you don't like 2k4 because you can carry two assault rifles? couldn't do that in 2k3.
You can boost game speed. There are 135% speed demo servers out there right now. Low grav instagib too. I'm sure that's right up your alley.
I think 2k4 was a really nice compromise between UT and UT2k3's gameplay. Movement was toned down a bit, weapons toned back up a little, it's really pretty solid. Very impressed. And the amazing slew of new features coming out are just sick....
If anyone DOES contest their payments, even one person, you investigate the company that made the transaction (as the micropayment company that receives the complaint). See if it's legit, first of all. That doesn't take long. If multiple people are complaining about the same company, they probably have a problem with their billing, your own software, or are trying to run a scam.
Everyone doesn't have to complain. As soon as a few do and the MP company investigates and finds a scam, everyone who was charged fraudulently could easily be refunded whether they noticed originally or not.
And finally, it's a fucking penny, who gives a shit? I wouldn't even get mad at bleeding a whole quarter a month, so hell, I'll chip in on feeding 25 scammers until they get caught, ok?
completely agreed. My own campaign met every two weeks for a couple of years. After two years of playing, the characters did have a lot of power and magical items, but they were level 12-14, just starting to break into the realm of the "big boys" by comissioning keeps and attracting their followers, starting to become real power players in the world they lived in. They would lose items often from theft or heavy combat usage, so while they had a good stock, they couldn't treat everything like a permanent addition to their character sheet. It was a useful tool they had for as long as they could hold on to it, and they had to take steps to protect it if they wanted to keep whatever it was around. Even magic items can break, get dropped into holes, lifted by theives, extorted, or otherwise removed from play.
and of course, as they broke into the realm of lordship, armies, keeps and such, they picked up commesurately more powerful enemies as well who coveted their holdings. Never give them a blank check without a balance.
I believed strongly in rewarding my players, but they had to work for it. If they did, it would pay off and they'd end up with some primo stuff that they found or could afford to comission to have made (and they'd have to wait for it, usually many months or even years.. that was neat watching them tick off the weeks until they could go pick up their new suit of dragonskin armour, and how excited they'd get when it was ready!). Levelling was infrequent, so it was a big deal when it happened, but progress was constant and noticeable. We had session with no combat at all (but RP XP awards) and sessions where the entire day was one mass battle, and eveything in between.
Eight years later those players still ask when I'm going to start another game or maybe even resume that one. I'm not the best DM around but it goes to show that decent DM'ing makes a difference. Ultimate, the DM is the storyteller, and the game system is just the tool he or she uses to create their game, not WoTC's or TSR's or SJ's or anyone elses; it's theirs, completely, through and through.
I'm with you man. Car Wars is the shit, and having a faithful adaptation of it to the PC complete with car design, multiplayer, competition circuits and towns to raise hell in would be so cool I'd hurt myself. I'd love to see them really implement things like targetting computers visually in game.
man, I'd almost gotten over wishing for this. Now you go and remind me. THANKS A LOT PAL. Time for more years of pining..
I said nothing about al qaeda, new york, or the WTC. Other than that, brilliant comment.
Though if you are an impoverished arab male watching the americans oddly side with the only white country in your area, your long time hated enemies... are you striking a blow the only possible way against a hated enemy, or are you a "terrorist"?
all a matter of perspective. Perhaps, before you get your panties in a bunch, you would like to consider that between Iraq and Afghanistan, we've killed more than 5 times as many civilians as died in the WTC. You say intent matters, I say intent does not matter to the civilians who are now dead, nor their families.
Our forefathers did, however, lynch Tories here in the colonies.
Civilians die in war. Whether it's intentional or not doesn't really matter all that much when it comes down to it; we just killed more civilians in Iraq than the palestinians can kill in a decade. I'm not saying I agree with the palestinians, I'm just saying whether someone is a "freedom fighter" or a "terrorist" depends solely on the perspective of the writer. Really the lines aren't all that clear.
"BBC thinks palestinians who blow themselves (and innocent babies) are "freedom fighters""
history is written by the victors man. At one time a bunch of people hiding in the woods and sniping at officers was beyond reproach, and were the "terrorists" of their time. We here in the USA call them revolutionaries now, and revere them. During the civil war, the north took a radical step by attacking civilian and logistical targets instead of purely military ones. A move that would have been reviled had the north ended up losing, instead it's hailed as tactical genius.
