Cause I for one would not like to receive offers to participate in an ARG with the DSi as the crux if it's taking place in New York City while I live in Los Angeles.
Better than receiving ads for subprime mortgages for property in California when you are living in the jungles of Mindanao. I got plenty of those. Thank you! Yahoo!
The classical region locking allowed manufacturers to price products for specific areas. For example they sell things cheaper in India, because the cost of living and corresponding wages are lower there, despite exchange rates with countries like UK and US.
I can sort of see that being true now, given outfits like Amazon.com. But was this really true when region locking was invented?
Can someone explain that to me if they have a better understanding of it?
There have been "explanations" here, but they have mostly been of the form that content distributors == MPAA wish to have total control over where their content goes and WHEN.
What they have been trying to do with DRM is to duplicate the conditions of say the GBA where a GBA game cartridge only fits into a certain game playing device and can only be played there.
The conflict arises due to the fact that people have reasonable expections of playing GBA games on a GBA handheld and nothing else. If they want to play the same game that is available for another system (which may also have different features), they have to buy it separately.
Most people think of music as music and once they buy it once, they've paid their dues and should be able to listen to it on anything. The RIAA wants everyone to keep buying the same music for every different format change.
I presume the MPAA is doing the same thing, but I haven't even looked in that direction since I bought some VCR movies over a decade ago.
I presume region locking is a combination of "you do not travel, fuck you, do not resell this outside your local gulag" and "you do travel, so fuck you or buy it twice". It's the only thing that makes sense.
I'm frustrated and I'm biased. Region locking is the single worst negative impact on my health via $SPOUSE who does not understand any of this and wants all kinds of things from the US that she cannot use - thanks to region locking.
As well they should be. Piracy is a problem... in Asia. Worse, at least in the Philippines it is hurting their reputation because the shrink wrapped pirate crap being sold under their name is just that - crap and breaks almost immediately.
Is there anyone here who seriously believes that someone should be encouraged to sell crap under someone else's name and be able get away with it? Really?
The one -potential- justification I could see is the piracy that goes on, they sell cartridges that allow you to download and store any DS games you want onto a flash-based system apperantly. Region locking might cut down on that... for a day or two.
Nope, not even that.
The piracy going on has to do with people selling Nintendo game cartridges as genuine, except with counterfeit parts, etc. At least that's the piracy that bit me and I never expected shrink wrapped Nintendo-labeled cartridges to be a problem.
There is NO justification for region lockout. None.
Region locking is especially painful when it comes to portable devices. When I travel, one of the advantages of a DS is that if I see a game I am interested in, I know I can buy it and play it regardless of where I bought my DS.
It's painful in any kind of device. It is, or should be, well known that Japan gets the first and best of anything and many of us like practicing our Japanese while gaming or just playing the original version of a game.
Of the cartridges I have for GBA, they are divided up into stuff I bought in Japan, stuff I bought in Singapore, stuff I bought at home (which are sadly all counterfeit pirates and now broken - I'm stupid and dense sometimes) and stuff I bought in the US.
I think I'll try to get his & hers DSes again. They were totally out of stock the last time I tried (a year and a half ago). Maybe I'll have better luck and I hope I did not wait too long.
Sony does not currently region-lock PSP or PS3 games, despite aggressive (and mandatory) region locks on their previous-generation games and systems.
Is this true about the PS/3? I refuse to even consider another PS console due to the heartbreak I had with the region locking in the PS/2.
I love the GBA not only because it is a highly convenient for me being a handheld, but all of the games I purchased in Japan, some of which I still like to play from time to time, work. And I no longer have any functioning GBA units from my time in Japan.
Reporting a spammer in WoW has the same effect as/ignore in addition to making the actual report.... the player reporting the spammer might experience it as such. Pretty smart move on Blizzard's part.
Yup, I wondered why the spammer had gone silent.
It got boring to/spit on him and I eventually went back to doing something more fun.
I do wish that they'd add a feature to WH similar to WoW's, where you can report a spammer with a right-click and menu choice.
I do not know what else they did when they did that, and I was skeptical that it would work, but spam pretty much vanished.
