Oh do shut up. I guarantee over the years the guy has done more good than 99% of the readership on here.
Re:Microwave the couch
on
NYT on RFID
·
· Score: 1
Nah. I'm far too advanced for a 101 class.
I'm studying death rays already...
Re:Microwave the couch
on
NYT on RFID
·
· Score: 3, Funny
So, what you do is go and buy something liable to attract FBI attention (large quantities of ammo, anarchist cookbook etc...), then go nail the RFID tag to the house of someone you don't like.
Problem with "n00b servers" is in many cases, hardcore players go on them just to get the "thrill" of bagging someone who has never played online before.
A BIG part of the problem with stuff like Blizzard's matchmaking on Warcraft 3 is you get wankers with multiple accounts posing as "n00bs" so they can beat the living hell out of you.
Nothing is going to fix online gaming and make it fun for all until we can personally track down and beat the living shit out of the griefers.
Problem is, the ratio of jerks to non jerks online is considerably different due to the fact a lot of people seem to act like jerks on the net and do and say things that would get their asses kicked in real life.
I've not read the article, but I'm surprised cheating wasn't really mentioned in the Slashdot story. I mean if you ARE getting seriously "0wn3d", the other player may be a scumbag cheater instead of having any real talent.
As for finding a group of people to play with, that's a good idea. That's what I've done. Sadly, several members of long standing have started to devolve into the very thing they claim to hate and the group is going to hell.
hehehe Yeah. One movie that springs immediately to mind on the awards screener front was "Bowling for Columbine". The DVD screener was ripped and on the net a good 8 months before the DVD proper was released.
Interesting. I know there was a rare Subaru available in the game. 22 something or other. (Been a while since I played it.) I managed to get two of them.
If that IS true, that's pretty cool, since it will encourage more car makers to licence their cars for games.
NOTHING is piracy proof. I mean hell, they figured the cartridge systems would be, and then someone came up with a disk based device that plugged into the cartridge slot. VOILA! Instant free games.
I mean hell, Nintendo chose a proprietary format for Gamecube games, and those have been cracked (though as of the moment, they can't be played, but they've been copied.)
The article is a joke. The bit that really pissed me off is the assertion that old people don't play games.
My Dad is 60 next year, and regularly plays racing games, FPS (Medal of Honor mostly), hell, even Vice City.
I don't personally know THAT many older people (55+) but of the 4 I can claim to know well, 2 of them are avid gamers. Okay, not a HUGE cross section, but it highlights how the article is filled with huge generalisations that are, to be blunt, bullshit.
The bots were removed BEFORE the Steam debacle. The info was snuck in 2 days after the latest changes were posted, but this was before Steam became an unmitigated clusterfuck.
As to the poster saying about peopling bitching and bitching but still buying the games... Well, some of us have balls and stick to our decisions. Won't be buying a Valve title again after all this nonsense. Neither will a fair few of my friends. Sure it ain't much, but just because most people are spineless little bitches doesn't mean we all have to be.
Oh yeah, there's also Team Fortess 2 which was due, what? 1999 or so?
Christ, it makes the guys behind Duke Nukem Forever look swift... (If that game makes it to market and doesn't suck to Daikatana levels I'll be amazed).
Could Valve have fucked up more this past month? A lot of people I know, Valve has lost all credibility now. I've never seen a softco's status sink so quick. In a month they've
1) Screwed the CS 1.6 beta testers by removing the bots, with no official comment from Valve.
2) ROYALLY bollocksed up the release of Steam, to a degree that most MMORPG's could point and laugh at. Be playing your favourite games in minutes they said... HAHAH! More like weeks.
3) Delaying Half Life 2.
Let's not forget that Condition Zero was originally scheduled for around October 2001!
In short, Valve, in just a few short weeks, have royally fucked up any good will they had amongst a good chunk of the gaming community. The fanboys will still be there, but a lot of the people who loved Valve, but weren't fanboys will now go elsewhere. Will they go bankrupt over all this? Nah, but the profits for the company will sure take a hit.
