"You have to depend on others to get anything done."
This is one way of looking at it. But it's very much the intended design. Group content requires groups, and the content can be challenging even for organized groups.
"While this can be fun if you can schedule your life around game time"
I don't complain that movie theatres and concert halls expect me to schedule my life around show time. I transferred my raiding character to a realm precisely so that I could participate in a guild that scheduled its ICC runs in a time slot appropriate to my time zone/ life schedule. In 2 or 3 weeks I discovered that I'd pretty much outgrown ICC10 and that was kind of frustrating.
There is a *lot* of solo content in WoW. Group scenarios, especially the "end game content" is completely optional. If you enjoy the game, it can keep you entertained for hundreds of hours with whatever minimum of interaction with other players you'd like to have. Or, if interaction with other players is your thing, you don't even have to do other aspects of the game.
I'm in several groups actually. I've got one character in a guild that is very focused on the end-game instances, and everything we do as a group is pretty much a means to the end of completing the end-game. We all have characters who are so far progressed that this is the only meaningful aspect of game-mechanics left.
I also have a character that, at least for now, pretty much never interacts with any other player. He's the toon I play when goofing off, or on airport wi-fi, or whenever I happen to feel like it. I don't even have a chat window up, and I certainly don't run group content with this guy. It's still a lot of fun, and frankly, causes me to see elements of the game I would totally miss otherwise.
I have a character that is strictly role-play, on a role-play server. My RP character's theme? Cooking! It's not a particularly popular theme, in fact nobody else seems to be into it at all. This character does nothing else *but* interact with other players. And it's something of a challenge to level his cooking skill as a primary end-goal.
WoW can definitely be a single-player game if you want, and the massively multiplayer aspect is something you can take or leave as you like, for instance if you have something to sell or need to acquire something, or if you decide you do want to run group content, it's there.
In Maryland, in particular, the open-carry sidearm isn't a standard part of the biker kit.
Compare this to Arizona, for example, where the pistol is de rigeur, and police operate on the assumption that *everyone* has a (completely legal) concealed weapon.
A lightweight motorcycle these days is over 500 pounds. No matter what kind of cage you're in, I don't think you'd feel too comfortable with a 500 pound mass being launched at 127 mph in the direction of your cage.
Collisions between automobiles and motorcycles can and often do result in injuries to the automobile driver and serious damage to the automobile. Your cartoon physics point of view has the flyweight motorcycle meeting an indestructible automobile, but that's not really how it goes.
When that was first misquoted, I was working in a six acre file room and using a mainframe with about 16GB of breathtakingly expensive disk. At the time, we were speculating on the eventual conversion of all that data to optical disc format. That format (30cm optical disc) was obsolete before the planning was even completed for the first experiments.
I'm willing to bet that the company in its current form, has hundreds of terabytes of disk arrays (full) *and* has at least as much paper data as they had back then, and that the paper data is not even what is filling up the disk arrays.
For an application with requirements that are specified today? Based on human proportions, and/or business volume of today and projected growth?
Or how much storage will we need for the application that will come about as a result of an increase in storage space, but that does not exist today?
On the other hand, my business did have terabytes of data before we had digital storage that big. We didn't use digital storage for everything back in the 8" floppy days, but we wished we could.
>Whenever you damn well please unless you are contractually obligated to do otherwise.
And "contractually obligated" necessarily involves an exchange of valuable consideration (e.g., they give you money in return for your agreement to keep your mouth shut). In general, software EULAs are not contracts for exactly this reason.
>Remember basic security, tell no one who you are, and don't go attention-whoring after you release.
You've identified the real issue, but this is often ignored. The problem isn't the disclosure itself. The problem is that so many people with such disclosures to make, seem to want credit/attention for their efforts, but also want to be free of the risks associated with seeking that attention. Anonymous channels exist. Release information via one of those, and then if somebody is upset about it, they can do as my Uncle Bill always said: "Complain in one hand... and see which one fills up first."
>IT's NATURAL FOLKS, why should it cause any harm?
You won't mind being buried 100 tons of granola and tofu, then? It's all natural, right? How about we pump natural raw untreated sewage into your living room? You won't get upset about this, obviously.
Anyone who does inside trading, is awarded nonqualified stock options as a bonus or incentive, or reports directly to the board has personal information disclosed to the public as a matter of compliance.
If you wanted to direct your comments toward people with the authority to make decisions... just sayin.
