Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense
on
MMOGs Branch Out
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· Score: 1
The immersion comes from the fact that when you do stuff in the gameworld, a human can help or hinder you at moment's notice.
Playing single player games is boring. Playing single player games cooperatively with couple of friends is almost as boring.
But when you get gankz0red while peacefully exping because you didn't pay attention, you tend to remember that you are not alone in the game, and it's a tough world out there.
Guild Wars = nice carebear-friendly instaced-everything bother-nobody-ever gameplay with soft padded walls around everything. Boooooring. The only good bits are the medieval quake matches, and they are bit too simple for my taste. It's not a bad game, just not for me.
Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense
on
MMOGs Branch Out
·
· Score: 1
Easy, Guild Wars is *NOT* a real MMO.
It's a glorified, well-hidden matchmaking service (the 'town' zones) for a Peer-to-peer small team instanced combat. Everything except towns are instanced, and even towns have copies created as needed. The overinstancing really kills any shred of immersion (together with other nice things like 'you cant walk down here, because we put an invisible wall here' and 'btw you cant jump'.
Now if you want a sword & sorcery version of Quake with nice ladder/matchmaking, it's not a bad game, but it isn't a MMO.
Which is due to utterly buggy and horribly unoptimized engine.
Sure, it has some reasonably high res textures, meaning it does use 512MB texture ram, but otherwise the engine sucks.
I mean they haven't been able to fix the pretty shadows to actually stay on for the past year - they always vanish/bug out as soon as there is a bit more spell effects going around you. And if they can't even get the damn shadows to work right, one has to wonder what other things are totally buggy in the engine
(also funnily their pre-release EQ2 stuff was MUCH shinyer, but they suddenly toned it down bigtime because framerate was low, and they couldn't code their way out of a paperbag and release was approaching... EQ2 is pure crap)
Translation: Due to idiocy of the rightsholders, this service is utterly useless and will remain so. Bittorrent & friends will keep pwning it until rightholders either go bankrupt or wisen up.
Yes, you can use keyboard with 360. Let me know when a first game comes out that actually makes use of it.
1080i is, a: interlaced and b: requires a VERY VERY VERY expensive TV set. Ridiculously expensive here in Europe. I already got my 1600x1200 TFT display for PC use:)
But I do agree - Xbox 360 is a step to the right direction as far as high resolution support goes.
Not to mention that PC CoD2 is over 20 euros cheaper than the overpriced XBox 360 version (I've seen PC version as low as 44.95 euros, while Xbox360 version suggested retail price is whopping 69.95 euros. Dunno if the 360 games are more sanely priced in the US. In europe they're 65-70 euros a pop - which in my humble opinion is beyond the pain threshold for most buyers)
I sincerely hope PS3 games won't be so horribly overpriced. 50 euros for normal title, 60 euros for exceptional uber hit is already pushing it, while every 360 title is over 60.
Odd. My dual core is being used by at least half dozen games already. Say, City of Heroes for example.
And since all future big name title development will be based on capabilities of PS3 and/or Xbox360, its pretty easy to see the game engines being multithreaded. Multi core CPUs are 'free' extra performance as long as the engine is developed as multithreaded.
Consoles are fine for some game types, but as long as they don't have a keyboard (and good MMOs), there's always room for PCs. You also won't see complex strategy titles on consoles, and FPS without mouse aiming will just never work. Halo is just the exception that proves the point.
If I want to have a quick spin on arcade driving game, console is a great thing to have for that.
I'd never play a FPS or strategy game, or anything requiring typing on a console.
Different tool for a different job. Both have their place. However, if you can afford just one thing, PC is more of a multipurpose tool, and if you are going to buy a good PC for work/'production use', the required addon of a 300-400$ videocard on top of the otherwise pretty standard PC is no different than the price of a console system.
Disclaimer: I have one decked out game PC, one midrange game/utility PC, PS2 and half dozen older consoles. Never touched Xbox (not enough exclusive titles I couldn't play on PS2 or PC), undecided on XBox 360 and/or PS3 - I can wait until next autumn as Xbox360 currently has no must-have exclusive title. I can play CoD2 or King Kong also on my PC, and I like the 1600x1200 res better.
