Your cell phone is not as high bandwith as a video feed. And yes it works without line of sight, through hills. It's just not very long-range when you do that. I doubt anyone is trying to fly their model planes from a mile away.
I was asking about the distinction between being screwed by luck where none of your moves matter and never getting to play.
Well there is one difference - time wasted. I'm just eliminating the middleman by not playing it again. I can live with a little bit of luck in a game, but 100% luck makes the game a total waste of my time since I have no input. Fluxx, from the rules, felt like it would be that way, and the example case where I tried playing it confirmed, and exceeded my expectations that it would be all luck and no player input. What's the point in that? Why not make "the die rolling game" where you roll a die, the other guy rolls a die, and the high roll wins. Where's the fun in that?
What about when you can't see the aircraft? I've heard of people trying to make videos by having cameras in their planes looking forward - now imagine if that transmitted the view from the cockpit to the controller - that could be useful.
Did the preloaded games come with the original media on the side? If so, I still don't see it as something that should be illegal. If they were using the preloading to get away with "selling" the same purchased copy over and over by making clones off of one original, then of course there's a problem they should be seriously smacked down for.
the employee immediately fired up a GameBoy emulator with the appropriate ROM right there on the demo XBox and handed the customer the controller to play with.
Not a problem *IF* the store had the original game and was just using this as a convienience. If not, then it's a problem. (Or if they sold or gave the customer the rom without the original.)
Installing to the hard drive has usefulness beyond piracy. It's useful for exactly the same reason it's useful on a PC game - it's a hassle to have to keep the disk cases all nearby the player, and it's slower to read from CD or DVD than it is to read from the hard drive.
That a technology can and is used for piracy is no excuse for making deliberately crippled merchandise, and is no excuse for criminalizing non-criminal behaviour. It's already criminal to copy the games and give them to people who didn't buy them. That should already be enough right there. Anything that criminalized an entire group for what only some of the group did is BAD. Period. Percentages do not matter. "Kill 'em all, God will know his own" is NOT acceptable law enforcement behavior.
It could happen in Uno or Magic: the Gathering; would you refuse to play those games because of that?
Yes. (Although Magic has additional reasons that are more important.)
There's many games--Monopoly, Nuclear Proliferation, multi-player Magic: the Gathering, Rail Baron, etc.--where you can get knocked out of the game early on,
Don't shift the subject. "Knocked out early" is not the same thing as "knocked out before participating".
Show me how to lose before having any player interaction in Monopoly. To lose you have to lose your money - and there isn't anything for you to pay if you aren't taking a turn and landing on any properties.
(Although monopoly isn't that good of a game anyway, it doesn't have this particular flaw.)
In a lot of games, you can have bad luck and never get to do anything that matters
I have yet to see a game that does this as badly as Fluxx, where it's not even a figure of speech or a slight exaggeration to say "anything that matters" - it was 100% literal truth.
I don't understand the distinction you feel between that, and not playing at all. I don't> see a distinction. That's the problem. I wasn't really participaying in a game if I never had a say in the setup, and I never really had a turn. (Exception - there are some games where you can participate even when it's not your turn, with auction mechanisms and things like that.)
A lot of US technology contains parts made in Chineese factories. Attack China and the industry that fuels the military gets its production cut off. It's hard to go to war with someone who makes important components of your weapons.
Wrong. Perception of reality does. There exists a real world outside my brain. Revisionist history does not actually change history. It changs perceptions of history. Unless you are a solipsist, this is the only stance that makes sense.
The wording of the article is very vague on a very key point, and it's a key point that decides whether or not I agree with the store or with Microsoft on this.
It says they modified consoles to have larger hard drives and play pirated games. (Dubious claim because that's what ESA will say about ANY modded xbox, regardless of intent). Then, in a second sentence it says there were modded xboxes on display that had 15 games or more copied onto the hard drive. What is unclear is this very important point: Were those boxes with 15 games ONLY display models, or were all the xboxes sold ones that had pirated games on them (as opposed to ones modded in such a fashion that they *could* have pirated games on them.)
Basically, if they sold modded xboxes that had pre-installed pirated games on their hard drives as the article heavily implies without saying outright, then ESA is in the right on this. If they merely were selling modded xboxes that *can* store games on the hard drive, but started out without any stored on them, and their 15 games on the display models were just examples to demonstrate this feature, then ESA is in the wrong on this (yeah, I know the law says otherwise, but the DMCA is wrong.)
