I agree, there are a certain number of, shall we say, shallow students, that were following the smell of money. When I applied to uni (god, 5 years ago now...), there was quite a stuck-up guy who said, and I remember it quite well "I chose Computer Systems Engineering rather than Computer Science because so many people are doing CS that I'll get more money this way".
I didn't like him because he was annoying and felt very superior to everyone, but he can't have been an isolated incident of people following the money rather than doing it for the love. You could at least do a degree you enjoyed and then sell out later (see: history majors taking accounting jobs).
I noticed Gina brought up that actually all the exciting jobs are coming up in the western world because outsourcing is handling the codemonkey jobs, and now everything here is solving problems or using business know-how. She is absolutely right, and the whole market place has become more interesting for everyone in it (my uni has steadfastly refused to turn us out into codemonkeys, making us take business classes alongside the tradtional programming ones). The gold-rushers who dried up are actually losing out, it's exactly the sort of jobs they would have wanted. More for the rest of us.
I rather think that patent law should come under a "use it or lose it" kind of deal. Defensive patents are a terrible thing: deep pockets combined my ability to come up with any sort of independant thought whatsoever should not equal a patent being awarded. Patent Holding companies are just a ludicrous exploitation of the system: "Oooooo, I'm gonna sue you!" And like you said, patents should be awarded for genuine innovation, not abstract ideas. I'm in two minds on software patents, I think denying our knowledge economy the ability to patent their work is a bad thing, but I think software patents currently allow a way too big a net to be cast.
Getting back to the point: I'd like to see some sort of grace period, say two years, where the patent is assigned to you. You then have to prove that you utilised that patent before the time was up in pursuit of a legitimate business interest. How you quantify this (rather than just making a single token product and going "ta-da") is not something I would know how to do (judge's leeway?), but it would help I think.
I agree with you (apparently not the consensus here). I find it interesting he mentions the word freedom, freedom, freedom, over and over again, but his rhetoric doesn't match his words.
Pretty much everything he says is usually an impingement of the freedom of people in favour of the freedom of software. That seems the wrong way round.
Don't install Java. Don't call it Linux. Don't use Flash. Don't buy DRM.
These are things that rational human beings can make their own decisions about, and they should be allowed to do so. When the population does not like what they are being offered, they can and will push back. If I want to make a website distributing Java Desktop, a flavour of Linux with Flash introductions and a link to the iTMS, let me. That's freedom. Yet all he seems to want to do is go on the offensive. Give me a reason not to do these things, apart from "because I told you so because its not free. Don't you see how bad it is?"
But yes, the Word format is evil. That I will agree with.
"Responding to the risk that the delays might lead some countries to establish their own addressing systems, effectively in effect creating rival internets, [ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey] added: "Anyone can set up an alternative root system - the difference is, our root is the one that a billion people follow.""
This is exactly the sort of quote that will bite you on the ass in six years time.
Patriotism is built-in to the human psyche. Pride might well force the hand of someone like the European Union. Browsers will ask users which root system they want to use by default, and unresolved addresses are then queried against the other system.
Everyone loses.
Twomey should be focused on consolidation, not baiting the upset nations with bullish comments like this.
(and yes, the "It's our Internet, if you don't like it you can git out" are shameful. The Internet was developed for the benefit of all, and the World Wide Web sure as heck isn't American)
The chart only includes paid-for downloads from UK services such as iTunes and OD2, not free plays.
Basically, they tried to bring up-to-date the chart to include whichever format you buy a single in.
I personally think it's sketchy that the single must be physically released the next week: this seems more a ploy to keep retail shops on-side with the chart compilers. It shouldn't matter who it is released to or when, only the total number of purchases after that week.
Have you noticed that the Ask.com sponsored results appear by what looks like stealth? You have to run your eyes all the way across the page to find out which results are sponsored and which aren't, by which point I usually have lost track about which line I'm looking across.
Perhaps I just suck at keeping a stright eye line.
I've been using A9 as my main search engine for about 6 months now. I find the fact that it runs Google searches (which I have found most relevant to my needs), with configurable columns makes my searching life a lot faster.
By default, I have a large Google search column, a thin image search column, and a fairly thin Wikipedia column. Every search entry I run finds related images and definitions for me, without me having to click more. I find this configurability and power something that Google's own "personalized" search lacks.
