There's still no better way to play Lemmings than the Amiga. Hmm, time to set up the old 500 again and see what other games I've forgotten.

"whatever invisible residue of hand salsa had coated it"

Not sure what Blue is doing with his mouse, but it sure sounds funny.

If this were WWII Online or Anarchy Online, this wouldn't even BE a beta.

why not just eject the stuff into space and/or towards the sun

It isn't as easy as that: it takes a lot of energy to orbit/hit the Sun: spacecraft usually have to slingshot around the Earth or other planets, some times several times before being able to get to the sun. Each of those encounters could mean lovely nuclear waste peppering our atmosphere if things go wrong (not counting the launch, either).

I'm all for putting the waste on the moon, along with Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, but seems to me to be a dangerous idea.

Cool: one of my issues with Everquest and DAoC is that the mechanics of the game get in the way of good roleplaying, whereas perhaps Eve can succeed in that area.

If the game mechanics are such that it actively discourages the immature kiddies, then I'm all for it.

Okay, so there's no experience points, but there's skill points; there's money (which might as well be experience points in the game); there's faction; loss of skill points on death. I'm not seeing a lot of uniqueness here.

The economy is totally player-driven, which means that if the game attracts the usual 12 year old idiots of many MMORPGs, the economy will be nearly totally idiot driven.

I know a lot of these types of games want to stress how dfferent they are from the others, while basically being pretty similar. This one seems no different.

However, like most MMORPGs, the RPG elements are just for show: no one ever RPs in these Gs: it's all about getting more skill points/money. There are all massively-multiplayer treadmill simulators.

eSports industry

Please. If you can do it while smoking and drinking, it isn't a sport.

From a business standpoint it would be great if they could mask the new engine etc as an upgrade

Well, they basically did that with Shadows of Luclin (not a total engine upgrade, but enough of one that DirectX 8.1 was required, leaving Windows 95 users to upgrade). Everyone had to load various upgrades, not only SoL users.

Hindsight is 20/20 though: no one expected Everquest to be so popular, so spending more time/money on making the game easier to update in major ways was probably seen as a waste.

Dark Age of Camelot is supposed to upgrade to a newer version of NetImmerse eventually, too.

It says demo May 1, game on May 20th, so there's a little while to go.

Really. Considering that all these changes kinda hinge on them hiring a team of developers to do the changes...

I destroyed a Klingon Bird of Prey with a Shuttlecraft, and nearly destroyed a Sovereign-class starship with one. Nearly nuked a Starbase by myself in an Akira, but the game crashed before I could finish the deed. I love the first few days of a game's release, when people don't know how to fire weapons or move.

This game is seriously fun: It feels like a Star Trek battle, and doesn't require quick-twitch nerves to play. The game is a little unstable though: it has crashed on me a lot, but the fun value is so high that I don't care.

Okay, time to bet on the inevitable patch for the game.

1. Will ithe patch be out a) before or b) after the game hits the shelves?

2. Will the patch be a) smaller than 5 megs, b) between 5-15 Megs or c) over 15 megs?

3. Will the patch a) be mostly minor changes or b) fix something that should NOT have been overlooked before going gold?

Here's my favorite quote from the Gamespy write-up: "It looks like only the generic Federation Bridge will be modeled, however. Maybe we'll see a Klingon Bride expansion pack."

Yeah, I want the Klingon Bride expansion pack, too. Probably comes with painsticks.

I wasn't even trying and scored 511 MPH on Spank the Monkey. Perhaps you need a new mouse or reflexes?

I hear that, to stay true to the game, the novel will only be half-finished, and many of the chapters will actually be unreadable until they release a series of patches. Even then, it'll be a slow read: I hear the passages that take place in the cities can take several hours to read.

It's too late: the flow of people away from the game is beginning to pick up steam, and with Dark Age of Camelot now gold, they'll lose folks to that.

This should be a great lesson to the perils of launching software before it is ready.

How can you possibly have a final 2.0 beta patch? It's like being the first second place finisher. I wish companies would stop this final beta patch crap.

Actually, reading the message boards about Everquest, Diablo II and the like CAN give you information on these issues (the whole TCP vs. UDP debate, for example). Funcom had the 'It Won't Happen to Us' mentality.

Let see, every MMORPG has had the same problem: server capacity and lag. Apparently, Funcom knew of this even through their 'final beta' (though I consider the retail product the final beta in this case). Solution: stress test the game with 3-4 times the amount of expected traffic, for days.

Hell, if game companies can't afford to test, they shouldn't be in business.

And it was still Funcom's decision to allow these 'extra-retail' sales, anyhow, so it would still be their fault.

However, the servers were not ready for even half the number of sales, so you've got to point the finger at the company.

They had the benefit of the Everquest and Ultima Online experiences to draw from (not to mention Diablo II). First impressions are the most important and they most likely lost customers because of their stupidity.

Game sites have really dropped the ball on this one. I have only seen ONE review of the game, on www.somethingawful.com. Since Funcom did not pull the game from the shelves when it was apparent the game was unplayable in its current state, I think that reviews of the game from day one should have been perfectly fine.

Certainly, now that all the game problems have been resolved (well, enough for Funcom to start the 'free month'), I expect to see a lot of reviews in the next day.