"The sales tax was to cover services that B&M retailers needed from the state, county, and city. Amazon, being a net business, uses none of those services."
I can't really comment on what sales tax was meant to cover, however, to say Amazon uses no resources/services of a state it ships items to/through is dishonest.
Amazon may not directly transport items across state owned roads in _every_ state, but it does indeed depend on those roads to exist so their products can be transported by other companies. Beyond that, they also need protection from the state/local police in every state they ship items to. They need all the supporting services just to keep the roadways open. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure.
That being said, I think a tax already exists to cover this "issue" on taxes, Use Tax.
If you ran a casual game company and someone offered to pay $1,300,000,000 for your company, would you not sell out? I would, in a heartbeat. Then I'd start another business and enjoy life without ever worrying about money again. (yes, I know it doesn't all go to one guy, and yes I also know that the heads of the company probably already didn't need more money, but the point still stands, over a BILLION dollars!)
It's not what they are doing, I understand they are about to get ass rammed by the content companies soon. I get that they need to charge more to stay in business, I really do.
My problem is with how they are going about it.
From my email:
"Dear RoTide,
We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.
Your current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:
Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 1 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $7.99 a month
Your price for getting both of these plans will be $15.98 a month ($7.99 + $7.99). You don't need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.
These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011."
Essentially, hey, we are ending your plan, and oh look at that, the comparable plan is $15.98 and we're going to start billing you at that rate if you do nothing. In other words, almost a bait and switch. "Hey, we see you have a single plan for less than $10. Now we're going to end your plan and charge you for TWO plans at a 60% hike just to give you what you had!" And if I hadn't noticed the email? Or read tech blogs?
I just called their 800 number to formally state my displeasure with the situation, but it auto-hangs up on you due to call volume. You're not even put on hold, just straight up "click".
If they didn't try to charge me more, just told me the truth, and forced me to choose a new plan because the old one would put them out of business? I wouldn't be ecstatic about it, but I'd probably not be trying to call them for the first time ever. This is going to end up with a lot of bad PR.
Frankly, I second this. I didn't get the DVD _and_ streaming for 10/mo just so they can tell me I get to choose one or the other now. The rate hikes begin. How many more years until cable becomes competitive? Maybe that's a little in the realm of hyperbole, but they basically just doubled my bill and the email made it sound like a favor.
I'm hoping NASA stops developing "day to day" vehicles and starts working on next generation technologies. They can do the research while the private industry takes the existing, proven, technology and keeps man flying into orbit. I invision NASA as the R&D arm of the space sector. They can make new and interesting satelites, plan new missions out past orbit, plan habitation on other planets, and plan straight up new tech.
And then a light dusting of snow comes and all the markings are gone!
Oh please no! People have a hard enough time following traffic lights. Red means, "if it's only been red a little while, you're probably still ok to go". Ridiculous.
Honestly, I see most American's having trouble with a normal roundabout, let alone that confusing monstrosity.
Taxes are a fact of life for anyone living in a civilized society.
Taxes are used for the betterment of said society, either through security, communications, transportation, or the helping of it's citizens who are in need (among other things, overly short/simplistic list).
Taxes being used to help those in need of medical help, is a good use, in my opinion. It doesn't make me a slave because I pay taxes that might someday save YOU or the life of someone you care about. That's just misusing the word, slave, to try to give weight to your argument, which apparently needs the help of emotion laden words.
But I'm imagining what happens if an engine quits during take-off/landing. In a fixed wing aircraft, you're probably still screwed depending on your altitude, but at least you have a chance at restarting and/or ditching in a field. With something that hovers, you have no more lift once the engine quits, you're just a rock. Heck, not even only during take-off/landing, just during cruise, what do you do?
Helicopters can auto-rotate by storing energy in the main rotor and then "re-engaging" it when you're close to the ground. Basically, you get a one time use pillow. This thing however? How do you safely recover from an engine out?
With multi-engine airplanes, you also have the "option" of at least extending range during a single engine failure. This thing appears to apply thrust upwards to "lift" the aircraft as the wings do on a normal plane. What happens when an engine (think wing) fails on this? Does it just flip out of control (imagining multiple sets of these on a passenger plane applying lift to different areas of the fuselage).?
