""WoW I suppose is a different kind of virtual world, where it's not so much dependent on user-generated content or user-generated scripts?""
There's a pretty vibrant addon-developer community for WoW, but partially due to the way that Addons are implemented, it's all pretty much FOSS.
The only real-money, direct transaction is paying your game subscription. There are quite a few other things like guild web hosting, voice chat hosting for things like Ventrillo, some paid game guides (both books published through publishers as well as some paid-member-access-only guides, but they're really things done outside of the game world.
Wow does not really have any user-generated content (unless you count addons and macros), and that is as I mentioned, all Free, open Source stuff (though some authors take donations)
Blizzard is very serious about disallowing RMT (real Money Transactions) like gold selling and powerleveling and character selling. Partly because it devalues the game experience for others, but also so that they can stay clearly on the side of the law that means that the IRS can't attach some made up tax value to the made-up virtual assetts in the game.
Also, I bet they want to keep a clear line about virtual assetts so that nobody can try to sue them for losses should their account get hacked or whatever.
If Blizzard allowed RMT, then a well-geared, high-level toon could be considered to have a high monetary value and open up all sorts of un-fun legal-fee-producing uglyness.
I'm a law-abiding citizen, but I'd be seriously bothered by a law that required my movements be tracked in such a manner... that's not the kind of state/country I'd want to live in, thank you very much.
No, I'm not part of the tin-foil-hat-brigade, I just feel there are certain lines that should not be crossed, and this is one of them.
Besides, I would think that encouraging fuel economy would be a GOOD THING.
According to the late Douglas Adams, a robot only needs the capacity to be bored or happy.
Want it to get you beers? program it to be happy when delivering beer and bored when nobody needs one.
Want it to guard your facility? program it to be bored when it hasn't got things to report and happy when it does. (works for making traffic cops too:p )
Just be careful that someone doesn't throw a towel over its head and reprogram it to be happy all the time no matter what though.
I've seen "keep to the normal speed" fast EZ-Pass lanes in NJ.
However, the reason for slowing down isn't technical... it's so you don't KILL the toll booth operators who have to cross the lanes to get to their booths.
I honestly don't recall how important the quest chain following the torture is, but I would make the point that in WOTLK, there are a huge number of seeming unrelated quests and quest lines that don't open up until you've completed others.
I'm sure I could go to thottbot and/or wowwiki and/or wowhead and puzzle it all out, but that's a huge amount of work to avoid torturing some pixels.
For me, the important thing is at least if you step out of the game long enough to consider that there are moral implications to what your character is doing, then at that point, making the conscious decision that "it's ok if I have my toon do this because its only pixels, it's not real" is perfectly okay.
It's the folks who never even pause to consider that I feel sad for.
I'm not really a Role Player in WOW, but I was a little bothered by it too. Yes, these are only pixels and it's only a game, but something that occurs to me. Lets say that your RP decision turned out to be "no, I won't torture him". If that is the case, then you end up closing down access to that quest line.
In classic and BC WOW, eh, it's no big deal so you miss one quest line, but in WOTLK, there is so much chaining of seemingly unrelated quests, that you may have found whole sections of content unavailable to you.
Bear with me here, cuz what I'm saying is that effectively, the game does NOT give you the option to choose your path in terms of story-line consequences... it only gives you THE PLAYER a choice. The consequences are "either you torture the guy and are able to complete the quest chain and open subsequent ones" or "you refuse to torture the guy, and potentially close off a great deal of game content".
This results in a situation where you either do what the game designers intended, or you miss out.
Again, I understand it's only a game, and that I'm not really hurting anything, but I stopped and thought about it on that quest. I felt bad. Yes, I ended up finishing the quest, but the conflict actualy made me pause and take myself OUT OF THE GAME (breaking willing suspension of disbelief), and making a conscious decision that I THE PLAYER was making a choice to continue.
Now, this may seem overly care-bear, but I find that I DO get wrapped up in the game. When something comes along that is against my character (I'm talking about me as the player, not some role-playing aspect here), I do stop and think about it. I find that it breaks the flow of the game. It's like violating the "fourth wall" in a television show.
Still, I suppose that says that I've got some healthy psychological filters on. The tell me somethings wrong despite the fact that I'm wrapped up in game. I think overall, I'm happy about that.
As to the gameplay, I DO with Blizzard would give alternate ways to complete some quest lines where there is an arguably moral choice. From a game design perspective, I wish I could have gone back to the quest giver and picked a dialog option that says "I'm sorry, but I will not be a part of torture". At which point the quest giver would have said "fine, I'll have someone else do it" and you'd maybe sacrifice the quest reward (money/rep) but would be able to turn it in and then continue with the quest line.
Personally, I think they could make the game a lot more rich and the story line a lot more meaningful if they gave options like that.
