I agree, I rather enjoyed the SNES version that I bought. I'm usually not a fan of movie tie-in games or games that are basically an ad like that as the majority of the time they are garbage. Cool Spot however had gotten good reviews and they turned out to be true. I'll still got it packed away in a box here somewhere.
Many were calling the original Playstation the PSX for years which is why I was puzzled when Sony chose that name for a new product. It caused a lot of confusion when the PSX was first announced with many claiming they had owned one for years. Frankly calling it PS or PS1 after the PS2 was announced made more sense to me than PSX ever did.
My local Best Buy pulled it and left big empty spots on all the shelves it used to be on, but Circuit City still had it in their locked display case when I was there a few minutes before closing. That didn't last long though as they pulled all the copies while my sale was being rung up. I had no problems walking out with an XBox copy, but I was the last person able to get it from my store. It's kind of funny Walmart pulled it from the store, but you can still buy it from their website. In fact the PC version just went out of stock, but it was still available earlier tonight. You can still find it online at some sites last I checked. Amazon still has it, EBGames just changed the rating to AO and GoGamer raised their prices, but didn't modify the rating shown on their site yet.
Also from the same site a post on the Columbia Pictures suit: http://thettablog.blogspot.com/2005/05/columbia-pi ctures-takes-on-leo-stoller.html The following qoute from the posting and the linked filing show that he hasn't been successful in enforcing his trademark like the NYT article leads you to believe. Columbia's complaint includes a handy list of reported federal court cases involving Stoller and/or his companies. Columbia asserts that "No court in any reported opinion has ever found any infringement or dilution of any rights held by Stoller or his companies."
If you check the parent post closer you will see that the phone number given is Opt Out Prescreen's number and Innovis is also mentioned using their former name.
from end of 3rd paragraph of your link: 888-5-OPT-OUT (888-567-8688) Innovis was referred to as Consumer Credit Associates in the parent's post, they changed their name in 1997.
I've got one of those too which just turned up again when doing some spring cleaning recently. I was wondering why they had sent that to me as it was nicer than the other items they used to toss in with orders like the little pads of post-its. I'd appreciate any of the old toss ins much more than a streaming concert.
The Circuit City by me makes it quite easy to give them your business instead as it is right next door to Best Buy and quite a few people walk between the two comparing prices or checking who has an item in stock. It also makes price matching either store at the other easy as they know you can just walk next door if they give you a hard time. The Circuit City by my sister's house is also very close to Best Buy, directly across the street. Black Friday usually causes that major street to be closed as so many people are going back and forth across it to shop the competition.
I agree with your comments on the stores themselves, though I find the employees here to be better. Many of the Best Buy employees are rather rude and I can't recall any seeing any Circuit City employees acting that way. Circuit City does have a couple major issues to work out around here at least. My biggest gripe is when you are ready to check out and can't find anyone around to ring up your purchase. That happens much too often and costs them sales as some people after getting tired of waiting set their items down and walk next door. They also need to do a better job of keeping the price stickers current or put in some scanners to check current pricing yourself so you don't have to find or wait for an employee to check the price of items that seem wrong. It would also boost sales since the price in those cases is usually lower and many shoppers I've seen avoid buying since the price shows as higher than next door. Overall though I still enjoy shopping there better than Best Buy and many others I know also try to give them all their business.
You might be thinking of the lone cypress at Pebble Beach. There is a sign at the top of the stairs that reads: "Photographs or art renderings of the lone Cypress for commercial or promotion purposes cannot be taken or created without written permission from Pebble Beach Company."
You can read a story about how serious they are about enforcing their trademark here.
The light display on the Eiffel Tower at night is copyrighted by SNTE, the company that maintains it. They require fees for the right to publish photos taken at night. You can find more info in the story here and at the official site's FAQ.
That sounds great, thanks for the update. I haven't played either game in years and haven't been to Gencon since it moved from Milwaukee, but I've been meaning to get back into it. This should help me introduce some friends to the games since I'm leery of loaning my books out after some bad experiences in the past. I'd also like to say thanks for not using DRM in the files. I've got another RPG rulebook in PDF format and I wasn't too happy to find it used DRM, especially seeing as how I had also purchased the hardcopy version of the same book.
