Listening to some of the chatter on the latest BSHAF about the site redesign, it seemed like snide and Jeff were more in favor of moving some of the friends stuff/ blog feeds, etc from profiles to the front page, as a way of answering cries to feature more community integration on the front page. This isn't exactly what I, and others were thinking of (of course, we don't know what the homepage will look like, I'm just going off of the chatter). Seeing as I have a copy of photoshop and can use the clone tool, I figured I'd mock up what I'd like, and what I think a bunch of my friends would like. Instead of floating friends stuff up, each site area gets it's own module, like reviews and guides and blawgs. These things can each be sorted in a few ways, including a handpicked "featured" category, which could be done either by the staff or by a dedicated user (Give blogs to Sweep, reviews to.. somone, guides to... someone... etc). Anyways, here are said mockups. Tell me what you think.
Executed properly, these modules could eliminate the need for a Friday Bomb Drop, in addition to featuring community content in a really slick way. Dunno if they'd be hard to code, but I think they'd work quite well. You could use them for blogs, guides, user reviews, forums (?), maybe more. If the homepage will bear any resemblance to the wiki and profile pages, I think these would work quite well.
I now know how film critics felt after screening 'The Godfather.
Andrew Reiner, Game Informer, regarding Grand Theft Auto IV
Chances are, unless you've been living under a rock for the past eight months, you've heard language like that tossed around almost every time GTAIV is brought up. Countless publications awarded it Game of the Year awards, and heaped praise on it's story. Recently, the Chicago Tribune asked if GTAIV is "The best writing of the century". Good lord. Grand Theft spun itself a good yarn with some great supporting characters, but in no situation should it be put up against classics such as The Godfather, or even called the best writing of the decade, let alone the century. The narrative in Grand Theft Auto IV fails in several key places:
The gameplay and story are incongruous
This is your primary way of interacting with the worldThis is the big one for me. If a game aims to tell a unique story, the gameplay needs to complement it. If your gameplay is ancillary to the story (Looking at you Force Unleashed), then your story would be better suited to another medium, and has no business as a game. Niko spends GTAIV whining about how he doesn't want to kill, and how he wants to make a new life for himself, but the game gives you positive reinforcement for shooting dudes in the face in the form of money, weapons, ammo, and fun gameplay. And I'm not talking about choosing to go on rampages through the city- the mission gameplay endorses this philosiphy. You want a hot new car? You have to steal it, even if you have more than enough money to buy it. Oh, you want to start anew? How about you actually do that instead of seeking out the local crime bosses and quickly ingratiating yourself to them. Need money? Let's go smoke some fools. Despite Niko saying he hates all of this, the game encourages you to do so by making it entertaining, something that goes against the characterization of Niko. By rewarding you to do things that are against Niko's philosiphy, the game undermines his character. This antithesis is at the heart of the problems with the story- it just doesn't complement the gameplay.
The characterization of Niko isn't multifaceted, it's schizophrenic
Niko has been hailed as a fantastically human character, and the thing that keeps GTA IV grounded- and away from the insanity of San Andreas or Saints Row. I agree, Niko is fun, but his character is hardly believeable, a consequence of having to make an entertaining game to go along with your tragic story. Niko complains about wanting to start a new life in America, and to leave his old ways behind. However, he ignores chance after chance to do this. At a point about halfway through the game, Niko has enough money to be set for life, and due to the way the game is structured he constantly severs all his criminal connections before gaining new ones. At any point between "mission tiers", Niko could easily give up the life and fulfill his dream. But that's not a fun game. The simple point is, Niko says one thing while he does another- and not because his character is painted as hypocritical, just because the dudes doing the story and the dudes doing the missions weren't on the same page.
The game stretches on and on and on...
This again, is the conflict of the medium and story. Grand Theft Auto games are known for their longevity, and since there isn't much to do outside of the story, Rockstar felt the need to extend the story missions as long as possible, which leads to the terribly forgettable Alderney missions. A compact story allows you to learn the characters, become attached, and witness an interesting window into their lives. GTA, which you need to really hustle to complete in 30 hours, takes the concept of a clear, concise story and throws it out the window, instead deciding to go through a tiered structure where it seems as if the story starts and stops erratically, as Niko takes the time to learn a new group of mission-givers, only to have them all killed off as soon as he earns their trust and things start to heat up. Once that tier of people is gone, we start back over with a new set of people- it's almost like an entirely new plot. This segmented approach is just awkward and really hurts the pacing and characterization.
