Networks should be next to fade into obsolescence, imo. Finish the blurring of cable/satellite/tv and internet. TV becomes a set of subscriptions to individual shows, or to on demand networks. Users may pay more for HQ versions or ad free versions. TV becomes more like the movie industry, buy with more granularity. Shows could sink or swim on their own, rather than Nielsen ratings or the rest of the network. No need to sell me 24 hours of SciFi channel for the 2 hours a week that i want. No need to pay for 30 channels for the 6 hours of programming i want. Live shows just become streams. No more need to keep shows to X minutes in length. No need to avoid potty language or tingly parts... just throw on some parental controls, or have family friendly editions of shows.
This would require a commitment to ubiquitous broadband.
My guess is that you were joking, but i'll bite. The game does not allow duplicating units via time travel. At any given point on the timeline, a unit can be at one and only one place. You can build a unit on Wednesday and send it back to Tuesday, but the present is still moving. The further back the units are, the more it costs you to command them.
This game allows 4th dimensional travel (pretending the units themselves are 3D), but the real movement of the game is in a sort of metatime. That might be the 5th dimension or something (it's been a while since i watched that video). The time line bar goes left to right, but the time in the *game* goes UP! Time is just another spatial dimension in Achron.
Too bad i dislike RTSs (i can't think that fast, i need turn based). This has such potential.
Sell shows on Hulu, iTunes and what not. Let me buy X credits for Y dollars and let me pick what to watch. If i want commercial free i pay more, if i want HD i pay more. The more credits i buy the cheap each credit will be. Maybe "watching" commercials gives me credits.
Timeslot becomes irrelevant - All you need to know is *ding* there is a new episode, my account knows to buy it and download it. Maybe premium subscribers get things first.
Seasons becomes irrelevant - Just upload the next episode when it's done.
Networks become irrelevant - Instead of networks all you need are production houses with the infrastructure. Even these could be disposable.
Ratings become irrelevant - You don't need a show to be popular to be profitable. If the show loses audience the producers can charge a bit more for it.
Audience warnings become less relevant - Cuss all you want. Release a censored version and a non-censored version. Put parental controls in the account profile. Time to watch True Blood... *enter PIN*.
But what about people in BFE? - The networks can broadcast a selection of the shows available for download (currently the model is the other way around). The US is ages behind on broadband access. That will soon cause a new set of problems as we divide into connected and unconnected classes. Lay the cable, the money will come.
What would someone have spent on all OSX and all it's updates thus far?
i know that OSX wasn't something you can buy (Apple is a hardware co), but come up with what fraction of the cost of a new machine would be the OS. Maybe $100 or $200.
What is the cumulative cost?
How necessary/optional are the updates?
(i'm not asking these rhetorically or setting up a troll. i'm curious)
Rewards skill, tactics, strategy and cooperation rather than having no life and money to spend on sweatshop gold. Old and new players can compete against each other fairly due to the shallow power curve.
"Sob! they're calling me names on teh interwebs! I'm-a sue them for it! I'm-a get me all lawyered-up and sue them for defamation WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
My guess is that you were a bully. Or were bullied and are now trying to puff up to show how tough you are now. But you've missed the point of the issue entirely. Read more of the thread because speaking in it is not your strong suit.
"Come ON, people! First they create the 'crime' of cyber-bullying, now you can't have a negative opinion of someone without it becoming something you can sue someone in civil court over?"
Emotional and physical pain are the same. Just because there's no blood does not mean there is no pain. And again, you've missed the point. You can have a negative opinion of someone all day long. Whispering your opinion to a friend or discussing it at dinner is also fine. Spouting it on the internet is not fine for the same reason as printing it in the New York Times is not fine. It's called defamation and it is illegal (because it's wrong (it's wrong because of the golden rule)). It's easy for you to be cavalier because it's not happening to you. i notice that you're not using your real name here on/.. In part because you don't want loonies to come looking for you and in part because you want to be an asshole and hide behind anonymity.