I've seen em too and have been hovering between whether they are "complete waste of time" or "malware pushin' scum"
Either way, I really worry about all the folks who fall for that ad.
yeah, you can tweak their MTU and play with cache settings and maybe even juggle a couple of the tcp/ip parameters in the registry, but most of the types of "this computer used to be so fast, now it's slow" problems turn out to be due to getting bogged down with competing malware/spyware.
Oh well. I'm seriously thinking of pushing my mom to get a MAC next time she needs a computer so I can stop worrying quite so much.
Due to overwhelming demand, The Agrippa Files site has been moved to a new server. There may be some delay as the DNS change propagates. Please try again in a few hours.
I was thinking something similar: That at first, it would be like Second life without the CyberSex. Then it would either fail, or the furries would invade and turn it into another Second Life.
Blizzard can stop multiboxing anytime they want... without banning them: just remove/follow from the features of WOW.
Trust me, the vehicle system and the way it breaks focus/follow has already made many quests and even at least one instance impossible to multibox.
Oh, and for the record, I HATE PVP. I suck at it. Back when I was dual boxing a holy priest and a rogue on a pvp server, (and was just grinding away leveling and questing - no pvp at all), I would regularly get jumped and my healer would be dead or cc'd before I could do a thing. Even worse was when any kind of loss of control happened.
If you get annoyed by multiboxers in opposing faction in pvp, just do something that breaks their control (fear, MC, etc...) and they're screwed. If you can get their toons separated far enough that they have to choose between letting them stand still while concentrating on one or running around herding them back together, you win.
For the most part, the quest lines are designed to be soloed. I had a tough time with some of it because I multi-box (run three accounts on three seperate computers) now that I have completed that chain on my three mains, I can't use any of them to "boost" any of my secondaries.... will have to do it again. Still, since the quest lines were designed to be soloable, I'll do okay.
However, where the phasing can be a little annoying is that even if all three of my toons are on the same phase, the phase transition is a little buggy and it almost always breaks "/follow" which means I have to stop and manually move my followers forward till my main appears then re-follow. In one zone, the shapes of the phases and the number of layers mean effectively,/follow doesn't work for me... have to cross the area with each toon independantly.
Not to mention that the new "vehicle" mechanic totally breaks/follow too.
"" IANAL, but does not the original invention invalidate the subsequent patent, as 'prior art'? ""
Well, IANAL either, but it seems to me that Trade Secrets enjoy a certain legal status that would kind of open the practitioner of this form of trolling to all sorts of litigation.
Of course, the REAL intent might be to set up a potentially long and expensive legal situation and profit from settlements to make it go away a-la RIAA/MPAA.
My biggest concern if they go under is that the relatively recent closings of my local Tweeters and the complete closing of CompUSA stores nationwide leaves me with very little choice for middle-end Home theater and computer shopping. Best Buy and Circuit City kind of filled in the gaps when my first-choice stores went away... At least I hope it means that Best Buy ends up in a strong market position so I'm not stuck with online-only shopping.
Yes, I'd probably save money, and I could buy the pieces for a new PC from New Egg, or order Home Theater stuff through various web sites, but I like going into the store and seeing what I'm getting. There have been many times when the online research looked good, but a physical once-over has changed a buying decision.
Not to mention the instant gratification factor... and don't get me started about having to be at home to sign for a delivery.
So, for selfish reasons, I'm hoping they stick around.
When I read the CEO's statement on their web site, it looked to me like they're just reorganizing. Then again, a re-org usually happens before a full shutdown too.
Ahh, but we're not a Democracy, we're a Representative Republic. There may be some shortcomings, but over-all, I think we've got a decent system which generally avoids a "Tyranny of the Majority".
As an American I fervently hope that President Elect Obama will move forward on his campaign promises to get us out of the war in Iraq and will work to rebuild our relations with the rest of the world.
Reminds me of the interwebz back in the late '90s... essentially selling dollar bills for 80 cents each but being convinced they'd make it up on volume.:)
Something about Cogent's pricing always kind of ticked my "too good to be true" filter.
Slashdot Mirror
Because those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
NEVER AGAIN!
(though I understand the appeal on a very visceral level)
In other news, information on disabling the "click" freely available on Intratoobz
In other other news, reading information on disabling the "click" makes you a tuhhrist.
In other other other news, the executive order involved in the previous "other other news" was overturned by President Obama
In other other other other news, you can't legislate morality, and technological measures can always be overcome by those with determination.
Wow, Obama's been sworn in for all of three and a half hours and it's his fault?
Honestly, that argument is just plain bogus. Either that or you live in some kind of scary parallel world.
""WoW I suppose is a different kind of virtual world, where it's not so much dependent on user-generated content or user-generated scripts?""
There's a pretty vibrant addon-developer community for WoW, but partially due to the way that Addons are implemented, it's all pretty much FOSS.
