Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Side-Quest: Getting Jade Empire to Run via Steam (Win7 x64)

Go onto the Steam forums and you'll find a number of threads saying that the Steam version of Jade Empire is broken, and how dare Valve sell a broken game, they're the worst company etc. etc.

Well, Jade Empire is not broken. There is a simple fix that requires no downloads of any files or alteration of configuration files. Launching the game is not as straightforward as it should be either, but that is a minor issue.

1. First, the folder that contains your Steam library. In my case, that is F: drive > SteamLibrary.
There should be two items in the SteamLibrary folder. A folder named "SteamApps" and a file named "steam.dll".

2. Select the file "steam.dll" and copy it (either by right-clicking and selecting "Copy," or by "Ctrl + C"). Do NOT cut or otherwise move "steam.dll" or your Steam library will not display correctly. Simply copying it will be enough.

3. Navigate to the folder that Jade Empire is installed to. In my case, that is F: drive > SteamLibrary > SteamApps > common > Jade Empire.

4. Paste the "steam.dll" file into the Jade Empire folder.

That solves one part of the problem. When launching Jade Empire from within the Steam library, I am given the option to choose "Play Jade Empire Special Edition" or "Launch Jade Empire Configuration." Choosing "Play Jade Empire" initiates the Jade Empire launcher:
Choosing "Play" does not launch the game, but instead launches the Jade Empire configuration utility (which hangs and needs to be force-quitted via the Task Manager).

To get the game to launch, go back to the folder that Jade Empire was installed to (SteamLibrary > SteamApps > common > Jade Empire). Find the file "JadeEmpire.exe." Right-click the file, click the Compatibility tab, and select the check-box to "Run this program as an administrator." Click OK and close the Properties window.

Now double-click "JadeEmpire.exe" to run the game (and say Yes to the UAC confirmation request which will appear). I recommend making a shortcut from "JadeEmpire.exe" so you don't have to keep going into the game folder to run it.

Though not launching from the Steam library window, Steam still needs to be open in order to play Jade Empire. Usage statistics will still be compiled (total hours played + last date played).

And that is it. Strange that all this is necessary, but the Steam version of the game does work. Currently playing in 1080p and full save game functionality.

It is also possible to purchase this game on GOG in a DRM-free format.

Update: I have also posted some tweaks that can be made to the JadeEmpire.ini to unlock the frame-rate cap and turn on some settings that may not be available in the game's option settings.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Ever Wondered What Your Graphics Card Does?

Found this great analysis that examines just what goes into rendering a single frame of a game. The game used for the example was Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/03/10/deus-ex-human-revolution-graphics-study/

I think many people (myself included) simply don't appreciate the sheer amount of computing power at our fingertips these days.

Monday, March 9, 2015

On Nintendo and YouTube

There is a lot of controversy surrounding "let's play" (LP) videos on YouTube. In a "let's play" video, someone records themselves playing a video game - sometimes edited, sometimes not. Sometimes with commentary, sometimes not. Frequently an LP video will be part of a series the usually involves that user completing an entire video game. Some game companies are completely cool with the idea of  LP videos, seeing them as free advertising. Others claim that LP videos displaying a game in its entirety violates copyright law and issues take-down notices by the thousands.

Who am I kidding. I'm talking about Nintendo. Nintendo, famous issuing a take-down notice if so much as a sneeze sounds like Mario, has created a revenue-sharing platform that will enable them to receive the advertising monies generated by a YouTube video of their game. They will potentially share some of this revenue with the YouTube uploader, but only if the video is properly licensed and registered with them. A lot of users have cried foul (like they have for years with Nintendo-based LP videos). At the moment there is no indication of any change from the game company.

