• Free Speech? How About Responsible Speech

    Posted on by suguay

    I recently read about the professor in Colorado, I think, that had been fired apparently for an opinion he expressed. Though the jury awarded him a dollar he did not get his job back as it was determined that he had not been fired on grounds of his exercising his right to free speech. In the article there was mention that if there are consequences to what you say then it’s not free speech.

    My first though on this is duh. Most of us learned at a reasonablly young age that while we could say whatever we wanted, there could be consequenses. You don’t call a kid several times your size names without expecting to get beat up. You don’t mouth off to your parents without expecting to be punished. Ok, you might do it once. And then you learn. 

    I sometimes wonder if we dont’ take this ‘free speech’ thing a little too far.

    How about we call it ‘Responsible Speech’. In our electronic/internet age we seem to have forgotten the concepts of lible and slander and that the law in the U.S. protects people from these to some extent. I understand the internet is a new media platform. Just because laws haven’t been written to specifically address it doesn’t mean we should through common sense and propriety out the window as we go screaming down the information highway at speeds our brains have yet to comprehend. 

    Just because the rules of speech and opinion were written so long ago does not mean that they do not still apply in the astounding new world that is evolving. Once you hit send on that email or publish on that article, just like this one, it’s out there and a person’s opinion will be on display for everyone with internet access, and a few without, to see. We have a way to reach an unprecedented amount of people from our electronic soap box and we are bound to offend somebody. 

    That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t express opinions. It means we need to be aware of how we express those opinions and that there will be consequences to what we say. It’s like I was once told, ‘it’s ok to break the rules as long as you know what they are and are willing to pay the price.’ So many want to break the rules and so many don’t seem to know what the rules are or aren’t willing to pay the price. 

    So instead of exercising the “right” to free speech, how about we learn to express our opinions responsiblly. Take into account what might happen if you make snide remarks about your company on your facebook page. Or if the company offering that job you want will really be happy seeing your blog article that is totally against either their product or their industry. Do you really want to say your boss is a jerk and provide the name of the company you work at? Come on. It is the same with anything we choose to put out on the internet. Or voice in an op-ed sent to a newspaper, or a call-in line for a tv or radio show. Just stop a moment and think. Then if you still believe you want to world to know how you feel, go ahead. 

    I’ll get down off my soap box now and let everyone alone. I know someone will come back with something. I got my story wrong, I didn’t site my source, I don’t get it. And so be it. You may leave your comments and I will either respond or not. That is what free and responsible speech is.

    Cheers

     

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in The Blog!

  • Running people through…

    Posted on by suguay

    No, it’s not what it sounds like. I has nothing to do with running someone through with a blade. Though, sometimes, in game, it’s tempting, like with the jerk that pulls a crap load of mobs they can’t handle and then runs right for the nearest player quietly slaughtering stuff. Alas, that is for another article. Today we discuss the concept of running people through a dungeon or  instance.

    It’s a fairly common thing for a group of players to recruit a higher level player to help get them through an instance. The higher player, if they are more than ten levels higher than the instance, is pretty much expected to handle most of the killing while the other players handle the looting, they may help with the killing once in a while.

    I’ve been a part of a group that recruited a higher player to get them through a dungeon. In that case, we all helped with the killing and

    we followed the instructions of the higher player so as to not make his job harder. Since I don’t do a lot of dungeons I was careful to follow instructions and it turned out to be a good run. In fact, at the end we all got invites to join a guild at the end.

    I did one that was a run through where I was invited to tag along by the higher player while he ran his friend through the dungeon. The higher player was a bit wild and the place was frustrating. Still it was completed successfully. It wasn’t very satisfying though.

    Recently I was asked to run some people through a dungeon. I tried to beg off but he was persistent so I agreed though somewhat apprehensively. My apprehension comes from several areas. To start with, I paly a dps hunter. Yes, I have a pet, no I didn’t train the beast mastery branch for solo leveling, I trained the marksmanship branch. Though I do mostly solo play. I’m adverse to dying and to high repair bills so I do my best to only pull one mob at a time. I’ve only done about 5 or 6 dungeons to begin with. Oh yeah, I’ve never tanked, with or without my pet.

    So we start the instance and I get nothing but criticism. Some of it, admittedly helped me figure out what I was doing. Then some of it was rude, or at least irritating. They asked for my help. Give me a break. We made it through it and they only died once. This was there fault trust me. I guess, once I got going I must not have sucked that bad since they asked me to help with another dungeon, which I didn’t do.

