Um - I would hope they are charging more than what it takes to maintain the game. They are a company in business to make a profit afterall. I don't consider the extra content free - it makes me much happier paying the monthly fee when I know that there are quarterly "expansions" included in that cost. As to CoH vs. WoW - to each his own. I've been playing CoH since June and still haven't seen and done everything. Admittedly I only have time for a couple of hours everyday, so I am by no means a hardcore MMO player. I tried the beta for WoW and just couldn't get into it. I'm sure it's a great game and lots of people seem to love it. Not enough spandex for me though.
No - I meant that EA's attitude toward developers has changed. From making them prominent to making them invisible. I will say that knowing who the developers are helps in that you can look for games by good developers. You know - the Sid Meiers of the world.
Sure if its a question about a home computer. I don't fix other peoples computers - if they are really messed up I refer them to a friend who has a small PC fix it shop. After all people have no problem paying to fix their cars so why should they not pay a tech to fix their computer?
Unfortunately those calls my staff gets are business users contacting the IT help desk. Thanks to Windows though the appropriate response is "Did you restart?"
Seems to me EA just about killed Origin and the Ultima franchise. Look at what happened with the last releases. Buggy and shoved out the door do to deadline pressure from management. I always respected Richard Garriott (Lord British) as a kid because of the obvious care that went into the development. I recall playing $50 in 1983 dollars to pickup Ultima 3. The packaging was beautiful complete with 3 manuals and the cloth map. The game was excellent and felt like it was made by people who enjoyed their craft. How far (we see farther?) EA has come from its origins as a company that presented developers as rock stars complete with album style game packaging. That actually had PICTURES of the developers on the boxes.
"Ahh, I'm going to have to go ahead and ask you to come in on Sunday, too..."
Your boss isn't by any chance named Lumbergh is he?
Not an example of X Box 2 graphics
on
Xbox 2 Game Trailer
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This is a nice pre-rendered CGI trailer. Read the information on the developers site. These are million plus polygon characters that show the overall look they are trying to achieve. There are some screenshots on the site but even these are listed as works in progress. They only show some architecture and working lower res models.
Free anti-virus programs are available - especially in the case of home users. See AVG, Avast, AntiVir Personal Edition, BitDefender.
Windows XP includes a firewall. Service pack 2 even enables it by default and makes it easier to configure. Not the best firewall out there, but its better than nothing.
The best spyware removal tools are free. Spybot is free and AdAware is free for non-commercial usage.
Most people don't bother to upgrade Windows - they just use whatever version their PC shipped with. SO yes they pay for it in the OEM bundle, but it comes pre-installed. They also get the magic restore disk, so even morons can pop it in and reinstall the system.
As for TOC - well this all depends. Mostly on where your knowledge is. If you or the company IT staff is Linux/UNIX savvy then sure the TOC is lower. Now lets say you are a home user and you switch to Linux or BSD. You aren't computer savvy, you just want something to run a word processor, spreadsheet, surf the web, play some games etc. Typical home computer stuff. Now KDE and Gnome have come along way BUT if you aren't willing to dig into the guts of the system if something isn't working - you are going to be out of luck. Consider trying to get an application working that needs you to modify the firewall settings. This isn't trivial for a non savvy user. Or installing new hardware that isn't automagically detected? Recompiling the kernal? Installing security patches? Sure its not bad if you have the time and patience to do the reading and mess with the system. Most of the users I deal with can't even be bothered to read a freaking error message. "My computers messed up! Something popped on the screen and now it's broken." "What did the error say?" "I don't know I just clicked on OK."
I played the beta test on a system with a 6800GT and the frame rates were fine aside from the occasional network latency related stutter. If you have consistently bad frame rates on a solid video card than its most likely your network that is causing the problem.
