there were also those booths that took a digital pic of you and printed it with the same 'technology' on big (in order to have a recognizeable face) posters (the 'wanted, dead or alive' ones were very popular) for a sizeable amount of $$$, I think they were popular in 1980 or so.
Around 1985-86 I found a cool program for my MSX that did something similar, you used a worn ribbon (so it was sort of medium/light grey) and it printed several times on the same row (graphically), after a loooong time (and lots of noise) you had a pseudo-greyscale image that looked actually pretty nice (for a 9pin low-dpi printer obv)
#1 I'm running RH9, not fedora #2 I want Galeon 1.2.12/1.2.13 (should be released soon), not 1.3.x (post 1.2 they removed a lot of useful features and changed the behaviour in ways I don't like)
galeon-1.2.11 galeon-1.2.12 galeon cvs (should be 1.2.13)
and I was NOT able to get a compile to finish (despite fiddling with configure etc.) with Mozilla 1.4 or 1.5 (errors all the time). Galeon 2.whatever works with mozilla 1.5 but it's way too limited compared to galeon 1.2 in terms of settings and useability (come on, ctrl-t to open a new tab doesn't set the focus to the location bar? are the devs even using it?)
recompile using the mozilla nss and nspr libraries (there was a post on the gaim mailing list about how to do that) which is much easier to get to work.
Now, if anybody could find out how to compile galeon 1.2.x with Mozilla 1.4 or, better, 1.5 I'm all ears, I've tried the CVS version and no dice (and no, I'm not moving to Galeon 2, which is FAR less useable than galeon 1.2, I'm wondering if the developers actually -use- the thing)
#1 (as said in the article) it's pretty much impossible to use when running, usually the player fills in the buffer, and when it's exhausted it just freezes (usually after 20-30 minutes)
#2 no cross fading! This is a major drawback for trance, compilations, live albums etc. etc., the ipod seems to pause for a second or so between tracks (presumably to buffer them)
f-zero gx is the only game that in my gaming career ever caused me RSI problems: I've stopped playing it 3 weeks ago (played it only for a week or so) and my left thumb STILL hurts when I do certain movements.
I do believe it's due to the design of the GC controller: my hands are fine on the xbox (played KOTOR & halo before F-zero GX with no issues) and the ps2 ones (tons of miami vice and now ssx 3), but the GC is way too small for them and I guess that's what causing the problem (I do have fairly sizeable hands, the original xbox controller was probably the perfect size, but even the new S ones seem to be fairly well designed).
The GC controller seems to have been created with an 8 year old's hands in mind or something, I've ordered a ps2-gc adapter (to use my ps2 controller on the gc, I'd have preferred an xbox-gc one but I couldn't find any) and we'll see how it goes...
BC drivers licenses also have a 2d barcode silkscreened on the back, they could be scanning that instead of the mag stripe (and it'd be much harder to 'accidentally' erase)
Re:I don't mean to gripe but....
on
GIMP goes SVG
·
· Score: 1
actually I thought the second tutorial in the bug that was classified as a dupe was pretty good in terms of showing what adjustment layers are (for a much better exposition my bible when retouching my digital camera shots is Katrin Eismann's)
Basically with adjustment layers & masks you don't have to touch your original image (base layer) at all for correcting things like levels, curves, colour casts etc. etc. etc. and you can use masks to, say, selectively unsharpen only parts of the image, colour adjust others, highlight yet others etc. etc. and it's all in an adjustment layers so if you change your mind you can just hide it or remove it whenever you want and wherever you are in your retouching process.
I am a BIG TIME newbie when it comes to PS, so I doubt I'd be able to explain things very well, that's why I haven't posted to the bugs or anything: I'd just like to say 'trust me, adj layers are really important & useful':):):)
I'm not sure if you are joking, but if you're not: ever heard of urtext scores? they are in the public domain (and readily available online and from vendors like CD sheet music), so no copyright issues there: in any case it's not like you'd allow people to copy files off these handhelds (you'd disable the app launcher etc. etc.)
