First of all, let's get this out of the way: I think it sucks, and I cancelled my account today.
Okay.
After playing with the CU for a couple of days, I decided to hop onto another server and start a new character to see what the n00b experience would be like. I was surprised: for a new player, the CU is actually better than the old system was, or at least is its rough equivalent. With the addition of some Medic skills, the basic melee classes played just fine: as long as I could drop healing on myself, the combat itself went smoothly. I earned good amounts of experience and was able to progress.
On my veteran characters, the experience is entirely different. Like someone else here, I had a Master Rifleman. I was completely unable to kill anything at my own level--and since killing things at or near your own level is the only way to earn more than about 1 xp that was a problem. I also had a Teras Kasi Master, and while I was able to successfully defeat single mobs of the appropriate level, if I drew aggro from more than one creature, I was dead. In addition, the specials in Teras Kasi--an Elite-level profession--do LESS damage than the specials from the Brawler class--a Basic-level profession. This is unacceptable.
The game has slowed down, a lot. It now takes a HUGE amount of time to kill anything, on the order of several minutes. It would seem that to get anywhere, grouping is required, and some of us don't want to HAVE to find seven other players to gain experience. Medic skills--preferrably as much Doctor as you can manage--are essential to staying alive.
Jedi characters are screwed beyond belief. If you're progressing through the Jedi skills as a Master in any non-Jedi combat role, you're hosed: you will not be able to kill anything with your lightsaber. The aforementioned TKM is also a Jedi, and I can get in about a dozen hits before I run out of Force because I have exactly two skill boxes in Jedi, but I draw missions that are "appropriate" for my TKM level.
On the SWG forums, there's a lot of counter-bitching that people like me are leaving because we're no longer "uber." I'd just like to say that I never was uber (gah, I hate that word). I never had the best armor, or the best weapons, or the most money. What I did have was fun.
The NPCs at faction bases have been given a major difficulty bump. I took my TKM/Master Riflesman out to a Rebel base to farm, like I did a lot before the patch, and instead of mowing them down, I nearly got killed. The tough NPCs are about on a par with the NPCs on the Corellian Corvette.
It is an interesting change, I'll give it that. If you're Imperial, you want to avoid Rebel-controlled cities, and vice-versa. Opposite-faction NPCs will shoot you on sight, whether you're PvP-enabled (overt) or not (covert). (You can go to "on-leave" status, but a scan by opposing faction NPCs can out you and leave you open to attack.)
I was wondering this, too, but it looks like the Station Access thing is separate--in other words, if all you want is SWG, you just pay for SWG at the SWG rate.
You're right. Yeah, stylistically the trailer was pretty cool, but style alone doesn't make a movie. I'd rather see a good script and good acting without the processed black-and-white look.
However...did you actually see Spy Kids? I'm not asking that in a snarky way, I just want to know. I thought it was pretty well-written and well-directed, and it gave me a new respect for Robert Rodriguez: you could totally tell it was a Rodriguez movie, even though it was nothing like, say, El Mariachi.
You mean to tell me if I cut my arm off with a Craftsmen Saw, I can sue Craftsmen for cutting off my arm?
Why do you think new power tools--and some non-power tools, look at a hammer in the hardware store sometime--come with warning labels about safe operation? It's precisely so someone doesn't go and cut their arm off and sue, saying "It doesn't say in the manual not to cut my arm off!"
MMSD has a bigger problem than not having enough testing equipment, or at least it did when I was there as a Micro Tech I/II and Specialist ('94-'98)...and that's that a dozen people just isn't enough to cover the school district properly. Although at least when I was there we all had our own cable continuity testers; you've probably gotten a lot more equipment since then.
Have you asked the District grant coordinator? I realize that that's probably a dumb question, but they should be able to point you somewhere, too.
This next thing is based on a suggestion I saw elsewhere in the comments, namely...turn it into a teaching project. When I was there, I taught a few workshops for some teachers. Maybe you can stretch a grant over a framework like that: "We need this equipment to effectively teach teachers how to make use of technology," or something. That it has other uses is a win for you.
