“We’re committed to providing an equal and fair playing field for everyone”
Well, minus the folks that cant dedicate 35 hours a week to the game.
Played it, got a character up around lvl 70 and then said fuck it, life is too short for this.
It must be nice to have time to worry about things like this.
It’s amazing to me what terrible crap we’ve been conditioned to accept from corporations.
it doesn’t take nearly that much time, especially these days. they’ve streamlined the leveling so much it’s like a fast-track to max level. people waste more time watching TV.
That’s pretty intense. Some other article had a link to a video of a battle where everyone except the guy narrating it was a bot, which struck me as a hilariously absurd example of the world we live in.
I NO, RITE?
We worry about things like “Warcraft” and “education”, while some people just worry about “water” or “walking where there are no landmines” !
#firstWorldProblems #complainingAboutFirstWorldProblems #complainingAboutPeopleComplainingAboutFirstWorldProblems #g-ddammitihaveahangnail #srslyITHURTS
Use of the term “crap” on bbs.boingboing.net can only be used in laudatory reference to Cory Doctorow’s short story Craphound, which you agreed to in the click-through EULA when creating your profile. Please deposit $0.50 in the crap-jar.
Aw, crap, now I did it too.
#AAAAARGH!!!Â
It’s effectively a malware filter and operates as such. I understand that people are conditioned to accept terrible TOS from corporations, but this at least is limited in the scope of what is processed and kept by the vendor.
If anyone in the modern world ever starts a sentence with the words “In the interests of fairness…” run, don’t look back.
##RUN!
I made it to level 2. But I learned my lesson using MUDs.
In the interests of fairness, no where is also a type of where and therefore qualifies as an escape, but maybe the ultimate kind. I imagine a corporation is already trying to market it’s death booths as such.
Thought. Monitor, webcam, another computer, Arduino emulating a HID device, computer vision. A bot system that no amount of spyware on the game computer can discover. And not even a HDCP on the video output (to prevent dumber screen grabbers or HDMI digitizers) could stop that.
The whitehouse.gov petition, while laughable, does mention players “that did not use their fingers to play”, and lest people get the wrong idea, I’d like to address the accessibility angle.
WoW has a wide range of players, some with accessibility needs, and is understanding when players use additional tools to help with gameplay. The ground rules in place for external programs and devices helping play the game is: one hardware event = one action, no external scripting or macroing. So you could set up a large arcade-style joystick, and use software to send keyboard up/down/left/right to the client, and the big buttons send 1/2/3/4/5/6 etc. Instead of a normal joystick, could use a mouth stick, blow/suck tubes, foot pedals, pretty much anything as an input device, as long as it only sends one “hardware event” to the client.
The in-game macroing and UI customization is pretty powerful too, and can handle some basic logic. For example, can have one button that is “If current target is dead or no current target, target nearest enemy. If current target is another player, then cast Fireball at their target; otherwise cast Fireball at current target.” Audio can be customized with add-ons too, such that a blind player can play (and he’s much more skilled than I am).
Out of game scripting and macros, though, are what got these players who got banned are doing. “Press 2, wait one second, press 2 again, wait 1s, press 3”, that sort of thing. While that could help provide accessibility to players who need it more, it’s the line in the sand that Blizzard has made.
