I'd probably puke sitting in the car before we even started moving. I don't get motion sickness, but I get nauseous when I'm nervous.:) I stay away from those for the benefit of all involved.
Will do. I think we should all boycott any company bringing puerile lawsuits against obviously satire. We need to start putting web servers on oil platforms in the middle of the ocean and operate them like Swiss banks so nobody is liable. I remember someone saying they were going to do that with a Napster like product. Please tell me what this lawsuit does for the company besides bring them negative backlash and popularize the strip??
After 9/11 Americans seem to be content to let all their privacy go out the window for national security. All these new databases, laws, and surveillance technologies would scare me if I were an American. Unfortunately, the majority seems to be content with it: "it's the price we pay for security". Slippery slope my friends.
People who send spam mail aren't exactly the smartest people to begin with. They practice deceit at every opportunity. First, they take advantage of the email system to hide their address and change it so you can't block them by it or respond to them. Second, when you ask to be removed and never contacted again, they take this as an indication that you want more spam mail so they sell your address as an active account. In fact, they will probably use a spam email to try and sell your email address. Third, they use deceitful methods to subvert your spam filter.
That last one is what really gets me. They are tricking you into having to spend time and possibly money reading their advertisement which you obviously do not want since you tried to filter it out.
This would be like you getting a telemarketing call and their response to you saying "I am not interested and please take me off your list" would be to change their phone number and company name, sell your number to other companies to increase your volume of calls, AND pretend to be one of your customers or one of your relatives to trick you into picking up the phone and listening to their first few sentences of blather.
What kind of moron tries to run a business by blatantly misleading potential customers. What is the thought process: "Hmm maybe if I trick them into reading my stuff I can get them so mad that they will want to buy my questionable product"? Do you think people would put up with that kind of telemarketing? No, so why should we have to put up with email spam? This type of advertising would not be legitimate in any other form.
I have been playing online games since Warcraft II came out with support for kali. That is when I first tried it. I played a few games on kali and then I got grunt rushed by someone in two minutes. Then I got, as it is known in the community, "gayed" several times. This is basically exploiting overpowered towers and the AI behind how they are built. If you figured out how to beat these things you would then figure out that the only strategy left was lusted ogres and who could tower in and build the most, the fastest. I facetiously said "wow that's fun" and I never played that game on the internet again. I then set up a LAN with my brother and found a new love for the game. We would play cooperative against the computer or friendly 1on1s.
Then Starcraft came alone with Battle.net support. This time I stuck with it (partly because I was older I guess). I was determined to get good and climb the 1on1 ladder. After a few seasons all the game became was people exploiting certain imbalances to climb to the top and, more importantly, rise to internet RTS "fame". That is all the online gaming is about for a lot of people. They all wanted to be "famous" in the community and win at any cost. This is when I first experienced hackers and cheaters as well, but that should not be a surprise. I would not call this fun either. These people are addicted to the social acceptance and that is it. I suspect the game stopped being fun about two hours after they bought it for most of them. I also suspect they do it to attain this acceptance they lack in real life.
Now Warcraft 3 is out and I played that online for about half a year and not even close to as aggressively as I played Starcraft.
I have realized that you really cannot take online games too seriously. At the "hardcore" level they are only about positioning. Like the author said, everybody tries to exploit each other to get themselves a better position in the community/game. The game is NOT fun at that level. Almost everybody cheats and denies it (20000+ cheaters were banned in the first round of war3) and so everybody accuses each other of cheating when they lose. It is accepted to exploit any bug in the game/system to get yourself to the top. And, very few people are genuine and friendly. It's all a bunch of adolescent name calling and bullying to look good in front of the few people in a channel. Some people get frustrated if they cannot win enough (i.e. exploit) to get to the top and get angry. I have fallen into that trap on occasion. Others will resort to making the game as miserable as possible for others through any means possible (which is an even bigger problem in RPGs - see diablo 1/2 and any onling RPG style game).
Recently, I have got into a single player binge and I am loving it. I have dug out all of my old games and purchased a few new ones. Single player is awsome. It is competitive and addictive while still being fun. That is not to say that mulitplayer cannot be the same. The problem is as I have spelled it out above: There are too many ultra-competitive players, jerks, or both out there waiting to ruin the game. I had it right way back when Warcraft II came out. Set up a LAN with people you know or find a group of people online that you trust (they are out there). Then play the game how you want and ignore the jerks. Unfortunately, you can't do that with MMPORGs, but maybe in the future. As a Blizzard fan (how can you tell?) I am hoping World of Warcraft will deliver this. If you find yourself playing for any reason other than fun, maybe you should quit or rethink the way you play. I once heard a top ranked Starcraft player say "I have to be the best at everything I do and I practice until I am". What a sad way to live your life.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd probably puke sitting in the car before we even started moving. I don't get motion sickness, but I get nauseous when I'm nervous. :) I stay away from those for the benefit of all involved.
