When you die, you loose your ship and that can hurt a lot. This causes players to think more before they act. It offeres a bit of suspense when one gets into a battle. No other game has this, and if the death system was not the way it was then EVE would crumble
Since the price of death is so high in EVE, you never really get to see too much PVP. And when battles do occur, it's usually very lopsided. If your fleet leader is halfway intelligent, he doesn't engage in battles that would destroy half his Corp's ships, but doesn't hesitate to attack when he has the clear advantage. Sometimes there are large battles that are fun, but those are usually lag fests. It's disappointing when a PVP oriented game has such boring and flawed PVP.
I personally don't see the appeal of spending hours and hours on obtaining something (virtual mind you) and then possibly loosing it. Especially when outside factors like lag (which EVE has issues with) can be the sole reason why you lose your ship. EVE is like Diablo2 with only the hardcore option. I graduated college and have a job now. My "hardcore" gaming phase is over.
The Mac users are the low-hanging fruit in this space. Blizzard understands this and is profiting from it. Everyone else is (and, it looks, will be) playing catchup.
Not really. Everyone else just doesn't have as much capital as Blizzard for it to be economically viable for them to port their game. Macs are still a niche in the gaming market, or at most a minority compared to Windows machines. It's hard to guarantee that porting will justify the costs unless you know your market is huge (see WoW) and you already have the resources to port the games (Blizzard has been porting their games for a while). I think it would be great to see more companies port to Macs (the more competition the better), but I can see why a majority of them are passing for the time being.
When I heard this I immediately thought Freelancer. It's about time that some one made a "sequel" to the game, after Freelancer 2 got scrapped. Unfortunately, when they started talking about 22 missions it sounds like this will won't even come close to the sandbox style game that Freelancer was. Looking from the screenshots, it looks like more of a Descent: Freespace clone if anything.
It's really too bad that the Descent (non-Freespace) and Freelancer franchises have fallen away. I would pay good money to play new releases of those series.
That assumes that you have to have repetative tasks to keep people busy... Blizzard dosent have long faction grinds because they think that people will like them. They do it because they are friggin lazy, and they are easier than creating real content. WoW isn't a brilliant game design. It is a very average game that is quite popular because of it's low bar for entry and pretty graphics. Popular != quality
At the same time just because it is popular doesn't mean that it's poor quality. It sounds like you never played the game, because if you did you would never say that Blizzard was lazy with WoW. There is a disgusting amount of content in the game, and they put a lot of effort in to balancing all the very unique and complex player classes. Personally, I played WoW and I got bored of it, but it was fun for awhile. I can easily see why people enjoy it, and overall I think it's a quality MMO (especially compared to the others I've played). Seriously, what MMO is sooo much better than WoW for you to call it average. EVE? That game has more grind (and most boring grind imo) in any MMO I've ever played. SWG, AO, Planetside? Either they were buggy or had serious design flaws.
Do you even play MMO's? If you don't like to grind, then MMO's probably aren't the game for you. If you think you can create an MMO that will have people renewing their subscription WITHOUT grind, be my guest. It's not as easy as you think.
You have to obey the laws of physics. There is no way you will expend less energy holding your position than using all of your fuel to build up speed and crash into the sucker.
I think the GP means that it takes less energy to maintain position above an asteroid then to attach it to an asteroid and then have some sort of propulsion system push it off it's original course.
You forgot to think the effects on the economy. When people use bots, they make a lot more in game currency then they normally would be. This currency gets put into the auction house and inflates the economy. They also have more chances of obtaining elite loot. It's unfair to the people who try to play legitimately. They now have to grind more to get enough gold to buy the items they want, the items that they find will be inferior to the botter's items, and now they get their ass kicked in PVP just because they choose to play a game the way it was meant to be played. The WoW-addicts aren't a problem because they worked their ass off to have the superior gear. In fact, bots damage their experience the most because the people who play WoW all day deserve to be uber, but they would be swimming in an ocean of mediocrity if MMO's allowed rampant cheating.
