Modern Warfare 2 Easily 2009's Top Game

[sidereal_day]

It's almost like economists don't understand general ecology. If they did maybe the morons running large companies and investors in said companies would understand why inflation happens, what it means and why no company can ever grow indefinitely.

Closed system is closed.

Economists know very well why inflation happens. In fact, they talk at great lengths about why and how it happens (I've sat through more than one lecture on it as an economics undergrad). What are you talking about?

The earth is a closed system and too often economics majors ignore that fact. This affects judgment where undervalued work and resources are concerned. Adding a price tag to something based on the perceived value of an imaginary 'market' does not denote the true normalized value of something. Even a base understanding of ecology, and the core sciences that uphold it's principles, is a minimum requirement of assessing true value in a closed system like the world we live on.

It's too easy to discount the very act of 350 million humans in the US drinking water everyday as a non-factor in global trading let alone how outsourcing to slave labor and sweatshops will affect your own economy in the long term. This kind of ignorance is what leads people to the absolute greed and repugnant behavior demonstrated even so recently by the financial pirates that ran the world economy into the ground for the past decade and more.

The only travesty worse than what those who took advantage of the people for greed's sake is that the general population doesn't even know why or how it was done. They don't know that these people are still in charge of their finances and they are still willing to trust these companies and the people [still] in charge.

A fool and his money are soon parted I guess.

I have honestly no idea what you are talking about. This imaginary economist (or economics major now?) that you are attacking sounds like an asshole, but since you've given me no names or real-life examples of this type of thinking I can't really say for sure.

I know that this:

"It's too easy to discount the very act of 350 million humans in the US drinking water everyday as a non-factor in global trading"

is simply wrong. In fact, there is an entire branch of economics devoted to tackling problems like this. It's called environmental economics and it deals with such negative externalities as water and air pollution, as well as market failures in the areas of food and water. It sounds like this imaginary economist (or economics major???) hasn't really delved too deeply in his field.

Furthermore, the fact that there is a finite number of any resource is the very first thing they teach you in ECON 101.

"Adding a price tag to something based on the perceived value of an imaginary 'market' does not denote the true normalized value of something."

Whaaa? Are you suggesting that things have an intrinsic value that is INDEPENDENT of what humans value it? How? How can something be valued if there is no agent around to value it? What you are really talking about, I think, is the problem of imperfect information, that people are simply unaware of all the costs involved with a market transaction. The problem of imperfect information is widely discussed in economics literature and research. The Wikipedia article on perfect information is a good starting point if you want a quick and dirty summary:

"perfect competition occurs in markets in which no participant has market power. Because the conditions for perfect competition are strict, there are few if any perfectly competitive markets. Nonetheless, the concept of perfect competition can serve as a useful benchmark against which to measure real life, imperfectly competitive markets."

Economists are well aware that perfect competition does not exist in nearly any corner of the economy. It's useful to see HOW an economy would function if there was perfect competition simply because we can then compare the results of that to what we see now and see which assumption(s) of perfect competition have been violated (perfect information is always a usual suspect).

Your criticism of the entire field of economics appears to based solely on confusion of what economics actually is.

But yeah, that imaginary economist (OR ECONOMICS MAJOR??????) sounds like he needs to get a refund on his degree (or the classes he's taken??????).

 

[teisjm]

Meh, it's not as good as the sales make out.

Less killstreaks, less balance issues, longer single player, and not using 'Prestige' to lengthen the game, and we might have had a winner.

How does prestige "lengthen" the game, in a genre we're the multiplayer part is usually just shoot-n00bs-till-the-game-bores-you?
Which FPS games have "longer" online multiplayer? and how so?
I mean, how would you determine length of online multiplayer? it's not like theres a final boss you beat and then you're done or anything.

As for the balance, half of it is actual issues, the other half is simply group-whining. I mean, every other weapon/tactic is OP/imba/n00b according to the people who die to it.

Cold blooded takes care of most kill streaks.

Haven't played SP yet, but i trust everyone when they say it's very short.

I didn't really explain myself about the prestige well.

