Kiru
Member
Jshackles fixed that with Enhanced Steam at least.
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STEAM Announcements & Updates 2014 II - The Definitive Edition
- Thread starter MRORANGE
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oipic
Member
Never fear, jshackles is on the case, at least until Valve sort this out - he'll soon be bringing this back (with improvements!) in an update to Enhanced Steam.
Too slow - yes, what Kiru said, far more promptly than I.
I miss it too, but I think jshackles is adding it back with the next version of Enhanced Steam.
I suppose, but then what would you call the first post in that thread, or any of the posts after that just quoted that post with "."?
But criticism is important. If it wasn't for criticism, we'd have a deluge of plagiarized fanfiction.net garbage getting made into Hollywood movie trilogies.
He went too hard too fast. He should have waited for Thief to come out and then do his "told you so" posts like with absolution.
That gif would imply his ban wasnt permanent.
Seraphis Cain
bad gameplay lol
We'll get to that point eventually, I'm sure. Criticism is only delaying the inevitable.
Never fear, jshackles is on the case, at least until Valve sort this out - he'll soon be bringing this back (with improvements!) in an update to Enhanced Steam.
Too slow - yes, what Kiru said, far more promptly than I.
Hopefully the Firefox version of that update won't take forever to be released. I still mostly browse the store in the client, by the way — because I frequently use the "store page" link in the library or community hubs. Maybe I should try Enhanced Steam Standalone.
Intheflorsh
Banned
Yeah, RIP.
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Man no wonder my ears were burning! Still no indication from Valve whether or not this is a bug or an intentional change in design. Either way (as others have mentioned) they will be back in the next version of Enhanced Steam.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that games should be critiqued and deconstructed. It's more valuable to me, as a consumer, to know why a game is doing something that could be "bad" or unfun. I want to know if it's frustrating, or tedious, or boring. I don't want wild blind praise built out of hype.
There are different situations, such as like DS2. I'm gonna buy the fuck out of that and there's nothing anyone can say to stop me, short of it coming out going HEY IM ACTUALLY ME4. But for everything else? I want to be critical, I want to see the forest for the trees without rose tinted glasses and the funding of marketing ploys in order to hype you up and not think and just buy (which is kind of the point of them).
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Wait, he's forever banned?
Blue Ninja
Member
So guys, allow me to toss my unpopular opinion out there:
Batman: Arkham Asylum is a terrible game.
Batman: Arkham Asylum is a terrible game.
With Derrick gone, Shinobi's Yang has lost his ying .
We need to restore the balance !
Why ?
We need to restore the balance !
Why ?
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Guys, let's wind up the ban drama talk, okay?
MarcoZombieCannon
Member
Terrible? Not even average, mediocre, or uninteresting, but terrible?
I think criticism is indeed an essential part of anything that revolves around producing fiction, as long as it means "the activity of making careful judgements about the good and bad qualities of books, movies, etc." (according to Merriam-Webster), whereas never noticing any of the bad sides is just as bad as never noticing the good ones. If that is what was meant in the initial statement, I do not think it's wild at all, in fact I agree with it fully.
woo and indeed hoo is going to be pleased! Would you elaborate a bit, maybe?
I genuinely don't believe Derrick ever posted in order to rile anybody up. I think he knew his opinions could be unpopular or controversial or whatever and would meet with some resistance at times, but I don't think being controversial was ever the actual intent. He would always back up his opinions when challenged on them and he generally made valid points. He was just cynical and always seemed to see the bad things and couldn't find positives to weigh in there with them. But I mean, I don't think some people can help but feel how they feel sometimes. He obviously didn't like a lot of modern game design decisions and direction and that was his usual complaints. So there was a clear pattern of opinion, making it even less likely that he was ever just saying things to get a rise out of people.
I've also gotta agree that its not really his fault if other people get caught up on 'Oh its Derrick' thing. I mean, I cant say that posts like that aren't often spot-on, but if a thread gets properly derailed by those sorts of comments, that's not really Derrick's fault, either.
I dunno.
EDIT: Just saw Stump's post. Sorry, was typing this out as that was posted.
thesaucetastic
Unconfirmed Member
The kicker here is that this is already happening - well, maybe not a trilogy, but 50 Shades of Grey is getting a movie, isn't it?
