I don't condone her actions, nor would I excuse them. In fact, I get somewhat irritated by those that try to justify stealing music. I'd actually agree that she needs to be punished to some reasonable degree.
I don't agree, however, that downloading music illegally is a crime that merits the financial destruction of someone's future. That's the issue I have here.
Let me ask you - would you consider illegally downloading music or stealing a car a more serious crime? Doesn't it seem a bit crazy to you that the penalty for downloading music is harsher than grand theft auto?
Well, Sony is just telling us that it's *their network*, and they can do whatever the hell they want with it. It's a closed network. Is anyone surprised?
Naturally, no company in their right mind would create a closed network without asserting control over it. After all, whatever happens on the network, they'll likely held responsible for it to some degree. They're a big company with deep pockets, so they cover themselves like this.
The whole notion of users not broadcasting their real name - well, that's a pretty good idea in general, right? But by codifying it into the terms of service, they protect themselves when some idiot smack-talking kid actually gets the crap beat out of him when someone learns his real name and home address. Or is the target of a scam. Or any number of a thousand bad things that can happen if you aren't careful with your identity online.
Wow, that was quite a mod-bombing. I'm not sure I've ever gotten a -1 flamebait before.
I'm guessing the comment that sparked the most ire was saying "USB 2.0 is better than Firewire 400", which was a mis-statement. I meant to say "has more bandwidth". You've absolutely correct that USB relies more on the CPU, and it's not in any way a superior solution for audio. And you're also correct, this is more of a problem for laptops than desktops because of their inherently more limited processing power.
But the main point of my post was just to indicate that there are, in fact, professional USB audio devices available. It's a bit of hyperbole to state otherwise.
not in the audio world it isn't... try finding a multichannel professional usb sound card...
Uh... ok USB 2.0 has plenty of speed for an 8 channel recording device. It's actually slightly better than Firewire 400.
I'm not saying firewire is dead or dying soon in the pro audio world - that same company has firewire devices as well. There are other commercial standards for transporting digital audio signals as well, such as AES/EBU, of which the consumer-grade derivative is known as S/PDIF.
Generally speaking, commercial audio doesn't really follow modern standards quite as closely as consumer goods, because in most applications (with the exception of mobile notebooks), the professional can simply buy dedicated hardware to do the job.
...because they're interviewing "producers", not "game designers." Yeah, I've been there before. 'nuff said.
Still, looks like a good game. I'll never buy it on the PC, of course. I'll have to think hard about whether I want to support them by purchasing the Xbox game.
There were tons of doors around me, in front of me, and behind me. Any one of them could spew out a bunch of monsters. But none did, yet. The worst part was the ambient sound that kept me completely uneasy. It wasn't obvious stuff like monsters or whatever, it was just a carefully crafted sound that made me uncomfortable the entire time I played. To compound the issue, I wasn't a superpowerful space marine. In the game I was an unarmed drug addict who was hallucinating. Even in broad daylight, with other people in the house, I just couldn't bring myself to play it. I tried several 2 minute plays before I gave up. It was too scary for me. I never saw a single monster. That is good horror.
Ah, "horror game". So that's what the kids are calling it nowadays...
The biggest problem in entrusting government with more power is that the government tends to wield that power in perpetuity - it's not often that a government ever gives up power. What may sound like a great idea today could be a nightmare with the wrong people in charge.
I always am confused by those who think it's a great idea to entrust the government with more power (via taxation, social programs, regulations, health care, you name it), but when it comes to security measures, it's hands off! What makes one branch of government inherently more trustworthy than another? Why would people trust some bureaucratic regulator not to abuse his power, when they (rightly) wouldn't trust a law-enforcement officer in the same capacity?
...until you get all the bugs worked out of those systems. And unfortunately, lessons of these kinds are often paid in tragedy. These passengers should consider themselves lucky that the pilots reacted so quickly.
