The ban is a bit harsh. The guy in this story was definitely in the wrong - he practically turned his character in to a one-click bot. Still, a warning would seem to be a better idea.
CNN news breaking story.
GundamFan has publically said that he/she is sick of fantasy based MMO games and will try to persuade others to quit. Controversially, he dared moderators to mod him down.
People who feel like they're working probably shouldn't be playing the game since it can't be that enjoyable. Learning to play the guitar can feel like work to some people or fun to people with a genuine interest. I think it's only really an issue when someone expects to play like Hendrix without putting in the work. Buying gold is just plain cheating, just like enabling 'god mode' in a single-player game.
Casual players are at a disadvantage but there is still plenty to do in the game for people like myself who aren't chasing uber equipment or wanting to go on 40 man raids. A few hours of smart playing is enough to gather decent amounts of equipment or gold - you don't really have to spend days grinding unless you're after a particularly special item.
I've probably read the study you mentioned and I agree that the selling of gold probably doesn't have the extreme infaltionary effect that some people claim it does. The fact that they are under pressure to sell items quickly could create a downwards trend in prices.
This is great for buyers but not so good for those doing the selling. Gold farmers can obtain items far more cheaply than the average player can. They are being paid to spend long days just playing the game. Since their increased volume drives down the overall price, my time spent gathering these items is devalued since I will get less money when I sell them.
People buying gold will of course be the buyers whereas the sellers are the poor sods trying to play by the rules of the game and earn their way in the world.
From a personal point of view, the main effect I've seen of farming would have to be the annoying spam messages.
The gold sellers like to advertise their sites in the game. They log in and then spam as many people as they can with their adverts. This alone is annoying and disruptive. They invite you to a party and then once in the party, they bombard the party chat channel with adverts.
The gold farmers and the people who buy from them are the problem. Blizzard can shut accounts down and sue but it's the farmers and buyers who have voluntarilly agreed to take part in an act that is contrary to the rules.
It's as valid as me trying to illegally sell your car on eBay using the legal disclaimer "This is my car since I washed it every Sunday morning for a really really long time".
What if Blizz sold gold -- they wouldn't need to hire farmers to create it since after all it is just 1's and 0's but then turned around and used the money that generated to hire these players to play the mobs.
If gold selling became legitimate and widely used, the in-game economy is likely to experience price inflation. It's difficult enough for casual players to compete with powergamers but it certainly would not help if buying gold became as easy as paying for your WoW account.
They are just 1s and 0s but the game relies on certain economics in order for it to work in the same way that you couldn't just reduce gravity and expect everything to function.
Can you imagine how much more fun the game would be if you go to attack some mob healer character that instead of maybe trying to heal itself once at low health it actually thought about and reacted to what you were doing.
How much more challenging could the game become if when faced with a serious threat the gnoll encampment instead of letting you pick them off one by one screamed for help and all its buddies came around.
They could be randomly cycled through any mob in the world which when not occupied would follow its standard ai script. You would never know when "pulling a mob" whether you were facing a dumb AI mob or a smarter "farmer" controlled one.
Some of the mobs do this, it depends on their placement. Murlocs tend to be bunched together and so it can be tricky to pull one without drawing a little entourage with them. It's true though that some mobs seem to be strangely oblivious to the fireball throwing lunatic who's slaughtering all their friends. AI could be improved somewhat. I do like the way a healing mob will heal it's friends - that's a nice touch.
Player controlled mobs? Nah, that's what PvP is for. It would be fun though if a GM got bored one day, decided to turn Gamon in to a 70 elite and then raid Stormwind.
This copy protection I encountered some years back was truly the triumph of marketing over common sense.
White Lightning, a programming/games design package for the Commodore 64, used a great idea to stop people from pirating the software. They printed the manual on red paper.
Imagine trying to read small black text printed on red paper - particularly when you're reading about a relatively complicated subject. It made it very difficult to photocopy but also pretty nasty to read for anything more than a short while - even if you had very good lighting.
It's annoying when you feel driven to adopt an illegal method simply to enjoy a legally purchased game. I used to have a lot of hassle travelling with my PowerBook. Too many of the games demanded that you have the disc in the drive in order to play. If I was going away for a couple of weeks this could mean bringing along quite a few discs that simply shouldn't be necessary.
