Slashdot Mirror

Same here.

Also, take a look at my sig.

Oh, and the XBox 360 is going to kick the PS3's ass.

SONY IS EVIL!

There is a post on the EverQuest Live message boards asking for a clarification of the EverQuest Producer's message to the community.

Craig Knapp, the producer of EverQuest, has stated that Sony Online Entertainment has a new tool to ferret out cheaters and "hackers." There is no word yet from Sony as to whether this will be a repeat of the mistakes they made five years ago and of the mistakes that Blizzard is currently making.

Wouldn't it be ironic if you could get around EverQuest's cheat protection mechanism by using Sony's own rootkit?

There is a post on the EverQuest Live message boards asking for a clarification of the EverQuest Producer's message to the community.

Craig Knapp, the producer of EverQuest, has stated that Sony Online Entertainment has a new tool to ferret out cheaters and "hackers." There is no word yet from Sony as to whether this will be a repeat of the mistakes they made five years ago and of the mistakes that Blizzard is currently making.

Wouldn't it be ironic if you could get around EverQuest's cheat protection mechanism by using Sony's own rootkit?

There is a post on the EverQuest Live message boards asking for a clarification of the EverQuest Producer's message to the community.

Craig Knapp, the producer of EverQuest, has stated that Sony Online Entertainment has a new tool to ferret out cheaters and "hackers." There is no word yet from Sony as to whether this will be a repeat of the mistakes they made five years ago and of the mistakes that Blizzard is currently making.

Wouldn't it be ironic if you could get around EverQuest's cheat protection mechanism by using Sony's own rootkit?

"If you have a decent scaler in your TV, you don't need it."

I guess if you aren't serious about the picture quality, then yeah, I could agree. The problem is that on a 65" screen, I can tell a huge difference. Take a 480p player and have the resolution blown up to a TVs native resolution by the set itself versus running an HTPC at the screen's native resolution with an application like TheaterTek upconverting for you. Night and day. I have not seen a set yet that handles this as well (I have taken a look at the Diamond series from Mitsubishi and the Bravia line from Sony).

http://www.station.sony.com/en/
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aslashdot.org +sony+station

Infected with DRM

The problem with simply boycotting (on a small scale, as I assume most non-geeks don't care) is that companies won't understand why sales for product X or for their company as a whole are down and it is human nature to look everywhere but within.

Look at the RIAA/MPAA and their correlation of sales/piracy. They'll never link sales could be down because the current music sucks or whatever - it's always the market's fault somehow - piracy, recession, depression, etcetera.

So next time you are tempted to buy a Sony product and instead decide to boycott it, write them a nice (I mean it) letter (not email) to their headquarters, preferable to a manager (find it on their site):

http://www.sony.com/SCA/senior_mgmnt.shtml (sorry, this is the best I can find, you'll have to go from there)

Explaining why you didn't buy their product. Specifically link it with their DRM practices. Include a copy of the reciept for the product you did buy - this way the impact on the bottom line is tangible and credible.

A small boycott without communication your frustration is nearly worthless.

SWG has had its ups and downs (many would say mostly downs), but the servers I play on seem to be growing in population. There has not been any server consolidation, so it's not a situation of coalescing populations. The third expansion, The Trials of Obi-Wan, is about to go live (it has already for pre-orders) and seems to have learned from some of the WoW successes. The new planet, Mustafar (the lava planet), is geared for higher-end characters with harder, longer quests. There are a number of instance dungeons involved in the quests, eliminating the original problem of waiting for a previous party to finish.

It's unfortunate that SWG Japan is not going well, but the game itself seems to be overcoming a lot of the chaos caused by the combat upgrade a while back. In fact, a lot of the loudest complainers are now running around bragging about how they can solo the toughest mobs. Those of us who prefer a more cerebral combat system long for the old one, but we have adjusted. Change is guaranteed in an MMOG, I think.

How?

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/Disp layModel?id=20114

Like that...

1) design a low-power-consumption high-performance PowerPC chip that would be ideal for Apple to use
2) keep the development so secret that spouses are kept in the dark
3) launch the product after Apple has already abandoned PowerPC
4) Ignore Apple because they are irrelevant. Instead, sell stuff to the many companies who consume more PPC chips than Apple ever could now or in the forseeable future.
5) PROFIT!

