"...documents the manically creative lives of gamers by tracing the career of eccentric 'Lord British,' as [Richard] Garriott is known to millions of fans,..."
Color me stupid, but isn't that a bit presumptuous?
"Both WhenU and Gator have argued that their ad-sales and delivery tactics are legal because consumers agree to receive the ads when they download and install their software. Also, they've argued, it comes down to consumers owning their own desktops, which are inherently built to support many applications with multiple windows."
"Posts with complaints and bugs on the forums are frequently deleted by Technical Support and they constantly palm of users with lame excuses."
If, by this, you mean posts like
"dude this gaem fcuking sucks hard coer!!!! i cant b a jedi??! wtf!!!11"
then I'd delete them, too. Besides, tech support forums are generally to be used for tech support issues, not for the reporting of bugs that the end-user can't work around. They have other facilities for that.
Exactly - throughout beta, they were letting people in slowly enough (at most, hundreds at a time), so that even if they did do load testing on the registration servers, they would never have caught this problem. Also, out-of-game services like message boards and registration are rarely maintained by the same people that maintain the game itself, which probably has a lot to do with why such services are never load tested.
Verant broke away from SOE just long enough to finish the game, release it, and get it working well, just in time for SOE to come back in and hose the entire customer service department (among other things).
Fortunately, SWG has LucasArts to back it up, and I don't anticipate LucasArts selling itself to SOE anytime soon.
Well, I re-read my post, and I can't seem to find the part where I lumbered normal people in with anyone else.
I'm just saying it's a bad idea for this company to make a game with more or less the plot of Diablo II - which many Christians certainly find distasteful - and say that it's good because all of the demon slaying is done in the name of Jesus.
By the way:
"OK, I admit it the Crusades was a bad thing, a very bad thing done by a complete set of lunatics who used religion as an excuse to do what they pleased...."
As I recall, it was the Pope at the time who ordered the Crusades to go forth. Of all of them, he was probably the closest to lunacy at the time - all the rest were likely caught up in mob mentality once they got to whatever destination they finally reached (only one Crusade actually reached the Holy Land, and their influence persisted in Lebanon until the mid-20th century when Muslim influence rather violently took over).
...they'll have a game out where you play a Knight Templar in the Crusades, trekking toward the Holy Land to free it from Muslim oppression but instead stopping in Constantinople to sack and loot the place.
"I see nothing in the article (and nothing on the company's website) about how this product would prevent the youngster from unplugging the device from the unit and then plugging it into the wall. I assume that there's some sort of locking mechanism that prevents access to the power plug."
Heaven forbid that parents actually pay attention to what their children are doing to prevent them from doing this. But then again, I guess not having to pay attention to one's children is the whole point of this device in the first place.
The EverQuest backstory has never been particularly powerful, beyond general knowledge of who the gods are and what they're the gods of. Yes, there is some story there, but over the past four years, it's been locked up in GM-driven quests where the players turn it into pure chaos, and quest text that everyone skips through once it's been posted to Allakhazam.
Yeah, they're pretty much just milking the franchise, and I don't doubt that some people will buy, but when you compare the backstory of EQ to the far more compelling universe of D&D Forgotten Realms, this game (in terms of sales) is just going to fall short. After all, why play EQ:CoN when you could just play EQ?
Exactly - it's like Xerox, Kleenex, or Lysol, only worse:
You're talking with a friend about some obscure topic, and to find out the answer, your friend says, "I'll google it." He fires up IE and heads to the MSNbot web page, at which point you say, "Dude, I thought you said you were going to google it."
Your friend thinks for a second, goes up to the address bar, and fixes the problem.
Actually, I had intended that my previous comment might get modded as funny, because the vast majority of people who drive suck at it. I can't help it that people are about as good at modding comments as they are at driving:p
"Do these people (canopy, SCO, whatever) actually produce anything, or is all their revenue generated through litigation? If this were a biological analogy, I would say that this is classic example of a parasite."
Unfortunately, due to the way Trademarks work, if you don't protect your Trademark, it will enter the public domain.
They could always license the trademark to the skins site for a token fee (say, $1) under certain restrictions (such as licensing downloaders only to use the skins for personal use, for the site not to sell access to the skins, etc.).
Its technology allows it, for example, to search the country's entire volume of email traffic for words such as "Falungong", or to monitor any individual's text messages.
Considering how susceptible Chinese computers have been in the past to e-mail worms, I bet I know what sort of messages the next big worm will send out....
The WV settlement is fair enough to the state (their attorney's fees are covered, and they get several million in free products from Microsoft and other companies, though the article didn't say from whom).
The sad irony, though, is that WV can already get free OSes, office software, and other products, even without the settlement. Because of that, this is an even huger win for Microsoft, and an unfortunate result for high school kids in WV who will continue to graduate while under the thumb of Bill.
...is whether she plans to resign at her old job (you know, being in the U.S. House of Representatives) before taking on a new one involving a rather obvious conflict of interest.
They've done themselves a world of good by focusing on their services business, thus representing themselves as a benevolent, helpful entity, and by advertising that segment of their business heavily (in some rather amusing spots, I might add - "It's for you. It's the genie.").
Slashdot Mirror
But the Linux kernel and Mozilla are free.
"...documents the manically creative lives of gamers by tracing the career of eccentric 'Lord British,' as [Richard] Garriott is known to millions of fans,..."
Color me stupid, but isn't that a bit presumptuous?
"Both WhenU and Gator have argued that their ad-sales and delivery tactics are legal because consumers agree to receive the ads when they download and install their software. Also, they've argued, it comes down to consumers owning their own desktops , which are inherently built to support many applications with multiple windows."
