subscriber "elite" -only content beginning almost immediately (becauuse, after all, why would you sub up front if there were no benefits for it) really scream to me of content that's being developed and will be pretty much ready on release, but will be held back and out of retail for the "l33t" subscribers.

I hope this game falls flat on it's face. We don't need this form of bullshit proving to be a successful model. And schild, I know you're both wet and hard for this game right now, but I think you're going to end up horribly disappointed.

Mmmm.. Titan Quest.

Wow.  Just wow.  People all over the web working overtime to get themselves all lathered up over this one (BluesNews and Hellgate posters have lost their minds).

Instead of leaping instantly to an impossible worst case scenario, why not calmly and rationally think about what this means to you.  You can play the game offline, just like anyother action RPG, such as, say, Diablo 2.  Then, if you really like it, and you have friends, you can go online and try it as a group.  Maybe it's not too laggy, and the difficulty adjusts itself correctly so that its a decent challenge as a group.  Then, and only then, should you consider paying a fee to unlock the other stuff.  What's the other stuff?

From BluesNews - http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=77644

• 24/7 support - if the game is buggy, you won't be playing, let alone need support
• no server queues - if the game isn't fun offline, why would you go online?  if the game isn't fun in a group, why would you go online?  if the game isn't popular, why would there be queues?
• extra characters - there are only three character "types" (with some subtypes within those), I believe you get three slots to start.  If you want more slots you must really like this game so maybe you should think about paying a subscription to support additional development of this game, eh?
• a larger inventory - choices, choices, it's all about choices.  if the game isn't so exciting to you that you play enough to fill out the inventory this shouldn't be a problem
• access to additional game modes - at launch this means one thing: mutliplayer.  This game wasn't built for multiplayer, it was tacked on.  Therefore, Hellgate mutliplayer is almost certainly going to be a diversion, not something that sets the online PvP world aflame.
• and more - access to additional content: items, monsters, eventually zones and char classes.  I read this as "immediate access to stuff that we'll be putting into an expansion pack".
  

But I guess thinking things through rationally like that isn't fun. It's more fun to imagine that the game sucks but at the same time is hugely popular, and for some reason even though it sucks you want to play very badly so that you are spending all your leisure time stuck in queues while you are forced to watch the elite sub sonofabitches drive by in their mercedes with hot succubi in the back... and then those elite bastids get cool loot that pwns you even though you haven't gotten an elite subscription and therefore can't do multiplayer!  Holy Crap! Bill's an evil genius!

GameSpy has a longerish interview with evil Bill - http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/hellgate-london/786714p1.html

Not everything is a fucking conspiracy.  Maybe, just maybe, it's possible that they are wanting to change their business model because of their experience with Diablo 2.  Maybe they are thinking - it's good for us, let's us add in those things that we wanted to do but didn't have time without the suits breathing down are necks for wasting time on shit that doesn't make us anymore money.  Yeah, that's the ticket... and it's good for the customer cause they get a (somewhat) steadier stream of updates.  Course, that's probably naive, they probably eat babies in their basements and need your cash to buy more babies.

So you buy the game, play a bit, and decide that you don't want to spend $10/month.  Even then you still aren't out of the game!  From the GameSpy interview, Bill speculates that there will come a time when they need to sync content between subscribers and non-subscribers.  Just wait until that time comes and you'll get all/some of the elite content either for "free", or rolled into an expansion.

What happens to all your extra character stuff (slots, items, inventory, etc.) if you subscribe and then unsubscribe?

Smedley comes to your house and physically removes it from your hard drive.

(Yeah, I know smed has nothing to do with Hellgate, but who can resist a poke?)

Possible, but more likely they are just disabled/locked out so you can't access them until you resub. 

Or here I"ll quote the man.

Edit more: Bill also mentioned CoX as his model for the content updates. Wanting to do a nice big chunk of content every quarter. Mind you Cryptic sucks at getting them out in a reasonable amount of time but such is life.

