The way I see it, this is actually the way the patent system is supposed to work. The only way that a competitor can prevent a patent is by proving that there is "prior art", thus preventing somebody from patenting something that's not new and needing protectionn. The only way a company can protect itself from losing patent status is to make sure that their product actually is new and not just an exercise in word play that's an older innovation.
Either way, one mustn't forget that "Patent Pending" will still hold weight. Being first to market with a new product will also still be important for selling items, super-innovative or not. Hopefully what happens is that newer products will reach consumers with a better range of selection, at better prices and made at higher standards of quality. All of these traits have been allowed to slide a bit because some companies have been able to threaten competing companies with lawsuits over ideas that may not truely deserve patent status.
The chances of this happening are inversely proportional to the chances that it will be abused if it does happen. If a major company has a multimillion dollar product on the line, they will do ANYTHING to make sure it gets approved, even if it means sabotaging any method open to the public. It doesn't matter if it's a wiki, a forum or a voting system, they will abuse it because millions (or even billions) could be on the line.
Conversely, if a company's competitor has a multimillion dollar product on the line, it could be very beneficial to help dig up prior art to prevent/negate a patent and then cash in by selling (or not withdrawing) a similar product. That might sound bad, but it would allow for actual innovations to get protected (no prior art) and allow the public (as well as other companies) to pay less for derivative items because of increased competition. If the idea catches on, the grassroots/astroturf community could get used to help ensure keep sabotage successes to a minimum.
I think it's a great idea. I just wish I could see how it'd apply to biotech items. Patenting genes and chemicals found in nature still bugs me.
Probably because a wiki is more meant to be a point of reference than forums are. There's nothing to stop them from adding a forum to the wiki, though.
You don't seem to understand basic economics here. Gold farmers sell gold to other players who use this (for them) instantly created cash to buy high end items, thus driving the demand for high end items up while the supply stays essentially constant.
It's not farmers selling stuff that drives epic prices up, it's the gold buyers buying stuff. You can't have one side without the other.
No, I understand, but I'll have to reread my post to see if I was clear enough (guess not. Mustn't rush post next time). There are people who buy gold to that probably have a minimal affect on the economy. These folks are using the gold to buy epic mounts, repairs and purchase AH items at reasonable prices. The people that screw up the economies are the ones that spend WAY too much money on an item. These can be gold buyers or people that have saved up the cash from their own efforts (Older players twinking new alts). The prices on an item are considered "out of whack" or gouged when the price doesn't reflect the actual supply or demand. Poor consumers (gold buyer or not) reinforce the idea that high prices can be demanded for simple items by not waiting for optimal prices just as resellers buy out the entire stock of certain items to repost later at a much higher rate.
It bears mentioning that all the gold bought and sold was earned from somebody's mob, which farmers... well, farm rather diligently. That's just earned money that they save up, which isn't any different than regular players doing the same thing. Big influxes will cause issues, but they'll equal out eventually. I have no sympathy of dupers and hackers, though. That's a seperate discussion, and one I'd side against them on.
But, just to reiterate, the gold farmers are not the root cause of all of this. Part of the blame lies with players that will give real world money for virtual gold. If you got rid of the gold/gear/account buyers, you'd lose the farmers, not the other way around. The rest of the blame for bad prices lies with greedy players attempting to manipulate the market's supply/demand for their own profit or people that will only impulse buy items rather than farm themselves or wait for a better price. People will still complain about prices on things, but we just have to admit that some folks are stingy with their cash;)
That's part of the problem, you see. By driving the price on materials low and then redistributing gold to other players based on out-of-game cash, farmers make material farming unprofitable for regular players while simultaneously driving the price up for high end items. So if you want to buy an epic item off the auction hall, farmers drive the price of the epic up and the price of all the stuff you can sell down. Thus forcing the average player to spend a lot more time farming their own gold to compete with the presence of bought gold.
