Urza

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Of the most recent 22 threads created in the User-Submitted News section, all but 7 were complete and unaltered reposts of another's work.

As someone who for years covered consumer technology, writing articles very similar to the plagiarised work in question, the idea of reposting such work verbatim was absolutely reprehensible. Committing such an act as an employed blogger would likely end in immediate termination.

Why? Well for one, it's illegal. As per the Berne Convention, written word is copywritten work and protected under relevant laws. This is inherent and does not require any sort of registration with copyright authority.

That being said, the primary deterent was not one of legality (or maybe it is, however not the focus of this post), but rather morality. To take the work of another is considered sin. As with pirating movies or video games, to pirate written word similarly denies the creator their deserved requital. Yeah, it's great that you gave a little nod towards the one who actually wrote the words you are posting. What reason do I have to click-through if the entire article is already in front of me? You are effectively denying them the traffic while reaping the rewards of their work.

Although this is a rampant issue across the messageboards of the internet, I will use GBAtemp as the example.

GBAtemp is a community which inherently promotes IP theft. Conversation primarily consists of which flashcart or which software can be most effectively utilized to pirate games. This is not surprising, considering the site started as a file sharing platform for such works, and also not surprising that reappropration of content (such as news articles) would be rampant without staff moderation.

Therein lies the key differentiator. When a member throws out links to a ROM of the latest DS games, the post is eradicated (often along with the poster's account). An excerpt from the forum rules exemplifies this:

Quote

The rules are hyper-focused on deterring file sharing. The most tangible form of a digital object, and most likely to result in litigation against the site. Article sharing on the other hand appears to be a-okay seeing as the rules don't call it out, nor do the site volunteers tasked with keeping such things in check pay any mind to such content. Even former staff members are getting in on the fun.

At the end of the day, why does it matter? GBAtemp is a small site and posting content in this way probably won't have a quantifiable detriment on the actual authors. So why did I write this?

IP theft is bad. It's bad for industry and it's bad for our culture. It inhibits return on producing content, which in turn reduces motivation to actually produce more content. Now asking someone to stop pirating games or movies is probably futile. I'm not going to waste time trying to. Properly sourcing articles (without plagiarism) is very easy however.

Guild McCommunist's posts are a good example of proper sourcing. As you can see, he doesn't use any more than an errant sentence from the source material, opting instead to give his take on the important aspects in his own words. He doesn't take a long time writing either, just a quick gist then provided link if you want to see the actual article.

Even if that's too much for you: you're super-lazy or otherwise don't want to put any effort into your post, you know what you can do? It's entire body can just be a link! The Tempers get the full article, the authors get their page views, Costello gets active threads, and everyone is happy.

Summary
1) Plagiarism is bad.
2) Not plagiarising is easy.
3) Don't plagiarise.

PS: If you want to see what happens when rampant plagiarism goes unchecked, just peek at the wraggster-run ghost town of DCEmu. Once a thriving community and respected name in the homebrew scene, now whored out to hit as many ad impressions as he possibly can against other people's content. Absolutely disgusting.

PPS: Prior to writing this, I submitted to moderator review about 40 posts from the USN for plagiarism. As a responce to this, mthrnite has created a sticky denouncing such posts. Good to know that *someone* on the staff is aware that this is an issue.

PSPS: Here's Wololo's recent post on the subject.

Fallout: New Vegas is a non-linear action RPG, which takes place in what remains of Nevada after some nuclear bullshit went down. Those who have played the previous of the series, Fallout 3, will find New Vegas a direct descendant. They utilize the same engine and are mechanically equivalent. This means you'll quickly find yourself in a vast and bleak world, running around completing quests for an unending number of interesting NPCs.




Dating back to the original Fallout, you've always had granular control in dictating how your character evolves; your game experience will vary greatly based on the areas you focus in. Barter and weapon skills will allow you the gear to survive direct encounters. Speech, stealth, lockpicking, and science, will all open up new ways to complete and discover quests... in many situations allowing you to avoid combat altogether.

The highly robust face creator from Fallout 3 remains, letting you customize even the minute aspects of your appearance. While this of course has no effect on game play, it further contributes to the sense that this character is truly yours.




By far the series' greatest strength is in it's storytelling. From the very beginning you are thrown onto an enormous map of the seemingly endless Majove Desert. There are 125 distinct locations to discover, most of which populated by a large number of unique NPCs. And when I say "unique", I don't just mean a fancy piece of armour or clothing. Each one has a distinct personality which unmistakably comes through during conversations. This is further augmented by having separate voices for every single one with whom you can initiate dialogue. Even with subtitles enabled I found myself waiting to let the voice actors finish every sentence. From Fantastic's hilarious antics to Beatrix Russell's raspy come-ons. The first-person perspective definitely gives the impression that it's you in-game exploring and learning about the world.

From the start it's also very clear what the main quest line is and where it's going to inevitably lead you. The game starts with you being dug-up by a friendly Securitron named Victor, who's taken residence in the small town of Goodsprings. This is after an unfortunate encounter the night prior, with a well-dressed man and his entourage, leaving you ten feet under. You soon learn that you were a carrier commissioned to transport a very valuable object. An object this man has taken from you.

Aside from finding him and regaining the stolen bounty, there are about 200 other quests you can pursue. These range from tedious fetch quests to self-contained adventures entwined in buckets of plot. What you have access to depends entirely on how you decide to interact with the world. The friends you've made... and the enemies.




