You start at 1 and continue listing off numbers, however when you reach a number with a 7 in it (7, 17, etc..), a multiple of 7 (49, 24, etc..), or a double (11, 22, 33, etc..) then you must say "Buzz", and the direction you were going in reverses. How do you ever get past 7? Wouldn't it be: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, *Buzz!*, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...." "Huh? I guess that's game over."
Doesn't the game just always get stuck between two numbers no matter where you start?
Is anybody gullible enough to believe that Bush would actually sign a bill that could hold his administration responsible for its crimes? What makes you think that he'll still be in office by the time this passes? Hell, I'd hold off 8 months on it if I was working on it.
No, the bigger threat is getting it past a Republican filibuster in the Senate (unless they flip flop on issues of Presidential power back to where they were when Bush replaced Clinton).
Yeah, okay, after reading the last three comments which all pounce of the same thing, I realize that I should've mentioned that I agree that we don't get down to 2,000 people.
I was just commenting on the concept that having half the food means only losing half the people isn't well grounded in reality.
This event probably ended up establishing the concept of "races", meaning small groups of geographically isolated humans ended up having a lot of genetically distinct features. Not really. At most this established the divergence of the Khoisan peoples from the common ancestors of the rest of humanity. It didn't really do much to explain why all the rest of us diverged from one another.
If starvation kills off 50% there is twice as much food left for the remaining 50%. Starvation is a self limiting mechanism. You have a lot more homework to do to get down to 2000 remaining individuals. Unfortunately, humanity is really good at that kind of homework. Take a look at the conflict in Darfur right now.
Beneath all the sectarian and racial tensions is a very real survival pressure for the people involved -- Sudan is going through a pretty bad drought, one which most observers believe is the result of climate change. Population pressures are helping to push people to kill each other for access to water and usable farmland.
I mean, you didn't think that half of the world's population is just going to sit there and let the other half live while they die, did you?
Even if we were on a general warming trend with small dips on the way since 1995, that trend could itself be a small upward blip when viewed on the scale of 100 or 1000 years. That said, I've only looked at the global temperature record enough to say "hmmm... that certainly looks like it could be a subset of a Brownian Motion curve." I'm sure you've studied the issue much more than I and are much better qualified to argue whether global warming is a problem. Well, actually the bit about Brownian Motion Fractals was kind of fascinating.
Your point about a "small upward blip" isn't without merit. If you extend the graph out far enough you will see that global temperatures have been on the overall decline ever since the Eocene, roughly 49 million years ago.
Of course, these changes happened over much longer time scale, with a much smaller rate of change than what's happening today. For a scale much more reasonable to looking at human influences, check out this graph. That is a scale that shows how much temperatures have shifted around within our local frame of reference. You'll note the regular up and down cycles of ice ages within this time period before a sudden upwards shift that shows something unusual is occurring. Currently our atmospheric CO2 levels are above those found in any ice cores to date -- 30% higher than anything found in the past 650,000 years. I think that's a little outside the local curve.
127 years of climate data lets us predict so much, doesn't it? I like the models better where we just decide to use roughly 1000 years of data and the models show that CO2 has virtually no impact whatsoever on global climate, and today's current trend is normal.
But those models don't support global warming, so lets just keep this a secret, shall we? Oh, sure. You'll "keep them a secret" because that might mean opening up your bogus data to criticism (assuming it actually exists).
Creationists and those who disbelieve man-made climate change are at opposite ends of the intelligence spectrum. I don't see the difference.
Both require an out and out dismissal of global scientific consensus by experts in the field in favor of widely discredited fringe theory largely promoted by outsiders.
Both require an inability to see how small changes can have large effects over time.
Both ultimately dismiss the physical, geological record as unreliable.
Both consider small anomalies to be more important than the overwhelmingly larger data set and then cling to them as proof of their alternative views even after the larger scientific community figures out how to explain them.
Both frequently blame scientific consensus on conspiracy, bias, and groupthink instead of being willing to credit experts for actually knowing the material better than them, all while ignoring their own self-blinding bias and groupthink.
