MaxFrost

A quick reminder that I'm looking for 2 roommates, though couples preferred as my wife is the first roommate. However, if you're well behaved, we see no problem sticking two guys in with us. Edit: still taking names, but have a potential roomie.

My wife and I are going this year! Bout time I finally get my butt down to MAG! I will mention that we're looking at sharing our room with other OCR peeps to help defray costs. We don't stay up too late, so are looking for people who also need a quiet room to crash in.

I was wondering why it went from free to 5 bucks to 1000 bucks an album. Heh.

Enjoying this album to pieces right now. So good.

This is an excellent piece, and I believe it does a good job of stirring up all kinds of memories within someone's heart. When I was going through my music library to pick out music for my wedding, this was a standout piece that I wanted everybody to hear before the wedding itself took place. So while it was background music pre-ceremony, it was a part of my wedding, and was intentionally the one right before the bridal party entered. So this song is now connected with wonderful memories for me.

I think Brandon's connection stalled out and disconnected him. When are you going to upgrade dude?

He already has all the Castlevanias, and of all of them, you had to pick the one that had the clunkiest controls. It was good, but bleh. Anywho. Disgaea DS.

He's been in the IRC channel lately Also, happy belated birthday dude.

Marine? Hahahahaha. I'm going to laugh at you if you get posted to 29 Palms for an extended period of time.

My server is up and running! apparently all I needed to do was disable my secondary network connection, and it works. Garian was playing with me earlier. IP is 172.20.65.247, password is the same as the ocad server (for those who have been on there) PM me or find me on IRC to get it.

This is now out, and I plan on wasting a few hours on it.

In defense of Sega, while the streets of rage series is indeed loved, and the remake is quite good, it still is Sega's IP. Unless there's a written contract to reproduce the game, even for free, it's subject to IP laws. It sucks that all that hard work is gone, but if Bombergames is up to the task, they have a completely built brawler engine with massive branching paths. It shouldn't be too hard to remove the IP problem from the game. Just a truckload of artwork. While fan projects are cool, they aren't original property when they're remakes like this. As an independent developer, instead of remaking games, make games in the spirit of the game you're trying to revive. Maybe you'll have a hit on your hands, and can make money. I realize this whole problem started with a supposed green light from Sega itself, and most of the outrage is the sudden backtracking on Sega's word. But if this had been a separate IP project, while it wouldn't have gotten the same sort of press, still would have done well, and they could still offer it.

Unfortunately, it's China. Blizzard has no legal foothold there, and has been having a hard enough time bringing their games over there too. It may very well be built with zero interference.

As much as I love this mix, there's one thing that could have made this mix epic. A trombone solo comping on the melody line the last time it goes through the motions towards the end. I mean, you don't stick in live trombone in a funk piece without a solo, yet you did Other then that though, good stuff.

Oi, I said copyright debate was a separate argument. Take it to PPP already, and get it out of my gaming/music forum.

This is off topic, but intresting. I decided to tally up my MMO expenses with WoW. Mind you, I believe I've gotten every dollar's worth out of the game. Subsciber since July 2005 = about 68 months * $15 = $1020 Base game = $60. All three expansions at launch = $120 ($40 each). One Character race change = $25 Grand total on one game? Approximately $1225, probably less because I tend to pay by the 3 month block, which comes out to closer to 14 a month.

I should add that while bonuses theoretically keep people around, it hasn't been proven.

Hey, we're getting somewhere now! I'll just have to trust you on the copyright thing. I've heard/seen similar arguments elsewhere, and it does make sense. I believe it's the root of why music is in the position it's in today, where the RIAA is scrambling for profits as more and more artists tell them to buzz off. Anywho. Your GS counterpoint is solid, I'll leave that be. Not sure project $10 will pick up steam as it's just as likely to kill the secondhand market completely. There will be a lot of people not happy about that, but if game prices come down to compensate, maybe it won't be all that bad. It'll just suck to loan games to friends. So root of the problem. Games are too expensive, specifically games from AAA devs. We're seeing multiple price points more now then ever though, mostly from online retailers. I don't believe that the bigger firms will bring the prices down as long as sales remain as high as they do (freaking Black Ops selling 20 million units...). In fact, I expect them to keep inching the envelope even higher, specifically from houses like Activision Blizzard who can produce good, well polished games time and time again. Until people stop paying them for the privilege of sticking a DVD in their hand, game prices on the AAA side aren't going anywhere. People like large bonuses, mostly because it keeps top talent around, and allows the company to keep turning the gears that effectively print money. Thankfully, those online retailers have seen the light, and things like the Steam sale and many other discounts have made gaming on a budget far more reasonable. The effective 'bargin bin' of the past is now applied to all games once the initial grab has been made, and more games are discounted now then ever.

