Hellgate London Alpha

[Yegolev]

Can't sell subs if you have LAN play.

I don't think they care about that.  This game is going to follow the Diablo 2 business model not the MMOG business model.  I personally believe they are eliminating LAN (non secured server) play to avoid item/player hacking.  They are probably offering the "elite" program as a means to cover the costs of rebuilding their own battle.net from scratch.

How do you explain the advertisements?  I'm not saying that they are NOT avoiding hacking this way, just that there is another impetus.  Two birds or something.

I also agree with Bloodworth and will add that demos suck these days.  Blue Dragon demo was very MEH, but the actual game has taken up residence in my pants.  Similarly with Bioshock and its demo, and a few other that I can't remember just now.  Game development in general is harder, and this is showing strongly in demos.

[Kaa]

I suppose I don't get to ask if you're retarded. It's really not a rhetorical question with you. I suppose I could ask instead what made you so.

Ah, I feel the love :D You could, of course, ask.

He put the best spin on an unpopular decision he could. He presented the real reason as a joke by exaggeration and hyperbole and then presented a weak counter argument against LAN play.

He didn't touch the real reason at all. The real reason is that only-our-servers play guarantees you've paid for your unique ID while  LAN play allows pirated copies to play. So it's just about money.

Quit signing your posts. It is giving me a headache- WAP

[Salamok]

Can't sell subs if you have LAN play.

I don't think they care about that.  This game is going to follow the Diablo 2 business model not the MMOG business model.  I personally believe they are eliminating LAN (non secured server) play to avoid item/player hacking.  They are probably offering the "elite" program as a means to cover the costs of rebuilding their own battle.net from scratch.

How do you explain the advertisements? 

Genius?  Mana from heaven?  Good for them the ads in game are just colorful white noise in the background, if someone is paying them any significant amount of money for that space then I think it is AWESOME, free money at it's best. 

Do you actually have a problem with the ads in game?

I finally played the demo a bit more. Then I uninstalled it. I don't get the love. It seems like a mediocre shooter at best. The RPG elements don't add enough early on to make it interesting. The graphics engine is fantastic, but the game just left me /meh.

This is why I just blew off the demo entirely.  I spent 1000+ hours playing d1/starcraft online and all of maybe 50 hours playing d2 (only played that offline).  I wouldn't call it a shooter (no skill involved at all) and the storyline needs to be fleshed out quite a bit more to be considered an RPG (there may actually be a story but I lost it as i sped through the long ass conversations that they call the quest system).  The game play reminds me of playing d1 online after the story line ceased to matter (ie I had completed it several times).

[Salamok]

He didn't touch the real reason at all. The real reason is that only-our-servers play guarantees you've paid for your unique ID while  LAN play allows pirated copies to play. So it's just about money.

Kaa

nothing wrong with that, if they are smart they will include the ability to clone your disk/account for "friends play" like d1/starcraft did.

[Yegolev]

Do you actually have a problem with the ads in game?

I have only played the demo, but I suspect not.  An ad would have to interrupt my gameplay for me to be irritated by it.  It's more about be being a cynical bastard when it comes to a decision like leaving out LAN play.  Maybe it's only about the security and no one ever, ever thought about the subs, but it does set off my "why do you hate freedom" alarm.

It's not a huge deal in either case.  If it sucks, I still have Fate, Mythos, Titan Quest, and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.

[Kaa]

Maybe it's only about the security and no one ever, ever thought about the subs, but it does set off my "why do you hate freedom" alarm.

Security? LOL. That "security" we're talking about is the security of their database residing on their servers. So the LAN mode poses a threat to it exactly how?

The basic reason for taking out the LAN play is to lock out the pirated copies. The second reason is to update the in-game ads on a regular basis. The third reason is to force a mandatory tie between the game and the company's servers thus maintaining control.

By the way, what was that about the EULA that allowed them to get info from/about my machine? Links?


Quit signing your posts. It is giving me a headache- WAP

[Salamok]

I have only played the demo, but I suspect not.  An ad would have to interrupt my gameplay for me to be irritated by it.  It's more about be being a cynical bastard when it comes to a decision like leaving out LAN play.  Maybe it's only about the security and no one ever, ever thought about the subs, but it does set off my "why do you hate freedom" alarm.

