Windows has keyboards shortcuts for GUI operations. Aside from individual key shortcuts, you can use tab to cycle through screen widgets, alt-tab to switch windows, alt to select the current window's menu, cursor keys to navigate the menu bar and start menu etc.
I paid $50 for WoW when it came out and I think $40 for BC when it was released. The prices have consistently dropped. I've seen the Battlechest (WoW + BC) on sale for $30. I think it's pretty likely that Blizz will release a combined WoW + BC for cheaper once Lich King has been out for awhile. Most of the new players I've seen have purchased just the original game and waited until hitting 58 before getting BC. If you are a new player there is still a ton of content in the first 60 levels.
"now have time for television, the internet, and whatever else"
Geez if you are going to pull the "online games are horrible addictive wastes of time" line please follow it up with something like:
"Now I have time to have sex with lots of hot women"
TV????? Do you think some people might prefer gaming because they enjoy an interactive hobby rather than a passive one?
"during my addiction i was so problematic that i would play til 2 am and physical exhaustion set in, i would at times shout from getting angry at other gamers without even being aware of having spoken."
Well then obviously you shouldn't be gaming if you can't control your behavior. Please don't use YOUR tendencies as a reason why games are bad. What is bad is how YOU overreact to them.
Lots of games do use skill trees (for example the talents in WoW) - I think levels exist for a couple reasons:
1. They allow people to raise base stats as they level without thinking "I'll need more health" and allocating points to it. This makes it easier for developers to scale content.
2. A generalized skill systems makes it much harder to balance the game. Inevitably people figure out the "ultimate" builds for given game play styles (PVP, ranged damage, tank etc.). This tends to result in some players becoming overbalanced at which point in comes the nerf bat, players get annoyed at being nerfed etc.
I'm not against skill point systems if done well. I think that developers shy away from them because of the difficulty in getting them right.
Amazon has offered "Elastic IPs" for quite some time. Once you request an IP address it is yours until you release. It doesn't have to be assigned a particular instance. The key difference is that you pay for an Amazon instance only as long as it is turned on. If you use dynamic or scheduled scaling (if you have predictable traffic patterns) you can scale up or down your servers as you need. You only pay for the time they are turned on. Obviously it completely depends on the type of application you are running as to whether or not this is an advantage.
You can boot the OSX install disc and use the tools on it. The most common method is to install OSX to an external HD, load that with your recovery tools and boot from the external HD.
Oddly enough Civilization Revolution on the PS3 and 360 works very well with a console controller instead of a mouse. Admittedly it is a simpler version of computer Civ and is not real time strategy.
Voice chat. Not great for things like trade channels but better than typing for group and raid play. Most guilds in PC MMOs use voice chat in one variety or another.
That said, a USB keyboard would also be pretty much required. Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 can use a standard USB keyboard (I think the Wii can too).
It should also be noted that Owen Garriott spent 60 days in Skylab and was also onboard for the Shuttle's SpaceLab mission. Perhaps extra poetic that Richard's destination is the ISS.
These cloud services are not aimed at the end user. They are aimed at companies that need infrastructure to run applications and web services on. So yes for them it is often times cheaper to use cloud computing then to build out their own infrastructure or to lease it.
Uh, so the monthly "cloud computing" bill versus the monthly colocation bill, hardware leasing bill or alternately the huge upfront cost to out right purchase the infrastructure (which will immediately start to devalue).
The biggest difference between a managed colocation service and a "cloud computing" service is time to provision new servers and the pricing. The ability to scale up or down on your infrastructure in minutes without adding a new server contract to a long term lease is a huge difference. My old colocation provider wanted a six month contract for any new server along with a ten day provisioning time. Amazon lets me turn on a new server whenever I feel like it (including programmatically based on load) and I stop paying for it when I shut the virtual server down. You are correct that on the back end there is just a server farm in either case. I believe "cloud computing" as a phrase caught on because it sounds better than utility computing or grid computing.
OSX is unsupported on VMware and it runs really really slowly. I'm not sure if this has been improved but the one time I tried it was just too slow to be usable even for testing.
Most of the Mac users I know pirate the OSX upgrades. If not through downloading it via borrowing the disc from the one friend who bought it. Or by borrowing the disc from their workplace. I don't know where the belief that Mac users don't pirate comes from. It certainly has never been my experience in 20 years of using Macs.
"In a more recent case involving software EULA's and first-sale rights Davidson & Associates v. Internet Gateway Inc (2004)[1], the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri issued a ruling which appears to contradict the position of the district courts in California and Texas. The first sale reasoning of the Softman court was challenged, with the court ruling "The first sale doctrine is only triggered by an actual sale. Accordingly, a copyright owner does not forfeit his right of distribution by entering into a licensing agreement." In addition, the court found the plaintiff's EULA, which prohibited resale, was binding on the defendants because "The defendants.. expressly consented to the terms of the EULA and Terms of Use by clicking 'I Agree' and 'Agree.'"