Unreal Tournament 2004 restored some faith though. Initially you had to have the DVD in the drive for it to play. Later, they released a patch that removed this requirement.
Warcraft 3 was a pain. Despite each copy being serialised, you still need to have the disc in the drive (although an image seems to work if made in the correct way). Warcraft technically required me to carry around 2 CDs since you needed to either have the original or the expansion pack disc in the machine depending on what version you wanted to play.
That said, Blizzards approach to Starcraft was a good one if I recall correctly. You can install one full version and a certain number of client versions on other machines that will allow your friends to join multiplayer games hosted by the full version.
That is freaky. On a forum I visit frequently, there is one Christian who seems to follow this line of thinking. He keeps saying this he is indifferent towards this life as he has eternity ahead of him. The most worrying thing is that if doesn't consider his own life to be important, how does he feel about the lives of others. I asked him if he would save someone from a life-threatening situation or simply let them die in the knowledge that they would go to heaven. He never answered this question.
I can't speak for the US but this is my take from the European perspective.
We have the same complaints in Europe. Despite the fact that Christianity is the state religion of many countries with churches receiving financial assistance from the state, this claim of persecution keeps coming up.
The howls of persecution tend to be loudest when one of these conditions is met.
1) The state prevents a religion from doing something it wants to do. i.e. the state says that religious types aren't allowed to prosletyse in schools.
2) The state enacts a law that contradicts the beliefs of a religious group. For example, legalising abortion or providing equal rights to minority groups like gays.
I wouldn't call Christians idiots. Some Christians though where I live seem to like to keep reminding me that I am dreary, have no respect for humanity and unhappy since I choose to not believe in any gods.
It raises an interesting point though. Taste varies greatly and the crap stuff may actually be what sells best.
A trip in to HMV today shows that they have an un-ending selection of albums like Totally R&B, Monster Jamz, Club Anthems and similar crap (at least in my opinion). Presumably this stuff must sell well since they've so many of them.
The Nine Inch Nails album 'With Teeth' sold 272,000 copies in its first week. Britney Spears' album 'oops I did it again' sold 1.3 million in its first week (both figures based on US sales). I know which I prefer and it 'aint the best-seller.
"I am not anti-mac. But just stating the truth", in the context of the incorrect information is in a similar vein to "I'm not racist, I just don't think that are as bouyant as white people" conversations.
Question is, will you still be able to buy equipment to play your collection on at a realistic price? Also, will you still be alive in 200 years to listen to this collection?
I think in hundreds of years, we may not have to just worry about the medium but also how the language will have changed. This text is from the 1300's
Lyte Lowys my sone, I aperceyve wel by certeyne evydences thyn abilite to lerne sciences touching nombres and proporciouns; and as wel considre I thy besy praier in special to lerne the tretys of the Astrelabie. Than for as mochel as a philosofre saith, "he wrappith him in his frend, that condescendith to the rightfulle praiers of his frend,"
You could argue that current English is more standardised but there is a significant amount of pop culture that could be baffling. Destiny's Child lyrics come to mind. Personally the Chaucer example above makes more sense to me.
We like dem boys that be in them lac's leanin' (Leanin') Open their mouth their grill gleamin' (Gleamin') Candy paint, keep that whip clean and (Clean and) (They always be talkin that country slang, we like) They keep that beat that be in the back beatin' (Beatin')
Either he's an admin user or the permissions have been changed for the applications folder. You're right that regular users by default can't modify the applications folder or much else outside of their home.
You're correct that good and evil aren't concepts that simply dropped out of the sky, they are defined by us. Also, we don't need a God to be able to understand what is right and what is wrong (even if our views of what isright and wrong may vary). Society must define what is right and what is wrong, not an ancient book. Should an army take women from a captured city to use as sex slaves and wives? Should I be allowed to stone my disobedient son to death? If children make fun of an old man should they be killed?
I think those examples above are clearly wrong, most people consider them to be a barbaric over-reaction.
Remember that the Bible did not invent the concepts of good and evil. The human race managed to survive for quite some time before the Bible appeared.
