I'm willing to bet that those high figures are most likely from those agents who are working collections campaigns. They're probably given a portion of the settlement as a commission which would explain why they can use the phrase "the best of iQor."
Some of the stuff he says has nothing to do with starting at the bottom and a lot to do with the fact that companies in the IT industry think they can jerk around new people because there's a good deal of them.
I live in a city where someone who dropped out of highschool and got their GED can make more than someone with a Computer Science degree. How's that for screwed up?
It's wrong when a tech job that requires a diploma of some sort still doesn't pay enough to bring your income up above the poverty line.
Give it some engaging gameplay, real-time battle system and I'd play it. Not kidding either. And hey... If tactful product placement allows me to play a game without subscription fees? Well jeez, all the better!
... ads are perfectly alright with me. If it increases the immersion of the game to make it seem like a real world? All the better. And no, I wouldn't say I'm conditioned to seeing ads and thus feel they're alright. I dislike most of them because they tend to be irrelevant to whatever I'm viewing. Heck, I've clicked on interesting looking ads now and then myself. If it's an interesting product of course I'll click on the ad, that's what they're for. Chances are I won't buy anything and am there simply to find out about something I thought looked cool.
Personally? I hate the nameless/altered spellings of real-world businesses in games. It's just not conducive to immersion. And yes, I do notice these things, even while playing a fast paced FPS. I can't think of anything off of the top of my head however, as I haven't any games in a little while.
That's the way I go about things. They're pretty much just yelling at us "Hey, go for it. We think you're stealing anyway."
Wouldn't it be grand if the people who distribute software started pulling this crap too? I'd feel obliged to take them up on their fees and start downloading away.
This is a very interesting thought, and a shame the parent posted as an AC. I personally think that could be used to great advantage. We have many products currently to allow us to access our information at home from abroad... What if we had a consistant way to access that information in a way that didn't require extra work (thumbdrives would be concidered extra work for most).
This sort of thing kind of makes me curious what world you're living in. What privacy? This is public we're talking about. You don't have any privacy in public. That's why it's called public and not private. Personally, I think this is a very good idea. I've been the victim of crime in a public area, and would of benefited from being able to send the dispatcher a picture of the taxi that the jerks ran off in.
And really... What's the big concern about cameras in public places anyway? Are you doing something in public you don't want video taped? Personally, I think the old mantra works just as well now as it does for putting information on the internet "If what you're doing isn't something you'd like for your Grandmother to find out about, don't do it".
Not at all. It has to get there somewhere, right? If your comment held true, all we'd have would be crappy leaks of screeners for our movie downloadings. Nope, some people buy the stuff and feel they have the right to share it with their friends, so they do so. Then their friends share it to their friends, and so on and so forth. That's how file sharing works. Just because you never see the beginning of the chain doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
Heck, I purchase things now and then, and once in a while I'll rip the media to my PC to be able to keep the original copies safe. When it's on my PC, it's in my media folders which are shared.
Even for/. this is starting to get just a little bit annoying. The fanboys on either side really just need to pull their collective heads out of their asses and go back to doing whatever it is when they're not instinctual bashing another OS.
Mac his it's benefits (none of which apply to myself, but that's not the point), Vista has it's benefits (does that count as a troll now?). So how many more times do we have see stories comparing Vista to the Mac and debating over which is better? But then again,/. doesn't need much of an excuse to flog Microsoft^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HM$ (gotta think about my karma here).
Anywho, you may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
This is absolutely true. Currently I have FlyFF, and Ragnarok Online both installed on my Vista system and there's no problem running them whatsoever. In fact, you don't even need to use the Games Explorer (I can't even find it in my start menu currently, or where it's located in Windows Explorer).
Vista is supposed to be the most indie developer friendly Windows yet, what with the new free tools Microsoft is providing (Visual Studio Express, XNA, DirectX, all of those free). And with XNA game development is supposed to be a good deal easier*.
Also... Isn't this story a dupe anyway? Weren't the guys at WildTangent whining about how their launcher wouldn't work in Vista because of this?
