Hurlshort

DA2 wasn't literally half finished, I'm pretty sure it was playable to the end. I wouldn't know for sure, I disliked the game from the start. I'm pretty sure that wasn't Bioware's intention though, so I don't believe angry rants on the internet will accomplish anything. Bioware also released a free extended ending sequence for ME3, so in that case it looks like they did examine themselves when faced with criticism. I'm not sure what else you expect.

Most people also grow out of behaving like an asterisk.

Morrowind was also just a better setting overall. Skyrim, while better than Oblivion, is still a very generic setting. There are only so many snowy and mountainous towns I want to visit before I get bored.

Thanks Cant. Today she saw her gastroentologist and he was livid at how little they did for her at the hospital. He immediately called them and asked for her blood to be sent to him so he could run more tests. He also prescribed medication that will help the pancreas rest, basically stopping the enzymes from working too hard that break things down (The meds were $500! Even after insurance, we paid $100). Of course this means she is now on a clear liquid diet, and will be until the doctor says she can eat food again. He says it could be an ulcer, but he wants to run a gamut of tests to figure it out. It is reassuring that he is taking it so seriously. She actually had a colonoscopy this summer from the same doctor, due to a family history of colon cancer, so he knows she isn't a heavy drinker or anything else really unhealthy. We are taking it day by day, I read that pancreatitis typically lasts 7-10 days, so hopefully we will see improvement by the end of the week, although the doctor doesn't want to give any timetable until he knows more. Hopefully we can solve the mystery and avoid any future flare ups too.

Not really. It is easy to prove that the delays are gone though. Just go to IMDB and check out the release dates for older movies in the US and Europe and then compare it to newer movies. There never was any valid reason for this artificial delay. It was never difficult to make more movie rolls. It was never difficult to fly them over the ocean. It was never difficult to truck them out to all the cinemas in the world. If digital cinemas had made a breakthrough five or ten years ago, then there would be a less sinister logical explanation for the delays being gone. But they have not yet switched to digital in all movie theatres, so that is not the reason. They just can't abuse their power anymore because the power balance has shifted. People all over the world now has the means to 'strike back' and suddenly the problem is solved. After thinking on it a bit, your point does make sense. Zoraptor also pointed out how it would be fairly difficult to even notice it from the US.

Awesome. I am assuming it will be a decent upgrade in terms of the engine, given the official expansions always did a pretty great job with improving the graphics. I'm not quite sure what you mean by fixing the combat, the game is perfect in that regard.

Despite the patch being a bit rough, I'm still really enjoying my first playthrough with a Jedi Knight. I just reached Taris. I'm trying not to fall in the whole light side point trap where I always choose the goodie two shoes stuff, but I've still racked up a ton. edit: Oh, and getting a speeder at level 10 due to my legacy levels is awesome.

I wouldn't expect too much from Oby, he throws a lot of odd pictures out here. There is a chance he is an elaborate bot designed to illicit responses.

Take a hot bath with epsom salts. And welcome to old age

What killed me was Waterworld bombed so bad that even took his next big movie, The Postman, down with it, even though The Postman was awesome.

I don't really know if it's 'provable' in a classic sense, but it is certainly what happened and I suspect pretty much anyone over 20 outside the US will have had similar experiences of releases being arbitrarily delayed to fulfil some obscure schedule. It is, for obvious reasons, not something someone in the US would really notice or be aware of. Ok, I will take your guy's word on it, thinking on it more it does seem a little silly that distribution would take THAT much longer even in the olden days.

My wife is home form the hospital and resting. She still can't eat without getting pain in her pancreas, but it is supposed to get better within a few days. They still don't know what caused the pancreatitis, but for now she is on a super low fat diet (basically soup, veggies, and fruits) and we will see a specialist tomorrow. It's good to have her home, it has been an exhausting week.

Oh, was that what we were arguing about? Next maybe we can argue about whether life is fair or not. I'll take the 'it's not' side The point I was aiming for is piracy is not a good solution for when you do feel ripped off. I'm not sure why you feel the need to jump all over me for that.

Do you have any proof of this? I would consider it a lot more likely that distribution has simply gotten a lot easier, benefiting both pirates and publishers at the same time. Your premise seems to be that publishers were purposely holding back releases for some reason other than logistics. That seems unlikely.

Yeah, I'm getting a weird stuttering now too. I dropped my settings to medium and it ran fine, but I assume a hotfix will be in the works.

If you aren't paying attention to the conversation and didn't get it the first time, then why should I try to explain it to you again? That's how the internet works. People explain the same things over and over again. Don't break the internet Grimlorn!

