It's a real problem when you need a 25 man team, on a server with maybe 1500 characters who can run the content, who already have 40 guilds competing for them. It actually becomes extremely (artificially!) difficult to put a group together.
Cataclysm brings nothing to the table to fix any of the problems in the game...
You do realize that they are getting rid of these 25 man teams (for the new content), right? All raids are going to be run by 10 man groups instead.
I agree with your assessment of 25 man groups, and I welcome the change. It seems that a very very small number of anti-social or otherwise unpleasant players can really ruin an online gameplay experience, and the more people that are required to experience content, the greater your chance of your group (or team) of having one or two players that end up souring the group. 10 is a good number.
Can you remember when the CB radio fad took off, and there were all these news reports talking about the danger of CB'ing and driving?
Wait... that never happened...
Did we not have an over-sensationalist media that tried to get us to tune in by scaring us so shitless that we began begging lawmakers to create laws based on knee-jerk reactions back then or something?
I completely agree... I can't fathom why people get so worked up about having to hit the Enter key as a confirmation that you really want to see possibly offensive results.
Hell, on some sites, they want me to enter my date of birth to make sure I'm over 18 before I see certain content (not that anyone ever puts in their real date, regardless of their age).
I think that somewhere above, it's been mentioned at least once or a hundred times, that this appears to be a feature to prevent accidental incorrect auto-completion guesses that might be not be appropriate or desired at work, school, with family, or other environments.
Despite the fact that the examples you used have legitimate and non-offensive usages doesn't change the fact that they could also bring up undesirable search results as well. Harping on the fact that certain words are non-offensive in certain (or even most) contexts is sticking your head in the sand to this fact.
You also seem to be ignoring the fact that sometimes a person might want SafeSearch off for their searches in general, but still might want it on for Google Instant. I'd definitely be in that group. I don't want my searches to be censored if I'm actually looking for something controversial, but I sure as hell don't want such things accidentally popping up from a wrong guess when I'm not searching for them (especially in certain environments).
Maybe they should give an option to turn safe searching off on Google Instant for the people who are easily offended by Google's attempts not to accidentally offend them...
He isn't saying that the religion mechanics in the game didn't have impact on your civilization, he is saying that the only difference in religions were their names. You might as well called them all RELIGION[n], because the only thing that mattered was what value of 'n' the other Civs had.
However, by actually making changes to your civilization based on which value of 'n' you had might have been found to be stereotyping or offensive. Imagine if you will if certain religions received things like bonuses to attack those of other religions, bonus culture but decreased science, bonuses to banks, etc.
It's pretty obvious why they'd make all the religions generic, with no defining characteristics, but it makes a pretty bland implementation. I think they made the right call just yanking them, and leaving it to religious themed improvements and wonders to show that religion does have an impact on civilizations, but without getting into the nuts and bolts (and controversies) of it all.
You can lost most of the time, but when you win, can't the winnings quite overshadow the actual effort in trolling the system?
It's not completely unlike walking up to many random women and saying, "nice shoes, want to have sex?" Sure, the vast majority will think you are a schmuck and maybe even give you a slap, but to some having an extremely tiny percentage agree makes it worth their effort.;-)
Maybe they also figured out that with the fear of unemployment and difficulty getting another job looming over many people's heads, that many workers are willing to work harder and longer in order to make sure they keep their jobs, so the companies can more easily increase profits by overworking their workers rather than hiring new ones.
The problem with Stewart (not so much Colbert), is that too many people get their news from him, a comedian (or is he??).
It's funny that you say this, because just a week or two ago I was reading a study that was studying the correlation of how well people were informed on political issues with what media sources that people were regularly exposed to. I wish I had the link handy...
However, the thing that was funny was that those that regularly watched Colbert and Stewart were among the most politically informed. They were near the top of the list, along with those that listened to NPR news, Bill O'Reilley and Rush Limbaugh. If I recall correctly, all of these were above CNN.
Near the bottom of the list was Fox News.
So I'm going to disagree. The problem isn't people getting too much of their news from them, the problem is that "News" networks are less effective at conveying the news than a comedy show is. Blaming the comedy show is pointing the finger in the wrong direction.
I happened to work in a place where both HP and Microsoft employees in close proximity, and I was informed by many employees that there were agreements that the other would not hire the workers of one, until they had been away from their respective company for at least 6 months...
I knew guys on the HP side that wanted to work for Microsoft, but they couldn't afford a 6 month vacation in order to get a job elsewhere...
My new plan is to pirate $100,000 worth of software, movies, and games every year. The money I save I will put into a retirement account, and I'll be able to retire in style in no time!
Now, I don't make $100,000 a year, and my current expenses are only a little less than my current income, but that's neither here nor there. The BSA has shown me that this logic is sound!
A penny pirated, is a penny saved, is a penny earned, right?
