Then "philanthropic" loans like this to the state of Washington would be less necessary. I think it's hilarious when corporations work out complicated schemes to avoid 90% of the taxes they should be owed, and then they come up with some idea to make charitable contributions which still only add up to a small fraction of the taxes they should be paying. Then they hold up these charitable contributions to make themselves look like heroes.
I'd just like to point out that you can still purchase the game. A DMCA take-down notice was sent to GoG and Steam, both of which just followed the directive of the take-down notice and removed the game from their sites.
Stardock still sells the game directly from their website. I'm not an expert so I'm not sure if Stardock is obligated to respect a DMCA notice to their own website. As I understand it, take down notices are sent to third-party sites, informing that third party that there is a copyright conflict on the offending material. It's not really applicable to a first-party site.
I believe in order to get Stardock to remove Star Control from their own website, the guys suing them would need to request that the judge prevent sales of Star Control: Origins until the conflict was settled, and then the judge would have to approve that injunction. So far that hasn't happened.
Consoles are not going to be "replaced" by cloud game streams. It's not surprising that this CEO has forgotten that there are many gamers, all over the world, who do not have access to high-speed internet connections that are required for an online-only service. An average console generation is approximately 5 years. We are not 5 years away from ubiquitous high-speed internet connections in rural and undeveloped areas of the world.
Microsoft tried making this mistake with the X-Box One, and they were so short-sighted that they almost went to market with it, before they realized that by making their console online-only they will deny themselves many thousands of valuable customers.
Cloud game streams will evolve as a subscription model to supplement (and for some people) replace the gaming console. Just like Netflix supplements cable television for many, and replaces it for some.
Eventually we may have cable set-top boxes or television sets with the "Xbox" app and the "Playstation" app and the "Nintendo" app built into them so that we can download and play games through these boxes instead of buying a dedicated console. However, consoles will still be necessary and still exist for the people who want to take their gaming with them on the road, or when they deploy overseas, or if they live in an area without broadband.
The way I understand it, it's actually impossible for them to "block" these services. There would be two ways they could "block" the services, and both of them would have extremely high impact to Steam.
First, they could ban the Bots who are collecting and trading the skins that are being gambled on. We all know that this would only be a temporary measure. More bots would simply be created to replace those banned.
Secondly, they could alter the API for Steam to prohibit the type of trading that is occurring. However, they would break a lot of legitimate functions if they went this route.
So saying that Steam "won't block" the gambling is being pretty disingenuous. It'd be like if Major League Baseball could "block" betting on baseball games by not posting scores online. That's really not a valid or realistic solution to the problem. It certainly looks like Steam is taking active steps to shut the gambling sites down.
They tried this already with Games for Windows Live. It failed miserably and had all sorts of issues.
First of all, console players were never able to successfully play will with PC players. Secondly, sign-in problems on the PC caused problems, both on the PC and on the console. Being logged into Steam while you play a game isn't that big a deal. Having to then sign into Games for Windows when you launched a game was just dumb.
I remember back in the days of Bioshock, which had Games for Windows Live, I couldn't play the game on my PC while my wife was watching Netflix on the TV, because we watched Netflix through the XBox 360. Microsoft wouldn't let you sign into multiple devices at once.
It was a completely asinine system. Microsoft designs things for their business, not for the consumer. This will fall flat on its face for that reason.
This isn't true. You're able to connect to the app on Exchange normally. This is a separate app from the 365 application. I was able to download it and authenticate to my company's Exchange without any issues and we do not have a 365 business license.
For us, the issue is security as this is another avenue to access an employee's email which can be exploited.
Having an unbiased view? In the realm of POLITICS?! If that is your criterion then nobody in politics should ever get appointed to anything, ever. They're politicians, not judges. It's not their job to be unbiased. In fact their job is completely the opposite, to be biased in favor of those who elected them.
I wish it weren't the case, but it is.
Exactly this. This isn't a compromise. This is yet ANOTHER way for AT&T to Double-Dip and get money from both service providers and the customer.
