There's no conceivable way any literate person could have actually misinterpreted what I said so horribly. I can tell that you're literate, given that you're typing (hmm, you could be dictating, but I'll assume that's not the case), which leaves only one conclusion: you're intentionally being an ass. How's that working out for you?

If you think game developers are just in it for the cash, you're completely deluded. I could be making $10-15k a year more for 10 fewer hours a week if I left this industry. I don't, because I want to make games.

I'm not atypical, and I don't regret it (if I did, I'd switch industries ). That's just the price you pay for getting to work on games.

Game devs don't want to make shitty games, they want to make good ones, surprisingly enough-- better to spend 3 years of your life making something you're proud of than on shit you could care less about.

"...instead of going the route Bioware, id/Gray Matter/Nerve and Blizzard went - that of charging extra for the inclusion of muliplayer/single player games ($60)"

If you're referring to NWN and RtCW, the single player portions of those games were awful. Don't get me wrong-- the MP still made them great games. But I'm fine with two games, essentially Unreal SP and Unreal MP. Maybe that way, both will be good. Since Quake 2, there have been few if any examples of games with great SP and MP. It's just too much work. The only games I can think of right now that succeeded are RTS. I chalk that up to their engines taking much less work.

"IM HERE SOMEBODY CALL FOR AN EXTERMINATOR CALL THE SHOT IM ALL OVER IT NEVER KNOW WHAT HIT EM IM ABOUT TO OVERLOAD MY AGGRESSION INHIBITORS"

Obviously Starcraft something. And since they stated it's not Starcraft 2, and those things sound pretty Duke-y, it's obviously a Starcraft FPS. Probably a bit like the C&C FPS.

Now we can just wait for the screens.

It's a little sad that it was believable, but it is understandable. Your explanation was quite patient for such a hypothetically clueless poster, I thought. I had expected some bites, but more along the lines of "u r fagot its BETA U SUCKX!!!!!!". Next time, I guess.

The ability of MMOG players to bitch has rapidly become legendary. AC2 Beta Journal #3 was a beautiful example of the level to which it's become accepted-- nay, expected.

Here is a man playing a beta, for free, complaining about the lack of immersiveness of a beta product. He recognizes, astutely enough, that this could be due to the high lag, hardware compatibility issues, and other such bugs that a beta is intended to expose.

Perhaps he's just going for full disclosure, mistakenly believing that we actually care about every little crash and bug he encounters while the game is undergoing testing. He's not the only culprit-- "respectable" gaming publications routinely mention frame rate issues in early previews of games that are a year from release. Misleading and useless information only serves to lessen the impact of criticism when and where it's due: bugs in a released product.

This has been a test of the emergency sarcasm notification system. Had the poster actually wanted to ensure that no one mistook the meaning of his post, he would have surrounded "WARNING THIS IS SARCASM" above and below the post, in blink tags. Additionally, he would have followed the suggestion of the strange poster "First", in post 27 of this thread (http://www.ve3d.com/comments.taf?postID=30459), and utilized the "%" marker.

We thank you for participating in this sarcasm preparedness exercise. If you failed to realize that the initial post was sarcasm, you may remedy this at a government-approved sarcasm preparedness facility in one of two ways:
a) slap yourself in the forehead and say, "no one is actually stupid enough to have made that initial post earnestly"
b) realize that some people may, in fact, be stupid enough to post such things earnestly, and that they tend to frequent message threads related to MMOGs. Weep for the future of the world.

Last night it was especially bad. They said something about a "stress test", and wanting to find some bugs and fix them. I don't know what all that means, but whatever-- they should let me play the game I'm paying them for and stop screwing around with it. Who do they think they are? Man, all these bugs, and they thought it was ready for release?

"whether servers will what sort of bandwidth requirements th4ey anticipate"

Blue's been drinking again....

"The real reason there is no assault is because this is not UT2003 but another game called Unreal Championship which is a console game."

Having played both, I assure you that you're 100% incorrect. They're entirely separate games. Different maps, different weapons, different game types, different models, different physics; I believe Championship even has some vehicles.

I don't see anything on Reuter's, but everything else I read seems to say that this is indeed ALL electronic games, and perhaps even non-electronic games.

