[1] But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'.
[2] I agree -- but it isn't leading me to stop. Rather I'm getting to the point where I'm going to go and kick some ass.
If you really want to help, devote yourself to helping these guys or these guys, or you can start your own project. No offense to anyone here, but if I was a betting man I'd put my money on the average Slashdotter's Technical skills, not his/her ability to win hearts and minds...or affect social opinion.
The demographic that voted us into this mess are beer drinking, flag waving yehaw walping wash my soul on sunday types. Until Bubba and Jinny have suffered enough from $3 gas prices, unemployment, and no health care...we're pleading into deaf ears.
Latest wrt54g firmware has a QoS (Quality of Service) Setting. Just give your game machine priority. This was one of Svea's selling points, now you get it for free.
Can you give us a link? What's the version number for this new firmware?
Slashdot's own TheIndividual [slashdot.org] makes Sveasoft firmware widely available for all.
Well, I just upgraded my WRT54Gv2 to the latest software available at the link you provided...it took me about 2 hours to set it back to the way I had it(since the instructions call for resetting to factory defaults all of my configuration information was gone. Maybe it's deleted on upgrade too not sure.)
Anyhow, the QoS isn't working.
I set the QoS as follows: 1) P2P at bulk rate by MAC 2) Game machine at premium rate by MAC
I just tested my ping on a steady CS server to be around 71-78ms...after turning on my P2P app(with very little traffic) my ping jumped to almost 110ms and hovers around 90ms.
Very unimpressive. It's pathetic that these guys have spent almost 2 years building a product who's only significant selling point is QoS...and they can't even get that right.
Whoah there.... Hillary is FAR from a moderate. You do realize that she is just acting the way she is to improve here election odds in 2008. If she won, you'd see more social spending bills being pushed than ever before.
We're on the same page, I just didn't type very clearly in my original posting.
This is an example of shutting down expression on the internet. As far as the IT part goes, its easy to turn off a site.
The reason is because political issues are becoming more important every day, and payola sites like Slashdot are trying to stay on the fence and keep everyone happy for as long as possible.
Once a website gets branded as partisan, it immediately alienates a large percentage of its readership. So hot-button issues like Iraq, Terrorism, and Civil Rights are marginalized from discussion because it's not good business to 'get involved'.
Another proof at how the left wing doesn't know what its extreme left wing is doing.
This is the state of the Democratic party, sadly. They're trying to woo moderates back into the fold(Hillary Clinton etc) by imposing conservative morality. The lesson of the last 5 years is: the more people you threaten and alienate, the more popular you are to conservative voters. I hate seeing the Democrats give up like this, I wish they could find a smarter way to fight the insanity of the american voter.
Some startups, for instance, say the talent drain has made their own hiring more difficult.
boo fucking hoo. If there's only 250 competant engineers in the US looking for work then there's a much bigger problem than a 'brain drain' between companies.
There was a time when companies actually trained people out of college. Actually, now that I think about it, there was a time when companies actually hired people out of college.
The patent application describes a world in which Amazon collects fees from Web Service Providers who charge $500/month for AAA Street Maps, $200/month for driving directions, and $0.01/use for weather and human genome maps.
I've always thought of Jeff Bezos as some kind of Robin Hood. A guy that doesn't care about money so much as creating great services and technologies and bringing them to the world. Bear with me...but it occurs to me that if someone truly hated the current software patent norm and they had a lot of money, they could simply apply for every software patent they could think of and lock the patents up and throw away the proverbial key.
So I guess my question is, is there any reason to give Jeff Bezos the benefit of the doubt here? Is it possible, however improbable, that's he's applying for these seemingly absurd patents as a means of keeping the internet alive by not enforcing his patents?
It's more complicated than just the price of crude oil...witness:
Your breakdown doesn't in any way refute my point. Instead of making personal attacks please concetrate on refuting my claim...I was honestly hoping for some information.
-the fact that oil refineries generally are working at capacity, and the "left" won't let any more be built
Are you suggesting that demand has increased almost 300% in 5 years?
-the fact that only a fraction of the crude oil used by the US is made into gasoline...the rest goes into plastics, heating oil, jet fuel, steel, asphalt, tar, pharmaceuticals, lubricants, cosmetics, etc.
gasoline prices are an indicator of oil prices, we're talking about oil here. Regardless of how it is used, the oil people are making the profit.
