Well, somebody say something about Ultima Online. I've never played it but every time I read an article about the game online, the focus is always on community: guilds, online weddings(?) etc etc. Never any information about "quests" or killing monsters (just the odd complaint about PKers). Maybe it's just skillful PR by Lord British?
Also, for me role playing didn't necessarily mean pretending to be your character. I always thought that was weird. I was more into accurately describing what my character was doing and staying with his motives. I was never into hopping around and saying "hath" and "thou" every other word.
If only there was a way to combine the rules-enforcement aspects of computer play with the flexibity of table-top play! Supposedly some online games, such as Castle Marrach, by the folks over at Skotos, is trying to accomplish this. I have been too busy playing Diablo2 to find out though. =) Oh well.
You plod away at the keyboard, obsessed and consumed with getting that new item, or finishing that last quest, and while so consumed you begin to hate the game. Vehemently. It's a game that goes on forever, and one that you can never win.
Ummmm the game is called EVERQuest, not "Afternoon Quest" or "2 Months Quest." It's right there on the cover of the box you brought home for the store.
You probably played in college...I played in jnr. high school where the only other kids interested in D&D (it seemed) were anti-social losers (I'm including myself). Unsuprisingly, they didn't make for the best role-players (although I would like to think I gave it an honest try).
Funny memory from 7th grade: I happened upon the personals of an alternative weekly that my parents had lying around, was excited to find many ads by people interested in "role playing." My parents had to tactifuly explain that the ads weren't talking about D&D. Yeah, finding people to game with was difficult back then.
Now I am AMAZED by how many kids play RPGs - but it's in the form of Final Fantasy so I don't know if it really counts.
Well you were lucky. My friends read about gold/treasure equaling experience points and were like "woo! instant level 50 character." The DM would just have them stumble down a cave and happen upon a pile of dragon gold (said reptile already dead or easily dispensed with a wishing ring that happened to be in the loot). According to their reading of the rules, 250k GP in the dragon den would get you an instant lvl 50 cleric/assasin.
I was never into this sort of thing, so I usually bailed halfway through the session. The kicker is that they never did anything interesting with these characters, things just degenerated and they sat around and giggle about how strong their characters were. No actual Role Playing!
It was a real disappointment. I had more fun reading the books and imagining what was possible then actually playing. I wonder if anyone under the age of 30 actually plays D&D anymore?
Fast foward to 2003, and a lot of online games are nothing BUT role playing. Plus you can find others with similar aspirations fairly quickly. The real waste of time is traditional RPGs IMHO.
Otherwise, a lot of whining in that article. You are playing monthly, not by the hour so his complaints are a joke! THere are a lot of other online games out there (UO, Sims, SWG soon) so the author should just vote with his dollars like everyone else.
Why does Slashdot keep posting these rants and calling it journalism? Argh, at least link to an article with a study about an EQ psychology/addiction study by a university or something, geez.
Because they can't be in real life. Yay for delusions of grandeur!
Yeah, that is what turned be off to D&D back in the day (i.e. pencil/paper/dice). Every player I found would "cheat" - that is make up character or get the DM to give them loot and half-dead monsters (for full XP btw) - and then sit around giggling about how 733t their character was. Can you say "power fantasy."
Of course, now they can actually play (and hack) games like EQ and get money for it in the end by selling ill-gotten characters. The whole thing seems like a scam to me.
Diablo doesn't seem to have these problems because you can create your own game and so on. Of course, it is not community centric like EQ.
Hmmmm....come to think of it, anybody see any simularities between EQ and/.? Just a thought:
- If you live on the west coast, all the posts have been modded up by the time you even read the home page in the morning
- The "game" is addictive and people lose many days on the site.
I always thought that by now we'd have Rocket Packs for flying around by this point (oh yeah, and robot servants too). If we don't have personal Rocket Packs by 2050, I'm going to be mega pissed.
