Actually the law would mean that any game centered around any form of violence could not be advertised for AT ALL. Neither could it be on shelfes (cause thats also advertising). We all know how keen retailers are to carry products they would have to hide from customers...
It's not that liberal vs. conservatives means to ban or not to ban. Both are equally keen on shaping society through law according to their world view. Conservatives will try to ban matierial they consider 'pornographic' and liberals would want to outlaw violence in the media. Two sides, same coin. Consquently, being suprised about such an insitiution in a 'liberal' country only shows a flawed understanding of what 'liberal' means.
... there are like two worthwhile comments to this article *sigh*. I'd hope to see an insightful post about how quantum computing will helps as overcome the obstacles posed by the density/heat/energy issues the current techonolgy has. The move to multicore cpus didn't just happen because multithreading is suddenly cool...
Being a red-faced 18 y/o who just finished but didn't completely understand The Manifesto puts you in a position where you should really shut up more often and call people fucking stupid less often. You know what really happens ultimately when suggestions like yours are implemented? Corruption, political control, waste, sup-par 'products' and, depending on the scale that you've managed, economic collapse. Been there, done that. I was there when the GDR broke down. You'd have gotten along pretty well with the former elite there.
You might believe you think outside the box. How wrong! Rather you are thinking inside histories slaughterhouses...
Socialized software! Grant idea. It's not like communism has failed like a hundred times already. Let's try it out once more on one of the purest and most productive markets of this epoch. I'm sure we will be able to lay waste to it in the end!
Of course FPSs and MMORPGs are fundamentally different. That's why there is no point in comparing the core mechanics. "Characters will not be equal in strength" is an RPG core mechanic! But there is one similarity at least: All you do is kill mobs (or players) over and over again. But in an RPG you get something for doing so and suddenly everyone says "that terrible grind". To flip the coin: all that grinding but I get nothing for it except a pat on the back and the end credits!
Quake is harder then? Don't make me laugh! I still remember Doom3. You would know when monsters would spawn after five minutes of play! There are no truly hard games against a computer. All they do on harder settings is increase hitpoints/money or plain cheat. As for WoW, turn up the difficulty yourself. Don't farm/quest green mobs, try yellow. Try multiple at once. Do groups, do instances. See which elites you could solo. Most players I have met minimize risks so much that only then the game becomes boring (oh, we can't do that instance, it's too high/it's a ten man but we only got five/don't have the holy trinity etc etc.).
Btw, 'effort' doesn't necessarily mean that the task is hard. To rephrase: you don't value something as much when you just get it handed to you for no reason at all.
It's a computer program, there will be bugs. They are fixing them, patch by patch. Nearly no issue in such a complex multi-tiered application is a one line fix. As far as the number of ingame bugs and more importantly client crashes and such are concerned I'd say that WoWs quality level is well above the market average for computer games, let alone MMOs.
On a separate server I guess it should be fine. Then again, that's not really their market. They sell an RPG. RPGs sell on character progression. End of story, really.
What kind of development? Well how about "remember that time in lakeshire where we beat this level 30 elite quest at level 25"? Oh, you don't do much of that, I can tell. How about "Wow, after that deadmines run with my warrior alt I've gained a fuller understanding of aggro mechanics". No, no one is RPing anywhere but still very often you come across unique situation that you could cherish.
While I don't think your suggestion is necessarily game breaking I'd guess that Blizzard would hesitate to implement such a system because it's obvious how this would worsen the pig cycle caused by the "Flavour of the month" mentality. Buff a class and suddenly there are only green geared hunters running around. Nerv it, all switch to the perceived-to-be-strongest class. Guilds and Raids would have a much easier time to get members to roll characters that are at this time necessary for the raid etc. Maybe starting a level 60 would be a good compromise?
Explain to me how it is logically faulty to state that RPGs are based on character progression, please.
No, I wanted to compare killing over and over again in one genre where nobody minds this, nay, even seeks it to killing over and over in a genre where it's called grinding and people seem to loath it. In this one aspect I can just not see the difference.
Btw, Blizz never promised those things. They said they might be implemented. You don't see them speculating about the future of the game anymore because people like you call them out on promises they never made.
