Not sure if you noticed, but the human defenders didn't actually contribute that much. Other than preventing a particularly large node of the planetary tree network form being blown up. It wasn't until the planetary consciousness in the trees decided it was time to join the fight by throwing every living weapon at it's disposal at the enemy that the tides turned. If Jake and Co. hadn't been able to stop the bomber I am sure that Eywa would have been damaged, but not crippled, and it would most certainly have retaliated in a way the humans were not fully prepared for. The interesting thing is why did Eywa allow the humans to do as much damage as they did before stomping them flat. Maybe it's a pacifist at heart.
I agree. I tried the Raiding Guild business and ended up feeling like a slave to the DKP grind, always having to stay on top of the DKP pile just in case that special epic dropped. I finally just walked away from the loot drama and my DKP and went back to my old guild of friends. We don't raid 25 mans, but I can grind like nobody's business so I have my epics, but they are all crafted, world drops or Arena pieces. I feel good about the fact that my characters still kick ass even without being in a 'leet raiding guild. And yeah, for the most part, my guildies are my friends since the ones that are only concerned about loot left a long time ago for more progressed guilds.
coupled with a development community that actually listens and responds to its fans How many times have we heard that before? Pretty much every time there is a new game on the horizon. I will believe it when I see it, and then I will probably avoid that game because every time developers listen to players it just leads to a worse game.
Warhammer will be interesting to see, but I suspect that AoC will be the "wowkiller". The only game capable of killing WoW at this point is WoW itself.
No, as I said every company I have ever worked for frowned on drinking booze at lunch too for the simple reason that if you drunk or high you are a potential liability to the company. Your performance will be degraded for sure, and you could possibly make a poor judgement call resulting in injury or financial loss. It's much safer to have a zero tolerance policy toward drugs & alcohol when your company is at stake.
If you suddenly stop being high after your 1 hour lunch break you might have something there. If you speed on your lunch hour in your personal vehicle there is no liability to the company even if you get busted. If you are high at work (either from booze or alcohol) you are a liability.
It's not really a double standard. Booze is not illegal, a spliff is. That being said, every company I have worked for has frowned on lunchtime alcohol consumption.
Like I said it was an imperfect system, but for the most part it did what it was supposed to do and kept Federal powers in check. It seemed bad when there were some states that couldn't get thier crap together to hold an honest election, but in this case I firmly believe the cure was much worse than the disease.
The problem as it stands now is that our representatives are doing neither, they are doing what is in the best interests of the largest lobbies out there Big Oil, Tobacco, and Media. And none of those groups have the best interest of the country or it's citizens at heart. At least with the Senate being directed by the states there was a counterbalancing force to work against the lobbyists. It's not an ideal system, but it's better than the bloated mommy state our government has become since the 17th Amendment was enacted.
The Senate was not always elected by the popular vote. It was intended as a check and balance for the House of Representatives and for Federal power overall. Prior to the 17th amendment Senators were appointed by thier state. This allowed the State interests to be represented as well as the people, and because the States don't like being controlled it provided an effective check on Federal power and didn't encourage such blind adherence to the party line. It may have seemed a good idea at the time to quell the infighting in the state legislatures, but the long term consequences have been disastrous, imparting far too much power to the Federal government. Thus making it easier to influence by lobbyists since both houses are popularly elected and thus need to pander to the lobbyists for campaign funds.
Why would you not take the extra effort to locate a stadium theater? As a matter of fact *most* of the theaters in my area are stadium theaters, so that is a non-issue for me. Personally, I am not that critical of a movie if it provides at least a modicum of entertainment for me. It's an opportunity for me to get out of the house and either socialize with friends or meet new people. The hours spent after a movie discussing it and all the myriad related subjects that come up in the discussion are worth the price of admission regardless of the movie itself. Heck even the rare movie that is totally ruined by some jerk becomes fuel for stories that are recounted many times over the years to your friends and family when the subject of movies comes up.
All the different factors you mentioned just make the movie going experience more interesting in the long run, as it gives me something to bitch and moan about to my friends. I don't find the experience of watching a movie nearly as satisfying at home where there are an equal number of distractions, many of which are much harder to ignore (important phone calls, visitors at the door, kids and pets).
As far as the price of movies versus games, I don't think it's as clear cut as that. You have as much chance of getting a crap game as you do a crap movie, and the initial price point is often much higher, $40-60. So if you don't actually get that 15 hours of entertainment you lost a more significant investment. Second, a well done movie is an order of magnitude more engrossing than a well done game, particularly as far as emotional involvement with the characters in the story go. Computer games are an art in it's infancy and has a quite some time to go before it is mature enough to compete with movies as an art form. This is coming from an avid gamer and World of Warcraft addict.