IANAL, but I don't think this is a free speech issue. MDY created software that was illegally damaging the experience of Blizzard's customers. Blizzard asked that this software (which sole function is illegal) stopped being developed. Can you even claim that MDY is an individual? AFAIK, Glider was being sold to users for profit. MDY was profiting by damaging other individuals game play experience.
The simpler problem of stopping WoW botting is easy. People bot in WoW because 'the grind' to level or gain faction rep is long and boring. Change the game so that people aren't rewarded for sinking so much time into the game. Problem solved.
If you didn't reward people for sinking so much time in the game, they'll have nothing to strive for. You're basically saying that the "grind" should removed. If they grind is removed, people will have achieved their goals in a very short time, and then having nothing to do. They'll leave the game before you can get a second month's renewal of their subscription.
The bot could easily just read the integer value that was picked for the particular sign. You can create a database of known riddles and their answers. The developer would have to create thousands of riddles just to make them semi-effective for a week. Then you are assuming stupid people don't play MMO's. If you start banning people who aren't using bots you are going to piss of your user base. You might be able to get away with a few illegitimate bans here and there. But the scheme you suggests, I could easily see people ignoring stupid crap like that for many reasons. Maybe the user has enough "fabulous riches" and is just killing the Defias mobs for rep.
It's easier for the company to go after the source of cheating then come up with some inevitably flawed system that gives you false negatives and false positives.
What kind of puzzle would be easy for a human to solve but hard for a computer? Remember, the mini-game would have to be relevant to the game, and at the same time have gameplay that's not annoying/tedious (which is why people use bots in the first place). Do you really want to make all of your users go through some annoying process like entering a captcha every 5 minutes? You think game companies haven't though of this? They have, but it's better to screw over people who are actually damaging the experience for others, instead of the whole user base.
Sure for anyone else that reads this, it is just some story told by someone they don't know, but for myself, I can reasonably call you a lier.
Why are you calling him a liar? Which of the statements of the GP's post is false? It seems like you're doing exactly what he says: painting all cops as the same just because of your few shitty experiences with cops. I've had multiple run-ins with the cops and I've never been treated unfairly. In fact, I've been caught doing clearly illegal things (trespassing,etc) where the police had every reason to arrest me, but I treated them with respect and they returned the favor and let me go. Does this mean I think all cops are good? Hell no! But I know cops are people as well, and have their own unique personalities. In other words, cops can be dicks or they can be cool, just like other humans. Imagine that!?
I believe the majority of cops are fair. However, if you treat them with the same attitude that is coming off in the tone of the post, it is no surprise that you have run into problems with them. You're right that police do have the resources to take out their frustrations in really bad ways. That's why most PD's do some heaving screening on their recruits. And it's also why I don't act like a dick to the cops. I'll save my "stand up for rights" attitude where it actually makes a difference: in a court.
Your poor attempts to deceive are unlikely to convince people that police are somehow morally superior to the rest of humanity.
WTF, man? GP never tried to imply anything close to that. You're off your rocker.
Blizzard didn't abuse a damn thing. People were using that software to circumvent Blizzard's CD key authentication and pirate the game. People deliberately used this software to enhance the experience of their pirated games. Blizzard allows a variety of software to interact with their games, but they go after the software that ruins the their customer's experience, or the software that encourages and facilitates piracy of their games. It would be foolish for them not protect themselves in this manner.
As for the "add impaired" remark, I've been playing on Battle Net for years now and I couldn't describe to you a single ad that has been displayed on top of the screen. It's relatively small and unobtrusive. If that's really a huge problem for you, you should probably not be using this website for the same reason.
BTW, I tried AO. It nearly rivals Eve online in terms of boring gameplay. Enjoy your crappy, "non-add impaired" MMO.