Gladiator Gear: What's the alternative? You just get gear that looks differently but doesn't affect you stats? In an RPG framework, how do you implement a persitant developing character if it can't get better then someone else?
How did Blizzard kill TM? Was it really fun for the people questing there? Wasn't it just as retarded and fun as trench warfare?
Well, you start with shadowbold 1 and end up with fear, shadowfury, 3 pets etc etc pp. So that's actually a lot like an FPS except you can use all you abilities at nearly the same time.
Yeah, MMORPGs are open ended games. It's simply their nature and I think people would be quite pissed if the credits started rolling once you've killed Illidan. And the assertion really isn't "WoW is as fun as a game could possibly get". Yes, the game world could be more dynamic. Yes, the quests could be a lot more specific to your character. Yes, the AI would be more fun to fight if it had better AI. As a customer, or even potential customer, it's your right and even your duty to voice criticism. But please stay reasonable!
In FPSs there is no character progress, true enough. In RPG there is. It's the core game mechanic. It's what's attracts most players in the first place. Progress without 'effort' (which should be fun for you, if it isn't you are of course right to quit) feels meaningless. Could it be done in a more fun way? Yeah, it probably could. But what technology would be required to implement that? It's just a technical limitation that in a world that is inhabited by 3000 other players something has got to give. Quite obviously not all of them can be High King of The Humans or some such. Quite obviously you can't write thousands of quests to be unique experiences for each and every one. Even stupid kill quests ( and that's not all there is in WoW) are actually a recent feature in MMORPGs!
So, character progression. WoW is exactly not UT because the characters aren't generic. Again, that's a core game mechanic. However much it sucks to get rolled in the battleground by Leet Uber Guild #10, taking away my character would make WoW's appeal disappear in a second. And Blizzard are working on fixing this problem but letting you keep your very own character. They have implemented the Arenas where you only play teams that are near your level of skill/equipment. They have implemented and will tweak further the battleground queues which match groups by organisational and gear level.
PvP Chars with the best gear? That would destroy WoW as an RPG and just make it another counterstrike with swords and wizards. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing ( guild wars) but it wouldn't be WoW.
Pre-Leveled Characters at 70? Where is the development there? Where is your history with this character? Where is your knowledge of it's skills and abilities? You would only know half the game if that where implemented. Look at all the guys that always get someone to pull them through the lower instances. They have zero clue of game mechanics as it relates to their character...
I guess the lesson is: If you don't like levelling or progressing you character in other ways, don't play an RPG. If you can't stand that things will be generic, don't play an MMO. Lastly, criticise something for what it is and not like "well, this apple isn't like an orange at all'".
I think it's save to say that if you don't like to fight mobs or players WoW probably isn't the game for you. Which is perfectly fine. But tell me, what's the difference between leveling in WoW and doing the quest (some of them actually tell a good story!) and playing Max Payne or Quake or any other FPS game? You could say the exact same thing about them! "Oh, so you like to shoot X monsters.. how boring!".
Problem is: WoWs audience likes character progression through leveling (Kaplans words). That's fun for 'us'. Grinding gear is what you do when there is no expansion on the horizion. For me and many others a yearly expansion lessens the pressure to get better gear because people that do can only get so far ahead until the xpac resets all progress.
If you build up a character so that you may, at a later date, partake in advanced game content that would be an investment? Correct, good Sir?
What if the publisher basically scraps the advancement concept making you start over again? Have you then lost the time you spent doing things for your character which you wouldn't have done if they weren't a requirement for said advanced content?
I'd also like to see you explain how time and money are the same thing you ignorant-arrogant twerp.
Yeah, it's stupid unless it brings a shitload of money. Of couse then nobody says 'Well you might swim in dollars but you still are freaking dumb for not realizing that this idea had only a one in a million chance to work'.
Well the real existing socialistic system actually profited from the free countries around them. Without any refence market the steering commities would have been even more clueless about which goods to prioritize over others etc. There is a compelling case to be made that this 'competion' with the free market actually allowed those 'economies' to exist longer than they could have on their own.
How can you even ask that? 'Is it dieing?' would at least indicate that you are not completely out of touch with reality.
