I happened to forgot, sorry, silly me, but there are indeed whackjobs that are doing more than just talk.  Being a whackjob does mean that such people have creativitity and imaginative traits.  And they are indeed taking matters into their hands.

But not in the sense of violence or of hostility, but of using that energy and effort in a socialable acceptable manner of  developing their own vision of what a MMO should be.  And for this, current AAA developers should be afraid. For the competition in the online market is going to become very competitive as more independent developers, oh wait, whackjobs that is, enter into the market place.

Originally posted by BadgerSmaker
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And there is a note on the transfer from closed server process from Gourney-SME:

"We have to cycle through the 12 servers that are closed... We have a single server that we load, restart and shutdown each time we want to load the database and info from a closed galaxy, and we generally don't get through all 12 in a day. (or two days for that matter) ..."

From an IT point of view... oh my, I don't know how to respond to that one.  That is too funny.

They truely lack the skill set to automate that database.  Reminds me of using old Mag Reel Tapes.

Sorry boss, looks like another 2 hours before the data to your program is loaded up. Now if we were to use platters...

I don't want to hear it because the programmer is no longer with us.

Originally posted by jotull

..there are some whackjobs out there and one day one of these twisted people are going to do more than just talk.

Old new, events that you are implying have already happened, for example the murder in Korea over the sale of a virtual sword.

We're all still around, the Earth still rotates and the Sun still shines.

Do not live in fear or of unhappiness, but rather...

Always look at the bright side of life...

Originally posted by Gajari

Can you explain the "missed its launch window" comment? I don't get it. 

The launch window referred to is of releasing a game when a movie is about to be released. Either get the game out before the movie to promote/hype the movie or ride on the curtails of the movie's projected success.

The problem here with this 'MMO' is that all three movies of The Mummy were done quite some time ago (2008).  Unless there is a new Mummy movie or TV series in the works, this 'MMO' has clearly missed its launch window for marketing purposes. Now before throwing the BS Flags due to other MMO's such as LOTR and Star Wars; keep in mind those MMO's are of popular and well known IP's. 

Originally posted by Samhael

This is pretty good... this is the first MMO that -- when announced -- has already missed its launch window!

 

And that is why this will be an Epic Fail.

Originally posted by Erythrocyte

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Just an observation, I'm not against or for slamming SOE or SWG, it's all interesting reading :-).

Well, the more popular Sci-Fi IP virtual world was litterially destroyed, and to some, by The Empire, in which millions ... ok, hundreds of thousands of voices cried out.

And as of now, SWG is just a shell of what it could have been.

It takes a great feat to screw up a live virtual world based on the most popular Sci-Fi IP.  Had this been of some other IP, I believe there would not be much discussion taking place and mostly just a dead ghost forum... something like Tabula Rasa.

Originally posted by urbanos

Within five months swg has lost:  Millbarge, Undertoad and Adeptstrain. The end is near?

Very much so.

With a down economy and a new up-to-date Sci-Fi, well Star Wars IP from a well known company to arrive.  Though I believe SWG won't be dead just yet, even at the launch of the new title.  There will be a "wait and see" if Bioware's Star Wars tanks or blows the roof. If it tanks, well SWG will then stick it out for a bit longer on life-support.

Perhaps may see SWG go through another identity crisis, this time becoming a full blown Trading Card MMO.

Originally posted by BadgerSmaker

It's somewhat unfair to trash SoE for this, Customer Services were quietly and altruistically providing a chargeable service to players for free for as long as they could.  The announcement that charges were now not able to be waived could have been better handled, I agree.

There are some basic IT questions that you should be asking about all of this:

- Why is the data being stored on dead hardware?

- Why is the data not being stored on an easy to access mass storage system?

- Why is the data transfer not part of an automated process of exporting and importing?

- Why is there hardware not being utilized, be for prototyping, developing, testing, or donated for tax purposes?

- Why such the high price for a data transfer?

- Why the wide range of time for data transfers?

Here is a hint. When a company lacks the expert skillset for a given task, a company will then ...

Originally posted by TUX426

Here's their reason:

TSR-JamisonW

We have to bill you here on our side of the operation, then send it to in-game.  We would do the transfers ourselves like all the others, but the servers aren't turned on.  That's why the delay between the charge and the move.  It's not ideal, but it's what we've got.

That is not the entire reason, as with most SOE statements, it is only of a half-truth.

The database system of SWG is very complex, as well as ineffecient, and SOE lacks the skillset to administer it effectively.

Originally posted by TUX426

BRILLIANT!!! :)

Cryptic aims to make their games fun and by 'fun' that means not a lot of thinking required. The best example would be an Arcade RPG, just use a console controller and go through the quests, 1->2->3, repeat or go to the next level.

Adding interiors and crew members adds complexity, which means less fun.

Originally posted by Arletta

And randomly, you will still get ppl who defend the game and deny that the company is trying to grab as much cash from ppl as is humanly possible.

Indeed.

The common supportive responses will be:

"Everyone does not need to use Global Chat."

"This is a great idea, its only a few points and keeps the chatter down."

Originally posted by wyodragon

[Mod Edit]: Due to an influx of threads that are disatisfied with STO, I consolidated a General thread for users to list their complaints. Keep in mind, trolling and flaming will not be tolerated, so please stay on topic and refrain from personal attacks.

This is amazing.

The last uproar I remember was with SWG. And from it a separate Refuge Forum was created.

I think STO will need its own Veteran Refuge Forum.

What makes this amazing, it has just been about 2 months since launch...

