Ultimately, the service they would provide would be content before any of the knock offs. Plenty of companies have tried to make knockoffs of wow, some even with otherwise very compelling universes in the baggage (lord of the rings online, warhammer online), but no one has come close yet. Star Wars the Old Republic might, but I doubt it. A rose by any other name is still WoW. And right now they have a critical mass of users, which is all they need. They could shit in a shoebox and call it Mist of Pandaria and millions will buy it on the release day.

Sure, there exists private servers of Wow at this point too, and some people like to play on them, but for me? I wouldn't even want to. There's no challenge when everything is possible. I'm certain that even if a joint effort between developers of all sorts banded together to copy and create an MMO like wow, it would likely be crap, because they have no other incentive to make it than "because we can". Design decisions based on that are not good - look at linux. Even Mozilla is a company nowadays. A command structure is essential in creating a massive work of art in a reasonable time.

Making a copy of WoW isn't "just" making a copy of WoW, it's enormous. By the time someone has copied it to the finer details, the game will have moved on to something else; systems change all the time.

A good example of something happening like you say is Vampires: Bloodlines where the community made a huge amount of "community patches" to fix the game, after the developer went bankrupt. I like that, but they could do it because the things they were fixing were straight forward. If they wanted to make entirely new things, who decides which things are good and bad? Like wikipedia, they would need custodians. A private company like Blizzard does not have that problem.

I was certainly a little too broad when I said all intellectual property is bunk. First of all I have a problem with the umbrella term of IP. I don't think it's helpful. Different types of IP have different solutions and problems. Some are more bunk than others. (Wtf is with they way rights to music works? What is it now, 100 years after the artist dies? Crazy.)

Like you I am philosophically on the "you can't own ideas, man"-wagon, but practically I'm more loose with my morals - hell, morals are fluid baby.

I'll say this. I would rather have 50000 people playing my game and 50 people paying for it, than I would have 50 people playing my game and paying for it any day.

>> ^NetRunner:

I think this is the most plausible way I've seen anyone square this circle. I'm just not sure it really holds up to scrutiny.
Philosophically, I'm in the "information isn't property" camp, but I also put food on the table by creating intellectual property.
The confluence of my own philosophical tastes on this topic would be that not only should "making copies" be legalized, it should actually be criminal to withhold any sort of scientific or engineering advance from the broader public, especially for selfish gain.
But, I think that would essentially destroy software companies as we know them. I think Blizzard & WoW would have trouble making the case to people that their service is worth $140/yr. That's especially true in the kind of world in which any content they generate can just be copied by a knockoff service provider just as easily as the original copy of WoW was in the first place.
I have trouble even imagining what sort of service they'd be able to compete on in that world. Uptime? In-game customer service? Best policing of player misbehavior? It can't be bugfixes (copyable), and it can't be content (also copyable).
I think ultimately WoW would have to become something more like an open source project -- the community provides all bugfixes and content gratis. Blizzard ultimately would have to give up any kind of creative or engineering control at that point, and also give up on having a revenue stream of millions of dollars a month, too. They'd just be a glorified hosting company. Companies like Microsoft probably wouldn't even be that.
It'd probably be better for the whole world that way, but not so awesome for incumbents in the industry.
You know, people like you and me.
>> ^gwiz665:
Essentially you couldn't. You would not be able to provide a better service without spending a very very large amount of money and effort into doing it. An MMO is a service, and you have to provide more than just stable servers for it to work, you also have to create new content, bug fixes etc to maintain the integrity of the product.
You can design your way out of it easily. Free to play is one way of doing it, which we have a lot of success with on iOS and the big shots on PC are waking up to as well, finally. Apple in general have their app rejection policy which keeps the most things at bay, but of course there is jailbreaks, which I don't much care for.
I don't have a problem with people copying, although I would of course prefer they give me lots of money. If they corrupt our product however, with map hacks, cheats etc. then it's a much different issue.
I think it's a problem that many different types of media is lumped together under "intellectual property", because I do think things like Art, music etc should be protected from forgeries and that the original artist should be compensated for his time, otherwise we would have no art at all.
The industry is changing to provide a better service still though. Look at music - who buys CDs anymore? We have things like Spotify and Grooveshark who stream just about any music easily supported by commercials.
Any Blizzard game, and all their future games, will need a persistent internet connection, both for piracy issues but also for better service - instant patching, social networking etc. Same with steam.

