You didn't read the article did you? One of the companies can make diamond wafers for $5 per carat. That is extrodinarily cheap for diamonds. Well, it probably wouldn't be if there wasn't an artificial limit set on the supply of diamonds by DeBeers, but I think that has been rehashed enough times.
Bull. This has nothing to do with how people see Microsoft of any other large company. Jurys are handing out large payouts for paper cuts these days.
Wait a minute. I got a paper cut today. Maybe I should sue International Paper for making such a dangerous product and not putting a warning label on it.
Change Ebay to the name of some other company that you think is a good wholesome business. Do you still think a decision like this is good? Probably not. The fact that you don't like ebay shouldn't be a factor in your opinion of this being a good ruling or not. You should consider the precedant this would set and the effect on other peoples ability to do business. If ebay is having to pay 29 million dollars for the use of this technology do you think any small shop will be able to afford to license this technology and build a competing service? Not a chance.
In my experience with windows explorer this is exactly what happens. If you have a window open and the contents displayed in something horrible like icon or thumbnail view the contents will be displayed either horizontally or vertically. The mouse wheel will move whichever scrollbar is present. This can also be seen in various open file dialogs that scroll horizontally instead of vertically.
don't like it, don't pay it. right now there are people willing to pay (me included) so it looks like soon everyone will be.
I was billed for my first month a couple days ago as I'm sure most people were. This is thier final month to fix things. If there is nothing to do at the end of the month they will get no further funds from me. Unlike so many people I won't stick around if it isn't fun for me. However, while I am a paying customer of a supposedly finished product with monthly updates I feel I have every right to bitch if the game doesn't live up to what it was sold as.
I'm okay with it, but it would be nicer if they gave the software away for free also.
This is a common complaint. I see both sides of the issue. I personally don't mind paying the money up front if the game is actually finished. If it isn't it certainly shouldn't be available on the shelf of my local store. Also, since I've just paid $80 for the collecters edition and $15 dollars for the first month I think I have every right to expect the game to be done and for there to be additional content.
you have to have a rebel backpack (your regular inventory doesn't count) and 1500 faction points before you get your reward. or so i've heard. I've also heard that they've taken out that message if you can't get the reward or there is no reward to give.
If you can't get the reward you shouldn't be able to do the quest. Also the first missions are simply run here run back missions so there is no reason to limit who can do them and who can't. The message has been changed so that you don't see "Your reward has been placed in your backpack." when the only reward would be faction points and credits. The problem is that you didn't even get the faction points or credits.
first you guys bitch about how its not out yet and to "release it already"
This is completly out of context. I would never bitch about releasing it already. I jumped all over the funcom people for the state of Anarchy Online. I'm constantly griping about companies releasing games or other software that isn't finished and expecting people to live with it, and I'm always griping about people not telling these companies to go to hell. I cancelled my AO account when they started billing because the game still wasn't done. I just got billed the first time for Star Wars, and that is the primary reason I'm upset about the lack of content. They are telling me that the game is done, and that I need to be paying to play it. I don't think there is enough content and if at the end of the month it is the same way they can not count on my $15.
then you complain about its level of completeness when it is finally released. when does the madness end?
I agree there are people that fall into this category, but I would much rather wait an extra six months or a year to play a game if that means it will be done when it comes out. Since SWG is obviously lacking and it was sold to me as a finished product I have every right to be upset and bitch about it.
SWG is a community game, and in order for you to enjoy the game, you must actually take part of communities, and do things together. trust me, its far funner. there are VERY few pvp things to do in SWG unless you want to play on a battlefield. sure you can knock the guts out of someone easy in the cantina but what fun is that? none. that's why you're not having any fun.
I don't personally care much for PvP. However, this is a game where we are deciding the outcome of control of the galaxy that implies that PvP WILL play a large part in the game like it or not. I'm not having any fun because there is no content for myself and those I associate with on a regular basis to do. Standing around clicking through crafting stations over and over and over again, or killing the same creatures over and over and over again. Is not my idea of a good time.
the fact that everyone always waits for the next game to come out tells me that no one is happy with any current game. lets not even get into the fact that you take what is said on forums as the pulse of the entire community - which it simply isn't.
I never said that it was the pulse of the entire community. I said it was a bad sign. I said that this type of issue is constantly broached and the game has only been released for a little more than a month. That is a bad sign.
the true test of a game is its replayability. if you're constantly eyes on the horizon for the next game you can never really, truly enjoy the one you're playing. I still play Quakeworld and I still love it. I don't give a crap what's on the horizon, i play what is fun. SWG is fun. don't like it, then don't play it. i'm quite sick of the arsewipes that introduce themselves to me by sending a duel request.
