The Back Room

[The_Mather1]

Uninstall and reinstall it?

[Nexaduro]

Uninstall and reinstall it?

I DID THAT TWICE

 

Since when is that EVER the answer.

[The_Mather1]

Well, by the way you described it, it seemed like you were using parts of an old install, in which case there would be a possibility of the files being incompatible with eachother, something a reinstall could fix.

[archimage_a]

For the record, this is not a thing you can do. It is in fact a thing at least 99.99999% of the world can't do.

 

They are kinda like superheros :rolleyes:

Software, hardware and experience...that is what you need to do it, not a 'Gremlin in the Machine' - 'Mather-Magicism'...All of which would cost (or require you to pirate, and thus defeat the object of not pirating) a tonne of money and time.

My reason for saying pirates are more honest than the gaming industry is because the gaming industry is bound by laws and regulations they have to follow to not suffer consequences, there's no downside however to just barely following them.

Meanwhile pirates are bound by an unwritten code of honor, the breaking of which only gives you bad reputation, giving yourself leniency however is the same as breaking this code.

In essence the gaming industry does what it has to in order to keep its own ass safe, while pirates do what they do to be good guys, if only in the eyes of other pirates.

 

 

More accurately...Game Industries have to invest huge resources into building a game, even Gamefly/Steam and other 'Middlemen' services, to a lesser extent. Though they do have to host the servers, employ the staff (In theory) to make everything work. Pirates have to invest a few hours, maybe a few weeks for Assassin's Creed II type DRMs, they have to pay virtually no overheads...They need only as much bandwidth as to download the few kilobyte links, and upload the file a couple of times, with everything else being stored on the wider internet.

 

Ergo Gaming Industry works hard to provide the games. Yeah, sometimes they fail, but they are doing something majorly complex for what will be a few hours/days/weeks enjoyment on our end, with a diverse, contradictory and shifting audience...Not to mention the idiotic management systems above them.

Pirates do very little and so can afford to be magnanimous, with illusions of honour amongst thieves. The reality is Pirates 'like' showing off their ability to break games, and some don't see that just because they can do something doesn't mean they should...

Others take an amount of responsibility for their actions and remind the thieves, such as you, that you should support games you like by buying them...Piracy as a means of trying a game before you buy it is vaguely more justified than actively stealing a game.

 

 

My opinion would be that games should really have 2-5 years 'in print' and then be declared free game (no pun intended), rather than the games from the 80s still being 'owned'. But that is something that needs to be resolved, rather than bypassed by piracy because that only generates reaction against the wider internet...Cause what people like you don't realise is that the internet is not free, all it would take is a concerted effort and it would fall (That the world couldn't co-operate its way out of a paperbag is a diminishing issue)

 

 

 

@Nex:

Have you tried turning it off and back on?

Also, have you tried running the game in Compatibility Mode?

For clarity, are you reinstalling the game or the client...cause both are fairly important.

Beyond that I would probably say that there was nothing you can do.

 

Oh, and giving us the name of the game would be productive...

[The_Mather1]

I wasn't talking about the quality of the work there, I was talking in general. The games are usually fine, but it is apparent how little of a shit many of the companies give about their customers, with impractical methods of activation and mediocre customer support, though sometimes you see evidence of how the companies realize they don't need you to enjoy the game any more than that it makes you buy the next one.

 

Note that there are exceptions; after my Hotmail got hacked, it only took about 15 minutes between me asking and Valve resetting my Steam contact email.

 

 

But yeah, some parts of the gaming industry do take their dishonesty to the extreme, an example of this is Activision, which year after year has released the same games over and over with a minimum of added content, such as with their Call of Duty and Tony Hawk franchises. Or Blizzard with how they're releasing the "extention packs" to WoW, which really just are updates that allow you to progress a little further in the game.

[archimage_a]

I agree on some levels. For instance if you have brought a product then I would have no problem with pirating it...Ideally you would have tried customer support/searched for a fix before you engaged in piracy (Since you are providing your upload to people with potentially less honest motives)

 

I do wonder what Adam Smith would make of all this though...Infinate resource being charged for at one 'market' and being given away at another 'market'.

He would probably suggest that the gaming industry was forming a 'guild' to protect itself, and then note that if it didn't then there would only be a few sources of the infinate resource(games), rather than the huge number there are at the moment.

 

 

In terms of Call of Duty/WoW...If people didn't want the product they wouldn't buy it/pirate it.

Something like Tony Hawks, how much can you really do? Its a guy on a skateboard, who goes and makes an idiot (Guess if I like skating) out of himself. 'Quests' are often entirely unreal, so they can only really make the pathetic incremental updates. Ideally they would do the Star Wars(First Trilogy) solution of releasing a game ever couple of years...But if people are idiots enough to buy substandard games then very little stops companies doing it...and cheaper technology has lead to the Jevonus Paradox of the same, or diminished, amount of 'work' being done per year, despite there being more games.

 

So yeah, its a mess of a situation.

