This needs to be clarified, because that's actually an inaccurate description of events.
After a node crashes, there is a queue for players to log in. There is no artificial "priority" for attackers or defenders. The defenders were mistakenly ordered to mash the log in key over and over again, which reset their place in queue.
It was originally published in The Escapist. There's three parts to it.
Basically, a player gained access to the private forums of one of the top alliances in the game, Band of Brothers. After sifting through chat logs and tracing IPs, he then alleged that the head of BoB's Capital Ship force used to be, in fact, a CCP employee. He also claimed that the same employee gave himself valuable Tech 2 original blueprints which he eventually donated to his corporation after he left.
After a big brouhaha that resulted in the "hacking" player's banning, the employee in question revealed himself as T20, one of the developers of EVE Online. He also confessed to have illegally spawned the Tech 2 blueprints for himself.
Eventually, CCP set up an internal affairs department headed by an impartial and well-regarded GM, Arkanon and placed the improperly spawned blueprints into the lottery pool (Tech 2 blueprint distribution relies on a lottery system which I'll skip explaining). The "hacker" remains banned, T20 remains employed at the company and the profits that BoB gained from the blueprints have yet to have been stripped.
For example, Def Jam: Icon probably benefits from in-game advertisements because environments would look more like the real world. Def Jam: Vendetta and Fight for NY had spectacular character customization thanks to the real world clothing labels you could buy and wear in-game. I think if Grand Theft Auto or other modern day games used advertisement, the games would be more immersive.
Heck, even post-apocalyptic games could work advertising in well. I think it'd be cool to see broken down billboards for Coke or Target in a dead city or something.
However, what DOESN'T work is when the advertising sticks out. Crackdown had a terrible billboard advertisement for the Dodge Charger when it first came out (it's now switched to Intel). Why would there be an advertisement for a car company that didn't exist in game? Maybe if they included the car as a drivable vehicle, it would work, but instead it just looked awkward. The free version of Anarchy Online had similar problems, what with animated Navy ads with full sound and really outdated movie posters.
So I don't mind in-game advertising so long as it increases immersion.
Going off-topic, Vanity Fair is a great magazine. It shocked me how they could take subjects that I wouldn't be remotely interested in and make them readable. I read an article on the Gumball 3000, a rally that includes dozens of millionaires unsafely driving ludicrously expensive vehicles through public streets, causing accidents and death. Yet it was written like a fascinating first-person travel diary, with the author at first terrified and skeptical of the event, but eventually giving in to the spirit of the rally.
I mean, I didn't and still don't care about this crap (the accounts of rallyers paying off local police for causing numerous accidents are pretty outrageous), but the author made it interesting.
Actually, that's a very good point and I agree with you.
Maybe we shouldn't look at it as a "truly capitalistic model." How about this... In the context of the game, do you think players intentionally cozying up and working with developers for in-game advantages should be allowed? And do you think those developers should exploit the game, given their distinct advantages?
That's a very good perspective on the issue. However, without the pure capitalism they have in game, EVE just wouldn't be EVE. The game is built on how cut-throat it is. So it's all right that major power blocks control the economy, because that's just the nature of the beast.
However, when a DEVELOPER OF THE GAME comes in and deliberately tips the balance in favor of an alliance he's not only friendly with, but helped RUN, then there's a real problem. The economic model is no longer cut-throat and capitalistic, it's just unfair.
From the article: "According to Nielsen VideoScan, the consumer research firm for the VHS and DVD sell-through industry, in addition to an overall lead in sales to date, Blu-ray movies outsold those released for the HD-DVD format by more than a 2-to-1 margin during the first week of January. This equates to 47.14 HD DVD titles sold for every 100 Blu-ray titles.
The report also found that Blu-ray titles outsold HD-DVD releases by nearly a 3-to-1 margin during January's second week, with 38.36 HD-DVD titles sold for every 100 Blu-ray releases."
What the...
So Blu-Ray has surpassed HD-DVD in cumulative sales for the first time. So that means they're selling more, but we don't know by how much. Also, they're touting the fact that Blu-Ray outsold HD-DVD in the first two weeks of January? What kind of weird stats are those?
This reminds me of 24 hour comics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_hour_comic) which are 24-page comics drawn and inked in--you guessed it--24 hours. There's an annual 24 Hour Comics Day event that usually compiles a number of hand-picked comics made by artists and writers across the country. Italy's started their own version of it.
It'd be cool if this was made into a annual challenge for dev's around the globe.
I headed up a group on Youtube that posted rare videos and live shows of independent Japanese bands. We went unmolested for the most part until the last months, when we were hit with a sweeping ban that affected some of our biggest contributors.
