Your tears. In 3D!
Well, “pay” may be too strong a word, but that’s the jist of the matter. On July 15, generic electronics purveyor Best Buy will be hosting a live Starcraft II developer chat on its website, but only for those who are signed up for its “Gamers Club” by way of a “Rewards Zone” card.
We just fell asleep a little bit there.
The same thing happens to us at the till of such generic purveyors when they ask us to join their “clubs”, “groups”, “elite gaming organizations” or “cults”. We’re just not interested. Sure, it’s apparently free, though it typically comes with a litany of product e-mails and “offers” that describe nothing but technology that is soon to be outdated or has all of the appeal of a garage-sale’d Virtual Boy. We just zone right out when such offers are made, taken to a better place of Slurpees and constant entertainment, both streamed directly to our brains.
We don’t want your bland servings of moderate prices. We just want to purchase our game, and return to the comfortable dungeon of our home, to play in perfect alone zen-ness.
Oh, and we’re going to need a Dr. Pepper. For sure. A Dr. Pepper.
So though no real money is exchanged for this developer chat in which you “get the chance to ask some last minute questions”, real effort and time is expended in 1) signing up for the ridiculousness that is a gamers club and 2) listening to the moronic bull-plop being spouted by the other “gamers” plugged into this channel.
Trust us, just stick with the Interwebs.
These chats are never what you really want to hear. Maybe you have a good question – a really good one, not about how you’re “so leet” or why “the Zerg look so laaaame”, but a real, relevant, honest question that might force a great answer or elicit stony silence, giving away what the oh-so-clever developers hoped to conceal.
Or maybe you just want to QQ about how your favorite – whatever – didn’t get included, or how the best thing you used to be able to do in Starcraft you can’t do anymore. Sadly, good-question-people make up about 1.75% of the total audience of these things, so your chances of seeing questions you have no interest in are almost a sure-fire bet.
Stick with real interviews with Devs, or with forums and Blue-posts – you’ll be better served.
Take for example the recent interview that IGN had with Chris Sigaty, lead producer of Starcraft II. Among the relevant questions asked – such as inquiring about the eventual inclusion of anti-aliasing (maybe, maybe not, according to the Sig man) – was one about the game supporting 3D.
3D gaming is the hot new thing on the block, like Brittany Spears was when she first showed up. At this point, it is far too early to tell if an illustrious Madonna-like career is in the technology’s future, or instead a living hell of strangely shaven heads and raving children sired by a would-be rapper.
The big electronics makers and sellers are getting on board, and Nvidia currently sells a gaming package which includes both a graphics card and glasses which (with the proper monitor) will produce what is apparently a stunning 3D effect.
For us, if it means wearing glasses to play games, we’re out. It doesn’t matter how cool they look – unless we can shoot lazers like Cyclops from X-men, count us out.
But Starcraft.
According to Siggy, the game will not ship with 3D compatibility, but the ability to display in the sexy third dimension will come within the first few months, “for those Nvidia cards and screens that support it”. A question about ATI users looking for similar action was met with a “we’re optimizing for all systems” response.
So Blizzard’s in bed with Nvidia. Who cares? What they do in their corporate bedrooms is not only not our business, it’s beyond the scope of interest. So long as some Blizz/Nvidia erotic video doesn’t end up on YouTube, we’re safe.
From what we’ve read about the game in 3D – a few press members have seen it that way – it looks pretty damn cool but loses a certain something in the vibrancy of color.
Color versus the third dimension – an epic battle for all-out control of your viewing experience. The winner destroys the loser utterly.
Now that’s worth QQ’ing about.
