John Carmack on Violence in games

"People just play games now and I never took seriously the violence in video games debate. It was basically talking points for people to get on CNN and espouse their stuff on there," says id Software Technical director John Carmack. "And I really think, if anything, there is more evidence to show that the violent games reduce aggression and violence. There have actually been some studies about that, that it’s cathartic. If you go to QuakeCon and you walk by and you see the people there [and compare that to] a random cross section of a college campus, you’re probably going to find a more peaceful crowd of people at the gaming convention. I think it’s at worst neutral and potentially positive."
Source

 It does depend on who you are playing against. I have a feeling I caused quite a bit of rage during the JK2 / JKA era.

But I fully agree. At the end of the day, its supposed to be a game and something fun just ever so often someone takes a a little too seriously and ruins it for everyone else when the media runs away with a headline.

New Old Republic video looks as bad as .....

Dragon Age 2.

Theres something in this video that really has me worried. Much like when I tried the Dragon Age 2 demo.

Its just not sitting right with me. Partly the smuggler changes and just the way the 'dungeon' plays out.

I am starting to wonder if I should cancel my pre-order and sit it out.

Ending and a beginning

Today was my last day at my old job for 7 years and Monday I start my new job as a software developer for a local IT company. Its a completely different field of work but something I have always had a passion for. Since the early days with my ZX-81 doing simple message loops to the more recent game programing and App programing at my last job. It is all very exciting.

But anyway enough about boring me, back to news about games.

Oh, I also got a brand new Intel i7 2600 for my home machine and in a nutshell its turbotastic. 

Sintel ' I move on ' Wins Two Jerry Goldsmith Awards.

I have linked this before but its worth linking again:

Vota for how the Female Shepard should look in Mass Effect 3

Hang on a sec, I thought this was a RPG and you just made her look how you want ?

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150244340101645.322035.85811091644&type=1&_fb_noscript=1

I guess this has something to do with the low amounts of people playing a female Shepard. I am surprised they haven't pulled it out of the game completely. Its not as though Shepard is your character, much like Hawk. Mass Effect 2 I would select a option and Shepard would do the complete reverse of where I was going, its not really a RPG, more of a on the rails JRPG-FPS with limited choices.

My 2nd half Playlist

First half of the year has been a but dull release wise. We had the awful Dragon Age 2 from bioware and the fantastic Witcher 2 from Cd projekt. LA Noir was fun but really I spent most of my time in side MMO's like Rift and Star Trek Online.

The next six months should be interesting. Here is my confirmed list of titles ( not in any order ):

1) Skyrim ( PC )
2) Battlefield 3 ( PC )
3) The Old Republic ( PC ) ( If it gets released )
4) Saints Row: The Thrid ( PC )
5) Arkham City ( PC ) 

Other titles I am keeping my eyes on are:

1) Deus Ex ( PC )
2) Dead Island ( PC )
3) StarHawk ( PS3 )
4) Space Marine ( PC )

Jon Hare plays Cannon Fodder Live

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CTulV5u1-M&t=555

These inverviews are quite interesting but I have skipped to the singing part. Cannon Fodder was one of the first I heard to have a theme song.

Parts of it talk about how American and the rest of the world had completely diffrent ideas of what games were about. 

The monkeys never let me down

http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/PC-Games/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic/18247042/

No The Old Republic in Oceanic ?

To all of our fans outside of North America and Europe:

Today we've announced the pre-order details for the initial launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and as you may now know, we’ve taken the difficult but necessary decision to limit our initial launch supply for the game. BioWare and LucasArts are completely focused on building an exceptional game and an exceptional game service to go with it. We decided to constrain our launch capacity to ensure we deliver a great experience to every player.

Part of the reason this decision was made was because of the overwhelming demand for The Old Republic, and we're humbled by that level of excitement and anticipation. We fully intend to deliver to you an amazing game when we expand our service post-launch, but right now we cannot commit to any timeframe for when that may happen. As soon as we have more information about additional launches in more territories, we’ll let you know.