*I can't vouch for this, as I haven't used XNA, but Managed DirectX9 with C# wasn't particularly difficult to get the hang of, so here's hoping XNA is even easier.
I haven't read all the way through the comments but... Why hasn't anyone concidered the fact that maybe, just maybe, the kid's gay? Maybe he ran away from home to be with this guy (which is still wrong, just posing a theory). 'Cause hey... He might of been having the time of his life.
Honestly, I liked a lot of the things they did with FFVIII. I enjoyed the junction system, as it gave me something to mess around with (and ultimately abuse horribly*). The plot was so-so (though this is somewhat standard for Final Fantasy games), but what really killed it for me was the characters. If they weren't flat, they were extremely architypal. I couldn't for the life of me associate with Squall (which is wierd seeing as you're him for the majority of the game), and I'm getting rather sick and tired of having to suddenly loose the use of one of the main characters.
I used to adore the Final Fantasy series (noteably FFVII), but I've grown up and come to realize "Hey, these are really shallow games...". It might be that I'm just jaded, but I would like to have my Epic RPGs have a bit more depth to them. I did play a bit of FFXII, and was really enjoying what I had run in to so far (I rented, and ended up having to take the game back by the time I was on the Airship and had to fight the Judge dude somewhat near the begining). The characters were believable, and so far I hadn't been able to pinpoint a real badguy. Sure the Empire seemed like dicks, but only if you looked at them from the point of view of the young theif guy (I forget his name, so sue me). But, during the cutscenes with just Empire people, they don't seem nearly so bad (of course this is all just early game stuff, for all I know the Empire could be controlled by some extra-galactic being who challenges your party to a battle to the death at the very end of the game).
Horribly offtopic but just got a giggle out of this...
they don't act like PCs (No bios, requires a technician who is specifically trained on Macs to service them)
Tell that to Earthlink, where they maintain a group of Mac specialists (read: Tier2 Windows techs) for correcting connectivity problems with no scope of support.
It's simply that you cannot prove that their isn't. It's really an arguement niether side can win, so they both have to go on faith. Religious folk have faith that something exists, whereas athiests have faith that nothing exists. And both will fight you tooth and nail to prove it.
How is this flamebait? He has a point (if rudely stated). WildTangent games have probably one of the worst interfaces I've ever had to deal with (far surpassing the annoying hoop of using nProtect on Korean MMORPGs*). I don't like having to install a third party launcher to run a game written by someone with absolutely no other ties.
*In Vista when you're going to full screen with a good deal of games, the OS switches you from Aero mode to Basic mode, which can take a boatload of time when you're also trying to load the game, and update nProtect all at the same time. nProtect has a penchant for running right as a game decides to go fullscreen.
I'm not disagreeing that using the method in the article is completely foolish. In fact, I'm mostly disagreeing with the fact that you got modded up for not reading the article.
And of course, you get modded +4 Insightful for being an idiot. Only on/. would we give someone karma for not opening his bloody eyes, and simply spouting off anti-Microsoft bile.
As it's been said a few times, this is for developers (something you would of noticed had you, you know, read the article). Why is this a good thing? Because Mircosoft's browser still has easily over 50% market share, that's why. The thing may suck, but it's still here and we have to deal with it.
Most likely because people are cheap? Macs are prohibitively expensive in comparison to an equivilent PC (equivilent according to the enduser walking down the aisles of your local FutureShop).
Your average user doesn't know what they need a computer for, they just know they need it. So they'll just look at what the salesmen point them at, try to find something cheaper, and get it. They won't care whether or not it runs Windows or Mac (though if they think they're savvy they might swing towards one or the other).
Offtopic: Your Dad is actually being rather savy. By buying like that he's actually getting one box free compared to the regular price.