Some of the bans sort of made sense, as there are some decidedly uncommercial bands on major labels in Japan (sort of a "whoops, totally forgot" situation). Also, there was a major crackdown by Japanese music TV channel Spaceshower TV, which a good many of the videos were recorded off of. Some banned videos, however, puzzled us.
For example, my offending videos included hand-held recordings of a long-defunct indie band Naht that were taken at the Black Cat club in Washington DC. Naht was one of my favorite bands in college, so I was overjoyed that I was able to find such rare footage and immediately wanted to share it. I'm dissapointed it was removed from youtube.
I was eventually given a permanent ban, although I hadn't uploaded anything in months. Bad timing, too, because I had switched the group back to "group leader approves videos" because of horrible video spam. It's too bad, too; a great Israeli noise group called Gaop started uploading videos. Not Japanese, but good stuff, so I kept it on.
I respect and understand my ban, but I'm still dissapointed. Maybe I should start digging around for stuff on the Chinese punk scene, see how youtube censors those.
Considering how many companies are pushing into SL, I wonder if or when players will start getting arrested or sued.
I'm asking this because there've been many "problems" with players in the past, some legitimate (like players creating a recursive, dissapearing object script that crashes entire nodes) some non-legitimate (like getting banned for objects or scenery "in bad taste"). In the case of the node crashing, some people actually lost "income" since there are players making money off of.
What would happen if people targeted specific companies or political candidates--such as Mark Warner, whose PAC has an office in-game--for griefing? What we do about copycat products, since early on many SL players used to grab textures from real world clothing (and cmon, American Apparel sells blank colored t-shirts)? And how would a company like Nike or Adidas respond if someone built something like, I don't know, a gigantic comedy sweatshop full of children working on an animated assembly right next to the big companies shoe promotion stores?
Actually, America's Army IS used for training, specifically as a primer for basic training and getting used to a drill sergeant. I mean, they're not using it to "KILL TERRORISTS" or anything, which would make sense because that would be the worst training sim ever. But as for a training primer, it'd probably work pretty well.
Remember Marine Doom? One of the first serious games. It may not have seemed like much, but it was mostly for training soldiers on coordinating squad movements.
Actually, no. This is a pilot program. From the USPTO website:
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold a briefing on May 12, 2006, from 9:00 a.m. to noon in the agency's Madison building, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA. The USPTO has created a partnership with academia and the private sector to launch an online, peer review pilot project that seeks to ensure that patent examiners will have improved access to all available prior art during the patent examination process.
As a follow-up to the February 16th meeting, this briefing will focus on further developing previously discussed initiatives as well as answering the question of what constitutes valid prior art and a greater in-depth analysis of the peer review pilot project that is under consideration.
The meeting is open to the public. However, space is limited so please register early. Only the first 220 registrations can be accepted.
The article links to the registration page, so it's a bit confusing.
Not just abandonware... they need to really update their backwards compatability list. Some of their top-flight Xbox games like Soul Calibur II are still incompatible. Meanwhile Barbie Horse Adventure was in the initial list of 200 that WAS.
And, just like in college and public school, they'll ignore or throw away anything that would be too much trouble for them to handle. If the managers ARE receptive to criticism, then the system will work spectacularly. But that's the $10,000 managerial question in ANY situation, regardless if they've had negotiation training or what not.
Not to say training would hurt, of course. But this is more of a seperate managerial paradigm altogether, one that calls for humility and an end of rank superiority. That's tough to hammer out of anyone, management or not.
... so long as it fits into the world. The best solution for all of this is to make more present day/post-apocalyptic MMO's.
So, uhh, more post-apocalyptic games in general? Please? Fallout 3, come out soon?
Actually, yes indeed, DoD is buying from Alienware. When they first got into government contracting back in mid-August of 2005, their federal clients included the Department of Defense as well as NASA, the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency and the Army, Airforce and Navy. They've expanded since then, quickly becoming a fairly big player in government contracts.
Retired Washington Post food critic Phyllis Richman used to work around trumped-up meals like this by dressing down and not telling restaurants what days she'd be coming in to try the food. She even went so far as to hiding most of her face in photos so no one could publicly identify her. Really, one of the best critics to ever be published, I really miss her reviews.
Product reviews in general are a bit more difficult. Although the aforementioned Consumer Reports has a great thing going for them in purchasing products from stores, the thing is that they can AFFORD to do that. Most publications and websites can't, forcing them to rely on review samples. Car companies in particular are notorious for fine-tuning their review vehicles, which why Consumer Reports is highly respected for their year-end car accolades.
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This needs to be clarified, because that's actually an inaccurate description of events.
After a node crashes, there is a queue for players to log in. There is no artificial "priority" for attackers or defenders. The defenders were mistakenly ordered to mash the log in key over and over again, which reset their place in queue.
It was originally published in The Escapist. There's three parts to it.
