Catwhoorg

In between mapservers over on test (gaah what is it with the interwebs at the moment), I logged on a fresh copy of Catwhoorg.

looks like I'll be getting 10 new badges due to this change.

I think I have 6 or 7 characters who will be getting fabricator.

I have seen a similar thought, not quite expressed in the same way.

And of course it is why the day after 'Patch Tuesday' became known as a peak time for exploits in windows vulnerabilities. Thats is the ultimate example of reactive fixes that leaves a hole available.

Its not so much that they cannot fix, but that the solution has to come from a 3rd party that lies outside the direct control of NCSoft.

Real answer:

Yes. Once open hits you are free to discuss things with everyone

Looking over the list I think that it has been driven by a careful examination of rates etc by Synapse.

I think most a great a couple are probably overly trimmed, but again if its data driven that over-rides my perceptions.

I would like (in a non-calling out type way) Synpase to come along maybe after the patch goes live and describe in general terms the process he used, would be interesting.

Sort of like how the merits per task got a lot more understandable after the explanations of how they approached.

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We had the 'Peoples Choice' awards for 2 (IIRC) years, which included favorite SG, most helpful poster various in game things (like favorite TF)

Not quite sure why they stopped with that (probably the Freem 15 thing)

If you play a character for 2 hours per day every single day whilst trying to get a badge

Instead of taking you 21 days (504 hours), it will instead take you 23 days (well 22.9 ) of accumulating 'only' 22 hours per day logged off.

Playing a for a couple of hours every night really doens't slow you down that much in your day job quest.

Heck I have lost more 'progress' in that by being away for a few days and having characters get to 24 or 25 days when I logged them in.

(The progress lost of course being on the next badge they could have been earning not the one they got at login)

general replies:

K9 looks just the ticket for net nannying

Malwarebytes - check. I have used that in the past as a remedy for nasty infections that were resistant to other means. Setting it up on an autosweep is a good fall back plan

Zone Alarm - check. I used this in the past, but didn't think about it as I have a hardware firewall in place at home. Not sure if they have one in their router (ATT DSL if I recall right), so have added to the list.

Back-ups ? Thats a discussion I will be having with them (AGAIN). If it costs, I can see zero positive response, and I'll be bashing my head against a brick wall. Personally I have automatic backups for my documents over the web. Software I can re-install and dont particularly care about. Photos and the like are my precious things.

Thanks for the pointers folks, and keep em coming.

Im fixing up a Desktop system for family folks (Their hard-drive took a serious nose dive into dead city after 6 years of use).

They have a distinct dislike of paying for anti-virus software and the like. (And they refuse to budge despite my impassioned pleas)
The main use of the computer is for school assignments, facebook and general web-use.

Its not really used for any gaming outside of a few simple ones for the youngest and the flash type MSN games online.

I was planning on putting the free AVG version on there, with a automatic update schedule in place (they aren't good at running basic maintenance either).

1) Is there anything better than the free AVG out there right now ?
2) Is there any free net-nanny type software out there ?
(lets just say there is a teenage boy in the house and his browsing habits when left alone are not popular with his mother, as well as bringing malware onto the sytem)

Thanks for any help/advice.

http://www.fusionforce.us/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5095

Been done, but very fun.

The All stalker one we ran was just painful, successful mind you, but painful.

The Anti-Clockwise spiral in the inf sinks, is why they never created a dedicated Australian/New Zealand server.

For whatever reason the natural clockwise movement in the Southern Hemisphere interacted with the hard-coded spin, and basically made the server hamsters seasick.

Creating new Hamsters by genetic engineering to counteract this issue, was vetoed by Cryptic as being outside the budget of the Freem-15.

Word is that under NCsoft, this policy is being re-assesed, but BABS has about 10 years of gene splicing school to get through before he can start this.

The Dutch (IIRC) have been running internet gaming addiction sessions for a while. There was an article on the BBC website maybe 2 years ago about it

*hastily brushes that comment under the table*

Sorry folks, the ashes are back home where they belong...

You can try to take them back next time we meet

The solution is not change drop rates, but resolving the issue in player behavior.

For whatever reason people seem to refuse to roll commons with tickets, then complain about their scarcity.

at 8 tickets for a roll on a group of 6, there is no logical reason for people even those who use the AE only, to complain. Its trivial to get the salvage you want via tickets.