Blizzard extends a ginormous middle finger.

[Kaanyrvhok]

Does this game provide you with sufficient information to weigh the importance of "off hand dribbling" against "consistency"?

For example I played a hockey management game a while back where you had tons of stats like that.

But once I actually read the game mechanics (on a wiki of course), I found out many of the stats only effect one or two very minor things. Only a few stats were really important, the rest were mostly there so you could masturbate to numbers going up.

To some extent in an action sports game you can afford to have a lot more useless/minor stats, but in a strategy or RPG game where the player has to make decisions based on stats, there is a lot to be said for a low number of stats, where each one is important and has a purpose that the player can easily understand (ideally with actual formulas).

Otherwise you really have no way of knowing if 75 close combat 50 swords 35 dual wield is better than 50 close combat 50 swords 60 dual wield. The player would actually have more useful information if all characters were simply rated on one parameter; "Combat".

Some of the ratings are balanced and some not so much. Your example is balanced. I remember someone was pissed at the ‘catchup AI’ and was raging on the 2k boards because their fast PG with a high ball handling rating was getting caught from behind by slower players. When it was confirmed that it only happened a third of the time someone asked what his offhand rating was. It was like 50 so whenever his player had it in his offhand he was slow. For his or any player that is tasked to lead the break, slice through the defense, and setup other players the offhand rating is valuable. For a player whose job is to catch and shoot the consistency rating would be more valuable.

I don’t know if it has changed but the last time I played My player the most unbalanced part of the game were the athletic ratings and that was mainly due to the way the game handles speed. Speed is very valuable so they make it really costly to upgrade which is ok but you are able to start off with an athletic build that gives you a high initial speed rating. If you are min/maxing its simply more efficient to choose an athletic build and this is especially true for big men since 2ksports has always underrated the speed of big men. In real life there are some Centers and PFs who possess the straight away speed that rivals the guards. In 2ksports all of the bigs are slower than the guards and most are much slower. If you choose an athletic build for a big man in 2ksports they will start off with a speed rating that is right there with the fastest bigs in the league and you can upgrade it before your first game. In some games you will be able to score ten to twenty points just by beating your man up the court.

My main problem with My Player mode and the reason why I don’t play it is that they start you off so shitty that you have to outplay your ratings. Like a lot of action RPGs user skill matters too much. This was actually fixed in the patch so what you are left with is a game that forces you to spend at least two seasons upgrading before you have a player that is worthy of an NBA tryout. Even with abbreviated games that takes too much time. Its too bad they had an economic disagreement with the NCAA and they don’t make college games anymore. If My Player started in college it would be easier to develop a real NBA rookie and not a player that is artificially handicapped.

 

[attackfighter]

I like how they took a valid complaint and then completely misrepresented it and painted the complainers to look like unreasonable losers. If you don't share Penny Arcade's viewpoint, you are most likely an uncouth aspie who's been on the internet for 12 years straight! Take that you dumb haters! *recieves sack with a dollar bill sign on it from Blizzard*

 

[His Dudeness]

It seems they have achieved their objetive: becoming the industry's muppets in exchange for jew gold.

What I despise the most is that both creators of that comic are sub-human scum. Yet they portray themselves in their comics as fairly normal individuals.

The person in the comic you shared with us bears an uncanny ressemblance with their authors.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I like how they took a valid complaint and then completely misrepresented it and painted the complainers to look like unreasonable losers. If you don't share Penny Arcade's viewpoint, you are most likely an uncouth aspie who's been on the internet for 12 years straight! Take that you dumb haters! *recieves sack with a dollar bill sign on it from Blizzard*

Unless you read the news post, where the guy that does all the writing explains both viewpoints pretty fairly, and personally sides against blizzard.

Who is being cheated? This is the part of the movie where, in a series of retrospective realizations cut with you looking at your own face in the rearview mirror, you come bit by bit to the heart of it. The person you are cheating is Blizzard, Blizzard in the aggregate, with your attempts to interfere with their digital marketplace. You mustn’t play offline or goof around with your files or any other naughty business because they are endeavoring to transform your putative ownership into a revenue stream.

Trust me, that fat fuck has plenty of jew golds without omnipresent Kotick approval of everything he says.

 

[His Dudeness]

Trust me, that fat fuck has plenty of jew golds without omnipresent Kotick approval of everything he says.

