It's funny that the media tried to make Ron Paul out to be some sort of radical fringe loon, but now that that the election is over, the media seems to love him.
Love him? More like ignore him. And Ron Paul was a radical fringe loon. Most people did not vote for him for the same reason most people don't vote for Libertarian candidates either -- they don't believe in those principles, regardless of what a small but very outspoken group of people on the Internet might say.
I liked Ron Paul, but didn't buy off on all the things he believed, so I didn't vote for him.
Are you talking about the higher education system as "infrastructure?" That's not what most people refer to it as. There are lots of reasons to take pot-shots at our education system, but "infrastructure" usually refers to things like roads, bridges, water ways, sewer, etc.
I suspect that California educated engineers had a lot to do with the problem. A panel had to decide how to fix the problem. The panel was composed, by law, of one gay, one lesbian, one transvestite, one Mormon, one Moslem, one Black, one Hispanic - the list goes on and on.
You REALLY don't know how things work in California.
We got rid of the Mormon after the Prop 8 debacle.
...you mean, like the Mormons saying that god would come by 1891?
One of the reasons why Mormonism is seen as a fringe joke by just about anyone outside the religion who has examined it.
Or the Christians saying that Armageddon would occur in 1000, 2000 (and also during the reformation, because, they reasoned, surely everything that could be known, already was.)
I don't know of the biblical foundation for such claims. When you say "the Christians," who specifically are you referring to?
b) Selling gold in an online RPG, causing no direct harm to anyone.
And unlike Blizzard who went after a bot creator through a ridulous copyright claim that should have been thrown out of court at first glance, Microsoft is fully in the right here.
Except that the gold sold by gold sellers is usually not farmed up, it's stolen from people who had their account hacked. Several people in my guild were hacked before authenticators became popular, and the result was the same -- all items not bound to the character were transfered off. All items bound to the character were vendored. All items that the character had access to were removed from the guild bank. All gold was similarly transfered off. You don't know if a gold seller got the gold through legitimate farming or whether it just came from hacked accounts. That's why the account hacking question is very relevant to this discussion.
And playing baseball on a field is working for little numbers in boxes on a scorecard. And playing golf is working for even smaller numbers on a smaller scorecard. When kids play cops and robbers, it's for... nothing.
Play is about what's fun.
Dear moderators -- please mod this up to 11. Not to 5, or 10, this one goes to 11.
Thank you, Someone who has posted way too many times in the article already.
Mmm. I had about the opposite experience -- when I was leveling up my mining, I had no problems finding Mithril (well, ok, not Mithril. It's the one ore that is more difficult to find than the others.. just because in the area where it's found it's mixed in with iron and thorium too) or any other profession reagent.
This CAN be a problem though in the weeks after something is released that requires those materials.. say, when jewelcrafting was released, it was difficult for awhile to find lower-level ore thanks to the people trying to level their new skills. In normal circumstances though, I was able to run through and find what I needed. Occasionally you would get a level 80 running through gathering stuff, but the zones are large enough that the raw reagents respawn faster than a single level 80 could collect.
I love the World of Warcraft April Fool's pranks. They always manage to hit just the right tone, whether it was the Bard class or "Don't let the inconvenience of eating impede you from reaching your Maximum Gaming Potential."
I'm guessing it's because there are almost no "west coast" guilds or "east coast" guilds.. they're all guilds of various people who get along or have similar aims, and they're all mixes of west and east-coasters, with all the same time constraints.
I chose renting for a long time just because real estate prices here are so wild (just bought a 1100 sq ft house for $645k). But it's all about quality of life for me -- if I'm going to spend 2 hours in my car every day, then what is even the point of owning a home? That's 2 hours every day that is completely, entirely wasted, time I'll never get back. I made the choice that nothing is worth that, but I understand if others make a different choice.
Having it be much easier to get the gear later on means that the time the player spent WORKING is now worth LESS.
