Additionally, it's still not clear why we can't continue to deal with trolls as we always have and just ignore them. Why is it that contrasting views, even if intentionally ignorant, dim, hateful or hostile annoy people so much? If your posts can't survive the human waste that might respond to you, then perhaps they should not be posted.

My understanding was that the system primarily sorts apps by number of downloads, though.

I'd prefer a MMO that's not overrun by fanboys. And to make matters worse, it's not like they're fanboys of the game but the underlying franchise.

Nope. Thanks. I don't play MMOs for the RP aspect. I prefer the "let's coop to blow some shit up" part.

Sorry. I was there for its first incarnation. Fool me once and all that. Yeah, yeah, I know, they redid it into a completely different game. I don't care. Besides, I don't like the whole FF franchise.

I absolutely loved AO. It was one of my first MMOs and I remember it fondly. I remember the tower wars, I remember the insane mass battles. It just ... I dunno. It kinda got worse and worse with every expansion. I'd probably instantly jump into it again if there was any chance to find people to play with again, if only 'cause I absolutely loved it.

Even though it certainly ain't the same anymore. I miss those "100k for $buff NOW or my $other_buff runs out before I can put $item on" screams.

By that I mean that no amount of discussion or "correction" of abuses of the term will correct the general public's use of it.

See also "cracker" vs. "hacker".

So because Suarez is in the UK, when speaking in his native tongue, he uses a word that sounds like nigger, he is automatically a racist? This word negrito, btw, a word Suarez's grandmother still calls him.

So much for the most cosmopolitan league in the world. It's no wonder that all the best players are leaving for Spain. I never thought the country of Wilberforce would be so racist in the 21st century as to make the USA look tolerant in comparison.

Much as downmodding is not the "disagree" button.

You seem to be conflating several issues, as well as setting up some straw men, neither of which encourages constructive debate.

One issue is statutory licensing, which may artificially limit the number of people who can drive for-hire vehicles in a given area. It is true that such regimes are vulnerable to local politics and regulatory capture, pushing expenses up for drivers and reducing competition. There are also some arguments in favour of reasonable licensing regimes, not least because there is only so much road space and so much demand for hire vehicles. There is certainly room for debate about how this side of the industry works and whether newer alternative models might be better.

Another issue is safety regulations, which typically restrict things like permitted time behind the wheel without a break or how often vehicles must be maintained and tested. This is quite a different thing from licensing to limit supply in the market, though clearly some method of identifying who is subject to the safety regulations is needed. Here it is common, at least in my country, for professional drivers who spend many hours behind the wheel to be regulated. For example, lorry drivers and coach drivers also have to comply with regulations that don't apply to individuals driving private vehicles for their own purposes. Here, there is much less room for debate. Normal people don't spend the equivalent of an entire working day behind the wheel, day in and day out, with relatively little to keep their attention focused on driving. Even when private individuals make long journeys by car, they rarely spend as long behind the wheel as lorry drivers do daily. And of course the service and mandatory testing intervals for private cars are set with private driving in mind, while vehicles used commercially tend to do much higher mileage.

As a third related issue there is insurance. It is a legal requirement in my country for every driver to have proper insurance to certain minimum standards. Note that this is primarily for the protection of others: as far as I know, you can still drive a personal car without insurance to cover wrapping it around a tree and writing it off, but you may not legally drive it without "third party" insurance that would cover any damage you do if you wrap it around someone else's car and write off both vehicles. Insurance policies typically specify things like the type of vehicle and how it will be used and are priced accordingly, and the insurance industry probably has a better understand of the true risks of different types of driving than anyone else. So letting people drive commercially when their insurance doesn't cover it would just be a loophole and a clear risk to other road users who won't be protected as the law requires in the event of an accident.

I don't think the people who question services like Uber on regulatory grounds are necessarily against competition or innovation in the marketplace. I'm certainly not; I write software every day for businesses that do stuff no-one has done before that is only possible because of that software, so why would I want to hold back progress? But some of those regulations really are there for good, sensible, practical reasons, and I don't think a new entrant into the market should get a free pass on breaking the rules that apply to everyone else just because they're new.

The Premier League / FA is a bunch of racists. The hitjob they did on Luis Suarez for the use of his non-offensive word negrito (ie blackie, a South American equivalent of calling someone Red) smacks of the worst of Jim Crow. England should and eventually will be ashamed of this.

The Premier League / FA should also be ashamed that they allow so much corrupt Russian money to go flowing into Chelsea. That football club was bought and paid for by the blood of the Russian people. They have allowed Abramovich, the good buddy of dictator Putin, to run riot with stolen money.

Any good MMOs out there worth playing?

Damn. Now I'm going to get modded offtopic...

First we hang you and your kind.

Then we'll work something out.

Pity this didn't exist during the days of atmospheric nuclear testing.

Damn right, let's get rid of any kind of government influence in the market! Why do we still have building codes? Let the market sort it out, if they build shoddy houses nobody will want to live in them if they can collapse on top of you any moment.