But seriously: yeah, email can get harsh. But as always the question is not about ideals it's about which solution sucks less (or least). And I think, for myself, the answer is pretty clear: email is much preferable to calls, face to face or books (wth?). It's asynchronos so you can prepare your answers. It's lightweight so you may save them as long as you like. It's not very reliable which is a plus in any environment where tasks will inevitable be forgotten. When the shit hits the fan it's always possible to say 'oh well, I just didn't get that mail'. Allows everyone to save face. It's so fast it's almost real-time when it needs to be. Oh yeah: you can always do a text search on your email folder. Not that easy with call-sheets...
My advice:
* use at least three mail addresses: private, internal business, external business
* filter, filter filter (3 stage spam filter works the best, I think)
* organize your inbox along the lines: who sent it? which topic/project does it concern? Is it addressed to me (your name should be in the text or alone in the 'To' field), addressed to a distribution list I'm on or am I just on CC or BCC?
Outlook can automatically organize your inbox like that if you know how to use email rules and virtual folders.
Actually, I disagree. I don't know if you've been to the WoW forums but I do think that a lot of posters there need to realize that being a customer does not mean you may behave in any way you like. Would you treat you car sales rep like that, they'll simply have you removed from the show room, by the police most likely.
Tseric wasn't an ass, he only responded in kind. You have the luxury that most of your mistakes are privat. Try to walk a mile in someones shoes whos every written word is subjected to the unflinching glare of The Mob.
'every windows box is infected' is the new 'you have to compile every app for linux'. You need three things to turn windows xp into a stable, fast and malware free operating system: firewall, firefox, antivir. Why in the world would anyone that isn't interessted in tinkering with their OS go through all the pain of using linux?
Slashdot Mirror
Actually the law would mean that any game centered around any form of violence could not be advertised for AT ALL. Neither could it be on shelfes (cause thats also advertising). We all know how keen retailers are to carry products they would have to hide from customers ...
It's not that liberal vs. conservatives means to ban or not to ban. Both are equally keen on shaping society through law according to their world view. Conservatives will try to ban matierial they consider 'pornographic' and liberals would want to outlaw violence in the media. Two sides, same coin. Consquently, being suprised about such an insitiution in a 'liberal' country only shows a flawed understanding of what 'liberal' means.
Who decides what can be said then?
... there are like two worthwhile comments to this article *sigh*. I'd hope to see an insightful post about how quantum computing will helps as overcome the obstacles posed by the density/heat/energy issues the current techonolgy has. The move to multicore cpus didn't just happen because multithreading is suddenly cool ...
Being a red-faced 18 y/o who just finished but didn't completely understand The Manifesto puts you in a position where you should really shut up more often and call people fucking stupid less often. You know what really happens ultimately when suggestions like yours are implemented? Corruption, political control, waste, sup-par 'products' and, depending on the scale that you've managed, economic collapse. ...
Been there, done that. I was there when the GDR broke down. You'd have gotten along pretty well with the former elite there.
You might believe you think outside the box. How wrong! Rather you are thinking inside histories slaughterhouses
Socialized software! Grant idea. It's not like communism has failed like a hundred times already. Let's try it out once more on one of the purest and most productive markets of this epoch. I'm sure we will be able to lay waste to it in the end!
"societies resources"
Would you specifiy what exaclty you mean by that? The air I breath while coding in my spare time?
Open source can be a fanatical dogma, is evidenced ITT ....
Just not a pay-for license? Since that is clearly unethical .. I mean RMS has said so, it must be true ...
Of course FPSs and MMORPGs are fundamentally different. That's why there is no point in comparing the core mechanics. "Characters will not be equal in strength" is an RPG core mechanic! But there is one similarity at least: All you do is kill mobs (or players) over and over again. But in an RPG you get something for doing so and suddenly everyone says "that terrible grind". To flip the coin: all that grinding but I get nothing for it except a pat on the back and the end credits!
