76
General Discussion / Re: Stoners
« on: July 31, 2012, 11:29:43 am »
Because people can't let a joke about the bible go without commenting upon it?
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77
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Stash rewrite
« on: July 26, 2012, 11:53:13 am »
Doesn't Stash have a different back, thus meaning you would never have to search for it? You either have a card with the Stash back, or you don't. There's no need to look at the front of any card in your deck and your opponent can easily verify whether or not you have a Stash in your deck.
78
General Discussion / Re: Is the Diablo3 RMAH illegal?
« on: June 18, 2012, 12:51:36 pm »I just don't think that's because they are 'virtual'.
I think that's fair enough, but the larger point remains that you don't own any of the virtual goods in Diablo. You have a limited license to use those goods. The fact that the goods don't exist means that the usual set of property rights that exist with regards to items over which physical control can be exerted must be recreated using a license or other contractual arrangement. Your ownership is based on the rights granted under those agreements, and such ownership is of a very different quality and type as compared to physical goods.
There are actually two issues in your last post, I think: First, how easy these goods can be transfered into other goods. Second, how 'stable' these goods are, and that 'someone' could in principle mess with this stablility.
But you have both also for 'real' goods. If you have a bunch of fancy MtG-cards, you also don't walk in a bank with them and leave it with something else than said cards. And if Wizards of the Coasts decide to change rules, or just reprint $powerfull card plenty of times, or another there's another game that kills Magic, the value will also drop.
I don't think that's on point. The difference between a virtual good and a non-virtual good is that the former exists only as a set of contractual rights - as of yet, there aren't rights relating to physical exclusion (because that's impossible), which is the basis of most of the rights we take for granted with respect to non-virtual goods. Each virtual good is subject to its own license/contractual rights, those licenses/contractual rights are qualitatively different from the common law/exclusion based rights of non-virtual goods, and neither maps well onto the other. As a result, virtual goods are creatures of licenses/contractual rights, and the sum total of a person's rights with respect to those is set forth in and limited by the terms of such licenses/contractual rights.
Edit: This isn't to say that the law or the rights can't change in the future - there's nothing prohibiting Congress from adopting a law stating that if Blizzard sells you a flaming longsword, you have the same rights in the virtual object as you would in a physical object.
79
General Discussion / Re: Is the Diablo3 RMAH illegal?
« on: June 18, 2012, 12:08:22 pm »The dollars in your bank account have real life analogues.
And these are? Funny green sheets of paper with pictures of dead men? Could as well been sorted bits on a HDD if nobody would believe in it...
*shrug* You can go to the bank and turn those bits into something physical. Good luck getting the same result from the +4 flaming shield.
There are virtual goods sold and treated as if they were not virtual (e.g., futures contracts or a patent right). That doesn't change the fact that the auction house is part of a license to use software, and is no more an ownership right in the content than a rental agreement is ownership to the fridge in a rented apartment. You have a right to use the fridge, you can exclude others from using the fridge, and if they use it anyway, you can bring charges against them. That doesn't mean you own the fridge. It also doesn't mean the rental agreement is unenforcable because the landlord can come in and take your fridge or replace it with a cooler and some ice (subject to ancillary laws relating to habitability of the premises/limitations on landlord conduct, obviously).
80
General Discussion / Re: Is the Diablo3 RMAH illegal?
« on: June 18, 2012, 12:02:52 pm »TacoL- technically, the same argument could be made for and digital goods (books, mp3, movies, software).
Yes, that is also a license. See also the incident with Kindle where they pulled virtual books. It's as easy as that - you don't own anything, you hold a license to view things, and that license sets forth the terms and conditions of your use. In some instances, these licenses are simpler and resemble standard ownership. However, that is a function of the license, not the good.[/quote]
Eula's aren't enforceable if they overreach. Saying "we can do whatever we want" might be an overreach. I believe that the customer would have civil recourse if MS or Appl decided to remotely shut down their OSes or if Amazon pulled a digital book without offering a refund.
