hehe, this is actually funny since this is done on purpose. In KDE at least you can switch the behaviour off and on. By default it is off. You see some people hate that cursor thing. Say an app takes 5 seconds to load. Then I got a faulty cursor for 5 seconds? Screw that.
Sure maybe it would be easier for windows people if the KDE people enabled this by default. You can set it so a busy cursor, busy in the taskbar, both or nothing.
So that is linux's advantage, you got the choice and disadvantage, you got the choice, in a nutshell. Pratically everything that people will say is wrong with switching to linux falls into this category.
Problem with choice is that the default will always be to someone else disliking. Windows itself has the perfect example in XP. Some people hate the new skins, others love it. For the latter the default enabled will be great. For the first they hate it and complain they got to go through a dozen menus to switch it all off.
Software developers just can't win. Doesn't matter if you work for MS, apple, IBM or for the glory of the flightless one.
Yup people hate change. That is why we are still working on dumb terminals attached to mainframes. Change can happen. It is sorta like pushing a train. If it is standing still then it will be hell to get moving. But once it does stopping it will be even harder and a lot more likely to get get you squashed.
Don't forget that not so long ago is you suggested using MS software in an office you would have been kicked out by both IT AND management.
Then again this kind of poll is useless. Sure they are dissatisified. You always says you want a better/cheaper product. If you say you are 100% satisfied they will up the price.
A response to the Half-Life 2 farce or something that has been cooking for longer?
They don't stand to loose much as 2003 is already an "old" engine. On the other hand if lots and lots of excellent fanmade material is made freely available then will people still buy the latest offcial engine/game just because it sports a few more polys?
/me slaps himself. Silly of course they will.
For modders does this however make any difference? After all they only get the engine NOT the code to the engine so they can't made supermods. So all this really means is that they can release standalone mods. No requirement for people to own the game. Good for players.
Considering there is no obvious money angle that I can see I can only say that this is incredibly nice of them to do. Perhaps they want to create more content creators so they can then hire the best for commercial games?
Yah. While in holland telemarketing is not yet out of control, we are always a few years behind the states, I hardly see this as a solution. Everyone taking out a second line, second phone it even sounds like just to avoid telemarketing? Not even 100% proof? and it costs you 300 dollars a year? Whoppem.
Nope sorry. For you it might have worked. For the rest of the US the dnc list seems a far better solution. Hopefully for once the european goverments will do the smart thing and adopt something similar without having to learn it the hard way first.
Yup a tiny little detail they seem to have missed is that it is the cops who revoke your license throught the justice system. Not the original license giver, the department of motor vehicles.
At least that is the case in holland not sure about the US but from tv it sounds the same:P
Yeah bit FS you can switch it OFF. Else it would suck if you live say in holland. 99% grey and overcast. Wheee. Where as people in california would never ever see a single cloud. Bastards.
No pain no gain. No risk no reward. It is simple. Remain safe and you will live longer but it will be the same live you started with. Want to progress then you have to take risks and one of those risks is snuffing it.
However for the fast majority of us that risk taking is obsolete. There are no more adventures, no joining the army isn't it, to undertake for young men but we still feel the need to take risks. So we take stupid pointless risks and get killed.
On the other hand don't think women are any better. One of the surest way for a woman to kill herself is to have a baby. The mortality rate was for a long time insanely high. The default way for a woman to die was in child birth. Sure this improved in the last few decades thanks to MALE doctors, who granted first caused a HUGE uprise in the number of deaths by seeing nothing wrong with first working on a corpse then without washing their hands going to a delivery room.
So while women may seem to take less risks this is in fact only true because child birth has become so much safer. Before that women were the short lived ones and men with all their wars, drinking, smoking and entrusting their lives to the latest gadget lived longer.
Women may live longer but this not because they are smarter. If they were smarter then they would with their longer lifespans complety dominate in the intellectual areas. Mmmm, how many woman are famous for their smarts?
As we live longer the question has arisen what is more important. Length of live or quality of life. If women are found to have more enjoyment/satisfaction out of live then I will be impressed. In the mean time excuse me while I poor myself a mug of scotch eat a thick steak and don't move an inch more then neccasry for the whole weekend.
Oh and on a site note, their is also research showing the women are picking up the same bad habits. Guess that if they can't beat us they are instead opting to join us.
The game was highly and widely reviewed. None of the ones I read mentioned any of the many many many bugs. That came later. It was for me the turning moment when I stopped buying game mags.
