Well the 30years was really too much I admit (even because all "secret stuff" at least here, becomes public after 20 years anyway, or at least, it should), I just went random on that, didn't put much thought on the exact duration. Still some things need to be kept secret till they are done. Sometimes a couple of weeks is enough, sometimes years need to pass, the important thing is not to let public opinion (and mostly journalists acting like vultures ready to criminalize anything to get a better share, so most of them) interfere or hinder the activity of the government, police and military. Anyway no, it's not Macchiavelli, just a fan, but I feel sometimes that guy was a bit too moderate :D

While I do agree on most counts, I don't think that hiding things from the electorate is a crime, it's more of a sheer necessity. A lot of times things that aren't deemed "morally acceptable" by the masses need to be done for the greater good of a country, also there are some things that NEED to be kept a secret to be of any use (just think what would happen if informations about undercover operations or police investigations would be made public... they'd be useless). Sure they should be revealed 30 years down the line and involved people may need to be judged for them, but leaking them before that should be a crime, one of the worst ones that you could commit against a country. Depending on the situation (if you risk to endanger many lives by that action, even if nothing happens) it should be AT LEAST treaded as multiple counts of attempted murder. Even worse if it's a situation of war. Believe me, you don't want to be down there fighting for your country and having to fear both your enemies and some dumbass at home that tells everyone, enemies included, informations about you :\

I'd rather spend 1200€ (and that's not even the case, you can easily manage with half that) every other year for a new PC than play for 6 year on the same 400€ hardware, because let's face it, if new games still run in a 4 year old hardware it means that the progress in terms of graphics and processing was stagnant. And it was stagnant in the last 5 years, so much it saddens me every time I think about it. Look at any recent game and the graphics difference between it and a 2006 title, like Oblivion or Battlefield 2... it's just some better lights and special effects if we're lucky, often the engine didn't even change... (Fallout 3: New Vegas and Oblivion) Now think of the difference between games 5 years apart in the past... like 1996 to 2001 (Duke Nukem 3D vs Tribes 2, MachWarrior II or Quake vs Black and White) and just see how huge it is...

I wish it were true... new MMOs with their perceived need to be able to run on consoles have interface and input system that keep getting worse (think of Champions Online, Star Trek Online, DC Universe Online and I suspect even Age of Conan..) The same issue that even plagues some western RPGs that usually were too a PC exclusive, like Oblivion and everything else made with that engine (just think about the inventory and compare it with OLDER games of the same kind, even its prequel, Morrowind) And that's just one of the direct consequences, ignoring stagnant graphics, a huge expansion of the game market in the ""wrong"" direction (or at least one I don't like :P) that brought a decrease in length and challenge of the games (but that may have happened anyway, we'll never know).

As a genre is way harder and more expensive to develop to a point where it stands any chance of competing with current MMO and as a consequence big companies tend to prefer to invest in more "safe" kinds of MMOs. Darkfall and Mortal Online are shadowed and ignored not because of their genre, just because they're bad games devolped with not enough budget for a project of that scope. If you take EvE Online for example it has most of the aspects of UO (full loot, free world pvp, ability to build and trade everything, you can build your own stations/houses, you can customize the skills of your character as you wish, etc) and while it doesn't have a HUGE success, it's hardly a ignored or unknown game. Even after all those years since the release.