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User: Magius_AR

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  1. Re:Listening to which fans? on Slashback: Bundestux, Kerberos, Blizzard · · Score: 1
    There is no replacement for StarCraft. There doesn't appear to be one on the horizon. I think it is remarkable that a company like Blizzard continues to support and enhance it. How many other companies are still provding free patches for five-year-old games? How many other companies even provide bug fixes for old products like this with little sales potential?
    Agreed, it will be hard to find a game to match Starcraft's uniqueness, in balance, strategy, and playability. And yes they do continue to release patches, including alterations to gameplay (unit strength/cost/etc) in an attempt to make it more balanced (the recent downgrade to Protoss psi storm and corsair web duration was sooooooo needed).

    However, they fail miserably to maintain a decent environment to play in. Bnet, in its current form, is crap. Their servers lag or fail randomly, and the game connection software is so buggy that if a flood of people connect at once to a large game, it'll practically disconnect you from Bnet. They also made it incredibly easy to exploit cheats such as map hacks, and (more annoyingly) lag hacks. All these problems have been around for YEARS, and loyal fans have complained until they were all blue in the face, but nothing has been done to fix the issue.

    With such poor servers, and massive abundance of cheats, is it any wonder people went looking for another gaming environment/server? Hell, I can rarely join an 8 player match anymore nowadays without running into at least ONE guy with a map/lag hack.

    Magius_AR

  2. Re:Misinformation... on The Futility of Censorship · · Score: 1
    For a modern example, think about Iran. Most Americans, when asked about Iran, would respond that they don't like the Iranian people, and think they're a bunch of terrorists. Why? The average American doesn't know any Iranians. How you can you hate them when you don't know the names of more than one or two at most? Because all you see on Television is Iranians burning flags, holding up pictures of militants, and holding guns. You never see the average Iranian farmer, or baker, or homemaker. You never see the normal, decent people of that country. Same thing goes for North Korea. People have these amazingly harsh opinions about people and countries they don't know anything about simply because of what they've been told by the media.
    I don't completely agree with this. Whereas misinformation does often fool the "average American", other more informed, intelligent people STILL say they hate the country (countries in that region I should say), for one important reason: Their governments are corrupt and militant, and in some cases, terrorists; and those governments control the military and therefore control the country. When people say they hate the country, of course they don't mean every single person in it, but certainly its not unfair to dislike a country in the general sense because it has weapons and alot of bad people controlling it.

    It's just alot easier to say "Iran is evil, we should attack it" than it is to say "[insert list of specific people] in [insert specific area] of Iran are [insert specific traits], we should single them out and attack them."

    When people direct hatred towards the country, its not always out of stupidity/ignorance...some simply do it for the sake of verbal brevity. People do that kind of thing alot. If I go to see a movie and say "That movie was funny", not a single person will bitch, even though I seriously doubt every second of that movie was funny. Next time you hear someone make a broad, sweeping negative comment about such a country, ask them to clarify/expand on it, and see if they REALLY think 100% of the country is evil. They probably just don't feel like launching into a detailed tirade of exactly what is wrong with the country.

    Magius_AR

  3. Re:I don't know if StarCraft is 'balanced' . . . on The Challenges of Making a Multiplayer Game · · Score: 1
    I disagree, its simply a matter of statistics/probability...the reason most people play zerg is because zerg are the easiest to play and win with. Protoss and, moreso, terran races require an inordinant amount of micro-management to be truly GOOD with them...you can't simply swarm inane numbers of units as you can with zerg. Quite frankly, there aren't that many people out there who simply have the talent to play terran/protoss. (not saying I do)

    "Expanding fast" may be easier with zerg, but it leaves you _incredibly vulnerable_...300 minerals for a second hatchery buys 3 zealots for a toss or a pack of 6 marines for a terran, both of which would make SHORT WORK of an undefended base (in wiping out peons). Add in the fact that some zerg like to build an Extractor before even getting a SPAWNING POOL...these "early advance" tactics work well if your opponent is too dumb to simply attack. For a race that's ALREADY significantly weaker unit-wise than the others, early expansions/early tech advance can get you slaughtered. Why do you think its so easy for a terran to get away with an early tank/marine rush choke right next to a zerg's base? Zerg power comes with bulk, and the time (and resources) to build it...deny them that, and they're easy to take out.

    Anyways, my point is that zerg is an easy race to be incredibly good at, simply using base units...hell, if you notice most of those same zerg "championship wins", you'll notice that not many even make use of the defiler, one of the most viciously powerful (dark swarm) units in the game...and the reason is that such a unit REQUIRES MICROMANAGEMENT, something most zerg players lack in incredible quantities. Early mut rushes or hydra swarms are tried tactics that work against the masses, they've been around forever, and are quite frankly not too hard to stop, you simply need SOME degree of talent micromanaging things such as templars or tank/marine/medic groups.