Show some respect for your species man. Yes we often get it wrong and yes there have been some leaders and ideologies that have led to terrible injustice but these are a minority. Most people are decent. Not because they fear enternal damnation or prison but because it is in our interests to work together. Man is a social animal. We survive by co-operating. Of course some jerks will try to take more than they should and they must be dealt with but on the whole, most people I have met in my life are good people.
When you describe your heaven, what you're describing is Star Trek The Next Generation. It's a dull place. Without conflict, without disagreement, how can we improve ourselves? We would simply be drones living under one harsh lawmaster. What if you disagree with God. What if he makes a decision that you consider to be barbaric - he's done it before and he can certainly do it again.
You could argue that the laws of the Old Testament no longer apply and that the New Testament replaced them. However, if God can go through such a radical personality change once, surely it could happen again. What you're proposing is not far from Stalin's russia. A single people ruled by a powerful and deranged personality. A society where one man/god decides what is right and what it wrong.
What would you do in your perfect heaven if you discover that you are homosexual and God decrees that you are unclean and should be stoned to death?
I wouldn't want this heaven. The only way we can grow is through challenge. Your heaven seems to remove the challenges from life.
The other place place sounds attractive. We don't need a god to impose rules, we'll just make our own rules based on the equitable treatment of our fellow humans. I have no desire to life in your 'master race' of controlled drones heaven.
Tolkien & CS Lewis lifting the idea of good struggling and then triumphing over evil doesn't really say much and seems an irrelevant point. The Bible isn't the source of the first story of good versus evil. It's a very old concept that was used prior to the Bible and will continue to be used. All you've said is based on prophecies from the Bible. Although an interesting read, it's hardly a retirement plan. Hoping that a god will come and fix all the problems is pretty bloody desperate. Seems more productive to accept reality and work to make the world a better place.
If you have no beliefs either way, then you're agnostic. If you're atheist, you have a religious belief.
That doesn't really make any sense. Atheism is a lack of belief. Just because we can't disprove the existence of gods, doesn't mean that a decision to not believe in a god is a faith-based.
Would you consider your failure to believe in the existence of a secret alien base on the moon to be a faith based decision or is it simply based on the complete lack of evidence for the existence of that base? Atheism is a clear-cut rejection of notions of supernatural deities.
Ah, but Tolkien fortold that the heir to Isuldur will return to defeat Sauron. The king shall return to the throne to bring unity to man. The elves will retreat to their magical island and the hobbits will return to the shire as heroes.
Same idea, different book. I sincerely hope that ancient prophesy isn't the best hope we have for the future of humanity.
Slashdot Mirror
The ban is a bit harsh. The guy in this story was definitely in the wrong - he practically turned his character in to a one-click bot. Still, a warning would seem to be a better idea.
CNN news breaking story.
GundamFan has publically said that he/she is sick of fantasy based MMO games and will try to persuade others to quit. Controversially, he dared moderators to mod him down.
People who feel like they're working probably shouldn't be playing the game since it can't be that enjoyable. Learning to play the guitar can feel like work to some people or fun to people with a genuine interest. I think it's only really an issue when someone expects to play like Hendrix without putting in the work. Buying gold is just plain cheating, just like enabling 'god mode' in a single-player game.
Casual players are at a disadvantage but there is still plenty to do in the game for people like myself who aren't chasing uber equipment or wanting to go on 40 man raids. A few hours of smart playing is enough to gather decent amounts of equipment or gold - you don't really have to spend days grinding unless you're after a particularly special item.
I've probably read the study you mentioned and I agree that the selling of gold probably doesn't have the extreme infaltionary effect that some people claim it does. The fact that they are under pressure to sell items quickly could create a downwards trend in prices.
This is great for buyers but not so good for those doing the selling. Gold farmers can obtain items far more cheaply than the average player can. They are being paid to spend long days just playing the game. Since their increased volume drives down the overall price, my time spent gathering these items is devalued since I will get less money when I sell them.
People buying gold will of course be the buyers whereas the sellers are the poor sods trying to play by the rules of the game and earn their way in the world.
From a personal point of view, the main effect I've seen of farming would have to be the annoying spam messages.
The gold sellers like to advertise their sites in the game. They log in and then spam as many people as they can with their adverts. This alone is annoying and disruptive. They invite you to a party and then once in the party, they bombard the party chat channel with adverts.
