I am going to have to disagree that addiction is "ok" depending on the level of responsiblity a person has or based on age.
An addiction is self destructive behavior whether it be mentally destructive, emotionally destructive, physically destructive or financially destructive. Kids are not immune to this. Sure, the consequences may be different but the resulting personal damage is usually the same. Antisocial behavior, weight gain, lack of physical activity, "replacement" scenarios in which a person replaces things they found gratifying before with things related to the game.
A student or child may be able to spend more time playing a game because they have more free time but even then a gamer playing 8-14 hours per day 5-6 days per week is very excessive. In any activity that is excessive (even work - people don't work that much because they want to - they do it because they have to make ends meet in some cases).
Sure, the student may not have a job or a family to take care of but what about the damage to their social skills? Sitting in a room for 40+ hours per week does internal emotional and mental damage to self esteem, their fitness level and circumvents their real world social structure.
Sure, by going outside I may risk skin cancer some day. However, after going through my EQ addiction and pushing away people I cared about, always being late on bills, being sleepy and tired from staying up until 2 am on raids and having my life revolve around people who have never met me and only view me as a graphical avatar...I got sick of pretending to be someone else. Instead of striving to be a lvl 50 necromancer, I have since been striving to be a lvl 50 "ME" and do the best I can at everything real world.
There is a difference.
Most people don't go fishing every single day. Watching football or tv is usually done with other people around as well. People can easily take a break from either without cause of any mental distress.
A video game addict spends anywhere from 40-80 hours per week playing a video game. Marriages are ruined, children are neglected and people become more and more antisocial as the problem persists. Eventually, when they do wake up they have a very hard time dealing with the real world, getting back into a real social circle of friends and getting out of the house. Some even experience social anxiety.
I know, I was one of them. I was single so I didn't have a problem with marriage or children but some of the people I played with regularly...different story. I knew numerous people who had marriages fail due to gaming. Also, on many occasion after an 8 hour grind session you might hear "I need to feed the 2 year old". WHAT?! You've been sitting here for 8 hours, having barely gotten up to even use the bathroom and you have a toddler doing who knows what!?
College and high school students who become addicted also suffer from grades dropping or even flunking out of school.
Now, your examples might be relevant comparisons in a situation of casual gaming however they are completely at the other end of the spectrum from gaming addiction.
Your examples are things that I used to tell myself to justify my problem. "I don't have anything better to do", "I'd just be watching tv", "It's keeping me out of trouble". You know, they all sound like good reasons to continue gaming and very justifiable but in the end, the fact was that I didn't have anything better to do because the addiction had consumed so much of my life that I had lost interest in things that I liked to do (besides gaming). They were all excuses to make sure I got my EQ fix. Since then, I have found new things I like to enjoy. I've made new friends. I actually get out of the house on nice afternoons or weekends. For the 2nd summer since 1999 I actually have a tan!
Gaming addiction is one of those things that is more easily justified in the mind of the addict than drugs. It's also a very tough addiction to break if you've fallen to the point that your self esteem is tied to the characters in game. Every mental social mechanism ends up tied to the game, your sense of reward is tied to the game. When you remove all of that, its a personal rebuilding process from the ground up.
Announcer: "With us today is Al Gore, the star of the moving "An Inconvenient Truth". Welcome Al."
Al: "Thank you Bob. It's a pleasure to be here to discuss such an important topic."
Announcer: "Well Al. We have a surprise for you today. I'm not sure if you saw our earlier segment on brain scans but we have Dr. Fujimoto here with us today - the inventor of the device."
Al: "I've always been fascinated by technology. I think my record has shown that - with the internet and all."
Announcer: "Great! Now, if you'll just have a seat over here." *motions to chair that looks like a hair dryer in a hair salon*
Al: *taking a seat* "I think technology is also key in combating the global warming phenomenon. We need to exercise our intellectual assets and develop a new type of energy."
Announcer: *staring at panel of green lights* "So the AP today reported that the scientific evidence in your movie is backed by all of the top scientists?"
Al: "Yes, I truly believe we are on the edge of a catastrophe. All of the worlds top climate scientists are in agreement with the data presented in my movie. Hey - what do those red lights mean?"
Announcer: "Oh it just means you feel very passionate about your topic." *flashing on screen - He's lying his a$$ off*
Al: "Well, I could fix social security so I found a bigger problem that needed my attention. If we could put all of the polluting compounds in a LOCK...BOX, I think we could save the Earth."
