Edit: Note to self, don't take the time to actually consider and think out my replies, it puts me way behidn the bell curve!
Ron, at some point you've got to stop using the "You're lucky you got to play it AT ALL!!" cop-out.
Wow, you make it sound like I've said that again, and again, and again. The only 'repetitive' aspect to my post is the 'piracy is bad, SD is good' part.
But you know what? It isn't a cop out! You are lucky to be playing it at all! Consider how many people don't have access to the internet, or a decent computer to use it. Consider how many people go without food, water, decent living conditions, sanitation...
I feel pretty damned lucky to be living in not only 'a' first world country, but the first world country.
If Kalypso was the "only" group interested in publishing Sins, what would you call Impulse?
SD's own, internal, electronic distribution platform.
Not, by any stretch of the imagination, a group with the access and power to get the game on shelves across a wide geographic area, with appropriate advertising. Shelf space isn't something stores just give out, after all! While I'm not familiar with the process, at all, I am aware that there is a process involved, and that it is not a 'fun' one.
Calling someone's personal complaints with a product "bitching" and the saying that having those complaints makes them "idiots" is just pathetic. If you can't make a solid argument, there's no need to just resort to insults, just stop trying.
Perhaps you should re-read my post. I didn't say people with problems are idiots, what I said was that except for people who have engaged in an ID Ten T error (yes, that means idiot error) will recieve pretty much whatever work is required to get the software running. Which is to say, except for people who have the wrong OS, a computer that doesn't match minimum specs, refuse to update drivers, and the like. In the past, I have spent hours working with SD / IC personel to get something working
Oh, and personal complaints that boil down to: "My computer should 'just work' even if I don't do the required maintenance!" are bitching, pure plain and simple. My personal criteria between the two? Complaints have some degree of validity, however twisted; bitching is (either) complaining for the sake of complaining, or complaining about a problem that is either your own fault, or no one's fault. Failing to do required maintanence on your computer -- and, yes folks, updating IE and drivers is required maintenance! -- is akin to failing to change your car's oil, and then complaining because it stops running. Well d'uh you idiot, you didn't maintain it!
Needing an internet connection to play a game for the first time (and thereafter using the "go offline" option) is hardly worse than "You need an internet connection in order to receive the best part of the product - updates". And in either case, if there's a game-breaking bug (I'm guessing Sins 1.0 had one or two), the only solution is to go online with the distributor's program and download an update.
Only problem is when you don't have an internet connection. So you're stuck with one game, that may have bugs (as I recall, Sins 1.0 ran pretty well for me with very few problems), or a game you can't play at all because some idiot slapped an internet connection on as a requirement! (./cough Half Life 2 anyone? I know several people who didn't read closely enough on the system requirements box, and didn't know that internet connection was required to play period, not play multiplayer)
Surprise me, that's what I tell my hairdresser. Use some sort of provable facts or at least some kind of logic, not just "lol" and "you'd be surprised" and "that's classified".
He's required to keep some information confidential until told by higher. Doesn't mean he doesn't have it, or it's not right. And 'learn to read' thing comes in again: he just told you that my information is right, even if he can't discuss it further due to confidential information. I gave you a fact, you laughed, he told you it's accurate.
As far as the accuracy of that fact... I don't know when you showed up around here, but for months people where asking about European publisher. It got to the point where it was one of those questions you ask, and then a dozen forum regulars answer by rote, upset that yet another idiot couldn't be bothered to use the search function (which actually worked back then).
They didn't have a publisher, because none of the European companies was interested in carrying it because it 'wouldn't appeal' to the German markets, which are 'key' to European publishing. For months, they couldn't find someone -- in fact, I believe at some point someone commented about the fact that the 'poor Europeans are never going to get this game' because we were approaching release without a European distributor.
Sure, doing the production / distribution was 'low cost', but since as far as they were concerned it wouldn't sell, low cost was too much cost Not the smartest decision, perhaps, but it was the one they made.
Perhaps I ought to be removed from this discussion, I'm contradicting Stardock staff again with facts and reality.
Distorted and misaligned facts, not reality. If I wanted to, I could dredge up information to 'prove' that DRM like StarForce was a valid approach to protecting intellectual property. There are people who actually argue that, by the way, even if the 'implementation was less than perfect'.
