'Like all (or many, or some, or none at all) other game developers, I spend a lot of time staring into the void of my own uselessness.'
So, that statement should've just read "I spend a lot of time staring into the void of my own uselessness."
Anyway, about innovation, creativity, and doing new things. People get burned out. You can't constantly come up with new things, at least not ones that are actually better than what you have come up with before. If you could then we wouldn't have the word 'progress' because everything would have been done by now. There's a natural progression to the creation of new things. And the creativity most people seek is found not by trying to stimulate some secret, hidden creative organ, but by a multitude of things. First and foremost is maintaining a healthy body and mind. That means exercise, not just eating right. After that you need to have a well-rounded appetite for activities outside of the normal grind of whatever you do for a living, be it game design or anything else.
The point is, if you want to be creative, just sitting there trying to be creative isn't going to help. The most creative moments I've ever had were the result of a culmination of many things in my life, at which point mentally I reached an apex of sorts, and something clicked. And then I realized something or thought of something in a new way.
I'm not saying that you can't spend time, and a lot of it, doing what you love, and not still be able to churn out a high degree of creative products. You can. I'm just pointing out that if you burn yourself out on it by not moderating what you do with the rest of your life, or having no rest of your life to speak of for that matter.. then you are doing more harm than good.
It's like a cow's second stomach, but instead of chewing up already chewed grass, we're chewing up already chewed news...instead of cud, we have fud.
I've been quite unimpressed with/. for a while now.
BTW: Calling a point system on a discussion site "Karma" is, well.. stupid.. considering how most people post here, "Dogma" would be much more suitable.
P.S. How ironic is that? The word I had to type to tell/. I am not a script was 'mockery'...much like/. itself as a news site.
Honestly, I never read TFA for articles like this. If I do manage to retain any of the information in them for long-term I feel I may have catastrophically displaced something in memory of much more value -- i.e. anything else in memory. Some/. articles are so bad I am forced to wonder at the people behind the/. wheel and if they aren't drunk on popularity.
If a person does something evil, gains a huge amount of power and wealth from it, then does something nice, this does not make him a nice person.
What you are implying: anyone who gains wealth in the US via operating a business and competing with others is inherently 'evil'. Perhaps you would rather the US were socialist/communist? What do you expect people with wealth to do, give it all up? You do realize that it is the people with wealth who spend money on research and development new technologies and ideas?
This has had a profound effect, the 3rd world desperately neds the free software infrastructure that he has attacked and despised.
What in the hell is a 3rd world country going to do with a free software infrastructure? Hello? What difference does it make what software you have if you don't have the hardware to back it up? For the love of god, even if they HAD the hardware, you really think they would care about US copyright laws? Uhm.. They would be perfectly happy pirating Windows or any other software. So what is it really costing them? Once again, it's the hardware that is the problem here, not the software.
They are more than capable of helping themselves if they have freedom. Has the Bill and Melinda increased individual liberty from oppressive governments arround the world?
If they have what freedom? What do you expect, that a third-world nation will just magically be better if they get open source software? You expect these countries to be able to even manage their software when most of their citizens cannot even read and write at a third grade level? And you expect the Gates to somehow step in and 'increase individual liberty from oppressive governments around the world'? And if they don't they're evil?
What in the freaking hell kind of shit are you smoking? It's not up to the Gates to free people from their governments. The Gates help in other ways, such as researching for cures for deadly third-world diseases. I fail to see how such research is a result of their greed?
You are simply choosing to be ignorant. Bad choice.
How can you say charity has nothing to do with it? Did Bill tell you?
Allow me to explain something. All of these '3rd world' billions that you talk about Gates trying to bootstrap up soley for his own profit later...A few points, 1) Gates will be too old once such a plan came to fruition to reap the rewards himself, which means he would be doing it for whom? For loved ones? For his company? For his country? For everyone? Nobody knows the answer to that but Gates. At least we know that it can't just be for him because the timeline simply doesn't work. 2) Even if Gates, for some reason, is doing it soley for his personal gain, oh well. Because guess how he is doing it? By helping the world get educated. By fighting disease and famine. By generally doing GOOD. Not bad. So even if the reason he is doing good according to you is the wrong one, the end result is the same: People benefit.
Seriously, by ratio and by effort, I bet Gates is more humanitarian than a lot of people, including you. It's easy for you to write off his effort as an evil, for-profit scheme because you are capable of making up your own definitions for the universe, because you are a thinking being, and that means when you see something you don't like (like a person who you don't like making donations and helping the world) you make up your own definitions that suit you more, then delude yourself into believing they are true. But like I said before, it doesn't matter what you believe, or what I believe, what matters it what happens. Look up the Gates Foundation to see what that is.
