dfreloaded

What a mess the DFX2 launch has been. I dont even own it but reading between the lines it is a complete and utter disaster and is only going to get worse.

Novalogic are a mystery to me. They seem to go out of their way to alienate their customers and they seem to be very good at it. So good they hardly have any customers left and those that are left are leaving now too.

It was bad enough that DFX2 was basically a rehashed Joint Operations. That was a mistake for a start. Joint Operations did so much damage in destroying Novalogic's reputation and lost them a lot of customers myself included. So why on earth they based DFX2 on JO is a mystery to me. I thought you were supposed to learn from your mistakes but that never seems to be the case at Nova HQ. However the final nail in the Novalogic coffin is this "Gold Membership" bullshit. For those of you who do not know the details of "Gold Membership" it is where you pay Novalogic $30 a year basically for f*ck all. Instead of giving you extra for your 30 bucks they in fact reduce what you once had and if you want it back again you pay them the 30 bucks. What kind of business model is this? Its like Ford selling you a car but if you want the Steering Wheel so you can drive it then hand over extra money.

One example of this with DFX2 is server hosting. Unless you hand over the $30 you are now restricted to hosting only 16 players. Yes thats right !!! You can host the same number you could 10 years ago when most people were still using 33k modems. If you want to host more then you pay them for the privilege. Wonderful isnt it ????

What Novalogic seem to fail to understand is that they and their products are simply not good enough for this type of business model to work. If the games were a revolutionary cutting edge experience with 100000 online players I could see it but they can barely get 150 online at any one time with DFX2 and many of the older games are struggling too. What on earth makes the arseholes at Nova think they can impliment this strategy with the current crisis they have on their hands. They should be doing their utmost to attract any new business they can as well as keeping the few fans that are left but they cant even do that right.

Even if Novalogic got their head out of their arse with this Gold shite and did a U turn I think its probably now too late. In the last 5 years or so their PR strategy ( if they even had one ) has been a disgrace. I for one who for years loved both the company and their products so much so I built a reasonably successful community site spending many hours of devotion now cant stand the sight of anything to do with Novalogic or their products then what chance have they got of retaining customers who never really gave a rats arse for them in the first place.

I really do believe its over for Novalogic. I wish they would just put themselves out of their misery because this sad slow demise is getting painful to watch. They just cant do anything right nowadays for the good of the community or for themselves. If Angel Falls ever does see the light of day I will be surprised because I cant see that DFX2 is going to make them any money. If they persist with their bullshit then there will be no customers left to buy Angel Falls.

Very sad situation indeed.

Kinnes as always your 100% correct, I am surprised the Nova name is still around. It has been years since anything worth while has been released.
I played the demo of DFX2 for mayb 30 minutes then uninstalled it. It was just so bad.

Angel Falls don't expect too much, I'm not.

Im not sure if the name is still around. There will be a whole new generation ie under 20 that will not have a clue who Novalogic are and even if they do they will probably only tag them as a producer of crap games because that is all thats been produced in recent memory. 7 years to us might not seem much but its a long time when your young. These kids will have no idea of how good Nova games once were in their day.

Bah, don't waste your time caring about NL. It's been wishful thinking for 9 years with those clowns. Let 'em burn.

I haven't done any gaming for 2 years but I am going to buy a new i7 rig for this sh*t: www.wolfenstein.com

Just saw a compendium of NL games in Best Buy the other day..................the entire DF series in one box. It was only like 9 or 10 bucks too. didn't buy it though. Gotta figure the gfx haven't aged gracefully.

I saw that, all NL games for 20 bucks. I bought Ghostbusters (looks fun as hell) and Prototype which is just cool

-Dom

and know you now the rest of the story.

I have umpteencopies of NL's disasters from my server business, basically I sharpen the edges of the cd's and use them as flying discs. I see how many birds I can slice up by throwing them in the air.

Plenty of other games out there.

