Say what you will, having 8 players to play vs L4D always left for great stories in IRC afterwards. The only talk we've had like that since tribes 2 was out.

See, I disagree, Fion. It's not "more of the same". The zone capturing and whatnot has not been implemented in any other game, the open party system that makes grouping easier is fantastic, and the keep raiding is already better than most implementations I've seen. Public questing is great, too!

I'm not saying it's entirely innovative -- and there's a lot of stuff that's skimpier as far as PVE stuff goes, but I think that the game is clearly not a panacea, but much more geared toward the community aspect and the RvR, whereas games like WoW and LotRO are more toward individual and PVE content.

On the side, I agree about AO -- loved it. But as far as AoC goes - while the mechanics are great, the imbalance, incomplete and broken features, and instancing absolutely KILLED it for me -- and I do NOT plan on going back to try again later.

GlaDOS's hit is available NOW on xbox rock band

4, my aunt bought it for me

Yeah I was CLEARLY mistaken -- when EA "bought into live" 3 years back, I hadn't realized that they still controlled their own login system -- I thought that they had done away with that. That would have prevented them from cutting off live support to their games, since, as I thought I understood it, MS was in charge of running all that. I should have done a little more research before I opened my mouth, and should have thought twice about how much EA wants to bend over people for money.

Another thing to consider: As many PC and console gamers know, if companies host their own master servers for organizing games, when a new edition comes out (such as sports games) or an old game becomes unpopular, master servers are shut down, and no one gets to play anymore (unless the game is modded by the community, or another company takes over the master server).

Here, MS *IS* the master server for every title. There (in theory) should be absolutely no risk to online gamers who prefer older versions to newer. Like Madden 08 vs 09? You use Xbox Live, you aren't forced to buy 09 because EA decided to shut down the master servers. This, of course, is a nice incentive to developers too.

What I think that they should do as another incentive for xbox live paying customers is to offer, say, 1000 or 2000 MS points every year so that there is something that you GET for your subscription.

But honestly, you are using their bandwidth while downloading, their servers for persistent online stats and messaging, and their matchmaking software (which, in my opinion is quite good, it's real easy to fire in and play, or play with friends without having to find a server and worry about team balancing). Is it worth $50? It's arguable. Do I enjoy paying for it? No, that's silly, no one enjoys paying for things. Should it all be free? I'd argue no, there is merit to paying a nominal fee, but I think there should be some sort of reward as well (like some free points per year).

This comment was edited on Dec 5, 12:19.

kxmode, the consoles won't license AO games for use on their system. Unlicensed software isn't as easy to get running as it was back in the NES sdays

Aero,
Weapons do reduced damage through walls, but one of the perks, called "Deeper Penetration" (uh huh huh) has your bullets do more as it impacts. Just one option that you can play with.

Yeah that's old news, they cancelled the black box a long time ago.

but yet the missions that you choose to participate in DO drastically alter the world (nuking a city, case in point). The question, therefore, is whether or not this substitution of actually having to PERFORM an action as opposed to just having a conversation is going to detract from the gameplay. I'm willing to agree with you that it does, but I guess we'll have to see more as the development continues.

And as far as I can tell the auto aim feature is disabled or not there at all in the demo because there were plenty of shots that missed by fractions of an inch that would have automatically hit in other games.

Oh but Tumbler, were you on a PC, aiming with a mouse and keyboard, then you wouldn't have missed!

pssch, anti-semitism is SO 1930s. Get with the program!

and over-inflated it is. 39.99 on PC, 59.99 on 360.

so you really have absolutely no faith in bethesda doing this any justice? I think we're being a bit prejudgemental, here.

Okay, question...

Where's the close button with the advertisement with the skillet that keeps chasing my mouse around? That's annoying as heck.

Oh, and happy anniversary, btw -- our 2nd is Monday

After the first patch broke save games, I have refused to play it again until the next patch gets some reviews. I know there is still some patching needed, and I don't want to wait to play.

Rumor has it that GSC was going to release a save-game updater, but I haven't heard anyhting since.

SO... I have this game installed on my PC, and I wait... besides, I have a lot of other games to play now. I just know that I won't buy their games anymore unless they can fix them in a reasonable timeframe.

The PC market has been diluted by a deluge of crappy sequels, licensed crap, and "just like _______" games that it makes it a lot harder for consumers to separate the diamonds from the doggie-diamonds.

As I see it, the only way we could see the PC game installation base increase is to have developers halt when they realize that their game is utter crap -- and that will never happen.

Didn't they say this patch would be out late April? Now it's today/tomorrow? That's nice!

But I agree with PropheT that Nintendo will have a hard time with good 3rd party titles.

See, I'm not so sure about that. I know that there is going to be a dearth of crappy titles for it (and most of the "kiddie" games so far fit tbat bill), I know that many are excitd to work on a game with that kind of control scheme.

Now I'm no analyst or anything, but seeing the public going batshit crazy to get their hands on a wii (more than they did to get the 360 at launch) would indicate that creating some strong successful third party titles with good usage of the new controller scheme could be relatively easy. ESPECIALLY sice they already know how to program for it if they've made any games for the cube.