I can honestly say that I always made a profit from my personal farming. The trick was to actually sit and pay attention to the Auction house and other factors of the economy (former AH junky). I used to make a good amount of money buying "underpriced" items from farmers and reselling at a normal price on the AH a few days later(or saved money by keeping them for myself or the guild). Rather than trying to sell items when the AH was flooded with them, I'd send them to a mule for storage until prices came up to something decent. Hell, if you're motivated enough, try to get into the beta for the burning crusades and start finding out what new recipies or quests need what items and have your mains collect those on your regular server (or at least keep an ear open in the forums)
Getting back to epics. Again, farmers don't drive prices up. They'll try to get as much as they can for an item, true, but so will all sellers. Most players are willing to repost such items several times to make the sale, eating up the deposit losses the whole time. Farmers want quick sales and will undersell on the AH (at the time posted), or even spam the trade channel. You may miss the 1/2 priced Krol Blade because you've put that person on your ignore list (I clean mine out every few weeks, just to see what I'm missing).
Anyhow, the biggest reason epics or other high demand items cost huge amount can be boiled down to players with too much money. They have huge cash reserves and rarely are willing to do anything but buy-out auctions. They want their items now! Gold buyers and people with high level mains twinking alts (this got considerably worse after battlegrounds and the bracket system was introduced) are mostly the cause of this type of price inflation. Sub-20 blue items go for a ton of money, not because of farmers, but because of twinkers. It's just like when people complain about AH items accidentally buyout an overpriced item, say 1sbid/20g buyout on a stack of linen. I've found that I've made good purchases by just looking for and bidding on those items. Many people don't bother bidding on high ticket items specifically because of thier super high buyout and miss a good opportunity.
People that "must" have an item now are the ones that alter the future buyout prices and percieved market value. There's no reason to think that farmers don't have auctioneer like a lot of regular players do. If enough idiots pay 1000g for a piece of junk, I guarantee you that the piece of junk will be sold at prices around 1000g, regardless of the seller's actual occupation. Farmers, especially around the end of thier shift, can be very willing to undersell by 1/2. There were a few times I wish I had borrowed money to buy such good deals./. had linked an article about this a while back.
So, to sum it all up:
High prices caused and maintained by overly funded players that have no sense of shopping around or patience. Work with or around the farmers and you'll make out like a bandit.
What if they gave the Hardcore PvP'ers an item or status flg (non-changeable). They'd be PvP flagged 100% of the time and others with the flag/item could destroy an item of their chosing. Having your item stolen gives the vague hope of recovery. An item being destroyed, though, would raise some ire. Hell, make it so that the item is DE'd. That way the fight winner could have some spoils. If nothing else, they could drop an item's durabilty to 0% too.
Expect a surge of re subscribers after the expansion hits. All the folks (like me) who left WoW will probably give it another chance after TBC is released. Servers will bog down, queues will be horrendous and the chat channels will be full of outdated advice and veteran newbs.
The bigger question will be how many stay after the free month or two included with the expansion purchase price will stick around. I'd imagine a few, if only until they get a few characters to 70 or realize that things haven't changed that much and go back to other things.
Engineering things for the whole playerbase world is kind of a pain I'm sure, especially when forks start up in storylines over multiple servers. I wouldn't mind it if they were just small things that only affect the character. Simple things, like starting off as a priest and then slowly going evil, with NPCs shunning you appropriately, or bounties on your head going up and down in various areas. Faction by each town would be great. I think it'd be neat to be praised in Iron Forge, dispised in Stormwind and barely tolerated in the Undercity. Things like that could be great for RP and for PvP. The new world PvP Flags in WoW are a good start for them in that regard. It's just too bad it's so hard to be a proper brigande when they won't let you join the Defias or other, shadier, organizations.
Did I say RP while talking about MMOs? Oops:P
I will say this, CoH had the best idea for costumes/gear. I really got sick of "looking" like everybody else. That one aspect of such detailed character customization, which I'm sure could be implemented in many other games, gave a better sense of immersion and attachment to the character in the game. Everybody looks pretty much the same in other games when they start and when they start dungeon grinding unless they waste space on costume pieces (which may or may not be useful items).
WoW's requirements for nonstop grinding instances isn't fun.
MMO gamers want balanced skill-based pvp, functional economies not exploited by chinese-farmers, the freedom to create unique player-made content (like Shadowbane/EVE-Online), and to determine their own friends/enemies rather than being forced into pre-made "factions".
WoW fails in all those regards.
MMO gamers would move, provided a good improvement emerged.
