Johnny

If GW2 is anything like GW1, most of the content will be max level anyway. I think 70% or something of the first game's PvE content was at max, and most of the PvP definitely was. (That's in contrast with most MMOs where most of the stuff is low level, but all anyone cares about is the few max level thingies.)

I found the twist to be rather obvious unfortunately. Also

Ethan, you broke my brain. How can people think this?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92946377&searchtext=Climb this this this

CS2 was just a patch on home consoles.

How do you own four? There was CT, CS and CS Extend...

Sure, that studio may be gone, but the people who worked there do not just vanish into thin air. Most of them will get hired by other developers.

How this decision went down: Dave: "Hey, Jack! We have a problem. 93-95% of people who play our game do so without paying for it." Jack: "Holy shit, what can we do about this?" Dave: "DRM?" Jack: "Nah, we tried that and people just got angry. Also people found ways around it." Dave: "I'm out of ideas. Let's ask Steve." *Jack and Dave take a walk to Steve's office and explain the situation* Steve: "Let me get this straight. Our problem is that most people who play our game never pay for it?" Jack: "Exactly. Any ideas?" Steve: "Mhm. We give away the game to 100% of the players." Dave: "God damn it, Steve. That's brilliant!" Of course, I jest. I do think that F2P can be the right decision for a lot of games, and if done well can be a positive thing for everyone (Tribes Ascend, Dota 2.) Something about the way they are announcing this though, makes me worry that it will be some pay-to-win-ish scheme that will just end up producing shitty games. Time will tell.

Oh my god. There needs to be an intelligence test before you're allowed to run for office.

I'm not sure what specifically is going on, but it's silly. If the Swedish government only wants to question him, as they claim, they should have taken the offer.

That's odd. Munchkin is one of the simplest card games I've played. It has less rules text than Monopoly.

My attitude of pirating to demo and pirating games I could not buy anyway. The first of those, I would argue is good for the industry because it lets consumers buy the products they actually like instead of guessing based on trailers. Which in turn assigns more money to good games rather than games with expensive marketing budgets. The second of those... Well, we've had that discussion before but we both know I don't think it's harmful. So, please, don't act like I'm doing these things because I just care about myself. Splitting hairs at best. If I do something stupid/childish/immature/etc. I am at that moment being stupid/childish/immature/etc. I do not see any difference. We are defined by our actions, and calling out someone's action is calling them out as well. I do not see the world in black and white. I do not believe I need a pure white moral right to do all the things I do. That is not how I view the world. I am fine with taking a morally grey action that does not harm people. Yes, there occurred a situation wherein I saw supporting the game as less important than making sure not to give money to people who were doing what CDPR at the time was doing. That is, however, not the same as aggressively trying to find a reason to not pirate it. If I again found an interest in The Witcher 2 (alas, I no longer have any intention of playing that game), I would purchase it because they have now ceased the practices I found highly morally objectionable. You have accused me of being dishonest about my piracy habits in the past, and you have called pirates in general villains. And this is where I got it from. Two pages back. You may not have openly said it, but does not the idea that I would pirate and then come up with the slightest excuse to not buy it imply that I don't? I can't possibly both care about the industry and do just that. Besides, as I detailed in my previous post, it would be to me incredibly easy to justify if I felt like doing that. Here's another one: Nearly all AAA devs are blaming me - one of their customers - for everything bad in the industry. I do not want to support companies who personally attack me. See, at this point after all the namecalling and fingerpointing, you big publisher types are all dead to my eyes anyway, and I only pay money to you in the first place because there are developers whose companies you publish, who I like and want to support. If at some point you may become as irrelevant as the record companies are now I would be happy to cast you all aside. In fact, I'd hope for this to happen. Everything about the way you approach me and my attitudes seems like you don't think I care about anyone but myself. You call me selfish, childish, etc. regularly. Yet you claim to not think I don't care? This is completely inconsistent. If that's what you believe then truly I can not believe you have been reading my posts the past year and a half I've been part of this debate. I find certain forms of piracy okay, not just because they are possible, but because they do not harm. If you were to pirate just to get out of paying for things, that you do like and could easily afford supporting, you are a dick. You keep implying that I'm only thinking about what affects me, which is so mind-blowingly far from the truth. I'm unemployed and I have a steam library of over 200 titles. Is that the game purchases of a pirate who just cares about himself and no-one else? I say it's not. I find it amazing that you're still unable to grasp that there are pirates who do give a shit about what happens to other people. So please, when you do discuss these things, do not assume based on your preconceptions about pirates.

I'm not completely sure what the deal with New Vegas is. Honestly it would be very enlightening to have some actual developers comment (in detail) on when it gains them the most to have their games purchased (though of course, I'm pretty sure publishers don't want them talking too much about that...)