The only real-money, direct transaction is paying your game subscription. There are quite a few other things like guild web hosting, voice chat hosting for things like Ventrillo, some paid game guides (both books published through publishers as well as some paid-member-access-only guides, but they're really things done outside of the game world.
Wow does not really have any user-generated content (unless you count addons and macros), and that is as I mentioned, all Free, open Source stuff (though some authors take donations)
Blizzard is very serious about disallowing RMT (real Money Transactions) like gold selling and powerleveling and character selling. Partly because it devalues the game experience for others, but also so that they can stay clearly on the side of the law that means that the IRS can't attach some made up tax value to the made-up virtual assetts in the game.
Also, I bet they want to keep a clear line about virtual assetts so that nobody can try to sue them for losses should their account get hacked or whatever.
If Blizzard allowed RMT, then a well-geared, high-level toon could be considered to have a high monetary value and open up all sorts of un-fun legal-fee-producing uglyness.
... and have jobs
Probably due to the MASSIVE potential for misuse.
I'm a law-abiding citizen, but I'd be seriously bothered by a law that required my movements be tracked in such a manner... that's not the kind of state/country I'd want to live in, thank you very much.
No, I'm not part of the tin-foil-hat-brigade, I just feel there are certain lines that should not be crossed, and this is one of them.
Besides, I would think that encouraging fuel economy would be a GOOD THING.
According to the late Douglas Adams, a robot only needs the capacity to be bored or happy.
Want it to get you beers? program it to be happy when delivering beer and bored when nobody needs one.
Want it to guard your facility? program it to be bored when it hasn't got things to report and happy when it does. (works for making traffic cops too :p )
Just be careful that someone doesn't throw a towel over its head and reprogram it to be happy all the time no matter what though.
I've seen "keep to the normal speed" fast EZ-Pass lanes in NJ.
However, the reason for slowing down isn't technical... it's so you don't KILL the toll booth operators who have to cross the lanes to get to their booths.
Hentai anyone?
(sorry, could not resist)
OOh, I think you're right - I always thought it was On Board Diagnostic Code... it's a fair cop :)
Wow, you lose geek points. :p ... the proper procedure is:
---
Go buy an OBDCII code reader
Read the REAL error code
Reset the Check Engine Light
Determine based on the code if you actually need to spend $$ at mechanic
Profit!
I honestly don't recall how important the quest chain following the torture is, but I would make the point that in WOTLK, there are a huge number of seeming unrelated quests and quest lines that don't open up until you've completed others.
I'm sure I could go to thottbot and/or wowwiki and/or wowhead and puzzle it all out, but that's a huge amount of work to avoid torturing some pixels.
For me, the important thing is at least if you step out of the game long enough to consider that there are moral implications to what your character is doing, then at that point, making the conscious decision that "it's ok if I have my toon do this because its only pixels, it's not real" is perfectly okay.
It's the folks who never even pause to consider that I feel sad for.
I'm not really a Role Player in WOW, but I was a little bothered by it too. Yes, these are only pixels and it's only a game, but something that occurs to me. Lets say that your RP decision turned out to be "no, I won't torture him". If that is the case, then you end up closing down access to that quest line.
In classic and BC WOW, eh, it's no big deal so you miss one quest line, but in WOTLK, there is so much chaining of seemingly unrelated quests, that you may have found whole sections of content unavailable to you.
Bear with me here, cuz what I'm saying is that effectively, the game does NOT give you the option to choose your path in terms of story-line consequences... it only gives you THE PLAYER a choice. The consequences are "either you torture the guy and are able to complete the quest chain and open subsequent ones" or "you refuse to torture the guy, and potentially close off a great deal of game content".
This results in a situation where you either do what the game designers intended, or you miss out.
Again, I understand it's only a game, and that I'm not really hurting anything, but I stopped and thought about it on that quest. I felt bad. Yes, I ended up finishing the quest, but the conflict actualy made me pause and take myself OUT OF THE GAME (breaking willing suspension of disbelief), and making a conscious decision that I THE PLAYER was making a choice to continue.
Now, this may seem overly care-bear, but I find that I DO get wrapped up in the game. When something comes along that is against my character (I'm talking about me as the player, not some role-playing aspect here), I do stop and think about it. I find that it breaks the flow of the game. It's like violating the "fourth wall" in a television show.
Still, I suppose that says that I've got some healthy psychological filters on. The tell me somethings wrong despite the fact that I'm wrapped up in game. I think overall, I'm happy about that.
As to the gameplay, I DO with Blizzard would give alternate ways to complete some quest lines where there is an arguably moral choice. From a game design perspective, I wish I could have gone back to the quest giver and picked a dialog option that says "I'm sorry, but I will not be a part of torture". At which point the quest giver would have said "fine, I'll have someone else do it" and you'd maybe sacrifice the quest reward (money/rep) but would be able to turn it in and then continue with the quest line.
