As usual Tycho has the goods. And it's not whoreing if I don't care about karma right?
---- These are the things the game establishes: First, the title should be used to add contour and gradient to the existing property - not merely repackage the film plus interactivity. That's a pretty important distinction, how the license can inherently break the simulation. If my only two choices are to a) continue the preordained story from the movie or b) die, those don't actually count as choices. You have a single choice and the consequences of making that choice. If being interactive means that my decisions are relevant, in the context of a movie narrative - a kind of discrete, linear destiny - in real terms, volition is nonexistent.
So, Riddick sidesteps that by being a prequel that details important developments in the character. The second lesson is that voice talent needs to be of even quality. I don't even want to think about how many janitors or friends of the producer I've had to tolerate in games, busting right through even the best ones and forcibly ejecting me from a more pure translation into the experience. I'd imagine it's the "Universal" part of Vivendi Universal that helped the most with this, but this thing has some of the most pristine voice work to date. Make a note of it: actors pretend to be other people as their job. And if you want to see just how much a voice can bridge that wide span between a 3D model and a human being, go rent The Chronicles of Riddick.
So, original story, don't skimp on the voices. These aren't bad things for any game, but when we're talking about converting a cinematic property they're critical. Riddick throws in something that isn't, in my opinion, necessary - but when added to the other two creates the startled look you see on these reviewers. It has flashes of technical brilliance. This is the sort of graphical presentation we should be expecting at this point. They aren't next generation graphics, even - it's the way this generation should look, and Farcry is the only other game that comes to mind which really presents the argument for modern hardware. The game isn't long enough for the honeymoon period to be over, even by the end you'll still be marvelling at just how immersive an environment can be when its surfaces capture and reflect light properly. ---
And it will get "worse" for PC gamers. What are the big advantages of a PC game over a console? Display resolution, processing power, input devices. Well for the first two - HDTV isn't far off and next gen consoles will run rings around all but the highest-end PC's. As for input - check how many people are playing FFxi on their PS2 with USB keyboards.
So, yeah. Consoles will be the main focus of the big game publishers and devs.
But I do see a silver lining. Smaller game companies and homebrew games will get more play time as PC gamers tire of ports of console games. I also believe that game publishers will promote open-sourceing of games on the PC and encourage mod communities to attempt the sucesses of half-life.
Cooking - making food - is not an art. It absolutly CAN be an art. Here's alton own words on it.
---
It's kind of like, I'd love to own a Picasso. I like Picasso. If I could own a Picasso one day, that would be swell. But I don't want to paint like Picasso. It's like the really great chefs are artists and it's like, I'm going to go to the restaurants and enjoy it. I don't want to cook like that at home and I don't want them to publish books that tell me how because you know what? You can't! You can't. You can not do it. They can write that stuff down, you're still not going to be able to do it. That's why, I think Joseph? [sic, Thomas?] Heller, amazing chef, French Laundry, out in Napa, amazing guy. I can't cook any of the stuff in his book because it's not enough to have it written down. It isn't enough. No more than it would be enough for Picasso to have written How To Paint A Picasso book. That's what we're talking about.
There's a level... It's like, I don't call myself a chef. I'm not a chef. I don't have the creative chops to call myself a chef. Can I hack out a decent meatloaf? Well, yeah, because I understand the meatloaf and yackety-yak. But I am I going to create a great dish? No? I'm not going to create a great dish. Those guys have that artistry and I wish they'd just do it and sell it and let those of us that want to eat it and enjoy it and stop writing cookbooks. Because I know more people that have given up on cooking because they couldn't make Charlie Trotter's friggin' Rabbit Reduction sauce. It's so intimidating. It infuriates me that those guys feel like they don't make enough money already that they have to make the rest of us feel bad with their cookbooks. So, I don't buy them. I don't buy those cookbooks. I very rarely buy cookbooks, to be frank.
