That's what I was saying. If you root the device the storage restriction is not there. How you root the devices (android) doesn't matter - I didn't say it would be difficult. The fact is you have to root it. Technically, it may violate the TOS depending on how you purchase it. Obviously the unlocked version does not have that caveat since there are no real terms of service.
Most people will probably not be rooting their phone, just like most people probably don't jailbreak their iPhone.
Keep in mind, something I found out as I was about to pick one up myself, the iPhone by default stores its apps and app data on the 4/8/16gb flash memory it has and runs them from there. Android devices, even with SD/SDHC slots capable of 32gb of memory will not allow, by default apps to be downloaded and run from the SD/SDHC. All apps have to be run (by default) from within that 512MB of internal memory.
The only alternative is to root your device and make modifications to allows apps to be run from the SD/SDHC. This was put in place to protect (a drm of sort) purchased apps from the Android marketplace.
oogle admits they are trying to find a solution to the problem, such as encrypting purchased apps so they can be run from removable media. Until that is done, the Nexus One has approximately 256MB of space for downloaded apps and the iPhone has 4+gb of space for said apps. Again, unless you root your device.
iPhone app space = 4/8/16gb Nexus One (default/non-rooted) app space = ~256MB Nexu One (rooted) app space = size of SD/SDHC card (~32gb)
The movie had nothing to do with Heinlein's book in the beginning. It was originally intended to be a generic space bug hunt movie until the director became aware of the Starship Troopers IP, read a little bit of it (his own words) and adapted the movie to fit the book a bit. It wasn't a critique. In fact he never read the whole book. It was just a title and minor adaptation.
Plato's Republic was similar but not quite the same. It did have a class of citizens that had a sole duty to look after the rest (for the public), but it also involved lying to them for their own good (baby lotteries) and community families. Both books and ideas are very similar, but still have their unique qualities.
Heinlein most certainly didn't come up with the idea of responsibility in governance, he just put it into book form and made it more palatable:-)
Here's a quote from wiki, but you can check out the commentary if you have it or look up the references:
"There is a vast divergence between the original book and film. A report in an American Cinematographer article around the same time as the film's release states the Heinlein novel was optioned well into the pre-production period of the film, which had a working title of Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine; most of the writing team reportedly were unaware of the novel at the time. According to the DVD commentary, Paul Verhoeven never finished reading the novel, claiming he read through the first few chapters and became both "bored and depressed."[4]"
The second and third movie installments were most certainly social commentary and critique. The animated series has more to do with the book than any of the movies.
Also, if you read any of Heinlein's interviews, you will find that his intention was not that only military service earned citizenship, but ANY federal service, military or not earned citizenship. He did admit that he didn't convey that too well in the book like he had in his mind. Of course the movie, being a bug hunt movie that was converted to Starship Troopers near the end conveys none of that.
in fact I'd go further and say that being smart and informed without showing responsibility and selflessness is even worse than being dumb and uninformed. Dictators are built of that kind of stuff.
Of course in any group you have your 10% shit birds. History has shown that true in all groups (including those that have served).
Being smart and informed doesn't != caring about the issues, selfless enough to deal with them appropriately, or responsible enough to deal with them at all.
I really like the BSDs as well. I'm with you on almost everything you said, except you lost me on the last part. I think it may have just been the fact that it was a quick snippet, and I may have interpreted it wrong.
"Relying on GUI config tools, DHCP, and other magic to keep "newbies" from needing to actually learn anything is counter-productive and isn't going to help create new professionals."
I would like to add that an operating system's purpose shouldn't be to create new professionals any more than a car's purpose should be to create new mechanics. It's just a tool. People want to and need to use them that work in fields completely unrelated to understanding the inner workings of computers. Most people shouldn't even have to know what an IP address is. It should just work (preferably with some sense of security, though that doesn't usually chide well with ease of use or obscurity of underlying mechanisms).
You shouldn't need or even care to know anything about radio wave propagation theory in order to watch television, other than the basics of how to set up your antenna (assuming you even watch over the air broadcasts). The same should apply to any consumer operating system. I'd include Ubuntu as a linux distro that is trying to fit into that category as opposed to something like Gentoo or OpenBSD which have different reasons to live.
also, restricting developers from porting and redistributing GPL software through the app store restricts the freedoms of other people to play that free software on the iphone where those particular people do not have the skills to port to the iphone themselves. More and more the GPL seems to be about restricting the freedoms of some people in order to grant freedoms to other people. This is not freedom, even though Rome may have called it freedom at one time.
