Is it safe to assume you are a fellow NZ'er?

They should cut the bullshit and release it as Multiplayer only.

I actually set up such a BBS in 1994 but it never got off the ground. I had purchased my servers from a local shop and could never get them stable. The local shop took them back for troubleshooting/repair, but never returned them or my money.

I took the guy to small claims court where he lied about the state of the computers when they were returned, claiming at one point that I had removed all the mounting screws and taped the hardware together. The judge pointed out that, even if true, he was still required to either repair them (possibly at a cost), replace them, or refund them. Ultimately he claimed that I had cursed at his sister a couple years earlier (via BBS chat) and so he was justified in sabotaging my business. He lost, obviously, and ended up refunding my money. Unfortunately, I had still lost a few hundred on other expenses and the release of Quake was on the horizon, so the window of opportunity was nearly closed.

I actually have the "ACPi MultiPlayer Game Server" software sitting next to me on my desk. I came across it a few weeks ago while going through an old box of stuff. Even though it's completely useless, I can't bring myself to throw it out.

Exactly right. I like to play multiplayer FPS games, and in the one I am currently playing (Blacklight: Retribution, for those who are curious), it is possible to make your enemies heads' explode with all the charm of Gallagher smashing a watermelon.

It is, simply put, abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous.

But it's never more than a bonus. I do enjoy it for the sheer brutality of it (and that sound - like a popping balloon), but it's never the focus of the game for me. In fact, most of the time, despite the fact that the game is based on killing, I am mostly concerned with the basic mechanics of the game, and the constant competition I am in with myself.

Another series that constantly crops in these engineered controversies (and which was mentioned in this video), is GTA. People cannot seem to get this idea that teenagers are single-mindedly finding more and more ways to murder random prostitutes out of their heads, when the truth is that that's just one of MANY things you can do in GTA's sprawling cityscapes. I, for example, would sometimes enjoy simply driving fast cars around at night while listening to jazz. Same game, no prostitutes, or the wanton murder thereof, involved.

But then, I suppose "driving fast cars at night while listening to jazz on the radio" nets "news" outlets fewer views than "EVIL VIDEO GAME IS TEACHING THE YOUTH OF AMERICA TO MURDER PROSTITUTES."

As a game developer, I've come to realize that the graphics of a game have the most impact when a player first starts playing it. After a while the player focuses more and more on the underlying game mechanics rather than whatever violence happens to be immediately playing out on the screen.

Ie, a nonplayer sees their kid bloodily gunning down zombies for hours on end, but the kid is actually focusing on teamwork (multiplayer), scoring max points, reaching objectives, etc.

I can't find the article offhand but it was from reddit was Jack Tretton flat out said they are rejecting any sort of DRM that prevents people from reselling the disc.

He went on to say they cannot control everything a publisher does like charging to play multiplayer ala onepass etc) but this is really a key point for publishers to not be able to tell you that you can't sell the game to a friend.

I'm not saying you are 100% wrong and it will never happen but Sony is pushing pretty hard in the Anti-DRM direction. I think they realize it's one of the things that set them apart from Xbox.

The current XBox allows you to borrow, rent games. You can buy and sell used games without any issues as well. The upcoming XBox One however allows a title to be resold only once through a very specific process that they haven't revealed yet. You can't borrow a friends copy of a game, and I'd presume you can't take your game to their house to play there unless the game is tied to your account not just your XBox One... Either way...

As Jinx noted, this was likely done to appease the publishers. They've been wanting to get rid of the used game industry for some time (an industry I don't get anyhow, you'll give me less than half the used price of a game, then sell it for $5 less than a new copy... why buy used if it is only $5 less?).

The question becomes, as noted before, if the publishers make it worth Microsoft's time and losses due to that policy then it will work out, but if they support Sony just as well, or even after a short delay, then Microsoft gambled wrong. They are going to lose sales over the policy. That, the fact the system needs to connect every 24 hours or it will lock down even single player use until it connects again...

To play games online with XBox Live you need a paid Gold account. You can play games on the PS3 without a PS Plus account, but there are rumors that the PS4 will require a paid PS Plus account to play multiplayer. That will just be leveling the playing field, and if you still don't need a paid account to access Netflix (you need a paid Gold account on XBox to get Netflix or Amazon videos... and I think to access your YouTube account fully) on the PS4 then they'll still have an edge on the multimedia front.

Another of Sony's big upsets was pricing the PS4 $100 under the XBox One price... now I'm going to hazard a guess they had a couple prices ready to roll based on the XBox's price and decided to undercut, it could have been the planed price from the start, but I'd guess they wanted to scare Microsoft. I'm also guessing Microsoft will announce "new cost saving measures" right before the holidays and adjust theirs down, they are already behind the 8 ball with the used and borrowing game limits, I can't see them letting Sony getting a huge boost from price as well... if they reverse course on borrowing/used games they might be able to keep the price up "we've heard the complaints from our users and have decided not to implement that feature at this time" sort of thing, but I'm guessing they are too far into that to reverse that and will just price match.

