>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^Porksandwich:
I wouldn't have let him give me an account code or 10%. Because I guarantee those people were paying 150+ per account minimum. Back then it'd take you a month to hit max level and another month or two to get it geared. So you're looking at 50-60 box price + 10-15 per month x 3. So 80-105 just in pure cost for the account and add in time on top of that...people are going to want to be able to buy another account..so double it.
And I have no sympathy for someone who deals in areas where someone can flip a switch and you have no recourse in a court of law to even hope to defend yourself. TOS on electronic goods you don't control...you're just asking to get taken advantage of...even if he were the ones buying and selling accounts and controlled every aspect of it.
Hell with how ebay is now, you can have a legitimate product and still end up owing people money and being out your items....and you are SOL unless it's a big money item where the police might look into it.
I really hate gold and account sellers, they do more harm to games than you could even begin to guess at. Them "working around" the game system means that the flaws that keep people from actually playing and learning never get fixed because people skip around them with money....it's a cycle that never gets broken as long as account sales and gold sales are taking place. The games will never expand past it, because no one will admit to buying these things openly with fear of their account and stuff being taken away....so they look like happy customers.

Prices might be a bit high there, they don't buy these things from the biggest most costly store in america. You can buy digital copies of games, or you can even just ask a guy from <choose your loophole country> to buy you a bunch. If you want thousands, then you set up a nice little business deal with him. I only bought BF3 when i could find it electronically for 16 pounds; and thank god i did because it's another crappy EA money spinner that's only worth 15 pounds, any more would have been a ripoff.
Have you haven't considered the deals blizzard have done at least since lich king where you could sign up two new accounts, link them, and power level each other to max level in a matter of a few days. We got about 4 characters each to max level within a week and that was me and a friend doing it, mere amateurs.
Gear's a sticking point, but if someone wants GOOD gear, they'll pay good money because there's nothing for it but to sit through several resets to get all the gear you want.
In summary, i really don't have the patience to look up the prices. But the box prices can be smaller by quite a bit and you wouldn't even need to pay a month of subscription unless they wanted gear (and as i say, you'd charge loads more). I think for a virtually naked level 85 of any class, i'd be pleased to get 50 quid.
Once you start to charge any more, people are way more likely to say "... jeez dude i could do this for myself in a week" and fair point i say. But then again, i'm not a bastard - this could all be true and people might charge double that.
Edit:
I have taken into account exchange rate, don't worry. It adds up to cheaper i think.


He said in the video it was the first year of WoW...considering the pricing of blizz games holding value for multiple years..I doubt it was much lower than 50 bucks for the game. And the monthly only goes down if you pay in year lumps, so I think you'd charge for that if you had extra time on the account.

So, deals since Lich King don't matter...and first expansion to the game didn't come out until 2007. WoW was released in 2004. So end of first year would have made it 2005/2006. It was also slower to level pre-BC because there were less levels and the game was competing against EQ so it was a little rougher than it is now. And they are entirely different games, WoW when it was first released versus WoW now.

And only a year or two prior to WoW being released people were paying 5-10 grand for Everquest accounts. So 2-3 grand for a WoW account in it's first year is not absurd in the slightest considering it was half of the EQ prices in a new game that people were signing up to quite frequently. Was a guy in EQ who used to keep a group of 5 accounts subscribed so he could power level one single account to 50. Minimum he got for an account for the longest time was 1 grand, and he could do it in a couple weeks to a month with those 5 accounts buffing and what not to make sure to maximum XP by only grouping the minimum amount of people it needed to make a kill and use the rest to heal outside of group or pull outside of group. 1 grand account got you a minimal amount of money and any equipment he needed to level it, nothing fancy. The high level equipped guys went for 5 grand and up depending on the class, clerics/enchanters/warriors went for a lot. Druids went for the least because there was too many of them in the game, and the rest were somewhere in the middle. Bards were probably the most expensive due to the leveling penalties.

As for the week stuff.....you couldn't do that in WoW pre BC and doubtful you could have did it in BC before they added bonuses to referrals and re-signups...well not without a lot of extra accounts maximizing time. Which would just make pumping out accounts even more expensive since you've have to count all the other subscription prices into your pricing.

I think it's that socialism works in other countries, and works quite well. While in the US capitalism has become very predatory, everyone is out to tie you up in confusing deals and contracts or hit you with hidden fees. There's almost no straight forward business being done when it comes to things that are considered "necessities" by most citizens.

Healthcare, every one says they are doing what they do to keep costs down...overwhelmingly your experience at the doctors office gets shorter and shorter, they order more tests that show nothing and you pay more and more. Most doctors, if you have even the slightest cause for a test, they are off the hook for frivolous tests....you should be able to trust the doctor to have your best interest in mind and not withhold information to earn themselves referral fees and what not.