I love how so many people on slashdot complain about the lack of innovation and new things in the video game industry, but when we see an article about indie games (which generally are trying new things), the article barely gets a dozen posts. Can you guys now see why game companies churn out the same shit over and over? They're only catering to what the masses want. If you want new and interesting gameplay, try a game that isn't created by a company you've heard of. FWIW, I'm not trying to say indie games are good, but at least they are more likely to give you a new experience.
Your Wikipedia quote doesn't really answer the GP's question. Just because there might be a few servers in Thailand or something, doesn't mean bnetd has, for all intents and purposes, been shut down.
And as far as priacy goes, given you could do everything BUT play on Blizzard's servers without a valid CD key, I hardly think that small measure could be considered "copy protection".
For people who, like me, who enjoy multiplayer much more than single player (especially Blizzard's games) there were isn't much else to the game besides the multi player. Playing the same friends over and over got boring. Battle net made it easy to find new competition.
Everyone who defends bnetd comes up with their own little scenarios where "me and some friends just wanted to set up a server, and we all had CD's keys." But if you really believe that the majority of bnetd servers where filled with legitimate purchasers of Blizzard's games, then there's no point trying to talk you down from la-la land. The funny thing is, Blizzards games were completely playable through LAN or TCP/IP, but the main excuse I hear for bnetd was it was used to set up local tourneys. Get a whiteboard, play on LAN, and stop whining like a little bitch.
I don't respect WoW at all. It is the McDonald's of MMOs, or the AOL, if you prefer that analogy.
Typical elitist comment made by an EVE player. Here's a challenge, try making a case about why WoW is inferior without sounding like an condescending ass. Seriously.
It is just a mixture of things that worked in previous MMOs with a layer of polish. It is not innovative, and in fact, has set back innovation in MMOs, since most new MMOs seem to copy what WoW has done in a misguided effort to get some if WoW's success instead of trying new things
Here's one thing I agree with. WoW was not innovative in terms of its individual features, and gameplay, but everything it had was done with quality. What I disagree with is that games tried to follow WoW and sucked because of it. Of all the MMO's I've given a test drive, they have all sucked because something they implement wasn't well done or was poorly thought out, not because it didn't have enough innovation. In other words, MMO's sucked because they sucked, not because they tried to copy WoW.
I firmly believe that MMOs as a genre would be better off had WoW never existed.
Better WoW became popular then EVE. Jesus Christ that game bored me to tears. WoW lost it's appeal to me after awhile, but damn at least it was somewhat immersing.
I try really hard not to be an inflammatory asshole on the internet (especially Slashdot), but for this I just can't resist...
even if you aren't actually circumventing copy protection measures
Are you fucking retarded!? The sole friggin' purpose of bnetd was to circumvent the CD-key copy prevention. The whole "providing alternative servers" bullshit was just a lame attempt for a defense to keep the piracy going. You didn't need a key to play on these servers, plain and simple. Hell, even I used bnetd so I didn't have to buy Warcraft III. If you honestly think people weren't using bnetd to supplement their piracy, you're insane.
Games on Windows are generally filled with intrusive DRM, which may or may not work on your system, which may or may not install low-level drivers (which may or may not have bugs causing system instability or slowdowns), which may or may not phone home when you want to play them, etc.
If it's just the games that have the DRM, then that doesn't mean that Windows is bad for gaming. There are still plenty of games for Windows that don't have DRM. Games on Windows tend to be less stable, but when you have to account for thousands of different kinds of hardware and peripherals you can't expect everything to run like clock work.
Not to mention the weekly OS patches, frequent driver updates which may or may not break existing games in favour of new games, frequent game patches often available before the game is actually released...
You can choose when you download the patches. You also make it sound like patching is a bad thing. I for one am glad they are least trying to fix shit. Especially for the games.
