Not that I see this coming to commercial flights any time soon (if ever), but: having the pilot not actually on the plane would make airplane hijacking a hell of a lot harder. If the pilot can't be personally threatened, and isn't directly faced with passengers being threatened*, it would be easier for "don't go along" training to be effective.
*Does anyone have a link to that study where people were asked to press a button to "electrocute" other people, and how many were willing to do it as long as they were told by an authority figure it was ok? Were there also results regarding whether or not the subject could see the person being "electrocuted?"
Judging by the number of unique accounts that posted to the message boards as a percentage of the total accounts active, the message boards represented more than a two-thirds majority of the player base. The general - though not universal - consensus on the message boards was that "more RP" was desirable, as compared to stat building.
It is, of course, possible that it was simply the loudest voices that held out for RP; I'm unaware of anyone doing statistical analysis on the content of the message boards. But when a forum is provided for players to express their wishes, and those wishes are clearly one thing, I don't think it's arrogance for the admins to pursue that thing.
Besides which - I have no reason to believe that the situation that obtained on the MOO is different than the situation that obtains on modern MMORPGs in this respect. The message that is received (both by the admins of that MOO, and, apparently, by Bioware, hence their statement) is that "the grind" is bad. That this message was, as evidenced by behavior, wrong on the MOO might indicate that this message is also wrong for the MMORPG.
Which is my whole point, of course. Lots of people say they hate the grind, but when the game is played, people always go for the grind. They may or may not be the same people, and I really don't care. Grinders get what they want.
It may be futile for me to hope you read this, but your post is interesting, so I'll give this a shot.
Well I'm sure to get some troll mods for this, but what the hell. There's a certain amount of zealotry in your statement usually only reserved for religion.
Perhaps. It is a result of seeing various infractions (in my estimation) that persist in modern America, with the majority of people neither knowing nor caring - or worse, being actively complicit. It is a sore subject with me, and I probably do come across as something of a zealot. Feel free to ignore any rhetoric of mine you consider inflammatory.
The fact that I do not agree that retroactive copyright extensions are unconstitutional should speak to the fact that it is not "blatantly unconstitutional," but if you were arguing with me about it I wouldn't be too put out if you were just sure you were right.
Given the text of the constitutional clause granting the congress the power to provide for copyright:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
I do not see how it is possible to retroactively promote the progress of science and useful arts. How Congress in the late nineties can promote progress in the 1920s is entirely beyond me. There is also a possible issue regarding the "limited times" clause, insofar as if Congress is allowed to arbitrarily extend the times every time they are about to expire, I don't believe the times to be limited. However, this is a much trickier issue, admittedly, since the laws as passed do themselves specify a limited (albeit too long, IMHO) time.
The problem I have is you're arguing with the people whose job it is to decide these matters. (If you want to get REALLY technical, the power to declare laws unconstitutional, which you seem to support, is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.) The case of retroactive extensions was heard and the extensions upheld. Until such time as they review the decision and overturn it, not only are retroactive copyright extensions not blatantly unconstitutional, they are not unconstituional at all. While I know nothing about you specifically,/.'ers often like to make these sort of assertions about Constitutionality without even any legal education which just makes it twice as annoying to me. We'll complain about managers who aren't technical making technical decisions, but in the very next breath we'll argue the law with judges. It really floors me.
But this argument basically denies anyone who isn't a judge the right to question the laws under which they must live. If such decisions are beyond question by the people whose job it isn't to decide these matters (anyone but judges), then by what process can they be reviewed, as you imply (correctly) is also part of the process? How does the question even get raised? The history of American law is filled with people outside the legal profession questioning the laws as written and upheld, thereby forcing those laws and decisions to be reviewed. Women's suffrage and the Civil Rights movement leap immediately to mind.
Your argument is that, since judges are the authority on the matter, what they say must not be questioned by mere mortals. I disagree with this position. If my knowledge on a given issue is inadequate to support an opinion I hold, then by all means, please point out what information I'm lacking, and make a case that I'm wrong. While I'm certainly not objective on the matter, I like to think my mind can be changed by compelling arguments.
