I have not played every MMO out there but I think I represent the weekend warrior type casual gamer. I've played Final Fantasy XI, WoW and RF Online. I currently play WoW religiously, but still stay more to the casual side of things.
My main question is...
What does Warhammer online have that will make me want to put my WoW account on hold? I know most developers will say I am comparing apples to oranges. Whatever, I like the fact that I can log into a game, spend an hour in it and get something productive done. FFXI was fun up to a point, great community. The game lacks a good PvP aspect as well as not enough soloing content. You need to be in a party 90% of the time after level 20. RF Online, well that was a grind fest. you had to spend more time leveling a skill rather than your physical level which means you won't see any major content for a long time. PvP in that game was way too unbalanced. You needed to be in groups to take down an individual at times. Where in WoW you can go toe-to-toe with another player and have the chance to win (yes even if the player is better geared then you). Now there are classes that can easily take other classes, that just makes sense. For instance Warrior vs Rogue (plate vs leather). Warrior hits harder than the rogue so the battle falls to skill. In any case, that is the question... What will make the WoW player want to split up his/her time to play WAR.
Pay close attention to the wording about the advertising technology servers being located outside the US and EU, some countries have certain laws in regards to such information transfer. For instance the agency can compile a list of ISPs and therefore send this information to say a 3rd party marketing company that practices outside England and generate SPAM to customers of those ISPs. Sure the RBLs can protect against this but the information is still obtained without my consent. And to say I concede to this information being released because I paid for this game, well thats crap.
As for other posts about being able to block this information using firewalls, well its possible that the information will use the same port(s) that the online multiplayer feature will use. So if you block those ports (since that is what most broadband routers can only do), you won't be able to play the game with the purpose you intended. There is a non-multiplayer part of the game, but really, why they hell would I buy a game like this and only play the non-multiplayer side? Hell I don't think I ever played the storyline games for RB6:D
Good luck to whoever buys this, I will wait to see what happens before making a final decision, not to mention waiting for bugs to be fixed.
Ok yes that is sarcasm, so if you are truly a legitimate business wouldn't you probably have more to your own website other than just your whining about the injustices of a RBL company putting you on the list??? Anyway as a system admin, I am not saddened by this story one bit. Maybe Lindhart should have thought out their marketing practices better. People hate spam! Maybe focus that marketing money to an actual website and pump the money into getting it recognized by search engines better.
As far as the lawyer, well, I won't get into my feelings on lawyers, in most cases they are right down their with spammers and tape worms.
Here is a copy of what Spamhaus.org has on them: ----------------------- 63.78.194.0/24 is listed on the Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database as being assigned to, under the control of, or providing service to a known professional spam operation run by Brian Haberstroh / Atriks. e360Insight : bargaindepot.net / bargainshoppecorp.com See also: SBL45648, SBL45649
www.bargaindepot.net. 3600 IN A 63.78.194.2 bargaindepot.net. 3600 IN NS ns12.bargaindepot.net. ns12.bargaindepot.net. 172800 IN A 63.78.194.2
CustName: E360INSIGHT, LLC Address: 427 S LA SALLE ST Address: FL 4 City: CHICAGO StateProv: IL PostalCode: 60605-1029 Country: US RegDate: 2005-01-27 Updated: 2005-01-27
NetRange: 63.78.194.0 - 63.78.194.255 CIDR: 63.78.194.0/24 NetName: UU-63-78-194-D8 NetHandle: NET-63-78-194-0-1 Parent: NET-63-64-0-0-1 NetType: Reassigned Comment: Addresses within this block are non-portable. RegDate: 2005-01-27 Updated: 2005-01-27 -------------------
So maybe they should review their business practices. boo frickin hoo hoo!
Thats what warrantees are for. Heres the thing, 9 times out of 10 a home user's PC will be out of warrantee, its good to keep up on the current prices of the major brands so that you can evaluate how much it would cost for that customer to keep the out-of-warrantee PC running. If a motherboard type item goes and it isn't warranteed, I would explain to the customer that it would most likely cost them less money to buy a new PC. Also always try to push the 3yr warrantees, for the most part you may not have any problems during the first year, but during year 2 or 3 you may (wear & tear).
Most Dell systems with warrantees are not to hard to get parts for you just need to memorize their script so you know what questions to answer yes to. Hell if its under warrantee and they have the at home service then tell your client that you can make the call to Dell but have Dell come out and replace the part since the client has paid for that already (unless its a hard drive:D)
I personally do not waste my free time working on people's home PCs since most home users won't want to pay for something to be done right. Or they refuse to buy a new PC even though their 8+ year old Windows ME PC "is just fine, but needs a little help"
But in any case you are getting into a difficult market, and the hardest part will be building a client base. Also one thing I can suggest is, when taking on a client you may want to throw in the offer of helping them with not just their current problem but to make sure it doesn't happen again, even toss them a bit of training. Sure you may shoot yourself in the foot, but that way they will call your for bigger issues rather than for small issues like "my printer won't work."
The company I work for has a number of medium size businesses. Some of the higher ups at these companies have us go to their homes from time to time. I've become the default engineer for a president's home and he has 3 buildings all of which are networked one way or another. Every so often I go out there for a half day or so to make sure the PCs are updated with patches and AV definitions. Fix a couple small things here and there as well. But the one thing he has asked me to do is to make suggestions that could improve their home network. Since then I've had him put his network equipment on the UPS (small personal one), install multiple wireless access points so that the laptop users in the family can move around freely and had him purchase multiple licenses for Symantec AV so that all the PCs run similar programs. Still haven't suggested a Sonicwall appliance but I think it would be overkill:D Oh and this isn't moonlighting, he actually sends the company a check for this.
Good luck and the best thing you can do is be honest with people, quantity of clients is not as good as quality (repeat business).
Not true at all. Flew out of Bradley in CT 2 weeks ago and while my wife and I waited to board, I plopped down on the floor in the terminal and checked/.:D Worked great. There were a number of us there doing that and Bradley even has outlets in the floor so you can wait in your lines at Southwest and not use your battery. Signal was good too.
