You're assuming that MMORPG's should tailor to the very casual player. Why? If you can't take the time that's required for these games the answer is pretty simple: don't expect to get very far.
And this comes from the fact that there's always going to be a lot of players that invest far too much time into the games. A casual player won't be able to keep up because they don't play as much. It's a fact of life.
And I don't know what MMORPG game you played, but when I started Everquest, it took no time (an hour maybe) to get past the rat killing (which was a *good* experience. I learned how to control the character and how monsters reacted to me.) It wasn't boring and I moved on to more difficult monsters and grouping at level 4. It was addicting and I enjoyed it a lot.
At level 1, unless you know all about the game already, then there's plenty to learn and do besides killing rats. You'll have to do it eventually but that's not all there is to the game.
There's so much beyond "level 65" in EQ that it's pretty silly to say reaching 65 is anything special. You can do it in a week if you try hard enough.
EQ is pretty much dedicated to raid parties now. It's true. They've released a lot of content for non-raiders though. And if you're not happy with the rewards for it, then what's the solution? There isn't a good one. Should you lessen the value of items recieved in 60 person raid encounters? Should you increase the value of rewards gotten in single group encounters? What's fair?
Raids in EQ are fantastic excersizes in teamwork and organization. It takes a lot of work to get a guild good enough to tackle the hard mobs, and I feel as though this should be rewarded accordingly. Raiding in EQ is a whole different dimension to the game.
Of course, then you're just talking about advancement by other means. Maybe levels and exp could be gone, but then it'll be all about wealth, items, and power. What's the difference? Not much.
It would be nice to have a game world that changes frequently, but there's a lot of problems with that. Overhead would be huge and the game would be very expensive. Players would feel left out if the world changed and the quests that all their friends did are no longer available. Plus a myriad of other issues.
Who's going to put the time and effort into building a character in the game, only to have the virtual character die - forcing you to start over again? And repeat this over and over and over?
There would be no continuity. No community. People wouldn't want to enjoy adventuring with some on-line friends because their character would be closer to death. It would be all about EXP EXP EXP and nothing else.
It wouldn't encourage "fun now" it would discourage community and "fun for years."
" it's rapidly becoming apparent that the really interesting stuff is still months of gameplay ahead of me."
I understand that it can be boring when you start, although I was never bored in EQ when I started. It was a blast! But then again, maybe it was also because it was the first MMORPG I gave any serious time to. To start all over again, in a different game, it might seem boring.
They could make it more exciting for the newbies, but I've found in EQ that when you advance through the levels yourself, the normal non-powerlevel way, you are a better player when you reach the high levels. You know your character, what it can do, what it can't. You know the game mechanics well. You've met people along the way that can help in the future. These things are important if you want the game to be fun in the long run.
Actually, planetside is the only game I really haven't tried. I've been wanting to for some time now - maybe now's a good time to check it out.
I understand that it's kinda like an FPS, but in an MMORPG scale. That would target the game at a completely different type of game player then Everquest, but this isn't a bad thing - it's just different.
There's of course no rule, but I can't imagine everyone being happy about some guy that never logs in and advances just as fast. And at that point, there wouldn't be much way for a friend to start playing your game and "catch up" by playing a lot for a few weeks.
You can't make everyone happy, I realize this. But should they even try?
You are so far off on your entire comment that it simply amazes me.
First of all, I was being sarcastic. Yes. Sarcastic. That usually means that what is written or said means the opposite. So no, don't lock us up before we commit crimes.
Premeditation requeres that the accused have intentionally killed someone and planned beforehand. Did this driver go out and say "I'm going to watch TV so that I can kill Susan!"? No, he didn't. It's was negligent, and he should be punished. But not murder in the first degree, because it wasn't premeditated. It was manslaughter - accidental death due to negligence.
People are often charged for higher crimes then what they are guilty of and very rarely these charges stand as is without being downgraded, and this is due to a number of factors - but I won't go into it, you can figure that one out yourself.
