Keyboard courage has gotten out of hand. Every single person on the internet thinks they now have the ability to act like the old highschool bully and steal kid's lunch money. At least that bully had the guts to do it face to face.
It isn't new to blogs, or myspace/facebook type things, or forums. It has its history deep in the roots of usenet, fidonet, and other places. MMO players even came up with their own term for it, "griefers". It's why they do it. They know they can cause others to suffer emotional distress or lose time, and not have to pay the piper.
The only time I want to be anonymous is when I'm posting something I may have signed a NDA for. Anonymous flames don't cut it for me.
What I really wonder, though, is how much these women "fed the trolls" with responses. It's one thing to get the initial unsolicited hate crap. It's another thing to have it keep coming. And it's even worse when the target starts to respond in such a way that they just enlage the target on their back. The addage has always been "don't feed the trolls. It just makes them come back."
I'd love to see these clowns that started the nastiness get what is coming to them. Having their "promising legal career" derailed from everything but representing the most radical ultra-conservatives would be poetic justice. Since they damaged the two women's careers, they've earned their own reputations being trashed.
Off all the viral videos I've seen over the years, I think his "Last Lecture" was the most moving and worthwhile I have ever seen.
It's pretty hard to talk about something as scary as terminal cancer, yet while he kept reminding the listeners of his condition, his energy and charisma kept making you forget that the man was sick.
It's too bad the article that Yahoo! had failed to mention that he got to spend a day with the Pittsburgh Steelers and their wide receiver, Hines Ward. While he didn't actually play in the NFL, I imagine he came as close as he was going to get. I think he managed to nail all of his "bucket list".
People with such great vision are hard to come by. Having that vision while still having such a willingness to share it with others, with great entusiasm, is even more rare.
May his family keep their memories of him always in their minds. R.I.P.
I played EQ1 for 5 years. I have a LOT of experience with raiding. I have way too much experience with gear grinding, and progression grinding. I got tired of feeling like a gerbil on a freaking wheel.
Sure, the FIRST time you kill a mob, it's damn cool. But the whole reason you are there to kill that mob is the hope that some really nice piece of gear will drop, and you will win it. Well, that gets really old after a while, when you have 1 piece of your best set, and have killed that same mob 30-some times. Either your class piece doesn't drop, or it does drop, and someone else wins it. Or you have some darn DKP system set up, so you HAVE to go on EVERY SINGLE RAID to make sure you have a reasonable chance to win the item, and once you win it, you're most likely at the bottom of the totem pole waiting on the next piece.
Yeah, I played the game for 9 months, and ran out of stuff to do besides gear grind and PvP. And while they added a dungeon or so to the game while I was there, it was just one more place to gear grind in. And I didn't miss anything. I got out before those things were patched in, but I didn't *miss* them.
You have fun chasing that carrot on the stick (one of my favorite items in WoW, btw. That was a hoot when you first find it) while I'll try new things.
The problem with the subscription numbers you are throwing about is that they have ZERO correlation to the content updates and/or expansions.
UO and EQ1 were the frontrunners. Before those 2, there really wasn't any MMOs worth speaking of. Sure, someone will pull some names out of their ass, but let's be honest about it. UO was the first major MMO, and EQ1 quickly put it to shame with its level of graphics and detail. It was a new age of online gaming. And EQ1 had an incredible run as the top dog, but it wasn't friendly to older systems, and it wasn't casual player friendly.
Blizzard had a LOT of time to sit back and say "well, we see part of what makes a game successful, but what can we do to improve on it?" Meanwhile, SOE decided "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", which was obviously not a smart move on their part.
So, you had EQ2 released about 2 weeks prior to WoW.
EQ2 went for the higher end gamer that would happily plunk down a ton of money to get the best graphics they could. Remember, EQ2 was released with graphics that even the top end machines couldn't run smoothly on the higest settings. They vastly improved the quest system, but they still had Corpse Recoveries (CRs) and they made the really bizarre choice of not letting you have your final character until level 20. The craft system was a tedious bore. In a nutshell, the game was chock full of time sinks that SOE believed made EQ1 so enjoyable.
Blizzard made some much smarter choices with WoW. Their graphics were cartoonish, and they didn't require a robust system to run, which has enabled millions more to play the game without spending anything on their machines. Gameplay was addictively fun early on, with a player knowing exactly what player class they would be from the first level. Crafting was easy. There was very little in the way of time sinks, and they had the Blizzard and Warcraft names that millions of gamers that had never played a MMO could look at and say "I'm going to try a MMO finally." I believe that numbers on those MMO charts will show they had about 3 million subscribers before the first month was done. As long as you weren't on one of the "Terrible 20" servers (I was, but survived it), the launch was nothing short of awesome.
Which brings us to today.
WoW has had 1 major expansion, and several updates via patches to add more content. The level cap has risen by 10 since launch, but once you hit cap, you either are stuck in the PvP rut, or you are just grinding for gear sets with crappy odds for a drop. If you don't like PvP and gear grinding, you can play alts, but once out of the race starting areas, a lot of the game is exactly the same. A lot of people play because they think there is nothing better out there. And for many of them, they are probably right.
EQ2 has had 4 major expansions, and some minor updates via patches. The level cap has risen by 30 since launch, and once you hit cap, it's gear grinding. If you don't like gear grinding, you can play alts, with a little more variety outside of the starting area than WoW, and a lot more class/race options, but eventually you are in the same rut. But the major thing is the game has gone through a lot of redesigns to make it more enjoyable. You now start the class you end up. CRs are a thing of the past. Tradeskills are quite easy. For some WoW players that have been looking for something better, this is the game. They just don't know it, or refuse to believe it.
So, if EQ2 has had more content added to the game, and has more playable classes/races than WoW, why are the numbers for WoW over 10 million, and EQ2 isn't growing that fast? It's simple.