If you've run out of stuff to do in less than a month then there are serious replayability issues. If people are already asking about how long SOE keeps characters on cancelled accounts there are serious replayablitly issue. You are ranting about playing whats fun. Many people are trying SWG and hoping that will be fun and see potential in the game, but are currently running out of fun things to do. The people that constantly want to duel you are the same people that irritate me. These are the same people that run around destroying everything they come across regardless of the fact that someone else had to run into town fight the lag to a mission terminal and select the mission n the first place. Then if you are fortunate enough to show up when somone is in the act of destroying your mission target they just tell you to piss off. That again is not my idea of fun, and happens more often than not. If that is the type of player that SWG is attracting I doubt I'm the only one not having fun
PVP in SWG was an afterthought. I wish it was totally skipped. PvP ruins the game for me, so thank God i haven't taken a side in the "epic conflict" yet.
PvP wasn't an afterthought. The point of the game is to decide who controls the galaxy, the Imperials or the Rebels. Maybe you haven't read much star wars fiction of seen the movies, but there is a lot of fighting between those groups. That is what the devs are trying to emulate. Hence the comments about armor. You didn't see much of it in the movies don't expect to see much of it in the games. So far the armor sucks. They didn't want to put in melee but there are references to it in some books and players asked for it so it's there. This says to me again this is a game about world building and conflict. It also sounds to me like you are looking to play the sims in space. Most people aren't looking for that type of game apparently or the sims online would be doing better than it is.
SOE could complain about the costs of content if they weren't gouging month to month subscribers for $15. As far as I know this is the highest priced subscription so far. Of course I could be wrong. It is the most expensive I've played.
Some parts of the article are very similar so that could be it. Also this article has been up on warcry since yesterday or the day before. So if you read warcry on a regular basis that would account for it.
You spend an hour or two a day in game so you can make a new coffee table. I spend an hour or two a day in game fighting the same old garbage so I can have enough money to purchase your coffee table. Eventually I'm going to get tired of the boring and repetativeness of this portion of the game. I'll leave and when you've mastered building that armoire there won't be anyone around to buy it. There isn't enough content to keep the people that don't want to be crafters entertained. Without this portion of the player base the economy will collapse.
Now don't get me wrong, to a certain extent I like the fact that there is dependance on other players for the game to work. I don't like playing at 2am and coming into town to find there are no entertainers in the cantinas and no medics in the medical center. I don't like the fact that I can't find an upgraded weapon because MOBs don't drop them and the stuff on the bazaar is junk. The weaons crafters and armor crafters that were providing these services are quiting because they are tired of "being weapons whores" etc. There is no easy way to find out where players are building thier houses and setting up thier vendors so you spend hours running around aimlessly outside of cities looking for these vendors. You find one or hear of one and check the vendors there. Only to find out that there is either no stock or the weapons are equal to or below the quality of your current weapon (more of a problem for melees than ranged, and then mostly a problem for pikeman in the melee category).
Now, this isn't the case on all the servers. I'm hearing about how there are tons of crafters on Starsider and you can find plenty of what you need. There are so many damn servers though there doesn't seem to be any consistancy.
Now lets talk missions. Missions on the starter planets are designed to match your skills. However, they are way too easy, too time consuming, and the reward is rarely worth the effort. You spend 80% of your time running from the city to the mission area and back again. Now, the missions on some of the smaller planets or moons are much more difficult. In some cases impossible without huge groups. This is better, except that once you do get a big group together they become just as easy as the standard missions and the rewards are just as poor.
I don't want this game to be like Everquest, heck I didn't like Everquest so I really don't want it to be like Everquest. There just isn't much there for anyone to do right now. There are people that are having fun, but the people I play with on a regular basis are already losing interest. The game is just over a month old, and in my opinion that is a very very bad sign.
Notice the titles. The link is the same because the current article is always at that link. The title of the previous article was "Warrior, Brawler, Hairdresser". The current article is titled "Beware the Dancing Kung Fu Lizardman!". If you scroll to the bottom of the current editorial you will see a link to the previous article which is now archived at the following url http://swg.warcry.com/scripts/columns/view_columns.phtml?site=13&id=579 You should also notice from the slashdot summary of the previous article that it mentions the previous title. If you actually read the linked article today you would see that the titles are differant.