I know it wasn't an instaban, because I do remember later seeing a/trade or zone spammer at the fountain in SW City outside the bank. A group of us stood around his character and/spit on him.:-)
Part of my enjoyment of Warhammer might be related to having chosen a 'Roleplay' server (Avelorn).
I've thought about trying one of those as it sounds like fun. I've also been told that I would not enjoy it as it is very strict and one OOC mistake gets you booted.
I did that in an attempt to escape the d00dz and kiddiez and other annoyances of a normal WoW server. So far, so good.
Ah, that would be a benefit. The/ignore list is way too small to clean up/trade.
The spammers are annoying though, and despite EA/Mythic's banning efforts, I still get #$%^ing spams every few minutes.
Ouch. How they end up dealing with that will be instructive as to how far the game goes. You cannot ignore the problem. Barring network problems, nothing makes a game unfun faster than endless screenfuls of spam.
I'm kind of surprised they did not have something in place already, or maybe I'm misunderestimating the amount of work that was required to end WoW spam. Sadly, I think it's a requirement now for any MMO to have strict anti-spam policies and procedures in place from day 1.
if everyone realized that safety has more to do with things like seat belts
Yeah, though I'm not about to argue with seat belts...
The most dangerous vehicles of 1985/1986 were those where the steering column drove a sort of stake through the drivers heart in a front end accident, according to Consumer Reports.
Feel free to mod me down, but the issue needs to be raised.
We need a cars category. Many of us like to talk about this kind of stuff. ca.driving was one of the most popular newsgroups on ancient Usenet (and had a wonderful signal to noise ratio to boot).
We do not need the invisible article title text featured by the beta index and the firehose.
Back on topic: I learned to drive in a large vehicle too - my parents' Plymouth Satellite. My mother screamed when I (slightly) misjudged the clearance on the right the first time I used my learner's permit (no harm, no foul, no accident, no ticket).
I suspect I'll do something similar when my wife gets her US license.
An X mph bumper can withstand an accident at X mph and not get damaged.
At the time I was talking about (mid 1980s), 5mph bumpers had been standards but the standards were being reduced. Light trucks (of the kind that tended to be young person's first vehicles) started being offered with NO rear bumper.
It also became popular at this time to sell the so-called "family vans" with paper bumpers. On the day that a friend was driving me to the dealership to get my car, we passed a mess and he told me "say 'ouch' Steve". We had passed a "family van" involved in a low speed accident that looked nearly totalled.
also, wouldn't it be better for people to drive in lighter cars with well-designed crumple zones to absorb impacts rather than cars with big heavy steel frames that add momentum/energy to a collision?
Probably. I'm an engineer, but not that kind of engineer so I can only offer a guess. I can only offer anecdotal evidence that my Ford Escort died to preserve me and I will always have a special place in my heart for it (but mostly to the Ford engineers who designed it to protect me).
Aren't car manufacturers already choking the power of their engines by software for their more high-end cars?
Is Finland flat?
The way they started regulating cars in the bad old days of the Dick Nixon 55 era[1] was to limit the rated speeds that tires could be used. Limiting engine performance would limit being able to go up steep hills and sounds dangerous.
That all said, the Focus isn't a terribly thrilling car to drive, and probably shouldn't be driven much above 80mph as it is. This would be a much more interesting story if they were including the feature on the Mustang to start.
Taking the parent's car to somewhere remote and cranking it above 100 used to be a right of passage of some sorts, uh er, or so those who have done that have told me.
My first car was a Ford Escort L. I will always love that car. I bought it because it had more metal in the body than any other comparably priced car and 5mph bumpers at a time when standards were being reduced. Not the best gas mileage of a subcompact... but when I was rear ended at high speed, my Ford Escort died instead of me.
I find it incomprehensible that companies like Ford could have lost their way so much. They did so much RIGHT to correct the Pinto.
Third, MMO subscriptions are not utilities-- there is nothing stopping anyone from subscribing to multiple games simultaneously, and many players do so. Even with the economy tanking, two $15 subscriptions is a better deal than going to the movies a few times a month, and it's discretionary expenses like movies (or going out to dinner, or what have you) that usually get cut before quietly repeating ones like cable bills or MMO subs get canceled.