I looked at that machine, and disliked the speaker quality (and no, using headphones is not the answer)

Are you refering to the speakers which come with the included docking station? I think they sound fantastic for speakers you get with a notebook. I've been listening to some classical music via Internet radio stations and could not wait to have my GF hear it. It fills my room with such amazing (and loud) quality sound. I prefer headphones over speakers when I want really loud, good quality and excellent stereo separation. For me headphones are the answer when speakers are not.

- and the touchpad, of course. I've looked at Sony eveytime they have a new notebook come out, but have always decided to take a pass. My minimal criteria seems to have become that (at least one of the) feature(s) that a Thinkpad has - the "nipple" pointing device (What can I say?).

I prefer the nipple to the pad too, but then I prefer a real mouse to both of those and if I am willing to sit at the machine for more than 10 minutes then I take the seconds it requires to plug in my mouse.

Additionally, the Thinklight is damn useful, when it's needed.

Yes the Thinklight is a nice feature.

And FWIW, I despise touchpads. Thinkpads with nipples and touchpads can at least have the pads turned off, but its mere existence occupies critical palm rest space, and if enabled, results in pointer movement when you least want it, or slight, but eventually tiring, contortion in how one's hands are held.

The driver which comes with my VAIO touchpad, has a configurable delay which causes it to be inactive after a certain period of time since the last keyboard press. This prevents accidental cursor movement while typing. I have not had an issue with this. I only ever noticed my thumbs occasionally touch the pad after I was whittling down the running services, etc, which caused me to quickly see the value of leaving that feature ON. I get cramps if I use any trackpad for long periods of time, but the same happens when I use nipples, so I prefer a real mouse.

In short, what is needed is (the old) Thinkpad features and quailty, but with Sony style and widescreen and weight reduction efforts. I'd buy four today.

The 1920x1200 133dpi display on this thing is incredible. Turning up the font sizes on this display is absolutely gorgeous. Now when I use other LCD's they look so chunky and hard to read. I can't wait for the day when flat panels break 300dpi and OS' and apps actually cater for it. Apple are CRAZY to take this garbage "optimum dpi" line. I see such a big difference with this 133 dpi display, that I think once we get to the point where a realtime display looks as good as printed paper we will not know how we coped without them. Apple will still be defiantly stuck at 96 dpi or whatever the "optimum" is though, I imagine.

PS, Fanboys note, I am also a happy Apple user. iBook, Mac mini and hopefully Powerbook one day once the dust settles (That $5k was on standby for a Powerbook with FAST memory for a long time. I got tired of waiting).

Most MMORPG makers include a clause in their EULA prohibiting the sale of in-game items or coin for real-world money, since they own the IP. Thus far, smaller scale operations have gotten around this by claiming that they're just selling their time, but it wouldn't be very hard at all for the software makers to adjust their agreements to specifically prohibit even that, and begin cracking down on the sellers. Not that this would stop the smaller time operations, but it would be hard to build a large and successful business on this model without being shut down. Out-of-game markets are bad for the in-game economy, so it would make sense for the software makers to want to crack down. Or at least take a piece of the action.

It would sure be a shame if those cameras were identical models though. Wouldn't that be smart, carry two Sony PD-170 camcorders so that all your batts/lenses/accessories interface. Too bad both of those cameras could develop this condition...what's a "Real Videographer" to do?
Wait, I know! Carry a backup PD-150 in the car! Surely they would have used dissimilar design and components between model revisions! Never mind, they totally didn't.
Ok then, a "Real Videographer" would have thought of this...and carried a a CONSUMER Sony as a 2nd backup to the backup PD-150! Yeah, that's it! Different model entirely! I'll just keep a VX-2100 in my hot sticky trunk. What's that you say? The VX series CCD can fail too?
Ok then...how about this. A completely different FORM FACTOR! A Professional Sony DSR-250! How do ya like dem apples!? Too bad it can fail too.
Wait, wait, I've got it! I'll keep a few of those snazzy Canon Elura single-CCD cameras in my bag, that's a completely different brand. Or not.

