As have I. I must have tried at least a half dozen distros of linux since RedHat 5.2 all the way to Debian 3.1, and I finally think I'm settling in with FreeBSD. The sheer amount of documentation and other help avalable to me is astounding.
Its not terribly difficult to get past, but most people are too lazy to go through that much effort to play a game, so their approach does work to an extent; they cant stop piracy but they can make it a real pain in the ass.
Careful there. Sersious cracking groups are not dumb by any means. They had to destroy the first two generations of Starforce protection, along with pretty much everything SecurROM and Safedisc has come out with.
Perhaps it's because people think "I love GTA and I'd love to play that game but I'm not dropping 250$ on a handheld just to play it, I'll rather stay with my console GTAs"
And then, to the few fanatics who did get it, Sony's "We're releaing it on the PS2 too" a few months later couldn't have helped. The guys who didn't get one but wanted one now have no need to get one, and the ones who did now probably feel burned.
Say you're a member of a club, one that has a physical building (health club, Elks club, whatever). You can do and say a lot of things inside that building. But not very many such places would let you paint graffiti on the walls, even if they could clean it off easily. Second Life doesn't want graffiti on their walls.
Right then. But how can they say that...say...furry porn should be tolerated while fetus cannons shouldn't? How can you say which one is more offensive than the other?
I think it's more of an issue of them taking a heavy handed approach to content moderation. I felt like your content MUST be sanitary and non-offensive to as many people who subscribe to the game as possible. When trying to create humorous things, it's like walking through a minefield, you have to make sure you're not pissing everyone off with your creation.
Which is why "there is no such thing as free speech in Second Life" was accurate. Speech and content that is inoffensive to the large majority of the population doesn't NEED to be protected, it already is. In a non-club organization such as Real Life(TM), free speech is free speech, no matter how hateful, offensive or vulgar it is (with the token exceptions of fire in a crowded theatre, etc.). I suppose I'm just sad to see such a potential for creativity in Second Life go undone as they go for a little extra cash instead of trying a sort of 'virtual first amendment' it in their game. That would have made a neat idea truely unique to the point where I would be willing to look past the other technical limitations and shortcomings of the game.
I personally don't create things. An acquantince of mine got banned for making a 'fetus cannon' as a joke. Also, a good number of other acquantinces got banned over similarly silly shit. Apparently being offensive is all right as long as you're one of the 'accepted offensive' standards.
I might be a bit biased, because I was a member of the W-Hat group. I assume I still am, but last I checked the old land plot we used to own all of and build shit on is a shadow of what it once was, and since I felt like there were eyes watching me everywhere I went.
For the uneducated, W-Hat is notorious for being greifers and unpleasent people to be around. Or at least that's the line you get when you visit SL.com forums. In reality, W-Hats are/were some of the most creative people I ever met, who got screwed over because a bunch of the pivital members got banned for "offensive content" that really amounts to nothing more harmful than the fetus cannon I was refering to earlier. Really, is pissing people off a crime?
Oh yeah, and one of our (then) newer guys made the very first greifsphere. He's banned, and he didn't bother coming back, get over it.
Oh, and maybe one of us shoved you and knocked you ten sims away at some time in the past, but honestly, you're just as likely to run into that with random assholes, and it's against W-Hat rules to be assholes to people anyway.
You're not missing much. There is no such thing as free speech in SL, and if your work of art offends a good majority of the playerbase, you will be booted out of there.
I see where you're coming from but don't kid yourself, do you really think that the shady shit that the United States has been doing COMPARES to what goes on in China? Here, we have a free internet, freedom of press (Which is a shame, considering they're just too goddamn lazy to go beyond talking points for the most part), and decent working conditions. In china, everyone in this entire thread would probably be in jail by now. Grow beyond alarmist conclusions.:)
And the next statement was copy-pasted from my response to the higher moderated comment above: I did not mean to stereotype asians. I was more specificly refering to countries where humans rights are almost nonexistant. When you think "cheap products" you noramlly think "asia", or at least "China", but I do also realize that there are asian countries who embrace human rights, and other non-asian countries that don't, ourselves (to a degree) included.
