The cd's basically just copy over the exact same files as in the preload that you could get from Steam... which means that when you stick the cd's in your drive you have to do two install processes, at least. First you have to disc swap install the cds (5) which takes awhile. Then you have to register for Steam.
You've known for over a year that Steam would be required for HL2. Why didn't you have it pre-installed? You've known about the preloads for at least as long as they've been available. Why didn't you already have the data on your hard drive, sparing yourself from the disc-juggling, time-consuming copy?
Then you have to wait while it decrypts everything, on top of unpacking the entire game just like a regular install does in a single step.
If you had preloaded, this would be the only step. Not counting the time spent preloading while I slept, my HL2 install process took a grand total of 15 minutes.
We payed for this game, we expect it to at least PLAY!
Every part of the install process you are complaining about was public knowledge long before the game was released. Caveat Emptor.
Without some good media coverage, the only way anyone (in power) will take a serious look at this issue is if the following results come in for Election 2004:
Adolph Hitler 34%
Mickey Mouse 33%
Saddam Hussein 33%
I'm extremely sure that in 9000+ BC, they used the same year (365 and 1/4th days) as our Gregorian calendar (which was created in the 16th century).
The ages make a lot more sense if you understand that a biblical "year" is 1 Moon Cycle (28 days).
Why, my great-grandmother lived to the ripe old age of 1317! Noah ain't got nothing on Granny.
This may be the case, but this discovery also invalidates the speculations of other sci-fi writers.
Larry Niven's corpsickles, for one.
I don't think anyone's going to worry about cryogenically frozen people being thawed out and chopped up for organs in light of this new breakthrough...
That this may actually be necessary due to society's (and/or mass media's) ability to avert the blame from the parents to the providers of legitimate content.
Or that Congress is happy to legislate all the responsibilities of parenthood, thus buying the pass-the-buck tactic and negating any sense of accountability for bad parenting.
When you buy a book, does it come with a seal holding the pages together so you can't read it unless you agree not to set up your printing press to mass produce and sell copies of it?
No, but somewhere inside is a copyright notice.
That's the problem. The things EULAs *should* protect are already protected by already-existing copyright law. The fact that these *companies* try to limit you in no way makes you a criminal if you say to hell with them.
That is, unless they keep buying legislation to get their way.
My experience with extreme programming is that it is simply a bass-ackwards way of development.
The advocates of eXtreme pr0gramming who love to "refactor" their code on a daily basis seem to have the same mindset as the people in my upper level CS courses that would spend the entire weekend in the computer lab on their projects, and complain about their grades and the time they spent afterward.
I'd spend a couple hours making object relationship diagrams, program flow diagrams, etc beforehand. I'd show up at the lab Saturday morning at 9 and leave at noon, and the looks these students gave me were a combination of hatred, jealousy, and disbelief.
IMO, it's just a process choice. Planned, focussed development, or tinker-till-it-works.
No they cannot. The currently available WC3Beta does not have a single player mode and MUST be played on-line. There is supposedly a hack for it to play a skirmish vs. the computer but I heard that it is unstable and that the AI does really stupid things (hence the beta.)
Yes, they can.
If you read the lawsuit, you would realize that it is in regard to all Blizzard games, not just the Warcraft III beta.
They go into great detail on the copyrights and trademarks for all of the games playable on battle.net
My statement on single player access to copyrighted material is based on the fact that Diablo (& expansion), Diablo II (& expansion), Starcraft (& expansion), and Warcraft II BNE all have single player components.
While Warcraft III does not, that is only 1/8 of the games battle.net supports.
On Item 24:
The existence of a unique bug that mirrors battle.net in bnetd's client-side login indicating that the source code was blatantly copied:
During reverse-engineering, if you observe something happening with the program on every login, would you not implement it? How would the bnetd coders know it was a bug? How does this prove the *code* was copied, not the functionality?
on 38, and 39:
bnetd has been around for years. Isn't a provision for keeping a trademark timely defense of the trademark?How can Blizzard claim they were unaware of bnetd's infringing name when they sent the original developer a cease-and-desist notice that they never backed up? They have been aware of bnetd for the past 5+ years. The fact that they have not defended their trademark for this long (and if this is a trademark issue), they should lose the trademark.
on 45:
bnetd only devalues the battle.net trademark because it is a superior product to battle.net. Blizzard's servers are unstable cheater-havens. bnetd is used, in my experience, mostly by tight-knit groups of friends that choose to play without the lag and without the disrespectful people that are so common on battle.net.
As for copyright infringement, I don't think Blizzard is going after them for screenshots. What they are claiming is that bnetd allows gamers to access the copyrighted content in battle.net games, that they couldn't otherwise access.
Didn't Sony lose to Connectix, trying the same thing?
And, isn't it fallacious, considering that these same users *can* access the copyrighted content without bnetd, through use of the games' touted single player aspects?
Slashdot Mirror
The cd's basically just copy over the exact same files as in the preload that you could get from Steam... which means that when you stick the cd's in your drive you have to do two install processes, at least. First you have to disc swap install the cds (5) which takes awhile. Then you have to register for Steam.
