Then why not simply say "That's a question that cannot be reasonably answered due to [reasons A, B, C, D etc]." like my ISP would, instead of saying "We cannot tell you because we value your privacy."? Besides, it's a moot point; the fact remains they're collecting data on us, but they won't (or can't) tell us what it is. The end result is the same in either case; an agency is collecting data on us with no accountability.
As for TFA's quote: the contradiction seems super-obvious to us, but for a high level official to make that statement without seeing the same contradiction we do is pretty scary. What it means is this particular NSA leader has never even considered where his agency would fit in a privacy/no privacy Venn diagram. It has never occurred to him that their data collection could be a violation of privacy in the first place; they're orders of magnitude above such simple concerns.
To the NSA, data is like fruit on a vine they already own. They can pick this fruit whenever they choose, but that fruit is theirs whether they pick it or not.
I agree with you to a point; the NSA probably does not believe this is malicious, but if the NSA thinks the way they appear to, this is still wrong and completely out of touch with the privacy concerns we really have.
I think you're both right, in a way. After the first round of brave iPod purchasers found that the device was pretty well built and simple enough to redefine what an mp3 player could be, everybody wanted "that new music thing from that Mac company". That one-two punch opened the door for Apple to come back from near-death; and they also used advertising masterfully.
I also think that there are people out there who now avoid Apple because "Apple!". I, personally, am one of them. I dislike their computers (strictly an opinion, I know the benefits and drawbacks of Apple gear, and just prefer PC) so that's a given.
Here's my problem with Apple's commodity stuff though: I loved my iPod, my other iPod, that other other iPod with the flash memory I bought after iPod #2's battery shit the bed and iPod #1 got knocked onto a pillow, resulting in a head crash. I also loved my girlfriend's iPod nano, shuffle, her new thin rectangle nano, and her new square shuffle with the pretty square screen and pink earbuds and that armband thing she refused to model naked for me (fetish!!). I loved my iPhone 3, the gf's 3gs, my 4, and the gf's 4s. I did NOT love all the sweet rubber cases and dozens of charging cables hiding around the house, or all the iTunes I had with my music spread all over the place, but it seemed worth the hassle at the time, because Apple!!. If you're asking "WTF, man?" all I can say is so the hell was I.
They make a great, solid, and reliable product, but their release schedule seems specifically manipulated to require (or at least strongly pressure) a new purchase every year. 3g? 4g? Bigger disk, faster processor, non-splodey battery, smaller form factor, gorilla glass, Siri? Geez... how about an update to my existing product, or at least preventing me from seeing new ads for a full 2 (two) months after purchasing your gear?
I broke out of the "buy non up-grade-able but super spendy/trendy Apple gear" cycle right about the time the iPad came out; I refused to fall for it again. They tried to teach me how I need this thing to survive, too, but I said "Waitaminit.... I already know how to read books, both out of, like, books, and on my phone...." and the brainwashing lifted like a fog. Yeah, the iPad can do a lot, but my hook for a tablet would have been books. Then, much like crack, I'd find a way to "need" it for so many reasons that I'm hooked into a yearly iPad purchase. Fuck that (fool me thrice, and shit).
Apple has done a lot of things well, but they achieved an utter psychological and sociological coup in turning a $500 purchase into a reasonable impulse buy. I was fortunate enough to realize what I was doing, because all signs point to this continuing. As for Microsoft's tablet, I welcome all competition, and may make a purchase if it does well enough (I like the little rubber keyboard, but my Apple lesson taught me I already *have* a laptop). I'm dubious, as usual, of MS hardware, but even Microsoft has a shot at keeping the tablet market from stagnating. The Fire, Nook, Thinkpad, Ideapad, etc have all been on the market, but right now all I see in the future is iPad Yeah, You'll Buy This One Too (TM).
You're absolutely correct, of course. I think #1 and #2 are the things most people are pissed off about, and I'm one of em! But it's been YEARS since games come with LAN play standard, and with the slow death of client-side single player, I think we're heading for an always on, always authenticating way to use software.
At some point I think we'll just have to implant wireless credit cards in our brains at birth to keep up with all the ways we're getting jacked. Activ-izzard Wave (tm) Tele-representative: "Sorry to bother you while you're in the can, but I noticed you just thought about Jim Raynor in pink hotpants.... We'll just take that payment.... ah, there we go, and thanks for keeping us in mind!"
You cannot fool me, monsieur. That word is a french hat. I wore one last Halloween, when I was a Fray'-nsh Doosh'-baug. It was a pretty successful endeavor, other than when we went to the hipster party, where I was frowned upon for not wearing a costume.
Oh, I agree completely. There are many elements of A is A philosophy that are spot on. Persistence IS how you succeed in the life-show, most definitely.
The disingenuous part of Atlas Shrugged, though, is how the protagonists' typical setbacks (or rather, plot vehicles to illustrate their persistence) were caused by the no-talent leechers. Dagny spent a TON of time wrestling with her brother's stupid decisions, holding back the tide through talent, persistence, and hard work. The real world is simply not always like that. Often, you get other talented or otherwise gifted people that will toss you under the bus to get ahead. We've all seen very talented, very smart people make very, very sneaky decisions that led to the complete downfall of the other talent that supported them; not from incompetence, but from coldly calculated greed. Talent, hard work, and persistence can put you in a place where power corrupts you, and then with the stroke of a pen you can trade other people's financial lives for your own golden parachute. Stuff like that makes Francisco's intentional self-destruction look like a game of CandyLand. Persistence in the face of crap like that is easily the most difficult character trait to sustain.
Incidentally: The best example of tossing a monkey wrench into all of Rand's philosophy? Having kids. "Rational selfishness" gets tossed right out the window for children. The best you can do is try to take care of yourself first so you're in a better position to take care of them, too, but when you have to make in-the-moment decisions, they'll come up in their favor over yours every single time. There are times when it really is a good thing for your hard work to benefit others more than yourself, or even at your detriment.
I really hope you mean my "taking ass and kicking bank" phrase instead of that I got my statistical terms backwards. The former was intentional; the latter would just be embarrassing. I'll also assume there's a swear behind your beep, because I'm feeling pretty down today. I'm very glad you agree that Pie a la Mode is tasty though!
