The worst article I've read in a long, long time.

An IGN article on Skyrim and Dark Souls was brought to my attention this morning and I've got to say it's by far the worst article I've read in a long, long time.  It's entitled "Top Five Reasons Dark Souls Will Eat Skyrim's Face" and that's something that'll grab immediate attention to anyone who calls themselves a gamer on multiple fronts:
- Fans of The Elder Scrolls series.
- Fans of Demon's Souls.
- Gamers in general who enjoy reading and/or starting flame wars.

As you might have guessed, I fall in the first category but it's not so much the taunt that grabbed my attention but, like some others (I hope I'm not alone here), I noticed that a title like that promises a lot of biased and unfounded nonsense.

Maybe Dark Souls deserves the praise, but not in this fashion.  If this article represents some form of "victory" (because, you know, it's important for some folks to have a winner in this stupid debate - because the debate needed to exist in the first place) then it is very much a shallow one.

Let me go out of the way and say "TLDR: I think the article is a pile of shit written by an uneducated tool".  You might be thinking "relax man, there's just doing it for attention". Well, yeah!  It still sucks and now I'm convinced that I should never find myself reading an IGN article ever again.  Mission accomplished, I suppose.

So here we go with the dissection:

"Here are five reasons why Dark Souls will save gaming"

Wow!  Just wow.  That quoted sentence alone establishes the tone of this article and I don't even need to elaborate.  I could stop my ranting right now!

1) So the first argument that Dark Souls is supposedly better than Skyrim is that it offers and "TRUELY innovative" multiplayer.  The article even goes as far as demean Bethesda for trying (and failing) at implementing any at all.

My first thought is that "well, yes!  It's definitely easier to implement multiplayer in a DUNGEON CRAWLER!".  Of course multiplayer is going to be one of the most compelling features of Dark Souls and if it compromised the single player experience IN A DUNGEON CRAWLER then From Software fails at basic game design.

"From Software has innovated while others have passed on making the effort."

You need to play more games, dude.  That's all I've got to say.  Multiplayer in RPGs is a very difficult thing to do both from a design and technical standpoint.  I can't think of any good ones that actually pulled it off.  You can't fault Bethesda for playing on their strengths.

"Hey!  This game has a feature that the other lacks!  Then it must mean that it's more fun and, therefore, way better, right?"

2) Oh god!  That's the second "Top list" I've read/heard in two days that had "DLC and pricing" as an argument.  Although, to IGN's credit, they seem to know a little bit about the games they're talking about.

You either have a good game, or a bad one.  Content that may or may not exist (or pricing for that matter) doesn't change that fact.  It might be an incentive to purchase, true, but it doesn't magically make the game better or worse.  Do you know what's the most shocking part of all that is?  The writer of the IGN article says that Dark Souls won't have any DLC and, because of that (and a lower price point), the game will be better.

Mind-blowing fail!

Enough of stupid shit, I say!  Let's move on!

3) The size and scope of the games.  I'm going to give some credit here merely due to the fact that I honestly don't know how each will measure up compared to their respective predecessors and from one another.

To me, this was an okay argument despite being more subjective than anything or going purely based on speculation.  That is, until they mentioned that Dark Souls was better because the game showed improvement over it's predecessor while Skyrim looked (to them) very much the same as Oblivion.

I'd argue against Skyrim's scale but I really don't have to.  That's a stupid point to make and is completely irrelevant.  Besides, let's give the benefit of a doubt that Dark Souls is as vast and unique as IGN claims.  Does the quantity and size of the game really matter?  Sure, it helps but it (again) doesn't make or break a game.  It merely puts more VALUE to the purchase and we've already established (see #2) that this was a mind-blowingly stupid argument.

Using his argument, does this mean that Daggerfall trumps Dark Souls? How old is that game, 1992?  Solid argument, there IGN, bravo!  /sarcasm.

