The NGE was the biggest bait and switch EVER pulled on a MMO subscriber community, sell them an expansion containing content and enhancements for professions that would be removed 2 weeks later, publically say things like "The CU is here to stay", and "Jedi will never be a starter profession" then 2 days after charging for the expansion announce a massive change to the game that deleted 2/3rds of it. This was so egregious that a week later SOE was forced to offer refunds for the expansion (probably because spending time in a federal "pound me in the ass" prison for wire fraud didn't appeal to John Smedley).
The NGE also ruined SOE's reputation basically for good. Not that the rest of Sony wasn't helping.
I don't like the idea of national ID either, but I do think that non citizens in this country should probably have to have something like this.
The immigration bill died because Americans literally melted down the Senate's phone system because they don't want to grant amnesty now for border enforcement later since it's well known that the government has NO interest whatsoever in doing this.
The support for the legalization of criminal illegal aliens comes both from the far left (who sees a low skilled, uneducated underclass they can entice into a voting block with welfare programs) and the far right (who sees cheap labor that they can use to artificially depress wages). Polls show that 80% of the country opposes it.
"Normally, I'm against libertarian notions like this, but this is the danger of governments. I mean, the concept is square and solid for businesses dealing in fuels, but what about average joes trying to get by with biodiesel or other forms of power?"
Presumably taxes were paid on the stuff that made the bio fuel oil in every phase of transaction. The farmer paid taxes, the producer paid taxes, the McDonalds paid taxes, those who bought the fries fried in the oil paid taxes, etc.
How many times should the government be able to tax one product?
There is no expectation of privacy. That is why police are allowed to look INTO the visible parts of your car (ie, through the windows, etc) without probable cause or a warrant.
Presumably, that's why they also can tape a traffic stop.
I seriously doubt the Constitution would stand for government employees to have GREATER protections and expectations of privacy when performing official government duty.
Personally I've been harassed by our local stormtrooper wannabes (small town police). That stopped when I made it clear that I carry a tape recorder and will record any and all interactions.
"And here, my friends, will SOE feel the full brunt of the backlash of their raping and pillaging many games in the MMO genre.
The very fact that SOE is at the helm will cause many people to not even want to READ about these titles, much less play them (and yes, I am one of the many folks pissed off at what SOE did to completely DESTROY Star Wars Galaxies which was, at one time, probably the best and deepest MMO around)"
Yep. SOE has sown the wind and shall reap the whirlwind.
They have the absolute worst reputation amongst all MMO developers and are probably the most despised company amongst MMO developers.
Hopefully soon we will have our Pre-CU SWG back, it's already playable with most combat working over at www.swgemu.com
To those thinking of trying those games: DONT.
SOE has and WILL make drastic gameplay changes, including completely invalidating your character achievements even deleting whole aspects of the game! That is what they did to SWG. If they did it before they could do it again.
SOE is not trustworthy enough to invest the time that a MMO requires into.
I guess now MS comes out from behind it's proxy and is trying to continue this ridiculous losing battle openly.
MS has been ruled to be a monopoly that illegally used it's power to stifle competition. And that ruling came based on Windows 95/98, not on the increased "lock in" that XP and Vista have introduced. This means that they CANNOT use their patents in such ways as they are attempting.
"But instead, they decide the law doesn't apply to them anymore and use as many underhanded and illegal tactics as they can. Now it doesn't matter if the RIAA is right, nobody in their right mind could possibly side with them.
This is completely disregarding the entire concept of following the advances in technology instead of trying to fight them. If they'd simply tried to embrace technology and make it easy and quick to buy music, instead of doing everything they can to make it painful and slow... Maybe they'd actually be making more money than ever."
It also might help if the RIAA labels started producing quality music again, instead of flooding the market with "gangbanger rap", Britney Spears clones, and LOOOOOOOONNNNG played out "whiner rock".
I don't buy music simply because I don't like any of what they are producing, not because I am "stealing" it off the internet.