"When I was growing up, you were considered a loser if you went crying to an authority figure because some other kids were calling you names. "
And who complains about tattle tales? THE OFFENDERS! It's the bully who decides that tattling is "bad". It's the mafia boss that decides that snitching is bad... because they want their offenses HIDDEN! They don't want to be held accountable for their wrong doing.
"We're talking about adults here, people! More to my point, we're talking about someone who is, in many respects, a public figure: she (ostensibly at least) puts herself before the judgment of the public on a routine basis because it's her job to do so; while I'm sure it's the aspiration of every model to be universally accepted and desired, the reality is that there are people who are NOT going to like someone; so what do you do? Do you (A)Accept that's life and move on, or (B)Sue everyone in sight who has something bad to say about you?"
You wouldn't question the model's right to sue the New York Times or the Mirror if they did this.
Free speech does not cover slander, libel and defamation. Of public OR private figures.
"Oh, and for the record: I looked her up on Google Images, and I don't think she's attractive at all! Oh no I'm-a gonna get sued now aren't I, whatever will I do? XD Grow up, honey, it's a tough world out there."
So if i hit you with a bat, i'd get to say "toughen up, Nancy", and you'd reply "oh right, I should stop being a wuss"? Grow up.
Anonymity is also a way to escape accountability for bad behavior, which is why most criminals wear gloves and masks and operate under cover of night. The opposite of this might be the military where everyone wears a name tag and is on their best behavior for the most part.
i also think that the blogger as journalist idea needs to die a swift death. Journalists have to take ethics classes and are ACCOUNTABLE for their actions. If Dan Rather uses his powers for evil he can lose his job and be black balled out of the industry. The qualification for becoming a blogger is 'Do you has email account?'.
1 BLOGGERS ARE NOT JOURNALISTS 2 GOTO 1
Run this program until we all understand it.
This blogger is just whining about being made accountable. If this model was doing something illegal, the blogger should have called the cops. Having an email account is not a good reason for defamation. Furthermore, the model is allowed to be a skank or ho, it's none of the blogger's business. And it sure as shit NOT ok to post that on the internet. She can whisper these catty opinions to her fellow ugly girls in the hallway, but not to post this on the net. Had the NYT posted this stuff, we wouldn't be questioning the model's right to sue for defamation.
Hiding behind anonymity is fine for a whistle blower or a state's witness of a crime. This blogger just wanted to be a bitch and hid behind anonymity like a coward. The blogger KNEW what she was doing was wrong... that's why she tried to disassociate her offense from herself. This is a clear case of internet bravado and greater internet fuckwad theory. If she didn't have the berries to say this with her real name attached, or to the model's face, she shouldn't have said it. Dan Rather wouldn't have hidden. Hell, even Perez Hilton wouldn't.
Agreed. They could have done more to make bases and towers different. For the most part, i play to be a part of my outfit and to be a leader (which makes it a very different game).
1) The game is 6 years old. Is it still very active? Do we need to worry about the game being "canceled"?
It's not as active as it was, but since they have condensed down to two servers (North America and Europe)(Soon to be just one server), the battles are intense again. When an empire hits it's population limit for a given continent, no more can go there for that side. We call that a Pop Lock. We're seeing those more and more. Things are pretty busy.
There is no time frame for cancellation. See server merge below.
2) Are the only players left the hard-core players? Or are new people still joining in?
New players are joining steadily, but alas, not enough to cause them to split the servers again. Or to make new content:(
Since the power curve of the game is shallow, new players have access to the same stuff as 6 year vets like me. The difference would be that i have more options right now. You'd have to unload X to get Y. But you can get up to a good level pretty quickly. Once you find your niche, additional cert points are nice to have but aren't critical. i can have you sniping in heavy armor with an implant to see even further than your scope in about a week of play. You can have a sniper rifle on day one.
