I am perfectly fine with this

Why?
Buy a cheaper CPU, crack/flash it to full potential then overclock it as usual...
There is no way I am gonna pay Intel twice for the same piece of hardware which is already mine. I can do with it whatever I want... crack it or smash it with a hammer! It's not like I am going to violate an EULA or copyright or something...
IMO it's totally legal, like jailbreaking your iPhone!

Let them milk the dumb.

Yeah, don't be so hard on them..., they just try to establish a new game type: the MMOMG !!!!:o

you must admit, such a wipe (and losing customer data) is the last last last thing you should ever ever ever do, even if its just game data. Its a sign of incompetence.

Yeah, i heard they want to announce both, Diablo 3 and Diablo the movie, together!

...heh, just rumoring around

Im supposed to worry because you won't show my games to you freinds? if they are pirates like you, why do I care?

You obviously have no idea about society...
You should learn think in shades of grey, not just in black and white. Just because someone pirates one game doesn't mean he pirates every game...
Your 100% Pirate is as rare as the 100% Anti-Pirate.

I have paid many $1000's to the software industry already, and will continue to do so,...

There are many reasons for me to buy a game,..
- is the game good/of high quality?
- is it a small devel?
- supporting rare genres.
- supporting new concepts.
- ...

I stopped paying for anything with a Microsoft label on it a looong time ago. I just don't think that company is in need of my money anymore.

Keep calling me a pirate, i like that! Sounds "dangerous"... bwwwuuaahhhaaaaa!!

Oh, dear cliffy...

would you please stop it,.. now you come up with communism, whats next? terrorism...? anti-christ...?

Stop bashing everyone that is not sharing your radical thinking... you need to open your mind for new ideas!
You wont make yourself new friends/customers that way..., Look what you have done already! You appears to be an aggressive a$$h*le to me. Why should i support such a person?


I took a look at your games, personally i would not even bother pirating them. Not that they are bad, they just play in a different/lower class. But i respect your business model of not including crap in your games, therefore i will not pirate your games, i will follow your arguments and will just *ignore* them. Keep them for yourself.
Now, how is this going to help you? No words are spread, no showing to friends, no nothing at all...

I don't think that piracy is the problem of your low sales.
I think marketing is your problem. No one knows about your games...
How about considering piracy as a marketing model, to make your programs known? Like Microsoft did years ago...
As i told you before: piracy can be your friend.

Maybe you should go back, read my first post again, try to understand it. You might find new ideas!

i am a medium-hardcore gamer, it is simply impossible for me to buy all the programs i download, just to try them out.
As an IT guy, thats one of my hobbies, downloading games and appz and having a look at them, to learn and to know.
I play some, i buy some, i recommend some to others, and some just gets deleted after a few minutes... (i am part of the unwanted-but-free marketing system of the industry).

There is already a "online distribution solution" in place, its called BitTorrent... all it lacks is a payment method.


Why don't games have a "donate" button on there page?
Let me show you some examples:

Vampire - Bloodlines:
That game was so full of bugs, but now, after the 1000st inofficial patch, i would like to pay them something back.
But not the full prize! they just have to learn there lesson.

Oblivion:
What a great game! i bought it right of the shelf (german edition). I was a quite pissed about all the translation errors... example: Heal spell was named Fireball!!! and countless other bugs.. So, i just downloaded the english version. Thanks to BitTorrent i am still a happy customer. Still, i think that game is worth more then i paid.

Titan Quest:
I am playing that game right now. I like it and would like to pay for it. But i don't really want to pay the store, the whole distro channel and others in the chain... i would like to pay the producer directly. That way, it would be cheaper for me, and the producer would still get more money.
Looks like i have to go to the store an buy it there..:(
Having a DVD case laying around, filling up my room and collecting dust..

Sacred:
That game REALLY pissed me off! So full of bugs and still is, and not just minor ones! And i paid full prize for it and the addon!
Let me say this: I consider the coming sequel as a free gift, for all the troubles i had.

Dreamfall - the longest journey:
What a beautiful game. I really enjoyed it. I WILL buy the sequel no matter what. Its usually not my type of games.
Without piracy, i would NEVER have played that game, thats for sure. So, where can i donate to the producer?


As you can see, piracy can be your enemy or your friend, depending on the quality of games you make!


And...
What about location dependent in-game ads? or small on-screen ads, like TV stations do?
The DVD version whitout ads, the free downloadable version with ads?

Whats so bad about ads, if well integrated? Many games come with made-up ads of non-existing corporations/products. Why not replace them with real ads? Of course they have to fit in the game.
There is no need to advertise existing products, its the brand that counts. for example: in a game thats playing in the future, they could insert some futuristic car ads but from real brands. It could even be possible to insert brands into the storyline.