"Clayton Morris (born December 31, 1976) is a current co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend on Fox News Channel and a former co-host of the syndicated The Daily Buzz. In addition to his work at FNC, Morris runs a media consulting company called Action Now Consultant Group. Morris has also appeared as a guest host of CNET's Podcast The 404. Morris co-hosts a weekly podcast with childhood friend, professional wrestler Mike Quackenbush called The Grizzly Bear Egg Cafe. Every Friday Morris hosts Gadgets & Games on Strategy Room on the Fox website."
In other words, a guy who has no credentials except media wanker. And he likes iPads.
Ya, maybe you wouldn't be, but I get distracted. Having a bright screen pop up 3 feet in front of you while someone clicks away typing messages, is VERY distracting. Having people talk on their cell phones is also VERY distracting. But you think it's ok as long as the movie is good enough? Because if it's ohh so good people would never notice something like that? Are you just trying to make excuses for people to use their phones during a movie?
How do you _know_ it wasn't caused by another outside factor, like Cell Towers, Radar stations, or radio/television towers for instance? Should we ban those anywhere near the flightpath of an airplane because we can't prove those don't cause SOME interference with avionics or another instrument on one of your "few crashes"?
I'm no Apple fan, but damn do people elect stupid people to City Council. That Kris lady or whatever doesn't care about anything besides "Free WiFi" [goto 13:19]. That's what she wants for the city. Screw tax revenue, new residents, etc, etc, no, she wants Apple to give her free WiFi. Again, I don't like Apple, but Steve's response was great, basically, (paraphrased), "We'll give you WiFi when you stop taxing us, since that's what taxes are for, public works projects".
We'll see if they make equals and more importantly, a series, that is/are successful and in line with the reboot.
I know Star Trek in general was extremely niche. I know in it's old state, it was dying, hard to admit it, but it wasn't thriving for sure. I'm sad to say the old thought provoking Star Trek might be history and a new Action Adventure replacement is what's on the table now. But I'd rather see them morph it than just let it die. I love the ST universe and I'll love seeing new interpretations on it.
As for the canon of Star Trek, they just made it up as they went. Take Trills for instance. In TNG, they couldn't use the Transporters or it would kill them. In DS9, that was too inconvenient. So they gave them spots and took away their limitations. Whenever inconvenient (or convenient) they would change their own canon!
A reboot in the case of Star Trek was necessary, as the alternative was to let it die =(
Glad that worked out so well for them. The platform is super secure and Sony is at zero risk now! The customers around the world are happy as can be too!
Ya, I do run into that a lot. But that's why I don't mind the bad reviews. If you put up a review that casts a negative light on something and I read that review, if I come out of that thinking your negative points were superficial and not really relevant (or to your point, just bashing the genre or controller they don't like), I'm going to think wow, that was a negative review, and that's all they had to say about it? That in my mind HELPs the game/product/service.
Then again, if the bad reviews are well thought out and bring up really good points, say, the doctor likes to make up things you don't believe you have (had those before) or puts the sales pitch on you for whitening, etc, or maybe fondles you while you're out, ya, ok. Those I could see doctors wanting to control, I mean, those would be bad for business. But general negative reviews with no real basis in practical reality, so what? No one has a perfect record (even if they did, I'd be suspicious). Let the negative reviewers speak their peace and let the positive ones drown them out.
I'm not sold on this. If I was a dentist, lets say, and I want good reviews, I'll ask my customers to please rate me on such and such a site. You will _always_ have bad reviews and as a person who frequently reads reviews, I know how to filter out good and badly written reviews. If there are 10 great reviews and one complaining that the service wasn't covered under insurance or something like that, I wouldn't hold it against the dentist.
What's even more interesting, is that I actively seek out the bad reviews. When it comes to game reviews, for example, I go to the compilation sites like gamerankings etc, and purposely read the reviews that rated the game the worst. You can tell a lot about a game by the way the critical reviewers tear it apart. Maybe they only gripe about the graphics or something that just doesn't matter to me. If that's all they can muster, I can usually count on a quality experience.
Same happened when I was searching for a new dentist. The one I picked had some negative reviews, but they all boiled down to "while they were friendly and made you feel at ease.. (some complaint about money here)." So the negative review may or may not hurt "my" dentist in the long run, but I picked him because of the CONTENT of those negative reviews. The worst thing people could say was some of the stuff he did didn't end up covered fully under their particular insurance plans, that sucks, but it's your job to make sure the work will be covered before submitting to it!
In the end, the ones that censor reviews, usually have a reason why they fear them.
