Final Fantasy defines the Console RPG, which is to real RPGs what tofu is to beef: a poor substitute that people will continue to try and insist somehow fills the niche.
That's just what I was wanting to say. As PC RPGs go, I would submit Ultima IV as the genre-defining game of my own experiences. It was just one of the most enthralling gaming experiences I can remember. I played that game forever.
Yep, the people who make MMORPGs for a living have no idea about online economies.. but you, random dude on Slashdot, has all the answers. Why do we even bother studying anything? All the answers are on Slashdot!
He didn't offer an answer really. Merely some thoughts about the current systems and a few ideas for improvement. As for the professional MMORPG makers, name one that has done a better-than-mediocre job of creating an in-game economy. All of the games out there have very flawed systems, which is why we see so much of this stuff going on.
They did make some great comics. But this isn't really about the quality of their stories. This is about the characters, and in a way, not even that, but just about the look and feel of the characters. How many of Marvel's characters were ripped off of other existing characters? A lot. Now they made up new stories and such for them in most cases, but it's obvious where the ideas came from. There's a couple articles I've seen that even go through and list a lot of the comparisons between Marvel characters and the characters they were based on. Now they're suing NCSoft for even less than that. Just for the fact that players of the game can create characters that look like Marvel characters and have similar powers. How wrong is that? I stand by my post.
Absolutely ridiculous. What should WIPO care what people do with their rights? If I want to give my work away with only minor conditions attached, why shouldn't I be able to? They obviously have an agenda other than simply protecting IP owners' rights.
I still don't see why copyright has to last for the duration of an artist's life. So what if it exprires after 20 years? He's going to create more than one work isn't he? An inventor gets 20 years on a patent, why should copyright be so much different? If anything, it should probably be shorter.
Marvel's hypocrisy never ceases to astound me. If they had actually created all their characters rather than simply copying the ideas of others (who had often copied them from others still), then maybe they'd have a case. As it stands, Marvel wouldn't exist if they hadn't done things a whole lot "worse" than what they're suing NCSoft for.
Refresh my memory. Is it the red pills or the blue pills that allow one to see the matrix for what it really is? If it's the red pills, do you happen to know where I can get a shit load of the blue ones?
Yeah, I think I just got an email offer for those...
Then wouldn't the "smart gun" help because if they can't use the gun then they can't commit suicide?
Well, if it's your own gun, presumably you could use it to kill yourself. So could your spouse most likely since it would probably be keyed to them as well. So I'm thinking it wouldn't help much. Besides, you don't use a gun to kill yourself if you're just wanting attention. You use one if you're serious about it. And if you're that serious, then you'll find 100 ways to kill yourself just as dead with no problem.
That is all correct -- people usually shoot friends and family on purpose, and they do it something like 30X more often than shooting strangers on purpose
Umm, no. Again, you really should inform yourself before you go forming opinions which you are unwilling to change. The 30x number is inflated mainly by suicides, not homicides.
Boston, across the street from a housing project. There are guns around and so far I've only heard of them being used offensively.
That's usually the way it is. Defensive uses rarely make the news unless the person actually has to shoot someone.
Yes, but I'm fairly sure the statisics on air bags are somewhat more encouraging than for guns...
As il-informed as you are on the rest of your opinions here, you'll have to forgive me if I take your opinions with a grain of salt.
I hate this wacked rationale for gun ownership. Home invasions are extremely rare. Shooting your family members by mistake is far more common.
Actually, that's wrong. That old "fact" that you're 31 times more likely to shoot a friend or family member is complete garbage. It included intentional homicide and suicide (which drastically increased the numbers). Nor is it really even a meaningful comparison, since most of the time guns are used for self-defense, they aren't even fired. The threat alone works wonders.
Basically, the idea of a smart gun is ludicrous but then again so is the idea that 99.9% of the population actually need a gun. It's a hollywood fantasy people die for every day.
I wonder where you live. Is it someone else's responsibility to protect you there? Personally, I would rather have the gun available if needed than not have it if I ever did need it. It's kind of like the airbags in my car. Hopefully I'll never need them, but if I ever do, I'll be very glad I had them.
However, and I've been buglared once as well, I wouldn't even dream of owning a weapon for personal defense. The very concept is completely ludicrous. I pay taxes so that other people take care of this, which they do (the buglars were caught eventually).
So you think the police will somehow show up in the knick of time to save the woman who is being raped? Dream on. They show up later and try to figure out who did it. If she lived through it, then she should consider herself lucky. Nobody is responsible for protecting you. You would do well to remember that.
The obsession of US people with weaponry is both the result of a very early exposure to heavy propaganda and very sick.