From Vol 1, Part III, Ch 7, Section 2 - "The Production of Surplus-Value"
[The "speaker" here is yer own "Bobble Head" boss] "Can the labourer," he asks, "merely with his arms and legs, produce commodities out of nothing? Did I not supply him with the materials, by means of which, and in which alone, his labour could be embodied? And as the greater part of society consists of such ne'er-do-wells, have I not rendered society incalculable service by my instruments of production, my [workstation] and my [JBuilder license], and not only society, but the labourer also, whom in addition I have provided with the necessaries of life? And am I to be allowed nothing in return for all this service?"...Our friend, up to this time so purse-proud, suddenly assumes the modest demeanour of his own workman, and exclaims: "Have I myself not worked? Have I not performed the labour of superintendence and of overlooking the [programmer]? And does not this labour, too, create value?" His overlooker and his manager try to hide their smiles. Meanwhile, after a hearty laugh, he re-assumes his usual mien. Though he chanted to us the whole creed of the economists, in reality, he says, he would not give a brass farthing for it. [end quote]
Most people in this country are sheep.Unfortunately we are all too brainwashed by pop-culture and consumerism to realize it. So we will continue to get fucked over each xmas. I don't know about the rest of you, but I was getting screwed back when the times were GOOD. My boss was paying himself 6-figures where I was barely above minimum wage when you factored in the total hours (he "couldn't be bothered" with over time).
Who cares if you aren't getting a raise. Hey, at least you've got the latest Spider Man DVD, drive an Explorer and have got a new pair of Nikes. Retirement plan? Humbug! Bobble Head and his Board have that well invested in *heh* COMPANY STOCK.
People in NYC are pissed at the Transit Workers Union right now for threatening to strike. Well, I think we could all learn something from them. We should look to them as role models. Maybe if we all grew some balls like they have and had a National Strike demanding CEO compensation reform (like they HAVE in Germany and other EU states) we would not be getting a lump of coal every XMas.
We are bringing it on ourselves by being a bunch of spineless, whining wimps.
I only read the 1 star reviews on Amazon...if those are well written and make sense, then I take a harder look at the item.
5-star reviews? Meh. I used to work at a publisher that regularly had employees post 5-star review BS on amazon all the time. We used to have review "wars" with rival publishers. Sometimes a book of ours would have 5-10 reviews only by us and our rival. It was a little absurd. I pretty much assume that any overly positive review is planted (fake reviewers take notice: offer some honest criticisms of your product if you want better results).
I don't know enough about mainframes vs. pc servers to comment further...maybe someone else wants to read the articles I linked above and put in their two cents?
Actually, the last paragraph of the linked article raised an interesting point: how did the astronauts survive the radiation during the trip and while on the Moon? The conspiracy theorist says that they wouldn't survive. Seems more reasonable then the "doctored photograph" nonsense.
1) They were well protected by their spacesuits. 2) The radiation in space is not actually that harmful (for one thing, it it was harmful our satellites would not work for as long as they do). 3) The astronauts were willing to accept the risk anyway (there was a small chance of a "solar storm" occuring, which would kill them).
I think it's time for a more relevant question:
How can people who deny things for which there are mountains of solid evidence (lunar landings, Kennedy assassination, etc. etc.) and are reasonably intellegent simultaneously believe crap for which there is no hard evidence whatsoever (alien abductions, black helicopters, UN forces occupying west Texas, Illumnati controlling world's governments, etc. etc.)
Ralsky said he turns down many who want his services.
"I don't do any porn or sexual messages," he said, citing a promise he made to his wife, Irmengard. Instead, he sends e-mail come-ons for things like online casinos, vacation promotions, mortgage refinancing and Internet pharmacies.
How many times have I read this one? The "I don't spam XXX emails" is a tired line (and I don't really believe it).
Just for fun, let's see an article about a porno spammer defending their business practices. If someone knows of one, please reply.
Also...aren't Internet pharmacies illegal in most states? In that case, wouldn't advertising them be illegal (for example, you can't advertise crack)?
Agreed...in fact, I work in such an IT shop and we have avoided most of these problems by not using Outlook/exchange. We've never had a user get their computer messed up from a browser hole, however...
Still, my point is this: the headlines should be "XXX company calculates that it lost X million dollars troubleshooting fallout from Windows security holes" not "Tee-hee, ANOTHER hole in Windows!" Somebody from the business media please write this article!
It seems like every couple weeks there is an article on/. to the effect of "BIG HOLE IN IE/XP/[MS APP HERE] DISCOVERED. THE END IS NEAR! REPENT, MS USERS" etc etc...ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZ -_-
There are only so many times you can read a headline like that before the "cry wolf" factor starts to kick in. All these "bugtraq" alerts are academic...theoretical...What I want to see is a headline that reads Merrill Lynch crippled by XP flaw. Plans to sue MS for millions $$$ damages or somesuch. Or at least a story of an actual user whose life was ruined by an actual MS security hole. Something tangible...Now THAT would be interesting!
What's not funny is that the "dittoheads" keep repeating this this argument as a mantra - as if it somehow refuted all their opponents positions. Somebody please explain this, I am confused.
