Directron has some small form factor cases... I like the ASUS pre-built one, but I've always liked ASUSes stuff some I'm biased. In general, the small form factor stuff has always worked out pretty well from what I've seen. I certainly haven't played with every brand, but none of the ones I've messed with are craptastic
plus if you RTFA it's about the Mini being good because of its small size etc. so all your points about cost are worth fuck-all unless you can find an x86 machine with the same size and aesthetics.
There are some decent smaller PC cases out there, with happy fun handles to make 'em easier to haul around. I won't argue aethetics, PC cases (even the cool micro/flex ATX stuff) are still basically boxes.
And if I recall some Scientology debacle with a defragmentation program some years ago, the Germans are (well, were) even more against Microsoft that the rest of the EU. But I guess money is the tool that'll break down all barriers. Everybody has a price...
If it's gonna be a marketing pitch, they should at least make it PowerPoint so the people that try to get money to buy the solutions can make it management friendly... A few slides, some small buzzwords and presto! People get funding! Makes me crazy...Crazier. Whatever.
I play it... It's fun as MMOGs game because it combines the ability to build and level characters from MMORPGs with the ability to just get in and play for fun for a bit that you get from FPS's. It's a decent attempt at getting the best from both worlds, in my opinion. Yup, it's online only.
Perhaps the most valuable lessong to be learned from MMOGs is the process of having to sit patiently before you actually do anything. Some of the more advanced MMOGs actually make you wait BEFORE you even get into the game play portion!
All the games with videogame licenses are sucktastic? Do we get to see Spongebobs Great Adventure when best video game category? And then get to see the award plastered on the box cover in the $4.99 section of Wal-Mart?
Bombs like this are usually followed with reports of it being a driver issue. Or they might hear the "oh, you accidently got pre-release silicon" or something similar. A company like ATI or NVidia can usually survive a SNAFU like this, I doubt XGI will be so lucky.
Any time I've ever given a hand at the genre (or the hack and slash variant) it just seems to get redundant very quickly and sure there's better items and abilities, but it's more of the same.
You're right. They are all basically the same if you boil them down far enough. The player is always after something a little bit better, or to go to some new area they shoehorned into the game. Everquest (well, all the MMOGs I've played recently) are essentially expensive chat rooms. I hang out, play the game with some friends of mine, and hope the conversation makes the playing time tolerable.
As to the modeling campaign, it's not much of a surprise. Well, if anything I'm surprised they didn't already have a model. They had someone parade around to all the Everquest conventions for EQ1.
As I pointed out, I'm willing to be more...well...forgiving and let them earn their keep. As long as the keep they can earn can also cover the costs involved in therapy for the families that are effected by the sexual offenders crime. Typically, in the US, a person in jail doesn't earn enough to pay their way through jail. Essentially the state (or federal) government is paying for their upkeep. They don't earn enough money through their jobs to pay their way (especially considering the extra costs involved like paying jailers), and they certainly don't earn enough to cover therapy for the families. Like all crimes, pedophiles tend to hurt more than the child they abused. And it takes a long time for that child to get back to a more normal life.
My view on a life sentance is that you're simply funding this person to go through life without having to work, and if they're in for life you've given up on any pretense of attempting to rehabilitate them. Not that prison tends to rehabilitate anyway, or that pedophiles tend to be able to be rehabilitated.
My guess is anybody that refers to the death penalty as murder already has some pretty definitive opinions on the matter. It's something that should be studied deeper but in most of the research I've heard about, pedophiles tend to never change their way. Some do better at controlling their urges than others, because they know it's wrong. If someone isn't likely to be able to change their habits (especially if they admit to it, as in the case that prompted this legislation), there's no reason that we shouldn't keep them at least locked up for life. Due to some personal circumstances, I'd far rather see them executed for their crime.
I'm all for people's individual right to believe whatever the hell they want to, but to impress their belief systems on others is irrefutably horrible.
Isn't that what happens in a capatilist system? If you don't want to play "Guns 4 God" or whatever craptastic spin-off game is likely to come from it, don't buy it. I pass games I don't buy all the time, so I tend to stay insulated from the really bad games...
