Incidentally, once Intel Macs are out (and you can boot Windows on them), then there will no longer be a reason to have seperate boxes. You can eat your cake and have it too.
So long as you don't mind paying 25% more for cake with a mac logo, as opposed to generic PC brand cake.
It is a frank, rational discussion of the situation at hand. You can holler at Jack Thompson all you want, but the bottom line is, he's not going to go away. And noone can deny that rockstar is all about the ultra violent games. State of emergency. Grand theft auto. Manhunt for god's sake. I like Grand theft auto 3 too, but lets not kid ourselves about the nature of the tittilation being peddled.
This is not a gotcha interview, as the interviewer states up front. It is a candid discussion about the situation at hand. Give it a listen.
Not that republicans aren't meddling either, but to trust in any politician/political party to represent a consistant pro-freedom position is...problematic.
I may one day buy a new car, Ford/Chevy/etc. I may not. Either way, it's totally uninfluenced by your billions of dollars a year in ad money.
You say this, but you don't truly know to what extent you've been influenced.
When McDonalds first started running adds referring to themselves as "Mickey-dees", I was galled at what a blatant and rediculous attempt it was to gain "street cred". Surely this will never work, said I.
2 months later, and millions in advertising, I start hearing people say "lets go to Mickey-Dees".
Noone in their right minds thinks that when they pop the top of a Budweiser *ugh*, buxom swimsuit models will randomly show up and start partying. But I'd be willing to bet that somewhere in anheiser busches marketing department there is a graph that shows a direct correlation between the number of buxom lasses in ads, and the ammount of money they get from the 18-25 year old market. Sorry for the off topic rant.
Crunch mode only works when it isn't de rigeur. If a dev team knows they are gonna get stuck on crunch time beforehand regardless, they're gonna put off the crucial issues.
The video game industry is sick. From the devs to the phone monkeys, most companies prefer mandatory OT to sensible deadlines. As far as phone monkeys go, I know EA at least has a 6 month policy for employees. Right when the employee really starts to rock the party, they're cut loose.
Yes, I was a phone monkey in the day. EA could have cut half their support staff if they would have gotten rid of their 6 month policy, and started paying benefits. They would also reap the rewards of a competant workforce.
I hate to say it, but it's going to take unionization, and an industry wide strike to make them see the light. I'm no fan of unions, but this garbage needs to end, for everyones sake. The consumer, the company, and the employee
What's it about? One good quote that I read was, "Imagine if Star Wars had been about Han instead of Luke." (but with much, much better writing and no damned cutsie aliens).
Surprisingly, I didn't catch this while firefly was on the air, nor after I watched the DVDs. I was describing the show to a friend of mine, and he says "So it's basically the adventures of Han Solo?" It's really the best synopsis I've heard, and he hadn't watched the show.
I wonder if that's what Whedon had in mind the whole time?
You seem to be under the impression that any reviews you read in magazines, or online are written by people who finish the game.
Allow me to disabuse you of this notion. Reviewers can't spend 30 hours beating X number of games before hitting press. There isn't enough time. The few times they actually do are with A list titles, which are going to get steller reviews anyhow.
Also, you seem to be under the impression that if there was a bug which crashed the game, it would be specifically noted in any review. When was the last time you read a review noting bugs? The last I knew of was an arstechnica review for "Pirates!", and that's hardly a games site. With previous, all you get are "I had a few glitches, but that's probably going to be cleaned up before release."
I actually thought this was a nicely done writeup.
Upon checking Google news, I find you and other posters are indeed correct, the images are hosted by google news.
But drudge, and many other sites, leech bandwidth the organizations hosting the images.
In the case of newspapers, you can write that off because it will drive eyeballs to your ads.
In the case of the wires, they're gaining nothing. Their business model is to sell organizations access to their content. People are increasingly getting their news online, and they aren't paying for the content. But then, I don't know what kind of deal yahoo (where I access the wires) has with the AP et all.
Also, I question the RIAA analogy, past the extent that business models might stand to be rethought.
Still, this has been a long time in coming. Popular sites like drudge/google news linking pictures from the AP wires, AFP, and other sources are: #1: Not liscencing the content, which is exactly what the AP's et alls standard business practice is, #2: Actually costing money due to bandwidth.
I don't think it's going to be long untill the major wires actually close their content to subscribers only. It would be a sad day for me, as I love getting my news hot off the wire, but I can understand why the AP/Reuters/AFP/UPI would do it.
