I'm still pretty young, (21 right now) so I feel that I have a bit more first-hand accounts of what is happening to us.
The one thing that I've noticed that I have that the children born about a decade or two before me is that my computer now does my creativity for me.
Many people are talking about how children to play with models and learn the basics of being creative. This just isn't really a choice anymore. Most of our bright young minds are drawn early into computer focused fields, and have a natural interest in technology, because it's neat, it challenges us, and we don't fully understand it.
Everything is so visually amazing now with the advent of advanced animation techniques, I'm not sure the last time I saw a movie with people actually acting on a set that wasn't just a blue room. Who needs imagination when James Cameron has already captured the coolest looking thing that a team of professional writers could dream up and made it available on my magic light screen for me to call up at any point. (and if I don't mind crossing a few legal gray areas, it's free to boot! Can't say that about a new Lego set)
But now comes current day, where I'm basically locked ball and chain to this damn machine. I was one of those kids who was diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, but honestly, I was just a normal "wiz kid". But playing Real Time Strategy games when I was young built up my ability to micromanage multiple tasks, and the internet could answer any question I had in fractions of a second. And that's always how it's been. The real world just doesn't move as fast as the eWorld, and those of us who grew up on constant instant satisfaction just don't think to take time and figure out a problem for ourselves. I simply never learned the patience that creativity requires. If a solution is not readily apparent, I've learned to instead of trusting in my own intuition, to merely find the answer online.
Technology is wonderful, but it has bred some little monsters. I'm one of them.
If someone gets your dorm/LAN IP banned, the whole building can get banned off a server. In my dorm at Arizona State, the whole first floor could not connect to Steam due to a ban that someone had gotten the year before.
"Shipping is responsible for 3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions" from same article
It's not the carbon emissions that are the real problem with cargo ships, but the NO and SO pollution. As far as I can tell, these are not greenhouse gases so much as carcinogens. While, yes, they do need to be reduced, your post was very misleading in implying that the majority of air pollution and climate change comes from cargo ships. It doesn't.
Any online provider worth their salt still supports their aging games. Steam still hosts original Halflife, and all it's mods, though I think we can agree they're quited dated by now. Blizzard has kept Starcraft up, running, and even occasionally patched it. If the big players of the industry pick this idea up, there's a very small chance of any game that's any good 'losing support' in today's online, cheap-to-store-data world.
The worst thing that would happen would be the end of new patches for the content.
You'd be surprised that this thought is actually far into the minority. The fact is, that while yes, you can't argue about the color of the sky, because that is observable currently, the 'religious scientists' will keep sticking with the point that 4000 BC is not observable currently, and has not been recorded in any true scientific manner. The basic fact that we've never seen macro-evolution actually occur allows the idea that God could have created the Earth 6000 years ago to still stand. Long jump, I realize. Even the basic idea of macro-evolution actually is defeated in scientific method, due to the fact that it can't be recreated, and has never been observed directly. On the other hand, you wouldn't even have to break the fundamental laws of physics to describe why things can be dated beyond 6000 years though if you include God's touch. Most of our aging processes come from dating things based of percent compositions of isotopes that we know the half-lives of. If you believe in a God with some forethought, which an all-knowing God would of course have, you could reasonably see him creating fossils that were already lacking in specific isotopes, knowing that man would discover the science of half-lives. Now as for why, well, I'll let a real theologian discuss that.
I personally, am anything BUT a Young Earth Creationist, but I do talk to a devote one, and this is the basis for his argument. And it frightens me when I see polls that say that people like him actually far outnumber people like me. From a online poll (linked below), 44% of Americans still believe in YEC. 38% believe in Old Earth Creationism (God-guided evolution basically). Only 14% of Americans believe in true atheistic evolution.
The bottom line is we don't have visual or even second-hand evidence of anything before the invention of alphabet and writing leaves a lot of people in disbelief of evolution and an old earth. And the invention of true alphabets, when prehistory became history, is, strangely enough, about 4000 years old.