Re:I don't mean to gripe but....
on
GIMP goes SVG
·
· Score: 1
there is already a bug for it set with a 'Future' milestone (last updated in July)
and from the various comments in them it doesn't seem the gimp developers really either understand what this functionality is really about or how useful it is.
I am really surprised that the gimp team doesn't have some pro PhotoShop users on board to give feedback on -really important- missing features. At least they could pick up some good books on PS photo retouching (probably what 90% of the users would like to do with Gimp, honestly, does anybody think more than 1-2% would use this SVG thing?) and read up on it...
I don't mean to rib on open source projects, most of the time they are great because the developers are the primary consumers (Apache, Linux,...) but when it comes to vertical apps often the dev team could use the input of some experienced users so needed functionality would be implemented before whiz-bang stuff...
I know, I should be grateful (and I am) but it really peeves me how such a hugely important piece of functionality is in limbo and other much less useful things (but with probably a more 'cool' quotient) are going in...
well, if you do things right (the synchronization/messages in the concert hall do -not- go out of the hall itself) and you put a pinger in the foyer, if you receive any pongs it means that somebody has 'forgotten' to return a device...
preload the score on the devices and broadcast a synchronization signal? (you'd probably need somebody to follow the score somewhere and, say, tap a key every 8 measures, don't think it could be done automatically).
The screen is a bit small but with a half-vga resolution (320x480) in landscape mode it should be feasible to show 2-3 staffs and at least 3-4 measures.
The user would probably also be able to select what instruments they're interested in (say, violins & brass, or choir & organ, or whatever) because you wouldn't obviously be able to show all the staffs at the same time.
I'd find this much more useful than comments like the ones written in the article.
So, your account wouldn't activate until you'd responded with the code they mailed you to your home address? So you could verify that you gave out real contact information?
obviously the account would be activated via an online signup page (instant gratification and all that) but it would be marked as 'unverified' and if the person doesn't register with the code they received in the mail, it will be automatically suspended after, say, 30 days. For infractions done by 'unverified' accounts there would be no jail, the account would be closed and the c/c number blacklisted (at least for 30 days).
Of course, it's possible that it will work just as well as it does in the military and in prison, and dad will take it out of little Timmy's hide so he can be sure that big sister Ginny isn't going to get any ideas.
Let's face it, multi-subscriber-on-the-same-cc is not a very common situation, and I do believe that the military-like deterrent will work.
f you crossed a line, then you know better where the line is. You'll be more careful and be more likely to get away with it next time.
it also depends a lot from how the game laws are implemented: if they are fuzzy, well, they need to be tightened up...
It's what you say to other people, and how your actions interfere with *their* gaming experience, that can't be directly controlled by the developers.
exactly, that's why you have an in-game 'police' (come on, some people would LOVE to be able to roleplay a cop/guard) to deal with complaints and so on: it would just be like a mini-version of our society. Obviously there would also be 'gods/wizards' (paid support people) you can appeal to if you feel you've been wronged (to have some checks-n-balances on the power of the cops/judges).
If you feel like it you could also make karma-reincarnation a part of the game: when you die you might have to stay in 'hell' for a little while depending on your 'reputation' or when you are reincarnated you'd get all sorts of bonuses if you were 'good'... I think this area hasn't been explored very much in current MMPORGs.
How do you go about punishing people? How do you decide who "started it" and who is "right"? Have you come up with a concept for a trial system to go with your virtual jail? Will my law-abiding, upstanding community member of a character have to serve jury duty?
yep, in my 'ideal MMPORG' (it'd be fun working on it, I'm also a network programmer by trade) you'd have an organization very similar to the current society (note that you could have the positions part-time or full-time):
- guards (basically a position who pays a certain amount of gp, has minimal 'power' but allows for 'citizen's arrest')
- cops (your plain vanilla cop, they are allowed to arrest people, have a few additional powers like instantaneous travelling, maybe examining game event logs, with a subpoena they'd be allowed to examine a player's chat/action log as well)
- judges (self explanatory, trials and everything, can issue subpoenas, etc. etc.)
