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User: skreeech

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  1. Re:I hope this doesn't fly ... on Intel Wants To Charge $50 To Unlock Your CPU's Full Capabilities · · Score: 1

    In this case you have the physical hardware of an i7 but it is being restricted to an i5. The physical parts and any software is there and being restricted until you pay.

  2. Re:shareholder lawsuit? on RIAA Paid $16M+ In Legal Fees To Collect $391K · · Score: 3, Funny

    Are you a useless record exec right now?

  3. Re:*Some* people will pay on Has Any Creative Work Failed Because of Piracy? · · Score: 1

    So I agree with you and you are looking to debate it further? I never meant to casually dismiss the importance of the copyright model.

    Even an economy where all digital information is free will need copyright to function.

    The advertising based model of Television and Radio may still function in a full piracy scenario. Physical goods companies always need to buy advertising.

  4. Re:*Some* people will pay on Has Any Creative Work Failed Because of Piracy? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ok I am seeing what you meant now. It is unfair for the ethical people to support the content for the unethical, regardless of finance.

    If everyone freeloaded bad stuff would happen to the existing model of buying bytes. Free advertising would not work for discs or downloads because by definition none would be bought.

  5. Re:Starsiege: Tribes took quite a hit from piracy on Has Any Creative Work Failed Because of Piracy? · · Score: 1

    a lot may have never even heard of it.

  6. Re:Back in the day on Has Any Creative Work Failed Because of Piracy? · · Score: 1

    I believe that was piracy in the form of a company reproducing their product and selling it to customers for money. In non commercial copying no one is eating the companies lunch because there was no transaction.

  7. Re:*Some* people will pay on Has Any Creative Work Failed Because of Piracy? · · Score: 1

    Previous to recent years one successful video game would pay for a lot of experimentation. It is only a recent development where an explosion in development cost had led to single games sinking studios. Even then some like GRIN had multiple catastrophic failures before going out of business.

    For your first point those people paying more than their "fair share" in media would not get any price break if more product sold.

  8. Re:Combustible Rice on China To Tap Combustible Ice As New Energy Source · · Score: 1

    funny that the growth of rice does release methane into the atmosphere.

  9. Re:Shouldn't be surprising on Average Budget For Major, Multi-Platform Games Is $18-28 Million · · Score: 1

    Anecdotally I have read that marketing budgets are never included in these development costs thrown around.

  10. Re:Half the cost for another platform? on Average Budget For Major, Multi-Platform Games Is $18-28 Million · · Score: 1

    I think it might be something to do with multiplatform usually meaning PS3, 360, PC, while Single platform includes the Wii, portables, and download service games so small that they are unique to one service, the latter having much lower costs.

  11. Yes they should, and do. on The Case For Mandatory Touch-Typing In High School · · Score: 1

    This was mandatory in my first year of high school(8-12). It only took a few weeks and was rolled into either the fine arts elective or the everything else course(sex ed, woodwork, cooking, sewing, etc).

    Touch Typing could be taught in Elementary School but when I was there the computers were older than the students. The school could have taught touch typing on apple 2s but it did not.

    Of course, maybe children are just learning this on their own or from family members now. I was managing to type a few "papers" before being taught touch typing and I do not recall hunting and pecking at the keys to do it.

  12. Re:As long as someone does it. on EU May Allow US To Keep Snooping On European Bank Data · · Score: 1

    The Airbus example is an interesting one in the "two wrongs make a right" field.

  13. Re:As long as someone does it. on EU May Allow US To Keep Snooping On European Bank Data · · Score: 1

    "Industry espionage"
    It is not Microsoft or Coca Cola who have access to the information right now.

    If the EU is trying to track something down that goes through US accounts they should not be at a dead end either.

  14. As long as someone does it. on EU May Allow US To Keep Snooping On European Bank Data · · Score: -1

    If the EU wants to keep the US out of their bank accounts that is fair, but someone should be watching, acting, and sharing if it is a useful tool for monitoring and prevention of terrorist actions.

  15. Bzzzt Bang Crash on World's Biggest Alarm Clock Shakes You Out of Bed · · Score: 2, Funny

    From the picture it looks like it is going to wake his head up into a dresser.

    Upon watching the video I was half right.

  16. Re:This is absurd on ArenaLive, an Open Source MMOFPS · · Score: 1

    On the PS3 a certain amount of ram is reserved for the OS and it's features, the amount has been lowered at times but no game can turn off features to use that memory. At one time it was around 90 megabytes.

  17. Why? on CrunchPad Will Be a 'Dead Simple Web Tablet' · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Looking past the very basic needs of searching and typing addresses I find that most web use today involves typing something

  18. Re:Engine is Their Gravy on Despite New Owner, id Still Lives Or Dies By Their Engines · · Score: 1

    DOOM fans may have not been big on Doom 3 but it sold very well.