It's just a dick measuring tool. You can stay at Lvl 70 with all the weapons and unlocks, but that'll get old fast, once you've got all the weapons after a few weeks you won't play it as much. If you give people a mode where they show others that they've done this shit 10 whole times then they're gonna stick around on the game longer to make themselves feel better than they actually are.

I never said that the Killstreaks were overpowered, I'm saying that there was too much to choose from, the Harrier was unnessescary as is the Stealth Bomber, it's like stuffing a chocolate cake with too much filling and leaving a dry sensation in your mouth.

Please try and argue as to how the Akimbo Shotguns isn't OP, it's stupid having someone run around with two fucking shotguns but to then make them usable at mid range and pretty much 1-hit KO is an ear fuck.

And SP is about 4-5 hours. It's a very good 4-5 hours, but still too short.

I'll give you that prestige is partly a e-peen enlarger, but there is actually something mroe to it. Every other prestige rank grants you an extra custom class slot, so if you prestige all the way to ten, you'll have 10 costum slots instead of 5. Theres also new challenges.

I we have different oppinions on the kill streaks, i love that theres so many of them. I don't really understand how thats a bad thing, you say they're not overpowered, so it's not like peopel using them against you is the bad part as far as i can tell (are you sure you even played the game, your reasonable thoughts doens't fit the average "everything is OP and made to piss me off buu-huu"-whinetard who plays online) But how is it bad to have lots of stuff to choose from? youc an go UAV, air strike, chopper just like in COD4, or you can ake all sorts of other stuff. It's like the guns, many of them are not that different from each other, but it's the little differences, and your abillity to pick what fits you personally that make me like the game. The variety in unlocks, weapons, perks, attachments, killstreaks etc. is what make sthe game stand out from other FPS's to me.

Akimbo 1887's are prolly OP, i haven't used them a lot yet, so i don't know for sure, but they seem like it. The akimbo rangers can't hit shit if it's more than 5m away though.

If you ask me, they should nerf the tube a little bit, and nerf the accuracy/range on the akimbo 1887's. then they should fix their damn matchmaking/online and/or make dedicaaed servers, cause it's pretty poor atm. Then they would've moved form good to really good game.

I appreciate your thoughts, and am glad we managed to have a discussion without debating who's mother is fatter.

I do play the game on two accounts, a normal one and a knife only account, I just don't take the game seriously enough to cry about it

Oh yeah i totally forgot the obligatory mom part. This is teh interwebz after all.
Your mom is so hairy that she can't speak any language besides wookie

I think the lack of insanity comes from the last part. I don't take teh game serious either, it's just good fun.
I do get some semi sadistic glee when i see people go all red and QQ over all sort of shit in the game. They can't just accept the fact that it's not some high level competition with rules amde to fit their specific needs.
Sometimes me and some friends will all switch to a class with tube and danger close, sport the same name (anonymous) and the noobtube title/emblem. Then we'll all tube the whiners. We're assholes like that.

As for the knife thing, i think the knife if fun, especiallyc ause people whine about it. I've never gotten how the knife it OP, you have to be closer than any other weapon, and almost any weapon can kill faster then it takes to run the distance if you know how to aim. Any shotgun (not just the 1887) can easily one-hit from longer away than the knife, but i guess it's humilliating for some peopel to be knifed, and seeing si they see themselves as the absolute überness of gaming, the universe and everuthing anyone who kills them, especially in a harder than usual way, must be using imba stuff or cheating.

The best part is when someone gets really pwned, and illogically starts calling all the pwnerers n00bs. "you keep pwning my ass, you must be a n00b" well, what are you then? n00b-food?.

People should really take the game less serious, and worry more about upping their own game, instead of whining about everyone else not using the weapons they want them to.

 

[Wandrecanada]

Whaaa? Are you suggesting that things have an intrinsic value that is INDEPENDENT of what humans value it? How? How can something be valued if there is no agent around to value it? What you are really talking about, I think, is the problem of imperfect information, that people are simply unaware of all the costs involved with a market transaction.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Science knows that there are values that exist regardless of our ability to measure it. Economy does not. Your model is incomplete and it causes problems that are unseen because of that blindness.

Just because at one time we didn't believe molecules had mass (or a way to measure said mass) does not mean it was mass-less. For the same reason that just because you cannot determine the value of something ephemeral or even something we take for granted as 'free' does not mean it does not have a value that exists outside our self made system. How audacious.

