Unfettered, ROL's "mysterious benefactor" turned to legal means, and publicly sold 1000 real-money-bought timecards to fund its ingame war effort - a cool $27,000 worth. That is an undeniable fact, with sale threads still visible on EVE's official forums.
It sounds to me though like that's not nearly as big a problem as outright buying in-game funds for real money. Because you can only sell so many GTC for in-game money before the value starts to drop - unless you spread the sales out over a longer period of time. Either way you can't buy nearly as large a sum of in-game money instantly like you could if you could buy it directly with real money. If they guy really did list all 1,000 cards at once, I wouldn't be surprised to find that the last few dozen sold for barely 10% the amount the first few sold for.
No matter how it works out, it ends up being a win-win.
I think all MMOs should put in a system like that.
There's not much to go on to really get an idea about the kid as a person. No way to really tell if he's well-rounded or not. In my experience though, with the few of his comments that *are* quoted in TFA I'd have to say he's probably a stuck-up condescending jackass. Hopefully that's not true, and like I said there's not much to go on.
Looking at the comment (paraphrased) "I don't consider myself to be exceptionally smart because there's 6.5 billion people in the world, and they're all smart!... in their own way". Obviously we can't see his face when he said that, or hear his tone, but that statement is just dripping with condescension. People who make that comment usually make it because they believe they're so much better than "those other people" that those other people will never realize just how untrue it actually is, so they can get away with it. The interesting part about it is what he said actually is more or less true. (Perfect example is Bill Watterson. Totally sucked at math and science, but possibly the most brilliant comic strip writer ever.) I honestly hope I'm wrong, and that he actually believes what he said.
But then there's his comment about video games. Do I really need to say more?
What it really boils down to is the kid enjoys studying. Video games aren't fun for him. I'd guess most social activities really aren't either. He did what he enjoyed, pure and simple. He's just lucky that what he enjoys also happens to be things that will prove more beneficial down the road than the things most kids enjoy.
Honestly I'm not surprised at this at all. And I also don't think it has much to do with "ego boosting". I think it has everything to do with making the kid feel like the test is not a pointless colossal waste of time. I know when I was a young kid in grade school tests certainly felt like that to me. Kids don't generally see the big picture and the long-term benefits of things. I also know that when I was a kid, if you gave me the choice between having fun or doing something extremely boring that would probably pay off in 10-20 years the choice was a no-brainer. However, getting paid gives a result almost immediately, and gives a kid access to things they may not get access to any other way.
Well I'm pretty sure there's at least one common practice of cybersquatters that we can all agree makes them total scumbags. And that is the practice of snapping up a domain name seconds after someone checked its availability.
I do have to agree though with a lot of the posters here that simply holding a domain that may eventually be worth something can be considered legitimate business.
Once they realized that Win 2000 was not going to be ready for mainstream use (too many program and device incompatibilities) they quickly threw Win ME out the door because they just couldn't not release a new home user OS in Y2K.
Honestly, at that price it's pretty tacky to be asking for a refund. And it certainly wouldn't be worth *my* time to try getting it. It may however be worth my time to get some contact info for the developer and send him a short note about my take on the game. There's at least the chance then that he might take it as constructive criticism and make a better game next time. Asking for a refund tells him nothing other than that you're a cheapskate and didn't think the game was worth $0.99.
No. You sue the crook who cut your brake line. If you can't find him, well, tough luck. That's still not Ford's fault. Unless you're trying to suggest that it's actually possible to create a brake system that could never be compromised by a malicious individual?
And I'd put a pretty big wager that the first cavemen to tamper with fire got burnt - they made things worse. Only once they had a sufficient understanding of fire were they able to make things better. Wasn't that big a deal because most likely they only burnt themselves. Now we're talking about getting burnt on a global scale.
Once upon a time, the best doctors in the world also used leeches to suck the "bad blood" out of sick people to "cure" them. Not surprisingly, most of those patients ended up dead. There's thousands more such examples.
1. You're in luck then. Most quality PC games auto-detect your hardware and choose the optimal settings for you. Install the game and fire it up. 2. Sure they can. But that doesn't mean most people have one.
Here's how I look at it. I can throw down $400 for a good PC and be assured that the graphics will be as good as or better than any gaming console out there, and for another $400 I can throw together a system that makes any console look like last year's breakfast. And not only that, I can also use that same PC for a bazillion other things. In fact, chances are I already have that $400 PC for those bazillion other things and at most I need to throw down $50 for a graphics card upgrade.