Just like most other games whose sole claim to fame is a writer/writer team that was overhyped from previous games (John Romero - Daikatana, The Original Diablo Team - Hellgate London, Richard Gariott - Tabula Rasa) this game was doomed to fail. Just because you did something right once, doesn't mean you can do it again. Sequels are usually almost always worse than the original. I don't even consider games, where the main selling factor is that the creator created something else I enjoyed, for purchase anymore. I mean, a game should sell itself, not the guy who thought of it.
(Don't include home built boxes, as you rarely add your labor to the price, and you pay for just the parts)
My major issue with the Mac line was the relative difficulty (or impossibility in most cases) to create homebrews. PC lines have always had much greater support for personal customization, and the price of labor, frankly, I don't see how an hour or two of my time could possibly be worth more than the hundreds of dollars I'd spend otherwise. I've just also never been a fan of declaring my entire case a blackbox either.
But, either way, if little Johnny likes beating up virtual hookers sixteen hours a day, his parents might be wise to keep a close eye on him.
This is exactly the attitude that people need to take on video gaming. Videogaming may or may not increase violent tednencies, but it does allow a way for those who already have to them to revel in them.
GTA is a great example, due to the fact that there is so much to do in the game, that what a player chooses to do, can reveal alot about them. I've played all GTA titles since 2, and to be honest, I've never really gone out and just killed hookers and shot random bystanders. It doesn't really amuse me to do that, I would much prefer to actually do the missions and progressive content that the game offers. The larger the scale of the game, the more chances there are for a player to be able to reenact or partake in some sick fantasy, but hardly no game REQUIRE you do this. The thoughts are your own, and you're acting out what you've really wanted to do in the first place. The watch should really be put on the players, not the game itself, and in some cases, the games could be used to identify early aggressive tendencies in children. If Johnny does beat up hookers for 16 hours a day, maybe you should think about why Johnny thinks this is so much fun and reevaluate what morals you've instilled in him.
Most of the biggest video game scandal moments are things players had to actively search out to find. The Mass Effect sex scene, I played through the game twice, and never found that, but that was because I never cared to try to create a relationship with any of the female characters on my team. The Hot Coffee mod, you had to know a good deal about modding your system, and had to go and download yourself.
Overall, parents really need to watch what their kid DOES do on their video games, not what they are CAPABLE of doing. I mean, I
Do you honestly have a situation wherein you can not achieve LAN through the use of the internet? I've never had an issue having 4 or 5 comptuers all hooked to the same router connecting to a Battle.net type service. I don't see where all these complaints about the lack of LAN feature in some games are really coming from. In the example of most games that are online multiplayer only, you can merely have all LAN attendees join the same online hosted game. Sure, I suppose your connection speed and latency might not be pristine, but if you're gaming on a high enough level that you are actually bothered by the change of latency between a LAN game and a cable-internet hosted game, you probably don't fall into the casual gamer group that usually demands this.
The only group that I can see even being upset is about a lack of LAN are those who wish to exploit false CD keys, which are usually only checked for legitimacy (that can't be overriden by a cracked.exe file) when connecting to a public hosting service.
Do you hear that, Blizzard? No LAN play might look like a good idea, but you're completely ignoring the current social trends. It's indeed possible to play everything over the internet - but the fun factor of playing L33tH4x0r666 over my internet connection pales in comparison to the fun factor of beating my buddy in Halo.
No where does anyone make you host a public game that 1337haxxor can join, just host privately. At least in my life, the social and technological trend assumes that people, even in a LAN situation, can all connect to the internet at reasonable speed. I've been doing 5 man LANs of World of Warcraft for months now, levelling together, and pretty much ignoring everyone else on the server. I really think the LAN requirement is outdated, and people need to get caught up with the new age. What ever are you going to do when you want to play a game that is featured solely online? (read as: Quake Live)
Just because you're playing online, doesn't mean you can't be sitting next to each other.