- court system: village court, region court, supreme court
- politics/parliament (for laws)
- Deity/Wizard (paid tech support people, you can appeal to them and they have absolute power over the game)
This is getting kind of long for a post on/., if you'd like to we can discuss this some more via email...
You introduce this "deterrent" and you'll deter all right... you'll deter people from even signing up for the game at all
I disagree: a lot of people would love to be able to play in an MMPORG that's not a 'free for all', it's the same reason why tendentially people prefer a democratic society to anarchy ruled by gangs (which is what most MMPORGs really are). In any case if the penalties are balanced just right a life of crime could be a roleplayable (if very risky) choice.
I believe most MMPORGs nowadays are barely scratching the possibiliti
I don't mean to gripe but....
on
GIMP goes SVG
·
· Score: 4, Informative
This is not flamebait, but why instead of focusing development efforts on stuff that has marginal appeal at best, the developers don't try to implement the #1 missing feature in GIMP (for photo retouching, IMHO of course)
Adjustment layers! (with masks)
and no, you can't really 'emulate' them with the currently available toolset unfortunately (remember that they have masks and are non-destructive).
I love GIMP but the absence of this feature (which is not exactly a new thing, even PSPro has it!) is really killing me...
So what you're actually doing is jailing the credit card number, not the person.
I would hope that the person doesn't give their c/c number to everybody... in any case I'd jail the person+address, not the c/c number (as they could have more than one c/c). This obviously implies that to subscribe to 'my' MMPORG you'd have to give out your real contact information.
What if everyone in the family has an account, using the same number? Do they all get jailed when little Timmy thinks harrassment is fun?
the whole family wouldn't be jailed, only Timmy's character would be jailed: the rest of the family wouldn't be able to create new characters while the punishment lasts, though.
I don't see the problem: actually if you have a family to back you you can be sure that little Timmy won't be a bad boy any time soon: call this a 'compound punishment' or something:)
How do you prevent a bigger Timmy from borrowing his friend's info?
again, what's the problem here? if the friend is so stupid to give his info out, he's gonna pay for his mistake (and likely won't repeat it in the future).
If you can just pretend to be someone else for a while, and evade punishment, what's to prevent you?
You can be sure that the 'someone else' you pretended to be is a real person in real life which will obviously deal with you out of band. If your account was hacked, instead, well, there are two possibilities: #1 the system is hackable (and it's the developers' fault, patch, no penalties issued), #2 you didn't take care of your account (shared the password etc.) in that case it's too bad.
The whole point of the 'virtual jail' is not really to be part of the gaming experience, it's to provide a real deterrent to game-disrupting behaviour.
Personally you haven't convinced me yet that any of these side effects are necessarily bad for the MMPORG as a whole: the way I see it they'd lead to people being more careful about their accounts and -definitely- having a strong incentive not to break the in-game laws...
How many people will go through 40 hours of "jail" rather than just start a new account?
I don't think you understood my post: if you have a jail sentence you would not be ALLOWED to start a new account (after all the billing information would stay the same). Your only options would be to either serve the sentence or to stop playing the game altogether. If you cancelled the account and tried to reopen a new one you would still have your jail sentence to go through as well.
Also you'd obviously implement some administrative punishment, so besides going to jail the convict would also get their objects/gold garnished etc. etc. etc.
It'd be interesting to see if this would create a reality similar to real life (revolving-door recidivism) or not and the relevant implications.
a painless execution is the absolute worst punishment any game society can impose on the characters who are its citizens. Torture is not an option. Imprisonment and fines can be imposed, true, but as soon as the player behind the character finds that these punishments are too onerous, she can simply terminate her account
I don't agree, actually IMHO 'virtual jail' -is- the worst possible punishment if implemented properly: while you are sentenced you
- can't create new identities or log in as a different character (assuming they're all in your name in terms of billing) for as long as the sentence lasts
- can't just leave the computer on and walk away, the sentence time would go down only if you are performing some action (ideally not fun, say, playing tic-tac-toe games with the computer which is not easily scriptable and really boring: every move gives you, say, 5 seconds off your sentence).
