Portal 2 ... YAY YAY

[Sir Fodder]

Love the vines overgrowing weathered techno paneling theme of the Aperture Science page.

[caladein]

I don't understand the teeth gnashing. The game is unlocking earlier with no effort from me, this pleases me.

No teeth gnashing. I just find it fucking hilarious how people got tricked into paying money and playing their asses off for something that's a marginal benefit at best. And thanks to timezones, people needing to go to work and school and do other real life stuff, the marginal benefit gets trashed altogether.

If people paid $40 and are spending time playing games they don't want to play just so they can play a game they do want to play at most a few days earlier, I think Valve deserves to take their money.

If this got people to play some games they might not have otherwise, that's a good thing!  If they're enjoying them and keep going back to them, even better!  (Not to mention that a few of these games actually got large amounts of new content.)

[jakonovski]

Fuck all the haters, Potato Sack games are honestly good. I bought it even though I already had Audiosurf, Amnesia and Bit Trip Beat. Gave the extra copies to a friend.

[schild]

Fuck all the haters, Potato Sack games are honestly good. I bought it even though I already had Audiosurf, Amnesia and Bit Trip Beat. Gave the extra copies to a friend.

Like 4 of them are good. Audiosurf was good years ago. YEARS.

This whole ARG just makes me want to listen to I Love Bees again and pay attention to Portal 2 on Tuesday.

[jakonovski]

I'm singing along to I'm Still Alive in Audiosurf so I'm immune to reason.

[K9]

Looks like Tuesday morning would be an optimistic guess for this.

[schild]

You mean the day it was supposed to release?

Color me shocked.

[Sheepherder]

I really don't get the point of time zones. Why don't we just have a single global time? Does it really matter that a person in New York gets up at 7am and works until 5pm rather than getting up at 12 UST and working until 22 UST?

Because by definition the time you see on a clock refers to the rising and the setting of the sun, because that shit is useful information for people who aren't cave adapted like I am?

And yes, it does matter.  That New Yorker would be utterly fucked on his sojourn to Tokyo.

[Amaron]

Still isn't going to release before the midnight sales.   I kind of wonder why they didn't pick another path to cash-in that didn't involve pissing a lot of people off.

[tmp]

I really don't get the point of time zones. Why don't we just have a single global time? Does it really matter that a person in New York gets up at 7am and works until 5pm rather than getting up at 12 UST and working until 22 UST?

Unless everyone else on the planet also worked 12UST-22UST no matter if that's early part of the day or middle of the night for them, what would that really change? Instead of remembering what time zone that New York person uses you'd instead need to remember what specific UST hours happen to be their work hours and which are their leisure time etc.

[Sjofn]

Yeeeeah, I think going "oh derp, it's 8pm there, no one will be at their office" is a lot easier to deal with. And I say this as someone who has the luxury of operating on Sjofn Time, all the time.


(Sjofn Time has no bedtime is the main feature.)

[Quinton]

Signs point to 1-2am on Tuesday or 9-10pm Monday evening, depending on which estimate you trust.  Either way I was originally expecting Tuesday morning, so earlier is nice.

In the mean time, I checked out one or two indie games (didn't buy the whole pack), and got non-portal stuff done over the weekend.  Can't complain.

[apocrypha]

Release date is almost irrelevant to me, I've ordered PS3 copy from Amazon, so it'll arrive when it arrives. Probably Monday, just after I go away to visit relatives for a week. 

In the mean time I have also been spurred to reinstall Portal and have a nostalgia play through.

[TripleDES]

The counter on the page itself only shows a 5h30 advantage. Any estimates by third party sites are basically predictions pulled out of their asses.

[Quinton]

The two predictions which seem reasonable are based on:

- The time based counter jumping whenever a game hits 100%
- The (reportedly confirmed by a valve employee) belief that when all bars hit 100% the game will release instantly

http://k-4u.nl/portal2/ has some fun graphs of the data collected from scraping glados@home.

Either way, worst case, Tuesday morning (possibly very early!) I'll be able to enjoy some Portal 2.

In the mean time, I continue to enjoy watching the absurd amount of energy being put into analyzing all this silliness.

