FWIW, I really did write my master's thesis on the use of cryptic information to differentiate among members and n00bs in online communities. Two of my study populations were/. discussions.
I'd post a link but the CV my university required includes personal details. Search hard enough and you'll find it (and interesting related research).
I honestly don't mean to be a flame/troll, but I have to ask:
Since you obviously hold yourself out to be an Apple employee, and I'm assuming you are one, is it wise to be posting this sort of thing?
I mean, I certainly have not seen you post anything inflammatory or detrimental to Apple - in fact, your posts strike me as reasonable and informative - but I know many organizations emphatically do not like non-PR or non-HR employees engaging in public communication, of any kind or tenor, for liability reasons.
Are you doing so anonymously? Again, no offense, I'm just surprised and curious.
screw Merriam-Webster: if you want to know about etymology, there's no excuse not to consult the Oxford English Dictionary.
usurp, v.
I. 1. trans. To appropriate wrongfully to oneself (a right, prerogative, etc.). {dag}Also const. against, upon.
b. esp. To intrude forcibly, illegally, or without just cause into (some dignified or important office, position, etc.); to assume or arrogate to oneself (political power, rule, authority, etc.) by force; to claim unjustly.
2. To seize or obtain possession of (territory, land, etc.) in an unjust or illegal manner; to assume unjust rule, dominion, or authority over, to appropriate wrongfully. Also const. on, upon (= against), over.
b. transf. To occupy or take the place of, physically; to encroach or trench upon.
c. Of feelings, passions, etc.: To take possession of, occupy, or assume predominance in (the mind, bosom, etc.).
d. to usurp the place of, in fig. uses.
{dag}3. To take or hold possession of (something belonging to another or others) by sleight or force; to appropriate by ruse or violence; to steal.
4. To make use of (something not properly belonging to one or one's estate); to use or employ wrongfully.
b. To assume or claim (a name or title) unduly as one's own; to arrogate or take to oneself. Also simply, to assume, bear.
c. To take (a word or words) into use; to borrow or appropriate from another language, source, etc.; to employ, use.
{dag}5. To exercise, practise, or inflict (injury, cruelty, etc.); to put into act, impose. Occas. const. on, towards. Also transf. Obs. rare.
6. To supplant, oust, or turn out (a person); {dag}to deprive (one) of possessions. Also refl. rare.
y'all detecting a pattern here? Me too; 'usurp' carries definite connotations of illicit assumption, skullduggery, wrongfulness, none of which is implied by a more neutral verb like 'supplant' or 'overtake' or 'outcompete', each of which would have been more appropriate.
From a native English speaker with too many degrees in language, communications and law, go Russian guy!
I think he was referring to the reliance on the fact that the buyer was aware of the presence of the license, and the general nature of its terms. That is why it makes reference to an insurance agent explaining the terms of a policy before it is purchased. In the original post, a buyer suffers under a license of whhich he had no reason to know of the existence or the terms.
Come on... even assuming a purchaser of software does not know there is going to be a license at all (which is silly to begin with), he sure does once it tumbles out of the box. At that point, continuing to use the software signifies his acceptance of its terms. That may not be fair, it may not be nice; but it's the law. See, once again, UCC 2-204 and ProCD.
If you know some special way to get stores to take returns on software, I'd love to hear it.
The mechanics of the purchaser's recourse (perhaps against Blizzard, not the reseller) aren't the point here. A different remedy may even by appropriate, but again that's not the point.
Isn't that the state law point from the start of this thread?
Nope. The point of this subthread, if you will, is that challenging the validity of shrinkwrap EULAs is a done deal. Done.
ProCD isn't a clickwrap case. Please read Specht, which is, and cases that cite it.
Also, note that in neither case do you "agree to the terms the second you open the box." The whole idea behind accepting shrinkwrap and clickwrap is the buyer's opportunity to review the terms after purchase, and return the product if he does not agree with them.
I don't know when that very simplified summary you linked was written, but it's not appropriate to cite ProCD regarding clickwrap; anything in it about clickwrap was dicta anyway and has been superseded by subsequent jurisprudence.
In sum, the lawyer (the initial poster mistakenly modded up, that is) is wrong.
The court in that case, rightly, did not examine it in terms of a consumer purchase, but rather a purchase for resale.
Judge Easterbrook, who wrote the ProCD opinion, disagrees with you.
"ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996), holds that terms inside a box of software bind consumers who use the software after an opportunity to read the terms and to reject them by returning the product." - Hill v. Gateway 2000, 105 F.3d 1147, another of Easterbrook's opinions for the 7th Circuit.
Hard to get any clearer than that.
A quick visit to Shepards will provide a litany of cases which have elaborated on distinctions such as these.
Shepardizing ProCD reveals rather a litany of cases following Easterbrook's analysis of UCC 2-204, along with a couple of opinions disagreeing on, as far as I was willing to read, other grounds, principally pre-emption, which has zero to do with your argument.
I didn't bother to read all 30 or so supporting opinions because a) they're mostly district courts; b) UCC Article 2 isn't even law in my state, so I have little interest in it; and c) I don't feel like wasting my time.
By referring to the distinction between "sophisticated parties" I presume you mean, e.g., the distinction between consumers and "merchants" as in UCC 2-207. As far as I am aware, the consumer/merchant distinction troubled the Restatement and UCC redactors only as regards the "battle of forms," not the availability of the contract terms.
A consumer is as well able to read a EULA as a merchant, and just as able to return the product if he disagrees with the terms therein. ProCD and its progeny do apply to this situation.
Whether the submitter has a cause of action against Blizzard on the terms of the EULA is, of course, a different story. But this is about nine years too late to be a "test case" in these circumstances.
The parent poster is correct, of course; the test case for shrinkwrap has come and gone (clickwrap may or may not be a different story, see, e.g., Specht v. Netscape, 306 F.3d 17, and subsequent cases). I don't have any mod points at the moment, so I'll merely chime in.
(IAALS, and ProCD is just about Day 1 of intellectual property law. Rather irresponsible post, especially as IP is not among your areas of practice, according to your firm's site.)
I glanced at that "article" yesterday... it's annoying garbage, but more important it's pretty clearly fictional. No source for the "interview" is noted. The author's credit at the bottom, IIRC, notes he's some fiction freelancer.
In related news, subscribe to Salon, a leftist/aggravating but at least independent voice on politics and corporatization!
I don't pretend to know the precise rules of how WoW governs regeneration, but I am not repeating something heard elsewhere... I have personally, playing WoW, chased characters ABSURD distances, of course trailing them because all classes are the same speed (again, absurd) while they regened health and mana. Particularly annoying was chasing a Horde shaman on my night elf rogue - he kept dropping slow-down totems as his mana returned.
Now, if WoW thinks you are "out of combat" because no MOBS are near, even though your PK flag is up and you have the other faction breathing down your neck... well, that sounds like broken game design.
Also I'm aware of the potion timers, I think those are a good idea. However, I still think regeneration in PvP is too easy and unbalanced for the reasons above.
The poster Onan above made some really good points, and ones that I think crystallize the mindset difference between folks who don't and do enjoy PvP. I;m glad the dude who replied to him brought up Shadowbane, a terribly-made game that still manages to have bar-none the best-balanced, most skill-oriented, most hella fun PvP in the market (the only reason it's still alive). People who enjoy PvP don't see it as a distraction or a drag or ganking or being an asshole - done right, it is FAR MORE FUN for us than even teaming up to whack on mobs. That can be relaxing and communal, and I'm not against questing.
But it's too boring to play a game with only questing. I've fought 10v10's and more - sometimes way more, in the 200+ range - in SB that left me sweating, heart pounding, adrenaline pumped like a massive FPS session would; except winning depended on strategy, operations and tactics instead of twitch. I and a LOT of others hope WoW will open up to that on their PvP servers - please keep in mind, I don't advocate bringing unrestricted PvP gankage to the non-PvP servers. If we're gonna have PvP servers... let's see it done right.
I posted this in an earlier story, I'm gonna cut and paste it because it's even more apropos here. There is NO reason to give WoW 10/10 unless you don't care a whit about PvP, which to my mind is the only real draw MMORPGs have over IRL.
Folks are talking a lot about WoW's upcoming release, and rightly so. It really is going to be the big beasty game it's been promised to be.
But to counter the WoW love I'm seeing I'd like to offer some thoughts on the game's quality for a particular segment of the market: the PvPer.
Caveats: I'm an ex-Clan Lord, ex-Shadowbane player. I enjoy questing and other PvE-type activities for the social aspects, but to put it simply I find playing against the computer damned unsatisfying, fairly quickly. Of course I know serious PvP isn't for everyone, but for those of us who aren't willing to bother unless there's a human on the other side to challenge us with player (NOT character) skill, strategy and quick thinking, there's no substitute.