With the 6 month perpetual renewable plan, it's under US$12/month per player. Probably the best entertainment deal I've ever gotten in my life, given how much we've loved the game. And even better, since we're on a server that covers the Pacific Rim, we can do in game chats for free which beats the living daylights out of international long distance telephone calls or Yahoo! messenger which crashes constantly.
I'll be sure to find myself a nice telephone pole to ram into at 20 over, just to be on the safe side.
I woke up at the top of a stupid tree this morning and hit every branch on the way down.
Sigh. Did I really copy "wreckless" from a quote? *face palm* As a self appointed spelling and grammar nazi, I'll assign myself for execution at dawn. OK?
It is your nation's laws that allowed this to happen. You live in a democracy.
The US is a Republic, not a Democracy. Plenty of us are angry over direct election of Senators, btw.
I'm fully aware that laws in effect were the root cause of the current "credit crisis". They date back to the Carter administration and were given teeth in the Clinton administration.
If you don't like it, vote for a different party. Like one that doesn't sell its integrity in exchange for election funding.
Oh, and which one might that be?
I've voted Libertarian Party most of my life. Hasn't helped.
I donated to Ron Paul, he proved too stupid to spend much of his campaign donations on advertisements where and when they might have helped. He still wouldn't have won - the average American supports the Bush wars, but he could have at least tried.
You did not read or understand a thing I wrote, and I do believe I have been trolled. Sigh.
No, I think it will be a different game that eventually dethrones WoW - probably one that no one is predicting.
Given how much the hardcore gamers on Slashdot hate WoW, I would also predict that it is a game that is loathed here.
<sarcasm>Do you see this Ornate Khorium Rifle in my hands? Well, do you punk? Back away from the keyboard, cancel your subscription to any other MMO online game besides World of Warcraft and join the online sensation that more people enjoy than any other game. DO IT NOW!</sarcasm>
This whole discussion with regards to Warhammer being a WoW killer is kind of silly. IMO. I am a loyal Blizzard customer and WoW player, but I have no wish for WoW to destroy every new game that comes to market.
People *will* go back to WoW even if it's only to check out what's new.
Yup.
Another thing to consider is that most of us who make up the rank and file of paying customers are NOT looking for another game. Blizzard has gone a long ways to cater to folks like me who have somewhat limited entertainment time in a week AND they have the consideration to give top support for Mac so I can play games on a Unix-based computer.
I got my wife involved recently (level 29 Fury spec Warrior, the last 9 levels without my help w00t!) and she loves it, including the battlegrounds.
Warhammer looks like it has impressed a number of people, but does it really need to be a WoW killer to be a success? I don't think so. Years of an Intel/Microsoft monopoly in the consumer computer market I think have dulled people's memories to what it was like when there was true competition. By the way, it's fascinating reading how Roger Bannister first broke a 4-minute mile. He used two "rabbits" as competition to keep him on pace. Competition is a Good Thing.
You don't really think you can be pulled over for wreckless driving, do you?
It probably depends on the state. In California, wreckless driving kicks in automatically if you are ticketed for going 20mph over the speed limit or more.
I've been in the workforce since the late 70s, and paying attention since a little before that. I've seen downturns of various kinds in every decade.
You're a bit ahead of me, but not by much and I concur. Another thing I've noticed, is that there's always whining, no matter what happens. The expectation of a downturn is always present now. (I was old enough to start paying attention around the time of the oil embargo and the gas lines - had a grade school assignment to make a scrapbook of news clippings on it).
All I can say, is Thank God I live in such a wonderful country that our leaders - President Bush, majority leaders Pelosi and Reid, Senators Obama and McCain can cross partisan political lines and get together to fuck everybody in the ass to bailout a bunch of rich bankers against the wishes of the majority.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I guess I still do not get it.
I also did not refer to SPAM, but to the "targeted" ads Yahoo! offers Yahoo mail users.
Cause I for one would not like to receive offers to participate in an ARG with the DSi as the crux if it's taking place in New York City while I live in Los Angeles.
Better than receiving ads for subprime mortgages for property in California when you are living in the jungles of Mindanao. I got plenty of those. Thank you! Yahoo!
