I live in one of the cities mentioned. Actually, I live in the county and here is my take:

*** Fuck him with a large rubber duck Girl-with-a-Dragon-Tattoo style. ***

Until the city implemented a broadband plan with cable TV, we had ONE choice for cable TV and virtually NO high speed internet especially in the county (Bellsouth/AT&T DSL is a massive joke to anyone who lived in the county and so was high speed internet connections). Suddenly, when the city decided "We want to attract more business to the area and also supply all of our schools with high speed internet services..." then WHOA! the local cable company went into overdrive. They started expanding their high speed internet services much faster and pushed them out into the county. They offered better bundle rates AND dropped their cost for cable TV alone. The move by the city _incentivized_ the local cable MONOPOLY to get off their ass and start offering the services to both city and county that they had been promising for a while and to bring their price down to a more competitive level.

THIS. This shit right here is what _creates_ people who pirate software. Not because it is "free", but because it is FREE OF RESTRICTIONS on what I can do with the software that I (would have) legally paid for and own.

Hey, Ubisoft employees! Start thanking your bosses now for the loss of your jobs, especially those in the PC gaming section. I have a business idea for you: Start a new gaming company with the best and brightest among you and put out your games for the PC market WITHOUT DRM of any kind. Skip the major distributor route (no EA, no Ubisoft, no Company X). Put it on Steam. Put it out at a good price (_not_ $59.99 US). Put in GOOD game play with replayability. We will fill your coffers with gold and jewels.

Those that ultimately pirate your title? Well, fuck em because they were never going to pay for it anyway. They aren't a lost sale, they are just lost.

Based on a lot of the different articles I have read today from Forbes, NY Times, Escapist Magazine and so on it seems that this version may be going with a GURPS philosophy -- Here is your basic game. You have more than enough information to design characters and play the game. But then...

Oh, you want to play a more miniatures based, combat-oriented style of play? Here is the miniatures rule book/module and here is the epic combat rule book/module and off you go.

Oh, you want to mix magic and psionics in one campaign world you are creating? Well, here is a book for world designing and the rule book/module for psionics.

Oh, you want to play such and such... and so on, and so forth.

I believe they want one basic ruleset so that you can then go with how your play group usually games - from those who are diehard first edition players to those who choose a more MMO style of play. From the role-players who want a much wider creative range to play within to those who say "I want to bash shit in the head" and have to do little creative input into designing your character, I believe Wizards wants to give them the option. All from a single starting point.

I am going to be cautiously optimistic and do both "wait and see" and get my play group into helping test so we can give our feedback. Just some quick background - my play group has played under 1st ed, 2nd ed, 3rd ed, and 3.5 and we are currently running an extended player-designed world and campaign under 2nd edition rules (with house rules/modifications as Gygax intended :-p).

I'm not sure if you've missed these or heard from someone else in-game and have not had a chance to test them but...

1) You are limited to one crafting profession per character. You are _not_ limited to one gathering trade/profession per character. However, to really utilize your chosen crafting profession you generally need both a gathering trade and a mission trade recommended for that crafting profession.

Caveat: At this time, it seems you could create a DPS character that, with their companion, could easily take 3 gathering skills and supply multiple other characters with their needed material. This would be on the order of "grindy" though.

2) You do not have to sit through the cutscenes/mission introductions/dialogue. The space bar is your friend. If you repeat the initial Flashpoint (Black Talon for us Sith) for instance, you can simply space bar through the conversation and then choose your response - everyone in that flashpoint can do the same, I believe. Or it may be just the group leader needs to, I have not tested the issue yet. My guild always enjoys going through the cutscenes and we do not mind at all going through them again when we have a new person along with us but if we are repeating a flashpoint or other mission with a cutscene that we have seen before, we don't have a problem with skipping the dialogue either.

3) As for Datacrons, if you are having an issue with control it may be mouse sensitivity which can be changed through the interface. I realize after reading your well thought out entry that you are probably a hardened enough gamer to have checked, but I wanted to mention it just in case.

Very nice overview! As a fellow SWTOR player, I enjoyed reading it.

Isn't it amazing that by actually doing THE RIGHT THING and accepting responsibility, they gain more press than if they had just said "The bloggers did it." and washed their hands of the situation.

Maybe they, and other companies, can actually learn from this? You know, a) try not to fuck up in the first place and b) when you do, take responsibility and FIX IT.