Everquest has major flaws, nobody denies this, but it's been a smash hit for years. You would THINK that the players would be analyzed and new games could be created based on this new data from an essentially new genre.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though this is actually happening. I've played MMORPG's since Ultima Online Phase 1 beta, and the only other game I've spent significant time in is Everquest. I've tried almost all of them. Even the new WoW beta (I somehow got selected for this) isn't very interesting. The new games seem to tailor to the casual player and forget the active player. Quests are generic and randomly generated for each player upon request. This is, in my opinion, a huge mistake.
I'm sure someone will nail perfect mix of gameplay, challange, reward, and replayability eventually. We'll have to wait and see!
Okay. I'm assuming we're talking about Everquest here.
The thing is miyako, people aren't level 1-10 for very long. You know, people tend to level up. And even if you only play a couple hours a day, you'll be a level 40 something in no time. Sure, when the game was initially released, and for the first year or so, it was a lot more difficult to level. But that hasn't been really true for a long time. So, where do you spend your dollars in development?
I must give Verant/SoE some credit in this respect; they have pretty much consistently added new content for low level characters. But in the end, it hasn't mattered all that much. Players level up, casual or not, and the content is neglected. Especially now in EQ, there's a lot more high level (level 55+) characters then any others. These people want content for their levels and that's what they get.
I guess I distinguish casual and active players in Everquest based on how much they raid with a guild. If you raid with a decent guild, and do so on a very frequent basis (daily, or close to) you're character advancement is a thousand fold what the casual non-raider can do. There's an enourmous gap between these two classes of people.
In the end, with Everquest at least, the game isn't really an RPG anymore - it's an adventure game. It's all hack'n'slash and really not much is left.
The idea of logging off to do tradeskills is sketchy at best. You're basically just saying "Okay, everyone is now a master at " because everyone would just set it and forget it.
Making tradeskills more fun then EQ would definately be nice (SWG is better with this to varying degrees) but to allow it to be automated takes absolutely *all* the prestige and reward for it.
The rare spawn thing does suck sometimes - but, think about it. If everyone could just walk up to the cave, say a magic word, and pop here's the monster, what's the challenge? What's the reward?
As far as "essential character development quests and battles" well, I am not sure how you really classify this. All the quests in EQ end up with some sort of item. Nothing really more then that. Although a character's epic weapon is (okay.. was) really sweet, it wasn't exactly essential to your gameplay - and they used to be so good that if everyone could just bang them out with single groups, then *again* - what's the challenge? What's the real reward there if everyone's got 'em no problem?
EQ is not perfect but it's the imperfections that people bitch about that actully keep people playing. Sure, it could be better. How? I don't really have an answer for that. When you finally get that mob to spawn, or you finally get that drop, isn't it a great feeling? You have a feeling of accomplishment, a feeling that you've done something that a lot of people have not been able to.
If you can get that feeling of accomplishment without having to work for it, then bless you. But I can't.
What you're forgetting here is that the casual gamer will eventually stop playing (and therefore paying) because they will feel as though they can never catch up. Game expansions will tailor to the crowd that plays a lot, to keep them interested and paying. This leads to more of a drop in paying casual players because they get even further away from the active players.
With MMORPG's there's always a sense of competition. No matter how much time you spend with it, people want to advance in the game and they want to be more powerful then other players or even how they were.
It's very difficult finding the right balance for everyone, and I'm beginning to think that it's wrong to even try. You'll end up with a really good looking game that's boring as hell.
See, the thing is, they tried to make SWG more casual gamer friendly. Every mission is accessable to every player all the time. Generic quests are the theme of the day. You can get items for tradeskills while you are logged off. Skills are very easy to obtain.
It all sounds great for the casual player, but it all gets extremely boring at the same time. So what if you have some really cool weapons or armor - so does everyone else, no matter how much you play.
The game was a great success when it first hit the shelves, but it has nowhere near the continued subscription rate of Everquest.
The very things that many people dislike about Everquest (hard to get items, slow leveling, very difficult quests, etc) are the very things that actually end up making it successful. No pain no gain?
