actually, Gaiman made Neverwhere into a novel. The BBC series was the original version of it. The acting isnt horrible. I have it and quite like it. I've shown it to many people, and nobody has complained about the acting yet.
Ion Storm Austin was started as an independent studio and became a part of Ion Storm when Romero talked Spector into it during their search for initial funding.
This happened before Looking Glass closed. When Looking Glass closed, Ion Storm Austin acquired the rights to Thief and hired some of the Looking Glass guys.
My memory is a bit fuzzy on the timing exactly, but i think Deus Ex had been released by the time Looking Glass closed.
I disagree, with Cable television I have the choice to upgrade the monthly subscription to a higher level. If I want more channels (More content) then I can pay a higher fee. Cause I would watch more television. MMPOGs don't offer that or any options at all. If you have Digital cable you can opt out of getting movies on PPV channels or you can order them. You can down grade your channels for a smaller package. You can opt out of many things. Its not a flat only $40. Its a package that if you pay the $40 you get the same as your buddy. But if you change that $40 to say get regular cable (non digital) and some PPV when you want it. thats the difference.
to my mind, all of these options are changing the amount of content available to you and dont really translate to being the same as the MMO situation. In the MMO situation, the content available is the same for you and the hardcore gamer, subject to leveling restrictions (which i associate more with broadcast time restrictions than with being additional content).
It seems to me that the situation you are talking about here would be more akin to charging people more by their level instead of my the time spent. Since new zones open up as you level and content that would lay waste to you becomes playable, you would have to pay more, regardless of how much time you spent getting to that level. (this idea i dont think is feasible as people would go ballistic over it, play there characters to lvl 20 and stop playing them, and probably abandon the game)
But If I only watch a little tv then I can have the choice to not pay at all.(Rabbit ears - which I have).
But using Rabbit ears gets you only the basic broadcast channels. Even the most basic cable subscription comes with several other channels. You are opting to not use cable at all, but you are also opting to not have any of that content available to you.
BTW vcrs have been around for many moons and have been able to bring the content that I want when I want. If there were some way that you could replicate that into an MMPOG then sure that would help too.
until Tivo forced them to, the cable companies themselves didnt offer the service that a VCR did. In one sense, i would say this service is already offered in the game by a third party. There are lots of people who will power level characters into the high levels and make that content available very quickly. It's not quite the same thing as the VCR analogy, but it does have a similar effect. With the exemplaring system, you can even still do the low level content. (the drawback to this is that you cannot do this by yourself. it does require you to rely on some other player to power level you)
Bottom line - Casual gamers pay hundreds more for a game that has the same content as a hardcore gamer. If MMPOGs what that business then they have to compensate for that difference.
Casual gamers pay hundreds more for the same content to be available to them for a significantly longer amount of time.
I would also say (and i dont have anything at hand to support this) that they already have the business of casual gamers. I think the majority of the 200k subscribers are casual gamers.
Being a casual gamer myself, i'm content with the $15/month. I get enough enjoyment out of the game to feel the price is worth it and view the content i cannot get to yet as a goal. To me, the fact that hardcore gamers have already gotten to that content just means it'll be debugged and working flawlessly when i get there;).
out of curiosity, how much do you feel an hour should cost?
you arent paying a monthly fee for content. you are paying a monthly fee for availability of content. How much you use the availability is your decision and shouldn't affect the fee.
For example, I pay $40 a month for digital cable. My friend also pays $40 a month for digital cable. He watches tv constantly and i tend to only watch Monster Garage and the Daily Show. However, the tv channels are available to me and their content is available to me whenever i want. (or course, barring tivo, the television doesnt guarantee me the content i want when i want it, like a game does)
Same thing applies to your internet connection. Do you really want these services to be metered?
My feeling (and i dont have any non-anecdotal evidence to back it up so take it as the unsupported hypothesis it is) is that people dont want metered services. People want a cell phone plan with a flat rate. They want a flat rate for home phone service. They want a flat rate for cable. They want a flat rate ISP.
And if they got metered service for their MMO, they'd quickly find they want a flat rate for that too.
Thats all fine and good but a person who plays for 8 hours a day is getting more content for the dollar than the 2 hour per day player.
When are we going to start paying for time played instead of a flat monthly fee?
your dollars are not providing you with the content. they are providing you with the availability of the content. A person who plays for 8 hours a day is getting the same availability of content as a person who plays for 2 hours a day. The difference is in how much the individual chooses to exercise that availability.
Personally, i dont want a pay by the hour system. I want a flat fee. (and no, i dont play 8 hours a day)
a person who plays 2 hours a day 5 days a week (i'm assuming there will be some days he doesnt play for whatever reason) puts in 40 hours a month on the game. He's being charged $15 a month, so that comes out to about $.38 an hour.
