Alright! I just met with my professor. There were a few mistakes in my actual work leading up to the equations, but that wasn't anything that couldn't be debugged if I could have gotten my simulation working, and they were just oversights. The good news is that he showed me what was wrong with my Logic Works circuits. Evidently, when I move a wire from one pin to another, this crappy software keeps the name of the wire on both pins. When I hook another wire up to the old pin, the wire then acquires the name of the previous wire, creating duplicates of many inputs and outputs that I had in the circuit, which screwed things aaaaallllllll up. Now I know what to look for, though, and I don't think I'll have trouble with building the circuits any more.
In other news, SOE has created something called the Station Exchange. Here's what Allakhazam posted:
I received a phone call from SOE tonight to give me some pretty amazing -- and unsettling -- news. SOE’s Station Exchange is now live. Station Exchange you ask? Oh no, is that what I think it is? Yes, Sony is now going to start allowing players to officially auction items and cash for real live money. Initially, it will be limited to two new servers they are creating for Everquest 2, with existing players being given the right to transfer to those servers where they can buy and sell with officially sanctioned impunity. However, this is just the experimental stage. It is clear from the FAQ that if this proves to be financially successful, there is no reason not to think that this experiment will eventually be expanded to all of EQ2 as well as SOE’s other games, which include Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and even possibly, given their large ownership share of Square-Enix, Final Fantasy XI. IGE, meet SOE.
Is this the end of online gaming as we know it? Or is it just a natural and inevitable development? I know I personally feel a need for a strong adult beverage right about now. Feel free to post your feedback and opinions.
Update. After I posted this, SOE posted a letter from John Smedley about it on their site. Here's the letter.
There was quite a debate going on about this at Allakhazam. The majority of the posters on Allakhazam are against RMT (real-money trading), but I know for a fact that there is a large population of players that actually like to buy in-game currency or are not opposed to RMT in any way. It seems that different people have different predictions about whether this new Server Exchange. Some think it will encourage RMT and act as a catalyst, letting it infect every server of the game to the point of unplayability to the honest gamer. Others think it will help solve the current RMT issue.
My personal opinion? I have mixed feelings. On one hand, this is a step toward an economy like Diablo II, where everything has to be bought with real-life money in order for your character to be competent. The economy on that game was absolutely hell, which is the whole reason I quit that game and started playing an MMORPG in the first place. Implementing something like this adds real-life stress to a video game, which should never be the case. The people that buy Gil or currency in any game frustrate me. I despise this crowd. They are the people who grind their way to the maximum level for no reason other than to increase their "e-peen", show off, and otherwise be the completely egotistical arses that they truly are. I completely disagree with the MMORPGer whose idea of "fun" is to obtain as many experience points and as much money as possible regardless of the means.
This also leads to the online items and currency obtaining a real-life money value. If this happens, the idea that everything on the server belongs to the company begins to fade, and bannings might then lead to lawsuits.
We all know what the implications of RMT are: unnecessary competition for NM's, mobs, crafting items, etc., contribution to artificial inflation, and lazy, good-for-nothing players getting high levels and good gear without earning it. It's already bad enough as it is. Ultimately, if this were implemented on all servers of FFXI, I would quit. The game would lose its fun-factor and yet again a game would become a real-life burden. If any game were to implement this on all servers, I would not play it.
However, there is a flip-side to this. If this actually works, and the players that participate in RMT or have an interest in doing so migrate to the RMT-enabled servers, then those of us who do not RMT are left in a world that is much "cleaner". Why would gil-sellers farm in a server that has no gil-buyers? Why would gil-buyers be in a server where it's illegal, when there is one where it is legitimate? IGE and all the other RMT companies will lose their business and their influence in the economy of the games. Prices would be under the control of SE (SoE in EQ's case), so the economy would probably not be inadvertently be screwed by third parties. The RMT players are happy, and the non-RMT players are happy.
As long as the RMT is, in fact, restricted to certain servers, and the RMT players actually stay on only those servers, I'm all for this change migrating to FFXI. To me, RMT is not a huge deal right now (third-party cheat programs are more important, but neither of these are making me consider quitting), but I can't deny that it's an annoyance that I'd like to be rid of.
Disclaimer: What I have just written may not be readable by those of you whodo not play Final Fantasy XI. I'm sorry.
Well, that's all for now. Gotta get to work! (`·ω·´)