... and, for example in the case of TV, people have been trained to think that TV is 'free'. Or, that at worst, you pay a monthly lump sum for access to a wider selection. Individual programs are not 'worth' anything beyond a small trouble of enduring to sit thru commercials.
Hence, people see NOTHING wrong with recording and copying TV. People have taped shows and loaned them to friends since beginning of time, and such tapings are considered to be mostly worthless. Yes, most people understand that making a business out of recording TV broadcasts is illegal and not ethical. And, lookie, its' illegal by even the oldest copyright laws I've seen...
Yet the DRM overlords want, in the name of 'protecting their content', to limit everything to the point where TV becomes utterly useless. Watching, in essence, is 'copying the content to your brain'. Trying to make something uncopyable, yet readable/watchable, is like trying to make water not wet.
And here, ladies and gentlemen, we have a live specimen...
To put it simple: There's something broken in your XP installation if SP2 crashes. Most likely culprits are spyware, viruses or obsolete antivirus/firewall applications (or very old copyprotection components maybe?)
If you dont know how to fix it, make a SP2-slipstreamed install disk and reinstall your system. It'll work, and it'll be more secure.
Or carry on with SP1... its your computer. Just don't whine when you get wtfpwned by some security hole already fixed in SP2
It's a great source of revenue for PC repair shops.
- (re)installing it, with all the arcane driver magic and updates takes hours. Lots of $$$$ - Most computers with Win98 (or worse, 95) are so old, that more recent operating systems are not an option - Most users of such old computers are fixated with the rule 'well the hardware still works, it's only 5 years old, I will REFUSE to buy a new computer' - never mind that they are paying half the price of a fully set up new system in repair costs to get this ancient operating system reinstalled as it magically blew up again when my kid installed something odd from the internet'.
You'd be amazed how many people pay to the tune of 200-250$ for someone to reinstall their ancient crap computer and all their applications, while 20 feet from the repair desk there's an offer for a brand new system, XP preinstalled, all set to go, 10x performance of their old junkheap, for less than 500$.
All because they can't let go of their old crap as long as it can still produce some kind of a picture to the monitor.
We PC techs thank Microsoft for Win98 and WinME./bow
99% of cases where SP2 kills net access is due to either;
- New.net or some other spyware crashing and burning when you install SP2 - Obsolete firewall/antivirus software crashing, burning and exploding in a shower of small bits when you install SP2
Or, alternatively, Dell installs some truly odd crap to their systems as standard software.
I work at PC repairs. I see SP2less computers every day. MOST of them have legal copy of windows(!)
The reason why SP2 uptake is slow, is that when it was released, some people with virus/spyware-ridden computers just went and installed it - and their installation promptly blew up, since Microsoft for some odd reason didn't test their upgrade with every piece of malware out there.
So, the 'common wisdom' made rounds with lots and lots of clueless lusers; "Don't install SP2, it will just mess up your system and make you reinstall everything". Even *I* considered the upgrade hazardous during the first few weeks due to couple of blowups I'd seen.
Only thru trial and error (on customer's computers:) ) I quickly figured out when SP2 blows up and when it doesnt. 99.99% of installations will go just fine as long as the computer is first cleaned of all the spyware and viruses, and you make sure that drivers are at least in the ballpark of being up to date. Skip those steps, and there is a very real risk that you get to reinstall everything (or, at least, get to do a repair install with a CD that has SP2 slipstreamed into it).
Now if just one person tells 10 friends how his computer got all messed up due to SP2 (when it reality it was already mucked up by ten cubic miles of spyware), those ten will tell horror stories to 10 of their friends how they heard that SP2 is bad.
Boom, SP2 adoption rate takes a huge broadside hit.
I *still* need to reassure people who bring their computer in for repairs that installing SP2 is not only a good idea, but almost downright required if you plan on keeping your system connected to the internet. Standard operating procedure is to install all windows updates when fixing any problem, be it spyware, viruses or plain old hardware problem - yet I still sometimes get calls after the fact to the tune of 'how did you get SP2 installed? I thought it'd just mess up my computer so I was too afraid to try', while in fact there was zero reason why the user should've not installed it.
Now pirate copies are another story; Yes, I see those very commonly as well.
They fall into a couple of categories;
- Clueful people who know what they are doing (99% of these are computers with real hardware faults). They have SP2 and all updates installed, and windows update is working fine, with WGA circumvented. They are aware that MS 'pirate blocks' are not stopping anyone who knows how to use Google and can read.
