But it just seemed that the support was extremely lacking. I know, I know - if it doesn't do what you want, code it yourself. initng, however, suffers from redesign issues (like moving startup scripts into and out of the main distribution - at one point I'd upgraded to the next version, but couldn't log in because none of the startup scripts could be found because they'd been moved into a separate package).
It's nice, and all. But various inconsistencies have made me move back to init.d. Hopefully this kind of publicity will get more people involved and make it more stable. It really does speed up the boot time (not that I ever thought Linux was slow either).
They're testing the possibility... NOT moving in this direction yet. They are most certainly not (yet) a thing of the past. Very poor choice of words for the title.
And besides, one day a week, good grief. That's not that big of a deal. The same kids complaining are the ones that whined when their parents told them to go outside and play instead of sitting in front of the television. Everyone knows to expect this - it isn't a surprise and it isn't something new. No guild worth its salt plans a raid for Tuesdays. And no regular player expects to have complete, uninterrupted gameplay on Tuesdays either.
It was poorly timed for those in Hawaii (and for the Australians that played on the US servers). Personally, I'm going to miss it. I loved getting online before work and getting in a last bid in the Auction House before the shutdown.
With "10 minute" reboots, though, things'll get worse. They'll be unplanned (so you can't plan your raids around them) and everyone will spam the chat channels constantly complaining about how awful Blizzard is (while still giving them money every month).
WoW presents a very specific problem, beyond the typical problems of "self control" and "moderation". If it were that simple, then yes, turn off the computer and do something else. However, the ability to level quickly is both blessing and curse - and that's (what I see as) the core issue.
First, WoW is beautiful. Yes, it's cartoonish, but it's got character and depth. I, for one, just like seeing new things, exploring new places. There comes a point within WoW that you can't do anything new unless you get to the end game content. All of which requires heavy guild involvement... to the point mentioned in the first article. Strat can be beautiful, and I regret never seeing Naxx (and only once getting into AQ). But unless I was willing to devote myself heart and soul to a guild - I was relegated to pick-up groups for the "lesser" instances... and forget ever seeing AQ40 or Molten Core. Once you reach these points, starting over isn't an option. You've seen it, you've done it. And no matter how you've convinced yourself that you're not grinding levels in Loch Modan, starting over only offers an extreme amount of drudgery. (Switching from Alliance to Horde only delays the inevitable)
Second, WoW is just to easy to level up. Too many times you hear about people getting to 60 without a clue of what to do next. You get this consistent endorphin rush every time you "ding". And that's great. It helps keep you moving forward through some of the dull spots (think levels 37-40). But once you've hit 60 you've invested a huge amount of time in a character... whether that's hours upon hours a day for a couple months, or a relaxed pace over a year. It feels like you're abandoning your alter ego to just quit playing. You want to push forward, but you can't. Hence, you've got to run after epic loot and instances.
And Third... friends. I've made a lot of friends in-game. We've been through a lot together (all of us utterly refusing to ever step foot in Gnomeregan again). And many of them (especially the married couples that both play) want to continue forward. Once again, you're relegated to the outside... shoved off unless you want to grind for Cenarion rep in Silithus.
All three of these led to my WoW burnout. I was bumped from my "elite" guild because I didn't want to spend 20 hours a week on top of job and social life. Getting put back in the "feeder" guild, while it sounds fine, just felt awful. My friends had all moved on, and I was shoved aside and forgotten (much like the original article). Eventually, I've found another server (too many familiar faces on the old one) and a nice, casual guild. But then again... the first guild started out nice and casual as well.../sigh
My big argument against getting a Mac has always been about hardware. With PCs, I knew I could switch video cards, network cards, sound cards, etc whenever I wanted. But Mac always had a (perceived) hardware lock in. (I'm certain that's not strictly the case, anymore... but it always felt that way).
When I found myself in the market for a laptop, I seriously considered the PowerBook/MacBooks - since laptop hardware tends to be locked down anyway. (if it weren't for the heat issues, I would've gone that route, too.)
