It's hard to remember that far back, but I think the main issue some people had with Vista was the default "administrative rights" system, where you had to run everything as "administrator" and deal with popup windows asking if you wanted to allow basic things, and this system would even cause issues with a lot of games. The very first day I turned that off, a simple process of clicking disable in an option menu IIRC, then it was just a matter of turning a few annoying fluff features off and I had a slightly different looking version of XP. That's basically all I want, Windows XP. No bloat, no spinney things, no toolbars, I don't even like the start menu, I just want a desktop with icons on it that loads quickly and doesn't nag me. Windows 7 adds a few more annoying fluff features I would need to turn off, and it adds nothing I want. I wouldn't say it's worse than Vista, it has more bloat though.

The real problem with Vista at release was that it came with a new driver model, and the drivers weren't mature yet. Immature drivers will totally destroy any OS. That caused a lot of the performance and stability problems. On top of that, there was a lot of software for XP that didn't know how to handle UAC and wasn't well built to work without administrator privileges.

7 is better at pretty much everything than Vista, but the gap isn't as large as the Internet would let you believe. The main reason why 7 looked so much better at launch vs Vista's launch is that by time 7 came around, the WDDM drivers were mature and software was built for not having admin privileges all the time. Vista was a transitional OS due to problems like that.

8 is a great OS, at the kernel level. The UI is bloody awful. The only good thing to ever come out of Metro on the desktop is that it's made Stardock a lot of money selling Start8 and ModernMix to fix it.

It's true. Start8 being among Stardock's most successful products is the same thing.

There's a reason why last month Windows 7 gained more marketshare than 8 did. Corporate users going off XP are en-masse going to 7 instead of 8 for those kinds of reasons.

Reputable Microsoft bloggers are reporting that they're talking inside the company about the next version is going to restore more of the Windows 7 style UI. Microsoft knows they screwed up, badly. The gamble was that PC users would go along with Metro and it'd help drive tablet & phone sales, but what it's really done is piss off their corporate users and driven traffic to third party providers to fix it. It hasn't helped tablet sales at all as the desktop experience sucks so much that the tablet gets a negative halo effect (even though Metro works far better on the Surface than it does on a desktop PC).

Someone thought the Pontiac Aztec, New Coke, and Crystal Pepsi were good ideas too. Corporations screw up spectacularly all the time without realizing what they're doing, because internally either the boss likes it and so everyone has to go along, or they get into an echo chamber where everyone just keeps telling everyone how great everything is.

Someone at Microsoft thought Metro was great. Either they convinced everybody else (and they were all surprised when people outside said WTF?), or they knew it was crap but had to go along because the boss wanted to do it. I don't know which one it was in this case.

I do know that given their godawful changes to the UI of Visual Studio 2012 and shocked reaction to the user revolt that followed, they can be an incredibly tone deaf company sometimes. (I mean nobody, anywhere, ever, made changing the VS UI into "grey on grey with icons that turn grey when disabled" as a top feature request. Yet they spent considerable resources on it, along with their ALL CAPS MENU ITEMS FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.)

In the case of Metro, they had a phone OS that wasn't gaining traction and wanted to try and boost sales by unifying the platform with their monopoly PC OS. Clearly it hasn't worked out like they gambled it would.

You have been watching that recent Steve Jobs movie! I just wish they did more on his later life so we all don't walk away from the movie thinking "what a dick".

But nothing on Earth is more absurd than the Coke Zero add campaign - never seen such a positive spin put on such an enormous out in the open, in your face, blatant lie! .... with 'i can't believe its not butter' coming in second place.

As a society we are far more used to hearing people such as politicians, salesmen etc try to disguise their lies. Were not used to a great big lie right to our face like that Coke Zero add, quite remarkable!

There is a recent one? The one I remember is "Pirates of Silicon Valley" from 1999.

Wow, this topic went from a system discussion, to an OS discussion, to a movie discussion in less than 2 pages.

How many more pages until we hit Godwin's Law?

If we are talking about Bioware games going downhill in sequels, Dragon Age is a far better example than Mass Effect. 

Wow, so explained, much extended, such cut...

I wonder what kind of "fanboyism" I'd summon should I name them "mediocre"? Should I ready Greater Spell Mantle, or Mordekainen's disjunction?

Oh yes, everything. Like *sniff* animation, voiceover, attention to details, "universal" thermal clips which are anything but, abilities, and, of course, guns. Well, they indeed improved projectiles' velocity in ME3 - it's not 100m/s, not 50m/s from ME2. With this rate in ME9 they'll approach ArmA series with their 400m/s.

Such better.

Heaps of!

Still, better than ME3. And should I be able to turn "aim assist" off entirely in ME1, that would be even better.

Completely? Like where?

