Nevermind. I'm sorry if I offended, was just hoping to get my opinion out and correct some of what I would consider fallacies about socialism. Don't feel like arguing over and over again.

Originally posted by Fishermage

Socialism is a big tent. Obama certainly is  a socialist.

This is complete bullshit.

Seriously you believe this? Really? REALLY? Because it is not true one bit. Go visit some actual socialist party websites and read what they have to say. That is real socialism. Even I don't consider myself a socialist because I believe in private property and ownership but kept in check by regulation and the nationalization of certain industries.

I also suggest you look up what being a socialist actually means. Marx was a socialist, Lenin was a socialist and Eduard Bernstein was a socialist. What did they all have in common? They wanted a world based on communal living with no (or close to no) government. They differed only on the ways to get there. That is there only difference, they all wanted that end goal of no capitalist industry or worker exploitation. Obama is certainly not taking us down a route towards a socialist utopia. In fact he is helping private companies, especially those that got us into the current economic mess in the first place, which is the complete opposite of what a real socialist would do. Like I said before, if he nationalized everything then yeah, you might have a case for those (even then I would be hesitant to call him a socialist).

Socialism is also not a dirty word and I don't understand why you people are so scared of it. There are many aspects of it that are quite good, especially on the Social Democracy side. That is something that I think all people would benefit from (Sweden used this heavily throughout the previous century). Communism is a completely different thing and I think it is what everyone thinks of when they hear socialism (SOCIALISM IS THE END GOAL ). Lenin created communism specifically for Russia because it had not gone through a capitalist revolution. He did not intend for it to become the predominate method of achieving socialism. However, it obviously caught on due to the Soviet Union and the power it achieved after World War II. What Lenin failed to see was that it would allow for a Stalin like figure to take hold of the country. From then on the Soviet Union was more of a dictatorship than a true socalist country. The end goal was still there, hence it being called socialist, but it ran very much like a dictatorship.

But if you still believe that I would really like to know how you came to this conclusion. Was it raising taxes? Because that's not really socialist. In fact expect taxes to be raised throughout the current century. I can not see us getting out of the our current problems without raising them dramatically. One source I read said that taxes would need to be doubled across the board to bring the debt back to zero within a decade or something like that (I'll have to look it up). This is not just an Obama problem, this has been started since the Reagan adminstration and only now has it come to light that maybe massive tax cuts were not the greatest idea when we are fighting multiple wars and the people still want social services (even the basic ones we have now are threatned).

I love these arguments because it reminds me of what Zizek has been saying for years. People can imagine the end of the world (and many here have argued that Obama is bringing us to that end) but they can not imagine a world with even the slightest social change. Now I paraphrased it but that was pretty much what he said. For many people this is true, including many of you on this board. You'll have no problem with the idea of a meteor crashing into the earth and wiping out all life and yet you can not imagine a world with universal healthcare or any sort of sociali reform that may be considered socialist.

My problem with the current situation is that health care is a system built on profit. The healthcare system works much like any other in a capitalist country. Reduce costs, build profits, invest and expand. It makes sense to denine people coverage for whatever reason (reducing costs, more profits) as well as not investing into things that are not profitable in the first place. The entire medicial community is built around profit. Drugs that do not make money are not made. Deals with doctors and other companies make it so that healthcare providers pay less than the average person walking in with no healthcare. There are plenty of people who go bankrupt from medical procedures who simply could not afford healthcare.

It boils down to this: healthcare should not be about profit. I find it absoluetly disgusting that people advocate a system that is built primarily to line the pockets of those providing the healthcare. Will sacrafices have to be made? In some cases, yes. With only one provider there will be a good number of people who will take a "hit" in terms of healthcare coverage. However, I am in agreeance with Obama that that should be a long term goal. Several decades of changing the system will be required for people to accept a newer system. This will also allow us to see any problems such as how rationing would work and costs. The disadvantages would not outweight the advantages. Many more people will be covered and an industry will function without the problems profit causes. Society as a whole will be better off.