Your position seems to be not only an appeal to authority, but that appeal to authority is the only way to let these matters be decided. I do not agree, if for no other reason than the logical conclusion of your argument is that the current state of legal affairs is, by definition, properly constitutional. The problem is that the same statement could have been mad
Which is my point, and is pretty much precisely what I said. The community may want (or say they want) role play and minimal grinding, but players want grinding. Which is why this new MMORPG is not, IMHO, going to succeed in doing away with it.
And I fail to see how it's "arrogance" to try and design a system according to what everyone on the message boards is saying they want. The problem lies in not recognizing that what they say they want isn't actually what they want, which is a problem that I don't consider synonymous with arrogance. Perhaps naivete, but not arrogance.
Why is this surprising? That the law was blatantly unconstitutional was clear
That, unfortunately, is often no bar to laws being upheld by the judiciary. Retroactive copyright extensions are an obvious example. The effective federalization of the drinking age (and the speed limit) is another. More than half the laws passed under the auspices of the commerce clause also qualify.
Hence my surprise.
I have great faith in the US' judicial system in criminal matters. Less in civil matters, even less when large sums of money are involved, and least of all when political activism and "doing things for the children" or "fighting terrorism" are involved.
This case is, in the oft-cited "grand scheme of things," fairly minor. But it's still encouraging to me. But then, maybe I'm a cynic.
Simply putting more weight on storytelling experience points is a good way to do that
Not really. Or rather, it may be "good" in the sense that it's better than other ways, but not "good" in the sense that it actually accomplishes what the designers intended it to.
I was a wiz (admin, sort of) on a MOO back in the day. It was MUD-like in that it had a coded stats/skills system, including combat (both player-vs-player and player-vs-aHaB). It was MOO/MUSH like in that it emphasized actual role play, rather than dungeon crawling. In some ways, it was about the best setup one could hope for: there was a significant cultural value put on role playing.
This didn't stop players from sparring up stats and twinking their way through the game. It didn't stop "the grind." When people complained about what was going on, various technical means were put in place to try and curtail repetitive stat building and encourage role play. None of them succeeded to any great extent.
Or rather, they succeeded fantastically well for the players that availed themselves of the new systems - but those are the players who would have been role playing anyway.
After going through three different stat/skill systems on that game, with each change meant to discourage the grind and encourage role play, and none being terribly effective, I came to the conclusion that if you build it, they will not necessarily come. The very existence of a stats/skills system, I believe, means that there will be people who just try to game it as fast as they can, to up their numbers. And if the stats/skills system means anything at all within the game, those players will have an advantage over players who don't want to spend the time doing that.
Hell, you see the same thing in small groups of table-top RPGers. There's often (almost always, IME) one guy at the table, even in a good group, whose sole focus is levelling up. In that sort of small community setting, with constant one-on-one interaction between the GM and the players, and when the GM is pretty much god (I don't care how many dice you have in sneak, you cannot sneak across the football field in broad daylight. Fine, roll your dice...oh, sorry, you failed. He saw you and you died), this can be dealt with. None of those factors obtain in an online game: you have many people (a "Massive" amount, one might say), there isn't enough staff to have constant interaction with a real person, and the staff that does exist has to follow a specific set of rules, lest there be widespread player bitching and general dissatisfaction.
I spent a good lot of time working up a stat/skill system that, I believe, would have helped alleviate the problem (partially by recognizing that people will grind, and incorporating that into the system). I stopped before even trying to push for its implementation for two reasons: first, because I ended up realizing that it probably wouldn't work as well as I hoped. And second, because most of the players I bounced it off of didn't like it - they wanted the grind.
*shrug*
I wish BioWare and their future player base the best of luck. I really hope it works out for them. But I really don't think it will.
The first I ran across a similar concept (and one mentioned in TFA) was, in fact, on slashdot. It might have been this article, though that references earlier stories I couldn't find in a quick googling. Of course, the Scientific American article the/. writeup links to is MIA, so I can't be sure that's the blurb I'm thinking of.
But yeah, if you've been reading/. for long enough, you've seen something like this before.
How did this get modded "informative?" There's no actual information in the post, aside from a claim about "300 times as many useful analytical features," while providing no definition for "useful," much less anything like even a glimpse of what those "usefule analytical features" are.
Really, this post parses to: Product A is WAY better than brand X! Even product C is better than brand X!
I see claims like that in TV ads all the time; I'm not tempted to call them "informative."