We use only HP desktop systems, all of which come preloaded with XP. One day after MS pushed this malware out (and WGA is malware by any definition, so sue me Gates) via a "critical" update that came via automatic update, several of our recently installed HP DC5100 PC's came up with the WGA trojan virus (sue me again Gates) and refused to allow a login. Microsoft told us to call HP who told us to call Microsoft. No remedy was offered.
So, we wasted two days reloading a bunch of PC's that most definitley had legal software, in two of our divisions.
The result? Windows Update service is DISABLED on our domains, and I am looking into some sort of update deployment program that will allow me to choose which updates go out to PCs.
Microsoft, I guess thinks it can operate like the RIAA, assume that their customers are thieves and treat them like criminals.
I can tell you this much, I don't see myself deploying Vista anywhere until it's absolutely unavoidable.
CA's new regulations are already insane enough, basically forcing cars to run on engines that would barely push a lawnmower.
So, don't sell in CA. Don't sell any vehicles to any CA state or local government agency. Force the residents of CA to buy from outside the state, and if that's illegal, then they have to drive the cars they already have. That will make the residents mad enough to vote out the lunatic loonies that are doing their best to ruin that state.
""Well, it's legal in this case, but it has nothing to do with our constitutional notion of free speech or the intellectual foundations of liberal democracy. Free speech does not establish an obligation for anyone to listen.""
Nor does the First Amendment give "political speakers" the right to do their speaking on my property.
There would be nothing unconstitutional about allowing the DNC list to cover political solicitation, but it's the usual case of the ruling class exempting themselves from their own laws.
I miss the 32 profession 250 point open skills system SWG once had. You had complete freedom.
Now it's just like any other EQ/WoW clone, you are locked into single professions without any multi classing. Only 2 even have talent trees.
Back when I started SWG (pre-CU, before all this revamp the game to death nonsense started) it didn't even HAVE levels. Now the AI is so braindead that damage/defense is basically higher CL - lower CL. Pre-CU it wasn't.
It's one of the few that don't kiss the ass of the game publishers, such as SOE. They even have stickied "We are angry at SOE threads" in the SWG forum, for example. The MMORPG SWG forum has become the main refuge for us, as we are free from the harsh censorship and favorites playing on the SOE boards.
(Indeed, the suckups called "Galactic Senators" on the SOE boards get so pissed that we can talk freely there that they come over and troll us).
West Virginia Airport Terminal Evacuated After Water Bottle Tests Positive for Explosives Thursday, August 17, 2006
PHOTOS VIDEO PHOTO ESSAYS
Click image to enlarge Photo Essays:
London Police Disrupt Terrorist Plot STORIES
London-to-D.C. Flight Diverted to Boston After Passenger Disturbance
Sen. Schumer: UK Terror Plot Shows Weaknesses in U.S. Security
Attorney General Gonzales Praises International Effort to Disrupt UK Terror Plot
Jetliner Terror Suspects to Stay in Jail in London
TSA Says Shoe X-Rays at Airports Can Detect Explosives, Despite Security Report
DHS Lowers Terror Alert Level From Red to Orange for Inbound Flights From UK to U.S. CEREDO, West Virginia -- A West Virginia airport terminal was evacuated Thursday after a female passenger's water bottle twice tested positive for explosives, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said.
"The bomb squad is on site and the woman is being interviewed by the FBI," Amy von Walter said.
Security checkpoint screeners got a positive test on a machine that uses swabs to find traces of explosives, von Walter said. A bomb-sniffing dog also reacted to the water bottle.
A screener noticed the bottle in a woman's carryon bag as she prepared to board a flight to Charlotte, N.C., said Tri-State Airport authority President Jim Booton.
Commercial airline service was temporarily suspended, and about 100 passengers and airport employees were ordered to leave the terminal, Booton said.
At least one flight was diverted to Charleston's Yeager Airport, about 60 miles away.
Note: I live in the Tri-State area, this is right now local news, hasn't broken national yet.
The center of gravity between the Earth and Moon is inside Earth, true, but it's not at Earth's center... The moon is exceptionally large compared to the Earth, and affects Earth far more than if it were orbiting a gas giant.