So does this deluxe edition finally have a proper patch? I doubt it. Gathering of Developers is not exactly known for its bugless releases. Nice games but I will not pay for any more of their crap.
The mafia patch took a bloody year.
I remember the time when patching a game was unheard off. You know when they came on floppies and most people didn't have internet.
Now I don't remember playing a single game recently that didn't require patching.
Stupid question. Just look at the first flights. Well the once we know about:-) They were safe. They send up a lot of lot of apes dogs and pigs though that ehm are not so safe anymore. Where do you think they got the shredded pork from anyway?
If the chinese even got 1 brain cell then this will have been a thoroughly tested craft. Can't afford to loose one with the eyes of the world on you.
Sure the US blown up a lot of people recently but that was after several decades of high safety. They got lax. The chinese haven't had the time yet to do that. Start worrying 1-2 decades from now when they think strapping people to several tons of explosives and setting fire to it is routine.
That is rich coming from an american. Don't you have china as most favored trading partner? Oh, that doesn't count. Right. I suppose not. Talk is cheap after all, hurting good solid business isn't.
I bet you boycot all chinese imports as well. Oh you don't yeah I know talk is cheap, actually trying to find something still produced in the west not.
Either do something about it or shut the fuckup.
Personally I can see china for what it is, a messy dictatorship that is now doing what the rest of the world was doing a couple of decades ago. Or in the case of the US is still doing on some points. Tell me american, when exactly was the ban on mixed race marriages really lifted in all states? When was the last racial murder? When was the last person incarcerated without due process?
It is the only nation currently with the capacity to send people into space. (oops sorry yeah the US can send them up as well. Getting them down is the tricky part)
Russia bankrupt? So what? This is state level we are talking about. Money is an extremly relative thing when you are an goverment. There are still plenty of people in russia willing to work on the space program even when they have to grow their own food.
Don't make the mistake of believing american propaganda (or any propaganda) the current exploration of space is at least 50% russian. And with the space shuttle down manned flight 100%
On the other hand the demo for the original Ufo: Enemy Unknown had me playing and playing again drooling waiting for it to be released. It had one level and only a default layout but it sure was fun.
Then when I got the full game I had already mastered the basics and could now enjoy having a full squad, weapons of choice plus of course more then 1 map:)
Sure bugfilled demos can be bad. But only if I think the company is unlikely to fix the bugs. We are PC users, bugs don't scare us. Bring them on.
Ehm? What? You can get the art sounds and "levels" from the cd when it comes out. That is easy. You can bet your ass the source won't be on it. Well unless someone really really screws up at valve.
This isn't a pirating attack. Pirates wouldn't bother. This is someone who for whatever reason wanted to get his hands on the code. Could be nothing more then bragging rights. Certainly the fact that the code was released immidialtly suggessts this. After all if someone had wanted to steal the code for making their own game they would have kept quit about it.
Insignificant speed differences between hd and cd?
I am sorry but are you for real? IDE cd drives are notorious for being CPU hogs. Certain games are worse then others of course.
As for blaming the pirates. Well only partially. Real life shops have to deal with a certain percentage of goods stolen. Now of course this could be easily avoided by strip searching everyone. Would you put up with this? Of course not. Instead the cost of theft is simply incorperated into the price of the products. It is on of the many prices we pay for our freedom.
Sadly even with all that DRM I don't see prices coming down. So not only am I paying for the stolen items (the coders still got to earn a salary no matter the ration between payers and leechers) I am also paying for DRM wich DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING WORK. It is like a shop enforcing strip searches only for people who bought something. Not for people who just walk in and walk out again.
The only ones hurt or hampered by steam and other crap like it are the people who buy it legit. Those who don't never even notice it is there.
I remember fondly the days of quake. I could just take my cd anywhere and play the game anywhere. Sweet. Now for valve I need to always be logged on to play. BAD.
I didn't mind the key needed to play online. That one made a lot of sense. It is for when I am not online that I have problems having to log on.
Oh and have you no regard for your privacy? Do you really want someone else to know exactly when you are playing games?
Ah, a Microsoft security advisor. Odd, I never seen one in the wild. Better stuff and mount him for the local museum.
Really security through obscurity is so obsolete it ain't even a good joke anymore.
This is out. It has happened. Though but it is hardly a big deal. It is not like the game itself has been leaked.
So what could this all mean.
Ports, with the code in hand porting the game by fans should be easy.