So, outside of the (American) political and religious ties between the two factions, there's quite a lot of similarity in mindset that goes behind both sets of beliefs which ultimately boils down to a distrust of science in favor of a gut-held, intuitive belief.
How the 1% of a gas that humans produce of a gas that constitutes less than 1% of the atmoshere could be driving "global-bullshit-warming" is beneath intelligent thought, but then this IS/. Why is that so hard to believe? I mean, ozone is only 2-8 ppm and yet without it, surface UV-B levels would be about 350 billion times what they are, and UV-C is almost completely blocked. All this is done by a layer of gas which is dwarfed in volume by CO2 (384 ppm currently, a 30% increase over preindustrial levels).
So if ozone can soak up this much UV-B and UV-C, why can't carbon dioxide and methane soak up some infrared? Again, not only have you ignored the real numbers (by saying 1% of 1%), but you've ignored evidence to the contrary that a very small concentration of gas can have a large effect on a particular spectrum of light because it "seems" illogical to your gut instinct....A lot like a creationist feels about evolution.
We better do something quick because the temperature hasn't increased on Earth in 10 years. You're clearly wrong. It takes a real lack of understanding of statistics to think that you can't have a cold year or two and still have an overall warming trend. This is what happens when you confuse short-term weather trends for long term climate shifts.
Let's take a look at 1998 & 1999. 1998 was the third warmest year on record, with an average global temperature of 14.72 C. The following year dropped 0.26 C, and it took until 2005 to top that temperature at 14.76 C, with last year being 14.73 C.
OH NOES! GLOBAL WARMING IS TEH LIE!
...Right? Well, no. It you look at the graph on the linked page, you'll see that there's *definite* upwards trend in spite of strong variability from year to year. If you take a 5 year average, centered on each year, you get the following trend:
Do you see the clear, upwards trend once statistical noise is removed now?
P.S.: What inconvenient global warming on Mars? Mars temperatures explained. Also, please explain what common source could be warming Mars and Earth during the past few years when Total Solar Irradiance was on the decline from 2000-2005.
Let me make the obvious point that this news is in no way an argument against anthropogenic climate change, not in the least because they're talking about events that are MILLIONS OF YEARS OLD. Bull. Everyone smart enough to know that climate change isn't caused by mankind knows that the universe isn't more than a few thousand years old.
I mean, the presence of glaciers on Mars 10-100 million years ago clearly shows that mankind has nothing to do with the sharp, upward spike in temperatures since the widespread adoption of fossil fuel power.
Clearly, the same forces that eliminated glaciers 10-100 million years ago are behind the changes of the past 150 years.
The presenting of data which was legally gained to a court of law is not an invasion of privacy. I assume that you're hinging that argument on a rather self-reflexive definition of "legally gained?" i.e. If it's legal it's not an invasion of privacy because privacy is only a legal term?
I think most people would disagree. By that standard, anything the government approves of isn't a violation of your rights.
There's nothing personally identifiable in the data they've collected, so it would be challenging to actually link this to a potential crime. Doesn't mean that it's not a potential target for a fishing expedition. If you find out that a criminal used a Bluetooth phone in the area, then it sounds like fair game to me if you think they might have ties to other criminals (e.g. street gangs, drug dealers, etc.)
If you've got their Bluetooth IDs you can confirm whether or not they've met with certain people. Naturally, you have to check the personal devices of each person you suspect.
Good combination of exagerration and an absolutely ridiculous generalisation that isn't substantiated by a single fact. I'm going to hazard a guess that you only get your information about the UK and security issues from Slashdot articles, which is a pretty sure-fire way of getting overblown and inaccurate information. A Telegraph poll showed 65-97% acceptance of CCTV in varying situations.
Not that my own country is much better.
Wow, you've worked out a tool that can be used for good can also be used for evil and that it all depends on who is doing the work. You're so caught up in your default attitude of hostility that you can't see past the end of your own nose. Oh, wow -- and that fact that it could possibly be used for good completely overshadows the fact that *to test it*, they used it for evil.