LP videos are incredibly useful for people contemplating purchasing a game, or who are stuck in a game at a certain point. I don't own a Playstation, nor will I in the immediate future, so I am happy to watch The Last of Us via an LP video. But on the other hand, the core part of any video game is the experience the game provides. YouTube "let's play" videos share that experience. Is the experience copyrighted? No, it is not. Because not everyone will have the same experience, even in a linear first-person shooter. The game that generates the experience is copyrighted, but not the experience of playing it. And this is what is shared via YouTube LP videos: one version of the experience of playing a game. There is no interaction with an LP video, aside from clicking Play. Nintendo's attempt to receive money from users' recorded gaming experiences is greedy, grasping, and controlling in the extreme. 

The issue goes further. "Let's play" videos are not reviews of the game, but in Nintendo's over-reaching desire to be in control of everything that mentions their products, they frequently lump Review channels in with LP channels (and hit all of them with take-down notices). Whether you're talking about an LP from PewDiePie or a review from AngryJoe (or even, in that later's case, a preview video that he had Nintendo's permission to make!), Nintendo wants to control the dialogues on YouTube that people have about their games. 

If I see a game via an LP and like it, my first step will be to go out and see where I can purchase it for myself (because pirating is for, well, pirates). I'm not thinking I experienced a game because I watched a "let's play." I shared someone else's experience, but it was not MY experience. This is how LP videos drive sales. On the other hand, what if someone watches an LP and decides they don't want to buy the game? Shortsighted companies see this as a lost sale. Which it is, but take the thought one step further. What comes after someone is disappointed in a game? The negative review. LPs actually help filter out people who would otherwise provide negative reviews of a game, helping it keep a positive reputation. So yes, a sale is lost, but so is the bad press.

As someone who was thinking of doing a few LPs and streams (seriously, though, do Twitch and YouTube need another LPer?), this story gave me pause. I'd rather I could just share experiences of my gaming without the need for all this legal mud, but unfortunately that's not the way the world (or YouTube) works. I genuinely believe that people do "let's plays" because they love the games they play. When a company like Nintendo starts acting like an evil dictator, they spit on that love and do their best to tear it down, to cover it up. Almost like they are saying, "We don't care how you feel, so long as you don't share it with anybody."

Surely we as a society are better than that.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Why all the EA hate?

Since coming late to the gaming party a few years ago, I have come across an ever-widening tide of vitriol that washes up on the shore of a corporation called Electronic Arts. Seriously, I never have to go far to find the hate.

Here's my experience with EA. I purchased Madden 07 about a year after it came out. I'd never played a sports game before, and it was fun and worked well for me. A friend purchased Tiger Woods' Pro Golf 2008. Then I played another game released by them called Dragon Age: Origins (haven't played Dragon Age II yet, though despite the reviews, I expect it to be far from sucky. Origins was hardly a perfect game). Then an entire trilogy under the Mass Effect banner. Then Battlefield 3. And The Saboteur. And the Need For Speed franchise. And Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. All great games in their own genres. Not perfect games (though Mass Effect 2 comes close IMO), but what game doesn't have its faults? On the horizon is the Medal of Honor series, the Dead Space franchise, and some cool-looking game called Syndicate (I have both the old and the new versions).

So why all the hate?

The EA hate seems to boil down to a few categories:

1.   Avaricious DLC policies. I agree with this one. I am still angry about the Mass Effect 3 DLC situation, but the game is great. (I have heard similar stories about Dead Space 3, but I have not played it yet). So if the game is good, I'll grumble and pay anyway. Which of course is what EA is counting on, and is hardly an endearing trait.

2.   Not patching a game after release. I have heard that many users are still waiting for a bug-fix patch for Dragon Age Inquisition. The original Mass Effect still has the black-pixelation problem in a few areas if you are playing on a computer with an AMD Steamroller-based CPU (which I am). It's just stunning that an issue that blatant was just ignored.

3.   Games which used to work are broken in their current form. To be fair, this plagues a number of older games on Steam as well - only a small proportion of them are EA properties. But the game I am thinking of is the original Crysis. It is for sale on Steam, but try installing and running it, and, well, you can't. The version on Origin actually does run - but you have to enter the game files and use the 64-bit executable (which is not included in the Steam version. There are number of work-arounds on Steam, but I don't think the average consumer should have to do that).

