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Yes, quite a few programs "require" admin access unnecssarily, especially certain games.

It's a shame, but since most (home) users don't know the difference, they accept this, and run as a local admin.

that those damn people at Blizzard not only killed all my social skills by releasing Diablo and Diablo II, but now I learn that they got me hooked even earlier! Damn all those BBS's I used to visit!!!

DHMO is water. Solid DHMO is ice. Powdered ice is snow. The term "DHMO" is used to show how easy it is to get sheeple to believe that a safe substance is dangerous. That said, here's a translation:

A release of substantial amounts of powdered water crystals (snow) is
being blamed for the deaths of over 20 people in the Washington, D.C. area.
The release closed numerous U.S. Government offices on Saturday (15); Federal
agencies affected by the blizzard were said to include the Pentagon, CIA and
other key national defense installations. While the snowstorm occurred
just two days after Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced an "Orange"
level terrorism alert, officials said no terrorist group has as yet claimed
responsibility for the release; and U.S. spy satellites had detected few signs
of powdered snow at known terrorist training camps. The dry, white powder
observed in the metro DC area has the same appearance and consistency as
anthrax spores previously observed in US mail -- but this weekend's
storm was over five times deadlier, said officials. It has been known for
some time that the Federal Government has had specially equipped weather
monitoring facilities located at airports, military installations and in the
centers of major US cities, but an official noted that these facilities have
traditionally operated with little public fanfare. Officials said that the
threat from the precipitation has now "abated dramatically" and they
now expect that the U.S. threat level will be lowered to "Yellow" later this
week.

You're so right. No one writes software for the Mac.

-T

There's a support issue with "emulation software" listed at blizzard.com. Apparently the Warcraft III copy protection searches for well known CD emulation software and it will permentantly disable your ability to play the game until you uninstall the emulation software. In my case, I had to reinstall Windows because something completely screwed my CD-ROM drivers up.

Either that or I got extremely unlucky with the combo of software I had. Bottom line is that after removing Daemon Tools and a CD-writing utility, Windows 2000 stopped seeing my CD-ROM drives period and required a complete reinstall before I could use my system again. I don't know if this is just very bad luck on my behalf, but it's possible that it won't work with Daemon Tools. You've been warned.

We are proud to announce that Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos has recently received a number of awards from the gaming press. Telefragged.com selected Warcraft III as the Best PC Strategy Game of 2002, MacWorld Magazine selected Warcraft III as this year's EDDY Winner (Editor's Choice Award) for Best Game on the Mac, and Gamespot selected Warcraft III as both the Best Multiplayer Strategy Game of the Year and Best Overall PC Game of the Year.

I can only say that if the Linux users are missing the movies until they get that part included, they aren't missing much. I didn't find the movies very necessary for the storyline. They pretty much only tell what happens as a consequence of the previous Chapter you completed, which isn't hard to figure out by yourself. Also, the movies consists of still pictures that fade in/out, are zoomed into, etc. You aren't exactly missing any movies of "Blizzard quality". This was kind of an anticlimax to me since the *intro* movie is decent, but the inter-chapter movies are of a very different quality. :-/

I saw that too. I doubt that the ad guarantees much out of this crowd because:
a.) Probably half of the visitors here use ad blockers (or... subscribe).
b.) A decent portion of the other half are probably underage or don't have the experience asked for by the job requirements (they really aren't requiring *that* much).
c.) Everyone that's left likes working on BNETD too much or thinks Blizzard 'jumped the shark' or something like that... OR realizes that times are tough and quitting your already not terrible job to go work for a videogame company may not be the best decision you make this year.

But I dunno. It might be worth it to see what kind of wacky race they decide to include in Warcraft 4.

Relevant link

Well I certainly found the article title confusing.

"there is certainly a basis..." No there isn't. End of discussion. I don't have time to debate flat earth theorists either.

That's actually an interesting comment, since Blizzard recently announced they're making their pretty ancient games for Gameboy's.

I guess the low system requirements make them easier to port without cutting down on features. :-)

I once read a very well respected Japanese developer said (I think it was Yuji Naka) [Some companies]"...make games at the desk." He was refering to game companies making games to make money, not to create something fun to play.

Electronic Arts is in the video game industry making sound business moves and producing disposable rubbish for an eager consumer base. They are no longer Electronic Artists and they no longer make great video games. This shows in the huge amount of crap they spew out each year.

Other companies were getting to be guilty of the same thing, but they seem to have realized it and are trying to make a turn for the better. Capcom, for instance, has pledged a shift towards quality and innovation, and shortly afterwards announced 6 new fairly unique looking titles.

3DO claims to be making a similar shift, and has cancelled many projects to focus on a few unique titles. Trip Hawkins even forked over his own personal money to help fund the company further along. How many CEOs do you know of who would do that? (Well, the President of Sega did that, too, then died shortly afterwards.)

Many of the more respectable publishers and developers are making this shift towards quality, but Electronic Arts openly clings to "tried and true" titles, even if it means saturating the market with crap.

I don't rant about it like I used to. I just stopped buying the shit. After all, there are other great video game developers out there.