- can't chat with fellow players or move about, you'd be put in a virtual cell in a virtual prison.
Also I really can't figure out why MMPORGs don't implement police/jails etc. after all you could have all the various dynamics that currently exist in society (punishment for crimes, opportunities for people who like to play cops/guards, risk/reward for trying to organize a breakout, risk/reward for accepting bribes etc. etc. etc.)
If you delete the player account somebody will just recreate a new one and, helped by their guild, fairly rapidly regain lost levels/items: a sentence of, say, 40 hours of jail (tic-tac-toe) would be much worse, don't you think?
same here, it's very good for morale and doesn't really cost the company that much, it's a win-win for everybody... I think a lot of companies are doing it, at least judging from how many high-tech-worker-looking people were present at the last matrix/lotr/sw we went to...
I think that the Zire71 is even better, besides the nice screen you also get the built-in digital camera and a joystick-shaped navigator which works very well for games...
really a fantastic handheld, pity for the battery life, though, 3 hours doesn't really cut it in a palm (heck, it's lowish even for a laptop!). My lowly IIIc goes weeks without a charge...
That's right, ads. I have yet to see an online yellow pages that has any ads for the companies listed.
the yellow pages I use for my region have 'sponsored' businesses that get their results on top (in a separate box) -and- have links to their website: it can still use some work (not that many plumbers with a website:) but it's not too bad.
The only advantage of the paper yellow pages is that you can see how much the business paid for the ad (by its size) while online they're all exactly the same (but you can see how much they paid for their website by its quality)
how they make sure that this contest (and others like it) are not rigged (say, by somebody at the production plant 'accidentally' taking the cans and giving them to friends, like it happened in that huuuge McDonald scam a little while ago)?
How are they going to ensure a random distribution of these cans across the whole country?
Slashdot Mirror
going a bit OT...
there were also those booths that took a digital pic of you and printed it with the same 'technology' on big (in order to have a recognizeable face) posters (the 'wanted, dead or alive' ones were very popular) for a sizeable amount of $$$, I think they were popular in 1980 or so.
Around 1985-86 I found a cool program for my MSX that did something similar, you used a worn ribbon (so it was sort of medium/light grey) and it printed several times on the same row (graphically), after a loooong time (and lots of noise) you had a pseudo-greyscale image that looked actually pretty nice (for a 9pin low-dpi printer obv)
#1 I'm running RH9, not fedora
#2 I want Galeon 1.2.12/1.2.13 (should be released soon), not 1.3.x (post 1.2 they removed a lot of useful features and changed the behaviour in ways I don't like)
have you tried to do that? I've tried
galeon-1.2.11
galeon-1.2.12
galeon cvs (should be 1.2.13)
and I was NOT able to get a compile to finish (despite fiddling with configure etc.) with Mozilla 1.4 or 1.5 (errors all the time). Galeon 2.whatever works with mozilla 1.5 but it's way too limited compared to galeon 1.2 in terms of settings and useability (come on, ctrl-t to open a new tab doesn't set the focus to the location bar? are the devs even using it?)
recompile using the mozilla nss and nspr libraries (there was a post on the gaim mailing list about how to do that) which is much easier to get to work.
Now, if anybody could find out how to compile galeon 1.2.x with Mozilla 1.4 or, better, 1.5 I'm all ears, I've tried the CVS version and no dice (and no, I'm not moving to Galeon 2, which is FAR less useable than galeon 1.2, I'm wondering if the developers actually -use- the thing)
#1 (as said in the article) it's pretty much impossible to use when running, usually the player fills in the buffer, and when it's exhausted it just freezes (usually after 20-30 minutes)
#2 no cross fading! This is a major drawback for trance, compilations, live albums etc. etc., the ipod seems to pause for a second or so between tracks (presumably to buffer them)
f-zero gx is the only game that in my gaming career ever caused me RSI problems: I've stopped playing it 3 weeks ago (played it only for a week or so) and my left thumb STILL hurts when I do certain movements.
