EA and Ubisoft have explicitly stated that PC gaming is dead. Since games are still being made, this makes them incredibly angry that years after they said PC gaming is dead, they're still having to make PC games. Understandably, they're lashing out and trying to finish the fucker off as fast as possible to save face. I expect that if Ubisoft is ever asked to make another PC game, it will intentionally format your PC while showing a dialog "SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT A CONSOLE YOU FUCKING LOSER!"
Like the Republican who told everybody not to fill the forms out, and stick it to the man. Then somebody told her that if her constituents didn't fill it out, her seat would disappear, as her district was already so small that it barely had enough people to have one in the first place, and any drop in population would see it subsumed into surrounding districts. "By don't fill it out I meant only fill out the number of people in your household."
They also told not just the IRS, and the DHS, but everybody in the country who would listen, what the overall population of the country, and each state, was, along with lots of other estimates and statistics! Hang them all, I say.
The whole point is to get pictures of various populations and how they're distributed. TFA is basically saying "They promise it's private but then they announce the US population. How did they count them if they are private!!!!!" These nutjobs think that privacy means as soon as they get your form they put it in a shredder. They're trying to imply that having an estimate on the number of arabs in a given area is the same thing as having each of their addresses on file and ready to go, like they had in WW2. It's also hilarious that all of the "Swear allegiance to the flag, the Federal Government uber alles! Anybody who questions the government deserves death, hang them high, you are a traitor if you question!" have made an instantaneous 180 and are now screaming "Resist, the government is the ultimate evil, don't pay taxes, don't fill out forms, shoot to kill!" FOX news pundits are even saying they hope and pray there's another 9/11 scale terrorist attack to give them an excuse to "eliminate" Obama. After all, he made America unsafe by "brutally neutering" the military by making a "dramatic cut" to the defense budget by increasing by not as much as they wanted. While they simultaniously decry him for being a big budget liberal by increasing military spending...
He's not saying the clonestamp has been in there since CS4 and this just automated it. The clonestamp has been in Photoshop since the dawn of time. He's saying this exact tool has been in there since the last version, so it's not technically "new". And robotics cars ARE basically intelligent automated cars, that's the whole damn point. Just because you somehow think writing "intelligent, automated" software is trivial, doesn't mean that any time somebody uses those words, they must be dismissing it as well...
They linked "Trace the signal" to an article about companies using GPS trackers in employees' cell phones. I think it's simplified so that ABC can understand it, and they still don't;)
Also, the courts are granting one of the masterminds leniency in exchange for prosecuting their underlings? Isn't that the opposite of how it works? Reducing the sentence of a drug kingpin in exchange for testimony against 2 of his street dealers, really?
Exactly. During the cold war, the government "planned" to drop a massive nuke on the moon, right on the horizon, so the blast would be silhouetted against space and half the planet would be able to see it with the naked eye. For some reason, they decided not to implement this plan. If there's one thing the US government has no shortage of, it's crazy ideas that they never implement.
They aren't maintaining the system at all, because it doesn't even exist yet. They're not saying they are against it, they are saying they are totally for it to protect the children. They just want to make it clear that all it will do is stop casual browsers from finding child porn, but that determined individuals will always find away around filters. As in every article, Slashdot made up an almost entirely fictional summary to go along with TFA.
What the hell are you smoking? Rogue use? Australia pirated the software? Somehow turning into copyright means you have the right to steal your stuff back, just like OJ? TFA says they agree with the idea, but don't think it will work very well, since determined people will find their way around any firewall. Nowhere does it say they even disagree at all. As for "why are they cashing the cheque", they aren't, RFTA
M86 has yet to settle on pricing should it chose to supply technology for the proposed Internet filter.
As in, they're putting in a bid, they HOPE to be the one to provide it still, they just want to be on record that it won't work as a miracle cure, just a good first step towards protecting the children.