I personally feel i get at least $.38 worth of enjoyment out of an hour's playtime.
Sure the guy playing 8 hours a day is getting out with about $.10 an hour, but who cares.
Is this about getting your money's worth, or is this about sticking it to people with excessive amounts of free time on their hands?
2. Perhaps in your company- but the average wage of an H-1b worker in Hillsboro, OR at Intel is $28,000/year according to their public Labor Condition Applications (the application form for the H-1b visa filed by the company is public knowledge. One way to battle this trend is whenever you are unemployed, go around to local companies and ask to see their LCAs).
I dont think LCA lists the average wage of the H-1B visa workers. it lists the rate of pay and the prevailing wage. The prevailing wage is the minimum wage for that job in the area and is gotten from either published independent surveys or the State Employment Security Administration. The rate of pay is a salary range for visa holders and can not be below 95% of the prevailing range. The prevailing wage is only valid for 90 days. After that, it has to be redetermined for subsequent uses of the LCA.
With respect to Intel, I did a search on Intel's FY2003 H1B jobs and couldn't find one in Hillsboro that had a wage rate of less than $47,000. (that isnt to say the prevailing wage isnt $28k or that there arent H1B people there making that wage, but there appear to be lots of H1B people making a lot more than that)
Actually, the OJ Simpson case is a good example of when the jury used forensic evidence properly. The jury was presented with lots of DNA evidence, blood stains, foot prints etc. When Mark Furman was asked if he planted evidence, he pleaded the fifth amendment. All forensic evidence is therefore suspect and cannot be given any weight. No matter whether you think he did it or not, the jury had no option but to acquit.
uh..no...
you are specifically instructed as a juror that the 5th amendment can not be construed to imply guilt. It would defeat the point of the 5th amendment if you did that.
Any jury that ignores forensic evidence (or any other evidence) because a witness exercises his 5th amendment right is doing exactly the wrong thing and is failing the system.
He needs spider-man and he knows parker is spider-man's friend. He doesnt need to interrogate parker. If he kills parker, Spider-man will come after him to avenge his dead friend. All he has to do is wait for him. he missed, so he took parker's girl instead.
Even if he had figured out parker's identity, killing him wouldnt have done any good because he promised to bring him back alive.
On the other hand, the vast majority untracked peer-to-peer access is illegal, it would not be unreasonable to outlaw them.
since it's untracked, i would say it's unreasonable to make assumptions or claims about how it is being used. unless you have actual data to support that assertion, it isnt a good basis for making laws.
Given that WinNY is quite obviously designed for the illegal sharing of files and basically nothing else, it isn't unreasonable to charge the designer with contributory infringement, just as if you sell lock picks in a dark alley, it's not unreasonable to charge you for aiding thieves.
is it? i've never seen WinNY or used it. I have no idea what it was designed to do or what it's capabilities are. Are you basing your opinion of what it was designed for on personal experience and evaluation of the software? (not being accusatory, just curious if you've used it)
with respect to lock picks...If you sell lock picks where it is illegal, you get charged with trafficing in illegal merchandise. You do not get charged as an accessory to burglary.
If making the software and distributing it is not illegal in itself, he hasnt committed a crime. Just like you havent committed a crime if you sell lock picks in a state where they are legal to sell and own.
Everyone says you can't prove a negative. I've always been perplexed by this: if one can't prove a negative, how does one prove that one can't prove a negative?
it's a logical paradox. If you do prove you cannot prove a negative, you've proven you can and therefore you can't.
i would say "you can't prove a negative" isnt an assertion, it's advice to avoid a headache.
Yes, but criminal law doesn't require "Reasonable Proof" or assumptions. It requires beleif beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was done.
no, it requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Ironically, "beyond a shadow of a doubt" is exactly the phrase the judge in the case i was recently a juror on used as an example of what is NOT required.
So we have this ammendment that gives us equal protection under the law. Yet we pick one group (consumers) to benefit at the expense of the another group (business owners).
nobody is saying that all business owners should be punished because of microsoft.
Equal protection under the law does not mean the government cannot punish you for violating the law. it means the law has to be applied evenly to everyone.
Of course, there are more consumers than business owners. I guess by definition, business owners are the minority, so why shouldn't they serve the majority? a "tyranny of the majority" solution isnt any better than a "tyranny of the monopolist" situation.
