3381

No outrage. Just surprised that the cnn made a story about an indie pc strategy game, and one as silly as that (elemental not using drm is non-news even in the specialized gaming press, in the real, bigger world is even less relevant).

The “behold Brad Wardell!” thing was a joke before linking the cnn page. ;)

3382

Elemental seems a bit like Fallout 3 to me. A game that keeps crashing, freezing and generally fucking up, but I keep coming back for more. Those of you on my LIVE friends list have probably switched off all notifications by now :)

Waiting for 1.0.6+ is recommended, right?

3383

At some level waiting to purchase a PC game has no real downside, particularly with a publisher/developer that has a reputation for strong support and enhancing their products. A game should only get better, more stable, and cheaper as time goes on.

The only game I can picture where waiting to purchase it might make things worse is a multi-player game where there might be far fewer people to play against if you wait (or a whole bunch of people that have been playing a long time and are now really good so they can kick your ass).

As I’ve previously posted, 1.05 is quite stable for me, and I’m generally quite happy with the game. However, it sounds like some people are still crashing a lot, and you might be one of the unlucky people where the game still doesn’t work well on your machine.

3384

What if CNN had quoted qt3?

3385

What is the deal with the guys and the wine glasses? This is the second time I’ve seen this at QT3 and I fear there is a pop culture reference I’m missing.

3386

It would have been the greatest thing ever.
But only if the article was accommpanied of a Raptor o lolcat image. So we could knew it was genuine qt3 material.

3387

Octonoo is a cretin who likes making ridiculous posts to wind people up and then refers to them in other threads in order to generate more havoc. Check the wine thread in EE if you really want, but I recommend you just ignore him. He’s worthless noise.

3388

I remember seeing ads for that, it’s some movie about wine tasting (and probably LIFE and LIVING or something as well). My wife rented it and I didn’t care to watch it with her, she ended up hating it (I don’t think she finished it) and now she doesn’t like Paul G AT ALL. In ANYTHING. Ever since this movie, no idea why.

Just remembered the name of the movie - Sideways.

To keep this on topic, I will put my 2 cents on Elemental. I suspected this should have held out for the Feb release after all a month ago, and I’m bummed that my gut was right on this one. I really think there is a great game here, but there are too many issues and design decisions that need to be addressed (they’ve been covered here extensively before, I’ll not add to the din) for me to want to bang my head into the wall with that stuff while trying to enjoy the rest of it. I think in 6 months this will be one of my favorite turn based strategy games, and in ONE month it will be a lot of fun. Unfortunately in one month I’ll have Civ V so I’m just going to let Elemental cook for a bit and come back to it when it’s full potential has been realized.

I know Brad and Co. worked really hard on this project, and I’m grateful for the effort here. But there are a lot (too many?) of systems in place here and this coming out in Feb would have been polished and incredible, well recieved critically, and I think we would have all been better off for it. We’d have been pissed it got delayed of course, but look at the alternative…

3389

Have you found the Dominions 3 - Info Thread created by Dave Perkins, the dude who always plays Man in MP and should always be killed first? If not, it’s a resource that will help flatten Dom3’s steep learning curve. Eventually, though, everything will suddenly click and you’ll think to yourself, “Ah, I get it, now.” Also, look to join the next Qt3 MP game, regardless of your experience with the game. SP will teach you bad habits that will fail miserably in MP. Besides, MP is a thousand times more enjoyable than SP, if not solely for the amount of Qt3 trash talking it generates. :-)

With regards to this thread, I hate myself for reading it. Can’t we all just get along? Group hug!

3390

I’m just getting caught up on this thread… is there some kind of meme or other meaning behind Tom consistently calling Kieron “Kiernon”? Because the guy’s proper name is visibile on every post…

Between that and the other comments directed to him here, I must say you’re a class act KG. (The internet needs a explicitly non-sarcastic font when replying in threads such as this.)

3391

Any announcement he makes regarding a Stardock product is going to be taken as coming from the Stardock CEO and therefore “official”. There’s no separating the two. Much like BP Tony “I would like my life back” Hayward’s statement cost him his job since it embarrassed BP. It’s newsworthy and people ran with it. Now he’s posted a couple of apology statements and those same sources have published those, so I don’t see where anyone is being unfair.

Beyond that at least buyers can count on Stardock to patch the product to stability. Whether or not it’ll eventually be a good/great game is anyone’s guess, but at least users can count on a stable product. I won’t buy Elemental because I won’t support Brad’s politics and I don’t get a lot of long-term enjoyment out of the products I’ve purchased in the past, but there’s no denying that Stardock does typically do right by their customers. In this day and age, that comfort should go a long way to buyers. I believe the v1.0 of the game should have been a lot more stable, but that’s water under the bridge. At least buyers be able to count on rapid patches to make it right.

On that note, I think they’re short-sighted in not refunding dough for those who are asking for it. It seems a bit…slimy…to hide behind an exception to your own Bill of Rights. The marketplace generally believes that Stardock can generally be counted on to do the right thing and risking that reputation to deny a few disgruntled pre-orders customers a refund just seems like a lousy business decision. It’s a low reward but a high risk in terms of marketplace reputation and the last thing Stardock needs right now is any more bad press. Pony up for those who want to return the game in the next couple of days and then use that to further solidify your marketplace reputation. A good PR person could spin this whole thing to a positive with a magnanimous move like that.

