My point, which arched gracefully over your head, was merely that you could prove anything with a Google search and that it wasn't a good point on which to base an argument.
Actually, if you read carefully, this guy was a cop who got fired after being caught selling drugs.
Yeah, this guy is a real success story to be immitated.
The Cardinal Problems With The Game
on
Sim-Dud?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
1) Maxis SEVERELY over-estimated the demand. Because of this, there are too many shards and not enough players.
2) Skills dominate the game too much. Everyone has got to keep their skills up, the skills houses dominate the game, to the detriment of other types.
3) The economy was crippled from the get-go. The only real way to make money with a property is to be a money, skill, or cybersex property. Selling isn't implemented, so sales properties are useless. Casino games have been on the back burner forever, so games properties are useless.
4) Wrong priorities. Instead of getting out fixes that can make the other property types useful or fixing the bugs, they spend time on their corporate sponsorships. The ads don't work if there's no players to see them.
5) Ignoring the core audience. Everyone loved the Sims because you got your own house to mess around with. The fact Sims Online is specifically geared AGAINST that model is insane. All the newbies try to start up their own property, so you get UO all over again. The bar for property ownership needs to be much higer. What is needed is a core group of houses and services, instead of thousands of closed or abandoned houses.
Not to impune the parent poster here, but in many cases, it wasn't much better on MUDs. Granted that many of them were free, but if you think that an impersonal corporation is bad, try dealing with a personal malevolence of a MUD Wizard with a stick on his shoulder. Cheating was generally institutionalized. People that made the highest ranks used their power in petty ways to get "revenge" on anyone who "crossed" them on the way to the top.
Not that I'm defending Sony, but at least an impersonal corporation is neutral. All the litany of charges the author made against Everquest aren't new and implying that it all unique to Everquest is just wrong.
I used SEQ when I still played Everquest. All of my friends knew I used ShowEQ. My entire guild knew I used ShowEQ. About 2/3 of the people I got experience with knew I used ShowEQ. No one ever said to me, "Dude, that's fucked up. You're ruining the game for other people." Know why? Because I wasn't.
Forgive me for being cynical, but just because your friends and everyone directly benefiting from your cheating didn't see a problem with your cheating doesn't mean that it is okay.
When you are playing a game, you are agreeing to play a game by a set of rules. When you break the rules to give yourself an unfair advantage without the conscent of everyone else playing, you are cheating and ruining the game for those playing by the rules. If people want to have an open cheat server, fine, as long as everyone knows what the deal is.
In a word, no. Most of the female characters in his books were just his libertarian wet dreams. How realistic are super-proficient women, who just happen to dress provocatively and mouth his beliefs perfectly?
To me, the right to cheat exists (although it is socially despicable to do so outside of single player games, unless every player agrees beforehand to cheat) and opposition to this right generally takes the same form as the opposition of my right to media shift (ie rip CDs to portable MP3 player).
Yes, the right to cheat exists. Yes, the right to make and run programs that lets you cheat at games exists. All Sony is doing is preventing people who are running known cheating tools from playing on their world servers. They are not disabling the software. They are not modifying your computer in any way.
Your mp3 analogy is thought-provoking, but I think not valid. They are not taking the same forms. No one at Sony is legally going after users using the cheat tools. No cops are breaking down doors. No nastygrams are being sent to schools where the cheat tools are being run. The users right to make and use cheat tools are not being infringed. What Sony is doing is preventing people using cheating tools from playing on their servers. Seems well within their rights to me.
Your solution of playing only with friends makes sense in other online games, but not MMP games. You can't just play with your friends because there are only official servers to play on. But as a moral question, is it really okay for a minority of cheating players to ruin the entire online play experience for everyone else who doesn't want to cheat, and paid exactly the same amoun t of money for the game? That doesn't seem to add up to me.
The comment was intended as a general thought on whether users should have to trust the programmers of any application, whether it be a game or a browser or a specialized net/Internet application.