Ok. Nevermind that X Box live has been the main selling point for the console and driven the huge sales of games like Halo 2. Anyway so if console gaming is not mainstream but will be mainstream in "3 or 4 years" - who exactly is going to make it mainstream? Microsoft and Sony? And then Nintendo is going to sweep in and conquer the now mainstream market? I own a GameCube and really like it. It's a great little machine and see nothing tech-wise that would prevent it from being a great online console. The only reason I can think of for Nintendo's hesistance is that they don't want to do a gaming service poorly and so will take the time to develop an "everyone in the family" oriented service that is very simple to use.
One thing that noone seems to mention is that you are paying for future content. At least with City of Heroes I have already seen two major updates with a third on its way shortly. I haven't had to pay anything extra for this additional content. The other reason that can be noted is that you are paying for an ongoing service rather than a game that runs entirely on your computer. This requires dedicated servers to be run, maintained and to have support staff available. It's also not the same as multiplayer FPS servers since MMO's have to maintain a persistant character base and do it reliably. Does this make it worth it? Well I guess it depends on the player. My monthly game expenditure has gone down since I started playing COH because most of my gaming is COH. Go figure.
Interestingly, we have all the evil pirates to thank for still being able to play those old Apple games. Pretty much only the cracked games were able to be transfered to file formats for use with emulators. Even if you own the legitimate game and the company still exists today, they will in no way provide you with a copy. They don't care about the 30 dollars you gave them twenty years ago.
Debt in COH is very connected to play style and risks taken. I know some players who die very often and get angry about it. I've also watched them play and its more often than not their (lack of) tactics that is getting them killed. Doing melee attacks with a Blaster? Good way to get killed. Using your Blaster's nuke attack on a too high level group? Here comes the debt. Your scrapper wants to be a tank? Debt. Yes the occasional lag death occurs but it's rare. Also maximizing XP in the game IS about being a better player. Having a good well-rounded group of players will help you to level faster. Making good choices in your powers and then figuring out the best way to use them will get you XP faster. My second character caught up with my first level wise in half the time do to my better knowledge of how to play the game not through abusing exploits.
I am sure many COH players have accounts on other games. Some diehard players may have more than one account but I doubt very many do. Since each account allows you 8 characters per server about the only reason to have more than one is if you want to use one character to power level another. Since you can usually find a Super Group that will help with leveling alternate characters - this isn't really necessary.
Sure it's easy to say MMORPGers are junkies. Because its so much worse to be spending hours leveling a character than it is to be playing an FPS every night. As a gamer I have avoided MMORPGs because they seemed too time demanding and too complicated. I really DON'T want to be involved in the politics of the nation of Geldorard or whether Peldopar the Wizaaard should be chancelor. Or overly complicated crafting and player based economies. I know these are features that some people love but that's not me. COH was the first MMO I played and I like that its stripped down a bit. Yes level grinding does occur, but really the real fun is in playing with friends in a group setting. Trying different tactics and alternate characters is much easier with a helpful group. That being said - as a working parent I only get a couple of hours a day to play a game. Its nice to be able to log on, hook up with some friends for a little baddie bashing. Perhaps because I'm not spending 10 hours in a stretch I don't feel that level grind as much. A carefully built character can also significantly reduce the grind by enabling you to fight baddies several levels above you. So where I used to play an FPS like Battlefield or UT, now I play a COH.
It really is a disappointment that sites don't tend to do cpu scaling tests. Tom's Hardware will run them once in awhile. I think it's mostly because they are very time consuming to perform. If I were you - the upgrade answer would depend on your budget. Create an upgrade plan and move towards it. If you don't plan on going to a PCE motherboard in your upgrade then it could be worthwhile to pickup a nice AGP video card now. You will get a boost and you can take the card with you when you upgrade.
I've noticed that newer games are starting to increase the usage of DX 9 features but it's mostly in the form of additional eye candy. So no they aren't necessary - but the visual experience in HL 2, Medal of Honor Pacific Assault, Doom 3 etc. is enhanced greatly by being able to play at high res with AA and Aniso on. I find the experience much more absorbing especially combined with surround speakers or a good headphone set. It's not necessary - but these new cards bode well for pc gaming in the future. They are that imnpressive. The next six months will see high volume shipments of the mid range and lower end cards as well as price drops. And concurrent with that - more games released that can actually push these cards to the limit.
