It's odd that I'm on the negative side of this arguement, I'm normally considered the fanboy.
I have complete faith in the idea that Blizzard will continue to expand WoW.
Unfortunately, I also have a good memory on how quickly they 'expanded' their other games and how long it takes them to get to a point where they are happy enough with something to release it.
I'm hoping that being in charge of an MMOG will 'mellow' Blizzard a bit in that regard and we'll see something close to frequent updates. But I don't expect it.
For me personally, that's fine. I'm having enough trouble _NOT_ leveling, as I've decided to do all the quests for my faction instead of just the ones in my racial area. I imagine it'll be a long time before I run out of things to do on that front. And when I do, I can go back through again as something different than a gnomish mage with a proficency in tinkering and mining.
But there are a number of people out there who have already rushed through to 60. And they are already tired of the few distractions avaliable to them. For them the Battlegrounds are already a bit late.
Although there are a number of money-sinks out there, most of them are one-time deals which means that eventually you burn through them.
And your access to gold seems to increase expodentially as you level, which means that eventually there are going to be a number of bored level 60 players with an entire vault full of gold, 're-rolling' or just leveling up alts and dumping obscene amounts of money out for equipment.
You are right, Blizzard has put in place things that I hope will retard inflation in game, but I wonder if that will actually slow it or just build it up behind a dam that will eventually break.
The thottbot add-on is obfuscated, meaning that while you can still figure out what is being sent, you'd have to spend alot of time working on it to be sure.
I don't believe in selling items or characters when the company running the game specificly prohibits it. But I do consider contributing to game sites that work similar to thottbot simply being a good citizen.
I contributed to both sites that had plugins to allow them to collect data. Now I only contribute to Alkazam. I don't like people who hide their affiliations like that, and I certainly don't want to help out someone who is working hard at something that I consider as making my game less enjoyable.
Your worse case scenario is far more rosey than the one I have. Mine is that IGE collects information which allows them to farm better, and decides to start either holding back info to have a 'competitive edge' or worse, starts faking information. Yeah, people can start their own sites, and I consider Alkazam a better site anyway, but only if they know they need to.
Do what Blizzard did with LUA and only implement the core functions and libraries you consider 'safe' and leave the others out.
Of course, the scope of a mod for a full game would be greater than the scope of just a quick add-on to the UI to keep track of the number of copper bars you are carrying around, but there are still limitations to what you can specificly expect a mod to use. How many mods can legitimately claim a need to be able to write to files outside the game's own folder? Implement your version to be automaticly 'jailed' to that folder. How many times, legitimately, can a mod claim to call an outside program. Remove the ability to do that. etc. ad nausium.
Actually it only captures eveyone in your faction, at the time you are logged in. Which means that from a statician's point of view, esp when they don't track the time or date each census was run, the data is about as useful as a dancing frog that's recently lost both legs.
It is a wonderfully beautiful attempt at collecting data, and once Blizzard patches the client to allow you to set the cap to the amount of memory the UI can use (promised in the next patch after this 'localization' patch coming next week) I plan on using it to keep track of what sort of people are on when I am so I'll have a better idea about what sort of groups are around.
Since the current client is hard-coded to cap at 32 megs for the whole UI, it's a bit pointless to use it now however, combine it with the LootLink addon and you'll hit the cap in less than a week and have to purge both databases.
What I do not know is how the legal system treats the
case of a shoplifter who steals an item and then duplicates
said item and redistributes those identical copies for free.
The p2p filesharer should be dealt with in the same manner
as the legal system would treat the above.
The term for such a person is bootlegger or counterfitter. And actually, from what I can tell, the filesharer is treated exactly the same.
I used to live in the same mind space. However as I went along life and learned to realize the difference between the ideals I believed in and the reality which is the world, I came to the discovery that it doesn't matter if you would or would not have purchased it if you hadn't stolen it.
What matters is that you stole it.
Once you've taken the leap from choosing not to have a copy in your possession to having a copy you've left the area where you can complain about the price.
If you were to attempt to argue that you shouldn't be held accountable simply because you wouldn't have 'normally' purchased a copy anyway, then the logical conclusion is that no one would need to pay for anything. After all, why would I pay for something if I could get it for free? And why would anyone pay me for anything if THEY could get it for free?
There are models of government that have and still are attempting that sort of life. It's called Communisim. I'm not part of the generation which beleives that particular word is an evil one, but I do have a healthy suspision when someone raised in a capitalist society starts espousing it's philosophies. That usually doesn't mean that they actually beleive in it, but that they think they should reap all the benefits to such a society while still avoiding any of the negatives of it. Like the ability to own their own things.