Not trying to be too flippant, as I can scarcely imagine the complexity of trying to create what essentially needs to be an infallible system in such a complex problem space. As a programmer, thinking about putting my life in the hands of a computer program scares the living hell out of me. The whole issue is that computers, by and large, lack "common sense", and are prone to accept garbage input without question.
Apparently, this was caused by "a malfunctioning computer". Isn't there sort of redundancy check on anything that could cause the computer to send the plane plummeting toward the earth? One faulty computer can cause this? I'm sure the article is over-simplifying the problem, but still...
I'm cool with that, so long as I'm not asked to foot the bill for anyone's health care later in life for idiotic choices they make now.
Unfortunately, we seem destined in the US to push forward universal health care. At that point, I'll be obligated to pay for the mistake of every nitwit who blew their ears out with 110dB music, fried their brain with drugs, smoked their lungs black, etc. I fear this will be yet another excuse of those who inexplicably need to control and regulate others' behavior.
It would be an interesting experiment, but the big variable - and I think one impossible to judge with any scientific methodology - is how each method helped or hindered the artists' creative process. If this tool allowed them to quickly try out new concepts that would only otherwise be available to a more freehand 2d process... it would seem to have some promise. It's a little hard to tell from a short video whether this would be useful, because we saw a few very limited examples with what was obviously a very expert user.
Even if this system ultimately doesn't prove itself in the market as a commercial product, I think it's likely pioneered some pretty creative interfaces that may *evolve* into something that does end up revolutionizing 3D computer modeling. Not to oversell it or anything, but it really does seem to have potential in the way it uses natural gestures and tries to intuit what the *intent* of the user is, rather than doing what most computer programs do - is accept *literal* input.
This seems like it could be very useful in bridging the gap between concept art and a fully rendered 3d model. I'll have to remember to point this out to a few of my artist colleagues at work and see what they think about it.
Of course, I'll probably have to warn them to turn off the sound first. Quick hint to the developers of this cool little toy: Artists get nervous when when programmers start talking about "single view symmetric epipolar method" and other very complicated terms. If you've ever worked with artists before, you know you're starting to get too technical when the eyes start glazing over. I then know to take a step back and try to re-phrase in non-tech.
All you programmers are now thinking "but... that's exactly what it's describing", and I'll just put my hand to my head and sigh. Different ways of thinking.
Don't even get me started about trying to get in the heads of game designers.
Oblivion also had dynamic dificulty, that could easily be abused.
Yep. Oblivion's auto-scaling was on a whole different level of crapola. Let me count the ways:
* When your skills increased, you increased in power. When your level increased, the enemies increased. If you simply avoided sleeping, the game became easier and easier. I normally don't mind obscure "exploits" in single-player games (I tend not to actively seek them out), but this was ridiculous. * Certain missions (like the Kvatch mission) had NPCs that didn't scale up with the monsters. When I first played the game, I ran around and leveled up quite a bit before that mission. The enemies scaled up so bloody far above the guards it was an absolute massacre. I eventually realized one NPC was unkillable, so I hid in a corner while he fought, died, and was resurrected about a thousand times over the course of few hours. * Since enemies (and rewards) level up with you, there's absolutely zero point to running around the world, delving into dungeons, and getting more powerful. * Bandits eventually are routinely seen wearing *glass armor* (most expensive and best light armor in the game, worth many thousands of gold). Yet they still stop you and demand 100 gold, just like when they were wearing rags earlier in the game.
The point is, it's easy to say "scale difficulty with the player", but I think it's actually fairly hard to do in practice without potentially causing other issues. Oblivion just happened to be the poster-boy for this sort of system destroying an otherwise really cool game for me. I really wish they had just used the following simple rule to scale difficulty in the game: the farther you are from civilization, the harder the enemies get and the greater the rewards dropped.
At least I'm pretty certain Blizzard would never do anything this boneheaded...
Part of the inherent coolness of StarCraft was that you got to experience all three races with very three different play mechanisms across the game.
