Me and my shadowcat miss Mechwarrior too.  I think I blame the demise of the joystick.

I really hate advertising in most of its forms.  I don't like being sold to unless I'm deliberately looking for it, and I feel that the whole sales and marketting process is inherently rather pushy, and that the world would be better off without it (like an arms race). Right now, I'm of the opinion that having adverts in software I install on my computer is intrusive, and I hate to see any extension of this creeping horror of tackiness.

Shadowcat pilots unite. All about the stack of medium lasers and shooting legs off--although that worked way better in MW3 than 4. >.>

Roger that, FragieD. Thanks for the good news!...

*chuckle*

I always get a kick out of the people who play the electronic BattleTech properties that take these titles. I've probably met, face to face, at least ten people who claim that specific title. But when you ask them about Hazens, Prydes, or Pershaws their eyes go blank.

If you're looking for a new home, come back to where it all began. Come back to www.classicbattletech.com

The Battletech Universe is interesting, but Mechwarrior dragged me in as an action game.  Thankfully a quite tactical, teamwork based action game, but still rather visceral.

I mostly lost to people with the big autocannons or the streak short ranged homing missiles: cheeky strategy, they'd always knock me over with splash damage by shooting the ground nearby. Still, there's definitely a joy in trying to jink and jump and twist (and lag) to stay just outside of the bigger mechs' firing arcs long enough to bring them down.

The in-game advertising in Far Cry 2 is pretty light for the single player game.  There are some Jeep Wranglers hanging around.  Thing is, you really wouldn't want to drive one.  There are tons of trucks around with mounted machine guns, why travel around in an unarmed jeep?  NPCs don't seem to drive them, either.  From the sound of it, it's the online game that pushes the advertisements to you.  Perhaps to help pay for the servers?

Far Cry 2 is an excellent game.  It's got problems that seem to stem from catering to consoles.  Blast a guard station, drive a quarter mile away, come back, and the guard station is repaired and manned again.  That's the price you pay to keep your save game files down around one megabyte.  But, all in all, a very fun game.  And it's looking like it will take a good 40+ hours to finish, too, which is something that's getting rare these days.

My main problem with in-game advertising isn't that I'm somehow getting my rights violated.  I'm a lot more worried about the effect on creativity.  Coke advertisements don't fit in a fantasy game setting.  They barely fit in a Gal Civ setting.  If advertising starts to become a major source of revenue, we're going to find all our games happening in present time or the near-future.  That worries me plenty.

Here's a weird twist to throw at ya.  NCSoft's City of Heroes has optional advertising.  Advertisements pop in on the billboards if you leave the option turned on.  Turn the option off and, as soon as you switch zones or re-log, the advertisements will be gone.  The game studio only gets paid for people that look at the advertisments.  I planned on turning them off after a day or two but I've been keeping them on, mostly because I want to see what companies are willing to go for this kind of advertising!

If they keep doing this, I'm gonna want a cut. Pixels aren't cheap, you know. $0.0004 per pixel sounds like a fair price. Perhaps they should be paying us to put ads on our screens .

Hear, hear. I find the idea of paying for a game and then being forced -and unlike many other media you can have no other option if you want to experience further content- to endure their spam, leaves an unpleasant taste.

More insidious is the stated intention that [Massive] ''may collect your Internet protocol address and other basic anonymous information, and will use this information for the general purposes of transmitting and measuring in-game advertising.'' At best you will enjoy 'targeted' advertising, junk mail writ large on your computer screen from those companies wanting to reach out to your 'demographic' based on your IP and whatever other information the program may mine from your online activities. At worst Massive and other companies will have ever increasing access to personal information and data; not only where you live and what you buy, who knows just how much information they will be able and willing to collect in the not too distant future?

I would be interested if Stardock has an opinion on the subject? Do they believe the potential negatives from a consumer’s point of view merit a clause in their gamer’s bill of rights?