850 pages of railroad references, 100 pages of John galt repeating the same idea over the radio using all the biggest words Rand could come up with, and 50 pages of Dagny getting banged by Hank, Francisco, or good old Johnny. The movie version would be 10 minutes of moderate porn, but you'd have to get through 90 minutes of the cable guy stompin around the living room first.
I was an A is A objectivist for a while; I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged the first time around. When I started seeing some personal success, I saw that hard work does not always equal success; many of the brightest and talented hard workers I knew got fucked, not rewarded, and it's often a crapshoot or who you know more than talent and hard work. You get up and try again if you're good at it and enjoy what you do, so that part is true, but talent doesn't rise simply because it's talented. Objectivism is an ideal, just like sharing the communist wealth means everybody gets a fair shake is an ideal.
It was a nice life lesson; I know now that anybody advocating the extreme is pushing an ideal on you, not a true way to live your life. Hard work, living a happy life, and helping others when you are both able and willing to do so is the way to go; and if you get some sort of crazy good benefits offered to you along the way, pounce like a puma.
Even if you get caught, if it's a considered high-value white-collar you get a long term country club visit. It's still not recommended as I'd rather be able to go places, but there's definitely a disparity in minimum and maximum security sentences.
This is why including a standard deviation is just as important as a mean when quoting a statistic. It's also nice to know specific outliers, for reference purposes.
In this case, the stats say the average robber is caught 19% of the time. Does this mean that all robbers get caught 19% of the time? Maybe it means that the vast majority of robbers people are caught 99% if the time, and there's one really slick cat (I'm thinking the cat burglar guy from the Simpsons; that guy was a shifty shifter, f'reals) who's still rollin along, taking ass and kicking bank, that brings the average down?
No way to know with just the mean, so it's kind of a worthless number all by itself. The mode, you say? That's a delicious way to have a la pie.
Agreed, now that you remind me of the ultimately customizable game names D1 and D2 allowed. I remember joining a "cursed" game in D1, and all of us running the cathedral in only gear that drained life, or lowered stats, etc. No way to do that with public games to group with like minded people you don't know yet. I remember getting invited to join a guild, and their guild leader set an entrance test of starting at level 1, moving through to the butcher, and killing him, without returning to town. (firewall and a closed door... ahh the old days)
Some of those things are possible with communication, but there's not a good way to specify the intent of a game to the public in D3. You're right; that really is missing.
Ha! We opened our 3 man Hell difficulty Act 3 game last night. We figured I was burning a friend's 57 DH and another friend's 55 Barb to Diablo, so I may as well open the slot (slaughter?) up for someone else. We got a level 60 monk in Act 1 blues who asked where all the damage was coming from.
Now, I'm no super high end player; I can barely handle Act 1 Inferno (and I welcome the upcoming Act 2 changes; man it's easy for a wizard to die). I didn't mind carrying the monk; I was already carrying my friends. Not really different from my tanks in WoW, like I never really minded carrying members through 5 mans, so long as they weren't staying dead all the time. It can still be fun, especially when people are seeing the content for the first time.
The problem is, what if our game hadn't been a burn through to Diablo? Sure, it's easy to remake the game, but it would be nice to match by average character gear or something. The only way I can figure it, this monk had grouped for his entire 1-60, and for some reason was happy with his ancient, Normal difficulty gear. It'll definitely be nice when they get public matching sorted out, although it seems like they'll do it by reducing monster damage and HP to that of single player.
I'm giving this one last try, framed from your point of reference, because I obviously keep failing to communicate.
Diablo 3 shipped with a single player mode that requires constant communication with their D3 battle.net game servers, which don't differentiate between a single player client or a multi player client, ostensibly for DRM purposes.
Since the game always requires access to these servers for DRM purposes, anyway, Blizzard is going ahead with controlling the in-game economy as tightly as they can, generating all randomized game elements server side. This is very beneficial to them as they can also tightly control all of the extra, non-essential features (such as the auction house and how loot is generated) that Diablo 3 shipped with, regardless of how many players are connected to a game. This is especially important since there is the possibility of significant revenue for the company via micro-transaction fees in a fair and balanced RMAH.
It would have been nice for them to include a way to play the game alone that didn't require constant access to their servers, but they chose not to do this, instead requiring the client to utilize the backend servers no matter how many clients connect to an instanced game world. This is a significant change to the way the Diablo franchise had previously been released. The previous two titles included a mode for offline, single player gameplay, in an offline instanced game world, while this title does not include that option.
The point is this: The success of past games that also required a constant connection (Blizzard's or not), the continuing sales numbers of Diablo 3, and the current population of the D3 servers indicate this decision was considered very carefully and has proved beneficial for the company. Publishers have done this successfully many times now, and will keep doing it whenever it makes business sense. The line between "I can play this game alone, offline, whenever I want." and "I have to play this game online, and even when I play alone I have the same restrictions as those that play in groups." is very, very blurry (I, and the others that proposed there is no classic single-player mode in D3, are simply arguing that this line no longer exists).
I'm not defending the "shitty DRM scheme" or shilling for Blizzard any more than you are, but you're delusional if you think Blizzard cares how upset any of us are that there's no "offline single player game." I doubt they thought very hard at all about catering to the "single player, offline only" customer. Why would they? They get DRM and complete back-end control when they split the game into client/server the way they did, and yet they still managed shit-tons of D3 sales. While I'm certain DRM was involved in that decision, there are even more reasons to require the D3 client to be completely reliant on the server. If it was just DRM only, they could have released a single player mode in the same vein as SC2's or Anno 2070's or even Mass Effect 3's single player modes. In those games, the client software actually IS the whole game, a backend server isn't required for the heavy lifting, and the connection is for authentication on launch, not constantly serving game data back to the client or booting you on disco.
In short, D3 behaves, from a technical standpoint, very, very much more like WoW than D2.
In any case, if you still disagree, good for you.:) We can at least agree that we both miss single player, no-internet-necessary gaming.
Sigh. The misunderstanding that has led to these opposing viewpoints is staggering, and the heart it has nothing to do with either of your points.
Maybe we should instead say the meta-game of Diablo 3 (the auction house, the in-game chat functions, the achievement system, the public game options, etc), is multi-player, but the game itself can played as single-player. Maybe we should say it's a "hybrid" of single and multi player. Or you can continue to say it has a single player mode; at this point, I really don't care. The label itself matters not a whit, so feel free to pick the one you prefer.
