Knew it was coming. I still play this game, but only a few of the servers are populated. Many of them are near empty.
I played COH and COV for a while (the free month plus a few extra) before becoming quite bored of the game. Like many games it suffered from that perennial problem of grind and lack of content. Most of the missions I played it involved traversing generic offices / sewers / factories / tunnels zapping generic stationary bad guys before a boss encounter then repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Levelling up usually meant a change of scenery and bad guys but more or less identical gameplay whichever zone you were in.
I did leave about 3 years ago so maybe things have been shaken up a bit since. I know that LOTRO was a *lot* better when I returned after it went FTP so perhaps the same holds true for COH/COV.
As grinds go, how is this different than any other MMO?
For those that don't know, City of Heroes is the number 1 superhero MMO on the market. The game has been cruising along for seven years now right along side WoW and EVE and has had a strong, consistent player-base. I see this move as a means to expand the base a bit by giving folks a taste of being "super", without having to invest your social life like some other games. We have been getting free updates on a regular basis for years now under the old pay system and I see this more as a way to get even more.
All the new-age hippies here are claiming that their free-speech is just an illusion are delusional. The very existence of internet sites like this prove my point. Go to China and try to post half of what is posted here and you will find yourself in a cell quickly. Go ahead and claim that Wiki-Leaks exposed some US government conspiracy, but in truth, they just dumped anything they had with Top Secret on it to the public. Your free speech remains so based on the many things you DON'T know, because what you know, the enemy does too!
"but as an object approaches the speed of light, the mass increases without limit!"
See! It's this last part that I always have a problem with. Mathematicians don't like equations that result in infinities for a reason, it means their math is wrong some where. Now if it is a "perceived" infinity there is some room for interpretation. I ask, is their a such thing as infinitely small, infinitely large? I think either there needs further experimentation or better wording.
But I have definite issues with the last paragraph of the article
Such a device could be used to harvest solar energy in places where the light is too diffuse for mirrors to concentrate it onto a solar cell. An optical black hole would suck it all in and direct it at a solar cell sitting at the core. "If that works, you will no longer require these huge parabolic mirrors to collect light," says Narimanov.
The article gives no indication that light passing near the device will get sucked into it, but only that all light hitting the device gets sucked into the center. So instead of requiring those huge parabolic mirrors, you'll instead require these huge cylindrical structures. Would still have a nice advantage in that no tracking or steering devices would be required since light hitting it from any side gets "sucked in", but it would still require a considerable amount of real estate to deploy assuming that they can both scale it down (to handle visible light) and scale it up (to make the amount of light absorbed represent a non-trivial amount of power).
Imagine all the ambient light in our environment? I don't think they will need too much up-scaling to see huge amounts of energy. On a decent sunny day, you can create a point of light powerful enough to incinerate an insect, and that with a crappy magnifying glass, what if that same magnifying glass had zero loss? What I want to see is if they can get this thing to trap more energetic frequencies (Gamma anyone?)
I stopped reading after "Someone stole a copy of X-men Origins and posted it on the net". I guess if someone robs a bank and gives the money to the public, there needs to be some type of control of public donations?...um ok.
Most of the responses here seemed to be tainted by folks who either don't play MMOs on a regular basis, or WoW throw-backs who don't know how to play an MMO that isn't a WoW clone in form or function. It would be nice if those who don't play MMOs in the first place not comment on this MMO in particular. As for the Architect being counter productive to City of Heroes, we have a saying on the boards over there, "More content is always better!" I couldn't give two squirts about farmers complaining about AE, I can select the missions I want to run and if they suck, I can create a mission I think is better, or even not participate at all. The point is it's my choice as the player and having more choices can never be wrong.
How can you make such a comparison when true immersion doesn't exist? If there were Holodecks or a Matrix, who's to say how many people would want them? There's o such thing as a drug addict that has never tried drugs.
Do we really want and AI that could hunt us down like dogs and kill us? We secretly like out AI to be dumb as a bag of rocks. Most games with "good" AI simply give the NPC a pre-programmed knowledge of the terrain, perfect accuracy, or the ability to soak up damage. If I were to make all things equal, I would give a game AI the same visual range, weapons, accuracy, and resistances as the player and then we'd see how smart it really is.
