Hurlshort

It does have this. It is broken up into chapters and books, and each book is a self-contained storyline. As a fan of RPG's, LotRO compares very favorably with some of the best. It has some of the best storytelling I've encountered in any game genre. edit: Oh, and it is free, so nothing lost if it doesn't turn out to be your cup o' tea.

If an Eastern European gamer making, say, $400 a month, buys a $1000 PC, he will probably be doing so through a small loan paid over 2 years with an interest rate of at least 20%. Which means that he will be paying at first, some 50$ out of his monthly income in the first year. Now, it's not unreasonable to suppose that this gamer will spend $300 a month in various expenses, including rent, food, phone, gas, electricity, water and transportation. Now, how does this gamer play games on his $1000 PC? He pirates them. Now, I said Eastern European, but I could have said South American, Southeast Asian, or Southern European. These are huge markets and games simply aren't priced to be sold there at all. Games are a luxury. He could also wait for the price point to come down, or only buy a few titles a year. It's a poor excuse. Wasn't there a game awhile back that was offered at a pay whatever you can afford model, and it was still taken for free by a sizable number of people?

You are not looking at this from a business perspective. Logically, you might be correct, but businesses run on profit & loss, supply & demand. They have a product with a high demand, but they are unable to make a profit on half of the users. What I'm saying is at some point, most businesses are going to look at that and decide there is an opportunity for more profit and less loss on the consoles. I'm just saying this is a huge problem for the PC industry. Like numero uno. I'm glad we can agree that piracy is bad. edit: I'm making a big deal about this because it shocked the heck out of me. I've always been a vocal opponent of piracy, but I didn't realize it was this rampant. I figured most games suffered about 10-20% losses to piracy, and I assumed a good chunk of piracy occurred after a game was released for awhile. This is a brand new game and it is seeing close to 50% piracy numbers. That is absolutely crazy to me. If I spent years of my life working on a game and I knew that many people took it without paying, I would quit and go do something else with my creative talent.

It is a completely ridiculous argument to say that they wouldn't pay for it anyways. That isn't how businesses work, they work on supply and demand. There are 6 million people using the product. Only half are paying for it. That is a serious problem. From a business perspective, that is a huge loss. I can't think of another industry with a 50% theft rate. That's insane.

I can't speak for Poland, but most of these exist in the US. But all this means is there is a paperwork process that needs to be gone through in order to do certain things. None of these things are actively withheld from citizens, and if they are, there is a legal system that heavily favors the individual citizen. Also, most of this stuff is designed to protect people. I don't want people driving around in unregistered cars without licenses and insurance on makeshift roads with no police presence! I want to know that when some bozo hits me, I have legal recourse.

Agreed about the companions. Heck, most people are now complaining that they are too effective.

No, but it's nothing to upset them as they're not a factor. I wonder if anyone's totalled up the piracy numbers for non-torrent sources though, for both console and PC. I'm not sure what you are getting at here. Do you see that this is rampant piracy? Does it make sense to you that this is a large problem for the PC industry? Is it logical that with piracy like this, less developers will choose to create PC games? That's all I'm getting at.

So when someone creates something and sells it online, and then 2.7 million people take it without paying, do you think it is comforting for them that those people likely wouldn't have bought it anyway?

I was a War Paladin. Pretty predictable.

My point is that it is not as simple to pirate on the PC, not that it is impossible or it isn't a problem. The issue is Starcraft, a PC-only AAA title, has sold only 3 million games. This may seem like a lot, but then you look at something like Call of Duty: Black Ops and their sales numbers, and you wonder why any developer would ever bother to make a PC game again. CoD:BO probably cost way less to make, and there is no way that they are dealing with piracy on the same scale as Starcraft. When a game is being pirated on a 1 to 1 scale, meaning for every game sold they are also getting one pirated, that is a serious serious serious issue.

Picked up Borderlands for $20. Seems like a pretty fun game, I like the style so far. Going with a sniper, so far so good. Bit tired of shooting dogs.

Yeah, no. Not anywhere near the scale that it exists on the PC at least. It is just too easy to pirate on the PC, whereas console piracy has more hoops to jump through.

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2010/11/17/sta...3-million-times Wow. This is the kind of crap that is really killing the PC industry. Here is a blockbuster title developed solely for the PC, and almost the same number of people that buy it chose to download it illegally. Just wow.

I haven't compared it to any other blu-ray players. But I don't remember having trouble with dvd's on the PS2, either. It seems to work very well, I use it for regular DVD's all the time and it is as good as any player on the market.

I don't regret trading my 360 for a PS3 for an instant. It is a great system. I'm also really enjoying the Blu-Ray player capabilities.

It's sad that a million bucks would really not do all that much for me. It would basically push me up to my ten year plan. I would definitely still need to work, although I could retire a few years earlier. It would free me from debt, although I'd still need to carry a mortgage if I wanted a decent house in my area. I could update a few big items like cars, but then that's about it. Not that I'd turn it down, I'm just saying it doesn't go that far anymore.

I'm kinda glad you can't melee Deathclaws. Who in their right mind would try that?

The Losers - Fun action romp. Left off as a cliffhanger, which is a shame, because I don't believe it did well enough to get a sequel.

I am very confused where, exactly, dirt is being rubbed in Gftd's colorful expression.

My stitches are low enough that wearing socks all day is uncomfortable, so I've taken that as an opportunity to dress casually. I'll be back in formal wear after Thanksgiving.

Non-negligible isn't really a word. I mean you can infer that WoD means the chances are large, since negligible means small or trifling, but it is a vague way to put it. It certainly isn't a scientific measurement. What is the criteria for a negligible chance versus a non-negligible chance?

Getting to the Boomers had me dodging a few flying cars.

Today I ran in the school Turkey Trot. I placed 3rd...out of 3. Well, I did have surgery last week, and I managed to beat all the female teachers, so I'm not too sore about that. I also had to run barefoot, as I thought it was going to be tomorrow and all I had was sandals. It is about a mile run. Better ice my leg now.

That is really not true, as I mentioned, many of your links have been interesting and illuminating. It is simply hard to interact with you sometimes, particularly when you dig your heels in on an issue. Personally I'd just like to see you be a bit more forthright, maybe tell us about yourself and your personal experience instead of constantly linking articles. This is a community, not a debate team.

I'm actually a bit concerned that the US intelligence agencies aren't nearly as adept as they are on TV and in movies. I'm worried they are more like Matt Damon in The Good Shepherd.