    Find a _truly_ elite SC player and you'll see that...I've played a few of them (the terrans especially) as zerg...I knew I was dead before my hydralisk den/lair was even finished. I could SEE them building bunkers/etc right outside my base, and there wasnt JACK I could do about it that early. Even with some lings/hydras, you stand no chance against bats/marines/medics this early. So you have to sit there and LET THEM build their little bunker system right outside your base, slowly working their way in. Once the tanks came out, it was over...there's no way I could have had guardians in time, and there's no way to get enough mutalisks/hydras/whatever to take out a few packs of marines in bunkers that early in the game (especially with tank/scv support)

    Magius_AR

  4. if only we could... on Nuclear Mutant Flies Are Good For Africa? · · Score: 1
    sterlize the Windows OS and release billions of copies of it into the wild.

    Magius_AR

  5. Re:star trek on Transparent Aluminium · · Score: 1
    How can the first post be redundant?!?
    You moderating nitwits!

    Magius_AR

  6. out of curiosity... on Kathleen Fent Read This Story · · Score: 1

    When's the wedding?

  7. Re:Probably real, according to her website on Kathleen Fent Read This Story · · Score: 1
    Hey Kathleen, if you never plan to post to Slashdot, you should put Slashdot User number #570 up on Ebay and see how much you can get for it :)

    With the proposal, your number is also now a rare piece of history!

    You should be able to get the bids up to at least a thousand or so...I mean, come on...570! The slashgeeks would kill for your number!

    Hehe, congratz to both of you.

    Magius_AR

  8. favorite quote... on Quantification of EQ Players · · Score: 2, Funny
    Heh, this is my favorite quote from the article under "Gender-bending" in respects to men hitting on men playing female characters:

    No, I know most males think with their gonads, and act accordingly. They live up to my low expectations. [m, 25]

    Magius_AR

  9. This is just silly... on BT Pushing Hyperlink Patent · · Score: 1
    We all know Al Gore invented hyperlinks right after he invented the Internet.

    Magius_AR

  10. Re:When will the real evolution of RTS arive? on HIstory of RTS Games · · Score: 1
    In other words, RTS hasn't evolved much past zergling/tank rushing. The mindless action of highlighting a large group of cheap single functionality units and pointing them in the direction to roll over anything they come across. Once you establish the most efficent process of building economoy, you end up repeating the same damn steps each and every game you play This is far from true.
    As someone with a few years of multiplayer Starcraft background (3 years of college), I've played many a game fighting off people with the mindset of swarming with basic units, and won later on using guardians or reaver drops or another advanced equivalent.

    If the early rush (or even late rush with basic units) strategy seems to work all the time for you, you're playing against people who aren't very good. Zerg _might_ be able to get away mass cheap unit rushing (hydra swarms), but that's what the race is meant for. Terrans often can get away with early medic/marine/tank advancing, which personally I think is a little overpowered, but hey, its part of the game. As for the rest, good luck, you won't get anywhere without at least a few dropships against people who know how to defend properly. And that at least guarantees mid-to-late game play, as transports aren't very quickly accessible.

    I don't care how early you think you're attacking or how many units you think you have. Against an opponent of equal caliber, he should have just as much as you (+ more since it takes time to mobilize your units across the battlefield). And he's dug into a defensive state that even further turns the odds in his favor.

    Anyways, in all the time I've played, I've noticed most people seem to prefer this method of playing:

    1) Build strong defense in one base
    2) Build up resources in one base (don't bother expanding)
    3) Build vast army to attack with
    4) Attack

    And frankly, most of these people suck and die very quickly by those who rush, precision-attack, expand, and do trickier things.

    Some people like:

    1) Don't defend
    2) Rush through the tech tree as fast as you can
    3) Hope you don't get attacked
    4) Build some insanely advanced units before anyone has equal time to reach that level and slay everyone

    This method works if you are playing against people too stupid to scout out their opponents and see what they are doing

    Many people bitch about tactics such as rushing simply because they suck at the game. Rushing is quite easy to counter...you simply attack them right back...you lose an ally (maybe, many rebuild elsewhere), so do they. When people are concentrating all their resources in destroying someone, it's practically impossible that they also have the resources to defend themselves.

    To conclude, early rushing is a valid strategy, but hardly unbeatable. Mass cheap unit rushing only really works with zerg, because that is what they are meant for (swarming cheaper, weaker units). Its part of the game.

