Wow, last time I started Word, it plopped me right on page one with a blinking cursor. If all you want to do is type in text and keep moving forward, word is as easy to use as any other text entry tool. Just start typing and ignore the menus. And for a writer the built in auto-save can be a lifesaver when the power goes out.
There are LOTS of reasons to hate ACTA and for me, none of them are piracy related!
Claiming a copyright treaty negotiation must be secret for National Security reasons is just plain wrong.
Bypassing any legislative power to regulate copyrights is wrong. Using Executive branch treaty negotiations and only giving the legislature a yes/no vote on complex rights and freedom related issues is a very dangerous precedent.
Granting corporations, and or corporate representatives access to the negotiations which ordinary citizens are not is a terrible way to live up to government "of the people, by the people, for the people."
If these negotiations were simply to accomplish what you imply, then why must they be secret, and why are legislatures being intentionally bypassed?
Game buyers aren't stupid, and neither are game resellers. Games that have codes will be worth less when bought used, perhaps significantly less. Any game that institutes a 20 dollar fee to play the last level will be close to worthless as a used game sale. Clearly that is the idea the games publishers are going for. However gamers generally don't have unlimited budgets for gaming. And if I am a gamer that PLANS on selling or trading my game when I buy it to get more value from my purchase, I will definitely take that into account when I am at the checkout stand, and have a choice of games.
Let's look at winners and losers here, that 20 bucks for the code just transferred from me the original purchaser to the publisher. (Since any used buyer will want to deduct the code fee from how much they are paying me.) So I, the original purchaser am the one that will pay the price for the lack of a used market for the game I bought. And if I am a big time trader/seller, which going by the size of the used game market there are alot of us, then that is going to affect how many games I can buy new.
Bottom line I can't see how anyone other than a game publisher is happy with this new idea, not only are original game purchasers losing monetary value, but they are also getting a huge hassle to register codes and download content for something they paid full retail for.
As a side note this must have gamefly quaking in their boots.
The simple truth is that not everyone wants to spend their gaming time grinding out in game currency for their next item upgrades.
There will always be people that would rather spend cash than time, that is never going to change. And the bottom line is the game developers know this, their policies concerning RMT are to protect their own interests, and you can't blame them for their stance, but the market isn't going to go away either.
Live and let live, quit worrying about how other people are playing the game and have fun your own way.
I remember getting killed in pvp by a particularly annoying character, so I created an alt on their server and faction, added them to my friends list, did a who to find out where they were, tracked em' down and at least got to see what they were wearing and what enchants they had. Figuring out their talent build wasn't hard for the most part based on what equipment they were using and what powers they used in combat. (Often easily checked by using the combat log.)
As far as I see it, the only main difference with the website is how much work you have to do to find this info out about another player. (I mean what difference does my reputation or profession levels really make.)
For myself, I am hoping that I will learn something by checking some of the best players builds. (But I don't expect to get much that I can apply since it seems to me equipment plays a huge role in how a character plays in WOW, and equipment, especially the good stuff, isn't easily acquired.)
As a night owl, with graveyard shift roommates who like to play after getting home, we often ran afoul of the scheduled downtime. Especially on nights that they extended the maintenance by taking the servers down earlier than usual.
Regardless of the playtime issue however, this solves one of my problems with the auction system. I prefer to use 24 hour auction time limits to minimize my relisting. Time countdown on auctions continues during server downtime, so I seldom listed items from Monday early a.m. through completion of Tuesday maintenance to save myself the wasted listing cost, or to hedge against expiration bidders from getting my auctions for list/reserve rather than buyout prices.
As a side note, I have worked in several 24/7 high volume (many millions of transactions a day) IT departments so downtime for weekly maintenance can be designed out of systems for surprisingly less cost than you might imagine, and without any significant impact on performance or reliability.
Lowering the poverty line in WoW is a rediculous concept to me. All of the fixed costs in the game become more affordable with an inflated economy. Of course the inflated economy makes auction house prices go up, but it also makes making money easier. When I can make 100 gold a day in an inflated economy getting my epic mount (1000 gold base price) is that much easier even if I am not buying the gold for cash.
Also most people that I read complaining about farmers are the first to also complain about high "natural" resources costs. Well guess what, the farmers are actually out there farming stuff 24/7 and thus the extra resources they bring to the economy helps to drive down costs too. I have personally gotten the lowest prices on resources from someone I assume was a farmer. A server without farmers would also have less commodities and uncommon/rare/epic items available.
People should be thanking the farmers for being the wildcat cash engines that they are, generating virtual money through lots of hard work to the benefit of many, not just themselves.
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
Not so for DVD's. All dvd's are "sandwiches." This is so that we can have double sided dvd's that aren't thicker than single sided ones.
A typical dvd would look like this: Plastic coating. Side 1 Content. Back to back glue. Side 2 Content, or just a blank side. Plastic coating. (optional) Label (if not a 2 sided DVD)
The total thickness is about the same as a CD tho, so only half as far to get through to the good stuff from either side. But as such both sides have some protection.
If they send the mail to the address of an open mail server, they will be sending most of them to the hackers that have taken over the machines, won't they?
