Following recent denial stage.
Continue reading “Babylon’s Fall Hits Bargaining Stage Of Death”
Tag: death
Not Massive: Konami Code Creator Kazuhisa Hashimoto Has Passed Away
Tyler Barriss Officially Sentenced to 20 Years In Prison
Californian Tyler Barriss has been officially sentenced to 20 years in prison for making fraudulent 911 calls, including one that lead to the shooting death of 28 year old Wichita resident Andrew Thomas Finch.
Barriss, 26, was arrested following his admission of placing a phone call alerting authorities to a hostage situation in Wichita, Kansas. When police arrived, the ordeal ended with one officer shooting the aforementioned Andrew Finch. The call was a hoax, sent in by Barriss on the belief that the address belonged to another person. According to admissions by parties involved, Barriss was tasked with calling in the fake hostage situation by another individual who had lost a bet over Call of Duty.
The total wager that cost Mr. Finch his life; Approximately $2. Federal authorities are also pressing charges against Casey Viner and Shane Gaskill, the two individuals responsible for requesting the swat call and providing the fake address to Barriss.
In December, Barriss entered a plea deal that would see him serve at least 20 years, possibly the longest sentence imposed for “swatting.” In addition to the death of Andrew Finch, Barriss has also pleaded guilty to 51 federal charges regarding fake 911 calls and bomb threats. Barriss was also arrested several years ago after calling bomb threats to ABC Studios. Despite his earlier demeanor refusing to take responsibility for the results of his actions, the Barriss that appeared before the court was more apologetic to Finch’s family.
“If I could take it back, I would, but there is nothing I can do,” Barriss told the court. “I am so sorry for that.”
Viner and Gaskill are still awaiting trial.
Source: AP News
Falling Out #2: The Ghost of Christmas Obvious
Given the history of Electronic Arts, the only thing I’m worried about is the date on the gravestone being too far into the future.
Scenery © 2012-2013 Julien Jorge <julien.jorge@stuff-o-matic.com>
Gravestones: Carlo Enrico Victoria (Nemisys) & Tuomo Untinen, Casper Nilsson, Barbara Rivera
(Via Open Game Art)
Tyler Barriss Convicted, Could Be Sentenced to 20+ Years
Los Angeles resident and soon-to-be long term prisoner Tyler Barriss has entered into a plea deal in federal court in Kansas and is facing a sentence of at least twenty years. Barriss previously pled guilty to his role in orchestrating a swatting incident which resulted in the death of a Wichita man at the hands of local police officers. In addition to this charge, Barriss also pled guilty to a hoax bomb threat in the District of Columbia and 46 counts of making false bomb threats against high schools, universities, shopping malls, and TV stations in more than a dozen states. Nobody was injured in those other cases.
In the Wichita case, authorities are still pressing charges against Casey Viner and Shane Gaskill, two co-defendants whose feud over Call of Duty led to Viner requesting the swatting hoax from Barriss with Gaskill providing the fake address.
Sentencing is set for January 30. Barriss is 25, meaning he will be close to if not over 50 by the time his sentence has been fully served.
(Source: Justice.gov)
Deadman Polling Death/Combat Changes
Jagex has announced that notable changes to Deadman mode will be coming in a future content poll. The latest developer diary details a number of content additions to be added in the upcoming player poll, including additions and tweaks to the recently released Zeah continent. Among the changes, however, are two key tweaks for Deadman Mode content. The first, whether the community will approve of new players receiving a six hour grace period during which they cannot be attacked. The second, whether or not killing a player more than forty levels below you will no longer generate a bank key.
Other Deadman updates include a timer on login similar to that found in pvp worlds, the ability to obtain dragon claws as a very rare drop from dragons, and adding pvp armor to wilderness boss drops. Voting opens soon.