Executive Summary of my thoughts on WoW PvP: Not Ready for Prime Time, but Lots of Potential. The game is so clearly built around a PvE/questing model its deficiencies in PvP really stand out. However, the engine is robust and looks great, even on sub-standard hardware like mine. I think the problems for PvP posed by a largely PvE game are overcomable, but it's going to take some very significant ruleset/mechanics changes before it's worth it.
Specific problems:
- PvP is Meaningless. It's basically a multi-person duel with no stakes involved. You don't lose anything but a couple of minutes - or less - spent respawning; no loot, little damage to your gear, no money, no experience, NOTHING. There's no recognition for a PvP kill, no death list, no guild/race/area messages about who's kicking who's ass. You can't loot a corpse, you can sit and stare at it until the player decides to respawn, when you can kill them again with no consequences for either of you. Yay.
- Any sort of operational tactics are pointless, because you can't hold territory or ground unless you round up all your enemies, they kindly allow you to kill them all in the same place, and you corpse-camp them. Otherwise they can just rez for free, rapidly, regroup and attack. Everything's a running battle with no center, no topographical advantage, no flanks, no nothing, just a mess.
- All classes are the same speed unmounted. This is ridiculous, and it makes finishing kills a joke if your main damage route is melee. You need potions/gear to move faster, which brings me to my next point.
- The game is dependent on items. This is so Everquest-y it's not even funny. Whether you're skilled or not matters far less than the items you have equipped and, therefore, the time you spent farming to get them (or for the money to buy them at auction). This SUCKS. Some augmentation by items is fine, but this game is ALL about items. And level. Which also sucks. Skill and strategy anticipation is a very distant consideration.
In the brief time I was playing I had a several Horde players complain (this is through their Alliance alts and buddies) that I was exploiting because they for some reason couldn't cast when they wanted to. I was just using the rogue attack Kick; when they looked it up (if they bothered) they complained that it's too powerful to use against players. Come oooonnnnn. In that same vein people were screaming bloody murder and shouting to GMs anytime Horde players mounted a raid. This was on a "PVP SERVER."
Brief aside on player skill v. character skill, cause that's a differentiation that I know a lot of PvE gamers don't make. In general I'm talking about knowledge of your opponent's capabilities, knowledge of your own and the facility to advantageously match yours against his. Facing your enemy with strength in the areas of his weakness, to paraphrase Sun Tzu.
- The group mechanics are rudimentary. Max players in a group is not high enough for PvP and there's no way to mo
Folks are talking a lot about WoW's upcoming release, and rightly so. It really is going to be the big beasty game it's been promised to be.
But to counter the WoW love I'm seeing I'd like to offer some thoughts on the game's quality for a particular segment of the market: the PvPer.
Caveats: I'm an ex-Clan Lord, ex-Shadowbane player. I enjoy questing and other PvE-type activities for the social aspects, but to put it simply I find playing against the computer damned unsatisfying, fairly quickly. Of course I know serious PvP isn't for everyone, but for those of us who aren't willing to bother unless there's a human on the other side to challenge us with player (NOT character) skill, strategy and quick thinking, there's no substitute.
Executive Summary of my thoughts on WoW PvP: Not Ready for Prime Time, but Lots of Potential. The game is so clearly built around a PvE/questing model its deficiencies in PvP really stand out. However, the engine is robust and looks great, even on sub-standard hardware like mine. I think the problems for PvP posed by a largely PvE game are overcomable, but it's going to take some very significant ruleset/mechanics changes before it's worth it.
Specific problems:
- PvP is Meaningless. It's basically a multi-person duel with no stakes involved. You don't lose anything but a couple of minutes - or less - spent respawning; no loot, little damage to your gear, no money, no experience, NOTHING. There's no recognition for a PvP kill, no death list, no guild/race/area messages about who's kicking who's ass. You can't loot a corpse, you can sit and stare at it until the player decides to respawn, when you can kill them again with no consequences for either of you. Yay.
- Any sort of operational tactics are pointless, because you can't hold territory or ground unless you round up all your enemies, they kindly allow you to kill them all in the same place, and you corpse-camp them. Otherwise they can just rez for free, rapidly, regroup and attack. Everything's a running battle with no center, no topographical advantage, no flanks, no nothing, just a mess.
