His post on the forums trying to apologize to his loyal fans gets nuked by 2K moderators...
Quote:
Hey all-
I'm really trying to answer every PM I get, both here, on TTLG, on Live and a couple of other sites I post on. Since BioShock has made the splash it has, this takes up a bunch of my time. In the interest of saving everybody's time, here's a little FAQ about things I can and cannot answer for you.
Things I can answer:
-Story questions
-Voice acting questions (If you hate that damn circus of values clown, you got me to thank!)
-Interface question
-Gameplay questions
-Art direction questions
-Other aesthetic questions (you hate that Perry Como track, I'm your man!)
-Widescreen questions (i.e. WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO IT THAT WAY, DICKHEAD! etc.)
I take responsiblity for all decisions made by my team at IG/2K Boston/Australia. I won't be able to answer the more technical questions (I love it when people write to me as if I've even heard of shader 2.0! I'm a technological moron.), but I can try to point you in the right direction (which is generally the tech support forums). I do have a huge amount of say as to what goes into patches, given budgetary limitations coming from 2K, however, so feel free to make your voices heard.
Things I can't answer:
These are some of the aspects of the BioShock experience that aren't under my control:
-Customer Service Policies and procedures- I don't have any control over customer service budget or decision making. Like...Zero. You may think I'm some kind of important dude, but at the end of the day we make the games, 2K New York publishes them, does customer support, etc. I've been heavily involved all week trying to get things improved for people, but at the end of the day, I can't take credit or blame for any changes to customer service.
-Copy Protection. Copy protection calls are all made in New York by Technical Director Tim Perry. Our job is to implement what he decides. If he's not a member of these forums, I'll suggest to Elizabeth that he gets active in them. The only thing I know about Securom is I've got about 1000 games with some version of it on my shelf. The tech that I know is limited to my experience many years ago as Macintosh computer consultant- in the days before the tubes of the interweb. All that stuff is entirely out of my hands and frankly a bit beyond my understanding.
My understanding is 2k has hired or is about to hire 24 hour a day support for the forums, amongst other things. I think we were all surprised by what a hit BioShock has been. I expect things to keep getting better. I'll try to help where I can, but there's a large organization above me that I have only marginal input into.
Thanks for listening. If we can direct PM-informed traffic to the most appropriate people everybody can get better and more timely answers to their questions.
Foul play regarding Bioshock? Gasp!
Last edited by bapenguin; 08-28-2007 at 06:51 AM..
Why would you ask him those questions? The whole purpose of asking a developer questions is to get insidee the making of the game. Kind of like asking the President of the NFL why your seat in the stadium was so sticky.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by StGeorge
This is the worst game I've ever played. The 50 megs would have been better spent on a high-definition 3D rendering of goatse.cx
So just to be clear... what's posted here is something Ken Levine wrote on the 2K forum, and they nuked it?
Assuming that's the case, I'm a bit surprised, frankly... seems to me like all he did was make a few things very clear in an attempt to subdue a bit of the (IMO completely fucking ridiculous) whining that people have decided to engage in over this game's release.
*shrug* then again, big companies can be weird about things like having people who make decisions for them (ie Tim Perry) take responsibility for their outcome..
Kudos for Ken to be so honest about those issues. But I can understand 2k's position. They are holding a pretty hot property and the hype both good and bad is getting out of control.
I hope that this success and the blowback dosen't create a rift between Ken and 2k. I would like to see his design hand in more games.
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Gamertag: Phelan Kell
PSN: Flatpicker
I dunno, this makes alot of sense to me. Ken has been really public and accessable, but really shouldnt be answering these kinds of questions, especially the politically charged ones.
Christ, he is being 100x better then most people out there.
I just really wish that these great, super talented smaller independent companies didn't have to sell themselves to these giant soul sucking behemoths just to survive. Or at least once the sale was final the publishers would shut the fuck up and let the smaller talents do what they will and just reap the benefits. I do have to say that the fact that Bioshock has not truly been cracked yet 2K may be on the right track, the few whiny bitches be damned.
