When do rights get left behind?

How far does freedom of speech go? Can it go too far? Certainly when that speech is tantamount to slander or libel it has gone too far. What about when the speech constitutes something that is so heinous it violates the mores of just about every individual in civilized society? In 1977 and 1978 that very issue came up when the National Socialist Part of America attempted to march through Skokie, Illinois (fortunately the issue became moot when the demonstration moved to Chicago).

Freedom of speech has long been cause célèbre amongst proponents of a free internet – but there are legal limitations on freedom of speech.

Freedom in this case does not include language that presents a clear and present danger. Supreme Court Justice Holmes, speaking for the unanimous Supreme Court, stated, “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” In 1973, in Miller v. California the Supreme Court held that obscene materials do not have First Amendment protection. In 1942 in Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire, Supreme Court Justice wrote the following regarding what has become known as The Fighting Words
Doctrine.

“There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.” Justice Frank Murphy

What about if I want to modify my car, long since paid for, to run on alternative fuels such as methane? Does Honda have the right to stop me from doing it? Do they have the right to stop me from showing others how to do it? Certainly not. What if I buy an Iphone and want to run my own software on it and use my own wallpapers? Do I have the right to modify my Iphone by “Jailbreaking” it?

You bet I do.

In a response to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the U.S. Copyright Office recognized an exempton to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) of 2010 to permit Jailbreaking in order to allow Iphone owners to use their phones with applications that are not available from Apple’s store, and to unlock their iPhones for use with unapproved carriers. What about videogames? “Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities…” – so says the DCMA section 1201.

So if that is the case do I have a right to jailbreak my game console? Apparently Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) didn’t think so when it when it brought legal action against George Hotz On January 11 of this year, when he published information on how to accomplish the same on Youtube. Do the actions of George Hotz constitute a violation of the DCMA and copyright infringement as SCEA claims? At this point we will never know as the matter has been settled out of court as of this April 11th George Hotz has accepted “a permanent injunction against his development activities on the PS3”.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, an out of court settlement doesn’t settle the larger jail breaking issue legally. What if the entity on the other end of the legal action where a corporate entity instead of an individual? What if it where SCEA vs. Microsoft? Perhaps even SCEA v. Oracle Corporation? Have deep pockets become the new might makes right?

But the matter is not quite so settled with everyone. The hacking group that calls itself Anonymous say it will continue an assault on Sony for “it’s treatment of consumers who want to share information and explore the depths of the ps3’s technological capabilities.” (source: Gamepolitics.com). Still at issue with Anonymous was the approval SCEA had received to allow it access to all the ip address of anyone who had visited George Hotz’s blog “for the purposes of establishing jurisdiction.”

“Citizens of anonymous. This is an update on the current operation, operation sony. GeoHot has taken a settlement with sony. The case has been dropped. In the eyes of the law, the case is closed, for anonymous it is just beginning. by forcing social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook to hand over IP addresses of those who have viewed GeoHot’s videos, they have performed an act of privacy invasion. We, anonymous, will not allow this to happen. The attacks on the websites of Sony have been ceased, Sony’s poor attempts to explain the system outages through maintenance amuse us. Therefore we are finding other ways to get Sony’s attention. This April 16th, grab your mask, a few friends, and get to a local sony store by you. Use the IRC and the official Facebook page to organize a protest in your area. Make sure the people know the injustices performed by this corrupt company. Boycott all sony products and if you have recently purchased any, return them. It is time to show large corporations and governments that the people, as a collective whole, can and will change injustice in society, and we will make a great example out of Sony. Sony. prepare for the biggest attack you have ever witnessed, anonymous style.” – Anonymous, April 14, 2011

When the late great comedian Richard Pryor appeared on stage after completing drug rehab he spoke of how things had changed for him.  He told the audience when he was on drugs he would go into the men’s room, step up to the urinal and then say “look out boys I going to shake it to the left”.  When he came off drugs he said he would look down at himself he would say “who put that baby pee-pee down there?”

Long before David Mamet ever thought to use “Bambi vs. Godzilla”  an animator named Marv Neman produced a short feature (see below) named Bambi Meets Godzilla”.

They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.  That‘s the  Chicago way!” – Sean Connery as Jim Malone, The Untouchables (1987)

In the quote above Sean Connery could as well have said “That’s the New Eden way!”.  Always remember, as you fly the unfriendly skies of Eve, if you live the Jim Malone’s philosophy of life, so too does the next guy.

If he brings a battleship you bring a Titan. If he turns your ship into salvage, you send him to the cloning vats. That’s the New Eden way!

Eve Online Myth 42: Low security space is safer than nul security space.

Is low security space safer than nul security space just because  4.0 is greater than 0.0?