3392

Best post in this thread so far.

JW

3393

Kieron,

Thanks for the post. I do apologize for being so harsh, but I was angry. I still am, but I realize I probably shouldn’t direct that anger so specifically at you (or Tom Francis). I understand that you think the quote is newsworthy and I’m disappointed. I had really hoped RPS was…above?..beyond?..better?..different?..than that. I don’t know how to say it without sounding pejorative. It may not be possible to say without sounding pejorative. :(

I really want to address this, however:

You’re flat-out, 100%, dead wrong, and I’m a little insulted that you feel the need to pre-emptively call me a liar or insinuate that I don’t know myself better.

Because I have been in a situation where a developer has said something here that I wanted to either use in a story or, more recently, post on Fidgit. I have always contacted that person directly to ask beforehand. Always. I always have and I always will. And on many (most?) of those occasions, I was asked not to use what was said. In some instances, I was given something else to use. In other instances, I was left high and dry. In at least one instance I can think of, other sites had already run with the story and I honored the developers request not to use it myself. I know some people following this exchange will know exactly what I’m talking about.

The bottom line is that I have never used a developer quote from Qt3 without contacting the developer to clear it with him. The tone of this forum is that important to me.

Now before you think I’m simply being idealistic, let me also point out that I’m in a unique situation. I don’t know the environment in which you guys work, but I have the luxury of running a blog where no one is pressuring me to do certain types of stories or get certain amounts of traffic or say certain kinds of things. The people for whom I work at NBC/Universal have been ideal bosses in terms of letting me post on Fidgit what I think is best. Once they saddled me with that silly name – jerks! – they pretty much slapped me on the flank and let me run wild. I couldn’t imagine a more ideal environment to write about videogames and I’m thankful for it.

I realize this isn’t the environment many people in our line of work enjoy. Many of them are under pressure to do things they might not otherwise do to get traffic. And because of my unique situation, it’s not easy for me to sympathize with them. In fact, it’s a lot easier for me to be judgmental about what they’re doing. I’m not saying this because I think you’re necessarily in that situation, but I’m saying it by way of explaining why I jumped so quickly to being pissed off when I felt my forum was being abused.

So, again, apologies for being so rude to you, but I’m still a bit angry and now I’m mostly disappointed that you and I have such a different perspective on how to treat this forum. It wouldn’t be the first time I had an unrealistic idea of what Qt3 should be…

 -Tom

P.S. Sorry for butchering your first name. It was unintentional. I have two close friends with children whose names are a variation of yours. Not that they’re named after you, as far as I know, but their names are a lot like yours.

3394

Octonoo joined the wine thread in Everything Else to tell everyone how much he hates wine, and how all the people who like wine are stupid posers. Predictably, this fanned some flames. Now he seems intent on trying to kindle the argument everywhere he goes. This is the third unrelated thread he’s trolled with that shit. I guess he wants to be banned or something, because that’s probably what’s going to happen if he keeps it up. Tom has a fairly low tolerance for people dragging flamewars into unrelated threads.

3395

Is that what that is? I thought he was just accusing people of whining. Get it? “Wining”?

Octonoo, my advice to you is to let memes happen rather than trying to decree them. That’s not really how memeing works. Although you’d never know by how hard I had to push that stupid “kick the hospital layers music up ride” thing from Inception. Man, I had to work for that one. Sorry to everyone who had to put up with that.

 -Tom
3396

And thanks for your elaboration on your position too.

I was just confused why I wasn’t KFG any more.

No, when you’ve got a name like “Kieron” you don’t stress about spelling that much. Almost everyone I’ve ever worked for has got it wrong first time. And often after that too.

KG

3397

I’m not sure how you can claim this. The original story was a post hammering Stardock for essentially being unfriendly hyporcrites. The story had 2 hooks: the Wardell quote and that Stardock had removed their Gamer’s Bill of Rights.

Leaving aside the Wardell quote, the mistake on the Bill of Rights in excusable. You simply can’t make a mistake of that magnitude and then fix it with internet editsl. This is why journalists work so hard to have everything right the first time. B/c it is the initial framing and story that people remember. Corrections aren’t nearly as effective in setting a lasting image as an original mistake. Compare the viral message of Stardock takes down the Gamer bill of Right b/c they screwed up elemental to: RPS made a grave mistake.

The story could have had much of the same impact if you wanted to claim that Stardock violated their own bill of rights as an editorial opinion and had the luxury of being factually correct. Bad job on the lack of fact checking.

3398

That’s basically an advertisement for Stardock while not providing full information on stuff like Assassin’s Creed 2, which did prevent easy cracking for awhile regardless what “players say.” That’s pretty sad on CNN’s part.

3399

A week surely is “for awhile” (time it took certain pirate groups to come up with a proper bypass), not to mention that they gained a week or two of non-piracy in exchange for enraging a greater part of their customer base, right?

3400

Actually it took a lot longer than a week. Initial cracked versions of the game were broken with the player only being able to run around the city without doing quests because they had to capture all of the content from Ubi’s server and then integrate it properly. Even then it took months to get that right (well about two months).