Polynauts Central (29/8 Archived)

Posted by Shaun McIlroy on August 29, 2012 08:01 am 1209

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Todays image comes from Cobaltios, the third chosen entry in this weeks header pics contest.

Welcome to Polynauts Central. I'm at Stardust HQ today on August 29th and we've been working hard to bring you another round of 'Polynauts Play' so look for that later in the week. Also, later today will see the first episode in the ongoing series 'Press Reset: The Story of Polygon.' For now? A trip through Polynauts Central for some midweek madness.

Please take note that if you're into comics, manga and anime and want a nice organised place to talk about those, then head on over to Crisis on Infinite Polygons Issue #2 for chaosbirdomaid's all-in-one thread. If you want to talk game related art - or even art in general but be sure to head over to Paradox mes' thread The Polygon Gallery of Fine Arts and grab yourself some cheese, grapes and a glass of wine.

FROM POLYGON

1: OnLive lost: how the paradise of streaming games was undone by one man's ego by Sean Hollister

"I'm the one that brought you here. I'm the one that ultimately made decisions, and I'm the one that ultimately takes responsibility. So I am sorry, and it didn't end up exactly as we'd hoped."

Two Fridays ago, Steve Perlman told the 200 employees of cloud gaming company OnLive that it was all his fault. He thanked them for their hard work, and then he had HR show them the door with no severance pay.

2: New PS Vita firmware locks memory cards to single PlayStation Network account by Michael McWhertor

The latest firmware update for Sony's PlayStation Vita introduces a new, unadvertised restriction: the system now locks Vita memory cards to a single PlayStation Network account. That's a new inconvenience for Vita owners who may have signed up for multiple PSN accounts to access the PlayStation Store in other regions.

Prior to firmware 1.80, Vita owners had the option to purchase and store content from multiple regions on a single memory card. Although switching between PlayStation Network accounts on the Vita was clumsy - a multi-step process that required "restoring" one's Vita - it let users enjoy games available from Japan, North America, and Europe on a single memory card.

3: 'NHL 13' to introduce playable female atheletes by Emily Gera

NHL 13 will introduce playable female atheletes for the first time in a professional league-based video game, EA announced today.

Former Team USA star Angela Ruggiera joins former Team Canada's Hayley Wickenheiser as playable Legends in the upcoming title. In addition, NHL Hall of Fame's Doug Gilmour, Jari Kurri, and Dominik Hasek join the playable Legends roster alongside Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.

"With the release of NHL 12 we added generic female characters in our Be a Pro mode based on a request from a 14-year old female fan who emailed our staff because she felt underrepresented as a hockey videogame fan," said Dean Richards, General Manager, NHL, EA SPORTS.

4: Adventure Time creator's love of video games and animation are hopelessly entwined by Brian Crecente

Just six months after Adventure Time's spring 2010 premiere on Cartoon Network, before the show was nominated for three Emmys and had cemented its monstrous, cross-demographic following, Ward took to Twitter to noodle out some ideas for an Adventure Time game. It was a topic he kept returning to for years. He'd talk about the idea of a game with realistic physics and characters with limp, noodly arms. He wanted a game that would talk back to players if they tried to break the rules.

5: Don't be a hero - The full story behind Spec Ops: The Line by Dave Tach

One example is a scene near the end of the game, after things have gone horribly wrong. Your helicopter has crashed and your mission is to locate a fallen squad mate. You can hear him over the radio as he is fending off a mob of angry civilians. They blame the soldier for the damage done to their community. The deaths. The destruction. They surround him while you attempt to fight your way to his rescue. And all you can do is listen. When you finally arrive on the scene, you, too, are surrounded.

"We did it in a pretty brutal way," said Pearsey. "Now you've got civilians set up who are unarmed - they're rock throwers - who are streaming up and then they're getting physical with you, and so what do you do? We don't tell you what to do.

FROM THE POLYNAUTS FORUMS:

1: An Opinion From a More Objective Guild Wars 2 Player by ribkicker4

A bunch of my friends and I joined up on the TOR-wagon back at launch. That was the first time I had heard about Guild Wars 2. Now, most of the talk that I heard centered around how TOR is the worst game ever made, Bioware and EA are the devil incarnate, and Guild Wars 2 is going to be the rapture in game form.