I've often said that I'd be willing to spend some money to level up in EQ or EQ2. Look at it from a practical point of view... It takes a few kills to get used to your new skills, spells or whatever at a new level. From that point on, you're pressing the same sequence of buttons over and over again for hours to get a new level. If they'd cut that short, and allow you to hit a magic button that levels up your character for $10 after you've gotten 10 percent through the level...
Hardcore players have to face the fact that EQ2 takes no skill. A person can xp up through all the levels without a brain rattling around in their skull. It happened in EQ1 (even without power leveling) and it happens in EQ2. Being able to perform with large groups of people (i.e. raids) is another story, but it always has been. The best group player in the world may make bad choices until they've raided a few times.
On the other hand, it does seem odd to think that I'd happily pay to cut down on the amount of time I have to play the game to achieve certain goals. Speaks to the fun-factor of the game, huh?
I mean the claim is that Sudan is the UN's role, so if you broke away from the shackles of the UN, would you do whats right?
Depends on what's right, obviously. NATO had no problem acting without UN sanction in Kosovo, but decided to toe the line in Rwanda. I can't discuss it reasonably, because it's a hotbutton for me. I don't know that every country would do what's right in the absence of the UN, but we (as a global community) obviously don't always do what's right WITH the UN present. So essentially we spend money supporting an orginization that may or may not make a difference. It's at least worth revising the way the global community uses the UN.
The parent is the one responsible for communicating to the kids what's appropriate or not. Not the fucking paper label.
Nah. The belief is it takes a village to raise a child. So it doesn't matter what you screw up as a parent, because you always get to blame the village. You've only gotta look at some of the headlines nowadays to see that's the way people (politicians, media, whatever) spin it. The era of personal responsibilty seems to be gone.
If you're playing basketball, aren't you already active?
Not necessarily. It doesn't take a lot of effort to sorta jog after people and hope things happen. I played soccer on an intramural league, and saw plenty of people that managed to prevent actual calorie usage. And a few people that seemed to be pretty active, but it must've been only during the one game a week judging by their physique. If he's playing basketball for an hour every Saturday in a YMCA league, he might not be doing much.
True enough... The party that started PMRC, signed the DMCA and the Federal Protection of Marriage act (or whatever) can't be considered too liberal. But compared to Republicans...
I saw similar things happen in EQ. Basically the most dedicated tradeskillers got together and set base prices on what they'd pay for components, and what they'd expect for their items. That trick worked for a period of time, until players that weren't "tuned in" to the system started to lowball them. The auction nature of WoW will probably cause it to take longer for the prices to get back to normal, but I don't anticpate there'll be a long term effect. Sombodies gotten rich though, assuming players buy their stuff...
Would this be a good time to point out that it was during a liberal administration that the DMCA was signed into law? It's said that neither major party in the US is really any different from the other. They're both beholden to the pockets of huge SIGs, and there's not a good shot at change in the near future.
Too easy or too quick? There's a difference. It took a long time to get to 60 in Everquest, but it was incredibly easy. WoW certainly allows for faster progress, but it's tough to be any easier than Everquest.
Lastly... there is no way of being unique. Even the toons are limited in scope, but more importantly, the professions that you choose have a finite number of items, and somone else is likely going to be able to do what you do. There is nothing that can set you apart from anyone else. There is nothing to strive for in the venue, to be honest.
There wsa no value to being unique in Everquest. In every game, there's going to be one best item for the class. The reality was that every bard (to take a class example) that wanted to have the best stuff had to play a certain way. Bard was the most flexible class in the game, but you still were a mana pump/resist person on raids. If you were lucky, you might be allowed to stand close to the mob and hit auto-attack, as long as you didn't mess up your song rotations. As a cleric, you sat there and waited for the CHeal call and then hit your macro to start the cast. Wait a period of time to kick off the next one. As a MT...well...you stand in front of something and hit taunt periodically. After turning on auto-attack of course.
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Directron has some small form factor cases... I like the ASUS pre-built one, but I've always liked ASUSes stuff some I'm biased. In general, the small form factor stuff has always worked out pretty well from what I've seen. I certainly haven't played with every brand, but none of the ones I've messed with are craptastic
plus if you RTFA it's about the Mini being good because of its small size etc. so all your points about cost are worth fuck-all unless you can find an x86 machine with the same size and aesthetics.
