Hurlshort

I believe IE dropped mac support, or is dropping it when the new browser comes out. It's just something I heard at work...where they are impure and use dirty macs.

I don't think it's Satan, Locke seems to be serving Chaos more than order. It's more of a Ying Yang.

I just think there's a big difference between an arcade space game and those that seem more like a space simulator. I'm not saying either one is superior, but I just appreciate the fact that a spaceship would be more complicated than pointing and shooting. I really enjoyed Prophecy. It had great cutscenes and an excellent story, but I did feel like they dumbed the combat down. I was shooting down dozens of ships in each mission, where in WC 1 and 2, it was difficult to get more than a few kills. I remember how proud I was of the medal I got for once shooting down 12 enemy fighters.

There are four great space games. There are no others. 1. Wing Commander 1 - It was the first 2. Tie Fighter - Great controls, great missions, you actually felt good about being an Imperial pilot. 3. Wing Commander 2 - Hard to put this under Tie Fighter, because it really was an incredible story and space sim. 4. Privateer - Freedom, but enough story to not be boring. Freespace was almost this, but it lacked soul.

X-Wing and Tie Fighter...the latter being the pinnacle of space combat simulators.

1. Sony is a producer, not a developer 2. Sony has MANY, MANY MMORPG's, if this is the only one who does it and the 2000 other Sony MMORPG's do not, there might have be some dev. influence? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sony has done this with Everquest, EQ2, and SW: Galaxies. They actually released an expansion the day before they completely changed Galaxies. I guess we could blame Verant, but I have a feeling it's the publishers pushing these expansions out like hotcakes. I don't really know of any other Sony mmorpg's other than those three and Planetside. I think Planetside wasn't bothered with because it never reached the success they hoped for. Galaxies was a massive failure, too, but people seemed to buy it. I admit it, I actually bought it for $20, but I'm ashamed of that. I was going through some bad DT's after I finished KotOR the first time and thought I could get my Star wars fix from it. So Sony = Greed.

Was talking about MMORPG's in General. Blizzard isn't what you would call a "common" designer... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I would say Sony is the uncommon designer, with their 6 month expansions. No other MMORPG does that.

Well, for futuristic style RPG's, we will have to be satisfied with Mass Effect for the time being.

I've actually started using Apple Safari at work. It's interesting, quite a few things I like, and the speed is a good deal better. I haven't committed to it at home, where the heavy surfing happens though.

Is it pretty obvious when someone is hit? How is the range?

It looks like a BB gun to me, you say they have tiny paintball pellets that allow you to shoot people? I loved paintball in High School. Are the paint pellets effective? Are they way more painful?

WoW is not as bad as EQ2, that game was a serious resource hog. I agree that D&D seems to be a bit of a racket. They don't really have serious server strain because they are instancing everything, so the upkeep should be way less than traditional MMORPG's. They should be able to follow the Guild Wars model. Hopefully they'll release a ton of content every month, that's they only justification for monthly fees. WoW, AC, DAoC all released free content on a regular basis. Expansion packs were typically above and beyond just content, and I think they are definitely worh it. EQ does seem to be milking it though. Every 6 months is crazy.

I'm pretty sure the economics of running a MMORPG have been argued ad nauseum. I'm amazed that people still bring that up. Games are a business. The monthly fee is extremely necessary. Blizzard might not really need it, since they've sold a billion copies, but an average MMORPG has to pay for servers and staff every month in order to keep the world going. Get over the monthly fee, it's not going anywhere.

I go to bed at 9 PM and wake up at 5 AM. I'm at work from about 6:45 AM until about 4 PM. Luckily I am a morning person, but it's still very hard to get up at 5 AM. It feels like I get a ton of sleep when I wake up at 7 AM instead, and then I still have a whole day ahead. I have no clue why I'm typing this. What was the topic again?

I tend to only play WoW on the weekends. It can definitely be a time sink, and I hate feeling like I've wasted my precious free time during the week. During the weekends, I can wake up in the morning and play for a few hours before my wife gets up, and then I don't feel I've lost much of my day. The current MMORPG is all about sinking time into certain activities. WoW makes it a bit more entertaining, but there is still some grinding. You just have to be satisfied with short term goals. I played EVE, but it's definitely an aquired taste. It just didn't reel me in. I also keep telling myself I should play Guild Wars again, but I feel like it's just WoW minus a few things.

It's a pretty basic "shoot everything" type of game. After an hour of killing Indians, I actually quit and never picked it up again.

Take Razor! He's insane, but he gets super good after awhile. I remwemver playing through my first game with MD as well. Kid was whiny, but he was an awesome doctor for the price, and he learned to shoot well after a bit. Steroids is great for the comedy factor.

I'd save your money. Did you get a chance to play the beta? It wasn't bad, but it's really watered down D&D. Actually, it's much more of an action-RPG than I could handle. You have access to all the great D&D skills, but I felt so rushed in a fight I rarely used any. If your reflexes are good then it might be better. It's also all instanced dungeons, so you really need friends to play with. WoW is top of the class for MMORPG's. If you played and enjoyed other MMORPG's, then there is a very high chance you'll enjoy WoW. It's not for everyone. Actually, many people play it for an insane amount of hours and then say it was horrible because they levelled too fast. I always wonder...were they just miserable during all those hours?

Uh, and Ray Liotta. That alone was worth the price of admission for VC.

From a development standpoint, it's better to have a combat system that is overly simplistic then one that is too complicated. People are much more comfortable breezing through a game then they are getting stuck and not really understanding what is happening.

Personally, I think Morgoth is a corporate plant, but the game does look rather cool. Do you need to play Gothic 1 to enjoy Gothic 2? I'm thinking about picking one of them up.

Eh, it's more like a traffic violation than a felony. Sure, you might have to go to Driver's Ed. for a Saturday, but it will be wiped from your record after that.

Oooh, a PM! Post it!

A Mazda RX-8 would be nice...and actually pretty affordable.

But Vice City has 80's music! Actually I think VC was worth it just for the motorcycles. GTA3 led the way though. Scrapland was not out before it. The PC version was out much later than the PS2 version, but honestly, it was the first of its kind on the consoles. It's less remarkable on the PC just because PC games already had games with the freedom.