Personally, I think they could make the game a lot more rich and the story line a lot more meaningful if they gave options like that.
I've seen em too and have been hovering between whether they are "complete waste of time" or "malware pushin' scum"
Either way, I really worry about all the folks who fall for that ad.
yeah, you can tweak their MTU and play with cache settings and maybe even juggle a couple of the tcp/ip parameters in the registry, but most of the types of "this computer used to be so fast, now it's slow" problems turn out to be due to getting bogged down with competing malware/spyware.
Oh well. I'm seriously thinking of pushing my mom to get a MAC next time she needs a computer so I can stop worrying quite so much.
FROM SITE:
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I was thinking something similar: That at first, it would be like Second life without the CyberSex. Then it would either fail, or the furries would invade and turn it into another Second Life.
/this
yep, whole story needs to be arrested for violating that particular law.
Blizzard can stop multiboxing anytime they want... without banning them: just remove /follow from the features of WOW.
Trust me, the vehicle system and the way it breaks focus/follow has already made many quests and even at least one instance impossible to multibox.
Oh, and for the record, I HATE PVP. I suck at it. Back when I was dual boxing a holy priest and a rogue on a pvp server, (and was just grinding away leveling and questing - no pvp at all), I would regularly get jumped and my healer would be dead or cc'd before I could do a thing. Even worse was when any kind of loss of control happened.
If you get annoyed by multiboxers in opposing faction in pvp, just do something that breaks their control (fear, MC, etc...) and they're screwed. If you can get their toons separated far enough that they have to choose between letting them stand still while concentrating on one or running around herding them back together, you win.
For the most part, the quest lines are designed to be soloed. I had a tough time with some of it because I multi-box (run three accounts on three seperate computers) now that I have completed that chain on my three mains, I can't use any of them to "boost" any of my secondaries.... will have to do it again. Still, since the quest lines were designed to be soloable, I'll do okay.
However, where the phasing can be a little annoying is that even if all three of my toons are on the same phase, the phase transition is a little buggy and it almost always breaks "/follow" which means I have to stop and manually move my followers forward till my main appears then re-follow. In one zone, the shapes of the phases and the number of layers mean effectively, /follow doesn't work for me... have to cross the area with each toon independantly.
Not to mention that the new "vehicle" mechanic totally breaks /follow too.
Still, I've enjoyed the expansion thus far.
"" IANAL, but does not the original invention invalidate the subsequent patent, as 'prior art'? ""
Well, IANAL either, but it seems to me that Trade Secrets enjoy a certain legal status that would kind of open the practitioner of this form of trolling to all sorts of litigation.
Of course, the REAL intent might be to set up a potentially long and expensive legal situation and profit from settlements to make it go away a-la RIAA/MPAA.
My biggest concern if they go under is that the relatively recent closings of my local Tweeters and the complete closing of CompUSA stores nationwide leaves me with very little choice for middle-end Home theater and computer shopping. Best Buy and Circuit City kind of filled in the gaps when my first-choice stores went away... At least I hope it means that Best Buy ends up in a strong market position so I'm not stuck with online-only shopping.
Yes, I'd probably save money, and I could buy the pieces for a new PC from New Egg, or order Home Theater stuff through various web sites, but I like going into the store and seeing what I'm getting. There have been many times when the online research looked good, but a physical once-over has changed a buying decision.
Not to mention the instant gratification factor... and don't get me started about having to be at home to sign for a delivery.
So, for selfish reasons, I'm hoping they stick around.
When I read the CEO's statement on their web site, it looked to me like they're just reorganizing. Then again, a re-org usually happens before a full shutdown too.
Guess it's wait-and-see mode.
Not that his case has any merit on its own, but how exactly did he get addicted to WOW if he's been in prison? I believe it launched in 2004.
Besides, if he really REALLY was addicted to WOW, he wouldn't have had time to write the lawsuit Q.E.D.
Hear Hear!
I've read a lot of "stupid patent" stories on /. but this is really such an incredibly obvious and trivial thing.
As others have said:
1) "sexing" of names has been happeing in the bulk (postal) mail advertising industry forever
2) what's wrong with just assigning gender neutral unless the user clicks male or female
Ahh, but we're not a Democracy, we're a Representative Republic. There may be some shortcomings, but over-all, I think we've got a decent system which generally avoids a "Tyranny of the Majority".
As an American I fervently hope that President Elect Obama will move forward on his campaign promises to get us out of the war in Iraq and will work to rebuild our relations with the rest of the world.
Reminds me of the interwebz back in the late '90s... essentially selling dollar bills for 80 cents each but being convinced they'd make it up on volume. :)
Something about Cogent's pricing always kind of ticked my "too good to be true" filter.