I applaud FanPro on the release of these PDFs and hope they continue to release more. I already own the originals that FASA published, but maybe this will help attract new players. I haven't played in years, but I might be able to attract some friends to the game without having to worry about them abusing my copies of the books. I just hope they release some of the out of print Battletech sourcebooks also. FASA had promised for years to do so since there was still a demand for the books, but not enough to reprint. Unfortunately FASA is no more so that never materialized.
Actually they are leaving the market now. Turbine who made Asheron's Call 1 and 2 acquired the franchise from Microsoft earlier this year and is in the process of moving them away from Microsoft. They are beginning to migrate the billing which is the final step in moving AC1. After the new year they plan to migrate AC2. Turbine is also working on an expansion for AC1 which hopefully combined with the move away from that cursed MSN Zone site and the elimination of Microsoft's poor policies on abuse will breathe some life back into the game. Once everything is moved maybe some players might reactivate their accounts as Microsoft's involvement was one of the complaints from a number of players. What puzzled me about the Asheron's Call franchise was why Microsoft never utilized it's massive marketing machine to push the game like they do with their other products. Advertising for the series was practically nonexistant. With AC1 and AC2 leaving Microsoft's control and the cancellation of Mythica, Microsoft will be out of the market at least until their Xbox title True Fantasy Online is released.
Also in regards to Microsoft owning the license to Shadowrun videogames, there was a title in the works years ago which they axed. It was called Shadowrun: Assassins and was supposed to be released in 1999, but got canceled when merging FASA Interactive into Microsoft Game Studios. They were handing out promo cards and showing a non-interactive demo at Gencon in August of 1998. There was also talk of another title which had never gotten announced.
If you look at the picture again you will see that the one player said they killed 2 solo, not 2 Han Solo. Which means that character killed 2 of whatever creature they are referring to without help from anyone else.
It was possible to play THPS3 well before the Sony network adapter was released. You can use various USB Ethernet adapters and USB 56K modems to do so. There is a faq here and also numerous other sites which explains how and what hardware does and doesn't work. I know a number of people who were going that route due to the difficulty in finding the Sony adapter in stock. I originally had read the FAQ last year and according to the revision history it was created Oct. 18th 2001. The AC was correct that is was possible to play online with the PS2 before the Xbox launched. It was also possible to play online with the Xbox before Xbox Live if you used GameSpy Tunnel to play SystemLink games over the internet. The Xbox does have an advantage though in being able to find copies of the Xbox Live and the games that can use it. The Sony network adapter and SOCOM are difficult to find in stock at both B&M and online stores.
Re:What about the "no motor" fans?
on
Next Generation Fans
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Sounds like you are looking for the Tip-Magnetic Driving fans from Y.S. Tech. You can find a review here and here or hit google for more. I don't have any myself yet so I can't tell you of my experiences. I've read warnings though which say that you need to keep the metal housing insulated from contact with any metal and it's best to use a 3 to 4 pin power adapter. For more information on some of the problems people have had check here.
For an easy way to change the useragent in Mozilla, install a copy of uabar. It fits in with the other toolbars, provides a dropdown list of useragent strings and the ability to type in a new one. There are also plenty of other useful Mozilla related projects at mozdev and XulPlanet.
I was only involved in a small allegiance for a while so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to answer this. I don't really think it would be possible for a system like this to prevent or really lessen the problems you mention. There are still plenty of people out there powerleveling in areas where they can kill high level enemies and not get hurt, camping for special items, using bugs to duplicate items or use quarrels with a bow, etc. Turbine however has been working to lessen those problems. For example they have changed the landscape of some of the powerleveling areas they know about so now the monsters can fight back, made some of the new items have a limit on how many or how often you can obtain them and other tweaks like that. So far it seems to be working good other than really upsetting the people who enjoyed exploiting it.
It seems the major draw of the allegiances though is mainly to provide a group of people to draw upon for help, adventuring partners and advice. From what I have experienced of it and have seen, it seems to work pretty well. It could use some more changes though so it's easy for a monarch to communicate to the rest of the monarchy and to find out the names of the members. With a large monarchy though you can get quite powerful. The way it works is you get experience points from your vassels which can be quite substantial in a large monarchy. The best part is the experience points are basically free ones, you don't lose any portion of your experience at all. Also in the latest event some of the monarchs have been rewarded with a very nice weapon if they can pass a test. A few of the highest ranking ones have received a challenge to run the guantlet. From what I understand they get transported to an area filled with high level monsters and if they can run through and make it to the end in a set time they are rewarded with a Shadow Claw.
