Hamtaro

wat "A Final Name" donated a Hex to SUOMI. "A Final Name" had a picture of the donation to SUOMI, but "A Final Name" lost the picture when his computer crashed.

Fewer than 95k people have 80 Dung. We'll assume 75% of them have the rapier while the others chose something else and don't have 87 yet. I'm sure the 71k people this will affect will cause the next "[cabbage] storm." God-forbid that the people who have rapier will now also have a better weapon and won't have to pay 200k/hr of use anymore. Did you really think chaotics would be the best forever? Better gear comes out all the time; that's the way this game works. It's been 1.25 years since they were released and it was only a matter of time until they were outclassed. It's not like the rapier would become totally useless anyway. How is anyone supposed to stab with a whip? For the group of players that actually cares about DPS, would you use slash on a frost dragon? I don't even care about efficiency and I wouldn't use slash on any dragon... For the person comparing Godswords to whips, Jagex doesn't measure DPS; players do. If they did, it would be in the stats menu for equipment. Jagex could have considered the Godswords to be superior and that's why they chose those stat requirements to be higher.

As far as I know, there is nothing hindering us from appealing an amendment. There are (at least how I will word it) two sections of amendments: 1. The Bill of Rights (the first ten) established at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which a vast majority of Americans confuse with the Declaration of Independence from 1776 and the Articles of Confederation. Even though none of the actual "founding fathers" were present at the Constitutional Convention, if anyone suggests stricter gun control, someone will go out to buy another gun while proclaiming that the founding fathers gave them the right to bear arms or some nonsense like that. For this reason, most Americans hold the Bill of Rights more sacred than the rest. 2. The 11th Amendment and beyond aren't so valuable to the traditional American. When our Dough Boys were off fighting alongside France and Britain against Germany in the first world war, a few religious and woman's suffrage groups lobbied for the passage of the 18th Amendment (the prohibition of alcohol). Eventually the Great Depression became so bad and smuggling/gangsters became such a problem that an amendment was passed, repealing the amendment (my point being, it has been done before). The problem with passing new amendments is the way that system works. It's based on the number of states that elect to ratify it or not. Obama just won the election, so it looks like this may be possible because a majority of voters are left-leaning. [spoiler=Oh wait that means nothing in our flawed system...] All of the red states are ones that would support the second amendment to no end, even though the blue ones have far more population. You need 38 (3/4ths of) states to pass an amendment. Yep, the writers of the constitution totally foresaw that there would be many low population states with similar political tendencies that can have the same power as the largest states in this matter.[/sarcasm] But yeah, I would agree with you on this, but our system doesn't work so well as it did in the 1700s, and we're kind of stuck in an infinite loop because of it (trying to pass an amendment to give states weaker power and give the power to the majority while using the state system won't exactly work).

If gun ownership wasn't protected by the constitution, you'd better believe that guns would have been outlawed by now. Forcing politicians to adhere to a constitution prevents them from changing laws all willy-nilly, especially in a political climate as chaotic as this one. The Constitution is a "living document," which means that it is meant to be modified through the ways it set up. The founding fathers were smart enough to know that the times change, so a constitution must change as well. The Constitution is meant to change. If the Constitution was set in stone, and one of the provisions was that slaves were to account as 3/5ths of a person, it would make sense that people would ignore that part, and it would make sense that they might ignore other parts as well. Since we're able to change the Constitution, it makes all the more sense that we must adhere to it. So what's stopping politicians from repealing the Second Amendment, then restricting gun ownership like they do over here in the UK? Surely they have the democratic authority to do that. Before I write this, I would like to state that I do believe in much stricter gun control. The problem with gun control, as the UK has clearly demonstrated as the knife capitol of the planet, is that people will simply seek alternatives. Alright, guns and knives are banned, what's next? Baseball bats, crowbars, and silverware? Plato sums up my thoughts on this: "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." Criminals are always going to break the law. What's to stop them from obtaining illegal firearms? Former prison inmates (especially those involved in gangs) in the US do that all the time as it is. Also, how would we go about banning guns? If my memory serves me correct, there are around 700 million guns in the US (twice our population). My family doesn't own any guns and no one I know owns any guns. This leads me to believe there are many people out there with stockpiles of weapons, and I can assure you some of them won't give them up without a fight. I would never want to be the guy that has to ring someone's doorbell and tell them they have an outstanding warrant for arrest for owning and not disposing of now-illegal fire arms... Would you? I wholeheartedly agree that civilians should not own guns, but there's no safe or efficient way of dealing with it as it is now. I'm no accountant (yet), but appealing the second amendment would probably cost more than the Iraq War to fully and safely enforce it (and smuggling would probably be just as bad, if not worse than during Prohibition).