Oh this Dreadnaught with a Spinal Mount Weapon is just another item along with this path.

Give it some time, and paying C-Points for Global Chat use will become the accepted norm.

Originally posted by smitty0356

What lesson's do you think mmo makers learned?

The first post of mine was in generaly terms, but I believe the following to be true in regards to what developers have learned of MMO's:

The quickest way to become a millionaire is to spend your double to triple digits of millions of dollars into developing an MMO.

Lessons Learned:

1. Thou shalt never ever, absolutely under no circumstance, use, utter or type the phrase "Vocal Minority." Unless Thou seeks to start up a long lasting Crusade of which thou shall bitterly loose.

2. Thou shall learn the skill of, "Reading between the lines,"  and accept half-truths with any information provided by the entity named SOE.

3. Once mighty, SOE was a driver of the gaming industry universe. Now SOE is driven by the gaming industry's greed, following the paths of others in search of the all mighty dollar.

4. Thou shall pay no attention to information derived from SOE Focus Groups. Such groups are created only to provide the answers SOE wants to hear and to provide falsehoods that SOE does listen to its customers.

5. When SOE speaks of words which end with, "At this time." Be wary. "At this time," means just that, only in the here and now. The future, the days to follow, even tomorrow can spell utter choatic treachery.

6. The first sign is when Fan Sites begin to become inactive or close up. The second sign is when forum activity slows down to a crawl. The third sign is when The Mouth of SOE says everything is great and nothing is wrong. Thou not be fooled by thy words of, "No one is talking because they art playing." For such signs are due to decline of population and none other.

7. Listen to the vets, even given their cynical attitudes. For once they did believe in the potential of SWG and the vision of SOE & LA. Yet once burned or scorned the belief was shattered, replaced by frustration. Frustration of the twisted turns and utter failure of SWG, yet while wanting to save SWG......... <insert hour length of cynical and sarchasim rant of SWG here>

8. Only one Sci-Fi IP has been successful and continues to grow even given its mature age, while the giants (Star Wars, Star Trek and Star Gate) falter and fail to out perform The One. ... At this time.

9. The phrases, "Move on" and "Get a life" have no effect.

10. Be aware and mindful of Stockholms Syndrome.

From Robot Chicken (the picture below is of the scene):

Han: Anyone...anyone got a joke?

Lando: I got one. Who has two thumbs and betrayed his best friend? (Points at himself) This guy!

Originally posted by Munki

Well why do we agree with quantum mechanics yet you can't really prove it, and it's all probability.
I'm sure there is a great reason, but I don't have the background to explain it. Just like much of these Earth Science debates, nobody here has piped up and said that have the knowledge to make an educated argument, so instead I go off the opinions and knowledge given to me by people far more knowledgeable on the subject.
Onto your second part, I've had friends in the earth sciences explain parts of the climate models.
I know from a computer science perspective, they did the models by building them, putting in data from a long long time ago and seeing if it could predict information from a while ago.
A lot of these models can take data from a looooong time ago, and accurately predict data from a while ago. A lot of these models have a few little hitches but can get startlingly accurate.
Where they all don't line up is in recent times.

I do understand this part of the arguments because I have dealt with mathematical modeling, and their predictions are nowhere near as detailed as weather reports.

Moving down to your next post, I was getting at educated, but used the wrong word. Although I wouldn't necessarily rule the other out :P

Quantum Mechanics would make for a good analogy with Global Warming.  While Quantum Mechanics is widely accepted, there are those who oppose it, and there are debates even among those who accept it.  [Going off topic... the point you brought up of, "can't really prove it," but it is accepted, would be useful for the science vs religion topics. Thanks for that.]

With probability at work, then there are additional factors involved influencing the outcome.  Declaring the driving force of Climate Change as CO2 would be wonderful as then it is only one item at work.  Actually I do wish that CO2 is the root cause.  For then we would be on our to way to regulate the Earth's temperature.  We can pump as much or as little CO2 as desired to sustain a given temperature and even prevent the next deep freeze ice age to occur 10,000 years from now.  We may be even able to minimize natural disasters such as hurricanes.  CO2 would be the silver bullet to our weather problems on Earth.

Unfortunately that seems to a bit far out there: control CO2 -> control the temperature -> control the world.
Since other factors are at work besides CO2 and I do not read of much single "silver bullets" found to solve scientific problems.  Reminds me of the the silver bullet for cancer back in the 80's...

Indeed, the models used for Global Warming did seem to be working until these past 10 years.  Now as the temperatures keep dropping, the models have to be fixed or reworked to figure out how why this is and yet keep CO2 as the driving force.  Being a CS major, have you experienced those times of writing up a program to solve a given task, but no matter what you try to do, your initial approach keeps on faulting?  Spend hours to debug and come up with work-a-rounds, but yet the program won't run correctly and may even become bloated with patched work code.  So take some time off, rethink and begin again from a clean slate with a new approach.  Ever done that?

For that is how I think of this Global Warming situation.  Some people want to believe their approach (CO2 is the driver) is the correct process, but the models keep failing.  So best to start over from another perspective, perhaps as CO2 is one of the factors, but not the prime factor.  I think we will be seeing some new theories within the next couple of years due to this cooling trend.

Sorry to read of the news.

Well I think that MMO project can be put on the canceled list.

The Chinese market is not really a golden egg... more like a plated gold egg being touted by a street vendor as, "Genuine Imitation Golden Egg!"

Originally posted by Munki

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I feel no guilt in saying that I am smarter than you in matters of science.

...

Keep in mind that having degrees does not make one smart, only educated.