Yes, Paradox Interactive doesn't use DRM. But they do release damn buggy games to get money, then correct the flaws with patches. Look at Hearts of Iron III for example, I don't know how pissed off I got over the game crashing every 20 minutes. Or the eventual slowdown from the memory leaks in their initial builds.
Yes, with Semper Fi, it's a lot better than it used to be, but PI is way,way,way,way worse than Morrowwind or Oblivion was before their patches. So with other games that might have bugs due to cracks, you have game changing bugs that result from not enough time to debug and program effectively.
I rushed out to buy Vanguard when as soon as it came out. I even scheduled that day off. I would rush home every night to play, and for the first few months, I had fun. Nevermind the bugs that I would find, or the client crashing.
I was so hyped on VG that I put that out of my mind. But months later, I felt cheated. I wanted Sigil to, well, frankly, die. I wanted Brad's Vison (TM) to fail. Why? Because I was cheated. You, me, and everyone else who played this game was cheated!
We stuck around in the promise of a better day. We saw the hardcore game have two double xp weekends that oddly enough fell on dates when subs would be canceled. We stuck around even when we hit level 50 and found out there was nothing to do.
I'm glad Sigil failed. I'm not glad the people and coders lost their job, but as it is now, Brad is gone. There will be no more of him in gaming, period.
The hope I, and many other people shared of a game to bring back the experiences of Everquest is also long dead. As for Me, I've moved on back to Eve-Online, and I'm having fun with that. Maybe some of you should join Me there...
CNN did a special report about this a few weeks or month ago. There was a couple on there who' daily calorie count could not exceed 640 I think it was. They showed them eating tomato's for dinner along with something else, I think if was just leafy greens. Personally I could never eat that little.
I only eat 2 meals a day, and sometimes skip my lunch, so I get most of my calories in one or two sittings. Even then, since I can't really cook, I either eat easily prepared food (Aka pizza rolls and hotpockets!) or grab something out on the way home. I probably only take in maybe 1600 calories, but it's the saturated fat that's going to kill me eventually. That's assuming smoking three packs a day doesn't kill me first.
What was really interesting about that CNN program was they didn't talk about just living longer, they talked about improving the standard of living during your later years. After all, what goes is living another 50 years if you're strapped to an oxygen tank or bed bound?
Speaking of, the moment some doctor tells me I have lung cancer, I'm going to do what the Duke did....grow gils and breathe like a fish;)
My friend was like this. He had a Insight which featured a real time projection of fuel economy, and he'd do crazy things like draft RIGHT BEHIND a semi going downhill just to see how far he could press it. It was kind of entertaining to see the extents he would go just to save a few dollars of gas.
Of course, the kid delivered pizza in his insight, so I suppose the cost of fuel was offset by the premium he paid for the car. He eventually grew tired of his Insight, and traded it in for an old Civic EX.
Since we're talking about Econ,anyone remember that show called "7 Days" where they found a cure for cancer? Then the entire global economy went in a huge depression because a gazillion dollars wasn't being pumped into the economy for healthcare?
cool show >.
If you're in that much trouble that they NEED to find you, believe Me, they will find you. Be it 1 hop, or 4 hops, it doesn't matter. Sure, I'd rather trust a Sweedish company for my sense of peace rather than Tor. At least you know where your hops are going with this. With Tor, it's a good idea, but what if the governemnt was running massive tor routers, sniffing packets from whatever comes across their electronic doorstep?
You see, that is the weakness of Tor, besides it's speed. You need a trusted source to begin with. If you don't, it will auto-build the network as time goes on as it finds a node. But still, if one of those nodes are packet-sniffing everything, then all is for naught. Either way, if anything 'bad' happens to you, you'll still be just as screwed, but hey, at least you'll have more bandwith and less latentcy.
My windows boxes don't take that long to boot...you just have to watch startup items carefully, and mess with MSconfig every now and then to keep it in shape.
I don't think I've ever had an emotional experience with a game, except maybe BF2. Then it's just the anger that comes out. Come to think of it, all first person shooters do that to me when I die. Some where, floating around the Internet, there's a group picture of me at Lanwar 10, about to shatter my $80 gaming mouse I had years ago. I think I lost a few keyboards at that LAN too....
Actually, the new Cummin's Disel engine for the ram trucks, the 600 model is emission's certified by California. There was a big deal because for the first time, Cummin's didnt have to design a seperate engine for the California market.