-the fact that 31% of the cost of gas is TAXES
Basic math, if you increase the price of the thing you're taxing the other 68% of the 'cost of gas' is still going directly into the coffers of those selling the product. I.e., higher cost==more money.
-the fact that refineries are forced by environmentalists to make many different kinds of gasoline for the canadians, the midwesterners, the east coast-ers, etc.
And this is relevant to this discussion how?
-the fact that plenty of idiots drive huge vehicles with huge engines...BY THEMSELVES, WITH NO PASSENGERS OR CARGO!
This was also true in 1998 when regular gas was $0.86 a gallon in Georgia, 6 years later it's now $2.25 a gallon. Driving habits haven't changed, and are not in any way responsible for the price increase.
And how is ANY of this Bush's fault?
None of what you brought up is Bush's fault, but that's because you brought up completely irrelevant issues. My post was about who is makingmoney from high oil prices.
that has to be the single most stupid thing i've ever seen on/.
what in the hell does that even mean? Is he going to set off the nukular reactors and blow someone up?
It means Bush et. al. are working to create an image of being interested in alternate energy sources while laughing all the way to the bank on the oil profits they, and their saudi business partners, are reaping. Corporations can pretty much do anything they want in this country, government hasn't been this for sale in decades. We see signs of this every day...but somehow this doesn't apply to energy policy? Yeah right.
It's just a very clever Rove-esque way of making 'the left' look like the guilty party while gas prices rise 5 cents every month. Maybe when gas is $6 a gallon you blind as bats conservatives will investigate where these billions of dollars in oil profits are going.
What makes a good RPG?...Excellent games I've played that contain all of what the author values most have been single player
One problem that doesn't seem to be mentioned a lot is that MMORPGs are always at risk of being bastardized. The environment is always changing, and chances are that if you've found a game you enjoy, it will be gone in the near future. Sometimes all it takes is one bad developer meeting, or an uninformed manager to make a permanent change to the UI, gameplay, theme etc. and suddenly the game is no longer playable.
EQ, for instance, used to be great when it was directed by storytellers who were familiar with gaming culture(I.e. they probably grew up reading hundreds of fantasy novels, playing PnP d&d games on the weekends, etc.) Then the franchise was sold to a conglomerate and the game has been steadily declining since.
I would gladly pay to play EQ the way it was 5 years ago. Unfortunatley MMORPGs aren't like books, or movies, or even single-player RPG titles. They tend to change for the worse, and you can never revisit those golden years. This is particularly hard on folks who spend a lot of time developing a character, guild, friendships etc. within the game. The inherant instability and lack of trust in the developers makes investing time into MMORPGs less and less appealing.
In the 80s and 90s maybe one out of every 20 PC titles was worth playing. Classics like The Bards Tale, Wasteland, MoM, System Shock, Civ, Diablo, etc. are around today because they weren't MMOGs. I.e. they were protected from being re-written because they were static pieces of art. MMORPGs unfortunately don't have this characteristic. While in principle the idea of an 'ever changing' world has the potential of being beneficial, it's more often a means of destroying a good thing.
When I've asked them why they returned, they've said that the virtual community in MUDs really seems to set them apart from the newer MMORPGs
This is probably true as long as you avoid MUDs with less than ~30 people on-line at once. In these MUDs everyone who's anyone seems to know each other, and they are usually very cliquey. Playing on servers like that can become 6 months of fraternity hazing instead of 6 months of gaming. The smaller MUDs are even worse, usually occupied by a ring-leader admin and a handful of 'admins' who bully and abuse the server. I remember this one wasteland themed MUD where the admins were so abusive that they threatened to ban me because they didn't like my character description.
Lots of people have experienced this kind of thing on CS servers, where 95% of the people who apply for admin do so in order to bully the other players with threats of being kicked/banned/llama'ed if someone says or does something the admin doesn't like. This is very prevelant on some of the smaller MUDs also. There are exceptions, but they seem to be in the minority.
In short, if you've never played a MUD before but would like to try one...do some research first and try to find a MUD that caters to at least 50 players online at once. This increases your chances of finding a game you'll enjoy.
Seriously you guys, get off your damn asses and find a government that will work for the voters instead of working for the people who bribe them the most.
We tried, but there were just too many angry rednecks voting against us. Most slashdot readers fall into one of two categories:
1) Moved to Canada or wish he/she did. 2) Makes enough money working for these greedy corporations to justify their actions in order to preserve his/her lifestyle.
casualties? wtf are you talking about, you douche. and peaceful assembly? again wtf, you douche.
