Someone can (and will) correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "Plays for Sure" proof that a business doesn't have to go out of business for the company to stop supporting their media?
Even if we knew for sure that Disney would last forever, we don't know that they'll want/be able to support DRMed media they sold a long time ago...
But there is no legal benefit to charging $10. $1 or $0.10 would be adequate.
No legal benefit. I suspect, though, that once they charge anything, they need to charge a minimum amount to cover accounting costs, as well as other administration.
Didn't the CEO just fall victim to identity theft?
There has been one confirmed case of a $500 loan via ID-theft of their CEO. There are 25 other disputed cases. According to the company, as of last month 105 of Lifelock's customers have been victims of identity theft. Which is 0.01% of their customers.
Is 0.01% more or less than the percentage of the general population who have been impersonated in this way?
(Yes, I'm assuming only 2 candidates for this one, but more candidates only matter if they have a chance of winning.)
If Obama takes the same position as McCain on this issue, it effectively removes it from the table. So let's say they both vote for immunity. If this issue is important to you, and you want to vote for someone who voted against it, you can't-- you'll have to choose based on other criteria. By doing this, they can control the issues that people have left to vote on, putting things more in their favor.
I'm not saying it's right or good (or that they are even doing it!) but it is a valid strategy.
That's not the fault of the First Amendment or of the U.S. political process. That's the partially the fault of the media's sensationalism and everybody's short attention spans. But there is press coverage when baseless allegations are proved false and, IMHO, the ultimate responsibility lies on the voters -- if you're not paying attention, maybe you shouldn't vote. *shrug* How does someone know if they aren't paying enough attention?
Consider VoIP... people are deliberately choosing telephony services that are less reliable and lower quality than POTS, because VoIP is cheaper. This is true, but I think this has a lot to do with cell phones. Now that people have another reliable telephone for emergencies, etc, they don't need a second 100% solution in the home.
I'll bet if we didn't have cell phones, people would be a lot pickier about their home line.
Then it would seem that Comcast would loose a lot of customers. I would think that to maximize customer satisfaction, they would offer both G rated and non-filtered internet. That seems like a good solution to me. In many places, there is only one option-- you either take them or go back to dialup.
I doubt Comcast/whoever would lose many customers in these markets, so they would be free to simply filter everyone without being affected financially. And again, there would be nothing that would prevent an ISP from including anything they wanted under the "Not G rated" label. I know it's an extreme example, but I'm sure some campaigns would love to have their opponent's web site simply not exist...
What happens when Comcast, the only broadband ISP available in some areas, decides that it will be a "G" rated company?
And what if the only broadband ISP, which is "G" rated, decides that something you like is something that needs to be blocked?
Remember that when someone else makes the decision of what is right and wrong for you to view, it is very possible they will decide that something you want to view isn't appropriate (examples: guns, anime, D&D, republican/democrat sites, etc.)
Interstingly, in a lot of ancient two player games, WASD or WAXD were used for the second player controls.
Sadly, my memory fails me as to the exact ones, but I remember playing many of them.
While I agree that the parent is a bit extreme, it only takes a few minutes of looking at the lawsuits to see that, yes, the RIAA is destroying people's lives. They're doing it over something as silly as a downloaded album.
So I guess it really just depends on how you look at it. Joe downloads a CD using a file sharing program, and because of that is financially ruined. Is that right?
So you have a group of people running around destroying people's lives for something as minor as copying something. Since other avenues of solving the problem don't seem to be accomplishing anything, is it surprising to see that some people are starting to think that maybe violence is a solution?
A few years ago, I had "Halo 2" on my car. Big fan of NIN and all that, and it was obscure enough that only the hardcore NIN fans got it. Anytime anyone asked what it meant, I would ask them what they thought it meant, and got some very interesting responses. (I learned, for example, that some people thought I was military: HALO)
Anyway, I remember very clearly the day that Halo 2, the game, was released. All day, Fraternity-type guys were driving by with their windows rolled down, shaking their copy of Halo 2 at me and screaming "woooo!" During that time, I had parents come up to me and ask me if I felt that Halo 2 was appropriate for their kid. I had people congratulate me on writing such a popular game.
