Ross Scott

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Hear the truth about 3D! I've had very mixed feelings about 3D stuff for a long time now and haven't heard any sharing my views, most people seem polarized on it one way or the other; so I wanted to set the record straight as I see it. This may become part of a larger "Ross Rants" series where I pick topics that I really have a lot to say about (and are worth talking about) and go at it. People are welcome to suggest topics they'd like to hear me tear apart as well. This video is coming about a week later than I intended it to since just about everything that could have gone wrong, did. I had to redo the entire recording session, I learned horrible secrets about my camcorder, and getting games from 15 years ago to run ended up being a lengthy challenge in some cases. If I do continue this series, I doubt I'll have as many visual aides as are in this video, but I do hope to improve the video quality in the future. As it stands, I look more like a Star Wars hologram than anything. LINK TO COMMENTS

I agree mostly, actually. I don't know if I was clear in my original post but I certainly wasn't supporting the system in place. Or even criticising your video, actually, more the idea that there's some kind of easy legal solution to this whole thing. Not mentioned in the video, but its a sentiment I see way too much around the internet. On the topic of gamers being easily decieved, I'd actually go as far to say that the entire foundation of "Gamers" as a culture is wasting excessive amounts of money. You can't really have a unified culture based around just a medium, so like with literature and film the "Gamer" culture caters mostly to snobs with money to burn. I shake my head at the people who spend upwards of $100 on a new edition of a common classic book the same way I shake my head at people who buy online-only games then act surprised when they get shut down. I don't even like to use the word Gamer anymore since it connects to so much idiotic baggage these days. I think more discourse should be spent on why people are willing to support a culture like this, but I suppose that topic is rather complicated and goes way beyond the scope of game reviews. Though for what its worth I consider one of the main attractions of your videos to be your willingness to comment on issues most reviewers act like are unrelated to the topic. Given how much flak political stuff gets on the internet these days I imagine making some kind of politics-oriented series isn't very attractive anyway. Well the biggest barriers to having the law changed are the encroachment of big money interests in our current systems and the inability of gamers caring enough or being savvy enough to change it. Just because someone can reverse engineer code doesn't mean they know how to gain any influence in Washington D.C. As for theoretical barriers, as with anything, I think if there was enough legal pressure to have the law changed, we would find an adequate solution. I mean how's this for a simple law: Make it mandatory to provide all customers a full refund if they cannot run the game due to reliance on a server that the company has shut down for X time (say 6 months). That means if a company wanted to shut down a game, they damn sure better have SOME sort of patch, otherwise they would literally risk all gross income made from the game. The law wouldn't have to get any more complex than that, the companies themselves would find the solutions. That would cause companies developing online-only games to treat the expenditure as seriously as it should be taken. As for your perception of gamers, that might be true for what gets the most attention media-wise, but I'm WAY behind the curve in terms of money invested. My interest in older games means I could likely find games to play for years without spending a dime, on a very meager system also. While I of course am interested in newer ones some that require more overhead, I just about never touch brand new games because the costs just never justify for it me. I really see games as exploding in every different direction nowadays, so that anyone with interest in it can find something they might like at just a bare minimum cost.

I may be a little late on that afterall, but it's not far behind. You should post this in the follow-up episode thread instead.

Wow, thanks for the comment! I hope I got the crediting right on reverse engineering it. I knew there was a lot of porting work done later on, but the Vavoom guy was the very first person I knew of who did it (I was desperately hoping for a Strife port many years back since I wanted mouse aiming) and shared his work afterwards. Going back and playing it, I honestly can't put my finger on what exactly I like so much about it. I mean the voice acting is a definite part of it, and the plot is interesting, but something about that game really feels like its own world, compared to a lot of other games which feel more staged. Also I actually had an original copy of the game, you don't get the video intro in the abandonware copy!

