I got one of those emails just yesterday. A free 7-day pass. I considered jumping in for a couple nights. But my friends informed me their accounts had just dried up and we've all moved onto other games. For me, the whole thing boiled down to finances and a plethora of games/projects that I need to work on.
Finances: I'm the type of person that I will try and milk every bit out of a purchase (if I like it). And I liked WoW. But having that I paid actual cash every month, I made sure to get my daily play time in to have made that purchase worth it. Comparatively, I purchased Valve's Orange Box for $30 or $40. I have hundreds of hours of gameplay from Portal to Team Fortress 2. I've probably paid a small percent of one penny per hour for the amount of cost per game time spent. In WoW, I tried to get to minimize my cost/time. Not only that, you had to buy the content disk (or download) at the cost of a full game and there was the still monthly charge (no free time with purchase of expansion).
Games: There is a trend in gaming, particularly multiplayer and online only games, that the games are subsidized via perk purchases or DLC. This means there is no cost for the actual game - if I want some extras (a fancier icon, cool clothing (hats), more interesting potions) then I can lay down the cash and purchase those points. Zynga has proven this model. I started playing League of Legends. It's a nice, simple game that is completely free. Granado Espada is another free, fully engaged MMO. Realm of the Mad God is a great 10 - 60 minute at a time game... also free.
Besides the numerous "free" games that are out there, Steam has all sorts of games available. And these are relatively inexpensive. I'll be dropping some cash on Torchlight 2 when it comes out. (Sorry BlizzaVision, the always online, no LAN play really kills the Diablo 3 mojo for me.)
Projects: Yep, life gets in the way. Beside family, home upkeep, social life, I've also got a website project I need to get started on. And with only a 2-3 hours a night to myself, keeping up on my projects can be difficult.
Slimsearch. Granted some of the functionality already exists in current FF releases, but it's not the whole thing. But, yes, there are a good number of add-ons that just haven't been updated to work in FF4, let alone 5.
Usually when I think of Religious Right, I'm not thinking the extremists. Particularly, because the people saying religious right as a derogatory term are so far un-religious that I would seem fanatical to them. So, we've suffered an issue of mis-communication in definitions.
You're not going to find a lot of scientists in the religious right? That's news to me. I would list a few tens of thousands scientists who also have a faith in God and practice that faith, but the exercise would be in vain.
A core gamer: Starcraft 1, off-line single player, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, HL2:Ep1-2, off-line single player (yes, I know you have to register with Steam, but that's a one time connection to then say "Start offline"), The Elder Scroll Series (single-player only), NeverWinter Nights (more fun with friends, but Internet connection not needed), Need for Speed series has an online component, but not needed, name your sports franchise here, name your sim franchise here (sims ranging the gamut from The Sims 1 to Sim City to Roller-Coaster Typhoon, etc).
Oh, and guess what, they did beg for a single player edition of Counter-Strike... and we got it. Okay, beg is a strong word. When Valve acquired the CS mod team, then released the game for actual cash, they included a fairly extensive single player game to train the player so they wouldn't get wiped when they got online. The player could learn some tactics and the weapons of the game. Even still, CS (and TF2) can be played on a LAN without an Internet connection.
You are right, no one begged for WoW offline, but Diablo 3 isn't an MMO, now is it?
I would agree with your assessment, except we are discussing Diablo 3. Having played through D1 and D2, there really wasn't anything to the game, but the grind to the end boss. Boil it down and it is a simple hectic mouse clicky game with pretty graphics. But it is a grind. If you want a game that doesn't require a grind, the Diablo series is not it - I would suspect that no action RPG is without grind. For me, there is nothing wrong with that.
Of course, one way to lessen the grind of Diablo (at least in D2) is to play the various characters, but you are still grinding the entry levels up to where the character actually becomes useful and interesting.
so it is arguable a sane consumer choice to start with pirating.
I wouldn't say that is the starting point. The starting point is purchase the game, install it, patch up to the latest crack, install the crack, play worry free. Granted, that's not really pirating, now is it? What it is, is removing the bugs shipped from the mfg.
Actually, I *do* believe Valve will provide patches if they were ever to shutdown. Of course, this does not likely extend to other properties sold on Steam. Still, Valve has proven its love for their customers in many ways. Blizzard, too, has proven its love... except now they are "Blizzavision", and anything from Activision automatically gains the "I'm wary of you" skepticism.
From the headline above, it sound like they *are* doing something besides keeping tabs on paying players. It sounds like they are keeping tabs on cheaters, dup'ers, and hacks. Since the single player character can also be used on battle.net, an always on connection to verify against hacks and dupes will keep the single player character synchronized and cheat free for the multiplayer experience.