MMOs are social games. You play them with friends, and make new friends while in game. When everyone and their brother is playing one game, and you want to start playing a MMO, which one are you going to choose? Heck, if I was just starting to play MMOs, I'd pick WoW, too. It's base learning curve is much shorter, and your odds of being able to play wi
Know your worth to the company, keep resume sharp
on
Surviving Outsourcing?
·
· Score: 1
I've been working in the same position/job for 9 years, now. In that time, my job/software division has changed companies a half dozen times.
First thing is, know how important your job really is, and know how many of your fellow co-workers are planning on jumping ship. In one of the transitions I went through, I ended up with an extra 1,500 stock options, a large cash bonus, and the right to work from my house just to stick around, because everyone else in my department found other employment. Since I work in a small group in a big company, losing 75% of the staff and the only U.S. based person wasn't an option the company could afford, so they made it worth my while to not job hunt.
The second thing is, your resume should NEVER be dusty, unless you already have your dream job and security out the wazoo. You should also consider keeping your interviewing skills sharp by going on a job interview once a year, even if you don't plan on taking the job. You don't want to blow the interview because you're rusty, or feeling too much pressure to HAVE to land a job.
It sucks to go through this, but you will survive it. Just be smart, don't close yourself off from various opportunities by moving too fast in one direction, and good luck!
Sorry, but I wasn't a power gamer by any stretch of the imagination.
I duoed the game to lvl 60 with my wife on our mains, with a few trips into instances with guildmates. It took us 9 months to get to 60, and we found we had nothing to do but grind for the futile hopes of completing some armor set, or doing PvP. We don't PvP, and the reason we quit EQ1 was the grind factor. So, lack of new content was very hard to deal with.
In EQ2, we've played for over 18 months, and still don't have toons at level cap together. I got one toon to level cap just before the level cap went to 80. The world is so much bigger, with so much more to do, that I haven't gotten bored like I did with WoW.
Yes, Quantity != Quality. But lack of New Content DOES = eventual BOREDOM. And it is boredom that has a sizable number of folks quitting WoW for AoC, or dreaming of Warhammer, or hoping that some other game comes along that gives them something NEW to do. Will many of those people go back when AoC's end game proves to be boring? Maybe, or maybe Warhammer will take them on.
All I know is that my over 1K member guild saw over 800 people alone join our PvE side guild in AoC, and most of those quit WoW or some other game to give it a run. Another 200+ PvP'ers left WoW for AoC, as well.
There's a reason why the next WoW expansion is so anticipated: Players will finally have something new to do!
No, the reason WoW trumps EQ2 in subscription numbers is that it came out of the gate with a much better product, and it had a much lower requirement for processor/memory/GPU.
EQ2 was a mess when it was released, with SOE still sticking to their formula they had in EQ1 of grind, grind, grind, and making things difficult for the sake of difficulty. Stuff like corpse recoveries and having to do time consuming quests just to change your bind point.
WoW came out with lots of fun right out of the box, and not a lot of unnecessary hassles. Time sinks were much less in WoW. Blizzard did a great job out of the gates. And since then, they've been slow as hell to add a lot of content.
They've long since fixed those problems, and in my opinion, EQ2 is now a much better product than WoW.
Adding an instance is not a huge amount of content. I'm fairly certain SOE has released that much content for EQ2 without a box set, and they've still had 4 box sets released to WoW's 1.
Of course, there is another point to PvP being fundamentally flawed when it comes to MMOs...
There is also the problem of the fact that zerg tactics can and do work in the regular game world with alarming frequency, and the inherent base human behavior of "mob rules".
Even in WoW on the PvE servers, you saw a definite move towards "might makes right" type behavior, especially at the Crossroads. There wasn't a night that went by once the so-called "honor system" was put in that the Alliance didn't swarm over the Crossroads, killing all the quest NPCs at the station to prevent Horde characters from advancing quests. This was to hopefully provoke the teen level toons from attacking the level 60 idiots that thougth this was somehow fun to someone.
It also led to the hillarious fact that most Alliance players didn't have a clue as to how to operate as a squad when the Battlegrounds came out. The Horde players were used to holding their own or even outright dominating while being outmanned often by a 2-1 margain. So, they learned tactics to deal with facing a superior force. When the Battlegrounds enforced equal numbers, the Alliance players routinely got their asses handed to them, and started to cry over imbalance because "shamans are too powerful". No, the imbalance was that the Horde side learned tactics, and the Alliance found out that zerging with equal numbers is a fast way to die.
Personally, I think PvP is overrated when it comes to MMOs. Make it optional, and don't try to force it to be the only real avenue for end-gamers.
Heck, most WoW players I know do enough Battlegrounds to earn the next piece of equipment, knowing that losing isn't something that adversely affects them.
Maybe EVE does have it right, but unless you go into it with a bunch of friends, there is little to no hope for you. The penalties surely add a lot of zest to the game, making it more like real life, but the funny thing is, most people play games to escape real life!
I remember all that screaming, and you still hear most of the UO fanbois claim that it was the death of the game.
In a way, they were correct. The only people that were playing UO at the time Trammel came out were mostly the hardcore PvP crowd. UO was dying a very painful death already, and the Devs were making a desperate move to stave off their loses to AC and EQ. It was way to late, however.
But yes, I saw the lack of players on the "dark side". I re-opened my account in the hopes that the game would be cool. But my toons were all on the dark side, so I had to find a gate to the light side. I got ganked 4 times in less than 2hrs. I promptly re-cancelled my account, and never went back.
It is still funny. All these hardcore PvP people were hanging out on the light side, trying to find a way to be mean, or levelling their toons up in peace, and then going to the dark side trying to kill innocents. And yet, there were none. It was all PK'ers, and they didn't have that much interest in fighting each other. They wanted lambs to slaughter, not a fair fight.
And that sums up about 25% of all PvP'ers. They want to gank, not be challenged.
It's amazing how so many people always call up UO as the greatest MMO ever, when it was basically a game for those who wanted to be more anti-social in game than they were in RL.