- All classes are the same speed unmounted. This is ridiculous, and it makes finishing kills a joke if your main damage route is melee. You need potions/gear to move faster, which brings me to my next point.
- The game is dependent on items. This is so Everquest-y it's not even funny. Whether you're skilled or not matters far less than the items you have equipped and, therefore, the time you spent farming to get them (or for the money to buy them at auction). This SUCKS. Some augmentation by items is fine, but this game is ALL about items. And level. Which also sucks. Skill and strategy anticipation is a very distant consideration.
In the brief time I was playing I had a several Horde players complain (this is through their Alliance alts and buddies) that I was exploiting because they for some reason couldn't cast when they wanted to. I was just using the rogue attack Kick; when they looked it up (if they bothered) they complained that it's too powerful to use against players. Come oooonnnnn. In that same vein people were screaming bloody murder and shouting to GMs anytime Horde players mounted a raid. This was on a "PVP SERVER."
Brief aside on player skill v. character skill, cause that's a differentiation that I know a lot of PvE gamers don't make. In general I'm talking about knowledge of your opponent's capabilities, knowledge of your own and the facility to advantageously match yours against his. Facing your enemy with strength in the areas of his weakness, to paraphrase Sun Tzu.
- The group mechanics are rudimentary. Max players in a group is not high enough for PvP and there's no way to move in formation. Presentation of group stats - with the portrait and all - is too clunky to make proper use of against human players.
- Far as I know there's no mouse-push camera option. There needs to be if there's not.
what other products besides Google Desktop Search, Spybot Search & Destroy, Google Toolbar and Service Pack 2 are Slashdotters installing on their parents' Windows machines?"
gig-e can do everything infiniband can, WITH tcp, although without the same low latency of infiniband. infiniband just never caught on when it could, it was ahead of its time, but now gigabit ethernet is cheap, and soon ten gigabit ethernet will strip it dry.
[A 747] can do everything [the Joint Strike Fighter] can, although without the same [supersonic speed, air-to-air combat capability] of [the JSF]. [The JSF] just never caught on when it could, it was ahead of its time, but now [747s are] cheap, and soon [the Airbus A300] will strip it dry.
Smart. "Without the low latency of infiniband"? Idiot, what do you think it's for? We're not talking eDonkeying Halo 2 here... ultra-low latency is THE POINT.
Gee, hard decision, although with that price I can see why mac user's would go for it.
Oh wait, you're just a stupid fucking troll. Why don't you go die?
Slashdot Mirror
if you're really interested, disregard the trollage.
If you check the sidebar for the story, you'll notice it's filed under Operative Systems and Linux as well as under Apple, just as you suggest.
Score:0, Flamebait
/. discussions.
*shrug*
FWIW, I really did write my master's thesis on the use of cryptic information to differentiate among members and n00bs in online communities. Two of my study populations were
I'd post a link but the CV my university required includes personal details. Search hard enough and you'll find it (and interesting related research).
Holy shit.
This entire story+comments is the most extreme example of When Geeks Attack I've ever seen.
And I wrote a goddamn master's thesis on the phenomenon.
I honestly don't mean to be a flame/troll, but I have to ask:
Since you obviously hold yourself out to be an Apple employee, and I'm assuming you are one, is it wise to be posting this sort of thing?
I mean, I certainly have not seen you post anything inflammatory or detrimental to Apple - in fact, your posts strike me as reasonable and informative - but I know many organizations emphatically do not like non-PR or non-HR employees engaging in public communication, of any kind or tenor, for liability reasons.
Are you doing so anonymously? Again, no offense, I'm just surprised and curious.
y'all detecting a pattern here? Me too; 'usurp' carries definite connotations of illicit assumption, skullduggery, wrongfulness, none of which is implied by a more neutral verb like 'supplant' or 'overtake' or 'outcompete', each of which would have been more appropriate.
From a native English speaker with too many degrees in language, communications and law, go Russian guy!
best part is, you got "Flamebait" for making a valid protest
Consider Miller products, they at least are generally union-made
No, YAABA (You Are A Bad Acronymizer)
you mean, "the first massive-pvp 'battleground' within World of Warcraft'
Other MMORPGs have done massive (way more than WoW can handle at the moment, due to lag issues) PvP longer and much, much better, e.g. Shadowbane.
Oh shut up!