    I was tired after that first run and I couldn’t keep mental focus. I have a friend that will do several runs in a night and I think he’s nuts. He did remind me that he doesn’t usually tank those he heals and that makes a difference. Still, I marvel at his stamina for doing it. I have another friend that had to give up tanking for a while because the group he was running with made it so stressful it sent his blood preassure sky high. I so understand that now.

    In all it was an interesting experience. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand a person wants to be nice and help out others. On the other hand, you kind of feel like you’re being taken advantage of. And then there’s the question as to if that’s a form of cheating, although perfectly within the rules of game play. I’m not real sure I will do many more instances where there is a good 30 levels between me and the dugeon instance or the players that are recruiting me, with the possible exception of guild mates. It’s just very weird.

    See you in the machine

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Games Land

  • Leaving Entropia…or trying to.

    Posted on by suguay

    Over the past year there have been several changes in Entropia Universe or Planet Calypso, which is what I think it’s called now. The name change being only one of the changes. Some of the changes have come with updates and those, as is usually the case even with other games, have been a mix of good and irritating. Some of the changes have come in how the game is handled and in administrative changes. Some of these are possiblly good in the long run, some are as irritating as they are in the game play updates. There have been some cool things occurs, such as Mind Ark getting a banking license in Sweden for the game. After taking all these things into consideration as well as trying to get the email address associated with my account changed, which doesn’t appear to have happened at all, I’ve decided I will give up or leave this game.

    I could just leave the game. I have assets in the game and I could just leave them and not log in again and my account would be wiped in a year. I have a hard time with that. So I’ve decided I will play up all my assets,

    sell stuff and buy more bullets and then just kill stuff and repeat until I’m down to mere pennies in game. This may take longer than I had expected. I started doing this. I’m going along and killing stuff, and getting killed and collecting loot. I sell the loot. I get a bunch of leather and paint and put it up on auction and they don’t sell. Hmmm. What the heck I’ll try making some clothes to use up the stuff and then I can turn it into the trade terminal and use that cash for more bullets. I’ll even then color the clothes to use up some paint. The small challenge with the paint is that some times, if it fails you get cash. That’s ok I’ll buy more bullets.

    So I’ve collected the required materials to make clothes. I might as well then I can use up bullets so I can buy more and use them up. I’ve got all my stuff and I make some pants and a shirt or two. One of the shirts comes back with 50 PED worth of remnants. Yep. And one of the colorings nets another 16 PED. If this keeps up I’ll still be trying to leave the game at in December.  Ah well…guess I’ll just keep trying.

     

    See you in the machine.

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Games Land

  • My Take on Different Online Games Pt. 6

    Posted on by suguay

    You know, I would say that this is the end of this series and yet knowing how things go it may not be. Aw, let’s call it the final installment of the My Take series of articles and celebrate. I have one more game to offer my opinion of. After getting involved in World of Warcraft and all it has to offer I really figured it was the best game overall based on everything it has to offer. I’ve found one more that may be able to compete with that distinction. It has a couple of things WoW doesn’t or it handles them differently at least. A friend convinced me to try EverQuestII.

    The disadvantage of EverQuest II (EQ2) is that the website is really awful.

    There is not near enough information regarding gameplay and different features of the game and what’s available. If you want information you are encouraged to visit the player forums. Yeah, no. Not without some background as to what they are talking about. So because of the website I was not impressed and told my friend as such. With his encouraging and dangling of bits of stuff about the game I finally decided to give it a try.

    Like many of these games there is a quest system. There are adventuring/fighting quests and there are supply quests and there are crafting quests. This is kind of cool so you get a variety. The crafting quests are a little unique in that as you complete them and earn standing with the crafting guild you also earn status for your guild if you are in one.

    In EQ2 you have two rankings, you have your adventure rank or level and your crafing rank or level. You have gathering skills because, well you have to gather the materials to make things. The interesting bit about this is that you can gather anything, all materials. At the lower levels of crafting you can make just about anything as well. As you advance you will have to choose an area of expertise and then as you advance farther you have to specialize. So you get to try it all before you buy. That’s kind of nice.

