Agreed, yet again it's the publics ignorance that makes a few people loaded and companies expanding, becoming more draconian. They aquire the taste of blood.
However there are lots of good reasons to open up the specs (even if they are third-party, don't people and companies know how to ask/demand??): * Publicity and PR, especially among tech-savvy people and Linux/Open Source/GNU zealots * Education, people will experiment, solder and come up with new inventions faster! It's also alot of fun and can be used in educational institutions * Environment gets less polluted * More usable hardware out there, everyone can have their own cheap server! * What's the point of buying a product that will not work anymore (e.g with new hardware, OSes or software?)? In too many situation a customer buys a product that is ALREADY discontinued (happened to me when buying an OEM notebook!). * People will get more and more dissatisfied and will go somewhere else where they won't get screwed again!
And folks, please don't tell me it's impossible! That's just lame.. I can think of much harder tasks also "impossible", already been done.
"Many of these companies are publically held, which means they have, as we've read so many times here, a legal obligation to maximize profits for the shareholders."
Just because you have read that a thousand times here on Slashdot doesn't make it more true in the terms people are using it in these discussions. A company is NOT legally bound to maximize profits by exploitation, harming the environment/customers and generally doing bad/unpopular decisions. Blaming this for not sharing with the rest of the community is a lame excuse IMHO..
Now if they do all this anyways, couldn't they be sued for having terrible policies, therefore affecting the net value of the company negatively? That's just as crazy!
Money has no value it just represents it. If companies are not free to try out new things, the market will stagnate.
This is an easy one to answer. We would be vegetating in front of the 3D TV watching old reruns of Xena Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer of course. That is what has been expected from us in the last 100 or so years, and that's what we'll continue to do..
NOT!
Btw, there will be strong forces to delay or ban any Replicators in the future. It's not about efficiency, this issue is about power, control, fear and abuse mixed in an intergalactic soup of tragic comedy.
There still are people that care out there! Impressive! I sincerely hope that if all other posts gets screwed up by Metallica's lawyers and secretaries, the band themselves, in some arcane way, gets to reads this one..
Exposing supposed child-molestors by showing their IP is totally misguided on three or more accounts: The filenames has nothing to do with the actual content, the IP could point to someone "innocent" and phedophily is an emotional/phsycological damage or disease. Condemning people because they do what they do without understanding why they do it is a display of ignorance and unjust intolerance 100% of the time. Pervertion is not something people *choose*, and what is, is also very subjective. Of course we shouldn't tolerate act of cruelty against children, but you can't kill off phedophily by stamping on it. You can't control what other people think and feel, not even by going out on a witch-hunt.
AOL/Time Warner owns most of America so the chance of already owning a lawyer is pretty huge. In such a way, they can easily pay the big bucks for the best lawyers and prevent them legally to work against them. Now who said big corporations are good?
Excuse me, but we have every right to state our honest opinion in this forum. If you can't stand whining, then stay away from these topics. People like you let the Third Reich arise in the 30's.
No I'm not saying we're so much better, but it never hurt anybody to let off steam in the longer run.
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MS does like every company do namely counting each pirated software as lost revenue. It's hard to convince them, the public and courts otherwise without hard numbers, In fact, I'm unsure about the dynamics of this myself but anyone thinking piracy isn't promoting bussiness in some degree should have their head examined.
Personally I think MS Windows became what it was because "everybody" (PC Magazines, executives) wanted it. Now they got it, and then they start complaining. Clueless. You make the bed, you sleep in it.
Let's not forget who pays for all these suits, you and me (assuming you have purchased MS branded products). Now why don't customers demand the money better spent? Why do we buy from a company working against the public? When did companies become the means to all ends?
Folks, let's stop trying dumb us self down to the level of lawyers here. This is actually the best thing that could happen, because it shows excactly what kind of monopoly Microsoft is. The mere fact that the company can be so arrogant as to publish their proprietary extention to Kerberos with a license claiming to be a trade-secret is something to laugh your head off, not be frightened of. I know the face of it can look scary, but wait a day and you'll see that this will only be Microsoft digging their own grave. They act like sociopaths wanting to be martyrs and be granted our forgiveness. Let's not be so naive and fall head over heels over a cheap trick.
