MajorPrankster

What was that you were saying up-thread about personal value judgement?

Can't have it both ways.

Don't tell me how to value things and I won't tell you how wrong you are.

You would be guessing correctly. My friends often have little meltdowns when I suggest such ideas.

My point, if there was one, is simply that playing the game is what I am here for, not work and not the accumulation of stuff. The fun for me is in the playing and not the 'having'.

Really, this is already a game that encourages making many new characters, which, IMO, is a lot like putting in another quarter anyway.

No. I am the sort of player that would love it if the entire game world was reset occasionally.

NONE of what I do in CoH do I consider work, ever. It is super-powered-happy-fun-time for me. I have to do actual work and playing this game simply is not work in any way shape or form, to me.

I like playing the game. I have been told on more than one occasion that means I like to 'grind', that I am a 'fanboi' and that I am an 'idiot' for allowing myself to be 'taken', simply because I enjoy playing the game, rather than making it a chore.

To me, losing everything would pretty much just be like losing that last life in Asteroids at the arcade and having to put in another quarter.

Ever think to consider that the new system is not aimed at such people?

If they are that bitter over it, chances are, IMO, they would just find something else that was 'unacceptable' within a short time.

If using a second build to fill it with IOs is too much trouble and $2 is too much to spend, then those people are simply not the target audience.

As soon as I hear things like 'all my hard work' about an MMO, I pretty much know that the type of gamer behind the words is not someone I want to play with, personally, because that attitude is not fun.

That's a lie and you know it.

You have decided to hate something due to your personal financial situation and your obvious dislike of 'companies'.

You refuse to acknowledge that 'fair value' cannot be defined in the black and white terms of your personal value system, but that 'fair value' is defined by each of us individually.

I am happy your priorities are in the right place such that you put food and shelter over a video game.

Just because you and a few others want to cry 'Doom!' and hate companies (that are made of people trying to make a living) for making money, does not mean the Freedom system is unfair or wrong, it only means you cannot afford it.

The reason so much derision has been piled upon you in this thread is that you refuse to discuss anything. You are stating that your value judgement is the only right one, that those of us that disagree are stupid and throwing our money away and implying that the company taking that money is morally corrupt, then having the audacity to be upset when people call you out on it.

Why don't you find a way to sue them over it?

The fun part for me is that when everyone sees me, they think I work on the 8th floor.

I take it as a compliment!

Heh. I work on the 6th floor of that building.

It was a little exciting...

But can it be done within the margins a game company needs to produce and can it done with the massive number of users an MMO has?

Also, another thought, was it feasible 10 years ago? This system was designed then.

A large user base doing a TON of un-expected things that happen in an MMO puts a decidedly different spin on things compared to well planned 'jobs' that cause massive numbers of ordered database transactions.

Actually, I think I can prove, not with scientific finality, but reasonably, that it cannot be done.

As petulant as is sounds, because it has not been done. If it were possible, for a 'reasonable' amount of money, one of the new MMOs would be doing it and they don't or one of the current popular MMOs that could, would change it's internal framework.

I think it would be done if it could be. It would be a HUGE selling point.

As a matter of fact, I have many years in this field, not directly for MMOs, my company creates software that connects to large databases which thousands of users connect to simultaneously and we still consider MMO code to be more complex in some areas.

Additionally, one of the big three MMO's is made in the building my company resides within and I have conversations on the subject often not only with our engineers but with said MMO's as well.

The entire idea that any system with a large user base connected to and accessing a transaction heavy database, regardless of infrastructure, will not have to have regular maintenance outages is simply a non-starter. Even the most resilient database systems like the stock market have scheduled downtime for users.

The reason this topic makes me rage, BTW, is that anyone in the technology industry speaking from a position of authority who informs people that impossible things can be done, irritates me.

You already have your answer.

There are not enough of you for it to make financial sense for the maintenance windows to be anything other than what they are, take it or leave it.

Does it suck when you cannot have something you want? Yes.

So you can give us a specific example that handles the amount of data CoH does across multiple shards with thousands of users that does not have to go offline for regular maintenance and costs no more than what NCNC pays now for their service? If you can, I am sure you can go far in the MMO server world and make a fortune.

Because, to use your phrase, anything else is arguing with a strawman.

While the individuals within Paragon treat CoH as a labor of love (and for what most game makers get paid they have to love what they do) it would not still be floating if every single one did not want to make money from it in some way.

Altruism does not pay the bills.

If 'doing it right' in your world only counts if the data is treated like banking information, then there are a whole lot of key databases on this planet that 'do it wrong'.

There is no fiscal possibility or reason that player data for an MMO should be stored with the same level of CIA as banking data.

Of course if CoH had the kinda of money a bank has to store it's data and then did not, that might be a problem, since changes are they would be charging us a ton more than they do.

One cannot simply 'do it the way banks do it'. It takes, literally, thousands of servers to handle the banking data you reference.

If you are, indeed, in the industry and you do not understand that, then I am very glad you do not work for me.

On top of that, IIRC, the back-end for the CoH data is all in MSSQL servers. Those are notorious for needing regular maintenance, regardless of how stellar the code Paragon creates, so the back end would need to go offline regularly to account for that, to keep our precious data stable, through no fault of the coders.

Banks, if they know what they are doing, are not going to be using MSSQL. Even IF Paragon used a more 'bank like' database, it would certainly destroy any profits they might ever hope to make.

And yes, of course, all of this goes back to the almighty dollar, how could it not?

NCNC and Paragon would be making a very foolish business decision to waste money trying to store player data like banking information, probably one that would not allow our subscription prices to be anywhere close to reasonable.

To conclude, not all customers will EVER be treated equally by ANY company on this planet. It's called Life.

Now THAT'S clueless.

Could I just lend you my copies of the books instead?

Where, exactly, did I mention D&D was a quality rule-set? Oh, I did not.

You missed the entire point.

Modern geekdom is completely based around literature and owns some major props to pen-and-paper games, all of which require reading.

To imply that reading literature is not part of a geeks main focus, as you have, is uninformed to say the least.

You sound like a guy that works for my company who think that if a movie or TV show is not in color, it's not worth watching and that reading is 'too slow' of a means of communication.

I weep for our society daily.

The books about Elric and Stormbringer are written by Moorecock, which it says in the article (reading comprehension must not be geeky either) but are referenced in the D&D rule sets because of how cool Stormbringer is.

Were it not for D&D and other pen-and-paper RPGs, CoH would not be here I would wager.

To be a good geek, a ton of reading is required, both fiction and non-fiction. If you think watching movies and youtube makes you a geek, your geek card will not get you far in my world.

Cosplay is has little to do with anything but popularity and just because something is popular, does not mean it is of good quality.

It takes seconds to realize you are wrong, there is no need to think it over.

I am a well paid troubleshooter, tasked to come up with worst cases for my company daily.

Your logic is flawed, it will not float.

In the McD case, it was proven that the coffee was, in fact, too hot.

Also, not that many people ever thought the world was flat.

You really should get better ammo before you start firing.

I don't think for a minute you would win and neither do you. It is painfully obvious that you are realizing how wrong you are and now you are back tracking.

Please, sue them. Go for it.

No one is forcing you to do anything.

I understand the flawed logic you have used to come to your point of view just fine.

Your logic, is, however, incorrect and that has pointed out to you repeatedly.

You do not have a leg to stand on in this matter, you are simply wrong.

Good luck with your lawsuit. Really, I want you to try it, so that it can be slapped down hard enough that others who attempt to use your flawed reasoning will take notice and not clog up our lives with such wrongness any further.