The only thing uniting Tea Party members is that they believe they're "Taxed Enough Already." For most other policy or social issues, there is no consensus. The GOP lends itself better to the Tea Party than the Democrats because the Democrats want more wealth redistribution, which starts with more taxes. There are some things about the establishment GOP that the Tea Party despises, including crony capitalism and a willingness to put into office liberal RINOs. Besides all of that, the Tea Party really is just the name of conservatives and libertarians that want smaller government and an adherence to the US Constitution, which is why Ron Paul really is a member of the Tea Party. Alright, I can understand that. I was more so referring to the Palin, Bachman, etc. crowd with the people who show up with the racist and misspelled signs. I see them as the equivalent of hippies, but on the right instead of the left. @hawkxs I highly doubt he'll be running as a Democrat. I've met him twice before (ironically, not even in Michigan) and he's a relatively laid back guy even when politics are involved as seen , , and . He has a clear (appropriate for a Republican congressman) distaste of the Democratic party, while at the same time isn't some extreme far-right kind of guy.

You know that Ron Paul is nick-named the "Father of the Tea Party" ? By whom exactly? Rachel Maddow and MSNBC? Sounds about as fair and balanced as Glen Beck and Fox News. From what I gathered, he organized the original tea parties (not the Boston Tea Party like some smart ass will remark) where they "tea bagged" Washington DC as a protest to paying taxes (wouldn't say I support an end to taxes, but it would never happen anyway, so no worries there). I don't think many took the "tea bagging" seriously because of its name anyway. Ron Paul doesn't seem to have any current affiliation with them at all. Here's a quote from a NY Times article: How many Tea Partiers have you seen in photos of their rallies who support an end to the wars in the Middle East? For me, that would be 0. How about you? Probably the same... Thus, I would by no means consider him a tea party candidate.

I put Republican (USA). I'm really more of a Libertarian, seeing as I'm left-leaning on most social issues and strictly right-leaning on economics, but the Libertarian Party has virtually no chance at winning because of the two party system. I would have no problem voting for a Democrat, depending on his/her views and ideas. With the way the current 2012 presidential election is going, there are only like 3 Republicans (none of whom are likely to win the Republican primary imo) that I would vote for over Obama. IMO, Obama hasn't done a bad job at all so far and, contrary to Tea Party beliefs, actually extended the Bush tax cuts and then cut taxes by another 2% (granted, at the cost of an already bleeding social security system). I would have no problem voting for him if the Republicans put up Romney, Palin, Bachman, or anyone else from that crowd. 2012 for me: Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) > Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) > Ron Paul (R-TX) > Randall Terry (D-NY) > Barack Obama (D-IL) > Anyone Else > Any Tea Party Candidate So probably McCotter in the primary and Obama in the general election.

Apparently the pop up also occurs at 10 mining (and 10 wc I would presume).

I don't actually live there yet, but it's where my nuclear fallout shelter is located for when WW3 starts. Granted, it will may be between China and the US, so the Pacific could be a bad position. Although, I'm pretty safe from any outsiders where I am now...

We already had the Warrior's Guild bank and and Rogue's Den bank.

My friends made pures today and got this message: I think they're both convinced now. In all seriousness, though, this is really desperate.

http://services.runescape.com/m=devblog/view_post.ws?post_id=124

That's fair enough. I thought you were implying a whole different aspect of the update than what I was referring to at first. I still think you're misunderstanding me about the 3/12 months thing. Normally these summer players would only pay for these 3 months (regardless of loyalty based on play time, as they're measuring loyalty based on $), but now they feel forced to pay when they're not even playing (or just for 1 or 3 days for those other updates). One of my friends whom I met years ago back on RSC is someone whom I only see during the summer, because that's the only real time he can play (hence, the only time he pays). I saw him on around P2P near Christmas just for that extra reward from the holiday update. He also subscribes for the bonus XP weekends just so he can take advantage of the extra XP. He didn't subscribe for new, exciting, or game-changing content; he did it because of artificial content. I would personally consider him a loyal player (he was constantly subscribed from 2003-2008 until he began college), considering he has every non-trade-able holiday item and still loves RuneScape , but Jagex doesn't see it that way. It's not because he doesn't want to play, it's because he can't (God forbid he become a productive member of society with a medical degree). I don't necessarily have a problem with that because that's not how the mechanics of the program work. I do have a problem with making him, as well as others, feel obligated to stay subscribed even when they don't play and for not rewarding past suscriptions (they were obviously loyal and it's just plain illogical not to thank them for when they did subscribe). How was he not loyal for nearly 50 straight months and an additional 11 now? The only reason he's not "loyal" by Jagex's bizarre definition of the word is because of time constraints with his education. It would kind of be like my grandma making monthly payments on a brand new car that she would only use to buy groceries twice a month. But who am I to argue with Jagex? I'm just a nub who's been around for only 7 straight years and subscribed for only 5 straight years. Apparently, my friend and I aren't so loyal as little Billy who wanted nothing more than the Ornate Katana for his June birthday :(. Even his W31 house parties girlfriend, "Lady ImNotADude," got that well-designed hand shake emote (the program certainly was designed for a wide variety of players ;-) ). Maybe we'll catch up to his loyalty when he has to unsubscribe just to make it through Mrs. Johnson's 4th grade class next year (I hear they have to do scary things like read books without pictures, write in cursive, and perform long division). All joking aside, it really is a horrible measurement of loyalty to disregard past membership. I know my friend certainly had the time to play back when he did and would now as well, but he's busy becoming a doctor or something useless like that. But Jagex really is in the right here; he's obviously not loyal just because he wants to eat and study instead of paying for RS and playing during those 9 months.

