Agreed, it's one reason I think Crysis is a pile of dogshit.
Don't get me wrong, beautiful game, awe inspiring. It just sucks balls, same mechanics as FarCry (which was a shit game with a shit story and sexy graphics), same story as every 2-bit military game.
To be honest, if you want to do a game with no story (or even just a done to death story), make a multiplayer game.
Recent releases from Valve show the way. While I think Valve is full of dickheads who destroy other people's games (counter-strike), they do wonderful work on their own. TF2, no story really, just a few clips between each map, great mechanics and fairly good graphics - excellent game. HL2:EP2, excellent story, excellent mechanics, "ok" graphics - excellent game.
The industry need to wake the fuck up to themselves really. Rehashing the same plot with sexier graphics doesn't work.
The amusing thing is that games that have used the same graphics but continued and built the story are vastly more entertaining than sexy graphics and the same plot.
The best way of dealing with this (if the laptop BIOS supports it) is to set the SATA controller to compatability mode (emulates IDE on SATA). If you DON'T do this, you'll probably end up with the Lenovo T60 problem (blue screens on first boot after a fresh install). BIOS upgrades help a bit, but can brick the notebook if you've already had problems with it.
I was very weary of Steam at first, I figured it was an "evil DRM intrusion" into my system.
Since I had to get it for TF2, I've found that the games are 1/2 the price of the stores, I don't need to line up and talk to smelly sales assistants and my games are pretty much safe - no discs to lose and even if I lose the backups... I can download them again. I mean, wow, that's, just, wow... go to a game shop and try to organise that kind of arrangement.
There's a thin line you can walk with DRM - it's valid for some applications if used to make reasonable profit and not to double dip on everything you sell.
The average over 1.2 million "sales" is $5. whether it's 1.2million people or 500 000 people it matters not. The fanbase may be smaller, or possibly larger (I know quite a few people who *shock horror* don't own a computer), but that's a different matter to raw sales data.
Vista doesn't get any breaks for 1 reason:
I run Vista and it runs GREAT!
BUT... big BUT.
I am currently running:
Intel Q6600@3Ghz
2x 1GB 800Mhz RAM
2x ATi HD2600 XT 256MB GDDR4
P35 Chipset Motherboard.
Runs REAL smooth. I tried to run it on my old AMD 4000+ X2/2GB/ATi x1950. I had to pretty much scale it back to almost look like XP before it was anywhere near usable - and why would I do that, when I have XP.
I know this is off topic.
To bring it back to topic, nice read of an article, it seems the ISS is prone to the same problems we have down here - interoperability.
Not sure if you guys use these in the US, but if your phone company ran RAM8's you'd be set - full V.90 support. There's also ExpanDSL (made by the same comany, Extel http://www.extel.com.au/), ISDN boosters, etc.
If your phone companies over there won't implement this kind of technology it's pretty sad.
Not only is he former defense minister, he just quit politics... gotta go out with a bang, in "The Bomber's" (his nickname) case it's kind of befitting.
I swear I have not read a bigger load of bullshit in my life with regards to games.
I really hate doing this whole quote and respond shit, but you seem to need it.
No FPS, certainly has delivered anything close to that level of amazing plot which keeps me hanging on to see what happens next. Not a ton of RPGs, which are all about story, deliver a story as good as Halo's.
What plot? I have played both Halo & Halo II... the plot is so weak that I don't actually think anyone wrote the plot, it was more than likely just random ideas drawn out of a hat.
I think the Halo games are the finest FPS games ever crafted... but I also think Half-Life is the single most overrated game ever released, so my opinions obviously aren't the majority's on the subject of FPS.
I can't believe you even typed this bullshit. Halo has ripped a lot of ideas from Halflife, and while I'm not one to agree that popularity means something is good, Halflife is one of the most popular games of all times for good reasons - PLOT, graphics, audio, atmosphere, mods (in other words, the stuff that is missing from Halo).