The law regarding the doctrine of first sale and computer software is pretty muddled (contradictory judgments). As a result mainstream game stores do not resell computer games.
World of Warcraft requires an account and connection to Blizzard's servers to play. Consequently they don't need copy protection on the CD. They still do use a serial number to validate that you purchased the game. The client software is also freely downloadable from Blizzard if you lose/break your CDs. Sure you could install the game and play on a private server (which are far from perfect emulations of the game) but I don't this small minority of WoW pirates would ever seriously eat into Blizzard's profits.
Why would you run WoW in VMWare? WoW is native to OSX. You don't even have to buy the Mac version. All CD editions of WoW have the Mac client on the discs. Alternately you can download the Mac version if you don't have the disc.
Err. Have you ever tried this with a brand new game that requires 3D acceleration? Yes VMWare has some support for DirectX but for performance it doesn't come close to running the game in a dual boot configuration. For regular Windows applications VMWare or Parallels works fine of course.
There are a surprising amount of Mac native games now. Sure they don't come out first on Mac. Also if you are a Mac owner and you really want access to PC games without hoping or waiting for a port, you can install Windows via bootcamp. Of course Linux users on x86 have the same option. If you don't want to dual boot then you have to make do with what's available.
If you buy a PS3, Wii or Xbox 360 system or any other console for that matter you are buying a system with DRM integrated into it. Complex DRM systems added to computer software can cause problems with your computer's proper operation. Additionally no console game will have the restriction of limited installations. In fact you can sell your copy of the game when you get bored of it or you can give it to a friend. They won't need to call EA to allow them to install it on their console.
Most commonly: 3 main heal over times 1 big heal 1 swiftmend heal 1 natures swiftness 1 cure poison 1 remove curse also shift form is necessary sometimes
Around 10 in all.
Generally speaking though you have the main ones mapped to keyboard combinations used in conjunction with an addon like healbot.
Slashdot Mirror
Windows has keyboards shortcuts for GUI operations. Aside from individual key shortcuts, you can use tab to cycle through screen widgets, alt-tab to switch windows, alt to select the current window's menu, cursor keys to navigate the menu bar and start menu etc.
How about if they failed to keep roads, sewers, garbage collection, etc. from working
I paid $50 for WoW when it came out and I think $40 for BC when it was released. The prices have consistently dropped. I've seen the Battlechest (WoW + BC) on sale for $30. I think it's pretty likely that Blizz will release a combined WoW + BC for cheaper once Lich King has been out for awhile.
Most of the new players I've seen have purchased just the original game and waited until hitting 58 before getting BC. If you are a new player there is still a ton of content in the first 60 levels.
"now have time for television, the internet, and whatever else"
Geez if you are going to pull the "online games are horrible addictive wastes of time" line please follow it up with something like:
"Now I have time to have sex with lots of hot women"
TV????? Do you think some people might prefer gaming because they enjoy an interactive hobby rather than a passive one?
"during my addiction i was so problematic that i would play til 2 am and physical exhaustion set in, i would at times shout from getting angry at other gamers without even being aware of having spoken."
Well then obviously you shouldn't be gaming if you can't control your behavior. Please don't use YOUR tendencies as a reason why games are bad. What is bad is how YOU overreact to them.
Lots of games do use skill trees (for example the talents in WoW) - I think levels exist for a couple reasons:
1. They allow people to raise base stats as they level without thinking "I'll need more health" and allocating points to it. This makes it easier for developers to scale content.
2. A generalized skill systems makes it much harder to balance the game. Inevitably people figure out the "ultimate" builds for given game play styles (PVP, ranged damage, tank etc.). This tends to result in some players becoming overbalanced at which point in comes the nerf bat, players get annoyed at being nerfed etc.
I'm not against skill point systems if done well. I think that developers shy away from them because of the difficulty in getting them right.
"I have static IPs"
Amazon has offered "Elastic IPs" for quite some time. Once you request an IP address it is yours until you release. It doesn't have to be assigned a particular instance.
The key difference is that you pay for an Amazon instance only as long as it is turned on. If you use dynamic or scheduled scaling (if you have predictable traffic patterns) you can scale up or down your servers as you need. You only pay for the time they are turned on. Obviously it completely depends on the type of application you are running as to whether or not this is an advantage.
You can boot the OSX install disc and use the tools on it. The most common method is to install OSX to an external HD, load that with your recovery tools and boot from the external HD.