In an industry scrutinized by the government as a drug infested haven that pollutes our communities and destroys the ability to lead a productive life, there is another industry that has the potential to become even more dangerous than any drug addiction. I'm not supposed to be writing this. What was supposed to happen was I prove my thesis that I couldn't be sucked into a virtual reality like many people I have met before. I never really understood what I was getting myself into when I started my research experiment, playing a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

Three years ago at a nightclub I bumped into an old friend of mine who went by the nickname "Iggy". I was really amazed to see him because no one had seen nor heard from Iggy in over a year. Many of his friends had all wondered what happened to him.

"Jesus Iggy, where in the hell have you been?!"

"Everquest," was all he said. He looked down at his feet when he said it.

"Huh?" I had no clue what he meant.

"I've been playing Everquest."

As we spoke, Iggy opened up to me and confessed that he had lost his job, his friends and didn't want to go out much anymore.

"It's an addiction. I'm only out tonight because the server is down for patching and I'm miserable."

For some reason, he couldn't look me in the eye while he was talking. He was obviously embarrassed.

"Um. Okay." I mean, what was I going to say to something as incredulous as that? I've heard of game obsessions, like those college kids in the seventies that murdered their whole family while playing a Dungeons and Dragons game, but I just thought that sort of obsession lies only in the minds of sociopaths or people with a lot bigger problems than playing a game. Iggy was a really nice, normal guy who had lost a lot to some online role-playing game called "Everquest". I had no idea what to make of it.

I never saw Iggy again. Neither has anyone else who knew him that I have asked. Since that night I really pondered the absurdity of his situation. It nagged at me.

On the web you can put the words "gaming addiction" into Google and discover a thousand and one sites for support groups, self help courses, testimonials and various studies. There's the "Everquest Widows" forum, a site called "Ariadne - Understanding MMORPG Addiction", and a myriad of articles on topics like game addiction and the innocent bystanders that suffer from it.

As one Everquest Widow puts it, "I plan on starting "Widows Weekly." It will be a group that meets in a local coffee shop. Here, spouses can talk and help one another through this difficult process, and begin to realize that there is a life out there despite the loss of our loved ones. I plan to send the bill for coffee and snacks to Verant. It would be but a small compensation on their part to repay me and others for the loss of our loved ones--so pay up, Verant!" -- Christine Gilbert CD Mag.com

What I find interesting is that many of the people who author these articles or sites have usually neither played the games or have just been the "victims" such as spouses or family. Others who dissect the topic of game addiction tend to be outsiders looking in, shaking their heads or turning the study into one giant mouse in the maze science experiment. It's rare that you find someone, who actually plays games passionately, speak up or write anything about negative side affects.

The more people I met who played computer games, the more I wanted to understand the obsession. I also had another stake in this because my partner, Low, is a gamer and a "geek" in every sense of the word. Not to mention my fiancé. It was beginning to cause some strain on us from time to time in terms of "quality time". I was getting really angry with him on a regular basis actually. According to Low, it was I who had the problem, not him. This is how most gamers think. Deal with their gaming or don't deal with it at all. They will play either way.

So I eventually decided to do some investigation and find out what makes these gamers and role players tick. What sort of recreation has the ability to absorb people to the extent that marriages break up, jobs are lost, and they lose friends? How does playing a game on a computer make someone lose functionality in the REAL world, because they want to spend too much time in some imaginary reality? For crying out loud, I thought, it's just a game.

I had a lot of questions but no one I talked to had answers. Gamers would tell me, "You won't understand unless you are a gamer yourself." Ok, no problem. I figured I could just play a game I find entertaining and get bored and write about what nut cases gamers really are.

It just wasn't that easy. This little experiment of mine turned out to be more dangerous than I ever imagined.

I wasn't able to begin playing a game right away. The opportunity just never really presented itself directly to me. There just wasn't a game I really liked enough to "get into it" for long enough. Low would play his Quake, Unreal Tournament, Black & White, Carmageddon, Fallout, Diablo II and a multitude of other first person shooters, but nothing seemed all that captivating to me and there was no way I could play these games with him due to his extreme level of skill and years of practice in a 3D environment.

I played a little Diablo and actually had a bit of fun with that, but I found I only really enjoyed it when I played with Low or our friends in multi-player mode. We would go "adventuring" together as they call it, fighting demons and wizards and monsters and coming out winning or dying, but having some fun just playing together. It was my first taste of actually playing with another player in a game as a team. But when Low moved onto the next game, bored with Diablo, I didn't have the same drive to play anymore. So I put my project aside and put up with his gaming as best as I could.

Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPG) have been around for many years. You can find thousands of websites, magazines, web-zines and the like that are devoted to the enormous market out there for online gaming. Sites like GameSpy, that literally receive millions of visits per day from gamers and industry types from all over the world, provide an almost infinite amount if information about these types of games. Hundreds of thousands of people play games like Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, and Ultima Online each day from all over the world. With the upcoming launch of The Sims Online, analysts and game reviewers are expecting the largest online game community ever seen to develop.

"The Sims promises to be one of the most interesting human experiments in the history of the Net." -- David Kushner, Entertainment Weekly

Low had tried many of these MMORPG's. He never stuck with one very long because, as he puts it, "I got tired of being a crappy tree-elf that always fell out of the damn tree village." In Ultima Online, he "got tired of having all my stuff stolen from me and getting killed by stupid 'PKers' (Player Killers)." Apparently for him, the rewards were far and few between to keep him interested in these games. He also has a very short attention span with most games. Play it, beat it, and move on to the next game is his motto. The more games you play in a single year the more well rounded you are apparently. With the new enhanced graphics engines, hardware and development that goes into games these days, it's amazing how stimulating the market can be right now.