And comparing a MMORPG with a game like Doom 3 isn't a valid comparison. You can't just give everyone the best stuff in an MMORPG right away, or give them the same level of fighting abilities right away, and expect people to stay interested and paying.
It's a pickle, there's no doubt about that. Finding the right balance between boredom and redundant. Somewhere in there is entertaining and exciting.
There were no middle-aged computer gamers in the last generation. We're the first big generation of kids that's grown up on video games.
Some people get tired of video games, but I'm 26, and I don't think I will ever stop playing them. It's good entertainment. I enjoy playing them, so why would I stop? I'll naturally gravitate away from games saturated with younger kids that I can't relate to, but as we grow older so will the theme of a lot of games.
So.. we're older now. We have money to burn. We like playing video games and we'll pay for them and the hardware to play them on. What's not lucrative about it?
The problem with MMORPG's, no matter how good the game play is, no matter how great it is for the casual player - there's always going to be groups of people that will play 10 hours a day and advance further along in the game then you ever could. And eventually, the game developers tailor to this group because they keep paying the bills.
So, probably your best bet is to find a non MMORPG type game to get your fill of games if you can't devote enough time to it.
Completely off topic.. but personally, I wish ZIP would go away. There's other compressions that offer much better functionality like actually nesting folders with duplicate file's inside, or spanning multiple volumes natively, or a good compression ratio..
As for your CIO, man, I feel your pain. It's too bad. I think most of us IT folk have been there at some point.
"My friend, let me enlighten you. Everyone who has had an accident while using a mobile phone has thought exactly the same thing: that they were able to chat (and worse, SMS!!) on their phone and drive quite safely"
No, "my friend" let me enlighten YOU: Not every accident is caused by cell phones, and not every cell phone user is going to get into accidents. There's a whole other peice of that demographic that claims that they can talk and drive just fine and they DO.
Statistics show that eating, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beverages (soda, water) is equally as dangerous while driving if not more dangerous then talking on the cell phone. Do you want to ban these too? Should I get pulled over for taking a sip of my Pepsi?
Where do you draw the line?
Look, I'm not totally ignorant of the facts here. A lot of people drive like morons while on the phone. But I just think that a lot of people drive like morons reguardless, and these same people that can't talk and drive will just end up crashing anyways. These blanket laws are such bullshit, and each one takes a nibble out of my freedom as a citizen of a supposedly free country.
If you won't accept the inherent risk of driving, then I might suggest you take a train, ride a bike, or walk.
Wireless broadband COULD be used for phones *I guess* but it's more likely to be used for people's home PC's or notebook PC's, at least at first.
Wireless technology has a MUCH better chance at rapid deployment in most areas because all you need to do is set up some antennas - whereas with fiber or other wired networks you have to lay down millions of meters of lines to reach everyone's home.
I believe that it's going to be the method of network access for the future. Cheap deployment, fast, and mobile.
Unless you live in NYC or some other major metropolis, don't expect very high speed internet access within the next 10 years or more if you're waiting for verizon's fiber. But if Motorola deploys it's wireless system on a wide scale, you could see it in half that time.
I think it's very silly. It was a rock formation. That's all. It wasn't god's face. It doesn't deserve to be "in our hearts and minds." It was a rock, and it's gone. They need to deal with it and spend their money on things that actually matter.
I've purchased countless items from eBay. I've never been ripped off one single time.
Just like renehollan said, you have to understand the risks and use common sense to decide whether or not to buy from/sell to someone. It's usually pretty damned easy to tell when someone's scamming.
Near-sure bets: Merchandise way too cheap. "FLAT PLASMA 100" TV ONLY $900! L@@K WOW!!!111" Bad communication. "Speak englsh not good plz send $2000 to PO BOX..." Very slow communication is also a bad sign - although the seller is probably legit, if you have a problem, you don't want to wait a week for every e-mail response.
You have every opportunity to contact someone before buying, and feel them out. And if you get scammed when you're selling something where you have *all* the power, you gotta be gullible.