1. Thousands of years ago Christ dies and is resurrected on this day. 2. Thousands of years pass, the Capitalist United States is born. 3. Someone decides that if there's a holiday, people will buy stuff 'related' (meaning the holiday is on the label) to it. They were correct. 4....A rabbit lays an egg? 5. Profit
they're both more interested in power and prestige than making a mark
B U L L S H I T
I guess you have no idea how much Gates simply gives away to various causes? He's a philanthropist if there ever was one. I'm not going to spend my time digging up statistics for you, since you took the initiaive of making an ass out of yourself by what you said I don't feel you deserve them. Look it up yourself. Suffice it to say the amount starts with a "B" not an "M".
Now you're probably going to come up with some clever response like "but he just did that for the pubilicity" or something to that nature. Yea, because I see so many fucking commercials and hear so much about it every day, because Gates wants everyone to know about how much he donates. Well, you didn't know shit, still don't, and the same goes for most people. So if you still think he only does it for prestige you are just plain wrong.
Seems to be pretty obvious to me. The static size of today's PDAs is simply too large. It doesn't readily slide into a normal pocket, it seems clumsy to carry one around with you unless you have a purse or some kind of carrying case. I don't find that to be very convenient. I don't want to need a carrying case to carry my connection to the world's network around with me.
In short, once thin, retractable, high quality touchscreens are available, so you can in effect 'roll up' the majority of the space it takes up while not in use, then you can really expect PDAs to take over, and see them merge many separate technologies (ipod, phone, gps, pda) into one.
How long away is this? You tell me, I'm just the visionary;p
How on Earth can you tell me Anarchy Online was Swords and Sorcery? THERE WAS ZERO MAGIC IN THE GAME!! It was technology, from nanotech to macro tech. There was absolutely no sorcery whatsoever. You can't say it was thinly disguised, that's like saying todays computers really work on magic but are thinly disguised by using intangible 'transistors'. You have to draw the line somewhere.
And the same goes for SWG.. with the exception of 'the force'.
However, if you look closely had CoH, many of the players chose the primary origin of magic. How surprising. So the only real difference with CoH was you were a super-hero with super-powers. Except so was everybody else. So the feeling of being some powerful hero was destroyed by the lack of immersion. And the game was really, really repetitive.
And just saying 'it's different' doesn't mean it's good.
There are tried and true aspects to MMOs which will never change.
I'm sorry to inform you of this, but this is completely wrong if you are going to put it in a context with CoH/CoV.
These games did NOTHING new. Oh wow so I can jump 200 ft or run really fast.. to get where? The questing and content was so repetitive that you felt as if you were doing the same thing over and over, starting in the early levels! In fact, CoV was simply CoH with different 'skin'. I own both, they get extremely boring far before you reach max level. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.
The OP said CoH/V 'has it all and then some'. OH REALLY? How about itemization? IT DOESN'T EXIST IN COH/V. You get enhancements, that's basically it. They all do the same thing from level 1 to max, just getting stronger as you gain levels. Whereas if you look at games like SWG, AO, WoW, etc, there are wonderful crafting systems and multiple professions which can be truly a joy to master. Making armor in SWG using materials gotten from around the galaxy was just as much fun for many players as even playing the game -- it WAS the game.
"In my opinion, if WOW has it, its best left out of any future games, if it doesn't have it, its probably a good feature to include."
Simply put, your opinion is idiotic.
Let's see what WoW has (and you think should be left out of future games):
- In-game currency (an economy) - Multiple modes of travel (would you have everyone run *everywhere*?) - Duping protection - PvP, and many different types from world pvp to battlegrounds and free-for-all arenas - A good deal of lore - LOTS of end-game content - Well-balanced classes - Excellent graphics and sound (music included) - An involved development team who actually RESPONDS to player input - Up to 40 people grouping together to take down truly epic encounters - But plenty of solo content and also 5-10-20 person content as well - A truly great mod community - Almost 6 million subscribers - The same $15/month that many much less cool games charge - Tons of room (with lore already in place) for expansion
So let's see, since WoW has all of this, let's just TAKE IT AWAY, I bet that would be a really great game!
I play WoW. A lot. When I can. And one thing I can tell you, FOR SURE, is that skill is required to do well in this game.
Let me illustrate an example that relates it to time:
You have to farm 2,000 bug shells to turn in for a quest. You might think, hey wtf, this is only a time sink and requires no skill. But of course you'd be wrong. Because if you are a skilled player you can cut the amount of time it takes to kill the bugs in HALF. So right there skill equates to less time spent.
And also, let me tell you something about PvP and raids in WoW. Yes, they both require time, guess what, everything you do requires time. But if you aren't skilled, in PvP or raiding, YOU WILL GET PUNISHED.