You might be thinking of telling him "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." and collecting on that bet. But like all Republicans who say it's not in the constitution, he'll say "I said 'Separation of church and state' and your quote doesn't mention that at all." They argue that just because they can't pass a law involving any religious institution in any way, doesn't imply they have to be separate. They can mandate all sorts of things religion-related, it just says they can't pass a law!
Yes, there are laws about that. That's why the step-father had to go to eBay and snag an imported one from China where there are no such laws about toy guns. It's certainly not suspicious at all that he'd go so far out of his way to buy an illegally realistic toy gun for his step daughter, then replace it with a real loaded pistol on the coffee table.
Savory in English MEANS things flavoured with aromatic herbs, which doesn't make for a very good etymology.
Savory in British MEANS for the course of a meal that's served after pudding, which doesn't make for a very good etymology.
In fact, along the first point, there's even a herb specifically called "Savory". Also you have a bizarre definition of "technically equivalent" if you are saying "sweet" technically means "aromatic herbs".
Because we used "savory" to mean "pleasing" which describes all kinds of good things. Unless you're European, in which case you mean "savoury" as in the course that follows pudding, usually pickled fish, toasts, or brandied fruits, few-to-none of which are "savory" like you're trying to twist and bastardize the word into meaning. We've not ever referred to glutamates as "savory". If we've ever referred to a specific taste as the "savory" taste, it's been aromatic herbs, not glutamates. PS "savory" comes from French, so funny that you're all anti-Japanese (even implying he lied by saying he "supposedly" discovered the taste receptors) when the word you want to use isn't even ENGLISH ORIGINALLY. Some bastards started using it 800 years ago when they discovered there wasn't a word for it, but the French had one! Heaven forbid we do that again. Nosir, gotta protect the language, NO NEW WORDS.
They're not building on it, they had a license. Activision reneged. This is terrible news, AGD is sure to be next on the chopping block, with their fully licensed remake of Quest for Glory 2.
Ha, I'd never buy an Ubisoft game again after AC1, it had most of the same issues. Non-pirated versions were hella unstable if your net wasn't working properly, or if their servers were lagging, because it also confirmed DRM status every 3 seconds, it just complain if the connection failed or you didn't have a connection at all. Anyways, not playing Ubisoft games is
no loss, at all. It says wall of shame, but I think it's really just a wall of all third party games on the Wii...I mean, Tenchu and No More Heros were great, and Crystal Bearers is fairly decent. All of that Ubisoft crap is on PC, too. So no wonder Ubisoft thinks PC and Wii gaming is dying. Nobody buys their shit, so they blame the hardware, not their criminally awful shovel-ware. Ubisoft has said for years now that they want out of the PC game market, since it's impossible to sell games anymore. And they always slam Nintendo, saying nobody buys third party Wii games, only Nintendo, and it's because Nintendo fans are mindless zombies who hate freedom. Looks like they might get their wish.
You have recourse via most states' consumer protection laws. If the game doesn't function like it says on the box, they must offer a full refund. Of course, if it says it requires Internet Access to play, then it IS functioning like it says on the box, so no, you have no recourse in that case. Plus, many states accept EULAs as binding contracts, and all EULAs always disclaim any warranty or consumer protection requirements, so you'd have to try to fight the EULA, too.