The point is, what you do while playing by yourself can easily affect all of the players that share your server realm (mainly by interacting with them via the auction house, though also by playing alone for a time and then deciding to use that character's items in a multiplayer capacity). The single player games of D2, SC1, or even SC2, were NOT like this; they had no ability to crossover to multiplayer whatsoever; online play had online features, single player had offline features, period. D1 did allow this crossover from a single player character to a multi player game, and abusers of this system completely fucked up the entire online multiplayer feature through cheats, hacks, and dupes. With D2, lack of control over the client led to similar events. Having this happen for Diablo 3 would be entirely unacceptable, as it would absolutely destroy the economy Blizzard is facilitating.
I congratulate you on having the huge balls necessary to talk about strawmen while so rabidly attacking the "There's no single player game" part of the argument. Moving on, you still haven't touched on this part: Diablo 3 is a game designed around the central tenet of people interacting with each other (through party play, gear exchanges, or the Auction House), and protecting the integrity and fairness of those interactions is of paramount importance. When you factor in the real world cash that is now flowing through the Auction House, it's pretty damned easy to see why Blizzard wants complete control over the entire system, whether you play alone or not. In this case, the DRM is just an added bonus to something they'd have chosen to do anyway. Again, I agree it would have been nice to get a single-player game that was not allowed to interact in any way with the rest of the Diablo 3 world, but they did not do this, most likely because they already knew they wouldn't have to.
Humm. I've not seen this; but I've only played with friends and haven't utilized the public game option. Maybe it's limited to that?
With my friends, the only limitation is a player can't create a game that is past the furthest point he's gotten to (alone or in party), and a player cannot join a hosted game that skips the furthest Act he's completed. In other words, I can invite a friend to a game anywhere along the "Hell" quest line (including right up to Diablo) even if he's only just completed "Nightmare", but I cannot invite him to "Inferno" difficulty until he kills Diablo in "Hell" mode. He also cannot create a game past the very beginning of "Nightmare"; he'll need to progress through the quest line, or skip as far as possible using my game, to proceed further than this.
This creates a whole bunch of customized options for various progression goals: Farm Inferno SK or Butcher for Act 2 gear? Bring a level 46 DH along with a 60 Barbarian to progress to hell as fast as possible? Simply like Act 3 and want to run it for gold and help a friend out in the process? Want to see if you can get achievements for various bosses? Get the Whimsyshire key? All possible with a minimum of fuss.
It is too bad, indeed, that the match-making (and possibly public game?) options don't lend themselves to this well.
Agreed, but even more, I hope more developers who provide high quality products without DRM emerge, so gamers can still game. If we all just stop playing games, that doesn't help the industry at all. If we only buy DRM-less games, developers might get the point, but that requires good DRM-less games to be on the market.
By the same token, if Wal-Mart had a true competitor who didn't have to resort to all the Wal-Mart tactics I hate, I'd shop there in a heartbeat, but until then, I'm damned if I do (deal with Wal-Mart's 500 lb gorilla-ass) and damned if I don't (have to pay more for the same crappy goods).
I suppose a "spectrum of evil" might be good enough; Torchlight 2 is a good, cheap game, and I guess I don't mind logging into an authorized account to get a patch, but either way I feel like I'm being punished for others' piracy.
Incidentally, I feel the exact same fuckin way when I buy a memory card from a brick-and-mortar shop and have to use a band-saw to open the damn package, or the security alarm at the exit awkwardly scares the shit out of me, or I have to leave my briefcase outside before I enter a boutique: "I'm an honest customer who's never stolen from you; why the hell are you takin it out on me?!"
Bullshit. If that's the case then how did they manage to do it with Diablo II? Did the programmer get stupider? Did all the smart people leave to make Torchlight?
You're missing the point. D2 had a discrete, complete, and less restrictive single player game because Blizzard wanted to provide one. Blizzard did not design and ship a truly single player experience (at least compared to the D1 and D2 benchmark). I didn't say they couldn't, or even that it's hard to do; I said they didn't, and then I said if the exact same D3 experience had been provided sans multi-player, it would have been a very short game.
I then went on to say why I think Blizzard chose not to follow the D1/D2 scheme for single players, which boils down to: they have a history of success with recent games to indicate they didn't have to, and almost certainly benefited from more than just saved development time.
If you say so. (Actually, it isn't.)
May I assume we're now using parentheses to frame opinions? (Great idea!). I did say so, and then I supported why I like it, hoping other people might like it for the same reasons. (I have a riot with this game based on all the items I listed before.) I can also list why I like beer, my girlfriend's naughty bits, motorcycles, cheeseburgers, netflix*.... dude, the possibilities of things I can like are very large (too many for a single set of opin-theses!). (I'm pretty sure it was obvious I was stating my opinion the first time), but the parentheses remove all doubt; (it was good you came up with this).
Also, (your opinion was appreciated too, but it wasn't very helpful). It would be a more complete statement to include the "why I don't think D3 is fun" part. Without that bit, your opinion might come across as unsupported fact used to discredit an opposing opinion. If that type of (bullshit) worked in real life, (it would be a very neat trick, indeed).
I've now changed my mind; (opin-theses suck balls) and I'm switching back to the normal contextual parsing of statements, after this last one: (there's never a need to be a (douchebag)).
*If you're reading this, babe, these items are listed in no particular order of preference.
Not all of us arguing that D3 doesn't include single-player are defending Blizzard. Diablo 3 doesn't include a single player experience *because* it requires connectivity to the multi-player servers (which generate *all* random game elements; the client does none of this) at all times, no matter which client checkboxes you click. Not just a periodic ack-packet, not just authentication servers, not just your battle.net account, but a constant connection to the same set of "realm" servers as every other D3 player.
The argument you and others are trying to make is that the included single-player mode did not need connectivity to the multi-player server, but that argument is logically backwards. Since the game client is always connected to multi-player servers, your argument should really be: Blizzard should have included a discrete single-player game mode, which, by definition, would not need constant access to the multi-player realms, and may or may not have required some form of authentication to play (a separate but very much related discussion). When we use this argument, I agree with you 100%.
