Blizzard got tired of putting tons of work into high-end instances that only the top one-half of one percent would beat.
So Arthas, the entire focus of this expansion that everyone is playing, would only be seen by a tiny minority of players? They said "fuck that," and it was the right decision to make. You have a regular dungeon for the large player base, and you have hard-modes for people who want a challenge and the greater rewards that come with it.
Yeah, it is an issue, but it's a short-term issue.
It's because Blizzard builds their capacity based on normal usage, not on patch-day usage. I think this is just as much an issue with their tendency to bundle up lots of changes into one large content patch rather than stagger them on a more gradual basis.
Well, in some cases the game is getting "easier," but many of the things you mentioned don't fall into the category of "easy" versus "hard" and more "annoying" versus "non-annoying." Any party member may mark targets -- there was really little reason not to allow this in the first place. As the MT, I always had to ask for leadership to mark targets because in a 5-man you can't designate an assistant. Well now that limitation is gone. It's not 'making it easier,' it's removing an entirely artificial interface mechanic. To put it another way, these things that are being removed didn't make the gameplay itself any harder or easier, it makes administration easier. I would say the game is really not much easier than it was during the level 60 days, but it definitely is easier from the -administration- side. Things like being able to summon inside instances, summoning stones, warlock summoning portals, removing summon stone character level, these are all changes that make the administrative side easier, and most of these were introduced slowly.
I really don't understand why we've hung on to this ridiculously outdated notion of political power being assigned hierarchically by physical location. I have little in common with my neighbors, let alone people a mere suburb away, but I have the same political interests as other people in my field of employment literally thousands of kilometers away in Perth.
Take a look at the insane degree to which Americans have taken Gerrymandering [wikipedia.org] - formerly simple voting territories have been made almost fractal in outline! It's a bad, half-baked solution to concentrating voter power among like-minded people, to get a representative in to government, where otherwise the votes would be too diluted within a territory.
Actually.. Gerrymandering is the creation of bizarrely-drawn districts because most of the people in those districts DO agree with each other, as opposed to districts that are.. oh, square shaped and would contains different types of neighborhoods.
Gerrymandering is effective because the people in that district agree with each other, and it thus creates districts that are 'safe' for the political party drawing up the lines. I would think you'd actually be in favor of it, as its entire purpose is to disregard geography as much as possible in unifying like-minded people.
The reason why territory-based voting is still popular is that most basic issues, especially 'local' issues, are still geography-based. Local taxes, education, utilities, local government services...
The GP was wrong and I had pertinent information. In a later post he has equated video games to a basic right, could you honestly say the GP has a clue after that.
Maybe the GP considers it part of freedom of speech and expression. I personally believe in very few limits on that.
Let me start off by saying I don't know jack about how your system works but it sounds like the problem is with your system.
Not really, the system requires a unanimous vote because each Attorney General represents one of Australia's states. Requiring a unanimous vote prevents 4 out of the 7 deciding things for everyone,
It also leads to a system that leans extremely conservatively, as absolutely nothing gets done unless everyone agrees.
It doesn't really work in this case, but as an American who would actually like to see my government govern a bit... less, I have to admit that such a system sounds tempting.
(X rated porn is only sold in one Australian state for example).
Oh my, that's unfortunate. I retract my endorsement.;(
PS2 also has mandatory lockouts. The only practical work-around aside from running the game in an emulator (quickly becoming a fairly realistic option) is to get a modchip installed. Modchips are legal in Australia after the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) went to the supreme court here against Sony and got them officially classified as being 'fair use'.
I think that case mods for the PS2 are perfectly practical too, possibly even more so than mod chips (no modding of the console proper, no extra chips involved). It takes advantage of the fact that region and dvd integrity checking is done at disc insertion time, not game load time, so a special case top half is installed with a lid on top that can be opened. You boot a special Swap Magic DVD, it boots the PS2 and stops the drive. Through the top lid, you remove the dvd and put in the game, and it loads the game into memory. Works almost perfectly!