The game doesn't have an important message
Roman's the closest thing there is to Niko's straight manGrand Theft Auto IV very, very badly wants to be a social commentary on the failure of the American Dream. It tries so hard to do this. But by the fact that Niko never even attempts anything besides crime you can't put any stock by the messages it preaches, except that crime pays, but will fuck you up good. By only dealing with the criminal fraternity and fringe elements of American society, it forfeits any right it may have had to make judgements about the average American and the validity of the American Dream. Although Niko's friends do provide a bit of a lens, they're all involved in some manner in Niko's dark dealings. GTA really wants to be a piece of social commentary, but as opposed to something like the Godfather, Grand Theft doesn't have the viewpoint of a character like Michael- Niko is, and always has been, a killer. All of Niko's friends are criminals, and all his bosses want people dead-even when he's working for the government. The game deals entirely with the seedy underworld of Liberty City, and with that in mind, it doesn't have much relevance to the average American- to come back to the Godfather again, GTA can't even manage that sort of relevance, because when the Godfather came out, people could still easily recall the Mafia, which was still quite prominent and relevant in popular culture. The Russian mob and immigrant crime syndicates are hardly well known in modern America. Regarding the immigrants, GTA misses an opportunity to make a statement on immigration as well. Niko comes off the boat, no problem, and integrates right into American society. He picks himself up a girlfriend right off, finds a group of people who don't at all care that he's an illegal Serbian immigrant, and has absolutely no trouble with the government. His immgrant experience is, essentially, flawless- except for a bit of culture shock. Most immigrants to America in this day and age have a much harder time of things, and GTA could have been a reflection of that. It wasn't.
In conclusion
The one moment from GTAIV that really stuck with me was the moment Niko confronts Darko about his betrayal. Niko asks how much Darko was paid to sell them out, and he answers $1000. Niko starts raging at Darko, angry about being sold out for so little. Darko simply responds: "How much do you charge to kill a man?", a line which so expertly connects the medium and the story, making you think back to every time you completed a mission, and saw that +$1000, or +$2000 in the top corner after taking someone out. That's the moment GTAIV truly succeeds, by masterfully linking the gamepay and story. However, throughout the rest of the product the division is painfully obvious and handicapping, with the juxtaposition of the story bemoaning the violence, and the gameplay and missions encouraging it. It's not a harmonious product, and that division seriously hurts the final experience. 39 Comments
So that looks like four parts to the DLC set, with the whole thing being worth 100 points. If each of these things is gonna be 100 points, they'll go over the 250 extra point limit. So either they're cutting back for the later releases, or Microsoft is relaxing restrictions on DLC achievements for everyone (Halo 3 will have 1750 points when the Mythic and the next map packs release). And one has to think that Bethesda has some more content planned after Broken Steel, so who knows?
Operation Anchorage releases on the 27th for 800 MSPoints.
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Following the fiasco at 1up, many of the departed editors mobilized to create their own projects, getting them announced quickly and setting up with amazing speed. Within less than a week of the story breaking, a new podcast had launched, a few websites have been created, and more plans are in the works. Two of these ventures, Eat-Sleep-Game (An extension of 1up FM and some of the younger 1up crew) and TalkingOrange (The 1up Show guys) both recently put out some feelers for donations to the community, not forcing anything or being too overbearing about it, but still asking for a little bit of charity, though they seemed understanding that they probably wouldn't get much.
Each of these venues has received over $11,000
Eleven thousand dollars each, and during the worst economic climate since the Great Depression.
I'm kind of a cynical bastard, but god damn you guys are awesome. This sort of stuff absolutely makes me proud to be a member of this community and really just makes me feel great to see people banding together to support all these guys who have just lost their jobs, and doing showing support in such a forceful manner. That's just... wow. A great example of the gamer community banding together and doing something really positive.
