alanschu

Yeah, Aircraft Carriers became the new Queens of the Sea. Force Projection of several hundred kilometers rather than much closer, and well....planes are cheaper to replace. Losing carriers is devastating though, as Midway demonstrated. 1000 lb bombs on vulnerable unprepared aircraft carrier decks can be quite devastating apparently haha. The US was smart with their modern BBs. They saw the advantage of the aircraft carrier, and made their Battleships have ridiculous amounts of Anti-Aircraft artillery, as well as effectual dual purpose cannons. Getting into bombing/torpedo range of the Yamato is meh.....getting there on an Iowa is scary, because there is just so much saturation of fire! Keeping in mind of course that there is also a picket of escort ships, likely other smaller capital ships, in addition to a likely CV in the area, with its own heavy air defenses. I think there were even some cruiser variatons that were specifically AA cruiisers, that only had the dual purpose artillery rather than a main battery, just to maximize saturation. CLAA I think.

Not to take toooo much away from it. Her speed was her greatest asset at the time though, as well as her armor (which is why she seemed unsinkable, even if the ship was pretty much a write off due to damage to the superstructure). The Hood was an "older" ship with refits and a face of the british navy, so losing it was a blow to the RN. But at the same time, if you can score a hit that can hit an ammo magazine that splits a ship in two, that's some pretty fortunate luck. Bismarck did make things unpleasant on PoW though. I remember reading an analysis between the flagship battleships for every nation here: http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm The Iowa seems pretty darn impressive! Powerful armaments, and the ability to make them hit with accuracy during even evasive manouvers! If you could get some better FC on the Bismarck, she'd still be pretty scary! But the Iowas were Carrier escort BBs, so they were hella fast too. I love the Iowas haha. The Yamato is cool for **** envy reasons, but it sounds like even the 18" guns were outclassed by the Iowa's 16" batteries. The link admits that Yamato and Bismarck are unfairly compared, since they wouldn't have received as many (or any) late war refits.

The Bismarck is vastly overrated as a battleship, because people recognize that the Brits focused so much on taking it out. By 1941, the submarine warfare was already annoying the crap out of the United Kingdom. However, to combat submarines, destroyer escort, frigate, and corvette production was ramped up (i.e. really small ships), with ASW equipment. The big thing about the Bismarck, is it could safely demolish entire convoys, and their escorts, which would be devastating to the fleets. The strength of the convoy system is that it kept ships together (and therefore harder to find ships), and you could protect them easier with escorts since they'd share them. However, if a big ship of death with 16" guns that outrange any escort by several orders of magnitude, well...then bad news! Submarines would take out the odd ship in a convoy. A fast battleship would annihilate the convoy, and speed away before the heavy artillery could counterattack, Then they'd have to ramp up escorts with capital ships, which is a waste of resources. With the Bismarck's speed, it could zip in, fire off a few rounds, and dart away. Plus, there is an added detriment to having capital ships as escorts to convoys. Transport ships are not fast, and the last thing the British Admiralty is going to want to do is provide slow moving capital ships as juicy targets to the submarine fleets. That's a target of opportunity that is going to get a full salvo of torpedoes fired at it. Bismarck had some creative armor, which made it really hard to sink, and it did score a great hit on Hood to send it down, but attributes wise battleship to battleship, it didn't have a huge advantage over other battleships, and some (like the Iowa class to come later) significantly outclass it.

Well part of the reason for naval awesomeness of Britain was the sheer size of its navy. Even the Germans recognized this as the lead up to Jutland demonstrated, with the Germans trying to cutoff parts of the British Grand Fleet. I would label it a tactical win for the Germans as they sunk more ships and killed more people, but a strategic defeat, since their presence in the North Sea was heavily compromised. It lead to a shift towards submarine warfare.

Agreed, but certainly still impressive for the time though.

Spare me the brownnosing, we all know about the atrocities they caused in Africa and India. I agree on the Navy though, that was traditionally the best, until they got scared of the Germans competing with them in early 20th century....Ya know how that ended. Jutland?

I had that problem and was about to complain a few days ago, but then it went away so I said meh.

Yeah, it could be compared to that without too much difficulty. And you're a bank robber.