PvP is at least 75% skill. I've got full epics on my Warlock, with Nefarian loot. And yet when I duel other locks with full blues, on occasion, I lose, despite the fact that I spent all this time getting the gear. SKILL ALWAYS OUTWEIGHS TIME. ALWAYS.
Raiding is the same way. Your whole raid can have full epics and wipe on Nefarian over and over and over because they don't have the skills necessary to work as a unified force.
Methinks the writer of this article learned a lesson from WoW, but not the one they wrote about. The lesson they learned is that they have no skill. And so they choose to complain about the game. Oh, no, it can't be anything about THEMSELVES. I see this so much on the WoW forums that I am totally desensitized to anyone who claims WoW takes no skill.
See the thing is, at least from where I sit, technology is an extension of our bodies and minds. It is just like having another limb or organ. So when raising children who could be brought up with the advantage of having the extra limb and learning to use it early, when they'll learn the best, why would you want to cut if off? In a sense you might as well cut off one of their legs.
Granted, this is an _extreme_ analogy. People can live their lives without technology. They can live full lives and happy lives without it. And there are certainly extremes in the sense that one can be immersed in too much technology and lose their sense of self. I personally have many thoughts on the matter of sense of self and immersion into a larger unity that is today's emerging techno-society. But that's another topic.
In short, find a happy medium that works for you and your family. Moderation is the answer.
This is OT and all, so mod this down, I don't care.
Your sig is offensively dense. There is so much wrong with it that I won't even begin to explain it to you. Suffice it to say this response to it doesn't belong on this discussion thread. Like I said, mod me down, I don't care. I had to say it, because it's deeply offensive to me. Want to talk it over, send me an email.
I'm just glad I know better than to consider it even remotely correct.
This kind of problem could actually be a good thing. It could usher in the era of on-windshield semi-transparent projected displays that allow you to keep your eyes closer to the road.
That, and you could mod it to display a perfect set of breasts that bounced very lifelike whenever the vehicle went over a bump. Now there's something I would buy. Ok so that's just a pipe dream... well whatever, I still want the projected display on the windshield damn you!
Commercials at the movie theaters have nothing to do with DRM. It is the theater that gets profits from those commercials, not the movie producers
Except that now when I pop in a DVD I am forced to sit through stuff like anti-piracy propaganda and federal copyright violation punishment screens. And the commercials, I can only fast forward them a lot of the time, cannot skip them.
So naturally you get people who would take offense to that. While I turn on a DVD and find something else to do for 5-10mins while it goes through the loads of BS, they look at it like this:
If someone is going to assume that I am a copyright violator, and they are going to tell me what is right and wrong, and force me to watch it, then screw them. I'm going to do it, and I'm going to enjoy sticking it to 'the man'.
These people see it as punishment to the companies who try to force their agendas on innocent consumers. They argue that they would never have done the crime in the first place if it wasn't for the companies making them. So the blame rests on the companies and these people feel justified in doing the crime.
It's twisted logic, hell it's just plain illogical. But you can expect that out of people, that's just the way they are. Rationality often falls to the wayside once people feel insulted.
I can see that we both are idealizing one side of the issue. I am taking a devil's advocate position which I don't truly believe in. As for my true feelings, I'm completely willing to support DRM, as long as it doesn't violate basic rights of the consumer. For security purposes, I am all for it. For copyright protection, sure go ahead.
Just keep it out of my face. Stop patronizing me, the consumer. That's all I ask. In return you'll see less of the spiteful negative feedback that is so prevalent today.
depends who you ask. Don't ask me if you don't want to hear an answer that does not support your point of view.
When a grandmother gets sued for DMCA violations, even though she's never been on the internet and should never have been held responsible for any of it, then it's out of control. When people who copy mp3s face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, even though the loss to the MPAA is much smaller, then it's out of control. When I can't watch a movie without being FORCED to watch commercials AND a sequence telling me how bad piracy is for everyone, then it's out of control. When resources spent fighting copyright violations cost more than the actual violations themselves, then it's out of control.
I mean thousands of GBs of movies and songs and books. So apparently it is quite easy, because these are not the most industrious people in the world.
You know people with terabytes of pirated content? I sure don't. I don't even know one person with a single terabyte of pirated content, let alone multiple terabytes. I'm not saying that there aren't people that do have that much, but they are by far not the norm. So to say they are lacking industriously might be stretching things?
Besides the fact that you have to consider something very crucial in this matter. Most of these people are collectors, not distributors. And not only that, but they would NOT buy the content in the first place if they couldn't get it for free. So the net loss to the owners of said content is essentially ZERO. Again, because these people for the most part wouldn't buy the stuff in the first place. I know a lot of people with large mp3 collectionos who would have never bought even 10% of the stuff they have. So where's the huge loss that the owners are claiming?