As a contrast: At Battle Rank 25, i have 3 implants, an aircraft, a mobile spawn point, infiltration suit (invisibility), i can place mine and lil robot turrets and explosive devices, install viruses, hack anything and hack quickly, revive the dead and repair vehicles and armor. But it works out because i'm limited in what i can do/carry at once. If you get the cert for explosives, yours are just as powerful. i don't have 1337 explosives of kill everyone.
Server merges also bring out the veterans. We're seeing players from ages ago coming back.
3) Looks like they're consolidating everyone to one server this month. Will this be a good or bad thing, in your opinion?
Mostly good. It will allow us to have bigger battles in more places. The European players have been using US servers for a long time, so the lag, while a factor, won't be crippling. Communication might be a bit of an issue. Most Europeans understand enough English and use the same terms we do, so even that might be OK. On the downside, there are no other servers to merge. My guess is that PS has about a year to live after the merge. But that's just my guess. i'll prolly play until they shut down. i play mostly for the camaraderie now. Becoming an officer made it a completely different game for me.
4) Is one of the empires way more popular than the others? Is there good balance?
The balance is interesting. It's good if you look at the empires as a whole. One side might have "Better" tanks, but the other side might have better power armor. It also depends on the latest buff/nerf pass. When there is a buff to empire A, players flock to A to play with the new toy. Empires B and C see lower population, being outnumbered and being killed by the weapon of the week. This leads to cries of OP. This usually settles down after a week or so. The empires are pretty well balanced in terms of equipment.
In terms of popularity, there are shifts and there are bad days. Overall the pops are within a few % of each other. Sometimes there are spikes in population on one side. On our raid nights, we cause a spike because we're a big outfit.
A side can do well even if out populated. They just have to adjust their strategy.
5) What are the players like in each empires? Is one dominated by younger players, one older (ala WoW)?
i'm a poor source for this info. i've been VS since day one, and the same outfit since a few months in. i hear that the Terran Republic tends to be less coherent overall. They have some outfits that are amazing though. The TRx are bad ass. Finding an outfit that fits you is key. Some are very military like, others are very casual. My outfit is somewhere between. i don't know of any age/personality trend
"Planetside is an awesome game but it's really really old now"
True. Yet, the age of the game allows it to run on older/less expensive machines. i'd love to see a graphics upgrade though! The populations are sadly lower than we'd like. They are about to merge the Europe server into the US server. We see poplocks regularly again, which is nice.
"also full of cheaters"
The cheaters generally find themselves alone pretty quickly, esp. after all the/report and/appeals start. It was pretty bad last year, but recently hackers are fairly rare.
"(client side hit detection/cone of fire is an awesome idea c/d)."
Indeed!
"WTB Planetside2 without SoE."
In the next few months there will be a number of PlanetSide inspired games* hitting the market. They borrow, rather shamelessly, some of the interesting aspects of PS. None of them are fully copying it (aside from Welkin, which is China's reverse engineered PS), which is a shame. PS has some traits that make it rewarding for players who want depth and duration, but without feeling like a second job. i think one of the reasons PS is waning is that most MMO players don't want a challenge, or something that requires skill, tactics or cooperation. They want to become gods who can stomp on low level characters with a click of the mouse. They want to spend their way into power, rather than earn it.
As for the 'without SOE'... yeah. That would be orgasmic. Shit, i'd buy a console to play it. MAG is close, but it has no persistence. Global Agenda has a power curve and is basically Unreal Tournament or Team Fortress with levels.
i will be sad when PS ends.
*(MAG, Global Agenda and a few others that i can't name)
If you're looking for a game that: - is grind free (you play to play, not just to get the next *ding*) - doesn't have straight jacket classes - has a shallow power curve (and therefore no noobstomping) - has no currency (and therefore no gold farmers, no buying of virtual items, no twinking) - requires some skill (as opposed to letting equations and die rolls do the work) - encourages/rewards teamwork, but also allows solo play - rewards strategy and tactics - has massive maps - can have up to 150 vs. 150 vs. 150 on one map - Does not reset every X minutes, or when the "round" is over (anything you conquer stays yours for as long as you can hold it) - allows for multiple play styles (stealth, flight, infantry, armor, power armor suits, support, sniping etc)...you should check out PlanetSide.
