This is not at all a defense of Benjamin Perino's character or even education.
But I feel compelled to point out that 'Technische Hochschule' is absolutely not the equivalent of an American High School.
It's a university in all but name.
(I think that to be called a University in Germany, you have to offer a wide array of disciplines. If you limit yourself to medizine, you're a "Medizinische Hochschule". If you're only into arts, then you're a "Künstlerische Hochschule". And "Technische Hochschule" means that you exclusively offer STEM disciplines.)
RWTH Aachen and ETH Zuerich in Switzerland come to mind as very prestiguous places to study STEM fields in German-Language settings. In both cases, the "TH" stands for "Technische Hochschule".
As far as I can see, the defence made some huge blunders. If they had managed to have the server, and anything learned from that, declared inadmissible, the case would have collapsed. But they did too little, too late for that.
As to the charges as such, he was guilty on all counts. Safe harbour requires the owners to take appropriate steps if they become aware of illegal activity. Advising your customers in the best ways to conduct illegal activity is the opposite of appropriate.
I fully understand that the last minute dropping of pure offline puts people off. I read one comment by someone working offshore where he doesn't have Internet -- at all.
That said, for me, Elite Dangerous doesn't have enough Multiplayer. I don't see any support for guilds, I hardly see another player for that matter.
The game offers three modes: Open Play, the default. Group play, where you can play with just your friends, and Solo, where you will never encounter another player.
But even in solo, other player's actions still have an impact on you. The universe changes depending on their actions (and your actions in Solo have an impact on the online world).
Even your game status fluently goes from one type of game to the other: If you play open, fly to station a and load 10 tonnes of cargo b, then exit the game and re-enter in solo, you will again be at a, with 10 tonnes of cargo b.
Now here's where I think the rub is: In an MMO, you can't trust the client at all. Star Citizen won't be different, though the included Squadron 42 might. I suspect that the game client doesn't know how to calculate changes to your reputation, it doesn't know how to evaluate which station has how many resources for which price, or which fractions offer which jobs at which station, because it doesn't need to.
Technically they could probably ship local servers with a static universe, but I can see why they won't want to have that additional hassle. Especially as the dynamic universe was so much more important to Braben (and considering how much he talked about that). But if that's the case, I wouldn't put it past some entrepreneurial hackers to do that for them.
I also don't believe in the: It was only the offline mode that got the game over the line. I was waiting for this game, especially multiplayer, for 25 years or so. And I only found out about their kickstarter by accident. David Braben isn't a very good sales man (especially compared to the likes of Chris Roberts). And once I did find out, I told all my friends. So I am not surprised that it took a while to take off.
One more thing: Frontier got what? 6 Million in total (including after-kickstarter sales)? That is scarily low. If you have 30 developers working for two years, their salaries alone will eat up a huge chunk of that, never mind administration, offices, servers, etc.
The game might very well still fall over for lack of funds in a year or two. But until it does, I will play it. Because it's a lot of fun.
I just wish that Braben had been more upfront about the offline issue.
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"technical high school"
This is not at all a defense of Benjamin Perino's character or even education.
But I feel compelled to point out that 'Technische Hochschule' is absolutely not the equivalent of an American High School.
It's a university in all but name.
(I think that to be called a University in Germany, you have to offer a wide array of disciplines. If you limit yourself to medizine, you're a "Medizinische Hochschule". If you're only into arts, then you're a "Künstlerische Hochschule". And "Technische Hochschule" means that you exclusively offer STEM disciplines.)
RWTH Aachen and ETH Zuerich in Switzerland come to mind as very prestiguous places to study STEM fields in German-Language settings. In both cases, the "TH" stands for "Technische Hochschule".
Wow
Patreon is treating the creators (and their audience) almost like the customers. I wonder how that happened.
Simple
Here's the software, to install it on the device, simply unlock it and run this install script.
Quite frankly, I think the jury got it right.
As far as I can see, the defence made some huge blunders. If they had managed to have the server, and anything learned from that, declared inadmissible, the case would have collapsed. But they did too little, too late for that.
As to the charges as such, he was guilty on all counts. Safe harbour requires the owners to take appropriate steps if they become aware of illegal activity. Advising your customers in the best ways to conduct illegal activity is the opposite of appropriate.
I like Elite:Dangerous
Hello
I fully understand that the last minute dropping of pure offline puts people off. I read one comment by someone working offshore where he doesn't have Internet -- at all.
That said, for me, Elite Dangerous doesn't have enough Multiplayer. I don't see any support for guilds, I hardly see another player for that matter.
The game offers three modes: Open Play, the default. Group play, where you can play with just your friends, and Solo, where you will never encounter another player.
But even in solo, other player's actions still have an impact on you. The universe changes depending on their actions (and your actions in Solo have an impact on the online world).
Even your game status fluently goes from one type of game to the other: If you play open, fly to station a and load 10 tonnes of cargo b, then exit the game and re-enter in solo, you will again be at a, with 10 tonnes of cargo b.
Now here's where I think the rub is: In an MMO, you can't trust the client at all. Star Citizen won't be different, though the included Squadron 42 might. I suspect that the game client doesn't know how to calculate changes to your reputation, it doesn't know how to evaluate which station has how many resources for which price, or which fractions offer which jobs at which station, because it doesn't need to.
Technically they could probably ship local servers with a static universe, but I can see why they won't want to have that additional hassle. Especially as the dynamic universe was so much more important to Braben (and considering how much he talked about that). But if that's the case, I wouldn't put it past some entrepreneurial hackers to do that for them.
I also don't believe in the: It was only the offline mode that got the game over the line. I was waiting for this game, especially multiplayer, for 25 years or so. And I only found out about their kickstarter by accident. David Braben isn't a very good sales man (especially compared to the likes of Chris Roberts). And once I did find out, I told all my friends. So I am not surprised that it took a while to take off.
One more thing: Frontier got what? 6 Million in total (including after-kickstarter sales)? That is scarily low. If you have 30 developers working for two years, their salaries alone will eat up a huge chunk of that, never mind administration, offices, servers, etc.
The game might very well still fall over for lack of funds in a year or two. But until it does, I will play it. Because it's a lot of fun.
I just wish that Braben had been more upfront about the offline issue.