So he wants to play an upgraded version of Freelancer? I wouldn't mind playing a cross of Mass Effect and Freelancer but it would take a massive amount of work.

Kitkoan wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 00:24:

TheVocalMinority wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 23:52:

DDI wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 21:55:
But in the end, it's only a matter of time before Valve just releases some steam box that runs a closed Linux distro, completing the circle of hypocrisy.

No, the GPL is specifically designed to prevent this.

May I show you OSX and iOS?

While I'm not saying that Valve will make a closed Linux box, claiming that something like the GPL will prevent them is very naive. Apple took the open Mach Kernel and BSD codes and locked them down, only keep as much open as they legally had to.

Somebody doesn't know the difference between the GPL and BSD license. You can close BSD code, but not GPL ... well, unless you are willing to risk a lawsuit.

I tried their latest driver last month and had to downgrade all the way to 9.8 to get my machine not to BSOD. I don't know but most of the time the older drivers seem to work better for me than the newer ones.

Not too shabby. They just need to open up the levels a bit (this one looks a bit cramped) and allow some emergent gameplay using extra gear/skills/augmentations and it could be fun.

I don't know if any Wally-mart still has the complete collection edition for $40; I would buy that, it has all 4 expansions.

You can fill your whole party with custom built npcs now(called heroes in GW) so you can play the whole game solo as if it was a single player game similar to diablo or dungeon siege. If you have all 4 expansions that is 4 full stories with cinematics after each mission etc. That said it is mostly a hack and slash game. Don't expect much outside of bashing lots of monsters.

LOL, you got trolled by CliffyB! They are just trying to score brownie points with the console crowds. I am expecting if the game is coming out for the PC they are going to support the PC version; they know PC development. Maybe a demo for PC will come out at some later point.

I still use XP because it runs my old games on my 5 year old machine better. But Battlefield 3 isn't a game I absolutely have to have, so I am not going to complain either.

I like GW1, but you are right: GW1 is more a multiplayer RPG than an MMO. Things are on rails, some explorable areas have a little bit more of freedom but not too much. Missions are mostly lineal (I guess so it doesn't mess up the scripts). Interface and chat are not too bad; I have played a couple of other MMOs but not WOW so I can't compare to it. Crafting is almost non-existent. Skills are exclusively combat oriented: there are no skills to pick locks, sneak past enemies, detect or disarm traps, climb, jump, swim, etc., the D&D kind.

Amazing CGI movie. I want my games to look like that now. Please?

I don't think I've ever gotten the hang of GW. I walk in to a town and have no idea what's going on. I have a few quests, but no idea how anything else in the game works.

You can play GW as if it was a challenging single player RPG. The story won't be nearly as good as a Bioware classic but the game mechanics are pretty good.

A simple description:
You go into a town buy stuff from the armorer, weapon-smith and skill trainer. Then you add your mercenaries (AI) of choice from the "add player options" to your party and press the start mission button. After a cut-scene that advances the story you play the mission and it throws you to the next town. You might be able to play the next mission directly from there or you may have to "explore" (maps are pretty linear) outside to find the next town.

At the bottom of Storyline and missions you have links to the 10-20 towns/missions you have to complete to beat each expansions. The links contain walkthroughs too. Don't read those if you want the game to be more challenging/interesting.

All in all you should be able to get at least 20-30 hours of singleplayer action out of the game.

As much as I am generally against DRM. That is a pretty reasonable approach. As long as the developer can ensure that DRM causes:
1. No Hardware and Software incompatibilities. (e.g. it won't run on this DVD drive -- or -- it won't start if you have Visual Studio installed)
2. It doesn't slow down the game with checks.
3. It doesn't slow down the computer or disable functionality when I am not playing the game. (e.g. just because Nero can be used to copy DVDs doesn't mean you should disable it when I want to burn my pictures to a DVD.)
4. It doesn't suddenly stop working because I reinstalled the game or my internet connection went down.

The fundamental reason why most people hate DRM is because it is usually slapped on at the last minute and significantly increases the risk of things not working properly for absolutely no benefit whatsoever for the gamer. Sure 9 out of 10 everything works dandy. But having to go to a hacker's site to get a game working properly, leaves the distinct impression that the hackers are providing the higher quality product.

It would be actually an interesting experiment to sell two version of the same game one with and one without DRM at let say a 8 dollar difference and see how many people by the cheaper DRM version on how many the more expensive without. This put a dollar figure of how much DRM reduces the actual perceived value of the product.

I bet 10 bucks it is a few old games ported to XBLA or Wii

Very cool. Best summary ever. Thanks blue.

I had my mission sabotaged by the children I was paired with because I wouldn't give them my loot.

That sucks. It is best to talk in the team chat about what everybody is expecting from the mission --loot, mission completion, bonus, etc-- before starting. Otherwise everybody is just wasting their time.

Did they ever improve the henchmen or matchmaking?

I don't think so. If you have the Nightfall or Eye of the North expansions you can use up to 3 heroes (henchmen) at a time that you can configure with the skill build of your liking, meaning you can customize the build against the particular enemies of the mission. Solo is doable but tough. Two people with good heroes works much better.

For now it looks that they, and also the quake ray tracing group, are just building tech demos to test future Intel graphic cards that are being worked on.

"Bringing hope that an end to the MMOG shortage is near." WTF? There are already to many MMO's & 95% of them suck (IMO).

Let me introduce you:
Techie this is Sarcasm, Sarcasm this is Techie.

I like the mechanics of GW. The idea is that I can buy the game for a friend and play with him right away without having to wait two months until he is high level and has all the gear.

If I designed a MMORPG the armor and weapons with best stats would be available in the first town and you could buy it if you had the money, same with the skills. There would be no leveling and you could change the primary and secondary profession, skills and gear of your character at any point. Some people don't like that but I personally don't get much enjoyment out of button mashing just to get some better virtual gear.

My kind of fun is messing around with the game mechanics: trying different professions, skill points, skill combination, gear and heroes and go out and do a couple of missions with friends and see what happens. The game puts also more emphasis in player skills vs. character skills (how you use your skills, combine with other characters, mob control, etc): I like it.

I don't think these are ridiculous:

1. If the game has Securom it should say so on the box so people can avoid it if they want to.

2. It should be easy and documented how to uninstall Securom so people that start having problems with it can remove it from their machine.

Any software you get should install what it claims to be and have an option to remove it. Otherwise it is very close to a scam.

I like this all up to the point of the limits to 3 installs ever. That will be a pain for people that reinstall their machine every 4 months. It should be 4 or 5 installs and it should be per year. They also could remove the limit altogether in 6 months from now; still good enough to avoid the zero day pirates.

I will wait it out and look at comments of people that bought and installed the game to see how much a pain the protection scheme is. I don't want to find myself with a game that can only be installed and played a couple of times before it starts acting up and becomes unplayable.