Disclaimer: This is an explaination of what I beleive the thought process behind the penalties to be. It is not a explaination of my own opinions.
The real answer is the downloader is punished more harshly than the theif because the downloader enables and encorages more damage than the theif.
You walking into a store and filching a dvd doesn't enable the next guy to do it. And the only loss involved is the dvd. In order to do more damage, you would have to commit another crime.
You downloading on a P2P not only steals a 'sale' but it also enables many other people to steal one as well.
In addition to all of this, the relative ease in which people can steal via the internet vs. a properly secured store, means that the deterents involved need to be greater. People are far less likely to try to steal a DVD from Best Buy than they are to download a moive from the internet. There are only two ways to resolve that issue from the legal standpoint, make it harder to do or make it scarier to do. And the first option is almost impossible without a huge revolution in the structuring of the internet.
90% of the companies that sell extended warrenties also include a clause which requires you to use an arbritrator of their choosing if you have issues with their service. 100% of these arbritrators are located in out of the way places (such as five states away) and in locations where the laws favor the company, not you.
Hehe I can see it now, if you thought broadband over power was bad, just wait till you see how many people scream about doing broadband over barbed wire. ^_^
OT - But actually the reason their fries tasted the way they did was that McD's 'secret seasoning' that they poured over it was a mix of cinnamon, sugar, ground black pepper, and salt. With a good portion of it being sugar and cinnamon.
Most 'real' fingerprint scanners have the ability to detect the pattern based on the live skin tissue on your finger using conductivity, ignoring any dead tissue or other material.
You are kidding right? Anyone playing Sims 1 or Sims 2 would immediately realize that it's basicly "Try to live the perfect American Dream" between the constant and rampant consumerism involved and the promotion of open relationships it's surprising China hasn't put out a contract for Will Wright rather than just ban the game.
"To attempt to answer my own question, I seem to remember a very, very, very stupid judgement a while ago in which it was ruled that since the computer copies the software to cache, it violated copyright law unless you were specifically given permission to run it. Frankly, this seems rather moronic to me: if they are selling you software, it's clearly for the purpose of running it. It's implied that it's fit for the purpose."
It's implied, unless they specificly have a license attached which has a different set of terms spelt out.
If he isn't, I will. Only a true fanboy would attempt to claim that the first two seasons of TNG were anything but dreck. We thank them for starting the ball rolling but I'd prefer to go back and watch the worse episodes of the orginial Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers than rewatch the best of the first two seasons of TNG.
It's called "cover your ass". You pretend to be impartial so that when the company you've given the bid to meltsdown and implodes, you'll be able to distance yourself from it.
Try 50 bucks for the game and a free month, making it almost half your estimate.
I don't mind them charging for the game when it just came out. They need some way to recoup some of the development costs and pay for the servers during the start.
I do however expect them to make the game downloadable with a free trial once it's matured. Sell the expansion packs if need be but make the original game accessable or if I wasn't in at the start I'll never pick it up.
They have indicated that they are delaying restocking stores till they have ensured that the next batch of sales can be handled by the server.
Understandably, people W/O the game are upset. And those of us with it are happy.
Sorry, I'd rather a smaller player base than having to deal with the lag fest I've seen with other games which cashed in on their greed rather than worry about customer service.
His software is used primarily for illegal deeds.
Back in the 90's, the same could have been said about FTP.
It can still be said about USENET.
For that matter, it can currently be said for the Internet.
Or Internet Explorer. Or WinAmp (playing of stolen music), or CD burning software (burnning CD's of 'stolen IP'). Or hard drives (you honestly didn't think WinXP needed 1.4 gigs did you?)
Regarless, comparing Bittorrent to the Atom Bomb is about as relevant as comparing your grade school teacher to Saddam Hussian.
Pre-Win95, it was a given that pretty much any multi-platform game out for the PC looked like crap compared to any other platform.
I remember as a kid playing Bards Tale and the two Dungeon Masters on my late and lamented Atari ST, reveling in the digital sound and colors. And then going to a friend's house and watching him try to impress me on how much better his PC was by the fact that he had Bards Tale 1, 2, AND 3! However, he kicked me out the shortly because once the games loaded I thought there was something wrong with his computer, the graphics looked like they had been scribbled out by a kid with only three crayons, the ones none of the other kids wanted.
Slashdot Mirror
The Clayton one off South Central changed it's name to Panera.
It's odd that I'm on the negative side of this arguement, I'm normally considered the fanboy.
I have complete faith in the idea that Blizzard will continue to expand WoW.
