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Comment: Re:Hello from Meatspace! (Score 2, Insightful) 352

by buffer-overflowed (#26752445) Attached to: Massive <em>EVE Online</em> Alliance Disbanded

This is going to be meta as fuck -- but the only preconcieved notions I brought to that post were; that the gist of his complaint(and thus post) applies to just about everything(which a later reply addressed) both on this site and within western cultur, that Iraq is a contentious topic(confirmed by some of the replies), that bringing up your own US military service invariably will send any conversation down certain lines(also confirmed by the replies - thank you for your service, what were you expecting, yada yada), and that as a poster with an ID that low, he knew all of these things and thus knew what he was doing. And of course what is implied by the fact that both darfur, and Rwanda 2, child of rwanda, aka the congo were brought into it as well.

It was utterly irrelevant to the article(or rather only as relevant to this topic as to any other topic), only sort of relevant to the person he was replying to, and not productive except to create a derail, which it did. That's a troll -- oh, and the purpose of a troll is to generate conversation, not necessarily in a bad way. I know that definition has gone out of vogue, but sorry it's the one drilled into my brain.

Comment: Re:So really... (Score 1) 54

by buffer-overflowed (#26752181) Attached to: EA Unveils Two New <em>Battlefield</em> Games

"Play with 24 players online in three beautiful and destructible locations...Whether you choose Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima or the classic Wake Island, you'll experience the best balance of infantry combat complemented by land, sea and air vehicles."

So really, they've taken the original BF1942, spruced up the graphics, made trees that fall over, reduced the player numbers and removed all but three of the levels. And they want people to pay more money for this and endure more or EA's dicking about with bugs, poor updates and maybe DRM?

Heh. No thanks.

Yea, it's pretty audacious.

Comment: Re:Hello from Meatspace! (Score 1) 352

by buffer-overflowed (#26751285) Attached to: Massive <em>EVE Online</em> Alliance Disbanded

I've come to realize that not being able to easily take on the suffering of other "third hand" like that is actually a human survival trait. People can only barely handle the tragedies in their own lives, much less bear the burden of every tragedy the damned news media pushes in their face. I say let them have their lives of quiet desperation if they choose.

There's an old(well, relatively) article that was published in the Chicago Reader and excerpted on "This American Life" a long time ago sort of about this as it relates to war called "Losing the War". Lee Sandlin tried to figure out what his father's actual war experience was like(in of course World War 2) and that chronicles it. It's not one of those "you had to be there" type things and it's pretty long, and touches on some other stuff(like propoganda usage, yada yada), but in short, you're right.

Comment: Re:Actually, it seems tamer on WoW (Score 1) 352

by buffer-overflowed (#26750673) Attached to: Massive <em>EVE Online</em> Alliance Disbanded

First off it's still a game, meaning entertainment, meaning it's supposed to be fun - and anyone who takes it that seriously is an incredibly sad individual.

Secondly, really, WoW isn't comparable. It's cute that you think WoW anecdotes are relevant, but they really aren't. The mechanics do not allow stuff on this scale(or even anything really directly comparable) because it is a player versus shell script game, not a sandbox game like EVE/old UO/etc.. The closest thing to an appropriate analogue I can think of is that this is like someone not only stealing everything from the guild bank, but also causing a situation that engenders a huge likelihood of all the people in the guild losing all of their personal epics and gold, setting them back to stock level 60s(70s/80s, whatever the cap is) with absolutely NO recourse available.

First Person Shooters (Games)

+ - Direct2Drive suing Bioshock Downloaders->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "In a PR manouver best described as "different", digital distributor Direct2Drive is attempting to threaten its users into deleting preloaded content (in this case, Bioshock from Irrational Games) with the legal cudgel linked above. Their argument appears to be that users who accessed content early were not supposed to access the encrypted copy of the game until release and that it could not "be located by searching" (which is news to Google's cache from yesterday (http://tinyurl.com/2uc4eo), which shows the offending page quite clearly)."
Link to Original Source
PC Games (Games)

+ - IGN Leaks Bioshock, Sends threatening letters->

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes "IGN Entertainment(a subsidiary of News Corp) accidentally allowed pre-order customers of their service direct2drive preload, activate and thus play copies of the hotly anticipate PC-game Bioshock(due out today) this past Sunday. Because D2D isn't encrypted, anyone who had preloaded it basically had the game sitting on their harddrive, waiting for their activation keys and for the activation servers to go live. When they did, word spread, and people started buying D2D copies of bioshock to get activation keys(viewable from your purchase window or sent to you via e-mail).

