It's disappointing even to me (an owner and fan of the PC version) that others won't get to play it at this point. Remember that for some fans it's important to spread the influence of great titles as well as beg and plead on our knees for a sequel that's good. (IE: Not NFS:Carbon)
A large portion of World of Warcraft and other MMOs is the scope of the game's economy. I've been hearing rumors about the WoW Gold (piece?) being labled as a known and accepted form of currency somewhere, but I'm not sure.
Really, at the software can and does damage that economy, throwing off the balance of this economy. I'm a former player that used to try and make money through auction house deals and I slowly saw servers starting to decline economically as more and more goods flooded markets, with no real gold anywhere to spread about.
This may not neccesarily be the fault of Glider itself, but it certainly is a supportive factor. As for lost revenue, when someone's found to be botting, they get banned, and revenue is lost, it's that simple there. -----
My opinion is biased as I was a player in a server with a ruined economy and rampant cheating, but I kinda hope Blizzard wins this one, despite the arguments used. I'd rather the sale, distribution, and development of Glider be stopped/halted.
While I hesitate to use "customer" in this sense, it is what it is. I would much rather be stopped by an officer so I can chat with him and learn what he perceived was a wrong-doing rather than a machine which may not even have data regarding what happened during the whole incident. While I don't have any "red light" cameras here around my place, and I'm glad for that, I am worried that eventually I'll be getting that "Cold Letter" that only says "you did something wrong now pay", rather than explaining what it was, why it was perceived that way, and how to avoid doing it in the future.
Punishment (read: fines) should be in place for teaching "right from wrong" and needs to be done right otherwise the message is lost.
Oh please. In my area that can't be farther from the truth. The next-closes level of download speeds is a DSL line. I'm sorry, but in a lot of places, ComCast has a monopoly. Interesting, has anyone considered an anti-trust suit?
I have issues usually arrising around 0200 local on my Comcast connection. This makes playing Halo 3, America's Army, or even web-browsing impossible at this time. This has mainly been due to a packet-drop rate that is extremely unacceptable on a local node out here that they have failed to fix. So much for ensuring good service for the money paid. "Naw, go ahead, put it in your pocket, CC, it's okay."
Judging from what I read, and I had to read it a couple times, it seems that they are going after ROMS that range from older NES titles to newer ones. (Possibly the DS itself.)
I agree that while downloading ROMS in terms of ethics was okay when the owner does not make a viable way to purchase the program, I feel that the owners of these ROMS are starting to understand that there is a good market for this. (Hence the Wii VC.), however I would point out that the article is poorly written, and that is why we are slightly confused.
As of now, companies are starting to give viable ways to buy old games, whether it be Wii VC, GameTap, or other services. Thus the ethical reason to allow 'piracy' for older games is lost, and therefore piracy of this kind should not be tolerated. In the end, it would end up in "We tried to give you a break and let you play your older stuff now, but a few had to ruin for you, so 'nhi'!"
When I first read the article I thought it was frivolous, seeing as how it said "titles" and I assumed it was just the names of the titles, considering how Nintendo's contracted attempted legal action against a personals site. (We remember that day, and PA's comic.)
I'm sure there's going to be a LOT of hate-messages about this, but to be honest, I don't have a problem with them delaying it to make sure they get it right. Although, the irony is that I did pre-order this game less than four days ago with the expectation of it being released in October. The bad part of this whole thing is that GTA IV will now miss the holiday season! DOH!
We can only hope that this move will not make Microsoft think they can get away with releasing certain other anticipated titles early without ironing out the details in order to get better sales than GTA.
Not if you are a member of Key Bank. Bounced check deposits (from a paycheck no less) are removed as a "chargeback" with their wonderful fees thrown at the employee, who isn't... a... merchant. Seems a fun way to screw over your underlings for christmas, yeh?
..someone downloaded a ROM of a NES game he has in his basement at home?
Is it a copyrighted piece of software? If so it is still illegal despite the individual still owning an original cartridge, doesn't allow him to download a copy of it from another cartridge. The "backup" has to be made from his legally owned one.
A track from a CD that doesn't play anymore?