But this? This was the last excuse I had for my desktop PC. Heck, this case has changed it's innards so often, I've had to change its host name TWICE (just for kicks, really... but I realized, twice, that the insides had been completely reworked, and it warranted a name change). With Vista locking you down, there's no reason to swap hardware. If there's no reason to swap hardware, why not just buy the Mac instead?
Besides - didn't WinXP have similar rules initially about swapping things around? Didn't most people buy a legitimate version of XP and then "borrow" their corporate license... it's ethically legit. I own a copy. I don't want the damn hassle of constantly "calling home" to say that "yes it's legit". I understand a need to protect their property (or whatever they deem as "their property"). But treating everyone like a criminal right off the bat. Ignore the little man. Ignore the hobbiest. And they were trying to NOT make it look like they were a bunch of heartless, greedy, corporate suits...
With respect to the specific WoW problem... the reason most people don't know "how to play" their characters is because the game setup encourages bad habits. For example, I got to 60 with a warrior by dumping everything into damage. My reasoning was simple: kill it before it kills me. But once I got to 60, I had NO idea on how to keep aggro contained... and I had a very rude awakening while trying to tank.
My entire skill set had to shift from dealing damage (while solo-ing) to taking massive amounts of damage and holding aggro. There was no learning curve for this. The game doesn't "teach" you along the way... like most "leveling" based games do.
Agreed. That's the main reason I troll the "budget" software bins nowadays. There are a lot of great games out there if you're okay with "less than stellar" graphics. Graphics improve over time... but a good storyline is always a good storyline.
As such - I just (finally?) nabbed a copy of Baldur's Gate 2 with expansion for $10. Rise of Nations is also "budget" now... and their single-player mode really adds more than the typical "keep replaying random map".
Actually - you do license the right to run the software. If you ever read any of the "click-through" EULAs, that would be apparent. I, personally, disagree with this and agree with you that you SHOULD "buy" your game. Unfortunately, by clicking through (and accepting the EULA), you've already waived your rights. What you've actually "bought" is the packaging and distribution methods - not the stuff on the disk.
To be fair to the manufacturers, the Steam method is an "interesting" business method. It's an immediate anti-piracy check for their software. However, it's a very intrusive method. As an example - you're supposed to be able to play through single player HL2 without being online (you do have to connect online when you install the game, after that it's fine disconnected). A couple weeks ago, my DSL was down and I was in the mood for some run-n-gun since I couldn't get into World of Warcraft. Steam, however, felt differently - and insisted that I first connect to them to check for updates before playing HL2 offline, since it had been a while since I had played it. No ethernet, no update check. Which meant that Steam bombed out and refused to play.
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration". -- Edsgar Dijkstra (and if you don't know who that is.... stop calling yourself a programmer)
For other possibilites: I'll suggest Ruby. Not because it's a great language (all have their own issues) but specifically because of this "Poignant Guide" http://poignantguide.net/ruby/. I found it a wonderful way of approaching programming from a very NON-technical manner... not just that it's amusing (the author has the same off-beat humor as myself), but because it relates common Object Oriented concepts to real world examples better than I've ever seen before (specifically the whole section on English grammer: verbs, nouns, adjectives becoming methods, objects and attributes).
Don't think of the anti-VB sentiment as "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" think of it as "no matter how pretty the architecture... if the foundation is crap, the building will fall".
Wrong queue. Often times (specifically Alterac Valley) there just aren't enough people at the same level playing those areas (10 level 20s from both Horde and Alliance, for example). So, yes, a 30 hour wait is tantamount to an infinite wait. Those aren't Blizzard's problems, the online community needs to get together and schedule specific times to play PvP.
At least during those queues, you can stay in line, but run around and quest/farm/auction/chat/etc. The issue here is the queues just to get ON the server.
Over Christmas, Blizzard also limited character creation on certain realms. Good, glad to know that new players would be forced to newer realms. Unfortunatley, that unleashed a flood onto the "open" servers. And the queue for my realm increased drastically.
Blizzard has said authorized certain specific realms to transfer to other specific realms in the past (say, if you were on realm A then everyone could transfer to realm B... but only those on A could go only to B). They have hinted in the past at opening that up a bit... such that any one on any realm could transfer a character to a new realm. Might be useful. There's also been hinting at "pay to transfer" schemes. That would help limit the hopscotching, as well as put money into the infrastructure and upkeep.