Sarcasm aside, people like you are the ones that keep perpetuating the pointless debate. You obviously entirely missed the point of my previous post. It really makes me question your reading comprehension. Let me sum it up for you in one convenient sentence: There is no competition between consoles and PCs.
And you're wrong about the patches and updates. In fact, the more consoles try to replace PCs, the more patches and updates are going to become the norm.
You also missed one other huge advantage PCs have over consoles: repairs and upgrades. If your Xbox 360 gets the RROD, you have exactly one option: wait for Microsoft to fix it or send you a new one, while you wait 1-2 weeks without your game system. Yawn. If my PC has a hardware failure, I can go buy a replacement part (usually for about $50-$100) and replace it immediately. If the failed part is still under warranty, I have the choice to either wait like the Xbox owner for a replacement from the manufacturer or replace it myself and then stash the replacement from the manufacturer for a spare. When it's time to upgrade, you have to wait for the console manufacturer to decide to build a new model. Then you have to replace the whole thing all at once. You may also have to replace all your games. You might even have to replace your TV. Who knows? It's entirely up to the console manufacturer.
As long as PCs exist, people will code games for them, and consumers will buy and play those games. It's just that simple.
it could be possible that the global climate change is just part of a natural cycle, and is actually a good thing. But hey, let's just ignore that possibility and try every idea no matter how stupid that we can possibly think of to "fix" it.
Seriously, if science has taught us *anything* it's that tampering with things we don't understand almost always makes them worse. Even when - actually, maybe that should be especially when - we're trying to "correct" a "mistake we've made".
MMO's *may* have the potential to eventually lend themselves well to consoles, but there is one thing that may prevent it. And that is communication with random players. Chatting efficiently requires a keyboard of some sort, and an on-screen keyboard used with the controller is just too cumbersome. VOIP could work, except who wants to hear the voice of every jackass playing an MMO? And yes, while FFXI is a console MMO, it plays like ass. The only reason it's got any significant number of subscribers at all is because it's the *only* MMO on consoles.
You're wrong about PC gaming though. PC gaming isn't going anywhere, any time soon. The reason for that is because almost everyone has one now. And with advances in gaming performance hardware trailing off so much over the last few years, most of the ones currently in use are also perfectly capable of playing most games out there, and most of the games coming out in the near future. At worst, they might require a $50-$100 graphics card to make it happen. We've finally reached a point where average new PCs from 3 years ago are still viable for gaming. And look at this article. It wasn't so long ago that you would have had to spend twice the $800 price tag to build a kickass gaming rig capable of playing any game at max settings at say 1280x1024 resolution. This $800 rig will manhandle any game at that resolution. And for probably half that, you can build one that will run any game at at least medium settings (graphics that still look better than any Xbox 360 or PS3 game) and run at a perfectly acceptable frame rate.
And while FPSs can be lots of fun on a console, until you have an actual mouse for it, it just won't work as well as on a PC. For a RTS you'll need both a mouse and a keyboard.
The only realistic conclusion that anyone can draw is that we're going to be using both consoles and PCs for gaming for quite some time. While there is definitely some overlap, overall they really are two different tools for two different jobs. For myself, I own a decent PC, a Wii, and a DS. I would also have a PS3, except there's been too many other things demanding my money.
Well, currently there's a lot of stigma about 100% electrical cars. Many people (potential customers) believe that completely electric vehicles must necessarily have at least one of the following weaknesses due to limitations with electric engines in cars:
A.) Too slow
B.) Incapable of driving very far
C.) Requiring too much time to refuel
D.) Too fragile
I would think that making one that can compete well at the 24 hours of Le Mans would go a long way toward changing those perceptions.
but there has to be some economic state through which a person can create full-time and not starve.
Most people create full-time to not starve. You're talking about certain types of creation though, mostly entertainment. The problem is there's far more supply than demand because entertainment is generally easier to create than most physical objects, and is a lot more fun. And no, it really is not possible for everyone to do this kind of creating full-time and not starve. Ultimately, someone needs to do the actual physical labor that results in food, housing, energy, and everything else we need to stay alive. Entertainment, on the other hand, can actually be provided by people that have full-time jobs in other things. In fact, many do just that because providing entertainment can actually be more entertaining than watching (consuming) it.
OK, DVDs have their problems, non of which is related to the DVD itself but to the crap publishers pull. However, downloads also have problems. First, there is diskspace. I dont know about you, but I have better things to store then random crap movies (better as in random porn movies). Sure, I could buy a new harddrive and solve that problem, but why bother?
Seriously? Disk space is a problem? If buying sufficient disk space is a problem, then you can't afford to buy DVDs anyway.