Unfortunately, I also have a good memory on how quickly they 'expanded' their other games and how long it takes them to get to a point where they are happy enough with something to release it.
I'm hoping that being in charge of an MMOG will 'mellow' Blizzard a bit in that regard and we'll see something close to frequent updates. But I don't expect it.
For me personally, that's fine. I'm having enough trouble _NOT_ leveling, as I've decided to do all the quests for my faction instead of just the ones in my racial area. I imagine it'll be a long time before I run out of things to do on that front. And when I do, I can go back through again as something different than a gnomish mage with a proficency in tinkering and mining.
But there are a number of people out there who have already rushed through to 60. And they are already tired of the few distractions avaliable to them. For them the Battlegrounds are already a bit late.
The real problem I see in WoW:
Although there are a number of money-sinks out there, most of them are one-time deals which means that eventually you burn through them.
And your access to gold seems to increase expodentially as you level, which means that eventually there are going to be a number of bored level 60 players with an entire vault full of gold, 're-rolling' or just leveling up alts and dumping obscene amounts of money out for equipment.
You are right, Blizzard has put in place things that I hope will retard inflation in game, but I wonder if that will actually slow it or just build it up behind a dam that will eventually break.
Somethings:
The thottbot add-on is obfuscated, meaning that while you can still figure out what is being sent, you'd have to spend alot of time working on it to be sure.
I don't believe in selling items or characters when the company running the game specificly prohibits it. But I do consider contributing to game sites that work similar to thottbot simply being a good citizen.
I contributed to both sites that had plugins to allow them to collect data. Now I only contribute to Alkazam. I don't like people who hide their affiliations like that, and I certainly don't want to help out someone who is working hard at something that I consider as making my game less enjoyable.
Your worse case scenario is far more rosey than the one I have. Mine is that IGE collects information which allows them to farm better, and decides to start either holding back info to have a 'competitive edge' or worse, starts faking information. Yeah, people can start their own sites, and I consider Alkazam a better site anyway, but only if they know they need to.
Do what Blizzard did with LUA and only implement the core functions and libraries you consider 'safe' and leave the others out.
Of course, the scope of a mod for a full game would be greater than the scope of just a quick add-on to the UI to keep track of the number of copper bars you are carrying around, but there are still limitations to what you can specificly expect a mod to use. How many mods can legitimately claim a need to be able to write to files outside the game's own folder? Implement your version to be automaticly 'jailed' to that folder. How many times, legitimately, can a mod claim to call an outside program. Remove the ability to do that. etc. ad nausium.
Actually it only captures eveyone in your faction, at the time you are logged in. Which means that from a statician's point of view, esp when they don't track the time or date each census was run, the data is about as useful as a dancing frog that's recently lost both legs.
It is a wonderfully beautiful attempt at collecting data, and once Blizzard patches the client to allow you to set the cap to the amount of memory the UI can use (promised in the next patch after this 'localization' patch coming next week) I plan on using it to keep track of what sort of people are on when I am so I'll have a better idea about what sort of groups are around.
Since the current client is hard-coded to cap at 32 megs for the whole UI, it's a bit pointless to use it now however, combine it with the LootLink addon and you'll hit the cap in less than a week and have to purge both databases.
The p2p filesharer should be dealt with in the same manner as the legal system would treat the above.
The term for such a person is bootlegger or counterfitter. And actually, from what I can tell, the filesharer is treated exactly the same.
I used to live in the same mind space. However as I went along life and learned to realize the difference between the ideals I believed in and the reality which is the world, I came to the discovery that it doesn't matter if you would or would not have purchased it if you hadn't stolen it.
What matters is that you stole it.
Once you've taken the leap from choosing not to have a copy in your possession to having a copy you've left the area where you can complain about the price.
If you were to attempt to argue that you shouldn't be held accountable simply because you wouldn't have 'normally' purchased a copy anyway, then the logical conclusion is that no one would need to pay for anything. After all, why would I pay for something if I could get it for free? And why would anyone pay me for anything if THEY could get it for free?
There are models of government that have and still are attempting that sort of life. It's called Communisim. I'm not part of the generation which beleives that particular word is an evil one, but I do have a healthy suspision when someone raised in a capitalist society starts espousing it's philosophies. That usually doesn't mean that they actually beleive in it, but that they think they should reap all the benefits to such a society while still avoiding any of the negatives of it. Like the ability to own their own things.
Disclaimer: This is an explaination of what I beleive the thought process behind the penalties to be. It is not a explaination of my own opinions.
The real answer is the downloader is punished more harshly than the theif because the downloader enables and encorages more damage than the theif.
