We're talking the internet here. Sites and servers can be based anywhere in the world. Companies can be registered in those territories that do not have such foolish 'Internet Taxes'. All this will accomplish is to enrich India and other locations that can provide IT service including Bandwidth and decimate the US IT industry. Another region that can be looked at is the Caribbean territories. Same timezones and most allow for Offshore services.
Why would anyone seek to open a totally E-Commerce based business and base it in the United States when they can open the same business elsewhere and make so much more? The US seems intent to shoot itself in the foot over the Internet and emerging technologies to the point where soon I can't fathom why US firms would seek to open Internet based businesses.
The US apparently is the only country seeking to tax 'gold' in videogames.Not the earnings made from any real world *sale* of Gold involving true currency, but the actual gold in-game itself. How utterly ignorant is that? And some are saying that such bills have a good chance of getting passed!
I guess two adults roleplaying in their bedrooms are similarly breaking the law.
If a husband and his wife decide to indulge in sexual roleplay in their homes where perhaps she's a school girl and he a teacher or vice versa, then they can expect the German police to break their door down and arrest them for child pornography.
This is ridiculous. Just when you think the world can't get any worse, punishing the majority because of the few criminals in our midst, it does.
Next we will have people being jailed for years because of 'Virtual Rape', 'Virtual Murder' , 'Virtual Fraud','Virtual Robbery'. You think situations like this can only arise in doomsday Science Fiction novels.
Seriously, someone should test the system by complaining that someone robbed them of a necklace in Second Life or 'unlawfully' killed them in World of Warcraft (griefing becomes a crime punishable with two months confinement *smirk*), they might actually be able to get the person locked up as though they had actually performed a crime in the real world.
Would having a MMORPG which expressly bans people under 18 from playing solve these issues?
Now won't that be just great?
I'd like to see the results of this study after the subjects have viewed The Fast And The Furious 1 and 2.
It's amazing that Violent and sexual movies are a-ok but games are seemingly always held to a higher standard. Books are also fair game for the most pornographic and violently graphic scenes, and are available for all.
I've had horrible experiences with Alienware and won't recommend the machines.
My system shipped with the wrong video cards, two 7800GTs in SLI instead of two 7800GTXs.
The system has a X-Fi Elite Pro in it, but Alienware does not have the Software Installation CD (with all the little goodies included). So, if I want to reinstall a single item of creative software I need to either Respawn the entire system (Completely wipe everything) or pay Creative 25US$ to have a CD Shipped to me.
The system itself came with old Nforce drivers, and efforts to install new drivers failed. Alienware tech support told me not to worry if the driver update seems not to have worked, I don't need it anyway.
The system shipped with numerous systems switched off or not configured optimally. The HP CD Label Writer burner didn't have the software installed to burn labels and I had to download it separately.
It was certainly not the experience I expected for a >6000US$, Flagship Alienware ALX system. The Alienware 'Adrenaline' (This is just Powerstrip) video card optimizer causes crashes, and I had to turn it off.
Although the system is supposed to be 'Water Cooled' I still have to have all three fans running otherwise case temp hits 43degrees celcius. With the fans on it hovers at around 32 degrees celcius.
And thus, I will never again recommend nor will I ever purchase a machine from them again.
Why not just purchase the PhysX solution?
I though that the ATI/Nvidia solution would somehow just take advantage of your existing hardware.
I didn't realise that if you had an SLI solution you would still need to install an extra PCI card.
Choose your own adventure was ok, but what I really liked was the Avenger series - Avenger , Usurper etc. from the The Way Of The Tiger series. This was based on Ninjas and martial Arts, and mixed the whole idea of choosing your path with dice based combat against opponents.
That added a whole other dimension to this style of book that totally thrilled me as a kid.
It seems these books were republished in 1998.
I rank these as head and shoulders above other similar Choose Your Own Adventure style books...although..thinking about it there was yet another set which involved dice combat, set in a traditional Fantasy realm. I seem to recall a grid of some sort...gah. Can't remember the name. I think there were random numbers ont he bottom of the pages to assist you if you didn't have a dice available.
"That said, I cordially invite the people of the world to put their money where their mouth is and STOP ASKING THE UNITED STATES FOR HELP."
We'd love to.
As soon as the United States stops causing much of the world's problems by meddling in other countries' affairs to the United States' benefit.
You seem to be deluded into thinking that the US Government gives so much in free aid to the world.
How much aid does the US government give?What percentage of its output goes to 'charity'?
How does that compare with other countries like oh...I dunno..let's say Japan.
Beuller? Anyone? Anyone?
What if MathWorks went out of business? Without a backup you would not be able to use the software.
You also mentioned that you had to 'convince' Mathworks to send you a replacement disc, implying that this isn't a straightforward and easy task.
In addition you had to pay for the privilege of continuing to use your software.
if you had been able to backup the original CD and were using that backup instead of the original you would have had none of the above problems.