I do believe it's due to the design of the GC controller: my hands are fine on the xbox (played KOTOR & halo before F-zero GX with no issues) and the ps2 ones (tons of miami vice and now ssx 3), but the GC is way too small for them and I guess that's what causing the problem (I do have fairly sizeable hands, the original xbox controller was probably the perfect size, but even the new S ones seem to be fairly well designed).
The GC controller seems to have been created with an 8 year old's hands in mind or something, I've ordered a ps2-gc adapter (to use my ps2 controller on the gc, I'd have preferred an xbox-gc one but I couldn't find any) and we'll see how it goes...
does anybody know if anything like this is planned for Non Sequitur? (my fave comic)
# NO drinking after 2
wrong, Vancouver for several months has had 4am closures for bars on Granville st.
# NO drinking after midnight on sundays.
no idea
# NO selling of hard alchohol except in government liqour stores
wrong: this was changed a year+ ago, now even 'beer & wine' stores can sell the hard stuff.
# NO drinking in public
true (but people do tend to get creative, I've seen people on the SkyTrain putting a beer can inside a coffee mug)
# NO smoking in bars
I'm 99% sure this is wrong: there was a bylaw a while ago about this but IIRC it was repealed due to lost business etc.
BC drivers licenses also have a 2d barcode silkscreened on the back, they could be scanning that instead of the mag stripe (and it'd be much harder to 'accidentally' erase)
actually I thought the second tutorial in the bug that was classified as a dupe was pretty good in terms of showing what adjustment layers are (for a much better exposition my bible when retouching my digital camera shots is Katrin Eismann's)
:):):)
Basically with adjustment layers & masks you don't have to touch your original image (base layer) at all for correcting things like levels, curves, colour casts etc. etc. etc. and you can use masks to, say, selectively unsharpen only parts of the image, colour adjust others, highlight yet others etc. etc. and it's all in an adjustment layers so if you change your mind you can just hide it or remove it whenever you want and wherever you are in your retouching process.
I am a BIG TIME newbie when it comes to PS, so I doubt I'd be able to explain things very well, that's why I haven't posted to the bugs or anything: I'd just like to say 'trust me, adj layers are really important & useful'
I'm not sure if you are joking, but if you're not: ever heard of urtext scores? they are in the public domain (and readily available online and from vendors like CD sheet music), so no copyright issues there: in any case it's not like you'd allow people to copy files off these handhelds (you'd disable the app launcher etc. etc.)
there is already a bug for it set with a 'Future' milestone (last updated in July)
...) but when it comes to vertical apps often the dev team could use the input of some experienced users so needed functionality would be implemented before whiz-bang stuff...
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79025
a better bug (marked as a dupe of this one) with links to tutorials etc. is
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=98262
and from the various comments in them it doesn't seem the gimp developers really either understand what this functionality is really about or how useful it is.
I am really surprised that the gimp team doesn't have some pro PhotoShop users on board to give feedback on -really important- missing features. At least they could pick up some good books on PS photo retouching (probably what 90% of the users would like to do with Gimp, honestly, does anybody think more than 1-2% would use this SVG thing?) and read up on it...
I don't mean to rib on open source projects, most of the time they are great because the developers are the primary consumers (Apache, Linux,
I know, I should be grateful (and I am) but it really peeves me how such a hugely important piece of functionality is in limbo and other much less useful things (but with probably a more 'cool' quotient) are going in...
too desirable for theives
well, if you do things right (the synchronization/messages in the concert hall do -not- go out of the hall itself) and you put a pinger in the foyer, if you receive any pongs it means that somebody has 'forgotten' to return a device...
preload the score on the devices and broadcast a synchronization signal? (you'd probably need somebody to follow the score somewhere and, say, tap a key every 8 measures, don't think it could be done automatically).
The screen is a bit small but with a half-vga resolution (320x480) in landscape mode it should be feasible to show 2-3 staffs and at least 3-4 measures.
The user would probably also be able to select what instruments they're interested in (say, violins & brass, or choir & organ, or whatever) because you wouldn't obviously be able to show all the staffs at the same time.
I'd find this much more useful than comments like the ones written in the article.
