This was first done in the 5th Element when Zorg's assistant spies on the president. Obviously, according to IP law, DARPA owes the creators of the 5th Element $500 Trillion (in standard RIAA dollars).
I used to play World of Warcraft back when Stratholme was considered an impossible instance. Then suddenly guilds started figuring out this "raiding thing" and all of a sudden, some dumbass healer could get better items than me, because he had 39 other people to pick up his slack. That's when the game started going downhill. I quit and everyone else I knew started quitting and the biggest complaint I heard back then was "I'm sick of seeing some dumbass decked out in epic gear because he can farm gold all day and raid all night." I think the game was ruined sometime halfway through it's first year.
"Casual" is not a misnomer. Anyone who wants to play whenever they feel like it is "casual." Anyone who adheres to a schedule where they get penalized for tardiness is working a 2nd (or 1st) job.
tl;dr "Remember when WoW was good?" "WoW was never good."
Everyone I know who plays WoW is quitting to play Aion. None of them are raiders, and they are very adamant about quitting forever. They weren't this way with Warhammer.
I forswore MMOs, but I'm seeing a paradigm shit here. I think Aion has the ability to last.
So it was communist when Blizzard made everyone turn in cloth to try and open the doors of Az-Nerub? (or whatever the hell it was, I wasn't playing then.)
His design would still work as long as the person who contributes the most gets the most. Think of it like the construction workers who work on the road. The guys who put in overtime get paid more, the people who don't help at all (me and you) don't get paid at all, but we all get to use the road when it's finished.
Sooo... are you arguing that MMOs do have plots? I think you're arguing against a point I never made (in other words, you are agreeing with me that these games do not have plots).
I've got this! They're like action flicks! Except with loot! *No plot *No cinematic story telling or character development (just nonstop action) *They make tons of money corporate executives want *Corporate executives are interested in making money, but are too stupid to understand what a video game (much less a MMO) really is *By making comparisons with an established industry, you can pretend to lend credit to your MMO ideas *One company has a virtual monopoly on what consumers get *I'm just going to start pulling stuff out of my ass now *MMOs and movies both overcharge for the highly desirable yellow products (gold, popcorn..) *People write articles on how they're correlated!
I bought a Wii Fit. It counts as one of the games that I deeply regret. While it was kind of fun at first, it takes FOREVER to do a work out. This is literally how it goes.
1) Choose a game. 2) Yay! You picked a game! Do you want to learn how to play that game? 3) No? Ok, well here's a nifty animation for you! 4) 20 seconds of workout 5) Oh no! You suck, your a fatty, hehehe. Here's a nifty animation showing you lose, loser. 6) Oh my goodness, you scored a high score, let me show you! 7) Wow, we spent like... 5 minutes working out, lets add 5 minute tokens to your "workout piggy bank."
Repeat ad nauseum. Seriously, it took me 2 hours to put 80 minutes into the workout piggy bank, and it always rounds your minutes up, so I probably spent 2 hours working out for 40 minutes. What's worse is that you need to sustain your heart rate to actually burn calories, so it isn't really helpful for anything but muscle toning.
If I hadn't already bought a Wii, I wouldn't buy one either. I'm disappointed with the game line up. 3 years have passed and I can name 3 games that I'm glad I bought. I can also name off a dozen names I deeply regret having ever bought/rented.
Back in the 80s and 90s, any schmuck could decide to go make a game. With enough dedication and talent, he could really make something awesome, too. I mean one day Robyn and Rand Miller decided to sit down and make a game. And that game (Myst) was the best selling game for the better part of a decade.
Now, it takes millions of dollars for the spoiled consumer to even *consider* playing a game. So now we see less and less games being made by the inspired and talented, and more and more games being made by corporate committee.
As time marches on, I have a feeling we'll see a (relative) dieing out of the multimillion game and the rise of the $10-20 household device game. (Cellphones and computers to be specific.) It takes inspiration and talent to make a good game, not millions of dollars of art assets.
What the hell has happened to us where supporting an under appreciated venue has become grounds for suing? What the hell has happened to us where people are paid to do "viral marketing" but when a fan goes out and does it, they should become fearful of the law?
There's already a crapton of mercury in the environment. So much in fact, that it's becoming dangerous to eat too much fish. They absorb it, it never leaves their system, and then you eat them.
NOW, we have idiots mandating that CFLs be used by everyone. And as Umghhh brings up, the general public does NOT give a shit about the environment. Three anecdotes from my own life.
