Lord of Lost Socks

And I come from the school of thought that any move, like riposte, cleave, etc. Are all in fact equally active abilities as a mage fireball and magic missile. Otherwise playing fighters becomes a real snorefest. Whenever I play any IE games I just set the auto-attackers to attack and then I fiddle with my casters. Regardless of who my actual character is.

I think it's underappreaciated. But so many people are saying that nowadays, that it may be overappreciated. Regardless, it's a good game

Well, I own a kindle keyboard for two years now. Best money I ever spent. The readability is great and it's easy to use and light. Battery life is amazing and all that aswell. I live in Finland so the ad version deal is not available for me, but I guess the idea is that the advertizers pay for a part of the kindle for you in hopes that you might buy something from them.

I play 4th ed. 4th ed. maybe be more gamey, but since I prefer playing fighter style classes, I do enjoy having something to do other than auto attack.

I don't need to have Jeremy Soule in all my games. I'm quite happy with their in-house guy, that did the kickstarted music. He seems to have a ton of good ideas. Here's his work: https://soundcloud.c...oject-eternity/ And the music update: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60901-update-14-the-music-of-project-eternity/ These Soule fans are starting to annoy me. And I am one. Only reason I'd hire Soule is because his last name is Soule and it fits the game

Eversummer Days would be better

The optimal party balance means that every class will feel distinctive but they will all be completely viable regardless of party composition. Iirc, Bards sucked in Baldur's Gate. What I would like to see is a system where having a party of 6 bards is as viable as having a party with 5 mages or a party with one of each archetype. All without sacrificing what makes classes special. Hard maybe, but I refuse to believe impossible.

Monk, Chanter or Barbarian problably.

Not gonna exactly go into the PC vs. PS3 debate, because I have both. I have some comments though. ... made no sense to me. Middlemen serve an ever decreasing purpose since the invention of internet. Y'see the problem you're describing was indeed an issue in the early 2000s. Nowadays we have internet. Indeed, those driver update issues you mention remind me of my older brother cursing how horrible Voodoo graphics cards were. He never did manage to install PS:T due to graphics card problems. My brother currently owns my 6 year old computer which cost me about 1200 euros back then. I have never done anything to it, other than maybe three driver updates. It's starting to show its age, though it can still run Shogun 2 on medium graphics. However, he could pay 200 euros max and he could double its performance. And regarding PC game prices, I paid 70 euros or so on steam summer sale this summer. I bought: Bioshock 1 Bioshock 2 Dead Space 1 Dead Space 2 Crusader Kings II Galactic Civilizations II Dear Esther Trine II Warlock - Master of the Arcane Civilizations V Alan Wake + expansion and DLC Witcher 2 Vampire: The Bloodlines Last year I bought from Gamestop Crysis 2, Metro 2033 and Alpha Protocol for 20 euros (3 games for 20 euros deal, they have it constantly where I live which is Finland). Today THQ was handing out free copies of Metro 2033, so all my friends with the PC for it got it for free. And then there are deals like this a few days ago: http://www.humblebundle.com/ <--- Pay what you want PC gaming is a bit pricier than PS3, but the variety in games is so much larger I find it worth it just for that and after the initial investment it's very cheap. The only exclusives consoles have gamewise over PC is a few action adventure games, FPS, japanese stuff and fighting games. And even then most of them show up to the PC sooner or later. While consoles sacrifice entire genres, which is the case in old-school cRPGs, RTS, MOBAs, MMOs and grand strategy. And a ton of free to play games, latest big hit being Planetside 2 which is really fun, and I haven't paid a dime for it. Anyway, Avellone's statement to your original question: "Those [console] limitations affect RPG mechanics and content more than players may realize (especially for players who've never played a PC RPG and realize what's been lost over the years), and often doesn't add to the RPG experience." And I find the PS3 updates way more annoying than PC updates. They're too bloody frequent. I've turned off the automatic updates and haven't gone online on my PS3 for a while because of that reason. That said, PS3 is an excellent home media center. And I the co-op option is the consoles greatest trump card, that in my opinion should be in every console game. Not including it makes no sense to me. Then again, that would be easy to do on a PC nowadays aswell if anyone would bother. And in todays market there is absolutely no sense in buying a PS3 since even the most basic gaming PCs can run the multiplatform games as good or better than the PS3. It's either wait for the next console generation or buy a PC now. And if the next generation of consoles doesn't include SSD drives I will be extremely disappointed. They're becoming more and more popular and even I've been considering saving up for one, because the benefits are no loading times or PC startup time. Oh, and mods. An insane amount of free content. Stuff like making the old Infinity games work with modern computers and resolutions. On my PC I can play games from the 90s with little effort, and earlier with effort. This post became way longer than I expected and I apologize.

