My employer spent (on my team's recommendation), $50,000 for 4 licenses for a very, -very- necessary piece of software for what we're trying to accomplish.
And that's chump change compared to Oracle and Weblogic license fees.
In all cases prior to now it's been strictly rumor.
That is NOT the case today. Today, Dell has promised, PROMISED, product delivery. Not said "we're thinking about going amd", but "We will be delivering multiple desktop SKUs in September and server SKUs by EOY."
Failure to deliver on that promise, or to backtrack on it, will result in Dell seeing their share price slashed, and the history of the Intel/Dell relationship being so closely scrutinized by the FTC that Intel should be scared shitless by the prospect.
This ain't the usual AMD fanboi "OMG!!! Dell is going AMD!!!" schtick that has been an almost annual tradition since the Athlon was released. This time, it's real. Product has been announced.
It's mostly a single, or a couple, new features each year, the removal of features that were generally panned by players/reviewers, and updated rosters, for the most part.
Personally, I'd say $30 would be a better price point for it rather than $50/ea.
How the fuck was this flamebate you sack of shit cocksucking moderates who decided to mod it down?
Turns out it WAS legit, and that he had legitimate, and highly personal reasons for doign what he did. Fuck you for thinking that Israel has no right to defend itself and its citizens against terrorist attacks by foreign nationals, shielded, in part, by other foriegn nations.
IF this is legit, holy crikeys, batman! This is one of the most unbelievably fucked up things I've ever seen on slashdot (even including Katz's earlier articles).
Israel has the right to defend itself. Frankly, they've shown incredible restraint considering they've been under attack incessantly since they were formed (now, their formation we can discuss the legality of, same with the legality of the existence of the UN in the first place...)
I don't agree with term limits on principle. It's as much a limitation on the electorate (who now cannot freely choose whom they want in office) as it is on the elected officials. It throws out the good with the bad, and that's bad. Instead, it would be much better to build more freedom in...by reforming the voting system so that third parties have a fair chance. Choice is good...it's insane to think two positions fully represent the voices of everyone in the country. If citizens felt free to vote honestly, rather than holding their nose and choosing "the lesser of two evils", this problem would go away. However, just as incumbents are unlikely to artificially limit themselves to X terms, the Duopoly (it's really one party with two heads, there's not a dime's worth of difference anymore) is unlikely to do anything that threatens its lock on political power. I've commented on this (and other ideas for reform) elsewhere on this story in fuller detail, if you're interested.
Oh, in principle I agree. Sadly, I don't think it's possible in the current political climate to reform the voting system to bring greater visibility and credibility to parties other than the Democrats and GOP. As you very correctly stated, the incumbents aren't going to do a damned thing that would endanger their position. Politically speaking term limits are much more viable in the current climate. This wouldn't really be AS MUCH of an issue if we hadn't fucked up and let the Senate be elected by popular vote, too.
Hey now, don't say that, I have aspirations of running for Congress.:) Given that they currently "live" in DC for 8 months a year, you almost need to maintain two households. That's not cheap, and it is a very demanding job. In many states I can't even consider running for state legislature, because my pay could be cut by over 50% - almost 80% where I live now. (And no, I don't have some big fat salary. I currently have three jobs to make it work.) Back in the day where the society was agricultural (and gov't was still quite limited in what it did), citizen-legislators could take care of business between January and March, and be home in time for planting and their real jobs. Today there aren't many jobs where you can disappear for 3-6 months - and be "on call" the rest of the year in addition. If you want decent people, you have to pay them a decent salary. In my state, everyone in the legislature is independently wealthy or a retiree. I don't think that's healthy!
Once I did. Now I realize that unless I compromise my personal beliefs and join the major party in my state/district, there's very little, to no hope. At least I'm a realist. I also don't really begrudge Congress nor the President their salaries. You're right - they have to maintain two fully functioning residences, although I'd much rather throw them into dormitory style housing, or apartments so that it's no longer really an excuse. Mostly that's me holding very little regard for the majority of our current Congress, not a truly serious suggestion;)
I'd rather have independantly wealthy in the legislature than attorneys, frankly. The gentrification of America could easily be one of the most dangerous things to happen to our freedom since the Civil War, imo. I'm not saying that -all- retired people are out to screw those still working but... Ok. Yes I am. Many of the retired and soon to be retired feel entitled to their Social Security and Medicare, and many have barely any savings set aside for their retirement. It's those loud and obnoxious voices, more than the "Think of the children" crowd, that pose the most economic danger to the country - and, imo, when economic freedom goes, so does real freedom.