MetroPCS are the guys with the borderline racist ads featuring two not-very-funny Indian tech support guys
It's funny that you mention that... The only reason I was aware of these ads was because of an Indian coworker who showed me the videos. He thought they were freaking hilarious.
One of my bosses actually successfully returned opened software by saying that he didn't agree with the terms of the EULA, so by the instructions in the EULA he should return it for a refund. It required escalating the issue to management of the store (a Best Buy, if I recall correctly), however the manager eventually reviewed this particular EULA and said, "I guess you're right", and gave a refund.
I would really like to say something useful and insightful. I really do... However, when I read this my disappointment and frustration is so overpowering, the only words I can seem to muster are...
Selling it short as being "Doom + boobs" "kind of pointless" as well, and quite off the mark.
Also, do we really have to go through the "evolution vs revolution" cliche debate? First of all, by what measure?
DN3D's engine was a huge leap over Doom, but it certainly did make some improvements. For example, it allowed for jetpacks, making it feel closer to actual 3D. They added interesting things such as being able to see from another point of view, within your point of view (security cameras and monitors).
The game also included much more interactivity with objects than other games of that time periods (in a time when player interaction with objects usually was mostly limited to doors and barrels).
However, one area that I might say that DN3D was "revolutionary" was in the developer support for the modding community. Unlike Doom editors, which were made by the gaming community through reverse engineering, 3D Realms actually freely released their Build editor for DN3D. To this day, DN3D still stands among a tiny minority of games that include game editors to encourage community made mods.
Plus, the game had a lot of style and humor (as alluded to in my earlier post).
So, yeah... If you take away things like crawling through air ducts, fun and interesting items like holodukes, shrink rays, and jet packs, the humor and parody, a developer released level editor, increased environment interactivity, style, then yeah... it was nothing but "Doom + boobs."
I think you really missed the spirit of the game, if you reduce it to just being a crass Doom.
It was simply a fun FPS that didn't take itself or the genre too seriously. It was full of satire drawing from video games and pop culture. It did not try to be realistic, including things like shrink rays, holodukes, jetpacks, rapidfire rockets, and the Mighty Boot.
Just because it included some of the content you reference does not mean that's all the game was about. Did you actually even play the game, or did you just judge it based on sensationalist media coverage?
I am not "thinking" of anything. I'm making a joke that is referencing a trope. I didn't make it up, even if it is not accurate (and jokes don't have to be accurate).
If God, which we cannot prove exists, simply exists, without need of a creator, when why cannot one assume the Universe, which we know exists, just be, without need of a creator?
Companies like Symantec and Norton didn't start off as antivirus companies. They build tools and utilities. If by some miracle all of the botnets, trojans, and virus infections were to vanish from the world, I imagine that they would go back to making tools. It was virus makers that created the market, not Symantec and Norton.
I suppose you think cancer researchers don't really want to find a cure, because then they'd lose their funding, right?
The fact that you are marked as insightful is baffling. You have a distorted sense of reality.
I won't even bother commenting on your "white hats" criticisms, since that's been pretty well covered by others...
However, to say that *your* solution is the only solution is not only short-sighted, it's arrogant. Black Hat "skilz" must be the mystery reason why about half the number of systems are infected now, right?
There isn't a magic bullet solution that will magically fix the problem completely, aside from getting rid of the internet (and maybe humanity too!). It has to be fought on multiple fronts and incorporating multiple solutions to mitigate the problem and hopefully if it's made difficult enough or they have enough that they can lose, then maybe it will stop... but it's much more likely that we're always going to be stuck with it to at least some degree.
Just because you don't like that tradeoff, doesn't mean it's not useful and convenient for others, and when you whine about it, all you're really doing is revealing that you deeply desire an iPad.
Are you seriously suggesting that when people criticize the iGadgets that it's because they secretly want one? Are you seriously such a fanboy that you think that the only reason to be critical is out of jealousy? Get a clue. If someone were to give me one free, I'd prefer to sell it and wait for a good competitor to come out with a less locked down device to buy instead. I most certainly will vote with my wallet, but who are you to say that I still can't criticize as well?
I think what you fail to get is that there are legitimate reasons why some people are concerned about what Apple does, even if they aren't buying. When apple meets great success while putting limitations and restrictions on their users, it sends the signal to Apple (and to competitors) that this kind of thing is acceptable (or at least tolerable) by users and will encourage Apple to continue and encourage the competition to follow suit.
Slashdot Mirror
What, are you suggesting you are against the following label?
WARNING: HOT THINGS IN YOUR LAP MAY HEAT YOUR LAP.
Maybe my information was old or misunderstood. Admittedly, I have not been following it that closely since some of the early designs were presented.
It's a real problem when you need a 25 man team, on a server with maybe 1500 characters who can run the content, who already have 40 guilds competing for them. It actually becomes extremely (artificially!) difficult to put a group together.