It's not a dupe. This is a followup to warthogs first article talking about how things really haven't gotten better since the game first came out. Which you might know if you had actually read either of the articles. This article proclaims SWG dead in six months if things don't change.
C3PO says, "Your reward has been placed in your backpack."
You look in your backpack... there isn't anything there. You check your faction standing. It hasn't budged. You check your bank account. No new deposits.
You tell C3PO, "You lying rust bucket screw you rebels I'm going to tell the Emporer where your secret rebel base is!"
As much as I want to like SWG, it's becoming very very hard to. The game is simply boring. PvP which should be the driving factor is boring, and in some cases broken. Missions are all the same. If you change planets you just change which creatures you fight, but the battles are all the same. Dungeons and quests? What dungeons and quests. Not only were the dungeons and quests so few and far between to be almost non existant half of them were broken up until this weekend. SOE says sorry if you did these quests and got nothing, they are fixed now, but those of you that did them once can't do them over again to get the reward you should have gotten the first time around.
While this all adds up to a bad experience I think the most telling factor is this. The most commonly heard question I've been seeing in game and on message boards is. When does World of Warcraft come out?
Not liking a law, or thinking a law doesn't make sense doesn't make it any less enforceable. Yes, the store is open to the public, but that doesn't mean anyone can come in and do whatever they want. Ever seen the no shoes no shirt no service signs? Ever seen signs that say "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone?" Ever seen the no skateboarding or no loitering signs? It's private property and you are basically being invited in for the purpose of shopping of dining (if you can call it that) at the food court. If the people in charge of that private property decide that you are causing a problem they have every right to ask you to leave. A building that is open to the public, and one that is public property are two very differant things.
Under your logic if you held a party at your house that was advertised as "open to the public" you wouldn't be able to get rid of the people that were inside your house being a nuisance.
In my opinion these are not the same things. In this case the defendant was wearing a t-shirt. Not disrupting the other people around him. Some people didn't like his shirt, but he was under no obligation to remove his shirt. In one description of the flash mobbers they invade an electronics store and announce that they are there to catch the "flick." They apparently have no intention of buying anything and are potentially making it difficult for legitimate customers to purchase products sold within that store. The owners would be well within thier rights to have the mobbers removed.
The people acting "weird" in union, or plainly stating thier intent to sit and "watch the movie" would be easily identified as the flash mobbers. Of course the store owners can ask anyone they don't like, or think is acting inappropriatly to leave so it doesn't really matter.
It's not the same thing. The owners or managers of the mall have every right to ask you to leave. If you don't you are tresspassing and can be arrested.
This is hardly the same thing. Yes, the police were completly out of line in this case and were handed thier asses because of it. My point is that if you assemble on private property and are asked to leave you have no constitutional protection that allows you to stay there. The people that have been "flash mobbing" have been doing so in malls and other "public" places that are privately owned. If at any time these people are asked to leave and do not, they are tresspassing. Your story is completly unrelated, and is a blatent example of police abusing thier authority.
Actually it's not constitutionally protected anyway. These people are doing this on private property and can be removed at any time by the request of the owners. If they fail to leave they are trespassing. If they decide to do this in a park or a public space then it would be constitutionally protected under the right to free assembly, however doing it in Sears doesn't fall under that category.
InterTrust is mostly owned by an 800 pound gorilla (Sony) so rooting for either side is doing the same. However, rooting for Microsoft in this case would be rooting for the weakening or abolishment of either software patents or overly broad wording in patents. So you have to decide what you hate more, Microsoft or software patents.
Slugfest isn't appropriate in this contest because of what it implies. When you have a slugfest in baseball both teams are having a lot of hits and scoring a lot of runs. When applied to this case you would expect that the three parties involved were throwing legal action or insults or something back and forth. What is really happening is that one party did something, the second party didn't like the presentation, and the third party didn't give a rats ass. Hardly a slugfest.
I don't think this has anything to do with cheaper labor and benefits. I believe it has to do with the shipping and import tariff costs. The thing about outsourcing software development is that it costs very little to send the final product back across the ocean for production in the destination country. This was part of the reason some car manufacturers moved into Mexico. They can produce the vehicles very cheaply, and then bring them across the border cheaply because of NAFTA.
Slashdot Mirror
You didn't read the article did you? One of the companies can make diamond wafers for $5 per carat. That is extrodinarily cheap for diamonds. Well, it probably wouldn't be if there wasn't an artificial limit set on the supply of diamonds by DeBeers, but I think that has been rehashed enough times.