Oh. And why the hell do I need to watch anti-piracy commercials when I buy DVD's and Blu-Ray's? Why do I get a better service by pirating? Stephen Fry also brings up a lot of decent points: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCk9Cheiqqg I would also like to point out that I have yet to see any company that rents storage units be forced by the government to go through the stuff of each customer to see if there's stolen stuff in there or anything illegal in general. Some more food for thought: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0 I do think that copyright creates atleast as many problems as it solves. EDIT: One last edit to the guy complaining about me pirating Minecraft: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1121596044/how-piracy-works

I would also like to say that one of the reasons piracy is so common is because of copyright laws and how they quite frankly give the customer a ****ty service instead of giving a good service. Spotify has done so much more against music piracy than any of the Pirate Bay blocks. Because Spotify provides a good service at an affordable price. Netflix does the same, except the movie industry still seems terrified of it and on occasion flat out refuses to accept it. The fact remains that copyright laws are making my life in many cases worse. I bought Mass Effect 3. Most of my games are on steam. Now I don't give a rats ass whether Origin or Steam is the norm. But the convenience of having everything I've bought on one platform as opposed to spreading it around to all of these softwares directly leads to the companies doing me a disservice. Now as a student in Business Administration(majoring in investments and funding) I have been taught that a companies primary focus should be to provide the customer with a good service that he wants to buy. Not making the customers life worse to gain profit. In an ideal world where these publishers would learn to work together, it wouldn't really matter what program I use. I could add my Origin friends on Steam and vice versa. When browsing for sales I would be using one program that shows me the sales for both. THAT is good service, and the copyright laws that hinder these things from happening are doing everyone a disservice, and frankly they're doing themselves a disservice because I have given up on Origin and rarely log on to it anymore. I would however be interested to buy Dragon Age 2 on a sale, but the hassle of using Origin outweighs my enjoyment of the game. If it was on Steam I'd buy it on the next steam sale. And I'm not a Steam advocate. I'm just using it because that's where my games are and I have no way to transfer them anywhere else due to guess what. I do realize there are financial challenges in the new world of internet. But frankly, those are challenges the companies have to face and work around instead of trying to go back to the past. Here's an article I enjoyed reading about the subject: http://www.forbes.co...never-kill-you/

Just thought I'd bring up my unconventional utilization of piracy and to paint some grey in an otherwise black and white discussion. And I fully realize I am the exception. My mom told me I'm special from a very young age Anyway, another thing that annoys me is that books in paperform don't automatically include rights to a digital copy of the book. It has led to me buying all my books in electronic format, because it's much more convenient, but my book shelf could do with a few more books. I actually bought Inception in blu-ray format simply because it also came with a DVD and a digital copy. I thought the concept was so brilliant I bought it just to support it. I don't even particurarily care for the movie.

I am not attacking you directly, so please don't see it like this. I am making a point around the principle of justifying Pirating that people seem to make and I disagree with. This point I am making is an analogy so it may be about watches but it applies to everything else including Pirating. In summary You have agreed with me that there are things in life that you don't own because the result of stealing them is not worth you being caught. You are an honest person and like most of us you don't want to go to jail You have agreed with me that there is no legal precedence that says you can use something without paying for it and then decide if you want to pay for it So the reason why the majority of people Pirate is that they can. I want to stress this point, they can. There are no real consequences for Pirating. Almost every single moral or legal debate around Pirating would become moot if there real consequences, you would not make a moral argument if you could get caught. You just wouldn't risk Pirating You can argue " but is it illegal to Pirate, is it theft? " In every country in the world the law says it is. So therefore from a legal perspective it is. I agree with almost everything up to here. If there we consequences to piracy I would not do it ever. That would lead in a decrease in company revenue that they receive from me. But since most pirates are not like me, it would increase their revenues received in general. The legality on this issue is clear. I would stop pirating if there were consequences, however I would still argue the morality of my case even louder. This is where I differ with you, though you may just be unclear in if you're referring to me directly or to pirates in general(seems to be directed at both). If it is directed at me, my point is this: I will buy a good game if I am convinced by the dev's, reviewers, fans or friends that it's a good game. If I am still on the fence I will either not buy it or I will pirate it if I'm intrigued by the concept but unconvinced of the execution(this has happened around 10 times in my life). If the game is good, that means less money for the food industry and more money for the game developer. If the game is bad the money goes to food, because I have no interest in playing a bad game and therefore I uninstall it. In case you still have trouble understanding, I made a quick flowchart. My way of piracy can only increase the sales of the product. This is the only way of pirating that I can approve of morally. Enjoying a game without paying for it, is in my opinion morally wrong. Both are equally wrong legally.

