The crafting's pretty good, and the thing i love about the game compared to others that *everything* you get from enemies can be used in crafting, there're no worthless items, it's a nice change.
So, although most people will tell you that crafting is expensive, it's not expensive if you don't mind working on any craft depending on what items you have (which i assume your gf would be fine with), as you'd be out killing things, you'll pick up tons of items you have no use for that you could pass on to her and she could craft. (As well as picking up crystals)
The enemies are fairly challenging, the main problem is that the challenge of the enemy doesn't reflect the experience gained (it does reflect reward for items, but not experience). Which is..bad..but you just get used to experiencing on the easier types of monsters, that's fine;)
The difficulty does scale with level, as does the experience, but different monster types of the same level can be vastly different in difficulty level, but will give the same experience when killed.
It can be annoying until you realize that's the case though.
It's also tough to solo past around 20..(it's tough to solo past 14, really..but you can do it) from 20-30 it's uh...challenging..after 30 it's impossible unless you want to play very specific classes.
as far as fun goes, it's one of the most addicting games i've ever played, so i guess that's fun... you'll have a lot more fun if you play a class that's in demand, then if you play one of the millions of stupid warriors running around...
as all games, ymmv..
as for it being out a while..it's kind of nice, there's an established economy, which means you can sell items you have no use for to high levels who have a use for them to make easy money. (never sell anything to the npc vendors, sell it at the auction house to other players)
the only odd thing that i haven't seen anyone else address (at least not towards you), is the difficulty in interacting with a primarily japanese high level playerbase.
They're *very* nice (although they're beginning to become more indifferent as more americans invade, and are..well..rude), but it's still difficult to communicate.
It's very frustrating (from both sides i'm sure) and makes the game experience kinda unique (in good and bad ways;) but of course there are plenty of americans to play with so it's not a huge problem if you don't want it to be.
That's why you should carefully examine any link from slashdot for references to www.tubgirl.com or goatse... it's kinda deep in there, but it's definitely in there.
I was with you until you brought up the asian countries as a shining pillar of "deep" education. Having worked with many students from China in a graduate school context, as well as dealt with numerous students in my childhood as both my parents are PhDs and are constantly being bombarded by chinese would-be immigrants to help them get accepted to graduate school...
My experience with them has been uhm..a little different then what you seem to think. Most of the Chinese I've come in to contact with a have a *TERRIBLE* time thinking for themself, if you put a test in front of them, they'll kill it... far better then most americans, complex calculations as well... But ask them to design an experiment or come up with an original idea for research? They're completely useless...
And the reason is that there education focusses COMPLETELY on testing, in fact, India uses the *exact same* testing procedure as the UK to the point where they used to send their tests to be graded in the UK. In fact, they determine what you can major in based completely upon college entrance exams, and if you don't major in the hardest thing you can, you're mildly shunned for not living up to your potential.
Maybe this sounds like a good thing to you, yay living up to your potential, the reality is this creates a lot of people who don't like, and aren't actually good at, what they major in. Who wants an electrical engineer who's good at calculation but doesn't like engineering, and isn't good at original thought... sure they do fine if you give them well constrained problems to solve...they do *really* well...but that doesn't leave much room for upward mobility.
But the problem you mention has more to do with americans changing to follow the Chinese and Indians, which is supressing our abilities for original thought and research.
The main problem with your analogy to Microsoft as a security firm is that Microsoft doesn't make assurances to you that they *are* a security firm.
I would never hire a security firm that had, in their agreement, "I provide no actual security". Who would?
However, Microsoft never claimed to be a security firm they just provide an interface to a word processor.
If you want a security firm *hire* one, the people in that case who would be negligent would be the IT professionals of the company.
A better example is to compare microsoft to the people who built your building. Then you hired a security firm to secure it, the building is poorly designed and requires crippling fuctionality (full cavity search to enter the building) to provide security, or compromise must be made.
Ultimately, who's at fault then when someone breaks in because you compromised for functionality?
The world isn't black and white, it's grey.
--Shadar
Looks more like a power curve to me, although i suppose the crucial difference would be that due to the higher entry barrier there're lots of 1s and lots of 0s, and then after that it follows a power curve.
there're plenty examples of power curves, the 80/20 rules and 90/10 things are special cases of it.