It is a client/server game. By watching the information that goes to and from the server and decyphering it, you are cheating. Period. You have a choice if you choose to play the game: You can play the game and cheat, or you can play the game and not cheat. If you chose to cheat, you have to accept that Sony will try and stop you.
That is all this boils down to. MS is just a straw man that has nothing to do with this. Apples, oranges.
A perfectly fair thing to do, I think, because it IS their own property and the owner of it has the right to know what exactly is happening, so they can choose whether or not to run a given application instead of having to trust the programmers. Checks and balances.
Surely you kid, right? ShowEQ isn't used as a security program. It is a cheating tool. Even in its most beneficent uses, it is for cheating. Period. This has got to be the most sad apologies for cheating I've ever seen.
Sony made a game. Someone made a cheat program that unbalances the playing field. Sony has every right to try and disable this cheating program. However, their rights end where ours begin. But if they want to change the encryption in their program or make a client that monitors game traffic or the use of a specific cheat program manditory for using the game, guess what? That's their right. You don't have to play the game.
And your analogy with ad programs that uninstall Ad-Aware is both faulty and inflamatory. Those programs are unistalling a security program from your computer so that their spyware will work. Sony is just not letting you play their game if you have a known cheat tool running on your computer. Huge difference.
I have never understood online gamers whining about their right to cheat. This article is talking about this as though it is some brave stand against a corporation doing something bad. This is about people cheating at a game. It ruins it for everyone playing fair. I fail to see why this should be applauded or supported, and I'm fairly shocked Michael wasn't the one posting this story.
Sadly, this is why consoles are going to take over for a while: The majority of players are simply sick with the cheaters. It was amazing to watch people immediately start to whine when MS disabled modded X-Boxes from Live. Sure you can say there were "legitimate" reasons to mod the boxes, but come on.
Of course, this only lasts until some "worthy" individual hooks up a box between the cable and the X-Box to start parsing out material.
Once again, I don't have a source offhand, but I remember reading several economic analyses showing that black slaves were far more expensive than poor whites, as a free serf could simply be given a meager wage and left to starve, while slaves required the owner to provide housing, clothing, etc. And as slaves were assets, the owner would have to provide at least minimal food and medical care.
Potentially, sure, that ignores the social aspect of it. Blacks were sub-humans as far as the south was concerned. They would not just be released as it was bedrock of their social and moral as well as economic life. And there was the social status and standing that came from owning slaves that would also not be surrendered so easily.
Gandhi pulled it off in India...
Not remotely the same situation. If Ghandi had done the same thing in England, you'd be close, but there is no way that the ruling clss of the south would be swayed by non-violent protest, or anything short of full insurrection.
Pejorative?
Hardly. Try "accurate." The south's entire economy was based on agriculture. The lack of industrialization was one of the keys of the Union's success.
I'm not dismissing the possibility of coercion, but what of the oft-mentioned free blacks who chose of their own free will to volunteer to fight for the CSA?
You're kidding, right? First of all, we're talking about a statistically non-existant part of the whole. Secondly, a majority of this whispish number fought for the south because that was the terms of their release. There no doubt were a handful of ex-slaves who did enlist out of misplaced loyalty to their former masters, but this is just another myth of the perfect south.
Of course it doesn't, but I think it's telling when a group of people actually involved in the situation decides that one side or the other is the lesser of 2 evils.
It is easy to make that kind of judgement based on their decision with historical hindsight, but the Native Americans at the time were in no way operating with anytyhing close to all the information. All it tells us is that under a very specific situation, with specific information being told them, they made that choice. I don't think you can honestly say that a free south would have treated them any better than the union did.
Don't get me wrong. The Union wasn't necessarily much better than a USA and CSA, but it was better enough to justify the destruction of the CSA. If only we've been better caretakers of that dream.
Oh jesus christ. If I have to listen to one more southern apologist, I'm going to nuke everything south of Baltimore.
Slavery was in the CSA's constitution. It was the bedrock of their nation. The importation of new slaves was illegal, but largely unenforced.
