All Posts by SioBabble

I pity the kid named "Anakin"

Or "Night Elf Mohawk" for that matter...

Originally posted by CactusmanX

Yeah I stopped playing SWG because I did not like the combat, big deal breaker for me, so I never got into player made buildings, but I did remember thinking that a lot of the player structures were rather disorganized and also that they seemed out of place, meaning, especially on Tatooine, thinking "there should not be a city here".

Unfortunately, it's difficult to recreate the actual reasons for a city being where it is IRL in a virtual environment.

In SWG, cities were created because someone liked the scenic qualities of the area, or that it was fairly flat, or that it was not yet built upon and had room to grow.   It would be difficlut to build a Rome in SWG because all those hills wouldn't be buildable!

Organic reasons for cities to exist are properties like it's at a ford or a point where you can trade inland products to seagoing shipping.  Perhaps the site is located close to an important valuable resource, like an iron deposit.  Those factors don't really exist in quite the same way in a virtual world.  I know of one city on Ahazi/Corellia that was founded where it was because there was a cool POI nearby and it was a long way from Coronet.

Originally posted by Fishermage

The best way to understand fascism is that it is a FORM of socialism, where the means of production are CONTROLLED rather than OWNED by the state. Every government regulation of business is fascism -- every government OWNERSHIP is pure socialism.

All other features common to fascism are incidental, rather than definitive.

The form of government itself has a great bearing as to how you live under a socialist economic system.

For example, Sweden is politically a democracy and its economy has a lot of socialist concepts at work.  That seems to work pretty well.  When the workers actually own the means of production in a real sense.  This is quite different from the Soviet command economy system, where what you have is state capitalism.  The workers actually own nothing in any meaningful sense.

Germany in the 30's had a totalitarian form of government in which the means of production was for the most part not owned by the government itself, but was pretty much controlled by the government through the government's position in the market as a primary consumer of the product of labor.  We see this in the military-industrial complex of the United States.

The Nazis as a primary policy goal sought to reign in and control the labor movement to the benefit of the corporations.  Their own name was a marketing slogan, not a reflection of any actual ideological affinity to the workers.

Mussolini himself thought that fascism was more appropriately called corporatism,  It's the bigness of any organization where the rot starts to set in...where maintaining the status quo and the position of those at the top is more important than anything else, even if long term it leads to collapse of the entire structure.

That's what we've got in this country...a corrupt corporate overclass that will do anything, say anything to sustain their position.  McCain is the representative of that group, fighting against any change, even one that will be in their own long term self interest.

SWG had build and no build zones that could be manipulated by the developers.  In addition, three of the ten original worlds did not allow for player housing at all.  Players could erect resource structures on those three worlds.  Kashyyyk and Mustafar have no player structures at all.  If the developers cared to, they could have created vast areas that did not allow building to maintain an immersive desolateness in some parts of planets.

In some cases the terrain did not allow for building (for example, on the slopes of the volcano on Lok) which maintained an unpopulated feel in those areas.  Mountain areas might allow for a few player houses, but for the most part they were wild and untamed.

I'll readily conceed that the developers didn't take into account the property of player housing that served to suppress some random mob spawns.  Finding a Great Plains Stalker was certainly more difficult on Corellia as player housing and cities encroached on the GSP's spawn range.

Housing styles were restricted by planet.  It's true that the "generic" strucutures were the Corellian style buildings with a flag that allowed them to be built everywhere.  But there were no Naboo structures on Tatooine, and vice versa.

Structures were in their final form within seconds once you placed the deed for them, so there were no transition phases of "under construction".  Under the original system, resource extraction structures if left unmaintained would burst into flame and eventually poof within a week or so.  Housing structures would just vanish eventually with no change in appearance, after a week or so if the maintenance wasn't kept current.

This system was changed to the "condemned" system about a year or so after launch.  This meant that buildings would persist in the world regardless of maintenance; if your house was "condemned", you simply could not enter it until you had paid up the back maintenace.