You forgot cellphone addiction! watch out for the danger of repetitive stress disorder, a serious malady that affects people who can't stop punching in text messages.
good thing we've got people Looking out for us.
Learn how to text message safely TODAY!
--Shadar
*Becoming* obsolete, not *is* obsolete
on
Who Needs Radio?
·
· Score: 1
The point of the article isn't that radio has no place now, it's that article has no place in the future as a medium for music distrubtion.
yes radiow will always have a place, listen to your NPR and traffic reports etc...sure
But find new music? technology's coming up with better ways to do that as pay-per-track systems become more prevalent, there'll be much better systems for tracking what music users are listening to...
Which means you can go to their site, find good music, find music similar to music you like, and sample it or pay a small fee for it, rather then listening to the radio in the hopes they'll play something similar..and you can do it all on your time not a DJs..
or, even better...you can go their site..find good music..and download it for free elsewhere;)
Then there's the bad firefighters, which'd be the ones starting the massive fires we see.
Take for instance the fires seen in the White Mountains of Arizona, started by an out of work firefighter..
There're other cases where these massive fires are linked directly to arson, so sure.. we're the ones causing the massive forest fires, but it's hardly because we fight the small ones.
That seems to be what his statement indicates, even though he doesn't mention it in his article. Marx based his ideas on the fact that a capitalist society would eventually create such an abundance that most people would be able to live at a high standard of living doing any job.
Although this seems counter-intuitive as their are many studies available now indicating that more homes then ever are dual-income, and yet despite that they seem only just able to make ends-meet. Compare this to the 1950s where it was the norm for the man to work and the woman to tend the home.
If people are working more in order to maintain the same lifestyle, how is it possible that there is an abundance available that most people don't have access to. It's becoming a proven economical law that wealth, (along with many other societally influenced things..) follow a power curve, meaning that there is a huge disparity between the average and the median due to the small number of people with huge wealth throwing the average higher then it should be.
Examples of this rule are the 80/20 or 90/10 rules in economics and social behavior. For a good article on this check Shirky's Weblog. It's an interesting read.
Anyway, back to Marx, with this much disparity in wealth, and a real infrastructure that could easily provide the masses with a high standard of living (if we all lived at the average instead of the median), would a communist revolution be possible?
I still maintain that it isn't possible, because communism goes counter to human nature. As mentioned in the article above, we save for periods of scarcity. Even if those periods never come. Bill Gates certainly doesn't need 43 billion dollars, but he doesn't give his money away because, well, what if he does?
Even so, with the increasing abundance as technological advances are made, for instance with the advent of higher automation in much of society, will the proletariat rise up to beat down the wealthy?
Probably not, but I wonder how long the masses will continue to behave like sheep...
Sure that works right now, but imagine when Trusted Computing is in place, where this is all headed, then you could place DRM hardware on your soundcard allowing you to transfer it in its encrypted form all the way to the hardware output.
All of the DRM that goes on right now is simply a stopgap measure until they can get systems like this put into place, which allow the content providers to control the distribution mechanism as well as the way content is viewed on a machine you have to purchase. (Aww aren't they nice!)
So sure, DRM can be stripped now, but each baby step towards the final goal of a completely unimpeachable DRM platform is a Good One in the minds of content providers, besides no record label is going to sign up for distributing their work without even paper protection.
After all, even the smallest amount of protection will stop a typical user from being able to copy something, and with the FUD put out by the RIAA he thinks he'll be sued if he tries to get it any other way, so he simply accepts and pays via some service.
So sure, no amount of DRM will ever stop *everyone*... but they don't need to stop everyone, they need to stop most people.
Besides, people who will rewrite a driver to hijack music with DRM probably weren't going to buy the latest Britney Spears album anyway;)
Ben
Slashdot Mirror
The crafting's pretty good, and the thing i love about the game compared to others that *everything* you get from enemies can be used in crafting, there're no worthless items, it's a nice change.
So, although most people will tell you that crafting is expensive, it's not expensive if you don't mind working on any craft depending on what items you have (which i assume your gf would be fine with), as you'd be out killing things, you'll pick up tons of items you have no use for that you could pass on to her and she could craft. (As well as picking up crystals)
The enemies are fairly challenging, the main problem is that the challenge of the enemy doesn't reflect the experience gained (it does reflect reward for items, but not experience). Which is..bad..but you just get used to experiencing on the easier types of monsters, that's fine;)
The difficulty does scale with level, as does the experience, but different monster types of the same level can be vastly different in difficulty level, but will give the same experience when killed.