Being the anti-social person that I am, I have no interest in meeting the thousands of anonymous "friends". I am quite definitely interested in the single player campaign almost exclusively. There may be times I will be at a LAN party and want to play that way... oh, wait, I can't do LAN only >:^(
While on vacation last week, I did bring my computer along. While chilling out in the evenings, I wanted to browse and play, but my Internet connection was terrible. When it worked, it was sufficient for web pages without any multimedia. This would definitely not be an environment for a like Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, or other similar games. I was very much looking forward to Diablo 3. Now I am very much looking forward to Torchlight 2 (I missed picking up the first one for a great price during the Steam Summer Sale).
I'm wondering how Sony stays in business. Then I remember all the seriously overpriced hardware they sell. Still, Sony should receive a Lifetime Award in Epic Fail: Betamax, rootkit in music CDs, and others. (Can't take away the great good they've done, though: Walkman, CDs, Playstation, etc.)
If you don't' see a way to perform a peaceful revolution in the United States, then you are advocating anarchy, in my opinion. The peaceful transfer of power has been a staple of the government and rights of US citizens. We are fortunate that when we cast our vote, we should not have fear of retribution for our vote (freed black panthers situation is noted). The winners do not round up the losers and take them out back to never be seen again.
If things are not going your way, convince enough people to vote the way you want. (Not an easy thing, certainly.)
That's assuming an equal cut. Stating that we need to reduce Federal government and including the caveats of making it do what it should be doing and stopping it from doing what it should not be doing, means that we'll be getting rid of entitlements, putting infrastructure and other projects at the State level, and leaving the defense of the country (and world) and how to pay for that at the Federal level. Certainly, we can't go back to the late 1700's and early 1800's where we figured out some things really do need to be centralized. But there are things that we can repeal that have been around since the late 1800s that should not have been at the Federal level to begin with.
You are right and you are wrong. The Obama rubber stamp is John Yarmuth, a liberal democrat and we are conservatives (not necessarily TEA Party, mostly Republican voting, have some Libertarian leanings). The wrong part is that the letter was not untoward. It was a respectful, thought out, reasonably detailed argument in support of voting No on Obamacare. But he didn't really care,... that is, his staff really didn't care because I doubt he saw it. Yarmuth was running around town saying "Everyone I speak to supports Obama's health care initiative. I haven't had anybody tell me they don't like it." Either he was lying, stuffing his fingers in his ears, or wasn't getting the word from his staff that 40% of his constituents were not in favor of the deal (maybe less, I do live in a brain dead liberal town - not that all liberals are brain dead).
Yes, the whole "fair share" thing reeks of class warfare to me. However, I would agree that there needs to be better parity between the executives and the working class. Golden parachutes for executives that are fired because they ran their multinational business to near bankruptcy then fired all the worker bees to save a profit is not the tenets of true capitalism (it is one of the ugly side effects of a corrupted capitalist society).
Well, yes. If you commission a work, you own that work even if it was someone else that produced it. Certainly, there are other contractual limitations set forth in legalese - but that's what this lawsuit was all about.
Wait, wait, wait... you're asking for "Fair and Balanced" reporting? Sorry, you won't find any of that in any part of the world. I realize, the link is to a CNN report and I referenced FoxNews' tagline. My point sticks - there is no balanced reporting and they get lucky if it is close to fair.
I don't know. My wife recently wrote our Obama Rubber Stamp... I mean Congrescritter. The letter she got back was essentially, "You're one of those people, aren't you? Thank you for your interest in 'your' government, but we know what's good for you."
We should split California into two or three states: West New Mexico, South California, and North California. We could probably split New York into New York and... Syracuse? Texas and Florida could also be split. Let's give it a number, any state that reaches 15million in population is divided. After Florida, IL, PA, and OH are next from 11.5 - 12.5 million population. (reference using 2010 census numbers)
It also depended upon the death rates as they were in the 1950s. Yeah, people are living 10+ years on average longer. The system depended on most of the people dieing and never collecting on their deposits. We have an aging society with a liberal concept of over-population among the younger generation. I am not advocating "off-ing" the older generation, but we are likely going to need to increase the age limit for Social Security. I have no preconception of ever recovering that money I have put into SS. I consider it a theft by the US government. Taxes, themselves, are not theft, but a necessary thing to ensure a well oiled society. But this forced savings program along with all the entitlements are throwing pebbles and rocks into the cogs of our society.