PS3 has no regional lockouts for games. It does for Blu-ray. Sony's official policy is that regioning no longer makes sense and that it is more practical to 'lock out' regions by simply not offering the games in their language. It's a fairly odd position since they're one of the main proponents of movies on Blu-ray and those do have regions.
Oh my god, I've never heard of this before. Who hit them with the clue-by-four? Their region locking was the one reason I modded my PS2 (all to play Final Fantasy X International and Katamari Damacy when it looked like it wouldn't get a Region 1 release.
It certainly wouldn't be the first time though that their games division and their movie division were in direct opposition to each other, same with the games division vs the consumer hardware divisions. The Playstation has suffered from the desire for their to be no internal competition (IE, refusing to drop the price of the PS3 because it would compete with their standalone Blu-Ray players)
The MPAA-owned news studios are conspiring to keep people from caring.
No, people don't care because for the most part, it doesn't affect them. Health care greatly affects them. War, joblessness, the environment.. these things truly affect them. Copyright? The average person doesn't care about things like file sharing, copyright law, and other such issues. And for many who are in the know, they're luxuries again compared to the other issues.
It's already derailed, at least in the United States. The general public tend to choose among the top two to four candidates that have been on national TV. The TV news networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC) control which candidates can be on national TV, and they're all MPAA members. Of course they won't give screen time to any candidate that won't toe the copyright industry's party line.
Actually more likely it's that the average American places issues like health care, Afghanistan, the economy, taxes, Iraq, street crime and gang violence, racism, consumer product safety, climate change, homelessness, the housing market, gay marriage, and more far above copyright law. The latter just isn't an important issue to most people outside of the Slashdot crowd. It's not like Fox, CBS, ABC etc al are conspiring to be silent about copyright issues, it's just that most people don't care, and it's pretty difficult to explain to them why they should. After several years, I think I've got my partner and my mother convinced (different people, pervs. >_) of the importance of this issue.. after all, it just takes getting burned a few times by the failures of the system ("Wait, why can't I play the music I bought on Yahoo since they've shut down the service?").
You're correct. Perhaps they are only better documented side effects...
That's right, because, like the suppliments you get at GMC and other scam stores, there is no rigorous testing, no real certification, and no consequences.
Just because it's "natural" or comes directly from a plant in no way makes it 'safer.'
Zicam, a popular inhaled "homeopathic cold remedy" (another scam -- there is no cure for the common cold) has gotten a bit of attention lately, which is uncommon when a CAM treatment doesn't work. It also happened to contain zinc, and is currently known to destroy the sense of smell in those who take it.
Either way, the point still stands that modern medicine has other "ingredients" than the "active ingredient" that do have affects just the same as any "natural" medicine would.
Herbs and plants have more non-active "ingredients" that are just as dangerous. At least pharmaceudicals make the attempt to remove impurities.
It was voted down because the left failed to take into account that a large percentage of the immigrants now living in California come from Mexico and Latin America where Catholicism, which views marriage as a sacrament and takes a dim view on homosexuality, is very strongly entrenched.
In addition, the African-American community heavily voted against Prop 8. They turned out in record numbers, far greater than normal, to vote for Barack Obama for President.
So the election of Obama, while great for the left, also helped to kill gay marriage in California. The ironing is delicious.
First is the question: are they actually a regligious group? See France's recent rulings for more information.
According to federal law, yes. France's recent rulings have no jurisdiction or bearings on our laws, any more than their recent anti-Muslim ordinances too.
As much as I might want it, I don't see the federal acknowledgement of Scientology changing anytime soon.
If we claim it is a "for profit scam" we still have to include some very popular Christian sects in America (think TV evangelism, and mega churches), not to mention the pre-reformation Catholic church.
I think that would be a great start.
It's very hard to argue against the notion that the pre-reformation Catholic Church greatly went against the very principles it was based on. Same with opulent mega-churches, though probably not to the same extreme.
