You've all fallen victim to Robin Linden's PR spin.
Come on people, get your shit straight before even THINKING about replying... there's a whole SLEW of DIFFERENT issues here. The only reason one applies to the other is because they got stuck in the same blog post.
Issues at hand: 1) Two adults banned for roleplay. 2) Legality of fictional (rendered, written, drawn) children engaged in sexual acts. 3) Jurisdiction of different governments within the virtual space. 4) Presence of Real child pornography.
These are mostly separate issues. The two that were banned in issue one were banned for their roleplay. Let's not get that confused with the issues.
There was also another article that I can't find at the momemnt detailing that the monkeys were able to move the third arm independantly of their other limbs, as though it were a true additional limb.
I have to disagree with that. I hardly think a talking car would augment your sex life. I mean, imagine it, you're in the back seat, making out with some girl.
Kitt: Micheal, I thought you loved me. Kitt Drives off cliffside.
or
Kitt: Micheal, just put it in, she's ready now.
Forget back seat drivers, your car could turn into a back seat lover.
Long ago, on a Service provider that should be long gone as well, there used to be a game called Neverwinter Nights, or NWN for short. No, I'm not talking about THAT game where you get to write scripts and have pretty graphics, and the gameplay is based on the 3.0 D&D rules.
NWN was a game based off the Gold Box series of D&D games, such as Gateway to the Savage Frontier, for example. The game was a pioneer in it's field, a graphical multiplayer game. The servers allowed, I believe, 200 Players at any given time. Unfortunatly, you could only play the game if you subscribed to America Online.
At the start of this game, players payed a per hour fee to play. Many an AOL bill was racked sky high because of this. Some even had hundreds of dollars a month racked up because of this game.
After a while, AOL removed it's hourly fee from a lot of it's games. The servers were swamped, and the people were Merry.
Then along came AOL Version 3.0! Oh noes said the execs at the added expense of making AOL3.0 compatible with NWN. So they decided to go back to an hourly rate for playing NWN, as a premium service game.
The players revolted by their bait and switch tactics, refused to pay the fee. Seeing the game collapse, AOL decided the expense wasn't worth it, so with the upgrade of AOL, so went Neverwinter Nights.
That is my story of why Pay per hour is a BAD idea.
To an MMORPG service provider, casual players are the main source of their income. To make things cheaper on casual players would reduce their income drastically. If it were given as an added option, in addition to a monthly fee, it wouldn't be worth the headache to the MMORPG provider, because it would be used so rarely as to not even pay for itself.
So wether you play 1 hour a month or 10 hours a day, the providers would rather charge you monthly and be sure of their subscription income than waste resources trying to make things cheaper for those who only want to play an hour or two a week.
Because, you know, shunning every non-geek out there, and hell, lots of geeks too, is the cool thing to do. By stating such things like "OMFG itz aim, u no America On Line, thatz so not l33t im not gonna use that" we demonstrate our superiour intellectual capability.
Why would any self respecting Slashdot user have an AIM account?
Because they want to talk to be other people, who just so happen to have an aim account.
I think a proper question would be, why would any self respecting Slashdot user have the AIM client, when there are BetterAlternatives out there?
Taping two magazine together is a stupid idea. Bend those feeder lips or get something in the magazine and you've just jammed your weapon.
That's strange, they create elastic bands specifically for the purpose of clipping two mags together to help with load time. It's not so much different than using duct tape really. Guess it's a little more practical than you may think.
I do agree with your commentary and logic on lights, but as far as Doom3 is concerned, it doesn't apply. Things simply know where you are, once they are alert to your presence (Froms ound, etc) There is no place to hide, they seek you out. We have tactical rails on everythying from pistols to rifles these days, it doesn't make a lick of sense to me that we'd go over 100 years in the future only to downgrade our tactical weaponry. If the guy wasn't meant to shine a flashlight around in the first place, they wouldn't have given him one at all. It should have been on his rifle and or handgun to start with. Maybe an optional item to pick up, but still.