Video quality has absolutely nothing to do with whether it's downloaded or not. They can make Blu-Ray quality downloads available if they want. Almost all illegal downloads (besides the stuff taped at theaters) is DVD quality or better.
Also, most computers dont make for the most enjoyable viewing experience. Unless you have your computer hooked up to the TV. If you dont, youll have to suffer in your computer chair. Odds are, you setup your computer station for performing work, not relaxing. I would rather relax at my TV then at my computer.
It's called a media center PC.
Downloads also take time to download. Assuming you also have limited drive space, its much easier to keep a bookshelf of DVDs then it is to wait to download. OK, sure, maybe most movies are really not worth whatching again, maybe some are even not worth whatching more then a few times, but thats not due to DVDs, right?
Downloads take excessive time to download only because of the broadband cartels not providing what they've already been paid to provide, but that's a whole different topic. Assuming we have limited drive space is stupid. It's much cheaper, much easier, and much more efficient to get drive storage space than shelf storage space.
Point being, DVDs are vastly supperior to downloads..... OK, sure, given all the crap that content makers are pushing and how ridiculously over-priced they are, downloads might seem like a viable option....
Point being, you're making a lot of invalid assumptions that you're basing your conclusions on, which makes your conclusions invalid as well.
Not to mention that for many of us who use Windows, the "apps" we use it for are games. And in answer to the question TFA's author said we should ask... no, it's not worth the hassle.
Until you can write a tutorial that makes it as easy to run every single popular app and remotely popular game as easily (and with all the same performance and features) as on Windows you're just wasting your time. Until that day comes, there's no room for Linux on my hard drive.
Exactly. Even if Apple themselves were saying it is right now (I haven't heard/read anything to that effect) they can still change their minds. Depending on how popular netbooks get, I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see them come out with one in the next 1-2 years.
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Unfettered, ROL's "mysterious benefactor" turned to legal means, and publicly sold 1000 real-money-bought timecards to fund its ingame war effort - a cool $27,000 worth. That is an undeniable fact, with sale threads still visible on EVE's official forums.
It sounds to me though like that's not nearly as big a problem as outright buying in-game funds for real money. Because you can only sell so many GTC for in-game money before the value starts to drop - unless you spread the sales out over a longer period of time. Either way you can't buy nearly as large a sum of in-game money instantly like you could if you could buy it directly with real money. If they guy really did list all 1,000 cards at once, I wouldn't be surprised to find that the last few dozen sold for barely 10% the amount the first few sold for.
No matter how it works out, it ends up being a win-win.
I think all MMOs should put in a system like that.
Funny poem for sure, but the guy in the story is from Sweden. Nice job though.
There's not much to go on to really get an idea about the kid as a person. No way to really tell if he's well-rounded or not. In my experience though, with the few of his comments that *are* quoted in TFA I'd have to say he's probably a stuck-up condescending jackass. Hopefully that's not true, and like I said there's not much to go on.
Looking at the comment (paraphrased) "I don't consider myself to be exceptionally smart because there's 6.5 billion people in the world, and they're all smart!... in their own way". Obviously we can't see his face when he said that, or hear his tone, but that statement is just dripping with condescension. People who make that comment usually make it because they believe they're so much better than "those other people" that those other people will never realize just how untrue it actually is, so they can get away with it. The interesting part about it is what he said actually is more or less true. (Perfect example is Bill Watterson. Totally sucked at math and science, but possibly the most brilliant comic strip writer ever.) I honestly hope I'm wrong, and that he actually believes what he said.
But then there's his comment about video games. Do I really need to say more?
What it really boils down to is the kid enjoys studying. Video games aren't fun for him. I'd guess most social activities really aren't either. He did what he enjoyed, pure and simple. He's just lucky that what he enjoys also happens to be things that will prove more beneficial down the road than the things most kids enjoy.
Honestly I'm not surprised at this at all. And I also don't think it has much to do with "ego boosting". I think it has everything to do with making the kid feel like the test is not a pointless colossal waste of time. I know when I was a young kid in grade school tests certainly felt like that to me. Kids don't generally see the big picture and the long-term benefits of things. I also know that when I was a kid, if you gave me the choice between having fun or doing something extremely boring that would probably pay off in 10-20 years the choice was a no-brainer. However, getting paid gives a result almost immediately, and gives a kid access to things they may not get access to any other way.
Well I'm pretty sure there's at least one common practice of cybersquatters that we can all agree makes them total scumbags. And that is the practice of snapping up a domain name seconds after someone checked its availability.