What I want is for MMOs to make a lot more variety in the lowbie quests. Doing the same lame little quests in the begining just to same quests at level cap isn't fun. It kills replayablity. I'd like long term, story driven choices. Hell, I'd even support having a server where everybody started off maxxed out (rocket server, anyone?).
I'll agree with everything else but the farmer bit and WoW being a horrible game. I personally don't care about the farmers as long as they don't harass me, at which point they're just being individual pricks and should not represent the entire community. I've known enough gold farmers that mind their own business and grind, not bothering anybody. Many of the people who complain about farmers driving up prices the most are the first ones to snatch up the cheap, mass farmed goods and then resell at higher prices. If not, they're the ones ignorant of how prices would be if it was 100% player orientated. Supply and demand, plus the farmer's need to sell quickly, benefit many players, whether they admit it or not. This is especially true of commodity items like cloth, skins and even potions. Every time that the prices on those skyrocketed, it was due to "regular players", and was always brought back down by farmers that continued to sell at the lower, older price or cheaper. There are problems with quest mobs on occasion, but that happens with regular players who are farming the quest mob for the drops. The only difference between them and the regular farmer is the language barrier.
As far as WoW being a horrible game... Well, I liked it. I got bored eventually, but that's true of all games. I was heavily into CoH before that. Just because a game can still be improved on doesn't mean it 100% sucks right now.
"I concluded long ago that most "Ask Slashdot" articles were as credible as "Letters to Penthouse"."
Dear Slashdot,
I never thought I'd ever be writing to you, but this story was too good to pass up. It happened last week saturday. I was on the red-eye raid (couldn't make the earlier ones, and I need the DKP) with my guild, mostly Aussies and Kiwis with some of the east asian American GI's. It was really inconvenient because my windoze box had a terminal meltdown, so I was stuck at the local PC gaming cafe. Anyhow, somebody tapped on my shoulder and asked if I needed a soda or anything. Glancing over my shoulder (we were just bs'ing before the raid), I saw this gorgeous redheaded grrrrrl. She was about to take a 15 minute break and wanted to see if I needed anything before she went. Slightly bent over, her breasts hung seductively in her "Kill Bill" tank top (the one with Tux instead of Uma Thurman).
Needless to say, I could think of something I needed from her...
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I remember back in the late 80's-early 90's when magazine ads used to have "professional game testers" endorsing a new title. If this goes through, would there be a rebirth of non-competitive pro gamer opportunities? Given it'd be tied to the government, I'm not sure the fun would be worth the paperwork that'd need filing for the job, but still...
On top of that, what torrents are ever so common as to warrant the use of a cache? There are certainly legitimate users of bittorrent, if you can limit the cache to legitimate content. But what torrents would ever be accessed so frequently by individual users on any given network that this would make sense? My employer's just ~300-400 customers strong, but I don't see how this could be useful to any ISP, given that the largest would probably only benefit if the caches were replicated and stored close to the users.
For larger ISPs (the type that sell off bandwidth to smaller ISPs, especially), this could be very useful for reducing bottleneck issues. The efforts to "legitimize" Bit Torrent could go hand and hand with the caching. Improve usage by removing legal threats and reducing ISP degredation. I'd like to see the WoW updater (broken piece of crap) get in on that. Movie trailers and (in my dreams) linux distros could be sped up as well as well (what about a BT based update system for linux? Interesting). Improving the efficiency of BT on all levels would help spur companies to use the technology more and help chip away at technophobic and ignorant policies and ideas.
Well, maybe not. People fight much more passionately for dumb things than sensible ones.
Ok, we're on the same page now, and I agree. Heh. Maybe we shouldn't rethink what we're doing as much as unthink some of what got us here.
Until then, I wonder if there's a fund to help those families move to less uptight areas. Or maybe to have their neighbor's heads removed from their respective asses.
So until there is a complete overhaul of how we treat the law, we cannot complain about individual situations like this. It's obviously common sense that they were treated harshly and there was a total overreaction, but it isn't a legal overreaction. It's procedure. We need as a society to be able to adapt and interpret situations differently, especially in legal cases, where the law does not end up doing more harm than good. If the law has a negative effect, how can anyone respect it? Governments need to rethink this and apply a whole new subjective filter to how situations are dealt with, and officers should not fear punishment for not following procedure if it goes against common sense.