Oh, it was at least understandable when we were in a nuclear standoff against the singular USSR, but it's after-effects have lead to our current prediciment
I've been without cable for about 3 years now, and after the initial withdrawl symptoms wore off, I realized how many hours were actually in a day, as well as having 45 extra duckets to spend/save as I please. The only thing I miss is sports, and the internet covers that desire adequetly.
I was listening to NPR sunday, and there was a segment on On the media, related to how american express and Proctor and gamble are divesting in television ads due to a declining revenue/per ad dollar spent.
10 years ago, the Television was the entertainment hub in the home. Now, with the internet, DVDs, MP3s, etc, there is no real Hub perse.
Let me tell you, when Proctor and Gamble is worried about television advertisement, change, she is a coming.
A two dollar bill, regardless of how un/common, is still legal tender for all debts public and private. The Cashier/manager were utterly in the wrong to detain this man, and the police should have reviewed the situation, and released the man after obtaining his whereabouts.
I remember once, my father set off a security alarm after paying for a CD. The cashier had not de-activated the anti-theft device. All he had to say was "Are you placing me under arrest sir?"
Violent crime is one thing, citizens arrests are warrented in this situation, but ignorent employees are another matter entirely. The cashier/manager should be reprimanded, and the customer should be formally apologized to/compensated.
They can't drop the charges, as this is a fed issue, so they've already screwed the pooch. Time for best buy to admit wrongful prosecution, and to pay the piper.
Law inforcement isn't in the wrong to the degree that best buy is.
What have we gotten with every new version of Windows. Software quits working
I take from your post you're a fan of MacOS. I am not a mac hater, nor a windows fanboy, but you sir, are projecting.
The single reason I refuse to purchase a macintosh is I have supported them in the past. Updating your system to the latest OS version? You could probably swing it on the old hardware, but 70 percent of your programs need to be re-purchased because the old ones are incompatable.
Yeah, I have some apps that ran in 98, that don't in 2000/Xp, but at least in the case of XP, I have a reason (NTFS).
I know we all hate microsoft, but lets at least try to be objective. Where I work, we are still running a program originally meant to run in win 3.1. Should we be running this program? Hells no. Can we? Yes, the bastard still limps along like a champ.
Living in California, I have a first hand view of why renewable energy is not happening, at least out here. On the one hand, you have groups of environmentalists who want to have things like Wind power, hydro electric power, and solar power,.
On the other hand, you have groups of environmentalists who don't want these things because Birds get caught in the turbines/propellers, or because hydroelectric plants require damming rivers, thus altering habitats. Tidal will mess with sea habitats, and while solar might be acceptable, but it's too inneficient for large scale generation.
And the dominant politicians in California are beholdant to the environmentalist groups, and since the disparate factions can't seem to make up their minds, the politicians just blame everything on the greedy oil industry, or on fear of the "China syndrome".
This is not a troll. This is fact, and it's the case out on the eastern seaboard as well from what I understand. It's a damn shame that in the name of environmentally sound energy generation, we are sticking primarily with coal and oil.
If you compare what the article was saying to your example, then most people watch TV 20-30 hours a week, but the 15 percent that watch TV 80-120 hours a week are the addicted ones.
But sir, 20-30 hours of television a week translates to 2.8-4.2 hours of television a day. If you spent that much time drunk, you would be called an alcoholic, regardless of what the national average is. If I drink only 5 ounces of vodka a day while the average russian drinks 8, does that exempt me from being classified as an addict? If everyone else is spending the same ammount of time in front of a tube, that just makes everyone else an addict too.
Addiction isn't measured with population size of people with similar characteristics as a deciding factor.
100% of people who spend an hour a week at an AA meeting are alcoholics. Does that mean that someone who spends 0 hours at AA meetings per week isn't necessarily?
I'm rambling a bit, but statistics being used to measure states of mind are somewhat suspect, and it irritates me that they are given much validity.
So why haven't I jumped on the MMORPG bandwagon? Well that's an easy question to answer. I'm afraid. I'm terrified that I will become an addict like so many others
The problem with MMOs, like so many other things, is the pressure to keep up with the Joneses. The answer, is not to try.
It is no mistake that I have never belonged to a guild, because the external pressure to level up, etc... erases the benefit of belonging to one.