So it did, and I haven't seen a PC that didn't require you to use a menu, console command, or press-and-hold (sometimes via iLO board, even) since then. But that's still a far cry from having never seen one, as the GP said.
Every PC I've ever seen requires you to use the shut-down menu item, or, in case of a lock-up, hold the power button for 4 seconds to initiate the ATX PSU cutout.
You haven't been using PCs that long, than.
I've seen plenty of PCs that had a power button in the classic sense - it operated a switch that controlled power to the machine. You'd hit the button, and - hey presto! - the machine shut off. Instantaneously.
A: we're talking about the Wii, which is $250, not $600.
B: You're right, my bad, and I'm blushing. It's.1%, not.001%. The point still stands that I earn money specifically so that I can spend it on things I want.
More math:
I'm also talking about the premium to buy on eBay, not the total cost of the console - I'd pay $250 anyway for the console in a few weeks. So it's the $120 that's in question, not the $420 I'm paying total for console + Zelda + shipping (and certainly not $720 for a console that isn't what I'm talking about).
The point is, I spent $420 on the Wii and Zelda to have it here today, rather than $300 (plus shopping on Black Friday) for the Wii and Zelda to have it in hand on Friday, or $300 (without the shopping hassle) for the Wii and Zelda to have it in a few weeks. The $120, at roughly.1% of my household income, was a premium I was willing to pay for having the console earlier.
Or, I could decide that having the console and at least two games I want to play in time for Thanksgiving, so I can play with my family on one of the few occasions we're all in the same place at the same time is worth spending the extra ~0.001% of my annual household income on. And maybe the increased risk of having to re-buy the console, thereby losing ~0.003% of my annual household income is acceptable for that reward.
For fuck's sake, this is why I make money - so I can spend it on stuff I want.
This very fact is what had me pull the trigger on hitting eBay for one. I was all set to wait it out...and then it occurred to me that my plan was to go out at 4:30 AM on Black Friday to wrestle with a screaming horde of deal-seeking madwomen intent on buying the perfect gift for spoiled little Geoffrey and armed with banshee wails and mama bear claws.
From that point of view, the $120 premium I paid to have it delivered to my apartment tomorrow suddenly seemed far more reasonable.
Re:So... it realy sucks, but its the best 360 game
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Gears of War Review
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· Score: 1
As I mentioned in a different thread, you are, strictly speaking, correct. However, the camera control is such that it plays/feels like a FPS. Particularly indicative of this is the "down the gunsight" view while aiming, which is typical of FPSes (although without the side of your face in frame, admittedly) rather than 3rd-person games.
So yes, it is a 3rd-person game, insofar as you're never inside the main character. However, its feel is very much that of a FPS, and as such, that's (in my mind) the appropriate genre for it.
I remember (back in the day) watching people flail around in Goldeneye
I can't even express to you how much fun it was to play Goldeneye with my roommate of the time...he was hopeless with the analog stick, and you would almost always see him staring straight up at the ceiling or straight down at his feet. It helped that he always played as Oddjob, of course.
While everyone's entitled to his opinion, some opinions are less generally applicable than others, and I suspect that Mr. Sofge's are among the "less" bunch.
Every time I sighted down the controller at the TV, the crosshairs were off-center
This presupposes that you should be sighting down the controller to aim the crosshairs, which I contend is not how most people (myself included) will be using it. A light gun, since it mimics the feel of a real gun, should meet this standard. The Wiimote, since it mimics the feel of a laser pointer (roughly, at least), need not. When I point a laser pointer at part of a slide, I don't actually sight down the barrel before pressing the button. I point it at the intended target, turn it on, then adjust the aim appropriately. I'm sure if the laser was significantly off-line, it would be problematic, but as long as it's close, I don't really care. If there's an onscreen pointer, then I don't see this being a problem. It's certainly not going to be less "realistic" or "natural" than moving a mouse - in a plane perpendicular to the viewing plane - to aim a gun, and that's been the standard for FPS-style aiming for a decade and a half.
During a quest to catch a magical fish, the onscreen directions told me to cast my line by swinging the right controller back, then forward. And when the fish bit, a graphic showed me how to make a reeling motion with the nunchuk. I was annoyed when I couldn't shoot straight, but this was worse. The Wii is T-ball for gamers.
