Bubbly

Yeah, they copied the Tribes: Ascend F2P model, which is one of the worst F2P models out there and I stopped playing that game because of it. In this case it is also Pay2Win in specific cases. Ex: In one on one airfights, the person you are battling could have spent a bunch of money and have a much better vehicle with more varied weapons. For the sake of argument lets say you guys are on the exact same skill level. If you're someone who hasn't spent any money and the other guy has, your vehicle will be inferior. You could even have spent the few certs you have to unlock the same upgrades as the guy, but his might be of a higher level since he spent a bunch of money. So pay money and you have an objectively better vehicle than someone who did not. If that ain't Pay2Win... You can make the argument that you could just spend the time to unlock that stuff, but in saying that you have obviously not played PS2 and seen how long that would take.

I think everyone can agree on the weapons being way too fucking expensive. It is absolute bullshit that I need 1000 certs (that is a shit ton of time for those of you that don't know) to get a lock-on rocket launcher. My only option for AA as infantry is to grab a burster MAX, but I don't wanna do that when there are only 1 or 2 light aircraft harassing our sunderer, especially when Heavy Assault is my primary class. Or what if I want a different anti-infantry weapon for my MAX? That especially goes for the different types of weapons/upgrades for vehicles, too. I have no problem driving people in a Sunderer, but I'd never pull one because mines has jack shit on it and I'd rather not waste the few certs I have on it to actually have that thing be useful compared to others.

I absolutely love the gameplay in PS2, but I do wonder when I'll start to tire of the model. Having to play a ridiculous amount of hours or way too much money just to unlock one weapon is stupid. In numerous situations my character is objectively inferior to someone who has paid money. And I say this as a player who bought the damn XP boosts, so I can't imagine how a totally free player feels. Tribes: Ascend lost the majority of its players because of its model. I don't think that will happen to PS2 because it has a much larger and loyal fanbase, but I do believe many will tire of the model. Truly breaks my heart to say that as I love the game and am still having some fun with it.

Valve has kinda perfected the F2P model with TF2 and Dota 2 (never played Dota 2 TBH, but I know that all the characters are free). With TF2, you will never feel inferior in a situation with the default weapons and the cosmetic stuff ain't hurting the free players.

@seannao said:

What's wrong with supporting their work?

Also pretty surprised nobody's set up a GB outfit yet!

There is a GB outfit and its a bunch of fun when there are enough people are online. And I have no problem supporting the game (I've bought a bunch of boosts), but their current model is stupid in so many ways. I honestly would take the subscription model over this if it meant that everybody was on equal footing and had access to everything in the game.

So does a "403 Forbidden" after I login mean that I'm one of the lucky people who has to wait? My subscription ended right on Thanksgiving (Nov 22) and I renewed it on the 26th. Bummer if so since I was really looking forward to the new video player. The streaming player is kinda sucky because of all the blockiness and the HTML5 player just straight up refuses to stream video when I select HD. Looking at the post above though it seems that I may still get problems. Youtube is fine, although their vids tend to have worse compression compared to other channels.

This sounds really cool for the people who are just getting into PC gaming and don't want to take the time to tweak settings and/or have no idea what all the options in their video settings mean. I'm not huge on tweaking and don't like to spend a bunch of time doing it (I never downsample or use AA injectors; most I'll do is force AA and/or Vsync through the drivers), but I know what settings to change to get the most out of my PC (I'm a turn down settings till I get a fairly solid 60 fps guy). If they manage to work out the kinks and get it working extremely well then I might even give it a try.

Tons of great moments this year, but I don't think anything can top #TeamBrad.

I'm always kinda baffled when developers choose to not put an FOV slider or just have a decent default FOV, like 90 for example. Even if you don't believe in the getting a headache from a low FOV thing (only happens to me when it is MW3 bad, which I believe was 65), you would ensure minimal bitching with an FOV of 90 and a slider is always a good way to get goodwill from PC gamers. I believe 90 is the sweet spot since nobody gets a headache from it, it doesn't look funny (75 is where it starts to look funky for me on a decently sized monitor, although it doesn't induce headaches for me at that level), and you don't get the fisheye effect.

Aw cmon Patrick. I love your work and all, but can you really say that about a game you've never played and have no interest in playing? I'm obviously referring to Planetside 2 here. I know Jeff doesn't like it, but all the Planetside vets I've seen here, including me, do.

Yeah, those Vanu tanks today just kept coming. We did manage to hold the line for a pretty long time though. I'm still relearning the ropes so there was a bit of wandering and disorganization on my part (didn't play much of the beta or the original in a really long time), but I had a blast nonetheless. Next time we should try and get some vehicular mayhem or Max drops going on. I know we could have taken those Vanu tanks with the support of the other NC soldiers if we had a good tank column. I don't work on Monday so I'll see if I can get on around the same time.

Awesome! So glad to see this got going. I just made a new character, TheBanananator. I really hope that the lag is bearable (I live in Hawaii) so I can play with you guys. Not sure what time I can play, but I'll try to hop on when I wake up (it's almost 4 am here).

I'm on Windows 8 and wireless controller support is working perfectly for me. The only other suggestion I have that hasn't been given is to try and repair the install. I'm not at my home PC right now so I can't confirm if it's there for Most Wanted, but a few games (like Battlefield 3) have the option when you right click the game in Origin. If it isn't there then you might have to try a redownload. It's stupid how Origin doesn't have it for every game like Steam does.

I'm sure we'll get a PC version at some point, it's just a matter of when and how good the port will actually be. Max Payne 3 had a great PC port so I have a little hope (not a lot though) that Rockstar will do a good job with GTA V. I still occasionally reinstall GTA IV on my PC and mess with mods. It'll be a tough wait, but I've been a PC gamer for a long time so I'm used to it. I just wish that they would confirm (or deny if that is actually the case) that there is a PC version.