It is awfully difficult to put other drivers in danger when there is no one else on the road. And yes if you are driving 10 mph over the limit and weaving in and out of traffic, you are endangering yourself and others on the road. Then again, that is reckless driving.

I was on the freeway yesterday. The car behind me got slammed in the back, and the car behind that one that slammed the first one also got hit in the back too. Limit is 55 on the freeway, guess how fast they were going? Under 30... yeah, rush hour traffic and not able to stop.

Speeding does not necessarily equate to endangering others. However, illegally downloading a game and not paying for it is (without question) not putting money into the game company's pockets, which prevents sales and profit and results in stealing and theft.

And maybe the question is... there needs to be better demos out there for people to test drive to see if they like the game or not. If there was, then there would not be a need for some to illegally download a game and then buy it or not. You are, in a sense, taking a fully function game and turning it into your own personal demo... which is still illegal.

And besides, who is to say whether a demo is crappy or not? Who is to say whether a game is crappy or not? That is all subjective and opinionated. However... there is nothing subjective or opinionated about illegal downloading. It is illegal, it is against the law, that is objective and a fact.

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I heard the Force Unleashed demo wasn't too bad? Dunno, didn't try it.

I've actually found that I have better luck researching into a game via video demos, previews/reviews, and just looking everywhere I can for tidbits about gameplay. Frankly, I've actually been turned off by a number of demos when the game itself was actually not bad at all(example Titan Quest demo had a buggy first area whereas the first area in the game wasn't at all). Granted that most of the demos do suck, however.

Speed limits are not arbitrary, though many people claim they are in order to justify violating them. And yes, theft is pretty basic. But then, using different words have always side-stepped the whole issue.

However, the theft we are discussing is also in a slightly grey area. Because the basic principle of theft implies the original owner is now deprived of that thing. With the case of digital property, this is not the case. Sure, the owners -may- be out some cash that the person -might- have paid, but you would need to prove that Joe Blow Pirate would have shelled out the cash beforehand.

I should reiterate at this point that I DO NOT advocate piracy. I am simply pointing out that the matter is not black and white, as few things are. Piracy is a problem, and I encourage companies to find a solution to piracy. However, if their solution does nothing to deter that actual problem yet adds increased headaches for legitimate users, there is a problem. If anything, stringent copy protection schemes are not only encouraging pirates (by giving them a challenge) but also causing unrest in the previously legitimate users.

These users may (right or wrong, which they will justify internally) end up pirating the game which they previously would have bought but no longer feel like jumping through hoops in order to do so. You may disagree with the justifications, but it's not like you'll be changing any minds.

Victimless crimes are still crimes nonetheless. Laws are laws man, that's all there is to it. You can rationalize it any way you want, but under the definition of criminals, you're one when you speed. Doesn't matter for what reason.

That's just how it is.

And I just don't give a fuck. I'm not going to throw away money without some idea of how it with perform or if it's any good.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

This is awesome: Spore Most Pirated Game Ever, Thanks to DRM

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=669594

Remember, Cicely is the one who would paper punch boxes of toys at Walmart just to piss off collectors, even though it was blatant vandalism.

Software DRM overall doesn't work, therefor it shouldn't be used.

This is why companies like Adobe hope to go 'cloud computing' and offer applications via the web (which probably still won't work, and so far has a lot of opposition from users.)

Personally, most games are overpriced, how can I justify 50$ for a game I can finish in 5 hours.. But with the development costs, I somewhat understand, although I'm not sure how much wholesale cost of the game goes back to where it came from.

BTW if I'm expected to pay 10$/hr for a game.. it better work as intended and not be buggy as fuck.


Also don't forget EA did one of the most boneheaded moves ever, and charged for the creature creator demo (yes there was a free version as well, but still.. pay for a demo.. wtf?)

Interesting, the article on that link talks about The Sims being the most pirated game ever....

Yeah I read that too but the Sims has been out for years and years. Spore has already been downloaded over 500,000 times, so it's pretty clear that it's on the way.

