Yeah, don't get me wrong, AoC had a great engine, great graphics (although I hear what sieging can be done is very laggy with the full amount of people) and had a lot of potential which is why people stayed around for a few months; they'd thought it'd be fixed. Instead, few things that mattered were fixed; Funcom would make irrelevant, stupid changes that nobody cared about and would introduce more bugs into the game in the process.
WAR is a PVP game. If you go in expecting otherwise you'll be disappointed; PVE is WoW's niche (although I hear they'd slacked on that in TBC; I do know that Naxxramas and AQ40 were some of the most fun I had in a video game ever, though).
Quest-wise though, WAR does have a lot, although I think they're rather bland.
The comparison again falls flat, because AoC is two separate games: Age of Conan: Escape from Tortage and Age of Conan: The Rest of the Game (yes, I am exaggerating here, but the point stands).
The first part, Escape from Tortage, was rather fun and had a lot to do quest-wise. The rest of the game did not deliver on its promises, particularly in sieging and, well, just about everything that would have mattered.
WAR now has more to do than AoC's endgame NOW. Perhaps this is by design, but that's what matters, right?
"In my opinion"? DO you have any ideas of how many people fled that game, and why? My guild (which was probably one of the largest guild if not the largest guild in the entire game at one point, and probably the largest guild on the Deathwhisper server) quickly vanished because of the same issues. Everyone who left that game--which is the vast majority of the people who played--left ANGRY. Very angry. Servers became ghost towns because of how bad the game is. WAR, on the other hand, has so much to offer and comparing the two side-by-side, well, it's pretty obvious which one is better.
You haven't played both, I gather, so you are in no standing to make any predictions whatsoever. Perhaps WAR will level off. Perhaps it will continue to grow. But to use Age of Conan as evidence of some sort of trend is ridiculous. Age of Conan shrunk because the people couldn't take the shit anymore.
By WAR's pvp design it's rather obvious that it's going to keep people around a lot longer than AoC did, and not only that, but Mythic has shown themselves to be far, far more competent than Funcom, to boot.
(by the way, nobody really gives a shit about what metacritic says. Quit talking out of your ass.)
I've played WAR, WoW (for a long time!), and AoC, so I think I'm somewhat qualified to make judgments here. Your comparison is wrong. Way, way wrong.
For one, AoC was a bait-and-switch scheme. Two, WAR with the classes and cities still pending is far, far more complete than AoC is even now. AoC was more complete in its BETA than AoC was as a 'finished' product.
AoC is a joke amongst all the people that used to play. People quit playing because Funcom never delivered on the many broken promises they made. Their GMs were retarded idiots. So on and so forth.
You need to have played both to get a sense of how wrong the comparison is. WAR is leagues beyond AoC, AND Mythic has shown themselves to be quite competent and excellent at communicating their plans. They are doing everything right.
Seeing your support of Chavez earlier, I think it's rather telling that you don't understand the very basics of what most free market supporters want and believe.
Most people that want a free market don't want to just see rich people get rich, a lot of them just want people to make their own decisions. You can cry about all the big businesses but barring the government giving them money, it had to come from consumers wanting their product in the first place.
Wha...? Why wouldn't a capitalist support Linux...?
I think part of the great motivation of the left, and the socialist-leaning, is a complete misunderstanding of capitalism. It's not necessarily exalting those trying to make a profit above charity or "free" things or whatever. It's simply, economically (and to simplify a bit) no master hands imposing values upon what people chose to purchase (or do). If they want to spend time or money on something "free", go ahead, that's your own prerogative.
Now, there might be some people who think that making money for the sake of making money is some higher value, but even (well, especially) the most laissez-faire free market libertarians simply believe in a true freedom of choice with an emphasis not on money but simply allowing each and every person to pursue their subjective wants without having others impose their own on them.
A lot of free market types would gladly support Linux for the obvious reason that it's competition for Microsoft, anyway. The capitalist types like to support the UNDERDOGS because it means competition and thus in theory better products. I know economic conservative that prefers AMD, for example, for the simple reason that they don't want to see Intel completely dominate the processor market in the manner that it once did.
In a more general sense though, even Linux is capitalist. Linux is, as you know, licensed under the GPL where you must provide the sources and modifications, thus "giving back"; the BSD license would be more in line with truly "free".
Basically, the motivation of the free marketer is not money, per se, it's uninhibited choice and no external forces imposing their own judgment values, good or bad.
Besides, being wrong (your actual point aside, which I felt was obvious) is not grounds for modding down for flamebait... probably not even modding down at all.
