Do you like Diablo 3?

[zespri]

That's fair. If it's just 'I know what I like' then no one can't really argue with it.

I had it coming 

[keith.lamothe]

Torchlight 2 does look very interesting, not sure if I'll get it due to time constraints, but at least I don't feel like I'm being actively repelled by the developer's/publisher's business practices.

What game will you definitely get (any genre) that would fit into your time constraints?

Mass Effect 3 would have been an automatic buy since I loved the first 2 (particularly the 2nd), but that publisher also really outdid itself in efforts to make it hard for me to buy the game (though not as much as D3 is doing; if ME3 goes on a low enough sale I'll probably pick it up even if it does mean Origin, if evidence at that time points to said software being relatively innocuous).

I'll probably give Warlock's demo a try in a month or so after they've had a chance to patch some of the early bugs out, and if it is anything like a worthy modern take on what Master of Magic was I'll get that.

Soldak's Drox Operative will probably be an automatic "first day I'm aware of it being available" buy, because I love space adventure games and I've been really impressed by Depths of Peril and Din's Curse from them (in fact, if I had time that I wanted to sink into an action RPG it would probably be more Din's Curse rather than Torchlight 2).

The Warhammer 40k MMO sounds really interesting so I'll probably give it a whirl but dunno if I'll spring much money for it because I don't generally stick with any MMO long (talk about time constraints).  On that note, basically any Warhammer 40k game is going to get serious investigation from me (DoW2 and Chaos Rising were tooooons of fun; Retribution less so but still good).

In general I'm not aware of upcoming releases, though, so I couldn't tell you much   I know games I've liked in the past that I'd buy more of in a heartbeat but generally people don't make those kinds of games anymore   Space Rangers 3 would be an automatic buy, if they ever did one.  As would another Recettear (I had my hopes up for Chantelise but it's just a very different game style; will check out Fortune Summoners eventually).  And there are other obscure games I want more of that noone here would recognize so I'll save time not mentioning them

[KingIsaacLinksr]

As far as I know, Origin still scans your hardrive without permission and you can still get banned from all your origin games if you even post on the EA forums.

EA has thus far, refused to back down or apologize for screwing its customers over like it does. >=(

I still haven't bought ME3 due to EA's insanity. I played ME2 so much too...just won't touch Origin at all. I won't be forced into software I don't want. I chose to be with Steam (and continue to choose). EA's move to force my hand to Origin will not happen.  I will choose when I want Origin. This means I also can't buy Simcity (5). Oh well. EA wants my business  they can back down this massively ridiculous power play they are conducting.

King

[zespri]

Space Rangers 3 would be an automatic buy, if they ever did one. 

They doing Space Rangers HD: Revolution right now, which is not Space Rangers 3, but rather a refurbish of Space Rangers 2. Updated graphics for menus, etc, ability to run on  most modern resolutions and operating systems, a new story line and new music. Not much. I know.

[zespri]

As far as I know, Origin still scans your hardrive without permission and you can still get banned from all your origin games if you even post on the EA forums.

Get banned from  games if you even post on the EA forums? What do you mean?

[KingIsaacLinksr]

As far as I know, Origin still scans your hardrive without permission and you can still get banned from all your origin games if you even post on the EA forums.

Get banned from  games if you even post on the EA forums? What do you mean?

Many people who were banned on the EA forums would then lose access to being able to play any games tied to their origin account. This is an ongoing issue and some people were banned for ludicrous reasons, which meant they lost the ability to play their games unfairly.

EA refuses to acknowledge that it is a problem and those people are still banned to this day. It pisses me off because that's a big violation of freedom of speech in my opinion.

King

[BobTheJanitor]

I'll probably give Warlock's demo a try in a month or so after they've had a chance to patch some of the early bugs out, and if it is anything like a worthy modern take on what Master of Magic was I'll get that.

For what it's worth, I tried the Warlock demo and found it to be quite enjoyable. With the caveat that I never played Master of Magic, so I can't compare on that front. It's pretty much Civ + Fantasy. Some of the more fiddly bits of Civ, like city management, are thankfully streamlined, and there's no workers building improvements and roads all over the place. But otherwise, you're building units and taking over cities and generally fighting for world domination. The 'tech tree' such as it is, is probably the least impressive bit, since you don't research your way towards anything, you just get given an apparently random selection of 5 spells to research and when you unlock one then another one goes in its place. But being able to rain fireballs down on the enemy skeletons before shooting them with your goblin archers and then finishing them off with your summoned elementals is pretty fun, nonetheless. I probably would have bought it already if I wasn't already peeking out from behind a mountain of games to play and quite aware that the next big Steam sale is only about 6 weeks off.

[Wanderer]

I actually own Warlock.  It's definately Civ light (to the point that you build buildings based on populations that you have little to no control over, they just build themselves) and the tech tree is more building oriented than anything else.

There is no spell-tree, it's random.  Things are weighted so you get the lighter weight ones first but even then it's a random pull.

There is a metric ton of minor issues with the game, but none outright game-wrecking.  There's annoying quirks that you have to work around, like not being able to kick your non-aggression pact friendly's troops out of your area, but they're sitting on something important so it won't function.  Another is the fiddliness of the controls and what's 'on top' and when.  Add enough of them together and it depends on how important these things are to you as to if you'll have a fun time playing it or you want to shoot your PC screen.

One of the frustrating things about it is things that were there, workign in the beta/demo, are missing in the real game, like removing your own buildings.  When you're 'walking your front' forward you don't need defensive buildings back there anymore, and cities max out at ~14 buildings, and really 10 is about the highest before you start to really peter off without heavy spell-stacks.

