I never said Poland had low Internet penetration, just that I think the mom-and-pop user category is significantly smaller. You know, the kind of people who get their computer and never ever install a thing on it, modify it or update it in any way. Obviously my view can be skewed, since I'm just talking about what I see and know myself. Still, I talked to a Dutch friend today (who used to work at an ISP help desk) and he said "everyone is online here, even grandpas and grannies". Now, I would never say that about where I live. And I think it makes at least a bit of a difference.
And of course I'm not claiming I've found the one answer to a great mystery either. I making this up as I go, for Pete's sake:) Just saying it's definitely _one_ of the factors to keep in mind.
The gap between Firefox (all versions) and IE (all versions) is also rather narrower for Europe than for North America.
Yeah, but there's something worth considering. I'm from Poland, which boasts FF leadership over IE (I am an Opera user myself but still) and there's something I realized, thinking about Poland's (and other Central European countries') results and also the massive Opera market share in Russia. Thing is, these are the countries with lower Internet penetration than North America. You have considerably moms and dads online, not to mention grannies and grandpas than, say, in the States. It's only natural that a younger, more tech-savvy Internet population will boost FF (or, more rarely, Opera) usage.
Consequently, this is reflected in combined stats for Europe, because it's the less-developed countries that "help" Firefox ratings. If you look at many Western European countries, you will see results similar to the American ones.
Granted, that theory totally doesn't explain 60% Firefox market share in Germany:)
Yes, at some point during the writing of my post above I was going to mention Zelda but I must've forgotten before I got to the right point. In Zelda it doesn't bug me the least bit. It's part of the legend thing, I guess. What also helps, I'm sure, is that the dialog is written rather than spoken. To be honest, it might actually be the principal issue here.
Now HL2 is a different thing for me, not because of who Gordon is in theory, but who he is in practice. I will admit that for some reason I have never played HL1---however, I do know who Gordon is in that game. However, by the time we get to HL2, he has all the fame and the whatnot (sure, I know it was all built around him), he becomes a more full-fledged character, he meets people he's met before, and so on, and so on. I realize perfectly well that he's supposed to be the everyman, but in my view he's become way too iconic for that, if you know what I mean. If we compare Half-Life and Legend of Zelda (which, taken out of context, must be a damn weird pair to compare...), Link is much more of a blank-slate character than Gordon Freeman, not least because each time he's technically a different person.
Concluding, I know exactly what you mean and I understand how a mute hero functions, but in my view it's a model much more suited for (1) fantasy-fairy-taley stories than those somewhat grounded in realism, or at least beliveability, and (2) text-based dialog rather than spoken one. Both points illustrate why it works better in Zelda and Chrono Trigger than in Half-Life. In my opinion, natch.
There is one more reason the first-person cutscenes in HL2 have always felt wrong to me, and the longer they were the more apparent it became. I'm talking about the fact you--in the body of Morgan Freeman, supposedly everybody's hero---are basically a mute retard. How can we even speak about immersiveness when a bunch of NPCs talk to you, talk about you among themselves, talk about issues which crucially involve you, and all you do is... stare? Or, as a matter of fact, run around the room while they are addressing you specifically, so immersiveness would have you stand there in front of them and at least maintain eye contact. I see a strong clash between all the exposition Gordon Freeman gets as a fully developped hero and the fact that in reality he's just an empty shell for you, the player. The empty shell thing works well in games when your character is a nobody, just a nameless marine or whatnot. But it falls apart with someone like Freeman.
For the record, I'm not saying I don't like HL or that the story sucks---far from it, actually. I love it, but I've simply always seen very specific issues with how they decided to present the plot. Solution? Hell if I know. Probably not regular cinematics. I guess if only you the possibility to actually interact--even to a small extent--with the NPCs, both during cutscenes and otherwise. And that also includes Gordon Freeman not being a damn mute.