Now they want to make each campaign a separate game? It just doesn't sound nearly as interesting to me, no matter how big the campaigns are or what sort of "metagame" they add to it. It won't cover for the fact that, conceptually, it still feels like a step down.
Obviously, the world isn't coming to an end here - but I wonder if Blizzard's near perpetual success is leading to a bit of disconnect here with the fans. When you can do no wrong for so long, you might start to believe that you can do no wrong even when you're doing wrong.
I admit I've been around this planet for only 27 years, but I have yet to see money being used for good.
Have you ever seen a local shelter, food bank, charity, helping all sorts of unfortunate folks? How about a charity golf tournament used to raise money for cancer research? Ever donated money to a cause you believed in? Or dropped a quarter into one of those red pots with Santa ringing his bell? Have you ever bought a Nintendo DS game for a children's hospital? Donated money to the Red Cross for victims of a hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake?
The wizard is a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, who combats the hordes of the Burning Hells by launching environment-shattering lightning bolts, channeling explosive arcane energies, and creating pockets of space outside of the normal flow of time.
Sounds a little like... I don't know... a sorceress? Except for that cute "pockets of space outside the normal flow of time". That sounds like Star Trek.
I guess you can't really get away from the spell-flinger archtype in a fantasy RPG. I wonder why they're so keen on changing the classes?
so you're competing with every other console MMO out there.
Hmm, exactly what current-gen MMO would they be competing against now?
World of Warcraft doesn't compete with Eve Online or a lot of the other MMOs out there.
I'd guess all the MMO developers who *don't* have 10 million monthly subscribers would be pretty surprised by this news.
Also, the Xbox 360 has sold 20 million units? of those, how many are connected to the internet? A tiny number compared to how many hundreds of millions of PCs are on the internet.
Here's a question: of those hundreds of millions of PCs, any guesses as to how many of them can actually play a modern videogame like Age of Conan? I believe it will likely cut that number down substantially.
I would hope against all evidence to the contrary that human beings' lives will eventually be valued by society and most humans in general more than their ability to create money.
Money is like any other powerful tool, in that it can be used for good or for ill. People often misquote the Biblical verse: "money is the root of all evil". The correct quote is "love of money is the root of all evil". It's a critical distinction.
...when I get slaughtered by a boss, and I realize that no amount of skill will compensate for the requisite three hours of level grinding to go before I have a chance of winning.
It's a cute gimmick, but this will likely equate to a single extra button - a hands-off on-off switch. It's a bit of a stretch to say the game will be "brain controlled". If the game can be controlled with a single button, then that's a little more shallow than RPGs I normally play.
My fear would be that this would mar an otherwise fun RPG with a pointless piece of flaky hardware. I'll wait and see how the reviews go, I guess.
Running into a pole at 79.9 mph is nearly as likely to kill him as running into the same pole at 95 mph, however.
True, but I'd bet a driver is also slightly less likely to *lose control* when traveling under 80 mph as well. Look, no one is saying this is going to magically make all cars perfectly safe. There are all kinds of ways to die horribly in cars. This just eliminates the category of "driving insanely fast and losing control" category, which teenagers are strangely fond of.
my driving would have been better without a car full of teenage girls
Wanking off to a Playmate of the Month is somewhat less likely to kill him than running into a telephone pole at 95 MPH. I'd say it's worth trying to make cars a bit safer where possible.
Invisible War isn't nearly as bad as many people think it is. It's just not nearly as good as the original Deus Ex. Its main problems were that it was painfully slow even on the fastest computers at the time of its release, despite the fact that the graphics weren't that fantastic. It lacked the sense of freedom and exploration you got in Deus Ex, since the areas were very small and had a painfully long load time, and the story wasn't as good. But in the end, it had an OK gameplay experience. Nothing special, but far from Daikatana.
