jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Knights of Pen and Paper: +1 Edition

"Set out on a grand adventure in this turn-based retro style pixel-art RPG, inspired by the great titles of the 90's, where players take on the roles of in-game players taking on the roles of their characters in a traditional pen and paper RPG session.

Players are able to control both the playing characters AND the dungeon master, and they choose which battles to fight. Put together a bunch of monsters to make for a challenging fight, your efforts will be equally rewarded!"

Knights of Pen and Paper looks really interesting. It boasts launch support on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS which is pretty awesome. Having someone play AS the Dungeon Master that facilitates the game sounds very cool. I would be very interested in getting people together to play this online after it drops if its fun.

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/knights-of-pen-and-paper-1-edition

Revamped Profile Pages & More

We launched a revamp to everyones Profile page as per the list of features we had slated to release this month. The new design is much more distinct than the old one and highlights certain things the old profile page didn't. If you are new to the site, this might be what you are used to, but for people that have been on the site for longer this will be a pretty big departure.

A few examples to look through:

http://cheerfulghost.com/BigBadGoat (the avatar alone is worth the price of admission)
http://cheerfulghost.com/Travis
http://cheerfulghost.com/scrypt

We also now have a much better feedback form now. The old one was simply a Google Doc Form that backended to a spreadsheet, this one has the style of the site and is much simpler to use. It also gives feedback much more visibility to Travis and I, which is always a good thing.

http://cheerfulghost.com/feedback

DRM: Its 2013 and it Still Won't Die

Recently Tommy Refenes posted on IndieGames.com about Piracy and DRM and you really should read it.

http://indiegames.com/2013/03/team_meats_refenes_apathy_and_.html

Its a well written piece and he brings up several points I want to highlight.

“We are closing in on 2 million sales and assuming a 10% piracy to sales ratio does not seem unreasonable. As a forward thinking developer who exists in the present, I realize and accept that a pirated copy of a digital game does not equate to money being taken out of my pocket.”

He goes on to say...

“In the digital world, you don't have a set inventory. Your game is infinitely replicable at a negligible or zero cost (the cost bandwidth off your own site or nothing if you're on a portal like Steam, eShop, etc). Digital inventory has no value. Your company isn't worth an infinite amount because you have infinite copies of your game. As such, calculating worth and loss based on infinite inventory is impossible. If you have infinite stock, and someone steals one unit from that stock, you still have infinite stock.”

I think his points are apt considering the recent SimCity 5 single player always on DRM fiasco. Basically, the launch of SimCity 5 saw many people not able to play the game due to the always online requirement. This led to many returns and a ton of bad press for EA. Refenes comments on this as well.

“After the frustrations with SimCity I asked Origin for a refund and received one. This was money they had and then lost a few days later. Applying our earlier conversation about calculable loss, there is a loss that is quantifiable, that will show up in accounting spreadsheets and does take away from profit. That loss is the return, and it is much more dangerous than someone stealing your game.”

His point is that its worse to have a refund than a lost sale to piracy. This is an interesting point because its not one I had considered before and after thinking about it more tend to agree with him. I come from the “all DRM is bad” camp and don’t enjoy any form of it. Some I tolerate, but most of the time I don’t buy things if the DRM is annoying. But shouldn’t DRM as a thing be totally dead in the game industry by now? I mean what customer is asking for DRM?

And really, DRM should be dead by now. I mean wasn’t Gabe talking about DRM being lame back in 2008? Oh right, seems he was.

http://www.gamefront.com/gabe-newell-talks-about-drm-and-piracy-on-steam/

“I get fairly frustrated when I hear how the issue is framed in a lot of cases. To us it seems pretty obvious that people always want to treat it as a pricing issue, that people are doing this because they can get it for free and so we just need to create these draconian DRM systems or anti-piracy systems, and that just really doesn’t match up with the data.
As a customer, I want to be able to access my stuff wherever I am, and if you put in place a system that makes me wonder if I’ll be able to get it then you’ve significantly decreased the value of it.”

I figure “DRM thinking” is limited to older companies like EA only, but that doesn’t seem to be the case as seen in this recent “Ask Slashdot” post.

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/13/03/20/214236/ask-slashdot-what-is-a-reasonable-way-to-deter-piracy

“I'm an indie developer about to release a small ($5 — $10 range) utility for graphic designers. I'd like to employ at least a basic deterrent to pirates, but with the recent SimCity disaster, I'm wondering: what is a reasonable way to deter piracy without ruining things for legitimate users? A simple serial number? Online activation? Encrypted binaries? Please share your thoughts.”