Of course he would not. I am not arguing the legality, but the morality. There's nothing to argue regarding the legality. And this comparison is a bit off already because I can afford the games I pirate. But, do go on. If I pirate a game I do have the money for it, but I am still on the fence. A good game is worth living on noodles for the rest of the month. A bad game is worth nothing to me. In fact it's something that costs me time if I would decide to play it. To put it in perspective. I never pirate a game because I can't afford it. I pirate a game because I am wondering whether I should buy it. Not pirating will lead to me not buying it, guaranteed.

No because, I can not afford it, nor do I use watches. If I take the watch without permission I am hurting the sale of the watch. If I used watches and had the budget for it and liked it, I would probably buy it, though, since I can usually test the watch in the store. If I had an obscene amount of money where 10 000 would be in proportion what a few bucks is to me now, I might buy it on a whim online. But I would definately not buy it online otherwise. A difference between watches and software is that watches are restricted by the physical world. You can not copy it and lend it for a limited period of time without giving the original or giving a copy. Software you can copy ad infinitum without cost. Which is why I fervently support demos, especially if you're a developer that is a little unknown trying to sell an ambitious product. And forced is perhaps the wrong word. I am rarely forced to pirate(except Civilization IV because for some unfathomable reason the legit copy I bought did not work).

That would depend on the amount of people who download from the same source. You would have to take the purchase and compare that to the number of people who only downloaded it verses the number of people who both downloaded it and then bought a copy. Also, you would have to look at the number of people who are 'lost sales', the number that are 'gained sales', and the number of downloaders who would never have bought the game anyways. This is contrasted to the friend's legal copy that has more quantifiable numbers (it might expand slightly if multiple people watched or borrowed the game, and then you would have to start looking at the same statistics that were covered above). I, honestly, would find it fascinating to see, or even preform, a wider study of the file-sharing phenomenon to grasp some of the exact numbers involved. That would be an interesting study indeed. I have no doubt that piracy hurts company sales. Because most pirates do not pirate to test. Most pirates pirate to steal. One of the reasons I do not seed illegal torrents. I happily seed legit stuff like mods or Age of Decadence. (I'm still pissed that I have to use a proxy site to access the official place to torrent the latest Age of Decadence demo, because that site is called Pirate Bay. Luckily those ISP blocks are easy for most gamers to circumvent, but if they make it harder, that would negatively impact an indie developer and a few Total War mods aswell. Funny how that works out.) By the point I am forced to pirate a game to see if I want to buy it, there are only gained sales at stake. Because if I do not pirate, I will not purchase either. A counterpoint would be that indie games are often hurt more by piracy than AAA releases (making it more 'morally reconcileable' to download them). In my case, by the point I am forced to pirate there are two options. 1. Me not pirating is a guaranteed loss in sales. 2. Me pirating is a potential sale.

Unless the downloaded copy is a from a legitimate purchase, in which case your math is the same. This makes downloading indie games more morally reconcileable because they are rarely leaked and the pirated copy is always a legitimate purchase in origin. I'm not disputing that companies lose money to piracy. What I'm arguing is that in my case, Let's Plays lose companies more money than my piracy. People who do not pay for games they enjoy are in my opinion little better than thieves. I however have paid for every game I have finished(apart from a few borrowed console games). And a fair number of my games I have not finished, or even installed... Nevermind the second-hand console game market which the companies hate as much as piracy. Funnily enough. This forces me to pirate within my budget. Because if I wish to finish the game I have to buy it. Ironic, ain't it? My friend who is a bonified pirate says I'm crazy. I only do what I consider moral according to the information I have.

Nor am I a legitimate customer if I watch let's play. And it's not exactly unusual for the original uploader of a torrent to have a real copy.