Well... if performance is the question - the latest and greatest cards from Nvidia and ATI are both pretty sweet. Sure Nvidia has a lead in some games and ATI in others (see Doom 3 and Far Cry) but I can't see anyone giving either of the cards a bad review. Mostly all they can do is highlight some of the not so good - i.e. 6800 Ultra is power hungry, ATI drivers are a bit wanky. Reviews for anything other than the top of the line are mostly "bang for buck" reviews and in this generation the numbers from ATI and Nvidia are highly competitive. As I recall the Nvidia FX series got some well deserved flak but the last set of outright suck video cards has to have been the Cryo series chips - ack.
If the disk is encrypted rather than using a wanky form of copy protection which might not read well of your drive - then there is no need for a crack. Just backup the disk to CDR and put the originals in a safe spot. If they actually used some stupid protection on the CD in addition to the steam based authentication/encryption then people who purchased the retail are being even more inconvienced than the steam purchasers. (BTW I'm talking about using a crack for a legitimate copy you have purchased, not the need for a crack to pirate the game.)
Hmmm. I ordered the version over steam - so I didn't realize the CD version requires the CD to be in the drive. If you get a chance test making a burn of it. Although if it requires the CD to be in the drive than it is likely they put some CD based protection on it. Wow - that would be totally crappy. With the steam version you don't need a CD and you can backup the cache files so you don't need to do a redownload in the event of a system reinstall.
Open steam, go to your games, right click on half life 2 and set it to create a desktop shortcut. Right click on the steam taskbar option, go into the settings and uncheck the "load steam at system startup" button. Shutdown steam. Run HL2 from the desktop icon. Won't get rid of steam, but gets rid of it bothering you when you are not in game.
As to hating it? Yeah I don't like it much either. And yeah I shouldn't have to install it anymore than I should have to deal with CD copy protection. Unfortunately, Valve can dictate the terms particularly well since everyone wants to play the game. So your choice is either put up with it or don't play. Lame but true. After I'm done playing HL2 (not a big CS fan here) I'm not going to see much of steam anymore - so I guess I don't think its that incredibly horrible. Righteous indignation aside or course.
As the game doesn't use CD protection I am inclined to agree with you that there is no real reason to crack HL2 if you own it. I think Steam kind of sucks but I am willing to put up with it to play the game. I don't think I would if it was required to play say "Hamster Tycoon 3" or something. Valve is in a unique position to push their network on us because people REALLY want what they are selling. Makes it easy for them to dictate the terms. I'm not advocating using cracks, but in general, the warez scene is pretty self policing and releases with trojan or virus components tend to get "nuked" and removed very quickly. Sometimes a crack is your only recourse when CD copy protection chokes on your CD drive.
They weren't even that well prepared to take the money. I bought the game through steam last night around 8pm Hawaii time. Even at a somewhat oddball hour from the mainland, the credit card processing was unable to complete. I finally got notice that it cleared about an hour and a half after placing the order. The nice thing was they let me start the download before the payment cleared. Of course then Steam crashed at the end of a three hour download. And Half Life 2 then wouldn't start, just crapping out at the load screen. So I had to delete and re-download. I here its a great game. I finally got to see the main menu screen this morning, right before I had to go to work. This experience was actually NO WORSE than I expected. I could have purchased early and pre-downloaded but I didn't. I could have waited until the servers calmed down but I didn't. Call it the perverse need to see how well/badly the system would work under this kind of load.
Actually yes I think they should. If they are going to take your money, they should be able to deliver the project. Now do they need to purchase umpteen bajillion servers to handle this short period of time? NO. They could lease and coordinate with a server provider so they could scale up at launch time and then scale down as the rush drops off. That being said, for all I know they do this already. Models and simulations are one thing but until the network really gets pushed to the edge - you can't precisely tell the real world effects. This is why MMORPGs do their open beta phases - to try to push load to what will be realistic at launch. It doesn't always work perfectly but smooth launches such as City of Heroes probably owe their success partially to the stress testing open beta. Unfortunately Valve didn't really have a way to do this without doing artificial testing that would have pre-saturated the steam network and inconvienced current users.