No, being produced by nature doesn't make it magically better, but it does often (most times) produce significantly less negative side effects than the man made versions.
That's an amazing claim that you've provided absolutely no proof for.
You see, when you sue or slander Scientology, you might not realize what you're getting yourself into. People end up doing jail for posting verbal attacks on Scientology online....
That's what you're dealing with. That's what Lindstein has in his future. He probably knows it, his lawyer probably knows it. But he will soon be subjected to character assassination, harassment of just barely legal amounts, indirect threats and the same for any family he may have.
I think most people also don't realize just how much worse a situation Lindstein is in. For non-Scientologists, the Church really has to work to try to dig up skeletons in the closet, to figure out just what could possibly embarrass and discredit you. But for ex-Scientologists, it's much worse, because they already know everything about you. You see, confession is part of the religion. That's hardly abnormal, but the difference is that you must confess something new. And you have to confess. So you'll be in a room with a dozen people screaming at you to confess some past sin. Something. And then that information is written down. Over the years they wring everything out of you, and it's all documented. Then when you turn against the church later in life, that information is released. Did you ever have a romantic affair with a fellow staffer? That will come out. Maybe when you were really young you curiously touched the family pet when he was humping your leg? Oh, you bet that will be shown. Everyone has something that they're not proud of that they don't want anyone to know. And the church will have confessionals for all of it. Of course they don't WANT to do this. " Yingling and Davis said the church doesn't relish using documents from ethics files. But after the four defectors spoke out against Miscavige, the lawyer and spokesman said they had no choice." That statement and others can be found from the amazing St. Petersburg Times series on Scientology: http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1012148.ece. Utterly amazing.
There is no reason to negotiate with people who rebel against the state, and every reason to kill them. Killing rebels poses an appropriate, stabilizing "barrier to entry" to power. Either get voted in, or fight a successful revolution.
Well, it certainly does show how ultimately fruitless the "I'll have my.45 to protect me against the corrupt lawman" attitude is. Small-scale revolts aren't much use, unless you consider the negative attention the ATF got to be an aim in itself.
Don't buy into that bogey man of kiddie snuff. It is being used to get a carte blanche for all kinds of restrictions against democratic principles like freedom of the press, freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble. The way it works is simple, a corporate or political interest has its skunk works bombard a service or site with offending material then they run to their co-investors in the media and whine for restrictions. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Ummm, ok. Etcetc. First, I don't believe in the conspiracy nonsense that the bad stuff on the Internet is just planted. But that's not the point. Maybe we have a fundamental disagreement here. You see, a user is responsible for everything that they knowingly and intentionally allow across their computers.
See, I don't have a problem with people running Tor nodes. Their risk, their decision, their choice. But I don't think that's a choice that someone else should make for those users without their knowledge. Then you're just shoving someone else, often unwillingly, in front of the firing squad.
So by all means, make Tor an option in Ubuntu. But to have it turned on by default would be the height of irresponsibility.
Hollywood is rebelling against them and more and more celebs are walking away or saying no.
I'd like to hear more about this. Which prominent celebrities have walked away recently? The only thing I hear is Nicole Kidman may have left Tom Cruise because of his Scientology (and tendency to be fucking crazy) and Will Smith is probably going to become a Scientologist.
It wasn't just one man, it was the entire group 'Anonymous'. However I find it funny that Scientology has such specific figures, especially on the phone calls.
I'm sure a chunk of those phone calls were made by Scientology members.
It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact."
That is correct, OVERUSE should be avoided, but that doesn't mean comparisons can never be drawn.
In this case, it was a rather valid comparison to a historic event, not two people calling each other Nazis.
Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard got tired of putting tons of work into high-end instances that only the top one-half of one percent would beat.
So Arthas, the entire focus of this expansion that everyone is playing, would only be seen by a tiny minority of players? They said "fuck that," and it was the right decision to make. You have a regular dungeon for the large player base, and you have hard-modes for people who want a challenge and the greater rewards that come with it.