If it is required to do so, then yes. But in more than several RPG's the points placed in the said skill represent "knowledge skills" (I put alot of weapon specialty feats into creating a weapons master in D&D, I would count that as a pretty good deal of study in the game world). What do I do if there are no "knowledge skills"?
that's a fair point. a lot of systems, like D&D assume the weapon proficiency would encompass the knowledge skill.
the glock/sig thing was a poor example on my part. it completely distracted from what i was trying to say.
basically, my point about that was that there are issues in choosing a weapon that are less tangible. Things like your build affect how effective a weapon is for you to use. Situations also affect what weapon is most appropriate. Adding the kind of complexity to take into account those kinds of things to a game tends to make combat slower and more complex. In a video game, that can probably be hidden, but in a pnp game it tends to frustrate players.
going back to the firearms example, the best caliber for sniping is different from the best caliber for close range combat. The performance characteristics are different.
I dont mind people using halberds. I dont mind halberds being the best weapon for certain situations. i just dont think they should be the best weapon in every situation. When i see every player using the same weapon all the time, i see a problem in the game mechanics. when i see every player using the same weapon because the game mechanics are broken, i dont think of it as role playing. (though i do see your point that in the context of a world with a broken game mechanic, their character would see that weapon is clearly superior and would probably use it. though in human nature we have great examples of how people use inferior tools for emotional reasons, people dont generally have the same emotional investment in the equipment a character uses, and not everyone make those kind of decisions anyway.)
i was alot more annoyed about it before i went to bed.:)
Blocking with the edge is useless if the chain is long enough because the striking surface just swings around and hits you anyway.
well, i was thinking more of non-mounted opponents. the chain shouldnt be long enough to keep you from blocking with the edge. i'd also try to catch it high on the chain with the edge of the shield. against a mounted opponent, i wouldnt try it because they have a higher position and usually have longer chains. (against a mounted opponent, i'd rather have a halberd or pike....or an english longbow)
Blocking with the face can work if you can catch it at an angle and it isnt spiked, but that's harder to do than blocking with the edge.
I'd rather have a pole, I guess. Something for the chain to wrap itself around and spend it's energy. I could drop the pole and render his weapon useless, or try to pull it out of his hand. if you drop the pole, you're effectively disarming yourself too, though. That's fine if you have another weapon, but the flail user can do the same thing. the pole could be used to disarm or interfere with the flail, though.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I was simply referring to the fact that, wielding the halberd, a significant portion of the weapon crosses the line of your body, and is therefore in a great position to be employed defensively. you were clear enough, i just was half asleep. I've gone back and reread what you wrote and acknowledge that i took your comments to mean something other than what you intended.
DnD says that halberds and other polearms have "reach", so that you can attack an opponent 10' away, but not one adjacent to you. I don't know why they didn't implement that in NWN, except maybe laziness.
with 3rd edition, i've seen people start using reach but before that, everyone seemed to ignore it (along with weapon speed). In NWN they did actually implement reach allowing you to attack over other players from 10' away.
Perhaps a halberd is not such a great weapon if used in the style of an English knight or whatever.
the halberd was a fine weapon in the hands of an english knight. It is just not always the best weapon to use. I never intended to imply that a halberd wasnt useful, just that there is a reason other weapons existed and a reason halberds were not the weapon of choice in people's daily lives.
There are 2 basic types of ways to stop something from splitting your head open: meet and follow. well, 4 really. meet, follow, kill your opponent (as someone else noted), and dont be where his weapon is going.
My comments about it's defensive capabilities were less about the defensive capability of it as a staff weapon, and more about what i took to be a silly defense strategy. (the "pole across your body" line.) I didnt really take it in the context that it was probably intended. i read it to be more like "if a hold the halberd against me, it'll stop the enemy's weapon". (i had not been to sleep yet when i was posting so i'll blame it on lack of sleep.)
I do not have much experience with chain-based weapons, so I concede that you may have a point with that one. What would you suggest for defense? I don't see how a sword would do any better, for example.
well, generally you would want to have a shield against ball and chain weapons. They have the same inertia problem that halberds have, though. If you swing one and miss, you can be pretty vulnerable. It's actually worse with a flail because with a halberd you can always use it's thrusting point and dont have to swing it.
One way that games could enforce weapon usefulness is by character effectiveness. A certain type of fighter is going to be better at using a certain type of weapon because of their build, fighting style, etc. As you pointed out, a halberd would not be a good choice for a Renaissance-ish warrior. IIRC, FF XI does this to some degree. i agree. I would also like to see weapon effectiveness modified by locational situations.