Of course we can complain. How else do changes get made? "In the old days", even when there was a procedure, the cops would have gotten the parents involved, especially if the kids were near their homes. I'm fairly sure that the officers could have just as easily let the kids off with a warning about damaging trees that aren't on their property, stopping the damage and prvent future incidents. Or maybe I'm falling for the proganda from the Donna Reed/Leave it to Beaver TV shows that I hate so much.
Still, I guess it's just as well. The kids could have not listened to the officers the first time they were told to get out of the tree and had "resisting arrest" put into the record. God forbid one of them have an improvised club made from a tree branch...
Superintendent Stuart Johnson, operations manager at Halesowen police station, said: 'I support the actions of my officers who responded to complaints from the public about "kids destroying" an ornamental cherry tree by stripping every branch from it, in an area where there have been reports of anti-social behaviour.
Why is it the kids that are anti-social? Why not the old (in spirit, if not age) curmudgeon that reported them? I can understand the Superintendent standing behind acting on the report, but what was done was overkill. What happened to just running the kids to their parents? I can understand if this was on private property (still overkill, but at least there'd be better justification for trespassing/liability concerns).
Since this is a UK story, I could understand if it was a tea tree. I'll email a modified synopsis to an english friend and see if they pass out or call for the death penalty:P
Because the first thing that's going to happen when your clot's not big enough is that it's going to go to your lung. Or heart. Or brain.
You can expect the statistics of soldiers having strokes for no apparent reason to go WAY up.
Sure, but the question is will the amount of strokes go up more than the amount of soldiers dying from internal bleeding goes down. Since the article makes it sound like the bleeding is stopped by using heat (hot poker?) rather than making something like sonically concocted platelette crystal thingies (which I thought of when I read the title), strokes may not be such a huge risk. Besides, given the choice of a possibly recoverable stroke or heart attack versus guaranteed bleeding to death, I think most would roll the dice.
Still, soldiers should make sure their post-mortem wills include living will instructions (and check how thier insurance covers it). All of that can be done for free with their military legal offices.
"An individual from the local Army research center was hospitalized this afternoon. Doctors are puzzled by a mysterious disease that caused his penis to massively swell, then fall off. Witnesses in the emergency room said they heard muttering and sobbing 'I only had it on quarter power!'. It is currently believed that the condition is not contagious".
Actually, I'm wishing they'd update the flash player for Linux. Newgrounds has increasing amounts of games I can't play because of the old version. I'll be very sad if I miss a new RAB because of it...
Other than that, I agree with everything you put up.
The original Guile was the best character. I wish they'd release a remake of the "Original" SFII. You know, a glitched version. It'd be fun to have his unsweepable freeze, handcuffs and invisible throw. Being able to reset the machine was pretty sweet too >:)
I remember reading his analysis about Superman and reproduction. Delving into the possiblity of reproducing with Supergirl (ruled out; Krypotonian incest bad) and killing Lois accidentally during sex (sperm that's more powerful than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, etc...). http://www.larryniven.org/
I might have to go dig that book back up and see if I can warp some minds...
the Japanese already speak English.
Ergo, release one version.
Ummm... No. Relatively few would comprehend english to the point where they can buy an english language RPG. That's not counting the fact that those few have finished their education or travelled/lived abroad for that knowledge. I've lived there for several years and know a lot japanese nationals that live in my state, so I have to say your answer is overly simplistic. Sorry.
Now then, if it were a fighting game I could see it...
Some schools, yes. Mixed blood isn't such an issue in some places, like where I grew up in Hawaii. There might be issues with one of the originating ethnicities (haole, usually), but never from the fact that the kid has mixed blood.
Oh, just to clarify. "Haole" refers to foreigners, but has pretty much come to mean caucasian. The interesting thing is that the Portugese that came here many years ago aren't usually refered as Haole, dispite their european roots. Everybody was the same working in the cane fields, I guess ^_^
Slashdot Mirror
So basicaly the system is doomed
The way I see it, this is actually the way the patent system is supposed to work. The only way that a competitor can prevent a patent is by proving that there is "prior art", thus preventing somebody from patenting something that's not new and needing protectionn. The only way a company can protect itself from losing patent status is to make sure that their product actually is new and not just an exercise in word play that's an older innovation.
