Jediphile

And how much is SecuROM going to care if people run into trouble with their games three years from now? How many people will it matter to, if someone wants to play Mass Effect on the pc and cannot three years after the game's release? Let me guess, those people will also be too few to matter, right? I must confess that I find your position that this is a non-issue because it matters to few people disturbing. How many gamers do things like this have to be a problem for before it can be counted a legitimate problem in your eyes? Because society in general mostly works around the idea that it just takes one person getting screwed before it's a problem, and personally I tend to agree with that position. Besides, this surveillance is a problem in principle. I'll concede the point that it is probably not a huge problem in practical terms. But it can and will be one for some, and that is enough to my eyes. And even if it isn't, it's still distasteful that customers are treated like suspects as a matter of course. People shouldn't have to accept that companies or governments or whomever trample all over their privacy just because to protect their own interests. What firms like SecuROM is basically doing is allowing only two classifications for gamers - pirates and potential pirates. Is it wrong of the customers to say they don't like being profiled as either? Also, calling the naysayers "mob" and "rabble" is pretty low. I'm not going to argue that Bioware and similar companies don't have understandable concerns about piracy, but if they meet their potential customers with this level of suspicion and distrust, is it really so strange if the customers being to feel the same way and be suspicious of their motives? Distrust breeds distrust, and the customers did not start it in this case. So if Bioware is met with mistrust and suspcion here, they're really only reaping what they sowed.

Incorrect and confirmed as such by Lucasarts. http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/852/852342p1.html

Why not? If winning is eliminating ALL piracy, yeah, they cannot win, but I think they'd be satisfied with cutting down on 'casual' piracy. Except it won't. The pirates will simply remove the code in question, meaning that the pirates will keep playing, while some potential customers, like myself, feel that Bioware is meeting us with suspicion and screwing us over by treating us like criminals. Hence we won't buy the game. Net effect: Piracy is unchanged, while Mass Effect pc sales suffer. The problem is that as a customer, I'm being met with suspicion. I have to prove that I'm not a pirate, and I have to repeat doing so consistantly. And there is, of course, a notable difference between the examples you cite and what Bioware wants to do in that all your examples take place in public. Gaming, however, takes place in your private home. Now, obviously people will argue that it's only people who have something to hide who argue against this sort of thing. It's essentially the "Bush doctrine" of "you're either with us or with the evildoers", who are pirates in this case. Then the rationale comes that if you dislike this sort of thing, then it's because you know you're doing something that's wrong. Just the same argument as used against people, when they argue against surveillance by cameras and what not, which doesn't work anyway btw - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1 I saw a guy give the perfect response to that once, however. Someone said to him that he only resisted being surveilled, because he knew he was doing somthing wrong. The guy responded by asking the person who questioned him, if he had curtains in his bedroom. When the other guy had to reply that he did, he asked if there was something he was hiding and didn't want to find out about. It's the perfect way to put it. It's as if the idea of privacy is being slowly undermined these years, as if we're no longer allowed to have a sense of privacy. Everybody is suddenly to be allowed to have access to EVERYTHING about us. The government needs to know that we're not planning terrorist acts or whatever. The gaming companies need to know we don't pirate their games. RIAA and MPAA need to know that we don't download music or movies, etc. It just goes on and on. It's sickening. And when you resist, you're stigmatised because you dare to defend your right to privacy and question the right of the government and the companies to bulldozer all over your rights. Well, I'd have liked the opportunity try Mass Effect on my pc, but I won't be, since I absolutely refuse to pay for a product that spies on me and installs spyware on my system!!

And they wouldn't do it because deforestation is the mark of the dark side

Vin Diesel as Malak.

WTF? Bad tags, it should have been this: Kotor 3 in development Oh no, not this again. Honestly, if I had a penny for every time someone claimed KotOR3 is in development...

Well, I sort of like him as a character. I mean, he's a manipulative villain who sacrifices others as a matter of course, but then you could say that of Kreia and HK-47 as well. I like his creepy HAL-2000 impersonation and the voice-acting is excellent. He just as has the same problem that T3 did in the first game - he's useless as a partymember. But I like his story and the way you can use him in a few places.