As a just recently out of highschool into college student, I can tell you that anyone with a head on their shoulders has known this for awhile now. In America being smart in young culture has often led to downfalls. I know that throughout my high school career I often had to dumb myself down to fit in with my peers in my non-Advanced Placement classes. A peer who can't understand your vocabulary tends to start to shun you rather quickly.
The main cause of all this is that academic achievement gives you no social status amongst your peers until later years in your life. Hours spent increasing your knowledge and academics are hours wasted improving your social standing, and can lead to complete cuts from social communities, ie, how 'geeks' are truly born. The sad fact is that in most young cultures the driving force are the most 'mature' (in a twisted sense of the word) ones. The ones that go out, party, and experience the darker sides of the world the fastest, are usually the ones who take up the reign as the popular crowd. And are usually the least inclined to diligent study.
Agreed. Major Premise: Wikipedia demands more citation than the US Government Minor Premise: No one really trusts what Wikipedia says I'll leave the conclusion up to you.
I'd hardly consider $300 a mid range card. "Mid-range" cards are things like the Nvidia 8800 and 9800 even. (Sorry that most of my experience is with Nvidia, so I don't know what compares to those in ATI) Those have price tags well under $200 if you shop around. And yes, $600 is high end when the cards hit the market. Frankly if you're buying debut cards, you're just asking to get robbed, it's like asking for First Edition collectible cards. This was more aimed towards buying the latest cards in the market as it stands today, with the GTX 280 sorta reigning as the king card right now, with a price tag about $450 if you shop around.
They must've had these 'secret meetings' awhile ago, because for as long as I can remember, the best graphics cards have always carried a hefty $200-400 price tag, depending on the particular age. I still remember picking up a Voodoo 5 5500 for a good $280. I just recently picked up a Geforce GTX 260 (the extra $120 for 2-3 FPS the 280 brings I just couldn't justify completely), which set me back a good $320.
Now unless 3dfx was in on this deal eight years ago, before Nvidia had even bought them out, well, I can't really see how things have changed all that much at all. $300 still gets you the near-highest grade card it always got you, and hell, $300 I think was worth more back then, it definately was if you were buying gas.
All in all, this just seems like another "McDoanld's coffee is too hot, it burned me, I'll sue you" case to me: someone looking to make a quick $100,000 by trying to defame a big company. And frankly the I would love if the graphics card industry got ahead of the curve of the gaming industry. I'm tired of games releasing that have no single-GPU possible way to max out their graphics at playable framerates (read as: Crysis Warhead), so the extra money towards R&D is hardly something I'm willing to complain about.
To be honest, the real fun of the game is actually the 10 and 25 man end-game raid content. There and there alone are you tested on real skills and teamwork, as you can't merely level your character to make challenges trivial. It's also there where you can find the true social interactions within the world, as the content becomes complex enough to warrant use of Ventrilo servers. Also, to engage in most end-game content, you have to join a pretty consistent guild, which is the only point in the game where you really have to make friends with a decent group of individuals to progress any farther. I think this is the place where WoW truly shines.
You'll also notice that all new content is always end-game. I honestly feel that WoW doesn't actually start until you reach level 70. The road there is merely a learning grounds, giving you time to figure out the world, your character, and your class. Blizzard's recent changes prove this to be pretty true, even to the point of their new class not being allowed to exist under level 55. (New Deathknights are created at level 55) This in combination with the recent patches that have made levelling easier and quicker, really accentuate these points.
People might remember a game called Hellgate London. A game where they decided that killing zombies in a dark subway would never get old. I think we all know how that wonderful that game turned out to be. The last paragraphs of the linked article, where Wilson talks about Diablo 2, and how it changes every 15 minutes was actually really enlightening on to why that game (Hellgate) was such trash in comparison. You never got anywhere. A person could leave you for an hour, come back, and you'd still be in the same damn subway, doing the same damn thing.
