Valsuelm

Throwing money at 'mental health care' will not only accomplish less than banning guns would to prevent future tragedies it will very arguably cause more future tragedies. Psychiatric care was very possibly the problem to begin with. It's emerged that the kid was diagnosed with mental issues, and sadly was probably given drugs to 'help' him as that's par for the course nowadays. If the perpetrator was on psychotropics that changes everything in terms of how his actions should be viewed. It also should shift focus to those drugs and why he was on those drugs. That more than likely won't happen though, as we as a society have become a pill popping populace and bought into the notion that western psychology has a clue to begin with. The DSM, the psychiatrist's bible, is written first and foremost to sell drugs. Because of that we've a whole slew of diagnosis that didn't exist just a few years ago, and an ever increasing number of people (especially children) who are told they have some disorder that requires some pill to 'fix'. The vast majority of these diagnosis are utter hogwash, but the damage done to the person's psyche that the diagnosis is leveled upon is very real, and greatly exasperated if the person is placed on drugs as a result (and at that point physical damage will ultimately occur due to the drugs as well to the person's organs). The perpetrator went to the school with some guns for a reason, and I very much doubt it was to gain notoriety as some suggest. I'd wager a great deal it was to pay his former school psychologist a visit for what she did to him, as well as anyone else he thought was responsible, such as a former teacher or the principle. What further pushed him to kill a bunch of innocent children we'll likely never know (unless the police can piece that hard drive together), but perhaps in his mind he was sparing them the hell he felt he was in. Psychiatrists destroy lives all the time and generally are completely oblivious to it (many of them themselves take the very drugs they peddle). Many of the people who's lives they destroy are even oblivious to it as they're under the effects of mind altering drugs. If you look into many of the recent mass murders over the last couple decades you will indeed find that most of the perpetrators were on psychotropics. This is true in Columbine, Fort Hood, a recent double murder at a university in Wyoming, the Batman movie massacre, et al. A famous as Columbine is you just about never hear that the drugs the kids were on might be the problem, but you often hear that the guns they used were. There is no real correlation here at all. In fact the opposite would generally be true of anyone who held the Constitution dear, as the national health care plan known as Obamacare was unconstitutional. Anon though as that's another issue.

With all due respect to Sara Kestelman and everyone else who's been suggested or will be to be a voice actor, I'd much prefer to hear new voices than anything familiar from other games. There is a plethora of talent out there. That said, I'd hope the designers upon imagining and fleshing out the characters we'll meet in PE will have imagined a voice for each character they want voiced and then go out and find someone that is best able to act out their ideas. If that means a familiar voice, so be it, but I'm all for unfamiliar. I definitely don't want a high profile actor for the sake of having a high profile actor (ie: Bethesda games).

There's absolutely nothing insane about what he said, not even quirky. And I don't agree with everything he said. ie: while the parents ultimately are somewhat culpable, we don't know and possibly never will exactly what circumstances the kid obtained the weapons in his mother's house. She very well may have had them locked up. Any intelligent and resourceful teenager or older is going to get by just about any lock their parents (or roommate) put in place, for a gun or whatever else if they are intent on gaining access to it. Someone who thinks otherwise is not intelligent or resourceful enough, or is and lacks the empathy required to imagine themselves in a scenario where they'd want/need to do such a thing as compromise some security measure such as a lock to obtain or achieve X. Some folks think handguns are bad: 'what could you possibly need those for?' yet rifles are ok. Some think the opposite and ask the same question. The limitations proposed are arbitrary and have little basis in reality. Anyone familiar with the weapons themselves will know that the limitations can relatively easily be circumvented. ie: a fact that most folks unfamiliar with guns don't realize is that anyone who is very familiar with how a gun works can take most if not all semi automatic weapons and make them fully automatic should they choose to do so. As for why you'd need any gun you'd personally think is 'over the top', well, depending on what you're arbitrary threshold for what you think over the top is I could likely give you some plausible scenarios. But really, you should just go and study why the 2nd amendment exists. I recommend this video: http://youtu.be/M1u0Byq5Qis

It's not just in the U.S. While there may be some folks out there who are considering perpetrating crime X or have perpetrated crime X primarily for the notoriety, if you've spent time looking into why many tragedy Xs were perpetrated you'd see that that is almost never the primary motive, though rarely it is a secondary, tertiary, etc one. Motives for crimes vary greatly, though when it comes to mass murder vengeance against someone(s) or some group is a common one.