Sad to see trolls like this proving the grandparent right.
MMOGs are very hard to keep balanced
on
The Ultimate MMORPG
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The hardest problem in online gaming today is to create a system where players can be continuously rewarded for their time but maintain game balance so that certain player types don't become overpowered. Unfortunately these two forces are counteracting.
WoW did a great job of creating balance, but a lousy job of fostering player growth(60+ game sucks). Everquest did a decent job of finding a happy median between the two, but the high level game became very very slow.
Expert gamers are all about finding exploits to increase their power, a good MMOG must reward savvy players, but at the same time protect other players and the economy from being exploited...usually it's the stuff designers never considered or intended that end up causing the most problems. All in all it's a very difficult problem to address.
That means that in order for the players to get all the features they enjoy in a game, they would have to play more than one MMORPG, if not many MMORPGs.
Upon further review, I don't think i'll be keeping an eye on this gem.
*cringes*
At first glance it may sound lame, but it's actually very tastefully done in the Shadowrun universe. I'm usually one of those "no fantasy in my science-fiction, and no science-fiction in my fantasy thankyou" types, but shadowrun is the exception.
The RPG on the Genesis was so good (honestly, I'm surprised there wasn't a sequel sooner), why change a winning formula?
So true! I just finished playing it yesterday for the first time, and I'm so glad I found it! Great writing, gameplay, pacing, everything...masterful. Oh and from what I've read on the fan-sites the SNES version is not worth checking out, you want the Genesis version.
Sounds like fun....but an FPS? Where's my SR MMOG?
Thats a complete lie. Ive got daemon tools/alcohol 120% and a few others installed and I did NOT have to untinstall them to get bf2 to install.
The error message the game gives you doesn't tell you the name of the offending program. It says something like '...uninstall all CD emulation software...'. Some tools package both emulation and ripping into the same tool set. So the already pissed customer has to keep uninstalling software one program at a time until it magically starts working.
Something like that should be grounds for a class action suit. I know people love to say 'read the EULA', but how long until the average EULA takes 20 days just to read and understand? It's more akin to entrapment than an agreement.
EA is the worldwide leader in bringing best of breed games, for all platforms, to market
Sorry, but that's total bs. As much as I loath Vivendi, EA is right up there with them. If you go to a store and pay $50 for Battlefield 2(an EA title) and install it, you will learn that you can't play online unless you completely uninstall all CD emulation/burning software on your computer.
Most slashdot gamers are PC professionals with dozens of utility programs like these installed on their computers. Utilities they need in order to use their PC the way they want. Insisting on the permanent uninstallation of these applications is an arrogant intrusion on the part of EA.
I'm infuriated because I bought this game fair and square and I can't play without a nocd crack. Some of you might suggest I just return the game, but it's a great game and I want to support the developers because they did such a great job...but I'm done throwing money into EAs coffers who screw their customers into altering their PC just to satisfy their draconion copy-protection scheme.
I will certainly be getting my next Valve title through steam however, and not through EA's handcuffs in a box. I just hope that in the future, Steam or another service like it will be able to distribute all PC titles through the internet, so we can finally get rid of these price inflating middle-men.
This happened to me last year. I recieved an e-mail stating that I had won $500,000 in a cash giveaway drawing sponsered by a jobsite that I was a member at. After 5 days of e-mailing and lots of international phonecalls I finally learned that it was a group of nigerians operating out of amsterdam trying to get me to send them a money order. I was totally hooked at first...making long distance calls to switzerland to open a swiss account for my 'winnings', booking plane tickets to Amsterdam, etc.
Luckily I figured the whole thing out in time, I nearly sent them a western union money order for $1200 to cover the 'financial legal fees' involved in processing and transferring the 'winnings' into my back account.
I'll admit that I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but these guys had a pretty convincing and elaborate scheme going. I forwarded all of their contact information to a bank in Amsterdam whose name and letterhead they were using. Hopefully they took action.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey Blizzard...
WHERE IS DIABLO III?
Some of us got very sick of WoW and want our old favorites back =(.
If we landmine our intellectual property landscape, we all will get blown up; the only secure job is that of the morticians.
Exactly.
The lawyers are playing both sides of the fence, and they are reaping all the rewards.
[1] But I'm starting to suffer from 'outrage fatigue'.
[2] I agree -- but it isn't leading me to stop. Rather I'm getting to the point where I'm going to go and kick some ass.
