I don't see how it's particularly bothersome.  The only time I ever see them is in multiplayer game lobbies when players choose their races.  At worst it's completely benign.

If you do single player, you can cut and paste in photoshop to get the desired effect. Beyond that, I just switch out sets when I change races. Besides, using mods also changes the sets available, so for some of us it becomes too big a hassle to worry.

If you accepted it, then yes, it is your responsibility.  You should have asked them if it worked before you took it from them.  I personally always ask to do a test drive so I can not only hear how the engine sounds, but get a feel for how it handles as well as get the chance to look at all of the gauges and see what warning lights, if any, come on, even if it's offered to me for free.  This is just car buying 101 here.

Absolutely.  It is a failure on your part to negotiate in a new paint job before you purchase or get a lower price for it.  There's an old saying about buying a car at a dealership.  "Sticker price is sucker price."  If you pay the amount that is put on the window invoice...  You're a fool.  Talk to the purchasing manager not a sales rep, inspect the car, then start finding every single flaw you can think of to lower the price down.  Again, car buying 101 here.

Player set up screen.  Choose a new picture...  Why did I just state the obvious?  Because it's obvious, that's why.  Personally, I've never like the whole picture set thing either, but I just created my own sets to use anyway so I get the set I want every single time anyway.  If you know you're going to play as TEC, it takes you what?  3 seconds to change to the picture you want?  The next game you're going to play as Vasari, you can change it to the one you like there too using up a similar amount of time.  It's really not that big of a deal.  Recoding the game to use individual pictures instead of the set, may not be a simple thing to do.  It might be...  I don't really care one way or the other.

This is beside the fact that the picture is basically pointless and can be gotten rid of all together.  The diplomacy screens can use you faction icon instead of a picture and it wouldn't make a single bit of a difference.  Same thing for the HUD UI.  This is also beside another fact.  The game is about your fleet, and not what you specifically look like.  If it was, there would be a feature for you to insert your own photo and use it.

They still deceived me. Sure, I should have had the forsight, but that doesnt change the fact.

Of course I took a test drive cause Im not that stupid, but I didnt notice what was wrong with it unfortunately until after I bought it. Sure, you can say "you not inspectedz da car enuf" but you probably would have overlooked it too if you were just as desperate to get a car as I was. It was also a very appealing deal: free checkups until 2011, excellent mileage, great speed and acceleration, extremely comfortable seats... it made it even harder to try to find things wrong with it.

?

The scratch, like the engine problem, was extremely subtle. In between talking to the sales guys and test driving and asking the more basic questions and paying attention to the more obvious things I easily missed it. The "scratch" was actually a small tear on the steering wheel cover. I really should have brought it up to the sales guys because its super annoying. I have callouses on my right hand where I grip the steering wheel because its sharp plastic cover. Not too big a deal I suppose, but annoying. One of these days I oughta go change out the steering wheel but Id have to go out of my way.

I dont know, but it definitally wasnt because "it was obvious", because that doesnt make sense. The issue isnt whether or not its easy to live with, the issue its easy to fix and theres no reason not to fix it. Fixing it would only convenience us players after all.

I dont think id want to fumble with files and photoshop potentially for hours trying to achieve the desired effect, or is it really that easy?

No: It IS a simple thing to do. Thats like saying ironclad could recode the game options in diplomacy to account for the "faster" selection.

Mmm... no. Pictures serve to make a stronger bond between player and game. The more the player can feel at home in a game the more he will like it, and less generic multiplayer matches feel (due to people being different) the same logic applies.

Right, the fact is you were deceived, but the fact is also that you let yourself be deceived.

I wouldn't say that at all because I speak English, not gibberish.  Hell I don't even use shorthand when typing or texting.

No.  Not really.  If you let desperation run your decisions, you should be expecting to make some dumb choices.  Plus a distinction needs to be made here.  Functional deficiencies over cosmetic deficiencies.  If there are functional deficiencies in the operation or general usage of the car and you overlooked them, then yes, you need to do a better job of inspecting, especially if you buy a used car on the cheap that has little to no warranty.  In this case, the level of inspection you give to the vehicle is what determines how good of a vehicle you're getting.  New cars usually come with the standard 5 years, 60,000 miles deal so you have time to 'evaluate' it for functional deficiencies.