Sure, a license could overreach. Any contract could. You can believe whatever you want about the availability of civil recourse, but, so far, no court has done much to curb software licenses. It could happen - those licenses get more aggressive every day - but I'm not aware of a push in that direction of jurisprudence.
As for gambling, why not? Players can spend money and win money *without* direct control over how much they win.
How different is it from a casino offering all you can play on a slot machine for a day for $100, or from them renting out poker tables with dealers?
I believe Casino games are characterized by being based largely on luck, but I don't know for certain. Plus, the primary point of Diabolo is not to win money through the auction house. If this is gambling, then so is selling Magic cards or Pokemon cards.
81
General Discussion / Re: Is the Diablo3 RMAH illegal?
« on: June 18, 2012, 11:55:08 am »
The dollars in your bank account have real life analogues. They are a record of real goods. Similarly, a purchase order for a good is a representation of an actual good, it is not the good itself.
82
General Discussion / Re: Is the Diablo3 RMAH illegal?
« on: June 15, 2012, 05:27:10 pm »
Blizzard can do whatever they want, including shutting down servers, nerfing items, or flooding the market. They may have some restrictions on whether they can sell on the platform, but I don't know much about that area of the law.
The basic issue here is that the virtual goods do not exist. You aren't leasing anything. You're exercising a limited license to use their software. They can change that license at anytime without your consent, and if you want to use the software some more, you'll have to agree to the terms of the new license. That's the difference between this and most other commercial transactions - you usually don't sign an elaborate contract with the other party when you purchase the goods. You purchase them, and rely upon the Uniform Commercial Code or some similar law which provides for terms of a transaction when the parties don't specify them. When the parties do specify terms (as is the case with a license), those terms control unless they are somehow illegal or unenforcable.
I can't imagine that the gambling laws apply to it.
The basic issue here is that the virtual goods do not exist. You aren't leasing anything. You're exercising a limited license to use their software. They can change that license at anytime without your consent, and if you want to use the software some more, you'll have to agree to the terms of the new license. That's the difference between this and most other commercial transactions - you usually don't sign an elaborate contract with the other party when you purchase the goods. You purchase them, and rely upon the Uniform Commercial Code or some similar law which provides for terms of a transaction when the parties don't specify them. When the parties do specify terms (as is the case with a license), those terms control unless they are somehow illegal or unenforcable.
I can't imagine that the gambling laws apply to it.
83
Dominion Articles / Re: Oracle
« on: June 15, 2012, 05:16:34 pm »What does ninja'd mean?
Ed
Someone answered the question while you were typing your response.
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Dominion Articles / Re: Oracle
« on: June 15, 2012, 05:16:19 pm »
I had a painfully long Ghost Ship/Oracle game the other day. I tended to drop a village, ghost ship my opponent, and then Oracle away (or not) his top few cards (he was working on an Alchemist chain). As dumb as it sounds, I hadn't considered using the Oracle to clean out the Ghost Shipped top cards first, but the village was Working Village, so the best case scenario was getting rid of one bad card. Plus, I wanted to be able to Oracle cards out of my opponent's hand after Ghost Shipping.
85
Dominion Articles / Re: Wharf
« on: June 13, 2012, 08:04:31 pm »Isn't village/money usually called village idiot?
Er, okay, I guess I am familiar with it, just not as a strategy anyone would compare Wharf/BM against.
86
Dominion Articles / Re: Wharf
« on: June 13, 2012, 07:46:12 pm »
I think this could use a little clarification:
"Wharf/Money beats village/money, typically unless that village is fishing."
I assume you mean that Wharf/BM beats Wharf/Village, unless the village is fishing. Village/money isn't something I'm familiar with as a Dominion concept generally (ala BM).
"Wharf/Money beats village/money, typically unless that village is fishing."
I assume you mean that Wharf/BM beats Wharf/Village, unless the village is fishing. Village/money isn't something I'm familiar with as a Dominion concept generally (ala BM).