It's not a huge deal in either case.  If it sucks, I still have Fate, Mythos, Titan Quest, and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.

Other than pirating a game I fail to see how no LAN play even has an impact.  I suppose you could say it's for people who have no internet access but that is what the single player game is for.  I kind of doubt that people who have a LAN but have no internet access constitutes a measurable % of the player base.  I suppose you could make a decent lag free environment argument but as stated before this game isn't really a MMOG so the 40man raid all casting sparklies lag factor doesn't exist.  I wouldn't be suprised if this game played fine over dial up.

Edit:  If you want to talk freedom then how about their freedom to ensure people have to pay to play the game they made.  I personally would rather endorse the freedom to not get ripped off over endorsing the freedom to rip people off, but that may just be me not wanting to endorse getting but raped by the next person who happens to be physically strong enough to pull that particular manuver off on my unwilling person.

[tazelbain]

Edit:  If you want to talk freedom then how about their freedom to ensure people have to pay to play the game they made.  I personally would rather endorse the freedom to not get ripped off over endorsing the freedom to rip people off, but that may just be me not wanting to endorse getting but raped by the next person who happens to be physically strong enough to pull that particular manuver off on my unwilling person.

For your next trick, Hitler reference?

[Salamok]

Edit:  If you want to talk freedom then how about their freedom to ensure people have to pay to play the game they made.  I personally would rather endorse the freedom to not get ripped off over endorsing the freedom to rip people off, but that may just be me not wanting to endorse getting but raped by the next person who happens to be physically strong enough to pull that particular manuver off on my unwilling person.

For your next trick, Hitler reference?

lol no, I'm just past the point in life where I need to steal crack to support my habit.  So naturally I am against it as it may negatively impact the prices I have to pay.  Plus... gosh darn it, it's just the right thing to do!

[lesion]

By the way, what was that about the EULA that allowed them to get info from/about my machine? Links?

Consent to Use of Data. You agree that EA, its affiliates, and each Related Party may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer, including without limitation your Internet Protocol address, operating system, application software and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online play. EA and/or the Related Parties may also use this information in the aggregate and, in a form which does not personally identify you, to improve our products and services and we may share that aggregate data with our third party service providers.

anonymous HW/SW data for patches/ads. the sky is falling, get in the basement cellar, bust out some canned beans and bar the fuckin' door.

[Yegolev]

Good reply, Salamok, you'll go far here at f13.net.

Like I said, no big deal, but is there some facility for me to play HGL with only my set of friends?  I don't mean the "make a group in GuildWars" way, either, more like the "log into the f13 TF2 server" way.  I suspect not, but ultimately it's not something that keeps me out of Mythos, either.  Although, about one-third of my newfound enjoyment of Mythos comes from the new "Local" chat tab, which allows me to ignore much of the retardation.

[eldaec]

lol no, I'm just past the point in life where I need to steal crack to support my habit.  So naturally I am against it as it may negatively impact the prices I have to pay.  Plus... gosh darn it, it's just the right thing to do!

Question, do games for formats with less piracy and higher sales (consoles) generally cost more or less than games for formats with more piracy and lower sales (PCs).

Just sayin'.

Piracy may have lots of pernicious effects. Increased prices demonstrably isn't one of them.

(granted the price difference is smaller these days than it used to be - probably because piracy on consoles is increasing)

[Salamok]

lol no, I'm just past the point in life where I need to steal crack to support my habit.  So naturally I am against it as it may negatively impact the prices I have to pay.  Plus... gosh darn it, it's just the right thing to do!

Question, do games for formats with less piracy and higher sales (consoles) generally cost more or less than games for formats with more piracy and lower sales (PCs).

Just sayin'.

Piracy may have lots of pernicious effects. Increased prices demonstrably isn't one of them.

(granted the price difference is smaller these days than it used to be - probably because piracy on consoles is increasing)

I'm not up to date on console stats (last console here was a sega genesis) but do the games really outsell PC titles by that much?  Sort of makes sense but HALO 3 3.3 million copies in a few weeks is probably (not sure what it's 24 hour number was) = WoW TBC 2.4 million copies in 24 hours.  Plus I was under the impression that console games are cheaper to develop than PC games, that may be an outdated theory though.