In a comedy with Carol Kane, numerous others, gun fights with helicopters and a camel. Oh, and it's partly a musical with an epic storyline involving the fate of the world. No similar movies at the time...
Yep. Ishtar wins. Blockbuster successful.
Of course, Star Wars should've flopped by the same arguments.
All you have to do is create a blog, ramble on for a couple pages about "K", never actually SAY anything except describing the letter and KDE's love for it. And then promote it on the front page of Slashdot.
Obviously that appears to be all too common these days.
And where are all these "partial type managers" (bad vocabulary choice aside) that the author claimed? Steam? Mame? That's ALL? How's about something useful - like documents, bookmarks, etc.
I hadn't planned on jumping in to this argument. However, let's admit what this is really all about. A handful (okay, most) people refuse to read the rules of the game. They think, "hey, I'll just jump in and do whatever I want... the Terms of Service are too long so they don't apply to me." As has been reflected on Slashdot REPEATEDLY (mainly in reference to EULAs) you ARE agreeing to their rules whether or not you read them.
The naming conventions have been there long before ranks were awarded for PvP. And the naming conventions specifically state that you can't include titles as part of your name. They state that you cannot spell things "alternatively" in order to get around the naming conventions. And, no, they don't have some poor sod reading every name that a player creates. These things (much like non-Role Playing on a Role Playing server) are "community policed" - meaning you have to be turned in first. You create a "CmdrTaco" and get away with it. Good for you. But now you're complaining because you got caught!?!
Are they swamped, yes. But does it give someone the right to argue that "because I've gotten away with it for so long, it's legal"? No.
So now we're going to pat some guy on the back for finding a way to cut corners instead of doing the job he was paid to do. Sure, I sympathize for having to read so many papers. But, during one semeseter in college, I was responsible for learning to program in LISP, learning at least the basics for writing assembly code, reading Martin Luther (and searching for humanist thought as residue from the Renaissance and a precursor for the Enlightenment) and reading the Tale of Genji (first novel ever... which makes Don Quixote look like a small pamphlet). Did we as students complain? Of course we did! We railed against the professors for "not understanding how much work we had to do"... but did we cut corners? Some did... and I watched a handful get kicked out for cheating and several just failed their classes.
The difference? We were paying for that "abuse". Here's a guy getting paid to do it, and now getting credit for cutting corners... and denying several students the attention they deserve for the work they did.
If we demand the students to do their own work. We should demand the faculty do their own as well!
Actually - my experience was MUCH better. Sure, the servers were incredibly slow. Sure, unlocking took a while. But I believe the decryption was NOT slow because of the pipe into the house, but because of the Hard Drive and CPU.
I received a nice message (after trying to contact Steam 2 or 3 times) saying "we can't continue at this moment because of high demand, but we're going to unlock you anyway and retry the authentication later." I was worried about the whole process too, until I got this message and I realized that THEY HAD PLANNED FOR THIS. They weren't going to screw the customer, they were going to screw themselves (for the time being).
Also - I picked up the "Special Edition" version, so mine was on DVD. Took maybe 20 minutes to install HL1:Source, CS:Source and HL2. I thought that was darn speedy, considering.
I've been following the Welsh translations of KDE (odd hobby, I know), and they've been discussing these "Language Interface Packs". Apparently, installing them converts Windows into that language, yes. But that doesn't mean that one user can use Welsh (or French or German) and another individual use English (or German or French). So, you're locked into ONE LANGUAGE PER WORKSTATION. Other projects (like KDE) allow users to switch languages back and forth.
It would appear that any sort of software emulation used to support this would be in violation of Nintendo's new patent. Reading through the patent (at least, what I could get through the legalese), they claim rights over software that emulates higher end systems on lower end systems (in their case, playing current games on handhelds or cell phones, etc.). Just a thought.
Slashdot Mirror
IBM believes that Microsoft masterminded the Pro-OOXML Initiative.
FTA: "Master track issues pushed the band into the studio."
And just what issues were they? Lost masters? Bad masters? (seeing as it IS the Sex Pistols, I doubt they'd argue "quality").
