They go for the easy targets. Whatever they are.

I'd also love to donate something for a cutback in ad content. I've ranted about this before. I even swore off visiting this rag a few times.

I bet a cleaner and classier look could actually increase readership. I find myself slightly embarassed to visit sites with big garish personal/match making ads in the middle of the page. At least the gaming ads are relevant to the content. The matchmaking ones are just insulting.

I might be addicted to visiting this place, but I never find myself reccomending it to anyone. But what do I know. In the end it's Blue's decision and Blue's bills

This comment was edited on Apr 20, 00:01.

makes the game fun?

I did buy it. I have yet to play it. Maybe I'll finally check it out this weekend. I'm a bit of a quake fan boy.

Does it tie in well with the q2 story line as the game progresses? Yes, haha, what storyline? I want to see the aftermath of the quake 2 guy's destruction. I want to see familiar places/creatures/events that stir nostalgic feelings of bliss in me.

The game had a pathetic plot. I could never sit through the single player missions. The AI was a joke. The look and style of the game was nothing special.

It was still the best game in the series in terms of gameplay. The depth and variety of effective multiplayer strategies surpassed even starcraft. Three very different sides with an array of very different strategies(times three if you count the expansion) all beautifully balanced.

That balancing act took some patching, but they got it down pretty well. It's hard to say what side has a clear advantage. Perfect balance is of course impossible.

are there no real gamers anymore?

I'm not going to click the comments link. I'm not going to click the comments link. I'm not going to click the comments link.

Oh god damnit here I am. I hate you people.

Why am I contributing to this mess? I hate myself too.

I wouldn't call the sixth sense twist "out of left field". It might not have been immediately obvious, but after it is revealed you can tell it all "just fits". And upon reflection or just by watching it again you can observe it beautifully lead up to its inevitable conclusion.

Contrast this with the movie wild things. The movie had twist after twist after twist, but they were all empty. There was nothing to go back to but complete deception on the part of the director/writer.

This comment was edited on Apr 3, 14:20.

Plot twists that come completely out of nowhere are garbage. They just cheat the gamer/viewer who has become engrossed in the story. The Return of the Jedi "I am your father" twist was nothing special. It was acceptable only because it was the center of the trilogy and served to propel the story forward.

The KOTOR Revan twist on the other hand was beautiful. I saw it coming, but that doesn't take anything away from the experience. They slowly built it up and hinted at it from the very opening sequence. It was the twist I wanted the game to have.

Any other result would not have been as dramatic. If they tried something that was more dramatic and "shocking" it would have to come completely out of left field and would have to render the story pointless.


This comment was edited on Apr 1, 05:18.

Meanwhile, back in the Hall of Justice, Aquaman realizes his pending lawsuit is doomed to failure. Dejectedly kicking Krypto, he goes to find comfort in the arms of aquaboy.

Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion!

These splinter cell games don't seem to fit the Tom Clancy mythos. Does Tom Clancy have any input into these games? Or are they just using his name as a proven cash cow?

I haven't read a Tom Clancy book in years. Maybe this the trend his writing has taken.

You can't really see what's going on. The guy playing with fire could be standing there completely unscathed smiling and laughing along.

But he could also be moaning in pain off camera. It's hard to make out what I hear.

I'm just trying to kill the cynicism. I don't know why.

I am just judging the guy filming it.

And I was judging you for judging the guy filming it. :-) OK, enough judging. Or this will somehow turn into a political discussion.

The worst part about that video..is not the complete and utter stupidity...it is the fact that when his friend gets a fireball in the face the guy holding the cameras first reaction is to laugh…so sad.

A little quick on the indignation? It's perfectly normal to let out an unexpected laugh at the expense of others. When I see a friend or loved one fall or drop something on their foot or whatever my immediate reaction is often to giggle before I even consciously process what's going on. It can take a second for concern to set in. It depends on your mindset at the time. If the situation is obviously ok, you just keep on laughing.

The video was put up there for us to laugh at after all. I didn't find it funny to watch, but I probably would have snickered if I was there. If the kid turned out ok, I would have kept laughing at his stupidity and my stupidity for even being there.