In these cases there is no problem. Never was.
- Clueless idiots who "got my copy from a friend". Some have The Old Version with no SPs, and then whine how it never works right and always get viruses. Most have SP1, but havent' installed SP2 because they've "heard that it can't be installed" - when in reality it would work just fine. Most of these turn around and buy a genuine copy in case their system needs a full reinstall due to malware infestation so bad it can't be completely cleaned up within sane number of expensive techie hours.
For those I can't really go and install the SP2, as company policy says that any OS issues related to pirate copies are customers problem. Sure, I can clean up malware assuming it doesn't require a reinstall, and I can drop in any stuff the automatic update gives, but generally I don't even bother trying SP2.
Now, Microsoft's 'anti piracy measures' have definitely caused them to sell more legal copies to the clueless idiots who 'trusted their friend to install a free copy', and then got burned by the Windows Update and/or SP2 install key blacklists. However, as long as their system worked, they really don't care if its updated or not. I've seen systems where the damn computer contained all the financial stuff of a small company, NO BACKUPS, with system full of viruses and other crap to the point when it no longer boots - and the owner didn't care it hadn't been updated. He was just pissed that the computer stopped working, and was
It refuses to install with exact same pirate keys that SP1 refuses to install.
If your key allows SP1, it allows SP2.
Yes, world is filled with idiots still spreading the ages-old 'Devils0wn' XP release from the beginning of time, which does not allow SP1 OR SP2 installation without changing the key.
However, changing the key takes all of 30 seconds, and tools (+list of 'valid' keys) can be found online in about 2 minutes of googling.
Working ATI videocards work fine with latest ATI drivers. I've seen a lot of broken ones (9600, 9600XT, 9800pro series all common) that exhibit very odd problems with certain driver versions.
Swap in another copy of the card and the drivers all work flawlessly.
Stop blaming drivers when your hardware fails. Warranty is there for a reason. Naturally do check first if your windows is b0rked, but it's fairly common to see failing vidcards. People never clean their fans, dust builds up, heat does it's job and then we have truly bizzarre effects - which sometimes only show with specific driver versions.
(I work at PC repairs. I see these 'ati drivers stopped working' computers every week. 90% of the time if the usual 'reinstall windows + latest drivers' doesn't work, its a faulty videocard, and the other 10% of time time it's a faulty motherboard...)
Its a preview/demo. Mostly designed to build up launch hype.
They call it a stress test, but these 'open' beta events are 95% PR/publicity and 5% seeing if the servers blow up. They have been like that for a few years already for MMOs. MXO had one, COV had one... and I'm most likely forgetting half dozen others. And they were so close to launch that, at best, they provided some pre-warning if their infrastructure would blow up on launch day or not.
Heck, AC2 'stress test' (aka 'free demo/sneak peek') almost single handedly doomed that game as everyone could see that there was no game to speak of. Yet they didn't deviate from the launch plan by a single day.
In fact, it's beyond hilarious that their open stress test still has an NDA, yet anyone can sign up and see for themselves.
Only MMO I've seen so far to deviate from launch plans based on beta tests is Auto Assault. Their beta testers told the devs in no uncertain terms there was no game (and the visuals looked dated), and launch was postponed by at least 6 months. For every other game so far, betas are just a tool to drum up hype for as big launch day sellout of boxes as possible.
Then noticed that they only offered the 1.5GB 'low res' client for DL. You need to pay for subscription of Fileplanet to DL the 'high res' version (2.5GB)
Sorry. If you don't want me to see your game in the maximum shiny version (yes, my system can take it, thankyouverymuch), without making me pay for it to Fileplanet, I'm not interested. Turbine's karma is already pretty much busted - they canned AC2, and have not published anything worth two cents since.. umm... sometime last century. Sure, AC2 sucked and was ripe to be canned, as nobody played it, but it tells everyone they'll drop an MMO in an instant if it makes sense financially, and they can't be bothered to fix their messups if they do one. So why bother even seeing how they fouled up this one? They are already fouling their 'preview' (aka 'Stress Test') royally.