Early in 2001, however, Low's opinion of online gaming changed drastically. He read an article about a new online role-playing game that was set about 30,000 years into the future, on a colonized planet. The story line was science fiction themed, with monsters, mutants, futuristic weapons, wars, and sinister political plots. The player would have the ability to create a character avatar from a wide variety of attributes and be surrounded by very realistic 3D graphics, with incredible scenery and sound. You would have to defend yourself, form guilds, make friends and alliances and your goal would be to "learn" or level your character as the game progressed in order to increase your skills and possessions. There would be PVP (player versus player) combat, PVM combat (player verses mobile or "mob" for short, a term used to explain computer generated enemy or monster) and a variety of other things one could do while in the game online. You could fly a plane, morph into animals and go on dangerous missions and epic quests. The game was called Anarchy Online.

Something about this Anarchy Online game really had his attention and right after it came out in July of 2001, he bought his copy and began playing, and once again I lost him to a game. He could not stop going on and on about how "cool this or that was" or the graphics or all the people he was meeting. His excitement was just ridiculous in my eyes but I had been through this before. Nevertheless, the game also captured my interest because of its science fiction theme. I am a sci-fi buff and the storyline had such a great plot that they actually sell the novels online for it. I read the chapters as they were released and was hooked on the storyline.

Low bought another copy about two weeks later. "I want you to play with me." By this time we were under some strain because he was really absorbed by this game every night. It looked really intimidating to me and I opted not to play it right away, stalling for time. The 3D environment bothered me because any game I had ever played, like Diablo, for example, had always been in third person view, which is a bird's eye view of the environment. The 3D graphics were dizzying as I looked over his shoulder from time to time.

In the end I caved in under the pressure and began playing it in September of 2001. I was a horrible player in the beginning, running into walls and getting lost or killed all the time. It didn't matter to me. I was playing a game with my boyfriend and found with each day that went by, I wanted to log on and play more and more.

So what was the appeal? Before I realized what was happening, I became addicted to playing this game. While logged into this game I met wonderful people, via their avatars, laughed to funny antics via chat window discussions, and experienced a futuristic sci-fi world via incredibly realistic 3D graphics and sounds. We ran through swamps with mutant wolves chasing us, the sound of our feet making wet suction sounds just like you would have in reality. We could hear birds chirping in forests we scouted and vultures crying overhead as they spotted us and attacked.

Our adrenaline would pump as we fought for our lives against twenty-foot tall robots with buzz saws for hands, or as we went on safaris to hunt giant brontosaur-like animals. We had the ability to heal and save each other as well as other members of our team at the time. We also had the ability to gain the respect, over more than a year later, of many online players, for being a great couple of characters in this game. We have, in fact, become high-ranking officers in our guild, which is almost like a family or alliance with other people to help you in the game.

In South Korea, some in-game alliances are valued more than real life friendships. A game called Lineage: The Blood Pledge has captivated approximately a third of the population. In Lineage, characters can take on the role of Princes, Wizards, and Knights and vow their loyalty to their clan or guild. This loyalty had lead to an incident in 2001 where a player was nearly beaten to death in real life for virtually killing the character of another player.

"He boasted that he had offed the gangman's virtual character just for the fun of it. Bad idea. The roughnecks dragged the 21-year-old into the urinal and pummeled him until he was covered with real-world bruises." -- By Michelle Levander, Time Magazine

It is easy to lose yourself to your imagination while you become someone you could possibly never be in the real world. You can become a hero, a bad ass, a wealthy person, someone with special powers or gain an enormous amount of respect from people who look up to you. This isn't to say you can't be that kind of person in reality, but what if everyone had this ability to find respect, admiration and status, simply by being in the environment long enough. What if all you had to do was play each day and level higher and higher, each goal leading to a new goal of achievement and possibilities. And what if you never had to leave the comfort of your chair to do this?

What if you could really become a diva, a soldier, a magician, or a samurai, and people respected or admired you unconditionally as long as you had a long red bar looming over your virtual head. Or, as in especially my case, what if while you were in this virtual reality, you didn't have to worry about deadlines, due dates, over 1000 emails per day to read and answer, or day-to-day stress that comes with what I do. The virtual reality could absorb you so much, that for the time you are logged in, you forget everything else. It doesn't seem to matter whether you are a strict role-player (someone who stays in character) or 'hardcore' (someone who spends more time in-game than an average user). You still can be addicted and absorbed with the attention you get.

The official Anarchy Online Community Forum, which gets thousands of posts per day, has also been one of my sources for observing how obsessed people have become with the game. Recently, a devoted and well known player had to throw in the towel due to her addiction problem.

"The level to which I got into things here is what has lead me to this point where I must say goodbye. My internet addiction and denial of it has taken me to a point where I must get a hold of it. I realize that many people have what it takes to play a game like this "casually" in a healthy manner. I am unfortunately not one of those people. I am currently battling bi-polar disorder (manic depression) and the escapism that a game like AO offers is too much like a drug for me."