Basically, the article doesn't provide enough information to explicitly state that actual piracy (actual piracy, not the DMCA newspeak version of piracy) was taking place. It states outright that mods that could be used for piracy were being *sold*, and that copied games using those mods were on *display*. The connecting of the two together to mean that copied games were being installed on the new xboxes being sold was merely heavily implied without being stated explicitly.
The problem is that some goals take only 1 card flipped a certain way, and others get goals that require lots of cards flipped just the right way (since if any requisite cards flip, the consequent ones do). The more cards that have to be flipped just-so, the more likely it is that someone else at the table has a goal that will require one of them flipped differently.
The game could have been just as whimiscal and fun even if they had bothered to balance this - make each event have the same number of perrequisites. There's enough events in alternate history to play with that this could easily have been done, but they chose not to.
"Fair Game" and "Fun game" don't have to be goals at odds with each other, but Looney Labs constantly seem to behave as if they do. The only game they put out that is good is Zendo, and that's because it's sort not really a game, and the challenge is provided by the other players anyway (not by the game makers).
You got screwed by the cards; it can happen in any card game.
False. Re-read the post. My cards were irrelevant. I never had a turn. It was not a case of me participating but with bad luck. It was a case of me being left out of participating at all. That is NOT something that can "happen in any card game". In fact in MOST games, card or otherwise it is 100% impossible to lose before your first opportunity to act as a player of some sort.
is nonexistant, which is one of the problems with Slashdot's moderation categories. (Note: there is a difference between "flame" and troll, but not "flamebait" and troll.) Me thinks you take yourself much too seriously.
No, I just value honesty more than the average person apparently does.
Chrononauts is more fun to play than Fluxx, but it is not very fair. The goals you get are randomly assigned to the player by luck of the draw, and some goals require three times as many prerequisite events as others do.
The first and last time I ever played Fluxx I lost. Was it because I had bad strategy? No. Was it because I had a bad deal of a hand? No. Was it because I was a newbie and still feeling my way? No. It was because I didn't get to go at all. The game ended before the sequence of play had gone even once around the table. I never had a turn. I never played a card. If you had replaced me with a block of wood with my name on it, that would have had the same result. If you had not bothered to deal me in in the first place it would have had the same result.
Yeah, I know it's not supposed to be a serious game, but even in a joking game I still insist that I actually get to be a participant or there's no fun involved. They claimed it was an abberrant sceanrio that doesn't happen often, but I don't care. That it is possible at all indicates a major game design flaw.
Man, that one is such a big pet peeve of mine. I wish people would remember that English is read from top to bottom, and therefore top-posting leads to an ugly middle-endian order post.
(By the way, the rationale behind Outlook putting the cursor above the quoted text was supposed to be that you can then scroll-down and read as you decide at what point to break in with a comment, but people don't generally use it that way.)
Try understanding the article. Prototype does not equal end-product. Only the end product is said to need portability to Unix, and only the prototype was said to need to be in VB.
I'm not complaining about being modded. I'm at max capacity karma, and I get more positive than negative mods, so the effect is erased within a few hours.
I'm complaining about the lie that it was a troll. Calling an honest but flameful post a troll is wrong for the same reason that calling a theft a murder is wrong - they aren't even close to being the same class of thing.
Impoliteness is not the same class of infraction as trolling. I am guilty of impoliteness - I will admit to this freely - but that's becasue there are situations in which it is impossible to be simultaneously polite and honest, and this was one of them.
Wait, wait, wait, What does that have to do with anything?
The claim was made that the affadavit is not trustable because of liberal bias. Whether or not the writer was actually a liberal might perhaps have a tiny little bit to do with that, don't you think?
The problem with mixing jokes and seriousness in the same post is that I don't know you personally, so I can't tell the difference between sarcastic silliness and heartfelt stupidity. They both look the same in the end.
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Your cell phone is not as high bandwith as a video feed. And yes it works without line of sight, through hills. It's just not very long-range when you do that. I doubt anyone is trying to fly their model planes from a mile away.
To me, that stance sound synonmous with saying the universe doesn't actually exist and it's all in my head.
I was asking about the distinction between being screwed by luck where none of your moves matter and never getting to play.