Let's see:
* Poor performance * Uninspired visuals * Lacked sense of freedom and exploration * Long load times * Story not so great * "OK" gamplay experience * Better than Daikatana!
Have you heard of the expression "damning with faint praise"?
As I see it, StarDock isn't against copy protection measures in general, they are against them when they do not make good business sense (i.e. when the number of sales lost due to piracy is small, and and the few of those sales that copy protection techniques would recover would not be enough to make it worthwhile).
In other words, StarDock isn't against copy protection on principle, they are against taking a stance against piracy on principle when it would lead to bad business decisions.
As a die-hard capitalist, that doesn't rain on my parade at all. Stardock's CEO has stated that copy protection doesn't lead to increased sales, and that's ultimately his job. He understands the benefit of customer service. You can equivocate about how ultimately it's self-serving, but does the customer really care about that? I truly believe that the best sort of commerce is mutually beneficial, where both parties are happy with the exchange and are willing to do business again at a future date. To me, that's what Stardock represents. As to the point of creating "fans", my point was that if you create great games and treat your customers well, then you'll create loyal customers (or "fans"), who are willing to spend money to ensure you keep creating more games they enjoy.
It does not sound like it. WoW did not take a hit and WAR appears to be off to a nice start. More like two different games for two different kinds of people.
Maybe yes, maybe no. If you think about it, it would probably take several months before you'd see any sort of decline in WoW (if that were to happen). WoW players would not be so quick to turn off their accounts - it could be they want to give WAR a few months to see if they want to permanently move over.
The safe bet is that WAR ends up being a relatively niche (albeit successful) also-ran, while WoW continues it's reign as online juggernaut, but who knows? I remember back when Everquest was king. It's not like the title can't change hand. But I just don't see WAR having the mass appeal that WoW has. No, I think it will be a different game that eventually dethrones WoW - probably one that no one is predicting.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't condone her actions, nor would I excuse them. In fact, I get somewhat irritated by those that try to justify stealing music. I'd actually agree that she needs to be punished to some reasonable degree.
I don't agree, however, that downloading music illegally is a crime that merits the financial destruction of someone's future. That's the issue I have here.
Let me ask you - would you consider illegally downloading music or stealing a car a more serious crime? Doesn't it seem a bit crazy to you that the penalty for downloading music is harsher than grand theft auto?
Well, Sony is just telling us that it's *their network*, and they can do whatever the hell they want with it. It's a closed network. Is anyone surprised?
Naturally, no company in their right mind would create a closed network without asserting control over it. After all, whatever happens on the network, they'll likely held responsible for it to some degree. They're a big company with deep pockets, so they cover themselves like this.
The whole notion of users not broadcasting their real name - well, that's a pretty good idea in general, right? But by codifying it into the terms of service, they protect themselves when some idiot smack-talking kid actually gets the crap beat out of him when someone learns his real name and home address. Or is the target of a scam. Or any number of a thousand bad things that can happen if you aren't careful with your identity online.
Wow, that was quite a mod-bombing. I'm not sure I've ever gotten a -1 flamebait before.
I'm guessing the comment that sparked the most ire was saying "USB 2.0 is better than Firewire 400", which was a mis-statement. I meant to say "has more bandwidth". You've absolutely correct that USB relies more on the CPU, and it's not in any way a superior solution for audio. And you're also correct, this is more of a problem for laptops than desktops because of their inherently more limited processing power.
But the main point of my post was just to indicate that there are, in fact, professional USB audio devices available. It's a bit of hyperbole to state otherwise.
not in the audio world it isn't... try finding a multichannel professional usb sound card...
Uh... ok USB 2.0 has plenty of speed for an 8 channel recording device. It's actually slightly better than Firewire 400.
I'm not saying firewire is dead or dying soon in the pro audio world - that same company has firewire devices as well. There are other commercial standards for transporting digital audio signals as well, such as AES/EBU, of which the consumer-grade derivative is known as S/PDIF.