Directed at Thursday Next: My question was directed at the "having your cake and eating it." I was in a bit of a hurry as I posted, and if I caused any confusion, I apologize. Now here's why I asked: Firstly, I was asking because I was genuinely curious about the reasoning. From where I'm standing, every technological advancement is the realization of the ability to in a certain context have your cake and eat it too. I am not sure why that's a bad thing. That you're using that as an argument against piracy is kind of baffling to me. Another reason why it's baffling is that it doesn't describe piracy, or my attitude to it, in any stretch. Having your cake and eating it too is generally used to referr to something which can't happen. Like eating your cake and still having it. There is nothing impossible about piracy, and therefore I don't see how the idiom is relevant. In regards to you repeatedly calling my attitude childish: How can you with a straight face call someone else childish when you're the one resorting to namecalling in response to a simple question? And here you disappoint me again, Thursday. It is not appreciated when you put words in my mouth. I am not the one talking about rights. It would not be correct to say I think I have any particular moral right to pirate. I do not view the world in those terms. To say that I lack respect for the system would be correct though. I totally do. I think it's broken and I think the people in whose interests it is to come up with a system that clashes less with the modern reality of the world (that of high-speed internet, specifically), aren't really doing that. Well, half-true. Some people are doing that (hi Steam, gog.com) and it's part of why I've had a much easier time buying games in recent years. I have pretty much stopped pirating because I can actually afford games now. Stuff like that really helps. Believe it or not, I actually want the games industry to prosper as well, and I want to pay for games I consider good for that reason. Unless you just call me a liar and assume villainy as has so frequently been done in the past. That's not helping. When game companies (or people working for such companies) repeatedly make me out as a villain when trying to approach the subject for discussion, that's just putting me off buying your games in the future. You're just making more enemies and I know quite a few people who just straight-up won't pay for games from certain companies who have quite vocally blamed pirates for everything wrong with the industry. Personally, though I did at one point entertain the thought, I won't stoop to that level because I genuinely believe there are worthwhile people inside every company, despite how little I might think of the ones I have spoken to. Though to be honest none of that above was the most offensive thing you said. Is that really what you think? That I don't care? If all I was interested in was to pirate games and not support the game creators, I would not be here discussing this. I'd just be on my merry way. Do you have any idea how easy that would be? It fucking pains me every time I post in here because I know that no matter what my intentions are I'll get some reply from some knight in shining armor, ready to drag my name through the dirt because he can't face the possibility that someone who's pirated games may give a shit. I get called a thief, a liar, everything in between. So why do I continue to post? Because I care. Because I genuinely care and I genuinely want to discuss the things I care about. I see it as my duty - all of ours as human beings - to share knowledge, reasoning, perspectives. For all of our sakes. So we can all walk away with a better understanding of the world and of our fellow humans. By posting shit like the above quote, you discourage such discourse and thereby poison all of this. And you dare talk about villainy.

And what's so bad about that exactly?

I quickly discover that Descent has exactly the same dice problem as most other dice games. It can really, really fuck you over. I had a match recently where the overlord's biggest monster walked up to me and kept knocking me out every turn with 7 hp attacks. Meanwhile, my ally was standing behind said monster trying to stun it with his mace. Which missed four turns in a row. This is a very extreme example though and most games (especially with larger number of heroes) even out quickly.

I can't blame people who take that as an open invitation to pirate the game. I am not going to do so myself, but I do feel like when you make piracy the "best" option for the consumer, you're kind of asking for it.

Sooo after the latest two beta stress tests I am much more impressed by the PvP side than I was earlier. Don't play the hot join matches for like 20 people. Do 5v5 tournament matchmaking instead. Much better; everyone actually tries, no to few leavers, and less players make it less about running around in a huge group smashing everyone's face.

Weird. I'm not sure how ordering stuff online is in the US, but in Sweden I could find 20-30 web-based shops that are not participating in this, willing to send me the game so that I have it on release day.

Well, it's one of the absolutely most common complaint I see about the game from the people who bought it - they would like to play co-op but can not because the difficulty spikes too much. I ran into the problem myself and its a big part of why I stopped playing. Do note the quote is not saying "most want to play coop, but play solo", it is saying "most who want to play coop play solo." The original quote does not take a stance on whether most of the players would prefer to play solo or co-op at all. You remove a couple of words and suddenly we have a sentence that's much easier to fit into an attention-grabbing headline.

You shouldn't read RPS. They are just as bad as Kotaku at this point. What Blizzard are saying, is that most people who would prefer to play co-op play Solo instead because the scaling on the monsters when you add more players is way too strong. This has been a very common complaint.

Buy from a non-participating retailer; I'm sure you can find one.

If you buy one of the editions without DLC you are hardly supporting the practice. If nobody bought the more expensive versions, they'd stop doing this stuff.