GuildCom

First thing first, ladies and gentlemen: you must all be aware of the fact that his honor the Reverend Bishop of CenCom owns not one…

Not two…

Not three…

Not. Even. Four.

Five.

The honorable Reverend Bishop of CenCom owns now five copies of Tom Clancy’s Raven Shield,not counting the expansion packs he may or may not admit to having purchased—or any of the copies that have been stolen and/or permanently borrowed by his immediate blood relatives. These were all published, sometime near the beginning of the millennium, by Ubisoft, a publisher which has now achieved a tie for first place on the Reverend Bishop’s shit list, right up there with Activision-Blizzard.

Now hear this, Ubisoft: I used to buy your products in unreasonable quantities—but no more.

R.U.S.E. (from hereon called just Ruse) is a very fun little strategy game. Quick to learn. Dare I say “easy”? But with a lot of potential for depth that, to be quite honest, I was excited to explore as I first began playing when the public beta opened on Steam on March 9, 2010, just a day ago now. It reminded me of another game with a similar spirit, which I have long wanted to see remade (but my love affair with Ruthless.com is a story for another day—and, oddly, I own only a single copy of that /tears).

But it isn’t all just a bed of roses. As my comrade in the East dutifully pointed out after some of our initial enchantment had worn off, Ubisoft intends to publish this little gem with the same sort of [censored] DRM as Assassin’s Creed II, which has recently become famous for being unplayable whenever Ubisoft’s DRM servers happen to be unavailable. This might be an important note, actually: the honorable Reverend Bishop knows nothing at all about Assassin’s Creed II other than the fact that it doesn’t work when the retarded servers are down. Is this really the sort of publicity a publisher is looking for?

…At any rate, those of you who follow the teachings of the Bishop are aware that I recently decided that I would never, for any system, purchase Modern Warfare 2, as the price tag for the PC version of that game is simply beyond the pale and I am not ready to start plunking down that kind of change for a game, no matter how well hyped. It was a painful decision, most especially as some of my good friends play that game and I felt I might have been missing out on something. This decision, however, is less so:

Unless they mend their evil ways, I will never purchase another game published by Ubisoft.

I reserve the right to purchase games with retarded digital rights mechanisms should the desire take me. However, when April 9, 2010 rolls around and the Ruse beta closes, I will uninstall the game, happy for the diversion it offered, forget about it entirely. “Voting with my money” may not have sent Activision-Blizzard quite the message I intended when Modern Warfare 2 broke all kinds of sales records, but hopefully, eventually, enough people will follow along that these giants of the gaming industry will start to leave the PC out of their plans in the future. These publishers assert that PC gaming is dying a little every day anyway, and I would just as soon be dead to them.

Lord knows, these assholes are already dead to me.

Thus sayeth the honorable Reverend Bishop. As it has been written, let it be done. And I hope you moneygrubbing dicks rot in Hell in the same hot tub with Janet Reno and the guy who invented instant breakfast.

Afterword:

My Eastern comrade and I have remarked more than once in recent times that it is a sad day when Electronic Arts can garner more appreciation from gamers than… Well, anybody, actually. With a tradition of yearly sports game rebuys franchises and a habit of committing obscene evils on the DRM front, Electronic Arts once represented all that we hated about the people whose children we unwittingly, sometimes unwillingly, and almost always unfailingly, feed.

In light of recent reversals in the industry, by the power invested in me by the State of Texas and the Guild Investing Committee, I hereby declare that EA being less evil than the competition is the norm rather than the exception. You may now rejoice.

Honestly, I’m having a lot of trouble getting over how everyone and their brother seems just obsessed with this “weather” we’re having, and furthermore I’m having a lot of trouble figuring out just what they’re talking about. It bugs me a little bit, but with beautiful days like today it just doesn’t seem I should be letting it bother me the way I am, you know?

Just the other day my boss commented that, for precipitation (or for “snow”?), we are three inches ahead of the game so far this year. I just gave him a funny look. Here I am in my baggies and my flower print shirt and this guy is talking about nasty weather like that? I’m like, dude, if it were snowing, would I be wearing my sandals? I’m not yet certain that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, but it does seem like people are losing their minds.

In the meantime, stay thirsty, my friends.

Signed,

The most interesting man in the world.

It is longstanding Guild policy to discourage complaints about certain tactics used in video games. Terms like “noob tube” and “camper” often have little meaning to Guild operatives; if the tactic works, it is valid, and if not, then whoever is using it is a fool. Recent debate regarding tactics in Crysis Wars, however, has led to two Guildsmen of the old school actually resorting to similar terms in order to describe actions undertaken in the game by various parties.

If the language sounds stilted, it’s because the author is attempting to be scrupulously objective. Not that the author considers that to be a valid excuse.

One party argues that Wars’ stealth mode is too effective, thus making it almost imperative that players adopt a passive, defensive posture rather than an aggressive, offensive posture when playing, thereby neutralizing—to an extent, at least—the effect of basic FPS skillsets on the outcome of a game and reducing “deathmatch” games to something more closely resembling “hide and seek.”

The other party suggests that Wars’ stealth mode addresses a problem in the original Crysis, where stealth was seen as a liability, and that Wars’ new, more effective mode is an improvement over the former. Furthermore, as all parties have equal access to stealth, the offended parties could simply adopt the tactics used by their opponents. Guild doctrine, obviously, supports this stance; in fact, whether or not all parties have equal access to stealth is irrelevant. Traditional Guild doctrine would hold that stealth would still be a valid tactic even if it were unbalanced.

However, something came up in discussion today that calls into question how much support this old doctrine really has in the modern Guild: one Guildsman suggested that the problem could be alleviated by adjusting graphics settings down so that the stealth mode effect stood out more. Another immediately protested that this would be “cheating.”