Yeah, Bioware pissed me off an awful lot. Not only is there "first time buyer" bonus gear in Mass Effect 2 (not that it's any good stat- or appearance-wise), but there's actually a game dealer on the Citadel. They make sure to make him a giant douchebag, talking about how he prefers realistic games where it takes weeks of real time to fly between planets, not the bullshit where you just click on the map. He also sells used games, and makes comments about how that way the guys who actually made it get nothing, and he gets all their hard earned money. He goes on to offer you an member card, and says you'll get a free digital copy of a game if you buy now. Way to encourage me to ever buy a Bioware game again, assholes. Can't you guys even try to contain your pathetic crying? I'm surprised they didn't just out and say this guy works for EB Games. Bioware is talking about how from now on, they'll take it even farther than ME2. Next game the game will be missing most of its content if you don't unlock it with their "loyalty code" or whatever they call it. Of course, GameStop/EB opens all of the boxes for 360 and PS3 and PC games so they can keep the disks behind the counter, to prevent theft. They couldn't POSSIBLY be corrupt and steal "Real Game" unlock codes, so that their used customers will have a nice working code, and you find that your code is already in use. Then you have to spend an extra $20+ just to play the game you already bought. (Remember, EB games offers a no refund no matter what policy). Bioware was also going to use DRM in Mass Effect that would connect every few days, and if there was no net at the time, your games goes bye-bye. They backed down, but now that Ubisoft is doing it, I'm sure their knew Star Wars game will use Ubisoft's new system, too. Bioware and Ubisoft are leading a huge push to get all games as Online Only, the CD just contains the engine, all content streams from their servers, so even single player games will have lag now, awesome! And of course, they'll then have an excuse to charge $20/month to play their games.
It's actually hilarious, Assassins' Creed 1 has the same DRM system, only if it couldn't connect, instead of crashing, it would just let you play. But if the connection was slow, your game would lag just like an online game played via modem. So the game tanked hardcore. The fact that their review copies were designed to crash at the half way point on PURPOSE to fuck pirates who got a copy by a leak from a gaming magazine/website, ensured that the PC version tanked in the reviews. Meanwhile, the pirate version didn't have massive lag issues at launch, while all the legit copies lagged to fuck and made the game unplayable, as their servers melted under the force of every player of AC1 connecting to their servers every 3 seconds. Their official solution was "unplug your internet connection before you launch the game". To this day, Ubisoft cites AC1 as proof that piracy hurts games, as AC1 sold something like 10,000 copies on PC, as opposed to the millions it sold on XBox. (though PS you can pirates XBox games easier than PC games, since they don't have DRM to crack). It appears Ubisoft's point was still lost in their bosses, since they were still being asked to make PC games against their very loud and obnoxious protests. So now they're trying to see if they can't top AC1, and sell under 1000 copies on PC. Thus proving forever that piracy is the cause of PC gaming's woes, somehow. Meanwhile, the pirate version will be up, at the latest, the day before street date. (You see, TFA is wrong according to PC gamer, the games do NOT save online, they save offline, with an option to have the game upload your local games to the server when you quit the game. Thus, any cracking need only fool the game into thinking the server said it's OK to continue, no server emulation required).
Actually, all their games save offline, and the "online save" (which is optional) works by uploading your saved game directory to their servers when you log out. PC Gamer confirmed this, though an NDA prevents them from using any actual screenshots in their reviews anymore. They said if you have saved game saving turned on, when you hit quit, you get a progress meter as it uploads your saves, and you can turn this feature off if, like every person in the world, you don't have a pressing need to have your saves concurrent across multiple machines. So all you have to do is find ConfirmDRMConnectionAndCrashIfNone() and NOP it, and the game will work just fine, save and load is done locally.
RTFA. If it goes down at all, the game freezes solid. So if your connection lags, your OFFLINE GAME will lag to hell. And if its down for more than 3 seconds or so, you can no longer resume from where you were, it comes back to the last checkpoint (IE you go back just like if your character had died). That's not a HUGE problem, but don't say there's NO problems. Now, their other non-functional DRM disguised as a game (Settlers 7) doesn't do this, it resumes as normal. But AC2 sure as fuck restarts you just like you'd died. Ubisoft says "But there are lots of checkpoints don't worry, it's not like you'll lose, like, an hour of play."
Every SINGLE article detailing it specifically says that online saves are optional. It's an on by default option in the configs. You can turn it off. Even when it's on, all saves are still saved locally, and your local, offline, saved game directory is synced with their servers when you quit the game. So maybe instead of spreading FUD, you could read ANYTHING other than this particular TFA, where he even acknowledges at the bottom "OK it doesn't save online, but my point still stands, they COULD have online saves only making their NEXT game uncrackable!!!! I WASN'T WRONG I WAS LOOKING TO THE FUTAR!!!!"