I can do this all day...

Matthew Jeppsen
www.FresHDV.com

It would sure be a shame if those cameras were identical models though. Wouldn't that be smart, carry two Sony PD-170 camcorders so that all your batts/lenses/accessories interface. Too bad both of those cameras could develop this condition...what's a "Real Videographer" to do?
Wait, I know! Carry a backup PD-150 in the car! Surely they would have used dissimilar design and components between model revisions! Never mind, they totally didn't.
Ok then, a "Real Videographer" would have thought of this...and carried a a CONSUMER Sony as a 2nd backup to the backup PD-150! Yeah, that's it! Different model entirely! I'll just keep a VX-2100 in my hot sticky trunk. What's that you say? The VX series CCD can fail too?
Ok then...how about this. A completely different FORM FACTOR! A Professional Sony DSR-250! How do ya like dem apples!? Too bad it can fail too.
Wait, wait, I've got it! I'll keep a few of those snazzy Canon Elura single-CCD cameras in my bag, that's a completely different brand. Or not.

I can do this all day...

Matthew Jeppsen
www.FresHDV.com

It would sure be a shame if those cameras were identical models though. Wouldn't that be smart, carry two Sony PD-170 camcorders so that all your batts/lenses/accessories interface. Too bad both of those cameras could develop this condition...what's a "Real Videographer" to do?
Wait, I know! Carry a backup PD-150 in the car! Surely they would have used dissimilar design and components between model revisions! Never mind, they totally didn't.
Ok then, a "Real Videographer" would have thought of this...and carried a a CONSUMER Sony as a 2nd backup to the backup PD-150! Yeah, that's it! Different model entirely! I'll just keep a VX-2100 in my hot sticky trunk. What's that you say? The VX series CCD can fail too?
Ok then...how about this. A completely different FORM FACTOR! A Professional Sony DSR-250! How do ya like dem apples!? Too bad it can fail too.
Wait, wait, I've got it! I'll keep a few of those snazzy Canon Elura single-CCD cameras in my bag, that's a completely different brand. Or not.

I can do this all day...

Matthew Jeppsen
www.FresHDV.com

The page can be found here: http://esupport.sony.com/perl/news-item.pl?mdl=DCR TRV38&news_id=95

Twenty minutes of nauseating fact-checking pleasantries later, I get resolution. Free shipping, and a working camera "in 10-14 business days."

Gotta give it up for the right way to take care of this before the old class-action suit sets in.

I'm kind of surprised SOE hasn't gone this route.

They actually have.

I've got a Sony SNC-RZ30 at work since two years and it has got wireless, smtp, ftp, web and alarm capabilities... See it here

If you are looking for a MMOFPS, try out Planetside. There is also another one called Huxley supposedly coming out late next year.

Here's a little how the NSA makes there Macs secure.
http://www.nsa.gov/snac/downloads_macX.cfm/
There is also some more info there on how to secure other platforms,
Combine that with stickers, biometrics http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Professional/puppy/index. html/ and such, your on your way to very secure computing.

Cheers

Took vacation and bought World Of Warcraft the day it came out, and I've never looked back.

Classes are mostly balanced and varied, crafting does not gimp your combat abilities and vice-versa, and leveling fits very nicely with interesting quest lines.

Crafting was fun in SWG, at least as a Doctor. Analyzing material stats, balancing all the different variables, judging resource quality. I even did some web dev to make it easier for myself and other doctors (http://swg.dailybuzz.net/). But getting to be a top tier crafter SUCKED big time. Literally sitting there pushing a button every few seconds to make a macro repeatedly craft throw-away items to earn XP just so I could make desirable medicines? There were two parts to SWG - grinding or being a master crafter. Once you attained master, it got kind of fun. Until then, you were completely useless.

In WoW, you do sometimes have to make things repeatedly, but they're not useless. There's always someone who'll accept or buy a leather armor kit to enhance their items. Any item that's hard for you to make is valued by others at your level, so you get a worthwhile price for your wares. And any lower stuff that you do need to grind doesn't cost much or take much time and lower levels kiss your feet when you donate it to them. By the time you've made 20-30 of one item, it no longer gives experience, and by then you can train up newer and better items to craft. Compare that to making literally thousands upon thousands of the same damn Advanced Biological Effect Controller so you can get to be a better medicine crafter and healer in SWG.

