Many gamers are gamers regardless of the genre. I play consoles, PC, boardgames, pen-and-paper games, and card games. I'll be at GenCon tomorrow and bought my Video Games Live tickets a couple months ago.
I guess it's the same reason GenCon doesn't "just" have Dungeons and Dragons - despite that being its roots. GenCon, while still focused on RPGs is a "gaming" convention as a whole - and even that is starting to branch out more and more, as this year they're offering an "anime only" badge, for those that are interested in only seeing the anime rooms that have been growing in size the last few years.
Heh, sadly, I did read that, but got so excited about telling people what to use to play over the 'net that I forgot, and tossed TeamSpeak in as part of my standard spiel. ~shrug~
My friends and I are all D&D fans (looking forward to GenCon next week! Woot!) and all live in separate states, so we were looking for a similar solution as well.
There are several ways to go, but for my money, the best product is FantasyGrounds.
Fantasy Grounds is a "virtual tabletop" complete with d20 rules, character sheets, dice, a chat window, the ability to share images with your players, and to mask/unmask maps as your party progresses.
The current version is 1.05, but a major revamp has been in the works all year, with a version 2.0 due out "soon". Speaking of GenCon - the SmiteWorks guys (who make FantasyGrounds) will be sharing a booth with the guys from Code Monkey Publishing (makers of the E-Tools software for character creation).
I'm not, personally, a fan of those, but everyone has their preferences.
Also, to aid in communication, I strongly suggest running a TeamSpeak server, so you can actually talk to your fellow players, instead of typing everything manually.
The retailers could choose to enforce the rating, but its a voluntary system.
Likewise, last time I checked, the movie rating system isn't a *legal* system, just a well-known system enforced (or not) by individual theathers.
Also, as I recall, as a kid when the MPAA ratings were "new" - it was a guide more for my parents to decide if I should see a film or not, it seems like its only been in the last few years (5 or so) that I've heard of theaters actaully carding "kids" who want to see something rated "R".
The same is happening with the ESRB ratings. At first nobody knew of them - now people are taking notice, and parents are starting to use them as a guide. Enforcement is starting in some stores, but its hit or miss. Eventually it will become commonplace and happen more often than not. ~shrug~
I pay for Cable Company X to give me internet access, now they start slowing my access to Google, unless Google pays their higher fees.
Am I not, as the user, getting screwed for my choice of Cable Company X? Now I get slowed access to the best search engine, and or other big sites (like Amazon, for example).
Even if the cable companies paid for the infrastructue, am I, the user, not paying for the use of that structure? I sure won't be happy about paying for a deliberately slowed connection to my favorite sites.
YAY! Nothing like a Well formed opinion on Slashdot!
I don't suppose you'd mind telling us what it is, in particular, that sucks about 3E?
Based on your complaint about marketing sucking more money out of people, I'll presume its cost. To that I'd like to counter that the basics of the game are available for free as part of the SRD. You want to try 3.5E? Try a website like www.d20srd.org. Everything you need to play the game is right there. The rest of the material is only useful if you want to add to the game (more spells, more prestige classes, new items, etc etc etc). Most of that stuff you can make up on your own if you don't want to buy it.
In the meantime, many of us are quite enjoying the new streamlined rules, the abundance of customizable options for our characters (in the form of Feats and Skills to name but two), and the option of having rules for an AC range with more than a 20 point delta.
At the risk of being modded troll, I find this article a bit off.
I've long been a FAN of D-Link hardware, after having nothing but problems and short-lifespans with LinkSys and Belkin networking hardware.
I've owned two DI-624 routers (Rev B and Rev C) and I update the firmware on those units pretty frequently.
As long as I can recall, turning on NTP has always been an *option* and I've *always* had to manually input the NTP server I want to use. It's never been hard-coded, or even available from a drop-down list.
When I've left the NTP option unchecked, and set the time manually, I've found that after a router reboot the time is lost, and highly inacurate (by years) - which would indicate to me it's not sneaking around and grabbing NTP without my knowledge.
As for the assorted posts about how hard it is to contact someone at D-Link - I've also not had a problem there.
Case-in point, there's an issue in the latest firmware for their Revision C routers (firmware 2.70). Specifically, it doesn't DHCP to non D-link Wireless hardware. I sent an e-mail to their tech support dept, they helped me troubleshoot and workaround the issue, and I assumed I was done hearing from them until a new firmware was posted.
A week later D-Link e-mailed a beta firmware that had a fix for the DHCP issue in it.
I've found their hardware to have a long-life (better than Linksys, as much as I enjoy Cisco), be more configurable thank Belkin, and after this case with their support dept - I **strongly** recommend D-Link to all my friends and SOHO clients.
I guess, at this point, I feel for the guy in the article, he's providing a useful service, and he *appears* to have researched this pretty thoroughly. If D-Link really has tried to blow him off, well, I blame lawyers, not D-Link.
In my experience, with two DI-624 routers (which are named in the open letter), however, I don't see where/how this can be a problem.
It's because of fears over things like this that I keep my (LiveJournal) blog set so that comments are moderated. Anyone can leave a comment, but until I clear it, nobody else can read it.
