I agree with the OP too. I used to buy a lot of new games a few years back but now i end up buying only one or two and they are wither rpg or games that have been out for a few months and are patched to a good level.
The dumbing down of games is what annoys me the most. Gone are the epic games that took days if not weeks to complete now you have like Terminator Salvation a full price game that lasts 5 hours with no replay value at all.
I even played a lot of online games such as lord of the rings online but got fed up of the stupid daily Wow is better than this topic which even if you tried to ignore in general chat spoiled the game experience and i got fed up playing as the number of mature players was greatly outnumbered by the 5 year olds.
Playing might and magic 6 last night brought back to me that even if the graphics are dated the actual game itself is a joy to play and that there is a lot of game to be played.
Apart from Dragon Age origions, Mass effect 2 and Divinty 2 i will be purchasing all my gaming needs from GOG.
At times i feel sad that to enjoy a game you cant look forward but have to look back to get it

Thanks, this is good info and I guess in future I should not be so lazy and read forums or instructions! To be fair, I only installed Live for a couple of the DLCs and once it's logged in, it doesn't do much (I don't have any mates on Live).
And as for bad-mouthing, I know most gamers online are like me - they just want to have some fun... Winning is a bonus to that fun...
But in my experience, there are just too many (teenagers?) taking it all too seriously, cheating where they can, etc. I just cannot be bothered with all that, I don't mind losing as long as it's fair and I've had good fun losing.
But the LAN play thing really isn't that clear cut, I'm afraid. I've actually done a lot of research into it before buying a game and it really is difficult to get a definitive answer on it. I guess the assumption is that most people prefer playing via the Internet.

If it wasn't for a 'mute' feature, I don't think I'd ever play any online game that uses voice.
Though I have been in a few games of TF2 where; rather than everyone muting the annoying brat, everyone else on the server jumped into spectator mode. After he had enough of running through an empty level and left, we all returned to the game.
It's more satisfying, but it takes too long to have its effect.

If you don't mind me asking, how much does a server like that cost to rent, if that is what you do?
Probably it's the same in Denmark but here in the UK with ADSL you have a restricted uplink speed so if you're running a server from home then with UT2004, you can maybe get 5 or 6 players on before there's too much lag.
I know roughly how much a server would cost to rent but if it was being used regularly then there would surely be additional costs for bandwidth usage.

Yes, I know there's a muting option, of course. But the problem is that someone who is shouting and swearing is probably playing like a complete asshole as well.
And as to your second point, I suspect I may have given myself the answer in as much as games on ZX Spectrums and Commodore Amigas were written for a very specific piece of hardware whereas the modern PC has countless variations of CPUs, graphics cards, sound cards, etc. Therefore a games console (being fixed hardware) would be the answer.
But then again, I'm not necessarily expecting every new game to be bug free on release and I truly love Fallout 3 as one of the best games I've ever played. But when a v1.7 update is applied to my installation that worked fine the last time I played it (I've not even changed any hardware since that time either) but then causes blue screens, that IS annoying!

That is what we do. I'm not exactly sure, since my brother is doing the renting (he also uses the server for other purposes), but I know this is where we rent it from. So our server is physically in Germany.
That greatly depends on your connection. With ordinary ADSL, the upload bandwidth is usually much smaller than the download bandwidth, which puts severe restrictions on what kind of server you can run. My brother used to host our server himself, but he has a 40/40 Mbit fiber connection, which is more than enough. What prompted the move to an external server hotel was actually the electrical bill.
From Hetzner.de's terms:
Traffic Usage is free. We will restrict the connection speed to 10 MBit/s if more than 2000 GB/month is exceeded. Optional, a permanent 100 MBit/s-bandwidth will be charged at 14,90 € (incl. VAT) per additional TB
For the record, I don't think we've ever been even close to exceeding 2 TB of traffic per month.

Thanks, this is really good info. I do have about 8 close friends who LAN game with me and potentially a few more people at my office who might be talked into chipping in on the cost also.

Firstly, console games aren't as bug free as they used to be. 360 Mass Effect, for instance was a lot buggier than the PC version. Although the DRM certainly countered any advantages that version otherwise appeared to have. Fallout 3 was equally buggy on every platform.
It's more to do with the complexity of games now. Especially with games like Fallout 3 that offered an immense playing area and an abundance of options. In fact, Fallout 2 suffered similarly for its complexity. The only difference was that its bugs not only affected its stability but also reduced its apparent options. Undertaking some actions crashed the game every time.
Secondly, if you're looking for a more mature online audience then you're definitely looking in the wrong place if you're considering console gaming. In fact, you were looking in the right direction when you posted this: older games.
Arsehole kids have the attention spans of goldfish. More mature gamers will stick with games they love while kids gravitate towards the next big thing.
Different patches for that game affect different people different ways. For instance, I had no trouble with the much maligned 1.5 release, but 1.6 caused no end of visual problems. Both in VATS and anywhere high up, like Tenpenny Tower or the top of Rivet City's tower. 1.7 seems a little more unstable (no BSOD), but the graphical issues are gone.

Heh, the newest PC game I own is Plants vs. Zombies. Everything else is 10$ bargin bin games or (30$ or less) DS titles. They just want too much for games. I can justify 10, 20, or 30 dollars for entertainment (same price as a couple movie tickets or a night out for more value, etc.) but I can't justify spending 50 or more on something that's going to be buggy and missing features for a year or more after release.
So, I buy used, wait for price drops, or generally just ignore the game until it comes out in some kind of anthology compilation as a $20 impulse buy.

v1.5 had an AWFUL bug whereby I'd recruited Charon (the ghoul) and then any time after that we went to Rivet City (i.e. essential to complete the quest), the game would freeze. That one REALLY hacked me off, I hope that's fixed in 1.7.

I had Charon following me around in full T-51b and I didn't have any crash problems. But I can't remember exactly which patch I had at the time. I'm pretty sure it was before 1.6 as I didn't play it much with that one.

Level 14 with bad karma. I bought all the addons in a single big splurge and decided to do mothership zeta first. I forgot how fast you level up when you're that low so I was stuck aboard when I hit level 14 and couldn't get to tenpenny tower to press that nice shiny button
This is the reason we need to pool our technology and focus on one single task, inventing a way to punch people over the internet
Seriously? I hardly had any issues with the 360 Mass Effect or Fallout 3 (well until I installed the DLC, then it became buggier than a cheap hookers knickers)

Ah, that sucks. Although you could have tried killing those 'friendly' aliens. You know, the ones who torture, kill, mutate and generally just eat people. Doing so gives you bad karma for whatever completely illogical reason.

I did, as far as I was concerned they were accessories to theft, abduction, torture, murder and having unfashionable clothing. There just weren't enough, I was dangerously close to being good rather than neutral
So now I'm stuck replaying it yet again (I am actually getting bored now but I'm too anal to quite when I only have one avchievement left) until I nearly hit level 14 and then press the button

PC games with dedicated servers have the advantage of a community forming around them. Find a decent one, and you're set. I play TF2 practically exclusively on the Hampshire Heavies server, I find it much more entertaining (and much less rage-inducing) than random public servers, most of the time.