You know, one of the biggest arguements against Bush is his actions in Iraq and with the UN, but realistically speaking, would Kerry have done much different? I never see anybody comparing what could have been done differently with any realistic ideas.
Sure people claim going into war (both "on Terrorism" and in Iraq) was wrong, but what could have been done differently?
Yeah, Bush may of alienated a good portion of the UN when they refused aid, but did anyone happen to notice the UN didn't speak up until after the worst was over? I'm not going to claim Bush couldn't have been a bit more diplomatic, but does that excuse the UN from staying quite when it counted, and then opposing the US when it seemed safe to do so?
And with all the acts on the home front, again, would Kerry have done something else? We're not partial to the information the President has, it's very possible that Kerry would have reacted in the same manner dependent upon the intelligence reports he got.
There isn't even any real "time-passage" effect. Your character ages based on you buying skills. And that age affects nothing but your physical appearance. There is not storyline difference depending on your age, none of the other characters in the game age, cities don't change, landscape doesn't change, so it's really just a pointless feature.
I think the problem is that the FCC has a ton of redundant operations and several programs that the public views as "unnessecary" (which I agree with), but cutting back support for Public Schools and Libraries doesn't fix either of the two problems mentioned above.
Plus, think about it, you (figuratively) are cutting back money to a department because you believe it's illegally spending or wasting money. That's wrong on so many levels, first it alerts the public that a serious problem is going on. Second, you aren't addressing the problem (you might address it afterwards, but it's kinda pointless now because people are alert that somethings up). Third, no matter how you look at it you are seriously hurting a major critical function of the nation (education) rather than something with less impact.
NWN and RPG Maker aren't meant to let you make games for money. The point is to take your ideas and put them into a game for those who can't create their own (RPG Maker) or to translate D&D campaigns from a table-top setting to a computer game so you can play them online with friends (NWN).
...baseball was not at the dawn of sporting events.
A) I'm talking all the way back to the original olympics as a reference point.
B) Baseball was designed around a pre-existing sport (name escapes me at the moment and it's too damn early to go searching).
C) Yes, all games are meant to be fun for the players, but the point is a physical sport has a limited player base, but an unlimited spectator base. Computer games have an unlimited player base to go with that unlimited spectator base. Not everyone can play a physical sport, the only way you can't play a computer game is if you've lost both arms.
The one problem that will forever doom competitive computer gaming is that gaming isn't meant to be a spectator sport. Since the dawn of sporting events, sports have been designed around the viewer, not the player. On the flip side, comptuer games are soley designed for the enjoyment of the player.
What I don't understand is how it's gotten as far as it has. Probably a lack of understanding on my part as I can barely understand the reason of watching professional sports, but the whole idea of WATCHING someone else play a computer game for fun is just... the funniest thing I've ever heard.
You're right, EULA's aren't Federal Law, but a EULA is a officially recognized CONTRACT (as you stated yourself)! And it is part of Federal Law (at least in the US) that breaching a contract is illegal! Ergo, you break the EULA, you are in violation of the law.
It is also not perfectly legal (is is possible, I'll give you that) to install and run a game without agreeing to the EULA. Every game in some manner, shape, or form gives you access to the EULA before you install the game. Any company with half a brain will stipulate somewhere that installing/running the game means you agree to the EULA, whether or not you actually see/read it. This has been taken to court in the past, and unlike some other issues over the EULA, it's usually ruled in favor of the Company and not the End User.
Maybe they don't change because it'd cost more money for the nation to convert than it would for the US to buy every nation in Europe. Are you going to pay for that?
News flash, you agree to a EULA when installing/running a game, this means (in simple terms) obey our rules (whoever wrote the EULA) or don't play the game. Break our laws, the EULA, and you're breaking the letter of the Federal law.
Last I checked Valve had their butts covered in the EULA, if you cheat online, you're breaking the law.
