Cantatus

Even better is the fact that they seem to have started to do these sales more frequently. If I recall, they had sort of a mini-sale earlier in the year that lasted about a week. Then, a couple months ago, they had the "Perils of Summer" sale, which was pretty much the Christmas sale come early.

Not sure if it's a good thing for Steam or not, but it's gotten to the point where the only time I buy something on it is when it's marked down. Since they have so many really good sales, it sort of explains why I have such a backlog of unplayed games.

Heh, I have the same problem. I'd say half the games I've bought on Steam, I haven't gotten around to playing yet. I don't mind too terribly though, as it is good for those times when I get bored. Just last night I was looking through my game list and decided to download something.

I would love to see a Steam study released as to what percentage of games bought on Steam never get played. Considering a lot of people I know, that number wouldn't be small.

"Microsoft's lack of luck" refers to their inability to come out with an MMO.

It's a little hard to say if people don't play MMOs on consoles, because they don't like it, or if it's just a matter of very, very few MMOs even being available on consoles.

Steam certainly is a DRM, but it's an example the industry should be looking at as to how to create a DRM that doesn't raise the customer's hackles. Most DRM seems to operate from the point of view that everyone is a pirate, and therefore we must all be punished. The limited activations is an example of this. No one could possibly have a legitimate reason for wanting to install a game multiple times! Ubisoft's "must remain connected to the internet at all times" is even worse as it's like they need to constantly check up on you.

Steam is better because, while it is DRM, it's a form of DRM where the benefits outweigh the negatives. While it combats pirating, it also has features like the instant messenger, game management, instant patching, and the store. It stops pirating in a way where legitimate customers don't feel like they are being inconvenienced, which has always been my main complaint about DRM.

Which is pretty much patently ridiculous if you look at MMO numbers over the years. WoW's numbers (which are an anomaly) aside, few MMOs have been able to cross the 1 million marker, and I don't think any title that has been released in the past 5 years has gotten anywhere close.

I think that was pretty much the problem with both Microsoft and Marvel. They want instant success, but they apparently don't know how to accomplish that themselves. That's likely why every MMO Microsoft has been involved in (with perhaps the exception of Asheron's Call) has been canceled or abandoned. For Marvel, they just seem to keep hopping from one studio to the next, hoping to find the golden goose.

The sad thing is, Microsoft's lack of luck with MMOs has seemed to translate into a significant roadblock to other developers being able to have their MMO on the 360. It's always seemed as though they are trying to protect that genre on their console for themselves. Perhaps this will change some when the PS3 starts having some success with MMOs.

You can buy the Complete Collection from Steam. You can only buy the item pack through NCSoft, but it doesn't matter since that's linked to your account regardless of where you buy the game from.

It was definitely a case of #2. Marvel wanted Cryptic to develop the game. They had no reason to involve NCSoft whatsoever.

Marvel has been incredibly fickle when it has come to developing their property for a MMO. Prior to Cryptic, they had 2-3 different deals for development. Right before Cryptic, they were working with Sigil Games Online (the developers of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes).

We can read into it and say the Marvel/Cryptic game never came to fruition because of Cryptic, but that's just speculation. We'll never really know why that deal fell through, just like we have no idea why the Marvel/Sigil or Marvel/Vivendi games didn't work out. However, the common factor here is Marvel, so I have a really difficult time believing Cryptic is fully to blame for things.

If anything, the Rikti prove that. The revised versions that came out in Issue 10 are miles better than what they were originally.

Unfortunately, I'm guessing this sort of falls under the same problem as redoing old zones. It takes just as much work to redo them as it does to create new ones, so you have to pick. In the case of villain groups, I'm guessing the developers would like to continue to add new groups for story reasons. Still, we do get zone revamps every so often, so it might be nice to give some of the more used villain groups (eg Devouring Earth, Circle of Thorns, Nemesis, etc.) a fresh coat of paint.

I was going to ask if that was a possibility as well, but my suggestion was more along the lines of doing Option 1, but then having the ability to choose between having the updated items shown or the legacy look.