The market is changing, and the industry has to rethink their strategies...

So, what your word about this?

You don't know much about CPU design do you? If it was that simple, or that much of a performance boost then it would'e been done years ago.

Well, it has been for years..., ever seen VMware ESX in full action? But as you say, it's not that simple... with Windows.

The reality is that you'd probably get miserable performance as processes switched cores, causing cache misses, blowing away register dat/register renaming, rendering predictive branching useless, etc.

That is the whole point in virtualization, dude...

I am not exactly talking about special multi-threaded appz here,.. this is mostly a gaming site, so i've written this with games in mind. Sorry if that came not clear.

What all these multi-core CPUs are needing, is a virtualization layer that makes all cores visible as one to the OS. That would boost performance dramatically, and no need for special multi-thread programming. Besides, multi-thread appz will never use the full potential of multi-core CPUs, there will always be one core that is on the limit while others are only half used. You can't split the needed processing power exactly in half in most cases.

just my guess.

i am sick about this "dont like it? dont use it!" excuse of some valve fanboys...
many have paid the same amount of cash for a steam game like for traditional games, and are much more often unable to play it online because of steam down times.

look at other games with master servers and authentication systems, Battlefield, UT, Quake, never have seen a down time there.
even the old battle.net in Diablo times was more stable.
sure, the architectures may differ greatly, but the customer does not care.

Maybe they should separate the server browser service from the steam delivery system and give it more priority.

Do it right, or dont charge!

they just want to beat every product we have ever heard about, in every aspect,.... even Duke Nukem Forever...

I am sure this game will sell nicely on consoles.
They will probably excuse there low pc sales with piracy (once again)...

what a pussy game!

you better play it before you buy that crap.
one of the worst (if not THE) vietman shooter ever...
a typical console <> PC disaster.

This comment was edited on Sep 10, 17:28.

"...Setup a LAN and a DNS server with having no outside traffic, and you will probably be able to get a nice LAN party going and not worry about having a legit copy.

(obviously not this easy, but a good start)

Don't be so naive about these kinds of things.
Just 2-3 weeks ago Valve and Steam were in the headlines about fake keys and stolen credit card accounts...."

Sure, you and i are able to set up such things, but i am still talking about the masses.
And what gain can the end user get from this (banned) fake keys? or are you messing around with stolen credit card accounts?
I dont think so...

now who is naive here.
It WILL get harder for piracy, dont get me wrong, this must not be a bad thing.
But i fear software prizes will rise without the competition of piracy.
Fact is, a "healthy" piracy is helping us to keep prizes acceptable. And i especially saying "healthy", what we have today is not healthy, thats the reason for all the countermeasures we have seen in the last few years (software activation, SF3, cd key authentification,... steam).

Look at all the console games. sure there is piracy too, but much less comparing to pc. and the prizes...? for such junk...?;)

Even M$ wont be that big w/o piracy.

"LOL, you think there won't be any piracy and the steam version won't have any copy protection? Boy are you in for a shock."

Well, good luck decrypting your steam files then.
take a look in your steam folder...
If Valve has some sense, they wont make it that easy as you may think. Do you think they would allow us to pre-load a locked (even if incomplete) version if its not safe?
its still just a game, who will put such an effort on it?
For most gamer it wont be possible to make a useable copy of this game.
Maybe you l33t boy can make yourself a barely working stand alone version, but Valve will not care about you, the care about the mass.

and as for copy protection, it is build-in (encryption and key authentification). No additional costs for 3rd party CD protection products when delivered over Steam.

maybe someone with in-deep knowledge about the industry can put some real numbers together?

Question is: how much cheaper will it be on Steam?

just think about it..
- no packaging
- no color cover
- no printed manual
- no shipping around the world
- no retailer profits
- no CDs
- no copy protection
- and full control about piracy

so tell me,.. whats in it for me?! a 5$ prize cut? pfft.!
and dont tell me the Steam Network costs that much..

20-25$ would be fine, at this prize level i would also accept "some" Steam down times...

hope ati will f**k them with a single slot PCI-E X800 MAXX!!!

yeah, good question! I read about some rumours years back.
I want some "BOOOM!! shick-shack!"

seriously, i think "System Shock" would have massive potential, even for a trilogy.

I'am in for a permanent ban of all massive TK's too!

but this noCD kicking is crap. i see myself playing this game lesser in the future cause of this. (same happened to raven shield since PB..)
i use only noCD's, cause i'am too lazy to grab out the right CD and playing DJ everytime i want to play a different game.
I think a unique ID/code is enough for copy protection of such games!

CZ:
i thought that crappy game was already released 2 times before?? what's the problem? they got hacked again or what?

DNF:
well, well, it's always funny to hear something about it, year by year... i will miss that when it's finally out..