"I'm not talking just about the physical ability to drive a car. I'm also not testing to validate one's ability to be a safe driver. I am, however, eliminating a good third of the population that flat-out can't drive. Either they lack the physical skills to control a large vehicle (maybe they have bad spacial relationships, or poor dexterity) or they are too dumb to understand that their actions are causing traffic problems."
I still say if they insist on giving speeding tickets to ppl who HAVE NEVER CAUSED AN ACCIDENT, then they should change the speeding rules for people who have better driving abilities... dexterity, hand-eye coordination, ability to focus, supressing road rage, etc.
It's simple... if you are good at video games, there's a good chance you are good at driving. Make a driving test a video game, and test response times, etc. I think I'd qualify except for the occasional road rage problem. =[ It wouldn't hurt if cars with better abilities (sports cars with good breaks and suspension for turning) got to go a little faster, too.
=D
It'd be nice if he followed the looks of the Smaug in the old animated movie. He was "original" enough to be LOTRish with the cat/wolf hairy appearance, but stereotypically dragon enough to be cool and identifiable.
http://www.thehobbit-movie-buzz.com/photos/44/smaug-the-dragon-from-the-hobbit-animated.php
Despite loving the movies and books... i had problems with about half of the monsters in LOTR being disappointing. I'm of the mind that monsters should be more cool than ugly, and more menacing than plain disgusting. The Uruk-hai were too apelike(?) or something and were generally gross. Maybe it was just the actors that moved like apes for all the orcs... i dunno, many didn't seem orcish to me very much. Some were cooler than others (the more monstrous ones were extremely cool)... but things like 90% of gums showing instead of teeth on the Uruk-hai's snarl were just nasty/annoying.
Like the following would have been good if not for the gums:
http://geekspeak.org/articles/comic_con_2004_the_show/weta_uruk-hai_220x293.jpg
The fell beasts were too ugly and eel-like or something instead of being more dragon-like. Gothmog (I think the name of the white orc with elephantitis, elephantitis???, in the movie) was just too disgusting despite having a slick demeanor.
The oliphaunts, Gollum, etc. were very cool at least. The ringwraiths were VERY cool... they made up for all the effects that I disagreed with. Oh, and the Balrog was perfect, too!
The WitchKing looking badass here, and even the winged beasty looks good at this angle. It may have been more of their movements that made them too eel-like.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/49/Fellbeast.jpg
I hear you, and your logic is valid. On this particular game, I'm good with balance leaning more towards fun... because although I think TF2 can be fairly competitive, it's got a very nice mix of fun to competitive ratio. But I will still say that it's very important to balance more strictly on the high end of the equation because the more ppl play, the better they will get, and any imbalance at the high end will creep in and mess up their fun.
If anything, I think I'm only disagreeing on the point of what balancing at the high end is. I don't mean take out all randomness, etc. to make the game perfectly competitive. I just mean that if at a high level of play something is obviously broken (and this is harder to say in team games, at least in the short run), it may need fixing. Fix it for the high end, then without breaking it, make the game fun and fix it for the lower skill levels. You just can't go in reverse, I think.
Balance should never be based on public data with all the noobs playing that screw around and don't play correctly. Over time the noobs will get better and play more like the serious players. Balance should ALWAYS be based on the most serious players. ALWAYS. To reiterate... ALWAYS. Another answer to why is that noobs will have about as much fun and do about as well even if things are fairly unbalanced at that skill level, as long as they aren't unbalanced greatly at low skill levels. Just like in sports... if you are playing Tennis and have no clue, a cheaper racket will be just as good for you as a super expensive one. Apparently not the case for the pros, right? But if you play the game a lot, eventually better equipment will be evident to you, and you'll upgrade or whatever.
Always always always balance for the highest level of play... and by highest level I mean top few percent of the population that plays. From there, balance the low skill stuff very carefully without breaking the high level stuff.