This comment was edited on Dec 14, 10:44.

"You give him way too much credit. Check his post history...

Yeah, I eventually remembered the nick Hellbinder from other boards like beyond3d. Hellbinder, the rabid fan of ATI and Jesus.

This comment was edited on Dec 12, 20:30.

The only thing truly ignorant are…..

Secular Progressives and Liberals.

By definition it is nearly impossible for a true conservative to be ignorant. Being that Conservatives are generally for what is "Good" and progressive Liberals are for every evil thing under the sun.

Haha. I thought that was witty sarcasm. What could be more ignorant than an ideologue who blindly throws around terms like liberal and conservative and calls the opposite camp ignorant.

It was an elegant followup to the idiots that just had to bring politics into this thread.


This comment was edited on Dec 12, 03:26.

I've faced some scary crap in my day. I really pooped my panted with this game! Almost freaky like man! I would rather deal with a rag head with an ak47 than mess with that little girl in this game man! Anyone want my copy?

Anyone going to call this jerk on the racial slur bit?

you own a license to use software, not the actual software. I think this is pretty much valid, 100%. Think about installing it on multiple computers - if you owned the software this wouldn't be a problem, one guy could buy it, give it to his friends, and they could all use it. When you own a license, not anymore. Software is so incredibly different than any other product on the market, and I think safeguarding it like this is fine.

Software is not very different from any other kind of creative work.

You are giving an example about copying. Media and code are copy protected by default. Eulas aren't necessary to keep you from copying software. Works are copyrighted by *default*. It's illegal to copy a work that you don't have a license to copy. There is nothing about software that makes it any different from a book.

I can buy a book. I can piss on a book. I can tear up a book. I can markup a book. I can write crappy unoriginal fiction inspired by a book. I can reveal the plot of a book to my neighbors. I can make up my own alternate stories about the plot of the book.

I *cannot* copy a book with out express consent from the copyright holder. Books do not need to come with eulas to ensure this protection.

Doesn't come to play here, though, BnetD is pretty much exclusively for pirates that never paid for anything and have no legal right to even use the software.

BnetD had *nothing* to do with circumventing copy protection. You may have the impression that it was. It was not created to circumvent copy protection. It was not used to circumvent copy protection by the developers or the initial userbase. Just becuase you've only heard about it from your warez friends doesn't mean your perception of the project and its intentions is accurate. This is about some people independently writing software that implements a communication protocol.

It's no different from microsoft and netscape implementing each other's "extensions" to html. It's no different from microsoft word being able to import word perfect documents.

There was and there is a demand for the ability to run legitimete private battlenet like servers. Bnetd rose to fill that demand.

Hasly, Your car analogy is awful.

Here are better ones.

Reverse engineering is like taking apart *your own* radio to see how it works. Reverse engineering is like fixing *your* car. It's like taking *your* car apart to see how it works. It's like making *your* car more pleasant or more fuel effecient with your own modifications.

Blizzard's stance is like toyota suing you for putting a ford bumper sticker on your car. It's like suing you for not going to a toyata approved dealer. It's like suing you for speeding in their car. It's like suing you for fucking in the backseat of your car. It's like suing you for using what you purchased and own however you see fit.

As for the EULA arguments. Something is seriously wrong with these eulas that you can't read until after you have purchased the product. There has already been an exchange of money.

I'm pretty sure that in most *real* contract situations, if one party changes the terms after a sale, or hides the terms until after the sale, they are doing something illegal.

It's especially fucked up that you can't return software if you disagree with the terms of the EULA.

My friends and I wanted our own private battlenet server for our hardcore diablo 2 characters. We wanted to have our own private economy untarnished by the public battlenet servers. We wanted to have a centralised server that the characters were stored on so we could keep each other from cheating, revivng dead characters and whatnot. Bnetd would allow us to do this. Blizzard completely screwed us over with their legal move.

I don't recall signing away my rights when I bought *my* copy of Diablo 2. I did not read or agree to any EULA when I installed the softwre. I do not feel bound by any click through eula that may have graced my computer screen.