1) I used to work at a gas station. We were instructed to throw out the Fluorescent Tubes. 2) As long as I can remember, my mother has thrown batteries into the garbage. Once I confronted her about it, and she just simply didn't believe that pollution was a problem. In her simple mind, the world simply "works" and will continue to work as long as she believes in America. 3) I worked at a small business of 7 people. The owners were political nuts. They were always saying how it was everyone else's fault about everything. One time, I asked what to do with the spent Fluorescents. They told me to toss them, I refused. I eventually had to take care of them myself. Later, I was fired. I'm pretty sure it's because I told them I voted for all independents on election day. They viewed it as my "betrayal" despite all their "enlightened ravings" and viewed me as the embodiment of all the traitors that allowed Obama to be elected. I kinda wish I talked to a lawyer about that situation...
Well, no one perspective is the entire picture. Some people voted for him because he wasn't Bush. A lot of people also voted for him because he was saying that he'd enforce all these social programs. I'm all for social programs, but they have to be social programs that work. Almost nothing the government does actually works. (Look at social security, which is supposed to be a holding program. If it's only a holding program, why isn't there any money?)
I don't want to live in a country where you can sue somebody because you trespassed onto their property, started jumping on their trampoline and broke your neck. I also don't want to live in a country with big government. Or big corporations, which can harness enough economic power to be their own big governments. In order for that to happen, people need to start taking some responsibility. I don't know about the people around you, but when I talk about how the state wants to pass a bill that would allow them to track people without warrants, they ask me to stop talking, because they don't want to worry about it.
Except it doesn't work like that with ads. You can watch public television for free and get ads, or you can pay money to watch cable television and get ads. You can pay $50 for Battlefield 1942, or you can pay $50 for Battlefield 2142 and get ads.
Ads increase profit for companies, they never decrease the price of products, except those offered for free (like Google.)
There is virtually nothing wrong with our copyright law... that our founding fathers wrote for us. It hasn't been until recently, when we demanded that it was everyone else's responsibility to take care of us, that the corporations stepped in and suddenly everything looks grim for us. Who would'a thought that giving up our responsibility (and therefore freedom) would lead us to a more tyrannical state?
If anything, Obama's election proves the current mindset of Americans (social welfare for everyone granted by big government.)
Well, your opinion, like most people's opinions, does not apply to everyone.
I bought my laptop, with an advertised battery life of 1 hour. That was fine with me, I wasn't ever going to use my laptop someplace there wasn't a power outlet, but I planned on moving my computer a lot.
If you were an amputee with a stump for a right arm, surely swinging that like it was a full arm would be enough for Natal to compute that you were making a shot at the ball.
If you've got enough of a stump that Natal can detect the motion, then you've got enough of a stump to use a prosthetic. If you've got a prosthetic, you've already got enough ability to swing around a wii-mote. It doesn't offer anything that the Wii doesn't already offer disabled people, or that these guys don't already offer One Switch if you are more disabled then that. Sure, it'd be nice to have games made for this stuff, but I remain HIGHLY skeptical about this guy's speculation.
When somebody calls someone a Nazi because they're restricting something, isn't that just a reference to the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld? I mean, I might call the clerk at Borders a book nazi if she yells at me for reading a book for half an hour "for free." I don't really think she's anything like a Nazi. So does this really count as Godwin's law?
People don't want to believe in bad people. Lets face it, some people are just rotten. It wasn't video games, it wasn't the comic books, or the rock music. Maybe something caused it other then nature, but if that's the case, I'm sure it was exposure to a lot of lead or a head injury that damaged a specific portion of the head during early childhood.
Until we realize that some people are rotten, and everybody is responsible for themselves, we're going to continue to creating stupid laws that make the word a worse place to live in.
Wouldn't people be more likely to buy the used game for $5 less when it's $30 new instead of $60? At $55, what's another $5? It's a 10% discount on the game. $25 vs $30 is a 16.667% discount. If we keep up the pattern of $5 off, Why get a $10 new game when I can get 2 $5 used games?
It's psychological. Lets say you have $100 of disposable income this month. If you go and spend $60 on a video game, that means you've got less than half left. On top of that, if you want a 2nd video game because this one is shitty, you'll have to wait until next month. So you try and squeeze where you can. You pay $55 for the used copy instead of $60, even though it isn't in the original case.
But lets say the game is $30. You can buy 3 games, on that budget. So the 1st and 2nd game you buy, you're not going to be picky. Why? Well you can "always go get another one." Or you can buy the 1st game, and still feel like you have a lot of money left to use on other things.
If you don't believe me, look at your disposable income for a month. I bet you've spent more money on items that cost less than $20 than on all things that cost more than $20 combined. How do you think Starbucks makes money off of $5 coffee?
Slashdot Mirror
This was first done in the 5th Element when Zorg's assistant spies on the president. Obviously, according to IP law, DARPA owes the creators of the 5th Element $500 Trillion (in standard RIAA dollars).
To turn this into a theme...