If you'd like more insight into the system, try here and read the interviews with top monarchs. I'm not sure if this was any help answering your question or not, but I hope it helps. I'll quit my rambling for now so I can get some sleep.:)
I forgot to mention another game in my previous reply. The new online space combat sim Allegiance that should be on sale next month will allow you to run your own server according to the press release Microsoft issued about it going gold.
"Allegiance will be available in retail stores for an anticipated street price of US$40. Gamers can then choose to play on public-domain servers free of charge or access the Allegiance Zone, a subscription service that provides larger-scale games, special events, persistent scoring and rankings, and new exclusive content such as the Belters faction. Players are eligible for one free month on the Allegiance Zone ($9.95 value) with game purchase. The MSN Gaming Zone will host the Allegiance Zone as well as a continuously updated list of free game servers worldwide. The Allegiance Server Code will be also be made available as a free download to parties interested in hosting game servers."
I'm anxious to see how well this works out. It seems much more attractive only having to pay the monthly fee if you are interested in the extra benefits that it provides.
I don't care for the idea of monthly fees either, especially when you already had to pay to buy the game. This is what kept me from buying Ultima Online and Everquest, I just couldn't see myself paying the monthly fee in addition to paying for the game.
I think another thing limiting their potential customer base is the lack of a demo. Whether it's even possible with this type of game I don't know, but currently it seems the only way to try it is to be fortunate enough to find out about the game before it's release and get into the beta test. I did this with The Realm, Ultima Online and Asheron's Call. The AC beta was the one that finally persuaded me to change my mind about fee based games. I got hooked during beta and ended up preordering it. I do wish you could just download the clients instead of having to pay for the game, even if it does include 1 free month. AC, EQ and The Realm were all downloads for the client during beta and UO was a $3 cd. A download or a small fee I think would attract more players and it also would help some with the lack of a demo since it would cost less to get started.
I have to disagree with the statement about not needing additional maintenance, at least in regards to AC. Other than the obvious costs such as servers, bandwidth, admins, etc as stated by previous posters, Turbine (the developer of AC) is still hard at work changing the gameworld. While UO got a 2nd edition and EQ has an addon coming out, Turbine is doing it differently and not making the players wait for a new edition of the game or an addon pack. They are doing monthly events that make a lot of changes to the game. They have added new quests, dungeons, armor, weapons, items, monsters, updated graphics, lighting, monster models, etc. I feel the way they are doing it really helps to justify the monthly fee as you don't have to pay again to buy another version of the game. Some of the updates can make drastic changes also, as shown at the end of beta when there was a comet on a collision path and meteors were crashing down with entire cities getting destroyed. Kind of a shame they don't really plan on events quite that drastic, it was a blast.:) Check out ACVault under the Event Specials heading on the left side if you'd like to check out what they have been doing with the events.
Re:DVD is still a year or two away..
on
DVD for Linux
·
· Score: 1
Yes the dxr3 is really just a relabeled Hollywood+ card. You can switch to the drivers from Sigma and it will still work fine. I'm currently using one right now from the Encore 6X kit and am very happy with the results. Looks great on my 19" Trinitron monitor and also on my crappy old 20" Toshiba TV.
FYI FASA itself wasn't purchased by Microsoft. Microsoft only purchased the computer games division - FASA Interactive Technologies (FIT) and it's parent company VWEG (makers of the Virtual World pods). FASA was a major shareholder in them, but FASA themselves is not owned by Microsoft. Though they did just announce a deal to be acquired by Decipher so they can become a bigger force in the gaming industry. So M$ may have the rights to the computer game versions of FASA's games, but at least the paper versions won't be tainted by Redmond. I do agree though that the chance of MW3 or any game based on a FASA license being ported to Linux now is extremely slim as is a port to any OS not made by M$. It's really a shame though as I'd bet that games based on Battletech such as MW3 and the Shadowrun universe (cyberpunk with magic) would probably be popular with Linux users.