    There are a lot of races and classes to choose from. It can make it a challenge when deciding on you character at first. Especially if you’re like me and don’t have an affinity for a certain type of character. There are different versions of the classes depending on which side you are playing on.

    The game has a mail system where you can send items messages and cash to other players and probably to your own other characters, I haven’t tried it yet. There are even mailboxes at the flight towers.

    There is a banking system. This is a little different. You get slots that you can put stuff in or you can put bags or boxes in them and then put more stuff in those. This helps with the expansion of storage. You also get slots that you can share with all your characters. And those slots take bags or boxes as well as stuff. Most materials will stack in amounts of 200 which can also help with the storage space.

    There is a player economy. This is the Broker system. It functions similar to the auction in other games. There are differences though. You only get so many slots and it’s not like you can put your item to sell in the slot. You have to put a bag or a box in the slot and then you are limited to how much you can sell by the number of slots in your bag or box. There are special boxes that if used then your customers don’t get charged the broker fee. And it isn’t a true auction, more like a store. You set the price and they either buy it or they don’t.

    The transportation system so far consists of mounts, griffons and boats. It doesn’t appear that there are any level requirements for the mounts. It is more a matter of being able to afford them. That gets into the money. In EQ2 you have copper, silver, gold and platinum. You also have status points and some things require status points to purchase.

    There is a player created organizations. In EQ2 as in so many games they are called guilds. I have been fortunate enough to be a part of a guild that has some history. It’s been around a few years. I think this is a good thing. It shows a certain amount of maturity on the part of at least some of the members. You want to earn status points for your guild so they can use those towards purchasing some items for the guild like special crafting stations and the like.

    What finally convinced me to try the game was when my friend told me you can own a house in the game. I’m sold. It gives you someplace to put your stuff instead of just in the bank. It is also what finally convinced me to sign up for the regular subscription. You can’t get a home on a trial account. You also can’t use the broker on the trial account. Back to the home. You not only get your home, and these very in size and number of rooms as well as price, you also get some stuff to put in it. It comes with it’s own vault so you can store some stuff in your home vault. One of the things you get is a bulletin board that will let you browse the broker and put stuff for sale as well as pick up you money. I think you have to actually visit a broker to get any goods purchased. When you have enough money and status with the crafting guild you can purchase crafting stations for your home. This excited me about the game. It’s something cool. The other thing that excited me was when I saw some one advertising in game to redecorate someone’s palace. Nice.

    Since the players can have a home, they’ve also given guilds the ability to have somewhere to gather. They have guild halls that you can go to and the guild may have a banker there, a broker, a fuel vendor, and maybe even crafting stations as well as a variety of other things.

    As for the graphics. They are more realistic then some of the games. Certainly more so than some of the games out of the orient look like. Then again, how realistic is a frog like person going to look.

    Getting around is fairly easy. Game play is on the easy to medium side. The crafing is more complicated and you are not guaranteed to make what you set out to make.

    I am currently playing this game fairly actively. Then game is pretty good. The only thing I’ve heard it has but I haven’t seen yet. In world events for the players. Something to add a little spice to it and give more to do. I’m still low level so whol knows how I’ll feel about it when I get farther along.

    Until then…

    See you in the machine.

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Games Land

  • My Take on Different Online Games Pt. 5

    Posted on by suguay

    Now when I get bored I go look for something new and interesting to try. Every time I look at the list of MMO’s I see this one there and I think it looks so silly, I don’t want to play that. It’s so cartoon looking. I know several people who play it and yet I just wasn’t interested. I don’t remember what changed my mind enough to even get me to consider it, something did. I don’t just jump into a new game. I usually read up on it for a while before I decide to play it. I’ll go through the website and maybe even a user forum. I like to know what I’m getting into, even with a game. It was no different with this one. And so on a weekend in December I start looking into the game that is so big and popular. I learn that it’s got a lot to offer and has pretty good solutions to some of the things that I’ve found lacking in some other games. It’s got lots of in world events that are anual occurances to add to the game play and give you something cool to look forward too. And then there’s the mail system and the bank system and all the different toons you can have, and I was seduced. I had to try it. So I downloaded the trial for 10 or 14 days and had a go at it. I bought the full game before the trial was over and made a new toon on the same server as a work mate and I was off.