BTW, isn't the Earth gradually losing the moon? I think I remember reading that the Moon moves away from Earth a few inches a year.
I haven't bought a new CD in a couple years now, nor do I even bother to download anything. For one thing, I don't like the crap quality of new music (don't get me started on how shitty rock is compared to 15 years ago), and I don't like the RIAA.
I'd be lying if I said that I don't buy music because of the RIAA, sure, I don't like them, but it has more to do with the fact that the industry doesn't produce anything that I want to buy. They simply don't make the kind of music that I like anymore.
Just because you are a reporter you aren't above the law. If I or anyone else would have to reveal something under subpoena or on a witness stand if it were part of a criminal case (and leaking classified documents is a crime), then so should the high and mighty New York Times.
I am sick and tired of the Times and other blatantly anti war publications like them putting our soldiers and our security at risk.
If you work at an agency and you think there is something illegal going on the proper procedure is to call the US Attorney's office, not the New York Times. The person who does the former is a whistleblower. The person who does the latter is a criminal.
The CU and NGE versions bled that potential away. When SOE decided back in 2004 to scrap the core game rather than to fix bugs and inconsitencies and add content to it, they destroyed SWG's growth, and laid waste to the best MMO engine ever produced.
In Pre-CU SWG, you could NEVER SPEND A MINUTE in combat and still be just as vital a part of the game community as a Jedi Master. It had a combat system and UI that was awesome, you spent time on strategy, not toolbar watching and button mashing. It had no levels, only skills.
The CU took the heart out but left the body mostly intact. It was a boring and slow combat engine and nerfed player power to the point of requiring a group to do mundane things like level grinding. Non combat roles got marginalized at that time as anti decay kits and uber loot rewards from the expansions replaced crafted items.
The NGE then destroyed the body, taking away the skill system completely and reducing 32 mix and match professions to 9 static ones. Jedi ceased to be a long term game aspiration and became selectable on startup. There ceased to be anything at all to work towards.
Throught ALL of this we have been screaming for classic servers, which would make the pre-Cu vets like me very happy. No, says SOE, play THIS or else.
Well, even John Smedley admitted on the SWG forums that SWG players have been voting with their feet and that subscriber numbers have been falling since the NGE. Their response has been to shove half assed versions of stuff taken away since NGE back into the game slowly but surely. Rumor has it after the latest combat revision (yes, they are STILL changing the combat system every 6 months) that subscriber levels dropped even more, and consequently, the lead developer recently posted about bringing back turn based combat with a target lock (like all other MMO's use).
So now we have the pre-Cu emulator. The time has come for SOE to either give us our game back, or else, we will take it out of their hands. The Emu project is about to go open source, and no matter what they do with lawyers, just like DeCSS they won't be able to stop it once that code is out there./target Smedley/rude/db
"I don't think I would be able to take it. Heck, one of my friends was a genius creative writer, chose macabre topics (murder, dissection, etc) and would hand out his writtings at school. Today he would be expelled. And who hasn't joked around about wanting a bomb threat to be called in so you could go home early? Now just talking about it would likely get you expelled.
It would be like going to a prison camp, being afraid of what to do, how to act, and what to say for fear of suspension and expulsion." --
Exactly the feelings I have. I am glad my schooling took place in the 1980's and early 90's, not today. No way would I ever have made it through without getting expelled in today's thought police world.
Slashdot Mirror
I expect ads in something I get for free, as in over the air radio or TV. But I don't in a video game I'd have to pay for.
A $50 game that I have to accept ads and spyware to play? No thanks. Sell it for $10 or give it away for free, and you might justify it.
Is that YOU aren't trusted. Sorry, I won't ever accept NOT being the absolute owner of my own computers, which means having complete control.
The NGE was the biggest bait and switch EVER pulled on a MMO subscriber community, sell them an expansion containing content and enhancements for professions that would be removed 2 weeks later, publically say things like "The CU is here to stay", and "Jedi will never be a starter profession" then 2 days after charging for the expansion announce a massive change to the game that deleted 2/3rds of it. This was so egregious that a week later SOE was forced to offer refunds for the expansion (probably because spending time in a federal "pound me in the ass" prison for wire fraud didn't appeal to John Smedley).
