Huckeye

Or you could just turn on autoadminlogin in the registry and you don't have to remove anything from your system. HKLM/software/MS/WindowsNT/Current Version/Winlogon: AutoAdminLogon = 1 DefaultUsername = username DefaultPassword = password

so far the typical model has been 19.99US for around 4-6 hours of content. so 8-12 hours is 40 and 12 - 16 hours is $60.00. My numbers may be off here. I remember reading something about the hl2 episodes and I remember thinking that for 60$ you were getting around half of what half life 1 was. While some games are around 12 hours of playtime, many far exceed that. I think almost all episodic content will end up costing you much more in the long run. Plus, so far at least, it seems episodic content is synonymous with steam or some sort of online product activation.

This is the problem with the world. If I had spoken that out loud no one would have corrected me Next time i'll just cry.

Oops. I meant "I have not pity" Don't particularly like fowl. But I cry it sometimes. Maybe I should say, 'its not fair'. I'm also not a fan of episodic gaming. The lies that they can make better games in small chunks is merely a confession that they have been putting less into their big budget games and also an avenue to charge more for less.

Very nice! Hadn't heard of waterton. One more mod added to the list of many that I can anticipate for years

This is one issue I can actually agree with the publishers on (in part, mind you, only in PART). But I can see where the publisher will think that those arguments are illogical. IF, there was no way to pirate the game, then some of those people that pirated it to try it AND some of those that pirated it with no intention of paying likely would have become customers at some point. If the only way to get to something is to buy it, then I think there ARE sales uncounted for. In other words, since the games are in fact pirated, its fair for the companies to feel cheated as they can assume some of those people wanted to play it enough to risk legal action. If It's my game I'm selling than I have no heart for ANY pirates regardless of reasons or circumstances. That's about all I agree with them on though. Their relentless abuse of the paying customer is unethical in my opinion. I also seriously doubt they lose more money than they spend on anti piracy. I also know that games lose sales because of anti piracy as I avoid all steam games, and many variations of CD checking software. I don't pirate them, I just don't play them at all. And noticing some titles from one company that do have the anti piracy software installed, makes me avoid other titles from the same company that might not have had the same measures in place. I also cry fowl on sales statistics. why are they so sacred? I say this because I think you could glean some interesting facts from games sales based on copy protection. I wonder how many copies of Oblivion have sold, versus an ubisoft game that has securom enabled. I don't think more people pirated oblivion than did any ubisoft game with copy protection, i just think more people bought Oblivion because it was a good game and then the company chose not to screw all those that paid for it. (knowing full well the same number of people would find ways to steal it regardless of the protection used or the quality of the game). /end complaints. Sorry.

If you ask me, the slippery slope begain at product activation. And if people refused to buy games that implemented it, they would have patched it on day 2 of the product launch and we wouldn't be worrying about adds in games. So I guess I'm agreeing with the slippery slope theory and also gripping as one of the sole people in the world who refuses to pay for Steam games and getting to listen to countless thousands who supported it by buying it and then complaining that they don't like it. My tip for the day is, don't buy any games with mandatory online requirements and you won't have that problem.

But did MS actually promise them? I understand the broken apps problem will occur with all OSes, but never ending, mandatory product activation? (That's MS's promise, not media speculation). Companies making exclusive DX10 games when there are others who have no problem supporting both DX10, and DX9? (Never mind that the Xbox can run games that 'only Vista' can support, or that Windows XP is supposed to have like 5 years of support left in it so it should get its own DX10) That's not speculation either. I seem to remember reading something about content protection as well. That there is very little you can do with certain DVD's, Cd's, etc. on a vista machine. I can't remember the specs on that though. I agree that some will blow things out of proportion (I may be one of them), but Vista looks like a $400 desktop theme that has about 4 GBs of spyware included with it. (IMHO).

-Constant and random product activation -Genuine advantage (for the consumer, of course) -Direct X10 monopoly by signing producers to exclude DX9 support in their products -Purty desktop theme -Bug fixes that should have been free downloads 5 years ago -Enormous system overhead -More old software won't work -You get the privilege of transfering the license 2-5 times (can't remember what's most recent) -If you want to go off line you get the privilege of talking to the support staff and explain to them why your system wasn't connected to the internet. And here is the feature: They might decide to allow you to continue using their OS that you will never own. I'm sure there are more, but I am actually in a good mood on Fridays so I can't remember most of them.

Yeah, it seems everytime I start to gain a little confidence or some self satisfaction in my efforts some of his work pops up and... well... what happens after that is unpleasant, so I'll spare the details. But his stuff looks really good.

The site said due in October. I'm guessing they might be done soon? the video sure had a lot of content so I'm hopeful for soon. It looks fun. I've never heard of this, thanks for posting.