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I agree, I rather enjoyed the SNES version that I bought. I'm usually not a fan of movie tie-in games or games that are basically an ad like that as the majority of the time they are garbage. Cool Spot however had gotten good reviews and they turned out to be true. I'll still got it packed away in a box here somewhere.
Many were calling the original Playstation the PSX for years which is why I was puzzled when Sony chose that name for a new product. It caused a lot of confusion when the PSX was first announced with many claiming they had owned one for years. Frankly calling it PS or PS1 after the PS2 was announced made more sense to me than PSX ever did.
My local Best Buy pulled it and left big empty spots on all the shelves it used to be on, but Circuit City still had it in their locked display case when I was there a few minutes before closing. That didn't last long though as they pulled all the copies while my sale was being rung up. I had no problems walking out with an XBox copy, but I was the last person able to get it from my store. It's kind of funny Walmart pulled it from the store, but you can still buy it from their website. In fact the PC version just went out of stock, but it was still available earlier tonight. You can still find it online at some sites last I checked. Amazon still has it, EBGames just changed the rating to AO and GoGamer raised their prices, but didn't modify the rating shown on their site yet.
I found this when I googled his name:- in-chicago-lawsuit-charge.html
i ctures-takes-on-leo-stoller.html
http://thettablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/defendants
There is a picture of his alleged office on that page too.
Also from the same site a post on the Columbia Pictures suit:
http://thettablog.blogspot.com/2005/05/columbia-p
The following qoute from the posting and the linked filing show that he hasn't been successful in enforcing his trademark like the NYT article leads you to believe.
Columbia's complaint includes a handy list of reported federal court cases involving Stoller and/or his companies. Columbia asserts that "No court in any reported opinion has ever found any infringement or dilution of any rights held by Stoller or his companies."
If you check the parent post closer you will see that the phone number given is Opt Out Prescreen's number and Innovis is also mentioned using their former name.
from end of 3rd paragraph of your link: 888-5-OPT-OUT (888-567-8688)
Innovis was referred to as Consumer Credit Associates in the parent's post, they changed their name in 1997.
I've got one of those too which just turned up again when doing some spring cleaning recently. I was wondering why they had sent that to me as it was nicer than the other items they used to toss in with orders like the little pads of post-its. I'd appreciate any of the old toss ins much more than a streaming concert.
The Circuit City by me makes it quite easy to give them your business instead as it is right next door to Best Buy and quite a few people walk between the two comparing prices or checking who has an item in stock. It also makes price matching either store at the other easy as they know you can just walk next door if they give you a hard time. The Circuit City by my sister's house is also very close to Best Buy, directly across the street. Black Friday usually causes that major street to be closed as so many people are going back and forth across it to shop the competition.
I agree with your comments on the stores themselves, though I find the employees here to be better. Many of the Best Buy employees are rather rude and I can't recall any seeing any Circuit City employees acting that way. Circuit City does have a couple major issues to work out around here at least. My biggest gripe is when you are ready to check out and can't find anyone around to ring up your purchase. That happens much too often and costs them sales as some people after getting tired of waiting set their items down and walk next door. They also need to do a better job of keeping the price stickers current or put in some scanners to check current pricing yourself so you don't have to find or wait for an employee to check the price of items that seem wrong. It would also boost sales since the price in those cases is usually lower and many shoppers I've seen avoid buying since the price shows as higher than next door. Overall though I still enjoy shopping there better than Best Buy and many others I know also try to give them all their business.
You might be thinking of the lone cypress at Pebble Beach. There is a sign at the top of the stairs that reads: "Photographs or art renderings of the lone Cypress for commercial or promotion purposes cannot be taken or created without written permission from Pebble Beach Company." You can read a story about how serious they are about enforcing their trademark here.
This site contains a list of locations and objects that could cause problems for photographers.
e ases.html
http://www.stockindustry.org/resources/specialrel
The light display on the Eiffel Tower at night is copyrighted by SNTE, the company that maintains it. They require fees for the right to publish photos taken at night. You can find more info in the story here and at the official site's FAQ.
That sounds great, thanks for the update. I haven't played either game in years and haven't been to Gencon since it moved from Milwaukee, but I've been meaning to get back into it. This should help me introduce some friends to the games since I'm leery of loaning my books out after some bad experiences in the past. I'd also like to say thanks for not using DRM in the files. I've got another RPG rulebook in PDF format and I wasn't too happy to find it used DRM, especially seeing as how I had also purchased the hardcopy version of the same book.