This is probably a bit late to be relevant, but it's something I want to address anyways. With the recent buyout of 1up from Ziff-Davis by UGO corporation, there were massive layoffs of many popular editors from that network of sites. Now, as I've been over before, people build up absurdly close relationships with the press personalities in this industry. With the loss of so many of these people in one swift decapitation, there was quite a bit of outrage across the internet. Most of it was directed at the buyer of 1up, UGO, who were blamed for this loss of talent. While UGO certainly isn't the best source on the web for your information, they're being demonized quite a bit more than their role in this merits. Ziff Davis and their videgame division have been in financial trouble for quite a long time, and 1up and EGM have been for sale for years. In an economic downturn like this, it was unlikely that Ziff could continue to justify 1up and EGM as profitable, and they would have seen complete closure or even worse cuts. Ziff's been bleeding talent for quite a while now, and they weren't too likely to survive for much longer, at least not in their current form. A buyout was probably 1up's saving grace, as it can continue to exist now, with at least a shell of it's former staff (EGM, well... print media). The proper way to look at this is UGO just saved 24 jobs, as opposed to firing 40 people. Yes, it's certainly a shame all those guys lost their jobs (They seem to have made quickrecoveriesthough), but the venom and blame is being unfairly shifted onto a company that probably saved this website from death- either direct closure from Ziff, or just a slow bleed-out of money and talent. Will it probably be the same caliber stuff? No, but at least it will continue to exist, and hopefully under better management than what the clowns at Ziff put it through over the past few years. 6 Comments
Here's another awesome show, continuing our trend, although this one is a bit newer. NBC's Chuck.
It's about a nerdy electronics store worker who gets a bunch of government secrets downloaded into his head and becomes a spy. Cool mix of action and comedy with fun characters and a bunch of nerd references. Also: attractive woman + Adam Baldwin (who was also in Firefly, now that I think of it). It's fun and I recommend it. There's not too much overarching continuity, so you can pretty much jump in wherever, although there are some plot elements and throwbacks that you would need to have seen earlier episodes for.
You may watch all the episodes from season 2 at Hulu, provided you are in the US. Season 1 can be gotten on DVD, or through less savory methods.
Any show that can successfully pull off a hot coffee reference is a winner in my book. Give it a whirl and/or tell me what you think about it.
You'll have to excuse me a bit of self-indulgence here, as it's a bit of a tangent from the normal material I write on. I understand a large number of you probably won't be interested in this at all (hence why I don't plan on posting it to the forums).
Anyways, glancing over at my guides page recently, I've noticed that I've been coming up on two big milestones recently: 20,000 views and 100,000 minutes viewed. It's already past 100,000 minutes, and I suspect it'll break 20,000 views in a day or two. So first off, thanks to everyone that took the time to view my content and I hope it helped. But this isn't really a self-indulgent thanks post.
Duckery: The act of being a duck, or performing duck-like actions. Forum moderator Hamz likes to go off about why people who write for comments or views are idiots. Now why exactly he has adopted this view is beyond me, but it's just flat-out wrong. I like to contribute to this website, either through blogs or guides or the forums on occasion. This is known. Now obviously, I don't troll in order to generate maximum responses, but I do like to try and put good, thought-provoking content out there. I could easily post a 360 vs. PS3 topic or blog and get a bajillion responses, instead of taking the time to be articulate and hit on more esoteric topics. And it's certainly not just me, a bunch of other users are the same way> I won't bother with shout outs, but I'm sure you know who they are.
Those people who do bother to do this, we don't do it for ourselves. We already think these thoughts, without having to write them down. If we just did this for ourselves, we would simply think these thoughts instead of bothering to transcribe them.The reason anyone puts content (regardless of medium), up into a public space is for feedback and for other people to enjoy it. You don't publish a book for yourself. If you have no interest in getting other people's thoughts on it, you stash the manuscript and just enoy it privately. Same thing applies to blogging or guides.
Me, jayge, systech, and natetodamax didn't write our Fallout 3 guide for ourselves. We all know that information. We put it out there so that someone plaing the game can perhaps get past a quest the were stuck on, or use it to find that unique weapon they're after. Sweep doesn't blog for his health. As he puts it:
i appreciate comments
Point is, no one puts something in the public space without wanting it to be seen and get feedback on it. Obviously comments and views aren't the be-all-end-all, but it's sure nice to see something you wrote sparking a discussion, or being appreciated. Even Mr. Hamz himself has been seeking hits and feedback recently, as you may have noticed. Those cats didn't write that guide so they could appreciate it. They wrote it for other people, and it's not serving it's purpose if it's not being seen.
Yes, there is certainly more to life than getting internet hits, I do realize this, contrary to popular belief. However, great as it feels to finish off a piece of work you kow is stellar, it's even better to get people critiquing and commending your work. Obviously you can write without anyone ever seeing it, but it's sure nice to know there's an audience out there who take the time to view and consider the content you take the time to put out there. We know this stuff, and put it up in the public space for you to consider it, and tell us your thoughts on the matter. It's not a matter of narcissism, it's simply the desire to share your content.
So thanks for the support guys, and on the note of having people check out your content, I recommend new Bomber Skrattybones' site, InsertCredits (and not just because he gave ourr Fallout guide a mention :P). Dude works hard at putting content up, and he deserves some more attention.
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