Look at games about five years ago: the games are well-made (mostly) and if there are expansion packs, it's actually more content.

Now look at more modern games, fallout 3 being a prime example. You oay €60 for about 6 hours of gameplay, and then you need to buy extra packs to get what the game was supposed to be.

Basically, every game's idea is just broken into parts before you even buy it. THAT has only started since the xbox marketplace and its alternatives became popular.

DLC's came from PC's, but they used to be in fact expansions. Now games are thought up, developed, and then things are taken off and sold later as DLC. That idea originates from the console market.

Actually, putting everything in space IS a good idea, if implemented in a large enough scale. Sooner or later, you will have bought so many double panels that it'd be cheaper to put half of them into space. As to space debris and things; they might be expensive to overcome, but how much is land worth? If you need to do it on a large scale, you'll end up using at least the size of a city.

how is this anything new? A completely unprotected system can be infected and then do whatever any other computer can.

I'm really not sure about this. Carmack has done a lot of great things, but i still think this is a very big mistake. Unless the game has nothing to form communities around (no deathmatch, capture the flag, anything), anyone who buys this game essentially gets no multiplayer. The pings will be way up, with loads of cheaters and hackers on. After all, it's easy to hack your local files and then click "host".

yeah, sorry about that... i forgot that the slashdot editor doesn't understand the enter key and you have to break the lines yourself with html...
fixed:
unreal tournament = Epic
Doom = ID software

The Walloons make up around 40% of the population, the Flemish 60%. I'm part of the dutch group, and i often get a site pressed to me in french.

unreal tournament = Epic Doom = ID software

javascript is not something an antivirus does. Try something like comodo firewall with defence+ on.

a lot of country still have bandwidth limits. I for example have €30 GB/month, and if i want extra i have to pay €1/GB. How is it economic to people with a connection like me? First i pay €60 for a game (a lot of games on steam still have that price), then i lose €6-€12 worth of bandwidth.

Out of curiousity, what version of ubuntu was this? I've only been following the releases since 7.10.

yes, but this third-party tool will be illegal and thus not on the steam listings. Having to break down a game and lose connection to the regular servers JUST to run mods is a bit over the top.

not to mention steam will probably lock you out if they find out.

btw, such maps are possible for certain games, like older RTS'. The maps in newer games just call up things from other files.

command and conquer never had any real mods; often it was replacing current units with different graphics, tweaking statistics, etc. Maps got changed tough. In a 3D shooter, you need new animations, skins, 3D models, ... for a mod. It's a whole different thing.

the servers load the map and distribute as needed. It allows people without a specific mod to get the map and play.

slight "feature" you don't note: when MS releases a new version, you need to buy it or you won't be able to open the new version either. So in effect, you keep paying over and over for the exact same thing.