Perhaps, but what has Obama and company provided? One plan that was summarily rejected - it got 0 votes in favor. His second plan was summarily rejected by the CBO, with its head stating, "We don't do projections on speeches." That's bad. Then, he gets in front of the nation and the first thing out of his mouth was it's Bush's fault, "Our country was heading toward $1trillion in debt." (He forgot to mention he took us to $3.6 trillion.) The next thing out of his mouth was class warfare. Then he went on a rant of this is not how to run a country, blaming Republicans and absolving Democrats (despite Harry Reid's offer of a plan that also did not include tax hikes). A country is run by its leader, and Obama is not a leader.
Besides, it is not the Tea Partiers blocking progress. Boehner and McConnell's plan was a compromise that met some of the President's goals. Then the President changed the requirements.
The Americans wanted "Hope and Change". Sadly, they bought into the non-specifics of the ever-Present senator from Chicago. (Not that the Republicans nominated anyone worthy in 2008 - we got a liberal vs democrat for that general POTUS election). In 2010, the Americans sent a message and as many representatives as they could to DC for the real change they wanted. Can Obama blame these "Tea Party" representatives for doing exactly what they told their constituents they were going to do? Should those representatives do anything different? No.
Let's hope in 2012, we can get more representatives in office that will put their foot down to the extravagant DC spending, those who will think more like the Taxed Enough Already Party with less government, more power to the people.
A repost from a comment I made above (slightly improved):
I have seen the thread of discontent with the throw-more-money-at-it doesn't solve the problem. There is another problem that is related to the money issue. In order to attract the best teachers, they should be paid accordingly. Unfortunately, most school systems in large cities have administrative costs that are far higher than teacher wages. Another problem is that, because of unions, the lazy, incompetent teacher who has survived the 2-year tenure period and can't get fired, has been there for 10-15 years and cannot be paid less than the above-average 5-year teacher who excites their students and creates productive, thinking citizens. You *can* throw more money at the education problem and solve some issues. But it won't work until we can have a better administrator-teacher ration and performance based salaries/bonuses. (Performance based is not solely dependent on test-taking skills, but would include peer reviews and other factors that make up a good review.)
Slashdot Mirror
I got one of those emails just yesterday. A free 7-day pass. I considered jumping in for a couple nights. But my friends informed me their accounts had just dried up and we've all moved onto other games. For me, the whole thing boiled down to finances and a plethora of games/projects that I need to work on.
Finances: I'm the type of person that I will try and milk every bit out of a purchase (if I like it). And I liked WoW. But having that I paid actual cash every month, I made sure to get my daily play time in to have made that purchase worth it. Comparatively, I purchased Valve's Orange Box for $30 or $40. I have hundreds of hours of gameplay from Portal to Team Fortress 2. I've probably paid a small percent of one penny per hour for the amount of cost per game time spent. In WoW, I tried to get to minimize my cost/time. Not only that, you had to buy the content disk (or download) at the cost of a full game and there was the still monthly charge (no free time with purchase of expansion).
Games: There is a trend in gaming, particularly multiplayer and online only games, that the games are subsidized via perk purchases or DLC. This means there is no cost for the actual game - if I want some extras (a fancier icon, cool clothing (hats), more interesting potions) then I can lay down the cash and purchase those points. Zynga has proven this model. I started playing League of Legends. It's a nice, simple game that is completely free. Granado Espada is another free, fully engaged MMO. Realm of the Mad God is a great 10 - 60 minute at a time game... also free.
Besides the numerous "free" games that are out there, Steam has all sorts of games available. And these are relatively inexpensive. I'll be dropping some cash on Torchlight 2 when it comes out. (Sorry BlizzaVision, the always online, no LAN play really kills the Diablo 3 mojo for me.)
Projects: Yep, life gets in the way. Beside family, home upkeep, social life, I've also got a website project I need to get started on. And with only a 2-3 hours a night to myself, keeping up on my projects can be difficult.
Slimsearch. Granted some of the functionality already exists in current FF releases, but it's not the whole thing.
But, yes, there are a good number of add-ons that just haven't been updated to work in FF4, let alone 5.
Usually when I think of Religious Right, I'm not thinking the extremists. Particularly, because the people saying religious right as a derogatory term are so far un-religious that I would seem fanatical to them. So, we've suffered an issue of mis-communication in definitions.
You're not going to find a lot of scientists in the religious right? That's news to me. I would list a few tens of thousands scientists who also have a faith in God and practice that faith, but the exercise would be in vain.