The difference between 'lose' and 'cant access' is so subtle as to not be worth splitting that hair, imo.   One plays real MMOs with the understanding that some day it'll all go away.  I buy S.P. games for the fact that I can play them years later and still get the full experience.

  That's not the case here, so just call it like it is.  Yes, you lose those items when you stop paying, until such time as you pay again.  Saying it any other way is trying to politic your way around and not scare people off.

As far as numbers of chars go, my take is that it's like Diablo.  They don't care how many chars you have offline cause it's not eating up their disk space.  Online, the subbed/not subbed rules apply as far as number of chars (12 if subbed/3 if not) - which is somewhat consistent with what Diablo did (if you didn't use your char for three months, they deleted it).

As far as the other stuff - my guess is that you only get the elite content for single player (items, monsters, zones) if you sub elite.  All of the other elite perks only apply if you are going online (queues and pvp for launch, longer term stuff like guild housing, etc)

What I'm concerned about is that the 3D action experience will not be as satisfying as Diablo.  I see the way the paladin jumps in the air and his sword "hits" the demons and it looks... not good.  There models seem too stiff.  The weapon contact... uh, yeah.  The special maneuvers all seem to be some sort of jumping straight up and down with spinning/sword action.  If it's not fluid and easy to control it's going to annoy me.  Course, it hasn't launched yet so hopefully they have time to tighten that stuff up.

Every video I saw was the guy running backwards kiting the mobs and that was it. I wasn't too impressed with how the combat looked. They need to make some side plan for .. "value players". Something to the tune of EQ2's optional packs that you can throw down 3-10 bucks for and get a decent amount of content out of.

Value players.


Lol.

Ya, that reeked of marketing bullshit.

Hat, I was making fun of the people. Not the marketing.

The term "value" is HILARITY.

I wrote a long SirBruce-ish post, but I'll do it short and sweet instead.

Typhus, stop sucking the devs' cocks so hard on this. You're as bad as the worst of the "the sky is falling" types.


Speaking for myself, I've never been super-pumped for this title, but I think that the business model for this game will be a bad thing for gamers if it succeeds, which is why I hope it doesn't.

The game's not going to be D3 anyway.

Good to see that they've thought long and hard about the problem of subscribing and unsubscribing before deciding on their business model :roll:

Cryptic hasn't been that bad. They just celebrated their 3 year anniversary and there's been 9 updates in that time, so 3 per year isn't quite one a quarter but it's not too bad, especially since they've all been free.

Not to mention that their releases are generally flawless, with occasional tweaks needed here and there. I wish the same could be said for most MMOs out there.

Hey I wasn't bashing CoX. That was simply a fanboy being unhappy about waiting for new content. It would have been nice getting one every four months but it was never consistent. You would get one then wait seven months for the next and then have one in two then wait another five. But thats not the point. The point -I think- is I love CoX. Also mind you that they weren't "free" three years of CoX would be $540 before taxes.


i'm going to stick up for him here, hope you don't mind to much man.

Look Azazel (whenever someone stats a sentence with the word look you already know how the rest is going down) FSS is not the devil for wanting extra cash for extra stuff. For your $50 box fee you get offline and basic online gameplay. You can play as much as you want as long as you want. However if you like the game and want to make a guild and buy a house and go raid (God I hope there wont be raids) the new uber Diablo boss then they want want some compensation. Yes you could argue that it should have been in the game to start with, but you can argue that with most any game. Reality is they have to ship it sometime, just like every other big game. You could also say they should give us the stuff for free to keep everyone happy. But hey, player goodwill doesn't keep the power on, or pay for server upkeep.

Now mind you this could all be a moot point. People have already had these arguments before, and they will have them again. But if the game sucks no one will give a flying fuck.
Myself I'm hoping for the best.

If the rings make the "ping" sound when they drop, count me in.

I'm not paying a monthly fee for an online FPS game when so many FPS games have free online modes. It is that simple to me and I'm sure many others will feel the same way.

Margalis essentially nailed my first point.