The ability to be respected, to be admired, and to succeed, even in an imaginary world, is a very powerful lure. It can cause a person to produce endorphins, a chemical released into the brain that causes a feeling of energy and well being. Gaming also causes adrenaline production and extreme excitability. Scientists have proven that endorphins and adrenal rushes are incredibly addictive.

"There are indications that pleasurable games and activities cause the body to produce endogenous opiates such as endorphins. These substances are actually addictive. Some addictive drugs, such as heroin, are chemically similar to these natural substances, while other addictive drugs are thought to stimulate their production."
-- Leonard Holmes, Ph.D. from the article, Is Pokémon Addictive? 1999

It should be easy to see why gaming can be addictive as a direct result of the physical effects on the body. I also believe that people can become addicted to respect, admiration and power as well. Even though the production of endorphins can be a positive side affect in one way, it can be easy to overindulge and put aside productive living. But there are many ways to do this and online gaming is not the only vice out there. People find many different ways to escape the problems in their life or to combat stress.

People log on each and every day to find a level of respect that doesn't come easily in day-to-day life. They log on to escape reality or to escape other real problems such as illness and stress. I have met people in this game who have mental disorders or physical impairments. I have also played with people who are in IT jobs all day long, listening to customer complaints, getting bitched at regularly. Some have even admitted that they never hear the words "good job" in the real world.

One player who works in the IT technical services industry, told me "I get my faith in people restored when I get online. People treat me with respect and are actually nice to me. They don't expect anything in return. Also, they believe me when I tell them something because of my level in the game."

I know of other overly stressed out people who log in each day to escape their day-to-day experience of working or living in hard reality. We met a person in game, for example, who is an EMT. Everyday he witnesses death and horrible accidents. He told us that he plays the game to get it all out of his mind. I also met a nurse online with a similar story, and a school teacher who teaches eleventh grade in the Bronx, NYC, who is very stressed out by his job.

"Most human beings pass through periods in their lives, when they feel compelled to engage in some apparently mindless activity that, for the time being, seems to provide some relief from the prevailing chaos in their lives. This could be something as simple as spending hours in front of the television set. Or going on uncontrollable buying sprees just to feel and smell the newness of the product. Or getting into a series of dead-end relationships. Or going on eating binges. Or playing computer games, uncaring of unattended work piling up. Or playing snooker every evening at the club regardless of the family's legitimate demand for more attention. In other words, binging on anything potentially destructive to the body or the soul. Fortunately for many of us, after a period of this compulsive indulgence, we pull ourselves back to the mainstream and get on with our lives, until the next compulsion hits us."
-- Dr. Vijay Nagaswami, from the article, Who? Me? An addict, The Hindu Folio 2001

This is not to say that there are not positive aspects to interacting with people online. Online gaming opens the doors to people who might not have the ability to do so due to time, geography, or many more reasons. Gaming online is an inexpensive and quick way to make new friends, chat with people all over the world and share an experience with people you would never meet because they may be continents away.

One of our online friends, for example, who goes by the character name "Docker", lives in Leiden, Netherlands. Another friend, "Chanell" lives in Einselthum, Germany. These are really interesting people we would never have met if it was not for the game we play online. I asked Chanell why he started playing online games.

"It all began with Diablo II being released. Then my friend, Yppo, made me try it online. I found it was an incredibly boring and annoying game. Then Yppo made me try it online and I loved it. I joined his clan and had months of online fun, then it got boring, close to the moment DAoC [Dark Ages of Camelot] was released in Europe. While I went to DAoC, Yppo chose to go to A.O." Eventually Chanell started playing A.O. as well.

When asked how playing A.O. affects his social life, he reflected, "As for my friends... yes we hang together a lot less. This could be related to A.O. or the fact that we don't work in the same city anymore. I am not totally sure. I still have a lot of phone calls and meetings so I am not "lonesome" it just isn't an as high frequency as before."

And with that I can only think that one's social life is in the eye of the beholder. I interact with Chanell almost every day. In fact I interact with more people than I ever have before because of playing a computer game. They just are not all physically in my proximity.

Interaction with people... It got me thinking and I began to develop my own theories on what causes the addiction. Psychologists can use fancy terminology like "Motivation Factors" and "Attraction Factors" such as self-esteem and self-image problems. They can harp on the role of achievement problems and relationship deficiencies in a person's personality. But I think I can sum it up to one word that would work for any individual needing his or her game "fix" each time they log in, regardless of how well rounded they are in their lives or how much of a basket case they could be perceived as.

RESPECT.

I think it is just that simple. I like the feeling I get when people look up to me in the game or ask my opinion. It seems to be a common drive for players in general. That is, to be respected for being the best and reaching the next level in the game.

Not everyone who plays games neatly fit into these Psychologists stereotypes. "Solories", another Anarchy Online player, is an example of someone who just logs on for the sake of play.

"I would say that I am responsibly addicted, meaning I have never been late to work due to AO.
My wife would prefer that I not play AO as much as I do, but I always make time for her every night, and try and do one thing planned together every weekend. I have never been late to work, but the first night I played AO I stayed up until 4:00 am and had to get up at 6:00 am and the next day I played until midnight. I don't feel that AO affects my work habits, work is work and when it is time to play, it is time to play. I enjoy watching my character grow in his skills and MMORPG's in general let you get away from the normal day to day monotone life and do something out of the ordinary. In AO I am Solories Enforcer of Rubi-Ka a defender of the cause. I fight battles that help my guild get better and help the clans win a war against the Omni."