I read your statements and I have to agree with you. I don't really think that I communicated that while we were at a disadvantage, that it was necissarily wrong. But I think you're completely on base. If people really did value human rights as much as they say they do, that they would end up buying more expensive things. And if companies really did value human rights, they would buy from better countries. I leave it an exercize to the reader to figure out what people's and companies really do value.
And I did not mean to stereotype asians. I was more specificly refering to countries where humans rights are almost nonexistant. When you think "cheap products" you noramlly think "asia", or at least "China", but I do also realize that there are asian countries who embrace human rights, and other non-asian countries that don't, ourselves (to a degree) included.
Unfortuniatly, we're competing with Asia, which doesn't value things such as human rights. As long as we're at an inherant disadvantage because our standard of living is higher, we don't have a chance. Assuming all thing are equal, though, you're right.
Of course, there might be something I'm missing. Feel free to point it out.
The only advantage many see is the ability to save as PDF (another proprietary format)
Just out of curiosity, why is PDF as bad as...say...a Word document? How else can something like xpdf, or any number of PDF converters and/or readers exist?
And to be quite honest, if this 'open document' inititive falls through, I dont see why there can be a concentrated effort to reverse engineer the Word document format to a satisfactory standard. It's stayed almost identical since Word 97.
As opposed to authorized programs, like the Sony backdoor, which used Microsoft-supplied methods to create the program to hide from the users.
Sony's DRM has caused the shit to be sued out of them. What's your point?
Great. Now when your parents get the popup that some application wants to access the network, and are presented with all these options for "finer granularity of which applications can use network resources", they'll just turn them all on and go instead of actually learning the ins and outs of TCP security. That's much more secure.
Because mom and pop really give two fucks about TCP security, right?
More, more, more, and more performance-sucking and hardware-gobbling "features". I don't know anyone outside of hardcore gamers that currently has a DX9-compliant, 128MB video card - my parents surely don't.
They can use the normal non-accelerated desktop then. Just because your priorities are having a evilvm or ratpoison-like sense of speed when using your user interface doesn't mean that everyone hates shiny chrome on their desktop. See the popularity of: Windows XP themes, various widget programs for your desktop, any huge forum ever with a 'post your desktop' e-penis thread.
And "noobs" who do know just a little better will give themselves administrator accounts so that they can install software whenever they want without changing roles, completely mooting any "default user level access" security changes being made.
Are you kidding me? Lack of exploration and instanced dungeons are the LAST thing an ex-everquest player wants to see.
The only thing that I can think that this game might remotely appeal to are those who like the PvE part of Guild Wars. But Guild Wars has no monthly fee, has awesome PvP as well, and much better charactor creation. And halfway decent bots for when you can't find anyone to group with (or are short a monk or whatever).
Then again, Guild Wars isn't D&D, but Neverwinter Nights is, and it features player created worlds and campaigns, along with MMO-style running login servers.
I dont think so. A lot of my friends love playing halo, yet they're also DoD players. I do too, though my games of choice are Doom 2 and Red Orchestra. It's not 'lack of experience' and it sure as hell doesn't play anything like Unreal Tournament, like other people are alluding to.
yes, it did include a ton of excellent features and would be a solid title on any console, but if that were universally true... why was halo for pc not as well received?
Because Halo PC was a terrible terrible port, for other reasons, maybe? It ran twice as slow on computers with twice the power of the Xbox, but more importantly had no longevitiy as it didn't allow for any mods or maps out of the box. Sure, there was Halo: Custom Edition, but it was too little, too late. The core gameplay was there, and it was still good, but for those of us who had already played Halo to death on the Xbox there was very little to come back to.
If it truely was a terrible game, it wouldn't have gotten any play past the initial hype, everyone would have moved on to the next 'flavor of the week' htat the marketing execs perscribed for them. However, there are still tons of people playing Halo 2, and even the first game.
Even with mega-marketing hype, you can only impress the casual gamers for around 15 minutes. After that, you better play well. Take Madden '06 for the 360. It got a lot of hype, but nobody takes it seriously anymore becuase it was a terrible game, missing a lot of the features that made a good football game. If Halo and Halo 2 existed on hype, it would have suffered the same fate. However, you still have tons of people taking the game seriously, hell, even competatively.
Halo and Halo 2 were both good games. They might not have impressed you or even been your cup of tea, but they were both good games.
