If you don't talk about him he'll go away.. or just die off, he's obviously not too bright.

Paranoid I can't say I remember any MMO having an expansion that added a month to an existing account.

All of the DAoC expansions did and several of the early EQ ones did IIRC (I have no clue about the later ones).

Eve-Online typically releases its expansions for free... Honestly, this just feels like greed on Blizzard's part (more likely their parent company's influence... the old Blizzard would never pull this shit).

There is noone here at BioWare working on half a game or a full game that is going to be diced up and sold.

So what you're saying is.. you keep those people somewhere else?

A joke.. We do appreciate it when you industry folk drop by, thanks for your replies.

Every preview I'd read before I bought it said it was a game built for consumer expansion, and then *Bioware* came along and started releasing, for $$$, what the consumer was supposed to be releasing for free.

This doesn't even make sense. The toolset was exactly what was promised and users released content for the game. Just because the users can mod something doesn't mean that the devs can't produce additional content or provide financial support for the community's best and brightest...

Sure Epic gives away maps, but I imagine the ones they give away take a lot less time to make than the BF2142 levels.

If that's true it's because the tools EA provides for its artists are total shit (or the artists themselves are total shit).

I just don't see where the effort would be expended...

Don't mix memory speeds, it makes no fucking sense.

I'll put upgrading off as long as I can, I'm already on an ancient machine (by PC standards) so I can't play new games anyway. My hope is that:

1) Vista will be heavily subsidized by the time I buy it, if I'm forced to at all
2) All DRM issues will be well known, so I can judge for myself whether they impact me
3) DX 10 will be released on XP (either by h4x0rs or MS) and I won't have to worry about my DX 10 being crippled because I don't want an OS that treats me with kiddy gloves

My real hope is that I can just get a Mac Pro in a few years and run XP on that, with DX 10. MS has become so anti-consumer under Balmer (see Zune) and retained their anti-anyone-elses-platform stance (see C#'s proliferation, XNA, etc) that they've become a really unnatractive company to buy software from...

Honestly, I landed at a mac developer a few months ago and I've really fell in love with the platform. GDB for the win, etc..


This comment was edited on Jan 12, 20:59.

I'm just confused as to what his relationship with "Awesome Supreme" is.. if any..

This kind of indie development is where PC gaming is heading, nin... Unless you wanna jump to a straight console diet, I'd embrace this kind of endevour.

I just don't see how bashing these guys could be a positive for PC gaming, considering the sad state it's in, and the bleaker future it's headed for.

Wow am I sick of hearing about these guys...

Then, perhaps, you should stop reading about them... I really don't see why you took the time to reply to a post just to tell us you have no interest in the topic at hand ;p


This comment was edited on Jan 6, 21:52.

Can you sell your game if you get the $100 version?

From their website: Limited to use on one computer system by one person. Games made with this license can be distributed through our upcoming shareware plan, released for free on the internet, submitted to publishers, used for non profit purposes. They cannot be sold, marketed or published without a professional license unless you opt to use our upcoming shareware plan. Comes with forum access for support.

All in all it's pretty flexible...

How much is the season pass? And is there any plan to sell these all together in the store when it's wrapped up?

I just don't like this episode thing, I'd like to get to the end of the story at my own pace...

A gritty RPG would be a joy, I cry everytime I see what they're doing to the Warhammer universe with every WoW-like screenshot I see...

I'm glad someone brought this up, my last pear was decidedly average and I wanted a place to get the word out that pear quality everywhere may be in decline.

Back, and to the left.

LOL

There is a difficulty slider... if it's too easy crank it up to double damage ;p

WTF is up with the ad between days? Did some idiot at the advertising company think that taking a screenshot of his desktop was the only way to get a flash animation online or is there something 'clever' that I'm too 'stupid' to notice?

Stay far, FAR away from this damn game until they fix the framerate issues. I get 10-30 FPS at 1600*1200 with everything maxed and 10-30 FPS at 800*600 with everything at the minimal level (it looks like software rendering FFS).

Weird, I'm quite happy with how the game runs on my AMD Athlon 2-something and radeon 9800 pro. Some slow downs, obviously.. but nothing below 15 fps with medium textures, most shadowing off.... generally low/medium settings.

The plot is better than NWN, but the game world generally (plot, art, characters/writing, voice acting, etc all summed together) is not up to BG 2 standards... who knows if anything ever will be. Combat is definitely better than NWN, but getting your NPCs to stop wasting spells (I still play like it takes 8 hours to rest) can be a minor hastle.

I agree about the interface, whoever decided clicking on one of your groupmates should target them, rather than select them is an idiot. The whole group control interface should mirror BG 2's, the remnants of the old NWN spirit (automatic groupmates) is not welcome

Good game so far, not sure how long I've played.. up to level 7 with my bard. Combat, as I mentioned, shows promise. Especially at higher levels as there's a great amount of character branching in terms of skills (which Oblivion was totally lacking.)

Some uninspired enemies, but that's par for the course in modern RPGs (hint to devs: if it wasn't in BG 2 it's probably a stupid, derivative idea )


This comment was edited on Nov 3, 03:44.

In addition the "individual information" that Valve more willingly shares is pretty personal by its broad description.

"Individual information" is information about a user that is presented in a form distinguishable from information relating to other users but not in a form that personally identifies any user or enables the recipient to communicate directly with any user unless agreed to by the user in advance of such communication.

Yeah.. sounds scary... then you actually fucking read what it is. No name's attached, merely User Y played X for X long and then quit and never played again (or whatever.)