I wouldn't call it retaliation, per se. I'd more be inclined to describe it as a company that everyone who likes to "penetration test" sees as a fun target now. They pissed certain people off and made a certain amount of headlines and eventually they hit "critical mass" with the "hacker community". Sony keeps fixing things and the "testers" are having a good time showing the world that they are still vulnerable.
Sony is being forced to play a game where the other side has the better toolset.
Right, so should we ban planes, or databases? Well, databases aren't that dangerous, you can't blow up towers in major cities with a database (friends who work with Oracle DBs may object to that, however).
So, we'll state that planes are bad because tewowiztz can use them to kill people. So, lets ban them! Then trains will be the next logical target. Ban those. Then boats, ban ban ban! Then trucks, ban. Then cars, ban. Then anywhere people ride their bikes, ban those too. Then people will be forced to walk, lock them up at home I guess.
I know, since the TSA stops tons of tewowiztz, we should probably just put up TSA checkpoints _everywhere_. At the mall, every on/off ramp, local bars, bike trails, etc. Anywhere people travel/congregate, that'll keep us safe. We'll probably have to come up with a good ID system so we can prove we are who we say we are at all stops. Probably institute a punishment for not having that ID on you at all times too, the cost to the taxpayer to pat them down, run background checks, etc, that'd be un-American.
Frankly, if you don't support this idea, you would be assisting the tewowiztz. You don't want to support them, do you? American's love freedom, and there is nothing more free than to know you're safe to walk around without having to worry about tewowiztz!
Or, we could just accept that there are bad people out there who will do whatever the please if given the chance. Ask yourself if the risk is worth it, much like driving, skydiving, etc, and continue to enjoy life until it inevitably ends!
I don't choose who I vote for by the little letter in the parenthesis next to their name. I vote for the guy that I think would make a more positive contribution to the country and to myself. I criticized Bush and I criticize Obama.
The second you try to make this a partisan issue is the second you've proven you're drank the kool-aid. Both sides pander to those who give them money, which is everyone with profits on the line who also has enough money to "buy" someone.
Democrat or Republican, same shit, different piles.
Well... there are slight differences, but the end result still tastes crappy.
You know, I loved, LOVED desert combat. Spent tons of hours learning to fly heli's alone. Battlefield 1942 was great all alone as well.
That being said, there are two companies I refuse to purchase from, Sony, and EA. The whole BF franchise sits with the latter. I'm going to have to respectfully decline the invitation to play those games, unfortunately.
Obviously my choice. Sad to say the only options for multiplayer ("good" multiplayer, anyways) is Activision's CoD #x or EA's Battlefield #x.. sigh.
This game is dead on arrival to me. I was looking forward to a new "Quake" (read: multiplayer awesomeness) and it seems like they are giving us a single player only (for all intents and purposes) game instead.
Now, single player games are fine. I really like Mario, Zelda, a lot of the games on XBLA (Castle Crashers, Limbo, etc, etc) and I could name a ton more games that are fun single player/co-op experiences. That being said, id isn't a company I expect great single player games from. I expect great multiplayer games from them! Games with lasting power.
Sure, playing a great single player game could take 12 hours to complete, and another 10 to replay if it's that good, but multiplayer games can make me want to play for _years_. Quake 1/2/3, I don't want to know how many hours I put into those with friends on a LAN. When RAGE was announced, I was excited for new IP from id! What new things are they going to think up for multiplayer to push themselves ahead of all the rest in the competitive scene? It seems, so far, there are no dedicated servers! no deathmatch! and NO CTF!!! That's grea..... wait, what? The only multiplayer they are going to have is vehicle combat and co-op? Who is creating this game again?
Ok, so, it's pretty much a single player game only. I'll save my $60 thank you. I was sincerely looking forward to another AAA awesome multiplayer title. I guess if you want to play a multiplayer shooter, go grab CoD#12 or whatever they are up to now.. shudder.. id software is apparently removing themselves from the running. Movie style, linear games, seem to be the RAGE.. I think I'll get off my own lawn now..
Slashdot Mirror
"The sales tax was to cover services that B&M retailers needed from the state, county, and city. Amazon, being a net business, uses none of those services."
I can't really comment on what sales tax was meant to cover, however, to say Amazon uses no resources/services of a state it ships items to/through is dishonest.
