You'd think they want a broad audience.. I've been really interested in trying out Entropy, but they don't support Vista O_O

The choice of some customers is not the choice all customers want.

Case in point, I stop for a sausge-egg biscuit at a local fast food chain every day before work. It's near my office so I've got usually 10-15 minutes to eat before heading into work. Now, these biscuits are almost always scorching hot. I mean hot to the point that simply holding the biscuit in your hand, would burn skin. Maybe just first degree burns but still burns.

Now imagine trying to eat that. Sure, I've got the 10-15 minutes to eat it, but who wants to let it sit on the dashboard for that long just to cool off enough to eat, so I can scarf it down in 3-4 minutes before having to clock in for the day? My solution is, ask them to not cook it so hot, or arrive earlier to work, so I have "appropriate time" to let it cool. I call B.S. If a piece of food is literally to hot to be held in your hands, from a fast food place (where you typically expect to eat within a few minutes of buying your food) then they've obviously made it TOO hot.

curious as to what this guy did online 15 years ago that would both warrant a g-man visiting him and his need to have it removed from viewing online?

Apple has released a device with only 4GB. My 3rd Gen iPod Nano, is a 4GB model of the two (the larger being 8GB at the time), circa September 2007. It was I believe $150, maybe $199 at the time, can't quite remember. But they have released something with that little storage, fyi.

Forgo the laptop, the only thing you needed with traveling is a towel.

"No barriers to entry".

Seriously? Check out some of my replies to job related topics on /. over the years. It took me almost 5 years after college to find a job in the I.T. field, and that job being at the bottom rung of anything tech related, telephone based technical support.

There are so many barriers, it's not even funny anymore. Most basic I.T. jobs are requiring a 4 year degree, 2-3 years experience, a spreadsheet listing's worth of Certifications, etc. Granted, I could have spent a few more years going to a nice 4 year college after having saved up the money working a retail job, to get that degree and such, but that's not really "entry level" at that point.

Maybe it's par for the course, or at least becoming that way, but lets not bullshit a bullshitter, there are obvious barriers in the I.T. field. And thats not even counting places that might secretly discriminate on age, race, etc (I've seen people in their 50's with a metric shit ton of experience be passed over for that 20-something who coasted his way through an Associates).

Some of us got into I.T. for the love of technology. Prior to the economy diving, I could have gotten a job at Wal Mart or some place. Yes, for vastly less money, but I'd rather work with technology at least in some fashion, I like problem solving. Maybe with work and effort, I can make a career of it.

I used to love it back in the day, removed all kinds of spywave, simple gui, updated easy enough, you ran it when you wanted, etc

These days it keeps half a dozen processes running in the background with more to be opened if you do any kind of scan. I realize having real-time protection is a nice feature, having to go in and auto disable all these is a pain. If you're still getting malware on the go, so to speak, from websites, and aren't using a browser than's got security or at least security add-ons (Firefox + Noscript + ABP + Flashblock) then I could understand the need for it.

Add in an anti virus software that does the same X number of processes in the background plus Ad-Aware thats way more bogged down software than ever. Ad-Aware used to be simple, clean and sleek, now it's just bloated shovelware (how quickly did they move from Version X to SE, to Version X.1?)

Stick with Spybot, Malwarebytes, HijackThis and a decent backup like Nod32, Avast or AVG, imho.

Spammers have been around since the dawn of selling virtual items and services in a MMORPG. People complain about having chat huds full of stuff? I remember begging NCSoft/ArenaNet to do something about this in the original Guild Wars circa summer 2005 when it was released, cause they actually had a limit of how many players you could /ignore

This is nothing new folks, it comes with the territory, especially in an Asian made MMORPG that has opened itself to a foreign audience. Honestly, stop complaining. Blizzard has the same issues with WoW, do I still complain about seeing spammers there? No, just like I didn't complain when they were in EQ, WoW, Diablo 1/2, etc etc etc

Does it suck? Yea it's annoying but its just part of the game. If it bothers you that much, don't play. Want to communicate with people in your party? Group chat, guild chat or Teamspeak/Ventrilo.

As for fixing it, some simple word filters and IP filters would work.

No I want an MMO. I don't mind progressing levels or getting loot, if it can be done in a timely manner. Rewards should be based on skill and achievement, not time invested. This is why Guild Wars really failed, in a lot of people's eyes, cause it was directly marketed as "Players are rewarded based on personal skill not time played". Yet when it came out, those who grinded through the PvE portion were vastly superior to those who just stuck with a PvP-specific toon.

Yes, what a lot of us want is something similar to Darkfall where gear isn't the end all be all of creating a toon nor is skills/abilities, it's often strategy and personal skill that wins. But as said, DF isn't in America yet.

As for full loot + easy high lvl access leveling PvP it's easy, they need to look at the way certain games handle player death and work around it. Case in point, one of the few cool features I do enjoy about Eve Online is limited character lives, if your pod gets trashed that toon is toast. There's risk but there is also great rewards in building it up. In Shadowbane, you could be PvP viable with slightly less than top tier end-game items BUT if you wanted those, you could attempt to fight others for crafting materials to make them or like UO, a thief class to steal stuff, etc

Done right, you can have full loot hardcore PvP with still meaningful PvE content if it's absolutely needed.

Before anyone says "Well..there's Darkfall". It's not available in North America yet, and even so it's still so new a lot of people are waiting on them to iron out the bugs before getting an account.

