The news reports keep shifting, but the latest that I heard (on network news Monday 12/17) is that Lanza had a combat shotgun that he left in his car. All his killings were performed with the semi-auto rifle. At the end, he used a handgun to take his own life.
The 'lunatics' are angry young men. They pop up whenever there is economic injustice. That's why Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Greece are burning right now. When conditions are bad, the young men snap. It's a human trait; hell, it's a primate trait. You see the same incidents in chimpanzee tribes that don't treat their young males well, although of course chimps don't own guns.
There are three angles by which you can attack this problem:
Make society prosperous enough that no one becomes angry at it. That's unrealistic.
Monitor, jail, and either kill or treat all people with a hint of mental problems. In bad economic times, that will mean imprisoning a large fraction of your male population.
Eliminate guns. Determined lunatics will use bombs or knives, but it can be more difficult to kill people in mass that way, especially on a sudden impulse.
That's a decision our society needs to make, whether tragedies like this are acceptable losses for the freedom we gain by owning guns. So far we as a nation has said that yes, we are willing to live with a lot of senseless murder to keep our freedom. It may not be logical, and you and I might disagree with the majority, but it's their clear choice so far.
Being in a democracy means that every so often, the mob votes to throw you into a volcano. Freedom isn't free; sacrifices need to be made, and sometimes children's lives are the cost of that freedom.
for those that do care
pretty damn difficult to die there except from exposure to the heat
The kangaroos will gut you, the snakes will kill you, and there isn't an inch of Australia that isn't covered with deadly spiders. It's pretty easy to die on the whole god forsaken continent, especially if you get lost. Shame that it's so beautiful.
As far as I know the emus are harmless.
Two points to note: We *are* running out of raw materials for synthetics, as they are made using crude oil. And the hagfish slime fabric would likely first replace similar natural fabrics such as silk.
With those points in mind, I think hagfish harvesting might just be economically viable. At least we've finally found a use for the disgusting things.
City of Heroes had a cash shop also. Not as mandatory for the PvP-based GW2, but I consider the comparison a wash. CoH players spent more cash on costumes than GW2 players spend on elite equipment.
I believe that NCSoft's decision to retool to the Korean-only market came too late in the development cycle of GW2 to just cancel it. They're going to suck all they can out of that game then abandon it. I agree with you that Arenanet is in the same position as Paragon, and I sympathize with them.
The cash shop in GW2 allows purchase of gems, which translate to inventory space, bank space, character slots, and gold to buy anything you want in the in-game auction house. I don't know how you leveled so fast in GW2; I gave up at about level 30, when I realized that crafting was useless at my level, I didn't have the gold to buy the weapons I needed to survive solo, and my character would never again gain another interesting power. It's a grind that requires real-world money to have an efficient character. If that kind of gameplay was true to GW1 I'd understand it, but GW1 was extremely casual friendly. GW2 is a cash grab, and I fear that NCSoft was involved in making that way.
Killing CoH means NCSoft can leave the North American market, 98% of their revenue is in Korea. So they can shut down their US offices, data centers, marketing, get rid of Korean personnel with N. America knowledge, Korean managers dealing with N. America and so on. Lot's of secondary costs that can be lowered or gotten rid of totally. Just saving the time and hassle (late hours, mis-communication, flight costs, etc.) of communicating with the North American offices may be worth it. So even if CoH was profitable in isolation, once you add in all those other North America costs that get saved it may very well be a loss. Either way NCSoft clearly didn't want to deal with the hassle.
That's it exactly. But it still doesn't explain why they didn't sell the game to a company that would keep it running. That decision can only be described as short-sighted and evil.
Either way, I wouldn't trust any game NCSoft is running in America. They might close them down at the drop of a digital hat. Gamers outside of Korea should stay far, far away from anything NCSoft tries to sell.
Guild Wars 2 is not a subscription game -- players buy the game once and then play forever.
In 2008, players in City of Heroes were paying $15/month to play. That changed when they went free-to-play, but the population went up significantly at that time.