Halo was fun, Halo 2 was overrated, Halo 3 is the last dieing gasp of a company that sold it's soul to Microsoft. Yes I do own an Xbox, and a 360, and a gaming rig, and a Wii, and a DS, and the list goes on (way back to an original Amiga & Atari). Opinion is one thing, but claiming that something has a plot when it clearly doesn't, claiming that a game that has survived for years is overrated is a load of bullshit.
If you want to play a great game from Bungie, go buy an old mac (or a 360) and play Marathon. Marathon > Halo 1,2,3
Unfortunately Blizzard aren't in the game of listening to players. It seems the devs are more into pandering for hardcore play all day players.
As someone who has been on both sides of the fence (hardcore & casual) and I can assure eveyone that there is little to no place in WoW for casual gamers. Sure, they lowered the sizes of raids... big whoop, they had 20 man raids before the expansion. There's little else other than this, even getting to heroics as a casual gamer is close to impossible if you're a casual gamer due to grind times required.
The fact that the game has become so popular is also one of the downfalls, trying to get a group that doesn't wipe on every mob is close to impossible.
Needless to say, my account is cancelled - LOTRO & Eve are my addictions now.
Your mistake is to assume that the "general (less-educated) public" are going to believe what you say over what they've been told by corporate bodies, etc.
While your 1-5 is a little fanciful (I'm thinking they'll use them either as a threat or just to wipe Tehran off the face of the planet), the point larry made is quite valid.
How the hell would the public know that the plane was carrying nukes unless someone leaked the info delberately.
If you have a HP machine, you have 90 days to organise getting the CDs shipped out (they are burnt yes, but they are also free). After 90 days, it's AU$30-AU$50. I only know this as I work support and have to organise this crap for people who decide to reblast their XP machines with Vista then realise that it's a bad idea.
Anyone stupid enough to pay a techie to do this kind of work when you buy a machine deserves to lose their money. Then again, not everyone is confident or compitent with computers... burning a CD is way out of their knowledge sphere.
Who cares who buys it... so long as they don't screw Seagate like Maxtor did Quantum (or Western Digital did to themselves). For me, there is only 1 HDD manufacturer that I really trust now, and that's Seagate.
This is actually not anything big - Malaysia Airline uses Linux as their in-flight entertainment system (I only know as I managed to crash it while flying).
I suppose the big thing is actually being able to be productive mid flight. Until they start offering RJ45 sockets for me to browse the net freely on my own notebook I'm not going to be excited.
*sigh* I really hate these bullshit "they can't do anything with it anyway" responses from you Americans. The whole point of civil liberties and such is so that you can live without persecution. It's easy to persecute people without convicting them... in fact, it's the only way. True convictions aren't persecution if they are the result of a fair trial.
The issue here is that they might be "monitoring" you due to some things you've said, done, or believe. Let's say you decide to go for a high paying, high priority job in a large company. I wonder what these military fascists will do then? Let you get the job? Or maybe anonymously tip off the HR department that you're a dangerous person, etc.
Gee, that's no violation of your freedoms.
Anyway, I hope your goverment hangs itself at the next election, either that or your smartest people start an uprising to get rid of these nutcases in control of your country.
I hope that my country never ends up like yours... ever.
I play both Eve & WoW - one thing I've noticed in Eve is that the younger players are so unfocused that they do some of the most retarded shit I've ever seen in a game. I rolled a new character about 3 weeks ago and it has more focused combat skills than a 13 year old player in my corp who's been playing for 3 months. He has 151 skills vs my 50, he has 2m SP vs my 1.5m.
To me, comparing WoW & Eve is just not possible - the games are so vastly different that even the mention of "in Eve XX happens, in WoW YY happens" just doesn't gel with me. WoW is more like a "general population" game where there's the whole range of different levels of society. In Eve, you're hard pressed to find a casual gamer who actually plays the game rather than just SPing up.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't care until it is... youporn > youtube
Agreed, it's one reason I think Crysis is a pile of dogshit.
Don't get me wrong, beautiful game, awe inspiring. It just sucks balls, same mechanics as FarCry (which was a shit game with a shit story and sexy graphics), same story as every 2-bit military game.