The Sims is the most pirated game ever because of the asston of expansion packs they came out with adding in to the total very, very quickly.

The sims2 is much the same.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

That's because they make expansions consisting of new items, and little more. People got tired of paying for that shit after the first couple.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

First.

I wonder if the floppy posse anticipated games turning themselves off after 3 installs.

I uninstall and reinstall games all the time. CIV3 comes to mind... I play it for a few days, get tired of beating up on everyone, uninstall it to clear up 3 gigs.

What a faggot. He steals music, albeit legally:



Die IRL.

PS: Regarding DCTF, "The song in the video has an uncleared sampled of Synthetic Substitution by Melvin Bliss." Haha, irony at it's finest.

ah I guess it wasn't cicely that did that.. or maybe it wasn't walmart...

I forget who it was but I thought it was him.

It was.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

My space age species looks silly roaming the universe with a voodoo mask on. Can I change that?

OMG Salamren please stay on topic of illegal downloads!!1!

But seriously, I have heard lots of bad about the game (not including DRM in it). Is it really just a creature creation game and that is it? If so... could this be the first game where the demo is more fun than the actual game?

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Salamrem: You can change that I believe by going to one of your colonies and clicking on the colony planner - I *think*, not positive, but I'm pretty sure I at least was able to do that in the civ stage.

Cicely: No way in hell the demo is anywhere near as fun. Spore is far from the funnest game ever, but going through the tribal and civilization stages is still fun. I'm working on the space stage off and on - it's a little annoying at times, but it's interesting to mess around with and try to expand your space empire.

Spore gets interesting at times, it's as good of a time waster as the Sims/Sims2, too bad you can't just set AI mode on and come back in a few hours to see what's going on like you can in the sims.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

That's the kind of game I want. One that plays itself! w00tles bring on the sims games!

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This thread brought to you by a tremendous dickhead!

I wonder if anyone will boycott Warhammer because it is published by EA, user of DRMs. This will be the true test of whether people are boycotting as a stunt or are really interested in taking their principled stance to task by boycotting the company responsible instead of giving them more money =)

No, obviously not. It's a stance of "justified in THIS case" not in general.

Does it have a DRM? No of course not. Why then would anyone bother to boycott it? The issue is DRMs, not 'EA SUCKS'. EA certainly isn't the only fucktards to have done shit like this (HAI SONY).

For myself I've said why I won't buy Spore. If they remove the DRM, I'll buy it because I want to play the game. Until then why would I want that shit on my system? Why would I want to hack something I've paid for, or create work arounds for it? My desire to play the game isn't enough for me to be willing to do those things.

It costs them business when they treat their paying customers so stupidly. It certainly costs them my business.

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It just seems like if people were very adamant about making an impact with their "boycott" they would boycott EA entirely on principle and not give money to an organization who uses DRMs so profusely.

Certainly they will take notice when a game with DRM doesn't sell as well, but if you saw even more people not buying any of their games in general and there was much complaining about DRMs and no one was buying anything they sold - wouldn't that be more of an impact?

It just seems like its more money into their pockets, and they'll more than make up for any losses from DRMs. It just seems like a stronger stance to say "I'm not going to buy ANYTHING these guys publish because they use DRMs in some of their games".

After all, if no one did, the faster their pockets drain of cash the faster they take notice.

Sure, and I could also boycott television channels that run their ads, and the programs that ran their ads, and all other consumer goods that ran ads on the same time frame, ad naseum...but I'm not going to do that.

People that have a moral or political issue will generally go much further in a boycott over the "principle" of the issue. That's certainly understandable, and I've participated in the reverse, by buying products boycotted by hate groups and letting them know I specifically support their brand(s) because they didn't bend to the nutbags. That's a moral issue and a political issue important enough to me to make sacrifice for.

This is simply a game I'm not going to buy because I'm not dealing with their DRM. I've stated why, I've stated why their DRM is utterly retarded. They have seen it impact sales. They will continue to see it impact sales in the future.