CoH was a reliable, if small, revenue stream for NCSoft. GW2 was a cash infusion that won't repeat itself until they release an expansion, and then probably at far reduced amounts.
I'd describe neither as 'cash cows'. But CoH *was* reliably profitable.
Many flaws in your reasoning, but I'll pick at just one: The Paragon Studio employees weren't retasked to other games. They were unceremoniously canned.
The *only* thing NCSoft gained by shutting down CoH was server space, which is pretty cheap. In return they lost a $2.75M/quarter revenue stream, a dozen or so experienced developers, and the goodwill of millions of gamers. (Hundreds of thousands of people who actually played, plus a lot of bad publicity.)
At a minimum, they could have sold the game to a company that would have kept it running. Then they could have retasked their servers while pocketing a big cash infusion and avoiding bad press. But they were too short-sighted to even do that.
What's the Korean word for 'clusterfuck'? That's the best explanation for this whole fiasco.
What on earth are you talking about?
CoH was 5% of their revenue, I think 3%. It was never, ever, ncsoft's flagship product. They didn't even make it; they bought it from someone else. They saved it from being closed back in the day, and they made money on it, but it's never been their biggest game, or their most successful, or anything like that.
They never saved CoH from being closed. CoH was never in danger of closing. The development team split, with half of them going off to make (the inferior) Champions Online, but the game was always profitable. NCSoft swooped in and bought it because it was worth money, not to 'save' anything.
CoH was nothing like a 'flagship', though. If anything, Guild Wars 1 was their flagship product in America. On the other hand, CoH was a constant revenue stream unlike GW1.
Healing *did* draw aggro in CoH. It's just that Tanks in CoH were much, much better at pulling that aggro back onto themselves.
Hint to other games: If a character class is supposed to play a role, let them be the best ever at that role. There is no other game that has balanced yet indestructible Tanks like the ones in CoH.
As a player of CoH I've been watching this all unfold for months, and it's just sad on every level. Obviously sad for the players and developers, but there's a greek tragedy that is looming over NCSoft as well.
The 'strategic reasons' that caused NCSoft to shut down CoH is that they just don't understand the product -- an easy-to-play game friendly to casual players with little or no PvP content. That kind of thing doesn't sell in Korea and doesn't make sense to NCSoft's Korean masters. They have made a decision to consolidate their games along the Korean 'grind-and-PvP' model, possibly with a centralized game store using common currency, as some other large game producers have done. CoH could not be adapted to that model. Advertising in America would be additional cost for a marketing department that only understands Korean game culture. So they decided to effectively pull their games out of America and focus on what they know best back at home.
It's a strategy, I guess. They'll still sell games in America, but they'll be anglicized versions of Korean grindfests with little or no marketing. GW2 is a prime example...and the players there are beginning to understand that, with the GW1 gameplay replaced by ridiculous grinds and a 'pay to win' cash market, not to mention characters from the korean alphabet creeping into the American version of the UI.
Frankly I wouldn't trust NCSoft to keep any game alive in the Western market, not now and not for another year. They don't want to do business here. They don't want to make the kind of games that casual players enjoy. They want to have a stable full of Lineage clones, and cutting off a profitable CoH is the first step towards that strategic goal.
It's just a tragic display of hubris. They were even too short-sighted to consider selling the game. Just sad, all around. RIP, Paragon City. I'll remember you for letting me be a hero.
All jokes aside, if McAfee is right and Belize authorities want him dead, this is exactly how they'd make him disappear. Capture him, kill him, dump his body, and then claim he was never in custody.
When you're in the military you follow the chain of command and trust that your superiors are working in the best interests of your country.
If you find evidence your superiors are not, then you have the choice to exercise the soldier's prerogative: Shoot your commanders in the back, and face the consequences. You will give up your own freedom, but you will remove a commander who was harming your country.
Manning effectively shot his superiors in the back. Now he has consequences to face. A good soldier would stand up, say 'Yes, I did this and here are my reasons', then go to jail and hope that history vindicates him.
I've noticed several design suggestions in your code.