I don't get the enthusiasm for Doom 3 though. The genre has moved on, and Id have shown with the last two Quake's that they're little more than a tech demonstration, being woefully short on gameplay, and certainly not offering anything other games like Unreal Tournament offer.
I would love to be excited about Doom 3, I really would. But I just don't care. In fact the only game release I care about on the PC right now is Knights of the Old Republic.
Demo's are not always released for games either. BIG games too.
I also take issue with the comment in the article about stores becoming free game rental sites which is a load of bollocks basically.
MOST games these days come with either Safedisc or Securom copy protection, meaning the average home user flat out can't copy them on their home machine, so this point is null and void. It wouldn't give free reign to copying since the average user couldn't copy the game anyway.
Those who DO know the way around it wouldn't bother with the trip to the store, and would just download the game off the net anyway.
In short, it's a specious argument. Store return policies are draconian in most cases. CD's are now uncopyable by about 95% of the population, and yet you still can't return to the title to the stores.
There IS a way around it if you can do it. Take the game back, and say it didn't work, can you exchange it? When they give you the exchange one, wait a couple of days, or just until a shift change, and then take the replacement game in, still in it's wrapping, and demand a refund because you already have it etc... They check, see it's sealed, and you get your money back.
I circumvented this last year. I bought GTA3, only to discover Rockstar outright lied on the specs. When I got the box, there was a BIG sticker on the top that said "If this seal is broken, the game cannot be returned". So I opened it at the bottom where the clear tape is. Tried the game, saw it was unplayable, repackaged it, cut a piece of tape out to match the bottom one, and got my wife to take it back. Got my money back no problem at all. (This was at a Radio Shack).
Not being able to return a product that's non-defective (and let's face it, a lot of games ship unplayable out of the box, and you can't return them either) is a gross violation of consumer rights, especially when you're charged, in the price for the game, the licence fee for the copy protection on the disk so you can't copy it then take it back.
I thought when the story was posted the other day it smelled off. Copyright law here as I understand it says you can LEND a CD to someone and they can copy it, that's legal. If you copy it for THEM though, that's illegal.
The loophole? Okay, on a P2P app, when someone downloads a file from you it is REMOVED from your hard drive. Translation: You've lent it to them. Then you get sent the file back. They've made their copy by "borrowing" yours, and then given it back.
Probably not viable since there'd be wankers who'd download and then kill the software so you don't get your song back (the RIAA would love to abuse that I bet!) but still, there has to be some loophole as the law doesn't take P2P into account.
Chuck "Max Payne" on the overrated list. It's a mediocre third person shooter with Matrix effects. EVERYONE raved over this game. Eventually I caved and bought it, only to discover it was garbage, with derivative gameplay circa 1997, and precious little else once you ignored the overused (and ultimately boring after the first few uses) bullet time feature.
Halo will probably warrant being on the list. I mean now it's a two year old XBox castoff, and just another FPS. (Pains me to see the mighty Bungie part of Darth Gates company.)
Anyway, Animal Crossing, yeah, looks like a great game. The multiplayer mode is pretty intriguing, the way you can play, and leave stuff for the other player to pick up later on when they play. Pretty smart.
Splinter Cell is also broken. If you do a certain thing on the oil rig level, you're screwed. I can't remember what it was (it's been a fair few months since I played it) but on the oil rig mission, I got totally stuck. No way to progress. Searched out EVERY strategy guide I could find, so tried again and SOMEHOW wound up with it breaking again. The level just couldn't be completed as a vital component was missing (unable to follow the guy you're supposed to rescue/kill or something because the path is actually blocked.) I couldn't get beyond that due to the mission being broken (and this was POST patch) so gave up and never played it again.
I can think of plenty of overrated games. If there's a posting limit on Slashdot, I could probably find it with a list of all the games I think are overrated:) I would put EVERY Mario game on the list. Sure, they're fun, but not THAT fun.
Hopefully, like they did with best/worst moments in gaming, they'll do a 25 underrated games. I can think of plenty for that list too:)
You're right. The Sims has done more for getting females into games than any other game by a LONG way. My wife loves it! Of course, she was a gamer beforehand. (She also loves Dungeon Keeper for example.)