Aside from that, what hardcore modern day MMO's are there? Eve? Sure I love science fiction, a lot more than I do fantasy, but Eve while having hardcore pvp is also a grindfest, I absolutely hate how the skill leveling works, you're paying for a game to basically not play it. To reach end game high level pvp content takes forever

So what's left? I'll take an established IP if I have to but give me something that isn't a grind fest. Look at Guild Wars, while it turned out to suck cause of the "Faction Points" grind to begin with, the ability to great a max level character for PvP-only use was divine. Why can't other MMO's do this? Why as a PvPer do I have to suffer through PvE content? I'm paying as much as the next guy. I want full loot pvp, minimal "safe" zones if any, the ability to either quickly reach level cap or end game pvp content. Darkfall seems good but it's still in it's infancy. Mortal Online has some rumblings but that's still far to early to tell. And as much as I want hardcore pvp, I'm not gonna go back to UO after all these years.

well it could be recreated from a prop to a real time traveling device on some far away island...er..wait..not that Lost..

I had a major issue with Skype when I signed up with them in January. For $2.95 (in America) you can get their Unlimited, key fucking word here, Unlimited calling plan. $2.95 a month. I figure ok that's a great deal, low cost VoIP bandwidth maybe, so I signed up for that. Transaction went through just fine, within minutes I was calling family and friends across the country with ease from my PC.

Then my account shut down. I was talking to a relative and the call dropped. I attempted to call back, Skype came up with an error message saying I needed to purchase "Skype Credits". Which from reading the plan, I knew I didn't need. I thought maybe it was a bug or lag, so I relogged Skype, dialed again, same problem. I get more curious and hit the Skype support forum.

A few searches showed people with a similar error. Except it's not an error, it's Skype bending customers over a barrel. Apparently, there is a hidden clause, and I do mean hidden cause it is NO WHERE in their Terms of Service or any policies they have online, that states any account signed up with the "Unlimited" calling plan has a limit of 6 hours of talk time a day. Now you're thinking "ok that sucks but it's still good for $2.95 a month, free long distance, just call back the next day." WRONG. If you exceed your 6 hour limit, which YOU have to monitor yourself, your account becomes null and void. You can't use it anymore. When the next month comes around, the next billing period if you are using more than per-month payment, they will reset all accounts and you can then again use your account.. So I spent $2.95, talked 6 hours, then my account was just void for 31 days. This was not stipulated anywhere on their website and even their forum moderators who help people with technical support stated "Skype is currently working on revising our ToS to include this 6 hour limitation.".

Now again I know what you're thinking, if they didn't tell you about a policy for a service they offer, how can they hold it against you? They do. They will NOT issue you a refund, they will NOT make any exception about the matter, hell they act like the user is supposed to be psychic and know this. Granted, they may have updated their information since January of this year but at the time there were hundreds of threads on their forums about this, dozens of people out money. I had to resort to buying two more additional accounts since my first one got closed, just to make sure I had enough talk time per day. Every 24 hours the "limit" is reset so if you talked for 5 hours 58 minutes on Monday, Tuesday at 5pm EST it is reset so you can use it another 6 hours.. So my two accounts gave me 12 hours just ya know, to get around their HOUDINI-like ToS..

Last I saw several people were considering a class action lawsuit about it on their forums. If that ever happens who knows, I mean yea I know someone will mod this down and be like "QQ more it's only $2.95". Sure, that's a small fee for free long distance in North America but when you buy something labeled as UNLIMITED ya know, ya don't expect a 6 hour LIMIT.

YES! My best console memories, and indeed these beat out my memories of Atari 2600/NES/SNES/etc, are of my Dreamcast. By the time it came out in 99 I was old enough to start paying for games and stuff my self (around 18) and man.. I loved some of the titles for the DC. MvsC 1 and 2 were staples, I spent more quarters on them both in arcades than probably any variation of Street Fighter 2 in a decades time span. Crazy Taxi was so addictive, it was like the best game I ever bought for the DC next to MvsC 1&2 or Soul Calibur 1. Jet Set Radio was a nice change of pace with some simple yet beautiful graphics, Shenmue was THE rpg of the time period (I never really got into it, I have my copy still, but it wasn't my cup of tea).

I miss my DC, a lot. The controller was probably the best I've held on any console, it's library of games, while short, was awesome. While I am a PC gamer these days, I will totally think about buying a cheap 360 Arcade version just for MvsC2 and online multiplayer. I loved that fighting game, best 2D fighter in my opinion, ever.

I disagree. While it would be awesome to have pro level skill and be able to hang with the likes of fata1ity, zero, cooller or socrates, etc when you know you'd probably never be good enough to win anything spectating is fun as hell. I love being able to stream video online of high calibre matchups, just intense balls to the wall action of the best players duking it out for supremacy. I hate traditional sports other than a somewhat passive enjoyment of baseball but e-sports? awesome stuff. Counter Strike, Quake, Starcraft, etc just awesome to watch, especially if it's a game I play and know what the fuck they're talking about and understand the nuances. Some of us enjoy being e-sports spectators.

I've been wanting to try Entropia for a while now. My old PC was too far under spec to really run the game besides logging in and viewing a slideshow. My new PC easily meets the specs except..they don't support Vista O_O XP or below.. Which is quite sad since there are so few science fiction MMORPG's out there and even if only 100k or 200k of that 850k are active that's still quite a big enough player base to populate servers daily to warrant giving it a try.