Somebody can probably put this into better words than I can, but my mentality is this issue transcends "inherent risk" or not a "good deal", because it's active destruction of culture. It illicits a shock reaction out of me, similar to what I would feel if I saw somebody burning an original painting. Left unrestrained, the free market can operate in a largely socipathic nature. This isn't something as obvious as a public safety issue where it's apparent to everyone that the practice needs to be banned, thus we have no protections against it. It's folly to assume that consumers are well informed about this. I've seen videos of people breaking down in tears over Star Wars Galaxies being shut down. People like that clearly are not prepared at all for a game being shut down. Or hell, from Battleforge: "I enjoyed this game for 3 years, but if I knew they would close this game after 4 I wouldn't have invested a single second in it" Gamers (as a whole) are some of the most easily deceived consumers out there unfortunately, ranking a little better than illicit drug users. If they weren't, we wouldn't have encroachments of microtransactions on a full-priced game, literally selling a game ending as DLC, or killing games. I think any study will show the VAST majority of gamers do not WANT these anti-consumer practices, they're just tolerated because consumers are either ignorant, or are so interested in the unique entertainment that they buy them in SPITE of the practices. Again, someone else can probably state this better than I can, but I see these practices as setting the worst precedent imagineable for the art / entertainment world. It says that it's mandated to simply destroy culture by design, which I can't see as anything other than dystopian. Like you said, there's no legal ground to basis this one (except maybe predatory practices), but I'm simply unable to see this practice as acceptable. Venting with this video is about all I can do Wow, wasn't aware he watched any of my videos.

Really? I thought the physics would typically be client-side since1. That can vastly reduce the load on the server 2. Most of the time physics are effects that don't effect the actual gameplay (clippable ragdolls, particle effects, etc.). So if your explosion looks a little different to you than others, that typically doesn't matter. Most of the at-risk online games are MMOs, where physics don't get too heavy except for effects. In something like World of Warcraft, you don't even have ragdoll physics, and instead a stock animation would be played when an enemy dies. I think the most the server would do is verify the location of the body. Some non-typical MMO games that come to mind for online only are Planetside 2, World of Tanks, Path of Exile, Diablo 3. For something like Planetside, I'd be surprised if the physics are done server-side. If you throw a grenade that bounces, does the client calculate that, then the server verifies the path? I found this thread, and they seem to think that it's clientside. Path of Exile has been famous for "desync" which makes me think that could be a client-side thing, though I could be wronng. My guess is SOME physics are done on the server, but I would think not the bulk of it.

Well, you are assuming they would want to use the same exact middleware. While it IS more faithful to the original, sometimes it's simpler or even better to replace the module with something else. Let's say that the developers wanted to use Havok as their physics engine. By removing it and releasing the source code, the modders might be want to be unfaithful and use another physics engine, which may be a hypothetical free iteration of Havok, or another physics engine which might be open source. Now, this is stepping into mod territory from total preservation territory, but if that's the only way of keeping at least some aspect of the game alive, I'm fine with it. Heck, if there's a community for that game after some time went by, they might even improve upon it with some tinkering and state-of-the-art software. That's opening a previously unmodifiable game up for total modding, and that's a pretty big stride. Well I admit middleware can be an issue I overlooked, but I doubt stuff like Havok or RAD game tools, I'm talking about JUST getting server emulation functional again, which I would think would cut down on the amount of source that needs to be released (and middleware in use). I mean things like physics and animations are typically handled client-side. Also true preservation would be impossible for some of these games anyway. I guess I agree that this isn't as cut and dried as it could be (that's what followup episodes are for), however, we're still doing NOTHING v. releasing SOME code, SOME documents. We seem to be on the same page anyway that some sort of law regarding this would cut through a lot of the where this becomes a liability of the company bringing in money rather than the people paying for it. Again, my reasoning revolves around the game dying being unacceptable and works its way out from there. Any scenario that leads to a commercial game still being killed intentionally I see as one that needs to be changed.

This was literally my first thought: qqmNaOn56mc

I think we're having a communication problem. You're literally describing the exact opposite scenario I was condoning: I was saying rip out the middleware (as in remove it from what you do distribute), then pass on the source code that your company did write for tinkerers of the dying game. Even then, it would be for noncommercial use only. Ah, yeah we may be having a communication issue. My thoughts were a bit mixed up when I said that - here's what I meant: Let's assume you are a modder trying to bring the game back to life, and the game's developers have given you the code (but without any of the middleware). If you wished to, you could theoretically rip the middleware machine code out of the server executable and plug it into the game, which would allow the game to work (with a bit of patching up), but importantly you wouldn't need to code a replacement for the middleware itself. However, such a practise is illegal if you wish to actually share the modified executable with other players - which means that creating a modified version of the game that is standalone is actually very difficult, even with the source code to non-middleware-related parts. I was talking about the programmer's options when trying to revive the game's standpoint when given only source to the game without middleware, not the company's options for releasing the source. I could be completely off base here, but I recall mods in the past where they would say "you need to download and install X,Y,Z THEN run the mod script in order for the mod to work". The idea being that their mod depended on 3rd party tools or middleware that they couldn't legally distribute, but they streamlined it as much as possible if you were willing to get the external software yourself. Could programmers take a similar approach if they were given the code to a game (and knew it used specific middleware) where the developers can't give them everything, but programmers could take the additional steps to acquire the middleware on their own? EDIT: Another thing is it's very unlikely the exact same code would be suitable at all. Scaling down your game for thousands of people meant to run on a server farm to dozens on a single server might require a rewrite of all kinds of things, but I would think the more information the fans have access to, the more of a headstart they can get trying to replicate similar functionality.