I understand that there may be a few people studying economics in conjunction with ecology but the model used by the current governing body and the majority of businesses in the world do not include those sciences in their model. The fact that 40% of GNP growth in 2008 was in the Financial Sector (essentially money for nothing) speaks volumes to how economists don't understand why taking advantage of a closed system will eventually harm the whole in a fit of cannibalism (you are a part of that whole).

If you want me to be more specific than just "economists" in general let me use Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner as prime examples of high level economists who ignore closed system issues and cling to the archaic "trickle down" garbage they've been pushing on us for years.

 

[sidereal_day]

This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Science knows that there are values that exist regardless of our ability to measure it. Economy does not. Your model is incomplete and it causes problems that are unseen because of that blindness.

Just because at one time we didn't believe molecules had mass (or a way to measure said mass) does not mean it was mass-less. For the same reason that just because you cannot determine the value of something ephemeral or even something we take for granted as 'free' does not mean it does not have a value that exists outside our self made system. How audacious.

I understand that there may be a few people studying economics in conjunction with ecology but the model used by the current governing body and the majority of businesses in the world do not include those sciences in their model. The fact that 40% of GNP growth in 2008 was in the Financial Sector (essentially money for nothing) speaks volumes to how economists don't understand why taking advantage of a closed system will eventually harm the whole in a fit of cannibalism (you are a part of that whole).

If you want me to be more specific than just "economists" in general let me use Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner as prime examples of high level economists who ignore closed system issues and cling to the archaic "trickle down" garbage they've been pushing on us for years.

None of the economists you mentioned are in any way, shape, or form "trickle-down" economists. That sort of analysis is purely political, albeit in economic terminology. Greenspan is wholly a monetarist, Bernanke is a little more Keynesian than Greenspan but essentially the same, and Geithner is probably the biggest Keynesian there is. I've noticed that people that know very little about economics often talk about "trickle down economics" but never what economists actually believe. Yes, a Laffer Curve is theoretically possible, but most economists -- from both sides of the political spectrum -- feel that the sweet spot is too difficult to determine to be able to make any sort of real economic policy based on it.

Your shallow view of the financial markets "creating money from nothing" betrays your lack of understanding about how an economy functions. Financial sectors do the important job of allocating financial resources from where they are plentiful to where they are scarce. In fact, nearly every arbitrage driven sector (arbitrage actually is a very very small part of the financial sector but let's pretend its huge since you seem to think so) of the economy does that function. A merchant buys goods where they are priced low (excess supply) and sells them where the prices are high (shortages). Wouldn't it be super if someone just did this service for free? Of course. Who is going to do that? You? Are you going to just give away money to people? Outside of my donations to suicide-prevention charities, I'm not going to do it. Neither are you. Nor would it be a sensible policy for a government to enact as it would destroy property rights (bye bye contract law and basically any transactions at all) or create massive inflation. A financial sector does this sort of thing, for a fee.

The current mess we're just getting out of is the fault of government, not markets. If you give incentives for people to own homes on bad credit, they'll do it. If you give incentives for businesses to sell these bad loans and make a profit, they'll do it. Crying about how greedy people are isn't going to stop people from being greedy. Businesses are going to make a profit if they can, period. The government ought to be the entity that discourages financial market bubbles from happening or the system is going to do what the system is designed to do -- create wealth quickly and cheaply, especially when the risk of a future collapse is discounted steeply by a government willing to toss money at banks that fucked up.

The solution to your problem that there is incomplete information is to simply make information cheaper and more accessible. If the participants in a market are more informed, more informed are there choices and more information about the future is gleaned from prices. But you seem to be suggesting that because perfect information is never attainable we need to completely do away with market economies all together since they will never be able to predict the future with 100% accuracy. This idea is insane. If this ISN'T what you're suggesting, then what the hell ARE you suggesting? We have some command economy where the pricing board consists of physicists, ecologists, and chemists? We allow markets to function until some scientist decides that prices are too high or too low? What?

 

[Wandrecanada]

This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Science knows that there are values that exist regardless of our ability to measure it. Economy does not. Your model is incomplete and it causes problems that are unseen because of that blindness.

