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Stop the DRM

When will companies learn that their draconian efforts to prevent piracy only serves to hurt their paying customers which directly affects their bottom line!!

Companies, you must stop counting pirated copies of your software as “lost revenue” — it’s not! Someone who is willing to pirate software isn’t willing to pay for it.. EVER! So you never had their money in the first place..

You’re trying so hard to capture that imagined lost revenue that it’s blinding you to how badly you’re screwing yourselves and your real customers..

Equating the number of pirated copies of your software directly to dollars is retarded.. More over, implementing these harsh DRM models only serves to prevent the honest players from playing your games, which effectively assures that you’re going to lose real money in the form of people who actually DO buy your games going else where..

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So I have been playing in the Starcraft 2 beta and to be honest, I’m not overly impressed.  It’s basically the same game brought forward with some refinement..  Fine.. Those who love it can play it.. I for one very likely wont be and there are two primary reasons for this;

1. The people playing are douche bags
2. Just like SC1, the game is wildly out of balance

I’m playing in the friend and family beta and STILL the people I play against are rabid pricks..  People say all the time that MMO (WoW specifically) players are rude and jerks, and I have to say they are nothing compared to the Starcraft players..   It’s like all the lame ass epeen stuff you see in MMO’s that a player does over the course of the year or two he plays the game is compressed into one 20 minute game and so they have to be extra big douche bags just to be sure you know how uber they are and how much you suck..

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Apple Fanboy

I understand brand loyalty, but Apple fanatics take it to extremes..  Buying something just because it has an Apple logo on the side is ludicrous..  Recently I had (via a forum) a conversation with someone who was in the market for a new monitor and they had their heart set on either the 24″ or 30″ Apple Cinema Display..   I pointed out the 28″ monitor that I use and offered it as a possible alternative simply because the ACD’s are stupidly expensive..

I told him that my monitor was much less than the 30″ ACD he was leaning towards, and in fact you could likely get 6 of mine for one of those.. Plus I pointed out that the majority of the stats for my monitor was actually better than the ACD.  To which he said that the monitor I used was cheap and ugly.   And compared the Apple Cinema Display to a fine bottle of wine, where as my monitor was a cheap sixpack.

What a pretentious douche..  He completely discounts my suggestion not on merit.. not on facts like specs or technical reasons.. No.. but because the Apple product is a fine bottle of wine, where as mine is a single out of a cheap six pack..  Wow..  The level of snobbery amazes me..  Hey buddy, you’re douchebag is showing..

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Latest Image

So I have always liked submarines, I think they are pretty neat.  I have wanted to create a 3D sub for a while and finally decided to get started on one..  Instead of going with a more modern design I went with one of the most popular submarine designs of old; the German type VII.   I also have to admit that another reason for this design is that I like the game “Silent Hunter” and the fifth installment of the game is coming out this year.

As I work on it, I’ll post images here to show where I am at and as with all my other posts the top most image will show the latest image or render.

I’m creating this entirely in Modo 401 using my Wacom tablet with the intent to make it as photo-realistic as possible.  That’s gonna be tough because it will force me to model everything in sub-d and it will really make me have to pay very special attention to my models materials, the shader tree and lighting..

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Holy crap, SRS Solutions has done it again..  Previously I pretty much gave up my own theme creation in order to simply use their EOS theme.  It was superior to what I was creating and saved me a whole bunch of time.. But this time they have out done themselves.

The Arjuna theme is outstanding..  I especially like that it works in the exact same way as EOS and so theme switching is 100% seamless!  Thank you guys a bunch.. This is awesome..

I highly recommend this theme, or the EOS theme.

Star Trek Online Review

Firstly I want to say that I personally think it’s extremely hard to judge a game entirely by the first 15 levels.. Any MMO to date that one cares to name changes drastically as you play across the level range and to judge that game by the first couple levels is simply foolish. You haven’t experienced the whole of the game.. So I’m going to post my review about it, but I want you to keep in mind that there are going to be a lot of things I simply haven’t done yet..

Also, there are a lot of people on the forums bashing the game for one reason or another, some reasons are valid, some aren’t. I would argue that most of those people really haven’t truly experienced the game in its fullest, but at the same time I will concede the point that if it doesn’t appeal to them early on, it may not later either and that they should just move on without the flames.

What you’re not seeing on the forums is the influx of praise or posts by people who are largely happy, not because they don’t exist but rather because the complainers are typically a lot more vocal minority.. People that complain loudly are typically those people who think they are righteous and have entitlement issues..  They are “right and by god you’re gonna know my opinion..”

So with that — here’s my righteous opinion on the the first 15 levels of fed play and the first 12 or so of Klingon.. I only really have 2 major complaints.

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