Let me see if I understand this correctly. On the board (link in the article) Jamie Hale admitted that he knows why Paypal won't do anything about this. Namely because there was no physical shipment. Well, why don't they throw that step in? Ship out something the user has to recieve as verification, and talk to paypal to verify that it would count as "goods recieved".
Or how about actually creating a working relationship with the company that produced/developed the game? Then he could have re-couped all his loss, but because he didn't workt hat step out, he's out of the profit.
For one, there is no such thing as thief in a MMORPG. It's physically (well, I guess that should be virtually) impossible as of yet because the thief is more oriented towards non-combat actions, rather than combat actions. Closest thing you can get is a Assassin/Scout/Ranger character.
For two, Evil characters (Villians) can level against anything. Good guys, bad guys, neutral guys, you name it. Besides, in City of Heroes, you don't level just against Super-Villians, you level against normal thugs and soldiers as well.
I'm planning on using it because my moral fiber (constipation:) won't let me screw over VMWare and crack their program, and as much as I hate to admit it Linux is pure crap for home use (games) and piss poor for work use unless you design your network to support other enviroments besides windows (Active Directory).
So, now I can't use it at home because my home PC life is 75% games (as with the general population) that won't work on Linux, and I can't use it at work because management has a hard-on for Windows and won't let me run it legitimately because it breaks implemented policies since it doesn't interact with Active Directory properly.
Now, what is my solution to using Linux in either situation, VMWare or CoLinux. Already established that I won't use VMWare unless I buy it legitimately and I don't want to use linux so desperately that I'm willing to fork over the money to VMWare. Wine(X) is all well and fine except for the fact that it doesn't support (and will never officially support) any gmaes I play because they go for the hit titles and I play games like Hearts of Iron (games so intense in terms of using your head and not your reflexes that your whole family gets a headache when you play it).
Granted, you're correct that it would be more useful to run Windows apps on Linux, but you're missing a little detail there. Windows isn't open source, which means there is no way in hell for a Linux (or otherwise) distribution to ever interact with Windows, within the context of the discussion point, in an efficient manner.
You should try the Battlefront Combat Mission games. While more a tactical game set because you can't build up troops, you're stuck with what you got, they have A LOT more functionality than the basic RTS. Still requires a significant amount of micromanagement as well.
It was mentioned earlier about applications like Photoshop, or the Windows OS, have drastically increased in price due to piracy. That's probably true. However, how has the gaming arena changed? Not very much.
As a matter of fact, it's more easy to argue the relatively small price increase of games reflects inflation and the steady increase of standard pay for programmers in the 90's. Quite frankly piracy doesn't do jack to the gaming industry, other than to cause game developers to whine and moan. Had the concept/practice not come about, we'd still be in the same situation. The only possible benefit that would come from the lack of piracy is the possible improvement in game quality since companies spend a lot of time and money on trying to keep their games from being pirated (which always fails, I've yet to see a game that hasn't been cracked except for the online aspect of Neverwinter Nights).
I don't claim to be an English major, nor do I claim to really organize my sentences, but at least I manage it better than the average person online. We all have our off days too. If you're going to critique proper grammer/spelling anywhere online, you'll never get anything done.
In reference to my use of "only", welcome to reality. We all use definitive words when the proper term would be a relative word. You do it, I do it, everyone does it. As a fellow human being I expected people to understand what I meant, because obviously Apple doesn't live solely on it's present user base.
True, I was re-stating the point, but that's because it was my original argument, only I approached it differently at the start and managed to go right when I should have veered left. My original point was that Apple has been on a steady decline in it's PC market. The source of that decline includes, among other things, the lack of compability with cheap hardware (aka x86 architecture).
Finally, name one improvement in OS X, outside of hueristics, that means something to the average desktop user? My statement of "new kernel" simply collected all of those changes into one statement because nothing of it applied to the average desktop user. Besides, you're statement also seems to imply a lack of understanding, because completely changing the kernel in an OS is about as big a change as you can get. Any other change in an OS is a small matter by comparision.