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, last time I started Word, it plopped me right on page one with a blinking cursor. If all you want to do is type in text and keep moving forward, word is as easy to use as any other text entry tool. Just start typing and ignore the menus. And for a writer the built in auto-save can be a lifesaver when the power goes out.
There are LOTS of reasons to hate ACTA and for me, none of them are piracy related!
Claiming a copyright treaty negotiation must be secret for National Security reasons is just plain wrong.
Bypassing any legislative power to regulate copyrights is wrong. Using Executive branch treaty negotiations and only giving the legislature a yes/no vote on complex rights and freedom related issues is a very dangerous precedent.
Granting corporations, and or corporate representatives access to the negotiations which ordinary citizens are not is a terrible way to live up to government "of the people, by the people, for the people."
If these negotiations were simply to accomplish what you imply, then why must they be secret, and why are legislatures being intentionally bypassed?
Game buyers aren't stupid, and neither are game resellers. Games that have codes will be worth less when bought used, perhaps significantly less. Any game that institutes a 20 dollar fee to play the last level will be close to worthless as a used game sale. Clearly that is the idea the games publishers are going for. However gamers generally don't have unlimited budgets for gaming. And if I am a gamer that PLANS on selling or trading my game when I buy it to get more value from my purchase, I will definitely take that into account when I am at the checkout stand, and have a choice of games.
Let's look at winners and losers here, that 20 bucks for the code just transferred from me the original purchaser to the publisher. (Since any used buyer will want to deduct the code fee from how much they are paying me.) So I, the original purchaser am the one that will pay the price for the lack of a used market for the game I bought. And if I am a big time trader/seller, which going by the size of the used game market there are alot of us, then that is going to affect how many games I can buy new.
Bottom line I can't see how anyone other than a game publisher is happy with this new idea, not only are original game purchasers losing monetary value, but they are also getting a huge hassle to register codes and download content for something they paid full retail for.
As a side note this must have gamefly quaking in their boots.
The simple truth is that not everyone wants to spend their gaming time grinding out in game currency for their next item upgrades.
There will always be people that would rather spend cash than time, that is never going to change. And the bottom line is the game developers know this, their policies concerning RMT are to protect their own interests, and you can't blame them for their stance, but the market isn't going to go away either.
Live and let live, quit worrying about how other people are playing the game and have fun your own way.
Alot of this information was already available.
I remember getting killed in pvp by a particularly annoying character, so I created an alt on their server and faction, added them to my friends list, did a who to find out where they were, tracked em' down and at least got to see what they were wearing and what enchants they had. Figuring out their talent build wasn't hard for the most part based on what equipment they were using and what powers they used in combat. (Often easily checked by using the combat log.)
As far as I see it, the only main difference with the website is how much work you have to do to find this info out about another player. (I mean what difference does my reputation or profession levels really make.)
For myself, I am hoping that I will learn something by checking some of the best players builds. (But I don't expect to get much that I can apply since it seems to me equipment plays a huge role in how a character plays in WOW, and equipment, especially the good stuff, isn't easily acquired.)
As a night owl, with graveyard shift roommates who like to play after getting home, we often ran afoul of the scheduled downtime. Especially on nights that they extended the maintenance by taking the servers down earlier than usual.
Regardless of the playtime issue however, this solves one of my problems with the auction system. I prefer to use 24 hour auction time limits to minimize my relisting. Time countdown on auctions continues during server downtime, so I seldom listed items from Monday early a.m. through completion of Tuesday maintenance to save myself the wasted listing cost, or to hedge against expiration bidders from getting my auctions for list/reserve rather than buyout prices.
As a side note, I have worked in several 24/7 high volume (many millions of transactions a day) IT departments so downtime for weekly maintenance can be designed out of systems for surprisingly less cost than you might imagine, and without any significant impact on performance or reliability.
Lowering the poverty line in WoW is a rediculous concept to me. All of the fixed costs in the game become more affordable with an inflated economy. Of course the inflated economy makes auction house prices go up, but it also makes making money easier. When I can make 100 gold a day in an inflated economy getting my epic mount (1000 gold base price) is that much easier even if I am not buying the gold for cash.
Also most people that I read complaining about farmers are the first to also complain about high "natural" resources costs. Well guess what, the farmers are actually out there farming stuff 24/7 and thus the extra resources they bring to the economy helps to drive down costs too. I have personally gotten the lowest prices on resources from someone I assume was a farmer. A server without farmers would also have less commodities and uncommon/rare/epic items available.
People should be thanking the farmers for being the wildcat cash engines that they are, generating virtual money through lots of hard work to the benefit of many, not just themselves.
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
Not so for DVD's. All dvd's are "sandwiches." This is so that we can have double sided dvd's that aren't thicker than single sided ones.
A typical dvd would look like this:
Plastic coating.
Side 1 Content.
Back to back glue.
Side 2 Content, or just a blank side.
Plastic coating.
(optional) Label (if not a 2 sided DVD)
The total thickness is about the same as a CD tho, so only half as far to get through to the good stuff from either side. But as such both sides have some protection.
If they send the mail to the address of an open mail server, they will be sending most of them to the hackers that have taken over the machines, won't they?