It was a very strange experience. I don't have any Halo markings of any sort on my current car, so the release date went by unnoticed. Although I seem to be the only person who actually liked the "game fuel" mountain dew flavor.
Unfortunately, most people won't see this as a complete, painless, vertical solution. Let's say I have Sprint. Let's say that my contract isn't going to up until, say, October.
If I bought an iPhone, I can assure you that the whole experience wouldn't "Just Work", even though the iPhone does. I'd be putting myself in an extremely poor situation.
I'm not sure there's a solution to this given the current environment. I'd love for this to change.
Hmm. I thought another point of the article was that females were trying to look "desirable", and that we have the tools to make any woman "desirable" regardless of their actual genetic makeup.
So, there is a subset of women, then, that look "desirable" even though they are not, and spread the wrong genes.
There's also the issue where the traits of youthful women are different throughout the world-- I would assume that in these places, they would go by a different set of standards.
But I'm far from an expert. Just using the information from the article.
PvP in World of Warcraft is probably different than the system that you are used to.
In World of Warcraft, there's three ways to PvP:
* Battlegrounds/Arena (prepared fighting)
* World PvP (unprepared fighting)
* Duels (practice fighting)
In BG/A, you can fight against either side, but the rules are set. (for example, 5v5 in a 100x100 forest) There is no interference from the normal world-- it's like playing a game of football.
World PvP is where you run into each other in the game world. In general, one side is less prepared than the other. You may only fight against the opposing faction (Alliance vs Horde)
The last is only against your own side, 1v1.
In none of these cases does it matter -to me- if someone has bought their character. Why not?
Arena/BG-- I expect anyone I fight to be geared to the teeth anyway. People don't generally go into prepared fights when they know they'll lose. Because of this, the purchased characters blend in with the non-purchased characters, the only difference is that the purchased characters have less practice, and will be easier to defeat.
World PvP-- If I'm on the prepared side, I'm just looking at a tougher fight. No problems there, I started it. If I'm the one being attacked, well, personally I have no issues. I can see how newer players might, though.
Duels-- Duels are just silly practice. I have nothing to gain by winning or losing them, so really, a tougher opponent is to my advantage.
Now, I can see why someone who PvPs to excess would care-- but someone who does will know the best players on their server, and will know when an account has been bought, and act accordingly.
I can also see why a new player would care-- getting smashed by someone who bought their character would be no fun. Interestingly, in WoW, they have no way of knowing. Communication is cut off between the two factions, so you would have to make an effort outside the game to figure things out, and at that point you're putting more effort into the game than a defenseless new guy.
---
back to your other point-- no, I don't care if someone buys their way past me in content. There are people who got past me in content simply by spending 24/7 banging their head on the content until they won-- am I bitter at them because I cant' play 24/7? no.
However, I stand by my original point-- when the purchasing of gold affects my play, that's when I care.
I can't tell if this in response to me because of the new format, but I'll respond as if it was...
What I said is what would happen as gold selling becomes more commonplace. It's why companies like Blizzard fight it. I can't speak for other servers, but mine is a fairly quiet server-- and gold selling seems to be under control. So I don't see the effects above.
I can't speak for other servers. Maybe they have these problems, maybe they don't.
And, like I said, I don't directly care if you bought stuff for yourself. If you geared yourself exactly the same as me for $100 on ebay, walked up to me and started mocking me, I wouldn't really care.
The problem is when the scale gets larger. If a larger portion of the population bought the suit, that becomes the new "norm", and people who want to play the game as a game instead of spending money get pushed out-- or they have to turn their game playing into work.
Then it stops being a game, it stops being fun. And, for your comedy gold, I stop playing.
"Should I interview them to find out if they bought the character so that I would know to get mad?"
