anime is great! wrote on Jun 16, 2014, 19:11:
Devil's Advocate: I truly think that DS has a good game inside of him. He just needs help to realize it. It's kind of like George Lucas, if you've read up on it, he had terrible ideas planned for Star Wars that were all tempered by a good crew. Not so much tempering in the prequels, though. Mr. Smart just needs the right team to help him put together his sci-fi dream.

Why did I suddenly picture a woman with a black eye mumbling about doorknobs just now?

Creston, you realize that if any of these ideas appear, we're all coming to your place for the lynching, right?

NOO! Not the guild banks!!!!

Yes! The guild banks! AND YOUR LITTLE DOG TOO!

OldTimber wrote on Mar 31, 2014, 15:49:
Wow sounds like they just finally finished watching Sword Art Online and decided to rip the Seed concept.

That thought vaguely occurred to me, only in SAO, the World Seed became freeware. Shards doesn't look like it's going to go that far. Least not yet. What I'm curious about if whether or not shard "owners" (I thought about calling them "Shard Masters," but figured that was too easily corrupted by Rule 34) will be able to bring their own assets into the shards that they're running.

I'm deeply curious to see how it works out. I'm not quite as cynical, but I'm wondering if they're going to be producing content in terms of objects, character meshes, and textures to add into worlds instead of the traditional expansion packs and such.

Welcome back, gentlemen. We've missed you.

Just looking at the screenshots, I'm thinking to myself, "So, when does the Honor Harrington mod start getting worked on?"

ColBlister wrote on Jan 13, 2014, 17:07:
Since EA won't be increasing the city size, perhaps they'll rebrand it "Sim Village" to achieve something closer to what they're providing?

SimSuburb. Maybe SimGatedCommunity.

HorrorScope wrote on Jan 13, 2014, 10:29:
Yep. Two of the biggest franchises got baptized over it, should be a solid message.

Sure you don't mean "crucified"?

Deepest condolences on both your recent losses, Blue. It doesn't get any easier, but it will eventually get better.

jdreyer wrote on Oct 14, 2013, 14:13:
That Aurora looks sweet.

The thing about free traders I always wondered about though is this: When you play a military style space sim, it makes sense that your ship is tricked out with weaps and stuff since you're in the military. But for trading ships, that never made sense to me. It's not like people today outfit their DC9s or Learjets with 0.50 cal MGs and Stingers.

True, but midair piracy hasn't really been a practical criminal enterprise. It helps to think in nautical terms. Age of Sail freighters and other ships who were definitely not a man-of-war still carried armaments. They weren't as heavily armed as a ship of the line or even a frigate, but they had enough firepower to discourage smaller raiders who didn't have the means to fight it out or the sense to withdraw. Larger pirate crews, on the other hand, could take the losses and still make out pretty well on the deal.

Regrettably so. I'm one of those "Preferred Status Players" on account of my desire to get the shiny Collector's Edition, and I didn't even bother to try fumbling through a few missions. From what I remember, I had two bars, but I had originally set up four (covering speeders, long term buffs, etc.). My gather/craft skills were locked at two, not the three when I was subscribing. Just a litany of stupid things that were being paywalled for no obvious reason.

How about EA stops pretending SWTOR is "free-to-play" and does something that actually treats players like people and not sepoys? Either rework the model to GW2-style "buy to play" or revert to full subscription. Either way, I'd be more likely to play again.

LesCaster wrote on Sep 16, 2013, 11:43:
Last night's Breaking Bad was almost strong enough that it could have stood in as the series finale.

Except for the whole thing about the M60 and the ricin. 'Cause really, everybody's expecting blood and thunder at this point. It's gotta be Tony Montana wielding Chekov's (Machine) Gun. Only two episodes left. It's killing me.

IT'S A TRAP!

Sorry, momentarily felt the spirit of Ackbar through the Force...

I wasn't aware they made a first sequel. The original game was just godawful.

bobby, read the following quote a bit more carefully:

I can't think of another free-to-play game that pulls that kind of amateurish and idiotic money grab, though I suspect there may be more out there, and I further suspect they're all part of K2 Network.

(emphasis added)

The point of that line is an acknowledgement that K2 DOES publish other games other than APB Reloaded. I have not had the opportunity to review those games, and it would likely be a dubious opportunity if my experience with APB Reloaded is any indication.

Fundamentally, aside from the polish work on the graphics, the network improvements, and the rebranding from Realtime Worlds to Reloaded Productions, nothing has changed in this game. I'm surprised I managed to wring out as much as I did for a game that I've already reviewed once and for as little substantive change as I found within it. I actually had less fun playing this iteration than the original. Next time you want to vent some spleen, at least take a few minutes to actually think about what you're writing, and consider that the reviewers might actually have done more than what you assume to be sufficient.

Slightly longer version than the short response, slightly shorter than the long response:

They can't possibly screw up a remake any more than the two godawful direct-to-video sequels. As an added point, there might be some almost-genuine thinking about putting up a more faithful remake to try and compete with the film adaptation of "The Forever War." We might get to enjoy a summer of battlesuit-laden crunchy sci-fi fun.