Cataclysm brings nothing to the table to fix any of the problems in the game...
You do realize that they are getting rid of these 25 man teams (for the new content), right? All raids are going to be run by 10 man groups instead.
I agree with your assessment of 25 man groups, and I welcome the change. It seems that a very very small number of anti-social or otherwise unpleasant players can really ruin an online gameplay experience, and the more people that are required to experience content, the greater your chance of your group (or team) of having one or two players that end up souring the group. 10 is a good number.
Can you remember when the CB radio fad took off, and there were all these news reports talking about the danger of CB'ing and driving?
Wait... that never happened...
Did we not have an over-sensationalist media that tried to get us to tune in by scaring us so shitless that we began begging lawmakers to create laws based on knee-jerk reactions back then or something?
I completely agree... I can't fathom why people get so worked up about having to hit the Enter key as a confirmation that you really want to see possibly offensive results.
Hell, on some sites, they want me to enter my date of birth to make sure I'm over 18 before I see certain content (not that anyone ever puts in their real date, regardless of their age).
I think that somewhere above, it's been mentioned at least once or a hundred times, that this appears to be a feature to prevent accidental incorrect auto-completion guesses that might be not be appropriate or desired at work, school, with family, or other environments.
Despite the fact that the examples you used have legitimate and non-offensive usages doesn't change the fact that they could also bring up undesirable search results as well. Harping on the fact that certain words are non-offensive in certain (or even most) contexts is sticking your head in the sand to this fact.
You also seem to be ignoring the fact that sometimes a person might want SafeSearch off for their searches in general, but still might want it on for Google Instant. I'd definitely be in that group. I don't want my searches to be censored if I'm actually looking for something controversial, but I sure as hell don't want such things accidentally popping up from a wrong guess when I'm not searching for them (especially in certain environments).
Maybe they should give an option to turn safe searching off on Google Instant for the people who are easily offended by Google's attempts not to accidentally offend them...
He isn't saying that the religion mechanics in the game didn't have impact on your civilization, he is saying that the only difference in religions were their names. You might as well called them all RELIGION[n], because the only thing that mattered was what value of 'n' the other Civs had.
However, by actually making changes to your civilization based on which value of 'n' you had might have been found to be stereotyping or offensive. Imagine if you will if certain religions received things like bonuses to attack those of other religions, bonus culture but decreased science, bonuses to banks, etc.
It's pretty obvious why they'd make all the religions generic, with no defining characteristics, but it makes a pretty bland implementation. I think they made the right call just yanking them, and leaving it to religious themed improvements and wonders to show that religion does have an impact on civilizations, but without getting into the nuts and bolts (and controversies) of it all.
You can lost most of the time, but when you win, can't the winnings quite overshadow the actual effort in trolling the system?
It's not completely unlike walking up to many random women and saying, "nice shoes, want to have sex?" Sure, the vast majority will think you are a schmuck and maybe even give you a slap, but to some having an extremely tiny percentage agree makes it worth their effort. ;-)
Maybe they also figured out that with the fear of unemployment and difficulty getting another job looming over many people's heads, that many workers are willing to work harder and longer in order to make sure they keep their jobs, so the companies can more easily increase profits by overworking their workers rather than hiring new ones.
The problem with Stewart (not so much Colbert), is that too many people get their news from him, a comedian (or is he??).
It's funny that you say this, because just a week or two ago I was reading a study that was studying the correlation of how well people were informed on political issues with what media sources that people were regularly exposed to. I wish I had the link handy...
However, the thing that was funny was that those that regularly watched Colbert and Stewart were among the most politically informed. They were near the top of the list, along with those that listened to NPR news, Bill O'Reilley and Rush Limbaugh. If I recall correctly, all of these were above CNN.
Near the bottom of the list was Fox News.
So I'm going to disagree. The problem isn't people getting too much of their news from them, the problem is that "News" networks are less effective at conveying the news than a comedy show is. Blaming the comedy show is pointing the finger in the wrong direction.
I happened to work in a place where both HP and Microsoft employees in close proximity, and I was informed by many employees that there were agreements that the other would not hire the workers of one, until they had been away from their respective company for at least 6 months...
I knew guys on the HP side that wanted to work for Microsoft, but they couldn't afford a 6 month vacation in order to get a job elsewhere...
I get it! It's so clear now!
My new plan is to pirate $100,000 worth of software, movies, and games every year. The money I save I will put into a retirement account, and I'll be able to retire in style in no time!
Now, I don't make $100,000 a year, and my current expenses are only a little less than my current income, but that's neither here nor there. The BSA has shown me that this logic is sound!
A penny pirated, is a penny saved, is a penny earned, right?