I'm sure that it will be removed from Spore just as it was from Bioshock. When it is, I'll be buying Spore. Until then...newp.

But I don't need to go bonkers on a wholesale boycott...or burn all my old Sims CDs either. I don't give a shit enough to do that, it's not some morality issue or some higher purpose.

It's simply not giving money to someone who puts shit on their product that treats PAYING customers like thieves, and worse...fucks up systems.

I'm also not saying 'no one should buy this', to some people it's not that big a deal. To each their own. Myself, I uninstall and reinstall things often enough that it WILL impact me. So I'm avoiding that problem.

It's the same reason I rarely buy games I can download. I want the disks. Doesn't mean I boycott companies because they only or mainly sell downloads. I simply want the disks because it's easier to reinstall, it benefits me as a consumer...and I've found that otherwise I'm pretty much paying an expensive rental fee.

YMMV.

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Yea, I understand that you weren't saying boycott but rather that you didn't want to deal with the DRM for this specific game - I was mainly directing it to the amazon.com poster crowd that are out specifically to convince EA to not develop games that use DRM. I think if absolutely no one bought the game they would get the picture, and eventually they may even get it with these measures - but that not being the reality, the message for those actually trying to boycott would be that much louder if they boycotted all games by EA while at the same time making their voices loud and clear that the reason they are not buying is the DRM.

I just think for at least some people it's a bit of a double standard. I could be wrong, but I think the majority of "hardcore" gamers tend to stray a little away from "Sim"-type games, and so I'm betting to a lot of people screaming the loudest Spore didn't really matter to them anyway - but Warhammer certainly does.

Check this one out-- I think you'll like it.

http://progressquest.com/

Played it. Beat it. Got the expansion. Beat it. Was fun until the last tier, the mudflation was out of control.

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This thread brought to you by a tremendous dickhead!

Heh, Progressquest. I love their reference chart for Keyboard commands.

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That guy is an unfunny hack, why do people love him so much?

to each their own, I think he's hilarious.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Well people like Bruce Campbell and shitty horror B-movies too doesn't mean they're good or have any quality.

If you don't like Bruce Campbell then you're an even bigger tool then I thought.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

That's exactly what I'm talking about! Thanks!

I don't even like his movies and I like Bruce Campbell.

Yeah, it's super-cool to like him because he's just "plain simply a bad ass!"

He's in Burn Notice, that show is amazing.

You're a fucking tool.

Ahoy!

That's not the first time I've been told that around these forums and it's certainly not the last. So I think he's a faggot and I'm a tool. So what? Ha. He's still a douchebag. Shrug.

First patch:

http://www.spore.com/patch

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Spore Patch

The focus of this patch is to fix some bugs that have been reported and to respond to feedback we've been seeing from the community about tuning and stability. We managed to squeak in a few fun things too; there's a cool cheat that allows you to turn your creature into a blocky representation of themselves, a new "inspection" feature for the creature creator to browse the parts stats that you have applied to your creature, and the much-requested "evoadvantage" cheat - you'll now be able to start a new creature game with a more evolved creature of your choice!

To get the patch, launch the EA Download Manager to download and install it. If you didn't install the EADM when you installed Spore, you can get it from http://files.ea.com/downloads/eacore/eadm-installer.exe.

This is a PC only patch. Mac users should check back soon!
Features

* New Cheat: "evoadvantage". Enter this cheat when are starting a new Creature game to choose any creature from the Sporepedia. Start a new game with one of your more evolved creatures!
* Display part statistics when you are in Build mode. Rollover any part and hold down the 'i' key.
* New Cheat: "blocksmode". Turns creatures into their blocky representations.
* More style filters. Open the cheat window and type: "stylefilter -microscope" or "stylefilter -norainbows" or "stylefilter -nextgen" to see the new styles
* Added 70 new planet scripts with a low terraform score, especially of the "hot and high atmosphere" type

Graphics/Aesthetics

* Animation improvements
* Improved the planets fogging, blooming and lighting
* Fixed animation issues with tool handling, hand walking and some of the more oddly shaped creatures

