If the training exercise is not as close to how you actually fight as you can make it, then when the time comes to actually fight, you will discover that you haven't trained in how to fight, you've trained in how to do well in training exercises.
> Can you imagine the mess the net and LANs would be > in if all of these had been proprietary?
They tried, son, they tried.
> WindowsLAN,
Never heard of IPX/SPX?
> MacLAN,
AppleTalk you've mentioned.
> SunLAN,
Sun's RPC protocol used to be pretty proprietary. I think they had other proprietary networking stuff, but I can't dredge the particulars out of my memory.
> IBMLAN
Oh, you poor, poor man. You've never heard of the joys of SNA?
> How often do you have 20 singles in your pocket?
I just pulled out my wallet and checked. I have twenty-one $1 bills in it. I like it that way; makes it easier when I don't have to wait for my change at restaurants and such.
"Time Processing System"--an old pay and billing time-tracking system. TPS was recently retired and replaced by something called "Kronos". I know because I used to support a TPS system. I managed to duck running the Kronos replacement (partly because it runs on Windows and I don't do Windows). Fortunately, nobody ever bugged my about cover sheets for it.
Deadlands is really more zombie cowboy, although there's a few vampires in it as well (there's a little bit of *everything* in Deadlands, vampires, werewolves, several kinds of magic, steampunk...)
Vikings, fall of the Roman Empire? you have our timeline screwed up. Roman Empire fell before the Dark ages. They converted to catholism in about the same era I would presume. Viking was no more as the Dark ages began. As the scandinavian population was forced to convert to christianity by their kings who thought a people united by christianity instead of living as tribes feuding with each other would be alot easier to controll and become rich of. These two events happened in around the same time about 400 to 600 AD. Coinsidently a few more centuries and we got the Dark ages. Wonder why everyone became Christians before the Dark ages?
Nope, sorry, your chronology is 100% wrong. The traditional date for the fall of Rome is 476, when the last Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by a Gothic chieftan, who instead of putting up another puppet emperor simply crowned himself King of Italy. Conversion of the Northlands to Christianity didn't even *begin* until the 800s, and wasn't completed until the 1100s. The coming of Christianity to the Vikings marks the end of the Dark Ages, not the beginning.
> And you have no idea of the laws that apply to companies. If a company is only approached by > male applicants, they cannot be penalized by law; they keep all applications on file for such > purposes as to show that kind of thing.
Nope, try again, bunkie. They keep applications on file because they're required to by law. As far as getting, say, all male applicants, a plaintiff could claim that their advertising of the position was so biased as to exclude women from trying to apply. If they can convince a judge or jury of that, they win the suit.
The farmers will not be bound by this limitation. I absolutely guarantee it. The legislation will divide WoW players into two classes: Those who are limited to playing five hours a day (which is supposed to be everybody in China) and those who are not. The farmers will ensure the system places them in the second classification. They will do whatever fraud is necessary to ensure this is so.
I disagree. MMOGs, at least *good* ones, do keep developing. They don't do it as fast as MUDs, because adding new features is so much expensive, but it does happen. Look at Battlegrounds in WoW. FFXI has had lots of new features added, like Ballista, and Dynamis. FFXI also likes doing seasonal "events" like right now with the Sunbreeze Festival, where you can do goldfish catching or play a mini-game called "Azimuth Circle."
> Never took an econ course, did you? In a competitive market, price is a function of two > things: supply and demand. It is in no way a function of cost.
Er, yes, generally it is a function of cost. In most normal cases, cost is a big factor in what the supply curve looks like.
> (In a highly competitive market, price approaches actual cost.) Cost is merely a factor > in determining whether the market will be entered at all.
FFXI does this in numerous ways. Unlike in WoW, you don't own your mount (chocobos here, of course), you rent it. A fee goes to an NPC everytime you want to ride one. The auction house is the center of the player economy. Every time you put something up for sale, you pay a fee of 1%-2% of your minimum price. If you're doing it in Jeuno, the central city where most of the serious trading goes on, it's more like 5%-10%. Jeuno also has a 10% fee on items you offer on your bazaar. And there's other stuff as well. Square/Enix has been making good progress in stopping the economy inflation, IMHO.
> Will be most of humanity. By that time, the happening new MMORPG will have been created by > machines. The remaining humans not in the MMORPG will consist purely of hundreds of thousands of > hackers who will attack the servers and free the minds of the billions of players trapped in the game.
Fortunately, The Matrix Online turned out to be realy sucky and failed miserably.
Slashdot Mirror
> And? The point isn't that the people giving the money will listen, it's that the
> people who *aren't* giving the money will listen. And they do.
And when they don't give money, they'll won't give it to places where it'll do the most good! Good thinking!
Well, actually, no, we haven't missed you at all.
Chris Mattern
If the training exercise is not as close to how you actually fight as you can make it, then when the time comes to actually fight, you will discover that you haven't trained in how to fight, you've trained in how to do well in training exercises.
Chris Mattern
> from what I've seen [the GameBoy Advance] never sold particularly well.
<laughs until he passes out>
Was marbles really that fascinating a game in the sixteenth century? What rules did they use back then?
> Can you imagine the mess the net and LANs would be
> in if all of these had been proprietary?
They tried, son, they tried.
> WindowsLAN,
Never heard of IPX/SPX?
> MacLAN,
AppleTalk you've mentioned.