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I never said Poland had low Internet penetration, just that I think the mom-and-pop user category is significantly smaller. You know, the kind of people who get their computer and never ever install a thing on it, modify it or update it in any way. Obviously my view can be skewed, since I'm just talking about what I see and know myself. Still, I talked to a Dutch friend today (who used to work at an ISP help desk) and he said "everyone is online here, even grandpas and grannies". Now, I would never say that about where I live. And I think it makes at least a bit of a difference.
And of course I'm not claiming I've found the one answer to a great mystery either. I making this up as I go, for Pete's sake :) Just saying it's definitely _one_ of the factors to keep in mind.
The gap between Firefox (all versions) and IE (all versions) is also rather narrower for Europe than for North America.
Yeah, but there's something worth considering. I'm from Poland, which boasts FF leadership over IE (I am an Opera user myself but still) and there's something I realized, thinking about Poland's (and other Central European countries') results and also the massive Opera market share in Russia. Thing is, these are the countries with lower Internet penetration than North America. You have considerably moms and dads online, not to mention grannies and grandpas than, say, in the States. It's only natural that a younger, more tech-savvy Internet population will boost FF (or, more rarely, Opera) usage. Consequently, this is reflected in combined stats for Europe, because it's the less-developed countries that "help" Firefox ratings. If you look at many Western European countries, you will see results similar to the American ones. Granted, that theory totally doesn't explain 60% Firefox market share in Germany :)
The video is 13:37 long. OnLive must be good.
Users expect it to work like magic all the time, and the tech/plumber always has to put up with the disgruntled user's shit.
Considering the plumbing metaphor used, I'm afraid the ending of the quoted sentence is a tad bit more graphic than I bargained for.
...every act of Calfornia legislation was found to consist entirely of articles numbered 22.
Yes, at some point during the writing of my post above I was going to mention Zelda but I must've forgotten before I got to the right point. In Zelda it doesn't bug me the least bit. It's part of the legend thing, I guess. What also helps, I'm sure, is that the dialog is written rather than spoken. To be honest, it might actually be the principal issue here.
Now HL2 is a different thing for me, not because of who Gordon is in theory, but who he is in practice. I will admit that for some reason I have never played HL1---however, I do know who Gordon is in that game. However, by the time we get to HL2, he has all the fame and the whatnot (sure, I know it was all built around him), he becomes a more full-fledged character, he meets people he's met before, and so on, and so on. I realize perfectly well that he's supposed to be the everyman, but in my view he's become way too iconic for that, if you know what I mean. If we compare Half-Life and Legend of Zelda (which, taken out of context, must be a damn weird pair to compare...), Link is much more of a blank-slate character than Gordon Freeman, not least because each time he's technically a different person.
Concluding, I know exactly what you mean and I understand how a mute hero functions, but in my view it's a model much more suited for (1) fantasy-fairy-taley stories than those somewhat grounded in realism, or at least beliveability, and (2) text-based dialog rather than spoken one. Both points illustrate why it works better in Zelda and Chrono Trigger than in Half-Life. In my opinion, natch.
There is one more reason the first-person cutscenes in HL2 have always felt wrong to me, and the longer they were the more apparent it became. I'm talking about the fact you--in the body of Morgan Freeman, supposedly everybody's hero---are basically a mute retard. How can we even speak about immersiveness when a bunch of NPCs talk to you, talk about you among themselves, talk about issues which crucially involve you, and all you do is... stare? Or, as a matter of fact, run around the room while they are addressing you specifically, so immersiveness would have you stand there in front of them and at least maintain eye contact. I see a strong clash between all the exposition Gordon Freeman gets as a fully developped hero and the fact that in reality he's just an empty shell for you, the player. The empty shell thing works well in games when your character is a nobody, just a nameless marine or whatnot. But it falls apart with someone like Freeman. For the record, I'm not saying I don't like HL or that the story sucks---far from it, actually. I love it, but I've simply always seen very specific issues with how they decided to present the plot. Solution? Hell if I know. Probably not regular cinematics. I guess if only you the possibility to actually interact--even to a small extent--with the NPCs, both during cutscenes and otherwise. And that also includes Gordon Freeman not being a damn mute.