Upon realizing their mistake, they cut off the preload downloads. The file was set to restrict to their download client only and could not be downloaded because it reported itself as 15EB. Anyone who went to this site(google cache, 2nd result on google for "direct2drive bioshock preload") Sunday evening and began downloading the preload, was awoken this morning by a rather pleasant e-mail. Searching for that download was disabled around the same time(you can no longer find that particular one via fileplanet search).

That letter was sent to people who *paid* for their copy of the game, mind you, and whose only crime was attempting to preload it. I can personally assure you that an activation attempt was not required to recieve one, as I recieved one, and all I did was attempt to preload the thing.

Some kotaku users paint this as a bit of an exploit in "l33t" hackerdom, in one case characterizing it as breaking into a store to grab your preordered and already paid-for copy. In actuality all you had to do was go to fileplanet, click search, and type in bioshock(or go to google and type bioshock direct2drive preload). The "security" was not linking to it off your order page, and the "exploit" was using their own site's search or google. The result was the preload(which had been reported on, to keep D2D even with steam). Alternatively you could get there by someone sending you a fileplanet link.

Is my understanding of this flawed, or is IGN asserting copyrights they don't possess, and attempting to enforce a TOS/contract that would be violated by using their service via a rather unpleasant e-mail?"

Link to Original Source
User Journal

Journal: Really low blow / bad jokes 11

Journal by buffer-overflowed

Re: Foley, other possible members, the alleged coverup, and the current page scandal.

So, I guess we know the *real* reason they're pro-life, eh? Am I right? *rimshot*
Why are republicans anti-abortion? More sweet young congressional pages and orphans to molest! *rimshot*

Thank ya, I'll be here all week.

User Journal

Journal: Fun things 11

Journal by buffer-overflowed

Republicans decide to cut IRS auditing staff after a hearing showing that the super-rich are so adept at tax evasion that it simply can't be dealt with with current resources. IRS continues to go after the little guy, 'cause being wealthy means you're more important to society for all values of wealthy not including Paris Hilton or the Church of Scientology. Never mind that the law is the law and that it should be enforced, regardless of how fucked up the tax code may be or what your belief

Other Game Bundles For the Cost of the PS3 149

Posted by Zonk
from the lots-of-options dept.
ImaNumber writes "When Sony announced the price of the PS3 many people were left dumbfounded at how expensive it was going to be. Microsoft joked that people would get the Xbox360 and the Wii instead. Brittlefish has taken this a step further and put together a list of some other gaming 'bundles' that you could buy instead of just getting one PS3. You might be surprised at what you can get for that kind of money."
User Journal

Journal: Politics, Protests, Bellpeppers and Beef 17

Journal by buffer-overflowed

When did we become a nation of cowards?

Oh, please protect me Big Brother, I'm a suburban housewife! I am weak and proof that suffrage was a bad idea. I drive an SUV and kill the planet because I am ruled by fear!

Die in a fire. You will anyway, all the electronic surveilance in the world didn't stop 9/11. The only difference is whether or not your neighborhood gossip was listened to by some incompetant government-employed voyeur.

How the PS3 Hit $600 535

Posted by Zonk
from the i-blame-mudflation dept.
Joystiq has up an interesting article today, gathering together information from a couple of places to discuss why the PlayStation 3 is so expensive. From the article: "Kutaragi was demoted after being passed over for the role of CEO and, when former Sony Pictures head Howard Stringer assumed the position, the relationship between the content and technology divisions of Sony became even more intimate. Stringer "quickly dubbed the PlayStation 3 as one of the company's 'champion' products." Kutaragi's desire to stratify the console market with Cell technology in effect wed Sony to the unpalatable prospect of charging an unprecedented price. Coupled with Sony's desire to not only push their own content on HD discs, but to control that medium with their proprietary Blu-ray format, the final price was escalated by two very advanced (and very expensive) pieces of Sony technology."

Nintendo's Iwata on the Wii Price Point 141

Posted by Zonk
from the wiiiiiiiiiiiiiii dept.
kukyfrope writes "Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President, recently talked with GameDaily about the rumors surrounding the $249 Wii price point, his take of the PS3 price point and controller, and to reassure us that the GameBoy is far from dead! 'You may want to check our past records of price points when launching past hardware... I think you'll agree that we always come up with an affordable price point.'"