Amazon may not directly transport items across state owned roads in _every_ state, but it does indeed depend on those roads to exist so their products can be transported by other companies. Beyond that, they also need protection from the state/local police in every state they ship items to. They need all the supporting services just to keep the roadways open. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure.
That being said, I think a tax already exists to cover this "issue" on taxes, Use Tax.
"Of course, if you're not heavily invested in your product or fan base, cashing out is easy."
Easy to say when you're not the one receiving a check worth over a Billion dollars.
AC making trollish comment, ya, I know. Shouldn't have fed him....
If you ran a casual game company and someone offered to pay $1,300,000,000 for your company, would you not sell out? I would, in a heartbeat. Then I'd start another business and enjoy life without ever worrying about money again. (yes, I know it doesn't all go to one guy, and yes I also know that the heads of the company probably already didn't need more money, but the point still stands, over a BILLION dollars!)
It's not what they are doing, I understand they are about to get ass rammed by the content companies soon. I get that they need to charge more to stay in business, I really do.
My problem is with how they are going about it.
From my email:
"Dear RoTide,
We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.
Your current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:
Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 1 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $7.99 a month
Your price for getting both of these plans will be $15.98 a month ($7.99 + $7.99). You don't need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.
These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011."
Essentially, hey, we are ending your plan, and oh look at that, the comparable plan is $15.98 and we're going to start billing you at that rate if you do nothing. In other words, almost a bait and switch. "Hey, we see you have a single plan for less than $10. Now we're going to end your plan and charge you for TWO plans at a 60% hike just to give you what you had!" And if I hadn't noticed the email? Or read tech blogs?
I just called their 800 number to formally state my displeasure with the situation, but it auto-hangs up on you due to call volume. You're not even put on hold, just straight up "click".
If they didn't try to charge me more, just told me the truth, and forced me to choose a new plan because the old one would put them out of business? I wouldn't be ecstatic about it, but I'd probably not be trying to call them for the first time ever. This is going to end up with a lot of bad PR.
Frankly, I second this. I didn't get the DVD _and_ streaming for 10/mo just so they can tell me I get to choose one or the other now. The rate hikes begin. How many more years until cable becomes competitive? Maybe that's a little in the realm of hyperbole, but they basically just doubled my bill and the email made it sound like a favor.
I'm hoping NASA stops developing "day to day" vehicles and starts working on next generation technologies. They can do the research while the private industry takes the existing, proven, technology and keeps man flying into orbit. I invision NASA as the R&D arm of the space sector. They can make new and interesting satelites, plan new missions out past orbit, plan habitation on other planets, and plan straight up new tech.
And then a light dusting of snow comes and all the markings are gone!
Oh please no! People have a hard enough time following traffic lights. Red means, "if it's only been red a little while, you're probably still ok to go". Ridiculous.
Honestly, I see most American's having trouble with a normal roundabout, let alone that confusing monstrosity.
Taxes are a fact of life for anyone living in a civilized society.
Taxes are used for the betterment of said society, either through security, communications, transportation, or the helping of it's citizens who are in need (among other things, overly short/simplistic list).
Taxes being used to help those in need of medical help, is a good use, in my opinion. It doesn't make me a slave because I pay taxes that might someday save YOU or the life of someone you care about. That's just misusing the word, slave, to try to give weight to your argument, which apparently needs the help of emotion laden words.
I'm no aerospace engineer...
But I'm imagining what happens if an engine quits during take-off/landing. In a fixed wing aircraft, you're probably still screwed depending on your altitude, but at least you have a chance at restarting and/or ditching in a field. With something that hovers, you have no more lift once the engine quits, you're just a rock. Heck, not even only during take-off/landing, just during cruise, what do you do?
Helicopters can auto-rotate by storing energy in the main rotor and then "re-engaging" it when you're close to the ground. Basically, you get a one time use pillow. This thing however? How do you safely recover from an engine out?
With multi-engine airplanes, you also have the "option" of at least extending range during a single engine failure. This thing appears to apply thrust upwards to "lift" the aircraft as the wings do on a normal plane. What happens when an engine (think wing) fails on this? Does it just flip out of control (imagining multiple sets of these on a passenger plane applying lift to different areas of the fuselage).?
Per Wikipedia:
"Clayton Morris (born December 31, 1976) is a current co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend on Fox News Channel and a former co-host of the syndicated The Daily Buzz. In addition to his work at FNC, Morris runs a media consulting company called Action Now Consultant Group. Morris has also appeared as a guest host of CNET's Podcast The 404. Morris co-hosts a weekly podcast with childhood friend, professional wrestler Mike Quackenbush called The Grizzly Bear Egg Cafe. Every Friday Morris hosts Gadgets & Games on Strategy Room on the Fox website."