Gathering materials in SWG meant buying harvesting machines, locating a good resource spot once in a blue moon, and paying to leave the machine there for a week. Gathering materials in SWG is directly linked to gameplay - appropriately leveled enemies drop materials that a player would need to craft items that would help those at around his level. Or randomly spawned herbs and minerals would appear in areas where appropriately leveled players could utilize them, and they'd be in the area questing or killing anyhow.

Just can't get over how much more *fun* WoW is compared to SWG. Blizzard really got it right.

People should have been using FBSD for wifi access points and aggregation long ago. Glad to see the corporate folks have finally figured out how linux errodes the bottom line.

The
stupider
ones
haven't
figured
it
out
yet.
You'd
better
go
tell
them!

Ah, you youngsters. Back in my day people dropped out of college because of Everquest.

I used to play EQ a lot, I was pretty hooked on it for about a year. I don't regret it, since I had a lot of fun times, but looking back, I certainly burnt a lot of hours in Norrath. My brother got really hooked on it too, and he's not even the complete nerd that I am. There were certain people there who were pretty terrifying though. For example, I often heard people talking about how they were skipping school in order to spend the day playing the game, and my brother once even got paid (EQ money, but still) to guard someone's character while he took a nap at the keyboard. This guy was so thoroughly obsessed with the game that he wouldn't leave the computer - not even to sleep.

Take these stories as warnings. You might not think yourself capable of such things, and okay, I doubt you'll end up killing anyone, but even a stupid little game can become a major feature in your life if you're not careful. Especially when you have to pay per month, since it's so easily justifiable - you're only getting your money's worth, after all!

Well, your credibility is shot. Sony computers are the worst. There's nothing good to say about them.

I bought my Sony because of the 1920x1200 LCD and the fast memory. I knew about problems with Sony's, but I researched before I bought. This machine runs FreeBSD 5.4 Release nice and fast and meets my current needs. I quite like the design of this model.

While the box may look sleek and sexy, they use old chipsets so that their performance is just abysmal.

It has an Intel® 915PM Express Chipset.

Sony VGN-A49GP.

I did not write that I use a Sony because I think Sony are better than Dell. I wrote that to show that I'm not a biased Mac zealot blindly defending his PB.

Sony have XDCAM that records onto 23GB Optical media, Professional Disc for Data.
The discs are about $30 a pop, you can get a PDD drive for your computer, or use the camera via FireWire either as a VTR style device, or in file access mode, where you see the files on the disc. It's non-linear and very rugged. You can pause for as long as you like with no wear and tear. There's no need to then capture the footage to your computer, as it's already there, on the disc, ready to use in your editing software. Discs are cheap, when you have those 15 minute pauses, switch discs, even if it's not full, that way you'll never run out of space - no-one will be talking for over an hour and a half, continuously.

Especially when they have much bigger customers to spend their fabs on.

Actually, right now, the largest online music distribution system is not run by a record company or a holding company.

It's run by a computer company, which to my knowledge doesn't own recording copyrights at ths time.

So is Napster, which used to be Roxio before they sold all their non-Napster products to Sonic. Real, Wal-Mart and Microsoft aren't exactly big record labels either -- more like software and retail.

Therefore, I don't get the argument that the present Internet music services aren't distributing independent music because they themselves own large quantities of content -- with the exception of Sony Connect, it's just not true, unless Wal-Mart has went out and bought some labels and I don't know about it.

Maybe my post wasn't too clear. Sorry for that. I also should have posted a source. The name of the company created by SOE is Station Publishing. Let me quote the home page for you:

" Station Publishing(TM) offers developers and publishers the opportunity to capitalize on Sony Online Entertainment's experienced and robust marketing, PR, sales and distribution services. Station Publishing meets the needs of a growing number of companies who may not have the capability or inclination to undertake this 'last mile' themselves. The scope of services offered under Station Publishing are matched to the needs of the distribution arrangement.

