Rather than fighting other players for spawns you could have teamed-up with them to complete the goal cooperatively, an essential part of what makes the game appealing.
Er, have you played the game? Okay, maybe when instancing at lvl 70-80. But before then? Better hope the other person is not a complete cunt and will accept your invite before killing that special mob you need. And steer clear of them when doing anything else, you'll be happier that way.
But this did not change the fact that the game is essentially a single character RTS, with "click once and wait" comprimising 90% of your time in combat
To be fair, it starts like this because that's easier. If they gave you all the abilities you have at lvl 80 you'd just be dumbstruck and not know how to do much of anything in combat, spending more time reading the tooltips than the actual killing takes.
But it seems to me from your account you just don't have the addictive personality that so many people have that make us not mind one bit about all those grinding quests. At least not in the beginning.
Either way, if you don't find it fun to start with, you'll probably not find it fun after turning in your 12 rabbit ears for gazillionth time (especially since for some reason many rabbits would not seem to posses any ears, necessating the slaughter of many multiples of the amount of ears you need).
I think you're on to something. In the final years of school I really tired of video games. At a certain point the only game I was playing was WoW and more as a glorified IRC chat than anything else. Something to pass the time I guess.
But now I have a job, disposable income and I don't live near campus anymore where I used to go out at least 2 nights a week (and a third in the weekends) anyway. Suddenly I've rediscovered my love of gaming and I'm trying out all sorts of interesting games.
But then I'm not in a relationship and have little in the way of obligations outside of my job. The thing is, I'm not the sort of person who's likely to take up many hobbies instead of reading work related literature and/or vegetating on the couch. At least gaming is entertaining and engages my brain.
"Innovation" really isn't the right word. I can't think of anything on the desktop that wasn't just an incremental improvement. And lots of the things they're working on now have probably existed in some form or another for the past 30 years.
It's just that all big vendors want to claim they're "innovative", which they sort of are, but not in the way of coming up with completely new things every time they bring out a new release, which people seem to think they do.
This was hashed out in the recent thread on 96% windows penetration. The fact of the matter is that: 1) Some vendors actually had the gall to sell netbooks that didn't have working wifi under linux, then claim they were netbooks. They saw higher return rates but others (dell and was it acer?) didn't. Chalk one up against the basic premise of the article. 2) After Microsoft decided to really enter the netbook market netbooks with linux on them suddenly became impossible to get. Whether this has anything to do with Microsoft or more with the stores choosing brand awareness I don't know. The fact remains, people that went into a store somewhere in the last few months were extremely unlikely to even be offered the option.
I've recently broken down and ordered an MSI Wind. I'll probably not bother to try and get a refund on the Windows (it's a huge hassle, and I might never see the money) but it's gonna run Ubuntu either way.
What we really need is someone to come in and make the major suppliers give us the option of getting a laptop without an OS pre-installed. Why the hell in 2009 are we still dealing with this shit where you simply cannot buy anything in a laptop form factor or below without paying the Microsoft tax. (disregarding macbooks for a minute)
In any case, it's of far more concern that "legitimate" public bodies such as local councils and quangos will potentially be able to access this sort of information. That covers hundreds of thousands of people, many of them low-level staffers or those elected by only a few hundred people. There is an obvious case for allowing the police and intelligence services to access this kind of information, subject to powerful safeguards and judicial oversight, where it is necessary for the performance of their public duties. However, there is absolutely nothing that is done at the level of the hundreds of other organisations involved that justifies the kind of invasion of privacy covered by this sort of law.
The article states that in the UK these records can only be accessed under the RIPA act. Probably more stringent in the rest of western europe. So I wouldn't worry so much about local councils and such. I'd worry more about sysadmins without an ounce of ethics training sitting on a veritable gold mine of private data. You just know it's only a matter of time before the first one gets bribed for a couple of hundred thousand.
Re:Maybe Linux needs more trolling journalists?
on
Linux Needs Critics
·
· Score: 1
As developers we should never forget that our goal is to make life easier for these Joe Does. THIS is what we should be listening to.