If they go through with it, it will probably be actionable. The argument can be made that it creates a hostile environment for at least one class of users (due to gender bias), and the real problem is that the forums are provided by the company specifically as an official venue for customer support. Since they require a class to subject themselves to the risks from the hostile environment, and since they forbid using a gender-neutral pseudonym, there's probably a case. I'd be very surprised if it is not pursued this way.
As a shareholder (small potatoes, I have a few hundred shares of ATVI), I'm concerned that this will drive churn during a quarter when subscriptions are not growing (let alone growing at an increasing rate.) Since new products are being released in the coming quarter, investors are hoping for a period of growth, knowing that another plateau will follow. If they blow this (with churn, or by making competitors a little more attractive), investors can and will park their money elsewhere -- almost anywhere is better than an entertainment company that's not growing.
I don't know how Blizzard is organized, but I know how things go in a company of this size with a subscription model. Someone in a suit is absolutely livid today, and doing that thing that is worse than screaming, to someone whose bonus depends on reducing churn and avoiding PR disasters. I also know that this is driving voice traffic into a call center that planned its summer budget months ago and there's someone in management there who has a few questions as to why they weren't in the loop. And then there are the poor front-line service reps, whose messages don't make it hard to read between the lines to know that they have their own opinions that aren't exactly being expressed in their canned responses to... the thousands of complaints raised every hour...
Some commentators will point to the millions of subscribers to suggest that Blizzard's health is not at risk, but I can assure you that, absent of a period of increasing growth, there are absolutely people who are concerned with churn and its effect of EBITDA. And they have a report due on August 2 that I'm just chomping at the bit to see before I decide to reinvest.
If there's any doubt that this is a PR disaster, have a look: Somebody's sweating his bonus over this, and it's probably not the guy who decided to go ahead with "RealID".
BBC News - World of Warcraft maker to end anonymous forum logins news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10543100.stm
USA Today - 'WoW' studio Blizzard to require real names on forums content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehun...al-names-on-forums/1
ABC News - Bye-Bye Trolls? Blizzard Forums to Use Real Names abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11108240
CVG - Fans rage over Blizzard forum plans www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=254846
PCGamer (UK) - Why Blizzard's new forum plan is an epic fail www.pcgamer.com/2010/07/07/why-blizzard%...lan-is-an-epic-fail/
The Register - Blizzard exposes real names on WoW forums www.reghardware.com/2010/07/07/wow_forums/
About.com - WoW Real ID: A Really Bad Idea antivirus.about.com/b/2010/06/22/wow-rea...-really-bad-idea.htm
Ars Technica - Blizzard: post about StarCraft 2? Use your real name arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/07/bliz...e-your-real-name.ars
Gamespy - Blizzard to Require Real Names on Official Forums uk.pc.gamespy.com/articles/110/1104456p1.html
Kotaku - Blizzard Forums Will Soon Display Your Real Name kotaku.com/5580585/blizzard-forums-will-...splay-your-real-name Kotaku - Blizzard's Real Name Forum Policy Has Fans In An Uproar kotaku.com/5581209/blizzards-real-name-f...as-fans-in-an-uproar
Joystiq - Your real name to appear on Blizzard's official forums www.joystiq.com/2010/07/06/your-real-nam...rds-official-forums/
Inc Gamers - Blizzard Going Too Far With Real ID? www.incgamers.com/Columns/94/blizzard-go...too-far-with-real-id
At the very most, the state could have forced an early end to her term as Governor. Even though the state didn't seek to do that, she resigned anyway. Clearly not satisfying to Palin's detractors, but the end result is the same without the state legislature suffering political consequences that would have followed from confronting Palin on that particular issue.
The assumption you're making is that white people don't get the hardcore third degree investigation and search when stopped by cops in AZ. But they do. It's not so much that the police (Maricopa county especially, not so much the staties) are extremely zealous whenever they get the chance to investigate anything. It's not a racial thing, it's a seriously nutty cop thing.
The first misconception of the AZ law is the notion that before the new law, Arizona police had no authority to make arrests on suspicion and turn them over to the federal authorities (ICS). The other misconception is that the new law actually *requires* police to do racial profiling an investigate anyone who appears hispanic.
AZ still has to turn suspects over to federal authorities for deportation. As federal tax dollars go to pay for increased workload, watch for more pushback against overzealous enforcement.
It was frighteningly easy for me to get a concealed carry permit. It was even scarier to find out that without much practice at all, my range shooting was in the 99th percentile compared with police.