Our first titles to be released under Station Publishing will be Turbine Entertainment Software's Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny and Asheron's Call 2: Legions. We are reviewing a number of other titles, and are open to discussions with developers and publishers for games on most platforms. For interested parties, please email us."

Also, your statement about Lord of the Rings Online oughting the rights to VUG is wrong. In late march, they bought back the exclusive rights from VUG (press release). That leaves them free to use Station Publishing, doesn't it ?

And as for Dungeons and Dragons online, I guess that's the exception. But there's a logic to it. Atari has got a deal with Wizards of the Coast to publish most (if not all) of the games using their licenses (see Neverwinter Nights - Forgotten Realms -, for instnce).

So my post wasn't spreading rumors, I think. I was asking valid questions, making hypostesis, and I never said I was 100% sure or that I had "inside sources".

Kthx.

I don't have to blow 50 bucks a year for each title

That's correct. You instead get to blow $20 a month or whatever it works out to. But you own nothing at all in the end.
You mention it's like Satellite. Well, no, not really. A satellite company has a firm footing and when you subscribe you can be pretty sure it's going to still be in business in a year when you go and get the satellite equipment. Do we have the same guarantee with these guys? Suppose you drop $300 on this system and 6 months or a year down the road the company finally collapses under the weight of that financial hole they've been digging for years. Now you have a box on your TV and no service to go with it. And no shiny discs to put into it to make it go bing.
It sounds good now, but down the road it's like paying rent. Out the window and it never comes back. I learned this playing Tanarus a few years ago when it was $10 a month for just that. One day I woke up and realized I'd blown $180 on one bloody game with nothing tangible that was "mine". Cancel the subscription, and off goes the game. That's probably why I've never gotten into MMORPGs, either.

I think it is the 90s version of the 80s hit VZones, or something.

I remember trying it out when it first came about, thought it was another Alysma.

Although for all I know it might have been an attempt to take market share away from EQ?

I would like to see a MMORPG based on FOX's popular science fiction franchise. I don't care about Predator (Aliens vs. Predators). I know FOX had a game like this before MMORPG was known.

I would like to see something like World of Warcraft, Star Wars: Galaxies, etc. with various missions (quests) in various places. There would be different classes as well like Natural Selections including commanders, ships (medic, weapons, etc.).

Cut to the chase Nintendo, wheres the new gameboy? the one with 3d support, mini dvd games and broadband connection?

Right here.

For those of you who didn't read the article, here's some of the interesting points:

A) Academics are looking for the DoD to fund studies of some of the social principles behind MMOGs. The ADL, I think, is a government-academic-corporate initiative to apply "new learning techniques" to the military.
B) As many of us know, militaries are always eager to increase training time, and to inculcate the "military mindset" into soldiers 24/7. That's just common sense: the more the rank and file sees the world in the same way and understands events similarly ("Is on the same page"), the less friction there is.
C) MMOGs have some interesting phenomena: they are world-wide distributed environments where new players are socialized and "taught the ropes" by the old hands. Any environment where leaders naturally emerge, and people willingly provide training in complex activities automatically generates interest for the military.
D) Online shopping mall-cum-anemically performing-MMOG there has managed to team up with the army to build some sort of training environment. Expect hoverboard-riding soldiers wearing custom-designed hawaiian shirts to invade a country near you.

On the other hand, there are some problems with the scope and conception of the project.
First, the study focuses on MMORPGs. Massively multiplayer online simulations, such as the flight simulator Aces High and military-style "MMORPG"s, such as the persistent combined-arms battlefield World War II Online, or even the science-fiction combat game planetside, while certainly not as popular as the "big boys", have tasks that are, relatively speaking, much more sophisticated technically, and have evolved social structures around achieving those tasks. Something like the AAR effectiveness experiment they propose would be much better suited to an environment like that then to say a mission in City of Heroes. In addition, the rhetorical gap between the reality to be described and the narrative the DoD would fund is much narrower. For that matter, the gap between the description of MMOG and the military's use of computer games would be narrower too.