They did not hold on to it as long as they did because they felt backed against the wall by northern interests. They did so because their entire economy was based on it. And even in the highly unlikely event that slavery was phased out if the south stayed independent, you only need to look at the real post-bellum south to see how non-whites would have been treated. They were defeated in a war and non-whites did not achieve equal rights for a hundred years.
The south was not some mythical happy-land of states rights. It was a backward, agricultural society based on the debasement of non-white peoples for white ends.
The Native American issue is a straw man. Just because the US government did some unpardonable things does not excuse the actions of the CSA, nor does it erase their own infractions against them, which, by the way, were almost as numerous.
They're a working stiff, they got a canned list of stuff from the mothership. Similar deal, from their POV, which you don't seem to care much about.
Damn straight I don't care. My capacity for caring ends when I am interrupted for an advertising pitch.
There are lots of better ways to discourage telemarketing companies than being bitter toward the callers. What's your solution to road rage -- cussing at the other drivers to use their signals?
Wow, it is just bad analogy day. The original poster said that telemarketers interrupting our lives and cable installers should expect the same level of politeness. I say that is not the case, because the cable installer is providing a service we asked for and the telemarketer is basically a salesperson invading your home. I'm not saying people should be rude to them, but given their profession is, by its nature, rude, they shouldn't be surprised if people are.
Telling them to "get another job" is really heartfelt advice, clearly. They know that, they're trying to get by.
Nice try at sarcasm, chief. Come back when they teach you fractions. If they know they are going to perform an intrusive annoyance to people, they can't expect that people won't be rude to them. If their feelings are so fragile, they should get a job in the service industry, which are just as shitty, but at least they are on the right side of the line.
We're always bitching at the poor telemarketing sales reps, when they're not the ones who set their hours, you know?
Not even close to a comparable situation. The cable installer is coming at our behest to provide us a service that we paid for. The telemarker is interrupting our lives to try and sell us a product that we asked for no information on after most likely receiving our contact information by the sale of our personal information without our conscent.
I'm sorry, but get another job. If you know you are going to be inconveniencing people, you have to expect people to be rude right back to you.
So if they take them down, even to say it's for protection, are we losing a facility, really?
Frankly, yes. It is an instance of the government taking away information that should be available to the public under the guise of "national security."
And in the current climate, this is exactly the kind of thing we should be fighting against, with Ashcroft in power.
Granted that this is a relatively minor instance, but it is one that is part of a much greater whole.
The interests of "security" cannot supercede the interests of liberty.
What is also being ignored is that, as other people have pointed out, there are simple, technical solutions to deep linking that would handle your scenario as well.
Slashdot Mirror
My point, which arched gracefully over your head, was merely that you could prove anything with a Google search and that it wasn't a good point on which to base an argument.
Google: "My mom sucks your cock" 1 hit.
My god! It does know everything!
Thank you for the best laugh I've had in at least a month. Whatever you're having, order me a double and put an umbrella in it.
They have very strict laws in Germany about Nazi symbols and such.
Yeah, this guy is a real success story to be immitated.
1) Maxis SEVERELY over-estimated the demand. Because of this, there are too many shards and not enough players.
2) Skills dominate the game too much. Everyone has got to keep their skills up, the skills houses dominate the game, to the detriment of other types.
3) The economy was crippled from the get-go. The only real way to make money with a property is to be a money, skill, or cybersex property. Selling isn't implemented, so sales properties are useless. Casino games have been on the back burner forever, so games properties are useless.
4) Wrong priorities. Instead of getting out fixes that can make the other property types useful or fixing the bugs, they spend time on their corporate sponsorships. The ads don't work if there's no players to see them.
5) Ignoring the core audience. Everyone loved the Sims because you got your own house to mess around with. The fact Sims Online is specifically geared AGAINST that model is insane. All the newbies try to start up their own property, so you get UO all over again. The bar for property ownership needs to be much higer. What is needed is a core group of houses and services, instead of thousands of closed or abandoned houses.
