Crafting is a direct contradiction of the Guild Wars business model. Unlike WoW, where the game is designed to keep you logged in for as long as you can be (and making you want to be logged in), Guild Wars is designed to keep you off.
Since they aren't making money off players, players are a liability. All you need is for players to want to buy the next chapter. Play for a bit, log on every now and then, but no grinding or reward for persistent playing.
Crafting would make players want to stay online. This would cost AreaNet money. So it won't happen. PvP is all you get to do once you finish the "single player" game.
Technology costs money. If you require a fix within a certain time, are you paying someone to provide that fix within a certain amount of time? If not, then you have failed to plan. If you fail to plan, then of course you've planned to fail.
If you have no money, but you still want to be able to restore your system from disaster within a certain timeframe, you must of course ensure you are able to do that yourself with the parts and equipment you have on hand.
Any software package that includes Realplayer should be kept as far away from computers as possible.
Google pushing this would be like pushing a christmas hamper with nice coffee, jams and preserves, belgian chocolates, shortbreads, maybe some nice tea, and dog turds. It doesn't matter how nice the other stuff, if it's got crap in it, it's nasty.
And, like it or not, it became the defacto standard for several years. Horrible, isn't it? Still, I am glad that the old Windows 9x OS's are ancient history now.
As an aside, we really should be supporting HD-DVD on the basis of it being lesser of 2 DRM evils.
MS competed on both price and... dumdumdum... open-ness by supporting a wider range of open systems (all the IBMs and IBM compatibles). If you wanted Apple, you had to buy Apple all the way.
In much the same way that Linux is becoming extremely popular in the server space because of its openness, will Microsoft be able to defeat Apple and Sony by supporting the more open formats? More user freedom and less DRM is generally the Microsoft way (although they still have corporate overlords).
It's funny! You have your external HDD, your external HD-DVD... so many external add ons. Why not just put them inside the box? You could have an extensible format for the enclosure... let's call it, say... ATX.
Think of the sheer level of complexity that Windows code is (some mangled mess of DLL's and API's all shunting through a small 16bit module that says (c)1984 Bill Gates on it)
It would take a very awesome effort to make sure that a low level patch like this doesn't mess up with any of that code. Or any code made by any of *hundreds* of "partners". That is not an amount of testing anybody can honestly hope to complete within an hour.
Microsoft can't afford any more bad PR on windows updates breaking things. They got enough (unfair) PR because they enabled the firewall in SP2 by default (something the/. community was constantly complaining wasn't done, and when it was they complained about that, too).
I'd love to pay money to play an online computer game in which I am put into jail and forbidden to interact with other players. Where do I sign up? The paint I put down last week is completely dry now and I have nothing to do, I would love to be trapped in a corn field very much.
The article is correct - I am quite certain *Nix's may have more OS vulnerabilities than Windows. Possibly many more OS vulnerabilities.
What the article doesn't bother mentioning, hooray for bad journalism everywhere, is that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is completely riddled with vulnerabilities. And it's integrated with the OS in such a way that the IE vulnerabilities can really mess up the whole OS. And the browser cannot be uninstalled or removed completely.
Furthermore, Linux and UNIX and company still enjoy very strong security through obscurity. Scriptkiddies are simply not interested in these systems and so very few vulnerabilities are actively exploited.
Warden is spyware as much as Punkbuster is spyware, with one possible worsening factor, there is no opt-out in using Warden if you want to play WoW (although, likewise, if you want to play on a decent RavenShield server, you really need to use Punkbuster if you don't want wallhacking kiddies camping you).
Warden does not run if WoW is not running, it is a component of WoW. Warden only searches for specific running processes known to be cheat enabling (like Punkbuster). The illusion of privacy, however, is a flimsy one as always. If Blizzard really wanted all your data, they wouldn't have any problems gathering it, you've already installed WoW. The only way you can be certain they're not getting your data is if you firewall off all of Blizzard's ip ranges. Have fun trying to play WoW under those circumstances.