I'd like to add this quickly since it seems to crop up in all of these off topic threads. Obama is not a socialist. Bailing out private industry is not exactly the most socialist thing to do. Banks would have been nationalized not pumped full of money.

And also, please don't label me a liberal. They are too right wing for me.

 EDIT: forgot source material

Just one of many articles on healthcare:

www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande

A break down of the above article:

www.anthonyworlando.com/2009/07/26/less-is-more-the-ugly-truth-about-american-health-care/

This thread is the reason why I love Eve. Eve drama, best drama. It also makes me want to go pirate in Providence again.

And yes, pirates are jerks. We like it that way (clearly what I do in game reflects the kind of person I am out of game :rollseyes: ). And damn some of you get super serious when someone smacks. I could careless to be honest.

By the way: Dathremar - Maverick Navy - Atlas Alliance :lolatlas:

Sup UK brosefs o/

Originally posted by Shohadaku

 My advice is look up a player corp called EVE University. They can help train you in whatever area you want to progress in. Being in a good player corp is where EVE shines. 

www.eve-ivy.com

Yes. Eve university is great way to learn the game. Members from all different alliances will come in and teach "classes" or the fundementals of the game. I remember hearing about an all noobship fleet that was actually getting some kills. Sounds like a lot of fun for all involved. The leaders are also great guys, which always helps in Eve :P

But thats not the only path you can choose. I just went around talking to people until I found a group I liked. Once you become part of the eve community you'll really start to enjoy the game.

Originally posted by Suraknar

Originally posted by Danag

One of the points of EVE to keep in mind:

A 2 month nOOb has the ability to kite a 3 year vet'.

Let's look at this. Here I am... In a Fleet op.. No one stepped up to take on the role of tackler, so I fit out a cheap frigate with a micro-warp drive and some warp jammers and webifiers so I can help hold down the targets. Up high I might have a couple light missile launchers or small turrets... Nothing that's going to cause much damage, but just enough to pew-pew with.

At this point, I'm no stronger than anyone else in a frigate, and I'm certainly no stronger than anyone else in a bigger ship. Maybe my skills allow me to use better micro-warp drives, or allow me to "use" my equipment more efficiently. Maybe I'll get a few more points of CPU or Powergrid, or Cap'.

But really, I'm still in a frigate... I'm still _very_ squishy, and if I'm not paying attention anyone will be able to take me out, be it another 3 year vet' or a 2 month nOOb in a ship of their own.

Try making that claim in an XP-grinding, "level-based" MMO.

Go ahead and put a level 10 warrior up against say a level 50 or level 80 warrior in your basic Hack'n'Slash game. The vet' could stand in an open field nekkid, with no armor and no weapons, and that poor level 10 player would never be able to kill him. And even weaponless and armorless that vet' would most-likely 1-hit-dead or 2-hit-dead that level 10 player.

 

EVE is level based, it is just hidden, or rather expressed in such a way that is not as apparent as a Level number besides your life Bar.

In essence, the more skills you have the higher level you are, and the way to get more skills is unfortunately time based not action based.

All other factors being equal,

If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win.

If you are a 20 million skill points and go against a 3 million skill-points in a Cruiser, you will lose.

But if you go on a cruiser, and go against the same 3 million skill points guy on a cruiser you will win.

Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that..

When Equal sized ships are involved, the guy with the more skill points (level) will most often win the fight.

And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.

In most other level based games, you may not be able to kill that lvl 50 or 80 as a level 10, but, you can catch up in a reasonable time, and he will still be 50 or 80 when you raise and equal the playing field, and then you use your "player skill" and can win.

In EvE, it takes what....25 years to max all skills, and reach the highest possible level?

Sorry, EVE maybe a Sandbox game, which I love, but it is not a Character Skill Based System either, it is a Level Based system, a very long level based system at that.

EvE needs a fundamental change in its mechanics if it wants to accomplish mainstream popularity (level based Systems are not the best suited for PvP - Shadowbane is a prime example of how counterproductive a Level based system is with a PvP focus).

Or,

A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).