However, considering I'm at Turn 200 on my 5th game, it's obviously not TOO bad.   I barely played the old Master of Magic though, I forget why, but this is a decent successor for what I remember of the game.

[eRe4s3r]

Despite me having bashed Blizzard countless times elsewhere, and actually planning on boycotting Blizzard some "friends" of mine gamed me by gifting me Diablo 3 (physical release day copy).... I admit.. that's when my boycott stopped.. despite nobody else in my friend group actually playing PC games they figured they could troll me nicely with that.. and oh boy did they get me. 

So yeah.... I have to admit, there is only 2 things I don't like in Diablo 3 (the game itself is pretty damn awesome)

1) Server maintenance and server blackouts keeping you from gaming, and we talking regularly here.
2) Lag.. wow I want to bash the reviewers in the head who wrote there is no lag. There is lag, and it's rare... but oh boy does it kill you when it comes. Also every "level change" seems to be sort of an instance.. and sometimes you spawn in one that's dead (ie, 100% packet loss) quickly followed by a "your net connection dropped" which of course, it didn't.
3) Usually I'd complain about the AH but.. well it's not yet active for RMT Everyone gotta play fair and square for now which is good.

What I love doing though is destroy gold collectors income source. I am selling my stuff at 5xSale price instant buy. (In gold AH) and this seems to me what is best right now. Nobody goes into a 2 day bidding contest, they want the *thing* now. When its level 60 equipment and thus the true end-game uniques I guess things are different then. But you are likely not gonna see those before the 3rd difficulty (or play-through)


That said, if someone wants to play Co-op on HARD i'd love to... in European zone though.

That said, the games always-on DRM is extremely annoying.
Because of course, the game is a SP game at heart. There is so much to read and actually a lot of talking there is no way you can enjoy this game in MP properly. (in the first run, anyway)

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Well, I don't blame you for playing it. I mean, it was a gift from friends and that'd just be disrespectful to them to not play it. 

King

[zespri]

1) Server maintenance and server blackouts keeping you from gaming, and we talking regularly here.

This is going to get sorted out the same way it did with WoW. Just give it some time.

That said, if someone wants to play Co-op on HARD i'd love to... in European zone though.

How long did it take you to play through normal?

[eRe4s3r]

about 18 hours or so for normal Playing Demon Hunter...  level 34'ish now

Find that on "nightmare" (Which is hard, I guess) things get pretty nicely hard now with new enemy patterns and certain events get a lot more fun. But it's still relatively easy. But I am only in the first cathedral level (and the quests there about) for now. That said, I died about 11 times against Diablo and funnily 7 times against the 2nd unique in the angel plane.. that guy had a rush attack that would instant kill me. And Diablo.. well I was doing 7 different approaches to that find.. found out that for end-bosses you really should forget about damage and just focus on SLOWING them the hell down, and never let them get near ;p (at least, as Demon Hunter)

Also died more often whenever one of the annoying "triple rush" squadrons came at me. Which in hell was every 2 minutes. I need a witch doctor or barbarian ;p

anyway.. anyone intersted can always add me on b.net now ~.~ eRe4s3r#2812 (I think)

[tigersfan]

I think it being gifted to me would be the only way I play it as well.

[BobTheJanitor]

I think even if it was gifted to me, the first time I couldn't play single player due to a queue, or ran into lag problems in a single player game, my head would explode.

[keith.lamothe]

Space Rangers HD: Revolution

Thank you.  If I see it come out in English, auto-buy.  Even if it's just a new story line with everything else the same.

As far as I know, Origin still scans your hardrive without permission and you can still get banned from all your origin games if you even post on the EA forums.

Do you know where I can find proof of that?  It's not that I doubt EA is capable of it, it's that I also don't doubt that there are a fair number of folks out there who hate EA enough to distribute false information against them.  Not that you would do it, but if it's just third-hand info, etc.

EA refuses to acknowledge that it is a problem and those people are still banned to this day. It pisses me off because that's a big violation of freedom of speech in my opinion.

If the comments are being made on EA's forums, I don't think any legal concept of freedom-of-speech applies, because those forums are private property.  For the same reason that someone is free to call me an idiot as I walk by on a public street, but I have the right to ask (and, if necessary, compel) him to leave if he does it in my house.

What bothers me about EA's behavior there isn't the restriction on speech, and in theory if the "a forum ban can equal a game ban" is spelled out clearly in the game's EULA I don't even have a problem with them having that policy.  What bothers me is that they are practicing that policy and being dishonest in their refusal to consistently confirm/deny that it is their policy and conform their practice to their public statements.

If they would be honest about it either way, I wouldn't loathe them for it.  But if they exercised their legitimate freedom to make the contract terms "a forum ban can equal a game ban", I would in turn exercise my legitimate freedom to not buy under those terms   Unless it's ME3 on sale for like $10, in which case I'm happy to simply get it as a longish rental, because that's basically what buying something from EA is, often.

EA wants my business  they can back down this massively ridiculous power play they are conducting.

I think it's important that they be free to be idiots in terms of what terms they set for their new products (changing the terms on existing customers would be a different thing).  But they've also shown themselves willing to resort to dishonesty (the forum-ban=game-ban thing, as far as I can tell, and that whole "Steam's terms won't let us directly get new content to our users" line, which they imply to mean free content and which implication is patently false).  That, they're not at liberty to do.

Anyway, derailed there, the topic isn't bashing EA, it's bashing Blizzard!  Oh, wait, you mean we were actually saying positive things about something?