Oblarg

I wasn't referring specifically to the file extension but rather to whole concept behind it - it seems a lot of people (luckily?) have absolutely no idea how torrents work, even though they are easy to use. You don't have to know how the download protocol itself works to know how to use the client. The argument that people don't pirate games because they can't figure out how to work bittorrent is laughable. Ok, you can possibly just have torrents work if somebody gave you the torrent client and pointed to you where to find the torrents....... but what about everything else? The no cd crack, the mounting tools, the futzing with gamefiles to make it so they don't fight you with drm... Now that bit is more reasonable, yes, but I still think you guys are underestimating the cognitive abilities of your average gamer. They may not be the smartest people ever, but I really have a hard time believing they're all retarded.

I wasn't referring specifically to the file extension but rather to whole concept behind it - it seems a lot of people (luckily?) have absolutely no idea how torrents work, even though they are easy to use. You don't have to know how the download protocol itself works to know how to use the client. The argument that people don't pirate games because they can't figure out how to work bittorrent is laughable.

No, really, I don't see how someone can "not know how" to open a .torrent file. You double click on it, like every other file.

There is no "knowing how to use torrents." It's just double clicking.

The average video game consumer is not a clueless grandparent.

There are a lot of problems with what you just wrote. 1. If you bought AC2, then you aren't a pirate. 2. Waiting for a fix or returning it are the proper ways of handling the situation. I don't buy Ubisoft products because of their online always policy. 3. Non-technical consumers are not technical enough to turn to piracy. Applying cracks and using torrents requires a decent amount of know-how. Piracy isn't all that convenient. You are opening yourself up to all sorts of problems. Cracked software typically comes with plenty of problems on its own. People pirate because they are cheap or they are impatient. Using torrents requires know-how? Whaaaaaaaaat? Hahahahahahaha. It requires know how that isn't easily available or covered. I mean how many people know how to use WORD much less download and figure out a torrent site, and then figuring out the actual torrent program and THEN getting half the stuff required to get the thing you just snagged to work. Step one - download bittorrent Step two - google Step three - download and run .torrent file Not rocket science.

Don't really care for the song that much but that has to be one of the best cover arts EVAH. It's even better if you read the lyrics to the title track. Though, while I'm posting classic speed metal, here's an underrated gem.

There are a lot of problems with what you just wrote. 1. If you bought AC2, then you aren't a pirate. 2. Waiting for a fix or returning it are the proper ways of handling the situation. I don't buy Ubisoft products because of their online always policy. 3. Non-technical consumers are not technical enough to turn to piracy. Applying cracks and using torrents requires a decent amount of know-how. Piracy isn't all that convenient. You are opening yourself up to all sorts of problems. Cracked software typically comes with plenty of problems on its own. People pirate because they are cheap or they are impatient. Using torrents requires know-how? Whaaaaaaaaat? Hahahahahahaha.

No, it's not. DRM may be in response to piracy, but the net result is most likely more piracy than would happen if it were not used.

We'll dare to go INTO THE FIRE! ****ing speed metal. This band was waaaaaaaaaay ahead of its time - I swear, the entirety of European power metal can be summed up as an unsuccessful attempt to emulate this album.

Not if they're Stardock, and Stardock seems to be doing fine. DRM does nothing but frustrate the consumer. Those who want to pirate the games will crack the DRM and pirate the game. The rest of us will simply be stuck with pointless limitations on our software. In fact, if anything, DRM promotes piracy, because at least a pirated copy of the game isn't limited to a certain number of installs.

Well, I've learned 99% of Still Remains by Fates Warning (just need to figure out one little lead segment) in D standard tuning (though I have a nagging suspicion it's supposed to be in drop D, but that makes it harder to play). Problem is I don't have the endurance to make it through the entire 16 minute song. Bah.

One of the problems was that, despite the whole "The Espionage RPG" subtitle, a lot of the marketing kept pushing it as an "action RPG," which thanks to other games in the market has now come to mean "shooter with superficial RPG aesthetics" rather than "RPG with superficial shooter aesthetics." The tutorial didn't do enough to present to new players how to be effective with the shooting mechanics, and thus many people who came to the game expecting gameplay resembling Mass Effect believed the system was broken when in actuality is simply worked in a very different manner. And while the scaling curve was a bit wonky, the main part of the combat that people just did not understand was that to be effective in many situations you more or less *had* to line up a crit, while the tutorial said nothing to indicate this. Crits were not simply a "bonus" as they usually are, they were the central focus of combat (at least with the pistol). If the game had been very clear about "be sure to fully line up your crit before shooting or you'll most likely miss" there probably would have been less confusion, but alas, that didn't happen.