If your school or school district has a full-time IT department, see if you can enlist the help of a person or people from there. They may be able to midnight requisition the cabling and other network equipment for you.
You definitely need to get buy-in from those guys, though, in addition to what others have said about getting a signed letter of permission from the principal. I know that when I worked for the local school district, nothing happened on the network without us knowing about it.
Why is this a "mixed blessing"? "The Bourne Supremacy" was pretty good. I don't remember seeing Tom Sawyer in it--and I don't see that Greengrass was involved at all in the LXG movie, to which the Sawyer jab is obviously a reference.
Yeah, "The Rocketeer" was really good. Actually, the original comic was even better, because IIRC it implied, if not stated outright, that Doc Savage invented the Rocketeer's gear. I always liked that.
And it's certainly been too long since we've seen Jennifer Connelly's real nose.:)
Man...I totally forgot about that "Shadow" movie. That's another one I'd like to see played straight.
That's what I thought too, except for the "unwitting" part. I'd like to see a non-campy movie that really DOES pay homage to pulps. The pulps themselves were not campy, nudge-nudge wink-wink affairs, so there's no reason that movies like "Doc Savage" and "The Phantom" et al. need to be. Of course, I'm just going by the trailers and commercials for "Sky Captain," like you are.
I also don't like that waxy white "CGI" sheen that everything has. The latest Harry Potter movie had that, too. Ick.
Amen to that. I've always been of the opinion that the requirement for speed of counting has been a detriment to the entire process. For something as important as voting...we can wait. And with paper and pen, there's almost no chance to misinterpret a vote.
Oh...and I know that the results of that faked-up method would be immediately suspicious to anyone ("Look! Bush got 100% of the vote!"), but you could work out something more subtle in practice.
That's good, but it doesn't guard against flaws in the software itself--deliberate or otherwise. Who's to say that there's not going to be something like this:
void TallyVote(vote theVote) {
printPaperRecord(theVote);
BushTally++;// Ha ha! }
...which would print out your vote on paper, but record a vote for Bush no matter what. The whole process would need a lot more oversight than anybody would be able to give it in the three months before the election.
Maybe it's cheaper to have a cheap PC that comes with a license for office apps than it is to pay seven hundred bucks for the card and another couple hundred bucks for a copy of Windows and another couple hundred bucks for MS Office. And another few dollars to increase the memory. Of course, I bet Sun would cut Lockheed a deal on the cards.
Or maybe they don't want to take away disk space from the Solaris side of the show. Or maybe they're using a Windows app that doesn't like whatever trick the card uses to make itself believe that the Sun disk is NTFS.
Just playing devil's advocate, though. I think that would actually be a great idea. Heck, I wish I had one of those things for my Sun Blade.
I have no idea what the costs involved are. They may not have to pay for any of the things you mentioned, but...
They do have to pay licensing fees to the copyright owners. They have to pay for bandwidth to distribute songs. They have to pay for the machines to host the songs on (and even if they use Apple equipment, it's still a cost). They have to pay for the physical location (equivalent to warehousing). They have infrastructure overhead, like power and HVAC. They have to advertise. They have to pay people to watch over all of this stuff. They have to pay people to organize it.
Hosting iTunes is not a zero-cost proposition.
I like your other points, too, from a rhetorical standpoint. From a logical standpoint, though, the answer is simply "because they can". They're reaping the benefits of the old pricing model; it cost a lot to make a CD back in the day. Now it doesn't, and they can make more money for the same amount of effort. It's kind of like when you're paying off a loan: those first payments just pay down the interest, and it's only after a while that the principal starts decreasing as well. Not saying it's right or wrong, just saying how it is.
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First of all, let's get this out of the way: I think it sucks, and I cancelled my account today.
Okay.
After playing with the CU for a couple of days, I decided to hop onto another server and start a new character to see what the n00b experience would be like. I was surprised: for a new player, the CU is actually better than the old system was, or at least is its rough equivalent. With the addition of some Medic skills, the basic melee classes played just fine: as long as I could drop healing on myself, the combat itself went smoothly. I earned good amounts of experience and was able to progress.