Quake is harder then? Don't make me laugh! I still remember Doom3. You would know when monsters would spawn after five minutes of play! There are no truly hard games against a computer. All they do on harder settings is increase hitpoints/money or plain cheat. As for WoW, turn up the difficulty yourself. Don't farm/quest green mobs, try yellow. Try multiple at once. Do groups, do instances. See which elites you could solo. Most players I have met minimize risks so much that only then the game becomes boring (oh, we can't do that instance, it's too high/it's a ten man but we only got five/don't have the holy trinity etc etc.).
Btw, 'effort' doesn't necessarily mean that the task is hard. To rephrase: you don't value something as much when you just get it handed to you for no reason at all.
It's a computer program, there will be bugs. They are fixing them, patch by patch. Nearly no issue in such a complex multi-tiered application is a one line fix. As far as the number of ingame bugs and more importantly client crashes and such are concerned I'd say that WoWs quality level is well above the market average for computer games, let alone MMOs.
On a separate server I guess it should be fine. Then again, that's not really their market. They sell an RPG. RPGs sell on character progression. End of story, really.
What kind of development? Well how about "remember that time in lakeshire where we beat this level 30 elite quest at level 25"? Oh, you don't do much of that, I can tell. How about "Wow, after that deadmines run with my warrior alt I've gained a fuller understanding of aggro mechanics". No, no one is RPing anywhere but still very often you come across unique situation that you could cherish.
While I don't think your suggestion is necessarily game breaking I'd guess that Blizzard would hesitate to implement such a system because it's obvious how this would worsen the pig cycle caused by the "Flavour of the month" mentality. Buff a class and suddenly there are only green geared hunters running around. Nerv it, all switch to the perceived-to-be-strongest class. Guilds and Raids would have a much easier time to get members to roll characters that are at this time necessary for the raid etc.
Maybe starting a level 60 would be a good compromise?
Explain to me how it is logically faulty to state that RPGs are based on character progression, please.
No, I wanted to compare killing over and over again in one genre where nobody minds this, nay, even seeks it to killing over and over in a genre where it's called grinding and people seem to loath it. In this one aspect I can just not see the difference.
Btw, Blizz never promised those things. They said they might be implemented. You don't see them speculating about the future of the game anymore because people like you call them out on promises they never made.
Gladiator Gear: What's the alternative? You just get gear that looks differently but doesn't affect you stats? In an RPG framework, how do you implement a persitant developing character if it can't get better then someone else?
How did Blizzard kill TM? Was it really fun for the people questing there? Wasn't it just as retarded and fun as trench warfare?
Well, you start with shadowbold 1 and end up with fear, shadowfury, 3 pets etc etc pp. So that's actually a lot like an FPS except you can use all you abilities at nearly the same time.
...
Yeah, MMORPGs are open ended games. It's simply their nature and I think people would be quite pissed if the credits started rolling once you've killed Illidan. And the assertion really isn't "WoW is as fun as a game could possibly get". Yes, the game world could be more dynamic. Yes, the quests could be a lot more specific to your character. Yes, the AI would be more fun to fight if it had better AI.
As a customer, or even potential customer, it's your right and even your duty to voice criticism. But please stay reasonable!
In FPSs there is no character progress, true enough. In RPG there is. It's the core game mechanic. It's what's attracts most players in the first place. Progress without 'effort' (which should be fun for you, if it isn't you are of course right to quit) feels meaningless. Could it be done in a more fun way? Yeah, it probably could. But what technology would be required to implement that? It's just a technical limitation that in a world that is inhabited by 3000 other players something has got to give. Quite obviously not all of them can be High King of The Humans or some such. Quite obviously you can't write thousands of quests to be unique experiences for each and every one. Even stupid kill quests ( and that's not all there is in WoW) are actually a recent feature in MMORPGs!
So, character progression. WoW is exactly not UT because the characters aren't generic. Again, that's a core game mechanic. However much it sucks to get rolled in the battleground by Leet Uber Guild #10, taking away my character would make WoW's appeal disappear in a second. And Blizzard are working on fixing this problem but letting you keep your very own character. They have implemented the Arenas where you only play teams that are near your level of skill/equipment. They have implemented and will tweak further the battleground queues which match groups by organisational and gear level.
PvP Chars with the best gear? That would destroy WoW as an RPG and just make it another counterstrike with swords and wizards. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing ( guild wars) but it wouldn't be WoW.
