Well, if you had a group of about 1000 legitimate players(not counting all of their alts/secondary characters, mind you) - and you got them all mad at you for summarily their request as to why you were poking around in their business...
Yes, they got mad - it's the only way to make CCP even budge a little bit - by doing exactly what they did. That's what the forums are about. And, no, the servers were fine - CCP decided to take them down not due to traffic/load but due to their wanting to squash the thread. Then it got into alternate sites and the lid blew open.
CCP's Devs cheated, or it looks awfully close to it. If you ever played EVE, you would know that nothing but nothing happens within minutes. It takes hours. Unless it's BOB. Then it takes minutes. Just having this level of access to the DEVS that the other players don't is appalling.
But CCP admits in their own response that they actively foster and promote the idea of their employees playing in-game, despite the fact that none of the other MMOGs need to do so to run their games. So everyone at CCP has players in the game as a normal thing - and the official line is "keep it clean - we'll trust you to not abuse your position".
That's a *terrible* policy to have. How can you possibly claim that you aren't biased and favoring one group over another given all those DEVs and human nature?
Fact:CCP employees have cheated in the past. Fact:CCP routinely kills any dissent in their forums. Fact:CCP favors BOB. Fact:CCP covers up their employee tracks
It's a corrupt company. This is just the most current round of BS from them.
This pretty much explains it. I know some of these guys and they are very level-headed and I have no reason at all to disbelieve them.
The information you can gain as a CEO of a corp is almost infinite. Every player. Every alt. Every location of their bases, every location of their resources, their resources at any outpost/status, their blueprints, their ships... the list is astounding. Of course the real CEO of Goonswarm should be pissed off.
This was posted on the EVE forums today by Taliesyn :
I'm afraid I have to disagree with the idea that this covers everything, as they managed to ignore something that came up in the (currently) 170 page discussion thread. At one point, the "Official" BoB Diplomat, Dianabolic, flat-out stated that BoB has direct links to CCP and uses them to their benefit (post #335 in that thread). He attempted to justify that by saying that they also use these links to report bugs and whatnot, but the fact of the matter is that ALL player-to-CCP communications should use official channels. ***
The posting in question admitting their involvement has been deleted from the forum in question. But many people, including myself, saw that post and it's a good part of what blew the entire thing up - a DEV admitting in public that they do do all of that. That was on page 15 or so on Friday - and it snowballed from there. The ire of the players at the admission by the DEV was the last straw. In fact, ALL of the DEV's posting in the last few days have been deleted from the server. They whitewash it today after they have removed the evidence. I'm trying to contact him to get a copy of the post - there's a good chance he might save it. It would make an excellent/. item to counter this PR spin.
Let's say for a minute that CCP is actually right on the first count(the other two they mention in their official response are easy to disprove - a common tactic, actually - front loading the stuff they can't deny with stuff they can).
All of the other problems that plague the company and the outright hostile manner in which they treat problems and players adds up to a very disturbing picture.
This previous evidence as well as their general demeanor towards cheating and squashing players and so on over the last few YEARS... It all weighs into the decision as to whether they are actually victims or they are whitewashing.
"Oh we're the victim(please ignore all the other mountains of junk)" - I'm not going to tend to believe them on the two other points they contest.
Point 1: Dev twiddling with the station - appears legitimate, though astonishingly quick. 15 minutes.
Point 2: Aurora Event arc cheating. This has been blown into little bits. It really did happen and CCP can't get away with denying it. quote: "Nothing new has been presented that merits re-opening the investigation into the events following the actions taken against the player/volunteer who violated a Non-Disclosure Agreement in regards to the 'Cult of Tetrimon' event arc." So they basically re-iterated their previous BS. Nothing new was added, so this fails a basic validity test, since the original point was already more than adequately made by the players.
Point 3: The player in question was removed almost instantly. What you read is basically typical boilerplate like the U.S. govt said about the attorneys it fired. "We had previous complaints... yada yada..." Funny how a decision of such importance was made almost instantly. This is easy to see as the Spin it is, though.
Point 4: CCP then goes on: "Since last Friday, an unnamed corporation posted over 4000 times on EVE's message boards concerning these allegations. " It's their server - that it would be unknown isn't possible - and even then, having several hundred or more players in a revolt(considering that the forum is the ONLY place in EVE to address even the tiniest problem) isn't illegal - or immoral.
Claiming that they were victims of a DOS attack is absurd. They pissed off a group of several hundred players all at once and they got hammered by disgruntled customers as a result.
"More specifically, the objective of this scheme was to permanently paint CCP as a biased and corrupt company that favors a select group of players over the rest of our community" No, this has been proven in the past. Whining doesn't change the fact that you DID favor BOB for three years or more.
"we faced a coordinated and hostile attack executed on our forums, Digg, Wikipedia, Slashdot," And this is extremely laughable as well. Almost all of the posts on their forums at the time were from active PAYING members. Not from people who frequent digg, wiki, or slashdot(though getting their entry on wiki altered surely was what prompted this response by them to do damage control I bet)
Point 5: Their response to the past incident? Well, the simple fact is that there have been HUNDREDS of cases in the past of devs manipulating the game or favoring their friends. That one was caught is all. If you look at CCP's original FUD and PR response to the incident, it's clear that this wasn't an isolated incident - as they are now trying to paint it. (see the last point at the bottom of this post for the PROOF that they are lying - in their own words!)