*machine explodes*
Al: "Heh, Bob - celebrating Independence Day early? You know the gun powder in those fireworks expels carbon dioxide which is a no-no. Kyoto would have outlawed all production of fireworks."
Announcer: "Umm...right. Thank you for your time. Ladies and gentlemen, Al Gore."
So, modifying the client to point to the new emulated server is not in violation of the SOE license you click to agree to at the beginning of the game?
I began playing SWG in the 2nd beta test, November of 2002. I played until spring of 2005 after the first CU and then came back via free trial to have a look at the NGE.
I mostly played on Chimaera, Bria and Chilastra. I was one of the first members of Stormtrooper Detachment Epsilon, a hardcore roleplaying PA. I was also a beta tester for JTL. Just some info...I lobbied heavily in the beta forums for cohesiveness with the movie. In beta with JTL, TIE Fighter weapons were not green but red and sounded like an X-Wing. That was unnacceptable to me. I was appalled by the response of Kurt Stangle that this was a non-issue. I wasn't buying the game to fly a bastardized version of a TIE, I wanted a TIE! Yes, it was finally changed before release.
I hope that answers the question of "Have you ever played SWG?".
Now, on to the point I was trying to make and to rebutt whether or not I'm "too serious". My initial reply to this thread was in response to demonizing and joy/laughter at SOE finally taking it like they've been giving it to customers. First off, they won't. It makes no difference to SOE if this emulator is out there because legally they have too many grounds to shut it down. While those of us that were players are quick to criticize and rightfully call out that "SOE ruined Star Wars!" SOE never did anything that is illegal. The first thing a customer should do when feeling shafted is to stop paying the company. For many, that never happened. They sat around and complained, whined, moaned on the forums instead of cancelling accounts. The forums will never cause a major change due to whining or complaining but reduced profits will!
With that said, the emulator is outright theft of intellecual property owned by Lucas Arts and Sony Online Entertainment. You can argue with me until you are blue in the face about how SOE deserves it, how they screwed their customers, deleted forum posts, etc. but that does not change the fact that Lucas Arts owns the images, likenesses, movie characters, settings and a host of other things that are being used within this emulator. SOE owns the code. As much as people like to think ALL software should be open source it's not. Should it be? That's a different argument but in this specific case it is not free nor open. These folks with the emulator will be shut down and they should be. Lucas Arts has no choice but to protect their trademarks and copyrights in this area otherwise they will lose their right to enforce them in other/same markets.
I started programming back in 1983. The open source movement has seemed to give rise to the idea that since software *should* be free people can do whatever they want to with code. Sure its not the majority of happy FOSS users out there, but there is a subset that do feel that way. It *should* be free so therefore I can take it. It's a general disdain for copyright laws (whether they are out of date or not, they are still laws and until they are changed we are bound by them). Star Wars Galaxies and the content licensed from Lucas Arts are not governed by a free licensing standard such as GPL. It is property owned by corporations licensed to individuals for entertainment purposes. Taking the code, modifying and then using the graphics files, soundtrack music files, sound effects, etc are all violations of copyright and trademark no matter how you look at it.
Sure, I'd like to see SOE get pounded into the ground but this is not the way to do it. All that has to happen is for the people still playing to click the cancel button. It's over, no need to remain bitter about how SOE destroyed a great game (which, when released was nowhere near what people claim it was today).
Are you sure about that? SOE and Lucas Arts have done nothing truly criminal.
Per your comparison, SOE and Lucas Arts would be committing murder, deprivation of rights (oppression) and numerous other "crimes against humanity". Do you really feel that way about them?
Fact of the matter is, if these guys with the emulator are using reverse engineered client code that rightfully belongs to SOE, THEY are the criminals here. It has nothing to do with a fictional rebellion but a factual theft of intellectual property.
Right, like if the timeline is post Episode III -pre Episode IV (as SWG was originally intended) the only Jedi Padawan was Luke SkyWalker and the only Jedi was Yoda.
This sounds like intelligent design to me. The AI may change over time but thats what its designed to do, obviously by some intelligent folks in robotics:)
I watched a special on the news a few weeks ago. It showed multiple call centers where the employees were being trained and taught English. They also showed the new movement for IT support.
Totally outsources data center management - remote administration. It's already being done and probably cheaper than Lavawhatever can do it for (unless their business plan is to sell the outsourcing)
I have to agree. MS, as I see it, is entrenched for a reason and will not be detrenched until Linux or some other OS becomes as easy to use for non-technical savvy people (grandparents and the like) to use. To do that, the OS in question is going to have to make sacrifices to some degree. Your normal every day user doesn't want to edit a config file. They want to install, play a game or read their email.