My guess is that nobody at 2K likes the fact that that post essentially said that the publisher is the one to blame - people at 2K want Levine and other folks like him to be the ones to take the fall.
Companies like 2K wouldn't exist without guys like Lavine, they should be doing everything in their power to protect him and his reputation from this BS.
Do you have details of when this was posted and removed? Was there a reason given for its removal? Or is this just about what Levine can and can not answer? If it's the latter then that's perfectly reasonable: developers don't handle any of those issues (including copy protection) - they're usually added later by the publisher.
Publishers sometimes get upset at being labelled the "bad guy" by developers (I know I've done it to a publisher in the past) so it could just be that, but even then it's a bit extreme because Levine isn't being critical, he's just clearly identifying boundaries of authority and accountability.
__________________ OPS 305 SPEC50 - When it really starts to get interesting. This Link Kills Spam
It's bullshit, alls it is is a crappy ISO with a fake activation work around.
Semantics aside, it's still pirate-able, right?
I can't say I blame publishers for at least trying to make pirating their games a little more inconvenient, though. There will always be those who would rather pirate a game than pay for it, and I'm pretty sure they'll never completely prevent piracy but I can't blame them for trying. I won't say piracy killed PC gaming, but it certainly doesn't make the platform as lucrative as consoles to publishers.
Anyway, I was glad to show my support of this game by purchasing it as I want to see more games like it. But I bought the 360 version so I didn't have to deal with any kind of activation stuff.
Edit: This isn't even what the thread is about, is it? On topic: it's nice when a higher up in a company is willing to answer questions directly through the forums, but it seems that he doesn't have the answer every question and they'd rather not have him throwing around names of other big wigs for forum goers to hassle. Or not. I have no idea why they removed the post.
Copy protection calls are all made in New York by Technical Director Tim Perry. Our job is to implement what he decides. If he's not a member of these forums, I'll suggest to Elizabeth that he gets active in them.
Yeah, I could see why you wouldn't appreciate this post if you were in New York making the big decisions. Especially if you were Tim Perry.
I can't say I blame publishers for at least trying to make pirating their games a little more inconvenient, though. There will always be those who would rather pirate a game than pay for it, and I'm pretty sure they'll never completely prevent piracy but I can't blame them for trying. I won't say piracy killed PC gaming, but it certainly doesn't make the platform as lucrative as consoles to publishers.
Anyway, I was glad to show my support of this game by purchasing it as I want to see more games like it. But I bought the 360 version so I didn't have to deal with any kind of activation stuff.
Edit: This isn't even what the thread is about, is it? On topic: it's nice when a higher up in a company is willing to answer questions directly through the forums, but it seems that he doesn't have the answer every question and they'd rather not have him throwing around names of other big wigs for forum goers to hassle. Or not. I have no idea why they removed the post.
No, it is not pirate-able, some reading comprehension please.
__________________ "In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not the man to whom the idea first occurs." Charles Darwin
It raises an interesting point. There has to be a line over which community representatives do not tread. E.g. if it's a corporate policy to use a particular protection mechanism then there is absolutely no value in discussing it on forums. In such cases the policy should be clearly stated and consistently enforced.
In this case there's very little to be gained in asking Perry to join the forums.
__________________ OPS 305 SPEC50 - When it really starts to get interesting. This Link Kills Spam
The problem is, they decided to get greedy and overzealous with their copy protection: they didn't settle with the securom basic, which only checks to make sure the CD is in the drive... on no.. they went with securom deluxe and are reaping the reward.
If the copy protection stops Joe Sixpack from making copies, then let it lie.
AFAIK it's not the securom that is really blocking pirates, it's the activation. That said though, I have no idea about securom deluxe. It works fine on my DVD drive... But from my experience securom is usually easy to get around (usually).
What semantics? the game has not been pirated yet, any fucktard can make an image of a game but if you can't use it it's worthless. let me say this clearer "There is no crack and the activation work around is FAKE and does not work" therefore it has not been cracked...yet.
I really hate it when people try and act like they know what there talking about when they really don't and are complete douche bags about it as well.