Point 6: "It is worth restating here that there is absolutely no categorical CCP preference towards anything that transpires in the EVE political landscape." Their actions in the past have proven this beyond any doubt that they ARE biased in the extreme. They just have to appear as if they aren't because it really hit the fan hard this time.
"That's why if you are not happy with how things are transpiring in game, the game is built so there are ample opportuni
Exactly. What cinches Goonswarm's case is the fact that while it was technically legitimate action, it took place within SECONDS of it being brought up. With 30,000 players online(plus at least ten times that many accounts), It takes days or weeks on average to get a response,
Essentially BOB has devs playing at the same time they are logged into the server. If you have this mental image of the dev playing on one screen and having the sql interface screen/app open at the same time on another screen, you're getting the correct one.
Their PR can't get around the fact that a dev can't be playing or chatting with people who are playing, and on the server at the same time.
There is no favoritism. And what's wrong with chatting with developers over MSN? Seriously, get over the jealousy! If John Carmack was willing to chat with me, I'd be interested... hey, maybe he and he and I can be real friends. **** Surely you are joking, right? Oh - wait - you're not.
I don't know who the devs are, let alone their MSN/AIM, and I surely can't get a petition answered in UNDER TWO MINUTES. Try two days. That's the problem - they appear as if it's normal activity, but answering the right person's email withing seconds every time - that's just not right.
"Oh - hey - this guy is bumping our cap ship - messing up our fleet"(note bumping is a 110% legitimate tactic to nerf the fleet - deal with the corpmate/spy by blowing him up)
Player is nuked essentially instantly. Under two minutes. I've not heard of ANYONE in EVE ever getting a response ever in under 20 minutes, let alone that quickly. Considering the time it takes to log in, locate, and yank the player out, that's 60 seconds right there - which means LIVE out of game chatting with a dev/having the dev playing in the corp at the same time as he's logged into the SQL server/stack.
Not cool, not right. I've been playing for over two years now and this sort of PR spin would be believeable if it wasn't the literally dozenth time they did it. They are just getting better at appearing to be "impartial". "Hey - can you do this asap - oh - wait 90 seconds so it doesn't look too obvious(in AIM/MSN)".
Oh - and when DEVs are discovered, their accounts are terminated - but they just start over again with new ones. There's nothing more than a "bad form - don't get caught!" by CCP.
Blizzard - they'll fire you on the spot. As they should, because reputation is everything. CCP needs to learn this.
P.S. I remembered ONE company that's worse than CCP. WOTC. They don't cheat, but then again, they don't care either - machine could be bugged for a week and they ignore everyone.
CCP has a long history of in-game censorship, banning, cheating, helping "friends", deleting petitions and emails, covering their tracks, and so on - and the press releases they do are purely FUD and Spin. If you read their replies, you get things like "we will deactivate employee characters if they are discovered" - well, that's charming - it's not fixing the problem so much as taking a more KGB-esque "get rid of agents who have their covers blown" approach.
And it is pervasive. They even have employees posting on Ebay selling credits that then take your money and claim it's legal to do so since you are breaking the rules(and being in Iceland, Ebay's laws don't cover them in any case). How messed up is that? Their bylaws may say whatever they wish - but that's ingame/illegal to *use* - real cash was stolen.
It's a hopelessly corrupt company from the top to the bottom. Worse, in fact, than any gaming company that I can honestly remember in the last 30 years(been gaming that long, yes)
This/. piece is a bunch of PR to make them look like the victim and should be removed - don't put up corporate FUD and/or Spin on the main page. Don't buy into their lies.
And, yes, I play EVE. I know people in-game and the accusations are 100% true - and they have the logs and screencaptures to prove it. I'll believe the players and numerous in-game witnesses against the corporate response anyday.
They may invest 10 times what the rest of the population invests in research, if they get a blueprint it will not be honored by the players as dedication, it will be seen as yet another proof of their cheating.
They may win a fight when outgunned by skill and by being the better pilots, by having the better tactics, and it will be attributed to dev interference.
They may spend days and weeks to scout out an enemy POS to know the best moment for an attack, and it will be reduced to dev knowledge that gave them the intel.
No matter what they do, no matter what they achive, it will be reduced to their closeness with the developers. *****
And this is *exactly* why you do like Blizzard does - you make a 40 foot barbed wire and shark filled moat between the Devs and the players. There can be no incidents or questioning what happens because it never does. Ever.
Otherwise you are left with something like Kingdom of Loathing - where the devs mess with everyone regularly. Except there they are up front about it and you're not spending money to play.
I have an idea - that would make a big difference.
See, even though I'm registered Green(did my part to get them on the ballot in California, gosh - about 15 years ago now), part of their strategy from day one is to re-register for the other primaries for the Presidential conventions. The idea is to do our best to make sure that both parties have the best two candidates running against each other.
One of our biggest problems with how our nation runs to date is Federalism and the power of the President over local rights. This is the core of much that is wrong. Now, I'm no libertarian, but the points are quite valid that he raises. That our President can effectively wield power like a dictator or king at this point and local governments have virtually no say over most of their laws anymore is appalling.
