Video game section for RiotACT?

Why does it need to be video game specific? Canberra has a huge base of gamers across all forms of gaming. There a huge numbers of tabletop, minature, board, trading card and video gamers in the ACT. But because all the other forms are seen as geeky no-one wants to discuss them.

never been to a 300 person LAN, apparently my concept of a huge LAN lacks perspective. the largest I’ve been to had 32 computers and little more people, and that was an epic undertaking. what games even support 300 people? or do you just play different games? what is the point, how do you even interact with them all?

“I’d like to see one. Always enjoyed Myles’ pieces in the Canberra Times TV Guide on a Monday.”

Cheers. Was a good run. Can’t believe some of the stuff I got into print. How to torrent, good VPNs, newspapers are dying a horrible death thanks to mismanagement… Used to see how far I could push it just for kicks and giggles, and pretty sure if the editors bothered to read my copy, I would have been axed long before I was.

Much happier writing for folks like Torrentfreak, the exposure is insane.

Back on topic – “Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd” … Thought you were trolling, seems you weren’t. Don’t even know where to begin, so I won’t.

pink little birdie said :

also do different styles of games. When I go into the gaming stores they aren’t really able to recommend many games for the non-violent level up adventure style games (Mario, Donkey Kong, Spyro)

I wouldn’t call any of those games NON-violent, they’re children’s games with light-hearted cartoon violence. But I get what you mean. Unfortunately for kiddies though, there aren’t many good children’s titles being these days that i know of. Your best bet would probably be some of the new Mario games on Wii.

also do different styles of games. When I go into the gaming stores they aren’t really able to recommend many games for the non-violent level up adventure style games (Mario, Donkey Kong, Spyro)

Primal said :

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Pc game sales may be on the rise ATM because the consoles are so far behind tech wise but once the new gen consoles are out, then it’s only gonna be die hard pc gamers left behind.(playing old games or mods of old games)

That’s what they said at the release of the PS3 and 360… and at the release of the PS2 and XBOX… and the PS1 and N64! The two cycles are symbiotic. One drives the other forward, which drives the first one forward further, and so on.

How can I put this in a Canberra context? The forces of console and PC are like two fully sik white Commodores fangin’ down the Monaro late at night.

Haha nice one. But in seriousness, never before has pc games been so minimal. Last gen most good games were made for pc then ported to consoles. Now 99% of games are made for 360 then ported to pc, very poorly in most cases and it’s very minimal what does get ported.
The money comes from the console kiddys and the publishers accommodate them.

Having a video gaming section on the site would be great. No matter what platform you play, PC, PS3, XBOX 360. I’m sure there would be some good local gaming discussion. It would also be a great place to organise some local Barcrafts.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Pc game sales may be on the rise ATM because the consoles are so far behind tech wise but once the new gen consoles are out, then it’s only gonna be die hard pc gamers left behind.(playing old games or mods of old games)

That’s what they said at the release of the PS3 and 360… and at the release of the PS2 and XBOX… and the PS1 and N64! The two cycles are symbiotic. One drives the other forward, which drives the first one forward further, and so on.

How can I put this in a Canberra context? The forces of console and PC are like two fully sik white Commodores fangin’ down the Monaro late at night.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Can any of you tell me the last good pc game besides diablo or a indy that was not a horrid console port?

This:

http://www.crusaderkings.com/

I would certainly appreciate a a regular post giving the cheapest places (online or locally) to buy each new released game.

Myles Peterson said :

Maybe our next crusade should be for a Mana Bar here in the capital…

Asked Yug about that a month or so back, he hinted it might be in the works.

That would be great!!!!!

I’d like to see one. Always enjoyed Myles’ pieces in the Canberra Times TV Guide on a Monday.

Can any of you tell me the last good pc game besides diablo or a indy that was not a horrid console port?

Pc game sales may be on the rise ATM because the consoles are so far behind tech wise but once the new gen consoles are out, then it’s only gonna be die hard pc gamers left behind.(playing old games or mods of old games)

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Pc gaming is pretty much dead. Have fun having your LAN party’s playing 10 year old games NERDS!

Silly troll.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Pc gaming is pretty much dead.

I call troll, and ask for your figures and sources to back up your call.

Pc gaming is pretty much dead. Have fun having your LAN party’s playing 10 year old games NERDS!

johnboy said :

The real question is whether we could add anything not being done by Kotaku and zero punctuation.

