Gorth

Preaching to the choir I think... hate it with a passion. Thats like accusing The World Trade center of being the cause of 9/11 rather than just accept that piracy causes DRM and deal with the source of the problem. I wonder if people ever considered that Stardocks games might appeal to a different demographics than say Activision, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts games?

I think, usually 100% goes to the publisher. Of course, the publisher then has to buy the investors that they borrowed the money from to finance it (with interest), they pay the PR dudes, they pay their distribution network, they pay the devloper contracted to develop the product, they pay their own employees, they pay taxes, they pay external consulting firms (market analysis, audits etc.), they pay the running cost of maintaining their assets (rent, electricity, hardware etc.), they pay... well, you get the picture. It's a business. They invest money (sometimes their own, sometimes other peoples) in projects they believe are profitable. Digital distribution has it's pros and cons. it is not by any means free, as you still need the organisation, the hardware, the software, the bandwidth (wanna bet, unusal bandwidth requirements comes at a special price?) and the staff to maintain it, credit card companies/paypal whatever wants their share of the turnover too. Once it you have the infrastructure in place though, it is easier to increase the available sortiment compared to a physical shelf. Edit: Then of course they also have to pay the DRM dudes.

It's sort of a cousin to Heroes of Might and Magic III and Disciples II I might still have the box lying around here somewhere... Edit: I seem to remember that the game mechanics were fun, but the level design never really appealed to me, so it got stashed away in a big cardboard box and forgotten.

Yeah, $100 (thats $97 USD or 60 British pound) seems to be the "normal" release date price for new games down here. Sort of encourages waiting for sales or buying DD from places with less price gouging.

What's taxation like in Australia? Most of Europe gets a 15-25% price hike just from VAT, though. Not saying we aren't shafted, but that's a part of the equation, too... GST (thats Aussie VAT) is 10%. The Kiwis are worse off and just had a GST hike. As for income tax etc. not sure. I think I pay somewhere around 30-33% of my income to the tax man (blood sucker that he is)

So, what are you playing/collecting/painting? currently doing a death guard army while also going back and filling in the ranks of my necrons. in a few months i plan on suplementing my old dark eldar army with some of the new models... i'm very excited about all this. also: im not playing it NOW, but i cannot wait for the undead nightmare dlc for red dead redemption, it looks awesome I used to play Epic 40k (got a 20k+ point ork army, painted no less). Lost interest in that when they streamlined it to death. Got a fair sized Valhallan army and a SoB army (predating the Inquisitor Codexes) and a few Space Marines. Lost interest in WH40k with 3rd edition rules (streamlined all the flavour out of that game). Still collect a few Warhammer minis every now and then, but after they killed off Undeads and split them into two, leaving out the third option (necromancer led armies), I just play a bit of dark elves on rare occasions. Have an old style lizard man army too (never left its packaging). Painted up a Necromunda gang, but it's only ever seen action twice Incredible what you gather over 25+ years of collecting... Playing a bit of Painkiller Resurrection and started a game of Still Life.

What is there really to do in crpgs other than fetch this and kill that? Most stuff just seems variations of the two. Occasional variation of fetch this is go there and pull lever and the variation of kill that is kill everything else except that. That's one awesome cake!

So, what are you playing/collecting/painting?

Latest news, rapidly growing thread outgrowing old shoes. New thread here

Start of old thread End of old thread Ehh, nothing new from the West Front. Stealing somebody elses news: Ninja edit: Thread title spelling error and missing words fixed. Must be a Friday thing.

I thought that was Lord of Flies' job? Just to be a big bad moderator, oppressor of freeedom, devourer of virgins, slayer of heroes, promoter of prudish politics and all that, a friendly reminder to check one of our own guidelines, regarding discussing the forums/moderators etc. of colleagues and competitors On the nominal topic, I wonder how much effort is going into improving my own pet peeves with DA. I didn't mind that combat and only noticed shortcomings in the visuals because people pointed them out. What did leave me with an "umm, nice... I think?" feeling was the lore, setting and writing. Lack of interest in why I should do what I had to do (combined with the frequent grind) left me rather unenthusiastic about a sequel. Not to mention that some of the best dialogue was with the "extras" in the scenes, not the main party members Oh yeah, and the guy with the big "BUY ME!" neon sign in the camp. I'll never forgive that one, DA2 better be damn convincing

Serious subject is serious! Anybody have anything but trolling to contribute? I read the article. Interesting, although I'm not convinced about the China/Pakistan connection. It does have a point about a number of nuclear armed countries who all wants to be the next "super power" wrestling for position. I still think Pakistans actions are determined more by a desire to stay alive through all means available rather than megalomaniac ambitions. It is barely a coherent country and has more opposition internally than externally imho. India makes a good villain for Islamabad to deflect attention and pent up anger of the masses towards. When Taliban ruled Afghanistan, all the young unemployed hotheads, straight out of the Madrassas went there instead.

Good question Which is really the crux of it, isn't it? Abusing the power and authority invested in you for personal gain. If he had left his tools and uniform at home and gone over and had a few choice words with the neighbours, he would just have been another Al Bundy chasing Kellys suitors away at shotgun point

When the LHC gets up to full speed in 2012 we should get the answers

I subscribe to Gorthology

Even sadder is the fact that you feel the need to preemptively discredit every one who would want to raise criticism, valid or not. Not trying to be preemptive (much), just pointing out what I expect will happen. I belong in the category "not too fussed" too, thinking as long as it does its job, i.e. functional, anything else is just bells and whistles. Does "fine art" look good? Probably, but I consider it secondary to the functionality of the graphics. Thats probably why I hated the Disciples III demo and still play Disciples II. The former may be technically better made (visually), but it sure feels less functional. You are left with the feeling that it is the graphics (in the case of Disciplis III) they want to sell, not the game. Yeah, I probably do like poking fun at people who are fussed about state of the art gift box wrappings

Finished Mass Effect 2 with a renegade "female" Shepard (using a me1 save from that website that collects them). Ended up inviting Kelly to my quaerters after finishing the game Still crossing fingers and hoping for a goty type release thing with all the addons. Starting a new game of Space Rangers 2 and trying to pick which adventure type game to play. Probably Post Mortem or Still Life.

It was posted on the internet. You wouldn't want to laugh at somehing posted on the internet would you? It is serious business!

Hey, even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn every now and then, why couldn't a survey do it accentally? Speaking of chicken, it probably is a chicken vs. egg problem. Did the moral values influence the religion or did the religion influence the moral values. I always believed that religion was a product of the time and place where it was created, reflecting what was acceptable at the time. As times change, sometimes the religion does too. We generally don't chop off the right hands of thieves, stone adulterers to death or sacrifice a 1000 prisoners every spring to ensure a good harvest at the end of summer. Continuing that line of thought, agnostics/atheists can be **** like everybody else.

Do not underestimate the power of the blue killer algae!

Oscar really is a tremendously talented artist : http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index...pic,1701.0.html (pics at bottom of page) The sad thing is, no matter that it looks perfectly fit for the task, self appoint art (direction) critics will line up in a queue to tell you have bad it is, picking at everything from the lighting over missing shaderss to the texture resolution. Need more bloom. It looks perfectly nice... I'm getting curiouser and curiouser about their two games

Yes, you show them! Death to the evil wooden pallets!

Look at the size of her sword! Is that Final Fantasy or what? Arghh!... those swords!... My eyes!... I've gone blind!... The new Grey Warden...

Looks like she has a skin condition? Anyway, it's possible they killed off characters later. Just don't remember seeing them do it in the original series/first few movies