So Everyone - please register Republican if your state isn't an open primary - and vote for Ron Paul. Then, you immediately change your party affiliation BACK to whatever it was. You are allowed to change your party 2 or 3 months before a major election, so there's plenty of time. If enough people do this, we can effectively hijack the Republican Convention, which is frankly, our right as citizens - to take back some of the power every time we can. Because (insert deity of choice) help us if McCain gets in. We'll end up with a guy who jokes about bombing Iran and is basically a smarter version of Bush. You think Bush is scary? Imagine a guy who didn't fry half of his braincells doing cocaine and other drugs. Evil *and* smart.
Ron Paul is so much the better choice, but he's also the last person the Republican Party's leadership wants.
Yes, I know he isn't part of the party oficially, which is why it gets me so upset. Here comes this loser from outside of the party, who proclaims himself to the "The Green Party Candidate" despite the Greens never having *elected* him as such in the primary. And everyone is all too happy to say that he is the Green Candidate. It feels as if we got hijacked. Not once, but several times in a row, now.
Where was our vote in all of this? Right - ignored. What the hell is he doing - get out of our business already! At least run as an independant. There are *REAL* people in the party that can compete head to head with the others in a debate.
Oh - and I actually *do* support nuclear energy myself, since from a technical POV, it's far celaner than coal and most other options we have. Not that it should be the first one, given our lack of a central waste repository/proper plan to dispose of it, but there has been a great deal of imporvement in the last decade alone in the technology - and most of the party members tend to stick their heads in the sand on this. The only real problem is where to put the waste. I think the best plan so far is to put it in a subduction zone and let the earth recycle it for us. A volcano would be a good alternate choice as well, since most magma is more radioacative than low grade waste as it is. But priority #1 is getting rid of coal and petrochemicals, and I'm enough of a pragmatist to realize that we have to wean ourselves off of it slowly - which means nuclear is necessarry for a while.
****...the announced prospective Green candidates are Alan Augustson, Elaine Brown, Kent Mesplay and Kat Swift and there is speculation that Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Rebecca Rotzler, Cindy Sheehan and Al Gore might stand for the Greens. ****
Nader needs to be kicked out of the party and stuffed into a retirement home. Every time he TOUCHES the nomination, it tanks the entire party's legitimacy. I'm registered Green and I loathe the jerk. He's so far off-base from the core ideals that it would be funny if he didn't manage to self-proclaim himself the party's candidate every damn election. Watch what happens - he'll declare himself the candidate next time around, despite who the people actually vote for.
As for Republican, Ron Paul without a doubt. The powermongering and consolidation of power in D.C. is appalling and needs to stop now before the entire system implodes. Or we turn into a police state like the U.K. We need a massive swing back towards the center and he's the only person who's even entertaining the notion.
As for Democrat, obviously Obama, since he has the least political connections and time in the system(and therefore the least corrupted). He seem pretty level-headed, like with this vote - he said he'd read it before he made his mind up. Gosh - what a novel concept! Reading legislation instead of toting the party line!. Btw, he did vote against it. This should be the litmus test for Democrats, btw - whether they voted to stop the war or not.
I'll buy the one being made by Harmonix and not the junk Sony is foisting off on us.
http://www.harmonixmusic.com/ Rock Band is the real deal, folks. Harmonix, MTV, and EA games - it's going to be edgy, fun, and loud as hell. Just what we want.
http://www.rockband.com/ - online play, three parts, all the goodies - it's like they stuffed a Karaoke game, Guitar Hero, and a rhythm/bass game all into one. And they have a massive forum set up for people to give feedback and suggest songs.
DDR-Hero III is going to be a joke - old songs, poor execution - typical half-baked effort. Plus, I don't like how Sony gave Harmonix the shaft after making the hottest game of the year, no less.
Combined with the immigration bill, it would create a massive work-visa sub-class, because you can't get workers except by the program(as opposed to it being optional.
This is going to be a horrendous mess as entire sectors of our economy start to use offshore workers and just do business via cash/not bother with the rules at all.
Imagine the following scenario: You need a new mechanic for your small muffler shop. Either you pay the government fees and tons of rules - and now MORE rules and checks and such... or you pay this guy $100 a day cash under the table. It's exactly like the internet radio fees - all mor rules and regulations do is turn honest people into dishonest ones.
This is the one major point that keeps being overlooked. The U.S. and Canada together can create a close to sustainable supply of fuel for their transportation needs without having to import any oil at all.
This is a huge benefit not only to the U.S., but to the rest of the world, which will no longer have the U.S. as interested in their affairs(read: oil).
You'll notice that despite the 31st place, he'd actually be just half a mph behind Al Unser. It's very possible that it could at least place in the top 4-5.
Intel's FUD aside, there are four main reasons why the OLPC has nothing to fear.
1: Power. Built-in generator is a sweet thing as other as pointed out. In fact, there are schools in Mexico and other 2nd world countries where electricity is either too expensive to pay for or not available.
OLPC - No cost to run.
2: No fan, no vents, sealed against elements like a typical cellphone. This is the main reason they went with a low powered chip - to make it weatherproof. Not to really save power. Intel's design is going to have problems in the U.S. - let alone someplace like Egypt or Brazil.
