How can you have a good 'teenage kid discovers he's the chosen one and saves the universe' story, when there are thousands of protagonists?
Actually, this is one thing that I thought Age of Conan actually handled quite well. About every 10 levels, you get a Destiny quest that unfolds more of the storyline - these quests are all single player and mostly instanced so it feels like it's just you doing these things. You still spend most of your time questing and vanquishing evil alongside other people, but running parallel to all of that is the very personal secondary plotline of the destiny quests.
The problem with this is that it's still vulnerable to brute-force attacks: in your example, with 5 words and 5 pictures, you're looking at 14400 possible combinations - a bot should be able to run through all of these pretty quick. Increase the number of pictures and you'll slow it down, but the problem is still there.
In addition, you presumably have a finite number of pictures and words, which means someone just needs to go through all of them and build up a database of all possible images and their corresponding words, and then the bots won't even need to brute-force it.
If it's the new Lightsaber game then maybe it'll use force feedback. HAHAHA get it "force feedback" You know, like the force. Lightsabers are from the movie series "Star Wars" where they used a magical power called the force, and controllers that simulate resistance are called "force feedback controllers," and the only way to get that feed back in a free form controller such as the one the wii uses would be through a magical effect such as "the force." It's funny mainly because I took this much time to explain it or not.
The comics are very good, and both the Hellboy and BPRD series are still going, as well as several new spinoffs (Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien). They're a good mixture of weird folk tales and Lovecraftian horror, with the occasional Nazi occult conspiracy thrown in for good measure.
...or to be more specific, I hated what they've done to the characters.
First things first, I should warn you that I am a huge Hellboy fan - I own all of the Hellboy and BPRD comics, and have read them multiple times. As a further warning, this post is going to be full of spoilers, so read at your own risk.
I really wanted to like both Hellboy films; they're entertaining, the plots and writing are decent, and the special effects are very good. Unfortunately, I just can't stomach the way they've reinvented all of the characters.
Abe Sapien is not a weak, cowardly intellectual with weird psychic hand things. Abe Sapien is tough and level-headed: this is the guy who led the team after Hellboy left, a man who has survived a fight with the Ogopogo, being shot by a monkey, and several impalings. And seriously, what's up with the hands? Who made that crap up?
Ron Perlman actually makes a pretty damn good Hellboy, but I am sick of all this "am I a monster or am I a man?" melodrama they keep pushing in the films. Yes, there is some of that in the comics, but it's much more subtle, and much more strongly tied to his destiny as the bringer of the Apocalypse rather than the fact that he looks different. In the comics, Hellboy never really seems to make too much of a distinction between the human and supernatural worlds; he was the first person to befriend Liz Sherman, and the one who stopped the experiments on Abe and welcomed him into the team. Is he worried that he is destined to destroy the world? Yes. Is he worried that he's a big red dude with horns? Probably not.
Also, all the romance in the films is a complete fabrication. Is it not possible to create a movie any more without shoveling in some crappy romantic sub-plot? Liz and Hellboy? Never happened, at least not yet. Especially not the pregnancy part. They are definitely fond of each other, but there has never been any real indication that their feelings go beyond a very strong friendship. In fact, all of the romance in the comics can be summed up as follows:
Roger: has a crush on a Roman goddess
Abe: used to be married, meets the ghost of his wife
Johann: once fell in love with a dead woman, also he asked Kate out to dinner one time.
That's basically it, folks.
Finally, did they really have to turn Johann into some militant German stereotype? The man was a medium, not a Gestapo agent. I am also not a fan of the redesigned containment suit.
Yeah yeah, I know this is just some fanboy's "it's not as good as the comics!" rant, but it's true; the films are not as good as the comics, and it's because they went and changed things for no apparent reason.
It's people. Vetrolium is made out of people. They're making our fuel out of people. Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for fuel. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!
The distinction between theft and copyright infringement is not meaningless at all. Yes, they are both crimes, and yes, they both deprive people of revenue; however, they are not the same crime and should not be treated as such.
Let's revisit your example, but in this case somebody starts murdering anyone who bought the game. After a couple news reports, people might stop purchasing the game for fear of being murdered. Obviously the murderer is depriving the developers of sales revenue, so by your logic we should charge him with theft, right? Not murder?