Banking, just look at all the fees fiascos we've been having recently. Then look at the mortgage situation, they were filling out completely false paperwork in people's names and submitting it. Now they are coming to take your house, whether they have a right to do legally or not. They aren't so helpful with loans anymore either, you'll find it more difficult to get a reasonable loan (than say 7 years ago), despite all the federal aid and such they took in.

Phone, you have so many fees on cell phones and landlines. They used to toy with area codes and have "local long distance" areas that would change randomly over periods of time. I remember a friend of mine could walk across the street and make a no extra fees local call while at his house it was local long distance rates. It's equivalent to roaming on cell phones.

Internet, not only are they trying to pass laws to censor everything they rape you on most plans. You pay the same or more for less every year as they over burden their networks and never expand. Then complain about all the congestion like they weren't adding more people the whole time and it's YOUR fault.

Air travel, you get felt up, treated like a criminal, and you better have a smile on your face while this is all going down. Plus pay extra for your bags, use special containers, etc etc.

The idea of capitalism is great, but only when the companies can't leverage their monopolies or size to quit being competitive and become predatory. And we have predatory capitalism, where instead of offering the best possible services for the lowest possible prices, you get less and less as time goes on for the same money. Or they offer a "standard service" but it becomes more costly as times goes on for unexplainable reasons in many cases that usually end up being "Rising costs" but no one knows where or why they are rising.

Plus there's more and more barriers to entry for small businesses who only make enough to support their employees. New required licensing for a job they've never required licenses for previously, minimum insurance coverage for their work, minority ratio requirements if you are working on something that is receiving public funding.

And then we have outrageous requirements for jobs, such as 4 year degrees for jobs that even 10 years ago probably didn't have those requirements.

Rising education costs which pair up with the above point, making it even costlier to simply function in our capitalist society. Less apprenticeships and similar training programs to receive hands on experience under a working professional.

30 years, it's just become more and more complicated to do anything at all many times with no good reason for it being that way beyond allowing a small group of people to exploit everyone else.

In my particular specialty, I have no choice but to be my brother's keeper, which is as it should be. I treat with the same diligence the drug dealer shot by the police or the 5 year old child bitten by the family pet. Every physician I work with does the same. No medical decisions are based on anything other than what is in the best medical interest of the patient. My comments on personal responsibility are made from the perspective of my being a tax-paying citizen of a country that struggles under the weight of a medical system that is a bloated bureaucracy servicing a population of consumers with unrealistic expectations.
I totally agree with your comments on addiction. It's poorly understood and hard to treat. If we had a therapy that was effective, I'd be all for paying for it. But we don't. Psychological counseling is of little benefit. A person doesn't stop smoking, or lose weight, until they are ready. Too often it's because they have a debilitating disease caused by same. I have a few friends that smoke. I've tried to get them to quit. I've described the slow death of emphysema, the air hunger, feeling like you're running a race that never ends, although it does when you die. There's not many worse ways to go. But their response is the same, "I'm not ready to quit." Too bad.
One of the great misconceptions US citizens have, is the criticism that physicians are "controlled" or "puppets" of the system, that they receive kickbacks for referrals, etc. These people have never had experience trying to manage physicians, that's for sure. There's not a more fiercely independent group in any work force. They HATE being told what to do and they are the most ethical group of professionals I've ever encountered.

>> ^snoozedoctor:

Sorry about your plight. Long term disability is a rare thing after recovery from influenza. You obviously ran into some bad luck and I hope that turns around for you. Actually, I don't think advocating personal responsibility is an interesting or unique position for a physician in the least. Promoting health and prevention of disease is part of our oath. With 1 out of 5 Americans still smoking and 1 out of 3 obese, we are clearly losing the battle. Sorry, but it's not my responsibility to hide the Twinkies, or the Camels and drag people to the gym. If citizens want better health outcomes from their health-care system, they should do their part. The quality of what comes out is only as good as what comes in.

>> ^kceaton1:
Yep I got hit with the same thing, the one-two punch. My side, it was sickness (swine flu, no joke), ending with long-term disability (plus surgery). That cost me my 40-50k job, but luckily I have parents that are helping me try to see through this. Otherwise, I would be a bankrupt statistic and most likely dead.
BTW, @snoozedoctor I understand your beef with "PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONE'S OWN HEALTH", but that is a very interesting position to hold especially concerning what your oath has to say about that. I assume you're a professional in your field; perhaps you should take up that stance with doctors concerning those fields and see what you could flesh out other than: "throw'em under the bus".



Would you argue that regular check ups should be apart of your healthy life style? Perhaps a cholesterol check, yearly blood test for organ function and such?