On my veteran characters, the experience is entirely different. Like someone else here, I had a Master Rifleman. I was completely unable to kill anything at my own level--and since killing things at or near your own level is the only way to earn more than about 1 xp that was a problem. I also had a Teras Kasi Master, and while I was able to successfully defeat single mobs of the appropriate level, if I drew aggro from more than one creature, I was dead. In addition, the specials in Teras Kasi--an Elite-level profession--do LESS damage than the specials from the Brawler class--a Basic-level profession. This is unacceptable.
The game has slowed down, a lot. It now takes a HUGE amount of time to kill anything, on the order of several minutes. It would seem that to get anywhere, grouping is required, and some of us don't want to HAVE to find seven other players to gain experience. Medic skills--preferrably as much Doctor as you can manage--are essential to staying alive.
Jedi characters are screwed beyond belief. If you're progressing through the Jedi skills as a Master in any non-Jedi combat role, you're hosed: you will not be able to kill anything with your lightsaber. The aforementioned TKM is also a Jedi, and I can get in about a dozen hits before I run out of Force because I have exactly two skill boxes in Jedi, but I draw missions that are "appropriate" for my TKM level.
On the SWG forums, there's a lot of counter-bitching that people like me are leaving because we're no longer "uber." I'd just like to say that I never was uber (gah, I hate that word). I never had the best armor, or the best weapons, or the most money. What I did have was fun.
The NPCs at faction bases have been given a major difficulty bump. I took my TKM/Master Riflesman out to a Rebel base to farm, like I did a lot before the patch, and instead of mowing them down, I nearly got killed. The tough NPCs are about on a par with the NPCs on the Corellian Corvette.
It is an interesting change, I'll give it that. If you're Imperial, you want to avoid Rebel-controlled cities, and vice-versa. Opposite-faction NPCs will shoot you on sight, whether you're PvP-enabled (overt) or not (covert). (You can go to "on-leave" status, but a scan by opposing faction NPCs can out you and leave you open to attack.)
Scorsese has said that pan and scan technicians are essentially re-directing the film, which I thought was a brilliant way of putting it.
I was wondering this, too, but it looks like the Station Access thing is separate--in other words, if all you want is SWG, you just pay for SWG at the SWG rate.
Yeah, I'm waiting for the sound myself. It may just be a whoosh, but it's a whoosh from an alien world. Who ever thought we'd hear such a thing?
You're right. Yeah, stylistically the trailer was pretty cool, but style alone doesn't make a movie. I'd rather see a good script and good acting without the processed black-and-white look.
However...did you actually see Spy Kids? I'm not asking that in a snarky way, I just want to know. I thought it was pretty well-written and well-directed, and it gave me a new respect for Robert Rodriguez: you could totally tell it was a Rodriguez movie, even though it was nothing like, say, El Mariachi.
You mean to tell me if I cut my arm off with a Craftsmen Saw, I can sue Craftsmen for cutting off my arm?
Why do you think new power tools--and some non-power tools, look at a hammer in the hardware store sometime--come with warning labels about safe operation? It's precisely so someone doesn't go and cut their arm off and sue, saying "It doesn't say in the manual not to cut my arm off!"
Also, I hope the stress level at MMSD has gone down. Just thinking about those days has kind of gotten me off-kilter. Very strange.
MMSD has a bigger problem than not having enough testing equipment, or at least it did when I was there as a Micro Tech I/II and Specialist ('94-'98)...and that's that a dozen people just isn't enough to cover the school district properly. Although at least when I was there we all had our own cable continuity testers; you've probably gotten a lot more equipment since then.
Have you asked the District grant coordinator? I realize that that's probably a dumb question, but they should be able to point you somewhere, too.
This next thing is based on a suggestion I saw elsewhere in the comments, namely...turn it into a teaching project. When I was there, I taught a few workshops for some teachers. Maybe you can stretch a grant over a framework like that: "We need this equipment to effectively teach teachers how to make use of technology," or something. That it has other uses is a win for you.