OLPC - more rugged. Less maintainence issues.
3: Open Source. OLPC is giving the nations in question a free ride. Full source, free upgrades, and so on - in short, a package that can be maintained for zero cost by their education departments. Forever. (this is the part where despite the FUD, that Intel hits a big brick wall - cost to maintain) These countries aren't idiots. They just don't have the money, so whatever costs less down the road and can be maintained for a decade without major upgrades (or more!) is going to win. OLPC was carefully made to fit exactly this requirement. Intel's Windows box is a disaster waiting to happen and they know it. Plus, the Intel box runs slower! Faster CPU but the OS bloat is apalling while the OLPC is efficient. Clear win for Negroponte.
OLPC - no cost to maintain the software.
4: FUD doesn't work with these countries. They have a built-in loathing, verging on abject hatred for being exploited by foreign interests and corporations as it is. Intel doesn't get this at all. The guy offering to be their friend for real will get ten times the traction. He has little to worry about. This is why foreign leaders listen to President Carter. Because he's a decent person who isn't going to stab them in the back for profit (and he's a nice guy, too). Megroponte has nothing to fear - he's a saint in their minds already compared to Intel or Microsoft.
OLPC - true philanthropy at work.
He really doesn't have much to fear. But, yes, I wold also be a bit ticked off at their FUD.
I have no problem writing documents in a simple text editor. And you don't even need to wed yourself to Microsoft, either, to have decent security. Want the text gone? Yep - gone.
And you technically don't even need Windows as an OS.
The old adage comes to mind: "The more complex things are, the easier they are to break." Perhaps our Government and Military should invest in some older, more secure technology?
The simple fact is that it's not stealing. Nothing was lost or denied to someone or taken from anyone physically.
What copying a program or music file or movie does is... absolutely nothing, because the person in question certainly wouldn't have paid anyways for the item in question.
It's not stealing, it's actually just a failure to properly pay for the item. This is more similar to say, not paying your dues or membership at CostCo or SamsClub. Two entirely different things.
Of course, if the industries in question spammed the airwaves and net with "failure to properly pay for services rendered" it would hardly get anyone's attention like "stealing" does.
I have a friend who for instance, owns bite.org and he gets an amazing amount of stuff in his inbox(runs a whitelist of course, but the crud is sometimes amusing to look at, at least according to him)
So they sent stuff to.org by mistake - sounds perfectly reasonable. The person would have probably emailed them back - "did you send that email?" and they send it to the correct address (hit reply and repaste it in instead of manually typing it in). And chalk it up as a bad delivery or something. (500 out of tens of thousands over 3-4 years is actually what you would expect)
All it would take is your ISP or spam filter to be set to ignore messages about mail delivery errors.
Yet again we see a "review" like this. And once again, the litmus test appears to be how closely it emulates Windows.
there are dozens, no hundreds of things you can do with a typical Linux/Unix/etc OS(flavor aside) that you can't do with Windows. I'd really like to see a review of the strengths and weaknesses of Windows and Linux (and Mac to be fair) that isn't about emulating Windows way of seeing the world but instead deals with the core aspects of computing.
IE: Which one handles crashes best? Which one copies files fastest? Which one multi-tasks the best? Which one is most secure from hackers and bots? (and of course, a slew of GUI comparisons as well)
And not just "this is better" but give us raw data and charts and so on.
That sort of comparison would make sense. Having someone do this sort of Windows vs Linux nonsense AGAIN is nearly useless.
The real trick here is to find a small company or a group of developers. The #1 mistake most people make starting out is they think like 50 year olds and go for a big company with way too many people. This results in less risk and a nicer resume', but it also leads to just being another cog in the works and a total lack of real opportunities.
The simple fact is that quality control and customer support gets worse as the company is bigger. That is, unless you go in as one of the original 10-20 employees at the very beginning.
As for how to make it in software, it's not impossible to make a good game by yourself or with a couple of people.
Kingdom of Loathing and many other online games are perfect examples of this. And honestly, if I was running a company, I'd be hiring these people who made their own smaller games first.
As for commercial games, Defcon is a perfect example of what a small group can do on a shoestring budget. I can guarantee that every one of the people involved in it already has multiple offers for real work if they want it.
It all gets back to the basic rule of science, and by extension, computing: There is no free lunch. You want to make games, you have to MAKE games and do the coding. QC/QA is most often a dead-end career path unless they pay for your masters degree or something similar while doing it.
If Microsoft has been talking to the lawyers at the RIAA. I see the same inane and ultimately useless scare tactics being employed. Except the *IX community is more than willing to fight back.
Going to be interesting to see how this one pans out. I'm betting Microsoft gets nobody playing their game and sulks away rather than actually divulge the patents in question.(The comment about it being a one-shot deal is quite correct - they use it, they lose it.)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, if you had a group of about 1000 legitimate players(not counting all of their alts/secondary characters, mind you) - and you got them all mad at you for summarily their request as to why you were poking around in their business...
Yes, they got mad - it's the only way to make CCP even budge a little bit - by doing exactly what they did. That's what the forums are about. And, no, the servers were fine - CCP decided to take them down not due to traffic/load but due to their wanting to squash the thread. Then it got into alternate sites and the lid blew open.
