Hurlshort

Oh good, Val is back.

I never frequented GT, but it's always sad to hear people have lost their jobs. Props for a 13 year run though, that isn't easy to do.

Yeah, I was getting worried at one point when my avatar timer was about 3 clicks away from completion, but then I did a couple missions and killed an avatar, and I got it down fast.

Going back to work today after 3 days of solid play has been difficult. I need my fix!

Yeah, that was a weird move by Cam. I wonder if he will try to explain it?

Yeah, when EA was beating banks during the foreclosure crisis, I stopped paying attention to that competition.

I'm not defending the pre-order scheme, I'm just telling you it is a typical advertising campaign for all sorts of businesses. I went to the grocery store yesterday and they gave me a bunch of monopoly pieces and a board. If I collect enough pieces, I can win a million dollars. They want me to go buy more groceries so I can get more tickets, they want me to talk about it with my friends and exchange pieces. You know what my chances of winning are? 1 in about 2 trillion. None of those doodads were important to the game, btw. There was a couple skins, some books, and a song. The only one that might be arguable is the bonus mission and the 4 day head start, but even that is a stretch. These were silly doodads that weren't worth getting excited or enraged about. And guess what? It fell flat. People complained about it, and it got scrapped. Mission accomplished. That's good news for both of us, I'd think. It was dumb, but trying to make it out to be something sinister is stretch. They are a business and they are trying to drum up business. That's all there is to it.

Are you really that naive or I am that cynical? It might look like they want to look 'good' by these 'free giveaways' when reality is that they dont give you anything you cant have for free using google for 5 minutes. They just force you to get into their 'origin' machine Or maybe you just need to read more carefully. I literally said they are not handing out the free games for nothing. They are trying to improve the appeal of Origin and their image in general. It isn't cynical to look at EA as some sort of evil empire, it's just silly. They make video games. They want you to install Origin so you buy their video games. They don't force you to do anything, they aren't stealing your credit card information and selling it to the highest bidder. Origin is just a tool, and it isn't different than Steam in any way. Also lol about pirating games instead of using Origin. Yes, I'm sure those torrent sites are way safer to use.

Are you ****ing kidding me? Nothing wrong with a scheme that not only goaded people into preordering but also actively encouraged them to put pressure on others to do the same? Nothing wrong with a scheme that would make the game release later than it had to if a certain amount of pre-orders weren't met? Nothing wrong with a scheme that cut off parts of the game that would clearly be ready at launch and then had the gall to "reward" those that pre-ordered by only giving them a small slice off the stuff they cut out of the release as a "bonus". Even if you were the most loyal fanboy of the series, pre-ordered the game, and pressured a hundred people into also pre-ordering the game, you'd still not get the complete package available at launch. You'd literally have to pre-order like 4 copies of the game to get everything available at launch. From a strictly legal standpoint, they weren't breaking any laws, but from an ethical standpoint, that's some really dirty ****. Literally everything about that scheme was anti-consumer. They straight up held parts of the game and the release date hostage unless a certain level of pre-orders was met. To me, that's pretty ****ed up. Thank goodness enough people got up in arms over that. If sympathizers like you had let that crap go, we'd be getting an even more devious scheme next time. Yeah, that pretty much illustrates my point in taking things too seriously. I like how I'm a sympathizer now. Everything you said can be applied to every kickstarter campaign, which quite clearly was the template they were trying to copy. You also don't seem to really understand their scheme, which makes sense, since I said it was overly complicated. You pre-order once, you get to choose a reward at every level as it unlocks, which is predicated on the amount of pre-orders. There is no reason to pre-order multiple times, unless you are crazy enough to try and unlock tiers by yourself. You could buy the collector's edition for an ungodly amount, but it did come with physical rewards as well. But really, all the 'unlocks' were garbage except for the one extra mission. They were skins and novellas, they had little to do with the game itself. And most likely that mission will be available as a DLC after release. It's a stupid scheme, but it's not evil incarnate. It fell flat, and that's for the best.

The only thing wrong with the Deus Ex pre-order campaign was it was too complicated. It was just some advertising group trying to figure out a way to increase pre-orders, and it fell flat. I feel like people take the business of games way too seriously. Most of the complaints are pretty petty, and consumers have the power to change the practices of these companies with their dollars (and often do. EA has done a ton to try and change their image. They aren't handing out all those free games on Origin for nothing.) I'd say the only criticism I really tend to sympathize with is the plight of the employees. If a company is mistreating their employees, then I get my hackles up. But Rockstar is notorious for their bad treatment, and no one ever really gets on their case because they make good games without DLC.

I've encountered zero bugs in 20+ hours, except for one countdown ticker on the map that went into the negatives for a day.

I had that bug in the same area too. I just restarted the game, worked fine afterwards.

Very nice to see Manning get that 2nd ring. The defense is a monster.

My gunslinger has been pretty awesome. The free and retaliation shots he get add up to some great moments.

You can expect a bit more humanity from local and small businesses, but huge corporations rarely have time for that. They have shareholders to keep happy. But setting aside the hyperbole, what has EA ever done that is borderline sociopathic greed? They release playable games, for the most part. They may try and nickle and dime you with dlc, but they only do that if the market supports it. Which it apparently does. The consumers are as much to blame there.

EA is a business. You can trust their priority will be to turn a profit, and the market will dictate their business model. Not sure why you would expect anything else out of a business.

My troops are always getting injured, and I've got about 5 folks shaken up. So when Xcom EU came out, I thought it was a decent reboot and replaced my need to play the original every year. EW improved upon it. Xcom 2 might be good enough to replace my yearly Jagged Alliance 2 playthrough. It is fantastic. Every mission feels special.

Probably because she is a minority.

None of the hippies can afford to live in SF anymore, so it's not the same.

Yes, thank goodness we have this important research being done by this benevolent group. It will really shed some light on the industry.

I agree with GD, it has a lot more to do with the city than the state. Flagstaff, AZ is a world of difference from Phoenix.

Rad the Mad? And he is the 4th?

I was a pretty decent fan of Chris Christie until I read all the crazy stuff he said about teachers. But I might be willing to overlook that stuff if I think he can make some decent pushes against government spending.

I have. It involves me moving to Canada. Hah, feel free to leave. Odd that you would flee to a country with higher tax and universal health care to get away from a democrat, but what-evs.

I've always found it pretty bizarre how we try and demonize our political opponents. Anybody who has actually served the 4-8 years to be President has sacrificed for the country, regardless of politics. It's an incredibly difficult job. That's why I'm so puzzled about Trump running. He doesn't strike me as the type to take a paycut to do one of the hardest jobs on the planet.