Screw transparency!

From Dan at gameslaw.net:

Gamepolitics reports via Knowledge Ecology Notes that the ESA’s VP of IP Policy, Stevan Mitchell, has been cleared for access to the ACTA negotiations. ACTA, or Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a multinational treaty-in-progress that has been developed in secret since mid-2007. It covers a fairly broad scope, but it has been confirmed to include regulation on "internet distribution and information technology." ACTA has been opposed by the Free Software Foundation and the EFF, while groups calling for greater disclosure in the agreement’s language include the Consumers Union, IP Justice, Public Knowledge, National Consumer Council, and Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

There’s obviously a danger here, in that the ESA is a representative of video game publishers, whose interests involving copyright, counterfeiting and DRM are often detrimental to those of the consumers who purchase their products. Any of you following my twitter feed have surely noticed that restrictive DRM has caused me to be entirely unable to play Empire: Total War for two weeks, with no fix in sight. Unfortunately, if language from the DMCA is included in ACTA, we can look forward to a significantly more frustrating user experience in the future and a fundamentally muddled legal landscape surrounding copy-protection and anti-circumvention measures. It’s difficult enough to determine appropriate law in the U.S., it’s even worse when international law is implicated.

Except, we’ve got no clue what is on the menu for ACTA, because the discussions are still being held in secret. But we do know now that there is very little consumer representation on the “cleared access” list, compared to heavy IP industry presences from Time Warner, Cisco, ESA, RIAA, MPAA, IP Owners Association, IBM, Intel, and others. This simply can’t be good.

A FOIA request for information about ACTA was denied for national security reasons. However, Wikileaks managed to get a copy of a discussion paper about the proposed agreement. This is not the first time an information request was denied; according the Vancouver Sun, the University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic filed the Canadian version of a FOIA request, but received only a document stating the title of the agreement, with everything else blacked out.

Trailers of Games: pretty renderings of ugly worlds

First up - Fallout 3: The Pitt. Overall, it looks more interesting than Operation Anchorage, with some very, very nice atmospherics:


Next up, we have a visually-impressive reveal for a game called Third Soldier. I can't find much in the way of useful information about the game on the interwebs (there's not even a Wikipedia "unreleased video game" page yet), and the official site is largely useless at present. What I can tell you is the protagonist is a lone crusader fighting hordes of Saracens all by himself, alone, with no help. Prepare yourself for enemies that are cheap and brutal caricatures of their historical counterparts:



Finally, we have a trailer for Alpha Protocol, a game calling itself "first modern-day spy RPG." Maybe. Now that it's March, we can infer that the February 2009 release date was overly optimistic. Call it October. Here's the video:

F.E.A.R. 2 patch

It seems you can only get it via Steam at the moment. The full changelog is here, with selected details below:

■ Difficulty of Hard mode has been increased

■ Implemented a toggle for switching between widescreen (16:9) and full screen (4:3) in the Options|Performance|Advanced Settings menu

■ Implemented a toggle for head bob in Options|Game Settings

■ Implemented a toggle for film grain in the Options|Performance|Advanced Settings menu

The rest of the updates are multiplayer fixes. It was a good move to add the 4:3 aspect ratio support, given that so many people found the "letterbox" view annoying. If you're going to spend the money to put together a system that can run a game like this, why shouldn't you be able to use your entire monitor?

TF2 Top Ten

Valve delists lying TF2 servers

Some unscrupulous server admins have created custom "rules" that falsely report the number of players in-game, so players have had to deal with the annoyance of joining a game that the server browser reported to be nearly full, only to find it completely empty.

Valve have found a way to defeat such chicanery: a simple server ranking system that awards points based on the amount of time players stay on the server (up to 45 points per player). Servers that have a lot of players joining and leaving within a 15-minute window are penalized, and those with negative point totals are removed from the master server browser. There's a little leeway given once the score drops below zero, but it ain't much:



"Bad Player Experiences" are a polite way of saying that the player has joined a lying server, and bounced off in disgust. Valve's solution here is rather elegant, and it doesn't even require a client download.

L4D and TF2 updates

Left 4 Dead

Lobby leaders can now specify in lobby settings whether to search for an official dedicated server or for the best available dedicated server. If the official dedicated search fails it will then default to the best available dedicated server automatically

Team Fortress 2

Players who are stunned by a Scout now take 50% less damage

Increased the minimum distance to stun a player with the Sandman

(includes a number of additional fixes)

I do NOT condone this ...

... but if you absolutely have to grief TF2:

Best-selling games of February 2009

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
3. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II
4. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
5. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
6. Spore
7. World Of Warcraft
8. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack
9. Fallout 3
10. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
11. Call Of Duty: World At War
12. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
13. Left 4 Dead
14. The Sims 2 Deluxe
15. Civilization IV
16. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Exp.
17. StarCraft Battle Chest
18. Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack
19. Diablo Battle Chest
20. The Sims 2 Pets Exp.

It's worth noting that Starcraft is a 10 year-old game. Diablo is nine.

GT interview on Rage (and a bit on Doom 4)

Left 4 Dead update

The update includes quite a few changes, so I'll just highlight a few. The entire changelog is here.

Versus mode:

Tank melee attack can now hit multiple Survivors in one swing

Fixed Tank punch being able to hit targets behind walls

The Smoker tongue can now target and grab victims through common infected

Increased the cone in which a Smoker can grab a target

Boomers that explode in mid-air will now hit Survivors directly below them with Bile

Fixed some cases where versus score was not being recalculated properly. It is no longer beneficial to pass pills between players at the end of the round or heal other players and then shoot them

Other changes:

The scoreboard now shows the numeric value of a player's ping

Quick match will now try to match to any campaign. Removed the preference to match to games according to the player progressing through all campaigns

Games in a finale are now joinable via the Friends and Steam Group games list