I used to play World of Warcraft back when Stratholme was considered an impossible instance. Then suddenly guilds started figuring out this "raiding thing" and all of a sudden, some dumbass healer could get better items than me, because he had 39 other people to pick up his slack. That's when the game started going downhill. I quit and everyone else I knew started quitting and the biggest complaint I heard back then was "I'm sick of seeing some dumbass decked out in epic gear because he can farm gold all day and raid all night." I think the game was ruined sometime halfway through it's first year.
"Casual" is not a misnomer. Anyone who wants to play whenever they feel like it is "casual." Anyone who adheres to a schedule where they get penalized for tardiness is working a 2nd (or 1st) job.
tl;dr "Remember when WoW was good?" "WoW was never good."
:'(
Everyone I know who plays WoW is quitting to play Aion. None of them are raiders, and they are very adamant about quitting forever. They weren't this way with Warhammer.
I forswore MMOs, but I'm seeing a paradigm shit here. I think Aion has the ability to last.
So it was communist when Blizzard made everyone turn in cloth to try and open the doors of Az-Nerub? (or whatever the hell it was, I wasn't playing then.)
His design would still work as long as the person who contributes the most gets the most. Think of it like the construction workers who work on the road. The guys who put in overtime get paid more, the people who don't help at all (me and you) don't get paid at all, but we all get to use the road when it's finished.
According to GM, I guess if I never go on longer trips, my Volt will be getting infinity miles per gallon.
Ahh, only good old GM could make a car that gets 230 mpg when it could be getting infinity mpg!
Sooo... are you arguing that MMOs do have plots? I think you're arguing against a point I never made (in other words, you are agreeing with me that these games do not have plots).
I've got this! They're like action flicks! Except with loot!
*No plot
*No cinematic story telling or character development (just nonstop action)
*They make tons of money corporate executives want
*Corporate executives are interested in making money, but are too stupid to understand what a video game (much less a MMO) really is
*By making comparisons with an established industry, you can pretend to lend credit to your MMO ideas
*One company has a virtual monopoly on what consumers get
*I'm just going to start pulling stuff out of my ass now
*MMOs and movies both overcharge for the highly desirable yellow products (gold, popcorn..)
*People write articles on how they're correlated!
where you're allowed to bully, insult, and deceive limitlessly.
If this was their goal, there would only need to be one domain on the list.
I bought a Wii Fit. It counts as one of the games that I deeply regret. While it was kind of fun at first, it takes FOREVER to do a work out. This is literally how it goes.
1) Choose a game.
2) Yay! You picked a game! Do you want to learn how to play that game?
3) No? Ok, well here's a nifty animation for you!
4) 20 seconds of workout
5) Oh no! You suck, your a fatty, hehehe. Here's a nifty animation showing you lose, loser.
6) Oh my goodness, you scored a high score, let me show you!
7) Wow, we spent like... 5 minutes working out, lets add 5 minute tokens to your "workout piggy bank."
Repeat ad nauseum. Seriously, it took me 2 hours to put 80 minutes into the workout piggy bank, and it always rounds your minutes up, so I probably spent 2 hours working out for 40 minutes. What's worse is that you need to sustain your heart rate to actually burn calories, so it isn't really helpful for anything but muscle toning.
If I hadn't already bought a Wii, I wouldn't buy one either. I'm disappointed with the game line up. 3 years have passed and I can name 3 games that I'm glad I bought. I can also name off a dozen names I deeply regret having ever bought/rented.
Back in the 80s and 90s, any schmuck could decide to go make a game. With enough dedication and talent, he could really make something awesome, too. I mean one day Robyn and Rand Miller decided to sit down and make a game. And that game (Myst) was the best selling game for the better part of a decade.
Now, it takes millions of dollars for the spoiled consumer to even *consider* playing a game. So now we see less and less games being made by the inspired and talented, and more and more games being made by corporate committee.
As time marches on, I have a feeling we'll see a (relative) dieing out of the multimillion game and the rise of the $10-20 household device game. (Cellphones and computers to be specific.) It takes inspiration and talent to make a good game, not millions of dollars of art assets.
If nothing else, maybe they can appeal to the RC hobby community.
What the hell has happened to us where supporting an under appreciated venue has become grounds for suing? What the hell has happened to us where people are paid to do "viral marketing" but when a fan goes out and does it, they should become fearful of the law?
Seriously, wtf has happened to my country?
There's already a crapton of mercury in the environment. So much in fact, that it's becoming dangerous to eat too much fish. They absorb it, it never leaves their system, and then you eat them.
NOW, we have idiots mandating that CFLs be used by everyone. And as Umghhh brings up, the general public does NOT give a shit about the environment. Three anecdotes from my own life.
1) I used to work at a gas station. We were instructed to throw out the Fluorescent Tubes.