Mexico isn't even in the "top 10" of nations or places in terms of economic freedom, for one. For two, you're not even really making an argument, just an assertion.
In any case, you're making the same error ideologues on any side usually make--that because you perceive that country to have X, and since it also has quality Y, then Y is due to X. Truth is, you have to account for historical, cultural, political, and environmental factors which could also be influences or factors in any country's corruption or economic status. This applies to big or small government, libertarian or socialist, whatever. All I'm getting from you is vague, pro-government ideology and not really a coherent or supported argument.
Perhaps the best current term would be "developing," though even that is not fully accurate. Mexico does, however, serve as a good example of the type of country you get if you let libertarian ideals of no regulation and limited government go to their natural conclusion: a few rich families control basically everything worth controlling, and a majority of everyone else is dirt poor and suffers.
Do you really have to go out of your way to bash some political ideology you don't like? This is about as disingenuous as saying that the United States' current economy problems is due to socialism. You come off more as a wacko paranoid over libertarians than anything else, especially because Mexico has really nothing to do with libertarianism, either in civil or economic matters. I might as well claim our shit economy is due to socialism's natural conclusions--hey, it's an outcome I don't like, so it must be the result of come political ideology I also don't like!
Subway is delicious but c'mon,McDonalds tastes awesome? It's some of the most bland fast food I've ever tasted--Burger King tends to be better, IMO. Even though I never eat at either, I'm more of a Taco Bell person.
I'm unaware of whether any other servers faced this problem, but Azazel, at the very least, did not have scenarios (battlegrounds are the WoW equivalent) running on launch day (though that was fixed the next day) due to a bug or something as they worked during the head start or open beta.
Nobody is going to believe a principle would make a profile on myspace claiming he's a pedophile. Get a grip. It's obviously a fake account, and ANYONE would see that.
And people seriously would believe that a principle would write, on his own myspace page, that he "fucks in his office" and is a pedophile and all that other shit? Get a fucking grip. You just shot down the whole libel argument with your attempt to rebut me...!
"You have freedom of speech. Go ahead and find out what happens if someone in authority doesn't like it." Let me use an analogy. People are as free as they like to swing a baseball bat around until they put others in danger or hurt someone else. Likewise, people are (or SHOULD be; people actually don't have this small concession of freedom!) free to say what they want as long as it doesn't hurt someone.
Lewd speech? So fucking what? If you start suffering convulsions at the sight of goatse I'd say there's probably something more wrong with your nervous system than goatse itself.
I'm amazed at the amount of people basically apologizing for a strict, rigid speech code in the United States. That's essentially what this argument boils down to: "say the wrong thing, get sent to jail; it doesn't even have to matter if anyone was really hurt or not."
What we are seeing here is possibly a new generation of complacent, juvenile young adults that revere authority and order to the point where individual rights exist only for their social utility and not due to any innate respect to the individual. The fact that the parent, and everyone who modded him up, is perfectly comfortable with arresting people that say anything "upsetting" supports my assertion fully.
It's pretty disingenuous to claim that free speech means ANYTHING AT ALL when you can turn around and claim that it's something to be restricted and highly regulated for something so slight as an insult or offensive joke.
When you are part of a society, you are bound by implicit social contract [wikipedia.org].
Social contract theory is a myth; I would also like to mention that you're engaging in circular reasoning. Why does the girl have to do what they say? She's a part of society so there's a social contract. What right does society have to do this? Social contract.
Free Speech is critical to a well functioning democracy and its worth defending, but it isn't a license to just spout off crap. Hell even Spiderman movies know that "with great power comes great responsibility".
Bullshit. No government has ever had free speech, especially since people just re-draw the goalpost for what free-speech is every time someone says something that's mean or insulting, particularly to some authority figure or someone that has sway with authority figures.
To say that "with great power comes great responsibility" in this context is like saying "you have a great power of freedom of speech but your responsibility is, enforced by law of course, that you have to watch what you say." Meaningless. You then don't have any freedom of speech because you're being carted off to jail for being irresponsible.
Making a fake myspace PARODY (it is despite your assertion) that is unbelievable and more targeted to the student body for cheap laughs is not libel or slander or anything of the sort. It's people like you that think freedom of speech entails only hugs and kisses.
Is the principal famous or a otherwise well-known or out-spoken person with a position on the subject?
This is often cited as a good part of the litmus test for libel, and maybe it is legally so; but in principle it's rather terrible. If Michael Jackson really is completely innocent of any wrongdoing with children, or if OJ Simpson really was innocent, then every joke told, every person who insists that it is true, is perpetuating a falsehood that may have very real effects on that person.