That is not anybody's goal. People are inherently selfish, this is exactly why the open source development model works, because everyone has something to take out of it.
Re:The Toaster as penultimate technology
on
Linux Needs Critics
·
· Score: 1
Yes, it's free. Nobody *has* to listen to you and that's the problem in a nutshell. Nobody gives a rat's patoot about the fact that the wondrous Ubuntu can't see my USB drives and half of my other devices.
Actually I've spent a lot of time criticizing pidgin to its developers in the past, they're generally pretty good about listening to their user community. They however also have an idea of how things should work and had well articulated reasons to not change the behaviour you link to above. People who complain about these things tend to forget that there are also users who like the way it works, and the developers need to look out for their best interests as well.
My problem is with the basic GUI search feature on my Linux distro. It might work fine from the command line, or if I used some command line regular expressions. But I have had much better luck with Windows finding *.mp3 modified between 8-1-2008 & 10-1-2008 on a external usb drive.
I have the same complaint about Mac OS X.
The problem is that I'm not sure if it is a limitation of the operating system, or if it is an operator limitation where I don't know how to do it. But, even then, the problem should be that Linux needs to make it easier.
It's not a limitation of the operating system as such, since on any modern OS you could write a program that can do this.
Now, any linux system has the "find" command line tool which admittedly is somewhat hard to use, though I don't quite understand why whatever you use absolutely has to be a GUI program. You probably want gnome-search-tool anyway. (from the gnome-utils package) Under Ubuntu it's under Places->search for files.
I still don't quite understand what the criticism is here.
Re:I hear lots of negative criticism about Linux.
on
Linux Needs Critics
·
· Score: 1
How could your mother use Linux if the basic functions don't work out of the box?
And this is how those so called "critics" get modded down flamebait. Nobody contends x.org doesn't suck. It sucks a bit less than it used to though.
Re:I hear lots of negative criticism about Linux.
on
Linux Needs Critics
·
· Score: 1
I hear lots of negative criticism about Linux. Mostly from uneducated haters, but there's no lack of it.
My problem is the opposite, uneducated Linux developers. I'll submit a bug asking for feature parity with Windows or OS X and get a response back that clearly misunderstands how those OS's work. I then spend a week educating the person and explaining to them why (from and end user perspective) the way Linux does things now really isn't better and what the other OS in question does. In the the end they usually agree, it would be cool to improve Linux to work that way, but too much work or would be incompatible with other distros, so they ignore it.
Alternately, I submit a usability bug (I have worked as a UI/usability expert in the past) and then spend hours trying to explain to a server engineer working on making a desktop, why their design ignores all the research in the field and (if they did testing) is going to be a huge problem when they test it.
Don't get me wrong. I like and use Linux. In many ways it has leapt ahead of other OS's and provides a model for them to follow. It just does have some serious flaws and problems that have gone unaddressed for a long time and don't seem likely to be fixed anytime soon.
Doesn't that somewhat support the GP's point though? There is plenty of criticism of linux out there, but a lot of it is "I tried this on linux and it didn't work so I threw up my hands in disgust and went back to windows". When confronted with that type of user, most people just bug out of the conversation and then the fanboys pounce. I must point out here that the same thing happens to "normal" people when they end up on windows/mac forums. Some people complaining about just that in this thread should really see what goes on in the average game forum. Does anyone honestly believe they can have a constructive conversation about improving linux/some linux apps on slashdot, troll capital of the world?
When an actual informed conversation is possible though, developers are often willing to have them. They are perhaps not willing to fix the issues you complain about, but that's another matter entirely. There's not time nor motivation to fix all problems. Nor do most server programmers care enough about UIs to fix them properly. Eventually someone might.
He meant to say the video editing software he tried didn't work properly. Not very constructive criticism either way, he could have at least told us which programs he tried.
One of the most annoying things I have found in Bugzilla is that "WON'T FIX" tag. Regardless of whether or not the actual issue affects myself, anyone who has taken the time and trouble to post input on a project deserves a more apposite response than "stick your criticism where the sun don't shine". It certainly does nothing to foster the kind of goodwill necessary to inspire the hapless user to ever bother again.