    "Since 1996, id powered games have generated worldwide revenues in excess of $2 Billion. id's most recent internally developed title, DOOM 3ï½, extends a proven track record with over 3.5 million units sold and is id's most successful game to date." http://www.shacknews.com/docs/press/010710_id_carmack_emmys.x

    They also did focus on one thing at a time until more recently. Raven made Quake 4, Splash Damage made ET:QW, then id fixed Quake 4 before starting on Rage.

  19. Re:qUITE SURPRISED on Despite New Owner, id Still Lives Or Dies By Their Engines · · Score: 1

    You could also look at Warsow built on a dervivative of the Quake 2 engine. I think the pro mode portion of the Q3 CPMA mod may eventually be a stand alone product as well. Both are still deathmatch games(cpm is pretty much THE dm game), unlike urban terror.

  20. Re:Try making good games again id... on Despite New Owner, id Still Lives Or Dies By Their Engines · · Score: 1

    None of the new games with "innovative" gameplay have been as good as the early offerings of id.

  21. Re:Asheron's Call allowed very good movement on Why Don't MMOs Allow Easier Transportation? · · Score: 1

    I think I remember hearing about that now. I also don't remember seeing anyone talk about it on VN since, so either the playerbase moved away from the boards or FF doesn't use it much.

  22. Re:Asheron's Call allowed very good movement on Why Don't MMOs Allow Easier Transportation? · · Score: 1

    Well I had stopped playing a year or more before that but I recall reading that it added a new tier of loot and level 8 spells, any other additions of that type broke pvp moreso.

    Either way, that is the once in awhile thing i was talking about. There were probably only about 10 patches that were intended to be for pks(hollows, phantoms, weepings, aegis shield, balance changes, etc) whereas the other 90ish did not have pvp content.

    PKlite slowly killed off any PVP outside of darktide, I doubt that game has any pvp bias today.

  23. Re:Asheron's Call allowed very good movement on Why Don't MMOs Allow Easier Transportation? · · Score: 1

    Hardly PVP biased. AC has been more and more anti pvp biased it's whole existence. One monthly patch every couple years was for PVP. The developers of the game were almost completely PVE focused.

  24. Re:Instant travel promotes the Zerg rush on Why Don't MMOs Allow Easier Transportation? · · Score: 1

    There are always ways to deal with that. You could force players to be stuck as non player killers for a few minutes(this also gives them half a chance to run away if they are camped). It could be costly in time or resources to go cesspool fight. If the game is full loot or partial loot they eventually have to slow down or stop if they keep dieing.

    Here is what AC did for PK deaths
    -stuck white for 5 minutes, can't attack other players
    -5% stat loss(temporary took a little bit of xp to get rid of) per death up to 40%
    -lost 15 or so items, you were able to rig the odds so what you wanted to drop dropped but you would only have so much storage space before you would drop your real gear.
    -it would take some time to rebuff your character(probably 5 mins in the old days)

    The regular servers did get screwed up by what you talk about when they added an optional penalty free pvp though.

    I assume that other games like UO also had enough cost of reequiping that people could not just zerg back immediately or indefinitely.

  25. Asheron's Call had great travel options. on Why Don't MMOs Allow Easier Transportation? · · Score: 1

    The article writer should try or have tried Asheron's Call. The game had a gigantic world to explore with little details everywhere. It would probably take days to run end to end. The game did have ways to travel fast though.

    Like other games players needed somewhere to reappaer when they die, AC had lifestones, AC had HUNDREDS of lifestones. Towns had them but some wilderness areas had them as well, there were even a few rare ones inside dungeon areas. Early on in the game players had to die to get back there but that was eventually fixed, much later players got the ability store a second one accessible with spells.

    Traversal of the great seemless world could be accomplished the same way as going inside/outside of dungeons - portals. In some areas there would be loops of quickly accessible portals to use like a transit system through the towns. Others would send the player to far off areas without a return. Players could save two of these with magic and summon them for themselves and others so that players could get back to that very far away place instantly, and bring friends. More and more special portal spells were added to the game over time giving the player instant access to special areas, usually islands added onto the game in patches.

    The addition of landscape housing made traveling anywhere in this gigantic game easy. Near towns there would be portals to a dozen settlements of housing, Now 90% of the mainland in the game was accessible in less than 5 minutes.

    AC had a large unique sandbox world to explore and did not force the player to spend hours running if they did not want to. It was the todays "next generation mmo" in many ways but released in 1999. Oh and players ran really fast!