Yeah, it is an issue, but it's a short-term issue.
It's because Blizzard builds their capacity based on normal usage, not on patch-day usage. I think this is just as much an issue with their tendency to bundle up lots of changes into one large content patch rather than stagger them on a more gradual basis.
If MMOs are supposed to be constantly evolving persistent worlds, WoW now wins the award for consistently stagnant persistent world.
This quote wins the award for most-ill-informed post in the story. If you think WoW is stagnant, you really should look at all the MMOs out there.
Well, in some cases the game is getting "easier," but many of the things you mentioned don't fall into the category of "easy" versus "hard" and more "annoying" versus "non-annoying." Any party member may mark targets -- there was really little reason not to allow this in the first place. As the MT, I always had to ask for leadership to mark targets because in a 5-man you can't designate an assistant. Well now that limitation is gone. It's not 'making it easier,' it's removing an entirely artificial interface mechanic. To put it another way, these things that are being removed didn't make the gameplay itself any harder or easier, it makes administration easier. I would say the game is really not much easier than it was during the level 60 days, but it definitely is easier from the -administration- side. Things like being able to summon inside instances, summoning stones, warlock summoning portals, removing summon stone character level, these are all changes that make the administrative side easier, and most of these were introduced slowly.
I really don't understand why we've hung on to this ridiculously outdated notion of political power being assigned hierarchically by physical location. I have little in common with my neighbors, let alone people a mere suburb away, but I have the same political interests as other people in my field of employment literally thousands of kilometers away in Perth.
Take a look at the insane degree to which Americans have taken Gerrymandering [wikipedia.org] - formerly simple voting territories have been made almost fractal in outline! It's a bad, half-baked solution to concentrating voter power among like-minded people, to get a representative in to government, where otherwise the votes would be too diluted within a territory.
Actually.. Gerrymandering is the creation of bizarrely-drawn districts because most of the people in those districts DO agree with each other, as opposed to districts that are.. oh, square shaped and would contains different types of neighborhoods.
Gerrymandering is effective because the people in that district agree with each other, and it thus creates districts that are 'safe' for the political party drawing up the lines. I would think you'd actually be in favor of it, as its entire purpose is to disregard geography as much as possible in unifying like-minded people.
The reason why territory-based voting is still popular is that most basic issues, especially 'local' issues, are still geography-based. Local taxes, education, utilities, local government services...
The GP was wrong and I had pertinent information. In a later post he has equated video games to a basic right, could you honestly say the GP has a clue after that.
Maybe the GP considers it part of freedom of speech and expression. I personally believe in very few limits on that.
Not really, the system requires a unanimous vote because each Attorney General represents one of Australia's states. Requiring a unanimous vote prevents 4 out of the 7 deciding things for everyone,
It also leads to a system that leans extremely conservatively, as absolutely nothing gets done unless everyone agrees.
It doesn't really work in this case, but as an American who would actually like to see my government govern a bit... less, I have to admit that such a system sounds tempting.
(X rated porn is only sold in one Australian state for example).
Oh my, that's unfortunate. I retract my endorsement. ;(
PS2 also has mandatory lockouts. The only practical work-around aside from running the game in an emulator (quickly becoming a fairly realistic option) is to get a modchip installed. Modchips are legal in Australia after the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) went to the supreme court here against Sony and got them officially classified as being 'fair use'.
I think that case mods for the PS2 are perfectly practical too, possibly even more so than mod chips (no modding of the console proper, no extra chips involved). It takes advantage of the fact that region and dvd integrity checking is done at disc insertion time, not game load time, so a special case top half is installed with a lid on top that can be opened. You boot a special Swap Magic DVD, it boots the PS2 and stops the drive. Through the top lid, you remove the dvd and put in the game, and it loads the game into memory. Works almost perfectly!
PS3 has no regional lockouts for games. It does for Blu-ray. Sony's official policy is that regioning no longer makes sense and that it is more practical to 'lock out' regions by simply not offering the games in their language. It's a fairly odd position since they're one of the main proponents of movies on Blu-ray and those do have regions.
