When you download a copy of Photoshop, it's a copy. The site you download it from still has it.
These guys didn't make a copy - they took the original. They now have it. The original owner does not.
Phishing and fraud are irrelevant. I you phish or otherwise fraudulently obtain someone's bank account number and PIN, and subsequently empty their account of their "virtual money" (it's all just bits, right?) you have stolen from them. It is theft, pure and simple.
I really doubt the bank would "just restore the backups" in that case.
Indeed, it is as you say, a matter of tastes. I found Vanguard to be not only a boring grindfest, but one I was lucky to play for an hour without being booted from the server by various bugs. It became a normal part of the game. I slogged my way to level 17 or 18 if I recall, listening to all the folks in the forums tell me how much better it got when you hit the 20s. I couldn't for the life of me imagine why someone would go through uninteresting game play for hours on end just to get to "the good stuff".
Prior to that I'd played EQ, EQ2 and FFXI (which had the harshest death penalty of all) and found Vanguard to be mostly from the EQ mold. Not that I was really surprised considering its lineage, but I was hoping for more than EQ remade.
After dropping Vanguard, I decided to give WoW a try, having listened to the naysayers up until then. What a surprise - it was actually fun. And I often have to think strategically to finish quests, largely because I like to take on ones generally too high for my character. I'm having a ball, and it shows no sign of letting up. Sure, there are fetch and kill quests, just like all the others, but many require planning to get through. In general, they're well designed and keep my interest.
May you find the game you are looking for. I predict there will be many more coming. I predict most will not satisfy either of us. Quality MMO's of any stripe are fairly rare.
Actually, I was listening to a historian on NPR talk about Deadwood, and he assured us all that, despite the "wince-effect" it has on modern ears, folks in that era and location actually spoke that way. We had that same reaction as you did when we first started watching, but it eventually sounded no stranger than listening to Shakepeare's plays - a little odd at first, then you just adjust.
Too bad you stopped watching - it was an incredibly good series while it lasted.
"This lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, is, without a doubt, the single dumbest thing I have ever seen any lawyers do in my thirty years of practicing law..."
Listen to the man - if anyone knows stupid moves, it's Jack.
OK - I've had one for some time, and they aren't making ANY new games for it and all that, but I was in EB Games the other day, and they were selling complete (albeit used) Xboxes for $20. $20!!!
I don't care if you HATE the Xbox (I'm fairly neutral about the last gen - I bought all three over the years) but $20! Some used games cost that much!
13. Trash Smuggling. A friend of mine is a famous pastor in Uganda. I told him we should go into business to take trash from the U.S. on boats to Uganda and let people find value in the trash. He loved the idea. He deals with the absolute poorest people in Africa every day (I'm going there again in December) and he loves the thought that one man's trash is another man's treasure. They'd probably find millions of dollars worth of treasure in our trash.
Just out of curiosity, how does your friend get his boat to Uganda (which is essentially landlocked)?
I don't know about you, but I often have a Guinness sitting next to the keyboard when I go to my own particular "third place". We are talking about civilized discourse here. Guinness is essential.
Fine with me - feel free to use your preferred English dialect. However, don't be surprised at the reactions you get when you suggest there is something wrong with people, when the only thing "wrong" with them is that they are using the native language of their country, as you undoubtedly are.
Just out of curiosity, how likely do you think it is that EB Games/Gamestop and friends will suddenly abandon their reprehensible practice of only selling new consoles in bundles? What do you think your chances are of getting the high-end version for $600 if that's what you want?
If anything pounds the final nail in the coffin of the PS3, it'll be greedy retailers who won't let you get out of the store until you've given them $700-800 for a $600 console plus a bunch of stuff you didn't really want. Nothing would encourage me to wait for a price drop more than only being able to get a PS3 in a bundle.
But why was there an initial craze for it? Because a boatload of people had PS1's and were happy with them. They wanted more of the same. Why did developers develop for the PS2? Because the PS1 was the dominant platform at the time.