Doing a simple serial key check is fine but doing much more than that is a waste of bandwidth because if your thing is popular enough, piracy will happen no matter what you do. Its hard enough building something awesome, don’t split your bandwidth doing things that in the long run will never get you what you want.

This is just a strange topic that shouldn’t really be a thing in 2013. I think the best thing we can do is make choices that put money in the hands of people that build things we want. That means if you get a game with crap DRM, ask for a refund. And likewise, buy games that respect you and your time. For instance, all games on GOGcom are DRM free. As are all the games that come out as part as the Humble Indie Bundles. Because, really its 2013 and publishers and developers need to understand that treating their legitimate customers like criminals isn’t the way to ship awesome.

Sparklepop wrote on 03/26/2013 at 07:09pm

Agree 100%. And this isn't a hard concept to understand. Well, at least not for us little people.

IceMice wrote on 03/26/2013 at 10:42pm

i'm just gonna be sharing this over on facebook now...

scrypt Supporter wrote on 03/26/2013 at 11:13pm

This is good stuff. I like Tommy's article. The argument that piracy equals lost sales never made sense to me. Value and respect go hand in hand, and the idea of creating something valuable, rather than creating a product that you put a value on, is an essential concept. Radiohead experienced a similar thing with their pay-what-you-like digital release of In Rainbows:

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=10&title=did_radiohead_s_in_rainbows_honesty_box_&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/27/2013 at 12:02am

I picked up that Radiohead album and for me, yeah it brought with it a new way of thinking about buying stuff. They should have tagged it better and added album art BUT it opened peoples eyes to a new way to delivering the rad.

I think people in the ivory towers of mega-videogame-corp-o-tron don't understand that paying customers are not evil. I don't pirate software but I have a shitload of Steam titles. You can't invent DRM that works with me cause I don't pirate games, I buy them. I have met people that pirate as a way of life, they just want free stuff, no amount of coaxing will get them to think otherwise.

Anyways ill get down off the soapbox :D

Travis Admin wrote on 03/27/2013 at 03:49am

I'm OK with certain DRM. Steam is fine. It's something that you have to be logged into, or have logged into in the somewhat recent past, in order to play. It's totally unobtrusive and doesn't put up roadblocks every step of the way.

But like you and everyone else has said, if it's good enough, it's going to be broken and spread all over the net. They aren't punishing pirates in any way, they're punishing paying customers.

If I download a movie I open it and it starts playing. If I buy one it takes at least a minute or so to get through all the crap to get to my movie.

If piracy is providing a better product than you are, you're doing something wrong and need to change your model.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 03/27/2013 at 06:28am

"If piracy is providing a better product than you are, you're doing something wrong and need to change your model."

That is exactly true.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/27/2013 at 04:03pm

@Travis: I think there is a difference between "always online DRM for single player games," "online multiplayer games" and Steam.

* Always online DRM: Must be online to start start and play single player game.
* Multiplayer Online Game: Games like WoW and DoTA 2, must be online to play, kind of the point of the game.
* Steam: Must download game before you play it. Can play most games offline unless its like DoTA 2 or some other online multiplayer game.

Just because you need to download something before you play it doesn't mean its DRM, that's like saying Firefox is DRM'ed too. Does Cheerful Ghost employ DRM because you have to be online to use it? :D

Travis Admin wrote on 03/27/2013 at 04:15pm

No, Steam is DRM because you have to sign into Steam in order to play most of the games you have purchased. There's a significant difference between always online DRM and Steam, I wasn't trying to equate the two, but Steam *is* a kind of DRM. Or I guess more correctly, DRM is a part of Steamworks. It isn't just a download manager for your games, it provides its own DRM for publishers to use. This is most notable in (for me) its only downside-- If you've signed out incorrectly or if you've failed to install an update and sign in once afterwards, you can't use Steam offline and you are locked out of your games.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/27/2013 at 04:16pm

The relevant bits from the FAQ:

"Steam's DRM solution (called "CEG" by Valve) is just one of many Steamworks components game developers may use, alongside achievements, cloud saving, the workshop, matchmaking network code etc.; just like with all the others, implementing it is not required to distribute a game on Steam. A game can use the other Steamworks features and still remain DRM-free."

