Duck and Cover

Kashluk wrote:If MMOs were appliances they were probably something like butt-plugs - very enjoyable to some, no denying it, but then there's the rest of us who can't understand why anyone would voluntarily stick a piece of rubber up their ass. No matter what the latest upgrade in the scene is.

I think an mmo as a game concept has enormous potential. It's just that it's wasted on shitty wow-clones, rather than expanding on player-oriented games such as Ultima Online. An mmo isn't synonymous with grinding or levels or any of that shit; that's just lazy filler content, we have that in sp games as well (especially modern ones). It's about creating a game world that works for several players simultaneously, incorporating them into the fabric out of which it is made. We're talking unparalleled immersion here, the kind you couldn't get from any other type of game; a long term connection and attachment to characters and worlds that you couldn't get anywhere else.

Provided of course that it isn't shit, which it sadly is 99% of the time.

Kash I think that's a bad example.

EVERYONE enjoys butt-plugs.

Username wrote:Then again when you see people swallowing a mouthful of Downloadable Content in terms of not only maps but "items", "skins for items" and soon to be "skins for dicks" not to mention name changes, sex changes, world changes and so forth it's easy to see why making useless crap and fancy pancy stuff is better than the more costly level design that takes time and money to beta and alpha test.

This is one thing that gets beyond annoying. DA:O 2 had 27 0-day DLCs. Twenty-fucking-seven. And the brutality with which they are being pushed down your throat is unbeliavable. Company trolls everywhere. Say a bad word about one dlc in any of the major gaming websites and you'll have a bunch of fake fanboys at your throat in no time. And they're so obvious it's not even funny.

I'm curious if you have any hard evidence that companies hire people to visit larger forums not only to say a good word but to argue. I've seen indications but I thought it was just my old paranoid brain seeing stuff.

Tofu Man wrote:This is one the things that gets beyond annoying. DA:O 2 had 27 0-day DLCs. Twenty-fucking-seven.

Jesus Christ. The original had 3, two of which you got free download codes for if you bought the game, and the third you got a free download code for if you bought the special edition.

Username wrote:I'm curious if you have any hard evidence that companies hire people to visit larger forums not only to say a good word but to argue. I've seen indications but I thought it was just my old paranoid brain seeing stuff.

Nah man, I don't have any hard evidence. This is the net. Even if I could be bothered, how "hard" would the evidence even be? And how easy would it be to dismiss on, say, the basis that the accused account was hacked or some shit?

Things you think up, no matter how underhanded or sleazy they sound, if they make bussiness sense odds are there's some company already doing it. At least that's my motto.
A handful of guys paid to patrol boards 24/7 and skew "public opinion" and do some damage control makes bussiness sense to me.
All I can do is tell you to add another "paranoid brain" to the count. Or share some links if you're that interested.

Retlaw83 wrote:Jesus Christ. The original had 3, two of which you got free download codes for if you bought the game, and the third you got a free download code for if you bought the special edition.

Here they are. Now you "gotta collect 'em all" even before you actually start playing the damn thing.

Tofu Man wrote:Things you think up, no matter how underhanded or sleazy they sound, if they make bussiness sense odds are there's some company already doing it. At least that's my motto.

And you're damn right about it.

The insurance company I used to work for had some pretty sleazy business ethics and actually ran into some trouble with the unions and authorities. I tried to link those news to the wikipedia page of that said company, because IMHO wikipedia should be more than just a free advertisement spot if there's something solid for peoplel to know about. Well, well, only a day and a half after my edit, all the changes were reverted with no reason. I changed them again. They were reverted back. Then I changed them for the third time, after that I started getting messages through Facebook, where this 'concerned fellow' tried to talk me into stop changing the page, spewing company propaganda non-stop.

He must've been A) a complete looney or B) he was on the company payroll either to make sure people would not write bad stuff about his employer or he was just so deeply institutionalized that he felt it to be his duty to protect his employer.

Also, on a lot of bulleting boards / forums where people discuss the said company as an employer (usually comes down to breaking the law with certain things, abusing workers' rights etc.) some really fake-sounding people suddenly pop-up to call the company 'THE BEST THING EVAH' and diss all other posters for being 'bitter' and 'bad workers'. Those are just so obviously company employees typing that stuff during their working hours.

Wow, how did they find out it was you who was editing? Have you got a wiki account somehow tied in to your Facebook?

Seems a bit dangerous and stupid if you're gonna rant out prior employers.



Btw Bioware has the Canadian flag as a symbol for the "english" language selection...

Username wrote:Btw Bioware has the Canadian flag as a symbol for the "english" language selection...

So?

They speak French in Canada

One shitty province Susan has the misfortune of living in speaks French, the rest of the country speaks English.

Username wrote:I'm curious if you have any hard evidence that companies hire people to visit larger forums not only to say a good word but to argue. I've seen indications but I thought it was just my old paranoid brain seeing stuff.

It's called OGM - Online Guerilla Marketing, google it. They don't just hang out in forums, they hang out in Starbucks and shit too, or so they showed on 60 minutes (I guess that would be considered Offline GM).

Here's a good article in the Escapist:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... 63-Im-Evil

Retlaw83 wrote:One shitty province Susan has the misfortune of living in speaks French, the rest of the country speaks English.

No, my friend, I'm afraid you're completely mistaken here. All of the Canadian people are under the frightening gaze of DER EIFFEL TÖWER. The French invasion force oppresses the civilian population by forcing children to eat baguette and men drink wine. It's because of un-patriots like you that they speak French from Urals to the Rockies!

Quebecois are more French than the French are now.

Kashluk wrote: It's because of un-patriots like you that they speak French from Urals to the Rockies!

oshit son

i best vest up and grab my gat and teach them canucks how to be speakin proper english yo

Username wrote:I'm curious if you have any hard evidence that companies hire people to visit larger forums not only to say a good word but to argue. I've seen indications but I thought it was just my old paranoid brain seeing stuff.

commonplace. i hate to bring george monbiot into anything but here you go http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/g ... troturfing

Wow many thanks. So the word is "astrosurf".

I knew about them editing wikipedia articles and even thumbing up their products on various review sites and had seen some evidence for that. But this Guardian article is almost absurd.

I guess not only we users have something to fear from the internet become de-anonymized.

Cimmerian Nights wrote:It's called OGM - Online Guerilla Marketing

What the hell, man? I always thought that stood for Original Gangsta Makeover.

Oh, I'm soooo pushing this. Hollywood, here I come!

Username wrote:I'm curious if you have any hard evidence that companies hire people to visit larger forums not only to say a good word but to argue. I've seen indications but I thought it was just my old paranoid brain seeing stuff.

I've seen a few blatant examples of this. For example, Treyarch's(the guys who made the last Call of Doody game) message boards.

The moment a thread expressing dissent about the game's poor online performance hits, they swarm like flies. It's the only time it happens as well. They clutter, they obfuscate, and make subtle inflammatory comments in an attempt to get the thread creator banned by the moderators.

I never bothered expressing my disgust over Fallout 3 on Bethesda's forums, but I'm sure they've done this too.

From experience, they just remove the threads and ban the user as a direct response. Not that it matters, seeing as they actually have masses of braindead fans who'll defend bad design free of charge, though I think some are unstable enough to hurt themselves when directly exposed to intelligent discussion. That's one possible reason for the insta-kick routine.

For forums outside of their jurisdiction though? Lets just say they got their money's worth of Original Gangsta Makeovers.