Bull. This has nothing to do with how people see Microsoft of any other large company. Jurys are handing out large payouts for paper cuts these days.
Wait a minute. I got a paper cut today. Maybe I should sue International Paper for making such a dangerous product and not putting a warning label on it.
Change Ebay to the name of some other company that you think is a good wholesome business. Do you still think a decision like this is good? Probably not. The fact that you don't like ebay shouldn't be a factor in your opinion of this being a good ruling or not. You should consider the precedant this would set and the effect on other peoples ability to do business. If ebay is having to pay 29 million dollars for the use of this technology do you think any small shop will be able to afford to license this technology and build a competing service? Not a chance.
In my experience with windows explorer this is exactly what happens. If you have a window open and the contents displayed in something horrible like icon or thumbnail view the contents will be displayed either horizontally or vertically. The mouse wheel will move whichever scrollbar is present. This can also be seen in various open file dialogs that scroll horizontally instead of vertically.
don't like it, don't pay it. right now there are people willing to pay (me included) so it looks like soon everyone will be.
I was billed for my first month a couple days ago as I'm sure most people were. This is thier final month to fix things. If there is nothing to do at the end of the month they will get no further funds from me. Unlike so many people I won't stick around if it isn't fun for me. However, while I am a paying customer of a supposedly finished product with monthly updates I feel I have every right to bitch if the game doesn't live up to what it was sold as.
I'm okay with it, but it would be nicer if they gave the software away for free also.
This is a common complaint. I see both sides of the issue. I personally don't mind paying the money up front if the game is actually finished. If it isn't it certainly shouldn't be available on the shelf of my local store. Also, since I've just paid $80 for the collecters edition and $15 dollars for the first month I think I have every right to expect the game to be done and for there to be additional content.
you have to have a rebel backpack (your regular inventory doesn't count) and 1500 faction points before you get your reward. or so i've heard. I've also heard that they've taken out that message if you can't get the reward or there is no reward to give.
If you can't get the reward you shouldn't be able to do the quest. Also the first missions are simply run here run back missions so there is no reason to limit who can do them and who can't. The message has been changed so that you don't see "Your reward has been placed in your backpack." when the only reward would be faction points and credits. The problem is that you didn't even get the faction points or credits.
first you guys bitch about how its not out yet and to "release it already"
This is completly out of context. I would never bitch about releasing it already. I jumped all over the funcom people for the state of Anarchy Online. I'm constantly griping about companies releasing games or other software that isn't finished and expecting people to live with it, and I'm always griping about people not telling these companies to go to hell. I cancelled my AO account when they started billing because the game still wasn't done. I just got billed the first time for Star Wars, and that is the primary reason I'm upset about the lack of content. They are telling me that the game is done, and that I need to be paying to play it. I don't think there is enough content and if at the end of the month it is the same way they can not count on my $15.
then you complain about its level of completeness when it is finally released. when does the madness end?
I agree there are people that fall into this category, but I would much rather wait an extra six months or a year to play a game if that means it will be done when it comes out. Since SWG is obviously lacking and it was sold to me as a finished product I have every right to be upset and bitch about it.
pvp sucks.
Your opinion and not worth a whole lot.
if you want to pvp, play quake.
Troll
SWG is a community game, and in order for you to enjoy the game, you must actually take part of communities, and do things together. trust me, its far funner. there are VERY few pvp things to do in SWG unless you want to play on a battlefield. sure you can knock the guts out of someone easy in the cantina but what fun is that? none. that's why you're not having any fun.
I don't personally care much for PvP. However, this is a game where we are deciding the outcome of control of the galaxy that implies that PvP WILL play a large part in the game like it or not. I'm not having any fun because there is no content for myself and those I associate with on a regular basis to do. Standing around clicking through crafting stations over and over and over again, or killing the same creatures over and over and over again. Is not my idea of a good time.
the fact that everyone always waits for the next game to come out tells me that no one is happy with any current game. lets not even get into the fact that you take what is said on forums as the pulse of the entire community - which it simply isn't.
I never said that it was the pulse of the entire community. I said it was a bad sign. I said that this type of issue is constantly broached and the game has only been released for a little more than a month. That is a bad sign.
the true test of a game is its replayability. if you're constantly eyes on the horizon for the next game you can never really, truly enjoy the one you're playing. I still play Quakeworld and I still love it. I don't give a crap what's on the horizon, i play what is fun. SWG is fun. don't like it, then don't play it. i'm quite sick of the arsewipes that introduce themselves to me by sending a duel request.