The classical region locking allowed manufacturers to price products for specific areas. For example they sell things cheaper in India, because the cost of living and corresponding wages are lower there, despite exchange rates with countries like UK and US.
I can sort of see that being true now, given outfits like Amazon.com. But was this really true when region locking was invented?
Citations, please?
Can someone explain that to me if they have a better understanding of it?
There have been "explanations" here, but they have mostly been of the form that content distributors == MPAA wish to have total control over where their content goes and WHEN.
What they have been trying to do with DRM is to duplicate the conditions of say the GBA where a GBA game cartridge only fits into a certain game playing device and can only be played there.
The conflict arises due to the fact that people have reasonable expections of playing GBA games on a GBA handheld and nothing else. If they want to play the same game that is available for another system (which may also have different features), they have to buy it separately.
Most people think of music as music and once they buy it once, they've paid their dues and should be able to listen to it on anything. The RIAA wants everyone to keep buying the same music for every different format change.
I presume the MPAA is doing the same thing, but I haven't even looked in that direction since I bought some VCR movies over a decade ago.
I presume region locking is a combination of "you do not travel, fuck you, do not resell this outside your local gulag" and "you do travel, so fuck you or buy it twice". It's the only thing that makes sense.
I'm frustrated and I'm biased. Region locking is the single worst negative impact on my health via $SPOUSE who does not understand any of this and wants all kinds of things from the US that she cannot use - thanks to region locking.
Unfair moderation!
Exhibit A: Nintendo absolutely hates piracy.
As well they should be. Piracy is a problem ... in Asia. Worse, at least in the Philippines it is hurting their reputation because the shrink wrapped pirate crap being sold under their name is just that - crap and breaks almost immediately.
Is there anyone here who seriously believes that someone should be encouraged to sell crap under someone else's name and be able get away with it? Really?
The one -potential- justification I could see is the piracy that goes on, they sell cartridges that allow you to download and store any DS games you want onto a flash-based system apperantly. Region locking might cut down on that... for a day or two.
Nope, not even that.
The piracy going on has to do with people selling Nintendo game cartridges as genuine, except with counterfeit parts, etc. At least that's the piracy that bit me and I never expected shrink wrapped Nintendo-labeled cartridges to be a problem.
There is NO justification for region lockout. None.
Region locking is especially painful when it comes to portable devices. When I travel, one of the advantages of a DS is that if I see a game I am interested in, I know I can buy it and play it regardless of where I bought my DS.
It's painful in any kind of device. It is, or should be, well known that Japan gets the first and best of anything and many of us like practicing our Japanese while gaming or just playing the original version of a game.
Of the cartridges I have for GBA, they are divided up into stuff I bought in Japan, stuff I bought in Singapore, stuff I bought at home (which are sadly all counterfeit pirates and now broken - I'm stupid and dense sometimes) and stuff I bought in the US.
I think I'll try to get his & hers DSes again. They were totally out of stock the last time I tried (a year and a half ago). Maybe I'll have better luck and I hope I did not wait too long.
Sony does not currently region-lock PSP or PS3 games, despite aggressive (and mandatory) region locks on their previous-generation games and systems.
Is this true about the PS/3? I refuse to even consider another PS console due to the heartbreak I had with the region locking in the PS/2.
I love the GBA not only because it is a highly convenient for me being a handheld, but all of the games I purchased in Japan, some of which I still like to play from time to time, work. And I no longer have any functioning GBA units from my time in Japan.
I will stay weary of all three.
I was weary a long time ago. Maybe it's time to go to bed. Perhaps you meant "wary"?
(If I was wrong somewhere in this post, someone please correct me.)
No problem.
-Your friendly local spelling and grammar nazi
My first experience with region locking was with the PS/2 (purchased in Japan and unable to run games from anywhere else). Never again. Never.
What a stupid idea. Stupid!
I can't buy my wife most video players for sale in the US for the same reason.
Reporting a spammer in WoW has the same effect as /ignore in addition to making the actual report. ... the player reporting the spammer might experience it as such. Pretty smart move on Blizzard's part.
Yup, I wondered why the spammer had gone silent.
It got boring to /spit on him and I eventually went back to doing something more fun.
Very clever on Blizzard's part.