4) The difficulty and combat.  See, if the writer had entitled this article as "The one reason why I think Dark Souls is better than Skyrim", then all he could've written was how much he preferred old-school gaming and how challenging they were and I would've nodded in respect.  Hell, mention how Oblivion was obnoxiously holding our hands with quest message pop-ups and quest markers while you're at it and I still wouldn't have flinched.

The Elder Scrolls have been plagued with sub-par combat and, as much as I love the series, I'll be the first one to admit that.  But then, by #3 logic, Skyrim should prove to be superior because it has improved (and the IGN writer even confirms that) while Dark Souls is pretty much on par with Demon's Souls.  Do you guys see where I'm getting at?  The article is just everywhere and any form of logic that was used to write that garbage can be used to counter a different argument...  And I'm not jumping forward either; I'm using previously established logic (set by IGN) and using it against the following point.

Enough of that, though, the article brings up a good point so I'll give it to them.

5) "Some fans are praising the game, simply because it has Dragons.  Have they seen Dark Souls?"

You mean, "Have I seen scripted boss fights involving dragons before?"  Yeah!  Plenty!  The reason why people have been praising Skyrim for their dragons is due to the improved Radiant AI that's making them "go".

Idiot.

Anyways, the main argument here is that Dark Souls is better because the designs are more exotic and varied.  Sure!  Have a cookie.  Now go away; you're giving me a headache!

It's not a BAD argument, really.  It's just that the way he shrugs off Skyrim's dragons just seems like he didn't do research on the game.  Maybe it's the The Elder Scrolls fan in me that's crying out this time, I don't know.  We won't know Skyrim's dragons until we see them in our own games and Skyrim might fail to meet our expectations just like Oblivion did based on the 2003 E3 demo.

Besides, the dragons showcased in GuildWars 2 are the ones I'm REALLY interested in.

So just how much of Dark Soul REALLY is better than Skyrim?  We just don't know.  What we do know is that the writer of the IGN article has a preference to more challenging and action-oriented, twitch-based combat.  Sure, Skyrim might be action-oriented, but we're here for other things...  For me, that's playing an RPG where I can be and do whatever I want without having the game punishing me from playing it my way.

"There's your bag of chips. What more do you want?"

Your resignation, that's what!

Reading 'n Gaming

Over the recent years, a lot of people have told me that my English was very good.  Pronunciation and grammar could still need some work but they thought that I had a strong vocabulary.  I have books and Star Trek to thank for that.  I watched Star Trek even before I could fully understand the language; it's people in colored uniforms shooting laser beams at aliens.  As a kid, that's all I need!  Reading books, on the other hand, I picked up much, much later during my college years 11 years ago (makes me feel old just thinking about it).

Anyways, I read a lot of books.  Paper-back novels to be precise and most turn out to be of the fantasy genre.  You know, orcs and elves.  It's kind of a huge U-turn from colored uniforms shooting laser beams but, whatever.  While not being the very first series I've devoured, R.A. Salvatore's "the dark elf trilogy" is probably the series of books I've liked the best.

Now a days, I tend to read novels based off video games.  Games such as Diablo, Warcraft, GuildWars, Starcraft and even The Elder Scrolls.  You know what the strange part of all this is?  Every time someone sees me reading these books they get all curious until they see the title.  "Oooh what are you reading?  Tha--  Oh!  It's one of your games isn't it?  Bah!"

... And then they drop the topic.  It's always the same thing.  Why?  What's wrong with my books?  I get more interesting characters and story than any of these folks would ever get from their TV shows (which, for a lot of people, consists of nothing but drama - especially those reality shows) and on top of that, it keeps me involved in my hobby when I'm away from the computer and they're snubbing my reading?

I hate hypocrites!

Why is anything related to gaming perceived as this inferior thing?  Those people never played a video game since PAC-MAN!  No!  Chances are they never even played that either!  You know what's really stupid about all this, these people think that way because video games "are meant for little kids" and they're the ones complaining about video games being murder simulators...

