I have a hunch that most people who hated FFX-2 didn't play more than an hour. It gets much better after the first hour or two, although there are still moments that are cringe-inducing.
For normal grunts, sure. For bosses if you went grinding so that you overpowered them, sure. For a lot of bosses, if you were at the appropriate level, that wasn't true at all. For example, the boss in the Shinra Mansion safe, and the boss at the end of the Temple of Ancients, are hard as nails if you aren't fairly leveled up.
They do take it in new directions (FF12's battle system, FF13's battle system and general departures from accepted series canon like having a complex leveling system and random sidequests in small towns). The problem is that people just don't like those directions. No amount of new blood will protect against that.
Wait. With an enormous asshat like Steiner in the game, you even had time to think another character was an asshat? Damn, I hate that guy. I almost quit the game because of him.
Zidane wasn't that bad, imo. I thought he was kinda cocky, but he was generally a good-intentioned and likable guy.
I don't find FF8's plot all that great, but the gameplay was so good. Yes, it made all your characters essentially homogeneous, but the junction system was so damn much fun to play with.
On the other hand, FF7's plot was amazing and the gaming gods will be smiting you for your heresy shortly.;)
You must live in opposite land, sir. FF8 had an OK plot (although not great), but not terrible. On the other hand, FF12 really did indeed have a terrible plot. Nothing interesting ever happened in that game, I only finished it just so that I didn't have the shame of not finishing FF12 before FF13 came out (and I only made that mark by a couple of weeks).
I can't agree with this at all. Questing in WoW, from the day I started playing (which was March '05... I feel old), has always been easy as fuck (with a few notable exceptions like the Rhok'Delar quest). So have 5-mans (both normal and, post-2.1, heroics). The only content that was ever really hard was raids and pre-nerf heroics. WoW is a great game, but it's never been a hard game at all.
If people having their stuff doesn't matter, then how does having access matter? It's nonsensical to say that it matters "just because". IMNSHO, the seriousness of someone else having access to my account is directly tied to what can be done with it. Hence, my email (which gets password resets and such) has a strong password, my bank account has a strong password, but my forum accounts, random site registrations, etc have a weak password which is the same for all sites. I don't give a damn if someone gets on my Facebook account (no matter how scary the author tries to wrongly claim it is), that's all publicly available information anyway. I do care if someone can use a weak password to get into my email, which they can then use to reset my bank account. It's about the damage which can be done, not some principle.
Attention Apple fanboys: it is not flamebait to poke justified fun at Steve Jobs for having the worst customer service response of all time. That dude deserves all the shit we can give him for that.:)
Don't worry, PC game developers are shifting to the $60 price point that the 360 and PS3 have. It started, to the best of my recollection with MW2, which I refused to buy on that basis (but it still sold millions, of course). I also recall AC2 for the PC doing the same shit, and most recently, SC2 (which again, sold millions). It won't be long before companies catch on to the fact that they can charge $10 extra and not really damage their sales, and they all jack the prices up.
I wouldn't agree that it's a pain in the ass at all (although it is messy). I've changed the oil on my car tons of times. The only part that is remotely a pain is crawling under the car once you have it up on ramps to position the oil receptacle and loosen the plug. After that, it's easy street. Granted, this is for my car, which doesn't have the oil filter placed in an asinine position. I don't know if most cars do, but my car (and family's cars that I've worked on) is easy.
So I stand by my statement that it's dead easy, and I'm not even remotely a gearhead.
Time is never without some cost, however, time is frequently without a monetary cost that you can use to justify paying someone money to save time. If you would not be using your time for something that pays you, it is worth $0. Assign a value to that if you wish, but accept that it's rather arbitrary and meaningless to do so.
I do care and do know the difference. Presumably many people prefer proper thin-crust pizza, otherwise said pizza chains would have made inroads in places other than the US and the UK. And even though I probably eat more frozen pizza than restaurant pizza, if I actually do pay to eat out at a restaurant, I prefer to get a proper pizza...
