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[Darkmere]

I skimmed about the first 40 items on the list. He seemed to spend 1/3 of his time lamenting that this isn't D2 repackaged... then 1/3 lamenting that D3 doesn't have things D2 didn't have either... then 1/3 posting about things I agreed with while making rude gestures at the spellchecker.

But yeah, if he really had all that money to throw at all that expensive gear for one game, he should be old enough to understand that in life... shit happens sometimes. I got close to 200 hours and I'm sure sometime I'll get back into it and level other characters. That's pretty damn cheap entertainment, even if I am disappointed with lack of long-term goals.

[Astral]

Yeah... if he had $2k to spend on an expensive gaming machine, one $60 dollar game shouldn't be enough to cause him have a total mental breakdown and write a novella on the forums. I mean, look at Mass Effect 3... that only had thousands of players enraged at the ending, and Bioware managed to put a few months into extra DLC in order to please them to some extent. It is possible for players to change the development process, but...

You know what? I'm going to just wait until the AAA gaming industry gets its head out of its ass and stops catering to the casual kids. Indie games, emulators, and nostalgia for me. Have less of a budget for games these days anyway.

[SalmonGod]

You know what? I'm going to just wait until the AAA gaming industry gets its head out of its ass and stops catering to the casual kids. Indie games, emulators, and nostalgia for me. Have less of a budget for games these days anyway.

I'm mostly at this point, too.  Looking back at the last few years, most of the games I've really appreciated were cheap or free indy titles, the Stalker franchise, and... Valve.  Every other AAA title has either been a major disappointment or a fleeting few hours of enjoyable-but-not-great.  Looking at my library now, there are a few that held my attention a little longer or were close to great... but nothing that really deeply engaged me.

[Darkmere]

ME3 also included a special new ending to give everyone who complained about the other endings the collective finger. I wouldn't really call it a "consumer victory."

I'm right there with both of you on the voting power of the dollar... but you can't realistically expect AAA companies to "stop catering to casuals" when they're the largest market share. We've become irritable grandpas telling stupid kids to get off our Mario-lawns.

Related... Bioshock was awesome

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

noidontcareaboutsystemshockthanks

, so were Borderlands and Bulletstorm... but those are about it. Oh, all but 5 minutes of Mass Effect. Was Bulletstorm considered AAA? Hrm.

[Rez]

Basically everything released by EA and Activision are AAA.  Except the shovelware.

[SalmonGod]

I thought Bioshock and Borderlands were decent.

The action in Bioshock was too repetitive and unsatisfying.  The setting was amazingly creative, but only a B+ execution.  The plot was good (great by video game standards), but the characters all felt painfully forced.  By about halfway through the game, the rpg mechanics were just annoying.

Borderlands was solid all-around for what it tried to be, but it also wasn't terribly ambitious and had little replay value.  It would have been about 10x better if they released some good modding tools and had randomized any elements besides loot.

[Osmosis Jones]

The action in Bioshock was too repetitive and unsatisfying.  The setting was amazingly creative, but only a B+ execution.  The plot was good (great by video game standards), but the characters all felt painfully forced.  By about halfway through the game, the rpg mechanics were just annoying.

This, so much this. It reminded me of the first Killzone; amazing atmosphere, let down by average (or in the case of Killzone, subpar) mechanics. Further, the game suffered from lack of penalty; you could just respawn in a nearby vita chamber anytime anything went wrong. There was actually a time or two where I didn't bother with strategy, I just repeatedly rushed with my plasmids. By the time the patch came out to tone it down, I had finished the game, and didn't see much point in going back. Good fun, but not exactly amazing.

Oh, and for the love of god, I hope they come up with a better alignment system in Infinite; there wasn't really any incentive to be evil, you still got far more Adam than you needed by saving everything (not that you needed it; once you got the cloaking plasmid all you needed was a wrench, and maybe a shotty/machinegun for the big daddies). If they want to include morality in a game, they should take a look at the Witcher. THAT was truly gray and gray morality, and you felt like a bastard whatever you did.

[kcwong]

Going off-topic, but this is security I have to explain clearly. It's my line of work.

Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither. Benjamin Franklin

UAC is just asking you if you approve the action. It never stops you from saying yes. What on earth does liberty has to do with it?

Naturally, programs created before UAC's creation don't know how to ask for permission when they want to access protected files. That's why they will fail to function, and that's why there's the option to by default run a program as administrator, both in the shortcut and in the executable file property, and that's why I recommended installing old software outside of Program Files.

Sure its more secure, but having to dance everytime you open, write, play game, go pee can be a pain. Myself everytime i reinstall windows with UAC, disabling it is the first thing i do.

Vista's UAC is on the super excessive side, yes, we all know that. It is vastly improved in Windows 7 (http://www.google.com.hk/search?q=Win+7+UAC+improvement&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E5%B0%8B+&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&safe=images). I've used both and in Win7 UAC only shows up when I'm changing system configuration, and won't be prompting multiple times for a single action.