I'm playing WOW, and I only team up when I feel like it. If someone should happen upon me and invite me to a group, sure, I'll join. But when the quest is done, so am I. No peer pressure to stay online, no need to try to keep at the same level as my etherious frends, no fuss, no muss.
I'm not powerleveling either, but I can deal with that. Like anything else, a game only has as much power over you as you let it have.
Note that there are a whole bunch of corner cases that wireless joysticks have that haven't been well addressed yet. For instance, the Nintendo wavebird controller has no vibration capability.
I got a kick out of the rumble pack when I first played starfox64, but really, the vibration function is nothing that couldn't be removed in favor of audio/visual cues. It's kind of nice to have that additional cue that doesn't come from the television, but overall, it's overused and for the most part unnecessary.
Now, actual, legit force feedback, that is another matter. There is nothing quite like playing a driving game with a logitech wheel and having to fight the wheel on a banked turn. But that's a little more expensive/power consuming than a motor which spins an off-center weight.
Don't let inkjet printers in the office AT ALL. They are a constant headache and steal more in support costs than ink.
While we're talking about printing, check some of the software to see what's being printed, and how.
Where I worked, the software package by default printed a light grey background along with whatever actual data was being printed. Changing the background to white was a seemingly trivial change, but since the organization prints reams worth of paper every day, the drop in toner use/cost was extremely noticible.
You have two similar shows, they can't resist putting them in conflicting time slots
I'm convinced that this will happen into the forseeable future, because of the view networks have on the target audience of Sci-Fi shows. This thinking is as follows
Friday nights are prime party hours right? People at parties aren't watching TV. Nerds don't go to parties. Therefore, all programming that appeals to nerds gets slapped into the friday night timeslot, while shows with broad demographics across the norm audience go in throughout the week.
Farscape? Check Stargate? Check. Enterprise? Check that Firefly? Doublecheck.
This is just recent history too. I noticed this trend many many moons ago.
Yes, it is bad that soldiers are being wounded at all. That is the nature of war however, and it is a mark of Americas worth that we are at least outfitting those unfortunate recipients of major battle wounds with the best limb replacements available.
We have the technology. We can make them better, at least compared to a peg leg.
I know you didn't support the war, but I'm sure you at least endorse outfitting these cats with the best limb replacements possible. Please stop confusing administrative policy with effective re-couperative therapy for those carrying out said policy.
To say that the "MSM" sources you reel off gave "breathless and uncritical support" to Kerry, or the corollary claim that they tried to bury the SBV, is to deny reality. In fact, most TV and print media gave "breathless and uncritical support" to Bush's made-up war hero image
Honestly now, that last line is hogwash. The second, the absolute millisecond that plane landed on the carrier, paul begala et all raised holy hell about it. Likewise when Bush snuck into Iraq, and had the Turkey photo-op. I could hear the whistling in Chris Matthews ears from the west coast.
But what about a substantive issue, such as Kerry's false testimony that he spent Christmas in cambodia? Not a word from the mainstream media. Not a peep. The fact that it got out to the public is a testimony to how vioently the internet is changing the reporting of events.
I'm going to give you a hint. The days of denying slant on behalf of the major networks/major metropolitan dailies is over. Oh sure, you can attempt it if you like, but the sound you're going to hear is that of eyes rolling.
Thank you for your service, but your political analysis is suspect.
It has the ring of "Near simultaneous tests of sophisticated, difficult to obtain technology against civilian airliners landing outside of major metropolitan areas."
I say tomato, you say post september 11th paranoia. Let's call your whole post off.
Perhaps I'm dismissing the idea out of hand, but the post to which I replied insinuated that every aspect of the game should be run on the host side, with the client receiving 100% of the game, from what is currently done (character data, player location, location of enemies, objects, etc) as well as rendering of graphics, and execution of 100% of code, which would be rediculous.
The way I read the parents post, bandwidth being equal, a p4 with a ati 9x00 and a gig of ram would have the same quality of experience as a p2 350 with a 2d card and 128 of ram.
The NSA might not have the resources to run that MMORPG.
Slashdot Mirror
Incidentally, once Intel Macs are out (and you can boot Windows on them), then there will no longer be a reason to have seperate boxes. You can eat your cake and have it too.
So long as you don't mind paying 25% more for cake with a mac logo, as opposed to generic PC brand cake.