The other thing is that I don't mind buying expacks to pay for extra content. God only knows how many games' expacks I have sitting in the shelf behind me. I take issue with the way these guys are presenting the extra content, and the fact that they've decided to pull a "Legacy of Ykesha" to tie basic upgrade functionality to paying an ongoing fee. $10 a month. How much do expacks generally cost for games in the US? $20? $30? (I don't live there, so I don't know). I know new retail games run $40-50. So unless you're getting a full expnasion pack's worth of new content every couple of months, I'm not seeing the value.

As I said, It's not personal (I've never had much excitement for this title), but I think it's simply a greed-based decision on the back of WoW's success, and if the business model works for this game it sets a very bad precedent for PC games and gamers.

The problem is that GW has shown that the "free-to-play and then make money off expansion packs" business model is difficult. Thanks to EQ people expect quite a bit of content in an expansion pack and that's expensive to do, made even tougher when the game is free-to-play. Hence Flagship is going the "let's gimp the free-to-play version as much as possible so everybody will want to subscribe and then we can skimp as much as we want on the extra subscriber content" route.

Personally I think they should just go subscription-only for online-play but I think their Diablo free-to-play heritage is making them to do this half-assed split-model.

I wish it wasn't that simple, but for me, it is!

lol, wake the fuck up.  The old way of making and distribution PC games is dead.  Consoles + MMOs and their success (especially WoW) have essentially killed that business model.  Game makers are desperately trying to find a middle ground between going out of business, going completely console and going MMO.  It's going to take a couple different tries to get to something that PC game players will tolerate.  I see Hellgate's business model as a different take, an evolution from the Diablo model.  If you dislike it that much, don't buy it.

I, on the other hand, am interested in the game, I hope the single player experience gives me as much fun/longevity as Diablo 2.  Because I liked Diablo 2.  If it doesn't, I'll move on to something else.  If I like, I'll try to talk my friends into buy it, and we'll try it online.  If we like it alot, we'll talk about going with subs.  It's just that simple.

If I'm "sucking developer cock" because I think the folks who are spazing out about the online version having elements that are pay-to-play are being foolish... then you have a fucked up version of what sucking cock is.  I've got to say, calling me Typhus and cock sucker just because I disagreed with you doesn't make me want to read anything else that you type.  I do find it ironic that you just gave Schild shit in another thread, accusing him of essentially the same thing.

The "Typhus" thing was a typo/mistype, made in haste. I apologise for that - it's how I read/remembered your handle. (Aside from the disease, it's the name of a Special Character used by one of my Warhammer 40k armies, hence my internal confusion).

(http://www.games-workshop.com.au/storefront/newimage.asp?Size=A&Img=250081)  (http://www.games-workshop.com.au/storefront/store.oz?do=Individual&code=99060102084&orignav=9)

I wrote that you're sucking dev cock because I found your posts to be both overly-apologetic and over-enthusiastic about every aspect of the model and game itself. If you like, I'll take that back also - I apologise for saying that you suck dev cock. Which is still quite different to calling you a "cocksucker" in more general terms, anyway.

I'll refer to your posts defending the game seeming a little too much like the typical rabid fanboi fare for unreleased product and apologist for every element of the upcoming business model/pricing scheme. Usually most any of us here even when we mostly-like something, do admit that some elements of a game/structure/whatever aren't perfect, yet your post was uncompromisingly positive in every aspect.

As for PC games, I'm not interested in everything or even a large number of titles I buy being of a recurring-charge business model, and I can't imagine a lot of other people would either. I'm quite happy with the "buy quality product, play it, buy some more content 6 months down the track once or twice" that's in place now. If a lot more titles come out across all platforms, then that's fine by me as well, as long as the PC version feels like a proper game and not a shabby console port (ie: WH40k Fire Warrior).

OK then, your last couple posts made valid arguments and were both cordial and well thought out. I hereby retract any ill will sent forth towards you.


Also the "Ping".
Yes I'm drunk. What of it.

Even at $10 per month, isn't this cheaper and shinier PvE Planetside, only with actual updates.

I don't know if I'll bother, and Planetside has shown that MMOFPS isn't necessarily as sticky as devs would like, but I'm not sure where all the angst comes from?