A core gamer: Starcraft 1, off-line single player, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, HL2:Ep1-2, off-line single player (yes, I know you have to register with Steam, but that's a one time connection to then say "Start offline"), The Elder Scroll Series (single-player only), NeverWinter Nights (more fun with friends, but Internet connection not needed), Need for Speed series has an online component, but not needed, name your sports franchise here, name your sim franchise here (sims ranging the gamut from The Sims 1 to Sim City to Roller-Coaster Typhoon, etc).
Oh, and guess what, they did beg for a single player edition of Counter-Strike... and we got it. Okay, beg is a strong word. When Valve acquired the CS mod team, then released the game for actual cash, they included a fairly extensive single player game to train the player so they wouldn't get wiped when they got online. The player could learn some tactics and the weapons of the game. Even still, CS (and TF2) can be played on a LAN without an Internet connection.
You are right, no one begged for WoW offline, but Diablo 3 isn't an MMO, now is it?
Fun is relative. I had more fun not playing on battle.net. I didn't have to worry about getting slashed when I stepped out of the town by a duper.
I would agree with your assessment, except we are discussing Diablo 3. Having played through D1 and D2, there really wasn't anything to the game, but the grind to the end boss. Boil it down and it is a simple hectic mouse clicky game with pretty graphics. But it is a grind. If you want a game that doesn't require a grind, the Diablo series is not it - I would suspect that no action RPG is without grind. For me, there is nothing wrong with that.
Of course, one way to lessen the grind of Diablo (at least in D2) is to play the various characters, but you are still grinding the entry levels up to where the character actually becomes useful and interesting.
so it is arguable a sane consumer choice to start with pirating.
I wouldn't say that is the starting point. The starting point is purchase the game, install it, patch up to the latest crack, install the crack, play worry free. Granted, that's not really pirating, now is it? What it is, is removing the bugs shipped from the mfg.
Actually, I *do* believe Valve will provide patches if they were ever to shutdown. Of course, this does not likely extend to other properties sold on Steam. Still, Valve has proven its love for their customers in many ways. Blizzard, too, has proven its love ... except now they are "Blizzavision", and anything from Activision automatically gains the "I'm wary of you" skepticism.
From the headline above, it sound like they *are* doing something besides keeping tabs on paying players. It sounds like they are keeping tabs on cheaters, dup'ers, and hacks. Since the single player character can also be used on battle.net, an always on connection to verify against hacks and dupes will keep the single player character synchronized and cheat free for the multiplayer experience.
Being the anti-social person that I am, I have no interest in meeting the thousands of anonymous "friends". I am quite definitely interested in the single player campaign almost exclusively. There may be times I will be at a LAN party and want to play that way... oh, wait, I can't do LAN only >:^(
While on vacation last week, I did bring my computer along. While chilling out in the evenings, I wanted to browse and play, but my Internet connection was terrible. When it worked, it was sufficient for web pages without any multimedia. This would definitely not be an environment for a like Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, or other similar games. I was very much looking forward to Diablo 3. Now I am very much looking forward to Torchlight 2 (I missed picking up the first one for a great price during the Steam Summer Sale).
I'm wondering how Sony stays in business. Then I remember all the seriously overpriced hardware they sell. Still, Sony should receive a Lifetime Award in Epic Fail: Betamax, rootkit in music CDs, and others. (Can't take away the great good they've done, though: Walkman, CDs, Playstation, etc.)
If you don't' see a way to perform a peaceful revolution in the United States, then you are advocating anarchy, in my opinion. The peaceful transfer of power has been a staple of the government and rights of US citizens. We are fortunate that when we cast our vote, we should not have fear of retribution for our vote (freed black panthers situation is noted). The winners do not round up the losers and take them out back to never be seen again.
If things are not going your way, convince enough people to vote the way you want. (Not an easy thing, certainly.)
That's assuming an equal cut. Stating that we need to reduce Federal government and including the caveats of making it do what it should be doing and stopping it from doing what it should not be doing, means that we'll be getting rid of entitlements, putting infrastructure and other projects at the State level, and leaving the defense of the country (and world) and how to pay for that at the Federal level. Certainly, we can't go back to the late 1700's and early 1800's where we figured out some things really do need to be centralized. But there are things that we can repeal that have been around since the late 1800s that should not have been at the Federal level to begin with.