It's sort of confusing, so I'll give an example: In another MMO I played, they decided the look of characters were outdated, so they came out with new ones. However, in the option menu, you could pick which one you saw: the original models or the newer ones. This allowed people who liked the original look, despite it being extremely outdated, to keep it. In this case, it would also avoid the clutter in the character creator.

Even an expansion typically can't save a game that fails at release. From what I have seen, once a MMOG is released they have a huge population boost as people pick up the game to check it out. Eventually that number drops off. The point where things take a downturn and the game starts to lose customers tends to be the highest population the game will ever have.

That just shows you how important it is to build a game good enough out the door to have a substantial amount of people playing at the beginning. Bad word-of-mouth can do irreparable damage to a MMO. If you don't impress people out the door, you aren't going to get a second chance.

I don't think it needs to have as much content as other MMOs. If that was the case, few MMOs would ever get anywhere due to the fact that it's impossible to have enough content at release to match a game that's been out for 4-5 years.

When WoW launched, EverQuest had 8 expansion out. WoW had a tiny fraction of what WoW did, but WoW brought a lot of new things to the table. (Well, and they had the advantage of branding). Likewise, CoH was able to get a decent sized customer-base because they were willing to do the same.

The problem with the MMO genre is it's a lot of copying off what other people are doing. If WoW has millions of customers, surely I can closely adapt what they are doing and get a million customers for myself! That's really where the problem lays. Why play a similar game to WoW with a third the content when you can just play WoW? It's sort of the same thing I said during the EQ days when everyone was just ripping them off. No one can out-WoW WoW.

Even with STO, it's easy to tell they didn't just start from scratch and put out a game in two years. For one, it uses much of the same backbone CO does. However, you also have to remember that Perpetual Entertainment had STO in development for 4 years before Cryptic got it. I'd find it hard to believe that Cryptic wasn't able to use anything from that much development work.

Here's a little tip I've learned: If the piece you are looking at has an associated pattern, hitting "reset" on the pattern automatically brings up the correct pattern for that item rather than going back to "none".

I think the thing is, when you have the lower texture resolutions on items, it sort of leaves certain things open to interpretation. By making them "crisper", you run the risk of interpreting an item differently than I might. For example, in the case of the tank top, you see a typical cotton tank top. However, I might have picked it for my character because it reminded me of this, a spandex tank top. By adding those subtle folds and the fabric texture, you've created a better looking item, but you've simultaneously removed an option for me.

Personally, I'm not that detail oriented, but you have to keep in mind that other people are. Any change you make to the costume creator in going to be met with some complaints. I tend to be more of the mind of "more is better" myself. Yes, it will create more clutter, but then the costume creator, itself, is "showing its age" and could use some of that improvement to quality to make this less of a concern.

Well, when you get down to it, the basic formula for losing weight is just a matter of being more active than you currently are and eating less calories than you currently do. That's why people can see gains from things like "chocolate diets" and the like. If eating chocolate all day long still adds up to less calories than you were previously eating, you are going to shed some pounds.

But, obviously there are more efficient and healthier ways to accomplish this, and that's what a lot of people have been getting into. Yes, you can lose weight by eating one meal a day if it has a lower caloric intake, but it isn't the best way to do so, nor is it the healthiest. And, I think Durakken is getting this kind of advice as he's stated his primary concern is healther rather than just getting in shape for bikini season.

You are right, though. Every small thing helps. With as resistant as Durakken seems to be to many of the suggestions here, at least he is considering some. Those could quite possibly result in things he has currently dismissed as becoming achievable once he's able to accomplish other things. That's sort of how it worked for me.

Regardless, kudos on your weight loss. Taking off that much wait is extremely impressive. I wish you the best on being able to continue to reach your goals.

You really can't separate the two, and I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish by making this argument. If you want to be healthy, you have to lose weight. If you want to lose weight, you have to pursue a healthier lifestyle. In your case, the two can't be separated. If you truly want to be healthier, then you need to want to lose weight as well.