>> ^therealblankman:

>> ^Peroxide:
Kathryn Marshall is married to Harper’s former manager of strategic planning.

Can you cite this? I'm really interested.


http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/2012/01/09/ndp-mp-nathan-cullen-slams-harper%E2%80%99s-witch-hunt-environmental-charities

Why so many people are choosing not to endorse Ron Paul (from reddit)

Ron Paul's beliefs and positions.

He defines life as starting at conception,

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2597
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctity_of_Life_Act

Lies to maintain FUD regarding Abortion by claiming he "saw doctors throwing a live baby away to let it die"...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/01/03/say-anything-to-take-us-out-of-this-gloom/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/12/29/the_ron_paul_fetus_rescue_test.html
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/01/why-iowa-caucus-is-about-abortion

Denies evolution, "At first I thought it was a very inappropriate question for the presidency to be decided on a scientific matter ... I don't accept it as a theory."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4af9Q0Fa4Q @ 2:45
http://liberalvaluesblog.com/2007/12/22/ron-paul-backs-creationism-denies-evolution/

Does not believe in separation of church and state,

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html
http://www.irregulartimes.com/ronpaulseparation.html

Believes Education is not a right and wants to privatize all schools,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD8rJCbEVMg

Wants to repeal the federal law banning guns in school zones,

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr2613ih/pdf/BILLS-112hr2613ih.pdf

Denies Global Warming, "There is no convincing scientific evidence..."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul537.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vbMly74cZ8

Wants to get rid of FEMA and says we shouldn’t help people in disasters,

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/ron-paul-you-dont-deserve-fema-help-also-im-running-for-prez-video.php
http://climateprogress.org/2011/05/14/ron-paul-%E2%80%98why-not%E2%80%99-abolish-fema-since-helping-victims-of-disaster-is-compounding-our-problems/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6YQYhk3GRE

Wants to build a fence at the US/Mexico Border,

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll446.xml

Repeatedly has tried to prevent the Supreme Court from hearing Establishment Clause cases or the right to privacy,

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.300:

Pull out of the UN because "they have a secret plan to destroy the US",

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.1146:
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/05/ron-paul-announces-new-run-for-us.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ArUoyuDd74
http://www.ronpaul.com/2011-05-25/ron-paul-defend-the-constitution-not-the-u-n-security-council/

Disband NATO,

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2004/cr033004.htm

End birthright citizenship,

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.J.RES.46:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul346.html
http://www.dailypaul.com/140490/ron-pauls-views-on-immigration-do-you-agree-or-disagree
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtDZZHrT8mY

Deny federal funding to any organisation "which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style",

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d096:h.r.7955:

Hired former head of Anti Gay Group to be Iowa State Director of the campaign,

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/anti-gay-hate-group-chair-is-now-ron-pauls-iowa-state-director/politics/2011/12/29/32460

Wants to abolish the Federal Reserve in order to put America back on the gold standard,

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2755:
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm

He was the sole vote against divesting US Gov investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan,

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm

Was also the ONLY vote against a ban on Lead in childrens' toys,

http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/U-S-House-votes-to-ban-lead-from-toys-1774056.php

He believes that the Left is waging a war on religion and Christmas,

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html

He's against gay marriage,

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul197.html
http://theiowarepublican.com/2011/ron-paul-condemns-obama%E2%80%99s-decision-to-abandon-doma/

Will even legislate against gay marriage on a federal level and attempted to CRIMINALIZE efforts to overturn such a measure,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_Protection_Act
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/274704/20111230/ron-paul-proposal-severely-curtail-supreme-court.htm

Has even made it a point to base his campaign on Religion and being against Gay Marriage,

http://imgur.com/11Q77

Thinks Sexual Harassment shouldn't be illegal,

http://www.politicususa.com/en/ron-paul-sexual-harassment

Is against the popular vote,

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul214.html

Wants the estate tax repealed,

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul328.html

Believes that the Panama Canal should be the property of the United States,

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.con.res.231:

Believes that the International Baccalaureate program is UN mind control,

http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r109:E14AP5-0007:

Has associated with the founder of Stormfront, a White Power/Nazi Website,

http://www.freakoutnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/RonPaulStormfront.jpg