As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..

First of all, this is all a bunch of BS. If there are levels then they are based on ships only. I tend to fly Recons/Battleships. Maxing out those skills will take time, but a 60 millions skill point character with no recon skills is a crappy recon pilot. Where as my 15 million skill point focused recon pilot will take them easily in a 1v1 recon (of course depends on  what racial ship they are flying as well). You can easily max out skills for a particular ship role. Capitals are about the only ships in the game that vets will have easy access to. But no newer player is going to want one (really you don't) because all of them are only beneficial in experience corps/alliances otherwise you'll lose them easily.

As for the battleship argument: Yes you are right. Getting a fleet fitted battleship takes time and most alliance (not all though) expect T2 Large guns. But most newer players, at least I highly suggest, don't bother themselves with 0.0 politicals BS. Within my corp we have members who roam/pirate in cruisers. Not T2 high sp required ships, but with T1 cruiser. Usually with crap or really basic fits. I've seen them take out battleships easily. In some cases they were easily able to solo battleships or other ships. Based on tactics, predicting a players next move and knowing the surrounding region. Sometimes its just plain luck. But still you can see it is quite a valid tactic. There are kill mails to prove it.

To me it doesn't sound like you want a sandbox game. Most, if not all of them, do not have cap offs that you speak of. Eve in a sense does, you can easily get the max skills for a particular ship and out play vets that have double your sp.

Stop spreading this BS.

Why is it that Eve threads always end up like this?

I believe December 12th 2012 is the official date. But from my understanding the Mayans never predicted the end of the world, just that that was when their calender ended. Which could mean a great deal of different things including: maybe they just didn't plan it that far ahead.

If anything happens in 2012 I'd be shocked. End of the world theories have been around forever, throughout history we've seen that the end of the world has been predicted by many different people and nothing has ever happened... obviously (or not???).  

Although wouldn't it be fascinating if something actually did happen. Especially if that something is not the end of the world.

Warhammer by far, although AoC is very close behind.

Warhammer just had so much potential and as a beta tester I could see it. There was so much creativity and innovation behind that game but it all seemed lost in the shuffle to make a rather mundane EQ/WoW clone. WAR had a chance, the IP allows for a rather diverse gameplay and Mythic decided to just follow what the industry (many thanks to World of Warcraft) had already laid out. Sure there were some new features, public quests were a great idea. Its just that the game is so linear and so....repetitive (all mmos are though) that it was not enjoyable.

I expected so much and Mythic let me down. WAR is a decent game, I guess. Mindless PvP is great fun for a little while, but in the long term I need some meat to my game.

wait, wait, wait....are you telling me there is sound in my MMOs? 

I NEVER KNEW!

Originally posted by Random_mage

So.. I'll get the "Why do you keep posting?"  ..

Well, this is the only place where the forums are actually really close to each other.

That still doesn't explain why you post. You know there is a thing called lurking which doesn't require you to post at all. We really don't need "your a moron" posts in these forums. A) Because it is not needed B) It is not grammatically correct.

Originally posted by batolemaeus

The impact might be huge, it might not. Nobody knows at this point.

From what i could gather from my more reliable sources (no, someone posting bullshit on shc or caod is not a reliable source), i can draw a few conclusions:

a) No old and major alliance was involved. I'm saying this because usually in these alliances there are a lot of people managing pos and reactions. The reactions were most likely done in lowsec by small (alt)corps. The moneyflow of those small corps might have gone to larger alliances, but tbh. i doubt it went to established ones. Those are usually not in financial troubles at all. Sorry to disapoint you guys, Bob probably got their titans through legal means.

b) The 4 years rumour is most likely bullshit. From looking at prices, the impact started probably around late march, early april. If someone silently used the exploit before i can't say of course, but any real impact was probably done in spring this year.

c) Alliance leaders banned...well, i have a lot of them in my addressbook, and i saw them online.

So, how much impact did this actually do? I don't know. Hope the CSM can do something there. CCP better releases some infos quickly..