AT&T can charge Netflix extra money for making a "Fast Lane" available on its network. Then, it can turn around and let the customer "choose" to pay an extra $20 a month to actually USE this "Fast Lane". Rinse and Repeat with every type of service you can think of: YouTube, Twitch, online gaming, Skype, etc. Soon the customer could have an extra $50-100 tacked onto his or her bill every month. Huge win for ISPs.
I can see the advertising now! Subscribe to three fast lanes and get a 20% discount on your bundle!
It's interesting reading the opposite side of this story. However, this has pretty low credibility to me. We're dealing with one story which is being publicly told by an individual who is putting her name out there, and standing behind her words. This rebuttal consists of a few loose allegations with no facts to back them up, posted by a generic anonymous coward. It reads more like office gossip than a factual rebuttal.
However, I have a few thoughts on it.
- It's insinuated that Julie is being deceitful by hiding the fact that the engineer is an ex-boyfriend. If it is, in fact, true that it was an ex-boyfriend, it's equally reasonable that Julie excluded that part of the story from her public side of the tale in order to protect his identity and not publicly call him out. Keep in mind Julie didn't even mention the founder or his wife by name.
- It's insinuated that the engineer's advances were "OK" because he was an "ex". This is simply false. Just because you had a relationship with someone doesn't make it OK to harass you.
- It's insinuated that Julie didn't have any issues with the retaliation that the engineer used against her. However if you read Julie's story, she obviously did. She may just not have come forward about it immediately, which is what happens in MANY cases of retaliation and harassment. It's easier and more comfortable to deal with the issue on your own, hope it blows over by itself, etc.
- The back-and-forth regarding the wife just sounds like meaningless he-said she-said. I'll believe it if the wife comes forward publicly and says something about it, but this just sounds like 3rd person rumor mongering to me.
- The insinuation that the "Passion Projects" at GitHub was somehow a bribe to get Julie to stop "threatening" the founder's family is a pretty serious allegation to make without any factual information to back it up, and posted anonymously.
I got a Boxee for Christmas and we've been loving it. I haven't used a Roku or Apple TV, but the Boxee is great. We use it primarily as a media station to watch media on my PC on the TV. It's fast, the quality is wonderful, and we don't have hardly any technical problems with it. I did need to browse a few forums after a firmware update made it unable to see the shared folders on my PC.
Other than that, it's great for watching Daily Show and other things whenever we feel like it.
The remote control keyboard is great too.
The interface could use some work. I find it difficult to mark "Favorites" and then get to them easily again.
One of the last great flight-sim games of our time. The true way to play Crimson Skies was the PC version with a Sidewinder Force-Feedback Pro. The game was marvelous and wonderful in all the ways that it is possible to be. The XBox version was surprisingly good.
I'll be looking forward to this game if it is in any way similar to Crimson Skies. I haven't heard of this title before.
Re:Life Lessons I learned from Bionic Commando-
on
Bionic Commando Returns
·
· Score: 2, Funny
2) Do NOT fire your gun in Neutral territory!
3) Do NOT fly a helicopter over trucks. You will be attacked.
Solving Bionic Commando on the NES without cheating is one of my "Nerd Accomplishments". I still remember the final "Boss Battle" which simply required a PERFECTLY TIMED rocket launcher into Hitler's helicopter as your character fell to his death. You miss, you die. Hope you have a few lives stored up for the end, because that's only as many shots as you get at the final boss.
The game was SO much fun, it never got old.
My only criticism with the game was that there were many many weapons in the game, but once you got the Bazooka gun, there was little reason to ever use any of the other ones.
Granted this WAS on the NES. We can't really ask for weapon switching on this generation of a game. Not many games of this time had that sort of capability.
I'm SO happy they're making a remake of Bionic Commando. I can't wait!
The TRUE Fasa died years ago. This is just a game studio that ripped off its name.