In the process of my gaming experiment, I became a casualty of the concept of being respected. If someone had asked me in September of 2001 if I expected to be obsessed with an online role-playing game a year down the road, I would have said with confidence that I am one of the most level headed non-addictive persons I know. No way could this happen to me. In fact, I would have been reminded of poor old Iggy and his demise.

I technically have ended my experiment. In the process, I haven't lost my job, and due to our simultaneous obsession, I have not lost my fiancé either. I haven't lost my real life friends, but they do sometimes look at me funny when I talk about the game I play. Low and I get our work done, run our business and have a great balanced life together I think. Anyone who actually knows me in real life can tell you that I have no self image or esteem problems and in fact, I have been accused of having quite an ego. I won't even go into Low's ego. I will admit though, that I have missed quite a few parties, nights out with the girls, shopping, and some chores needed around the office and home because of Anarchy Online. I will also admit that I want to log in as much as I possibly can every single day.

People have worse entertainment addictions than playing computer games. If I am going to be addicted to something, I would choose online gaming over drugs, bowling, gambling, television, or being a baseball fanatic easily. I don't have to wear ugly shoes, lose my hard earned money or do the wave next to someone I don't know and that just about makes it a no-brainer for me. It IS after all just a video game, like Neal describes in his great novel, Snow Crash. It is just another amusement park.

"Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic, offering a wide selection of interactive three-dimensional movies. But in the end, they're still nothing more than video games."
--Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

And I will leave you with that. Signing on now... Tenjikiito, level 157 Female Solitus Adventurer, Advisor to the Clan Guild Synergy Factor, the best damn guild on the world of Rubi-Ka, with the best damn virtual people one could ever virtually meet.

Special thanks to the following people for help with my research and leveling:
Sohjiro (Low Tek), Theevilcouch, Demnspawnt, Akarah, Chanell, Sheffy, Mr. Cheeze/Conqueso, Solories, Kirishami, Docker, Ramzie, Boco (who is to blame for all of this), Sultanx, Asmoran, Caddock, Meurgen, Tergwannabe, Trus, Ayanamie, Cplkane, Spherana, Ankokujin, Thedwarf (aka Notmyfault), Stromm, Molg, Butwalrus, Ciyt/Toonot, and Yokoduna.

Related links:

Anarchy Online
Dark Age of Camelot
Ultima Online
Diablo II
The Sims
Everquest
Try Anarchy Online free for 7 days! (We dare you to). =]

It's an ADVENTURE website. The article is listing cancelled ADVENTURE games.

This ADVENTURE site's article on cancelled ADVENTURE games also lists ROLE PLAYING games, and the Babylon 5 games was to have ADVENTURE elements as well.

If the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences can call Diablo 2 a role-playing game (let alone the role-playing game of the year), I can call Babylon 5 an adventure game.

Although Warcraft adventures might make a come back. I saw something like it at E3 this year, a Diablo type game in 3D with humans and orcs.

You mean WoW?

I'm not sure how Warcraft Adventure would've turned out, but after seeing side scrolling action/adventure type games that I grew up on like The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne, two very nicely done games, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it too. As a side note though, for those that agree with my opinion of how great those two games are, here's an announcement detailing their rerelease for the Game Boy Advance. GBA's run only 60-70 or even cheaper on eBay, last I checked, so this might actually convince me to pick one up. It does not take movie-like graphics and a huge staff to come up with a highly addicting, amusing/entertaining, well-done game.

You're forgetting about World of Warcraft. This promises to kick EQ's ass. Unfortunately, it's going to be at least a year or two until it comes out.

Blizzard Entertainment has put up gameplay trailers for their upcoming console title...

An exception to this would have been the Diablo II expansion right after its release. Accounts basically sold for the value of the individual items. I sold a single item (the Eaglehorn bow) for $1010 USD about a week after the release of the expansion. Of course, Diablo II has sort of been destroyed by hacks. Even if it weren't, graphically, the game looked old when it was released. Now, it just seems ancient.

I'm really looking forward to World of WarCraft.

If the disk was damaged or faulty, you'd return it under warranty.

I don't chip my consoles, but I can cite a personal experience where I did something similar on my PC.

Around the time Diablo II came out, I snagged a copy relatively cheaply at a blowout store in my area. Because I was pretty busy with work, I put it on a bookshelf and forgot about it for about a year and a half.

When I finally got around to playing it, I found out that someone had opened the box and keyed one of the discs. I was able to play the original game just fine, but when I bought and installed the expansion, it couldn't verify that the disc was valid.

Under Blizzard's support policy, I would have to mail them the disc and $10 for a replacement, because of the length of time since I actually bought it, not having the receipt anymore, etc.

I'm not willing to pay again for a product I own, so I used CloneCD to dupe a friend's disc.

Granted, the vast majority of the people who chip their consoles do so to pirate games. However, there are a lot of legitimate reasons to do so also - playing imports, situations like mine, running unlicenses/homebrew software, and so forth.