Will do. I think we should all boycott any company bringing puerile lawsuits against obviously satire. We need to start putting web servers on oil platforms in the middle of the ocean and operate them like Swiss banks so nobody is liable. I remember someone saying they were going to do that with a Napster like product. Please tell me what this lawsuit does for the company besides bring them negative backlash and popularize the strip??
After 9/11 Americans seem to be content to let all their privacy go out the window for national security. All these new databases, laws, and surveillance technologies would scare me if I were an American. Unfortunately, the majority seems to be content with it: "it's the price we pay for security". Slippery slope my friends.
People who send spam mail aren't exactly the smartest people to begin with. They practice deceit at every opportunity. First, they take advantage of the email system to hide their address and change it so you can't block them by it or respond to them. Second, when you ask to be removed and never contacted again, they take this as an indication that you want more spam mail so they sell your address as an active account. In fact, they will probably use a spam email to try and sell your email address. Third, they use deceitful methods to subvert your spam filter. That last one is what really gets me. They are tricking you into having to spend time and possibly money reading their advertisement which you obviously do not want since you tried to filter it out. This would be like you getting a telemarketing call and their response to you saying "I am not interested and please take me off your list" would be to change their phone number and company name, sell your number to other companies to increase your volume of calls, AND pretend to be one of your customers or one of your relatives to trick you into picking up the phone and listening to their first few sentences of blather. What kind of moron tries to run a business by blatantly misleading potential customers. What is the thought process: "Hmm maybe if I trick them into reading my stuff I can get them so mad that they will want to buy my questionable product"? Do you think people would put up with that kind of telemarketing? No, so why should we have to put up with email spam? This type of advertising would not be legitimate in any other form.
I have been playing online games since Warcraft II came out with support for kali. That is when I first tried it. I played a few games on kali and then I got grunt rushed by someone in two minutes. Then I got, as it is known in the community, "gayed" several times. This is basically exploiting overpowered towers and the AI behind how they are built. If you figured out how to beat these things you would then figure out that the only strategy left was lusted ogres and who could tower in and build the most, the fastest. I facetiously said "wow that's fun" and I never played that game on the internet again. I then set up a LAN with my brother and found a new love for the game. We would play cooperative against the computer or friendly 1on1s.
Then Starcraft came alone with Battle.net support. This time I stuck with it (partly because I was older I guess). I was determined to get good and climb the 1on1 ladder. After a few seasons all the game became was people exploiting certain imbalances to climb to the top and, more importantly, rise to internet RTS "fame". That is all the online gaming is about for a lot of people. They all wanted to be "famous" in the community and win at any cost. This is when I first experienced hackers and cheaters as well, but that should not be a surprise. I would not call this fun either. These people are addicted to the social acceptance and that is it. I suspect the game stopped being fun about two hours after they bought it for most of them. I also suspect they do it to attain this acceptance they lack in real life.
Now Warcraft 3 is out and I played that online for about half a year and not even close to as aggressively as I played Starcraft.
I have realized that you really cannot take online games too seriously. At the "hardcore" level they are only about positioning. Like the author said, everybody tries to exploit each other to get themselves a better position in the community/game. The game is NOT fun at that level. Almost everybody cheats and denies it (20000+ cheaters were banned in the first round of war3) and so everybody accuses each other of cheating when they lose. It is accepted to exploit any bug in the game/system to get yourself to the top. And, very few people are genuine and friendly. It's all a bunch of adolescent name calling and bullying to look good in front of the few people in a channel. Some people get frustrated if they cannot win enough (i.e. exploit) to get to the top and get angry. I have fallen into that trap on occasion. Others will resort to making the game as miserable as possible for others through any means possible (which is an even bigger problem in RPGs - see diablo 1/2 and any onling RPG style game).
Recently, I have got into a single player binge and I am loving it. I have dug out all of my old games and purchased a few new ones. Single player is awsome. It is competitive and addictive while still being fun. That is not to say that mulitplayer cannot be the same. The problem is as I have spelled it out above: There are too many ultra-competitive players, jerks, or both out there waiting to ruin the game. I had it right way back when Warcraft II came out. Set up a LAN with people you know or find a group of people online that you trust (they are out there). Then play the game how you want and ignore the jerks. Unfortunately, you can't do that with MMPORGs, but maybe in the future. As a Blizzard fan (how can you tell?) I am hoping World of Warcraft will deliver this. If you find yourself playing for any reason other than fun, maybe you should quit or rethink the way you play. I once heard a top ranked Starcraft player say "I have to be the best at everything I do and I practice until I am". What a sad way to live your life.