Either way, the moment you interfere with of another, you rights end (yes, talking US here, but honestly should apply universally). If they feel it necessary to publish information that is considered private to others without consent or they obtained information through illegal means, then they are responsible for performing the action and stealing the information. That does not mean the company safe guarding the information should not also be held accountable for poor security practices, but right now we have no laws that hold any software company liable to bugs or vulnerabilities in their software. And if we did, then we would see a sharp decrease in software development or a sharp increase in costs to buy said software. Its a very thin line to walk on and the question is what is a feasible balance? I think accountablility is important, but if we regulate or restrict too much, we will see a dramatic effect not so much on the companies as on the consumer.

Having said that, we assume risks when we do things in our daily lives. Registering for a web site, we assume the risk that site may lose its data due to a hardware problem, get hacked, or simply disappear because it closed its doors. Its not much different than the same risk you assume when you buy a car. The car may die, its parts may become unavailable, it could get stolen, or any number of conditions. So what we should be doing as responsible people is mitigate those risks by using car alarms, UV markings, etc or in the case of web sites, unique passwords, different user names, two-factor authentication, and so on.

So for me, LulzSec is doing three things:

1. 
   They are committing a crime, plain and simple.


2. 
   They are showing the world how easy it is to take advantage of people who do not care or do not know about the risks associated with using the Internet.


3. 
   They have shown how important IT security is to ALL Internet users, governments, companies, and organizations and how some very simple precautions can be taken to mitigate those hacking risks.

Mental note, don't win the lottery and blow it on a game. Oh wait, I don't need a mental note, I wouldn't do something that stupid anyway. Buying 1's and 0's for 6 million, seriously, someone needs to just write me a check for 6 million.

Originally posted by Rockgod99

I think i'll decide what games my children can and can't play/buy thank you very much.

 

And that is precisely how it should be. :)

Keep in mind that gaming companies have for years voluntarily place ratings on their games. Movies have ratings and despite that parents can override those restrictions and often do. In fact, many times those restrictions are not even enforced nor is it practical to do so. Therefore, adding more legislation in a state that is already legislated itself into massive debt is not going to fix the underlying issue, bad parenting. I don't believe that it takes a government to parent our children, it takes good parents who are responsible and watch what their kids play, who they associate with, etc. Putting the burden on the taxpayers is not a solution and it is a another erosion of our freedoms.

Before too long, you'll be putting restrictions on what web sites we are permitted to view. Oh wait, that legislation is already being debated in Congress, fantastic.

To be honest, I can't justify the expense for a minor (yes, minor in my opinion) improvement in network performance. The deciding factor is the equipment and connections between my system and the destination system since most of that is well outside of my control. This card won't do squat unless those connections are clean. If you make the assumption the connections are clean, the routers and switches are untaxed (god forbid there be a hub in there), then maybe you'll see a minor improvement in performance. Personally I would first look at my CPU utilization, then memory, then disk queue before I look at my NIC. Once I've ruled those out, I'd move to looking at the switch and router to make sure they are not dropping packets or hitting their maximum memory/connection limits.
I run fine with my on board 1G NIC and quad core processor and doubt the NIC will do much more than improve my ping, which isn't a great measure of lag anyway as ping is a measure of round-trip and not a measure of bandwidth performance or true latency on burst or continuous data streaming. The only performance improvement you will probably see is in your primary CPU, but I doubt (especially in my case) that will be significant enough. Most high-end gaming rigs will not benefit from this upgrade, but some lower end systems that are running on older, single core processors may see some improvements with the network processing off loaded to the NIC core.

EDIT: Ironically the Bigfoot Networks website was down when I posted this one...

A setting I remember that would be interesting, not necessarily the game play style, but the settings is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura by defunct Troika Games.