87
General Discussion / Re: Hypothetically:
« on: June 10, 2012, 03:24:37 pm »
I don't think it's too harsh. Why is there a special rule if they aren't going to enforce it. With a rule like that they create expectencies that the players are protected and if that's not the case they shouldn't have put the rule in.
I agree - there is no point having a rule if there isn't a punishment for breaking that rule. Except the punishment being discussed here doesn't encourage people to follow the rule because it isn't borne by the person breaking the rule, it's borne by the persons playing the game. Furthermore, the punishment can easily be manipulated to create a much larger abuse than the actual conduct that the parties are seeking to stop.
If you want a rule to actually work, the punishment needs to encourage the behavior you want or discourage the behavior you don't want. The punishment of "restart the game" is terrible from this perspectice. Conversely, the damage to the game state caused by breach of the rule is difficult to determine and likely close to negligible. So, you're creating a rule that doesn't deter the behavior and creates a greater disruption than the behavior sought to be deterred. Outside of the world of perfect justice, in which each person who breaks the rule does so with the intent to cause maximum disruption, actually causes such disruption, and a judge can make that determination, this rule is stupid, and causes significantly more harm than it prevents.
If it were me, I wouldn't bother playing in a tournament with a rule like this coupled with a punishment so arbitrary and unrelated. I'd find someone with actual experience running a tournament, who appreciates the reality of making rulings and distributing punishments in the absence of perfect information, doing so in a finite amount of time, and the need to couple the punishment with the behavior to be encouraged/deterred.
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General Discussion / Re: Hypothetically:
« on: June 10, 2012, 02:58:53 pm »
Damn, you guys are hardline. Magic, which has a competitive environment complete with substantial cash prizes, isn't half as extreme on what constitutes cheating and what the consequences should be. This zero tolerance rule is terrible if you play it out. Are you losing? Have a friend make a suggestion to the other player and restart the game. What if the person gives bad advice? What if they give factually incorrect advice - they say "buy a Lighthouse" when Lighthouse isn't on the board? Do you still restart the game? Do you still stop the game to conduct an inquisition as to whether the two are friends to determine the appropriate punishment?
I don't have a problem with tournament rules existing or being enforced, but they need to have a certain level of practicality, administrative ease, and proportionality to them. Asking a judge to make a determination about whether someone is acting in concert with a player is difficult and slow; restarting games because of outside intereference provides an incentive to manufacture interference when a player is losing. Neither of these are proportionate to the damage done by the particular act in question. Maybe the other player would've taken Jack anyway and the suggestion didn't make a difference. Maybe he took Jack, but if he'd had a Sea Hag instead, it would've hit the opponent's Jack on turn 3 and put him further behind.
Again, I appreciate the need for tournament rules, but they need to be realistic, easy to determine in a short period of time, and have consquences somewhere between "nothing" and "restart the game". I'm not entirely certain where those lines are or what the rules look like, but I am certain that restarting the game is the carpet bombing option, and should be reserved for actions that justify its use.
Similarly, I don't have an issue with an effort to uncover two individuals acting in concert to cheat, but I'd expect a certain level of materiality to the cheating before a judget is forded to launch such an investigation ("Don't play Sea Hag, he has Trader in his hand!").
I don't have a problem with tournament rules existing or being enforced, but they need to have a certain level of practicality, administrative ease, and proportionality to them. Asking a judge to make a determination about whether someone is acting in concert with a player is difficult and slow; restarting games because of outside intereference provides an incentive to manufacture interference when a player is losing. Neither of these are proportionate to the damage done by the particular act in question. Maybe the other player would've taken Jack anyway and the suggestion didn't make a difference. Maybe he took Jack, but if he'd had a Sea Hag instead, it would've hit the opponent's Jack on turn 3 and put him further behind.
Again, I appreciate the need for tournament rules, but they need to be realistic, easy to determine in a short period of time, and have consquences somewhere between "nothing" and "restart the game". I'm not entirely certain where those lines are or what the rules look like, but I am certain that restarting the game is the carpet bombing option, and should be reserved for actions that justify its use.