In a computer game, all of those considerations can be hidden away from the player and not interfere with their game. In a pen and paper role playing game, my experience is that attempts to deal with those situational modifiers are generally ignored by players because it's too complicated. (D&D's weapon speed being a good example of an often ignored attempt...even if it was a lame attempt) That's why, in paper rpgs, i think the warhammer approach will probably be more successful. Personally, i like role master and champions, so i'm kinda partial to complicated systems. I just dont think the majority of the gaming populace agrees with me.
after i posted that, i knew i should have quoted the parent.
in general, i agree with you on your hypothetical about shotguns and the ease with which the halberd switch in UO can be justified in the context of the game.
What i was responding to was the statement:
However, the guy saying powergaming is roleplaying is right which is supporting the assertion of the poster one post before the whole UO issue was brought up. i wasnt actually responding about the whole UO issue. (in retrospect, i probably should have just responded to the grandparent of the post i responded to, instead of it).
This whole thread started with a complaint about people making decisions via number crunching instead of by what their character would do. That's the part of the parents i was commenting on. I wasnt very clear about that in my post (sorry about that).
the examples i gave were intended as examples in the same vein as the original number crunching example.
You might care to ask the Swiss mercenaries who guard the Vatican who wield halberds to this day if the halberd was used as a "general purpose weapon." while it's true they still carry halberds, they are for ceremony now. All members of the swiss guard are trained in firearms use. (also, they aren't mercenaries. they are a standing army)
the pole across your body is a pretty powerful defensive advantage. i disagree. It's a terrible defense against any thrusting weapon. It's not a particularly good defense against a weapon that would snap the haft in two (like an axe, or heavy mace). It's not a good defense against a weapon with a chain, like a flail or morning star.
You know, and there's the thing about how you can kill someone before they've come within two sword-lengths. That's another pretty strong defensive strength.
Well, a sword blade is about 2.5 to 3 feet. A halberd is 7 to 9 feet. if you swung it in a way that would hit someone two sword lengths away from you, you better hope you hit them. If you miss, or they have a shield, they'll be on you before you can recover from your attack.
Halberds are not great for individual tactics. They are good for small group tactics. They are good against mounted opponents.
There's a reason renaissance nobles learned to fight with rapiers and not halberds for their personal self defense.
All of that being said, i agree that your character has to make his decisions in the context of the game world. However, i do think that those decisions should have an in game justification. it isnt role playing for your character to make decisions based on game mechanics or other player information. That information might tell you what you want to do with the character, but you still have to justify the decisions in the context of the character and his involvement in the game world (if you are going to call it role playing).
Ultimately, the core of the problem is that the mechanics of the game are not complex enough to enforce the differences between weapons that make them appropriate in some situations and not in others. Probably the only way to keep simplicity while avoiding that kind of problem is to do it the Warhammer way. Make all one handed weapons functionally equivalent and leave the choice between a sword, mace and axe a purely aesthetic one.
A powergamer can still roleplay. I can look at tables to figure which spell will kill the best based on damage. That does not mean that I can not roleplay as a researcher of effecient killings by reading various texts on the effectiveness of weapons and choose accordingly.
are you spending skill points on knowledge skills to reflect all this studying your character is doing?
It would be foolish to think that anyone that thier life depends on thier equipment qould choose anything other than the best available weapon and exercise program (in any world, real or make believe).
well, that explains why there is only one kind of pistol in the world. in reality some people like Sigs and some people like Glocks. A lot of the reasons they feel the way they do are abstract. I'll grant you that this is a failing of the game mechanics. They should make the weapons have pros and cons that make the choice of what weapon to use be based on the situation. The problem with that is that it makes the game more complicated to add that kind of complexity, so developers dont tend to do that (for fear of alienating customers, i guess).
It's also inherent in the process of adding a mechanic that it will be possible to statistically analyze it and find key points with which to min/max a character. life isnt really codified so conveniently.
no it isnt. it is never role playing to use knowledge outside of the realm of your character's experience to influence your character's actions.
do you think it's role playing to read the monster manual and suddenly your character knows everything about every type monster in the game? is it role playing to read the module ahead of time and then, at the beginning of the module, kill the guy who betrays your party at the end of the module?
Slashdot Mirror
actually, Gaiman made Neverwhere into a novel. The BBC series was the original version of it. The acting isnt horrible. I have it and quite like it. I've shown it to many people, and nobody has complained about the acting yet.
Ion Storm Austin was started as an independent studio and became a part of Ion Storm when Romero talked Spector into it during their search for initial funding.
This happened before Looking Glass closed. When Looking Glass closed, Ion Storm Austin acquired the rights to Thief and hired some of the Looking Glass guys.
My memory is a bit fuzzy on the timing exactly, but i think Deus Ex had been released by the time Looking Glass closed.