Oh my god, I've never heard of this before. Who hit them with the clue-by-four? Their region locking was the one reason I modded my PS2 (all to play Final Fantasy X International and Katamari Damacy when it looked like it wouldn't get a Region 1 release.
It certainly wouldn't be the first time though that their games division and their movie division were in direct opposition to each other, same with the games division vs the consumer hardware divisions. The Playstation has suffered from the desire for their to be no internal competition (IE, refusing to drop the price of the PS3 because it would compete with their standalone Blu-Ray players)
The MPAA-owned news studios are conspiring to keep people from caring.
No, people don't care because for the most part, it doesn't affect them. Health care greatly affects them. War, joblessness, the environment.. these things truly affect them. Copyright? The average person doesn't care about things like file sharing, copyright law, and other such issues. And for many who are in the know, they're luxuries again compared to the other issues.
Thus derailing the whole democratic process.
It's already derailed, at least in the United States. The general public tend to choose among the top two to four candidates that have been on national TV. The TV news networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC) control which candidates can be on national TV, and they're all MPAA members. Of course they won't give screen time to any candidate that won't toe the copyright industry's party line.
Actually more likely it's that the average American places issues like health care, Afghanistan, the economy, taxes, Iraq, street crime and gang violence, racism, consumer product safety, climate change, homelessness, the housing market, gay marriage, and more far above copyright law. The latter just isn't an important issue to most people outside of the Slashdot crowd. It's not like Fox, CBS, ABC etc al are conspiring to be silent about copyright issues, it's just that most people don't care, and it's pretty difficult to explain to them why they should. After several years, I think I've got my partner and my mother convinced (different people, pervs. >_) of the importance of this issue.. after all, it just takes getting burned a few times by the failures of the system ("Wait, why can't I play the music I bought on Yahoo since they've shut down the service?").
You're correct. Perhaps they are only better documented side effects...
That's right, because, like the suppliments you get at GMC and other scam stores, there is no rigorous testing, no real certification, and no consequences.
Just because it's "natural" or comes directly from a plant in no way makes it 'safer.'
Zicam, a popular inhaled "homeopathic cold remedy" (another scam -- there is no cure for the common cold) has gotten a bit of attention lately, which is uncommon when a CAM treatment doesn't work. It also happened to contain zinc, and is currently known to destroy the sense of smell in those who take it.
Either way, the point still stands that modern medicine has other "ingredients" than the "active ingredient" that do have affects just the same as any "natural" medicine would.
Herbs and plants have more non-active "ingredients" that are just as dangerous. At least pharmaceudicals make the attempt to remove impurities.
It was voted down because the left failed to take into account that a large percentage of the immigrants now living in California come from Mexico and Latin America where Catholicism, which views marriage as a sacrament and takes a dim view on homosexuality, is very strongly entrenched.
In addition, the African-American community heavily voted against Prop 8. They turned out in record numbers, far greater than normal, to vote for Barack Obama for President.
So the election of Obama, while great for the left, also helped to kill gay marriage in California. The ironing is delicious.
First is the question: are they actually a regligious group? See France's recent rulings for more information.
According to federal law, yes. France's recent rulings have no jurisdiction or bearings on our laws, any more than their recent anti-Muslim ordinances too.
As much as I might want it, I don't see the federal acknowledgement of Scientology changing anytime soon.
If we claim it is a "for profit scam" we still have to include some very popular Christian sects in America (think TV evangelism, and mega churches), not to mention the pre-reformation Catholic church.
I think that would be a great start.
It's very hard to argue against the notion that the pre-reformation Catholic Church greatly went against the very principles it was based on. Same with opulent mega-churches, though probably not to the same extreme.
No, being produced by nature doesn't make it magically better, but it does often (most times) produce significantly less negative side effects than the man made versions.
That's an amazing claim that you've provided absolutely no proof for.
Plus, since you've been through the auditing, you know everything they have written down, don't you?