[HaemishM]

Console games have better profit margins. It has something to do with only having to write for 1 set of hardware, instead of bug-testing the holy monkey fuck out of eighty quadtrillion configurations.

[Kaa]

anonymous HW/SW data for patches/ads. the sky is falling, get in the basement cellar, bust out some canned beans and bar the fuckin' door.

It's not anonymous, of course, but tied to the name/address on the credit card you used to pay for the subscription.

I don't have a problem with them knowing my CPU/RAM/Windows version/whatever. But I am concerned that some idiot will decide that what's good for Google should work for them as well and start to scan data on my machine for keywords for the purpose of targeting ads. No, I don't consider it far-fetched.

Kaa

[sinij]

Consent to Use of Data. You agree that EA, its affiliates, and each Related Party may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer, including without limitation your Internet Protocol address, operating system, application software and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online play. EA and/or the Related Parties may also use this information in the aggregate and, in a form which does not personally identify you, to improve our products and services and we may share that aggregate data with our third party service providers.

This is not minor, or non-intrusive. You are basically signing your PC, along with all information stored on it, away by installing that game.

Sinij

Edit: Forgot to sign my post, otherwise how would you know its Genuine Sinij post and take Advantage from it?

[sinij]

anonymous HW/SW data for patches/ads. the sky is falling, get in the basement cellar, bust out some canned beans and bar the fuckin' door.

It's not anonymous, of course, but tied to the name/address on the credit card you used to pay for the subscription.

I don't have a problem with them knowing my CPU/RAM/Windows version/whatever. But I am concerned that some idiot will decide that what's good for Google should work for them as well and start to scan data on my machine for keywords for the purpose of targeting ads. No, I don't consider it far-fetched.

Kaa

Real issue is that this information is gathered and can be linked to a person via IP/CC. Do you trust EA to securely store your data and never to re-write agreement? I sure wouldn't.

Sinij

[lesion]

It's not anonymous, of course, but tied to the name/address on the credit card you used to pay for the subscription.

I don't have a problem with them knowing my CPU/RAM/Windows version/whatever. But I am concerned that some idiot will decide that what's good for Google should work for them as well and start to scan data on my machine for keywords for the purpose of targeting ads. No, I don't consider it far-fetched.

I believe they're explicitly stating it "may" (see also: will) be used at some point for targeting ads ("to facilitate the provision of...dynamically served content"). my bad on the first bit, it's that they'll apparently use the data anonymously. I'm giving the game a whirl and eagerly awaiting subscription offers for cat jerk-off porn.

sinij, if you keep all your computer's data locked up in hardware/app info then you deserve to sign it all away. hell, if you keep any important info in accessible places period. not to be mean to you or anything, I am nebulously handwaving in a general sense. my school of thought is that if it's hooked up to anyone else they can see your shit, consent or not. BIAS BIAS!

[Mrbloodworth]

Didnt this very same thing happen when the newest Battlefield came out? (Referring to the AD stuff)

Yep,

The Game incorporates technology of Massive Incorporated ("Massive") that enables in-game advertising, and the display of other similar in-game objects, which are uploaded temporarily to your personal computer or game console and replaced during online game play. As part of this process, Massive may collect your Internet protocol address and other basic anonymous information, and will use this information for the general purposes of transmitting and measuring in-game advertising. Massive does not store or use any of this information for the purpose of discovering your personal identity

Its Massive; Battlefield , Planetside, Neocron, now Hellgate use it..i know there is more.

[sinij]

sinij, if you keep all your computer's data locked up in hardware/app info then you deserve to sign it all away. hell, if you keep any important info in accessible places period. not to be mean to you or anything, I am nebulously handwaving in a general sense. my school of thought is that if it's hooked up to anyone else they can see your shit, consent or not. BIAS BIAS!

I don't store any information on my machine but... to subscribe you need to submit Credit Card info, this give them access to a lot of your personal data, like address, name, sex, age, credit score. With IP and access to your PC they have access to all your browsing/game habits. When you link these things (and its trivially easy to do so) you get exactly what you advocate to avoid, only EA are doing it for you.