In other words, a guy who has no credentials except media wanker. And he likes iPads.
Ya, maybe you wouldn't be, but I get distracted. Having a bright screen pop up 3 feet in front of you while someone clicks away typing messages, is VERY distracting. Having people talk on their cell phones is also VERY distracting. But you think it's ok as long as the movie is good enough? Because if it's ohh so good people would never notice something like that? Are you just trying to make excuses for people to use their phones during a movie?
So, it's ok to annoy the other patrons as long as _you_ don't like the movie? You're right, the world does revolve around you.
How do you _know_ it wasn't caused by another outside factor, like Cell Towers, Radar stations, or radio/television towers for instance? Should we ban those anywhere near the flightpath of an airplane because we can't prove those don't cause SOME interference with avionics or another instrument on one of your "few crashes"?
I'm no Apple fan, but damn do people elect stupid people to City Council. That Kris lady or whatever doesn't care about anything besides "Free WiFi" [goto 13:19]. That's what she wants for the city. Screw tax revenue, new residents, etc, etc, no, she wants Apple to give her free WiFi. Again, I don't like Apple, but Steve's response was great, basically, (paraphrased), "We'll give you WiFi when you stop taxing us, since that's what taxes are for, public works projects".
We'll see if they make equals and more importantly, a series, that is/are successful and in line with the reboot.
I know Star Trek in general was extremely niche. I know in it's old state, it was dying, hard to admit it, but it wasn't thriving for sure. I'm sad to say the old thought provoking Star Trek might be history and a new Action Adventure replacement is what's on the table now. But I'd rather see them morph it than just let it die. I love the ST universe and I'll love seeing new interpretations on it.
As for the canon of Star Trek, they just made it up as they went. Take Trills for instance. In TNG, they couldn't use the Transporters or it would kill them. In DS9, that was too inconvenient. So they gave them spots and took away their limitations. Whenever inconvenient (or convenient) they would change their own canon!
A reboot in the case of Star Trek was necessary, as the alternative was to let it die =(
Glad that worked out so well for them. The platform is super secure and Sony is at zero risk now! The customers around the world are happy as can be too!
Ya, I do run into that a lot. But that's why I don't mind the bad reviews. If you put up a review that casts a negative light on something and I read that review, if I come out of that thinking your negative points were superficial and not really relevant (or to your point, just bashing the genre or controller they don't like), I'm going to think wow, that was a negative review, and that's all they had to say about it? That in my mind HELPs the game/product/service.
Then again, if the bad reviews are well thought out and bring up really good points, say, the doctor likes to make up things you don't believe you have (had those before) or puts the sales pitch on you for whitening, etc, or maybe fondles you while you're out, ya, ok. Those I could see doctors wanting to control, I mean, those would be bad for business. But general negative reviews with no real basis in practical reality, so what? No one has a perfect record (even if they did, I'd be suspicious). Let the negative reviewers speak their peace and let the positive ones drown them out.
I'm not sold on this. If I was a dentist, lets say, and I want good reviews, I'll ask my customers to please rate me on such and such a site. You will _always_ have bad reviews and as a person who frequently reads reviews, I know how to filter out good and badly written reviews. If there are 10 great reviews and one complaining that the service wasn't covered under insurance or something like that, I wouldn't hold it against the dentist.
What's even more interesting, is that I actively seek out the bad reviews. When it comes to game reviews, for example, I go to the compilation sites like gamerankings etc, and purposely read the reviews that rated the game the worst. You can tell a lot about a game by the way the critical reviewers tear it apart. Maybe they only gripe about the graphics or something that just doesn't matter to me. If that's all they can muster, I can usually count on a quality experience.
Same happened when I was searching for a new dentist. The one I picked had some negative reviews, but they all boiled down to "while they were friendly and made you feel at ease.. (some complaint about money here)." So the negative review may or may not hurt "my" dentist in the long run, but I picked him because of the CONTENT of those negative reviews. The worst thing people could say was some of the stuff he did didn't end up covered fully under their particular insurance plans, that sucks, but it's your job to make sure the work will be covered before submitting to it!
In the end, the ones that censor reviews, usually have a reason why they fear them.