I really wish people would learn from the Blizzard ways of doing thing and learn 2 things. People want a product that functions correctly and simply, and people want a product that is complete. Most people would rather get a sandwich in an hour than get a piece of lettuce and some ketchup right now.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still pretty young, (21 right now) so I feel that I have a bit more first-hand accounts of what is happening to us.
The one thing that I've noticed that I have that the children born about a decade or two before me is that my computer now does my creativity for me.
Many people are talking about how children to play with models and learn the basics of being creative. This just isn't really a choice anymore. Most of our bright young minds are drawn early into computer focused fields, and have a natural interest in technology, because it's neat, it challenges us, and we don't fully understand it.
Everything is so visually amazing now with the advent of advanced animation techniques, I'm not sure the last time I saw a movie with people actually acting on a set that wasn't just a blue room. Who needs imagination when James Cameron has already captured the coolest looking thing that a team of professional writers could dream up and made it available on my magic light screen for me to call up at any point. (and if I don't mind crossing a few legal gray areas, it's free to boot! Can't say that about a new Lego set)
But now comes current day, where I'm basically locked ball and chain to this damn machine. I was one of those kids who was diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, but honestly, I was just a normal "wiz kid". But playing Real Time Strategy games when I was young built up my ability to micromanage multiple tasks, and the internet could answer any question I had in fractions of a second. And that's always how it's been. The real world just doesn't move as fast as the eWorld, and those of us who grew up on constant instant satisfaction just don't think to take time and figure out a problem for ourselves. I simply never learned the patience that creativity requires. If a solution is not readily apparent, I've learned to instead of trusting in my own intuition, to merely find the answer online.
Technology is wonderful, but it has bred some little monsters. I'm one of them.
Technically you could drive one into the other one while pulling into your garage.
I'd prefer Conan O'Brien in a barbarian adventure.
If someone gets your dorm/LAN IP banned, the whole building can get banned off a server. In my dorm at Arizona State, the whole first floor could not connect to Steam due to a ban that someone had gotten the year before.
In Soviet Canada, moose watches you.
"Shipping is responsible for 3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions" from same article
It's not the carbon emissions that are the real problem with cargo ships, but the NO and SO pollution. As far as I can tell, these are not greenhouse gases so much as carcinogens. While, yes, they do need to be reduced, your post was very misleading in implying that the majority of air pollution and climate change comes from cargo ships. It doesn't.
Someone is really trying to make trolling illegal?
Don't they realize that acknowledging trolls just makes them worse?
Chupathingy, how 'bout that?
I like it, got a ring to it.
You say this like it's a good thing.
You say this like it's a bad thing.
Any online provider worth their salt still supports their aging games. Steam still hosts original Halflife, and all it's mods, though I think we can agree they're quited dated by now. Blizzard has kept Starcraft up, running, and even occasionally patched it. If the big players of the industry pick this idea up, there's a very small chance of any game that's any good 'losing support' in today's online, cheap-to-store-data world.
The worst thing that would happen would be the end of new patches for the content.
And the invention of true alphabets, when prehistory became history, is, strangely enough, about 4000 years old.
Damnit, I meant to say 4000 BC, not 4000 years ago.
You'd be surprised that this thought is actually far into the minority. The fact is, that while yes, you can't argue about the color of the sky, because that is observable currently, the 'religious scientists' will keep sticking with the point that 4000 BC is not observable currently, and has not been recorded in any true scientific manner. The basic fact that we've never seen macro-evolution actually occur allows the idea that God could have created the Earth 6000 years ago to still stand. Long jump, I realize. Even the basic idea of macro-evolution actually is defeated in scientific method, due to the fact that it can't be recreated, and has never been observed directly. On the other hand, you wouldn't even have to break the fundamental laws of physics to describe why things can be dated beyond 6000 years though if you include God's touch. Most of our aging processes come from dating things based of percent compositions of isotopes that we know the half-lives of. If you believe in a God with some forethought, which an all-knowing God would of course have, you could reasonably see him creating fossils that were already lacking in specific isotopes, knowing that man would discover the science of half-lives. Now as for why, well, I'll let a real theologian discuss that.