"The problem with this thinking is that a good tech should NEVER outgrow help desk."
This is just my opinion, but maybe it's healthy to think about the fact that one is not in the position where one gets to decide whether the staff wears uniforms, whereas one could be.
"Not to be harsh about it, but think back to high school and college and ask yourself if you would describe the people who were planning military careers as the "best and brightest" of your class."
Actually they peg both ends of the scale. I had one friend in college who *really* *wanted* to be an Drill Instructor in the Marines. Very nice guy, a great friend, dumb as a bag of hammers.
Another friend from about the same time, went into the Air Force to become a pilot, with an eye on a civilian career as a pilot. I keep up with him, and as for brains, he is USCF rated at 2200 or so, which freaks me out more than the whole "flying jets" thing ever will.
The backstory in WoW actually has some potential. Unfortunately, the story is revealed 512 characters at a time, and nobody actaully reads it. They get the quest pane, and dismiss it, and then maybe look to see what they have to kill/gather/find. If there's a question that needs to be answered at the end of the quest, it comes from thottbott, not from actual immersion in the quest.
The first time my character ran Scarlet Monastery, I actually read the books in the library, much to the scorn of my impatient party. At the end of the quest, I was the only one with the answer to the quest giver's question -- everyone else looked up the answer on thott. I found that experience genuinely gratifying. I read the quest logs, even though many of them are silly and boring. I think the whole epic Azeroth story is pretty good, easily as compelling as something Cherryh or Jordan might have developed. It's kind of sad that it's lost on the average WoW player, who seems to be more intent on getting the game over with so they can get to lvl80 and harass other players in the cities, or try to out-do each other on the marginal benefits among the various purples.
The game is fun at low levels, if you actually play it instead of blindly skipping it.
Slashdot Mirror
"You have to depend on others to get anything done."
This is one way of looking at it. But it's very much the intended design. Group content requires groups, and the content can be challenging even for organized groups.
"While this can be fun if you can schedule your life around game time"
I don't complain that movie theatres and concert halls expect me to schedule my life around show time.
I transferred my raiding character to a realm precisely so that I could participate in a guild that scheduled its ICC runs in a time slot appropriate to my time zone/ life schedule. In 2 or 3 weeks I discovered that I'd pretty much outgrown ICC10 and that was kind of frustrating.
There is a *lot* of solo content in WoW. Group scenarios, especially the "end game content" is completely optional. If you enjoy the game, it can keep you entertained for hundreds of hours with whatever minimum of interaction with other players you'd like to have. Or, if interaction with other players is your thing, you don't even have to do other aspects of the game.
I'm in several groups actually. I've got one character in a guild that is very focused on the end-game instances, and everything we do as a group is pretty much a means to the end of completing the end-game. We all have characters who are so far progressed that this is the only meaningful aspect of game-mechanics left.
I also have a character that, at least for now, pretty much never interacts with any other player. He's the toon I play when goofing off, or on airport wi-fi, or whenever I happen to feel like it. I don't even have a chat window up, and I certainly don't run group content with this guy. It's still a lot of fun, and frankly, causes me to see elements of the game I would totally miss otherwise.
I have a character that is strictly role-play, on a role-play server. My RP character's theme? Cooking! It's not a particularly popular theme, in fact nobody else seems to be into it at all. This character does nothing else *but* interact with other players. And it's something of a challenge to level his cooking skill as a primary end-goal.
WoW can definitely be a single-player game if you want, and the massively multiplayer aspect is something you can take or leave as you like, for instance if you have something to sell or need to acquire something, or if you decide you do want to run group content, it's there.
I played Starcraft quite a lot, and never realized until very recently (participating in the SC2 beta), that SC was ever a multiplayer game at all.
In Maryland, in particular, the open-carry sidearm isn't a standard part of the biker kit.
Compare this to Arizona, for example, where the pistol is de rigeur, and police operate on the assumption that *everyone* has a (completely legal) concealed weapon.
>That's a great idea! Starting immediately I'll be setting up video cameras in my office for all my employees.
You are also giving them the authority to use deadly force as they see fit, yes?
I'm not getting the sense that the parents ever asked (insisted, let's say) the police to leave their property and come back with an executed warrant.
A lightweight motorcycle these days is over 500 pounds. No matter what kind of cage you're in, I don't think you'd feel too comfortable with a 500 pound mass being launched at 127 mph in the direction of your cage.