Yeah, if you check out the linked article, yourll see that for "Steve's" whole package it's more like $2000 to get started. But for raw addresses we're talking Rock. Bottom. Prices.
"I hate spam," he [the spammer, "Steve"] says. "I've gotten death threats. People have threatened to kill my dog. . . . But when you make a thousand bucks in one day, you could care less."
Marvel has reported millions of dollars in earnings from the film but has told Lee the company has seen no "profits" as defined by their contract.
Even though the movie has grossed over $400 mil, it was produced and distributed by Sony / Columbia Tristar...so if you're all going to flame anyone flame them, not Marvel.
Marvel itself has been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for years (probably due to their own incompetence, but that's another story), and they certianly did not have all $400 mil deposited into their bank account.
I'm not trying to apologize for Marvel - there is some greed there (remember why Image Comics got started up?) All I'm saying is that Sony is the Big Monolithic Corporation that this story should be going after, not Marvel.
I had to pause for 5 or 10 seconds to study it to figure out what I had to click to browse the file system.
I have more users complaining about their Windoze 98 PCs crashing and locking up constantly* then I have them complaining about wasting an extra 5 to 10 seconds figuring out how to save a file.
The only thing that comes to mind that is relevant to this article is that they made changes to a document that "didn't save." My solution to this problem: I put a sticky note on their monitor that reads "SAVE!" Problem solved.
I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one...
PS - The user's proposed solution is always the same: "Get me a better computer." Scary thing: sometimes the CEO actually listens to this ridiculous remedy. Talk about wasting real time and money!
Slashdot Mirror
Well, somebody say something about Ultima Online. I've never played it but every time I read an article about the game online, the focus is always on community: guilds, online weddings(?) etc etc. Never any information about "quests" or killing monsters (just the odd complaint about PKers). Maybe it's just skillful PR by Lord British?
Also, for me role playing didn't necessarily mean pretending to be your character. I always thought that was weird. I was more into accurately describing what my character was doing and staying with his motives. I was never into hopping around and saying "hath" and "thou" every other word.
If only there was a way to combine the rules-enforcement aspects of computer play with the flexibity of table-top play! Supposedly some online games, such as Castle Marrach, by the folks over at Skotos, is trying to accomplish this. I have been too busy playing Diablo2 to find out though. =) Oh well.
Here is an interesting looking article on subject of online games on GameGrene.com.
You plod away at the keyboard, obsessed and consumed with getting that new item, or finishing that last quest, and while so consumed you begin to hate the game. Vehemently. It's a game that goes on forever, and one that you can never win.
Ummmm the game is called EVERQuest, not "Afternoon Quest" or "2 Months Quest." It's right there on the cover of the box you brought home for the store.
Moron.
You probably played in college...I played in jnr. high school where the only other kids interested in D&D (it seemed) were anti-social losers (I'm including myself). Unsuprisingly, they didn't make for the best role-players (although I would like to think I gave it an honest try).
Funny memory from 7th grade: I happened upon the personals of an alternative weekly that my parents had lying around, was excited to find many ads by people interested in "role playing." My parents had to tactifuly explain that the ads weren't talking about D&D. Yeah, finding people to game with was difficult back then.
Now I am AMAZED by how many kids play RPGs - but it's in the form of Final Fantasy so I don't know if it really counts.
Well you were lucky. My friends read about gold/treasure equaling experience points and were like "woo! instant level 50 character." The DM would just have them stumble down a cave and happen upon a pile of dragon gold (said reptile already dead or easily dispensed with a wishing ring that happened to be in the loot). According to their reading of the rules, 250k GP in the dragon den would get you an instant lvl 50 cleric/assasin.
I was never into this sort of thing, so I usually bailed halfway through the session. The kicker is that they never did anything interesting with these characters, things just degenerated and they sat around and giggle about how strong their characters were. No actual Role Playing!
It was a real disappointment. I had more fun reading the books and imagining what was possible then actually playing. I wonder if anyone under the age of 30 actually plays D&D anymore?
Fast foward to 2003, and a lot of online games are nothing BUT role playing. Plus you can find others with similar aspirations fairly quickly. The real waste of time is traditional RPGs IMHO.
Otherwise, a lot of whining in that article. You are playing monthly, not by the hour so his complaints are a joke! THere are a lot of other online games out there (UO, Sims, SWG soon) so the author should just vote with his dollars like everyone else.
Why does Slashdot keep posting these rants and calling it journalism? Argh, at least link to an article with a study about an EQ psychology/addiction study by a university or something, geez.
Because they can't be in real life. Yay for delusions of grandeur!