Download the SOE Station Client and then the PlanetSide 14 day trial client. Create a Vanu Sovereignty character on the Gemini (US) server. Around 1930 Eastern, look for players with the tag "Ghosts of the Revolution". That's my outfit (guild). They will help you get started. We have weekly raids on Thursday of 30 to 90 players organized into divisions and using TeamSpeak. My primary character is N1H1L (Nihil).
Hit reply to pour on the PlanetSide hate or to ask questions about the game or my outfit.
Can someone give me a non-Fox News explanation of how worried any should be worried about this? Some/.ers are privacy freaks who are so egocentric as to think that *everyone* is out to get them all the time. i'd like to hear from a non-paranoid person about the real risks involved.
i'm inclined to think that the elephant doesn't even know the ant exists, let alone cares about where i bought lunch last Tuesday.
What is the REAL likelihood that any given person would be the targeted and what is the realistic harm that someone could do? And what sane precautions should one take?
What is the value of something that can be copied with perfect fidelity, infinitely, at virtually no cost to copy or distribute... and that has a finite demand? Any finite demand met with an infinite supply creates a value/price as close to zero as makes no odds.
What is the value of the software that is the game of Tic-tac-toe? Microsoft Offices is only somewhat harder to duplicate and distribute, but not much. A seat at a concert or a hammer off the assembly line is much harder to duplicate.
The value of a work of art is it's enjoyment. That's it's raison d'être, just as we make hammers to push nails into wood.
This might be a difference in our views of what value is. The world outside me seems to think that something is worth whatever the seller can charge for it (the market may or may not agree). Value might mean utility. Music has utility... it makes life a bit more worth living and communicates between cultures, generations and individuals. Listening to Bat for Lashes on the drive home helps me relax. It won't advance my financial status in the world, but i certainly enjoy it. That utility might vary from person to person. My computer and my CD collection would fetch roughly the same price. The computer has for more utility in the sense that it "does stuff", but i value my music collection more. i'd be willing to pay $20 or so for a copy of X-Men 171, but my girlfriend might only take it if it was free. Some nerd richer than i might be willing to pay even more in an auction.
i'm not sure that anything is necessary. i dislike the word "need" as it creates in the listener some sense of obligation and in the speaker a sense of entitlement. One does not need to work, have a car or even breathe. Having those things makes other activities easier, but they are need inherently needed. Happiness, comfort and existence are unnecessary. Breathing is necessary for life, but life is NOT necessary. You can choose to die. If there is no need for life, saying you need to breathe is, by itself, untrue.
A business could forgo computers and software if they wanted. They will find themselves hard pressed to compete and would likely fold quickly. But the company doesn't have any need to exist or do well.
If you see an OBJECT, that is FLYING, and you can't IDENTIFY it (making it UNIDENTIFIED)... it *is* a UFO (relative to me).
That blurry, fast moving thing in the sky that i can't recognize is a UFO.
UFO does not state or imply that the object is or might be alien... that's a leap people make on their own. If i say "i saw a UFO", i am NOT saying i saw something from outer space, just that it was in the air and i don't know what it was. Nothing more, nothing less.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you get your wings?
Isolationism DOES NOT WORK.
Networks should be next to fade into obsolescence, imo. Finish the blurring of cable/satellite/tv and internet. TV becomes a set of subscriptions to individual shows, or to on demand networks. Users may pay more for HQ versions or ad free versions. TV becomes more like the movie industry, buy with more granularity. Shows could sink or swim on their own, rather than Nielsen ratings or the rest of the network. No need to sell me 24 hours of SciFi channel for the 2 hours a week that i want. No need to pay for 30 channels for the 6 hours of programming i want. Live shows just become streams. No more need to keep shows to X minutes in length. No need to avoid potty language or tingly parts... just throw on some parental controls, or have family friendly editions of shows.
