According to Wikipedia, the region in question has about 48,300 people and is about 48 square miles. It's not clear what they mean by Easter Period, but I'd guess either Lent or Easter weekend. Especially if it's Easter weekend, a drop from 14 to 0 deaths over 3 days in an area the size of about 1.5 Massachusetts towns sounds rather significant.
I know that "correlation is not causation" is a popular mantra, both here and on fark (heh), but correlation implies the existence of one of two things: either causation (either directly or indirectly, from some underlying cause) or coincidence. Given the numbers, I'm disinclined to believe the latter in this case.
Faction balance varies from server to server. I'm on a release server, and have been since release, and the balance has typically been 1.5:1, swinging back and forth between the factions over time. I think they expected night elves and forsaken to be much more popular than the other races, which is why it was NE vs. orc/troll/tauren on Kalimdor and UD vs. human/dwarf/gnome on Eastern Kingdoms. I think the post-BC numbers were probably a bit better balanced, and if they were to release the game today, I suspect that factions and servers would be more uniformly balanced with that particular change.
I could see this potentially backfiring for servers that already have a severe faction imbalance, though. If your server has a faction ratio of something like 10:1, wouldn't it make a lot of sense to switch sides, thereby exacerbating the problem?
When it takes a few months to reach the level cap and it isn't raised for another 2 years, yeah, I'd sort of expect most players to spend most of their/played time there.
Of course, that's not true for my rogue and the current cap, because I've been playing her since '04.
I'm one of two people I know of on my server with the Insane title. Back at level 60, I was one of a handful with a Winterspring Frostsaber. Both (at the time) required a lot of hard work, and after a while having to do what is necessary for the reputation grinds got a little tiresome. In the end, of course, I completed both of them, and it's a lot of fun to show the title, or back then, the mount. There's a fair amount of entertainment that goes into, "Oh, wow, you have that?"
Moral of the story: putting effort in to achieve a goal is fun.
Considering some of Blizzard's own past statements, I don't think the original vision was simply to sell subscriptions. The first couple months of the game were pretty crazy considering they sold... what was it, their goal for a year within one month?
Leveling in a new environment and doing new quests can be fun, don't you think? Like, say, making a horde character and doing horde quests if you've already done all the alliance ones.
And you'll recall that last line was used 4 months after launch, except the number then was 60. I still don't buy it.
If all your friends are horde, why did you roll alliance? See, when I started playing the game, I asked my friends what server and faction they were on, then I made my character. Of all the reasons people want to change factions, I imagine that's the least common of them.
I think you're thinking about it from a wartime point of view. Ideally, if you go to, say, a NASCAR race, you're hoping somebody won't start opening with gunfire or blowing stuff up. You're looking for any activity in a sea of non-activity, and it sounds like this is well-adapted to the purpose.
I don't imagine they'll use it for something as simple as a car race, but I could see some potential application for very high-profile events like the Super Bowl or New Year's Eve in New York City.
Yeah, this is really what I don't get about the bill. My car gets 25-28 actual (not sticker) MPG, and it's a '93 Capri XR2 (turbo). The cars that companies are putting out as "fuel efficent" are very close to that. Hasn't there been any improvement in the last 15 years?
Isn't that true of everything government does? Local governments "make decisions" to save your house in the event of a fire by "spending other people's money" too, yet somehow the fire department is viewed as a good thing.
When I was in college 5 years ago, the school got real big on this whole email thing. They rolled out a new system where it was integrated into the students' web site, featured webmail, blah blah blah. I wasn't really interested in any of that bullshit. I had it forward all my incoming mail to an account (POP) I actually used on a totally different domain, and never really touched what they set up.
It's also worth noting that they would send out more emails to the entire student body than was really needed. The school was maybe 90% male, and the entire student body would get sent emails about, for example, women's events. Ask the vendor how easy it is to send out targeted emails, because if you start spamming your own students, they'll stop paying attention.
I'm at the point where I just don't see images on a page. I don't block them, or use any add-on software. I just don't look at them. When I'm going to a web site, I'm looking for text, and the text is all I look at.
As soon as there's an ad that covers the text I want to look at, just close the window. I don't care who gets paid, but no one's getting any of my money, and the web site obviously wasn't that important if it was trying to cover up the content.
Slashdot Mirror
You're just trying to get goatse posted on a billboard in your community, aren't you?
I guess we can't prove that articles of that type cause that behavior, but there's a strong correlation.
According to Wikipedia, the region in question has about 48,300 people and is about 48 square miles. It's not clear what they mean by Easter Period, but I'd guess either Lent or Easter weekend. Especially if it's Easter weekend, a drop from 14 to 0 deaths over 3 days in an area the size of about 1.5 Massachusetts towns sounds rather significant.