I do have to agree though with a lot of the posters here that simply holding a domain that may eventually be worth something can be considered legitimate business.
Sure, as long as you don't accidentally the whole thing. That could be dangerous.
I dunno, but when I find out I'll send you the bill.
even tried to "system restore" while that archaic FAT32 filesystem was the only option.
Yeah, and we even managed to do a successful restore with it once, where it actually didn't make things worse. (Don't ask me about the other times...)
Actually, Win ME was released about 7 months after Win 2000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows#Timeline_of_releases
Once they realized that Win 2000 was not going to be ready for mainstream use (too many program and device incompatibilities) they quickly threw Win ME out the door because they just couldn't not release a new home user OS in Y2K.
And now the question we're all dieing to hear the answer to...
How long did it take to type that with one hand?
But I thought that's what FHM and Maxim were for.
Honestly, at that price it's pretty tacky to be asking for a refund. And it certainly wouldn't be worth *my* time to try getting it. It may however be worth my time to get some contact info for the developer and send him a short note about my take on the game. There's at least the chance then that he might take it as constructive criticism and make a better game next time. Asking for a refund tells him nothing other than that you're a cheapskate and didn't think the game was worth $0.99.
No. You sue the crook who cut your brake line. If you can't find him, well, tough luck. That's still not Ford's fault. Unless you're trying to suggest that it's actually possible to create a brake system that could never be compromised by a malicious individual?
And I'd put a pretty big wager that the first cavemen to tamper with fire got burnt - they made things worse. Only once they had a sufficient understanding of fire were they able to make things better. Wasn't that big a deal because most likely they only burnt themselves. Now we're talking about getting burnt on a global scale.
Once upon a time, the best doctors in the world also used leeches to suck the "bad blood" out of sick people to "cure" them. Not surprisingly, most of those patients ended up dead. There's thousands more such examples.
for the poor chickens that had to work overtime to lay all those eggs!
1. You're in luck then. Most quality PC games auto-detect your hardware and choose the optimal settings for you. Install the game and fire it up.
2. Sure they can. But that doesn't mean most people have one.
Here's how I look at it. I can throw down $400 for a good PC and be assured that the graphics will be as good as or better than any gaming console out there, and for another $400 I can throw together a system that makes any console look like last year's breakfast. And not only that, I can also use that same PC for a bazillion other things. In fact, chances are I already have that $400 PC for those bazillion other things and at most I need to throw down $50 for a graphics card upgrade.
Sarcasm aside, people like you are the ones that keep perpetuating the pointless debate. You obviously entirely missed the point of my previous post. It really makes me question your reading comprehension. Let me sum it up for you in one convenient sentence: There is no competition between consoles and PCs.
And you're wrong about the patches and updates. In fact, the more consoles try to replace PCs, the more patches and updates are going to become the norm.
You also missed one other huge advantage PCs have over consoles: repairs and upgrades. If your Xbox 360 gets the RROD, you have exactly one option: wait for Microsoft to fix it or send you a new one, while you wait 1-2 weeks without your game system. Yawn. If my PC has a hardware failure, I can go buy a replacement part (usually for about $50-$100) and replace it immediately. If the failed part is still under warranty, I have the choice to either wait like the Xbox owner for a replacement from the manufacturer or replace it myself and then stash the replacement from the manufacturer for a spare. When it's time to upgrade, you have to wait for the console manufacturer to decide to build a new model. Then you have to replace the whole thing all at once. You may also have to replace all your games. You might even have to replace your TV. Who knows? It's entirely up to the console manufacturer.
As long as PCs exist, people will code games for them, and consumers will buy and play those games. It's just that simple.
it could be possible that the global climate change is just part of a natural cycle, and is actually a good thing. But hey, let's just ignore that possibility and try every idea no matter how stupid that we can possibly think of to "fix" it.
Seriously, if science has taught us *anything* it's that tampering with things we don't understand almost always makes them worse. Even when - actually, maybe that should be especially when - we're trying to "correct" a "mistake we've made".
MMO's *may* have the potential to eventually lend themselves well to consoles, but there is one thing that may prevent it. And that is communication with random players. Chatting efficiently requires a keyboard of some sort, and an on-screen keyboard used with the controller is just too cumbersome. VOIP could work, except who wants to hear the voice of every jackass playing an MMO? And yes, while FFXI is a console MMO, it plays like ass. The only reason it's got any significant number of subscribers at all is because it's the *only* MMO on consoles.
