I loved Wing Commander, which was strange since I generally disliked flying games (and still do). But Wing Commander was different. I recall how PO'ed I was on one of the games when I used god mode and the game changed my call sign to 'Cheater'. Still, it was awesome to see the comms come across from Paladin to 'Cheater'.

Well, they obviously kept things nice and quiet about this for a while. Over on Shacknews on 9/22, Bowling had told the interviewer that the PC game would be "the same as it always was". Less than a month later, dedi servers, maps, and mods are all gone.

[url=]http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1200[/url]

My worry is that this game is just going to be one partially scripted chase scene...

It could be worse, tho. The climax of the World at War game was literally a cutscene. You were a bystander to fun as Reznov kills the last Nazi while you are forced to watch passively. Yeah, you get to plant the flag on top of Reichstag afterward, but it's just weak compared to CoD4's climax...

I don't really understand this. IW has a PC gaming history. They know how important dedicated servers are to PC games. Why would they make such a stupid decision?

I'm sure from their perspective, it doesn't appear to have as many downsides. They probably see it as a deterrence to piracy. They probably also want, if you'll excuse the expression, to dumb down the experience to make it more appealing to "mainstream" gamers. They are also aware that many, many more people threaten to cancel pre-orders than actually do so. Sigs are currently at 34k on the petition site. That's a mere drop in the bucket compared to overall sales. Plus, as others have noted, PC players for many devs are second class citizens. The real money is in the consoles, not in the PC arena, no matter how rabid, dedicated, and industrious the PC community might happen to be.

This comment was edited on Oct 18, 2009, 18:52.

[url=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FKty5Kpf4w[/url]

I think they raised their price in anticipation of it.

Hey, have you thought of integrating Twitter? Not to jump on a band wagon or anything, but it would be cool to get a tweet when the site gets its morning and evening updates.

Actually, Xbox Live just announced that full games will be downloadable to the Xbox 360 console, so the consoles are improving on the digital distribution front... Tho, storage is likely to be an issue for many folks.

"I was looking forward to my first normal morning online in a while today, but no such luck. My connection keeps dropping and my DSL router's ready light keeps blinking. I picked up the phone and heard the familiar siren sound that phone techs use to troubleshoot the line."

FWIW:

I had a similar experience with my DSL: intermittent drop-offs, slowdowns, blinking ready light, often loss of synch. All symptoms worse during/after rain. Turned out it was several arced shorts at the box where the line came into my house, not at the pole. After two phoners and two tech visits, one smart guy checked the box and found/fixed the shorts. DSL service has been great since.

May God ease your suffering and give you peace. My prayers are with you and your family...

R.

My prayers for your Mom and your family. God bless you...

A fine analogy for the MicroSoft business model...