OS X by itself is cheaper than Windows. Windows is not cheap. Most of us consider Windows expensive and the EULA pretty rough. Your argument has the problem that expensive is relative. I'm sure you're going to say something about adding the cost of the hardware to increase the cost of OS X over Windows, but that does not mean that all of a sudden Windows is cheap. Windows is still expensive even if a generic x86 machine with Windows is cheaper than Mac hardware + OS X. So, any GPL software ported to Windows (assuming it won't run under Wine) is inherently restricting you to an expensive platform (since Linux and BSD are free). If you're talking about pirating Windows then you're just rambling because at that point we're disregarding copyright altogether, which is what the GPL is based on. You also must agree to the Microsoft EULA if the port is using any of their special APIs such as DirectX unless you are going to port it back over to OpenGL. If it is a device driver and you want it signed then you are in the exact same position as on the iPhone
The problem here isn't the platform. The problem is many developers want to be seen as giving away something for free - in most cases nothing will ever come from it - but in actuality they all have their own little vision of free that is not quite like anyone else's. This is why we have licenses, laws, etc etc. Since everyone interprets things differently, you can only go by the letter of the license. If that is not good enough for some people, then they should refrain from giving away software only to complain about how someone uses it later on. Otherwise they can give it into the public domain and make it really free.
btw, iPhone app source code under the GPL does not restrict you to x86 Mac OS X or to the apple store. You can 1) jailbreak your iphone and build the app on a hackintosh, or 2) you can actually do a little bit of work (gasp) and port it to the platform of your choice. If the platform of your choice is the iPhone, then your issue is with Apple, not the distributor. If your platform of choice is a DEC Alpha, then its your responsibility to procure the appropriate hardware and software to build on a DEC Alpha.
that's incorrect. GPLv3 exists because some people thought it was not in the spirit of GPLv2. it may be against the spirit of GPLv3, but that is not GPLv2. They are two separate licenses. No GPL license mandates that anyone has to migrate to a newer one. Hence, software remaining with the GPLv2 do not agree. If this software is released as GPLv2 then GPLv3 isn't even relevant. If they did not believe that the software should be used in the manner it was used in then the authors should have either used another license or created another license that prevented this sort of thing from happening.
Contrary to what the original poster posted in the summary, the article is not relating level-based MMOs to games that require player skill (the FPS/RTS reference in the summary). The article is referring to games like Ultima Online that use a character skill-based system. For example, Ultima Online uses skill-points and Guild Wars uses a low level cap(tutorial i a sense) to emphasize the skills you pick up. I believe EVE is also skill-based in the sense that you build up your characters in-game skills as you play. That is not something really related to most FPS/RTS games since they arguably rely on out-of-game player-based skills, not in-game character-based skills.
of course, to clarify, this isn't what the parent is saying in one part since mages can't teleport from anywhere to anywhere, but rather from anywhere to specific pre-destined places. Warlocks also can only teleport others from anywhere TO pre-destined places, but in both cases it seems they fall under the general consensus on this thread as well as other forums this is popping up on that it's instant travel, makes the world smaller, and should be removed. Whether it's instant travel for just a few or instant travel for all, it's still instant travel.
It sounds to me like most of the posters here would agree with removing Mage teleportation and warlock summoning from WoW because it makes the world feel small. Most of them aren't talking lore-wise (some are), just that instant travel makes the world small, period.. Either that or they just don't want others to have that ability unless they play a Mage/Warlock like them.
You also have to be careful to consider whether its a verbatim reprint or not. If they rephrased parts of the original, changed it what-not, then the text is considered a derivative work and falls under copyright (just as a translation is considered a derivative work). If you re-type that work and in the process re-type their 'version' of the original work, you would be infringing the copyright of the derivative work. For the companies and people that reprint these old works, it would definitely be in their best interest to produce non-exact derivatives (look at the many different versions of the Holy Bible for example) which they can then use to detect when someone is typing their copy (which is copyrighted) as opposed to the original copy.
It's similar to AMD and Intel duplicating each others chips and inadvertently copying specific flaws as well (or even the latest ScummVM/Wii case that was on slashdot where the devs noticed the flaw in the game).
HG Wells' War of the Worlds is public domain at this point. However, if you wrote a book or made a new movie by copying the dialog from the Spielberg version then you would be violating the copyright on that derivative work (even if you would have come up with that version on your own with just the original in your mind).
yeah probably 1 in a big-assed-number chance of getting hit by a meteorite, but once someone gets hit, then they probably means there's a 1 in a million chance of that person surviving said hit...
It would only be a good MMO world if players were professions other than adventurers as well (which probably wouldn't be too popular or fun). Taking a world with 10 million adventurers (making up the majority of the world's population) isn't really a world. That's too many heroes. The majority of the people in any world would be the non-adventuring types, which no MMO out there has enough of to compare.
Take any fantasy set you want from books or RPGs (or take non-fantasy history) and you'll find that relatively speaking, the numbers of adventurers/heroes are not even close to that high.
Hence, sandboxes really do emulate a fantasy world more than a single shard, population-wise with relation to adventurers to non-adventurers. This is especially true since it's not a world of millions of people - it's a world of millions of adventurers/heroes, which is not comparable to any fantasy setting out there (well traditional fantasy setting anyhow, not talking Krull or something on a galactic scale).
