Spider

I spoke too soon, it seems. Checked it a bit more and while there was a cracked version released four days after release, the one didn't work unless you had a valid serial (I'm guessing not many pirates did). The first working one was the one released September 1st, ten days after the release. (from comments I've read, that could have been available a day or two earlier for people who knew were to look though)

Yeah. Four days to be exact. a crack was available the 25th of august and the game was released on the 21st. As far as I can tell though, the first crack was not perfect, and another was out first of september. Maybe that's where the Bioshock people got two weeks. Also, there is actually a very big difference between avoid being pirated and avoid being cracked. There are two ways for pirates to get their games. Cracks or clones. Clones are typically out faster. (I have no idea if there was a clone release for Bioshock though, but it seems like there wasn't which makes this point kind of moot in this case). Ironically, the Xbox version was available to pirates a week prior to release.

Since they were weird in my pdf reader, I edited them myself. On my end, they look fine. I've checked them in Photoshop Acrobat and Foxit Reader. So I hope they work for you. ANNEXE_I_Code_de_conduite1_2_edited.pdf ANNEXE_I_Code_de_conduite2_2_edited.pdf

Photoshop handles PDF:s just fine, actually. But since Cain already seems to have taken care of the problem, I guess there's no need for that anymore. (except they look very weird in my viewer, which by the way is Foxit Reader, that I find to be much better than Adobe's official one)

What Brad Wardell has to say is actually quite interesting. But it's much more interesting if you read his original post, rather than a snub of it on a random web site. The original post: http://forums.galciv2.com/303512

That'd still leave pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, meelee weaponry and unarmed. (Unless they want to throw in a sniper rifle, that'd of course require it's own separate skill. Or SMGs. But nevermind that.) I 'm thinking 5 combat skills is pushing it a bit, but that's just speculating.

Yeah, but there are only ten skills in the game and not all of them are related to combat. So some sort of grouping has to be made (considering you gave 9 examples of weapons in your previous post alone).

That's because Tutu causes spawns to maximize in the game. There's an add-on to fix this if one wants.

Yeah, it does this. I think it's when you click on a character instead of the portrait or something like that. If you do a Broadcast Command -> Hold your ground, that could help. Although it needs to be done with two characters, since the one giving the order the first time obviously won't be affected by it.

There is no doubt that PC games are pirated more than Console games. The question here is, of course, what effect that piracy has on sales. Ans as you've said, that is anyone's guess. An alternate explanation could be that since there is simply a bigger market for console games (that is expanding even) it makes more sense to focus resources there than the PC market. Which in turn leads to fewer quality releases on the PC, which leads to fewer games being sold. There is also the fact that games are getting more and more expensive to produce. Since prices aren't going up, this means more units needs to be shipped for each game. This means the customer base needs to be expanding at the same rate as the cost to produce. I'm not sure that it is. The console market, on the other hand, is expanding. So there's that. So the real question is, are the PC exclusive games of note (the hits) selling fewer copies today than they did, say, three years ago? If they are, then it seems likely that piracy is the cause. If they're selling roughly the same, it's not quite as clear cut. As far as lost sales go: Reflexive did some research on what impact DRM had on their game. It's a casual downloadable game so the numbers may not apply to AAA games, but it's the only study I know of and it's fairly interesting. According to Reflexive, 92% of all people who play their game have pirated it. That's a pretty staggering number, but not news. The interesting part is where they disclose the effectiveness from improving DRM. According to Reflexive, every 1000 copies they managed to keep away from the pirates results in 1 additional sale. Again, how relevant this is to this discussion I don't know. I just thought the numbers were interesting. Here is the article posted at Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350 and a follow-up clarifying certain things: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17408

I have no idea, I haven't played it (nor have I really read the review). But the reviewer should think so if he gives it that mark.

It really doesn't. It's an arbitrary scale and as such, the definitions of whoever makes the scale needs to be used. That definition (in this case) is: "A 10 doesn't mean a game is perfect -- it means a game is pushing boundaries, expanding a genre, and doing many things to a level so far above and beyond its competitors that they overshadows any flaws." Note the first few words.

No one is saying 10 is perfect. It's the highest grade achievable, not the same thing. Hell, even IGN:s own definition acknowledges this fact.