And were this a better simulation of reality, eyes adjusting to the darkness would be a useful thing, but since the game doesn't program such things into it, and thus it's not possible to see into that dark corner now matter how long you stare at it, using that kind of logic for doom3 is simply flawed.
More duct tape, less stupid story driven programming.
Consider this. I work as a cashier, and luckily enough for me, I've never been the one with a gun pointed at me being told to hand over all the cash in the register. But it's happened at my grocery store twice now.
Do you honestly think that guy with the gun pointed at that cashier's head had a permit for that firearm? Yeah, right.
The true meaning of the statement, "Make it a crime to carry a gun, and only criminals will carry guns" is not that people will become criminals by maintaining their guns. It means that the only people with guns will be those who intend to use them for criminal acts in the first place.
Korea has the highest broadband penetration. Korea also has massivly sucessful PC Bangs. Korea is a gamer society as well. So the conclusion I'd come to is, don't worry so much about the Cafe aspect, or the Cyber aspect, but the gameing and arcade aspects. Make it cheap, your main audience is probably High schoolers and college kids, choose location carefully, etc. Draconian rules are stupid. A place here in Cincinnati is now charging $1.50 an hour just to BE in the building... That's not even counting PC usage. They aren't a cybercafe, but a gaming store with PCs and tables for Magic: The Gathering and Yu Gi Oh, but still, lame. Open systems, with a place to request something become a regular install, ghost the machines regularly.
That's how I'd do it. Then again, I'd also have my place be a dance club at night, heh.
Personally, I can't stand AIM. I haven't used it in a while, but when I did, It had no automatic logging feature, messages popped up automatically screwing with what I was doing, the Away feature didn't allow you to speak to people and remain in Away mode, the idle detector was an invasion of privacy and personally, I feel the program was bloated.
Since the ads came, ICQ hasn't been any better.
The answer? Miranda IM (http://www.miranda-im.org/)
Comes default with ICQ support, and plugins are available for AIM, Yahoo, Jabber and other such protocols. You can also get plugins to manipulate many of the behaviors of the program. Everything from new message interface windows to ALICE chatbots.
I don't mean to sound like an advertisement, but I feel Miranda is far superiour to ICQ or AIM's clients, and Trillian for that matter. Trillian != free, thus I cannot afford it. =P
In Ohio, telephone survey companies have never had a do not call list, and were not bound by any do not call list, because we weren't trying to sell anything. We asked people for a portion of their time, and in exchange, most of the time we offered some kind of compensation.
Why telephone surveys are good for you: Product and Service Quality. This is all about quality, and the companies performing telephone surveys are doing so to provide better services and qualities to customers. We're not just looking for compliments either. If someone we call gives us an entirely negative set of questionaire responses, they still get any compensation that was offered.
Participating in a telephone survey is one of the best ways to have your voice heard. Generally, a survey company will only call you if there is some relavence. Previous customer, or customer of a competing product.
WildTanget ( http://www.wildtangent.com ) Is not a necesarrily a Java engine. It is a graphics module useable in just about any programming language, this includes C++ and Visual Basic. The team wouldn't have to start from scratch, they'd just have to clone the Q3A engine. The WT object is very flexible and could very well make a game like Quake3. It just wouldn't be as fast.
Don't diss the WildTangent =P
You know though.. It was stated in the FAQ that the renderer wasn't very good, Lego has marketed Lego building software before, perhaps they are just working on this one still to improve rendering (Perhaps add DirectX/OpenGL support) before they put it on the public market..
Slashdot Mirror
You've all fallen victim to Robin Linden's PR spin.
Come on people, get your shit straight before even THINKING about replying... there's a whole SLEW of DIFFERENT issues here. The only reason one applies to the other is because they got stuck in the same blog post.
Issues at hand:
1) Two adults banned for roleplay.
2) Legality of fictional (rendered, written, drawn) children engaged in sexual acts.