(http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2007/20070511.jpg)

I agree, I twisted your words, you didn't directly call me a cock-sucker... sure made that sentence flow more smoothly though.



If that was too mild how bout this - the combat mechanic currently looks like ass.  If it's like this when it launches, I won't play regardless of what their business model is... because it looks like ass.  I was being mild because, as you say, the game hasn't launched yet.


I THINK that the business model, if done correct (note: BIG if) seems like it's mostly positive.  If they don't put enough into the offline game they will fuck themselves via word of mouth and no one will have to worry about this type of model ever again.  Until that day comes, I think it's a decent new twist on the tired, and failing PC game development and sales business.  ... plus Bill's cock just taste good!  (dammit! did I type that last part out loud?!)

Just reading this thread has inspired me to dust off my pindlebot for my annual return to D2 for a month or so.

Late to the party, but this stood out - is it just me, or does a lot of this list (limited space/character slots, limited game modes, lack of support, limited multiplayer/server access) sound an awful lot like the types of restrictions you get on the demo versions of games?

It's greed. PC gaming has always been niche, has always been elitist, will never have the market of a cheap (or not-so-cheap console...you want to see a market that's going to get squeezed too much, it's the 'cheap' consoles costing $400-600 and games $60/ea, heh) console. The only thing that's changing is the fact that we don't need retailers anymore.

PC games are dying, lol. That's always a good one.

I can't wait until every game out there has a server slapped on to store player data so the developer can stick his hand out for some of that sweet, sweet subscription revenue.

Hell, surely that's just a natural evolution Intelligent Design of Digital Distribution tho, eh ?  After all, if you've got the hardware to throw the game out in the first place....

Have you been to a EB Games or whatever store in the last 6 months?  Do you like the chioce of PC games that aren't MMO?  I have and I don't.  Maybe it's me that's changing.

Of the last 5 games I have purchased, 4 were PC games.  Maybe that's because the next-gen consoles just don't have a lot of good releases right now or maybe it's because PC's still have the better quality games of the type I like to play?

Though the consoles get more releases these days, PC games still have quite a respectable amount of shelf space at the four EB's in my area, as well as the four indy retailers. Certainly they have a ton more shelf space than I've seen devoted to all of Nintendo's platforms combined, you know, ever.

Come to think of it, PC games account for more shelf space than 360 and PS3 titles combined in my local shops, and while the latter two platforms' space will only increase over time, it'll be the X-Bpx and PS2 titles that shrink to make space.

Console games seem to have a higher percentage of churned-out shovelware crap as well.

In upper/middle class white areas, there are more PC games on shelves than in the ghetto. Certain EBStops are designated as PC stores as well. Yes, EBStop is of the impression that ghetto folk can't afford good PCs. In my experience working in the ghetto, they're absolutely right. As for the amount of crap shovelware, it's about equal, you just don't see it because you don't shop at Target or Walmart for your games and EBStop only stocks the Console shovelware since it sells better than your 4x PC Space Sims. Remember, Cars was the number 2 selling console game of last year.

Erm, we don't really have ghettos as you know them here.

I live in a working-class area, one of the EBs is in a pretty rough/seedy area of town (though it's in a shopping centre), one indy store in a slightly less rough area (though it's one of those doorways leading to upstairs places). Neither area would be a great place to hang out in at night. An EB and an indy store are in a huge mall, and two more EBs and 3 of the indy stores are in the inner-city, central business district. Though here, inner-city living means expensive studio apartments instead of tenements or low-end accomodation.

We're talking working-class, high unemployment, drugs sold on the streets etc, lots of recent immigrants, (as my area is one of the two main areas where the government has traditionally dumped the new arrivals and refugees since postwar), but it's still not the same as ghettos as you know them as there's a mix of professionals working all over the place. It's a far cry from the richer Whitetown or Jewtown areas though.

Not sure abotu Target's selection of PC games, but K-Mart and Big W both have reasonable selections of PC stuff. Even though I dont shop for my games there, I do check them out. No Wal-Mart in this country though  :-D.

fwiw, the Targets here have more PC shelf space than any single console.