You are getting at the point but said bluntly...let's not forget that sometimes when they say merger, they don't mean merger at all. They mean buyout, and that could mean big changes to Blizzard... and that'd be damn scary. No amount of propaganda would prove it one way or the other... we simply have to see how it plays out.
But given the past buyout, we may actually be semi-safe. The biggest problem with blizzard is the fact that WOW took over so much of their time long after the creative and fun juices stopped flowing. Will starcraft 2 ever come out, and will it be catered to the masses or have the balance of serious play value with enough newbie stuff to get everybody to buy.
I know there is a fair bit of GPS info out there through various companies (in the US at least) that does give truckers the info they need for big trucks. A businessman/friend was asking me about dealing with some IT issues related to their systems, so the info does exist for some places. Britain is just behind the times I guess.
Excellent post. I find myself closer to the e-sports crowd on my favorite games, and I take map making very very seriously for multiplayer player against player like in Warcraft 3 or Starcraft or Unreal Tournament (including the newest). Lately I've picked up Team Fortress 2 and it is another instant classic.
One thing that's bothering me, while I'm on the subject, is the way that some games apparently don't cater enough to the general crowd to get a huge following. The ones I named do a pretty good job of that, and that keeps them fun. But now that xboxes and the like are trying to compete with PCs, it's breaking up the crowd even more. Causes some grief. Thank god Starcraft 2 won't be on the Xbox (right?).
Thank you, very funny.
On a more serious note, how much emphasis is placed on levels for multiplayer vs levels for plain old single player? Very very different things going on in those two worlds.
It would just take a few simple things. Vista needs to be as fast as XP, can't have any DRM junk, can't have all the annoying popups you have to click a thousand times, and shouldn't cost any more than XP. Even better, it needs to have an "XP Compatibility mode" that actually works with old software.
Since none of this will happen, I'm waiting for Windows 7.
Sadly, here in the USA too many big business practices prevail... including the brainwashing of the little man into thinking he needs a truck or SUV twice the size of the vehicles used 15 years ago. It's sick. I hate to be political, but I doubt Pres. Bush is helping matters either.
The best games are vs other people, and the best of those have an infinite number of choices. You gotta be smart, fast, and knowledgeable to beat someone who's really good at starcraft. And it's 10 years old and many strategies and such are still not finalized or "agreed upon" by the top players because there are so many variables... and they change depending on who you are playing and how you play.
I played the living crap out of starcraft, and I'm now a manager... and I think a really good one. I recently got a bonus that was bigger than my salary when i was fresh out of school... and I don't live in a high paying state.
I think the only argument is, good gamers can make good leaders (the personal drive/competitive aspect helps alot)... not really that all gamers make good leaders. And it doesnt matter which came first, the game or the personality.
This is a good example of that old saying from that old movie about old thieves. If you want to be a thief, do it once, do it big, and retire. Making 20 grand from 100+ minor stealizations is pure dumb (as is buying lottery tickets). I guess this also illustrates the fact that most criminals have low IQ. Good ole lead gasoline.;)
Nice rant. While I don't see car seats as being too terrible, the rest of it is so horribly true it's sickening in an urban or suburban environment. The only way to get away from this stuff is to get away from the cities. Of course then you miss out on high paying jobs, fast food on every block, and high crime rates. Maybe I should sell my house, get a simple job, and go live on my deceased grandparents' land. To be honest, it is tempting. I can even get decent internet out in the boondocks now.
But no matter where you run, this stuff is going to find you. Stop taking our damn freedoms away ppl!
That's what this sounds like. Walk out of line and Ow, Shock, ~ZZZTTTT~!.. in it's best Half-Life 2 civil announcement voice "Citizen must return to safe area. Any citizen who resists will be shipped to sector Delta for emotional retuning".
Tailgating is probably worse for causing accidents than speeding. I think they need to start enforcing the tailgating laws (after improving the definition of tailgating, so you can't get a ticket for sitting at a traffic light) more. Speeding can be bad, even though usually the limits are about 10 MPH under what the need to be on most roads I drive,... but tailgating has got to be the number one cause for accidents.
