Makoto_the_Phoenix

It's a real shame that this happened. I've been going to that particular movie theater for nearly twelve years (although the last time I set foot in a theater was the first Transformers movie), and this is the first time something like this has happened. Looking at the situation though, the only thing that could change in this case would be cosplaying at an event. Everyone assumed that the gunman looked like a villain from the movie, and for the most part, he played that role. About the guns...what can you really do? Stricter policies will make it harder for those responsible with firearms to get them, and give those that aren't plenty of freedom to be creative. Everything the guy had was legal to own, and the general policy for firearms purchases is, if you can pass a background check, you can get them. The smoke bomb, though, I'm told was 100% illegal - you shouldn't have direct access to that as a civilian. This was just a freak incident, and it really, really sucks that people had died in this guy's lapse of sensible judgment. But how could the system change to prevent something like this from happening, while allowing law-abiding, able-bodied and sound-minded citizens to get access to weapons and munitions for their own recreation? Mental health may be a start.

It sounds like a remixed/arranged variation of set to play at a screening of some movie like Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments.

I'll bite again... I can believe this. Jagex has, over the years, consistently sided with the player and listened to feedback to improve the game. Now, if you can't read that sentence without thinking that it's sarcastic - despite that not being the intention - then you'd realize that it's really not about what Jagex says, but about what they do. Internally, I'm convinced that JMods aren't comfortable with any of these changes to the game, as they add development work without increasing the value of the overall game. But it's still being developed. That fact hasn't changed. It creates a schism between Jagex and its community, as it seems that they're saying one thing and doing another - and that's what's been happening. It's something that does get lost, but I don't blame the people that forget this. It's too easy to see the disconnect. That's the beauty of it. It's comfortable with people. There aren't any advantages, so why should we get up in arms about people spending cash for RS items? I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with being OK with this update. And you yourself prelude what its likely the inevitable fate this game will face. But do take time to observe how it's being introduced. It was, at first, a violent jolt to your system (a-la SoF), and now it's a gentle immersion. Soon, it won't be a problem to buy an hour of 1.175x bonus experience for $7.95. I mean, realistically it's not that much of an advantage, and if they want to blow that kind of cash on experience, that's on them. Just think about it for a bit. I'd say the real Catch-22 is, if you took your money elsewhere in protest, they'd only ramp up their efforts.

I'll bite...in terms of raw programming time, that's about 10-20 hours. You already have all of the objects you want to work with; you'll only be adding a flag or decorator that allows you to introduce a new look on said object. With graphics, that's probably an additional 75-100 hours. So it's about 3 people's entire work week worth of development time. I share the frustration though; Jagex were able to wheel this code out in relatively short order, but only until very recently was a new Penguin quest announced, and we haven't heard jack about a new Elven quest - both of which would be a better use of resources. Well, when you need money, what better way to do it than to give people something small and innocuous, such that they'll actually consider spending more cash? I guess that membership alone isn't bringing in the droves like it used to.

So all of those hunches about Solomon were right...I was secretly hoping that it'd be overblown and Jagex wouldn't stoop to this level. But I suppose that the track record for their actions speaks louder than their own words against a microtransaction model. Phew...nearly bought members for the month, too. Glad I dodged that bullet.

I'd say...considering that you did watch the advert, your inb4 is not. As for the nature of this - I can't say I'm surprised. In exchange for a player's immediate want of self-gratification, they are willing to watch a simple advert for another shot at some free stuff. Seems like a win-win for both parties involved...until you dig deeper into what the company said about doing this very thing. What a bummer.

Sword Art Online is very interesting; on first blush it reminds me of (what I remember of) .hack. I'll be keeping tabs on this one as it goes along. Outside of that I've just been pillaging through Funimation's stockpile of anime...already finished Trigun, A Certain Magical Index, Haibane Renmei, and I'm following Shakugan no Shana. Not sure if there's anything else out there that I'm terribly interested in...I'll have to just meander and see what's out there.

I've been reading "Ghost in the Wires" by Kevin Mitnick. It's been an exciting and interesting read so far; easy to spend 2 hours with the book a day. It's a book that I'd recommend to anyone that's a computer professional, or curious as to how powerful social engineering really is.

Good riddance. My hope is that it doesn't suddenly shift to buyable experience lamps or tokens.

