Posted November 20, 2011
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Navagon
Easily Persuaded
Registered: Dec 2008
From United Kingdom
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meudoland
New User
Registered: May 2010
From Italy
Posted November 20, 2011
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dont let me say what i didnt. i agree with u about DRM, but how can u consider "DRM" the stupid password check of games from 80's? in that case, i would not modify the code.
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anyway, they have to improve the relations with their loyal customers in term of clarity..
what happened exactly about the lack of EA games expansions?????
what happened exactly about the probably bugged version of King's Bounty????
what about the use of cracked exe's from the "scene" and without a notice???
what about the exe's recognized as threat by so many AV programs (if false positives, did they try to contact the AV companies to fix the issue)??
why sell as stand-alone game, something that was born as an expansion and required the original (ie SpellForce 2)?
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yes, it's not too bad to not pay in € ;)
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meudoland
New User
Registered: May 2010
From Italy
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meudoland
New User
Registered: May 2010
From Italy
Posted November 20, 2011
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never thought or said.
Post edited November 20, 2011 by meudoland
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liquidsnakehpks
sons of liberty
Registered: Dec 2009
From India
Posted November 20, 2011
the only true doubt i have about this, is the prices of these so called newer drm free games, will they be fitted into the current 5.99 or 9.99 or will it be more ?
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SimonG
SimonG597
Registered: Sep 2010
From Germany
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meudoland
New User
Registered: May 2010
From Italy
Posted November 20, 2011
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Post edited November 20, 2011 by meudoland
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rampancy
Think Different.
Registered: Sep 2008
From Canada
Posted November 20, 2011
But how can you make that comparison? Has Daikatana become an objectively better game since it's been released? Will Duke Nukem Forever become a better game in five or ten years' time? There's a documented and scientifically studied process by which wine does become better with aging, but no such process applies for games. If a game suffered from poor design, bad voice acting, and balancing issues, those are problems that a game will suffer for the rest of its lifespan, regardless of how old it is. MoO3 with its mod support is the exception, but only a handful of games have been in the unique position that MoO3 has found itself in. It's certainly not the rule.
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meudoland
New User
Registered: May 2010
From Italy
Posted November 20, 2011
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i know that i get cursed by publishers, developers, but there is always someone else who helps them to pay the mortgage..
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games get better by patches and a more suitable (subjective) price.
and to make this alchemy to work, time must pass!.....
Post edited November 20, 2011 by meudoland
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rampancy
Think Different.
Registered: Sep 2008
From Canada
Posted November 20, 2011
Patches aren't going to fix fundamentally flawed issues in the game's execution. Duke Nukem Forever is a great example of this. Gearbox's patch which removed the game's original two-weapon limit was a band-aid solution that didn't solve the game's fundamentally flawed issues. Oh, and it wasn't brought to consoles either.
Apart from some developers like Blizzard (pre-WoW/Activision buyout), or other isolated cases like the TV voice pack for ST:EF, patches generally don't do much to make a game objectively better in terms of fundamental game design.
In other words, if a game is fundamentally broken upon release, you can't count on patches to make it better.
No they don't. In most cases, a patch can only hope to fix problems with a game that are technical in nature; or gameplay issues that don't require drastic reworking of the game's code or art assets. And then consider the times where patches have made a game worse due to added bugs or questionable gameplay changes; the NGE and CU "upgrades" for Star Wars Galaxies comes to mind here.
As for price, that may only get worse with a game's age; consider Fallout, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment or FreeSpace/FreeSpace 2, all of which could generally only be had for grossly inflated prices on eBay. Availability on GOG solved that problem for all of those games, but there are plenty more for which this issues still exists, and may never be solved, like System Shock and System Shock 2.
Apart from some developers like Blizzard (pre-WoW/Activision buyout), or other isolated cases like the TV voice pack for ST:EF, patches generally don't do much to make a game objectively better in terms of fundamental game design.
In other words, if a game is fundamentally broken upon release, you can't count on patches to make it better.
No they don't. In most cases, a patch can only hope to fix problems with a game that are technical in nature; or gameplay issues that don't require drastic reworking of the game's code or art assets. And then consider the times where patches have made a game worse due to added bugs or questionable gameplay changes; the NGE and CU "upgrades" for Star Wars Galaxies comes to mind here.
As for price, that may only get worse with a game's age; consider Fallout, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment or FreeSpace/FreeSpace 2, all of which could generally only be had for grossly inflated prices on eBay. Availability on GOG solved that problem for all of those games, but there are plenty more for which this issues still exists, and may never be solved, like System Shock and System Shock 2.
Post edited November 21, 2011 by rampancy
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orcishgamer
Mad and Green
Registered: Jun 2010
From United States
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Magnitus
Born Idealist
Registered: Mar 2011
From Canada
Posted November 21, 2011
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I guess they could contractualize (no, it's not a word) it to prevent the "either it sells for 40$+ or it doesn't sell" bs, but I think that at least 95% of rights owners will want to lower the price when they see that it doesn't sell.
Post edited November 21, 2011 by Magnitus
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timppu
Favorite race: Formula__One
Registered: Jun 2011
From Finland
Posted November 21, 2011
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I think you're the first person who has stated that they will not play a game unless it is of a certain age. Playing games of a certain era is one thing. But to say you won't play 2011 games until 2016 is just crazy. Games don't age like wine - with the possible exception of those that are substantially patched and modified. But that's beside the point. Most aren't.
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If "aging like wine" means that games don't get worse with time (with the exception of maybe games where graphics and presentation were the main selling point), I agree with you.
If the phrase is supposed to mean that games somehow magically get better over time, then I agree with Navagon (ie., normally they don't, even though I may prefer getting a 2011 game in 2014 for 1/4 the price, with all DLC and fixes included, when my PC is fast enough to play it properly).
To me the true game classics are like good books, ie. they are just as good today as they were years ago. Not worse, not better. I'm happily surprised how much enjoyment such old games like Magic Carpet and Dune 2000 have provided me this year, even if they don't look as good on a 42" HDTV as Uncharted 3.
Post edited November 21, 2011 by timppu
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HereForTheBeer
Positive Patty
Registered: Oct 2009
From United States
Posted November 21, 2011
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Edit: however, part of the draw of GOG is the pricing, and I suppose there is a significant number of us for whom that is a primary reason to get our games here. I, for one, love the fact that I can get from four to fifteen games for the price of a new top-tier title.
Post edited November 21, 2011 by HereForTheBeer
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meudoland
New User
Registered: May 2010
From Italy
Posted November 21, 2011
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then i said that for us europeans it is a good deal to buy in USD instead of EUR...
i dont hate new games (because in a couple of years they become old too), but simply i would have tons of old games to play and finish before them, if i would find the time.....
Post edited November 21, 2011 by meudoland