It appears I missed the news back in June and True Fantasy Live Online was also cancelled. There is a response from Microsoft posted here.
I applaud FanPro on the release of these PDFs and hope they continue to release more. I already own the originals that FASA published, but maybe this will help attract new players. I haven't played in years, but I might be able to attract some friends to the game without having to worry about them abusing my copies of the books. I just hope they release some of the out of print Battletech sourcebooks also. FASA had promised for years to do so since there was still a demand for the books, but not enough to reprint. Unfortunately FASA is no more so that never materialized.
Actually they are leaving the market now. Turbine who made Asheron's Call 1 and 2 acquired the franchise from Microsoft earlier this year and is in the process of moving them away from Microsoft. They are beginning to migrate the billing which is the final step in moving AC1. After the new year they plan to migrate AC2. Turbine is also working on an expansion for AC1 which hopefully combined with the move away from that cursed MSN Zone site and the elimination of Microsoft's poor policies on abuse will breathe some life back into the game. Once everything is moved maybe some players might reactivate their accounts as Microsoft's involvement was one of the complaints from a number of players. What puzzled me about the Asheron's Call franchise was why Microsoft never utilized it's massive marketing machine to push the game like they do with their other products. Advertising for the series was practically nonexistant. With AC1 and AC2 leaving Microsoft's control and the cancellation of Mythica, Microsoft will be out of the market at least until their Xbox title True Fantasy Online is released.
Also in regards to Microsoft owning the license to Shadowrun videogames, there was a title in the works years ago which they axed. It was called Shadowrun: Assassins and was supposed to be released in 1999, but got canceled when merging FASA Interactive into Microsoft Game Studios. They were handing out promo cards and showing a non-interactive demo at Gencon in August of 1998. There was also talk of another title which had never gotten announced.
If you look at the picture again you will see that the one player said they killed 2 solo, not 2 Han Solo. Which means that character killed 2 of whatever creature they are referring to without help from anyone else.
It was possible to play THPS3 well before the Sony network adapter was released. You can use various USB Ethernet adapters and USB 56K modems to do so. There is a faq here and also numerous other sites which explains how and what hardware does and doesn't work. I know a number of people who were going that route due to the difficulty in finding the Sony adapter in stock. I originally had read the FAQ last year and according to the revision history it was created Oct. 18th 2001. The AC was correct that is was possible to play online with the PS2 before the Xbox launched. It was also possible to play online with the Xbox before Xbox Live if you used GameSpy Tunnel to play SystemLink games over the internet. The Xbox does have an advantage though in being able to find copies of the Xbox Live and the games that can use it. The Sony network adapter and SOCOM are difficult to find in stock at both B&M and online stores.
Sounds like you are looking for the Tip-Magnetic Driving fans from Y.S. Tech. You can find a review here and here or hit google for more. I don't have any myself yet so I can't tell you of my experiences. I've read warnings though which say that you need to keep the metal housing insulated from contact with any metal and it's best to use a 3 to 4 pin power adapter. For more information on some of the problems people have had check here.
For an easy way to change the useragent in Mozilla, install a copy of uabar. It fits in with the other toolbars, provides a dropdown list of useragent strings and the ability to type in a new one. There are also plenty of other useful Mozilla related projects at mozdev and XulPlanet.
I was only involved in a small allegiance for a while so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to answer this. I don't really think it would be possible for a system like this to prevent or really lessen the problems you mention. There are still plenty of people out there powerleveling in areas where they can kill high level enemies and not get hurt, camping for special items, using bugs to duplicate items or use quarrels with a bow, etc. Turbine however has been working to lessen those problems. For example they have changed the landscape of some of the powerleveling areas they know about so now the monsters can fight back, made some of the new items have a limit on how many or how often you can obtain them and other tweaks like that. So far it seems to be working good other than really upsetting the people who enjoyed exploiting it.