To be honest, I would have no problem with DRM, as long as it doesn't force the consumer into things they don't want, like watching commercials before a movie. When was the last time you went to a movie in a theater? Because the last time I went I had to sit through commercials for 5-10 minutes. And then the previews. And the previews are nothing but withstandable (barely, they are rarely good indicators of movie quality) commercials themselves.
It's a war being waged on the consumer, as some have said. And a futile one. Because in the end the only winner can be the consumer. But at what cost?
Not everything is about money. Here is on of my personal life examples: I want to know who is interested in stuff I make, so I want to track usage/downloads and I don't want anyone skewing the statistics for me. Another personal life example: I want an ability to create a protected legal document, that cannot be copied, only moved from place to place, that cannot be forged.
Skewing the statistics? Seems to be you might be placing too much trust in statistics. Remember Mark Twain's quote? How do you know if when your DRM-protected material is accessed that it even means any particular thing? For example: someone might download your new software to try it, but that doesn't mean they'll ever even use it. And if they do use it, that doesn't mean they'll like it. If you really want to know, for sure, DRM is not going to be any help. Because you'd need a survey of each and every example and then you'd have to be able to trust that the survey was even accurate. Good luck with that!
Ok so you want a protected legal document, one that cannot be copied or forged. We all want impossible things. But, at least for the sake of argument, I will admit that I understand a need for protecting legal data in some limited cases. But what is to stop someone who really wants your data from getting it? There are ways to get around all forms of DRM. DRM starts AFTER you have input the data you want protected into the computer. So at any point during that input your data is not safe, nor will it ever be unless you go to such paranoid levels that the cost would be incredible. Keyloggers, van eck, and other snooping methods will assure this. DRM cannot stop them. A different kind of security is required for that, and this is precisely what I am talking about when I say DRM is useless if you want to be really, truly secure.
"again, wrong. DRM allows to set exact criteria for usage/copying of the document. The data inside the document is encrypted, otherwise it would be possible to just take the HD, plug it into a non-DRM computer with a non-DRM OS and download the data."
Yes, great the data is encrypted. Once it actually gets to that point. Like I said, before then, DRM is useless. This window is already the one exploited the most in terms of security holes. If you rely on DRM then you are making a mistake. Besides the fact that you can encrypt data on a HD without the computer being DRM-protected.
"If I was interested in making money from a picture that I draw and if someone was interested in bying that picture, I wouldn't want the picture to become worthless by being copied all over the internet. This is what copyright is all about, and I see that you are against the idea of the copyright law. In this case you lose the argument, because copyright IS a law."
It wouldn't be worthless if your distribution was more convenient to the consumer. Do you think it's easy to just go online and for example get exactly the mp3 or movie you want in exactly the format and quality? Hardly, you get what you pay for. You pay for quality. So when you provide a service selling content you not only sell the content FIRST, but you sell it in the most convenient, highest quality available. That is what you get paid for.
Sure copyright is law. But that doesn't make it right. Current copyright laws are ridiculous. Witness the RIAA. Witness the MPAA. It's getting out of control.
"I understand the reasons for you not to like the DRM, you want my data to be available to you the moment someone gets their hands on my data. This is precisely why I like DRM, it gives me the tools to prevent such things from happening. Fortunately we live in the world, in which it is possible to satisfy both of our desires. You can use the non-DRMed stuff and I can create my DRMed stuff and you don't need to use it."
No. I want your data available to me the moment you are willing to sell it to me. I don't want to have to wait until someone else steals it from you, then hop
Sure, I can see from your perspective why you'd want control over content you make. You made the content to make money off of it. It's that simple. Why else would you want control? If it wasn't for money, you'd want everyone to have it. Right?
Ok so how about legal content, security content, things like locations of sensitive national security data? Well, I'm sorry, but this type of information requires security, and DRM is not the answer to that. There are already better, more robust, more secure ways to keep sensitive information than DRM will ever be able to achieve.
So in my opinion the only time you should make money from content you create is when it leaves your hands for the first time and is unleashed upon the world, or when you perform it live, like a musician, and it flows from you. Because after that it is going to be a waste of resources to try to stop the information from getting anywhere. Which is why I don't like DRM. We spend a ton of resources making this model that is basically irrelevant and useless a day after the newest model is released.
Slashdot Mirror
'Like all (or many, or some, or none at all) other game developers, I spend a lot of time staring into the void of my own uselessness.'
So, that statement should've just read "I spend a lot of time staring into the void of my own uselessness."
Anyway, about innovation, creativity, and doing new things. People get burned out. You can't constantly come up with new things, at least not ones that are actually better than what you have come up with before. If you could then we wouldn't have the word 'progress' because everything would have been done by now. There's a natural progression to the creation of new things. And the creativity most people seek is found not by trying to stimulate some secret, hidden creative organ, but by a multitude of things. First and foremost is maintaining a healthy body and mind. That means exercise, not just eating right. After that you need to have a well-rounded appetite for activities outside of the normal grind of whatever you do for a living, be it game design or anything else.