Oddly enough Civilization Revolution on the PS3 and 360 works very well with a console controller instead of a mouse. Admittedly it is a simpler version of computer Civ and is not real time strategy.
Voice chat. Not great for things like trade channels but better than typing for group and raid play. Most guilds in PC MMOs use voice chat in one variety or another.
That said, a USB keyboard would also be pretty much required. Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 can use a standard USB keyboard (I think the Wii can too).
Newer flash cards like the R4 only use the DS cart slot. They don't plug anything into the GBA port.
It should also be noted that Owen Garriott spent 60 days in Skylab and was also onboard for the Shuttle's SpaceLab mission. Perhaps extra poetic that Richard's destination is the ISS.
These cloud services are not aimed at the end user. They are aimed at companies that need infrastructure to run applications and web services on.
So yes for them it is often times cheaper to use cloud computing then to build out their own infrastructure or to lease it.
Uh, so the monthly "cloud computing" bill versus the monthly colocation bill, hardware leasing bill or alternately the huge upfront cost to out right purchase the infrastructure (which will immediately start to devalue).
The biggest difference between a managed colocation service and a "cloud computing" service is time to provision new servers and the pricing. The ability to scale up or down on your infrastructure in minutes without adding a new server contract to a long term lease is a huge difference.
My old colocation provider wanted a six month contract for any new server along with a ten day provisioning time. Amazon lets me turn on a new server whenever I feel like it (including programmatically based on load) and I stop paying for it when I shut the virtual server down.
You are correct that on the back end there is just a server farm in either case.
I believe "cloud computing" as a phrase caught on because it sounds better than utility computing or grid computing.
OSX is unsupported on VMware and it runs really really slowly. I'm not sure if this has been improved but the one time I tried it was just too slow to be usable even for testing.
Most of the Mac users I know pirate the OSX upgrades. If not through downloading it via borrowing the disc from the one friend who bought it. Or by borrowing the disc from their workplace.
I don't know where the belief that Mac users don't pirate comes from. It certainly has never been my experience in 20 years of using Macs.
From Wikipedia's article on First Sale Doctrine
"In a more recent case involving software EULA's and first-sale rights Davidson & Associates v. Internet Gateway Inc (2004)[1], the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri issued a ruling which appears to contradict the position of the district courts in California and Texas. The first sale reasoning of the Softman court was challenged, with the court ruling "The first sale doctrine is only triggered by an actual sale. Accordingly, a copyright owner does not forfeit his right of distribution by entering into a licensing agreement." In addition, the court found the plaintiff's EULA, which prohibited resale, was binding on the defendants because "The defendants .. expressly consented to the terms of the EULA and Terms of Use by clicking 'I Agree' and 'Agree.'"
The issue is rather muddled.
Ebay.
The law regarding the doctrine of first sale and computer software is pretty muddled (contradictory judgments). As a result mainstream game stores do not resell computer games.
World of Warcraft requires an account and connection to Blizzard's servers to play. Consequently they don't need copy protection on the CD. They still do use a serial number to validate that you purchased the game. The client software is also freely downloadable from Blizzard if you lose/break your CDs.
Sure you could install the game and play on a private server (which are far from perfect emulations of the game) but I don't this small minority of WoW pirates would ever seriously eat into Blizzard's profits.
Why would you run WoW in VMWare? WoW is native to OSX. You don't even have to buy the Mac version. All CD editions of WoW have the Mac client on the discs. Alternately you can download the Mac version if you don't have the disc.
Err. Have you ever tried this with a brand new game that requires 3D acceleration? Yes VMWare has some support for DirectX but for performance it doesn't come close to running the game in a dual boot configuration.
For regular Windows applications VMWare or Parallels works fine of course.
There are a surprising amount of Mac native games now. Sure they don't come out first on Mac. Also if you are a Mac owner and you really want access to PC games without hoping or waiting for a port, you can install Windows via bootcamp. Of course Linux users on x86 have the same option.
If you don't want to dual boot then you have to make do with what's available.
If you buy a PS3, Wii or Xbox 360 system or any other console for that matter you are buying a system with DRM integrated into it.
Complex DRM systems added to computer software can cause problems with your computer's proper operation.
Additionally no console game will have the restriction of limited installations. In fact you can sell your copy of the game when you get bored of it or you can give it to a friend. They won't need to call EA to allow them to install it on their console.
Considering the vast fields of green money that the Sims series has spawned, I don't think EA will be firing Will anytime soon.
Ok as a restoration druid:
Most commonly:
3 main heal over times
1 big heal
1 swiftmend heal
1 natures swiftness
1 cure poison
1 remove curse
also shift form is necessary sometimes
Around 10 in all.
Generally speaking though you have the main ones mapped to keyboard combinations used in conjunction with an addon like healbot.