Too many people are seeing an all or nothing solution - wow/eve or guild wars. I challenge that it doesn't have to be that way. I would suggest going with the Tabula Rasa method, each server 'instance' being the same size as a current WoW server (which is technically instanced by continent). This means you have WoW but with the equivalent ability to instantly switch between servers. It's a win-win situation. The instances are just as populated as they currently are (possibly closer to max if you dynamically allocate/de-allocate servers) with the bonus that you can play on a server with your friend and switch immediately to another one.
It doesn't have to be like Guild Wars. It could simply be WoW with instant (and free) server transfers (well, pretty close, not exactly the same since they would be mega instances instead of servers.
So, at least a middle-ground solution: Each WoW 4-instanced world server (Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland/Exodar/Silvermoon, Northrend) is basically a world-instance (similar to but not exactly how Tabula Rasa did it). You can even still display them as separate servers. In reality, assuming they can work the technology (which is what the article is about), a player can switch their character to other instances (from Blackwater Raiders to Shadowmoon) instantly to play with someone else. You can talk to friends and meet up somewhere to play together.
yeah true. it was within the rules, but they probably shouldn't expect a big turnout the next time they ask the public for something or try to garner excitement back into NASA.
rules may be rules and they may be right, but rules and someone acting within the letter of the rules aren't what will affect public opinion. otherwise we'd all be robots.
ask anyone who has played a game with a rules lawyer'.
lol, yeah that's pretty ingenious. I wouldn't do it, but yeah, output is usually the bottleneck - whether across a modem/network connection or even the console. Most of the ones I played on or ran actually used the max turns feature instead of time limit (set by the game instead of the BBS) combined with a max time online that was set by the BBS for the session and/or day - long time ago so I can't remember what they were.
The only way I could think of to solve that problem there and still allow unlimited turns (per the max login time per day of one hour you all had) was use the BBS option to cap the number of logins period:-) I usually set a cap on the max number of logins per day just so nobody would do anything strange, but didn't think of that scenario..
however, since everyone seems to bring a sports analogy, I thought of one just a bit ago. The analogy about buying the end of the game (buying your win) is a poor one. If you wanted an analogy then the analogy would be basketball/baseball/nascar/football (both incarnations) teams buying high-profile or 'exceptional' players (or vehicles), which they most certainly do all the time. The money that teams (or more so their owners) spend on players, in particular free agent players is very much akin to people buying gear to play the endgame. The gear doesn't guarantee a person a win (or shouldn't) any more than a team paying for a particular player should guarantee a win (and usually doesn't). Millions of people are perfectly fine with the concept of sports and most of them do not think that a team is buying the championship when they can afford to pay multimillion dollar contracts to particular players.
There's your sports analogy - a more accurate one.
I see the point is lost here. Again, that's an extreme, which I've pointed out is not what I'm talking about. The correct analogy would be letting the team continue to play while the other team takes a break. You can't really compare MMOs to any other game or sport, there's no real equivalent. Since you've been around long enough you should remember games before the current trend like Trade Wars and the old BBS games. They had an idea this would happen and designed their games to share time equally (unless the SysOP decided to override the settings for his hosted game) in that no matter how much free time you had, you were placed on an equal footing with those that didn't have as much time. You got 100 turns., Everyone got 100 turns (or whatever the SysOP customized it to). The guy that wanted to play after a long day of work because it was fun to do so could play and know that some kid didn't sit at home all day farming Wanderer and all the other ports dry. That doesn't exist in most MMOs today, and there is no alternative to even the playing field.
Also, I'm not referring to gold sellers in particular. Most of the time they break the ToS, something I would never advocate. I'm referring RMT/Item Shops implemented by the publisher. In WoW it's currently a moot point since RMT is against the ToS and Wrath changed things a bit (with the exception of loot from the WoW Card game - such as special mounts, which Blizz appears to think is a good idea). The equiv would have been Blizz allowing level 70 players during TBC to buy Dungeon Set gear (not Tier/Raid gear necessarily) so they could have done the regular instances a few times (heroics included) and moved on to try the raids out with friends when they maybe only had a few hours here and there to play. Since raiding is the endgame stuff in WoW, in particular (sticking to PvE), they could progress (or attempt to progress) to see the end game stuff without first grinding out gear.
We probably have different definitions of grind. I've played through WoW as well with quite a few people (also Ultima Online, Guild Wars, LotRO, Warhammer Online, Tabula Rasa, and many more), and even the people that really love it (I like a good chunk of the game, at different stages) have talked occasionally about grind. I won't call bullshit on you because I don't know you, though I suspect you're a civilian from that 30 years of programming experience and I'm veteran, which means we probably have little in common anyhow, including our definitions of work and fun.
