This whole subject has little to do with software companies rushing out software in most cases. It has a whole lot more to do with breaking the zero-day pirating scene.

If they leave in certain bugs that are certain to break the game about 2-4hrs in, then the zero-day piracy crowd (which relies on the cracked game being available before or on the day of release) have a game that won't work for them. They either have to worry about cracking the patch, or buying the game.

What you buy when you get the game box is a very expensive demo copy. Get your feel for the game, and then run into a crippling problem that prevents you from really advancing. Then you have to download a patch, which will re-install the copy protection the zero-day pirates removed.

Those same zero-day pirates are usually a few days behind on the first patch, which means anyone who downloaded it is stuck, and either has to wait or buy a legitimate copy.

Really, you think these massive bugs really make it through Q/A without being noticed? You think they are able to correct such bugs in about 24-48hrs, and a lot is taken care of?

NWN2 left in a crippling water effect when you got to the main city, which they had to patch out. Really, they never saw that even high end machines came to a lag infested halt trying to walk around?

Besides, how many times do you see a game released on both PC and XBox 360/PS3, and the console versions don't have the same bugs, but the PC version is a mess?

http://www.avert.org/age-of-consent.htm

So, all those gaming mags and their companion websites, as well as other sites, will start taking it on the chin.

"Here at (blahgamers!) we consider (newgameX) to be absolutely killer! The graphics were uber, the gameplay awesome, and the chicks had almost nothing on!*"

*The above review was compensated for by (producers of newgameX) with a free lifetime subscription to (newgameX), a cool $5K, and dates with each of the kiosk girls we used at the last game convention. Condoms not included.

How very /. this poll is.

To make it really hit home, though, we need a dupe of it in a week. Followed by a poll about this poll about polling.

I agree with you whole heartedly.

There are so many things that you have to consider.

I work for a software vendor that makes many different applications for prescription filling and related pharmacy stuff. It seems like the problems never stop coming, even though we have some great coders and spec writers.

Consider this. There are 50 states plus D.C., and the federal government, that each have rules and regulations on how presciptions can be filled, how things have to be labelled, etc. One seemingly minor change to a law can been hundreds of lines of code changing, with testing needed to make sure we don't break something that previously worked. I used to joke that if we fix one thing, we always break at least 2 other things.

As far as NCPDP goes, the currently used standard (5.1) is a pain in the ass, and D.0 (the next HIPAA compliant standard) is going to be worse. Every single insurance company and healthcare provider is trying to work some little niche rule exception into place, and NCPDP is a bunch of spineless bastards when it comes to enforcing the regulations they publish. Plus, they are slower to respond to the industry than an old man wearing a hat driving a land yacht on his way to church. But, they are no longer the complete dinosaur you portrayed them as. Almost nobody uses the 3.2 stanard anymore, and spaces and variable lengths are non-issues with the current standards.

Electronic prescription transmission is even worse. SureScripts is another relatively spinless orginzation that fails to police the prescriber vendors, but gets all over the pharmacies like flies on shit for any little problem that crops up. Pass the buck and freak out later is their motto.

Let's not forget other pertinant aspects of healthcare software. Drug Utilization Review (DUR) is a major component, provided only by a very few vendors, and the number of editorial errors are higher than you'd like. Often it takes up to a month for new drugs to get into the review systems, and can take longer for the new DUR hits to show up due to it taking time for it to be recognized that there is a problem.

I would think that some older and more established MMOs would have quite a bit more lines of code than WoW. EQ comes to mind, with 14 expansions released, probably has more code. EQ2 may have more, since there has been more expansions released for it. Lineage II has been around for a long time and has had quite a few expansions. And there are plenty of Asian style MMOs out there that have had numerous expansions. And Vanguard, for all its crappiness, is a huge game.

I don't have the latest EQ2 expansion installed on my PC, since I stopped playing before it came out, and it takes up 9.5GB on my HD. WoW is sitting at 15.9GB right now, but well over 2GB of that is old patch files that don't seem to delete themselves after being applied, and there may be more that I haven't deleted manually elsewhere. By c ontrast, my Vanguard install (that hasn't been patched in more than a year now) that never had a box expansion, is at 18.7GB.