Of course, I might not be buying things that people normally use to rip people off with, like TV's and DVD's. Especially with DVD's - these things seem to be a haven for scammers. My friend has had two bad experiences with DVD sets, although he did recieve both sets, one had two broken discs (yes, snapped in half) and the other one had a box that was all but destroyed.
Maybe the've changed Debian in the last year or so since I used it, but when I did, there were always a handful of software that I couldn't get my hands on without having to wait for someone to create a deb for, or add sources to someone's apt source, etc. It was a pain in the ass if you want to have new versions of software - some software updates improve things significantly between versions, such as xine and myth-tv.
Perhaps you can get by with software that's a few revisions behind - and wait for someone to create deb packages, but I don't feel the need to do that when I can just use Gentoo.
Not to mention gentoo's ebuild system is so easy you can adapt it to any new version of pretty much anything in minutes.
You obviously don't like Gentoo, and that's your problem. A lot of people do like it - which is why it's getting more popular. I've had the best overall experience with Gentoo Linux over any other distribution I've used.
The thing is, people that like Gentoo usually also think that most linux distributions are fine. I think Debian is a fine distribution with a lot going for it. I like Mandrake, and SuSE is pretty nice. I have no real bad things to say about them. People like yourself, on the other hand, are closed minded and immediately say "GENTOO SUCKS COMPILE SUCKS YOU SUCK" as soon as anyone mentions it. Okay, sure, you didn't use those exact words, but it's pretty evident that's what you mean.
Good luck to your friends. If they break their Gentoo systems that much and/or compile core software a lot (which they would have to be doing if they complain about compile times, because 90% of the software I compile takes moments to compile) then they aren't going to end up with smooth running Debian systems either.
Slashdot Mirror
You're assuming that MMORPG's should tailor to the very casual player. Why? If you can't take the time that's required for these games the answer is pretty simple: don't expect to get very far.
And this comes from the fact that there's always going to be a lot of players that invest far too much time into the games. A casual player won't be able to keep up because they don't play as much. It's a fact of life.
And I don't know what MMORPG game you played, but when I started Everquest, it took no time (an hour maybe) to get past the rat killing (which was a *good* experience. I learned how to control the character and how monsters reacted to me.) It wasn't boring and I moved on to more difficult monsters and grouping at level 4. It was addicting and I enjoyed it a lot.
At level 1, unless you know all about the game already, then there's plenty to learn and do besides killing rats. You'll have to do it eventually but that's not all there is to the game.
There's so much beyond "level 65" in EQ that it's pretty silly to say reaching 65 is anything special. You can do it in a week if you try hard enough.
EQ is pretty much dedicated to raid parties now. It's true. They've released a lot of content for non-raiders though. And if you're not happy with the rewards for it, then what's the solution? There isn't a good one. Should you lessen the value of items recieved in 60 person raid encounters? Should you increase the value of rewards gotten in single group encounters? What's fair?
Raids in EQ are fantastic excersizes in teamwork and organization. It takes a lot of work to get a guild good enough to tackle the hard mobs, and I feel as though this should be rewarded accordingly. Raiding in EQ is a whole different dimension to the game.
Of course, then you're just talking about advancement by other means. Maybe levels and exp could be gone, but then it'll be all about wealth, items, and power. What's the difference? Not much.
It would be nice to have a game world that changes frequently, but there's a lot of problems with that. Overhead would be huge and the game would be very expensive. Players would feel left out if the world changed and the quests that all their friends did are no longer available. Plus a myriad of other issues.
That sounds like a *horrible* solution.
Who's going to put the time and effort into building a character in the game, only to have the virtual character die - forcing you to start over again? And repeat this over and over and over?
There would be no continuity. No community. People wouldn't want to enjoy adventuring with some on-line friends because their character would be closer to death. It would be all about EXP EXP EXP and nothing else.
It wouldn't encourage "fun now" it would discourage community and "fun for years."
" it's rapidly becoming apparent that the really interesting stuff is still months of gameplay ahead of me."