4.   Origin. So many people hate it. I'm not sure why. At least I can register my Steam keys on it for free copies of EA games that I already own (most of them, anyway). Then if I want to I can download and install through Origin. This is superior to Ubisoft's Uplay, which HAS to be open and running in order to launch an Ubisoft game that was purchased and installed in Steam. Origin works well enough. Origin has a simple interface, and reliable servers (more reliable than Valve's these days). Is it annoying that Steam can't be the "one-stop shop" for all video games? Sure. But it's time to accept that Origin is competent software. Because competition (for Steam) is a healthy thing.

5.   EA is a corporate juggernaut. Small studios disappear into the bowels of the corporation, sometimes never heard from or seen again. There has been a rash of this hate since EA shut down Maxis about two weeks ago. Never mind that Maxis had not produced much of note for almost ten years, and the last few games they DID create were duds (Sims 4, anyone?). Bioware seems to be safe for now (non-forthcoming patches notwithstanding, Dragon Age Inquisition was a hit), but if Mass Effect 4 crashes and burns, what do you think is going to happen? (Probably not full-scale closure, but some figurative heads will certainly roll). Bitter nostalgia seems to be at play here.

I came across this video on some forums today. It inspired me to write this post. It's a fun satire - I totally get it. My problem is in the description under the video. Here is a quote:

"Q) How is this [EA's] behaviour bad? Companies exist to make money, they're just doing what they're supposed to.
"(A) No, no, no, and A MILLION TIMES NO. Companies exist to trade a valuable product to a consumer in exchange for fair payment. They should only make a profit in order to improve their service efficiency, quality of product, and in order to comfortably support themselves..." [post goes on about what exactly is wrong with EA and why the uploader dislikes them].

No, sir. Companies exist to make money. Non-Profits exist to trade a valuable product to a consumer in exchange for fair payment (or they are supposed to, anyway). Corporations' sole reason for existence is to make a profit to keep the stock value up, so more people will invest in the corporation, so they can pay their executives more money, so working at the corporation is seen as prestigious. It is all about money, not about some kind of idealistic "we live to serve the customer" bullshit. Several companies that tried that approach don't exist any more (remember General Motors' Saturn division?). And even then, in a company that was supposedly all about the customer, Saturn's existence was problematic because their product was crap. And you can only dress up crap in so many ways before people start to notice a smell.

And if a game is actually good? Well, EA can charge as much as they want for DLC; people will buy it anyway (raises hand). Because unfortunately, making money is what any company or corporation is all about.

How about less fanboyism and more realistic comparisons? How about bitching for a damn patch for Mass Effect, instead of clogging EA's inbox about not being able to get the Pinnacle Station DLC on the Steam version? And EA, how about fixing Crysis on Steam, and bug-fixing Dragon Age Inquisition? Oh, and maybe actually making a new Madden game (and bringing it back to PC), instead of re-dressing the same stuff every year with a new roster? Sheesh.

EA's out for the money - as any for-profit corporation should be. Their bottom line could be padded even more if they turned on some PR charm by making Origin and the games on it as rock-solid as Steam used to be. But that would actually cost money. People are "getting by" with the way things are, so why bother?

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Too Much Digital Entertainment

A wise woman once said, "We will only know what is of over-mastering importance when it has over-mastered us." If nothing else, the sheer amount of time spent engaging with digital entertainment seems to indicate its over-mastering power to occupy and thrill people all over the world. If you are working in entertainment, there are more opportunities than ever before to get your work out there - to get it heard, seen or experienced.