The gold farmers and the people who buy from them are the problem. Blizzard can shut accounts down and sue but it's the farmers and buyers who have voluntarilly agreed to take part in an act that is contrary to the rules.
It's as valid as me trying to illegally sell your car on eBay using the legal disclaimer "This is my car since I washed it every Sunday morning for a really really long time".
It really doesn't mean anything.
If gold selling became legitimate and widely used, the in-game economy is likely to experience price inflation. It's difficult enough for casual players to compete with powergamers but it certainly would not help if buying gold became as easy as paying for your WoW account.
They are just 1s and 0s but the game relies on certain economics in order for it to work in the same way that you couldn't just reduce gravity and expect everything to function.
Some of the mobs do this, it depends on their placement. Murlocs tend to be bunched together and so it can be tricky to pull one without drawing a little entourage with them. It's true though that some mobs seem to be strangely oblivious to the fireball throwing lunatic who's slaughtering all their friends. AI could be improved somewhat. I do like the way a healing mob will heal it's friends - that's a nice touch.
Player controlled mobs? Nah, that's what PvP is for. It would be fun though if a GM got bored one day, decided to turn Gamon in to a 70 elite and then raid Stormwind.
What's an all-3 serial number? Tried a Google search but didn't find any results.
If it means circumventing the copy-protection then it's still driving me to an illegal activity to enjoy a legally purchased product.
This copy protection I encountered some years back was truly the triumph of marketing over common sense.
White Lightning, a programming/games design package for the Commodore 64, used a great idea to stop people from pirating the software. They printed the manual on red paper.
Imagine trying to read small black text printed on red paper - particularly when you're reading about a relatively complicated subject. It made it very difficult to photocopy but also pretty nasty to read for anything more than a short while - even if you had very good lighting.
It's annoying when you feel driven to adopt an illegal method simply to enjoy a legally purchased game. I used to have a lot of hassle travelling with my PowerBook. Too many of the games demanded that you have the disc in the drive in order to play. If I was going away for a couple of weeks this could mean bringing along quite a few discs that simply shouldn't be necessary.
Unreal Tournament 2004 restored some faith though. Initially you had to have the DVD in the drive for it to play. Later, they released a patch that removed this requirement.
Warcraft 3 was a pain. Despite each copy being serialised, you still need to have the disc in the drive (although an image seems to work if made in the correct way). Warcraft technically required me to carry around 2 CDs since you needed to either have the original or the expansion pack disc in the machine depending on what version you wanted to play.
That said, Blizzards approach to Starcraft was a good one if I recall correctly. You can install one full version and a certain number of client versions on other machines that will allow your friends to join multiplayer games hosted by the full version.
That is freaky. On a forum I visit frequently, there is one Christian who seems to follow this line of thinking. He keeps saying this he is indifferent towards this life as he has eternity ahead of him. The most worrying thing is that if doesn't consider his own life to be important, how does he feel about the lives of others. I asked him if he would save someone from a life-threatening situation or simply let them die in the knowledge that they would go to heaven. He never answered this question.
I can't speak for the US but this is my take from the European perspective.
We have the same complaints in Europe. Despite the fact that Christianity is the state religion of many countries with churches receiving financial assistance from the state, this claim of persecution keeps coming up.
The howls of persecution tend to be loudest when one of these conditions is met.
1) The state prevents a religion from doing something it wants to do. i.e. the state says that religious types aren't allowed to prosletyse in schools.
2) The state enacts a law that contradicts the beliefs of a religious group. For example, legalising abortion or providing equal rights to minority groups like gays.
I wouldn't call Christians idiots. Some Christians though where I live seem to like to keep reminding me that I am dreary, have no respect for humanity and unhappy since I choose to not believe in any gods.
It raises an interesting point though. Taste varies greatly and the crap stuff may actually be what sells best.
A trip in to HMV today shows that they have an un-ending selection of albums like Totally R&B, Monster Jamz, Club Anthems and similar crap (at least in my opinion). Presumably this stuff must sell well since they've so many of them.
The Nine Inch Nails album 'With Teeth' sold 272,000 copies in its first week. Britney Spears' album 'oops I did it again' sold 1.3 million in its first week (both figures based on US sales). I know which I prefer and it 'aint the best-seller.