Another issue skirted in the paper is the failure rate of individual subscribers. While certainly, MMOGs are very popular; I'd say a relatively minor percentage of players play any given MMOG for more than a few months. And many last shorter than that, and that is often precisely because of the social environment they create. The article mentions the Sims online as not being popular; There is another example: Their beta lasted the least amount of time of any game on my hard drive: I logged on to some stupid technicolor world, and as I tried to sort the counterintuitive interface, I discovered the place to be populated by poorly socialized adolescents. Given the choice between learning the interface and deleting the software, I chose the latter. The fact that these communities are self-selecting, and that some of these communities have broad reach, while others do not, separates them from military applications. Would a MMORPG used for military training work? Or would it be dominated by those guys who can't even scrub a latrine right?

Finally, I'm just not sure MMOGs should be considered independently of the current gaming environment as a whole; the article suggests this, but I think we can go further, and suggest that the social division between MMORPGs and regular games with significant online components is indeed an artificial division. If you look at the communities for online games that have direct applications as training tools, such as the R6/GR series, the mods to Falcon 4.0, Battlefront's whole product line and, of course, a href=www.flashpoint1985.com>Operation Flashpoint, and its military twin,

Let's not forget that expansion two of Star Wars Galaxies is going live tomorrow*.

Right on top of that Combat Update everyone loves.

* Tomorrow might be today where you are right now, realtive to me.

Okay, maybe it's bad form to reply to my own submission, but just for the sake of more useless information, here are some links to wallpaper photos of Antonia Bayle.

Picture 1:
800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, Oh my god, she's HUGE!

Picture 2 (for dual monitors):
1600x600, 2048x768, 2560x960, I can hang this up in my bedroom!

There is also a bio of Antonia here (flash site) accessbile by navigating to The Game / lore / people.

And if anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is provided by Heather Graham. Come to think of it, whether or not anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is STILL provided by Heather Graham.

And sorry, TFA actually says that SOE "encourages women (sorry, fellas)" [my emphasis, their parentheses] to send in pictures. Okay, that's a lie, I'm not really sorry at all.

Okay, maybe it's bad form to reply to my own submission, but just for the sake of more useless information, here are some links to wallpaper photos of Antonia Bayle.

Picture 1:
800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, Oh my god, she's HUGE!

Picture 2 (for dual monitors):
1600x600, 2048x768, 2560x960, I can hang this up in my bedroom!

There is also a bio of Antonia here (flash site) accessbile by navigating to The Game / lore / people.

And if anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is provided by Heather Graham. Come to think of it, whether or not anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is STILL provided by Heather Graham.

And sorry, TFA actually says that SOE "encourages women (sorry, fellas)" [my emphasis, their parentheses] to send in pictures. Okay, that's a lie, I'm not really sorry at all.

Okay, maybe it's bad form to reply to my own submission, but just for the sake of more useless information, here are some links to wallpaper photos of Antonia Bayle.

Picture 1:
800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, Oh my god, she's HUGE!

Picture 2 (for dual monitors):
1600x600, 2048x768, 2560x960, I can hang this up in my bedroom!

There is also a bio of Antonia here (flash site) accessbile by navigating to The Game / lore / people.

And if anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is provided by Heather Graham. Come to think of it, whether or not anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is STILL provided by Heather Graham.

And sorry, TFA actually says that SOE "encourages women (sorry, fellas)" [my emphasis, their parentheses] to send in pictures. Okay, that's a lie, I'm not really sorry at all.

Okay, maybe it's bad form to reply to my own submission, but just for the sake of more useless information, here are some links to wallpaper photos of Antonia Bayle.

Picture 1:
800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, Oh my god, she's HUGE!

Picture 2 (for dual monitors):
1600x600, 2048x768, 2560x960, I can hang this up in my bedroom!

There is also a bio of Antonia here (flash site) accessbile by navigating to The Game / lore / people.

And if anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is provided by Heather Graham. Come to think of it, whether or not anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is STILL provided by Heather Graham.

And sorry, TFA actually says that SOE "encourages women (sorry, fellas)" [my emphasis, their parentheses] to send in pictures. Okay, that's a lie, I'm not really sorry at all.

Okay, maybe it's bad form to reply to my own submission, but just for the sake of more useless information, here are some links to wallpaper photos of Antonia Bayle.

Picture 1:
800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, Oh my god, she's HUGE!

