Paizo’s ORC May be Worse than the OGL?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/20/23 at 11:33 PM CT
The world of tabletop roleplaying has been thoroughly shaken-up in 2023, with the OGL debacle that has seen long-lasting tankage of Wizards of the Coast’s sales numbers, including their movie endeavors with “Honor Among Thieves.” In the aftermath of Wizards’ attempt at taking draconian control of tabletop gaming, numerous other options started crawling out of the woodwork. The last time Wizards tried this ploy, with the GSL and D&D 4th Edition, Paizo Publishing, the third-party printer who had been publishing Wizards’ Dungeon and Dragon magazines for years took the opportunity to bite the hand that fed them, resulting in the release of Pathfinder 1st Edition and a massive schism in the player community between the huge exodus of players fleeing official D&D for Pathfinder and the smaller number of players who insisted that D&D 4th Edition was somehow good.
Paizo is, of course, back at it, with their Pathfinder 2nd Edition. But not only that, the publisher has also …
What a Surprise! America’s Economic “Dynamism” Being Strangled by IP Rights
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/13/23 at 03:58 PM CT
This week, Fortune Magazine published a fantastic little article revealing the root of the United States’ economic woes. In a surprise to no one with two functioning synapses, it turns out that overweening copyright and Intellectual Property laws have been stifling economic ‘dynamism’ for the last 40 years.
Based primarily on the economic theory of a Turkish economist from the so-called Chicago School of economics, a man with the too-epic-for-English name of Ufuk Akcigit, the article opines that the American economy’s decades-long creep toward a small group of enormous business monopolies has edged-out a force known as “Creative Destruction,” which we have really only seen in recent decades in the form of the DotCom Bubble and the huge number of formerly-analog business services transforming into online-only things, but in the process further entrenching themselves as the only option in their respective sectors.
And how do businesses entrench themselves? Simple: …
Anita Sarkeesian’s Feminist Frequency is Broke and Shutting Down
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/06/23 at 02:55 PM CT
There’s a saying… something something Woke something something Broke. And it is being proven true with ever-increasing frequency as the general public – typically referred to as “Normies” – and dedicated fan communities for products, IPs, and/or hobbies have become fed up with the neverending torrent of bullshit raining down upon us from the Ivory Towers of Identity Politicians.
Thus is also the case for Anita Sarkeesian and her non-profit organization, “Feminist Frequency,” which was founded in response to the pushback she and likeminded 4th Wave Feminists received from the videogaming community immediately surrounding and in the aftermath of the GamerGate controversy, in which gaming nerds expressed anger at perceived corruption within Games Journalism, with some of the less well-adjusted nerds going so far as to issue a variety of toothless threats which were taken at face value. Of course, from its initial appearance, Gamers always knew that Feminist Frequency …
Backlog: The Embiggening – August, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/30/23 at 01:31 AM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! August is nearly here, and I’ve already gotten the worst gift possible. The very same day, I decided to pre-order the next volume of the “DragonLance Destinies” trilogy in spite of my trepidation about where this newest series will ultimately take my favorite High Fantasy campaign setting. Let’s see if the Games Industry has anything that will make me feel any happier… I doubt it.
There’s quite a bit of shovelware coming in August, and it covers all three subcategories of crap. In the Licensed Swill category, we’ve got an ‘Agatha Christie’ tie-in, “Smurfs Kart” (Do today’s kids even know what a Smurf is?), a licensed tie-in for “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” Horror movie IP, and “House Flipper: Pets Edition,” which is either based on the “House Flipper” reality TV show or should have a different name to avoid confusion. In the 2Cazul category, there’s a new entry in Sega’s …
Google Wants to DRM the Whole INTERNET?!
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/23/23 at 01:26 AM CT
Back in the Spring of the Plague Year 2020, I warned of major players in the corporate Games Industry attempting to smuggle Digital Rights Management schemes – a.k.a., DRM – into our modern games under the guise of ‘protecting’ law-abiding players from evil, filthy hackers and cheaters. Unfortunately, there was no line drawn in the sand by the gaming community, what with the confluence of a global pandemic, race riots, and the start of a new presidential administration.
Now, there’s an even worse ‘DRM as protection’ scheme on the horizon. It’s being pushed by none other than the aging search/advertising giant, Google, and its target is the ENTIRE Internet.