No, I'm not all "huffed" up about Apply not fighting Microsoft. My original point was that there was a time when Apple had the potential to be in the position Microsoft is today, and Apple's decision to stick with the PPC architecture is one of the reasons that didn't happen.
I got thrown off on a tanget when ReallyQuiteGuy did the present day comparision, and I still wasn't refering to any Apple-vs-Microsoft war, simply pointing out that today Apple doesn't have a very good growth potential.
... of course some people are going to grab a Mac when a change this big comes up. However, all it means is Mac is using a new kernel, which ultimately means nothing. Mac didn't need a new kernel, it was fine by itself, the changes (as far as a desktop users are concerned) are mostly pointless.
Despite the fact that Mac has gained some new useres, it doesn't change the fact that 90% of their revenue still comes from people/companies who have used Macs for years and will always continue to do so. However, nearly every school in the United States teach students on Windows. Nearly every new small business startup uses Windows. Nearly every adult starts to learn how to work on a computer on Windows. Apple's growth potential lies with Linux in that small group of people/companies that don't start with Windows.
Instead of calling me a troll and coming up with a weak reply like that. Come on, all you did was attack my reply because I laid down a definitive statement about Apple being reliant on past users, which you seemed to take as an implication that no one buys a Mac that hasn't already had one. That just proves your an idiot because you couldn't come up with a better arguement. Of course people who have never buy a Mac will still buy a Mac if they feel like it, that doesn't mean there are enough of those people to save Apple in the long run, now does it?
P.S. Before you decide to use the same argument over my "Nearly every" statement, just look at the damn market shares and the training available (at home learning, schools, colleges, Libraries, almost all those sources exclusively use Windows, and if that's what people are learning on, that's what they'll buy) for Windows compared to Apple/Linux. Cold hard facts state that more people go with Windows than Apple/Linux.
Agreed, but let's see, what other architectures, with a commercial desktop OS, are doing even a half-way decent job (read better than Linux) of challenging Microsoft? Ummmm... errmmmm... that's right, none, not even Apple. Try making a comparision that actually works. Apple barely holds a fraction of the market on desktop, and even then it's only due to past users who refuse to change. Their recent decision with OS X has led to a improvement on the server side, but between Microsoft and core Unix, they don't have a chance in that market.
Ummm... the x86 architecture is a standard. Just as PPC is a standard. The actual chips itself are the 386, 486, 586, 686, etc...
And I have a news flash for you, the x86 architecture can't flounder. It's like Microsoft it's too well seated in our world today that any attempt at a rise from another option is defeated by the public, not the company in danger.
Just as people are forced to use Microsoft in a lot of cases (whether they want too or not) people are forced to use x86, although more often than not people want to use x86 over anything else.
Yeah, and that means what? I'm talking about how Apple could be in Microsoft's position right now, but one of the reasons they aren't (a big reason) is because of the hardware support. Comparing Microsoft's position to Apple, I'd say Apple is dead. And read that sentence carefully, I'm not saying Apple is dead as a company, just that there is really no chance in hell they can ever reach their former status without a decade or two of solid good fortune or a miracle the likes of which god can't even create.
Demise in the fact that when they had a high percentage of the market share they lost it to Microsoft. I'm not going to say that's the only reason, but at the time is was a pretty big part of it.
Yeah, but considering that Apple caused it's own demise by sticking to proprietary hardware instead of adapting the x86 standard as other systems, trying to understand/sympathize with Apple is ridiculous.
That theory is all well and fine except for one small problem. Games can be released according to the published releaste date and not be buggy as hell and a decent game.
It's not the tradeoff, it's just that very few companies set realistic release dates. I can't even begin to imagine the whole process, but something is wrong with it if so many companies are pushing back release dates.
Ummmm no. Warcraft I sucked for it's time too. Warcraft II was the game that put Blizzard on the map. Most people didn't even know there was a Warcraft I until II appeared.
