forums poster The Agent posted:

After a lot of telethons -- including the sale of vials of Richard Garriott's blood, $50 asset flip outhouses and Star Citizen crossover blimps -- Portalarium is launching Shroud of the Avatar on March 27th, 2018. To do this, they needed another round of investing (like, real investing from SeedInvest) and they needed some publishers, too (rumor is the whole reason they needed another $500k+ is because they are woefully behind on shipping physical merch -- except for a crappy $7,000 map of the game world someone bought. Yes, you are reading that right. $7,000 for a cheap map that's worse than something outta an old D&D goldbox game).

Their major new publisher is Travian Games, a studio based out of Germany. Their other, kinda-sorta-not-really-announced-but-yes-they-are-working-with-us publisher is Black Sun Gaming, a studio located in Russia. Travian is at the heart of the new controversy, but in order to understand that, you have to understand the Real Money Transaction (RMT) based economy Shroud of the Avatar currently has.

The RMT player marketplace allows you to sell everything from land deeds and gold for real money. Some people have put in tens of thousands of dollars trying to be the next tycoon of the game. The last big problem with this was when Dev+ accounts (think Evocati) were allowed to see changes to the game economy long before the average player. They used this information to their advantage several times, finding out on the closed test server when certain items would become more or less rare, then buying or selling these items on the live server before the changes. At one point this became so lucrative, Dev+ accounts were going for upwards of $40,000. Yes: $40,000.

The RMT idea wasn't born out of some necessity or sprang up due to player influence -- Richard Garriott was talking about Bitcoin and the real money value of digital goods in regards to Shroud way back in 2013. Personally, I think he had a huge push from Turbulent (oh, yes, by the way, our favorite Canadian dev house from Star Citizen runs the funding for Shroud of the Avatar) to make this happen. If you didn't know, both Star Citizen's and Shroud's marketing ideas come directly from Turbulent; sorry, Sandi.

One of the latest issues with RMT was a player selling powerleveling services -- this now goes directly into the RMT issue and why I mentioned Shroud is currently melting the gently caress down. This player advertised his services as developer sanctioned, which a developer then confirmed in 2017. All was fine until earlier this month when a Travian dev stated that this was not allowed and walked back the approval. After a few high profile leaks from Dev+ accounts, the big rumor now is that all RMTs will be banned because Travian doesn't want to deal with the international rules for digital good trading (if you haven't looked into it, it's an absolute loving mess. Selling a player something is easy; having that player turn around and sell it on your own marketplace to another player begins to cause you an endless amount of legal headaches).

Well, it turns out that a lot of people are only in this for the RMT and are losing their loving minds. One person I know has almost $75,000 worth of digital items they are trying to sell -- but the market isn't biting. That amount isn't uncommon, either; several sellers are listing items for upwards for $10,000 or $20,000.

The Portalarium devs, of course, are telling everyone not to worry, that an update to the EULA is coming soon which makes it clear that all RMTs are fine and dandy. People are waiting to see exactly what that entails, but after years of lies and broken promises, a lot of high profile backers are trying to dump their entire stock -- including their prized Dev+ accounts -- to no avail.

Xaris posted:

i just learned that light rail is illegal in Indiana lmfao midwest

muckswirler posted:

jeff lynne rules

Chris Knight posted:

lol thiel

https://twitter.com/larsthewanderer/status/958929648833851392

graph posted:

ayup

qirex posted:

I guess trying to turn humans into robots is cheaper than making actual robots though

Luigi Thirty posted:

let’s see how that amazon Whole Foods buyout is going

https://twitter.com/nachdermas/status/959144522490970114

ate all the Oreos posted:

its at least twice as hard to jack off on a train without people noticing

Lutha Mahtin posted:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/5/16975878/waymo-v-uber-trial-opening-statements-travis-kalanick-emails

quote:

The report suggests that Levandowski and others really did think they were doing something wrong — they destroyed hard disks, they lied about destroying hard disks, they deleted texts about destroying hard disks, they deleted texts about deleting texts about destroying hard disks.