The PS3 isn't any different. The developers will develop for it because the PS2 is still the dominant platform, and they've made a bundle of money off it. All the platforms are a gamble. The developers will stick with the devil they know. Don't talk to me about how much harder it is to develop for. The way I hear it, compared to the PS2, the PS3 is a walk in the park. The PS2 was supposedly a bear to work on. It still ended up with the greatest developer support.
I currently have 40-50 PS2 titles. Care to guess what percentage of my total outlay the initial box was? Hint: tiny. If I buy 40-50 titles for ANY of the platforms, guess how much of a difference $200-350 will make in my total cost? 2nd hint: not much. It's razors vs. blades. Compared to the blade cost, the razor is free.
Do you really think you'll buy a console and a couple of games over its lifetime?
Really? Half Life 2 took me a very long time to complete. Maybe I'm just slower at these things, but I felt like I got my money's worth out of HL2. Of course, I got the original HL, and Counter Strike, and a few other things with it, giving it even more value. To be fair, I don't consider either HL2 or this to be a standard FPS.
Clearly value is subjective - 5 hours of pure bliss would certainly be worth more than 40 hours of ho-hum play. But I haven't read any reviews of Episode 1 that said it was anything more than above average. $20 for a very short, just above average game is still pretty pricey.
... it's $20 for 5-8 hours of gameplay. I often spend $40-50 for a 40 hour game. Through the joys of episodic content, that 40 hours is going to cost me $100-160 based on their estimates. No wonder they like it!
Dragon Quest 8 did a great job leveraging an old school system in a way that was still pretty fun.
Disclaimer: I am basing this comment on a DQ8 demo disk I received in the mail.
I guess I'm finally gaining an understanding of the term "old school". It means "Haven't I played this game (or at least fought this exact battle) a hundred times before in previous games?"
Perhaps others really like playing RPG's using the exact same battle mechanics (and same monsters) that played in old 8-bit games, but I didn't enjoy the battles in the DQ8 demo at all. The opponents were 2 dimensional in every sense of the word.
Too bad, really - the rest of the game had some promise. But I'm really glad they sent me the demo disk - it saved me $40.
Of course, the same argument could be made about buying a GBA - there are PC emulators for that as well. If you consider a laptop to be portable gaming, more power to you. I don't.
It depends on who you mean by "they". So far, Sony has said very little. Almost all I've read on the web has been from game sites and industry analysts (read: fortune tellers, with all that implies.)
As far as winning a war of words in concerned, they're doing it by firing very few shots, allowing others to speculate wildly. The critics will say they were lying if any of the speculation turns out to be wrong, without ever mentioning who was making the claim.
In some respects, Sony is playing this very well. When questioned, they can quite truthfully say that the never made any of those claims. It won't stop people from calling them liars, but some folks aren't really all that concerned whether the story is actually true.
Sony has stated that the PS3 might be delayed in Japan due to the lack of finality of the Blu-Ray spec. This might have some impact on the resoundind success the Xbox 360 has been in Japan; however, I doubt that the delay (if indeed it does occur) will have any impact on the US launch.
Did the brilliant moderator who mod'd this down actually read the PDF referenced? The numbers do indeed add up to exactly $800, despite the $900 figure at the bottom of the column. If this is the kind of math they did to arrive at their initial parts cost, the whole report is suspect.
The key phrase here is "other participants", i.e., those who actually buy stock, instead of writing about it. They are the market. The analysts could all die tomorrow, and the market would still be there.
I'm surprised you don't realize this, being a "professional economist".
I disagree. WoW's 5 million users aren't all hardcore. Sure, the hardcore players blow through casual games quickly, then get bored. But WoW's success runs counter to your premise. If MMO's were designed for the hardcore, WoW would have died long ago.
For me, the appeal of harder, harsher MMO's is that I'm much less likely to be playing with impatient teenagers. WoW is custom made for them, and from the talk you hear, they make up the majority.
I'll put up with a more difficult game any day, if the player community is more mature (and I don't mean age, despite what I said above - teenage immaturity occurs in all age groups.)
MMORPG's were made for interaction, if you want to solo 99% of the time go play something single player.
I live in the biggest MMORPG on the planet every day. It's called life.
