That's not even the first graphical MMO. Neverwinter Nights was released in 1991, which is the earliest i've heard of.

Quick question if you are still reading responses to this topic - where is Luke Leighton's constituency? It says 'south west surrey' on your website. I live in Kingston, which is in south west surrey, but i'm not sure if that means he'll be on my ballot or not since it is usually referred to as it's own location. Cheers.

Greenhouse Games is the indie distribution website set up by the Penny Arcade team. There are more games for windows and mac than linux, but you will find a few titles that run natively, most notable the Penny Arcade itself, On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness (pt1 and 2).

Demos are available, so feel free to try before you slap down 10 quid or so.

Quoting out of context and insults; it's what all the cool kids are doing.

Seriously though, given that I obviously misunderstood your first post (using 'believe' to mean 'I am aware of the existence of' rather than 'I have belief in') I really think further argument is pointless given that we seem to have the same viewpoint: no scientific consensus (regardless of which side of the debate you think is stronger, more research is required, especially before laws are passed). Excellent. Glad that's straightened out. Also you smell (sorry i'm not great with insults).

You don't believe in evidence. There either is evidence supporting your claim, or there isn't. Current research on a causal relationship between video game violence and real world violence is pretty inconclusive. Take a quick look at the top 10 hits in google reporting on the findings of recent papers.

Now if you'd rather be safe than sorry with your own children that's fair enough, but I really think its morally wrong to use censorship to deny a work to an entire country based on unscientific opinions.

I try my best to never read a review written by someone I don't know, especially when it's a game or something that requires objectivity. When you know the reviewer and their likes, dislikes and biases, you're best equipped to interpret their review for what it is. It's even better than reading a professional review in most cases; I consider the idea of a professional film watcher or game player somewhat nonsensical.

The delicious irony is that publishers and developers were the ones who decided to abandon the PC games market. There's 'too much piracy' there they say, throwing away millions in sales from the many loyal PC fans worldwide. Now they're telling us that console royalties are too much money? Well, I can't have too much sympathy there; they've pretty much made their own bed, and are complaining that they have to lie in it.

No it isn't. It's legalisation of non-commercial, non-profit filesharing. What logic are you using to get from a to b?

Remember, 11.5% of our population is engaged in it right now. Think about the sheer number of people that would be criminalised over a trivial issue, and then tell me that these laws are realistic.

Bad luck. If you're going to stick with sky i'd definitely recommend it, even if you're not going to consume media the same way I do. It's very useful. You should be able to get an upgrade for free/cheap a year after you signed up I believe.

I'm not going to argue this point with you, because the fact that it works is self evident. Many programs you watch on TV don't make it to DVD at all, but they obviously still get produced, and everyone involved makes good money.

If you want to buy DVD's then fine, there's nothing preventing you doing that now or in the future. The more content becomes available over the internet, the better value DVD's will become. We are already starting to see cheaper deals, better packaging, more episodes per boxset, and more special features than before. We are going to hit a point where it makes no sense to download gigabytes over the internet when you can easily and cheaply order DVD's online and have them arrive tomorrow, in good quality and high definition. You can thank us later.

Again, 11.5% of the British public is actively involved in pirate filesharing. That's a massive amount! The readership of The Sun is only 3.1 million, and that's our best selling daily newspaper.

Dude, we both have sky. Why don't you set your sky box to series link your favourite shows, then watch them all at your convenience, fast forwarding through the adverts? This method is so convenient I would never even consider torrenting shows that are being shown currently on sky. This is a really good example of exactly what companies should be doing, rather than legislating the hell out of everything. Sky is making a crap load of money off this very idea.

No you are misinterpreting the process I think. TV companies pay all the upfront costs of production and all the actors fees etc, as well as a lump sum to the creators *before* they make a single penny from ad revenue. It's a huge gamble for them. If the show isn't popular, the TV company loses money. If it is popular the station get full revenue for that showing, but the creators are in a good situation to negotiate royalties on the IP, including but not limited to all kinds of rebroadcast (so DVDs, repeats and other TV channels).

Yes they really will. pirates are the music industry's largest source of legitimate customers. People are desperate to spend money on their favourite media, and they are doing exactly that when you provide them with good, value-for-money products.

I don't disagree... but that's exactly the point isn't it? You can't turn back time and make bittorrent not exist, so it's pointless trying to legislate against it's users, and many believe it's not even necessary in order for companies to keep making money.

Again, the views and reasoning behind the change and legislation is there on the site, as well as being all over the internet. Unless you had your head in the sand during the TBP trial you would have heard the various founders of TPB and pirat partiet talking about their philosophy at length. Their position is that the business model of selling content that is trivially easy to copy and distribute over the internet makes no sense in today's society, and there is no logical reason why it should be protected by law!

It's strange how people still claim that we 'have to' pay for DVD's and the like when TV shows are constantly being broadcast into our homes which are 100% free and advertisement supported. Other business models exist and always have! I can't personally make head or tales of your suppositions, since the most money i've ever spent on merch for a show is on Pure Pwnage, a web show that i'm very fond of, and which is distributed 100% free over the internet.

The entire point of the pirate party is the philosophy that, when it comes to filesharing, 'the cure is worse than the disease.' Do you really want to live in a society where governments can randomly target anyone in a huge section of the population for jail time or massive fines over a trivial offence? If 7 million people in the UK are sharing, then 11.5% of the population has been criminalised for a normal activity! How does that make sense? Is it really fair for the government to put out a law that is almost immediately worth £50k * 7 mil = £350 billion in fines?! That's 1/6th of Britain's entire GDP! That's pretty out of touch with reality if you ask me.

If, in your opinion, the pirate party is wrong... don't vote for them. Your ideals obviously don't match theirs.

God, I hate slashdot sometimes. Why don't you just read the summary and click on the links if you don't know?! It took me 2 minutes to read the front page of both sites! What's worse, 5 people who also didn't read the fucking article modded you +5! It's just aggravating.

I will go ahead and quote the exact links in the summary, since the chance of anyone reading it themselves is slim to none.

From the pcpro Q&A:

From the pirateparty.org.uk home page:

Their position is really very clear and consistant, and is exactly the same as the Swedish party and the other spin-off parties worldwide. So now you know, RTFA and prosper.

A common fallacy on the subject of evolution is that every trait that an animal has is in some way good or useful for an animal, but this is just not the case, and this is a perfect example to illustrate why.

Being tall is advantageous for many reasons, one of which is browsing leaves on tall trees. The distance between the womb of a tall animal and the ground is going to be a long way as a consequence of this, but it confers no obvious advantage, it is just a fact of the situation. Ungulates are well known for having tough newborns, and most species can walk only a few hours after birth, so it is quite likely that they were predisposed by their ancestry to having the genes to deal with the problem.

Oh my god, would you take one step back and look at your own post? You're committing the exact same logical fallacies as the religious people on the so called 'other side.' Your 'logical zealotry' is as illogical as their religious zealotry!

The Bible is just a book. The Koran is just a book. The Torah is just a book. These books contain nothing except words. What magical properties do you, a so called atheist, believe these words can hold? You think they're turning passive men to violence? The open minded to bigotry? Think again. If all religion were to be marginalised to the point of irrelevance, people would go out and make up a new reason to hate and kill each other. We fucking call it politics today, who knows what we'll be killing you over tomorrow?

Really helpful post, thanks so much for sharing. I would love to be in your shoes one day :).