Not a bit of it.   There is an old expression that says “just because you aren’t paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”  Back on Earth where people made of pixels another myth is that sharks lay in wait just off shore,  hoping to make you their next meal.   This isn’t true either.  Unlike the sharks, however,  the pirates of New Eden really are laying in wait just the other side of the gate from 5.0 space leading into 4.0 space.

Any veteran pilot can tell you the only safe place in New Eden is docked inside a high security station, and even then make sure the doors are locked.  While nul security space may play host to many a battle for sovereignty, low security space is just filled with pirates of varying degrees of skill just waiting for you to set one toe over the line.

Then the moment came, and I am proud to say I was one of the founding members of the player run town of Elen’Mar.  I raced to the spot by the side of the road leading out past the Hedge Maze to Destard.  There was no more joyous moment in all of gaming when I was able to grab my land and put  up my oriental style house by the side of road, plant my garden and watch the world go by as I crafted. When a recent article appeared over at Massively, announcing a lottery for lots of Maginicia it prompted me to do a bit of digging into my virtual past – the first thing I found was an introduction as a resident of Elen’Mar, Hunt Coordinator.

Name: Tomoe Gozen
Gender: Female
Age: I will not admit to a day over 200
Height: 5’10′
Weight: you will never pry this out of me
Hair Color: white
Eye Color: brown
Skin Color: ebony
Homeland: Menzoberranzan
Current Residence: Elen’Mar, Origin Shard
Guild/Faction Affiliation:ElF
Guild/Faction Rank & Title: Rank: Emissary Title: Hunt Coordinator

You can say what you want about Richard Garriott, and Ultima Online. You can call him eccentric and his brainchild long in the tooth.   The fact of the matter, in many cases when some developer announces a new mechanic to be introduced it is more a case of Everything old is new again. In many cases Richard Garriott  and Origin Systems did it first. Even more remarkable, in a market when even triple A mmos come and go so fast players barely have time to hit the level cap, FOURTEEN YEARS LATER Ultima Online is still around.

So what happened?

Was it Wow? Well perhaps that was part of it, and if so a small part.  What changed for us, the founders of Elen’Mar, was the same thing that changed for UO – what changed was the people. When Richard Garriott departed  Origin Systems back in 2000 he took part of the heart of the mmo with him.  As with any intellectual property (IP) it can reach the point where it grows beyond  what the founders envisioned.   While that may be the case, as anyone who has ever bought an established business has found, there may be a line called “good will” in the bill of sale, but that doesn’t mean you actually get the customers.  After all, an IP is only as good as the people who created it.

Can’t we all just get along?

Short answer? Apparently not. No matter how good the mmo really is, what sets it apart is the middle “M” – multiplayer.  What makes an mmo a success is the community; the people who inhabit that virtual world. In doing the research I found an excerpt by one of the founders of Elen’Mar I pulled off a Japanese site about UO (see below). The words below, who’s author is not identified in the source, sound remarkably like those of a player known as Talishara. 

That I think it might be time for me to step down as Mayor of Elen’Mar.. I’ve done quite alot of thinking the past couple days, and perhaps it’s the best thing for me to do. What is a Mayor? Someone to do weddings? Someone to make decisions? I have forgotten what my job is, and I feel “others” may have forgotten as well. After Pirotess’s to be quite frank, very mean and nasty message, I realized… is this what has become of my beloved town? It’s one thing to rp in game, but to bring it to other people out of game, is not very cool. It’s just not fun anymore. To tell someone they ” maybe should not set foot in the town of Elen’Mar anymore” is wrong, I’m sorry. I didn’t agree w/the stuff he did. It even made me mad, but Korin is a good guy. Personal attacks only make it worse. Think of how that probably hurt him. I don’t know. We built this town to be friends, role-play, and have fun. Lately.. it seems that the beloved town I helped build has definitely changed. I mean really… we decided on an alliance together, all of the guilds.. yet.. I honestly don’t think half of them even trust my guild. Which is understandable, but let me tell you what.. they are the best bunch of people I have ever met and they will always be my friends, I will always trust them 100%. So… what is a Mayor? Is there need for one anymore? I don’t know anymore.

 Via: UO Stratics

In the end, even though the isometric view for which UO is so famous is dated, it is not that which drove me into the waiting arms of WoW.  It was not the siren call of Azeroth pulled me away so much that conflicting personality drove me away, and eventually turned what had been the burgeoning player run town of Elen’Mar, with its regularly role playing meetings in a tavern, into a ghost town.  All these years later, among the many dreams I have when I lay down to sleep at night, are the occasional forays back into the land that Lord British built.   In fact once a long time ago, back when the level cap in WoW was still 60, I did try and go back; only to find a scant few of the original players I knew still inhabiting the land.