Conventions of warfare go OUT THE WINDOW when you are faced with a militarial superior enemy. Calling palestinians freedom fighters is no more or less accurate than calling our american forefathers heroes.
but there is still no longer a need for the electoral college, which in practice has only been the carrot to attract smaller states to our union.
Even if we got rid of the electoral college AND the leglislature in favor of popular vote through some method, you still have the checks and balances of the executive and judicial branches.
the only real obstacles left for true democratic response in our system are A) our current system and B) secure electronic voting.
I do find it interesting that Epic/Atari/Legend decided not to put MP in Unreal 2 originally, presumably to prevent competition between the single-player focused Unreal 2 and the multiplayer focused Unreal Tournament 2003 that was coming out at the same time.
Then Legend gets to put out a multiplayer add on for Unreal 2 and it blows away everything Epic put into Unreal tournament 2003; it's a resource hog atm (fixed in the next patch), but it's far more playable and less buggy than 2003, the gameplay is deeper and better balanced, frankly, the epic guys should be ashamed that they helped keep Legend down in this case.
It's obvious the Legend crew had way more on the ball than Epic did; too bad they had to get the axe just when they showed what they could do in the Multiplayer FPS arena. U2 XMP is frankly the best game in the Unreal franchise if multiplayer gaming is your focus.
yes, strategic investment in technologies that benefit us obviously won't contribute to our overall prosperity ever. we should definitely just let the private sector determine how fast we move ahead based on profitability.
We can take shortcuts. It works, it's been working for decades now to encourage growth in some areas deemed most useful for our society as a whole. Where would we be if we had an initiative like this focused on hydrogen energy developement? It costs for awhile, then the payback could be staggerring.
That's a bullshit analogy that doesn't even begin to address the whole issue.
Bullshit. Phone companies themselves are moving to flat rate charging because of all of this. MCI and AT&T both offer flat rate phone service now, as one could argue they should have been twenty years ago.
As a consumer I value predictability of my phone bill, and if it's a little higher some months than my actual usage would have warranted otherwise, that's ok. I expected to pay X amount for a service and I had that service.
Also, it's a hell of a lot nicer than having to go over a phone bill with two roommates every month so we can all pay our share. No arguements or waiting for anyone to get around to it: bill comes in, we each owe X amount, end of story.
Not saying that additional taxes won't be imposed, but to imply the billing structure will move backwards into one of the most user-unfriendly billing schemes ever devised is just pure lunacy.
first, I agree whatever taxation is required for supporting 911 should extend to VoIP.
Beyond that though, this infrastructure already exists. If we're taxing everyone who uses the poles adequately, then there should still be enough of a market for the last mile people to support at least a few phone companies. At least until the cable companies commit to extending their own networks or similarly for cell phone networks; there are others options.
here's another smashing idea though: if private enterprise cannot or will not continue to service an area, maybe those people should vote in a referendum to lay cable or install a cell phone tower at their expense with their local taxes, mmm? Isn't the point of taxation to guarantee services that are deemed necessary even though private enterprise doesn't deem it lucrative enough to support, or can't be trusted to support?
I currently get phone, television, and internet through time-warner. If it involves the sending and/or receiving of data in my home, it goes through them, completely, with the exception of my cellphone. and you know what? IT ALL COMES THROUGH ONE CABLE.
Phone lines were treated specially because they had to be a separate entity and a separate infrastructure utilizing public lands for a long time. That is no longer the case. Explain to me why there should be additional taxes and surcharges on my VoIP phone which utilizes cables that were ALREADY HUNG for use with cable TV and internet, with their own sets of taxes? Simply to allow phone companies to compete, when they use completely separate lines on the poles? Are you suggesting that time warner and other cable companies are allowed to use pole space without appropriate taxation for their existing cables?
Infrastructure consolidation my friend, not an artificial market. My VoIP service may not be 100% of a regular land line yet, but it's reliable enough for me to run a business from home. Soon enough having a regular land line will be the "last mile" option or a premium service only ("Dedicated phone lines! Still work when the power goes out!")
You might have a point, if this reactor were intended to SUPPLY energy for a large area.
It's not. This is apparently an experimental reactor. We haven't made this work yet; this reactor is being built so we CAN make it work through experimentation. After that, I would imagine all the countries will simply build their own reactors to supply their countries (and neighbors who wish to purchase energy and/or share in the construction costs) with energy.