Endless Mike posted:

buy fewer lightbulbs

ate all the Oreos posted:

also lol at the replies where some guy is shocked, shocked that someone might wish bad fortune on the ultra-rich, and decides it's because they "lack the ambition to work hard and try to become rich"

dc3k posted:

watching the two rockets land side by side pretty much simultaneously was cool as gently caress

quote:

The aggregate suicide rate for counties outside of metropolitan areas climbed about 14 percent over the five-year period ending in 2016. By comparison, the rate within metro areas also increased—but only by 8 percent. The largest metro areas, in particular, experienced relatively small increases compared to everywhere else.

President Beep posted:

just that one virgin galactic test pilot.

Sagebrush posted:

it should, he's a loving weirdo

Krankenstyle posted:

guess it gets stuck in a bad state repeatedly

Poniard posted:

we are all james

graph posted:

like go on screwgle maps and switch to satellite and zoom over tucson. its a complete shithole

bloomberg posted:

Natural gas is getting edged out of power markets across the U.S. by two energy sources that, together, are proving to be an unbeatable mix: solar and batteries.

In just the latest example, First Solar Inc. won a power contract to supply Arizona’s biggest utility when electricity demand on its system typically peaks, between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. The panel maker beat out bids from even power plants burning cheap gas by proposing to build a 65-megawatt solar farm that will, in turn, feed a 50-megawatt battery system.

It’s a powerful combination for meeting peak demand because of when the sun shines. Here’s how it’ll work: The panels will generate solar power when the sun’s out to charge the batteries. The utility will draw on those batteries as the sun starts to set and demand starts to rise.

Just last week, NextEra Energy Inc.’s Florida utility similarly installed a battery system that’ll back up a solar farm and boost generation. In California, regulators have called on PG&E Corp. to use batteries or other non-fossil fuel resources instead of supplies from gas-fired plants to meet peak demand.

Sagebrush posted:

As a thought experiment for another thread, I calculated that if we could extract energy from the Earth's spin using giant continent-scale flywheels or electromagnetic drag against the solar winds or something, we could pull our current annual power consumption from that source for like 300 quadrillion years before the Earth stopped spinning. By the time the sun blows up into a red giant, we would have slowed our planet enough to lengthen the Earth's day by 1 millisecond.

So, get on that, I guess

quote:

The user says the glovebox was jammed closed by the Model 3's big tablet-like screen that broke in the accident. The screen no longer functioned, so the glovebox couldn’t be opened—its access is controlled entirely by the screen, like many functions on the Model 3. This meant that the owner had great difficulty accessing their insurance documents, the owner said.

Next, the screen construction itself seems to be a source of some issues. When the car crashed, the passenger’s arm hit the screen, causing it to shatter and giving him some cuts. The injuries were minor enough, but the screen still caused injury, CNET said.

The_Franz posted:

he also had a jacob's ladder on his desk and occasionally used the transformer for it to shock one particular student when he dozed off

Luigi Thirty posted:

quote:

On Monday the company laid off 1,800 people. This offered a cost savings of $40 million. But that’s particularly interesting. That means each of those people made an average of $22,000 or so per year and minimum wage workers – hourly folks who are usually hit hardest during post-holiday downturns – would be making $15,000. In fact, what B&N did was fire all full time employees at 781 stores.

Further, the company laid off many shipping receivers around the holidays, resulting in bare shelves and a customer escape to Amazon. In December 2017, usually B&N’s key month, sales dropped 6 percent to $953 million. Online sales fell 4.5 percent.

infernal machines posted:

no one has ever accused them of being pithy or quick witted

H.P. Hovercraft posted:

also it looks like california is instituting rule 36

https://twitter.com/LAOEconTax/status/966427015275429888