The main problem is that the Founders assumed that elected officials would have the common sense that God gave a goose
QFT. Can I please have some common sense, dignity, and fiscal responsibility back in govenrment? kkthx.
I started moderating but I just have to reply to this one.
The 16th Amendment is NOT ONE of the worst Amendments to the Constitution.
IT IS ABSOLUTELY THE WORST.
There is no question nor doubt that it was not properly adopted, yet it's still there, at least, by anyone with a clue.
The 14th really isn't much better from a practical point of view, as it was punitive in nature regarding the re-integration of the southern states. While I understand and sympathize, it was by far an abuse, and the fact that its adoption was illegally required of each returning state (who were all forced to return, at gunpoint) should by basic common sense force it to be repealed. About the only good part of it is the second clause fixing the population apportionment crap from the 2/3's compromise (hey, some of us actually know a bit about the Constitutional Congress...)
One thing I -WILL- give the states and the Congress - they didn't let THIS piece of shit become an Amendment in the 1920's:
[Proposed 1926; Unratified]
Article --
Section. 1. The Congress shall have power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age.
Section. 2. The power of the several States is unimpaired by this article except that the operation of State laws shall be suspended to the extent necessary to give effect to legislation enacted by the Congress.
The idiots occasionally get something right...
The 22nd should have included Term Limits for Congress, as well as the term limitatations placed ont the Presidency/Vice Presidency. Wouldn't have flown, tho - they'd never have agreed to an amendment that would fire most of them basically at the end of their current terms.
The 26th Changed the voting age from 21 to 18. Personally, if we're gonna have the voting age be 18, drop the drinking age BACK to 18. Otherwise, if you can't drink, you can't vote. I'd rather have an electorate that has had to, by and large, live and work as adults for a couple of years after high school before they're able to vote, than children who really HAVEN'T come into their own fully educated and informed opinions. If I'd posted this earlier in the day, I'd expect flames, but it remains my contention that most high school grads really don't give a flying fuck about anything political unless someone feeds them an opinion first, or they find some sort of ultra-minority "cause" to champion, and they then just vote on everything else the way they're "supposed to" as a supporter of that cause.
27th Amendment - the most recent one, and passed in my personal memory AND lifetime - the only amendment on the books to have done so, I might add. Originally part of the Bill of Rights, Congress couldn't get it's shit together until the political winds, with an elder President Bush, finally forced the assholes in power to pass it. One of the best amendments on the books, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it's patently explicit:
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
I still think Conressional, and Presidential, compensation should be handled by Referendum. One of the reasons people want to be in Congress is because it's the only way they'll ever earn a paycheck even remotely close to 6-figures. I would KILL to see them paid next to nothing.
Back to the 'commerce clause' since it's been mentioned.
Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
...
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
It's basically called TP-Burn, and you do literally that - whenever you have TP, you throw out a weaponskill. No waiting for skillchains, that just slows you down.
But then, I'm a BLM that's been -forced- to manaburn for exp for the last year thanks to WAR and PLD deco-burn parties all but making me unwanted 70+:P
You can put a great player in "average" gear and he'll still be great. YOu CANNOT put a Noob in "great" gear, and expect that he'll not still be a noob.
Gear is not the end-all, be-all, in ANY MMO. Skill does play a role (mostly decision making, since your avatar does the real work), and attitude towards your fellow players plays as much a role.
A noob in great gear is still a noob. He just a higher class of noob.
That sort of thing isn't particularly available in the US, and the majority of the offerings (that I'm aware of) are from 2nd Tier companies that very few Americans seem willing to give business to.