You folks don't pay for this (at least you, parent poster, don't). So stop complaining about the April Fool's absurdity!
I just had to post cause I'm proud of remembering the last line
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Maybe.
dude...
I think he was referring to the reliance on the fact that the buyer was aware of the presence of the license, and the general nature of its terms. That is why it makes reference to an insurance agent explaining the terms of a policy before it is purchased. In the original post, a buyer suffers under a license of whhich he had no reason to know of the existence or the terms.
Come on... even assuming a purchaser of software does not know there is going to be a license at all (which is silly to begin with), he sure does once it tumbles out of the box. At that point, continuing to use the software signifies his acceptance of its terms. That may not be fair, it may not be nice; but it's the law. See, once again, UCC 2-204 and ProCD.
If you know some special way to get stores to take returns on software, I'd love to hear it.
The mechanics of the purchaser's recourse (perhaps against Blizzard, not the reseller) aren't the point here. A different remedy may even by appropriate, but again that's not the point.
Isn't that the state law point from the start of this thread?
Nope. The point of this subthread, if you will, is that challenging the validity of shrinkwrap EULAs is a done deal. Done.
ProCD isn't a clickwrap case. Please read Specht, which is, and cases that cite it.
Also, note that in neither case do you "agree to the terms the second you open the box." The whole idea behind accepting shrinkwrap and clickwrap is the buyer's opportunity to review the terms after purchase, and return the product if he does not agree with them.
I don't know when that very simplified summary you linked was written, but it's not appropriate to cite ProCD regarding clickwrap; anything in it about clickwrap was dicta anyway and has been superseded by subsequent jurisprudence.
In sum, the lawyer (the initial poster mistakenly modded up, that is) is wrong.
The court in that case, rightly, did not examine it in terms of a consumer purchase, but rather a purchase for resale.
Judge Easterbrook, who wrote the ProCD opinion, disagrees with you.
"ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996), holds that terms inside a box of software bind consumers who use the software after an opportunity to read the terms and to reject them by returning the product." - Hill v. Gateway 2000, 105 F.3d 1147, another of Easterbrook's opinions for the 7th Circuit.
Hard to get any clearer than that.
A quick visit to Shepards will provide a litany of cases which have elaborated on distinctions such as these.
Shepardizing ProCD reveals rather a litany of cases following Easterbrook's analysis of UCC 2-204, along with a couple of opinions disagreeing on, as far as I was willing to read, other grounds, principally pre-emption, which has zero to do with your argument.
I didn't bother to read all 30 or so supporting opinions because a) they're mostly district courts; b) UCC Article 2 isn't even law in my state, so I have little interest in it; and c) I don't feel like wasting my time.
By referring to the distinction between "sophisticated parties" I presume you mean, e.g., the distinction between consumers and "merchants" as in UCC 2-207. As far as I am aware, the consumer/merchant distinction troubled the Restatement and UCC redactors only as regards the "battle of forms," not the availability of the contract terms.
A consumer is as well able to read a EULA as a merchant, and just as able to return the product if he disagrees with the terms therein. ProCD and its progeny do apply to this situation.
Whether the submitter has a cause of action against Blizzard on the terms of the EULA is, of course, a different story. But this is about nine years too late to be a "test case" in these circumstances.
The parent poster is correct, of course; the test case for shrinkwrap has come and gone (clickwrap may or may not be a different story, see, e.g., Specht v. Netscape, 306 F.3d 17, and subsequent cases). I don't have any mod points at the moment, so I'll merely chime in.
(IAALS, and ProCD is just about Day 1 of intellectual property law. Rather irresponsible post, especially as IP is not among your areas of practice, according to your firm's site.)
I glanced at that "article" yesterday... it's annoying garbage, but more important it's pretty clearly fictional. No source for the "interview" is noted. The author's credit at the bottom, IIRC, notes he's some fiction freelancer.
In related news, subscribe to Salon, a leftist/aggravating but at least independent voice on politics and corporatization!
... as I'm sorry to see it kind of is. This is not a flame, I was pining for a Mac Mini but with some upgrade options.
G4 doesn't look upgradeable
more important, video card doesn't look upgradeable. 32 MB? Come on. I was hoping for a Cube replacement, not a Mac Classic.