To be honest, if you want to do a game with no story (or even just a done to death story), make a multiplayer game.
Recent releases from Valve show the way. While I think Valve is full of dickheads who destroy other people's games (counter-strike), they do wonderful work on their own. TF2, no story really, just a few clips between each map, great mechanics and fairly good graphics - excellent game. HL2:EP2, excellent story, excellent mechanics, "ok" graphics - excellent game.
The industry need to wake the fuck up to themselves really. Rehashing the same plot with sexier graphics doesn't work.
The amusing thing is that games that have used the same graphics but continued and built the story are vastly more entertaining than sexy graphics and the same plot.
As with most comedy, you are merely stating the truth in a blatant way. Scary isn't it.
I don't think Novell has any desire to take over a stagnant company.
Not so...
The best way of dealing with this (if the laptop BIOS supports it) is to set the SATA controller to compatability mode (emulates IDE on SATA). If you DON'T do this, you'll probably end up with the Lenovo T60 problem (blue screens on first boot after a fresh install). BIOS upgrades help a bit, but can brick the notebook if you've already had problems with it.
I just stuck some paper between the touchscreen and the chassis... problem fixed.
I was very weary of Steam at first, I figured it was an "evil DRM intrusion" into my system.
Since I had to get it for TF2, I've found that the games are 1/2 the price of the stores, I don't need to line up and talk to smelly sales assistants and my games are pretty much safe - no discs to lose and even if I lose the backups... I can download them again. I mean, wow, that's, just, wow... go to a game shop and try to organise that kind of arrangement.
There's a thin line you can walk with DRM - it's valid for some applications if used to make reasonable profit and not to double dip on everything you sell.
You're missing the point.
The average over 1.2 million "sales" is $5. whether it's 1.2million people or 500 000 people it matters not. The fanbase may be smaller, or possibly larger (I know quite a few people who *shock horror* don't own a computer), but that's a different matter to raw sales data.
MBD is Asus P5K - the best you can get. :D
Vista doesn't get any breaks for 1 reason: I run Vista and it runs GREAT! BUT... big BUT. I am currently running: Intel Q6600@3Ghz 2x 1GB 800Mhz RAM 2x ATi HD2600 XT 256MB GDDR4 P35 Chipset Motherboard. Runs REAL smooth. I tried to run it on my old AMD 4000+ X2/2GB/ATi x1950. I had to pretty much scale it back to almost look like XP before it was anywhere near usable - and why would I do that, when I have XP. I know this is off topic. To bring it back to topic, nice read of an article, it seems the ISS is prone to the same problems we have down here - interoperability.
yes, because that's the ONLY way you can abuse DNA.
Not sure if you guys use these in the US, but if your phone company ran RAM8's you'd be set - full V.90 support. There's also ExpanDSL (made by the same comany, Extel http://www.extel.com.au/), ISDN boosters, etc.
If your phone companies over there won't implement this kind of technology it's pretty sad.
Not only is he former defense minister, he just quit politics... gotta go out with a bang, in "The Bomber's" (his nickname) case it's kind of befitting.
I swear I have not read a bigger load of bullshit in my life with regards to games.
I really hate doing this whole quote and respond shit, but you seem to need it.
No FPS, certainly has delivered anything close to that level of amazing plot which keeps me hanging on to see what happens next. Not a ton of RPGs, which are all about story, deliver a story as good as Halo's.
What plot? I have played both Halo & Halo II... the plot is so weak that I don't actually think anyone wrote the plot, it was more than likely just random ideas drawn out of a hat.
I think the Halo games are the finest FPS games ever crafted... but I also think Half-Life is the single most overrated game ever released, so my opinions obviously aren't the majority's on the subject of FPS.
I can't believe you even typed this bullshit. Halo has ripped a lot of ideas from Halflife, and while I'm not one to agree that popularity means something is good, Halflife is one of the most popular games of all times for good reasons - PLOT, graphics, audio, atmosphere, mods (in other words, the stuff that is missing from Halo).