They'd rather pay Comcast, Verizon, at&t, etc for that service (which most of them do NOT currently offer in most of their markets, if at all). We also seem to be more fond of dropping landlines for cellphones, too;)
Uhm. Hello? Promotional pricing is meant to bring in customers, get them used to the service, and only lasts for a short period of time. I'm not at all suprised that they told you to essentially fuck off with you basically asking for YOUR pricing to be the promotional one, forever.
It's a promo. You don't like that you'll have to pay full price in the end, then you shouldn't have signed up in the first place. The only idiot in this story is YOU.
BTW: I'll take Comcast @$65/mo over -any- $18/mo DSL plan (and that price screams 768/128, if it's not a promo price itself!) But then, I've been a Comcast Internet subscriber since 1999.
Actually, you can make anti-competitive moves in the market place, like AMD buying ATI and shutting down the Intel chipset lines immediately depending on certain conditions.
The most prevailing condition being: are you in a monopoly position in your market, or in the market of the company you are purchasing? If the answer is (in the case) glaringly obviously NO, then there is no anti-competitive charge that can be levied. They are acting in order to preserve what little market share their dominant "partner" in the market holds, and for the "little guy" it really is almost "no holds barred".
And the only time you really, REALLY have to pay attention to this is if you're trying to HQ a Tier0 or Tier1 synth with the highest possible chance.
Noone I knows pays much attention to moonphase, or even day, when going for skillups, or HQing in Tier3. Tier3 HQ is MUCH less vulnerable to moon/day influences than Tier0-2. And Tier2 is less vulnerable to the effects than 1 or 0, as well.
But don't mind me - I happen to like the FFXI crafting system enough that I have 2 over 90 and 1 over 80...
At level 14 you shouldn't have been soloing. At that point you really should have been in a full 6-man party and geting 150-250 exp per kill.
Dunno what server you're on, but that's pretty much the way it works (and as you get higher in level, even EP crap can kick your ass, so don't getused to being able to kill stuff and get exp solo - it doesn't last for much longer).
As a Taru BLM, you can get away without using food when playing a mage job - you typically have far more INT and FAAAAAR more MP than any of the other jobs. The only job I'd categorically call Taru "best" at would actually be Summoner, just because of their MP pools.
On Buying gil: If you are buying gil, or buying already levelled characters, YOU'RE A GIMP. Odds are you simply don't have the patience to play the game properly, and you almost definately do not know how to properly play the jobs you bought. I craft for gil. I simply hate farming. Just today, from crafting, I've made about 800k in 3ish hours worth of synth attempts. Including transferring materials between characters. Anyone can do it, most just don't want to for some reason. More money for me.
Call me elitist, or whatever, but I like playing the game with folks that actually know how to play the game, and didn't cheat their way to 75.
1) race matters. If you're a blm, you need to be tarutaru. The rest just have too big a mana defecit to do it efficiently. Whm is almost as bad, although you can get away with it more since healers are always rare. If you aren't the right race for a job, don't bother.
Umm, No. HELL No. I'm a 75 Hume BLM. I have absolutely -zero- problem playing BLM and properly managing my MP pool. I had no problems levelling, and I certainly have no problems end-game. One of the better BLM in my Linkshell is a farking Elvaan for crying out loud. Race really only matters, for mage classes, if you're a Galka. And even they have ways of getting enough of an MP boost that they can mage. Yes, you can be a -slightly- better THF or RNG as a Mithra, but the differences are literally so slight as to be immaterial. Particularly at later levels when you can use gear to make up for the racial differences.
2) Parties need the right mix. You need a healer (whm, rdm, or sum/whm). You need a mana booster (bard, rdm) that can'/t overlap with the healer (so you need a rdm and bard, or 2 rdm, or whm and rdm, etc). You need a tank (pal/war, war/nin, or nin/war). You need 3 damage dealers (everyone else, prefer a blm as at least 1 of them) of different types so you can genkei effectively. If you don't have that, you can't do anything.