If this is the only issue that was swaying all you social-politically contious techno-geeks votes, then it's a good thing you dont vote at all. You don't think the government hasn't been spying in this country all along then your crazy. Obama and associates got a compromise on what was a larger bill than anyone here seems to care to recognize. Everyone seems to want their on agenda placated to, but to be a President ALL aspects of every issue must be weighed and that means someone is not going to like the outcome. If your view of the issues is too narrow to see past your own personal wants on one point, then maybe it's best you turn in your voter registration card because no matter how high you wave it, there's a chance the polititions still would trade you a cookie for it.
Eliot R. Brown did the first Iron Manual that went into depth on the components of the various Iron Man armors from the comic. Brown has been the "tech" guy for Marvel for decades and is an expert at translating the comic concepts into (plausible) real-life technologies. In the Manual, each suit is comprised of a millions of tiny, intelocking "tiles". These tiles have several layers that handle everything from power to articulation. The components of the tiles are so small that they have to be worked on under an electron microscope and the suit-tiles are mass produced buy his supercomputer. It's a really good read.
Well seeing as how media in Mumbai is govenment-controlled, they probably wouldn't care. That is until those political views lead to the US invading their country.
Seems like everyone here is a little scared of the ramification's a true human-level AI would introduce. Honestly, an AI doesn't need to be an exact replica of the human mind to match our intelligence. Any AI we would consider intelligent would only need to be smart enough to be indistinguishable from it's human counterpart. Think of it as the "Uncanny Divide" for intelligence. As long as the responses we get from an AI are what we would expect from a human, we are fooled. Religious implications aside, we humans are merely the culmination of all our experiences, gathered by our five senses, and made unique by the make up of our random DNA. When we humans are finished playing with cell phones and x-boxes, we will start looking at the next big leap because patting ourselves on the back for the computer and the internet is getting stale.
I find it funny how these predictions are always based on current trends. Nothing going on today will have anything to do with 100 years from now apart from maybe the trend of smaller and smaller electronic devices. These predictions are pointless when a dozen other factors such as the economy, politics, the environment, and security are equally powerful influences on the outcome of the future. A hundred years from now, California could fall into the ocean, terrorist could set off a biological catastrophy, or a meteor could fall from the sky and kill most of the world population (I'm looking at you 2012).
Slashdot Mirror
But really, what's the difference between a raid dungeon and a task force? There are TFs at almost every level-range.
Actually since it is set in a city, I wouldn't mind seeing CocaCola ads in Paragon.
And what do you consider "End-Game"? Raids?
Knew it was coming. I still play this game, but only a few of the servers are populated. Many of them are near empty.
I played COH and COV for a while (the free month plus a few extra) before becoming quite bored of the game. Like many games it suffered from that perennial problem of grind and lack of content. Most of the missions I played it involved traversing generic offices / sewers / factories / tunnels zapping generic stationary bad guys before a boss encounter then repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Levelling up usually meant a change of scenery and bad guys but more or less identical gameplay whichever zone you were in. I did leave about 3 years ago so maybe things have been shaken up a bit since. I know that LOTRO was a *lot* better when I returned after it went FTP so perhaps the same holds true for COH/COV.
As grinds go, how is this different than any other MMO?
For those that don't know, City of Heroes is the number 1 superhero MMO on the market. The game has been cruising along for seven years now right along side WoW and EVE and has had a strong, consistent player-base. I see this move as a means to expand the base a bit by giving folks a taste of being "super", without having to invest your social life like some other games. We have been getting free updates on a regular basis for years now under the old pay system and I see this more as a way to get even more.
All the new-age hippies here are claiming that their free-speech is just an illusion are delusional. The very existence of internet sites like this prove my point. Go to China and try to post half of what is posted here and you will find yourself in a cell quickly. Go ahead and claim that Wiki-Leaks exposed some US government conspiracy, but in truth, they just dumped anything they had with Top Secret on it to the public. Your free speech remains so based on the many things you DON'T know, because what you know, the enemy does too!
...but just because you can paint graffiti on it doesn't mean you can break in!
"but as an object approaches the speed of light, the mass increases without limit!" See! It's this last part that I always have a problem with. Mathematicians don't like equations that result in infinities for a reason, it means their math is wrong some where. Now if it is a "perceived" infinity there is some room for interpretation. I ask, is their a such thing as infinitely small, infinitely large? I think either there needs further experimentation or better wording.
But I have definite issues with the last paragraph of the article
The article gives no indication that light passing near the device will get sucked into it, but only that all light hitting the device gets sucked into the center. So instead of requiring those huge parabolic mirrors, you'll instead require these huge cylindrical structures. Would still have a nice advantage in that no tracking or steering devices would be required since light hitting it from any side gets "sucked in", but it would still require a considerable amount of real estate to deploy assuming that they can both scale it down (to handle visible light) and scale it up (to make the amount of light absorbed represent a non-trivial amount of power).