This will always, ALWAYS be the case, and it always has been. Gear is always transitory -- it is a way to improve yourself NOW so that you can do achievements and instances NOW. Your super hot Sword of Epicness that dropped tonight in your heroic 25-man will likely be useless in 3 months, or replaced by something that a 10-man pug will be able to do at that point. But by that point in time you'll be getting items that are better than what said PuG is getting. As long as this is something you can accept, you'll be fine in raiding. But if you agonize over the idea that the items you worked hard to get now will be obsolete in months.. then this is the wrong game to be playing.
The reason the Coliseum item rewards (badges from dailies, etc) are so good is because the next dungeon is Icecrown Citadel, the home of Arthas. He is the entire culmination of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and Blizzard wants people to actually see that dungeon and play through it. So the current content cycle is designed to bring everyone up in gear level to prepare them for what is coming. They don't want it to be limited to the top 5% of players like vanilla wow or BC was. Instead, the super-elite groups will be doing achievements through their heroic hardmodes, while the more casual players will be cruising through in the regular mode. The super-elite players will be getting better prestige and the better gear that lets them be more powerful and tackle new achievements, but both groups get to see the content that Blizzard has been working so hard on and was promised on the box cover. That is what is different about this expansion -- harder challenges still give you better rewards, but most people can still see the actual content, especially now that all raid dungeons have a 10-man easier-to-organize-than-the-25s version.
This is why I believe the item rarity system should never have been used to begin with. If item quality was based on comparing just the stats and benefits with no other measure (ie. name colour, level requirement) then I highly doubt so many people would have their panties in a knot over "casuals" getting similar quality gear.
~jaraxle
No, instead people would find something just as ridiculous to get worked up over. It's not like there's some amazing difference between a blue and epic of the same ilvl. There is a difference, but it's small. No, people are worked up because the title of the item is purple.. or just the item level itself. So... if you made everything blue text or purple text, people would find something else to grumble about because they just want to grumble about items of similar strengths coming from achievements that have differing difficulty.
* The funny thing about the end-game raids being controlled by hardcore guilds is that every single guild always ran the raid at 6:00 PST sharp. I actually got invited to a couple runs I couldn't do, because you had to show up 15 minutes before 6:00... I'm barely starting dinner by then.
Every. Single. Guild. I talked to: 6:00. "Can we start at 7:00, I'm not ready by 6:00?" "What are you, an alien mutant from Venus!!"
I have a hunch that only east-coast players and west-coast jobless losers raid.
My guild currently has raids that start at 6:30 pm PST, and basically that time frame was chosen because it was the one that the most people could play at. If you started any earlier, you would cut out just about all the West Coasters off. If you started any later, then the raid would end well after midnight for the East Coasters. So from our experience, we settled at a 6:30 starting time after trying out many other times and finding this was the one that more people could make. I suspect most of the other guilds had a similar trial and error process too.
Boy, that extra 30 minutes makes all the difference for us west coasters too. Fortunately, I live close to my workplace, so if I leave at 5:30, I get home at 5:45. For those west-coasters foolish enough to live 1-2 hours from their job... ugh. Probably cut off completely.
Some can't make the early weekday raids and can only be on time for the Sunday evening raid instead, and that's fine. My partner and I play in the same guild and are in the same raid, so on weekday raid nights dinner is something that we can make in a few minutes (like, say, a chinese chicken salad from a good salad kit) right after I get home from work. We've come up with ways that make it work for the both of us.
I used to play wow. I used to love it. I raided with my guild, did all the fun stuff. Got the rewards from putting the effort in and loved each moment of it. Then Blizzard started listening to the vocal minority crowd, the ones who wanted the rewards with no time put in. The ones who wanted to get the "Sword of OMGWTFBBQ" to kill boars in the forest and nothing more, they wanted to be shiny and wanted it now with no effort. That's when the game started to go down hill.
You call them the "vocal minority crowd," but the truth is that Blizzard decided not to cater solely to the 4% of the player base who were raiding Naxxramas at 60 or Sunwell at 70 pre-nerf. Yeah, the hardcore raiders were never the great majority.
Do you watch television on weeknights AND weekends? For most people who play the game a lot, it is a hobby that takes the place of, say, TV. Or game consoles.