Are you saying a student needs to get all the answers 100% correct on a math test to deserve an A on that test? And that the same student needs to have 100% on all math tests to get an A in math?

Most of the loot you get from Tactics is pretty crappy though. Nothing better than is already in the game for sure (and when you're tough enough to beat those fights, you probably already got much better stuff anyway). The only exception I can think of is the acid-assassin. By the way, to anyone who plays with tactics on a regular basis. Has anyone beaten the Improved Druid's Grove? If so, please tell me how, because I always get my ass handed to me in the end fight there. Always, not matter what I do. From what I can see from the readme, it has been made easier in the last revision, and I'm not sure if I've played that version. But the older one was just insane.

I think so, but I probably love the game to much to be taken as a credible source. It does have some problems: a fairly fractured narrative*, fairly weak story (but no more so than most FPS games), some misc quest bugs, AI that is sometimes great but sometimes pretty iffy. But for me, all that is good about the game far outweighs those things by such a huge margin that I don't even really notice them. *edit: By fractured I mean broken, as in "what the hell does this make any sense and what do I do now and I think they left out some important information during the translation process". lol That description is pretty much spot on. I'm not quite as enamoured with the game as CrashGirl is, but it's very good in spite of all it's flaws. The atmosphere alone is worth getting it for.

Personally, I hate this storytelling device. For me, it's a total immersion-breaker. I'm not a fan of cut scenes in general, since they take me out of the game and force me to watch instead of play. But these types of cut scenes are even worse (when it comes to RPGs). I really hate knowing more than my character what's going on. Knowing what was going on elsewhere just made it feel pointless to keep charging ahead, because I was running in the wrong direction. Also, this has not disappeared from cRPGs. NWN2 did this, the KoTOrs did this, Jade Empire did this. If anything, it's becoming more common.

Iirc, it's possible with some insane timing and a great deal of luck. If memory serves Elminster can be killed by Cloudkill in BG1. If you get it off at the right time and he fails the save. I've never done it myself though, so I can't say for sure. Or maybe it was Volo that was only killable through Cloudkill. I think it's one or the other.

It depends on your preferences I guess. MotB is a better game than the OC. But it is a direct continuation on the main story, so knowing roughly where it ends is a plus. But you certainly don't need to play the OC from a game balance perspective or anything. So if you're ok with starting a character at level 18, that's certainly an option. If you haven't played the OC at all, I think it's worth going through once at least though.

The only site you need in regards to BG modding (since it links to all the others): http://modlist.pocketplane.net/index.php?a...t&cat_id=97 Personally I wouldn't dream of playing BG2 without Ease-of-Use (although that one is in the tweaks pack now, so get that instead) and Tactics. Especially tactics is what makes me come back to game from time to time. Be warned though, some of the fights in Tactics are not to be trifled with (I can't remember ever beating Improved Faldorn, although I'm not sure I've tried since the difficulty was toned down in the latest release). And yeah, Tutu is practically a must for me to play BG1. Also, the Fighter/druid dual class is one of my favorite builds. Prepare to spend some time re-rolling when you make the character though, since you need high Str, Wis and Cha just to be able to dual (unless you cheat up the stats of course). I think it's worth it though. Of course, I usually go with a Berserker/Druid.

Except they removed the nakedness and the sex scenes for the Indigo Prophecy version. According to Wikipedia it was as a direct reaction to Hot Coffee even.

I like Stalker. I find it to be an amazing game experience. But the story is not what makes it good. in fact, the story is fairly so-so and Bioware have told better stories in their games. Bioshock had a better story, but I didn't find it to be that much ahead of Bioware's offerings either. In fact, I found Bioshock to be about on pair with what Bioware produces. Filled with good ideas, but they are implemented in such a safe fashion that they don't really have any impact at all. Neither Bioshock nor Bioware games take risks. You know what you get and what you'll get is rarely bad. But also rarely amazing. Stalker, on the other hand, took risks. It didn't always work out, but at least the experience I got when playing it was different from the standard fair and therefor much more interesting and entertaining.

You're not. (well, maybe not BIGGEST disappointment, but it wasn't very good)

I would actually find a game like this a nice change of pace. At least in theory. It's quite possible I'd end up hating it in action.

Then maybe you should do something about this thread: http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?sh...75&start=75 Totally derailed (and you're actually part of the derailing)