Ontopic:
I've also done retention work, though for Earthlink. I did basically TS Retention (read: do anything possible to fix the customers computer so we don't have to give them money). I can attest to the bullshit the SAVEs agents pull to get Earthlink customers to stay. I'll have to say though, that sometimes it's a pretty sweet deal. At the centre I worked for there was this one lady who was basically a legend at the centre. She had had Earthlink dial-up service for... Quite sometime and actually only used it for the email address (she had DSL. Don't ask, the lady's crazy). Anyway, what she pulled managed to get her two years of service for free, and a $200 credit pending on her account, so she not only didn't have to pay for past service, but she also wouldn't have to pay for a good deal of service in the future. She kept claiming that her service was not working at no fault of her own (she would also call to get us to turn on/off her vacation message) and of course she would get sent to us so we could fix her problem and keep her as a happy Earthlink customer.
Right... Except for the fact that when cloning the animal the environment it's raised in still has an effect on it. We can't make a 100% copy of something. Maybe when we start raising sheep in vacuums and cloning them in vacuums...
If it weren't for the fact you posted AC, I would of expected you to actually, you know, read my post before saying something. Please go back up and note how, when I mentioned OpenCanvas, I referred to the older, free version.
And it's not The GIMP's UI that I have qualms about. It's the fact that for drawing, it's horrible. I have used The GIMP, and did not find it as usable. I mentioned the older version of OpenCanvas for two reasons.
1) It's no longer updated (in the free version anyway), whereas The GIMP is still updated
2) OpenCanvas is an insanely efficient program (the program itself consists of but a single 45Kb executable) for what it does. The GIMP on the other hand is more akin to Photoshop in what it requires of it's hosting environment.
And, to reiterate, when I say OpenCanvas I'm talking about the old, free, network capable version (hell, it was hardly localized).
Just out of curiosity... Why in the world would you use The GIMP for drawing? The thought of that just makes me want to hurl.
If it's because you don't want to fork out the cash for Photoshop/PSP/Painter, that's understandable. But OpenCanvas (the old free version that allows networking) is far superior to anything The GIMP could crap out.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm willing to bet that those high figures are most likely from those agents who are working collections campaigns. They're probably given a portion of the settlement as a commission which would explain why they can use the phrase "the best of iQor."
Some of the stuff he says has nothing to do with starting at the bottom and a lot to do with the fact that companies in the IT industry think they can jerk around new people because there's a good deal of them.
I live in a city where someone who dropped out of highschool and got their GED can make more than someone with a Computer Science degree. How's that for screwed up?
It's wrong when a tech job that requires a diploma of some sort still doesn't pay enough to bring your income up above the poverty line.
Give it some engaging gameplay, real-time battle system and I'd play it. Not kidding either. And hey... If tactful product placement allows me to play a game without subscription fees? Well jeez, all the better!
... ads are perfectly alright with me. If it increases the immersion of the game to make it seem like a real world? All the better. And no, I wouldn't say I'm conditioned to seeing ads and thus feel they're alright. I dislike most of them because they tend to be irrelevant to whatever I'm viewing. Heck, I've clicked on interesting looking ads now and then myself. If it's an interesting product of course I'll click on the ad, that's what they're for. Chances are I won't buy anything and am there simply to find out about something I thought looked cool.
Personally? I hate the nameless/altered spellings of real-world businesses in games. It's just not conducive to immersion. And yes, I do notice these things, even while playing a fast paced FPS. I can't think of anything off of the top of my head however, as I haven't any games in a little while.
That's the way I go about things. They're pretty much just yelling at us "Hey, go for it. We think you're stealing anyway."
Wouldn't it be grand if the people who distribute software started pulling this crap too? I'd feel obliged to take them up on their fees and start downloading away.
This is a very interesting thought, and a shame the parent posted as an AC. I personally think that could be used to great advantage. We have many products currently to allow us to access our information at home from abroad... What if we had a consistant way to access that information in a way that didn't require extra work (thumbdrives would be concidered extra work for most).
This sort of thing kind of makes me curious what world you're living in. What privacy? This is public we're talking about. You don't have any privacy in public. That's why it's called public and not private. Personally, I think this is a very good idea. I've been the victim of crime in a public area, and would of benefited from being able to send the dispatcher a picture of the taxi that the jerks ran off in.
