SteveThaiBinh

That's very important. Gamers should be discouraged from reformatting and reinstalling in case this results in their computers being less buggy and more stable and all those hardworking EA tech support people lose their jobs.

Talk is cheap. They should announce before the game is released that the installation/activation limit will be dropped after two years. That would be okay. If we're counting each computer as a completely new processor, motherboard and hard drive, I've played my Quest for Glory V on about six completely different computers over the years. If we're counting each change of component such as graphics card or motherboard as a new computer in its own right, that number shoots up a fair bit. Whether you set the limit at 3, 5 or 10 computers, I will hit it in the end because I play old games, and I think I'm entitled to do that even if EA doesn't approve.

The Cormyr module for NWN was pretty good, but I'd rather follow MotB's footsteps and head off east or south and away from the Sword Coast. It would be hard to justify calling it BG3, perhaps? I do hope they continue making DnD-based games, so that there's an alternative to the Oblivion/Fallout player-skill action model.

It lacks cuteness. I'm afraid Spore minus cuteness doesn't work. Do the guns works?

Is anything around here real? I mean really?

From the other thread: If this is, as you seem so sure, entirely a government failure, then surely it's right that the taxpayer should pick up the tab. After all, they, the voters, put these politicians into power and failed to punish them for their mistakes. I hope that helps you feel better about this deal, taks. I personally find it marvellous that when the most deregulated laissez-faire right-wing financial system in the world goes belly-up, and the rest of the world doesn't, somehow that's because the United States isn't deregulated, laissez-faire or right-wing enough. And conspiracies? Socialist takeover? I certainly hope you're not about to blame the liberal European secular elite, because we're too busy faking global warming to take down the banks.

The notion that DRM is encouraging piracy has reached the mainstream British media, I'm happy to report: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/tom_hoggins/b...ttle_of_the_drm

ShadowPaladin was by far the most prolific poster when I first joined the forums, and a pretty interesting one too. What happened to him?

Is it the developer who organises these things? I always thought it was up to the publisher. If I were a publisher, I think I would want to have the final say in what publicity events happen, whether I owned the IP or not.

That's a valid point. There are people over here saying this is all a failure of capitalism - no-one's saying it's a failure of democracy. So is this a failing of the American style of democracy, of too many checks and balances and too much inbuilt inertia?

The question is whether to aspire to a 'pure' unfettered capitalism, believing that is achievable, or to accept that regulation is unavoidable and try to make it work as best we can.

*burns with envy* I can't remember the first game I got for my Commodore64, but among the first were Colossal Cave, Adventure Quest and Dungeon Quest, all text adventures or 'interactive fiction'. I also remember The Mystery of Silver Mountain, which you had to type in in BASIC. Silicon Dreams had flame-throwing weedibots. And of course Eureka!, five adventures, none of which I ever managed to finish because it had no save-game facility. 250K of pure mystery! Once I got a PC, it was Sierra adventures all the way. King's Quest II was probably my favourite at the time, though I rate the Quest for Glory games higher now. My first RPG was Ultima 6, and Ultima 7 remains the only time I have ever bought a computer specifically so I could play one particular game.

I've removed it. I guess if you didn't follow the LHC thing, it would be confusing. The UK is in trouble, partly because the US is in trouble, but partly because we have adopted a similar high-risk high-growth low-regulation model of finance. There's no real problem with bad mortgages in the UK itself, but we're so closely tied in to the US financial system we can't avoid the effects of their problems. We nationalised a large bank last year and just narrowly avoided the collapse of another last week. I don't think the crisis itself affects most of the world, but if the financial crisis causes a recession in the US, that in turn will cause a global recession most likely.

I thought it would be a good idea to split the debate on the US presidential thread into two, and to have this one focus on the economic crisis in the US and UK (for the moment). A good point. I note however that French and German banks are not in trouble at the moment. Those countries have chosen more regulation and accepted inevitably lower growth as a result. In the past, British and US commentators have dismissed that as simply wrong, rather than a valid alternative. Perhaps we'll get a bit less of that in the future. Nevertheless, isn't it quite likely that over the very long term, the British/US approach generates more wealth?

The first thread was here. He's got nothing. Plus the media here is reporting that he had a negative effect on the talks in Washington, and helped scupper the deal. If the markets do collapse today or next week because there was no deal, this election will be over.

Closed for length.

There's a new official Storms of Zehir site.

While this may be true, it does put me in mind of the modern-day communists: Communist: We should nationalise the whole economy, and collectivise agriculture, and all work for the common good instead of selfish gain. Me: Yes, but they tried that in Russia (and elsewhere), and it was a disaster. Communist: Ah, but that wasn't 'pure' Communism, because of X, Y and Z, and pure Communism would definitely work and we should definitely give it another chance. Me: No. Anyway, fair or not, American-style capitalism has taken a massive reputation hit across the globe, and I look forward to seeing how this affects the dynamic between the World Bank and IMF and developing countries.

It does look like it. I suppose we'll know a bit more when next week's polls come out. So, who thinks McCain will turn up to the debate?

Grey Matter screenshots.

I was hoping modders would do this for the OC, and fill up some of those empty houses in Neverwinter. Don't know if it ever happened...

It's sad to see a man self-destruct, and I can only hope that the people who around him stop trying to ride his coattails to their 15 minutes of fame and help him come to terms with this and move on.

Upon request, I'm reopening this. Let's resume the substance of the discussion, not the tone, eh?

Locked for becoming unnecessarily unpleasant and threatening to get worse.

That would deal with one of my issues with the DRM, yes - issue a no-CD no-DRM patch two or three years after the game came out, though that doesn't deal with the issue that apparently Securom can't be uninstalled! I notice that the threat to break people's games for discussing DRM on EA's forums has been lifted. To be honest, it always looked like someone was exceeding their authority in saying what they did, and it was unlikely to be in line with EA policy or the EULA.