I know that "correlation is not causation" is a popular mantra, both here and on fark (heh), but correlation implies the existence of one of two things: either causation (either directly or indirectly, from some underlying cause) or coincidence. Given the numbers, I'm disinclined to believe the latter in this case.
Faction balance varies from server to server. I'm on a release server, and have been since release, and the balance has typically been 1.5:1, swinging back and forth between the factions over time. I think they expected night elves and forsaken to be much more popular than the other races, which is why it was NE vs. orc/troll/tauren on Kalimdor and UD vs. human/dwarf/gnome on Eastern Kingdoms. I think the post-BC numbers were probably a bit better balanced, and if they were to release the game today, I suspect that factions and servers would be more uniformly balanced with that particular change.
I could see this potentially backfiring for servers that already have a severe faction imbalance, though. If your server has a faction ratio of something like 10:1, wouldn't it make a lot of sense to switch sides, thereby exacerbating the problem?
When it takes a few months to reach the level cap and it isn't raised for another 2 years, yeah, I'd sort of expect most players to spend most of their /played time there.
Of course, that's not true for my rogue and the current cap, because I've been playing her since '04.
Exactly how many "friend sets" does one require?
I'm one of two people I know of on my server with the Insane title. Back at level 60, I was one of a handful with a Winterspring Frostsaber. Both (at the time) required a lot of hard work, and after a while having to do what is necessary for the reputation grinds got a little tiresome. In the end, of course, I completed both of them, and it's a lot of fun to show the title, or back then, the mount. There's a fair amount of entertainment that goes into, "Oh, wow, you have that?"
Moral of the story: putting effort in to achieve a goal is fun.
Considering some of Blizzard's own past statements, I don't think the original vision was simply to sell subscriptions. The first couple months of the game were pretty crazy considering they sold... what was it, their goal for a year within one month?
Leveling in a new environment and doing new quests can be fun, don't you think? Like, say, making a horde character and doing horde quests if you've already done all the alliance ones.
And you'll recall that last line was used 4 months after launch, except the number then was 60. I still don't buy it.
If all your friends are horde, why did you roll alliance? See, when I started playing the game, I asked my friends what server and faction they were on, then I made my character. Of all the reasons people want to change factions, I imagine that's the least common of them.
Yet another step closer to "everything for a price" and another step away from the original vision of the game.
You think a man-made park is something nature created?
I think you're thinking about it from a wartime point of view. Ideally, if you go to, say, a NASCAR race, you're hoping somebody won't start opening with gunfire or blowing stuff up. You're looking for any activity in a sea of non-activity, and it sounds like this is well-adapted to the purpose.
I don't imagine they'll use it for something as simple as a car race, but I could see some potential application for very high-profile events like the Super Bowl or New Year's Eve in New York City.
Your visuals should enhance your point, not distract people from them.
Yeah, this is really what I don't get about the bill. My car gets 25-28 actual (not sticker) MPG, and it's a '93 Capri XR2 (turbo). The cars that companies are putting out as "fuel efficent" are very close to that. Hasn't there been any improvement in the last 15 years?
Isn't that true of everything government does? Local governments "make decisions" to save your house in the event of a fire by "spending other people's money" too, yet somehow the fire department is viewed as a good thing.
When I was in college 5 years ago, the school got real big on this whole email thing. They rolled out a new system where it was integrated into the students' web site, featured webmail, blah blah blah. I wasn't really interested in any of that bullshit. I had it forward all my incoming mail to an account (POP) I actually used on a totally different domain, and never really touched what they set up.
It's also worth noting that they would send out more emails to the entire student body than was really needed. The school was maybe 90% male, and the entire student body would get sent emails about, for example, women's events. Ask the vendor how easy it is to send out targeted emails, because if you start spamming your own students, they'll stop paying attention.
Kinda sounds like a troll.
Bingo. Want people to use more phone features? Stop charging an arm and a leg.
Be a real parent and pull out the SNES you still have?
Wait, what extinct goose is covering airplanes? How do you cover an airplane with an extinct animal?
:(
Poor commas.
I'm at the point where I just don't see images on a page. I don't block them, or use any add-on software. I just don't look at them. When I'm going to a web site, I'm looking for text, and the text is all I look at.
As soon as there's an ad that covers the text I want to look at, just close the window. I don't care who gets paid, but no one's getting any of my money, and the web site obviously wasn't that important if it was trying to cover up the content.
Do you browse newest first?
So in order to view "nested" mode in the new system, I have to click on every comment? Isn't that pretty much threaded?
Reply button in a new random place too.
Well, if your monitor had told your computer what kind it was...
Or do you just not like the antialiasing at all?