Kinda true, but kinda not. Bard and RDM are not -necessary-, but certainly make things easier. More important than Ballad or Refresh are both classes' ability to Debuff the mobs (specifically their class-respective Dispel). A "proper" exp pt is typically 2x Support, Tank, 3x DD. Support jobs are: Corsair (which also doubles as an effective DD), Bard, Red Mage, White Mage, (Summoner) Tanks: Paladin, (Ninja), (Warrior), (Blue Mage) DD: Black Mage, Summoner (this really is Summoner's primary role, not support), Dark Knight, Beastmaster, Puppetmaster, Warrior, Dragoon, Samurai, Monk, Thief, Ranger, Ninja (yes, DD.), Blue Mage
The three new jobs (Blue Mage, Corsair, Puppetmaster) have been excellent additions. You get very unique jobs, two of which can effectively solo, and can also offer quite a bit to an Exp Pt. Blue Mage can basically do everything. THey can self-skillchain and magic burst, for crying out loud. Corsair is essentially a damage dealing Bard. All three new jobs can be unlocked by anyone with a level 30 job. All you need is Sneak and Invis. Just like a level 75, since the new jobs are all in areas with mobs that aggro 75's. OMFG do they aggro!
Final correction: genkai are the level limit quests @50, 55, 60, 65 and 70 - the original level caps that the game had through its first 18 months, or so. Renkei are skillchains (reference Adennak's Renkei Chart - Google for it). Renkei are not absolutely necessary, btw. Helpful as hell, and speed fights up, but not necessary.
Now, if you mean that none have been developed -specifically- for the XBOX360, you're absolutely correct. But there IS an MMO on the XBox. And yes, there's bunches of people playing it.
The game is more than bearable if you actually do things other than farm and level jobs (hint: HELM AND CRAFTING). It's not supposed to be a race to 75 - the game is the journey. Good fucking god...I keep forgetting that most of the end-game people now are still not much better than the noobs they were in the dunes.
Not even microsoft is going to be able to bleed millions of dollers PER DAY. For starters, their investors will not stand for it. YOu wanna ses a shareholder revolt? If MS keeps this shit up, expect to see one.
The NYTimes (hardly a bastion of support for Bush) recount of the FL ballot showed that Bush -did-, in fact, win in 2000.
Sucks to be you, now, don't it?
Personally, I think all the zealots on both sides of the aisle just need to fucking shut up about the 2000 and 2004 election RESULTS and try to fix the problems that exist.
You're not going to get Al Gore in office, nor Kerry. Shut the fuck up about it and support whoever the Dems put up. If the GoP is stupid enough to run Cheney, they deserve the ass kicking that they will get.
One only has to look at their financial reports (which -must-, by law, be accurate and truthful). They're still claiming greater than 500,000 -acounts- in their most recent quarterly report (9mo ending 12/31/05, specifically).
Now, that being said, they also indicate that so far in the current fiscal year that sales/recurring income -is- down significantly from the prior fiscal year (something I've never argued against - FFXI -has- been impacted by WoW and the other "new" games).
Slashdot Mirror
Welcome to enterprise software.
My employer spent (on my team's recommendation), $50,000 for 4 licenses for a very, -very- necessary piece of software for what we're trying to accomplish.
And that's chump change compared to Oracle and Weblogic license fees.
You're a moron.
In all cases prior to now it's been strictly rumor.
That is NOT the case today. Today, Dell has promised, PROMISED, product delivery. Not said "we're thinking about going amd", but "We will be delivering multiple desktop SKUs in September and server SKUs by EOY."
Failure to deliver on that promise, or to backtrack on it, will result in Dell seeing their share price slashed, and the history of the Intel/Dell relationship being so closely scrutinized by the FTC that Intel should be scared shitless by the prospect.
This ain't the usual AMD fanboi "OMG!!! Dell is going AMD!!!" schtick that has been an almost annual tradition since the Athlon was released. This time, it's real. Product has been announced.
It's mostly a single, or a couple, new features each year, the removal of features that were generally panned by players/reviewers, and updated rosters, for the most part.
Personally, I'd say $30 would be a better price point for it rather than $50/ea.
How the fuck was this flamebate you sack of shit cocksucking moderates who decided to mod it down?
Turns out it WAS legit, and that he had legitimate, and highly personal reasons for doign what he did. Fuck you for thinking that Israel has no right to defend itself and its citizens against terrorist attacks by foreign nationals, shielded, in part, by other foriegn nations.
Stupid fucking anti-semitic cocksucking bastards.
IF this is legit, holy crikeys, batman!