I'm not really sure what all this has to do with piracy. I understand that games are buggy, they've been that way forever. They've actually gotten a lot better, I no longer have to spend hours in DOS trying allocate memory to get a game to run. But yeah, they are still filled with bugs, and just when you think they are going to patch them, they break something else. Again, it doesn't justify piracy. This is a piracy thread, my responses were to a poster who said piracy is good. As for opinions about games, neither of our opinions really matter. What matters is the consensus, and how that affects sales. I'm sure there are plenty of people upset about Fable, but the fact is it sold well, which allowed them to make a second game. The second game, by the way, crashed for me halfway through and corrupted all my saves. This was on the Xbox 360, so I can't even blame my PC. So what did I do? I didn't buy Fable 3, that's for sure. That's how the industry works. I believe Fable 3 had poor sales, I know their little recent DLC bombed terribly. The word is out, that property has been damaged by the general consensus, hurrah! But again, piracy does nothing to help this situation of buggy and over-hyped games. So what are you guys arguing about?

Oh, I see. No point in presenting facts because the dudeness is strong with this one indeed. Screw falsifiability, I have an opinion! So yeah, it's always the stupid consumer's fault for not enjoying the endless stream of craptastic, bug-ridden, generic repackages, after all, you do! Good faith, business ethics and plain old shame are worthless concepts from barbaric times, but piracy is a CRIME and y'all filthy pirates are the scum of the high seas. Anything else is just like, your opinion, man. Uh...it was a serious question. I just figured it would be easier to dissect a specific game than to speak in generalities. I'm not quite sure what you are saying, to be honest. I believe you might be insulting me because I enjoy games you consider craptastic. I play games to have fun, that's really my main and only requirement.

A rip-off isn't only a game that "doesn't work". Rarely a game does not work at all (even though this does happen with some bull**** DRM systems) -- mostly it's just bugs preventing the game from working as advertised, the serverity of which varies from title to title. It's also the product not living up to the expectations created, explicitly, by the people charged with promoting it (the Casey Hudson/ME3 ending example). This is an already ludicrous concept (puffery) taken to outrageous extremes. The thing is, the industry is used to really, really low quality/consumer satisfaction standards, and with mainstreaming it's getting worse (!). If you are sold rotting fruit or spoiled meat, you'd be an idiot not to return it, even though you could perhaps still eat it and not die. If you are sold a piece of clothing that completely loses color after washing or tears after wearing it once, you can return it and get a new one or a refund. Same thing with most tangible goods. A game? You are out of luck, there is no physical evidence to push your claim, and you can't go solve your grievances with the publisher or developer face to face either. But on the other hand, they insist piracy is "theft". Talk about having your cake and eating it too. Do you have any examples of games where the quality was so low it was unplayable? The only game mentioned so far was Fable, but I played it and enjoyed it. Enough people obviously did, because it stemmed two sequels. The problem with your argument is most of these complaints are based on opinions. There are a lot of ways to make your opinion heard, from not buying the product to buying products that do meet your expectations. Kickstarters are a great tool in this respect, you can pay more than the market price to really show you support certain qualities. Piracy does not help your desire for more quality games in any way. You mention clothing, but if you buy an outfit and wear it, then realize you look stupid in it, you don't get to return it. Also, those outfits look better on the runway models, so every industry does their share of illusory advertising.

Gaming has actually been getting cheaper though. Sure, you still have the big titles that are expensive and don't drop in price very much, but there are just a ton of quality titles available under $10 nowadays. Some of them are older, some of them are independent titles, but really it's a very good time to be a cheapskate, the deals are everywhere.

It's been a long time since I've bought a game that didn't work, actually. I think about 10 years ago I bought a game, it ran terribly, and I returned it to Electronic's Boutique for my money. Nowadays my guess is you have to go through the publisher when the game is actually broken, unless it is physically broken, then most stores would probably replace it.

I have a feeling the Spaceventure Kickstarter is just a way for those guys to fund their own private island getaway, but I'm ok supporting that too.

You aren't being ripped off, you got a game and if it doesn't actually work, you can return it. You are talking about it not meeting your expectations. You don't have to accept that either, you don't need to buy their games anymore.

How do you think gamers feel about paying for a product they don't enjoy and can't return? Especially, with all the marketing and hype surrounding games to get you to impulse buy them. I still remember Casey Hudson saying there wouldn't be a A, B, or C ending for ME3. Look what happened. There's no accountability for lying or half-truths in the gaming industry. @Gorth Just playing devil's advocate. No need for insults. Welcome to life. You are going to buy a lot of things that you will not be happy with, and you usually won't be able to get your money back. You are also only out $60 here, the developer is losing much more when people pirate their work. Developer's put years of their life into these products, and then they ask you to pay a nominal fee to enjoy it. It's a simple idea. If you want to play it, do the right thing and pay. When you pirate, you disrespect all the work that they've done.

I spent a good amount of time simply looking at all the options, even though they were disabled for the demo. It looks like we've got a lot a lot of different things to do, that's for sure.