    And, for the record, most games I play (against competent players) go approximately a half hour or more and victory is normally dependent on who can best coordinate with their allies, and makes most effective use of their advanced units/tactics in. Rarely do late games end with unit swarming (although they do occasionally end with mass unit dropping, which as far as I'm concerned is an advanced tactic). If swarming is used for anything late game, it's meant to "drive the nail in the coffin" after the crucial blow has been dealt via a more advanced tactic (aka, first cripple their economy via a reaver drop, then mass strike before they have recovered)

    Magius_AR

  11. anti-spam on Tracking Spam to the Source · · Score: 1
    Best thing to do is to have a separate "trash" email account to give out to non-personal, commerical entities. Or...

    One great thing to do for all those places that "require" you to enter an email address, yet insist they won't email you anything if you click all the appropriate checkboxes is to put root@saidcompany.com as your email.

    If they break their promise, they're only hurting themselves :)

    Magius_AR

  12. Re:OE is pretty great on Borking Outlook Express · · Score: 1
    Umm, dunno what crack you're smoking, but Outlook Express is JUST as insecure and buggy as the bundled Office Outlook.
    Most Outlook bugs are also Outlook Express bugs...just do a google search and you'll see that.
    The only thing Outlook Express really has over Outlook is that it lacks the additional "feature bloat" that adds a whole new slew of bugs into the program.

    Magius_AR

  13. Oh, it has to be said! Obligatory references: on Transparent Concrete · · Score: 1
    We don't have to invent it, we just have to wait for someone to return to the past and show us how its made.
    After all, how do you know *insert arbitrary name here* didn't invent the bloody thing?

    *while holding mouse to mouth*
    Computer? Hello, computer?

    Magius_AR

  14. even if they do secure their products... on Security Community Reacts to Microsoft Announcement · · Score: 1
    I doubt I'd want to support their company.
    I mean, even if this does work out, I'm not ready to forgive them for the decade of trash software they've been releasing.
    But that's just me. Forgiveness should come with a penance, and somehow I doubt Microsoft is ever gonna pay.

    Magius_AR

  15. how odd... on Slashback: Games, Goats, Galileo · · Score: 1
    Gallileo hasn't even crashed yet...
    You're supposed to crash BEFORE you go into safe mode.
    Or at least that's what Win98 has always told me :)

    Magius_AR

  16. Re:Neat, now how about my box...? on P4 2.2GHz Overclocked to 3.5GHz · · Score: 1
    As an aside, I bought a game ages ago that must have been written for a 386/486 and ran it on my P233 (as it was at the time). The game was unplayable because of the speed. I dread to think how it would run on my Athlon 1800+XP... *shudder*
    They have utilities made to "slow down" computers to run older games such as that. I forget what the one I had was called, but you simply put in a percentage, and it scales down the speed of your computer by that much. The utility came with my TSR Forgottens Realms Series package I bought.

    Magius_AR

  17. heh on The Google Effect And Domain Name Speculation · · Score: 1
    I was once so tired and stuck in the routine of using google to find things that I typed "microsoft" into a Google search to find Microsoft's web page.

    Lesson is: Drink more coffee

    Magius_AR

  18. makes sense on Microsoft to Focus on Security · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Such a shift makes sense, I was wondering when Microsoft would get around to it.

    They've dominated the market for years, mainly because they were there first, but also because of usability/convenience factors. People put such things above security (and most likely privacy). They want something that works easily with little effort or configuration that does what they need it to. Windows has always been that.

    On the other hand, no real OS of the time could really equal that level of user-friendliness and simple interface that Windows offered. As times are changing (and many people are figuring this out), a vast shift in many UNIXes has been towards developing a friendlier interface (Window's strongpoint). It only makes sense that Microsoft should shift its goals towards security and stability (UNIXes strongpoints). Basically, if Microsoft gets there first (stability, security, AND an easy UI) before any of the UNIXes gets more firmly cemented in the market, it will become _drastically_ harder to get people to switch over.

    Magius_AR

  19. new?!? on Cheating Detector from Georgia Tech · · Score: 1
    This is new?
    This just in...there's this new thing going around called the "Internet."
    Apparently it is some form of communication medium.
    More on that as it develops.

    Magius_AR

  20. Re:Pollution on Galileo's Final Blaze of Glory · · Score: 1
    It's extremely good that they're being so careful and sensitive with other planets/their moons.
    Is this sarcasm? We're CRASHING SPACE GARBAGE INTO A PLANET!

