Oh hey, a bonus. If you put in a starcraft key, it automatically upgrades you to the brood wars expansion version (I think because it didn't have a cd key). So free expansion for starcraft if you never got it

Negative. I put in my Starcraft key to add the game, and it added the anthology, like you said. Downloaded the installer, and when I try to install, it asks me for a 26 digit cd key. I tried putting in my Starcraft key again, but no dice. You sure Brood War didn't have a cd-key?

Edit: Nevermind, I'm retarded, and didn't see the big orange digital key staring me right in the face. Free expansion FTW

This comment was edited on Mar 21, 2009, 12:00.

lol, so many possibilities!

Some quality journalism right here...

so ubergeeks are terrorists now?

I'm having a blast with this game. I got it free with my 8800GT, and I've been holding off playing it until the EE rolled out. Great fun so far, just finished Chapter I. I'm glad CD Projekt put the EE out, because the initial buggy reviews scared me and a lot of people off. Being able to play the game in a more polished state has been awesome so far.

I can see everyone's all fired up about this one.

Sounds like the XBLive screen name for some Halo playing, teabagging, obscenity spewing 12 year old.

The trailers are funny, though, and any new Ron Gilbert project is more than welcome.

Considering this game has yet to be cracked, I disagree.

Jesus, you people are dense. Jeryyk is one of this site's biggest proponents for piracy, he's just making fun of Crytek and all the other developers who blame piracy for their sales woes.

looks laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame... If this didn't have the Fallout name attached, I would've have given this game a second glance.

Yeah, I understand that. I tend to have a bad habit of picking apart posts, just because people on the internet tend to spew so much crap and call it rational opinion. I just watched the trailer and came back underwhelmed. There's more to Fallout than 50's style PSA's and post apocalyptic combat. I understand depth and nuance are tough to convey in a trailer, but I would have liked to see something besides "Bloody Mess" style takedowns.

@ kxmode:

So... you list half a dozen negative points concerning the game. This would lead me to believe that based on what you've seen, you feel the workmanship is not up to par, the Fallout legacy will be tarnished, and that it just won't be a good game. Fair enough.

Then, after you make all those points that seem to be based on what you've observed of what's been revealed of the game thus far, you contradict everything and say:

Now if Bethesda decides to release Fallout 3 DRM free then I will love the game and will gladly buy it.

You'll LOVE the game? Even in the face of all these flaws? You'll gladly buy it? Even though you've taken a negative tone towards it so far and have more bad than good to say for it? For no other reason than it doesn't have DRM? If it all it takes to get your money is to not include DRM, I'm going to fire up Visual Studio right now and churn out some POS that will be entirely DRM free, because apparently that's the most important point to you.

If you're going to bash the game, that's your right. If you're going to bash Draconian DRM schemes, that's your right. Don't get the two confused, though because that just makes it look like you climbed up on the soapbox for no good reason.

I was playing through Planescape: Torment on XP a few months ago, and was enjoying the hell out of it(never played it when it came out) but I had to stop because whenever there was any kind of spell effect, the game ground to a halt. I'm talking like one frame every five seconds with the PC speaker stuck on blasting the tones of the spell effect one agonizing frame at a time. I tried messing with all the in-game settings, but nothing helped. If I could remedy that problem, I'd love to go back and finish the game. Any advice?

It's really quite depressing to think about what could have been, had Microsoft not created the Xbox and instead invested all those billions into PC gaming.

Examples:

Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 would have been designed for the PC.
Oblivion and Fallout 3 would have been designed for the PC.
Rainbow 6 would still be a realistic tactical shooter.
Ghost Recon would still be a realistic tactical shooter.
Bioware would still be making cRPGs.
Gears of War and UT3 would have been designed for the PC.
Halo would have been designed for the PC and probably wouldn't have sucked.
Fable would have been designed for the PC and might have sucked less.

Sigh.

Wow Jerykk, I'm going to surprise myself by agreeing 100% with you. If MS had really gotten behind the PC as a gaming machine, instead of Games For Windows being the redheaded stepchild to its X-Box, a lot of great developers and franchises never would have been consolized.

