back to dust

Well, if you were foolish enough to buy a PC game from Ubisoft, at least you can request a refund.

Dear Ubisoft - STOP RELEASING BROKEN STUFF. STOP YOUR NONSENSICAL DRM. STOP IT.

own goals

(Spoilers for Dragon Age 1 and 2)

I've seen some people firing back at the DA2 haters, claiming that they felt more personally involved in Hawke's story than the Warden's, mostly because of voice acting but also because of the fixed origin.

I have to differ.

As best as I can tell, the problem I have with Hawke's story is the lack of ability to set and pursue my own goals - or even a default goal! While Origins piled a dramatic (to varying degrees) backstory on each possible origin character, they still gave you some leeway about what you really wanted. You had to take care of the Big Bad issue, sure, but beyond that, were you out for revenge, or justice, or personal power? You could believably have some ideas of your own that you wanted to carry out, and get some chances to advance those personal causes. You could pick different rewards at the end and feel like you'd accomplished something.

Hawke's story seems largely to be about a person swept up in larger forces - someone who absolutely did not cause any of the disaster that unfolds, but just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with enough power to move things along. That's not a bad story, but the problem is that it leaves you somewhat adrift otherwise. What are YOU trying to do while all this unfolds around you? In one act, you're trying to raise funds to eventually buy a home (not that you get any choice about that home either). Past that, you're just... sort of going along with things and taking quests because they're quests and someone asked you to do them. You can claim that you intend to start a business or intend to return to Ferelden but you can't do either of those things or work towards them in any way afaik.

You may care deeply about the cause of mage freedom. If so, tough - you still can't choose to do anything about it. Again, on my first playthrough, when Bethie was taken off to the Circle I absolutely expected that I'd be organising a raid on the circle to break her free in the next chapter, and was baffled to discover that apparently I'd been sitting around for years doing nothing. Even more, when she's later kidnapped from the circle and I can actually see her and talk to her again... I *still* can't talk to her about getting away? Apparently no matter what Hawke has actually said on the subject, Hawke really doesn't care. The only slight difference it makes to side with the mages or not is which set of quests you do in the final runup to disaster - which will still involve shutting DOWN rebellious people. You can't promote rebellion at all. You can only help runaways if someone else asks you to.

Maybe you want to be viscount? Too bad, you can't actively pursue it. You might get it, but if you do, it may come as a complete surprise because you weren't interested in the slightest - and you don't even get the chance to say no, it's just thrown in at the ending that "Oh by the way also you're Viscount now. Or were. Except also you left."

So no, I don't feel really involved in Hawke's story because I don't feel like Hawke had a story. Hawke's just someone that things happened to. That doesn't mean it wasn't entertaining watching things happen, but it does mean I look confused at people who claimed that they did feel more attachment. :)

Contest And Pondering

We're running a back-to-school giveaway for Magical Diary. If you want to win a free copy, check out the rules on the forum here. It's a simple fanfic contest where you can imagine strange magical things happening on your character's thirteenth birthday.

On the production front I'm still largely coasting right now, waiting for the artist to come up with some extra things so that I can write the bonus path/scenes for the sort-of-hidden-character. (Okay, he's not that hidden, but figuring out how to befriend him is the trickiest set of interactions in the game. And it will get even trickier once the ability to dance with him is available.)

I've also been prototyping a yaoi card game. On the bright side I think I invented something simple and fun to play. On the downside a physical card game is not something I have a lot of audience to sell to, and it would require quite a lot of art. We might try putting this on kickstarter or something... if we can get some solid preorders then we can go for it.

awww

From the BBC:

A novel class of security problems have been found lurking in many mobile games by a ten-year old hacker.

Going by the handle CyFi, the hacker presented her findings at the DefCon hacker conference held in Las Vegas.

She found that advancing the clock on a tablet or phone can, in many games, open a loophole that can be exploited.

CyFi discovered the bug after getting bored with the pace of farming games and seeking ways to speed them up.

I admit to finding the idea of a little girl bored with her farming games and starting to vigorously poke at them absolutely adorable.

... Now let's hope she uses her powers for good. And then comes and joins me in the world of game-making! :)

humble ARGH!

So I picked up the latest Humble Bundle, with the bit extra to get bundle 2 as well. There's nothing here I was really amazingly excited for - I can't remember if I actually bought Crayon Physics Deluxe when it first came out or just played the demo until I got bored, a slider puzzle is still a slider puzzle even if it's got a lot of bells and whistles, pseudo-retro-platformers are fun but I wasn't desperate for one, and I still don't know what hammerfight IS yet.

I have, however, become quite fond of And Yet It Moves. I feel free to play around and explore the game a little... there's not only one exact way to do things, and the save points are very frequent so I never have to worry about losing too much progress. I did have to consult the internet to figure out what to do about the beehive, though, and the windmill bat-tree was suprisingly scary in some weird way (That's as far as I've gone so far). In classic tricky platformer tradition, of course, I sometimes JUST BARELY miss something and end up yelling at my computer... and then trying again. :)

I guess the difference is that VVVVVV is too tightly focused on its puzzles. It feels very driven - get past this, get to the next point, keep moving, keep moving! It doesn't feel like there's any entertainment to be had from just fooling around, and that makes the whole experience less relaxing.

Diablo Online

As someone pointed out, if they just called it Diablo Online there'd be absolutely nothing to whine about. From looking at the details, it appears they *do* want a more MMORPG-like experience from the game.

Which is fine for them I guess, but not what I played it for.

I tried Diablo 2 multiplayer once or twice. It was a disaster. Lag and rubber-banding were miserable. It wasn't fun. I quickly reached a 'never again' decision and went back to enjoying my game. My other half, who had nothing better to do at the time, contemplated spending years on the online games trying to obtain rare weapons to sell on ebay. I looked baffled at the idea.

It's been a long long time since Diablo2 and I'd pretty much given up on them ever releasing 3 and/or doing anything interesting with it. So I lose nothing by the realisation that their eventual release is the opposite of what I want. In the time between, I've played FATE and Titan Quest and really *should* get around to Torchlight and gosh did I never actually buy Din's Curse? I should do that!

So yeah. No real loss. :)

oh the irony

While trying to respond to someone's ludicrous assertion that in the modern age there are NEVER internet connection problems, I ended up getting connection reset errors and being unable to post.

Ha bloody ha.