Well your first assumption has already been proven wrong. Evoke has pretty much fallen apart and that post on Kug's forums has some pretty substantial evidence proving Evoke was behind at least some of this.

The 4 year rumor may or may not be bullshit. We still have to see. Maybe some people were using it for the past 4 years but not until recently that it was being used on a massive scale. Evoke, although being a named player, is not exactly a massive alliance and could have been doing this for years very quietly.

Alliance leaders have nothing to do with this. Why would they ban the accounts of alliance leaders? If you are doing something that you know is in fact an exploit, or that it was at least not intended like this bug was, would you use the account your main was on? Hell would you even use a corp within the alliance? Some alliances come to mind when I first heard about this bug. There are plenty of alliances that do not have access to a massive quanity of T2 bpos and are sitting on crap space and yet have massive cap/super cap fleets. I've scratched my head as to why that is and this bug/expliot seems to explain why they are so rich happened.

I like how leading figures from BoB, AAA and Goons have already posted in that thread. Entire powerblocks have most likely profitted from this since 0.0 sov wars began. Wish I was one of the few that recieved some of this isk. I still rat from time to time :P

The other interesting aspect is how this will affect the market place. Already large quantities of minerals are being bought up and I've heard rumors that people are currently stock piling T2 for when prices skyrocket. This could have a massive affect on the entire game.

Originally posted by APRAurore

"-And just the gameplay elements from the start. And this was brought up several times in beta, even towards the end. Many beta testers saw this from the start. I remember reading long very well written posts that brought up many of the problems that we see today. Mythic has never wanted to change fundamental gameplay elements (scenarios come to mind) because they invested too much time in building them. I hate to say it but although Mythic has done well in terms of listening to its player base. The game, as far as I am concerned, was a complete failure."

 

What were the elements they were discussing? I'm merely curious... not calling into question what you said.

I can't think of too many specifics. I know tactics and morale was debated several times. Morale was a big one just because it was so overpowered early on. Linear gameplay elements were also hot topics, like the way each career progressed (it still is horribly linear). Some people complained about the "stuck on rails" the game took. Of course there were a whole lot of comparisons to World of Warcraft. The early beta forums were not nearly as structured as the the later ones (after that 2 month break). Personally I think that was a problem. It avoided problems that we see now.

Beta was also extremely fun. I think it had to do with the fact that most beta tester spent most of their time taking keeps and battlefield objectives.

For some reason the title reminded me of this song

There are games out there with decently sized populations. Lord of the RIngs has a very good mature and active fanbase. Eve has a lot of players (all one server helps). Uhh there are a few others I can't think of. Ok maybe there are not too many games with a fully active population. But once you find a group, whether it be a guild/kinship/alliance/corporation you will be around a lot of active players.

Vanguard is probably not the best place to find a lot of people. Let's face it, there just isn't that many people playing the game.

There is no "I have no idea" or "let's wait and see" option.

Mortal Online: Nearly no information, only a few videos. Does have a very well known developer behind it so we'll see how it goes. Still WAY too early to tell.

Darkfall: We've all heard the promises. There is a long gameplay video out there somewhere which makes the game look a bit dated, but if the promises are there I don't think I or anyone else will care too much. Still very little beta tester/actual non biased feedback so you can't tell yet.

Why not ask us again when both of these games are closer to release?

If it really starts to carch on I'll either quit playing MMOs all together or only play the ones that refuse to change to micro transactions. Kind of sad that the only developer who has said that they will stick to the subscription model is Blizzard.

I've already seen the updates, but the mere fact that they even mentioned it (no way in hell this was a misunderstanding) makes me want to stay far far away from this game.

Already from what I've seen nothing about this game is even close to remarkable or interesting. The same old crap with a different skin. But hey, you build your own lightsabers!

Screw it. I'm tired of these games.

Originally posted by woody1974

Originally posted by Ogrelin

why is everyone mad at MJ? I must have missed something.