To these folks, I say: "It takes an open mind to read my kind of books; that you're not reading these is probably for the best."

If you've never played PAC-MAN because, you know, some of you might be too young for that time, go play it now!

GixGone7

I never expected the kind of success I've had while making Let's Play videos so you can imagine my reaction when an impostor was first brought to my attention.

At first I thought it was a joke. "oh, how cute!" I said out loud. "that's kind of clever". I blocked the user to avoid any further confusion on my channel and thought that'd be the end of it.

It turns out he or she is still active to the point that the impostor's channel is keeping up to date to mirror my own. As if that's not creepy enough, the person in question is impersonating me and commenting on other people's videos. The act (as well as the comments) are both immature and impolite and I'm extremely appalled by all this.

So I'm letting you guys know: I rarely comment on other people's videos so the chances that it's actually me commenting on a particular video are very slim. I'm more inclined to never comment outside my own channel, actually, because that's the only place I know where that impostor is blocked.

I've been planning some cools thing with Skyrim coming up to bring the LP to a new level but this kind of crap really kills the motivation.

I'll be contacting YouTube on the issue.

Morrowind in danger

You might not like what you're about to read.  Consider yourself warned.

For the past month, I've been desperately trying to get Morrowind's recording to work again.  It's not a codec issue or anything, it's just that what allows me to play Morrowind in my Mac environment is conflicting with my recording software.  I can play and record Mac games just fine but Morrowind footage ends up being black.

I guess the clue was that Morrowind was running surprisingly smooth until I start recording - which turns into a hideous slideshow... that records black.  So whatever made Morrowind run better on my Mac is making recording essentially impossible.

You know the saying "Don't fix what ain't broke"?  Well it partially applies in this situation as I updated a few softwares.  The thing is, I don't know which software is the culprit.  You see, I updated to Mac OS X Lion the moment it was available, I then updated ScreenFlow which allows me to record my videos so that it could run on the new OS and I did the same thing with Crossover Games (which makes Morrowind-on-Mac possible).  So, basically, every software that made the Morrowind LP possible was updated and something in the mix is failing to work harmoniously.

You might be thinking "why don't you simply revert them back?" well, that's because the saying only PARTIALLY applies?  My computer WAS broken and desperately needed the update(s) for many aspects of my life; be it work, casual computing or even gaming.

... it just fails for Morrowind or, more specifically, it fails for the Lets Play since the game runs like a dream when I'm not recording.

What's putting even more fuel to the problem is the issues I've been getting with my Youtube channel lately.  Granted, I haven't been very frequent with my uploads but I had my reasons.  It's not like I don't WANT to play Morrowind or Oblivion, it's just that I COULDN'T.  Well, nothing stops me from uploading some Oblivion videos other than the fact that Morrowind's LP would remain broken.

These days, I'm either exhausted from work or troubleshooting my LPs or, worse yet, trying to moderate my channel.  It probably has been just as frustrating for me as it has been for you.  I know how frustrating it is to not have your show available (a show that you invested time in).

Something needs to be done on all fronts or else Morrowind's LP is canned.  On the first front (and this is a personal thing), I need to try and do less stuff each day.  If I do get home by 7pm, I should take an hour to eat and go to bed at 10pm at the latest and maybe then I'll have the energy to play Morrowind once or twice a week or god forbid every day like I want to.  Because, right now, I'm less productive by trying to stay up all night to do productive stuff... a vicious circle that CAN be broken.  So I'll try to work on that.

The second issue is probably the most complicated one to tackle as it is technical in nature.  My setup HAS to change somehow because this roller-coaster of a technical mess isn't working for me.  The first step will be to go back to my original Parallels Desktop setup, the end result is slower than Crossover Games but it causes less issues with recording.  The reason why I haven't done that yet is simply because my Parallels Desktop client needs to be updated as well... or else you would've seen Morrowind videos already.  Unlike the others, this update is expensive.  It's expensive because what I get out of it isn't worth the money as I don't use Windows on my laptop to work anymore... and all my games work on Crossover Games if they're not already native to OS X.  Not to mention that there's no guarantee that it would work either.