Give the Mechwarrior franchise back to the remnants of Microprose, who can give us a fabulous Mech game, like Mechwarrior 3. Mechwarrior 3 was nearly perfect. Mechwarrior 4 was too "Arcade-like"... and Mechassault is just a console shoot 'em up with Mechs.
Also, give Shadowrun to Bioware, so that we can have an awesome Shadowrun RPG. I couldn't even BEGIN to think of how wonderful a game Bioware could make with Shadowrun.
Sacrifice is up there amongst my favorite games of all time
I've played through it many, many times, in just about every combination of Gods that you could imagine. The game was just SO incredibly innovative, bizarre, and fun to play.
Here's hoping that one day Shiny gets a ton of money, and is allowed to make a sequel. I think a game like Sacrifice would go over really well these days, and it's an example of an RTS / RPG that could be played on consoles as well as the PC, to give it more mass appeal (of course, PC version > all)
You need to update yourself. SecureROM was reported as installing a "Rootkit" by someone who either didn't know what a rootkit is, or didn't do enough research.
SecureRom installs a windows service on your computer. I agree this sucks, and the DRM is way too excessive.
However, it's not a rootkit.
You, my friend, are funny.;)
I'm sorry you had so many problems. But, to be fair, I think you're in the tiny minority of people who had an issue with the game.
Don't pirate this game! 2K doesn't deserve your love. It's their fault that this DRM is there in the first place. The game makers don't make those decisions, the publisher does.
Irrational (Now 2K Boston) made a great game, and before that, they gave us the golden nugget that is SYSTEM SHOCK 2... and the immortal SHODAN who is going to be remembered forever as a great video game villain. The people who brought us this wonderful game and System Shock deserve your support.
They could have just made a Halo rip off.
Don't pirate the game. Support the game makers, but not the publisher. Just don't buy any 2K stock;)
I'm sick of hearing all the negative buzz about Bioshock
The game is 99% perfect! There is a very small widescreen issue. There is a bit of a DRM issue. A couple of AI bugs (which personally I have not witnessed, so as far as I can tell, how widespread they are is perfectly anecdotal). Show me another top-tier game launch recently that has has LESS bugs than Bioshock. I'm not hearing about bugs which are causing blue screens, or crashing X-Boxes or losing save games.
I find it disheartening that with how incredible this game is, and how relatively PERFECTLY the launch went, that people are trying to focus press on what is wrong with it. People are making mountains out of molehills on this one.
Bioshock is an amazing game. All issues and bugs reported on it are vastly overstated. Just play the game and enjoy it for god's sake. If the press wants to focus on something negative, go write a story on Iraq.
1) First on the list is to go over any emails or voicemails that came in that need my attention. Hopefully there are no emergencies for me to take care of.
2) Go make myself some coffee. Just say "no" to bad office coffee people. We have our own coffee maker in our IT area. I drink most of it.
3) Swing by and say "Hello" to all my people, say good morning, see how everyone is doing, see if anything major is going on that I haven't been emailed about.
4) Get my coffee and relax for a few minutes reading slashdot or wired.com before delving into the day's projects.
This list is one of the worst "Top 100" I've ever seen.
The flaws are many and frequent.
How could you have a top 100 list of games that completely excludes ANY Bioware or Black Isle Studios games? On top of that, there's no homage to some clear classics and pioneers of gaming, such as Zork, or Hero Quest. Only a brief mention is made for Monkey Island.
The fact that the vast majority of the games on the list were made after 2000 says a bit.
Because I have to tell you, I'm ALSO an early adopter of the 8800GTX. I run XP (screw Vista) and I couldn't be happier. It was worth every single penny. I haven't had a single problem with it whatsoever.
I run all my games at 1900x1220 Resolution at maximum detail levels, and they are all gorgeous. I don't have any performance issues at all.
If you have yourself a $700 paperweight, you've got something else going wrong besides the card itself. Under Vista, I could believe that it might qualify as a paperweight. I have yet to hear a fellow PC gamer enthusiast say something positive about Vista.
Stardock wins
on
Pimp Your XP
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I've been using Stardock's Windowblinds for 2 years now. Recently I started using some of their other interface changing tools as well.