We flew into Orlando and on our way back to Hartford I hopped on to the Orlando WiFi in the terminal. In both situations I had no problem getting my laptop through the security check points. And used it without a problem on the flight to and from.
Sort of don't agree fully with this, of course they do it to make money, that is why you go into business of any kind. Duh! But the key is to make something that everyone will want to play, and sure the ideas come from other places but it comes down to who does it better. To tell you the truth, other than Starcraft, WoW was the 2nd game I played from Blizzard, since then I've purchased WC3 just to get down all the background lore and thought the game itself was fun! I do now own the diablo game chest but only played it for about 10 mins or so.
Anyway back to WoW, before WoW I played FFXI - that is a game for people who have time and static groups of players. WoW is a great game because I still consider myself a casual gamer, even thought I play an average of 2-3 hours / night during the week and 20+ hours on the weekend. I have a 60 and a number of 20+ toons with a second 60 in the works, my first 60 I still haven't to this day gone into the 40 man raids. Mainly because of the times that groups I know are doing them. But if I don't want to raid, I can jump into a BG and work my way through the ranks to get the nice PvP gear. Or I can run a 5 man with some guild mates just for loot. But the one thing I do enjoy doing is exploring new areas. Blizzard has hidden alot of easter eggs in this game and that is something fun to find. For instance in the South eastern corner of Ashenvale has a nifty easter egg from WC3.
Yes they made the game to make money, but I don't think that even they realized the impact of this game. And sure they used ideas from other games/stories to fuel the development. After all Hollywood has been doing it for years but have failed miserably at it in some cases.
As for Storyline, there is a ton of storyline, but you have to look for it, pay attention to the quest descriptions and such. Each major instance has a good amount of lore behind them. Eventually all of this will come together at some point to a battle with the Lich King and the lords of the burning legion. So yes WoW is a continuation to WC3. Will it ever end? Well think of this more as a comic book series rather than a simple story, a good comic never ends, the world is always in peril from some evil being or another. With patch 1.11, we are already battling Kel'Thuzad, so who's the big boss in Burning Crusade? The Lich King? Illidan? The lords of the Burning Legion? Who knows?
Will I ever get a full set of purples?? Probably not, though I am also not killing myself or losing sleep over it. Will I farm like crazy for a flying mount when the time comes?? Hell yeah I will, because I like exploring and there is a ton of places that can be explored but getting to them is the tough part.
This game is not for everyone, in fact the genre itself is not for everyone. But anyone who thinks that this game is a grind is nuts! Its a grind if you want it to be. Play any of the Korean based MMOs and you will see a grind! Play FFXI without a static party and you will see a grind. This game is what Blizzard wanted it to be... Fun! The minute you stop having fun, you should re-evaluate the game or your play style or the guild you are in.
not to be a troll:D And not to pick on Digitrev but I've seen a number of comments come out using games that don't have a PvP enviroment. The argument comes out because who cares if you use a specific skill set/class build whatever to exploit the game in a PvE game? Developers will eventually find out about it and quench it. The real problem comes up when a player is consistently over-powered in a PvP environment by another player not because that player is good at what he does but because they found an exploit with a specific skill build. Developers can't find all the combinations of skills during the intitial run of the game, because they are still humans (I think) and they may not think like you or me. Someone out there may see something that the developer didn't and exploit it.
Also games that are not Online aren't really effected by this debate since the game is set to do one thing and once the game is beaten, thats it. How you get that far whether it be with cheats or pure skill is up to you. But when it affects other customers of the publisher then considerations need to be made to try an balance the playing field or else you start losing customers. Go and use WoW again, there are very few classes that can go toe-to-toe with a warlock other than other warlocks. Is this over-powered? No, since bother factions have warlocks. Just because most classes can't go 1vs1 with them, doesn't mean the game is imbalanced. Now if Shamans or Paladins had the same thing going on then the factions would be imbalanced, since they are (for now)strictly Faction based classes.
sometimes too many choices can hurt not just the game but the player. I'm not a fan of the skill-based MMORPG, someone mentioned early how it can take away from the game itself.
RF Online is pretty much a skilled based game. Granted there are classes to start out with but in order to actually do any real damage and be able to use higher level weapons you also need to level your skill in the use of those weapons. This is done with the stats required to use them. So I hit lv30 I get to change my class from Ranger to either Scout or Gunner. Luckily I get an automatic boost to certain skills depending on which job I go. Scout gets a boost in ranged skill allowing it to use higher level guns while the gunner gets a boost in the racial skill of launchers allowing it to use a higher level launcher (this is the accretian model). Then at lv40 you get to choose your 3rd job/class set, and you get the same choices and stat boosts, but between lv30 and 40 not only are you grinding levels but you are grinding skill as well since in order to use the next set of armor or weapons you need to have a certain amount of defense points/range accuracy/melee etc... I won't even get into using class abilities. But its the same idea.
I've since left that game because it was definately not intended for the casual gamer and frankly got boring as hell with the skill leveling. I've been playing WoW for a couple years now and frankly it keeps me coming back with the simplicity, its almost relaxing to play a couple hours after work. And sure its pretty cookie cutter when it comes to the classes. But it allows me to enjoy the game more and follow the story line. I do like the idea of the talent tree, this does provide some diversity among players and allows them to customize their toon to their play style or even to accomodate guild mates for raids. Lets say I want to melt faces off, so I will most likely pick a priest and go down the shadow talent tree, leveling has been pretty easy up to 37 with this spec. What this also allows for me to do is to get to 60 at which point I can make a choice, stay shadow or put points into holy and become a heal bot, if I want continuous invites for raids, I will go healing. The nice thing about WoW is that you don't have to stay one specific skill set, change anytime you want and play with combinations of talents. Granted with 3 talent trees, eventually everything has been tried. And with the fact that there are so many players, new players can scour the discussion forums for talent builds and try them out. But this still allows for some customization among the classes and even the play style of the gamers.
