When your desklamp starts accepting signifigant amounts of hardware, I'll consider it.
I would consider buying Jaguar 10.2 if they released the x86 vesion. Of course, I doubt the programs I want to run would probably be usable.
Anyway, I think Jaguar is a nice OS, but it seems that linux supports more software than it does. While linux is not near as refined as windows, it definately has versatility.
The drywalling is nice, but filling a room with news paper isn't that hard, espcially considering the amount that dorms throw out each day. We did it to some guy who was about a week late to getting to the dorms. First time he showed up to his room it was 6 or 7 feet deep in news paper.
I think someone needs to point out the challenges facing the developers of Everquest. They have a world of 400,000 players with as many as 100,000+ simultanious spread across 30+ servers each with roughly 175 areas, 10,000+ MOBS, 16,000+ items, 2,000+ quests, 3000+ tradeskill recipes, and 300+ factions. (stats from Allakhazam's.) It is a world with an infinite number of complexities built on a framework that was set years ago.
Any change in any part of the game has a signifigant chance of effecting multiple other parts of the game that no-one could predict. Players beat challenges with a speed that is awe-inspireing and demand more. Infact, the players do nothing but demand. ANY imbalance in the 15 classes causes thousands of complains. People get mad about the time that servers are patched, things spawning to fast and too slow. Things being too easy and too tough. Items entering the too fast or too slow. Players will use any method to win they can find whether legitimate or blatently exploitive. And then get mad when exploitive methods are removed.
SoE (Sony online Entertainment) is trying to satisfy hundreds of thousands of people of different levels, different classes, different races, different play times, different lengths of play and different goals, and at the same time trying to keep the game sustainable for the future. You can satisfy all the people some of the time, or some of the people all the time, but never all the people all the time. And those unsatisfied will be as loud about it as they possibly can.
I'm not trying to justify how SoE runs the game. I disagree with a lot that they do. They are by no means saints. But they DO face a daunting task.
Don't be silly. lvl 65 characters go for thousands US. If there were a lvl 80 it'd go for much more than 24.99 =).
(note: this is humor. I have to point this out as I have a really bad sense of humor.)
Stereotyping is usually considered a bad thing as it is in this situation. Not all everquest players are loosers who sit at home living with their parents, not keeping themselves clean, not working, and basically wasting away.
I went to the last convention. You can see some of the pictures, specifically the party pictures. The people are in no way different from the people who frequent this site. In fact, I think the patrons of this site probably have as much in common with your description as everquest players do.
Anyway, the players I know are intel employees, coders working on fingerprint recognition software, graphical artists, students working on their law degrees, party animals, and stay at home mothers. To stereotype them only shows a small-mindedness not normally associated with slashdot posters.
Think about it like a project. You spend a lot of money and hundreds of hours working on it. But you just can't quite seem to get it to the point where you like it the way it is or you think it's finished.
Maybe it's your house; Your always adding on to keep pace with others in your neighborhood. Or maybe it's your car. Your keep improving it as your friends keep improving theirs. It's not something that's easy to just stop and say, "I quit". And it's even worse in everquest where to say, "I quit" means you give up all those hundreds of hours of work.
People who don't play it see it as another game. They think they are looking at starcraft or Final Fantacy, or Halflife. It's not ANYTHING like these games. Your no longer playing for instant gratification. Your no longer playing a game where everything you have done will not only be there, but still be worth what it was worth when you left if you come back to it months later. Simply statied it is not just a video game. There are real rewards, (ie. rewards worth real money on the black market). And there is real depriciation of your goods.
It's been descussed many times if Everquest is addictive. Whats come out of the discussions is that there are two types of addictiveness, chemical and phychological. Chemical addictiveness is like heroin or caffein. Phychological addictiveness are things such as sex, being liked, or chocolate. While chemical addictions are definately more physical and obvious, phychological addictions can be just as addictive.
There are many people that cannot do without a certain thing even though they are in no chemical process attached to it. Such is Everquest. To tell someone just to 'stop' is like telling a kleptomaniac to stop stealing or an alcoholic to stop drinking. It can be done but it is not easy and there will always be the draw to go back to it
Star Wars Galaxies is another Verant game. It's made by the company who makes Everquest. Star Wars Galaxies will employ the same methods of keeping subscribers, (Requirements for social interaction, no 'end', huge time sinks to progress), as Everquest does.
And more than likely those who run Star Wars Galaxies will employ more money making schemes. The maintainers of everquest have added pay services such as a premium server, name changes for money, server transfers for money, and such. While there is a strong resistance to this from Everquest players as it goes against the precident of the game, there will be no such precident in Star Wars Galaxies. I think we can expect to see a situation in where, not only haveing more time but also having more money allows you to advance beyond other players.
I think it's an interesting business model. Video games rely heavily on advertising and so even a good game has a good chance of not being recognized.
