Hurlshort

I played a bit more of Mafia II last night. It's a beautiful game with solid game play and voice acting, but I still struggle with the fact my character is a total douche.

Thanks Volourn, that genuinely makes me feel better about my situation.

Look, this is a thread about piracy. People keep trying to bring DRM into the argument. That isn't necessary. Forget trying to justify piracy. These are video games, there is never a justification for taking them without permission. Give it up. We can happily discuss all the crappy DRM out there. I will rail about Ubisoft's crappy choices right alongside everyone. But at no point does DRM justify piracy. We have many avenues to fight DRM. We can stop buying the products, that's the big one. We can sign petitions. We can whine on the internet. All of those are actually effective, I have a hard time believing Ubisoft isn't rethinking their handling of the PC market. They may pull out entirely, but hopefully other publishers will take note of their failure. Pirating doesn't help the cause at all. It just fulfills a selfish desire to play the game.

I think we can all agree that Ubisoft screwed the pooch with their DRM.

Volourn, I don't disagree with you about the personal responsibility. The reason I gave you the particulars of my situation is I want to know WHAT I should do to take responsibility here. Have I done enough or is there more I need to do? Once I sell the place (and I'm hoping it will) I will no longer owe any money on the loan, even though it is selling for $250,000 less than I bought it for. That is obviously a great relief for me, but I can see where that would be considered shirking responsibility. Should I keep trying to pay off the quarter million to the bank? Keep in mind, I've already paid $125,000 in interest on the property, and I am walking away from the $15,000 deposit and $10,000 in renovations I made on the place. I feel like that is a fairly steep price to pay as is, but I'm curious about your opinion here.

What, seriously? Hey, I'm just defending myself in these games!

Ok, I've composed my thoughts a bit. I will preface by saying this, missing my first mortgage payments was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I have never been late on anything, I had a sterling credit score, and I always pay off my debts. I wanted to take responsibility for this loan, but after almost two years of taking a loss on the property as a rental, I felt like my back was up against the wall. I agree with Volourn that the homeowner has responsibility here. I signed the loan, and I knew what I was getting into. My big question is how much should I pay for that mistake? What is my penance? Here are the details: My loan was $350,000. It was a 30-year term, and if I paid it for 30 years I would end up paying about $600,000 total. The property has dropped in value to $100,000. I am currently trying to sell it at that price. I have an offer, I am waiting for the bank to approve a short sale. I made payments on time for 6 years. This is how much I currently have paid into the property - $15,000 down payment $10,000 in renovations $125,000 in interest only payments After 6 years, with the way the loan is set up, I have managed to pay almost nothing off the principal balance. I have paid a huge amount in interest, more than the property is actually valued at. Interest rates have dropped tremendously in reflection of the market bubble bursting, but we cannot refinance into a better loan because our value is nowhere near what we owe. None of this would really be a problem for me if this was my dream home. Sure, it would be a bad investment, but if I was able to keep living there for 30 years I would just keep making payments. It would cripple me financially, but who cares? I've got my house. But this is a small condo without room for my growing family. We can rent a huge house for much less than the mortgage payment. We tried renting it out, but we could barely cover half the mortgage with the rent we received. Our options seemed pretty limited here. Our best bet seemed to be to short sale the property, rent a house for a good long while, and then maybe buy again with a lot more caution and knowledge. I mean like 10 years down the road, I'm not in a hurry to get another mortgage. The thing about a short sale is the bank will only grant it when you fall behind on your mortgage. So we rented a nice house that is great for our family and stopped paying. It sucks, but I saw little choice in the end. So my question to Volourn is what would be a better solution to this situation? What should my penance be for getting into this loan? My situation is far from unique, it is almost standard for anyone who bought property during the high point of the bubble.

Yeah, I never actually grouped up with anyone with my bounty hunter character and I was able to enjoy the storyline with no issues. The fact you have an NPC companion really helps in the tough situations. I would definitely say it is worth it form a single player RG standpoint. If you like the Bioware storytelling machine (which I do), this game is very impressive, and has quite a bit of replay value with the different classes. The only issue is you might not be happy with the conclusion, as MMO's aren't really supposed to end. Although I don't know if class storylines eventually reach an endpoint, I didn't get far enough in. I don't know how you turn down a group invite from Manga Bosoms though.