What did you think, we'd build one reactor and supply the whole world with energy? Please. At the very least each country will want their own simply so their energy source simple to guarantee the existance of their own energy in case of war or natural disaster.
If this technology WORKED, you think the US in particular wouldn't drop $10bil on it in a heartbeat to build it ourselves? It doesn't work yet, and that's why we all want to build this experimental reactor.
I think (hope) that we'll see a transition. As more people are open to digital content, and CD recording and production continue to be cheaper and easier, we'll see the recording industry fall. Companies that get it will survive as musical marketing specialists, but they won't have the clout to strongarm musicians into giving up their IP rights like they do now. But recording and production at least don't need them anymore, that leaves distribution and marketing as their primary value added services at this time; well that, and the loansharking they put forth as "advances" to musicians.
That may be difficult to overcome; you're a musician washing dishes during the day and scrabbling out gigs, and someone offers you hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for what you've made and a few more records.. it's the only game in town. But what if distribution itself didn't require the inside tracks controlled by the big boys right now? What it if really were a dynamic system that used marketing like other industries to gain publicity?
That seems like the lynchpin to me. If the RIAA ever loses its stranglehold on the current radioplay distribution model, then it will have no choice but to adapt. It's the only thing left besides some inertia and loansharking keeping it in the game. And without the obscurity of the "complete service" they currently offer, I doubt their loansharking will stand up to any scrutiney.
So.. iTunes is a good step (as it lets in more and more independant distributors) towards reducing their distribution channels. Any ideas beyond pushing for investigations to reduce their grip on radio?
Slashdot Mirror
...and siezing land and assets, and disposing of political rivals, and blackmail....
with a heavy dose of violence and fear,
and lots of money for projects,
I think I might start believing SCO is here to help!
you don't like 2k4 because you can carry two assault rifles? couldn't do that in 2k3.
You can boost game speed. There are 135% speed demo servers out there right now. Low grav instagib too. I'm sure that's right up your alley.
I think 2k4 was a really nice compromise between UT and UT2k3's gameplay. Movement was toned down a bit, weapons toned back up a little, it's really pretty solid. Very impressed. And the amazing slew of new features coming out are just sick....
If anyone DOES contest their payments, even one person, you investigate the company that made the transaction (as the micropayment company that receives the complaint). See if it's legit, first of all. That doesn't take long. If multiple people are complaining about the same company, they probably have a problem with their billing, your own software, or are trying to run a scam.
Everyone doesn't have to complain. As soon as a few do and the MP company investigates and finds a scam, everyone who was charged fraudulently could easily be refunded whether they noticed originally or not.
And finally, it's a fucking penny, who gives a shit? I wouldn't even get mad at bleeding a whole quarter a month, so hell, I'll chip in on feeding 25 scammers until they get caught, ok?
completely agreed. My own campaign met every two weeks for a couple of years. After two years of playing, the characters did have a lot of power and magical items, but they were level 12-14, just starting to break into the realm of the "big boys" by comissioning keeps and attracting their followers, starting to become real power players in the world they lived in. They would lose items often from theft or heavy combat usage, so while they had a good stock, they couldn't treat everything like a permanent addition to their character sheet. It was a useful tool they had for as long as they could hold on to it, and they had to take steps to protect it if they wanted to keep whatever it was around. Even magic items can break, get dropped into holes, lifted by theives, extorted, or otherwise removed from play.
and of course, as they broke into the realm of lordship, armies, keeps and such, they picked up commesurately more powerful enemies as well who coveted their holdings. Never give them a blank check without a balance.
I believed strongly in rewarding my players, but they had to work for it. If they did, it would pay off and they'd end up with some primo stuff that they found or could afford to comission to have made (and they'd have to wait for it, usually many months or even years.. that was neat watching them tick off the weeks until they could go pick up their new suit of dragonskin armour, and how excited they'd get when it was ready!). Levelling was infrequent, so it was a big deal when it happened, but progress was constant and noticeable. We had session with no combat at all (but RP XP awards) and sessions where the entire day was one mass battle, and eveything in between.
Eight years later those players still ask when I'm going to start another game or maybe even resume that one. I'm not the best DM around but it goes to show that decent DM'ing makes a difference. Ultimate, the DM is the storyteller, and the game system is just the tool he or she uses to create their game, not WoTC's or TSR's or SJ's or anyone elses; it's theirs, completely, through and through.
