Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Drama in the world of Gaming Journalism

Robert Florence has stepped down from Eurogamer because an article he wrote about games journalists and PR was edited due to complaints from people in the article.

It's hard to explain, much easier to read, so here you go. This is the unedited version, with the removed parts in bold:

http://wosland.podgamer.com/a-table-of-cowards/

One thing that sticks out for me is that journalists for reputable news organizations can't accept extravagant gifts from anyone involved in the material they're writing about. Is it ok for a gaming journalist to accept a PS3 from someone with a new game coming out that they'll surely be writing about?

Hint at Linux Support in Recent Update

In a recent Team Fortress 2 update there are some files that point to a possible Linux port.

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Template:PatchDiff/October_22,_2012_Patch_%28Beta%29

This makes sense as Valve is working on bringing Steam to Linux and I imagine they will port many, if not all its titles to Linux. I still use Linux as my primary desktop operating system and less reasons to boot back into Windows the better. Still, there are SO many games in Windows I wonder if ill really ever be able to switch?

Does Linux support from Steam interest you? Do you use Linux or is it all Windows and Mac for you?

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UI Love for The New Starcraft Expansion

Looks like Blizz is giving the UI for Starcraft 2 some love in the new game Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm in addition to the major 1.5 update of the interface.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/7634957

Still not in the Beta for Heart of the Swarm... Seems like I am on a "no-fly"/no beta list with Blizzard for not taking part in the Litch King beta when I had it...

Epic Minecraft City

Someone's Minecraft creation. And I thought my 8-bit Link I made in Terraria was pretty involved....

Online Meetup Tonight!

Just wanted to remind everyone that tonight we are having an online meetup and play session for Quake Live! It will start tonight 10/24 at 6pm PST.

Ill use this thread to co-ordinate the game, so check back for what specific games we will be in and the sharing of our in-game accounts to play together.

Original Post:
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/657

Travis Admin wrote on 10/25/2012 at 12:05am

Looking forward to getting ripped apart by all you better FPS players! :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/25/2012 at 12:34am

HAHAHA! We shall see.

Just getting my machine setup and ready to go here.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/25/2012 at 12:35am

Game updating.... Going to check on my heating pizza.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/25/2012 at 12:41am

OK you can add me in quake live as a friend my username is... wait for it....

jdodson

Travis Admin wrote on 10/25/2012 at 12:47am

I have added you.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/25/2012 at 12:51am

looks like i invited you to the match.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/25/2012 at 02:55am

Heading over to Left 4 Dead. Join us if you can.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/25/2012 at 03:42am

You all missed out on some fun! With the exception of the people who kept reciting lyrics from Gangnam Style, the Quake Live games were a blast, and my first real L4D experience was exactly what I had hoped for.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/25/2012 at 04:19am

Quake Live was a blast! I still love the rocket launcher!

Left 4 Dead stole the show for me though. After about the 3rd wave we started I was really digging the game and the strategy of it. I really enjoyed helping people and healing, which is odd as I don't particularly like playing the medic in TF games.

BR Supporter wrote on 10/25/2012 at 10:01pm

Sorry, I couldn't join you guys. I didn't even see the post until today. I was pretty busy playing apb as I just started playing again.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/26/2012 at 04:33am

No problem, I plan on running a game meetup every other week so ill try and make the next one more visible!

Tungsten wrote on 10/27/2012 at 02:04pm

Ya, try to another one this weekend. I'll get it running so I can shove rockets up your quake holes

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Combat Details for The Elder Scrolls: Online

This looks promising. The narration is a little grating but the info is worth it.

It looks like the combat will be similar to that of the recent single-player games. The Finesse system sounds interesting. Overall, it seems different from any MMO combat I've seen, which is definitely a good thing.

I'll have to break my rule of never playing MMOs for this one.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/24/2012 at 04:07am

Thanks for posting this, I've been interested in The Elder Scrolls Online and this drops some compelling art and information that draws me to think this will be worth checking out!

First off, the art feels like something from Skyrim. The video was a bit artifacty on my phone but it looked like an improvement over Skyrim?

I wonder if this is PC only?