[Jeff Kelly]

Just bought a retail copy of Portal 2. The seem to sell them early over here

[K9]

Can you actually play it though? It should unlock the same time as the digital copies.

[Yoru]

The two predictions which seem reasonable are based on:

- The time based counter jumping whenever a game hits 100%
- The (reportedly confirmed by a valve employee) belief that when all bars hit 100% the game will release instantly

http://k-4u.nl/portal2/ has some fun graphs of the data collected from scraping glados@home.

Either way, worst case, Tuesday morning (possibly very early!) I'll be able to enjoy some Portal 2.

In the mean time, I continue to enjoy watching the absurd amount of energy being put into analyzing all this silliness.

I just noticed that the code attribution that used to be at the foot of the hasportal2launchedyet.com site changed.

It used to be "ETA calculations based upon this bookmarklet" with a link to some JS code. Now it's "ETA calculations based upon random guesswork" with no link.

Bitter, the community has become.

[K9]

Um, the potato multiplier just started counting down.

[jakonovski]

Either Valve hit their panic button of "oh shit they haven't played enough indie games" or there was never any chance of affecting the time of release.

[Ironwood]

Watching you chaps pretend that you matter and that you're not just ridiculous consumers running the marketing maze is FUNNY.

Keep it up.

[jakonovski]

I just live vicariously through other people who play, I've contributed maybe two hours over the course of the weekend.

[Jeff Kelly]

"THis game cannot be installed since this game is not released yet"

Seriously, at least let me put this thing on my HD

[Ingmar]

It gave me an excuse to play some Defense Grid, which I had put down before finishing a long time ago and kept meaning to get back to, I am under no illusions that I was really contributing much.

[Amaron]

Watching you chaps pretend that you matter and that you're not just ridiculous consumers running the marketing maze is FUNNY.

I didn't participate but I doubt anyone who did had any illusions that they weren't participating in a marketing stunt.

[tmp]

Um, the potato multiplier just started counting down.

Yeah, it's going down at rate of roughly 10/sec. With the current amount it's ~11 hours before it gets all way down to 0.

edit: but interestingly enough, the "active test subjects" on top states now "nine" instead of "zero"

ah, nevermind, it's all covered in the status update text.

10:50 - Engaging starch-based power cells
 11:00 - Reboot safety test protocol initiated...
 11:00 - Relaxation chamber locks released...
 11:00 - Involuntary hazard mitigation associates have assumed testing positions...
 11:00 - Pre-release lethality assessment initiated...

[Ingmar]

I'm not surprised Amnesia is in last place. Which is not to say it isn't a good game, I'm sure it is from other people's reviews, but I bet it is too scary for a lot of people. (The trailer was too scary for me.)

[Tarami]

Well, few people are going to replay Amnesia. It's really about story and exploration. It's very cool the first time, but the second time... what's really the point? It doesn't have any mechanics that are satisfying in themselves, unlike all the other games in the potato sack.

[K9]

Watching you chaps pretend that you matter and that you're not just ridiculous consumers running the marketing maze is FUNNY.

Keep it up.

Pff, it's all harmless fun. Not that I have any of the games, nor the time to power-play them right now. Indulge us in our mild fantasy.

[Nonentity]

Watching you chaps pretend that you matter and that you're not just ridiculous consumers running the marketing maze is FUNNY.

Keep it up.

I don't think any of us are playing these games under any false pretenses - I wanted the gold potato because all those challenges looked fun, so I got that, and then all this other stuff is just games i'm running in the background while idling and doing other things. There ARE people taking it as seriously as you imply, though.

[Simond]

Ironwood? Being a killjoy?
Never. 

[Nonentity]

Ironwood? Being a killjoy?
Never. 

[Lantyssa]

edit: but interestingly enough, the "active test subjects" on top states now "nine" instead of "zero"

That's how many games have a blue bar.

I'm mostly amused by everyone going crazy over this.

[tmp]

That's how many games have a blue bar.

But it wasn't that many when i posted that (think it was seven then iirc) Wouldn't have mentioned that if it was this obvious.

[K9]

I'm mostly amused by everyone going crazy over this.

I'll only feel let down if I frothed over something unfrothworthy.

I suspect I shall be vindicated!