I nearly shat myself when I read that.
"Posts with complaints and bugs on the forums are frequently deleted by Technical Support and they constantly palm of users with lame excuses."
If, by this, you mean posts like
"dude this gaem fcuking sucks hard coer!!!! i cant b a jedi??! wtf!!!11"
then I'd delete them, too. Besides, tech support forums are generally to be used for tech support issues, not for the reporting of bugs that the end-user can't work around. They have other facilities for that.
Exactly - throughout beta, they were letting people in slowly enough (at most, hundreds at a time), so that even if they did do load testing on the registration servers, they would never have caught this problem. Also, out-of-game services like message boards and registration are rarely maintained by the same people that maintain the game itself, which probably has a lot to do with why such services are never load tested.
...and I don't bother reading subject lines for posts to understand what the post was really about.
Specifically, as much as $15 monthly, or as little as $12 per month paid annually.
Verant broke away from SOE just long enough to finish the game, release it, and get it working well, just in time for SOE to come back in and hose the entire customer service department (among other things).
Fortunately, SWG has LucasArts to back it up, and I don't anticipate LucasArts selling itself to SOE anytime soon.
Well, I re-read my post, and I can't seem to find the part where I lumbered normal people in with anyone else.
I'm just saying it's a bad idea for this company to make a game with more or less the plot of Diablo II - which many Christians certainly find distasteful - and say that it's good because all of the demon slaying is done in the name of Jesus.
By the way:
"OK, I admit it the Crusades was a bad thing, a very bad thing done by a complete set of lunatics who used religion as an excuse to do what they pleased...."
As I recall, it was the Pope at the time who ordered the Crusades to go forth. Of all of them, he was probably the closest to lunacy at the time - all the rest were likely caught up in mob mentality once they got to whatever destination they finally reached (only one Crusade actually reached the Holy Land, and their influence persisted in Lebanon until the mid-20th century when Muslim influence rather violently took over).
As for PTT and "Push to Talk" I also would have thought those terms are "common usage" terms by now.
I'm sure I have an old crappy toy two-way somewhere around my parents' house with "push to talk" written somewhere on it.
...they'll have a game out where you play a Knight Templar in the Crusades, trekking toward the Holy Land to free it from Muslim oppression but instead stopping in Constantinople to sack and loot the place.
"I see nothing in the article (and nothing on the company's website) about how this product would prevent the youngster from unplugging the device from the unit and then plugging it into the wall. I assume that there's some sort of locking mechanism that prevents access to the power plug."
Heaven forbid that parents actually pay attention to what their children are doing to prevent them from doing this. But then again, I guess not having to pay attention to one's children is the whole point of this device in the first place.
The EverQuest backstory has never been particularly powerful, beyond general knowledge of who the gods are and what they're the gods of. Yes, there is some story there, but over the past four years, it's been locked up in GM-driven quests where the players turn it into pure chaos, and quest text that everyone skips through once it's been posted to Allakhazam.
Yeah, they're pretty much just milking the franchise, and I don't doubt that some people will buy, but when you compare the backstory of EQ to the far more compelling universe of D&D Forgotten Realms, this game (in terms of sales) is just going to fall short. After all, why play EQ:CoN when you could just play EQ?
What, they're advertising a *game*?
Exactly - it's like Xerox, Kleenex, or Lysol, only worse:
You're talking with a friend about some obscure topic, and to find out the answer, your friend says, "I'll google it." He fires up IE and heads to the MSNbot web page, at which point you say, "Dude, I thought you said you were going to google it."
Your friend thinks for a second, goes up to the address bar, and fixes the problem.
Actually, I had intended that my previous comment might get modded as funny, because the vast majority of people who drive suck at it. I can't help it that people are about as good at modding comments as they are at driving :p
Why should techology -- with less sensory input and a poorer decision making ability -- be permitted to do this?
You're assuming an awful lot about the driving ability of the average person out on the roads.
"Do these people (canopy, SCO, whatever) actually produce anything, or is all their revenue generated through litigation? If this were a biological analogy, I would say that this is classic example of a parasite."
SCO... is a virus.... and we... are the cure.
Unfortunately, due to the way Trademarks work, if you don't protect your Trademark, it will enter the public domain.
They could always license the trademark to the skins site for a token fee (say, $1) under certain restrictions (such as licensing downloaders only to use the skins for personal use, for the site not to sell access to the skins, etc.).
Its technology allows it, for example, to search the country's entire volume of email traffic for words such as "Falungong", or to monitor any individual's text messages.
Considering how susceptible Chinese computers have been in the past to e-mail worms, I bet I know what sort of messages the next big worm will send out....
Like this one?
Or perhaps this little one?
(Damn, I *knew* those would come in handy eventually!)
The WV settlement is fair enough to the state (their attorney's fees are covered, and they get several million in free products from Microsoft and other companies, though the article didn't say from whom).
The sad irony, though, is that WV can already get free OSes, office software, and other products, even without the settlement. Because of that, this is an even huger win for Microsoft, and an unfortunate result for high school kids in WV who will continue to graduate while under the thumb of Bill.
...is whether she plans to resign at her old job (you know, being in the U.S. House of Representatives) before taking on a new one involving a rather obvious conflict of interest.
Monday:
IBM +1.75
SCOX -0.28
They've done themselves a world of good by focusing on their services business, thus representing themselves as a benevolent, helpful entity, and by advertising that segment of their business heavily (in some rather amusing spots, I might add - "It's for you. It's the genie.").