I'm not surprised at least 40% of the EQ2 population are women, since you've gotta figure the developers wives and girlfriends probably still play this game.

WoW is not the only MMO to have done that. You can zip through the once-hellish low and mid levels in EQ, and City of Heroes has made it considerably easier to get to 50. Oh, and lets not forget Dark Age of Camelot, what's the command, "/level"? Gives you 20 levels of xp instantly.

There's one problem with that, "once-hellish". It was hellish when I played EQ. The same with DAoC. The fact that they changed it years after I played does not change its grind-fest reputation for many of us. Of course they ended up changing it due to the competition, but how many of us would ever consider going back to that? Not I. They're getting their collective asses kicked by WoW, which presented a more smooth progression as the first impression on launch.

This comment was edited on Feb 28, 2009, 09:10.

BTW, gogamer.com has DoW2 on sale for $35.90.

The gun control legislation is only going to stop John Q. Public from getting those weapons. Drug dealers with records wouldn't qualify for any weapon now, but they of course can easily get one and already have many weapons. Even banning manufacturing in the United States wouldn't change anything. The genie is already out of the bottle. The guns are here and you can bet more of them will come over the border from Mexico from our well armed neighbors in Juarez to restock their gangs.

Obsidian is a shadow of its former self. Bring back Black Isle Studios.

On the plus side, W7 seems to be what Vista should have been on launch. On the minus side, does MS really think that all their Vista users will be willing to pony up another $100+ to go though this all over again so soon? And without an installation upgrade path from XP, Joe User with his working XP setup will be less likely to take the plunge and install W7 from scratch.

This comment was edited on Feb 24, 2009, 00:01.

That's fine. It's done when it's done. There are plenty of games out there to tide me over.

Domo Arigato

This comment was edited on Feb 14, 2009, 12:57.

Wii sales are still going strong.

• January - 679,200 Wii sales in 2009

http://blog.mlive.com/manzero/2009/02/wii_sets_january_sales_record.html

I agree that people still want entertainment in this economy. I suppose a "staycation" with a console at home is a cheap alternative to a vacation. I have to wonder though if the Wii might also be the introduction console that gets people interested in gaming, leading to either a 360 or a PS3.

Except that according to that article Microsoft saw sales grow 25.5 per cent, from 230,000 units in January 2008 to 309,000 units in January 2009. I agree that it's the economy in part, but people still want a console, it's just not a PS3. The 360 is going up and the PS3 is going down.

This comment was edited on Feb 13, 2009, 12:06.

A cooperative campaign mode is what makes this game more interesting to me, since such a feature simply does not exist in any other RTS game. It has always been play the single player campaign and then go to online mode vs human or computer opponents in a match.

This comment was edited on Feb 12, 2009, 16:48.

Am I the only one that doesn't get excited in the least bit about Starcraft 2? I barely played the original

There's your problem.

LOL, I was about to type the same exact response.

I know people who still play SC / Brood war quite a bit. I think half of Korea still does. SC2 I'm sure will attract a large number of SC fans and some who never played SC too, but I doubt people who didn't like SC will be thrilled about SC2. I've enjoyed all the Blizzard RTS games I've played: SC, WC2, and WC3.

This comment was edited on Feb 12, 2009, 11:00.

I like my Dell 2407WFP. Damn, I didn't know those things were still selling for 600 bucks 2 years later. With a DVI connection there no comparison to my old 80 pound 21" CRT.

I doubt gamers will oppose the idea of doing a clean install. However, I can't see this convincing everyone else who didn't go to Vista from moving off XP. New systems will be the majority of Windows Vista 7 sales again.

This comment was edited on Feb 10, 2009, 00:19.

Not a fan of EVE, but I can't blame them. I just need my "application launcher" to have reasonable stability and hopefully some efficiency or at least the ability to make it efficient (by turning off crap). Beyond that, get a hardware router/firewall and use firefox for a browser. Applications themselves are what matter the most. It's also why MS is now getting diminishing returns with their latest OS upgrades. Linux might be a nice OS, but I don't buy a computer for an OS, I buy it for what applications I can run on it. Games used to push the OS envelope in terms of memory ceilings and performance, but not so much anymore with consoles taking over.

This comment was edited on Feb 9, 2009, 10:54.

Even Ballmer cannot give a compelling reason for businesses to upgrade. His reasoning actually hurts his case.

I can see how people really like to use steam and for some they even save money on their games.

Still, I personally haven't found it to be all that useful and aren't all that psyched to see a third party game like DoW2 tied so tightly to it. I'd rather just get a good deal on a game and be done with it. Once I've played a game a good amount of time, the DVD is shelved, sold or given away. I rarely reinstall.

Seeing things like L4D being sold for $50 and the implication of selling content that arguably should have been there in the beginning leaves me wondering about the future of steam games if they become the only PC game distribution system in town. If more companies like THQ embrace steam and make it "exclusive" (i.e. you must use steam), I can only imagine what will happen if EA starts taking this to the next level. Valve seems to be bad enough with their pricing.

BTW: gogamer.com has DoW2 for $44.90 and amazon has it for $46.99, with a release date of 2/18. BUT, if the retail store copy requires steam... does this mean that someone who has payed for and installed it on 2/18 or 2/19 has to wait for the 2/20 steam activation??? That would suck.

This comment was edited on Feb 5, 2009, 19:33.

Valve again contacted Edge to say that it hasn't ruled out the possibility of the price being "$0.00."

That's not a very strong denial. It sounds to me like they're gauging the reaction of their customers, and the reaction has been overwhelmingly negative on the Steam forum.

Yep, sounds like they're trying to take whatever they can get away with, based on how much more we're willing to give beyond that 50 bucks.

BF1942 was my favorite of the BF series. I'm thinking BF1942 will still be my favorite after I see the console compromises made in BF1943.

Ya, it's the shipwrecked predecessor to Lord Nelson's HMS Victory, which today is a museum ship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victory_(1737)