I really enjoy having the other people around. They make the game interesting. But I don't have to grab 5 of them when I decide I want to go out for lunch.
If I followed your advice, I'd live on an asteroid.
Slashdot Mirror
When you download a copy of Photoshop, it's a copy. The site you download it from still has it.
These guys didn't make a copy - they took the original. They now have it. The original owner does not.
Phishing and fraud are irrelevant. I you phish or otherwise fraudulently obtain someone's bank account number and PIN, and subsequently empty their account of their "virtual money" (it's all just bits, right?) you have stolen from them. It is theft, pure and simple.
I really doubt the bank would "just restore the backups" in that case.
Indeed, it is as you say, a matter of tastes. I found Vanguard to be not only a boring grindfest, but one I was lucky to play for an hour without being booted from the server by various bugs. It became a normal part of the game. I slogged my way to level 17 or 18 if I recall, listening to all the folks in the forums tell me how much better it got when you hit the 20s. I couldn't for the life of me imagine why someone would go through uninteresting game play for hours on end just to get to "the good stuff".
Prior to that I'd played EQ, EQ2 and FFXI (which had the harshest death penalty of all) and found Vanguard to be mostly from the EQ mold. Not that I was really surprised considering its lineage, but I was hoping for more than EQ remade.
After dropping Vanguard, I decided to give WoW a try, having listened to the naysayers up until then. What a surprise - it was actually fun. And I often have to think strategically to finish quests, largely because I like to take on ones generally too high for my character. I'm having a ball, and it shows no sign of letting up. Sure, there are fetch and kill quests, just like all the others, but many require planning to get through. In general, they're well designed and keep my interest.
May you find the game you are looking for. I predict there will be many more coming. I predict most will not satisfy either of us. Quality MMO's of any stripe are fairly rare.
Actually, I was listening to a historian on NPR talk about Deadwood, and he assured us all that, despite the "wince-effect" it has on modern ears, folks in that era and location actually spoke that way. We had that same reaction as you did when we first started watching, but it eventually sounded no stranger than listening to Shakepeare's plays - a little odd at first, then you just adjust.
Too bad you stopped watching - it was an incredibly good series while it lasted.
What exactly is enjoyable about a game you cannot win?
It's the nature of the genre. It's not win or lose - it's the journey. If I enjoy the journey, what's your beef?
"This lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, is, without a doubt, the single dumbest thing I have ever seen any lawyers do in my thirty years of practicing law..."
Listen to the man - if anyone knows stupid moves, it's Jack.
OK - I've had one for some time, and they aren't making ANY new games for it and all that, but I was in EB Games the other day, and they were selling complete (albeit used) Xboxes for $20. $20!!!
I don't care if you HATE the Xbox (I'm fairly neutral about the last gen - I bought all three over the years) but $20! Some used games cost that much!
I don't know about you, but I often have a Guinness sitting next to the keyboard when I go to my own particular "third place". We are talking about civilized discourse here. Guinness is essential.
Fine with me - feel free to use your preferred English dialect. However, don't be surprised at the reactions you get when you suggest there is something wrong with people, when the only thing "wrong" with them is that they are using the native language of their country, as you undoubtedly are.
Check out Merriam-Webster Online. Look up "leverage". Note the second entry, the one that begins "leverage, transitive verb..."
Just out of curiosity, how likely do you think it is that EB Games/Gamestop and friends will suddenly abandon their reprehensible practice of only selling new consoles in bundles? What do you think your chances are of getting the high-end version for $600 if that's what you want?
If anything pounds the final nail in the coffin of the PS3, it'll be greedy retailers who won't let you get out of the store until you've given them $700-800 for a $600 console plus a bunch of stuff you didn't really want. Nothing would encourage me to wait for a price drop more than only being able to get a PS3 in a bundle.
Greed pisses me off.
But why was there an initial craze for it? Because a boatload of people had PS1's and were happy with them. They wanted more of the same. Why did developers develop for the PS2? Because the PS1 was the dominant platform at the time.