Anyway, there are other considerations for libel charges and this is not one of them. One of them is whether the person making the claim actually believes what they're saying, and that is very hard to prove.
I don't know why you people are getting modded up. Michael Jackson and OJ Simpson jokes still go around, even on television.
No, if you called me a pedophile kiddie-diddler anal-raper, you'd probably NOT be considered breaking the law ("breaking the law" is not quite as clear cut as it seems, whether you are guilty or not could even partially be a factor of what mood the judge was in when he passed the verdict). There are multiple considerations in libel cases and merely insulting someone is not grounds for winning a libel suit (although, as usual with the law, anything could really go).
Lets assume that you work in IT (I don't personally know you or at least I don't think I know you personally) but say I did. Then someone started passing rumors that you broke into you companies info and sold sold the the data to an other company. This was posted in a location that your companies customers, your boss, and other employees could easily read. Do you think it would be fare for the guy who cost you your job perhaps career to get off saying he had freedom of speech... I think not.
That's not at all analogous to the situation of a student making essentially a parody webpage mostly as a joke amongst friends calling him a pervert. Not in the slightest. If you wanted a comparison, it would be my elephant buttsniffer versus rape--the girl saying the principle raped her, or a friend, would be more analogous in this case.
As for the Bush a "child killer" comments. It is the fact that he is president that makes the difference. He is no longer a person, but a symbol of America, when you insult Bush you are not really directing you attack on the person, but the position and the administration. No one really thinks that Bush sneaks out in the middle of the night and is the boogy man and takes children from their sleep. Or even that he gives orders to kill the children. However their point is his decisions cause or can cause these actions.
No, Bush's anti-war critics, when they say this, really do think Bush is personally a murderer. And what about people that joke about Michael Jackson being a pedophile, despite not being convicted? The fact that he is famous is, I think, irrelevant here and certainly on principle.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, don't get me wrong, AoC had a great engine, great graphics (although I hear what sieging can be done is very laggy with the full amount of people) and had a lot of potential which is why people stayed around for a few months; they'd thought it'd be fixed. Instead, few things that mattered were fixed; Funcom would make irrelevant, stupid changes that nobody cared about and would introduce more bugs into the game in the process.
WAR is a PVP game. If you go in expecting otherwise you'll be disappointed; PVE is WoW's niche (although I hear they'd slacked on that in TBC; I do know that Naxxramas and AQ40 were some of the most fun I had in a video game ever, though).
Quest-wise though, WAR does have a lot, although I think they're rather bland.
The comparison again falls flat, because AoC is two separate games: Age of Conan: Escape from Tortage and Age of Conan: The Rest of the Game (yes, I am exaggerating here, but the point stands).
The first part, Escape from Tortage, was rather fun and had a lot to do quest-wise. The rest of the game did not deliver on its promises, particularly in sieging and, well, just about everything that would have mattered.
WAR now has more to do than AoC's endgame NOW. Perhaps this is by design, but that's what matters, right?
"In my opinion"? DO you have any ideas of how many people fled that game, and why? My guild (which was probably one of the largest guild if not the largest guild in the entire game at one point, and probably the largest guild on the Deathwhisper server) quickly vanished because of the same issues. Everyone who left that game--which is the vast majority of the people who played--left ANGRY. Very angry. Servers became ghost towns because of how bad the game is. WAR, on the other hand, has so much to offer and comparing the two side-by-side, well, it's pretty obvious which one is better.
You haven't played both, I gather, so you are in no standing to make any predictions whatsoever. Perhaps WAR will level off. Perhaps it will continue to grow. But to use Age of Conan as evidence of some sort of trend is ridiculous. Age of Conan shrunk because the people couldn't take the shit anymore.
By WAR's pvp design it's rather obvious that it's going to keep people around a lot longer than AoC did, and not only that, but Mythic has shown themselves to be far, far more competent than Funcom, to boot.
(by the way, nobody really gives a shit about what metacritic says. Quit talking out of your ass.)
I've played WAR, WoW (for a long time!), and AoC, so I think I'm somewhat qualified to make judgments here. Your comparison is wrong. Way, way wrong.
For one, AoC was a bait-and-switch scheme. Two, WAR with the classes and cities still pending is far, far more complete than AoC is even now. AoC was more complete in its BETA than AoC was as a 'finished' product.
AoC is a joke amongst all the people that used to play. People quit playing because Funcom never delivered on the many broken promises they made. Their GMs were retarded idiots. So on and so forth.
