Glad to see someone repping VNs! It's just disappointing that this is the game that really introduces Western audiences to the genre, because all of those problems Patrick mentioned about the redundant text, obtuse puzzles, and juvenile humor are all pretty infuriating when trying to get through 999. Also, the deeper you get into the mechanics, the more annoyed you become. Events shift in 999 when they really shouldn't. For example, there's a character who can die if you choose a certain course of action, but that action has nothing to do with them nor how they die. It's just an arbitrary change much like Heavy Rain's arbitrary changes. I've heard some people assuming that VNs are just like that, but that's not true at all! There're a lot of great VNs with amazing stories that don't get bogged down by this stuff.
While I'm ultimately unhappy with how 999 represents visual novels, it is the most successful attempt so far at bringing the genre to mainstream Western audiences (though I heard the Lost in Blue series for DS was pretty good). It's also the closest a VN has come to being a "game", despite how those parts might have turned out.
Anjon's forum posts
If I had a nickel for every time someone said "Kotaku" in this thread, I could buy you all a thesaurus.
Ninja Theory's history with framerate issues also doesn't really matter, as the majority believe their games to be good, and in the game industry, the majority's opinion becomes fact. For what it's worth, there isn't a single Ninja Theory game I like, though I've played them all and I understand their appeal. It's all mass-market appeal for one. They aren't looking to make super technical action games, just games that people will think are cool and/or pretty and/or have Andy Serkis in them. They know how to make character action games for people who might not like character action games is what I'm trying to say.
And I'm not saying that one franchise should suffer because another franchise is (in my opinion), better. I'm saying that one franchise WILL suffer because another franchise has taken its soul and went on to do bigger and better things with it on a (near) objective level. There is no one left at Capcom to produce Devil May Cry to an extent that Capcom feels would be satisfactory. That's evident by the fact that this game exists at all. Why take the risk of destroying a beloved franchise unless they believed their was no other choice? And when Bayonetta came out, the common consensus was "Oh, this is like Devil May Cry but way better." You might not believe so, but those reviews pretty much spoke for themselves. So what happens to Devil May Cry then? They can't just make a traditional Devil May Cry and expect it to still shine while Bayonetta is sitting right beside it, decked out in jewels and platinum.
Like I mentioned with Uncharted vs Tomb Raider, the presence of a superior game of the same genre is going to affect the direction other games take even if you don't personally believe in that superiority, especially if they're particularly derivative. Splinter Cell came out declaring itself a better stealth game than Metal Gear, even going as far as attacking it in marketing, but look how many reboots if went through while Metal Gear just kept going and turned into a crazy phenomenon. It's barely even the same franchise anymore. Hitman is the same way, though I personally because that series was unique enough that they didn't have to make the huge 180s they did in Absolution to stay relevant. Back in that Tomb Raider example, Crystal D could have just released another Tomb Raider continuing from TL:U, but in a post-Uncharted 2 and 3 industry, how well would that really have gone? Would it really sell well outside of the hardcore Tomb Raider/Lara Croft community?
To me, the announcement, development cycle, and release of DmC followed a common path to its logical conclusion: a decent action game that markets itself to a new audience. That's all it could have ever been, and that was the single "good" path the franchise could have taken. The Devil May Cry franchise effectively died in 2008. Everyone involved with making that series good left to do other things, and Hideaki Kamiya, the father of the franchise, put all of his expertise towards creating Bayonetta, which he himself considers the ultimate evolution of Devil May Cry. Also, Bayonetta is preeetty good. Simply put, Devil May Cry as it was before Ninja Theory touched it simply can't coexist in the same world as Bayonetta because Bayonetta is just...better. It also has the minds behind Devil May Cry working to make it great. It's similar to Tomb Raider's existence after the Uncharted series happened. It just kind of floundered and then sparked an inevitable and much needed reboot. This is the only way the beloved Devil May Cry franchise can see be relevant -- by being utterly tasteless, easier, and less insane. This is what the franchise needed to stay alive.
So isn't this a good thing? I mean, for one the DMC franchise gets to stay alive. Also, we have Bayonetta! Bayonetta, dude! That game is super crazy! We don't even need DMC anymore! I thought we were on the same page here, but then the internet rage just wouldn't stop. What did people think was going to happen to the new game exactly? It's unreasonable to think a Ninja Theory game is just going to bomb flat out. At the very least, they know how to make games about dudes beating up stuff with weapons.
Sure, I know a few pirates. Actually, pretty much every friend I have who plays video games also pirates a lot of them. They also buy a lot of games legit. Well, most of them do. I have one friend (or former friend rather) who's of the mindset of "Pirate all the things!", but he's a terrible person overall. Personally, I believe there's definitely a place for piracy. I just got into serious PC gaming about a year ago and was shocked by how many full priced (like $50-60) games came out completely without demos. That's ridiculous to me. In fact, I recently had trouble deciding whether I was going to buy Hitman Absolution or not, because there were so many claims of it running poorly on nVidia hardware and there was no demo I could download and try. I ended up using Amazon to get it for about $30 and figured I'd take a leap of faith, which actually paid off. I shouldn't have to make a leap of faith when purchasing a game though. That was a really crappy situation and I couldn't help but think how much easier it would have been to just pirate a copy, try it out, then make a purchasing decision later.
On a similar note, how do you guys feel about pirating games that are pretty much impossible to acquire by normal means? For example, American McGee's Alice was out of print for years, with copies randomly showing up on ebay worth approximately all of the money. It recently got a rerelease as a pre-order bonus with the sequel, but before then the only way to get it without going helluv crazy in the process was to just pirate it. There're still a lot of games that are super hard to find without resorting to piracy.
