Heh, Mac game release time frames don't fit MMOGs at all.

The coop made this game interesting to me, but now obviously I'll be waiting long after release to consider this one. Maybe it'll be $10 on gogamer.

But way to jump to conclussions about what these micro-transactions will actually consist of. At it's worst, it's certainly no more unfair than a paid expansion.

I see what you did concluded there.

This comment was edited on Jan 6, 2009, 23:56.

Unfortunately the rampant success of gold farming proves you wrong.

I figured someone would mention gold farming or ebay as part of a counter to my argument. I played WoW on launch, which means everyone has nothing out of the gate. It was a relatively level playing field to start. It takes time for the game to be affected by the rampant farming and ebay crap. And at least people at some point actually had to spend the time/effort to farm the item or build the character. The difference is micro-transactions would ruin it right away, essentially aging the game many times faster than it normally would have. It'd be as if I started at level 60 on WoW launch. I wouldn't touch a game like that with a ten foot pole.

This comment was edited on Jan 6, 2009, 18:46.

It all depends on what kinds of micro-transactions we're talking about.

I don't believe that micro-transactions that give players a distinct advantage over others in a MMOG will be successful, whether the game is PvP based or not. It doesn't matter if it's a console and it's not the same as a $15 a month fee that everyone in the game must pay to play. Many people wouldn't want that kind of environment to play in, even if they had the money to buy themselves a l33t character with all the best items. It takes away from the psychological feeling of competition for items, levels, gold, PvP combat.. the goals of playing the game.

I had no desire to play Hellgate due to their two tiered pay system.. in addition to it sucking. And that game only had very minor advantages for subscribers.

This comment was edited on Jan 6, 2009, 16:04.

Yea, you'd think for $999.00 they could afford to have an ATI card in the base model. I just picked up a decent ATI 4850 card for $120. Bah, they think just having a Wii remote in there is magically going to sell this over priced POS.

The thing is with consoles becoming more PC like, there is potential for a "PC" offering in the living room for your HDTV that people would actually buy. Ditch the 21" LCD, keep the TB drive, get the price to around $299, and have some hooks to steam / gog / netflix for getting media over the net easily with a simplifed front end interface. Standardized PC hardware that devs could get for testing could make for something that's likely to avoid headaches that come with the numerous hardware combinations. Of course, the cost of Vista itself blows up the price, but with hard drives / memory getting so cheap and content over the net, this is getting more and more feasible.

This comment was edited on Jan 5, 2009, 12:06.

Yup, there's no way that idea will work. They also seem to have forgoten Wii-style pricing, a key reason Wii is successful.

Aw, and here I thought it was a remake of the Ancient Art of War.

Meh, we'll probably have to wait for the next iteration of console designs to find out what physics hardware becomes the "standard".. and see gameplay that is actually enhanced by it. The PC gaming market is already too factured for pubs/devs to care about another specialized niche tech. Didn't anyone learn from DX10? This is an even smaller market slice of that. I own an nvidia card now (which doesn't support physx), but these news burbs still haven't changed my mind on making ATI my next card.

This comment was edited on Dec 22, 2008, 12:54.

I've lost count of the number of companies I've seen in various industries bought out by a larger company only to be stripped of assets and dumped or just plain run into the ground. Officers get a nice big payout and move on. People in management are fired or replaced with the acquiring companies own people, leaving management who have no clue how to continue operation of what was a successful company. I personally know outside companies in the tech industry who have come to me asking questions about how to use or sell their own products, due to said company being acquired, with completely clueless people taking over. It's sad. In my experience it happens more often than not. "Fiduciary duty", wow. In the real world it's every man for themselves.

There's a short term payoff for those who own the stock or the CEO who gets bought out. But the company itself? The employees? The success of the products the company was known for? Lol, bye bye.

It's not like they didn't have a chance to avoid losing money in their investment. Take Two stockholders should have sold between April and July when it was already at $26. Now they can be like everyone else who is still in the stock market and hope their stocks come back someday.

As a gamer, that's the way I see it. GTA was saved or least saved from becoming an EA abomination. You can bet the recent EA cuts would have seriously included Take Two. And as an EA shareholder, you're screwed either way with the current economy. ERTS has nice 52 week high of 60.35 and is now 17.39. Acquiring Take Two wouldn't have done squat to save the EA stock price from dropping. Believe that. In fact, an acquisition (@ $26 a share) probably would have hurt them.. like many companies who are spending outside their means today (and are now screwed because of it).

This comment was edited on Dec 20, 2008, 14:58.

Gogamer.com has it for $10.

http://www.gogamer.com/S-T-A-L-K-E-R---Shadow-of-Chernobyl-for-PC--I--Front-Page_stcVVproductId4761313VVcatId444710VVviewprod.htm


This comment was edited on Dec 20, 2008, 10:46.

Hey, I for one am glad they've put all that work in. I purchased a copy of V:TM off ebay a year or so ago and played it with all the patches. The game played great and I was glad I went back to try a game I had previously skipped over.

There's no container that can be placed on the other side to catch the mail and yet keep the doggies out? Or how about an external mailbox at eye level that the mailman could use?

The spore chess set, only $1584 !

I'd create a cow-like creature to sculpt for EA.. in case they need something new to milk.


This comment was edited on Dec 18, 2008, 16:44.

Wow, that pricing change sucks. I imagine that other countries outside the US will be revisited as well, so I wouldn't laugh at the Europeans because you (the people I've seen in past topics say how steam is still so much cheaper for them) will be next.

Of course, I never use steam for purchases (always was overpriced for me) and get most of my games from gogamer.com, newegg.com, and amazon.com..


This comment was edited on Dec 18, 2008, 14:49.

I'd buy from Direct2Drive or Steam before I tried anything associated with the company who hyped the Phantom console. Who knows how long this service will last.

I'm surprised that they were able to put together such an extensive collection, although it's overpriced. Gogamer has the old stuff at a much cheaper price. Hmmm... Dungeon Keeper 2.. eGuide for 10 bucks. And you can demo it?? Weird. Not that I'd trust running that .exe file.