Windowblinds makes Windows XP SOOOO much nicer in my opinion. I wouldn't run XP without it. I love being able to customize my interface, change whatever I want, when I want.
The community at www.wincustomize.com is fantastic, and people are always designing new skins, new backgrounds, etc.
Stardock is fantastic. I love their products a ton.
Expect to shell out at least $15 a piece for each of these "episodic" updates.
I suppose this is really good news for GTA addicts who have X-Box 360's.
Personally, I find it a disturbing trend that Microsoft is throwing money at developers to make them develop custom content for the 360.
Nintendo and Sony don't have the treasure coffers of a Operating System monopoly to get that kind of money and do likewise. Even though this relationship seems like a win-win-win for Rockstar, Microsoft, and GTA players... I still don't like the idea of Microsoft influencing how my games are made.
Imagine if Microsoft paid Irrational Games $100 million for the next Bioshock game. Microsoft could say "We want you to end the game on a huge cliffhanger. Then we want the last 10 hours of the game to be an X-Box only expansion."
As a PC gamer, I'd be really freaking pissed off. But if MS threw enough money at Irrational, could I blame them for not doing it?
I don't like where this is going.
Why even FILE patents like this? I'm increasingly disgusted that everything creative has to be patented so that someone can make money off of it. Whatever happened to sharing a great idea, and making new and better things with it?
If I filed a patent for a "Rulebook about roleplaying games. This rulebook would contain all rules necessary to play said game. Additional rulebook supplements would also be referenced" and made sure no one else could make any RPGs besides MINE, what the heck would the RPG market be like?
So WizKids made a punchcard pirate game. Big deal. Wizards, if you want to make a punchcard game that comes in booster packs... go ahead and make one. If it's a GOOD game, it'll do better than the WizKids game. Why do you have to SUE over it?
*Answer: Because you're hoping that WizKids can't afford a lawsuit, and will eventually be forced to sell you the licenses to Shadowrun and Battletech, that's why.
Slashdot Mirror
Then "philanthropic" loans like this to the state of Washington would be less necessary. I think it's hilarious when corporations work out complicated schemes to avoid 90% of the taxes they should be owed, and then they come up with some idea to make charitable contributions which still only add up to a small fraction of the taxes they should be paying. Then they hold up these charitable contributions to make themselves look like heroes.
I'd just like to point out that you can still purchase the game. A DMCA take-down notice was sent to GoG and Steam, both of which just followed the directive of the take-down notice and removed the game from their sites. Stardock still sells the game directly from their website. I'm not an expert so I'm not sure if Stardock is obligated to respect a DMCA notice to their own website. As I understand it, take down notices are sent to third-party sites, informing that third party that there is a copyright conflict on the offending material. It's not really applicable to a first-party site. I believe in order to get Stardock to remove Star Control from their own website, the guys suing them would need to request that the judge prevent sales of Star Control: Origins until the conflict was settled, and then the judge would have to approve that injunction. So far that hasn't happened.
Consoles are not going to be "replaced" by cloud game streams. It's not surprising that this CEO has forgotten that there are many gamers, all over the world, who do not have access to high-speed internet connections that are required for an online-only service. An average console generation is approximately 5 years. We are not 5 years away from ubiquitous high-speed internet connections in rural and undeveloped areas of the world.
Microsoft tried making this mistake with the X-Box One, and they were so short-sighted that they almost went to market with it, before they realized that by making their console online-only they will deny themselves many thousands of valuable customers.
Cloud game streams will evolve as a subscription model to supplement (and for some people) replace the gaming console. Just like Netflix supplements cable television for many, and replaces it for some.
Eventually we may have cable set-top boxes or television sets with the "Xbox" app and the "Playstation" app and the "Nintendo" app built into them so that we can download and play games through these boxes instead of buying a dedicated console. However, consoles will still be necessary and still exist for the people who want to take their gaming with them on the road, or when they deploy overseas, or if they live in an area without broadband.