It can be annoying until you realize that's the case though.
It's also tough to solo past around 20..(it's tough to solo past 14, really..but you can do it) from 20-30 it's uh...challenging..after 30 it's impossible unless you want to play very specific classes.
as far as fun goes, it's one of the most addicting games i've ever played, so i guess that's fun... you'll have a lot more fun if you play a class that's in demand, then if you play one of the millions of stupid warriors running around...
as all games, ymmv..
as for it being out a while..it's kind of nice, there's an established economy, which means you can sell items you have no use for to high levels who have a use for them to make easy money. (never sell anything to the npc vendors, sell it at the auction house to other players)
the only odd thing that i haven't seen anyone else address (at least not towards you), is the difficulty in interacting with a primarily japanese high level playerbase.
They're *very* nice (although they're beginning to become more indifferent as more americans invade, and are..well..rude), but it's still difficult to communicate.
It's very frustrating (from both sides i'm sure) and makes the game experience kinda unique (in good and bad ways;) but of course there are plenty of americans to play with so it's not a huge problem if you don't want it to be.
--Shadar
That's why you should carefully examine any link from slashdot for references to www.tubgirl.com or goatse... it's kinda deep in there, but it's definitely in there.
w w.tubgirl. com/&intel_xscale_p%26sa%3Dl%
*snip*
3A//www.google.com/url%3Fq%3Dhttp%3A//w
*snip*
now you know;)
--Shadar
I was with you until you brought up the asian countries as a shining pillar of "deep" education. Having worked with many students from China in a graduate school context, as well as dealt with numerous students in my childhood as both my parents are PhDs and are constantly being bombarded by chinese would-be immigrants to help them get accepted to graduate school...
My experience with them has been uhm..a little different then what you seem to think. Most of the Chinese I've come in to contact with a have a *TERRIBLE* time thinking for themself, if you put a test in front of them, they'll kill it... far better then most americans, complex calculations as well... But ask them to design an experiment or come up with an original idea for research? They're completely useless...
And the reason is that there education focusses COMPLETELY on testing, in fact, India uses the *exact same* testing procedure as the UK to the point where they used to send their tests to be graded in the UK. In fact, they determine what you can major in based completely upon college entrance exams, and if you don't major in the hardest thing you can, you're mildly shunned for not living up to your potential.
Maybe this sounds like a good thing to you, yay living up to your potential, the reality is this creates a lot of people who don't like, and aren't actually good at, what they major in. Who wants an electrical engineer who's good at calculation but doesn't like engineering, and isn't good at original thought... sure they do fine if you give them well constrained problems to solve...they do *really* well...but that doesn't leave much room for upward mobility.
But the problem you mention has more to do with americans changing to follow the Chinese and Indians, which is supressing our abilities for original thought and research.
--Shadar
The main problem with your analogy to Microsoft as a security firm is that Microsoft doesn't make assurances to you that they *are* a security firm. I would never hire a security firm that had, in their agreement, "I provide no actual security". Who would? However, Microsoft never claimed to be a security firm they just provide an interface to a word processor. If you want a security firm *hire* one, the people in that case who would be negligent would be the IT professionals of the company. A better example is to compare microsoft to the people who built your building. Then you hired a security firm to secure it, the building is poorly designed and requires crippling fuctionality (full cavity search to enter the building) to provide security, or compromise must be made. Ultimately, who's at fault then when someone breaks in because you compromised for functionality? The world isn't black and white, it's grey. --Shadar
since most of the ballots are counted by volunteers, i'd imagine that isn't overwhelming expensive.
they had a thing about this on npr this morning where the essential arguement is that e-voting is supposed to help the handicapped.
i'm a little confused on how exactly an lcd screen is easier to see then a paper, but i suppose it'd be easier to stab the screen then make a mark?
or i suppose if you were blind you could have audible voting(headset) with buttons/brail etc..
anyway..so that's the arguement most of the e-vote people were using, for disabled folk.
shrug.