Well there is one difference - time wasted. I'm just eliminating the middleman by not playing it again. I can live with a little bit of luck in a game, but 100% luck makes the game a total waste of my time since I have no input. Fluxx, from the rules, felt like it would be that way, and the example case where I tried playing it confirmed, and exceeded my expectations that it would be all luck and no player input. What's the point in that? Why not make "the die rolling game" where you roll a die, the other guy rolls a die, and the high roll wins. Where's the fun in that?
What about when you can't see the aircraft? I've heard of people trying to make videos by having cameras in their planes looking forward - now imagine if that transmitted the view from the cockpit to the controller - that could be useful.
Did the preloaded games come with the original media on the side? If so, I still don't see it as something that should be illegal. If they were using the preloading to get away with "selling" the same purchased copy over and over by making clones off of one original, then of course there's a problem they should be seriously smacked down for.
the employee immediately fired up a GameBoy emulator with the appropriate ROM right there on the demo XBox and handed the customer the controller to play with.
Not a problem *IF* the store had the original game and was just using this as a convienience. If not, then it's a problem. (Or if they sold or gave the customer the rom without the original.)
Installing to the hard drive has usefulness beyond piracy. It's useful for exactly the same reason it's useful on a PC game - it's a hassle to have to keep the disk cases all nearby the player, and it's slower to read from CD or DVD than it is to read from the hard drive.
That a technology can and is used for piracy is no excuse for making deliberately crippled merchandise, and is no excuse for criminalizing non-criminal behaviour. It's already criminal to copy the games and give them to people who didn't buy them. That should already be enough right there. Anything that criminalized an entire group for what only some of the group did is BAD. Period. Percentages do not matter. "Kill 'em all, God will know his own" is NOT acceptable law enforcement behavior.
Computer Chips.
It could happen in Uno or Magic: the Gathering; would you refuse to play those games because of that?
Yes.
(Although Magic has additional reasons that are more important.)
There's many games--Monopoly, Nuclear Proliferation, multi-player Magic: the Gathering, Rail Baron, etc.--where you can get knocked out of the game early on,
Don't shift the subject. "Knocked out early" is not the same thing as "knocked out before participating".
Show me how to lose before having any player interaction in Monopoly. To lose you have to lose your money - and there isn't anything for you to pay if you aren't taking a turn and landing
on any properties.
(Although monopoly isn't that good of a game anyway, it doesn't have this particular flaw.)
In a lot of games, you can have bad luck and never get to do anything that matters
I have yet to see a game that does this as badly as Fluxx, where it's not even a figure of speech or a slight exaggeration to say "anything that matters" - it was 100% literal truth.
I don't understand the distinction you feel between that, and not playing at all.
I don't> see a distinction. That's the problem. I wasn't really participaying in a game if I never had a say in the setup, and I never really had a turn. (Exception - there are some games where you can participate even when it's not your turn, with auction mechanisms and things like that.)
A lot of US technology contains parts made in Chineese factories. Attack China and the industry that fuels the military gets its production cut off. It's hard to go to war with someone who makes important components of your weapons.
Reality itself flows from the barrel of a gun.
Wrong. Perception of reality does. There exists a real world outside my brain. Revisionist history does not actually change history. It changs perceptions of history. Unless you are a solipsist, this is the only stance that makes sense.
What the USA gains by severing ties with Taiwan is (1) autonomy for Tibet
What color is the sky on your planet?
The wording of the article is very vague on a very key point, and it's a key point that decides whether or not I agree with the store or with Microsoft on this.
It says they modified consoles to have larger hard drives and play pirated games. (Dubious claim because that's what ESA will say about ANY modded xbox, regardless of intent). Then, in a second sentence it says there were modded xboxes on display that had 15 games or more copied onto the hard drive. What is unclear is this very important point: Were those boxes with 15 games ONLY display models, or were all the xboxes sold ones that had pirated games on them (as opposed to ones modded in such a fashion that they *could* have pirated games on them.)
Basically, if they sold modded xboxes that had pre-installed pirated games on their hard drives as the article heavily implies without saying outright, then ESA is in the right on this. If they merely were selling modded xboxes that *can* store games on the hard drive, but started out without any stored on them, and their 15 games on the display models were just examples to demonstrate this feature, then ESA is in the wrong on this (yeah, I know the law says otherwise, but the DMCA is wrong.)