Apparently, Blizzard's planning on gaining more sales by having their female lead not wear any pants. Brilliant!

It's funny. Laugh.

There's this game called World of Warcraft coming out, only for the PC. Look at the screenshots and imagine how immersive and beautiful it will be. You can start laughing again...

Are you guys thinking of World of Warcraft?

[Falcon's Eye]

Actually, no. The graphics are good, but the gameplay is too complicated. Try something like Rogue. Strip 'em a little, add a couple of features you liked. Turn it real-time, make it mouse-driven and add kewl 3D graphics. There we go!

Falcon's Eye and Nethack 3.4.0's new "travel" command with mouse clicks are still not enough to displace Diablo 2 as the GuaGe D00d's Roguelike of Choice, but they're trying very hard. =)

-W4, currently making a silly little NWN module to get hang of that art, and once that's completed, also making a text adventure port of it...

I loved the old skool mods that Doom and Quake brought about, but in order to enjoy the newer games these days I'd have to buy a new box every year, which is more than participation in the scene is worth to me.

There are exceptions though, and the releases of NWN and Warcraft 3 have resparked my interest in PC ghaming and given me reason to upgrade my aging desktop.

1) It won't play smoothly on a P3 500 laptop (with 384 meg of RAM and an ATI Rage Mobility). Blizzard usually tries to get the low-end of the market. Not any longer

I think blizzard was probably a little busy to be thinking as much about warcraft 3 during the 7 year period that you describe, for example they made Diablo 2,StarCraft, and gave their treatment of expansion packs. I truely don't like most of the other RTS games because they don't really excite me, but for some reason the ones from blizzard are really good, I have actually played the beta of this game for a little while, and I thought what they had done to it so far was really cool. Granted I won't buy the retail version for a while, but that is more due to my monetary position than my political one. And I really doubt that everyone in the slashdot community has a greater agenda for the entire world, and will boycott X company because they are not supporting the open source community. I use Linux, but that is because I think the product is superior, if Windows was better, I would use it all of the time. Same with games, if the game is good, I will buy it, and then enjoy the fricking game!

I think blizzard was probably a little busy to be thinking as much about warcraft 3 during the 7 year period that you describe, for example they made Diablo 2,StarCraft, and gave their treatment of expansion packs. I truely don't like most of the other RTS games because they don't really excite me, but for some reason the ones from blizzard are really good, I have actually played the beta of this game for a little while, and I thought what they had done to it so far was really cool. Granted I won't buy the retail version for a while, but that is more due to my monetary position than my political one. And I really doubt that everyone in the slashdot community has a greater agenda for the entire world, and will boycott X company because they are not supporting the open source community. I use Linux, but that is because I think the product is superior, if Windows was better, I would use it all of the time. Same with games, if the game is good, I will buy it, and then enjoy the fricking game!

I was really hoping for an OS X version to be released simultaneously (preferably in the same box). Does anybody know when we can expect a version for Macs?

Blizzard's most likely simply bothered by the fact that the existence of bnetd decreases the intrinsic value of Battle.Net. Perhaps they have/had some plans in the wings to move Battle.Net over to a for-pay service; if they only allow their games to talk to *their* community (Battle.Net), then they've got a clear, guaranteed way to at least make some money.

Yeah. Because everyone knows that there's no way to make any money by selling games. I mean, if you want to make enough cash to buy a Ferrari, you clearly have to do something else.

And poor Blizzard is so cash strapped that they don't have the money to develop a new game, their only hope is to milk Battle.Net.

Yeah, my heart bleeds for those poor bastards...

I thought it was already out? Certainly is one of the most downloaded files on dalnet. Oh wait....

Anyway to quote
Please consider the fact that Blizzard is suing people who write software to interoperate with theirs when deciding whether you want to purchase this game.

Dont worry slashdot, I wont BUY the game, Ill get a copy and support people who write software to interoperate with
Blizzards

Anyway, WTF does it take to get decent, non-nosy, affordable broadband? I don't want to leech or serve. I just want to telecommute, serve a web site, and game in peace.

Now off to Memorial Day celebrations where we remember the billions of bots and soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in LAN parties throughout the world. This is best done by sacrificing more bots with a LAN party of your own.

Won't somebody stop this cycle of violence?

You'll be blown away. Just from playing on battle.net, you can already tell this a very in-depth game, gameplay wise and player wise. In some cases, it will not give you a mental break, period. You always have something to be mindful of in multiplayer, and not just your opponents / teammates. This is what happens when you roll of Blizzards popular titles, and the features most admired by fans, into one game.

So I agree with Disoriented on this, I am also drooling profusely for the full release to play this game in full. Btw, If there are those of you waiting as well, Blizzard recently updated it's projected system req's, and you can find them here (may have to scroll down the page a bit). Enjoy!

Blizzard has been planning on charging fees for using Battle.net

Of course they are planning to charge for using Battle.net. World of Warcraft is a MMORPG, and will require a monthly fee or similar:

http://www.blizzard.com/WoW/ns/faq_general.shtml:

Will there be monthly fee to play the game?
Yes; however, we are still investigating our business model and have not yet determined what the fee will be.

Older games will naturally still be free. Or hopefully, rather.