If they make a mount cost 1000 dollars then you get someone playing a month to get that money. That's a month extra that you've hooked that person for, that's an extra month's worth of subscription fees if you work off the assumption that if he gets the mount in less time, plays around with it a bit he might just move on.
If a level 20 player needs to gather 100 gold, and it takes the average casual player (the majority) two weeks to do that, then you've stretched out level 20 just that much longer, meaning just that much more you've increased that subscribers 'game lifetime'.
A lot of the difficulty of these titles is not totally 'Fun' based, it is real world profit and economics based as well. Apart from not wanting you to be able to hit level 60 in a week because it won't be 'fun' for you to do that, this will cut into their subscription fee structure. This will cut into profits if there is nothing really to DO at level 60 as compared to levels 1 to 59 and thus people stop playing.It's a balancing act between keeping the player involved over a lengthy period of time and keeping the game fun and fresh. It's like a Soap Opera that stretches 10 minutes worth of plot over two weeks.
So I'm sorry, I'm not upset at people who choose to purchase Gold or items in these games at all.
I'm also not upset at the innovative and ingenious Chinese who see a business oppurtunity and go out and make it happen. The West, including America has fed off of these countries for centuries to enrich themselves.All the Richest Nations of the world were built off the exploitation of blood, sweat and tears from these people. And the economies of the Richest Nations are still driven today by this exploitation. Anything China, India, The Caribbean, Africa and other territories can do to get something back whether it is IT Outsourcing, Oil or what have you then good for them.
And lastly, it has been established as a point of fact that many people would rather pay real cash for an item and get on with gaming than sit grinding or camping for weeks to get that item (And who the hell can blame them!??). So why not build support for this player base into the game? Why not have a player flag where one is either tied to the Game Economy, or Real World Currency?
If you go to a merchant you can purchase a variety of In Game power items at merchants using your Real Money if you wish (you fill up your character's gold on the website with a credit card). This item can only be used by yourself, and cannot be given, or Sold, or Auctioned to another player who has not paid the subscription to use Real World Currency (If developers want to they can charge a buck more per month to enable this feature for players that want it for example).
That's the solution right there. The developer and Publisher make EXTRA money from all these sales, and the Game Economy is protected. Those players that don't want to spend real money now have more access to In Game items, creature spots etc. And those that do want to use Real Money and can afford it can do so whilst still supporting the game's future development and profit of the developers.The two don't interfere with each other, they are kept seperate.
If Grissom the Dwarf has 100RealGold and wishes to buy the Mighty Cleaver of Slicing for 100GameGold, then he does so. The 100RealGold actually costs him 5 bucks US. Trey the Gnome wants to buy the same Mighty Cleaver and instead Mines veins (which are in amazing high supply since no one is farming them) and kills creatures for dropped loot to sell (which are also somehow surprisingly plentiful;-p) and eventually gets his 100 GameGold. If Trey goes to an auction, he can't see the Cleaver of Slicing that Grissom bought, because Grissom isn't allowed to sell the item. So anything that Trey sees on Auction was gotten the old fashioned way. The RealGold option is a purely personal one, for personal use for Grissom. If Grissom does not want to, or simply cannot camp a creature to get that epic level Azkr
I could explain the reasoning for this, but it's straying from the point.
The post was in relation to CSR response, the claim of an integrated network of listening and responding to the playerbase made by NCSoft. I gave two examples when a response was sought by customers, promised by CSR staff, and never delivered.
The post was also to show the contradictions and downright disingenuous responses (in my view) by the CSR staff and Dev staff (would they be one and the same in the case of CoH?) in certain instances.
So I cry PR and SPINNN on the interview ^_^.
I'm just speaking up because I've sunk quite a few hours and dollars into CoH which is an NCSoft game, and I'm not happy with the CSR support so far.
Posting patch notes and patch reports from the development team isn't CSR. CSR is taking the user's concerns and then responding directly to those concerns online.
Good CSR is not just posting an agreement with the happy go lucky posts and having a good time with the Fanbois, and ignoring the people having problems or who are dissatisfied, in my opinon;).
I've played city of heroes for about 6 - 7 months now, gotten a character to level 43 of 50, another to 18 and a few more low level alternate characters. From the time I joined, in each and every issue they have been reducing the power of the Heroes. Issue 5 was perhaps the largest single reduction in power in a game beside SWG. Defense for heroes were reduced by as much as 60% in some cases.Issue 5 altered the playstyle of the entire game, and we as players were told that
1) It was better for us 2) It was how the game was always meant to be played by the development team 3) There would be no more power changes after Issue 5, they were happy with the way things were.