But in effect, the list of games that choose not to use it is very small.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/27/2013 at 04:38pm

Huh. Well, I didn't know they did that. So yeah, apparently it is. It seems just like a download manager to me and I have played offline to boot.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/27/2013 at 04:45pm

Yeah I've played offline a bunch, in fact I may have once or twice... heard about... a friend... sharing accounts with people to and after signing in blocking Steam via the Windows firewall to force it offline so two people could play single player games on the same account. But it requires that sign-in, and if Steam ends abruptly or thinks it needs to do something you're screwed until you sign back in.

I think you have to sign in once every 60 or 90 days for offline mode to continue to work as well. Can't remember the cutoff.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/27/2013 at 04:54pm

BUT! I think it speaks volumes about Steam's DRM implementation that it was so unobtrusive you were unaware that there was any DRM there. It's DRM done right. At this point DRM is still a necessary evil if we want games from most publishers, and Steam has a way to do it almost transparently and without being detrimental to the customer.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/29/2013 at 03:24am

For some reason it just now, more than a day later, occurred to me that my previous comment could be taken like "haha you didn't know Steam had drm you stupid head." That wasn't my intention at all- just pointing out how well that Steam had implemented it, so that it's almost entirely transparent to the user.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/29/2013 at 03:39am

I didn't take it that way :)

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Eat Game Live: Make Food Inspired by Games

"Eat Game Live is what happens when you let a gamer into the kitchen. I was sick of eating trash all day, so I decided to learn how to cook. My goal of this blog was to write recipes for people in my situation: gamers who just want a good meal. I try to keep my food healthy without sacrificing flavor."

Eat Game Live has some really cool recipes on the site themed around some awesome games like Starcraft, FTL, Dark Souls, Borderlands and more.

http://eatgamelive.com/category/starcraft
http://eatgamelive.com/category/faster-than-light
http://eatgamelive.com/category/darksouls
http://eatgamelive.com/category/borderlands

The photos of the dishes look really good and I might try my hand at Infestation Pit Toast.

http://eatgamelive.com/2012/07/20/infestation-pit-toast-peanut-butter-banana-french-toast/

What do you think, are you interested in trying on the recipes out?

Terraria to Drop on Consoles in March

Terraria will drop on consoles in North America on March 26 and March 27 on the PS3 and XBox 360 respectively. Hoping for a demo to try out how the controls work on the console for this one. Ultra interested to see if this content comes to the PC in some way. And yes, I would buy an expansion for Terraria.

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/22/terraria-digs-in-on-psn-march-26-xbox-live-march-27/

Hearthstone: A New Blizzard Collectable Card Game

Blizzard just announced its next new game at PAX East called "Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft." Hearthstone looks pretty interesting and according to the FAQ:

"Hearthstone is a free-to-play digital strategy card game that anyone can enjoy. Players choose to play as one of nine epic Warcraft heroes, and then take turns playing cards from their customizable decks to cast potent spells, use heroic weapons or abilities, or summon powerful characters to crush their opponent."

Since I really enjoy Magic: The Gathering I am interested in Hearthstone. Essentially its a free to play CCG that you can play online in a few minutes. Sound like it could be fun.

I know a few people have scoffed that this isn't anything new because its based on the existing Warcraft franchise. After thinking about it some, it really makes sense that this game is in the Warcraft universe as it already has a pretty deep canon and the characters are pretty well known. I played the living junk out of Warcraft 3 and Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne so most of the heroes they showcased were well known to me.

Its interesting to see Blizzard pair down a project for a small team and release it on PC, Mac and the iPad. I think this game has the ability to be quite huge, because of its free to play nature and Blizzards huge sway with players. That said, I can see where some might "meh" this game. Wherein I am not foaming at the mouth for this one, when it drops I will pick it up and play it for sure. Will I buy some in game decks? Well, typically I don't but if the game is good enough ill kick them a few coins to keep things going. But if this is like previous Blizzard titles, they won't have much of a problem paying the bills for this one.

Also wondering if they plan on doing a physical release of this game as actual playable cards if it does well?

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/faq/

Friday at GameStorm:Kickstarter & Community Panels

My first day at GameStorm was great. Its nice to come to an event by Geeks for Geeks. If you love playing RPG's, Board Games, Miniatures or Collectible Card Games GameStorm is your jam. I do and it was fun to sit down and play some games I wasn't previously exposed to. After my first panel(more on that later) I hit up the floor and settled on playing Steve Jackson's Revolution! Revolution! is a game where you try to coerce the town such that your influence spreads such that you gain the towns support for your revolution. I was mesmerized by the bidding and strategy process so much that I forgot to expand my influence in the city. I was spending time reading the table, trying to anticipate what they would do and "bid" accordingly. The game is very strategic and has near poker feel to how you can read into what the other players are doing. If you are looking for a fun strategy game that doesn't take much to learn, Steve Jackson's Revolution! is worth a go.

