I use a pdf viewer from Foxit Software when I can. Much less bloat.

We're still having a bitch of a time convincing publishers that DRM-free != suicide

Yeah, that sucks. We probably won't be seeing Dungeon Keeper 2 anytime soon. Meanwhile we get to see a chinese MMORPG made out of the IP... *grumble*

They could have called it "Yet Another Crap Chinese MMO" and they still would have bought it. I can't imagine the Dungeon Keeper name holds that much influence over the Chinese market. Bah, Chinese MMOs always suck.

Many DK fans waiting for the IP to be used again are feeling like they're on Dantooine right now...


This comment was edited on Dec 1, 2008, 10:57.

Aw crap, why China?! You know it's going to suck. Such a sad ending for an otherwise awesome franchise.

Bah, 10 times slower than a good video card, but it's a start I suppose. And they don't need to worry about vista capable hardware.

War, huh, good God y'all, what is it good for?

Yup. That's what I'm waiting for. Get verizon fios when it's available, drop cable TV, and get set up with tv/movies over the internet.. hopefully before 2011.

All the forecasts I've seen continue to be revised, downward. It's certainly difficult to call it a success when the benchmarks for such success are constantly being revised. These reports seem to neglect to mention the number of DVD movies and DVD players still being sold.

What is your criteria for success? Do you believe that bluray DVD players will reach 32 million in 2011 as predicted in 2007?

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-178976697.html

Might as well just call it PS3 sales right now. How about if you take into account only players that aren't PS3s? And what percentage of PS3s are actually be used for blu-ray movies? Tying blu-ray to the PS3 was a great move by Sony, because the total number of blu-ray players out there would have been a fraction of what it is now without them. But now they have to wait to find out if people want to spend the money on blu-ray movies, even if they already own the player.

I believe the price point of blu-ray movies is too high. People will pay for innovative products they consider worth the price, as long as they can make use of the product and experience the benefit. They aren't moronic if they decide the benefit isn't worth the cost. Buying everything that comes on the market any any price wouldn't be smart either and would be just as harmful to true innovation.

Ha, XP -> Vista is nowhere near "horse and buggy -> automobile. XP -> Vista is more like Toyota Camry -> Lexus. Although I'm probably insulting Lexus..

I'm not surprised that bruray isn't taking off. Most people are happy with a decent upscaling DVD player anyways without the extra DRM. I'm still part of that 76% who don't own a HDTV too.

Analyst revises 2008 Blu-ray sales downward by 25%
http://www.betanews.com/article/Analyst_revises_2008_Bluray_sales_downward_by_25/1224533315

And I'm sure it'll be worse than expected with this economy...

Hopefully this is a signal that the MMO bubble has burst, and developers can go back to making games I actually have a chance of purchasing.

Ha. More like, developers can go back to making console games.

Blizzard I think they're about it. Really, OGL kinda got screwed up with the last api update, it didn't have what everyone wanted, even promised and people said screw it. So that kinda leaves it in the land of CAD right now at least until the consortium smartens up and fixes their screw up.

Yup, OpenGL is toast as far as PC gaming is concerned. They basically admitted as much in the last API update. It was wishful thinking even before that update anyways. MS won long ago. I still think we'll be on the slow boat to graphics evolution until the "neXtBOX".


This comment was edited on Nov 21, 2008, 16:20.

It's true that the benefit of DX10 was mostly developer side and DX11 will have a more interesting feature set to benefit users. Unfortunately, I'm afraid this console driven game market will likely suppress the number of PC games that take full advantage of any new API, since the consoles aren't supporting it yet.

Again, I wouldn't downgrade from Vista and do look forward to a 64-bit OS version on the next rig I build to take advantage of additional memory. However, we're getting into a diminishing return here or at least diminishing reasons to upgrade. I don't expect 98 -> XP type jumps again until mainstream users get to the 32-bit OS memory limit.

Users should grow up and realise that shoehorning new things into an antique OS just isn't worth the effort

We did grow up.. and realized that DX10 was a waste of time.

I think the problem for DX10 is that users expect eye candy

Ya, imagine that, expecting better graphics. What's this world coming to?

and really it's 'killer' feature was far less overhead.

And too bad that "far less overhead" didn't actually translate to better benchmarks. Significant effort was made just to get it on par with XP and things like network file transfers were an embarrassment.

Roll on 7, then you'll struggle to justify XP even more than you do now

I think the struggle was MS trying to justify Vista and the fact that it took forever just to provide anything of substance to gamers for using Vista/DX10. Hmm.. could it because it was high on hype and low on substance? Naaah. The fact that 7 is coming so soon after Vista pretty much confirms what I had already believed. We'll do the same thing with 7 and DX11, wait to see if games noticeably improve from it. Either it does or it doesn't. Get Vista on a new machine? OK. Bother to upgrade an old machine with XP? Why? I use both operating systems and see no compelling reason to upgrade. Quite a few obviously didn't, hence Windows 7.

WOW is fine if that is your LIFE but I prefer a little diversity.

I see that as true for any game. There are still people who play a ton of hours of Starcraft each day or Counter Strike. Me, I can't play any game for years at a time. WoW was the closest thing at 6 months, with last couple months playing once in a while. The the last WoW expansion I played from 60 to 70 and got sick of it. And now I'm not even interested in getting Lich King, but that's not because WoW sucks. I just ate too much chocolate cake. WoW is a bargain if that's what you enjoy using your PC game time for. And it's the top MMOG out there, especially if you log into the competition and see ghost towns. Not many people like to play on empty servers.

Really? Silly?

I think it's a silly comparison. Warhammer Online is already heading downhill. You're gonna see alot more of this:

http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109503485/p1/?44

The honeymoon is over. PvP centric games are especially hard to keep players paying monthly fees for. But don't take my word for it, we'll be seeing the news blurbs soon enough.

WAR COMPLETE GAME: 39.99, soon to be even cheaper...


This comment was edited on Nov 20, 2008, 15:38.

Meh, EVE is too easy. Just find the right dev to help you out with whatever game resources you need.

Blizzard has a lot of BALLS to ask people to pay $40 for an expansion to a game they pay $15 a month to play. Isn't that what the subscription is for? New content? I won't bash the game. I loved Diablo 2 and I'm sure this game rocks but I refuse to support this business model.

I don't see what the big deal is. They charged $40 for the last expansion too. People pay a premium for games over steam and don't seem to mind. They charge that amount because people are still willing to pay it. 2.8 million copies in 24 hours probably beats many console titles. I don't think they're worried about the price point.

I think I understand the appeal of WoW: it's easy.

You could always buy a rubber mallet and go to town on yourself if you want something more masochistic. Why the hell people feel the need to jump on the WoW hate bandwagon, I don't know. I didn't get the expansion and probably won't, but this game isn't going to be knocked off the top of the hill any time soon.

Can I buy creature armor yet?

fyi: L4D is $39.99 at Circuit City in the US.

And CoD:WaW is $35.90 at gogamer.com right now..

This comment was edited on Nov 19, 2008, 00:00.

Console RTS? Won't miss it. They know it won't sell well against an already excellent RTS game selection to choose from.