Then it goes on the huge pile of other indie games I haven't bought that have not made it past the initial screening. People making "Let's play"-video's and reviews, even though they are positive in tone, have lost game developers way more of my money than piracy ever did. And I never paid to watch those either. Piracy to test a game is less morally abhorrent in many cases that Let's Plays because LP's record everything in a game except the way I feel when playing them. There's a reason why there is no "Let's Watch Dark Knight Rises" on youtube. Many single-player FPS can only offer the story, yet watching a let's play of it is somehow morally less wrong than trying it out for 20 minutes to maybe, just maybe, realize that the gameplay is actually fun and then buy it and see the story. Usually I don't bother, though. I watched Killzone 1 story on youtube before I played my copy of Killzone 2 for this reason.

Biting the apple decreases the value on the apple. One could make the argument from a purely practical point of view, that because I'll probably not buy the game at all unless I try it first, I am infact increasing the potential sales of the product. Sometimes I do find games very cheap, though(steam), and that's when convenience outweighs financial prudence. And since I never seed when I download pirated stuff, I also slow down those without my outstanding moral character. Minecraft is a game I pirated first. I heard about it, looked at videos, didn't really get it. Tried the alpha, wasn't convinced, but a friend told me the real version and alpha are completely different. I then pirated. Played it for a few hours. Loved it. Bought it. Transferred my pirated save to my bought copy. And boom, my first Minecraft creation: http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p25/Alarim/2011-05-24_024532.png

I am on the level of a consumer wanting to see the apple, so I know it's fresh, before buying the apple. And no I am not perfectly informed, nor am I completely rational. That can not exist. But I can come as close as possible to make an informed decision on which product I like the most. If I believed in a free and perfect market, I would also be against copyright laws(which I am not in principle, just the way they are now). I do not believe that copyright laws regarding video game piracy need to change much, though. I believe the publishers and developers are more to blame for trying to market products that are faulty or just not what the ad promises. Best way to sell me a game is to let me try the game. You may call me a hypocrite for not applying the same principle for, for example, flour. The difference is that I have never seen a store sell bad flour. I have seen plenty of bad apples and bad games, and until the games are all of similar quality I will test them before I buy them, unless other sources(reviews, youtube vids, etc) manage to convince me. Which they usually do, hence only 10 games pirated. I have some issues with how copyright laws are put to use in some areas. Like SEGA's recent rampage against fanmade youtube videos about their Shining series where SEGA flagged multiple accounts for copyright breach that led to many accounts being shut down. These accounts committed such horrible acts like "Let's Plays", "Reviews", and god forbid a guy talking in his webcam about the game without ever showing a single snipped of the gameplay. Truly a terrible breach against SEGA's rights. I do hope, however, hope that both video game piracy and copyright abuse are dealt with in the future. I just hope that video game developers and publisher get their act together before that happens.

Of course my life won't end. My point was that I want to buy the good games. Not the bad ones. This way, the good developers are rewarded. The bad ones lose revenue, which they would not have gotten if they would've released a demo in the first place. It's either that or not buy anything at all or flipping a coin. As I said. I have pirated 10 games within my 15 year gaming carreer. I have lost count how many games I've bought. I've lost count of how many games I've lost while moving to different apartments and lending. I have troubles feeling guilty. However, I do consider people who pirate games, like them and then refuse to buy them to be jackasses. Every game I've pirated I've played a few hours max. Then stopped uninstalled and bought it, or just uninstalled it.

I've pirated a total amount of 10 games in my life. 5 of them I bought later. 5 of them were games without demos that I was on the fence and they turned out to be horrible(never finished them). The reason I pirated them, is because as a student I live on a very tight budget. I can't afford to buy games I don't like over games I like. That said, I donated 50 dollars to Project: Eternity and I lived on noodles the rest of the month. I don't find this morally wrong. The basis of our economical system is that the rational consumer works with a complete knowledge of the product and all the alternatives. Only then can the economy work efficiently. If the companies do not provide this information, then I'll find the information elsewhere. Naturally that does not happen. But the closer you get to complete information, the more efficient the market becomes. And money I did not spend on the games I've pirated has been spent on other games I've bought. Because they were better. And anyone claiming that every time I pirate they lose money are idiots. My bank account is close to empty after each month. There is no way I can pay more to these companies than I already am, so I pay those who have the best products. Lesson to be learned here? Make good ****. Also: http://www.forbes.co...never-kill-you/

Yeah we are weird like that, we believe people should actually pay for things they don't own and they want to utilize or benefit from. Like games for example So, you actually consider it alright that publishers can remove anything relating to their games at whim? Even commentary that does not show any of the copyrighted material?

Daywalker is obvious.. Half-Jew.