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You know, one of the biggest arguements against Bush is his actions in Iraq and with the UN, but realistically speaking, would Kerry have done much different? I never see anybody comparing what could have been done differently with any realistic ideas.
Sure people claim going into war (both "on Terrorism" and in Iraq) was wrong, but what could have been done differently?
Yeah, Bush may of alienated a good portion of the UN when they refused aid, but did anyone happen to notice the UN didn't speak up until after the worst was over? I'm not going to claim Bush couldn't have been a bit more diplomatic, but does that excuse the UN from staying quite when it counted, and then opposing the US when it seemed safe to do so?
And with all the acts on the home front, again, would Kerry have done something else? We're not partial to the information the President has, it's very possible that Kerry would have reacted in the same manner dependent upon the intelligence reports he got.
There isn't even any real "time-passage" effect. Your character ages based on you buying skills. And that age affects nothing but your physical appearance. There is not storyline difference depending on your age, none of the other characters in the game age, cities don't change, landscape doesn't change, so it's really just a pointless feature.
I think the problem is that the FCC has a ton of redundant operations and several programs that the public views as "unnessecary" (which I agree with), but cutting back support for Public Schools and Libraries doesn't fix either of the two problems mentioned above.
Plus, think about it, you (figuratively) are cutting back money to a department because you believe it's illegally spending or wasting money. That's wrong on so many levels, first it alerts the public that a serious problem is going on. Second, you aren't addressing the problem (you might address it afterwards, but it's kinda pointless now because people are alert that somethings up). Third, no matter how you look at it you are seriously hurting a major critical function of the nation (education) rather than something with less impact.
And do those factors apply any differently to lets say... a Gameboy?
NWN and RPG Maker aren't meant to let you make games for money. The point is to take your ideas and put them into a game for those who can't create their own (RPG Maker) or to translate D&D campaigns from a table-top setting to a computer game so you can play them online with friends (NWN).
...baseball was not at the dawn of sporting events.
A) I'm talking all the way back to the original olympics as a reference point.
B) Baseball was designed around a pre-existing sport (name escapes me at the moment and it's too damn early to go searching).
C) Yes, all games are meant to be fun for the players, but the point is a physical sport has a limited player base, but an unlimited spectator base. Computer games have an unlimited player base to go with that unlimited spectator base. Not everyone can play a physical sport, the only way you can't play a computer game is if you've lost both arms.
The one problem that will forever doom competitive computer gaming is that gaming isn't meant to be a spectator sport. Since the dawn of sporting events, sports have been designed around the viewer, not the player. On the flip side, comptuer games are soley designed for the enjoyment of the player.
What I don't understand is how it's gotten as far as it has. Probably a lack of understanding on my part as I can barely understand the reason of watching professional sports, but the whole idea of WATCHING someone else play a computer game for fun is just... the funniest thing I've ever heard.
You're right, EULA's aren't Federal Law, but a EULA is a officially recognized CONTRACT (as you stated yourself)! And it is part of Federal Law (at least in the US) that breaching a contract is illegal! Ergo, you break the EULA, you are in violation of the law. It is also not perfectly legal (is is possible, I'll give you that) to install and run a game without agreeing to the EULA. Every game in some manner, shape, or form gives you access to the EULA before you install the game. Any company with half a brain will stipulate somewhere that installing/running the game means you agree to the EULA, whether or not you actually see/read it. This has been taken to court in the past, and unlike some other issues over the EULA, it's usually ruled in favor of the Company and not the End User.
Maybe they don't change because it'd cost more money for the nation to convert than it would for the US to buy every nation in Europe. Are you going to pay for that?
News flash, you agree to a EULA when installing/running a game, this means (in simple terms) obey our rules (whoever wrote the EULA) or don't play the game. Break our laws, the EULA, and you're breaking the letter of the Federal law.
Last I checked Valve had their butts covered in the EULA, if you cheat online, you're breaking the law.