[/quote[ I think we're having a communication problem. You're literally describing the exact opposite scenario I was condoning: I was saying rip out the middleware (as in remove it from what you do distribute), then pass on the source code that your company did write for tinkerers of the dying game. Even then, it would be for noncommercial use only. I'm still not certain how common a scenario this would be to release server source code, but you may have a point in that would be a dead scenario. But then that makes the necessity for some sort of law all the more relevant. I keep thinking back to the Xbox One releases where Major Nelson chided Angry Joe saying that removing the online only requirement was impossible, then lo and behold that's what happened once it became apparent it was going to be a suicide move. Companies can adapt and make things happen if they have an incentive to. Right now they have no tangible incentive, that's why a law or completely different climate is needed. Whatever we're doing now is not only not working, it's encouraging this behavior.

They're all either from the Battleforge or NFS World soundtrack. Metalforge was the end credits track, not included in the official soundtrack, but part of a free download EA had. NFS World OST: America's 2nd biggest employer! I actually cut a lot out of this episode because it was getting way too bitter. That's a story in itself, I'll probably save it for a follow-up later on. Hell, this one gets me worked up. First off, I want to be 100% clear on one point: I am in no way advocating that the company give up their IP in this situation. I think that would be a little ridiculous. Just because a game flops doesn't mean you can't try again later or sell it off and they shouldn't have to yield that. I was ONLY talking about the dead TITLE itself. If you saw the previous video, I mentioned that I wasn't sure if this one counted as evil or not. I think if you're not a gamer and simply don't play games, it's hard to argue this is evil, since there is zero harm being done to you. If you like games however, it's basically the worst thing you can do to a gamer. As for your argument, I feel you WOULD have a point if the game hadn't been designed to die from the get-go. I don't think companies should have to run a server forever, nor do I feel like they need to support a game forever. Those take resources. However, when your game is DESIGNED this way, knowing this is the end-game for it, then it becomes a deliberate act that is harmful to gamers. This stuff isn't an accident is the point. It's like if I'm driving a bus full of passengers and I KNOW I'm going to fall asleep at some point during the trip because I'm tired. Going ahead with it anyway would be criminal negligence at best. Now obviously that's an extreme example, but doing this with the intent that it will die I see as a form of malice for gamers. "Not my problem" only applies when you didn't actually CREATE the problem, let alone profited off it. Again, releasing the source is sort of a contingency plan if everything else has gone wrong, and again, I'm NOT advocating relinquishing the IP. Hell, Valve released most of the relevant source code to Half-Life 2 on release, and their IP is still pretty damn strong. The BEST scenario is to have a failsafe option built into design. So if the server dies, you're ready and release the patch. The second best is to have enough resources to give a server patch and withdraw support, but keep selling the game. The source code release is if EVERYTHING fucked up. You didn't plan for it, you don't have the resources to make a patch, so here you go, here's the best we can do under the circumstances to save the game and make good to paying customers. Like I said in the video, I'm the extremist. I feel NO game should be intentionally killed. NONE. So if a company plans for it, great. If they don't, they can still do things. But at some point, a line has to be drawn somewhere to not kill the damn game. Well I did say RELEVANT source. The idea here is if devs are actively going to kill a game that people paid for a game, they need to try and throw people a bone. I think it's unethical to create media with some artistic merit to it that's designed to die otherwise. So yeah, maybe you can't mod the game to have raining elephants, but they can't even be bothered to release enough code to get a private emulator up from the ashes, even though the game was in development for years and they took money from people this entire time? The bottom line is this is an absolutely preventable situation that no developer or gamer wants and if it was ENFORCED, companies would find a way to make solutions happen or they wouldn't do it in the first place.

He'll read it, but it may take some time. Or you can just PM him or email him, or PM HLprincess eho is far more active than Ross, she'll deliver the message. For the record, I MAY miss posts in here, I can get overwhelmed. Email is the best way to make sure I'll see what you have to say (though the responses can be very slow sometimes).