If you really want to help, devote yourself to helping these guys or these guys, or you can start your own project. No offense to anyone here, but if I was a betting man I'd put my money on the average Slashdotter's Technical skills, not his/her ability to win hearts and minds...or affect social opinion.
The demographic that voted us into this mess are beer drinking, flag waving yehaw walping wash my soul on sunday types. Until Bubba and Jinny have suffered enough from $3 gas prices, unemployment, and no health care...we're pleading into deaf ears.
How much is "very little" traffic ?
10kbps up/down.
How many connection attempts per second ?
Maybe 1 per second. If you're referring to my ping testing.
How high is the ping without QoS ?
As I said, it inflated from 70ms to 95 ms. Spikes of 110ms.
More detail of my problem here
Latest wrt54g firmware has a QoS (Quality of Service) Setting. Just give your game machine priority. This was one of Svea's selling points, now you get it for free.
Can you give us a link? What's the version number for this new firmware?
Slashdot's own TheIndividual [slashdot.org] makes Sveasoft firmware widely available for all.
Well, I just upgraded my WRT54Gv2 to the latest software available at the link you provided...it took me about 2 hours to set it back to the way I had it(since the instructions call for resetting to factory defaults all of my configuration information was gone. Maybe it's deleted on upgrade too not sure.)
Anyhow, the QoS isn't working.
I set the QoS as follows:
1) P2P at bulk rate by MAC
2) Game machine at premium rate by MAC
I just tested my ping on a steady CS server to be around 71-78ms...after turning on my P2P app(with very little traffic) my ping jumped to almost 110ms and hovers around 90ms.
Very unimpressive. It's pathetic that these guys have spent almost 2 years building a product who's only significant selling point is QoS...and they can't even get that right.
*sigh*
Whoah there.... Hillary is FAR from a moderate. You do realize that she is just acting the way she is to improve here election odds in 2008. If she won, you'd see more social spending bills being pushed than ever before.
We're on the same page, I just didn't type very clearly in my original posting.
This is an example of shutting down expression on the internet. As far as the IT part goes, its easy to turn off a site.
The reason is because political issues are becoming more important every day, and payola sites like Slashdot are trying to stay on the fence and keep everyone happy for as long as possible.
Once a website gets branded as partisan, it immediately alienates a large percentage of its readership. So hot-button issues like Iraq, Terrorism, and Civil Rights are marginalized from discussion because it's not good business to 'get involved'.
Umm, a *DEMOCRAT* Senator is calling for this.
Another proof at how the left wing doesn't know what its extreme left wing is doing.
This is the state of the Democratic party, sadly. They're trying to woo moderates back into the fold(Hillary Clinton etc) by imposing conservative morality. The lesson of the last 5 years is: the more people you threaten and alienate, the more popular you are to conservative voters. I hate seeing the Democrats give up like this, I wish they could find a smarter way to fight the insanity of the american voter.
Some startups, for instance, say the talent drain has made their own hiring more difficult.
boo fucking hoo. If there's only 250 competant engineers in the US looking for work then there's a much bigger problem than a 'brain drain' between companies.
There was a time when companies actually trained people out of college. Actually, now that I think about it, there was a time when companies actually hired people out of college.
New engineering logo of america:
Build us a bomb, or live with your mom.
The patent application describes a world in which Amazon collects fees from Web Service Providers who charge $500/month for AAA Street Maps, $200/month for driving directions, and $0.01/use for weather and human genome maps.
I've always thought of Jeff Bezos as some kind of Robin Hood. A guy that doesn't care about money so much as creating great services and technologies and bringing them to the world. Bear with me...but it occurs to me that if someone truly hated the current software patent norm and they had a lot of money, they could simply apply for every software patent they could think of and lock the patents up and throw away the proverbial key.
So I guess my question is, is there any reason to give Jeff Bezos the benefit of the doubt here? Is it possible, however improbable, that's he's applying for these seemingly absurd patents as a means of keeping the internet alive by not enforcing his patents?
It's more complicated than just the price of crude oil...witness:
Your breakdown doesn't in any way refute my point. Instead of making personal attacks please concetrate on refuting my claim...I was honestly hoping for some information.
-the fact that oil refineries generally are working at capacity, and the "left" won't let any more be built
Are you suggesting that demand has increased almost 300% in 5 years?
-the fact that only a fraction of the crude oil used by the US is made into gasoline...the rest goes into plastics, heating oil, jet fuel, steel, asphalt, tar, pharmaceuticals, lubricants, cosmetics, etc.
gasoline prices are an indicator of oil prices, we're talking about oil here. Regardless of how it is used, the oil people are making the profit.