Like that's stopped the spreads of DeCSS. It may be illegal to have on US servers, but that's not going to stop some finnish mirror from making DeHCDP avalable to US citizens. It's not like anyone has been arrested for simple poessesion of DeCSS.
The industry is fighting a losing battle. They sucessfully transfered the viewing public over to DVD, but it was only because DVD actually had some major improvements over VHS. HD-DVD and Blue Ray offers modest resolution and sound quality increases that only those with a thousand dollar TV or OEM PC can afford to watch. With DVD's they've essentially created the CD of the movie world. It's not the best, but it's practical, and protection that can be easily bypassed.
Hopefully, HD-DVD and Blue-Ray will reside in the realm of "enthusiest", just like SACD, DVD Audio and Laserdisc before it. I know I'm in no hurry to upgrade my DVD's.
Slashdot Mirror
They're not selling anti-spyware at extra cost. AFAIK, downloading Microsoft Anti-Spyware is free.
As have I. I must have tried at least a half dozen distros of linux since RedHat 5.2 all the way to Debian 3.1, and I finally think I'm settling in with FreeBSD. The sheer amount of documentation and other help avalable to me is astounding.
+1 really fucking scary
Considering that in the game, you battle through a good portion of the forces of hell and kick its ass in the process, should I really be worried? :)
Careful there. Sersious cracking groups are not dumb by any means. They had to destroy the first two generations of Starforce protection, along with pretty much everything SecurROM and Safedisc has come out with.
Which is why we have BSD.
Admitedly, the only ID games worth playing don't have any. (Everything from Quake 1 and earlier, and Quake 3)
And then, to the few fanatics who did get it, Sony's "We're releaing it on the PS2 too" a few months later couldn't have helped. The guys who didn't get one but wanted one now have no need to get one, and the ones who did now probably feel burned.
Right then. But how can they say that...say...furry porn should be tolerated while fetus cannons shouldn't? How can you say which one is more offensive than the other?
I think it's more of an issue of them taking a heavy handed approach to content moderation. I felt like your content MUST be sanitary and non-offensive to as many people who subscribe to the game as possible. When trying to create humorous things, it's like walking through a minefield, you have to make sure you're not pissing everyone off with your creation.
Which is why "there is no such thing as free speech in Second Life" was accurate. Speech and content that is inoffensive to the large majority of the population doesn't NEED to be protected, it already is. In a non-club organization such as Real Life(TM), free speech is free speech, no matter how hateful, offensive or vulgar it is (with the token exceptions of fire in a crowded theatre, etc.). I suppose I'm just sad to see such a potential for creativity in Second Life go undone as they go for a little extra cash instead of trying a sort of 'virtual first amendment' it in their game. That would have made a neat idea truely unique to the point where I would be willing to look past the other technical limitations and shortcomings of the game.
I might be a bit biased, because I was a member of the W-Hat group. I assume I still am, but last I checked the old land plot we used to own all of and build shit on is a shadow of what it once was, and since I felt like there were eyes watching me everywhere I went.
For the uneducated, W-Hat is notorious for being greifers and unpleasent people to be around. Or at least that's the line you get when you visit SL.com forums. In reality, W-Hats are/were some of the most creative people I ever met, who got screwed over because a bunch of the pivital members got banned for "offensive content" that really amounts to nothing more harmful than the fetus cannon I was refering to earlier. Really, is pissing people off a crime?
Oh yeah, and one of our (then) newer guys made the very first greifsphere. He's banned, and he didn't bother coming back, get over it.
Oh, and maybe one of us shoved you and knocked you ten sims away at some time in the past, but honestly, you're just as likely to run into that with random assholes, and it's against W-Hat rules to be assholes to people anyway.
You're not missing much. There is no such thing as free speech in SL, and if your work of art offends a good majority of the playerbase, you will be booted out of there.
They're not reading this. :) You're preaching to the choir, we KNOW it's bad. Now we've got to convince everyone else.
And the next statement was copy-pasted from my response to the higher moderated comment above: I did not mean to stereotype asians. I was more specificly refering to countries where humans rights are almost nonexistant. When you think "cheap products" you noramlly think "asia", or at least "China", but I do also realize that there are asian countries who embrace human rights, and other non-asian countries that don't, ourselves (to a degree) included.