Bet it sucks on a mac, just like everything else.
I agree. Halo sucked on everything else it ran on. Why would it be any different on the mac?
I disagree, with Cable television I have the choice to upgrade the monthly subscription to a higher level. If I want more channels (More content) then I can pay a higher fee. Cause I would watch more television. MMPOGs don't offer that or any options at all. If you have Digital cable you can opt out of getting movies on PPV channels or you can order them. You can down grade your channels for a smaller package. You can opt out of many things. Its not a flat only $40. Its a package that if you pay the $40 you get the same as your buddy. But if you change that $40 to say get regular cable (non digital) and some PPV when you want it. thats the difference.
to my mind, all of these options are changing the amount of content available to you and dont really translate to being the same as the MMO situation. In the MMO situation, the content available is the same for you and the hardcore gamer, subject to leveling restrictions (which i associate more with broadcast time restrictions than with being additional content).
It seems to me that the situation you are talking about here would be more akin to charging people more by their level instead of my the time spent. Since new zones open up as you level and content that would lay waste to you becomes playable, you would have to pay more, regardless of how much time you spent getting to that level.
(this idea i dont think is feasible as people would go ballistic over it, play there characters to lvl 20 and stop playing them, and probably abandon the game)
But If I only watch a little tv then I can have the choice to not pay at all.(Rabbit ears - which I have).
But using Rabbit ears gets you only the basic broadcast channels. Even the most basic cable subscription comes with several other channels. You are opting to not use cable at all, but you are also opting to not have any of that content available to you.
BTW vcrs have been around for many moons and have been able to bring the content that I want when I want. If there were some way that you could replicate that into an MMPOG then sure that would help too.
until Tivo forced them to, the cable companies themselves didnt offer the service that a VCR did. In one sense, i would say this service is already offered in the game by a third party. There are lots of people who will power level characters into the high levels and make that content available very quickly. It's not quite the same thing as the VCR analogy, but it does have a similar effect. With the exemplaring system, you can even still do the low level content.
(the drawback to this is that you cannot do this by yourself. it does require you to rely on some other player to power level you)
Bottom line - Casual gamers pay hundreds more for a game that has the same content as a hardcore gamer. If MMPOGs what that business then they have to compensate for that difference.
Casual gamers pay hundreds more for the same content to be available to them for a significantly longer amount of time.
I would also say (and i dont have anything at hand to support this) that they already have the business of casual gamers. I think the majority of the 200k subscribers are casual gamers.
Being a casual gamer myself, i'm content with the $15/month. I get enough enjoyment out of the game to feel the price is worth it and view the content i cannot get to yet as a goal. To me, the fact that hardcore gamers have already gotten to that content just means it'll be debugged and working flawlessly when i get there
out of curiosity, how much do you feel an hour should cost?
you arent paying a monthly fee for content. you are paying a monthly fee for availability of content. How much you use the availability is your decision and shouldn't affect the fee.
For example, I pay $40 a month for digital cable. My friend also pays $40 a month for digital cable. He watches tv constantly and i tend to only watch Monster Garage and the Daily Show.
However, the tv channels are available to me and their content is available to me whenever i want.
(or course, barring tivo, the television doesnt guarantee me the content i want when i want it, like a game does)
Same thing applies to your internet connection. Do you really want these services to be metered?
My feeling (and i dont have any non-anecdotal evidence to back it up so take it as the unsupported hypothesis it is) is that people dont want metered services.
People want a cell phone plan with a flat rate. They want a flat rate for home phone service. They want a flat rate for cable.
They want a flat rate ISP.
And if they got metered service for their MMO, they'd quickly find they want a flat rate for that too.
Thats all fine and good but a person who plays for 8 hours a day is getting more content for the dollar than the 2 hour per day player.
When are we going to start paying for time played instead of a flat monthly fee?
your dollars are not providing you with the content. they are providing you with the availability of the content. A person who plays for 8 hours a day is getting the same availability of content as a person who plays for 2 hours a day. The difference is in how much the individual chooses to exercise that availability.
Personally, i dont want a pay by the hour system. I want a flat fee. (and no, i dont play 8 hours a day)
a person who plays 2 hours a day 5 days a week (i'm assuming there will be some days he doesnt play for whatever reason) puts in 40 hours a month on the game. He's being charged $15 a month, so that comes out to about $.38 an hour.
I personally feel i get at least $.38 worth of enjoyment out of an hour's playtime.
Sure the guy playing 8 hours a day is getting out with about $.10 an hour, but who cares.
Is this about getting your money's worth, or is this about sticking it to people with excessive amounts of free time on their hands?
