Originally posted by Thrakk

so basically I jestingly call a girl a sexy witch and she replies acting all serious with "Die in a Fire". sounds like something a witch would say am I right?

I would have to disagree, if only because even Morrigan herself will thank you for compliments (even if she makes a snide remark first).

My question is... if every other NPC and minion can have facial expressions, why can't my PC, you know, at least make a few faces? Eyebrows drawn down, a smile, a laugh... hell, Link expresses more emotions than my character can, and he does it without talking too!

Originally posted by xbot7

of course thats what i mean ;D

 

the question: does anyone know if they will implement WASD once?

right now its not possible to WASD your character

Try, you know, reading the interview. The answer is there.

Originally posted by Illius

Humans in general don't seem to know what the hell they want, especially when it comes to a relationship. 

Fixed for you.

Guys might be more simple, but they're no less crazy then women are. Just crazy in different, oftentimes opposite ways.

Women can get overly emotional, jealous, petty, and tend to think too much about everything aside from what's really going on inside of them. In other words, they blame everyone else but themself.

Men can get extremely closed off emotionally, lazy, distracted easily by big, bouncing things, and (hate to break it to you guys) are less intelligent. In other words, they don't really know what's going on inside themself and end up being very lukewarm.

There's also the fact that... everyone has some type of crazy inside of them. Figure out what type of crazy you can handle, and whatever you do, DO NOT marry any woman who even hints about the idea of "changing you."

Thyroid levels can very easily be corrected with medicine, and oftentimes only require you to take them for a short period of time (6m-1y) before you can go off of them and be safe. It can also be corrected with surgery, but well... that's definitely an extreme measure that someone with a mild thyroid problem probably shouldn't consider.

If you're still serious about joining, go find yourself an endocrinologist (or talk to your doctor or possibly even someone from the army to get a recommendation). They'll be able to monitor your thyroid levels and talk to you about your options.

Also, I would contact the army and find out if they care if you're actively taking something to control it or not. Thyroid issues are tricky little buggers... some people flare up once and never again, some go 10+ years without problems and then suddenly it pops up again. If all they care about is that your levels are in the green, it might just be a matter of a few months on some medicine before you can pass.

Finally, try talking to family members related by blood. Generally thyroid problems are a hereditary thing, so some of the best advice or information might come from someone you know.

(And a side story just to make you feel better: my father back in the late 60's didn't pass the first time either... because he drank too much root beer. A chemical in root beer registered as a false positive for one of the tests he took. He just stopped drinking for a short while, passed, and then went back to drinking it heh.)

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by streea

But no. Instead you spent all that time going "STOP QQING!" by... QQing. No insight into the industry aside from "the more you yell, the less they'll listen to you" (which is only true of companies that honestly don't care about their playerbase). Not actually adding anything to the massive 200+ string. Instead, it was a giant nerdrage where you're right and they're wrong and those against this should shut up.

Welcome to the world of columns and opinion pieces.

And for the record, the entire article revolves around the encroachment of a different revenue model into the Western MMO market, and how in some cases people over-react to them. This over-reaction to harmless additions is indeed making it easier and easier for those powers that be to ignore the voices of their players. This, in turn, will make it easier for companies to get away with less scrupulous behavior. Who's going to listen to the boy who cried wolf when a wolf actually appears if they've pointed at every house dog that's walked by and screamed bloody murder?

But yeah, it was probably just an un-thought out nerdrage.

 

The problem is that there IS a wolf. It's sitting right there, nibbling on the sheep, and half the people are going "oh, don't worry, it won't do anything more than nibble" and the other half are going "OMG THE WOLVES ARE GOING TO EAT THEM ALL!"
 

Obviously the wolves don't care to begin with. Maybe they are just there to nibble. Maybe they're not. The fact is that if they weren't listening to the people in the first place, they aren't going to care if anyone's running around crying wolf... in their mind, there will always be more sheep to eat. It's not making it easier to ignore people... that's like saying that if it weren't for corrupt people filing frivolous lawsuits, there wouldn't be any corrupt lawyers. And suggesting that more people yelling means that they get away with doing worse things? What? They do worse things not because people are yelling louder, it's because as long as people buy, they will sell. It has nothing to do with "Oh, thank goodness people are yelling so much about this issue, it just makes it easier for me to sell whatever I want!"