Final Fantasy XI - played that too before WoW, they used class/sub-class system which I thought was pretty cool. you had the ability to sub any class with your main class. Granted you were limited to only half the level of skills of the sub; for those that don't know, I have a lv60 warrior and lv60 Monk, if I sub the monk with the warior it will be something like this War60/Monk30, so I will only have the skills of a lv30 monk added to my warrior. Now that is usually the popular combo for class and sub. With the newer classes that have been implmented with the Ziliart and Temple I am sure that the possibilities are even greater. I liked this idea because you got to have more variety in your skill. Even to sub a healing class to your melee class for better soloing or just to get invisible spells and such. But FFXI is not a PvP based game so if there is imbalance among the players, its not as much concern as it would be if it was a pvp game. And no the little pvp that FFXI does have does not count;)
I do wish that Blizzard would have introduced new classes in the expansion with the new races rather than just giving the each side the other's faction class (palladin/shaman). But hey who knows how thats going to be turn out. Sorry for the drawn out discussion.
Going to roll with the majority on this one. But combine some things.
He will be banned from any form of electronic device that can connect to the internet. Now the problem will be how he will get his school work done, well we can add that he will only be allowed to use the computers at school and with someone monitoring him. Or he can use a computer but it must be disconnected from the internet. I can get all technical and add the use of content filtering and firewall appliances but simpler the better.
He must also be signed up for an extra-curriculur activity or a form of community service that requires outside activity.
Oh and kiss the video games good-bye!!
Oh and to the guy with the "Reform" idea, screw that it doesn't work, any potential criminal with half a brain can "pretend" to be reformed. If someone does something wrong and they know that rather than getting some form of real punishment, some pencil neck is going to toss him in a low-security psych ward. While there they will "talk" to him about what he has done and try to peel back the layers of his complicated criminal mind to find out that when he was a kid he saw his dog get hit by a car, and thats why he is the way he is. No offense, but I want to see my tax dollars put fear into the hearts of criminals so that if they so much as think of committing a crime they will piss themselves when they remember what happen last time.
Not every place is as good as where you may work. I worked for a school system right out of college and after 4 years there I wasn't making even close to 50K. Though I did have great health insurance, but the downside is out of college I want to soak in as much as I can, after 2 years there was nothing more I was able to do there. The budget would not allow for necessary upgrades and the superintendant and my boss were constantly in pissing matches about technology. Superintendant was so Mac happy she decided to upgrade 3 new schools to all Mac despite the fact that they were all PC and so was the rest of the district. We had a single platform and for a school district, or any other organization, to achieve this, it means easier support in the long wrong. In any case my boss had it, she left and I stayed on to get the new IT director up to speed, unfortunately after about a year of getting him up to speed, he still had no clue. I started looking for new work.
Got offered a job at a local systems support consulting company and after a year I have doubled what I made at the school system! Insurance is ok, but I get a higher travel reimbursement, we have a wellness reimbursement (sign up for the gym I get some coin back) and I work with a bunch of people that all have their own field of specialization so if I don't know how to fix something, someone else does.
Money is fine and dandy, but I took on this field to learn and have fun, if I don't have either of those, then I will burn out and start to despise my job.
One of my first IT jobs was working for the IT Department of a college campus. This was one of the few schools that hired students to do most of the major work. The helpdesk consisted of a full time supervisor and most of the techs were students. The repair dept was also manned by students with a FT supervisor. This was ultimately one of the best jobs I've had during college because it taught many things. Customer Service, knowledge of computers/networks, hell I learned more at this job than I did in my MIS courses. But call centers are a waste of time if you are looking for something bigger. Hell anyone who can read can be a call center tier 1 support tech. I've already learned how to bypass most of them. But nothing pisses me off more when I get that one that refuses to think on their own and insists on finishing the script. I'm thinking to myself "listen buddy, I configure routers, firwalls, servers.. I think I know when my floppy or cd-rom drive is broken so just send me a frickin replacement!!" I know when Dell tried to farm all their support to India, many of their major customers got pissed at the decline in the quality of support so they changed some of their better warranty services to use US call centers again. I love getting a person from Texas!
So just starting out and you want some experience, then look for the in-house support. It is becoming few and far between but many companies would rather have their support handled by employees instead of some outsource. They may bring in outside expertise if needed for projects or 3rd party support for a service or application.
Now I work for a consulting company, on a career level this is great I get work on systems I might have not been able to in my old job as well as the opportunity to further my certs and expand my knowledge.
Well AT&T is now part of SBC (or the other way around). Currently I haven't had to many issues with them nor have I in the years I've had DSL through them, lets hope this merger does not effect that!
Onto WoW, I am with Spud Stud on this, I would LOVE to see what is behind the scenes! I can't imagine having to maintain the farms and farms of servers, and its not just the realm servers, I mean each piece of the realm (instances, continents, battlegrounds) are all managed by a server so to speak. By this design they can take down something without effecting other environments. Also unlike other games, WoW has very limited loading. You can cross all of Kalimdor and not see one load screen, where as in FFXI, the continents are broken up into individual zones the require a load each time the border is crossed.
The other thing they had mentioned was the customer base, hey I am sure they are well aware at how many people will get pissed off if a server goes down. And they are also aware that out of the 6 million subscribers, that server may carry a couple thousand players. That is a very small fraction of the subscribers, you can't please everybody! But in my time of playing WoW on multiple realms, I am happy with the experience. Yeah it sucks not being able to get on sometimes but hey, read a book or dust off an old console game, or pay attention to you wife/husband/significant other.
I think the negatives will never out-weigh the positives of this game. It is fun for the hardcore gamer as well as the casual player. I love running through the burning steppes and firing an aimed shot on some pesky Alliance who thinks they will get my rich thorium vein!! But the game is all good fun and I think thats why it will always win out over the other MMORPGs out there. So take the problems with a grain a salt, it can be worse. I play RF Online and the game is really not all that exciting to play, its a grind but that is how the Korean market is. But its not even a fun grind.