Web 3.0 has been in the planning and speculation stages for quite a few years now, and the brief explosion of blockchain technology revolving around cryptocurrencies lead tech journalism to the belief that Web 3.0 would provide each individual user with significantly greater privacy, security, and control …
Incarnon Geneses I’d Love to See
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/15/23 at 07:37 PM CT
Recently, in their “The Duviri Paradox” update, Canadian-based, Chinese-(partly)-owned developer, Digital Extremes, revitalized the weapon ecosystem in their decade-running Live Service shooter, “Warframe” with the addition of Incarnon Genesis Adapters, which can be earned for a specific subset of ‘old, unused’ weapons in a rotating selection that changes each week. Digital Extremes has tried in the past to revitalize the old, underperforming weapons that make up a huge portion of the “Warframe” arsenal numerous times. First, they release Prime variants of a huge number of weapons, often boosting stats to be a bit less anemic compared to the original… but sometimes changing nothing, even for a terrible weapon. Next, they tried Syndicate variant weapons and Syndicate mods, often with revamped stats, but always with an exclusive, intrinsic effect outside of the weapon’s standard mode of operation. After that, it was the Riven Mod system, by which players could grind …
The Best Warframes for Any Situation
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/09/23 at 05:35 PM CT
Recently, I’ve shared some of the best weapon choices for players looking to break into “Warframe’s” endgame content. Of course, the titular warframes are just as important, and serve as they keystone in a player’s loadout. Each ‘frame comes with 4 unique active abilities plus a passive, with a huge variety available across 53 unique discrete options (most of which also have power-crept Prime variants). Here’s a short list of the top 5 warframes and where they’re the most useful.
1. Khora (Prime)
Khora is a spider/cat-lady themed warframe who can really act as a Swiss army knife for nearly every in-game situation. She can bring two companions into battle, thanks to her passive ability being a unique Kavat named Venari, who, unlike most Kavats (or beast pets in general) can cycle between three different stances to provide offense, defense, or healing, as needed. Aside from the pet-stravaganza, Khora also features extremely useful crow-control abilities, with …
Backlog: The Embiggening – July, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/02/23 at 12:31 AM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! As July rolls is, there’s still a lot of games being released. Has the start of the Summer Games Drought been pushed back yet again? Let’s dive into the dumpster and see what we can find!
There’s not much shovelware to speak of for July. I kinda stretched it a bit to get to three. There is, of course, a Licensed game by *dry-heave* Disney, called “Disney Illusion Island” (perhaps ‘Delusion Island’ would have been more appropriate). There’s also a Licensed game based on… whatever this is, “Ninja Kidz: Time Masters.” Then there are two episodes in the super-casual non-game, “Coffee Talk.”
Unfortunately, there are three times as many ports, remasters, remakes, and other rehashes than shovelware. Does that make ports the new shovelware? Well, rhetorically, since the trend of more ports than new releases has been going on for the better part of a decade already. Anyway, you know the routine by now: The …
Microsoft Admits What We’ve Known All Along
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/25/23 at 03:33 PM CT
The theatrics and drama revolving around Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard-King just got a little bit Truthy. In response to Sony’s insistence that losing the third-party support of the conglomerate publisher Microsoft wishes to buy, the Big M pulled out an argument that gamers have always known to be true: Microsoft has lost the Console Wars.
In an apparent attempt to paint itself as “The Little Guy” struggling in last place with a meager 16% of the console market (which, as an unrelated aside, is still 3-4 percentage points higher than he proportion of Negros in the American population), Microsoft actually admitted that Nintendo and Sony completely dominate, leaving the House of Gates to pick at scraps. We’ve known Xbox is a joke since the very beginning, though. While a handful of Xbox fanboys – and Xbox boss, Phil Spencer – continually deflect and avoid the topic when confronted with Xbox’s legacy of gaming failure, nothing can cover up the fact …
More Suggested Picks to Take Your “Warframe” Loadout Over the Top
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/17/23 at 06:19 PM CT
Last year, I gave a short list of my top picks for the best-in-class weapons in each major category in Digital Extremes’ long-running Live Service MMO-Shooter, “Warframe.” Of course, because it’s a Live Service, the game is always getting a stream of patches, balance tweaks, and new content. That means the goalposts are always moving. Unfortunately for fans of big explosions, Digital Extremes went a bit overboard in attempting to nerf last year’s meta-game environment that relied heavily on explosive area-of-effect weapons. Fortunately for readers of this blog, none of my top picks from last year were affected much by the Nerf Mallet – though it was pretty touch-and-go for a week or so, when Digital Extremes also over-nerfed regenerating ammo guns like the Fulmin and Bubonico, before ultimately rolling back those changes.
This time around, we’ve got several new content expansions to consider, specifically the ‘Angels of the Zariman’ questline and the most recent …
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