This would require a commitment to ubiquitous broadband.
Any word on which providers can support it? Without the right provider or options for providers, this might go the way of the Moko (in the US).
Hint: i've never seen a Moko in the US.
My guess is that you were joking, but i'll bite. The game does not allow duplicating units via time travel. At any given point on the timeline, a unit can be at one and only one place. You can build a unit on Wednesday and send it back to Tuesday, but the present is still moving. The further back the units are, the more it costs you to command them.
This game allows 4th dimensional travel (pretending the units themselves are 3D), but the real movement of the game is in a sort of metatime. That might be the 5th dimension or something (it's been a while since i watched that video). The time line bar goes left to right, but the time in the *game* goes UP! Time is just another spatial dimension in Achron.
Too bad i dislike RTSs (i can't think that fast, i need turn based). This has such potential.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rotskied
Or soon will be.
Sell shows on Hulu, iTunes and what not. Let me buy X credits for Y dollars and let me pick what to watch. If i want commercial free i pay more, if i want HD i pay more. The more credits i buy the cheap each credit will be. Maybe "watching" commercials gives me credits.
Timeslot becomes irrelevant - All you need to know is *ding* there is a new episode, my account knows to buy it and download it. Maybe premium subscribers get things first.
Seasons becomes irrelevant - Just upload the next episode when it's done.
Networks become irrelevant - Instead of networks all you need are production houses with the infrastructure. Even these could be disposable.
Ratings become irrelevant - You don't need a show to be popular to be profitable. If the show loses audience the producers can charge a bit more for it.
Audience warnings become less relevant - Cuss all you want. Release a censored version and a non-censored version. Put parental controls in the account profile. Time to watch True Blood... *enter PIN*.
But what about people in BFE? - The networks can broadcast a selection of the shows available for download (currently the model is the other way around). The US is ages behind on broadband access. That will soon cause a new set of problems as we divide into connected and unconnected classes. Lay the cable, the money will come.
Thanks for the info!
+1 Informative. Thanks.
So skipping an update is an option? K.
+1 Informative. Thanks.
What would someone have spent on all OSX and all it's updates thus far?
i know that OSX wasn't something you can buy (Apple is a hardware co), but come up with what fraction of the cost of a new machine would be the OS. Maybe $100 or $200.
What is the cumulative cost?
How necessary/optional are the updates?
(i'm not asking these rhetorically or setting up a troll. i'm curious)
Check out PlanetSide.
Rewards skill, tactics, strategy and cooperation rather than having no life and money to spend on sweatshop gold. Old and new players can compete against each other fairly due to the shallow power curve.
What does "Just say'n" mean?
"Sob! they're calling me names on teh interwebs! I'm-a sue them for it! I'm-a get me all lawyered-up and sue them for defamation WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
My guess is that you were a bully. Or were bullied and are now trying to puff up to show how tough you are now. But you've missed the point of the issue entirely. Read more of the thread because speaking in it is not your strong suit.
"Come ON, people! First they create the 'crime' of cyber-bullying, now you can't have a negative opinion of someone without it becoming something you can sue someone in civil court over?"
Emotional and physical pain are the same. Just because there's no blood does not mean there is no pain. And again, you've missed the point. You can have a negative opinion of someone all day long. Whispering your opinion to a friend or discussing it at dinner is also fine. Spouting it on the internet is not fine for the same reason as printing it in the New York Times is not fine. It's called defamation and it is illegal (because it's wrong (it's wrong because of the golden rule)). It's easy for you to be cavalier because it's not happening to you. i notice that you're not using your real name here on /.. In part because you don't want loonies to come looking for you and in part because you want to be an asshole and hide behind anonymity.