In all this you forget that if the government really wants to track citizens to that level, it's trivial to triangulate someone's cellphone position even if they're not using it using existing technology, not to mention that recording someone's phone calls is far more useful than collating encrypted Bluetooth data and trying to work out who is saying what. This is your best argument. While triangulation isn't *that* exact AFAIK, nearly every Bluetooth device you're going to care about relates to a cell phone, and cell phones can't be switched into "non-discoverable" mode.
But really, Bluetooth is incidental to what they're actually testing. In the paper, they point out that RFID is more practical inside a prison. The real innovation here is that database to correlate who associates with who.
This technology is equally useful with any and all means of tracking that work on a fine-grained enough level. That they decided to use this on random, involuntary bystanders shows a depressing lack of concern for privacy.
Because gas is cheaper than even the USD 1.00 figure. Some countries see prices below USD 0.50. This is purely because these countries subsidize fuel costs as part of public welfare programs.
See here for a nice, detailed breakdown, week-by-week of gas prices in California. Admittedly, CA is one of the most expensive gas markets in the country, but as of April 21st, $3.08 of $3.85 in average gas prices there come purely from the fuel itself. 11 cents goes to marketing & distribution. 66 cents goes to taxes (many of which rise with fuel costs).
Dropping $3.08 to $1 or even $2 would be a *huge* savings in gas prices there.
Yes, it's fixable. That doesn't mean it wasn't a scandalous disregard for the privacy of private citizens by a bunch of people doing research under a government grant.
(And one for urban design and pervasive systems -- not for anything having to do with correctional facilities. Odd, that.)
Right, right. Apparently, they're called "witness summons" now for people, though I have no idea what you call subpoena duces tecum nowadays. I'm sure that you have some procedure for compelling potential witnesses to a crime to appear and present documents -- like this data.
While two university students don't represent your whole population, the tolerance you people have of being watched by cameras all day does. Frankly, I find your countrymen somewhat distubring for supporting 24/7 pervasive surveillance.
And it's not a non-issue. It's a demonstration of a technique to track the coming and goings of non-criminal citizens for the purpose of determining who they associate with. So what if they claim the ultimate goal is tracking actual prisoners? They've demonstrated a far more useful purpose for it for a nanny state. Can you not imagine the utility this would have in tracking down members of protest groups? This is so much easier to sort through than video footage.
Marking is aggro under a different name. Already addressed elsewhere. See the reply chain to Viking Coder above. I don't care to repeat myself to people who won't bother to read to see if their post is redundant.
3 was the first step toward making DnD more video game like. [...]
I believe 4 is more so based on interviews with the people involved. They use a lot of video game terminology. Define "video game like." People toss that term around like it actually means something but it's frequently just an umbrella term for "things I don't like."
And what's wrong with using MMO terminology? It's useful to describe the way D&D has always been played. All 4e has done is separate combat and non-combat roles and ensure that they're balanced.
"Also, if true, you would've just publicly stated that your friend violated their NDA."
And? And that's a contractual violation that carries legal penalties. It means that if he's not a bare-faced liar, then he's either an idiot or a terrible friend.
"The ultimate choice between the two options is still up to the DM." No shit? really? That's important. See posts above. Aggro does not allow for monster choices. That's how it works.
They claim that the drive generates its crypto key from a password supplied externally. However, they don't explain how it gets this password. I presume from the BIOS, but there's no solid info.
It could be from the OS if the drive isn't intended to be a boot drive, but that would be very strange and limit its usefulness.
Actually, as someone who has played and DM'ed D&D since 1980, have worked for game companies such as Steve Jackson Games, AEG and even TSR, I can say that this game that they are now calling 4e is not worthy of the lineage of the previous versions. As someone who's been gaming since the 90s, I don't find myself too impressed by that argument. I played 1st & 2nd edition through the eyes of a gamer who grew up with modern, lighter, and more orthogonal rules sets. Don't get me wrong. I love Planescape, Spelljammer, and Dark Sun as settings, but D&D as a system has been terribly clunky in its earlier incarnations, and a break with that is a good thing in my mind. 4e has actually made me excited about D&D for the first time in a very long time.