Let me see if I understand this correctly. On the board (link in the article) Jamie Hale admitted that he knows why Paypal won't do anything about this. Namely because there was no physical shipment. Well, why don't they throw that step in? Ship out something the user has to recieve as verification, and talk to paypal to verify that it would count as "goods recieved".
Or how about actually creating a working relationship with the company that produced/developed the game? Then he could have re-couped all his loss, but because he didn't workt hat step out, he's out of the profit.
It all sounds like personal problems to me...
For one, there is no such thing as thief in a MMORPG. It's physically (well, I guess that should be virtually) impossible as of yet because the thief is more oriented towards non-combat actions, rather than combat actions. Closest thing you can get is a Assassin/Scout/Ranger character.
For two, Evil characters (Villians) can level against anything. Good guys, bad guys, neutral guys, you name it. Besides, in City of Heroes, you don't level just against Super-Villians, you level against normal thugs and soldiers as well.
Because you don't have to pay RedHat.
I'm planning on using it because my moral fiber (constipation:) won't let me screw over VMWare and crack their program, and as much as I hate to admit it Linux is pure crap for home use (games) and piss poor for work use unless you design your network to support other enviroments besides windows (Active Directory).
So, now I can't use it at home because my home PC life is 75% games (as with the general population) that won't work on Linux, and I can't use it at work because management has a hard-on for Windows and won't let me run it legitimately because it breaks implemented policies since it doesn't interact with Active Directory properly.
Now, what is my solution to using Linux in either situation, VMWare or CoLinux. Already established that I won't use VMWare unless I buy it legitimately and I don't want to use linux so desperately that I'm willing to fork over the money to VMWare. Wine(X) is all well and fine except for the fact that it doesn't support (and will never officially support) any gmaes I play because they go for the hit titles and I play games like Hearts of Iron (games so intense in terms of using your head and not your reflexes that your whole family gets a headache when you play it).
Granted, you're correct that it would be more useful to run Windows apps on Linux, but you're missing a little detail there. Windows isn't open source, which means there is no way in hell for a Linux (or otherwise) distribution to ever interact with Windows, within the context of the discussion point, in an efficient manner.
You should try the Battlefront Combat Mission games. While more a tactical game set because you can't build up troops, you're stuck with what you got, they have A LOT more functionality than the basic RTS. Still requires a significant amount of micromanagement as well.
It was mentioned earlier about applications like Photoshop, or the Windows OS, have drastically increased in price due to piracy. That's probably true. However, how has the gaming arena changed? Not very much.
As a matter of fact, it's more easy to argue the relatively small price increase of games reflects inflation and the steady increase of standard pay for programmers in the 90's. Quite frankly piracy doesn't do jack to the gaming industry, other than to cause game developers to whine and moan. Had the concept/practice not come about, we'd still be in the same situation. The only possible benefit that would come from the lack of piracy is the possible improvement in game quality since companies spend a lot of time and money on trying to keep their games from being pirated (which always fails, I've yet to see a game that hasn't been cracked except for the online aspect of Neverwinter Nights).
I don't claim to be an English major, nor do I claim to really organize my sentences, but at least I manage it better than the average person online. We all have our off days too. If you're going to critique proper grammer/spelling anywhere online, you'll never get anything done.
In reference to my use of "only", welcome to reality. We all use definitive words when the proper term would be a relative word. You do it, I do it, everyone does it. As a fellow human being I expected people to understand what I meant, because obviously Apple doesn't live solely on it's present user base.
True, I was re-stating the point, but that's because it was my original argument, only I approached it differently at the start and managed to go right when I should have veered left. My original point was that Apple has been on a steady decline in it's PC market. The source of that decline includes, among other things, the lack of compability with cheap hardware (aka x86 architecture).
Finally, name one improvement in OS X, outside of hueristics, that means something to the average desktop user? My statement of "new kernel" simply collected all of those changes into one statement because nothing of it applied to the average desktop user. Besides, you're statement also seems to imply a lack of understanding, because completely changing the kernel in an OS is about as big a change as you can get. Any other change in an OS is a small matter by comparision.