This is a recent development, (last 2 years) and essentially unenforceable. You give someone physical media, they get to decide what happens to it. Companies are just now coming up with methods to make specific disks useless, but your DMCA argument is why things like digital distribution are becoming so large. Yes, those other companies sell games as well (Walmart is the #1 retailer of video games in both the USA and worldwide), but GameStop is a large enough percentage that those AAA companies are going to cater to them anyways, because they are attempting to regain as much money as possible to meet shareholder demands. And while you do have a true point on the EULA bit, often times a consumer is allowed to sell their product in it's entirety to another person. Microsoft's EULA for Windows and all it's other products actually says it. It's an interesting ready. It's a value proposition, where things are a bit more expensive because you have the opportunity to sell the license later to recoup your dollar. Thank Disney for the copyright hodgepodge. I'm not happy about this either. But it's not regulation needed here, but an overhaul of the copyright system in general. This is a separate argument, which belongs in a separate forum. Realize that a large part of this came about because the US Gov decided to give companies the same rights as individuals, and that these companies have essentially bought off the Gov. Pisses me off too, not much I can do except try to get measures in that reduce corporate involvement. Congrats then I guess? It's great you're a part of the American working public. But GameStop still says that brand new used copy of a used games costs 97% of the MSRP. While in the early history of the USA, this may have been true, the Gov realized that if the continued innovation was to be allowed to grow in the US, that a system had to be put in place to allow creative works to be locked in, and allow the creator to make money off of it. Piracy sucks, especially when it hurts your neighbor, or your neighborhood, or yourself. You'll see many cases where we still rip off foreign companies, because there's no law in the world that says we can't. We just don't like it when we do it to ourselves. But Piracy is a moot point in terms of software sales, as it's just a number on a spreadsheet to me. Publishers are looking for and have found ways to combat this without imposing silly DRM on their customers. It sucks, but we're at a point now that dealing with it is the modus operandi. I'm asking you straight up, bring this back to why games cost as much as they do. No piracy, no copying, no copyright. Just pure economics. Same thing for the used game market. What drives consumers to pay the slight markdown from a company that is obviously taking advantage of the situation? GameStop has been doing this for years, as well as many other companies. GameStop is the only one still around. That right there should tell you that publishers have found ways to deal with the lost sales. With the advent of multiple Digital Distribution companies, there are also far more avenues where game prices can come way, way down (even AAA titles), and both gamers and developers see additional value as gamers get the games they want for the costs they want, and dev's get to see their audience balloon, and even more money roll in to pay for the next title.

Only if you went to a state school. For some reason I went to a Christian private school, and was too goody two shoes to smoke. So now I'm an uptight moderate Christian who knows too much about economics.

That's the problem though. As physical game copies are not licences but actual product to be sold, the right resell belongs not to the company, but to the consumer. GameStop used this privilege to create a market where game prices are more volatile, at the cost of more potential sales for the game publishers. And because GameStop also sells a lot of new games (can't have used game market without new games being sold first), game companies are a bit of a handicap as to how to deal with them. They can't rob of them of business, because pulling the plug from one of your largest retailers is a good way to slash your player-base in half, so they're looking for other methods. Regulation is a horrible way to do this. While theoretically it makes for nice consumer prices, it's not really the way things are done in this country. The country you grew up in. The market is king here, and honestly, it's the publishers fault that they didn't find a way to take advantage of the used game market sooner. I do find it mildly interesting that you keep tossing out economics, but unfortunately, everything that happens in this country revolves around money at some point. While in college, you may get high and mighty about how things should be, but once you're out on your own, you realize that you don't get paid for ideals, but on how you get things _done_. It's the same reason why we simply can't just throw our massive wealth at say, Nambia, and feed everybody, because if we did, we'd put everybody there out of work, destroy the local economy, and create a situation worse then the one already there. Supply/Demand, while oversimplified, is why I can say, "I will fix your computer for $50," and I can expect to get that money, because it's what consumers expect to pay for that particular service. For games, a luxury entertainment item, we can expect to pay a good amount from a AAA developer, not only because they sink a lot of time into the game, but because there's a legion of unseen stockholders who expect the company to produce money on that product.

And I'm getting married myself in July.

Hey! A wild package has appeared! Open it up. What's this? Hell yes, thank you D-Lux!