Either way, one mustn't forget that "Patent Pending" will still hold weight. Being first to market with a new product will also still be important for selling items, super-innovative or not. Hopefully what happens is that newer products will reach consumers with a better range of selection, at better prices and made at higher standards of quality. All of these traits have been allowed to slide a bit because some companies have been able to threaten competing companies with lawsuits over ideas that may not truely deserve patent status.
The chances of this happening are inversely proportional to the chances that it will be abused if it does happen. If a major company has a multimillion dollar product on the line, they will do ANYTHING to make sure it gets approved, even if it means sabotaging any method open to the public. It doesn't matter if it's a wiki, a forum or a voting system, they will abuse it because millions (or even billions) could be on the line.
Conversely, if a company's competitor has a multimillion dollar product on the line, it could be very beneficial to help dig up prior art to prevent/negate a patent and then cash in by selling (or not withdrawing) a similar product. That might sound bad, but it would allow for actual innovations to get protected (no prior art) and allow the public (as well as other companies) to pay less for derivative items because of increased competition. If the idea catches on, the grassroots/astroturf community could get used to help ensure keep sabotage successes to a minimum.
I think it's a great idea. I just wish I could see how it'd apply to biotech items. Patenting genes and chemicals found in nature still bugs me.
Probably because a wiki is more meant to be a point of reference than forums are. There's nothing to stop them from adding a forum to the wiki, though.
You don't seem to understand basic economics here. Gold farmers sell gold to other players who use this (for them) instantly created cash to buy high end items, thus driving the demand for high end items up while the supply stays essentially constant.
;)
It's not farmers selling stuff that drives epic prices up, it's the gold buyers buying stuff. You can't have one side without the other.
No, I understand, but I'll have to reread my post to see if I was clear enough (guess not. Mustn't rush post next time). There are people who buy gold to that probably have a minimal affect on the economy. These folks are using the gold to buy epic mounts, repairs and purchase AH items at reasonable prices. The people that screw up the economies are the ones that spend WAY too much money on an item. These can be gold buyers or people that have saved up the cash from their own efforts (Older players twinking new alts). The prices on an item are considered "out of whack" or gouged when the price doesn't reflect the actual supply or demand. Poor consumers (gold buyer or not) reinforce the idea that high prices can be demanded for simple items by not waiting for optimal prices just as resellers buy out the entire stock of certain items to repost later at a much higher rate.
It bears mentioning that all the gold bought and sold was earned from somebody's mob, which farmers... well, farm rather diligently. That's just earned money that they save up, which isn't any different than regular players doing the same thing. Big influxes will cause issues, but they'll equal out eventually. I have no sympathy of dupers and hackers, though. That's a seperate discussion, and one I'd side against them on.
But, just to reiterate, the gold farmers are not the root cause of all of this. Part of the blame lies with players that will give real world money for virtual gold. If you got rid of the gold/gear/account buyers, you'd lose the farmers, not the other way around. The rest of the blame for bad prices lies with greedy players attempting to manipulate the market's supply/demand for their own profit or people that will only impulse buy items rather than farm themselves or wait for a better price. People will still complain about prices on things, but we just have to admit that some folks are stingy with their cash
That's part of the problem, you see. By driving the price on materials low and then redistributing gold to other players based on out-of-game cash, farmers make material farming unprofitable for regular players while simultaneously driving the price up for high end items. So if you want to buy an epic item off the auction hall, farmers drive the price of the epic up and the price of all the stuff you can sell down. Thus forcing the average player to spend a lot more time farming their own gold to compete with the presence of bought gold.
/. had linked an article about this a while back.