I hardly think that having games show you the appropriate controls to accomplish in-game tasks is unique to either Zelda or the Wii. While the growth of in-game tutorials might be criticized for leading to a dearth of quality manuals, it's certainly an effective way to learn how to play a game. So it shows you the correct motions to make to do something in the game. How is this any different than a manual showing you which buttons to press to accomplish something in the game? You still have to go and actually do it, after all. Besides which, Zelda as a franchise (recently, anyway) isn't exactly known for being a demanding twitch/precision control style of game. It's a pseudo-RPG in its modern incarnations. A little assist on the dextral mechanics for playing isn't really a bad thing.
After a few whacks, I realized that the Wii isn't asking me to simulate a realistic swing... [snip]...compared with the full-body workout of a game like Dance Dance Revolution, you're not getting any kind of exercise at all.
No kidding. I can virtually guarantee that a console which required a full-body workout to play games would be a dismal failure on the marketplace. It's one thing for DDR, it's another thing for a whole system. The idea behind the Wiimote, in my mind, is that someone can pick it up and play baseball as if he was actually swinging a bat. That's the part that's accessible to everyone who's gone bowling, or played tennis, or baseball, etc. That you don't have to do that doesn't mean the system's a disappointment. In fact, for a lot of people, that's probably an advantage: that means that the novel control scheme won't get in the way of having a good time.
(And I won't even touch the amount of criticism that Nintendo would draw if their console was completely inaccessible to, say, paraplegics)
Which is why I could hit one-handed home runs without winding up or following through.
Strictly speaking, follow through isn't a physical requirement for hitting home runs. Once the ball has left the bat, the bat imparts no more energy to the ball. It could stop the instant it was out of contact with the ball, and the ball would go just as far. Follow through is simply a result of swinging that mass around, and mentally focussing on follow through is what allows the actual impact to be smooth and at peak velocity.
If you translate this to something the mass of the Wiimote, you've still got exactly as much follow throug
While strictly true, the camera control is such that it plays/feels like a first person shooter rather than a 3rd-person game. The aiming mechanic is particularly indicative of this, since the "down the gunsight" view (even though including a view of the side of your head in GoW) is typical of FPSes rather than 3rd-person games.
I won't argue, however, that you are correct, insofar as you are never actually inside the main character.
It depends on the presentation, in my mind. I expect all FPSes to be, essentially, linear: that is, there's a set of levels, and each level has basically one path through it. Still, the game can make you feel like it's not linear in various ways.
Many of the levels in Half Life, for example, were very evocative of realistic building layout. Sure, there was a specific sequence of rooms that you had to go through to beat the level, but there were also plenty of extraneous rooms and hallways. Console FPSes that I've played, on the other hand, rarely seem to have any significant areas of the level that aren't directly involved in the correct path.
Using Doom as an example, it wasn't just that you had to backtrack, it's that there were often a couple ways to go. One of them would result in progress through the level, the other would dump you out by a powerup. That's the sort of thing that's missing in console FPSes, in my experience.
With the exception, now that I think about it, of Goldeneye on the N64. That did a good job of having extra rooms and hallways that played no real role in the game aside from giving you a better feel of being in the real world.
Much of it is, admittedly, presentation. When there are essentially arbitrary barrier you can't get past (e.g., why can I jump over this wall, but not over those crates?), it makes it feel like you're being herded. When the barriers are more natural (the hallways in HL, for example) seeming, you can suspend disbelief and imagine that there's stuff on the other side of the walls that you could get to.
Perhaps "linear" isn't the right word. It's more a matter of perceived constraints, rather than a matter of actual gameplay forcing. The latter is pretty much inherent to the FPS genre (though I don't know why that has to be true), the former varies fairly widely from one game to the next.
Sorry, I should have been clearer - when I said "these titles" I was referring specifically to FPSes. There are plenty of games outside that genre that are far longer than 10 hours. Zelda is certainly one example (and I can't wait until my Wii shows up).
Re:So... it realy sucks, but its the best 360 game
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Gears of War Review
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· Score: 1
You can certainly read his review that way, but that's not an accurate conclusion. The game is excellent, among the best FPSes I've ever played, and certainly the best on a console.
Slashdot Mirror
Not that I see this coming to commercial flights any time soon (if ever), but: having the pilot not actually on the plane would make airplane hijacking a hell of a lot harder. If the pilot can't be personally threatened, and isn't directly faced with passengers being threatened*, it would be easier for "don't go along" training to be effective.
