Deadly_Nightshade

Then you must have enjoyed it!

Well congrats, although I'll miss reading about your exploits.

Reverse pickpocketing sometimes works, as does using third-party mods.

No, but eating a sandwich is not equal to marrying a sandwich – the latter is an actual contract between two persons while the former is the act of eating.

Not the one I played.

I was pointing out why the cases you addressed were different from homosexual marriage - different enough that the latter would have no effect on the legality of the former.

Actually, you should not be allowed to marry, say, an animal or an inanimate object as neither of those things could give their consent and thus it could be considered a form of cruelty and abuse – well, in the case of the animal, I am not so sure about the turkey sandwich.

No, it's not. It might be an "ok" game, it might even be a "good" game, but it is not an excellent game by any stretch of the imagination.

That's debatable. Something that, at best, is legally dubious. See the above comments. EDIT: But let's not get into that here.

Why? It really wasn't.

Angel of Darkness wasn't that bad...

Most likely it's pressure from above - id est if you write a good review we'll get more ads and thus more monies for you and me.

Seeing as the proponents of Massively Multiplayer Online games have been making their case without many challenges, here are some of my thoughts on some of the issues that have been raised throughout the thread and, while I must concede that some of the points brought up by the supporters are, in theory, valid, there are also some weaknesses that have been glossed over. Firstly, I agree that companies are primarily in business to make money – something that a monthly-fee system is designed to accomplish. While this makes sense fanatically, successful MMOs such as World of Warcraft are, presumably –and it is a fairly safe presumption although I do not have the exact numbers to back this conclusion (1) -, making much, much more than is being invested in maintenance and updates, it is not clear that a subscription-based pay-to-play method is necessary for the developers and publishers to succeed. For instance, Guild Wars, a MMO (2), –although some dispute this, I would say that Guild Wars qualifies as a Massively Multiplayer Online game despite its use of instancing (3)-, do not charge a monthly fee and, instead, only require a fee when a players buys the main game, one of the newer campaigns –stand-alone products in their own right that can function independently of the original-, or the expansion pack. This type of financial planning mirrors that of a young, pre-WoW Blizzard, something that might be explained by the fact that the founders of ArenaNet were ex-Blizzard employees who had helped develop Battle.net, and, at least to me, seems more appealing than the more common “pay-to-play” business module used by many of their competitors. Even though they offer free on-line play ArenaNet have effectively turned a substantial profit through the use of expansions and other services –id est extra character slots for those who wish to run more but do not wish to delete one of their allotted slots (there are normally five-six of these although this depends on the package you bought, for example the Game of the Year edition and Platinum editions have more than the normal editions)- both features that Blizzard has also been using to extract money from World of Warcraft players in edition to their monthly stipend. If the fees are really necessary, as some people claim it is, -and it might very well be in the beginning, before your products are on the top of nearly every best-selling games lists- why is Guild Wars and other such games not going under? You can claim that they do not offer the same services but the truth is that the two games are not as different as many people would like to think – and, yes, that includes the use of instancing although I will address this point later. Now, to those who claim that Massively Multiplayer Online games help them save money –and this idea has been posted elsewhere on the internets so I am not just talking about the Obsidian Forums when I say that (4)- I have to point out that this is a subjective fact that would not be true in all cases – in fact, I am sure it would not be true in my case, something as I proved after my brief stint with the alleged “Word of Warcrack.” Because I found it unenjoyable I did not play it, even though I knew that I only one month of play-time and had leveled my characters quite a bit, and instead bought a few more games – games that I could play at any time, be it now or years from now. For the amount of enjoyment provided I would rather spend money on something that I know I will enjoy and, while it might not provide the best value-per-dollar the first time you go through it, can be picked up at any point in the future without having to pay extra fees or re-enable a cancelled subscription. Speaking from experience I can say that I found Warcraft rather dull, the only thing that even drove me to invest any time in it at all was the fact that I had said that I would run some instances with a few friends so that one of them could take advantage of the triple-experience-point bonus given to those who “recruit” another player, although I will admit that some would consider me biased against it from before I actually played the game. Guild Wars also lacks super-engaging combat and quests but, for the most part, is on par with, or, in some cases, above, World of Warcraft in these respects. Sure, you can have more players at a time in WoW but I never saw these amounts outside of major hubs (id est cities) or in battlegrounds – both of those are things that free MMOs, in particular Guild Wars as that is the game that is generating most of the comparisons, are known to provide. That said, the times when there was a large group of people was no favorable either for I found them, for the most part, annoying and bothersome. Maybe it is just me, but I would rather pay fifteen-dollars-a-month for a dedicated sever running a good role-playing game than pay the same amount for a glorified grind-fest and chatroom. The MMO experience was lacking and, frankly, not worth the price Blizzard and others are asking. (1) Two of the articles I consulted while trying to figure out how much Blizzard was making off WoW: http://www.wow.com/2008/01/24/how-much-mon...illion-subscri/ http://kotaku.com/5050300/how-much-has-wow...zard-since-2004 (2) A list of awards given to Guild Wars, including many that refer to it as either a MMO or MMORPG: http://www.guildwars.com/events/press/awards/ (3) I feel it is only right to say that ArenaNet says that “we [ArenaNet] prefer to call it [Guild Wars] a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game)” although they willing admit that “Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs.” Both of these statements were taken from the Guild Wars Frequently Asked Questions page, something that can be found here: http://www.guildwars.com/products/guildwar...res/default.php (4) Here are two articles that address the issue: http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pl...ve-money-524919 http://www.wisebread.com/could-you-save-mo...-addictive-game

Don't you mean WHO you did?

Only if that person had no knowledge of “social engineering” because it was fairly obvious that that is what was going on.

I disagree, the way they put it together indicates they do think it is just more than "something that was free" - something that is supported by the fact that they got Chris Avellone to write a new introduction and some new material. In your 'words', "HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

For now, just wait until the first major update.

Well, I think that I'll join Aristes and Groth and play The Witcher again - that is until I get my copy of Mirror's Edge, then I'll be in that game. EDIT: Oh yeah, I'm also playing Fallout 2.