Does anyone know?
But it just seemed that the support was extremely lacking. I know, I know - if it doesn't do what you want, code it yourself. initng, however, suffers from redesign issues (like moving startup scripts into and out of the main distribution - at one point I'd upgraded to the next version, but couldn't log in because none of the startup scripts could be found because they'd been moved into a separate package).
It's nice, and all. But various inconsistencies have made me move back to init.d. Hopefully this kind of publicity will get more people involved and make it more stable. It really does speed up the boot time (not that I ever thought Linux was slow either).
They're testing the possibility... NOT moving in this direction yet. They are most certainly not (yet) a thing of the past. Very poor choice of words for the title.
And besides, one day a week, good grief. That's not that big of a deal. The same kids complaining are the ones that whined when their parents told them to go outside and play instead of sitting in front of the television. Everyone knows to expect this - it isn't a surprise and it isn't something new. No guild worth its salt plans a raid for Tuesdays. And no regular player expects to have complete, uninterrupted gameplay on Tuesdays either.
It was poorly timed for those in Hawaii (and for the Australians that played on the US servers). Personally, I'm going to miss it. I loved getting online before work and getting in a last bid in the Auction House before the shutdown.
With "10 minute" reboots, though, things'll get worse. They'll be unplanned (so you can't plan your raids around them) and everyone will spam the chat channels constantly complaining about how awful Blizzard is (while still giving them money every month).
WoW presents a very specific problem, beyond the typical problems of "self control" and "moderation". If it were that simple, then yes, turn off the computer and do something else. However, the ability to level quickly is both blessing and curse - and that's (what I see as) the core issue.
/sigh
First, WoW is beautiful. Yes, it's cartoonish, but it's got character and depth. I, for one, just like seeing new things, exploring new places. There comes a point within WoW that you can't do anything new unless you get to the end game content. All of which requires heavy guild involvement... to the point mentioned in the first article. Strat can be beautiful, and I regret never seeing Naxx (and only once getting into AQ). But unless I was willing to devote myself heart and soul to a guild - I was relegated to pick-up groups for the "lesser" instances... and forget ever seeing AQ40 or Molten Core. Once you reach these points, starting over isn't an option. You've seen it, you've done it. And no matter how you've convinced yourself that you're not grinding levels in Loch Modan, starting over only offers an extreme amount of drudgery. (Switching from Alliance to Horde only delays the inevitable)
Second, WoW is just to easy to level up. Too many times you hear about people getting to 60 without a clue of what to do next. You get this consistent endorphin rush every time you "ding". And that's great. It helps keep you moving forward through some of the dull spots (think levels 37-40). But once you've hit 60 you've invested a huge amount of time in a character... whether that's hours upon hours a day for a couple months, or a relaxed pace over a year. It feels like you're abandoning your alter ego to just quit playing. You want to push forward, but you can't. Hence, you've got to run after epic loot and instances.
And Third... friends. I've made a lot of friends in-game. We've been through a lot together (all of us utterly refusing to ever step foot in Gnomeregan again). And many of them (especially the married couples that both play) want to continue forward. Once again, you're relegated to the outside... shoved off unless you want to grind for Cenarion rep in Silithus.
All three of these led to my WoW burnout. I was bumped from my "elite" guild because I didn't want to spend 20 hours a week on top of job and social life. Getting put back in the "feeder" guild, while it sounds fine, just felt awful. My friends had all moved on, and I was shoved aside and forgotten (much like the original article). Eventually, I've found another server (too many familiar faces on the old one) and a nice, casual guild. But then again... the first guild started out nice and casual as well...
I've never been more happy to be more wrong!
Thanks for the info. I guess my research into that arena stopped too soon.
My big argument against getting a Mac has always been about hardware. With PCs, I knew I could switch video cards, network cards, sound cards, etc whenever I wanted. But Mac always had a (perceived) hardware lock in. (I'm certain that's not strictly the case, anymore... but it always felt that way).
When I found myself in the market for a laptop, I seriously considered the PowerBook/MacBooks - since laptop hardware tends to be locked down anyway. (if it weren't for the heat issues, I would've gone that route, too.)