Lets say you turn out to be a pedophile on a run. Do I want my name to turn up, and people showing at my door to question me, because of our discussion about privacy here?

[Yegolev]

I certainly don't.

[lesion]

this stuff is already possible. take any other subscription game: account info is immediately able to tie to your IP when you log in simply because you're connecting to their server with their software (unless you mask your IP, in which case it still doesn't have any relevance to this example, so go away!). your CC info is also available, unless they have some kind of retardo-scure login system, because you're paying for that account. if someone wants to investigate you they just need to look that shit up.

[Tige]

I still don't get it. 

It's got a good back story.  It has rare loot.  It has oodles of evil monsters just waiting to drop a new "teh shiney".  It has legendary loot.  It has a handful of semi-different classes, with a handful of semi-different skills, so you can get loot in a handful of semi-different play styles.  It doesn't have a bone crushing death penalty, in fact, no penalty what so ever if you don't want to pay for a rez.  It has no face stabbing grind.  It has no forced grouping.  I can group ala the diablo series and get scaled difficulty monsters and xp.  It doesn't require hours of trying to get a raid together to enjoy the "endgame".  I can wade right into a horde of evil solo or with a couple of friends without regard of what class they are, no healer, no problem.  If I want more, I can pay 10 bucks and get all I can stand until I can't stands no more.  It has unique loot.

So with all that I'm not supposed to like this because I can't move while in my inventory screen, it has lag at player choke points and some awkward ui stuff? 

As far as all the ads and EA is out to get me stuff.  It is in the tinfoil hat phase right now, let's see what happens.

 

 

[lesion]

I just got an e-mail; I got into the beta!

[Mrbloodworth]

I still don't get it. 

It's got a good back story.  It has rare loot.  It has oodles of evil monsters just waiting to drop a new "teh shiney".  It has legendary loot.  It has a handful of semi-different classes, with a handful of semi-different skills, so you can get loot in a handful of semi-different play styles.  It doesn't have a bone crushing death penalty, in fact, no penalty what so ever if you don't want to pay for a rez.  It has no face stabbing grind.  It has no forced grouping.  I can group ala the diablo series and get scaled difficulty monsters and xp.  It doesn't require hours of trying to get a raid together to enjoy the "endgame".  I can wade right into a horde of evil solo or with a couple of friends without regard of what class they are, no healer, no problem.  If I want more, I can pay 10 bucks and get all I can stand until I can't stands no more.  It has unique loot.

So with all that I'm not supposed to like this because I can't move while in my inventory screen, it has lag at player choke points and some awkward ui stuff? 

As far as all the ads and EA is out to get me stuff.  It is in the tinfoil hat phase right now, let's see what happens.

 

 

Someone is telling you not to like something?

huh.

[Kaa]

With IP and access to your PC they have access to all your browsing/game habits.

Well, no, not really. They certainly would have access to my HG:L habits, but other than that they're essentially limited to knowing what games and apps I have installed on my hard drive. Any attempt to watch what people do on their machines while HG:L is not running is likely to meet massive backlash and lead to a PR debacle of titanic proportions. At least I hope so. 

Kaa

[sam, an eggplant]

I just got an e-mail; I got into the beta!

I got like 7. All my email addresses got in. I assume they just opened the floodgates.

[Yegolev]

Well, I suppose I should just leave work early!

[Kaa]

 

[Bunk]

Cool, I didn't know the word filters target sigs as well.

[schild]

Actually,  it's not even a fucking sig. He types it. Every time.

[Kaa]

Actually,  it's not even a fucking sig. He types it. Every time.

All the three letters, too!

Instead of getting a full-length-movie avatar like any normal person.

Oh well. Pity about it, seemed like a nice board.

/wave

K a a

[rattran]

I miss him already.

*sniff*

Isn't the 'no lan' thing to make it slightly harder for people to reverse engineer client-server server-client protocol stuff?

[Rasix]

Don't you love it when a plan comes together?

[Miasma]

Oh well. Pity about it, seemed like a nice board.

/wave

With your departure it just got even nicer.