This is why, for example, you can see a dramatic jump in quality in Saturn games at one point; they'd come up with more efficient graphics libraries that made better use of the hardware.
They seem to think that Impression's Citybuilder series ended with Zeus/Poseidon, when, in fact, Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom has been out for almost a year. Also marks the first Citybuilder game with network multiplayer.
Fallout: Tactics was NOT a good game. Any game where your crack commandos are thwarted by a waist-high pile of sandbags, because the maps aren't maps, they're hardcoded paths, is a bad game. ESPECIALLY when the brand prides itself on nonlinearity and multiple puzzle solutions.
Terra Nova was, in fact, godlike. If only the promised multiplayer patch had appeared...if there's a game screaming for a modern version, it's TN.
Although, it wouldn't be all that bad; if you sue said Big Corp, and you don't spend any money on lawyers and what not, they can't spend any money either.
If the rule goes 'the prosecuting side must give the same budget it uses to the defense,' then representing itself looks pretty good.
Or, make it bilateral; each side must give the other side whatever it spends on itself; if you sue Big Corp, and they spend 50 large defending themselves, they have to give you 50 large to use, at their discretion.
Wouldn't, by playing the song in court to determine what it is, and prove they're the copyright holder, that song then fall into the court records, and hence the public domain?
The person bringing suit must pay all reasonable expenses for the defense. Reasonable can be defined as 'whatever we spend to prosecute, they can spend to defend.'
When all is said and done, the loser pays everybody's court costs.
I believe the way it's often done now is that loser pays all the court costs, but it's a reimbursement.
Not only would this prevent alot of frivilous lawsuiting, it would also put the defendant on equal footing with the prosecuting.
Sure, if they start requiring a drivers license to buy games.
Or, more accurately, a driver's license to return games. Not bad. Actually, the trick here should be that your refund will be mailed to you. Then, you have an address you can track.
Which would be fine, if you were staying on Bell controlled networks. But you're not. Sure, Bell can run fibre to each and every house, but once you try to hook up to a backbone, and get onto the Internet At Large, suddenly you have to start paying all those *other* bandwidth providers.
True, but it gives the developers a much needed kick in the arse.
This is why EA Sports hates Live; when Madden 2004 comes out, same great taste, differnet set of stats, they want to be able to turn off online play for Madden 2003, and force you to upgrade.
Under the Live paradigm, you'd just offer up the new stats/roster for download. If you want people to buy 2K4, you better have a more compelling reason than 'we need the cash.'
In the case of Xwing vs. Tie fighter, LEC / Totally games dropped the ball in the sense that Tie fighter had been such a stellar game, with a stellar story line, that ditching SP in favor of MP only in Xwing vs. Tie, was almost criminal.
But then made up for it by porting Xwing and Tie Fighter to the XvT engine.
Aye, a bulletin to all customers; "The downtime on X was caused by Monitors'R'Us placing an incorrectly configured monitoring system onto the system. We have taken steps to prevent this from happening again. Monitors'R'Us have yet to get back to us, in response to multiple requests, so until further notice, they will be blocked from the network."
Then, either plug your own monitoring system, or point out the fact that you'll have one in the very near future.
Never underestimate the ability of senior management to believe a consultant over their own employees.
I once had a boss ask for a list of domains we were serving DNS for. So I gave it to him. Turns out what he really wanted was copies of the config files, for whatever reason. When I handed him the list, he decided that I didn't know what I was doing, so he brought in a consultant.
Said consultant then spent an hour or two going through everything, shaking his head, as all was well. "Why am I here?" he asked me. "I honestly don't know," I replied.
Then, when it was explained, by the boss, that he wanted the config files, I took five seconds, and out the printer they came.
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Oh well. At least it's a step in the right direction.
Correct. Most consoles are like this, really.
This is why, for example, you can see a dramatic jump in quality in Saturn games at one point; they'd come up with more efficient graphics libraries that made better use of the hardware.
Virtualizable like the S370? Does this mean you can hotswap processors?
VMWare didn't let me do that....
They seem to think that Impression's Citybuilder series ended with Zeus/Poseidon, when, in fact, Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom has been out for almost a year. Also marks the first Citybuilder game with network multiplayer.
Fallout: Tactics was NOT a good game. Any game where your crack commandos are thwarted by a waist-high pile of sandbags, because the maps aren't maps, they're hardcoded paths, is a bad game. ESPECIALLY when the brand prides itself on nonlinearity and multiple puzzle solutions.
