I think the worth is relative. For example, I own a few original animation cels that I consider extremely valuable. If I lose them in a fire, I will be upset and the loss would cause a certain amount of grief for me. Is it as bad as the tragic loss of life in natural and unnatural disasters we see on the news? Certainly not. I'd trade all my cels if I thought it would save lives, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't miss my cels. The loss of these "treasures" in fire is tragic because they had value, sometimes deep value, to the people that created them, and the fans that loved what was created by and through them. It's similar to the pocket watch my grandfather gave me. It is of great worth to me, and I would be really upset if something happened to it. Same goes for these "treasures". People worked hard. It was a labor of love for many. To see it gone effects them. Yes, there are more important things in the world, but there's room for grief of these treasures as well as things that may even be more tragic. Nobody is asking for donations to help the victim's of this fire because they were all inanimate as far as we've heard. I think we're doing a fine job of keeping it in perspective. Let's continue to be sensitive to the grief of others regardless of if we really share it or not.
Reading through the WR forum, there is some mention that the C&D from SOE was in reference to the website, and not the game. A quote from this thread in the WR forum:
The only persistant word rolling around is that Sony issued a Cease and Decist order on the Wintersroar.com website because of it's references to Sony products. The original owner of Witnersroar.com, (no longer a part of the staff I assume) must have paniced and told his registrar to drop the website.
It takes time to reregister a website, and for all of the DNS information to propagate around the globe. It sounds like there were DNS problems before this happened as well.
That's all I know..
I'll admit to not reading the entire forum, so I could have missed something... Be that as it may, perhaps there's hope for the game, or perhaps this is just the first volley from SOE? Something to look into if you're interested at any rate...
Let us not lose sight of the fact that we are talking about the creation of Software, who's ultimate goal is to be usefull. Some people do not wish to program, but are willing to supply a list of bugs that have been found. This is an important part of the development process, even in Alpha stages. It is said that a bug caught in the earlier stages of development and fixed in an hour, may take weeks to fix if found at a later stage.
So yes, allow the binaries to be downloaded. You may lose a programmer or two, but, in the long run you are allowing a greater range of people to contribute through commentary and bug reports.
Falkenberg
Although I feel the original authors thoughts are a bit skewed on the subject, I have to say that he is correct in pointing out that games are not the cause of our problems. I believe there was a response previously that mentioned the importance of good parenting. I think this was under-stated.
To be frank, MOST children are products of their upbringing. If left to their own devices, they will be forced to make their own conclusions on life and what is right and wrong, and these decisions will probably be "feel good" decisions. BY that I mean, if there is nothing or nobody teaching them about moral virtues, and what is right and wrong, they will tend to choose what makes them FEEL good. Right or Wrong is then determined by what is "fun".
Being an avid gamer, I think I can tell you that this "I want what I want and I don't care about what you want" attitude DOES exist in a great number of gamers. I don't think it's the majority of us though, but, the fact that their are A LOT of them, makes it easy to point a finger and say "See! Right there! An uncaring individual! See what these evil games are doing?!".
Never mind that the parents may be divorced, the father or mother may have run off in the night, or maybe the parents are alcoholics and place higher value on their own "feel goods" than the feelings and upbringing of their own children.
IMHO, society is far too focused on the symptoms of the problem. Pointing fingers at games, music, movies, television, and the Internet does nothing more than call attention away from the root of the problem: The decline of the family unit.
In the USA, marriages are lasting increasingly smaller and smaller amounts of time. In fact, most people are already planning for their divorce right from the beginning. They open a separate bank account, keep their retirement funds separate, and keep enough in those funds to support themselves alone. They sign prenuptial agreements, and all this in the name of "safety". Covering their butts.
Then they're happy for the first little while, until the novelty wears off, and the real test begins. Can they REALLY put up with each other? Can she really put up with his laziness and unwillingness to help around the house? Can he really keep up with her financially high standard of living? Will they be able to work through their debt problems without walking out?
And then how will their decisions effect their children? Have they taught them right from wrong? Have they nurtured them, helped them grow? Or have they just bought a TV and/or computer and let the kids teach themselves?
Bottom line: If children are not thought properly, they will develop their own ideas on what is right and wrong. Proper teaching comes from proper parenting. Proper parenting is less likely to occur if both parents are working, or in a single-parent household. The parent(s) are less likely to be around to observe the things they need to teach their children about, and that child will make their own decisions. Some will hopefully be the right ones, but, in a society where natural affection of our fellow men is dwindling, I think you will see the WRONG decision made more and more often.
We must stop pointing fingers at the symptoms, and start working at the root of the problem. Video games do NOT cause violence. But they CAN be an influence to do violence if proper guidance and parenting is not present.
Add the risk of sounding like a MS basher (which I'm not)...