I almost didn't play another MMO after my experience in UO, it was that bad. I knew nobody going into the game, and only got to know some dude in Argentina that I helped save from a PK'er that attacked too close to town.
A stint in AC didn't really improve my views of MMOs, and it wasn't until I tried EQ that I found a game where people weren't total assholes all the time. It had something to do with the lack of PvP and no "mentor/guild" system to abuse, I think...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asheron's_Call is the best you are probably going to get. Since so few people play the game, I am sure that most histories are now hard to find.
The only thing Blizzard screwed up with WoW is their pathetic lack of new content.
In the time that WoW has had 1 major expansion to it, EQ2 has had 4.
SOE understands that you have to keep the high-end gamer more satisfied with new and challenging content, as well as appeal to the lowest common denominator. It took them a long time to figure out the lower portion of it, but they keep the 20+hr a week gamer more happy.
It is quite stable, or at least it was before today's Module 7 patch.
During Closed Beta, the game ran quite smoothly, but Open Beta really showed them they needed a LOT of work on server side stability. They didn't get it done in time, and the release was not good because of that, and several other factors. (A major lack of solo content, and the fact that you have to run most dungeons/adventures several times before you reached max level.)
I started to play again for about a month or so before AoC came out, and the game was greatly improved. Solo stuff was added, and because of a reduced number of players, the lag wasn't a problem. I think only one time was there lag for me, and everyone else had it, too. Otherwise, it ran smoothly.
For those that don't like a "click attack and go get a new can of soda and a snack while you wait for the mob to die" type games, this definitely makes you work for your success. You control your swings, your dodges, your shield blocks, and your spell casting/targetting. The intelligent mobs actively try to dodge your attacks.
It isn't for everyone, but it can be a lot of fun. Especially if you know 3-5 others that are interested, and can form a nice static group.
It's too bad I don't have mod points left, and I can't use them in a thread I posted on. Very informative.
And the funny part is, she's done voices in many other games I've played, including EQ, EQ2, and Might & Magic IX. Though you would have been hard pressed for me to identify any of those as her voice.
Obviously, she is a talented voice artist by that page. I still will think of her as the voice of Aribeth.
And yes, publishers know this, but the voice actors often only work a few days to complete everything. I'd love to see how many actual hours this voice actor put in for that $100K over 15 months. I'm guessing it added up to about 2-3 weeks worth of work. Nice pay if you can get it.
I've played way too many video games over the years, and for most of them, the spoken dialogue did zilch for me. In fact, after listening to some of it, I usually ended up turning it off and going text only.
But there have been a few games where the spoken dialogue was so stirring, it made a good game great, or a great game replayable over and over.
Neverwinter Nights (the orignal) is the one that stands out most in my mind. The female voice for Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande was so well done, that I felt captivated by her. It is one of the few times I've felt drawn to a game character, and that voice is most responsible for my driven need to complete the game, which I accomplished in about 3 days the first time through. It is also the reason I probably play the whole series through every year or so, just for to hear that voice acting. The woman that did that voice could have gotten me to walk through fire, sight unseen. And yes, I'm happily married, 2 kids, etc. I'm not pathetic, but that voice just stirred me to action.
There are other games that affected other people similarily. I know a lot of people loved Baldur's Gate due to some of the funny lines and voices.
But most games? Nope, they just don't enhance it as much as the voice actors think. Heck, I'm ready to turn the voice volume of for Age of Conan already.
You do realize that the only fully supported customizable UI has been WoW's? '
Talk about not knowing what you are talking about!
EQ2's UI is fully customizable, and there is absolutely NO BETTER UI addition to ANY game than the EQ2Maps project. Even the game Devs us it when they play. Any new player is immediately told to download it by people they meet, and once they get it set up, they always say "holy ! This is incredible!"
That's one of the reasons I found myself preferrign EQ2 over WoW.
In EQ2, I rarely went on a raid that lasted more than 2hrs, and if it did, it was with a casual group of friends that took its time instead of trying to be efficient. The fun may have been higher with the friends, but the raid would have sucked if it wasn't for those same people.
And I found that a PUG raid of 24 people in EQ2 really was a hoot 9 out of 10 times. My PUG experiences in WoW were only good about 10% of the time.
Really, EQ2 offers twice as many character classes, no race restrictions with more races, and more content. Major game updates seem to come out about every 6 months, as opposed to every 12-18 months. And, there are less jerks playing, because there is so much less PvP to do.
upper limit of what entertainment can be worth Have you people never met a girl before? You could easily spend several hundred dollars on dinner and light shopping with most of them.
Oh wait, this is/. Oh, come on. You don't think/. folks PAY for women?
This is hardly surprising. Look at the multitude of MMOs that have started development, and been left by the roadside due to lack of funding for the craptastic product. Then look at all the MMOs that have died within 2yrs of launch due to lack of players.
Heck, even some of the ones that are still going today would have died if they hadn't gotten lucky. Vanguard is only around because SOE bailed out Sigil, and the product is still not very good a full year after release. It should have never gone gold when it did, as it's now a "paid beta".
The only thing that keeps the full numbers from looking so bad is the various "free to play but with an item mall" MMOs that come out of the Asian Pacific market. They can all call themselves successful, but they have no recurring income due to subscriptions, so they have little to no future development, and are basically "how many potions can you carry and use" games with no strategy outside of that.
Don't think so many have gone belly up? Check this site out, and look at the number of games that were cancelled either pre-beta or during beta, or after launch. It's a lot. BetaWatcher
Where I live in North Texas, I lose calls on my AT&T 3G phone all the time, as it drops down to a different service level. I've even gotten the dreaded "Emergency service only" a few times on various days. Considering the town/city I live in has over 100K people and 2 pretty large universities, it has been surprising how poorly their 3G coverage is.
Considering my cell phone is my work phone (I work from home), this is not a good thing. The only reason I use AT&T is because at the time, there was no other carrier that had a decent plan that includes Canada in one flat rate. I call Canada several times a day, as my Dev team is there for the software I support.