You need to have played both to get a sense of how wrong the comparison is. WAR is leagues beyond AoC, AND Mythic has shown themselves to be quite competent and excellent at communicating their plans. They are doing everything right.
Do you have any idea how silly it is to use Age of Conan as a comparison? I mean seriously, are you informed -at all-?
Age of Conan is a bigger flop than Star Wars Galaxies. It was a buggy, incomplete pile of rubbish. And still is.
WAR however is a quality game.
That's not even the point. When someone says "open source", what do YOU think of? Let me tell you, it's not anything Microsoft related.
This is most likely a tactic to try to get people to associate "open source" with Microsoft and not Linux.
Happy 100th birthday, HIV!
Seeing your support of Chavez earlier, I think it's rather telling that you don't understand the very basics of what most free market supporters want and believe.
Most people that want a free market don't want to just see rich people get rich, a lot of them just want people to make their own decisions. You can cry about all the big businesses but barring the government giving them money, it had to come from consumers wanting their product in the first place.
Wha...? Why wouldn't a capitalist support Linux...?
I think part of the great motivation of the left, and the socialist-leaning, is a complete misunderstanding of capitalism. It's not necessarily exalting those trying to make a profit above charity or "free" things or whatever. It's simply, economically (and to simplify a bit) no master hands imposing values upon what people chose to purchase (or do). If they want to spend time or money on something "free", go ahead, that's your own prerogative.
Now, there might be some people who think that making money for the sake of making money is some higher value, but even (well, especially) the most laissez-faire free market libertarians simply believe in a true freedom of choice with an emphasis not on money but simply allowing each and every person to pursue their subjective wants without having others impose their own on them.
A lot of free market types would gladly support Linux for the obvious reason that it's competition for Microsoft, anyway. The capitalist types like to support the UNDERDOGS because it means competition and thus in theory better products. I know economic conservative that prefers AMD, for example, for the simple reason that they don't want to see Intel completely dominate the processor market in the manner that it once did.
In a more general sense though, even Linux is capitalist. Linux is, as you know, licensed under the GPL where you must provide the sources and modifications, thus "giving back"; the BSD license would be more in line with truly "free".
Basically, the motivation of the free marketer is not money, per se, it's uninhibited choice and no external forces imposing their own judgment values, good or bad.
I have no evidence you heard any such thing from a business owner in Venezuela. I simply have unsubstantiated statements.
Besides, being wrong (your actual point aside, which I felt was obvious) is not grounds for modding down for flamebait... probably not even modding down at all.
*sigh*
Mexico isn't even in the "top 10" of nations or places in terms of economic freedom, for one. For two, you're not even really making an argument, just an assertion.
In any case, you're making the same error ideologues on any side usually make--that because you perceive that country to have X, and since it also has quality Y, then Y is due to X. Truth is, you have to account for historical, cultural, political, and environmental factors which could also be influences or factors in any country's corruption or economic status. This applies to big or small government, libertarian or socialist, whatever. All I'm getting from you is vague, pro-government ideology and not really a coherent or supported argument.
Perhaps the best current term would be "developing," though even that is not fully accurate. Mexico does, however, serve as a good example of the type of country you get if you let libertarian ideals of no regulation and limited government go to their natural conclusion: a few rich families control basically everything worth controlling, and a majority of everyone else is dirt poor and suffers.
Do you really have to go out of your way to bash some political ideology you don't like? This is about as disingenuous as saying that the United States' current economy problems is due to socialism. You come off more as a wacko paranoid over libertarians than anything else, especially because Mexico has really nothing to do with libertarianism, either in civil or economic matters. I might as well claim our shit economy is due to socialism's natural conclusions--hey, it's an outcome I don't like, so it must be the result of come political ideology I also don't like!
Come back with a real argument, then we'll talk.
I'm pretty sure some Mexican slashdotters will be more disgusted at you calling Mexico a "third world" country.
Subway is delicious but c'mon,McDonalds tastes awesome? It's some of the most bland fast food I've ever tasted--Burger King tends to be better, IMO. Even though I never eat at either, I'm more of a Taco Bell person.
That's probably why Blizzard does that, too. More boxes bought = more money for them.
I'm unaware of whether any other servers faced this problem, but Azazel, at the very least, did not have scenarios (battlegrounds are the WoW equivalent) running on launch day (though that was fixed the next day) due to a bug or something as they worked during the head start or open beta.
Nobody is going to believe a principle would make a profile on myspace claiming he's a pedophile. Get a grip. It's obviously a fake account, and ANYONE would see that.
And people seriously would believe that a principle would write, on his own myspace page, that he "fucks in his office" and is a pedophile and all that other shit? Get a fucking grip. You just shot down the whole libel argument with your attempt to rebut me...!