You have to remember that WoW is designed to run on a fairly low end machine. The graphics are pretty tame, not being much advanced over EQ's graphics these days, and they certainly don't require a powerful graphics card. It's one of the reasons the game is so popular. People don't have to upgrade their PCs to play it. Just about any stock PC will play WoW fine.

Don't assume that because the most people play the game, it has the most code. It just appeals to the most people.

More like this: http://www.booble.com/

Probably EQ2. It sounds funny, but in many ways, it is more casual player friendly than WoW. It really grew up from its not-so-great launch.

Plus, you buy the latest expansion, and you have the complete game, all previous expansions included. It makes it much cheaper than most established games.

Throw in the nostalgia a good portion of WoW players have for seeing the various lands of EQ again, and it's a fairly logical choice.

I think a lot of rogues not playing on PvP servers would contend that a lot has changed in how the game plays and feels.

DKs have radically changed the landscape of the game.

They got away from the 40-man raids and got down to 25-man raids, but now they are upping the time it takes to complete places. I feel like I'm back in EQ in some cases, where you would pick an instance to tackle, and spend all day Saturday trying to beat it.

Sure, you can log out and come back in and the zone won't have reset (though trash mobs may be back). But instead of making 1 instance so big, I'd have preferred to have wings that were treated as seperate instances. Each wing of Naxx takes a long time to get through unless you are in an uber guild with a really tight-knit group of raiders.

I'm at the point where all my gear upgrades are either through Arena (hack-ptui!) or 25 man instances. And my guild doesn't even have 25 active players. I do a few PUGs, but I haven't seen a single piece drop that my class can use on any of them. And PUGs on stuff like 25-Naxx don't look for the same folks the next day. They just grab whomever and keep going.

This is at the core of why I get frustrated with WoW so much.

Blizzard has decided to blur the lines between classes, and keeps changing rolls with each expansion.

I'm on my second stint in WoW. I played for the first 9 months after release, and quit when I hit 60 and got bored with the gear grind. I went and played EQ2 for 3 years, and stopped playing after my kids were born. Recently the wife and I decided to give WoW another try.

After hitting 80 with my solo main, I can say that the game is definitely weak on class roles. The talent trees are cool and all, but I hate not knowing if a shaman is a healer or a dps class, and what kind of dps they are. I hate not knowing if a druid is going to boomkin, heal, or tank/melee. I could go on, but people that play the game get it.

When I join a pug for instance/raid runs, I'd like to not have to ask who is doing what. I like knowing that the druid is primarily going to heal, and maybe toss a few DoTs in.

I've grown to prefer EQ2's way of having 24 classes, and many of those classes are simple variations of a theme. I greatly preferred having someone ask my necro "you have lifeburn specced?" than asking my shaman "you enhancement, elemental, or resto?"

The dual specs are a nice touch, but I think WoW is hurting by its lack of timely expansions, and its problems nerfing PvE when it tries to fix PvP issues.

Now I'm going to go play some "I Win" mode, and get my DK on.

Why the heck not? We need more of them, right? Right?

Considering that the serial code thing has been around for decades, I'd hardly consider it major DRM.

Just make it so that you can't download patch updates without connecting to the company's servers and having a valid serial #.

Sure, the patch will get cracked eventually, but you just made the pirating process a little less hassle free.

I have Steam, and I have FIOS, with the Actiontec router, and I never had problems in the past. Granted, I don't use Steam a ton, but it connected, and I was able to list and enter TF2 games when I tried it out.

The Actiontec is not a great router, and it's a pain to open ports at times, but you can eventually work your way around things.

There will always be the concern that a company/platform with the vast majority of users/subscribers will cause problems, but sometimes, it helps.

Not everyone loves iTunes, but let's be realistic about it. Apple has created a consumer's place, more than the paradise the RIAA would prefer. Apple has done more to champion music at a reasonable cost than the RIAA companies would like. And iTunes has become so powerful, it keeps all the rest of the companies in line. The RIAA would love to break iTunes' stranglehold on the market, as would several other people like Wal-Mart. Frankly, I hope they don't, because Apple seems to have its head on straight about this.

So, it depends on the company running the show. Apple and Valve have both shown themselves to be responsible towards the consumer. Others would surely ratched up the greed factor.