They don't offer that plan anymore, so I keep my service level the same, and they don't change me 3 arms and 2 legs to keep it going. But with the current service levels, I'm considering a switch anyways.
It isn't just engineers and IT savvy people that show they have brains. It's pretty much anyone that the lawyers know will see right through the B.S. of their case.
I've been summoned for jury duty several times, and never had to sit through a trial. Most were criminal cases, but the civil cases are really a hoot.
For one, the plaintive's attorney was asking questions like "Do you have a problem with people that file lawsuits for pain and suffering?" About 3/4ths of the potential jurors were tossed immediately. The judge then said "Don't try that stunt again."
For another, I got excused because I used to be a paramedic, and the last thing the plaintive's lawyer wanted was someone who was intimately familiar with accident scenes and the likeliness of injuries from various accidents. The judge actually snickered when I said "I used to be a paramedic, and I never saw anyone with those kind of spinal injuries from a 20MPH rear end collision."
Criminal cases are one thing, but the sheer stupidity that lawyers look for in civil cases is astounding. It's not a jury of your peers. It's a jury of the dumbest the plaintive cound find.
I can understand to an certain extent the worries that government and police authorities have about laser pointers, as they are often used by crime elements or by people just thinking they are funny.
Criminals often use them in the drug community, according to police officers I have talked to. It is not unheard of for an undercover agent to end up with a red dot on the side of his head that he cannot see, but the drug dealer CAN see, and is tipped off that it's a cop he is about to sell to.
And I know that they are used for much mischief in places. In Ocean City, MD, they were (at least back in the late 90's) outlawed, because during the firefighter conventions, the rowdy firefighters would use them on the cops. And ask any cop what he will do if he suddenly sees a red dot on his chest. Yep, dive for cover while pulling their weapon.
I see no reason to not allow their use indoors, though. When doing seminars on software use, it is VERY useful to point out which field on the screen you are referring to. I used one for that reason for years until someone stole it from a conference.
They also make the world's greatest cat toy. If you have a cat, buy one, and amuse yourself for hours making your feline chase that red dot everywhere. Some dogs really dig them, too. I had a lot of fun shining mine out the window and getting my neighbor's dog (with the owner's permission) to run in circles in the yard, and jump on the bricks of the garage.
The only problem with most laser pointers is that their range is insane. The fact that you can hit a cockpit of an airplane that is often more than a mile up makes them dangerous in the hands of the idiot.
In a nutshell, it's someone that does a deliberately obnoxious or destructive thing to another person, simply for their own personal entertainment.
So, it's not exactly being used correctly. If it was done by Anonymous in response to a supposed threat, that was a premptive strike, not a griefing. If it wasn't anonymous, but simply someone that thought it would be funny, then griefing is a correct term for it.
you're ignoring Blizzard's business model, and their argument. The money from the box/cd that you buy in the store is negligible compared to the monthly fees that are paid.
Blizzard has the highest profits by having a large subscriber base that doesn't play often. BOTs use much more resources on the servers at Blizzard; they use up more bandwidth, more computational and data resources, etc, than the normal user.
Actually, I'm not ignoring the fact that the subscription money is where the cash is at. However... If the account is banned, and the person gets 2 new boxes, then starts paying a monthly fee again, that's what? 29.99 x2 plus the monthly fee of 14.99 (last I remembered)? I'll take that extra 60 bucks, thank you very much! And while the bot is using bandwidth, it isn't using any more than an active player. Many of the gold farmer leagues have 3-4 people playing the same account, so they use the same bandwidth.
There is also the extraordinary dissatisfaction the non-bot players have with the experience when, in a battleground, they know that if they fight their asses off for 20 minutes to win Alterac Valley, anyone that is a bot or afk is going to get the same bonus honor and same daily bonuses as they are. Would you like to see a coworker get paid almost as much as you for literally not even being there at all? That is a serious PR issue for Blizzard. To keep the normal player base (the ones that aren't using as much resources - ie, the ones that are more profitable) happy, they get rid of the few folk that aren't as profitable anyway. Blizzard doesn't care if the BOT user buys a new CD; they'd actually prefer that person not ever play again, most likely.
No, like you said, they want that monthly subscription fee, and if they can get extra game boxes sold, they rake in even more cash. Why do you think banned players keep showing back up? They have the player's name and credit card numbers, but somehow they keep getting new subscriptions? I'd say Blizzard wants their cash, just like all businesses do. And if they can appear to keep their hands clean, they'll do it.
You're also forgetting that many people find enjoyment by having more power, control, etc. If I can make a bot that gets me 75k honor in a week or two with no work from me, then I can use that honor to buy high-end items, and then come back and actually play the game at that point, with the benefit that the afk activity provided. Your character actually gains quite a bit while you're not there, if no one reports it. Even the losing team gets some honor.
If course there are people that to have more than the rest of players. It's the famous "MMO e-penis factor", as I like to call it. They all want to have a bigger "e-penis" than the next guy, and will go to any lengths to achieve it. This isn't new to WoW. Heck, on the EQ1 server I played on, the "Time" zone was blocked to all but 4 guilds, because every time the mobs needed to gain access to that zone spawned, one of the 4 guilds killed it within minutes. If you weren't fast enough, no access for you, and no showing off the really great items you could get from Time. Family style guilds and alliances of more casual players had whole parts of the game blocked because of this. It's why so many games have gone to instanced dungeons.
As for the honor disaster that WoW has, it's been a debacle from implementation. From the stupidity of making gear that you can earn through Honor better than most group/raid drops, they've created a situation where it pays to cheat. It's one of the reasons I don't like PvP. It brings out the lowest common behavior in most people.
Part of Blizzard's problem is the lack of new content and releases. It's something that SOE learned from EQ1, and carries forward with EQ2. A release every 6 months of new content, new races and starting zones, etc, really keeps the need for botting down. Yeah, not nearly as many folks are playing EQ2, but I never once saw any ac
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, they do deserve to be unmasked.
