So about that ARK DLC..

Wild Card, the studio behind famed  (and still in development) survival game ARK recently released the aptly named scorched earth expansion... Normally this would not be cause for any rising of eyebrows. 

But seeing how the core game is still not released, a paid expansion does sound a bit weird. Especially as this can look like using money people paid to develop the game to make something people need to pay for again. Creating a interesting double dip effect. Now i do not think it is quite as heinous as some very (very very very) vocal fans on the games steam page, but rather i feel it is a short term publicity suicide and a future thorn in the side of the games marketing. A really unfortunate move seeing as the game up to this point had done pretty much everything right... Or as right as one can when one is crowdfunded. Now this will be mostly forgotten in a few months but will also be one of these things that detractors will bring up every time they need something to bash the game over. 

Now this i just my own theory but i think they might have needed the fresh cash that this expansion might bring, and that this injection was worth losing some customers over. The game as a pretty fanatical core fan base and many will get this no matter what, So it will absolutely do good things for the company coffers. It will be interesting to see if this will be but a fart in space or something that will slowly erode the fans trust, the next couple of moves from Wild Card will be crucial and i hope they have a plan for this. Because if they did this unaware of what the backlash would be (seeing the name of the expansion i doubt that) they are in deep shit right now. 

Time will tell. 

I am going to round off with saying that i will miss Chris Metzen on the upcoming BlizzCon but that i do not feel that his retirement is not earned. Heck he created such wondrous worlds. 

So Chris, enjoy the good life with the family. 

Take care and be safe. 

Can´t spell SONY without a N and a O

So the latest thing people got angry over was... well... SONY being SONY. 

Last time... i promise.... 

The story goes thusly.... 

Sony nixed Fallout and 

Skyrim mods on the PS4. 

Something that makes fair sense going by the very rigid and monolithic nature of SONY. Heck it would cost them a lot i guess... for no return... Not a wise move if one is in the market for money. (what other reason is there). Now on one hand this does suck, especially if you are a console gamer. But on the other hand having your hopes and dreams being crushed should be fairly common ground. 

Now the fun part of this is ofc Microsoft gloating like there is no tomorrow, having been the small kid having his lunch money stolen, this egg on the face of the tormentor is a god sent. Not that the thrashing they will get for it won´t hurt. Nut short term satisfaction is worth it i guess. Rest assured MS will find a way to completely fuck this up too.

Now for me, as a outsider looking in i get equal amounts of entertainment and uneasy feelings from this. Especially as MS move their PC stuff closer to the consoles, not the other way around. The PC will always be a superior medium if you are willing to invest in it. But it will also always be more expensive and need more attention. But it is that complexity i like. That and the fact that i can do all the fun, work and... well... other stuff on it. 

But getting back to the whole no mods on PS4. This i guess will set the tone for the war going forward, on one hand MS that is willing to do pretty much anything for more customers and SONY trying to set them self up as a "elite" brand but in the process dicking over part of their customer base. 

Now the tie-breaker will be if Nintendo smoked the good or the bad weed.... Time will tell. 

Not really much to say about the situation... I fully understand why SONY did what they did, but i thin it was a bad move and will kost them short term. But i also guess they will save money on it long term because CSR are expensive, as is multi skilling. 

Now i am going to sleep because i have worked a 10 hour day today. 

Cheers and take care. 

So YouTube did a thing... again... Angry people ensued.

So…. We are at the point again where we need to talk internet…. I tell you to chill the fuck down but you refuse. I am not sure what to do with you…

This is how i view the internet, thank you South Park.

Now this time around it is a bunch of people getting angry over YouTube… And don´t get me wrong, there are plenty of things to get angry with over YouTube. But in this case it is mostly just a matter of piss poor communication. You see the lifeblood of YouTube is and will most likely always be ad revenue… Heck that is what keeps it free and fairly unregulated. Well it turns out that those people paying money to Google want to have a say in what type of content their product is the opening act to. YouTube have starting to remove the ability to earn money of videos that does not follow a set of vague and fairly puritanical rules.