I think you're mistaken. Few if any people I've ever talked to who are all for the 2nd amendment in the U.S. or just generally for the right to bear arms anywhere doesn't make that connection. It's more a matter of there are many people who make that connection and think it's THE connection, as if there aren't other things at play or those other things are trivial at best. That is not the case.

It makes for good ratings? That's capitalism and free market economy in action. I wonder if somebody could enlighten me about something (since I don't live there), but isn't there an enormous stigma associated with being a "loser", in a country where success is everything and failure seems to be regarded as a crime and/or divine punishment. Maybe somebody need to run an information campaign for young men, since they seem to be the majority of the shooters, that it is perfectly Ok to seek help? Just a thought. There used to be. In better days. Our culture has become much more corrupted since then. The stigma still exists in some segments of the population but over the last 20 or so years the stigma of being a 'loser' has been turned on it's head and in much of pop culture it's cool to be a 'loser' now. The 'why' of this is a somewhat huge topic as it encompasses many things, and much of the why is even taboo to speak about, but a great deal of the reason behind it is what people see on TV and in the movies. If I have more time maybe I'll write more on this to better answer your question. But in short, no... the stigma is gone. The race to the bottom is in.

I think you and some others here are seriously overestimating the 'niche' of PE. PE has quite a bit more than your average game potential to be a blockbuster game. Certainly it has the potential to be as popular as any of the major IPs of the genre out there now. A genre that's had a relatively weak showing these last few years and has a playerbase somewhat wanting for something good as good RPG games are anything but common these days.

Ideally something new and unique to the world we'll be playing in, with a definition of rough equivalent in the manual so those of us living on earth can relate the fantastical unit to something in our world, ie: 1 PE unit approximately = X lbs = X kg Barring that, give me American measures such as the IE games had. Keep the metric system and it's logic out of my fantasy game!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y One of the better videos of recent times showing us how our 'leaders' are psychopaths.

The above is what really needs to be addressed. Not gun control.

Pessimistic /= Realistic, whereas wise and realistic are somewhat synonymous.

Mog as a character first appeared in FF VI (i highly recommend playing FF VI if you never have, it's easily one of the best), and I'm pretty positive Moogles first appeared in FF III. I'm not sure Mog was ever an official mascot of Square though. RIP that gaming company... one of the best ever. SquareEnix is a mere shadow of that former glory. Though I don't want to see a Mog dance in PE, I'm all for visually stunning and environment altering illusions and/or spell effects, especially if they can be implemented in a way that adds to gameplay and isn't just eye candy.

I'd wager much that you'd still be able to get a boxed version in retail when the game is released, though I don't see a good reason why Obsidian is not also offering a boxed 'Slacker Backer' option on top of their digital download one. If there's a gaming crowd likely to want hard copies over digital ones we're likely it, and looking at the pledges there seems to be proof that hard copies are preferred. I know if I just stumbled upon PE for the first time and wanted to back it I wouldn't do the current 'Slacker Backer' as it's digital download only. I'd wait until release and get a hard copy. I wouldn't be opposed at all though if those who have pledged something and later wanted to 'upgrade' their pledge could do so. I myself on further thought would like to upgrade to the collector's edition and get in on the beta. To those who think the game won't be available in retail. While I don't work for Obsidian and couldn't say with 100% certainty due to that, I think they'd be very unwise to not make PE available via retail when the time comes for release, and would be very surprised as well as quite disappointed if the game wasn't released retail.

Please no to level caps. The XP cap remover was the first mod (and only mod for a long time) I ever used for BG, when on my first playthrough I reached cap before the end of the game. That was probably my only real major complaint about that game when it came out. I loathe level caps as well as XP resets upon entering an expansion or sequel. If there's one thing I want to see in any expansion/sequel to PE it's true continuity from the previous game. A big part of that is having what you had stat/XP/equipment/companion wise at the end of the previous 'chapter' when you embark upon the next one, unless there is a very good story reason for this to not be the case (ie: BG2... though BG2 (without mods) reset XP which was way uncool). The game should allow for the most ardent completionist to not reach past the max level that is included in the design of the game. If that means that the players who zoom through the main story and do nothing else finish the game with characters around level ~9, while your average player who does some side stuff finishes at level ~11, and the ardent completionists finish the game around level ~13, so be it.