The point is, if you want to be creative, just sitting there trying to be creative isn't going to help. The most creative moments I've ever had were the result of a culmination of many things in my life, at which point mentally I reached an apex of sorts, and something clicked. And then I realized something or thought of something in a new way.
I'm not saying that you can't spend time, and a lot of it, doing what you love, and not still be able to churn out a high degree of creative products. You can. I'm just pointing out that if you burn yourself out on it by not moderating what you do with the rest of your life, or having no rest of your life to speak of for that matter.. then you are doing more harm than good.
So you don't yet see /. for what it is?
/. for a while now.
/. I am not a script was 'mockery'...much like /. itself as a news site.
It's like a cow's second stomach, but instead of chewing up already chewed grass, we're chewing up already chewed news...instead of cud, we have fud.
I've been quite unimpressed with
BTW: Calling a point system on a discussion site "Karma" is, well.. stupid.. considering how most people post here, "Dogma" would be much more suitable.
P.S. How ironic is that? The word I had to type to tell
Honestly, I never read TFA for articles like this. If I do manage to retain any of the information in them for long-term I feel I may have catastrophically displaced something in memory of much more value -- i.e. anything else in memory. Some /. articles are so bad I am forced to wonder at the people behind the /. wheel and if they aren't drunk on popularity.
TLF
If a person does something evil, gains a huge amount of power and wealth from it, then does something nice, this does not make him a nice person.
What you are implying: anyone who gains wealth in the US via operating a business and competing with others is inherently 'evil'. Perhaps you would rather the US were socialist/communist? What do you expect people with wealth to do, give it all up? You do realize that it is the people with wealth who spend money on research and development new technologies and ideas?
This has had a profound effect, the 3rd world desperately neds the free software infrastructure that he has attacked and despised.
What in the hell is a 3rd world country going to do with a free software infrastructure? Hello? What difference does it make what software you have if you don't have the hardware to back it up? For the love of god, even if they HAD the hardware, you really think they would care about US copyright laws? Uhm.. They would be perfectly happy pirating Windows or any other software. So what is it really costing them? Once again, it's the hardware that is the problem here, not the software.
They are more than capable of helping themselves if they have freedom. Has the Bill and Melinda increased individual liberty from oppressive governments arround the world?
If they have what freedom? What do you expect, that a third-world nation will just magically be better if they get open source software? You expect these countries to be able to even manage their software when most of their citizens cannot even read and write at a third grade level? And you expect the Gates to somehow step in and 'increase individual liberty from oppressive governments around the world'? And if they don't they're evil?
What in the freaking hell kind of shit are you smoking? It's not up to the Gates to free people from their governments. The Gates help in other ways, such as researching for cures for deadly third-world diseases. I fail to see how such research is a result of their greed?
You are simply choosing to be ignorant. Bad choice.
Check out all my new 'inventions'!
- Wireless [insert previously wired device here]
- Wired [insert previously wirless device here]
I'm so smart!@!!@onEONE!! I PWN YUOR FCAE!
Point: Just making something wireless doesn't make you an inventor.
How can you say charity has nothing to do with it? Did Bill tell you?
Allow me to explain something. All of these '3rd world' billions that you talk about Gates trying to bootstrap up soley for his own profit later...A few points, 1) Gates will be too old once such a plan came to fruition to reap the rewards himself, which means he would be doing it for whom? For loved ones? For his company? For his country? For everyone? Nobody knows the answer to that but Gates. At least we know that it can't just be for him because the timeline simply doesn't work. 2) Even if Gates, for some reason, is doing it soley for his personal gain, oh well. Because guess how he is doing it? By helping the world get educated. By fighting disease and famine. By generally doing GOOD. Not bad. So even if the reason he is doing good according to you is the wrong one, the end result is the same: People benefit.
Seriously, by ratio and by effort, I bet Gates is more humanitarian than a lot of people, including you. It's easy for you to write off his effort as an evil, for-profit scheme because you are capable of making up your own definitions for the universe, because you are a thinking being, and that means when you see something you don't like (like a person who you don't like making donations and helping the world) you make up your own definitions that suit you more, then delude yourself into believing they are true. But like I said before, it doesn't matter what you believe, or what I believe, what matters it what happens. Look up the Gates Foundation to see what that is.
TLF
1. Thousands of years ago Christ dies and is resurrected on this day. ...A rabbit lays an egg?
2. Thousands of years pass, the Capitalist United States is born.
3. Someone decides that if there's a holiday, people will buy stuff 'related' (meaning the holiday is on the label) to it. They were correct.
4.