*Does anyone have a link to that study where people were asked to press a button to "electrocute" other people, and how many were willing to do it as long as they were told by an authority figure it was ok? Were there also results regarding whether or not the subject could see the person being "electrocuted?"
Judging by the number of unique accounts that posted to the message boards as a percentage of the total accounts active, the message boards represented more than a two-thirds majority of the player base. The general - though not universal - consensus on the message boards was that "more RP" was desirable, as compared to stat building.
It is, of course, possible that it was simply the loudest voices that held out for RP; I'm unaware of anyone doing statistical analysis on the content of the message boards. But when a forum is provided for players to express their wishes, and those wishes are clearly one thing, I don't think it's arrogance for the admins to pursue that thing.
Besides which - I have no reason to believe that the situation that obtained on the MOO is different than the situation that obtains on modern MMORPGs in this respect. The message that is received (both by the admins of that MOO, and, apparently, by Bioware, hence their statement) is that "the grind" is bad. That this message was, as evidenced by behavior, wrong on the MOO might indicate that this message is also wrong for the MMORPG.
Which is my whole point, of course. Lots of people say they hate the grind, but when the game is played, people always go for the grind. They may or may not be the same people, and I really don't care. Grinders get what they want.
It may be futile for me to hope you read this, but your post is interesting, so I'll give this a shot.
/.'ers often like to make these sort of assertions about Constitutionality without even any legal education which just makes it twice as annoying to me. We'll complain about managers who aren't technical making technical decisions, but in the very next breath we'll argue the law with judges. It really floors me.
Well I'm sure to get some troll mods for this, but what the hell. There's a certain amount of zealotry in your statement usually only reserved for religion.
Perhaps. It is a result of seeing various infractions (in my estimation) that persist in modern America, with the majority of people neither knowing nor caring - or worse, being actively complicit. It is a sore subject with me, and I probably do come across as something of a zealot. Feel free to ignore any rhetoric of mine you consider inflammatory.
The fact that I do not agree that retroactive copyright extensions are unconstitutional should speak to the fact that it is not "blatantly unconstitutional," but if you were arguing with me about it I wouldn't be too put out if you were just sure you were right.
Given the text of the constitutional clause granting the congress the power to provide for copyright:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
I do not see how it is possible to retroactively promote the progress of science and useful arts. How Congress in the late nineties can promote progress in the 1920s is entirely beyond me. There is also a possible issue regarding the "limited times" clause, insofar as if Congress is allowed to arbitrarily extend the times every time they are about to expire, I don't believe the times to be limited. However, this is a much trickier issue, admittedly, since the laws as passed do themselves specify a limited (albeit too long, IMHO) time.
The problem I have is you're arguing with the people whose job it is to decide these matters. (If you want to get REALLY technical, the power to declare laws unconstitutional, which you seem to support, is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.) The case of retroactive extensions was heard and the extensions upheld. Until such time as they review the decision and overturn it, not only are retroactive copyright extensions not blatantly unconstitutional, they are not unconstituional at all. While I know nothing about you specifically,
But this argument basically denies anyone who isn't a judge the right to question the laws under which they must live. If such decisions are beyond question by the people whose job it isn't to decide these matters (anyone but judges), then by what process can they be reviewed, as you imply (correctly) is also part of the process? How does the question even get raised? The history of American law is filled with people outside the legal profession questioning the laws as written and upheld, thereby forcing those laws and decisions to be reviewed. Women's suffrage and the Civil Rights movement leap immediately to mind.
Your argument is that, since judges are the authority on the matter, what they say must not be questioned by mere mortals. I disagree with this position. If my knowledge on a given issue is inadequate to support an opinion I hold, then by all means, please point out what information I'm lacking, and make a case that I'm wrong. While I'm certainly not objective on the matter, I like to think my mind can be changed by compelling arguments.
Your position seems to be not only an appeal to authority, but that appeal to authority is the only way to let these matters be decided. I do not agree, if for no other reason than the logical conclusion of your argument is that the current state of legal affairs is, by definition, properly constitutional. The problem is that the same statement could have been mad
Exactly. And what players want is the grind.
