Motorstorm 2 Trailer Released

[Commonmind]

First of all, I'm not going to reread my post; this isn't some seedy message board in the dark recesses of the internet, I'm not a 14 year old crying out for attention and I'm definitely not so unsure of myself that I have to postmortem proof-read what I've written to look for marks of arrogance or pretentiousness. I come here to escape just those kinds of idiots and to avoid just these types of ridiculous arguments. I also treat everyone I come across here, or any other place I frequent, with respect and patience.

I do, however, have strong opinions, and much like other individuals I tend to express those opinions openly. I came to my own conclusions about the whole Gerstman debacle, and again, much like other individuals, I was expressing that within the context of the conversation. And while I can see, quite clearly, that you've made an assessment of my character based on that conversation, I fail to see how that justifies your tone and immature banter here, in this one.

If you can't handle someone being straight-forward and assertive while they're speaking their mind, maybe you should consider trying to be a bit more conscious about how you deal with that shortcoming, rather than being brash and accusing someone of holding themselves in higher regard to everyone else -- while, not without some irony, inadvertently coming off that way yourself.

As for the thread, I apologize that it was derailed and that the conversation has taken the turn it has. As for you Cayal, feel free to take more shots at my character if you so wish it; I'm finished with this nonsense.

[Cayal]

See you're doing it again. How do you not notice that pretentious, condescending attitude you have?

As for Gerstman, you come to your own conclusion from it, yet you are completely fine telling others that they were wrong about it?

Hmm I love being right.

[Lucien21]

Well to be honest you were wrong in that conversation. Commonminds summary of the realities of the sacking were correct.

Personally I'm not sure where you are coming from in this argument. There was nothing wrong with what he said OR the way he said it. There have been concerns raised about the gamplay in Killzone 2

Eurogamer -

Well, impressions are likely to be muted in some quarters for a simple reason: this is a Call of Duty 4-style trail of interactive set-pieces, and for that to work the actions that trigger each event have to be carefully measured and anticipated by the script, or the illusion falls apart. It's like a train ride through the haunted house at a funfair: things pop out at you on cue, and spotlights and sound effects are used to direct your attention. At the moment, Killzone 2's script is playing out at a set speed, and it's possible to get ahead of it, so that you have to wait for Garza to get his cue to move forward, or behind it, so that your squad wipes out the opposition in a showcase fire-fight while you're still fumbling over the buttons. It sounds like a massive problem, and it has big implications for those of us trying to preview the game, but it's just an unfortunate byproduct of designing a game this way; the illusion's only fit to judge when it's complete.

IGN obviously

Kotaku -

I was very disappointed in Killzone 2's artificial intelligence system. The team said they knew that AI was a problem in the original Killzone, so they did a lot of work on it. They said they now operate in groups, can recognize destructible environments and respond to fire, but it didn't seem that way to me.
As I watched someone else play the game, I saw bad guys doing things like standing in the middle of an open door exchanging rapid-fire shots with the player, never bothering to move or get out of the way. Then I gave the game a hand and found enemies standing around, standing with their sides to me as I walked up to them. In one case, there were two bad guys standing next to each other. I walked up to them from the side, shot the first guy several times to kill him and then shot the second guy a single time. He didn't respond. I shot him again, nothing. So I killed him.

These are all things that will probably be fixed by release, esp as it's been pushed back, but they are still concerns.

If you have a problem with Commonmind the best idea is to take a step back and think before you respond or don't reposnd at all. Resorting to personal insults instead of rational discussion isn't going to get you anywhere.

Now can we please get back to Motorstorm 2.

[Cayal]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

Well to be honest you were wrong in that conversation.

No I wasn't.

Wow...that was easy to prove you wrong. Amazingly that is how Commonmind does it too. You know, just say it and it's gospel.

Of course all I asked was 'Concerns by who?' and suddenly I am being confrontational.

And realities of the sacking were correct? By who? No one has spoken about it (since they were not allowed to talk about it), yet other employees leave in protest. But no, they have no idea of course they only worked there.
But you two know all about it.

It is quite amazing how asking a question to provide evidence makes me a bad guy. But then again it proves me right. Yet again.

Oh, and instead of brown nosing, take into account he started this petty bickering with his pretentious attempts to put me down.

[Lucien21]

Originally Posted by Cayal

And realities of the sacking were correct? By who? No one has spoken about it (since they were not allowed to talk about it), yet other employees leave in protest. But no, they have no idea of course they only worked there.
But you two know all about it.

And obviously then you must have proof that the advertiser got him fired then . Of course we are all speculating I don't know any of them personally, but business reality is usally more mundane than the shooter on the grassy knoll stories suggest. The reality is that he was probably fired for a whole host of reasons and that review was the final straw. Of course it was extremely bad timing, but it proves nothing. As for the other employees, you would have to ask them why they have left. New management and new rules along with the bad way the aforementioned sacking was handled publically probably meant they wanted to leave for their own reasons (or to join up with their old pal).

It is quite amazing how asking a question to provide evidence makes me a bad guy. But then again it proves me right. Yet again. Oh, and instead of brown nosing, take into account he started this petty bickering with his pretentious attempts to put me down.

Again I would suggest you lay off the personal insults and try some reasoned arguments. The "but he started it" argument is no excuse for the response.