I wouldn't call it retaliation, per se. I'd more be inclined to describe it as a company that everyone who likes to "penetration test" sees as a fun target now. They pissed certain people off and made a certain amount of headlines and eventually they hit "critical mass" with the "hacker community". Sony keeps fixing things and the "testers" are having a good time showing the world that they are still vulnerable.
Sony is being forced to play a game where the other side has the better toolset.
You could take the bus instead of driving your own car. Just a thought. Go commercial buddy, stop taking private transport!
Right, so should we ban planes, or databases? Well, databases aren't that dangerous, you can't blow up towers in major cities with a database (friends who work with Oracle DBs may object to that, however).
So, we'll state that planes are bad because tewowiztz can use them to kill people. So, lets ban them! Then trains will be the next logical target. Ban those. Then boats, ban ban ban! Then trucks, ban. Then cars, ban. Then anywhere people ride their bikes, ban those too. Then people will be forced to walk, lock them up at home I guess.
I know, since the TSA stops tons of tewowiztz, we should probably just put up TSA checkpoints _everywhere_. At the mall, every on/off ramp, local bars, bike trails, etc. Anywhere people travel/congregate, that'll keep us safe. We'll probably have to come up with a good ID system so we can prove we are who we say we are at all stops. Probably institute a punishment for not having that ID on you at all times too, the cost to the taxpayer to pat them down, run background checks, etc, that'd be un-American.
Frankly, if you don't support this idea, you would be assisting the tewowiztz. You don't want to support them, do you? American's love freedom, and there is nothing more free than to know you're safe to walk around without having to worry about tewowiztz!
Or, we could just accept that there are bad people out there who will do whatever the please if given the chance. Ask yourself if the risk is worth it, much like driving, skydiving, etc, and continue to enjoy life until it inevitably ends!
I don't choose who I vote for by the little letter in the parenthesis next to their name. I vote for the guy that I think would make a more positive contribution to the country and to myself. I criticized Bush and I criticize Obama.
The second you try to make this a partisan issue is the second you've proven you're drank the kool-aid. Both sides pander to those who give them money, which is everyone with profits on the line who also has enough money to "buy" someone.
Democrat or Republican, same shit, different piles.
Well... there are slight differences, but the end result still tastes crappy.
You know, I loved, LOVED desert combat. Spent tons of hours learning to fly heli's alone. Battlefield 1942 was great all alone as well.
That being said, there are two companies I refuse to purchase from, Sony, and EA. The whole BF franchise sits with the latter. I'm going to have to respectfully decline the invitation to play those games, unfortunately.
Obviously my choice. Sad to say the only options for multiplayer ("good" multiplayer, anyways) is Activision's CoD #x or EA's Battlefield #x.. sigh.
This game is dead on arrival to me. I was looking forward to a new "Quake" (read: multiplayer awesomeness) and it seems like they are giving us a single player only (for all intents and purposes) game instead.
Now, single player games are fine. I really like Mario, Zelda, a lot of the games on XBLA (Castle Crashers, Limbo, etc, etc) and I could name a ton more games that are fun single player/co-op experiences. That being said, id isn't a company I expect great single player games from. I expect great multiplayer games from them! Games with lasting power.
Sure, playing a great single player game could take 12 hours to complete, and another 10 to replay if it's that good, but multiplayer games can make me want to play for _years_. Quake 1/2/3, I don't want to know how many hours I put into those with friends on a LAN. When RAGE was announced, I was excited for new IP from id! What new things are they going to think up for multiplayer to push themselves ahead of all the rest in the competitive scene? It seems, so far, there are no dedicated servers! no deathmatch! and NO CTF!!! That's grea..... wait, what? The only multiplayer they are going to have is vehicle combat and co-op? Who is creating this game again?
No Dedicated Servers: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95955-John-Carmack-Says-No-Dedicated-Servers-for-Rage
Co-Op/Vehicles with NO DM/CTF: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/04/19/rage-multiplayer-modes-revealed-no-deathmatch-or-capture-the-flag/
Ok, so, it's pretty much a single player game only. I'll save my $60 thank you. I was sincerely looking forward to another AAA awesome multiplayer title. I guess if you want to play a multiplayer shooter, go grab CoD#12 or whatever they are up to now.. shudder.. id software is apparently removing themselves from the running. Movie style, linear games, seem to be the RAGE.. I think I'll get off my own lawn now..