You are right and you are wrong. The Obama rubber stamp is John Yarmuth, a liberal democrat and we are conservatives (not necessarily TEA Party, mostly Republican voting, have some Libertarian leanings). The wrong part is that the letter was not untoward. It was a respectful, thought out, reasonably detailed argument in support of voting No on Obamacare. But he didn't really care, ... that is, his staff really didn't care because I doubt he saw it. Yarmuth was running around town saying "Everyone I speak to supports Obama's health care initiative. I haven't had anybody tell me they don't like it." Either he was lying, stuffing his fingers in his ears, or wasn't getting the word from his staff that 40% of his constituents were not in favor of the deal (maybe less, I do live in a brain dead liberal town - not that all liberals are brain dead).
Yes, the whole "fair share" thing reeks of class warfare to me. However, I would agree that there needs to be better parity between the executives and the working class. Golden parachutes for executives that are fired because they ran their multinational business to near bankruptcy then fired all the worker bees to save a profit is not the tenets of true capitalism (it is one of the ugly side effects of a corrupted capitalist society).
Well, yes. If you commission a work, you own that work even if it was someone else that produced it. Certainly, there are other contractual limitations set forth in legalese - but that's what this lawsuit was all about.
Yep, cheaper than the "joke on poverty", too.
Wait, wait, wait... you're asking for "Fair and Balanced" reporting? Sorry, you won't find any of that in any part of the world. I realize, the link is to a CNN report and I referenced FoxNews' tagline. My point sticks - there is no balanced reporting and they get lucky if it is close to fair.
Maybe, "Don't blame me, I didn't vote!" That's sure to get some reaction, whether or not it's true.
I don't know. My wife recently wrote our Obama Rubber Stamp... I mean Congrescritter. The letter she got back was essentially, "You're one of those people, aren't you? Thank you for your interest in 'your' government, but we know what's good for you."
We should split California into two or three states: West New Mexico, South California, and North California. We could probably split New York into New York and ... Syracuse? Texas and Florida could also be split. Let's give it a number, any state that reaches 15million in population is divided. After Florida, IL, PA, and OH are next from 11.5 - 12.5 million population. (reference using 2010 census numbers)
Yes, how is Libya doing?
It also depended upon the death rates as they were in the 1950s. Yeah, people are living 10+ years on average longer. The system depended on most of the people dieing and never collecting on their deposits. We have an aging society with a liberal concept of over-population among the younger generation. I am not advocating "off-ing" the older generation, but we are likely going to need to increase the age limit for Social Security. I have no preconception of ever recovering that money I have put into SS. I consider it a theft by the US government. Taxes, themselves, are not theft, but a necessary thing to ensure a well oiled society. But this forced savings program along with all the entitlements are throwing pebbles and rocks into the cogs of our society.
Perhaps, but what has Obama and company provided? One plan that was summarily rejected - it got 0 votes in favor. His second plan was summarily rejected by the CBO, with its head stating, "We don't do projections on speeches." That's bad. Then, he gets in front of the nation and the first thing out of his mouth was it's Bush's fault, "Our country was heading toward $1trillion in debt." (He forgot to mention he took us to $3.6 trillion.) The next thing out of his mouth was class warfare. Then he went on a rant of this is not how to run a country, blaming Republicans and absolving Democrats (despite Harry Reid's offer of a plan that also did not include tax hikes). A country is run by its leader, and Obama is not a leader.
Besides, it is not the Tea Partiers blocking progress. Boehner and McConnell's plan was a compromise that met some of the President's goals. Then the President changed the requirements.
The Americans wanted "Hope and Change". Sadly, they bought into the non-specifics of the ever-Present senator from Chicago. (Not that the Republicans nominated anyone worthy in 2008 - we got a liberal vs democrat for that general POTUS election). In 2010, the Americans sent a message and as many representatives as they could to DC for the real change they wanted. Can Obama blame these "Tea Party" representatives for doing exactly what they told their constituents they were going to do? Should those representatives do anything different? No.
Let's hope in 2012, we can get more representatives in office that will put their foot down to the extravagant DC spending, those who will think more like the Taxed Enough Already Party with less government, more power to the people.
A repost from a comment I made above (slightly improved):
I have seen the thread of discontent with the throw-more-money-at-it doesn't solve the problem. There is another problem that is related to the money issue. In order to attract the best teachers, they should be paid accordingly. Unfortunately, most school systems in large cities have administrative costs that are far higher than teacher wages. Another problem is that, because of unions, the lazy, incompetent teacher who has survived the 2-year tenure period and can't get fired, has been there for 10-15 years and cannot be paid less than the above-average 5-year teacher who excites their students and creates productive, thinking citizens. You *can* throw more money at the education problem and solve some issues. But it won't work until we can have a better administrator-teacher ration and performance based salaries/bonuses. (Performance based is not solely dependent on test-taking skills, but would include peer reviews and other factors that make up a good review.)