But this? This was the last excuse I had for my desktop PC. Heck, this case has changed it's innards so often, I've had to change its host name TWICE (just for kicks, really... but I realized, twice, that the insides had been completely reworked, and it warranted a name change). With Vista locking you down, there's no reason to swap hardware. If there's no reason to swap hardware, why not just buy the Mac instead?
Besides - didn't WinXP have similar rules initially about swapping things around? Didn't most people buy a legitimate version of XP and then "borrow" their corporate license... it's ethically legit. I own a copy. I don't want the damn hassle of constantly "calling home" to say that "yes it's legit". I understand a need to protect their property (or whatever they deem as "their property"). But treating everyone like a criminal right off the bat. Ignore the little man. Ignore the hobbiest. And they were trying to NOT make it look like they were a bunch of heartless, greedy, corporate suits...
With respect to the specific WoW problem... the reason most people don't know "how to play" their characters is because the game setup encourages bad habits. For example, I got to 60 with a warrior by dumping everything into damage. My reasoning was simple: kill it before it kills me. But once I got to 60, I had NO idea on how to keep aggro contained... and I had a very rude awakening while trying to tank.
My entire skill set had to shift from dealing damage (while solo-ing) to taking massive amounts of damage and holding aggro. There was no learning curve for this. The game doesn't "teach" you along the way... like most "leveling" based games do.
s/onv/ov/
They're in a box... right next to the Ark of the Convenant.
Agreed. That's the main reason I troll the "budget" software bins nowadays. There are a lot of great games out there if you're okay with "less than stellar" graphics. Graphics improve over time... but a good storyline is always a good storyline.
As such - I just (finally?) nabbed a copy of Baldur's Gate 2 with expansion for $10. Rise of Nations is also "budget" now... and their single-player mode really adds more than the typical "keep replaying random map".
Actually - you do license the right to run the software. If you ever read any of the "click-through" EULAs, that would be apparent. I, personally, disagree with this and agree with you that you SHOULD "buy" your game. Unfortunately, by clicking through (and accepting the EULA), you've already waived your rights. What you've actually "bought" is the packaging and distribution methods - not the stuff on the disk.
To be fair to the manufacturers, the Steam method is an "interesting" business method. It's an immediate anti-piracy check for their software. However, it's a very intrusive method. As an example - you're supposed to be able to play through single player HL2 without being online (you do have to connect online when you install the game, after that it's fine disconnected). A couple weeks ago, my DSL was down and I was in the mood for some run-n-gun since I couldn't get into World of Warcraft. Steam, however, felt differently - and insisted that I first connect to them to check for updates before playing HL2 offline, since it had been a while since I had played it. No ethernet, no update check. Which meant that Steam bombed out and refused to play.
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration". -- Edsgar Dijkstra (and if you don't know who that is.... stop calling yourself a programmer)
For other possibilites: I'll suggest Ruby. Not because it's a great language (all have their own issues) but specifically because of this "Poignant Guide"
http://poignantguide.net/ruby/. I found it a wonderful way of approaching programming from a very NON-technical manner... not just that it's amusing (the author has the same off-beat humor as myself), but because it relates common Object Oriented concepts to real world examples better than I've ever seen before (specifically the whole section on English grammer: verbs, nouns, adjectives becoming methods, objects and attributes).
Don't think of the anti-VB sentiment as "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" think of it as "no matter how pretty the architecture... if the foundation is crap, the building will fall".
Wrong queue. Often times (specifically Alterac Valley) there just aren't enough people at the same level playing those areas (10 level 20s from both Horde and Alliance, for example). So, yes, a 30 hour wait is tantamount to an infinite wait. Those aren't Blizzard's problems, the online community needs to get together and schedule specific times to play PvP.
At least during those queues, you can stay in line, but run around and quest/farm/auction/chat/etc. The issue here is the queues just to get ON the server.
Over Christmas, Blizzard also limited character creation on certain realms. Good, glad to know that new players would be forced to newer realms. Unfortunatley, that unleashed a flood onto the "open" servers. And the queue for my realm increased drastically.