I can honestly say that I always made a profit from my personal farming. The trick was to actually sit and pay attention to the Auction house and other factors of the economy (former AH junky). I used to make a good amount of money buying "underpriced" items from farmers and reselling at a normal price on the AH a few days later(or saved money by keeping them for myself or the guild). Rather than trying to sell items when the AH was flooded with them, I'd send them to a mule for storage until prices came up to something decent. Hell, if you're motivated enough, try to get into the beta for the burning crusades and start finding out what new recipies or quests need what items and have your mains collect those on your regular server (or at least keep an ear open in the forums)
Getting back to epics. Again, farmers don't drive prices up. They'll try to get as much as they can for an item, true, but so will all sellers. Most players are willing to repost such items several times to make the sale, eating up the deposit losses the whole time. Farmers want quick sales and will undersell on the AH (at the time posted), or even spam the trade channel. You may miss the 1/2 priced Krol Blade because you've put that person on your ignore list (I clean mine out every few weeks, just to see what I'm missing).
Anyhow, the biggest reason epics or other high demand items cost huge amount can be boiled down to players with too much money. They have huge cash reserves and rarely are willing to do anything but buy-out auctions. They want their items now! Gold buyers and people with high level mains twinking alts (this got considerably worse after battlegrounds and the bracket system was introduced) are mostly the cause of this type of price inflation. Sub-20 blue items go for a ton of money, not because of farmers, but because of twinkers. It's just like when people complain about AH items accidentally buyout an overpriced item, say 1sbid/20g buyout on a stack of linen. I've found that I've made good purchases by just looking for and bidding on those items. Many people don't bother bidding on high ticket items specifically because of thier super high buyout and miss a good opportunity.
People that "must" have an item now are the ones that alter the future buyout prices and percieved market value. There's no reason to think that farmers don't have auctioneer like a lot of regular players do. If enough idiots pay 1000g for a piece of junk, I guarantee you that the piece of junk will be sold at prices around 1000g, regardless of the seller's actual occupation. Farmers, especially around the end of thier shift, can be very willing to undersell by 1/2. There were a few times I wish I had borrowed money to buy such good deals.
So, to sum it all up:
High prices caused and maintained by overly funded players that have no sense of shopping around or patience. Work with or around the farmers and you'll make out like a bandit.
What if they gave the Hardcore PvP'ers an item or status flg (non-changeable). They'd be PvP flagged 100% of the time and others with the flag/item could destroy an item of their chosing. Having your item stolen gives the vague hope of recovery. An item being destroyed, though, would raise some ire. Hell, make it so that the item is DE'd. That way the fight winner could have some spoils. If nothing else, they could drop an item's durabilty to 0% too.
Expect a surge of re subscribers after the expansion hits. All the folks (like me) who left WoW will probably give it another chance after TBC is released. Servers will bog down, queues will be horrendous and the chat channels will be full of outdated advice and veteran newbs.
The bigger question will be how many stay after the free month or two included with the expansion purchase price will stick around. I'd imagine a few, if only until they get a few characters to 70 or realize that things haven't changed that much and go back to other things.
Engineering things for the whole playerbase world is kind of a pain I'm sure, especially when forks start up in storylines over multiple servers. I wouldn't mind it if they were just small things that only affect the character. Simple things, like starting off as a priest and then slowly going evil, with NPCs shunning you appropriately, or bounties on your head going up and down in various areas. Faction by each town would be great. I think it'd be neat to be praised in Iron Forge, dispised in Stormwind and barely tolerated in the Undercity. Things like that could be great for RP and for PvP. The new world PvP Flags in WoW are a good start for them in that regard. It's just too bad it's so hard to be a proper brigande when they won't let you join the Defias or other, shadier, organizations.
:P
Did I say RP while talking about MMOs? Oops
I will say this, CoH had the best idea for costumes/gear. I really got sick of "looking" like everybody else. That one aspect of such detailed character customization, which I'm sure could be implemented in many other games, gave a better sense of immersion and attachment to the character in the game. Everybody looks pretty much the same in other games when they start and when they start dungeon grinding unless they waste space on costume pieces (which may or may not be useful items).
WoW's requirements for nonstop grinding instances isn't fun.
MMO gamers want balanced skill-based pvp, functional economies not exploited by chinese-farmers, the freedom to create unique player-made content (like Shadowbane/EVE-Online), and to determine their own friends/enemies rather than being forced into pre-made "factions".
WoW fails in all those regards.
MMO gamers would move, provided a good improvement emerged.