CCP's Devs cheated, or it looks awfully close to it. If you ever played EVE, you would know that nothing but nothing happens within minutes. It takes hours. Unless it's BOB. Then it takes minutes. Just having this level of access to the DEVS that the other players don't is appalling.
But CCP admits in their own response that they actively foster and promote the idea of their employees playing in-game, despite the fact that none of the other MMOGs need to do so to run their games. So everyone at CCP has players in the game as a normal thing - and the official line is "keep it clean - we'll trust you to not abuse your position".
That's a *terrible* policy to have. How can you possibly claim that you aren't biased and favoring one group over another given all those DEVs and human nature?
Fact:CCP employees have cheated in the past.
Fact:CCP routinely kills any dissent in their forums.
Fact:CCP favors BOB.
Fact:CCP covers up their employee tracks
It's a corrupt company. This is just the most current round of BS from them.
http://goonfleet.com/reply_to_CCP.html
This pretty much explains it. I know some of these guys and they are very level-headed and I have no reason at all to disbelieve them.
The information you can gain as a CEO of a corp is almost infinite. Every player. Every alt. Every location of their bases, every location of their resources, their resources at any outpost/status, their blueprints, their ships... the list is astounding. Of course the real CEO of Goonswarm should be pissed off.
This was posted on the EVE forums today by Taliesyn :
/. item to counter this PR spin.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with the idea that this covers everything, as they managed to ignore something that came up in the (currently) 170 page discussion thread. At one point, the "Official" BoB Diplomat, Dianabolic, flat-out stated that BoB has direct links to CCP and uses them to their benefit (post #335 in that thread). He attempted to justify that by saying that they also use these links to report bugs and whatnot, but the fact of the matter is that ALL player-to-CCP communications should use official channels.
***
The posting in question admitting their involvement has been deleted from the forum in question. But many people, including myself, saw that post and it's a good part of what blew the entire thing up - a DEV admitting in public that they do do all of that. That was on page 15 or so on Friday - and it snowballed from there. The ire of the players at the admission by the DEV was the last straw. In fact, ALL of the DEV's posting in the last few days have been deleted from the server. They whitewash it today after they have removed the evidence. I'm trying to contact him to get a copy of the post - there's a good chance he might save it. It would make an excellent
Let's say for a minute that CCP is actually right on the first count(the other two they mention in their official response are easy to disprove - a common tactic, actually - front loading the stuff they can't deny with stuff they can).
All of the other problems that plague the company and the outright hostile manner in which they treat problems and players adds up to a very disturbing picture.
This previous evidence as well as their general demeanor towards cheating and squashing players and so on over the last few YEARS... It all weighs into the decision as to whether they are actually victims or they are whitewashing.
"Oh we're the victim(please ignore all the other mountains of junk)" - I'm not going to tend to believe them on the two other points they contest.
Point 1: Dev twiddling with the station - appears legitimate, though astonishingly quick. 15 minutes.
Point 2: Aurora Event arc cheating. This has been blown into little bits. It really did happen and CCP can't get away with denying it.
quote:
"Nothing new has been presented that merits re-opening the investigation into the events following the actions taken against the player/volunteer who violated a Non-Disclosure Agreement in regards to the 'Cult of Tetrimon' event arc."
So they basically re-iterated their previous BS. Nothing new was added, so this fails a basic validity test, since the original point was already more than adequately made by the players.
Point 3: The player in question was removed almost instantly. What you read is basically typical boilerplate like the U.S. govt said about the attorneys it fired. "We had previous complaints... yada yada..." Funny how a decision of such importance was made almost instantly. This is easy to see as the Spin it is, though.
Point 4: CCP then goes on:
"Since last Friday, an unnamed corporation posted over 4000 times on EVE's message boards concerning these allegations. " It's their server - that it would be unknown isn't possible - and even then, having several hundred or more players in a revolt(considering that the forum is the ONLY place in EVE to address even the tiniest problem) isn't illegal - or immoral.
Claiming that they were victims of a DOS attack is absurd. They pissed off a group of several hundred players all at once and they got hammered by disgruntled customers as a result.
"More specifically, the objective of this scheme was to permanently paint CCP as a biased and corrupt company that favors a select group of players over the rest of our community"
No, this has been proven in the past. Whining doesn't change the fact that you DID favor BOB for three years or more.
"we faced a coordinated and hostile attack executed on our forums, Digg, Wikipedia, Slashdot,"
And this is extremely laughable as well. Almost all of the posts on their forums at the time were from active PAYING members. Not from people who frequent digg, wiki, or slashdot(though getting their entry on wiki altered surely was what prompted this response by them to do damage control I bet)
Point 5: Their response to the past incident? Well, the simple fact is that there have been HUNDREDS of cases in the past of devs manipulating the game or favoring their friends. That one was caught is all. If you look at CCP's original FUD and PR response to the incident, it's clear that this wasn't an isolated incident - as they are now trying to paint it.
(see the last point at the bottom of this post for the PROOF that they are lying - in their own words!)