The sign of MS dying is slipped sales, lack of funds, market share going down drastically and a defacto PC OS other than MS. Gates deciding he is no longer going to be the chief architect has nothing to do with the stability of the company. Gates built the company, instilled a culture distinctly Microsoft and after he is gone - as long as Microsoft learned from Gates while he was there, will flourish. In 30 years it may not be the same power house but it certainly will not be gone.
Actually I think the bigger problem is that you have people who value virtual online worlds more than physical real world activities or products.
Seriously folks - it's throwing away money. Is your life so dull and depressing that you need to spend hours and hours online accruing "wealth" that means nothing? It will ALWAYS mean nothing as whatever wealth you've accrued in an online game will be gone as soon as you cancel the account, get bored or the game company shuts the game down.
Sure, there are examples of things like "Second Life" where people are crossing the line between real and virtual business. However, I don't see that as future. Why? What was the real complaint of the.com bubble? No real product, no real profit - just inflated stock prices for over-valued companies. I can't really see how the "Second Life" businesses are different than the companies in the.com bubble. *shrug*
What you described sounds very similar to having an XP install with IIS, Visual Studio Express 2005 (VB or C#) and SQL 2005 Express.
With that sequence I can be up and running, ready to go in less than 30 minutes.
Sourceforge Vault is the best I've used.
Good for remote development - uses web services for client connection.
All of the features of the standard source code stores and free for a single user. Also does incremental updates to code changes for quick response.
Was Amazon supposedly using the One-Click to buy when Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Wallet? Also, in Site Server 3.0 I believe, there was a process for single click purchases through their Ad Manager. I guess I need to do research on when the patent was supposedly developed - but this is something we've seen through so many different websites I don't think it should be valid.
Slashdot Mirror
Try right clicking IE.Inf - usually that will launch the install process and via the MSI package you will be able to select remove.
Yes you can uninstall it but it reverts everything back to IE 6.0 It worked quite well for me in Beta 2.
I am going to have to disagree that addiction is "ok" depending on the level of responsiblity a person has or based on age.
An addiction is self destructive behavior whether it be mentally destructive, emotionally destructive, physically destructive or financially destructive. Kids are not immune to this. Sure, the consequences may be different but the resulting personal damage is usually the same. Antisocial behavior, weight gain, lack of physical activity, "replacement" scenarios in which a person replaces things they found gratifying before with things related to the game.
A student or child may be able to spend more time playing a game because they have more free time but even then a gamer playing 8-14 hours per day 5-6 days per week is very excessive. In any activity that is excessive (even work - people don't work that much because they want to - they do it because they have to make ends meet in some cases). Sure, the student may not have a job or a family to take care of but what about the damage to their social skills? Sitting in a room for 40+ hours per week does internal emotional and mental damage to self esteem, their fitness level and circumvents their real world social structure.
Sure, by going outside I may risk skin cancer some day. However, after going through my EQ addiction and pushing away people I cared about, always being late on bills, being sleepy and tired from staying up until 2 am on raids and having my life revolve around people who have never met me and only view me as a graphical avatar...I got sick of pretending to be someone else. Instead of striving to be a lvl 50 necromancer, I have since been striving to be a lvl 50 "ME" and do the best I can at everything real world.
There is a difference. Most people don't go fishing every single day. Watching football or tv is usually done with other people around as well. People can easily take a break from either without cause of any mental distress.
A video game addict spends anywhere from 40-80 hours per week playing a video game. Marriages are ruined, children are neglected and people become more and more antisocial as the problem persists. Eventually, when they do wake up they have a very hard time dealing with the real world, getting back into a real social circle of friends and getting out of the house. Some even experience social anxiety.
I know, I was one of them. I was single so I didn't have a problem with marriage or children but some of the people I played with regularly...different story. I knew numerous people who had marriages fail due to gaming. Also, on many occasion after an 8 hour grind session you might hear "I need to feed the 2 year old". WHAT?! You've been sitting here for 8 hours, having barely gotten up to even use the bathroom and you have a toddler doing who knows what!?
College and high school students who become addicted also suffer from grades dropping or even flunking out of school.
Now, your examples might be relevant comparisons in a situation of casual gaming however they are completely at the other end of the spectrum from gaming addiction. Your examples are things that I used to tell myself to justify my problem. "I don't have anything better to do", "I'd just be watching tv", "It's keeping me out of trouble". You know, they all sound like good reasons to continue gaming and very justifiable but in the end, the fact was that I didn't have anything better to do because the addiction had consumed so much of my life that I had lost interest in things that I liked to do (besides gaming). They were all excuses to make sure I got my EQ fix. Since then, I have found new things I like to enjoy. I've made new friends. I actually get out of the house on nice afternoons or weekends. For the 2nd summer since 1999 I actually have a tan!