5. Profit
they're both more interested in power and prestige than making a mark
B U L L S H I T
I guess you have no idea how much Gates simply gives away to various causes? He's a philanthropist if there ever was one. I'm not going to spend my time digging up statistics for you, since you took the initiaive of making an ass out of yourself by what you said I don't feel you deserve them. Look it up yourself. Suffice it to say the amount starts with a "B" not an "M".
Now you're probably going to come up with some clever response like "but he just did that for the pubilicity" or something to that nature. Yea, because I see so many fucking commercials and hear so much about it every day, because Gates wants everyone to know about how much he donates. Well, you didn't know shit, still don't, and the same goes for most people. So if you still think he only does it for prestige you are just plain wrong.
TLF
What am I smoking?
I should ask you, what are you wearing?
Because your PDA is anything but an easy fit for most pockets.
Seems to be pretty obvious to me. The static size of today's PDAs is simply too large. It doesn't readily slide into a normal pocket, it seems clumsy to carry one around with you unless you have a purse or some kind of carrying case. I don't find that to be very convenient. I don't want to need a carrying case to carry my connection to the world's network around with me.
;p
In short, once thin, retractable, high quality touchscreens are available, so you can in effect 'roll up' the majority of the space it takes up while not in use, then you can really expect PDAs to take over, and see them merge many separate technologies (ipod, phone, gps, pda) into one.
How long away is this? You tell me, I'm just the visionary
How on Earth can you tell me Anarchy Online was Swords and Sorcery? THERE WAS ZERO MAGIC IN THE GAME!! It was technology, from nanotech to macro tech. There was absolutely no sorcery whatsoever. You can't say it was thinly disguised, that's like saying todays computers really work on magic but are thinly disguised by using intangible 'transistors'. You have to draw the line somewhere.
And the same goes for SWG.. with the exception of 'the force'.
However, if you look closely had CoH, many of the players chose the primary origin of magic. How surprising. So the only real difference with CoH was you were a super-hero with super-powers. Except so was everybody else. So the feeling of being some powerful hero was destroyed by the lack of immersion. And the game was really, really repetitive.
And just saying 'it's different' doesn't mean it's good.
There are tried and true aspects to MMOs which will never change.
I'm sorry to inform you of this, but this is completely wrong if you are going to put it in a context with CoH/CoV.
These games did NOTHING new. Oh wow so I can jump 200 ft or run really fast.. to get where? The questing and content was so repetitive that you felt as if you were doing the same thing over and over, starting in the early levels! In fact, CoV was simply CoH with different 'skin'. I own both, they get extremely boring far before you reach max level. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.
The OP said CoH/V 'has it all and then some'. OH REALLY? How about itemization? IT DOESN'T EXIST IN COH/V. You get enhancements, that's basically it. They all do the same thing from level 1 to max, just getting stronger as you gain levels. Whereas if you look at games like SWG, AO, WoW, etc, there are wonderful crafting systems and multiple professions which can be truly a joy to master. Making armor in SWG using materials gotten from around the galaxy was just as much fun for many players as even playing the game -- it WAS the game.
TLF
"In my opinion, if WOW has it, its best left out of any future games, if it doesn't have it, its probably a good feature to include."
Simply put, your opinion is idiotic.
Let's see what WoW has (and you think should be left out of future games):
- In-game currency (an economy)
- Multiple modes of travel (would you have everyone run *everywhere*?)
- Duping protection
- PvP, and many different types from world pvp to battlegrounds and free-for-all arenas
- A good deal of lore
- LOTS of end-game content
- Well-balanced classes
- Excellent graphics and sound (music included)
- An involved development team who actually RESPONDS to player input
- Up to 40 people grouping together to take down truly epic encounters
- But plenty of solo content and also 5-10-20 person content as well
- A truly great mod community
- Almost 6 million subscribers
- The same $15/month that many much less cool games charge
- Tons of room (with lore already in place) for expansion
So let's see, since WoW has all of this, let's just TAKE IT AWAY, I bet that would be a really great game!
TLF
QFT
The author is clearly a noob.
Furthermore, lrn2ply.
Hi,
I play WoW. A lot. When I can. And one thing I can tell you, FOR SURE, is that skill is required to do well in this game.
Let me illustrate an example that relates it to time:
You have to farm 2,000 bug shells to turn in for a quest. You might think, hey wtf, this is only a time sink and requires no skill. But of course you'd be wrong. Because if you are a skilled player you can cut the amount of time it takes to kill the bugs in HALF. So right there skill equates to less time spent.
And also, let me tell you something about PvP and raids in WoW. Yes, they both require time, guess what, everything you do requires time. But if you aren't skilled, in PvP or raiding, YOU WILL GET PUNISHED.