Tech is not king in their decision though. Aparently people who have strong religious beliefs "wouldn't fit in" at MS. An ex-MS employee friend of mine reports he was quite shocked when of 4 candidates interviewed for a job on his team, the one best qualified was tossed because he was Mormon and "wouldn't fit the MS mold".
Hopefully this was an isolated incident, but, religous prejudice of any sort turns me off.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the worth is relative. For example, I own a few original animation cels that I consider extremely valuable. If I lose them in a fire, I will be upset and the loss would cause a certain amount of grief for me. Is it as bad as the tragic loss of life in natural and unnatural disasters we see on the news? Certainly not. I'd trade all my cels if I thought it would save lives, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't miss my cels. The loss of these "treasures" in fire is tragic because they had value, sometimes deep value, to the people that created them, and the fans that loved what was created by and through them. It's similar to the pocket watch my grandfather gave me. It is of great worth to me, and I would be really upset if something happened to it. Same goes for these "treasures". People worked hard. It was a labor of love for many. To see it gone effects them. Yes, there are more important things in the world, but there's room for grief of these treasures as well as things that may even be more tragic. Nobody is asking for donations to help the victim's of this fire because they were all inanimate as far as we've heard. I think we're doing a fine job of keeping it in perspective. Let's continue to be sensitive to the grief of others regardless of if we really share it or not.
Let us not lose sight of the fact that we are talking about the creation of Software, who's ultimate goal is to be usefull. Some people do not wish to program, but are willing to supply a list of bugs that have been found. This is an important part of the development process, even in Alpha stages. It is said that a bug caught in the earlier stages of development and fixed in an hour, may take weeks to fix if found at a later stage. So yes, allow the binaries to be downloaded. You may lose a programmer or two, but, in the long run you are allowing a greater range of people to contribute through commentary and bug reports. Falkenberg
Although I feel the original authors thoughts are a bit skewed on the subject, I have to say that he is correct in pointing out that games are not the cause of our problems. I believe there was a response previously that mentioned the importance of good parenting. I think this was under-stated.
To be frank, MOST children are products of their upbringing. If left to their own devices, they will be forced to make their own conclusions on life and what is right and wrong, and these decisions will probably be "feel good" decisions. BY that I mean, if there is nothing or nobody teaching them about moral virtues, and what is right and wrong, they will tend to choose what makes them FEEL good. Right or Wrong is then determined by what is "fun".
Being an avid gamer, I think I can tell you that this "I want what I want and I don't care about what you want" attitude DOES exist in a great number of gamers. I don't think it's the majority of us though, but, the fact that their are A LOT of them, makes it easy to point a finger and say "See! Right there! An uncaring individual! See what these evil games are doing?!".
Never mind that the parents may be divorced, the father or mother may have run off in the night, or maybe the parents are alcoholics and place higher value on their own "feel goods" than the feelings and upbringing of their own children.
IMHO, society is far too focused on the symptoms of the problem. Pointing fingers at games, music, movies, television, and the Internet does nothing more than call attention away from the root of the problem: The decline of the family unit.
In the USA, marriages are lasting increasingly smaller and smaller amounts of time. In fact, most people are already planning for their divorce right from the beginning. They open a separate bank account, keep their retirement funds separate, and keep enough in those funds to support themselves alone. They sign prenuptial agreements, and all this in the name of "safety". Covering their butts.
Then they're happy for the first little while, until the novelty wears off, and the real test begins. Can they REALLY put up with each other? Can she really put up with his laziness and unwillingness to help around the house? Can he really keep up with her financially high standard of living? Will they be able to work through their debt problems without walking out?
And then how will their decisions effect their children? Have they taught them right from wrong? Have they nurtured them, helped them grow? Or have they just bought a TV and/or computer and let the kids teach themselves?
Bottom line: If children are not thought properly, they will develop their own ideas on what is right and wrong. Proper teaching comes from proper parenting. Proper parenting is less likely to occur if both parents are working, or in a single-parent household. The parent(s) are less likely to be around to observe the things they need to teach their children about, and that child will make their own decisions. Some will hopefully be the right ones, but, in a society where natural affection of our fellow men is dwindling, I think you will see the WRONG decision made more and more often.
We must stop pointing fingers at the symptoms, and start working at the root of the problem. Video games do NOT cause violence. But they CAN be an influence to do violence if proper guidance and parenting is not present.
Add the risk of sounding like a MS basher (which I'm not)...
Tech is not king in their decision though. Aparently people who have strong religious beliefs "wouldn't fit in" at MS. An ex-MS employee friend of mine reports he was quite shocked when of 4 candidates interviewed for a job on his team, the one best qualified was tossed because he was Mormon and "wouldn't fit the MS mold".
Hopefully this was an isolated incident, but, religous prejudice of any sort turns me off.