I like that A9 isn't playing the "look like Google" game, and instead giving some power back to users. Google is great at searching, and the UI worked back when Yahoo! and AltaVista were horribly bloated, but I've been waiting for Google to actually start looking back at their UI again, and they simply haven't. They've poured more tech in, and made little tweaks, but that's about it.
That said, the Google Video store proves that it might be best not to go anywhere near the UI at all.
Disclaimer: I've only ever played Final Fantasy VII, and I don't generally like RPGs.
So, I was thinking about the gambit system, and I have come to the conclusion that it sounds great. RPG combat (from what I've seen, and the games I've seen other people play) is not really a battle of brains, but situational timing. And so being able to program how I would play ahead of time, sounds pretty cool.
I wondered how much this would translate to MMO play. I decided it would make for a horrible game, where you just continually ran forwards and hoped your gambits didn't suck. But what if the gambits were perhaps meshed to a trading card battling type thingy? Maybe that's too geeky.
But if you could program a gambit system for World of Warcraft... I think it would be worryingly simple for some classes like the Rogue. This makes me question my whole love of WoW: why do I love something so very... repetitive? Guild chat and stuff is why I keep coming back, so maybe gambits *would* be better, then I could just sit in the chat room and see whether I live or die.
It's an interesting system, and I'll definitely give the game a rental when it arrives, just to see how it all plays out.
I think it'll be all Luke. As you've come close to saying, this smacks of Smallville - Clark + Luke + Sand.
Chances that Tatooine looks a lot like the Mohave? I wouldn't even take that bet.
I only trust Joss Whedon to pull off a half-baked idea like this. I bet he won't touch it with a ten-foot pole as he's already done sand and teenage heroes.
I like the *idea* of the Walk Of Game, it recognises some of the best the industry has, and has ever had. It's a great thing.
But...
It's in a Sony owned building. Which is both a little shady, the inclusion of Everquest (against Ultima Online or Meridian 59 for being the first real MMORPG, or WoW for being the best and one with the most players) is only going to help calls of favouritism. The fact these stones are laid inside a building means that they have a real non-permanency about them: they could easily be picked up and removed at any time. And anyway, do we really want to honour games, rather than their creators? Films are just as collaborative as games, but the Walk of Fame only honours the actors and directors.
San Francisco has long been proud to be the technical centre of the Western world: why doesn't it install a Walk Of Tech? We could be celebrating Gates, Jobs, Wright and Carmack all in one go, permanently and emphatically.
Because Starcraft is still absolutely huge in the Eastern markets. In terms of RTS power, nothing comes close to Starcraft, including the C&C series.
As for Everquest, I can't say I'm sure why this made the cut. Ultima Online was there first, WoW has done it best and opened it up to huge markets, EQ was just a stepping stone.
I did some writing for a couple of print magazines in the UK. As the new guy, I'd be handed the stuff no-one else liked writing, and that included previews.
Every editor I spoke to told me to be positive. This is not the same as jacking up hype from the PR guys: I never even spoke to them. Most of the time they'll talk to someone higher up because they don't know who I am, and then I'd get the preview handed off to me. Most of the PR junk we recieved was exactly that: junk. I found it difficult to make any more favourable words simply because I had a Spiderman Web-Shooting Gun.
The reason I was told to be positive is that there is no reason to be overly critical of preview code. Most preview code looks like ass, plays like crap and has some show-stopping bugs. That's because it isn't finished. The idea of preview code is to show ideas and direction to the journalist. Exciting games get more column inches because they show better ideas and promise, *not* because their code didn't suck. And a lot of games that have very poor preview code brush up. Development is organic. You can't be critical of every piece of code that comes through the door: it's all crap. You pick out the good bits, show it to the reader and say "you might like this when it comes out." Some games are of interest to more people than others, and might get more column inches.
Until a game ships, it never deserves derision, just encouragement. It would be very ego-centric to kick the shit out of every game that I recieved just because I could in the name of "truth".
Aha, you win. You need to click into or hover over the element to get focus on it. Fact is, I didn't expect to click in that white space just for fun, if I'm going there, I'm going to be clicking a link, not scrolling. It's crazy to expect my mouse to be there, especially on something like a Mac where people generally surf at less than full-screen.
I think it's about time Microsoft hired a UI team. Or if they have one, get them the hell back from the 10 year holiday they've been taking after Windows 95.
If you've played with Vista and see the magical disappearing menu bars and buttons, (TIP: hiding functionality under the banner of relevance is damn confusing to EVERYONE) you'll see that Windows Live seems pretty indiciative of a company that has no clue what thir UI should be doing.