Which is my point, and is pretty much precisely what I said. The community may want (or say they want) role play and minimal grinding, but players want grinding. Which is why this new MMORPG is not, IMHO, going to succeed in doing away with it.
And I fail to see how it's "arrogance" to try and design a system according to what everyone on the message boards is saying they want. The problem lies in not recognizing that what they say they want isn't actually what they want, which is a problem that I don't consider synonymous with arrogance. Perhaps naivete, but not arrogance.
Why is this surprising? That the law was blatantly unconstitutional was clear
That, unfortunately, is often no bar to laws being upheld by the judiciary. Retroactive copyright extensions are an obvious example. The effective federalization of the drinking age (and the speed limit) is another. More than half the laws passed under the auspices of the commerce clause also qualify.
Hence my surprise.
I have great faith in the US' judicial system in criminal matters. Less in civil matters, even less when large sums of money are involved, and least of all when political activism and "doing things for the children" or "fighting terrorism" are involved.
This case is, in the oft-cited "grand scheme of things," fairly minor. But it's still encouraging to me. But then, maybe I'm a cynic.
Simply putting more weight on storytelling experience points is a good way to do that
Not really. Or rather, it may be "good" in the sense that it's better than other ways, but not "good" in the sense that it actually accomplishes what the designers intended it to.
I was a wiz (admin, sort of) on a MOO back in the day. It was MUD-like in that it had a coded stats/skills system, including combat (both player-vs-player and player-vs-aHaB). It was MOO/MUSH like in that it emphasized actual role play, rather than dungeon crawling. In some ways, it was about the best setup one could hope for: there was a significant cultural value put on role playing.
This didn't stop players from sparring up stats and twinking their way through the game. It didn't stop "the grind." When people complained about what was going on, various technical means were put in place to try and curtail repetitive stat building and encourage role play. None of them succeeded to any great extent.
Or rather, they succeeded fantastically well for the players that availed themselves of the new systems - but those are the players who would have been role playing anyway.
After going through three different stat/skill systems on that game, with each change meant to discourage the grind and encourage role play, and none being terribly effective, I came to the conclusion that if you build it, they will not necessarily come. The very existence of a stats/skills system, I believe, means that there will be people who just try to game it as fast as they can, to up their numbers. And if the stats/skills system means anything at all within the game, those players will have an advantage over players who don't want to spend the time doing that.
Hell, you see the same thing in small groups of table-top RPGers. There's often (almost always, IME) one guy at the table, even in a good group, whose sole focus is levelling up. In that sort of small community setting, with constant one-on-one interaction between the GM and the players, and when the GM is pretty much god (I don't care how many dice you have in sneak, you cannot sneak across the football field in broad daylight. Fine, roll your dice...oh, sorry, you failed. He saw you and you died), this can be dealt with. None of those factors obtain in an online game: you have many people (a "Massive" amount, one might say), there isn't enough staff to have constant interaction with a real person, and the staff that does exist has to follow a specific set of rules, lest there be widespread player bitching and general dissatisfaction.
I spent a good lot of time working up a stat/skill system that, I believe, would have helped alleviate the problem (partially by recognizing that people will grind, and incorporating that into the system). I stopped before even trying to push for its implementation for two reasons: first, because I ended up realizing that it probably wouldn't work as well as I hoped. And second, because most of the players I bounced it off of didn't like it - they wanted the grind.
*shrug*
I wish BioWare and their future player base the best of luck. I really hope it works out for them. But I really don't think it will.
How stunningly...sane.
Every now and again, something happens to help convince me that all hope is not, in fact, lost.
The first I ran across a similar concept (and one mentioned in TFA) was, in fact, on slashdot. It might have been this article, though that references earlier stories I couldn't find in a quick googling. Of course, the Scientific American article the /. writeup links to is MIA, so I can't be sure that's the blurb I'm thinking of.
/. for long enough, you've seen something like this before.
But yeah, if you've been reading
What they ought to do is replace the oceans with frictionless liquid helium. That would be way more effective.
How did this get modded "informative?" There's no actual information in the post, aside from a claim about "300 times as many useful analytical features," while providing no definition for "useful," much less anything like even a glimpse of what those "usefule analytical features" are.
Really, this post parses to: Product A is WAY better than brand X! Even product C is better than brand X!
I see claims like that in TV ads all the time; I'm not tempted to call them "informative."
