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Stop the DRM

When will companies learn that their draconian efforts to prevent piracy only serves to hurt their paying customers which directly affects their bottom line!!

Companies, you must stop counting pirated copies of your software as “lost revenue” — it’s not! Someone who is willing to pirate software isn’t willing to pay for it.. EVER! So you never had their money in the first place..

You’re trying so hard to capture that imagined lost revenue that it’s blinding you to how badly you’re screwing yourselves and your real customers..

Equating the number of pirated copies of your software directly to dollars is retarded.. More over, implementing these harsh DRM models only serves to prevent the honest players from playing your games, which effectively assures that you’re going to lose real money in the form of people who actually DO buy your games going else where..

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So I have been playing in the Starcraft 2 beta and to be honest, I’m not overly impressed.  It’s basically the same game brought forward with some refinement..  Fine.. Those who love it can play it.. I for one very likely wont be and there are two primary reasons for this;

1. The people playing are douche bags
2. Just like SC1, the game is wildly out of balance

I’m playing in the friend and family beta and STILL the people I play against are rabid pricks..  People say all the time that MMO (WoW specifically) players are rude and jerks, and I have to say they are nothing compared to the Starcraft players..   It’s like all the lame ass epeen stuff you see in MMO’s that a player does over the course of the year or two he plays the game is compressed into one 20 minute game and so they have to be extra big douche bags just to be sure you know how uber they are and how much you suck..

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Star Trek Online Review

Firstly I want to say that I personally think it’s extremely hard to judge a game entirely by the first 15 levels.. Any MMO to date that one cares to name changes drastically as you play across the level range and to judge that game by the first couple levels is simply foolish. You haven’t experienced the whole of the game.. So I’m going to post my review about it, but I want you to keep in mind that there are going to be a lot of things I simply haven’t done yet..

Also, there are a lot of people on the forums bashing the game for one reason or another, some reasons are valid, some aren’t. I would argue that most of those people really haven’t truly experienced the game in its fullest, but at the same time I will concede the point that if it doesn’t appeal to them early on, it may not later either and that they should just move on without the flames.

What you’re not seeing on the forums is the influx of praise or posts by people who are largely happy, not because they don’t exist but rather because the complainers are typically a lot more vocal minority.. People that complain loudly are typically those people who think they are righteous and have entitlement issues..  They are “right and by god you’re gonna know my opinion..”

So with that — here’s my righteous opinion on the the first 15 levels of fed play and the first 12 or so of Klingon.. I only really have 2 major complaints.

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Star Trek Online

Why I think they might actually have gotten it right.

Firstly, I was really worried when I found out the end game for STO would be PVP-centric.  That just doesn’t really work normally for any number of reasons which I wont go into just yet.. Traditionally if you look at all the major (even minor) MMO’s out there that have tried, you’ll see that they have generally failed or aren’t entirely PVP based.. Eve Online being one that hasn’t failed and does really well, but I believe that’s largely due to being the only game in it’s market. By and large however, PVP only games just don’t do that well with the masses..

I believe that there are 4 primary reasons for PVP being problematic in most games:

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I have to admit that one of the games I am looking forward to in 2010 is Cryptic’s, Star Trek Online.

Some might wonder why the single most popular science fiction franchise in the history of media has taken so long to be turned into an MMO, myself included — But I think it’s a better use of our efforts to instead not speculate too much on the why of it but rather to channel that raw emotion and energy into the heart felt desire for STO to not suck.

Let’s be honest here, Cryptic Studios is very good at bringing out games that look kinda keen, but have zero long term playability.   City of Heroes and City of Villains suffered from this, and the successor Champions Online (City of Champions?) was even worse.   They looked great, but for whatever reason they just didn’t have the sticking power to keep players interested.

Will STO be the same thing?  Look good initially and maybe be fun for a week or two, but rapidly drag down into a grind-tastic mess?  God I hope not..

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Dragon Age Logo

I ask you — can Bioware do no wrong?  Every game of theirs that I have played, I have loved.  Neverwinter Nights was kinda “Feh” but the concept was excellent even though the editor was horrible.   Mass Effect was fantastic forcing me to play it through like 4 times..  And of course the Baldur’s Gate franchise was awesome.. I played that game until my eyes bled, sought healing and then played it some more..

So when Dragon Age was announced at E3 way back in 2004 I was stoked..  Finally a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate done in a completely new style with modern graphics, fully voice acted and by the same developer.. *Gleeeee* I anticipated more costly eye healing.. As I was sure to play that game as much as I played Baldur’s Gate..

And then we waited.. and waited.. and waited..  Set the way forward machine now to 5 fricken years later… And FINALLY we have the game to play..

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