Basically, the article doesn't provide enough information to explicitly state that actual piracy (actual piracy, not the DMCA newspeak version of piracy) was taking place. It states outright that mods that could be used for piracy were being *sold*, and that copied games using those mods were on *display*. The connecting of the two together to mean that copied games were being installed on the new xboxes being sold was merely heavily implied without being stated explicitly.
The problem is that some goals take only 1 card flipped a certain way, and others get goals that require lots of cards flipped just the right way (since if any requisite cards flip, the consequent ones do). The more cards that have to be flipped just-so, the more likely it is that someone else at the table has a goal that will require one of them flipped differently.
The game could have been just as whimiscal and fun even if they had bothered to balance this - make each event have the same number of perrequisites. There's enough events in alternate history to play with that this could easily have been done, but they chose not to.
"Fair Game" and "Fun game" don't have to be goals at odds with each other, but Looney Labs constantly seem to behave as if they do. The only game they put out that is good is Zendo, and that's because it's sort not really a game, and the challenge is provided by the other players anyway (not by the game makers).
You got screwed by the cards; it can happen in any card game.
False. Re-read the post. My cards were irrelevant. I never had a turn. It was not a case of me participating but with bad luck. It was a case of me being left out of participating at all. That is NOT something that can "happen in any card game". In fact in MOST games, card or otherwise it is 100% impossible to lose before your first opportunity to act as a player of some sort.
The difference between flamebait and trolling
is nonexistant, which is one of the problems with Slashdot's moderation categories. (Note: there is a difference between "flame" and troll, but not "flamebait" and troll.)
Me thinks you take yourself much too seriously.
No, I just value honesty more than the average person apparently does.
stating that DirectRevenue 'knowingly and with intent to defraud, exceeded its authorized access to users' computers.'
That should be put in the dictionary under "hypocrisy".
Chrononauts is more fun to play than Fluxx, but it is not very fair. The goals you get are randomly assigned to the player by luck of the draw, and some goals require three times as many prerequisite events as others do.
The first and last time I ever played Fluxx I lost. Was it because I had bad strategy? No. Was it because I had a bad deal of a hand? No. Was it because I was a newbie and still feeling my way? No. It was because I didn't get to go at all. The game ended before the sequence of play had gone even once around the table. I never had a turn. I never played a card. If you had replaced me with a block of wood with my name on it, that would have had the same result. If you had not bothered to deal me in in the first place it would have had the same result.
Yeah, I know it's not supposed to be a serious game, but even in a joking game I still insist that I actually get to be a participant or there's no fun involved. They claimed it was an abberrant sceanrio that doesn't happen often, but I don't care. That it is possible at all indicates a major game design flaw.
Man, that one is such a big pet peeve of mine. I wish people would remember that English is read from top to bottom, and therefore top-posting leads to an ugly middle-endian order post.
(By the way, the rationale behind Outlook putting the cursor above the quoted text was supposed to be that you can then scroll-down and read as you decide at what point to break in with a comment, but people don't generally use it that way.)
And I repeat from my post: At most you can claim I didn't communicate it well.
The first time you thought I meant that is forgivable - it could mean that. After the clarification you keep doing it. That is not forgivable.
Try understanding the article. Prototype does not equal end-product. Only the end product is said to need portability to Unix, and only the prototype was said to need to be in VB.
I'm not complaining about being modded. I'm at max capacity karma, and I get more positive than negative mods, so the effect is erased within a few hours.
I'm complaining about the lie that it was a troll. Calling an honest but flameful post a troll is wrong for the same reason that calling a theft a murder is wrong - they aren't even close to being the same class of thing.
Impoliteness is not the same class of infraction as trolling. I am guilty of impoliteness - I will admit to this freely - but that's becasue there are situations in which it is impossible to be simultaneously polite and honest, and this was one of them.
You tried to claim that patents protect the manufacturing process,
Stop lying. I already said that is not the case. At most you can claim I didn't communicate it well - at MOST.
Especially when we agree that process patents are bad.
No we don't. We agree that HUMAN process patents are bad.
Wait, wait, wait, What does that have to do with anything?
The claim was made that the affadavit is not trustable because of liberal bias. Whether or not the writer was actually a liberal might perhaps have a tiny little bit to do with that, don't you think?
The problem with mixing jokes and seriousness in the same post is that I don't know you personally, so I can't tell the difference between sarcastic silliness and heartfelt stupidity. They both look the same in the end.