Keyboard courage has gotten out of hand. Every single person on the internet thinks they now have the ability to act like the old highschool bully and steal kid's lunch money. At least that bully had the guts to do it face to face.
It isn't new to blogs, or myspace/facebook type things, or forums. It has its history deep in the roots of usenet, fidonet, and other places. MMO players even came up with their own term for it, "griefers". It's why they do it. They know they can cause others to suffer emotional distress or lose time, and not have to pay the piper.
The only time I want to be anonymous is when I'm posting something I may have signed a NDA for. Anonymous flames don't cut it for me.
What I really wonder, though, is how much these women "fed the trolls" with responses. It's one thing to get the initial unsolicited hate crap. It's another thing to have it keep coming. And it's even worse when the target starts to respond in such a way that they just enlage the target on their back. The addage has always been "don't feed the trolls. It just makes them come back."
I'd love to see these clowns that started the nastiness get what is coming to them. Having their "promising legal career" derailed from everything but representing the most radical ultra-conservatives would be poetic justice. Since they damaged the two women's careers, they've earned their own reputations being trashed.
This one, on Yahoo!, just as I said:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080725/ap_en_ot/obit_pausch
Off all the viral videos I've seen over the years, I think his "Last Lecture" was the most moving and worthwhile I have ever seen.
It's pretty hard to talk about something as scary as terminal cancer, yet while he kept reminding the listeners of his condition, his energy and charisma kept making you forget that the man was sick.
It's too bad the article that Yahoo! had failed to mention that he got to spend a day with the Pittsburgh Steelers and their wide receiver, Hines Ward. While he didn't actually play in the NFL, I imagine he came as close as he was going to get. I think he managed to nail all of his "bucket list".
People with such great vision are hard to come by. Having that vision while still having such a willingness to share it with others, with great entusiasm, is even more rare.
May his family keep their memories of him always in their minds. R.I.P.
I played EQ1 for 5 years. I have a LOT of experience with raiding. I have way too much experience with gear grinding, and progression grinding. I got tired of feeling like a gerbil on a freaking wheel.
Sure, the FIRST time you kill a mob, it's damn cool. But the whole reason you are there to kill that mob is the hope that some really nice piece of gear will drop, and you will win it. Well, that gets really old after a while, when you have 1 piece of your best set, and have killed that same mob 30-some times. Either your class piece doesn't drop, or it does drop, and someone else wins it. Or you have some darn DKP system set up, so you HAVE to go on EVERY SINGLE RAID to make sure you have a reasonable chance to win the item, and once you win it, you're most likely at the bottom of the totem pole waiting on the next piece.
Yeah, I played the game for 9 months, and ran out of stuff to do besides gear grind and PvP. And while they added a dungeon or so to the game while I was there, it was just one more place to gear grind in. And I didn't miss anything. I got out before those things were patched in, but I didn't *miss* them.
You have fun chasing that carrot on the stick (one of my favorite items in WoW, btw. That was a hoot when you first find it) while I'll try new things.
The problem with the subscription numbers you are throwing about is that they have ZERO correlation to the content updates and/or expansions.
UO and EQ1 were the frontrunners. Before those 2, there really wasn't any MMOs worth speaking of. Sure, someone will pull some names out of their ass, but let's be honest about it. UO was the first major MMO, and EQ1 quickly put it to shame with its level of graphics and detail. It was a new age of online gaming. And EQ1 had an incredible run as the top dog, but it wasn't friendly to older systems, and it wasn't casual player friendly.
Blizzard had a LOT of time to sit back and say "well, we see part of what makes a game successful, but what can we do to improve on it?" Meanwhile, SOE decided "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", which was obviously not a smart move on their part.
So, you had EQ2 released about 2 weeks prior to WoW.
EQ2 went for the higher end gamer that would happily plunk down a ton of money to get the best graphics they could. Remember, EQ2 was released with graphics that even the top end machines couldn't run smoothly on the higest settings. They vastly improved the quest system, but they still had Corpse Recoveries (CRs) and they made the really bizarre choice of not letting you have your final character until level 20. The craft system was a tedious bore. In a nutshell, the game was chock full of time sinks that SOE believed made EQ1 so enjoyable.
Blizzard made some much smarter choices with WoW. Their graphics were cartoonish, and they didn't require a robust system to run, which has enabled millions more to play the game without spending anything on their machines. Gameplay was addictively fun early on, with a player knowing exactly what player class they would be from the first level. Crafting was easy. There was very little in the way of time sinks, and they had the Blizzard and Warcraft names that millions of gamers that had never played a MMO could look at and say "I'm going to try a MMO finally." I believe that numbers on those MMO charts will show they had about 3 million subscribers before the first month was done. As long as you weren't on one of the "Terrible 20" servers (I was, but survived it), the launch was nothing short of awesome.
Which brings us to today.
WoW has had 1 major expansion, and several updates via patches to add more content. The level cap has risen by 10 since launch, but once you hit cap, you either are stuck in the PvP rut, or you are just grinding for gear sets with crappy odds for a drop. If you don't like PvP and gear grinding, you can play alts, but once out of the race starting areas, a lot of the game is exactly the same. A lot of people play because they think there is nothing better out there. And for many of them, they are probably right.
EQ2 has had 4 major expansions, and some minor updates via patches. The level cap has risen by 30 since launch, and once you hit cap, it's gear grinding. If you don't like gear grinding, you can play alts, with a little more variety outside of the starting area than WoW, and a lot more class/race options, but eventually you are in the same rut. But the major thing is the game has gone through a lot of redesigns to make it more enjoyable. You now start the class you end up. CRs are a thing of the past. Tradeskills are quite easy. For some WoW players that have been looking for something better, this is the game. They just don't know it, or refuse to believe it.