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 10/24/2012 at 06:45pm

Playing through Skyrim, I kept thinking "This is so awesome... but how much more awesome would it be to have other players playing with me?" So yes, I'm definitely looking forward to this game.
I do wonder about some of the random aspects of Skyrim that might be lost, like finding a wheelbarrow at the bottom of a waterfall. Finding one was cool, but with thousands (or millions, depending on how the servers work) of other players, I wonder how much clutter there will be? Now that I think about it, I kinda hope there's a ton of clutter.
I think I'm what I'm getting at (I'm not really sure, just kinda typing and seeing what happens) is that I like the sense of "wow, I bet no one has seen this in this world" feeling that is present in Skyrim, which could be lost in an online version.
But again, overall, I'm looking forward to this!

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/25/2012 at 02:58am

MMO's seem to allow a ton of people to play but don't allow the players to make a mark on the world too much. Elder Scrolls Online could change this though for the reasons you cite, like leaving stuff around. Problem is, would such a world turn into a garbage dump eventually? Seriously, it could. Some clan could invariably spend the time to make a mountain of potatoes too :D

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 10/25/2012 at 07:33pm

That's my worry as well.

My first thought was that perhaps items, after they're dropped, if they're not touched for a set amount of time (whatever that might be), they disappear. But I don't really like the idea of items just disappearing. One of my complaints (a very minor complaint though) of WoW was how quest items just magically respawn. I would like a better way for quest items (or ingredients to create things with) to appear. But with things like ore, obviously someone can't reset that, that pretty much just has to reappear... maybe some sort of mechanic function of the ground where ore would randomly be pushed up to gather, and trees would slowly grow.

That was a long first thought.

My second thought I like a little better, but not much. Perhaps there can be some NPC's that wander around the world, cleaning up random items left by people. Maybe if they were scavengers, and you could buy the items from them (and maybe get lucky and get an exotic item that they found?)?

But I would want to contribute to the mountain of patatoes as well lol

BR Supporter wrote on 10/25/2012 at 10:39pm

I'm very worried about this. I feel like it is going to just become another mmo like WoW. I'm hoping the combat keeps it different. I also feel like the character models have much more cartoon-y look then what an elder scrolls game should be like. Like the orc they show at about 0:35, He is HUGE. It reminds me of the characters in the old republic that were just like really big fat people. They look ridiculous.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/26/2012 at 02:14pm

Hopefully a CG user is on the beta and reports back! I know I'll be signing up.

Hopefully the big cartoony ORC is a one off because Elder Scrolls games and grounded in fairly realistic graphics.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 10/28/2012 at 05:35am

Cartoony graphics are often a way for companies to make a game that looks acceptable in a modern world while keeping the requirements low. Basically, they're trying to make it accessible to more users. Possibly.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/28/2012 at 06:34am

It worked really well for Borderlands 2 and its cell shaded graphics as well as Torchlight. Its a great choice technically.

As long as it "feels life" Elder Schools I am ok.

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Metroid Password Save Breakdown

On teh intarwebs I found a breakdown of the password save system for the original Metroid. It reads like a technical whitepaper and seems pretty straightforward to construct your own passwords if you so desire.

I sort of inspected a few of my games that used a password save system and noticed patterns that let me modify them. For instance, in Mega Man 2 I collected E Tanks only(did nothing else) and noticed what happened to the password. Collecting the maximum amount and noticing the password allowed me to create a password where at any point I could refill my character back to maximum E Tanks. I was able to do the same to a few other games as well and it was always fun... Read All

Fighting Sickness With Mario N64 Style!

To kick off Retro Tuesday I wanted to talk about a game I have been playing recently with my wife. There are not many generes of games my wife and I can agree to playing together save puzzle games and the occasional Mario Kart level. Recently we decided to un-box the N64 and play Dr. Mario and played a few competitive matches.

I consider Dr. Mario practically a perfect game. I hesitantly compare it to Tetris as Tetris literally is a perfect game, but Dr. Mario is a close second to it in my mind to perfect puzzle games. The original NES cart was well done too, top notch music, game mechanics and concept. The 64 game adds on the original by allowing 4 player matches,... Read All

What if there was no meme?

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/149845_547402005275829_1334101876_n.jpg

I think I heard about "I used to be an adventurer..." before I had a clue what Skyrim was. But now... what if?

A historical and (still) enjoyable game.

I have been playing Ultima 4 for my blog at www.backlogkiller.com and was shocked to see no entry for the PC version here! It is a free game that is available on GoG for free and set a new standard for RPGs that continues to this day. By getting rid of traditional story and encouraging the player to win by simply being a good person was a brave experiment and deserves all the praise it gets. Despite being 25 years old, it holds up and I am enjoying every minute of it. (Aside from the time spent flying the hot air balloon.)