Not that I'm defending Sony, but at least an impersonal corporation is neutral. All the litany of charges the author made against Everquest aren't new and implying that it all unique to Everquest is just wrong.
Not a problem. there wasn't any story in the original.
comicbookguy
/comicbookguy
Most over-rated movie... EVER.
Forgive me for being cynical, but just because your friends and everyone directly benefiting from your cheating didn't see a problem with your cheating doesn't mean that it is okay.
When you are playing a game, you are agreeing to play a game by a set of rules. When you break the rules to give yourself an unfair advantage without the conscent of everyone else playing, you are cheating and ruining the game for those playing by the rules. If people want to have an open cheat server, fine, as long as everyone knows what the deal is.
But all you were doing is cheating.
Heinlien,
In a word, no. Most of the female characters in his books were just his libertarian wet dreams. How realistic are super-proficient women, who just happen to dress provocatively and mouth his beliefs perfectly?
Yes, the right to cheat exists. Yes, the right to make and run programs that lets you cheat at games exists. All Sony is doing is preventing people who are running known cheating tools from playing on their world servers. They are not disabling the software. They are not modifying your computer in any way.
Your mp3 analogy is thought-provoking, but I think not valid. They are not taking the same forms. No one at Sony is legally going after users using the cheat tools. No cops are breaking down doors. No nastygrams are being sent to schools where the cheat tools are being run. The users right to make and use cheat tools are not being infringed. What Sony is doing is preventing people using cheating tools from playing on their servers. Seems well within their rights to me.
Your solution of playing only with friends makes sense in other online games, but not MMP games. You can't just play with your friends because there are only official servers to play on. But as a moral question, is it really okay for a minority of cheating players to ruin the entire online play experience for everyone else who doesn't want to cheat, and paid exactly the same amoun t of money for the game? That doesn't seem to add up to me.
It is a client/server game. By watching the information that goes to and from the server and decyphering it, you are cheating. Period. You have a choice if you choose to play the game: You can play the game and cheat, or you can play the game and not cheat. If you chose to cheat, you have to accept that Sony will try and stop you.
That is all this boils down to. MS is just a straw man that has nothing to do with this. Apples, oranges.
Surely you kid, right? ShowEQ isn't used as a security program. It is a cheating tool. Even in its most beneficent uses, it is for cheating. Period. This has got to be the most sad apologies for cheating I've ever seen.
Sony made a game. Someone made a cheat program that unbalances the playing field. Sony has every right to try and disable this cheating program. However, their rights end where ours begin. But if they want to change the encryption in their program or make a client that monitors game traffic or the use of a specific cheat program manditory for using the game, guess what? That's their right. You don't have to play the game.
And your analogy with ad programs that uninstall Ad-Aware is both faulty and inflamatory. Those programs are unistalling a security program from your computer so that their spyware will work. Sony is just not letting you play their game if you have a known cheat tool running on your computer. Huge difference.
I have never understood online gamers whining about their right to cheat. This article is talking about this as though it is some brave stand against a corporation doing something bad. This is about people cheating at a game. It ruins it for everyone playing fair. I fail to see why this should be applauded or supported, and I'm fairly shocked Michael wasn't the one posting this story.
Sadly, this is why consoles are going to take over for a while: The majority of players are simply sick with the cheaters. It was amazing to watch people immediately start to whine when MS disabled modded X-Boxes from Live. Sure you can say there were "legitimate" reasons to mod the boxes, but come on.
Of course, this only lasts until some "worthy" individual hooks up a box between the cable and the X-Box to start parsing out material.
McExecWithAClue: Quick! Post the story to Slashdot. That will take care of that protest site. Mu-ha-ha.
Potentially, sure, that ignores the social aspect of it. Blacks were sub-humans as far as the south was concerned. They would not just be released as it was bedrock of their social and moral as well as economic life. And there was the social status and standing that came from owning slaves that would also not be surrendered so easily.
Gandhi pulled it off in India...