Blizzard has been planning on charging fees for using Battle.net

Of course they are planning to charge for using Battle.net. World of Warcraft is a MMORPG, and will require a monthly fee or similar:

http://www.blizzard.com/WoW/ns/faq_general.shtml:

Will there be monthly fee to play the game?
Yes; however, we are still investigating our business model and have not yet determined what the fee will be.

Older games will naturally still be free. Or hopefully, rather.

dont forget taco's favorite heroinware... and all the horrible things it does

Blizzard is keeping the orcish race, and adding an additional Pandaren race. The race is composed of fierce, black and white, bear-like creatures that will maul their enemies do death. They are masters of mysticism and will rule Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.

Here's a great wallpaper for all you "Pandaren Empire" fans... The Mighty Pandaren Warrior

Pandaren Empire

Some hillarious pictures.

"The Pandaren Empire, founded in ancient times, before the Great Sundering of the world, shared resources and mystic knowledge with the haughty night elves of central Kalimdor. However, as the night elves' racial obsession with the forces of magic drove them to the brink of madness, the gentle pandaren decided to sever their ties and leave the night elves behind forever. Sensing that magic would be the doom of any race that trifled with it, the pandaren clans, or shao'dins, traveled far into the treacherous lands of the south. There the pandaren established crude but beautiful cities of stone and sturdy bambus reed. They lived in peace for many generations before the burning shadow came to engulf the world..."

... dont... ...how bout instead of using frivolous lawsuits we tell em what we think of them the way the system wants us to... ... with our money... dont support them or those that support them... itll be hard sure but its also harder to watch hipocracy...

you say we should sue them frivolously and yet most of the people with the same opinion as that usually also cry foul when a company sues someone that we would like to support...

...so remember to think about the bigger consequences of what you propose before you try to represent an otherwise valid argument

Besides, if you don't believe me, look at what Blizzard says:

What graphics API are you supporting?
We are supporting Direct3D and OpenGL. We are not supporting Glide.

Support for Mac version without OpenGL will be difficult to accomplish too.

I agree. If AOL is responsible for what their users post, then BnetD is responsible for people taking their open source project and modifying it against the copyright of Blizzard. I actually don't think there's too much wrong with the DMCA, but several proposed amendments to it (I forget the one that's really out of line, that requires security measures on every piece of internet software) can be fairly out of whack.

Could be the reason they've created the Blizzard friends list. It's a good idea anyway: let the best beta testers come back for each beta. I figured they'd combine that list with another random pool of people and do the same thing again - effectively generating a bigger and better friends list each time. They have to do a public (or at least semi-public) beta for World of Warcraft though, unless they want to release a buggy, unbalanced, cheatfest for a game.

I don't really see why Blizzard cares about extra people playing their beta. The only people spending the time to download the ISO and set up servers for friends are the same people that will be the first in the store buying the game when it's released. Other people won't go to so much trouble to get their hands on a beta; Blizzard is just pissing off their biggest fans by cracking down on this.

The war3b only includes online play

check your facts.

Warcraft III will have single player mode. Look at the faq. Now it's possible (I don't have the beta) that single player mode was crippled to only test online play -- do you have the beta?

Kinda obviates your whole rant, no?

But the rant was wrong to start with, if you'd read my post. Just because something can be used to aid unauthorized copying doesn't mean it's illegal. That's why, if you'd bothered to read any of the bnetd maling lists, you'd know that the Blizzard people never once mentioned wc3b. That's because they know this is not a valid reason for shutting down the sight.

So the "bottom line" for you is something that lawyers at blizzard must have forgotten to bring up, eh?

Could it be that they understand the legal issues a bit better than you do? That my previous post was right?

Why don't you learn about the issue at hand before spouting your irrelevent and misinformed two cents.. oh right, this is slashdot.

heh.

Hold a meeting or conference with the authors of Bnetd, then instead of suing the pants off them, hire them, have them help improve the original Battle.net services. It's kind of like ISP's and large companies hiring hackerz, sorry, Security Specialists to help develop stronger and more secure networks and communications, why not let this fall under that same umbrella? Win-Win situation. Battle.net can make a deal that gives these guys rad jobs, and they get improved service.

But, seeing as most companies would rather slam the cuffs on the little man rather than display gestures of good will, I doubt such a happy ending will even come into the minds of Blizzard. But, here's one for hoping.

That same message is posted on blizzard's website. Blizzard did not have a problem with BnetD until it cracked the Warcraft 3 Beta Test. Once it did that, I think they just drew the line.

I don't know, but listen to what blizzard asserts on their site: legal FAQ

Q: Does Blizzard Entertainment® allow or support other Battle.net® like or emulation servers? Can I host one of these rogue servers?

No. Except as set forth in the next paragraph, Blizzard Entertainment® does not support or condone network play of its games anywhere but Battle.net®. Specifically, you may not host or provide matchmaking services for any of our games or emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Blizzard Entertainment® in the network feature of its games, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the game(s), use of a utility program or any other techniques now known or hereafter developed, for any purpose including, but not limited to network play over the Internet, network play utilizing commercial or non-commercial gaming networks or as part of content aggregation networks without the prior written consent of Blizzard Entertainment®.

I guess you can sniff them, but you just can't do anything to them. That's interesting to me that they say you can't run the output of their sockets through your proxy. That's like saying you can't block or redirect spyware output by use of a proxy. If that isn't bullshit, it should be.