Mods, again with the code in hand modding will be much much easier.
Cheats, yup sucks in mp. On the other hand every online game wether source code was availble or not has had cheats. Live with it or play on lan games and only with friends online.
Pirated versions of the full game, well that depends on wether the steam code is in there. Again not big deal. Almost allgames are available BEFORE releases as warez. Though but it happens. Game companies just have to make it worth peoples money to buy the fucking game. I think valve has proofed they ain't cheap in the past (steam may erode that)
Huge lawsuit for valve. After all it uses licensed code for the physics engine. Well though again. They will just have to figure out who did it and then try to reclaim damages.
None of this will be stopped by not talking about it. And frankly I think you have shown youreselve to be extremly naive to believe that hushing this up is even going to work or have any effect.
mmm, hadn't thought of that. Certainly if it contains a relativly recent version of the code a port shouldn't be that hard. (no I couldn't do it but there are far smarter people then me out there)
As for the legality. Well if the porters didn't steal the code and don't claim copyright on the port then it might even be legal.
After all translating a letter you found in the street is not illegal is it?
Ofcourse valve is not going to like people having a good look at their code but well they should just have taken better care. Loosing this is really really stupid. Of course if someone really stole this then they are in for a world of hurt.
Anyway it has happened, might as well make the best out of it. It is not like ID was ever hurt by their games being easily copied or releasing the code (granted years later but still)
I have stacks of games all bought legit. I fucking hate it however when games I bought with good money then limit me while those who download them get the better deal.
Do a test once between a normal game and a game with a no-cd patch applied. It will boot faster and often run faster as well. Games that access the cd are slow as apart from the floppy the cd is the slowest part in your computer. If the game is copied instead to the HD and played completly from their it will run faster.
Having to enter registration keys is all very nice and not so much of a hassle except why aren't they printed on the fucking cd's.
I am fed up with being treated like a criminal.
You apparently love it. Well go right ahead but don't insult others who object to it.
Just because you are to stupid to see the problems with online activation crap doesn't mean the rest of us are as blind as you or as willing to be insulted.
but has anyone noticed the price drop making it way over to the rest of the world? I still see the machine going for 200 euros. A price higher then the price in america BEFORE the drop. With the current 99 it is easily twice as expensive, note that the dollar is worth less then the euro.
Is nintendo once again pissing on european customers despite the fact that in europe they were 2nd?
Oops, you haven't been following this story completly have you?
Foreign language support has always been a mess in MS software. Sure it may look good enough when as a primarly english user you occasianly have to use a foreign language. It just doesn't seem to be good enough when your english ehm sucks.
Their unicode support blows for one, having once again ruined a standard. Try reading a simple text file with asian text on another OS. Good luck.
The entire reason the asain countries like OSS so much is that it is very very simple, well simple when you are talking countries, to add real support for their language. The chinese already did so with Red Flag and India did so quit recently, story should still be on the frontpage infact.
So wether OSS is better or not is not really the point. For them at least it is better in that they can alter it themselves and not have to depend on a company in america to please please support all the local languages.
This plan is to do it by 2007. Perhaps the rest ain't ready to be replaced yet? You don't replace a perfectly good fully paid up machine just to make a point. Well not when you are a goverment.
Also this is perhaps a test. A BIG HUGE WHOPPER of test but nonetheless a test. By not replacing everything at one they are very likely not going to find themselves suddenly unable to send email or something silly because someone forgot a tiny little server somewhere.
This is really a first. I think, unless I missed something, that this is the largest deployment of linux yet.
So be patient. If this works and unless MS has access to nukes I don't see why it shouldn't then the rest will follow after 2007 as and when machines and licenses reach their end date.
Sigh, I just wish our western goverments had these kind of balls. Wonder how the imigration laws are over there.
But still it is funny. I watched Jay Leno for a while and he just wouldn't quit with jokes about the space station mir and how it was falling apart. Of course zero jokes about the over a dozen people blown up aboard the space shuttles.
Exactly what is the body count on both sides? And how does the body count stack up to the amount of time spend in space?
So once again the americans are looking to go the high tech way. Sure the russians have proven time and time again that the old pod on a rocket works best, hell the russians have got an escape mechanism, their crews aren't doomed to burn up without at least a chance of escape.
A space plane just for piloting people up? Cause the existing soyuz module is not big enough. Okay here is a bloody simple solution. Add more modules!