"When I was growing up, you were considered a loser if you went crying to an authority figure because some other kids were calling you names. "
And who complains about tattle tales? THE OFFENDERS! It's the bully who decides that tattling is "bad". It's the mafia boss that decides that snitching is bad... because they want their offenses HIDDEN! They don't want to be held accountable for their wrong doing.
"We're talking about adults here, people! More to my point, we're talking about someone who is, in many respects, a public figure: she (ostensibly at least) puts herself before the judgment of the public on a routine basis because it's her job to do so; while I'm sure it's the aspiration of every model to be universally accepted and desired, the reality is that there are people who are NOT going to like someone; so what do you do? Do you (A)Accept that's life and move on, or (B)Sue everyone in sight who has something bad to say about you?"
You wouldn't question the model's right to sue the New York Times or the Mirror if they did this.
Free speech does not cover slander, libel and defamation. Of public OR private figures.
"Oh, and for the record: I looked her up on Google Images, and I don't think she's attractive at all! Oh no I'm-a gonna get sued now aren't I, whatever will I do? XD
Grow up, honey, it's a tough world out there."
So if i hit you with a bat, i'd get to say "toughen up, Nancy", and you'd reply "oh right, I should stop being a wuss"? Grow up.
Anonymity is also a way to escape accountability for bad behavior, which is why most criminals wear gloves and masks and operate under cover of night. The opposite of this might be the military where everyone wears a name tag and is on their best behavior for the most part.
i also think that the blogger as journalist idea needs to die a swift death. Journalists have to take ethics classes and are ACCOUNTABLE for their actions. If Dan Rather uses his powers for evil he can lose his job and be black balled out of the industry. The qualification for becoming a blogger is 'Do you has email account?'.
1 BLOGGERS ARE NOT JOURNALISTS
2 GOTO 1
Run this program until we all understand it.
This blogger is just whining about being made accountable. If this model was doing something illegal, the blogger should have called the cops. Having an email account is not a good reason for defamation. Furthermore, the model is allowed to be a skank or ho, it's none of the blogger's business. And it sure as shit NOT ok to post that on the internet. She can whisper these catty opinions to her fellow ugly girls in the hallway, but not to post this on the net. Had the NYT posted this stuff, we wouldn't be questioning the model's right to sue for defamation.
Hiding behind anonymity is fine for a whistle blower or a state's witness of a crime. This blogger just wanted to be a bitch and hid behind anonymity like a coward. The blogger KNEW what she was doing was wrong... that's why she tried to disassociate her offense from herself. This is a clear case of internet bravado and greater internet fuckwad theory. If she didn't have the berries to say this with her real name attached, or to the model's face, she shouldn't have said it. Dan Rather wouldn't have hidden. Hell, even Perez Hilton wouldn't.
If you put that discipline toward stock/options trading, you could be pulling in real money.
Agreed. They could have done more to make bases and towers different. For the most part, i play to be a part of my outfit and to be a leader (which makes it a very different game).
Check out:
Section 8 and Welkin 4591.
1) The game is 6 years old. Is it still very active? Do we need to worry about the game being "canceled"?
It's not as active as it was, but since they have condensed down to two servers (North America and Europe)(Soon to be just one server), the battles are intense again. When an empire hits it's population limit for a given continent, no more can go there for that side. We call that a Pop Lock. We're seeing those more and more. Things are pretty busy.
There is no time frame for cancellation. See server merge below.
2) Are the only players left the hard-core players? Or are new people still joining in?
New players are joining steadily, but alas, not enough to cause them to split the servers again. Or to make new content :(
Since the power curve of the game is shallow, new players have access to the same stuff as 6 year vets like me. The difference would be that i have more options right now. You'd have to unload X to get Y. But you can get up to a good level pretty quickly. Once you find your niche, additional cert points are nice to have but aren't critical. i can have you sniping in heavy armor with an implant to see even further than your scope in about a week of play. You can have a sniper rifle on day one.