…This is in obvious conflict with the doctrine above stating that, if a tactic works, it is valid.

Of course the Guild has always looked down (at least selectively) on underhanded techniques like hacking; changing underlying game files to net an advantage over one’s opponent is bad form, and at the very least calls into question the player’s true ability. (Interestingly, the Guild has traditionally imposed very light punishments for such infractions as “looking over the enemy’s shoulder to see where he might be” and other similar forms of cheating.) However, as things like “graphics settings” are a part of the game and require no such underhanded modification—indeed must be turned down, often to the detriment of the player’s experience, if a rig cannot handle a given game—one wonders if this can actually be defined as cheating, and more particularly if the old school Guild could have defined it as such.

At this point, the author does not seek so much to question one argument or the other, but rather the old doctrine itself, and so the question is:

    Fundamentally, has the Guild changed in such a way that “fun” may now be considered more important than “winning”?

The author—Bishop—asks this because it is his opinion that his win-at-all-costs attitude may have had significant influence on the old doctrine and wonders if, having been made wiser (or at least less apt to win) by the wear and tear he has experienced over the years, it might be time to reevaluate these old standards.

O, Death
O, Death
Won’t you spare me over til another year
Well what is this that I can’t see
With ice cold hands takin’ hold of me
Well I am death, none can excel
I’ll open the door to heaven or hell
Whoa, death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me another day
The children prayed, the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach
I’ll fix your feet til you can’t walk
I’ll lock your jaw til you can’t talk
I’ll close your eyes so you can’t see
This very air, come and go with me
I’m death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To draw up the flesh off of the frame
Dirt and worm both have a claim
O, Death
O, Death
Won’t you spare me over til another year
My mother came to my bed
Placed a cold towel upon my head
My head is warm my feet are cold
Death is a-movin upon my soul
Oh, death how you’re treatin’ me
You’ve close my eyes so I can’t see
Well you’re hurtin’ my body
You make me cold
You run my life right outta my soul
Oh death please consider my age
Please don’t take me at this stage
My wealth is all at your command
If you will move your icy hand
Oh the young, the rich or poor
Hunger like me you know
No wealth, no ruin, no silver no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul
O, death
O, death
Wont you spare me over til another year
Won’t you spare me over til another year
Won’t you spare me over til another year

Someone made the mistake of asking me why I hate people.

I suppose it’s because too large a proportion of them are stupid. We coddle our idiots in the West, you see. We have signs that read “High voltage!” And then when some fucktard electrocutes himself, burning off half his skin and condemning himself to a life as a crippled fucktard, we then mandate that the guy who owned the sign now has to pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars so that he can still buy pussy and reproduce, creating more fucktards.

It would be better to remove the sign and let the fucktard cull himself from the herd.

I’d love to know what kind of fourth world ape actually looks up at high lines and says, “I bet I can climb on those without getting fried.”

I’m not sure I, in good conscience, can support Infinity Ward by purchasing the upcoming MW2. I will likely avoid the issue by picking up Dragon Age instead, since MW’s multiplayer is annoying and the singleplayer dull on replay.

I’m open to new info on the subject, but things don’t sound great.

I’m sick of this stupid holy war. You know there’s a problem when Microsoft supporters are apt to be the most reasonable of the combatants in any sort of conflict. Holy carpal tunnel…

Here’s the thing, ladies and gentlemen: IE 8 works. Firefox and Chrome, for all their panache, do not.

You can blame it on Shockwave or Adobe Flash or whatever you want, but on the modern web you have to play nice with the 800 pound gorilla or you get smashed. When I open up Meebo to bring up my AIM, Yahoo, And MSN accounts and shoot the shit with people, I expect it to work. Which it does. But only if you’re using Internet explorer. In either Chrome or Firefox, I’m subjected to constant crashes due to Adobe Flash and Shockwave. This is unacceptable.

…and it’s apparent everywhere on the internet, too. So why the snobbery? Stop acting like Internet Explorer is causing all your problems and understand that, sometimes, your precious, open-source, unfuckable software is broken, too.

Jeesh.

Reactions across the web have been mixed at the news that id Software has been purchased by Zenimax, the privately-held company that owns Bethesda Softworks.

Read more…

ISV Wight
0225 11.01.3026
Dunne Sea, Roberts Leyline

She breathed in the darkness.

Silken sheets caressed her bare skin as her chest rose and fell, and she shivered. Though her eyes were open, there was nothing to see. This was her quiet time. Perhaps she was only gathering her thoughts, or preparing herself for the unknown. But she would never have confessed what she really thought she was doing. In moments like this she would lie there, naked, and feel.

A scram interrupt. She checked her watch. And it’s four in the morning back at CenCom. I’ll be late getting home again.

Captain TK Rook stretched beneath the sheets and at last slipped out of her bed, rising lithely in the darkness. The soft red glow of her handset revealed only her contours, silhouetted against shadows. She stood there, letting the air touch her for a few more breaths, a few more heartbeats, before—still blind in the dark—pulling a shirt on over her head and slipping into her pants. She made up her mind not to cite herself for a breach of dress code at nearly three o’clock in the morning. Her handset beeped, a soft tone accompanied by a flash of green light.

She thumbed the button onscreen. “Yes?”

“Sorry to wake you, captain; there’s been a—” The officer hesitated for a moment, a little confusion in her voice as she realized that she had not, in fact, awakened the captain. “We’ve just had a Scram 2 Interrupt. Reversion in 1:15. Should I patch any communications through to your quarters?”

“No,” said Rook, straightening her hair as she brought up the lights in her room. “If there’s a call, I’ll take it in the conference room.”

“Yes, captain.”