Ah, yes, this definition of free speech:
"You have freedom of speech. Go ahead and find out what happens if someone in authority doesn't like it."
Let me use an analogy. People are as free as they like to swing a baseball bat around until they put others in danger or hurt someone else. Likewise, people are (or SHOULD be; people actually don't have this small concession of freedom!) free to say what they want as long as it doesn't hurt someone.
Lewd speech? So fucking what? If you start suffering convulsions at the sight of goatse I'd say there's probably something more wrong with your nervous system than goatse itself.
I'm amazed at the amount of people basically apologizing for a strict, rigid speech code in the United States. That's essentially what this argument boils down to: "say the wrong thing, get sent to jail; it doesn't even have to matter if anyone was really hurt or not."
What we are seeing here is possibly a new generation of complacent, juvenile young adults that revere authority and order to the point where individual rights exist only for their social utility and not due to any innate respect to the individual. The fact that the parent, and everyone who modded him up, is perfectly comfortable with arresting people that say anything "upsetting" supports my assertion fully.
It's pretty disingenuous to claim that free speech means ANYTHING AT ALL when you can turn around and claim that it's something to be restricted and highly regulated for something so slight as an insult or offensive joke.
When you are part of a society, you are bound by implicit social contract [wikipedia.org].
Social contract theory is a myth; I would also like to mention that you're engaging in circular reasoning. Why does the girl have to do what they say? She's a part of society so there's a social contract. What right does society have to do this? Social contract.
Free Speech is critical to a well functioning democracy and its worth defending, but it isn't a license to just spout off crap. Hell even Spiderman movies know that "with great power comes great responsibility".
Bullshit. No government has ever had free speech, especially since people just re-draw the goalpost for what free-speech is every time someone says something that's mean or insulting, particularly to some authority figure or someone that has sway with authority figures.
To say that "with great power comes great responsibility" in this context is like saying "you have a great power of freedom of speech but your responsibility is, enforced by law of course, that you have to watch what you say." Meaningless. You then don't have any freedom of speech because you're being carted off to jail for being irresponsible.
Making a fake myspace PARODY (it is despite your assertion) that is unbelievable and more targeted to the student body for cheap laughs is not libel or slander or anything of the sort. It's people like you that think freedom of speech entails only hugs and kisses.
Is the principal famous or a otherwise well-known or out-spoken person with a position on the subject?
This is often cited as a good part of the litmus test for libel, and maybe it is legally so; but in principle it's rather terrible. If Michael Jackson really is completely innocent of any wrongdoing with children, or if OJ Simpson really was innocent, then every joke told, every person who insists that it is true, is perpetuating a falsehood that may have very real effects on that person.
Anyway, there are other considerations for libel charges and this is not one of them. One of them is whether the person making the claim actually believes what they're saying, and that is very hard to prove.
I don't know why you people are getting modded up. Michael Jackson and OJ Simpson jokes still go around, even on television.
No, if you called me a pedophile kiddie-diddler anal-raper, you'd probably NOT be considered breaking the law ("breaking the law" is not quite as clear cut as it seems, whether you are guilty or not could even partially be a factor of what mood the judge was in when he passed the verdict). There are multiple considerations in libel cases and merely insulting someone is not grounds for winning a libel suit (although, as usual with the law, anything could really go).
Lets assume that you work in IT (I don't personally know you or at least I don't think I know you personally) but say I did. Then someone started passing rumors that you broke into you companies info and sold sold the the data to an other company. This was posted in a location that your companies customers, your boss, and other employees could easily read. Do you think it would be fare for the guy who cost you your job perhaps career to get off saying he had freedom of speech... I think not.
That's not at all analogous to the situation of a student making essentially a parody webpage mostly as a joke amongst friends calling him a pervert. Not in the slightest. If you wanted a comparison, it would be my elephant buttsniffer versus rape--the girl saying the principle raped her, or a friend, would be more analogous in this case.
As for the Bush a "child killer" comments. It is the fact that he is president that makes the difference. He is no longer a person, but a symbol of America, when you insult Bush you are not really directing you attack on the person, but the position and the administration. No one really thinks that Bush sneaks out in the middle of the night and is the boogy man and takes children from their sleep. Or even that he gives orders to kill the children. However their point is his decisions cause or can cause these actions.
No, Bush's anti-war critics, when they say this, really do think Bush is personally a murderer. And what about people that joke about Michael Jackson being a pedophile, despite not being convicted? The fact that he is famous is, I think, irrelevant here and certainly on principle.