As a contrast: At Battle Rank 25, i have 3 implants, an aircraft, a mobile spawn point, infiltration suit (invisibility), i can place mine and lil robot turrets and explosive devices, install viruses, hack anything and hack quickly, revive the dead and repair vehicles and armor. But it works out because i'm limited in what i can do/carry at once. If you get the cert for explosives, yours are just as powerful. i don't have 1337 explosives of kill everyone.
Server merges also bring out the veterans. We're seeing players from ages ago coming back.
3) Looks like they're consolidating everyone to one server this month. Will this be a good or bad thing, in your opinion?
Mostly good. It will allow us to have bigger battles in more places. The European players have been using US servers for a long time, so the lag, while a factor, won't be crippling. Communication might be a bit of an issue. Most Europeans understand enough English and use the same terms we do, so even that might be OK. On the downside, there are no other servers to merge. My guess is that PS has about a year to live after the merge. But that's just my guess. i'll prolly play until they shut down. i play mostly for the camaraderie now. Becoming an officer made it a completely different game for me.
4) Is one of the empires way more popular than the others? Is there good balance?
The balance is interesting. It's good if you look at the empires as a whole. One side might have "Better" tanks, but the other side might have better power armor. It also depends on the latest buff/nerf pass. When there is a buff to empire A, players flock to A to play with the new toy. Empires B and C see lower population, being outnumbered and being killed by the weapon of the week. This leads to cries of OP. This usually settles down after a week or so. The empires are pretty well balanced in terms of equipment.
In terms of popularity, there are shifts and there are bad days. Overall the pops are within a few % of each other. Sometimes there are spikes in population on one side. On our raid nights, we cause a spike because we're a big outfit.
A side can do well even if out populated. They just have to adjust their strategy.
5) What are the players like in each empires? Is one dominated by younger players, one older (ala WoW)?
i'm a poor source for this info. i've been VS since day one, and the same outfit since a few months in. i hear that the Terran Republic tends to be less coherent overall. They have some outfits that are amazing though. The TRx are bad ass. Finding an outfit that fits you is key. Some are very military like, others are very casual. My outfit is somewhere between. i don't know of any age/personality trend
"Planetside is an awesome game but it's really really old now"
True. Yet, the age of the game allows it to run on older/less expensive machines. i'd love to see a graphics upgrade though! The populations are sadly lower than we'd like. They are about to merge the Europe server into the US server. We see poplocks regularly again, which is nice.
"also full of cheaters"
The cheaters generally find themselves alone pretty quickly, esp. after all the /report and /appeals start. It was pretty bad last year, but recently hackers are fairly rare.
"(client side hit detection/cone of fire is an awesome idea c/d)."
Indeed!
"WTB Planetside2 without SoE."
In the next few months there will be a number of PlanetSide inspired games* hitting the market. They borrow, rather shamelessly, some of the interesting aspects of PS. None of them are fully copying it (aside from Welkin, which is China's reverse engineered PS), which is a shame. PS has some traits that make it rewarding for players who want depth and duration, but without feeling like a second job. i think one of the reasons PS is waning is that most MMO players don't want a challenge, or something that requires skill, tactics or cooperation. They want to become gods who can stomp on low level characters with a click of the mouse. They want to spend their way into power, rather than earn it.
As for the 'without SOE'... yeah. That would be orgasmic. Shit, i'd buy a console to play it. MAG is close, but it has no persistence. Global Agenda has a power curve and is basically Unreal Tournament or Team Fortress with levels.
i will be sad when PS ends.
*(MAG, Global Agenda and a few others that i can't name)
If you're looking for a game that: ...you should check out PlanetSide.