So far I haven't been spamblogged, and if I start to get spammed, I'll simply set my comments to be available for posting by "friends only". Then only people I've authorized will be able to comment on my blog. *shrug*
The original poster is right though. It's just somehow wrong that any open media, especially those that *I* pay for, are so quickly mucked up by advertising.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not the only one who knows (and/or cares) about the difference.
I guess it's the same reason GenCon doesn't "just" have Dungeons and Dragons - despite that being its roots. GenCon, while still focused on RPGs is a "gaming" convention as a whole - and even that is starting to branch out more and more, as this year they're offering an "anime only" badge, for those that are interested in only seeing the anime rooms that have been growing in size the last few years.
Sorry, I limited my answer to fields I have experience with. :-P
There are several ways to go, but for my money, the best product is FantasyGrounds.
Fantasy Grounds is a "virtual tabletop" complete with d20 rules, character sheets, dice, a chat window, the ability to share images with your players, and to mask/unmask maps as your party progresses.
The current version is 1.05, but a major revamp has been in the works all year, with a version 2.0 due out "soon". Speaking of GenCon - the SmiteWorks guys (who make FantasyGrounds) will be sharing a booth with the guys from Code Monkey Publishing (makers of the E-Tools software for character creation).
Other tools to look at include OpenRPG and Klooge.
I'm not, personally, a fan of those, but everyone has their preferences.
Also, to aid in communication, I strongly suggest running a TeamSpeak server, so you can actually talk to your fellow players, instead of typing everything manually.
Likewise, last time I checked, the movie rating system isn't a *legal* system, just a well-known system enforced (or not) by individual theathers.
Also, as I recall, as a kid when the MPAA ratings were "new" - it was a guide more for my parents to decide if I should see a film or not, it seems like its only been in the last few years (5 or so) that I've heard of theaters actaully carding "kids" who want to see something rated "R".
The same is happening with the ESRB ratings. At first nobody knew of them - now people are taking notice, and parents are starting to use them as a guide. Enforcement is starting in some stores, but its hit or miss. Eventually it will become commonplace and happen more often than not. ~shrug~
Just have to give the system time to get started.
I pay for Cable Company X to give me internet access, now they start slowing my access to Google, unless Google pays their higher fees. Am I not, as the user, getting screwed for my choice of Cable Company X? Now I get slowed access to the best search engine, and or other big sites (like Amazon, for example). Even if the cable companies paid for the infrastructue, am I, the user, not paying for the use of that structure? I sure won't be happy about paying for a deliberately slowed connection to my favorite sites.
YAY! Nothing like a Well formed opinion on Slashdot! I don't suppose you'd mind telling us what it is, in particular, that sucks about 3E? Based on your complaint about marketing sucking more money out of people, I'll presume its cost. To that I'd like to counter that the basics of the game are available for free as part of the SRD. You want to try 3.5E? Try a website like www.d20srd.org. Everything you need to play the game is right there. The rest of the material is only useful if you want to add to the game (more spells, more prestige classes, new items, etc etc etc). Most of that stuff you can make up on your own if you don't want to buy it. In the meantime, many of us are quite enjoying the new streamlined rules, the abundance of customizable options for our characters (in the form of Feats and Skills to name but two), and the option of having rules for an AC range with more than a 20 point delta.
I've long been a FAN of D-Link hardware, after having nothing but problems and short-lifespans with LinkSys and Belkin networking hardware.
I've owned two DI-624 routers (Rev B and Rev C) and I update the firmware on those units pretty frequently.
As long as I can recall, turning on NTP has always been an *option* and I've *always* had to manually input the NTP server I want to use. It's never been hard-coded, or even available from a drop-down list.
When I've left the NTP option unchecked, and set the time manually, I've found that after a router reboot the time is lost, and highly inacurate (by years) - which would indicate to me it's not sneaking around and grabbing NTP without my knowledge.
As for the assorted posts about how hard it is to contact someone at D-Link - I've also not had a problem there.
Case-in point, there's an issue in the latest firmware for their Revision C routers (firmware 2.70). Specifically, it doesn't DHCP to non D-link Wireless hardware. I sent an e-mail to their tech support dept, they helped me troubleshoot and workaround the issue, and I assumed I was done hearing from them until a new firmware was posted.
A week later D-Link e-mailed a beta firmware that had a fix for the DHCP issue in it.
I've found their hardware to have a long-life (better than Linksys, as much as I enjoy Cisco), be more configurable thank Belkin, and after this case with their support dept - I **strongly** recommend D-Link to all my friends and SOHO clients.
I guess, at this point, I feel for the guy in the article, he's providing a useful service, and he *appears* to have researched this pretty thoroughly. If D-Link really has tried to blow him off, well, I blame lawyers, not D-Link.
In my experience, with two DI-624 routers (which are named in the open letter), however, I don't see where/how this can be a problem.
It's because of fears over things like this that I keep my (LiveJournal) blog set so that comments are moderated. Anyone can leave a comment, but until I clear it, nobody else can read it. So far I haven't been spamblogged, and if I start to get spammed, I'll simply set my comments to be available for posting by "friends only". Then only people I've authorized will be able to comment on my blog. *shrug* The original poster is right though. It's just somehow wrong that any open media, especially those that *I* pay for, are so quickly mucked up by advertising.
Greg Dean summed this all up about 10 months ago VERY well.
d =8 23
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