    Magius_AR

  21. Re:"ONLY 4.5%" on Steve Jobs And The Oh-So-Cool iMac · · Score: 1
    I use Win98 SE. Personally I think its a shitty, unstable, insecure OS, but I will give it due merit in that it is very user friendly and easy to use.
    I'm a little lost.. To install Office I grab the folder off the CD and drag it to the Applications folder.. I know where I just dragged the folder, so I can find it when I need the app. It's not a mysterious thing to most people
    I just put in the disk, it autoruns, click Install, Next a bunch of times, and Finish, and then I can find it in Start,Program Files with everything else.
    If I want a shortcut, I drag the app to the to dock and a shortcut is created
    This is an innovation? Windows has had the taskbar for shortcuts for sometime now, which allows drag and drop as well.
    Wow! You mean I just drag and drop things where I want them and it works?
    And I do the same in Windows. I've dragged and dropped files into many different applications. Or I could associate them different. Or put a shortcut in the Windows/Sendto folder and use right-clicking to send the file where I wish.

    I've noticed Unix and/or mac users always brag about things they have that Windows doesn't, just to find out they never took the time to figure out Windows actually CAN do it.

    If anyone took the time to actually learn the keyboard shortcuts (NOT "windows keys") and all the things you can actually do with the Windows machine, maybe you'd figure out its more user-friendly than you think. I can double-click-highlight, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V just as fast as you can double-click-highlight, Middle-mouse-button. I can control-shift words, ctrl-shift-highlight words, rather than single-space cursor moving in Notepad/Word/etc (which many people, especially vi users, seem to think is its only functionality) More functionality exists than most people give credit, simply out of ignorance.

    I find macs to be annoyingly stupid...the main "toolbar" shifts randomly with whatever window happens to be dominant (whose stupid idea was that?) The hardware has a history of being wayyyy too integrated into software (hell, in the past you needed a damn paperclip to eject your cdrom drive). Its a system built on glitter and pretty colors and appeals to aesthetics and the senses moreso than usability and functionality. I find Windows to be PLENTY more user-friendly than macs.

    Magius_AR

  22. Re:Nsync got the shaft on Slashback: Squashing, N'Synch, Yopy · · Score: 1
    Sheesh people, give it a break.

    Some people actually LIKE their music, it aint THAT bad.

    Everyone assumes that if you like a boy band, it MUST be because "popular culture" has BRAINWASHED you into believing you do.

    Screw that sh#^t.

    I enjoy quite a few of their songs, and I'm not at all interested in their image or whatever other crap you assume fans are interested in.

    So what if all the boy bands sound alike (that's what a GENRE is), I could say the same thing about many, many other bands in many different genres of music, probably even stuff you like.

    So yeah, continue dissing boy bands, then go back to your rap or heavy metal or ska or punk or whatever music you listen to that is soooo amazingly unique.

    Magius_AR

  23. computer engineering? on On the Differences Between MIS/CIS/CS Degrees? · · Score: 1
    I find it odd that Computer Engineering was not mentioned as a possible major. I recently graduated college as a Computer Science major, and, after entering the job market, discovered Comp Eng might have been a better idea. It seems to me that the general trend in the job market is that Computer Engineers get paid a tad bit higher than Computer Scientists (even if doing the same exact job!). This is true on the government pay scale as well (computer scientists actually follow the same pay scale as mathmaticians, lower than engineers). It's kind of disappointing actually.

    IT, MIS, and its ilk...very dangerous ground, often mocked by Computer Scientists/Engineers...frankly, it depends on the school, but these are often degrees for people who can't handle Computer Science/Engineering, or for people who would rather learn how to use software than to really use computers (sorry, but its true). You'll spend more time dealing with Powerpoint presentations or Visual Basic programming in Microsoft Excel than you will actually learning how to code or about operating systems/computers.

    I'd recommend Computer Engineering if circuits and all that other low-level hardware related stuff doesn't drive you crazy (as it does me). Otherwise, I'd say go Computer Science. The rest are a waste of time if you really want to be hardcore in the field of computers. Then again, if you want a bunch of easy courses and a nice cushy web programmer job after college, go IT/MIS/etc. Just don't expect to be chosen over Comp Scis/Comp Engs for a real technical job opening.

    Magius_AR

  24. should name it something else on Square, FFXI, and the MMORPG · · Score: 1
    This is stupid.
    MMORPGs and the name "Final Fantasy" have _nothing_ in common.
    Final Fantasy games have a _reputation_ for being menu-driven, first-person one player games.
    To dramatically change the content of the game, but try to enforce the same namesake is ungodly stupid.
    You might as well release a new racing game and call it Final Fantasy 13. I'm sure this new MMORPG FF has enraged many true diehard fans, as it has me.

    Magius_AR

  25. Re:One reason stores like these on Gift Card Hacking · · Score: 1
    On the other hand, when I get gift cards such as this, I spend MORE than the amount (as not to waste money) and pay the difference. This of course is bringing in even more money for the store. Therefore, stores must love these things.

    Magius_AR