You're wrong about PC gaming though. PC gaming isn't going anywhere, any time soon. The reason for that is because almost everyone has one now. And with advances in gaming performance hardware trailing off so much over the last few years, most of the ones currently in use are also perfectly capable of playing most games out there, and most of the games coming out in the near future. At worst, they might require a $50-$100 graphics card to make it happen. We've finally reached a point where average new PCs from 3 years ago are still viable for gaming. And look at this article. It wasn't so long ago that you would have had to spend twice the $800 price tag to build a kickass gaming rig capable of playing any game at max settings at say 1280x1024 resolution. This $800 rig will manhandle any game at that resolution. And for probably half that, you can build one that will run any game at at least medium settings (graphics that still look better than any Xbox 360 or PS3 game) and run at a perfectly acceptable frame rate.
And while FPSs can be lots of fun on a console, until you have an actual mouse for it, it just won't work as well as on a PC. For a RTS you'll need both a mouse and a keyboard.
The only realistic conclusion that anyone can draw is that we're going to be using both consoles and PCs for gaming for quite some time. While there is definitely some overlap, overall they really are two different tools for two different jobs. For myself, I own a decent PC, a Wii, and a DS. I would also have a PS3, except there's been too many other things demanding my money.
Well, currently there's a lot of stigma about 100% electrical cars. Many people (potential customers) believe that completely electric vehicles must necessarily have at least one of the following weaknesses due to limitations with electric engines in cars:
A.) Too slow
B.) Incapable of driving very far
C.) Requiring too much time to refuel
D.) Too fragile
I would think that making one that can compete well at the 24 hours of Le Mans would go a long way toward changing those perceptions.
but there has to be some economic state through which a person can create full-time and not starve.
Most people create full-time to not starve. You're talking about certain types of creation though, mostly entertainment. The problem is there's far more supply than demand because entertainment is generally easier to create than most physical objects, and is a lot more fun. And no, it really is not possible for everyone to do this kind of creating full-time and not starve. Ultimately, someone needs to do the actual physical labor that results in food, housing, energy, and everything else we need to stay alive. Entertainment, on the other hand, can actually be provided by people that have full-time jobs in other things. In fact, many do just that because providing entertainment can actually be more entertaining than watching (consuming) it.
OK, DVDs have their problems, non of which is related to the DVD itself but to the crap publishers pull. However, downloads also have problems. First, there is diskspace. I dont know about you, but I have better things to store then random crap movies (better as in random porn movies). Sure, I could buy a new harddrive and solve that problem, but why bother?
Seriously? Disk space is a problem? If buying sufficient disk space is a problem, then you can't afford to buy DVDs anyway.
Video quality has absolutely nothing to do with whether it's downloaded or not. They can make Blu-Ray quality downloads available if they want. Almost all illegal downloads (besides the stuff taped at theaters) is DVD quality or better.
Also, most computers dont make for the most enjoyable viewing experience. Unless you have your computer hooked up to the TV. If you dont, youll have to suffer in your computer chair. Odds are, you setup your computer station for performing work, not relaxing. I would rather relax at my TV then at my computer.
It's called a media center PC.
Downloads also take time to download. Assuming you also have limited drive space, its much easier to keep a bookshelf of DVDs then it is to wait to download. OK, sure, maybe most movies are really not worth whatching again, maybe some are even not worth whatching more then a few times, but thats not due to DVDs, right?
Downloads take excessive time to download only because of the broadband cartels not providing what they've already been paid to provide, but that's a whole different topic. Assuming we have limited drive space is stupid. It's much cheaper, much easier, and much more efficient to get drive storage space than shelf storage space.
Point being, DVDs are vastly supperior to downloads... .. OK, sure, given all the crap that content makers are pushing and how ridiculously over-priced they are, downloads might seem like a viable option....
Point being, you're making a lot of invalid assumptions that you're basing your conclusions on, which makes your conclusions invalid as well.
Ok, I'll just shutup now.
Good idea.
Not to mention that for many of us who use Windows, the "apps" we use it for are games. And in answer to the question TFA's author said we should ask... no, it's not worth the hassle.
Until you can write a tutorial that makes it as easy to run every single popular app and remotely popular game as easily (and with all the same performance and features) as on Windows you're just wasting your time. Until that day comes, there's no room for Linux on my hard drive.
Exactly. Even if Apple themselves were saying it is right now (I haven't heard/read anything to that effect) they can still change their minds. Depending on how popular netbooks get, I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see them come out with one in the next 1-2 years.
That is certainly all true of previous tablets, but the simple addition multi-touch really can change all that.
Given the choice between regular cola and diet, I'll take option c: none of the above. Diet tastes like garbage and gives me an upset stomach.