I think you underestimate the sheer volume of sales that go through Wal-Mart by a huge margin. There is a reason that they are able to force manufacturers to alter thier business practices to suit Wal-Mart's vision of how business should be done. Wal-Mart has bankrupted several large companies simply by taking thier product off the shelf (Rubber-maid) or in the case of Clausen pickles by offering thier product at a ridiculously low price as a loss leader for Wal-Mart. I see no reason to believe they have any less influence on the gaming industry than they do in any other industry they retail for.
Okay now really what does any of that have to do with the fact that guy was making off-topic comments relating to a Bruce who has no relation to the Bruce who is making his final prediction? Or the fact that the next guy was saying there was no way to know which Bruce was being referred to, which is patently false as I pointed out. It is quite easy to tell which Bruce is referenced as his byline is on TFA. Nice torrent of vitriol though.
When the Native Americans were initially invaded it was by Europeans who later became Americans, sadly it didn't change the way they treated the Native American nations. I apologize for not explicitly pointing out U.S.A. as one of the invader types. Mainly it's because when we invade we usually put someone else in charge and then extract favors from them later, more like a Mafia Don then an expansionist nation. As for indiscriminate killing of civilians, I think that's a bit inaccurate. For the most part we try to target military objectives, but sometimes people fuck up and hit the wrong targets, or can't find anyway of taking an objective without civilian caualties. America is not unique in that respect. In the case of Hiroshima & Nagasaki the objective was to end the war with Japan as quickly as possible with the least number of casualties on both sides. Whether it was the right thing to do or not will probably debated long after we are dead & buried.
Someone moderate parent up please. I am pretty sure that most people on the planet would feel the same way about someone invading thier home. Especially since historically speaking, invaders rarely treat the invaded with anything approaching respect or consideration. History is littered with examples; the Saxons in England, Romans all over Europe, Vikings, Huns, Europeans in the Americas. The Japanese would have no reason to believe that the U.S. would treat them any better than they treated our captured soldiers, so while they were working toward a surrender I seriously doubt they would have offered acceptable terms.
Yet the Alliance has no problems with genocide and constant expansionism, which many would consider evil. Both factions have thier dark side, as it should be.
Slashdot Mirror
Or he doesn't care because people keep buying it anyway.
This.
I for one welcome our new power line perching overlords!
I'd make a comment about loyalty, but being loyal to a company in this era is like being loyal to an abusive spouse.
I wish I could mod you up for this comment alone! You nailed it right there.
Not sure if you noticed, but the human defenders didn't actually contribute that much. Other than preventing a particularly large node of the planetary tree network form being blown up. It wasn't until the planetary consciousness in the trees decided it was time to join the fight by throwing every living weapon at it's disposal at the enemy that the tides turned. If Jake and Co. hadn't been able to stop the bomber I am sure that Eywa would have been damaged, but not crippled, and it would most certainly have retaliated in a way the humans were not fully prepared for. The interesting thing is why did Eywa allow the humans to do as much damage as they did before stomping them flat. Maybe it's a pacifist at heart.
I agree. I tried the Raiding Guild business and ended up feeling like a slave to the DKP grind, always having to stay on top of the DKP pile just in case that special epic dropped. I finally just walked away from the loot drama and my DKP and went back to my old guild of friends. We don't raid 25 mans, but I can grind like nobody's business so I have my epics, but they are all crafted, world drops or Arena pieces. I feel good about the fact that my characters still kick ass even without being in a 'leet raiding guild. And yeah, for the most part, my guildies are my friends since the ones that are only concerned about loot left a long time ago for more progressed guilds.
Solid State Drives mean no more crashed HDs since there are no moving parts to impact and damage your data.
It's Gutsy, not Gusty. :-P And guts coming out of either end is a very bad thing!
If you have the ask that question, the game isn't meant for you.
I'd love to see both of those signed into law. Problem is getting politicians to cut off thier own feedbags.
Perhaps in your state, not mine. Not every state has medical marijuana yet.
No, as I said every company I have ever worked for frowned on drinking booze at lunch too for the simple reason that if you drunk or high you are a potential liability to the company. Your performance will be degraded for sure, and you could possibly make a poor judgement call resulting in injury or financial loss. It's much safer to have a zero tolerance policy toward drugs & alcohol when your company is at stake.
If you suddenly stop being high after your 1 hour lunch break you might have something there. If you speed on your lunch hour in your personal vehicle there is no liability to the company even if you get busted. If you are high at work (either from booze or alcohol) you are a liability.
It's not really a double standard. Booze is not illegal, a spliff is. That being said, every company I have worked for has frowned on lunchtime alcohol consumption.
Like I said it was an imperfect system, but for the most part it did what it was supposed to do and kept Federal powers in check. It seemed bad when there were some states that couldn't get thier crap together to hold an honest election, but in this case I firmly believe the cure was much worse than the disease.