This is nothing new, it is in fact about as old as marketing itself, after all you do not try to market Jack Daniels to five year olds and if you have positioned yourself as the beacon of family values, you are not going to want to see your ads running before a clip of a person cursing like a sailor while smoking something best left in the Shire and pounding back Absinth… No matter how often this person sings “let it go”. This is just a fact of life. The fact that YT did not give people a decent heads up is them being arseholes but that should not be news to people trying to make a living on YT. It is more or less a drinking game at this point what will be the next dick move.

So… Here is where things take a sharp left out in to cray-cray land. A bunch of firebrands started to call this censorship… Now keep in mind no videos have been removed (as part of this issue… Fair use and the insane claim system is a very different issue.) only the ability to make money should YT deem a video to be “bad”. Now one could say that it is a way to starve out the unwanted ones and only keep the loyal dogs fed but in reality YT have been staring all the dogs for years. Shortly thereafter came the usual idiosyncrasy about free speech… At that point I simply zoned out.

So who is this impacting in reality… Well most YT channels make little to no money from ad revenue anyway. Most big ones supplement the income with sponsors and donations. So having a few videos every now and then get flagged will not matter, no this will only really hit home with channels built on abuse and being shitty human beings. My sympathy for these people are less than zero.

Now it is sad to see that YT keep up this system of communication so poor it make the IKEA building instructions look clear as day… And it is really bad that they simply did not enforce their rules sooner, setting precedence for what was ok and that was not. After all if you stick your dick in a wall socket and nothing happens because the power was off, you might get the incorrect ideas that it is a harmless thing to do.

But toasty genitalia aside, I fail to see that people would be willing to actually pay to keep YT open, just look at the angry words that people tossed around regarding YT RED. So if we like to keep our free entertainment channel… well free. We will have to accept that the people who actually pay have some input, just like in the “real” world. 

Any way 

Stay safe and have a great week. 

What is next for Blizzard...

First an update on the potential giveaway… turned out anything worthwhile was used up or given away already. But I promise I will make it up at the next milestone of 10k views.

Now with that out of the way I am going to delve in to the topic of today.

For many years we have seen Blizzard go from strength to strength.  From the original RTS games through Diablo and WoW and now with the trio of Hearthstone, HotS and Overwatch. Especially Overwatch have been a really good game in my opinion. Sure it suffers from the same balance issues as any non-symmetrical PvP. But it is still fun and it hits that really sweet spot of rewarding but not over time-consuming.  

But as Buffy and the gang asked… Where do we go from here..? With the upcoming Blizzcon the question of what will Blizzard do next is a hot potato indeed, The Star Craft 2 saga have concluded and due to its weird position as a E-Sport I think Blizzard are reluctant to muck around too much with it or start a new chapter in the saga. Also where do you go next, keeping things fresh but still being true to what people know as Star Craft? As for the old dog on the porch… World of Warcraft is really on its last leg… We can all see the sunset and while it is pretty and I am sure we will see at least another expansion. It is still walking well threaded ground. Hearthstone and HotS do not really make for grand expansion and to Overwatch, being a PvP arena shooter the idea of a paid expansion is pretty much anathema… (take note EA and your insane reliance on splitting the BF player base over and over again) That leaves us with Diablo… And the internet have been abuzz with some theories that Blizzard will reveal a new Diablo this year. Now this is not a dumb idea and while I am not a big fan of the Diablo games I find them fun enough. There is also as noted above nothing else I can really see being the big ticket item for this year´s Blizzcon.

So what would I like to see from a new Diablo game… Well I would like to see them jump the timeline so to speak. Push things a generation or two forward. A returning evil after a time of peace (cliché I know) maybe a slightly more Elizabethan-ish design… Or why not go all fantasy steampunk. They have flirted with it before with the Warcraft games. Not too bothered with classes but for what it is worth i´d love to see an elemental gunslinger replace the classic mage… Even if the gun mage is becoming as strong of a thing as the staple I suggest it replace. Also I would really like to see a class that is based around a quarter staff… Much like the monk i´d like it to be agile and mobile. As for the rest I think they have it nailed down now for regular game, I have heard that running the ladder get a bit grindey after a while but it is a non-essential part of the games for me.

