Today<\/h4>\n
Consoles that are always online are a nightmare.\u00a0 They allow publishers to rush games to market well ahead of when they’re ready, and then fix them later with patches.\u00a0 If you’re lucky.<\/p>\n
It took EA damn near a year to get Battlefield 4 up to a level I would consider playable.\u00a0 By that point I had long since given up.\u00a0 EA got my money–I got months of frustration.<\/p>\n
I just picked up Bloodborne, and the load times are atrocious<\/em>.\u00a0 This is a game where you are going to spend a lot of time dying; me, perhaps more than most.\u00a0 I loved Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, but played each using their “easy modes”–Royal and Pyromancer respectively.\u00a0 My play style in these types of games tends to be fighting from a distance, with heavy use of a shield in close quarters.\u00a0 So far in Bloodborne–there is no shield.\u00a0 I have to learn a new way to play, which is fine, but it is exceedingly difficult to learn from your mistakes when you are forced to wait 45 seconds between them.<\/p>\n That might not sound like a lot, but when you wait for 45 seconds, then spend 30 seconds running back to the place where you died only to be instantly killed again, you realize you are spending more time waiting<\/em> for your game than playing it.<\/p>\n Cram that pattern into a 15 minute gaming window and you have a recipe for disaster.\u00a0 I actually shut the game down–my only release-day gaming purchase in a year<\/em>–because all wonder–all sense of exploration–all excitement had drained away.\u00a0 I was angry and dismayed.<\/p>\n And this sensation is not a new one.<\/p>\n I refuse to pay to play online.\u00a0 I’m not sure if that’s my roots as a PC gamer where it’s always been free or my insistence on getting fair value for my dollar.\u00a0 In either case I was astounded that people would pay a monthly fee when Xbox Live was first introduced, but of course it went over like gang-busters.<\/p>\n To use your Xbox360 online you have to set up a Live account.\u00a0 You get Silver for free, and you pay for Gold.\u00a0 Initially it was teased that Silver accounts would be able to play online for free on weekends<\/em>, which seemed like a great option for casuals who couldn’t justify a monthly fee for something they would use so infrequently.<\/p>\n It never materialized.\u00a0 Instead, Microsoft kept clawing back content behind their paywall in an effort to increase subscriptions.\u00a0 Game demos began being delayed for Silver members, and online services like Netflix were introduced behind the Live paywall.<\/p>\n So you had to pay your ISP for internet access, Netflix for Netflix access, and then Microsoft<\/em> for access to the Netflix you’d paid for.<\/p>\n It was enough to shock and enrage any sane consumer, but of course they kept making money hand over fist because–and you’ll forgive me here–most people are sheep.<\/p>\n While Microsoft’s Xbox360 continued milking the golden goose of Live, a dash of hope appeared as Sony bucked the trend and allowed free online multiplayer with the PS3.<\/p>\n But it was not to be.\u00a0 The Xbox360 dominated and Sony could not ignore the revenue generated by their rival’s online paywall, joining them in a dressed up paywall of their own called PS+.<\/p>\n Of course PS+ includes a games rental service which is admittedly added value by comparison, but allows deluded consumers to tell themselves they aren’t paying for online gaming, but for “free games” instead.<\/p>\n At least now all the consoles can access third party apps like Netflix without an additional paywall, but Microsoft only let that one go because they couldn’t conceivably continue the practice after so much bad press.<\/p>\n I’m all for system updates that, forgive me, improve stability<\/a> or add new features, but internet connected consoles brought with them a whole new level of crazy; system updates that remove<\/em> features from your console.<\/p>\n When the PS3 was first hacked, Sony went scorched earth<\/em> and decided to do away with Linux support altogether.\u00a0 You were given a choice–either lose support for something your console did when you bought it and continue<\/em> playing games, or keep that capability and lose access to any game released from that point onward.\u00a0 What a “choice”.<\/p>\n I kept my console on the old firmware out of sheer principle.\u00a0 To allow a corporation to retroactively remove features from a product is a mind-boggling precedent, and yet it seems most consumer were like “Linux-what?\u00a0 Why would I care about that<\/em>?”.\u00a0 Big-picture thinkers they are not.<\/p>\n Besides, I’m a big supporter of homebrew, and there are some really amazing things you can do with a custom firmware (CFW) PS3.\u00a0 Backing up your games to play off a HDD, or better yet–your home network?\u00a0 Hellz yes.<\/p>\n PSHomebrew.net<\/a><\/strong> has become a ghost town Later I picked up a second PS3 used, for next to nothing.\u00a0 I didn’t want to reward Sony for their behaviour, but I wanted to continue supporting the developers of the games I enjoy.\u00a0 I bought most multi-plats on the Xbox360 anyway and I buy multiplayer games on PC.<\/p>\n System and game updates should have the option of being transparent and automatic.\u00a0 If you are going to force me to update my system to use the damned thing, then do it at 2am when I’m not gaming.\u00a0 An no, I should not have to pay<\/em> you for this feature; it should be built in and automatic.<\/p>\n I’ve lost count of the number of times a system or game update has devoured the tiny window I had set aside for “gaming”, that instead became “console maintenance”.\u00a0 Unacceptable.<\/p>\n And to all the corporate apologists who snarkily reply to make sure to run all the updates the day before<\/em> you intend on gaming I say “Really?<\/em>“.<\/p>\n Hey jackass, of course you can’t watch the World Series right now, you failed to set aside time the day before to run all the updates your television needs!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Come on son.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Coming to grips with getting older and forming a new perspective on gaming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,3],"tags":[23,25,27,26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"bloodborne_load\"](\"http:\/\/wiki.lillerant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/bloodborne_load.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Beginning<\/h4>\n
System Updates<\/h4>\n
\nNeoGAF’s CFW thread<\/a><\/strong> becomes semi-active around new developments
\nReBug CFW<\/a><\/strong> is actively developed–the CFW you want to use<\/p>\n