I'm with you man. Car Wars is the shit, and having a faithful adaptation of it to the PC complete with car design, multiplayer, competition circuits and towns to raise hell in would be so cool I'd hurt myself. I'd love to see them really implement things like targetting computers visually in game.
man, I'd almost gotten over wishing for this. Now you go and remind me. THANKS A LOT PAL. Time for more years of pining..
Domination POWER baby, all the way. Loved that gametype, and loved Double Dom too.
:(
Onslaught better rock if Dom is gone
"Hypothetically, if Clinton supported a guerrilla group that went and bombed the pharmaceutical factory, then they would be supporting terrorism"
like we have done in several of the countries the previous poster mentioned?
is it ok for us or our friends to blow up babies? answer yes or no.
and if we did, we'd be neither heroes nor terrorists for doing it, or both, depending on your perspective, which is the entire point.
I said nothing about al qaeda, new york, or the WTC. Other than that, brilliant comment.
Though if you are an impoverished arab male watching the americans oddly side with the only white country in your area, your long time hated enemies... are you striking a blow the only possible way against a hated enemy, or are you a "terrorist"?
all a matter of perspective. Perhaps, before you get your panties in a bunch, you would like to consider that between Iraq and Afghanistan, we've killed more than 5 times as many civilians as died in the WTC. You say intent matters, I say intent does not matter to the civilians who are now dead, nor their families.
Our forefathers did, however, lynch Tories here in the colonies.
Civilians die in war. Whether it's intentional or not doesn't really matter all that much when it comes down to it; we just killed more civilians in Iraq than the palestinians can kill in a decade. I'm not saying I agree with the palestinians, I'm just saying whether someone is a "freedom fighter" or a "terrorist" depends solely on the perspective of the writer. Really the lines aren't all that clear.
"BBC thinks palestinians who blow themselves (and innocent babies) are "freedom fighters""
history is written by the victors man. At one time a bunch of people hiding in the woods and sniping at officers was beyond reproach, and were the "terrorists" of their time. We here in the USA call them revolutionaries now, and revere them. During the civil war, the north took a radical step by attacking civilian and logistical targets instead of purely military ones. A move that would have been reviled had the north ended up losing, instead it's hailed as tactical genius.
Conventions of warfare go OUT THE WINDOW when you are faced with a militarial superior enemy. Calling palestinians freedom fighters is no more or less accurate than calling our american forefathers heroes.
Not sure how areas being different justifies a system that doesn't represent as many people as possible, but whatever trips your trigger I guess.
but there is still no longer a need for the electoral college, which in practice has only been the carrot to attract smaller states to our union.
Even if we got rid of the electoral college AND the leglislature in favor of popular vote through some method, you still have the checks and balances of the executive and judicial branches.
the only real obstacles left for true democratic response in our system are A) our current system and B) secure electronic voting.
it's not co-op. it's multiplayer. live people vs live people.
I do find it interesting that Epic/Atari/Legend decided not to put MP in Unreal 2 originally, presumably to prevent competition between the single-player focused Unreal 2 and the multiplayer focused Unreal Tournament 2003 that was coming out at the same time.
Then Legend gets to put out a multiplayer add on for Unreal 2 and it blows away everything Epic put into Unreal tournament 2003; it's a resource hog atm (fixed in the next patch), but it's far more playable and less buggy than 2003, the gameplay is deeper and better balanced, frankly, the epic guys should be ashamed that they helped keep Legend down in this case.
It's obvious the Legend crew had way more on the ball than Epic did; too bad they had to get the axe just when they showed what they could do in the Multiplayer FPS arena. U2 XMP is frankly the best game in the Unreal franchise if multiplayer gaming is your focus.
yes, strategic investment in technologies that benefit us obviously won't contribute to our overall prosperity ever. we should definitely just let the private sector determine how fast we move ahead based on profitability.
We can take shortcuts. It works, it's been working for decades now to encourage growth in some areas deemed most useful for our society as a whole. Where would we be if we had an initiative like this focused on hydrogen energy developement? It costs for awhile, then the payback could be staggerring.
That's a bullshit analogy that doesn't even begin to address the whole issue.
.
do your Low Budget HL based game tournaments usually have 80 teams of players trying to d/l at the same time?
If they tried to run a LAN of this size without an ISP sponsor, they fucked up hard.