The way I understand it, it's actually impossible for them to "block" these services. There would be two ways they could "block" the services, and both of them would have extremely high impact to Steam. First, they could ban the Bots who are collecting and trading the skins that are being gambled on. We all know that this would only be a temporary measure. More bots would simply be created to replace those banned. Secondly, they could alter the API for Steam to prohibit the type of trading that is occurring. However, they would break a lot of legitimate functions if they went this route. So saying that Steam "won't block" the gambling is being pretty disingenuous. It'd be like if Major League Baseball could "block" betting on baseball games by not posting scores online. That's really not a valid or realistic solution to the problem. It certainly looks like Steam is taking active steps to shut the gambling sites down.
They tried this already with Games for Windows Live. It failed miserably and had all sorts of issues. First of all, console players were never able to successfully play will with PC players. Secondly, sign-in problems on the PC caused problems, both on the PC and on the console. Being logged into Steam while you play a game isn't that big a deal. Having to then sign into Games for Windows when you launched a game was just dumb. I remember back in the days of Bioshock, which had Games for Windows Live, I couldn't play the game on my PC while my wife was watching Netflix on the TV, because we watched Netflix through the XBox 360. Microsoft wouldn't let you sign into multiple devices at once. It was a completely asinine system. Microsoft designs things for their business, not for the consumer. This will fall flat on its face for that reason.
This isn't true. You're able to connect to the app on Exchange normally. This is a separate app from the 365 application. I was able to download it and authenticate to my company's Exchange without any issues and we do not have a 365 business license. For us, the issue is security as this is another avenue to access an employee's email which can be exploited.
Having an unbiased view? In the realm of POLITICS?! If that is your criterion then nobody in politics should ever get appointed to anything, ever. They're politicians, not judges. It's not their job to be unbiased. In fact their job is completely the opposite, to be biased in favor of those who elected them. I wish it weren't the case, but it is.
Exactly this. This isn't a compromise. This is yet ANOTHER way for AT&T to Double-Dip and get money from both service providers and the customer.
AT&T can charge Netflix extra money for making a "Fast Lane" available on its network. Then, it can turn around and let the customer "choose" to pay an extra $20 a month to actually USE this "Fast Lane". Rinse and Repeat with every type of service you can think of: YouTube, Twitch, online gaming, Skype, etc. Soon the customer could have an extra $50-100 tacked onto his or her bill every month. Huge win for ISPs.
I can see the advertising now! Subscribe to three fast lanes and get a 20% discount on your bundle!
It's interesting reading the opposite side of this story. However, this has pretty low credibility to me. We're dealing with one story which is being publicly told by an individual who is putting her name out there, and standing behind her words. This rebuttal consists of a few loose allegations with no facts to back them up, posted by a generic anonymous coward. It reads more like office gossip than a factual rebuttal.
However, I have a few thoughts on it.
- It's insinuated that Julie is being deceitful by hiding the fact that the engineer is an ex-boyfriend. If it is, in fact, true that it was an ex-boyfriend, it's equally reasonable that Julie excluded that part of the story from her public side of the tale in order to protect his identity and not publicly call him out. Keep in mind Julie didn't even mention the founder or his wife by name.
- It's insinuated that the engineer's advances were "OK" because he was an "ex". This is simply false. Just because you had a relationship with someone doesn't make it OK to harass you.
- It's insinuated that Julie didn't have any issues with the retaliation that the engineer used against her. However if you read Julie's story, she obviously did. She may just not have come forward about it immediately, which is what happens in MANY cases of retaliation and harassment. It's easier and more comfortable to deal with the issue on your own, hope it blows over by itself, etc.
- The back-and-forth regarding the wife just sounds like meaningless he-said she-said. I'll believe it if the wife comes forward publicly and says something about it, but this just sounds like 3rd person rumor mongering to me.
- The insinuation that the "Passion Projects" at GitHub was somehow a bribe to get Julie to stop "threatening" the founder's family is a pretty serious allegation to make without any factual information to back it up, and posted anonymously.