Uncommon outbreak of good sense, perhaps?

No, no, you CAN give Paypal access to a bank account. Just make sure it is one you setup for Paypal only. Cost is minimal as most banks still have a no-fee or small fee bank account that you don't have to keep a large balance in. Just deposit 6 months worth of bank fees in the account and make sure you sweep all money from eBay, Paypal, etc. off the Paypal only account and into your REAL bank account on a daily/weekly basis.

That way, Paypal can eat a dick if they decide to hijack that bank account. Just close it down and start a new one. If the bank asks what the hell is going on, explain to them that if Paypal was regulated like a bank is then you would not have to use multiple accounts to keep Paypal from trying to screw you over. I dislike the big corp mentality as much as anyone, but if enough banks complain about Paypal then maybe something will get done.

(Some quick background - I beta tested and played SWG until the NGE nerf. I beta tested and played World of Warcraft up until about 18 months ago. I have also played multiple other MMOs including DDO, Ultima, Tabula Rasa, A Tale in the Desert, and so on.)

It actually IS this awesome new MMO experience, and please stop WoW fanboying by playing down the impact of the fully voiced universe and the fact Bioware has done what Blizzard did - borrowed from the best of in other MMOs and refined it. As dward90 says above, if you're skipping the voiced scenes then you're missing the point.

It is definitely NOT WoW with lightsabers - I don't see any orcs, goblins, or pandas running around. Oh? You mean it PLAYS like Word of Warcraft somewhat? Yes, it does. In as much as World of Warcraft played like Star Wars Galaxies, and Ultima Online, and Asheron's Call, and the other MMOs that came before it.

I have been in multiple betas of SWTOR and I have been playing since December 13th of early access. I can tell you now, this game has longevity and inventiveness on its side. It is fresh and new and compelling in ways that other MMOs "walls-o-text" quest/missions are not. It engages you in both your class storyline and in the world at large. It doesn't have the sandbox open worlds of an MMO like Galaxies or an RPG like The Elder Scrolls series, but there are hints that Bioware may be moving that direction as the game grows. The game is great visually and gameplay is engrossing. The mission/gather system is an amazing combination of previous MMOs like Eve and WoW. The crafting system is fairly solid, interesting, useful and will come into its own as more players inhabit the universe and expand the player economy.

As for the so-called "end game" that hard core players and game sites seem to want to focus on, well, that will be a while in coming for casual gamers like myself (although my main character is level 22 at this time). Those hard core players with no life and a caffeine drip in their veins can probably give you a review in another 5 days or less :-p My hope is that Bioware ignores their outcries when they consume the game inside of 14 days and start looking for something else. Your revenue stream is NOT the hard core players, it is the casual gamers who will play for years on end.

FUCK THEM. They are raking in fat stacks of cash every year off of their supposedly well-honed machine, they should be responsible for policing their own content. It is not the responsibility of the government of the United States or any other country to police the Internet looking for content violations. Most governments have put in place laws and regulations that allow the "owner" of the content to be able to work within that system and get rid of infringing copies - AT THE OWNER'S EXPENSE. Not at the expense of the taxpayers.

Fuck you if you expect me and 250+ million other taxpayers help you sue for damages when we don't see a dime of that unless we are a luxury car dealer or real estate agent (or a lawyer). Not to mention that the net effect on the United States of corporatism laws like the DMCA and extended copyright periods is that we, as a nation, are less and less LEADING the way into new science and technology frontiers and more and more about holding the status quo or LOSING ground to other nations who don't exactly give a shit about the laws of the United States.

Seriously? 33% of the search market? It has to be new users or new computers causing this. The same old Microsoft story of cramming as much cross-marketing on their OS as they can -- Internet Explorer being the prime example.

I know a good many non-tech users and except for those who are just too apathetic or lazy to change settings that come pre-loaded on their new desktops/laptops (you know, the "sheep" among the herd), I do not know of anyone who uses Bing to search. I still know people who use Yahoo (which, yeah, uses MS engine) but otherwise it is overwhelmingly Google. Every time I tried to it, the results were much worse or had things missing than Google. Crap in a pretty package is still crap.

..is because those not normally in politics are surrounded by people who wish to maintain the "status quo" and are fearful of change. Regardless of how amazing an idea is, regardless of how well it would work, those that are in power are afraid to lose it and stymie what could be real progress from an out-of-the-box thinker.

Just my .02 microns worth.