It likely doesn't exist because their horrible forum purging mechanics got rid of it. Information released, or feedback given, is so disjointed that if you're not hounding the fansites for these things, they're lost swiftly. That causes the apathetic moods you see in beta testers, like Thus was talking about. I came into the beta with the expectations they would work similar to other betas I've played in the past, or like the testing phases of Minecraft "snapshot" updates before official release - periodic updates to the beta/screenshot itself while keeping in touch with the user base to correct bugs/features. Many of the bugs with equipment are still present in the beta almost a month after opening. That's kind of off-putting to a very high degree to keep testing and poking around, nevermind the fact that the people playing are already struggling to learn the new system as it is. It's overload to the point of shutting down; and that's not taking into account the previous issue I expanded on. ...but the beta hasn't been out for a month. In all fairness, and in retrospect, one can argue that Jagex's means of gathering information and feedback from this beta are no different than the RS2 beta. They used that same ol' forum system to get feedback, encourage discussion and report bugs back then, too. I will give you this - there's a lot of stuff that's out there that does need to be tested, and stuff that is known to be broken or imperfect, which makes playing through it a huge drag. But that's just the nature of betas. Given Jagex's release schedule, it'll take them a lot longer to fix content than a smaller, more interactive company (*cough* Mojang *cough*).

Whew, this is going to take a bit to get used to. On the plus side, the quick reply has a more robust WYSIWYG editor.

My thoughts on the device: Apple pioneered this, Asus improved it (even more so with the Asus Padfone), and Windows wants a slice of the action. First - it's true that none of us really need a tablet. They're expensive, difficult to get work done on, and they're yet another device that we have the option of using. I saw some pluses to having a tablet in college, but that was for books and note taking; outside of that, I have a pretty decent tower and laptop if I really need to get some work done. The only positive thing that I see is the ARM adoption; myself being a bit of a technophile, if ARM usage takes off, we can finally see them used in enthusiast-grade PCs and laptops. Second - the tablet doesn't offer anything different than what other tablets do. It's a Windows OS, but what does that really do for us nowadays? I'm not sure it's familiarity, because Windows 8 is a huge departure from the norm. It's not a wider selection of programs either, since programs that are written for Windows 8 won't work out-of-the-box on RT. In terms of productivity alone, cloud office services offer a desirable flexibility for a reasonable price - $0. If Microsoft want this to succeed, they'll have to offer more than pretty colors, and give consumers something that's usable and practical. Third - it's entering into an already crowded market, but it can stand a chance if the price is right. A good Android tablet runs anywhere between $400-$700, and typically require some sort of cellular carrier service. The Nook and Kindle Fire are on the low end of things, less than $200 a piece, and only rely on Wi-Fi. Apple's offerings are $399 on the low end sans 3G, and upwards of $829 on the high end with mobile tower connectivity. Microsoft would have to really put a good price on these for them to be considered - probably $399 baseline, $699 max. I'm not sure what you mean by "Nexus" device, but I'll chip in anyway. The Nexus devices offered by Android phone makers are pretty...open with their platform. I don't just mean the OS - you can do as you see fit to your device, and the manufacturers pledge, by virtue of it being a Nexus device, to stay out of your way. Windows RT is quite the opposite. It's only coming out in OEM fashion, and it has something on it called "SecureBoot", which forbids any other device from loading on it, if they don't have a signed certificate from some third party. In my opinion, it's creating more of an Apple-like device, in which Microsoft has the absolute say over what goes on their platform. I'm not sure I see that strategy working for them.

Do not forget to eat.Get what you can done, but don't overwork yourself.Do not forget to eat.Have fun where and when you can; socialize with people in your degree field; make new friends, try new things.Do not forget to eat.Get lots of rest and exercise; both can help you focus in class.Do not forget to eat.Buy your books only when you know you'll need them, and then only at the best price. Amazon is a good start, but if someone's willing to sell one to you second-hand, that's even better.Do not forget to eat.Don't feel bad if you don't do great on tests. Learn what you can from them, and prepare better next time. True story: I sucked at tests, but I don't regret it - I feel that I learned a lot, and had a B average in my major.Do not forget to eat.Study, but don't cram. Take it a day at a time.Lastly: Do not forget to eat. If you're wondering why I'm repeating myself...when I was a freshman, I would do about 16 hours of homework in one or two sittings, often forgetting lunch and dinner. I would go upwards of 3 days without food, which did not bode well for my projects (going back through one now; I was obviously not thinking straight when I wrote it). Nourishment is absolutely vital. It's happened, it's not as big of a deal as it seems. Then again, my professors were pretty chill, and didn't assign much book work in the first two weeks. Even then, there's always someone in the class that's willing to do homework with you. As for printers - I thought about getting one but discovered quickly that I didn't need it. My college university had $25 for each student to use the printers with, so we used that. Then again, I was also in the CS department, where we had our own printer... So, I'd say - play it by ear. If your school takes printing usage out of your tuition up front, don't splurge on a printer.