I'll leave it alone though. From your comments I can see you either don't understand or more likely are so biased that you won't understand. WoW, as it is with Wrath, has fixed quite many of the issues that originally plagued WoW. You may not see them, but obviously others, including Blizzard have. Now, it's not too difficult to get to the endgame and see the raids (just counting 10-mans, since they plan on correcting the casual 25man experience as a goal of theirs to be more guild-oriented again). Think of any other non-MMO that you've played though that you've had to successfully repeat levels over and over till you've got all the powerups/gear/whatever to move on to the rest of the levels. I'm not talking about re-playing the stuff because its fun or RTS/PvP games where the end is always different, but real PvE games. I'm not taling about having to re-do level because you died on them and failed, either. I'm talking about having to complete a level over and over successfully (finishing that level and getting a powerup or item) until you've finally got enough items that you can succeed on the next level. There aren't very many like that. Its about skill, either you get better and pass it or you don't. Guild Wars and Warhammer Online are good exampes. Tabula Rasa, in its short life was a good example. Those were set up so that RMT is a moot point because time doesn't nearly as much advantage past leveling.
Don't take any offense to this (or do if you will), but your statements eit
btw, just to clear up -> I don't feel in its current state there is anything to buy in WoW. One it's against the ToS and not worth getting banned. Two, the only stuff you could actually buy in WoW if you broke the ToS would be bought for gold. None of the endgame content really depends on being geared up through gold. It depends on being geared up by doing instances over and over (pre-raiding gear). Other games are better examples. If wow did oopen it up and allowed RMT for just gold, it wouldn't make a difference endgame as gold doesn't get you there. It would only be worthwhile really if you could buy a pre-raiding or even pre-heroics gear set (kinda like the rep gear from TBC) if you didn't want to re-do instances so you could get in there and raid (or for those people that have never participated in a group in a game - learn to raid).
specialty mounts are already RMT in WoW - namely WoW:TCG, which again is the same story, opposite side. Warhammer doesn't really need it the way it is setup. Tabula Rasa didn't need it. EVE has it in a roundabout way. Guild Wars doesn't need it, but it comes in handy when starting out PvP (pvp skill pack) or even PvE (skill for heroes). LotRO I don't believe needs it (I haven't needed it anyway).
btw, the Guid Wars community (can be rough on other games) usually posits a question similar to yours - why do you feel you have to pay a subscription fee to enjoy a game. I do and many people do, but there are many people that go the other extreme and think subscriptions to games are silly. it's just a notch past where your question is. I don't mind, heh I even paid ungodly amounts for wireless phones and cable, but again it's all relative.
as far as buying your way to the top, you don't think that people sitting at home all day aren't doing that? I'm guessing you've never worked because if you did you'd know how hard time comes by for many people. Time is a precious resource that gets spit up (for luxury/games among other things).
On your final comment, if nobody's really competing in PvE, then there's no issue with people being able to pay in money instead of time past the grindy parts of the game to get to the fun stuff. Remember, I'm not talking about endgame stuff.. though currently it favors time since most MMos don't favor skill, endgame stuff should always be skill instead of time (repeated raids till you get all your gear) or money (buying endgame gear).
my character isn't playing btw, I am.. I work. I split up my time. evidently the new generation of kids value playing in a game over working and supporting a family. Some of us see it as a balance, some duty, some enjoyment. In very few games is the playing field set up so that one team or side keeps paying while the other side is off the field/board.
the first multiplayer games on BBSs understood this and limited playing by either an equal number of turns or time per day. the subscription model of modern MMOs currently favors dragging things out so that the subscription lasts longer, favoring time over skill. eastern MMOs are just the opposite where they favor money over skill since they are either play-by-the-hour or pay for gear (RMT) as time is an even more limited resource.
truthfully, I've done it. I took vacation and played my way to the top of wow on my server. did I feel I achieved something afterwards (I wanted to see what it was like) - no, because people were pm'ing me that I'd normally pay with asking questions like, do you ever sleep, how do you play so much, etc. I felt like I had cheated to get ahead of them because I knew they couldn't play as much. The bigger issue is demographics. There are so many people that aren't in a stage of life yet where they realize time management comes into play that is makes it difficult for people to see the other side.
the easiest way is for someone without much money and plenty of time to look at Magic:TG or another card game and think how fair it is (not considering booster drafts), then maybe they'll see it from the other point.
By the same token, you have just as many opportunities as me if some form of RMT was involved. If we're not competing, no issue anyways. If we are, you can become more efficient in your playtime to stay ahead of me (assuming TIME/MONEY are balanced). If not, then you would have the same opportunity as me to pay for some non-endgame upgrades, then we can both go raiding together at the same progression level. Many raids already limit time - only one run per x days to keep a more level playing field, though it still favors time. Imagine if WoW (for example) had no raid lockouts. the most hardcore raiders would be able to clear their favorite raids every day. Evidently, someone thought that would be a bad idea.. Games have Daily Quests - same idea.
the old argument "not everyone has that kind of money/job" fits perfectly "not everyone has that kind of time/availability"
kettle/pot
buying your way to the top would entail being able to buy endgame achievements/gear, the same as spending X amount of time in a game that rewards time > skill would do.
