Being a Vikings fan, I will add this: Yes, it's because you're in Wisconsin.
The only fanbase I've ever seen that was as similarly blindly and rabidly supportive of their football team are the Bronco fans. The Bronco fans are more annoying, though, because at least the Packer fans can stand the cold:P
It really depends on where you are, too. The upper midwest states are heavy into hockey of all levels. MN broadcasts its highschool hockey tournament live, for example (which lasts about a week). Until I moved from MN, I had no idea NHL wasn't on par with the NFL and MLB in terms of viewership in the US.
I'm pretty sure that 150 years ago the GOP of today wasn't even in existence... or was it 200 years? Sometime in the late 1800's the Republican Party came back into existence, but it'd been gone for quite a while by that point. The Wiki article lays it all out, but I really should do some work now;)
When the reasons for the firing include: not violating federal statues. Also, when the people doing the firing lie about why those people were fired, while under oath.
The difference, as has been stated many a time and can be verified via googling at your leisure, is that while en masse firing of the previous administrations' appointed US attorneys is routine once a new resident comes to the White House, cherry picking them for firing years after the administration has settled in isn't common, and removing them because they wouldn't prosecute cases near elections that could possibly sway elections in the favor of GOP candidates (I have heard/read that pressing *new* cases near to elections, where the prosecution could likely be influenced by indictments, is against the professional ethics guidelines for the DOJ), is highly questionable, at the least.
This doesn't even cover how career positions (not appointed positions which tend to be politically motivated, and no one questions that) were vetted with regards to the candidate's political leanings (this was admitted to in the recent senate hearings 2-3 weeks ago), which is clearly against DOJ guidelines, as the DOJ career positions are not supposed to be considered in a political light.
What exactly would that add to the gameplay mechanics of the typical MMO? Basic physics? I jump off stuff, I fall. If I fall far enough, I take damage. How is my enjoyment of the game effected by the fact that I walk through vendors?
It's just as likely that you're used to exaggerated physics as used in sandbox games. I mean, look at Crackdown if you want a good example of that. Furthermore, in twitch games like you mentioned, physics adds to the gameplay, but that isn't really the case in most MMOs.
The Extended Editions are, all around, vastly superior to the theatrical versions. There's still things missing / re-arranged (obviously, otherwise the movies would clock in at around 50 hours and watch similarly to how the Simarillion reads), but a fair amount of things that boil down to background/lore references (i.e a scene where Aragorn is on watch at night and singing a ballad of beren and luthien to himself, explaining the story to one of the hobbits) are included that would frankly have been lost on the theatrical mainstream viewer.
Frankly, I was really disappointed. The combat system sucks - it actually has a window that says things like "You hit the wolf for two points of damage". It felt like going back in time to the 80's. Pretty much every MMO I've played has this feature. It might be turned off or in another window by default, but I know for a fact that both WoW and EVE have it.
And then the graphics might be pretty, but there is not physics system, or, believe it or not, collision detection. You can actually walk through people, even when you are fighting them. See above. You're not racing or playing Pac-Mac. So long as the terrain acts correctly, it's on par with the other major MMOs.
And the tasks suck. Spending half an hour searching for wild flowers is not my idea of fun. Gathering tasks are pretty standard faire in MMO games. Sometimes they're annoying, but again, this isn't any different than any other mainline MMO out there.
And although the world is big, you can't really explore it - you can't open doors unless they are part of the plot, you can't smash crates or barrels or whatever to see what is inside them, you even can't fight the NPCs or animals unless it is part of the plot. The animals thing is odd, but depending on the sort of server you're on (PvE for example), most of this isn't uncommon.
Personally I don't think it is "polished gameplay" if you try, for instance, trying to do something like shoot a sheep with your crossbow only to receive an error message - yes, really! an error message saying something like "disallowed action". Yeah, sounds like that might need a little polishing there, and I gotta say I find it odd that you can't kill random animals. However, your above objections seem to indicate to me that you were looking for a revolutionarily new MMO, when really LOTRO is a pretty straightforward fantasy MMO with a good license and some interesting tweaks. The game isn't bad just because your expectations were too high.
For some value of "reasonable" that means "knee jerk reactionary fuckup", perhaps. Doesn't matter. As of 0237 MST there's 17 pages of comments from 80% pissed off LJ users and 20% waffling between "follow through and we'll see" and "okaythx! =)))". And those are probably just the ones that lead the communities and have been monitoring the situation.
Translation: "Aw, crap, it hit C|Net and Slashdot, we'd better do something or we're fucked."
Unfortunately for them, from what I can tell the various groups/communities/fandoms are already migrating or planning to migrate, regardless of their actions.
Obviously LiveJournal is no longer a viable website for fandom and other non-mainstream (omg britney!) journals. Here's a good time and place to suggest an alternative (and "an alternative" isn't "stfu get your own domain and install wordpress", it needs to have good networking and community features already in-place).
Because slashdot isn't well known for "breaking" news. It's an aggregator of news that has already been published and sourced. Moreso the better, if you ask me, since we don't have to deal with Digg/Reddit's "get it first and vote for me!" culture.