Player cities had zoning systems that allowed mayors to prevent any construction they did not desire.  Many mayors made it a point to allow structures for different purposes in different parts of town.  For example, the generic structures might be used strictly as storage and segregated from the more planetary appropriate styles on Naboo and Rori.

The basic elements you're talking about were there in SWG at the start. How that was implemented of course is another topic entirely.

You're not familiar with SWG, are you?

Because your concerns are addressed with that system.

Originally posted by askwhy

Originally posted by Faxxer

It isn't clear if this is the Ohio State supreme court or the U.S. Supreme court...  I suspect it's state, the AP article is lacking in tons of details.

This will end up going to the U.S. Supreme court then.  There is no way that this can stand. 

 

Actually, it WAS the U.S. Supreme court, so it will likely stand.

See Bloomberg which says:

"The U.S. Supreme Court, siding with Democrats, freed Ohio officials from a lower court order that might have limited participation by new voters in next month's presidential election.

Republicans who sued Brunner ``are not sufficiently likely to prevail'' in their lawsuit, the Supreme Court said. The two- page unsigned order was issued on behalf of the full court, without any published dissent. "

_____________

Also, for what it's worth, the kind of discrepancies that 'flag' someone for that list of 200,000 come from a cross-check of two dozen information fields, and even 'Joe the Plumber Wurzelbacher' whose name is misspelled in one of the official databases used for this check, would be on the list. (See this, which I just quickly found with Google)

 

Edit: Added another paragraph quoted from Bloomberg

The Supreme Court ruled as it did because the GOP HAS NO CASE.

It's a "legal tenchincality".

They don't have a case.

Originally posted by Finwe

If Obama's another FDR, God help us all.

FDR saved the rich from their well deserved extinction in the 1930s.

They've never forgiven him for doing so.

Originally posted by Dekron

Originally posted by Triggger

Originally posted by Dekron

*Yawn*

Be careful you might catch a fly with that yawn.

*Yaaaawwwwn*

My congrats on Dekron's network television debut:

www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-crazy-mccain-lady-we-liked-it/768741/

The dirty little secret of the past 30 odd years, one that you NEVER see in the MCM but is slowly percolating out, is that the US has had a mixed economy for all that time, and specifically that there has been socialism for the rich, and dog-eat-dog capitalism for everyone else.

It's just so patently obvious right now that profits are privatized and risk is socialized, due to the nature of the bailout package and the stubborn resistance of the deserting coward maladminstration to the injection of captial via the purchase of equity stakes in the investment banks.

The only thing I can say is that things in this regard are unlikely to get worse under an Obama administration, and I don't know how much he'll be inclined to reverse it, given what a centrist he is.  He might well be like FDR and take fairly decisive steps to fix what is broken and bring the socialism of the rich to the rest of us in some limited ways.  Then again, he might not take those decisive steps.

The ignorance of the doctrinaire "free market" types around here will continue unabated regardless of what Obama does.

Originally posted by Zorvan

Because it's a Disney game aimed at 8 year olds? And they didn't take into account 8 year olds are smarter than they look?

This seems to be a real problem with a lot of game design nowadays.  I think it's because you've got people with very little experience in dealing with preteens desgining the games, so they underestimate them.

OK, totally wild guess here with no research to back it up, but if the designers are in their twenties, it's likely that their experiences with kids are newborns or preschoolers.  So they aren't experienced with kids in the age group they're trying to reach.

Originally posted by BushMonkey

I think a large terror attack before the election would swing votes to Obama, as the left would scream "The war on terror hasn't worked"    

Well, what are you going to believe in this case?  John McCain or your lyin' eyes?

If a major attack does take place, it indicates that all the FEAR FEAR FEAR of the last seven years hasn't done the job.  It's pretty obvious if you have any awareness at all.

Originally posted by Dekron

This is what happens when the uninformed uneducated try to read news...old news.

Geeze, if there were a better example of the pot calling the kettle black, I'd be hard pressed to find one.

At this point, I'm beginning to pity McCain.  He's flailing around like a fish out of water, and it's not pretty at all.

Originally posted by Netzoko

Anyone who says they think Palin is intelligent/qualified is utterly blinded by bias and should kill himself.