Linux users are somewhat of a captive audience. They are somewhat more educated and probably more likely to read a review of a game at least once before getting it. Also, they are more likely to see any particular game because of the low number of high quality games available. If a game does not do well in the main stream because it was overshadowed, it didn't apply to the majority of people, or maybe it just wasn't so completely innovative that it captured everyone that had contact with it, then market it to a smaller market where quality, (thought not necesarily originality), matters. A market that is actively looking for good, quality games.
I think it's interesting that the market for linux games developed for profit is slowly increasing. It began with the FPS's, but it is now moving more into the simulation and RPG geners. I hope that the pattern holds, and no matter how slowly, the linux game market becomes as plentiful as the windows game market.
All my relatives are getting a copy of this along w/ their christmas pressents. I think the idea is that those of us who know spread it to those who might use it. A few find it interesting, a few don't.
I want him to sue and I want the judge to rule that sending spam is harrassment and immediately fine the senders $0.10 per item sent to him. I'll pitch in to help with that. Hell, I'll send him a few myself. But fine him $0.10 per item he has ever sent out. That might relate the two to him so he might finally realize what he's doing.
Gaming environments such as these will rely on having better and more hardware than home users have. How will this affect their business model when they have to upgrade their hardware every 6 months to be able to play the newest games? Also, will they be buying 20 to 30 licenses of every game that comes out that is heavily played? I am interested in the cost of sustaining such a complex focused at gaming.
While I'm at a different level of education from the target of this audience, I don't see why they wouldn't use the tools I use. I use IM to communicate w/ my peers, both locally and in other states, about the checking and writing of papers, confirming of when events/assignments/exams take place, etc.
Also, it doesn't sound as if this domain is meant only for education. Socialization is a large part of the internet and it is in society's best interest to control the social groups it's children are in. This domain provides a very good area to support such social groups.
They provide a service that is expensive. I have met their CEO in person and talked and worked with him in relation to our board. He is a good person who is trying to provide a servide in the dieing dot-com era. It only costs 1 dollar a month to remove all advertisments they supply. While people complain that they have to view too many popups and recieve too much spam, they do not sign up for the simple service that, for the cost of a movie, would allow them to browse unhindered.
One of the problems EZBoard faces is that because they are placing advertisments on websites which have uncontrolled content, an ad for Disney could end up on a page meant to support Pagan rituals and Nazi reclimation of the United States. This puts them in an unfavorable advertising position. I would think that slashdot users more than most people would recognize the problems with providing a free internet product.
How does this domain deal with websites which can be modified by users such as message boards? Will everything posted to a message board in this domain need to be heavily filtered so as to not link outside of the domain? What about addresses that are only published and not linked? What about links to email addresses, screen names, and chat rooms? I think it's also interesting to note that it does not allow chat or IM clients inside the domain. Does this mean that John can't give Jack his IM name so they can work on their presentation?
Overall though I think it is a good idea. Assuming websites targetted at children, (such as Disney, schools, and knowledge databases), take advantage of this it could be very beneficial. I think many of those who could take advantage of this will have to create dual sites: one for the domain and one for outside of it, as many schools and knowledge databases benefit from refrencing information that will not be in the domain.
Most of the message boards I know lock threads around 300 posts and start a new thread to cut down on the effect on the server and the chance of corruption of the database. This thread was over 40 times that big. I have seen multiple ezboard threads with a couple thousand posts that have not had any trouble. EZBoard's software does an excellent job at handling large threads.
Slashdot Mirror
I would consider buying Jaguar 10.2 if they released the x86 vesion. Of course, I doubt the programs I want to run would probably be usable.
Anyway, I think Jaguar is a nice OS, but it seems that linux supports more software than it does. While linux is not near as refined as windows, it definately has versatility.
I like the idea of drones just as long as I can fly my own....and give it a paintball gun....
If you thought of it while drunk and executed it before sobering up, it's not exactly a 'prank'. Extra stupidity points for using fire.
The drywalling is nice, but filling a room with news paper isn't that hard, espcially considering the amount that dorms throw out each day. We did it to some guy who was about a week late to getting to the dorms. First time he showed up to his room it was 6 or 7 feet deep in news paper.
So you think everyone who complains about the game sits in a dank hole playing for at least several hours a day?
Any change in any part of the game has a signifigant chance of effecting multiple other parts of the game that no-one could predict. Players beat challenges with a speed that is awe-inspireing and demand more. Infact, the players do nothing but demand. ANY imbalance in the 15 classes causes thousands of complains. People get mad about the time that servers are patched, things spawning to fast and too slow. Things being too easy and too tough. Items entering the too fast or too slow. Players will use any method to win they can find whether legitimate or blatently exploitive. And then get mad when exploitive methods are removed.
SoE (Sony online Entertainment) is trying to satisfy hundreds of thousands of people of different levels, different classes, different races, different play times, different lengths of play and different goals, and at the same time trying to keep the game sustainable for the future. You can satisfy all the people some of the time, or some of the people all the time, but never all the people all the time. And those unsatisfied will be as loud about it as they possibly can.