So it did, and I haven't seen a PC that didn't require you to use a menu, console command, or press-and-hold (sometimes via iLO board, even) since then. But that's still a far cry from having never seen one, as the GP said.
Every PC I've ever seen requires you to use the shut-down menu item, or, in case of a lock-up, hold the power button for 4 seconds to initiate the ATX PSU cutout.
You haven't been using PCs that long, than.
I've seen plenty of PCs that had a power button in the classic sense - it operated a switch that controlled power to the machine. You'd hit the button, and - hey presto! - the machine shut off. Instantaneously.
So, is this only the second time you've posted this exact comment, or have I missed others?
I'd accuse you of karma whoring, but people normally log in for that.
Don't get ahead of yourself; Netcraft hasn't confirmed it.
A: we're talking about the Wii, which is $250, not $600.
.1%, not .001%. The point still stands that I earn money specifically so that I can spend it on things I want.
.1% of my household income, was a premium I was willing to pay for having the console earlier.
B: You're right, my bad, and I'm blushing. It's
More math:
I'm also talking about the premium to buy on eBay, not the total cost of the console - I'd pay $250 anyway for the console in a few weeks. So it's the $120 that's in question, not the $420 I'm paying total for console + Zelda + shipping (and certainly not $720 for a console that isn't what I'm talking about).
The point is, I spent $420 on the Wii and Zelda to have it here today, rather than $300 (plus shopping on Black Friday) for the Wii and Zelda to have it in hand on Friday, or $300 (without the shopping hassle) for the Wii and Zelda to have it in a few weeks. The $120, at roughly
And a good thing, too, or they'd be completely unprepared for the Skaarj - and that's only if they make it out of the prison ship!
Or, I could decide that having the console and at least two games I want to play in time for Thanksgiving, so I can play with my family on one of the few occasions we're all in the same place at the same time is worth spending the extra ~0.001% of my annual household income on. And maybe the increased risk of having to re-buy the console, thereby losing ~0.003% of my annual household income is acceptable for that reward.
For fuck's sake, this is why I make money - so I can spend it on stuff I want.
This very fact is what had me pull the trigger on hitting eBay for one. I was all set to wait it out...and then it occurred to me that my plan was to go out at 4:30 AM on Black Friday to wrestle with a screaming horde of deal-seeking madwomen intent on buying the perfect gift for spoiled little Geoffrey and armed with banshee wails and mama bear claws.
From that point of view, the $120 premium I paid to have it delivered to my apartment tomorrow suddenly seemed far more reasonable.
As I mentioned in a different thread, you are, strictly speaking, correct. However, the camera control is such that it plays/feels like a FPS. Particularly indicative of this is the "down the gunsight" view while aiming, which is typical of FPSes (although without the side of your face in frame, admittedly) rather than 3rd-person games.
So yes, it is a 3rd-person game, insofar as you're never inside the main character. However, its feel is very much that of a FPS, and as such, that's (in my mind) the appropriate genre for it.
I remember (back in the day) watching people flail around in Goldeneye
I can't even express to you how much fun it was to play Goldeneye with my roommate of the time...he was hopeless with the analog stick, and you would almost always see him staring straight up at the ceiling or straight down at his feet. It helped that he always played as Oddjob, of course.
While everyone's entitled to his opinion, some opinions are less generally applicable than others, and I suspect that Mr. Sofge's are among the "less" bunch.
...compared with the full-body workout of a game like Dance Dance Revolution, you're not getting any kind of exercise at all.
Every time I sighted down the controller at the TV, the crosshairs were off-center
This presupposes that you should be sighting down the controller to aim the crosshairs, which I contend is not how most people (myself included) will be using it. A light gun, since it mimics the feel of a real gun, should meet this standard. The Wiimote, since it mimics the feel of a laser pointer (roughly, at least), need not. When I point a laser pointer at part of a slide, I don't actually sight down the barrel before pressing the button. I point it at the intended target, turn it on, then adjust the aim appropriately. I'm sure if the laser was significantly off-line, it would be problematic, but as long as it's close, I don't really care. If there's an onscreen pointer, then I don't see this being a problem. It's certainly not going to be less "realistic" or "natural" than moving a mouse - in a plane perpendicular to the viewing plane - to aim a gun, and that's been the standard for FPS-style aiming for a decade and a half.