[Cayal]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

And obviously then you must have proof that the advertiser got him fired then . Of course we are all speculating I don't know any of them personally, but business reality is usally more mundane than the shooter on the grassy knoll stories suggest. The reality is that he was probably fired for a whole host of reasons and that review was the final straw. Of course it was extremely bad timing, but it proves nothing. As for the other employees, you would have to ask them why they have left. New management and new rules along with the bad way the aforementioned sacking was handled publically probably meant they wanted to leave for their own reasons (or to join up with their old pal).

- A month after Gerstmann's termination, freelance reviewer Frank Provo left GameSpot after 8 years stating that "I believe CNet management let Jeff go for all the wrong reasons. I believe CNet intends to soften the site's tone and push for higher scores to make advertisers happy."

- Alex Navarro, an active and visible editor for Gamespot resigned in early 2008. "I felt like it was just time for me to go" he told Joystiq. Navarro said earlier in his blog that he felt like he was in a game of SimCity where "someone hit the disaster button for me."

- Ryan Davis, another active and well-known editor for Gamespot and a long-time employee since 2000, announced his departure in February 2008, listing one of his reasons for leaving as Gerstmann's firing. "Jeff's firing just destroyed me, and I think it shed a light on the other stuff that I had been kind of rolling along with," Davis told Joystiq.

- Many other employees such as Brad Shoemaker, departed from Gamespot following Gerstmann's termination.

I think the number of people leaving shortly after termination indicates it was something more.

And I wouldn't be surprised if Eidos has some sort of deal going on. It's like Big Oil companies 'funding' research on Global Warming where the 'funding' is clearly a reason to find results in their favour. Granted it is on a smaller scale, but it has a less of a moral implication than something like Global Warming.

[Lucien21]

Considering most of them left to join "Giant Bomb" with Jeff I see it more of solidarity with their friend than part of a conspiracy.

Ryan said that the sacking was part of the reason , but not all of it

For Davis, who had worked for the popular site since 2000, the daily grind of working at such a large site was beginning to take its toll. "It's just that I had been at the job for a long time, and a lot of the stuff that made the job fun for me has dissipated," he said. "Sometimes you don't love the job, but you make your way through it by focusing on the good stuff. Gamespot is also a huge site, and an organization of that magnitude comes with a fair amount of bureaucracy, and everyone ultimately ends up spending a fair amount of time doing stuff other than producing the content."

People come and go all the time in business for a variety of reasons. Being bitter and taking a swipe at your ex employers is pretty standard just not usually as public.

If they fired someone everytime a publisher complained about a negative review then nobody would have a job there.

[Cayal]

It may not be something as simple as a negative review being complained about by a publisher. There could have been a deal made, money transferred. Cut throat world of business you have to get a leg up. Maybe Gerstmann went against a deal and in turn was sacked for it.

From the same wiki page as before, here is an example of such a thing -

"On the May 6th episode of "Giant Bombcast" (A podcast featuring Ryan Davis and Jeff Gertsmann) they recieved an email from a fan who told a story about how a student in his Journalism class decided to write a resturant review to get free food. He told the returant before hand and was pampered and loved by the resturant and gave it a good rating, the student sending the email decided to write an article about review credability, in which the teacher of the class responded by saying "That's how things work, that's how I've taught it, that's how the game works." Jeff and Ryan both expressed hatred and rage towards the teacher. During the end of the rant Jeff added on "Why not just make everything come full circle and say that the resturant has an advertising deal with the newspaper." Although Gertsmann's previous GameSpot controversy was never directly talked about, this seems to be the only shred of information Gertsmann has said about what has happened."

I don't think such an exodus of employees leaving so soon after he was fired was coincidence.
Was Giant Bomb created before they left but after Gerstmann's dismissal or after they all left?

It's interesting stuff.

[Lucien21]

Originally Posted by Cayal

It may not be something as simple as a negative review being complained about by a publisher. There could have been a deal made, money transferred. Cut throat world of business you have to get a leg up. Maybe Gerstmann went against a deal and in turn was sacked for it.

Now that is just seriously wild speculation with no basis in fact. There is always a church and state seperation between the editorial policies of reviewing and the business of advertising. Does this cause friction, without a doubt, has it ever been breached in the past, probably at some websites/magazines.

However there is very little evidence to say that it was in this case. Gamespot has always been harsh in all its reviews.

There is a symbiotic relationship between publishers and reviewers. Website obviously need ad revenue and publisher want to sell games so want decent scores, but if a websites integrity was compromised then members would leave in droves therefore ad revenue would drop drastically and affect sales of the game. It's not it publishers long term interests to interfere too much. From what I hear these days they are more interested in the average Metacritic type scores and only take issue with ones that are wildly different from the general concensous and could be seen as unfair or have factual errors.

I don't think such an exodus of employees leaving so soon after he was fired was coincidence.
Was Giant Bomb created before they left but after Gerstmann's dismissal or after they all left?

It's interesting stuff.

If you want a conspiracy theory then...

Maybe they all concocted a way to get out of their Gamespot contracts, devalue the reputation of the website and set up their own website.

Worked quite nicely.

However, I prefer to follow Occam's Razor "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best". So Jeff was fired for being a constant arse and his friends left to either join him or coincidently found better jobs.

[Cayal]

You think Giant Bomb is better than Gamespot?

They may have concocted a way to get out of their contracts...except only one was fired. The rest left of their own accord.

[Lenny]

Sorry to interrupt, again (yes, yes, I know, so rude of me), but could I ask for the mothers union to please move next door? Just that we've got a Motorstorm Appreciation Club waiting outside the door asking if they could come in and use the room - apparently it was hell to schedule it, and they've already been waiting fifteen minutes to start using it.