My first panel of the day was "What's on Kickstarter Right Now" also known as, the first panel I've ever been in. I think it went very well and I told a few jokes that seemed to hit the mark. In the end, it was awesome to be a panelist with people that love whats on Kickstarter and have Kickstarted projects themselves.

My co-panelists where:

Jess Heartly is a cool writer who has worked on a ton of awesome stuff.
http://www.jesshartley.com/

I also shared the stage with Gary McBride the owner of Fire Mountain Games who recently Kickstarted the amazing looking Creature Cards.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/730004812/creature-cards-monstrous-playing-cards-for-games-o

My second panel was on Community Organizing. It was moderated by PIGSquad's own Will Lewis. We talked about organizing communities and shot around our different thoughts on how we go about that.
http://pigsquad.com/profile/WillLewis

Jeffery Sens from Portland Games for Change.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/247773668667490/

And Paul Vorvick of the LARP Beyond the Eaether.
http://www.beyondtheaether.com/

Panelling is very fun and I really enjoy talking to other people in similar spaces doing awesome stuff. Looking forward to heading over today, I have my final 2 panels today and look forward to meeting more people and playing more games.

* The picture of the awesome mask was taken at the Attention Span Games Booth http://www.asgarb.com

FTL: A Fun Roguelike in Space + Co-Op

So after asking everyone which game I should play next I installed Fallout: New Vegas and started the single player mission. Compared to Fallout: 3 the intro wasn't terribly interesting. I imagine the game picks up a ton later on, but I didn't click for me right away. I will come back to it at some point though.

A few days ago FTL went on sale through the Steam Spring Indie sale and is currently $5 stand alone or $7 with the score. I picked up FTL + the score(of course) and decided to try it out. After an un-countable amount of games I can say that FTL is a must buy if you love space sims. Its a interesting take on the Roguelike game genere that dares to be fun! I guess I should qualify that a bit because I don't find many roguelikes fun. There are roguelikes I want to enjoy, but just can't get into. Its not that I don't like challenges or have a problem losing its just that certain games don't mix the "really hard" and "losing your ass off" to make it fun. But FTL does. In FTL in every game I lost my ass off and it was very fun. An epic adventure even. But realize here I play games for fun, not work, so if a game seems like work I just don't play it.

One evening of late I described FTL to a friend and recommended he give it a go. We were talking over Google Hangout and I decided to screen share the game with him. We spent nearly an hour making choices on how to play the game together and not only was it fun as hell I got further than I did on my own. I want to play FTL co-op again this way and hopefully we can do that. So yeah, if you have the ability to sit down and play with a friend, try FTL co-op. I guess you could call it "FTL Pairing" because thats a method I employ when I partner with someone on a project and we are at the same computer doing it together. Anyways, regardless of what you call it, it was fun as hell.

FTL is awesome and you really aught to try it, because, you know, space and all. You can even get unique and play it with your friends over Google Hangout too.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/212680/

BR Supporter wrote on 03/22/2013 at 09:36pm

Trying FTL co-op by screen sharing sounds awesome. I'll have to try that with someone sometime.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/23/2013 at 12:35am

Yeah, it is. I want to do it again and do a Lets Play of it.

BR Supporter wrote on 03/23/2013 at 01:01am

Dude....I totally want to join you on that one.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/23/2013 at 01:05am

Ok so lets do that. Ill send you an email to setup the time.

beansmyname Supporter wrote on 03/23/2013 at 01:42am

Outstanding idea! When I first read the headline, I thought I just missed reading that it had co-op. Glad I read the full story to get the full scoop.

You must have a pretty serious rig to be able to screenshare via Hangout without dropping. I was considering doing something similar for Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I have some folks who would really like to see that one.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/23/2013 at 05:12am

I think one thing that helps is FTL looks like a 2D sprite game. Plus it doesn't have a ton of movement. Then again I think I did... Minecraft over hangout too. :D

CapnCurry Supporter wrote on 03/23/2013 at 06:38am

I can vouch for the awesomeness of FTL screensharing - Jon took me through a guided tour of the game, and I was surprised at how easy it was to follow along with what we were doing. I played through the tutorial on my own later, and I think I'd have had a disappointing first run if the tutorial were all I'd had to work with.