One of the biggest additions in New Vegas are the factions and reputation system. Completing quests or interacting with NPCs can affect how certain groups perceive you. If you've been running around slaughtering members of the NCR, they're probably going to attack you on sight. Conversely if you prove yourself helpful to a particular faction, they'll be more inclined to offer you supplies, shelter, or even membership in their ranks.

A powerful mechanic of this is disguise. Each faction has clothing and armour which is unique to them. Equipping these items can convince certain people that you're affiliated. You might be able to sneak into the overtaken NCR correctional facility by putting on an orange jumpsuit. Or be granted an audience with the leader of The Kings if you've got the faux-leather jacket and pomade in your hair.




Throughout your travels you'll come across a number (the number being 8) of interesting companions, who, for whatever reason, will decide to accompany you on your travels. Each is unique in design: from the estranged night-time sniper, to the towering super-mutant who still reminisces fondly about her human grandchildren. They remain invaluable throughout the game, engaging in skirmishes, buffing you and the other party members, acting as pack mules to carry additional loot, sometimes just providing "keen insight" relevant to the current quest or tactical decisions




At first glance the combat system seems fairly generic. You get guns. You get armour. You equip them both, aim at hostile red marks on your compass, and shoot. If that's all you want from it, that's definitely how you can play.

Continue on though, and you'll find a level of depth that heavily depends on how one chooses to build build character. You can be the power game who picks up the strongest weapon they can find to plow face-first through everyone. The long-range sniper that takes out targets from afar. The explosives nut who sets up fatal traps for foes to fall into. Or maybe you want to be Solid Snake, avoiding detection until they find a knife (or golf club) in their back?

Even within specializations of a specific weapon type, there are a breathtaking number of ways to kill people. Take for example the explosives expert. The first immediate thing which probably comes to mind is "well, I can chuck grenades at people and they blow up." Thinking a little more, maybe there's some other ways. You might want to try lining a hallway with C4, and having either yourself or your companions as bait to lead them to their demise. A silly way I discovered to eliminate targets is to sneak remote explosive into an NPC's pocket during a pickpocket attempt. At this point you can retreat, blow them up from afar, or wait until he congregates with a group you'd like to take out all at once. This all being said, sometimes there's no substitute to the devastation caused by a minigun which shoots grenades.




This must be prefaced with what I feel game difficulties should represent. "Easy" is where you go upon finding a game simply too tough for you, or just want to breeze through without thinking. "Hard" can revitalize a game you've mastered on normal, and may well be mandatory for those who require the thrill of a challenge. "Normal" should be the experience the developer wants you to have on your first play through.

Currently living on normal, the closer I've gotten to end-game, the exponentially easier it has been. As a fledgling explorer the enemies posed a legitimate threat. If I rushed into an open field with half a dozen dudes performing cap popping of the ass, quickly I'd find myself rolling back to a previous save. Not so after about level 10. As a level 23 guns specialist the enemies provide absolutely no resistance and are mowed down like ants (incidentally some of them are actually ants). Based on the sheer amount of carnage left in my wake, I've considered renaming my character "Rambo V."

If you're the type of person who wants enthralling involvement in the combat, I highly recommend starting on "hard" or greater. Suffice to say that's what I'll be doing for any future characters.




Unfortunately what New Vegas quickly became notorious for upon launch was not what a great game it is, but rather how infuriatingly buggy it was. While Bethesda has produced a number of patches post-release, many still remain. These range from the amusing graphical glitch, through things that are annoying like getting stuck in a wall, to those which are permanently detrimental to your experience. The Fallout Wiki has been invaluable in helping me either avoid or fix such things as companions disappearing, getting locked in dialogue, non-completable quests, among others.




What New Vegas really come down to is: experience. What you get out of it depends heavily on what you put in. Once you're heavily invested in the canon, in the characters, in your character, and the world in general, there's really no other game series that's comparable. Even 40 hours in I've only experienced a fraction of what the game has to offer, and it has me going back for more.

Having heard implementations through anecdotes, and seen it in practice on Spotify, seems like an idea which could translate to here.

The idea is as follows:

If you could recommend one track of music to someone. One, single track, out of everything you've ever enjoyed; what would you recommend? Be it your favorite track, a track you think everyone would enjoy, one you find technically astounding, or hilarious, whatever your reasoning may be. Just one. Think hard.

The rules are as follows:

• You only get to post once.
• You cannot edit your post after it's been submitted (exception will be made if the edit is made within a couple minutes of original posting, to fix a typo or syntax error).
• Your post may contain any or all of, but nothing outside of these things: A) The name of the track, album, artist, year B) an embedded YouTube video of this track C) if the track is from a live performance, information concerning the venue and event where the performance took place. D) a short description of why you picked this track (let's say 300 character maximum)
• No commentary of any kind is allowed. Nor anything which does not explicitly fall under what is defined in the previous rule.
• If any of the above rules are violated, your posts will be removed and you will be barred from the thread.

The topic will be locked after a period of time, mostly likely 3-6 months depending on activity. At which point a new thread will be made, and you're free to make another post in that thread with a new selection; this also applies to those barred from a previous thread due to a rule violation. All locked threads will be preserved in the OP of the subsequent thread.

http://gbatemp.net/t56484-post-a-picture-o...p;#entry3742338

Thanks.

http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/4332841631...-of-pwnage-tool

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