I understand that it can be boring when you start, although I was never bored in EQ when I started. It was a blast! But then again, maybe it was also because it was the first MMORPG I gave any serious time to. To start all over again, in a different game, it might seem boring.
They could make it more exciting for the newbies, but I've found in EQ that when you advance through the levels yourself, the normal non-powerlevel way, you are a better player when you reach the high levels. You know your character, what it can do, what it can't. You know the game mechanics well. You've met people along the way that can help in the future. These things are important if you want the game to be fun in the long run.
Actually, planetside is the only game I really haven't tried. I've been wanting to for some time now - maybe now's a good time to check it out.
I understand that it's kinda like an FPS, but in an MMORPG scale. That would target the game at a completely different type of game player then Everquest, but this isn't a bad thing - it's just different.
Seems like you like it. I'll give it a shot soon.
There's of course no rule, but I can't imagine everyone being happy about some guy that never logs in and advances just as fast. And at that point, there wouldn't be much way for a friend to start playing your game and "catch up" by playing a lot for a few weeks.
You can't make everyone happy, I realize this. But should they even try?
You are so far off on your entire comment that it simply amazes me.
First of all, I was being sarcastic. Yes. Sarcastic. That usually means that what is written or said means the opposite. So no, don't lock us up before we commit crimes.
Premeditation requeres that the accused have intentionally killed someone and planned beforehand. Did this driver go out and say "I'm going to watch TV so that I can kill Susan!"? No, he didn't. It's was negligent, and he should be punished. But not murder in the first degree, because it wasn't premeditated. It was manslaughter - accidental death due to negligence.
People are often charged for higher crimes then what they are guilty of and very rarely these charges stand as is without being downgraded, and this is due to a number of factors - but I won't go into it, you can figure that one out yourself.
Everquest has major flaws, nobody denies this, but it's been a smash hit for years. You would THINK that the players would be analyzed and new games could be created based on this new data from an essentially new genre.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though this is actually happening. I've played MMORPG's since Ultima Online Phase 1 beta, and the only other game I've spent significant time in is Everquest. I've tried almost all of them. Even the new WoW beta (I somehow got selected for this) isn't very interesting. The new games seem to tailor to the casual player and forget the active player. Quests are generic and randomly generated for each player upon request. This is, in my opinion, a huge mistake.
I'm sure someone will nail perfect mix of gameplay, challange, reward, and replayability eventually. We'll have to wait and see!
That seems like it's a little too much like Progress Quest
Okay. I'm assuming we're talking about Everquest here.
The thing is miyako, people aren't level 1-10 for very long. You know, people tend to level up. And even if you only play a couple hours a day, you'll be a level 40 something in no time. Sure, when the game was initially released, and for the first year or so, it was a lot more difficult to level. But that hasn't been really true for a long time. So, where do you spend your dollars in development?
I must give Verant/SoE some credit in this respect; they have pretty much consistently added new content for low level characters. But in the end, it hasn't mattered all that much. Players level up, casual or not, and the content is neglected. Especially now in EQ, there's a lot more high level (level 55+) characters then any others. These people want content for their levels and that's what they get.
I guess I distinguish casual and active players in Everquest based on how much they raid with a guild. If you raid with a decent guild, and do so on a very frequent basis (daily, or close to) you're character advancement is a thousand fold what the casual non-raider can do. There's an enourmous gap between these two classes of people.
In the end, with Everquest at least, the game isn't really an RPG anymore - it's an adventure game. It's all hack'n'slash and really not much is left.
The idea of logging off to do tradeskills is sketchy at best. You're basically just saying "Okay, everyone is now a master at " because everyone would just set it and forget it.
Making tradeskills more fun then EQ would definately be nice (SWG is better with this to varying degrees) but to allow it to be automated takes absolutely *all* the prestige and reward for it.
The rare spawn thing does suck sometimes - but, think about it. If everyone could just walk up to the cave, say a magic word, and pop here's the monster, what's the challenge? What's the reward?