PvP is at least 75% skill. I've got full epics on my Warlock, with Nefarian loot. And yet when I duel other locks with full blues, on occasion, I lose, despite the fact that I spent all this time getting the gear. SKILL ALWAYS OUTWEIGHS TIME. ALWAYS.
Raiding is the same way. Your whole raid can have full epics and wipe on Nefarian over and over and over because they don't have the skills necessary to work as a unified force.
Methinks the writer of this article learned a lesson from WoW, but not the one they wrote about. The lesson they learned is that they have no skill. And so they choose to complain about the game. Oh, no, it can't be anything about THEMSELVES. I see this so much on the WoW forums that I am totally desensitized to anyone who claims WoW takes no skill.
Get over yourself,
TLF
The right to bear arms is offensively dense?
Yea, I guess the founding fathers of the United States of America weren't revolutionaries, they were ignorant fools!
BTW, you want to talk dense, let's talk racial slurs. You seem to like at least one of them.
Anyway, good night.
TLF
See the thing is, at least from where I sit, technology is an extension of our bodies and minds. It is just like having another limb or organ. So when raising children who could be brought up with the advantage of having the extra limb and learning to use it early, when they'll learn the best, why would you want to cut if off? In a sense you might as well cut off one of their legs.
Granted, this is an _extreme_ analogy. People can live their lives without technology. They can live full lives and happy lives without it. And there are certainly extremes in the sense that one can be immersed in too much technology and lose their sense of self. I personally have many thoughts on the matter of sense of self and immersion into a larger unity that is today's emerging techno-society. But that's another topic.
In short, find a happy medium that works for you and your family. Moderation is the answer.
TLF
This is OT and all, so mod this down, I don't care.
Your sig is offensively dense. There is so much wrong with it that I won't even begin to explain it to you. Suffice it to say this response to it doesn't belong on this discussion thread. Like I said, mod me down, I don't care. I had to say it, because it's deeply offensive to me. Want to talk it over, send me an email.
I'm just glad I know better than to consider it even remotely correct.
Good day.
TLF
Well I don't have one of those. What're the odds I can get that in a 1983 Datsun?
This kind of problem could actually be a good thing. It could usher in the era of on-windshield semi-transparent projected displays that allow you to keep your eyes closer to the road.
That, and you could mod it to display a perfect set of breasts that bounced very lifelike whenever the vehicle went over a bump. Now there's something I would buy. Ok so that's just a pipe dream... well whatever, I still want the projected display on the windshield damn you!
Yea there were actually nine. But M$ decided to drop Windows Vista Mega Super Extreme.
God knows why, that's the one I wanted!
Commercials at the movie theaters have nothing to do with DRM. It is the theater that gets profits from those commercials, not the movie producers
Except that now when I pop in a DVD I am forced to sit through stuff like anti-piracy propaganda and federal copyright violation punishment screens. And the commercials, I can only fast forward them a lot of the time, cannot skip them.
So naturally you get people who would take offense to that. While I turn on a DVD and find something else to do for 5-10mins while it goes through the loads of BS, they look at it like this:
If someone is going to assume that I am a copyright violator, and they are going to tell me what is right and wrong, and force me to watch it, then screw them. I'm going to do it, and I'm going to enjoy sticking it to 'the man'.
These people see it as punishment to the companies who try to force their agendas on innocent consumers. They argue that they would never have done the crime in the first place if it wasn't for the companies making them. So the blame rests on the companies and these people feel justified in doing the crime.
It's twisted logic, hell it's just plain illogical. But you can expect that out of people, that's just the way they are. Rationality often falls to the wayside once people feel insulted.
I can see that we both are idealizing one side of the issue. I am taking a devil's advocate position which I don't truly believe in. As for my true feelings, I'm completely willing to support DRM, as long as it doesn't violate basic rights of the consumer. For security purposes, I am all for it. For copyright protection, sure go ahead.
Just keep it out of my face. Stop patronizing me, the consumer. That's all I ask. In return you'll see less of the spiteful negative feedback that is so prevalent today.
depends who you ask. Don't ask me if you don't want to hear an answer that does not support your point of view.
When a grandmother gets sued for DMCA violations, even though she's never been on the internet and should never have been held responsible for any of it, then it's out of control. When people who copy mp3s face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, even though the loss to the MPAA is much smaller, then it's out of control. When I can't watch a movie without being FORCED to watch commercials AND a sequence telling me how bad piracy is for everyone, then it's out of control. When resources spent fighting copyright violations cost more than the actual violations themselves, then it's out of control.
I mean thousands of GBs of movies and songs and books. So apparently it is quite easy, because these are not the most industrious people in the world.
You know people with terabytes of pirated content? I sure don't. I don't even know one person with a single terabyte of pirated content, let alone multiple terabytes. I'm not saying that there aren't people that do have that much, but they are by far not the norm. So to say they are lacking industriously might be stretching things?