If you've run out of stuff to do in less than a month then there are serious replayability issues. If people are already asking about how long SOE keeps characters on cancelled accounts there are serious replayablitly issue. You are ranting about playing whats fun. Many people are trying SWG and hoping that will be fun and see potential in the game, but are currently running out of fun things to do. The people that constantly want to duel you are the same people that irritate me. These are the same people that run around destroying everything they come across regardless of the fact that someone else had to run into town fight the lag to a mission terminal and select the mission n the first place. Then if you are fortunate enough to show up when somone is in the act of destroying your mission target they just tell you to piss off. That again is not my idea of fun, and happens more often than not. If that is the type of player that SWG is attracting I doubt I'm the only one not having fun
PVP in SWG was an afterthought. I wish it was totally skipped. PvP ruins the game for me, so thank God i haven't taken a side in the "epic conflict" yet.
PvP wasn't an afterthought. The point of the game is to decide who controls the galaxy, the Imperials or the Rebels. Maybe you haven't read much star wars fiction of seen the movies, but there is a lot of fighting between those groups. That is what the devs are trying to emulate. Hence the comments about armor. You didn't see much of it in the movies don't expect to see much of it in the games. So far the armor sucks. They didn't want to put in melee but there are references to it in some books and players asked for it so it's there. This says to me again this is a game about world building and conflict. It also sounds to me like you are looking to play the sims in space. Most people aren't looking for that type of game apparently or the sims online would be doing better than it is.
SOE could complain about the costs of content if they weren't gouging month to month subscribers for $15. As far as I know this is the highest priced subscription so far. Of course I could be wrong. It is the most expensive I've played.
Some parts of the article are very similar so that could be it. Also this article has been up on warcry since yesterday or the day before. So if you read warcry on a regular basis that would account for it.
Progress? What progress?
You spend an hour or two a day in game so you can make a new coffee table. I spend an hour or two a day in game fighting the same old garbage so I can have enough money to purchase your coffee table. Eventually I'm going to get tired of the boring and repetativeness of this portion of the game. I'll leave and when you've mastered building that armoire there won't be anyone around to buy it. There isn't enough content to keep the people that don't want to be crafters entertained. Without this portion of the player base the economy will collapse.
Now don't get me wrong, to a certain extent I like the fact that there is dependance on other players for the game to work. I don't like playing at 2am and coming into town to find there are no entertainers in the cantinas and no medics in the medical center. I don't like the fact that I can't find an upgraded weapon because MOBs don't drop them and the stuff on the bazaar is junk. The weaons crafters and armor crafters that were providing these services are quiting because they are tired of "being weapons whores" etc. There is no easy way to find out where players are building thier houses and setting up thier vendors so you spend hours running around aimlessly outside of cities looking for these vendors. You find one or hear of one and check the vendors there. Only to find out that there is either no stock or the weapons are equal to or below the quality of your current weapon (more of a problem for melees than ranged, and then mostly a problem for pikeman in the melee category).
Now, this isn't the case on all the servers. I'm hearing about how there are tons of crafters on Starsider and you can find plenty of what you need. There are so many damn servers though there doesn't seem to be any consistancy.
Now lets talk missions. Missions on the starter planets are designed to match your skills. However, they are way too easy, too time consuming, and the reward is rarely worth the effort. You spend 80% of your time running from the city to the mission area and back again. Now, the missions on some of the smaller planets or moons are much more difficult. In some cases impossible without huge groups. This is better, except that once you do get a big group together they become just as easy as the standard missions and the rewards are just as poor.
I don't want this game to be like Everquest, heck I didn't like Everquest so I really don't want it to be like Everquest. There just isn't much there for anyone to do right now. There are people that are having fun, but the people I play with on a regular basis are already losing interest. The game is just over a month old, and in my opinion that is a very very bad sign.
Notice the titles. The link is the same because the current article is always at that link. The title of the previous article was "Warrior, Brawler, Hairdresser". The current article is titled "Beware the Dancing Kung Fu Lizardman!". If you scroll to the bottom of the current editorial you will see a link to the previous article which is now archived at the following url http://swg.warcry.com/scripts/columns/view_columns .phtml?site=13&id=579
You should also notice from the slashdot summary of the previous article that it mentions the previous title. If you actually read the linked article today you would see that the titles are differant.