Hmm, nevermind, decided to rethink my argument.

Is there a reason we are supposed to handle pirates with kid gloves?

Gotta agree with Volourn on this one. If I don't like DRM, as a consumer I don't have to buy the product. Easy peasy. If I don't like piracy, as a developer/publisher, what are my options?

Prosper is a young Renaissance man who has been sharing his gifts with us over the last few months. He seems keen to enter the game design industry, and I'm sure his talent mixed with some hard work will get him there.

You know what I thought was the best of these protests? The one where you took your money out of the large banks and went to credit unions and local banks. That made actual sense and might actually force changes to our current economy. And it supports local and small businesses.

It would have been pretty hard to predict that my condo would lose 75% of its value in two years. There was no precedent for that. Heck, if people could sell these properties anywhere near what they paid for them, we wouldn't be in this pickle.

Who ever said you would? As a matter of fact, games have barely increased in price over their history. What was once $49.99 is now what, $59.99? I've lost track of the amount of times I've seen publishers and developers make that claim. So you are saying that you have read that were it not for piracy, prices would have somehow decreased since the 90's / early 2000's? Weird. Yeah, many, many times over the years, I'm pretty surprised you haven't Can you maybe find some links for us? I'm with Gfted, I've never heard that claim. I've heard them complain about development costs rising due to piracy, but I've never heard that the price is being shifted to the consumers.

Ah, the good old entitlement argument, I knew you'd show up eventually. Orchomene, I skimmed your overly long post and all I got was you are nitpicky and you might be trying to justify piracy, but you don't want to commit fully.

Well, I sprinkle in some romano cheese in the soup, but that's probably a bit different. American is really only good on a burger. And even then there are better choices.

I heartily recommend Cauliflower Soup as well, jest blend it and season to taste. It has a great texture. Both my kids have nasty coughs. They started about two weeks ago. I took my daughter to the doctors office for the second time because she had a bit of a temperature, but the doctor said to just hydrate, drink tea, and keep using the humidifier. I hope the get past it soon.

Why? What's wrong?

But piracy is not subjective at all. You are taking property without permission. The people who have worked to create what you are taking are unhappy about that. There isn't any moral 'grey area' here.

Didn't we establish video game piracy is costing people their daily bread?Also, says the guy who finds it "repugnant". Hey, I downgraded that to morally unripened! But I take piracy a lot more serious than I do DRM. DRM can be a pain, it can even on rare occasions cause a serious computer problem, but it still isn't a crime. Piracy is.

Did you just try and connect rape to DRM? Seriously, Maria is correct, these are video games. Lighten up and stop trying to compare them to serious things.

"Occupy activists descend on Brooklyn on first day of campaign to move homeless people into buildings foreclosed by US banks" Just a few corrections for you there Gfted1: 'they' are moving homeless people (not themselves) into empty foreclosed homes. Whether you agree with it or not, you're clearly trying to spin it negatively. Yes, because its their property to seize and give away. Whether they give it to homeless or retarded nuns, its their movement performing illegal actions. Everyone involved should have been pepper sprayed and hauled to jail. And I'm performing an illegal action when I smoke a joint with my mates. Boo hoo. Good on them. Your country has become ****ing backwards and it's good to see people finally deciding to shake things up. Especially when the response from people like you is "pepper spray them and haul them off to jail". The problem here is these foreclosed homes are going to go to auction, and then they are going to be sold 'as is' to some family looking to try and capture the American dream, and they are going to get stuck cleaning homeless feces off the walls of their new home. The fact is this does nothing to help the economy. We are in this mess because property values plummeted, how does it help anyone to drive them further in the ground by putting a bunch of transients in them? Do you think these homeless people are going to do a little maintenance and garden work? Maybe spruce the place up? I actually have a condo in foreclosure right now. I am trying to short sale it and the bank is working with me. It is slow and painful, but if some bum moved in because the place is vacant right now, it would only create problems for me, not the bank.

I've been arguing for trade schools in the US forever, but instead we keep cutting the electives that actually teach useful skills. It's not like electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and carpenters don't make good money. They make great money, but schools in the US do almost nothing to help students get into those career fields.

I don't really want to think about how many games I've bought since 2000. And that's just PC, if you add Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, X360 and PS3.... Damn. I try an limit myself to one game a month. Which still puts me way over 50.