A company may have trade secrets, and successfully enforce agreements from employees and third-parties that should not reveal them. However, you can't have the whole world as a third-party! That defeats the purpose of the trade-secret altogether since the disclosed information should only be known by trusted people. Once the information is out, it is public domain. Information and speech is supposed to be free, look it up in your Constitution. You may sue a few persons, but you can't sue a nation, not to mention the whole world!
This'll certainly show folks what the UCITA is really about and that click-through licenses are unenforcable and unacceptable.
- Steeltoe
"The DMCA is a perfect example of the harm done when business dominates government and society. One part of the law explicitly says that only commercially significant activities are considered important (to legitimize a program which is often used to bypass technological means of controlling the users)--showing explicit prejudice against educational uses, recreational uses, communitarian uses, military uses, and religious uses." - RMS
Re:Google already uses it
on
Who Owns Dmoz?
·
· Score: 1
Damn, I knew it was too good to be true! How the hell are we going to filter out text ads? If Google does this the community of people who don't want spam and ads forced down their throats will leave somewhere else. Of course this is how it always is: First you have a few pioneers with a golden age, then the public comes in with the dirt.
Oh yeah, and let's put such limitations to all the PCs that are sold too. Then noone will break the law and we will all be living happy moral lives together.
"Sigh... what the Hell is happening to the United States?"
They're showing you that capitalism can go into excactly the same traps as Communism, Fascism and every other "evil governmental ideology" you people have been mindlessly bashing and ranting over the years. It's supposed to show you that its _people_ doing the bad things, not THINGS. So responsibility and change have to go down to the level of people and individuals, you and me.
I'm beginning to find all this hilarious, especially considering all the "Geek Rights" posts we have gotten today (28.april)! I'm glad I don't live in the US!
It's a Dot-Com enterprise, and rightfully so! However, I don't dismiss all their ideologies and theories (mainly because I don't even know 5% of them), but I certainly disagree on their methods of repressing, extorting and misleading their members. They are also too hypocritical and intolerant to the rest of the world. They become what they hate, it's the fastest and hardest way to learn properly.
I TOTALLY agree with you that a hardware jumper is in order here, and I haven't seen one on my motherboard..
Now let's put some KNOWLEDGE about the P-III chip into this debate. The CPU ID is DISABLED by default. Intel caved in to the public opinion, which I believe was right of them.
Another fact: You can ENABLE/DISABLE the CPU ID in BIOS or using a program. At home I have an Intel program that let's me ENABLE/DISABLE the CPU ID inside _Windows_. No hardware or authorization involved!!
Put that together and the former author commenting about the ability to hack this temporary for own malicous use is perhaps the best argument I've seen posted here.. That could mean someone could actually hack this on MY P-III box connected to the internet NOW, or has already done so in the past. IOW, they know WHO I AM!
Mommy, I'm scared.. d;-)
If this is really possible, Intel's going to dive into their worst PR-blunder in years! Most people never wanted this feature, just one more reason to switch to AMD..
People claiming the CPU ID# was good for copyright protection schemes and software licensing has just missed the obvious problems with it. You can't easily switch CPUs/PCs without notifying the sellers of all your applications and games (man what a hassle!!!), plus you have to pay more for using multiple PCs (eg. working from home or as a consultant). The public made everybody including Microsoft and Intel aware that this was unacceptable and draconian, which it is. It leaves the companies with far too much control over what you do and when you can do it, by enforcing severe and awkward limitations over the end-user (tieing him/her to a specific CPU/PC). A dongle you can take with you anywhere, and you can only use it on one machine at a time (I think, never tried to split the cable..)
It COULD however be a very good option for dongles for corporate use, where the customer and seller have tight communication. It's easier to live with draconian-ness in the corporate world, but not for the masses.