That said, Google Video could have done with the GMail team's sparkle. Seems like a lot of companies are simply getting it wrong right now.
Agreed. It's impossible to know where you are in the list, I can't use my mousewheel on it, it's not where I expected it to be... pretty much every single mistake Flash designers were making back in the late 90s.
Just because it's in AJAX doesn't make it any more of a good idea.
I guess what they were trying to do was just get the adverts always in view, something that could have been achieved with CSS and web browsers that support CSS properly. Oh wait, hang on...
I find it very difficult to type without looking at the screen. I think the vast majority also find this a problem. My internal voice is instead reciting what is being typed than what is being said by the lecturer. This is why pen and paper still works better, because 98% of students can write while still listening.
A poster above replied that if primary school students were given laptops to grow up with, they would do fine. I totally agree, it's a useful skill that you can learn. But by 18, it is going to take a long time to make that switch, when you're trying to get your head up to speed on the actual concepts you're being taught. Anything that gets in the way of that is detrimental.
If it works well for you, go for it:D But I get the feeling that it won't work for a lot of people. I don't think we'll be seeing 50%+ laptops in classrooms for at least another 4 or 5 years.
"Ok, Ive had about enough of these ill-educated, pansy answers to a solution to move foward instead of backward in our ability to teach and learn."
Please enlighten me on what your laptop enables you to do in class that pen and paper does not, and then let me know how that doesn't divert your attention from what is being said.
Laptops don't help in lectures. I've not seen one professor who has ever asked me to bring one to a lecture, and hearing the tap-tap-tap of someone not even looking up from their screen must be distracting. People with laptops, even with best intentions, have their attention split two ways, and it doesn't work. If you want to absorb what you're being told in lectures, pen and paper, or better, pre-printed lecture notes and annotating them helps you stay focused on the lecturer.
What the uni really wants is for students without computers to not have an excuse to dodge certain things. Most universities force you to check your email and so forth, and I know a lot of departments (even classical ones such as History) that will only accept typed essays. Campus IT provisions usually vary quite widely, in both their scale and availability. Students without computers are definitely disadvantaged, if my campus computer suite shuts at 9PM, I'm going to be SOL.
The laptop is just because it's easier to fit into dorms, and lug from home to uni and back again. I know my uni has been recommending laptops over desktops for years, soley for the ease of transport aspect.
"Will the consumer once again have to someday replace their iTunes track just like they had to replace their LP, cassette, and CD only to get their music on their hot new non Apple mp3 phone of the future?"
What, so you mean, we all expected Apple to break the cycle from the dawn of the gramophone? Music quality will continue to get better, music portability will continue to get better, yada yada yada. No-one forced people to upgrade their music libraries from cassettes to CDs, they did it because they wanted better sound quality. Soon enough, iTunes AACs will be superceded with something worthy of a switch, and we'll all buy our libraries again.
As much as I love Apple, I have never confused them with some sort of magical beast that has technology that will last for all time. This is a very silly story designed to stir the pot.
No, *love* (not just sex) does have a place in the game. In fact, love is part of major quest lines. The farmer's children in Elwynn, the lady and the guard in Redridge, the orc and her lover I forget where, any of the Warlock succubus quests...
Love, a subset of which is sex, is dealt with over and over again in Warcraft. WoW is not a vaccuum where love "has no place in the game". There are children in it, for goodness sakes. They appeared asexually I guess?
You're confusing being gay as meaning you have sex with the same gender all the time. Being gay means you find meaningful relationships with the same gender. You want to spend your time/life with them. Sure, that includes sex, but that isn't the whole reason you've devoted 60 years to your partner.
This sort of ignorance (gay means sex, not relationships) is fine, keep it to yourself, and you aren't Blizzard. Who cares. But Blizzard swinging the punishment hammer on the minority who has done nothing wrong? "Don't not be a white-middle-class-straight-guy-with-funky-hair! That's going to cause us trouble!". That's freaking terrible. Screw them. There is a whole lot of discrimination, its just that Blizzard is coming down on the wrong side.
Slashdot Mirror
Dearth of games while developers switch all their production teams to the next generation of consoles that aren't out to much of the market yet.
...seriously, this is exactly what happens during this time. I don't see how this is surprising.
News at 11.
I agree, there are a certain number of, shall we say, shallow students, that were following the smell of money. When I applied to uni (god, 5 years ago now...), there was quite a stuck-up guy who said, and I remember it quite well "I chose Computer Systems Engineering rather than Computer Science because so many people are doing CS that I'll get more money this way".