:)
It seems the major draw of the allegiances though is mainly to provide a group of people to draw upon for help, adventuring partners and advice. From what I have experienced of it and have seen, it seems to work pretty well. It could use some more changes though so it's easy for a monarch to communicate to the rest of the monarchy and to find out the names of the members. With a large monarchy though you can get quite powerful. The way it works is you get experience points from your vassels which can be quite substantial in a large monarchy. The best part is the experience points are basically free ones, you don't lose any portion of your experience at all. Also in the latest event some of the monarchs have been rewarded with a very nice weapon if they can pass a test. A few of the highest ranking ones have received a challenge to run the guantlet. From what I understand they get transported to an area filled with high level monsters and if they can run through and make it to the end in a set time they are rewarded with a Shadow Claw.
If you'd like more insight into the system, try here and read the interviews with top monarchs. I'm not sure if this was any help answering your question or not, but I hope it helps. I'll quit my rambling for now so I can get some sleep.
I forgot to mention another game in my previous reply. The new online space combat sim Allegiance that should be on sale next month will allow you to run your own server according to the press release Microsoft issued about it going gold.
"Allegiance will be available in retail stores for an anticipated street price of US$40. Gamers can then choose to play on public-domain servers free of charge or access the Allegiance Zone, a subscription service that provides larger-scale games, special events, persistent scoring and rankings, and new exclusive content such as the Belters faction. Players are eligible for one free month on the Allegiance Zone ($9.95 value) with game purchase. The MSN Gaming Zone will host the Allegiance Zone as well as a continuously updated list of free game servers worldwide. The Allegiance Server Code will be also be made available as a free download to parties interested in hosting game servers."
I'm anxious to see how well this works out. It seems much more attractive only having to pay the monthly fee if you are interested in the extra benefits that it provides.
I don't care for the idea of monthly fees either, especially when you already had to pay to buy the game. This is what kept me from buying Ultima Online and Everquest, I just couldn't see myself paying the monthly fee in addition to paying for the game.
:) Check out ACVault under the Event Specials heading on the left side if you'd like to check out what they have been doing with the events.
I think another thing limiting their potential customer base is the lack of a demo. Whether it's even possible with this type of game I don't know, but currently it seems the only way to try it is to be fortunate enough to find out about the game before it's release and get into the beta test. I did this with The Realm, Ultima Online and Asheron's Call. The AC beta was the one that finally persuaded me to change my mind about fee based games. I got hooked during beta and ended up preordering it. I do wish you could just download the clients instead of having to pay for the game, even if it does include 1 free month. AC, EQ and The Realm were all downloads for the client during beta and UO was a $3 cd. A download or a small fee I think would attract more players and it also would help some with the lack of a demo since it would cost less to get started.
I have to disagree with the statement about not needing additional maintenance, at least in regards to AC. Other than the obvious costs such as servers, bandwidth, admins, etc as stated by previous posters, Turbine (the developer of AC) is still hard at work changing the gameworld. While UO got a 2nd edition and EQ has an addon coming out, Turbine is doing it differently and not making the players wait for a new edition of the game or an addon pack. They are doing monthly events that make a lot of changes to the game. They have added new quests, dungeons, armor, weapons, items, monsters, updated graphics, lighting, monster models, etc. I feel the way they are doing it really helps to justify the monthly fee as you don't have to pay again to buy another version of the game. Some of the updates can make drastic changes also, as shown at the end of beta when there was a comet on a collision path and meteors were crashing down with entire cities getting destroyed. Kind of a shame they don't really plan on events quite that drastic, it was a blast.
Yes the dxr3 is really just a relabeled Hollywood+ card. You can switch to the drivers from Sigma and it will still work fine. I'm currently using one right now from the Encore 6X kit and am very happy with the results. Looks great on my 19" Trinitron monitor and also on my crappy old 20" Toshiba TV.
FYI FASA itself wasn't purchased by Microsoft. Microsoft only purchased the computer games division - FASA Interactive Technologies (FIT) and it's parent company VWEG (makers of the Virtual World pods). FASA was a major shareholder in them, but FASA themselves is not owned by Microsoft. Though they did just announce a deal to be acquired by Decipher so they can become a bigger force in the gaming industry. So M$ may have the rights to the computer game versions of FASA's games, but at least the paper versions won't be tainted by Redmond. I do agree though that the chance of MW3 or any game based on a FASA license being ported to Linux now is extremely slim as is a port to any OS not made by M$. It's really a shame though as I'd bet that games based on Battletech such as MW3 and the Shadowrun universe (cyberpunk with magic) would probably be popular with Linux users.