Let's say:

PC: 5
PS2: 4
Wii: 3
DS/GC: 4
Xbox: 2
360: 4
ps3: 3

I don't even go in EBs anymore. I'm strictly online only, or 'wild hair' while I'm at Frys.

The EB games here has a half-shelf in the middle of the floor that has "New" PC games on one side, and used on the opposite side.  The rest of the store is console gaming.   I put 'new' in quotes because a good chunk of space was the Diablo2 chest which I hardly qualify as new and a few copies of some cancelled MMO when I was last there. (I think it was AC2) 

Target carries as much PC software as they do Console, but half the PC shelf-space is for TurboTax, Quicken, and educational games.  Wal*Mart uses a half-shelf with the same setup as Target vs the standard Console display boxes.   Toys-R-Us, I don't recall the PC gaming section, but most of their stuff around  here is Nintendo-related.  Best Buy uses 3, 3/4 display shelves for PC stuff. Games on one side, the rest of the PC stuff on the other, so they've got the biggest selection, and it's about equal to the console displays.  Only problem is one entire rack is dedicated to MMOs.

My GameStop uses 1 2-sided floor rack for PC; one side has the pretty new stuff, the other side is the older software mixed with shovelware crap.

Yeah, it's small; we have about the same amount of space of PS3 and Wii combined.

Best Buy seems to have a pretty large selection of PC games, an aisle's worth at least.  I figure EB games only stocks PC games which are sure-thing hits because they make most of their money on used console games so they have no reason to push PC titles.

This is my experience, both in malls, and in stripmalls.  Area is predominately white, upper/middle class (Cherry Hill, NJ).  PC Games area is a tiny island in a great big sea of console.

No shit, Cherry Hill? Why Hello Thar, from the Voorhees store.


But yeah, Typhon is spot on; the type of are which you would think would produce the kind of people who'd have a least a few folks into PC gaming. Instead, it's all PS2/DS/360.

Also, lots of Spoiled-As-Fuck children, but that's beside the point.

Howdy Vorhees!  Your area is nicer then mine now, Cherry Hill is a traffic-bloated nightmare.

Azazel, don't you live in Melbourne or something? What the hell...

Yes. Yes I do. What would you like to know?

I'm trying to figure out where in Melb you live, going by your last post.

I live in West Footscray/Maidstone. Nearish West.

It's about in the middle of Sunshine (major seedy shithole w/EB, Big W, Target), Footscray (also a shithole w/Dungeon Crawl, K-Mart) and Highpoint (nice enough area, actually w/EB, JB x2, Myer, Target, Big W, TRU). 10 minutes East/West/North and I'm in one of those 3 places, so plenty of places to buy and check out games. Then there's the CBD 1/2 hour or so away with at least 7 more places to buy stuff..

Oh yea, Sunshine. Never been there myself but i've been told that the name does not reflect the nature.

You can probably safely skip visiting there.

So, will HG:L have an online distribution option?

You buy PC games at an EB store? Lolinternet. That's what they invented UPS for. As I've said, PC gamers all have PCs. Most have internet. Most internets have online stores. I can't believe they still stock PC games at all. Yeah, I was at EB a couple weeks ago to return a game I ordered online and pick up a new one in exchange. So it's good for that. And shitting on developers by buying used games. ;)

A shitload of people, believe it or not, hate shopping online. Even those of us with Amazon Prime.

Preferred shopping methods:
1. Online, Download after purchase
2. Offline, Go to the Store
3. Online, Shipped

Those are also how fast I can get the product to my hands after deciding I want something.

When you download a program, do you pay extra for a CD version to be shipped? I do.

Don't see the point really.  CDs can be lost, but "Download Now!" are usually easy to find on a game website's front page.

No.

Why pay for shipping and the extra wait when you don't need to?
I buy a decent amount of stuff online, but only when I'm you know, saving money or getting shit I can't easily purchase in my area.