Based on their desire to switch to this new Real ID system, I have decided to leave WoW for good and not buy any future Blizzard products (sad really, was looking forward to Starcraft and Diablo). Some of you are probably going, why? Its just your real name showing up on the forums and a few other things. Well for me, I want the choice to be anonymous or to have my real name attached to a post. Its not that I want to be malicious about what I am doing or troll around the forums, but its my choice whether I share my name or not with another person online. Some will argue about your information is "public" anyway. Well given my background, I attempt to make the smallest footprint on the Internet with my name. However, since people feel it necessary in the United States to make every aspect of my life (besides HIPAA information) public, I do my best to ensure whatever information is out there is a pain in the arse to obtain. That's not the say its not easy to get some details, but its absolutely idiotic to require me to share my personal information to play a video game. I have the right to privacy in my home, and that *should* extend to the Internet with a few exceptions (such as Banking, etc). And yes, you could argue that it'll help the hackers, but in reality, they are already using bogus information, such as fake names, proxies, etc.

From a security standpoint, the Real ID is a horrible idea given the poor security measures in place at Blizzard in addition to the constant phishing attacks by various hacking groups. While you can decrease your risk of attack by utilizing a Blizzard keyfob, its not 100% fool proof. The first part of identity theft is knowing your name. Once they have that, they start looking for email addresses, phone numbers, etc to begin phishing attacks. For me, I do not respond that crap, but there are enough people out there who do and not only will they risk their WoW account, but many other types of personal information from you, your family, friends, companies, or any other "public" resource. Phishing attacks are not limited to contacting you for your information, they can contact someone else that knows you that may not be as diligent with their security practices. So be careful what you share and how you share it. For example, Facebook allows employers to pay a fee to obtain all the posts and information about you from their site, which they can use to determine if they want to hire you or not. And if you are saying, "no they don't", think again because our company does just that.

For me, my choice is to boycott Blizzard. While I'm one person and it won't even be a perceptible blip on their radar I will feel more comfortable not agreeing to signing over my name and whatever else Blizzard feels like making "public" for their video games.

One game I see coming on the horizon that may implement some of these things, which I agree with entirely by the way, would be Rift: Planes of Telara. Of course the game is still in development, so no idea what will come of it, but honestly these are the types of games that pique my interest. WoW is stale, Cataclysm for WoW will just be the same stale stuff once you hit level cap. I want to see games that I can excel at any skill, even unlock skills or learn new trades from other players. Build cities, castles, items, or whatever. Make the system open. A game that has some of these elements is Wurm Online, but it needs some help/backing to improve the client and some game aspects.

However, with that said, I do not want to get into a game that I feel utterly lost or have no idea what to do next. I think phasing/instancing technologies can greatly help with that by providing players a bit of a "guide" to starting the game and open up more avenues of adventure, skills, etc as time progresses or as you discover new areas. A living world that changes day to day would be immensely entertaining, but extremely complex to develop. Wishful thinking I suppose.

DAOC was the first, true MMO that I played actively. It holds a special spot in my heart not only for being the first MMO I played actively, but for the fact that I always compare games of today with DAOC. Its surprising how much of an impression the game has had on me and my play style in other games. Call me crazy, but I still look back and wish I was still playing.

I would have to agree with Ozmodan, ToA killed DAOC. The endless grinding, boredom of waiting for a spawn, etc is what finally drove the nail into the coffin. I was ok with the imbalance issues as I could find ways around it (Mastery of Blocking 5, Twisting, Shield Pally for the win). On a side note, the twisting pally was a VERY unique aspect to the game I would hope they keep that element alive. Honestly though, I wish some elements they removed they kept and some that they added they removed. I liked Frontiers, but it needs some changes that remove so much focus from the keep/tower sieges and more focus on the player versus player aspect. Do get me wrong, I enjoyed massive battles between 100+ players in RvR at fortresses or keeps, but its about the player, not the structure. However, no game has even come close to matching that level of conflict and fun. I just hope that Mythic, Bioware, and EA can figure it out and squash WoW once and for all.

Awesome article...actually describes my switch from DAOC to EQ2 (*cough* ToA). I am now playing WoW as I lost interest in Warhammer, which was what I switched to from EQ2. Heh, go figure I end up playing WoW as nothing else seems to cut it right now, for me at least. Oh well...only time will tell if the other MMOs do the trick or not.