Nice job bolding "personally identifiable information" by the way, even though it in no way relates to anything else you bolded in that sentence.... dipshit

So if a company has a contract or agreement with Valve, it can collect even personally identifiable information. The distinction between such a company and a third-party is essentially meaningless.

Oooo, it sounds scary.. until... "If an associate of Valve is collecting such personally identifiable information within one of our products or online sites, Valve will make users aware of this at the time the information is gathered."

Ok, maybe not that bad, but there's always more, right?

Well.. "If a user does not want to provide this information, the user may choose to opt out of providing this information. Additionally, if providing the information is a requirement of usage, the user may decline to use that particular service or product. When possible, Valve will make a reasonable effort to direct users to the privacy polices of these associates. Valve's privacy policy does not extend to associates of Valve."

Oh.. so... that's not scary at all... bummer...

Compare that to Vista's user policy or EA's page after page of legalese... Valve simply isn't the monster you make them out to be, Riley... Sorry

Edit: A nice post of facts and then another page of rambling bullshit. I'm going back to the NWN toolset, riley.. enjoy your thread... you "win"?


This comment was edited on Oct 17, 23:27.

Nice job totally ignoring my damning quotes from their privacy policy, but anyway:

Like I said, you blame the publisher, that's fine. I don't share that opinion.

I told you, I'm fucking looking at it right now. It IS idle. As time goes on it does nothing but release resources. Since my last post it's dropped to 3.5 megs of ram, still hasn't used a cycle, and I've sent nothing to Valve since I checked their website out making my last post.

If you've got some fuckin EVIDENCE post the logs, otherwise your word is totally worthless.

No, but unlike you I have actually studied it enough from a technical perspective to know that it is.

Studied it? It's a fuckin pseud-.net front end providing a server browser and a web interface. This isn't something one can study, it's a simple application.

My point is that consumers already have web browsers.

So Valve should just dump its patches on us from some ftp? Because all the other companies do that for their demos and patches.. right.. I forgot..

Oh... wait...

Steam does nothing, but allow Valve to easily collect data from its customers every time they want to play their games and try to sell the additional crapware on Steam to them.

Steam provides functionality that users could obviously get from other sources, but it's convenient and allows Valve to gather data it uses to make better products. No shit the only reason Valve made it was so they could have this type of flexiblity, but given their support record (which you continue to ignore) it's reasonable to trust them.

See, there you go again from one extreme to another. Either Valve is collecting everything or Valve is collecting nothing. Just because I strongly think based upon the evidence that Valve is collecting more data than it has publicly disclosed doesn't mean that I think that Valve is collecting anything and everything. However, it also certainly doesn't mean that what I believe Valve is collecting is justified.

W T F are you talking about? I sarcastically SUGGESTED that valve could collect everything, in reallity they're collecting some things which they deem relevant to their business practices. You're the nutball who goes on about how they're collecting all sorts of private info and dolling it out to clients all over the fuckin globe.

I never said Valve wasn't collecting data. I KNOW valve is collecting data. I said that data was relevant to their function as a game company, and it fucking is! There's no denying that!

Valve's privacy policy allows the sharing of collected information with its "partners" which could be any company which contracts to do business with Valve.

Ah, nice. A fact.. something other than your rambling bullshit. Here's the section of the agreement I believe you're refering to:

Valve may allow third parties performing services under contract with Valve to access stored information but such access shall only be to the extent necessary to provide those services. In those instances, the third party will be bound by the terms of this privacy policy.

That's what you're so fucking concerned about? The fact that Valve outsources? I work at a god damn software company that handles this type of information, if we leak it our balls are on the god damn wall...

All of Valve's patches for its older games post Steam have been due to problems with Steam. So, that is certainly nothing above and beyond what Valve should do since it replaced all of its older games with Steam versions.

Bwhahah. The fact that Valve even set up a registration system when WON was canned is a god damned blessing. When Bungie sold out to MS the Myth communities had to fucking HACK their way back on-line, with no official dev support. Good luck doing that with an EA game...

Valve has no obligation to support a game this fucking hold. None. But they do, because that kind of effort is an asset to their cause and they realize it. And yet you chastise them for not being fuckin dipshits like the rest of the industry, nice job Riley...

Steam has popup ad banners when launched

Disabled.

small ad banner on the download window

Doesn't exist.. Unless you're talkin about the banner which tells you the server you're downloading from, in which case you're a tool.

Gamespy can't collect the same data unless it is integrated into the game to do so. With most games it isn't. Gamespy Arcade does collect and track some useage statistics of its users in terms of how many times they have frequently a game's lobby on the system, but that is trivial compared to the types of data that can be gathered from users during gameplay and associated with purchase and demographic information that Steam can collect.

So it's trivial because it's not Valve doing it, or because there's an actual difference between what Gamespy does and what Valve does? I'm guessing the difference you're siting is fucking purely philosophical and/or some possibility you've culled up from the depths of your 'brain.'

Enough of this shit, I'm sick of your page long factless posts. You mentioned a section of their privacy policy that you had a problem with ONCE, and then in the vaguest of terms.

Compare their policy line by line with every other on the internet and there's ZERO fuckin difference. Welcome ot the information age, buddy, information is free and what you do on the Internet will never be private. As for Valve's single player logging, that stuffi s collected ANONYMOUSLY (FROM THEIR POLICY: ""Aggregate information" is information that describes the habits, usage patterns, and demographics of users as a group but does not describe or reveal the identity of any particular user." So wtf is your problem?