This is one of the most unbelievably fucked up things I've ever seen on slashdot (even including Katz's earlier articles).
Israel has the right to defend itself. Frankly, they've shown incredible restraint considering they've been under attack incessantly since they were formed (now, their formation we can discuss the legality of, same with the legality of the existence of the UN in the first place...)
Oh, in principle I agree. Sadly, I don't think it's possible in the current political climate to reform the voting system to bring greater visibility and credibility to parties other than the Democrats and GOP. As you very correctly stated, the incumbents aren't going to do a damned thing that would endanger their position. Politically speaking term limits are much more viable in the current climate. This wouldn't really be AS MUCH of an issue if we hadn't fucked up and let the Senate be elected by popular vote, too.
Once I did. Now I realize that unless I compromise my personal beliefs and join the major party in my state/district, there's very little, to no hope. At least I'm a realist. I also don't really begrudge Congress nor the President their salaries. You're right - they have to maintain two fully functioning residences, although I'd much rather throw them into dormitory style housing, or apartments so that it's no longer really an excuse. Mostly that's me holding very little regard for the majority of our current Congress, not a truly serious suggestion
I'd rather have independantly wealthy in the legislature than attorneys, frankly. The gentrification of America could easily be one of the most dangerous things to happen to our freedom since the Civil War, imo. I'm not saying that -all- retired people are out to screw those still working but... Ok. Yes I am. Many of the retired and soon to be retired feel entitled to their Social Security and Medicare, and many have barely any savings set aside for their retirement. It's those loud and obnoxious voices, more than the "Think of the children" crowd, that pose the most economic danger to the country - and, imo, when economic freedom goes, so does real freedom.
QFT. Can I please have some common sense, dignity, and fiscal responsibility back in govenrment? kkthx.
The 16th Amendment is NOT ONE of the worst Amendments to the Constitution.
IT IS ABSOLUTELY THE WORST.
There is no question nor doubt that it was not properly adopted, yet it's still there, at least, by anyone with a clue.
The 14th really isn't much better from a practical point of view, as it was punitive in nature regarding the re-integration of the southern states. While I understand and sympathize, it was by far an abuse, and the fact that its adoption was illegally required of each returning state (who were all forced to return, at gunpoint) should by basic common sense force it to be repealed. About the only good part of it is the second clause fixing the population apportionment crap from the 2/3's compromise (hey, some of us actually know a bit about the Constitutional Congress...)
One thing I -WILL- give the states and the Congress - they didn't let THIS piece of shit become an Amendment in the 1920's
The idiots occasionally get something right...
:
The 22nd should have included Term Limits for Congress, as well as the term limitatations placed ont the Presidency/Vice Presidency. Wouldn't have flown, tho - they'd never have agreed to an amendment that would fire most of them basically at the end of their current terms.
The 26th Changed the voting age from 21 to 18. Personally, if we're gonna have the voting age be 18, drop the drinking age BACK to 18. Otherwise, if you can't drink, you can't vote. I'd rather have an electorate that has had to, by and large, live and work as adults for a couple of years after high school before they're able to vote, than children who really HAVEN'T come into their own fully educated and informed opinions. If I'd posted this earlier in the day, I'd expect flames, but it remains my contention that most high school grads really don't give a flying fuck about anything political unless someone feeds them an opinion first, or they find some sort of ultra-minority "cause" to champion, and they then just vote on everything else the way they're "supposed to" as a supporter of that cause.
27th Amendment - the most recent one, and passed in my personal memory AND lifetime - the only amendment on the books to have done so, I might add. Originally part of the Bill of Rights, Congress couldn't get it's shit together until the political winds, with an elder President Bush, finally forced the assholes in power to pass it. One of the best amendments on the books, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it's patently explicit
I still think Conressional, and Presidential, compensation should be handled by Referendum. One of the reasons people want to be in Congress is because it's the only way they'll ever earn a paycheck even remotely close to 6-figures. I would KILL to see them paid next to nothing.
Back to the 'commerce clause' since it's been mentioned.
It's basically called TP-Burn, and you do literally that - whenever you have TP, you throw out a weaponskill. No waiting for skillchains, that just slows you down.
