TrueGentleman
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:All the more reason to deem this broad policy excessive. Why should all the WoW forum posters surrender their online privacy because of a few malcontents?Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
There's plenty of useful discussion on the forum, and the majority of posters are not trolls. The trolls are just the loudest and insufficiently moderated.
And if the anti-trolling argument doesn't hold water, then what is the real benefit to this policy? My hypothesis is that Activision Blizzard has big plans for its Real ID feature, and they will be for the benefit of the corporation, not the players. -
Quote:The good news is that you do! Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the UK was a signatory, states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." (Incidentally, Article 12 states: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.") Moreover, I'd argue that this isn't such a different discussion. Blizzard has already found itself in the position of being asked to reveal private information about its subscribers before.Originally Posted by Dr_Darkspeed
We don;t have free speech gaurenteed to us, but... i don't know anyone who has ever stopped me, or anyone I know saying whatever we like. but, thats just a whole different discussion.
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Quote:In the current economic climate, there's little chance of such consequences for employers. Playing MMOs has retained its stigma (as KaliMagdalene points out) even as WoW has carried the genre into mainstream pop culture.Originally Posted by Dr_Darkspeed
If someone won't hire you or date you because you play games, then... their loss. They'll find that alot of others do too, so their choices will become narrowed.
Quite the opposite: True freedom of speech may very well require anonymity, in the same way that the secret ballot promotes a fair democracy. Exemplars of anonymous free speech include Common Sense and the Drapier's Letters, whose authorships were initially concealed, or the Letters of Junius, whose author is still unknown.Quote:Maybe Freedom of speech demands responsibility of speech
While I'm not suggesting that the nerfing of pallies is on the same level as fighting government corruption or fomenting revolution against tyranny, but anonymous free speech on the Internet is recognized by US courts. -
The WoW official forums are, as one poster there points out, a wretched hive of scum and villainy - especially compared to CoH's well-regarded ones. Their ongoing debate/flamewar over this new policy ranges from its ostensible deterence of trolls to its ramifications for Internet privacy - to say nothing about the implications for roleplayers or potential harrassment for female gamers - but the whole ill-conceived affair sounds rife with unintended consequences. Inevitably a lot of gaming companies will be monitoring Blizzard's experiment to see whether they should adopt something similar. One hopes NCSoft will not be tempted to follow their lead.
Like a lot of people, I blame Facebook's pernicious influence as they integrate services with WoW. It's easy to imagine some fun-sucking suit at Activision looking at how much business Farmville was doing via a social networking platform and deciding they want a piece of that action. Facebook's fatuous policy of having members sign up under their real names is effectively unenforceable for the simple reason that no money ever changes hands. That is definitely not the case for Blizzard. They'd be better off looking at Facebook's mistakes, however, rather than trying to emulate its model. Unfortunately, it looks like they're already making those mistakes themselves - just like Facebook, they're finding out that add-ons open up security holes. -
Quote:Coincidentally, last night on Virtue Redside, we had a banner event on Cap au Diable that went notably smoothly - players formed teams over broadcast and then organized banner assaults and the subsequent monster hunt. Good communication and coordination, along with an active zone, made the event a breeze. Conversely, a zombie apocalypse on Infinity the previous day was rather frustrating without these factors in our favor. While I've experienced many a failed banner event, it's clear that success is in the hands of the players. Not every event should be a painless victory.Originally Posted by Major Deej
I agree with the OP. Last night was a good example of this issue on the Virtue server.
Although a map indicator would remove the monster hunt, perhaps a general broadcast message "Monster X has been sighted in Neighborhood Y" would help in the cases of truly sprawling zones. Finding the GM in Dark Astoria is ordinarily hopeless, for example.Quote:3. [...] Have a marker AUTOMATICALLY show for the GM's location on the map, not have teams searching for it - it spreads the teams out too much, and lower level toons/teams may not have quality travel powers to get to the GM's location before the Lvl 50 toons/teams take it out. -
Quote:...I thought the whole point of CoX was to subtract verisimilitude.Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
For added verisimilitude
For my part, I'm looking forward to the options of Vigilantes and Rogues, as well as arcs with varying moral choices. -
I also encountered this yesterday. Taking a page from similar recent connectivity problems reported by Windows CoH users, I flushed the DNS cache, which (apparently) cleared things up. From the Terminal, I used dscacheutil -flushcache (I'm using Snow Leopard).