An obscure one, but I almost bought a Saturn in Japan so that I could play "Princess Crown", the precursor to Odin Sphere. I also want to play the last two Shadow Hearts games.
I did not tell people to exploit the glitch. Where did I ever say that? The glitch can't be exploited, because it's extremely random and impractical. It requires having your save corrupted during crucial gameplay milestones like beating Arcade Mode or unlocking items in Ghost Battle. To exploit it would mean somehow forcing your 360 to crash while the game is auto-saving these moments, which isn't even guaranteed to work and will most likely just give you corrupted data. Not special "oh look, DLC" corrupted data. Just plain ole "my game is jacked up" data. I repeat, I did not advise people to attempt to recreate this glitch. I merely tried to help people whom had already encountered it.
@big_jon:
What am I leaving out? I explained how I thought the glitch worked. I explained how I don't think it can actually be exploited. There's literally no more information to share. I don't have any mods or hacks. I don't know what else you want me to say. What specifically do you want to know?
Edit:
@FlarePhoenix said:
Regardless, this isn't a case of an innocent customer getting screwed over by a big bad corporation. Even if he didn't purposely get the DLC himself, he was more than willing to exploit the glitch and keep the content. He was willing to take in the benefits, so I think he would also be willing to accept the consequences. Whether the consequences should be a permanent ban I'm not sure (I'm still not entirely convinced this is something that just happened by accident) but the original poster isn't completely innocent in this matter.You're inferring a bunch of evil hackery where there is none. How was I willing to exploit the glitch? And how did I "take in the benefits"? If you're saying I didn't immediately erase my save and pretend it didn't happen, then you're right. Sorry, but I have a whole lot of hours put into that game, and I'm not going to get rid of it just because of a glitch. Also, I already said that I wasn't banned permanently. It's only for two weeks. In the time it would take to finally get this thing resolved, if even possible, the ban would already be lifted normally, and I'd feel really silly about the whole thing.
I should also mention that the DLC in question is actually free. I'm not saying that to justify anything, just to put it into perspective. A few people mentioned the idea of "stealing DLC", but Namco isn't actually selling this content for money. They're just....not releasing it immediately for some reason. It starts rolling out October 9th, which is why I thought it was strange that my ban was only for two weeks, because it ends the same week that the DLC starts releasing. I'm not going to infer any meaning from that, but it is pretty weird. To me, anyway.
I'm really interested in finding people who actually have been unbanned. I've searched through that forum and I haven't found anyone who've succeeded, and most of the people there are in far worse situations than I. There're countless posts from parents who've put literally hundreds if not thousands of dollars into their children's accounts which are permabanned. All of them believe their kids are innocent, and all of them feel that Microsoft essentially robbed them of huge sums of money, which feels pretty damn scary when you think about it. I would love to find one of the few success stories from people who fought Xbox Live bans and hear how they got them resolved.
Also, I don't mean to be cynical, but I don't think the enforcement staff cares a whole lot about innocence. For example, there's a stickied thread in the banned accounts forum that documents the general flow of fraud cases where accounts have been hacked and banned due to activity from the hacker and not the rightful gamertag owner. According to the sticky, it's unrealistic to expect them to unban your account just because you were a victim of hacking, for some reasons they don't fully explain. Sorry, but after all that's happened and all I've read, I'm not going to assume that these guys have the best intentions at heart. But hey, if they're willing to talk to me, they're welcome to prove me wrong.
My first post was asking why I was banned, to which they said "Cheating", which wasn't even what the original email said ("exploiting and abusing glitches"). They also deleted that post from the forum. The second post I made was "Can you give me more details on how I was cheating? Also, if you can't provide me with the information I need, please get me in touch with someone who can." To which their reply was a kind of ambiguous "This forum is strictly for asking why and the duration for a ban, not to debate validity. The suspension will stand as issued." They completely ignored the part where I asked to speak to someone higher up personally. I made a third post asking, specifically, to speak to someone higher up, preferably over the phone, which gave me another automated email blowing me off.
My attempts at getting someone on the phone haven't worked either, because, according to the reps, there simply isn't anyone at any of the call centers who can access information on bans and suspensions. Of the three reps I spoke to, they all gave me the same response, "The forum is the only way to contact the enforcement team". Also, in the forum guidelines, they mention that the enforcement team isn't under obligation to actually respond to any of the questions given to them. The whole thing looks kind of shady to me, but maybe I'm just bitter. There's no direct email for the enforcement staff, their call centers can't direct me to anyone, and they refuse to answer my requests via the forums.
The roadblocks in place seem pretty damn strong at Microsoft for this kind of thing. Also, before anyone mentions "threaten legal action", that happens to be one of their "Do this and get deleted" bulletpoints in the FAQ. Also I'm not made of lawyer money.
I did manage to find a workaround that would give me back the time I'm losing from the suspension, so that's great. Big thanks to some extremely helpful chaps for that. Also, I found out some interesting things about online passes and DLC, unless this is just another weird Namco/TTT2 thing. I have two accounts on my 360, and the online pass for TTT2 works for both of them. The preorder DLC works on both as well, which seems really weird. I distinctly remember people getting upset because online passes were strictly tied to accounts, so family members couldn't play online using their own accounts without purchasing a new pass. In any case, I've been getting my Tekken fix using my spare account and I didn't lose my preorder stuff, and I was still able to play online (didn't have to re-pass).
Overall, I think this is probably the best this situation could have gone given the circumstances. I get my time back, I'm still playing Tekken, and my suspension isn't really that long, though it's still possible that I'll be flagged for cheating again when I get back on. Somehow, I'm not too worried about that anymore since I've only got about two months of Gold left anyway, and no intention of buying more.
So yeah, I guess that's my update. Thanks again for all the advice guys. I really appreciate it, even though things didn't go over too well.
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