There are some decent smaller PC cases out there, with happy fun handles to make 'em easier to haul around. I won't argue aethetics, PC cases (even the cool micro/flex ATX stuff) are still basically boxes.
And if I recall some Scientology debacle with a defragmentation program some years ago, the Germans are (well, were) even more against Microsoft that the rest of the EU. But I guess money is the tool that'll break down all barriers. Everybody has a price...
If it's gonna be a marketing pitch, they should at least make it PowerPoint so the people that try to get money to buy the solutions can make it management friendly... A few slides, some small buzzwords and presto! People get funding! Makes me crazy...Crazier. Whatever.
It's ok... She'll get the ban on violent video games she's after, it's all a wash in the end.
"It's a validation of your game when people are willing to spend upwards of $2,000 on a character,"
What's it validate? That your game is so boring that people don't want to spend the time playing to earn their gold/levels?
I play it... It's fun as MMOGs game because it combines the ability to build and level characters from MMORPGs with the ability to just get in and play for fun for a bit that you get from FPS's. It's a decent attempt at getting the best from both worlds, in my opinion. Yup, it's online only.
Perhaps the most valuable lessong to be learned from MMOGs is the process of having to sit patiently before you actually do anything. Some of the more advanced MMOGs actually make you wait BEFORE you even get into the game play portion!
All the games with videogame licenses are sucktastic? Do we get to see Spongebobs Great Adventure when best video game category? And then get to see the award plastered on the box cover in the $4.99 section of Wal-Mart?
Bombs like this are usually followed with reports of it being a driver issue. Or they might hear the "oh, you accidently got pre-release silicon" or something similar. A company like ATI or NVidia can usually survive a SNAFU like this, I doubt XGI will be so lucky.
Any time I've ever given a hand at the genre (or the hack and slash variant) it just seems to get redundant very quickly and sure there's better items and abilities, but it's more of the same.
You're right. They are all basically the same if you boil them down far enough. The player is always after something a little bit better, or to go to some new area they shoehorned into the game. Everquest (well, all the MMOGs I've played recently) are essentially expensive chat rooms. I hang out, play the game with some friends of mine, and hope the conversation makes the playing time tolerable.
As to the modeling campaign, it's not much of a surprise. Well, if anything I'm surprised they didn't already have a model. They had someone parade around to all the Everquest conventions for EQ1.
As I pointed out, I'm willing to be more...well...forgiving and let them earn their keep. As long as the keep they can earn can also cover the costs involved in therapy for the families that are effected by the sexual offenders crime. Typically, in the US, a person in jail doesn't earn enough to pay their way through jail. Essentially the state (or federal) government is paying for their upkeep. They don't earn enough money through their jobs to pay their way (especially considering the extra costs involved like paying jailers), and they certainly don't earn enough to cover therapy for the families. Like all crimes, pedophiles tend to hurt more than the child they abused. And it takes a long time for that child to get back to a more normal life.
My view on a life sentance is that you're simply funding this person to go through life without having to work, and if they're in for life you've given up on any pretense of attempting to rehabilitate them. Not that prison tends to rehabilitate anyway, or that pedophiles tend to be able to be rehabilitated.
My guess is anybody that refers to the death penalty as murder already has some pretty definitive opinions on the matter. It's something that should be studied deeper but in most of the research I've heard about, pedophiles tend to never change their way. Some do better at controlling their urges than others, because they know it's wrong. If someone isn't likely to be able to change their habits (especially if they admit to it, as in the case that prompted this legislation), there's no reason that we shouldn't keep them at least locked up for life. Due to some personal circumstances, I'd far rather see them executed for their crime.
I'm all for people's individual right to believe whatever the hell they want to, but to impress their belief systems on others is irrefutably horrible.
Isn't that what happens in a capatilist system? If you don't want to play "Guns 4 God" or whatever craptastic spin-off game is likely to come from it, don't buy it. I pass games I don't buy all the time, so I tend to stay insulated from the really bad games...
