Blarghagh

I'm not saying there's a direct link, I'm saying in an industry with **** like that going on and the consumers actually supporting these hackers and crackers it's no wonder companies are getting increasingly draconian in their protection methods. I'll start caring about gamer DRM outcries when gamers start making sure they're no longer neccesary. It's about time gamers grew out of this self-entitlement phase and turned their attention on the ****ers who are ruining it for the rest of us. Hm, maybe. HL2's case I doubt it as it wasn't like he was in a scene group or something, if I recall. Not exactly how you seem to blame all gamers for pirates existing though, thus leaving them to get boned by any quirks or failings of a DRM scheme that the pirates themselves evade. But yeah, I can see us getting stuck with heavy handed DRM schemes in the future, as well, not much we can do to rub out warez groups Look, I'm not saying gamers as a whole are to blame for all piracy, but if gamers as a whole directed half as much energy against piracy as they do bitching about DRM then piracy would become the unpopular option and DRM would be much less neccesary. As it stands now piracy is pretty much condoned by the general gaming community. Hell, people are using DRM as an example to pirate games, which is of course completely backwards. Is that sarcasm? Please let it be sarcasm, because otherwise I'd have to think you're a complete tool. Playing games on your cellphone in order to protest PC DRM, bwahahahaha-aaah! Thanks mate, that was really the best joke I've ever heard. You're laughing, but cell phone and iPad games are becoming increasingly profitable whereas console and PC games are slowly but surely slowing down, comparatively. Of course, somewhere along the line these things are going to become the new handhelds and eventually technology will make it the choice place for AAA games. Then these games are going to pirated somehow, and there will be DRM again. So it's essentially the most short-sighted protest in gaming history.

Do you think this has anything to do with SC2 and/or the recent Diablo 3 infos? Doubt it. WoW crowd lives in it's own little world. I dont think it has anything to do with those games, more a "meh" reception to the Cataclysm expansion coupled with some unliked class mechanic changes made for PvP that negatively impact PvE and probably a bit of the burnout Kiro mentions. Not really, Cataclysm gave it a subscriber boost. Really, all that's really happened is that it settled down to pre-Cataclysm levels again. People are blowing this 900k subscribers thing way out of proportion. Cataclysm boosted it to 12 million so it's still a little above what it had during Wrath. It's just regular players who have finished with the Cataclysm content and are waiting for new content. I'm not saying there's a direct link, I'm saying in an industry with **** like that going on and the consumers actually supporting these hackers and crackers it's no wonder companies are getting increasingly draconian in their protection methods. I'll start caring about gamer DRM outcries when gamers start making sure they're no longer neccesary. It's about time gamers grew out of this self-entitlement phase and turned their attention on the ****ers who are ruining it for the rest of us.

No, not really. Blizzard lost a lot of faith with SC2. I actually think that may be part of why they removed the demo (playable offline) and came out with a starter set. They sold well at first (2 million+ copies) but retainability is going downhill faster then they originally thought. They are concerned about the expansion, and what will happen in five years time if their downhill trend continues. Their solution is to create another MMORPG type game(yes, I know some will say it's not, but the server side characters, and it's going to have massive numbers on a server...even if there are multiple games/server divisions in that one server, and a pay model), Diablo 3, but with a payscale via the AHRMT (face it, that's the REAL reason they want everyone to play online and no cheaters, he's right, it's not really the piracy so much as trying to create an MMORPG type money model off Diablo 3 that's different then the typical Money Model found in something like WC3). I think this is losing the faith that Blizzard built up over years. I know if what he says really does occur with Diablo 3, I'll probably trust the guys making Torchlight 2 MUCH more than Blizzard. In fact, I'd probably be more likely to pay for a new MMORPG from those guys than any new Blizzard MMORPG. It's hard to blow two decades of hard trust, but I think Blizzard is effectively destroying the image they had of a Gamer's perfect game company into just another one of the guys type company...nothing special or outstanding about them other than they just want to yank your cash any way they can...just like everyone else. Edit: What I'm really wondering is if the Console version, if they come out with it, is going to have that same cloud model for characters or not. It will either fail spectacularly if they do that, or create a new model for Consoles that will change the market so that even consoles will no longer be safe from this entire online always authentication and play model that hit the PC market. It drove everyone to consoles already...I wonder what will happen if it get's to Consoles, where the video game market will go then? You know, I see posts like this on MMO-Champion all the time. "Blizzard ****ed up, that's why they're losing subscribers", but I don't buy this. Blizzard is the only AAA company with the dedication to make their game fun for every player even after the game came out and they've already gotten their money out of it. So I spent a long time thinking about this, and I realized why Blizzard is losing people. And now that I've figured it out, it seems so simple. Blizzard is losing people because their community has gone to ****. A casual player will ask a regular question in WoW chat, and someone will tell him to go **** his mother's balls, n00b. Trying to play SCII and winning for the first time ever through sheer luck? Well, the player will accuse you of and report you for hacking. You go on battle.net to discuss a feature, you will get a what can only be described as a ****storm. You attack a mob that you didn't see someone else was targeting? This guy will harass and grief you until the game is no longer fun. Couple that with nostalgia, some fable in which Blizzard games have ever had amazing storytelling, and this odd belief that Blizzard will always do what you want because unlike 99% of game developers they have occassionally been known to take fan opinion into account*, that's a recipe for disappointment. This is not Blizzard's fault. And yanking money? Have you been forced to pay for something? Is the sheer availability some sort of hypno-toad advertisement that brainwashes you into forking over your cash? *Which led to disaster almost every time because their fanbase consists mostly out of morons. As for DRM, here's an interesting article. I'm not very good at math, but I guess that's means if you take all those copies of StarCraft 2 over there, around 40% of them are pirated. Now, I'm not dumb enough to think that's all lost sales, but in a number like 2.3 Million, that's got to be a significant amount. And StarCraft 2 already had the online authentication DRM method. It obviously didn't work. What is a company supposed to do? Lots of gamers think they have to let **** like this just slide so they can keep pleasing all their paying customers, in this case the rare ones that don't have a proper internet connection. I guess because letting is slide worked for Valve or something? Oh wait, no it didn't, they got their source code stolen by some of these self entitled douchebags. I mean, the fact that I just found an article titled "the worst **** moves pulled on developers by gamers" when searching for confirmation on that source code thing pretty much shows what kind of people they're up against.