Sinner, out of all that eula crap you pasted only two lines might be relevant to this case:

(ii) copy, photocopy, reproduce, translate, reverse engineer, modify, disassemble, or de-compile in whole or in part any Battle.net software;


(iii) create derivative works based on Battle.net;

Let's say the click through EULA is a legitimite and enforcable contract. The case still wouldn't be so cut and dry. What is a derivative work? The bnetd project did use *any* code or media from any blizzard product in their implementation. Nor did they modify it in any way. Is sniffing packets equivalent to reverse engineering Diablo II? All they did was implement a communication protocol.

Reverse engineering in general is a common and legitimite industry practice. Blizzard didn't even use the terms of the eula to threaten the bnetd project. They used the DMCA. The only reason blizzard has any legal teeth in this matter is because of some DMCA clauses about "circumventing copy protections". The bnetd project had nothing to do with circumventing copy protection.

This comment was edited on Dec 12, 01:29.

mrrnnnnnngh

You're right, I turned into a frothing at the mouth fanboy. Sorry about that.

I liked the combat system because each enemy had to be attacked in its own unique way. Even a simple melee character would need to hold on to more than the highest damage sword he could find. You had to experiment with a creature to see what worked and didn't. It was more interactive than you attack, I attack, you attack, I attack.

The character build system was elegant. There were no distinct classes. The were just skills you assigned. Melee characters often supplemented their skills with item magic, life magic, or creature magic. Sometimes they would train more than one.

The distinction between specialized, trained, untrained, skills was a nice touch. Specialized meant you would get a starting bonus and the skill would level faster. Trained meant you would level the skills a little slower and you wouldn't get that starting bonus. Deciding how to spend your skill points was an interesting balancing act.

You also had the choice of how to spend your experience points. You could pump them into generic stats that indirectly benifited skills or directly into the individual skills. One swordsman was never a clone of another swordsman.

The randomly generated equipment drops greatly made up for the lack of visual diversity that "races" offer in other games.

About the content: It wasn't the quantity of the content so much as the uniquness and dynamic nature of the content. EQ was very static during the time I spent playing it. AC had something new to explore and check out every month. The world was full of original creatures. Drudges and Shreths and Lugians and Matekar and Banderlings and Olthoi and so on. No they weren't dramaticly different from their equivalents in other games, but they gave the game a very fresh and unique feel.

The size of the world struck me as huge going from EQ to AC. If I picked a direction and ran I could go for a very long time(without hitting any damn load points). And I would keep stumbling across random out of the way dungeons, structures, and hordes of uncamped monsters. Maybe my perspective was off.

>And it didn't have some big franchise name to cash in on

And everquest did, you seriously need to stop turbine's dick.

I pointed out that AC didn't have the "first to market" edge. This was in reference to EQ. That gave it a big edge. It was the first fully 3D fantasy mmo experience. The franchise part was in reference to some of the other fantasy mmo games.

You're still an ass for calling the game shitty. :-)

This comment was edited on Apr 26, 16:56.

You clearly have no idea how the combat system worked.

There were several distinct damage types. Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, Fire, Ice, Acid.

Certain creatures were vulnerable to certain types of damage.

Certain creatures were more vulnerable in certain areas of their bodies. High, Medium, Low.

Certain weapons could only do certain types of damage. Swords and claws couldn't bludgeon. Staffs couldn't pierce, and so on..

Arrows and spells were actual projectiles that could be dodged.

There were numerous interesting and unique character builds. Again you don't know what you are talking about.

I don't know how you quantify the content. "10 times"! wow!.

The world of Asheron's call was very dynamic. One day a town would be destroyed. One month the world would be covered in snow. During that month there would be new interesting creatures. The next month the snow would be gone and so would some of those creatures. One month the shadow would be on the rise showing up everywhere. The next month you would see subtle remnants of the previous months events. The next month a new island will appear.

I really think the following could have been bigger. The timing was just wrong. They definitely were not first to market. It was another "fantasy mmo" after eq. And it didn't have some big franchise name to cash in on.

Shitty is subjective. You should at least get some facts under your belt before you strong opinions about something. You are just being an ignorant ass.