(Source: Deadman)
Deadman Updates To Curb Griefing
Deadman Mode, the hardcore pvp version of Old School RuneScape, has been updated with a small but substantial change to curb griefing. Following criticism from the community over ‘suiciding,’ the act of high level players attacking and killing low level players before guards can react, Jagex has altered how death works in guarded areas. Beginning today, players who die in a guarded area with a skull will lose 10% of the experience in protected skills. Those without a skull will not, however they will still lose 25% experience in unprotected skills.
The update has received mixed reactions, with some stating that the punishment isn’t severe enough and others pointing to the ease with which players can drop items before they die to retrieve them upon respawning. DarkScape had gone around this issue by making all items appear automatically when dropped.
(Source: Old School)
[Less Massive] Nintendo President Satoru Iwata Has Passed Away
Nintendo of Japan has announced with heavy heart that President Satoru Iwata has passed away today at the age of 55. Iwata has been with Nintendo since the early days of the Famicom, moving up to the position of director in 2000 and president in 2002, before becoming CEO in 2013. Unfortunately Iwata fell ill with a bile duct growth, forcing him to miss last year’s E3.
The announcement posted by Nintendo of Japan:
Nintendo Co., Ltd. deeply regrets to announce that President Satoru Iwata passed away on July 11, 2015 due to a bile duct growth.
Satoru Iwata will be missed. Our thoughts go out to his family, friends, and coworkers.
(Source: Nintendo.jp)
Beta Perspective: RuneScape Death Mechanics
Now that Jagex has joined the rest of the MMO industry with the launch of a test server for major updates, I figured I’d use the opportunity to take a quick look at the upcoming new death mechanic as it currently stands. RuneScape’s death system has been a hot topic for years, as it started out with the player dropping everything except for their three most valuable items before moving on to a gravestone system that would eventually expire and make the player’s loot available for everyone.
It strikes of casual-izing, but it has more to do with the player base itself. Those who play RuneScape likely are aware that death for most has become a trivial affair, it’s rare to actually lose something when you have a half hour to get your stuff. Jagex realized that the only people who are losing things are people dying unfairly, whether it be from bugs, shoddy servers, or if someone hits your car backing out of the apartment parking lot while you’re fighting a boss and you have to go take down the license plate number before they drive off. But I digress.
RuneScape’s death changes have been a long time coming, and I say this as someone who never dies in the game.
For the purpose of seeing the new death interface, I made an exception.
I immediately grabbed my better gear and threw myself at the fires of one of RuneScape’s bosses. Death now teleports you to Death himself, who keeps hold of your items for 24 hours or until you can pay him off. My set of Bandos armor (the three cheapest pieces) plus an amulet of fury wound up costing me just over a hundred grand to replace, with my food and grand potions cutting a rather small fraction of the cost.
You can sacrifice some of the stuff you don’t want to cut a bit of the cost off, but by my figures it won’t do much. The addition of the 24 hour timer gives you the chance to hit the bank in case you don’t have any cash on you, or to go farm some stuff to sell if you don’t have the cash at all. The timer also allows players ample time to get their goods back, god forbid either your internet go down or the servers are unstable for multiple hours at a time.
The actual economic impact will have to be seen when the update goes live, but the goal is to introduce an item and gold sink through the cost of retaining items and the loss of those sacrificed or unable to retain. As someone who rarely dies, I don’t expect to see much of an impact from this update, but the knowledge that server disconnections are easier to deal with goes a long way to changing attitude while playing.
Jagex Proposes Death Changes In RuneScape
Jagex is soliciting feedback on proposed changes to RuneScape’s death mechanic. As part of the proposed changes, players will no longer be punished for losing items due to server disconnections, the corpse run will be removed, and death will introduce a gold sink to the game’s economy.
Under the new system, players who die in non-pvp areas will appear in Death’s office. In order to retrieve their items, the player will have to buy them back at a percentage of the item’s cost, or sacrifice other items in order to contribute to the pool. Degrade on death mechanics for items will be removed as part of this update.
By forcing payments for all deaths, Jagex hopes to bring a little punishment back to dying which had lately become a minor inconvenience for most players.
You can read the entire FAQ at the link below.
(Source: RuneScape)
MMO Fallout 