greylord

I can. Half the stuff people were saying were plot holes were made up plot holes by players in the first place (for example, the novas blowing up on the galaxy map nonsense, which if that were the case since it was the same galaxy map you move your ship on and make choices on...would mean that Reapers were bigger than entire solar systems by that logic) using illogical stupidity to try to find problems. I'm not certain what to expect will happen with the new ending, I think there will be some fans that will stand stalwartly that it stinks, even if it's wonderful, simply because it's not EXACTLY what they wanted. Others will say it's much better, and yet others will say it destroyed what was good originally. On the otherhand, maybe many will simply not like it because they wanted a happier ending? Who knows. Then again, I think Bioware has tossed the happy ending people a bone here...I think there may actually be one hidden in there...which I actually think IS a slam against artistic integrity...but hey...that's how it goes sometimes. Afterall, I was one who would like a possibility for a happy ending afterall probably too.

If you are playing D2 all the way through for the first time, a little spoiler...but not much. If you thought Duriel was hard...the Big D if you reach it can be brutal...unless you are prepared. I suggest you find a lot of fire and lightning resist...and you should be fine.

What I'm realizing is that there is a smaller PC gaming scene where there isn't DRM and it isn't in the media or covered by the hype. These publishers don't sell in the numbers that the large publishers do...but they don't need to. What's fascinating is that they are popular in their own right. It's more like the old late 80s and early 90s style of gaming has returned with small house publishers that none of the media, the masses, or anyone with popularity knows about. However those that are into those games know all about them. It's in that scene where remarkably over the past half a decade it appears adventure games have been thriving (like the old adventure games that I hated to tell the truth, but my wife loved), and turn-based games still are doing well. I suppose Paradox is on the top end of that group (as in, the VERY top, almost so popular as to be out of the stream of that group...so basically the Sierra of the early to mid 90s? in relation to popularity and how well they are known, not the games they put out). It's like an entire underworld of PC gamers are out there, but no one realizes about them and the mainstream gamers don't even care as it's not the pop...pop...action and see the graphics are so wonderful type crowd. Some must be successful just seeing how many have been released and keep being released (another of the top tier almost too successful games like this would be the Nancy Drew games by Herinteractive). Others I think are now moving more towards the mobile scene. Just interesting how there's a thriving gaming underworld on computers that is just about completely ignored by gaming sites, mainstream gamers and just about everyone (sort of like PC gaming all the way up until it's hey day around the mid 90s).

I thought this was part III, part II came out in 2000 didn't it?

I have no interest in E-sports, so I wouldn't know.

Whoa...wierd. Just started Star Ocean 4 myself. Also did get Atelier Meruru in the mail, but need to work on more of SO4 first.

Those swarm hosts look absolutely brutal...

More hacking information has popped up. Other then the method I posted about before, this one is old hat. Supposedly some Chinese are taking user/pass that they've gotten from other sites, plugged them into Diablo accounts looking for matches. If they get one, then they are good to go. They are doing the same to paypal accounts (so if you have paypal you may want to change it around a bit if it uses anything similar to any other site you frequent). They use those to get free accounts from blizzard for D3. Small change overall in relation to others, only around 10,000 accounts (may seem big, but compared to 6+million, that's VERY small), but a simple idea that has nothing to do with trojans or virus's, but deals a LOT with how you manage your logins/passes.

I was surprised at some of the changes they are making to inferno.

I've heard from many different directions that Age of Conan is awesome in the beginning, but turns into suckfest right after it. Apparently they had time/money to do only the first part of the game well. No personal experience so can't confirm. And I'm glad they only made the first 15lvl F2P in TOR, I've noticed that in F2P games the amount of "undesired" players is way higher than in normal subscription games. It's always "fun" when some 13 year old goes rather verbal after gotten killed in World of Tanks. Wait? What, TOR is free to play for a few levels? Is it even worth it? If so, I'll give it a shot, but how would I do that? Is there a client to download or how does it work?

As many have said already, Civ 4. You can get Civ 4 with all the expansions for not much money. If you don't want to spend anything though, I think there are Civ and Civ 2 copies that are legit and free to download on the internet. I'd stay away from Civ V, but that's personal opinion.