Just because shes a republican and so are you doesn't mean you HAVE to love her.

The thing about Palin is that she might be intelligent, but we have no way of knowing because she refuses to throw herself into the mix, which means she might be covering something up.

What we do get out of her indicates that she's a baldfaced liar.  Her line on the Troopergate report is just beyond stupid.  She doesn't dispute the findings, she just states that they're the polar opposite of what they actually are and expects us to swallow this outright lie whole.

Poor Biden has made some really hilarious gaffes, but no one is covering him, because he's not perceived as a MILF.

The problem is that the "free market" is a myth.

There are always greedy Ferengi idiots who want to manipulate it in their favor to rip others off.

Free markets, in the abastract, sound like a great idea.  The problem is that they rely on perfect intelligence to work as they should in theory.

There's no such thing as perfect intelligence.  That is, absolute knowledge of all variables needed to determine the right price for some item in the market as determined by supply and demand.

Someone will try to manipulate circumstances to provide them with a benefit at the expense of others.

Adam Smith understood this.

The "inviisble hand" isn't a force of nature.  It must be helped to stay both invisible and balanced through governance.  You need to have a good faith party keeping things on the level, with transparency.  Furthermore, that good faith party needs to be monitored to insure it's acting in good faith.  This is a neverending process.

Because market economies ARE the best way to go.  Command economies have very bad tendencies to be ridiculously wasteful and unresponsive to the actual needs of people.

The catch is not letting the free market self destruct.  It needs help to do what it does best.  Our current crisis is because lessons of the past are forgotten.  The late 19th century US economy was a series of "panics" resulting in boom and bust cycles endlessly repeating themselves.  The regulations conceived and put into place in the 1930s were designed to take the edge off of boom and bust., and served us pretty well through the 1970s, when the oil shocks disrupted everything and led people to make the very mistaken assumption that market governance and regulation was the problem.

We've found out recently that it's anything BUT, as notions of fiduciary responsiblity and actual conservatism have been abandoned for the "I've got mine...screw you!" mentality.

Originally posted by Briansho

Originally posted by TenSpotting

Originally posted by Libertasplz

Obama has been gaining in the RCP average polling every single day for the last 10 days and Obama is now up anywhere from 2-9 points depending on the polling service you use. 

Is this trend showing the end of the Republican chances of winning?  Or is this just temporary in your view?

Debate plz.

(My personal opinion:  Despite democrats tracking traditionally higher and performing more poorly in elections this election scenario is unique.  People are feeling out Obama and once this passes they will vote for Obama in significant numbers, allowing him to win the election quite easily...300-230 type scenario).

 

 

He will win. There's nobody who is going to put the idiotic republicans in office again.

 

He will probably win the popular vote but not the electoral just like in the other elections.

Given that there have only been a handful of examples of winning the popular vote but not winning in the Electoral College (the 2000 election being the most recent) it would appear that your facts are uncoordinated.

Right now, even conservative pollsters (in the old fashioned sense of "conservative", not the modern movement conservative sense) are showing Obama winning more than 280 Electoral College votes...more than enough to be sworn in as the next President.

Chances are good that he'll have more than 350 Electoral College votes.

Originally posted by Sharkypal

Originally posted by tillamook

Originally posted by Kylrathin

I can't wait to see what this looks like on the pre-CU platform.

 

Yeah lol

 

on another note

 

Valara

This video was not created or produced by LucasArts or SOE. There are currently no plans for a retail expansion pack for Star Wars Galaxies.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?start=120&topic_id=766099&#8320566

 

ROFLMFAO.

They are actually trying to deny that they had anything to do with that?

WoW, that's pathetic.

S

Gosh, it seems just like the denials that there was a "SWG Starter Pack" or whatever they called it back in the fall of '05 denying the essence of the NGE.

These idiots NEVER learn from their mistakes.

Originally posted by Hozloff

One solution they could have looked at in JTL was to force people to launch their ship and hyperspace to their destination if they did not want to use the shuttles, and charge a higher "docking" fee to the pilot.