When was the last time you saw on say a passenger ship just ONE big lifeboat? Multiple small ones are way easier to implement and provide reduncancy.
Oh well no doubt the boys at nasa know better. After all it is not like they haven't learned from past mistakes eh?
The space shuttle was a great idea. It was part of a huge project to go into space and the shuttle would have been the first of a whole fleet of vehicles to allow this to happen. Instead it became the mainstay of american space exploration and it this role it fails. It is like SUV, nice in theory but in its attemps to be all things it fails at being good at anything.
Of course the article points out the reason pretty well. Lack of funding. I guess the americans just made so many jokes about mir that they thought they had the space race won and they no longer had to do anything with it. Pity.
Is it? I thought slashdots happened because a lot of people wanting to visit the site. Isn't the amount of people visiting the site directly relative to the number of people intrested?
I think it would have been a pity if it hadn't been slashdotted, that would mean nobody could give a toss. Just be patient and visit in a day or two or read the google cache link already posted:-)
Ehm, well how about not playing straight deathmatch then? Make teams even out the players and make sure that everyone understands the meaning of the word teamplay.
Personally I hate people who immidialty pounce on a new player claiming "you sucko I fragged you moron" (add generous portion of leet speeck) when the new player is just standing still having the interface explained to them.
Better yet make it coop play and make it clear that you are the musketeers. New player dies? Mission lost. You then often see who the really good players are.
Of course open online play is always going to be an invitation to pain. I usually put friendly fire off. It stops the idiots. I don't think most of them do it even on purpose they just don't seem able to realise what type of game they are in.
Anyway you are right. Lan games are much more fun. Pity I don't got a laptop anymore. (yeah frame rate takes a hit but at least it easy to carry well easier then my home pc)
Slashdot Mirror
But yeah this poll as pretty much all polls is useless. But then do you have a better way of doing this kind of stuff?
Sure maybe it would be easier for windows people if the KDE people enabled this by default. You can set it so a busy cursor, busy in the taskbar, both or nothing.
So that is linux's advantage, you got the choice and disadvantage, you got the choice, in a nutshell. Pratically everything that people will say is wrong with switching to linux falls into this category.
Problem with choice is that the default will always be to someone else disliking. Windows itself has the perfect example in XP. Some people hate the new skins, others love it. For the latter the default enabled will be great. For the first they hate it and complain they got to go through a dozen menus to switch it all off.
Software developers just can't win. Doesn't matter if you work for MS, apple, IBM or for the glory of the flightless one.
Don't forget that not so long ago is you suggested using MS software in an office you would have been kicked out by both IT AND management.
Then again this kind of poll is useless. Sure they are dissatisified. You always says you want a better/cheaper product. If you say you are 100% satisfied they will up the price.
They don't stand to loose much as 2003 is already an "old" engine. On the other hand if lots and lots of excellent fanmade material is made freely available then will people still buy the latest offcial engine/game just because it sports a few more polys?
/me slaps himself. Silly of course they will.
For modders does this however make any difference? After all they only get the engine NOT the code to the engine so they can't made supermods. So all this really means is that they can release standalone mods. No requirement for people to own the game. Good for players.
Considering there is no obvious money angle that I can see I can only say that this is incredibly nice of them to do. Perhaps they want to create more content creators so they can then hire the best for commercial games?
Nope sorry. For you it might have worked. For the rest of the US the dnc list seems a far better solution. Hopefully for once the european goverments will do the smart thing and adopt something similar without having to learn it the hard way first.
At least that is the case in holland not sure about the US but from tv it sounds the same :P
Yeah bit FS you can switch it OFF. Else it would suck if you live say in holland. 99% grey and overcast. Wheee. Where as people in california would never ever see a single cloud. Bastards.
However for the fast majority of us that risk taking is obsolete. There are no more adventures, no joining the army isn't it, to undertake for young men but we still feel the need to take risks. So we take stupid pointless risks and get killed.
On the other hand don't think women are any better. One of the surest way for a woman to kill herself is to have a baby. The mortality rate was for a long time insanely high. The default way for a woman to die was in child birth. Sure this improved in the last few decades thanks to MALE doctors, who granted first caused a HUGE uprise in the number of deaths by seeing nothing wrong with first working on a corpse then without washing their hands going to a delivery room.
So while women may seem to take less risks this is in fact only true because child birth has become so much safer. Before that women were the short lived ones and men with all their wars, drinking, smoking and entrusting their lives to the latest gadget lived longer.