Come on now, any software design issue involves trade-offs. I'm not saying the the wontfix tag isn't something that's sometimes misused but there are extremely valid reasons for its existance. If a developer has bothered to close a bug report with wontfix, chances are he has actually taken the contents of the bug report and its implications into consideration, more than you often get on your criticisms.
Being serious for a moment, a large part of the problem with Linux - at least in the "getting more people to adopt it" sense (chicken and egg) - is the fact that Linux developers/proponents tend to be unable to understand that while something is "not their fault", it is still their problem.
The linux developers vs users ratio on most web forums is somewhat low. Your problem is most likely that you have a hard time telling the difference between a 15 year old shooting his mouth off and someone who can actually help. Which is normal as a new user, but I think you're a bit quick to pass judgement on the community because of it.
Also, it might just not make any sense to use that ATI card, but I'm not so sure that was the root of the problem. YMMV
It depends a lot on your source language. My native language is dutch, so it comes quite naturally for me. Especially compared with finnish or something even further removed from me (chinese, for instance).
As for the replacement of the US government by Sharia, Here is the thing, suggesting that, working towards implementing that, and even lawfully having it isn't against any laws in the United States of America. Now, there will be certain steps that would need to happen like constitutional amendments to both removed the power and structure of the current government and to create the authority of the new Sharia based Counsel government. If you plot to undermine the authority or existence of the government itself in any ways which is in violation of a law or considered an act of war, then it would be those acts that are against the law and not the speech.
You're mostly correct. However, one of the requirement was that you can make these statements without fear of reprisal from the government. In theory, you should be fine. In the real world people have been incarcerated for weeks or months without trial (under the patriot act) for saying stupid things. Note that you can also be arrested (and convicted, apparently) for stating in private that you think bombing some building would be a good way to achieve said goal. Even if there is no tangible evidence (i.e. bombs or bomb-making equipment) that you actually planned to do that.
You make some excellent points throughout. Basically my argument is: you might be able to convince yourself and maybe me that the US is a "freedom" based society, but you won't convince everyone. Nor is it useful to exclude some of the world's most powerful countries (China, Russia) from a global peacekeeping institution because they happen to have different values from you. Diplomacy and trade are both valid ways to attempt to make the world safer, which is what the UN is ultimately about. If we can have bilateral agreements with dictatorships, why would we remove them from the UN?
Increasingly, the UN is also establishing sort of a moral baseline in the world. Sometimes stuff doesn't quite work, but ultimately it's one of those things the US wants. I know it's hard to understand for some, but there are countries out there that really don't care whether some north african dictator is genociding his people. If you can get buy-in from those people, you're set. Of course when everyone sees how the US doesn't give a crap about what the UN thinks (e.g. Iraq) and fails to submit to any sort of international justice (icc), I don't think they'll be particularly willing to cooperate in any venue. Which if I recall correctly is the exact reason the US isn't on this particular human rights commision.
I should probably articulate the point further. First of all, free speech is not the gold standard of freedom. There are other freedom values that are arguably more important to a free society, such as due process. By that standard alone, the US wouldn't be allowed in (see: guantanamo). Second of all, you state that the right to criticize your government without fear of reprisal is the standard of a free society. You try advocating the replacement of the US government by a sharia-backed council of elders and see how far that gets you.
Freedom means different things in different places, most of the world doesn't think of the US as being nearly as free as you seem to think it is. Most of the world is not even convinced that a 'free' society is a good thing to have. A united nations without most of the world is not a united nations at all.
Re:Islamic groups are pushing censorship worldwide
on
UN Attacks Free Speech
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· Score: 1
A Finnish MP is being prosecuted because he had the temerity to point out that Mohammed had sex with a nine-year old girl called Aisha, whom he married when she was aged six - details here.
The fact is, he's right.
You're quoting a story from a website called "jihadwatch" that links to an article from a self professed tabloid. Excuse me while I yawn.
What's the difference between the two? If a citizen of a country can stand in what amounts to the town square and criticize his/her government without fear of reprisal, it's a freedom-based society. If not, it's fear-based.