Then came Issue 6. Previously you could slot 6 enhancements in a power, and boost your power by near 200%. So you could get say 200% more damage, enabling you to tackle higher level opponents in the case of stronger character classes,or enable you to survive in a group facing +2 level opponents in the case of weaker character classes. The system was altered in Issue 6 so that you could not use more than 3 enhancements of the same type in a power. So the boost was cut from 200% to 95%. Understand, this affected EVERY single power in the game. If your 6 slotted heal was healing for 3000 before, your 3 slotted heal now heals for 1950 now. THe monsters have stayed the same, or in some cases made more difficult.
Now recall the points above, the final statement issued by develoers/CSR was that There would be no more power changes After Issue 5. Issue 6 introduced this "Enhancement Diversification" which had the final result of reducing all powers, again.
The words from the developers were that they had this working since May 2005, and were just waiting on the right time to introduce it, that Issue 5 had been totally balanced with this change in mind.
And this was the way the game was meant to be played.
Questions by an incredulous player population as to why it took over a year and a half after its release for the game to be changed to 'how it was meant to be played' have not been answered by the CSRs.Of course it also means that those game journalists that gave the game stunning reviews were actually not playing the game 'The way it was meant to be played'.
There was an outcry over Issue 5 (Though most were able to adapt and enjoy it) and now Issue 6. There have been long threads on the official message forums, some of which have never gotten a developer response. You would expect, if you believe the spin from this interview with the NCSoft CSR, that we the paying customers would get a response,even if someone responds with a Negative, "We hear what you're saying, but we are not going to change anything at this time because..." for threads that have been running for months with over 6000 views and hundreds of responses, and several PMs to the message board CSR,especially since the subscriber base and board population of CoH is nothing close to the larger MMORPGs. Less people to deal with, should enable quicker responses and a closer community. Each Archetype for CoH has only just gotten a dedicated CSR point of contact, and some are more active than others in responding to player questions and queries.
I'm opinionated and quite vocal (what? you couldn't tell ?;-) )when I feel passionately about my hobby, and I must say that I really got into CoH (Truly it has no competition in the Superhero Genre) even going so far as to write up an extensive guide for other players (with graphs, a true geek moment ack *_* http://tinyurl.com/bzb7m).So I participated in a lot of these threads.I was going to post a link to the Issue 5 thread as an example, but I see it has been deleted so here's another example:
Another issue is that City of Heroes hides the numbers behind the game. The game uses words like Moderate, Slow,Long to describe powers. However people have accurately checked the numbers using 3rd party stats gathering soft
They are some of the most unethical businesses around.
DOes anyone realise that legally a drug company could have found a good cure for HIV, or Cancer, and decide through profit analysis that it is worth more to them to keep treating the disease rather than cure it. They patent the procedure/enzyme/Gene and then no one else has access to their research, or can produce a product based on that patent.
I wonder what sort of negotiations Taiwan put forward which were rejected by Roche. I wonder what price they put on the drug? Could they not have agreed under very specific circumstances to allow the creation of the drug?
Is it that if there IS a pandemic too bad for the rest of the world if Roche can't produce enough of this drug, at the end of the pandemic they'll make billions so good for them? Is that what it's about?
Human lives too often become reduced to numbers on a profit-loss chart.
I say good for Taiwan.
If the VideoGame industry did not stupidly equate AO games to X Rated Pornography they wouldn't have a problem with games such as San Andreas being rated for adults (18+) only.
The videogame industry wants to be taken as seriously as Hollywood, and wants to have the influence of Hollywood.
(btw...Does Hollywood want this?)
Just as Hollywood got where it is today by bribing officials..err lobbying officials...then the Videogame Industry needs to play that game,pardon the pun, as well.Otherwise it will never be taken seriously.
This Thompson fellow should have never been allowed the credibility he now seems to hold and should have been ridiculed publicly and resoundingly discredited a long long time ago. It's what Hollywood would have done.
Maybe the videogame industry really is just for kids.
Adult Anime is animated sex as well, and that sells and is popular, good storyline or no good storyline.Sex is used in movies quite often, when it would be natural, and in some cases plot specific, for characters to engage in sex. We're not necessarily talking about porn, soft porn, or Basic Instinct here.
The problem is that there is a an aversion by western and specifically American publishers to include any sort of overt sex; and this has to be because they're afraid of the ESRB rating hit, or the backlash from 'activists', it can't be sales since nothing sells more than sex.
The european Gothic II for example,has a 'sex scene' if you decide to use the services of a prostitute.Bad CGI, but it's there, and it fits with that specific game moment.If one were to go by the marketing campaigns,a large part of Sims 2 seems to be getting the characters to 'hook up'.
So sex and sexuality is used to 'market' our games, but they just aren't actually *in* them.
Something like Singles or Playboy Mansion tries to build the game around the sexual premise, but then shows PG13 scenes, so why bother with a game who's main marketing feature seems to be nudity and sex, when there's really no nudity or sex?