I sure as hell wouldn't have bought Steamworld Dig day 1 if people did give it an objective critique. I feel bad for shitting on an indie game when the devs post on GAF and such but yeah, definitely regretted buying it.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
(removed)
Yes you should. Although it does lack the punch now it did back then, if I'm totally honest.
However, it's still better than that broken "stealth system" Dishonored uses instead of the ever reliable blackjack.
Note that you should use community updates (tafferpatcher or whatever it's called) to get it to work on modern video cards.
Yes you should. Although it does lack the punch now it did back then, if I'm totally honest.
However, it's still better than that broken "stealth system" Dishonored uses instead of the ever reliable blackjack.
Note that you should use community updates (tafferpatcher or whatever it's called) to get it to work on modern video cards.
The Red Wizard
Member
I started playing that at Christmas and got to the Hong Kong market before I was distracted. How far am I into the game? I'd like to go back at some point.
PandaPedinte
Member
ops
About halfway, maybe a little less.
jediyoshi
Member
Nah reread the original quote. The distinction being made was criticism vs praise. In that context, the idea that pointing out the negatives to something inherently has more value than pointing out something's merits doesn't sit right with me.
Odd thing going on with Steam on my Mac Book Pro, every time I quit a game and it starts to synch, the entire client loses background images.
It comes back once a synch is done, but I rather it not do that at all. Any thoughts or advice? I did the Steam Support entry, but of course who knows when or if they will help.
It comes back once a synch is done, but I rather it not do that at all. Any thoughts or advice? I did the Steam Support entry, but of course who knows when or if they will help.
The Red Wizard
Member
I read it as "just praise" for some reason, several times, actually. Sure, I don't agree that pointing out the bad things in game is more important. It's all about the balance, having an adequate frame of reference and making careful and accurate judgements.
Yes, criticism is worth more than praise, but praise is also not without merit. For example, there are a few things that I could hit Xenoblade with that are valid honest points of why the game does things poorly and where it could improve, but (at least to me) what it does poorly regardless does so many more things right that there isn't enough to sit and go "yeah xenoblade is a bad game because x y z". It's just not true.
There are other games though, like the new Dungeon Keeper mobile game for example, where if I didn't critisice it, it'd be like this review where he mentions them but just glosses over everything that is BAD http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/dungeon_keeper_review
That kind of mentality is not fair to myself, it's not fair to anyone taking the time reading my words, and it's not fair to those wanting to use their money to buy a product.
Wow this game is huge. Or maybe I'm just really slow
HK is a large hub, about the size of Hell's Kitchen in NYC. After that it's more of the more linear missions.
Blue Ninja
Member
Look, terrible is a heavy term, and it's obviously subjective. I tried my best to like it, and there's some great ideas in the game, but the ultimate execution... Honestly, the base game isn't all that bad. Being the goddamn Batman and going all Predator up on these guys asses is fantastic. But then Rocksteady decides to cap every hour of gameplay off with locking you in an arena with a nearly never-ending stream of bad guys flowing at you, while you've got at least one drupped-up super freak either going Berserker or just throwing stuff at you. The game's combat system isn't perfect, and fights like that just paint a huge spotlight on that fact. Your enemies get tossed on the ground unconscious, and you're unable to finish them off because one of the seven-hundred other goons surrounding you will try kicking you in the face when the 'block'-button doesn't work. Not to mention that, when you die, the villain that had the dubious honor of killing you gets to gloat in your face and you can't even fucking skip it. Don't get me started on that Killer Croc section, that was ten times as long as it should've been.
In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the first Assassin's Creed. You can only keep pressing the same buttons so much before you start realizing that it's an exercise not in skill, but in frustration. The villains should be the highlight in a Batman game, but in Arkham Asylum, they're the worst part of the package.
Tl;dr: the game is not terrible per se, but the horrible boss battles (and the incredibly annoying segments that occur when you die during one of those boss battles) have completely turned me off of it.
I hope Arkham City is better, because flying across the Gotham skyline with a grapple hook sounds awesome.
I H8 Memes
Member
City of Bones already did. It bombed, at least.
Criticism is distinct from shitting-upon (which is the opposite of praise).
I totally agree on the horrible boss battles, and the fact that they just keep throwing dudes at you sucks. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game overall, but the whole "you just aren't good enough at these controls to pull of perfect fights" frustrated me no end.
City is both better and worse, in my opinion.
AHA-Lambda
Member
RIP in Peace.