I'm liking these 'Meet the Developers' updates. But ahhhh stereotypes... with a name like Dimitri, he must be a vodka connoisseur right? I once dated a beautiful Italian girl who didn't like tomatoes or peppers. Kettle One.

That's good. In the IE games fully buffing your party with spells and pots wouldn't take more than about a minute, unless of course you forgot where you put that stack of oil of speed pots (better inventory management tools is something I'd like to see in PE). Once you took the time to learn what the buffs did (read the dang tooltips), you were good to go for the most part. Buffing overall was fine as is in the IE games. The only thing I think that could possibly use some improvement is a clue as to when to use some of the less oft used buffs in advance, rather than having to wipe unexpectedly and spectacularly (though that itself was sometimes fun... it wasn't very immersive) to find out that you should probably use buff(s) X in encounter X. As well as a clear timer when buff X is going to expire would have been nice. I'mma say something potentially controversial, since it looks to me from reading this thread and others that MMOs have left a big impression on some of the players who post here. I've played a lot of games that have put me in direct contact with a large number of other RPG players (PnP and MMOs). I used to lead a very successful raiding guild back when WoW was a better game (my guild opened the AQ gates if that means anything to you). One of the arguments that would occasionally come up when I was attempting to build that guild to be successful (not an easy task) was whether buffing was important or not. I'd hear the arguments that it's a pain, or the arguments that mats were expensive, or that the buffs themselves didn't even do much, or yada yada yada. With only a couple exceptions out of many dozens or scores of players I ever played with all of those who opposed buffing were frankly at best lazy players but usually bad too. They were almost invariably the same people who generally healed the wrong people (despite having specific healing assignments), did subpar dps for their class/gear, stood in fire, usually didn't have things hotkeyed, often didn't even understand what buff X did because they never bothered to read their toolips and think, blamed RNG for most of their woes, 'what's a macro?', etc. The exceptions were some very young players (teens) who had natural talent that were eventually convinced of the importance of buffs. For the majority of those who were good players (didn't stand in things, intuitively understood mechanics, didn't need hands held, took initiative, generally kicked ass, etc) buffing was a no brainer that they didn't think twice about doing, excepting maybe to think 'Which buff is most appropriate here?' (an option that Blizzard took away for the most part (if not completely by now) in later patches in their many dumbing downs of WoW). Game talents do for the most part transcend specific games within a genre and oft even related genres. Those that tend to be good at one game are usually good at another, those that tend to be not so good at one game are usually not so good at another. Hence most of the good players in WoW, the IE games, et al already knowing by the time they're decently far into the game (certainly by max level) that buffs are important on their own. This is going to be true most of the time in any game. That said. Learning that some things like buffs takes experience if you've never played a game with them before (or if the game was so easymode that while they existed they weren't needed). I totally can understand and appreciate a newbie not knowing. We were all newbies once. I don't have much sympathy for the guy or gal who doesn't take the time to learn what's right in front of them though, and I don't want PE to be a game balanced for those that don't take the time to read tooltips and think. There's a whole market full of games like that nowadays, in fact it sometimes seems really hard to find a modern game that isn't geared for these folks. For the guy Sawyer mentions who never thought to buff that made it to Dorn's Deep (that I'm guessing inspired this thread)... I'd say what did you think all those potions/scrolls/spells that dropped from innumerable monsters, chests, storekeeps, et al before lower Dorn's Deep were for? Seriously now, you paying attention to the game you're playing? A CRPG 101 manual might be nice in PE, but does PE want to do that? I'd say yes actually, as while the majority won't no doubt at least some players will cut their RPG teeth on PE, and a refresher for others won't hurt. Tutorial maybe, manual definitely I'd say. Also, fire and forget buffs that some in this thread have mentioned as being good that are common in the modern day MMO are arguably not buffs. If you have them up 100% or near 100% of the time they add almost nothing tactically to the game. A large number of buff possibilities do add to the tactical possibilities of an encounter. They can make something that is very tough or even near impossible for a class (or party) at a given time possible or even easy. Are they always needed? No. As much as I like overall what buffs bring to the table I generally save buffing for the tougher encounters in the IE games, same for WoW (yea the basics were up all the time as they cost little to zero resources, but potting was reserved for when you really needed it), and other games. Why do I like them? For the tactical options and potential encounter/game dynamics they provide. And on that note. Good game buffing mechanics do require resources. Be they a part of a certain # of spells that are cast per day, a somewhat limited supply of a certain type of pot, a buff on a cooldown timer, etc. Bad buffing mechanics are something that costs zero resources other than remembering to cast it every X minutes (see modern WoW, SWTOR, or many other MMOs for many examples of this). Buffs that require resources add to potential encounter dynamics and the game experience for those savvy enough to use them, buffs that do not require resources add little to nothing to the game. If someone truly has a better idea for buffing. Let's hear it. I honestly don't think anything suggested so far in this thread is better than what the 2nd edition IE games had. If they don't like it, meh... some of us do and it was a part of the IE games, so we'd like buffing along those lines. Disagree or agree, just please don't exaggerate like some of you are. Buffing really doesn't take that much time once you learn how to do it. That you think it takes a long time tells me you likely didn't take the time to read the tooltips (yea... that takes time but it's how you learn to play), and/or your main experience with buffing is in a modern day easymode game where the buffs really don't add to the encounters because they cost no resources or the encounters themselves are just so easy you never need buffs to beat them. PE is going to be a tactical combat game. Buffs do add a lot of potential dynamics to that combat. They also can be incredibly useful out of combat (ie: Potion of Master Thievery, Invisibility, Water Walking, etc).