Personally, I've spent much more time playing games on Windows then on consoles. The FPS and RTS experience is just so much more enjoyable with the peripherals available to PC's. Compared to any other OS, Windows obviously has the best selection for games. To call it horrible for gaming is quite a stretch.
Final thought, game industry. Would you rather most consumers were like me, never pirate anything but buy on average two games a year, or like most people in this discussion, pirate lots but actually pay for five or six a year?
Just because you buy less games as a non-pirate doesn't mean it works that way for everyone else. I'm pretty sure a gamers financial status is much more likely to influence the rate of which they buy games then their pirating frequency. It's makes much more sense to me that someone with less money would pirate more AND buy less games. I think that trying to claim the piracy somehow helps the game industry is quite a stretch. I'm not trying to defend companies who create game-crippling DRM that damages the experience for legitimate users. Expecting a company to leave their games at the mercy kids with no money with knowledge of bittorrent, however, is borderline insanity.
Had it not been for that pirated copy of the original Warcraft, I would never have bought the 2nd and 3rd installments.
Unlikely. Only one of my friends had Warcraft and I vaguely remember messing around with it for a day. Warcraft 2 was much more popular. There was pretty sizeable group of kids that played it during lunch at my high school. In fact, I think most people didn't even know about Warcraft until it's sequel was released. At worst you would have pirated the second installment, then bought the third.
Since when did adults playing counter-strike get more mature then children? Last time I checked adults were racist and cussed just as much. I'm completely okay with servers banning racists, but not being able to yell "Bullshit!" when you get owned through a wall is just painful. Cussing and lack of maturity don't always go hand in hand. People can be total douches without saying a single word in that game.
Slashdot Mirror
When you die, you loose your ship and that can hurt a lot. This causes players to think more before they act. It offeres a bit of suspense when one gets into a battle. No other game has this, and if the death system was not the way it was then EVE would crumble
Since the price of death is so high in EVE, you never really get to see too much PVP. And when battles do occur, it's usually very lopsided. If your fleet leader is halfway intelligent, he doesn't engage in battles that would destroy half his Corp's ships, but doesn't hesitate to attack when he has the clear advantage. Sometimes there are large battles that are fun, but those are usually lag fests. It's disappointing when a PVP oriented game has such boring and flawed PVP.
I personally don't see the appeal of spending hours and hours on obtaining something (virtual mind you) and then possibly loosing it. Especially when outside factors like lag (which EVE has issues with) can be the sole reason why you lose your ship. EVE is like Diablo2 with only the hardcore option. I graduated college and have a job now. My "hardcore" gaming phase is over.
The Mac users are the low-hanging fruit in this space. Blizzard understands this and is profiting from it. Everyone else is (and, it looks, will be) playing catchup.
Not really. Everyone else just doesn't have as much capital as Blizzard for it to be economically viable for them to port their game. Macs are still a niche in the gaming market, or at most a minority compared to Windows machines. It's hard to guarantee that porting will justify the costs unless you know your market is huge (see WoW) and you already have the resources to port the games (Blizzard has been porting their games for a while). I think it would be great to see more companies port to Macs (the more competition the better), but I can see why a majority of them are passing for the time being.
When I heard this I immediately thought Freelancer. It's about time that some one made a "sequel" to the game, after Freelancer 2 got scrapped. Unfortunately, when they started talking about 22 missions it sounds like this will won't even come close to the sandbox style game that Freelancer was. Looking from the screenshots, it looks like more of a Descent: Freespace clone if anything.
It's really too bad that the Descent (non-Freespace) and Freelancer franchises have fallen away. I would pay good money to play new releases of those series.
