and every transfer has been a nightmare that usually involves paying for another year of service before a transfer is approved.
GoDaddy does that, but they treat it like an early renewal; that is, they take the existing expiration date, and add a year to it. So technically you're paying when you do the transfer, but you're also adding a year to the expiration date, so really you're just paying ahead of time.
Could that have been the case?
Or... did you mean Network Solutions charged you to let you transfer the domain away from them? Because that would be utterly absurd.
Maybe they think that's the case, sure. But how am I, the buyer, supposed to know whether it's worth buying?
If there's no way to try it without buying it first, then on what basis should I risk my $50? On their past games? That's the problem - they're straying from what I believe made the original so great, so I can't base my purchase on that.
Would you suggest I simply take their word for it? Why should I do that, when they're treating me like a pirate for wanting LAN support? On what basis should I trust their word?
I can't borrow it from someone; from all appearances, the game will be tied to your battle.net account, so to borrow the game (even in single player!) I'd have to have access to the lender's battle.net account.
Screenshots and video previews are terrible measures of the worth of a game.
All I have left is what people say about the game. But that's not reliable either; I find a lot of popular games to be mediocre at best.
The only way to really know whether a game is worth buying is to try it. That's what demos are for. Has Blizzard indicated they'll be releasing a demo?
Two problems with that. I will not obey a law that is not right.
Doesn't matter - if you know it's illegal, and you choose to do it anyway, you must accept the consequences if you get caught.
If you knowingly choose to break the law, you're also choosing to accept the consequences if you get caught. The "rightness" or "wrongness" is irrelevant, even if you intend to fight the law in court.
A far better option is to obey the law, but try to get it changed (especially in cases where the law is restricting a completely unnecessary "recreational" activity). You may not have realized this, but alcohol is not necessary to have a good time.
Now, as you pointed out, this is tangential to the issue; however, in your last post you didn't mention that you hadn't been drinking, only that you were charged with it. Since you didn't mention not drinking, I was left assuming you had been, because, well, that's what you were charged with.
I was collecting car keys and I didn't drink a single drop of alcohol.
That is pretty messed up, I'll agree. Perhaps a lawyer (or a better one) would have been of use?
I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure, but it may be possible to get that mark on your record removed if you've got a good lawyer, especially if the charge truly was unjust. May be worth a quick consultation visit with a lawyer, to find out.
I feel I should point out that you knew it was illegal to drink under-age, and you decided to do it anyway... so regardless of whether the law is right, you still chose to break it, and therefore you aren't really in a position to complain about having to deal with the consequences when you got caught.
The appropriate way to deal with laws you think are stupid is to get them changed. Not by breaking them and then complaining about the consequences on Slashdot, but by getting your community and political representatives involved and getting the law changed.
If you don't see the connection, you're not trying very hard:P
My parent post made this statement:
What the school allegedly did with the webcam should not absolve the kid of his crimes.
The obvious conclusion is that my parent poster also thinks that if police, through misconduct, obtain proof of a crime, then their misconduct is ignored for the purposes of prosecuting that crime.
In the real world, it doesn't work that way; we toss that evidence, and if it was the only evidence, then there was no crime from a legal perspective.
In the case of the school district, we have the same situation: the school obtained, through misconduct, a photo they claim was evidence of something bad.
Because the photo was obtained through misconduct, they should not be allowed to act on it, period. This is almost a perfect parallel to police misconduct getting evidence thrown out.
In other words, I was using legal precedent to both disagree with my parent poster and show why I disagree. I never implied the police were involved in the case (though the FBI has taken an interest).
Try thinking harder next time before you say something is completely irrelevant.
Apartment complexes that won't rent to you unless you're over 55.
Complexes that do this are generally getting government subsidies to rent to the older, less wealthy segment of the population. You'll find that the same complexes with a minimum age also have a maximum income (generally speaking).
You'll also find that there are low-income (government-subsidized) apartment complexes for younger adults, and there's maximum income restrictions on those too.
Why are they separated, you're about to ask? Older adults tend to have more needs in terms of accessibility, so it makes sense to find some dividing line related to that to deal with which complexes to subsidize at what rates.
What the school allegedly did with the webcam should not absolve the kid of his crimes.