So, since they don't want me to check the game out ('give Fileplanet $$$, plz'), I see no reason to be interested in the slightest in this crap. There's plenty of competiting MMOs out there - ones that offer straight up free tryouts, without crippled clients or other strings attached. I hope this one crashes and burns.
Turbine and EA - two fucked up MMO developers/publishers that have already burned the bridges with most 'hardcore' MMO players. SOE is rapidly going down the same route (See: SWG).
Thankfully there are other companies out there with bit more clue. The joys of free market...
It will most likely be 25% in 12 months. Well, 90% if you count PS3 and Xbox 360.
Trust me, current games under development for release mid-2006 or later are looking at this (as are everyone developing anything for future consoles). They have to - competition will pwn their ass with much shinyer games that take advantage of the extra hardware, and their product will look dated if they don't do the same thing.
Due to long development times, most of the games out now do not benefit, but that will change - rapidly. We've already seen first ones that clearly benefit (City of Villains uses and benefits noticeably, assuming your videcard is modern enough so it's not limited by it).
Dunno about the 'land of the free', but over here in the 'old world', we have PCs without Windows. Sure, they won't have a flash bang brand like 'HP' or 'Dell', but who cares? You can have exactly the setup you want, built by a knowledgeable tech, with solid 2-3 year warranty by the store that sold it to you. No M$ tax, unless you want one (that'd be 109 euros for OEM XP Home, should you so choose)
Dunno whats' with the big brand name companies... it seems like they've signed on a dotted line saying "I'll get my XP's cheap from MS, but in exchange I won't sell *any* computers without XP on them (or without any OS at all, since they are obivious used by EVIL PIRATES)"
So? Don't buy from those companies. There are options.
Slashdot Mirror
The immersion comes from the fact that when you do stuff in the gameworld, a human can help or hinder you at moment's notice.
Playing single player games is boring. Playing single player games cooperatively with couple of friends is almost as boring.
But when you get gankz0red while peacefully exping because you didn't pay attention, you tend to remember that you are not alone in the game, and it's a tough world out there.
Guild Wars = nice carebear-friendly instaced-everything bother-nobody-ever gameplay with soft padded walls around everything. Boooooring. The only good bits are the medieval quake matches, and they are bit too simple for my taste. It's not a bad game, just not for me.
Easy, Guild Wars is *NOT* a real MMO.
It's a glorified, well-hidden matchmaking service (the 'town' zones) for a Peer-to-peer small team instanced combat. Everything except towns are instanced, and even towns have copies created as needed. The overinstancing really kills any shred of immersion (together with other nice things like 'you cant walk down here, because we put an invisible wall here' and 'btw you cant jump'.
Now if you want a sword & sorcery version of Quake with nice ladder/matchmaking, it's not a bad game, but it isn't a MMO.
No, actually this time they seem to have product on hand. I ordered one, and the place I shopped from claimed to ship it tomorrow.
This is completely unlike the X1800 launch where you could not find the card listed anywhere for over a month.
Which is due to utterly buggy and horribly unoptimized engine.
Sure, it has some reasonably high res textures, meaning it does use 512MB texture ram, but otherwise the engine sucks.
I mean they haven't been able to fix the pretty shadows to actually stay on for the past year - they always vanish/bug out as soon as there is a bit more spell effects going around you. And if they can't even get the damn shadows to work right, one has to wonder what other things are totally buggy in the engine
(also funnily their pre-release EQ2 stuff was MUCH shinyer, but they suddenly toned it down bigtime because framerate was low, and they couldn't code their way out of a paperbag and release was approaching... EQ2 is pure crap)
The moment you charge money for it, it ceases to be beta.
This is no beta. This is a rip-off. Google just shot themselves squarely at their own foot with a big gun.
Translation: Due to idiocy of the rightsholders, this service is utterly useless and will remain so. Bittorrent & friends will keep pwning it until rightholders either go bankrupt or wisen up.
Heh, normal 720p widescreen LCD displays (30 inch or something like that) is over 1500 euros here (includes the 22% VAT).
Yes, you can use keyboard with 360. Let me know when a first game comes out that actually makes use of it.
:)
1080i is, a: interlaced and b: requires a VERY VERY VERY expensive TV set. Ridiculously expensive here in Europe. I already got my 1600x1200 TFT display for PC use
But I do agree - Xbox 360 is a step to the right direction as far as high resolution support goes.