For those wanting to "beat" the game I was thinking Hell was that. Just like the other Diablo games, HELL was the actual real end level. Inferno was added on as gratis for those complaining that Hell was too easy. Inferno on the otherhand was supposed to be cheap kills (computer cheap kills you), unfair, and except for exploits (which is what most are using to get past it overall from what I've heard, such as simply running till you drop) almost unbeatable. It was never meant to be like Dark Souls difficulty, it was meant more to be like Roulette against a Cheating Casino hard, or if in Hardcore...Russian Roulette with all but one of the chambers with a bullet in them. That's why they didn't think anyone would beat it without exploits for at least months if I recall the interviews right.

Something I don't get as much, people are complaining about inferno. My understanding was that Inferno was basically almost impossible, and if you were hardcore, they expected it would literally be months before someone beat it. That infers that people are actually doing BETTER then expected against inferno. With that in mind, I can't really understand all the people griping about the difficulty of Inferno. If they don't like it why not simply go and farm Hell instead? Inferno is supposed to be hard. If it seems imbalanced with some classes and another, perhaps instead of making other classes more powerful, they should instead make the more powerful classes less powerful? It would go with the idea that overall Inferno is supposed to be nigh impossible, so I'm not really understanding all the complaints against it some are posting.

Finished with the FFX's, started and got bored with the FFXIII's, so wandered around doing this and that. Played some Marvel Utlimate Alliance 2, then played some Fifa Soccer, and then went back and played some Street Fighter IV.

I don't know. If it's still based on the same idea that they have been, there are ways to put it on your computer and format it to run on your DS via a Japanese disk version that worked for the DS. However, even though it you paid for the game and the game is yours, and you'd be playing it on your DS, there are some here who would still consider it piracy, so really won't go over that idea. However, the idea is that it makes it possible to play your DS games that you bought on a DS emulator on the computer, or you could play it on your Western version DS. I personally don't use it as I'm one that simply just goes and buys another DS, but it's an avenue you might look up. Ironically the equipment to do it I think is all sold in Japan, and in that light could be more expensive to get rather then simply getting a Japanese DS.

I think Blizzard is lying. They could have doctored the video...but it showed EXACTLY how they were hacking the accounts. In fact, from the instructions I could do it. It's actually not difficult to do nor to figure out how to do it once you've seen the video on how it's done and what's being done. In fact, if someone were in a game, and I joined up, I could hijack their account live while they were still in it, in fact that's the most effective way to do it. Then rip their recent players and friends list and bot it up, that's less effective and probably can be stopped by authenitcators, but an easy way to branch out and steal accounts temporarily. Then either strip the currently played characters they had for materials and put them on a mule account, or sell the account for a couple cents via a pirate site and let someone else use that character for a few hours before the real owners catch on (if they catch on). There are two reasons for them to do this. First, to do what they are doing, giving Blizzard a black eye. Secondly, for pirating accounts. You can currently go and get access to a Diablo 3 account even if you don't buy the game. You can even hijack it if you do the right stuff...but as forewarned, you'll lose access or anything that you want to do when Bliz catches on. The only reason I think Blizzard isn't admitting it is because if they admit it's not the people, it's the program that they are using, they could be liable for FAR more than a simple fine. That opens the doors to multiple lawsuits and actions similar to what is occurring to them currently in Korea, but even worse as then it's EVERYONE. I think the other problem is that blizzard is either at an impasse in that they don't know how to fix it short of turning the entire game off for quite a while, and until they do they don't want to bring more attention to it then they have to.

I want to go in shooting and see if I can take everyone out now that they mention it...in game of course.

And screaming, don't forget her screaming...a Lot apparantly.

I think it could be awesome. Did anyone else get the cp vibe from the Matrix (original)? At least the computer hacking portion of it? Overall, I hope it has the dark cities where it's always night, and everyone is in black and wears sunglasses (in the dark, in the rain, at night)...

Blizzard also claimed it was from trojans and items on people's machines. This way to steal an account has nothing to do with what's on your machine. All it needs is an initial hack of one person's account. You HAVE to be in the game with that person. After you do that you can grab all their friends and recently played list and branch out from there. Authenticator or not, it won't protect you from the person to person hack if they are already in your game...especially if you are the host. That doesn't mean the root account they first get into will have an authenticator or not. In probabilities the original ones would not since I expect a majority do not have authenticators. But if they are there in game with you, won't matter if you have an authenticator or not. What the authenicator probably could stop is their branching. Once they have the list they don't even have to be in a game or even see you to get the account. A bot could do it if they programmed it right. I expect that's actually the route they are taking. They hack one game, get the lists, and then basically hack any open account after that. That attempt probably COULD be stopped with an authenticator. It's faster, easier, and makes a bigger impact than doing every hack manually. I would expect that the numbers doing this hacking are actually quite small, and have figured out how to create a bot in order to increase the impact. I also expect that this is not done to profit anyone, but because someone didn't like Blizzard and wanted to put the shakedown/hurt just to be malicious and damage Blizz's reputation.

