they found a bug in some software...added-on by Microsoft So what you're saying is, someone found a bug in a Microsoft product. Thanks for clarifying that for me.
In this situation you would be the one implementing the DRM on your own house, so if your own protection locked you out every other day, that'd be your own fault. A proper analogy would be if the faulty DRM on your house kept people out of your house that you were trying to let in.
I don't think that DRM is that bad of a thing, with the massive caveat that must be properly implemented. Publicly traded corporations owe it to their investors to try and protect their assets. I agree with you though in that most DRM is implemented poorly, and ends up screwing over the legitimate end user. I do think it does prevent some level of piracy though. When was the last time you and your friends swapped software binders for the weekend?
I take it you don't bother locking your doors or windows either? Don't use a firewall on your home network? Simple passwords on your bank account? I mean afterall, if someone really wants to break in/hack your pc/take all your $ they will, and those that don't want to won't, right?
Holy crap, someone found a bug in a Microsoft product! Stop the presses!
Does anyone actually believe this is anything really intentional? I know it's Microsoft we're talking about, but it seriously just sounds like a bug in their activation/authentication system (Microsoft products have bugs sometimes, right?). If it was actually working as intended, it'd at least prompt him to purchase Visio instead of Office. This guy can't be the only guy who's tried to do this. File a bug report and try back tomorrow.
When you mention Meridian 59... The answer is a resounding 'who?'. Etc... Etc... Really? Because when I mention M59 to my friends, they know exactly what I'm talking about, and what that game did for the genre. Just because you or your friends don't know the classics, or any history of the genre, doesn't mean the game was any less significant.
Outside of gaming circles, who really knows much of anything about UO anyway? The only thing I've seen outside of gaming sites/news was the first ebayed character. And hilariously, the article quickly goes from a UO story to an EQ story.
By your definitions, are you sure UO was even that big of a success? Seems like Everquest was really the first of the genre to hit big news.
So you read some Microsoft press releases and decided to drop thousands of dollars on a platform without further research? You didn't look into the availability of programs before making the switch? Your developers didn't look at a basic tutorial to.NET compact framework? You didn't read reviews on the phone to check its stability? Now that's what I call planning! By the way, I've got a bridge for sale if you want to take a look...
I dunno, maybe because (presumably) there's a gorgeous game world to take in? Even WoW's graphics manage to produce some pretty immersive environments. That's kind of the point of playing a graphical game over a text based MUD.
It doesn't bother me when males play female avatars, but I've never bought into this argument. If you're spending that much time staring at your avatar's backside, then you're not paying attention to everything else going on. Oh, and the cloak/cape prevalent in most MMOGs these days cover your avatar's backside. But maybe it's the 8 years of playing MMOGs (instead of staring at my avatar) talking.
You'll probably want to start off with a google image search. Make sure safesearch is off so you can get the most thorough research done as fast as possible.
/bring eye bleach //and brain bleach ///is it national Fark.com day?
I don't see how this is huge news, it's pretty much the same for hacked HTC (running WM) phones...of course they've been hacked quite a bit more. After applying custom firmwares to the phone, if you want to go back to an official release there are several downgrading steps that need to be done. Directly applying an official update can seriously screw it up, but that's not HTC's fault.
Welcome to the world of custom firmware Apple fans!
If you're cracking top secret defense systems codes, I don't know if it's the DMCA that I'd be terribly worried about. Also, this happened in the 80s (DMCA was 1996) and it occurred in Australia.
People could ALREADY play each other online. It didn't enable anything that they already didn't have. So aside from the whole CD key thing, what was the point of bnetd again? Not trying to troll, I just never used it, and the wiki page only gives a few minor reasons.
Why not? That's how I learned to format a computer, and arguably why I started tinkering deeper into computers in the first place. Not really for the end result, but just to see if I could get around it. Parental controls + teenage angst = future geek!
Say it with me, "Guild Wars is not an MMO". If you want to claim that GW figured this out ages ago, then I'm going to claim Battlenet did it before. One huge chatroom with instances.
With the instances the developers know pretty much how much processing power they'll need, since there's only so much that can go into one instance at a time. I'm not saying it's easy to figure out, but knowing that only 6 or 7 people (can't remember what it is in GW) per instance means you can limit the processing power required to run that area. I'm guessing they could send that instance off to which ever server has the resources to do it as well.
This is a convenience MMOs don't have. You have 10s of 100s of zones, and at any one point in time 200+ people could decide to gather in any one of them. There are a very limited number of areas in GW where there could be that many people at any one time. Easy to predict. Not as easy in a MMO. That's the problem this article is trying to address.
Remember that scene in "Hackers" where they're 'flying' through the contents of the Gibson? That was just a video capture of some day trader dumping his MS stock.
That must have been a long time ago...I'm still using the MS keyboard that came with a CTX computer I picked up about 10 years ago. One of the only MS products that's withstood the test of time.
Slashdot Mirror
Is SGI in CF still open? I thought that closed ages ago...
/from EC
Ouch, is that you BadAnalogyGuy?
