The modders of course. It's them who influence my buying decisions. Certainly not the mags, who would write anything for the right cash.

But the industry aims for kids. For those pesky little bastards bitching their parents into buying. Also the industry has hardly any interest in the longevity of their products anymore. The sooner the gamer gets bored, the better for the industry, since their next product is ready to be released.

Making modding impossible makes absolute sense, since there is a trend to make some additional dough by selling content online.

Well, as has been said. One doesn't have to buy on the very first day. Let's see what the experts say about that newest gem and then make an educated decision.

Well, sounds sweet. As with many other games that were great once, the developers probably have their pants full when thinking about certain pressure groups. If there's no custom content possible and securom is still part of the deal, I'll stick with TS2.

Yeah, that's the major issue. Disk protection - each and everyone - is useless and only there to annoy those, who are actually willing to pay. That's corporate wisdom at its finest. Annoy those who're still paying for your crap and maybe you can generate a whole new generation of pirates by pissing off your customers.

Yeah, I noticed that one. They did it all by themselves, next to the garbage bin on the pavement.

May sound weired. But apart from many things already mentioned, why can't slobs be slobs. Why do they complain about a dirty house or stink, even though I've chosen stink as a turn On for them? Makes these options pretty useless in my book.

Also I'm annoyed by the constant crybaby behaviour of any given Sim, even though they're supposed to be mean.

Newly introduced with AL, but nevertheless a major pain in the behind, the unnerving unwillignless to sign an apartment contract. Watching the accusing glare at me and the listless behaviour, I want to shout: Yes, you friggin dork, you're supposed to sign that bloody contract unless you want to make your bed near the bin.

And last but not least, the fire annoyance. Why do they have to watch thereby sometimes burning to a cinder? You can't even make them dial emergency, so that particular phone option is as valuable as a wart on the hindparts.

Yeah, that's why I always say, that this piece of crap doesn't get an invitation to my hard drive. It's just another step of corporate suits adressing the consumer as the enemy. You're very welcome to deliver your money, but don't mind if we're taking over your computer.

I certainly hope they pay dearly - more than a whole legion of pirates would cost them.

Backups aren't infected with Securom. Securom is rooted deep within your system, not your neighbourhoods or any other given stuff on the surface. It's, like I ave said many times before, basically a root kit with the potential to bring harm.

Mind the word potential!

For me though, any potential to change the setup of my rig without my knowledge, is intolerable. Most users probably won't face any difficulties unless they run virtual drives or use software like Alcohol or daemon tools. In this case securom might demand the removal of said software and drives.

The answer are no DVD/CD patches. That's what I am doing. They may be in the grey zone, but being an IT journalist for quite some time now, I make it my policy not to install something on my computer, that has close relations to malware and have at least the potential of the "ET phones home" syndrome.

The mentioned starforce of course is another one of these goodies.

Basically it's a proud member of this family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit) sold as copy protection.

oops, double post

Interesting thought. Personally, I don't think, that I would move any closer to any form of organised religion. I'm already in my mid 40ies and had my share of lost loved ones. Did it move me closer to what I was born and raised with? The answer is no.

See, I was born an raised a catholic. Now I consider myself an agnostic and I can't imagine finding any answer in Christian or any other believe in the future. Simply because I don't believe in their concepts. That doesn't mean that I totally discard everything they're believing. If it was only about Jesus, he would be kind of a role model for a decent living. But it isn't. Over the centuries people have added the contents of the old Testament which festures a vengeful, jealous god, pretty much the same as the gods of the Hellenic or Roman pantheon. There has been much bending and stretching to make this concept half logical. Same goes for the trinity, which has been introduced at a much later time and - together with the saints - is basically the return to politheism.

The world is some billion years old and humanity took the stage some minutes ago as far as earth's history is concerned. We're insignificant and the few thousands of years of monotheistic religions are even more insignificant.

If I was to believe in something, it would be a neutral entity, neither good nor bad. It would be the force of nature itself.

That'll be the day when the Easter bunny and father christmas make a personal appearance to shake hands.

I really want to look into the heads of these corporate suits. It has been proven again and again, that no copy protection whatsoever prevents piracy. And what do they do? They treat you to a first class rootkit, one of the most aggressive pieces of spyware on the market which also happens to fiddle with your drives and - god forbid - virtual drives.

Yes, I know, they have to introduce some kind of protection to be legally on the safe side should they happen to stumble over a pirate, but any piece of protection would do that kind of job. No need for rolling out the nukes.

But make no mistake about it. People will keep on buying. Kids pestering their parents and mummy or daddy, who haven't got a clue about securom will stare in silent wonder at their rigs and ask themselves why all over sudden their rigs don't do what they should do anymore.

There's a triresome but rather effective way to find the culprit. Put 50% of your downloads in, the rest stays on your desktop. Now check if the error's still there.

Try the same with the other half. And when you found the bunch with the error, keep splitting the infected bunch in half until you have narrowed it down to a few files. You can of course keep those files not causing errors in your downloads while doing so.

The phone hack can be attached to a downloaded lot. I had a similiar error connected to something I never volunbtarily installed. Turned out, that it came with another package.