No presets whatsover. Nothing by default that looks like Marvel or DC or whatever. Yes it's possible to make characters look like Marvel or DC heroes. I haven't seen one in awhile. There was a spurt of this - including a bunch of "spidermen" right after the second movie came out but I haven't seen a ripoff character in about two months. Cryptic will boot your character if you do a ripoff so there isn't much incentive to create one. I seems that people have more creativity than you might think and maybe just have a bit of extra fun creating their own superheroes. The only thing I thought was potentially iffy was the Scrapper power set claws. They look a lot like Wolverine's claws and appear when you use them. I suppose an argument could be made against the Scrapper Spikes power set too - its a lot like the X-Men Evolution cartoon character Spike's powers.
Give me a break. This whole bullshit line about how Mac users are more creative and in touch with their Macs in some autoerotic manner is the number one thing that turns me off of Macs. Stop it! Stop it! Stop perpetuating the bullshit "you just don't get our wonderful MacTopia sad little non-Mac people" elitist attitude. I used Macs. For YEARS. Macs were the number one reason I got out of graphic design. Two words for you: font management. Two more words: extension conflicts. Mac killed my inner child. And yes I know and use OSX and realize that it is much better than the OS9. The one thing that hasn't changed is these ooky posts by beret bearing, black turtleneck wearing, Steve Jobs fanboys that actually believe the marketing tripe that Apple shovels at them. To imply that only Mac users use computers for "Real creative energy, education, art, video, music." is such a load of elitist crap. Seeing as every post about Doom 3 on Slashdot had a Mac user posting "where is the Mac version" - I guess there is some portion of your MacTopian populace that wants to play "another lamer's destructive FPS violence simulator".
Slashdot Mirror
Um - I would hope they are charging more than what it takes to maintain the game. They are a company in business to make a profit afterall.
I don't consider the extra content free - it makes me much happier paying the monthly fee when I know that there are quarterly "expansions" included in that cost.
As to CoH vs. WoW - to each his own. I've been playing CoH since June and still haven't seen and done everything. Admittedly I only have time for a couple of hours everyday, so I am by no means a hardcore MMO player.
I tried the beta for WoW and just couldn't get into it. I'm sure it's a great game and lots of people seem to love it. Not enough spandex for me though.
No - I meant that EA's attitude toward developers has changed. From making them prominent to making them invisible. I will say that knowing who the developers are helps in that you can look for games by good developers. You know - the Sid Meiers of the world.
Sure if its a question about a home computer. I don't fix other peoples computers - if they are really messed up I refer them to a friend who has a small PC fix it shop. After all people have no problem paying to fix their cars so why should they not pay a tech to fix their computer?
Unfortunately those calls my staff gets are business users contacting the IT help desk.
Thanks to Windows though the appropriate response is "Did you restart?"
Seems to me EA just about killed Origin and the Ultima franchise. Look at what happened with the last releases. Buggy and shoved out the door do to deadline pressure from management.
I always respected Richard Garriott (Lord British) as a kid because of the obvious care that went into the development.
I recall playing $50 in 1983 dollars to pickup Ultima 3. The packaging was beautiful complete with 3 manuals and the cloth map. The game was excellent and felt like it was made by people who enjoyed their craft.
How far (we see farther?) EA has come from its origins as a company that presented developers as rock stars complete with album style game packaging. That actually had PICTURES of the developers on the boxes.
"Ahh, I'm going to have to go ahead and ask you to come in on Sunday, too..."
Your boss isn't by any chance named Lumbergh is he?
This is a nice pre-rendered CGI trailer. Read the information on the developers site. These are million plus polygon characters that show the overall look they are trying to achieve. There are some screenshots on the site but even these are listed as works in progress. They only show some architecture and working lower res models.