Correct. Over here, VAT (Value Added Tax, our version of Sales TAx) is enjoyable 22%
It still doesn't fully explain the difference if you take into account current exchange rate. It's more like '1:1 conversion USD->EUR, then add tax'.
Not to mention that PC CoD2 is over 20 euros cheaper than the overpriced XBox 360 version (I've seen PC version as low as 44.95 euros, while Xbox360 version suggested retail price is whopping 69.95 euros. Dunno if the 360 games are more sanely priced in the US. In europe they're 65-70 euros a pop - which in my humble opinion is beyond the pain threshold for most buyers)
I sincerely hope PS3 games won't be so horribly overpriced. 50 euros for normal title, 60 euros for exceptional uber hit is already pushing it, while every 360 title is over 60.
Odd. My dual core is being used by at least half dozen games already. Say, City of Heroes for example.
And since all future big name title development will be based on capabilities of PS3 and/or Xbox360, its pretty easy to see the game engines being multithreaded. Multi core CPUs are 'free' extra performance as long as the engine is developed as multithreaded.
Consoles are fine for some game types, but as long as they don't have a keyboard (and good MMOs), there's always room for PCs. You also won't see complex strategy titles on consoles, and FPS without mouse aiming will just never work. Halo is just the exception that proves the point.
If I want to have a quick spin on arcade driving game, console is a great thing to have for that.
I'd never play a FPS or strategy game, or anything requiring typing on a console.
Different tool for a different job. Both have their place. However, if you can afford just one thing, PC is more of a multipurpose tool, and if you are going to buy a good PC for work/'production use', the required addon of a 300-400$ videocard on top of the otherwise pretty standard PC is no different than the price of a console system.
Disclaimer: I have one decked out game PC, one midrange game/utility PC, PS2 and half dozen older consoles. Never touched Xbox (not enough exclusive titles I couldn't play on PS2 or PC), undecided on XBox 360 and/or PS3 - I can wait until next autumn as Xbox360 currently has no must-have exclusive title. I can play CoD2 or King Kong also on my PC, and I like the 1600x1200 res better.
... and, for example in the case of TV, people have been trained to think that TV is 'free'. Or, that at worst, you pay a monthly lump sum for access to a wider selection. Individual programs are not 'worth' anything beyond a small trouble of enduring to sit thru commercials.
Hence, people see NOTHING wrong with recording and copying TV. People have taped shows and loaned them to friends since beginning of time, and such tapings are considered to be mostly worthless. Yes, most people understand that making a business out of recording TV broadcasts is illegal and not ethical. And, lookie, its' illegal by even the oldest copyright laws I've seen...
Yet the DRM overlords want, in the name of 'protecting their content', to limit everything to the point where TV becomes utterly useless. Watching, in essence, is 'copying the content to your brain'. Trying to make something uncopyable, yet readable/watchable, is like trying to make water not wet.
And here, ladies and gentlemen, we have a live specimen...
To put it simple: There's something broken in your XP installation if SP2 crashes. Most likely culprits are spyware, viruses or obsolete antivirus/firewall applications (or very old copyprotection components maybe?)
If you dont know how to fix it, make a SP2-slipstreamed install disk and reinstall your system. It'll work, and it'll be more secure.
Or carry on with SP1... its your computer. Just don't whine when you get wtfpwned by some security hole already fixed in SP2
Hey, don't badmouth Win98.
/bow
It's a great source of revenue for PC repair shops.
- (re)installing it, with all the arcane driver magic and updates takes hours. Lots of $$$$
- Most computers with Win98 (or worse, 95) are so old, that more recent operating systems are not an option
- Most users of such old computers are fixated with the rule 'well the hardware still works, it's only 5 years old, I will REFUSE to buy a new computer' - never mind that they are paying half the price of a fully set up new system in repair costs to get this ancient operating system reinstalled as it magically blew up again when my kid installed something odd from the internet'.
You'd be amazed how many people pay to the tune of 200-250$ for someone to reinstall their ancient crap computer and all their applications, while 20 feet from the repair desk there's an offer for a brand new system, XP preinstalled, all set to go, 10x performance of their old junkheap, for less than 500$.
All because they can't let go of their old crap as long as it can still produce some kind of a picture to the monitor.