Point 6:
"It is worth restating here that there is absolutely no categorical CCP preference towards anything that transpires in the EVE political landscape." Their actions in the past have proven this beyond any doubt that they ARE biased in the extreme. They just have to appear as if they aren't because it really hit the fan hard this time.
"That's why if you are not happy with how things are transpiring in game, the game is built so there are ample opportuni
Exactly. What cinches Goonswarm's case is the fact that while it was technically legitimate action, it took place within SECONDS of it being brought up. With 30,000 players online(plus at least ten times that many accounts), It takes days or weeks on average to get a response,
Essentially BOB has devs playing at the same time they are logged into the server. If you have this mental image of the dev playing on one screen and having the sql interface screen/app open at the same time on another screen, you're getting the correct one.
Their PR can't get around the fact that a dev can't be playing or chatting with people who are playing, and on the server at the same time.
There is no favoritism. And what's wrong with chatting with developers over MSN? Seriously, get over the jealousy! If John Carmack was willing to chat with me, I'd be interested... hey, maybe he and he and I can be real friends.
****
Surely you are joking, right? Oh - wait - you're not.
I don't know who the devs are, let alone their MSN/AIM, and I surely can't get a petition answered in UNDER TWO MINUTES. Try two days. That's the problem - they appear as if it's normal activity, but answering the right person's email withing seconds every time - that's just not right.
"Oh - hey - this guy is bumping our cap ship - messing up our fleet"(note bumping is a 110% legitimate tactic to nerf the fleet - deal with the corpmate/spy by blowing him up)
Player is nuked essentially instantly. Under two minutes. I've not heard of ANYONE in EVE ever getting a response ever in under 20 minutes, let alone that quickly. Considering the time it takes to log in, locate, and yank the player out, that's 60 seconds right there - which means LIVE out of game chatting with a dev/having the dev playing in the corp at the same time as he's logged into the SQL server/stack.
Not cool, not right. I've been playing for over two years now and this sort of PR spin would be believeable if it wasn't the literally dozenth time they did it. They are just getting better at appearing to be "impartial". "Hey - can you do this asap - oh - wait 90 seconds so it doesn't look too obvious(in AIM/MSN)".
Oh - and when DEVs are discovered, their accounts are terminated - but they just start over again with new ones. There's nothing more than a "bad form - don't get caught!" by CCP.
Blizzard - they'll fire you on the spot. As they should, because reputation is everything. CCP needs to learn this.
P.S. I remembered ONE company that's worse than CCP. WOTC. They don't cheat, but then again, they don't care either - machine could be bugged for a week and they ignore everyone.
CCP has a long history of in-game censorship, banning, cheating, helping "friends", deleting petitions and emails, covering their tracks, and so on - and the press releases they do are purely FUD and Spin. If you read their replies, you get things like "we will deactivate employee characters if they are discovered" - well, that's charming - it's not fixing the problem so much as taking a more KGB-esque "get rid of agents who have their covers blown" approach.
/. piece is a bunch of PR to make them look like the victim and should be removed - don't put up corporate FUD and/or Spin on the main page. Don't buy into their lies.
And it is pervasive. They even have employees posting on Ebay selling credits that then take your money and claim it's legal to do so since you are breaking the rules(and being in Iceland, Ebay's laws don't cover them in any case). How messed up is that? Their bylaws may say whatever they wish - but that's ingame/illegal to *use* - real cash was stolen.
It's a hopelessly corrupt company from the top to the bottom. Worse, in fact, than any gaming company that I can honestly remember in the last 30 years(been gaming that long, yes)
This
And, yes, I play EVE. I know people in-game and the accusations are 100% true - and they have the logs and screencaptures to prove it. I'll believe the players and numerous in-game witnesses against the corporate response anyday.
They may invest 10 times what the rest of the population invests in research, if they get a blueprint it will not be honored by the players as dedication, it will be seen as yet another proof of their cheating.
They may win a fight when outgunned by skill and by being the better pilots, by having the better tactics, and it will be attributed to dev interference.
They may spend days and weeks to scout out an enemy POS to know the best moment for an attack, and it will be reduced to dev knowledge that gave them the intel.
No matter what they do, no matter what they achive, it will be reduced to their closeness with the developers.
*****
And this is *exactly* why you do like Blizzard does - you make a 40 foot barbed wire and shark filled moat between the Devs and the players. There can be no incidents or questioning what happens because it never does. Ever.
Otherwise you are left with something like Kingdom of Loathing - where the devs mess with everyone regularly. Except there they are up front about it and you're not spending money to play.
I have an idea - that would make a big difference.
See, even though I'm registered Green(did my part to get them on the ballot in California, gosh - about 15 years ago now), part of their strategy from day one is to re-register for the other primaries for the Presidential conventions. The idea is to do our best to make sure that both parties have the best two candidates running against each other.
One of our biggest problems with how our nation runs to date is Federalism and the power of the President over local rights. This is the core of much that is wrong. Now, I'm no libertarian, but the points are quite valid that he raises. That our President can effectively wield power like a dictator or king at this point and local governments have virtually no say over most of their laws anymore is appalling.