Generally speaking, commercial audio doesn't really follow modern standards quite as closely as consumer goods, because in most applications (with the exception of mobile notebooks), the professional can simply buy dedicated hardware to do the job.
...because they're interviewing "producers", not "game designers." Yeah, I've been there before. 'nuff said.
Still, looks like a good game. I'll never buy it on the PC, of course. I'll have to think hard about whether I want to support them by purchasing the Xbox game.
There were tons of doors around me, in front of me, and behind me. Any one of them could spew out a bunch of monsters. But none did, yet. The worst part was the ambient sound that kept me completely uneasy. It wasn't obvious stuff like monsters or whatever, it was just a carefully crafted sound that made me uncomfortable the entire time I played. To compound the issue, I wasn't a superpowerful space marine. In the game I was an unarmed drug addict who was hallucinating. Even in broad daylight, with other people in the house, I just couldn't bring myself to play it. I tried several 2 minute plays before I gave up. It was too scary for me. I never saw a single monster. That is good horror.
Ah, "horror game". So that's what the kids are calling it nowadays...
Gears of War, Bioshock, Mass Effect, and now Mirror's Edge.
You forgot StarCraft 2 (and 3, and 4).
+1 Spot on.
The biggest problem in entrusting government with more power is that the government tends to wield that power in perpetuity - it's not often that a government ever gives up power. What may sound like a great idea today could be a nightmare with the wrong people in charge.
I always am confused by those who think it's a great idea to entrust the government with more power (via taxation, social programs, regulations, health care, you name it), but when it comes to security measures, it's hands off! What makes one branch of government inherently more trustworthy than another? Why would people trust some bureaucratic regulator not to abuse his power, when they (rightly) wouldn't trust a law-enforcement officer in the same capacity?
...until you get all the bugs worked out of those systems. And unfortunately, lessons of these kinds are often paid in tragedy. These passengers should consider themselves lucky that the pilots reacted so quickly.
Not trying to be too flippant, as I can scarcely imagine the complexity of trying to create what essentially needs to be an infallible system in such a complex problem space. As a programmer, thinking about putting my life in the hands of a computer program scares the living hell out of me. The whole issue is that computers, by and large, lack "common sense", and are prone to accept garbage input without question.
Apparently, this was caused by "a malfunctioning computer". Isn't there sort of redundancy check on anything that could cause the computer to send the plane plummeting toward the earth? One faulty computer can cause this? I'm sure the article is over-simplifying the problem, but still...
I'm cool with that, so long as I'm not asked to foot the bill for anyone's health care later in life for idiotic choices they make now.
Unfortunately, we seem destined in the US to push forward universal health care. At that point, I'll be obligated to pay for the mistake of every nitwit who blew their ears out with 110dB music, fried their brain with drugs, smoked their lungs black, etc. I fear this will be yet another excuse of those who inexplicably need to control and regulate others' behavior.
At least he didn't say "walla!"
It would be an interesting experiment, but the big variable - and I think one impossible to judge with any scientific methodology - is how each method helped or hindered the artists' creative process. If this tool allowed them to quickly try out new concepts that would only otherwise be available to a more freehand 2d process... it would seem to have some promise. It's a little hard to tell from a short video whether this would be useful, because we saw a few very limited examples with what was obviously a very expert user.
Even if this system ultimately doesn't prove itself in the market as a commercial product, I think it's likely pioneered some pretty creative interfaces that may *evolve* into something that does end up revolutionizing 3D computer modeling. Not to oversell it or anything, but it really does seem to have potential in the way it uses natural gestures and tries to intuit what the *intent* of the user is, rather than doing what most computer programs do - is accept *literal* input.
This seems like it could be very useful in bridging the gap between concept art and a fully rendered 3d model. I'll have to remember to point this out to a few of my artist colleagues at work and see what they think about it.