Despite having tried, I found I couldn’t go home again.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

As we talked about on No Prisoners, No Mercy Show 80 with its Corporate hangers, maintenance bay and the ability to actually fit modules it makes the perfect ship for exploring the New Eden Universe – and is that universe ever large! With over 5,000 systems (not including wormhole space) it took DevilDogUSMC of the Helicon Alliance four days to circumnavigate the New Eden Universe. That’s not exactly the public transportation system of Blizzard’s WoW, which has been so built up it reminds me of the scene in the movie LA Story  where Steve Martin’s character, Harris K. Telemacher, bursts into laughter at the thought of NOT driving somewhere in LA …“Walk in LA?” he exclaims.

Walk in Wow???

At 2.5 au and 60 meters per second exploring in an Orca is more akin to a slow boat to China that a whirlwind tour. Still, as you can see from the pictures, while some sights take a bit of looking, there is much to see.

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

Putting the Quid in Quid Pro Quo

Grandmother used to say there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Now of course, the many iterations of the free to play business model are attempting to prove grandma wrong.  The trick, of course, is to understand your market well enough to make sure you can put the “Quid” (as our British friends would describe a pound sterling) in quid pro quo.  The problem western developers face is trying to make sure the bread always lands with the butter side up, and they are not dealing with an market where the micro-transaction is simply the way things are done.

Paying for a free lunch

So just how does a developer, having the business model du jour thrust upon them, consistently come up with micro-transactions that will appeal to the western player?  Gpotato has already show us all how to take a tremendously popular mmo  and alienate potential customers – in the opening days of their launch they may as well have taken a cattle prod to their players.  In short, producing a product that is impossible to use without pouring so much money into their coffers that you might as well hit the casinos because it is cheaper is definitely not the way to go.

Not par, of course.

When Richard Garriott described WoW as a “system of inventory management” he hit the proverbial nail on the head.  Mind you, he may have meant it in a derogatory way, but as all players know greed works.  Blizzard gave us all The Armory to make it easier for participants making use of the Looking for Abuse tool to scan each other’s bling to make sure it is up to par – which of course it won’t be no matter how hard you try.  Still, this only works so long and eventually you will have to count on fresh blood to keep you going as veteran players begin to realize the end game is little more than a second job.  This is one of the major reasons, no doubt, we saw the revamping of classic WoW even though the devs at Blizzard swore they would never do it.

Bling, Bling

The other stance that many developers seem to have taken is to cater to the age old tradition of bank sitting.  Ever since the days Lord British strode the streets of Britannia, players have been sitting in front of banks in their Sunday go to meeting best with the intent of showing off their wealth, and  attempting to show up everyone around them.  What better way to pray a few dollars from players wallets than by appealing to age old tradition of snobbery?  Of late, however, the astute player scanning the offerings of the various virtual worlds will see the extremes to which developers have had to take this concept.  Whether it is a starry steed or a new coat of paint, the leisure suit cannot be far in the future.

 A piece of the action

The best system to date seems to be the one used by the fine folks at CCP.  They don’t mind RMT  so long as they get “a piece of the action”.  On the face of it the only way to buy isk (virtual currency) and still keep your account afterwards is to buy plex (thirty days of online time) This would make it seem that CCP wants all the action.  But what really makes this an effective way of doing business is, in a word, inflation.   It may be that Eve is a wild and dangerous place, but is having replace ships enough?  Every now and then CCP casts its wary eye around the Eve Universe with the intent of eliminating isk farmers/bots – but it is not really in their best interest to do so?  The more currency is pumped into the economy the more it is devalued.  Causing ever greater amounts needed to buy the same amount of virtual goods.   When the point is reached that the ability to produce virtual currency in the virtual economy is exceeded that is the point at which CCP will “get its cut”.

And in the end, I think I would rather see this system than a universe full of Leisure Suit Grishnaks once Incarna goes live.

Show 81 is live!

This week the main topic of discussion is World of Tanks, with guest Stuart Beresford returning to the show. We also discuss “Terminal World” by Alastair Reynolds.

Links for this week’s show:

http://www.worldoftanks.com/
http://www.walkerofworlds.com/2010/02/news-alastari-reynolds-new-blog-and.html

Warning, Warning Will Robinson – this show has an explicit rating

Because real women hull tank that’s why!

And that takes real ovaries…

“That took real ovaries” is one of favorite lines delivered in any entertainment medium.  The famous words were delivered by Marlo Thomas as Judge Mary Conway Clark on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. I have always been perplexed by the propensity of such a large sector of humanity that somehow equates bravery with metallic gonads.