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That's what I was saying. If you root the device the storage restriction is not there. How you root the devices (android) doesn't matter - I didn't say it would be difficult. The fact is you have to root it. Technically, it may violate the TOS depending on how you purchase it. Obviously the unlocked version does not have that caveat since there are no real terms of service.
Most people will probably not be rooting their phone, just like most people probably don't jailbreak their iPhone.
Keep in mind, something I found out as I was about to pick one up myself, the iPhone by default stores its apps and app data on the 4/8/16gb flash memory it has and runs them from there. Android devices, even with SD/SDHC slots capable of 32gb of memory will not allow, by default apps to be downloaded and run from the SD/SDHC. All apps have to be run (by default) from within that 512MB of internal memory.
The only alternative is to root your device and make modifications to allows apps to be run from the SD/SDHC. This was put in place to protect (a drm of sort) purchased apps from the Android marketplace.
oogle admits they are trying to find a solution to the problem, such as encrypting purchased apps so they can be run from removable media. Until that is done, the Nexus One has approximately 256MB of space for downloaded apps and the iPhone has 4+gb of space for said apps. Again, unless you root your device.
iPhone app space = 4/8/16gb
Nexus One (default/non-rooted) app space = ~256MB
Nexu One (rooted) app space = size of SD/SDHC card (~32gb)
The movie had nothing to do with Heinlein's book in the beginning. It was originally intended to be a generic space bug hunt movie until the director became aware of the Starship Troopers IP, read a little bit of it (his own words) and adapted the movie to fit the book a bit. It wasn't a critique. In fact he never read the whole book. It was just a title and minor adaptation.
Plato's Republic was similar but not quite the same. It did have a class of citizens that had a sole duty to look after the rest (for the public), but it also involved lying to them for their own good (baby lotteries) and community families. Both books and ideas are very similar, but still have their unique qualities.
Heinlein most certainly didn't come up with the idea of responsibility in governance, he just put it into book form and made it more palatable :-)
Here's a quote from wiki, but you can check out the commentary if you have it or look up the references:
"There is a vast divergence between the original book and film. A report in an American Cinematographer article around the same time as the film's release states the Heinlein novel was optioned well into the pre-production period of the film, which had a working title of Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine; most of the writing team reportedly were unaware of the novel at the time. According to the DVD commentary, Paul Verhoeven never finished reading the novel, claiming he read through the first few chapters and became both "bored and depressed."[4]"
The second and third movie installments were most certainly social commentary and critique. The animated series has more to do with the book than any of the movies.
Also, if you read any of Heinlein's interviews, you will find that his intention was not that only military service earned citizenship, but ANY federal service, military or not earned citizenship. He did admit that he didn't convey that too well in the book like he had in his mind. Of course the movie, being a bug hunt movie that was converted to Starship Troopers near the end conveys none of that.
bad wording.. that is the stuff of Tyrannies is what I should have said.
in fact I'd go further and say that being smart and informed without showing responsibility and selflessness is even worse than being dumb and uninformed. Dictators are built of that kind of stuff.
Of course in any group you have your 10% shit birds. History has shown that true in all groups (including those that have served).
Being smart and informed doesn't != caring about the issues, selfless enough to deal with them appropriately, or responsible enough to deal with them at all.
I really like the BSDs as well. I'm with you on almost everything you said, except you lost me on the last part. I think it may have just been the fact that it was a quick snippet, and I may have interpreted it wrong.
"Relying on GUI config tools, DHCP, and other magic to keep "newbies" from needing to actually learn anything is counter-productive and isn't going to help create new professionals."
I would like to add that an operating system's purpose shouldn't be to create new professionals any more than a car's purpose should be to create new mechanics. It's just a tool. People want to and need to use them that work in fields completely unrelated to understanding the inner workings of computers. Most people shouldn't even have to know what an IP address is. It should just work (preferably with some sense of security, though that doesn't usually chide well with ease of use or obscurity of underlying mechanisms).
You shouldn't need or even care to know anything about radio wave propagation theory in order to watch television, other than the basics of how to set up your antenna (assuming you even watch over the air broadcasts). The same should apply to any consumer operating system. I'd include Ubuntu as a linux distro that is trying to fit into that category as opposed to something like Gentoo or OpenBSD which have different reasons to live.
also, restricting developers from porting and redistributing GPL software through the app store restricts the freedoms of other people to play that free software on the iphone where those particular people do not have the skills to port to the iphone themselves. More and more the GPL seems to be about restricting the freedoms of some people in order to grant freedoms to other people. This is not freedom, even though Rome may have called it freedom at one time.