--Shadar
Pfft! clearly you need to get in the know. Aol 9.0 will do all of these things *and* your laundry!
It'll even prevent all the hot aol girlies from dating gurus who fix their computers..
Isn't that how you got all *your* dates?
--Shadar
Looks more like a power curve to me, although i suppose the crucial difference would be that due to the higher entry barrier there're lots of 1s and lots of 0s, and then after that it follows a power curve.
there're plenty examples of power curves, the 80/20 rules and 90/10 things are special cases of it.
--Shadar
You forgot cellphone addiction! watch out for the danger of repetitive stress disorder, a serious malady that affects people who can't stop punching in text messages.
good thing we've got people Looking out for us.
Learn how to text message safely TODAY!
--Shadar
The point of the article isn't that radio has no place now, it's that article has no place in the future as a medium for music distrubtion.
yes radiow will always have a place, listen to your NPR and traffic reports etc...sure
But find new music? technology's coming up with better ways to do that as pay-per-track systems become more prevalent, there'll be much better systems for tracking what music users are listening to...
Which means you can go to their site, find good music, find music similar to music you like, and sample it or pay a small fee for it, rather then listening to the radio in the hopes they'll play something similar..and you can do it all on your time not a DJs..
or, even better...you can go their site..find good music..and download it for free elsewhere;)
--Shadar
Heh, yeah those're the good fire fighters.
Then there's the bad firefighters, which'd be the ones starting the massive fires we see.
Take for instance the fires seen in the White Mountains of Arizona, started by an out of work firefighter..
There're other cases where these massive fires are linked directly to arson, so sure.. we're the ones causing the massive forest fires, but it's hardly because we fight the small ones.
--Shadar
That seems to be what his statement indicates, even though he doesn't mention it in his article. Marx based his ideas on the fact that a capitalist society would eventually create such an abundance that most people would be able to live at a high standard of living doing any job.
Although this seems counter-intuitive as their are many studies available now indicating that more homes then ever are dual-income, and yet despite that they seem only just able to make ends-meet. Compare this to the 1950s where it was the norm for the man to work and the woman to tend the home.
If people are working more in order to maintain the same lifestyle, how is it possible that there is an abundance available that most people don't have access to. It's becoming a proven economical law that wealth, (along with many other societally influenced things..) follow a power curve, meaning that there is a huge disparity between the average and the median due to the small number of people with huge wealth throwing the average higher then it should be.
Examples of this rule are the 80/20 or 90/10 rules in economics and social behavior. For a good article on this check Shirky's Weblog. It's an interesting read.
Anyway, back to Marx, with this much disparity in wealth, and a real infrastructure that could easily provide the masses with a high standard of living (if we all lived at the average instead of the median), would a communist revolution be possible?
I still maintain that it isn't possible, because communism goes counter to human nature. As mentioned in the article above, we save for periods of scarcity. Even if those periods never come. Bill Gates certainly doesn't need 43 billion dollars, but he doesn't give his money away because, well, what if he does?
Even so, with the increasing abundance as technological advances are made, for instance with the advent of higher automation in much of society, will the proletariat rise up to beat down the wealthy?
Probably not, but I wonder how long the masses will continue to behave like sheep...
heh..ok..Probably Forever:)
--Shadar
Sure that works right now, but imagine when Trusted Computing is in place, where this is all headed, then you could place DRM hardware on your soundcard allowing you to transfer it in its encrypted form all the way to the hardware output. All of the DRM that goes on right now is simply a stopgap measure until they can get systems like this put into place, which allow the content providers to control the distribution mechanism as well as the way content is viewed on a machine you have to purchase. (Aww aren't they nice!) So sure, DRM can be stripped now, but each baby step towards the final goal of a completely unimpeachable DRM platform is a Good One in the minds of content providers, besides no record label is going to sign up for distributing their work without even paper protection. After all, even the smallest amount of protection will stop a typical user from being able to copy something, and with the FUD put out by the RIAA he thinks he'll be sued if he tries to get it any other way, so he simply accepts and pays via some service. So sure, no amount of DRM will ever stop *everyone*... but they don't need to stop everyone, they need to stop most people. Besides, people who will rewrite a driver to hijack music with DRM probably weren't going to buy the latest Britney Spears album anyway;) Ben