And I did not mean to stereotype asians. I was more specificly refering to countries where humans rights are almost nonexistant. When you think "cheap products" you noramlly think "asia", or at least "China", but I do also realize that there are asian countries who embrace human rights, and other non-asian countries that don't, ourselves (to a degree) included.
Unfortuniatly, we're competing with Asia, which doesn't value things such as human rights. As long as we're at an inherant disadvantage because our standard of living is higher, we don't have a chance. Assuming all thing are equal, though, you're right.
Of course, there might be something I'm missing. Feel free to point it out.
Just out of curiosity, why is PDF as bad as...say...a Word document? How else can something like xpdf, or any number of PDF converters and/or readers exist?
And to be quite honest, if this 'open document' inititive falls through, I dont see why there can be a concentrated effort to reverse engineer the Word document format to a satisfactory standard. It's stayed almost identical since Word 97.
Unless it's Microsoft.
Sony's DRM has caused the shit to be sued out of them. What's your point? Great. Now when your parents get the popup that some application wants to access the network, and are presented with all these options for "finer granularity of which applications can use network resources", they'll just turn them all on and go instead of actually learning the ins and outs of TCP security. That's much more secure.
Because mom and pop really give two fucks about TCP security, right?
More, more, more, and more performance-sucking and hardware-gobbling "features". I don't know anyone outside of hardcore gamers that currently has a DX9-compliant, 128MB video card - my parents surely don't.
They can use the normal non-accelerated desktop then. Just because your priorities are having a evilvm or ratpoison-like sense of speed when using your user interface doesn't mean that everyone hates shiny chrome on their desktop. See the popularity of: Windows XP themes, various widget programs for your desktop, any huge forum ever with a 'post your desktop' e-penis thread.
And "noobs" who do know just a little better will give themselves administrator accounts so that they can install software whenever they want without changing roles, completely mooting any "default user level access" security changes being made.
Linux Distro-of-the-month/i386
login: root
password: foo
#
What's the difference?
The only thing that I can think that this game might remotely appeal to are those who like the PvE part of Guild Wars. But Guild Wars has no monthly fee, has awesome PvP as well, and much better charactor creation. And halfway decent bots for when you can't find anyone to group with (or are short a monk or whatever).
Then again, Guild Wars isn't D&D, but Neverwinter Nights is, and it features player created worlds and campaigns, along with MMO-style running login servers.
I dont think so. A lot of my friends love playing halo, yet they're also DoD players. I do too, though my games of choice are Doom 2 and Red Orchestra. It's not 'lack of experience' and it sure as hell doesn't play anything like Unreal Tournament, like other people are alluding to.
Because Halo PC was a terrible terrible port, for other reasons, maybe? It ran twice as slow on computers with twice the power of the Xbox, but more importantly had no longevitiy as it didn't allow for any mods or maps out of the box. Sure, there was Halo: Custom Edition, but it was too little, too late. The core gameplay was there, and it was still good, but for those of us who had already played Halo to death on the Xbox there was very little to come back to.
My mistake, then. However, it wasn't a pack in until long after the initial hype.
Even with mega-marketing hype, you can only impress the casual gamers for around 15 minutes. After that, you better play well. Take Madden '06 for the 360. It got a lot of hype, but nobody takes it seriously anymore becuase it was a terrible game, missing a lot of the features that made a good football game. If Halo and Halo 2 existed on hype, it would have suffered the same fate. However, you still have tons of people taking the game seriously, hell, even competatively.
Halo and Halo 2 were both good games. They might not have impressed you or even been your cup of tea, but they were both good games.
No it wasn't. The only Halo pack-in was in Japan.
The industry is fighting a losing battle. They sucessfully transfered the viewing public over to DVD, but it was only because DVD actually had some major improvements over VHS. HD-DVD and Blue Ray offers modest resolution and sound quality increases that only those with a thousand dollar TV or OEM PC can afford to watch. With DVD's they've essentially created the CD of the movie world. It's not the best, but it's practical, and protection that can be easily bypassed.
Hopefully, HD-DVD and Blue-Ray will reside in the realm of "enthusiest", just like SACD, DVD Audio and Laserdisc before it. I know I'm in no hurry to upgrade my DVD's.