Is it a copyrighted piece of music? Even then according to the government you don't have a right to copy music for archival and backup purposes anyway. Even if you did, the SAME restrictions would still apply as the original NES ROM.
A no-cd patch for a game so he can play it on his laptop wherever he goes?
A no-cd patch is deemed illegal purely due to it's ability to bypass security on a disc according to the DMCA. (Notice a pattern?) Yeah, it's frustrating, and provided the student has his legal liscence (pre-"patched") by all means he should be able to play it where he wants, provided it is also installed on one computer, and one computer only. (Something that pops up in EULAs that no one reads due to the lawyer-garbage text.)
According to their draconian proposal, all of these would mean you are cut off from the internet.. forever.
Nope, according to the proposal, issues number one and two would cause a cut from the network, not the third. The third itself isn't exactly a copyrighted piece of software, despite the legality issues involved.
I find that this proposal is... okay provided that the cut is done after the accused has been found guilty, and not part of some shotgun scheme.
Something that popped into my mind while reading this was along the lines of;
I find myself constantly exploring, hence the travel advertisements, however I also find myself intentionally going out to find the biggest baddest thing I can in the area and see how long it takes for me to get killed. I suppose I'll see advertisements for "happy pills" soon.
While I can understand in SOME circumstances the need for additional revenue, the fact that the possibility of seeing it pop up in a game like World of Warcraft bothers me. Hopefully anyone from SOE will read this next line:
I quit Planetside because of the in-game video/audio advertisements that were played in increments of about 45 second repetatively during the fifteen minute wait for the HART.
The hard part is that consumers who pay for these games probably wouldn't mind advertisements if they weren't so intrusive (which counter-acts the whole point of advertisements). This is the main reason a LOT of people are up in arms about the World of Warcraft gold sales. If these advertisements were pertinant to the universe the player was playing in, and also does not seem like it is trying to analyze the player, as well as making an overly intrusive advertisement, I'm sure this kind of thing would be psuedo ignored.
But also keep in mind that just because the patent is filed, doesn't neccisarily mean it will be used.
I had a group of about five people at my high school between my Junior and Senior year as Half-Life 2 was released. We started making plans to make a modification to it to allow for a simulated school environment. (Sure this was pretty ambitious, but it was something we wanted to do.) We're talking a fully mapped school, character models based on students and staff (with permission), with hard stops planned to prevent any sort of weapon being introduced.
In the end we scrapped it purely because of the fact that we were afraid to expirement due to the possible implications of doing something like that. In the end, because people were so paranoid, we didn't feel legally safe to try and look at developing something with the sole intention of learning some very interesting things ranging from the map-making, modeling, and scripting. Isn't the idea of education to spark and interest and support that? The 'arrest anyone making anything in a video game resembling anything that is real' idea is really starting to wear thin to the point of hampering curiosity.
I could have learned a lot if the five of us were comfortable, but in a way I also feel that my education was in effect degraded by this projected expectation.
Is there anyway to be safe in something like this? Not really. While a map of a school could be used for nefarious purposes, schools are used because they are a familiar place, and in the end, can be examined more often to ensure that these maps are correct.
I've heard that a lot, and when the lawyers at whatever company it is get their panties in a bunch, well, that loyalty counts for zip. There are no shortage of stories of companies suing their most dedicated fans, the very ones that would otherwise evangelize the company's products for free and generate tremendous positive buzz. Lawyers don't care about buzz, they care that someone is breaking their EULA or infringing on their copyrights.
Provided there's no instant financial income from letting their dedicated fans do what they do. Dragon Quest anyone?
Even then with it's advertising, DX9 FSX does not bring about anywhere near where it was being shown as. Hopefully DX10 will indeed be what it should be, but at the moment FSX is collecting dust while FS9 is still happily keeping me along.
After reading the above comment, I would have to say that this is so far making the most sense here. Even with item crafting, or gold farming that's still not a form of income, unless it is converted into the actual dollar as opposed to keeping it as in-game gold. I suppose I'm just repeating everyone else now.
Why would you be taxed for something that technically is supposed to have no real value anyway or possible depreciation?