I think that the gaming industry needs to grow up and start taking itself as seriously as Hollywood. We know that certain movies aren't for kids, and so too certain games aren't for kids. Mature the stories, mature the plots.
We have enough graphics at this point, time to move on to elements of storytelling, plots and situations that exist naturally in other entertaiment media:Literature, movies, paintings etc., imho.
Giant AntiSpyware has been the leading spyware removal tool that apparently no one ever heard about.
I was using it a few months before Microsoft BOUGHT the company over. ALl Microsoft seems to have done, basically, is rebrand the software.
THe interface, icons, everything looks and functions exactly the same as the Giant Antispyware software that I have currently installed on my home machine.
Giant Antispyware was rated the best AntiSpyware tool by an independent review months ago, and that review came to these same conclusions:
It detected far more Spyware than the other leading AntiSpyware products.
Realistically until the next iteration of Windows, which is Longhorn, we can't hope for any major revamp of the Windows Operating System.
Time will tell if Longhorn addresses security concerns, since all I can see of it is a continuous scaling back of features to meet a ship date and the promise of a 'Patch As You Go' future.But I could be wrong, and it may be the rock solid, secure OS we all want from M$.
Until then, we have a problem:Spyware.
The realistic and practical solution is to offer better and more robust removal and prevention tools to combat the problem now and to educate the 'Average Joe' about the dangers presented by SpyWare and Trojans.
There are dozens of Anti Spyware tools on the market today.
How does MS buying one of them to make the technology widely available to everyone that uses Windows, necessarily imply a loss of Choice???
I really don't see how the impact of MS buying Giant, relates to Oracle purchasing Peoplesoft. There are far far more competitors for Anti-Spyware than CRMs.It's two completely different markets
.
I honestly don't see why this is a bad move for Windows users. The more people, the average users, that start using AntiSpyware tools, the less spyware gets installed and used.
This is just a ridiculous speculation.
You're saying that Microsoft will charge Spammers for the method to defeat the Spyware software they produce.
I'd file this under propaganda at best. If you have proof or even vague knowledge of them doing this, bring it out into the mainstream media and I'm sure you can seriously damage the M$ machine in cost of PR and maybe even a lawsuit or two....So do you have any proof? Or just specious statements trying to compare the Microsoft software company to cigarette and pharmaceutical companies in Japan??
It took FireFox several years to get where it's at today. Firefox proves that alternatives to IE can be successful if done right, and marketed properly.
Microsoft has included Firewall software in the OS, does this mean all third party firewall solutions are going to disappear? I hardly think so.
Giant AntiSpyware was rated as one of the best tools for discovering SpyWare by a recent indpendent review, I've been using it for about three months now and really like it.
My only problem with the Microsoft Acquisition is that I already paid a subscription for Giant Antispyware ^_^
It isn't Cryptic's responsibility to monitor every single superhero character that is created in their game.
If Marvel feels so strongly about its copyrights, then it needs to get in touch with Cryptic and sue each and every person with a hero character which infringes on their IP.
It's like someone posting bits of a book onto Slashdot.org. The Publishers could inform Slashdot that the text is copyrighted, and they would remove it.They could even ban the user account on the request of the Publisher of the book.
Could the Publisher simply sue Slashdot.org for providing the open message forum on which the copyrighted information was posted?
To me it's the same thing.Something like a name is easy to check. You don't want any "Superman"s or "Hulk"s running around your game.
Similarly in Everquest you might not want Drizzt or Gandalf. But if someone makes a Dark Elven character and dresses him in armor similar to Drizzt, with two swords, and acts and talks like Drizzt..can WOTC sue Sony???
Can Sci Fi channel sue LucasArts if Dargo-like characters start showing up in Star Wars Online??
Unless these are company created and controlled characters, how can the company be liable? Marvel should be going after the players themselves who create a Hero that is exactly like Superman,if they want to go after anyone at all.
I think the suit is frivolous, but it will be a blow to the MMORPG industry and fair use rights for consumers, and another blow against public domain rights if the suit gets through. There's no practical way for companies to 'police' this sort of thing.
I've seen motion blur in Unreal Tournament 2004 on an expensive, high quality NEC Multisync 19" 1960NXi. The motion blur effect didn't exactly hamper gameplay, and it is less than noticeable in Warhammer 40,000, or Guild Wars for example. Sacred also runs well without any noticeable motion blur.
I have not tried any interpolated resolutions, as the system is able to push most games at playable rates at 1280x1024 which is the LCD's native resolution.
I am still in two minds about the LCD dilemma. The advantages of them being so easy on the eyes, taking up less deskspace and being easy to carry around hasn't yet outweighed the cons of Motion Blur, possible dead pixels and interpolation at lower resolutions for me.
The LCDs that are rated at 8ms are also not truly 8ms under all conditions. 8ms is a best case scenario.
I would say no. There's no compelling reason to replace a good CRT with an LCD, specifically for gaming.