So, because journalism has always sucked, people who complain about it are morons? Look, the mainstream news reporting is lackluster, at best. If it bothers you so much, change "modern" to mean "since the invention of the printing press", and we'll all agree.
Slashdot Mirror
Being a Vikings fan, I will add this: Yes, it's because you're in Wisconsin.
The only fanbase I've ever seen that was as similarly blindly and rabidly supportive of their football team are the Bronco fans. The Bronco fans are more annoying, though, because at least the Packer fans can stand the cold :P
Indeed, plus, it's pretty damn easy to *infer* where the puck is from the actions of the players onscreen.
Though I gotta say, I got an HDTV a few months ago, and hockey in HD is friggin awesome.
It really depends on where you are, too. The upper midwest states are heavy into hockey of all levels. MN broadcasts its highschool hockey tournament live, for example (which lasts about a week). Until I moved from MN, I had no idea NHL wasn't on par with the NFL and MLB in terms of viewership in the US.
Oh comeon, Last Starfighter isn't THAT obscure amongst /. readers. ... is it?
I'm pretty sure that 150 years ago the GOP of today wasn't even in existence... or was it 200 years? Sometime in the late 1800's the Republican Party came back into existence, but it'd been gone for quite a while by that point. The Wiki article lays it all out, but I really should do some work now ;)
When the reasons for the firing include: not violating federal statues. Also, when the people doing the firing lie about why those people were fired, while under oath.
The difference, as has been stated many a time and can be verified via googling at your leisure, is that while en masse firing of the previous administrations' appointed US attorneys is routine once a new resident comes to the White House, cherry picking them for firing years after the administration has settled in isn't common, and removing them because they wouldn't prosecute cases near elections that could possibly sway elections in the favor of GOP candidates (I have heard/read that pressing *new* cases near to elections, where the prosecution could likely be influenced by indictments, is against the professional ethics guidelines for the DOJ), is highly questionable, at the least.
This doesn't even cover how career positions (not appointed positions which tend to be politically motivated, and no one questions that) were vetted with regards to the candidate's political leanings (this was admitted to in the recent senate hearings 2-3 weeks ago), which is clearly against DOJ guidelines, as the DOJ career positions are not supposed to be considered in a political light.
So, how's that persecution complex workin for you? See ya at the prayer meeting!
The thing that kills me about PS on a Mac is that I learned it on the PC, so the extra Apple and option keys screw me up every time.
Might want to use a switch() block instead ;)
What exactly would that add to the gameplay mechanics of the typical MMO? Basic physics? I jump off stuff, I fall. If I fall far enough, I take damage. How is my enjoyment of the game effected by the fact that I walk through vendors?
It's just as likely that you're used to exaggerated physics as used in sandbox games. I mean, look at Crackdown if you want a good example of that. Furthermore, in twitch games like you mentioned, physics adds to the gameplay, but that isn't really the case in most MMOs.
You're way past being a biased fanboy. You're kneeling at Tolkien's figurative feet and sucking his cock. Get over yourself, seriously.
The Extended Editions are, all around, vastly superior to the theatrical versions. There's still things missing / re-arranged (obviously, otherwise the movies would clock in at around 50 hours and watch similarly to how the Simarillion reads), but a fair amount of things that boil down to background/lore references (i.e a scene where Aragorn is on watch at night and singing a ballad of beren and luthien to himself, explaining the story to one of the hobbits) are included that would frankly have been lost on the theatrical mainstream viewer.
I dunno. I usually turn off the music tracks in MMOs. EVE was an exception for a while, tho.
Just FYI the extended edition DVDs have Wormtongue killing Saruman. Not at the Scouring, but nonetheless.
I wonder how serious I'm supposed to take this advice from someone too lazy to even register for a slashdot account.
For some value of "reasonable" that means "knee jerk reactionary fuckup", perhaps. Doesn't matter. As of 0237 MST there's 17 pages of comments from 80% pissed off LJ users and 20% waffling between "follow through and we'll see" and "okaythx! =)))". And those are probably just the ones that lead the communities and have been monitoring the situation.
Also get a load of the comments in reply to that post.
I think that qualifies as an "unsatisfied" user community
Translation: "Aw, crap, it hit C|Net and Slashdot, we'd better do something or we're fucked."
Unfortunately for them, from what I can tell the various groups/communities/fandoms are already migrating or planning to migrate, regardless of their actions.
Obviously LiveJournal is no longer a viable website for fandom and other non-mainstream (omg britney!) journals. Here's a good time and place to suggest an alternative (and "an alternative" isn't "stfu get your own domain and install wordpress", it needs to have good networking and community features already in-place).
FF+No-Script ext seemed to result in an uneventful visit, just fyi
Because slashdot isn't well known for "breaking" news. It's an aggregator of news that has already been published and sourced. Moreso the better, if you ask me, since we don't have to deal with Digg/Reddit's "get it first and vote for me!" culture.
oh oh oh, I am wounded by the slashdot smartass!
So, because journalism has always sucked, people who complain about it are morons? Look, the mainstream news reporting is lackluster, at best. If it bothers you so much, change "modern" to mean "since the invention of the printing press", and we'll all agree.