I got a Boxee for Christmas and we've been loving it. I haven't used a Roku or Apple TV, but the Boxee is great. We use it primarily as a media station to watch media on my PC on the TV. It's fast, the quality is wonderful, and we don't have hardly any technical problems with it. I did need to browse a few forums after a firmware update made it unable to see the shared folders on my PC. Other than that, it's great for watching Daily Show and other things whenever we feel like it. The remote control keyboard is great too. The interface could use some work. I find it difficult to mark "Favorites" and then get to them easily again.
And now...
#1
The Larch.
One of the last great flight-sim games of our time. The true way to play Crimson Skies was the PC version with a Sidewinder Force-Feedback Pro. The game was marvelous and wonderful in all the ways that it is possible to be. The XBox version was surprisingly good.
I'll be looking forward to this game if it is in any way similar to Crimson Skies. I haven't heard of this title before.
2) Do NOT fire your gun in Neutral territory! 3) Do NOT fly a helicopter over trucks. You will be attacked.
Solving Bionic Commando on the NES without cheating is one of my "Nerd Accomplishments". I still remember the final "Boss Battle" which simply required a PERFECTLY TIMED rocket launcher into Hitler's helicopter as your character fell to his death. You miss, you die. Hope you have a few lives stored up for the end, because that's only as many shots as you get at the final boss. The game was SO much fun, it never got old. My only criticism with the game was that there were many many weapons in the game, but once you got the Bazooka gun, there was little reason to ever use any of the other ones. Granted this WAS on the NES. We can't really ask for weapon switching on this generation of a game. Not many games of this time had that sort of capability. I'm SO happy they're making a remake of Bionic Commando. I can't wait!
The TRUE Fasa died years ago. This is just a game studio that ripped off its name.
Give the Mechwarrior franchise back to the remnants of Microprose, who can give us a fabulous Mech game, like Mechwarrior 3. Mechwarrior 3 was nearly perfect. Mechwarrior 4 was too "Arcade-like"... and Mechassault is just a console shoot 'em up with Mechs.
Also, give Shadowrun to Bioware, so that we can have an awesome Shadowrun RPG. I couldn't even BEGIN to think of how wonderful a game Bioware could make with Shadowrun.
Sacrifice is up there amongst my favorite games of all time
I've played through it many, many times, in just about every combination of Gods that you could imagine. The game was just SO incredibly innovative, bizarre, and fun to play.
Here's hoping that one day Shiny gets a ton of money, and is allowed to make a sequel. I think a game like Sacrifice would go over really well these days, and it's an example of an RTS / RPG that could be played on consoles as well as the PC, to give it more mass appeal (of course, PC version > all)
You need to update yourself. SecureROM was reported as installing a "Rootkit" by someone who either didn't know what a rootkit is, or didn't do enough research. SecureRom installs a windows service on your computer. I agree this sucks, and the DRM is way too excessive. However, it's not a rootkit.
You, my friend, are funny. ;)
I'm sorry you had so many problems. But, to be fair, I think you're in the tiny minority of people who had an issue with the game.
Don't pirate this game! 2K doesn't deserve your love. It's their fault that this DRM is there in the first place. The game makers don't make those decisions, the publisher does.
Irrational (Now 2K Boston) made a great game, and before that, they gave us the golden nugget that is SYSTEM SHOCK 2... and the immortal SHODAN who is going to be remembered forever as a great video game villain. The people who brought us this wonderful game and System Shock deserve your support.
They could have just made a Halo rip off.
Don't pirate the game. Support the game makers, but not the publisher. Just don't buy any 2K stock ;)
I'm sick of hearing all the negative buzz about Bioshock
The game is 99% perfect! There is a very small widescreen issue. There is a bit of a DRM issue. A couple of AI bugs (which personally I have not witnessed, so as far as I can tell, how widespread they are is perfectly anecdotal). Show me another top-tier game launch recently that has has LESS bugs than Bioshock. I'm not hearing about bugs which are causing blue screens, or crashing X-Boxes or losing save games.