Well not EXACTLY:
Free anti-virus programs are available - especially in the case of home users. See AVG, Avast, AntiVir Personal Edition, BitDefender.
Windows XP includes a firewall. Service pack 2 even enables it by default and makes it easier to configure. Not the best firewall out there, but its better than nothing.
The best spyware removal tools are free. Spybot is free and AdAware is free for non-commercial usage.
Most people don't bother to upgrade Windows - they just use whatever version their PC shipped with. SO yes they pay for it in the OEM bundle, but it comes pre-installed. They also get the magic restore disk, so even morons can pop it in and reinstall the system.
As for TOC - well this all depends. Mostly on where your knowledge is. If you or the company IT staff is Linux/UNIX savvy then sure the TOC is lower.
Now lets say you are a home user and you switch to Linux or BSD. You aren't computer savvy, you just want something to run a word processor, spreadsheet, surf the web, play some games etc. Typical home computer stuff. Now KDE and Gnome have come along way BUT if you aren't willing to dig into the guts of the system if something isn't working - you are going to be out of luck.
Consider trying to get an application working that needs you to modify the firewall settings. This isn't trivial for a non savvy user. Or installing new hardware that isn't automagically detected? Recompiling the kernal? Installing security patches? Sure its not bad if you have the time and patience to do the reading and mess with the system.
Most of the users I deal with can't even be bothered to read a freaking error message.
"My computers messed up! Something popped on the screen and now it's broken."
"What did the error say?"
"I don't know I just clicked on OK."
I played the beta test on a system with a 6800GT and the frame rates were fine aside from the occasional network latency related stutter. If you have consistently bad frame rates on a solid video card than its most likely your network that is causing the problem.
Ok. Nevermind that X Box live has been the main selling point for the console and driven the huge sales of games like Halo 2. Anyway so if console gaming is not mainstream but will be mainstream in "3 or 4 years" - who exactly is going to make it mainstream? Microsoft and Sony? And then Nintendo is going to sweep in and conquer the now mainstream market?
I own a GameCube and really like it. It's a great little machine and see nothing tech-wise that would prevent it from being a great online console. The only reason I can think of for Nintendo's hesistance is that they don't want to do a gaming service poorly and so will take the time to develop an "everyone in the family" oriented service that is very simple to use.
One thing that noone seems to mention is that you are paying for future content. At least with City of Heroes I have already seen two major updates with a third on its way shortly. I haven't had to pay anything extra for this additional content.
The other reason that can be noted is that you are paying for an ongoing service rather than a game that runs entirely on your computer. This requires dedicated servers to be run, maintained and to have support staff available. It's also not the same as multiplayer FPS servers since MMO's have to maintain a persistant character base and do it reliably.
Does this make it worth it? Well I guess it depends on the player. My monthly game expenditure has gone down since I started playing COH because most of my gaming is COH. Go figure.
Interestingly, we have all the evil pirates to thank for still being able to play those old Apple games. Pretty much only the cracked games were able to be transfered to file formats for use with emulators. Even if you own the legitimate game and the company still exists today, they will in no way provide you with a copy. They don't care about the 30 dollars you gave them twenty years ago.
Debt in COH is very connected to play style and risks taken. I know some players who die very often and get angry about it. I've also watched them play and its more often than not their (lack of) tactics that is getting them killed. Doing melee attacks with a Blaster? Good way to get killed. Using your Blaster's nuke attack on a too high level group? Here comes the debt. Your scrapper wants to be a tank? Debt.
Yes the occasional lag death occurs but it's rare.
Also maximizing XP in the game IS about being a better player. Having a good well-rounded group of players will help you to level faster. Making good choices in your powers and then figuring out the best way to use them will get you XP faster. My second character caught up with my first level wise in half the time do to my better knowledge of how to play the game not through abusing exploits.
I am sure many COH players have accounts on other games. Some diehard players may have more than one account but I doubt very many do. Since each account allows you 8 characters per server about the only reason to have more than one is if you want to use one character to power level another. Since you can usually find a Super Group that will help with leveling alternate characters - this isn't really necessary.