Then there's the fact that the only company that I know of that's slowly introduced the "buy for things that don't affect you" concept is SOE. And last I checked, they didn't stop at cosmetic things.

PS: For the record, your article does not revolve around "how strong, negative reactions hurt the playerbase." The vast majority of it is about the points that the naysayers have brought up and why they're wrong, and defending a corporation for doing what it does best: make as much money as it can.

Originally posted by colddog

Yeah, you are too correct. It's the infrastructure and time they spent putting it together that makes you wonder. However, if they can make a profit off of vanity items by putting in the development time, then they should do it. It's really a win win since people get happy when they buy a pet and blizzard gets money.

It might seem like a slippery slope, but I think they can make a huge profit on purely vanity items. They have a big enough subscriber base to make development time worth it just to provide vanity items.

I would really love to believe this, but I sadly know what happens when marketing/sales is given even the smallest amount of control. They don't care about the people, only about the numbers, and if the numbers show strongly for pets, they will push and push and push until those at the top tell those who are fighting to keep a little bit of morale for the players to shut up or go find a new job.

As another player pointed out, SOE did the exact same thing... slip the frog into the pot and slowly bring it to a boil.

Wow Jon, good job at bringing up points such as how this affects the MMO industry as a whole, or how this decision may be just a way to slowly soften people up so that, in a few years, they can start selling other things like increases to stats or XP or weapons.

On the other side, good job bringing up how this is a great, easy way to get gifts for family/friends that involves the games they play but doesn't involve buying them a new mouse. Or what about the new pet buying system... how it works, how it plays into the recent account mergers. Or how it's a great way for people to meet achievements without shelling out lots of gold on other vanity pets, thus tempting them to the dark side of gold buying?

But no. Instead you spent all that time going "STOP QQING!" by... QQing. No insight into the industry aside from "the more you yell, the less they'll listen to you" (which is only true of companies that honestly don't care about their playerbase). Not actually adding anything to the massive 200+ string. Instead, it was a giant nerdrage where you're right and they're wrong and those against this should shut up.

Originally posted by sepher

It's not really a secret. Poltiicians on either side of the aisle call each other "friends" all the time. And that's absolutely fine that civility exists between them, it should be no other way, but its only amongst us finding allegiance in this party or that party do we tear each other completely apart.

I don't think we're being played against one another. If there was a lack of transparency in government and a bunch of reasons why we had no choice to behave any way other than the way we behave, I'd agree that the division was coming from the politicians.

As it stands though, its hard enough to get fellow Americans to actually read bills, congressional reports, watch CSPAN, in general expose themselves to facts and truths before daring to feel a certain way. Such behavior isn't due to any manipulation, its just unwillingness. Some people CHOOSE to be loyal to their political party before being loyal to their fellow American. It's sad and senseless since we all want the same thing; a better life for one another.

Anyway, we're perfectly free and have many reasons to stand by one another first, political organizations and politicians second. They aren't inserting themselves between us, we're inserting them.  

Really could not have said it better. Especially the second paragraph... it's not like anyone is being forced into certain groups, and the vast majority of people either A) want to be told what to think for a variety of reasons or B) don't care enough and just have a "default" group they pick.
 

Still, I really wish we could do away with the division. Is it really that hard to say "yes I agree with this, no I don't agree with this" and then judge people based on their views instead of their nametag?

It depends on the cosplayer, but at least for female cosplayers, they do it for two reasons... they want the attention, or they just love the character (and yes, you can do it for both reasons). Society also doesn't let women dress skimpy without calling them nasty things, so its a chance to show off what they have (basically like Halloween).

I've cosplayed several times before, though never in skimpy costumes. Guess what? You still get lots of attention (especially if you look a lot like the character). The nice thing is that its the good type of attention... regardless of what assets you have, it's never worth it you attract the bad, creepy attention.

Originally posted by Malickie

Originally posted by Horusra

No one but the WoW haters care.

I completely disagree, I care for one and am in no way a wow hater. Blizzard is a trend setter as is SOE to a lesser extent. Adding fluff is acceptable in my opinion, other items are not so bad either. However when we move into the realm of adding epics, cheats or fully leveled characters there's something wrong. Is Blizzard doing that? No, not yet. However, that doesn't mean they won't.  Which at the time being, others already are and even to a greater extent. Some of us do not like this idea, and hope it fails in the long run. Cash shops in f2p is one thing, but on top of a monthly sub I have have a problem with it.