Collisions between automobiles and motorcycles can and often do result in injuries to the automobile driver and serious damage to the automobile. Your cartoon physics point of view has the flyweight motorcycle meeting an indestructible automobile, but that's not really how it goes.
>Oh come on. 640K ought to be enough for anybody.
When that was first misquoted, I was working in a six acre file room and using a mainframe with about 16GB of breathtakingly expensive disk. At the time, we were speculating on the eventual conversion of all that data to optical disc format. That format (30cm optical disc) was obsolete before the planning was even completed for the first experiments.
I'm willing to bet that the company in its current form, has hundreds of terabytes of disk arrays (full) *and* has at least as much paper data as they had back then, and that the paper data is not even what is filling up the disk arrays.
>How much storage do we really need on device?
For an application with requirements that are specified today? Based on human proportions, and/or business volume of today and projected growth?
Or how much storage will we need for the application that will come about as a result of an increase in storage space, but that does not exist today?
On the other hand, my business did have terabytes of data before we had digital storage that big. We didn't use digital storage for everything back in the 8" floppy days, but we wished we could.
>Whenever you damn well please unless you are contractually obligated to do otherwise.
And "contractually obligated" necessarily involves an exchange of valuable consideration (e.g., they give you money in return for your agreement to keep your mouth shut). In general, software EULAs are not contracts for exactly this reason.
>Remember basic security, tell no one who you are, and don't go attention-whoring after you release.
You've identified the real issue, but this is often ignored. The problem isn't the disclosure itself. The problem is that so many people with such disclosures to make, seem to want credit/attention for their efforts, but also want to be free of the risks associated with seeking that attention. Anonymous channels exist. Release information via one of those, and then if somebody is upset about it, they can do as my Uncle Bill always said: "Complain in one hand ... and see which one fills up first."
>IT's NATURAL FOLKS, why should it cause any harm?
You won't mind being buried 100 tons of granola and tofu, then? It's all natural, right?
How about we pump natural raw untreated sewage into your living room? You won't get upset about this, obviously.
Anyone who does inside trading, is awarded nonqualified stock options as a bonus or incentive, or reports directly to the board has personal information disclosed to the public as a matter of compliance.
If you wanted to direct your comments toward people with the authority to make decisions... just sayin.
If they go through with it, it will probably be actionable. The argument can be made that it creates a hostile environment for at least one class of users (due to gender bias), and the real problem is that the forums are provided by the company specifically as an official venue for customer support. Since they require a class to subject themselves to the risks from the hostile environment, and since they forbid using a gender-neutral pseudonym, there's probably a case. I'd be very surprised if it is not pursued this way.
As a shareholder (small potatoes, I have a few hundred shares of ATVI), I'm concerned that this will drive churn during a quarter when subscriptions are not growing (let alone growing at an increasing rate.) Since new products are being released in the coming quarter, investors are hoping for a period of growth, knowing that another plateau will follow. If they blow this (with churn, or by making competitors a little more attractive), investors can and will park their money elsewhere -- almost anywhere is better than an entertainment company that's not growing.
I don't know how Blizzard is organized, but I know how things go in a company of this size with a subscription model. Someone in a suit is absolutely livid today, and doing that thing that is worse than screaming, to someone whose bonus depends on reducing churn and avoiding PR disasters. I also know that this is driving voice traffic into a call center that planned its summer budget months ago and there's someone in management there who has a few questions as to why they weren't in the loop. And then there are the poor front-line service reps, whose messages don't make it hard to read between the lines to know that they have their own opinions that aren't exactly being expressed in their canned responses to ... the thousands of complaints raised every hour...
Some commentators will point to the millions of subscribers to suggest that Blizzard's health is not at risk, but I can assure you that, absent of a period of increasing growth, there are absolutely people who are concerned with churn and its effect of EBITDA. And they have a report due on August 2 that I'm just chomping at the bit to see before I decide to reinvest.
If there's any doubt that this is a PR disaster, have a look: Somebody's sweating his bonus over this, and it's probably not the guy who decided to go ahead with "RealID".