We PC techs thank Microsoft for Win98 and WinME.
99% of cases where SP2 kills net access is due to either;
- New.net or some other spyware crashing and burning when you install SP2
- Obsolete firewall/antivirus software crashing, burning and exploding in a shower of small bits when you install SP2
Or, alternatively, Dell installs some truly odd crap to their systems as standard software.
Okay. Well, all keys *I* know of that allow SP1, allow SP2 :)
There is a very very simple reason.
:) ) I quickly figured out when SP2 blows up and when it doesnt. 99.99% of installations will go just fine as long as the computer is first cleaned of all the spyware and viruses, and you make sure that drivers are at least in the ballpark of being up to date. Skip those steps, and there is a very real risk that you get to reinstall everything (or, at least, get to do a repair install with a CD that has SP2 slipstreamed into it).
I work at PC repairs. I see SP2less computers every day. MOST of them have legal copy of windows(!)
The reason why SP2 uptake is slow, is that when it was released, some people with virus/spyware-ridden computers just went and installed it - and their installation promptly blew up, since Microsoft for some odd reason didn't test their upgrade with every piece of malware out there.
So, the 'common wisdom' made rounds with lots and lots of clueless lusers; "Don't install SP2, it will just mess up your system and make you reinstall everything". Even *I* considered the upgrade hazardous during the first few weeks due to couple of blowups I'd seen.
Only thru trial and error (on customer's computers
Now if just one person tells 10 friends how his computer got all messed up due to SP2 (when it reality it was already mucked up by ten cubic miles of spyware), those ten will tell horror stories to 10 of their friends how they heard that SP2 is bad.
Boom, SP2 adoption rate takes a huge broadside hit.
I *still* need to reassure people who bring their computer in for repairs that installing SP2 is not only a good idea, but almost downright required if you plan on keeping your system connected to the internet. Standard operating procedure is to install all windows updates when fixing any problem, be it spyware, viruses or plain old hardware problem - yet I still sometimes get calls after the fact to the tune of 'how did you get SP2 installed? I thought it'd just mess up my computer so I was too afraid to try', while in fact there was zero reason why the user should've not installed it.
Now pirate copies are another story; Yes, I see those very commonly as well.
They fall into a couple of categories;
- Clueful people who know what they are doing (99% of these are computers with real hardware faults). They have SP2 and all updates installed, and windows update is working fine, with WGA circumvented. They are aware that MS 'pirate blocks' are not stopping anyone who knows how to use Google and can read.
In these cases there is no problem. Never was.
- Clueless idiots who "got my copy from a friend". Some have The Old Version with no SPs, and then whine how it never works right and always get viruses. Most have SP1, but havent' installed SP2 because they've "heard that it can't be installed" - when in reality it would work just fine. Most of these turn around and buy a genuine copy in case their system needs a full reinstall due to malware infestation so bad it can't be completely cleaned up within sane number of expensive techie hours.
For those I can't really go and install the SP2, as company policy says that any OS issues related to pirate copies are customers problem. Sure, I can clean up malware assuming it doesn't require a reinstall, and I can drop in any stuff the automatic update gives, but generally I don't even bother trying SP2.
Now, Microsoft's 'anti piracy measures' have definitely caused them to sell more legal copies to the clueless idiots who 'trusted their friend to install a free copy', and then got burned by the Windows Update and/or SP2 install key blacklists. However, as long as their system worked, they really don't care if its updated or not. I've seen systems where the damn computer contained all the financial stuff of a small company, NO BACKUPS, with system full of viruses and other crap to the point when it no longer boots - and the owner didn't care it hadn't been updated. He was just pissed that the computer stopped working, and was
It refuses to install with exact same pirate keys that SP1 refuses to install.
If your key allows SP1, it allows SP2.
Yes, world is filled with idiots still spreading the ages-old 'Devils0wn' XP release from the beginning of time, which does not allow SP1 OR SP2 installation without changing the key.
However, changing the key takes all of 30 seconds, and tools (+list of 'valid' keys) can be found online in about 2 minutes of googling.
Sounds to me like a broken videocard.
Working ATI videocards work fine with latest ATI drivers. I've seen a lot of broken ones (9600, 9600XT, 9800pro series all common) that exhibit very odd problems with certain driver versions.
