Rookwood

Yeah, you're naive as hell if you think Blizzard is going to bat here for the "community." First of all, DotA is dead, there is no "community" that needs it anymore. Eul, Guinsoo, Icefrog... they're all gone and working on other games. This is just an underhanded way for them to set a precedent and effectively gain the rights to DotA only being used in Blizzard games.

Also, Blizzard has no chance to win this. I feel this is just Activision's sense of that "we have to lord over the gaming industry" and they're really reaching for this one. You could make a game called Wow, Lol, Hon etc. as long as those companies have not specifically filed trademarks for those terms separately. Defense of the Ancients is the name of the map. DotA is just what it's called in common parlance. Add this to the fact it is an IP created for a mod to a Blizzard game and the person who created the actual DotA name works at Valve and they just have no chance. Shows they have way too much money to waste just to make stupid points.

I assume you've basically turned everything off in the graphics to see how that affects it, if not you should definitely swallow your pride and do that. :)

Next, have you tried reinstalling the game? You should update your drivers but I agree with you, that's not likely to help given you were running it fine to begin with. Sounds more like something might have become corrupted.

Also are you having problems with any other games?

Yup, as Veektarius said, they're little more than busy work at this time to make people feel like they've gotten their money's worth, and it definitely comes from an MMO mentality. If you're going to have side quests in a game they should be either to enhance the backstory or provide some ultimate reward and not just some extra xp/cash/mediocre item, yes, but most importantly they should be long, convoluted and add far more challenge than anything in the main quest.

That being said I really have no problem with the way Skyrim does things as it caters to both kinds of gamers. It has the radiant system for those that just want to have something to do and then it also has the epic side quests like the Daedric shrines and the Guilds, none of which really add any challenge but then again nothing in Skyrim is difficult so that's a whole other problem.

I've always wondered why the Japanese like to come up with a new world every time they make a game instead of exploring their old ones like Western creators. I figured Square would one day figure out how much more efficient it is to stick with one universe but ...Gran Pulse? That's the one they're gonna stick with. Ugh.

I liked XIII, but even I felt that Gran Pulse/Cocoon was the most lifeless world they've created yet, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't completely because of how linear it was. It's just generic and uninspired on a conceptual level. Please, Square, if you're gonna stick with one world either come up with one more that's actually interesting or go back to some of the good ones from your past, Gaia, Spira, Ivalice.

I wish the Terraria version was this good. It's a little lacking with only a poster (not nearly as cool as this one) and a key-chain.

The Total War series gets more complicated every iteration.

@Zenaxzd said:

Basically the original ME offered some awful hybrid gameplay with terrible inventory management and a lot of useless powers/abilities while the second game just cut the shit and turned it into a third person shooter with some talent trees, a much better gameplay experience overall. I will say though to be entirely fair I don't think the game was some mind-blowing amazing GOTY experience either, but it certainly was a pleasant treat after the trash of the first game.

Deus Ex... Fallout 3/NV... those are some fps/rpg hybrids that were pretty successful. If you don't have the stats in those games you can't shoot the guns. ME1 being a hybrid isn't really relevant unless you just don't like those types of games.

A lot of people do, and Bioware cutting all the RPG elements from ME2 was just them trying to cater to the LCD.

@connerthekewlkid said:

@Rookwood: wait you thought telling them on the forums to go F2P was going to actually work?

This was 2008 right after they opened the forums. They were still very much in the "Hey guys give us your ideas for the game" mode. No one knew it was costing EA a quarter billion or anything like that at the time....

Look. If you had... one shot... to sit on your lazy butt... and watch all the tv you ever wanted until your brain turned to mush. Would you go for it? Or just let it slip?

I knew I wasn't going to buy this game in 2009 when they started hinting on the SWTOR boards that it was gonna have a subscription and be just like WoW. I tried to tell them to follow GW's lead and make it f2p with the a box and micro-trans but noooo. Then stupid SeanDahlberg went all Nazi on everyone's asses and started banning all the interesting people and saying shit like "I'm writing down all the troublemaker's (read people who were interesting) names and they won't be getting into the beta." What a dumbass. Terrible community manager.

Fuck EA. I shed a tear as ME2 looks like the last Bioware game I'll ever buy.