Of course, I'll probably have to warn them to turn off the sound first. Quick hint to the developers of this cool little toy: Artists get nervous when when programmers start talking about "single view symmetric epipolar method" and other very complicated terms. If you've ever worked with artists before, you know you're starting to get too technical when the eyes start glazing over. I then know to take a step back and try to re-phrase in non-tech.
All you programmers are now thinking "but... that's exactly what it's describing", and I'll just put my hand to my head and sigh. Different ways of thinking.
Don't even get me started about trying to get in the heads of game designers.
Oblivion also had dynamic dificulty, that could easily be abused.
Yep. Oblivion's auto-scaling was on a whole different level of crapola. Let me count the ways:
* When your skills increased, you increased in power. When your level increased, the enemies increased. If you simply avoided sleeping, the game became easier and easier. I normally don't mind obscure "exploits" in single-player games (I tend not to actively seek them out), but this was ridiculous.
* Certain missions (like the Kvatch mission) had NPCs that didn't scale up with the monsters. When I first played the game, I ran around and leveled up quite a bit before that mission. The enemies scaled up so bloody far above the guards it was an absolute massacre. I eventually realized one NPC was unkillable, so I hid in a corner while he fought, died, and was resurrected about a thousand times over the course of few hours.
* Since enemies (and rewards) level up with you, there's absolutely zero point to running around the world, delving into dungeons, and getting more powerful.
* Bandits eventually are routinely seen wearing *glass armor* (most expensive and best light armor in the game, worth many thousands of gold). Yet they still stop you and demand 100 gold, just like when they were wearing rags earlier in the game.
The point is, it's easy to say "scale difficulty with the player", but I think it's actually fairly hard to do in practice without potentially causing other issues. Oblivion just happened to be the poster-boy for this sort of system destroying an otherwise really cool game for me. I really wish they had just used the following simple rule to scale difficulty in the game: the farther you are from civilization, the harder the enemies get and the greater the rewards dropped.
At least I'm pretty certain Blizzard would never do anything this boneheaded...
Part of the inherent coolness of StarCraft was that you got to experience all three races with very three different play mechanisms across the game.
Now they want to make each campaign a separate game? It just doesn't sound nearly as interesting to me, no matter how big the campaigns are or what sort of "metagame" they add to it. It won't cover for the fact that, conceptually, it still feels like a step down.
Obviously, the world isn't coming to an end here - but I wonder if Blizzard's near perpetual success is leading to a bit of disconnect here with the fans. When you can do no wrong for so long, you might start to believe that you can do no wrong even when you're doing wrong.
I admit I've been around this planet for only 27 years, but I have yet to see money being used for good.
Have you ever seen a local shelter, food bank, charity, helping all sorts of unfortunate folks? How about a charity golf tournament used to raise money for cancer research? Ever donated money to a cause you believed in? Or dropped a quarter into one of those red pots with Santa ringing his bell? Have you ever bought a Nintendo DS game for a children's hospital? Donated money to the Red Cross for victims of a hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake?
If you haven't seen money being used for good, you haven't been looking all that hard.
The wizard is a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, who combats the hordes of the Burning Hells by launching environment-shattering lightning bolts, channeling explosive arcane energies, and creating pockets of space outside of the normal flow of time.
Sounds a little like... I don't know... a sorceress? Except for that cute "pockets of space outside the normal flow of time". That sounds like Star Trek.
I guess you can't really get away from the spell-flinger archtype in a fantasy RPG. I wonder why they're so keen on changing the classes?
so you're competing with every other console MMO out there.
Hmm, exactly what current-gen MMO would they be competing against now?
World of Warcraft doesn't compete with Eve Online or a lot of the other MMOs out there.
I'd guess all the MMO developers who *don't* have 10 million monthly subscribers would be pretty surprised by this news.
Also, the Xbox 360 has sold 20 million units? of those, how many are connected to the internet? A tiny number compared to how many hundreds of millions of PCs are on the internet.
The correct answer is: At least eight million of those.
