A look back to the beginnings of the biggest MMO of our time. Some of the information I knew, but there was a lot I hadn’t heard before. I’m still impressed with how Warcraft II has held up over the years (imho) in terms of graphics/color choices. Of course I could be biased as I still love to play the game. 
I thought it was going to go well, then the news started coming in.
First I heard about Starcraft being pushed back, then lately I heard Blizzard was going to charge $150 USD for it.
I was looking forward to Sacred 2, but that fell through once I realized they were using activations.
Then there was Stalker: Clear Sky. Yep, same issue.
I was holding off on Crysis: Warhead until Crytek issued the Crysis 1.3 patch they withheld from customers, but now they’ve guaranteed that some gamers will never purchase it.
Then I got REALLY psyched about Far Cry 2, but just found out today that Far Cry 2 will also be using activations. I canceled my pre-order in a hurry. 
It’s surprising just how stupid publishers can be sometimes. I’m just really hoping THQ doesn’t screw up the publishing of Dawn of War 2. It’s sounding like it’s going to be really awesome but I’d hate to have to pass on it too.
In the end though I’m afraid the people protesting will do little good as untold amounts of people will just blindly fork money over without paying attention to these sorts of issues.
Too bad, they could be making a difference instead.
Edit:
I do have The Witcher to look forward to (bought it to support the devs & their stance on Piracy), so I’m not totally feeling the backhand from the publishers. Though with that said I’m not crazy about them using Tages for their cd check.
The latest news on the Starcraft 2 front is that they decided to break one game into three and charge you approximately $50 for each one.
Simply ludicrous.
If that was not enough, the geniuses at Blizzard want the action “fast paced” and and are removing units from multiplayer to keep players from “turtling” their way through a match. Another stupid move.
If my opponent wants to “turtle” then I can just hit those areas with an area-of-effect attack and get him to come out that way.
This is just nuts. Way to milk the customer. I mean, what the hell!? Is everyone just freaking evil these days!?
We have swarms of greedy publishers shoving SecuROM down our throats and then we have other developers/publishers milking a franchise like this. Agh! The frustration just keeps on … mounting …