Sure it's easy to say MMORPGers are junkies. Because its so much worse to be spending hours leveling a character than it is to be playing an FPS every night.
As a gamer I have avoided MMORPGs because they seemed too time demanding and too complicated. I really DON'T want to be involved in the politics of the nation of Geldorard or whether Peldopar the Wizaaard should be chancelor. Or overly complicated crafting and player based economies. I know these are features that some people love but that's not me.
COH was the first MMO I played and I like that its stripped down a bit. Yes level grinding does occur, but really the real fun is in playing with friends in a group setting. Trying different tactics and alternate characters is much easier with a helpful group.
That being said - as a working parent I only get a couple of hours a day to play a game. Its nice to be able to log on, hook up with some friends for a little baddie bashing. Perhaps because I'm not spending 10 hours in a stretch I don't feel that level grind as much. A carefully built character can also significantly reduce the grind by enabling you to fight baddies several levels above you.
So where I used to play an FPS like Battlefield or UT, now I play a COH.
It really is a disappointment that sites don't tend to do cpu scaling tests. Tom's Hardware will run them once in awhile. I think it's mostly because they are very time consuming to perform.
If I were you - the upgrade answer would depend on your budget. Create an upgrade plan and move towards it. If you don't plan on going to a PCE motherboard in your upgrade then it could be worthwhile to pickup a nice AGP video card now. You will get a boost and you can take the card with you when you upgrade.
I've noticed that newer games are starting to increase the usage of DX 9 features but it's mostly in the form of additional eye candy. So no they aren't necessary - but the visual experience in HL 2, Medal of Honor Pacific Assault, Doom 3 etc. is enhanced greatly by being able to play at high res with AA and Aniso on. I find the experience much more absorbing especially combined with surround speakers or a good headphone set.
It's not necessary - but these new cards bode well for pc gaming in the future. They are that imnpressive.
The next six months will see high volume shipments of the mid range and lower end cards as well as price drops. And concurrent with that - more games released that can actually push these cards to the limit.
Well... if performance is the question - the latest and greatest cards from Nvidia and ATI are both pretty sweet. Sure Nvidia has a lead in some games and ATI in others (see Doom 3 and Far Cry) but I can't see anyone giving either of the cards a bad review. Mostly all they can do is highlight some of the not so good - i.e. 6800 Ultra is power hungry, ATI drivers are a bit wanky.
Reviews for anything other than the top of the line are mostly "bang for buck" reviews and in this generation the numbers from ATI and Nvidia are highly competitive.
As I recall the Nvidia FX series got some well deserved flak but the last set of outright suck video cards has to have been the Cryo series chips - ack.
If the disk is encrypted rather than using a wanky form of copy protection which might not read well of your drive - then there is no need for a crack. Just backup the disk to CDR and put the originals in a safe spot.
If they actually used some stupid protection on the CD in addition to the steam based authentication/encryption then people who purchased the retail are being even more inconvienced than the steam purchasers.
(BTW I'm talking about using a crack for a legitimate copy you have purchased, not the need for a crack to pirate the game.)
Hmmm. I ordered the version over steam - so I didn't realize the CD version requires the CD to be in the drive. If you get a chance test making a burn of it. Although if it requires the CD to be in the drive than it is likely they put some CD based protection on it. Wow - that would be totally crappy.
With the steam version you don't need a CD and you can backup the cache files so you don't need to do a redownload in the event of a system reinstall.
Open steam, go to your games, right click on half life 2 and set it to create a desktop shortcut.
Right click on the steam taskbar option, go into the settings and uncheck the "load steam at system startup" button.
Shutdown steam.
Run HL2 from the desktop icon.
Won't get rid of steam, but gets rid of it bothering you when you are not in game.
As to hating it? Yeah I don't like it much either. And yeah I shouldn't have to install it anymore than I should have to deal with CD copy protection. Unfortunately, Valve can dictate the terms particularly well since everyone wants to play the game.