Keeps their donations,

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22331091/ns/politics-decision_08/t/paul-keeps-donation-white-supremacist/

And does nothing to prevent their association with his campaign.

http://patdollard.com/2011/12/white-supremacist-founder-of-stormfront-says-his-followers-are-volunteering-for-ron-paul%E2%80%99s-campaign/

Has gone on record that he had no knowledge of the content of the racist newsletters that bore his name AND signature,

http://www.vice.com/read/ron-paul-is-a-racist-leprechaun
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/12/ron-paul-denies-writing-coming-race-war-letter-he-signed/46622/

But has not only quoted them, but personally defended the newsletters in the past,

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/12/27/395391/fact-check-ron-paul-personally-defended-racist-newsletters/
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/02/ron_paul/

And later admitted he WAS aware of the contents and that only "some of [it was] offensive."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuWXnI97DwE

His issues with race go as far as to vote against the Rosa Parks medal (sole vote, again), saying it is a "waste of taxpayer dollars" and that it was unconsitiutional...

http://ronpaulsurvivalreport.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-nail-paultard-part-1-rosa-park.html

Despite the fact that the bill itself is very clear about a separate fund. All profit from this fund is returned to the Treasury.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h106-573

However, he had no issues with using taxpayer funds to mint coins for the Boy Scouts,

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-5872

AND introduce legislation that would spend $240 Million making medals for EVERY veteran of the Cold War,

(Archive.org Mirror) http://web.archive.org/web/20090604122724/http://www.theseminal.com/2007/12/30/ron-paul-lets-spend-240-million-on-commemorative-medals/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_Victory_Medal
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-107hr3417ih/html/BILLS-107hr3417ih.htm

But didn't bother to repeat his previous argument those times that such an act would be unconstitutional as he had with the Rosa Parks Medal.

http://ronpaulsurvivalreport.blogspot.com/2008/05/ron-paul-no-on-rosa-parks-yes-on.html

Introduced legislation, twice, that would allow schools to re-segregate.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d096:HR07955:@@@D&summ2=m&

His SuperPAC is headed by Thomas Woods who is the founder of the League of the South, of which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) labeled a "racist hate group."

http://www.revolutionpac.com/advisory-board/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Woods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_the_South

Also in association with the League of the South via Thomas Woods is the Mises Institute, of which Lew Rockwell is an Administrator...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mises_Institute#Faculty_and_administration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mises_Institute#Criticisms

Is against Hate Crime laws,

http://www.ronpaul.com/2009-07-02/ron-paul-collectivist-hate-crimes-bill-a-serious-threat-to-freedom-of-speech/

Would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964,

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/05/ron-paul-would-have-opposed-civil-rights-act-1964/37726/
http://www.ohioverticals.com/blogs/akron_law_cafe/2011/05/ron-pauls-position-against-civil-rights-act-of-1964-and-against-segregation-laws/

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/05/ron-paul-suggests-basic-freedoms-come-second-to-property-rights/

He also believes The Civil Rights Act destroyed Privacy,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/01/ron-paul-civil-rights-act_n_1178688.html

Despite always "voting against earmarks," he was only one of four House Repubs to request earmarks in 2011 for over $157mil. (And in FY 2010, was one of the leading House members in requesting earmarks for a total of $398mil.)

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Ron-Paul-s-Earmarks
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1033&Itemid=68

And during his entire tenure, he has managed only one, out of 620, of his bills to get signed into law.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ron-pauls-house-record-stands-out-for-its-futility-and-tenacity/2011/12/23/gIQA5ioVJP_story.html

Ron Paul is not a constitutionalist. He is not a civil libertarian. He's a secessionist, a fundamentalist and a confederate.

http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2011/12/ron-paul-not-civil-libertarian-last.html

Want more? Go here.

http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Ron_Paul

Ron Paul's Newsletters. Scanned. See the originals for yourself. They're worse than they've been quoted for.

http://rpnewsletter.wordpress.com/

>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^ChaosEngine:
While I disagree with the heavy-handedness of these laws, I do find it interesting that no-one seems to want to discuss the other side of the problem.

There is no problem.


Care to elaborate? Or should I just take your word on it and ignore the overwhelming amounts of evidence that supports my position?

>> ^ChaosEngine:

While I disagree with the heavy-handedness of these laws, I do find it interesting that no-one seems to want to discuss the other side of the problem.