So, if EQ2 has had more content added to the game, and has more playable classes/races than WoW, why are the numbers for WoW over 10 million, and EQ2 isn't growing that fast? It's simple.
MMOs are social games. You play them with friends, and make new friends while in game. When everyone and their brother is playing one game, and you want to start playing a MMO, which one are you going to choose? Heck, if I was just starting to play MMOs, I'd pick WoW, too. It's base learning curve is much shorter, and your odds of being able to play wi
I've been working in the same position/job for 9 years, now. In that time, my job/software division has changed companies a half dozen times.
First thing is, know how important your job really is, and know how many of your fellow co-workers are planning on jumping ship. In one of the transitions I went through, I ended up with an extra 1,500 stock options, a large cash bonus, and the right to work from my house just to stick around, because everyone else in my department found other employment. Since I work in a small group in a big company, losing 75% of the staff and the only U.S. based person wasn't an option the company could afford, so they made it worth my while to not job hunt.
The second thing is, your resume should NEVER be dusty, unless you already have your dream job and security out the wazoo. You should also consider keeping your interviewing skills sharp by going on a job interview once a year, even if you don't plan on taking the job. You don't want to blow the interview because you're rusty, or feeling too much pressure to HAVE to land a job.
It sucks to go through this, but you will survive it. Just be smart, don't close yourself off from various opportunities by moving too fast in one direction, and good luck!
Sorry, but I wasn't a power gamer by any stretch of the imagination.
I duoed the game to lvl 60 with my wife on our mains, with a few trips into instances with guildmates. It took us 9 months to get to 60, and we found we had nothing to do but grind for the futile hopes of completing some armor set, or doing PvP. We don't PvP, and the reason we quit EQ1 was the grind factor. So, lack of new content was very hard to deal with.
In EQ2, we've played for over 18 months, and still don't have toons at level cap together. I got one toon to level cap just before the level cap went to 80. The world is so much bigger, with so much more to do, that I haven't gotten bored like I did with WoW.
Yes, Quantity != Quality. But lack of New Content DOES = eventual BOREDOM. And it is boredom that has a sizable number of folks quitting WoW for AoC, or dreaming of Warhammer, or hoping that some other game comes along that gives them something NEW to do. Will many of those people go back when AoC's end game proves to be boring? Maybe, or maybe Warhammer will take them on.
All I know is that my over 1K member guild saw over 800 people alone join our PvE side guild in AoC, and most of those quit WoW or some other game to give it a run. Another 200+ PvP'ers left WoW for AoC, as well.
There's a reason why the next WoW expansion is so anticipated: Players will finally have something new to do!
No, the reason WoW trumps EQ2 in subscription numbers is that it came out of the gate with a much better product, and it had a much lower requirement for processor/memory/GPU.
EQ2 was a mess when it was released, with SOE still sticking to their formula they had in EQ1 of grind, grind, grind, and making things difficult for the sake of difficulty. Stuff like corpse recoveries and having to do time consuming quests just to change your bind point.
WoW came out with lots of fun right out of the box, and not a lot of unnecessary hassles. Time sinks were much less in WoW. Blizzard did a great job out of the gates. And since then, they've been slow as hell to add a lot of content.
They've long since fixed those problems, and in my opinion, EQ2 is now a much better product than WoW.
Adding an instance is not a huge amount of content. I'm fairly certain SOE has released that much content for EQ2 without a box set, and they've still had 4 box sets released to WoW's 1.
Bingo!
Of course, there is another point to PvP being fundamentally flawed when it comes to MMOs...
There is also the problem of the fact that zerg tactics can and do work in the regular game world with alarming frequency, and the inherent base human behavior of "mob rules".
Even in WoW on the PvE servers, you saw a definite move towards "might makes right" type behavior, especially at the Crossroads. There wasn't a night that went by once the so-called "honor system" was put in that the Alliance didn't swarm over the Crossroads, killing all the quest NPCs at the station to prevent Horde characters from advancing quests. This was to hopefully provoke the teen level toons from attacking the level 60 idiots that thougth this was somehow fun to someone.
It also led to the hillarious fact that most Alliance players didn't have a clue as to how to operate as a squad when the Battlegrounds came out. The Horde players were used to holding their own or even outright dominating while being outmanned often by a 2-1 margain. So, they learned tactics to deal with facing a superior force. When the Battlegrounds enforced equal numbers, the Alliance players routinely got their asses handed to them, and started to cry over imbalance because "shamans are too powerful". No, the imbalance was that the Horde side learned tactics, and the Alliance found out that zerging with equal numbers is a fast way to die.
Personally, I think PvP is overrated when it comes to MMOs. Make it optional, and don't try to force it to be the only real avenue for end-gamers.
Heck, most WoW players I know do enough Battlegrounds to earn the next piece of equipment, knowing that losing isn't something that adversely affects them.
Maybe EVE does have it right, but unless you go into it with a bunch of friends, there is little to no hope for you. The penalties surely add a lot of zest to the game, making it more like real life, but the funny thing is, most people play games to escape real life!
I remember all that screaming, and you still hear most of the UO fanbois claim that it was the death of the game.
In a way, they were correct. The only people that were playing UO at the time Trammel came out were mostly the hardcore PvP crowd. UO was dying a very painful death already, and the Devs were making a desperate move to stave off their loses to AC and EQ. It was way to late, however.
But yes, I saw the lack of players on the "dark side". I re-opened my account in the hopes that the game would be cool. But my toons were all on the dark side, so I had to find a gate to the light side. I got ganked 4 times in less than 2hrs. I promptly re-cancelled my account, and never went back.
It is still funny. All these hardcore PvP people were hanging out on the light side, trying to find a way to be mean, or levelling their toons up in peace, and then going to the dark side trying to kill innocents. And yet, there were none. It was all PK'ers, and they didn't have that much interest in fighting each other. They wanted lambs to slaughter, not a fair fight.
And that sums up about 25% of all PvP'ers. They want to gank, not be challenged.
I see you played the same exact UO I did!