There's plenty of legal precedent for throwing out cases when the evidence was obtained by police misconduct, regardless of the actual guilt or innocence of the accused.
I had to get my own insurance during college (the school required it), and I couldn't get it through my employer because I was a part-time employee. Of course, the insurance company rejected pretty much all of the things I filed as "pre-existing conditions", and as a result I spent thousands more than I would have had I been able to go without insurance; I'd be more pissed, but they covered my wife's pregnancy quite well, so I'm not as angry as I could be.
As an aside, I found this out the hard way: If you don't have insurance, many hospitals will give you a 25% or larger discount merely because you're uninsured. However, if your insurance company rejects a charge citing a "pre-existing condition", the hospital will refuse to give you the "uninsured" discount, even though you're effectively uninsured for the charges in question.
(I know it's a little more complicated than that; even if the insurance company won't cover the charges, they're still putting caps on how much the hospital can charge for things, so you might still be benefitting to a degree, but it's still annoying.)
He could have sold his plane. If he owns a plane but can't afford to pay taxes, he has undeniably over-extended his income, and it's not like it's some inherent human right to own a plane.
Here are two quotes in particular showing Blizzard's attitude toward people who want LAN play.
"Leech to society" is one of them.
If that is the case, all I am asking for is an example of someone who would actually, seriously need LAN. (And I don't mean the one guy on the planet who happens to not have internet)
Uh... so you want an example, but you refuse to accept one of the most important ones? Just because everyone you know has internet access doesn't mean the people who don't are irrelevant. Same trap as before.
At any rate, it's not just about someone not having internet at all; it's about people who have metered internet, or people having intermittent internet. For that matter, it's about why should my LAN games depend on my ISP not flaking out at random. Or why should my LAN games depend on Battle.net staying online.
If I want to play Starcraft 2 with my wife, as it is right now, well, if Comcast's service is down, we don't get to play. If Battle.net is down for maintenance, we don't get to play. Not because of some inherent architectural limitation in the game, but because Blizzard wants to know about every second I'm playing the game with someone else.
It seriously would not be hard to cache stats and stuff for our local LAN games until an internet connection is available again. One would assume that's what Starcraft 2's single-player does with achievements and stats if there's no internet connection for a time.
So rather than my gaming time being chosen by when I have free time, it's also dictated by my ISP cooperating, and Battle.net's servers cooperating, and everything in between cooperating, even if all I want is a LAN game with a person sitting six feet from me.
And then there's the whole longevity angle. Who's to say Blizzard will still be around in a decade? Starcraft has lasted 13 years and is still a favorite, so it's reasonable to expect Starcraft 2 to last about as long. Why should my Starcraft 2 gaming sessions in 2018 depend on Blizzard staying in business?
All of that risk, when a minor effort on Blizzard's part - a very minor effort - would make the risk go away? No thank you.
However, as it is, all I can see is that they removed LAN, an unnecessary, obsolete, redundant feature and now everybody is making an awful lot of noise as if it's the end of the world.
I see you've fallen into the classic trap of thinking that "I don't need it anymore" is equivalent to "nobody needs it anymore".
It's not really worth trying to argue against people who think that way, so I guess I'll stop trying.
If you don't like the AC2 DRM, why not complain about AC2 first?
I've known about Starcraft 2 longer than I've known about Assassin's Creed 2.
Furthermore, I did complain about Assassin's Creed 2. I realize AC2's DRM is stronger than SC2's, which is why I said "it could be worse".
Blizzard's stated purpose in removing LAN play was to combat piracy. Of course removing it won't help reduce piracy at all, but why should that matter? *eye roll*
Unless I misunderstand, you can already play with people who bought all 3 campaigns even if you have bought only one.
Unless they patch the earlier games to include units added in later games - and they have said they're going to add units in later games - then no, that won't be possible.
Historically, no Blizzard game has been compatible in multiplayer with their expansion packs, so that would be rather unprecedented.
I understand your concern over principles and what not, but it's not like Blizzard took out single-player completely or something radical like that.
That is entirely possible, you're correct, but it would be quite ineffective against people who only occasionally cheat, and honestly, those are the people you want VAC to catch; the perpetual cheaters are just banned by server admins.