LOL...not at you guys, at Bliz. Supposedly I just saw how someone can hack the blizzard Diablo 3 accounts (not me you fools, I don't even have D3 yet). It isn't hard at all, in fact remarkably easy if you have access to D3. Not certain why Blizzard allowed it. authenticator won't stop it from what they showed, it's actually not reliant on that at all...though Blizzard may have made a lot of money of authenticators if it costs money. If I understand correctly though, authenticator could make it slightly more tricky as you need to actually be online and in your account when they hack it rather than otherwise from what I understand. Could be a fake up though, but ironic if it turns out to be factual. Edit: Thought about what I saw and decided to add a thing or two. If what I saw was accurate, they are not phishing to get usernames/passwords, nor are they utilizing any trojans or anything on anyone's computers. They are simply playing the game with you. Once they have your username/IP they have access. However, that may work with authentication, but that's not the easy way to do it. I was thinking that if that was possible, they probably also get every person you've played with recently and your friends and add that to their list. If you don't have an authenticator it is hard to do anything with that list unless they join a game you are in, but without one they could simply start up with your account and do whatever they want. So, I suppose in that light an authenticator probably is protecting a majority of people since I would suppose in order to even hack enough accounts to make a blip on the radar you'd want to use the recently played/friends lists for your account hijacking instead of manually entering every game in order to do it. Much quicker and efficient to do the listings once you get access and froggy jump from there. They can still get into an authentiated account though, takes more work however. Not as big a splash for as much time invested. Youtube is your friend if you can find it.

This is why I thought cloud gaming had an upper hand. It doesn't require maintenance from the user side, who indeed, need to invest on their connections, though. The companies can collect user data more freely since it is the user who is allowed to use their servers. This solves most part of the "piracy" issues, too, - A better control on IP form the greedy IP holders. ...Well, at least, it seems the distribution, or more precisely, the service has a certain advantages for both publishers and the users. Then, again, this is just a view from a gamer, who doesn't have any inside-industry experience. Cloud gaming is technically tricky, has huge upfront costs (that cloud costs serious dough), is even trickier to work out licensing for, and has fundamental latency issues for many people (with much less ability to disguise latency using client side interpolation). It's definitely very promising but it's not really totally prime time ready for all types of games. Maybe, but I think blizzard is trying it, at least halfway with Diablo 3. Much of the information, including the character you play is kept in what some could call a cloud. It's a cloud on their own computer network, but some clouds are bigger or smaller than others. So not total cloud, but probably a halfway point. According to them they sold 6.5 million copies. Not that I think it was a great idea (a counter argument could point out the massive problems that arose upon Diablo 3's launch as well as some continuing problems). Just my thoughts. Diablo 3 is more of a traditional client/server model, though. Very similar to Guild Wars. Whereas, usually when people are talking about Cloud Gaming they are referring to a model where all of the game's simulation and rendering is handled by a server, which then pipes output to your "client", which operates more like a terminal in the old mainframe sense. The only things your machine does in a cloud gaming system are to gather and pass input to the server and receive and present output. This is why you can have Arkham Asylum running on tablets with OnLive, the tablet is basically streaming a movie (that is obviously an oversimplification, but the idea is the same). this was posted elsewhere, but I think it also illustrates some of the items about D3. I said it was about a half way (characters and other information is streamed from Blizzard's server/cloud to the user's computer, but from what I understand it's all computed and figured on Blizzard's end). http://www.rockpaper...t=Google+Reader the pertinent part would be

Well, that suddenly got put on my radar. No interest until I read it's based on CP 2020 from you guys, now it's almost a must buy!

Nuns in leather with Guns....seems like homage to Nuns with guns. Except this time the Hitman kills them all.

Well, if MS uses always on internet and Sony doesn't, Sony has me if I even buy a next gen console.