 

Because they are prob WOW fanbois...WOW fanbois are worried because they haven't seen disappointment at this level until wotlk came out. I find it very funny to read the WOW forums and watch all the chaos that has unfolded since this newest flop..WAR is improving more and more with each patch and so far they haven't lied about what or wasn't in their upcoming patches...they communicate with their player base and WOW is the exact opposite, they no longer feel the need to listen to the player base because they are rolling around in millions and billions laughing because they know that all they have to do is rename some NPC's and add a few quests and sell it for 40 or 50 dollars and suckers er I mean people will buy.

Holy crap you people are morons. You seriously believe these "WOW FANBOIS" really give two shits about Warhammer? It is truly beyond me. I don't understand why people so vehemently hate/love these games and will defend them to the end by spreading what is clearly BS. And the funny thing about it is that Warhammer plays almost identical to the way WoW does, they sometimes feel like the same game.

As for the topic at hand. Yeah I pretty much lost all faith in Mythic. Not because Warhammer was necessarily a bad game, I enjoyed the beta and I think most long time beta tester would agree. However, the game in general was just not even close to what it could have been.

-The combat became mind bogglingly boring, especially melee classes such as the Witch Hunter who really only used a total of 4 buttons (most of the time you were just spamming one or two).

-The death penalty was incredibly stupid. How do you fight a war when the enemy can just get back up in 20 seconds?

-Scenarios, no need to say anything else.

-And just the gameplay elements from the start. And this was brought up several times in beta, even towards the end. Many beta testers saw this from the start. I remember reading long very well written posts that brought up many of the problems that we see today. Mythic has never wanted to change fundamental gameplay elements (scenarios come to mind) because they invested too much time in building them. I hate to say it but although Mythic has done well in terms of listening to its player base. The game, as far as I am concerned, was a complete failure.

Also before anyone claims I am a WoW fanbio, please check my prior posts and maybe read my signature. I've been playing Eve for the past year and half.

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

i have no doubt that the LORE of old republic is amazing and the depth of DC universe will be GREAT... but i fear that the gameplay will be the downfall.

they really have to :

for the SW MMO get away from the SWG NGE gameplay style and inovate something new

for the DC universe get away from the CoX gameplay and inovate something new

for both, they have to get away from the EQ/WoW/EQ2 etc model

i swear if i see another game with levels and tallent/expertise trees... ill... ill..... i dont know what ill do but ill do something...

The only game I care about is Biowares because I have a pretty good idea as to what it will look like. However, like Squal'Zell pointed out Bioware may fail in the gameplay element. I have no doubt that there will a lot of epic quest lines to complete but that really does not seem to revolutionary. Not saying that games that revolutionize the industry are great, but that we are in need of something new. The market isn't as big as MMORPG developers seem to think and it is getting saturated with EQ clones (WoW is just an EQ clone as far as I'm concerned) who do little to really expand or better the MMORPG market.

Already with the Sith vs Jedi factions I'm starting to feel like Bioware is just going to stick to the current MMO norm. They've already said that World of Warcraft is a big influence to them as developers.  World of Starwars is not something I'm truly interested in.

As someone pointed out in the Eve general discussion (this topic is brought up about once a week there), you would still see just as many problems. Vets of the game would take over (even the younger one's like myself) because they know what to do already. What to train and where to go. It wouldn't take that long until a few alliances control nearly all conquarable (or at least decent) space. They would be the first to get battleships, capitals and supercapitals (as well as the upcoming T3). In my eyes it would be much worse.

And "meaningles in a particular battle" is completely horribly wrong. Anyone who has played Eve knows that veteran FCs are going to know more about the game and its mechanics (as well as stategies) than someone who joined or just recently joined.

Currently Eve is going through a sort of transition period I believe. For a while alliances have been stagnat, just no really doing much but now with different drama boats from all sides you might start to see openings in the world (or galaxy).

Besides nearly all the current players would be against it. Both carebears and hardcore pvpers would be totally against it. The main draw to the game is that there is only one server. For many people that is the only reason they play and really, its one of the biggest reasons as to why I play. Not to mention it would break a lot of Eve's current lore. How can you have two identitcal but different galaxies?