> SunLAN,
Sun's RPC protocol used to be pretty proprietary.
I think they had other proprietary networking stuff,
but I can't dredge the particulars out of my memory.
> IBMLAN
Oh, you poor, poor man. You've never heard of the
joys of SNA?
> How often do you have 20 singles in your pocket?
I just pulled out my wallet and checked. I have twenty-one $1 bills in it. I like it that way; makes it easier when I don't have to wait for my change at restaurants and such.
Chris Mattern
And, of course, the classic.
"Do you like my hat? It's made of money! Would you like to stay for lunch? I think we're having MONEY!"
I mock staged cyberattacks...
Chris Mattern
> The World does not trust the United States.
And another little problem...
The United States does not trust the World. Isn't mutuality wonderful?
...that this isn't just like Battlecruiser only bigger...
Chris Mattern
> I still don't know what TPS stands for.
"Time Processing System"--an old pay and billing
time-tracking system. TPS was recently retired
and replaced by something called "Kronos". I know
because I used to support a TPS system. I
managed to duck running the Kronos replacement
(partly because it runs on Windows and I don't
do Windows). Fortunately, nobody ever bugged
my about cover sheets for it.
Chris Mattern
So, the fact that Solaris does not have an adequate package manager means Linux sucks?
1) Solaris's shortcomings are not Linux's fault
2) Most Linux distros have *much* better package managers than Solaris. You would not have had these difficulties in almost any Linux distro.
3) Use Blastwave instead of Sunfreeware; Blastwave has a much better package manager than the native Solaris one.
4) Solaris 8 is obsolescent; it's not surprising you had trouble getting and using decent freeware for it.
Chris Mattern
> For a second I misread that as "used to fling diseased horses".
Those too, actually. Ancient siege warfare was a nasty business.
Deadlands is really more zombie cowboy, although there's a few vampires in it as well (there's a little bit of *everything* in Deadlands, vampires, werewolves, several kinds of magic, steampunk...)
Nope, sorry, your chronology is 100% wrong. The traditional date for the fall of Rome is 476, when the last Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by a Gothic chieftan, who instead of putting up another puppet emperor simply crowned himself King of Italy. Conversion of the Northlands to Christianity didn't even *begin* until the 800s, and wasn't completed until the 1100s. The coming of Christianity to the Vikings marks the end of the Dark Ages, not the beginning.
Chris Mattern
> And you have no idea of the laws that apply to companies. If a company is only approached by
> male applicants, they cannot be penalized by law; they keep all applications on file for such
> purposes as to show that kind of thing.
Nope, try again, bunkie. They keep applications on file because they're required to by law. As far as getting, say, all male applicants, a plaintiff could claim that their advertising of the position was so biased as to exclude women from trying to apply. If they can convince a judge or jury of that, they win the suit.
The farmers will not be bound by this limitation. I absolutely guarantee it. The legislation will divide WoW players into two classes: Those who are limited to playing five hours a day (which is supposed to be everybody in China) and those who are not. The farmers will ensure the system places them in the second classification. They will do whatever fraud is necessary to ensure this is so.
Chris Mattern
I disagree. MMOGs, at least *good* ones, do keep developing. They don't do it as fast as MUDs, because adding new features is so much expensive, but it does happen. Look at Battlegrounds in WoW. FFXI has had lots of new features added, like Ballista, and Dynamis. FFXI also likes doing seasonal "events" like right now with the Sunbreeze Festival, where you can do goldfish catching or play a mini-game called "Azimuth Circle."
Chris Mattern
I'm not sure what you mean by "closed loop economy". Could you define it, please?
Chris mattern
> Never took an econ course, did you? In a competitive market, price is a function of two
> things: supply and demand. It is in no way a function of cost.
Er, yes, generally it is a function of cost. In most normal cases, cost is a big factor in what the supply curve looks like.
> (In a highly competitive market, price approaches actual cost.) Cost is merely a factor
> in determining whether the market will be entered at all.
Exactly.
Chris Mattern
FFXI does this in numerous ways. Unlike in WoW, you don't own your mount (chocobos here, of course), you rent it. A fee goes to an NPC everytime you want to ride one. The auction house is the center of the player economy. Every time you put something up for sale, you pay a fee of 1%-2% of your minimum price. If you're doing it in Jeuno, the central city where most of the serious trading goes on, it's more like 5%-10%. Jeuno also has a 10% fee on items you offer on your bazaar. And there's other stuff as well. Square/Enix has been making good progress in stopping the economy inflation, IMHO.
Chris Mattern
> Will be most of humanity. By that time, the happening new MMORPG will have been created by
> machines. The remaining humans not in the MMORPG will consist purely of hundreds of thousands of
> hackers who will attack the servers and free the minds of the billions of players trapped in the game.
Fortunately, The Matrix Online turned out to be realy sucky and failed miserably.
Chris Mattern
> All we need do to foil the plots of satellite-stealing villains is track the purchases
> of large numbers of silver jumpsuits and miniskirts.
And purple wigs. Don't forget the purple wigs.
Chris Mattern
Got a flat-screen monitor, forty inches wide
I believe yours says 'Etch-a-Sketch' on the side
Play me online, well you know that I'll beat you.
If I ever meet you, I'll control-alt-delete you!
It's all about the Pentiums, baby!
Chris Mattern