In an era with stupid female representation (Lara Croft), The Sims counterbalanced that to a degree. Sure, Lara is still retarded and only appealing to anyone who hasn't touched a real woman, but The Sims can be held up as a virtuous product to entice women to the gaming fold.
Another game that seems to be a hit with females is Harvest Moon (there was two versions released, the regular, and one with the genders reversed).
Of course, I kinda like The Sims, though only because it's hilarious to torture them for a few minutes:)
I think WON is shutting down at the end of the month.
Was REALLY looking forward to this release, but the assholes slyly added "Removed Bots" to the CS 1.6 changelist *TWO DAYS* after the entry was put up. They removed a part that was vital to my group of friends (since bots amuse until the others show up) so BUH-BYE VALVE! You fucked us and had us testing code for Condition Zero, not CS. Then you dishonestly added the fact you'd removed bots to the changelist...
Nope. In fact some friends have even cancelled their pre-order of it.
Unlike a lot of people, my friends and I stick to our decisions. No HL2, no CZ. And to the poster who said good riddance, I hope you enjoy taking it up the ass from Valve in future.
Believe it when I see it. Condition Zero is being pimped with bots for offline play. I will be EXTREMELY surprised if the bots are put back IN to regular Counterstrike, when being able to play offline is a great selling point for CZ.
Basically, Valve screwed those of us who poured hours into playing the beta of CS to make the bots better.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh do shut up. I guarantee over the years the guy has done more good than 99% of the readership on here.
Nah. I'm far too advanced for a 101 class.
I'm studying death rays already...
So, what you do is go and buy something liable to attract FBI attention (large quantities of ammo, anarchist cookbook etc...), then go nail the RFID tag to the house of someone you don't like.
I like the sound of this... *evil grin*
Problem with "n00b servers" is in many cases, hardcore players go on them just to get the "thrill" of bagging someone who has never played online before.
A BIG part of the problem with stuff like Blizzard's matchmaking on Warcraft 3 is you get wankers with multiple accounts posing as "n00bs" so they can beat the living hell out of you.
Nothing is going to fix online gaming and make it fun for all until we can personally track down and beat the living shit out of the griefers.
Problem is, the ratio of jerks to non jerks online is considerably different due to the fact a lot of people seem to act like jerks on the net and do and say things that would get their asses kicked in real life.
I've not read the article, but I'm surprised cheating wasn't really mentioned in the Slashdot story. I mean if you ARE getting seriously "0wn3d", the other player may be a scumbag cheater instead of having any real talent.
As for finding a group of people to play with, that's a good idea. That's what I've done. Sadly, several members of long standing have started to devolve into the very thing they claim to hate and the group is going to hell.
hehehe Yeah. One movie that springs immediately to mind on the awards screener front was "Bowling for Columbine". The DVD screener was ripped and on the net a good 8 months before the DVD proper was released.
Interesting. I know there was a rare Subaru available in the game. 22 something or other. (Been a while since I played it.) I managed to get two of them.
If that IS true, that's pretty cool, since it will encourage more car makers to licence their cars for games.
It's a very good idea. Beats the hell out of pillaging the song archives, I agree with that!
In fact, this is such a good idea I can't believe it's taken this long for a car company to come up with this.
I hate advertising in it's many forms, but this is a form I'd actually accept. It's original and inventive.
Of course they could go all out and have the Mitsubishi's etc... in it, but hamstring them so you can't possibly lose driving a Toyota:)
NOTHING is piracy proof. I mean hell, they figured the cartridge systems would be, and then someone came up with a disk based device that plugged into the cartridge slot. VOILA! Instant free games.
I mean hell, Nintendo chose a proprietary format for Gamecube games, and those have been cracked (though as of the moment, they can't be played, but they've been copied.)
The article is a joke. The bit that really pissed me off is the assertion that old people don't play games.
My Dad is 60 next year, and regularly plays racing games, FPS (Medal of Honor mostly), hell, even Vice City.