I've played through it a few times since then, and gotten *remarkably* close to (what I think is) the finish line. I'm hoping for a chance to play FTL in pair-mode again with a more experienced eye and see how that changes things.

If Google hangout can stay smooth, I'm wondering if this opens a new door on the "single-player strategy game as co-op" play I enjoyed as a teenager. Myst made a remarkably good two-player experience; I wonder what else is out there that's worth experimenting with.

Brandon_Waters wrote on 03/25/2013 at 10:03pm

I haven't screen shared, but that sounds awesome. FTL is another game for me that took a bit to get into but I've clocked some solid hours on it now. It's like Oregon Trail in space to me (with a bit more skill involved). Great game.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/26/2013 at 12:21am

Huh, good point on the Oregon Trail in space, I hadn't considered that before. Its the goto game in my rotation right now, so very cool.

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Beta Multiplayer: First Thoughts

After playing my first Age of Empires 2: HD multiplayer game I am happy to say that it went very well. All the awesome fun of the original game is here and in full force. Travis and I played a 2 vs 2 match with bots to try out the Age 2: HD multiplayer landscape.

Since its been a few years since I played last, it took me a bit to get back up to speed. As we were playing I was letting Travis know all the special UI hints I knew to make the game play much smoother. For instance, you can shift click to queue up house construction instead of just doing one at a time. And that you need to remember to queue your farm reseeding. Age 2 has a ton of advanced UI and knowing it makes the game a much smoother prospect.

We had the game lag out some when we had lots of units in play at the end. This is a pretty common old Age 2 bug in the matches I have played with my friends over LAN and doesn't have to do with your multiplayer connection speed. The lag was tolerable but annoying. In some Age 2 matches I have played we have restarted because its so intense. I think it might have to do with creating a ton of trade carts, but I am not entirely sure.

The force I rolled over the bots with was pretty simple. Swordsmen, Arches, Trebuchets and Monks. I always need a Monk. :D

It was awesome playing Age 2 multiplayer again and can't wait to get more people in the mix.

A few more of my thoughts on Age of Empires 2: HD

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1111

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Guest Pass Giveaway

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm came with 4 guess passes. I will be giving them away to the first people that claim them in the comments.

* no Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Guest Pass Left!
* 2 Word of Warcraft Guest Passes

Ill update the post when someone claims one of the passes.

CapnCurry Supporter wrote on 03/21/2013 at 11:50pm

Wings of Liberty, please!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/21/2013 at 11:51pm

Sent.

aziz_cingz wrote on 03/22/2013 at 02:40am

Aye!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/22/2013 at 02:58am

Which one do you want Aziz? Wings or WoW pass?

aziz_cingz wrote on 03/22/2013 at 06:47am

Wings please, sir (:

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/22/2013 at 01:39pm

Sent

BR Supporter wrote on 03/22/2013 at 04:10pm

Aw damn! I missed the starcraft ones :(

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/22/2013 at 04:47pm

Plenty of WoW codes :D

BR Supporter wrote on 03/22/2013 at 06:48pm

No thanks, I am done WoW. I used to play it quite a bit.

BR Supporter wrote on 03/22/2013 at 06:49pm

done with WoW*

Travis Admin wrote on 03/22/2013 at 09:41pm

Hang on a sec, how does the WoL guest pass differ from the SC2 starter edition? I thought Starter Edition replaced the need for guest passes.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/23/2013 at 12:37am

It may Travis. I just had those in the Collectors Edition. So yeah, BR you might wan to try the SC2 Starter Edition and let us know how that works out.

Oh and I hear you on leaving WoW, sometimes stepping away is good.

BR Supporter wrote on 03/23/2013 at 01:03am

Is the starter addition just a trial or something?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/23/2013 at 01:05am

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/3250656

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jdodson1

2746 Posts

Knights of Pen and Paper: +1 Edition

Revamped Profile Pages & More

DRM: Its 2013 and it Still Won't Die

Eat Game Live: Make Food Inspired by Games

Terraria to Drop on Consoles in March

Hearthstone: A New Blizzard Collectable Card Game

Friday at GameStorm:Kickstarter & Community Panels

FTL: A Fun Roguelike in Space + Co-Op

Beta Multiplayer: First Thoughts

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Guest Pass Giveaway