This way, they would have kept this money sink and avoid the crazy inflation brought by the NGE, encouraged people who could organise their duties to use the shuttles (ie visit cantinas, salons, smugglers, medical centers, bazaars, etc. whilst waiting on the shuttles) and still offer the opportunity for others to ignore the shuttle travel routes by using their ship if they wanted to and/or had to travel long distances at a cost. In short, both choices would have remained viable with pros and cons.

Of course, in their infinite wisdom, SOE made the shuttles reduntant and, as everything in the NGE, people spawn and despawn all over the galaxy with a touch of a button.

Yeah, and space was made even easier when they decoupled your spaceship from specific starports, allowing you to ignore landing in Mos Eisley and being able to take off from that same ship in Bestine, for  example.

The idea of a new credit sink is definitely a good one, and charging docking fees makes perfect sense and is very immersive, in my opinion.

Those restrictions enforced immersion, but just didn't fit in with the NGE target audience, which wanted convenience above all else.  Thus instant travel vehicles to any starport at all, then instant travel from that starport to any other starport with no need to actually travel in any real sense.  Once again, the journey is undermined by game mechanisms that kill immersion and being in a virtual world.

Recall that the NGE gave the target audience close to instant access to Wayfar (via a shuttle port there that never existed before) without having to earn it by being a master smuggler, a master bounty hunter, or through a quest to get permission to land at Jabba's Palace. 

I think the point that the logistics of a launch are underestimated is well taken.

Logistics are, let's face it, pretty boring for most of us. But they're what separate the amateurs from the professionals.  Having all those resources lined up in the correct order and the correct quantity is no minor task, it's not very sexy, but it makes or breaks a launch and the aftermath of the launch.

I'm always quite amazed at how the beta seems to progress very smoothly but for some reason the launch never seems to do so, no matter how much prep is done.  It's always not enough.  The launch leaves a lasting impression with a lot of your players/customers that isn't easily dispelled.  First impressions are lasting.

Obama's grass roots campaign has raised so much money that they're looking for off the wall places to spend it to give Obama even more eyeball splash.

Must be nice.  Frankly outside of the noveley of it I don't think it will be as effective as teevee ads. but go for it, Obama!

Originally posted by Dracus

Originally posted by SioBabble

Of course, the REAL PROBLEM from your perspective is people with the wrong skin color are even ALLOWED to vote.  That much is obvious.

This is not going to slide. 
Please explain of how the perspective is based on Race.  If it is obvious, this should be very easy to explain. 
I look over these messages in this thread and I see no racial comments except for yours. 
Please do explain the use of the Race Card.

Because ACORN operates in low income neighborhoods and communities to get members of those communities to vote.  John McCain in one of his maverick moods was the keynote speaker at an ACORN event!

The Republican party, ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has worked to suppress efforts to help the poor and minorities exercise their right to vote because it's not in the interest of the GOP for these poeple to vote, because they'll vote for the party more likely to represent their interests.  Which is NOT the GOP, which has operated on Nixon's cynical "Southern Strategy" since the 1960's.

Claiming that signing up minority and poor voters is tantamount to massive voter fraud makes your motivations look all the more cynical and racially based.  Especially when you intentionally misrepresent ACORNs role in all this as actively seeking to fraudulently register voters when their actions indicate the exact opposite.

In Nevada, ACORN is required BY LAW to forward on all registration forms no matter how obviously bogus they are.  ACORN did so, and noted to the registrars that some of the registrations they forwarded seemed to be obviously fraudulent.  But ACORN isn't allowed to make the call on that.  The registrar does.

The "raid on ACORN" in Las Vegas happened weeks after ACORN informed the Nevada Secretary of State (who conducted the raid) that ACORN was forwaring registration forms (which again, they are REQUIRED BY LAW to do) that ACORN suspected were fraudulent. They gave the Nevada SoS a heads up that some of the forms required scruitiny.  ACORN never heard back from the SoS until the SoS conducted this raid with plenty of media splash.

This is the equivalent of arresting the guy reporting a crime as an accessory to the crime for reporting the crime in the first place!