VACs answer to banning people is purely based on stats, there is no checking of memory resident cheats at all.
I don't know whether VAC checks for memory-resident cheats, but I'm quite certain it doesn't base anything on stats, at least not in Counter-strike: Source. I know guys that regularly have k:d ratios of 30:0 or better.
Basing any sort of anti-cheat on stats would be a terrible idea. For example, basing bans on stats alone could get you banned merely for playing on a server with bots that don't shoot back (for training).
Or for a more realistic example: my k:d ratio is usually a crappy 3:4 or so, but every once in a while I'll randomly go a round or two at 20:1, and when that happens I usually quit while I'm ahead. Should VAC conclude that this abnormal spike in my score is the result of some hack?
No, I think it's quite clear that VAC does not operate based on stats.
Ender's Shadow was conceived long after Ender's Game had been published. Starcraft 2 has always been said to include three campaigns, until they decided to split it into three games.
If Blizzard published Starcraft 2's Terran Campaign, then a few years later realized, "Oh wait, we can release other campaigns too", then you'd have something comparable to what OSC did with Ender's Shadow.
The class action suit describes the agreement under which the laptops were provided; no mention is made of remote monitoring. I suggest you read the original filing.
Sure... after all, I bought a lifetime subscription to Star Trek Online, so I've always got something to do, and I have a metric crapton of other games I can play with them when we get together.
Starcraft 2 will probably turn out be a great game, but it will not be the only game worth playing.
It's different because Brood War was never originally marketed as part of the core game.
Starcraft 2 was originally supposed to be one game with three campaigns. They split it when they realized they could make more money that way. There's no logistical reason it can't all be one game.
Slashdot Mirror
If France and Italy haven't actually stated that they fear U.S. retaliation, then that's just speculation.
and every transfer has been a nightmare that usually involves paying for another year of service before a transfer is approved.
GoDaddy does that, but they treat it like an early renewal; that is, they take the existing expiration date, and add a year to it. So technically you're paying when you do the transfer, but you're also adding a year to the expiration date, so really you're just paying ahead of time.
Could that have been the case?
Or... did you mean Network Solutions charged you to let you transfer the domain away from them? Because that would be utterly absurd.
or other variations thereof
FTFY.
Maybe they think that's the case, sure. But how am I, the buyer, supposed to know whether it's worth buying?
If there's no way to try it without buying it first, then on what basis should I risk my $50? On their past games? That's the problem - they're straying from what I believe made the original so great, so I can't base my purchase on that.
Would you suggest I simply take their word for it? Why should I do that, when they're treating me like a pirate for wanting LAN support? On what basis should I trust their word?
I can't borrow it from someone; from all appearances, the game will be tied to your battle.net account, so to borrow the game (even in single player!) I'd have to have access to the lender's battle.net account.
Screenshots and video previews are terrible measures of the worth of a game.
All I have left is what people say about the game. But that's not reliable either; I find a lot of popular games to be mediocre at best.
The only way to really know whether a game is worth buying is to try it. That's what demos are for. Has Blizzard indicated they'll be releasing a demo?
Two problems with that. I will not obey a law that is not right.
Doesn't matter - if you know it's illegal, and you choose to do it anyway, you must accept the consequences if you get caught.
If you knowingly choose to break the law, you're also choosing to accept the consequences if you get caught. The "rightness" or "wrongness" is irrelevant, even if you intend to fight the law in court.
A far better option is to obey the law, but try to get it changed (especially in cases where the law is restricting a completely unnecessary "recreational" activity). You may not have realized this, but alcohol is not necessary to have a good time.
Now, as you pointed out, this is tangential to the issue; however, in your last post you didn't mention that you hadn't been drinking, only that you were charged with it. Since you didn't mention not drinking, I was left assuming you had been, because, well, that's what you were charged with.
I was collecting car keys and I didn't drink a single drop of alcohol.
That is pretty messed up, I'll agree. Perhaps a lawyer (or a better one) would have been of use?
I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure, but it may be possible to get that mark on your record removed if you've got a good lawyer, especially if the charge truly was unjust. May be worth a quick consultation visit with a lawyer, to find out.