That's not what the problem was. The problem was that the shooting, at least for pistols, completely revolved around lining up crits, and this was not made clear to the player. You had to crit for nearly every shot, even at higher skill levels, to be effective - that people did not necessarily understand this immediately is not due to stupidity so much as due to the fact that the game never made it clear to the player (this was aided by the fact that the range limit on crits was so small at early skill levels). Also, the fact that weapon skills scaled was not bad, it's the fact that the scaling was so drastic that early in the game when you didn't have many points to spend the shooting seemed a lot more clunky than it actually was. Many people were turned of from shooting at the very beginning of the game, and I don't blame them - it's very easy to see how in Saudi Arabia players could be frustrated.

C Regarding the LHC, it doesn't do anything that cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere don't already do - it simply lets us study high-energy collisions. Doomsday theories are unfounded and silly.

Yes. My main point was that the frustration with the shooting mechanics, while not warranted, was understandable given the inadequate tutorial and weapon inefficacy at lower skill levels. Many people came to the game expecting the shooting to work as it does in most modern shooters and action RPGs (in no small part due to the nature of Sega's marketing), and there was very little in the early levels of the game to indicate that the mechanics were fundamentally different than what they were anticipating. This lead many people to see the mechanics as broken, when in actuality they simply functioned in an entirely different fashion than what they were expecting. The implication that the frustration with the system was completely due to player stupidity and not at all due to failures on the part of the game (N.B. these failures are not the shooting mechanics themselves, rather the way in which they were presented to the player and the way in which they scaled) is incredibly fanboyish and ignorant.

Ahahahaha, what "complaints?" I never complained about the shooting mechanics themselves, other than criticizing the wonky scaling. I even went out of my way to explicitly state that ultimately they worked fine once you got used to the system. It's almost sad how people could completely miss the point of every single post I made in their rush to defend the game from perceived criticism.

Ah ha! Tommy Wiseau's accent is faked. at 1:35. See for yourself.

HAI OPINION PIECE! Why did I imagine that in Tommy Wiseau's voice? "I DID NOT HIT HER, I DID NOT, IT'S BULL****, I DID NAAAAAAAAAAHT. OH, HAI OPINION PIECE!" What has that horrid movie done to me?

It's almost like you're not even trying to make sense. The only time I've seen anyone else mention a drone strike aclu think is O'Reilly. Do you even know yourself what you are writing? I think you botched the word order there. That doesn't make much sense, either.

The drone strike is an outrage! Has anyone informed the ACLU? That was a pretty ****ty joke, bro.

Cant' stop listening to . Richard Walker has the best sense for epic melodies of any songwriter I know. Great lyrics, too. Under lakes of carrion pallor Wherewith purity bore him done Enthroned on thorns of brimstone fury The thief of always anoints his brow Beneath sombre forest funeral half-light And moonsoaked spires of mighty oak Titans march to summer's death-throes Valour gilded hearts to overthrow...

I find a lot of the **** about "multiculturalism" to be a bit absurd. Unifying culture is a very important part of a nation's stability.

I'm quite personally shocked that you're willing to paint this kid almost as some sexual predator who just couldn't wait to exploit the girl. You're painting him as a scumbag when you have next to no reason to do so. All pubescent kids are, to some extent, rebellious and disrespectful to authority figures. Does that mean the best solution is to scare them because "they deserve it?" No, that just leads to bad parenting. I don't know how disconnected you may be from youth culture in the US, but the first thing a teen does when he wants to have sex is not to ask his potential partner's parents if they think it's a good idea. Whether or not you agree with it, it's true. This kid was not being exceptionally disrespectful or inconsiderate, he was being a teenager. Teenagers occasionally do stupid things. He was in no way deserving of the stunt this cop pulled, and I don't think anyone who would do such a thing should be a police officer. This is a police officer who, outside of official duty, used his position of power to come uninvited and unannounced to the kids house, slap handcuffs on him, and yell at him ("stupid piece of ****?" And this is a police officer?). This wasn't some well-intentioned lecture, this was a ****ing blatant abuse of power for personal reasons. As for insults, I do believe it was Hurlshot who first called everyone who didn't agree with him a bunch of "hooligans," so you really don't have any reason to bring that up as if it's only occurring towards you.

I think that unsubstantiated speculation as to the origins of the universe is completely worthless. We don't know. We may, at some point in the future, but we certainly don't right now. I don't get the whole assumption that you have to "believe" something like this. What's the point of "belief" if you have no physical evidence to support it, or even anything that could even legitimately lead you to infer it?