"I am not anti-mac. But just stating the truth", in the context of the incorrect information is in a similar vein to "I'm not racist, I just don't think that are as bouyant as white people" conversations.
Alternatively you could end up getting killed doing this since it's probably going to be a live adjustment.
Question is, will you still be able to buy equipment to play your collection on at a realistic price? Also, will you still be alive in 200 years to listen to this collection?
OpenDocument Alliance Super Best Friends to the rescue!!!
You could argue that current English is more standardised but there is a significant amount of pop culture that could be baffling. Destiny's Child lyrics come to mind. Personally the Chaucer example above makes more sense to me.
Mind you, there would be one advantage if the patriot act was designed by MS.
If you move to a new house the patriot act wouldn't apply to you unless you phone the government to register yourself.
Beowulf cluster != BSD dying.
I fail it.
Either he's an admin user or the permissions have been changed for the applications folder. You're right that regular users by default can't modify the applications folder or much else outside of their home.
Mmmm, that game with the gorillas throwing bananas at each another. That was part of Quick Basic wasn't it?
You're correct that good and evil aren't concepts that simply dropped out of the sky, they are defined by us. Also, we don't need a God to be able to understand what is right and what is wrong (even if our views of what isright and wrong may vary). Society must define what is right and what is wrong, not an ancient book. Should an army take women from a captured city to use as sex slaves and wives? Should I be allowed to stone my disobedient son to death? If children make fun of an old man should they be killed?
I think those examples above are clearly wrong, most people consider them to be a barbaric over-reaction.
Remember that the Bible did not invent the concepts of good and evil. The human race managed to survive for quite some time before the Bible appeared.
Show some respect for your species man. Yes we often get it wrong and yes there have been some leaders and ideologies that have led to terrible injustice but these are a minority. Most people are decent. Not because they fear enternal damnation or prison but because it is in our interests to work together. Man is a social animal. We survive by co-operating. Of course some jerks will try to take more than they should and they must be dealt with but on the whole, most people I have met in my life are good people.
When you describe your heaven, what you're describing is Star Trek The Next Generation. It's a dull place. Without conflict, without disagreement, how can we improve ourselves? We would simply be drones living under one harsh lawmaster. What if you disagree with God. What if he makes a decision that you consider to be barbaric - he's done it before and he can certainly do it again.
You could argue that the laws of the Old Testament no longer apply and that the New Testament replaced them. However, if God can go through such a radical personality change once, surely it could happen again. What you're proposing is not far from Stalin's russia. A single people ruled by a powerful and deranged personality. A society where one man/god decides what is right and what it wrong.
What would you do in your perfect heaven if you discover that you are homosexual and God decrees that you are unclean and should be stoned to death?
I wouldn't want this heaven. The only way we can grow is through challenge. Your heaven seems to remove the challenges from life.
The other place place sounds attractive. We don't need a god to impose rules, we'll just make our own rules based on the equitable treatment of our fellow humans. I have no desire to life in your 'master race' of controlled drones heaven.
Tolkien & CS Lewis lifting the idea of good struggling and then triumphing over evil doesn't really say much and seems an irrelevant point. The Bible isn't the source of the first story of good versus evil. It's a very old concept that was used prior to the Bible and will continue to be used. All you've said is based on prophecies from the Bible. Although an interesting read, it's hardly a retirement plan. Hoping that a god will come and fix all the problems is pretty bloody desperate. Seems more productive to accept reality and work to make the world a better place.
That doesn't really make any sense. Atheism is a lack of belief. Just because we can't disprove the existence of gods, doesn't mean that a decision to not believe in a god is a faith-based.
Would you consider your failure to believe in the existence of a secret alien base on the moon to be a faith based decision or is it simply based on the complete lack of evidence for the existence of that base? Atheism is a clear-cut rejection of notions of supernatural deities.
Ah, but Tolkien fortold that the heir to Isuldur will return to defeat Sauron. The king shall return to the throne to bring unity to man. The elves will retreat to their magical island and the hobbits will return to the shire as heroes.
Same idea, different book. I sincerely hope that ancient prophesy isn't the best hope we have for the future of humanity.
And Cockburn. Possibly the most amusingly descriptive name in the English language.