Funny. I was never exposed to this propaganda. My dad never had guns. As far as I know, none of my family had any guns. They might have had them, but they didn't advertise the fact. I came to the conclusion that gun ownership should be a right only after doing a lot of reading on a lot of pro and anti-gun sites and a couple of books. Since nobody else will accept responsibility for protecting me, I believe I should have the right to have the most effective tool for that job.
My house has been burgled once, would the knowledge that I had a gun, have kept the burglars away, or would it have made them bear arms to be on the safe side?
The thing is, most gun owners don't ever have to use their guns for self-defense. However, there are also many gun owners who might not be around today if they hadn't had a gun. The bottom line, at least here in the US, is that nobody is responsible for protecting you and your family except you. Nobody else wants that responsibility. So, you are perfectly free to live how you want, but so am I, and I want to have the ability to defend myself and my family if the need should ever arise.
Which would seem to indicate that a 10% failure rate would be acceptable. If I see you've got a gun, I'm not going to think "there's a one in ten chance his batteries are flat. I'm gonna go for it!" I doubt that many people would.
Yes, maybe you'll get lucky, but it's not something that I'd want to bet my life on. I'll stick with weapons that actually work, rather than the roulette wheel that these "smart" guns seem to be.
I also hope the failure rate drops, but this sort of thing can only be good.
Let me know when the police are willing to use them. Then maybe they will be worth discussing.
You've never been shooting. That is actually a very common problem with guns. The most common problem with them in fact. But here we have someone who has never heard of a gun jamming saying that its not a problem. Isn't that a bit ignorant?
No, it's not a very common problem, unless you don't take care of your weapons. A decent gun that is cleaned properly and regularly will rarely if ever jam.
Lets see. Bad guy gets a normal working firearm on the black market. Confronts a NJ police officer who has forgotten to change the battery in his firearm (or computer blue screens or it smart gun equivalent). Police officer is shot & perp gets away.
Won't happen in this case since the NJ police apparently aren't stupid enough to use these guns. Unfortunately NJ will force them on everyone else even though the police don't trust them.
Rant all you like, but not everyone is so fortunate to never become a victim of violent crime. Do you know how many women are assaulted by ex-husbands or boyfriends? Do you live in an area where burglary is relatively common? Are you a woman living alone? Do you simply have a desire to have at least a fighting chance of living rather than becoming just another tragic news story that will be forgotten by most people in a week? There are many reasons to own a gun. There are millions of responsible and perfectly sane gun owners in the US. Most never have to use their guns for self-defense. They are grateful for that fact. Many have used them for self-defense, but never actually fired them for that purpose. Often the threat is enough to make an attacker give up. You obviously haven't done any actual research and are speaking from a purely emotional perspective, so I doubt there is much chance that I would be able to change your mind, so I won't try. Just wanted to offer a flip side to your rant.
The minimum age is sixteen (fourteen states.) No juvenile younger than seventeen at the time his crime was committed has been executed in the United States in over thirty years. Age Requirements for the Death Penalty and the Execution of Juveniles
Ok, 16 then. That's still under 18. How does that change my point?
I think you have answered your own question.
No, if you read the links you posted, all of the examples are of someone's image being used in advertisements or endorsements. This is neither.
Maybe if a site that doesn't run trackers gets sued they should ask the mpaa to please download copywrighted material from their website to prove they are infringing?
Go back and read again. Simply linking to a website that allows you to download copyrighted material illegally is enough to get you in trouble. It doesn't have to come directly from your own site.
What some people are doing in this thread right now is defending child porn, whether or not they think that's what it is. Legally, that is what it is.
I'm not debating the legality of underage nudity, but since you're throwing the term "child porn" around, I thought I would point out that the government apparently thinks there should be a gray area where the death penalty is concerned. You can receive the death penalty even if you're 15. But since that's just death, and nobody is seeing any boobies, I guess they figure it's ok.
Now, in this particular case, I don't see all that much actual information about what happened. Was she paid? Did she actually sign a release? Is simply showing a video clip of her in a game considered commercial use? That's something that I didn't find in your links. They didn't give any examples that were similar to this case. All of the commercial use examples they gave were endorsements of some sort. I don't her image in the game being used as an endorsement. Her image is just one of many being used as a minor reward in the game. Perhaps her image is being used in such a way on their website, but that would be a separate issue from the game I think. I don't think her case is as strong as you seem to think it is. Since this doesn't fit the invasion of privacy or defamation criteria, that only leaves the right of publicity. Now, again, based on your link, I still can't clearly see this as a violation of her rights. Her image in the game isn't being used to sell the product.
Slashdot Mirror
Final Fantasy defines the Console RPG, which is to real RPGs what tofu is to beef: a poor substitute that people will continue to try and insist somehow fills the niche.
That's just what I was wanting to say. As PC RPGs go, I would submit Ultima IV as the genre-defining game of my own experiences. It was just one of the most enthralling gaming experiences I can remember. I played that game forever.