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 10/23/2012 at 05:05pm

Hi Will! My main experience with Ultima 4 was the NES port. The Ultima games are my biggest classic rpg blindspot.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/24/2012 at 01:18am

I just nabbed this game on my Mac off GoG. Doesn't seem to work too well so I will give it a swing on the PC.

I like your blog, thanks for sharing! Feel free to keep the updates flowin'!

Will_Owens Post Author wrote on 10/24/2012 at 05:01am

I'm almost finished and had a good time with it, but it certainly helped that I had a good idea of objectives from previous attempts. It's taking me about 10-15 hours to finish, but if you don't know what to do I would double that. Some stuff is a little esoteric and maybe impossible if you don't take note of EVERYTHING. Definitely worth a play, though.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/25/2012 at 12:40am

For sure. I think with many old games there is that "if people didn't know this would be nearly impossible to figure out" kind of elements. Like in Monkey Island or whatever, prob would have just hit a brick wall without a walkthrough for some of it.

Will_Owens Post Author wrote on 10/25/2012 at 03:18am

I actually did pretty well Monkey Island. It was certainly more 'fair' than this one. Ultima 4 gives you everything you need, but many of the solutions are a little obtuse. The biggest culprit is the word needed to enter the final dungeon is represented in rune form after ascending each virtue. What look like simple vertical lines or nonsense have to be written down, translated, then rearranged like an anagram to get the word. Most of the other stuff is pretty easy, though.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/25/2012 at 04:02am

That's awesome. Now I understand more about why Lord British gets SO much love for this game. I have a ton of love for Retro Games and one I am itching to play and will do so next month...

The Red Wings are calling me back and I am really looking forward to playing Final Fantasy 2/6 again! It has been WAY too long!

Will_Owens Post Author wrote on 10/28/2012 at 02:26am

Lost all my progress I made. Turns out I had two copies on my computer: one on the HD and one on a flash drive I was using to test moving save games around. The desktop link was attached to the flash and not the HD meaning that when I deleted its contents to give a friend some files... *POOF*. No more party. Need to restart and cry.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/28/2012 at 03:48am

Holy shit that's horrible. Sorry for the loss man!

Will_Owens Post Author wrote on 10/28/2012 at 04:05am

I'm convinced I can finish it in under 10 hours with all my notes. Already about 25% complete in an hour or so. We're doing this.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/28/2012 at 04:18am

Awesome you want to see this finished.

Will_Owens Post Author wrote on 10/28/2012 at 04:35am

I normally don't get this serious about games, but this one holds a more symbolic meaning for me w/r/t my past. Gotta see it through.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/28/2012 at 05:00am

I hear you. One year I set a goal to complete Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past no matter what. The story and feel, for me hold a ton of symbolic and "feeling" that I had to experience. I am starting to feel the same way about Final Fantasy 2(US). Its kind of like I need to do it to re-learn something I had forgotten.

So yeah Will, I totally get that. I think its a sign of something really meaningful when you have that kind of connection to a game or whatever.

Need to return to the Hobbit every few years, nothing brings me to that magical zone quite like reading that book.

Will_Owens Post Author wrote on 11/01/2012 at 03:57pm

Well, less than five hours into the restart and I am almost back to the point where I lost my data. I would guess maybe 2 or 3 solid hours to finish. Definitely can be done in under 10 hours.

Will_Owens Post Author wrote on 11/13/2012 at 03:39pm

I finally finished the doggone thing. A piece of my past finally left behind. What a good game, too.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/13/2012 at 05:21pm

Awesome. How many hours did it take you to finally complete it?

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 11/13/2012 at 07:14pm

Congrats, Will!

Will_Owens Post Author wrote on 11/14/2012 at 01:34am

The first part of the game (getting virtues, stones, and dungeon diving) took about six to eight hours. Then, the abyss took two play sessions for a total of one and a half or two hours, so I would estimate it to be a ten hour game. As I posted, though, that's if you know exactly what to do. A clean run with no prior knowledge could easily take twenty hours or much longer depending on how quickly you grasp the objectives. The game is really amazing, though, and still comes through as innovative and something special after almost 30 years. It would be tough to get it to appeal to younger people, but if you can get past the graphics, it's super fun.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/14/2012 at 03:33am

It seems like a great game. I grew up cutting my teeth on MUD's and ZZT so games like this don't bother me much :D

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