Slashdot Mirror
EA and Ubisoft have explicitly stated that PC gaming is dead. Since games are still being made, this makes them incredibly angry that years after they said PC gaming is dead, they're still having to make PC games. Understandably, they're lashing out and trying to finish the fucker off as fast as possible to save face. I expect that if Ubisoft is ever asked to make another PC game, it will intentionally format your PC while showing a dialog "SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT A CONSOLE YOU FUCKING LOSER!"
Like the Republican who told everybody not to fill the forms out, and stick it to the man. Then somebody told her that if her constituents didn't fill it out, her seat would disappear, as her district was already so small that it barely had enough people to have one in the first place, and any drop in population would see it subsumed into surrounding districts. "By don't fill it out I meant only fill out the number of people in your household."
They also told not just the IRS, and the DHS, but everybody in the country who would listen, what the overall population of the country, and each state, was, along with lots of other estimates and statistics! Hang them all, I say.
The whole point is to get pictures of various populations and how they're distributed. TFA is basically saying "They promise it's private but then they announce the US population. How did they count them if they are private!!!!!" These nutjobs think that privacy means as soon as they get your form they put it in a shredder. They're trying to imply that having an estimate on the number of arabs in a given area is the same thing as having each of their addresses on file and ready to go, like they had in WW2. It's also hilarious that all of the "Swear allegiance to the flag, the Federal Government uber alles! Anybody who questions the government deserves death, hang them high, you are a traitor if you question!" have made an instantaneous 180 and are now screaming "Resist, the government is the ultimate evil, don't pay taxes, don't fill out forms, shoot to kill!" FOX news pundits are even saying they hope and pray there's another 9/11 scale terrorist attack to give them an excuse to "eliminate" Obama. After all, he made America unsafe by "brutally neutering" the military by making a "dramatic cut" to the defense budget by increasing by not as much as they wanted. While they simultaniously decry him for being a big budget liberal by increasing military spending...
He's not saying the clonestamp has been in there since CS4 and this just automated it. The clonestamp has been in Photoshop since the dawn of time. He's saying this exact tool has been in there since the last version, so it's not technically "new". And robotics cars ARE basically intelligent automated cars, that's the whole damn point. Just because you somehow think writing "intelligent, automated" software is trivial, doesn't mean that any time somebody uses those words, they must be dismissing it as well...
They linked "Trace the signal" to an article about companies using GPS trackers in employees' cell phones. I think it's simplified so that ABC can understand it, and they still don't ;)
Also, the courts are granting one of the masterminds leniency in exchange for prosecuting their underlings? Isn't that the opposite of how it works? Reducing the sentence of a drug kingpin in exchange for testimony against 2 of his street dealers, really?
The USA has a population of 300 million, not 300 billion.
Exactly. During the cold war, the government "planned" to drop a massive nuke on the moon, right on the horizon, so the blast would be silhouetted against space and half the planet would be able to see it with the naked eye. For some reason, they decided not to implement this plan. If there's one thing the US government has no shortage of, it's crazy ideas that they never implement.
They aren't maintaining the system at all, because it doesn't even exist yet. They're not saying they are against it, they are saying they are totally for it to protect the children. They just want to make it clear that all it will do is stop casual browsers from finding child porn, but that determined individuals will always find away around filters. As in every article, Slashdot made up an almost entirely fictional summary to go along with TFA.
As in, they're putting in a bid, they HOPE to be the one to provide it still, they just want to be on record that it won't work as a miracle cure, just a good first step towards protecting the children.
Actually if you consult your new Texas-brand Textbook, you'll find that it was George W. Bush who said that ;)
You might be thinking of telling him "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." and collecting on that bet. But like all Republicans who say it's not in the constitution, he'll say "I said 'Separation of church and state' and your quote doesn't mention that at all." They argue that just because they can't pass a law involving any religious institution in any way, doesn't imply they have to be separate. They can mandate all sorts of things religion-related, it just says they can't pass a law!