So Everyone - please register Republican if your state isn't an open primary - and vote for Ron Paul. Then, you immediately change your party affiliation BACK to whatever it was. You are allowed to change your party 2 or 3 months before a major election, so there's plenty of time. If enough people do this, we can effectively hijack the Republican Convention, which is frankly, our right as citizens - to take back some of the power every time we can. Because (insert deity of choice) help us if McCain gets in. We'll end up with a guy who jokes about bombing Iran and is basically a smarter version of Bush. You think Bush is scary? Imagine a guy who didn't fry half of his braincells doing cocaine and other drugs. Evil *and* smart.
Ron Paul is so much the better choice, but he's also the last person the Republican Party's leadership wants.
Yes, I know he isn't part of the party oficially, which is why it gets me so upset. Here comes this loser from outside of the party, who proclaims himself to the "The Green Party Candidate" despite the Greens never having *elected* him as such in the primary. And everyone is all too happy to say that he is the Green Candidate. It feels as if we got hijacked. Not once, but several times in a row, now.
Where was our vote in all of this? Right - ignored. What the hell is he doing - get out of our business already! At least run as an independant. There are *REAL* people in the party that can compete head to head with the others in a debate.
Oh - and I actually *do* support nuclear energy myself, since from a technical POV, it's far celaner than coal and most other options we have. Not that it should be the first one, given our lack of a central waste repository/proper plan to dispose of it, but there has been a great deal of imporvement in the last decade alone in the technology - and most of the party members tend to stick their heads in the sand on this. The only real problem is where to put the waste. I think the best plan so far is to put it in a subduction zone and let the earth recycle it for us. A volcano would be a good alternate choice as well, since most magma is more radioacative than low grade waste as it is. But priority #1 is getting rid of coal and petrochemicals, and I'm enough of a pragmatist to realize that we have to wean ourselves off of it slowly - which means nuclear is necessarry for a while.
**** ...the announced prospective Green candidates are Alan Augustson, Elaine Brown, Kent Mesplay and Kat Swift and there is speculation that Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Rebecca Rotzler, Cindy Sheehan and Al Gore might stand for the Greens.
****
Nader needs to be kicked out of the party and stuffed into a retirement home. Every time he TOUCHES the nomination, it tanks the entire party's legitimacy. I'm registered Green and I loathe the jerk. He's so far off-base from the core ideals that it would be funny if he didn't manage to self-proclaim himself the party's candidate every damn election. Watch what happens - he'll declare himself the candidate next time around, despite who the people actually vote for.
As for Republican, Ron Paul without a doubt. The powermongering and consolidation of power in D.C. is appalling and needs to stop now before the entire system implodes. Or we turn into a police state like the U.K. We need a massive swing back towards the center and he's the only person who's even entertaining the notion.
As for Democrat, obviously Obama, since he has the least political connections and time in the system(and therefore the least corrupted). He seem pretty level-headed, like with this vote - he said he'd read it before he made his mind up. Gosh - what a novel concept! Reading legislation instead of toting the party line!. Btw, he did vote against it. This should be the litmus test for Democrats, btw - whether they voted to stop the war or not.
I'll buy the one being made by Harmonix and not the junk Sony is foisting off on us.
http://www.harmonixmusic.com/
Rock Band is the real deal, folks. Harmonix, MTV, and EA games - it's going to be edgy, fun, and loud as hell. Just what we want.
http://www.rockband.com/ - online play, three parts, all the goodies - it's like they stuffed a Karaoke game, Guitar Hero, and a rhythm/bass game all into one. And they have a massive forum set up for people to give feedback and suggest songs.
DDR-Hero III is going to be a joke - old songs, poor execution - typical half-baked effort. Plus, I don't like how Sony gave Harmonix the shaft after making the hottest game of the year, no less.
Combined with the immigration bill, it would create a massive work-visa sub-class, because you can't get workers except by the program(as opposed to it being optional.
This is going to be a horrendous mess as entire sectors of our economy start to use offshore workers and just do business via cash/not bother with the rules at all.
Imagine the following scenario:
You need a new mechanic for your small muffler shop. Either you pay the government fees and tons of rules - and now MORE rules and checks and such... or you pay this guy $100 a day cash under the table. It's exactly like the internet radio fees - all mor rules and regulations do is turn honest people into dishonest ones.
This is the one major point that keeps being overlooked. The U.S. and Canada together can create a close to sustainable supply of fuel for their transportation needs without having to import any oil at all.
This is a huge benefit not only to the U.S., but to the rest of the world, which will no longer have the U.S. as interested in their affairs(read: oil).
You'll notice that despite the 31st place, he'd actually be just half a mph behind Al Unser. It's very possible that it could at least place in the top 4-5.
Intel's FUD aside, there are four main reasons why the OLPC has nothing to fear.
1: Power. Built-in generator is a sweet thing as other as pointed out. In fact, there are schools in Mexico and other 2nd world countries where electricity is either too expensive to pay for or not available.
OLPC - No cost to run.
2: No fan, no vents, sealed against elements like a typical cellphone. This is the main reason they went with a low powered chip - to make it weatherproof. Not to really save power. Intel's design is going to have problems in the U.S. - let alone someplace like Egypt or Brazil.
OLPC - more rugged. Less maintainence issues.