I don't pretend to know the precise rules of how WoW governs regeneration, but I am not repeating something heard elsewhere... I have personally, playing WoW, chased characters ABSURD distances, of course trailing them because all classes are the same speed (again, absurd) while they regened health and mana. Particularly annoying was chasing a Horde shaman on my night elf rogue - he kept dropping slow-down totems as his mana returned.
Now, if WoW thinks you are "out of combat" because no MOBS are near, even though your PK flag is up and you have the other faction breathing down your neck... well, that sounds like broken game design.
Also I'm aware of the potion timers, I think those are a good idea. However, I still think regeneration in PvP is too easy and unbalanced for the reasons above.
The poster Onan above made some really good points, and ones that I think crystallize the mindset difference between folks who don't and do enjoy PvP. I;m glad the dude who replied to him brought up Shadowbane, a terribly-made game that still manages to have bar-none the best-balanced, most skill-oriented, most hella fun PvP in the market (the only reason it's still alive). People who enjoy PvP don't see it as a distraction or a drag or ganking or being an asshole - done right, it is FAR MORE FUN for us than even teaming up to whack on mobs. That can be relaxing and communal, and I'm not against questing.
But it's too boring to play a game with only questing. I've fought 10v10's and more - sometimes way more, in the 200+ range - in SB that left me sweating, heart pounding, adrenaline pumped like a massive FPS session would; except winning depended on strategy, operations and tactics instead of twitch. I and a LOT of others hope WoW will open up to that on their PvP servers - please keep in mind, I don't advocate bringing unrestricted PvP gankage to the non-PvP servers. If we're gonna have PvP servers... let's see it done right.
Amen. Mod Parent Up!
I posted this in an earlier story, I'm gonna cut and paste it because it's even more apropos here. There is NO reason to give WoW 10/10 unless you don't care a whit about PvP, which to my mind is the only real draw MMORPGs have over IRL.
Folks are talking a lot about WoW's upcoming release, and rightly so. It really is going to be the big beasty game it's been promised to be.
But to counter the WoW love I'm seeing I'd like to offer some thoughts on the game's quality for a particular segment of the market: the PvPer.
Caveats: I'm an ex-Clan Lord, ex-Shadowbane player. I enjoy questing and other PvE-type activities for the social aspects, but to put it simply I find playing against the computer damned unsatisfying, fairly quickly. Of course I know serious PvP isn't for everyone, but for those of us who aren't willing to bother unless there's a human on the other side to challenge us with player (NOT character) skill, strategy and quick thinking, there's no substitute.
Executive Summary of my thoughts on WoW PvP: Not Ready for Prime Time, but Lots of Potential. The game is so clearly built around a PvE/questing model its deficiencies in PvP really stand out. However, the engine is robust and looks great, even on sub-standard hardware like mine. I think the problems for PvP posed by a largely PvE game are overcomable, but it's going to take some very significant ruleset/mechanics changes before it's worth it.
Specific problems:
- PvP is Meaningless. It's basically a multi-person duel with no stakes involved. You don't lose anything but a couple of minutes - or less - spent respawning; no loot, little damage to your gear, no money, no experience, NOTHING. There's no recognition for a PvP kill, no death list, no guild/race/area messages about who's kicking who's ass. You can't loot a corpse, you can sit and stare at it until the player decides to respawn, when you can kill them again with no consequences for either of you. Yay.
- Any sort of operational tactics are pointless, because you can't hold territory or ground unless you round up all your enemies, they kindly allow you to kill them all in the same place, and you corpse-camp them. Otherwise they can just rez for free, rapidly, regroup and attack. Everything's a running battle with no center, no topographical advantage, no flanks, no nothing, just a mess.
- All classes are the same speed unmounted. This is ridiculous, and it makes finishing kills a joke if your main damage route is melee. You need potions/gear to move faster, which brings me to my next point.
- The game is dependent on items. This is so Everquest-y it's not even funny. Whether you're skilled or not matters far less than the items you have equipped and, therefore, the time you spent farming to get them (or for the money to buy them at auction). This SUCKS. Some augmentation by items is fine, but this game is ALL about items. And level. Which also sucks. Skill and strategy anticipation is a very distant consideration.
In the brief time I was playing I had a several Horde players complain (this is through their Alliance alts and buddies) that I was exploiting because they for some reason couldn't cast when they wanted to. I was just using the rogue attack Kick; when they looked it up (if they bothered) they complained that it's too powerful to use against players. Come oooonnnnn. In that same vein people were screaming bloody murder and shouting to GMs anytime Horde players mounted a raid. This was on a "PVP SERVER."
Brief aside on player skill v. character skill, cause that's a differentiation that I know a lot of PvE gamers don't make. In general I'm talking about knowledge of your opponent's capabilities, knowledge of your own and the facility to advantageously match yours against his. Facing your enemy with strength in the areas of his weakness, to paraphrase Sun Tzu.
- The group mechanics are rudimentary. Max players in a group is not high enough for PvP and there's no way to mo
Folks are talking a lot about WoW's upcoming release, and rightly so. It really is going to be the big beasty game it's been promised to be.
But to counter the WoW love I'm seeing I'd like to offer some thoughts on the game's quality for a particular segment of the market: the PvPer.
Caveats: I'm an ex-Clan Lord, ex-Shadowbane player. I enjoy questing and other PvE-type activities for the social aspects, but to put it simply I find playing against the computer damned unsatisfying, fairly quickly. Of course I know serious PvP isn't for everyone, but for those of us who aren't willing to bother unless there's a human on the other side to challenge us with player (NOT character) skill, strategy and quick thinking, there's no substitute.
Executive Summary of my thoughts on WoW PvP: Not Ready for Prime Time, but Lots of Potential. The game is so clearly built around a PvE/questing model its deficiencies in PvP really stand out. However, the engine is robust and looks great, even on sub-standard hardware like mine. I think the problems for PvP posed by a largely PvE game are overcomable, but it's going to take some very significant ruleset/mechanics changes before it's worth it.
Specific problems:
- PvP is Meaningless. It's basically a multi-person duel with no stakes involved. You don't lose anything but a couple of minutes - or less - spent respawning; no loot, little damage to your gear, no money, no experience, NOTHING. There's no recognition for a PvP kill, no death list, no guild/race/area messages about who's kicking who's ass. You can't loot a corpse, you can sit and stare at it until the player decides to respawn, when you can kill them again with no consequences for either of you. Yay.
- Any sort of operational tactics are pointless, because you can't hold territory or ground unless you round up all your enemies, they kindly allow you to kill them all in the same place, and you corpse-camp them. Otherwise they can just rez for free, rapidly, regroup and attack. Everything's a running battle with no center, no topographical advantage, no flanks, no nothing, just a mess.
- All classes are the same speed unmounted. This is ridiculous, and it makes finishing kills a joke if your main damage route is melee. You need potions/gear to move faster, which brings me to my next point.
- The game is dependent on items. This is so Everquest-y it's not even funny. Whether you're skilled or not matters far less than the items you have equipped and, therefore, the time you spent farming to get them (or for the money to buy them at auction). This SUCKS. Some augmentation by items is fine, but this game is ALL about items. And level. Which also sucks. Skill and strategy anticipation is a very distant consideration.
In the brief time I was playing I had a several Horde players complain (this is through their Alliance alts and buddies) that I was exploiting because they for some reason couldn't cast when they wanted to. I was just using the rogue attack Kick; when they looked it up (if they bothered) they complained that it's too powerful to use against players. Come oooonnnnn. In that same vein people were screaming bloody murder and shouting to GMs anytime Horde players mounted a raid. This was on a "PVP SERVER."
Brief aside on player skill v. character skill, cause that's a differentiation that I know a lot of PvE gamers don't make. In general I'm talking about knowledge of your opponent's capabilities, knowledge of your own and the facility to advantageously match yours against his. Facing your enemy with strength in the areas of his weakness, to paraphrase Sun Tzu.
- The group mechanics are rudimentary. Max players in a group is not high enough for PvP and there's no way to move in formation. Presentation of group stats - with the portrait and all - is too clunky to make proper use of against human players.
- Far as I know there's no mouse-push camera option. There needs to be if there's not.
- The combat abilities are built aroun
PearPC?
It also runs more than fine on a G4/733 with a Radeon 8500.
:)
I did tell you that
[A 747] can do everything [the Joint Strike Fighter] can, although without the same [supersonic speed, air-to-air combat capability] of [the JSF]. [The JSF] just never caught on when it could, it was ahead of its time, but now [747s are] cheap, and soon [the Airbus A300] will strip it dry.
Smart. "Without the low latency of infiniband"? Idiot, what do you think it's for? We're not talking eDonkeying Halo 2 here... ultra-low latency is THE POINT.
Oh wait, you're just a stupid fucking troll. Why don't you go die?