Gaming addiction is one of those things that is more easily justified in the mind of the addict than drugs. It's also a very tough addiction to break if you've fallen to the point that your self esteem is tied to the characters in game. Every mental social mechanism ends up tied to the game, your sense of reward is tied to the game. When you remove all of that, its a personal rebuilding process from the ground up.
Announcer: "With us today is Al Gore, the star of the moving "An Inconvenient Truth". Welcome Al."
Al: "Thank you Bob. It's a pleasure to be here to discuss such an important topic."
Announcer: "Well Al. We have a surprise for you today. I'm not sure if you saw our earlier segment on brain scans but we have Dr. Fujimoto here with us today - the inventor of the device."
Al: "I've always been fascinated by technology. I think my record has shown that - with the internet and all."
Announcer: "Great! Now, if you'll just have a seat over here." *motions to chair that looks like a hair dryer in a hair salon*
Al: *taking a seat* "I think technology is also key in combating the global warming phenomenon. We need to exercise our intellectual assets and develop a new type of energy."
Announcer: *staring at panel of green lights* "So the AP today reported that the scientific evidence in your movie is backed by all of the top scientists?"
Al: "Yes, I truly believe we are on the edge of a catastrophe. All of the worlds top climate scientists are in agreement with the data presented in my movie. Hey - what do those red lights mean?"
Announcer: "Oh it just means you feel very passionate about your topic." *flashing on screen - He's lying his a$$ off*
Al: "Well, I could fix social security so I found a bigger problem that needed my attention. If we could put all of the polluting compounds in a LOCK...BOX, I think we could save the Earth."
*machine explodes* Al: "Heh, Bob - celebrating Independence Day early? You know the gun powder in those fireworks expels carbon dioxide which is a no-no. Kyoto would have outlawed all production of fireworks."
Announcer: "Umm...right. Thank you for your time. Ladies and gentlemen, Al Gore."
So, modifying the client to point to the new emulated server is not in violation of the SOE license you click to agree to at the beginning of the game?
Blue's Clues
I began playing SWG in the 2nd beta test, November of 2002. I played until spring of 2005 after the first CU and then came back via free trial to have a look at the NGE. I mostly played on Chimaera, Bria and Chilastra. I was one of the first members of Stormtrooper Detachment Epsilon, a hardcore roleplaying PA. I was also a beta tester for JTL. Just some info...I lobbied heavily in the beta forums for cohesiveness with the movie. In beta with JTL, TIE Fighter weapons were not green but red and sounded like an X-Wing. That was unnacceptable to me. I was appalled by the response of Kurt Stangle that this was a non-issue. I wasn't buying the game to fly a bastardized version of a TIE, I wanted a TIE! Yes, it was finally changed before release.
I hope that answers the question of "Have you ever played SWG?".
Now, on to the point I was trying to make and to rebutt whether or not I'm "too serious". My initial reply to this thread was in response to demonizing and joy/laughter at SOE finally taking it like they've been giving it to customers. First off, they won't. It makes no difference to SOE if this emulator is out there because legally they have too many grounds to shut it down. While those of us that were players are quick to criticize and rightfully call out that "SOE ruined Star Wars!" SOE never did anything that is illegal. The first thing a customer should do when feeling shafted is to stop paying the company. For many, that never happened. They sat around and complained, whined, moaned on the forums instead of cancelling accounts. The forums will never cause a major change due to whining or complaining but reduced profits will!
With that said, the emulator is outright theft of intellecual property owned by Lucas Arts and Sony Online Entertainment. You can argue with me until you are blue in the face about how SOE deserves it, how they screwed their customers, deleted forum posts, etc. but that does not change the fact that Lucas Arts owns the images, likenesses, movie characters, settings and a host of other things that are being used within this emulator. SOE owns the code. As much as people like to think ALL software should be open source it's not. Should it be? That's a different argument but in this specific case it is not free nor open. These folks with the emulator will be shut down and they should be. Lucas Arts has no choice but to protect their trademarks and copyrights in this area otherwise they will lose their right to enforce them in other/same markets.