They have wasted the 'seven figures' that they have spent on making this version and as such, Hasbro will be either shutting them down or selling them off. You're inflating the importance of gamers with your tastes too much. Grognards who are happy with older systems will be replaced with younger gamers. And really, what's the point in trying to woo customers who are already happy with what they have?
WotC could shave its customer base in half and still end up with more customers than any other RPG publishing house and still be an industry powerhouse. They will still survive, and I think they'll probably prosper. In contrast, their space for new and interesting 3e products has been mostly mined out.
I haven't heard a single report of someone who has played any of the demo games claiming that the system is *less* fun than 3e. (The only real complaints I've seen is that the game seemed "hack & slash" based on a combat-only delve-format demo meant to highlight the combat rules.) Most of the people predicting 4e's doom have not examined the rules and have no intention of doing so.
[T]he WEG D6 system is vastly better than the new version of the SWRPG I won't disagree with you there. I'm a big fan of D6 Star Wars, though the Jedi system has a fragile balance.
While they may not have gone with the 'aggro' system, what they are spouting is not that far off from the agro system of various MMORPGs. It actually is if you look deeply into the difference between the two mechanics. I've already made two replies on that above, though.
Maybe its time to dust off those 1st Ed books and run from them again.../WWEGGD? I hate to be blunt, but who gives a rip? He's dead, and he hasn't innovated for over 20 years.
Yes, he was the founder of RPGs and a very important, influential man to whom we owe a great debt, but rockers don't ask, "What would Elvis do?" and language designers don't ask, "What would Kernighan and Ritchie do?"
RPG design has moved on since those days. So should we. If you think that the old ways are better, then let the market decide.
Besides the fact that marked enemy can take non-aggressive actions without penalty, it's important to note that aggro systems generally apply to the entire party -- not just to the class that's designed to "take" aggro. (After all, there has to be aggro to take away from allies.)
Thus, 4e does not suffer from the problem of over-zealous healing or nuking causing enemies to blindly charge at the Cleric or Wizard. Enemies will only do so because it's a sensible choice and not because some numeric threshold has been crossed.
Marking is purely a feature of current Defender classes and has nothing to do with how other classes interact with monsters, unlike aggro.
(Aside: Slashdot ate my reply to your first post. Does anyone else hate these new comment forms?)
The main difference between the marking system and aggro is that aggro takes over the actions of the victim whereas marking forces a choice.
Additionally, it's worth noting that the Fighter & Paladin marking abilities only penalize the enemy for attacking someone other than the user of the mark. There is no penalty for sitting around, running away, healing yourself or an ally, etc.
I've a friend who was in on the testing of the new edition. So I've seen some of the rules. [...] there is now aggro Liar. Bare-faced liar.
If you had been playing, you know that there are no aggro rules in 4e. They briefly considered them early in the development of the product but put aside an aggro system in favor of the new marking system which forces a monster to either attack a Defender or take a penalty. AFAIK, the aggro system never saw the light of day outside of WotC offices.
The ultimate choice between the two options is still up to the DM. Players do not get to take control of monsters by inciting them.
The whole "D&D is now WoW" argument is common from people who *haven't* seen enough of the game. You've probably just read a few things on-line and decided to try to boost your credibility by claiming to be an insider. Too bad you tipped your hand by making an obvious and outrageous lie. Also, if true, you would've just publicly stated that your friend violated their NDA.
The main problem with rope is that without some fairly basic yet obscure knowledge, you're more likely to overtie and injure the person or undertie and have them slip free than you are to get it right. You make an excellent and eloquent argument for manacles (though you assume, perhaps erroneously, that most fantasy characters are going to give a crap about over-tying and injuring their quarry). Now explain why chains can't be used with Use Rope. Why aren't there rules for crafting manacles that fit their specific victim optimally?