I find it disheartening that with how incredible this game is, and how relatively PERFECTLY the launch went, that people are trying to focus press on what is wrong with it. People are making mountains out of molehills on this one.
Bioshock is an amazing game. All issues and bugs reported on it are vastly overstated. Just play the game and enjoy it for god's sake. If the press wants to focus on something negative, go write a story on Iraq.
In short, there's no story here. Move along.
I'm an IT Manager.
1) First on the list is to go over any emails or voicemails that came in that need my attention. Hopefully there are no emergencies for me to take care of.
2) Go make myself some coffee. Just say "no" to bad office coffee people. We have our own coffee maker in our IT area. I drink most of it.
3) Swing by and say "Hello" to all my people, say good morning, see how everyone is doing, see if anything major is going on that I haven't been emailed about.
4) Get my coffee and relax for a few minutes reading slashdot or wired.com before delving into the day's projects.
5) Meetings!
This list is one of the worst "Top 100" I've ever seen.
The flaws are many and frequent.
How could you have a top 100 list of games that completely excludes ANY Bioware or Black Isle Studios games? On top of that, there's no homage to some clear classics and pioneers of gaming, such as Zork, or Hero Quest. Only a brief mention is made for Monkey Island.
The fact that the vast majority of the games on the list were made after 2000 says a bit.
Uhhh depends.
Are you running that 8800GTX on Vista or XP?
Because I have to tell you, I'm ALSO an early adopter of the 8800GTX. I run XP (screw Vista) and I couldn't be happier. It was worth every single penny. I haven't had a single problem with it whatsoever.
I run all my games at 1900x1220 Resolution at maximum detail levels, and they are all gorgeous. I don't have any performance issues at all.
If you have yourself a $700 paperweight, you've got something else going wrong besides the card itself. Under Vista, I could believe that it might qualify as a paperweight. I have yet to hear a fellow PC gamer enthusiast say something positive about Vista.
I've been using Stardock's Windowblinds for 2 years now. Recently I started using some of their other interface changing tools as well.
Windowblinds makes Windows XP SOOOO much nicer in my opinion. I wouldn't run XP without it. I love being able to customize my interface, change whatever I want, when I want.
The community at www.wincustomize.com is fantastic, and people are always designing new skins, new backgrounds, etc.
Stardock is fantastic. I love their products a ton.
Expect to shell out at least $15 a piece for each of these "episodic" updates. I suppose this is really good news for GTA addicts who have X-Box 360's. Personally, I find it a disturbing trend that Microsoft is throwing money at developers to make them develop custom content for the 360. Nintendo and Sony don't have the treasure coffers of a Operating System monopoly to get that kind of money and do likewise. Even though this relationship seems like a win-win-win for Rockstar, Microsoft, and GTA players... I still don't like the idea of Microsoft influencing how my games are made. Imagine if Microsoft paid Irrational Games $100 million for the next Bioshock game. Microsoft could say "We want you to end the game on a huge cliffhanger. Then we want the last 10 hours of the game to be an X-Box only expansion." As a PC gamer, I'd be really freaking pissed off. But if MS threw enough money at Irrational, could I blame them for not doing it? I don't like where this is going.
Why even FILE patents like this? I'm increasingly disgusted that everything creative has to be patented so that someone can make money off of it. Whatever happened to sharing a great idea, and making new and better things with it?
If I filed a patent for a "Rulebook about roleplaying games. This rulebook would contain all rules necessary to play said game. Additional rulebook supplements would also be referenced" and made sure no one else could make any RPGs besides MINE, what the heck would the RPG market be like?
So WizKids made a punchcard pirate game. Big deal. Wizards, if you want to make a punchcard game that comes in booster packs... go ahead and make one. If it's a GOOD game, it'll do better than the WizKids game. Why do you have to SUE over it?
*Answer: Because you're hoping that WizKids can't afford a lawsuit, and will eventually be forced to sell you the licenses to Shadowrun and Battletech, that's why.