Congratulations! :D

[qfc]15-16-773-63761737[/qfc] Nothing more was expected. The end. I used to think that Jagex had a good LoC to bugs ratio in their code, since few breaking bugs ever showed up in their game. However, when it comes to their own investigation tools, it's like watching a freshman Java programmer struggle creating an array. This is pretty embarrassing for their QA team.

You do know that it was an NPC that was being attacked in the video, right? In a player's combat gear, yes. I'm waiting to see what effects it has on PvM, since a few of the nifty things may or may not apply against mid-level NPCs or bosses.

Seems like the most appealing thing to a wide audience is the upcoming combat beta. From what I've seen in the video, it's interesting...but it only focuses on PvP, not PvM - which may be a whole different animal. Also, what's with Bounty Hunter's revamp being made Members content? I'm not sure I see the justification in that, considering that F2P PvP isn't really all that it's cracked up to be, save for a handful of clans every blue moon...

I'll admit that, at one time, I did. They stood by their word and did what they felt was best for their game, and was one of the few F2P games that I felt was enjoyable. However...I don't anymore. The key issues that they've flip-flopped on, as well as their devil-may-care attitude towards F2P have faded the respect that I once gave them.

It's cheap, easy to do, and doesn't require interaction with the person themselves (social engineering would be the ideal vector of attack, but it isn't always available). It's still usable, and it's still used. Not having a password attempt threshold makes this attack vector more tantalizing to use, if a person feels like they can invest the cash in the attack. On Topic: It's interesting that they're completing the dragon set, and I'm glad that they are - but it feels a bit weird though. We had to jump through hoops (although by today's standards, Legend's Quest isn't much...) to get the right to wear the Dragon Square - are there any special quests required to complete to wear this? http://us.battle.net...opic/5271503297 So long as it's throttled or limited, bruteforce attempts are pretty much gimped. That assuages any concerns on my end.

It's cheap, easy to do, and doesn't require interaction with the person themselves (social engineering would be the ideal vector of attack, but it isn't always available). It's still usable, and it's still used. Not having a password attempt threshold makes this attack vector more tantalizing to use, if a person feels like they can invest the cash in the attack. On Topic: It's interesting that they're completing the dragon set, and I'm glad that they are - but it feels a bit weird though. We had to jump through hoops (although by today's standards, Legend's Quest isn't much...) to get the right to wear the Dragon Square - are there any special quests required to complete to wear this?

All the feedback that rejected the SoF hasn't been acknowledged yet, but all the feedback to improve the rates of the rewards is? *sigh* Well, for those that enjoy this, they get a few new perks and more chances to win the super rare stuff.

I'm not sure who at Jagex decided to do this, but it's a step in the right direction. Something like this is doing the right thing, where instead of internally beta testing it and saying, "It's fine - we like it, you'll like it or leave it", they want honest feedback from their players. ...those last six words are hard to utter, especially given their recent look on feedback *cough*SQUEALOFFOURTUNE*cough*, but I think that it's a good start. I'll have to wait and see on this, though.

Seems like a decent update. My hope is that the fire spirit rewards aren't too heavily laced with promotional items (Members benefits, SoF spins, etc). Too bad the fire can't get bigger though. That would've made this a fair bit cooler.

Hmm. I feel that I learned less about the game when watching the trailer. That says nothing about what it's about or what the story is like; you just see some archer trying (barely) to hit on chicks, something coming out of nowhere and getting frozen, and then that's it. Not sure I see what Jagex is doing with this...not sure if I like it, either. Oh well; good luck with this advertising campaign.

Using numbers in your response makes you sound authentic. I mean, no one here would believe that "the vast majority of Members" use the spin, but "90% of Members" is more believable. There are three types of lies...lies, damned lies, and statistics. Just sayin'.