It's amazing how so many people always call up UO as the greatest MMO ever, when it was basically a game for those who wanted to be more anti-social in game than they were in RL.
I almost didn't play another MMO after my experience in UO, it was that bad. I knew nobody going into the game, and only got to know some dude in Argentina that I helped save from a PK'er that attacked too close to town.
A stint in AC didn't really improve my views of MMOs, and it wasn't until I tried EQ that I found a game where people weren't total assholes all the time. It had something to do with the lack of PvP and no "mentor/guild" system to abuse, I think...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asheron's_Call is the best you are probably going to get. Since so few people play the game, I am sure that most histories are now hard to find.
The only thing Blizzard screwed up with WoW is their pathetic lack of new content.
In the time that WoW has had 1 major expansion to it, EQ2 has had 4.
SOE understands that you have to keep the high-end gamer more satisfied with new and challenging content, as well as appeal to the lowest common denominator. It took them a long time to figure out the lower portion of it, but they keep the 20+hr a week gamer more happy.
It is quite stable, or at least it was before today's Module 7 patch.
During Closed Beta, the game ran quite smoothly, but Open Beta really showed them they needed a LOT of work on server side stability. They didn't get it done in time, and the release was not good because of that, and several other factors. (A major lack of solo content, and the fact that you have to run most dungeons/adventures several times before you reached max level.)
I started to play again for about a month or so before AoC came out, and the game was greatly improved. Solo stuff was added, and because of a reduced number of players, the lag wasn't a problem. I think only one time was there lag for me, and everyone else had it, too. Otherwise, it ran smoothly.
For those that don't like a "click attack and go get a new can of soda and a snack while you wait for the mob to die" type games, this definitely makes you work for your success. You control your swings, your dodges, your shield blocks, and your spell casting/targetting. The intelligent mobs actively try to dodge your attacks.
It isn't for everyone, but it can be a lot of fun. Especially if you know 3-5 others that are interested, and can form a nice static group.
It's too bad I don't have mod points left, and I can't use them in a thread I posted on. Very informative.
And the funny part is, she's done voices in many other games I've played, including EQ, EQ2, and Might & Magic IX. Though you would have been hard pressed for me to identify any of those as her voice.
Obviously, she is a talented voice artist by that page. I still will think of her as the voice of Aribeth.
And yes, publishers know this, but the voice actors often only work a few days to complete everything. I'd love to see how many actual hours this voice actor put in for that $100K over 15 months. I'm guessing it added up to about 2-3 weeks worth of work. Nice pay if you can get it.
I've played way too many video games over the years, and for most of them, the spoken dialogue did zilch for me. In fact, after listening to some of it, I usually ended up turning it off and going text only.
But there have been a few games where the spoken dialogue was so stirring, it made a good game great, or a great game replayable over and over.
Neverwinter Nights (the orignal) is the one that stands out most in my mind. The female voice for Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande was so well done, that I felt captivated by her. It is one of the few times I've felt drawn to a game character, and that voice is most responsible for my driven need to complete the game, which I accomplished in about 3 days the first time through. It is also the reason I probably play the whole series through every year or so, just for to hear that voice acting. The woman that did that voice could have gotten me to walk through fire, sight unseen. And yes, I'm happily married, 2 kids, etc. I'm not pathetic, but that voice just stirred me to action.
There are other games that affected other people similarily. I know a lot of people loved Baldur's Gate due to some of the funny lines and voices.
But most games? Nope, they just don't enhance it as much as the voice actors think. Heck, I'm ready to turn the voice volume of for Age of Conan already.
Talk about not knowing what you are talking about!
EQ2's UI is fully customizable, and there is absolutely NO BETTER UI addition to ANY game than the EQ2Maps project. Even the game Devs us it when they play. Any new player is immediately told to download it by people they meet, and once they get it set up, they always say "holy ! This is incredible!"
That's one of the reasons I found myself preferrign EQ2 over WoW.
In EQ2, I rarely went on a raid that lasted more than 2hrs, and if it did, it was with a casual group of friends that took its time instead of trying to be efficient. The fun may have been higher with the friends, but the raid would have sucked if it wasn't for those same people.
And I found that a PUG raid of 24 people in EQ2 really was a hoot 9 out of 10 times. My PUG experiences in WoW were only good about 10% of the time.
Really, EQ2 offers twice as many character classes, no race restrictions with more races, and more content. Major game updates seem to come out about every 6 months, as opposed to every 12-18 months. And, there are less jerks playing, because there is so much less PvP to do.
Oh wait, this is
This is hardly surprising. Look at the multitude of MMOs that have started development, and been left by the roadside due to lack of funding for the craptastic product. Then look at all the MMOs that have died within 2yrs of launch due to lack of players.
Heck, even some of the ones that are still going today would have died if they hadn't gotten lucky. Vanguard is only around because SOE bailed out Sigil, and the product is still not very good a full year after release. It should have never gone gold when it did, as it's now a "paid beta".
The only thing that keeps the full numbers from looking so bad is the various "free to play but with an item mall" MMOs that come out of the Asian Pacific market. They can all call themselves successful, but they have no recurring income due to subscriptions, so they have little to no future development, and are basically "how many potions can you carry and use" games with no strategy outside of that.
Don't think so many have gone belly up? Check this site out, and look at the number of games that were cancelled either pre-beta or during beta, or after launch. It's a lot. BetaWatcher
Where I live in North Texas, I lose calls on my AT&T 3G phone all the time, as it drops down to a different service level. I've even gotten the dreaded "Emergency service only" a few times on various days. Considering the town/city I live in has over 100K people and 2 pretty large universities, it has been surprising how poorly their 3G coverage is.
Considering my cell phone is my work phone (I work from home), this is not a good thing. The only reason I use AT&T is because at the time, there was no other carrier that had a decent plan that includes Canada in one flat rate. I call Canada several times a day, as my Dev team is there for the software I support.