3) Jurisdiction of different governments within the virtual space.
4) Presence of Real child pornography.
These are mostly separate issues. The two that were banned in issue one were banned for their roleplay. Let's not get that confused with the issues.
When I hear "Son of DOPA" I think "Son of Dopefish."
To me, that's effectively what this bill would do: Let's make the US into a country of Dopefish!
Funny you should mention controlling third arms
There was also another article that I can't find at the momemnt detailing that the monkeys were able to move the third arm independantly of their other limbs, as though it were a true additional limb.
I have to disagree with that. I hardly think a talking car would augment your sex life.
I mean, imagine it, you're in the back seat, making out with some girl.
Kitt: Micheal, I thought you loved me.
Kitt Drives off cliffside.
or
Kitt: Micheal, just put it in, she's ready now.
Forget back seat drivers, your car could turn into a back seat lover.
But I thought I'd add in anyways.
Long ago, on a Service provider that should be long gone as well, there used to be a game called Neverwinter Nights, or NWN for short. No, I'm not talking about THAT game where you get to write scripts and have pretty graphics, and the gameplay is based on the 3.0 D&D rules.
NWN was a game based off the Gold Box series of D&D games, such as Gateway to the Savage Frontier, for example. The game was a pioneer in it's field, a graphical multiplayer game. The servers allowed, I believe, 200 Players at any given time. Unfortunatly, you could only play the game if you subscribed to America Online.
At the start of this game, players payed a per hour fee to play. Many an AOL bill was racked sky high because of this. Some even had hundreds of dollars a month racked up because of this game.
After a while, AOL removed it's hourly fee from a lot of it's games. The servers were swamped, and the people were Merry.
Then along came AOL Version 3.0! Oh noes said the execs at the added expense of making AOL3.0 compatible with NWN. So they decided to go back to an hourly rate for playing NWN, as a premium service game.
The players revolted by their bait and switch tactics, refused to pay the fee. Seeing the game collapse, AOL decided the expense wasn't worth it, so with the upgrade of AOL, so went Neverwinter Nights.
That is my story of why Pay per hour is a BAD idea.
To an MMORPG service provider, casual players are the main source of their income. To make things cheaper on casual players would reduce their income drastically. If it were given as an added option, in addition to a monthly fee, it wouldn't be worth the headache to the MMORPG provider, because it would be used so rarely as to not even pay for itself.
So wether you play 1 hour a month or 10 hours a day, the providers would rather charge you monthly and be sure of their subscription income than waste resources trying to make things cheaper for those who only want to play an hour or two a week.
You get spam?
Wow, the last time I got spam over IM was...
Never. And yes, I'm connected 24/7
Because, you know, shunning every non-geek out there, and hell, lots of geeks too, is the cool thing to do. By stating such things like "OMFG itz aim, u no America On Line, thatz so not l33t im not gonna use that" we demonstrate our superiour intellectual capability. Why would any self respecting Slashdot user have an AIM account? Because they want to talk to be other people, who just so happen to have an aim account. I think a proper question would be, why would any self respecting Slashdot user have the AIM client, when there are Better Alternatives out there?
It's about the circumvention of copywrite protection and "conspiracy to traffic in a device that circumvents technological protection measures"
Device that circumvents technological protection measures?
What the hell?
What about Alice in Wonderland?
Wouldn't it be interesting to have an MMORPG where there isn't a focus on leveling or combat, but to see just how weird the place can be?
Taping two magazine together is a stupid idea. Bend those feeder lips or get something in the magazine and you've just jammed your weapon.
That's strange, they create elastic bands specifically for the purpose of clipping two mags together to help with load time. It's not so much different than using duct tape really. Guess it's a little more practical than you may think.