So why not just Bootcamp and go directly in Windows?  Ever since I started my Oblivion LP, I've been thinking it.  Why I haven't done so already is simple: because I'm stubborn.  The picture-in-picture that I'm known for has to stay.  I know other LPers managed to get a webcam setup in Windows, I just haven't figured it out yet.  This is probably the best solution as it'll also help my future Skyrim LP.  If I can get it to work for Morrowind, it should work for Skyrim as well.  I need something that won't require me to sync 4 tracks at every session.

As for my Youtube channel, I have done a lot of thinking and the answer is unfortunate but simple: I'll just have every comment go through the validation process.  More work for me, you say?  Maybe.  The way I see it, it'll just take a lot of time before I get to approve your comment(s).  There is the ban hammer to consider and I am willing to wield it with brutality but, since I have ZERO patience with that sort of thing, I might end up banning my entire audience.

So what am I doing?  I don't know.  I suppose I can start uploading Oblivion more regularly for a bit and then work on fixing Morrowind every once in a while.  That's what I did last time...

Diablo 3 going to hell?

To put it bluntly, Blizzard Entertainment has announced recently that Diablo 3 will require a constant connection to the Battle.net servers in order to play.  As  disappointed as I am by that fact, I had to take some time to think about it.

Would I really play in single-player?  No.  That's not my thing.  I'm a Battle.net guy after all.  So why am I bothered by lack of single-player, or even LAN for that matter?

The answer is in two parts:

Firstly, as a consumer, I expect MORE features in the products I buy.  Diablo 2 had eight player CO-OP, 5 character classes, a more robust online experience, a personal stash, more variety of item mechanics (gems, weapon sets, tomes, etc), a better presentation and a more polished gameplay (the ability to run).  I probably missed a few but that's a lot of improvements over the original.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Diablo 3 won't have it's share of improvements, but it seems that they're taking a few steps back at the same time.  You have to stop and think about the reasoning behind their design choices; at least the one they're feeding us.  To prevent hackers and cheaters.

Before I talk more about my opinion on this, I have to point out something about this logic.  It's a very good one.  One might say: "why don't you separate the characters between offline and online?  That'll prevent the cheating, right?". It's not about whenever or not a character is online that causes the hacks and cheats, its how the game handles the information that allows these things to exist.

When playing multi-player games, the computers involved have to send each other information.  Character location, health, items, attacks, etc.  It's all encrypted but it's a heck of a lot easier to decode that when it's happening on an isolated network (read : LAN).  Online games have a security advantage because it's all run by the servers... The servers tells your computer what's going on and your computer can't change that.

That's why Starcraft 2 doesn't have LAN support.  It's also a bitch to code so no LAN = simpler code.  If Starcraft 2 had LAN, hackers would be able to figure out the intricacies of the code and ruin the game for everyone.  Anything that's client side can be easily hacked.

But here's the second part:  Starcraft 2 is a COMPETITIVE game.  Diablo 3 is not.  In fact, it's practically exclusively PvM (player vs monster - or PvE for the young folks).  So why can't Diablo 3 have an offline mode when Starcraft 2 does?  For security reasons?  Bullshit!  Of the two games, Starcraft is the one that needs the uptight security.  It's a game designed to play against people.

"Well," you might say to yourself, "Diablo 3 does have an auction house involving real money.  You wouldn't want that to be cracked and abused."

That's true.  One might be able to crack the code if the auction house was part of the SINGLE-PLAYER experience...  What?  Hello?  You're going solo and your offline, just make your auction house a server-only deal and your problem is solved.  If your playing solo, the last thing on your mind is trading with other players.  Sure, you'll be able to do that in Diablo 3 but at what cost?  The lack of offline mode?  No thanks!

As disappointed as i am, I'm still buying it.  Curse you, Blizzard!