BBC News - World of Warcraft maker to end anonymous forum logins
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10543100.stm
USA Today - 'WoW' studio Blizzard to require real names on forums
content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehun...al-names-on-forums/1
ABC News - Bye-Bye Trolls? Blizzard Forums to Use Real Names
abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11108240
CVG - Fans rage over Blizzard forum plans
www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=254846
PCGamer (UK) - Why Blizzard's new forum plan is an epic fail
www.pcgamer.com/2010/07/07/why-blizzard%...lan-is-an-epic-fail/
The Register - Blizzard exposes real names on WoW forums
www.reghardware.com/2010/07/07/wow_forums/
About.com - WoW Real ID: A Really Bad Idea
antivirus.about.com/b/2010/06/22/wow-rea...-really-bad-idea.htm
Ars Technica - Blizzard: post about StarCraft 2? Use your real name
arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/07/bliz...e-your-real-name.ars
Gamespy - Blizzard to Require Real Names on Official Forums
uk.pc.gamespy.com/articles/110/1104456p1.html
Kotaku - Blizzard Forums Will Soon Display Your Real Name
kotaku.com/5580585/blizzard-forums-will-...splay-your-real-name
Kotaku - Blizzard's Real Name Forum Policy Has Fans In An Uproar
kotaku.com/5581209/blizzards-real-name-f...as-fans-in-an-uproar
Joystiq - Your real name to appear on Blizzard's official forums
www.joystiq.com/2010/07/06/your-real-nam...rds-official-forums/
Inc Gamers - Blizzard Going Too Far With Real ID?
www.incgamers.com/Columns/94/blizzard-go...too-far-with-real-id
MTV
>many of the employees (myself included) bring their own personal machines to work every day.
Stop doing that.
>Or did something happen and I just missed it...?
At the very most, the state could have forced an early end to her term as Governor. Even though the state didn't seek to do that, she resigned anyway. Clearly not satisfying to Palin's detractors, but the end result is the same without the state legislature suffering political consequences that would have followed from confronting Palin on that particular issue.
The assumption you're making is that white people don't get the hardcore third degree investigation and search when stopped by cops in AZ. But they do. It's not so much that the police (Maricopa county especially, not so much the staties) are extremely zealous whenever they get the chance to investigate anything. It's not a racial thing, it's a seriously nutty cop thing.
The first misconception of the AZ law is the notion that before the new law, Arizona police had no authority to make arrests on suspicion and turn them over to the federal authorities (ICS). The other misconception is that the new law actually *requires* police to do racial profiling an investigate anyone who appears hispanic.
AZ still has to turn suspects over to federal authorities for deportation. As federal tax dollars go to pay for increased workload, watch for more pushback against overzealous enforcement.
It was frighteningly easy for me to get a concealed carry permit. It was even scarier to find out that without much practice at all, my range shooting was in the 99th percentile compared with police.
"The problem with this thinking is that a good tech should NEVER outgrow help desk."
This is just my opinion, but maybe it's healthy to think about the fact that one is not in the position where one gets to decide whether the staff wears uniforms, whereas one could be.
Director just means your department is expendable,
VP means your branch is expendable,
and "C" means you're going to prison.
Wear a collared shirt and tie, pressed slacks, and dress shoes every day.
Get fired for this, and then let a jury hear about it.
Retire with your millions.
"Not to be harsh about it, but think back to high school and college and ask yourself if you would describe the people who were planning military careers as the "best and brightest" of your class."
Actually they peg both ends of the scale. I had one friend in college who *really* *wanted* to be an Drill Instructor in the Marines. Very nice guy, a great friend, dumb as a bag of hammers.
Another friend from about the same time, went into the Air Force to become a pilot, with an eye on a civilian career as a pilot. I keep up with him, and as for brains, he is USCF rated at 2200 or so, which freaks me out more than the whole "flying jets" thing ever will.
The backstory in WoW actually has some potential. Unfortunately, the story is revealed 512 characters at a time, and nobody actaully reads it. They get the quest pane, and dismiss it, and then maybe look to see what they have to kill/gather/find. If there's a question that needs to be answered at the end of the quest, it comes from thottbott, not from actual immersion in the quest.
The first time my character ran Scarlet Monastery, I actually read the books in the library, much to the scorn of my impatient party. At the end of the quest, I was the only one with the answer to the quest giver's question -- everyone else looked up the answer on thott. I found that experience genuinely gratifying. I read the quest logs, even though many of them are silly and boring. I think the whole epic Azeroth story is pretty good, easily as compelling as something Cherryh or Jordan might have developed. It's kind of sad that it's lost on the average WoW player, who seems to be more intent on getting the game over with so they can get to lvl80 and harass other players in the cities, or try to out-do each other on the marginal benefits among the various purples.
The game is fun at low levels, if you actually play it instead of blindly skipping it.