The NGE also ruined SOE's reputation basically for good. Not that the rest of Sony wasn't helping.
I don't like the idea of national ID either, but I do think that non citizens in this country should probably have to have something like this.
The immigration bill died because Americans literally melted down the Senate's phone system because they don't want to grant amnesty now for border enforcement later since it's well known that the government has NO interest whatsoever in doing this.
The support for the legalization of criminal illegal aliens comes both from the far left (who sees a low skilled, uneducated underclass they can entice into a voting block with welfare programs) and the far right (who sees cheap labor that they can use to artificially depress wages). Polls show that 80% of the country opposes it.
"Normally, I'm against libertarian notions like this, but this is the danger of governments. I mean, the concept is square and solid for businesses dealing in fuels, but what about average joes trying to get by with biodiesel or other forms of power?"
Presumably taxes were paid on the stuff that made the bio fuel oil in every phase of transaction. The farmer paid taxes, the producer paid taxes, the McDonalds paid taxes, those who bought the fries fried in the oil paid taxes, etc.
How many times should the government be able to tax one product?
There is no expectation of privacy. That is why police are allowed to look INTO the visible parts of your car (ie, through the windows, etc) without probable cause or a warrant.
Presumably, that's why they also can tape a traffic stop.
I seriously doubt the Constitution would stand for government employees to have GREATER protections and expectations of privacy when performing official government duty.
Personally I've been harassed by our local stormtrooper wannabes (small town police). That stopped when I made it clear that I carry a tape recorder and will record any and all interactions.
Like a woman scorned?
HARDLY.
That pales in comparison with the fury of a government that isn't getting it's "cut".
We truly lost our freedoms when it became accepted that the government has an inalienable right to a "cut" of ALL transactions!
"And here, my friends, will SOE feel the full brunt of the backlash of their raping and pillaging many games in the MMO genre.
The very fact that SOE is at the helm will cause many people to not even want to READ about these titles, much less play them (and yes, I am one of the many folks pissed off at what SOE did to completely DESTROY Star Wars Galaxies which was, at one time, probably the best and deepest MMO around)"
Yep. SOE has sown the wind and shall reap the whirlwind.
They have the absolute worst reputation amongst all MMO developers and are probably the most despised company amongst MMO developers.
Hopefully soon we will have our Pre-CU SWG back, it's already playable with most combat working over at www.swgemu.com
To those thinking of trying those games: DONT.
SOE has and WILL make drastic gameplay changes, including completely invalidating your character achievements even deleting whole aspects of the game! That is what they did to SWG. If they did it before they could do it again.
SOE is not trustworthy enough to invest the time that a MMO requires into.
I guess now MS comes out from behind it's proxy and is trying to continue this ridiculous losing battle openly.
MS has been ruled to be a monopoly that illegally used it's power to stifle competition. And that ruling came based on Windows 95/98, not on the increased "lock in" that XP and Vista have introduced. This means that they CANNOT use their patents in such ways as they are attempting.
"But instead, they decide the law doesn't apply to them anymore and use as many underhanded and illegal tactics as they can. Now it doesn't matter if the RIAA is right, nobody in their right mind could possibly side with them.
This is completely disregarding the entire concept of following the advances in technology instead of trying to fight them. If they'd simply tried to embrace technology and make it easy and quick to buy music, instead of doing everything they can to make it painful and slow... Maybe they'd actually be making more money than ever."
It also might help if the RIAA labels started producing quality music again, instead of flooding the market with "gangbanger rap", Britney Spears clones, and LOOOOOOOONNNNG played out "whiner rock".
I don't buy music simply because I don't like any of what they are producing, not because I am "stealing" it off the internet.
We use only HP desktop systems, all of which come preloaded with XP. One day after MS pushed this malware out (and WGA is malware by any definition, so sue me Gates) via a "critical" update that came via automatic update, several of our recently installed HP DC5100 PC's came up with the WGA trojan virus (sue me again Gates) and refused to allow a login. Microsoft told us to call HP who told us to call Microsoft. No remedy was offered.
