It would have been interesting if they had a storyline all set up just in case the dragon was slain. But from what I remember of EQ, nothing like that will be there. The story line is stagnant, except for when expansion packs are announced.
They've been planning this for some time, and put in sales orders to sell at their target prices which until the lawsuit was filed were completely unrealistic. I think it is obvious what they're doing.
The commercial sites that used keywords in a proper way (ie in META tags and just by way of having them in their actual site text (!!)) are not getting shafted here. It's the ones that created bogus landing pages with all sorts of keywords that don't have anything to do with their own site that are getting the boot.
People were exploiting Google, and Google is responding. Finally. Has nothing to do with a monopoly (which, btw, Google is not).
I bet you could make a decent 400-people game using minimal bandwidth, with a P2P distribution and server model. IE everyone connects to everyone else, instead of always connecting to your servers.
It would be really amazing to see, though. What we need is a decent turnkey MMOG engine (clientside) with a well documented interface, and some story tellers like you said.
I've had this *exact* problem. I couldn't find a solution either, but I do believe there must be one.
The hack I put together to make it work... keep it as the same document, but print the first page with page numbers turned off, and then print the last pages with page numbers turned on.
Agreed. Fining should be sufficient. However, I strongly feel that possessing some pot is a much lighter offense to society than spamming, so if we're to be logical (IMO), punishments for spamming should be greater than punishments for possession.
But only if they send messages to actual unauthorized users. Those of us who don't distribute mp3s are still safe. And it'd be against the law to spam us still.;)
I chat on Yahoo's network with Gaim and Trillian, which is nice. But I do agree, Yahoo has become irrelevant in every other way. I know there were signs of their decline beforehand, but when they started accepting pop-under ads from X10, there was no longer any hope whatsoever.
Yeah, totally agreed there too. I almost decided I wasn't going to play it, but then I tried it with the PS2 adapter I use for Midnight Club. Man. What a difference.
If you've got this game and you're frustrated with the controls, spend about $25-35 on a cheap used PS2 controller (Gamestop has tons) and a adapter (Radio Shack sells 'em) - it's worth it. It's fun for other games, too. I use mine in Desert Combat for heli's;)
It probably also helps that the game plays almost identical to Everquest in a lot of ways, that other MMOGs don't. Not that that's bad; obviously it is successful.
It does do some things better than Everquest did, but "autoattack" is still pretty much there, with bash/kick replaced with skills that can be combined in groups. The experience point distribution problem is worse, where if your group is any more than 1 level apart, experience is rather uneven. But all in all it is better.
His shareholders are already winning, though - big time. The short-timers, he doesn't care about. It's those that had stock when it was in the low-dollars range that told him he should go ahead and do this.
Make no mistake, everyone who pushed for this to happen (internally within the shareholders) has already won.
Nearly ever merchant I deal with any more, unless they recognize me as a prior customer, checks my ID when I use my debit or credit cards. It's incredibly common.
Er, we already have people detained without even being charged. Look up the domestic abuse laws. You can have some bitch lie to the police, you'll go to jail for at least a week, maybe 2 before they even arrest you, so you can't even call a lawyer or anything.
This was not my idea - someone else here posted it a while back and I'm copying it.
When people go to the game store, they are more likely to consider a game with a $40-50 price tag than a game with a $10 price tag. $10 games are typically games that never sold at the higher price, or are barely above the standards of shareware, etc.
To get free games into stores, you'd have to pay the store for the shelf space - you'd have to pay them a lot.
Some people are willing to look up games online, and then download 1-2GB of content to start playing (FFXI is huge, as a for instance), but most people aren't. Most people want a manual in front of them, a set of CDs to install/reinstall from, etc.
A best-of-both-worlds would be for a game to include more than a single month free with the purchase. It'll be a while til we start seeing that though.
For me, personally, I don't have a problem with paying $40-50 for a game w/ a free month. Over the years I have spent good money on several games that I didn't play longer than a couple weeks - sometimes I've even regretted it, but them's the breaks.
The GPL exists explicitly because some people writing OSS code do care about their existance and relevance. They want to ensure that their name stays on their software, and that nobody tries to use it without giving them credit (for all the world to see).
If they didn't, they'd release their code into the public domain, or at the very least license it under a less restrictive BSD-style license.
When I think of a VC-financed business, the last thing that comes to mind is "independence".
I'm sure there's room in the market for independent game developers, and independent publishers, but if they're going to be backed by VC they're either going to be forced to sell out, or forced to go under, after their first hit or miss respectively.
Just having toggles to enable/disable javascript and java near the address bar would be excellent. Same with disabling plugins like flash. Just so you don't have to go through menus and preference boxes to do it every time...
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It would have been interesting if they had a storyline all set up just in case the dragon was slain. But from what I remember of EQ, nothing like that will be there. The story line is stagnant, except for when expansion packs are announced.
And their families? And their friends? There's no records of that, at least not online.
I'm not sure if you're being serious or not. Here's a list of documented sales: Insider Trading from Yahoo!
They've been planning this for some time, and put in sales orders to sell at their target prices which until the lawsuit was filed were completely unrealistic. I think it is obvious what they're doing.