Basically, a player gained access to the private forums of one of the top alliances in the game, Band of Brothers. After sifting through chat logs and tracing IPs, he then alleged that the head of BoB's Capital Ship force used to be, in fact, a CCP employee. He also claimed that the same employee gave himself valuable Tech 2 original blueprints which he eventually donated to his corporation after he left.
After a big brouhaha that resulted in the "hacking" player's banning, the employee in question revealed himself as T20, one of the developers of EVE Online. He also confessed to have illegally spawned the Tech 2 blueprints for himself.
Eventually, CCP set up an internal affairs department headed by an impartial and well-regarded GM, Arkanon and placed the improperly spawned blueprints into the lottery pool (Tech 2 blueprint distribution relies on a lottery system which I'll skip explaining). The "hacker" remains banned, T20 remains employed at the company and the profits that BoB gained from the blueprints have yet to have been stripped.
It's all about how they're used.
For example, Def Jam: Icon probably benefits from in-game advertisements because environments would look more like the real world. Def Jam: Vendetta and Fight for NY had spectacular character customization thanks to the real world clothing labels you could buy and wear in-game. I think if Grand Theft Auto or other modern day games used advertisement, the games would be more immersive.
Heck, even post-apocalyptic games could work advertising in well. I think it'd be cool to see broken down billboards for Coke or Target in a dead city or something.
However, what DOESN'T work is when the advertising sticks out. Crackdown had a terrible billboard advertisement for the Dodge Charger when it first came out (it's now switched to Intel). Why would there be an advertisement for a car company that didn't exist in game? Maybe if they included the car as a drivable vehicle, it would work, but instead it just looked awkward. The free version of Anarchy Online had similar problems, what with animated Navy ads with full sound and really outdated movie posters.
So I don't mind in-game advertising so long as it increases immersion.
Err, me...
Going off-topic, Vanity Fair is a great magazine. It shocked me how they could take subjects that I wouldn't be remotely interested in and make them readable. I read an article on the Gumball 3000, a rally that includes dozens of millionaires unsafely driving ludicrously expensive vehicles through public streets, causing accidents and death. Yet it was written like a fascinating first-person travel diary, with the author at first terrified and skeptical of the event, but eventually giving in to the spirit of the rally.
I mean, I didn't and still don't care about this crap (the accounts of rallyers paying off local police for causing numerous accidents are pretty outrageous), but the author made it interesting.
Actually, that's a very good point and I agree with you.
Maybe we shouldn't look at it as a "truly capitalistic model." How about this... In the context of the game, do you think players intentionally cozying up and working with developers for in-game advantages should be allowed? And do you think those developers should exploit the game, given their distinct advantages?
That's a very good perspective on the issue. However, without the pure capitalism they have in game, EVE just wouldn't be EVE. The game is built on how cut-throat it is. So it's all right that major power blocks control the economy, because that's just the nature of the beast.
However, when a DEVELOPER OF THE GAME comes in and deliberately tips the balance in favor of an alliance he's not only friendly with, but helped RUN, then there's a real problem. The economic model is no longer cut-throat and capitalistic, it's just unfair.
From the article: "According to Nielsen VideoScan, the consumer research firm for the VHS and DVD sell-through industry, in addition to an overall lead in sales to date, Blu-ray movies outsold those released for the HD-DVD format by more than a 2-to-1 margin during the first week of January. This equates to 47.14 HD DVD titles sold for every 100 Blu-ray titles.
The report also found that Blu-ray titles outsold HD-DVD releases by nearly a 3-to-1 margin during January's second week, with 38.36 HD-DVD titles sold for every 100 Blu-ray releases."
What the...
So Blu-Ray has surpassed HD-DVD in cumulative sales for the first time. So that means they're selling more, but we don't know by how much. Also, they're touting the fact that Blu-Ray outsold HD-DVD in the first two weeks of January? What kind of weird stats are those?
This reminds me of 24 hour comics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_hour_comic) which are 24-page comics drawn and inked in--you guessed it--24 hours. There's an annual 24 Hour Comics Day event that usually compiles a number of hand-picked comics made by artists and writers across the country. Italy's started their own version of it. It'd be cool if this was made into a annual challenge for dev's around the globe.
It doesn't make any sense... why would you call for a boycott of Sony from the people who wanted Sony products so much they imported them early?
I headed up a group on Youtube that posted rare videos and live shows of independent Japanese bands. We went unmolested for the most part until the last months, when we were hit with a sweeping ban that affected some of our biggest contributors.
Some of the bans sort of made sense, as there are some decidedly uncommercial bands on major labels in Japan (sort of a "whoops, totally forgot" situation). Also, there was a major crackdown by Japanese music TV channel Spaceshower TV, which a good many of the videos were recorded off of. Some banned videos, however, puzzled us.