I'm not here to say that I'm in favor of banning guns. However, what I wanted to bring up was the banning of firearms in general here in the United States. Currently, they are available. (Hell, even I own a small.22 used for target shooting at a local range.) However when you think about it, what will happen to people that don't have them compared to people that do and plan to use them illegally?
I see some major issues if the very unlikely event of a nation-wide gun ban were to be made possible. More along the lines that criminals would be more likely to get away with what they want, and get away with being more effective until the supply of firearms disappear. So it's pretty much a hard decision to make. Possibly putting the public in danger by disarming them, but nearer the end, it's possible that these kinds of things will become safer.
The way I see it, the United States policies has caused us to become kind of cornered in how to deal with it. On top of that, our rights to bear arms also come into effect causing a ban unlikely. (Already overturned in 2(?) places.)
At the same time though, a practiced, safe, and sane person who had a firearm in this case could have in fact prevented so many deaths in this case. Recently here in Salt Lake we had the shooting here in Salt Lake which was ended by an off duty police officer. While at the time the person that ended the shooting was an officer, my point is he did have a weapon, which managed to end it before things got worse than they already were.
Imagine what an off duty officer, or a trained concealed carrier was there.
The safest method of using P2P software is not to at all.
Seeing as how various law-groups continue to think they run the universe and thus have the right to destroy computers by "injecting" infected files onto the P2P network.. Egh.
There's been ports for various games from consoles to PC and PC to consoles. Yes it's different because of the different hardware instead of a different OS, however most ports these days that I have been playing (Splinter Cell: Double Agent) havn't been doing well at all.
Games: Zelda, Trauma Center, Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Sonic, Super Mario 64
Console: Excellent really. The fact that it ISN'T the size of an oven (nor produce as much heat) is a great thing. I'm extremely happy there. Setup is a little more difficult with the addition of the Wii Sensor Bar, but I work around it pretty well.
Been playing Trauma Center, and Zelda more than anything else, the other games are pretty good.
As for the Virtual Console issues described above, I had no issues what-so-ever. I purchased 2,000 points ($20.00 worth) and got them instantly. Also, even Super Mario 64 downloaded rather quickly. So fast to say I was impressed. The only complaint I have is that I'd never enter my details to buy points when anyone is in the house. The TV I'm on is big enough to see a huge distance away, so it's a bit of a security hazard.
Who is he representing? I'm not a lawyer myself but I thought you can only bring up a case if you have been directly affected by an incident, or had an immeidate family member affected.
No one can really be effected by Bully as it hasn't been released so why are judges even hearing these cases?
Remember these games? They fall under the real-time strategy games of course, and definately reduce the amount of movement you have to do in order to actually play it. I mean, I can get money if I have a good sized treasury right next to a good set of gems with at least one imp.
Computers speed up the proccessing of the neccesary administrative tasks.
Why don't you try working for a school that is an average size for the nation with over-crowded class rooms! Can/Should you have to do grades for fifty plus students in one period by paper because "technology is evil"?
Technology is a double-edged thing here. It helps a great deal (Academic Debate is a given, as research is required ALL THE TIME for proper tournament competitions) with schoolwork as students do not have to rely on papers and the teacher him or herself in order to get the information. The Internet holds a great deal of information and is a resource that SHOULD be tapped for anyone trying to learn any subject. Not only that, as school is an attempt to get people ready for jobs in the 'real world', classes are taught on how to use computer programs (such as Microsoft Office), and even programming languages.
Those are the benifits yes, however I do admit that there is a downside to this. With all this information being available, there is less respect for instructors because of (what I believe to be) the fact that if the information is available elsewhere, I'll look it up later. As well as the fact that electronics CAN be a distraction.
This notion of "technology should not be in school" is sadly one of the most backward steps we can take. Without technology, administrations would not be able to process as many students as they are REQUIRED TO.
Phones should not be needed during CLASS, yes.
However, the phones should still not be subject to search like they are even if they are taken in. It's like giving up your rights to have your car searched. You may have been speeding and you get a ticket, but on top of that the OFFICER also REQUIRES you to have your car searched.