That's really your choice. If you want an honest, in-game answer-- if I'm participating in an event that is going to cost me a lot of time and in-game money (say, a difficult raid instance), I want to make sure the people I bring with me are capable of doing their part. Why? It's not fun if one person is causing the group to fail for no good reason-- sacrificing 24 people's fun for one.
That didn't answer the question directly, so now I will: I wouldn't refuse someone a position because they bought their account. What is needed are people who enjoy doing their best, enjoy the company of the fellow group, and work with them to accomplish a common goal, like with any team game or sport. People who match stick around.
Ignoring the "real world" effects for a moment, I'm going to focus on the in-game.
Remember that these are MMORPGS. And although the game design limits the amount that one player can change another's gaming experience, economy is one thing that all players share.
If players are buying gold, they are intending to buy things with that gold. These items (and these are probably only the few "best" items) will have an increased demand, making it more difficult for everyone to get temp.
Because of the influx of gold, and the scarcity of these items, players will be willing to pay more for them. This will make it more difficult for non-gold-buying people to get these items.
Because there are now more people with these items, they become a requirement in order to be invited to join parties (raids, group, insert system here). "What? you don't have the +10 dragonslayer? Sorry, we'll take Bob who does."
The gold also has to come from somewhere. Although games like WoW allow for players to collect money in their own "instance", people frequently collect gold in common areas-- which means that I have increased competition in that area.
You're affecting players other than yourself. If you are dumping gold on my server, you are:
* Increasing the cost of items / Decreasing the value of gold
* Decreasing the availability of items
* Increasing the requirements to compete
* Increasing the difficulty to play specific parts of the game
The short answer is-- no, I don't directly really care that you got the +10 dragonslayer. Show the mighty prowess of your wallet when you wave it around. However, indirectly, you're making the game imperceptively less fun for me. On a small scale, I honestly don't care. When a large number of people are doing it...
I was just saying to my sister, wife, and a few friends the other day:
"Look, you gotta switch to Linux-- It's so free and open... You have to get out from under the Microsoft monopoly, because the media only scratches the surface of the evils they do.
And did you know you could run it on the broken blender you have in the garage? It'll even run faster than your current Intel-based Windows XP machine!"
I'm new at trying to boost my karma, how did I do?
Slashdot Mirror
Someone can (and will) correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "Plays for Sure" proof that a business doesn't have to go out of business for the company to stop supporting their media?
Even if we knew for sure that Disney would last forever, we don't know that they'll want/be able to support DRMed media they sold a long time ago...
But there is no legal benefit to charging $10. $1 or $0.10 would be adequate.
No legal benefit. I suspect, though, that once they charge anything, they need to charge a minimum amount to cover accounting costs, as well as other administration.
Just a theory.
There has been one confirmed case of a $500 loan via ID-theft of their CEO. There are 25 other disputed cases. According to the company, as of last month 105 of Lifelock's customers have been victims of identity theft. Which is 0.01% of their customers.
Is 0.01% more or less than the percentage of the general population who have been impersonated in this way?
Don't believe him! That's how they got me to open it!
(Yes, I'm assuming only 2 candidates for this one, but more candidates only matter if they have a chance of winning.)
If Obama takes the same position as McCain on this issue, it effectively removes it from the table. So let's say they both vote for immunity. If this issue is important to you, and you want to vote for someone who voted against it, you can't-- you'll have to choose based on other criteria. By doing this, they can control the issues that people have left to vote on, putting things more in their favor.
I'm not saying it's right or good (or that they are even doing it!) but it is a valid strategy.
How does someone know if they aren't paying enough attention?
I'll bet if we didn't have cell phones, people would be a lot pickier about their home line.
I doubt Comcast/whoever would lose many customers in these markets, so they would be free to simply filter everyone without being affected financially. And again, there would be nothing that would prevent an ISP from including anything they wanted under the "Not G rated" label. I know it's an extreme example, but I'm sure some campaigns would love to have their opponent's web site simply not exist...