The PS3 isn't any different. The developers will develop for it because the PS2 is still the dominant platform, and they've made a bundle of money off it. All the platforms are a gamble. The developers will stick with the devil they know. Don't talk to me about how much harder it is to develop for. The way I hear it, compared to the PS2, the PS3 is a walk in the park. The PS2 was supposedly a bear to work on. It still ended up with the greatest developer support.
I currently have 40-50 PS2 titles. Care to guess what percentage of my total outlay the initial box was? Hint: tiny. If I buy 40-50 titles for ANY of the platforms, guess how much of a difference $200-350 will make in my total cost? 2nd hint: not much. It's razors vs. blades. Compared to the blade cost, the razor is free.
Do you really think you'll buy a console and a couple of games over its lifetime?
Really? Half Life 2 took me a very long time to complete. Maybe I'm just slower at these things, but I felt like I got my money's worth out of HL2. Of course, I got the original HL, and Counter Strike, and a few other things with it, giving it even more value. To be fair, I don't consider either HL2 or this to be a standard FPS.
Clearly value is subjective - 5 hours of pure bliss would certainly be worth more than 40 hours of ho-hum play. But I haven't read any reviews of Episode 1 that said it was anything more than above average. $20 for a very short, just above average game is still pretty pricey.
... it's $20 for 5-8 hours of gameplay. I often spend $40-50 for a 40 hour game. Through the joys of episodic content, that 40 hours is going to cost me $100-160 based on their estimates. No wonder they like it!
I guess I'm finally gaining an understanding of the term "old school". It means "Haven't I played this game (or at least fought this exact battle) a hundred times before in previous games?"
Perhaps others really like playing RPG's using the exact same battle mechanics (and same monsters) that played in old 8-bit games, but I didn't enjoy the battles in the DQ8 demo at all. The opponents were 2 dimensional in every sense of the word.
Too bad, really - the rest of the game had some promise. But I'm really glad they sent me the demo disk - it saved me $40.
Of course, the same argument could be made about buying a GBA - there are PC emulators for that as well. If you consider a laptop to be portable gaming, more power to you. I don't.
It depends on who you mean by "they". So far, Sony has said very little. Almost all I've read on the web has been from game sites and industry analysts (read: fortune tellers, with all that implies.)
As far as winning a war of words in concerned, they're doing it by firing very few shots, allowing others to speculate wildly. The critics will say they were lying if any of the speculation turns out to be wrong, without ever mentioning who was making the claim.
In some respects, Sony is playing this very well. When questioned, they can quite truthfully say that the never made any of those claims. It won't stop people from calling them liars, but some folks aren't really all that concerned whether the story is actually true.
How can a product (PS3) that hasn't even been released yet be overpriced?
Sony has stated that the PS3 might be delayed in Japan due to the lack of finality of the Blu-Ray spec. This might have some impact on the resoundind success the Xbox 360 has been in Japan; however, I doubt that the delay (if indeed it does occur) will have any impact on the US launch.
Did the brilliant moderator who mod'd this down actually read the PDF referenced? The numbers do indeed add up to exactly $800, despite the $900 figure at the bottom of the column. If this is the kind of math they did to arrive at their initial parts cost, the whole report is suspect.
The key phrase here is "other participants", i.e., those who actually buy stock, instead of writing about it. They are the market. The analysts could all die tomorrow, and the market would still be there.
I'm surprised you don't realize this, being a "professional economist".
I disagree. WoW's 5 million users aren't all hardcore. Sure, the hardcore players blow through casual games quickly, then get bored. But WoW's success runs counter to your premise. If MMO's were designed for the hardcore, WoW would have died long ago.
For me, the appeal of harder, harsher MMO's is that I'm much less likely to be playing with impatient teenagers. WoW is custom made for them, and from the talk you hear, they make up the majority.
I'll put up with a more difficult game any day, if the player community is more mature (and I don't mean age, despite what I said above - teenage immaturity occurs in all age groups.)
I really enjoy having the other people around. They make the game interesting. But I don't have to grab 5 of them when I decide I want to go out for lunch.
If I followed your advice, I'd live on an asteroid.
As in incredibly popular, very sucessful and extremely lucrative?