lobotomy42

A lot of them have come back from pretty grim-looking middles. I was sure that Republique or whatever was dead (I believe they also wanted 500k) and then it had a last-week surge.

Yeah, they are *really* spammy with their updates. Fortunately, the drive will be over in a week -- hopefully they'll trickle down after that.

Seriously? Ugh.

For what it's worth: I played the game in 2005 or so, only a few years after it came out, and I felt similarly about the controls and puzzles even then. I appreciate the game for its aesthetics and generally cool conceptualness, but as a gameplay experience, my impression is that it was a little wonky even then.

Not to sound like a total noob, but how do you upgrade the blacksmith to level 5? It seems to require some a collection of mystical artifact pages, which I have seen drop exactly 0 times. Did I miss something, or does that happen further along in the game?

Oh, yeah, definitely. Just like in Fire Emblem when someone dies - IMMEDIATE REBOOT.

This is a great example and I think you're dead right about this. I totally agree, and this extends to all software design, and, heck, probably all design generally as well. Users (people) have very strong opinions about what they like and don't like and want and don't want. But we're very bad at knowing ourselves and actually understanding what we like about the things we like. We're also very bad predictors of our own happiness. How many times have you seen a movie trailer, thought "this will be great," and then been horribly disappointed? LOTS. It is the job of the creator to make these unconscious yearnings conscious, to make the subtext into text, so to speak, and create what it is the user will like, not what the user "wants." Simply by nature of having been through the design process, designers have thought more often and more deeply about their potential creations, and so when people say "It is critical that box x have function y!" designers have a better understanding of how people would actually react to box x and what would actually be an even better idea. Maybe.

So now that my internet is fixed, maybe, I can finally play this for real, maybe

I am a loser and on librarything: http://www.librarything.com/home/lobotomy42

lobo42#1337 No, I did not choose "1337," it was randomly assigned.

In some ways, I find it useful for communities like this to exist, if only to attract assholes towards each other and away from me.

I would say "forced," but I essentially agree. One of the reasons you subscribe to a CSA and get "whatever they grow" is that produce is a seasonal, consumable good. Different vegetables grow better or worse at different times, and other conditions (land, cost) may affect what is actually realistically available. Also, when you eat food, it disappears, and produce spoils, so you need a constant stream of it over a period of time rather than a bunch of it all at once. And you can't necessarily scale up according to demand, either: everyone loves summer strawberries, not so many people like turnips. But you can't grow enough fresh strawberries to please everyone, and it seems like you always have a surplus of turnips, so it makes sense to force people who want your strawberries in the summer to buy your turnips in the winter, too. (This specific example may not be accurate, but you get the idea.) Absolutely none of this is true of video games. They don't spoil, you don't eat them, it's not easier to make RPGs in the summer and platformers in the winter. The games are obviously going to be sold at traditional downloadable game outlets, independent of each other and CSG subscriptions. So it makes no sense. I get that, for Jensen, what the CSA means to her is that she gets to meet the farmers and build a relationship with them, and she wants to replicate that experience with her fans. (And also that she likes farms.) But, yeah, that's not a great reason to force the metaphor.

This is way off-topic, but I hated this in the final battle of Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, too. Literally right before the final battle, they give you a new ability which only works on the final boss and is the only way to defeat it. Suddenly, at the end of the game, you're playing something completely different and all the skills you've developed up to that point are useless.

Less than an hour to go - if you're thinking of pledging, better do it now!

I'm pretty sure Jane has said that if it takes longer than one year to create the two games, you still get both when they come out.

For me, the draw of Diablo 2 was the setting and atmosphere. Although my interaction with the world was pretty straightforward (click, kill, click, loot, repeat) it did feel like I was really wandering through the haunted remains of an actual world. Plus there was always the occasional set piece or rare/unique drop that made me think "Oh, if I keep going, I'll find x!"

THERE WILL BE TWO GAMES Di0bQJuMLHA

From a consumer perspective, it's hard to care about this. But yeah, if I worked at GOG, this would completely dissuade me from making any sort of deal (beyond "we will sell your game") with these guys ever again.

What about the graphics? Does NPC Pikmin offer a widescreen mode, or is it a strictly faithful port? (4:3 only)

Wow! Yay!

I pre-ordered this game, and it's been sitting on my coffee table for about a week now, and will probably continue to sit there for another week at least. Not from lack of interest, but from my generally busy schedule. *sad trombone sound*

It could be worse: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1065983707/delaware-st-john-4-asylum-of-the-lost?ref=users

It's still a bit absurd for a game that wasn't all *that* good.

Hmmm...I'm only counting 3 levels of remakingess: Replay Games LSL --> LSL VGA (1991) --> LSL (1987) --> Softporn Adventure Did I miss one?

Dude, what are you waiting for?