Bullshit. There's no "invisible hand" at work here. When EQ came out is was from a relative unknown and small studio. It was predictied to die quick (who's going to pay $9 MONTHLY for a game?!) and was much, much smaller than UO.
It got big because it was new and fun. A semi-D&D world to explore. You could do anything - craft, explore, kill monsters, etc. There was a steep learning curve, but that was to be expected from a game where you really were in their world.
And during EQ's reign, lots of mmorpgs came out. none were even remotly as good and I knew many people that came to EQ from AC or whatever.
Here's the real reason EQ is dying - it's been beaten. Sure it's a never ending story, but the gods of the eq expansion were beaten. The gods. It's like watching a movie that you're sure is going to end because the climax came and everything was resolved... but then doesn't. So all the hard core people that can raid all day long are sitting around wondering "what now?" while the non-hard core are stuck and can't advance any further without being "hard core".
*shocking* that a "new" media presentation format can be made to enhance learning or training. How unlike all previous media presentation formats like books, audio recordings, or movies.
Several companies hire people in low-wage countries like mexico and have them produce EQ platnium. This in-game money is sold for real money on auction sites.
ACLU Was Forced to Revise Release on Patriot Act Suit Justice Dept. Cited Secrecy Rules By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, May 13, 2004; Page A27
When a federal judge ruled two weeks ago that the American Civil Liberties Union could finally reveal the existence of a lawsuit challenging the USA Patriot Act, the group issued a news release.
But the next day, according to new documents released yesterday, the ACLU was forced to remove two paragraphs from the release posted on its Web site, after the Justice Department complained that the group had violated court secrecy rules.
One paragraph described the type of information that FBI agents could request under the law, while another merely listed the briefing schedule in the case, according to court documents and the original news release.
The dispute set off a furious round of court filings in a case that serves as both a challenge to, and an illustration of, the far-reaching power of the Patriot Act. Approved by Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the law gives the government greater latitude and secrecy in counterterrorism investigations and includes a provision allowing the FBI to secretly demand customer records from Internet providers and other businesses without a court order.
The ACLU first filed its lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of such demands, known as national security letters, on April 6, but the secrecy rules of the Patriot Act required the challenge to be filed under seal. A ruling April 28 allowed the release of a heavily censored version of the complaint, but the ACLU is still forbidden from revealing many details of the case, including the identity of another plaintiff who has joined in the lawsuit. The law forbids targets of national security letters to disclose that they have received one.
ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson said the court order also means that she "cannot confirm or deny" whether the ACLU is representing the second plaintiff. The group is the only counsel listed in court documents.
The dispute over the ACLU's April 28 news release centered on two paragraphs. The first laid out the court's schedule for receiving legal briefs and noted the name of the New York-based judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero.
The second paragraph read: "The provision under challenge allows an FBI agent to write a letter demanding the disclosure of the name, screen names, addresses, e-mail header information, and other sensitive information held by 'electronic communication service providers.' "
Justice lawyers said that both paragraphs violated a secrecy order and that the ACLU should be required to seek an exemption to publicize the information, court records show. Justice spokesman Charles Miller declined to comment yesterday.
"It simply never occurred to us that this information would be covered by the sealing order, because it's completely non-sensitive, generic information," Beeson said.
The dispute was partly resolved yesterday. Marrero ruled that the briefing schedule could be publicized, along with edited versions of other court filings. But the paragraph describing the information that can be sought remains absent.
=-=-=-=-=-=
my god. WTF is wrong with the government of this country?
school teachers are encouraged to pass failing students not because of PC bullshit, but because blame for ANY failing student is placed on the teacher. As in "you didn't do your job". Plus, look into the horrible "no child left behind act" and see how badly it's designed to fuck up public schools.
You better hope we don't collapse. I "hate America" (ie. disagree with current policy) as much as any thinking person, but I know that as bad as we are, the death throws would be 100x worse for me/us/everyone.