As someone who works at Kotaku, I’m sure we can spare some clicks for some discussions of a more local nature 🙂

This would be as good a place as any to talk local sales/deals, industry stuff, whatever!

Maybe our next crusade should be for a Mana Bar here in the capital…

Asked Yug about that a month or so back, he hinted it might be in the works. (Getting a lot of mileage out of this nose-face pic he designed for me.)

AIE run a lot of stuff. Women-in-Games events, trivia nights, even the odd pron swap-meet, I mean LAN.

“There are certainly frequent huge LANs, but I am not aware of any that are “open to the public”. As you said, the liability alone is ridiculous. I went to one last year that got so big it managed to melt a brand new router.”

How huge are you talking here? Note that (and I’m not exaggerating here) I’ve run 300 player events.

johnboy said :

The real question is whether we could add anything not being done by Kotaku and zero punctuation.

There is need for more than ZP?

Maybe our next crusade should be for a Mana Bar here in the capital…

Hmmm yeah, I probably didn’t think the “uniquely Canberra” side of things through.

Still, if I were a cynical editor of a website looking to generate traffic, I could do a lot worse than give the local video game community a place to mock each other and discuss titles and whatnot … Not a lot of the development happens here, but the playing sure does.

fnaah said :

“It would also be good to know about open LAN parties”

…. really? People still run these? I gave up running large public LAN events over ten years ago, around the time when broadband really started taking off and public liability insurance premiums began to skyrocket.

Is there anything running these days that even remotely resembles the old-school Nerdfest/LANFest/ACTGN?

There are certainly frequent huge LANs, but I am not aware of any that are “open to the public”. As you said, the liability alone is ridiculous. I went to one last year that got so big it managed to melt a brand new router.

The biggest problem is that so many new games are not designed with LANs in mind (eg Starcraft II and Diablo III), Diablo used to be a LAN mainstay, but requiring always on internet to play, and not having australian servers, means lag is severe, and as soon as you share your connection it gets worse. to top it off it only allows four players at once.

Even when you can get them to work, they end up saturating broadband, especially on our crappy non-duplexed australian connections. For instance, TF2 is great for LANs, as long as you are happy to only play on a local server, 32 players all trying to upload at up to 50kbs each pretty quickly saturates home net connections and results in horrid lag. Most modern shooters are similarly optomised, so as soon as you have more than a handful of people sharing the same connection, it flakes out. Meanwhile we have politicians telling us the NBN will be fast enough, yeah right, tell that to the nerds.

So most of the LANs I get out to end up playing relatively old games, or end up being small due to internet limitations. L4D2 is a good one (banned version of course), CIV or MoH, maybe some CoD or even War III. Even so, you generally get just as good, or better, performance from just playing together online from your respective homes. Its sad, LANs are awesome, but it seems games companies these days care more about stopping the pirate minority than appeasing their own paying customers.

Also, if I recall correctly, and they haven’t moved, 2K’s Canberra office is in Braddon (18 Lonsdale St)

“It would also be good to know about open LAN parties”

…. really? People still run these? I gave up running large public LAN events over ten years ago, around the time when broadband really started taking off and public liability insurance premiums began to skyrocket.

Is there anything running these days that even remotely resembles the old-school Nerdfest/LANFest/ACTGN?

Does anybody know where the 2K studio is in canberra? I would like to raid said studio for bioshock/2K related merch.

I liek to pleh games

Well… I’ll put one out there.

Canberra Fighting Game League – Monthly Tournament.
Currently playing at the tournament are Super Street Fighter 4 AE2012, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, and various other fighting games (HDR, SFxT, KoF). All games are played on Xbox360.

More information on this forum.

A gaming section on RiotAct would certainly steal some of the hits I send Kotaku’s way. It would also be good to know about open LAN parties, local events, etc etc.

Mothy said :

XBOX/PS3/PC?

Seeing as the majority of titles are cross-platform, i don’t see why all three can’t be covered.

Unless of course, you’re just looking to start a flame war about how one system is utter crap compared to another but in that case you should probably just go away.

While I don’t think there is really any uniquely Canberran spin you can put on the video games industry I’d certainly still enjoy a section about them here. I’d be more than happy to write reviews and such for new-releases. Also, it’d be good to hear about other people’s experience buying games in the A.C.T. JB hi-fi generally wins on prices but their product range is so diverse that I often find the selection available the the advice of staff to be less than stellar.

XBOX/PS3/PC?