Always Online DRM - A Rant

Yes, I know, there have been a lot of rants from me recently but what can I say? I'm in a ranting mood.

Yeah, always online DRM, those damn systems that keep us monitored to make sure we're not cheating and are playing a genuine copy of the game. Those systems that never really help anybody and only end up punishing legitimate customers and rewarding pirates.

FOV Sliders - A Rant

Anybody with a decent knowledge of good PC graphics options know exactly what this rant is going to involve, and rightly so.

For those who aren't aware, FOV stands for "field of view". Simply put, it's how much you can actually see on the screen at once, the higher the FOV, the more you can see.

A problem we have nowadays is that games just aren't getting FOV sliders added, we can end up stuck with a single default FOV that will not work for everybody.

Let me explain, FOV can cause issues, it has been proven. For some people, a low FOV can cause headaches and nausea, thus making some games pretty much unplayable for them. While some others do not actually become ill from such a thing it can still be incredibly irritating to have the camera in such an odd looking position.

It should be mandatory for developers making a first-person title to add a FOV slider to their game, simply to maintain the health of the players. I, myself have had issues with several titles with an obscenely low FOV that totally took me out of the experience. One game (Wolfenstein) had such a low FOV coupled with head-bob and motion blur that I started getting headaches from playing it.

That is just not acceptable.

Making a PC game with a locked FOV of around 65 should be downright prohibited, we are not console gamers that sit several meters from a TV, we have monitors close to our heads, we need a higher FOV. If given the choice I have every game at an FOV of 110, not 65.

This is a very short rant but it's ridiculous that some developers think it's okay to risk their players getting sick just because they can't incorporate a slider into their title.

If you have similar concerns, voice this to developers whenever possible, make sure they take the issue seriously and incorporate some way to change the field of view. If you're a developer yourself, be smart, add that dang slider for the good of everybody.

As always, thanks for reading.

Multiplayer Communication Options - A Rant

So, because PC gamers like myself have a keyboard whereas console gamers don't, we end up with more ways to communicate with other players. What I've noticed however is that we never seem to have additional methods of...not communicating.

If you check a game with VOIP support you'll probably find the option to mute other players so that you don't have to listen to anybody you would classify as annoying or whiny. But where is the option to disable the chat box? Individual players?

Anywhere?

The trap of day 1 DLC

Have you ever purchased a game on release and been made aware of some DLC you can purchase as well despite the fact that the game just released? Congratulations, you have encountered "Day 1 DLC".

My take on Game Addiction

We've all heard stories of "game addiction" haven't we? Somebody plays games obsessively and something bad happens as a result. I've seen stories ranging from people playing a game so long that they allegedly drop dead and parents that let their child die of hunger because of their Starcraft addiction.

 

This post here is about my take on "game addiction".