EDIT: I should note that I'm mostly a PC Gamer, followed by XBox games then PS3... well iOS games are probably after PC Games but before console games... I like XBox better as a gaming platform, but my PS3 has better networking for Netflix and Blu-ray support (XBox One gains Blu-ray support) so it is my multimedia machine of choice. I don't think I'll upgrade either system at this time though...

@VoodooV

I'm getting the impression people are getting a little overly bent out of shape about the Xbox One's convergence features.

Spec-wise it's all but identical to the PS4 so no apparent compromise has been made on performance. Hardware similarity will also all but guarantee easy ports. If anything I reckon this gen will be the closest we get to platform neutrality because of this.

For all its focus on non-game features MS must know that games sell consoles. They would be foolish in divesting away from first party titles or exclusives. If they get more purchases via spruiking their TV integration that will put them in a better position to pay for these.

Force bundling Kinect will surely inflate the price but it remains to be seen by how much. If they price themselves outside the PS4's range and people feel like it's an unnecessary accessory they won't use then it will hurt them obviously. Having said that, it's functionality actually looks genuinely interesting (and powerful) unlike their first Kinect beta test.

At least for me what's always turned me off Xbox and eventually convinced me to get a PS3 is the paid multiplayer. Coming from a PC I reckon it's flat out outrageous to charge people for what is effectively P2P quality multiplayer, let alone to them smother the hub with advertising. This will obviously not change for the One so I have no intention of giving them my money.

I prefer FPS on the PC - using a joystick is just frustrating. But then again I couldn't imagine playing Little Big Planet on a PC. (although the Xbox 360 controller works great for many PC games, and it's nice that Steam is trying a joystick-friendly interface for big-tv-attached-PC-gaming.)

The thing I really hate is that both Xbox 360 and PS3 support USB keyboards and mice. It's completely up to the developers to include that in their game or not. I got a reply once from the makers of Resistance, and the reason they said they didn't include it was because it would make it unfair for multiplayer... well how about Single Player? or have a server setting that would allow/disallow keyboard+mouse?

Oh, right, Outlaws!

Wow, we did a 3 day LAN party just for that game. It was surprisingly fun multiplayer.

I wonder who exactly is responsible for turning this potentially amazing game into the shit fest it is now. Sure there are a lot of problems that are simply bugs which patches can fix, but the biggest issues come directly from down right idiotic decisions in the game design that do nothing but drastically limit it.

So was it the Maxis game designers themselves that thought forcing unwanted multiplayer with tiny cites was a great idea (possibly after being in some accident that caused permanent brain damage), or was that EA muscling in with their head up their arse?

Always on DRM usually refers to requiring a constant (or near constant) connection.

Steam checks in when you boot, and when you try to load a game. If it does anything in between I've *never* been booted from a non-multiplayer game due to my internet connection once I'm in (some companies will throw on more DRM on top of Steam when you buy their game, but I've avoided most draconian DRM's). With steam if your internet's down you can play offline, up to a month I believe..?

That's the big difference - with true always on you're far more at the mercy of the server's status(es). You're good (to as much extent as you can be) with games like WoW that had huge production budgets, and now take on huge profit.

Smaller houses, releasing a game with what they believe is the minimum hardware to get by with (because they always expect their user base to begin to wane after the initial purchasing rush)... you get this ^

EA's got a habit of retiring servers the moment the profit from sales seems depleted, so you have that looming somewhere in the future if this is a game you end up cherishing.

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth about Starcraft 2, Diablo III, Anno 2070, and other games that require an online connection.

The ones on Steam that require you to always be online are either multiplayer-only games (because you need to be online to actually play against people), and games that have their own online-only requirements (Ubisoft's UPlay, for instance).

Steam itself doesn't have any you-must-be-online reqs.

Well, it's not really DRM that's causing the issues here. It's that SimCity is now cloud based. You're signing into their servers, saving your game data there, etc... It does make multiplayer pretty awesome, when it works.

I doubt you could decouple the game from that functionality.

After watching this I find myself kind of torn, a lot of this feels like Halo but dressed up in a different set of armor, mentally I was filling in a lot of the blanks with Halo names, like the Earth being destroyed by the Covenant and it seemed to fit nicely. That said, I kind of liked the Halo series, at least the parts I was allowed to play as a lowly PC gamer, but if this is going to be a console and or multiplayer only affair, then I suppose I can stop caring.
Oh, and then I saw this little gem over on Rock Paper Shotgun,
"We did a bunch of ambitious things on Halo deliberately to reach out to people. We limited players to two weapons, we gave them recharging health, we automatically saved and restored the game – almost heretical things to first-person shooters at the time. We made the game run without a mouse and keyboard. And now nobody plays shooters the way they used to play them before Halo ’cause nobody wants to."
Compliments of the studio's co-founder Jason Jones, I haven't experienced milk flying out of my nose like that since gradeschool.

what if, beyond all negativity, they DO keep it true to elder scrolls? kinda like an ultima online system. Ultima Online was more like elder scrolls in its execution with no levels and only skills. so it could very well work. and if its just skyrim multiplayer. so what! i wished i could go online and raid towns with a buddy. or dungeons if thats your thing