The idea of a cd-key is stupid, people will brute force or copy them resulting in legit buyers having a non working key and tons of hassle trying to play the game they actually bought.
In all my years of buying PC games I haven't had a single game that the CD-Key was already in use when I bought them.
Charging subscriptions is a different model that people aren't used to paying for normal games, generally it's only acceptable (by the general public) on MMORPG games.
Personally I don't like paying for something over time, I'd rather just pay an up front cost and just have the object without having to worry about paying for it in the future, but that's my personal feelings.
Doesn't matter if they wouldn't have bought it. It costs them money to have a player, in server costs and tech support costs. They'd much rather have no piracy and much less sales I'm sure - it'd just work out better financially.
I completely agree with the fact it costs them to run the servers, and it's very unusual for a games company to allow pirated copies on official multiplayer servers as it costs them money.
As well as letting pirates on your multiplayer servers, multiplayer is the easiest way to reduce piracy (make users make an account linked to a cd-key, or make the installation have a cd-key (not required for off-line play)).
So already IN ONE SINGLE WEEK, Gas Powered Games and Stardock have lost 80% of the potential revenue of the game and had its reputation tarnished by the freeloaders because of the server load issue.
Who said the people that have downloaded the game would have bought it?
I know at least one person that said specifically to me "I'd wish they'd bring out a demo for that, I really like DotA on Warcraft 3", but he didn't want to download it.
I cannot fault you on your statement about their reputation being tarnished, and was very confused that they would let pirated people play online using their servers. Usually pirated copies of a game don't cost the company anything, while due to them letting them on the servers a pirated copy actually costs the company money.
Generally one of the reasons to buy a game nowadays is so you can play it online, with a pirated copy you can generally only go on pirated servers (which have a tonne of cheaters on usually).
I can't think of a single ISP in the Czech Republic that has data caps.
By that you mean has no visible caps, I'm sure they would have a word with you if you happen to be using the connection on full 24/7.
I can't speak for all ISPs in Europe, but at least mine currently charges a silly amount for overusage (caps only count at peak hours, not after midnight).
The 60gb home usage plan costs £28.90, then you can either use 'top-ups' (which are persistant and exist until they are used up) or pay per GB.
It's £1.20 per GB individually, or top-ups come in a range of different sizes:
- 10 GB - £9.90
- 25 GB - £23.90
- 50 GB - £46.90
- 75 GB - £69.90
- 100 GB - £89.90
As you can see the over-charge pricing is a lot more expensive compared to the default pricing of the monthly subscriptions.
I realised just after I posted my original rant that there may have been a good reason why everyone was against Bandwidth Caps.
From what I've read it seems the major ISPs in America try and hide as much as they can from users, rather than try and teach them about things. I can imagine they'd make it extremely awkward to check your current usage, while my ISP (Entanet) in the UK has an RSS feed you can use to check it.
I can also imagine they'd make all bandwidth count towards your cap, not only when bandwidth is at a premium (in the day when people want quicker speeds).
Is it just me or do I find the complaint against Bandwidth Caps ridiculous?
I only seem to see people complaining about it in America, most of Europe (afaik) has gotten used to having bandwidth caps. For example in England I'm with the ISP wholesaler Entanet, you have your on-peak bandwidth (mon-fri 8:00am to midnight) and then off-peak is free to use as much as you want.
The reason it annoys me is that everyone is complaining about having their bandwidth shaped, and the cause for that is there is too much bandwidth being used (the companies obviously aren't going to increase their limits as shown by previous experience, and it's unrealistic to expect the ISPs to allow every single person their full bandwidth 24/7 anyway).
So if they're not going to expand their limits, the only solution is to reduce the amount of bandwidth people use, thus reducing how much people 'waste' it.
I just don't get why people are opposed to bandwidth shaping while the only way the ISPs are going to be happy solving this is to introduce bandwidth caps, and besides it's better having the bandwidth caps out in the open rather than having undefined 'unlimited' packages.
Remember, *most* police officers in *most* countries are largely innocent. They might be naive or even cowardly, but they aren't exactly evil.
Many of these police officers probably have families and morgages to pay; and therefore probably stuck in a horrible situation where they can't speak out against their orders, without fear of being fired.
Unfortunately I presume a lot of police officers don't agree with what they're doing, but have no alternative but to just follow orders.
Entanet are also a good alternative, they've had a couple of problems rescently due to BT buggering up the IPStream switchover, but they've practically all cleared up.
You can't buy directly from Entanet but there are plenty of resellers, I use http://adsl24.co.uk/ personally.
That 'memory effect' is only on the old Nickel Cadmium that isn't used for much nowadays.
Lithium Ion batteries do not exhibit this 'memory effect' like Nickel Cadmium batteries do, meaning that beating the hell out of your battery probably does more harm than good.
(Note it says that completely draining and then charging your battery is ill advised, but it has it's uses to try and re-calibrate the battery monitor).
Slashdot Mirror
Curse that documentary for making me notice the font everytime I see it!
>:c
The idea of a cd-key is stupid, people will brute force or copy them resulting in legit buyers having a non working key and tons of hassle trying to play the game they actually bought.
In all my years of buying PC games I haven't had a single game that the CD-Key was already in use when I bought them.
Charging subscriptions is a different model that people aren't used to paying for normal games, generally it's only acceptable (by the general public) on MMORPG games.
Personally I don't like paying for something over time, I'd rather just pay an up front cost and just have the object without having to worry about paying for it in the future, but that's my personal feelings.
Doesn't matter if they wouldn't have bought it. It costs them money to have a player, in server costs and tech support costs. They'd much rather have no piracy and much less sales I'm sure - it'd just work out better financially.
I completely agree with the fact it costs them to run the servers, and it's very unusual for a games company to allow pirated copies on official multiplayer servers as it costs them money.