And really... What's the big concern about cameras in public places anyway? Are you doing something in public you don't want video taped? Personally, I think the old mantra works just as well now as it does for putting information on the internet "If what you're doing isn't something you'd like for your Grandmother to find out about, don't do it".
Not at all. It has to get there somewhere, right? If your comment held true, all we'd have would be crappy leaks of screeners for our movie downloadings. Nope, some people buy the stuff and feel they have the right to share it with their friends, so they do so. Then their friends share it to their friends, and so on and so forth. That's how file sharing works. Just because you never see the beginning of the chain doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
Heck, I purchase things now and then, and once in a while I'll rip the media to my PC to be able to keep the original copies safe. When it's on my PC, it's in my media folders which are shared.
Even for /. this is starting to get just a little bit annoying. The fanboys on either side really just need to pull their collective heads out of their asses and go back to doing whatever it is when they're not instinctual bashing another OS.
/. doesn't need much of an excuse to flog Microsoft^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HM$ (gotta think about my karma here).
Mac his it's benefits (none of which apply to myself, but that's not the point), Vista has it's benefits (does that count as a troll now?). So how many more times do we have see stories comparing Vista to the Mac and debating over which is better? But then again,
Anywho, you may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
This is absolutely true. Currently I have FlyFF, and Ragnarok Online both installed on my Vista system and there's no problem running them whatsoever. In fact, you don't even need to use the Games Explorer (I can't even find it in my start menu currently, or where it's located in Windows Explorer).
Vista is supposed to be the most indie developer friendly Windows yet, what with the new free tools Microsoft is providing (Visual Studio Express, XNA, DirectX, all of those free). And with XNA game development is supposed to be a good deal easier*.
Also... Isn't this story a dupe anyway? Weren't the guys at WildTangent whining about how their launcher wouldn't work in Vista because of this?
*I can't vouch for this, as I haven't used XNA, but Managed DirectX9 with C# wasn't particularly difficult to get the hang of, so here's hoping XNA is even easier.
I only wish it was so benign...
North American Man/Boy Love Association
Ever heard of NAMBLA?
I haven't read all the way through the comments but... Why hasn't anyone concidered the fact that maybe, just maybe, the kid's gay? Maybe he ran away from home to be with this guy (which is still wrong, just posing a theory). 'Cause hey... He might of been having the time of his life.
Honestly, I liked a lot of the things they did with FFVIII. I enjoyed the junction system, as it gave me something to mess around with (and ultimately abuse horribly*). The plot was so-so (though this is somewhat standard for Final Fantasy games), but what really killed it for me was the characters. If they weren't flat, they were extremely architypal. I couldn't for the life of me associate with Squall (which is wierd seeing as you're him for the majority of the game), and I'm getting rather sick and tired of having to suddenly loose the use of one of the main characters.
I used to adore the Final Fantasy series (noteably FFVII), but I've grown up and come to realize "Hey, these are really shallow games...". It might be that I'm just jaded, but I would like to have my Epic RPGs have a bit more depth to them. I did play a bit of FFXII, and was really enjoying what I had run in to so far (I rented, and ended up having to take the game back by the time I was on the Airship and had to fight the Judge dude somewhat near the begining). The characters were believable, and so far I hadn't been able to pinpoint a real badguy. Sure the Empire seemed like dicks, but only if you looked at them from the point of view of the young theif guy (I forget his name, so sue me). But, during the cutscenes with just Empire people, they don't seem nearly so bad (of course this is all just early game stuff, for all I know the Empire could be controlled by some extra-galactic being who challenges your party to a battle to the death at the very end of the game).
Horribly offtopic but just got a giggle out of this...
they don't act like PCs (No bios, requires a technician who is specifically trained on Macs to service them)
Tell that to Earthlink, where they maintain a group of Mac specialists (read: Tier2 Windows techs) for correcting connectivity problems with no scope of support.
