And it's not like they are holding your kid hostage or anything. So it takes a bit longer - who really cares? It's a video game. For those complaining about it, what are you - an ADD 8 year old?

Yes.

I'm just wondering whether, at ANY point in the history of video games, gamers actually DIDN'T whine constantly about release dates.

The whining started the moment the games industry started promoting and advertising games like they do with movies. However, the powers that be didn't realize that movies don't get delayed (not regularly, anyway), and that people don't complain about movies taking a while to come out (for some reason). Release date whining was a unavoidable side effect of the games industry growing up and becoming the behemoth that it is now. Dammit, now I'm getting all nostalgic for the early 90's and word-of-mouth advertising.

What makes this even worse is that when the Elder Scrolls expansion comes out in two weeks, it will have been about one year (12 months) since the release of the main game...meaning that a confirmed 40 hour RPG game expansion was done in less amount of time then a 6 hour FPS episode. Don't you find that really pathetic?

Don't count on the Oblivion expansion being anywhere close to the game length they're advertising. The number I saw was "30-40" which means 25 for most of us.

And to answer your question, no, I don't find that really pathetic. RPG expansions, unlike FPS expansions, have to deal with already godlike characters (at least the ES games do) and have to make the game challenging for them again. With FPS games all you have to do is take away the player's guns. But Bethesda has never reset characters for its expansions, so that option is out. The problem with sandbox RPGs is that the sandbox is boring and pointless once you're a god. Why should I continue to harvest alchemical ingredients when I don't need potions or money any more? Don't get me wrong - I thoroughly enjoyed Morrowind and Oblivion until I finished the story and became a godly character. Continuing the character is just boring though - fighting the thousandth troll in Oblivion just doesn't have the same appeal as fighting the thousandth combine soldier in HL2. And replaying the game makes me quickly lose interest. It doesn't have the story and scripted moments to make replaying fun - unlike HL2, Episode 1, NOLF, JK2, and my other favorite FPSs. Considering Bethesda's track record with expansions vs. Valve's, I'll take Episode 2 over Shivering Isles any day.

This comment was edited on Mar 9, 14:48.