Yeah, Blizzard fans have always been like this. I think the WoW forums aren't even as bad as the WCIII community was after Frozen Throne apparently "broke the game" according to all the whiners.

Let's stop this before it turns into a bitch fight, guys. No need to go verbally slappy-slappy at each other like toddlers who can't share the same freaking toy.

I swear that's not an accident, you must have planned that, it comes out too convenient for it to be an actual mistake.

I'm current in the "avoiding things because they've piled up so big I can't face them" part of my self-loathing to trying to be a responsible adult cycle.

No but professional football is a job done for money. A game shouldn't be the first, and you ain't gonna see the second unless you're in Korea. I fixed it to be more accurate.

Yeah, I've never won a match of SCII. I enjoy watching it as an e-sport more than I enjoy playing it. I'm one of the few people who really enjoyed the campaign, but I can definitely see why most people wouldn't. It's very campy and over the top and makes no sense, I enjoy it very much in the way of a B-movie. I know most people expected something more. I didn't.

Okay, I have some issues with this plan myself, but I don't think it's a make or break issue. Honestly, I'll play a demo or trial version, and if the game is fun enough, these things will be soon forgotten. I'm also interested in seeing how this business model goes, so I hope they don't listen to kneejerkers and keep it.

If you've done enough quests they should approach you instead of you busting in there. If they haven't, you've probably hit a bug. as far as I've heard, it's a pretty common bug too. Hope someone here can fix it.

So, ex-Smiths singer Morrissey said it's a tragedy, but it's nothing compared to what goes on every day at MacDonalds and KFC's all over the world. I just- I don't- WHAT?

Now my post sticks out like a sore thumb. Well, I suppose dressing up like Edward Cullen could be interpreted as an insult.

Unless someone else has the same opinion. What I'm trying to say here is he hates everything.

Now now guys, play nice. As if Jazz needs more exposure, though. What we really need is more Anti-folk like The Mouldy Peaches. + 20 Douchebag + 1 Hipster Cred - 9999999999 Cred of All Other Types

Amy Whinehouse. Or Winehouse. I have no idea who this is.

Who died?

Potter. Pretty much par for the course. Entertaining, felt a bit truncated, and Voldemort is still completely unthreatening.

Okay, so all I know about the Codex is a horrible first impression (the first thing I saw when I looked over there was some abhorrent post advocating mandatory euthanasia for handicapped people) and the things I hear here (and this place is not unbiased), so I recognize that I may have jumped the gun. However, and I mean no offense with this, but this post strikes me as horrendously apologetic. The amount of arguments that essentially boil down to "sure, it's kind of true, BUT there are good things too!" is strikingly painful. Despite trying to convince that the Codex isn't as bad as people here say it is, most of this post actually just confirms it instead but just adds "well, it gets better if you get through the outer layer of crap and know the tricks." Again, I mean no offense, but you're not really accomplishing what you say you want to. It's not very inspiring to give the Codex as a second chance at all, quite the opposite really.

Are we in Soviet Russia?

I need to start getting up earlier. Whenever I sleep in, I can't bring myself to do anything. Stupid night jobs.

Roses are red. Other flowers have colors too. Yadda yadda yadda. I want to bone you.

I haven't finished it yet, and I can't say I effectively hate it, but I'm struggling with getting through the first book of His Dark Materials. Lyra is just such a self-absorbed brat and I really don't care much what happens to her.

Mogworld by Yahtzee Croshaw. Much better than I thought it would be. I expected it to be full of jokes, but I'm really enjoying the story.