Slashdot Mirror
We're talking the internet here. Sites and servers can be based anywhere in the world.
Companies can be registered in those territories that do not have such foolish 'Internet Taxes'.
All this will accomplish is to enrich India and other locations that can provide IT service including Bandwidth and decimate the US IT industry.
Another region that can be looked at is the Caribbean territories. Same timezones and most allow for Offshore services.
Why would anyone seek to open a totally E-Commerce based business and base it in the United States when they can open the same business elsewhere and make so much more?
The US seems intent to shoot itself in the foot over the Internet and emerging technologies to the point where soon I can't fathom why US firms would seek to open Internet based businesses.
The US apparently is the only country seeking to tax 'gold' in videogames.Not the earnings made from any real world *sale* of Gold involving true currency, but the actual gold in-game itself.
How utterly ignorant is that? And some are saying that such bills have a good chance of getting passed!
I guess two adults roleplaying in their bedrooms are similarly breaking the law. If a husband and his wife decide to indulge in sexual roleplay in their homes where perhaps she's a school girl and he a teacher or vice versa, then they can expect the German police to break their door down and arrest them for child pornography. This is ridiculous. Just when you think the world can't get any worse, punishing the majority because of the few criminals in our midst, it does. Next we will have people being jailed for years because of 'Virtual Rape', 'Virtual Murder' , 'Virtual Fraud','Virtual Robbery'. You think situations like this can only arise in doomsday Science Fiction novels. Seriously, someone should test the system by complaining that someone robbed them of a necklace in Second Life or 'unlawfully' killed them in World of Warcraft (griefing becomes a crime punishable with two months confinement *smirk*), they might actually be able to get the person locked up as though they had actually performed a crime in the real world. Would having a MMORPG which expressly bans people under 18 from playing solve these issues? Now won't that be just great?
I'd like to see the results of this study after the subjects have viewed The Fast And The Furious 1 and 2. It's amazing that Violent and sexual movies are a-ok but games are seemingly always held to a higher standard. Books are also fair game for the most pornographic and violently graphic scenes, and are available for all.
I've had horrible experiences with Alienware and won't recommend the machines. My system shipped with the wrong video cards, two 7800GTs in SLI instead of two 7800GTXs. The system has a X-Fi Elite Pro in it, but Alienware does not have the Software Installation CD (with all the little goodies included). So, if I want to reinstall a single item of creative software I need to either Respawn the entire system (Completely wipe everything) or pay Creative 25US$ to have a CD Shipped to me. The system itself came with old Nforce drivers, and efforts to install new drivers failed. Alienware tech support told me not to worry if the driver update seems not to have worked, I don't need it anyway. The system shipped with numerous systems switched off or not configured optimally. The HP CD Label Writer burner didn't have the software installed to burn labels and I had to download it separately. It was certainly not the experience I expected for a >6000US$, Flagship Alienware ALX system. The Alienware 'Adrenaline' (This is just Powerstrip) video card optimizer causes crashes, and I had to turn it off. Although the system is supposed to be 'Water Cooled' I still have to have all three fans running otherwise case temp hits 43degrees celcius. With the fans on it hovers at around 32 degrees celcius. And thus, I will never again recommend nor will I ever purchase a machine from them again.
Why not just purchase the PhysX solution? I though that the ATI/Nvidia solution would somehow just take advantage of your existing hardware. I didn't realise that if you had an SLI solution you would still need to install an extra PCI card.
Choose your own adventure was ok, but what I really liked was the Avenger series - Avenger , Usurper etc. from the The Way Of The Tiger series. This was based on Ninjas and martial Arts, and mixed the whole idea of choosing your path with dice based combat against opponents. That added a whole other dimension to this style of book that totally thrilled me as a kid. It seems these books were republished in 1998. I rank these as head and shoulders above other similar Choose Your Own Adventure style books...although..thinking about it there was yet another set which involved dice combat, set in a traditional Fantasy realm. I seem to recall a grid of some sort...gah. Can't remember the name. I think there were random numbers ont he bottom of the pages to assist you if you didn't have a dice available.
"That said, I cordially invite the people of the world to put their money where their mouth is and STOP ASKING THE UNITED STATES FOR HELP." We'd love to. As soon as the United States stops causing much of the world's problems by meddling in other countries' affairs to the United States' benefit. You seem to be deluded into thinking that the US Government gives so much in free aid to the world. How much aid does the US government give?What percentage of its output goes to 'charity'? How does that compare with other countries like oh...I dunno..let's say Japan. Beuller? Anyone? Anyone?
What if MathWorks went out of business? Without a backup you would not be able to use the software. You also mentioned that you had to 'convince' Mathworks to send you a replacement disc, implying that this isn't a straightforward and easy task. In addition you had to pay for the privilege of continuing to use your software. if you had been able to backup the original CD and were using that backup instead of the original you would have had none of the above problems.