Slashdot Mirror
-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority
Rather than fighting other players for spawns you could have teamed-up with them to complete the goal cooperatively, an essential part of what makes the game appealing.
Er, have you played the game? Okay, maybe when instancing at lvl 70-80. But before then? Better hope the other person is not a complete cunt and will accept your invite before killing that special mob you need. And steer clear of them when doing anything else, you'll be happier that way.
But this did not change the fact that the game is essentially a single character RTS, with "click once and wait" comprimising 90% of your time in combat
To be fair, it starts like this because that's easier. If they gave you all the abilities you have at lvl 80 you'd just be dumbstruck and not know how to do much of anything in combat, spending more time reading the tooltips than the actual killing takes.
But it seems to me from your account you just don't have the addictive personality that so many people have that make us not mind one bit about all those grinding quests. At least not in the beginning.
Either way, if you don't find it fun to start with, you'll probably not find it fun after turning in your 12 rabbit ears for gazillionth time (especially since for some reason many rabbits would not seem to posses any ears, necessating the slaughter of many multiples of the amount of ears you need).
I think you're on to something. In the final years of school I really tired of video games. At a certain point the only game I was playing was WoW and more as a glorified IRC chat than anything else. Something to pass the time I guess.
But now I have a job, disposable income and I don't live near campus anymore where I used to go out at least 2 nights a week (and a third in the weekends) anyway. Suddenly I've rediscovered my love of gaming and I'm trying out all sorts of interesting games.
But then I'm not in a relationship and have little in the way of obligations outside of my job. The thing is, I'm not the sort of person who's likely to take up many hobbies instead of reading work related literature and/or vegetating on the couch. At least gaming is entertaining and engages my brain.
"Innovation" really isn't the right word. I can't think of anything on the desktop that wasn't just an incremental improvement. And lots of the things they're working on now have probably existed in some form or another for the past 30 years.
It's just that all big vendors want to claim they're "innovative", which they sort of are, but not in the way of coming up with completely new things every time they bring out a new release, which people seem to think they do.
This was hashed out in the recent thread on 96% windows penetration. The fact of the matter is that:
1) Some vendors actually had the gall to sell netbooks that didn't have working wifi under linux, then claim they were netbooks. They saw higher return rates but others (dell and was it acer?) didn't. Chalk one up against the basic premise of the article.
2) After Microsoft decided to really enter the netbook market netbooks with linux on them suddenly became impossible to get. Whether this has anything to do with Microsoft or more with the stores choosing brand awareness I don't know. The fact remains, people that went into a store somewhere in the last few months were extremely unlikely to even be offered the option.
I've recently broken down and ordered an MSI Wind. I'll probably not bother to try and get a refund on the Windows (it's a huge hassle, and I might never see the money) but it's gonna run Ubuntu either way.
What we really need is someone to come in and make the major suppliers give us the option of getting a laptop without an OS pre-installed. Why the hell in 2009 are we still dealing with this shit where you simply cannot buy anything in a laptop form factor or below without paying the Microsoft tax. (disregarding macbooks for a minute)
Okay my bad, I thought RIPA meant something entirely different than "everyone and their dog". The wikipedia article on the matter is... telling.
In any case, it's of far more concern that "legitimate" public bodies such as local councils and quangos will potentially be able to access this sort of information. That covers hundreds of thousands of people, many of them low-level staffers or those elected by only a few hundred people. There is an obvious case for allowing the police and intelligence services to access this kind of information, subject to powerful safeguards and judicial oversight, where it is necessary for the performance of their public duties. However, there is absolutely nothing that is done at the level of the hundreds of other organisations involved that justifies the kind of invasion of privacy covered by this sort of law.
The article states that in the UK these records can only be accessed under the RIPA act. Probably more stringent in the rest of western europe. So I wouldn't worry so much about local councils and such. I'd worry more about sysadmins without an ounce of ethics training sitting on a veritable gold mine of private data. You just know it's only a matter of time before the first one gets bribed for a couple of hundred thousand.
s/Western/American/
Only 330,000 results though. We can do better!