As far as "essential character development quests and battles" well, I am not sure how you really classify this. All the quests in EQ end up with some sort of item. Nothing really more then that. Although a character's epic weapon is (okay.. was) really sweet, it wasn't exactly essential to your gameplay - and they used to be so good that if everyone could just bang them out with single groups, then *again* - what's the challenge? What's the real reward there if everyone's got 'em no problem?
EQ is not perfect but it's the imperfections that people bitch about that actully keep people playing. Sure, it could be better. How? I don't really have an answer for that. When you finally get that mob to spawn, or you finally get that drop, isn't it a great feeling? You have a feeling of accomplishment, a feeling that you've done something that a lot of people have not been able to.
If you can get that feeling of accomplishment without having to work for it, then bless you. But I can't.
What you're forgetting here is that the casual gamer will eventually stop playing (and therefore paying) because they will feel as though they can never catch up. Game expansions will tailor to the crowd that plays a lot, to keep them interested and paying. This leads to more of a drop in paying casual players because they get even further away from the active players.
With MMORPG's there's always a sense of competition. No matter how much time you spend with it, people want to advance in the game and they want to be more powerful then other players or even how they were.
It's very difficult finding the right balance for everyone, and I'm beginning to think that it's wrong to even try. You'll end up with a really good looking game that's boring as hell.
See, the thing is, they tried to make SWG more casual gamer friendly. Every mission is accessable to every player all the time. Generic quests are the theme of the day. You can get items for tradeskills while you are logged off. Skills are very easy to obtain.
It all sounds great for the casual player, but it all gets extremely boring at the same time. So what if you have some really cool weapons or armor - so does everyone else, no matter how much you play.
The game was a great success when it first hit the shelves, but it has nowhere near the continued subscription rate of Everquest.
The very things that many people dislike about Everquest (hard to get items, slow leveling, very difficult quests, etc) are the very things that actually end up making it successful. No pain no gain?
And comparing a MMORPG with a game like Doom 3 isn't a valid comparison. You can't just give everyone the best stuff in an MMORPG right away, or give them the same level of fighting abilities right away, and expect people to stay interested and paying.
It's a pickle, there's no doubt about that. Finding the right balance between boredom and redundant. Somewhere in there is entertaining and exciting.
There were no middle-aged computer gamers in the last generation. We're the first big generation of kids that's grown up on video games.
Some people get tired of video games, but I'm 26, and I don't think I will ever stop playing them. It's good entertainment. I enjoy playing them, so why would I stop? I'll naturally gravitate away from games saturated with younger kids that I can't relate to, but as we grow older so will the theme of a lot of games.
So.. we're older now. We have money to burn. We like playing video games and we'll pay for them and the hardware to play them on. What's not lucrative about it?
The problem with MMORPG's, no matter how good the game play is, no matter how great it is for the casual player - there's always going to be groups of people that will play 10 hours a day and advance further along in the game then you ever could. And eventually, the game developers tailor to this group because they keep paying the bills.
So, probably your best bet is to find a non MMORPG type game to get your fill of games if you can't devote enough time to it.
Completely off topic.. but personally, I wish ZIP would go away. There's other compressions that offer much better functionality like actually nesting folders with duplicate file's inside, or spanning multiple volumes natively, or a good compression ratio..
As for your CIO, man, I feel your pain. It's too bad. I think most of us IT folk have been there at some point.
"My friend, let me enlighten you. Everyone who has had an accident while using a mobile phone has thought exactly the same thing: that they were able to chat (and worse, SMS!!) on their phone and drive quite safely"
No, "my friend" let me enlighten YOU: Not every accident is caused by cell phones, and not every cell phone user is going to get into accidents. There's a whole other peice of that demographic that claims that they can talk and drive just fine and they DO.
Statistics show that eating, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beverages (soda, water) is equally as dangerous while driving if not more dangerous then talking on the cell phone. Do you want to ban these too? Should I get pulled over for taking a sip of my Pepsi?
Where do you draw the line?