Slashdot Mirror
It's disappointing even to me (an owner and fan of the PC version) that others won't get to play it at this point. Remember that for some fans it's important to spread the influence of great titles as well as beg and plead on our knees for a sequel that's good. (IE: Not NFS:Carbon)
A large portion of World of Warcraft and other MMOs is the scope of the game's economy. I've been hearing rumors about the WoW Gold (piece?) being labled as a known and accepted form of currency somewhere, but I'm not sure.
Really, at the software can and does damage that economy, throwing off the balance of this economy. I'm a former player that used to try and make money through auction house deals and I slowly saw servers starting to decline economically as more and more goods flooded markets, with no real gold anywhere to spread about.
This may not neccesarily be the fault of Glider itself, but it certainly is a supportive factor. As for lost revenue, when someone's found to be botting, they get banned, and revenue is lost, it's that simple there.
-----
My opinion is biased as I was a player in a server with a ruined economy and rampant cheating, but I kinda hope Blizzard wins this one, despite the arguments used. I'd rather the sale, distribution, and development of Glider be stopped/halted.
Technically you can't. The license (which is what you buy) is to you, and only to you. The medium itself is trivial.
While I hesitate to use "customer" in this sense, it is what it is. I would much rather be stopped by an officer so I can chat with him and learn what he perceived was a wrong-doing rather than a machine which may not even have data regarding what happened during the whole incident. While I don't have any "red light" cameras here around my place, and I'm glad for that, I am worried that eventually I'll be getting that "Cold Letter" that only says "you did something wrong now pay", rather than explaining what it was, why it was perceived that way, and how to avoid doing it in the future.
Punishment (read: fines) should be in place for teaching "right from wrong" and needs to be done right otherwise the message is lost.
Oh please. In my area that can't be farther from the truth. The next-closes level of download speeds is a DSL line. I'm sorry, but in a lot of places, ComCast has a monopoly. Interesting, has anyone considered an anti-trust suit?
I have issues usually arrising around 0200 local on my Comcast connection. This makes playing Halo 3, America's Army, or even web-browsing impossible at this time. This has mainly been due to a packet-drop rate that is extremely unacceptable on a local node out here that they have failed to fix. So much for ensuring good service for the money paid. "Naw, go ahead, put it in your pocket, CC, it's okay."
Judging from what I read, and I had to read it a couple times, it seems that they are going after ROMS that range from older NES titles to newer ones. (Possibly the DS itself.)
I agree that while downloading ROMS in terms of ethics was okay when the owner does not make a viable way to purchase the program, I feel that the owners of these ROMS are starting to understand that there is a good market for this. (Hence the Wii VC.), however I would point out that the article is poorly written, and that is why we are slightly confused.
As of now, companies are starting to give viable ways to buy old games, whether it be Wii VC, GameTap, or other services. Thus the ethical reason to allow 'piracy' for older games is lost, and therefore piracy of this kind should not be tolerated. In the end, it would end up in "We tried to give you a break and let you play your older stuff now, but a few had to ruin for you, so 'nhi'!"
When I first read the article I thought it was frivolous, seeing as how it said "titles" and I assumed it was just the names of the titles, considering how Nintendo's contracted attempted legal action against a personals site. (We remember that day, and PA's comic.)
Some of these filters remind me of this claymation video I saw a long time ago.
I'm sure there's going to be a LOT of hate-messages about this, but to be honest, I don't have a problem with them delaying it to make sure they get it right. Although, the irony is that I did pre-order this game less than four days ago with the expectation of it being released in October. The bad part of this whole thing is that GTA IV will now miss the holiday season! DOH!
We can only hope that this move will not make Microsoft think they can get away with releasing certain other anticipated titles early without ironing out the details in order to get better sales than GTA.
Not if you are a member of Key Bank. Bounced check deposits (from a paycheck no less) are removed as a "chargeback" with their wonderful fees thrown at the employee, who isn't... a... merchant. Seems a fun way to screw over your underlings for christmas, yeh?
IANAL, however my observations.
..someone downloaded a ROM of a NES game he has in his basement at home?
Is it a copyrighted piece of software? If so it is still illegal despite the individual still owning an original cartridge, doesn't allow him to download a copy of it from another cartridge. The "backup" has to be made from his legally owned one.
A track from a CD that doesn't play anymore?