-the fact that 31% of the cost of gas is TAXES
Basic math, if you increase the price of the thing you're taxing the other 68% of the 'cost of gas' is still going directly into the coffers of those selling the product. I.e., higher cost==more money.
-the fact that refineries are forced by environmentalists to make many different kinds of gasoline for the canadians, the midwesterners, the east coast-ers, etc.
And this is relevant to this discussion how?
-the fact that plenty of idiots drive huge vehicles with huge engines...BY THEMSELVES, WITH NO PASSENGERS OR CARGO!
This was also true in 1998 when regular gas was $0.86 a gallon in Georgia, 6 years later it's now $2.25 a gallon. Driving habits haven't changed, and are not in any way responsible for the price increase.
And how is ANY of this Bush's fault?
None of what you brought up is Bush's fault, but that's because you brought up completely irrelevant issues. My post was about who is making money from high oil prices.
that has to be the single most stupid thing i've ever seen on /.
what in the hell does that even mean? Is he going to set off the nukular reactors and blow someone up?
It means Bush et. al. are working to create an image of being interested in alternate energy sources while laughing all the way to the bank on the oil profits they, and their saudi business partners, are reaping. Corporations can pretty much do anything they want in this country, government hasn't been this for sale in decades. We see signs of this every day...but somehow this doesn't apply to energy policy? Yeah right.
It's just a very clever Rove-esque way of making 'the left' look like the guilty party while gas prices rise 5 cents every month. Maybe when gas is $6 a gallon you blind as bats conservatives will investigate where these billions of dollars in oil profits are going.
What makes a good RPG?...Excellent games I've played that contain all of what the author values most have been single player
One problem that doesn't seem to be mentioned a lot is that MMORPGs are always at risk of being bastardized. The environment is always changing, and chances are that if you've found a game you enjoy, it will be gone in the near future. Sometimes all it takes is one bad developer meeting, or an uninformed manager to make a permanent change to the UI, gameplay, theme etc. and suddenly the game is no longer playable.
EQ, for instance, used to be great when it was directed by storytellers who were familiar with gaming culture(I.e. they probably grew up reading hundreds of fantasy novels, playing PnP d&d games on the weekends, etc.) Then the franchise was sold to a conglomerate and the game has been steadily declining since.
I would gladly pay to play EQ the way it was 5 years ago. Unfortunatley MMORPGs aren't like books, or movies, or even single-player RPG titles. They tend to change for the worse, and you can never revisit those golden years. This is particularly hard on folks who spend a lot of time developing a character, guild, friendships etc. within the game. The inherant instability and lack of trust in the developers makes investing time into MMORPGs less and less appealing.
In the 80s and 90s maybe one out of every 20 PC titles was worth playing. Classics like The Bards Tale, Wasteland, MoM, System Shock, Civ, Diablo, etc. are around today because they weren't MMOGs. I.e. they were protected from being re-written because they were static pieces of art. MMORPGs unfortunately don't have this characteristic. While in principle the idea of an 'ever changing' world has the potential of being beneficial, it's more often a means of destroying a good thing.
Get a fucking life, even a virtual one couldn't hurt you at this point.
If baby-sitting the egos of a few hateful nerds is the only way to qualify for having people skills, then I'll pass on general principal.
When I've asked them why they returned, they've said that the virtual community in MUDs really seems to set them apart from the newer MMORPGs
This is probably true as long as you avoid MUDs with less than ~30 people on-line at once. In these MUDs everyone who's anyone seems to know each other, and they are usually very cliquey. Playing on servers like that can become 6 months of fraternity hazing instead of 6 months of gaming. The smaller MUDs are even worse, usually occupied by a ring-leader admin and a handful of 'admins' who bully and abuse the server. I remember this one wasteland themed MUD where the admins were so abusive that they threatened to ban me because they didn't like my character description.
Lots of people have experienced this kind of thing on CS servers, where 95% of the people who apply for admin do so in order to bully the other players with threats of being kicked/banned/llama'ed if someone says or does something the admin doesn't like. This is very prevelant on some of the smaller MUDs also. There are exceptions, but they seem to be in the minority.
In short, if you've never played a MUD before but would like to try one...do some research first and try to find a MUD that caters to at least 50 players online at once. This increases your chances of finding a game you'll enjoy.