What I want is for MMOs to make a lot more variety in the lowbie quests. Doing the same lame little quests in the begining just to same quests at level cap isn't fun. It kills replayablity. I'd like long term, story driven choices. Hell, I'd even support having a server where everybody started off maxxed out (rocket server, anyone?).
I'll agree with everything else but the farmer bit and WoW being a horrible game. I personally don't care about the farmers as long as they don't harass me, at which point they're just being individual pricks and should not represent the entire community. I've known enough gold farmers that mind their own business and grind, not bothering anybody. Many of the people who complain about farmers driving up prices the most are the first ones to snatch up the cheap, mass farmed goods and then resell at higher prices. If not, they're the ones ignorant of how prices would be if it was 100% player orientated. Supply and demand, plus the farmer's need to sell quickly, benefit many players, whether they admit it or not. This is especially true of commodity items like cloth, skins and even potions. Every time that the prices on those skyrocketed, it was due to "regular players", and was always brought back down by farmers that continued to sell at the lower, older price or cheaper. There are problems with quest mobs on occasion, but that happens with regular players who are farming the quest mob for the drops. The only difference between them and the regular farmer is the language barrier.
As far as WoW being a horrible game... Well, I liked it. I got bored eventually, but that's true of all games. I was heavily into CoH before that. Just because a game can still be improved on doesn't mean it 100% sucks right now.
"I concluded long ago that most "Ask Slashdot" articles were as credible as "Letters to Penthouse"."
Dear Slashdot,
I never thought I'd ever be writing to you, but this story was too good to pass up. It happened last week saturday. I was on the red-eye raid (couldn't make the earlier ones, and I need the DKP) with my guild, mostly Aussies and Kiwis with some of the east asian American GI's. It was really inconvenient because my windoze box had a terminal meltdown, so I was stuck at the local PC gaming cafe. Anyhow, somebody tapped on my shoulder and asked if I needed a soda or anything. Glancing over my shoulder (we were just bs'ing before the raid), I saw this gorgeous redheaded grrrrrl. She was about to take a 15 minute break and wanted to see if I needed anything before she went. Slightly bent over, her breasts hung seductively in her "Kill Bill" tank top (the one with Tux instead of Uma Thurman).
Needless to say, I could think of something I needed from her...
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I remember back in the late 80's-early 90's when magazine ads used to have "professional game testers" endorsing a new title. If this goes through, would there be a rebirth of non-competitive pro gamer opportunities? Given it'd be tied to the government, I'm not sure the fun would be worth the paperwork that'd need filing for the job, but still...
On top of that, what torrents are ever so common as to warrant the use of a cache? There are certainly legitimate users of bittorrent, if you can limit the cache to legitimate content. But what torrents would ever be accessed so frequently by individual users on any given network that this would make sense? My employer's just ~300-400 customers strong, but I don't see how this could be useful to any ISP, given that the largest would probably only benefit if the caches were replicated and stored close to the users.
For larger ISPs (the type that sell off bandwidth to smaller ISPs, especially), this could be very useful for reducing bottleneck issues. The efforts to "legitimize" Bit Torrent could go hand and hand with the caching. Improve usage by removing legal threats and reducing ISP degredation. I'd like to see the WoW updater (broken piece of crap) get in on that. Movie trailers and (in my dreams) linux distros could be sped up as well as well (what about a BT based update system for linux? Interesting). Improving the efficiency of BT on all levels would help spur companies to use the technology more and help chip away at technophobic and ignorant policies and ideas.
Well, maybe not. People fight much more passionately for dumb things than sensible ones.
Ok, we're on the same page now, and I agree. Heh. Maybe we shouldn't rethink what we're doing as much as unthink some of what got us here.
Until then, I wonder if there's a fund to help those families move to less uptight areas. Or maybe to have their neighbor's heads removed from their respective asses.
Think they'll start 24 watches on Hot-Topic and Computer game stores?
So until there is a complete overhaul of how we treat the law, we cannot complain about individual situations like this. It's obviously common sense that they were treated harshly and there was a total overreaction, but it isn't a legal overreaction. It's procedure. We need as a society to be able to adapt and interpret situations differently, especially in legal cases, where the law does not end up doing more harm than good. If the law has a negative effect, how can anyone respect it? Governments need to rethink this and apply a whole new subjective filter to how situations are dealt with, and officers should not fear punishment for not following procedure if it goes against common sense.