You walking into a store and filching a dvd doesn't enable the next guy to do it. And the only loss involved is the dvd. In order to do more damage, you would have to commit another crime.
You downloading on a P2P not only steals a 'sale' but it also enables many other people to steal one as well.
In addition to all of this, the relative ease in which people can steal via the internet vs. a properly secured store, means that the deterents involved need to be greater. People are far less likely to try to steal a DVD from Best Buy than they are to download a moive from the internet. There are only two ways to resolve that issue from the legal standpoint, make it harder to do or make it scarier to do. And the first option is almost impossible without a huge revolution in the structuring of the internet.
90% of the companies that sell extended warrenties also include a clause which requires you to use an arbritrator of their choosing if you have issues with their service. 100% of these arbritrators are located in out of the way places (such as five states away) and in locations where the laws favor the company, not you.
Both the local Wal-Mart and the local Best Buy in my area of St. Louis seem to be fully stocked with the game.
What I can't find are any game time cards so I can give the game and a year's worth of playing to my brother as an extremely late Christmas present.
Hehe I can see it now, if you thought broadband over power was bad, just wait till you see how many people scream about doing broadband over barbed wire. ^_^
OT - But actually the reason their fries tasted the way they did was that McD's 'secret seasoning' that they poured over it was a mix of cinnamon, sugar, ground black pepper, and salt. With a good portion of it being sugar and cinnamon.
Most 'real' fingerprint scanners have the ability to detect the pattern based on the live skin tissue on your finger using conductivity, ignoring any dead tissue or other material.
You are kidding right? Anyone playing Sims 1 or Sims 2 would immediately realize that it's basicly "Try to live the perfect American Dream" between the constant and rampant consumerism involved and the promotion of open relationships it's surprising China hasn't put out a contract for Will Wright rather than just ban the game.
"To attempt to answer my own question, I seem to remember a very, very, very stupid judgement a while ago in which it was ruled that since the computer copies the software to cache, it violated copyright law unless you were specifically given permission to run it. Frankly, this seems rather moronic to me: if they are selling you software, it's clearly for the purpose of running it. It's implied that it's fit for the purpose." It's implied, unless they specificly have a license attached which has a different set of terms spelt out.
If you want to lobby that no one can sell Pokemon cards in your home, more power to you.
Blizzard owns the house, their rules, their game.
If he isn't, I will. Only a true fanboy would attempt to claim that the first two seasons of TNG were anything but dreck. We thank them for starting the ball rolling but I'd prefer to go back and watch the worse episodes of the orginial Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers than rewatch the best of the first two seasons of TNG.
It's called "cover your ass". You pretend to be impartial so that when the company you've given the bid to meltsdown and implodes, you'll be able to distance yourself from it.
Try 50 bucks for the game and a free month, making it almost half your estimate.
I don't mind them charging for the game when it just came out. They need some way to recoup some of the development costs and pay for the servers during the start.
I do however expect them to make the game downloadable with a free trial once it's matured. Sell the expansion packs if need be but make the original game accessable or if I wasn't in at the start I'll never pick it up.
They have indicated that they are delaying restocking stores till they have ensured that the next batch of sales can be handled by the server.
Understandably, people W/O the game are upset. And those of us with it are happy.
Sorry, I'd rather a smaller player base than having to deal with the lag fest I've seen with other games which cashed in on their greed rather than worry about customer service.
How about this for a reason, 200,000 cocurrent users.
His software is used primarily for illegal deeds. Back in the 90's, the same could have been said about FTP. It can still be said about USENET. For that matter, it can currently be said for the Internet. Or Internet Explorer. Or WinAmp (playing of stolen music), or CD burning software (burnning CD's of 'stolen IP'). Or hard drives (you honestly didn't think WinXP needed 1.4 gigs did you?) Regarless, comparing Bittorrent to the Atom Bomb is about as relevant as comparing your grade school teacher to Saddam Hussian.
Pre-Win95, it was a given that pretty much any multi-platform game out for the PC looked like crap compared to any other platform.
I remember as a kid playing Bards Tale and the two Dungeon Masters on my late and lamented Atari ST, reveling in the digital sound and colors. And then going to a friend's house and watching him try to impress me on how much better his PC was by the fact that he had Bards Tale 1, 2, AND 3! However, he kicked me out the shortly because once the games loaded I thought there was something wrong with his computer, the graphics looked like they had been scribbled out by a kid with only three crayons, the ones none of the other kids wanted.
Yes, because I know a number of gun shop owners that are just looking for reasons to not sell a gun to someone... ^_^