As much as I think On-Live is doomed to failure, one positive point it has going for it is that I think it'll be damn near impossible to cheat. Since the only thing being sent to your computer is pre-rendered video and all the in-game calculations are done on their servers you couldn't do a wall hack or similar. I guess the only part you might be able to cheat on is the input from the controller (maybe a hack to press buttons faster than is humanly possible), but I can't imagine that would give you that much advantage. I guess an aim-bot might still be doable.
Didn't say it was. The point is that acting like this is some major change in Massachusetts is silly. Either way, he won't get re-elected. If he tries to please he's party and become conservative on social issues, the voters will kick him out. If he doesn't tow the party line the crazy right-wing will run a "true" conservative again him in the primary and he won't make it to the election.
Yes, thank you everybody, I'm well aware of why a hex grid is better for strategy games because of the distance thing, and how it might improve the game mechanics (actually I'm fully behind the idea!). The point is, let's not label things as "realistic" when they are clearly not. If Civ was realistic we wouldn't have spearmen defeating tanks. Guess I should have added a sarcasm tag.
School officials might avoid child porn charges if they prove they didn't see any lewd images,
First of all, you cannot prove that. Secondly, they knew the software was there, making them guilty of TRYING to produce child pornography.
Seriously. If they "happen" to have pictures of some kid "behaving improperly", they will definitely have pictures/movies of everything else that kid has been doing.
First, did somebody forget that the burden of proof lies with the person making the accusation. They don't have to prove they didn't made child porn, you have to prove they did. Innocent until proven guilty. Second, I pretty sure there's no law on attempted child porn, it's either child abuse or not. I've not heard of anybody ever being charged with attempted child porn. Thirdly, and most importantly, all this stuff about child porn is hysterical nonsense, there is no indication that they did any such thing.
There are many things that are worrying and wrong about this, but you weaken the argument with all this child porn crap.
the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts (did you think you would ever see this uber-liberal state vote for a real conservative?!)
You know Scott Brown isn't a "real" conservative by any measure right? He's pro-choice and pro-gay rights for one. But don't let the facts get in the way or your nonsensical rant.
I've seen the same thing in a Lego store in the mall near me. They have giant containers that dispense blocks (standard colored bricks and some specialized parts). It's kind of like the a candy pick-and-mix.
Sure, but you seem to be discounting the fact that they are now part of Activision. What they used to do in the past says nothing about what they will do in the future.
Where did the OP suggest he was going to download it? He didn't say he download the first Bioshock either, he just said he skipped it, which is an entirely appropriate response if you don't like the DRM.
What the fuck? There are Americans out there who are willing to pay $40,000 a semester just to watch some goddamn "educational" videos? Is this for real?
Back when I was in college, I wasn't paying anywhere near that much, but you'd better fucking imagine that I got my money's worth by dealing with the professors and making sure they were teaching me directly, and not just telling me to watch some cockbiting "supplementary videos" or any fancy shit-in-my-pants like that. Fuck.
Kinda hard to teach film without, you know, watching films.
Kinda like teaching literature without reading books.
Nowhere (certainly not in their TOS) do they legally commit to unlocking anything in the event of anything. In fact they explicitly make no guarantees that you'll be able to access your games ever. Not only that, but they've already screwed over some of their customers when they decided to drop support for Windows 98. All their Windows 98 users (admittedly a small number at the time) lost the ability to play games that otherwise worked fine on Windows 98 because the Steam client no longer worked on Windows 98. No unlocks for Windows 98 users, and no refunds for the games they thought they'd paid for.
So, if they don't unlock them, your only alternative is to break the DMCA to continue to play your games, but that would make you a criminal. So is that the value that Steam adds? Ensuring that you will eventually break the law?
Steam is a service that can (and will) be taken away from you whenever the business decides it's time (or Valve goes tits up). Once that happens you'll find you can't install any of the games you "bought".
I'm not sure what "of value" that's supposed to be. GOG.com achieves the same benefits without the ability of them to take all your games away and without an obnoxious client app taking over your computer and monitoring you.
DRM doesn't stop ALL piracy (obviously), but that doesn't mean it doesn't stop ANY piracy. Using the argument that DRM is useless because people will still pirate seems as flawed as the argument that laws against murder are useless because people will still murder each other (no, I'm not comparing pirates to murderers, it's a reductio ad absurdum).
I'm as much against DRM as the next guy (gog.com FTW!), but I think the argument that publishers should drop it because it doesn't stop ALL piracy is fallacious. Better arguments are about the impact it has on paying customers and the potential things like internet activation have to stop people being able to play their games altogether when (not if) the servers go dark; that is my #1 reason why I avoid Steam.
I've always thought that the game industry as a whole could buy itself a huge chunk of good will and tolerance or various online DRM / activation schemes if they would create an independent organization that would be a third party and hold unlock patches for all the various activation schemes to be released in the event that the publisher goes bust or else decides to turn off their servers.
The summary that is. Was it really too difficult to put a little information about what it is and why it's bad in the summary so I don't have to follow the links?
Slashdot Mirror
As much as I think On-Live is doomed to failure, one positive point it has going for it is that I think it'll be damn near impossible to cheat. Since the only thing being sent to your computer is pre-rendered video and all the in-game calculations are done on their servers you couldn't do a wall hack or similar. I guess the only part you might be able to cheat on is the input from the controller (maybe a hack to press buttons faster than is humanly possible), but I can't imagine that would give you that much advantage. I guess an aim-bot might still be doable.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Yes, you are.