I do agree with your commentary and logic on lights, but as far as Doom3 is concerned, it doesn't apply. Things simply know where you are, once they are alert to your presence (Froms ound, etc) There is no place to hide, they seek you out. We have tactical rails on everythying from pistols to rifles these days, it doesn't make a lick of sense to me that we'd go over 100 years in the future only to downgrade our tactical weaponry. If the guy wasn't meant to shine a flashlight around in the first place, they wouldn't have given him one at all. It should have been on his rifle and or handgun to start with. Maybe an optional item to pick up, but still.
And were this a better simulation of reality, eyes adjusting to the darkness would be a useful thing, but since the game doesn't program such things into it, and thus it's not possible to see into that dark corner now matter how long you stare at it, using that kind of logic for doom3 is simply flawed.
More duct tape, less stupid story driven programming.
Consider this. I work as a cashier, and luckily enough for me, I've never been the one with a gun pointed at me being told to hand over all the cash in the register.
But it's happened at my grocery store twice now.
Do you honestly think that guy with the gun pointed at that cashier's head had a permit for that firearm? Yeah, right.
The true meaning of the statement, "Make it a crime to carry a gun, and only criminals will carry guns" is not that people will become criminals by maintaining their guns. It means that the only people with guns will be those who intend to use them for criminal acts in the first place.
Korea has the highest broadband penetration.
Korea also has massivly sucessful PC Bangs. Korea is a gamer society as well. So the conclusion I'd come to is, don't worry so much about the Cafe aspect, or the Cyber aspect, but the gameing and arcade aspects. Make it cheap, your main audience is probably High schoolers and college kids, choose location carefully, etc. Draconian rules are stupid. A place here in Cincinnati is now charging $1.50 an hour just to BE in the building... That's not even counting PC usage. They aren't a cybercafe, but a gaming store with PCs and tables for Magic: The Gathering and Yu Gi Oh, but still, lame.
Open systems, with a place to request something become a regular install, ghost the machines regularly.
That's how I'd do it.
Then again, I'd also have my place be a dance club at night, heh.
Good PS2/Gamecube game called Hunter, hard to find, but it's a great coop game in the line of Gauntlet.
Personally, I can't stand AIM. I haven't used it in a while, but when I did, It had no automatic logging feature, messages popped up automatically screwing with what I was doing, the Away feature didn't allow you to speak to people and remain in Away mode, the idle detector was an invasion of privacy and personally, I feel the program was bloated.
Since the ads came, ICQ hasn't been any better.
The answer? Miranda IM (http://www.miranda-im.org/)
Comes default with ICQ support, and plugins are available for AIM, Yahoo, Jabber and other such protocols. You can also get plugins to manipulate many of the behaviors of the program. Everything from new message interface windows to ALICE chatbots.
I don't mean to sound like an advertisement, but I feel Miranda is far superiour to ICQ or AIM's clients, and Trillian for that matter. Trillian != free, thus I cannot afford it. =P
In Ohio, telephone survey companies have never had a do not call list, and were not bound by any do not call list, because we weren't trying to sell anything. We asked people for a portion of their time, and in exchange, most of the time we offered some kind of compensation.
Why telephone surveys are good for you: Product and Service Quality. This is all about quality, and the companies performing telephone surveys are doing so to provide better services and qualities to customers. We're not just looking for compliments either. If someone we call gives us an entirely negative set of questionaire responses, they still get any compensation that was offered.
Participating in a telephone survey is one of the best ways to have your voice heard. Generally, a survey company will only call you if there is some relavence. Previous customer, or customer of a competing product.
WildTanget ( http://www.wildtangent.com ) Is not a necesarrily a Java engine. It is a graphics module useable in just about any programming language, this includes C++ and Visual Basic. The team wouldn't have to start from scratch, they'd just have to clone the Q3A engine. The WT object is very flexible and could very well make a game like Quake3. It just wouldn't be as fast. Don't diss the WildTangent =P
You know though.. It was stated in the FAQ that the renderer wasn't very good, Lego has marketed Lego building software before, perhaps they are just working on this one still to improve rendering (Perhaps add DirectX/OpenGL support) before they put it on the public market..