It'd be nice if police actually gave tickets to people in the wrong. My first accident was mostly caused by a guy not signaling a turn. They gave me the ticket b/c the guy lied. The last accident I was in, the guy admitted not paying attention and rearending me b/c he was an idiot. No ticket!!! WTF???
I also wouldn't mind if they took a more serious stance on drunk driving. I got in one accident were a guy had plenty of alcohol on his breath, and they let him off completely. I even mentioned it to the cop b/c i was so pissed the idiot hit me.
When you really need someone in the computer field of work that knows what you are doing... you'll be really glad if you can find the good ones amongst all the unprofessional idiots out there. Half the IT world are extremely smart and competent, while the other half barely have a clue or care. It's really scary... and the gumball machine certs provided by MS and such are obviously not much help. At least get one with a real degree if you need serious help with business matters.
It's almost true. Catering to the masses tends to turn things into... less skilled, less edgy, more fluff and less substance. Kinda like a lot of holiwood movies.
BUT, there are still a few kick ass games out there that pop up every few years... here and there. Street Fighter series, Doom1/2, Unreal Tournament, StarCraft, Half-Life1/2, etc.
Agreed.
On the flip side of the Japanese "fast car" thing, the Nissan 350Z has everything you need. Great torque, great handling, decent price, and fun as anything to drive. Highly recommended.
It's sad. I had an old friend from Burma who moved(?) to the US. He was damn good with Ryu/Ken. I think he was more of a "Ken" player... anyway, sucks that his home country has a bunch of pyschos running the gov't and probably half of his family are there.
Why isn't there a law for a fine every time a lawyer puts a lie/threat in writing for something like this. It should be called "Don't know shit, spreading stupidity, and intimidating the meek and/or innocent FEE".
Sadly I bet that it is less to do with good will for privacy as it is to do with the money it takes to provide that info to the government. Like hardware for log files, etc
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm not talking just about the physical ability to drive a car. I'm also not testing to validate one's ability to be a safe driver. I am, however, eliminating a good third of the population that flat-out can't drive. Either they lack the physical skills to control a large vehicle (maybe they have bad spacial relationships, or poor dexterity) or they are too dumb to understand that their actions are causing traffic problems." I still say if they insist on giving speeding tickets to ppl who HAVE NEVER CAUSED AN ACCIDENT, then they should change the speeding rules for people who have better driving abilities... dexterity, hand-eye coordination, ability to focus, supressing road rage, etc. It's simple... if you are good at video games, there's a good chance you are good at driving. Make a driving test a video game, and test response times, etc. I think I'd qualify except for the occasional road rage problem. =[ It wouldn't hurt if cars with better abilities (sports cars with good breaks and suspension for turning) got to go a little faster, too. =D
It'd be nice if he followed the looks of the Smaug in the old animated movie. He was "original" enough to be LOTRish with the cat/wolf hairy appearance, but stereotypically dragon enough to be cool and identifiable. http://www.thehobbit-movie-buzz.com/photos/44/smaug-the-dragon-from-the-hobbit-animated.php Despite loving the movies and books... i had problems with about half of the monsters in LOTR being disappointing. I'm of the mind that monsters should be more cool than ugly, and more menacing than plain disgusting. The Uruk-hai were too apelike(?) or something and were generally gross. Maybe it was just the actors that moved like apes for all the orcs... i dunno, many didn't seem orcish to me very much. Some were cooler than others (the more monstrous ones were extremely cool)... but things like 90% of gums showing instead of teeth on the Uruk-hai's snarl were just nasty/annoying. Like the following would have been good if not for the gums: http://geekspeak.org/articles/comic_con_2004_the_show/weta_uruk-hai_220x293.jpg The fell beasts were too ugly and eel-like or something instead of being more dragon-like. Gothmog (I think the name of the white orc with elephantitis, elephantitis???, in the movie) was just too disgusting despite having a slick demeanor. The oliphaunts, Gollum, etc. were very cool at least. The ringwraiths were VERY cool... they made up for all the effects that I disagreed with. Oh, and the Balrog was perfect, too! The WitchKing looking badass here, and even the winged beasty looks good at this angle. It may have been more of their movements that made them too eel-like. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/49/Fellbeast.jpg
I hear you, and your logic is valid. On this particular game, I'm good with balance leaning more towards fun... because although I think TF2 can be fairly competitive, it's got a very nice mix of fun to competitive ratio. But I will still say that it's very important to balance more strictly on the high end of the equation because the more ppl play, the better they will get, and any imbalance at the high end will creep in and mess up their fun. If anything, I think I'm only disagreeing on the point of what balancing at the high end is. I don't mean take out all randomness, etc. to make the game perfectly competitive. I just mean that if at a high level of play something is obviously broken (and this is harder to say in team games, at least in the short run), it may need fixing. Fix it for the high end, then without breaking it, make the game fun and fix it for the lower skill levels. You just can't go in reverse, I think.