The problem as it stands now is that our representatives are doing neither, they are doing what is in the best interests of the largest lobbies out there Big Oil, Tobacco, and Media. And none of those groups have the best interest of the country or it's citizens at heart. At least with the Senate being directed by the states there was a counterbalancing force to work against the lobbyists. It's not an ideal system, but it's better than the bloated mommy state our government has become since the 17th Amendment was enacted.
The Senate was not always elected by the popular vote. It was intended as a check and balance for the House of Representatives and for Federal power overall. Prior to the 17th amendment Senators were appointed by thier state. This allowed the State interests to be represented as well as the people, and because the States don't like being controlled it provided an effective check on Federal power and didn't encourage such blind adherence to the party line. It may have seemed a good idea at the time to quell the infighting in the state legislatures, but the long term consequences have been disastrous, imparting far too much power to the Federal government. Thus making it easier to influence by lobbyists since both houses are popularly elected and thus need to pander to the lobbyists for campaign funds.
Why would you not take the extra effort to locate a stadium theater? As a matter of fact *most* of the theaters in my area are stadium theaters, so that is a non-issue for me. Personally, I am not that critical of a movie if it provides at least a modicum of entertainment for me. It's an opportunity for me to get out of the house and either socialize with friends or meet new people. The hours spent after a movie discussing it and all the myriad related subjects that come up in the discussion are worth the price of admission regardless of the movie itself. Heck even the rare movie that is totally ruined by some jerk becomes fuel for stories that are recounted many times over the years to your friends and family when the subject of movies comes up.
All the different factors you mentioned just make the movie going experience more interesting in the long run, as it gives me something to bitch and moan about to my friends. I don't find the experience of watching a movie nearly as satisfying at home where there are an equal number of distractions, many of which are much harder to ignore (important phone calls, visitors at the door, kids and pets).
As far as the price of movies versus games, I don't think it's as clear cut as that. You have as much chance of getting a crap game as you do a crap movie, and the initial price point is often much higher, $40-60. So if you don't actually get that 15 hours of entertainment you lost a more significant investment. Second, a well done movie is an order of magnitude more engrossing than a well done game, particularly as far as emotional involvement with the characters in the story go. Computer games are an art in it's infancy and has a quite some time to go before it is mature enough to compete with movies as an art form. This is coming from an avid gamer and World of Warcraft addict.
I think you underestimate the sheer volume of sales that go through Wal-Mart by a huge margin. There is a reason that they are able to force manufacturers to alter thier business practices to suit Wal-Mart's vision of how business should be done. Wal-Mart has bankrupted several large companies simply by taking thier product off the shelf (Rubber-maid) or in the case of Clausen pickles by offering thier product at a ridiculously low price as a loss leader for Wal-Mart. I see no reason to believe they have any less influence on the gaming industry than they do in any other industry they retail for.
Okay now really what does any of that have to do with the fact that guy was making off-topic comments relating to a Bruce who has no relation to the Bruce who is making his final prediction? Or the fact that the next guy was saying there was no way to know which Bruce was being referred to, which is patently false as I pointed out. It is quite easy to tell which Bruce is referenced as his byline is on TFA. Nice torrent of vitriol though.
RTFA and look at the byline. But then again it's /., what can you expect?
When the Native Americans were initially invaded it was by Europeans who later became Americans, sadly it didn't change the way they treated the Native American nations. I apologize for not explicitly pointing out U.S.A. as one of the invader types. Mainly it's because when we invade we usually put someone else in charge and then extract favors from them later, more like a Mafia Don then an expansionist nation. As for indiscriminate killing of civilians, I think that's a bit inaccurate. For the most part we try to target military objectives, but sometimes people fuck up and hit the wrong targets, or can't find anyway of taking an objective without civilian caualties. America is not unique in that respect. In the case of Hiroshima & Nagasaki the objective was to end the war with Japan as quickly as possible with the least number of casualties on both sides. Whether it was the right thing to do or not will probably debated long after we are dead & buried.
Someone moderate parent up please. I am pretty sure that most people on the planet would feel the same way about someone invading thier home. Especially since historically speaking, invaders rarely treat the invaded with anything approaching respect or consideration. History is littered with examples; the Saxons in England, Romans all over Europe, Vikings, Huns, Europeans in the Americas. The Japanese would have no reason to believe that the U.S. would treat them any better than they treated our captured soldiers, so while they were working toward a surrender I seriously doubt they would have offered acceptable terms.
My friend and I did the same with our Amiga 500s. It totally rocked.
Yet the Alliance has no problems with genocide and constant expansionism, which many would consider evil. Both factions have thier dark side, as it should be.