By "proper thin-crust pizza", you mean "garbage that isn't worth eating", I assume.:P
Your argument about the value of those people's time only applies if they would otherwise have been getting paid $150/hour. If, however, they are using their time which earns them $0/hour to set up their PS3 (and they will be), then there is no possibility that Best Buy's "service" could be a good deal.
Look, it's silly to pretend that changing your oil is as easy as doing a firmware update on the PS3. An oil change requires initiative, while a firmware update requires getting prompted to install it automatically, and then accepting a license agreement. However, please don't pretend that changing your oil is hard either. It's dead fucking easy, albeit requiring an initial investment in tools. Anyone who is not skilled enough (not those who are too lazy/physically unable) to change their oil is too dumb to be allowed to drive a car.
I go to Best Buy for certain things (video games, movies) that have a relatively fixed price. I also go if I have a great desire to get something RIGHT NOW and am willing to be ripped off so I don't have to wait a few days for shipping (such as the time I needed a new NIC). But yeah, I know that they rip people off a lot. I just don't buy those things that they rip people off on.
I agree with the GP's priorities for time usage, and my company's willingness has very little to do with whether or not I will run my life that way. I am part of an on call rotation, but that's as far as I'm willing to let it go. If they ever start having the expectation that I use my free time for them, I will refuse. If that's unacceptable to them, they can fire me. I don't wish to get fired, but I'd rather that than become a slave to the company.
The only exception to this is when there's something going on I personally find engaging. In that case, I will give some of my free time to work on it, but that's only because it's a fun project I would've done anyway; the company's benefiting from my free time is merely a bonus for them.
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I have a hunch that most people who hated FFX-2 didn't play more than an hour. It gets much better after the first hour or two, although there are still moments that are cringe-inducing.
For normal grunts, sure. For bosses if you went grinding so that you overpowered them, sure. For a lot of bosses, if you were at the appropriate level, that wasn't true at all. For example, the boss in the Shinra Mansion safe, and the boss at the end of the Temple of Ancients, are hard as nails if you aren't fairly leveled up.
They do take it in new directions (FF12's battle system, FF13's battle system and general departures from accepted series canon like having a complex leveling system and random sidequests in small towns). The problem is that people just don't like those directions. No amount of new blood will protect against that.
Wait. With an enormous asshat like Steiner in the game, you even had time to think another character was an asshat? Damn, I hate that guy. I almost quit the game because of him.
Zidane wasn't that bad, imo. I thought he was kinda cocky, but he was generally a good-intentioned and likable guy.
Besides, it's not even like FF13 is the first game in the series to be very linear. It's not much more linear than FF10 was.
I don't find FF8's plot all that great, but the gameplay was so good. Yes, it made all your characters essentially homogeneous, but the junction system was so damn much fun to play with.
On the other hand, FF7's plot was amazing and the gaming gods will be smiting you for your heresy shortly. ;)
You must live in opposite land, sir. FF8 had an OK plot (although not great), but not terrible. On the other hand, FF12 really did indeed have a terrible plot. Nothing interesting ever happened in that game, I only finished it just so that I didn't have the shame of not finishing FF12 before FF13 came out (and I only made that mark by a couple of weeks).
WotLK removed all difficulty in questing...
I can't agree with this at all. Questing in WoW, from the day I started playing (which was March '05... I feel old), has always been easy as fuck (with a few notable exceptions like the Rhok'Delar quest). So have 5-mans (both normal and, post-2.1, heroics). The only content that was ever really hard was raids and pre-nerf heroics. WoW is a great game, but it's never been a hard game at all.