Why does something so pedantic matter? Because we are seeing a new type of "check-this-box-for-instant-mmo" game emerging, where always-on multi-player connections are a requirement, and the only technical and virtual distinction between single and multi player modes is the number of players in your party. This is even more restrictive than simply forcing single-player to check in with mom from time to time; in this brave new world, you can get banned by tinkering with your client when you have yet to and never will speak to another player. If there truly was a single-player game, this would not be an issue (hell, all of Blizzard's previous single-player modes *included* cheat codes, all the way up to SC2; D3 will get you banned if you try to work the system even when playing alone).
The worst of it all? I love playing D3 with my friends, and I'm not prepared forgo purchasing the game when that's where many of my out-of-state buddies are hanging out. It's same reason I hate Wal-Mart but still shop there: it has not gotten to the point where I suffer more by these companies' actions than I would by boycotting them. Go America, land of the slowly boiling frogs.
I'd say pretty well, actually, considering they've been able to pinpoint thousands of accounts that were violating their terms of service and ban them (and all of their items) at precisely the moment they intended to.
There are some actions that they just cannot prevent (anything that manipulates the client only), but they've made identifying and policing those actions possible; and probably pretty easy.
Besides, running a client-side bot to gather stuff while you're at work or sleeping is a LOT different from the old D2 exploits (lag-dupe, anyone?). It's trivially easy for the database "Warden" (or whatever Blizz is calling it this time around) to track accounts that do run bots and slap them into oblivion, as we saw yesterday. Requiring a constant connection just makes it that much easier to run heuristics against identified and suspected botted accounts, making it even easier as time goes by.
This is actually a pretty good point, pedantic or not. Also, as someone else pointed out to me yesterday, there is a checkbox option to disallow party invites and close your game to your friends. The biggest single thing that keeps single-player and multi-player from being separate "modes", though, is items from single-player are valid for multi-player and vice versa.
Since they absolutely cannot allow un-trusted data generated from an uncontrolled client node back into the trusted hive (a lesson learned the hard way with D2), a single player mode would have required a clear and unassailable distinction between local and server items. If they had provided this distinction, it would have been possible to leave the online requirement out for a single-player only mode. This also means they'd have to have put in a way for the local client to generate dungeons, instances, monsters, and loot drops without tipping their hand on how the servers are currently doing it (avoiding custom servers being able to generate "valid" items).
With that in mind, Blizzard's designers knew full-well they didn't have to bother with any of that. The success of D3 (and SC2, which was a pretty solid test run for a sub-Blizzard-quality game) clearly bears this out. I agree, it sucks, especially if I'm on a plane and just wanna kill the butcher to pass a half-hour, but the reality is this is where the game industry is heading, at least until we get pissed off enough to stop buying into it (literally). Maybe what we ought to be doing is wondering where the hell our affordable, always-on, always accessible, completely un-restricted 4g is, because I think we're quickly approaching a time where we'll need it.
To me, Blizzard's reasons and excuses are clearly nonsense.
I dunno about that, but if you look at it from a pro/con point of view, their reasoning makes a lot of sense. Let's look at a few of the pros and cons for Blizzard and the player:
Pros for Blizzard:
DRM, protection from dupes/cheats/client mods, easy data mining/metric tracking of player habits, required game updates to confirm all clients are running the same patch, easy to monitor and quash exploits, keeps players socially engaged across all of their recent games, the AH (especially the real money version) is easier to monitor and control
Cons for Blizzard:
Cost of running the backend servers, player backlash leading to loss of sales
Pros for the Player:
protection from dupes/cheats, possibly easier to get latest client patches? Easier links to other on-line friends? (these are questionably useful pros... but, maybe? I'm reaching here.)
Cons for the Player:
Everything people have bitched about since D3's initial release, from downtime to no single-player mode, and this is a LOT of things
There are probably some other things I haven't thought of in all 4 categories, but I think the lists will just continue on from this point.
All Blizzard needed to do was determine if the benefits they get from requiring a constant battle.net link are worth the estimated loss of sales due to player unrest. Clearly it was (the RMAH alone is probably going to be a real income generator, if they can keep control of it). It was probably not even a difficult decision to make since they've already had two test-runs of the process: WoW (for obvious reasons) and SC2 (which had NO reason to require battle.net connectivity except DRM - SC2 specifically does include a "real" single player mode, as will it's 2 expansions). We can hate their decision regarding D3's development, but now that we have hindsight, we can't argue with the results. D3 has been staggeringly successful.
They just "fixed" a couple of the player-to-game mechanics; most notably by not scaling monster damage with additional players (health still scales though). But yes, D3 is very much an every-man-for-himself style of group, as Diablo games have always been. There's some strategy such as CC and player heals, but mostly it's run about and try not to die. They've also had separate loot drops for each player, so I'm not sure what you mean by the "game instance creation".
All that said, I can see why people are annoyed at D3, but know there are people who do enjoy it just like it is. For me, it's sort of like a MMORPG fix without requiring the time investment.
Because you can yank the network cable while Sacred 2 is running and it still works? =) Sacred 2 was a great game, by the way: "I can be a Seraphim and I get a horse? Oh hell yeah!"
Mr. or Ms. Omglolbah explains it pretty well below. There's just too much "always on" stuff that Blizzard, right or wrong, velcro'd onto the backend of D3 to ship a truly single player experience.
We all should have seen this coming, what with Starcraft 2's requirements. SC2 was an even MORE egregious case of "screw the single players!" since there was an entire single-player campaign; specifically developed, one-person-at-a-time-only content... yet that single player experience STILL required a login and a constant connection. The only possible reason to require it then was to ensure the software was a valid copy (i.e. DRM). The only "useful" things the battle.net connection did for the single player campaign back then were 1) allow your raid leader to tell you to "gtfo SC2 and come tank ICC noob" (in all caps, of course) or 2) brag about your SC2 achievements to your WoW buddies if ICC had already failed that night.
With games like Anno 2070 tossed into this mess, too, it seems this is gonna happen more and more. It blows monkey goat, but it's not going away. Hopefully other publishers (such as Runic Games) will continue to provide alternatives, but in the meantime, I'll probably line up and take my lumps from Blizzard, just as I'll probably continue going to my favorite bar even when the bartender's a bitch. In both cases, that's where my friends are. Maybe I can just tip less. Sigh.
Slashdot Mirror
Very well put.