Seriously you guys, get off your damn asses and find a government that will work for the voters instead of working for the people who bribe them the most.
We tried, but there were just too many angry rednecks voting against us. Most slashdot readers fall into one of two categories:
1) Moved to Canada or wish he/she did.
2) Makes enough money working for these greedy corporations to justify their actions in order to preserve his/her lifestyle.
Why the heck are mods modding this flame-war up!?!
What could be more on-topic than a flame-war?
casualties? wtf are you talking about, you douche. and peaceful assembly? again wtf, you douche.
Sad to see trolls like this proving the grandparent right.
The hardest problem in online gaming today is to create a system where players can be continuously rewarded for their time but maintain game balance so that certain player types don't become overpowered. Unfortunately these two forces are counteracting.
WoW did a great job of creating balance, but a lousy job of fostering player growth(60+ game sucks). Everquest did a decent job of finding a happy median between the two, but the high level game became very very slow.
Expert gamers are all about finding exploits to increase their power, a good MMOG must reward savvy players, but at the same time protect other players and the economy from being exploited...usually it's the stuff designers never considered or intended that end up causing the most problems. All in all it's a very difficult problem to address.
That means that in order for the players to get all the features they enjoy in a game, they would have to play more than one MMORPG, if not many MMORPGs.
Ultimately, more features == more exploits.
Upon further review, I don't think i'll be keeping an eye on this gem.
*cringes*
At first glance it may sound lame, but it's actually very tastefully done in the Shadowrun universe. I'm usually one of those "no fantasy in my science-fiction, and no science-fiction in my fantasy thankyou" types, but shadowrun is the exception.
The RPG on the Genesis was so good (honestly, I'm surprised there wasn't a sequel sooner), why change a winning formula?
So true! I just finished playing it yesterday for the first time, and I'm so glad I found it! Great writing, gameplay, pacing, everything...masterful. Oh and from what I've read on the fan-sites the SNES version is not worth checking out, you want the Genesis version.
Sounds like fun....but an FPS? Where's my SR MMOG?
Don't worry about the MMOG =), try this baby out! You won't regret it.
Thats a complete lie. Ive got daemon tools/alcohol 120% and a few others installed and I did NOT have to untinstall them to get bf2 to install.
The error message the game gives you doesn't tell you the name of the offending program. It says something like '...uninstall all CD emulation software...'. Some tools package both emulation and ripping into the same tool set. So the already pissed customer has to keep uninstalling software one program at a time until it magically starts working.
Something like that should be grounds for a class action suit. I know people love to say 'read the EULA', but how long until the average EULA takes 20 days just to read and understand? It's more akin to entrapment than an agreement.
EA is the worldwide leader in bringing best of breed games, for all platforms, to market
Sorry, but that's total bs. As much as I loath Vivendi, EA is right up there with them. If you go to a store and pay $50 for Battlefield 2(an EA title) and install it, you will learn that you can't play online unless you completely uninstall all CD emulation/burning software on your computer.
Most slashdot gamers are PC professionals with dozens of utility programs like these installed on their computers. Utilities they need in order to use their PC the way they want. Insisting on the permanent uninstallation of these applications is an arrogant intrusion on the part of EA.
I'm infuriated because I bought this game fair and square and I can't play without a nocd crack. Some of you might suggest I just return the game, but it's a great game and I want to support the developers because they did such a great job...but I'm done throwing money into EAs coffers who screw their customers into altering their PC just to satisfy their draconion copy-protection scheme.
I will certainly be getting my next Valve title through steam however, and not through EA's handcuffs in a box. I just hope that in the future, Steam or another service like it will be able to distribute all PC titles through the internet, so we can finally get rid of these price inflating middle-men.
This happened to me last year. I recieved an e-mail stating that I had won $500,000 in a cash giveaway drawing sponsered by a jobsite that I was a member at. After 5 days of e-mailing and lots of international phonecalls I finally learned that it was a group of nigerians operating out of amsterdam trying to get me to send them a money order. I was totally hooked at first...making long distance calls to switzerland to open a swiss account for my 'winnings', booking plane tickets to Amsterdam, etc.
Luckily I figured the whole thing out in time, I nearly sent them a western union money order for $1200 to cover the 'financial legal fees' involved in processing and transferring the 'winnings' into my back account.
I'll admit that I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but these guys had a pretty convincing and elaborate scheme going. I forwarded all of their contact information to a bank in Amsterdam whose name and letterhead they were using. Hopefully they took action.