OS X by itself is cheaper than Windows. Windows is not cheap. Most of us consider Windows expensive and the EULA pretty rough. Your argument has the problem that expensive is relative. I'm sure you're going to say something about adding the cost of the hardware to increase the cost of OS X over Windows, but that does not mean that all of a sudden Windows is cheap. Windows is still expensive even if a generic x86 machine with Windows is cheaper than Mac hardware + OS X. So, any GPL software ported to Windows (assuming it won't run under Wine) is inherently restricting you to an expensive platform (since Linux and BSD are free). If you're talking about pirating Windows then you're just rambling because at that point we're disregarding copyright altogether, which is what the GPL is based on. You also must agree to the Microsoft EULA if the port is using any of their special APIs such as DirectX unless you are going to port it back over to OpenGL. If it is a device driver and you want it signed then you are in the exact same position as on the iPhone
The problem here isn't the platform. The problem is many developers want to be seen as giving away something for free - in most cases nothing will ever come from it - but in actuality they all have their own little vision of free that is not quite like anyone else's. This is why we have licenses, laws, etc etc. Since everyone interprets things differently, you can only go by the letter of the license. If that is not good enough for some people, then they should refrain from giving away software only to complain about how someone uses it later on. Otherwise they can give it into the public domain and make it really free.
btw, iPhone app source code under the GPL does not restrict you to x86 Mac OS X or to the apple store. You can 1) jailbreak your iphone and build the app on a hackintosh, or 2) you can actually do a little bit of work (gasp) and port it to the platform of your choice. If the platform of your choice is the iPhone, then your issue is with Apple, not the distributor. If your platform of choice is a DEC Alpha, then its your responsibility to procure the appropriate hardware and software to build on a DEC Alpha.
that's incorrect. GPLv3 exists because some people thought it was not in the spirit of GPLv2. it may be against the spirit of GPLv3, but that is not GPLv2. They are two separate licenses. No GPL license mandates that anyone has to migrate to a newer one. Hence, software remaining with the GPLv2 do not agree. If this software is released as GPLv2 then GPLv3 isn't even relevant. If they did not believe that the software should be used in the manner it was used in then the authors should have either used another license or created another license that prevented this sort of thing from happening.
Contrary to what the original poster posted in the summary, the article is not relating level-based MMOs to games that require player skill (the FPS/RTS reference in the summary). The article is referring to games like Ultima Online that use a character skill-based system. For example, Ultima Online uses skill-points and Guild Wars uses a low level cap(tutorial i a sense) to emphasize the skills you pick up. I believe EVE is also skill-based in the sense that you build up your characters in-game skills as you play. That is not something really related to most FPS/RTS games since they arguably rely on out-of-game player-based skills, not in-game character-based skills.
of course, to clarify, this isn't what the parent is saying in one part since mages can't teleport from anywhere to anywhere, but rather from anywhere to specific pre-destined places. Warlocks also can only teleport others from anywhere TO pre-destined places, but in both cases it seems they fall under the general consensus on this thread as well as other forums this is popping up on that it's instant travel, makes the world smaller, and should be removed. Whether it's instant travel for just a few or instant travel for all, it's still instant travel.
It sounds to me like most of the posters here would agree with removing Mage teleportation and warlock summoning from WoW because it makes the world feel small. Most of them aren't talking lore-wise (some are), just that instant travel makes the world small, period.. Either that or they just don't want others to have that ability unless they play a Mage/Warlock like them.
You also have to be careful to consider whether its a verbatim reprint or not. If they rephrased parts of the original, changed it what-not, then the text is considered a derivative work and falls under copyright (just as a translation is considered a derivative work). If you re-type that work and in the process re-type their 'version' of the original work, you would be infringing the copyright of the derivative work. For the companies and people that reprint these old works, it would definitely be in their best interest to produce non-exact derivatives (look at the many different versions of the Holy Bible for example) which they can then use to detect when someone is typing their copy (which is copyrighted) as opposed to the original copy.
It's similar to AMD and Intel duplicating each others chips and inadvertently copying specific flaws as well (or even the latest ScummVM/Wii case that was on slashdot where the devs noticed the flaw in the game).
HG Wells' War of the Worlds is public domain at this point. However, if you wrote a book or made a new movie by copying the dialog from the Spielberg version then you would be violating the copyright on that derivative work (even if you would have come up with that version on your own with just the original in your mind).
yeah probably 1 in a big-assed-number chance of getting hit by a meteorite, but once someone gets hit, then they probably means there's a 1 in a million chance of that person surviving said hit...
It would only be a good MMO world if players were professions other than adventurers as well (which probably wouldn't be too popular or fun). Taking a world with 10 million adventurers (making up the majority of the world's population) isn't really a world. That's too many heroes. The majority of the people in any world would be the non-adventuring types, which no MMO out there has enough of to compare.
Take any fantasy set you want from books or RPGs (or take non-fantasy history) and you'll find that relatively speaking, the numbers of adventurers/heroes are not even close to that high.
Hence, sandboxes really do emulate a fantasy world more than a single shard, population-wise with relation to adventurers to non-adventurers. This is especially true since it's not a world of millions of people - it's a world of millions of adventurers/heroes, which is not comparable to any fantasy setting out there (well traditional fantasy setting anyhow, not talking Krull or something on a galactic scale).
