SHADOWTEXT'S PROFILE

author=G-Flex link=topic=3217.msg63440#msg63440 date=1235536700
Also, the game has a manual. A game is still software with a user interface and you can't expect to intuitively grasp the entire thing right off the bat. The systems were mostly relatively simple anyway.

I like manuals just fine, but reading one should not be expected of a player. They're supplements to the game--all the information you need to know to play the game should be available in-game in some format that is easy to get to. Preferably not through mandatory tutorial sequences, but optional ones are at least one way of doing it.

author=Reives link=topic=3173.msg63421#msg63421 date=1235531859
Funny, I can actually utilize a lot of the argument structures they're using in this completely non-related essay topic I need to work on.

So....you're pirating our piracy discussion? That's practically poetic. I wholly endorse it.

I agree with WIP and Mog on this one. Freedom in a game ought to be handled like an inverted pyramid--you get more and more options as you go on. If you maintain a consistent level of freedom throughout the game, there's no carrot being held in front of the horse, so to speak.

Even late in the game, though, I just don't go in for too much freedom in a game. When you have a million choices you can make, none of which have any real benefit over one another, it's tough to make a choice at all.

author=ankylo link=topic=3202.msg63115#msg63115 date=1235365400

author=Shadowtext link=topic=3202.msg63092#msg63092 date=1235355507

author=ankylo link=topic=3202.msg63090#msg63090 date=1235353712
Also, remember that in order to get a game on the 360 you need a XNA Creators club premium account, which is $99 / yr, and it has to go through a peer review process, so this might not be the biggest selling point for a lot of users.

To DISTRIBUTE the game you need a premium account, but you can test on your 360 for free. At least you can with the free Dreamspark membership. I'm not sure about without it.

OK....I can test my game in AGM as well, don't need a 360 to do it...and isn't DISTRIBUTING the game the point? Why would you want to export it to XNA just to test play it on your 360?

The thrill of playing a game you made on your Xbox? I don't think the majority of people who use Enterbrain *Makers as their middleware solutions have a business model or anything.

I mean if they're expecting us to make professional games that Microsoft's Creator dealie will accept, they'd damned well better have scripting, hadn't they?

author=Ciel link=topic=3173.msg62906#msg62906 date=1235284055
It's a new age. Shutting down Pirate Bay, or any one site, or even dozens of sites is useless. They would have to eliminate computer networking to stop piracy. It is time to think of something else because things are not going to change. As a career musician, I realize this and am not going to rage if people "steal" my work in the future because that's the way it is. I will, however, find another way to profit. These large corporations should probably stop blowing their money enforcing ineffective countermeasures and come up with something new.

That's essentially where I was going with my aborted Further Ramblings(TM). The economic model for virtual and/or intellectual property is changing. Yes it's wrong for people to pirate things now, but that's because we're still using the twentieth century economic model and it's the only way the creators stand any hope of making their livelihood at their careers.

But scarcity-based economics are a dying model, at least in the virtual sphere, and as technology improves, will become harder and harder to support even in the physical sphere.

And it's becoming harder and harder to make consumers swallow the fact that it's becoming more and more difficult to actually buy things.

Quick survey: how many movies do you own? Songs? Pieces of software?

Trick question! You don't own any movies, songs, or pieces of software, no matter how much you paid for them! With the possible exception of Free (as in speech) items, but can one truly be said to own something that belongs to everyone?

And maybe if you made them yourself, but if you've got a publishing contract, those probably don't belong to you either. And the only reason the others do belong to you is because the lobbies haven't figured out how to word the laws so that people don't realize that the companies they represent actually own the entire art form, instead of just specific instances of that art form being applied.