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.

Ok, we have a winner! Please come forward and collect your prize. Today you have your choice between fake Viagra, a penis pump, or a date with the she-male of your dreams!

Did you miss the simple beauty of his sarcasm, that you had to reply with a serious post about the ramifications?

Better check your scalp for fungus. This one just ran all over your head, so you could have Athlete's Scalp.

Wait, so you are just now figuring out that DRM is a hassle, after all these years? What rock were you under?

I remember the days of the Apple II/II+/IIe when the copy protections were often more evil. Remember the code wheels with "Align the 3 symbols and then enter the word into this box" protections? Remember the "Look on page 26, paragraph 3, 8th word, and enter it here" protections? I remember the speed copy protections that games like Wizardry used that got so annoying that I eventually had a hole drilled into the side of my 5 1/4" drives so I could get the speed closer before using the keys for fine adjustments. And yes, you had to have the game in the drive to play...funny how that seems like such a hardship these days!

Game makers have been putting protection onto games since back the early 80's and probably even in the late 70's. Many of them make today's DRM seem easy, and made curbing the 2nd hand market a little easier. Losing the code wheel meant nobody else played that game unless you cut out the protection. A task a lot harder back then than today's simple "oh, I just use Daemon Tools" type workarounds.

As for the price argument, I remember paying I believe 39.99 for Wizardry back in 1982. More than 25yrs later, games generally release at 49.99 on the PC, or about a 50% increase. A paperback book back then cost around 3-4 bucks. Now they cost 7-9 bucks, or about a 125% increase. I don't see folks screaming about paperbacks, and they still sell, even with a nice 2nd hand market that is probably better than for games.

I fully understand that buying games only to find out they suck is a problem. I've downloaded games before, and tried them out. If they are any good, I almost always buy them, especially since they are usually so buggy that gameplay sucks on the pirated version. This, I am convinced, is on purpose. Game developers want people to pay for the full product, so they leave easy to spot bugs in game so that pirates famous "0-day" releases are crap. Notice how fast those patches come out???? But if a game sucks in its basic gameplay, I won't buy it.

I use pirated software as a demo, since demos are generally the absolute flawless section of the game, and often some of the best play. It's a highly polished lure, but I'm tired of being a fish.

Justify it any way you want, but the bottom line is you don't want to pay for your games. Why not be honest about it, instead of building up these straw houses?

Why is this surprising to anyone?

Back in the 1950's the first 1hr broadcast of a television show started, with the Milton Berle Show. And there was only 1 commercial break, at the half-hour point. And funny things happened.

In his autobiography, Berle said that in the city of Detroit, he was so popular that the city had no water pressure from 9PM to 9:05PM, due to all the toilets being flushed at the same time.

Well, this led to a little innovation by those that make commercials, and it still happens to this day: Commercials are much louder than the regular broadcast. So folks could hear in the bathroom, and over the toilet's flushing.

Just give me a chip in my TV that regulates the sound to a maximum decibel level when I change the volume, so the commercials are no louder than the program.

Here is a website that lists all known ages of consent. It's easier to look up here.

http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm

Ah, someone that truly understands the utter lameness of UO!

You basically summed up my experience with UO. I played it while it was the only game in town, and after a few months, gave up in complete disgust. Some time later, just after the Kunark expansion had been released, I picked up EQ. Ended up playing that for over 5 years, and the wife started to play some 6 months after I started.

I'm constantly amazed at how many people think UO was such a brilliant game. Yes, it fit the bill for a niche audience, but for the vast majority of potential players, it just couldn't gain traction. The constant PK aspect of the game, the botting, the fact that you could train a toon to 6 100 skills in 3 days via a bot, and the fact that large groups would target any non-PK type(s) made for a very anti-social game. The term "griefer" was made famous in UO.

MMOs are largely about their player base. They are social games more than a FPS type game ends up being. UO made being anti-social too easy, with minimal penalties. Ohhh, you can't go into town or the guards will kill you! That's not very harsh when you just create another toon that can deposit stuff in your house for you, or have your PK buddy help you transfer items around with one of their alts meeting you just outside of town.

I think it was the player housing that made everyone so rabid, with folks getting their first piece of online real estate. That was the one thing most EQ players whined about. Yet those damn houses made the countryside a disaster.

UO had one of the greatest potential "name recogniztion" of any MMO ever, after SWG. The Ultima series of games were legendary, especially for those of us lucky enough to play the early ones on the Apple II series of computers. (I-III were brilliant.) If the game had such great mechanics and gameplay, it would have been king for a long time. But with crappy top down fixed graphics and the well documented problems the above poster listed, it was bound to fail.

I'll forever be glad that I got to experience the early Ultimas, and I thank Lord British for those games. But the man got too big for his britches, and too many people still believe his name will garauntee success.

Oh, I dunno about that. I'm sure the judge would have come up with a figure without too much effort! Lots of zeroes at the end of the number, too!