It is a frank, rational discussion of the situation at hand. You can holler at Jack Thompson all you want, but the bottom line is, he's not going to go away. And noone can deny that rockstar is all about the ultra violent games. State of emergency. Grand theft auto. Manhunt for god's sake. I like Grand theft auto 3 too, but lets not kid ourselves about the nature of the tittilation being peddled.
This is not a gotcha interview, as the interviewer states up front. It is a candid discussion about the situation at hand. Give it a listen.
some of us are tired of characterizations of us liberals as meddlers in issues that should be a matter of personal responsibility
Nothing new under the sun.
Leland Ye? Democrat.
Hillary!? Democrat.
Tipper gore? Democrat.
Not that republicans aren't meddling either, but to trust in any politician/political party to represent a consistant pro-freedom position is...problematic.
I may one day buy a new car, Ford/Chevy/etc. I may not. Either way, it's totally uninfluenced by your billions of dollars a year in ad money.
You say this, but you don't truly know to what extent you've been influenced.
When McDonalds first started running adds referring to themselves as "Mickey-dees", I was galled at what a blatant and rediculous attempt it was to gain "street cred". Surely this will never work, said I.
2 months later, and millions in advertising, I start hearing people say "lets go to Mickey-Dees".
Noone in their right minds thinks that when they pop the top of a Budweiser *ugh*, buxom swimsuit models will randomly show up and start partying. But I'd be willing to bet that somewhere in anheiser busches marketing department there is a graph that shows a direct correlation between the number of buxom lasses in ads, and the ammount of money they get from the 18-25 year old market. Sorry for the off topic rant.
Crunch mode only works when it isn't de rigeur.
If a dev team knows they are gonna get stuck on crunch time beforehand regardless, they're gonna put off the crucial issues.
The video game industry is sick. From the devs to the phone monkeys, most companies prefer mandatory OT to sensible deadlines. As far as phone monkeys go, I know EA at least has a 6 month policy for employees. Right when the employee really starts to rock the party, they're cut loose.
Yes, I was a phone monkey in the day. EA could have cut half their support staff if they would have gotten rid of their 6 month policy, and started paying benefits. They would also reap the rewards of a competant workforce.
I hate to say it, but it's going to take unionization, and an industry wide strike to make them see the light. I'm no fan of unions, but this garbage needs to end, for everyones sake. The consumer, the company, and the employee
What's it about? One good quote that I read was, "Imagine if Star Wars had been about Han instead of Luke." (but with much, much better writing and no damned cutsie aliens).
Surprisingly, I didn't catch this while firefly was on the air, nor after I watched the DVDs. I was describing the show to a friend of mine, and he says "So it's basically the adventures of Han Solo?" It's really the best synopsis I've heard, and he hadn't watched the show.
I wonder if that's what Whedon had in mind the whole time?
You seem to be under the impression that any reviews you read in magazines, or online are written by people who finish the game.
Allow me to disabuse you of this notion. Reviewers can't spend 30 hours beating X number of games before hitting press. There isn't enough time. The few times they actually do are with A list titles, which are going to get steller reviews anyhow.
Also, you seem to be under the impression that if there was a bug which crashed the game, it would be specifically noted in any review. When was the last time you read a review noting bugs? The last I knew of was an arstechnica review for "Pirates!", and that's hardly a games site. With previous, all you get are "I had a few glitches, but that's probably going to be cleaned up before release."
I actually thought this was a nicely done writeup.
Upon checking Google news, I find you and other posters are indeed correct, the images are hosted by google news.
But drudge, and many other sites, leech bandwidth the organizations hosting the images.
In the case of newspapers, you can write that off because it will drive eyeballs to your ads.
In the case of the wires, they're gaining nothing. Their business model is to sell organizations access to their content. People are increasingly getting their news online, and they aren't paying for the content. But then, I don't know what kind of deal yahoo (where I access the wires) has with the AP et all.
Also, I question the RIAA analogy, past the extent that business models might stand to be rethought.
Still, this has been a long time in coming. Popular sites like drudge/google news linking pictures from the AP wires, AFP, and other sources are:
#1: Not liscencing the content, which is exactly what the AP's et alls standard business practice is,
#2: Actually costing money due to bandwidth.
I don't think it's going to be long untill the major wires actually close their content to subscribers only. It would be a sad day for me, as I love getting my news hot off the wire, but I can understand why the AP/Reuters/AFP/UPI would do it.
