Everquest 2 to Ship on 10 CDs! Can we please move to DVDs?

[quote=“Mark_Asher”]

So using a DVD to back up data – that’s a good use. I wonder why more people haven’t upgraded to a DVD burner for that reason?

Is there any other reason to get a DVD drive?[/quote]

Not just back-up. When you are burning huge files, or want to make a high quality backup for a movie… or just want to put 4-5 movies on a single disc, a DVD is a great thing to have.

Probably nothing. But very few people who aren’t hardcore computer users will buy and install new hardware whether they need it or not. Most folks will just wait until they buy a whole new machine. That said, there is no reason NOT to buy a machine with a DVD drive these days. Most new machines–even cheap ones–come with one by default. So why not have one? They play CDs too, and they aren’t any more expensive than a CD-ROM drive.

I got my first DVD drive when I bought my last computer, in 2000. At the time, I noticed that it a good DVD drive cost the same as a good CD drive, so I said “why not?” I really don’t understand why everyone doesn’t have one at this point.

Same here, I’m using SCSI drives and there weren’t any cheap CD models so I got a DVD drive. And today I need it for the MSDN subscription. Encyclopedias, electronic phone books and the like ship on DVDs, too.

Far Cry made me buy one.

My CD-Rom was toast and UT2K4 was coming out on DVD, plus I wanted to be able to watch movies on my 21" monitor when the urge strikes me (or the TV is already taken). Thus, DVD player.

Also I am archiving a large (800+ tapes) VHS collection of my gramma’s. Thus, DVD burner.

Similarly to upgrading to XP, once I had a need I went ahead.

I bought mine to replace a dead CD-ROM. DVD and CD-ROM drives were about the same price for the same quality of drive, so why not?

Since good DVD drives are cheap, less than the price of a new game, I’m less understanding about the complaints. For more expensive stuff, like the impending OS and videocard upgrade I’ll face soon, I can understand being more reluctant. Those are going to run me $500 or so.

Look how many people bought the PS2 hard drive just to play FFXI. If that isn’t a compelling measure of how willing MMO players are to spend money on hardware to play the latest and greastest, I don’t know what is.

Yeah, but my view is I don’t upgrade unless I have a compelling reason to. If you have a healthy CD drive and aren’t interested in watching DVD movies on your PC, there isn’t much of a reason to spend the money to upgrade. The best reason under these circumstances seems to be to add a DVD burner for backing up data.

That’s the problem. Back in the day we all wanted CD drives so we could play games with FMV. Going to DVD doesn’t get us anything cool like that. I’m sure that’s why it’s slower to catch on.

Yeah, but my view is I don’t upgrade unless I have a compelling reason to. If you have a healthy CD drive and aren’t interested in watching DVD movies on your PC, there isn’t much of a reason to spend the money to upgrade. The best reason under these circumstances seems to be to add a DVD burner for backing up data.

If you really want to play Everquest 2 wouldn’t that be a compelling reason?

Maybe we should take up a collection to buy Mark a DVD drive just so this can be put to rest once and for all. :D

Of course, that would probably involve updating the front page, so that’s a non-starter… :twisted:

I have one now. I’m speaking hypothetically.

As to EQ2, if it only came on DVD, yeah, I’d upgrade. If I had my choice of CD or DVD media and I didn’t have a DVD drive, I’d go CD. Really, is that hard to open the drive door 10 times and put in a CD? You guys are acting like that’s painful, but it’s really just trivial and you only do it one time unless you have some bad luck.

Hard? No. Annoying, when there is already a widespread storage option with much greater storage capacity? Yes.

Simply put, the technology is out there, it’s used for DVD players and console games, and the only thing stopping it from being put to good use on the PC is the shortsightedness of game publishers.

Are there really a whole lot of games coming out these days that use more than 1 or 2 CDs? The average hasn’t really seemed to go up all that much over the past few years.

I can’t remember the last game I bought that came on less than 2. 3-4 is really common. Console ports come on an insane number of discs and usually have more highly compressed video (divx vs MPEG-2) than their DVD bourne console counterparts.

The resistance to the DVD format just baffles me.

Judging by how well FMV games sold, I doubt there were many people buying CDROM drives for those. :P Myst is usually cited as driving CD sales in the early days. Over ten years later and the format for optical storage has gone nowhere (except on consoles). Hooray for progress.

If I had purchased Far Cry and UT2004 on CD, that would have been 11 discs right there. It’s wasteful, it increases the odds that you’ll get a bad disc, it makes storage harder, it’s less convenient to install, it precludes spinning content from the drive itself (ala consoles) unless you want to put up with a lot of disc-swapping (anyone remember the 5-CD Riven?).

But not good enough! You’ll get your 10 CD games and you’ll like them, dammit!

(Kudos to SOE for offering EQ2 on DVD, though.)

Are there really a whole lot of games coming out these days that use more than 1 or 2 CDs? The average hasn’t really seemed to go up all that much over the past few years.

I can’t remember the last game I bought that came on less than 3 CDs. Far Cry, UT2K4, and Thief 3 all come on 3+ and I think Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow was 3 too.

Far Cry, UT2K4, and Thief 3 all come on 3+ and I think Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow was 3 too.

Heh, no clue about Splinter Cell, but the other three games in that list are DVD-only over here.

You got a DVD version of Thief 3? :shock:

[quote=“shift6”]

You got a DVD version of Thief 3? :shock:[/quote]
Going to be released on June 11th over here. Eidos also made Deus Ex 2 DVD-only in Germany.

Why are more European releases being made in DVD format? Is there some hard data pointing to higher DVD penetration? Is there market analysis that says Europeans are more likely to buy in that format? I mean, there must be a reason the publishers are releasing more DVD titles in Europe but not in North America (with a few exceptions).