What happens when Comcast, the only broadband ISP available in some areas, decides that it will be a "G" rated company? And what if the only broadband ISP, which is "G" rated, decides that something you like is something that needs to be blocked? Remember that when someone else makes the decision of what is right and wrong for you to view, it is very possible they will decide that something you want to view isn't appropriate (examples: guns, anime, D&D, republican/democrat sites, etc.)
Interstingly, in a lot of ancient two player games, WASD or WAXD were used for the second player controls. Sadly, my memory fails me as to the exact ones, but I remember playing many of them.
You might want to check out your new drive out-- It seems to have some data loss.
While I agree that the parent is a bit extreme, it only takes a few minutes of looking at the lawsuits to see that, yes, the RIAA is destroying people's lives. They're doing it over something as silly as a downloaded album.
So I guess it really just depends on how you look at it. Joe downloads a CD using a file sharing program, and because of that is financially ruined. Is that right?
So you have a group of people running around destroying people's lives for something as minor as copying something. Since other avenues of solving the problem don't seem to be accomplishing anything, is it surprising to see that some people are starting to think that maybe violence is a solution?
Anyway, I remember very clearly the day that Halo 2, the game, was released. All day, Fraternity-type guys were driving by with their windows rolled down, shaking their copy of Halo 2 at me and screaming "woooo!" During that time, I had parents come up to me and ask me if I felt that Halo 2 was appropriate for their kid. I had people congratulate me on writing such a popular game.
It was a very strange experience. I don't have any Halo markings of any sort on my current car, so the release date went by unnoticed. Although I seem to be the only person who actually liked the "game fuel" mountain dew flavor.
Wow. It worked for you-- let me try.
Microsoft Vista came out. I ignored it and continued using Linux and OSX for my main machines, and XP for my project machines.
No? anyone?
Bah. This moderation concept stinks.
Unfortunately, most people won't see this as a complete, painless, vertical solution. Let's say I have Sprint. Let's say that my contract isn't going to up until, say, October.
If I bought an iPhone, I can assure you that the whole experience wouldn't "Just Work", even though the iPhone does. I'd be putting myself in an extremely poor situation.
I'm not sure there's a solution to this given the current environment. I'd love for this to change.
Hmm. I thought another point of the article was that females were trying to look "desirable", and that we have the tools to make any woman "desirable" regardless of their actual genetic makeup.
So, there is a subset of women, then, that look "desirable" even though they are not, and spread the wrong genes.
There's also the issue where the traits of youthful women are different throughout the world-- I would assume that in these places, they would go by a different set of standards.
But I'm far from an expert. Just using the information from the article.
PvP in World of Warcraft is probably different than the system that you are used to.
In World of Warcraft, there's three ways to PvP:
* Battlegrounds/Arena (prepared fighting)
* World PvP (unprepared fighting)
* Duels (practice fighting)
In BG/A, you can fight against either side, but the rules are set. (for example, 5v5 in a 100x100 forest) There is no interference from the normal world-- it's like playing a game of football.
World PvP is where you run into each other in the game world. In general, one side is less prepared than the other. You may only fight against the opposing faction (Alliance vs Horde)
The last is only against your own side, 1v1.
In none of these cases does it matter -to me- if someone has bought their character. Why not?
Arena/BG-- I expect anyone I fight to be geared to the teeth anyway. People don't generally go into prepared fights when they know they'll lose. Because of this, the purchased characters blend in with the non-purchased characters, the only difference is that the purchased characters have less practice, and will be easier to defeat.
World PvP-- If I'm on the prepared side, I'm just looking at a tougher fight. No problems there, I started it. If I'm the one being attacked, well, personally I have no issues. I can see how newer players might, though.
Duels-- Duels are just silly practice. I have nothing to gain by winning or losing them, so really, a tougher opponent is to my advantage.
Now, I can see why someone who PvPs to excess would care-- but someone who does will know the best players on their server, and will know when an account has been bought, and act accordingly.
