The ANGST thread: Complain here!

[ShadowBrain]

I have had it with these motherf--king black flies in my motherf--king Chardonnay!

[Turtlekid1]

My neck!

PAAAAAAIN

[ShadowBrain]

Anyway, I knew it was only a matter of time, but I found where the ED backup torrents are! Do I dare...?

[CrossEyed7]

I'm getting really sick of GLADoS making me play her song every time I play Audiosurf. It would've been cool the first time if I'd cared about Portal, but it lost any possible positive effect after the first time, and it is far too intrusive of an ad to force on me every time I play a game I paid for.

Portal is dangerously close to going on my Napoleon Dynamite list.

[WarpRattler]

1. GLaDOS.
2. Why don't you care about Portal?
3. The Potato Sack promo ends in less than five hours. Presumably the ARG content will go away at that time as well.


I'm annoyed at eBay right now because the reserve system is retarded. The way it is right now, the normal system for max bids (you set a max bid and it automatically bids up to that amount if someone else places a bid) is still in place even if there's a reserve, so I'm sitting at a bid of $1.29 on an auction where the reserve isn't met. Which means there's probably no chance of me actually being able to win the auction.

A better design would involve it automatically placing your given max bid if the reserve hasn't been met. Or reserves not existing.

[CrossEyed7]

I freakin' love General Tso's chicken, but when I open up that book that says Children of the Mind on it, I want to read a book by Orson Scott Card, not look at pictures of delicious chicken.

However, in that actual example, I wouldn't really mind that much, since the book in question is in fact a library book which I am reading for free. I'd be willing to accept ads in library books. Audiosurf, however, is a game that I paid money for. Granted, it was on sale, but still, I paid for the full version of the game. And I'm being subjected to an ad for an unrelated game every time I play it.

What really gets me is the implicit hypocrisy. Us gamers are supposed to despise ads with every fiber of our being because they remind us that Republicans are right about capitalism, and a special circle of gamer hell is reserved for ads inserted against our will and/or without our knowledge into games that we paid for -- even when they don't directly interfere with gameplay (which this one does) and are optional (which this one isn't). So why does Portal get a free pass? If this were an ad for Microsoft or the Kardashians or Christianity or Mountain Dew or one of those other non-indie things that we're supposed to hate, there would be riots in the streets. FREAKIN' RIOTS I TELL YOU.

Actually, what actually really gets me is that it's a sucky ad. Either record more than one voice clip or only do it once. Whether or not it was effective the first time, it will be annoying the second time, and every time onward.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm just really really sick of cake jokes. Screw you, gLADOS.

[Turtlekid1]

That's a really awesome post and everything, but that first metaphor you used was very bad for your argument because if the others reading this are like me then all they'll be able to think about while they read it is General Tso's chicken.

[CrossEyed7]

By the way, I'm friending a bunch of you in Steam right now, so you better all add me. (Is there a topic for that somewhere? I don't know.) And you better have the same taste in music as me so we can fight in Audiosurf.

My name in there is CrossEyed7. Don't forget it.

Also some of you have different names there than here, so maybe you should add me yourself so I know you're you.

[Turtlekid1]

Hey, at just $5 I might just pick Audiosurf up.

[WarpRattler]

Audiosurf loses a lot of its novelty fast, and it's been on sale for less than $5 several times anyway. You'd be better off waiting for the summer sale to get it in a $5 pack with four other games, or for $2.50 by itself, or whatever happens this year.

Defense Grid: The Awakening, on the other hand, is definitely worth $5.

[WarpRattler]

Also, to respond to your arguments, CrossEyed:

RE: having paid for Audiosurf and having to deal with an ad for another game whenever you play it: I'm guessing from your displayed playtime and from when you earned achievements that you bought it during the Potato Sack sale, which was Portal-related. So you're complaining that there was a Portal ad in a game you paid for during a sale that was specifically designed to advertise Portal.

RE: why Valve gets away with this stuff: If it were any of those things you mentioned, it'd be done solely using their own products. Valve, in the course of this whole campaign, not only advertised their own game (that was guaranteed to be a huge seller anyway), but also helped promote the games of several other, much smaller companies, and in doing so helped introduce a great deal of brand-new and highly-enjoyable content to most of the games involved. Look at The Ball, which featured a new campaign in which you progressed through ruined versions of several of the test chambers from Portal, or Defense Grid, which was given two brand-new maps (one of which featured brand-new dialogue for both GLaDOS and the game's own cynical AI) and a couple of neat little minigames. Many of the other games featured similar (though less expansive) additions. And all of this was entirely free content added to existing games.

Valve also flew nine of the ARG's participants out to Seattle to play Portal 2 early. Not press, but normal players who had devoted themselves to solving the puzzle Valve had laid out.

On top of that, anyone who earned all thirty-six potatoes (which required players to complete objectives in all thirteen games, plus join a certain Steam community group) was given the Valve Complete Collection at Portal 2's launch. That's twenty-two games, in a pack that normally sells for $100, as a reward for playing other companies' games.