But time will tell and personally I am much more interested in seeing some more Overwatch stuff, not only for the current game but some spin-off titles exploring the rich but mostly hidden world surrounding the game. That is what would make my Blizzcon.. That and getting one of those swagbags for free… But I do not think that Blizzard would prioritize sending one of those to a blog that scrapes up less than 250 views a month. =P

Well… That will be it for now.

Be nice and play fair, and I will see you again next week.

T

Celebrating mediocrity... (5k views)

Arn´t they cute.. they are unrelated to today´s post.

So... I hit a sort of milestone. And since i am born in the eighties i always try to celebrate even the small things.

I hit 5k views... Yeah... in total.... Not in a day... or a month.... or even.. sad to say.. a year... No it took about two years.

But that is also way more than i actually thought i was going to get. Sure a part of those are crawlers and other types of trackers. But i am still proud because i kept at it and following through has never been my strongest point when left to my own devices without a concrete goal or deadline.

So i´l try to dig up some digital swag and giver it away later in the week. You know.. to celebrate. =P

So what now...? Not much, i´l keep on trucking and see if we can hit 10k in one year perhaps. Than 15k in six months... who knows.

I have also started to work on a little side project... The guys sitting the the top of the page. Who and what will come at a later date as that is around version 0.5.

So.. Thanks for the time and let us get another 5k views together.

Cheers.

Suicide Squad a review. Spoilers.

So what to say about the Suicide Squad.... 

It is a movie that have some serious problem, but none of them big enough to stop me from enjoying the movie. But first... The plot goes thusly.

Superman have pretty much triggered a new arms race as the world realized that not only where they not prepared for a metahuman (DC´s catch-all term for anything with superpowers) attack but they where woefully unequipped... These events where part of the BvS movie. 

Enter Amanda Waller (played to perfection by Viola Davis, at no point did you doubt that she could and would destroy you) and Task Force X lead by the biggest stick since Scott Summers... Rick Flagg(played by Joel Kinnaman). My guess is that Flagg had his pert in the movie reduced when Tom Hardy dropped out because he literally serve no purpose in the movie. Anyway... Flagg is the commanding "officer" of the task force consisting of the best of the worst. The idea is to send in a bunch of nano-explosive laced criminals to do black op´s missions. If they live and complete the objective they get time off their sentences. If they fail Waller just toss them under the buss and if they start to color outside of the lines... click click boom. Head comes off. Generally speaking at least one member of Suicide Squad tend to bite it when they are sent out. 

I leave it up to you to guess if this movie follow suite. 

So.... Enter the antagonist, A ancient metahuman that the government try to control, this goes about as good as expected. So once the big bad start to fuck up one of DC comics many made up cities Waller activate TF:X and Flagg, a bunch of no-name marines and the self titled Suicide Squad consisting of 

Deadshot (Will Smith, master marksman and single dad) 

Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, amphibian metahuman with heighten strength and durability)

El Diablo (Jay Hernandez, Pyrokenetic gangboss)

Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney, Angry.. really angry.. Throws boomerangs) 

Enchantress (Cara Delevingne, the host of a angry spirit that can do magic.. ish...)

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, Crazy as balls acrobat and psychologist)

Flagg also bring in Katana (Karen Fukuhara, Master swordsman with a magic sword) as his enforcer, not a all together bad idea seeing how these are not the most balanced people to begin with. Beyond this point the movie can pretty much be split in to two... One is a average summer action movie and the other is a fairly smartly written drama... neither get the time it needs to really shine. I guess it do not need to tell anyone that the big bad is beaten and everyone is happy... Oh well... Alive... Sort of... Also we have a Joker sub-plot that is fun but also really does not go anywhere.(I´l make a separate post about Jarred Letos Joker.. Lot to say there.)  This is very clearly a origins movie setting up this sub-franchise of the DC CU. 

