Hurlshort

Shale probably never would have been developed to the extent that he was if he wasn't meant to be included as a DLC character. We can go back and forth on this all day, the fact is only the developer knows what their plan was with all this content. What I do know is that Shale was not a central character to the story. No major plot developments hinged on him. It isn't as if Morrigan or Alistair were DLC. You can only bring two people along with you in DA. They gave us a ton more than that without charging extra, so it makes no sense why people get upset about one extra character being DLC. What staples are you talking about?

So? They could ship a game without SFX or music, with a max resolution of 800x600, multiplayer support but no maps etc... and then sell all of that separately. You wouldn't need any of that to "complete" the game, but they would still be selling you bits and pieces that you would expect to be in the game to begin with. Or, you know, the inventory. I guess I'll join the anti-DLC crowd when that happens, but we are nowhere near that now. Do you really think they are going ship a game that looks and sounds like crap so they can nickel and dime their customers? That sounds ridiculous. A multiplayer game without maps is not a game. Now if they start shipping MP games with a single map, then I can see people complaining, but again, that makes little business sense, the game would likely be crippling its own initial sales power.

These are the worst analogies ever. Cars charge more for extra features. Burger joints charge more for cheese and other extras. Video games are now charging more for extra content. Every DLC I have ever seen is clearly EXTRA. It is not necessary to finish the game in any way.

I live in sunny California, so I have no idea what you folks are talking about.

Not really, no. I've never seen a game where the DLC was required to actually complete it. Maybe you are referring to cut content, in which case, your choices are to either never receive the cut content, or pay a few extra bucks so it is worth the extra development time to finish that content.

Gfted won the internet with his story. Sometimes I reminisce about girls I could have done a bit more to hook up with, but it is more a daydream thing than any regrets. I'm quite content with the one I ended up with, and it was easy. From the start we were both into each other, there were no games played. It was a serious relationship and even when we fought, the idea of throwing in the towel was never a serious consideration. I had another serious relationship in High School and my first year of college, but I am the one who ended it. I wonder if she considers me the one that got away?

This thread is going to a dark place. I've killed a lot of flies. One time I had to kill a mouse that got stuck in a glue trap. I put it in a bag, and then killed it with a brick as fast as possible. It shook me up pretty bad, I prefer to use the live catch traps. I guess I'm just a wuss.

Klaatu Verratta Necktie!

Hey Joe, I know this is probably tough to even imagine, but if you are going to stick with this type of work, you might want to look for a cheap RV. They can be bought for a few thousand dollars, and after that the costs are fairly minimal.

Just be careful not to set your car on fire or run out of oxygen, Joe.

I don't think this will kill the book industry anymore than mp3 players killed the CD industry. They will have to adapt to a new business model, but paper texts will still have a marketplace.

I will mourn the passing of public libraries. The libraries in my neck of the woods have already changed dramatically. They aren't just a place to find books, they are filled with computers, children education centers, and so forth.

There is already talk in schools of moving towards Kindles as a replacement for textbooks. Some schools are already piloting it. I'd say in about 10 years it will be cheaper to supply students with Kindles than it is to adopt new textbooks.

I don't care about concurrent installs. I have a crappy internet connection. It is a legitimate concern. Last month, my internet died for two weeks. I was able to play my Steam games in offline mode. I was able to play most single player games using a CD. The one game I wasn't able to play was Starcraft 2, I needed to log in to even access the single player part. It was lame. But I get that Starcraft is designed around the whole battle.net MP scene. DA2, on the other hand, doesn't have any real good excuse for needing these weekly checks. You should be able to validate your copy, and then never go online again if you so desire. It is unnecessary. I'm pretty tolerant of DRM. I'm very anti-piracy and all that. But I don't see the point in this.

I am curious as to whether my Sharks can turn it on here for the second half. I think they are too talented to just melt down, but I really think a trade is needed to shore up the blue line. Unfortunately that probably means moving one of our talented but underperforming forwards. It will be interesting, my money is on Setoguchi being the most moveable, but I know cap room is an issue as well.

Actually I'm out in the boondocks, and my internet is spotty at best. I know quite a few folks who have the same problems. I don't mind an initial activation, I can usually get it to work long enough for that, but every couple days is a hassle. I just noticed the Steam version just uses standard Steam DRM, so that might be a better choice, except my internet connection sucks and downloading a huge game would be worse than the check every few days. Lame. There also doesn't seem to be any real rationale here. How does this prevent piracy?

That is pretty lame. What is the rationale?

It sounds like something out of the book The Giver.

Gah, that's crazy. I hope that is a photoshop job, it would be really depressing if Fox News actually put that map up.

Anyone watch the All-Star game? Looks like choosing players worked out well, it was a close game.

I went golfing today, it was a decent game. I hit a 118, which is a decent improvement over my last two times out. If I keep improving, I'll be happy. I'd like to get my game down another 10 strokes or so.

I love the idea of choosing players for this. The presentation itself was pretty bad, particularly giving Kessel a car at the end and then showering them all in confetti. I hope they stick with this format though. I was hoping they would try and opt for a bag of pucks before calling on Kessel though, just for laughs

They fought the law and the law won, big surprise. "Yet, we know exactly who was responsible for that attack. Anonymous believes it is unfair and hypocritical to attempt to put these 5 arrested anons to trial without even attempting to find those who DDoS'ed a website which you oppose." This is a stupid quote.

I've heard a fair amount of good things about it. I've come to realize these games are pretty hard to judge based on other people's opinions. I enjoyed the original and I thought Risen was phenomenal, so that probably puts me in the target demographic.

I'm still waiting on the Two Worlds 2 PC release. Maybe it will come out next week