Having said that, I buy at EB when they have a sale or I'm getting them to price match, the rest of the time I support one of the indy places in my area.

I don't have a problem buying stuff online...but I will not buy games online. It's a pain to find any sort of price difference, and then there is shipping. When I go out to buy a game, I'd rather get it That Day.

Nod. By "stuff" I mean other stuff. Games (and electronics) not amongst them.

Amazon Prime is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Interesting.  I didn't look at it from that perspective.  Seems possible.  Someone knows, as sales via internet versus sales via retail would tell you right away what the perferred delivery channel is for PC Games (I don't know). This might have even been discussed on this site (probably by yourself), if so I missed it.


Only reason I ever go is to pick up games that are in the "old" bin that I thought I might want to play, but didn't think the title was worth initial retail $$.

Indie places? Heh. The nearest EB is maybe 20-25 miles away. I save the drive time and gas (and dealing with the goddamned mall).

The extra wait is no big deal for me, I don't have much time to play video games anyway. I'm a patient man, my girlfriend calls me the master of deferred gratification. I call it the lessons learned via cunnilingus, applied in a broader way to the rest of life.

I'm seeing this talk of indie software shops. I'm so confused. I have not seen one of those here in Seattle for like 20+ years.

I've never seen one. At all.

We used to have one here. Back when I had a C-64. I remember paying $80 for Ultima 5. That guy was a total dick. He's the reason we formed the Blackbirds, our C-64 piracy/hacker user group (the owner of that shop ran the 'good' C-64 user group).

You really need to get out of your neighborhood once in a while.

By neighborhood, you could only possibly mean the southern NJ tri-state area. Hell, I've only ever seen 2 indie PC shops, neither of which actually sell software. And one of them is run by a crazy old Korean guy who sells pretty much only second-hand, obsolete gear.

I hate buying online because I have to keep track of it, and pay the tax to the state at the end of the year.  I'd much rather just pay up front and be done with it.   Some places tack on the appropriate state sales tax at the checkout, some don't.   Rather than fuck with it, I'd rather pick it up when I'm out shopping for other things.

lolinternet indeed.  LOLCATCHUPTOSTATELAWS is more like it. Internet shopping isn't quite refined enough to do it all the time.


Not my fucking problem.  Do you shit on Automakers by buying used cars?  Do you shit on homebuilders by buying used houses?  No, because they're not wacko enough to not account for a secondary market.  But then the game industry has shown its immaturity and lack of foresight in so many other ways, why should this one be a surprise.

Because I have more money than time.

I've never seen one either.  I go out plenty.

There used to be this shop in my neighborhood that dealt in ham radio gear and, for some reason, those crappy little Timex Sinclair computers.  (I cut my teeth on one when I was 8 or 9, prior to upgrading to a C-64.)  It was an odd place.  It was solely owned and operated by this one old man, with a workbench behind the counter where there were always two or three of the things scattered about disassembled.  He'd actually do repairs on the them, despite their being so cheap as to be essentially disposable even back then.  I'd go there and buy shitty games written in basic and saved on audio tape.

I ran into the guy a few years ago, a billion years old but seemingly in good health.  He looked like James Cromwell in that one Star Trek movie he did, trenchcoat and all.  Except he was wearing a huge gold bling-style medallion in the shape of the since-closed shop's name/logo, which is how I recognized him.  I asked him jokingly if he had anymore Timex computers.  He said in all seriousness that I could have a thousand of them for a quarter each.

Other than that, every bit of software I've ever purchased has been at some Software Etc. type place.

/shrug

We clearly live in very different places. If you have a painful trip to the closest EB and you don't mind dealing with the post, then more power to you. For me, the trips are painless, as I often need to go to or through one of the four locales that are close by for other reasons - tomorrow, I go through Footscray and the CBD, so stopping past isn't going out of my way. My wife works through Sunshine, and so do I occasionally, so, well you get the idea.



I had no idea I was so fortunate. There's a fair few small chains and indie shops in my city/region of the world.