Pre-Leveled Characters at 70? Where is the development there? Where is your history with this character? Where is your knowledge of it's skills and abilities? You would only know half the game if that where implemented. Look at all the guys that always get someone to pull them through the lower instances. They have zero clue of game mechanics as it relates to their character
I guess the lesson is: If you don't like levelling or progressing you character in other ways, don't play an RPG. If you can't stand that things will be generic, don't play an MMO. Lastly, criticise something for what it is and not like "well, this apple isn't like an orange at all'".
I think it's save to say that if you don't like to fight mobs or players WoW probably isn't the game for you. Which is perfectly fine. But tell me, what's the difference between leveling in WoW and doing the quest (some of them actually tell a good story!) and playing Max Payne or Quake or any other FPS game? You could say the exact same thing about them! "Oh, so you like to shoot X monsters .. how boring!".
Problem is: WoWs audience likes character progression through leveling (Kaplans words). That's fun for 'us'. Grinding gear is what you do when there is no expansion on the horizion. For me and many others a yearly expansion lessens the pressure to get better gear because people that do can only get so far ahead until the xpac resets all progress.
that's right! Cause Moore isn't worth a million bucks and the whole Showbiz is stinking poor. Go little man, go!
If you build up a character so that you may, at a later date, partake in advanced game content that would be an investment? Correct, good Sir?
What if the publisher basically scraps the advancement concept making you start over again? Have you then lost the time you spent doing things for your character which you wouldn't have done if they weren't a requirement for said advanced content?
I'd also like to see you explain how time and money are the same thing you ignorant-arrogant twerp.
Yeah, it's stupid unless it brings a shitload of money. Of couse then nobody says 'Well you might swim in dollars but you still are freaking dumb for not realizing that this idea had only a one in a million chance to work'.
What? Did you miss the part where he said 'time investment'? Dialog means actually comprehending what the other side has to say, you know?
It certainly doesn't when I commute to work ...
Well the real existing socialistic system actually profited from the free countries around them. Without any refence market the steering commities would have been even more clueless about which goods to prioritize over others etc. There is a compelling case to be made that this 'competion' with the free market actually allowed those 'economies' to exist longer than they could have on their own.
You should know your Marx better. Marx predicted that capitalism would develop into socialism /after/ affecting enourmos economic growth.
Would it have killed the OP to give a small summary of the planned mission?
How can you even ask that? 'Is it dieing?' would at least indicate that you are not completely out of touch with reality.
...
But seriously: yeah, email can get harsh. But as always the question is not about ideals it's about which solution sucks less (or least). And I think, for myself, the answer is pretty clear: email is much preferable to calls, face to face or books (wth?). It's asynchronos so you can prepare your answers. It's lightweight so you may save them as long as you like. It's not very reliable which is a plus in any environment where tasks will inevitable be forgotten. When the shit hits the fan it's always possible to say 'oh well, I just didn't get that mail'. Allows everyone to save face. It's so fast it's almost real-time when it needs to be. Oh yeah: you can always do a text search on your email folder. Not that easy with call-sheets
My advice:
* use at least three mail addresses: private, internal business, external business
* filter, filter filter (3 stage spam filter works the best, I think)
* organize your inbox along the lines: who sent it? which topic/project does it concern? Is it addressed to me (your name should be in the text or alone in the 'To' field), addressed to a distribution list I'm on or am I just on CC or BCC?
Outlook can automatically organize your inbox like that if you know how to use email rules and virtual folders.
Actually, I disagree. I don't know if you've been to the WoW forums but I do think that a lot of posters there need to realize that being a customer does not mean you may behave in any way you like. Would you treat you car sales rep like that, they'll simply have you removed from the show room, by the police most likely.
Tseric wasn't an ass, he only responded in kind. You have the luxury that most of your mistakes are privat. Try to walk a mile in someones shoes whos every written word is subjected to the unflinching glare of The Mob.
'every windows box is infected' is the new 'you have to compile every app for linux'. You need three things to turn windows xp into a stable, fast and malware free operating system: firewall, firefox, antivir. Why in the world would anyone that isn't interessted in tinkering with their OS go through all the pain of using linux?