That assumes that you have to have repetative tasks to keep people busy... Blizzard dosent have long faction grinds because they think that people will like them. They do it because they are friggin lazy, and they are easier than creating real content. WoW isn't a brilliant game design. It is a very average game that is quite popular because of it's low bar for entry and pretty graphics. Popular != quality
At the same time just because it is popular doesn't mean that it's poor quality. It sounds like you never played the game, because if you did you would never say that Blizzard was lazy with WoW. There is a disgusting amount of content in the game, and they put a lot of effort in to balancing all the very unique and complex player classes. Personally, I played WoW and I got bored of it, but it was fun for awhile. I can easily see why people enjoy it, and overall I think it's a quality MMO (especially compared to the others I've played). Seriously, what MMO is sooo much better than WoW for you to call it average. EVE? That game has more grind (and most boring grind imo) in any MMO I've ever played. SWG, AO, Planetside? Either they were buggy or had serious design flaws.
Do you even play MMO's? If you don't like to grind, then MMO's probably aren't the game for you. If you think you can create an MMO that will have people renewing their subscription WITHOUT grind, be my guest. It's not as easy as you think.
You have to obey the laws of physics. There is no way you will expend less energy holding your position than using all of your fuel to build up speed and crash into the sucker.
I think the GP means that it takes less energy to maintain position above an asteroid then to attach it to an asteroid and then have some sort of propulsion system push it off it's original course.
You forgot to think the effects on the economy. When people use bots, they make a lot more in game currency then they normally would be. This currency gets put into the auction house and inflates the economy. They also have more chances of obtaining elite loot. It's unfair to the people who try to play legitimately. They now have to grind more to get enough gold to buy the items they want, the items that they find will be inferior to the botter's items, and now they get their ass kicked in PVP just because they choose to play a game the way it was meant to be played. The WoW-addicts aren't a problem because they worked their ass off to have the superior gear. In fact, bots damage their experience the most because the people who play WoW all day deserve to be uber, but they would be swimming in an ocean of mediocrity if MMO's allowed rampant cheating.
IANAL, but I don't think this is a free speech issue. MDY created software that was illegally damaging the experience of Blizzard's customers. Blizzard asked that this software (which sole function is illegal) stopped being developed. Can you even claim that MDY is an individual? AFAIK, Glider was being sold to users for profit. MDY was profiting by damaging other individuals game play experience.
The simpler problem of stopping WoW botting is easy. People bot in WoW because 'the grind' to level or gain faction rep is long and boring. Change the game so that people aren't rewarded for sinking so much time into the game. Problem solved.
If you didn't reward people for sinking so much time in the game, they'll have nothing to strive for. You're basically saying that the "grind" should removed. If they grind is removed, people will have achieved their goals in a very short time, and then having nothing to do. They'll leave the game before you can get a second month's renewal of their subscription.
The bot could easily just read the integer value that was picked for the particular sign. You can create a database of known riddles and their answers. The developer would have to create thousands of riddles just to make them semi-effective for a week. Then you are assuming stupid people don't play MMO's. If you start banning people who aren't using bots you are going to piss of your user base. You might be able to get away with a few illegitimate bans here and there. But the scheme you suggests, I could easily see people ignoring stupid crap like that for many reasons. Maybe the user has enough "fabulous riches" and is just killing the Defias mobs for rep.
It's easier for the company to go after the source of cheating then come up with some inevitably flawed system that gives you false negatives and false positives.
What kind of puzzle would be easy for a human to solve but hard for a computer? Remember, the mini-game would have to be relevant to the game, and at the same time have gameplay that's not annoying/tedious (which is why people use bots in the first place). Do you really want to make all of your users go through some annoying process like entering a captcha every 5 minutes? You think game companies haven't though of this? They have, but it's better to screw over people who are actually damaging the experience for others, instead of the whole user base.
Sure for anyone else that reads this, it is just some story told by someone they don't know, but for myself, I can reasonably call you a lier.
Why are you calling him a liar? Which of the statements of the GP's post is false? It seems like you're doing exactly what he says: painting all cops as the same just because of your few shitty experiences with cops. I've had multiple run-ins with the cops and I've never been treated unfairly. In fact, I've been caught doing clearly illegal things (trespassing,etc) where the police had every reason to arrest me, but I treated them with respect and they returned the favor and let me go. Does this mean I think all cops are good? Hell no! But I know cops are people as well, and have their own unique personalities. In other words, cops can be dicks or they can be cool, just like other humans. Imagine that!?