Swap in another copy of the card and the drivers all work flawlessly.
Stop blaming drivers when your hardware fails. Warranty is there for a reason. Naturally do check first if your windows is b0rked, but it's fairly common to see failing vidcards. People never clean their fans, dust builds up, heat does it's job and then we have truly bizzarre effects - which sometimes only show with specific driver versions.
(I work at PC repairs. I see these 'ati drivers stopped working' computers every week. 90% of the time if the usual 'reinstall windows + latest drivers' doesn't work, its a faulty videocard, and the other 10% of time time it's a faulty motherboard...)
The post was correct at the time of posting. I'm aware it is no longer so.
They changed it approximately 20 hours after I posted that. Maybe, possibly, after reading the feedback..?
Its a preview/demo. Mostly designed to build up launch hype.
They call it a stress test, but these 'open' beta events are 95% PR/publicity and 5% seeing if the servers blow up. They have been like that for a few years already for MMOs. MXO had one, COV had one... and I'm most likely forgetting half dozen others. And they were so close to launch that, at best, they provided some pre-warning if their infrastructure would blow up on launch day or not.
Heck, AC2 'stress test' (aka 'free demo/sneak peek') almost single handedly doomed that game as everyone could see that there was no game to speak of. Yet they didn't deviate from the launch plan by a single day.
In fact, it's beyond hilarious that their open stress test still has an NDA, yet anyone can sign up and see for themselves.
Only MMO I've seen so far to deviate from launch plans based on beta tests is Auto Assault. Their beta testers told the devs in no uncertain terms there was no game (and the visuals looked dated), and launch was postponed by at least 6 months. For every other game so far, betas are just a tool to drum up hype for as big launch day sellout of boxes as possible.
Yes, but Turbine NEVER tried.
They basically dumped out a turd, and then mostly gave up on it.
Then noticed that they only offered the 1.5GB 'low res' client for DL. You need to pay for subscription of Fileplanet to DL the 'high res' version (2.5GB)
Sorry. If you don't want me to see your game in the maximum shiny version (yes, my system can take it, thankyouverymuch), without making me pay for it to Fileplanet, I'm not interested. Turbine's karma is already pretty much busted - they canned AC2, and have not published anything worth two cents since.. umm... sometime last century. Sure, AC2 sucked and was ripe to be canned, as nobody played it, but it tells everyone they'll drop an MMO in an instant if it makes sense financially, and they can't be bothered to fix their messups if they do one. So why bother even seeing how they fouled up this one? They are already fouling their 'preview' (aka 'Stress Test') royally.
So, since they don't want me to check the game out ('give Fileplanet $$$, plz'), I see no reason to be interested in the slightest in this crap. There's plenty of competiting MMOs out there - ones that offer straight up free tryouts, without crippled clients or other strings attached. I hope this one crashes and burns.
Turbine and EA - two fucked up MMO developers/publishers that have already burned the bridges with most 'hardcore' MMO players. SOE is rapidly going down the same route (See: SWG).
Thankfully there are other companies out there with bit more clue. The joys of free market...
It may be 1% today.
It will most likely be 25% in 12 months. Well, 90% if you count PS3 and Xbox 360.
Trust me, current games under development for release mid-2006 or later are looking at this (as are everyone developing anything for future consoles). They have to - competition will pwn their ass with much shinyer games that take advantage of the extra hardware, and their product will look dated if they don't do the same thing.
Due to long development times, most of the games out now do not benefit, but that will change - rapidly. We've already seen first ones that clearly benefit (City of Villains uses and benefits noticeably, assuming your videcard is modern enough so it's not limited by it).
Dunno about the 'land of the free', but over here in the 'old world', we have PCs without Windows. Sure, they won't have a flash bang brand like 'HP' or 'Dell', but who cares? You can have exactly the setup you want, built by a knowledgeable tech, with solid 2-3 year warranty by the store that sold it to you. No M$ tax, unless you want one (that'd be 109 euros for OEM XP Home, should you so choose)
Dunno whats' with the big brand name companies... it seems like they've signed on a dotted line saying "I'll get my XP's cheap from MS, but in exchange I won't sell *any* computers without XP on them (or without any OS at all, since they are obivious used by EVIL PIRATES)"
So? Don't buy from those companies. There are options.