And if you get fed up, you can always go fishing:D
Not all of them do and some hold true to a concept/plot better than others. Lets face it some games are not ment to be movies. Doom is certainly one of them. In every Doom game, you had one goal, kill all the demons!!! That was pretty much it. Now how many movies have you seen where the marines have to land on a planet and investigate strange occurences which lead them to fight beasts of all sorts? hmmmm Alien/Aliens anyone? Most of Hollywood's ideas are regurgations based on previous ideas that did well in other mediums. Books, comics, and video games, these areas are where imagination is still at work. Mainly since the cost to write a story for paperback is far less than that of a motion picture. With the exception of video games which still require man power for the overall development. Video Games are created in much the same manner as a movie since now-a-days you have soundtracks, voice acting even character models based off real people. But when you are making that million dollar action sequence and something screws it up, you just presse delete and start it over. Probably the reason why Hollywood is doing more with green screens than it has ever before (thank you very much Matrix Triology). But its simply with written works because it requires very little to go back and change something. And as far as creating the visual on the environment, it is up to the reader to piece it together using their own imagination.
Unfortunately a majority of these movies do not do the original works justice and really just piss the fans off. But there are some that the stories were so good that the fans want to see it on the big screen. Lord of the Rings is an excellent example, but if you tried to make that into a movie during the time the book was written well it would not have been as visually appealing as it was.
Its unfortunate that today's technology makes it too easy to take the risk at producing movies based off video games. And I fear they will keep producing these works of crap as long as there is a market for it. Now I would suggest to them to not make a movie that mirrors the game, but make the movie off of a concept. Take a genre like Warcraft or even Starcraft, so much lore in either game and any of it can be turned into a decent movie with the proper writing team, hell look at all the machinima stuff!
I think that is all I have to say, I wrote this in pieces while at work so the thought was broken in some places. With the high costs of going to the movie theaters to see these movies which just seem to run longer and longer, many people are just going to wait for the DVD release, which is out another 6 months.
Well it varies depending on the company, usual notice is 2 weeks and a letter is typical. Another way to go about it is to discuss with your supervisor that you are planning to resign and give them a reason that hopefully tells them you are not bitter. Then submit the letter for the paper trail. Offer to make the transition of highering someone new, easier. Tell them you will check any documentation you have to see it is in order. Basically give them reasons to keep you in production so to speak. But also it may be company policy to give you the 2 weeks paid. Specially if they have others than can fill in until they higher a replacement. Like everyone else said, who cares, take the money and enjoy the time off. I would have love to be given the ability to leave when I resigned from my last job. But what corporate america needs to realize is that IT folks get bored easily. If we don't feel challenged or appreciated for the hours of work we "should be" doing then we look for bigger and better pastures. Average burnout rate for a systems/network admin is about 5 yrs. At which point, time to find something new.
Enjoy!
All in all I think the game is great. I love the earieness of the game where nothing but the occasional rat squeak may be heard or some random electrical problems/lights dimming occur while in a creepy sewer tunnel. Then you see someone/something walk past a doorway on the other end of the hall or a little girl run past you out of the corner of your eye, then nothing. Then your mind gets slammed with these visions of horror and blood! Then back to normal. So after getting all worked up and on edge you hear the familiar sound of radio chatter and finally you get to unload!! Finally something solid to put your bullets into.
Its insane on how much one would spend on a card. I picked up F.E.A.R. recently and stupid me doesn't bother reading the video requirements on the package, so naturally my decent video card was no longer adequate (been meaning to upgrade anyhow). But it is pretty rediculous that ever year a new graphics intensive game is released which would constitute you to have to upgrade video, RAM and soon CPU to run. They should start running bargains like Get this > and get your choice of > for free.
greedy bastards:D Wait maybe not free but maybe like a 15% discount. A 50 dollar game could end yo costing you like 300 bucks just to be able to play it after you upgrade something.
I do love my new card though:D
So would farming consist of scouring the internet for the newest startups that have the most potential? Or going after other stockholders and killing them for drops? (hoping that they carry their stock portfolios on them at all times).:D hmmm a stack of 10 [CSCO] is on the AH for 500g
For 4 years I worked for a public school system. It was the first job out of college. I was in charge of the support, maintenance and planning of the IT infrastructure. It was certainly a fun job for the first couple years. The pay check was nice. But after the first 2 years or so I realized that for one, Unions suck, specially those made up of a total of 8 people in an environment of 1600 employees. And 2, no one gave a damn what time I came in or what time I left or how long it took me to fix something. Not too mention you hardly ever got a thankyou from anyone for busting your butt and working long hours to bring up the school labs and network for the first day of school. Monetary compensation?? What the hell was that? So anyway after about 3 years I started looking for new opportunities. Finally 4.5 years later I get an offer from a local consulting group. I liked what they had to say. I liked the idea of getting trained on new technologies. I liked the bonus idea. I like the fact that everytime I visit my clients they are so happy to see me and always thank me for taking care of them. The travel sucks, but hey the company compensates me nicely for that. The benefits are exactly what I was getting in the public school job, but that was part of the reason their budgets sucked so badly.
In any case why you see the huge increase in outsourcing is because the big companies do not know how to treat their employees. IT especially, with the way the world works now, IT is the life blood of most major and minor companies. You commmunication, marketing, finances, all work through the equipment and infrastructure installed, configured and maintained by IT professionals. Treat them bad and they will find new work. Those consulting companies are on the hunt for talented indviduals. Maybe someday the big businesses will realize this. Until then, I will keep handing my cards out to get more business for my company.
As for the topic at hand, if you really want to change things then you need to show the higher ups numbers! They need to see the cost savings and reorganizing a department. Good luck!!
ooo ooo ooo 30 bucks on the movie tickey and annoying kids!!! Seriously, for 30 bucks you can go and buy 2-3 DVDs (depending on the bin you look through) and watch them whenever, not to mention owning the good ones! Now when you pay your $8-9.50 ticket price you go into a theater and watch 15 minutes of commercials (not even trailers) and maybe one or 2 trailers. Hell the commercials are the same damn commercials you see at home WTF??? At least show me the good commercials!! Also what the hell are these commercials funding? Certainly not making ticket prices and food prices any cheaper. There are a couple good movies that I want to see that are out right now but then my wallet says "Too much money, not too mention gas to get to the movies"
Granted there are a few (very few maybe 1 every 5 years) movies that are worth the money to see on a huge screen with awesome sound. But not enough to justify the constant increases in price.