Just because at one time we didn't believe molecules had mass (or a way to measure said mass) does not mean it was mass-less. For the same reason that just because you cannot determine the value of something ephemeral or even something we take for granted as 'free' does not mean it does not have a value that exists outside our self made system. How audacious.

I understand that there may be a few people studying economics in conjunction with ecology but the model used by the current governing body and the majority of businesses in the world do not include those sciences in their model. The fact that 40% of GNP growth in 2008 was in the Financial Sector (essentially money for nothing) speaks volumes to how economists don't understand why taking advantage of a closed system will eventually harm the whole in a fit of cannibalism (you are a part of that whole).

If you want me to be more specific than just "economists" in general let me use Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner as prime examples of high level economists who ignore closed system issues and cling to the archaic "trickle down" garbage they've been pushing on us for years.

None of the economists you mentioned are in any way, shape, or form "trickle-down" economists. That sort of analysis is purely political, albeit in economic terminology. Greenspan is wholly a monetarist, Bernanke is a little more Keynesian than Greenspan but essentially the same, and Geithner is probably the biggest Keynesian there is. I've noticed that people that know very little about economics often talk about "trickle down economics" but never what economists actually believe. Yes, a Laffer Curve is theoretically possible, but most economists -- from both sides of the political spectrum -- feel that the sweet spot is too difficult to determine to be able to make any sort of real economic policy based on it.

Your shallow view of the financial markets "creating money from nothing" betrays your lack of understanding about how an economy functions. Financial sectors do the important job of allocating financial resources from where they are plentiful to where they are scarce. In fact, nearly every arbitrage driven sector (arbitrage actually is a very very small part of the financial sector but let's pretend its huge since you seem to think so) of the economy does that function. A merchant buys goods where they are priced low (excess supply) and sells them where the prices are high (shortages). Wouldn't it be super if someone just did this service for free? Of course. Who is going to do that? You? Are you going to just give away money to people? Outside of my donations to suicide-prevention charities, I'm not going to do it. Neither are you. Nor would it be a sensible policy for a government to enact as it would destroy property rights (bye bye contract law and basically any transactions at all) or create massive inflation. A financial sector does this sort of thing, for a fee.

The current mess we're just getting out of is the fault of government, not markets. If you give incentives for people to own homes on bad credit, they'll do it. If you give incentives for businesses to sell these bad loans and make a profit, they'll do it. Crying about how greedy people are isn't going to stop people from being greedy. Businesses are going to make a profit if they can, period. The government ought to be the entity that discourages financial market bubbles from happening or the system is going to do what the system is designed to do -- create wealth quickly and cheaply, especially when the risk of a future collapse is discounted steeply by a government willing to toss money at banks that fucked up.

The solution to your problem that there is incomplete information is to simply make information cheaper and more accessible. If the participants in a market are more informed, more informed are there choices and more information about the future is gleaned from prices. But you seem to be suggesting that because perfect information is never attainable we need to completely do away with market economies all together since they will never be able to predict the future with 100% accuracy. This idea is insane. If this ISN'T what you're suggesting, then what the hell ARE you suggesting? We have some command economy where the pricing board consists of physicists, ecologists, and chemists? We allow markets to function until some scientist decides that prices are too high or too low? What?

My suggestion was always that economists are required to have a basic understanding of ecology in order to progress in higher level economics. I understand what you are saying regarding political views and who is to blame for the current situation and I agree. I don't think for a second that we should do away with the economic system but I do believe that we should educate all economists with a base understanding of ecology.

It might serve to curb the idea that taking advantage of a system is something that you deserve to do if you are "smart" enough to figure it out. Ecology shows exactly what happens when you game a closed system and it's always bad news. In other words if you really were smart you would not choose to game the economic system knowing that you will injure yourself and your community in general. I don't think an ethics course will do that.

 

[Mordwyl]

Japanese gamers are smarter than Western ones. I'm not surprised.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

the rest of the top five all have "Wii" in the title. And that makes me sad...

 

[sidereal_day]

This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Science knows that there are values that exist regardless of our ability to measure it. Economy does not. Your model is incomplete and it causes problems that are unseen because of that blindness.