I don't know what Europe is like, but from what little I know, it sounds like console piracy is more common outside of the US (especially asia)

I sure as **** don't feel like a criminal for doing it. Not any more than walking into a bank and having security cameras watching me. I'm sure you'd be OK with a little anal probing every time you got on a plane too. But some of us don't like that stuff and think it's the pirates who should be jumping through hoops, not us paying customers. These DRM schemes are hitting the wrong end of the spectrum. As I've said earlier in the thread, a reward system is much more effective than a system based on punishment. Basic psychology, but something publishers seem to be missing. Because this is totally like anal probing. Verifying my copy of Bioshock is so transparent I didn't even realize it did it before someone told me...just the same as if I were playing a game specifically online. So as for jumping through hoops, I don't really buy it. I suppose I'll understand if people have concerns about the limited installs, because it seems all anyone does on this forum is play old games, but verifying a CD Key (even for a single player game), I'm not really going to buy it. Unless people hold up the same standards for the multiplayer games that do the same thing too.

From what i understand, the PC install base is abysmal in the US, compared to Europe at least. Look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R., selling 1.6 million within the PAL area, and this is without any anti-piracy mumbo-jumbo. Console players are a stronger segment of consumers when it comes to consuming power, but what has that to do with anti-piracy again? Not much. I just mentioned it since you were talking about installed bases as a preface to your talks about the seeds that you brought up yourself.

The unfortunate thing is concluding the PC Gaming user base is the same (or even representative) of the "much, much larger install base" that PCs in general have. Given the sales data from Electronic Arts (direct from University liaison John Buchanan), PC sale revenues are relatively static, with consoles having significantly higher peaks that only drop due to new consoles coming out, which simply results in a different peak. According to this talk (a recruitment drive by Electronic Arts at my University - University of Alberta), game sales for consoles absolutely destroyed PC game sales (he mentioned this in response to a question for which platforms will be developed for). I would guess (since that's all I can really do) that the "installed base" of PC Gamers is actually smaller than the 19 million XBOX 360 users. (It also looks like PC pirates are bigger leechers).

Any multiplayer game can be satisfied with CD-Key checks, because in that case a server goes and treats you like a criminal by ensuring that you actually bought the game and thus have a valid CD Key. Sure, if you really want you can WoW on a pirate server, which is not really the experience that many people are looking for. Same goes with things like Diablo II and Starcraft. Games with heavy duty MP components.

I sure as **** don't feel like a criminal for doing it. Not any more than walking into a bank and having security cameras watching me.

Exactly. I would rather save my money for a product that does not assume I am a criminal because I bought a legitimate copy of the game. This argument always brings a smile to my face.

Wrath of the Lich King.

I was talking with my friend and he agreed with my description that the Red Wings look like the Terminator of the NHL. Ruthlessly efficient!

I think the "OMG they are treating me like a criminal" element is remarkably overplayed. People out there are so sensitive that they actually feel like a criminal over this stuff?

Irrelevant. If you know it is going to access the internet, then you are giving it the same permission to be online, the same way you do with your web browser. It's not like they are secretly transmitting data. They are being quite up front about it actually. If you were genuinely concerned about stuff being transmitted over the internet without your permission (your reason for your boycott), then you shouldn't even log onto the internet.

Why? When I open up the browser I am giving permission for my computer to go online. To share information through uploading and downloading. When I am no longer making use of the Internet with my varied programs I physically disconnect from the Internet. I shouldn't have to be connected to the Internet to play a single player game, period. When you load up a computer game that needs you to authenticate periodically online, then you're giving it permission to go online through the uploading and downloading of information. When you are done playing the game, the internet connection is closed (it's probably actually closed before you actually load the game, but let's just assume worst case scenario here). If you're leery about the game because of "information from [your] comptuer is getting sent elsewhere without [your] express permission and not knowing exactly what information is being sent" then you should probably never go online.

No argument from me on its daftness. My point though is that if you ask somebody to change their behavior and they do, but only part way, you are more likely to get get additional change if you reward them for the initial change rather than simply tell them it wasn't enough and they need to do more. Yay operant conditioning!

YAY ME! What Bioware changed is a step in the right direction but a I'm still leery when information from my comptuer is getting sent elsewhere without my express permission and not knowing exactly what information is being sent. You shouldn't be online period then.

You you are probably correct. I am not sure if it's significant or not, and I would wager it is less so. It was just a viewpoint I hadn't thought of before. However, it could be a piss off if people try a poorly cracked version that ends up being buggy, pirates share those experiences, and people decide not to buy any version based on that information.

I wonder if it's possible for them to deactivate the check after a certain amount of time, to prevent this from being an issue. Though I guess that would still make fresh installs a problem.