I know he had a reputation but it was good to have that cynical dissenting side tbh, and his opinions were usually quite spot on, I don't think he deserved that personally.
So the game is bad because it has horrible boss fights (true dat) and one annoying enemy type (sorta, the combat encounters with Titan enemies can be counted on one hand anyways)
What about the impeccable pacing that almost rivals RE4? The rock solid combat? The detailed enviroments?
AC is worse imo. They went with the more=better approach and just made a bloated mess. Gone is the pacing of AA.
Combat is noticably better but it too suffers from bloat.
RIP in Peace.
"I didn't ask for this"
AHA-Lambda
Member
This.
Blue Ninja
Member
Could you elaborate? I'm wondering if it's worth my time.
I'm definitely not going to play it after AA, but I'd like to know regardless.
As I said, it's subjective. I wouldn't call the pacing 'impeccable'. It didn't do much for me. And I updated my post with some of my complains on the combat. The environments are detailed, sure, but I feel the game just isn't very pretty. It's all green and dreary.
SteveWinwood
Member
I beat it three times and really enjoyed it each time.
Couldn't get past two hours of arkham city though and never even bothered with origins.
Yea about halfway. Hong Kong was the most fun part I think. New York was nice too. Game really starts to drag near the end though. All in all it's a great game, but a bit too long I think.
I didn't use stealth that much, at least not in the reload after being detected way. Took me 19 hours to finish while average is 23 hours. Dunno why I finished it so fast, I did all side missions too.
I remember really disliking the Origins boss fights. A lot of them were basically boss + his henchmen so periodically you had to clear up goons before getting to attack the boss. Except the guy you take on one-on-one, which was a bit like a QTE but at least made you get better at the timing.
Spring-Loaded
Member
Obviously creating something will usually be more difficult than critiquing that something.
"creating versus critiquing" is different from criticism and praise. Aside from the more obvious reasons, criticism is more useful/important than praise on a forum like this because praise often doesn't get questioned; you can say "this game it the best" without explaining how without catching flack. People often get defensive of games they like when they see criticism no matter how valid that criticism may be, therefore people who aren't just trying to rile people up with avoid one-off "this game sucks" type posts.
For a while, Derrick was what his detractors thought him to be. I remember him often posting opinions as if they were fact — or commonly accepted as truth — in abrasive ways. Even the few times I agreed with what he had to say, it seemed as if he didn't want to go through the trouble of explaining his stance, so his posts were of the "this game sucks" type.
I remember him getting banned some time after that and upon his return, he actually started explaining what he meant when he said "this game sucks." I think he made a thread about Hitman: Absolution where he just plainly laid out how the game worked and the ways it went against the main draws of the series. That type of feedback could be immensely useful for developers, especially if they're doing something that compromises the point of their game. Derrick went on to post like this for a while and even when I'd disagree about a particular game "sucking" I could see how someone could feel that way about it by reading one of his posts.
Every so often, I see another of his posts and noticed them getting progressively closer to how I remember them being when I first joined. You can't excuse lazily bashing games with saying why, but I completely understand how someone would slack off in that regard. That The Last of Us thread is a prime example. A completely sound attempt at criticism of a game — not necessarily airtight, or without any flaws, but reasonable, with some backup — is presented and a flood of drive-by, one-off, empty attacks comes pouring in. When you go against what's popular, the majority, the status quo, Etc. you'll often have to sift through a bunch of crap involving attacks on your very right to say whatever it is that you're saying. Like, you have to defend the fact that you can say "this is bad," before even being able to discuss the validity of your actual initial statement. so I get, even if resorting to "this sucks BYE" isn't excusable.
I was never his friend and I never really liked him, but I considerably appreciated what he saw. I could count on him to at least address the failings of the industry and to point out what many would consider harmful trends/habits in regards to game design from a consumer perspective, stuff designers might not realize were bad, or stuff they would never willingly put in their games if they had any other choice. That's one less person I can count on to do that here.
Batman: Arkham games revolve around keeping a combo going and a lot of the player's mid-fight abilities are tied to having an ongoing combo. Those other enemies are there to allow you to do that. The deathstroke one-on-one fight was seemingly meant to be a more calculated affair, but I can't say it was necessarily better than the other fights. Almost all those boss fights were better than in the first two Arkham games though, which also tended to feature henchmen in boss fights.
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