Now what make the movie a worthwhile watch in my mind is the fact that it does a lot of "show not tell" as far as the characters and their motivations. The action part of the movie is rather useless, it does what it needs and for the most part it is well put together. But seeing how the movie manages to make you feel for the bad guys as wells as the antagonist... Not so much for the big bad... But it belongs to the action part of the movie. The smart use of the bigger DC universe is another, the movie fits in very well and actually makes me more interested in the upcoming movies. There is a genuin warmth in the movie and more than a few really funny moments. The timing and pacing is also nice and the extra credit scene is absolute gold. 

Now i have brought up before (several times.. I know) how much I like the Amanda Waller character and there is not enough praise I can give to Davis for how she make this character work (and álso David Ayer and John Ostrander for actually writing a good character) She has all the menace and stone cold attitude that i always felt that the Arrow version lacked. You get the feeling that she could make even Batman tighten up with a single look... Not to mention the poor generals and politicians she bulldoze in the movie.

It does suffer from traileritis... Much of the early movie have been spoiled by trailers and seeing how the later part holds no real twists worth mentioning... It was annoying, But the great soundtrack from the trailers carry over in to the film it self making up for some of it. 

So to cap it off... It is no Avengers but a much better film than the previous Superman films gave any indication of DC/WB being able to produce. A easy to digest summer popcorn film with a great cast and enough hearth to fill the empty void that BvS left. 

Box over box over Overwatch

So a bunch of people are angry at Blizzard.. again....

And i guess it is kind of justified this time. You see Blizzard have taken the whole Loot Box scheme they have to a new level. Usually you get "gold" that you can use to buy any stuff you do not win form the boxes.

But for the Olympics Blizzard have a new box, with some new skins, sprays, victory poses and stuff. You get these as usual when you level up but here is the kicker. The event is just three weeks long and then the box goes in to the vault until next summer (potentially) and seeing as there is one hundred-ish new items one could understand that people get antsy.

Especially as you can ofc also buy these boxes for the regular price.

Now as someone who have done the seasonal grinds in WoW... I´d gladly pay to be able to get around that. But now for kicker number two. remember how I mentioned that you can use gold to unlock stuff... Not this time... The seasonal items can only be won by the grace of RNGsus.

This last detail is what I guess pushed the most vocal people over the edge as these are generally the same people that invest the most money in the game and by that token have the most "gold" to spend. NOw all that gold have to sit pretty until the next hero is released.

This is of course a calculated move by Blizzard, had people been able to use the gold it would have made a deep cut in to the number of boxes bought. Cynical as it might seem, Blizzard is not anyone's pal... bro... BFF... They are in the habit of trying to make money. You do not make money by giving away all your stuff for free. It would be the morally right choice seeing as we paid full price for the game (but on the flip side... Artist have to eat too., =P )

Now full disclosure, i bought five boxes and i was lucky enough to get exactly what i was looking for. The Torbjörn "IKEA" (in reality called Tre Kronor) skin. So for me the minimal investment i have made compared to the amount of enjoyment i get from using that skin is not even measurable. But i can understand that some people spent a lot and did not get what they wanted and the lack of an option to buy it via the "gold" store just pile on to that frustration. It also i would guess hurts that a new player starting now  or a low level player will have a way easier time to get the new stuff as the XP needed to level up is a lot less before level 20 i think.

Any way, me personally i can not give a flying fuck about any feathers this have ruffled or any slippery slopes people say this is the start of. Sure it is cynical and very much a sign of the times but at the same time i get quality entertainment for pretty much peanuts.

If this is a deal breaker for you, by all means quit and hit up your bank for a charge back... Me i am going to play a short hairy man from Gothenburg dressed as if he feel asleep at a IKEA company Christmas party.

//Peace