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Quote:That's a touching combination of artistic talent and dedicated camaraderie. You have my deepest sympathies.Originally Posted by Emperor_Justin
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Quote:Clam AV has a Mac OS X version, but it doesn't have much ground to cover.Originally Posted by je_saist
Now, I can tell you that right now Clam AV has one of the highest success rates of identifying and removing viral malicious software, and there is now a windows client available.
On the topic of browser security, one hacker advised, "There probably isnt enough difference between the browsers to get worked up about. The main thing is not to install Flash!" If one must install Flash, then the manual override plug-ins ClicktoFlash for Safari and Flashblock for Firefox are very helpful.Quote:Originally Posted by je_saist
Don't install Adobe Flash. Okay.. yeah. You might not like the result of some-webpages if Flash is installed... but lets be honest... Flash is buggier and less stable than Windows 95. Yes, there are alternatives, like Gnash, but for the most part Flash is a security nightmare.
If that were true, then the amount of malware targetting OS X and Linux would be roughly in proportion to their installation bases. As it stands, the Windows platform suffers from malware orders of magnitude greater than the market share would suggest. The Mac OS suffers from only a handful (the number of worms and viruses, such as LeapA, can be counted literally on two hands). In contrast, the less secure Classic Mac OS had far more examples of malware, despite having a smaller user base.Quote:Originally Posted by Back_Blast
I'll stop you right there. *NO* OS is invulnerable. Windows gets all the press and attention from virus writers because it is the OS most deployed across the planet. The virus writing folks are just following the numbers. Should Macs or Linux ever gain a much greater install base such that it becomes worthwhile to write serious amounts of spyware, viruses and the like to attack them, you can bet your last dollar it will happen and in big numbers.
The "security through obscurity" canard aside, OS X and Linux OSes offer an overall superior experience for the average user over Windows XP. Hackers focus on Windows disproportionately because it's a vulnerable, well-understood, target-rich environment. Windows users would be advised to upgrade at least to Vista or Windows 7 and always keep their security patches up to date.
While it's true no OS is invulnerable, there's one that insists on walking around with a "hack me sign" on its back. -
Quote:There is of course simple convenience. There might be a bit of a bottleneck should a lone NPC be responsible for side-switching characters of every level converging from every zone. Moreover, the rumor on the Intertubes has it that there was going to be at least one other way for the Alignment Tip "underground". A quick recce of the zones for other suspicious characters couldn't hurt.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
I think that will probably be the only way to travel from one side to the other - having multiple ways doesn't really seem to have much point.
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One other observation: Submariner Janus apparently uses the same costume/model as Shady Mac from the Cap au Diable Black Market (n.b. the anarchist logo on the lapels in both cases).
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Quote:Thank you - it's fixed.Originally Posted by Meltman
It's actually 2260, -26, -9305. Upper left corner.
The next question is how many other such NPCs are out there who will eventually ferry/airlift/smuggle players between the cities? -
For heroes who don't wish to play hide-and-seek, his coordinates at Independence Port are {SPOILER}
2260, -26, -9305 {fixed} -
I am incredibly sorry, but literally as I was prepping for the strike force (re-reading the wiki entry), Real Life obtruded and has forced me to change all my plans this weekend. Good luck with the strike force, and please accept my apologies for the last-minute cancellation.
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Quote:That reminds me, the Infinity contingent received some PAXEast coverage from Massively.com's CoH community reporter.Originally Posted by Errant
So... missed all the rest of you dUmbies at the PAXEast Meet and Greet. Fun times, bad pool, and weak drinks were had!
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The first adopter of evil, the vile Technophant (level 20 Bot/FF Mastermind), is available to join either team.
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I found that title-masher site: I Apocalypse Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Naturally, the automated combinations require a lot of recycling before they come up with something good, but when they do, it's pure Hollywood Dada, e.g.:
X-Men: The Last Stand By MeStand By Me + X-Men: The Last Stand
Tomorrow Never Say Never Again Dies
The superhero pupils at Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters play hokey to go off in search of a dead body in the woods.
