And an inactive account where they delete your characters is an account that no one will ever re-activate.
Of course, letting you think they might delete them works in their favor as it keeps some people paying for an extra year or two (or more!) even long after they've stopped playing.
But fear not, your characters will remain there eternally, as long as it's a pay service, no matter how much they huff and bluff otherwise.
> AJAX brings together some hot properties, Javascript, > HTML/DHTML and HTML, according to Julie Hanna Farris
Brr...brrr...brrrp! "Viruses and adware have been detected on your computer! Would you like to download the new WINFixer 2006, AJAX edition now?":rollseyes
> Especially when the disaster you're worried about has not happened in living memory....of humans. What about the Sleestak who came before? Huh? Didn't think of that, didja?
> Everything has a price, even that of billions of lives.
I think you meant to say, "...even that of those billions of lives, them right over there, those guys, yup."
Reminds me of the rule for fleeing a flaming crashed airplane. If the guy in front of you stops to get his luggage out of the rack, shove him out of the way. "While you might have something worth risking your life for, I know damed sure you don't have anything worth risking my life for."
Meh, if you have plenty of time, just ram the 20 ton thing into it on the edge, or even square in the middle. It'll deflect and/or change speed just enough to miss the Earth.
> Also, they mention 20 years prep time - i.e., > they're not planning to build it until a threat > is discovered,
Hopefully that'll leave enough time.
> and the couple billion dollar cost would be > amortized over that time to perhaps 100 mil > per year, split around the world's space agencies.
Actually, a lot more would be spent to accelerate this (so failures leave enough time to try something else) to say nothing of building redundant ships, both for success redundancy and for time acceleration.
And I wouldn't worry about the cost. Politicians have no trouble running up costs for slight problems; actual ones that lose them votes (by impending death of the voters), well hell, quadrupling the national debt they wouldn't blink an eye. And why should they? If they fail, a duodectupled national debt becomes irrelevant.
Wouldn't the ions shot out the ass end smack into the asteroid, counteracting the gravitational pull?
You'd have to have at least two, and arguably more, ion jets pointed away at opposing angles such that, combined, they push the craft in the correct direction, but individually, they shoot the ions past the edge of the asteroid. Like legs on a tripod, say.
Don't! Nuking the moon will knock it out of orbit, where it will visit a different star system every week. Some of those systems are dammmmmned freaky!
> $10,000/pound to get to geosynchronous transfer orbit > > $400,000,000 just to launch this thing into a > geosynchronous transfer orbit (not counting construction costs).
Actually, this ungodly cost includes the construction costs.
> Then again, with the current U.S. national debt at over 8 trillion > (with which we could pay for the launch costs of 20,000 of these > things) maybe the launch costs aren't unreasonable.
Kane: I spent $400 million dollars on one of these last week. I expect to spend $400 million dollars on one of these this week. I expect to spend $400 million dollars on one of these next week. You know what, Mr. Thatcher? At the rate of $400 million dollars a week, I'll have to close this space port...in three hundred and eighty years!
Exactly. You sit there and figure out the tough problems yourself, and feel proud of yourself, then go wander back to the city and are all embarassed because playas have "solved" all the riddles by going to web sites with the answers (or how to calculate the answers if random small variations on puzzles are made, which I haven't even seen that much sophistication yet.) They stand there in the garb only an Einstien would have gotten, d00d, why did you waste your time figuring it out yourself? l4m3.
And you don't have to buy CoV (if you already have CoH) to go PvP in those zones. You do need CoV if you want access to superbases, good or evil. Also, I believe there will be raids of good superbases via evil players and vice versa, though from the beta evidently base features that took months for the supergroups to save up for and craft could be destroyed in 30 seconds. Not the best thinking...
It's already been 5 days since I saw my first villain in the level 38 PvP zone -- a level 31 brute. A bunch of us wiffed on his invulnerability for awhile, then talked.
Well, let's hope it doesn't stop the Rooskies from sending up multimillionaires, though I guess they'll have to call them something besides science experiment payload specialists now.
I mean, some country has to actually have a real purpose for going up there besides this special NASA club of snoots.
Seriously, do these guys ever end up making significant scientific contributions?
Re:So little advancement since UO...
on
MMORPG Evolution
·
· Score: 1
Speaking of SWG, about 80% of my time was spent being a dancer, as that was the one thing no other games had. Yeah a few had some kind of/dance command, but not with dozens of protracted options, to say nothing of it actually being a viable career. And the other 20% was shooting the damned llama-giraffes with said dancer. She was also a pistoleer, for roleplaying reasons, which sucked compared to all other combat classes, but she did have her own cantina.
Hmmm, I wonder if the cantina will be resurrect-able. SWG employees, are you reading this? It had better be.
Re:So little advancement since UO...
on
MMORPG Evolution
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Because nothing creates the "Star Wars" feeling quite like killing llama-giraffes by the hundreds.
Because nothing creates the "Star Wars" feeling quite like being issued a high tech blaster, then seeing it take dozens of shots to kill a god damned llama-giraffe.
And you haven't lived until you've seen 8 guys standing around a single doggie thingie, 7 shooting it with various laser guns, and one dousing it with a FREEKIN' FLAMETHROWER, for thirty seconds, and the thing doesn't run screaming after the first one second, much less die after the first one second.
I have seen games threaten to blow away your (non-trivial level) characters (EverQuest did this) if you quit. But that was always just hot air. Letting you think this might happen keeps people paying even if they quit.
But I have played a lot of games, UO, EQ, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, Horizons, Star Wars Galaxies, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft. I have yet to see one that I've quit that hasn't sent me e-mails begging me to come back, "Your characters are all still here!"
Hell, SWG even will destroy your house (though I understand decay is being removed) but I logged on after reactivating briefly after being quit for 6 months, and I could still resurrect it, no problem.
Remember, if they blow away your characters, that is an account that will never be reactivated. And storage space is cheap. One person on welfare could afford the cash necessary to buy hard drives required to store and back up all the playa data for all MMORPGs ever made, put together. Well maybe not, but a starving college student with a McJob could.
I would not be surprised if my UO account, untouched since about a year after release, still was re-activatable with all my chars and stuff still there.
Actually, this is why I love being a scrapper in City of Heroes. It's the closest thing I've ever seen in an MMORPG to approximating a Quake character.
I'm still waiting for that MMORPG that has traditional classes, plus one special class, a Quake-like character where damage output is related to pure monkey skill rather than "click click click" stuff. I don't have to "level up to 50" to reach the end game. I just pick up my sword, and if I'm good enough, I run in on the dragon along with the more traditional tanks, healers, etc.
This would require you to be able to jump in, swat, and jump back out, dodge, etc. That puts a huge strain on the AI because the current "idiot" method basically just has the monster auto-hit you if its within range, and causes it to/stick to you. Subject to taunts and stats, of course, but that's the sum of it.
I'm glad City of Heroes has progressed beyond EverQuest, wherein if you can gain a height advantage (for example) you can use it, and it's up to the AI to overcome this, which it does. In EverQuest, such things were considered "exploits". Yep, if you did anything but fight and stand there letting the monster/stick and autohit you, you were exploiting. Early on, even zoning with a monster on your @$$ was considered an exploit.
Re:Whoa, step back a bit.
on
MMORPG Evolution
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This is why you may see the number of MMORPG's produced actually accellerate. The current crop is what you get when people invest hoping to be the next 400k superstar. Now that the bar is 10x that, expect more, and larger and more professional productions to come about.
Slashdot Mirror
Because you pay for that service.
And an inactive account where they delete your characters is an account that no one will ever re-activate.
Of course, letting you think they might delete them works in their favor as it keeps some people paying for an extra year or two (or more!) even long after they've stopped playing.
But fear not, your characters will remain there eternally, as long as it's a pay service, no matter how much they huff and bluff otherwise.
> AJAX brings together some hot properties, Javascript,
:rollseyes
> HTML/DHTML and HTML, according to Julie Hanna Farris
Brr...brrr...brrrp! "Viruses and adware have been detected on your computer! Would you like to download the new WINFixer 2006, AJAX edition now?"
> I recall hearing somewhere that $10M is the standard price for a human life
Ask me if I'll pay $10 million to save your life.
Then ask you if you'll pay $100 billion to save your life.
Hey, I have an idea! Let's practice now by moving a big honkin' asteroid for use as an anchor for a space elevator into place.
$15 per person? Fuck it, let 'em die.
> Especially when the disaster you're worried about has not happened in living memory. ...of humans. What about the Sleestak who came before? Huh? Didn't think of that, didja?
What? There are no Sleestak? I rest my case.
Idiot!
Don't have to. God'll protect us. And if we die, we're all goin' to a better place anyway!
Just ask God for forgiveness of your sins, so you'll be ready just in case. Oh, there's some lovely muck down here!
> Everything has a price, even that of billions of lives.
I think you meant to say, "...even that of those billions of lives, them right over there, those guys, yup."
Reminds me of the rule for fleeing a flaming crashed airplane. If the guy in front of you stops to get his luggage out of the rack, shove him out of the way. "While you might have something worth risking your life for, I know damed sure you don't have anything worth risking my life for."
Meh, if you have plenty of time, just ram the 20 ton thing into it on the edge, or even square in the middle. It'll deflect and/or change speed just enough to miss the Earth.
> Also, they mention 20 years prep time - i.e.,
> they're not planning to build it until a threat
> is discovered,
Hopefully that'll leave enough time.
> and the couple billion dollar cost would be
> amortized over that time to perhaps 100 mil
> per year, split around the world's space agencies.
Actually, a lot more would be spent to accelerate this (so failures leave enough time to try something else) to say nothing of building redundant ships, both for success redundancy and for time acceleration.
And I wouldn't worry about the cost. Politicians have no trouble running up costs for slight problems; actual ones that lose them votes (by impending death of the voters), well hell, quadrupling the national debt they wouldn't blink an eye. And why should they? If they fail, a duodectupled national debt becomes irrelevant.
Wouldn't the ions shot out the ass end smack into the asteroid, counteracting the gravitational pull?
You'd have to have at least two, and arguably more, ion jets pointed away at opposing angles such that, combined, they push the craft in the correct direction, but individually, they shoot the ions past the edge of the asteroid. Like legs on a tripod, say.
Don't! Nuking the moon will knock it out of orbit, where it will visit a different star system every week. Some of those systems are dammmmmned freaky!
> $10,000/pound to get to geosynchronous transfer orbit
>
> $400,000,000 just to launch this thing into a
> geosynchronous transfer orbit (not counting construction costs).
Actually, this ungodly cost includes the construction costs.
> Then again, with the current U.S. national debt at over 8 trillion
> (with which we could pay for the launch costs of 20,000 of these
> things) maybe the launch costs aren't unreasonable.
Kane: I spent $400 million dollars on one of these last week. I expect to spend $400 million dollars on one of these this week. I expect to spend $400 million dollars on one of these next week. You know what, Mr. Thatcher? At the rate of $400 million dollars a week, I'll have to close this space port...in three hundred and eighty years!
Cue music: wah wah wah wah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa......
> Jedi will now be a starting profession.
It's my understanding they're not particularly powerful compared to other combat professions, either.
Way to take possibly the most romantic and powerful characters in all fiction and make them get killed by a womp rat.
I can't wait until we're all Cyranos! Cyranos d'Jedi!
Cyrano d'Jedi, dying: My noble opponent, a lackey; my battlefield, a gutter.
Exactly. You sit there and figure out the tough problems yourself, and feel proud of yourself, then go wander back to the city and are all embarassed because playas have "solved" all the riddles by going to web sites with the answers (or how to calculate the answers if random small variations on puzzles are made, which I haven't even seen that much sophistication yet.) They stand there in the garb only an Einstien would have gotten, d00d, why did you waste your time figuring it out yourself? l4m3.
And you don't have to buy CoV (if you already have CoH) to go PvP in those zones. You do need CoV if you want access to superbases, good or evil. Also, I believe there will be raids of good superbases via evil players and vice versa, though from the beta evidently base features that took months for the supergroups to save up for and craft could be destroyed in 30 seconds. Not the best thinking...
It's already been 5 days since I saw my first villain in the level 38 PvP zone -- a level 31 brute. A bunch of us wiffed on his invulnerability for awhile, then talked.
Even better than Sin City? Gosh!
Well, let's hope it doesn't stop the Rooskies from sending up multimillionaires, though I guess they'll have to call them something besides science experiment payload specialists now.
I mean, some country has to actually have a real purpose for going up there besides this special NASA club of snoots.
...and yeah, he is the first 8 year old ever to dream of flying cars.
Seriously, do these guys ever end up making significant scientific contributions?
Speaking of SWG, about 80% of my time was spent being a dancer, as that was the one thing no other games had. Yeah a few had some kind of /dance command, but not with dozens of protracted options, to say nothing of it actually being a viable career. And the other 20% was shooting the damned llama-giraffes with said dancer. She was also a pistoleer, for roleplaying reasons, which sucked compared to all other combat classes, but she did have her own cantina.
Hmmm, I wonder if the cantina will be resurrect-able. SWG employees, are you reading this? It had better be.
Because nothing creates the "Star Wars" feeling quite like killing llama-giraffes by the hundreds.
Because nothing creates the "Star Wars" feeling quite like being issued a high tech blaster, then seeing it take dozens of shots to kill a god damned llama-giraffe.
And you haven't lived until you've seen 8 guys standing around a single doggie thingie, 7 shooting it with various laser guns, and one dousing it with a FREEKIN' FLAMETHROWER, for thirty seconds, and the thing doesn't run screaming after the first one second, much less die after the first one second.
I have seen games threaten to blow away your (non-trivial level) characters (EverQuest did this) if you quit. But that was always just hot air. Letting you think this might happen keeps people paying even if they quit.
But I have played a lot of games, UO, EQ, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, Horizons, Star Wars Galaxies, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft. I have yet to see one that I've quit that hasn't sent me e-mails begging me to come back, "Your characters are all still here!"
Hell, SWG even will destroy your house (though I understand decay is being removed) but I logged on after reactivating briefly after being quit for 6 months, and I could still resurrect it, no problem.
Remember, if they blow away your characters, that is an account that will never be reactivated. And storage space is cheap. One person on welfare could afford the cash necessary to buy hard drives required to store and back up all the playa data for all MMORPGs ever made, put together. Well maybe not, but a starving college student with a McJob could.
I would not be surprised if my UO account, untouched since about a year after release, still was re-activatable with all my chars and stuff still there.
Actually, this is why I love being a scrapper in City of Heroes. It's the closest thing I've ever seen in an MMORPG to approximating a Quake character.
/stick to you. Subject to taunts and stats, of course, but that's the sum of it.
/stick and autohit you, you were exploiting. Early on, even zoning with a monster on your @$$ was considered an exploit.
I'm still waiting for that MMORPG that has traditional classes, plus one special class, a Quake-like character where damage output is related to pure monkey skill rather than "click click click" stuff. I don't have to "level up to 50" to reach the end game. I just pick up my sword, and if I'm good enough, I run in on the dragon along with the more traditional tanks, healers, etc.
This would require you to be able to jump in, swat, and jump back out, dodge, etc. That puts a huge strain on the AI because the current "idiot" method basically just has the monster auto-hit you if its within range, and causes it to
I'm glad City of Heroes has progressed beyond EverQuest, wherein if you can gain a height advantage (for example) you can use it, and it's up to the AI to overcome this, which it does. In EverQuest, such things were considered "exploits". Yep, if you did anything but fight and stand there letting the monster
This is why you may see the number of MMORPG's produced actually accellerate. The current crop is what you get when people invest hoping to be the next 400k superstar. Now that the bar is 10x that, expect more, and larger and more professional productions to come about.