Another problem is that a CPU ID# does make it easier to track people down. Of course wether this is a real problem or not depends on the perspective. When a unique ID hidden in Word was able to put a man to prison, it is a big deal though. Unique IDs may be used anywhere in proprietary programs without the users KNOWLEDGE and CONSENT, tied to databases with personal information. CPU ID# is just one more number it is harder and more expensive to get rid of (if they didn't include the option to disable it). The public opinion is quite clear however. The CPU ID#, the id number in Word and the id incorporated in RealPlayer was all stopped due to outcries of violation of privacy. Doubleclick however only included an Opt-Out feature, which sadly for everybody, puts them into the dirt where spammers belong.
In the future, maybe we'll have to logon to Internet sites by using our fingerprints or perhaps a bloodtest?;-) Now then you're REALLY talking about tracking PEOPLE down and not just machines! I can't wait..
What you are describing here is called an interpreter, which is the easiest way to parse and execute a language. Wether a language "runs" in a runtime-environment or in binaries is totally beside the point when talking about languages. You could just as well argue about candybars due to their different packages.
You can run any language that doesn't have explicit capabilities about its runtime-environment in an interpreter, through a compiler or through RT-compilation. So VB isn't necessarily "Open Source", you can compile it, encrypt it, whatever you want. VB is infact used heavily in the corporate world (way too much in my opinion). Also, not every programmers can code in Basic, it's just a language (one with many flavours). It doesn't strike me as easier than many others out there, like Pascal/Delphi, Fortran, Cobol, C, C++, whatever. It's just a mindset, a "difficult" thing is only as difficult as we pretend it to be.
It worked for me using a Swedish (don't ask) version of IE 5.0. Kinda makes you wonder how professional IE-developers really are huh?;-) Or maybe they're... *creeps* human?
Why don't they tell us what the login/password is? Do they still live in the Dark Middle-Ages?? Security through obscurity never worked and it never will!?!!
As an experienced mudder and somewhat experienced in administering a mud with more than a few players, I totally agree. I've also played Everquest for the last week, alas I'm not familiar with higher level playing on EQ.
You _cannot_ create a virtual world without interaction with the real world. The illusion is only as strong as the players agree to put effort in it. With so many players as Everquest has, over 1000 per server, there's always going to be degradation/dillusion of any RPG-playing agreements in the beginning. You cannot force players to RPG without being draconian and make unpopular/unfair decisions. When people pay to play, it only says itself you have to accomodate the majority. Everquest also has some other major problems commonly shared by MUDs:
* Too few good zones, they are overcrowded with people. * No adventuring zones, they're all littered with meaningless monsters not doing anything meaningful except getting slayed by dozens of players. They lack real depth, you can't explore a dungeon for hours (like in nethack/moria). * No randomness or dynamic changes, except wether you hit/get hit or not, but that'll converge due to statistics. The battles are very predictable, monsters spawn on top of you (litteraly!) if you're not careful. * Little meaningful non-hack'nslash-ish interaction with the environment, except slaying monsters to gain exp or work on your skill at the guild (sounds like Diku huh?). There are perhaps a handful of locked doors in the _entire_ game. I've never seen one, but some I can't open without anything telling me why. You can't compare the level of interaction with even the most hardcore hack'n slash MUDs. The NPCs are too stupid, the quests are too arcane, clueless (without reading the solution on a WWW-page) and crowded (e.g some quest monsters give nice xp, typical beginner-mistake). There's no other attainable goals other than to make xp, eq and money and slaying is the best way to do it. For instance, you don't have titles, professions or anything - you can't become King;-) * Trains - It's too easy to be overcome by dozens of monsters when they help each other. As you flee, you meet more monsters that joins the chase. This leads to the infamous trains of monsters following the player to the rim of the zone. While this may seem cool at first, it severely hampers both RPG and hack'n slash gameplay since the monsters are acting very robotish to begin with. It's just a nuisance to die because of such trains. * Inflation - If items don't degrade, there's always going to be inflation in the game. Now this again affects gameplay, as it will just keep getting easier and easier to buy good items instead of finding them yourself - resulting in even more powerplaying and less exploring. * No support for RPG - There's nothing happening in the world, except when the GMs starts a rare event. There's no real story behind things, and you don't get background information (most importantly about yourself) to work on or anything. There's just lack of anything to make you get started RPGing (even guidelines). There might be some more RPGing on the anarchy servers (PvP), but I haven't tried them and I bet they're centered around killing as many |insert enemy race/class here|. Not really RPG in my book. You don't earn xp by RPGing in EQ. * No support for wizardry/god status - In other words, this is not a free game. You pay for play per month, and they won't let you near a level-editor. It will never be *your* game. As they put it so truthfully: "YOU ARE IN OUR WORLD NOW!". And the only changes in the world you'll notice is the bugfixing, occational patches for balance and the next upgrade pack you have to purchase (Kurnak). For some reason I bet Kurnak got some nice xp/eq/gold;-) Envy and inflation because of this will just magnify EQs problems further.
