Arcanum - 50% Off @ GOG

If a game from ten years ago is still good, you can still find it on Ebay (with all the printed goodies), and most likely GOG!


So it's not true that printing stuff means you miss games…

You might be able to find it on E-Bay and you might not - or it might be there but costs triple the original price. Given recent court rulings, that might not be an option for long here in the USA.

But you can find older games on GoG. Current games will probably be on Steam for many many years to come. That's my whole point. Digital distribution is increasing the lifespan of games.

Originally Posted by Sir_Brennus
Full ACK! It's very rare incident that I agree with something JDR13 writes, but in this case he is absolutly right.

Well I wouldn't expect someone who considers Two Worlds "the best open world solo ARPG ever" to agree with me on many things.

Originally Posted by Zloth
You might be able to find it on E-Bay and you might not - or it might be there but costs triple the original price. Given recent court rulings, that might not be an option for long here in the USA.

What are these court rulings you refer to?

Originally Posted by JDR13
What are these court rulings you refer to?

Some obscure CAD program is no longer allowed to be resold. This court ruling is widley regarded as a change in the juristical view of software. Its no longer some property of the buyer ("owner"), but more a license issued by the producer. Reselling of this license is no right the owner has bought with the software.

On the other hand I highly doubt this will have anything to do with software produced before the court ruling.

Originally Posted by Sir_Brennus
Some obscure CAD program is no longer allowed to be resold. This court ruling is widley regarded as a change in the juristical view of software. Its no longer some property of the buyer ("owner"), but more a license issued by the producer. Reselling of this license is no right the owner has bought with the software.

On the other hand I highly doubt this will have anything to do with software produced before the court ruling.

I'm pretty sure it was AutoCAD, which is hardly an obscure CAD programme.

The court ruling could indeed give the software manufacturers the leverage to kill the used software market.

At least in the US. How the courts see it in other countries is still open.

How this will change the market is a topic for a new thread.

Originally Posted by Gorath
The court ruling could indeed give the software manufacturers the leverage to kill the used software market.

Yes. Yet another battlefield against used software. Like DRM, OnLive etc. .

At least in the US. How the courts see it in other countries is still open.

Here in Germany, as far as I know, one actually "owns" the software.

But Microsoft is battling selling of "used licenses" there, too.

Which could be a hint that the destroying of the used software markets only help a few companies - the big ones, with enough marketing power so that they are able to actually enforce what they want.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Here in Germany, as far as I know, one actually "owns" the software.

Really? And how did the court decide in the Valve case?

Originally Posted by Sir_Brennus
ARCANUM is the game that shows how dumb the concept of Digital Distribution is. Have you ever tried to go to bed and use your pdf as a goodnight book? Okay, maybe on a E-Book reader, but this is nothing compared to the real McCoy.

I'd have to disagree. For the price it would cost to produced a new boxed copy with printed manual, plus ship it, plus still make a profit for the developer and distributor, it would be at a price that I'm probably not interested in for a 10 year old game.

Plus, I use my Sony Reader every night for a good 20-30 minutes of reading in bed. My experience is every bit as good as 'the real McCoy'.

Originally Posted by Dwagginz
I'm pretty sure it was AutoCAD, which is hardly an obscure CAD programme.

Yeah, but it was an old version of AutoCAD.

No, you don't own it: Court upholds EULAs, threatens digital resale

The case is Vernor v. Autodesk, in which Timothy Vernor made his living from selling items (including software) on eBay. Vernor had picked up some old copies of AutoCAD from an architect's office sale, complete with their serial numbers, and he put them up on eBay noting that they were not currently installed on any computer. Sounds legal, right?

But there's a catch. Autodesk, the software's developer, forced all users to accept an agreement before using AutoCAD. This agreement made clear that AutoCAD was merely licensed, never sold, and that one's license was non-transferable. Further, a licensee could not rent, lease, or sell the software to anyone else; you couldn't even physically transfer the discs out of the Western Hemisphere (!). Finally, if you upgraded to a new version, the old version had to be destroyed.
The copies Vernor picked up at the architect's sale were old copies that had not been destroyed as required. Vernor believed he was in the clear to resell them, as he had not agreed to any license. But after putting them on eBay, Autodesk repeatedly tried to shut down his sales. Vernor, on the verge of getting banned from eBay, sued Autodesk and asked the court to declare his sales legal.

It all depends on what is in the EULA. In this case, AutoCAD was very specific about what you could and could not do with old software. Obviously, this opens the door for more abuses of EULA's, but they'll have to be pretty specific about what you can't do with it.

Originally Posted by Gorath
Really? And how did the court decide in the Valve case?

I don't know. I was referring to retail packs.

Picked this up, are there any recommended mods for a first play through?

In general, I always play unmodded my first time, except for bug fix only mods.

Originally Posted by pox67
Picked this up, are there any recommended mods for a first play through?

Just patches - Unofficial Arcanum Patch (+High Quality Townmaps) and Arcanum High Resolution Patch. Downloadable from here: http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/

I too would recommend the high resolution patches if and only if you have a LARGE (>25") screen or fantastic eyesight you're willing to risk.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
I too would recommend the high resolution patches if and only if you have a LARGE (>25") screen or fantastic eyesight you're willing to risk.

You have the option to install bigger fonts.
For example, here΄s how the game looks in 1440x900:

Cool, thanks Deep that is just what I was looking for.
27" monitor so should be OK.

Yes, the bigger fonts helps with reading dialogs, but doesn't help with seeing small unscaled visual GUI elements and clicking on them.

GoG got another one - Icewind Dale: http://www.gog.com/en/news/new_release/0

Gee, I wonder what could POSSIBLY be next?

Thanks for the link to the mods!