Women may live longer but this not because they are smarter. If they were smarter then they would with their longer lifespans complety dominate in the intellectual areas. Mmmm, how many woman are famous for their smarts?
As we live longer the question has arisen what is more important. Length of live or quality of life. If women are found to have more enjoyment/satisfaction out of live then I will be impressed. In the mean time excuse me while I poor myself a mug of scotch eat a thick steak and don't move an inch more then neccasry for the whole weekend.
Oh and on a site note, their is also research showing the women are picking up the same bad habits. Guess that if they can't beat us they are instead opting to join us.
So does this deluxe edition finally have a proper patch? I doubt it. Gathering of Developers is not exactly known for its bugless releases. Nice games but I will not pay for any more of their crap.
The mafia patch took a bloody year.
I remember the time when patching a game was unheard off. You know when they came on floppies and most people didn't have internet.
Now I don't remember playing a single game recently that didn't require patching.
Sorry end rant.
If the chinese even got 1 brain cell then this will have been a thoroughly tested craft. Can't afford to loose one with the eyes of the world on you.
Sure the US blown up a lot of people recently but that was after several decades of high safety. They got lax. The chinese haven't had the time yet to do that. Start worrying 1-2 decades from now when they think strapping people to several tons of explosives and setting fire to it is routine.
I bet you boycot all chinese imports as well. Oh you don't yeah I know talk is cheap, actually trying to find something still produced in the west not.
Either do something about it or shut the fuckup.
Personally I can see china for what it is, a messy dictatorship that is now doing what the rest of the world was doing a couple of decades ago. Or in the case of the US is still doing on some points. Tell me american, when exactly was the ban on mixed race marriages really lifted in all states? When was the last racial murder? When was the last person incarcerated without due process?
It is the only nation currently with the capacity to send people into space. (oops sorry yeah the US can send them up as well. Getting them down is the tricky part)
Russia bankrupt? So what? This is state level we are talking about. Money is an extremly relative thing when you are an goverment. There are still plenty of people in russia willing to work on the space program even when they have to grow their own food.
Don't make the mistake of believing american propaganda (or any propaganda) the current exploration of space is at least 50% russian. And with the space shuttle down manned flight 100%
Then when I got the full game I had already mastered the basics and could now enjoy having a full squad, weapons of choice plus of course more then 1 map :)
Sure bugfilled demos can be bad. But only if I think the company is unlikely to fix the bugs. We are PC users, bugs don't scare us. Bring them on.
This isn't a pirating attack. Pirates wouldn't bother. This is someone who for whatever reason wanted to get his hands on the code. Could be nothing more then bragging rights. Certainly the fact that the code was released immidialtly suggessts this. After all if someone had wanted to steal the code for making their own game they would have kept quit about it.
I am sorry but are you for real? IDE cd drives are notorious for being CPU hogs. Certain games are worse then others of course.
As for blaming the pirates. Well only partially. Real life shops have to deal with a certain percentage of goods stolen. Now of course this could be easily avoided by strip searching everyone. Would you put up with this? Of course not. Instead the cost of theft is simply incorperated into the price of the products. It is on of the many prices we pay for our freedom.
Sadly even with all that DRM I don't see prices coming down. So not only am I paying for the stolen items (the coders still got to earn a salary no matter the ration between payers and leechers) I am also paying for DRM wich DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING WORK. It is like a shop enforcing strip searches only for people who bought something. Not for people who just walk in and walk out again.
The only ones hurt or hampered by steam and other crap like it are the people who buy it legit. Those who don't never even notice it is there.
I remember fondly the days of quake. I could just take my cd anywhere and play the game anywhere. Sweet. Now for valve I need to always be logged on to play. BAD.
I didn't mind the key needed to play online. That one made a lot of sense. It is for when I am not online that I have problems having to log on.
Oh and have you no regard for your privacy? Do you really want someone else to know exactly when you are playing games?
Really security through obscurity is so obsolete it ain't even a good joke anymore.
This is out. It has happened. Though but it is hardly a big deal. It is not like the game itself has been leaked.
So what could this all mean.
None of this will be stopped by not talking about it. And frankly I think you have shown youreselve to be extremly naive to believe that hushing this up is even going to work or have any effect.
As for the legality. Well if the porters didn't steal the code and don't claim copyright on the port then it might even be legal.
After all translating a letter you found in the street is not illegal is it?
Ofcourse valve is not going to like people having a good look at their code but well they should just have taken better care. Loosing this is really really stupid. Of course if someone really stole this then they are in for a world of hurt.