If they make a mount cost 1000 dollars then you get someone playing a month to get that money. That's a month extra that you've hooked that person for, that's an extra month's worth of subscription fees if you work off the assumption that if he gets the mount in less time, plays around with it a bit he might just move on.
;-p) and eventually gets his 100 GameGold. If Trey goes to an auction, he can't see the Cleaver of Slicing that Grissom bought, because Grissom isn't allowed to sell the item. So anything that Trey sees on Auction was gotten the old fashioned way.
If a level 20 player needs to gather 100 gold, and it takes the average casual player (the majority) two weeks to do that, then you've stretched out level 20 just that much longer, meaning just that much more you've increased that subscribers 'game lifetime'.
A lot of the difficulty of these titles is not totally 'Fun' based, it is real world profit and economics based as well. Apart from not wanting you to be able to hit level 60 in a week because it won't be 'fun' for you to do that, this will cut into their subscription fee structure. This will cut into profits if there is nothing really to DO at level 60 as compared to levels 1 to 59 and thus people stop playing.It's a balancing act between keeping the player involved over a lengthy period of time and keeping the game fun and fresh. It's like a Soap Opera that stretches 10 minutes worth of plot over two weeks.
So I'm sorry, I'm not upset at people who choose to purchase Gold or items in these games at all.
I'm also not upset at the innovative and ingenious Chinese who see a business oppurtunity and go out and make it happen. The West, including America has fed off of these countries for centuries to enrich themselves.All the Richest Nations of the world were built off the exploitation of blood, sweat and tears from these people. And the economies of the Richest Nations are still driven today by this exploitation. Anything China, India, The Caribbean, Africa and other territories can do to get something back whether it is IT Outsourcing, Oil or what have you then good for them.
And lastly, it has been established as a point of fact that many people would rather pay real cash for an item and get on with gaming than sit grinding or camping for weeks to get that item (And who the hell can blame them!??). So why not build support for this player base into the game? Why not have a player flag where one is either tied to the Game Economy, or Real World Currency?
If you go to a merchant you can purchase a variety of In Game power items at merchants using your Real Money if you wish (you fill up your character's gold on the website with a credit card). This item can only be used by yourself, and cannot be given, or Sold, or Auctioned to another player who has not paid the subscription to use Real World Currency (If developers want to they can charge a buck more per month to enable this feature for players that want it for example).
That's the solution right there. The developer and Publisher make EXTRA money from all these sales, and the Game Economy is protected. Those players that don't want to spend real money now have more access to In Game items, creature spots etc. And those that do want to use Real Money and can afford it can do so whilst still supporting the game's future development and profit of the developers.The two don't interfere with each other, they are kept seperate.
If Grissom the Dwarf has 100RealGold and wishes to buy the Mighty Cleaver of Slicing for 100GameGold, then he does so. The 100RealGold actually costs him 5 bucks US.
Trey the Gnome wants to buy the same Mighty Cleaver and instead Mines veins (which are in amazing high supply since no one is farming them) and kills creatures for dropped loot to sell (which are also somehow surprisingly plentiful
The RealGold option is a purely personal one, for personal use for Grissom. If Grissom does not want to, or simply cannot camp a creature to get that epic level Azkr
I could explain the reasoning for this, but it's straying from the point. The post was in relation to CSR response, the claim of an integrated network of listening and responding to the playerbase made by NCSoft. I gave two examples when a response was sought by customers, promised by CSR staff, and never delivered. The post was also to show the contradictions and downright disingenuous responses (in my view) by the CSR staff and Dev staff (would they be one and the same in the case of CoH?) in certain instances. So I cry PR and SPINNN on the interview ^_^. I'm just speaking up because I've sunk quite a few hours and dollars into CoH which is an NCSoft game, and I'm not happy with the CSR support so far. Posting patch notes and patch reports from the development team isn't CSR. CSR is taking the user's concerns and then responding directly to those concerns online. Good CSR is not just posting an agreement with the happy go lucky posts and having a good time with the Fanbois, and ignoring the people having problems or who are dissatisfied, in my opinon ;).
I've played city of heroes for about 6 - 7 months now, gotten a character to level 43 of 50, another to 18 and a few more low level alternate characters.
;-) )when I feel passionately about my hobby, and I must say that I really got into CoH (Truly it has no competition in the Superhero Genre) even going so far as to write up an extensive guide for other players (with graphs, a true geek moment ack *_* http://tinyurl.com/bzb7m) .So I participated in a lot of these threads.I was going to post a link to the Issue 5 thread as an example, but I see it has been deleted so here's another example:
From the time I joined, in each and every issue they have been reducing the power of the Heroes. Issue 5 was perhaps the largest single reduction in power in a game beside SWG. Defense for heroes were reduced by as much as 60% in some cases.Issue 5 altered the playstyle of the entire game, and we as players were told that
1) It was better for us
2) It was how the game was always meant to be played by the development team
3) There would be no more power changes after Issue 5, they were happy with the way things were.