RE: it being a sucky ad: I never even heard a GLaDOS voice clip when I went to launch Audiosurf to try to earn the two potatoes for it. It just forced me to play "The Device Has Been Modified" on Pointman as my first song, and that was the song I was going to play anyway because it was part of the ARG content.

[CrossEyed7]

RE: having paid for Audiosurf and having to deal with an ad for another game whenever you play it: I'm guessing from your displayed playtime and from when you earned achievements that you bought it during the Potato Sack sale, which was Portal-related. So you're complaining that there was a Portal ad in a game you paid for during a sale that was specifically designed to advertise Portal.

It wasn't marked as that. There was a thing below that said you could also get it as part of a bundle of games, but I didn't bother reading that part because I don't have $40.

Besides, how am I supposed to know Potato Sack = Portal unless I'm already a Portal fan who is closely following the Portal 2 launch? It would make sense if it was to promote Lay's Potato Chips. What does Portal have to do with potatoes? They both start with P?

Lots of words start with P.

RE: why Valve gets away with this stuff: If it were any of those things you mentioned, it'd be done solely using their own products. Valve, in the course of this whole campaign, not only advertised their own game (that was guaranteed to be a huge seller anyway), but also helped promote the games of several other, much smaller companies, and in doing so helped introduce a great deal of brand-new and highly-enjoyable content to most of the games involved. Look at The Ball, which featured a new campaign in which you progressed through ruined versions of several of the test chambers from Portal, or Defense Grid, which was given two brand-new maps (one of which featured brand-new dialogue for both GLaDOS and the game's own cynical AI) and a couple of neat little minigames. Many of the other games featured similar (though less expansive) additions. And all of this was entirely free content added to existing games.

So why couldn't they do that for Audiosurf?

Valve also flew nine of the ARG's participants out to Seattle to play Portal 2 early. Not press, but normal players who had devoted themselves to solving the puzzle Valve had laid out.

ARG? More liek ARGH!

(Mountain Dew does contests too.)

On top of that, anyone who earned all thirty-six potatoes (which required players to complete objectives in all thirteen games, plus join a certain Steam community group) was given the Valve Complete Collection at Portal 2's launch. That's twenty-two games, in a pack that normally sells for $100, as a reward for playing other companies' games.

What are you, GlADOS's wife?

RE: it being a sucky ad: I never even heard a GLaDOS voice clip when I went to launch Audiosurf to try to earn the two potatoes for it. It just forced me to play "The Device Has Been Modified" on Pointman as my first song, and that was the song I was going to play anyway because it was part of the ARG content.

"Interesting song selection. You must have had good taste in music. A long time ago. Now redirecting you to the correct song."
GLAdOS said that every time. Except for the times he didn't. He kinda stopped saying it, but he still does the song thing.
He did it when I was supposed to be doing the tutorial level. It made everything the wrong color. I didn't know what to do.
I should sue GLADOs.

ARGh!

(and no, I'm not being entirely serious. just partly. a little.
it's really my fault for buying a game and enjoying it and playing it a lot.
not beign serious.
portal is going on my napoleon dynamite list, though.)

[Luigison]

ARGH is right.  Because of the ARG I bought the steam version of Portal 2 when I'd planned to get the PS3 version.  Sure, the PS3 version cost about ten dollars more, but it came with a free Steam unlock for PC.  So, for about  $10 more I could have had the option to play it on PC and/or PS3. 

Edit: Plus, if I'd pre-order through Amazon I'd have gotten on the same day the Steam version unlock and had $20 in Amazon credit. 

[ShadowBrain]

In-game ads are annoying. In-game ads that reference tired jokes, doubly so. Also, what else is on CE7's Napoleon Dynamite List?

I got Audiosurf for... I think $2.50, on some deal last year. There's artsy-fartsy abstract music games out the wazoo on Steam, so I have no idea if there's a better one out there, but I had fun with it for a while.

3. The Potato Sack promo ends in less than five hours. Presumably the ARG content will go away at that time as well.

Does that mean "Update Paused" will go away from a quarter of my games?

By the way, I'm friending a bunch of you in Steam right now, so you better all add me. (Is there a topic for that somewhere? I don't know.) And you better have the same taste in music as me so we can fight in Audiosurf.

My name in there is CrossEyed7. Don't forget it.

Also some of you have different names there than here, so maybe you should add me yourself so I know you're you.

I was thinking the same thing about the potential for a Steam accounts thread, but I don't think it happened. I got invited into the TMK group, though, and I'm friends with Luigison and Warp, but that's it so far. Hey, wait, what's the difference between being friends and being in a group? Because there's a lot of people in the group... oh, I don't know, this post is getting disjointed enough as it is.

[Weegee]

Anyway, I knew it was only a matter of time, but I found where the ED backup torrents are! Do I dare...?

A site called Lurkmoarpedia is in the process of archiving what's left of ED. They have - literally - over 9,000 articles saved already.