By your logic, people shouldn't use Windows or Linux autoupdaters because they "spy" on your system to determine which patches and so on are available. Obviously, however, as you mentioned, I am suggesting you are clearly a terrorist because you want the freedom to cheat when playing WoW (which is effectively what you are asking for). Nice Godwin, however. Please call me a nazi in your reply to make sure the circle is complete.
Thankyou for the exposition. Slashdot has a severe flaw in article posts - the editors never bother explaining what particular applications are for.
Open source code/products/applications are often named in very unintuitive ways.
Slashdot editors either do not know what the code is for so release the article without exposition, or assume (wrongly) that everyone knows what the code/product/application does and therefore does not provide exposition, or are simply too lazy to edit where required.
No, Warden isn't gone, much like Raven Shield still uses Punkbuster. I hear even CoD2 is getting anti-cheat software put into the next patch.
Warden is responsible for the 18 odd thousand accounts being removed recently, and I am quite happy for that because the vast majority of those banned would be people violating the terms of use agreement, cheating, and sweatshop farming goldminers.
If you like, you're free to circumvent Warden by using the Sony rootkit, but I for one thank you for not playing WoW and therefore not cheating. WoW is a very easy game to play, and reaching level 60 does not need a "god" mode.
Who uses pets in GW anyway? The AI for them is godawful and you lose two very important slots for the privelege.
I don't have any problem with pets being the same, either. Blizzard sells WoW on the basis that casual play doesn't disadvantage you. Giving advantages to people with too much time and too much real world money discourages casual play. I would bet real world money, however, that of those 5 million subscribers, the majority are casual players.
Yeah, alliance players are just like that, though. I play predominantly horde and I'm glad of it. Alliance chat areas are like barrens chat, only *everywhere* you go.
Having said that, I've previously won in PvP bouts against paladins (who weren't doing a great job at PvP). Hopefully this new patch won't overpower them any further. Blizzard have done an outstanding job of making each class very well balanced, with unique and interesting playing styles for each one.
The only player-assist thing that rogues can do in WoW that other players can't is open lockbox drops.
D&D is going to have locked doors and traps, things that WoW doesn't have (apart from little PvP trap things, not the same as your classical PnP poison spiked pit trap with snakes in it).
Ehh? I can quite easily see it being just another class, and from what I have read the new MMORPG is heavily party-only (no soloing). They added traps so rogues would be a requirement in a party instead of a you-can-come-too class.
In a tabletop game the rogue has capabilities that enable interesting roleplaying scenarios and outside of the box style plans.
In a combat oriented MMORPG, the D&D rogue doesn't have the same combat firepower as any frontline fighter class or offensive magic user. So, they have clearly added this to make sure Rogue players get lots of parties (otherwise they'd be unplayable or severely at disadvantage compared to other players).
I imagine, cynical maybe, that rogues will spend all their time in parties setting off traps in dungeons and picking locks (every second door will presumably be locked). Not my idea of fun, I'm afraid.
Why not? Connectors. Some people like high quality audio and video coming out of their HTPC, so the Mac Mini is not suitable for purpose in many home theatre environments. Possibly slightly off topic, but if you want a silent home theatre PC, the mac isn't an option. (In a fit of marketing madness if you ask me, a good quality digital audio out would make the mac mini the ultimate all in one HTPC).
That's kinda weird, since it doesn't actually prevent Microsoft from having exclusive agreements. It just means Microsoft can't force other companies to only deal with Microsoft software. Which, really, is pretty obvious anyway (although in the Browser Wars that's exactly what Microsoft was doing, and they got rightly smacked for it).
In no way whatsoever does that ruling preclude Microsoft from enticing third party companies from using technology made by other third party companies. This kind of thing goes on all the time, although in Microsoft's case it is the monopoly that makes it a bad behaviour. However, as I previously stated, there's nothing to stop Sony from lowering the price of competing Blu-Ray technology to make that a more attractive option. Hence, competition, not monopoly. Microsoft just made HD-DVD cheaper. Is that a crime?