-NH-

Yep, like this one. Fun as hell

http://www.ghostbustersgame.com/us/index.html

I picked up a copy of ArmA II a couple of weeks ago. I really liked it's Bohemia Interactive Studios predecessor, Operation Flashpoint; back when. The map/s is/are the largest I've ever seen in a game. You can adjust your in game view distance out to about 5 kilometers, if your rig is beefy enough to run it The terrain is great and the game world is very detailed. VERY buggy SP campaign though, despite the release of two patches already. Most of the posts in the forums about the editor/create you own missions function is very positive though. Haven't read much on MP yet. WARNING: This thing is a hard ware hog!

BIS is billing it as one of the most realistic combat sims made (used for training by a number of unspecified militaries). It's not realistic in my opinion, it is more realistic than most (with maybe the exception of America's Army). With those viewing distances it's possible to get into some serious sniping (easliy twice as far as in BHD). They have an armory area where you can pickone of two maps and play with various vehicles, weapons, and characters..........the only rub is most are locked and you have to accept and pass various challenges to accrue points.................thereby unlocking more stuff to experiment with.

WARNING: Kinnes.........avoid this like the plague. No run'n gun at all!

The flight models aren't particularly accurate in my book, and the bleepin' game almost immediately reconfigures my control changes I've input for my joystick/throttle controller. One of many bugs in this rascal. By the time you get to the later SP missions, you're controlling so many friendly and allied units, as well as being in charge of building bases and handling logistics..............it's morphed from an FPS into an FPS/RTS hybrid.

Anyone else playing this.

I was looking at games yesterday and quite frankly, I'm not impressed. Seems all they want to do it add crap to the games to attract buyers but no loyalty. A gimick is good for a short time, but loyalty to the product will keep the money coming over the long term. This is what Nova obviously didn't get and it appears others' aren't much interested either.

I had a blast with ghostbusters and I'm playing prototype now, also fun.

-Dom

Just picked up a copy of the latest Wolfenstein. It's actually better than I expected (haven't messed with MP at all). No zombies to speak of so far (though I understand there'll be a few later on), the GFX aren't up to snuff with Crysis/Warhead or FarCry 2, but they're not bad and the fire fights have been pretty good so far. One thing I really like is moving back an forth between levels ala FC 2. Kinnes might like this one......................definitely run 'n gun!

Is this version of Wolfenstien done indoors like RTCW was? If it is, I doubt I can play it as I was sick after an hour of it. lol

Some of it is (BTW: I'm on like the 6th level and I haven't been in or to the castle yet......and it doesn't look like it's featured in this episode). Much of it is house to house or street fighting, especially the hub levels of Isenstadt. Which is a fairly large destroyed city map, broken into three sections.............East, West, and Downtown. Can't enter all the buildings/rooms, but quite a few are accessable. The Nazi's will move new forces into place after you've cleared an area, though not as ridiculously soon as in FC 2. Roof top and sewer travel are featured, and the city is contested with the Nazis by the local resistance forces, whom you interact with (though don't expect anything like the interaction/branching storyline of Fallout 3). You come and go from these levels throughout the game, from the main missions as well as side quests you may take from various characters in the city.

The presence of mutants, ghosts, and goblins is GREATLY reduced so far (blessedly so in my book), so it's more a fight between you and the Nazis. Though there are Heavy Troopers with sci fi weaponry and Nazi Ninja Babes in leather skirts/masks wielding dual forearm sword blades. No giant lobsters, zombie pimps, or vampire cows though.................damn it! id Software farmed out the dev work to Raven Studios, those midwestern pacifists who brought us such fun family fare as Soldier of Fortune and SOF Double Helix. Needless to say................there are a lot of boxes and crates in Wolfenstein to break for ammo, and the gore, traumatic amputations, and death animations are not for the Muppets and Barney crowd!

PS: My favorite weapons have been the KAR 98 bayonet and the axe (you can pick up and throw). I need counseling.

OK............there is a castle level; I just haven't made it to it yet. My new favorite weapon is Der Flamenwerfer! Toasty!