As developers we should never forget that our goal is to make life easier for these Joe Does. THIS is what we should be listening to.
That is not anybody's goal. People are inherently selfish, this is exactly why the open source development model works, because everyone has something to take out of it.
Yes, it's free. Nobody *has* to listen to you and that's the problem in a nutshell. Nobody gives a rat's patoot about the fact that the wondrous Ubuntu can't see my USB drives and half of my other devices.
Ehm, actually the ubuntu devs would sure like to hear from you. Head to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu and knock yourself out.
And then the users go "BUT I WANT IT FIXED YESTERDAY111!!!eleven!!one".
Yeah, there is a lot of that too.
Actually I've spent a lot of time criticizing pidgin to its developers in the past, they're generally pretty good about listening to their user community. They however also have an idea of how things should work and had well articulated reasons to not change the behaviour you link to above. People who complain about these things tend to forget that there are also users who like the way it works, and the developers need to look out for their best interests as well.
My problem is with the basic GUI search feature on my Linux distro. It might work fine from the command line, or if I used some command line regular expressions. But I have had much better luck with Windows finding *.mp3 modified between 8-1-2008 & 10-1-2008 on a external usb drive.
I have the same complaint about Mac OS X.
The problem is that I'm not sure if it is a limitation of the operating system, or if it is an operator limitation where I don't know how to do it. But, even then, the problem should be that Linux needs to make it easier.
It's not a limitation of the operating system as such, since on any modern OS you could write a program that can do this.
Now, any linux system has the "find" command line tool which admittedly is somewhat hard to use, though I don't quite understand why whatever you use absolutely has to be a GUI program. You probably want gnome-search-tool anyway. (from the gnome-utils package) Under Ubuntu it's under Places->search for files.
I still don't quite understand what the criticism is here.
How could your mother use Linux if the basic functions don't work out of the box?
And this is how those so called "critics" get modded down flamebait. Nobody contends x.org doesn't suck. It sucks a bit less than it used to though.
I hear lots of negative criticism about Linux. Mostly from uneducated haters, but there's no lack of it.
My problem is the opposite, uneducated Linux developers. I'll submit a bug asking for feature parity with Windows or OS X and get a response back that clearly misunderstands how those OS's work. I then spend a week educating the person and explaining to them why (from and end user perspective) the way Linux does things now really isn't better and what the other OS in question does. In the the end they usually agree, it would be cool to improve Linux to work that way, but too much work or would be incompatible with other distros, so they ignore it.
Alternately, I submit a usability bug (I have worked as a UI/usability expert in the past) and then spend hours trying to explain to a server engineer working on making a desktop, why their design ignores all the research in the field and (if they did testing) is going to be a huge problem when they test it.
Don't get me wrong. I like and use Linux. In many ways it has leapt ahead of other OS's and provides a model for them to follow. It just does have some serious flaws and problems that have gone unaddressed for a long time and don't seem likely to be fixed anytime soon.
Doesn't that somewhat support the GP's point though? There is plenty of criticism of linux out there, but a lot of it is "I tried this on linux and it didn't work so I threw up my hands in disgust and went back to windows". When confronted with that type of user, most people just bug out of the conversation and then the fanboys pounce. I must point out here that the same thing happens to "normal" people when they end up on windows/mac forums. Some people complaining about just that in this thread should really see what goes on in the average game forum. Does anyone honestly believe they can have a constructive conversation about improving linux/some linux apps on slashdot, troll capital of the world?
When an actual informed conversation is possible though, developers are often willing to have them. They are perhaps not willing to fix the issues you complain about, but that's another matter entirely. There's not time nor motivation to fix all problems. Nor do most server programmers care enough about UIs to fix them properly. Eventually someone might.
He meant to say the video editing software he tried didn't work properly. Not very constructive criticism either way, he could have at least told us which programs he tried.
One of the most annoying things I have found in Bugzilla is that "WON'T FIX" tag. Regardless of whether or not the actual issue affects myself, anyone who has taken the time and trouble to post input on a project deserves a more apposite response than "stick your criticism where the sun don't shine". It certainly does nothing to foster the kind of goodwill necessary to inspire the hapless user to ever bother again.