Then came Issue 6.
Previously you could slot 6 enhancements in a power, and boost your power by near 200%. So you could get say 200% more damage, enabling you to tackle higher level opponents in the case of stronger character classes,or enable you to survive in a group facing +2 level opponents in the case of weaker character classes. The system was altered in Issue 6 so that you could not use more than 3 enhancements of the same type in a power. So the boost was cut from 200% to 95%. Understand, this affected EVERY single power in the game. If your 6 slotted heal was healing for 3000 before, your 3 slotted heal now heals for 1950 now. THe monsters have stayed the same, or in some cases made more difficult.
Now recall the points above, the final statement issued by develoers/CSR was that There would be no more power changes After Issue 5. Issue 6 introduced this "Enhancement Diversification" which had the final result of reducing all powers, again.
The words from the developers were that they had this working since May 2005, and were just waiting on the right time to introduce it, that Issue 5 had been totally balanced with this change in mind.
And this was the way the game was meant to be played.
Questions by an incredulous player population as to why it took over a year and a half after its release for the game to be changed to 'how it was meant to be played' have not been answered by the CSRs.Of course it also means that those game journalists that gave the game stunning reviews were actually not playing the game 'The way it was meant to be played'.
There was an outcry over Issue 5 (Though most were able to adapt and enjoy it) and now Issue 6. There have been long threads on the official message forums, some of which have never gotten a developer response. You would expect, if you believe the spin from this interview with the NCSoft CSR, that we the paying customers would get a response,even if someone responds with a Negative, "We hear what you're saying, but we are not going to change anything at this time because..." for threads that have been running for months with over 6000 views and hundreds of responses, and several PMs to the message board CSR,especially since the subscriber base and board population of CoH is nothing close to the larger MMORPGs. Less people to deal with, should enable quicker responses and a closer community. Each Archetype for CoH has only just gotten a dedicated CSR point of contact, and some are more active than others in responding to player questions and queries.
I'm opinionated and quite vocal (what? you couldn't tell ?
Another issue is that City of Heroes hides the numbers behind the game. The game uses words like Moderate, Slow,Long to describe powers. However people have accurately checked the numbers using 3rd party stats gathering soft
They are some of the most unethical businesses around. DOes anyone realise that legally a drug company could have found a good cure for HIV, or Cancer, and decide through profit analysis that it is worth more to them to keep treating the disease rather than cure it. They patent the procedure/enzyme/Gene and then no one else has access to their research, or can produce a product based on that patent. I wonder what sort of negotiations Taiwan put forward which were rejected by Roche. I wonder what price they put on the drug? Could they not have agreed under very specific circumstances to allow the creation of the drug? Is it that if there IS a pandemic too bad for the rest of the world if Roche can't produce enough of this drug, at the end of the pandemic they'll make billions so good for them? Is that what it's about? Human lives too often become reduced to numbers on a profit-loss chart. I say good for Taiwan.
Until this is on CNN and major news media worldwide, the EFF isn't doing enough in 'De-constructing' anything.
If the VideoGame industry did not stupidly equate AO games to X Rated Pornography they wouldn't have a problem with games such as San Andreas being rated for adults (18+) only. The videogame industry wants to be taken as seriously as Hollywood, and wants to have the influence of Hollywood. (btw...Does Hollywood want this?) Just as Hollywood got where it is today by bribing officials..err lobbying officials...then the Videogame Industry needs to play that game,pardon the pun, as well.Otherwise it will never be taken seriously. This Thompson fellow should have never been allowed the credibility he now seems to hold and should have been ridiculed publicly and resoundingly discredited a long long time ago. It's what Hollywood would have done. Maybe the videogame industry really is just for kids.
Adult Anime is animated sex as well, and that sells and is popular, good storyline or no good storyline.Sex is used in movies quite often, when it would be natural, and in some cases plot specific, for characters to engage in sex. We're not necessarily talking about porn, soft porn, or Basic Instinct here.
:Literature, movies, paintings etc., imho.
The problem is that there is a an aversion by western and specifically American publishers to include any sort of overt sex; and this has to be because they're afraid of the ESRB rating hit, or the backlash from 'activists', it can't be sales since nothing sells more than sex.
The european Gothic II for example,has a 'sex scene' if you decide to use the services of a prostitute.Bad CGI, but it's there, and it fits with that specific game moment.If one were to go by the marketing campaigns,a large part of Sims 2 seems to be getting the characters to 'hook up'.
So sex and sexuality is used to 'market' our games, but they just aren't actually *in* them.
Something like Singles or Playboy Mansion tries to build the game around the sexual premise, but then shows PG13 scenes, so why bother with a game who's main marketing feature seems to be nudity and sex, when there's really no nudity or sex?