Wow finally a slashdot topic I can rant about. Enjoy!
This is cool (no pun intended) and scary at the same time. I mean really 10 years from now are we going to see little radioactive signs on computer boxes??? Will we need to keep alarm systems in the home to alert us if there is a core breach on our CPU?? Holy crap the canary grew a 3rd eye, EVERYBODY OUT!!!!:D
Slashdot Mirror
I have not played every MMO out there but I think I represent the weekend warrior type casual gamer. I've played Final Fantasy XI, WoW and RF Online. I currently play WoW religiously, but still stay more to the casual side of things.
My main question is...
What does Warhammer online have that will make me want to put my WoW account on hold? I know most developers will say I am comparing apples to oranges. Whatever, I like the fact that I can log into a game, spend an hour in it and get something productive done. FFXI was fun up to a point, great community. The game lacks a good PvP aspect as well as not enough soloing content. You need to be in a party 90% of the time after level 20. RF Online, well that was a grind fest. you had to spend more time leveling a skill rather than your physical level which means you won't see any major content for a long time. PvP in that game was way too unbalanced. You needed to be in groups to take down an individual at times. Where in WoW you can go toe-to-toe with another player and have the chance to win (yes even if the player is better geared then you). Now there are classes that can easily take other classes, that just makes sense. For instance Warrior vs Rogue (plate vs leather). Warrior hits harder than the rogue so the battle falls to skill. In any case, that is the question... What will make the WoW player want to split up his/her time to play WAR.
Sorry for the lengthy question.
Pay close attention to the wording about the advertising technology servers being located outside the US and EU, some countries have certain laws in regards to such information transfer. For instance the agency can compile a list of ISPs and therefore send this information to say a 3rd party marketing company that practices outside England and generate SPAM to customers of those ISPs. Sure the RBLs can protect against this but the information is still obtained without my consent. And to say I concede to this information being released because I paid for this game, well thats crap.
:D
As for other posts about being able to block this information using firewalls, well its possible that the information will use the same port(s) that the online multiplayer feature will use. So if you block those ports (since that is what most broadband routers can only do), you won't be able to play the game with the purpose you intended. There is a non-multiplayer part of the game, but really, why they hell would I buy a game like this and only play the non-multiplayer side? Hell I don't think I ever played the storyline games for RB6
Good luck to whoever buys this, I will wait to see what happens before making a final decision, not to mention waiting for bugs to be fixed.
Ok yes that is sarcasm, so if you are truly a legitimate business wouldn't you probably have more to your own website other than just your whining about the injustices of a RBL company putting you on the list??? Anyway as a system admin, I am not saddened by this story one bit. Maybe Lindhart should have thought out their marketing practices better. People hate spam! Maybe focus that marketing money to an actual website and pump the money into getting it recognized by search engines better.
o m
As far as the lawyer, well, I won't get into my feelings on lawyers, in most cases they are right down their with spammers and tape worms.
Here is a copy of what Spamhaus.org has on them:
-----------------------
63.78.194.0/24 is listed on the Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database as being assigned to, under the control of, or providing service to a known professional spam operation run by Brian Haberstroh / Atriks.
e360Insight : bargaindepot.net / bargainshoppecorp.com
See also: SBL45648, SBL45649
www.bargaindepot.net. 3600 IN A 63.78.194.2
bargaindepot.net. 3600 IN NS ns12.bargaindepot.net.
ns12.bargaindepot.net. 172800 IN A 63.78.194.2
Registrant:
e360Insight, LLC
ATTN: BARGAINDEPOT.NET
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA. 20172-0447
Domain Name: BARGAINDEPOT.NET
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
e360Insight, LLC qp3zx6n33ee@networksolutionsprivateregistration.c
ATTN: BARGAINDEPOT.NET
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
570-708-8780
Record expires on 05-Nov-2008.
Record created on 17-Mar-2005.
Bulk whois optout: Y
Database last updated on 26-Apr-2005 14:32:13 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS12.BARGAINDEPOT.NET 63.78.194.2
NS13.BARGAINDEPOT.NET 63.78.194.3
UUNET Technologies, Inc. UUNET63 (NET-63-64-0-0-1)
63.64.0.0 - 63.127.255.255
E360INSIGHT, LLC UU-63-78-194-D8 (NET-63-78-194-0-1)
63.78.194.0 - 63.78.194.255
CustName: E360INSIGHT, LLC
Address: 427 S LA SALLE ST
Address: FL 4
City: CHICAGO
StateProv: IL
PostalCode: 60605-1029
Country: US
RegDate: 2005-01-27
Updated: 2005-01-27
NetRange: 63.78.194.0 - 63.78.194.255
CIDR: 63.78.194.0/24
NetName: UU-63-78-194-D8
NetHandle: NET-63-78-194-0-1
Parent: NET-63-64-0-0-1
NetType: Reassigned
Comment: Addresses within this block are non-portable.
RegDate: 2005-01-27
Updated: 2005-01-27
-------------------
So maybe they should review their business practices. boo frickin hoo hoo!
Thats what warrantees are for. Heres the thing, 9 times out of 10 a home user's PC will be out of warrantee, its good to keep up on the current prices of the major brands so that you can evaluate how much it would cost for that customer to keep the out-of-warrantee PC running. If a motherboard type item goes and it isn't warranteed, I would explain to the customer that it would most likely cost them less money to buy a new PC. Also always try to push the 3yr warrantees, for the most part you may not have any problems during the first year, but during year 2 or 3 you may (wear & tear).
:D)
:D Oh and this isn't moonlighting, he actually sends the company a check for this.
Most Dell systems with warrantees are not to hard to get parts for you just need to memorize their script so you know what questions to answer yes to. Hell if its under warrantee and they have the at home service then tell your client that you can make the call to Dell but have Dell come out and replace the part since the client has paid for that already (unless its a hard drive
I personally do not waste my free time working on people's home PCs since most home users won't want to pay for something to be done right. Or they refuse to buy a new PC even though their 8+ year old Windows ME PC "is just fine, but needs a little help"
But in any case you are getting into a difficult market, and the hardest part will be building a client base. Also one thing I can suggest is, when taking on a client you may want to throw in the offer of helping them with not just their current problem but to make sure it doesn't happen again, even toss them a bit of training. Sure you may shoot yourself in the foot, but that way they will call your for bigger issues rather than for small issues like "my printer won't work."