I believe the majority of cops are fair. However, if you treat them with the same attitude that is coming off in the tone of the post, it is no surprise that you have run into problems with them. You're right that police do have the resources to take out their frustrations in really bad ways. That's why most PD's do some heaving screening on their recruits. And it's also why I don't act like a dick to the cops. I'll save my "stand up for rights" attitude where it actually makes a difference: in a court.
Your poor attempts to deceive are unlikely to convince people that police are somehow morally superior to the rest of humanity.
WTF, man? GP never tried to imply anything close to that. You're off your rocker.
Blizzard didn't abuse a damn thing. People were using that software to circumvent Blizzard's CD key authentication and pirate the game. People deliberately used this software to enhance the experience of their pirated games. Blizzard allows a variety of software to interact with their games, but they go after the software that ruins the their customer's experience, or the software that encourages and facilitates piracy of their games. It would be foolish for them not protect themselves in this manner.
As for the "add impaired" remark, I've been playing on Battle Net for years now and I couldn't describe to you a single ad that has been displayed on top of the screen. It's relatively small and unobtrusive. If that's really a huge problem for you, you should probably not be using this website for the same reason.
BTW, I tried AO. It nearly rivals Eve online in terms of boring gameplay. Enjoy your crappy, "non-add impaired" MMO.
I love how so many people on slashdot complain about the lack of innovation and new things in the video game industry, but when we see an article about indie games (which generally are trying new things), the article barely gets a dozen posts. Can you guys now see why game companies churn out the same shit over and over? They're only catering to what the masses want. If you want new and interesting gameplay, try a game that isn't created by a company you've heard of. FWIW, I'm not trying to say indie games are good, but at least they are more likely to give you a new experience.
So even though the copy-prevention schemes arose from piracy, today, piracy is sometimes necessary due to copy-prevention schemes.
Using a hack != piracy. Refusing to buy the game doesn't make it magically work.
Really it would be a fun exercise and it and it could teach what can go horribly, horribly wrong with just a little nudge to the DNA here and there.
You obviously haven't seen the creatures that already have been created with this software. Some of them are the definition of "horribly wrong."
Diablo 2 was a fun fantasy game about battling demons and vampires with boobs
Fixed.
If you think you're qualified and that's what you came up with, perform a self-abortion.
Funny Reply:
Wow the GP is posting on Slashdot from the womb? Can't be much more of a definitive nerd than that.
Flamebait Reply:
I suggest you look up the word "abortion", you obviously don't know what it means, you fucktard.
Your Wikipedia quote doesn't really answer the GP's question. Just because there might be a few servers in Thailand or something, doesn't mean bnetd has, for all intents and purposes, been shut down.
And as far as priacy goes, given you could do everything BUT play on Blizzard's servers without a valid CD key, I hardly think that small measure could be considered "copy protection".
For people who, like me, who enjoy multiplayer much more than single player (especially Blizzard's games) there were isn't much else to the game besides the multi player. Playing the same friends over and over got boring. Battle net made it easy to find new competition.
Everyone who defends bnetd comes up with their own little scenarios where "me and some friends just wanted to set up a server, and we all had CD's keys." But if you really believe that the majority of bnetd servers where filled with legitimate purchasers of Blizzard's games, then there's no point trying to talk you down from la-la land. The funny thing is, Blizzards games were completely playable through LAN or TCP/IP, but the main excuse I hear for bnetd was it was used to set up local tourneys. Get a whiteboard, play on LAN, and stop whining like a little bitch.
I don't respect WoW at all. It is the McDonald's of MMOs, or the AOL, if you prefer that analogy.