No it wouldn't. I would say up front that everything I'm reporting is heresay and unverified (unless someone didn't want to be anonymous). So this wouldn't be verified fact, just testimonials that are very probable to be true. EA has mismanaged a lot of companies too, I think it's a dead heat competition between them and Activision. I would argue this stuff is bad, but not evil because (for the most part), their INTENTION wasn't to screw everyone involved. It's just really gross incompetence. I'm calling bullshit man. In the eyes of the law, that IS still piracy and technically illegal (unless you have a source stating otherwise). However, that won't be ENFORCED by anyone except maybe some sort of copyright troll company. In the eyes of the law (USA at least), "abandonware" doesn't exist. Piracy isn't acceptable under any scenario. Awesome, I wasn't familiar with him. I checked out his Youtube channel, some of his tracks nail the tone, others seem to be not so great, so it's definitely a mix. his Teen Agent Prison mix is great.

Yeah this crap is scary. My guess is they'll probably regret it later on, but who knows, maybe it's this weird dystopian shift. I don't know, a lot of the evening and night scenes looked decent to me. I think it was literally just an issue of using the wrong colors. Nobody likes cancellations, but those can happen for all kinds of reasons. As for PT, I don't like seeing any game die, however this is one reason I'm kind of anti-console nowadays. It's not that I don't think people shouldn't have the functionality and convenience of a console, they should, it's that I don't think companies should be in that sort of position where they can kill games at a the press of a button. With old consoles that would never happen, new consoles you have stuff like P.T. I'm generally against anything that allows companies to kill games.

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Subtitles: English Here's a new episode that's been a while in the making! I actually started on this as soon as I finished the last episode, so I'm behind on seeing what all the responses to that one were. I was working pretty hard to get this episode up today for reasons you'll find out. This is easily my most "dramatic" episode so far, but it's not a trend I plan on continuing. This episode actually contains more that I edited out of it than any other episode since while writing and recording, I noticed the tone of it kept veering in a direction I didn't want, but I'm pretty happy with how it finally turned out. In any event, I'm sure this one will spark some interesting discussion! Expect another experimental video later this month with two more in the works (but no set release dates). EDIT: I may be late on the other video I was planning for this month, but it's not far behind. LINK TO COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » I meant to have this out a few days ago, but it went up the same day as the last video. This is a recent video interview I had with the Youtube channel Valve News Network. The guy running it (Tyler McVicker) isn't actually a representative of Valve, but he covers a lot of news related to it. He asked me an array of questions that aren't typically covered in others, including many from fans of his channel. I haven't had a chance to look at what it was edited down to since I've been very busy on the next video, but feel free to check it out: Part 1: aW67y9e1WLo Part 2: O3CkESYDR4A LINK TO COMMENTS

Yeah, I plan to after I get a couple more videos out. That's another video to make in itself though, so one step at a time.

Here's the first followup episode to Ross's Game Dungeon! I knew this would take a lot of work, and it did. This definitely is towards the top in the amount of editing time involved, but I'm relatively happy with how it came out and it hopefully puts a lot of burning questions and comments to rest. I was originally hoping to get this episode out a week ago, since it kind of leads into a major one coming up soon. You can expect the next Game Dungeon in less than a week assuming nothing catastrophic happens. After that I'll be trying to get some new experimental videos out for a while and hopefully get into enough of a groove to get more work done on the movie.

I haven't been involved with the forums nearly as much as I would prefer to, so it's possible I've missed things. I admit though, I very rarely look at the FFA section however. Feel free to cite concrete examples of posts you think warrant kicking or a ban. I'm sure someone can think of an example, but if somebody is being civil and isn't obviously trolling, I can't think of many opinions that would warrant banning. Again, list everything you can think of. I'm not some enlightened deity that has a master plan with everything. I'm more like a captain steering a ship with a monkey wrench because the wheel fell off and keep running back between the helm and down below to alternate between steering and repairing a hull breach. I'm also fine with adding more moderators if people think there are good candidates, though I tend to prefer people with a more even temperament for that role.

This is another "I'm still doing things" update since I know it's been a little while since the last video. I'm simultaneously working on three different videos. One is another experimental one (which will probably be next), the others are Game Dungeon episodes. The next Game Dungeon will be the first follow-up episode, then I have another one planned for mid-July that's been a long time in the making. Besides that I'm hoping to get two more experimental shows off the ground, one of which will almost certainly be next month. Being busy with the videos is most of what I'm up to nowadays, you can pretty much assume that whenever there are long gaps of silence from me.