Ah, yes, "reapes' origins" - "we created big robots to preserve future civilizations in reapers' form to prevent them being destroyed by their creations, so they could be destroyed later, preserving other civilizations in reapers' form, and they decided to preserve us in their form". Hmm.

That's the Citadel, I presume. Well, it is indeed focused on the characters. One big nuke on it's head - chronologically it happens before colour-coded explosion and little blue boy (why everyone is unhappy with him, they wanted blue babies? don't tell me they need two catalysts!), so even if you iced poop with sugar, it still be poop.

However, being released last Citadel is almost ideal illustration of "how to make men feel good" guide - make worst first, then revert back to normal.

Barring at least three Valiant ammo supply is still 30+3, regardless of level. And there are stairs bugs, gluing to walls bug (very funny on Insanity, right)...

If those were the only problems, we woudln't be discussing that. Alas, game has much more of those. And I don't know how much money we need to pay them to do that, if those "fixing" DLCs you mentioned cost what, $50? Not bad, original game cost 60.

Well, I'll stop bringing this up should you stop your fanboyism attacks and agree there is a lot of problems outside of those mostly discussed. Problems are in the details, and that's where ME3 sucks, not in ending, not in lack Reapers' motives (they just sterilizing the lab, before soup grows up, got out and beat the crap out of them ).

David?

What this ballsack smilie means - "galaxy is in danger, let's go find couch"?

Oh, yeah, it's so awesome, I couldn't even finish that. Varrik had too much mushrooms - Geralt, even being mutant, can't move like that, and Devl may cry characters still do it better.

I initially was going to try and ignore this to avoid going off-topic here, but every fibre of my being was screaming at me, and I have to!

Yes, actually, it fixed no fewer by a dozen problems

You're a true fan only wen you can see the item of your adulation for what it is.

There are more than double the facial animations in ME3 as ME2, and everything else is peripheral and insignificant. They also added a Female Shepard body skeleton and better character-impact.

Mass Effect 3 is by far superior to Mass Effect 2 in this regard;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPDG5UfZOJc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLu6qpoOyCs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmlMVmAeQdw

Off the top of my head, the only things that even comes close to these things  in ME2 were the final romance scene with Jack and Thane.

What? They are universal, what the hell are you saying?

There are double the number of abilities in ME3 than ME2, and they're much more balanced with the introduction of the "Weight" system.

There were fewer than 20 in ME2 with no DLC, there are more than sixty in ME3 AND they reintroduced weapon leveling.

I honestly don't even know what you're trying to say.

There are plot holes/stupid things in all three games that, if you think about them, completely destroy their stories irreparably;

ME1; Conduit acts as a teleporter and not a mass relay, Saren leaves the Beacon on Eden Prime, The Prothean Scientists never record a message, Garrus/Tali/Wrex join your crew for no reason...

ME2; Collectors see through Normandy's cloak in the intro and can't see it afterwards, Collectors only have one ship and base, Suicide mission into a completely unknown situation with no backup, Reapers/VS/Liara sidelined...

ME3; Crucible introduction is bad, Catalyst introduction is bad, final conflict is changed in the last ten minutes, Illusive Man is megalomanical...

If you're going to criticize one of the games, be consistent. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nINYfgEG2w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC8Wv6esVvE
 

When you intentionally distort what is actually said in order to make the opposition look weak, that's a strawman fallacy.

The Catalyst and Reapers harvest (do not kill) the majority of the galaxy's inhabitants to prevent them from being wiped out by each other, preserving their bodies and minds in new Reapers to keep the process going. 

Honestly, if you're going to insult the best DLC in the franchise, you're going to need to back it up a bit more than the ridiculously overused "icing on poop" metaphor.

So the Base game, Leviathan and Omega were just shit then right? Right, I forgot.

Those are technical problems, which are irrelevant to any comparison as all three games have them rampantly.

The trilogy pack costs $60 dollars and includes everything in the series. Judging only from the initial release, ME3 was $60 and the Extended Cut was free. Citadel cost $10. 

You're always bringing the topic of Bioware and Mass Effect 3 up, not me, I'm just responding. Responding to a critic isn't being a fanboy, especially wen I admit my bias at the front of the retort.

There are dozens of problems in all three games, you're just nitpicking and applying them to Mass Effect 3 without applying the same scrutiny to the other games.

Actually, those two things were single-handedly the cause of the "Retake Mass Effect" movement to change the endings, and this was explicitly stated. 

It's my beloved lion face :3

Now, let's stop this before things get out of hand; this is about Galactic Civilizations, not Mass Effect. This sort of argument has no place here.
 

I agree, we should transfer this to PM and clean everything up, if ParagonRenegade has no objection over this. I'll wait for his decision so far.

My apologies to those affected by our verbal duel.