It is NOT a dupe.
It's not a dupe. This is a followup to warthogs first article talking about how things really haven't gotten better since the game first came out. Which you might know if you had actually read either of the articles. This article proclaims SWG dead in six months if things don't change.
Hardly the same thing.
C3PO says, "Your reward has been placed in your backpack."
You look in your backpack... there isn't anything there. You check your faction standing. It hasn't budged. You check your bank account. No new deposits.
You tell C3PO, "You lying rust bucket screw you rebels I'm going to tell the Emporer where your secret rebel base is!"
As much as I want to like SWG, it's becoming very very hard to. The game is simply boring. PvP which should be the driving factor is boring, and in some cases broken. Missions are all the same. If you change planets you just change which creatures you fight, but the battles are all the same. Dungeons and quests? What dungeons and quests. Not only were the dungeons and quests so few and far between to be almost non existant half of them were broken up until this weekend. SOE says sorry if you did these quests and got nothing, they are fixed now, but those of you that did them once can't do them over again to get the reward you should have gotten the first time around.
While this all adds up to a bad experience I think the most telling factor is this. The most commonly heard question I've been seeing in game and on message boards is. When does World of Warcraft come out?
Me? Wrong? Never!
Just ask my wife.
Not liking a law, or thinking a law doesn't make sense doesn't make it any less enforceable. Yes, the store is open to the public, but that doesn't mean anyone can come in and do whatever they want. Ever seen the no shoes no shirt no service signs? Ever seen signs that say "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone?" Ever seen the no skateboarding or no loitering signs? It's private property and you are basically being invited in for the purpose of shopping of dining (if you can call it that) at the food court. If the people in charge of that private property decide that you are causing a problem they have every right to ask you to leave. A building that is open to the public, and one that is public property are two very differant things.
Under your logic if you held a party at your house that was advertised as "open to the public" you wouldn't be able to get rid of the people that were inside your house being a nuisance.
And it serves a purpose which is pretty much out of the question for the flash mobbers.
In my opinion these are not the same things. In this case the defendant was wearing a t-shirt. Not disrupting the other people around him. Some people didn't like his shirt, but he was under no obligation to remove his shirt. In one description of the flash mobbers they invade an electronics store and announce that they are there to catch the "flick." They apparently have no intention of buying anything and are potentially making it difficult for legitimate customers to purchase products sold within that store. The owners would be well within thier rights to have the mobbers removed.
The people acting "weird" in union, or plainly stating thier intent to sit and "watch the movie" would be easily identified as the flash mobbers. Of course the store owners can ask anyone they don't like, or think is acting inappropriatly to leave so it doesn't really matter.
It's not the same thing. The owners or managers of the mall have every right to ask you to leave. If you don't you are tresspassing and can be arrested.
This is hardly the same thing. Yes, the police were completly out of line in this case and were handed thier asses because of it. My point is that if you assemble on private property and are asked to leave you have no constitutional protection that allows you to stay there. The people that have been "flash mobbing" have been doing so in malls and other "public" places that are privately owned. If at any time these people are asked to leave and do not, they are tresspassing. Your story is completly unrelated, and is a blatent example of police abusing thier authority.
Actually it's not constitutionally protected anyway. These people are doing this on private property and can be removed at any time by the request of the owners. If they fail to leave they are trespassing. If they decide to do this in a park or a public space then it would be constitutionally protected under the right to free assembly, however doing it in Sears doesn't fall under that category.
InterTrust is mostly owned by an 800 pound gorilla (Sony) so rooting for either side is doing the same. However, rooting for Microsoft in this case would be rooting for the weakening or abolishment of either software patents or overly broad wording in patents. So you have to decide what you hate more, Microsoft or software patents.
Slugfest isn't appropriate in this contest because of what it implies. When you have a slugfest in baseball both teams are having a lot of hits and scoring a lot of runs. When applied to this case you would expect that the three parties involved were throwing legal action or insults or something back and forth. What is really happening is that one party did something, the second party didn't like the presentation, and the third party didn't give a rats ass. Hardly a slugfest.
I don't think this has anything to do with cheaper labor and benefits. I believe it has to do with the shipping and import tariff costs. The thing about outsourcing software development is that it costs very little to send the final product back across the ocean for production in the destination country. This was part of the reason some car manufacturers moved into Mexico. They can produce the vehicles very cheaply, and then bring them across the border cheaply because of NAFTA.