In this situation you would be the one implementing the DRM on your own house, so if your own protection locked you out every other day, that'd be your own fault. A proper analogy would be if the faulty DRM on your house kept people out of your house that you were trying to let in.
I don't think that DRM is that bad of a thing, with the massive caveat that must be properly implemented. Publicly traded corporations owe it to their investors to try and protect their assets. I agree with you though in that most DRM is implemented poorly, and ends up screwing over the legitimate end user. I do think it does prevent some level of piracy though. When was the last time you and your friends swapped software binders for the weekend?
I take it you don't bother locking your doors or windows either? Don't use a firewall on your home network? Simple passwords on your bank account? I mean afterall, if someone really wants to break in/hack your pc/take all your $ they will, and those that don't want to won't, right?
Holy crap, someone found a bug in a Microsoft product! Stop the presses!
Does anyone actually believe this is anything really intentional? I know it's Microsoft we're talking about, but it seriously just sounds like a bug in their activation/authentication system (Microsoft products have bugs sometimes, right?). If it was actually working as intended, it'd at least prompt him to purchase Visio instead of Office. This guy can't be the only guy who's tried to do this. File a bug report and try back tomorrow.
So you're saying the only reason UO has survived is because people stopped paying EA for upkeep of the game?
Outside of gaming circles, who really knows much of anything about UO anyway? The only thing I've seen outside of gaming sites/news was the first ebayed character. And hilariously, the article quickly goes from a UO story to an EQ story.
By your definitions, are you sure UO was even that big of a success? Seems like Everquest was really the first of the genre to hit big news.
You realize that the people who made Diku publicly stated they didn't believe the rumor that EQ stole code from them, right?
So you read some Microsoft press releases and decided to drop thousands of dollars on a platform without further research? You didn't look into the availability of programs before making the switch? Your developers didn't look at a basic tutorial to .NET compact framework? You didn't read reviews on the phone to check its stability? Now that's what I call planning! By the way, I've got a bridge for sale if you want to take a look...
I dunno, maybe because (presumably) there's a gorgeous game world to take in? Even WoW's graphics manage to produce some pretty immersive environments. That's kind of the point of playing a graphical game over a text based MUD.
It doesn't bother me when males play female avatars, but I've never bought into this argument. If you're spending that much time staring at your avatar's backside, then you're not paying attention to everything else going on. Oh, and the cloak/cape prevalent in most MMOGs these days cover your avatar's backside. But maybe it's the 8 years of playing MMOGs (instead of staring at my avatar) talking.
You'll probably want to start off with a google image search. Make sure safesearch is off so you can get the most thorough research done as fast as possible.
/bring eye bleach
//and brain bleach
///is it national Fark.com day?
Why wouldn't you want the ability to update the bootloader?
Ruh roh, for once I actually agree with you.
I don't see how this is huge news, it's pretty much the same for hacked HTC (running WM) phones...of course they've been hacked quite a bit more. After applying custom firmwares to the phone, if you want to go back to an official release there are several downgrading steps that need to be done. Directly applying an official update can seriously screw it up, but that's not HTC's fault.
Welcome to the world of custom firmware Apple fans!
If you're cracking top secret defense systems codes, I don't know if it's the DMCA that I'd be terribly worried about. Also, this happened in the 80s (DMCA was 1996) and it occurred in Australia.
No, that's the jar. I'm talking about the tray, the pennies for google!
Why not? That's how I learned to format a computer, and arguably why I started tinkering deeper into computers in the first place. Not really for the end result, but just to see if I could get around it. Parental controls + teenage angst = future geek!
So you're saying that Hackers was a far greater atrocity to geeks everywhere than Episode 1 was? Really?
Here, just type in your address and call the first number that comes up. They'll help you out of your mom's basement.
Say it with me, "Guild Wars is not an MMO". If you want to claim that GW figured this out ages ago, then I'm going to claim Battlenet did it before. One huge chatroom with instances.
With the instances the developers know pretty much how much processing power they'll need, since there's only so much that can go into one instance at a time. I'm not saying it's easy to figure out, but knowing that only 6 or 7 people (can't remember what it is in GW) per instance means you can limit the processing power required to run that area. I'm guessing they could send that instance off to which ever server has the resources to do it as well.
This is a convenience MMOs don't have. You have 10s of 100s of zones, and at any one point in time 200+ people could decide to gather in any one of them. There are a very limited number of areas in GW where there could be that many people at any one time. Easy to predict. Not as easy in a MMO. That's the problem this article is trying to address.
Remember that scene in "Hackers" where they're 'flying' through the contents of the Gibson? That was just a video capture of some day trader dumping his MS stock.
That must have been a long time ago...I'm still using the MS keyboard that came with a CTX computer I picked up about 10 years ago. One of the only MS products that's withstood the test of time.
I look forward to the day when I hear Madden on TV yelling "Boom! HEADSHOT!"
Been to a place that sells soda recently? I'm guessing PepsiCo didn't make a new (arguably disgusting) flavor of Mountain Dew for free.