BLASPHEMY! *throws stone*

The four of us? Probably not. However, the question is whether there is reason to think your concerns on the matter are unique to us among potential customers in general. Personally, I don't see why these concerns would not apply just as well to most other potential customers as they do to us, in which case Bioware could find Mass Effect selling very poorly on the pc... And there is a market for games on the pc.

I agree with Tigranes - you don't need to play KotOR1 first. While I played them in order, there are people on these boards who did not and enjoyed TSL (=KotOR2) just as much as I did. I do recommend playing KotOR1 first, however, if you want the full experience, since it will give you a bit more insight and perspective on certain things in the sequel. Besides, playing KotOR1 first will mean that TSLRP is probably done by the time you're finished and get to TSL. It's true that LucasArts pushed the deadline to make Obsidian finish TSL faster, and IMHO the game suffers for it. There is a great deal of cut content, and some areas of the game are badly designed and bugfilled as a result. It's still playable, though, and I find the story far more interesting. TSLRP (The Sith Lords Restoration Project - http://team-gizka.org/ ) is a project where a group of modders are working to restore the content that Obsidian cut out of the game, and it seems to be nearing completion. The only other mod I consider noteworthy is Dstoney's attempt to restore the cut planet M4-78, which TSLRP will not restore, because Obsidian never finished planning it. TSLRP will restore only stuff that Obsidian intended to be in the game. Since planning was never finished on M4-78, we can't know what Obsidian intended with it, and so Dstoney's mod - http://knightsoftheoldrepublic.filefront.com/file/M478;89207 - is based on stuff he thinks should have been in there. Now, the games are old, yes, and were both written primarily for Windows XP (on the pc, I mean). However, I've run them both on Windows Vista without particular trouble so far, at least not more than the occassional crash or glitch I experienced on XP. Other people have reported problems on Vista, however, so you might want to check some of the topics on that out.

Sorry. But in fact you've now become an example of exactly why this approach is a problem. You wanted to buy the game, and now you're reconsidering. I might have considered buying it, but knowing the level of authentication Bioware will put me through and the level of distrust and suspicion that naturally comes with it, I'm very unlikely to buy and play it now. Between the two of us, that's probably at least one lost sale already. And we're the potentially paying customers. The issue will not matter to the pirates, who will find a way around the authentication anyway. And while I suspect you and I will not get a pirated copy in order to play, choosing instead not to play at all, you can imagine people out there who feel the same way, but who want to play Mass Effect anyway and so get an illegal copy. Hence, sales are lost to piracy. Not really because the pirates are evil, but more because Bioware's measures to prevent piracy drive more people to it, thereby making their claim of pirated copies of their games a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alas...

So because it affects few people it means it doesn't matter? Or let me put it another way, how many people does this have to be an issue for before the companies should care about their customers? 500? 10.000? Besides, who are they to basically tell me how often I can reformat my hard drive? If I want to reformat it 20 times over a year for whatever reason, then isn't that my right to do without being stigmatised as a potential pirate and denied the use of software I paid for?

28 non-feature bugs remaining, which means 28 bugs before version 1.01c (= public release). http://team-gizka.org/wip.html

In the unmodded game, Bao-Dur cannot wear robes because of his arm, but it was intended that you should be able to sacrifice a robe that only he could then wear, except the feature was never implemented... Not sure where I read that, though. However, there is one piece of clothing in the unmodded game that Bao-Dur can use. It's the miner's uniform the exile finds at the beginning of the game. It's crap, but it can modified in-game, which is still better than regular clothes. I don't know... It seems to me they intentionally avoided letting Mira be a romantic interest, and I don't think it's right for Bao-Dur either even for a female Exile, due to the role he plays in the story as the old "war buddy" who is the only one who can sympathize with the exile's problem. A romance would somehow be in the way of that... Yeah, I know - Blasphemy! Blasphe-you...

There may yet be a pc version, as there soon will be for Mass Effect. We don't know, though. There might not be one, in which case I'll never play the game.