I didn't like him because he was annoying and felt very superior to everyone, but he can't have been an isolated incident of people following the money rather than doing it for the love. You could at least do a degree you enjoyed and then sell out later (see: history majors taking accounting jobs).
I noticed Gina brought up that actually all the exciting jobs are coming up in the western world because outsourcing is handling the codemonkey jobs, and now everything here is solving problems or using business know-how. She is absolutely right, and the whole market place has become more interesting for everyone in it (my uni has steadfastly refused to turn us out into codemonkeys, making us take business classes alongside the tradtional programming ones). The gold-rushers who dried up are actually losing out, it's exactly the sort of jobs they would have wanted. More for the rest of us.
I rather think that patent law should come under a "use it or lose it" kind of deal. Defensive patents are a terrible thing: deep pockets combined my ability to come up with any sort of independant thought whatsoever should not equal a patent being awarded. Patent Holding companies are just a ludicrous exploitation of the system: "Oooooo, I'm gonna sue you!" And like you said, patents should be awarded for genuine innovation, not abstract ideas. I'm in two minds on software patents, I think denying our knowledge economy the ability to patent their work is a bad thing, but I think software patents currently allow a way too big a net to be cast.
Getting back to the point: I'd like to see some sort of grace period, say two years, where the patent is assigned to you. You then have to prove that you utilised that patent before the time was up in pursuit of a legitimate business interest. How you quantify this (rather than just making a single token product and going "ta-da") is not something I would know how to do (judge's leeway?), but it would help I think.
What do you reckon?
I agree with you (apparently not the consensus here). I find it interesting he mentions the word freedom, freedom, freedom, over and over again, but his rhetoric doesn't match his words.
Pretty much everything he says is usually an impingement of the freedom of people in favour of the freedom of software. That seems the wrong way round.
Don't install Java.
Don't call it Linux.
Don't use Flash.
Don't buy DRM.
These are things that rational human beings can make their own decisions about, and they should be allowed to do so. When the population does not like what they are being offered, they can and will push back. If I want to make a website distributing Java Desktop, a flavour of Linux with Flash introductions and a link to the iTMS, let me. That's freedom. Yet all he seems to want to do is go on the offensive. Give me a reason not to do these things, apart from "because I told you so because its not free. Don't you see how bad it is?"
But yes, the Word format is evil. That I will agree with.
"Responding to the risk that the delays might lead some countries to establish their own addressing systems, effectively in effect creating rival internets, [ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey] added: "Anyone can set up an alternative root system - the difference is, our root is the one that a billion people follow.""
This is exactly the sort of quote that will bite you on the ass in six years time.
Patriotism is built-in to the human psyche. Pride might well force the hand of someone like the European Union. Browsers will ask users which root system they want to use by default, and unresolved addresses are then queried against the other system.
Everyone loses.
Twomey should be focused on consolidation, not baiting the upset nations with bullish comments like this.
(and yes, the "It's our Internet, if you don't like it you can git out" are shameful. The Internet was developed for the benefit of all, and the World Wide Web sure as heck isn't American)
The chart only includes paid-for downloads from UK services such as iTunes and OD2, not free plays.
Basically, they tried to bring up-to-date the chart to include whichever format you buy a single in.
I personally think it's sketchy that the single must be physically released the next week: this seems more a ploy to keep retail shops on-side with the chart compilers. It shouldn't matter who it is released to or when, only the total number of purchases after that week.
Ahhhh.
No, I'm not colourblind. But Ask.com forces me to go to uk.ask.com by default. Which doesn't have the blue background that the US site has.
How bizarre.
Have you noticed that the Ask.com sponsored results appear by what looks like stealth? You have to run your eyes all the way across the page to find out which results are sponsored and which aren't, by which point I usually have lost track about which line I'm looking across.
Perhaps I just suck at keeping a stright eye line.
I've been using A9 as my main search engine for about 6 months now. I find the fact that it runs Google searches (which I have found most relevant to my needs), with configurable columns makes my searching life a lot faster.
By default, I have a large Google search column, a thin image search column, and a fairly thin Wikipedia column. Every search entry I run finds related images and definitions for me, without me having to click more. I find this configurability and power something that Google's own "personalized" search lacks.