Then why not simply say "That's a question that cannot be reasonably answered due to [reasons A, B, C, D etc]." like my ISP would, instead of saying "We cannot tell you because we value your privacy."? Besides, it's a moot point; the fact remains they're collecting data on us, but they won't (or can't) tell us what it is. The end result is the same in either case; an agency is collecting data on us with no accountability.
As for TFA's quote: the contradiction seems super-obvious to us, but for a high level official to make that statement without seeing the same contradiction we do is pretty scary. What it means is this particular NSA leader has never even considered where his agency would fit in a privacy/no privacy Venn diagram. It has never occurred to him that their data collection could be a violation of privacy in the first place; they're orders of magnitude above such simple concerns.
To the NSA, data is like fruit on a vine they already own. They can pick this fruit whenever they choose, but that fruit is theirs whether they pick it or not.
I agree with you to a point; the NSA probably does not believe this is malicious, but if the NSA thinks the way they appear to, this is still wrong and completely out of touch with the privacy concerns we really have.
I think you're both right, in a way. After the first round of brave iPod purchasers found that the device was pretty well built and simple enough to redefine what an mp3 player could be, everybody wanted "that new music thing from that Mac company". That one-two punch opened the door for Apple to come back from near-death; and they also used advertising masterfully.
I also think that there are people out there who now avoid Apple because "Apple!". I, personally, am one of them. I dislike their computers (strictly an opinion, I know the benefits and drawbacks of Apple gear, and just prefer PC) so that's a given.
Here's my problem with Apple's commodity stuff though: I loved my iPod, my other iPod, that other other iPod with the flash memory I bought after iPod #2's battery shit the bed and iPod #1 got knocked onto a pillow, resulting in a head crash. I also loved my girlfriend's iPod nano, shuffle, her new thin rectangle nano, and her new square shuffle with the pretty square screen and pink earbuds and that armband thing she refused to model naked for me (fetish!!). I loved my iPhone 3, the gf's 3gs, my 4, and the gf's 4s. I did NOT love all the sweet rubber cases and dozens of charging cables hiding around the house, or all the iTunes I had with my music spread all over the place, but it seemed worth the hassle at the time, because Apple!!. If you're asking "WTF, man?" all I can say is so the hell was I.
They make a great, solid, and reliable product, but their release schedule seems specifically manipulated to require (or at least strongly pressure) a new purchase every year. 3g? 4g? Bigger disk, faster processor, non-splodey battery, smaller form factor, gorilla glass, Siri? Geez... how about an update to my existing product, or at least preventing me from seeing new ads for a full 2 (two) months after purchasing your gear?
I broke out of the "buy non up-grade-able but super spendy/trendy Apple gear" cycle right about the time the iPad came out; I refused to fall for it again. They tried to teach me how I need this thing to survive, too, but I said "Waitaminit.... I already know how to read books, both out of, like, books, and on my phone...." and the brainwashing lifted like a fog. Yeah, the iPad can do a lot, but my hook for a tablet would have been books. Then, much like crack, I'd find a way to "need" it for so many reasons that I'm hooked into a yearly iPad purchase. Fuck that (fool me thrice, and shit).
Apple has done a lot of things well, but they achieved an utter psychological and sociological coup in turning a $500 purchase into a reasonable impulse buy. I was fortunate enough to realize what I was doing, because all signs point to this continuing. As for Microsoft's tablet, I welcome all competition, and may make a purchase if it does well enough (I like the little rubber keyboard, but my Apple lesson taught me I already *have* a laptop). I'm dubious, as usual, of MS hardware, but even Microsoft has a shot at keeping the tablet market from stagnating. The Fire, Nook, Thinkpad, Ideapad, etc have all been on the market, but right now all I see in the future is iPad Yeah, You'll Buy This One Too (TM).
Neither Rand nor Ron excepted donations from corporations.
Even his typo agrees with you. I'm pretty sure a politician who makes exceptions when accepting donations will rip a hole in the fabric of spacetime.
You're absolutely correct, of course. I think #1 and #2 are the things most people are pissed off about, and I'm one of em! But it's been YEARS since games come with LAN play standard, and with the slow death of client-side single player, I think we're heading for an always on, always authenticating way to use software.
At some point I think we'll just have to implant wireless credit cards in our brains at birth to keep up with all the ways we're getting jacked. Activ-izzard Wave (tm) Tele-representative: "Sorry to bother you while you're in the can, but I noticed you just thought about Jim Raynor in pink hotpants.... We'll just take that payment.... ah, there we go, and thanks for keeping us in mind!"
You cannot fool me, monsieur. That word is a french hat. I wore one last Halloween, when I was a Fray'-nsh Doosh'-baug. It was a pretty successful endeavor, other than when we went to the hipster party, where I was frowned upon for not wearing a costume.
Oh, I agree completely. There are many elements of A is A philosophy that are spot on. Persistence IS how you succeed in the life-show, most definitely.
The disingenuous part of Atlas Shrugged, though, is how the protagonists' typical setbacks (or rather, plot vehicles to illustrate their persistence) were caused by the no-talent leechers. Dagny spent a TON of time wrestling with her brother's stupid decisions, holding back the tide through talent, persistence, and hard work. The real world is simply not always like that. Often, you get other talented or otherwise gifted people that will toss you under the bus to get ahead. We've all seen very talented, very smart people make very, very sneaky decisions that led to the complete downfall of the other talent that supported them; not from incompetence, but from coldly calculated greed. Talent, hard work, and persistence can put you in a place where power corrupts you, and then with the stroke of a pen you can trade other people's financial lives for your own golden parachute. Stuff like that makes Francisco's intentional self-destruction look like a game of CandyLand. Persistence in the face of crap like that is easily the most difficult character trait to sustain.
Incidentally: The best example of tossing a monkey wrench into all of Rand's philosophy? Having kids. "Rational selfishness" gets tossed right out the window for children. The best you can do is try to take care of yourself first so you're in a better position to take care of them, too, but when you have to make in-the-moment decisions, they'll come up in their favor over yours every single time. There are times when it really is a good thing for your hard work to benefit others more than yourself, or even at your detriment.
I really hope you mean my "taking ass and kicking bank" phrase instead of that I got my statistical terms backwards. The former was intentional; the latter would just be embarrassing. I'll also assume there's a swear behind your beep, because I'm feeling pretty down today. I'm very glad you agree that Pie a la Mode is tasty though!