The problem with 3e skills is that their narrow focus doesn't leave you with guidelines on how to handle these situations. They resemble 2e NWPs that way. By being overly specific, they put the gaming group in the mindset of thinking that even if you have a related set of skills (like being a sailor or a mountain climber) you can't be good at tying a rope unless you paid specifically for it. Players are put in a mindset of thinking "Which one skill covers this?" instead of "How many ways are there to do this?" Fortunately, 4e changes that by becoming a little more open, like most of the games I prefer to play.
Slashdot Mirror
"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, *Buzz!*, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...."
"Huh? I guess that's game over."
Doesn't the game just always get stuck between two numbers no matter where you start?
No, the bigger threat is getting it past a Republican filibuster in the Senate (unless they flip flop on issues of Presidential power back to where they were when Bush replaced Clinton).
I hope you realize that "irradiation" is a real word and that the parent poster was using it correctly. Please tell me you knew that.
Yeah, okay, after reading the last three comments which all pounce of the same thing, I realize that I should've mentioned that I agree that we don't get down to 2,000 people.
I was just commenting on the concept that having half the food means only losing half the people isn't well grounded in reality.
Beneath all the sectarian and racial tensions is a very real survival pressure for the people involved -- Sudan is going through a pretty bad drought, one which most observers believe is the result of climate change. Population pressures are helping to push people to kill each other for access to water and usable farmland.
I mean, you didn't think that half of the world's population is just going to sit there and let the other half live while they die, did you?
Your point about a "small upward blip" isn't without merit. If you extend the graph out far enough you will see that global temperatures have been on the overall decline ever since the Eocene, roughly 49 million years ago.
Of course, these changes happened over much longer time scale, with a much smaller rate of change than what's happening today. For a scale much more reasonable to looking at human influences, check out this graph. That is a scale that shows how much temperatures have shifted around within our local frame of reference. You'll note the regular up and down cycles of ice ages within this time period before a sudden upwards shift that shows something unusual is occurring. Currently our atmospheric CO2 levels are above those found in any ice cores to date -- 30% higher than anything found in the past 650,000 years. I think that's a little outside the local curve.
But those models don't support global warming, so lets just keep this a secret, shall we? Oh, sure. You'll "keep them a secret" because that might mean opening up your bogus data to criticism (assuming it actually exists).
So, outside of the (American) political and religious ties between the two factions, there's quite a lot of similarity in mindset that goes behind both sets of beliefs which ultimately boils down to a distrust of science in favor of a gut-held, intuitive belief. How the 1% of a gas that humans produce of a gas that constitutes less than 1% of the atmoshere could be driving "global-bullshit-warming" is beneath intelligent thought, but then this IS
So if ozone can soak up this much UV-B and UV-C, why can't carbon dioxide and methane soak up some infrared? Again, not only have you ignored the real numbers (by saying 1% of 1%), but you've ignored evidence to the contrary that a very small concentration of gas can have a large effect on a particular spectrum of light because it "seems" illogical to your gut instinct.
Please direct your attention to the record of global temperatures from 1880-2007.
Let's take a look at 1998 & 1999. 1998 was the third warmest year on record, with an average global temperature of 14.72 C. The following year dropped 0.26 C, and it took until 2005 to top that temperature at 14.76 C, with last year being 14.73 C.
OH NOES! GLOBAL WARMING IS TEH LIE!
1995 - 14.35
1996 - 14.46 (+.11)
1997 - 14.49 (+.03)
1998 - 14.48 (-.01)
1999 - 14.52 (+.04)
2000 - 14.57 (+.05)
2001 - 14.56 (-.01)
2002 - 14.59 (+.03)
2003 - 14.66 (+.07)
2004 - 14.68 (+.02)
2005 - 14.68 (+.00)
Do you see the clear, upwards trend once statistical noise is removed now?
P.S.: What inconvenient global warming on Mars?
Mars temperatures explained.
Also, please explain what common source could be warming Mars and Earth during the past few years when Total Solar Irradiance was on the decline from 2000-2005.