The company I work for has a number of medium size businesses. Some of the higher ups at these companies have us go to their homes from time to time. I've become the default engineer for a president's home and he has 3 buildings all of which are networked one way or another. Every so often I go out there for a half day or so to make sure the PCs are updated with patches and AV definitions. Fix a couple small things here and there as well. But the one thing he has asked me to do is to make suggestions that could improve their home network. Since then I've had him put his network equipment on the UPS (small personal one), install multiple wireless access points so that the laptop users in the family can move around freely and had him purchase multiple licenses for Symantec AV so that all the PCs run similar programs. Still haven't suggested a Sonicwall appliance but I think it would be overkill
Good luck and the best thing you can do is be honest with people, quantity of clients is not as good as quality (repeat business).
Not true at all. Flew out of Bradley in CT 2 weeks ago and while my wife and I waited to board, I plopped down on the floor in the terminal and checked /. :D Worked great. There were a number of us there doing that and Bradley even has outlets in the floor so you can wait in your lines at Southwest and not use your battery. Signal was good too.
We flew into Orlando and on our way back to Hartford I hopped on to the Orlando WiFi in the terminal. In both situations I had no problem getting my laptop through the security check points. And used it without a problem on the flight to and from.
Sort of don't agree fully with this, of course they do it to make money, that is why you go into business of any kind. Duh! But the key is to make something that everyone will want to play, and sure the ideas come from other places but it comes down to who does it better. To tell you the truth, other than Starcraft, WoW was the 2nd game I played from Blizzard, since then I've purchased WC3 just to get down all the background lore and thought the game itself was fun! I do now own the diablo game chest but only played it for about 10 mins or so.
Anyway back to WoW, before WoW I played FFXI - that is a game for people who have time and static groups of players. WoW is a great game because I still consider myself a casual gamer, even thought I play an average of 2-3 hours / night during the week and 20+ hours on the weekend. I have a 60 and a number of 20+ toons with a second 60 in the works, my first 60 I still haven't to this day gone into the 40 man raids. Mainly because of the times that groups I know are doing them. But if I don't want to raid, I can jump into a BG and work my way through the ranks to get the nice PvP gear. Or I can run a 5 man with some guild mates just for loot. But the one thing I do enjoy doing is exploring new areas. Blizzard has hidden alot of easter eggs in this game and that is something fun to find. For instance in the South eastern corner of Ashenvale has a nifty easter egg from WC3.
Yes they made the game to make money, but I don't think that even they realized the impact of this game. And sure they used ideas from other games/stories to fuel the development. After all Hollywood has been doing it for years but have failed miserably at it in some cases.
As for Storyline, there is a ton of storyline, but you have to look for it, pay attention to the quest descriptions and such. Each major instance has a good amount of lore behind them. Eventually all of this will come together at some point to a battle with the Lich King and the lords of the burning legion. So yes WoW is a continuation to WC3. Will it ever end? Well think of this more as a comic book series rather than a simple story, a good comic never ends, the world is always in peril from some evil being or another. With patch 1.11, we are already battling Kel'Thuzad, so who's the big boss in Burning Crusade? The Lich King? Illidan? The lords of the Burning Legion? Who knows?
Will I ever get a full set of purples?? Probably not, though I am also not killing myself or losing sleep over it. Will I farm like crazy for a flying mount when the time comes?? Hell yeah I will, because I like exploring and there is a ton of places that can be explored but getting to them is the tough part.
This game is not for everyone, in fact the genre itself is not for everyone. But anyone who thinks that this game is a grind is nuts! Its a grind if you want it to be. Play any of the Korean based MMOs and you will see a grind! Play FFXI without a static party and you will see a grind. This game is what Blizzard wanted it to be... Fun! The minute you stop having fun, you should re-evaluate the game or your play style or the guild you are in.
ok, work is calling, enjoy!
not to be a troll :D And not to pick on Digitrev but I've seen a number of comments come out using games that don't have a PvP enviroment. The argument comes out because who cares if you use a specific skill set/class build whatever to exploit the game in a PvE game? Developers will eventually find out about it and quench it. The real problem comes up when a player is consistently over-powered in a PvP environment by another player not because that player is good at what he does but because they found an exploit with a specific skill build. Developers can't find all the combinations of skills during the intitial run of the game, because they are still humans (I think) and they may not think like you or me. Someone out there may see something that the developer didn't and exploit it.
:D
Also games that are not Online aren't really effected by this debate since the game is set to do one thing and once the game is beaten, thats it. How you get that far whether it be with cheats or pure skill is up to you. But when it affects other customers of the publisher then considerations need to be made to try an balance the playing field or else you start losing customers. Go and use WoW again, there are very few classes that can go toe-to-toe with a warlock other than other warlocks. Is this over-powered? No, since bother factions have warlocks. Just because most classes can't go 1vs1 with them, doesn't mean the game is imbalanced. Now if Shamans or Paladins had the same thing going on then the factions would be imbalanced, since they are (for now)strictly Faction based classes.
Ok I'm done, time to go home
sometimes too many choices can hurt not just the game but the player. I'm not a fan of the skill-based MMORPG, someone mentioned early how it can take away from the game itself.
;)
RF Online is pretty much a skilled based game. Granted there are classes to start out with but in order to actually do any real damage and be able to use higher level weapons you also need to level your skill in the use of those weapons. This is done with the stats required to use them. So I hit lv30 I get to change my class from Ranger to either Scout or Gunner. Luckily I get an automatic boost to certain skills depending on which job I go. Scout gets a boost in ranged skill allowing it to use higher level guns while the gunner gets a boost in the racial skill of launchers allowing it to use a higher level launcher (this is the accretian model). Then at lv40 you get to choose your 3rd job/class set, and you get the same choices and stat boosts, but between lv30 and 40 not only are you grinding levels but you are grinding skill as well since in order to use the next set of armor or weapons you need to have a certain amount of defense points/range accuracy/melee etc... I won't even get into using class abilities. But its the same idea.