As well as letting pirates on your multiplayer servers, multiplayer is the easiest way to reduce piracy (make users make an account linked to a cd-key, or make the installation have a cd-key (not required for off-line play)).
So already IN ONE SINGLE WEEK, Gas Powered Games and Stardock have lost 80% of the potential revenue of the game and had its reputation tarnished by the freeloaders because of the server load issue.
Who said the people that have downloaded the game would have bought it?
I know at least one person that said specifically to me "I'd wish they'd bring out a demo for that, I really like DotA on Warcraft 3", but he didn't want to download it.
I cannot fault you on your statement about their reputation being tarnished, and was very confused that they would let pirated people play online using their servers. Usually pirated copies of a game don't cost the company anything, while due to them letting them on the servers a pirated copy actually costs the company money.
Generally one of the reasons to buy a game nowadays is so you can play it online, with a pirated copy you can generally only go on pirated servers (which have a tonne of cheaters on usually).
I guess I should go RTFA article now.
You're doing it wrong!
There's a huge difference between not advertising bandwidth caps and not having any.
I'm sure if you were downloading a Terabyte a month they'd have a word with you.
I can't think of a single ISP in the Czech Republic that has data caps.
By that you mean has no visible caps, I'm sure they would have a word with you if you happen to be using the connection on full 24/7.
I can't speak for all ISPs in Europe, but at least mine currently charges a silly amount for overusage (caps only count at peak hours, not after midnight).
The 60gb home usage plan costs £28.90, then you can either use 'top-ups' (which are persistant and exist until they are used up) or pay per GB.
It's £1.20 per GB individually, or top-ups come in a range of different sizes:
- 10 GB - £9.90
- 25 GB - £23.90
- 50 GB - £46.90
- 75 GB - £69.90
- 100 GB - £89.90
As you can see the over-charge pricing is a lot more expensive compared to the default pricing of the monthly subscriptions.
I realised just after I posted my original rant that there may have been a good reason why everyone was against Bandwidth Caps.
From what I've read it seems the major ISPs in America try and hide as much as they can from users, rather than try and teach them about things. I can imagine they'd make it extremely awkward to check your current usage, while my ISP (Entanet) in the UK has an RSS feed you can use to check it.
I can also imagine they'd make all bandwidth count towards your cap, not only when bandwidth is at a premium (in the day when people want quicker speeds).
Is it just me or do I find the complaint against Bandwidth Caps ridiculous?
I only seem to see people complaining about it in America, most of Europe (afaik) has gotten used to having bandwidth caps. For example in England I'm with the ISP wholesaler Entanet, you have your on-peak bandwidth (mon-fri 8:00am to midnight) and then off-peak is free to use as much as you want.
The reason it annoys me is that everyone is complaining about having their bandwidth shaped, and the cause for that is there is too much bandwidth being used (the companies obviously aren't going to increase their limits as shown by previous experience, and it's unrealistic to expect the ISPs to allow every single person their full bandwidth 24/7 anyway).
So if they're not going to expand their limits, the only solution is to reduce the amount of bandwidth people use, thus reducing how much people 'waste' it.
I just don't get why people are opposed to bandwidth shaping while the only way the ISPs are going to be happy solving this is to introduce bandwidth caps, and besides it's better having the bandwidth caps out in the open rather than having undefined 'unlimited' packages.
It's a lie, there isn't 2008 days in October or March!
I don't know what is with the Speedtest.net service but their latency calculation is terrible.
If I manually ping a server based in London I can get pings of down to 20ms, when I do it on the site I get a ping of 300ms minimum.
I don't know if their servers are struggling or it's just the site has been terribley written, but it sure isn't accurate.
Let's see what you will say *after* you are bound to their contract...
Well maybe he will choose not to take their contract, he still has the choice to not use the service.
Wait, what?
It's hot in my room and I have to open my window you insensitive clod!
Unless I'm missing something, since when did clicking on a box have a case to be sensitive with?
Bear in mind the "You shouldn't be hiding anything if you're innocent" mindset leads to a lot of privacy invasions.
For people too lazy to google: https://www.relakks.com/
I remember some news story saying the Piratebay guys started this up, but as per usual it was probably complete rubish.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure power stations are a lot more efficient at producing energy than your car.
It's a sad sad day when FileFront shuts it's doors.
Please don't make us start downloading things from FilePlanet again, it makes me cry a little inside.
)':
Remember, *most* police officers in *most* countries are largely innocent. They might be naive or even cowardly, but they aren't exactly evil.
Many of these police officers probably have families and morgages to pay; and therefore probably stuck in a horrible situation where they can't speak out against their orders, without fear of being fired.
Unfortunately I presume a lot of police officers don't agree with what they're doing, but have no alternative but to just follow orders.
You must be new around here.
Entanet are also a good alternative, they've had a couple of problems rescently due to BT buggering up the IPStream switchover, but they've practically all cleared up.
You can't buy directly from Entanet but there are plenty of resellers, I use http://adsl24.co.uk/ personally.
I use it because when the post isn't a troll or flamebait, the only option left to reduce someone's karma is to use overrated.
Makes sense to me!
You're nuts
No, I'm an advertiser [..]
Definitely nuts.
That 'memory effect' is only on the old Nickel Cadmium that isn't used for much nowadays.
Lithium Ion batteries do not exhibit this 'memory effect' like Nickel Cadmium batteries do, meaning that beating the hell out of your battery probably does more harm than good.
Wikipedia has a nice long list of things you can do to prolong your battery life:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Guidelines_for_prolonging_Li-ion_battery_life
(Note it says that completely draining and then charging your battery is ill advised, but it has it's uses to try and re-calibrate the battery monitor).