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He was probably part of some government black project gone bad... scarred for life. For life.

So according to you, Google cannot steal more of MS' market share because further development of their web-based apps would lead to incompatibility with IE. MS is artificially stalling web browser tech development, again according to you, and trying to have people use their outdated tech, to keep their customers using their products. Um, so what? "He who dares, wins", or so goes the saying. Unless you are in the EU, in which case, institutions will do the hard work for you - and pass on the cost to the citizenry. If Google's apps are so uber, migration to their software should happen spontaneously. I fail to see how this is a monopolistic practice, in principle or legally. That's not very exact, I'm afraid. The case was awaiting the EC's ruling (funny that an executive political organ can exercise what's effectively judicial authority, don't you think? - we invented separation of powers, we can do away with it just as easily) on MS bundling IE with W7. MS went ahead and backed down on the issue that had brought about the anti-trust inquiry in the first place, which for all intents and purposes makes the inquiry baseless. Of course, the EC don't take too kindly to being made fools of. Further reading: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2244050/...cts-ms-ie-plans

Well. Considering that the answer to this particularly unfortunate question is not-quite-so obvious to many people...

I already failed my will save for that.

Yeah. Not even good ol' lust ( ). Really man, I don't think humanity is depicted to be nearly as perfect as you say. There's plenty of examples of Starfleet dudes going bad. Not everyone is like him. edit: lawl

...and they achieve only the most abject ridicule, as usual.

But are those the elements of a true Scots..., er, RPG, alanschu? Really, I don't see the setting as especially problematic to make an RPG. Even if the commie utopia is such (debatable), the player would still need something to trade with other races who may not be as appreciative of smiles and handshakes as currency as humanity is. That could be very interesting if handled well too, allowing the devs to design an economy which isn't based on GP disguised as credits or w/e. How about trading shipboard systems, dilithium crystals, or other stuff that has actual value for the player and can't be hoarded as GP can. This would probably rule out a "ph4t l00t" system altogether, but I tend to see that more as a good thing... A Romulan Star Empire RPG would be bliss. And suicidal from a marketing standpoint.

I agree. We need also the Techno Union and the Intergalactic Banking Clan. Awesome!

This applies to me. At least as far as second and subsequent playthroughs go, unless the game is already old enough to have good mods available for it when I first get it. I think it's awesome and it extends the life of games quite a lot... I actually installed and played through KotOR again just because of this. So little time...

Sounds like we have a clear case of unfair generalising! DDO works fine with a 3/3.5 system in which the most important departure from PnP is the addition of a "mana" pool to casters. So it's not the MMO cultists eating babies again - MMO players are the *ultimate* min/maxers, and that cannot be accomplished without deep knowledge of the rules. Also, D&D games have been known to sell pretty well for the most part, and those sales cannot be exclusively attributed to old PnP fans. So it's not "kids these days" becoming unable or unwilling to master relatively complex rulesets. Looks to me like WotC is solely to blame for driving it to the ground, in their effort to force their ****ing miniatures down everyone's throats, in their effort to make it appealing to the widest possible audience.

Yes, that's why MS was forced to pay multi-billion fines every time it was proven in court that they had been eating babies. Seriously, it's probably not a good thing that MS has such a large hold of the OS market, but that's free market for ya. You can't force a brand to advertise its competitors in their own product. What's next, forcing MS to bundle a copy of OpenOffice with their W7 packages? How about a Linux partition? What the crap? And in the end, it's just more trouble for the end user, because they have to remove all the trash that would be installed by law, because companies "cannot compete on equal footing" - and they sure as hell won't bother if this idiocy keeps escalating. It's bad enough having to clean up all the garbage and idiot-proof configurations new PCs come with. As for the article, what's there to say. Eurocommies strike again!

Well, yes. The emphasis there being on "can", which in this case is totally out of the developers' hands. Depends on whether the game manages to gather together a community large and active enough to fund, run and debug PWs and content for them on their own penny, in their spare time - the community is shouldering the burden of the effort required to provide a service which in most cases doesn't come even close to MMOs. And at any rate, those community PWs simply couldn't handle the millions of subscribers that MMOs sustain... This applies to pretty much anything. A mechanic may screw up when fixing your car, but that doesn't mean he'll always screw up or that you'll be able to fix it just as well yourself (unless you're a mechanic yourself). You are supposed to get what you pay for, and in most cases, you do. It's bad business to have otherwise. It's always funny to see people try and establish a general rule from a very skewed and carefully chosen handful of examples, and then try to use that rule to push their agenda, though. Never gets old. RE Guild Wars: GW isn't free. It's as "free" as the trial versions of the rest of pay-to-play MMOs. It's a different biz model, but by no means free.

That's right, you didn't. But then I guess you don't have a point or I must have missed it, as you quoted and answered to a post directed to somebody complaining about MMO-capable NWN not being free anymore, or somesuch... So please, what was your point again?

Yeah, yeah. I once saw a flying pig. True story! Anyway, if you are not satisfied with the service offered or you believe it doesn't hold up to what they advertise, you can always *drum roll* cancel your subscription! And since MMOs usually offer one or two months free subscription with the retail package, you should be able to tell if the quality level is up to your standards BEFORE you ever pay a subscription fee. There's also a subtle difference between "professional and timely" and "unreasonable". Again, explain how PWs run their show better than company-run MMO servers. And if you can't, then perhaps you can explain why companies should offer the service FOR FREE?

Look, man. I only need to know one thing: where they are.

Life's tough. Stuff that used to be free (even if it was only in your mind), no longer is. Boo ****ing hoo. Looking at the numbers of the MMO biz, you seem to be on the minority ("why would people pay for...?") Seriously, why do you believe you are entitled to luxury items? I did. But you seem to be afflicted with some sort of selective blindness that only allows you to see "trolling flamebait". Troubling.

Major servers run by the publisher? Were those services guaranteed? Could you actually ask for reparation in case something (or somebody) screwed up? Were all those things delivered in a professional and timely manner? Further, are you suggesting that developers and publishers should outsource a large part of their business (bugfixing among other things) to the community? You're not even trying. Huh? Where's the personal attack* there? I'm just taking shots at the nonsense I see, and citing the current worldwide crisis of the banking sector when discussing video games can hardly be construed as anything but. If you can't spare $15 a month for entertainment, you really are in trouble. Entertainment software businesses aim for people with a li'l bit more purchasing power. How about you come up with something relevant to say next time instead of misrepresenting others. *

So NWN offered server maintenance, fulltime DM staff, constant development, testing and addition of new content, event organization etc "for free" before? If you can't shell out $15 a month, my advice would be to stop whining and get a job. Homeless folk aren't their intended target anyway.

Yup. The WoD MMO has a lot of potential, but I don't even know if development on that has started. There's also room for FAIL on the scale of SWG and The Matrix Online...

Everything involves holding hands with you!

Hey, nice! Congratulations mate. Does that mean you won't be hanging around here anymore?

Or if you have never felt true respect for anything or anyone, and on the other hand are familiar with fear. Or are into all this macho gangster bull****.

Fear isn't respect. It's a close substitute, though. People often say they "respect" X instead of admitting they crap their pants everytime they face it, which adds to the confusion. But they are most definitely different things. In this case, what these slimeballs were trying to convey to the Court is that the victim probably wasn't crapping his pants expediently enough for them, so he obviously required further intimidation. Go go Inferiority complex!

No true scotsman... AvP allowed NO saving whatsoever (this was rectified in a patch later, though). It was frantic, it was atmospheric, it was great. Just let go of the urge to press F6 every five seconds and all will be well.

But look! He's dual wielding DEagles! Slam dunk!