850 pages of railroad references, 100 pages of John galt repeating the same idea over the radio using all the biggest words Rand could come up with, and 50 pages of Dagny getting banged by Hank, Francisco, or good old Johnny. The movie version would be 10 minutes of moderate porn, but you'd have to get through 90 minutes of the cable guy stompin around the living room first.
I was an A is A objectivist for a while; I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged the first time around. When I started seeing some personal success, I saw that hard work does not always equal success; many of the brightest and talented hard workers I knew got fucked, not rewarded, and it's often a crapshoot or who you know more than talent and hard work. You get up and try again if you're good at it and enjoy what you do, so that part is true, but talent doesn't rise simply because it's talented. Objectivism is an ideal, just like sharing the communist wealth means everybody gets a fair shake is an ideal.
It was a nice life lesson; I know now that anybody advocating the extreme is pushing an ideal on you, not a true way to live your life. Hard work, living a happy life, and helping others when you are both able and willing to do so is the way to go; and if you get some sort of crazy good benefits offered to you along the way, pounce like a puma.
Even if you get caught, if it's a considered high-value white-collar you get a long term country club visit. It's still not recommended as I'd rather be able to go places, but there's definitely a disparity in minimum and maximum security sentences.
This is why including a standard deviation is just as important as a mean when quoting a statistic. It's also nice to know specific outliers, for reference purposes.
In this case, the stats say the average robber is caught 19% of the time. Does this mean that all robbers get caught 19% of the time? Maybe it means that the vast majority of robbers people are caught 99% if the time, and there's one really slick cat (I'm thinking the cat burglar guy from the Simpsons; that guy was a shifty shifter, f'reals) who's still rollin along, taking ass and kicking bank, that brings the average down?
No way to know with just the mean, so it's kind of a worthless number all by itself. The mode, you say? That's a delicious way to have a la pie.
Agreed, now that you remind me of the ultimately customizable game names D1 and D2 allowed. I remember joining a "cursed" game in D1, and all of us running the cathedral in only gear that drained life, or lowered stats, etc. No way to do that with public games to group with like minded people you don't know yet. I remember getting invited to join a guild, and their guild leader set an entrance test of starting at level 1, moving through to the butcher, and killing him, without returning to town. (firewall and a closed door... ahh the old days)
Some of those things are possible with communication, but there's not a good way to specify the intent of a game to the public in D3. You're right; that really is missing.
Ha! We opened our 3 man Hell difficulty Act 3 game last night. We figured I was burning a friend's 57 DH and another friend's 55 Barb to Diablo, so I may as well open the slot (slaughter?) up for someone else. We got a level 60 monk in Act 1 blues who asked where all the damage was coming from.
Now, I'm no super high end player; I can barely handle Act 1 Inferno (and I welcome the upcoming Act 2 changes; man it's easy for a wizard to die). I didn't mind carrying the monk; I was already carrying my friends. Not really different from my tanks in WoW, like I never really minded carrying members through 5 mans, so long as they weren't staying dead all the time. It can still be fun, especially when people are seeing the content for the first time.
The problem is, what if our game hadn't been a burn through to Diablo? Sure, it's easy to remake the game, but it would be nice to match by average character gear or something. The only way I can figure it, this monk had grouped for his entire 1-60, and for some reason was happy with his ancient, Normal difficulty gear. It'll definitely be nice when they get public matching sorted out, although it seems like they'll do it by reducing monster damage and HP to that of single player.
Ah! Good call. It's a missing piece that was actually very useful. Since it's been over a decade since D2, I'd forgotten the feature ever existed.
I'm giving this one last try, framed from your point of reference, because I obviously keep failing to communicate.
:) We can at least agree that we both miss single player, no-internet-necessary gaming.
Diablo 3 shipped with a single player mode that requires constant communication with their D3 battle.net game servers, which don't differentiate between a single player client or a multi player client, ostensibly for DRM purposes.
Since the game always requires access to these servers for DRM purposes, anyway, Blizzard is going ahead with controlling the in-game economy as tightly as they can, generating all randomized game elements server side. This is very beneficial to them as they can also tightly control all of the extra, non-essential features (such as the auction house and how loot is generated) that Diablo 3 shipped with, regardless of how many players are connected to a game. This is especially important since there is the possibility of significant revenue for the company via micro-transaction fees in a fair and balanced RMAH.
It would have been nice for them to include a way to play the game alone that didn't require constant access to their servers, but they chose not to do this, instead requiring the client to utilize the backend servers no matter how many clients connect to an instanced game world. This is a significant change to the way the Diablo franchise had previously been released. The previous two titles included a mode for offline, single player gameplay, in an offline instanced game world, while this title does not include that option.
The point is this: The success of past games that also required a constant connection (Blizzard's or not), the continuing sales numbers of Diablo 3, and the current population of the D3 servers indicate this decision was considered very carefully and has proved beneficial for the company. Publishers have done this successfully many times now, and will keep doing it whenever it makes business sense. The line between "I can play this game alone, offline, whenever I want." and "I have to play this game online, and even when I play alone I have the same restrictions as those that play in groups." is very, very blurry (I, and the others that proposed there is no classic single-player mode in D3, are simply arguing that this line no longer exists).
I'm not defending the "shitty DRM scheme" or shilling for Blizzard any more than you are, but you're delusional if you think Blizzard cares how upset any of us are that there's no "offline single player game." I doubt they thought very hard at all about catering to the "single player, offline only" customer. Why would they? They get DRM and complete back-end control when they split the game into client/server the way they did, and yet they still managed shit-tons of D3 sales. While I'm certain DRM was involved in that decision, there are even more reasons to require the D3 client to be completely reliant on the server. If it was just DRM only, they could have released a single player mode in the same vein as SC2's or Anno 2070's or even Mass Effect 3's single player modes. In those games, the client software actually IS the whole game, a backend server isn't required for the heavy lifting, and the connection is for authentication on launch, not constantly serving game data back to the client or booting you on disco.
In short, D3 behaves, from a technical standpoint, very, very much more like WoW than D2.
In any case, if you still disagree, good for you.
Sigh. The misunderstanding that has led to these opposing viewpoints is staggering, and the heart it has nothing to do with either of your points.