I mean, the presence of glaciers on Mars 10-100 million years ago clearly shows that mankind has nothing to do with the sharp, upward spike in temperatures since the widespread adoption of fossil fuel power.
Clearly, the same forces that eliminated glaciers 10-100 million years ago are behind the changes of the past 150 years.
I think most people would disagree. By that standard, anything the government approves of isn't a violation of your rights. There's nothing personally identifiable in the data they've collected, so it would be challenging to actually link this to a potential crime. Doesn't mean that it's not a potential target for a fishing expedition. If you find out that a criminal used a Bluetooth phone in the area, then it sounds like fair game to me if you think they might have ties to other criminals (e.g. street gangs, drug dealers, etc.)
If you've got their Bluetooth IDs you can confirm whether or not they've met with certain people. Naturally, you have to check the personal devices of each person you suspect. Good combination of exagerration and an absolutely ridiculous generalisation that isn't substantiated by a single fact. I'm going to hazard a guess that you only get your information about the UK and security issues from Slashdot articles, which is a pretty sure-fire way of getting overblown and inaccurate information. A Telegraph poll showed 65-97% acceptance of CCTV in varying situations.
Not that my own country is much better. Wow, you've worked out a tool that can be used for good can also be used for evil and that it all depends on who is doing the work. You're so caught up in your default attitude of hostility that you can't see past the end of your own nose. Oh, wow -- and that fact that it could possibly be used for good completely overshadows the fact that *to test it*, they used it for evil. In all this you forget that if the government really wants to track citizens to that level, it's trivial to triangulate someone's cellphone position even if they're not using it using existing technology, not to mention that recording someone's phone calls is far more useful than collating encrypted Bluetooth data and trying to work out who is saying what. This is your best argument. While triangulation isn't *that* exact AFAIK, nearly every Bluetooth device you're going to care about relates to a cell phone, and cell phones can't be switched into "non-discoverable" mode.
But really, Bluetooth is incidental to what they're actually testing. In the paper, they point out that RFID is more practical inside a prison. The real innovation here is that database to correlate who associates with who.
This technology is equally useful with any and all means of tracking that work on a fine-grained enough level. That they decided to use this on random, involuntary bystanders shows a depressing lack of concern for privacy.
See here for a nice, detailed breakdown, week-by-week of gas prices in California. Admittedly, CA is one of the most expensive gas markets in the country, but as of April 21st, $3.08 of $3.85 in average gas prices there come purely from the fuel itself. 11 cents goes to marketing & distribution. 66 cents goes to taxes (many of which rise with fuel costs).
Dropping $3.08 to $1 or even $2 would be a *huge* savings in gas prices there.
Yes, it's fixable. That doesn't mean it wasn't a scandalous disregard for the privacy of private citizens by a bunch of people doing research under a government grant.
(And one for urban design and pervasive systems -- not for anything having to do with correctional facilities. Odd, that.)
Right, right. Apparently, they're called "witness summons" now for people, though I have no idea what you call subpoena duces tecum nowadays. I'm sure that you have some procedure for compelling potential witnesses to a crime to appear and present documents -- like this data.
While two university students don't represent your whole population, the tolerance you people have of being watched by cameras all day does. Frankly, I find your countrymen somewhat distubring for supporting 24/7 pervasive surveillance.
And it's not a non-issue. It's a demonstration of a technique to track the coming and goings of non-criminal citizens for the purpose of determining who they associate with. So what if they claim the ultimate goal is tracking actual prisoners? They've demonstrated a far more useful purpose for it for a nanny state. Can you not imagine the utility this would have in tracking down members of protest groups? This is so much easier to sort through than video footage.
I believe 4 is more so based on interviews with the people involved. They use a lot of video game terminology. Define "video game like." People toss that term around like it actually means something but it's frequently just an umbrella term for "things I don't like."
And what's wrong with using MMO terminology? It's useful to describe the way D&D has always been played. All 4e has done is separate combat and non-combat roles and ensure that they're balanced. "Also, if true, you would've just publicly stated that your friend violated their NDA."