Bullshit. Phone companies themselves are moving to flat rate charging because of all of this. MCI and AT&T both offer flat rate phone service now, as one could argue they should have been twenty years ago.
As a consumer I value predictability of my phone bill, and if it's a little higher some months than my actual usage would have warranted otherwise, that's ok. I expected to pay X amount for a service and I had that service.
Also, it's a hell of a lot nicer than having to go over a phone bill with two roommates every month so we can all pay our share. No arguements or waiting for anyone to get around to it: bill comes in, we each owe X amount, end of story.
Not saying that additional taxes won't be imposed, but to imply the billing structure will move backwards into one of the most user-unfriendly billing schemes ever devised is just pure lunacy.
Sure, but a couple of things could be done there.
first, I agree whatever taxation is required for supporting 911 should extend to VoIP.
Beyond that though, this infrastructure already exists. If we're taxing everyone who uses the poles adequately, then there should still be enough of a market for the last mile people to support at least a few phone companies. At least until the cable companies commit to extending their own networks or similarly for cell phone networks; there are others options.
here's another smashing idea though: if private enterprise cannot or will not continue to service an area, maybe those people should vote in a referendum to lay cable or install a cell phone tower at their expense with their local taxes, mmm? Isn't the point of taxation to guarantee services that are deemed necessary even though private enterprise doesn't deem it lucrative enough to support, or can't be trusted to support?
I think you're focusing too narrowly.
I currently get phone, television, and internet through time-warner. If it involves the sending and/or receiving of data in my home, it goes through them, completely, with the exception of my cellphone. and you know what? IT ALL COMES THROUGH ONE CABLE.
Phone lines were treated specially because they had to be a separate entity and a separate infrastructure utilizing public lands for a long time. That is no longer the case. Explain to me why there should be additional taxes and surcharges on my VoIP phone which utilizes cables that were ALREADY HUNG for use with cable TV and internet, with their own sets of taxes? Simply to allow phone companies to compete, when they use completely separate lines on the poles? Are you suggesting that time warner and other cable companies are allowed to use pole space without appropriate taxation for their existing cables?
Infrastructure consolidation my friend, not an artificial market. My VoIP service may not be 100% of a regular land line yet, but it's reliable enough for me to run a business from home. Soon enough having a regular land line will be the "last mile" option or a premium service only ("Dedicated phone lines! Still work when the power goes out!")
wooo.. too much crack... you know what I'm saying there but wow did I butcher that energy source sentance. lol...
You might have a point, if this reactor were intended to SUPPLY energy for a large area.
It's not. This is apparently an experimental reactor. We haven't made this work yet; this reactor is being built so we CAN make it work through experimentation. After that, I would imagine all the countries will simply build their own reactors to supply their countries (and neighbors who wish to purchase energy and/or share in the construction costs) with energy.
What did you think, we'd build one reactor and supply the whole world with energy? Please. At the very least each country will want their own simply so their energy source simple to guarantee the existance of their own energy in case of war or natural disaster.
If this technology WORKED, you think the US in particular wouldn't drop $10bil on it in a heartbeat to build it ourselves? It doesn't work yet, and that's why we all want to build this experimental reactor.
I think (hope) that we'll see a transition. As more people are open to digital content, and CD recording and production continue to be cheaper and easier, we'll see the recording industry fall. Companies that get it will survive as musical marketing specialists, but they won't have the clout to strongarm musicians into giving up their IP rights like they do now. But recording and production at least don't need them anymore, that leaves distribution and marketing as their primary value added services at this time; well that, and the loansharking they put forth as "advances" to musicians.
That may be difficult to overcome; you're a musician washing dishes during the day and scrabbling out gigs, and someone offers you hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for what you've made and a few more records.. it's the only game in town. But what if distribution itself didn't require the inside tracks controlled by the big boys right now? What it if really were a dynamic system that used marketing like other industries to gain publicity?
That seems like the lynchpin to me. If the RIAA ever loses its stranglehold on the current radioplay distribution model, then it will have no choice but to adapt. It's the only thing left besides some inertia and loansharking keeping it in the game. And without the obscurity of the "complete service" they currently offer, I doubt their loansharking will stand up to any scrutiney.
So.. iTunes is a good step (as it lets in more and more independant distributors) towards reducing their distribution channels. Any ideas beyond pushing for investigations to reduce their grip on radio?