june gloom on 6/1/2010 at 19:36
Sloppy programming? Oh for fuck's sake. Most 5-button mice worth buying come with or are compatible with programs that let you remap buttons however you like. Not having the use of all five buttons (which, as mentioned, is easily worked around) is not a gamebreaking fault, it is not sloppy programming, and it most certainly is not a sign of consolitis. If you want modern games to allow all your buttons to be bound in-game as opposed to using a third-party program, then get on the developers' forums and tell them. Don't sit here and stroke your neckbeard and rail against "developer apologists" and "consolitis" because your expensive peripheral hasn't reached ubiquity yet. All that does is make you look like a stereotype.
Nameless Voice on 6/1/2010 at 19:37
Um, I never said it was a sign of consolitis. EU02 might have. I just said it was mildly annoying, and that the developers should really think of such things these days.
june gloom on 6/1/2010 at 19:39
Oh you fucking know well what I meant, but go ahead and not actually answer my post on its own merits if that really makes you feel better.
Ulukai on 6/1/2010 at 20:23
Torchlight automatically gets both my best and worst of 2009 award, because it's the only 2009 PC game I bought.
Never realised it was actually created by the ex-Blizzard Diablo guys until recently though, which explains a lot.
Muzman on 6/1/2010 at 21:12
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Can you name one example in recent years where cross-platform development has severely harmed, or even broken, the PC version of a game?
Contentious flamewar bait: Bioshock. ok, sure; "broken"? Definitely not. "
Severely harmed"? Not really. But I still reckon "harmed" is fair and that was enough to turn me off. The squishy controls and dodgy spacial audio rendering and various other alientating factors are, I wager, a result of them not giving a rat's about the off-TV/couch experience.
It's true though, cross platform development has gotten better. Mirror's Edge might be a good example. I'd swear the controls needed for a game like that just wouldn't work on console. But people assure me it's not the case at all. (admittedly it's not all loaded with interactivity and inventories etc which people often hold up as the real difference between platforms. I usually start with the feel of it.)
ercles on 6/1/2010 at 22:15
I don't see how poor spacial audio rendering panders to a "console" audience. I, along with most people I know play their consoles in a room equipped with 5.1 surround sound speakers. Even if you don't use surround sound, what does a developer stand to gain from selling short on audio design?
june gloom on 6/1/2010 at 22:25
Also, this thing about leaning is getting old. Seriously guys, is it really that important that you be able to lean? Half the time it's not even done well at all anyway. Unless you're playing a game with stealth elements, lack of leaning is hardly a gamebreaker.
Nameless Voice on 6/1/2010 at 22:41
Quote Posted by dethtoll
go ahead and not actually answer my post on its own merits if that really makes you feel better.
Yes, you can usually install some third-party mouse driver which allows you to assign your extra mouse buttons to act like a key. I'm sure it breaks the mouse's standard usage in Windows (e.g. backwards, forwards), though. And I don't think you should
have to do it for modern games.
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Unless you're playing a game with stealth elements, lack of leaning is hardly a gamebreaker.
Things can be bad without being a gamebreaker. Lack of leaning is, again, a minor annoyance, and then only depending on the game in question (e.g. it would have been quite useful in DX:IW). And yes, other game implement leaning so badly that it's pointless, mostly titling the player's view to the side without any actual sideways movement (I seem to recall both F.E.A.R. and CoC: DCotE had useless leaning like this).
But the point is that small annoyances aren't gamebreakers, but they can make the game less fun, and too many of them can add up to become major annoyances.
june gloom on 7/1/2010 at 00:39
Some of these shouldn't even be minor annoyances. Especially the mouse thing, I mean what the fuck? Like I said, 5-button mice are not ubiquitous (I don't have the numbers but I doubt even a large percentage of gamers own one) and until they are, complaining that X game doesn't support yours just makes you seem whiny.
Nameless Voice on 7/1/2010 at 01:13
Quote Posted by dethtoll
complaining that X game doesn't support yours just makes you seem whiny.
But isn't that the whole point of consoles? The specs and controls are standardised, so that games that work on a console should work perfectly for everyone who has that console. Whereas PCs have the issue of having such a large variety of possible components and devices, where it's impossible to guarantee that a game will work with all of them.
As an aside, I don't have any kind of fancy gaming mouse, just a fairly cheap but workable wireless mouse. A lot of mice these days do seem to have five buttons, and a quick search for "gaming mouse" on eBay shows that a lot of gaming mice do indeed have five (or more) buttons, which suggests to be that five-button mice are fairly common.
I don't even use them that much in games, but like to use them a lot for the go back/forwards functionality that they have web browsers and Windows Explorer. I'll also admit that I purposefully picked a 5-button mouse over other options because my previous mouse had five buttons and I liked having them.
But a game not having support for five buttons isn't much of an issue for me, personally. I think that games
should support them, but it's no biggie.