:P
But then, I'm a BLM that's been -forced- to manaburn for exp for the last year thanks to WAR and PLD deco-burn parties all but making me unwanted 70+
In other words:
You can put a great player in "average" gear and he'll still be great.
YOu CANNOT put a Noob in "great" gear, and expect that he'll not still be a noob.
Gear is not the end-all, be-all, in ANY MMO. Skill does play a role (mostly decision making, since your avatar does the real work), and attitude towards your fellow players plays as much a role.
A noob in great gear is still a noob. He just a higher class of noob.
That sort of thing isn't particularly available in the US, and the majority of the offerings (that I'm aware of) are from 2nd Tier companies that very few Americans seem willing to give business to.
;)
They'd rather pay Comcast, Verizon, at&t, etc for that service (which most of them do NOT currently offer in most of their markets, if at all). We also seem to be more fond of dropping landlines for cellphones, too
Since 1998. Not 1999.
January 1998, specifically. Damn typos.
Uhm. Hello?
Promotional pricing is meant to bring in customers, get them used to the service, and only lasts for a short period of time. I'm not at all suprised that they told you to essentially fuck off with you basically asking for YOUR pricing to be the promotional one, forever.
It's a promo. You don't like that you'll have to pay full price in the end, then you shouldn't have signed up in the first place. The only idiot in this story is YOU.
BTW: I'll take Comcast @$65/mo over -any- $18/mo DSL plan (and that price screams 768/128, if it's not a promo price itself!) But then, I've been a Comcast Internet subscriber since 1999.
Actually, you can make anti-competitive moves in the market place, like AMD buying ATI and shutting down the Intel chipset lines immediately depending on certain conditions.
The most prevailing condition being: are you in a monopoly position in your market, or in the market of the company you are purchasing? If the answer is (in the case) glaringly obviously NO, then there is no anti-competitive charge that can be levied. They are acting in order to preserve what little market share their dominant "partner" in the market holds, and for the "little guy" it really is almost "no holds barred".
They simply have to obey the law.
And the only time you really, REALLY have to pay attention to this is if you're trying to HQ a Tier0 or Tier1 synth with the highest possible chance.
Noone I knows pays much attention to moonphase, or even day, when going for skillups, or HQing in Tier3. Tier3 HQ is MUCH less vulnerable to moon/day influences than Tier0-2. And Tier2 is less vulnerable to the effects than 1 or 0, as well.
But don't mind me - I happen to like the FFXI crafting system enough that I have 2 over 90 and 1 over 80...
Doesn't seem to have hurt any of the current crop very much.
Unless you think monthly incomes in the millions is a failure...
And I believe that twiddling's point was that maybe you should.
You really DO get what you pay for in the high end server market.
At level 14 you shouldn't have been soloing.
At that point you really should have been in a full 6-man party and geting 150-250 exp per kill.
Dunno what server you're on, but that's pretty much the way it works (and as you get higher in level, even EP crap can kick your ass, so don't getused to being able to kill stuff and get exp solo - it doesn't last for much longer).
As a Taru BLM, you can get away without using food when playing a mage job - you typically have far more INT and FAAAAAR more MP than any of the other jobs. The only job I'd categorically call Taru "best" at would actually be Summoner, just because of their MP pools.
On Buying gil:
If you are buying gil, or buying already levelled characters, YOU'RE A GIMP. Odds are you simply don't have the patience to play the game properly, and you almost definately do not know how to properly play the jobs you bought. I craft for gil. I simply hate farming. Just today, from crafting, I've made about 800k in 3ish hours worth of synth attempts. Including transferring materials between characters. Anyone can do it, most just don't want to for some reason. More money for me.
Call me elitist, or whatever, but I like playing the game with folks that actually know how to play the game, and didn't cheat their way to 75.
1) race matters. If you're a blm, you need to be tarutaru. The rest just have too big a mana defecit to do it efficiently. Whm is almost as bad, although you can get away with it more since healers are always rare. If you aren't the right race for a job, don't bother.
Umm, No. HELL No.