I started programming back in 1983. The open source movement has seemed to give rise to the idea that since software *should* be free people can do whatever they want to with code. Sure its not the majority of happy FOSS users out there, but there is a subset that do feel that way. It *should* be free so therefore I can take it. It's a general disdain for copyright laws (whether they are out of date or not, they are still laws and until they are changed we are bound by them). Star Wars Galaxies and the content licensed from Lucas Arts are not governed by a free licensing standard such as GPL. It is property owned by corporations licensed to individuals for entertainment purposes. Taking the code, modifying and then using the graphics files, soundtrack music files, sound effects, etc are all violations of copyright and trademark no matter how you look at it.
Sure, I'd like to see SOE get pounded into the ground but this is not the way to do it. All that has to happen is for the people still playing to click the cancel button. It's over, no need to remain bitter about how SOE destroyed a great game (which, when released was nowhere near what people claim it was today).
I actually meant between IV and V, oops. For some reason SOE's mangling of the timeline caused me to subtract 1 from each episode.
Are you sure about that? SOE and Lucas Arts have done nothing truly criminal. Per your comparison, SOE and Lucas Arts would be committing murder, deprivation of rights (oppression) and numerous other "crimes against humanity". Do you really feel that way about them? Fact of the matter is, if these guys with the emulator are using reverse engineered client code that rightfully belongs to SOE, THEY are the criminals here. It has nothing to do with a fictional rebellion but a factual theft of intellectual property.
Right, like if the timeline is post Episode III -pre Episode IV (as SWG was originally intended) the only Jedi Padawan was Luke SkyWalker and the only Jedi was Yoda.
They'll get hired? Either the EQ Emulator people or the guy who cracked the EQ encryption was hired by SOE. I don't remember which.
This sounds like intelligent design to me. The AI may change over time but thats what its designed to do, obviously by some intelligent folks in robotics :)
I watched a special on the news a few weeks ago. It showed multiple call centers where the employees were being trained and taught English. They also showed the new movement for IT support. Totally outsources data center management - remote administration. It's already being done and probably cheaper than Lavawhatever can do it for (unless their business plan is to sell the outsourcing)
That just sounds too easy to me. MPAA would have a cow :)
I have to agree. MS, as I see it, is entrenched for a reason and will not be detrenched until Linux or some other OS becomes as easy to use for non-technical savvy people (grandparents and the like) to use. To do that, the OS in question is going to have to make sacrifices to some degree. Your normal every day user doesn't want to edit a config file. They want to install, play a game or read their email.
The sign of MS dying is slipped sales, lack of funds, market share going down drastically and a defacto PC OS other than MS. Gates deciding he is no longer going to be the chief architect has nothing to do with the stability of the company. Gates built the company, instilled a culture distinctly Microsoft and after he is gone - as long as Microsoft learned from Gates while he was there, will flourish. In 30 years it may not be the same power house but it certainly will not be gone.
Actually I think the bigger problem is that you have people who value virtual online worlds more than physical real world activities or products.
.com bubble? No real product, no real profit - just inflated stock prices for over-valued companies. I can't really see how the "Second Life" businesses are different than the companies in the .com bubble. *shrug*
Seriously folks - it's throwing away money. Is your life so dull and depressing that you need to spend hours and hours online accruing "wealth" that means nothing? It will ALWAYS mean nothing as whatever wealth you've accrued in an online game will be gone as soon as you cancel the account, get bored or the game company shuts the game down.
Sure, there are examples of things like "Second Life" where people are crossing the line between real and virtual business. However, I don't see that as future. Why? What was the real complaint of the
the first one to recommend a Brittany Spears or N'Sync song/album to me I'm blocking the IP address on my home network forever.
Because the democrats forced him to step down over a stupid comment that was made in favor of a democrat so he's bitter?
I was speaking in terms of a development environment. Personally, I'd rather not run a website on a home PC with a non-server type OS installed.
What you described sounds very similar to having an XP install with IIS, Visual Studio Express 2005 (VB or C#) and SQL 2005 Express. With that sequence I can be up and running, ready to go in less than 30 minutes.
"How Opal Mehta Plagarised, Got Busted, and Got Kicked out of Harvard"
Oops, you're right. It's Friday - my brain is slowing down :)
Sourceforge Vault is the best I've used. Good for remote development - uses web services for client connection. All of the features of the standard source code stores and free for a single user. Also does incremental updates to code changes for quick response.
Was Amazon supposedly using the One-Click to buy when Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Wallet? Also, in Site Server 3.0 I believe, there was a process for single click purchases through their Ad Manager. I guess I need to do research on when the patent was supposedly developed - but this is something we've seen through so many different websites I don't think it should be valid.