Thanks for the comments. The textures are so good if you can create a square, the DarkMod artists have really taken care of the rest. I am starting to learn (hopefully) about the size of brushes. All of my rooms and door frames are too big so I'm stuck right now trying to improvise. I'm not very creative, so if it looks like Thief gold, I probably stole it from them or someone else who did it.... I hope they don't mind

Um, they are both charging money, they are both gonna get equally criticized. If gothic doesnt want to be compared to the big boys, then they need to charge less. If they are gonna charge the same as the 'experienced' developers / publishers, then they should deliver the same thing the experienced groups are capable of. In other words, lack of experience goes out the door for me when they are charging me for the game. In an unrelated matter. I had a hard time with the demo. I've got an FX55, Geforce 6800GT, 2 GB of RAM. It seems like it drops tons of frames and freezes quite constantly (almost like a load time because I can hear the hard drive hitting quite a bit, but I thought this game was not supposed to have load zones). This is my first Gothic experience, but I'm kind of disappointed in the demo. Is the quality the same in the final game?

I'm partial to your first idea

Well, that's promising. The game looks good. Did the patch make much of a difference (I kind of thought the demo had problems).

Stinks about Steam. I'll have to pass on this one, then. (weird that the demo didn't require it). As for the wolves in Oblivion, they attack the NPCS too. all creatures do. I had a secondary quest person get killed on her way in between 2 towns by wolves. Thanks to Oblivions non-linearity, I was able to find another way to complete the quest. I also saw two NPCs figting a bear (both archers) one hit the other by accident and after they killed the bear they started fighting each other. I sat and watched and looted everything but the one that lived. (tee hee)

Definitely. But, still, I can justify spending an hour to set up a game world that I can spend 100 hours playing in.

I feel like every game does this. In any first person shooter you stumble across a new fancy weapon and think, "ah, things will get easier now" only to find that all the enemies are harder and you actually COULD'NT get past them without the new weapon. I feel like RPGs are a little better in that you can find an UBER Master Sword of Butt Whooping +29 and still come across rats and spiders as well as bosses. Even in survivor horror games, if you ever come across a new weapon or lots of supplies, my first thought is, Oh crap! they are giving me this for a reason. I think almost every game I have ever played gets harder to compensate new weapons / skills and I have often wondered, what's the point? Dopefishhh, is steam mandatory or optional? I thought it was an option, but I need to make sure. Thanks.

Underused is a great term. Sounds like I enjoyed it more than you did, but I saw early previews of it where you could sneak up on people having conversations and get quests by hearing gossip... I was very excited about those situations where 'thiefing' all around the game world would have its benefits. As you said they were not nearly as often as I hoped. I still really enjoy playing the entire game as a Thief and I thought the dark brotherhood quests were amazing. (Thieves guild were cool too, but I felt a little lacking and the fence system needed more improvements). My wife actually hated the game until she saw the 'thief' elements and then decided to play it just for sneaking through towns and looting folks. then the storyline drew her in and she spent a few dozen hours playing the game. But I don't get bored easy. Guess that's why after 10 years I'm still playing games made for Windows 95/98.

I think in most forums you could go in and state that poo comes out of butts and someone would reply by calling you a name as the complete basis of their argument. Any response of rationalization on your part would be met with repeat insults. Its very frustrating to try and co-exist with certain types of individuals. Personally I loved TDS but fully admit it had its flaws (thinking about what it COULD have been is hard). I can't stand environments where people can't discuss their differences without hostility.

Oblivion is somewhat similar though improved. (inherent in an RPG there will be failures dependent apon skill levels). Arguably this actually makes it better as you get to create the master thief from the beginning rather than just take over once he's good. Oblivion adds a shadow system, sneak multipliers for combat, armor penalizes sneak, audible clues from AI, etc. I recommend Oblvion hands down. (unless you just hate RPGs, Oblivion is a fantastic game) The thing I really like about Thief is the atmosphere (even more than the sneaking). I think its the sneaking that allows you to soak in the atmosphere. Oblivion does well with this. The exploration, and cave diving is where I found it to be thickest. In broad daylight, wearing armor boots, you won't be able to steal in Oblivion. At least not much. It also implemented a twitch based lock picking minigame and a persuasion one too. They are'nt fantastic, but are an improvement over the Morrowind dice role. I like the persuasion skill for a Thief character becuase I figure a great Thief has got to be a smooth / fast talker.

I thought Oblivion did a fine job with Thiefiness. Good reason why given who developed the stealth aspect of it. But it also had the ambiance of Thief in the dungeons and a few other places. I tried the Dark Messiah Demo and I couldn't get a handle on the stealth system. It seemed very clunky and sporadic. If they release another Demo I'll give it another go. I am excited about Gothic 3 for now and of course the soonly released Oblivion content.

You don't have to break the law to get sued (and lose) Like McDonalds making hot coffee and getting sued. So, for arguments sake, if Garrett's name were put in any fan games (not speaking about this one, to make it clearer to the original question at hand) that would not be against any law. Garrett is a common name and free for public usage. That doesnt mean that some company couldn't sue (and even win) over the usage of the name. No law was broken though. I guess I was trying to say, maybe that's what the original question asker was wondering. Even though your not doing anything wrong, have you thought about legal issues? Not sure though, just guessing if that is what he was asking. Sorry I haven't slept in 3 days.

Absolutely! Big difference between what you can do versus what you will do. Just like there is also a big difference between what is legal and what you can get sued for

I've got a LONG way to go, a LOT left to do, and ever MORE to learn, but here goes. I'm starting with a small, completely in door map. something I actually want to finish for a change.