Was is an S&W Sigma 380, like in TFA? Or are you just assuming that every .380 in the entire world has an identical pull?
Yes, there are laws about that. That's why the step-father had to go to eBay and snag an imported one from China where there are no such laws about toy guns. It's certainly not suspicious at all that he'd go so far out of his way to buy an illegally realistic toy gun for his step daughter, then replace it with a real loaded pistol on the coffee table.
Savory in English MEANS things flavoured with aromatic herbs, which doesn't make for a very good etymology.
Savory in British MEANS for the course of a meal that's served after pudding, which doesn't make for a very good etymology.
In fact, along the first point, there's even a herb specifically called "Savory". Also you have a bizarre definition of "technically equivalent" if you are saying "sweet" technically means "aromatic herbs".
Because we used "savory" to mean "pleasing" which describes all kinds of good things. Unless you're European, in which case you mean "savoury" as in the course that follows pudding, usually pickled fish, toasts, or brandied fruits, few-to-none of which are "savory" like you're trying to twist and bastardize the word into meaning. We've not ever referred to glutamates as "savory". If we've ever referred to a specific taste as the "savory" taste, it's been aromatic herbs, not glutamates. PS "savory" comes from French, so funny that you're all anti-Japanese (even implying he lied by saying he "supposedly" discovered the taste receptors) when the word you want to use isn't even ENGLISH ORIGINALLY. Some bastards started using it 800 years ago when they discovered there wasn't a word for it, but the French had one! Heaven forbid we do that again. Nosir, gotta protect the language, NO NEW WORDS.
They're not building on it, they had a license. Activision reneged. This is terrible news, AGD is sure to be next on the chopping block, with their fully licensed remake of Quest for Glory 2.
Ha, I'd never buy an Ubisoft game again after AC1, it had most of the same issues. Non-pirated versions were hella unstable if your net wasn't working properly, or if their servers were lagging, because it also confirmed DRM status every 3 seconds, it just complain if the connection failed or you didn't have a connection at all. Anyways, not playing Ubisoft games is no loss, at all. It says wall of shame, but I think it's really just a wall of all third party games on the Wii...I mean, Tenchu and No More Heros were great, and Crystal Bearers is fairly decent. All of that Ubisoft crap is on PC, too. So no wonder Ubisoft thinks PC and Wii gaming is dying. Nobody buys their shit, so they blame the hardware, not their criminally awful shovel-ware. Ubisoft has said for years now that they want out of the PC game market, since it's impossible to sell games anymore. And they always slam Nintendo, saying nobody buys third party Wii games, only Nintendo, and it's because Nintendo fans are mindless zombies who hate freedom. Looks like they might get their wish.
You have recourse via most states' consumer protection laws. If the game doesn't function like it says on the box, they must offer a full refund. Of course, if it says it requires Internet Access to play, then it IS functioning like it says on the box, so no, you have no recourse in that case. Plus, many states accept EULAs as binding contracts, and all EULAs always disclaim any warranty or consumer protection requirements, so you'd have to try to fight the EULA, too.
Yeah, Bioware pissed me off an awful lot. Not only is there "first time buyer" bonus gear in Mass Effect 2 (not that it's any good stat- or appearance-wise), but there's actually a game dealer on the Citadel. They make sure to make him a giant douchebag, talking about how he prefers realistic games where it takes weeks of real time to fly between planets, not the bullshit where you just click on the map. He also sells used games, and makes comments about how that way the guys who actually made it get nothing, and he gets all their hard earned money. He goes on to offer you an member card, and says you'll get a free digital copy of a game if you buy now. Way to encourage me to ever buy a Bioware game again, assholes. Can't you guys even try to contain your pathetic crying? I'm surprised they didn't just out and say this guy works for EB Games. Bioware is talking about how from now on, they'll take it even farther than ME2. Next game the game will be missing most of its content if you don't unlock it with their "loyalty code" or whatever they call it. Of course, GameStop/EB opens all of the boxes for 360 and PS3 and PC games so they can keep the disks behind the counter, to prevent theft. They couldn't POSSIBLY be corrupt and steal "Real Game" unlock codes, so that their used customers will have a nice working code, and you find that your code is already in use. Then you have to spend an extra $20+ just to play the game you already bought. (Remember, EB games offers a no refund no matter what policy). Bioware was also going to use DRM in Mass Effect that would connect every few days, and if there was no net at the time, your games goes bye-bye. They backed down, but now that Ubisoft is doing it, I'm sure their knew Star Wars game will use Ubisoft's new system, too. Bioware and Ubisoft are leading a huge push to get all games as Online Only, the CD just contains the engine, all content streams from their servers, so even single player games will have lag now, awesome! And of course, they'll then have an excuse to charge $20/month to play their games.