Terra Nova was, in fact, godlike. If only the promised multiplayer patch had appeared...if there's a game screaming for a modern version, it's TN.
Is your display properly calibrated, preferably by an ISF certified tech, but with Avia or Video Essentials at a bare minimum?
What is this GPLed code everybody speaks of? Quake? If so, it's probably covered by the license they had to Quake before id GPL'd it.
I think the reasoning there is, those can be extracted from a legitimate CD on release.
They can, however, now remove copy protection, generate valid CD-keys, and so on.
Not to mention, unfortunately, build some WICKED cheat programs....
Ah yes, but those were all invented way back when America still had the idea of 'personal responsibility.'
Agreed. One or two minutes can be explained by clock differences (not that you should be leaving it that close to the wire anyway) but an hour later?
Hmm, good point.
Although, it wouldn't be all that bad; if you sue said Big Corp, and you don't spend any money on lawyers and what not, they can't spend any money either.
If the rule goes 'the prosecuting side must give the same budget it uses to the defense,' then representing itself looks pretty good.
Or, make it bilateral; each side must give the other side whatever it spends on itself; if you sue Big Corp, and they spend 50 large defending themselves, they have to give you 50 large to use, at their discretion.
Wouldn't, by playing the song in court to determine what it is, and prove they're the copyright holder, that song then fall into the court records, and hence the public domain?
How's this for an upgrade to the legal system.
The person bringing suit must pay all reasonable expenses for the defense. Reasonable can be defined as 'whatever we spend to prosecute, they can spend to defend.'
When all is said and done, the loser pays everybody's court costs.
I believe the way it's often done now is that loser pays all the court costs, but it's a reimbursement.
Not only would this prevent alot of frivilous lawsuiting, it would also put the defendant on equal footing with the prosecuting.
Sure, if they start requiring a drivers license to buy games.
Or, more accurately, a driver's license to return games. Not bad. Actually, the trick here should be that your refund will be mailed to you. Then, you have an address you can track.
Which would be fine, if you were staying on Bell controlled networks. But you're not. Sure, Bell can run fibre to each and every house, but once you try to hook up to a backbone, and get onto the Internet At Large, suddenly you have to start paying all those *other* bandwidth providers.
Because they were under-pricing it?
"A wizard did it."
"Wizard."
Well, that's a problem for EA, isn't it?
This might explain why they do what they do.
I believe that if you called the Colonel on the CODEC, he'd tell you right away.
True, but it gives the developers a much needed kick in the arse.
This is why EA Sports hates Live; when Madden 2004 comes out, same great taste, differnet set of stats, they want to be able to turn off online play for Madden 2003, and force you to upgrade.
Under the Live paradigm, you'd just offer up the new stats/roster for download. If you want people to buy 2K4, you better have a more compelling reason than 'we need the cash.'
Ah, but don't forget, Xbox is the ONLY console in the history of consoles to solve the '2.4 games' problem.
Most people buy a system, buy X number of games, and they're done.
Get an Xbox, get Live, and suddenly Microsoft is profiting from you *ongoing.* Oh, and you're getting a good service for your money.
But then made up for it by porting Xwing and Tie Fighter to the XvT engine.
And DOA2/3, when being played by a pair of experts, just *looks* so damn good; very cinematic, very fluid.
I'd be surprised if any of them were selling anything other than Sympatico and Rogers.
Kind of hard to lay your own cable network these days.
Aye, a bulletin to all customers; "The downtime on X was caused by Monitors'R'Us placing an incorrectly configured monitoring system onto the system. We have taken steps to prevent this from happening again. Monitors'R'Us have yet to get back to us, in response to multiple requests, so until further notice, they will be blocked from the network."
Then, either plug your own monitoring system, or point out the fact that you'll have one in the very near future.
Never underestimate the ability of senior management to believe a consultant over their own employees.
I once had a boss ask for a list of domains we were serving DNS for. So I gave it to him. Turns out what he really wanted was copies of the config files, for whatever reason. When I handed him the list, he decided that I didn't know what I was doing, so he brought in a consultant.
Said consultant then spent an hour or two going through everything, shaking his head, as all was well. "Why am I here?" he asked me. "I honestly don't know," I replied.
Then, when it was explained, by the boss, that he wanted the config files, I took five seconds, and out the printer they came.