Long time no see.

BEEN AWAY FOR A WHILE, MY BAD GUYS.

I am sorry that it has been so long between posts, I have been a very busy person, but that's aok by me. Also haven't had access to the internet during my soulsearching and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. It all started out with many failed game capture attempts due to my personal retardation. However I do think I have a handle on it now and I am here to stay, it also helps that I now have access to a real smartphone not just a blackberry so I can actually do internet related things and update on mobile, so thats something at least. Also, I think I have a grasp on this whole game capture thing too, so perhaps we will be able to get some of that going on. So I ask you this, what do you guys want to see?

Interactive storytelling vs video games.

Alright, so this thought occurred to me today. I dislike games where my character, and thus me as a player make no difference in the outcome of the game. For example, most modern military shooters (I have battlefield 3 on my mind at the time of writing) me as a player and thus my character do not control the story. My character, posted in unspecifiedistan, follows his orders and it -looks- like we are contributing to the story, however if my character were to die someone else would pick up where he left off and continue the mission. COD Ghost is an exception where you as a player are in the wrong place at the right time and you do have swing in the story and if your character were to have died at any point prior in the story it would go very differently. I also dislike games where the outcome of the story doesn't matter, take for example borderlands 1, it didn't matter who got all the pieces of the key for the vault, all that mattered is that it gets opened so borderlands 2 can happen E.G. If the crimson raiders had of opened the vault the creature would still have been killed and the eridium would have been spread onto the planet. Now, Skyrim, while anyone can defeat a dragon, your character is the only person who can destroy them, and (Because I choose to think that there is an infinite amount of them for gameplay reasons only) I like to think that there is a finite amount of dragons to kill and in theory if you were to slay them all they would never come back. By extension, if the main player were to die, there would be no one to stop the dragons. Basically my logic is this, if in a game my character can die and instead of respawning I could just take control of a different person in the same general area and continue on with the game I probably don't enjoy it as much. Also games where the story in general is irrelevant (I'm looking at you Left 4 dead) I just can't get immersed in the game. What I mean is they never seem to have survival on their mind, you never have to collect food or water, you just move loading screen to loading screen to get to the final loading screen so you can watch credits fly up the screen. So I guess what I mean to say is I am not a fan of interactive story telling, and instead prefer games that are open and nonlinear such as Skyrim and even the fallout series. The fallout series is interesting because you are typically the only person who is actually trying to 'do' the story missions you are doing things for other people sure, but the main objective is only being done because you as a character are there and driving the plot in the direction you choose.

Nuclear Dawn and excellent customer service from interwave stuido.

Hello, it has been a while since I have posted anything on here but I wanted to share a story with you, that opened my eyes to the big wide world of understanding.Also a text review of a game I have not gotten to fully experience yet.

Game - Nuclear Dawn
Company - Interweave stuido
Genre - FPS + RTS
Bought on Steam Get it here

Graphics - 9.8 of 10
Gameplay - 8 of 10 (Speculated)
Concept - 10 of 10
Music and SFX - 9 of 10
Overall - 9.2

Very pretty game, simple controls for the FPS aspect, it gets right what command and conquer renegade failed to do, which is marry the FPS and RTS genre with wholesome love. I plan to do a video review once I get back into it in a few days.

The one true downfall of this game is that it is multiplayer only and once the servers die (As I thought they had) there will be nothing to do aside from play the training missions over and over (And that's almost worth it). But that's not what I want to talk about today, what I want to tell you about is the EPIC level of customer service held by the company itself and the Awesomeness of the CEO Michiel Beenen.

I am kind of an ass in this e-mail I send but I am going to show the whole thing, as it is only fair to show what people have to deal with from me when I am upset about something. I removed all the sensitive information from the e-mail however, this includes his e-mail address and the phone number ect ect, which can all be found under the 'contact us' section of the website. As I am sure I don't have to tell you read the flow of conversation from the bottom (Which is my initial e-mail) to the top (Which is the last one in the chain.)

On a related note I have three limited free passes to the game, I don'y know how long the trial is, but anyone who reads this and can correctly answer one of these questions in the comments will get one.

(To qualify you can only answer 1 question, and you must have a steam account)

Question 1 - In "My life in Skyrim" What is the main characters name?
Question 2 - What company (In my opinion) Has epic customer service?
Question 3 - What is the main design difference between my old keyboard and my new one?

All of the answers can be found elsewhere in this blog.


No problem :)

Michiel Beenen
Managing Director

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 1:19 PM, Devon wrote

Oh, one last thing, please accept my apology. I am not a stranger to admitting when I am truly wrong, and in this I was truly wrong.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michiel Beenen <>

Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 11:07:58
To: <>
Subject: Re: Nuclear Dawn is useless to me.

Im the owner of InterWave so no i dont have superiors ;)

 Michiel Beenen
 Managing Director

 
 InterWaveStudios.com | InterWaveGames.com <http://www.interwavestudios.com/>

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 1:05 PM, I wrote
 Oh. I was looking in the forums and found nothing that pointed me in that direction at all, and independent blogs and MP game forums said that it had become a dead game. I am very happy to hear that this is a technical issue and not a lack of player base as the game looks very stunning and the game play seems streamlined.

 Thank you for a very quick reply to my initial e-mail. Good customer service, even to bad customers, is a trademark trait that many companies are losing nowadays. I would like to commend you on a very polite and efficient customer service attitude and would thereby like to know if there is any way to get into contact with your superiors (that is, assuming you have some).



 -----Original Message-----

 From: Michiel Beenen < <> >
 Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 10:56:45

 To: <> >
 Subject: Re: Nuclear Dawn is useless to me.

 Hello,

 We are trully sorry to hear this it is a problem with Steam atm and Valve is aware of this, there are servers but they do not show up because they made a bug with the version number.
 This should hopefully be fixed today.
  Michiel Beenen
  Managing Director
  <http://www.interwavestudios.com/>

> >
  
  InterWaveStudios.com | InterWaveGames.com <http://www.interwavestudios.com/>

 On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 12:54 PM, Devon wrote:
  GENERAL CONTACT FORM
  Submitted on Monday, April 2, 2012 - 12:54
  Submitted by user:
  Submitted values are:

  Name: Devon

 

 Subject: Nuclear Dawn is useless to me.
  Category: Product Information
  Message:
  I recently bought Nuclear dawn off of steam and was thrilled at the prospect of playing a game like this. However my dreams were crushed when I found out that there was literally not a single other person than me who thought the same thing, and to be frank I'm more than a little pissed off. There was no warning when I bought the game that the servers were dead, and not a soul lurked to play the game with, if I had of been warned I would never have bought the game.

  I'm sure you can check my player history and see that I have never even played a match other than one I started to get a feel for the game. I was wondering in which direction I would have to look in for a refund of the money I spent to buy it. Well I am well aware that you are not obligated to provide me one in any way shape or form I will not stop until i have exploited every single option at my disposal.

  On a side note your game is very pretty to look at and is smoother than a lot of game on the market at the moment, and I am sad that I am not going to have a chance to play it.

  Please respond to me at your earliest convince 

He responded very quickly as you can see from time stamps.