Yes because people with a lot of money aren't after more money.

 

[Damned Registrations]

So you figure they were bought out between now and this comic?

And then bought out by a competitor in between when he wrote the comic and the newspost? Sounds totally reasonable.

 

[His Dudeness]

Joking about a well known and not controversial issue is not proof of anything, they even made fun of it on South Park.

But if you insist that a blog post that the minority of the userbase reads outweights the message of the comic, then I must consider you a fool.

It is industry standard to berate the consumer and portray it as a stupid fuck undeserving of the glorious mana that is the game produced by the company of your choice.

 

[attackfighter]

Unless you read the news post, where the guy that does all the writing explains both viewpoints pretty fairly, and personally sides against blizzard.

That doesn't excuse the comic of making an unfunny strawman portrayal. It's not even graceful, it just bluntly states that the character's a loser in the final panel.

The second comic's premise is too farfetched to be considered a real commentary on an issue. It also works the insult into an actual joke that's coherant with the rest of the comic. So no it's not as bad as the first one.

 

[RK47]

Unless you read the news post, where the guy that does all the writing explains both viewpoints pretty fairly, and personally sides against blizzard.

That doesn't excuse the comic of making an unfunny strawman portrayal. It's not even graceful, it just bluntly states that the character's a loser in the final panel.

The second comic's premise is too farfetched to be considered a real commentary on an issue. It also works the insult into an actual joke that's coherant with the rest of the comic. So no it's not as bad as the first one.

You even bothered to read the PA comic explanations? Fuck me, after I did that years ago, it felt like a waste of time, Tycho liked his verbal masturbation so much that the end result is I had to read and re-read multiple times just to get what he's trying to say and how it should be put in context to the strip. Fuck. That.

 

[pocahaunted]

The comic is not witty or funny at any level. It's actually quite hypocritical in its portrayal of criticism seeing as how they're being just as childish.

It's a typical cliche, bashing some perceived fanboy stereotype whilst ignoring the fact that their readers and fans are actually the manboons that their comics depict, even if they believe themselves to be ahead of the pack, so to speak.

 

[Ahzaruuk]

Ultimately, the only "real" issue is that you must be online to play it at all times, and really, given the fact that the game is primarily designed to be multiplayer oriented, I hardly see this as a fault.(Who played D2 Offline for any other reason than that the servers were down?)

Don't try to generalize other players from your own perspective.
I've never played D2 online, not only because I had a shitty connection at the time, but also because I simply never felt any motivation to do so. I've played over LAN a couple of times with some (offline) friends and that was all the multiplayer I wanted.
Granted, D2 had certain limits when played purely offline (item sets were almost impossible to obtain) but it was enjoyable enough.

No problem that they want to focus more on multiplayer, but Diablo has always been a good single-player game, too, and for single player the always-online restrictions smells of shitty DRM-schemes.

I guess sometimes you have to oppose this shit if it goes against your principles.
Did I mention I'm not going to buy DX:HR because of the in-game ads?

My sympathies for you. I've suffered through many a long Road trips with Nindendo DS games as my only company at times (Games that are designed to mainly have a large local circle of people who play the same game,) So yeah, shit sux when you can't play something as envisioned based on hard restrictions


No Idea what DX:HR is though, in-game adds sounds loltasticly retarded.





to offer an alternative to the Penny arcade's Point

 

[Damned Registrations]

You're assuming it's a portrayal of general criticism rather than a snipe at the people that fall into exactly that category. Projecting much? It's not as though guys like the one in the comic don't exist. I've spent more time asleep than my computer has in the last 10 years myself, and I don't unhook the internet when I'm not actively using it. Add fatty + retarded argument (None of those on the internet right?) and there's your poster child.

Also, I doubt the authors really give a fuck about people that can't be assed to ever look at anything but the comic itself. They make their income and fame from people who read all the newsposts and post on their forums and buy shit from their store. You might as well say Yahtzee doesn't realize he's not pandering to as large an audience as possible by bashing mainstream games. No shit.

Tycho (can't be assed to remember let alone spell his real name) either lost or sold his taste in games years ago and has since had scarcely a critical word to speak about any game coming out by any company. Doesn't mean pathetic fans bitching about something that won't affect them and pretending to hold their breath over it isn't ironic, or that irony is no longer a form of comedy. Would the comic have been funnier if the guy typing that was a skinny nerd instead, or a greek god (despite being constantly online for over a decade)?