I've since left that game because it was definately not intended for the casual gamer and frankly got boring as hell with the skill leveling. I've been playing WoW for a couple years now and frankly it keeps me coming back with the simplicity, its almost relaxing to play a couple hours after work. And sure its pretty cookie cutter when it comes to the classes. But it allows me to enjoy the game more and follow the story line. I do like the idea of the talent tree, this does provide some diversity among players and allows them to customize their toon to their play style or even to accomodate guild mates for raids. Lets say I want to melt faces off, so I will most likely pick a priest and go down the shadow talent tree, leveling has been pretty easy up to 37 with this spec. What this also allows for me to do is to get to 60 at which point I can make a choice, stay shadow or put points into holy and become a heal bot, if I want continuous invites for raids, I will go healing. The nice thing about WoW is that you don't have to stay one specific skill set, change anytime you want and play with combinations of talents. Granted with 3 talent trees, eventually everything has been tried. And with the fact that there are so many players, new players can scour the discussion forums for talent builds and try them out. But this still allows for some customization among the classes and even the play style of the gamers.
Final Fantasy XI - played that too before WoW, they used class/sub-class system which I thought was pretty cool. you had the ability to sub any class with your main class. Granted you were limited to only half the level of skills of the sub; for those that don't know, I have a lv60 warrior and lv60 Monk, if I sub the monk with the warior it will be something like this War60/Monk30, so I will only have the skills of a lv30 monk added to my warrior. Now that is usually the popular combo for class and sub. With the newer classes that have been implmented with the Ziliart and Temple I am sure that the possibilities are even greater. I liked this idea because you got to have more variety in your skill. Even to sub a healing class to your melee class for better soloing or just to get invisible spells and such. But FFXI is not a PvP based game so if there is imbalance among the players, its not as much concern as it would be if it was a pvp game. And no the little pvp that FFXI does have does not count
I do wish that Blizzard would have introduced new classes in the expansion with the new races rather than just giving the each side the other's faction class (palladin/shaman). But hey who knows how thats going to be turn out. Sorry for the drawn out discussion.
Going to roll with the majority on this one. But combine some things.
He will be banned from any form of electronic device that can connect to the internet. Now the problem will be how he will get his school work done, well we can add that he will only be allowed to use the computers at school and with someone monitoring him. Or he can use a computer but it must be disconnected from the internet. I can get all technical and add the use of content filtering and firewall appliances but simpler the better.
He must also be signed up for an extra-curriculur activity or a form of community service that requires outside activity.
Oh and kiss the video games good-bye!!
Oh and to the guy with the "Reform" idea, screw that it doesn't work, any potential criminal with half a brain can "pretend" to be reformed. If someone does something wrong and they know that rather than getting some form of real punishment, some pencil neck is going to toss him in a low-security psych ward. While there they will "talk" to him about what he has done and try to peel back the layers of his complicated criminal mind to find out that when he was a kid he saw his dog get hit by a car, and thats why he is the way he is. No offense, but I want to see my tax dollars put fear into the hearts of criminals so that if they so much as think of committing a crime they will piss themselves when they remember what happen last time.
Not every place is as good as where you may work. I worked for a school system right out of college and after 4 years there I wasn't making even close to 50K. Though I did have great health insurance, but the downside is out of college I want to soak in as much as I can, after 2 years there was nothing more I was able to do there. The budget would not allow for necessary upgrades and the superintendant and my boss were constantly in pissing matches about technology. Superintendant was so Mac happy she decided to upgrade 3 new schools to all Mac despite the fact that they were all PC and so was the rest of the district. We had a single platform and for a school district, or any other organization, to achieve this, it means easier support in the long wrong. In any case my boss had it, she left and I stayed on to get the new IT director up to speed, unfortunately after about a year of getting him up to speed, he still had no clue. I started looking for new work.
Got offered a job at a local systems support consulting company and after a year I have doubled what I made at the school system! Insurance is ok, but I get a higher travel reimbursement, we have a wellness reimbursement (sign up for the gym I get some coin back) and I work with a bunch of people that all have their own field of specialization so if I don't know how to fix something, someone else does.
Money is fine and dandy, but I took on this field to learn and have fun, if I don't have either of those, then I will burn out and start to despise my job.
So just starting out and you want some experience, then look for the in-house support. It is becoming few and far between but many companies would rather have their support handled by employees instead of some outsource. They may bring in outside expertise if needed for projects or 3rd party support for a service or application.
Now I work for a consulting company, on a career level this is great I get work on systems I might have not been able to in my old job as well as the opportunity to further my certs and expand my knowledge.
Onto WoW, I am with Spud Stud on this, I would LOVE to see what is behind the scenes! I can't imagine having to maintain the farms and farms of servers, and its not just the realm servers, I mean each piece of the realm (instances, continents, battlegrounds) are all managed by a server so to speak. By this design they can take down something without effecting other environments. Also unlike other games, WoW has very limited loading. You can cross all of Kalimdor and not see one load screen, where as in FFXI, the continents are broken up into individual zones the require a load each time the border is crossed.
The other thing they had mentioned was the customer base, hey I am sure they are well aware at how many people will get pissed off if a server goes down. And they are also aware that out of the 6 million subscribers, that server may carry a couple thousand players. That is a very small fraction of the subscribers, you can't please everybody! But in my time of playing WoW on multiple realms, I am happy with the experience. Yeah it sucks not being able to get on sometimes but hey, read a book or dust off an old console game, or pay attention to you wife/husband/significant other.
I think the negatives will never out-weigh the positives of this game. It is fun for the hardcore gamer as well as the casual player. I love running through the burning steppes and firing an aimed shot on some pesky Alliance who thinks they will get my rich thorium vein!! But the game is all good fun and I think thats why it will always win out over the other MMORPGs out there. So take the problems with a grain a salt, it can be worse. I play RF Online and the game is really not all that exciting to play, its a grind but that is how the Korean market is. But its not even a fun grind.
