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Jun 20, 2013Country
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Private MessageI have limited admin powers for moddb, if anyone needs help I can delete/archive/authorise mods and groups among other things.... I am the admin of the Anti-Crate Committee Please join us in fighting the Crate Epidemic! This disease started at the Mann Conomy update... the symptoms may include overloading backpacks, excessive popups, overuse of the delete button, overuse of trading, loosing keys, square syndrome... Something must be done! Join our group (www)steamcommunity.com/groups/Anti-Crate_Committee We may be able to develop a vaccine.
0 comments by TheUnbeholden on Jun 12th, 2013
The bullshit of the video game industry
Justifying On Disc DLC - Cliff Bleszinski
Online DRM - Blizzard (Diablo 3)
Bullshit in Sheeps Clothing - Online Passes, DRM under the guise of Limited edition/MMO
Breaking the Bones of the Business - Taking microtransactions from free to play games, and using it for triple A bull shit.
-
Shoddy practices:
SQUARE ENIX
ACTIVISION
Ubisoft
EA
Consoles:
NEW GENERATION, SAME BULLSHIT
PlayStation VITA
Xbox One out of Ten (AKA Xbone)
The Death of Ownership
THE SOLUTIONS:
DAMN FINE COFFEE ONE OF THE ISSUES THAT YOU CAN AVOID
PERFECT PASTA SAUCE A GOOD THEORY THAT APPLIES TO VIDEOS GAMES
My take:
What the video game industry needs, is someone willing to take responsibility for a games artistic direction and putting your foot down & saying no to bad ideas that don't mesh with creative leads vision, and getting to the heart of the matter of which gameplay elements work well together through having a devoted set of play testers. The games lead designer should have the final say (and he alone, no publisher telling what can and can't be in the game..). A lead designer should be involved with the writing and the actual testing of the game.
Play Testing
Publishers should make money & expect to, but they don't really know anything about games as evidenced by the continuing fuck ups mentioned in the video links above. The only thing publishers know is what people tell them, using focus groups only lead to generic games with mediocre sales.
The only assurance that publishers should get, is the resume of the lead designer (if hes made good games in the past, that sold decently, it doesn't have to be millions of copies, but 200 thousand is pretty decent profit when combined with a small budget!). The rest of the great designers will come from those publishers who are willing to take risks.
Publishing
EC Fund
Some the best entrepreneurs of other industries, are those that take riskier ventures that seem to be great ideas, because the entrepreneur has experience in advertising (so that it's strengths are focused on) and know alot of people in the industry to make sure it gets in stores.
In other industries trial test is a cheap yet effective strategy, by having a small number of it on sale can be used to show the manager of a store (and by extension the entrepreneur) that it can sell. With video games that would be beta testing & with easy way for people show their satisfaction & feedback (alpha funding proves invaluable for Indie development teams, micro-transaction proves a lucrative business model, Kickstarter shows that donation perks and milestones are great incentives for customers).
Crowdfunding
Microtransaction
Starting a game is only really necessary if you a general idea whats it's about, it doesn't have to be anything detailed.
Pre-Production
Word Choice
Depth and Complexity
Gamasutra is a site you should read regularly, as it gives lots of advice and indepth view into game design, also I find Yahtzee's column to be very informative on good game ideas and some theories he's had on what aspects of a game there are.
Like the 3 different kinds of elements that makes up a game (a way to put into formula, why people play games): Context Challenge and Gratification and the follow up article Why Easy Games Fail Yahtzee's Game Theory
My Take on Game Theory:
I pretty much agree with the Game Theory. The only real exception to easy games failing at being a good game & how important challenge is to making all the elements work, is when it comes to self improvement. You know like exercise? where you can't fail, you simply do it to improve yourself. The only way to fail is to not meet your own expectations,
ie self imposed limitations. That's really hard to put into a game because it requires no real objectives and many tools for creativity, where your essentially left up to your own devices to create or do whatever it is you want or good at. Plan your own projects ect
Minecraft for instance, but even it has higher difficulty levels like survival, hardcore mode.
For those who believe that self imposed restrictions are not enough for a good game or just don't "get it". Sims is also like that.
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free - or sign in with your social account on the right) and join in the conversation.
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Your oblivion mod for duke3d is cool as hell
can you help me? i am makeing a mod and i hav 5 maps done but i want a tut on makeing a cutscene.
Did you really make all these mods? If not then where did they come from?
No, He didn't make all of them. Most of the mods he uploaded to this site are made by school students, the rest all small indie team developers. For now on he should say who made the mod and that it is not his.
(buried)
Please stop from stealing exclusive PP mods and maps,and if you are a constant PP reviewer and recive here in MDODB mesagges from this guy, tell tehm what to review.., just answer him to **** OFF!!
Please remove this comment. He hasn't stolen any PP exclusive mods and maps.
Everybodies going to complain about something. I never had the intention of pleasing everyone. For me its really just about giving mods the exposure they deserve and of course upholding the ToU and whatever the author of mods say in their readme about how they want their mod to be treated.
It's a responsibility that we all have to keep mods alive... especially now that I'm a admin. Whether it be reviews, criticisms, feedback, distribution, theres no grey area here for me.
Many mods (for HL1 in particular) are older than Moddb is. Leaving up to the author will mean less download links and if something ever happens to PP ... it would many mods would be lost.
I'm only uploading mods like many people do, I always give full credit to the author and many times have transferred ownership of the mod if I find the author on moddb or another site.
It's not the initiative that most of us that heard about this matter despise. In fact I'd applaud it. It's the way you are doing it that's not right, which is basically downloading the mod from PP, posting it here, copy pasting the description from phillip's website and roll with it. It's a total disrespect for his work. Unlike him, you haven't put years and hours into finding all these mods, checking if they were correctly packaged, if there was any missing or broken file, review it, find the necessary informations and finally post it. It's that, that we despise. It's an absolute disrespect that I certainly did not expect from someone with admin powers on moddb.
I've never had any illusions as to what moddb is, basically a mod database with a large social aspect that keeps mods alive. But yeah I see what your saying that we do owe something to Phillip. But at the time (and I still think so) that distribution sites come second to mods, mod exposure is the most important thing regardless of what sites are behind it. That was my drive.
I also think that we should do this without expecting any sort praise or respect in return. We do it for the mods.
I didn't think that he did anything out of the ordinary of what distribution sites do until now. Hes alot more dedicated (to hl at least).
When I talked to Phillip he had concerns that PP would get less popularity if the mods where available elsewhere. There are a fair few big name sites, they get that way not because they have unique mods, but because they have lots of content & unique features. If his site is a good quality one (which I think it is) then theres a good chance it will get bigger!
I didn't understand this self entitlement towards the mods in question.
When I responded to him I was polite and told him what I think but now he decided that I'm wrong (shrugs).
I'll see into what Phillip has repackaged and give credits without this being a hassle. I've still got 27 Gb of mods to sort through -_- and a personal life.