Anyway it has happened, might as well make the best out of it. It is not like ID was ever hurt by their games being easily copied or releasing the code (granted years later but still)
After all this is just the code. NOT the game.
I have stacks of games all bought legit. I fucking hate it however when games I bought with good money then limit me while those who download them get the better deal.
Do a test once between a normal game and a game with a no-cd patch applied. It will boot faster and often run faster as well. Games that access the cd are slow as apart from the floppy the cd is the slowest part in your computer. If the game is copied instead to the HD and played completly from their it will run faster.
Having to enter registration keys is all very nice and not so much of a hassle except why aren't they printed on the fucking cd's.
I am fed up with being treated like a criminal. You apparently love it. Well go right ahead but don't insult others who object to it.
Just because you are to stupid to see the problems with online activation crap doesn't mean the rest of us are as blind as you or as willing to be insulted.
Is nintendo once again pissing on european customers despite the fact that in europe they were 2nd?
Foreign language support has always been a mess in MS software. Sure it may look good enough when as a primarly english user you occasianly have to use a foreign language. It just doesn't seem to be good enough when your english ehm sucks.
Their unicode support blows for one, having once again ruined a standard. Try reading a simple text file with asian text on another OS. Good luck.
The entire reason the asain countries like OSS so much is that it is very very simple, well simple when you are talking countries, to add real support for their language. The chinese already did so with Red Flag and India did so quit recently, story should still be on the frontpage infact.
So wether OSS is better or not is not really the point. For them at least it is better in that they can alter it themselves and not have to depend on a company in america to please please support all the local languages.
Also this is perhaps a test. A BIG HUGE WHOPPER of test but nonetheless a test. By not replacing everything at one they are very likely not going to find themselves suddenly unable to send email or something silly because someone forgot a tiny little server somewhere.
This is really a first. I think, unless I missed something, that this is the largest deployment of linux yet.
So be patient. If this works and unless MS has access to nukes I don't see why it shouldn't then the rest will follow after 2007 as and when machines and licenses reach their end date.
Sigh, I just wish our western goverments had these kind of balls. Wonder how the imigration laws are over there.
Yes I know this is not true. The disprove(?)
But still it is funny. I watched Jay Leno for a while and he just wouldn't quit with jokes about the space station mir and how it was falling apart. Of course zero jokes about the over a dozen people blown up aboard the space shuttles.
Exactly what is the body count on both sides? And how does the body count stack up to the amount of time spend in space?
So once again the americans are looking to go the high tech way. Sure the russians have proven time and time again that the old pod on a rocket works best, hell the russians have got an escape mechanism, their crews aren't doomed to burn up without at least a chance of escape.
A space plane just for piloting people up? Cause the existing soyuz module is not big enough. Okay here is a bloody simple solution. Add more modules!
When was the last time you saw on say a passenger ship just ONE big lifeboat? Multiple small ones are way easier to implement and provide reduncancy.
Oh well no doubt the boys at nasa know better. After all it is not like they haven't learned from past mistakes eh?
The space shuttle was a great idea. It was part of a huge project to go into space and the shuttle would have been the first of a whole fleet of vehicles to allow this to happen. Instead it became the mainstay of american space exploration and it this role it fails. It is like SUV, nice in theory but in its attemps to be all things it fails at being good at anything.
Of course the article points out the reason pretty well. Lack of funding. I guess the americans just made so many jokes about mir that they thought they had the space race won and they no longer had to do anything with it. Pity.
I think it would have been a pity if it hadn't been slashdotted, that would mean nobody could give a toss. Just be patient and visit in a day or two or read the google cache link already posted :-)
For one thing you have to wait forever for the plant sorry, checkout girl to find enough printer paper to print out every item for sale in the world.
Personally I hate people who immidialty pounce on a new player claiming "you sucko I fragged you moron" (add generous portion of leet speeck) when the new player is just standing still having the interface explained to them.
Better yet make it coop play and make it clear that you are the musketeers. New player dies? Mission lost. You then often see who the really good players are.
Of course open online play is always going to be an invitation to pain. I usually put friendly fire off. It stops the idiots. I don't think most of them do it even on purpose they just don't seem able to realise what type of game they are in.
Anyway you are right. Lan games are much more fun. Pity I don't got a laptop anymore. (yeah frame rate takes a hit but at least it easy to carry well easier then my home pc)