Yesterday we spent some time talking with R.W. Harper (Lorewriter.com, The Rift Herald).  What surprised me the most about our conversation was the behavior of all the WoW tourist “tough guys” on vacation from Warcraft  who brought their emotional baggage and preconceived notions about the right way to play and attempted to superimpose them on an mmo where they have no bearing whatsoever. The devs at Trion Worlds have created a character class (or perhaps more appropriately “classless”) system that is so flexible a contortionist would be green with envy.  Trion Worlds has created a system where a cleric and a mage can tank as well as a fighter. Yet still, short sighted (and fortunately minority) players are intent on trying to jackhammer round pegs into square holes that don’t even exist.   In this case the victim of asshatery was R.W. who had to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune by players who lacked the imagination to use the mechanics designed by Trion Worlds to their fullest extent.  Our response might have been something along the lines of “no, Virginia, clerics can do many other things than heal, it is simply astounding lack of comprehension that makes it seem so.”

So here’s hoping the virtual tough guys find their way back to WoW by the time we decide to give Rift a try. The truth of the matter is that even if you are a developer who sings HTFU you still have no idea what tough really is (I am sure more facetious than anything anyway).

What is tough?

Tough is standing up to your employer and refusing to do something that is wrong even if you know you can be fired for it.  Tough is Jozef De Veuster  who was willing to care for people with Hansen’s disease. What is tough? Tough is Bob Marley , who, after being shot twice in an attempt to prevent him from performing at a peace rally, performed anyway saying…

“The people who are trying to make this world worse aren’t taking a day off. How can I?”

That’s tough.

Apparently Ubisoft things you do.

Not content to destroy their reputation with the most draconic digital rights management system in the business, Ubisoft has managed to prove Dr. Carol Lieberman right and sink to brand new unimagined lows at the same time (see below if you can stomach the garbage). 

Just when you think there’s nowhere to go from down Ubisoft proves us wrong.

The creative directors for Trion Worlds (Rift), CCP (Eve Online) and the artists’ formerly known as Mythic all need to sit down and have a long heart to heart talk.

Why?

Simple.  When Paul Barnett was a guest on the No Prisoners, No Mercy Show he spoke at length about the game mechanic called public quests.   He once said it passed what he called his “genius test.”  The problem with any idea that brilliantly conceived is that there is always a distinct possibility that it can be poorly executed.  For those not acquainted with the idea, it works basically like this: in a clearly defined area there is a set of parameters/goals that must be fulfilled when events are triggered by players entering the zone.  In the case of Warhammer Online (WAR) it was a three tiered set of goals with a boss at the end.  Anyone entering the zone has the option of automatically grouping with everyone else trying to accomplish the same quest.  True brilliance, but like many diamonds in the rough there are a few flaws. Most notable among them, as many of you who WAR will remember is that once the general player base reaches the level cap, without a continual influx of players there won’t be enough people to complete the public quest. 

Since then other developers have tried their hand at a new twist on this game mechanic, including Cryptic (Champions Online, Star Trek Online) and now Trion Worlds (Rift).   As those who have listened to No Prisoners, No Mercy Show number 79  know, it is Trion World’s version of the public quest, the rift, that is the dynamic  event that has so far brought together much of the player base – something that is sorely missing, especially in Eve Online’s release of Incursion.

Anyone who has ever played World of Warcraft (WoW) and used their  Looking for Abuse…er…Looking for Group Tool will have experience the same thing.  One of the first actions that most players do, when thrown together by the system, is consider whether they deem other players worthy of participation.  In  WoW there is usually a pause at the start of any instance while players search the Armory and check their “qualifications”.  Similarly, once the Sansha pirates invade a system, and the fleets start, the solo player is left at the tender mercy of whoever started the fleet, often to the hue and cry of such battle calls as “NOOB – IF YOU WANT TO BE INCLUDED IN A FLEET LEARN LOGISITICS”. 

This, at least so far, is where the developers at Trion Worlds have succeeded and CCP has simply dropped the ball.   In Eve Online, once the Sansha incursion starts, if you don’t wish to be left at the mercy of another player who will decided your worth, or alternatively kick you to the curb, you have to have a big enough group to form your own fleet.  Incursion may be a dynamic event, but it is not one that has been much of a catalyst for community involvement. 

The very nature of the New Eden/Eve Online universe works against community involvement.  In Rift, just the opposite is true.  The nature of the rift  as compared to the size of their virtual world where Rift is set makes it easy for players to open  their map and run toward the center of action – the rift.  New Eden, on the other hand, is so friggin’ big that crossing vast expanses of virtual space can literally be the task of half an hour or more of real time just to reach the Incursion.

So here is hoping that at some point in the future, the development team at Trion Worlds will sit down with the development team at CCP give them a clue.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]