Many problems can't be coded around without heavily hampering gameplay interaction:
* Twinking - Giving your good stuff and money to your lower level player. * Powerlevelling - Higher players helping out a lower level without sharing exp (e.g healing outside party) * OOC - Used too much by "power-players" (they usually suck and whine quite alot) to get hack'n slash advantages in the game. People shouting OOC-info are even more annoying. * Camping - Camping and hoarding is difficult to deal with also, and it affects other players as well as game balance and inflation. Randomness won't solve it all, and may kill the "feel" of an area if used too heavily. * Trading - Trading RL money/services(?!) for advantages in the game. The problem is not in the rules, it's in the playerbase (and how you obtain that playerbase). * Weak reactions to Whining - The customers whine when they get fooled by others players, resulting in the GMs making new rules (after you purchased the game!). Looting corpses, telling lies, deceiving and fooling, stealing, making trains (done all the time btw), whatever makes someone whine to customer support, is illegal. You risk dorky tells from GMs and have to submit or risk harsh reactions according to what I've heard. RPGing has no air to breathe in such an environment. * Envy - A fundamental problem in MUDs causing whining. When someone finds out, or think they have found someone to be much more powerful than them at the same level or similar differences regarding to zones for instance. They start moaning and whining, and don't really see that it's all a game and life's supposed to be unfair (to make us learn live with it). Envy leads to more concentration on powerplaying and less on playing for fun. Somewhere in there, too many players lose all their fun and just play for the addictiveness.
To solve these problems require MASSIVE efforts, something I have doubts a company can pull off in this scale at this point of time. Economics have never promoted art on its own terms. The problems described here are usually shared by most MUDs. If you want a MUD with much RPGing, you need a small playerbase you can trust, a good set of guidelines/stories/background info and friendly admins who can help those who haven't got a clue. It might also help to have another server with the same game, but without RPG, so people who want can play there instead.
Despite all this Everquest is a fantastic MUD experience. You can really tell it has been created by experienced mudders/admins. The graphics are good, albeit not as good as the latest in 3D technology (bad lighting in Direct3D, small polygon count, although the textures are good). The zones are well made and must have cost a fortune to design. It's highly addictive, and fun to play (in the addictive sort of way). Sometimes you even meet people who try frantically to RPG (while camping at monster-spawn sites). It's pretty humorous to talk to them, but I don't find it rewarding since RPGers accounts for less than 5% of the population and you have very little to work with in terms of sharing a world-reality (except your using your own imagination).
Selling or transfering your account to someone else is also "illegal" according to the EQ EULA which you have to agree to every time you start the game.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed, yet again it's the publics ignorance that makes a few people loaded and companies expanding, becoming more draconian. They aquire the taste of blood.
However there are lots of good reasons to open up the specs (even if they are third-party, don't people and companies know how to ask/demand??):
* Publicity and PR, especially among tech-savvy people and Linux/Open Source/GNU zealots
* Education, people will experiment, solder and come up with new inventions faster! It's also alot of fun and can be used in educational institutions
* Environment gets less polluted
* More usable hardware out there, everyone can have their own cheap server!