From http://www.blizzard.com/legalfaq.shtml:

Does Blizzard Entertainment® allow or support other Battle.net® like or emulation servers? Can I host one of these rogue servers?

No. Except as set forth in the next paragraph, Blizzard Entertainment® does not support or condone network play of its games anywhere but Battle.net®. Specifically, you may not host or provide matchmaking services for any of our games or emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Blizzard Entertainment® in the network feature of its games, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the game(s), use of a utility program or any other techniques now known or hereafter developed, for any purpose including, but not limited to network play over the Internet, network play utilizing commercial or non-commercial gaming networks or as part of content aggregation networks without the prior written consent of Blizzard Entertainment®.

------
This is to prevent guys like MSN Gaming Zone, MPlayer, TEN (does that still exist?), Gamespy, etc. from drawing users away from Battle.net. Why? Blizzard can't check keys if people play outside of battle.net, and battle.net runs ads. Mostly Blizzard ones and some from the server hosts, but ads none the less. Most importantly, it makes sure their servers are populated. All the time. If you think this is bad and they'd like to send people elsewhere, you've never played an online game that has just about no one hanging around.

Although the reasons for taking down the bnetd are probably EULA-ized, I think this is crap. Personally, I won't buy any more of thier games. My purchase won't hurt them, but it will make me feel better.

Oh, and my copy of bnetd is now being stored with DeCSS, Unfuck, and a host of other DMCA violations. :)

It won't do anything.

I hate to burst the /. reader's bubble, but the collective group of us boycotting a game will do *nothing* to hurt blizard.
Let's think about this: Slashdot has about a quarter million users. Of these, about 1/3 are zealots who don't run windows, not even for the little pleasures. Of the remaining, i would suspect fewer than 1/5 of them *EVER* buy software because they feel damnit it should be free (beer). And after that, I would say that 10% of the remaining windows users who don't pirate software actually play blizard games but would be still willing to participate in a boycot. The rest will go on buying the game anyway because it's going to be a good game.

So we're left with 3000 people that will take part in a boycot against the DCMA and Blizzard simultaneously. Oh Ouch. How many copies of diablo II have sold?
Well here's a guess. 2.75 Million copies. And again,
how about the expansion? Another million copies. Boycotting them will do no good.

Now, I was trying to figure out why they did this, and I was thinking "oh this is easy, there's a charge for playing on battle.net, that's their revenue model. But on battle.net i found this:
Battle.net provides an arena for Blizzard customers to chat, challenge opponents and initiate multiplayer games, at no cost to the user. There is no hourly or monthly fee to use Battle.net, and there is no startup charge. To play a supported game over the Internet with other players worldwide, simply select the Battle.net option from within the game.

So what gives, blizard? How is this helping you? Are there ads in battle.net? Do you use it for free market research somehow? Do you simply want to track ALL of the online blizard games going on? Throw me a bone here.

But let's be serious: I'm not going to boycott blizzard. They've only released 5 games in their history, yet they've ALL been fantastic smash hits that i've loved. So I'm just going to go do the exact same thing that every other casual windows user on slashdot is going to do. I'm going to wait for a copy of it to hit kopykatz or morpheus and download it.

Boo fucking hoo, boycot.

~z

It won't do anything.

I hate to burst the /. reader's bubble, but the collective group of us boycotting a game will do *nothing* to hurt blizard.
Let's think about this: Slashdot has about a quarter million users. Of these, about 1/3 are zealots who don't run windows, not even for the little pleasures. Of the remaining, i would suspect fewer than 1/5 of them *EVER* buy software because they feel damnit it should be free (beer). And after that, I would say that 10% of the remaining windows users who don't pirate software actually play blizard games but would be still willing to participate in a boycot. The rest will go on buying the game anyway because it's going to be a good game.

So we're left with 3000 people that will take part in a boycot against the DCMA and Blizzard simultaneously. Oh Ouch. How many copies of diablo II have sold?
Well here's a guess. 2.75 Million copies. And again,
how about the expansion? Another million copies. Boycotting them will do no good.

Now, I was trying to figure out why they did this, and I was thinking "oh this is easy, there's a charge for playing on battle.net, that's their revenue model. But on battle.net i found this:
Battle.net provides an arena for Blizzard customers to chat, challenge opponents and initiate multiplayer games, at no cost to the user. There is no hourly or monthly fee to use Battle.net, and there is no startup charge. To play a supported game over the Internet with other players worldwide, simply select the Battle.net option from within the game.

So what gives, blizard? How is this helping you? Are there ads in battle.net? Do you use it for free market research somehow? Do you simply want to track ALL of the online blizard games going on? Throw me a bone here.

But let's be serious: I'm not going to boycott blizzard. They've only released 5 games in their history, yet they've ALL been fantastic smash hits that i've loved. So I'm just going to go do the exact same thing that every other casual windows user on slashdot is going to do. I'm going to wait for a copy of it to hit kopykatz or morpheus and download it.

Boo fucking hoo, boycot.

~z

"Will there be a Mac version of the beta available?
No, there will not be a Mac version of the beta. However, we currently plan to ship a Macintosh version of Warcraft® III simultaneously with the PC version."