For example, my offending videos included hand-held recordings of a long-defunct indie band Naht that were taken at the Black Cat club in Washington DC. Naht was one of my favorite bands in college, so I was overjoyed that I was able to find such rare footage and immediately wanted to share it. I'm dissapointed it was removed from youtube.
I was eventually given a permanent ban, although I hadn't uploaded anything in months. Bad timing, too, because I had switched the group back to "group leader approves videos" because of horrible video spam. It's too bad, too; a great Israeli noise group called Gaop started uploading videos. Not Japanese, but good stuff, so I kept it on.
I respect and understand my ban, but I'm still dissapointed. Maybe I should start digging around for stuff on the Chinese punk scene, see how youtube censors those.
Considering how many companies are pushing into SL, I wonder if or when players will start getting arrested or sued.
I'm asking this because there've been many "problems" with players in the past, some legitimate (like players creating a recursive, dissapearing object script that crashes entire nodes) some non-legitimate (like getting banned for objects or scenery "in bad taste"). In the case of the node crashing, some people actually lost "income" since there are players making money off of.
What would happen if people targeted specific companies or political candidates--such as Mark Warner, whose PAC has an office in-game--for griefing? What we do about copycat products, since early on many SL players used to grab textures from real world clothing (and cmon, American Apparel sells blank colored t-shirts)? And how would a company like Nike or Adidas respond if someone built something like, I don't know, a gigantic comedy sweatshop full of children working on an animated assembly right next to the big companies shoe promotion stores?
Actually, America's Army IS used for training, specifically as a primer for basic training and getting used to a drill sergeant. I mean, they're not using it to "KILL TERRORISTS" or anything, which would make sense because that would be the worst training sim ever. But as for a training primer, it'd probably work pretty well. Remember Marine Doom? One of the first serious games. It may not have seemed like much, but it was mostly for training soldiers on coordinating squad movements.
Okay, now I'M confused. Thanks for that. I sent in a request to join the meeting so hopefully everything can be clarified.
Actually, no. This is a pilot program. From the USPTO website:
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold a briefing on May 12, 2006, from 9:00 a.m. to noon in the agency's Madison building, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA. The USPTO has created a partnership with academia and the private sector to launch an online, peer review pilot project that seeks to ensure that patent examiners will have improved access to all available prior art during the patent examination process.
As a follow-up to the February 16th meeting, this briefing will focus on further developing previously discussed initiatives as well as answering the question of what constitutes valid prior art and a greater in-depth analysis of the peer review pilot project that is under consideration.
The meeting is open to the public. However, space is limited so please register early. Only the first 220 registrations can be accepted.
The article links to the registration page, so it's a bit confusing.
Not just abandonware... they need to really update their backwards compatability list. Some of their top-flight Xbox games like Soul Calibur II are still incompatible. Meanwhile Barbie Horse Adventure was in the initial list of 200 that WAS.
My PSP will potentially run Oblivion better than my current rig. I cry.
Oblivion for the 360 is getting a patch, for example. Having hard drive for downloadable content is a double edged sword in this regard.
Also, obligatory "Oblivion is an awesome game anyways" that everyone always says. Because, really, it still is an awesome game.
... that it's not in the least bit exhilarating: Daigo's comeback KO
Now I'm not saying there's a huge market, but personally, I love watching fighting game match videos.
And, just like in college and public school, they'll ignore or throw away anything that would be too much trouble for them to handle. If the managers ARE receptive to criticism, then the system will work spectacularly. But that's the $10,000 managerial question in ANY situation, regardless if they've had negotiation training or what not.
Not to say training would hurt, of course. But this is more of a seperate managerial paradigm altogether, one that calls for humility and an end of rank superiority. That's tough to hammer out of anyone, management or not.
... so long as it fits into the world. The best solution for all of this is to make more present day/post-apocalyptic MMO's. So, uhh, more post-apocalyptic games in general? Please? Fallout 3, come out soon?
Actually, yes indeed, DoD is buying from Alienware. When they first got into government contracting back in mid-August of 2005, their federal clients included the Department of Defense as well as NASA, the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency and the Army, Airforce and Navy. They've expanded since then, quickly becoming a fairly big player in government contracts.
Retired Washington Post food critic Phyllis Richman used to work around trumped-up meals like this by dressing down and not telling restaurants what days she'd be coming in to try the food. She even went so far as to hiding most of her face in photos so no one could publicly identify her. Really, one of the best critics to ever be published, I really miss her reviews.
Product reviews in general are a bit more difficult. Although the aforementioned Consumer Reports has a great thing going for them in purchasing products from stores, the thing is that they can AFFORD to do that. Most publications and websites can't, forcing them to rely on review samples. Car companies in particular are notorious for fine-tuning their review vehicles, which why Consumer Reports is highly respected for their year-end car accolades.