So, your account wouldn't activate until you'd responded with the code they mailed you to your home address? So you could verify that you gave out real contact information?
/., if you'd like to we can discuss this some more via email...
obviously the account would be activated via an online signup page (instant gratification and all that) but it would be marked as 'unverified' and if the person doesn't register with the code they received in the mail, it will be automatically suspended after, say, 30 days. For infractions done by 'unverified' accounts there would be no jail, the account would be closed and the c/c number blacklisted (at least for 30 days).
Of course, it's possible that it will work just as well as it does in the military and in prison, and dad will take it out of little Timmy's hide so he can be sure that big sister Ginny isn't going to get any ideas.
Let's face it, multi-subscriber-on-the-same-cc is not a very common situation, and I do believe that the military-like deterrent will work.
f you crossed a line, then you know better where the line is. You'll be more careful and be more likely to get away with it next time.
it also depends a lot from how the game laws are implemented: if they are fuzzy, well, they need to be tightened up...
It's what you say to other people, and how your actions interfere with *their* gaming experience, that can't be directly controlled by the developers.
exactly, that's why you have an in-game 'police' (come on, some people would LOVE to be able to roleplay a cop/guard) to deal with complaints and so on: it would just be like a mini-version of our society. Obviously there would also be 'gods/wizards' (paid support people) you can appeal to if you feel you've been wronged (to have some checks-n-balances on the power of the cops/judges).
If you feel like it you could also make karma-reincarnation a part of the game: when you die you might have to stay in 'hell' for a little while depending on your 'reputation' or when you are reincarnated you'd get all sorts of bonuses if you were 'good'... I think this area hasn't been explored very much in current MMPORGs.
How do you go about punishing people? How do you decide who "started it" and who is "right"? Have you come up with a concept for a trial system to go with your virtual jail? Will my law-abiding, upstanding community member of a character have to serve jury duty?
yep, in my 'ideal MMPORG' (it'd be fun working on it, I'm also a network programmer by trade) you'd have an organization very similar to the current society (note that you could have the positions part-time or full-time):
- guards (basically a position who pays a certain amount of gp, has minimal 'power' but allows for 'citizen's arrest')
- cops (your plain vanilla cop, they are allowed to arrest people, have a few additional powers like instantaneous travelling, maybe examining game event logs, with a subpoena they'd be allowed to examine a player's chat/action log as well)
- judges (self explanatory, trials and everything, can issue subpoenas, etc. etc.)
- court system: village court, region court, supreme court
- politics/parliament (for laws)
- Deity/Wizard (paid tech support people, you can appeal to them and they have absolute power over the game)
This is getting kind of long for a post on
You introduce this "deterrent" and you'll deter all right... you'll deter people from even signing up for the game at all
I disagree: a lot of people would love to be able to play in an MMPORG that's not a 'free for all', it's the same reason why tendentially people prefer a democratic society to anarchy ruled by gangs (which is what most MMPORGs really are). In any case if the penalties are balanced just right a life of crime could be a roleplayable (if very risky) choice.
I believe most MMPORGs nowadays are barely scratching the possibiliti
This is not flamebait, but why instead of focusing development efforts on stuff that has marginal appeal at best, the developers don't try to implement the #1 missing feature in GIMP (for photo retouching, IMHO of course)
Adjustment layers! (with masks)
and no, you can't really 'emulate' them with the currently available toolset unfortunately (remember that they have masks and are non-destructive).
I love GIMP but the absence of this feature (which is not exactly a new thing, even PSPro has it!) is really killing me...
So what you're actually doing is jailing the credit card number, not the person.
:)
I would hope that the person doesn't give their c/c number to everybody... in any case I'd jail the person+address, not the c/c number (as they could have more than one c/c). This obviously implies that to subscribe to 'my' MMPORG you'd have to give out your real contact information.
What if everyone in the family has an account, using the same number? Do they all get jailed when little Timmy thinks harrassment is fun?
the whole family wouldn't be jailed, only Timmy's character would be jailed: the rest of the family wouldn't be able to create new characters while the punishment lasts, though.