Not remotely the same situation. If Ghandi had done the same thing in England, you'd be close, but there is no way that the ruling clss of the south would be swayed by non-violent protest, or anything short of full insurrection.
Pejorative?
Hardly. Try "accurate." The south's entire economy was based on agriculture. The lack of industrialization was one of the keys of the Union's success.
I'm not dismissing the possibility of coercion, but what of the oft-mentioned free blacks who chose of their own free will to volunteer to fight for the CSA?
You're kidding, right? First of all, we're talking about a statistically non-existant part of the whole. Secondly, a majority of this whispish number fought for the south because that was the terms of their release. There no doubt were a handful of ex-slaves who did enlist out of misplaced loyalty to their former masters, but this is just another myth of the perfect south.
Of course it doesn't, but I think it's telling when a group of people actually involved in the situation decides that one side or the other is the lesser of 2 evils.
It is easy to make that kind of judgement based on their decision with historical hindsight, but the Native Americans at the time were in no way operating with anytyhing close to all the information. All it tells us is that under a very specific situation, with specific information being told them, they made that choice. I don't think you can honestly say that a free south would have treated them any better than the union did.
Don't get me wrong. The Union wasn't necessarily much better than a USA and CSA, but it was better enough to justify the destruction of the CSA. If only we've been better caretakers of that dream.
Slavery was in the CSA's constitution. It was the bedrock of their nation. The importation of new slaves was illegal, but largely unenforced.
They did not hold on to it as long as they did because they felt backed against the wall by northern interests. They did so because their entire economy was based on it. And even in the highly unlikely event that slavery was phased out if the south stayed independent, you only need to look at the real post-bellum south to see how non-whites would have been treated. They were defeated in a war and non-whites did not achieve equal rights for a hundred years.
The south was not some mythical happy-land of states rights. It was a backward, agricultural society based on the debasement of non-white peoples for white ends.
The Native American issue is a straw man. Just because the US government did some unpardonable things does not excuse the actions of the CSA, nor does it erase their own infractions against them, which, by the way, were almost as numerous.
RTFA. Hell, RTFH. She was never deliquent. The error was in the accounting department of the ISP.
Damn straight I don't care. My capacity for caring ends when I am interrupted for an advertising pitch.
There are lots of better ways to discourage telemarketing companies than being bitter toward the callers. What's your solution to road rage -- cussing at the other drivers to use their signals?
Wow, it is just bad analogy day. The original poster said that telemarketers interrupting our lives and cable installers should expect the same level of politeness. I say that is not the case, because the cable installer is providing a service we asked for and the telemarketer is basically a salesperson invading your home. I'm not saying people should be rude to them, but given their profession is, by its nature, rude, they shouldn't be surprised if people are.
Telling them to "get another job" is really heartfelt advice, clearly. They know that, they're trying to get by.
Nice try at sarcasm, chief. Come back when they teach you fractions. If they know they are going to perform an intrusive annoyance to people, they can't expect that people won't be rude to them. If their feelings are so fragile, they should get a job in the service industry, which are just as shitty, but at least they are on the right side of the line.
Not even close to a comparable situation. The cable installer is coming at our behest to provide us a service that we paid for. The telemarker is interrupting our lives to try and sell us a product that we asked for no information on after most likely receiving our contact information by the sale of our personal information without our conscent.
I'm sorry, but get another job. If you know you are going to be inconveniencing people, you have to expect people to be rude right back to you.
Frankly, yes. It is an instance of the government taking away information that should be available to the public under the guise of "national security."
And in the current climate, this is exactly the kind of thing we should be fighting against, with Ashcroft in power.
Granted that this is a relatively minor instance, but it is one that is part of a much greater whole.
The interests of "security" cannot supercede the interests of liberty.
B&B don't give a damn about ST fans. They have always been about going after the non-fanboy audience and completely ignoring what came before.
Their track record speaks for itself.
The best that can be said of it is that of all the countless Onion knock-offs, it was the least offensive.
What is also being ignored is that, as other people have pointed out, there are simple, technical solutions to deep linking that would handle your scenario as well.