- is grind free (you play to play, not just to get the next *ding*)
- doesn't have straight jacket classes
- has a shallow power curve (and therefore no noobstomping)
- has no currency (and therefore no gold farmers, no buying of virtual items, no twinking)
- requires some skill (as opposed to letting equations and die rolls do the work)
- encourages/rewards teamwork, but also allows solo play
- rewards strategy and tactics
- has massive maps
- can have up to 150 vs. 150 vs. 150 on one map
- Does not reset every X minutes, or when the "round" is over (anything you conquer stays yours for as long as you can hold it)
- allows for multiple play styles (stealth, flight, infantry, armor, power armor suits, support, sniping etc)
Download the SOE Station Client and then the PlanetSide 14 day trial client. Create a Vanu Sovereignty character on the Gemini (US) server. Around 1930 Eastern, look for players with the tag "Ghosts of the Revolution". That's my outfit (guild). They will help you get started. We have weekly raids on Thursday of 30 to 90 players organized into divisions and using TeamSpeak. My primary character is N1H1L (Nihil).
Hit reply to pour on the PlanetSide hate or to ask questions about the game or my outfit.
Can someone give me a non-Fox News explanation of how worried any should be worried about this? Some /.ers are privacy freaks who are so egocentric as to think that *everyone* is out to get them all the time. i'd like to hear from a non-paranoid person about the real risks involved.
i'm inclined to think that the elephant doesn't even know the ant exists, let alone cares about where i bought lunch last Tuesday.
What is the REAL likelihood that any given person would be the targeted and what is the realistic harm that someone could do? And what sane precautions should one take?
"Guns serve no other purpose than to murder people."
"Cars serve no other purpose than to run over people and pollute the air."
"VCR record buttons serve no other purpose than to make illegal copies of movies."
"The internet serves no other purpose than to rip off people and distribute child pornography."
i recommend giving a read to James Gleick's Chaos.
What is the value of something that can be copied with perfect fidelity, infinitely, at virtually no cost to copy or distribute... and that has a finite demand? Any finite demand met with an infinite supply creates a value/price as close to zero as makes no odds.
What is the value of the software that is the game of Tic-tac-toe? Microsoft Offices is only somewhat harder to duplicate and distribute, but not much. A seat at a concert or a hammer off the assembly line is much harder to duplicate.
The value of a work of art is it's enjoyment. That's it's raison d'être, just as we make hammers to push nails into wood.
This might be a difference in our views of what value is. The world outside me seems to think that something is worth whatever the seller can charge for it (the market may or may not agree). Value might mean utility. Music has utility... it makes life a bit more worth living and communicates between cultures, generations and individuals. Listening to Bat for Lashes on the drive home helps me relax. It won't advance my financial status in the world, but i certainly enjoy it. That utility might vary from person to person. My computer and my CD collection would fetch roughly the same price. The computer has for more utility in the sense that it "does stuff", but i value my music collection more. i'd be willing to pay $20 or so for a copy of X-Men 171, but my girlfriend might only take it if it was free. Some nerd richer than i might be willing to pay even more in an auction.
i'm not sure that anything is necessary. i dislike the word "need" as it creates in the listener some sense of obligation and in the speaker a sense of entitlement. One does not need to work, have a car or even breathe. Having those things makes other activities easier, but they are need inherently needed. Happiness, comfort and existence are unnecessary. Breathing is necessary for life, but life is NOT necessary. You can choose to die. If there is no need for life, saying you need to breathe is, by itself, untrue.
A business could forgo computers and software if they wanted. They will find themselves hard pressed to compete and would likely fold quickly. But the company doesn't have any need to exist or do well.
If you see an OBJECT, that is FLYING, and you can't IDENTIFY it (making it UNIDENTIFIED)... it *is* a UFO (relative to me).
That blurry, fast moving thing in the sky that i can't recognize is a UFO.
UFO does not state or imply that the object is or might be alien... that's a leap people make on their own. If i say "i saw a UFO", i am NOT saying i saw something from outer space, just that it was in the air and i don't know what it was. Nothing more, nothing less.