I wonder how many people make up stuff to confess just so they can get out of that torture. Hey, it's all forgiven anyway, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Turtle [wikipedia.org]
"What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever", said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
You see, when you sue or slander Scientology, you might not realize what you're getting yourself into. People end up doing jail for posting verbal attacks on Scientology online. ...
That's what you're dealing with. That's what Lindstein has in his future. He probably knows it, his lawyer probably knows it. But he will soon be subjected to character assassination, harassment of just barely legal amounts, indirect threats and the same for any family he may have.
I think most people also don't realize just how much worse a situation Lindstein is in. For non-Scientologists, the Church really has to work to try to dig up skeletons in the closet, to figure out just what could possibly embarrass and discredit you. But for ex-Scientologists, it's much worse, because they already know everything about you. You see, confession is part of the religion. That's hardly abnormal, but the difference is that you must confess something new. And you have to confess. So you'll be in a room with a dozen people screaming at you to confess some past sin. Something. And then that information is written down. Over the years they wring everything out of you, and it's all documented. Then when you turn against the church later in life, that information is released. Did you ever have a romantic affair with a fellow staffer? That will come out. Maybe when you were really young you curiously touched the family pet when he was humping your leg? Oh, you bet that will be shown. Everyone has something that they're not proud of that they don't want anyone to know. And the church will have confessionals for all of it. Of course they don't WANT to do this. " Yingling and Davis said the church doesn't relish using documents from ethics files. But after the four defectors spoke out against Miscavige, the lawyer and spokesman said they had no choice." That statement and others can be found from the amazing St. Petersburg Times series on Scientology: http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1012148.ece. Utterly amazing.
So yeah, Lindstein is in for a rough time.
Not to defend statutory rape, but it's not the same as "liking little girls".
So he's in the clear.. as long as he didn't actually like her. ;-)
There is no reason to negotiate with people who rebel against the state, and every reason to kill them. Killing rebels poses an appropriate, stabilizing "barrier to entry" to power. Either get voted in, or fight a successful revolution.
Well, it certainly does show how ultimately fruitless the "I'll have my .45 to protect me against the corrupt lawman" attitude is. Small-scale revolts aren't much use, unless you consider the negative attention the ATF got to be an aim in itself.
Don't buy into that bogey man of kiddie snuff. It is being used to get a carte blanche for all kinds of restrictions against democratic principles like freedom of the press, freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble. The way it works is simple, a corporate or political interest has its skunk works bombard a service or site with offending material then they run to their co-investors in the media and whine for restrictions. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Ummm, ok. Etcetc. First, I don't believe in the conspiracy nonsense that the bad stuff on the Internet is just planted. But that's not the point. Maybe we have a fundamental disagreement here. You see, a user is responsible for everything that they knowingly and intentionally allow across their computers.
See, I don't have a problem with people running Tor nodes. Their risk, their decision, their choice. But I don't think that's a choice that someone else should make for those users without their knowledge. Then you're just shoving someone else, often unwillingly, in front of the firing squad.
So by all means, make Tor an option in Ubuntu. But to have it turned on by default would be the height of irresponsibility.
Hollywood is rebelling against them and more and more celebs are walking away or saying no.
I'd like to hear more about this. Which prominent celebrities have walked away recently? The only thing I hear is Nicole Kidman may have left Tom Cruise because of his Scientology (and tendency to be fucking crazy) and Will Smith is probably going to become a Scientologist.
It wasn't just one man, it was the entire group 'Anonymous'. However I find it funny that Scientology has such specific figures, especially on the phone calls.
I'm sure a chunk of those phone calls were made by Scientology members.
If the DoS here stands for "Denial of Scientology", I'd say it's fair game.
Haha, that was beautiful.
(Italics added)
It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact."
That is correct, OVERUSE should be avoided, but that doesn't mean comparisons can never be drawn.
In this case, it was a rather valid comparison to a historic event, not two people calling each other Nazis.