They don't offer that plan anymore, so I keep my service level the same, and they don't change me 3 arms and 2 legs to keep it going. But with the current service levels, I'm considering a switch anyways.
It isn't just engineers and IT savvy people that show they have brains. It's pretty much anyone that the lawyers know will see right through the B.S. of their case.
I've been summoned for jury duty several times, and never had to sit through a trial. Most were criminal cases, but the civil cases are really a hoot.
For one, the plaintive's attorney was asking questions like "Do you have a problem with people that file lawsuits for pain and suffering?" About 3/4ths of the potential jurors were tossed immediately. The judge then said "Don't try that stunt again."
For another, I got excused because I used to be a paramedic, and the last thing the plaintive's lawyer wanted was someone who was intimately familiar with accident scenes and the likeliness of injuries from various accidents. The judge actually snickered when I said "I used to be a paramedic, and I never saw anyone with those kind of spinal injuries from a 20MPH rear end collision."
Criminal cases are one thing, but the sheer stupidity that lawyers look for in civil cases is astounding. It's not a jury of your peers. It's a jury of the dumbest the plaintive cound find.
I can understand to an certain extent the worries that government and police authorities have about laser pointers, as they are often used by crime elements or by people just thinking they are funny.
Criminals often use them in the drug community, according to police officers I have talked to. It is not unheard of for an undercover agent to end up with a red dot on the side of his head that he cannot see, but the drug dealer CAN see, and is tipped off that it's a cop he is about to sell to.
And I know that they are used for much mischief in places. In Ocean City, MD, they were (at least back in the late 90's) outlawed, because during the firefighter conventions, the rowdy firefighters would use them on the cops. And ask any cop what he will do if he suddenly sees a red dot on his chest. Yep, dive for cover while pulling their weapon.
I see no reason to not allow their use indoors, though. When doing seminars on software use, it is VERY useful to point out which field on the screen you are referring to. I used one for that reason for years until someone stole it from a conference.
They also make the world's greatest cat toy. If you have a cat, buy one, and amuse yourself for hours making your feline chase that red dot everywhere. Some dogs really dig them, too. I had a lot of fun shining mine out the window and getting my neighbor's dog (with the owner's permission) to run in circles in the yard, and jump on the bricks of the garage.
The only problem with most laser pointers is that their range is insane. The fact that you can hit a cockpit of an airplane that is often more than a mile up makes them dangerous in the hands of the idiot.
See Wikipedia for a pretty complete explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer
In a nutshell, it's someone that does a deliberately obnoxious or destructive thing to another person, simply for their own personal entertainment.
So, it's not exactly being used correctly. If it was done by Anonymous in response to a supposed threat, that was a premptive strike, not a griefing. If it wasn't anonymous, but simply someone that thought it would be funny, then griefing is a correct term for it.
you're ignoring Blizzard's business model, and their argument. The money from the box/cd that you buy in the store is negligible compared to the monthly fees that are paid.
Blizzard has the highest profits by having a large subscriber base that doesn't play often. BOTs use much more resources on the servers at Blizzard; they use up more bandwidth, more computational and data resources, etc, than the normal user.
Actually, I'm not ignoring the fact that the subscription money is where the cash is at. However... If the account is banned, and the person gets 2 new boxes, then starts paying a monthly fee again, that's what? 29.99 x2 plus the monthly fee of 14.99 (last I remembered)? I'll take that extra 60 bucks, thank you very much! And while the bot is using bandwidth, it isn't using any more than an active player. Many of the gold farmer leagues have 3-4 people playing the same account, so they use the same bandwidth.
There is also the extraordinary dissatisfaction the non-bot players have with the experience when, in a battleground, they know that if they fight their asses off for 20 minutes to win Alterac Valley, anyone that is a bot or afk is going to get the same bonus honor and same daily bonuses as they are. Would you like to see a coworker get paid almost as much as you for literally not even being there at all? That is a serious PR issue for Blizzard. To keep the normal player base (the ones that aren't using as much resources - ie, the ones that are more profitable) happy, they get rid of the few folk that aren't as profitable anyway. Blizzard doesn't care if the BOT user buys a new CD; they'd actually prefer that person not ever play again, most likely.
No, like you said, they want that monthly subscription fee, and if they can get extra game boxes sold, they rake in even more cash. Why do you think banned players keep showing back up? They have the player's name and credit card numbers, but somehow they keep getting new subscriptions? I'd say Blizzard wants their cash, just like all businesses do. And if they can appear to keep their hands clean, they'll do it.
You're also forgetting that many people find enjoyment by having more power, control, etc. If I can make a bot that gets me 75k honor in a week or two with no work from me, then I can use that honor to buy high-end items, and then come back and actually play the game at that point, with the benefit that the afk activity provided. Your character actually gains quite a bit while you're not there, if no one reports it. Even the losing team gets some honor.
If course there are people that to have more than the rest of players. It's the famous "MMO e-penis factor", as I like to call it. They all want to have a bigger "e-penis" than the next guy, and will go to any lengths to achieve it. This isn't new to WoW. Heck, on the EQ1 server I played on, the "Time" zone was blocked to all but 4 guilds, because every time the mobs needed to gain access to that zone spawned, one of the 4 guilds killed it within minutes. If you weren't fast enough, no access for you, and no showing off the really great items you could get from Time. Family style guilds and alliances of more casual players had whole parts of the game blocked because of this. It's why so many games have gone to instanced dungeons.
As for the honor disaster that WoW has, it's been a debacle from implementation. From the stupidity of making gear that you can earn through Honor better than most group/raid drops, they've created a situation where it pays to cheat. It's one of the reasons I don't like PvP. It brings out the lowest common behavior in most people.
Part of Blizzard's problem is the lack of new content and releases. It's something that SOE learned from EQ1, and carries forward with EQ2. A release every 6 months of new content, new races and starting zones, etc, really keeps the need for botting down. Yeah, not nearly as many folks are playing EQ2, but I never once saw any ac