INN/Sierra Network -> UO -> EQ -> DAOC -> EQ2/WoW/EVE -> Warhammer -> WoW

...I actually took a moment to think the chain through...*sigh* I need a life.

Actually wasn't what I meant, I know I would not get access to DDO early, I was saying that I had a LOTR account I wanted to attached to DDO versus creating a new one, but failed at explaining it well. :) Finally got confirmation email from Turbine and got a key and into the game, so all is well.

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Originally posted by Papadam
 
I thought you could just logg in if you have an old account. Old players have had access to DDO:Unlimited since the 1st.
Good luck Turbine, seems like the F2P launch was very smooth, it will be interesting so see how this will turn out :)
If you are new to the game check out this list of usefull links for alot of great DDO resources!

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I used to have an LOTR account and did not get the access on the 1st. :) I am interested in DDO, been playing pen and paper for many years and beta tested DDO before launch. It was rocky at the time, but want to check it out again especially since its F2P. I don't think its a smooth launch at all, at least not for players with existing accounts who did not subscribe to DDO. Probably a small portion of the populace, but nonetheless its not been easy. Best I can hope for is 3-4 days or an hour wait on a long distance call. I sat in queue for 20 minutes on the phone and said its not worth the minutes, I can wait a few more days I suppose. :)

*Sigh*...

Waiting on hold with account management to activate DDO Unlimited with an existing account. Appears there are no facilities to do this online, so it has to be done by emailing the account support team or calling them. And do note the phone is a long distance call. :(

http://www.ddo.com/ddosupport/account-support

Personally I have heard nothing but good things about Vanguard lately with the exception of those who did not like it, which is fine. I am highly interested in playing, but like others want to try it first *cough* buddy key *cough* :) farlinlaedavin@gmail.com

I am currently playing EQ2 and have since launch, but nearly 4 years of the same game wears on you. I have read about AoC and again, trial would be preferable, but I think AoC needs a month or two of patching before it will appeal to me.

As with most any MMO, the launch is usually rocky at best.

Heard about all the improvements going on and would love to try it if someone has an available invite. Just upgraded my system and would love to test it out.

farlinlaedavin@hotmail.com

Thanks a ton!

They are optional additions that open up new zones and quest lines. EQ2 all in one pack should have you covered...for now. :)

EDIT: Doh! Beat to the punch...

Plan to attend and hope to hear some tidbits of good information. Specifically want to hear about post-level cap content and how good the game will be for the casual player (e.g. public raids, etc). I mainly play on the weekends, so miss out on good raids, etc during the weeks and tend to find it difficult to get involved in raid content without being decked out (talking about EQ2). So...if they can elaborate on the public raids and how that will affect the casual player, I'm all ears (well eyes at least).

Anyone that believes any operating system is secure is kidding themselves. No operating system is secure...all of them have vulnerabilities that can be exploited, some more than others. If I were to hack a system, I would target the most used, not necessarily the most insecure. What is the point in hacking a network of computers for a denial of service if there are not enough systems to perform an effective enough DoS? We can argue about which OS is more secure, but the reality is as long as people have an interest in breaking into systems, no OS is anymore secure than the next. Besides that fact, as long as humans develop the code for OSes, there will ALWAYS be human error (except for us of course as like everyone in this thread I'm perfect). :)

While I had issues with Vista, that does not mean the next person will. I think the question was for everyone's opinion, which I think has been provided. Arguing about which OS is better is pointless. If you can run everything you need on a Mac, do it. If you can run everything you need on Linux with a PC, do it. Me, I'll still with Windows XP for now, but that does not mean I will never use Windows Vista, just not in the near term. :)

Vista can be compared to the black death and analogous with Windows ME as far as compatibility and stability. Something that you just can't put your finger on as to the cause of all your computer's issues. Ran 64-bit and 32-bit and both just stink. Performance on the 64-bit OS is about 30-40% slower than the 32-bit OS as the applications have not caught up yet. The 32-bit OS has a ton of compatibility issues with hardware and several software components and performs about 10-15% worse that Windows XP SP2. Bit of a mess for a release IMO.