Of course we can complain. How else do changes get made? "In the old days", even when there was a procedure, the cops would have gotten the parents involved, especially if the kids were near their homes. I'm fairly sure that the officers could have just as easily let the kids off with a warning about damaging trees that aren't on their property, stopping the damage and prvent future incidents. Or maybe I'm falling for the proganda from the Donna Reed/Leave it to Beaver TV shows that I hate so much.
Still, I guess it's just as well. The kids could have not listened to the officers the first time they were told to get out of the tree and had "resisting arrest" put into the record. God forbid one of them have an improvised club made from a tree branch...
I better make sure you two never meet then. They're still bugging me about the pineapple tree seeds I promised.
Superintendent Stuart Johnson, operations manager at Halesowen police station, said: 'I support the actions of my officers who responded to complaints from the public about "kids destroying" an ornamental cherry tree by stripping every branch from it, in an area where there have been reports of anti-social behaviour.
:P
Why is it the kids that are anti-social? Why not the old (in spirit, if not age) curmudgeon that reported them? I can understand the Superintendent standing behind acting on the report, but what was done was overkill. What happened to just running the kids to their parents? I can understand if this was on private property (still overkill, but at least there'd be better justification for trespassing/liability concerns).
Since this is a UK story, I could understand if it was a tea tree. I'll email a modified synopsis to an english friend and see if they pass out or call for the death penalty
Because the first thing that's going to happen when your clot's not big enough is that it's going to go to your lung. Or heart. Or brain. You can expect the statistics of soldiers having strokes for no apparent reason to go WAY up.
Sure, but the question is will the amount of strokes go up more than the amount of soldiers dying from internal bleeding goes down. Since the article makes it sound like the bleeding is stopped by using heat (hot poker?) rather than making something like sonically concocted platelette crystal thingies (which I thought of when I read the title), strokes may not be such a huge risk. Besides, given the choice of a possibly recoverable stroke or heart attack versus guaranteed bleeding to death, I think most would roll the dice.
Still, soldiers should make sure their post-mortem wills include living will instructions (and check how thier insurance covers it). All of that can be done for free with their military legal offices.
"An individual from the local Army research center was hospitalized this afternoon. Doctors are puzzled by a mysterious disease that caused his penis to massively swell, then fall off. Witnesses in the emergency room said they heard muttering and sobbing 'I only had it on quarter power!'. It is currently believed that the condition is not contagious".
Actually, I'm wishing they'd update the flash player for Linux. Newgrounds has increasing amounts of games I can't play because of the old version. I'll be very sad if I miss a new RAB because of it...
Other than that, I agree with everything you put up.
The original Guile was the best character. I wish they'd release a remake of the "Original" SFII. You know, a glitched version. It'd be fun to have his unsweepable freeze, handcuffs and invisible throw. Being able to reset the machine was pretty sweet too >:)
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9814 has a nice listing of the glitch moves. I need to find a machine or ROM that these will still work on.
I remember reading his analysis about Superman and reproduction. Delving into the possiblity of reproducing with Supergirl (ruled out; Krypotonian incest bad) and killing Lois accidentally during sex (sperm that's more powerful than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, etc...). http://www.larryniven.org/
I might have to go dig that book back up and see if I can warp some minds...
the Japanese already speak English. Ergo, release one version.
Ummm... No. Relatively few would comprehend english to the point where they can buy an english language RPG. That's not counting the fact that those few have finished their education or travelled/lived abroad for that knowledge. I've lived there for several years and know a lot japanese nationals that live in my state, so I have to say your answer is overly simplistic. Sorry.
Now then, if it were a fighting game I could see it...
Some schools, yes. Mixed blood isn't such an issue in some places, like where I grew up in Hawaii. There might be issues with one of the originating ethnicities (haole, usually), but never from the fact that the kid has mixed blood.
Oh, just to clarify. "Haole" refers to foreigners, but has pretty much come to mean caucasian. The interesting thing is that the Portugese that came here many years ago aren't usually refered as Haole, dispite their european roots. Everybody was the same working in the cane fields, I guess ^_^
Hybrid Vigor FTW!