Picture 2 (for dual monitors):
1600x600, 2048x768, 2560x960, I can hang this up in my bedroom!

There is also a bio of Antonia here (flash site) accessbile by navigating to The Game / lore / people.

And if anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is provided by Heather Graham. Come to think of it, whether or not anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is STILL provided by Heather Graham.

And sorry, TFA actually says that SOE "encourages women (sorry, fellas)" [my emphasis, their parentheses] to send in pictures. Okay, that's a lie, I'm not really sorry at all.

Okay, maybe it's bad form to reply to my own submission, but just for the sake of more useless information, here are some links to wallpaper photos of Antonia Bayle.

Picture 1:
800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, Oh my god, she's HUGE!

Picture 2 (for dual monitors):
1600x600, 2048x768, 2560x960, I can hang this up in my bedroom!

There is also a bio of Antonia here (flash site) accessbile by navigating to The Game / lore / people.

And if anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is provided by Heather Graham. Come to think of it, whether or not anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is STILL provided by Heather Graham.

And sorry, TFA actually says that SOE "encourages women (sorry, fellas)" [my emphasis, their parentheses] to send in pictures. Okay, that's a lie, I'm not really sorry at all.

Okay, maybe it's bad form to reply to my own submission, but just for the sake of more useless information, here are some links to wallpaper photos of Antonia Bayle.

Picture 1:
800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, Oh my god, she's HUGE!

Picture 2 (for dual monitors):
1600x600, 2048x768, 2560x960, I can hang this up in my bedroom!

There is also a bio of Antonia here (flash site) accessbile by navigating to The Game / lore / people.

And if anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is provided by Heather Graham. Come to think of it, whether or not anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is STILL provided by Heather Graham.

And sorry, TFA actually says that SOE "encourages women (sorry, fellas)" [my emphasis, their parentheses] to send in pictures. Okay, that's a lie, I'm not really sorry at all.

Okay, maybe it's bad form to reply to my own submission, but just for the sake of more useless information, here are some links to wallpaper photos of Antonia Bayle.

Picture 1:
800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, Oh my god, she's HUGE!

Picture 2 (for dual monitors):
1600x600, 2048x768, 2560x960, I can hang this up in my bedroom!

There is also a bio of Antonia here (flash site) accessbile by navigating to The Game / lore / people.

And if anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is provided by Heather Graham. Come to think of it, whether or not anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is STILL provided by Heather Graham.

And sorry, TFA actually says that SOE "encourages women (sorry, fellas)" [my emphasis, their parentheses] to send in pictures. Okay, that's a lie, I'm not really sorry at all.

Okay, maybe it's bad form to reply to my own submission, but just for the sake of more useless information, here are some links to wallpaper photos of Antonia Bayle.

Picture 1:
800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, Oh my god, she's HUGE!

Picture 2 (for dual monitors):
1600x600, 2048x768, 2560x960, I can hang this up in my bedroom!

There is also a bio of Antonia here (flash site) accessbile by navigating to The Game / lore / people.

And if anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is provided by Heather Graham. Come to think of it, whether or not anyone is remotely interested, her voice in the game is STILL provided by Heather Graham.

And sorry, TFA actually says that SOE "encourages women (sorry, fellas)" [my emphasis, their parentheses] to send in pictures. Okay, that's a lie, I'm not really sorry at all.

Need an example of how poorly this was planned. The end game profession is Jedi. Under this new CU it will take a normal player 7.5 years to reach it. Here is the link to the Jedi Forum post with the math.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?b oard.id=jedi&message.id=857257

Tired of being told to be patient and that they will fix it. SOE gets paid to be patient and fix things. They can run 5 test servers and HAD an alpha testing team at one point. Instead, the kill alpha, offer a lip service beta test to which many posts were ignored (let us not even cover the polls) and then push this pos onto Live ADMITTING that it was far from complete. Sad part is that I am not even a Jedi but can understand the outcries. I am a master ranger, a profession that has been broken since the game was released. Each update added things that made us more meaningless unless you wanted harvest. Areas of the game that were supposed to be fixed was a balance of current system, broken professions and our biggest complaint - lack of content. Sadly SOE and their Dev team have tried a media spin on it. Only 50 of us were upset, petitions were dupe named ploys, polls were corrupted and so on. Never once did they ask us if this should be taken live. With 80% hating it during the "beta", they knew what the answer was. Just like the response in the Dev Chat about allowing us an options on buttons - "No."