How does he know that when the band writes their own music and lyrics, they don't end up accidentally making it too similar to a published song? That was the case in Bright Tunes.
Because the copyright is still theirs until it's proven that it's not.
Not to be needlessly argumentative, but I think part of what the past decade has taught me is that they want their *control*. They'll sacrifice a few dollars if it means that they get to maintain control over what you listen to, how you listen to it, and where you get it. They'll spend tons of money trying to ram a new album down your throat, and then once you buy it they'll spend some more money to keep you from listening to it without buying it again.
Maybe, but again the control is just a means to an end for them. Of course they want control, because they think they can get more money in the long term from that. If, say, they block the ability to rip a CD so that you'll have to rebuy it if it gets scratched; well, that's a win for them. If they can make you buy multiple copies to listen in multiple areas (home, car, work), that's a big win for them as well. Money is the bottom line, and control was the way they thought they could get it. But they never could achieve that aim, and the rest of us are all much better off for that.
Most people don't. They have a number of secret rituals and practices that are only allowed to be shown to worthy members of the church, and never to outsiders, and not even to Mormons considered "unworthy."
Glen Larson (the 1970s Battlestar Galactica creator) got into trouble with the Mormon Church because a colonial marriage ceremony depicted in Battlestar Galactica too closely followed the official mormon ceremonies.
Technically it could be any god, even a specific god of a polytheistic religion. I choose to think it represent Apollo. The only ones it specifically excludes are atheists, which was the exact intent of the original measure -- a moral strike against godless communists.
We all know though that it's really referring to the Christian God though, since "This is a Christian nation."
Same here (assuming the content is worthy of being modded down). If someone wants to be a martyr, then I'll indulge them.
Re:Surely Slashdot can get cracker vs hacker right
on
How To Hire a Hacker
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· Score: 1
I'd guess most of the people within the computer use the word hacker interchangeably, the meaning changing with the context. "I put a wrapper around this program to fix the bug. It's a pretty ugly hack." "He's more of an old-school hacker." "Hackers made off with information from my bank..."
The only place I ever see someone getting huffy now at the definition of hacker changing are people on Slashdot and the occasional technology web forum.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think they loved her, but they loved her being in the race.
There's more than one of us.
But not very much more.
It's funny that the media tried to make Ron Paul out to be some sort of radical fringe loon, but now that that the election is over, the media seems to love him.
Love him? More like ignore him. And Ron Paul was a radical fringe loon. Most people did not vote for him for the same reason most people don't vote for Libertarian candidates either -- they don't believe in those principles, regardless of what a small but very outspoken group of people on the Internet might say.
I liked Ron Paul, but didn't buy off on all the things he believed, so I didn't vote for him.
Are you talking about the higher education system as "infrastructure?" That's not what most people refer to it as. There are lots of reasons to take pot-shots at our education system, but "infrastructure" usually refers to things like roads, bridges, water ways, sewer, etc.
I suspect that California educated engineers had a lot to do with the problem. A panel had to decide how to fix the problem. The panel was composed, by law, of one gay, one lesbian, one transvestite, one Mormon, one Moslem, one Black, one Hispanic - the list goes on and on.
You REALLY don't know how things work in California.
We got rid of the Mormon after the Prop 8 debacle.
It would certainly make commutes easier.
One of the reasons why Mormonism is seen as a fringe joke by just about anyone outside the religion who has examined it.
Or the Christians saying that Armageddon would occur in 1000, 2000 (and also during the reformation, because, they reasoned, surely everything that could be known, already was.)
I don't know of the biblical foundation for such claims. When you say "the Christians," who specifically are you referring to?
The problem isn't with the Blu-Ray media, it's the Blu-Ray players because they follow the Blu-Ray specs.
Except that the gold sold by gold sellers is usually not farmed up, it's stolen from people who had their account hacked. Several people in my guild were hacked before authenticators became popular, and the result was the same -- all items not bound to the character were transfered off. All items bound to the character were vendored. All items that the character had access to were removed from the guild bank. All gold was similarly transfered off. You don't know if a gold seller got the gold through legitimate farming or whether it just came from hacked accounts. That's why the account hacking question is very relevant to this discussion.