3: Open Source. OLPC is giving the nations in question a free ride. Full source, free upgrades, and so on - in short, a package that can be maintained for zero cost by their education departments. Forever. (this is the part where despite the FUD, that Intel hits a big brick wall - cost to maintain) These countries aren't idiots. They just don't have the money, so whatever costs less down the road and can be maintained for a decade without major upgrades (or more!) is going to win. OLPC was carefully made to fit exactly this requirement. Intel's Windows box is a disaster waiting to happen and they know it. Plus, the Intel box runs slower! Faster CPU but the OS bloat is apalling while the OLPC is efficient. Clear win for Negroponte.
OLPC - no cost to maintain the software.
4: FUD doesn't work with these countries. They have a built-in loathing, verging on abject hatred for being exploited by foreign interests and corporations as it is. Intel doesn't get this at all. The guy offering to be their friend for real will get ten times the traction. He has little to worry about. This is why foreign leaders listen to President Carter. Because he's a decent person who isn't going to stab them in the back for profit (and he's a nice guy, too). Megroponte has nothing to fear - he's a saint in their minds already compared to Intel or Microsoft.
OLPC - true philanthropy at work.
He really doesn't have much to fear. But, yes, I wold also be a bit ticked off at their FUD.
I have no problem writing documents in a simple text editor. And you don't even need to wed yourself to Microsoft, either, to have decent security. Want the text gone? Yep - gone.
And you technically don't even need Windows as an OS.
The old adage comes to mind: "The more complex things are, the easier they are to break." Perhaps our Government and Military should invest in some older, more secure technology?
I haven't rad every response, but one reason I can see them wanting this is to be able to issue tickets/fines on the spot.
"You were speeding... That'll be $80. Have a nice day..."
I can see many police departments salivating over this.
This means that Vista is a dead-end OS with a 2-3 year shelf-life at best. Somehow this shouldn't be any surprise to people.
The simple fact is that it's not stealing. Nothing was lost or denied to someone or taken from anyone physically.
What copying a program or music file or movie does is... absolutely nothing, because the person in question certainly wouldn't have paid anyways for the item in question.
It's not stealing, it's actually just a failure to properly pay for the item. This is more similar to say, not paying your dues or membership at CostCo or SamsClub. Two entirely different things.
Of course, if the industries in question spammed the airwaves and net with "failure to properly pay for services rendered" it would hardly get anyone's attention like "stealing" does.
I think that this is legitimate.
.org by mistake - sounds perfectly reasonable. The person would have probably emailed them back - "did you send that email?" and they send it to the correct address (hit reply and repaste it in instead of manually typing it in). And chalk it up as a bad delivery or something. (500 out of tens of thousands over 3-4 years is actually what you would expect)
I have a friend who for instance, owns bite.org and he gets an amazing amount of stuff in his inbox(runs a whitelist of course, but the crud is sometimes amusing to look at, at least according to him)
So they sent stuff to
All it would take is your ISP or spam filter to be set to ignore messages about mail delivery errors.
Yet again we see a "review" like this. And once again, the litmus test appears to be how closely it emulates Windows.
there are dozens, no hundreds of things you can do with a typical Linux/Unix/etc OS(flavor aside) that you can't do with Windows. I'd really like to see a review of the strengths and weaknesses of Windows and Linux (and Mac to be fair) that isn't about emulating Windows way of seeing the world but instead deals with the core aspects of computing.
IE:
Which one handles crashes best?
Which one copies files fastest?
Which one multi-tasks the best?
Which one is most secure from hackers and bots?
(and of course, a slew of GUI comparisons as well)
And not just "this is better" but give us raw data and charts and so on.
That sort of comparison would make sense. Having someone do this sort of Windows vs Linux nonsense AGAIN is nearly useless.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030406062521/http://w ww.linuxworld.com/2003/0401.tsu.html
The link provided here resulted in a "not found" error, so I went to archive.org and found the original comparison.
It's old, but gives some insight into how things have (or have not) progressed in the last few years.
The real trick here is to find a small company or a group of developers. The #1 mistake most people make starting out is they think like 50 year olds and go for a big company with way too many people. This results in less risk and a nicer resume', but it also leads to just being another cog in the works and a total lack of real opportunities.
The simple fact is that quality control and customer support gets worse as the company is bigger. That is, unless you go in as one of the original 10-20 employees at the very beginning.
As for how to make it in software, it's not impossible to make a good game by yourself or with a couple of people.
Kingdom of Loathing and many other online games are perfect examples of this. And honestly, if I was running a company, I'd be hiring these people who made their own smaller games first.
As for commercial games, Defcon is a perfect example of what a small group can do on a shoestring budget. I can guarantee that every one of the people involved in it already has multiple offers for real work if they want it.
It all gets back to the basic rule of science, and by extension, computing: There is no free lunch. You want to make games, you have to MAKE games and do the coding. QC/QA is most often a dead-end career path unless they pay for your masters degree or something similar while doing it.
If Microsoft has been talking to the lawyers at the RIAA. I see the same inane and ultimately useless scare tactics being employed. Except the *IX community is more than willing to fight back.
Going to be interesting to see how this one pans out. I'm betting Microsoft gets nobody playing their game and sulks away rather than actually divulge the patents in question.(The comment about it being a one-shot deal is quite correct - they use it, they lose it.)