We are committed to delivering Star Wars: The Old Republic to BioWare and Star Wars fans around the world, and to growing a truly global community.

 People are still analysing what this means but it looks like the game won't be launching in this part of the world until some time after the main launch.

I always try to see the brighter side of everything so at least this will stop me rushing out and buying it like I did with Dragon Age 2, the worst game of 2011.

Witcher patch + Free DLC

The update includes a plethora of fan-requested improvements, including difficulty adjustments for the game’s Prologue, support for a variety of aspect ratios and a host of other gameplay tweaks and fixes. Next to the long list of changes, this update also brings along free DLC - a quest called “A Sackful of Fluff”.

A sackful of Fluff ?

In the Witcher this could mean anything, even a actual sack full of Fluff.

Conan the Barbarian: The Musical

Battlefield 3 not on Steam ?

This is kind of a dumb move if it turns out to be true as by the sounds of it, its going to be avaliable on other online stores.

This doesn't really effect me that much due to it being a EA game and EA games are always on time in this country. So I'll be ordering a Boxed release of the title.

Still, this seems like nothing more than just a push for EA's own Origin download service.

Terraria, Our servers world.

Here is the complete map to our world:

Full sized image link:
Click to load full sized picture.

Coming soon to Terraria

Not this patch, but a patch soon.

Gorntastic

Skara & Tyranni

Planetside 2 Trailer

Hmm, looks terrible. Like Dust 514.

You can pick up Section 8 for less and it looks the same gameplay wise.

I am still hunting up details but I smells a lot like a console unreal engine game. The smell of wet pants.

STO: Session 4 Crossfire

Is out, I know what I am going to be doing this weekend.

Infographic shows Harry Potter and Star Wars are really the same

No... No... That's not true... That's impossible!

http://blastr.com/2011/07/infographic-shows-us-how.php

STO: Session 4 Patch notes

Out of all the MMO's I have played, STO has been the most improved. They are always revisiting all parts of the game to make it better.

Session 4 is out in the morning and has a massive list of changes. The most important is the ground combat changes.

Its now faster and has a optional 3rd person shooter mode which I am interested in trying out.

I am not expecting anything amazing but I think having it feel more like a shooter will suit the game better.

Fan made Oblivion Expansion

This always seems to happen, the new Elder Scrolls game is about to be released and then a mod team pulls out something awesome:



Turn on CC to get english subtitles.

Planetside 2 announcement this week

Nothing to post yet, but I will once the details are out.

Its the end of the World(of warcraft)

Nyhm is at it again:

Skyrim - LITERAL

CCP and CSM meeting results

What do we know about the results of the emgency meeting between CCP and the Council of Stellar Management.

A CCP blog post saying everything will be alright but not addressing much and a video with CCP and a CSM saying that they have been working hard at rebuilding trust, that they are tired but nothing about the game itself. I am not even posting the video as it was such a waste of 10 mins.

This has prompted me to uninstall the EvE Client from my machine. If I had a active account I would delete my characters.

What was addressed is that microtransaction items will only be vanity items .... for now and that CCP rushed the entire Incarna expansion.

I will never trust CCP again, I shouldn't have re-gained trust back in the Band of Brothers blue print scandel. The fact that I have been tracking the walking on stations content since 2005 and all that we get is a pointless closet to sell overpriced fake items has me not interested in the concept any more.

Also don't get me started on Dust. That is a utter waste of time for the consoles.

So Star Trek Online is now my game for Online Internet Spaceships and Evochron Mercenary.

Html 5

I have been diving into the magic world of HTML 5.

To start with I am just doing something really simple. Getting video working without flash. This turned out was quite easy but I had no video controls. So after a quick google I found a video player to control the stream.

Anyway a test after the jump

Guildwars 2 Intro

This is one of their real time cutscenes using concept art + 3D:



Looks great and has links to the Ghost of Ascalon book.