Blizzard has said authorized certain specific realms to transfer to other specific realms in the past (say, if you were on realm A then everyone could transfer to realm B... but only those on A could go only to B). They have hinted in the past at opening that up a bit... such that any one on any realm could transfer a character to a new realm. Might be useful. There's also been hinting at "pay to transfer" schemes. That would help limit the hopscotching, as well as put money into the infrastructure and upkeep.
In a comedy with Carol Kane, numerous others, gun fights with helicopters and a camel. Oh, and it's partly a musical with an epic storyline involving the fate of the world. No similar movies at the time...
Yep. Ishtar wins. Blockbuster successful.
Of course, Star Wars should've flopped by the same arguments.
All you have to do is create a blog, ramble on for a couple pages about "K", never actually SAY anything except describing the letter and KDE's love for it. And then promote it on the front page of Slashdot.
Obviously that appears to be all too common these days.
And where are all these "partial type managers" (bad vocabulary choice aside) that the author claimed? Steam? Mame? That's ALL? How's about something useful - like documents, bookmarks, etc.
I hadn't planned on jumping in to this argument. However, let's admit what this is really all about. A handful (okay, most) people refuse to read the rules of the game. They think, "hey, I'll just jump in and do whatever I want... the Terms of Service are too long so they don't apply to me." As has been reflected on Slashdot REPEATEDLY (mainly in reference to EULAs) you ARE agreeing to their rules whether or not you read them.
The naming conventions have been there long before ranks were awarded for PvP. And the naming conventions specifically state that you can't include titles as part of your name. They state that you cannot spell things "alternatively" in order to get around the naming conventions. And, no, they don't have some poor sod reading every name that a player creates. These things (much like non-Role Playing on a Role Playing server) are "community policed" - meaning you have to be turned in first. You create a "CmdrTaco" and get away with it. Good for you. But now you're complaining because you got caught!?!
Are they swamped, yes. But does it give someone the right to argue that "because I've gotten away with it for so long, it's legal"? No.
So now we're going to pat some guy on the back for finding a way to cut corners instead of doing the job he was paid to do. Sure, I sympathize for having to read so many papers. But, during one semeseter in college, I was responsible for learning to program in LISP, learning at least the basics for writing assembly code, reading Martin Luther (and searching for humanist thought as residue from the Renaissance and a precursor for the Enlightenment) and reading the Tale of Genji (first novel ever... which makes Don Quixote look like a small pamphlet). Did we as students complain? Of course we did! We railed against the professors for "not understanding how much work we had to do"... but did we cut corners? Some did... and I watched a handful get kicked out for cheating and several just failed their classes.
The difference? We were paying for that "abuse". Here's a guy getting paid to do it, and now getting credit for cutting corners... and denying several students the attention they deserve for the work they did.
If we demand the students to do their own work. We should demand the faculty do their own as well!
Actually - my experience was MUCH better. Sure, the servers were incredibly slow. Sure, unlocking took a while. But I believe the decryption was NOT slow because of the pipe into the house, but because of the Hard Drive and CPU.
I received a nice message (after trying to contact Steam 2 or 3 times) saying "we can't continue at this moment because of high demand, but we're going to unlock you anyway and retry the authentication later." I was worried about the whole process too, until I got this message and I realized that THEY HAD PLANNED FOR THIS. They weren't going to screw the customer, they were going to screw themselves (for the time being).
Also - I picked up the "Special Edition" version, so mine was on DVD. Took maybe 20 minutes to install HL1:Source, CS:Source and HL2. I thought that was darn speedy, considering.
I've been following the Welsh translations of KDE (odd hobby, I know), and they've been discussing these "Language Interface Packs". Apparently, installing them converts Windows into that language, yes. But that doesn't mean that one user can use Welsh (or French or German) and another individual use English (or German or French). So, you're locked into ONE LANGUAGE PER WORKSTATION. Other projects (like KDE) allow users to switch languages back and forth.
There's an article (in English) on their website.
It would appear that any sort of software emulation used to support this would be in violation of Nintendo's new patent. Reading through the patent (at least, what I could get through the legalese), they claim rights over software that emulates higher end systems on lower end systems (in their case, playing current games on handhelds or cell phones, etc.). Just a thought.