Damn, I'd just been wondering about that. I got the Witcher for free with my 8800GT, but I haven't tried it out yet. Guess I'll go pick up Mass Effect to tide me over.

If you aren't portraying a present day city environment, like GTA, then the advertising sticks out like a sore thumb and distracts from the game.

That's basically what I mean when I say they won't distract if done well. It needs to be a modern or future setting where you'd see ads anyway. And I don't want to see shit like "this load screen brought to you by axe body spray".

Yeah, that article really had no solid argument at all. "What if people get annoyed" really isn't an argument, and it's not like the money is going straight to the pockets of executives. It's just one way to defray the skyrocketing costs of videogames. While I could easily see it done badly and getting out of hand, I don't have a problem with discreet use of advertising where it makes sense. Whether it's logos on billboards or racecars, as long as I'm not running across Coca Cola ads in fantasy games, I'm ok. In fact, I'll go one step further and say that sometimes it improves the immersion in a game. I think it's cool that you can get real boards in Tony Hawk, and Gibson guitars in Guitar Hero instead of something made up. Licensing real brands, whether they're cars, sports teams, or whatever, can be a win-win if done well.

When is it ever convenient for someone to buy something they already have? From a purely logical standpoint, it's a complete and utter waste of money.

It's convenient for your ego, not your wallet. An investment of $50 or $100 bucks a year (based off your statement that we're lucky to see even one great (ie, buyable) game a year) seems to have a pretty good psychological payoff. It lets you indulge in all the benefits of piracy (free games) without the negative stigma associated with stealing intellectual property and undermining an industry. You're better than the other pirates because you buy a game every now and then. Good for you.

You can go on and on all you want about how your $50 you spent on Bioshock means more than my $50 because I wanted to play the game and you were honoring the developers. It doesn't matter. The fact is that your arrangement benefits you a hell of a lot more than the industry, and this honorable pirate notion you've come up with is just your way of justifying it to yourself and others.

I view it as more of a paradox. Piracy itself is usually regarded in a negative light but if it acts as a means to a justifiable end, like making sure only the good games get money, I'd say that's pretty noble. Paying for something solely to respect the developers is definitely noble in my book.

Sorry Jerykk, I just don't buy it. Your argument, that is. I buy my games. You're claiming it's honorable that you buy a game every now and then because you don't have to pay anything ever. You ignore the dozens (hundreds) of games that you've played and never paid for, but found lacking in some way. Most of these probably weren't bad games, but maybe somthing like "there really isn't much replay value here" or "it was good, just not very innovative" or "I liked what they were going for, but this other game pulled this off better" would probably be enough for the game to not meet your standards. I'm betting you pay for far fewer games than you would if you didn't pirate at all. What if you have a good month and the 3 or 4 games you pirate that month are all great. Will you actually go buy them all, or will you decide you don't really want to spend all that money? You're "honoring the developers" when it's convenient for you, screwing the rest of the developers when you feel like it, and we're supposed to respect you because you're an honorable pirate? Whatever.

I'm not sure I want to play a FPS that's that long.

See, I could've had the game for free, but paid for it anyway, because this 1 game of the 50 I pirated this year deserves my money.

That ratio actually sounds about right given that most of the games that come out are not worth buying.

And you just HAVE to try every one of them out for yourself? You can't look at screenshots, read reviews, do some critical thinking, and make an educated guess as to whether you'd enjoy a game or not?

Um...if it's anything other than a demo, why bother buying it if it's already in the possession of the person?

It's a perverse kind of morality pirates use to justify their actions. While some say "fuck it, I'm stealing as many games as I want", others will steal just as many games, but actually buy one every now and then to justify their actions to themselves and others. This lets them feel morally equal, or even superior to the people that buy all their games and don't pirate in the first place. "See, I could've had the game for free, but paid for it anyway, because this 1 game of the 50 I pirated this year deserves my money. I didn't have to pay for it, but I did." Never mind they paid $50 and played with over $1000 worth of software.