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Yes, Paradox Interactive doesn't use DRM. But they do release damn buggy games to get money, then correct the flaws with patches. Look at Hearts of Iron III for example, I don't know how pissed off I got over the game crashing every 20 minutes. Or the eventual slowdown from the memory leaks in their initial builds. Yes, with Semper Fi, it's a lot better than it used to be, but PI is way,way,way,way worse than Morrowwind or Oblivion was before their patches. So with other games that might have bugs due to cracks, you have game changing bugs that result from not enough time to debug and program effectively.
Touche.
I rushed out to buy Vanguard when as soon as it came out. I even scheduled that day off. I would rush home every night to play, and for the first few months, I had fun. Nevermind the bugs that I would find, or the client crashing.
I was so hyped on VG that I put that out of my mind. But months later, I felt cheated. I wanted Sigil to, well, frankly, die. I wanted Brad's Vison (TM) to fail. Why? Because I was cheated. You, me, and everyone else who played this game was cheated!
We stuck around in the promise of a better day. We saw the hardcore game have two double xp weekends that oddly enough fell on dates when subs would be canceled. We stuck around even when we hit level 50 and found out there was nothing to do.
I'm glad Sigil failed. I'm not glad the people and coders lost their job, but as it is now, Brad is gone. There will be no more of him in gaming, period.
The hope I, and many other people shared of a game to bring back the experiences of Everquest is also long dead. As for Me, I've moved on back to Eve-Online, and I'm having fun with that. Maybe some of you should join Me there...
CNN did a special report about this a few weeks or month ago. There was a couple on there who' daily calorie count could not exceed 640 I think it was. They showed them eating tomato's for dinner along with something else, I think if was just leafy greens. Personally I could never eat that little. I only eat 2 meals a day, and sometimes skip my lunch, so I get most of my calories in one or two sittings. Even then, since I can't really cook, I either eat easily prepared food (Aka pizza rolls and hotpockets!) or grab something out on the way home. I probably only take in maybe 1600 calories, but it's the saturated fat that's going to kill me eventually. That's assuming smoking three packs a day doesn't kill me first. What was really interesting about that CNN program was they didn't talk about just living longer, they talked about improving the standard of living during your later years. After all, what goes is living another 50 years if you're strapped to an oxygen tank or bed bound? Speaking of, the moment some doctor tells me I have lung cancer, I'm going to do what the Duke did....grow gils and breathe like a fish ;)
My friend was like this. He had a Insight which featured a real time projection of fuel economy, and he'd do crazy things like draft RIGHT BEHIND a semi going downhill just to see how far he could press it. It was kind of entertaining to see the extents he would go just to save a few dollars of gas. Of course, the kid delivered pizza in his insight, so I suppose the cost of fuel was offset by the premium he paid for the car. He eventually grew tired of his Insight, and traded it in for an old Civic EX.
I'd like to offer the same services to other customers needing uplinks. Pringles can installed...only $3999.99.
Somewhere in the world, millions of kids are pondering 'what is Soylent Green?'
Guess AOL had the G-men beat by 10 years on the virtual filing cabinet...
Since we're talking about Econ,anyone remember that show called "7 Days" where they found a cure for cancer? Then the entire global economy went in a huge depression because a gazillion dollars wasn't being pumped into the economy for healthcare? cool show >.
If you're in that much trouble that they NEED to find you, believe Me, they will find you. Be it 1 hop, or 4 hops, it doesn't matter. Sure, I'd rather trust a Sweedish company for my sense of peace rather than Tor. At least you know where your hops are going with this. With Tor, it's a good idea, but what if the governemnt was running massive tor routers, sniffing packets from whatever comes across their electronic doorstep? You see, that is the weakness of Tor, besides it's speed. You need a trusted source to begin with. If you don't, it will auto-build the network as time goes on as it finds a node. But still, if one of those nodes are packet-sniffing everything, then all is for naught. Either way, if anything 'bad' happens to you, you'll still be just as screwed, but hey, at least you'll have more bandwith and less latentcy.
My windows boxes don't take that long to boot...you just have to watch startup items carefully, and mess with MSconfig every now and then to keep it in shape.
I don't think I've ever had an emotional experience with a game, except maybe BF2. Then it's just the anger that comes out. Come to think of it, all first person shooters do that to me when I die. Some where, floating around the Internet, there's a group picture of me at Lanwar 10, about to shatter my $80 gaming mouse I had years ago. I think I lost a few keyboards at that LAN too....
Actually, the new Cummin's Disel engine for the ram trucks, the 600 model is emission's certified by California. There was a big deal because for the first time, Cummin's didnt have to design a seperate engine for the California market.