Meh. I think it's about time rats are given their due. They should be the FINAL quest! .... of the sequel's expansion. Who'da thunk it. The source of the great evil that has plagued PELand, poisoned and destroyed many a soul were the rats at Bob's tavern all along. Little did anyone, the hero, Bob, or his cat suspect that the rats in his cellar had an expansive kingdom, a plan, and the means to make it happen. At this kingdom's core: the ultimate source of all that has plagued our hero since day one.

Sawyer is correct that not all gamers are 'great' at games. In fact, most are not. However, you are also correct OP in that one of the big reasons that players aren't better at game X is often due to poor or incomplete documentation on how to play the game. Modern video game developers are generally very bad at providing a good manual with the game. Some are so bad that their manual is almost non existent and they rely on their players to figure things out and inform the rest of the player community (MMOs are especially bad about this). His example though of the guy who just didn't think to buff.... well I'd say that's a guy who didn't put too much thought into the spells he was using or bother to read their descriptions, same for potions. A big problem with many video game players is that even if that super awesome manual full of information is provided they don't read it. That said, all of us, even the most uber awesome game players ever, miss something from time to time. I can tell you that whenever I play a new game that has any kind of learning curve, I read the manual. Then I play the game for awhile, referencing the manual if/when I need to to look up something that I remember seeing in there. Then after a number of played hours and I think I have the game pretty much down, I go back and read the manual again. You will not master a game that has a learning curve if you don't do this. One thing I hope that PE does have is a very comprehensive and informative manual.

In the games that primarily are inspriring PE (the IE games), one could run away, but you'd be chased (as it should be). In fact, I'd say it was too easy to run away in the IE games most of the time. One could most always take all their characters (if they weren't asleep, confused, dominated, charmed, etc), to the edge of the map and travel to the next 'zone' thereby getting away from your pursuers. This was especially gamey and goofy when you ran out of buildings. As well as in the games where you moved way fast (Icewind Dale (The original BG really did have the best movement speed)). Though sometimes NPCs would pursue you from floor to floor, this unfortunately wasn't always the case. What I'd like to see is the pursuers chase you at times across zones. Get away from me you will not pesky human player person! I will chase you to the ends of the earth (or whatever it's called) and smite the!! There were be some exceptions to NPC hot pursuit of the player of course, as it wouldn't make sense for all NPCs to do this. Some NPCs would only chase so far, other NPCs wouldn't chase much at all, and some NPCs (someone you *really* tick off, and especially the mindless ones) would chase you forever. Hungry ghoul see meat!! It's gonna chase you until you way outrun it, it gets distracted by other meat, or you finally turn and fight it. A runaway mechanic as you're asking for OP would be straight up easy mode. If there's anything I don't want to see in this game it's easy mode. Excepting of course in the actual 'easy mode' of the game.