Wrong - the entire point of the lawsuit is to increase their stock price for long enough for the executives and investors to Make Money Fast.
The commercial sites that used keywords in a proper way (ie in META tags and just by way of having them in their actual site text (!!)) are not getting shafted here. It's the ones that created bogus landing pages with all sorts of keywords that don't have anything to do with their own site that are getting the boot.
People were exploiting Google, and Google is responding. Finally. Has nothing to do with a monopoly (which, btw, Google is not).
I bet you could make a decent 400-people game using minimal bandwidth, with a P2P distribution and server model. IE everyone connects to everyone else, instead of always connecting to your servers.
It would be really amazing to see, though. What we need is a decent turnkey MMOG engine (clientside) with a well documented interface, and some story tellers like you said.
Heh, I don't even have office. I think I may have used it a couple of times.
:-)
I looked around, and a LOT of people have requested this improvement already. I learned from USENET days that nobody likes "me too" posts.
I've had this *exact* problem. I couldn't find a solution either, but I do believe there must be one.
The hack I put together to make it work... keep it as the same document, but print the first page with page numbers turned off, and then print the last pages with page numbers turned on.
Agreed. Fining should be sufficient. However, I strongly feel that possessing some pot is a much lighter offense to society than spamming, so if we're to be logical (IMO), punishments for spamming should be greater than punishments for possession.
But only if they send messages to actual unauthorized users. Those of us who don't distribute mp3s are still safe. And it'd be against the law to spam us still. ;)
I chat on Yahoo's network with Gaim and Trillian, which is nice. But I do agree, Yahoo has become irrelevant in every other way. I know there were signs of their decline beforehand, but when they started accepting pop-under ads from X10, there was no longer any hope whatsoever.
Yeah, totally agreed there too. I almost decided I wasn't going to play it, but then I tried it with the PS2 adapter I use for Midnight Club. Man. What a difference.
;)
If you've got this game and you're frustrated with the controls, spend about $25-35 on a cheap used PS2 controller (Gamestop has tons) and a adapter (Radio Shack sells 'em) - it's worth it. It's fun for other games, too. I use mine in Desert Combat for heli's
It probably also helps that the game plays almost identical to Everquest in a lot of ways, that other MMOGs don't. Not that that's bad; obviously it is successful.
It does do some things better than Everquest did, but "autoattack" is still pretty much there, with bash/kick replaced with skills that can be combined in groups. The experience point distribution problem is worse, where if your group is any more than 1 level apart, experience is rather uneven. But all in all it is better.
His shareholders are already winning, though - big time. The short-timers, he doesn't care about. It's those that had stock when it was in the low-dollars range that told him he should go ahead and do this.
Make no mistake, everyone who pushed for this to happen (internally within the shareholders) has already won.
Nearly ever merchant I deal with any more, unless they recognize me as a prior customer, checks my ID when I use my debit or credit cards. It's incredibly common.
Static binaries, in cases where you want to run them somewhat rapidly (>100/s), are much, much faster than dynamic binaries.
Most leaks to the media are done so on purpose.
More importantly, when will Lloyd's of London have a policy for asteroid owners?
Imaging a beowulf cluster of all of the supposed Billy the Kid corpses...
Er, we already have people detained without even being charged. Look up the domestic abuse laws. You can have some bitch lie to the police, you'll go to jail for at least a week, maybe 2 before they even arrest you, so you can't even call a lawyer or anything.
It's already almost as bad as it can get.
This was not my idea - someone else here posted it a while back and I'm copying it.
When people go to the game store, they are more likely to consider a game with a $40-50 price tag than a game with a $10 price tag. $10 games are typically games that never sold at the higher price, or are barely above the standards of shareware, etc.
To get free games into stores, you'd have to pay the store for the shelf space - you'd have to pay them a lot.
Some people are willing to look up games online, and then download 1-2GB of content to start playing (FFXI is huge, as a for instance), but most people aren't. Most people want a manual in front of them, a set of CDs to install/reinstall from, etc.
A best-of-both-worlds would be for a game to include more than a single month free with the purchase. It'll be a while til we start seeing that though.
For me, personally, I don't have a problem with paying $40-50 for a game w/ a free month. Over the years I have spent good money on several games that I didn't play longer than a couple weeks - sometimes I've even regretted it, but them's the breaks.
Actually, it does:
The GPL requires all copies to carry an appropriate copyright notice.
Bullshit.
The GPL exists explicitly because some people writing OSS code do care about their existance and relevance. They want to ensure that their name stays on their software, and that nobody tries to use it without giving them credit (for all the world to see).
If they didn't, they'd release their code into the public domain, or at the very least license it under a less restrictive BSD-style license.
When I think of a VC-financed business, the last thing that comes to mind is "independence".
I'm sure there's room in the market for independent game developers, and independent publishers, but if they're going to be backed by VC they're either going to be forced to sell out, or forced to go under, after their first hit or miss respectively.
How about a bash/pdksh version:
echo $RANDOM
Just having toggles to enable/disable javascript and java near the address bar would be excellent. Same with disabling plugins like flash. Just so you don't have to go through menus and preference boxes to do it every time...