Look, I'm not totally ignorant of the facts here. A lot of people drive like morons while on the phone. But I just think that a lot of people drive like morons reguardless, and these same people that can't talk and drive will just end up crashing anyways. These blanket laws are such bullshit, and each one takes a nibble out of my freedom as a citizen of a supposedly free country.
If you won't accept the inherent risk of driving, then I might suggest you take a train, ride a bike, or walk.
Who said this was for phones?
Wireless broadband COULD be used for phones *I guess* but it's more likely to be used for people's home PC's or notebook PC's, at least at first.
Wireless technology has a MUCH better chance at rapid deployment in most areas because all you need to do is set up some antennas - whereas with fiber or other wired networks you have to lay down millions of meters of lines to reach everyone's home.
I believe that it's going to be the method of network access for the future. Cheap deployment, fast, and mobile.
Unless you live in NYC or some other major metropolis, don't expect very high speed internet access within the next 10 years or more if you're waiting for verizon's fiber. But if Motorola deploys it's wireless system on a wide scale, you could see it in half that time.
Come on. People will drive like morons no matter what. My freedoms are being taken away piece by piece because of morons like you.
I think it's very silly. It was a rock formation. That's all. It wasn't god's face. It doesn't deserve to be "in our hearts and minds." It was a rock, and it's gone. They need to deal with it and spend their money on things that actually matter.
I've purchased countless items from eBay. I've never been ripped off one single time.
..." Very slow communication is also a bad sign - although the seller is probably legit, if you have a problem, you don't want to wait a week for every e-mail response.
Just like renehollan said, you have to understand the risks and use common sense to decide whether or not to buy from/sell to someone. It's usually pretty damned easy to tell when someone's scamming.
Near-sure bets: Merchandise way too cheap. "FLAT PLASMA 100" TV ONLY $900! L@@K WOW!!!111" Bad communication. "Speak englsh not good plz send $2000 to PO BOX
You have every opportunity to contact someone before buying, and feel them out. And if you get scammed when you're selling something where you have *all* the power, you gotta be gullible.
Of course, I might not be buying things that people normally use to rip people off with, like TV's and DVD's. Especially with DVD's - these things seem to be a haven for scammers. My friend has had two bad experiences with DVD sets, although he did recieve both sets, one had two broken discs (yes, snapped in half) and the other one had a box that was all but destroyed.
Uhh, okay settle down little debian fan.
Maybe the've changed Debian in the last year or so since I used it, but when I did, there were always a handful of software that I couldn't get my hands on without having to wait for someone to create a deb for, or add sources to someone's apt source, etc. It was a pain in the ass if you want to have new versions of software - some software updates improve things significantly between versions, such as xine and myth-tv.
Perhaps you can get by with software that's a few revisions behind - and wait for someone to create deb packages, but I don't feel the need to do that when I can just use Gentoo.
Not to mention gentoo's ebuild system is so easy you can adapt it to any new version of pretty much anything in minutes.
You obviously don't like Gentoo, and that's your problem. A lot of people do like it - which is why it's getting more popular. I've had the best overall experience with Gentoo Linux over any other distribution I've used.
The thing is, people that like Gentoo usually also think that most linux distributions are fine. I think Debian is a fine distribution with a lot going for it. I like Mandrake, and SuSE is pretty nice. I have no real bad things to say about them. People like yourself, on the other hand, are closed minded and immediately say "GENTOO SUCKS COMPILE SUCKS YOU SUCK" as soon as anyone mentions it. Okay, sure, you didn't use those exact words, but it's pretty evident that's what you mean.
Good luck to your friends. If they break their Gentoo systems that much and/or compile core software a lot (which they would have to be doing if they complain about compile times, because 90% of the software I compile takes moments to compile) then they aren't going to end up with smooth running Debian systems either.
"Slashdot, where even making a JOKE gets you modded as a Troll."
Correction, making a bad, redundant, stupid joke gets you modded as a troll. As well you should.
How about you stop waiting and do something about it?