The best article I can find so far is at the Register (sigh): http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/26041.html.
It quotes the bill, stating it bans "all LAN and Internet games and any kind of game that is supported by electrical, electronic or software means". That's not just gambling.

Here's a link that says they're going even further:
http://www.intergame.ltd.uk/news.htm
It says "The latest ruling from the authorities is that their ban on all machines will now no longer extend to games which 'do not use electricity.'"

So yes, it appears it's all games. In fact, directly in the article it state: "The blanket ban was decided in February after the government admitted it was incapable of distinguishing innocuous video games from illegal gambling machines". Also, if you look around the net, you'll notice quite a few Greek sites reporting on this and protesting it-- I'd trust the Greeks to know what the law says more than the rest of us non-Greek-speakers.

It sounds like they've already been fining people, including tourists, for playing games, and they have a couple internet cafe owners facing charges. This is truly amazing-- I foresee "dumber than Greece" entering the lexicon.

I agree completely. It has an amazingly large world, and it's visually rich. The first time I walked into a shrine, looked over the balcony, and saw a gigantic statue extending many stories down-- wow. Just amazing.

But then some of the environments start to blend together. Worse, though, a lot of places just aren't itemized well-- you can raid 20 tombs, and not get any different items, talk to any new characters, get any new plot points, find any new quests. Basically, a lot of dungeons offer a lot of promise up front (I remember the one with the one-way door entrance that mentioned seeking treasure), but you get inside and it's the same group of monsters and nothing special.

Worst of all, though, is the main quest line. At first it's awesome. It pushes you into tons of new environments, so you don't mind the fetch quests. But then it's "walk over to this place you've already been, get this, then bring it back. Then walk over to this other place that's exactly like where you've already been, get this, and bring it back. Then, walk to another place that's totally similar to the first two, and talk to this person.".

So I haven't beat it, because this goes on interminably. But I'm excited about an expansion, because if it gives them time to focus on great quests instead of all the initial content and technology, it could be tons of fun.

As it is, the original game was SO AMAZING in terms of visuals, world detail, architecture (oh, the architecture!)-- but the quests eventually just sucked, and it was more fun to just walk around, see everything, then stop playing.

I'm currently browsing Blue's in tab 3 of one window; my other window has 3 more work-related tabs. I love Mozilla.

I've also skinned it to take up a lot less space with its buttons, and I've rigged a lot of my bookmarks with single-letter keywords and parameters. Wanna do a google search? I just go to the URL bar and hit "g searchterm". Well, I usually say something other than searchterm.

" I've grown tired of the game and Mythic's inability to deliver on things promised months ago."

Oh boy. DAoC players are beginning to sound exactly like EQ players. It's inevitable, I guess. The only fans that don't bitch as much are the ones playing the real underdogs, and only when they don't think you're watching. AC, AO, WW2O players are all eager to get you to play....

"also, it's designed very much more as a RPG than a space sim... it doesn't have the combat depth of something like Freespace."

That's what pisses me off about it. I'm fine with levels and such, but make combat fun! It sounds like you just click a couple weapons and they make rolls to see who hits for what. Dammit, I want to fly my own ship and take my own shots. Let there be more skill involved!

*sigh* EVE looks better in that department.

You guys failed to deliver one project, let's give you more money and a bigger one!

The gamma's a little screwy for me on those. Here are some brighter ones if that's the case for you too:

http://pub35.ezboard.com/fthesafehousethebackroomsecretsspoilers.showMessageRange?topicID=10774.topic&start=80&stop=80

http://pub35.ezboard.com/fthesafehousethebackroomsecretsspoilers.showMessageRange?topicID=10774.topic&start=82&stop=82

Snappy: they tried doing what you said. Shadows of Luclin was an engine upgrade that also worked with the old stuff. Unfortunately, it was a steaming pile. It drastically upped the system requirements and didn't work much better. I don't know if they pulled all their competent coders onto Planetside and SWG, or if it was just really hard to remain backwards compatible.

OTOH, there is NO WAY these are EQ screens. This is not just some new zone, because these are definitely screenshots, and couldn't be done by the current engine.