I personally, am anything BUT a Young Earth Creationist, but I do talk to a devote one, and this is the basis for his argument. And it frightens me when I see polls that say that people like him actually far outnumber people like me. From a online poll (linked below), 44% of Americans still believe in YEC. 38% believe in Old Earth Creationism (God-guided evolution basically). Only 14% of Americans believe in true atheistic evolution.
The bottom line is we don't have visual or even second-hand evidence of anything before the invention of alphabet and writing leaves a lot of people in disbelief of evolution and an old earth. And the invention of true alphabets, when prehistory became history, is, strangely enough, about 4000 years old.
http://www.pollingreport.com/science.htm
Just like most other games whose sole claim to fame is a writer/writer team that was overhyped from previous games (John Romero - Daikatana, The Original Diablo Team - Hellgate London, Richard Gariott - Tabula Rasa) this game was doomed to fail. Just because you did something right once, doesn't mean you can do it again. Sequels are usually almost always worse than the original.
I don't even consider games, where the main selling factor is that the creator created something else I enjoyed, for purchase anymore. I mean, a game should sell itself, not the guy who thought of it.
(Don't include home built boxes, as you rarely add your labor to the price, and you pay for just the parts)
My major issue with the Mac line was the relative difficulty (or impossibility in most cases) to create homebrews. PC lines have always had much greater support for personal customization, and the price of labor, frankly, I don't see how an hour or two of my time could possibly be worth more than the hundreds of dollars I'd spend otherwise.
I've just also never been a fan of declaring my entire case a blackbox either.
But, either way, if little Johnny likes beating up virtual hookers sixteen hours a day, his parents might be wise to keep a close eye on him.
This is exactly the attitude that people need to take on video gaming. Videogaming may or may not increase violent tednencies, but it does allow a way for those who already have to them to revel in them.
GTA is a great example, due to the fact that there is so much to do in the game, that what a player chooses to do, can reveal alot about them. I've played all GTA titles since 2, and to be honest, I've never really gone out and just killed hookers and shot random bystanders. It doesn't really amuse me to do that, I would much prefer to actually do the missions and progressive content that the game offers. The larger the scale of the game, the more chances there are for a player to be able to reenact or partake in some sick fantasy, but hardly no game REQUIRE you do this. The thoughts are your own, and you're acting out what you've really wanted to do in the first place. The watch should really be put on the players, not the game itself, and in some cases, the games could be used to identify early aggressive tendencies in children. If Johnny does beat up hookers for 16 hours a day, maybe you should think about why Johnny thinks this is so much fun and reevaluate what morals you've instilled in him.
Most of the biggest video game scandal moments are things players had to actively search out to find. The Mass Effect sex scene, I played through the game twice, and never found that, but that was because I never cared to try to create a relationship with any of the female characters on my team. The Hot Coffee mod, you had to know a good deal about modding your system, and had to go and download yourself.
Overall, parents really need to watch what their kid DOES do on their video games, not what they are CAPABLE of doing. I mean, I
The only group that I can see even being upset is about a lack of LAN are those who wish to exploit false CD keys, which are usually only checked for legitimacy (that can't be overriden by a cracked
Do you hear that, Blizzard? No LAN play might look like a good idea, but you're completely ignoring the current social trends. It's indeed possible to play everything over the internet - but the fun factor of playing L33tH4x0r666 over my internet connection pales in comparison to the fun factor of beating my buddy in Halo.
No where does anyone make you host a public game that 1337haxxor can join, just host privately. At least in my life, the social and technological trend assumes that people, even in a LAN situation, can all connect to the internet at reasonable speed. I've been doing 5 man LANs of World of Warcraft for months now, levelling together, and pretty much ignoring everyone else on the server. I really think the LAN requirement is outdated, and people need to get caught up with the new age. What ever are you going to do when you want to play a game that is featured solely online? (read as: Quake Live)
Just because you're playing online, doesn't mean you can't be sitting next to each other.