If people having their stuff doesn't matter, then how does having access matter? It's nonsensical to say that it matters "just because". IMNSHO, the seriousness of someone else having access to my account is directly tied to what can be done with it. Hence, my email (which gets password resets and such) has a strong password, my bank account has a strong password, but my forum accounts, random site registrations, etc have a weak password which is the same for all sites. I don't give a damn if someone gets on my Facebook account (no matter how scary the author tries to wrongly claim it is), that's all publicly available information anyway. I do care if someone can use a weak password to get into my email, which they can then use to reset my bank account. It's about the damage which can be done, not some principle.
Heh. That is EPIC!
Attention Apple fanboys: it is not flamebait to poke justified fun at Steve Jobs for having the worst customer service response of all time. That dude deserves all the shit we can give him for that. :)
"Those users are putting their cases on wrong." - Steve Jobs, master of customer service
Don't worry, PC game developers are shifting to the $60 price point that the 360 and PS3 have. It started, to the best of my recollection with MW2, which I refused to buy on that basis (but it still sold millions, of course). I also recall AC2 for the PC doing the same shit, and most recently, SC2 (which again, sold millions). It won't be long before companies catch on to the fact that they can charge $10 extra and not really damage their sales, and they all jack the prices up.
I wouldn't agree that it's a pain in the ass at all (although it is messy). I've changed the oil on my car tons of times. The only part that is remotely a pain is crawling under the car once you have it up on ramps to position the oil receptacle and loosen the plug. After that, it's easy street. Granted, this is for my car, which doesn't have the oil filter placed in an asinine position. I don't know if most cars do, but my car (and family's cars that I've worked on) is easy.
So I stand by my statement that it's dead easy, and I'm not even remotely a gearhead.
Time is never without some cost, however, time is frequently without a monetary cost that you can use to justify paying someone money to save time. If you would not be using your time for something that pays you, it is worth $0. Assign a value to that if you wish, but accept that it's rather arbitrary and meaningless to do so.
I do care and do know the difference. Presumably many people prefer proper thin-crust pizza, otherwise said pizza chains would have made inroads in places other than the US and the UK. And even though I probably eat more frozen pizza than restaurant pizza, if I actually do pay to eat out at a restaurant, I prefer to get a proper pizza...
By "proper thin-crust pizza", you mean "garbage that isn't worth eating", I assume. :P
Your argument about the value of those people's time only applies if they would otherwise have been getting paid $150/hour. If, however, they are using their time which earns them $0/hour to set up their PS3 (and they will be), then there is no possibility that Best Buy's "service" could be a good deal.
Look, it's silly to pretend that changing your oil is as easy as doing a firmware update on the PS3. An oil change requires initiative, while a firmware update requires getting prompted to install it automatically, and then accepting a license agreement. However, please don't pretend that changing your oil is hard either. It's dead fucking easy, albeit requiring an initial investment in tools. Anyone who is not skilled enough (not those who are too lazy/physically unable) to change their oil is too dumb to be allowed to drive a car.
Heh. Touche, sir.
I go to Best Buy for certain things (video games, movies) that have a relatively fixed price. I also go if I have a great desire to get something RIGHT NOW and am willing to be ripped off so I don't have to wait a few days for shipping (such as the time I needed a new NIC). But yeah, I know that they rip people off a lot. I just don't buy those things that they rip people off on.
A company making a killing on a service sees no problem with offering it? I am shocked. Shocked, I say!
Wouldn't that be -1 impractical?
I agree with the GP's priorities for time usage, and my company's willingness has very little to do with whether or not I will run my life that way. I am part of an on call rotation, but that's as far as I'm willing to let it go. If they ever start having the expectation that I use my free time for them, I will refuse. If that's unacceptable to them, they can fire me. I don't wish to get fired, but I'd rather that than become a slave to the company.
The only exception to this is when there's something going on I personally find engaging. In that case, I will give some of my free time to work on it, but that's only because it's a fun project I would've done anyway; the company's benefiting from my free time is merely a bonus for them.
Because we're morons.
That, however, is not the fault of Windows. That's the third party vendors' fault.