I'm not trying to justify how SoE runs the game. I disagree with a lot that they do. They are by no means saints. But they DO face a daunting task.
Don't be silly. lvl 65 characters go for thousands US. If there were a lvl 80 it'd go for much more than 24.99 =). (note: this is humor. I have to point this out as I have a really bad sense of humor.)
I went to the last convention. You can see some of the pictures, specifically the party pictures. The people are in no way different from the people who frequent this site. In fact, I think the patrons of this site probably have as much in common with your description as everquest players do.
Anyway, the players I know are intel employees, coders working on fingerprint recognition software, graphical artists, students working on their law degrees, party animals, and stay at home mothers. To stereotype them only shows a small-mindedness not normally associated with slashdot posters.
Maybe it's your house; Your always adding on to keep pace with others in your neighborhood. Or maybe it's your car. Your keep improving it as your friends keep improving theirs. It's not something that's easy to just stop and say, "I quit". And it's even worse in everquest where to say, "I quit" means you give up all those hundreds of hours of work.
People who don't play it see it as another game. They think they are looking at starcraft or Final Fantacy, or Halflife. It's not ANYTHING like these games. Your no longer playing for instant gratification. Your no longer playing a game where everything you have done will not only be there, but still be worth what it was worth when you left if you come back to it months later. Simply statied it is not just a video game. There are real rewards, (ie. rewards worth real money on the black market). And there is real depriciation of your goods.
There are many people that cannot do without a certain thing even though they are in no chemical process attached to it. Such is Everquest. To tell someone just to 'stop' is like telling a kleptomaniac to stop stealing or an alcoholic to stop drinking. It can be done but it is not easy and there will always be the draw to go back to it
And more than likely those who run Star Wars Galaxies will employ more money making schemes. The maintainers of everquest have added pay services such as a premium server, name changes for money, server transfers for money, and such. While there is a strong resistance to this from Everquest players as it goes against the precident of the game, there will be no such precident in Star Wars Galaxies. I think we can expect to see a situation in where, not only haveing more time but also having more money allows you to advance beyond other players.
Your trolling right?
Gee. This SURE won't encourage anyone to download their music instead of getting fingered every time they buy it.
Ever seen that crunchy snickers commercial....
Linux users are somewhat of a captive audience. They are somewhat more educated and probably more likely to read a review of a game at least once before getting it. Also, they are more likely to see any particular game because of the low number of high quality games available. If a game does not do well in the main stream because it was overshadowed, it didn't apply to the majority of people, or maybe it just wasn't so completely innovative that it captured everyone that had contact with it, then market it to a smaller market where quality, (thought not necesarily originality), matters. A market that is actively looking for good, quality games.
I think it's interesting that the market for linux games developed for profit is slowly increasing. It began with the FPS's, but it is now moving more into the simulation and RPG geners. I hope that the pattern holds, and no matter how slowly, the linux game market becomes as plentiful as the windows game market.
Just thinking of that makes my head hurt.
All my relatives are getting a copy of this along w/ their christmas pressents. I think the idea is that those of us who know spread it to those who might use it. A few find it interesting, a few don't.
I want him to sue and I want the judge to rule that sending spam is harrassment and immediately fine the senders $0.10 per item sent to him. I'll pitch in to help with that. Hell, I'll send him a few myself. But fine him $0.10 per item he has ever sent out. That might relate the two to him so he might finally realize what he's doing.
See ya the 18th. If you expect a computer for christmas you better check your email.
I have only gotten 2 emails from them ever, and, as an ezsupporter, have never looked at adds on their boards.
Gaming environments such as these will rely on having better and more hardware than home users have. How will this affect their business model when they have to upgrade their hardware every 6 months to be able to play the newest games? Also, will they be buying 20 to 30 licenses of every game that comes out that is heavily played? I am interested in the cost of sustaining such a complex focused at gaming.
Also, it doesn't sound as if this domain is meant only for education. Socialization is a large part of the internet and it is in society's best interest to control the social groups it's children are in. This domain provides a very good area to support such social groups.
One of the problems EZBoard faces is that because they are placing advertisments on websites which have uncontrolled content, an ad for Disney could end up on a page meant to support Pagan rituals and Nazi reclimation of the United States. This puts them in an unfavorable advertising position. I would think that slashdot users more than most people would recognize the problems with providing a free internet product.
Overall though I think it is a good idea. Assuming websites targetted at children, (such as Disney, schools, and knowledge databases), take advantage of this it could be very beneficial. I think many of those who could take advantage of this will have to create dual sites: one for the domain and one for outside of it, as many schools and knowledge databases benefit from refrencing information that will not be in the domain.
Most of the message boards I know lock threads around 300 posts and start a new thread to cut down on the effect on the server and the chance of corruption of the database. This thread was over 40 times that big. I have seen multiple ezboard threads with a couple thousand posts that have not had any trouble. EZBoard's software does an excellent job at handling large threads.