And? And that's a contractual violation that carries legal penalties. It means that if he's not a bare-faced liar, then he's either an idiot or a terrible friend. "The ultimate choice between the two options is still up to the DM."
No shit? really? That's important. See posts above. Aggro does not allow for monster choices. That's how it works.
So I guess Britain's not even pretending anymore that there's a difference between free people and imprisoned criminals.
Who wants to bet that this data will be subpoenaed in a case in the future?
You can view the official press release for more information.
They claim that the drive generates its crypto key from a password supplied externally. However, they don't explain how it gets this password. I presume from the BIOS, but there's no solid info.
It could be from the OS if the drive isn't intended to be a boot drive, but that would be very strange and limit its usefulness.
WotC could shave its customer base in half and still end up with more customers than any other RPG publishing house and still be an industry powerhouse. They will still survive, and I think they'll probably prosper. In contrast, their space for new and interesting 3e products has been mostly mined out.
I haven't heard a single report of someone who has played any of the demo games claiming that the system is *less* fun than 3e. (The only real complaints I've seen is that the game seemed "hack & slash" based on a combat-only delve-format demo meant to highlight the combat rules.) Most of the people predicting 4e's doom have not examined the rules and have no intention of doing so. [T]he WEG D6 system is vastly better than the new version of the SWRPG I won't disagree with you there. I'm a big fan of D6 Star Wars, though the Jedi system has a fragile balance. While they may not have gone with the 'aggro' system, what they are spouting is not that far off from the agro system of various MMORPGs. It actually is if you look deeply into the difference between the two mechanics. I've already made two replies on that above, though. Maybe its time to dust off those 1st Ed books and run from them again...
Yes, he was the founder of RPGs and a very important, influential man to whom we owe a great debt, but rockers don't ask, "What would Elvis do?" and language designers don't ask, "What would Kernighan and Ritchie do?"
RPG design has moved on since those days. So should we. If you think that the old ways are better, then let the market decide.
Besides the fact that marked enemy can take non-aggressive actions without penalty, it's important to note that aggro systems generally apply to the entire party -- not just to the class that's designed to "take" aggro. (After all, there has to be aggro to take away from allies.)
Thus, 4e does not suffer from the problem of over-zealous healing or nuking causing enemies to blindly charge at the Cleric or Wizard. Enemies will only do so because it's a sensible choice and not because some numeric threshold has been crossed.
Marking is purely a feature of current Defender classes and has nothing to do with how other classes interact with monsters, unlike aggro.
(Aside: Slashdot ate my reply to your first post. Does anyone else hate these new comment forms?)
The main difference between the marking system and aggro is that aggro takes over the actions of the victim whereas marking forces a choice.
Additionally, it's worth noting that the Fighter & Paladin marking abilities only penalize the enemy for attacking someone other than the user of the mark. There is no penalty for sitting around, running away, healing yourself or an ally, etc.
[...]
there is now aggro Liar. Bare-faced liar.
If you had been playing, you know that there are no aggro rules in 4e. They briefly considered them early in the development of the product but put aside an aggro system in favor of the new marking system which forces a monster to either attack a Defender or take a penalty. AFAIK, the aggro system never saw the light of day outside of WotC offices.
The ultimate choice between the two options is still up to the DM. Players do not get to take control of monsters by inciting them.
The whole "D&D is now WoW" argument is common from people who *haven't* seen enough of the game. You've probably just read a few things on-line and decided to try to boost your credibility by claiming to be an insider. Too bad you tipped your hand by making an obvious and outrageous lie. Also, if true, you would've just publicly stated that your friend violated their NDA.
The problem with 3e skills is that their narrow focus doesn't leave you with guidelines on how to handle these situations. They resemble 2e NWPs that way. By being overly specific, they put the gaming group in the mindset of thinking that even if you have a related set of skills (like being a sailor or a mountain climber) you can't be good at tying a rope unless you paid specifically for it. Players are put in a mindset of thinking "Which one skill covers this?" instead of "How many ways are there to do this?" Fortunately, 4e changes that by becoming a little more open, like most of the games I prefer to play.