Since then the hype has only escalated leading me to believe that this game is going to be total garbage, or more likely, it'll be okay, but with a rabid, attack-all-outsiders, fan base (sorry for the comma vomit).

2: Poll: The Future of Polynauts Central by Shaun McIlroy

Hey guys. I'm just wondering what you all feel the future should be for Polynauts Central when Polygon.com launches later in 2012.

Now we don't know anything about how it's going to work - as only the Polygon and Vox Media Product/Design teams know about that - but I'm just gauging how you feel about continuing what we've been doing as a community for two months now. Remember that as fun as the thread is now, when Polygon launches the readership number will increase substantially.

3: Digital Distribution: Should we be allowed to share games? by Rathorial

While it is true that digital distribution services like Steam have their benefits in buying and organizing video games, there are obvious limitations on how I can share games with my friends. I can choose to let them borrow my account details, and login on their computer...but unless they engage in offline mode we can't both be online through my account to have access to all my games. This is one of the downsides on essentially buying a license to download games through a service, rather than owning a physical good you can transport.

Sadly, what I didn't like about the article is that it never even bother to present ways to tackle the sharing issue with digital distribution. If anything I was seeing people with a viewpoint that they should be able to just copy the games over to a friend's machine, like you can easily do with DRM free games on GoG. I find this viewpoint flawed though, because they're asking to be able to make copies of games, which is not at all the same as sharing. If I share a physical console disc with a friend of mine, the point is that I'm lending it to them to use, keeping only one copy in circulation. Then you have the options of split-screen or LAN for multiplayer with one copy, but those are features the developer reserves the right to include in their games or not...and they're for sharing my experience with friends using one copy for a temporary experience.

REMINDER: Polygon.com : Community Requests Thread by Shaun McIlroy

This is our "Official Polynauts" topic for Polygon.com requests, those which we've all made mention of in anticipation of the sites launch in 2012. I thought I'd collate them all here for the Polygon team to check back and see if the stars align with their overall plans, whatever they may be.

CONTEST #1

Don't forget Pitseleh0's contest, which began on Monday:

"We seem to be lacking on the header pic submissions. Let's get cracking people!

So I'd like to venture something if I could. Totally unofficial, but I'd like to sponsor a contest.

Shop up a header pic and submit it in the usual spot here.

The pics would be chosen daily as normal (by Shaun and Paddy) and then of the choices for all of next week (starting this Mon running until next Sat) I will choose my favorite of the 6.

That person will get a 3 Month Xbox Live code as a reward. Go get to it! Let's liven up this place!"

CONTEST #2

And remember OMGMoreJames's contest, which also began on Monday:

For the next six days all winners of COTD will be entered into a vote to take place on Sunday. That winner will be the commenter of the week.

That person will get a 3 Month Xbox Live code as a reward."

FROM THE VERGE:

'Dubber' David Pierce brings you the latest tech news in 90 Seconds on The Verge.

POLYNAUTS COMMENT OF THE DAY (28/8):

Art class, you say? What a coincidence! Why, I just came across this really neato thread, The Polygon Gallery of Fine Arts, that sounds like it'd be right up your alley.

Paradox me (4 Recommends)

Every day there will only be one comment from the previous thread. It's decided based upon the most recommends an individual receives for their comment; should two people have the same rating then both comments will be posted.

Okay, there we have another Fridays' worth of catch-ups folks. Remember to sound off in the comments below and share any awesome news you find today. As always, feel free to hit me up on Twitter @shaunmcilroy if you want to chitchat throughout the day.

NOTES:

New to the Polygon Community? Please take time to read the Community Guidelines as laid out by the editorial team here at The Verge. Particularly take note here: "Foul language: Cussing, swearing, or just plain nasty: all of the above are not cool here." That goes for NSFW material as well folks.

If you're looking the best way to filter through any current deals on games (regardless of platform) then check out The Gamers Grid created by community Polynaut, NuclearPrinny.

If you're a fan of the image up top and want to submit your own, remember to keep them coming in for this section of Polynauts Central, GIF's included, at this link. Finally, if you want to submit a header image for Crisis on Infinite Polygons you can do that on this thread.