I was a closed beta player. I think a big part of my loss-of-interest is that they've vanilla-ized each of the classes so much. The original players manual stated, for instance, that the mage was the highest damage dealing class, but in exchange, could likely be 1-or-2-shotted by some other classes. They were the epitome of the glass cannon. It defined the playstyle of the class. They had cool spells like invisability to enable a mage to attack while hidden (just once). They had khadgars unlocking. Hunters on the other hand, could do tons of damage, but also got to wear better armor, but as an expense, had to worry about sacrificing inventory space to store expendable ammo. I played vanilla, and then the first expansion. The classes were still unique, fun, and had that sort of a feeling. But making everything generic and getting rid of real defining abilities for each class has killed a lot of the fun. I want to trade the risk of being 1-2 shotted for being able to 1-2 shot other people. No class really feels like it stands out from the others so far as damage.

Obligatory: http://img.photobucket.com/alb...

I was really into PS2, and had been an avid PS player since the beginning. However, PS2 got a bit annoying after awhile. I didn't like how they limited you (unlike the original PS). The problem we had is every side on every server seemed to develop at least 1 "massive" guild that would just steamroll whatever they wanted with numbers. If you weren't in that guild, you basically scratched by. It made it un-fun.

They actually didn't do anything new and different. They basically put a few changes on FFXI and rebranded it as a new game. The locales weren't that different, the timer things were annoying, the races were the same (with a couple different letters different in the names)... it really didn't feel different. I'm saying that as a long time FFXI player.

My biggest issue is the huge push they put on players to pay extra cash.

You may enjoy guild wars/guild wars 2? The only big issue is that they really are heavy on the pay2play crap. Constantly getting drops and "chests" you can only open by buying "keys" that cost real world money.

I tried the original, and I tried the revamped version. I honestly couldn't get through the 45 minutes of intro before I could do anything interesting. Then when I got there, the combat just kinda felt... meh. I have 1 friend who plays and enjoys it, so maybe it gets better. I just didn't feel like giving too much time after everything leading up to that point.

I still think I'd be far more worried about the Russian doomsday machine that was actually built. Though, I suppose given this day and age its usage is growing more and more unlikely.

Correct. I know that at, for instance, T-Mobile a customer must be the one to hang up, or give explicit instructions that they are finished with the call. Otherwise, the CSR cannot hang up the phone or they risk losing their job. This ended up being an issue for T-Mobile employees in our area because they started getting calls from elderly folks/shut ins who just wanted someone to talk to, and they'd hang on the line for 2-3 hours refusing to hang up. The rep is powerless to hang up if the person on the line hasn't initiated hanging up. Not sure if the same applies to Comcast or not (or if the T-Mobile policy has changed).

AFAIK Comcast is not a public utility. Not sure about centurylink.

The bulk of Comcast support is handled in Colorado. They do hire some contractors but for the most part they work domestically. Granted, I only deal with Comcast Business class services, so maybe we have different tier1 folks.

So what you're saying is this may be a good time to invest in companies that make bottled water or purification systems.

I'll get rated down for this, but I agree with you. People don't want to look at a lot of hard facts. We currently have about 7.046 billion people alive (based on 2012 numbers). Our global human population is increasing by approximately 1.1% annually, which means we will double to 14 billion people in 63 years (following the rule of 72). Nearly about 870 million people are currently suffering from chronic malnourishment. 780 million lack ready access to water. Realistically, do we think logistical changes to provide food and water for another 7 billion people are possible in the next 63 years? Another 14 billion in 128 years? Another 28 billion in 193 years? Worse, some countries see growth rates as high as 1.8%, which would shorten that doubling rate to about 40 years. Exponential growth is a bitch. While ebola is no where near a nice way to go, a pandemic that wipes out a significant portion of the world may be preferable to experiencing water and food wars that will occur if we aren't able to institute logistics to provide for the constant influx of mouths to feed. Otherwise, we are going to be looking at global population controls within our childrens' or our grandchildrens' lifetimes.

Madagascar has closed their ports.

FYI, I'm a Comcast engineer. All CPE management interfaces (the interface between the CMTS and the CM) are moving to IPv6 and should be transitioned by the end of the summer. The only remaining devices with the CMM interface still running on IPv4 are a handful of business class devices which should be converted by september. Beyond that, any modem which runs DHCP on LAN interfaces is running in either IPv4 or dual stack mode, though the ultimate plan is to move everything to IPv6 eventually.