Tuning

* Creature phase: Improved the pacing towards the end of the game, and increased the challenge in Normal and Hard modes.
* Tribe phase: Increased the challenge in Normal and Hard difficulty modes.
* Civilization phase: Increased the challenge in Normal and Hard difficulty modes.
* Space phase: Made Empires in Easy and Normal modes demand reasonable amounts of money in exchange for peace and adjust the level of punishment if the player doesn't pay
* Space phase: Made disasters less likely to occur in Easy and Normal modes and increased the time between each attack from the enemy empire when the player is at war.

Miscellaneous

* Creature phase: Improved the way posse members behave during threatening situations and fights.
* Space phase: Made finding your home world and colonies easier in the Galactic view.
* Tribe phase: Made it so that tribe members can travel on steep hills if they need to do so now, but their speed will be reduced a lot.
* Fixed an issue with attacks not working on some bigger animals and larger animals not dying correctly
* Fixed collect mission not completing correctly when all parts have been collected
* Fixed problems with the "Rolling Thunder" and "Déjà Vu" achievements not being awarded as they should
* Fixed floating parts not being deducted from the budget when loaded into creator
* Fixed an issue with the rotation rings not resizing correctly when a part was resized and improved their look
* Fixed an issue where the terraforming score of planet could differ when revisiting a solar system
* Fixed the keyboard controls for zoom & pitch in the Colony Planner not working properly
* Fixed a crash that could occur when watching an epic creature attack a city
* Fixed some issues where the game would freeze when using the Creature Tweaker tool or when capturing a planet in solar view
* Fixed an issue where not all tribe members would obey the raid order when a large group was ordered to raid
* Fixed an issue where banning a creation from one of your other saved games would black out the main menu

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Apparently there's a DRM adjustment coming where you can remove the game from a machine and have it not count. But who knows if there's truth to it.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

Just posted that on my livejournal, they pretty much said they will be releasing it on a 'near future'. But yeah, pretty much it will allow you to de-activate your installations rather than using them up and having to call EA for more.

Loljournal

the only thing worse than Livejournal is Deadjournal

This thread is like a trainwreck that I can't stop coming back to. I guess I am wishing I would click the latest reply and see all of you say what an absolute joke Spore is, but it hasn't happened yet. Instead, I get Livejournal references and Skycrasher making a poor "Chlorophyll? more like Borophyll!" joke. HLEP!

Repeat after me:

Spore is a waste of time and I can't believe I am buying into this crap
Spore is a waste of time and I can't believe I am buying into this crap
Spore is a waste of time and I can't believe I am buying into this crap

I've said that Spore is retarded, repeatedly in this thread, and that it was an absolute failure and didn't live up anywhere NEAR to the hype it generated on it's own behalf.

At any rate, in one of my Plant Biology classes a while back this guy made that dumb fucking joke over and over and over in class when the TA mentioned Chlorophyll (1 of the 10,000 times) during lecture. ::rage::

Is plant biology anything like botany?

NO I WILL NOT MAKE OUT WITH YOU!

Yeah they're pretty much one in the same

Eeek, I enjoy Spore and have a LiveJournal, what have I become!

A trendy hipster who has bad tastes in video games?

Sure!

Well, that's that then.

Not quite. Let's see what Al has to say.

Say it sucks all you like; I'm enjoying the game myself, and I hope others here don't assume it's bad just because Neesha and Skycrasher say it is so.

Neesha and Sky hating something is usually a good reason to go check it out, Frib.

Clearly. I also think Hello Kitty Online is stupid as shit, so make sure you remember to preorder it.

I might just - My ten year old and six year old love Hello Kitty. =)

I was watching some western the other night from the 60s or something that had a samurai in it (who was played by a really famous Japanese actor) and he mentions Hari Kari.

I was like, 'Hello Kitty what?!'

It sounded like he was saying 'Hello Kitty' every time he mentioned Hari Kari. :lol

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