I like that A9 isn't playing the "look like Google" game, and instead giving some power back to users. Google is great at searching, and the UI worked back when Yahoo! and AltaVista were horribly bloated, but I've been waiting for Google to actually start looking back at their UI again, and they simply haven't. They've poured more tech in, and made little tweaks, but that's about it.
That said, the Google Video store proves that it might be best not to go anywhere near the UI at all.
Oh cool, thanks! I do have a PSP, I'll check that out :)
Disclaimer: I've only ever played Final Fantasy VII, and I don't generally like RPGs.
So, I was thinking about the gambit system, and I have come to the conclusion that it sounds great. RPG combat (from what I've seen, and the games I've seen other people play) is not really a battle of brains, but situational timing. And so being able to program how I would play ahead of time, sounds pretty cool.
I wondered how much this would translate to MMO play. I decided it would make for a horrible game, where you just continually ran forwards and hoped your gambits didn't suck. But what if the gambits were perhaps meshed to a trading card battling type thingy? Maybe that's too geeky.
But if you could program a gambit system for World of Warcraft... I think it would be worryingly simple for some classes like the Rogue. This makes me question my whole love of WoW: why do I love something so very... repetitive? Guild chat and stuff is why I keep coming back, so maybe gambits *would* be better, then I could just sit in the chat room and see whether I live or die.
It's an interesting system, and I'll definitely give the game a rental when it arrives, just to see how it all plays out.
I think it'll be all Luke. As you've come close to saying, this smacks of Smallville - Clark + Luke + Sand.
Chances that Tatooine looks a lot like the Mohave? I wouldn't even take that bet.
I only trust Joss Whedon to pull off a half-baked idea like this. I bet he won't touch it with a ten-foot pole as he's already done sand and teenage heroes.
I like the *idea* of the Walk Of Game, it recognises some of the best the industry has, and has ever had. It's a great thing.
But...
It's in a Sony owned building. Which is both a little shady, the inclusion of Everquest (against Ultima Online or Meridian 59 for being the first real MMORPG, or WoW for being the best and one with the most players) is only going to help calls of favouritism. The fact these stones are laid inside a building means that they have a real non-permanency about them: they could easily be picked up and removed at any time. And anyway, do we really want to honour games, rather than their creators? Films are just as collaborative as games, but the Walk of Fame only honours the actors and directors.
San Francisco has long been proud to be the technical centre of the Western world: why doesn't it install a Walk Of Tech? We could be celebrating Gates, Jobs, Wright and Carmack all in one go, permanently and emphatically.
Because Starcraft is still absolutely huge in the Eastern markets. In terms of RTS power, nothing comes close to Starcraft, including the C&C series.
As for Everquest, I can't say I'm sure why this made the cut. Ultima Online was there first, WoW has done it best and opened it up to huge markets, EQ was just a stepping stone.
Dude, we're talking about previews, not reviews.
I did some writing for a couple of print magazines in the UK. As the new guy, I'd be handed the stuff no-one else liked writing, and that included previews.
Every editor I spoke to told me to be positive. This is not the same as jacking up hype from the PR guys: I never even spoke to them. Most of the time they'll talk to someone higher up because they don't know who I am, and then I'd get the preview handed off to me. Most of the PR junk we recieved was exactly that: junk. I found it difficult to make any more favourable words simply because I had a Spiderman Web-Shooting Gun.
The reason I was told to be positive is that there is no reason to be overly critical of preview code. Most preview code looks like ass, plays like crap and has some show-stopping bugs. That's because it isn't finished. The idea of preview code is to show ideas and direction to the journalist. Exciting games get more column inches because they show better ideas and promise, *not* because their code didn't suck. And a lot of games that have very poor preview code brush up. Development is organic. You can't be critical of every piece of code that comes through the door: it's all crap. You pick out the good bits, show it to the reader and say "you might like this when it comes out." Some games are of interest to more people than others, and might get more column inches.
Until a game ships, it never deserves derision, just encouragement. It would be very ego-centric to kick the shit out of every game that I recieved just because I could in the name of "truth".
Aha, you win. You need to click into or hover over the element to get focus on it. Fact is, I didn't expect to click in that white space just for fun, if I'm going there, I'm going to be clicking a link, not scrolling. It's crazy to expect my mouse to be there, especially on something like a Mac where people generally surf at less than full-screen.
I think it's about time Microsoft hired a UI team. Or if they have one, get them the hell back from the 10 year holiday they've been taking after Windows 95.