    I really like the mail system. You can send stuff to your other characters on the same server and same faction. You can leave stuff there for up to 30 days, you can send money or send stuff C.O.D. and you get either your auction cash or auction items back in the mail. How cool. Then there are the bags that you can have so you can carry more stuff. Oh and the amount of stuff you are carrying doesn’t seem to effect how fast you move. And if you don’t want to carry all that you get a bank with lots of slots to put stuff and the option to buy additional bag slots in case you run out of room. Very cool.

    There is questing. In fact that’s a really good way to level up. I’ve done most of my leveling through quests. I’ve only done 5 or 6 dungeons or group things. There are some repeatable quests and some that are part of a chain that you have to do in a certain order. There are some that are part of the storyline as well. There are skills or professions. You get two main professions and then there are what they call the secondary professions. Things like first aid and cooking and fishing. Fishing is kind of fun. I like this profession though I have been neglecting my secondary professions lately. I have just about maxed out my primary gathering profession. Well, until the next expansion I suppose.

    There is a guild system. This seems to be a little involved as far as creating a guild. I’m not for sure as I’ve not started one of my own. I was offered gold to sign a petition as a founding member of a guild and then a few days later I got an offer to join a bigger guild. Since I didn’t know anyone in either, I went with the bigger guild. This has turned out to have basically been a good move, though the person that invited me to join is not longer a part of it as a consequence of some interesting events. That’s for another article.

    For transportation there are a the public systems of  the zeplins or ships, that are operated free of charge that operate between continents. And  there are the flight masters that will send you to another location on the same continent, provided you have already been there and got the flight path and have the cash to pay for the flight. As you level up you reach a point where you can train in riding and you can get your own personal mount so that going between places within the same region doesn’t take as long. Some regions are so large they have multiple flight paths, not all. Many locations when first starting out will only have one, maybe two flight paths you can take so having that mount can really cut down on travel time.

    I forgot to mention the auction system. They have one. It’s the player market where you can put stuff up for sale and hope someone will buy it for more than you can sell it to a vendor. They auction works like the bank and the mail, it doesn’t cross factions. Opposing factions can’t even speak to each other, the words appear as gibberish. Still the auction works out well as long as you don’t deal with the goblins. They charge too much. So you pay a fee to put something on auction. If it doesn’t sell you get the item back and not the money. If it does sell you get the money you sold it for plus part of the auction fee.

    Skill training is somewhat based on level. Skills aren’t open to you until you reach a certain level and then you have to pay to train them. Some come with the talent points you get and then you can improve on them with improvements from a trainer. The professions work a bit like this too. You can only make certain things based on how much skill you have in that profession then you have to purchase the pattern or plan or recipe or whatever for that new thing you want to make.

    There are NPC vendors that will buy your stuff. It’s a good thing because some of it is down right useless. Some of it is good stuff that can be used to make other things and some of it is really good stuff that you just try to sell to other players so you can have the cash.

    There are some cool in world events that really help to add to the experience. I like the winter one, that was fun. Snowballs and presents and all. I had meant to get into the summer festival however I haven’t really been on as much and so basically missed it. I was on for a couple of days of it. I wasn’t too into the Valentines’ festival or the children’s festival. I liked the lunar festival. I’m really looking forward to Halloween this year. There is a fishing contest each week that you can participate in and there is a wondering faire. I still haven’t done that one.

    My thoughts of the game really changed after I did my research and got involved in it. I think the makers of this one really got it right for the most part. There are a few things that it doesn’t have that I would like, the ability to have more than two primary professions, the ability to have a home in the game,  and a bigger map to explore. Of course the map seems to get some bigger with each expansion. With that said, it still has it’s challenges and not every character combination is easy to play. There is room for a variety of different playing styles which is nice. I really do think the makers of this game have done a good job with it. I like it because for the most part it’s lite. It’s doesn’t require some of the deep involvement of some of the other games. You can play it very casually and really enjoy it or you can get way too involved and really enjoy it, or not. I prefer the casual approach.

    For those that haven’t figured it out yet this particular game is WoW, World of Warcraft from Blizzard. As this is one of the games I am actively playing and I pay for the subscription to, you will be reading more about my adventures in WoW, as well as some of the other games I actively play. I’m still not a hardcore gamer person. I don’t get all the combos of stuff and I don’t spend hours researching my guild’s standings or the best of this or that to wear for this or that. I enjoy the games and go along to have fun.WoW has a big fun factor to it.

    See you in the machine.

    Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.


    📂This entry was posted in Games Land