Here is a post I came across just mere hours before it's deletion and the poster silenced,
(Deleted link http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?b oard.id=Bloodfin&message.id=462297)

I realize that by posting this I am going to get banned, and that this post will be deleted, just as it happened to Fury and his post earlier today. So, all I ask is that people take the initiative on this information... and screen shot and and pass it on to the next person that is willing to take a ban for the good of the community and game. Please keep this post alive, so that as many people can see it, and more evidence can be documented on the degree the devs/moderators are willing to go to silence the out cry coming because of their actions or lack there of. Most important of all is to do as Fury said and make your mailings contructive and mature.

Pass the info along in game, and on forums. I will post this on every board possible in time increments until I am removed from the community.

Thank you!

Furybaka wrote:

I have spent a while today speaking with people from Lucas Arts and they have advised me to document all information possible regarding our opinions and how the player base as a majority is being ignored by the devs.

I have been asked to get to any and all players who feel that the dev team is not being truthful and are completely out of touch for what the game needs to contact Lucas Arts with constructive emails and US Mail. They seem to be very interested in the fact that whenever a player has spoken out against the CU that the posts are edited and usually deleted by CSRs. Apparently, the Armor Correspondent was demoted for speaking the truth about the CU and not the propaganda the devs force them to spew???

When I explained how the dev chat completely twisted the truth about the forum polls (where they stated they are getting more positive every day when they are getting more negative everyday in all actuality), they were very interested and wanted to know what the daily forums polls were indicating.

I am sending both an email and a postal letter to Lucas Arts in hopes that they will take an active role in monitoring what Sony is doing to their product and hopefully stop the fiasco that is taking place

Furybaka of Bloodfin

Emails to Lucas Arts should go to: Techsupp@LucasArts.com please make them CONSTRUCTIVE and professional)

Real Mail needs to be sent to: (They specifically requested that we send them to the generic address and not to a specific dept)

Lucas Arts
PO Box 10307
San Rafael, CA 94912

I have been a Star Wars fan since the early 90's ... and it continues....

The point is Customer service is a big issue as well as the CU

One guy who protested this CU mostrocity in game, was moved to space by SOE as punishment and his character spent there more than 24 hours, maybe he is still there. Note that it was a paying cutomer.

see scrinshot:
http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=setandget& tp=243526&poll_id=0&category_id=19&warned=y

and forum post (unless deleted by now)
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?b oard.id=cudiscussiontemp&message.id=15958

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?b oard.id=cudiscussiontemp&message.id=28888#M28888

a comment from post above:
'The best part is that CSR's will log onto servers to move disgruntled players into space, but they're non-existant if someone is online and needs assistance.'

Customer relations Nazy/SOE style.

P.S. my character was silenced many times during protests too, luckily not so extreme, not that I care anymore anyway,

One guy who protested this CU mostrocity in game, was moved to space by SOE as punishment and his character spent there more than 24 hours, maybe he is still there. Note that it was a paying cutomer.

see scrinshot:
http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=setandget& tp=243526&poll_id=0&category_id=19&warned=y

and forum post (unless deleted by now)
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?b oard.id=cudiscussiontemp&message.id=15958

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?b oard.id=cudiscussiontemp&message.id=28888#M28888

a comment from post above:
'The best part is that CSR's will log onto servers to move disgruntled players into space, but they're non-existant if someone is online and needs assistance.'

Customer relations Nazy/SOE style.

P.S. my character was silenced many times during protests too, luckily not so extreme, not that I care anymore anyway,

This CU is a perfect example of greed on the part of Sony and Lucas Arts, nothing more, nothing less. There is a great post on the SWG forums that summed this up perfectly, http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?b oard.id=cudiscussiontemp&message.id=25971

In the end it is only a game. I'm disappointed because of the friends I will no longer be playing with, but I'll also find a better way to spend my 60 bucks a month on something that is fun.