Balance should never be based on public data with all the noobs playing that screw around and don't play correctly. Over time the noobs will get better and play more like the serious players. Balance should ALWAYS be based on the most serious players. ALWAYS. To reiterate... ALWAYS. Another answer to why is that noobs will have about as much fun and do about as well even if things are fairly unbalanced at that skill level, as long as they aren't unbalanced greatly at low skill levels. Just like in sports... if you are playing Tennis and have no clue, a cheaper racket will be just as good for you as a super expensive one. Apparently not the case for the pros, right? But if you play the game a lot, eventually better equipment will be evident to you, and you'll upgrade or whatever. Always always always balance for the highest level of play... and by highest level I mean top few percent of the population that plays. From there, balance the low skill stuff very carefully without breaking the high level stuff.
You are getting at the point but said bluntly...let's not forget that sometimes when they say merger, they don't mean merger at all. They mean buyout, and that could mean big changes to Blizzard... and that'd be damn scary. No amount of propaganda would prove it one way or the other... we simply have to see how it plays out. But given the past buyout, we may actually be semi-safe. The biggest problem with blizzard is the fact that WOW took over so much of their time long after the creative and fun juices stopped flowing. Will starcraft 2 ever come out, and will it be catered to the masses or have the balance of serious play value with enough newbie stuff to get everybody to buy.
I know there is a fair bit of GPS info out there through various companies (in the US at least) that does give truckers the info they need for big trucks. A businessman/friend was asking me about dealing with some IT issues related to their systems, so the info does exist for some places. Britain is just behind the times I guess.
Excellent post. I find myself closer to the e-sports crowd on my favorite games, and I take map making very very seriously for multiplayer player against player like in Warcraft 3 or Starcraft or Unreal Tournament (including the newest). Lately I've picked up Team Fortress 2 and it is another instant classic. One thing that's bothering me, while I'm on the subject, is the way that some games apparently don't cater enough to the general crowd to get a huge following. The ones I named do a pretty good job of that, and that keeps them fun. But now that xboxes and the like are trying to compete with PCs, it's breaking up the crowd even more. Causes some grief. Thank god Starcraft 2 won't be on the Xbox (right?).
Thank you, very funny. On a more serious note, how much emphasis is placed on levels for multiplayer vs levels for plain old single player? Very very different things going on in those two worlds.
You have to love how good intentions are often taken advantage of by the money hungry. It just irritates me.
It would just take a few simple things. Vista needs to be as fast as XP, can't have any DRM junk, can't have all the annoying popups you have to click a thousand times, and shouldn't cost any more than XP. Even better, it needs to have an "XP Compatibility mode" that actually works with old software. Since none of this will happen, I'm waiting for Windows 7.
Sadly, here in the USA too many big business practices prevail... including the brainwashing of the little man into thinking he needs a truck or SUV twice the size of the vehicles used 15 years ago. It's sick. I hate to be political, but I doubt Pres. Bush is helping matters either.