I think that the gaming industry needs to grow up and start taking itself as seriously as Hollywood. We know that certain movies aren't for kids, and so too certain games aren't for kids. Mature the stories, mature the plots.
We have enough graphics at this point, time to move on to elements of storytelling, plots and situations that exist naturally in other entertaiment media
Giant AntiSpyware has been the leading spyware removal tool that apparently no one ever heard about. I was using it a few months before Microsoft BOUGHT the company over. ALl Microsoft seems to have done, basically, is rebrand the software. THe interface, icons, everything looks and functions exactly the same as the Giant Antispyware software that I have currently installed on my home machine. Giant Antispyware was rated the best AntiSpyware tool by an independent review months ago, and that review came to these same conclusions: It detected far more Spyware than the other leading AntiSpyware products.
You're talking about an ideal situation.
Realistically until the next iteration of Windows, which is Longhorn, we can't hope for any major revamp of the Windows Operating System.
Time will tell if Longhorn addresses security concerns, since all I can see of it is a continuous scaling back of features to meet a ship date and the promise of a 'Patch As You Go' future.But I could be wrong, and it may be the rock solid, secure OS we all want from M$.
Until then, we have a problem:Spyware.
The realistic and practical solution is to offer better and more robust removal and prevention tools to combat the problem now and to educate the 'Average Joe' about the dangers presented by SpyWare and Trojans.
There are dozens of Anti Spyware tools on the market today. How does MS buying one of them to make the technology widely available to everyone that uses Windows, necessarily imply a loss of Choice??? I really don't see how the impact of MS buying Giant, relates to Oracle purchasing Peoplesoft. There are far far more competitors for Anti-Spyware than CRMs.It's two completely different markets . I honestly don't see why this is a bad move for Windows users. The more people, the average users, that start using AntiSpyware tools, the less spyware gets installed and used.
This is just a ridiculous speculation. You're saying that Microsoft will charge Spammers for the method to defeat the Spyware software they produce. I'd file this under propaganda at best. If you have proof or even vague knowledge of them doing this, bring it out into the mainstream media and I'm sure you can seriously damage the M$ machine in cost of PR and maybe even a lawsuit or two. ...So do you have any proof? Or just specious statements trying to compare the Microsoft software company to cigarette and pharmaceutical companies in Japan??
It took FireFox several years to get where it's at today. Firefox proves that alternatives to IE can be successful if done right, and marketed properly. Microsoft has included Firewall software in the OS, does this mean all third party firewall solutions are going to disappear? I hardly think so. Giant AntiSpyware was rated as one of the best tools for discovering SpyWare by a recent indpendent review, I've been using it for about three months now and really like it. My only problem with the Microsoft Acquisition is that I already paid a subscription for Giant Antispyware ^_^
It isn't Cryptic's responsibility to monitor every single superhero character that is created in their game. If Marvel feels so strongly about its copyrights, then it needs to get in touch with Cryptic and sue each and every person with a hero character which infringes on their IP. It's like someone posting bits of a book onto Slashdot.org. The Publishers could inform Slashdot that the text is copyrighted, and they would remove it.They could even ban the user account on the request of the Publisher of the book. Could the Publisher simply sue Slashdot.org for providing the open message forum on which the copyrighted information was posted? To me it's the same thing.Something like a name is easy to check. You don't want any "Superman"s or "Hulk"s running around your game. Similarly in Everquest you might not want Drizzt or Gandalf. But if someone makes a Dark Elven character and dresses him in armor similar to Drizzt, with two swords, and acts and talks like Drizzt..can WOTC sue Sony??? Can Sci Fi channel sue LucasArts if Dargo-like characters start showing up in Star Wars Online?? Unless these are company created and controlled characters, how can the company be liable? Marvel should be going after the players themselves who create a Hero that is exactly like Superman,if they want to go after anyone at all. I think the suit is frivolous, but it will be a blow to the MMORPG industry and fair use rights for consumers, and another blow against public domain rights if the suit gets through. There's no practical way for companies to 'police' this sort of thing.
I've seen motion blur in Unreal Tournament 2004 on an expensive, high quality NEC Multisync 19" 1960NXi. The motion blur effect didn't exactly hamper gameplay, and it is less than noticeable in Warhammer 40,000, or Guild Wars for example. Sacred also runs well without any noticeable motion blur. I have not tried any interpolated resolutions, as the system is able to push most games at playable rates at 1280x1024 which is the LCD's native resolution. I am still in two minds about the LCD dilemma. The advantages of them being so easy on the eyes, taking up less deskspace and being easy to carry around hasn't yet outweighed the cons of Motion Blur, possible dead pixels and interpolation at lower resolutions for me. The LCDs that are rated at 8ms are also not truly 8ms under all conditions. 8ms is a best case scenario. I would say no. There's no compelling reason to replace a good CRT with an LCD, specifically for gaming.