I'm generally against overreaching forum moderation (something that plagues too many forums these days), as in I don't think moderators should step in excepting something really extraordinary (ie: uber flame war) or to move (not close) a thread that might be off topic or to delete spam. Since this thread is begun with an obvious troll post I'd say it arguably falls into the spam catagory. OP has one post to his/her name and the poll options aren't even realistic. That said, I'll bite OP. Realistically. What would I do if your twilight zonish hypothetical came to pass? Be somewhat bummed but I'd still be glad I backed the game though as it was a noble cause.

... Since this is a game forum. I'll avoid bringing up the issues I could with this, and only say: Please keep your unsubstantiated and superfluous insults to yourself. A lot could be said about your nation or of what you insinuated in either nations. The only stat below the normal Ranger requirement is Wisdom (Int too if you went by 1st edition rules but BG is 2nd edition rules). In Minsc's backstory he suffers a head injury which pretty much accounts for his personality and mannerisms, and no doubt damaging his Wisdom stat. It's always up to a gamemaster (in this case CRPG designer) to determine if when a character's stats fall below the minimum required for the class if they are able to maintain their class or must switch to another. Minsc started out as a Ranger and very plausibly had the required stats when he embarked upon his first adventures as a level one character. Having played PnP off and on for over 20 years, been involved in numerous campaign in various games, I can tell you that most of the time, it's better and more fun if the character in question can maintain their class if their stats fall below normal. Minsc was every bit a Ranger, and he received his Beserking from his background as well. A great many would say Boo isn't useless. Are you a min maxer? Story > min/maxing in the eyes of good RPG players. Key being that 'R', which stands for roleplaying (which doesn't mean rolling dice). I've played BG through 3 times. At least two of those I had Minsc in my party from start until finish), and not once did he break a quest for me. Alignment of a character does not necessarily dictate how they think they see the world. Minsc is probably the most popular BG character, as well as probably the most popular character of all Infinity Engine games. Like him or not, the developers did something right with him. And I'd say he was one of the best designed characters in BG. He had a good story, he wasn't cookie cutter, and he had some great lines.

Many would argue that a DRM free version of product X that is identical to the official version in all ways save it's lack of DRM is superior to the official product that has DRM. Also, while I cannot vouch for the quality of the work. I have seen .nfos of pirate releases that did advertise a release where they said they fixed known bugs in a game before the developer did. Some pirates do more than just crack DRM. Pirating aside, the modding community of some games have been known to fix known bugs of game X when the developer did not. For example: even Baldur's Gate has some mods that fix bugs that the developer did not, at least officially. So it is not always the developer that does indeed give the better product. In some cases what the better product is, is in the eye of the beholder, especially when you consider mods.