And if you get fed up, you can always go fishing :D
Unfortunately a majority of these movies do not do the original works justice and really just piss the fans off. But there are some that the stories were so good that the fans want to see it on the big screen. Lord of the Rings is an excellent example, but if you tried to make that into a movie during the time the book was written well it would not have been as visually appealing as it was.
Its unfortunate that today's technology makes it too easy to take the risk at producing movies based off video games. And I fear they will keep producing these works of crap as long as there is a market for it. Now I would suggest to them to not make a movie that mirrors the game, but make the movie off of a concept. Take a genre like Warcraft or even Starcraft, so much lore in either game and any of it can be turned into a decent movie with the proper writing team, hell look at all the machinima stuff!
I think that is all I have to say, I wrote this in pieces while at work so the thought was broken in some places. With the high costs of going to the movie theaters to see these movies which just seem to run longer and longer, many people are just going to wait for the DVD release, which is out another 6 months.
Well it varies depending on the company, usual notice is 2 weeks and a letter is typical. Another way to go about it is to discuss with your supervisor that you are planning to resign and give them a reason that hopefully tells them you are not bitter. Then submit the letter for the paper trail. Offer to make the transition of highering someone new, easier. Tell them you will check any documentation you have to see it is in order. Basically give them reasons to keep you in production so to speak. But also it may be company policy to give you the 2 weeks paid. Specially if they have others than can fill in until they higher a replacement. Like everyone else said, who cares, take the money and enjoy the time off. I would have love to be given the ability to leave when I resigned from my last job. But what corporate america needs to realize is that IT folks get bored easily. If we don't feel challenged or appreciated for the hours of work we "should be" doing then we look for bigger and better pastures. Average burnout rate for a systems/network admin is about 5 yrs. At which point, time to find something new. Enjoy!
All in all I think the game is great. I love the earieness of the game where nothing but the occasional rat squeak may be heard or some random electrical problems/lights dimming occur while in a creepy sewer tunnel. Then you see someone/something walk past a doorway on the other end of the hall or a little girl run past you out of the corner of your eye, then nothing. Then your mind gets slammed with these visions of horror and blood! Then back to normal. So after getting all worked up and on edge you hear the familiar sound of radio chatter and finally you get to unload!! Finally something solid to put your bullets into.
:D
Then back to the earieness.
Damn no edit feature, correction since I added too many carots:
Get this - insert high end GPU of choice here - and get your choice of - insert graphics intensive FPS - for free.
Its insane on how much one would spend on a card. I picked up F.E.A.R. recently and stupid me doesn't bother reading the video requirements on the package, so naturally my decent video card was no longer adequate (been meaning to upgrade anyhow). But it is pretty rediculous that ever year a new graphics intensive game is released which would constitute you to have to upgrade video, RAM and soon CPU to run. They should start running bargains like Get this > and get your choice of > for free. greedy bastards :D Wait maybe not free but maybe like a 15% discount. A 50 dollar game could end yo costing you like 300 bucks just to be able to play it after you upgrade something.
I do love my new card though :D
So would farming consist of scouring the internet for the newest startups that have the most potential? Or going after other stockholders and killing them for drops? (hoping that they carry their stock portfolios on them at all times). :D hmmm a stack of 10 [CSCO] is on the AH for 500g
For 4 years I worked for a public school system. It was the first job out of college. I was in charge of the support, maintenance and planning of the IT infrastructure. It was certainly a fun job for the first couple years. The pay check was nice. But after the first 2 years or so I realized that for one, Unions suck, specially those made up of a total of 8 people in an environment of 1600 employees. And 2, no one gave a damn what time I came in or what time I left or how long it took me to fix something. Not too mention you hardly ever got a thankyou from anyone for busting your butt and working long hours to bring up the school labs and network for the first day of school. Monetary compensation?? What the hell was that? So anyway after about 3 years I started looking for new opportunities. Finally 4.5 years later I get an offer from a local consulting group. I liked what they had to say. I liked the idea of getting trained on new technologies. I liked the bonus idea. I like the fact that everytime I visit my clients they are so happy to see me and always thank me for taking care of them. The travel sucks, but hey the company compensates me nicely for that. The benefits are exactly what I was getting in the public school job, but that was part of the reason their budgets sucked so badly.
In any case why you see the huge increase in outsourcing is because the big companies do not know how to treat their employees. IT especially, with the way the world works now, IT is the life blood of most major and minor companies. You commmunication, marketing, finances, all work through the equipment and infrastructure installed, configured and maintained by IT professionals. Treat them bad and they will find new work. Those consulting companies are on the hunt for talented indviduals. Maybe someday the big businesses will realize this. Until then, I will keep handing my cards out to get more business for my company.
As for the topic at hand, if you really want to change things then you need to show the higher ups numbers! They need to see the cost savings and reorganizing a department. Good luck!!
ooo ooo ooo 30 bucks on the movie tickey and annoying kids!!! Seriously, for 30 bucks you can go and buy 2-3 DVDs (depending on the bin you look through) and watch them whenever, not to mention owning the good ones! Now when you pay your $8-9.50 ticket price you go into a theater and watch 15 minutes of commercials (not even trailers) and maybe one or 2 trailers. Hell the commercials are the same damn commercials you see at home WTF??? At least show me the good commercials!! Also what the hell are these commercials funding? Certainly not making ticket prices and food prices any cheaper. There are a couple good movies that I want to see that are out right now but then my wallet says "Too much money, not too mention gas to get to the movies" Granted there are a few (very few maybe 1 every 5 years) movies that are worth the money to see on a huge screen with awesome sound. But not enough to justify the constant increases in price. Wow finally a slashdot topic I can rant about. Enjoy!
This is cool (no pun intended) and scary at the same time. I mean really 10 years from now are we going to see little radioactive signs on computer boxes??? Will we need to keep alarm systems in the home to alert us if there is a core breach on our CPU?? Holy crap the canary grew a 3rd eye, EVERYBODY OUT!!!! :D