It's not the items that have the value - it's the time involved in getting the item that has value, or the time to level up the charecter that has value. If there was no time involved in getting the items, they would be worth considerably less if anything at all.
Obviously the only reason you have a TV and a DVD player is to watch pirated DVDs. The only reason you have a computer is to download pirated music and movies. The internet is only for porn and bomb making instructions you damn dirty pirates.
Be glad that it's not "supporting terrorism" to have a downloaded movie.
Oh bullshit. They "can't" do it? You actually claim that one of the most popular franchises ever has no content worth converting into the game? No locations/stories/battlesites or noteable NPCs? There's were no movies/books/games/concept drawings that could be used?
The content was already there. The reason none of it was in game is that there was a business or design decision not to use it.
Re:More Human than Human?
on
Altered Carbon
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Another beta tester here. The SWG team is very different than the EQ team. The monthly fee is only $2 more than current EQ prices. And there won't be many fanboys either.
They'll avoid this game for the same reasons everyone else will - because the fights are boring, the other gameplay tedious, and there's no way to be a jedi.
I can't wait for the "So, now we like the MPAA now?" posts! +5 for sure.
They're always interesting to me. I know some think that type of post is stupid crap, but I'm actually part of post-backlash-"hate the RIAA/MPAA" posts. They're kind of kitsch and retro.
Slashdot Mirror
Offering a 5mb file on slashdot...
That takes balls.
As usual Tycho has the goods. And it's not whoreing if I don't care about karma right?
----
These are the things the game establishes: First, the title should be used to add contour and gradient to the existing property - not merely repackage the film plus interactivity. That's a pretty important distinction, how the license can inherently break the simulation. If my only two choices are to a) continue the preordained story from the movie or b) die, those don't actually count as choices. You have a single choice and the consequences of making that choice. If being interactive means that my decisions are relevant, in the context of a movie narrative - a kind of discrete, linear destiny - in real terms, volition is nonexistent.
So, Riddick sidesteps that by being a prequel that details important developments in the character. The second lesson is that voice talent needs to be of even quality. I don't even want to think about how many janitors or friends of the producer I've had to tolerate in games, busting right through even the best ones and forcibly ejecting me from a more pure translation into the experience. I'd imagine it's the "Universal" part of Vivendi Universal that helped the most with this, but this thing has some of the most pristine voice work to date. Make a note of it: actors pretend to be other people as their job. And if you want to see just how much a voice can bridge that wide span between a 3D model and a human being, go rent The Chronicles of Riddick.
So, original story, don't skimp on the voices. These aren't bad things for any game, but when we're talking about converting a cinematic property they're critical. Riddick throws in something that isn't, in my opinion, necessary - but when added to the other two creates the startled look you see on these reviewers. It has flashes of technical brilliance. This is the sort of graphical presentation we should be expecting at this point. They aren't next generation graphics, even - it's the way this generation should look, and Farcry is the only other game that comes to mind which really presents the argument for modern hardware. The game isn't long enough for the honeymoon period to be over, even by the end you'll still be marvelling at just how immersive an environment can be when its surfaces capture and reflect light properly.
---
Spot on from last weeks penny-arcade.
And it will get "worse" for PC gamers. What are the big advantages of a PC game over a console? Display resolution, processing power, input devices. Well for the first two - HDTV isn't far off and next gen consoles will run rings around all but the highest-end PC's. As for input - check how many people are playing FFxi on their PS2 with USB keyboards.
So, yeah. Consoles will be the main focus of the big game publishers and devs.
But I do see a silver lining. Smaller game companies and homebrew games will get more play time as PC gamers tire of ports of console games. I also believe that game publishers will promote open-sourceing of games on the PC and encourage mod communities to attempt the sucesses of half-life.
Cooking - making food - is not an art. It absolutly CAN be an art. Here's alton own words on it.