Like many things, piracy has many different aspects to it. The legality of what is considered piracy in one place may not be considered piracy in another. The ethics and morality of piracy are not always cut and dry. As I mentioned to the OP there's just no way I have time to explain all of the aspecs and I myself might not be aware of some. Despite the length of this post it will only touch on the tip of the iceberg. Piracy has a great deal of grey. It's got some very black. ie: if I bought a piece of software, then made a thousand copies of it, and then sold all of those copies for personal profit and didn't share any profits with a developer most of us, even many of the most prolific pirates, would agree this is bad, but this is the rare situation and not the common one. A great many situations are grey. Rather than explain things to you I'll just give you a few examples of not clear cut piracy, or at least piracy (as defined by the MPAA, RIAA, et al) that many are more than ok with. An example of a grey area is one that I gave in my post about the band I worked for unable to get a legitimate copy of something that they themselves created. They had to go to the bootleggers and get a copy. Would you consider it piracy and bad if a person goes and loses one of the disks they bought to a multidisk game and goes and gets a copy from a torrent of a disk they bought? Would you consider it piracy and bad if a person goes and replaces a disk that was slowly destroyed by the 'disk must be in tray' DRM that used to be common on games with a disk free crack. The above are examples of things that I don't see as piracy, and as a consumer I do appreciate that it is possible to go and get these things. I've done both of the above myself, and neither would be possible without the pirate community or individuals that while not considered pirates by some would be considered pirates by others. Some other examples from the grey: Would you consider it piracy and bad if a person purchases a product gets it home and discovers that the DVD is damaged in the box. Rather than drive all the way back to the store to trade it in (knowing that the store will likely give them a problem) they opt to hop online and download a copy of what they bought instead? A person has cable television. They very rarely watch it but the person they live with likes to watch it. There's a show they download off the net weekly after it airs and they watch it in their bedroom on their computer as they prefer to do that to watching it on TV in the other room. They pay for cable television. They could easily record this show and watch it on a TV, but they prefer to watch it on their computer and find it much easier and convienient to download the episode of the show they watch on a channel they pay for. A person owns a movie. It's one of their favorites. They bouht it on Beta, VHS, Laserdisk, DVD, and Blueray as they always wanted what was advertised as the best version of this movie. They just moved to a new house. They have some friends over and really want to watch the movie with them. They have no idea what box this movie is in. Though they know where they can go on the internet and download it within an hour. They own the media multiple times. The distributer (maybe not even the creator of this movie due to their contract they signed with the distributor) has been paid more than once for what is essentially the same product. The person goes and downloads a copy of the DVD version of the movie. Is that piracy? The MPAA certinaly thinks so. A person is told by a friend that new show X on TV is super amazingly awesome and he needs to check it out. The person not only doesn't have cable TV, but even if they did the show's airing has come and gone, and it's two months before season two premieres. The person really has no interest in getting Cable TV as he thinks the cost is way too high, especially if he's only going to watch one show, but they are very intrigued based on what their friend said. The show is not available on Hulu or any other legitimate free internet source but the person knows where he can download the show and watch it from the pirate community. He does this, loves the show, and when season one is released on DVD a year later he buys it, he also buys season 2 (show's cancelled and there is no season 3). Is this example of piracy all bad? Point of view: A person is fed up with DRM, EA, Steam, and a slew of other gaming companies. They're tired of buying products that when they get them home are buggy, and obviously underdeveloped, shipped before they should have no doubt because of pressure from the suits. They think they've been ripped off with product misrepresentation in the past, so much so that they refuse to buy any more products from most software companies (they still hold a few in high regard) sight unseen. They then take up downloading pirated copies of games and other software that they think might be interesting/useful. They don't even play/use most of them for more than a few minutes, and most of what is downloaded is discarded. But the few games/software they do end up liking they make sure they go out and buy as they want to support the developers and see more good products from them. (This is a philosophy of many in the game pirating community, and for some it's just words in regards to buying what they downloaded and used, for others it's something they do indeed do.) Is this example of piracy all bad? It's one where something is ultimately bought that otherwise would not have, yet other things were tried and used, albiet briefly and nothing went to the makers of that product. It's 10 years from now. Gabe Newell ate one double bacon cheeseburger too many a couple of years ago and hasn't been with us since then. Since his passing Valve has been plagued by mismanagement and despite incredible revenue streams the company has gone under due to bad investments and other reasons that remain unclear to the public. Another generation has discovered to their surprise that mighty giants can and do fall. The promised unlocking of all of the software that was made to those who 'bought' games on their site has not happened. In part due to the logistics of doing this, but more in part due to greedy execs hoping to take advantage of their captive audience on a resurrected Steam under different management. Months go by and a court battle over the rights to all the Steam accounts as well as other things keeps the site from coming back up. Multitudes of Steam users finally begin to understand what it means to have a gloried rental contract rather than actual ownership of a product. To their horror and great dismay the class action lawsuit filed on their behalf against Valve is dismissed on grounds that they had agreed to binding arbitration, though an appeal to a higher court to allow the suit to go forward is pending. Fed up, thousands of former Steam users head to the pirate community to download games that they had bought from Steam, thinking there'd never be a situation that they'd not be able to play them. Would this be piracy and bad? Some people might consider all of the above piracy. I do not necessarily, and would not necessarily, nor do many others, in some of the examples. Depending on where you live some or all of the above may be 100% legal. There are definitely other examples out there. The courts have cases in front of them all the time. And whether you agree with the above or not, the above does represent a sizable percentage of those who are downloading X via the internet, and examples of how not every individual user in any given torrent stream is lost revenue for product X that is being downloaded. Perhaps I didn't give the best examples. Some will see things in black and white no matter what. As pointed out in the Good and Evil thread on this forum though, what is perceived as bad isn't always what it might seem to the perceiver. When replying to me: No. When replying to others: Yes. I can recognize what I wrote, but if I wish to reference the post you're quoting that isn't mine it's not easy to do. Only takes a couple seconds to sitck a users name that you're quoting in there.