No, I'm not all "huffed" up about Apply not fighting Microsoft. My original point was that there was a time when Apple had the potential to be in the position Microsoft is today, and Apple's decision to stick with the PPC architecture is one of the reasons that didn't happen.
I got thrown off on a tanget when ReallyQuiteGuy did the present day comparision, and I still wasn't refering to any Apple-vs-Microsoft war, simply pointing out that today Apple doesn't have a very good growth potential.
... of course some people are going to grab a Mac when a change this big comes up. However, all it means is Mac is using a new kernel, which ultimately means nothing. Mac didn't need a new kernel, it was fine by itself, the changes (as far as a desktop users are concerned) are mostly pointless.
Despite the fact that Mac has gained some new useres, it doesn't change the fact that 90% of their revenue still comes from people/companies who have used Macs for years and will always continue to do so. However, nearly every school in the United States teach students on Windows. Nearly every new small business startup uses Windows. Nearly every adult starts to learn how to work on a computer on Windows. Apple's growth potential lies with Linux in that small group of people/companies that don't start with Windows.
Instead of calling me a troll and coming up with a weak reply like that. Come on, all you did was attack my reply because I laid down a definitive statement about Apple being reliant on past users, which you seemed to take as an implication that no one buys a Mac that hasn't already had one. That just proves your an idiot because you couldn't come up with a better arguement. Of course people who have never buy a Mac will still buy a Mac if they feel like it, that doesn't mean there are enough of those people to save Apple in the long run, now does it?
P.S. Before you decide to use the same argument over my "Nearly every" statement, just look at the damn market shares and the training available (at home learning, schools, colleges, Libraries, almost all those sources exclusively use Windows, and if that's what people are learning on, that's what they'll buy) for Windows compared to Apple/Linux. Cold hard facts state that more people go with Windows than Apple/Linux.
Agreed, but let's see, what other architectures, with a commercial desktop OS, are doing even a half-way decent job (read better than Linux) of challenging Microsoft? Ummmm... errmmmm... that's right, none, not even Apple. Try making a comparision that actually works. Apple barely holds a fraction of the market on desktop, and even then it's only due to past users who refuse to change. Their recent decision with OS X has led to a improvement on the server side, but between Microsoft and core Unix, they don't have a chance in that market.
Ummm... the x86 architecture is a standard. Just as PPC is a standard. The actual chips itself are the 386, 486, 586, 686, etc...
And I have a news flash for you, the x86 architecture can't flounder. It's like Microsoft it's too well seated in our world today that any attempt at a rise from another option is defeated by the public, not the company in danger.
Just as people are forced to use Microsoft in a lot of cases (whether they want too or not) people are forced to use x86, although more often than not people want to use x86 over anything else.
Yeah, and that means what? I'm talking about how Apple could be in Microsoft's position right now, but one of the reasons they aren't (a big reason) is because of the hardware support. Comparing Microsoft's position to Apple, I'd say Apple is dead. And read that sentence carefully, I'm not saying Apple is dead as a company, just that there is really no chance in hell they can ever reach their former status without a decade or two of solid good fortune or a miracle the likes of which god can't even create.
Demise in the fact that when they had a high percentage of the market share they lost it to Microsoft. I'm not going to say that's the only reason, but at the time is was a pretty big part of it.
Yeah, but considering that Apple caused it's own demise by sticking to proprietary hardware instead of adapting the x86 standard as other systems, trying to understand/sympathize with Apple is ridiculous.
That theory is all well and fine except for one small problem. Games can be released according to the published releaste date and not be buggy as hell and a decent game. It's not the tradeoff, it's just that very few companies set realistic release dates. I can't even begin to imagine the whole process, but something is wrong with it if so many companies are pushing back release dates.
Ummmm no. Warcraft I sucked for it's time too. Warcraft II was the game that put Blizzard on the map. Most people didn't even know there was a Warcraft I until II appeared.