Same here. I was pulling a bare 3.0 until I started smoking my 2nd year.

People have access to a resource that they wouldn't have had otherwise?

I don't know about you, but that seems like a definite improvement to me.

I wish I could get 2Mbps where I live. That would double what I can get here.

I didn't know he played other characters!

Considering that changing a hostname is as easy as editing a hosts file, no, I don't. That's pretty common knowledge on a college campus (at least, it is on mine), it could have been spoofed by any of his peers; same with the name of the computer. An entire three commands run on any box could produce that result.

I'd rather he get away with being guilty and keep this kind of thing from happening to innocent people than innocent people have to go through this. Really, though, I'm more worried about item 4(f)(g); namely, that the fact that he uses an "uncommon operating system" is being considered by some as probable cause in its own right.

I did, before I even posted that. I don't see why that matters, though.

Whether or not an expert was 'requested' doesn't change that they should analyze this kind of information analyzed by someone who knows what's going on *before* taking steps to try to get a judge to authorize the seizure of someone's personal effects. That should obviously be part of the "things that happen before we ruin this guy's life" list, not part of the "things we can wait until later to worry about" list.

Think.

Because campus cops can apparently do whatever the hell they want?

If their job includes deciding who to go after based on what happens on teh intarweb, then they should be, or have access to someone who is. It's worthy of being a front pager because he isn't and no one stopped him on that basis.

I think doing less (read: obtaining only items specified in the search warrant) would be more along the lines of "reasonable search and seizure", and anything more would be a violation of basic constitutional rights.

Some schools have public safety officers who are also sworn police officers, and thus have full police powers.

I'm not sure about Boston College, though.

Depending on who that someone is, yes.

You're missing the point.

It isn't about the magnitude of the gain. Its about there being a gain at all, and whether or not the same level of gain can be achieved through speed and efficiency killing new players rather than fighting one another.

If I can kill swaths of noobs at the starting city at 10 a minute and get 2.4 points for each one, what's the point of a 10-minute long PVP session that nets me 24 points?

Its pretty simple.

Person ranked #2 decides he wants to be ranked #1. He's not really good at the game, but he does have a lot of time on his hands. So, he spends 20 hours a day fighting and killing people who just started playing. Even though he's only getting one or two points a kill, it doesn't matter; if he can kill new players at a rate 24x that of player ranked #1, then he can ascend to that spot. Does that help?

This would work in most current MMOs because playability is tied to the level; e.g, a high-level character is going to be better than a low-level character. You can't take a low-level character and put him with a bunch of high-level characters and expect him to be of any use. With the possible exception of games like EVE Online, where even a newly made character can at the very least jam you and run away, the new players would get walked all over for points.

It doesn't really need to be said how it rewards griefing; it already intrinsically does so. if it offers any kind of benefit at all for killing newer players, and especially if it offers the same or better benefits, taking into account the amount of time required to kill one, number killed per day, etc, its going to reward it.

The question is how to make it NOT do that; e.g, establish a point below which no reward is gained, and stick it about halfway down from your current level or whatever.

Please, as the GP posts, don't consider implementing this anywhere without addressing some of the more glaring issues.

Of course it is. I'm not complaining about it.

I was merely answering the question; the parent to my original post said 'Who doesn't go to Youtube'? Being one such person, I replied, with the said reason I don't use it.

I don't think that he understands that if you want something on demand in this way, you're going to pay for it; either you're going to pay for the hosting yourself and ensure that no data gets kept or anything like that, or you pay the cost in the users privacy, farming them out as eyes for advertisers and data for demographic mining.

I'd rather spend money and retain my privacy. My privacy is more valuable than I can put a dollar amount on.