Here's a question: of those hundreds of millions of PCs, any guesses as to how many of them can actually play a modern videogame like Age of Conan? I believe it will likely cut that number down substantially.
I would hope against all evidence to the contrary that human beings' lives will eventually be valued by society and most humans in general more than their ability to create money.
Money is like any other powerful tool, in that it can be used for good or for ill. People often misquote the Biblical verse: "money is the root of all evil". The correct quote is "love of money is the root of all evil". It's a critical distinction.
...when I get slaughtered by a boss, and I realize that no amount of skill will compensate for the requisite three hours of level grinding to go before I have a chance of winning.
It's a cute gimmick, but this will likely equate to a single extra button - a hands-off on-off switch. It's a bit of a stretch to say the game will be "brain controlled". If the game can be controlled with a single button, then that's a little more shallow than RPGs I normally play.
My fear would be that this would mar an otherwise fun RPG with a pointless piece of flaky hardware. I'll wait and see how the reviews go, I guess.
Running into a pole at 79.9 mph is nearly as likely to kill him as running into the same pole at 95 mph, however.
True, but I'd bet a driver is also slightly less likely to *lose control* when traveling under 80 mph as well. Look, no one is saying this is going to magically make all cars perfectly safe. There are all kinds of ways to die horribly in cars. This just eliminates the category of "driving insanely fast and losing control" category, which teenagers are strangely fond of.
my driving would have been better without a car full of teenage girls
I'm pretty sure that's a universal truism.
Wanking off to a Playmate of the Month is somewhat less likely to kill him than running into a telephone pole at 95 MPH. I'd say it's worth trying to make cars a bit safer where possible.
Invisible War isn't nearly as bad as many people think it is. It's just not nearly as good as the original Deus Ex. Its main problems were that it was painfully slow even on the fastest computers at the time of its release, despite the fact that the graphics weren't that fantastic. It lacked the sense of freedom and exploration you got in Deus Ex, since the areas were very small and had a painfully long load time, and the story wasn't as good. But in the end, it had an OK gameplay experience. Nothing special, but far from Daikatana.
Let's see:
* Poor performance
* Uninspired visuals
* Lacked sense of freedom and exploration
* Long load times
* Story not so great
* "OK" gamplay experience
* Better than Daikatana!
Have you heard of the expression "damning with faint praise"?
As I see it, StarDock isn't against copy protection measures in general, they are against them when they do not make good business sense (i.e. when the number of sales lost due to piracy is small, and and the few of those sales that copy protection techniques would recover would not be enough to make it worthwhile).
In other words, StarDock isn't against copy protection on principle, they are against taking a stance against piracy on principle when it would lead to bad business decisions.
As a die-hard capitalist, that doesn't rain on my parade at all. Stardock's CEO has stated that copy protection doesn't lead to increased sales, and that's ultimately his job. He understands the benefit of customer service. You can equivocate about how ultimately it's self-serving, but does the customer really care about that? I truly believe that the best sort of commerce is mutually beneficial, where both parties are happy with the exchange and are willing to do business again at a future date. To me, that's what Stardock represents. As to the point of creating "fans", my point was that if you create great games and treat your customers well, then you'll create loyal customers (or "fans"), who are willing to spend money to ensure you keep creating more games they enjoy.
It does not sound like it. WoW did not take a hit and WAR appears to be off to a nice start. More like two different games for two different kinds of people.
Maybe yes, maybe no. If you think about it, it would probably take several months before you'd see any sort of decline in WoW (if that were to happen). WoW players would not be so quick to turn off their accounts - it could be they want to give WAR a few months to see if they want to permanently move over.
The safe bet is that WAR ends up being a relatively niche (albeit successful) also-ran, while WoW continues it's reign as online juggernaut, but who knows? I remember back when Everquest was king. It's not like the title can't change hand. But I just don't see WAR having the mass appeal that WoW has. No, I think it will be a different game that eventually dethrones WoW - probably one that no one is predicting.