So, we wasted two days reloading a bunch of PC's that most definitley had legal software, in two of our divisions.
The result? Windows Update service is DISABLED on our domains, and I am looking into some sort of update deployment program that will allow me to choose which updates go out to PCs.
Microsoft, I guess thinks it can operate like the RIAA, assume that their customers are thieves and treat them like criminals.
I can tell you this much, I don't see myself deploying Vista anywhere until it's absolutely unavoidable.
CA's new regulations are already insane enough, basically forcing cars to run on engines that would barely push a lawnmower.
So, don't sell in CA. Don't sell any vehicles to any CA state or local government agency. Force the residents of CA to buy from outside the state, and if that's illegal, then they have to drive the cars they already have. That will make the residents mad enough to vote out the lunatic loonies that are doing their best to ruin that state.
""Well, it's legal in this case, but it has nothing to do with our constitutional notion of free speech or the intellectual foundations of liberal democracy. Free speech does not establish an obligation for anyone to listen.""
Nor does the First Amendment give "political speakers" the right to do their speaking on my property.
There would be nothing unconstitutional about allowing the DNC list to cover political solicitation, but it's the usual case of the ruling class exempting themselves from their own laws.
I miss the 32 profession 250 point open skills system SWG once had. You had complete freedom.
Now it's just like any other EQ/WoW clone, you are locked into single professions without any multi classing. Only 2 even have talent trees.
Back when I started SWG (pre-CU, before all this revamp the game to death nonsense started) it didn't even HAVE levels. Now the AI is so braindead that damage/defense is basically higher CL - lower CL. Pre-CU it wasn't.
It's one of the few that don't kiss the ass of the game publishers, such as SOE. They even have stickied "We are angry at SOE threads" in the SWG forum, for example. The MMORPG SWG forum has become the main refuge for us, as we are free from the harsh censorship and favorites playing on the SOE boards.
(Indeed, the suckups called "Galactic Senators" on the SOE boards get so pissed that we can talk freely there that they come over and troll us).
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,209042,00.html
West Virginia Airport Terminal Evacuated After Water Bottle Tests Positive for Explosives
Thursday, August 17, 2006
PHOTOS VIDEO PHOTO ESSAYS
Click image to enlarge
Photo Essays:
London Police Disrupt Terrorist Plot
STORIES
London-to-D.C. Flight Diverted to Boston After Passenger Disturbance
Sen. Schumer: UK Terror Plot Shows Weaknesses in U.S. Security
Attorney General Gonzales Praises International Effort to Disrupt UK Terror Plot
Jetliner Terror Suspects to Stay in Jail in London
TSA Says Shoe X-Rays at Airports Can Detect Explosives, Despite Security Report
DHS Lowers Terror Alert Level From Red to Orange for Inbound Flights From UK to U.S.
CEREDO, West Virginia -- A West Virginia airport terminal was evacuated Thursday after a female passenger's water bottle twice tested positive for explosives, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said.
"The bomb squad is on site and the woman is being interviewed by the FBI," Amy von Walter said.
Security checkpoint screeners got a positive test on a machine that uses swabs to find traces of explosives, von Walter said. A bomb-sniffing dog also reacted to the water bottle.
A screener noticed the bottle in a woman's carryon bag as she prepared to board a flight to Charlotte, N.C., said Tri-State Airport authority President Jim Booton.
Commercial airline service was temporarily suspended, and about 100 passengers and airport employees were ordered to leave the terminal, Booton said.
At least one flight was diverted to Charleston's Yeager Airport, about 60 miles away.
Note: I live in the Tri-State area, this is right now local news, hasn't broken national yet.
The center of gravity between the Earth and Moon is inside Earth, true, but it's not at Earth's center... The moon is exceptionally large compared to the Earth, and affects Earth far more than if it were orbiting a gas giant.