MetroPCS are the guys with the borderline racist ads featuring two not-very-funny Indian tech support guys
It's funny that you mention that... The only reason I was aware of these ads was because of an Indian coworker who showed me the videos. He thought they were freaking hilarious.
One of my bosses actually successfully returned opened software by saying that he didn't agree with the terms of the EULA, so by the instructions in the EULA he should return it for a refund. It required escalating the issue to management of the store (a Best Buy, if I recall correctly), however the manager eventually reviewed this particular EULA and said, "I guess you're right", and gave a refund.
I would really like to say something useful and insightful. I really do... However, when I read this my disappointment and frustration is so overpowering, the only words I can seem to muster are...
"This is fucking bullshit."
Selling it short as being "Doom + boobs" "kind of pointless" as well, and quite off the mark.
Also, do we really have to go through the "evolution vs revolution" cliche debate? First of all, by what measure?
DN3D's engine was a huge leap over Doom, but it certainly did make some improvements. For example, it allowed for jetpacks, making it feel closer to actual 3D. They added interesting things such as being able to see from another point of view, within your point of view (security cameras and monitors).
The game also included much more interactivity with objects than other games of that time periods (in a time when player interaction with objects usually was mostly limited to doors and barrels).
However, one area that I might say that DN3D was "revolutionary" was in the developer support for the modding community. Unlike Doom editors, which were made by the gaming community through reverse engineering, 3D Realms actually freely released their Build editor for DN3D. To this day, DN3D still stands among a tiny minority of games that include game editors to encourage community made mods.
Plus, the game had a lot of style and humor (as alluded to in my earlier post).
So, yeah... If you take away things like crawling through air ducts, fun and interesting items like holodukes, shrink rays, and jet packs, the humor and parody, a developer released level editor, increased environment interactivity, style, then yeah... it was nothing but "Doom + boobs."
I think you really missed the spirit of the game, if you reduce it to just being a crass Doom.
It was simply a fun FPS that didn't take itself or the genre too seriously. It was full of satire drawing from video games and pop culture. It did not try to be realistic, including things like shrink rays, holodukes, jetpacks, rapidfire rockets, and the Mighty Boot.
Just because it included some of the content you reference does not mean that's all the game was about. Did you actually even play the game, or did you just judge it based on sensationalist media coverage?
Nerds... is there anything we won't argue about?
I am not "thinking" of anything. I'm making a joke that is referencing a trope. I didn't make it up, even if it is not accurate (and jokes don't have to be accurate).
I do suggest the following links though:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_explosive_smells_like_almonds
http://ask.metafilter.com/157267/Does-C4-smell-like-Almonds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour
I prefer to use C4. I prefer the smell of almonds to oranges.
You know... I made a similar comment above, before seeing your post.
I also don't understand this double standard either.
If God, which we cannot prove exists, simply exists, without need of a creator, when why cannot one assume the Universe, which we know exists, just be, without need of a creator?
Sure... but there used to be more of a demand for reporters with courage and integrity.
The problem isn't what is published, the problem is what people buy.
Companies like Symantec and Norton didn't start off as antivirus companies. They build tools and utilities. If by some miracle all of the botnets, trojans, and virus infections were to vanish from the world, I imagine that they would go back to making tools. It was virus makers that created the market, not Symantec and Norton.
I suppose you think cancer researchers don't really want to find a cure, because then they'd lose their funding, right?
The fact that you are marked as insightful is baffling. You have a distorted sense of reality.
I won't even bother commenting on your "white hats" criticisms, since that's been pretty well covered by others...
However, to say that *your* solution is the only solution is not only short-sighted, it's arrogant. Black Hat "skilz" must be the mystery reason why about half the number of systems are infected now, right?
There isn't a magic bullet solution that will magically fix the problem completely, aside from getting rid of the internet (and maybe humanity too!). It has to be fought on multiple fronts and incorporating multiple solutions to mitigate the problem and hopefully if it's made difficult enough or they have enough that they can lose, then maybe it will stop... but it's much more likely that we're always going to be stuck with it to at least some degree.
Just because you don't like that tradeoff, doesn't mean it's not useful and convenient for others, and when you whine about it, all you're really doing is revealing that you deeply desire an iPad.
Are you seriously suggesting that when people criticize the iGadgets that it's because they secretly want one? Are you seriously such a fanboy that you think that the only reason to be critical is out of jealousy? Get a clue. If someone were to give me one free, I'd prefer to sell it and wait for a good competitor to come out with a less locked down device to buy instead. I most certainly will vote with my wallet, but who are you to say that I still can't criticize as well?
I think what you fail to get is that there are legitimate reasons why some people are concerned about what Apple does, even if they aren't buying. When apple meets great success while putting limitations and restrictions on their users, it sends the signal to Apple (and to competitors) that this kind of thing is acceptable (or at least tolerable) by users and will encourage Apple to continue and encourage the competition to follow suit.