[Retech]

Subject is music but related:

 

[The_Mather1]

I agree with arch up to a point. On the one hand, pirating games is kind of a bad idea, and really really dickish if you're dealing with independent devs, or those which don't stuff their games full of DRM. On the other hand, if a gaming company is going to stick [bleep]ing Starforce or a Blizzard-esque DRM then odds are fairly good that I'm not going to buy it. For me it boils down to: how much I like the game (If I pirate it and like it then I'll buy it most likely), how much DRM is included and how it interacts with my system (if the DRM is llike starforce and can really [bleep] up a system, I'm pirating), and how much support the devs throw in after release (ranging from little to no patches (in most cases), to map packs and other add-ons for free (in Tripwire's case)).

For me it's more if the game is really worth it.

 

In some cases, I've already made up my mind, such as with Pokémon, where I got myself an emulator ROM just to get my hands on it early. Other times I try them out and decide to buy them afterwards, such as with GMod and the Orange Box game pack. Some games I try, but don't buy because they're either (in my opinion) shitty (Fallout 3 (damn thing crashed once every five minutes)) or because they're more addictive than actually enjoyable (Fallout: NV and Skyrim (I have to play in godmode in order not to be pissed the whole time I'm playing them)). And some I pirate and play through once for the challenge, and never touch again because that's all they were, a challenge rather than enjoyable gameplay (BF3).

 

EDIT: Oh, and the last type, the ones where I buy the actual game (AC2) and pirate the follow-ups because they're not worth the money, but I want to complete the story (AC: Brotherhood and AC: Revelations).

[Earth]

hey Nex, can you toss me a link to the site that comic is hosted on?

[Nexaduro]

Just google Dresden Codak.

[archimage_a]

Wow...took you more time to type 'Google it' than if you just gave the link...

http://dresdencodak.com/

[Resistance]

If I don't purchase anything at all, games companys won't lose anyhing if I pirate since I wouldn't have bought their game anyway!

[archimage_a]

You say that...But if the option to pirate wasn't there then you wouldn't have any games, ergo you would be compelled to buy them...Or get a job, get money and spend it on games.

 

Alternatively watch TV or read a book...

[Resistance]

On the subject of books, who else likes the Discworld books?

[archimage_a]

Nope.

[Resistance]

Nope.

If you want to start don't start with:

 

The Colour of Magic

Maskerade

 

 

Do start with:

 

Going Postal

Monstorous Regiment

Guards! Guards!

Thief of Time!

[archimage_a]

Why would I want to start?

[Nexaduro]

Because the hexly magic compels you thusly.

[Grim_]

On an unrelated note, after a scheme of mine that involved buying broken iphones on ebay and then repairing them/ selling them on craigslist for profits of 2-300$ actually worked I have quite a bit of extra cash (Especially since I invested 2000$ into it, and I've got around 5500$ to spend). What I want to know is, can anyone recommend a laptop that is below 2000$ and can be used to game with? One that is preferably not a "gaming laptop" as those have fairly bad battery life/functionality as a laptop, and is 14-16"?

[The_Mather1]

I've got no idea about specific laptop series, but in my experience, Acer laptops seem to handle games pretty well.

 

Though I must inquire why it has to be a laptop, and why it has to have longer battery life than gaming laptops, as stationary computers are significantly better, and a laptop's processing power is severely reduced by not being plugged in.

[Grim_]

Because I've already built a "gaming desktop" (really just upgraded my cpu and video cards), and as I'm going to college soon I'm not likely to bring a big ass tower with me.

I'd prefer it to have a longer battery life than most gaming laptops because they tend to have fairly poor battery life (its all the fans and back lit keyboards generally).

[Earth]

I like the Discworld series but they're not for everyone. Kind of freaky for some people, I've found.

[The_Mather1]

You know you can just tell it to turn those off when you unplug it, right?

[Grim_]

I'm aware, but more to the point a lot of "gaming" laptops seem like they weren't meant to be used as laptops, judging by how hot their bases can get under load (seriously, look it up, 108 F is too much to be used on a lap). I'm capable of finding something with fairly good specs by myself, but I was asking around here to see if I could find some actual user experience, which tends to be more useful than specs and benchmarks (for instance, will using this laptop as a laptop sear my genitals to the point of impotence or not?).

[Nexaduro]

I'm aware, but more to the point a lot of "gaming" laptops seem like they weren't meant to be used as laptops, judging by how hot their bases can get under load (seriously, look it up, 108 F is too much to be used on a lap). I'm capable of finding something with fairly good specs by myself, but I was asking around here to see if I could find some actual user experience, which tends to be more useful than specs and benchmarks (for instance, will using this laptop as a laptop sear my genitals to the point of impotence or not?).

I have a burn scar on my leg from using this one laptop. That was a bad day.

 

On the note of broken Ipods; I don't suppose you know how to fix one that's had the volume buttons slightly... Embedded into the casing?

 

I kinda figure I should just buy a new one at this point.