And playing baseball on a field is working for little numbers in boxes on a scorecard. And playing golf is working for even smaller numbers on a smaller scorecard. When kids play cops and robbers, it's for... nothing.
Play is about what's fun.
Dear moderators -- please mod this up to 11. Not to 5, or 10, this one goes to 11.
Thank you,
Someone who has posted way too many times in the article already.
Mmm. I had about the opposite experience -- when I was leveling up my mining, I had no problems finding Mithril (well, ok, not Mithril. It's the one ore that is more difficult to find than the others.. just because in the area where it's found it's mixed in with iron and thorium too) or any other profession reagent.
This CAN be a problem though in the weeks after something is released that requires those materials.. say, when jewelcrafting was released, it was difficult for awhile to find lower-level ore thanks to the people trying to level their new skills. In normal circumstances though, I was able to run through and find what I needed. Occasionally you would get a level 80 running through gathering stuff, but the zones are large enough that the raw reagents respawn faster than a single level 80 could collect.
I love the World of Warcraft April Fool's pranks. They always manage to hit just the right tone, whether it was the Bard class or "Don't let the inconvenience of eating impede you from reaching your Maximum Gaming Potential."
I'm guessing it's because there are almost no "west coast" guilds or "east coast" guilds.. they're all guilds of various people who get along or have similar aims, and they're all mixes of west and east-coasters, with all the same time constraints.
I chose renting for a long time just because real estate prices here are so wild (just bought a 1100 sq ft house for $645k). But it's all about quality of life for me -- if I'm going to spend 2 hours in my car every day, then what is even the point of owning a home? That's 2 hours every day that is completely, entirely wasted, time I'll never get back. I made the choice that nothing is worth that, but I understand if others make a different choice.
Having it be much easier to get the gear later on means that the time the player spent WORKING is now worth LESS.
This will always, ALWAYS be the case, and it always has been. Gear is always transitory -- it is a way to improve yourself NOW so that you can do achievements and instances NOW. Your super hot Sword of Epicness that dropped tonight in your heroic 25-man will likely be useless in 3 months, or replaced by something that a 10-man pug will be able to do at that point. But by that point in time you'll be getting items that are better than what said PuG is getting. As long as this is something you can accept, you'll be fine in raiding. But if you agonize over the idea that the items you worked hard to get now will be obsolete in months.. then this is the wrong game to be playing.
The reason the Coliseum item rewards (badges from dailies, etc) are so good is because the next dungeon is Icecrown Citadel, the home of Arthas. He is the entire culmination of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and Blizzard wants people to actually see that dungeon and play through it. So the current content cycle is designed to bring everyone up in gear level to prepare them for what is coming. They don't want it to be limited to the top 5% of players like vanilla wow or BC was. Instead, the super-elite groups will be doing achievements through their heroic hardmodes, while the more casual players will be cruising through in the regular mode. The super-elite players will be getting better prestige and the better gear that lets them be more powerful and tackle new achievements, but both groups get to see the content that Blizzard has been working so hard on and was promised on the box cover. That is what is different about this expansion -- harder challenges still give you better rewards, but most people can still see the actual content, especially now that all raid dungeons have a 10-man easier-to-organize-than-the-25s version.
This is why I believe the item rarity system should never have been used to begin with. If item quality was based on comparing just the stats and benefits with no other measure (ie. name colour, level requirement) then I highly doubt so many people would have their panties in a knot over "casuals" getting similar quality gear.
~jaraxle
No, instead people would find something just as ridiculous to get worked up over. It's not like there's some amazing difference between a blue and epic of the same ilvl. There is a difference, but it's small. No, people are worked up because the title of the item is purple.. or just the item level itself. So... if you made everything blue text or purple text, people would find something else to grumble about because they just want to grumble about items of similar strengths coming from achievements that have differing difficulty.
* The funny thing about the end-game raids being controlled by hardcore guilds is that every single guild always ran the raid at 6:00 PST sharp. I actually got invited to a couple runs I couldn't do, because you had to show up 15 minutes before 6:00... I'm barely starting dinner by then.