My last blood work before insurance was over 300 dollars. Flu shot was 60 bucks at the doctor's office. Yes, people who don't insurance don't pay what they bill insurance at. Hell most of the time, the people providing these services don't know what they cost.

Now if a simple flu shot costs 60 bucks at the doctor's office, while Im there getting a check up no less. But costs 10 dollars at the drug store.......where's the disconnect?

As for exercising, Im frankly frightened that I might get hurt and it cost me more than a make in a year to get it fixed. Not to mention how long that recovery time would be and losing my job during that. At least doing stuff on the job and getting hurt means you have worker's compensation and you might be able to convince them to hold your job until you recover. But if you break your leg or pull loose a tendon while exercising you have only what you can afford to pay for. Which you don't know what it will cost until after they are done, insurance or not.

I suspect in other countries where healthcare is universal, people don't have to worry about this and they can push themselves a little. And it's in the countries best interest to make sure people exercise properly, stretch, don't over do it etc. So they probably take more care to make sure people are properly instructed on how to go about it and what they can do as they age to change up the routine and still get the needed results. You know, without having to be a professional athlete or hire a personal trainer. It's all too easy for family docs to recommend you to specialists for every last concern you have, plus they get a nice little referral kick back. It's a nice system the US has.......or not.


US workers work more hours than most countries, spend more time on the road commuting and generally have less time to live a health life as well. It's a useful thing to big businesses requiring those long hours that they provide your healthcare, because it'd be a shame if you lost your job due to not working the outrageous hours and lost that healthcare. If you untied health care from employment, people'd see how truly expensive it is and they'd be more inclined to have it reigned in and made universal. The premiums on health insurance alone would cover all of your general yearly checkups and tests and probably most of another person's for single people.

I guess Joey doesn't need a referral..

I install a portable FF for some of these horrible places (usually NBC/Universal websites)

My hunch is that if you have HTTP Referrer blocked (which everyone should) these don't play even though they are in flash...

It may also be if you have that magic /etc/hosts file there is some tracking place that is blocked.



In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
Does this not play for anyone else?

I even disabled Adblock, but only this plays for a second.

[Edit] Never mind, it plays now.
[Edit Edit] Nope, just the ad played--now nothing. Ah, well.

>> ^Yogi:

Fergie has a damn good body for her age.


She went to my high school, but I don't remember her there.

Blocked for disabling my referrer.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^ant:
>> ^xxovercastxx:
Assuming you've got it disabled for privacy concerns, you may have better luck with spoofing.
Something like this: http://www.stardrifter.org/refcontrol/

Yeah, I tried spoofing with PrefBar extension in Mozilla's SeaMonkey v2.0.14:
Send nothing/blank for referrer = blocked
Send a fake non-URL referrer = blocked
Send an invalid/fake URL referrer like http://TrackThis.!!! = not blocked
It is tracking previous web site. Basically, videosift.com and doesn't like it.

So there's your solution: Set it to send a fake referrer. It maintains your privacy without breaking shit.


Still lame for YouTube to be stalking/tracking us.

>> ^ant:

>> ^xxovercastxx:
Assuming you've got it disabled for privacy concerns, you may have better luck with spoofing.
Something like this: http://www.stardrifter.org/refcontrol/

Yeah, I tried spoofing with PrefBar extension in Mozilla's SeaMonkey v2.0.14:
Send nothing/blank for referrer = blocked
Send a fake non-URL referrer = blocked
Send an invalid/fake URL referrer like http://TrackThis.!!! = not blocked
It is tracking previous web site. Basically, videosift.com and doesn't like it.


So there's your solution: Set it to send a fake referrer. It maintains your privacy without breaking shit.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

Assuming you've got it disabled for privacy concerns, you may have better luck with spoofing.
Something like this: http://www.stardrifter.org/refcontrol/


Yeah, I tried spoofing with PrefBar extension in Mozilla's SeaMonkey v2.0.14:
Send nothing/blank for referrer = blocked
Send a fake non-URL referrer = blocked
Send an invalid/fake URL referrer like http://TrackThis.!!! = not blocked

It is tracking previous web site. Basically, videosift.com and doesn't like it.

>> ^lucky760:

Works okay for me with and without referrers disabled.


Interesting. Other reproduced it in http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26174419-Some-embedded-YouTube-videos-require-referrers- forum thread when I asked about it.

Works okay for me with and without referrers disabled.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Works OK for me too. Pretty sure my referrer is not disabled.

>> ^Stingray:

That video works okay for me.


With your web browser's send referrer disabled?

We need to fix the Money channels description. The jackanninies cannot figure out "Money" is in referral to Currency not vintage pop stars last names.