We've already got Esperanto, a made up language nobody uses.
I've often said that I'd be willing to spend some money to level up in EQ or EQ2. Look at it from a practical point of view... It takes a few kills to get used to your new skills, spells or whatever at a new level. From that point on, you're pressing the same sequence of buttons over and over again for hours to get a new level. If they'd cut that short, and allow you to hit a magic button that levels up your character for $10 after you've gotten 10 percent through the level...
Hardcore players have to face the fact that EQ2 takes no skill. A person can xp up through all the levels without a brain rattling around in their skull. It happened in EQ1 (even without power leveling) and it happens in EQ2. Being able to perform with large groups of people (i.e. raids) is another story, but it always has been. The best group player in the world may make bad choices until they've raided a few times.
On the other hand, it does seem odd to think that I'd happily pay to cut down on the amount of time I have to play the game to achieve certain goals. Speaks to the fun-factor of the game, huh?
I mean the claim is that Sudan is the UN's role, so if you broke away from the shackles of the UN, would you do whats right?
Depends on what's right, obviously. NATO had no problem acting without UN sanction in Kosovo, but decided to toe the line in Rwanda. I can't discuss it reasonably, because it's a hotbutton for me. I don't know that every country would do what's right in the absence of the UN, but we (as a global community) obviously don't always do what's right WITH the UN present. So essentially we spend money supporting an orginization that may or may not make a difference. It's at least worth revising the way the global community uses the UN.
The parent is the one responsible for communicating to the kids what's appropriate or not. Not the fucking paper label.
Nah. The belief is it takes a village to raise a child. So it doesn't matter what you screw up as a parent, because you always get to blame the village. You've only gotta look at some of the headlines nowadays to see that's the way people (politicians, media, whatever) spin it. The era of personal responsibilty seems to be gone.
I guess we should start talking about how we'll all boycott Best Buy in protest. I'll only be going there to make sure everybody else stays away...
If you're playing basketball, aren't you already active?
Not necessarily. It doesn't take a lot of effort to sorta jog after people and hope things happen. I played soccer on an intramural league, and saw plenty of people that managed to prevent actual calorie usage. And a few people that seemed to be pretty active, but it must've been only during the one game a week judging by their physique. If he's playing basketball for an hour every Saturday in a YMCA league, he might not be doing much.
Man... I've been waiting years for it! Woot!
True enough... The party that started PMRC, signed the DMCA and the Federal Protection of Marriage act (or whatever) can't be considered too liberal. But compared to Republicans...
I saw similar things happen in EQ. Basically the most dedicated tradeskillers got together and set base prices on what they'd pay for components, and what they'd expect for their items. That trick worked for a period of time, until players that weren't "tuned in" to the system started to lowball them. The auction nature of WoW will probably cause it to take longer for the prices to get back to normal, but I don't anticpate there'll be a long term effect. Sombodies gotten rich though, assuming players buy their stuff...
Would this be a good time to point out that it was during a liberal administration that the DMCA was signed into law? It's said that neither major party in the US is really any different from the other. They're both beholden to the pockets of huge SIGs, and there's not a good shot at change in the near future.
Too easy or too quick? There's a difference. It took a long time to get to 60 in Everquest, but it was incredibly easy. WoW certainly allows for faster progress, but it's tough to be any easier than Everquest. Lastly... there is no way of being unique. Even the toons are limited in scope, but more importantly, the professions that you choose have a finite number of items, and somone else is likely going to be able to do what you do. There is nothing that can set you apart from anyone else. There is nothing to strive for in the venue, to be honest.
There wsa no value to being unique in Everquest. In every game, there's going to be one best item for the class. The reality was that every bard (to take a class example) that wanted to have the best stuff had to play a certain way. Bard was the most flexible class in the game, but you still were a mana pump/resist person on raids. If you were lucky, you might be allowed to stand close to the mob and hit auto-attack, as long as you didn't mess up your song rotations. As a cleric, you sat there and waited for the CHeal call and then hit your macro to start the cast. Wait a period of time to kick off the next one. As a MT...well...you stand in front of something and hit taunt periodically. After turning on auto-attack of course.