I [Do you like things that start with "I"? Take our IT IQ test!] don't know [For more stories about people not knowing things, check out "Stupid user tricks" and "More stupider user tricks"] what you're talking about [Are people talking about you behind your back? Read our "Top 10 reasons to be paranoid" and find out]. Those text [If you enjoy reading text, you might enjoy "Stupid hacker tricks" and "Stupid hacker tricks 2: The folly of youth"] ads [Is malware putting your system at risk? Take our Network Security IQ Test] weren't irritating [Is your job getting on your nerves? Check out "The 7 dirtiest jobs in IT" to see how much worse it could be] at all!
At one of my previous jobs, the front entrance to the building consisted of two doors: an inner door and an outer door. The outer door was left unlocked during regular business hours, and was locked at all other times - if you needed evening or weekend access you would have to contact security and ask them to unlock it for you. The inner door had a keypad lock, and between the two doors was a phone and an employee directory so visitors could call someone and ask them to come open the inner door.
All in all, it was a reasonably secure system - admittedly, everyone using the same 3-digit code on the keypad lock isn't ultra-secure, but it would at least deter casual thieves.
However, management decided it wasn't secure enough. The solution: employee access cards! The old keypad was removed and replaced by a fancy new card reader... unfortunately, they put the card reader on the outer door. So now we have an inner door with no lock and an outer door that only employees can open - still pretty secure, right? Wait, we forgot: visitors need to be able to get past the outer door. Solution: leave the outer door unlocked during business hours.
In the name of increased security, we went from a half-decent system where only people who knew the door code could get in, to a system where anyone could walk right in the front door. Still, with all these fancy new access cards, the system must be more secure, right?
Here's my depressing dataset story: residential fire statistics.
Point of origin, source of ignition, number of deaths, etc. Imagine spending three months reading about how people died in fires.
The most depressing part? The #1 cause of fire by a very large margin was cigarettes.
Slashdot Mirror
Victoria (British Columbia)
Fixed
Sand is renewable?
If we're going to build floating cities, why go all the way to Venus? Why not just build them here?
How can you have a good 'teenage kid discovers he's the chosen one and saves the universe' story, when there are thousands of protagonists?
Actually, this is one thing that I thought Age of Conan actually handled quite well. About every 10 levels, you get a Destiny quest that unfolds more of the storyline - these quests are all single player and mostly instanced so it feels like it's just you doing these things. You still spend most of your time questing and vanquishing evil alongside other people, but running parallel to all of that is the very personal secondary plotline of the destiny quests.
I didn't know J. Jonah Jameson read Slashdot.
For the last time, no you're not.
In addition, you presumably have a finite number of pictures and words, which means someone just needs to go through all of them and build up a database of all possible images and their corresponding words, and then the bots won't even need to brute-force it.
If it's the new Lightsaber game then maybe it'll use force feedback. HAHAHA get it "force feedback" You know, like the force. Lightsabers are from the movie series "Star Wars" where they used a magical power called the force, and controllers that simulate resistance are called "force feedback controllers," and the only way to get that feed back in a free form controller such as the one the wii uses would be through a magical effect such as "the force." It's funny mainly because I took this much time to explain it or not.
I don't get it.
The comics are very good, and both the Hellboy and BPRD series are still going, as well as several new spinoffs (Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien). They're a good mixture of weird folk tales and Lovecraftian horror, with the occasional Nazi occult conspiracy thrown in for good measure.
On that note, did anyone else think the King' guards looked suspiciously like Pyramid Head?
First things first, I should warn you that I am a huge Hellboy fan - I own all of the Hellboy and BPRD comics, and have read them multiple times. As a further warning, this post is going to be full of spoilers, so read at your own risk.
I really wanted to like both Hellboy films; they're entertaining, the plots and writing are decent, and the special effects are very good. Unfortunately, I just can't stomach the way they've reinvented all of the characters.
Abe Sapien is not a weak, cowardly intellectual with weird psychic hand things. Abe Sapien is tough and level-headed: this is the guy who led the team after Hellboy left, a man who has survived a fight with the Ogopogo, being shot by a monkey, and several impalings. And seriously, what's up with the hands? Who made that crap up?