* What's the point of buying a product that will not work anymore (e.g with new hardware, OSes or software?)? In too many situation a customer buys a product that is ALREADY discontinued (happened to me when buying an OEM notebook!).
* People will get more and more dissatisfied and will go somewhere else where they won't get screwed again!
And folks, please don't tell me it's impossible! That's just lame.. I can think of much harder tasks also "impossible", already been done.
- Steeltoe
"Many of these companies are publically held, which means they have, as we've read so many times here, a legal obligation to maximize profits for the shareholders."
Just because you have read that a thousand times here on Slashdot doesn't make it more true in the terms people are using it in these discussions. A company is NOT legally bound to maximize profits by exploitation, harming the environment/customers and generally doing bad/unpopular decisions. Blaming this for not sharing with the rest of the community is a lame excuse IMHO..
Now if they do all this anyways, couldn't they be sued for having terrible policies, therefore affecting the net value of the company negatively? That's just as crazy!
Money has no value it just represents it. If companies are not free to try out new things, the market will stagnate.
- Steeltoe
NOT!
Btw, there will be strong forces to delay or ban any Replicators in the future. It's not about efficiency, this issue is about power, control, fear and abuse mixed in an intergalactic soup of tragic comedy.
- Steeltoe
There still are people that care out there! Impressive! I sincerely hope that if all other posts gets screwed up by Metallica's lawyers and secretaries, the band themselves, in some arcane way, gets to reads this one..
- Steeltoe
Exposing supposed child-molestors by showing their IP is totally misguided on three or more accounts: The filenames has nothing to do with the actual content, the IP could point to someone "innocent" and phedophily is an emotional/phsycological damage or disease. Condemning people because they do what they do without understanding why they do it is a display of ignorance and unjust intolerance 100% of the time. Pervertion is not something people *choose*, and what is, is also very subjective. Of course we shouldn't tolerate act of cruelty against children, but you can't kill off phedophily by stamping on it. You can't control what other people think and feel, not even by going out on a witch-hunt.
- Steeltoe
AOL/Time Warner owns most of America so the chance of already owning a lawyer is pretty huge. In such a way, they can easily pay the big bucks for the best lawyers and prevent them legally to work against them. Now who said big corporations are good?
- Steeltoe
Excuse me, but we have every right to state our honest opinion in this forum. If you can't stand whining, then stay away from these topics. People like you let the Third Reich arise in the 30's.
No I'm not saying we're so much better, but it never hurt anybody to let off steam in the longer run.
- Steeltoe
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Send some money folks!
- Steeltoe
* ERA = End-Reader-Agreement
Not according to Common Sense (tm), but I guess that's out of fashion nowadays..
- Steeltoe
"But that wouldn't be free!"
Hehe.
- Steeltoe
MS does like every company do namely counting each pirated software as lost revenue. It's hard to convince them, the public and courts otherwise without hard numbers, In fact, I'm unsure about the dynamics of this myself but anyone thinking piracy isn't promoting bussiness in some degree should have their head examined.
Personally I think MS Windows became what it was because "everybody" (PC Magazines, executives) wanted it. Now they got it, and then they start complaining. Clueless. You make the bed, you sleep in it.
- Steeltoe
Let's not forget who pays for all these suits, you and me (assuming you have purchased MS branded products). Now why don't customers demand the money better spent? Why do we buy from a company working against the public?
;-)
When did companies become the means to all ends?
You'll get the answers next week
- Steeltoe
ANAL, but this is just too much :-)
Folks, let's stop trying dumb us self down to the level of lawyers here. This is actually the best thing that could happen, because it shows excactly what kind of monopoly Microsoft is. The mere fact that the company can be so arrogant as to publish their proprietary extention to Kerberos with a license claiming to be a trade-secret is something to laugh your head off, not be frightened of. I know the face of it can look scary, but wait a day and you'll see that this will only be Microsoft digging their own grave. They act like sociopaths wanting to be martyrs and be granted our forgiveness. Let's not be so naive and fall head over heels over a cheap trick.