Microsoft's key motive here is not to sell HD-DVD (they gain no profit from a HD-DVD sale!), but to make it harder for Sony to sell Blu-Ray. HD-DVD is the more open source friendly option, and more favourable for fair-use rights. Sony, on the other hand, have already proven to be more viscious and evil towards consumers than Microsoft would ever dream of. Microsoft haven't attempted to rootkit my PC lately. I'm siding with them on this one.
Dell must have a good reason to throw in with the somewhat more "evil" Sony camp, presumably a financial one. Sony is putting a *lot* more DRM into Blu-Ray, as the BR effort is mostly run with interests of Sony's media division. The chances therefore are quite good that Blu-Ray will be much less open source friendly than the more pro-fair use HD-DVD is.
After all, it was Linux that was the key driver for DVD-Jon to break CSS, because Linux support for the DVD format was not great, and Jon wanted to watch his movies in a fair-use mannner.
Now, the intelligent approach is to ensure the hardware is well supported and easy to work with for the open source crowd - if people can just use it without needing to break it, why bother breaking it? Sony, of course, has no remorse nor common sense, and like the other members of the *AA they will opt for the deny-deny-deny business practice and try to lock open source completely out of Blu-Ray, seeing it (perhaps rightly?) as a real threat to their new stranglehold. I almost guarantee if you do get Blu-Ray playing on a PC, it will be phoning home and rootkitting your system as much as it can anyway.
Not going to happen? Three months ago if I'd have said Sony was putting a rootkit on people's computers just for putting a CD in it, you'd laugh at me.
Slashdot Mirror
Crafting is a direct contradiction of the Guild Wars business model. Unlike WoW, where the game is designed to keep you logged in for as long as you can be (and making you want to be logged in), Guild Wars is designed to keep you off.
Since they aren't making money off players, players are a liability. All you need is for players to want to buy the next chapter. Play for a bit, log on every now and then, but no grinding or reward for persistent playing.
Crafting would make players want to stay online. This would cost AreaNet money. So it won't happen. PvP is all you get to do once you finish the "single player" game.
I read an old interview with Gail, basically they plan on doing a free content release with every chapter (to keep the game fresh inbetween chapters).
Otherwise, all content is designed to be paid for in the game by purchasing chapters.
However, all interface and game mechanic tweaks and updates are free, and based on the first year of GW, there were a lot of changes and improvements.
Still no auction houses or shared guild storage yet, but they will most likely be in chapter 2.
Technology costs money. If you require a fix within a certain time, are you paying someone to provide that fix within a certain amount of time? If not, then you have failed to plan. If you fail to plan, then of course you've planned to fail.
If you have no money, but you still want to be able to restore your system from disaster within a certain timeframe, you must of course ensure you are able to do that yourself with the parts and equipment you have on hand.
I think the opposite may be true, I need to stay inside more on the computer researching MSN messenger clones.
I'll stick with Trillian for now, anyway.
Any software package that includes Realplayer should be kept as far away from computers as possible.
Google pushing this would be like pushing a christmas hamper with nice coffee, jams and preserves, belgian chocolates, shortbreads, maybe some nice tea, and dog turds. It doesn't matter how nice the other stuff, if it's got crap in it, it's nasty.
And, like it or not, it became the defacto standard for several years. Horrible, isn't it? Still, I am glad that the old Windows 9x OS's are ancient history now.
As an aside, we really should be supporting HD-DVD on the basis of it being lesser of 2 DRM evils.
MS competed on both price and... dumdumdum... open-ness by supporting a wider range of open systems (all the IBMs and IBM compatibles). If you wanted Apple, you had to buy Apple all the way.
In much the same way that Linux is becoming extremely popular in the server space because of its openness, will Microsoft be able to defeat Apple and Sony by supporting the more open formats? More user freedom and less DRM is generally the Microsoft way (although they still have corporate overlords).
It's funny! You have your external HDD, your external HD-DVD... so many external add ons. Why not just put them inside the box? You could have an extensible format for the enclosure... let's call it, say... ATX.
12 days is very, very fast.
/. community was constantly complaining wasn't done, and when it was they complained about that, too).