Halo was fun, Halo 2 was overrated, Halo 3 is the last dieing gasp of a company that sold it's soul to Microsoft. Yes I do own an Xbox, and a 360, and a gaming rig, and a Wii, and a DS, and the list goes on (way back to an original Amiga & Atari). Opinion is one thing, but claiming that something has a plot when it clearly doesn't, claiming that a game that has survived for years is overrated is a load of bullshit.
If you want to play a great game from Bungie, go buy an old mac (or a 360) and play Marathon. Marathon > Halo 1,2,3
Unfortunately Blizzard aren't in the game of listening to players. It seems the devs are more into pandering for hardcore play all day players.
As someone who has been on both sides of the fence (hardcore & casual) and I can assure eveyone that there is little to no place in WoW for casual gamers. Sure, they lowered the sizes of raids... big whoop, they had 20 man raids before the expansion. There's little else other than this, even getting to heroics as a casual gamer is close to impossible if you're a casual gamer due to grind times required.
The fact that the game has become so popular is also one of the downfalls, trying to get a group that doesn't wipe on every mob is close to impossible.
Needless to say, my account is cancelled - LOTRO & Eve are my addictions now.
Your mistake is to assume that the "general (less-educated) public" are going to believe what you say over what they've been told by corporate bodies, etc.
While your 1-5 is a little fanciful (I'm thinking they'll use them either as a threat or just to wipe Tehran off the face of the planet), the point larry made is quite valid.
How the hell would the public know that the plane was carrying nukes unless someone leaked the info delberately.
If you have a HP machine, you have 90 days to organise getting the CDs shipped out (they are burnt yes, but they are also free). After 90 days, it's AU$30-AU$50. I only know this as I work support and have to organise this crap for people who decide to reblast their XP machines with Vista then realise that it's a bad idea.
Anyone stupid enough to pay a techie to do this kind of work when you buy a machine deserves to lose their money. Then again, not everyone is confident or compitent with computers... burning a CD is way out of their knowledge sphere.
Who cares who buys it... so long as they don't screw Seagate like Maxtor did Quantum (or Western Digital did to themselves). For me, there is only 1 HDD manufacturer that I really trust now, and that's Seagate.
just because the UID is high doesn't mean people are new here... it just means they are new to posting here. Like myself.
Where there's money to be spent there's idiots to spend it...
This is actually not anything big - Malaysia Airline uses Linux as their in-flight entertainment system (I only know as I managed to crash it while flying).
I suppose the big thing is actually being able to be productive mid flight. Until they start offering RJ45 sockets for me to browse the net freely on my own notebook I'm not going to be excited.
*sigh* I really hate these bullshit "they can't do anything with it anyway" responses from you Americans. The whole point of civil liberties and such is so that you can live without persecution. It's easy to persecute people without convicting them... in fact, it's the only way. True convictions aren't persecution if they are the result of a fair trial.
The issue here is that they might be "monitoring" you due to some things you've said, done, or believe. Let's say you decide to go for a high paying, high priority job in a large company. I wonder what these military fascists will do then? Let you get the job? Or maybe anonymously tip off the HR department that you're a dangerous person, etc.
Gee, that's no violation of your freedoms.
Anyway, I hope your goverment hangs itself at the next election, either that or your smartest people start an uprising to get rid of these nutcases in control of your country.
I hope that my country never ends up like yours... ever.
I'm glad you brought this up.
I play both Eve & WoW - one thing I've noticed in Eve is that the younger players are so unfocused that they do some of the most retarded shit I've ever seen in a game. I rolled a new character about 3 weeks ago and it has more focused combat skills than a 13 year old player in my corp who's been playing for 3 months. He has 151 skills vs my 50, he has 2m SP vs my 1.5m.
To me, comparing WoW & Eve is just not possible - the games are so vastly different that even the mention of "in Eve XX happens, in WoW YY happens" just doesn't gel with me. WoW is more like a "general population" game where there's the whole range of different levels of society. In Eve, you're hard pressed to find a casual gamer who actually plays the game rather than just SPing up.
There is no such thing as benign product placement...