There is no problem.

While I disagree with the heavy-handedness of these laws, I do find it interesting that no-one seems to want to discuss the other side of the problem.

http://www.newsmax.com/Manage/Videos/VideoGallery/Adm--Denton--%E2%80%98I-Knew-I-Was-Buying-Myself-a-Ticket-.aspx

Here is an interview where he describes what he went through

>> ^conan:

What? First Computer built in Iowa? Yeah Yeah Yeah, everything was invented in the US. It's like when we had exchange students from the states, asking us beforehand their trip if we have cheese and washing machines. First Computer was built in Berlin by Konrad Zuse. Bitches think they know IT :-)


You criticize Americans for claiming to have invented everything and then turn around and do it yourself. Zuse's claim to having the first "computer" is as tenuous as the Iowa claim. His Wikipedia article even says: "The first electronic computer (though not programmable) was the Atanasoff machine developed at Iowa State University during 1939-41."

Also, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware#Early_electronic_digital_computation which has a nice table of early computer features and has this disclaimer: "Defining a single point in the series as the "first computer" misses many subtleties"

Clearly there is a continuous progression of more and more modern looking digital computers during this era. I mean look at the Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer -- was the first electronic digital computing device.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_%28computer%29 -- was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computing machine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer -- was the world's first electronic, digital, programmable computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC -- was the first general-purpose electronic computer.

A similar thing happened in aviation, and I'll admit it's a bit silly that we Americans give the Wright brothers such ambiguous credit when there were so many researchers around the world doing nearly the same thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_aviation_-_20th_century

>> ^rychan:

>> ^xxovercastxx:
I think this is the computer he's referring to at the end:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer

Yeah, that's a very, very tenuous claim to call that the first "computer". It's closer to a calculator as it is not programmable / general purpose.


Indeed, not to mention that most of the work had already been done in mechanical form by the likes of Babbage, etc. To say "the computer was invented in Iowa" is a bit of a broad brush. It would be truer to say that the first example of an electronic computer was built in Iowa.

That said, well done on choosing the least idiotic of the republican candidates. The fact that said candidate believes in magic underpants is more a reflection of the incredibly poor gop lineup than on Iowans.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

I think this is the computer he's referring to at the end:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer


Yeah, that's a very, very tenuous claim to call that the first "computer". It's closer to a calculator as it is not programmable / general purpose.

I think this is the computer he's referring to at the end:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer

wonderful!!! i loooove it! i want it hanging in my space!
In reply to this comment by AdrianBlack:
Sylvia Ji's art is where I get most of my avvy pics...every time I see this one, I think of you!

Sylvia Ji's art is where I get most of my avvy pics...every time I see this one, I think of you!

Nope. We're correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_cone

quote: "A common misconception is that this effect is the aircraft breaking the sound barrier."

>> ^juliovega914:

>> ^Payback:
>> ^IronDwarf:
It's not the sound barrier breaking: the sound is just the sound of the jet going by extremely fast and the shockwave comes from the vapor pressure of jet flying that low over water. Military jets are only allowed to break the sound barrier over specific areas, and definitely not over areas where there are large groups of people.
Still a cool video.

QFT. You wouldn't hear the plane before it passed if it was anywhere NEAR Mach 1.

Actually, I am pretty sure you guys are wrong. That shock collar like that will only happen at transonic speeds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prandtl%E2%80%93Glauert_singularity
The sound of the jet you hear as it approaches I suspect is the sound of another jet off camera, or something. FYI, for air shows, they do quite frequently accelerate past the sound barrier.
Edit: fixed wiki link

>> ^Payback:

>> ^IronDwarf:
It's not the sound barrier breaking: the sound is just the sound of the jet going by extremely fast and the shockwave comes from the vapor pressure of jet flying that low over water. Military jets are only allowed to break the sound barrier over specific areas, and definitely not over areas where there are large groups of people.
Still a cool video.

QFT. You wouldn't hear the plane before it passed if it was anywhere NEAR Mach 1.


Actually, I am pretty sure you guys are wrong. That shock collar like that will only happen at transonic speeds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prandtl%E2%80%93Glauert_singularity

The sound of the jet you hear as it approaches I suspect is the sound of another jet off camera, or something. FYI, for air shows, they do quite frequently accelerate past the sound barrier.

Edit: fixed wiki link