Is it a copyrighted piece of music? Even then according to the government you don't have a right to copy music for archival and backup purposes anyway. Even if you did, the SAME restrictions would still apply as the original NES ROM.
A no-cd patch for a game so he can play it on his laptop wherever he goes?
A no-cd patch is deemed illegal purely due to it's ability to bypass security on a disc according to the DMCA. (Notice a pattern?) Yeah, it's frustrating, and provided the student has his legal liscence (pre-"patched") by all means he should be able to play it where he wants, provided it is also installed on one computer, and one computer only. (Something that pops up in EULAs that no one reads due to the lawyer-garbage text.)
According to their draconian proposal, all of these would mean you are cut off from the internet.. forever.
Nope, according to the proposal, issues number one and two would cause a cut from the network, not the third. The third itself isn't exactly a copyrighted piece of software, despite the legality issues involved.
I find that this proposal is... okay provided that the cut is done after the accused has been found guilty, and not part of some shotgun scheme.
Something that popped into my mind while reading this was along the lines of;
I find myself constantly exploring, hence the travel advertisements, however I also find myself intentionally going out to find the biggest baddest thing I can in the area and see how long it takes for me to get killed. I suppose I'll see advertisements for "happy pills" soon.
While I can understand in SOME circumstances the need for additional revenue, the fact that the possibility of seeing it pop up in a game like World of Warcraft bothers me. Hopefully anyone from SOE will read this next line:
I quit Planetside because of the in-game video/audio advertisements that were played in increments of about 45 second repetatively during the fifteen minute wait for the HART.
The hard part is that consumers who pay for these games probably wouldn't mind advertisements if they weren't so intrusive (which counter-acts the whole point of advertisements). This is the main reason a LOT of people are up in arms about the World of Warcraft gold sales. If these advertisements were pertinant to the universe the player was playing in, and also does not seem like it is trying to analyze the player, as well as making an overly intrusive advertisement, I'm sure this kind of thing would be psuedo ignored.
But also keep in mind that just because the patent is filed, doesn't neccisarily mean it will be used.
Paintball exists for that! So it's possible that you'll end up seeing paintball field advertisements next time you play Unreal Tournament.
I had a group of about five people at my high school between my Junior and Senior year as Half-Life 2 was released. We started making plans to make a modification to it to allow for a simulated school environment. (Sure this was pretty ambitious, but it was something we wanted to do.) We're talking a fully mapped school, character models based on students and staff (with permission), with hard stops planned to prevent any sort of weapon being introduced.
In the end we scrapped it purely because of the fact that we were afraid to expirement due to the possible implications of doing something like that. In the end, because people were so paranoid, we didn't feel legally safe to try and look at developing something with the sole intention of learning some very interesting things ranging from the map-making, modeling, and scripting. Isn't the idea of education to spark and interest and support that? The 'arrest anyone making anything in a video game resembling anything that is real' idea is really starting to wear thin to the point of hampering curiosity.
I could have learned a lot if the five of us were comfortable, but in a way I also feel that my education was in effect degraded by this projected expectation.
Is there anyway to be safe in something like this? Not really. While a map of a school could be used for nefarious purposes, schools are used because they are a familiar place, and in the end, can be examined more often to ensure that these maps are correct.
I've heard that a lot, and when the lawyers at whatever company it is get their panties in a bunch, well, that loyalty counts for zip. There are no shortage of stories of companies suing their most dedicated fans, the very ones that would otherwise evangelize the company's products for free and generate tremendous positive buzz. Lawyers don't care about buzz, they care that someone is breaking their EULA or infringing on their copyrights.
Provided there's no instant financial income from letting their dedicated fans do what they do. Dragon Quest anyone?
Even then with it's advertising, DX9 FSX does not bring about anywhere near where it was being shown as. Hopefully DX10 will indeed be what it should be, but at the moment FSX is collecting dust while FS9 is still happily keeping me along.
After reading the above comment, I would have to say that this is so far making the most sense here. Even with item crafting, or gold farming that's still not a form of income, unless it is converted into the actual dollar as opposed to keeping it as in-game gold. I suppose I'm just repeating everyone else now. Why would you be taxed for something that technically is supposed to have no real value anyway or possible depreciation?