BTW, isn't the Earth gradually losing the moon? I think I remember reading that the Moon moves away from Earth a few inches a year.
I haven't bought a new CD in a couple years now, nor do I even bother to download anything. For one thing, I don't like the crap quality of new music (don't get me started on how shitty rock is compared to 15 years ago), and I don't like the RIAA.
I'd be lying if I said that I don't buy music because of the RIAA, sure, I don't like them, but it has more to do with the fact that the industry doesn't produce anything that I want to buy. They simply don't make the kind of music that I like anymore.
Wow, a moderator with a political agenda. Typical.
Just because you are a reporter you aren't above the law. If I or anyone else would have to reveal something under subpoena or on a witness stand if it were part of a criminal case (and leaking classified documents is a crime), then so should the high and mighty New York Times.
I am sick and tired of the Times and other blatantly anti war publications like them putting our soldiers and our security at risk.
If you work at an agency and you think there is something illegal going on the proper procedure is to call the US Attorney's office, not the New York Times. The person who does the former is a whistleblower. The person who does the latter is a criminal.
The CU and NGE versions bled that potential away. When SOE decided back in 2004 to scrap the core game rather than to fix bugs and inconsitencies and add content to it, they destroyed SWG's growth, and laid waste to the best MMO engine ever produced.
/target Smedley /rude /db
In Pre-CU SWG, you could NEVER SPEND A MINUTE in combat and still be just as vital a part of the game community as a Jedi Master. It had a combat system and UI that was awesome, you spent time on strategy, not toolbar watching and button mashing. It had no levels, only skills.
The CU took the heart out but left the body mostly intact. It was a boring and slow combat engine and nerfed player power to the point of requiring a group to do mundane things like level grinding. Non combat roles got marginalized at that time as anti decay kits and uber loot rewards from the expansions replaced crafted items.
The NGE then destroyed the body, taking away the skill system completely and reducing 32 mix and match professions to 9 static ones. Jedi ceased to be a long term game aspiration and became selectable on startup. There ceased to be anything at all to work towards.
Throught ALL of this we have been screaming for classic servers, which would make the pre-Cu vets like me very happy. No, says SOE, play THIS or else.
Well, even John Smedley admitted on the SWG forums that SWG players have been voting with their feet and that subscriber numbers have been falling since the NGE. Their response has been to shove half assed versions of stuff taken away since NGE back into the game slowly but surely. Rumor has it after the latest combat revision (yes, they are STILL changing the combat system every 6 months) that subscriber levels dropped even more, and consequently, the lead developer recently posted about bringing back turn based combat with a target lock (like all other MMO's use).
So now we have the pre-Cu emulator. The time has come for SOE to either give us our game back, or else, we will take it out of their hands. The Emu project is about to go open source, and no matter what they do with lawyers, just like DeCSS they won't be able to stop it once that code is out there.
SCaldera has pioneered suing your customers for profit. Not even they have threatened to sue their shareholders/potential shareholders!
/groan.
Unless Vonage has a written contrat with those people they have no case.
Except in Utah
No way there is 190K left.
But the chart does show SWG in freefall since they released the CU, and that the NGE was downright catastrophic.
Should have listened to we who didn't want them to do away with the original game to begin with....
SOE is the 10,000 ton boat anchor around their necks. I have two reasons to never trust a MMO that is associated with SOE in any way:
Star Wars Galaxies Combat Upgrade
Star Wars Galaxies New Game Experience
It's so bad that mmorpg.com has posted a stickied "Official SOE hate thread" in the forum of every SOE game.
"I don't think I would be able to take it. Heck, one of my friends was a genius creative writer, chose macabre topics (murder, dissection, etc) and would hand out his writtings at school. Today he would be expelled. And who hasn't joked around about wanting a bomb threat to be called in so you could go home early? Now just talking about it would likely get you expelled.
It would be like going to a prison camp, being afraid of what to do, how to act, and what to say for fear of suspension and expulsion."
--
Exactly the feelings I have. I am glad my schooling took place in the 1980's and early 90's, not today. No way would I ever have made it through without getting expelled in today's thought police world.