From the survey data, the average age of the WoW player is 28.3 (SD = 8.4). 84% of players are male. 16% are female. Female players are significantly older (M = 32.5, SD = 10.0) than male players (M = 28.0, SD = 8.4). On average, they spend 22.7 (SD = 14.1) hours per week playing WoW. There are no gender differences in hours played per week.The Daedalus Project

From this website.

Something is wrong w/ world in conflict and i was thinking about buying another copy thinking that might work.TheHostileRabbi

You bought a game, it doesn't work, so you're thinking about buying it again?!? Damn, now I know who all those appendage enlargement emails are targeting. ;) Seriously though, check a tech support forum or call an 800 number. I'm sure you can get it to work. Buying a new copy is not likely to change your situation.

To be clear, reformatting itself doesn't really help anything. Installing Windows from scratch does help, simply because it eliminates all the background applications and widgets you've installed over the years. If you backup your system, reformat, and restore from your backup, you'll be right back where you started.

If you're trouble is really a poorly tuned hard disk Defragmenting and Error-Checking the hard disk will correct any problems that reformatting would address and you don't lose your data. You can get to these tools by going into My Computer right-clicking a hard disk and choosing Properties, then the Tools tab. Both take a while to run, Error-Checking especially.

If you decide to re-install Windows the next thing to do is be vigilant about not allowing background crap on your system. For example:

* When you install things like Quicktime or Windows Messenger go into it's options and set it not to preload when Windows boots and to actually end when you exit them (vs minimizing to system tray).

* Don't install programs like RealPlayer that don't allow you shut off their background compontent.

* When you install things like printer drivers only install the DRIVER, not all the utility and monitor garbage.

* Review your startup folder, figure out what is in there and delete any shortcuts you don't absolutely need running.

* Review all the icons in your system tray (bottom right by clock) and uninstall or deactivate anything you don't really need.

* Don't install cute freeware like Google Desktop search.

* When you are installing programs always choose Custom and make sure they are not adding any unneeded background apps.

Ouch. Are drivers (esp. video) up to date? Here's a thread on HL2 crashing on launch in Vista with some additional suggestions.

Buying the retail version won't change your situation at all. You still need to validate and update your game through Steam. If (as previous poster asked) your game is 100% downloaded and ready to play, you may want to try restarting Steam. It can sometimes get cranky, but restart generally clears this up. Notice that "exiting" only minimizes Steam to the system tray down in the lower right by your clock. You need to right click it there and choose Exit again to actually restart it.

I played TR during the beta, but not since live. From what I saw there is nothing revolutionary about this MMO. Nightstalker is dead on: its the same click, click, click, loot, rinse and repeat. Now clearly there are a ton of people who enjoy that type of gameplay enough to pay a monthly fee for it. TR is not dramatically worse than any other, but it is definately not the revolution to the MMO genre "Lord British" claims it is.

My guess is, once the OP has put the same hours into TR he put into WoW, he'll be just as bored with TR.

Prey ? 18$ If you suffer from FPS burnout, I'd pass this one up. Found it dull and tedious, gave up 1/2 through out of boredom. The gravity shifts are not really that exciting and minus that this is the most derivative shooter of all time. If you can't get enough FPS, pretty Doom 3 graphics.

Vampire Masquerade 10$ Get it! At $10 its a sweet deal. This game has some of the best characters and story of any computer game. Playing a vampire is a hoot. The different clans offer substantial replayability. It's not perfect, but for $10 its very good fun.

Deus Ex 9$ Wow. If you haven't played this yet $9 is deal of the century. It is an old game by now so if old graphics will bug you think 2x. But great story, great multiple approaches to levels. Nice big levels and puzzles.

The Ship 13,45$ I had a lot of fun with this when it first came out and would play it more if there were more peeps online. If you like playing a spy in TF2 you'll probably like this game. Stalk your prey without looking like you are stalking your prey while not getting stalked by your stalker. Phewwww.

I would also recommend Psyconauts ($10) if you are interested in a adventure/platformer with a good storyline and sense of humor.

I'm definately worse than a lot of the people I run into on TF2 when it comes to a 1-on-1 showdown. But one of the cool things about this game is that there are so many ways to play it. I was playing Dustbowl today and was being "Dominated" by three different opposing players. But they were so obsessed with their kill count I was able to skirt by and make the captures. Even though red was owning our team on player scores we won by focusing on the actual objectives.

One of the things that makes me sick (jealous) is people who play Demoman and are able to attack with the sticky bombs. I can set boobie traps and get kills that way, but haven't been able to master getting sticky kills in face to face fights. I'm still practicing though. I'll figure it out.

Any recomendations for things that are good pickups on the Steam sale? I just grabbed Company of Heroes and BioShock (both have been on my wish list for a bit) at 25% off.

My recomendation: if you haven't tried Psychonauts yet, its a fun platformer/adventure game with a good storyline and sense of humor for $10.

Considering the Id pack but I already own Doom 3 and Quake 4 so I'm not sure its worth it, even with the discount.

Hahaha classic. It's been a while since I had an Asus board so I decided to check the download speed just for curiosity. I hit the main page fine but after clicking the Download link I get a page won't load at http://support.asus.com/default.aspx?SLanguage=en-us. Just retried it three times. At least you've made me feel better about my 4KB/sec download speed. (now up to 12KB/sec!)

It's just wierd to me because I rarely have trouble with hardware or software sites. Tech companies generally seem to have solid sites with lots of bandwidth. They understand that good websites reduce call center load. Motherboard manufacturer sites seem to be bad. Maybe because most other pieces are U.S. companies so the main website servers are closer.