Think of the sheer level of complexity that Windows code is (some mangled mess of DLL's and API's all shunting through a small 16bit module that says (c)1984 Bill Gates on it)
It would take a very awesome effort to make sure that a low level patch like this doesn't mess up with any of that code. Or any code made by any of *hundreds* of "partners". That is not an amount of testing anybody can honestly hope to complete within an hour.
Microsoft can't afford any more bad PR on windows updates breaking things. They got enough (unfair) PR because they enabled the firewall in SP2 by default (something the
I've seen old semiconductor chips with little bubbles over the silicon so you can see the chip. The bubble, however, is not 1337 for cooling purposes.
Except the mac mini is specifically lacking everything it needs to completely own the home theatre space - quality A/V outputs.
Why? I have no freaking idea, but I would have bought one myself if it had them.
For now I'm using a modded X-Box with A/V kit and XBMC. For price/performance that has no rival.
Back in the DOS days, you just hasd to know about bugs so you could work around them. Your next "patch" was the next OS version. And we liked it!
I'd love to pay money to play an online computer game in which I am put into jail and forbidden to interact with other players. Where do I sign up? The paint I put down last week is completely dry now and I have nothing to do, I would love to be trapped in a corn field very much.
The article is correct - I am quite certain *Nix's may have more OS vulnerabilities than Windows. Possibly many more OS vulnerabilities.
What the article doesn't bother mentioning, hooray for bad journalism everywhere, is that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is completely riddled with vulnerabilities. And it's integrated with the OS in such a way that the IE vulnerabilities can really mess up the whole OS. And the browser cannot be uninstalled or removed completely.
Furthermore, Linux and UNIX and company still enjoy very strong security through obscurity. Scriptkiddies are simply not interested in these systems and so very few vulnerabilities are actively exploited.
Warden is spyware as much as Punkbuster is spyware, with one possible worsening factor, there is no opt-out in using Warden if you want to play WoW (although, likewise, if you want to play on a decent RavenShield server, you really need to use Punkbuster if you don't want wallhacking kiddies camping you).
Warden does not run if WoW is not running, it is a component of WoW. Warden only searches for specific running processes known to be cheat enabling (like Punkbuster). The illusion of privacy, however, is a flimsy one as always. If Blizzard really wanted all your data, they wouldn't have any problems gathering it, you've already installed WoW. The only way you can be certain they're not getting your data is if you firewall off all of Blizzard's ip ranges. Have fun trying to play WoW under those circumstances.
By your logic, people shouldn't use Windows or Linux autoupdaters because they "spy" on your system to determine which patches and so on are available. Obviously, however, as you mentioned, I am suggesting you are clearly a terrorist because you want the freedom to cheat when playing WoW (which is effectively what you are asking for). Nice Godwin, however. Please call me a nazi in your reply to make sure the circle is complete.
Thankyou for the exposition. Slashdot has a severe flaw in article posts - the editors never bother explaining what particular applications are for.
Open source code/products/applications are often named in very unintuitive ways.
Slashdot editors either do not know what the code is for so release the article without exposition, or assume (wrongly) that everyone knows what the code/product/application does and therefore does not provide exposition, or are simply too lazy to edit where required.
That's a perfectly fair statement to make.
No, Warden isn't gone, much like Raven Shield still uses Punkbuster. I hear even CoD2 is getting anti-cheat software put into the next patch.
Warden is responsible for the 18 odd thousand accounts being removed recently, and I am quite happy for that because the vast majority of those banned would be people violating the terms of use agreement, cheating, and sweatshop farming goldminers.
If you like, you're free to circumvent Warden by using the Sony rootkit, but I for one thank you for not playing WoW and therefore not cheating. WoW is a very easy game to play, and reaching level 60 does not need a "god" mode.
Who uses pets in GW anyway? The AI for them is godawful and you lose two very important slots for the privelege.
I don't have any problem with pets being the same, either. Blizzard sells WoW on the basis that casual play doesn't disadvantage you. Giving advantages to people with too much time and too much real world money discourages casual play. I would bet real world money, however, that of those 5 million subscribers, the majority are casual players.
Yeah, alliance players are just like that, though. I play predominantly horde and I'm glad of it. Alliance chat areas are like barrens chat, only *everywhere* you go.