Imagine all the ambient light in our environment? I don't think they will need too much up-scaling to see huge amounts of energy. On a decent sunny day, you can create a point of light powerful enough to incinerate an insect, and that with a crappy magnifying glass, what if that same magnifying glass had zero loss? What I want to see is if they can get this thing to trap more energetic frequencies (Gamma anyone?)
City of Heroes has been doing user generated content for months now and has even invited comic writers to come in and create content using their tool.
WOOT! DTRA in da house! Yes I work for them in New Mexico.
I stopped reading after "Someone stole a copy of X-men Origins and posted it on the net". I guess if someone robs a bank and gives the money to the public, there needs to be some type of control of public donations? ...um ok.
Most of the responses here seemed to be tainted by folks who either don't play MMOs on a regular basis, or WoW throw-backs who don't know how to play an MMO that isn't a WoW clone in form or function. It would be nice if those who don't play MMOs in the first place not comment on this MMO in particular. As for the Architect being counter productive to City of Heroes, we have a saying on the boards over there, "More content is always better!" I couldn't give two squirts about farmers complaining about AE, I can select the missions I want to run and if they suck, I can create a mission I think is better, or even not participate at all. The point is it's my choice as the player and having more choices can never be wrong.
This is why this game has been chugging along for so long, great updates and a strong player-base.
How can you make such a comparison when true immersion doesn't exist? If there were Holodecks or a Matrix, who's to say how many people would want them? There's o such thing as a drug addict that has never tried drugs.
Do we really want and AI that could hunt us down like dogs and kill us? We secretly like out AI to be dumb as a bag of rocks. Most games with "good" AI simply give the NPC a pre-programmed knowledge of the terrain, perfect accuracy, or the ability to soak up damage. If I were to make all things equal, I would give a game AI the same visual range, weapons, accuracy, and resistances as the player and then we'd see how smart it really is.
How good MMOs could be if bandwidth wasn't an issue?
If this is the only issue that was swaying all you social-politically contious techno-geeks votes, then it's a good thing you dont vote at all. You don't think the government hasn't been spying in this country all along then your crazy. Obama and associates got a compromise on what was a larger bill than anyone here seems to care to recognize. Everyone seems to want their on agenda placated to, but to be a President ALL aspects of every issue must be weighed and that means someone is not going to like the outcome. If your view of the issues is too narrow to see past your own personal wants on one point, then maybe it's best you turn in your voter registration card because no matter how high you wave it, there's a chance the polititions still would trade you a cookie for it.
Eliot R. Brown did the first Iron Manual that went into depth on the components of the various Iron Man armors from the comic. Brown has been the "tech" guy for Marvel for decades and is an expert at translating the comic concepts into (plausible) real-life technologies. In the Manual, each suit is comprised of a millions of tiny, intelocking "tiles". These tiles have several layers that handle everything from power to articulation. The components of the tiles are so small that they have to be worked on under an electron microscope and the suit-tiles are mass produced buy his supercomputer. It's a really good read.
Well seeing as how media in Mumbai is govenment-controlled, they probably wouldn't care. That is until those political views lead to the US invading their country.
I think these are good points that need to be addressed before we can actually call the material "revolutionary".
But still are human muscles that efficient?
Seems like everyone here is a little scared of the ramification's a true human-level AI would introduce. Honestly, an AI doesn't need to be an exact replica of the human mind to match our intelligence. Any AI we would consider intelligent would only need to be smart enough to be indistinguishable from it's human counterpart. Think of it as the "Uncanny Divide" for intelligence. As long as the responses we get from an AI are what we would expect from a human, we are fooled. Religious implications aside, we humans are merely the culmination of all our experiences, gathered by our five senses, and made unique by the make up of our random DNA. When we humans are finished playing with cell phones and x-boxes, we will start looking at the next big leap because patting ourselves on the back for the computer and the internet is getting stale.
I find it funny how these predictions are always based on current trends. Nothing going on today will have anything to do with 100 years from now apart from maybe the trend of smaller and smaller electronic devices. These predictions are pointless when a dozen other factors such as the economy, politics, the environment, and security are equally powerful influences on the outcome of the future. A hundred years from now, California could fall into the ocean, terrorist could set off a biological catastrophy, or a meteor could fall from the sky and kill most of the world population (I'm looking at you 2012).
So is the moral of the story is "Let them pirate your merchandise or they might use the competitions"?