If you've played with Vista and see the magical disappearing menu bars and buttons, (TIP: hiding functionality under the banner of relevance is damn confusing to EVERYONE) you'll see that Windows Live seems pretty indiciative of a company that has no clue what thir UI should be doing.
That said, Google Video could have done with the GMail team's sparkle. Seems like a lot of companies are simply getting it wrong right now.
Agreed. It's impossible to know where you are in the list, I can't use my mousewheel on it, it's not where I expected it to be... pretty much every single mistake Flash designers were making back in the late 90s.
Just because it's in AJAX doesn't make it any more of a good idea.
I guess what they were trying to do was just get the adverts always in view, something that could have been achieved with CSS and web browsers that support CSS properly. Oh wait, hang on...
d00d, i loled. for realz!!!ELEVEN11
Can you imagine Xbox Live smacktalking 13 year old's combined with Barrens chat? Surely that would be the most offensive place in the whole world.
It would make your ears bleed.
Your touch typing is better than mine :D
:D But I get the feeling that it won't work for a lot of people. I don't think we'll be seeing 50%+ laptops in classrooms for at least another 4 or 5 years.
I find it very difficult to type without looking at the screen. I think the vast majority also find this a problem. My internal voice is instead reciting what is being typed than what is being said by the lecturer. This is why pen and paper still works better, because 98% of students can write while still listening.
A poster above replied that if primary school students were given laptops to grow up with, they would do fine. I totally agree, it's a useful skill that you can learn. But by 18, it is going to take a long time to make that switch, when you're trying to get your head up to speed on the actual concepts you're being taught. Anything that gets in the way of that is detrimental.
If it works well for you, go for it
"Ok, Ive had about enough of these ill-educated, pansy answers to a solution to move foward instead of backward in our ability to teach and learn."
Please enlighten me on what your laptop enables you to do in class that pen and paper does not, and then let me know how that doesn't divert your attention from what is being said.
Laptops don't help in lectures. I've not seen one professor who has ever asked me to bring one to a lecture, and hearing the tap-tap-tap of someone not even looking up from their screen must be distracting. People with laptops, even with best intentions, have their attention split two ways, and it doesn't work. If you want to absorb what you're being told in lectures, pen and paper, or better, pre-printed lecture notes and annotating them helps you stay focused on the lecturer.
What the uni really wants is for students without computers to not have an excuse to dodge certain things. Most universities force you to check your email and so forth, and I know a lot of departments (even classical ones such as History) that will only accept typed essays. Campus IT provisions usually vary quite widely, in both their scale and availability. Students without computers are definitely disadvantaged, if my campus computer suite shuts at 9PM, I'm going to be SOL.
The laptop is just because it's easier to fit into dorms, and lug from home to uni and back again. I know my uni has been recommending laptops over desktops for years, soley for the ease of transport aspect.
"Will the consumer once again have to someday replace their iTunes track just like they had to replace their LP, cassette, and CD only to get their music on their hot new non Apple mp3 phone of the future?"
What, so you mean, we all expected Apple to break the cycle from the dawn of the gramophone? Music quality will continue to get better, music portability will continue to get better, yada yada yada. No-one forced people to upgrade their music libraries from cassettes to CDs, they did it because they wanted better sound quality. Soon enough, iTunes AACs will be superceded with something worthy of a switch, and we'll all buy our libraries again.
As much as I love Apple, I have never confused them with some sort of magical beast that has technology that will last for all time. This is a very silly story designed to stir the pot.
No, *love* (not just sex) does have a place in the game. In fact, love is part of major quest lines. The farmer's children in Elwynn, the lady and the guard in Redridge, the orc and her lover I forget where, any of the Warlock succubus quests...
Love, a subset of which is sex, is dealt with over and over again in Warcraft. WoW is not a vaccuum where love "has no place in the game". There are children in it, for goodness sakes. They appeared asexually I guess?
You're confusing being gay as meaning you have sex with the same gender all the time. Being gay means you find meaningful relationships with the same gender. You want to spend your time/life with them. Sure, that includes sex, but that isn't the whole reason you've devoted 60 years to your partner.
This sort of ignorance (gay means sex, not relationships) is fine, keep it to yourself, and you aren't Blizzard. Who cares. But Blizzard swinging the punishment hammer on the minority who has done nothing wrong? "Don't not be a white-middle-class-straight-guy-with-funky-hair! That's going to cause us trouble!". That's freaking terrible. Screw them. There is a whole lot of discrimination, its just that Blizzard is coming down on the wrong side.