/.? Just a thought:
Yeah, that is what turned be off to D&D back in the day (i.e. pencil/paper/dice). Every player I found would "cheat" - that is make up character or get the DM to give them loot and half-dead monsters (for full XP btw) - and then sit around giggling about how 733t their character was. Can you say "power fantasy."
Of course, now they can actually play (and hack) games like EQ and get money for it in the end by selling ill-gotten characters. The whole thing seems like a scam to me.
Diablo doesn't seem to have these problems because you can create your own game and so on. Of course, it is not community centric like EQ.
Hmmmm....come to think of it, anybody see any simularities between EQ and
- If you live on the west coast, all the posts have been modded up by the time you even read the home page in the morning
- The "game" is addictive and people lose many days on the site.
- any others?
I always thought that by now we'd have Rocket Packs for flying around by this point (oh yeah, and robot servants too). If we don't have personal Rocket Packs by 2050, I'm going to be mega pissed.
Why the heck is /. posting this trailer on the VERY DAY THAT TWO TOWERS OPENS?!?! WTF - LOTR is all we care about right now.
/. logo :P
PS LOTR deserves its own
IN SOVIET RUSSIA...
Troll Blacklist subscribes to YOU
This article reminds me of memorable passage this passage from Das Capital :
From Vol 1, Part III, Ch 7, Section 2 - "The Production of Surplus-Value"
[The "speaker" here is yer own "Bobble Head" boss]
"Can the labourer," he asks, "merely with his arms and legs, produce commodities out of nothing? Did I not supply him with the materials, by means of which, and in which alone, his labour could be embodied? And as the greater part of society consists of such ne'er-do-wells, have I not rendered society incalculable service by my instruments of production, my [workstation] and my [JBuilder license], and not only society, but the labourer also, whom in addition I have provided with the necessaries of life? And am I to be allowed nothing in return for all this service?"...Our friend, up to this time so purse-proud, suddenly assumes the modest demeanour of his own workman, and exclaims: "Have I myself not worked? Have I not performed the labour of superintendence and of overlooking the [programmer]? And does not this labour, too, create value?" His overlooker and his manager try to hide their smiles. Meanwhile, after a hearty laugh, he re-assumes his usual mien. Though he chanted to us the whole creed of the economists, in reality, he says, he would not give a brass farthing for it.
[end quote]
Most people in this country are sheep.Unfortunately we are all too brainwashed by pop-culture and consumerism to realize it. So we will continue to get fucked over each xmas. I don't know about the rest of you, but I was getting screwed back when the times were GOOD. My boss was paying himself 6-figures where I was barely above minimum wage when you factored in the total hours (he "couldn't be bothered" with over time).
Who cares if you aren't getting a raise. Hey, at least you've got the latest Spider Man DVD, drive an Explorer and have got a new pair of Nikes. Retirement plan? Humbug! Bobble Head and his Board have that well invested in *heh* COMPANY STOCK.
People in NYC are pissed at the Transit Workers Union right now for threatening to strike. Well, I think we could all learn something from them. We should look to them as role models. Maybe if we all grew some balls like they have and had a National Strike demanding CEO compensation reform (like they HAVE in Germany and other EU states) we would not be getting a lump of coal every XMas.
We are bringing it on ourselves by being a bunch of spineless, whining wimps.
I only read the 1 star reviews on Amazon...if those are well written and make sense, then I take a harder look at the item.
5-star reviews? Meh. I used to work at a publisher that regularly had employees post 5-star review BS on amazon all the time. We used to have review "wars" with rival publishers. Sometimes a book of ours would have 5-10 reviews only by us and our rival. It was a little absurd. I pretty much assume that any overly positive review is planted (fake reviewers take notice: offer some honest criticisms of your product if you want better results).
BTW - Newt Gingrich is a frequent reviewer on Amazon. I wonder how many cyber-radicals have gone around clicking "not helpful" under each of his reviews. Just a thought.
Wow, talk about seeing the world through rose glasses!
While surfing around to learn more about my own employer's dinosaur, I stumbled upon this company's site. I think "mainframe zealots" would be an understatement in describing their POV. Anyways, they have an article titled The Internet, System 390, and Serious e-Business which is an interesting read. Plus, they "take on" lots of the big names in their Technology War of Words page.
I don't know enough about mainframes vs. pc servers to comment further...maybe someone else wants to read the articles I linked above and put in their two cents?
...I will be hunkered over my Visor playing Sim City Classic!
IMOHO Maxis Jumped the Shark with SimEarth. The original game is still the best!