Yep, the people who make MMORPGs for a living have no idea about online economies.. but you, random dude on Slashdot, has all the answers. Why do we even bother studying anything? All the answers are on Slashdot!
He didn't offer an answer really. Merely some thoughts about the current systems and a few ideas for improvement. As for the professional MMORPG makers, name one that has done a better-than-mediocre job of creating an in-game economy. All of the games out there have very flawed systems, which is why we see so much of this stuff going on.
They did make some great comics. But this isn't really about the quality of their stories. This is about the characters, and in a way, not even that, but just about the look and feel of the characters. How many of Marvel's characters were ripped off of other existing characters? A lot. Now they made up new stories and such for them in most cases, but it's obvious where the ideas came from. There's a couple articles I've seen that even go through and list a lot of the comparisons between Marvel characters and the characters they were based on. Now they're suing NCSoft for even less than that. Just for the fact that players of the game can create characters that look like Marvel characters and have similar powers. How wrong is that? I stand by my post.
Absolutely ridiculous. What should WIPO care what people do with their rights? If I want to give my work away with only minor conditions attached, why shouldn't I be able to? They obviously have an agenda other than simply protecting IP owners' rights.
I still don't see why copyright has to last for the duration of an artist's life. So what if it exprires after 20 years? He's going to create more than one work isn't he? An inventor gets 20 years on a patent, why should copyright be so much different? If anything, it should probably be shorter.
Marvel's hypocrisy never ceases to astound me. If they had actually created all their characters rather than simply copying the ideas of others (who had often copied them from others still), then maybe they'd have a case. As it stands, Marvel wouldn't exist if they hadn't done things a whole lot "worse" than what they're suing NCSoft for.
Good lord, I wish the fuggin slashdot POSTERS would RTFA sometimes....
No time to read the articles. Only time to come up with the most inflammable writeup and submit it before someone else does.
Refresh my memory. Is it the red pills or the blue pills that allow one to see the matrix for what it really is? If it's the red pills, do you happen to know where I can get a shit load of the blue ones?
Yeah, I think I just got an email offer for those...
Then wouldn't the "smart gun" help because if they can't use the gun then they can't commit suicide?
Well, if it's your own gun, presumably you could use it to kill yourself. So could your spouse most likely since it would probably be keyed to them as well. So I'm thinking it wouldn't help much. Besides, you don't use a gun to kill yourself if you're just wanting attention. You use one if you're serious about it. And if you're that serious, then you'll find 100 ways to kill yourself just as dead with no problem.
That is all correct -- people usually shoot friends and family on purpose, and they do it something like 30X more often than shooting strangers on purpose
Umm, no. Again, you really should inform yourself before you go forming opinions which you are unwilling to change. The 30x number is inflated mainly by suicides, not homicides.
Boston, across the street from a housing project. There are guns around and so far I've only heard of them being used offensively.
That's usually the way it is. Defensive uses rarely make the news unless the person actually has to shoot someone.
Yes, but I'm fairly sure the statisics on air bags are somewhat more encouraging than for guns...
As il-informed as you are on the rest of your opinions here, you'll have to forgive me if I take your opinions with a grain of salt.
Just out of curiosity, how many times has someone busted into your house? And did you shoot them?
It only takes once to make you glad you had it. And if it never happens, so much the better.
I hate this wacked rationale for gun ownership. Home invasions are extremely rare. Shooting your family members by mistake is far more common.
Actually, that's wrong. That old "fact" that you're 31 times more likely to shoot a friend or family member is complete garbage. It included intentional homicide and suicide (which drastically increased the numbers). Nor is it really even a meaningful comparison, since most of the time guns are used for self-defense, they aren't even fired. The threat alone works wonders.
Basically, the idea of a smart gun is ludicrous but then again so is the idea that 99.9% of the population actually need a gun. It's a hollywood fantasy people die for every day.
I wonder where you live. Is it someone else's responsibility to protect you there? Personally, I would rather have the gun available if needed than not have it if I ever did need it. It's kind of like the airbags in my car. Hopefully I'll never need them, but if I ever do, I'll be very glad I had them.
However, and I've been buglared once as well, I wouldn't even dream of owning a weapon for personal defense. The very concept is completely ludicrous. I pay taxes so that other people take care of this, which they do (the buglars were caught eventually).
So you think the police will somehow show up in the knick of time to save the woman who is being raped? Dream on. They show up later and try to figure out who did it. If she lived through it, then she should consider herself lucky. Nobody is responsible for protecting you. You would do well to remember that.
The obsession of US people with weaponry is both the result of a very early exposure to heavy propaganda and very sick.
Funny. I was never exposed to this propaganda. My dad never had guns. As far as I know, none of my family had any guns. They might have had them, but they didn't advertise the fact. I came to the conclusion that gun ownership should be a right only after doing a lot of reading on a lot of pro and anti-gun sites and a couple of books. Since nobody else will accept responsibility for protecting me, I believe I should have the right to have the most effective tool for that job.