So your choice is either put up with it or don't play. Lame but true.
After I'm done playing HL2 (not a big CS fan here) I'm not going to see much of steam anymore - so I guess I don't think its that incredibly horrible. Righteous indignation aside or course.
As the game doesn't use CD protection I am inclined to agree with you that there is no real reason to crack HL2 if you own it. I think Steam kind of sucks but I am willing to put up with it to play the game. I don't think I would if it was required to play say "Hamster Tycoon 3" or something. Valve is in a unique position to push their network on us because people REALLY want what they are selling. Makes it easy for them to dictate the terms.
I'm not advocating using cracks, but in general, the warez scene is pretty self policing and releases with trojan or virus components tend to get "nuked" and removed very quickly.
Sometimes a crack is your only recourse when CD copy protection chokes on your CD drive.
They weren't even that well prepared to take the money. I bought the game through steam last night around 8pm Hawaii time. Even at a somewhat oddball hour from the mainland, the credit card processing was unable to complete. I finally got notice that it cleared about an hour and a half after placing the order.
The nice thing was they let me start the download before the payment cleared. Of course then Steam crashed at the end of a three hour download. And Half Life 2 then wouldn't start, just crapping out at the load screen. So I had to delete and re-download.
I here its a great game. I finally got to see the main menu screen this morning, right before I had to go to work.
This experience was actually NO WORSE than I expected. I could have purchased early and pre-downloaded but I didn't. I could have waited until the servers calmed down but I didn't. Call it the perverse need to see how well/badly the system would work under this kind of load.
Actually yes I think they should. If they are going to take your money, they should be able to deliver the project.
Now do they need to purchase umpteen bajillion servers to handle this short period of time? NO. They could lease and coordinate with a server provider so they could scale up at launch time and then scale down as the rush drops off.
That being said, for all I know they do this already. Models and simulations are one thing but until the network really gets pushed to the edge - you can't precisely tell the real world effects. This is why MMORPGs do their open beta phases - to try to push load to what will be realistic at launch. It doesn't always work perfectly but smooth launches such as City of Heroes probably owe their success partially to the stress testing open beta.
Unfortunately Valve didn't really have a way to do this without doing artificial testing that would have pre-saturated the steam network and inconvienced current users.
No presets whatsover. Nothing by default that looks like Marvel or DC or whatever.
Yes it's possible to make characters look like Marvel or DC heroes. I haven't seen one in awhile. There was a spurt of this - including a bunch of "spidermen" right after the second movie came out but I haven't seen a ripoff character in about two months. Cryptic will boot your character if you do a ripoff so there isn't much incentive to create one.
I seems that people have more creativity than you might think and maybe just have a bit of extra fun creating their own superheroes.
The only thing I thought was potentially iffy was the Scrapper power set claws. They look a lot like Wolverine's claws and appear when you use them. I suppose an argument could be made against the Scrapper Spikes power set too - its a lot like the X-Men Evolution cartoon character Spike's powers.
Give me a break. This whole bullshit line about how Mac users are more creative and in touch with their Macs in some autoerotic manner is the number one thing that turns me off of Macs.
Stop it! Stop it! Stop perpetuating the bullshit "you just don't get our wonderful MacTopia sad little non-Mac people" elitist attitude.
I used Macs. For YEARS. Macs were the number one reason I got out of graphic design. Two words for you: font management. Two more words: extension conflicts.
Mac killed my inner child.
And yes I know and use OSX and realize that it is much better than the OS9. The one thing that hasn't changed is these ooky posts by beret bearing, black turtleneck wearing, Steve Jobs fanboys that actually believe the marketing tripe that Apple shovels at them.
To imply that only Mac users use computers for "Real creative energy, education, art, video, music." is such a load of elitist crap. Seeing as every post about Doom 3 on Slashdot had a Mac user posting "where is the Mac version" - I guess there is some portion of your MacTopian populace that wants to play "another lamer's destructive FPS violence simulator".