Every. Single. Guild. I talked to: 6:00. "Can we start at 7:00, I'm not ready by 6:00?" "What are you, an alien mutant from Venus!!"
I have a hunch that only east-coast players and west-coast jobless losers raid.
My guild currently has raids that start at 6:30 pm PST, and basically that time frame was chosen because it was the one that the most people could play at. If you started any earlier, you would cut out just about all the West Coasters off. If you started any later, then the raid would end well after midnight for the East Coasters. So from our experience, we settled at a 6:30 starting time after trying out many other times and finding this was the one that more people could make. I suspect most of the other guilds had a similar trial and error process too.
Boy, that extra 30 minutes makes all the difference for us west coasters too. Fortunately, I live close to my workplace, so if I leave at 5:30, I get home at 5:45. For those west-coasters foolish enough to live 1-2 hours from their job... ugh. Probably cut off completely.
Some can't make the early weekday raids and can only be on time for the Sunday evening raid instead, and that's fine. My partner and I play in the same guild and are in the same raid, so on weekday raid nights dinner is something that we can make in a few minutes (like, say, a chinese chicken salad from a good salad kit) right after I get home from work. We've come up with ways that make it work for the both of us.
I used to play wow. I used to love it. I raided with my guild, did all the fun stuff. Got the rewards from putting the effort in and loved each moment of it. Then Blizzard started listening to the vocal minority crowd, the ones who wanted the rewards with no time put in. The ones who wanted to get the "Sword of OMGWTFBBQ" to kill boars in the forest and nothing more, they wanted to be shiny and wanted it now with no effort. That's when the game started to go down hill.
You call them the "vocal minority crowd," but the truth is that Blizzard decided not to cater solely to the 4% of the player base who were raiding Naxxramas at 60 or Sunwell at 70 pre-nerf. Yeah, the hardcore raiders were never the great majority.
Do you watch television on weeknights AND weekends? For most people who play the game a lot, it is a hobby that takes the place of, say, TV. Or game consoles.
How does he know that when the band writes their own music and lyrics, they don't end up accidentally making it too similar to a published song? That was the case in Bright Tunes.
Because the copyright is still theirs until it's proven that it's not.
Not to be needlessly argumentative, but I think part of what the past decade has taught me is that they want their *control*. They'll sacrifice a few dollars if it means that they get to maintain control over what you listen to, how you listen to it, and where you get it. They'll spend tons of money trying to ram a new album down your throat, and then once you buy it they'll spend some more money to keep you from listening to it without buying it again.
Maybe, but again the control is just a means to an end for them. Of course they want control, because they think they can get more money in the long term from that. If, say, they block the ability to rip a CD so that you'll have to rebuy it if it gets scratched; well, that's a win for them. If they can make you buy multiple copies to listen in multiple areas (home, car, work), that's a big win for them as well. Money is the bottom line, and control was the way they thought they could get it. But they never could achieve that aim, and the rest of us are all much better off for that.
Most people don't. They have a number of secret rituals and practices that are only allowed to be shown to worthy members of the church, and never to outsiders, and not even to Mormons considered "unworthy."
Glen Larson (the 1970s Battlestar Galactica creator) got into trouble with the Mormon Church because a colonial marriage ceremony depicted in Battlestar Galactica too closely followed the official mormon ceremonies.
Technically it could be any god, even a specific god of a polytheistic religion. I choose to think it represent Apollo. The only ones it specifically excludes are atheists, which was the exact intent of the original measure -- a moral strike against godless communists.
We all know though that it's really referring to the Christian God though, since "This is a Christian nation."
How about the church of the Mormons?
Same here (assuming the content is worthy of being modded down). If someone wants to be a martyr, then I'll indulge them.
I'd guess most of the people within the computer use the word hacker interchangeably, the meaning changing with the context. "I put a wrapper around this program to fix the bug. It's a pretty ugly hack." "He's more of an old-school hacker." "Hackers made off with information from my bank..."
The only place I ever see someone getting huffy now at the definition of hacker changing are people on Slashdot and the occasional technology web forum.