 

[aron searle]

It's. A. Comic.

 

[Menckenstein]

I like how they took a valid complaint and then completely misrepresented it and painted the complainers to look like unreasonable losers. If you don't share Penny Arcade's viewpoint, you are most likely an uncouth aspie who's been on the internet for 12 years straight! Take that you dumb haters! *recieves sack with a dollar bill sign on it from Blizzard*

Unless you read the news post, where the guy that does all the writing explains both viewpoints pretty fairly, and personally sides against blizzard.

Who is being cheated? This is the part of the movie where, in a series of retrospective realizations cut with you looking at your own face in the rearview mirror, you come bit by bit to the heart of it. The person you are cheating is Blizzard, Blizzard in the aggregate, with your attempts to interfere with their digital marketplace. You mustn’t play offline or goof around with your files or any other naughty business because they are endeavoring to transform your putative ownership into a revenue stream.

Trust me, that fat fuck has plenty of jew golds without omnipresent Kotick approval of everything he says.

99% of the people who visit that shithole never read anything that dumpy lesbian lookalike writes, they just look at the comic, gain their opinion from it and go to gameFAQs to shit on each other.

 

[Linkamus]

Blizzard doesn`t sell items, players only, rage more.

It's funny people say that as a witty comeback because the reality is what they're doing is worse than selling items. Rather than crack down on gold sellers they're just enabling them and cutting themselves in on the action to the tune of probably 25% or so.

QFT

Blizzard is dead to me.

 

[Menckenstein]

This is like the "war on drugs", except with % of proceeds instead of seized property. Sneaky sneaky.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Fat Kwan dude tells how it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDYjljdje-g&feature=player_embedded

:D

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

^^ I'm crying

I burned 50 calories just listening to that.

Blizzard fan is still a few notches above Bioware fan.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Fat Kwan dude tells how it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDYjljdje-g&feature=player_embedded

:D

"But I digress"

No, you need to go lose some fucking weight. God damn kwans.

 

[Stabwound]

Well, for the record, the guy in that video is a character; it's a put on act.

If it wasn't obvious.

 

[made]

Oh, he's just pretending to be a grotesquely obese neckbeard who religiously plays every Blizzard game? Hehe. Sure had me fooled.

 

[waywardOne]

Yeah, that's just a fat suit, the goatee is glued on, the chainmail bikini Princess Leia poster is reversable to a Spuds McKenzie Bud Light poster, etc.

Yeah, he fooled all of us.

 

[corvus]

Fat moron with a Night Elf poster on his wall using sarcasm to belittle a straw man to defend Blizzard? Typical fanboy of the Blizzard variety. Study it well, Codexers.

 

[Bloom]

I've been in denial to myself for a while that blizzard wasn't just another greedy company. I kept getting more and more disappointed with Diablo 3 news.

 

[Shannow]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/10/ids-tim-willits-backs-always-on-diablo-3/

Id’s lead design chap, Tim Willits, has been talking to Eurogamer about the “always on” thing. He said this: “Diablo 3 will make everyone else accept the fact you have to be connected. If you have a juggernaut, you can make change. I’m all for that. If we could force people to always be connected when you play the game, and then have that be acceptable, awesome. In the end, it’s better for everybody.” Everybody except those people who aren’t online for whatever reason.

“Imagine picking up a game and it’s automatically updated. Or there’s something new you didn’t know about, and you didn’t have to click away. It’s all automatically there. But it does take juggernauts like [Diablo 3] to make change. I’m a big proponent of always connected. I’m always connected. Our fans are always connected.”

Except when they’re not, eh? I think he’s right about Diablo III being unstoppable, but it’s not going to make it any less annoying or intrusive. Also, I totally love it when an app or game I click on tells me to hang on for a moment, because it has to update before I can use it. That’s super, really. Great stuff.

derp

"Why is the Codex bitching about Diablo 3?!? Leave Brittney alone!"

Ah well, one has to look at the up-side: Whoever is bothered by this shit can spend his money on better things. I'm personally already looking forward to all the booze and hookers I'll be able to afford by saving the money I used to spend on games