I feel I should point out that you knew it was illegal to drink under-age, and you decided to do it anyway... so regardless of whether the law is right, you still chose to break it, and therefore you aren't really in a position to complain about having to deal with the consequences when you got caught.
The appropriate way to deal with laws you think are stupid is to get them changed. Not by breaking them and then complaining about the consequences on Slashdot, but by getting your community and political representatives involved and getting the law changed.
If you don't see the connection, you're not trying very hard :P
My parent post made this statement:
What the school allegedly did with the webcam should not absolve the kid of his crimes.
The obvious conclusion is that my parent poster also thinks that if police, through misconduct, obtain proof of a crime, then their misconduct is ignored for the purposes of prosecuting that crime.
In the real world, it doesn't work that way; we toss that evidence, and if it was the only evidence, then there was no crime from a legal perspective.
In the case of the school district, we have the same situation: the school obtained, through misconduct, a photo they claim was evidence of something bad.
Because the photo was obtained through misconduct, they should not be allowed to act on it, period. This is almost a perfect parallel to police misconduct getting evidence thrown out.
In other words, I was using legal precedent to both disagree with my parent poster and show why I disagree. I never implied the police were involved in the case (though the FBI has taken an interest).
Try thinking harder next time before you say something is completely irrelevant.
Apartment complexes that won't rent to you unless you're over 55.
Complexes that do this are generally getting government subsidies to rent to the older, less wealthy segment of the population. You'll find that the same complexes with a minimum age also have a maximum income (generally speaking).
You'll also find that there are low-income (government-subsidized) apartment complexes for younger adults, and there's maximum income restrictions on those too.
Why are they separated, you're about to ask? Older adults tend to have more needs in terms of accessibility, so it makes sense to find some dividing line related to that to deal with which complexes to subsidize at what rates.
How the hell do you do a good job of managing the event that a school vice-principle got access to pictures taken covertly in a minors bedroom?
Immediately fire everyone involved, and assure the public that the software is being uninstalled as soon as possible.
That's probably the only good way they could have handled it. Why they have chosen to pretend they've done nothing wrong is beyond me.
What the school allegedly did with the webcam should not absolve the kid of his crimes.
There's plenty of legal precedent for throwing out cases when the evidence was obtained by police misconduct, regardless of the actual guilt or innocence of the accused.
I had to get my own insurance during college (the school required it), and I couldn't get it through my employer because I was a part-time employee. Of course, the insurance company rejected pretty much all of the things I filed as "pre-existing conditions", and as a result I spent thousands more than I would have had I been able to go without insurance; I'd be more pissed, but they covered my wife's pregnancy quite well, so I'm not as angry as I could be.
As an aside, I found this out the hard way: If you don't have insurance, many hospitals will give you a 25% or larger discount merely because you're uninsured. However, if your insurance company rejects a charge citing a "pre-existing condition", the hospital will refuse to give you the "uninsured" discount, even though you're effectively uninsured for the charges in question.
(I know it's a little more complicated than that; even if the insurance company won't cover the charges, they're still putting caps on how much the hospital can charge for things, so you might still be benefitting to a degree, but it's still annoying.)
He could have sold his plane. If he owns a plane but can't afford to pay taxes, he has undeniably over-extended his income, and it's not like it's some inherent human right to own a plane.
Most of the things in the list your parent post gave are processes, as well, not attributes.
"Life" is merely a term we use to describe that collection of processes.
Here are two quotes in particular showing Blizzard's attitude toward people who want LAN play.
"Leech to society" is one of them.
If that is the case, all I am asking for is an example of someone who would actually, seriously need LAN. (And I don't mean the one guy on the planet who happens to not have internet)
Uh... so you want an example, but you refuse to accept one of the most important ones? Just because everyone you know has internet access doesn't mean the people who don't are irrelevant. Same trap as before.
At any rate, it's not just about someone not having internet at all; it's about people who have metered internet, or people having intermittent internet. For that matter, it's about why should my LAN games depend on my ISP not flaking out at random. Or why should my LAN games depend on Battle.net staying online.
If I want to play Starcraft 2 with my wife, as it is right now, well, if Comcast's service is down, we don't get to play. If Battle.net is down for maintenance, we don't get to play. Not because of some inherent architectural limitation in the game, but because Blizzard wants to know about every second I'm playing the game with someone else.