2. Perhaps in your company- but the average wage of an H-1b worker in Hillsboro, OR at Intel is $28,000/year according to their public Labor Condition Applications (the application form for the H-1b visa filed by the company is public knowledge. One way to battle this trend is whenever you are unemployed, go around to local companies and ask to see their LCAs).
I dont think LCA lists the average wage of the H-1B visa workers. it lists the rate of pay and the prevailing wage.
The prevailing wage is the minimum wage for that job in the area and is gotten from either published independent surveys or the State Employment Security Administration.
The rate of pay is a salary range for visa holders and can not be below 95% of the prevailing range.
The prevailing wage is only valid for 90 days. After that, it has to be redetermined for subsequent uses of the LCA.
With respect to Intel, I did a search on Intel's FY2003 H1B jobs and couldn't find one in Hillsboro that had a wage rate of less than $47,000.
(that isnt to say the prevailing wage isnt $28k or that there arent H1B people there making that wage, but there appear to be lots of H1B people making a lot more than that)
and Java is prior art to BASIC how?
nobody said Java was prior art to BASIC.
however, they did say the functionality in the patent has been in java for many years and hasnt been added to BASIC until the 2005 version.
The Java implementation doesnt have to predate all of BASIC, it just has to predate the BASIC implementation of the idea.
Actually, the OJ Simpson case is a good example of when the jury used forensic evidence properly. The jury was presented with lots of DNA evidence, blood stains, foot prints etc. When Mark Furman was asked if he planted evidence, he pleaded the fifth amendment. All forensic evidence is therefore suspect and cannot be given any weight. No matter whether you think he did it or not, the jury had no option but to acquit.
uh..no...
you are specifically instructed as a juror that the 5th amendment can not be construed to imply guilt. It would defeat the point of the 5th amendment if you did that.
Any jury that ignores forensic evidence (or any other evidence) because a witness exercises his 5th amendment right is doing exactly the wrong thing and is failing the system.
i thought it was Daikatana.
(although Duke Nukem Forever is certainly giving it a run for it's money)
well, i guess it's just a matter of time before my sunglasses violate the patriot act.
i dont see a problem with it. Ock is crazy.
He needs spider-man and he knows parker is spider-man's friend. He doesnt need to interrogate parker. If he kills parker, Spider-man will come after him to avenge his dead friend. All he has to do is wait for him.
he missed, so he took parker's girl instead.
Even if he had figured out parker's identity, killing him wouldnt have done any good because he promised to bring him back alive.
On the other hand, the vast majority untracked peer-to-peer access is illegal, it would not be unreasonable to outlaw them.
since it's untracked, i would say it's unreasonable to make assumptions or claims about how it is being used. unless you have actual data to support that assertion, it isnt a good basis for making laws.
Given that WinNY is quite obviously designed for the illegal sharing of files and basically nothing else, it isn't unreasonable to charge the designer with contributory infringement, just as if you sell lock picks in a dark alley, it's not unreasonable to charge you for aiding thieves.
is it? i've never seen WinNY or used it. I have no idea what it was designed to do or what it's capabilities are. Are you basing your opinion of what it was designed for on personal experience and evaluation of the software? (not being accusatory, just curious if you've used it)
with respect to lock picks...If you sell lock picks where it is illegal, you get charged with trafficing in illegal merchandise. You do not get charged as an accessory to burglary.
If making the software and distributing it is not illegal in itself, he hasnt committed a crime. Just like you havent committed a crime if you sell lock picks in a state where they are legal to sell and own.
Everyone says you can't prove a negative. I've always been perplexed by this: if one can't prove a negative, how does one prove that one can't prove a negative?
it's a logical paradox. If you do prove you cannot prove a negative, you've proven you can and therefore you can't.
i would say "you can't prove a negative" isnt an assertion, it's advice to avoid a headache.
Yes, but criminal law doesn't require "Reasonable Proof" or assumptions. It requires beleif beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was done.
no, it requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Ironically, "beyond a shadow of a doubt" is exactly the phrase the judge in the case i was recently a juror on used as an example of what is NOT required.
So we have this ammendment that gives us equal protection under the law. Yet we pick one group (consumers) to benefit at the expense of the another group (business owners).
nobody is saying that all business owners should be punished because of microsoft.
Equal protection under the law does not mean the government cannot punish you for violating the law. it means the law has to be applied evenly to everyone.
Of course, there are more consumers than business owners. I guess by definition, business owners are the minority, so why shouldn't they serve the majority?
a "tyranny of the majority" solution isnt any better than a "tyranny of the monopolist" situation.