While there may have been some exaggerations in regards to Starforce (there's always someone that will exaggerate anything), playing down the legitimate problems with Starforce and passing them off as just exaggerations is nothing more than lies and an exaggeration itself. That some DRM is purposefully or inadvertently malware (ie: Securom.. at least some of it's earlier versions) and some is spyware (ie: Blizzard's Warden.. at least some of it's earlier versions) is not an exaggeration. You either entirely misunderstand me or you don't respect the right of a person to not have intrusive BS on their computer or their ability to do what they can to remove it. Note that I said I went looking for ways to remove the DRM near a decade ago (I'm not even sure of the game at this point, but I'm pretty sure the first DRM that ticked me off royally was securom), and I found the solution in the community that generally is known as the pirate community (or The Scene / Warez). Like many others, my first experience with intrusive, overbearing, @$(! up something on my computer DRM was with something I owned. It boggled my mind at the time that a company thought they had the right to install a 3rd party program on my computer without my permission to attempt to ensure that I didn't do something with their game that I and most others never intended to do in the first place. I've since come to realize that many developers and publishers as well as even consumers (especially the younger ones) have a perverse concept of intellectual property that totally ignores the first sale doctrine and any rights of the consumer. The fact is that many clauses in various TOS are downright not legally binding despite the assertion by the drafters of said TOS that they are. DRM is not something I generally deal with anymore, as I've learned to look in advance to see what kind of DRM something has before I buy it. In fact, as many others do, I do boycott software (not just games) with intrusive DRM. As it turns out, in general, in doing that I'm not missing out on much, and have even discovered better software in some cases. The fact is that most companies that use intrusive DRM actually have a better alternative to their product out there without it, and sometimes for free even. Also, it's rare that I even want to buy a game these days. Not because of DRM, but because there are few games being made worth playing in my opinion. ie: for the first time in many years (more than half a decade I think) I'm really looking forward to a game coming out. Two actually. One is PE, the other is Europa Universalis 4. And in regards to the latter, the lead designer has hinted that the game might be Steam only. If that's the case I won't be buying it, and I as well as others let them know that on their forums. And no, I won't be pirating it either. I don't feel entitled to a game or piece of software I have not paid for, and I very much like to see developers compensated for their work. I used to work in the music industry, and seeing that artists got paid for their work was part of my job. That said, myself, and most of the artists I worked with saw some of the benefit of some of the piracy of their music/products. In one case an artist I worked for had to pirate their own music because they wanted a copy of their own band's CD that was no longer in print (the record label refused to print for really no good reason even though we could demonstrate there was a lot of demand for the product AND the band was willing to foot the bill for the reprint), the only alternative was to acquire a pirated copy. It's actually ridiculous of you or anyone else to assume that just because I or someone else is anti-DRM and even for what some consider piracy in some cases means we're for theft. I do feel entitled and am legally entitled to break or do whatever I can or want to in regards to DRM on something I do own (writing some draconian TOS or the developer/publisher pretending the first sale doctrine doesn't exist does not invalidate that). It is not even remotely that simple. And piracy extends far beyond video games. If you see piracy in black and white as the MPAA, RIAA, et al would like you to, you're not seeing the bigger picture with all aspects of the debate on the table. Also. If you're going to quote someone in a reply, please do it correctly and have whom you're quoting in your quote.

And there was you accusing me of talking out of my arse. I've read interviews where senior industry people have cited it as a major reason for concentrating development on other platforms and concentrate on ever more intrusive DRM. No doubt. However, many senior industry people haven't a clue about this issue, how to make games, or in some cases how even to run a company (ie: near and dear to many hearts here is the failure of Interplay despite it's great successes). Hence the overall quality of games on both PCs and consoles not being what they used to in the eyes of many. The PC game industry is far from dead. It's definitely not in it's golden era though. There are many reason for that and it's a complicated subject. Piracy, which has been around for decades now, is not one of the major ones.