Typical elitist comment made by an EVE player. Here's a challenge, try making a case about why WoW is inferior without sounding like an condescending ass. Seriously.
It is just a mixture of things that worked in previous MMOs with a layer of polish. It is not innovative, and in fact, has set back innovation in MMOs, since most new MMOs seem to copy what WoW has done in a misguided effort to get some if WoW's success instead of trying new things
Here's one thing I agree with. WoW was not innovative in terms of its individual features, and gameplay, but everything it had was done with quality. What I disagree with is that games tried to follow WoW and sucked because of it. Of all the MMO's I've given a test drive, they have all sucked because something they implement wasn't well done or was poorly thought out, not because it didn't have enough innovation. In other words, MMO's sucked because they sucked, not because they tried to copy WoW.
I firmly believe that MMOs as a genre would be better off had WoW never existed.
Better WoW became popular then EVE. Jesus Christ that game bored me to tears. WoW lost it's appeal to me after awhile, but damn at least it was somewhat immersing.
I try really hard not to be an inflammatory asshole on the internet (especially Slashdot), but for this I just can't resist...
even if you aren't actually circumventing copy protection measures
Are you fucking retarded!? The sole friggin' purpose of bnetd was to circumvent the CD-key copy prevention. The whole "providing alternative servers" bullshit was just a lame attempt for a defense to keep the piracy going. You didn't need a key to play on these servers, plain and simple. Hell, even I used bnetd so I didn't have to buy Warcraft III. If you honestly think people weren't using bnetd to supplement their piracy, you're insane.
Games on Windows are generally filled with intrusive DRM, which may or may not work on your system, which may or may not install low-level drivers (which may or may not have bugs causing system instability or slowdowns), which may or may not phone home when you want to play them, etc.
If it's just the games that have the DRM, then that doesn't mean that Windows is bad for gaming. There are still plenty of games for Windows that don't have DRM. Games on Windows tend to be less stable, but when you have to account for thousands of different kinds of hardware and peripherals you can't expect everything to run like clock work.
Not to mention the weekly OS patches, frequent driver updates which may or may not break existing games in favour of new games, frequent game patches often available before the game is actually released...
You can choose when you download the patches. You also make it sound like patching is a bad thing. I for one am glad they are least trying to fix shit. Especially for the games.
Personally, I've spent much more time playing games on Windows then on consoles. The FPS and RTS experience is just so much more enjoyable with the peripherals available to PC's. Compared to any other OS, Windows obviously has the best selection for games. To call it horrible for gaming is quite a stretch.
Final thought, game industry. Would you rather most consumers were like me, never pirate anything but buy on average two games a year, or like most people in this discussion, pirate lots but actually pay for five or six a year?
Just because you buy less games as a non-pirate doesn't mean it works that way for everyone else. I'm pretty sure a gamers financial status is much more likely to influence the rate of which they buy games then their pirating frequency. It's makes much more sense to me that someone with less money would pirate more AND buy less games. I think that trying to claim the piracy somehow helps the game industry is quite a stretch. I'm not trying to defend companies who create game-crippling DRM that damages the experience for legitimate users. Expecting a company to leave their games at the mercy kids with no money with knowledge of bittorrent, however, is borderline insanity.
Had it not been for that pirated copy of the original Warcraft, I would never have bought the 2nd and 3rd installments.
Unlikely. Only one of my friends had Warcraft and I vaguely remember messing around with it for a day. Warcraft 2 was much more popular. There was pretty sizeable group of kids that played it during lunch at my high school. In fact, I think most people didn't even know about Warcraft until it's sequel was released. At worst you would have pirated the second installment, then bought the third.
Since when did adults playing counter-strike get more mature then children? Last time I checked adults were racist and cussed just as much. I'm completely okay with servers banning racists, but not being able to yell "Bullshit!" when you get owned through a wall is just painful. Cussing and lack of maturity don't always go hand in hand. People can be total douches without saying a single word in that game.