Cosmetic deficiencies are a little bit different because they entail different things.  Paint scratches, misaligned trim pieces, misshaped quarter panels...  You may not notice some of these right away in which case neither will anyone else.  You who looks at it all of the time may eventually see it, and you will see it a lot after you know about it, but it still doesn't mean that others notice it, and it's really not that big of a deal either.  You have the reasoning to provide someone that you were desperate and didn't notice.  That's not the same situation as someone saying "I looked at cars for 3 years before buying this one and damn it...  The rear bumper has a scratch across it."  This other person had plenty of time and should have done a better job.

So you let yourself be distracted?  If you fail to look, then you only have yourself to blame.  Car salesmen work on commission.  Anyone who works on a commission is going to highlight the goods and neglect to mention the bads until you bring it up and most of the time point it out to them.  If you see lots of pluses that make you like the car, then so be it.  There are going to be negatives with all vehicles, but if the likes outweigh the dislikes, then so what...  You still got something you can be happy with.  If you're not happy with it at all, well...  Don't know what to say other then take someone else who is more experienced with you next time.  Preferably someone who is good at haggling.

You said "If someone gives me a broken car, is it my responsibility to fix it?" No one just gives away cars, but assuming that was just a mistyped thought I answered the question anyway but also throwing out the idea that these are things to do even if someone is offering it to you for free covering my bases in case you really did mean someone gave you a car.

The paint is something that if it's so subtle you didn't notice it then, others aren't either.  It's tough, but you can usually ignore it.  My truck has a pinky fingernail sized chip missing above the right brake light.  I see it every single time I walk by it.  No one who hasn't been told about it has ever seen it...  The engine problem is different, are we talking bad tune up, or deterioration that has gotten worse?  Based on the age of the car, you should expect there to be issues.  If it's not something you can easily identify like knocks, rough idle, backfires, poor tune ups, etc. Then guess what?  You're normal.  There is also good chances that the dealership didn't even know about it either, because like you, they're not mechanics.  New cars, and that is to say cars that have never been owned before, never get inspected, so even if the car is 4 years old, if it's never been owned, then no one has ever driven it, nor inspected it to ever find any of these issues.  In this case, no one is at fault, but a factory warranty will usually cover you in this case specifically for this reason.  Used cars, if bought from a respectable dealership, will go through an inspection when the dealer buys it.  They will not inspect it again but will still refer you to the inspection when you go to buy it.  Things can and will break down in this time, so unless they're offering a warranty, you get what you got.  If you're going to some corner dealership because they have the best prices or are the only ones who will overlook credit issues...  Then you have to go in expecting there to be problems down the road...  Some even so serious that your engine literally disintegrates.

You should have, but this isn't a problem you discovered after buying now is it?  ;]  This statement leads me to believe you knew about it before but didn't say anything.  You should have.  Could have gotten a new steering wheel out of it or a cheaper price.  At this point though, your best bet is probably to get a new cover that wraps all of the way around so you're not gripping the plastic anymore.  Some covers even come with cushioning and better grips, and they are far cheaper then buying a new steering wheel unless, of course, you're not buying it from a car wrecking center that has the same model car there.  I'd stick with a third party brand and not one provided by the manufacturer since the 3rd party ones are usually better and cheaper.

Ahh the joys of car ownership.  It get's far worse when you have kids because you can't just put it off until you finally feel like dealing with it, trust me on that.    I need to fix the center flip down seat in my truck and have needed to do that for years...  There's never a good time to do it is there?

Really?  I think it makes perfect sense and is totally obvious and you're just being argumentative about it...

On the single player menu, network game menu or ICO menu as represented by these two pictures... Before you start a game, click on Player Setup.  You will be taken to something like the second image.  You right or left click on the change picture set button until you get to the one that has the image you want to use...  It takes about three seconds to do and if this isn't clear, doesn't make sense, isn't obvious or isn't considered to be simple, then you sir have some kind of issues with instruction because this task really is too easy to even need to be explained in this much detail...