You have the wrong attitude here. If you truly care about your health; if you truly want to be able to live a longer life, then saying you "could care less about losing weight" is self-defeating. You are never going to get anywhere thinking those sorts of thoughts. You are not going to get healthier unless you lose weight, therefore losing weight needs to be something you care about. It is one of the steps to your goal. If you do not care about the steps it will take you to achieve your goal, then you will never do so.

I think it's more a matter of him having to face the reality of the industry. In every MMO I have ever followed, there is that interview where Feature X is asked about, and the company says, "Oh, it won't be in launch, but it's coming after!" No MMO is ever going to be everything the developers want at launch. They'd never get released if that was the case.

And really, the quote doesn't conflict with that. He's not necessarily saying a game should never add new features after launch, but that you can't do that and expect to change how the game is defined.

After all, there are reasons to add features to a game beyond just attracting new players. Keeping your current players happy is a fairly good reason, as it increases retention. And really, if inventions added 10,000 players for 3 months, that's $450,000 more they made in that period than they would've had normally. It's nothing to sneeze at.

Very true. My senior year of high school, I had my first kidney stone. At the time, the only thing I drank was canned pop. My doctor told me that this was a possible cause of the kidney stone and never wanting to go through the pain again, I quickly cut it from my diet.

At the time I was fairly overweight, because like I said, pop all day long. Replacing that almost entirely with water helped me lose weight, and that sort of motivated me to eat healthier so I could get the rest off. All said, I lost about 55 lbs and 3-4 inches from my waist.

Sadly, I still get kidney stones on a near yearly basis, but at least there was some benefit from that.

This is one of the most important things as it is probably the mistake that is most repeated when it comes to losing weight. So many people think you can "go on a diet", implying that eventually you will go off that diet. It's a ridiculous thought. If I started eating like a pig tomorrow, does that mean I'll keep that weight on despite suddenly eating my normal amount again? So why do people think you can eat better to lose weight and then go back to normal without gaining it back? Getting your weight to where you want it and keeping it there requires a permanent change, not a temporary one.

My dad is a good one for this. He'll occasionally realize he needs to lose weight. So, he starts eating healthier. Then, he starts losing weight, and figures he accomplished his goal, so he can go back to eating the way he used to. And, of course, that just means him putting all that weight back on.

This is why most of those "fad diets" don't work long term. Most people look at them as a quick fix. They can go on this diet, get down to their ideal weight, and then eat normal food again. Most people wouldn't even attempt these diets if they knew the miracles they promised required eating like that for the rest of your life (especially when you figure in long-term risks of doing so).

Just to make this sound a little less horrifying, I should point out that something like this doesn't necessarily require cutting out all of your favorite junk food for all-time. One of the best tips I saw for losing weight was to allow yourself the occasional "cheat day" or "cheat meal". Want to eat pizza? Go for it, but make sure it doesn't become something you're doing several times a week.

The reason this is smart is two-fold. First off, the most obvious is you aren't having to say good-bye to all the foods you like. You'll still get to taste them, just not as frequently as before. But the more important thing is it lessens some of the guilt people trying to lose weight feel when they eat something unhealthy. So many people spoil their diet and then think, "Well, I already ruined it today. Guess it doesn't matter if I get some fried chicken for dinner." and get in the loop of, "The next meal will be the one where I get back on my diet!" If you plan for it, it's something that can become sort of a reward rather than something you end up punishing yourself over. Like they say, all good things in moderation.

Heh, that's the one my mom and I are always trying to convince my dad of. He won't just eat a chip. He'll grab as big of a handful of chips as he can and cram it all into his mouth. As my mom always points out, he's not enjoying his food any more than she is by eating that way. If anything, he's enjoying it less as he's going through it a lot faster.

So yeah, I'd recommend to Durakken that he do things like take smaller bites and chew more. If it's a food you eat with your hands (like chips or pretzels), eat one or two at a time. Avoid grabbing handfuls.

Honestly, I would recommend you get in the habit of making smaller meals more frequently. If you make big meals with the intention of eating leftovers later, you are just creating temptation for yourself. If you make the smaller meals, you don't have other food sitting around immediately at your disposal.