The best games are vs other people, and the best of those have an infinite number of choices. You gotta be smart, fast, and knowledgeable to beat someone who's really good at starcraft. And it's 10 years old and many strategies and such are still not finalized or "agreed upon" by the top players because there are so many variables... and they change depending on who you are playing and how you play. I played the living crap out of starcraft, and I'm now a manager... and I think a really good one. I recently got a bonus that was bigger than my salary when i was fresh out of school... and I don't live in a high paying state. I think the only argument is, good gamers can make good leaders (the personal drive/competitive aspect helps alot)... not really that all gamers make good leaders. And it doesnt matter which came first, the game or the personality.
This is a good example of that old saying from that old movie about old thieves. If you want to be a thief, do it once, do it big, and retire. Making 20 grand from 100+ minor stealizations is pure dumb (as is buying lottery tickets). I guess this also illustrates the fact that most criminals have low IQ. Good ole lead gasoline. ;)
Nice rant. While I don't see car seats as being too terrible, the rest of it is so horribly true it's sickening in an urban or suburban environment. The only way to get away from this stuff is to get away from the cities. Of course then you miss out on high paying jobs, fast food on every block, and high crime rates. Maybe I should sell my house, get a simple job, and go live on my deceased grandparents' land. To be honest, it is tempting. I can even get decent internet out in the boondocks now. But no matter where you run, this stuff is going to find you. Stop taking our damn freedoms away ppl!
That's what this sounds like. Walk out of line and Ow, Shock, ~ZZZTTTT~!.. in it's best Half-Life 2 civil announcement voice "Citizen must return to safe area. Any citizen who resists will be shipped to sector Delta for emotional retuning".
Tailgating is probably worse for causing accidents than speeding. I think they need to start enforcing the tailgating laws (after improving the definition of tailgating, so you can't get a ticket for sitting at a traffic light) more. Speeding can be bad, even though usually the limits are about 10 MPH under what the need to be on most roads I drive,... but tailgating has got to be the number one cause for accidents. It'd be nice if police actually gave tickets to people in the wrong. My first accident was mostly caused by a guy not signaling a turn. They gave me the ticket b/c the guy lied. The last accident I was in, the guy admitted not paying attention and rearending me b/c he was an idiot. No ticket!!! WTF??? I also wouldn't mind if they took a more serious stance on drunk driving. I got in one accident were a guy had plenty of alcohol on his breath, and they let him off completely. I even mentioned it to the cop b/c i was so pissed the idiot hit me.
Very well said. MS doesn't give a rats ass about users... just look at how they operate.
When you really need someone in the computer field of work that knows what you are doing... you'll be really glad if you can find the good ones amongst all the unprofessional idiots out there. Half the IT world are extremely smart and competent, while the other half barely have a clue or care. It's really scary... and the gumball machine certs provided by MS and such are obviously not much help. At least get one with a real degree if you need serious help with business matters.
It's almost true. Catering to the masses tends to turn things into... less skilled, less edgy, more fluff and less substance. Kinda like a lot of holiwood movies. BUT, there are still a few kick ass games out there that pop up every few years... here and there. Street Fighter series, Doom1/2, Unreal Tournament, StarCraft, Half-Life1/2, etc.
Agreed. On the flip side of the Japanese "fast car" thing, the Nissan 350Z has everything you need. Great torque, great handling, decent price, and fun as anything to drive. Highly recommended.
It's sad. I had an old friend from Burma who moved(?) to the US. He was damn good with Ryu/Ken. I think he was more of a "Ken" player... anyway, sucks that his home country has a bunch of pyschos running the gov't and probably half of his family are there.
Good ole money hungry, cheating as much as they can to save or make a buck corporations to the rescue once again.
Why isn't there a law for a fine every time a lawyer puts a lie/threat in writing for something like this. It should be called "Don't know shit, spreading stupidity, and intimidating the meek and/or innocent FEE".
Yeah, that made pretty much no sense. Shooters are about unpredictability... wtf.
Sadly I bet that it is less to do with good will for privacy as it is to do with the money it takes to provide that info to the government. Like hardware for log files, etc