Ron Perlman actually makes a pretty damn good Hellboy, but I am sick of all this "am I a monster or am I a man?" melodrama they keep pushing in the films. Yes, there is some of that in the comics, but it's much more subtle, and much more strongly tied to his destiny as the bringer of the Apocalypse rather than the fact that he looks different. In the comics, Hellboy never really seems to make too much of a distinction between the human and supernatural worlds; he was the first person to befriend Liz Sherman, and the one who stopped the experiments on Abe and welcomed him into the team. Is he worried that he is destined to destroy the world? Yes. Is he worried that he's a big red dude with horns? Probably not.
Also, all the romance in the films is a complete fabrication. Is it not possible to create a movie any more without shoveling in some crappy romantic sub-plot? Liz and Hellboy? Never happened, at least not yet. Especially not the pregnancy part. They are definitely fond of each other, but there has never been any real indication that their feelings go beyond a very strong friendship. In fact, all of the romance in the comics can be summed up as follows:
That's basically it, folks.
Finally, did they really have to turn Johann into some militant German stereotype? The man was a medium, not a Gestapo agent. I am also not a fan of the redesigned containment suit.
Yeah yeah, I know this is just some fanboy's "it's not as good as the comics!" rant, but it's true; the films are not as good as the comics, and it's because they went and changed things for no apparent reason.
It's people. Vetrolium is made out of people. They're making our fuel out of people. Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for fuel. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!
Oblig. Futurama: The Professy will help! AIEE! Fire indeed hot!
The distinction between theft and copyright infringement is not meaningless at all. Yes, they are both crimes, and yes, they both deprive people of revenue; however, they are not the same crime and should not be treated as such.
Let's revisit your example, but in this case somebody starts murdering anyone who bought the game. After a couple news reports, people might stop purchasing the game for fear of being murdered. Obviously the murderer is depriving the developers of sales revenue, so by your logic we should charge him with theft, right? Not murder?
Oh man I would totally watch that movie
Gandalf?
I [Do you like things that start with "I"? Take our IT IQ test!] don't know [For more stories about people not knowing things, check out "Stupid user tricks" and "More stupider user tricks"] what you're talking about [Are people talking about you behind your back? Read our "Top 10 reasons to be paranoid" and find out]. Those text [If you enjoy reading text, you might enjoy "Stupid hacker tricks" and "Stupid hacker tricks 2: The folly of youth"] ads [Is malware putting your system at risk? Take our Network Security IQ Test] weren't irritating [Is your job getting on your nerves? Check out "The 7 dirtiest jobs in IT" to see how much worse it could be] at all!
In addition, recent casualties in Iraq are being blamed on lag and wallhacking insurgents.
The iPod Nano Nano? Sounds like something Mork would use.
At one of my previous jobs, the front entrance to the building consisted of two doors: an inner door and an outer door. The outer door was left unlocked during regular business hours, and was locked at all other times - if you needed evening or weekend access you would have to contact security and ask them to unlock it for you. The inner door had a keypad lock, and between the two doors was a phone and an employee directory so visitors could call someone and ask them to come open the inner door.
All in all, it was a reasonably secure system - admittedly, everyone using the same 3-digit code on the keypad lock isn't ultra-secure, but it would at least deter casual thieves.
However, management decided it wasn't secure enough. The solution: employee access cards! The old keypad was removed and replaced by a fancy new card reader... unfortunately, they put the card reader on the outer door. So now we have an inner door with no lock and an outer door that only employees can open - still pretty secure, right? Wait, we forgot: visitors need to be able to get past the outer door. Solution: leave the outer door unlocked during business hours.
In the name of increased security, we went from a half-decent system where only people who knew the door code could get in, to a system where anyone could walk right in the front door. Still, with all these fancy new access cards, the system must be more secure, right?
So wait, we don't have the right to bare arms? Shit, there goes my t-shirt business.
Here's my depressing dataset story: residential fire statistics. Point of origin, source of ignition, number of deaths, etc. Imagine spending three months reading about how people died in fires. The most depressing part? The #1 cause of fire by a very large margin was cigarettes.
Incontinent Ibex?
My post was also a joke. I'm pretty sure "retain" doesn't mean "coat the back of a mirror again".
My favorite example has always been the word "gormless" - what the hell is gorm?