I do wish that they'd add a feature to WH similar to WoW's, where you can report a spammer with a right-click and menu choice.
I do not know what else they did when they did that, and I was skeptical that it would work, but spam pretty much vanished.
I know it wasn't an instaban, because I do remember later seeing a /trade or zone spammer at the fountain in SW City outside the bank. A group of us stood around his character and /spit on him. :-)
Part of my enjoyment of Warhammer might be related to having chosen a 'Roleplay' server (Avelorn).
I've thought about trying one of those as it sounds like fun. I've also been told that I would not enjoy it as it is very strict and one OOC mistake gets you booted.
I did that in an attempt to escape the d00dz and kiddiez and other annoyances of a normal WoW server. So far, so good.
Ah, that would be a benefit. The /ignore list is way too small to clean up /trade.
The spammers are annoying though, and despite EA/Mythic's banning efforts, I still get #$%^ing spams every few minutes.
Ouch. How they end up dealing with that will be instructive as to how far the game goes. You cannot ignore the problem. Barring network problems, nothing makes a game unfun faster than endless screenfuls of spam.
I'm kind of surprised they did not have something in place already, or maybe I'm misunderestimating the amount of work that was required to end WoW spam. Sadly, I think it's a requirement now for any MMO to have strict anti-spam policies and procedures in place from day 1.
if everyone realized that safety has more to do with things like seat belts
Yeah, though I'm not about to argue with seat belts ...
The most dangerous vehicles of 1985/1986 were those where the steering column drove a sort of stake through the drivers heart in a front end accident, according to Consumer Reports.
Feel free to mod me down, but the issue needs to be raised.
We need a cars category. Many of us like to talk about this kind of stuff. ca.driving was one of the most popular newsgroups on ancient Usenet (and had a wonderful signal to noise ratio to boot).
We do not need the invisible article title text featured by the beta index and the firehose.
Back on topic:
I learned to drive in a large vehicle too - my parents' Plymouth Satellite. My mother screamed when I (slightly) misjudged the clearance on the right the first time I used my learner's permit (no harm, no foul, no accident, no ticket).
I suspect I'll do something similar when my wife gets her US license.
what's a 5mph bumper? i'm not really a car guy.
An X mph bumper can withstand an accident at X mph and not get damaged.
At the time I was talking about (mid 1980s), 5mph bumpers had been standards but the standards were being reduced. Light trucks (of the kind that tended to be young person's first vehicles) started being offered with NO rear bumper.
It also became popular at this time to sell the so-called "family vans" with paper bumpers. On the day that a friend was driving me to the dealership to get my car, we passed a mess and he told me "say 'ouch' Steve". We had passed a "family van" involved in a low speed accident that looked nearly totalled.
also, wouldn't it be better for people to drive in lighter cars with well-designed crumple zones to absorb impacts rather than cars with big heavy steel frames that add momentum/energy to a collision?
Probably. I'm an engineer, but not that kind of engineer so I can only offer a guess. I can only offer anecdotal evidence that my Ford Escort died to preserve me and I will always have a special place in my heart for it (but mostly to the Ford engineers who designed it to protect me).
Aren't car manufacturers already choking the power of their engines by software for their more high-end cars?
Is Finland flat?
The way they started regulating cars in the bad old days of the Dick Nixon 55 era[1] was to limit the rated speeds that tires could be used. Limiting engine performance would limit being able to go up steep hills and sounds dangerous.
[1] Which took 20 years to correct.
That all said, the Focus isn't a terribly thrilling car to drive, and probably shouldn't be driven much above 80mph as it is. This would be a much more interesting story if they were including the feature on the Mustang to start.
Taking the parent's car to somewhere remote and cranking it above 100 used to be a right of passage of some sorts, uh er, or so those who have done that have told me.
My first car was a Ford Escort L. I will always love that car. I bought it because it had more metal in the body than any other comparably priced car and 5mph bumpers at a time when standards were being reduced. Not the best gas mileage of a subcompact ... but when I was rear ended at high speed, my Ford Escort died instead of me.
I find it incomprehensible that companies like Ford could have lost their way so much. They did so much RIGHT to correct the Pinto.
All excellent points. I'll only comment on one.