I can also see why a new player would care-- getting smashed by someone who bought their character would be no fun. Interestingly, in WoW, they have no way of knowing. Communication is cut off between the two factions, so you would have to make an effort outside the game to figure things out, and at that point you're putting more effort into the game than a defenseless new guy.
---
back to your other point-- no, I don't care if someone buys their way past me in content. There are people who got past me in content simply by spending 24/7 banging their head on the content until they won-- am I bitter at them because I cant' play 24/7? no.
However, I stand by my original point-- when the purchasing of gold affects my play, that's when I care.
I can't tell if this in response to me because of the new format, but I'll respond as if it was... What I said is what would happen as gold selling becomes more commonplace. It's why companies like Blizzard fight it. I can't speak for other servers, but mine is a fairly quiet server-- and gold selling seems to be under control. So I don't see the effects above. I can't speak for other servers. Maybe they have these problems, maybe they don't. And, like I said, I don't directly care if you bought stuff for yourself. If you geared yourself exactly the same as me for $100 on ebay, walked up to me and started mocking me, I wouldn't really care. The problem is when the scale gets larger. If a larger portion of the population bought the suit, that becomes the new "norm", and people who want to play the game as a game instead of spending money get pushed out-- or they have to turn their game playing into work. Then it stops being a game, it stops being fun. And, for your comedy gold, I stop playing. "Should I interview them to find out if they bought the character so that I would know to get mad?" That's really your choice. If you want an honest, in-game answer-- if I'm participating in an event that is going to cost me a lot of time and in-game money (say, a difficult raid instance), I want to make sure the people I bring with me are capable of doing their part. Why? It's not fun if one person is causing the group to fail for no good reason-- sacrificing 24 people's fun for one. That didn't answer the question directly, so now I will: I wouldn't refuse someone a position because they bought their account. What is needed are people who enjoy doing their best, enjoy the company of the fellow group, and work with them to accomplish a common goal, like with any team game or sport. People who match stick around.
Ignoring the "real world" effects for a moment, I'm going to focus on the in-game.
Remember that these are MMORPGS. And although the game design limits the amount that one player can change another's gaming experience, economy is one thing that all players share.
If players are buying gold, they are intending to buy things with that gold. These items (and these are probably only the few "best" items) will have an increased demand, making it more difficult for everyone to get temp.
Because of the influx of gold, and the scarcity of these items, players will be willing to pay more for them. This will make it more difficult for non-gold-buying people to get these items.
Because there are now more people with these items, they become a requirement in order to be invited to join parties (raids, group, insert system here). "What? you don't have the +10 dragonslayer? Sorry, we'll take Bob who does."
The gold also has to come from somewhere. Although games like WoW allow for players to collect money in their own "instance", people frequently collect gold in common areas-- which means that I have increased competition in that area.
You're affecting players other than yourself. If you are dumping gold on my server, you are:
* Increasing the cost of items / Decreasing the value of gold
* Decreasing the availability of items
* Increasing the requirements to compete
* Increasing the difficulty to play specific parts of the game
The short answer is-- no, I don't directly really care that you got the +10 dragonslayer. Show the mighty prowess of your wallet when you wave it around. However, indirectly, you're making the game imperceptively less fun for me. On a small scale, I honestly don't care. When a large number of people are doing it...
I'm in an even better situation.
I'm a WoW player, and everyone at work knows it... And knows about Burning Crusade.
I'm feeling sick today, but I don't dare take the day off because of what it would look like...
No.
I found it pretty interesting that they talked about Active X, and all their screenshots have the Firefox logo on the Titlebar...
I don't think that most grandmas have connections fast enough for them to download XP through bittorrent in under three hours.
Simple test-- wait for the lawsuit.
"Look, you gotta switch to Linux-- It's so free and open... You have to get out from under the Microsoft monopoly, because the media only scratches the surface of the evils they do.
And did you know you could run it on the broken blender you have in the garage? It'll even run faster than your current Intel-based Windows XP machine!"
I'm new at trying to boost my karma, how did I do?