You've known for over a year that Steam would be required for HL2. Why didn't you have it pre-installed?
You've known about the preloads for at least as long as they've been available. Why didn't you already have the data on your hard drive, sparing yourself from the disc-juggling, time-consuming copy?
Then you have to wait while it decrypts everything, on top of unpacking the entire game just like a regular install does in a single step.
If you had preloaded, this would be the only step. Not counting the time spent preloading while I slept, my HL2 install process took a grand total of 15 minutes.
We payed for this game, we expect it to at least PLAY!
Every part of the install process you are complaining about was public knowledge long before the game was released. Caveat Emptor.
I have recently obtained a patent on One-Click Cracking.
Our lawyers will be getting in touch with the MetaSploit group to discuss licensing options.
Thank you,
Jeff Bezos
Founder and CEO
amazon.com
Without some good media coverage, the only way anyone (in power) will take a serious look at this issue is if the following results come in for Election 2004:
Adolph Hitler 34%
Mickey Mouse 33%
Saddam Hussein 33%
I'm extremely sure that in 9000+ BC, they used the same year (365 and 1/4th days) as our Gregorian calendar (which was created in the 16th century). The ages make a lot more sense if you understand that a biblical "year" is 1 Moon Cycle (28 days). Why, my great-grandmother lived to the ripe old age of 1317! Noah ain't got nothing on Granny.
moc.elgoog.www
This may be the case, but this discovery also invalidates the speculations of other sci-fi writers.
Larry Niven's corpsickles, for one.
I don't think anyone's going to worry about cryogenically frozen people being thawed out and chopped up for organs in light of this new breakthrough...
Features:
I don't know what's worse.
That this may actually be necessary due to society's (and/or mass media's) ability to avert the blame from the parents to the providers of legitimate content.
Or that Congress is happy to legislate all the responsibilities of parenthood, thus buying the pass-the-buck tactic and negating any sense of accountability for bad parenting.
When you buy a book, does it come with a seal holding the pages together so you can't read it unless you agree not to set up your printing press to mass produce and sell copies of it?
No, but somewhere inside is a copyright notice.
That's the problem. The things EULAs *should* protect are already protected by already-existing copyright law. The fact that these *companies* try to limit you in no way makes you a criminal if you say to hell with them.
That is, unless they keep buying legislation to get their way.
My experience with extreme programming is that it is simply a bass-ackwards way of development.
The advocates of eXtreme pr0gramming who love to "refactor" their code on a daily basis seem to have the same mindset as the people in my upper level CS courses that would spend the entire weekend in the computer lab on their projects, and complain about their grades and the time they spent afterward.
I'd spend a couple hours making object relationship diagrams, program flow diagrams, etc beforehand. I'd show up at the lab Saturday morning at 9 and leave at noon, and the looks these students gave me were a combination of hatred, jealousy, and disbelief.
IMO, it's just a process choice. Planned, focussed development, or tinker-till-it-works.
No they cannot. The currently available WC3Beta does not have a single player mode and MUST be played on-line. There is supposedly a hack for it to play a skirmish vs. the computer but I heard that it is unstable and that the AI does really stupid things (hence the beta.)
Yes, they can.
If you read the lawsuit, you would realize that it is in regard to all Blizzard games, not just the Warcraft III beta.
They go into great detail on the copyrights and trademarks for all of the games playable on battle.net
My statement on single player access to copyrighted material is based on the fact that Diablo (& expansion), Diablo II (& expansion), Starcraft (& expansion), and Warcraft II BNE all have single player components.
While Warcraft III does not, that is only 1/8 of the games battle.net supports.
On Item 24:
The existence of a unique bug that mirrors battle.net in bnetd's client-side login indicating that the source code was blatantly copied:
During reverse-engineering, if you observe something happening with the program on every login, would you not implement it? How would the bnetd coders know it was a bug? How does this prove the *code* was copied, not the functionality?
on 38, and 39:
bnetd has been around for years. Isn't a provision for keeping a trademark timely defense of the trademark?How can Blizzard claim they were unaware of bnetd's infringing name when they sent the original developer a cease-and-desist notice that they never backed up? They have been aware of bnetd for the past 5+ years. The fact that they have not defended their trademark for this long (and if this is a trademark issue), they should lose the trademark.
on 45:
bnetd only devalues the battle.net trademark because it is a superior product to battle.net. Blizzard's servers are unstable cheater-havens. bnetd is used, in my experience, mostly by tight-knit groups of friends that choose to play without the lag and without the disrespectful people that are so common on battle.net.
As for copyright infringement, I don't think Blizzard is going after them for screenshots. What they are claiming is that bnetd allows gamers to access the copyrighted content in battle.net games, that they couldn't otherwise access.
Didn't Sony lose to Connectix, trying the same thing?
And, isn't it fallacious, considering that these same users *can* access the copyrighted content without bnetd, through use of the games' touted single player aspects?