Third, MMO subscriptions are not utilities-- there is nothing stopping anyone from subscribing to multiple games simultaneously, and many players do so. Even with the economy tanking, two $15 subscriptions is a better deal than going to the movies a few times a month, and it's discretionary expenses like movies (or going out to dinner, or what have you) that usually get cut before quietly repeating ones like cable bills or MMO subs get canceled.
With the 6 month perpetual renewable plan, it's under US$12/month per player. Probably the best entertainment deal I've ever gotten in my life, given how much we've loved the game. And even better, since we're on a server that covers the Pacific Rim, we can do in game chats for free which beats the living daylights out of international long distance telephone calls or Yahoo! messenger which crashes constantly.
I'll be sure to find myself a nice telephone pole to ram into at 20 over, just to be on the safe side.
I woke up at the top of a stupid tree this morning and hit every branch on the way down.
Sigh. Did I really copy "wreckless" from a quote? *face palm* As a self appointed spelling and grammar nazi, I'll assign myself for execution at dawn. OK?
It is your nation's laws that allowed this to happen. You live in a democracy.
The US is a Republic, not a Democracy. Plenty of us are angry over direct election of Senators, btw.
I'm fully aware that laws in effect were the root cause of the current "credit crisis". They date back to the Carter administration and were given teeth in the Clinton administration.
If you don't like it, vote for a different party. Like one that doesn't sell its integrity in exchange for election funding.
Oh, and which one might that be?
I've voted Libertarian Party most of my life. Hasn't helped.
I donated to Ron Paul, he proved too stupid to spend much of his campaign donations on advertisements where and when they might have helped. He still wouldn't have won - the average American supports the Bush wars, but he could have at least tried.
You did not read or understand a thing I wrote, and I do believe I have been trolled. Sigh.
No, I think it will be a different game that eventually dethrones WoW - probably one that no one is predicting.
Given how much the hardcore gamers on Slashdot hate WoW, I would also predict that it is a game that is loathed here.
<sarcasm>Do you see this Ornate Khorium Rifle in my hands? Well, do you punk? Back away from the keyboard, cancel your subscription to any other MMO online game besides World of Warcraft and join the online sensation that more people enjoy than any other game. DO IT NOW!</sarcasm>
This whole discussion with regards to Warhammer being a WoW killer is kind of silly. IMO. I am a loyal Blizzard customer and WoW player, but I have no wish for WoW to destroy every new game that comes to market.
People *will* go back to WoW even if it's only to check out what's new.
Yup.
Another thing to consider is that most of us who make up the rank and file of paying customers are NOT looking for another game. Blizzard has gone a long ways to cater to folks like me who have somewhat limited entertainment time in a week AND they have the consideration to give top support for Mac so I can play games on a Unix-based computer.
I got my wife involved recently (level 29 Fury spec Warrior, the last 9 levels without my help w00t!) and she loves it, including the battlegrounds.
Warhammer looks like it has impressed a number of people, but does it really need to be a WoW killer to be a success? I don't think so. Years of an Intel/Microsoft monopoly in the consumer computer market I think have dulled people's memories to what it was like when there was true competition. By the way, it's fascinating reading how Roger Bannister first broke a 4-minute mile. He used two "rabbits" as competition to keep him on pace. Competition is a Good Thing.
MMOs are fascinating. I hope they keep improving.
You don't really think you can be pulled over for wreckless driving, do you?
It probably depends on the state. In California, wreckless driving kicks in automatically if you are ticketed for going 20mph over the speed limit or more.
I've been in the workforce since the late 70s, and paying attention since a little before that. I've seen downturns of various kinds in every decade.
You're a bit ahead of me, but not by much and I concur. Another thing I've noticed, is that there's always whining, no matter what happens. The expectation of a downturn is always present now. (I was old enough to start paying attention around the time of the oil embargo and the gas lines - had a grade school assignment to make a scrapbook of news clippings on it).
All I can say, is Thank God I live in such a wonderful country that our leaders - President Bush, majority leaders Pelosi and Reid, Senators Obama and McCain can cross partisan political lines and get together to fuck everybody in the ass to bailout a bunch of rich bankers against the wishes of the majority.