That covers the shipping, but not the extra wait. ;)

Hrm. Sounds like a terrist. Enjoy the bombs!

;)

I walk past a mosque to get to work most days, too!  :-o

As long as you don't drop anything into their 'Need explosives for jihad" bin, you are ok I think.

New game play footage posted...

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_hellgatelondon_multichar_gpmontage.mov (http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_hellgatelondon_multichar_gpmontage.mov)

Not sure if the lag/stuttering is intentional or not but...

Ranged combat seems a tad lame to me, really made me want to play my City of Heroes blaster.

Melee combat looks really awful too.

Also, wow, it is 2007 and developers of a modern game can not get the walking animations right?

I disagree. Melee is the only thing that could be worth playing in that bland video. Melee is, at least, diablo-ish. Ranged looks like a messy kite fest.

EDIT: Do you think they are late to put in elves and make it fantasy_world#673 ?

You want to see walking done right? Folk's Soul blows EVERYTHING away. EVERYTHING. In every graphics department. Every single fucking one.

As for Hellgate: London. In the video I watched, came out a day or two ago (too lazy to click a link), I noticed that not a single piece of loot dropped. I was like, what?

Maybe I'll have a PS3 by the time it's released in October.  I never really saw the point of buying one until I saw the Folklore trailer on... umm... IGN?  Wherever.  Oh, I don't know.  I've been cheap lately.

Hate the grey abandoned city enviorments which I'm guessing most of the game will be made up of.

I was never a Diablo fan, so I guess my opinion doesn't hold much weight on this game.

But the AI seems ripped right from the Jimbo handbook "They're coming right for us!". And the backing up of ranged characters ala Doom 1990s.

I guess if you dig that retro tons of weak enemies constantly swarming you with mindless repetitive gameplay, it'll be great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY-kyzeadtM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY-kyzeadtM) That? Man, you're a jap-shit fanboi to the eXXXXXXXXtreme. Reminds me of that crappy rails Gamecube game that everyone fawns over that has 4 hours of gameplay. I don't even remember the name.

I think it looks really good, actually.  Not great quality, that video, though.  I especially like the way the character moves.   HERE (http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/826/826967/vids_1.html) are the trailers I referred to earlier. 

Gamecube? Rails? Killer 7? Not crappy, but.

And yea, let me tell you, youtube and other online videos really do do Folk's Soul Justice. FYI: We're past crappy non-1080p videos being representative of final product. Heh, except with Wii games (what? 752x480 videos are all over GT).

There really aren't words for how amazing Folk's Soul looks. It's masterfully crafted. As in, it blows away Team Ninja stuff. Game Republic has some damn fine animators over there.

I think he was insulting Eternal Darkness.

I don't see how he could be. Even if you considered it on rails, there's no way you could finish it in 4 hours.

EDIT: Folk's Soul looks like a prettier Jade Empire.

I don't see how you could even compare a Silicon Knights descent into terror game to an action RPG by Game Republic.

Eh, I guess that's not as weird as referencing Suda51's Killer 7 though...

I think it's depressing that we're not sure which rails title he's talking about. Stupid gamecube.

Hee hee.  Maybe he meant Geist.  Who knows?

I don't see anything wrong is that video, except a sneaky suspicion that there will be controller-shaking.  The video gives me a SMT+FFXII vibe.

There is controller shaking. It's clever though me thinks.  It's sort of a tug of war with the creatures souls, basically moving the controller up from resting position (to activate the accelerometer). It essentially replaced a button press in a reasonably elegant manner.

SMT+FFXII is an interesting comparison.

Just going off the visuals.  Anything that does not have a separate battle screen now reminds me of FFXII.

As for shaking, let's say I don't share your optimism.  If I wanted to go soul-fishing with accelerometers, I think I would prefer a Wiimote, however I only have Resistance to use as reference.  At least with the Wiimote I am constantly reminded that if I try to scratch my ass while playing that I am going to lose this minigame.  I am really hoping the Sixaxis motion sensing dies an early death.

Eh. Hm. How should I explain...

The motion controls don't interrupt the gameplay.