Didn't say it was. The point is that acting like this is some major change in Massachusetts is silly. Either way, he won't get re-elected. If he tries to please he's party and become conservative on social issues, the voters will kick him out. If he doesn't tow the party line the crazy right-wing will run a "true" conservative again him in the primary and he won't make it to the election.
Yes, thank you everybody, I'm well aware of why a hex grid is better for strategy games because of the distance thing, and how it might improve the game mechanics (actually I'm fully behind the idea!). The point is, let's not label things as "realistic" when they are clearly not. If Civ was realistic we wouldn't have spearmen defeating tanks. Guess I should have added a sarcasm tag.
It will be more realistic because my entire world is really made up of hexes and I can only move in one of six directions?
First of all, you cannot prove that. Secondly, they knew the software was there, making them guilty of TRYING to produce child pornography.
Seriously. If they "happen" to have pictures of some kid "behaving improperly", they will definitely have pictures/movies of everything else that kid has been doing.
First, did somebody forget that the burden of proof lies with the person making the accusation. They don't have to prove they didn't made child porn, you have to prove they did. Innocent until proven guilty. Second, I pretty sure there's no law on attempted child porn, it's either child abuse or not. I've not heard of anybody ever being charged with attempted child porn. Thirdly, and most importantly, all this stuff about child porn is hysterical nonsense, there is no indication that they did any such thing.
There are many things that are worrying and wrong about this, but you weaken the argument with all this child porn crap.
Nope. There is no evidence that anything that might constitute porn was ever recorded here. Stop jumping to conclusions.
I've seen the same thing in a Lego store in the mall near me. They have giant containers that dispense blocks (standard colored bricks and some specialized parts). It's kind of like the a candy pick-and-mix.
Sure, but you seem to be discounting the fact that they are now part of Activision. What they used to do in the past says nothing about what they will do in the future.
For now.
Where did the OP suggest he was going to download it? He didn't say he download the first Bioshock either, he just said he skipped it, which is an entirely appropriate response if you don't like the DRM.
Not any more, see MW2 for example. Also, watch what happens when Steam shuts down.
What the fuck? There are Americans out there who are willing to pay $40,000 a semester just to watch some goddamn "educational" videos? Is this for real?
Back when I was in college, I wasn't paying anywhere near that much, but you'd better fucking imagine that I got my money's worth by dealing with the professors and making sure they were teaching me directly, and not just telling me to watch some cockbiting "supplementary videos" or any fancy shit-in-my-pants like that. Fuck.
Kinda hard to teach film without, you know, watching films.
Kinda like teaching literature without reading books.
Haven't use Impulse and I'm not 100% sure of all it's features, can you re-install your programs without first connecting to Impulse?
From what I know, it's somewhat better than Steam, but it's no GOG.com.
And if promises were nickles, I'd be rich.
Nowhere (certainly not in their TOS) do they legally commit to unlocking anything in the event of anything. In fact they explicitly make no guarantees that you'll be able to access your games ever. Not only that, but they've already screwed over some of their customers when they decided to drop support for Windows 98. All their Windows 98 users (admittedly a small number at the time) lost the ability to play games that otherwise worked fine on Windows 98 because the Steam client no longer worked on Windows 98. No unlocks for Windows 98 users, and no refunds for the games they thought they'd paid for.
So, if they don't unlock them, your only alternative is to break the DMCA to continue to play your games, but that would make you a criminal. So is that the value that Steam adds? Ensuring that you will eventually break the law?
Steam is a service that can (and will) be taken away from you whenever the business decides it's time (or Valve goes tits up). Once that happens you'll find you can't install any of the games you "bought". I'm not sure what "of value" that's supposed to be. GOG.com achieves the same benefits without the ability of them to take all your games away and without an obnoxious client app taking over your computer and monitoring you.
DRM doesn't stop ALL piracy (obviously), but that doesn't mean it doesn't stop ANY piracy. Using the argument that DRM is useless because people will still pirate seems as flawed as the argument that laws against murder are useless because people will still murder each other (no, I'm not comparing pirates to murderers, it's a reductio ad absurdum).
I'm as much against DRM as the next guy (gog.com FTW!), but I think the argument that publishers should drop it because it doesn't stop ALL piracy is fallacious. Better arguments are about the impact it has on paying customers and the potential things like internet activation have to stop people being able to play their games altogether when (not if) the servers go dark; that is my #1 reason why I avoid Steam.
Right, 'cos servers run on magic fairy dust.
I've always thought that the game industry as a whole could buy itself a huge chunk of good will and tolerance or various online DRM / activation schemes if they would create an independent organization that would be a third party and hold unlock patches for all the various activation schemes to be released in the event that the publisher goes bust or else decides to turn off their servers.
but I recall clearly that Gabe Newell stated...
Not in the Steam TOS he didn't. Nor anywhere else where it would be legally binding. But it's okay, Valve are the good guys, right?
The summary that is. Was it really too difficult to put a little information about what it is and why it's bad in the summary so I don't have to follow the links?
Yeah, great idea. Let's have everybody know the inner workings of our military hardware so that they can build their own.
Believe it or not, but the stimulus isn't supposed to pad your 401k, it's supposed to create jobs.
Well, an open mind within the bounds of reason is the best you can accomplish.
I think Feynman said it best: