They've already realized what a huge mess they've made and are working at rectifying the situation. Thanks for keeping up on the latest news on the issue.
Assuming the poster works for the government of the state of West Virginia (chris.l.avis@wv.gov is what his username link translates to) I'd suggest the first thing to do is to talk to whoever was using that IP address and suggest they stop using file sharing on the government network.
That e-mail sounds pretty friendly all things considered. No threat of a lawsuit or anything similar, just letting you know that one of your users may have violated the copyright of a work under their protection.
So we're not supposed to put weapons in space and point them at Earth, but we can stick them up and point them at asteroids... I suppose if we ever need them here we can always just turn them around
If they couldn't keep the content of the "Hot Coffee" fiasco hidden I'm sure it won't be too difficult for someone to liberate this XBOX 360 only content and slide it over to at least the PC version. Heck, for the chance to mess with an XBOX 360 exclusive I may look into the idea myself.
Yeah, many of you will laugh, but I still love the Dreamcast controller. Those analog trigger buttons had just the right size and resistance for my liking.
Actually there is a difference between an undocumented worker and an illegal alien. An illegal alien is someone who is in the country illegally, and undocumented worker is someone in the country (legally or not) and who is working without permission.
As a Canadian I am allowed to visit the US for 1/2 the year as a guest, but I'm not allowed to work. If during a visit I was working I would be an undocumented worker, but not an illegal alien.
Well, I'd guess by the way they've made him look lately (while hanging on the cylon baseship) that Balthar is Jesus. Notice the long hair and the white bathrobe? Seems kind of peculiar. And of course there's always the cute ADAMa and EVElyn names for the Military leader of the fleet and the president.
Why bother? It may have sucked, but it was popular! I suspect there are a ton of us who were teens in the 80s who will eat this stuff up. Sure looking back now a lot of the music had a pretty low level of artistic merit, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to hit the nostalgia strings of a pretty huge audience. I do think they'd be better off focusing on the Rock/Metal scene of the 80s which was more guitar focused than the New Wave scene which had a big synth/keyboard influence but I liked a little bit of everything from that time period.
Am I the only one who thinks they actually survived this pretty well? I mean sure, the goal is to try to make sure that the system never goes down and is up 24/7, but sometimes shit happens in large systems. It seems to me that getting everything back to normal within 12 hours is pretty reasonable. Did they have an instant fix? Well no, of course not, but they got the system back to a working state relatively quickly and hopefully didn't lose data.
Yeah, they've got areas to tighten up their QA and patch processes, but on the whole they got it all back up and running faster than most enterprises get their email functioning after a worm.
Not only is the internet great for distributing music, it is also a great place to talk to other people with similar (or diverse) music interests. The shop owners from the article mention one of the added values they provided to their customers, information about new and obscure music. This information can now be found online rather easilly, music communities have grown and people are discussing these same things online. It isn't just that people can go online and download music, they can also go online and *discuss* music. The value of the independant music store has decreased because of this.
I do still frequent independant music shops, and I know several that are doing booming business. The trick is to tap into the local music scene, support the local artists (instore events), and try to encourage your own community. If you're just an indie music shop and your added value is that you know about music, well that's just not as much of an added value these days.
I do sympathise with these independant retailers as they battle the superstores who get exclusives, but those exclusives are really only for the top 40 acts anyhow. I got the impression top 40 wasn't meant to be the bread and butter of the indie shop anyhow...
Using that same logic, shouldn't everyone just abandon Linux as Windows is clearly better? If Linux were superior the vast majority would be using it today.
Personally, I don't care either way in the micro/macro kernel debate. As long as we have people still interested in both its a win-win situation for us computer enthusiasts.
I read and enjoyed the article but was left wondering, is this really a glitch? The author described what he has done to complete the quest that he claims to be glitching. Sadly, he's not actually doing the right thing. Odds are the quest is working just fine, he's just not a very successful knight.
Heh... Why don't we just agree that factoring in the hardware is a silly argument?
If I compare the time spent using the computer playing oblivion against the time I use the computer *not* playing oblivion the cost really is negligible. Seriously dude. I'd be surprised if 1% of the time on my computer ends up being spent on Oblivion.
I'm not pushing some PC vs XBox360 agenda here. I don't care what hardware people own or what they use. I'm sure the game plays great on the 360 just as I'm entirely happy with how it plays on my PC (Well I'd love more keyboard shortcuts and macros, but they did a great job balancing the interface for the PC and console.).
I think one thing we can both agree on is anyone who bought an XBox360 just to play Oblivion and anyone who bought a PC just to play Oblivion needs to get a life.
My cost to play Oblivion is not (cost of PC) + (cost of Oblivion) + (Time). Not in any way, shape or form. That's like saying if I drive my car to the grocery store my trip cost me (cost of car) + (cost of gas to grocery store) + (insurance for the year) + (maintenance for the year).
My cost to play Oblivion was $44.99, plain and simple.
Firstly, I'm sure that when comapring the cost of the game the poster was trying to point out that the PC version is typically $49 while the XBox360 version is $59. (Check out EBWorld and Amazon to compare)
Secondly, comparing the cost of my PC to the cost of an XBOX360 is ludicrous. I use my PC for all kinds of things, gaming being one of them. As such the 'cost' of the gaming component of my PC is weighted in with the other uses. Its not like the only thing I do with my PC is Oblivion (or gaming in general). And to be honest, my PC didn't cost all that much. $79 at Frys for an AMD 2800+ and motherboard, $50 hard drive, $100 used Nvidia 6800 Graphics card, 1 Gig Ram ($79), mouse/keyboard ($20), case ($50). $358... Xbox360 is $399...
I haven't laughed this hard in a while, and I lead a pretty lighthearted life. Kudos to Slashdot. I'm glad I wasn't drinking coffee or it would have shot out my nose...
Wow, I love the knee jerk reaction by the slashdot crowd whenever the media mentions a video game releated to a crime. Everyone gets so touchy, its not like any of the articles even mentioned banning games or anything...
It is entirely plausible that these kids were *inspired* by their video games, or perhaps by a movie they saw. Gotta get your ideas from somewhere... However, acknowleding that point, there's also the fact that pretty much *everyone else* who played the game didn't up and go graffitti their neighbourhoods.
There's also many people's "bad parenting" cries... Come on gang, do none of you remember what its like to be kids? Damn, I was a good kid. Smart, polite, respectful of my elders, but from time to time I did dumb ass stuff like this too. It doesn't mean I had bad parents, to be honest I think my parents did an outstanding job (I'm 35 these days and still not in jail, good credit, professional job, university educated, animals and people like me.).
Kids do dumb shit sometimes. It doesn't always have to be bad parenting, and it doesn't necesarilly imply that the kids in question are juvenile delinquents.
If you're going to write a book about internet victimization and possibly how to protect yourself, wouldn't Step 1 include not publishing your personal information? A quick whois on the book author's website reveals:
Registrant: TARBOX, KATIE (KATIET-DOM)
XXX XXXXXX ST
NEW CANAAN, CT XXXX-XXXX
US
Domain Name: KATIET.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
TARBOX, KATIE (KT6079) XXXXXXXX@aol.com
XXX XXXXX ST
NEW CANAAN, CT XXXXX-XXXX
US
XXX XXX XXXX
Record expires on 22-Oct-2010.
Record created on 22-Oct-1999.
Database last updated on 5-Aug-2004 15:15:55 EDT.
Yeah, I XXXed out some of the information there, including her street address, phone number and AOL email address.
Anyhow, yeah, its sad this chick got abused. Yeah, its also great she's spoken out about it, good for her in writing the book. Shame on her though for this legal bullshit. She should take control of this situation and get all the pressue off the owner of katie.com.
From the sounds of things Meridian 59 is much more in line with what I consider reasonable pricing (actually, I consider it exemplary pricing, although I've never played the game myself.). I appreciate the fact that although there is a monthly fee there is no upfront charge to 'buy the game', and $10.95 is (IMHO) a very attractive monthly pricepoint.
My initial post in this thread may not have described it properly, but I have no issue with a monthly subscription charge. For this kind of game I actually *expect* a monthly subscription charge (as long as I don't run out of content playing at a reasonable rate). My real issue is with the high up front cost for CoH ($49.95) providing only 1 months worth of play coupled with what I consider to be a rather high subscription charge.
In the end, it doesn't matter to me how much it costs to develop, nor how much money the company is making. What matters to me is my perception of the value of my money. City of Heroes does not provide proper value for my money mainly due to the pricing of the initial package.
I don't mean to sound whiny, in the end all that it means is that I won't buy/play their game. I won't put down the game itself, it's a ton of fun. It's mostly stable, I love the variety in powers and the customizability of the heroes, and all in al playing in the Beta has been a good experience. For anyone who feels the pricing works for them I say by all means, go for it.
I'm playing in the Beta and am having a really fun time with the game. I'm impressed with the stability and what has been worked into the game so far, and I'm more than patient to see what other cool things they work into the game in the future. A game can't support everything from the offset, gotta have some room to grow, so I'm not concerned about the lack of PvP and other things that seem to bother a lot of people.
The one thing I am concerned about though is the price. I'm not really interested in dishing out $49.95 for the game (and one month of playtime) and then $14.95 a month thereafter. That's just too much for cash for me to justify. I'm not anywhere close to poverty stricken, I make good money and can afford to spend that much on a game. Unfortunately as much as I'd like to participate I don't see it as *worth* my money. Am I alone in this thinking?
Droping $49.95 and having 3 months worth of online play, that seems worth it in my books (I'm still thinking high, but I'd pay it), but this cash grab just strikes me as unreasonable.
Nonsence. What's the point of limiting what manufacturers can produce if there are consumers willing to buy? Buying leading edge stuff comes with a risk, if you want guarantees and assurances you just have to wait until all the standards are approved.
It seems to me that the current method is the best way to do it. Allow the buyer to be informed and to make the decisions themselves regarding jumping in early during the bleeding edge rush or playing it safe and waiting.
Shame on you for being suckered. I make myself an informed buyer, perhaps so should you.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm surprised they didn't carry the version numbers all the way up to 11.
They've already realized what a huge mess they've made and are working at rectifying the situation. Thanks for keeping up on the latest news on the issue.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008/11/26/ot-081126-shinerama.html
Assuming the poster works for the government of the state of West Virginia (chris.l.avis@wv.gov is what his username link translates to) I'd suggest the first thing to do is to talk to whoever was using that IP address and suggest they stop using file sharing on the government network.
That e-mail sounds pretty friendly all things considered. No threat of a lawsuit or anything similar, just letting you know that one of your users may have violated the copyright of a work under their protection.
So we're not supposed to put weapons in space and point them at Earth, but we can stick them up and point them at asteroids... I suppose if we ever need them here we can always just turn them around
Was there nothing from Richard Garriott's Ulitma series in there?
If they couldn't keep the content of the "Hot Coffee" fiasco hidden I'm sure it won't be too difficult for someone to liberate this XBOX 360 only content and slide it over to at least the PC version. Heck, for the chance to mess with an XBOX 360 exclusive I may look into the idea myself.
Yeah, many of you will laugh, but I still love the Dreamcast controller. Those analog trigger buttons had just the right size and resistance for my liking.
As a Canadian I am allowed to visit the US for 1/2 the year as a guest, but I'm not allowed to work. If during a visit I was working I would be an undocumented worker, but not an illegal alien.
Crap, this is what I get for posting while not thinking... Yeah, my bad. Evelyn was Admiral Adama's mother (and his dad was Joseph).
Well, I'd guess by the way they've made him look lately (while hanging on the cylon baseship) that Balthar is Jesus. Notice the long hair and the white bathrobe? Seems kind of peculiar. And of course there's always the cute ADAMa and EVElyn names for the Military leader of the fleet and the president.
Why bother? It may have sucked, but it was popular! I suspect there are a ton of us who were teens in the 80s who will eat this stuff up. Sure looking back now a lot of the music had a pretty low level of artistic merit, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to hit the nostalgia strings of a pretty huge audience. I do think they'd be better off focusing on the Rock/Metal scene of the 80s which was more guitar focused than the New Wave scene which had a big synth/keyboard influence but I liked a little bit of everything from that time period.
Yeah, they've got areas to tighten up their QA and patch processes, but on the whole they got it all back up and running faster than most enterprises get their email functioning after a worm.
I do still frequent independant music shops, and I know several that are doing booming business. The trick is to tap into the local music scene, support the local artists (instore events), and try to encourage your own community. If you're just an indie music shop and your added value is that you know about music, well that's just not as much of an added value these days.
I do sympathise with these independant retailers as they battle the superstores who get exclusives, but those exclusives are really only for the top 40 acts anyhow. I got the impression top 40 wasn't meant to be the bread and butter of the indie shop anyhow...
Using that same logic, shouldn't everyone just abandon Linux as Windows is clearly better? If Linux were superior the vast majority would be using it today.
Personally, I don't care either way in the micro/macro kernel debate. As long as we have people still interested in both its a win-win situation for us computer enthusiasts.
There is no way I'm taking off my tinfoil hat every time I need to enter a password.
I read and enjoyed the article but was left wondering, is this really a glitch? The author described what he has done to complete the quest that he claims to be glitching. Sadly, he's not actually doing the right thing. Odds are the quest is working just fine, he's just not a very successful knight.
Heh... Why don't we just agree that factoring in the hardware is a silly argument?
If I compare the time spent using the computer playing oblivion against the time I use the computer *not* playing oblivion the cost really is negligible. Seriously dude. I'd be surprised if 1% of the time on my computer ends up being spent on Oblivion.
I'm not pushing some PC vs XBox360 agenda here. I don't care what hardware people own or what they use. I'm sure the game plays great on the 360 just as I'm entirely happy with how it plays on my PC (Well I'd love more keyboard shortcuts and macros, but they did a great job balancing the interface for the PC and console.).
I think one thing we can both agree on is anyone who bought an XBox360 just to play Oblivion and anyone who bought a PC just to play Oblivion needs to get a life.
My cost to play Oblivion is not (cost of PC) + (cost of Oblivion) + (Time). Not in any way, shape or form. That's like saying if I drive my car to the grocery store my trip cost me (cost of car) + (cost of gas to grocery store) + (insurance for the year) + (maintenance for the year).
My cost to play Oblivion was $44.99, plain and simple.
You're kidding me right?
Firstly, I'm sure that when comapring the cost of the game the poster was trying to point out that the PC version is typically $49 while the XBox360 version is $59. (Check out EBWorld and Amazon to compare)
Secondly, comparing the cost of my PC to the cost of an XBOX360 is ludicrous. I use my PC for all kinds of things, gaming being one of them. As such the 'cost' of the gaming component of my PC is weighted in with the other uses. Its not like the only thing I do with my PC is Oblivion (or gaming in general). And to be honest, my PC didn't cost all that much. $79 at Frys for an AMD 2800+ and motherboard, $50 hard drive, $100 used Nvidia 6800 Graphics card, 1 Gig Ram ($79), mouse/keyboard ($20), case ($50). $358... Xbox360 is $399...
I haven't laughed this hard in a while, and I lead a pretty lighthearted life. Kudos to Slashdot. I'm glad I wasn't drinking coffee or it would have shot out my nose...
Wow, I love the knee jerk reaction by the slashdot crowd whenever the media mentions a video game releated to a crime. Everyone gets so touchy, its not like any of the articles even mentioned banning games or anything...
It is entirely plausible that these kids were *inspired* by their video games, or perhaps by a movie they saw. Gotta get your ideas from somewhere... However, acknowleding that point, there's also the fact that pretty much *everyone else* who played the game didn't up and go graffitti their neighbourhoods.
There's also many people's "bad parenting" cries... Come on gang, do none of you remember what its like to be kids? Damn, I was a good kid. Smart, polite, respectful of my elders, but from time to time I did dumb ass stuff like this too. It doesn't mean I had bad parents, to be honest I think my parents did an outstanding job (I'm 35 these days and still not in jail, good credit, professional job, university educated, animals and people like me.).
Kids do dumb shit sometimes. It doesn't always have to be bad parenting, and it doesn't necesarilly imply that the kids in question are juvenile delinquents.
If you're going to write a book about internet victimization and possibly how to protect yourself, wouldn't Step 1 include not publishing your personal information? A quick whois on the book author's website reveals:
.
Registrant:
TARBOX, KATIE (KATIET-DOM)
XXX XXXXXX ST
NEW CANAAN, CT XXXX-XXXX
US
Domain Name: KATIET.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
TARBOX, KATIE (KT6079) XXXXXXXX@aol.com
XXX XXXXX ST
NEW CANAAN, CT XXXXX-XXXX
US
XXX XXX XXXX
Record expires on 22-Oct-2010.
Record created on 22-Oct-1999.
Database last updated on 5-Aug-2004 15:15:55 EDT.
Yeah, I XXXed out some of the information there, including her street address, phone number and AOL email address.
Anyhow, yeah, its sad this chick got abused. Yeah, its also great she's spoken out about it, good for her in writing the book. Shame on her though for this legal bullshit. She should take control of this situation and get all the pressue off the owner of katie.com
From the sounds of things Meridian 59 is much more in line with what I consider reasonable pricing (actually, I consider it exemplary pricing, although I've never played the game myself.). I appreciate the fact that although there is a monthly fee there is no upfront charge to 'buy the game', and $10.95 is (IMHO) a very attractive monthly pricepoint.
My initial post in this thread may not have described it properly, but I have no issue with a monthly subscription charge. For this kind of game I actually *expect* a monthly subscription charge (as long as I don't run out of content playing at a reasonable rate). My real issue is with the high up front cost for CoH ($49.95) providing only 1 months worth of play coupled with what I consider to be a rather high subscription charge.
In the end, it doesn't matter to me how much it costs to develop, nor how much money the company is making. What matters to me is my perception of the value of my money. City of Heroes does not provide proper value for my money mainly due to the pricing of the initial package.
I don't mean to sound whiny, in the end all that it means is that I won't buy/play their game. I won't put down the game itself, it's a ton of fun. It's mostly stable, I love the variety in powers and the customizability of the heroes, and all in al playing in the Beta has been a good experience. For anyone who feels the pricing works for them I say by all means, go for it.
I'm playing in the Beta and am having a really fun time with the game. I'm impressed with the stability and what has been worked into the game so far, and I'm more than patient to see what other cool things they work into the game in the future. A game can't support everything from the offset, gotta have some room to grow, so I'm not concerned about the lack of PvP and other things that seem to bother a lot of people.
The one thing I am concerned about though is the price. I'm not really interested in dishing out $49.95 for the game (and one month of playtime) and then $14.95 a month thereafter. That's just too much for cash for me to justify. I'm not anywhere close to poverty stricken, I make good money and can afford to spend that much on a game. Unfortunately as much as I'd like to participate I don't see it as *worth* my money. Am I alone in this thinking?
Droping $49.95 and having 3 months worth of online play, that seems worth it in my books (I'm still thinking high, but I'd pay it), but this cash grab just strikes me as unreasonable.
Nonsence. What's the point of limiting what manufacturers can produce if there are consumers willing to buy? Buying leading edge stuff comes with a risk, if you want guarantees and assurances you just have to wait until all the standards are approved.
It seems to me that the current method is the best way to do it. Allow the buyer to be informed and to make the decisions themselves regarding jumping in early during the bleeding edge rush or playing it safe and waiting.
Shame on you for being suckered. I make myself an informed buyer, perhaps so should you.