I fail to see what is so terrible about looking at the claim that pc games (as of today) have more piracy than console games in a broader historical context. However, since you can apparently find only fault with anything I say here, I shall simply let the matter go, as any other response seems destined to be counterproductive.

ok now you don't know that. this is star wars the selkath might emit powerful pheramones that make them smell like Chocolate chip cookies for all you can prove, it isn't like your computer has smell-o-vision Actually, The Architect's computer system is renowned for its multi-senses applications, which means... well, it stinks...

Which I guess is the point I was trying to get to, yes.

I caught that too. All along the watchtower, indeed. Also notice that none of the other 4 heard the music either after they left the nebula. Actually, she said, "Everything was so clear when I first got back. I mean, if I could just focus, then I know I could find that sound again." Even so, it does point to a connection to the use of "All Along the Watchtower" than ended season 3, yes. However, they did obscure it by using the word "sound" instead of "music".

I know. That is why I was clarifying how you should focus your discussion. A comment about the trends of the video game industry in general in a thread is misleading in a thread about why a PC Exclusive developer has reconsidered that stance. Yes, I need you to define how I'm to focus my approach to the discussion Seriously, just because you see it differently does not mean I have to adhere to your approach to the discussion. And you'll please forgive me if I also reserve my right to disagree with it. No. But please forgive me for thinking gaming history is relevant to a discussion of this sort. Did you even read what I actually wrote? I didn't say there was little piracy in the 80s, just that for the pc it was comparatible less than other platforms that were more widespread at the time. Which brings me to something else: That is just not true. That depends a lot on your point of reference. In the 80s the pc was use far less as a gaming machine next to many other personal computers out there at the time. Does 1000 pirated games constitues "much piracy"? Does 10.000? In that case, then sure, there was piracy on the pc. Perhaps even a lot depending on where you put down the number for what constitues "much piracy". However, it was far more widespread on other personal computers because the pc was not the most viable gaming platform for most people at the time. Oh, and note Bioware's lastest anti-piracy pc approach: http://pc.ign.com/articles/871/871900p1.html Will it work to stop piracy? No. Why? Because the pirates will just remove the code checking for updates. End result: Pirates end up with a product less troublesome than paying gamers like me. Whether I'll play Mass Effect is another question, though. I've been mildly interested, but I've had to wait for a long time, and I neither like being dictated to by Bioware nor letting them take control of my system to share information without my consent.

[quote name='H

O RLY http://web.telia.com/~u42704646/Kotor/

There is a big difference, though, in that the Selkath are very arrogant about it, while the Ithorians are very much aware of their own shortcomings in the area. The ithorians come to the exile in TSL precisely because they know Czerka will manipulate and trick them in ways their nature won't let them anticipate. The Selkath, however, are arrogant enough to believe that they can impose their rules over both the Republic and the Sith without being manipulated and tricked themselves because they know better than both. And while I respect the desire for peace, their idea that peace will simply fall out of the sky by itself if they just hope for it is so annoying they almost deserve having Malak bombard the planet - if you want peace, then you fight for it, instead of sitting around being all passive and hope for the best. Besides, the Selkaths' approach was highly hypocritical - on the one hand they demanded no confrontations between the Republic and the Sith, yet they were perfectly willing to let the Sith insult the Republic at every opportunity. That's a recipe for disaster, since tensions will build until something gives. And of course both sides secretly broke the rules with impunity, while the Selkath just remained blissfully ignorant. Sheesh...

I disagree. I think Baltar left him the paper. Six told him there were 12 models, and being on the run with the fleet, this is somethign he would have wanted Adama to know, except not where he knew this from, since it would raise questions that could expose him as the traitor who compromised Caprica's security. So he simply left an anonymous note in Adama's quarters instead. Just my theory, though.

Indeed. Actually, one of those is in the ROTS dvd as a deleted scene. And once TFU presumably finally kills her off (which is my suspicion and not a fact), I'm looking forward to the now inevitable "The Many Deaths of Shaak Ti" article EDIT: In fact, Shaak Ti is destined to be the Kenny of Star Wars... Jedi 1: "OMG - They killed Shaak Ti!?!" Jedi 2: "Those Sithspawn!!!!"