Too many people are seeing an all or nothing solution - wow/eve or guild wars. I challenge that it doesn't have to be that way. I would suggest going with the Tabula Rasa method, each server 'instance' being the same size as a current WoW server (which is technically instanced by continent). This means you have WoW but with the equivalent ability to instantly switch between servers. It's a win-win situation. The instances are just as populated as they currently are (possibly closer to max if you dynamically allocate/de-allocate servers) with the bonus that you can play on a server with your friend and switch immediately to another one.
It doesn't have to be like Guild Wars. It could simply be WoW with instant (and free) server transfers (well, pretty close, not exactly the same since they would be mega instances instead of servers.
So, at least a middle-ground solution:
Each WoW 4-instanced world server (Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland/Exodar/Silvermoon, Northrend) is basically a world-instance (similar to but not exactly how Tabula Rasa did it). You can even still display them as separate servers. In reality, assuming they can work the technology (which is what the article is about), a player can switch their character to other instances (from Blackwater Raiders to Shadowmoon) instantly to play with someone else. You can talk to friends and meet up somewhere to play together.
yeah true. it was within the rules, but they probably shouldn't expect a big turnout the next time they ask the public for something or try to garner excitement back into NASA.
rules may be rules and they may be right, but rules and someone acting within the letter of the rules aren't what will affect public opinion. otherwise we'd all be robots.
ask anyone who has played a game with a rules lawyer'.
lol, yeah that's pretty ingenious. I wouldn't do it, but yeah, output is usually the bottleneck - whether across a modem/network connection or even the console. Most of the ones I played on or ran actually used the max turns feature instead of time limit (set by the game instead of the BBS) combined with a max time online that was set by the BBS for the session and/or day - long time ago so I can't remember what they were.
The only way I could think of to solve that problem there and still allow unlimited turns (per the max login time per day of one hour you all had) was use the BBS option to cap the number of logins period :-) I usually set a cap on the max number of logins per day just so nobody would do anything strange, but didn't think of that scenario..
nice memory :-)
really on my way out this time :-)
however, since everyone seems to bring a sports analogy, I thought of one just a bit ago. The analogy about buying the end of the game (buying your win) is a poor one. If you wanted an analogy then the analogy would be basketball/baseball/nascar/football (both incarnations) teams buying high-profile or 'exceptional' players (or vehicles), which they most certainly do all the time. The money that teams (or more so their owners) spend on players, in particular free agent players is very much akin to people buying gear to play the endgame. The gear doesn't guarantee a person a win (or shouldn't) any more than a team paying for a particular player should guarantee a win (and usually doesn't). Millions of people are perfectly fine with the concept of sports and most of them do not think that a team is buying the championship when they can afford to pay multimillion dollar contracts to particular players.
There's your sports analogy - a more accurate one.
have a good one..
I see the point is lost here. Again, that's an extreme, which I've pointed out is not what I'm talking about. The correct analogy would be letting the team continue to play while the other team takes a break. You can't really compare MMOs to any other game or sport, there's no real equivalent. Since you've been around long enough you should remember games before the current trend like Trade Wars and the old BBS games. They had an idea this would happen and designed their games to share time equally (unless the SysOP decided to override the settings for his hosted game) in that no matter how much free time you had, you were placed on an equal footing with those that didn't have as much time. You got 100 turns., Everyone got 100 turns (or whatever the SysOP customized it to). The guy that wanted to play after a long day of work because it was fun to do so could play and know that some kid didn't sit at home all day farming Wanderer and all the other ports dry. That doesn't exist in most MMOs today, and there is no alternative to even the playing field.
Also, I'm not referring to gold sellers in particular. Most of the time they break the ToS, something I would never advocate. I'm referring RMT/Item Shops implemented by the publisher. In WoW it's currently a moot point since RMT is against the ToS and Wrath changed things a bit (with the exception of loot from the WoW Card game - such as special mounts, which Blizz appears to think is a good idea). The equiv would have been Blizz allowing level 70 players during TBC to buy Dungeon Set gear (not Tier/Raid gear necessarily) so they could have done the regular instances a few times (heroics included) and moved on to try the raids out with friends when they maybe only had a few hours here and there to play. Since raiding is the endgame stuff in WoW, in particular (sticking to PvE), they could progress (or attempt to progress) to see the end game stuff without first grinding out gear.
We probably have different definitions of grind. I've played through WoW as well with quite a few people (also Ultima Online, Guild Wars, LotRO, Warhammer Online, Tabula Rasa, and many more), and even the people that really love it (I like a good chunk of the game, at different stages) have talked occasionally about grind. I won't call bullshit on you because I don't know you, though I suspect you're a civilian from that 30 years of programming experience and I'm veteran, which means we probably have little in common anyhow, including our definitions of work and fun.