One whose disdain for Steam overrides any desire to play yet another FPS, no matter how good it may be?
If your school or school district has a full-time IT department, see if you can enlist the help of a person or people from there. They may be able to midnight requisition the cabling and other network equipment for you.
You definitely need to get buy-in from those guys, though, in addition to what others have said about getting a signed letter of permission from the principal. I know that when I worked for the local school district, nothing happened on the network without us knowing about it.
Ohhh, of course. Duh, they're both Alan Moore works. Sorry, my brain needs an fsck.
Why is this a "mixed blessing"? "The Bourne Supremacy" was pretty good. I don't remember seeing Tom Sawyer in it--and I don't see that Greengrass was involved at all in the LXG movie, to which the Sawyer jab is obviously a reference.
HL2: Steam.
MGS3: No Steam.
I'll be playing MGS3. HL2 isn't even on the radar.
This is the first post I've seen in a long time that really deserves a "6". Maybe even "7".
How is "pre-emptive" one-sided? Hasn't the administration used exactly that term in its own rhetoric?
Yeah, "The Rocketeer" was really good. Actually, the original comic was even better, because IIRC it implied, if not stated outright, that Doc Savage invented the Rocketeer's gear. I always liked that.
:)
And it's certainly been too long since we've seen Jennifer Connelly's real nose.
Man...I totally forgot about that "Shadow" movie. That's another one I'd like to see played straight.
That's what I thought too, except for the "unwitting" part. I'd like to see a non-campy movie that really DOES pay homage to pulps. The pulps themselves were not campy, nudge-nudge wink-wink affairs, so there's no reason that movies like "Doc Savage" and "The Phantom" et al. need to be. Of course, I'm just going by the trailers and commercials for "Sky Captain," like you are.
I also don't like that waxy white "CGI" sheen that everything has. The latest Harry Potter movie had that, too. Ick.
Yeah...but that won't help the systems that don't actually leave a paper trail.
Amen to that. I've always been of the opinion that the requirement for speed of counting has been a detriment to the entire process. For something as important as voting...we can wait. And with paper and pen, there's almost no chance to misinterpret a vote.
Oh...and I know that the results of that faked-up method would be immediately suspicious to anyone ("Look! Bush got 100% of the vote!"), but you could work out something more subtle in practice.
Yeah, I noticed that too. You gotta love PR people sometimes, and the things they can get away with.
Maybe it's cheaper to have a cheap PC that comes with a license for office apps than it is to pay seven hundred bucks for the card and another couple hundred bucks for a copy of Windows and another couple hundred bucks for MS Office. And another few dollars to increase the memory. Of course, I bet Sun would cut Lockheed a deal on the cards.
Or maybe they don't want to take away disk space from the Solaris side of the show. Or maybe they're using a Windows app that doesn't like whatever trick the card uses to make itself believe that the Sun disk is NTFS.
Just playing devil's advocate, though. I think that would actually be a great idea. Heck, I wish I had one of those things for my Sun Blade.
I have no idea what the costs involved are. They may not have to pay for any of the things you mentioned, but...
They do have to pay licensing fees to the copyright owners. They have to pay for bandwidth to distribute songs. They have to pay for the machines to host the songs on (and even if they use Apple equipment, it's still a cost). They have to pay for the physical location (equivalent to warehousing). They have infrastructure overhead, like power and HVAC. They have to advertise. They have to pay people to watch over all of this stuff. They have to pay people to organize it.
Hosting iTunes is not a zero-cost proposition.
I like your other points, too, from a rhetorical standpoint. From a logical standpoint, though, the answer is simply "because they can". They're reaping the benefits of the old pricing model; it cost a lot to make a CD back in the day. Now it doesn't, and they can make more money for the same amount of effort. It's kind of like when you're paying off a loan: those first payments just pay down the interest, and it's only after a while that the principal starts decreasing as well. Not saying it's right or wrong, just saying how it is.