Again, you don't know what it would take to fix so you can't claim it's an easy fix.  As it is, as a modder, I just have to tell the game how many pictures there are in the row and it displays them.  Changing this up would mean I would have to identify not only how many pictures are in each row, but which race it's for...  This is of course assuming I don't run out of room and start using the pirate's row for more pictures and really start getting myself into trouble...  To be able to do this properly, the whole picture system would have to be erased and then set up like the icon system where I have to identify each picture individually for each option.  That's a hell of a lot more work then just adding a picture and increase the count by one, and that's just on my end of things.  Also consider that there are 5 sets of pictures.  All of this work would have to be done five times over every single time.  That's a pain in the ass.

Fixing it may be a convenience to SOME players, but most probably don't even give a damn, it would make things harder for us modders, and when the existing method is extremely simple and takes seconds for a player to make a switch prior to playing the game...  Is wasting the time to do this all differently really worth the effort?  You'd say yes, but most of the rest of us would say no.  Fix something more important first especially when the existing method is extremely easy to do.

Pasting new pictures over existing ones or just changing up the order...  Yeah, it is that easy, takes only minutes to do, and your changes do not affect anyone else so you can still play over ICO and other networks.  It only get's complicated when you start adding pictures.  But it's even easier and faster to just click on player set up and then click to the set you want...

Not necessarily.  What you think is simple might have serious drawbacks in the coding.  Seriously, a hell of a lot more of us have been begging for years to just be allowed to have longer capital ship names and that hasn't happened.  Clearly there is something preventing that from being done easily that we're not being told.  It seems like an easy no brainer thing to do, yet it isn't done...  The number of particles allowed got changed.  Allowing the ships to move like strike craft got allowed...  But a simple amount of characters?  Never happened.  Just because it seems simple, doesn't make it so.

Um...  What now?  You're going to have to explain this one a lot better.

Hmmm.  All opinion.  I am perfectly well at home in the game and strongly bonded to it, not because of the pictures, but because the version of the game I play as well as I don't know how many (but it's a lot of people), I had a hand in making.  The game is customized to my likings because I did it that way, not because I have my own faction icon added into it or because of "Oh hey look, I get to be Kurt Russel from 1994!"  I could just use my own picture and really say that I'm in the game just as easily as I could use it here on the forums, but I'd rather just get rid of the pictures all together...  It might be how you identify, but far more people have expressed the want for a custom icon drop in feature.  Now that would be sweet.

First of all, did you seriously get to talking about a car? I mean, I get the metaphorical use of the subject, but then a conversation about a real car with real details came up? That's freaking hilarious! Oh my god, how do you get so damned sidetracked? Wow, awesome.

Second, it's easy to change this. Just go flipping through the .tga files (or convert the .dds) and see how easy it is. Hell, I'm the one who made Stant into Kurt Russell. No thanks necessary, I just wish I had enough Advent and Vasari picks to add the Richard Dean Anderson version too.

And yeah, we even dropped in our own icons. Shit, the only thing better would be drag and drop menus or, better yet, them showing up on the hulls.

I will agree with TobiWahn that it would be nice to add more rows.

edit: Just read Myfist's post. Good points both technically and that it's not worth a rant. Fix game performance before worrying about paint jobs.

Yeah, I'm most certainly in the camp that performance and balance improvements always trump cosmetic improvements, without exception.

This picture set issue is less than irrelevant.  You're complaining about a total non-issue.  The fact that you take issue with the "problem" is also a non-issue.

Well what about how annoying the drivers door is to open? I mean sure, it doesnt affect the performance of the car, or your ability to drive it, but its a bit annoying.

Enter Stant

Noones talking about taking out of the more important things (diverting power from the engine to power the windows is a faulty analogy), Im simply saying it would take less than a day or two of development if not less and it would be a useful feature though extremely small compared to the rest of the game.

He didn't say that. He said:

As in fix the engine and then worry about changing windows from manual control (a crank) to power control (electric motor).

That wasn't for your sake, Ryat.

Im pretty much being trolled by hard headed fucks right here. Pretty disappointing because I usually try my best to respect modders seeing the unpaid work they do. Oh well, fuck it.

Im not going to argue about all that shit regarding the analogy's, Im just going to say one thing that Ive already said:

^ How did you come up "less than a day or two"?