If it is required to do so, then yes. But in more than several RPG's the points placed in the said skill represent "knowledge skills" (I put alot of weapon specialty feats into creating a weapons master in D&D, I would count that as a pretty good deal of study in the game world). What do I do if there are no "knowledge skills"?
:)
that's a fair point. a lot of systems, like D&D assume the weapon proficiency would encompass the knowledge skill.
the glock/sig thing was a poor example on my part. it completely distracted from what i was trying to say.
basically, my point about that was that there are issues in choosing a weapon that are less tangible. Things like your build affect how effective a weapon is for you to use. Situations also affect what weapon is most appropriate.
Adding the kind of complexity to take into account those kinds of things to a game tends to make combat slower and more complex. In a video game, that can probably be hidden, but in a pnp game it tends to frustrate players.
going back to the firearms example, the best caliber for sniping is different from the best caliber for close range combat. The performance characteristics are different.
I dont mind people using halberds. I dont mind halberds being the best weapon for certain situations. i just dont think they should be the best weapon in every situation. When i see every player using the same weapon all the time, i see a problem in the game mechanics.
when i see every player using the same weapon because the game mechanics are broken, i dont think of it as role playing. (though i do see your point that in the context of a world with a broken game mechanic, their character would see that weapon is clearly superior and would probably use it. though in human nature we have great examples of how people use inferior tools for emotional reasons, people dont generally have the same emotional investment in the equipment a character uses, and not everyone make those kind of decisions anyway.)
i was alot more annoyed about it before i went to bed.
Blocking with the edge is useless if the chain is long enough because the striking surface just swings around and hits you anyway.
well, i was thinking more of non-mounted opponents. the chain shouldnt be long enough to keep you from blocking with the edge. i'd also try to catch it high on the chain with the edge of the shield. against a mounted opponent, i wouldnt try it because they have a higher position and usually have longer chains.
(against a mounted opponent, i'd rather have a halberd or pike....or an english longbow)
Blocking with the face can work if you can catch it at an angle and it isnt spiked, but that's harder to do than blocking with the edge.
I'd rather have a pole, I guess. Something for the chain to wrap itself around and spend it's energy. I could drop the pole and render his weapon useless, or try to pull it out of his hand.
if you drop the pole, you're effectively disarming yourself too, though. That's fine if you have another weapon, but the flail user can do the same thing. the pole could be used to disarm or interfere with the flail, though.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I was simply referring to the fact that, wielding the halberd, a significant portion of the weapon crosses the line of your body, and is therefore in a great position to be employed defensively.
you were clear enough, i just was half asleep. I've gone back and reread what you wrote and acknowledge that i took your comments to mean something other than what you intended.
DnD says that halberds and other polearms have "reach", so that you can attack an opponent 10' away, but not one adjacent to you. I don't know why they didn't implement that in NWN, except maybe laziness.
with 3rd edition, i've seen people start using reach but before that, everyone seemed to ignore it (along with weapon speed).
In NWN they did actually implement reach allowing you to attack over other players from 10' away.
when i responded to you, i hadnt slept in a long time so i dont think i took your comments the way they were intended.
i do agree that as you move into the renaissance and afterward people started sacrificing function for fashion.
i'm not terribly partial to poleaxe type weapons so maybe i'm just not giving them enough credit.
Perhaps a halberd is not such a great weapon if used in the style of an English knight or whatever.
the halberd was a fine weapon in the hands of an english knight. It is just not always the best weapon to use. I never intended to imply that a halberd wasnt useful, just that there is a reason other weapons existed and a reason halberds were not the weapon of choice in people's daily lives.
There are 2 basic types of ways to stop something from splitting your head open: meet and follow.
well, 4 really. meet, follow, kill your opponent (as someone else noted), and dont be where his weapon is going.
My comments about it's defensive capabilities were less about the defensive capability of it as a staff weapon, and more about what i took to be a silly defense strategy. (the "pole across your body" line.) I didnt really take it in the context that it was probably intended. i read it to be more like "if a hold the halberd against me, it'll stop the enemy's weapon".
(i had not been to sleep yet when i was posting so i'll blame it on lack of sleep.)
I do not have much experience with chain-based weapons, so I concede that you may have a point with that one. What would you suggest for defense? I don't see how a sword would do any better, for example.
well, generally you would want to have a shield against ball and chain weapons. They have the same inertia problem that halberds have, though. If you swing one and miss, you can be pretty vulnerable. It's actually worse with a flail because with a halberd you can always use it's thrusting point and dont have to swing it.