[spoiler=Large Quotes] Allright, in a few days time ill make an article discrediting everything that was said. Your argument about the previous membership is valid, but only partially, JaGEx chose to measure loyalty from a set point in time, which is the release of the loyalty rewards system, unfair? not really, they did provide arguments to why it was done so later, - they had some technical difficulties (i remember coming across a thread about it in RSOF, didn't read much into it, but ill search for it), and the main reason was that the ammount of people which would have very unproportionally more points is much lower than those who would have FAR less than them, which would lead to similiar ranting as yours, but reversed, and larger in several orders of magnitude. And of course lets not forget JaGEx is a company, which needs to make money, so they want to release the program with everyone starting equal so the rewards would take longer to get, thus encouraging more people to (hopefully) remain subscribed longer Somehow you seem to disregard the fact that they are actually making RuneScape, the game we play, if they're getting more money, we should be happy, not anything else. Also, you don't have to remain subscibed to get the rewards, you can subscribe one month at a time, and still get points, albeit alot lower then you would get when many months in advance, (hence the term "loyalty"). Getting the top armour in game would take months upon months for an average player, if not years. I see no diffirence between this and waiting those months (even if you subsribe one month at a time, only when you play). Actually it's even better, it's free stuff you get for doing nothing. Alright, I'll await that article. Be sure to submit it as a Letter to the Editor as opposed to a guest article because it's replying directly to an article. The set point in time is fine and good, but the thing is actual loyalty can't just me measured from a set point in time. If they were rewarding for actual loyalty, I would have 917k more loyalty reward points than what I was given this week. They aren't rewarding for loyalty at all, or I would have those points. From what I pulled out of your post, you're assuming that everyone is in a similar situation to players like us with perpetual membership. That's not the case at all... I'm assuming you're familiar with what is known as the "summer crash" when many dump their P2P items before going F2P for 9 months at the end of summer. This obviously signifies that a good portion of players are only subscribed during the summer months when they are available to play. These three consecutive months will earn a dismal 8,500 points per year because according to Jagex, "Should you leave it for over 30 days, you will go right back to the start." If anyone wants to take advantage of these rewards and doesn't want to wait 10 years, they have to stay subscribed for 9 inactive months where they spend $45+ to do absolutely nothing with it. This also goes along with how Jagex runs bonus XP weekends. Instead of hosting ones during December and July when most are available to play, they host them in March and September to make people pay 30 days of membership for 3 days. Or how about Christmas of 2006 and 2010 when they had members only rewards? Jagex is essentially trying to get you to pay for not playing. From a business standpoint, it's brilliant, but from a PR standpoint, it's absolutely terrible. It's shady marketing at best and I don't approve of it at all. Having more money doesn't mean a whole lot anyway. I would say that Jagex could use the money to hire more people to ban bots, but with this rollback BS, they probably just want $ from the bots too. Having more money here isn't improving the game - it's making it worse (inb4bots lower prices). The P2P game should be inherently entertaining enough in and of itself to draw members to its content. Not some points 12 days out of the year, bonus xp 6 days out of the year, and holiday events 4 days out of the year. This isn't pay-to-play anymore. It's pay-for-365-days-and-play-for-a-third-of-that. Sounds legit. Instead of wasting dev time on garbage like this for artificially inflated membership numbers like this, they could be working on the Eastern Lands, the ROTM quest line, or even Prifddinas, which we have been waiting over 5 years for. This would actually improve the game instead of giving someone the ability to use a a hand shake emote (which doesn't even look like a hand shake...) or a barely useful aura (and how could I forget the extremely useful recolors and outfits + the totally unannoying titles). RuneScape will never be looked upon as a respectable game by video game critics or anyone else if they continue crap like this. Just look what happened with Team Fortress 2 - it was an extremely popular game amongst the PC gamers until Valve started selling hats in the game (for real cash), which didn't quite collapse their player base, but certainly diminished it enough to have them release it for free on Steam. Strategies like this have failed in the past. They will certainly generate much temporary revenue, but will ultimately decline due to a lack of continuous substantial content (which is what I'm subbed for). If Jagex doesn't stop with these semi-microtransactions, so too will the enjoyment of the players fall into a dismal abyss of non existence. @strilmus Bungie is done with Halo other than tracking stats after the 7th of July (Bungie Day). That is a goodbye gift to their fans, not some quick marketing gimmick.