A company may have trade secrets, and successfully enforce agreements from employees and third-parties that should not reveal them. However, you can't have the whole world as a third-party! That defeats the purpose of the trade-secret altogether since the disclosed information should only be known by trusted people. Once the information is out, it is public domain. Information and speech is supposed to be free, look it up in your Constitution. You may sue a few persons, but you can't sue a nation, not to mention the whole world!
This'll certainly show folks what the UCITA is really about and that click-through licenses are unenforcable and unacceptable.
- Steeltoe
"The DMCA is a perfect example of the harm done when business dominates government and society. One part of the law explicitly says that only commercially significant activities are considered important (to legitimize a program which is often used to bypass technological means of controlling the users)--showing explicit prejudice against educational uses, recreational uses, communitarian uses, military uses, and religious uses." - RMS
Damn, I knew it was too good to be true! How the hell are we going to filter out text ads? If Google does this the community of people who don't want spam and ads forced down their throats will leave somewhere else. Of course this is how it always is: First you have a few pioneers with a golden age, then the public comes in with the dirt.
- Steeltoe
Oh yeah, and let's put such limitations to all the PCs that are sold too. Then noone will break the law and we will all be living happy moral lives together.
- Steeltoe
"Sigh... what the Hell is happening to the United States?"
They're showing you that capitalism can go into excactly the same traps as Communism, Fascism and every other "evil governmental ideology" you people have been mindlessly bashing and ranting over the years. It's supposed to show you that its _people_ doing the bad things, not THINGS. So responsibility and change have to go down to the level of people and individuals, you and me.
I'm beginning to find all this hilarious, especially considering all the "Geek Rights" posts we have gotten today (28.april)! I'm glad I don't live in the US!
- Steeltoe
I prefer www.scientology.COM
It's a Dot-Com enterprise, and rightfully so!
However, I don't dismiss all their ideologies and theories (mainly because I don't even know 5% of them), but I certainly disagree on their methods of repressing, extorting and misleading their members. They are also too hypocritical and intolerant to the rest of the world. They become what they hate, it's the fastest and hardest way to learn properly.
- Steeltoe
I TOTALLY agree with you that a hardware jumper is in order here, and I haven't seen one on my motherboard..
Now let's put some KNOWLEDGE about the P-III chip into this debate. The CPU ID is DISABLED by default. Intel caved in to the public opinion, which I believe was right of them.
Another fact: You can ENABLE/DISABLE the CPU ID in BIOS or using a program. At home I have an Intel program that let's me ENABLE/DISABLE the CPU ID inside _Windows_. No hardware or authorization involved!!
Put that together and the former author commenting about the ability to hack this temporary for own malicous use is perhaps the best argument I've seen posted here.. That could mean someone could actually hack this on MY P-III box connected to the internet NOW, or has already done so in the past. IOW, they know WHO I AM!
Mommy, I'm scared.. d;-)
If this is really possible, Intel's going to dive into their worst PR-blunder in years! Most people never wanted this feature, just one more reason to switch to AMD..
- Steeltoe
People claiming the CPU ID# was good for copyright protection schemes and software licensing has just missed the obvious problems with it. You can't easily switch CPUs/PCs without notifying the sellers of all your applications and games (man what a hassle!!!), plus you have to pay more for using multiple PCs (eg. working from home or as a consultant). The public made everybody including Microsoft and Intel aware that this was unacceptable and draconian, which it is. It leaves the companies with far too much control over what you do and when you can do it, by enforcing severe and awkward limitations over the end-user (tieing him/her to a specific CPU/PC). A dongle you can take with you anywhere, and you can only use it on one machine at a time (I think, never tried to split the cable..)
;-) Now then you're REALLY talking about tracking PEOPLE down and not just machines! I can't wait..