One way that games could enforce weapon usefulness is by character effectiveness. A certain type of fighter is going to be better at using a certain type of weapon because of their build, fighting style, etc. As you pointed out, a halberd would not be a good choice for a Renaissance-ish warrior. IIRC, FF XI does this to some degree.
i agree. I would also like to see weapon effectiveness modified by locational situations.
In a computer game, all of those considerations can be hidden away from the player and not interfere with their game. In a pen and paper role playing game, my experience is that attempts to deal with those situational modifiers are generally ignored by players because it's too complicated. (D&D's weapon speed being a good example of an often ignored attempt...even if it was a lame attempt)
That's why, in paper rpgs, i think the warhammer approach will probably be more successful. Personally, i like role master and champions, so i'm kinda partial to complicated systems. I just dont think the majority of the gaming populace agrees with me.
after i posted that, i knew i should have quoted the parent.
:
in general, i agree with you on your hypothetical about shotguns and the ease with which the halberd switch in UO can be justified in the context of the game.
What i was responding to was the statement
However, the guy saying powergaming is roleplaying is right
which is supporting the assertion of the poster one post before the whole UO issue was brought up.
i wasnt actually responding about the whole UO issue. (in retrospect, i probably should have just responded to the grandparent of the post i responded to, instead of it).
This whole thread started with a complaint about people making decisions via number crunching instead of by what their character would do. That's the part of the parents i was commenting on. I wasnt very clear about that in my post (sorry about that).
the examples i gave were intended as examples in the same vein as the original number crunching example.
You might care to ask the Swiss mercenaries who guard the Vatican who wield halberds to this day if the halberd was used as a "general purpose weapon."
while it's true they still carry halberds, they are for ceremony now. All members of the swiss guard are trained in firearms use. (also, they aren't mercenaries. they are a standing army)
the pole across your body is a pretty powerful defensive advantage.
i disagree. It's a terrible defense against any thrusting weapon. It's not a particularly good defense against a weapon that would snap the haft in two (like an axe, or heavy mace). It's not a good defense against a weapon with a chain, like a flail or morning star.
You know, and there's the thing about how you can kill someone before they've come within two sword-lengths. That's another pretty strong defensive strength.
Well, a sword blade is about 2.5 to 3 feet. A halberd is 7 to 9 feet. if you swung it in a way that would hit someone two sword lengths away from you, you better hope you hit them. If you miss, or they have a shield, they'll be on you before you can recover from your attack.
Halberds are not great for individual tactics. They are good for small group tactics. They are good against mounted opponents.
There's a reason renaissance nobles learned to fight with rapiers and not halberds for their personal self defense.
All of that being said, i agree that your character has to make his decisions in the context of the game world. However, i do think that those decisions should have an in game justification. it isnt role playing for your character to make decisions based on game mechanics or other player information. That information might tell you what you want to do with the character, but you still have to justify the decisions in the context of the character and his involvement in the game world (if you are going to call it role playing).
Ultimately, the core of the problem is that the mechanics of the game are not complex enough to enforce the differences between weapons that make them appropriate in some situations and not in others. Probably the only way to keep simplicity while avoiding that kind of problem is to do it the Warhammer way. Make all one handed weapons functionally equivalent and leave the choice between a sword, mace and axe a purely aesthetic one.
A powergamer can still roleplay. I can look at tables to figure which spell will kill the best based on damage. That does not mean that I can not roleplay as a researcher of effecient killings by reading various texts on the effectiveness of weapons and choose accordingly.
are you spending skill points on knowledge skills to reflect all this studying your character is doing?
It would be foolish to think that anyone that thier life depends on thier equipment qould choose anything other than the best available weapon and exercise program (in any world, real or make believe).
well, that explains why there is only one kind of pistol in the world.
in reality some people like Sigs and some people like Glocks. A lot of the reasons they feel the way they do are abstract.
I'll grant you that this is a failing of the game mechanics. They should make the weapons have pros and cons that make the choice of what weapon to use be based on the situation. The problem with that is that it makes the game more complicated to add that kind of complexity, so developers dont tend to do that (for fear of alienating customers, i guess).
It's also inherent in the process of adding a mechanic that it will be possible to statistically analyze it and find key points with which to min/max a character. life isnt really codified so conveniently.
no it isnt. it is never role playing to use knowledge outside of the realm of your character's experience to influence your character's actions.
do you think it's role playing to read the monster manual and suddenly your character knows everything about every type monster in the game?
is it role playing to read the module ahead of time and then, at the beginning of the module, kill the guy who betrays your party at the end of the module?
what role are you taking on in those cases?
Oh, and wasn't SDL used by Loki quite often for porting games to Linux?
if i recall correctly, SDL was originally developed by a guy who worked at Loki.