Like I said the US has no real air defense anymore
Anymore? When did we ever have one?
I draw your attention to the ABM treaty, a glittering example of diplomatic retardation
Oh, it was at least understandable when we were in a nuclear standoff against the singular USSR, but it's after-effects have lead to our current prediciment
I've been without cable for about 3 years now, and after the initial withdrawl symptoms wore off, I realized how many hours were actually in a day, as well as having 45 extra duckets to spend/save as I please. The only thing I miss is sports, and the internet covers that desire adequetly.
I was listening to NPR sunday, and there was a segment on On the media, related to how american express and Proctor and gamble are divesting in television ads due to a declining revenue/per ad dollar spent.
10 years ago, the Television was the entertainment hub in the home. Now, with the internet, DVDs, MP3s, etc, there is no real Hub perse.
Let me tell you, when Proctor and Gamble is worried about television advertisement, change, she is a coming.
A two dollar bill, regardless of how un/common, is still legal tender for all debts public and private. The Cashier/manager were utterly in the wrong to detain this man, and the police should have reviewed the situation, and released the man after obtaining his whereabouts.
I remember once, my father set off a security alarm after paying for a CD. The cashier had not de-activated the anti-theft device. All he had to say was "Are you placing me under arrest sir?"
Violent crime is one thing, citizens arrests are warrented in this situation, but ignorent employees are another matter entirely. The cashier/manager should be reprimanded, and the customer should be formally apologized to/compensated. They can't drop the charges, as this is a fed issue, so they've already screwed the pooch. Time for best buy to admit wrongful prosecution, and to pay the piper.
Law inforcement isn't in the wrong to the degree that best buy is.
What have we gotten with every new version of Windows. Software quits working
I take from your post you're a fan of MacOS. I am not a mac hater, nor a windows fanboy, but you sir, are projecting.
The single reason I refuse to purchase a macintosh is I have supported them in the past. Updating your system to the latest OS version? You could probably swing it on the old hardware, but 70 percent of your programs need to be re-purchased because the old ones are incompatable.
Yeah, I have some apps that ran in 98, that don't in 2000/Xp, but at least in the case of XP, I have a reason (NTFS).
I know we all hate microsoft, but lets at least try to be objective. Where I work, we are still running a program originally meant to run in win 3.1. Should we be running this program? Hells no. Can we? Yes, the bastard still limps along like a champ.
Living in California, I have a first hand view of why renewable energy is not happening, at least out here. On the one hand, you have groups of environmentalists who want to have things like Wind power, hydro electric power, and solar power,.
On the other hand, you have groups of environmentalists who don't want these things because Birds get caught in the turbines/propellers, or because hydroelectric plants require damming rivers, thus altering habitats. Tidal will mess with sea habitats, and while solar might be acceptable, but it's too inneficient for large scale generation.
And the dominant politicians in California are beholdant to the environmentalist groups, and since the disparate factions can't seem to make up their minds, the politicians just blame everything on the greedy oil industry, or on fear of the "China syndrome".
This is not a troll. This is fact, and it's the case out on the eastern seaboard as well from what I understand. It's a damn shame that in the name of environmentally sound energy generation, we are sticking primarily with coal and oil.
If you compare what the article was saying to your example, then most people watch TV 20-30 hours a week, but the 15 percent that watch TV 80-120 hours a week are the addicted ones.
But sir, 20-30 hours of television a week translates to 2.8-4.2 hours of television a day. If you spent that much time drunk, you would be called an alcoholic, regardless of what the national average is. If I drink only 5 ounces of vodka a day while the average russian drinks 8, does that exempt me from being classified as an addict? If everyone else is spending the same ammount of time in front of a tube, that just makes everyone else an addict too.
Addiction isn't measured with population size of people with similar characteristics as a deciding factor.
100% of people who spend an hour a week at an AA meeting are alcoholics. Does that mean that someone who spends 0 hours at AA meetings per week isn't necessarily?
I'm rambling a bit, but statistics being used to measure states of mind are somewhat suspect, and it irritates me that they are given much validity.
So why haven't I jumped on the MMORPG bandwagon? Well that's an easy question to answer. I'm afraid. I'm terrified that I will become an addict like so many others
The problem with MMOs, like so many other things, is the pressure to keep up with the Joneses. The answer, is not to try.