It's actually hilarious, Assassins' Creed 1 has the same DRM system, only if it couldn't connect, instead of crashing, it would just let you play. But if the connection was slow, your game would lag just like an online game played via modem. So the game tanked hardcore. The fact that their review copies were designed to crash at the half way point on PURPOSE to fuck pirates who got a copy by a leak from a gaming magazine/website, ensured that the PC version tanked in the reviews. Meanwhile, the pirate version didn't have massive lag issues at launch, while all the legit copies lagged to fuck and made the game unplayable, as their servers melted under the force of every player of AC1 connecting to their servers every 3 seconds. Their official solution was "unplug your internet connection before you launch the game". To this day, Ubisoft cites AC1 as proof that piracy hurts games, as AC1 sold something like 10,000 copies on PC, as opposed to the millions it sold on XBox. (though PS you can pirates XBox games easier than PC games, since they don't have DRM to crack). It appears Ubisoft's point was still lost in their bosses, since they were still being asked to make PC games against their very loud and obnoxious protests. So now they're trying to see if they can't top AC1, and sell under 1000 copies on PC. Thus proving forever that piracy is the cause of PC gaming's woes, somehow. Meanwhile, the pirate version will be up, at the latest, the day before street date. (You see, TFA is wrong according to PC gamer, the games do NOT save online, they save offline, with an option to have the game upload your local games to the server when you quit the game. Thus, any cracking need only fool the game into thinking the server said it's OK to continue, no server emulation required).
Actually, all their games save offline, and the "online save" (which is optional) works by uploading your saved game directory to their servers when you log out. PC Gamer confirmed this, though an NDA prevents them from using any actual screenshots in their reviews anymore. They said if you have saved game saving turned on, when you hit quit, you get a progress meter as it uploads your saves, and you can turn this feature off if, like every person in the world, you don't have a pressing need to have your saves concurrent across multiple machines. So all you have to do is find ConfirmDRMConnectionAndCrashIfNone() and NOP it, and the game will work just fine, save and load is done locally.
RTFA. If it goes down at all, the game freezes solid. So if your connection lags, your OFFLINE GAME will lag to hell. And if its down for more than 3 seconds or so, you can no longer resume from where you were, it comes back to the last checkpoint (IE you go back just like if your character had died). That's not a HUGE problem, but don't say there's NO problems. Now, their other non-functional DRM disguised as a game (Settlers 7) doesn't do this, it resumes as normal. But AC2 sure as fuck restarts you just like you'd died. Ubisoft says "But there are lots of checkpoints don't worry, it's not like you'll lose, like, an hour of play."
Every SINGLE article detailing it specifically says that online saves are optional. It's an on by default option in the configs. You can turn it off. Even when it's on, all saves are still saved locally, and your local, offline, saved game directory is synced with their servers when you quit the game. So maybe instead of spreading FUD, you could read ANYTHING other than this particular TFA, where he even acknowledges at the bottom "OK it doesn't save online, but my point still stands, they COULD have online saves only making their NEXT game uncrackable!!!! I WASN'T WRONG I WAS LOOKING TO THE FUTAR!!!!"