Tomorrow Never Dies + Never Say Never Again
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Harbor
International superspy James Bond seduces a lovely enemy agent/double agent/sleeper agent/undercover agent while trying to prevent a criminal mastermind from taking over and/or blowing up the world.Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl + Pearl Harbor
Sleeping Beauty and the Beast
A swashbuckling adventure tale of zombie pirates' surprise attack on the United States' Pacific fleet.Sleeping Beauty + Beauty and the Beast
Two fairy-tale characters are frustrated in their relationship by their respective curses. -
T.S. Eliot must have foreseen Sonic Heroes' Team Dark when he wrote, "The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason."
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I'm sure there's an automated version of this somewhere on the 'net, but its url escapes me for the moment.
Meanwhile:
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Prefer Blondes -
Arriving late to thread and unable to make original contribution, adds reputation to posts one wishes one had made oneself.
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While I've been experimenting with using the same base model (features, body type) for my alts, my main on Infinity, a martial arts scrapper called True Gentleman, has his inverted counterpart on Virtue, a ninja blade stalker dubbed The Unspeakable Cad.
They both share tastes in tailoring - top hat and formal wear - but the latter has a dueling scar and a waxed mustache. I've left room in their backstories for the possibility of their being mirror universe doppelgangers. -
See also Web Snark's extended classification of Ret Cons in their ever-spiralling complications as editors and writers misguidedly attempt to improve and/or make sense of their IP's legacies (which includes some of the above examples). Think the hurricane scale except with back issues being whirled around instead of trees:
Category One: Now Revealed! A Lost Tale of the Hero!
It was so much easier back in the good old days (into the Silver Age) when comic book writers and editors could count on their entire audience turning over every four or five years instead of having to worry about lifelong fans possessing decades of trivia and the Internet making that knowledge available to anyone.
(e.g. the Silver-Age pre-Superman adventures of Superboy)
Category Two: The Story You Thought You Knew!
(e.g. Teenage Lex Luthor blames Superboy for going prematurely bald in a lab accident.)
Category Three: The Real Story You Thought You Knew!
(e.g. Doctor Light is a rapist, the Atom’s ex-wife is insane, and some JLA members believe the ends justify the means.)
Category Four: The Story You Thought You Knew Was Right, But Now There's Been A Change!
(e.g. Peter Parker was never married and instead now lives with Aunt May, and Harry Osborne is still alive (just like his dad), and Spider-Man doesn’t have organic webshooters or worship a spider-totem, plus he didn’t reveal his secret identity to the whole freakin’ world, so everything is back to the way you like it, OK, True Believers?)
Category Five: Meet the New Hero, Not The Same As The Old Hero Because That Never Happened
(e.g. A catastrophic event across the multiverse at least means that John Byrne can write Superman without having to worry about Lex Luthor blaming premature baldness on our hero when he knew him as Superboy.)
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Quote:OS X is still running on top of the Mach kernel, which is basically the legacy of Steve Jobs's use of it for NeXTSTEP.Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
OSX is essentially a non-standard BSD distribution running a on top of a Microkernel (though, with the advent of x86, this may have changed to a more standard, monolithic BSD x86 kernel, I don't know, as I don't dig into OSX or OSx86 at all).
So if WINE is out of the picture (and presumably also CrossOver), has anyone tried experimenting with virtualization, such as the open source VirtualBox? The acid test would be the performance level for simultaneously running the Ciderized CoH in OS X with the Mids in the virtual box of one's choice.Quote:And no. Currently there are several .NET features that simply aren't supported on WINE yet.
And if this seems excessive tinkering, please bear in mind that one of the differences between (stereotypical) Mac users and Windows users is that the former prefer a smoothly running environment for their computer - the "whole widget", so to speak - whereas the latter are interested in running particular programs above all else, e.g. specific video games. -
Quote:OS X is indeed a BSD system - its roots are in NeXSTEP.Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
BSD, I believe. Not sure if that makes a huge impact or not.
As for running WINE, Codeweavers is the main corporate sponsor of that project for the Mac. Their general-purpose CrossOver and gaming-specific CrossOver Games for the Mac are nice all-around implementations for OS X (CrossOver Games used to be the best way to run CoH on MacIntels before Paragon created a Ciderized version).
Virtualization is another option, and I've had reasonably good experiences with VMware Fusion (which just came out with an upgrade I need to get). I'll have to try it out with Mids. -
Thanks to everyone on Team #2 for a great task force.