---
It's kind of like, I'd love to own a Picasso. I like Picasso. If I could own a Picasso one day, that would be swell. But I don't want to paint like Picasso. It's like the really great chefs are artists and it's like, I'm going to go to the restaurants and enjoy it. I don't want to cook like that at home and I don't want them to publish books that tell me how because you know what? You can't! You can't. You can not do it. They can write that stuff down, you're still not going to be able to do it. That's why, I think Joseph? [sic, Thomas?] Heller, amazing chef, French Laundry, out in Napa, amazing guy. I can't cook any of the stuff in his book because it's not enough to have it written down. It isn't enough. No more than it would be enough for Picasso to have written How To Paint A Picasso book. That's what we're talking about.
There's a level... It's like, I don't call myself a chef. I'm not a chef. I don't have the creative chops to call myself a chef. Can I hack out a decent meatloaf? Well, yeah, because I understand the meatloaf and yackety-yak. But I am I going to create a great dish? No? I'm not going to create a great dish. Those guys have that artistry and I wish they'd just do it and sell it and let those of us that want to eat it and enjoy it and stop writing cookbooks. Because I know more people that have given up on cooking because they couldn't make Charlie Trotter's friggin' Rabbit Reduction sauce. It's so intimidating. It infuriates me that those guys feel like they don't make enough money already that they have to make the rest of us feel bad with their cookbooks. So, I don't buy them. I don't buy those cookbooks. I very rarely buy cookbooks, to be frank.
---
Bullshit. There's no "invisible hand" at work here. When EQ came out is was from a relative unknown and small studio. It was predictied to die quick (who's going to pay $9 MONTHLY for a game?!) and was much, much smaller than UO.
It got big because it was new and fun. A semi-D&D world to explore. You could do anything - craft, explore, kill monsters, etc. There was a steep learning curve, but that was to be expected from a game where you really were in their world.
And during EQ's reign, lots of mmorpgs came out. none were even remotly as good and I knew many people that came to EQ from AC or whatever.
Here's the real reason EQ is dying - it's been beaten. Sure it's a never ending story, but the gods of the eq expansion were beaten. The gods. It's like watching a movie that you're sure is going to end because the climax came and everything was resolved... but then doesn't. So all the hard core people that can raid all day long are sitting around wondering "what now?" while the non-hard core are stuck and can't advance any further without being "hard core".
*shocking* that a "new" media presentation format can be made to enhance learning or training. How unlike all previous media presentation formats like books, audio recordings, or movies.
Or am I the only one going "yeah, duh?"
You joke, but yes.
Several companies hire people in low-wage countries like mexico and have them produce EQ platnium. This in-game money is sold for real money on auction sites.
ACLU Was Forced to Revise Release on Patriot Act Suit
Justice Dept. Cited Secrecy Rules
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 13, 2004; Page A27
When a federal judge ruled two weeks ago that the American Civil Liberties Union could finally reveal the existence of a lawsuit challenging the USA Patriot Act, the group issued a news release.
But the next day, according to new documents released yesterday, the ACLU was forced to remove two paragraphs from the release posted on its Web site, after the Justice Department complained that the group had violated court secrecy rules.
One paragraph described the type of information that FBI agents could request under the law, while another merely listed the briefing schedule in the case, according to court documents and the original news release.
The dispute set off a furious round of court filings in a case that serves as both a challenge to, and an illustration of, the far-reaching power of the Patriot Act. Approved by Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the law gives the government greater latitude and secrecy in counterterrorism investigations and includes a provision allowing the FBI to secretly demand customer records from Internet providers and other businesses without a court order.
The ACLU first filed its lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of such demands, known as national security letters, on April 6, but the secrecy rules of the Patriot Act required the challenge to be filed under seal. A ruling April 28 allowed the release of a heavily censored version of the complaint, but the ACLU is still forbidden from revealing many details of the case, including the identity of another plaintiff who has joined in the lawsuit. The law forbids targets of national security letters to disclose that they have received one.
ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson said the court order also means that she "cannot confirm or deny" whether the ACLU is representing the second plaintiff. The group is the only counsel listed in court documents.
The dispute over the ACLU's April 28 news release centered on two paragraphs. The first laid out the court's schedule for receiving legal briefs and noted the name of the New York-based judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero.
The second paragraph read: "The provision under challenge allows an FBI agent to write a letter demanding the disclosure of the name, screen names, addresses, e-mail header information, and other sensitive information held by 'electronic communication service providers.' "
Justice lawyers said that both paragraphs violated a secrecy order and that the ACLU should be required to seek an exemption to publicize the information, court records show. Justice spokesman Charles Miller declined to comment yesterday.
"It simply never occurred to us that this information would be covered by the sealing order, because it's completely non-sensitive, generic information," Beeson said.
The dispute was partly resolved yesterday. Marrero ruled that the briefing schedule could be publicized, along with edited versions of other court filings. But the paragraph describing the information that can be sought remains absent.
=-=-=-=-=-=
my god. WTF is wrong with the government of this country?
Too late to get moderated, but WTF...
school teachers are encouraged to pass failing students not because of PC bullshit, but because blame for ANY failing student is placed on the teacher. As in "you didn't do your job". Plus, look into the horrible "no child left behind act" and see how badly it's designed to fuck up public schools.
You better hope we don't collapse. I "hate America" (ie. disagree with current policy) as much as any thinking person, but I know that as bad as we are, the death throws would be 100x worse for me/us/everyone.
Not fun when you play for money? Tell that to any pro-athlete. Sure it's work, but it's the best work you could hope for.
Honestly, do you think they are doing some double entry accounting at night to blow off steam from playing games all day?
It's all TRUE! I am NOT a 30 year old 6'4" 300lb man! I am a hot 17 year old girl.
Really.
I haven't played Everquest. or any of it's ilk.
Insightful? From someone that's never played any of these games? Yah... sure..
There's a difference between paying somone off, and fighting a sterotype buy doing a good thing that is supposedly out of charecter.
But hey, maybe your right. So... how do YOU propose gamers fight a negative stereotype while helping sick kids?
It's not the items that have the value - it's the time involved in getting the item that has value, or the time to level up the charecter that has value. If there was no time involved in getting the items, they would be worth considerably less if anything at all.
Obviously the only reason you have a TV and a DVD player is to watch pirated DVDs. The only reason you have a computer is to download pirated music and movies. The internet is only for porn and bomb making instructions you damn dirty pirates.
Be glad that it's not "supporting terrorism" to have a downloaded movie.
Slash-deaded.
I wonder if a face mask just dropped from the celing..
Oh bullshit. They "can't" do it? You actually claim that one of the most popular franchises ever has no content worth converting into the game? No locations/stories/battlesites or noteable NPCs? There's were no movies/books/games/concept drawings that could be used?
The content was already there. The reason none of it was in game is that there was a business or design decision not to use it.
We really need a (-1 stupid) mod.
Another beta tester here. The SWG team is very different than the EQ team. The monthly fee is only $2 more than current EQ prices. And there won't be many fanboys either.
They'll avoid this game for the same reasons everyone else will - because the fights are boring, the other gameplay tedious, and there's no way to be a jedi.
38% Windows bash.
22% Linux worship.
16% Katz bash.
13% OS penis messuring.
8% punctuation correction.
2% spelling correction.
1% comedy.
1% math correction.
1% sig.
Slashdot - Now made from 100% recycled materials.
I can't wait for the "So, now we like the MPAA now?" posts! +5 for sure.
They're always interesting to me. I know some think that type of post is stupid crap, but I'm actually part of post-backlash-"hate the RIAA/MPAA" posts. They're kind of kitsch and retro.
If the punishment does not fit the crime. See drugs, usage of.
I agree criminals should be punished but I also think the DMCA = BAD and hacker laws should be re-written
Amazing movie really.
So... you didn't get that it was a parody yet huh?