My house has been burgled once, would the knowledge that I had a gun, have kept the burglars away, or would it have made them bear arms to be on the safe side?
The thing is, most gun owners don't ever have to use their guns for self-defense. However, there are also many gun owners who might not be around today if they hadn't had a gun. The bottom line, at least here in the US, is that nobody is responsible for protecting you and your family except you. Nobody else wants that responsibility. So, you are perfectly free to live how you want, but so am I, and I want to have the ability to defend myself and my family if the need should ever arise.
Bullshit. It is a simple fact that guns don't make those people safer. Paranoid people in particular should not have guns.
Come back when you have evidence to back up your "fact".
Which would seem to indicate that a 10% failure rate would be acceptable. If I see you've got a gun, I'm not going to think "there's a one in ten chance his batteries are flat. I'm gonna go for it!" I doubt that many people would.
Yes, maybe you'll get lucky, but it's not something that I'd want to bet my life on. I'll stick with weapons that actually work, rather than the roulette wheel that these "smart" guns seem to be.
I also hope the failure rate drops, but this sort of thing can only be good.
Let me know when the police are willing to use them. Then maybe they will be worth discussing.
You've never been shooting. That is actually a very common problem with guns. The most common problem with them in fact. But here we have someone who has never heard of a gun jamming saying that its not a problem. Isn't that a bit ignorant?
No, it's not a very common problem, unless you don't take care of your weapons. A decent gun that is cleaned properly and regularly will rarely if ever jam.
Lets see. Bad guy gets a normal working firearm on the black market. Confronts a NJ police officer who has forgotten to change the battery in his firearm (or computer blue screens or it smart gun equivalent). Police officer is shot & perp gets away.
Won't happen in this case since the NJ police apparently aren't stupid enough to use these guns. Unfortunately NJ will force them on everyone else even though the police don't trust them.
Rant all you like, but not everyone is so fortunate to never become a victim of violent crime. Do you know how many women are assaulted by ex-husbands or boyfriends? Do you live in an area where burglary is relatively common? Are you a woman living alone? Do you simply have a desire to have at least a fighting chance of living rather than becoming just another tragic news story that will be forgotten by most people in a week? There are many reasons to own a gun. There are millions of responsible and perfectly sane gun owners in the US. Most never have to use their guns for self-defense. They are grateful for that fact. Many have used them for self-defense, but never actually fired them for that purpose. Often the threat is enough to make an attacker give up. You obviously haven't done any actual research and are speaking from a purely emotional perspective, so I doubt there is much chance that I would be able to change your mind, so I won't try. Just wanted to offer a flip side to your rant.
Yeah.. but it wouldn't be very good as a sniper rifle.. hard to get them to hold still for 30 seconds or so while you burn a hole through them...
The minimum age is sixteen (fourteen states.) No juvenile younger than seventeen at the time his crime was committed has been executed in the United States in over thirty years. Age Requirements for the Death Penalty and the Execution of Juveniles
Ok, 16 then. That's still under 18. How does that change my point?
I think you have answered your own question.
No, if you read the links you posted, all of the examples are of someone's image being used in advertisements or endorsements. This is neither.
Maybe if a site that doesn't run trackers gets sued they should ask the mpaa to please download copywrighted material from their website to prove they are infringing?
Go back and read again. Simply linking to a website that allows you to download copyrighted material illegally is enough to get you in trouble. It doesn't have to come directly from your own site.
I want a Bionic Commando sequel!!
What some people are doing in this thread right now is defending child porn, whether or not they think that's what it is. Legally, that is what it is.
I'm not debating the legality of underage nudity, but since you're throwing the term "child porn" around, I thought I would point out that the government apparently thinks there should be a gray area where the death penalty is concerned. You can receive the death penalty even if you're 15. But since that's just death, and nobody is seeing any boobies, I guess they figure it's ok.
Now, in this particular case, I don't see all that much actual information about what happened. Was she paid? Did she actually sign a release? Is simply showing a video clip of her in a game considered commercial use? That's something that I didn't find in your links. They didn't give any examples that were similar to this case. All of the commercial use examples they gave were endorsements of some sort. I don't her image in the game being used as an endorsement. Her image is just one of many being used as a minor reward in the game. Perhaps her image is being used in such a way on their website, but that would be a separate issue from the game I think. I don't think her case is as strong as you seem to think it is. Since this doesn't fit the invasion of privacy or defamation criteria, that only leaves the right of publicity. Now, again, based on your link, I still can't clearly see this as a violation of her rights. Her image in the game isn't being used to sell the product.
Seems their Asteroid.net software is a bit buggy.
Yep, but just you wait until after Service Pack 4. Then there'll be hell to pay.