It COULD however be a very good option for dongles for corporate use, where the customer and seller have tight communication. It's easier to live with draconian-ness in the corporate world, but not for the masses.
Another problem is that a CPU ID# does make it easier to track people down. Of course wether this is a real problem or not depends on the perspective. When a unique ID hidden in Word was able to put a man to prison, it is a big deal though. Unique IDs may be used anywhere in proprietary programs without the users KNOWLEDGE and CONSENT, tied to databases with personal information. CPU ID# is just one more number it is harder and more expensive to get rid of (if they didn't include the option to disable it). The public opinion is quite clear however. The CPU ID#, the id number in Word and the id incorporated in RealPlayer was all stopped due to outcries of violation of privacy. Doubleclick however only included an Opt-Out feature, which sadly for everybody, puts them into the dirt where spammers belong.
In the future, maybe we'll have to logon to Internet sites by using our fingerprints or perhaps a bloodtest?
- Steeltoe
What you are describing here is called an interpreter, which is the easiest way to parse and execute a language. Wether a language "runs" in a runtime-environment or in binaries is totally beside the point when talking about languages. You could just as well argue about candybars due to their different packages.
You can run any language that doesn't have explicit capabilities about its runtime-environment in an interpreter, through a compiler or through RT-compilation. So VB isn't necessarily "Open Source", you can compile it, encrypt it, whatever you want. VB is infact used heavily in the corporate world (way too much in my opinion). Also, not every programmers can code in Basic, it's just a language (one with many flavours). It doesn't strike me as easier than many others out there, like Pascal/Delphi, Fortran, Cobol, C, C++, whatever. It's just a mindset, a "difficult" thing is only as difficult as we pretend it to be.
- Steeltoe
It worked for me using a Swedish (don't ask) version of IE 5.0. Kinda makes you wonder how professional IE-developers really are huh? ;-) Or maybe they're... *creeps* human?
- Steeltoe Lizardman
Why don't they tell us what the login/password is? Do they still live in the Dark Middle-Ages?? Security through obscurity never worked and it never will!?!!
- Steeltoe "Slashbot powered by Slashdot"
As an experienced mudder and somewhat experienced in administering a mud with more than a few players, I totally agree. I've also played Everquest for the last week, alas I'm not familiar with higher level playing on EQ.
;-) ;-) Envy and inflation because of this will just magnify EQs problems further.
You _cannot_ create a virtual world without interaction with the real world. The illusion is only as strong as the players agree to put effort in it. With so many players as Everquest has, over 1000 per server, there's always going to be degradation/dillusion of any RPG-playing agreements in the beginning. You cannot force players to RPG without being draconian and make unpopular/unfair decisions. When people pay to play, it only says itself you have to accomodate the majority. Everquest also has some other major problems commonly shared by MUDs:
* Too few good zones, they are overcrowded with people.
* No adventuring zones, they're all littered with meaningless monsters not doing anything meaningful except getting slayed by dozens of players. They lack real depth, you can't explore a dungeon for hours (like in nethack/moria).
* No randomness or dynamic changes, except wether you hit/get hit or not, but that'll converge due to statistics. The battles are very predictable, monsters spawn on top of you (litteraly!) if you're not careful.
* Little meaningful non-hack'nslash-ish interaction with the environment, except slaying monsters to gain exp or work on your skill at the guild (sounds like Diku huh?). There are perhaps a handful of locked doors in the _entire_ game. I've never seen one, but some I can't open without anything telling me why. You can't compare the level of interaction with even the most hardcore hack'n slash MUDs. The NPCs are too stupid, the quests are too arcane, clueless (without reading the solution on a WWW-page) and crowded (e.g some quest monsters give nice xp, typical beginner-mistake). There's no other attainable goals other than to make xp, eq and money and slaying is the best way to do it. For instance, you don't have titles, professions or anything - you can't become King
* Trains - It's too easy to be overcome by dozens of monsters when they help each other. As you flee, you meet more monsters that joins the chase. This leads to the infamous trains of monsters following the player to the rim of the zone. While this may seem cool at first, it severely hampers both RPG and hack'n slash gameplay since the monsters are acting very robotish to begin with. It's just a nuisance to die because of such trains.