@Dormado It's not much of a loyalty rewards program. I've had membership for well over 60 consecutive months, but apparently I'm on par with some kid who was previously F2P and just got a Katana is just as loyal as I am? Why wasn't I rewarded for my over 60 consecutive months of pure loyalty? Because it's not a rewards program, it's alluring people to keep paying for membership even when they know they won't be playing (like the many who are only subscribed during the summer months). It also pressures F2P who were unsure of whether to go P2P or not to subscribe, not because of legitimate content, but because of rewards that can only be "earned" for months of membership (as opposed to actual content which could be completed whenever). The featured article stands as a dogmatic and rigorous critique of Jagex's money grabbing schemes from 2010 to 2011. Just because someone differs in opinion to you does not mean that it is trolling. As the editor of the article, I would like you to please point out which "lies" that I apparently missed. Saying that research was ignored is not the same as providing research that discredits statements made in the article.

Heterosexual I put Asian (Chinese), but I'm also Italian and Welsh Christian (Catholic), but my mom thinks I'm atheist because I acknowledge evolution as fact and support gay rights

So I hear that someone who begins paying for membership this week is just as loyal as I am? Cool. Now, I'm not saying that I deserve any special privileges or unique items for my five and a half consecutive years, but rather that I should have a five and a half year head start with the loyalty rewards program over Ilikecheese69 who begged mom for a Katana from Gamestop last week. Oh well, this, the Katana, and banning barely banning any P2P bots just shows that Jagex needs some serious cash right now. As long as micro-transactions never come to RS, I won't be upset :-|.

Well, what I posted was meant to show that this guy wasn't even from Vancouver and that it sounds like he went there only to cause trouble. I saw a photo of a police car in Vancouver about 2 days after the "riot" covered with post-its saying thank-you and some other photos of the clean up effort. The city came together for a great cause and that outshines any trouble makers who were actually from Vancouver. It's a shame when a few people can give so many a bad name, especially since some people will irrationally never let Vancouver live this down. The fans who were actually at the game set a good example by not only staying after the loss, but applauding Thomas and the rest of the Bruins. The only one they booed was that horrible commissioner, which I would have done too even if my team won. Good luck to the Canucks next year, although I'm still hoping for an Original Six streak :thumbsup:.

Later...

Well, Detroit was approaching 1M people at the turn of the century and actually tried to import people to meet that new threshold for tax benefits form the US government. 10 years of problems with the American auto industry later (basically our entire economy) and I believe they're below three-quarters of a million now. I was just in Detroit last week for the USA vs. Canada soccer game at Ford Field and off the highway, I could see a bunch of abandoned homes with broken windows, graffiti, worn down foundation, ply wood, and whatnot. There were many abandoned buildings too with the same problems. Detroit recently had a corrupt mayor (found guilty in a court of law) who really mismanaged the city at the worst possible time. We were at our worst economically in 2008 and the pain was eased a little by Bush's bailing out the auto industry and Obama's Cash for Clunkers program. Detroit is a very prideful area and most of us can't stand to see Detroit or Michigan at the bottom of anything positive or the top of anything negative. Detroit's municipal government and some organizations are beginning relief efforts to "rebuild" the city so-to-speak. The largest problem with those efforts is the crime downtown away from Joe Lois Arena, Ford Field, and Comerica Park. Our new governor is also looking to fix Detroit because the last one sat on her ass for 8 years while the state went to [cabbage]. It's not so bad as you may hear on the news, but meh. The main reason for the deteriorating of the city was the collapse of the auto industry. I collected and organized a lot of research on the main reasons of the collapse if you'd be interested in reading that.

I wonder what happened to Boston Pizza or if they'll lose a lot of business now.

Congrats to the Bruins on their shut out win and to the Canucks for a great season. Thomas put up one of the best performances I have ever seen in this playoffs. Congrats tom him on MVP. I'm all for this Original Six streak that may be beginning... Also, lol @ Chara for dropping the f bomb on live television when they won.

Turned on SportsCenter to get some previews for the game tonight, but apparently the fact that Lebron James chocked and that someone can hit a baseball without steroids is more important than a Game 7 Stanley Cup Final :thumbup:. I think Vancouver deserves the win, but I wouldn't mind if Boston won.