It's simply that you cannot prove that their isn't. It's really an arguement niether side can win, so they both have to go on faith. Religious folk have faith that something exists, whereas athiests have faith that nothing exists. And both will fight you tooth and nail to prove it.
Non-commital agnosticism, for the win.
How is this flamebait? He has a point (if rudely stated). WildTangent games have probably one of the worst interfaces I've ever had to deal with (far surpassing the annoying hoop of using nProtect on Korean MMORPGs*). I don't like having to install a third party launcher to run a game written by someone with absolutely no other ties.
*In Vista when you're going to full screen with a good deal of games, the OS switches you from Aero mode to Basic mode, which can take a boatload of time when you're also trying to load the game, and update nProtect all at the same time. nProtect has a penchant for running right as a game decides to go fullscreen.
I'm not disagreeing that using the method in the article is completely foolish. In fact, I'm mostly disagreeing with the fact that you got modded up for not reading the article.
And of course, you get modded +4 Insightful for being an idiot. Only on /. would we give someone karma for not opening his bloody eyes, and simply spouting off anti-Microsoft bile.
As it's been said a few times, this is for developers (something you would of noticed had you, you know, read the article). Why is this a good thing? Because Mircosoft's browser still has easily over 50% market share, that's why. The thing may suck, but it's still here and we have to deal with it.
Most likely because people are cheap? Macs are prohibitively expensive in comparison to an equivilent PC (equivilent according to the enduser walking down the aisles of your local FutureShop).
Your average user doesn't know what they need a computer for, they just know they need it. So they'll just look at what the salesmen point them at, try to find something cheaper, and get it. They won't care whether or not it runs Windows or Mac (though if they think they're savvy they might swing towards one or the other).
Offtopic: Your Dad is actually being rather savy. By buying like that he's actually getting one box free compared to the regular price.
Ontopic:
I've also done retention work, though for Earthlink. I did basically TS Retention (read: do anything possible to fix the customers computer so we don't have to give them money). I can attest to the bullshit the SAVEs agents pull to get Earthlink customers to stay. I'll have to say though, that sometimes it's a pretty sweet deal. At the centre I worked for there was this one lady who was basically a legend at the centre. She had had Earthlink dial-up service for... Quite sometime and actually only used it for the email address (she had DSL. Don't ask, the lady's crazy). Anyway, what she pulled managed to get her two years of service for free, and a $200 credit pending on her account, so she not only didn't have to pay for past service, but she also wouldn't have to pay for a good deal of service in the future. She kept claiming that her service was not working at no fault of her own (she would also call to get us to turn on/off her vacation message) and of course she would get sent to us so we could fix her problem and keep her as a happy Earthlink customer.
Suffice to say, it's a pain.
Right... Except for the fact that when cloning the animal the environment it's raised in still has an effect on it. We can't make a 100% copy of something. Maybe when we start raising sheep in vacuums and cloning them in vacuums...
Creepy.
If it weren't for the fact you posted AC, I would of expected you to actually, you know, read my post before saying something. Please go back up and note how, when I mentioned OpenCanvas, I referred to the older, free version. And it's not The GIMP's UI that I have qualms about. It's the fact that for drawing, it's horrible. I have used The GIMP, and did not find it as usable. I mentioned the older version of OpenCanvas for two reasons.
1) It's no longer updated (in the free version anyway), whereas The GIMP is still updated
2) OpenCanvas is an insanely efficient program (the program itself consists of but a single 45Kb executable) for what it does. The GIMP on the other hand is more akin to Photoshop in what it requires of it's hosting environment.
And, to reiterate, when I say OpenCanvas I'm talking about the old, free, network capable version (hell, it was hardly localized).
Just out of curiosity... Why in the world would you use The GIMP for drawing? The thought of that just makes me want to hurl.
If it's because you don't want to fork out the cash for Photoshop/PSP/Painter, that's understandable. But OpenCanvas (the old free version that allows networking) is far superior to anything The GIMP could crap out.
It's a Swiss Army product. It comes in a snazzy red case that fits in your back pocket. It also has a toothpick!