* Inflation - If items don't degrade, there's always going to be inflation in the game. Now this again affects gameplay, as it will just keep getting easier and easier to buy good items instead of finding them yourself - resulting in even more powerplaying and less exploring.
* No support for RPG - There's nothing happening in the world, except when the GMs starts a rare event. There's no real story behind things, and you don't get background information (most importantly about yourself) to work on or anything. There's just lack of anything to make you get started RPGing (even guidelines). There might be some more RPGing on the anarchy servers (PvP), but I haven't tried them and I bet they're centered around killing as many |insert enemy race/class here|. Not really RPG in my book. You don't earn xp by RPGing in EQ.
* No support for wizardry/god status - In other words, this is not a free game. You pay for play per month, and they won't let you near a level-editor. It will never be *your* game. As they put it so truthfully: "YOU ARE IN OUR WORLD NOW!". And the only changes in the world you'll notice is the bugfixing, occational patches for balance and the next upgrade pack you have to purchase (Kurnak). For some reason I bet Kurnak got some nice xp/eq/gold
Many problems can't be coded around without heavily hampering gameplay interaction:
* Twinking - Giving your good stuff and money to your lower level player.
* Powerlevelling - Higher players helping out a lower level without sharing exp (e.g healing outside party)
* OOC - Used too much by "power-players" (they usually suck and whine quite alot) to get hack'n slash advantages in the game. People shouting OOC-info are even more annoying.
* Camping - Camping and hoarding is difficult to deal with also, and it affects other players as well as game balance and inflation. Randomness won't solve it all, and may kill the "feel" of an area if used too heavily.
* Trading - Trading RL money/services(?!) for advantages in the game. The problem is not in the rules, it's in the playerbase (and how you obtain that playerbase).
* Weak reactions to Whining - The customers whine when they get fooled by others players, resulting in the GMs making new rules (after you purchased the game!). Looting corpses, telling lies, deceiving and fooling, stealing, making trains (done all the time btw), whatever makes someone whine to customer support, is illegal. You risk dorky tells from GMs and have to submit or risk harsh reactions according to what I've heard. RPGing has no air to breathe in such an environment.
* Envy - A fundamental problem in MUDs causing whining. When someone finds out, or think they have found someone to be much more powerful than them at the same level or similar differences regarding to zones for instance. They start moaning and whining, and don't really see that it's all a game and life's supposed to be unfair (to make us learn live with it). Envy leads to more concentration on powerplaying and less on playing for fun. Somewhere in there, too many players lose all their fun and just play for the addictiveness.
To solve these problems require MASSIVE efforts, something I have doubts a company can pull off in this scale at this point of time. Economics have never promoted art on its own terms. The problems described here are usually shared by most MUDs. If you want a MUD with much RPGing, you need a small playerbase you can trust, a good set of guidelines/stories/background info and friendly admins who can help those who haven't got a clue. It might also help to have another server with the same game, but without RPG, so people who want can play there instead.
Despite all this Everquest is a fantastic MUD experience. You can really tell it has been created by experienced mudders/admins. The graphics are good, albeit not as good as the latest in 3D technology (bad lighting in Direct3D, small polygon count, although the textures are good). The zones are well made and must have cost a fortune to design. It's highly addictive, and fun to play (in the addictive sort of way). Sometimes you even meet people who try frantically to RPG (while camping at monster-spawn sites). It's pretty humorous to talk to them, but I don't find it rewarding since RPGers accounts for less than 5% of the population and you have very little to work with in terms of sharing a world-reality (except your using your own imagination).
- Steeltoe
You just have no idea of the work involved in such multiplayer games do you?
- Steeltoe
Selling or transfering your account to someone else is also "illegal" according to the EQ EULA which you have to agree to every time you start the game.
- Steeltoe