I don't personally know THAT many older people (55+) but of the 4 I can claim to know well, 2 of them are avid gamers. Okay, not a HUGE cross section, but it highlights how the article is filled with huge generalisations that are, to be blunt, bullshit.
Utterly pointless article.
The bots were removed BEFORE the Steam debacle. The info was snuck in 2 days after the latest changes were posted, but this was before Steam became an unmitigated clusterfuck.
As to the poster saying about peopling bitching and bitching but still buying the games... Well, some of us have balls and stick to our decisions. Won't be buying a Valve title again after all this nonsense. Neither will a fair few of my friends. Sure it ain't much, but just because most people are spineless little bitches doesn't mean we all have to be.
Oh yeah, there's also Team Fortess 2 which was due, what? 1999 or so?
Christ, it makes the guys behind Duke Nukem Forever look swift... (If that game makes it to market and doesn't suck to Daikatana levels I'll be amazed).
Could Valve have fucked up more this past month? A lot of people I know, Valve has lost all credibility now. I've never seen a softco's status sink so quick. In a month they've
1) Screwed the CS 1.6 beta testers by removing the bots, with no official comment from Valve.
2) ROYALLY bollocksed up the release of Steam, to a degree that most MMORPG's could point and laugh at. Be playing your favourite games in minutes they said... HAHAH! More like weeks.
3) Delaying Half Life 2.
Let's not forget that Condition Zero was originally scheduled for around October 2001!
In short, Valve, in just a few short weeks, have royally fucked up any good will they had amongst a good chunk of the gaming community. The fanboys will still be there, but a lot of the people who loved Valve, but weren't fanboys will now go elsewhere. Will they go bankrupt over all this? Nah, but the profits for the company will sure take a hit.
Bloody amazing bots for the time, and a big variety of game modes including the awesome Assault mode.
Quake 3 did nothing new over Quake 2 (and the original). Unreal Tournament moved FPS beyond the boring as fuck deathmatch.
Doom was great. Loved it, completed it twice.
I don't get the enthusiasm for Doom 3 though. The genre has moved on, and Id have shown with the last two Quake's that they're little more than a tech demonstration, being woefully short on gameplay, and certainly not offering anything other games like Unreal Tournament offer.
I would love to be excited about Doom 3, I really would. But I just don't care. In fact the only game release I care about on the PC right now is Knights of the Old Republic.
If they do treat it as a game rental, the store, sooner or later, will start to recognise them and ban them.
Demo's are not always released for games either. BIG games too.
I also take issue with the comment in the article about stores becoming free game rental sites which is a load of bollocks basically.
MOST games these days come with either Safedisc or Securom copy protection, meaning the average home user flat out can't copy them on their home machine, so this point is null and void. It wouldn't give free reign to copying since the average user couldn't copy the game anyway.
Those who DO know the way around it wouldn't bother with the trip to the store, and would just download the game off the net anyway.
In short, it's a specious argument. Store return policies are draconian in most cases. CD's are now uncopyable by about 95% of the population, and yet you still can't return to the title to the stores.
There IS a way around it if you can do it. Take the game back, and say it didn't work, can you exchange it? When they give you the exchange one, wait a couple of days, or just until a shift change, and then take the replacement game in, still in it's wrapping, and demand a refund because you already have it etc... They check, see it's sealed, and you get your money back.
I circumvented this last year. I bought GTA3, only to discover Rockstar outright lied on the specs. When I got the box, there was a BIG sticker on the top that said "If this seal is broken, the game cannot be returned". So I opened it at the bottom where the clear tape is. Tried the game, saw it was unplayable, repackaged it, cut a piece of tape out to match the bottom one, and got my wife to take it back. Got my money back no problem at all. (This was at a Radio Shack).
Not being able to return a product that's non-defective (and let's face it, a lot of games ship unplayable out of the box, and you can't return them either) is a gross violation of consumer rights, especially when you're charged, in the price for the game, the licence fee for the copy protection on the disk so you can't copy it then take it back.
It's a farce.