During a quest to catch a magical fish, the onscreen directions told me to cast my line by swinging the right controller back, then forward. And when the fish bit, a graphic showed me how to make a reeling motion with the nunchuk. I was annoyed when I couldn't shoot straight, but this was worse. The Wii is T-ball for gamers.
I hardly think that having games show you the appropriate controls to accomplish in-game tasks is unique to either Zelda or the Wii. While the growth of in-game tutorials might be criticized for leading to a dearth of quality manuals, it's certainly an effective way to learn how to play a game. So it shows you the correct motions to make to do something in the game. How is this any different than a manual showing you which buttons to press to accomplish something in the game? You still have to go and actually do it, after all. Besides which, Zelda as a franchise (recently, anyway) isn't exactly known for being a demanding twitch/precision control style of game. It's a pseudo-RPG in its modern incarnations. A little assist on the dextral mechanics for playing isn't really a bad thing.
After a few whacks, I realized that the Wii isn't asking me to simulate a realistic swing... [snip]
No kidding. I can virtually guarantee that a console which required a full-body workout to play games would be a dismal failure on the marketplace. It's one thing for DDR, it's another thing for a whole system. The idea behind the Wiimote, in my mind, is that someone can pick it up and play baseball as if he was actually swinging a bat. That's the part that's accessible to everyone who's gone bowling, or played tennis, or baseball, etc. That you don't have to do that doesn't mean the system's a disappointment. In fact, for a lot of people, that's probably an advantage: that means that the novel control scheme won't get in the way of having a good time.
(And I won't even touch the amount of criticism that Nintendo would draw if their console was completely inaccessible to, say, paraplegics)
Which is why I could hit one-handed home runs without winding up or following through.
Strictly speaking, follow through isn't a physical requirement for hitting home runs. Once the ball has left the bat, the bat imparts no more energy to the ball. It could stop the instant it was out of contact with the ball, and the ball would go just as far. Follow through is simply a result of swinging that mass around, and mentally focussing on follow through is what allows the actual impact to be smooth and at peak velocity.
If you translate this to something the mass of the Wiimote, you've still got exactly as much follow throug
While strictly true, the camera control is such that it plays/feels like a first person shooter rather than a 3rd-person game. The aiming mechanic is particularly indicative of this, since the "down the gunsight" view (even though including a view of the side of your head in GoW) is typical of FPSes rather than 3rd-person games.
I won't argue, however, that you are correct, insofar as you are never actually inside the main character.
It depends on the presentation, in my mind. I expect all FPSes to be, essentially, linear: that is, there's a set of levels, and each level has basically one path through it. Still, the game can make you feel like it's not linear in various ways.
Many of the levels in Half Life, for example, were very evocative of realistic building layout. Sure, there was a specific sequence of rooms that you had to go through to beat the level, but there were also plenty of extraneous rooms and hallways. Console FPSes that I've played, on the other hand, rarely seem to have any significant areas of the level that aren't directly involved in the correct path.
Using Doom as an example, it wasn't just that you had to backtrack, it's that there were often a couple ways to go. One of them would result in progress through the level, the other would dump you out by a powerup. That's the sort of thing that's missing in console FPSes, in my experience.
With the exception, now that I think about it, of Goldeneye on the N64. That did a good job of having extra rooms and hallways that played no real role in the game aside from giving you a better feel of being in the real world.
Much of it is, admittedly, presentation. When there are essentially arbitrary barrier you can't get past (e.g., why can I jump over this wall, but not over those crates?), it makes it feel like you're being herded. When the barriers are more natural (the hallways in HL, for example) seeming, you can suspend disbelief and imagine that there's stuff on the other side of the walls that you could get to.
Perhaps "linear" isn't the right word. It's more a matter of perceived constraints, rather than a matter of actual gameplay forcing. The latter is pretty much inherent to the FPS genre (though I don't know why that has to be true), the former varies fairly widely from one game to the next.
Sorry, I should have been clearer - when I said "these titles" I was referring specifically to FPSes. There are plenty of games outside that genre that are far longer than 10 hours. Zelda is certainly one example (and I can't wait until my Wii shows up).
You can certainly read his review that way, but that's not an accurate conclusion. The game is excellent, among the best FPSes I've ever played, and certainly the best on a console.