I'll leave it alone though. From your comments I can see you either don't understand or more likely are so biased that you won't understand. WoW, as it is with Wrath, has fixed quite many of the issues that originally plagued WoW. You may not see them, but obviously others, including Blizzard have. Now, it's not too difficult to get to the endgame and see the raids (just counting 10-mans, since they plan on correcting the casual 25man experience as a goal of theirs to be more guild-oriented again). Think of any other non-MMO that you've played though that you've had to successfully repeat levels over and over till you've got all the powerups/gear/whatever to move on to the rest of the levels. I'm not talking about re-playing the stuff because its fun or RTS/PvP games where the end is always different, but real PvE games. I'm not taling about having to re-do level because you died on them and failed, either. I'm talking about having to complete a level over and over successfully (finishing that level and getting a powerup or item) until you've finally got enough items that you can succeed on the next level. There aren't very many like that. Its about skill, either you get better and pass it or you don't. Guild Wars and Warhammer Online are good exampes. Tabula Rasa, in its short life was a good example. Those were set up so that RMT is a moot point because time doesn't nearly as much advantage past leveling.
Don't take any offense to this (or do if you will), but your statements eit
btw, just to clear up -> I don't feel in its current state there is anything to buy in WoW. One it's against the ToS and not worth getting banned. Two, the only stuff you could actually buy in WoW if you broke the ToS would be bought for gold. None of the endgame content really depends on being geared up through gold. It depends on being geared up by doing instances over and over (pre-raiding gear). Other games are better examples. If wow did oopen it up and allowed RMT for just gold, it wouldn't make a difference endgame as gold doesn't get you there. It would only be worthwhile really if you could buy a pre-raiding or even pre-heroics gear set (kinda like the rep gear from TBC) if you didn't want to re-do instances so you could get in there and raid (or for those people that have never participated in a group in a game - learn to raid).
specialty mounts are already RMT in WoW - namely WoW:TCG, which again is the same story, opposite side. Warhammer doesn't really need it the way it is setup. Tabula Rasa didn't need it. EVE has it in a roundabout way. Guild Wars doesn't need it, but it comes in handy when starting out PvP (pvp skill pack) or even PvE (skill for heroes). LotRO I don't believe needs it (I haven't needed it anyway).
btw, the Guid Wars community (can be rough on other games) usually posits a question similar to yours - why do you feel you have to pay a subscription fee to enjoy a game. I do and many people do, but there are many people that go the other extreme and think subscriptions to games are silly. it's just a notch past where your question is. I don't mind, heh I even paid ungodly amounts for wireless phones and cable, but again it's all relative.
as far as buying your way to the top, you don't think that people sitting at home all day aren't doing that? I'm guessing you've never worked because if you did you'd know how hard time comes by for many people. Time is a precious resource that gets spit up (for luxury/games among other things).
On your final comment, if nobody's really competing in PvE, then there's no issue with people being able to pay in money instead of time past the grindy parts of the game to get to the fun stuff. Remember, I'm not talking about endgame stuff.. though currently it favors time since most MMos don't favor skill, endgame stuff should always be skill instead of time (repeated raids till you get all your gear) or money (buying endgame gear).
my character isn't playing btw, I am.. I work. I split up my time. evidently the new generation of kids value playing in a game over working and supporting a family. Some of us see it as a balance, some duty, some enjoyment. In very few games is the playing field set up so that one team or side keeps paying while the other side is off the field/board.
the first multiplayer games on BBSs understood this and limited playing by either an equal number of turns or time per day. the subscription model of modern MMOs currently favors dragging things out so that the subscription lasts longer, favoring time over skill. eastern MMOs are just the opposite where they favor money over skill since they are either play-by-the-hour or pay for gear (RMT) as time is an even more limited resource.
truthfully, I've done it. I took vacation and played my way to the top of wow on my server. did I feel I achieved something afterwards (I wanted to see what it was like) - no, because people were pm'ing me that I'd normally pay with asking questions like, do you ever sleep, how do you play so much, etc. I felt like I had cheated to get ahead of them because I knew they couldn't play as much. The bigger issue is demographics. There are so many people that aren't in a stage of life yet where they realize time management comes into play that is makes it difficult for people to see the other side.
the easiest way is for someone without much money and plenty of time to look at Magic:TG or another card game and think how fair it is (not considering booster drafts), then maybe they'll see it from the other point.
By the same token, you have just as many opportunities as me if some form of RMT was involved. If we're not competing, no issue anyways. If we are, you can become more efficient in your playtime to stay ahead of me (assuming TIME/MONEY are balanced). If not, then you would have the same opportunity as me to pay for some non-endgame upgrades, then we can both go raiding together at the same progression level. Many raids already limit time - only one run per x days to keep a more level playing field, though it still favors time. Imagine if WoW (for example) had no raid lockouts. the most hardcore raiders would be able to clear their favorite raids every day. Evidently, someone thought that would be a bad idea.. Games have Daily Quests - same idea.
the old argument "not everyone has that kind of money/job" fits perfectly "not everyone has that kind of time/availability"
kettle/pot
buying your way to the top would entail being able to buy endgame achievements/gear, the same as spending X amount of time in a game that rewards time > skill would do.