I love playing video games. There are so many that I frequently don't know which one to play. Mass Effect (3 games), The Witcher (2, soon to be 3), Just Cause (2, soon to be 3), Assassin's Creed (9 games), Dragon Age (3 games), Deus Ex (4 games), Batman (3, soon to be 4), Alan Wake (2 games), Dishonored, Saints Row (3 games), Tomb Raider (6 or 7 games), Red Faction (4 games), Civilization (I have 3 games), Thief (4 games), Bioshock (3 games), Prince of Persia (5 or 6 games, I think), Far Cry (4 games), Metro (2 games), Total War (I have 6 of the 9 available), Max Payne (3 games), Elder Scrolls (3 games), Half-Life (2 games), Portal (2 games), Age of Empires (2 games) - and that's not even getting into some of the many other less-famous titles that I have in my game library. In total, the number of games available to me totals over 400.

I have played barely a fifth of them. And by "played," I don't mean I played them from beginning to end. I mean I played them until I lost interest. For about two dozen titles, I have played them to the conclusion. The rest - well, I don't know if I will ever return to them. I experienced them once, and was not impressed enough to finish them. Why would I want to return to them? There are so many other games to play...

I remember when all I had was a handful of titles that sat on my bookshelf. I played them over and over. Then, when I got tired of them, I discovered mods to renew their attraction. Now, I have so many games, I worry I won't be able to play them all. The days of relaxing with a game and getting lost in its world are long gone. Now I hop into one game, play it for a bit, then hop into a different game, trying to experience everything. And in the process, experiencing nothing. With new sales happening almost weekly on Origin, Amazon, Steam, Bundle Stars, GOG, and other websites, the temptation to add to my library is huge. The other day I purchased a game for Origin from Amazon called Syndicate. I watched the beginning of some "let's plays" on YouTube, and it looks like a cool game. I really want to play it. But when am I going to have the time to do that? Right now, the Sniper: Ghost Warrior Trilogy is on sale. The first Sniper game is a classic. But when would I play those games, if I purchased them? They would just go on the already-long list of games that I haven't played that I want to play. And some games on sale look cool, but I haven't bought them simply because I have no idea when I would play them, if at all.

I love watching good TV. Friends is a favorite sitcom of mine, as is Community, Cougar Town, Parks & Rec, and many others. Then there's adventure TV like Battlestar Galactica and Arrow, dramatic TV like Game of Thrones. If I kept up with all the shows I want to see, I wouldn't have time to do much else with my life. Then there's the question of whether I want to own the shows on DVD or Blu-ray so I can be "liberated" from the shackles of network programming and / or internet Flash ads (plus all those cool extras that fans love). But what is left after all that vicarious living?

Music is everywhere. On our phones, our tablets, laptops, in garages, on street corners, in shops - it has literally never been easier to find music to listen to (I'm listening to some right now as I write this). Online platforms like Spotify and iTunes make the task even easier. I have over a dozen different recordings of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Brahms' 4th Symphony is equally well represented, and that is not even getting into the violin concertos, piano concertos, cello concertos, string quartets, piano quartets, piano solo, violin solo, and other genres that absolutely clogs my listening queue. There is my playlist with Aerosmith, Scorpions, and AC / DC. There are other playlists of movie soundtracks, game soundtracks, Poets of the Fall, Simon and Garfunkel. Thanks to modern media platforms, the entire discography of Huey Lewis and the News is just a few clicks away. Now, when I DON'T have music pouring into my ears, multiple songs wage a noisy battle in my head for which one will ring in my ears for the next few hours. Sometimes I would listen to music, but I just can't anymore.

It's the same story with movies, books, pictures, even YouTube - there is simply too much media in the world today. I can tell that there is a lot of good stuff I am missing - and that, I think, is what fuels the constant consumption. I am so scared of "missing out" that I compensate by hoarding whatever I can grab cheaply. I've heard The Wire was an awesome show, but I'll probably never get to watch it. I've heard Alicia Keys is an awesome singer, but I'll probably never get to hear her. I've heard Guardians of the Galaxy was a fun movie, but I'll probably never watch it (not soon, anyway). Each movie competes with a new album, which competes with a concert, which competes with a video game, which competes with a TV show, all of them fighting amongst themselves for that golden trophy which is used to judge every entertainment - time. The time people take to experience the thrills and excitement that they have to offer.

There is too much media for anyone to enjoy it all.