I'm not here to say that I'm in favor of banning guns. However, what I wanted to bring up was the banning of firearms in general here in the United States. Currently, they are available. (Hell, even I own a small .22 used for target shooting at a local range.) However when you think about it, what will happen to people that don't have them compared to people that do and plan to use them illegally?
I see some major issues if the very unlikely event of a nation-wide gun ban were to be made possible. More along the lines that criminals would be more likely to get away with what they want, and get away with being more effective until the supply of firearms disappear. So it's pretty much a hard decision to make. Possibly putting the public in danger by disarming them, but nearer the end, it's possible that these kinds of things will become safer.
The way I see it, the United States policies has caused us to become kind of cornered in how to deal with it. On top of that, our rights to bear arms also come into effect causing a ban unlikely. (Already overturned in 2(?) places.)
At the same time though, a practiced, safe, and sane person who had a firearm in this case could have in fact prevented so many deaths in this case. Recently here in Salt Lake we had the shooting here in Salt Lake which was ended by an off duty police officer. While at the time the person that ended the shooting was an officer, my point is he did have a weapon, which managed to end it before things got worse than they already were.
Imagine what an off duty officer, or a trained concealed carrier was there.
The safest method of using P2P software is not to at all.
Seeing as how various law-groups continue to think they run the universe and thus have the right to destroy computers by "injecting" infected files onto the P2P network.. Egh.
There's been ports for various games from consoles to PC and PC to consoles. Yes it's different because of the different hardware instead of a different OS, however most ports these days that I have been playing (Splinter Cell: Double Agent) havn't been doing well at all.
Games: Zelda, Trauma Center, Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Sonic, Super Mario 64
Console: Excellent really. The fact that it ISN'T the size of an oven (nor produce as much heat) is a great thing. I'm extremely happy there. Setup is a little more difficult with the addition of the Wii Sensor Bar, but I work around it pretty well.
Been playing Trauma Center, and Zelda more than anything else, the other games are pretty good.
As for the Virtual Console issues described above, I had no issues what-so-ever. I purchased 2,000 points ($20.00 worth) and got them instantly. Also, even Super Mario 64 downloaded rather quickly. So fast to say I was impressed. The only complaint I have is that I'd never enter my details to buy points when anyone is in the house. The TV I'm on is big enough to see a huge distance away, so it's a bit of a security hazard.
Who is he representing? I'm not a lawyer myself but I thought you can only bring up a case if you have been directly affected by an incident, or had an immeidate family member affected.
No one can really be effected by Bully as it hasn't been released so why are judges even hearing these cases?
Remember these games? They fall under the real-time strategy games of course, and definately reduce the amount of movement you have to do in order to actually play it. I mean, I can get money if I have a good sized treasury right next to a good set of gems with at least one imp.
Your dungeon heart is under attack!
Computers speed up the proccessing of the neccesary administrative tasks.
Why don't you try working for a school that is an average size for the nation with over-crowded class rooms! Can/Should you have to do grades for fifty plus students in one period by paper because "technology is evil"?
Technology is a double-edged thing here. It helps a great deal (Academic Debate is a given, as research is required ALL THE TIME for proper tournament competitions) with schoolwork as students do not have to rely on papers and the teacher him or herself in order to get the information. The Internet holds a great deal of information and is a resource that SHOULD be tapped for anyone trying to learn any subject. Not only that, as school is an attempt to get people ready for jobs in the 'real world', classes are taught on how to use computer programs (such as Microsoft Office), and even programming languages.
Those are the benifits yes, however I do admit that there is a downside to this. With all this information being available, there is less respect for instructors because of (what I believe to be) the fact that if the information is available elsewhere, I'll look it up later. As well as the fact that electronics CAN be a distraction.
This notion of "technology should not be in school" is sadly one of the most backward steps we can take. Without technology, administrations would not be able to process as many students as they are REQUIRED TO.
Phones should not be needed during CLASS, yes. However, the phones should still not be subject to search like they are even if they are taken in. It's like giving up your rights to have your car searched. You may have been speeding and you get a ticket, but on top of that the OFFICER also REQUIRES you to have your car searched.