UAC is a notification. Think of SMS/email notifications/multi-factor authentication in electronic banking. When a transaction is trying to withdraw money from your account. Would you consider those an annoyance, and would rather your bank stay silent and let everyone withdraw from your account as long as they can present your credit card no. + expiry date (which is dead easy to get - they just need to look at your card)?

Ive spent 9 month downloading game/torrents and going on half-safe website and didnt catch anything. If you know your computer and can use a bit more than common sense turning UAC is not a treat to your computer. Thats my point of view tho. If you dont know much technical on computer, you are better with it, if you know your way around computer and know how to detect potential malware/unwanted program running, you dont need UAC.

"Good" malware try their best to not get detected. They couldn't steal from you and use you as a breeding ground if they are detected.

You download software do you? Add-ons for browsers. Free utilities. Free games. Have you inspected their binaries, or source code if available, to confirm that they do not do anything they are not supposed to?

No? Then how can you be sure that they won't? Based on comments from anonymous people? What if the program in innocent, but it contains a buffer overflow that can be easily exploited to execute any code an attacker wants?

Virus shield? They only work on known patterns.

That's where UAC comes in. If a program is not an installer, it has no business changing registry and modifying files in protected locations. If a program is an installer, then a message is displayed to end user to let them confirm the program's identity (if signed or not, publisher details, etc.) before approving the action. If you say "Yes" before making sure the installer is legit, then it's your own damn fault.

Recent virus shields try to also detect suspicious actions, but they can never be 100% sure. They usually end up just blocking the action if it's particularly risky, or just prompt you about a certain program wanting to do a certain thing, and if you want to allow it. Which is exactly what UAC does, isn't it?

Edit: See also this thread: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2080578&postcount=183

[Sordid]

If you say "Yes" before making sure the installer is legit, then it's your own damn fault.

And that right there is exactly what's wrong with UAC. If a big company like Microsoft with hundreds of expert programmers on its payroll can't make a tool to determine if a program is dangerous or legit, how exactly is a dumb user supposed to do that? "Oh, we're not liable for any damage to your data. Our system asked you if you wanted to allow this program to do its thing and you clicked yes, it's your own fault. Nevermind that we didn't give you anything whatsoever to enable you to make an informed decision." I'm sorry, that's not security at all, that's just CYA bullshit.

[Rez]

How exactly is a 'are you sure' button bad?  And how exactly do you think a company is responsible for informing 'dumb users' about malware?

It's only purpose is to inform you that something is trying to change your computer.  It's not a shield against malware, it's a the watchtower saying,"Oi, there's something out there, could be friend or foe".

Do you honestly think Microsoft is worried about average users forming a class action suit because they installed malware on their computers?

Umad.

[fenrif]

Don't ever say "umad" unless you're ironicly mocking people who say it.

[Rez]

I'll say it to mock people who are really worked up for no reason too.  And, yea, he was.

[kcwong]

If you say "Yes" before making sure the installer is legit, then it's your own damn fault.

And that right there is exactly what's wrong with UAC. If a big company like Microsoft with hundreds of expert programmers on its payroll can't make a tool to determine if a program is dangerous or legit, how exactly is a dumb user supposed to do that? "Oh, we're not liable for any damage to your data. Our system asked you if you wanted to allow this program to do its thing and you clicked yes, it's your own fault. Nevermind that we didn't give you anything whatsoever to enable you to make an informed decision." I'm sorry, that's not security at all, that's just CYA bullshit.

Dumb people are not supposed to do that.

People are supposed to learn. With computers and internet having such important role in our daily lives, including sensitive data like internet banking, it's your own fault if you don't learn about it. It's you that will get hurt.

There are driver's license, there are licenses for operating heavy machinery. Sadly there aren't one for operating computers.

Think back to the days before driver's license (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver%27s_license#History). How are car manufacturers supposed to stop idiots driving themselves into a wall or crushing someone under their wheels?

In cars we now have sensors and cameras all around; warning lights, air bag, seat belts, etc. Do these prevent all car accidents? No, but they helped if people would use them.

And now we have antivirus, digital signature, security tokens, encryption software usable by end users (e.g. PGP and TrueCrypt), a warning from UAC, etc.

People who turn off UAC without thinking (following guides found on internet advocating doing so), not realizing what they are putting themselves into, are like people who still don't wear seat belts.

When shit happens, if your own fault.


If you just have to turn off UAC, then my advice is that you should not use an administrator account for your normal activities. Use a standard user account.

Then every few days, logout your standard user account and login as adminsitrator, and perform updates on all your software. Don't do anything else. After updating logout administrator and login your normal account.

[Valid_Dark]

How is this related to Diablo 3?

[Rose]

It's related to Diablo2