RTS? Force Commander?
There have been some good Star Wars games though. Rogue Squadron was great, and the first game you actually got to go against AT-AT's in.
As for Afterlife, I only ever played the demo, but I remember thinking it was a very innovative game.
Of course, there have been total dogs like Rebel Assault which were just FM fests. (Though sadly, I still want to play that:))
I thought when the story was posted the other day it smelled off. Copyright law here as I understand it says you can LEND a CD to someone and they can copy it, that's legal. If you copy it for THEM though, that's illegal.
The loophole? Okay, on a P2P app, when someone downloads a file from you it is REMOVED from your hard drive. Translation: You've lent it to them. Then you get sent the file back. They've made their copy by "borrowing" yours, and then given it back.
Probably not viable since there'd be wankers who'd download and then kill the software so you don't get your song back (the RIAA would love to abuse that I bet!) but still, there has to be some loophole as the law doesn't take P2P into account.
Actually, thanks, you reminded me.
Chuck "Max Payne" on the overrated list. It's a mediocre third person shooter with Matrix effects. EVERYONE raved over this game. Eventually I caved and bought it, only to discover it was garbage, with derivative gameplay circa 1997, and precious little else once you ignored the overused (and ultimately boring after the first few uses) bullet time feature.
Halo will probably warrant being on the list. I mean now it's a two year old XBox castoff, and just another FPS. (Pains me to see the mighty Bungie part of Darth Gates company.)
Anyway, Animal Crossing, yeah, looks like a great game. The multiplayer mode is pretty intriguing, the way you can play, and leave stuff for the other player to pick up later on when they play. Pretty smart.
Splinter Cell is also broken. If you do a certain thing on the oil rig level, you're screwed. I can't remember what it was (it's been a fair few months since I played it) but on the oil rig mission, I got totally stuck. No way to progress. Searched out EVERY strategy guide I could find, so tried again and SOMEHOW wound up with it breaking again. The level just couldn't be completed as a vital component was missing (unable to follow the guy you're supposed to rescue/kill or something because the path is actually blocked.) I couldn't get beyond that due to the mission being broken (and this was POST patch) so gave up and never played it again.
I can think of plenty of overrated games. If there's a posting limit on Slashdot, I could probably find it with a list of all the games I think are overrated:) I would put EVERY Mario game on the list. Sure, they're fun, but not THAT fun.
Hopefully, like they did with best/worst moments in gaming, they'll do a 25 underrated games. I can think of plenty for that list too:)
You're right. The Sims has done more for getting females into games than any other game by a LONG way. My wife loves it! Of course, she was a gamer beforehand. (She also loves Dungeon Keeper for example.)
In an era with stupid female representation (Lara Croft), The Sims counterbalanced that to a degree. Sure, Lara is still retarded and only appealing to anyone who hasn't touched a real woman, but The Sims can be held up as a virtuous product to entice women to the gaming fold.
Another game that seems to be a hit with females is Harvest Moon (there was two versions released, the regular, and one with the genders reversed).
Of course, I kinda like The Sims, though only because it's hilarious to torture them for a few minutes:)
I think WON is shutting down at the end of the month.
Was REALLY looking forward to this release, but the assholes slyly added "Removed Bots" to the CS 1.6 changelist *TWO DAYS* after the entry was put up. They removed a part that was vital to my group of friends (since bots amuse until the others show up) so BUH-BYE VALVE! You fucked us and had us testing code for Condition Zero, not CS. Then you dishonestly added the fact you'd removed bots to the changelist...
Back to UT it is...
Nope. In fact some friends have even cancelled their pre-order of it.
Unlike a lot of people, my friends and I stick to our decisions. No HL2, no CZ. And to the poster who said good riddance, I hope you enjoy taking it up the ass from Valve in future.
Believe it when I see it. Condition Zero is being pimped with bots for offline play. I will be EXTREMELY surprised if the bots are put back IN to regular Counterstrike, when being able to play offline is a great selling point for CZ.
Basically, Valve screwed those of us who poured hours into playing the beta of CS to make the bots better.