Maybe we should instead say the meta-game of Diablo 3 (the auction house, the in-game chat functions, the achievement system, the public game options, etc), is multi-player, but the game itself can played as single-player. Maybe we should say it's a "hybrid" of single and multi player. Or you can continue to say it has a single player mode; at this point, I really don't care. The label itself matters not a whit, so feel free to pick the one you prefer.
The point is, what you do while playing by yourself can easily affect all of the players that share your server realm (mainly by interacting with them via the auction house, though also by playing alone for a time and then deciding to use that character's items in a multiplayer capacity). The single player games of D2, SC1, or even SC2, were NOT like this; they had no ability to crossover to multiplayer whatsoever; online play had online features, single player had offline features, period. D1 did allow this crossover from a single player character to a multi player game, and abusers of this system completely fucked up the entire online multiplayer feature through cheats, hacks, and dupes. With D2, lack of control over the client led to similar events. Having this happen for Diablo 3 would be entirely unacceptable, as it would absolutely destroy the economy Blizzard is facilitating.
I congratulate you on having the huge balls necessary to talk about strawmen while so rabidly attacking the "There's no single player game" part of the argument. Moving on, you still haven't touched on this part: Diablo 3 is a game designed around the central tenet of people interacting with each other (through party play, gear exchanges, or the Auction House), and protecting the integrity and fairness of those interactions is of paramount importance. When you factor in the real world cash that is now flowing through the Auction House, it's pretty damned easy to see why Blizzard wants complete control over the entire system, whether you play alone or not. In this case, the DRM is just an added bonus to something they'd have chosen to do anyway. Again, I agree it would have been nice to get a single-player game that was not allowed to interact in any way with the rest of the Diablo 3 world, but they did not do this, most likely because they already knew they wouldn't have to.
Humm. I've not seen this; but I've only played with friends and haven't utilized the public game option. Maybe it's limited to that?
With my friends, the only limitation is a player can't create a game that is past the furthest point he's gotten to (alone or in party), and a player cannot join a hosted game that skips the furthest Act he's completed. In other words, I can invite a friend to a game anywhere along the "Hell" quest line (including right up to Diablo) even if he's only just completed "Nightmare", but I cannot invite him to "Inferno" difficulty until he kills Diablo in "Hell" mode. He also cannot create a game past the very beginning of "Nightmare"; he'll need to progress through the quest line, or skip as far as possible using my game, to proceed further than this.
This creates a whole bunch of customized options for various progression goals: Farm Inferno SK or Butcher for Act 2 gear? Bring a level 46 DH along with a 60 Barbarian to progress to hell as fast as possible? Simply like Act 3 and want to run it for gold and help a friend out in the process? Want to see if you can get achievements for various bosses? Get the Whimsyshire key? All possible with a minimum of fuss.
It is too bad, indeed, that the match-making (and possibly public game?) options don't lend themselves to this well.
Agreed, but even more, I hope more developers who provide high quality products without DRM emerge, so gamers can still game. If we all just stop playing games, that doesn't help the industry at all. If we only buy DRM-less games, developers might get the point, but that requires good DRM-less games to be on the market.
By the same token, if Wal-Mart had a true competitor who didn't have to resort to all the Wal-Mart tactics I hate, I'd shop there in a heartbeat, but until then, I'm damned if I do (deal with Wal-Mart's 500 lb gorilla-ass) and damned if I don't (have to pay more for the same crappy goods).
I suppose a "spectrum of evil" might be good enough; Torchlight 2 is a good, cheap game, and I guess I don't mind logging into an authorized account to get a patch, but either way I feel like I'm being punished for others' piracy.
Incidentally, I feel the exact same fuckin way when I buy a memory card from a brick-and-mortar shop and have to use a band-saw to open the damn package, or the security alarm at the exit awkwardly scares the shit out of me, or I have to leave my briefcase outside before I enter a boutique: "I'm an honest customer who's never stolen from you; why the hell are you takin it out on me?!"
Bullshit. If that's the case then how did they manage to do it with Diablo II? Did the programmer get stupider? Did all the smart people leave to make Torchlight?
You're missing the point. D2 had a discrete, complete, and less restrictive single player game because Blizzard wanted to provide one. Blizzard did not design and ship a truly single player experience (at least compared to the D1 and D2 benchmark). I didn't say they couldn't, or even that it's hard to do; I said they didn't, and then I said if the exact same D3 experience had been provided sans multi-player, it would have been a very short game.
I then went on to say why I think Blizzard chose not to follow the D1/D2 scheme for single players, which boils down to: they have a history of success with recent games to indicate they didn't have to, and almost certainly benefited from more than just saved development time.
If you say so. (Actually, it isn't.)
May I assume we're now using parentheses to frame opinions? (Great idea!). I did say so, and then I supported why I like it, hoping other people might like it for the same reasons. (I have a riot with this game based on all the items I listed before.) I can also list why I like beer, my girlfriend's naughty bits, motorcycles, cheeseburgers, netflix*.... dude, the possibilities of things I can like are very large (too many for a single set of opin-theses!). (I'm pretty sure it was obvious I was stating my opinion the first time), but the parentheses remove all doubt; (it was good you came up with this).
Also, (your opinion was appreciated too, but it wasn't very helpful). It would be a more complete statement to include the "why I don't think D3 is fun" part. Without that bit, your opinion might come across as unsupported fact used to discredit an opposing opinion. If that type of (bullshit) worked in real life, (it would be a very neat trick, indeed).
I've now changed my mind; (opin-theses suck balls) and I'm switching back to the normal contextual parsing of statements, after this last one: (there's never a need to be a (douchebag)).
*If you're reading this, babe, these items are listed in no particular order of preference.
Not all of us arguing that D3 doesn't include single-player are defending Blizzard. Diablo 3 doesn't include a single player experience *because* it requires connectivity to the multi-player servers (which generate *all* random game elements; the client does none of this) at all times, no matter which client checkboxes you click. Not just a periodic ack-packet, not just authentication servers, not just your battle.net account, but a constant connection to the same set of "realm" servers as every other D3 player.
The argument you and others are trying to make is that the included single-player mode did not need connectivity to the multi-player server, but that argument is logically backwards. Since the game client is always connected to multi-player servers, your argument should really be: Blizzard should have included a discrete single-player game mode, which, by definition, would not need constant access to the multi-player realms, and may or may not have required some form of authentication to play (a separate but very much related discussion). When we use this argument, I agree with you 100%.