Having said that, I've previously won in PvP bouts against paladins (who weren't doing a great job at PvP). Hopefully this new patch won't overpower them any further. Blizzard have done an outstanding job of making each class very well balanced, with unique and interesting playing styles for each one.
The only player-assist thing that rogues can do in WoW that other players can't is open lockbox drops.
D&D is going to have locked doors and traps, things that WoW doesn't have (apart from little PvP trap things, not the same as your classical PnP poison spiked pit trap with snakes in it).
Ehh? I can quite easily see it being just another class, and from what I have read the new MMORPG is heavily party-only (no soloing). They added traps so rogues would be a requirement in a party instead of a you-can-come-too class.
In a tabletop game the rogue has capabilities that enable interesting roleplaying scenarios and outside of the box style plans.
In a combat oriented MMORPG, the D&D rogue doesn't have the same combat firepower as any frontline fighter class or offensive magic user. So, they have clearly added this to make sure Rogue players get lots of parties (otherwise they'd be unplayable or severely at disadvantage compared to other players).
I imagine, cynical maybe, that rogues will spend all their time in parties setting off traps in dungeons and picking locks (every second door will presumably be locked). Not my idea of fun, I'm afraid.
Why not? Connectors. Some people like high quality audio and video coming out of their HTPC, so the Mac Mini is not suitable for purpose in many home theatre environments. Possibly slightly off topic, but if you want a silent home theatre PC, the mac isn't an option. (In a fit of marketing madness if you ask me, a good quality digital audio out would make the mac mini the ultimate all in one HTPC).
Well as an Australian I can happily tell you the word "Transferbangle" is as Australian as drinking Fosters beer - ie, it's not.
Australians drink lager, lots of it, served very cold. Australians drink Carlton or Toohey's beers predominantly.
That's kinda weird, since it doesn't actually prevent Microsoft from having exclusive agreements. It just means Microsoft can't force other companies to only deal with Microsoft software. Which, really, is pretty obvious anyway (although in the Browser Wars that's exactly what Microsoft was doing, and they got rightly smacked for it).
In no way whatsoever does that ruling preclude Microsoft from enticing third party companies from using technology made by other third party companies. This kind of thing goes on all the time, although in Microsoft's case it is the monopoly that makes it a bad behaviour. However, as I previously stated, there's nothing to stop Sony from lowering the price of competing Blu-Ray technology to make that a more attractive option. Hence, competition, not monopoly. Microsoft just made HD-DVD cheaper. Is that a crime?
Microsoft's key motive here is not to sell HD-DVD (they gain no profit from a HD-DVD sale!), but to make it harder for Sony to sell Blu-Ray. HD-DVD is the more open source friendly option, and more favourable for fair-use rights. Sony, on the other hand, have already proven to be more viscious and evil towards consumers than Microsoft would ever dream of. Microsoft haven't attempted to rootkit my PC lately. I'm siding with them on this one.
Dell must have a good reason to throw in with the somewhat more "evil" Sony camp, presumably a financial one. Sony is putting a *lot* more DRM into Blu-Ray, as the BR effort is mostly run with interests of Sony's media division. The chances therefore are quite good that Blu-Ray will be much less open source friendly than the more pro-fair use HD-DVD is.
After all, it was Linux that was the key driver for DVD-Jon to break CSS, because Linux support for the DVD format was not great, and Jon wanted to watch his movies in a fair-use mannner.
Now, the intelligent approach is to ensure the hardware is well supported and easy to work with for the open source crowd - if people can just use it without needing to break it, why bother breaking it? Sony, of course, has no remorse nor common sense, and like the other members of the *AA they will opt for the deny-deny-deny business practice and try to lock open source completely out of Blu-Ray, seeing it (perhaps rightly?) as a real threat to their new stranglehold. I almost guarantee if you do get Blu-Ray playing on a PC, it will be phoning home and rootkitting your system as much as it can anyway.
Not going to happen? Three months ago if I'd have said Sony was putting a rootkit on people's computers just for putting a CD in it, you'd laugh at me.