Actually, the last paragraph of the linked article raised an interesting point: how did the astronauts survive the radiation during the trip and while on the Moon? The conspiracy theorist says that they wouldn't survive. Seems more reasonable then the "doctored photograph" nonsense.
Well, obviously, the answer to this problem is easily found on Google. Basically it boils down to
1) They were well protected by their spacesuits.
2) The radiation in space is not actually that harmful (for one thing, it it was harmful our satellites would not work for as long as they do).
3) The astronauts were willing to accept the risk anyway (there was a small chance of a "solar storm" occuring, which would kill them).
I think it's time for a more relevant question:
How can people who deny things for which there are mountains of solid evidence (lunar landings, Kennedy assassination, etc. etc.) and are reasonably intellegent simultaneously believe crap for which there is no hard evidence whatsoever (alien abductions, black helicopters, UN forces occupying west Texas, Illumnati controlling world's governments, etc. etc.)
ANYBODY?
Ralsky said he turns down many who want his services.
"I don't do any porn or sexual messages," he said, citing a promise he made to his wife, Irmengard. Instead, he sends e-mail come-ons for things like online casinos, vacation promotions, mortgage refinancing and Internet pharmacies.
How many times have I read this one? The "I don't spam XXX emails" is a tired line (and I don't really believe it).
Just for fun, let's see an article about a porno spammer defending their business practices. If someone knows of one, please reply.
Also...aren't Internet pharmacies illegal in most states? In that case, wouldn't advertising them be illegal (for example, you can't advertise crack)?
Go crazy.
Agreed...in fact, I work in such an IT shop and we have avoided most of these problems by not using Outlook/exchange. We've never had a user get their computer messed up from a browser hole, however...
Still, my point is this: the headlines should be "XXX company calculates that it lost X million dollars troubleshooting fallout from Windows security holes" not "Tee-hee, ANOTHER hole in Windows!" Somebody from the business media please write this article!
It seems like every couple weeks there is an article on /. to the effect of "BIG HOLE IN IE/XP/[MS APP HERE] DISCOVERED. THE END IS NEAR! REPENT, MS USERS" etc etc...ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZ -_-
There are only so many times you can read a headline like that before the "cry wolf" factor starts to kick in. All these "bugtraq" alerts are academic...theoretical...What I want to see is a headline that reads Merrill Lynch crippled by XP flaw. Plans to sue MS for millions $$$ damages or somesuch. Or at least a story of an actual user whose life was ruined by an actual MS security hole. Something tangible...Now THAT would be interesting!
What countries out there are true democracies and not Republics?
We're not a democracy, we're a republic
What's not funny is that the "dittoheads" keep repeating this this argument as a mantra - as if it somehow refuted all their opponents positions. Somebody please explain this, I am confused.
Yeah, if you check out the linked article, yourll see that for "Steve's" whole package it's more like $2000 to get started. But for raw addresses we're talking Rock. Bottom. Prices.
Well, in either case it's after one fallen...poop.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA*hack*cough*
$250 for 500k emails? This morning I was reading about a guy who is selling a million for 20 bucks.
Fun quote:
"I hate spam," he [the spammer, "Steve"] says. "I've gotten death threats. People have threatened to kill my dog. . . . But when you make a thousand bucks in one day, you could care less."
<sarcasm>Hard to argue with that!</sarcasm>
Marvel has reported millions of dollars in earnings from the film but has told Lee the company has seen no "profits" as defined by their contract.
Even though the movie has grossed over $400 mil, it was produced and distributed by Sony / Columbia Tristar...so if you're all going to flame anyone flame them, not Marvel.
Marvel itself has been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for years (probably due to their own incompetence, but that's another story), and they certianly did not have all $400 mil deposited into their bank account.
I'm not trying to apologize for Marvel - there is some greed there (remember why Image Comics got started up?) All I'm saying is that Sony is the Big Monolithic Corporation that this story should be going after, not Marvel.
I had to pause for 5 or 10 seconds to study it to figure out what I had to click to browse the file system.
I have more users complaining about their Windoze 98 PCs crashing and locking up constantly* then I have them complaining about wasting an extra 5 to 10 seconds figuring out how to save a file.
The only thing that comes to mind that is relevant to this article is that they made changes to a document that "didn't save." My solution to this problem: I put a sticky note on their monitor that reads "SAVE!" Problem solved.
I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one...
PS - The user's proposed solution is always the same: "Get me a better computer." Scary thing: sometimes the CEO actually listens to this ridiculous remedy. Talk about wasting real time and money!