I'm a 75 Hume BLM. I have absolutely -zero- problem playing BLM and properly managing my MP pool. I had no problems levelling, and I certainly have no problems end-game. One of the better BLM in my Linkshell is a farking Elvaan for crying out loud. Race really only matters, for mage classes, if you're a Galka. And even they have ways of getting enough of an MP boost that they can mage. Yes, you can be a -slightly- better THF or RNG as a Mithra, but the differences are literally so slight as to be immaterial. Particularly at later levels when you can use gear to make up for the racial differences.
2) Parties need the right mix. You need a healer (whm, rdm, or sum/whm). You need a mana booster (bard, rdm) that can'/t overlap with the healer (so you need a rdm and bard, or 2 rdm, or whm and rdm, etc). You need a tank (pal/war, war/nin, or nin/war). You need 3 damage dealers (everyone else, prefer a blm as at least 1 of them) of different types so you can genkei effectively. If you don't have that, you can't do anything.
Kinda true, but kinda not. Bard and RDM are not -necessary-, but certainly make things easier. More important than Ballad or Refresh are both classes' ability to Debuff the mobs (specifically their class-respective Dispel).
A "proper" exp pt is typically 2x Support, Tank, 3x DD.
Support jobs are: Corsair (which also doubles as an effective DD), Bard, Red Mage, White Mage, (Summoner)
Tanks: Paladin, (Ninja), (Warrior), (Blue Mage)
DD: Black Mage, Summoner (this really is Summoner's primary role, not support), Dark Knight, Beastmaster, Puppetmaster, Warrior, Dragoon, Samurai, Monk, Thief, Ranger, Ninja (yes, DD.), Blue Mage
The three new jobs (Blue Mage, Corsair, Puppetmaster) have been excellent additions. You get very unique jobs, two of which can effectively solo, and can also offer quite a bit to an Exp Pt. Blue Mage can basically do everything. THey can self-skillchain and magic burst, for crying out loud. Corsair is essentially a damage dealing Bard. All three new jobs can be unlocked by anyone with a level 30 job. All you need is Sneak and Invis. Just like a level 75, since the new jobs are all in areas with mobs that aggro 75's. OMFG do they aggro!
Final correction: genkai are the level limit quests @50, 55, 60, 65 and 70 - the original level caps that the game had through its first 18 months, or so.
Renkei are skillchains (reference Adennak's Renkei Chart - Google for it). Renkei are not absolutely necessary, btw. Helpful as hell, and speed fights up, but not necessary.
Yup, there's no MMORPGs for the XBox360.
Oh. Wait. You seem to be forgetting THIS ONE
Now, if you mean that none have been developed -specifically- for the XBOX360, you're absolutely correct. But there IS an MMO on the XBox. And yes, there's bunches of people playing it.
Fuck you.
The game is more than bearable if you actually do things other than farm and level jobs (hint: HELM AND CRAFTING).
It's not supposed to be a race to 75 - the game is the journey. Good fucking god...I keep forgetting that most of the end-game people now are still not much better than the noobs they were in the dunes.
It's that much per day. And then some.
Not even microsoft is going to be able to bleed millions of dollers PER DAY.
For starters, their investors will not stand for it. YOu wanna ses a shareholder revolt? If MS keeps this shit up, expect to see one.
Their server lines have no problem having linux installed.
Try having a workstation, laptop or desktop machine ship with Linux pre-installed. It's not nearly as easy to get to.
The NYTimes (hardly a bastion of support for Bush) recount of the FL ballot showed that Bush -did-, in fact, win in 2000.
Sucks to be you, now, don't it?
Personally, I think all the zealots on both sides of the aisle just need to fucking shut up about the 2000 and 2004 election RESULTS and try to fix the problems that exist.
You're not going to get Al Gore in office, nor Kerry. Shut the fuck up about it and support whoever the Dems put up. If the GoP is stupid enough to run Cheney, they deserve the ass kicking that they will get.
One only has to look at their financial reports (which -must-, by law, be accurate and truthful).
They're still claiming greater than 500,000 -acounts- in their most recent quarterly report (9mo ending 12/31/05, specifically).
Now, that being said, they also indicate that so far in the current fiscal year that sales/recurring income -is- down significantly from the prior fiscal year (something I've never argued against - FFXI -has- been impacted by WoW and the other "new" games).