Why does something so pedantic matter? Because we are seeing a new type of "check-this-box-for-instant-mmo" game emerging, where always-on multi-player connections are a requirement, and the only technical and virtual distinction between single and multi player modes is the number of players in your party. This is even more restrictive than simply forcing single-player to check in with mom from time to time; in this brave new world, you can get banned by tinkering with your client when you have yet to and never will speak to another player. If there truly was a single-player game, this would not be an issue (hell, all of Blizzard's previous single-player modes *included* cheat codes, all the way up to SC2; D3 will get you banned if you try to work the system even when playing alone).
The worst of it all? I love playing D3 with my friends, and I'm not prepared forgo purchasing the game when that's where many of my out-of-state buddies are hanging out. It's same reason I hate Wal-Mart but still shop there: it has not gotten to the point where I suffer more by these companies' actions than I would by boycotting them. Go America, land of the slowly boiling frogs.
I'd say pretty well, actually, considering they've been able to pinpoint thousands of accounts that were violating their terms of service and ban them (and all of their items) at precisely the moment they intended to.
There are some actions that they just cannot prevent (anything that manipulates the client only), but they've made identifying and policing those actions possible; and probably pretty easy.
Besides, running a client-side bot to gather stuff while you're at work or sleeping is a LOT different from the old D2 exploits (lag-dupe, anyone?). It's trivially easy for the database "Warden" (or whatever Blizz is calling it this time around) to track accounts that do run bots and slap them into oblivion, as we saw yesterday. Requiring a constant connection just makes it that much easier to run heuristics against identified and suspected botted accounts, making it even easier as time goes by.
This is actually a pretty good point, pedantic or not. Also, as someone else pointed out to me yesterday, there is a checkbox option to disallow party invites and close your game to your friends. The biggest single thing that keeps single-player and multi-player from being separate "modes", though, is items from single-player are valid for multi-player and vice versa.
Since they absolutely cannot allow un-trusted data generated from an uncontrolled client node back into the trusted hive (a lesson learned the hard way with D2), a single player mode would have required a clear and unassailable distinction between local and server items. If they had provided this distinction, it would have been possible to leave the online requirement out for a single-player only mode. This also means they'd have to have put in a way for the local client to generate dungeons, instances, monsters, and loot drops without tipping their hand on how the servers are currently doing it (avoiding custom servers being able to generate "valid" items).
With that in mind, Blizzard's designers knew full-well they didn't have to bother with any of that. The success of D3 (and SC2, which was a pretty solid test run for a sub-Blizzard-quality game) clearly bears this out. I agree, it sucks, especially if I'm on a plane and just wanna kill the butcher to pass a half-hour, but the reality is this is where the game industry is heading, at least until we get pissed off enough to stop buying into it (literally). Maybe what we ought to be doing is wondering where the hell our affordable, always-on, always accessible, completely un-restricted 4g is, because I think we're quickly approaching a time where we'll need it.
To me, Blizzard's reasons and excuses are clearly nonsense.
I dunno about that, but if you look at it from a pro/con point of view, their reasoning makes a lot of sense. Let's look at a few of the pros and cons for Blizzard and the player:
Pros for Blizzard:
DRM, protection from dupes/cheats/client mods, easy data mining/metric tracking of player habits, required game updates to confirm all clients are running the same patch, easy to monitor and quash exploits, keeps players socially engaged across all of their recent games, the AH (especially the real money version) is easier to monitor and control
Cons for Blizzard:
Cost of running the backend servers, player backlash leading to loss of sales
Pros for the Player:
protection from dupes/cheats, possibly easier to get latest client patches? Easier links to other on-line friends? (these are questionably useful pros... but, maybe? I'm reaching here.)
Cons for the Player:
Everything people have bitched about since D3's initial release, from downtime to no single-player mode, and this is a LOT of things
There are probably some other things I haven't thought of in all 4 categories, but I think the lists will just continue on from this point.
All Blizzard needed to do was determine if the benefits they get from requiring a constant battle.net link are worth the estimated loss of sales due to player unrest. Clearly it was (the RMAH alone is probably going to be a real income generator, if they can keep control of it). It was probably not even a difficult decision to make since they've already had two test-runs of the process: WoW (for obvious reasons) and SC2 (which had NO reason to require battle.net connectivity except DRM - SC2 specifically does include a "real" single player mode, as will it's 2 expansions). We can hate their decision regarding D3's development, but now that we have hindsight, we can't argue with the results. D3 has been staggeringly successful.
They just "fixed" a couple of the player-to-game mechanics; most notably by not scaling monster damage with additional players (health still scales though). But yes, D3 is very much an every-man-for-himself style of group, as Diablo games have always been. There's some strategy such as CC and player heals, but mostly it's run about and try not to die. They've also had separate loot drops for each player, so I'm not sure what you mean by the "game instance creation".
All that said, I can see why people are annoyed at D3, but know there are people who do enjoy it just like it is. For me, it's sort of like a MMORPG fix without requiring the time investment.
Because you can yank the network cable while Sacred 2 is running and it still works? =) Sacred 2 was a great game, by the way: "I can be a Seraphim and I get a horse? Oh hell yeah!"
Mr. or Ms. Omglolbah explains it pretty well below. There's just too much "always on" stuff that Blizzard, right or wrong, velcro'd onto the backend of D3 to ship a truly single player experience.
We all should have seen this coming, what with Starcraft 2's requirements. SC2 was an even MORE egregious case of "screw the single players!" since there was an entire single-player campaign; specifically developed, one-person-at-a-time-only content... yet that single player experience STILL required a login and a constant connection. The only possible reason to require it then was to ensure the software was a valid copy (i.e. DRM). The only "useful" things the battle.net connection did for the single player campaign back then were 1) allow your raid leader to tell you to "gtfo SC2 and come tank ICC noob" (in all caps, of course) or 2) brag about your SC2 achievements to your WoW buddies if ICC had already failed that night.
With games like Anno 2070 tossed into this mess, too, it seems this is gonna happen more and more. It blows monkey goat, but it's not going away. Hopefully other publishers (such as Runic Games) will continue to provide alternatives, but in the meantime, I'll probably line up and take my lumps from Blizzard, just as I'll probably continue going to my favorite bar even when the bartender's a bitch. In both cases, that's where my friends are. Maybe I can just tip less. Sigh.