Just because at one time we didn't believe molecules had mass (or a way to measure said mass) does not mean it was mass-less. For the same reason that just because you cannot determine the value of something ephemeral or even something we take for granted as 'free' does not mean it does not have a value that exists outside our self made system. How audacious.

I understand that there may be a few people studying economics in conjunction with ecology but the model used by the current governing body and the majority of businesses in the world do not include those sciences in their model. The fact that 40% of GNP growth in 2008 was in the Financial Sector (essentially money for nothing) speaks volumes to how economists don't understand why taking advantage of a closed system will eventually harm the whole in a fit of cannibalism (you are a part of that whole).

If you want me to be more specific than just "economists" in general let me use Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner as prime examples of high level economists who ignore closed system issues and cling to the archaic "trickle down" garbage they've been pushing on us for years.

None of the economists you mentioned are in any way, shape, or form "trickle-down" economists. That sort of analysis is purely political, albeit in economic terminology. Greenspan is wholly a monetarist, Bernanke is a little more Keynesian than Greenspan but essentially the same, and Geithner is probably the biggest Keynesian there is. I've noticed that people that know very little about economics often talk about "trickle down economics" but never what economists actually believe. Yes, a Laffer Curve is theoretically possible, but most economists -- from both sides of the political spectrum -- feel that the sweet spot is too difficult to determine to be able to make any sort of real economic policy based on it.

Your shallow view of the financial markets "creating money from nothing" betrays your lack of understanding about how an economy functions. Financial sectors do the important job of allocating financial resources from where they are plentiful to where they are scarce. In fact, nearly every arbitrage driven sector (arbitrage actually is a very very small part of the financial sector but let's pretend its huge since you seem to think so) of the economy does that function. A merchant buys goods where they are priced low (excess supply) and sells them where the prices are high (shortages). Wouldn't it be super if someone just did this service for free? Of course. Who is going to do that? You? Are you going to just give away money to people? Outside of my donations to suicide-prevention charities, I'm not going to do it. Neither are you. Nor would it be a sensible policy for a government to enact as it would destroy property rights (bye bye contract law and basically any transactions at all) or create massive inflation. A financial sector does this sort of thing, for a fee.

The current mess we're just getting out of is the fault of government, not markets. If you give incentives for people to own homes on bad credit, they'll do it. If you give incentives for businesses to sell these bad loans and make a profit, they'll do it. Crying about how greedy people are isn't going to stop people from being greedy. Businesses are going to make a profit if they can, period. The government ought to be the entity that discourages financial market bubbles from happening or the system is going to do what the system is designed to do -- create wealth quickly and cheaply, especially when the risk of a future collapse is discounted steeply by a government willing to toss money at banks that fucked up.

The solution to your problem that there is incomplete information is to simply make information cheaper and more accessible. If the participants in a market are more informed, more informed are there choices and more information about the future is gleaned from prices. But you seem to be suggesting that because perfect information is never attainable we need to completely do away with market economies all together since they will never be able to predict the future with 100% accuracy. This idea is insane. If this ISN'T what you're suggesting, then what the hell ARE you suggesting? We have some command economy where the pricing board consists of physicists, ecologists, and chemists? We allow markets to function until some scientist decides that prices are too high or too low? What?

My suggestion was always that economists are required to have a basic understanding of ecology in order to progress in higher level economics. I understand what you are saying regarding political views and who is to blame for the current situation and I agree. I don't think for a second that we should do away with the economic system but I do believe that we should educate all economists with a base understanding of ecology.

It might serve to curb the idea that taking advantage of a system is something that you deserve to do if you are "smart" enough to figure it out. Ecology shows exactly what happens when you game a closed system and it's always bad news. In other words if you really were smart you would not choose to game the economic system knowing that you will injure yourself and your community in general. I don't think an ethics course will do that.

Most PhDs in economics know these things. Those with just a bachelor's degree in economics who go on to an MBA or something are the ones you need to worry about. Unfortunately nearly every class that a bachelor's degree in economics call for is needed. There would be no room for ecological training, and you haven't really convinced me that its needed anyway. Closed system models exist not only in ecology, but also in physics, chemistry, and yes, economics. Systems theory might be a more appropriate discipline.