And really, not every meal you make needs to be a long, involved process. Get some lunch meat and bread. Get some fruit and vegetables. Get some yogurt. Healthy Choice and SmartOnes also make a lot of instant meals that have low calories.

Any advice I've ever read as far as a healthy diet goes tends to recommend spreading calories throughout the day. Some dietitians even say it's healthier to do 4-6 smaller meals over the course of the day rather than 3 big ones like most people do.

The thing is, your body doesn't just digest food on an as-needed basis. If you eat, the food gets digested. Any of the calories that aren't used for energy when the food is digested get stored as fat. Think of it like building a fire in the stove. You wouldn't just throw all the wood in at once and expect the fire to last all night.

Also, not sure where you're getting your numbers, but 1700-3000 calories is a huge range. For someone my height (5' 10"), that'd be the difference between me wanting to maintain a weight of 100lbs versus maintaining a weight of 300lbs.

Basically, if you want to lose weight, you need to change your eating habits. It's the mistake people make over and over again. Diet is arguably even more important than exercise when it comes to losing weight.

My suggestion would be to get in the habit of eating more meals throughout the day. I'd even suggest not being as concerned about counting calories until you do that if you could take what you're eating now and evenly divide it up over a few meals.

That was actually proposed a few years back when this discussion originally came up. My thought at the time was that it ran the risk of making certain powersets that don't "require" Fitness overpowered. Some sets already have powers that serve as decent substitutes to what Fitness offers (like Quick Recovery, Transference, Drain Psyche, etc).

However, I would hazard a guess that doing something like this would run less risk of unbalancing certain powersets than just giving everyone the Fitness power pool.

Nah, PvP is going to be revamped to now be a literal game of rock-paper-scissors.

Back when these comics were running, I always enjoyed the debates about whether Top Cow or Blue King handled the comics better. They each had their unique take on CoH and each had their own strengths and weaknesses.

For my part, I think I tended to enjoy the Blue King run better. They told the story from a perspective similar to the player's. These were run-of-the-mill heroes running into the same sort of problems you encounter as you play the game.

I think Top Cow's main fault was with how Freedom Phalanx has always been presented as being the premiere superheroes in the game who can handle anything. Statesman took a nuke to the chest, for Pete's sake. So, to see them transposed into the role War Witch and co. were previously in felt like a bit of a disconnect.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing them revive the comic. The main thing I would like to see them change with it, however, is to use the comic as a device to progress the in-game story. I always got the feeling that the comic and game existed separately as in-game references to the comic have always been scant (and even somewhat vice versa) with the stories having no impact. Having a comic accompanying the MMO is a fantastic way to tell more of a story than can be told in one Issue. It also allows things to be built up rather than just having all the content plop into the game one day.

Of course, it'd also give people more of a reason to care about the comic and read them. That's one reason I think the comic did poorly when it required a subscription. It's not like you were missing out on anything if you decided against reading it.

The thing I've always disliked about the co-op zones is it sort of undermines the point of having the different factions. They all tend to do the "larger threat that we all need to work together to defeat!" thing, which ultimately fits with heroes but sort of whitewashes villains. The more you have of these, the less distinct the factions become.

I'd rather they do more zones like Ouroboros. Use the same zone, but have there be access to different stories for each faction. Obviously this requires more writing as it'd need more arcs than normal, but using the same zone would hopefully allow Issues to be more inclusive when it comes to new content that's added.

Personally, I've always been fond of the idea of having storyarcs that can be told from either side.

Well, let's be honest, throughout most of television history, sitcoms have been extremely formulaic. Even All in the Family, with as ground-breaking as it was, still kept to the basic format sitcoms have largely been known for.

It's really only been in recent years (like the last 15 years or so), that sitcoms have started trying to experiment with new things (return of the single camera format, ongoing storyarcs, removal of laughtracks, mockumentary style, etc.). I think that largely has to do with the fact that sitcoms started dying out to hour-long dramas, forcing networks to try new things to keep them viable, but even today, there are still a lot of sitcoms that keep close to the original format.