Similarly, I don't have an issue with an effort to uncover two individuals acting in concert to cheat, but I'd expect a certain level of materiality to the cheating before a judget is forded to launch such an investigation ("Don't play Sea Hag, he has Trader in his hand!").
89
Dominion Articles / Re: Young Witch
« on: June 08, 2012, 05:51:52 pm »
Thanks. I got the general gist, but I had to read it several times and think about it. Tunnel at the top (bottom?) was one of the things I found most confusing, but that's because there are a number of assumptions built into the list and wanted to make sure I understood what those were.
90
Dominion Articles / Re: Young Witch
« on: June 08, 2012, 05:21:27 pm »
WW - great list, but I don't quite understand how it works. When you say "worst to best" do you mean "the bane that is least effective against YW to the bane that is most effective against YW"? Also, when you say "anything above lighthouse" do you mean "anything below lighthouse in the list"? Does it not matter that those cards are the bane because they're generally good enough to take by themselves?
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Dominion Articles / Re: Young Witch
« on: June 08, 2012, 03:42:07 pm »
I agree with Robz888 regarding mentioning those two specific banes. Scheme is a brutal bane for YW.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Which cards are the slowest?
« on: June 04, 2012, 09:23:57 pm »
Goons is probably the slowest to set up in my book - largely because most of the time, your opponent is doing the same thing, which means you're both playing 3-card hands in a deck with very little (if any) gold.
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Goko Dominion Online / Re: ZOMGZ The Dominion Online website is doing something!
« on: June 01, 2012, 08:05:07 pm »
Is it possible to play a single player game or is this only for pvp?
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Goko Dominion Online / Re: ZOMGZ The Dominion Online website is doing something!
« on: June 01, 2012, 08:03:46 pm »
I'm outraged that a million card hand is possible!
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Powered-up Thief
« on: June 01, 2012, 04:51:49 pm »
Duh. I forgot about the +$2. Okay, maybe one-card-peek-trash-into-hand-otherwise-discard-thief could work as a $4.
And, that's a catchy name for the card.
And, that's a catchy name for the card.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Powered-up Thief
« on: June 01, 2012, 04:31:19 pm »
3 card thief is a neat idea.
I suppose 1 card thief into hand might need something extra...maybe if you miss a treasure, opponent must discard a treasure? Of course, then we're talking about a card that's a better Cutpurse with an extra feature added on, so it's clearly not a $4.
Still, there's a certain symmetry to it - if I hit a treasure, I get it in my hand and have more coin. If I don't hit a treasure, I'm down a card that could've produced coin, but so are you.
I suppose 1 card thief into hand might need something extra...maybe if you miss a treasure, opponent must discard a treasure? Of course, then we're talking about a card that's a better Cutpurse with an extra feature added on, so it's clearly not a $4.
Still, there's a certain symmetry to it - if I hit a treasure, I get it in my hand and have more coin. If I don't hit a treasure, I'm down a card that could've produced coin, but so are you.
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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Powered-up Thief
« on: June 01, 2012, 11:50:56 am »
Interesting idea. Maybe if it proves too powerful at $4, you could reduce the number of cards revealed to 1.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: A little running joke between me and theory
« on: May 29, 2012, 12:17:59 pm »
99
Game Reports / Re: The Mythical Saboteur Pin
« on: May 23, 2012, 02:49:24 pm »
I once had an opponent on a Sab lock, playing several each hand thanks to KC. Unfortunately, I failed to get any victory cards, and didn't notice that he was on the verge of 3-piling until the game ended. Final score, 5-3, in my opponent's favor.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Has Isotropic crashed?
« on: May 09, 2012, 06:36:22 pm »I am told that the cause of the outage is a loss of electricity at Doug's end. So no sinister machinations at play here.
Or you haven't gone far enough down the rabbit hole...