Come on now, any software design issue involves trade-offs. I'm not saying the the wontfix tag isn't something that's sometimes misused but there are extremely valid reasons for its existance. If a developer has bothered to close a bug report with wontfix, chances are he has actually taken the contents of the bug report and its implications into consideration, more than you often get on your criticisms.
Being serious for a moment, a large part of the problem with Linux - at least in the "getting more people to adopt it" sense (chicken and egg) - is the fact that Linux developers/proponents tend to be unable to understand that while something is "not their fault", it is still their problem.
The linux developers vs users ratio on most web forums is somewhat low. Your problem is most likely that you have a hard time telling the difference between a 15 year old shooting his mouth off and someone who can actually help. Which is normal as a new user, but I think you're a bit quick to pass judgement on the community because of it.
Also, it might just not make any sense to use that ATI card, but I'm not so sure that was the root of the problem. YMMV
It depends a lot on your source language. My native language is dutch, so it comes quite naturally for me. Especially compared with finnish or something even further removed from me (chinese, for instance).
As for the replacement of the US government by Sharia, Here is the thing, suggesting that, working towards implementing that, and even lawfully having it isn't against any laws in the United States of America. Now, there will be certain steps that would need to happen like constitutional amendments to both removed the power and structure of the current government and to create the authority of the new Sharia based Counsel government. If you plot to undermine the authority or existence of the government itself in any ways which is in violation of a law or considered an act of war, then it would be those acts that are against the law and not the speech.
You're mostly correct. However, one of the requirement was that you can make these statements without fear of reprisal from the government. In theory, you should be fine. In the real world people have been incarcerated for weeks or months without trial (under the patriot act) for saying stupid things. Note that you can also be arrested (and convicted, apparently) for stating in private that you think bombing some building would be a good way to achieve said goal. Even if there is no tangible evidence (i.e. bombs or bomb-making equipment) that you actually planned to do that.
You make some excellent points throughout. Basically my argument is: you might be able to convince yourself and maybe me that the US is a "freedom" based society, but you won't convince everyone. Nor is it useful to exclude some of the world's most powerful countries (China, Russia) from a global peacekeeping institution because they happen to have different values from you. Diplomacy and trade are both valid ways to attempt to make the world safer, which is what the UN is ultimately about. If we can have bilateral agreements with dictatorships, why would we remove them from the UN?
Increasingly, the UN is also establishing sort of a moral baseline in the world. Sometimes stuff doesn't quite work, but ultimately it's one of those things the US wants. I know it's hard to understand for some, but there are countries out there that really don't care whether some north african dictator is genociding his people. If you can get buy-in from those people, you're set. Of course when everyone sees how the US doesn't give a crap about what the UN thinks (e.g. Iraq) and fails to submit to any sort of international justice (icc), I don't think they'll be particularly willing to cooperate in any venue. Which if I recall correctly is the exact reason the US isn't on this particular human rights commision.
I should probably articulate the point further. First of all, free speech is not the gold standard of freedom. There are other freedom values that are arguably more important to a free society, such as due process. By that standard alone, the US wouldn't be allowed in (see: guantanamo). Second of all, you state that the right to criticize your government without fear of reprisal is the standard of a free society. You try advocating the replacement of the US government by a sharia-backed council of elders and see how far that gets you.
Freedom means different things in different places, most of the world doesn't think of the US as being nearly as free as you seem to think it is. Most of the world is not even convinced that a 'free' society is a good thing to have. A united nations without most of the world is not a united nations at all.
A Finnish MP is being prosecuted because he had the temerity to point out that Mohammed had sex with a nine-year old girl called Aisha, whom he married when she was aged six - details here.
The fact is, he's right.
You're quoting a story from a website called "jihadwatch" that links to an article from a self professed tabloid. Excuse me while I yawn.
What's the difference between the two? If a citizen of a country can stand in what amounts to the town square and criticize his/her government without fear of reprisal, it's a freedom-based society. If not, it's fear-based.
So... the US is out then?