Is this an issue that will keep me from playing a game? No.

That doesn't mean I should not voice my pessimistic view of such systems.

It won't start as just handing out epics... it'll be "hey, if you spend $5, you can get this key to this dungeon with all of these great things that ONLY people with this key can access!" Or it will be special holiday "gift" boxes that when opened have various things in them. There will be costumes. And then it'll lead to heirloom BoA weapons that Blizz claims "doesn't affect the end-game and just helps people level up faster and better."

Basically all the excuses the free to play games use because... that's the only way they can make money. But the "things you pay for that don't affect the end-game" in a pay MMO? Yeah, not buying it.

Originally posted by drajaic

For each Pandaren Monk sale, we'll donate 50% of the $10 purchase price to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. For more information on this charity, visit www.wish.org.

Yes, Blizzard is an evil greedy corporation hell bent on world domination through the sale of digital sex changes and non-combat pets. /rolls eyes If you're going to be a troll/game-hater, at least do your homework and not come off as a retarded douchebag.

Actually, lots of people HAVE done their homework and know that this is just another thing in the long line of Blizz selling people things ON TOP OF a subscription. Here's a novel idea... some people don't like having cash shops on top of subscriptions.

Also, anyone who thinks that the whole "50% being donated!" is sooo compassionate really needs to have their head examined. It's a marketing ploy. They're trying to distract people from the fact that they're selling people items that, according to Blizz's own user agreement, THEY STILL OWN, that probably took a couple of programmers half a day to get running. It's like me trying to sell someone a bag of air and then claiming that I'm being so generous because I'm going to donate 50% of the proceeds to the give-some-kids-some-air foundation.

I'm glad to know that Blizz has finally owned up to the fact that WoW is a subscription-based item mall game. I guess they're not making enough extra money off of server changes, race changes, faction changes, sex changes...

I would hope, bare minimum, they would spend six months in closed beta, with an additional two months or so of open beta (or focused test periods, or what-have-you). That puts it in the summer timeframe. I know they're all "Q1! Q1!" but unless the game is 90% or more done and pretty much perfect right now, there's no way they should ship it that early... unless they want it DOA.

Mmmm... tasty sausages...

Really disappointed with this list. As others have said, almost none of these games are "under the radar." Four out of the five of these come up all the time, especially when talking about games that are doing things different from the cookie-cutter style that's constantly popping up (RuneScape and MapleStory for grabbing a younger audience and proving that a different format/less emphasis on heavy graphics can be a good thing; DAoC for its three-way RvR; and FFXI for it's group-or-die mentality). RS, MS and FFXI have very strong and steady numbers, and are pretty good about releasing new content on a regular basis.

Ryzom is probably the only one that I would say belongs here, but the rest? Not even close. I was hoping to read over a list of lesser-known MMOs that are a lot of fun or are trying new things, not the granddaddies who are still, many years later, proving how revolutionary they are.

So you're okay with protecting your kids, but not if that protection comes from a dem?

Originally posted by grunty

Originally posted by Scalebane

Originally posted by Ekibiogami

My yard Squishes and sounds kinda like a peatbog swamp.... :P

i lived up in texas for a year, dang i hated the fact that you couldn't enjoy your yard because of just what you described =]

It's only a temporary change from the standard concrete like black clay we usually have where I live.

The red clay is still just as hard as ever out here, sadly. Though the rose bush, the only plant we have that needs a lot of water, is loving it, while the rest of the plants are all going "meh". Actually, the rain seems to have dried out a lot of yards... maybe it's due to the mix of the temperature jumping all over the place and the flood-causing amount of rain.

They need all the experience they can get when it comes to fighting pirates!

Originally posted by Faxxer

I've heard of kids being expelled for accidentally having a steak knife in their CAR, not even having it in school.

One time a kid's car broke down and he had to use his dad's pickup, who keeps a shotgun under his seat...somehow it got discovered and he got kicked out of school

common sense = 0%

case by case practical common sense = 0%

over reaction based on political correctness and media hype = 100%

result--- liberal thinking caused this.

how's that for generalizing?  that actually is 100% correct.

bring it.

Actually, it's closed-mindedness and the overzealous use of zero-tolerance that cause this. Closed-mindedness and being overzealous isn't a liberal thing, nor is it a conservative thing. Both sides have these types of people, as proven by this and many other threads. It's just a "stupid people can't think outside of the limited little world they think they're the center of" thing.