It seriously would not be hard to cache stats and stuff for our local LAN games until an internet connection is available again. One would assume that's what Starcraft 2's single-player does with achievements and stats if there's no internet connection for a time.
So rather than my gaming time being chosen by when I have free time, it's also dictated by my ISP cooperating, and Battle.net's servers cooperating, and everything in between cooperating, even if all I want is a LAN game with a person sitting six feet from me.
And then there's the whole longevity angle. Who's to say Blizzard will still be around in a decade? Starcraft has lasted 13 years and is still a favorite, so it's reasonable to expect Starcraft 2 to last about as long. Why should my Starcraft 2 gaming sessions in 2018 depend on Blizzard staying in business?
All of that risk, when a minor effort on Blizzard's part - a very minor effort - would make the risk go away? No thank you.
However, as it is, all I can see is that they removed LAN, an unnecessary, obsolete, redundant feature and now everybody is making an awful lot of noise as if it's the end of the world.
I see you've fallen into the classic trap of thinking that "I don't need it anymore" is equivalent to "nobody needs it anymore".
It's not really worth trying to argue against people who think that way, so I guess I'll stop trying.
If you don't like the AC2 DRM, why not complain about AC2 first?
I've known about Starcraft 2 longer than I've known about Assassin's Creed 2.
Furthermore, I did complain about Assassin's Creed 2. I realize AC2's DRM is stronger than SC2's, which is why I said "it could be worse".
Blizzard's stated purpose in removing LAN play was to combat piracy. Of course removing it won't help reduce piracy at all, but why should that matter? *eye roll*
Unless I misunderstand, you can already play with people who bought all 3 campaigns even if you have bought only one.
Unless they patch the earlier games to include units added in later games - and they have said they're going to add units in later games - then no, that won't be possible.
Historically, no Blizzard game has been compatible in multiplayer with their expansion packs, so that would be rather unprecedented.
I understand your concern over principles and what not, but it's not like Blizzard took out single-player completely or something radical like that.
Yeah, it could be worse.
That is entirely possible, you're correct, but it would be quite ineffective against people who only occasionally cheat, and honestly, those are the people you want VAC to catch; the perpetual cheaters are just banned by server admins.
Unless you're playing MW2, I guess.
VACs answer to banning people is purely based on stats, there is no checking of memory resident cheats at all.
I don't know whether VAC checks for memory-resident cheats, but I'm quite certain it doesn't base anything on stats, at least not in Counter-strike: Source. I know guys that regularly have k:d ratios of 30:0 or better.
Basing any sort of anti-cheat on stats would be a terrible idea. For example, basing bans on stats alone could get you banned merely for playing on a server with bots that don't shoot back (for training).
Or for a more realistic example: my k:d ratio is usually a crappy 3:4 or so, but every once in a while I'll randomly go a round or two at 20:1, and when that happens I usually quit while I'm ahead. Should VAC conclude that this abnormal spike in my score is the result of some hack?
No, I think it's quite clear that VAC does not operate based on stats.
I've seen so-called "expansions" priced the same as the game they're "expanding"... just saying.
Ender's Shadow was conceived long after Ender's Game had been published. Starcraft 2 has always been said to include three campaigns, until they decided to split it into three games.
If Blizzard published Starcraft 2's Terran Campaign, then a few years later realized, "Oh wait, we can release other campaigns too", then you'd have something comparable to what OSC did with Ender's Shadow.
The class action suit describes the agreement under which the laptops were provided; no mention is made of remote monitoring. I suggest you read the original filing.
I dunno... I'd be willing to wager that the majority of these laws were made as a direct result of an actual incident.
Link please. No seriously, I want to know where they've said this cause I've never heard it.
I posted two quotes here.
Sure... after all, I bought a lifetime subscription to Star Trek Online, so I've always got something to do, and I have a metric crapton of other games I can play with them when we get together.
Starcraft 2 will probably turn out be a great game, but it will not be the only game worth playing.
It's different because Brood War was never originally marketed as part of the core game.
Starcraft 2 was originally supposed to be one game with three campaigns. They split it when they realized they could make more money that way. There's no logistical reason it can't all be one game.
While I understand the attitude, I don't like it.