It is no mistake that I have never belonged to a guild, because the external pressure to level up, etc... erases the benefit of belonging to one.
I'm playing WOW, and I only team up when I feel like it. If someone should happen upon me and invite me to a group, sure, I'll join. But when the quest is done, so am I. No peer pressure to stay online, no need to try to keep at the same level as my etherious frends, no fuss, no muss.
I'm not powerleveling either, but I can deal with that. Like anything else, a game only has as much power over you as you let it have.
Note that there are a whole bunch of corner cases that wireless joysticks have that haven't been well addressed yet. For instance, the Nintendo wavebird controller has no vibration capability.
I got a kick out of the rumble pack when I first played starfox64, but really, the vibration function is nothing that couldn't be removed in favor of audio/visual cues. It's kind of nice to have that additional cue that doesn't come from the television, but overall, it's overused and for the most part unnecessary.
Now, actual, legit force feedback, that is another matter. There is nothing quite like playing a driving game with a logitech wheel and having to fight the wheel on a banked turn. But that's a little more expensive/power consuming than a motor which spins an off-center weight.
Don't let inkjet printers in the office AT ALL. They are a constant headache and steal more in support costs than ink.
While we're talking about printing, check some of the software to see what's being printed, and how.
Where I worked, the software package by default printed a light grey background along with whatever actual data was being printed. Changing the background to white was a seemingly trivial change, but since the organization prints reams worth of paper every day, the drop in toner use/cost was extremely noticible.
You have two similar shows, they can't resist putting them in conflicting time slots
I'm convinced that this will happen into the forseeable future, because of the view networks have on the target audience of Sci-Fi shows. This thinking is as follows
Friday nights are prime party hours right?
People at parties aren't watching TV.
Nerds don't go to parties.
Therefore, all programming that appeals to nerds gets slapped into the friday night timeslot, while shows with broad demographics across the norm audience go in throughout the week.
Farscape? Check
Stargate? Check.
Enterprise? Check that
Firefly? Doublecheck.
This is just recent history too. I noticed this trend many many moons ago.
Yes, it is bad that soldiers are being wounded at all. That is the nature of war however, and it is a mark of Americas worth that we are at least outfitting those unfortunate recipients of major battle wounds with the best limb replacements available.
We have the technology. We can make them better, at least compared to a peg leg.
I know you didn't support the war, but I'm sure you at least endorse outfitting these cats with the best limb replacements possible. Please stop confusing administrative policy with effective re-couperative therapy for those carrying out said policy.
Indeed. Once there was a sim with the ability to re-make simsville as he saw fit. He freed...
And so on.
To say that the "MSM" sources you reel off gave "breathless and uncritical support" to Kerry, or the corollary claim that they tried to bury the SBV, is to deny reality. In fact, most TV and print media gave "breathless and uncritical support" to Bush's made-up war hero image
Honestly now, that last line is hogwash. The second, the absolute millisecond that plane landed on the carrier, paul begala et all raised holy hell about it. Likewise when Bush snuck into Iraq, and had the Turkey photo-op. I could hear the whistling in Chris Matthews ears from the west coast.
But what about a substantive issue, such as Kerry's false testimony that he spent Christmas in cambodia? Not a word from the mainstream media. Not a peep. The fact that it got out to the public is a testimony to how vioently the internet is changing the reporting of events.
I'm going to give you a hint. The days of denying slant on behalf of the major networks/major metropolitan dailies is over. Oh sure, you can attempt it if you like, but the sound you're going to hear is that of eyes rolling.
Thank you for your service, but your political analysis is suspect.
It has the ring of "Near simultaneous tests of sophisticated, difficult to obtain technology against civilian airliners landing outside of major metropolitan areas."
I say tomato, you say post september 11th paranoia. Let's call your whole post off.
To give you the fullest ammount of props for that.
That is a perfectly concieved comic scene.
Perhaps I'm dismissing the idea out of hand, but the post to which I replied insinuated that every aspect of the game should be run on the host side, with the client receiving 100% of the game, from what is currently done (character data, player location, location of enemies, objects, etc) as well as rendering of graphics, and execution of 100% of code, which would be rediculous.
The way I read the parents post, bandwidth being equal, a p4 with a ati 9x00 and a gig of ram would have the same quality of experience as a p2 350 with a 2d card and 128 of ram.
The NSA might not have the resources to run that MMORPG.