Besides the fact that you have to consider something very crucial in this matter. Most of these people are collectors, not distributors. And not only that, but they would NOT buy the content in the first place if they couldn't get it for free. So the net loss to the owners of said content is essentially ZERO. Again, because these people for the most part wouldn't buy the stuff in the first place. I know a lot of people with large mp3 collectionos who would have never bought even 10% of the stuff they have. So where's the huge loss that the owners are claiming?
To be honest, I would have no problem with DRM, as long as it doesn't force the consumer into things they don't want, like watching commercials before a movie. When was the last time you went to a movie in a theater? Because the last time I went I had to sit through commercials for 5-10 minutes. And then the previews. And the previews are nothing but withstandable (barely, they are rarely good indicators of movie quality) commercials themselves.
It's a war being waged on the consumer, as some have said. And a futile one. Because in the end the only winner can be the consumer. But at what cost?
Not everything is about money. Here is on of my personal life examples: I want to know who is interested in stuff I make, so I want to track usage/downloads and I don't want anyone skewing the statistics for me. Another personal life example: I want an ability to create a protected legal document, that cannot be copied, only moved from place to place, that cannot be forged.
Skewing the statistics? Seems to be you might be placing too much trust in statistics. Remember Mark Twain's quote? How do you know if when your DRM-protected material is accessed that it even means any particular thing? For example: someone might download your new software to try it, but that doesn't mean they'll ever even use it. And if they do use it, that doesn't mean they'll like it. If you really want to know, for sure, DRM is not going to be any help. Because you'd need a survey of each and every example and then you'd have to be able to trust that the survey was even accurate. Good luck with that!
Ok so you want a protected legal document, one that cannot be copied or forged. We all want impossible things. But, at least for the sake of argument, I will admit that I understand a need for protecting legal data in some limited cases. But what is to stop someone who really wants your data from getting it? There are ways to get around all forms of DRM. DRM starts AFTER you have input the data you want protected into the computer. So at any point during that input your data is not safe, nor will it ever be unless you go to such paranoid levels that the cost would be incredible. Keyloggers, van eck, and other snooping methods will assure this. DRM cannot stop them. A different kind of security is required for that, and this is precisely what I am talking about when I say DRM is useless if you want to be really, truly secure.
"again, wrong. DRM allows to set exact criteria for usage/copying of the document. The data inside the document is encrypted, otherwise it would be possible to just take the HD, plug it into a non-DRM computer with a non-DRM OS and download the data."
Yes, great the data is encrypted. Once it actually gets to that point. Like I said, before then, DRM is useless. This window is already the one exploited the most in terms of security holes. If you rely on DRM then you are making a mistake. Besides the fact that you can encrypt data on a HD without the computer being DRM-protected.
"If I was interested in making money from a picture that I draw and if someone was interested in bying that picture, I wouldn't want the picture to become worthless by being copied all over the internet. This is what copyright is all about, and I see that you are against the idea of the copyright law. In this case you lose the argument, because copyright IS a law."
It wouldn't be worthless if your distribution was more convenient to the consumer. Do you think it's easy to just go online and for example get exactly the mp3 or movie you want in exactly the format and quality? Hardly, you get what you pay for. You pay for quality. So when you provide a service selling content you not only sell the content FIRST, but you sell it in the most convenient, highest quality available. That is what you get paid for.
Sure copyright is law. But that doesn't make it right. Current copyright laws are ridiculous. Witness the RIAA. Witness the MPAA. It's getting out of control.
"I understand the reasons for you not to like the DRM, you want my data to be available to you the moment someone gets their hands on my data. This is precisely why I like DRM, it gives me the tools to prevent such things from happening. Fortunately we live in the world, in which it is possible to satisfy both of our desires. You can use the non-DRMed stuff and I can create my DRMed stuff and you don't need to use it."
No. I want your data available to me the moment you are willing to sell it to me. I don't want to have to wait until someone else steals it from you, then hop
Sure, I can see from your perspective why you'd want control over content you make. You made the content to make money off of it. It's that simple. Why else would you want control? If it wasn't for money, you'd want everyone to have it. Right?
Ok so how about legal content, security content, things like locations of sensitive national security data? Well, I'm sorry, but this type of information requires security, and DRM is not the answer to that. There are already better, more robust, more secure ways to keep sensitive information than DRM will ever be able to achieve.
So in my opinion the only time you should make money from content you create is when it leaves your hands for the first time and is unleashed upon the world, or when you perform it live, like a musician, and it flows from you. Because after that it is going to be a waste of resources to try to stop the information from getting anywhere. Which is why I don't like DRM. We spend a ton of resources making this model that is basically irrelevant and useless a day after the newest model is released.