I don't see the problem: actually if you have a family to back you you can be sure that little Timmy won't be a bad boy any time soon: call this a 'compound punishment' or something
How do you prevent a bigger Timmy from borrowing his friend's info?
again, what's the problem here? if the friend is so stupid to give his info out, he's gonna pay for his mistake (and likely won't repeat it in the future).
If you can just pretend to be someone else for a while, and evade punishment, what's to prevent you?
You can be sure that the 'someone else' you pretended to be is a real person in real life which will obviously deal with you out of band. If your account was hacked, instead, well, there are two possibilities: #1 the system is hackable (and it's the developers' fault, patch, no penalties issued), #2 you didn't take care of your account (shared the password etc.) in that case it's too bad.
The whole point of the 'virtual jail' is not really to be part of the gaming experience, it's to provide a real deterrent to game-disrupting behaviour.
Personally you haven't convinced me yet that any of these side effects are necessarily bad for the MMPORG as a whole: the way I see it they'd lead to people being more careful about their accounts and -definitely- having a strong incentive not to break the in-game laws...
touche'!
How many people will go through 40 hours of "jail" rather than just start a new account?
I don't think you understood my post: if you have a jail sentence you would not be ALLOWED to start a new account (after all the billing information would stay the same). Your only options would be to either serve the sentence or to stop playing the game altogether. If you cancelled the account and tried to reopen a new one you would still have your jail sentence to go through as well.
Also you'd obviously implement some administrative punishment, so besides going to jail the convict would also get their objects/gold garnished etc. etc. etc.
It'd be interesting to see if this would create a reality similar to real life (revolving-door recidivism) or not and the relevant implications.
a painless execution is the absolute worst punishment any game society can impose on the characters who are its citizens. Torture is not an option. Imprisonment and fines can be imposed, true, but as soon as the player behind the character finds that these punishments are too onerous, she can simply terminate her account
I don't agree, actually IMHO 'virtual jail' -is- the worst possible punishment if implemented properly: while you are sentenced you
- can't create new identities or log in as a different character (assuming they're all in your name in terms of billing) for as long as the sentence lasts
- can't just leave the computer on and walk away, the sentence time would go down only if you are performing some action (ideally not fun, say, playing tic-tac-toe games with the computer which is not easily scriptable and really boring: every move gives you, say, 5 seconds off your sentence).
- can't chat with fellow players or move about, you'd be put in a virtual cell in a virtual prison.
Also I really can't figure out why MMPORGs don't implement police/jails etc. after all you could have all the various dynamics that currently exist in society (punishment for crimes, opportunities for people who like to play cops/guards, risk/reward for trying to organize a breakout, risk/reward for accepting bribes etc. etc. etc.)
If you delete the player account somebody will just recreate a new one and, helped by their guild, fairly rapidly regain lost levels/items: a sentence of, say, 40 hours of jail (tic-tac-toe) would be much worse, don't you think?
same here, it's very good for morale and doesn't really cost the company that much, it's a win-win for everybody... I think a lot of companies are doing it, at least judging from how many high-tech-worker-looking people were present at the last matrix/lotr/sw we went to...
I think that the Zire71 is even better, besides the nice screen you also get the built-in digital camera and a joystick-shaped navigator which works very well for games...
really a fantastic handheld, pity for the battery life, though, 3 hours doesn't really cut it in a palm (heck, it's lowish even for a laptop!). My lowly IIIc goes weeks without a charge...
That's right, ads. I have yet to see an online yellow pages that has any ads for the companies listed.
:) but it's not too bad.
the yellow pages I use for my region have 'sponsored' businesses that get their results on top (in a separate box) -and- have links to their website: it can still use some work (not that many plumbers with a website
The only advantage of the paper yellow pages is that you can see how much the business paid for the ad (by its size) while online they're all exactly the same (but you can see how much they paid for their website by its quality)
how they make sure that this contest (and others like it) are not rigged (say, by somebody at the production plant 'accidentally' taking the cans and giving them to friends, like it happened in that huuuge McDonald scam a little while ago)?
How are they going to ensure a random distribution of these cans across the whole country?