As a just recently out of highschool into college student, I can tell you that anyone with a head on their shoulders has known this for awhile now. In America being smart in young culture has often led to downfalls. I know that throughout my high school career I often had to dumb myself down to fit in with my peers in my non-Advanced Placement classes. A peer who can't understand your vocabulary tends to start to shun you rather quickly.
The main cause of all this is that academic achievement gives you no social status amongst your peers until later years in your life. Hours spent increasing your knowledge and academics are hours wasted improving your social standing, and can lead to complete cuts from social communities, ie, how 'geeks' are truly born. The sad fact is that in most young cultures the driving force are the most 'mature' (in a twisted sense of the word) ones. The ones that go out, party, and experience the darker sides of the world the fastest, are usually the ones who take up the reign as the popular crowd. And are usually the least inclined to diligent study.
Agreed.
Major Premise: Wikipedia demands more citation than the US Government
Minor Premise: No one really trusts what Wikipedia says
I'll leave the conclusion up to you.
Dey TOOK 'er JOBS!!
Oh shit, wrong protest.
I'd hardly consider $300 a mid range card. "Mid-range" cards are things like the Nvidia 8800 and 9800 even. (Sorry that most of my experience is with Nvidia, so I don't know what compares to those in ATI) Those have price tags well under $200 if you shop around. And yes, $600 is high end when the cards hit the market. Frankly if you're buying debut cards, you're just asking to get robbed, it's like asking for First Edition collectible cards. This was more aimed towards buying the latest cards in the market as it stands today, with the GTX 280 sorta reigning as the king card right now, with a price tag about $450 if you shop around.
So, basically, we have tricorders that spit out pure gibberish that sounds important. Just like real Star Trek!
They must've had these 'secret meetings' awhile ago, because for as long as I can remember, the best graphics cards have always carried a hefty $200-400 price tag, depending on the particular age. I still remember picking up a Voodoo 5 5500 for a good $280. I just recently picked up a Geforce GTX 260 (the extra $120 for 2-3 FPS the 280 brings I just couldn't justify completely), which set me back a good $320.
Now unless 3dfx was in on this deal eight years ago, before Nvidia had even bought them out, well, I can't really see how things have changed all that much at all. $300 still gets you the near-highest grade card it always got you, and hell, $300 I think was worth more back then, it definately was if you were buying gas.
All in all, this just seems like another "McDoanld's coffee is too hot, it burned me, I'll sue you" case to me: someone looking to make a quick $100,000 by trying to defame a big company. And frankly the I would love if the graphics card industry got ahead of the curve of the gaming industry. I'm tired of games releasing that have no single-GPU possible way to max out their graphics at playable framerates (read as: Crysis Warhead), so the extra money towards R&D is hardly something I'm willing to complain about.
...laptop watches you!
Can I get a link to that video?
You'll also notice that all new content is always end-game. I honestly feel that WoW doesn't actually start until you reach level 70. The road there is merely a learning grounds, giving you time to figure out the world, your character, and your class. Blizzard's recent changes prove this to be pretty true, even to the point of their new class not being allowed to exist under level 55. (New Deathknights are created at level 55) This in combination with the recent patches that have made levelling easier and quicker, really accentuate these points.
1-69 is the tutorial.
70 is WoW.
People might remember a game called Hellgate London. A game where they decided that killing zombies in a dark subway would never get old. I think we all know how that wonderful that game turned out to be. The last paragraphs of the linked article, where Wilson talks about Diablo 2, and how it changes every 15 minutes was actually really enlightening on to why that game (Hellgate) was such trash in comparison. You never got anywhere. A person could leave you for an hour, come back, and you'd still be in the same damn subway, doing the same damn thing.
I really wish people would learn from the Blizzard ways of doing thing and learn 2 things. People want a product that functions correctly and simply, and people want a product that is complete. Most people would rather get a sandwich in an hour than get a piece of lettuce and some ketchup right now.