2) As long as I can remember, my mother has thrown batteries into the garbage. Once I confronted her about it, and she just simply didn't believe that pollution was a problem. In her simple mind, the world simply "works" and will continue to work as long as she believes in America.
3) I worked at a small business of 7 people. The owners were political nuts. They were always saying how it was everyone else's fault about everything. One time, I asked what to do with the spent Fluorescents. They told me to toss them, I refused. I eventually had to take care of them myself. Later, I was fired. I'm pretty sure it's because I told them I voted for all independents on election day. They viewed it as my "betrayal" despite all their "enlightened ravings" and viewed me as the embodiment of all the traitors that allowed Obama to be elected. I kinda wish I talked to a lawyer about that situation...
Well, no one perspective is the entire picture. Some people voted for him because he wasn't Bush. A lot of people also voted for him because he was saying that he'd enforce all these social programs. I'm all for social programs, but they have to be social programs that work. Almost nothing the government does actually works. (Look at social security, which is supposed to be a holding program. If it's only a holding program, why isn't there any money?)
I don't want to live in a country where you can sue somebody because you trespassed onto their property, started jumping on their trampoline and broke your neck. I also don't want to live in a country with big government. Or big corporations, which can harness enough economic power to be their own big governments. In order for that to happen, people need to start taking some responsibility. I don't know about the people around you, but when I talk about how the state wants to pass a bill that would allow them to track people without warrants, they ask me to stop talking, because they don't want to worry about it.
Except it doesn't work like that with ads. You can watch public television for free and get ads, or you can pay money to watch cable television and get ads. You can pay $50 for Battlefield 1942, or you can pay $50 for Battlefield 2142 and get ads.
Ads increase profit for companies, they never decrease the price of products, except those offered for free (like Google.)
There is virtually nothing wrong with our copyright law... that our founding fathers wrote for us. It hasn't been until recently, when we demanded that it was everyone else's responsibility to take care of us, that the corporations stepped in and suddenly everything looks grim for us. Who would'a thought that giving up our responsibility (and therefore freedom) would lead us to a more tyrannical state?
If anything, Obama's election proves the current mindset of Americans (social welfare for everyone granted by big government.)
Well, your opinion, like most people's opinions, does not apply to everyone.
I bought my laptop, with an advertised battery life of 1 hour. That was fine with me, I wasn't ever going to use my laptop someplace there wasn't a power outlet, but I planned on moving my computer a lot.
Or is this a ploy to decrease "imports?"
Somehow, I just don't see China treating World of Fight on equal grounds with World of Warcraft.
If you were an amputee with a stump for a right arm, surely swinging that like it was a full arm would be enough for Natal to compute that you were making a shot at the ball.
If you've got enough of a stump that Natal can detect the motion, then you've got enough of a stump to use a prosthetic. If you've got a prosthetic, you've already got enough ability to swing around a wii-mote. It doesn't offer anything that the Wii doesn't already offer disabled people, or that these guys don't already offer One Switch if you are more disabled then that. Sure, it'd be nice to have games made for this stuff, but I remain HIGHLY skeptical about this guy's speculation.
Haha, that's pretty good. I had a similar experience. My car is 11 years old and has over 200k miles on it. (Honda Accord)
I hope this isn't just another MMO.
Godwin's law just proven again with the tags.
When somebody calls someone a Nazi because they're restricting something, isn't that just a reference to the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld? I mean, I might call the clerk at Borders a book nazi if she yells at me for reading a book for half an hour "for free." I don't really think she's anything like a Nazi. So does this really count as Godwin's law?
Sorry for being a little off topic.
People don't want to believe in bad people. Lets face it, some people are just rotten. It wasn't video games, it wasn't the comic books, or the rock music. Maybe something caused it other then nature, but if that's the case, I'm sure it was exposure to a lot of lead or a head injury that damaged a specific portion of the head during early childhood.
Until we realize that some people are rotten, and everybody is responsible for themselves, we're going to continue to creating stupid laws that make the word a worse place to live in.
Wouldn't people be more likely to buy the used game for $5 less when it's $30 new instead of $60? At $55, what's another $5? It's a 10% discount on the game. $25 vs $30 is a 16.667% discount. If we keep up the pattern of $5 off, Why get a $10 new game when I can get 2 $5 used games?
It's psychological. Lets say you have $100 of disposable income this month. If you go and spend $60 on a video game, that means you've got less than half left. On top of that, if you want a 2nd video game because this one is shitty, you'll have to wait until next month. So you try and squeeze where you can. You pay $55 for the used copy instead of $60, even though it isn't in the original case.
But lets say the game is $30. You can buy 3 games, on that budget. So the 1st and 2nd game you buy, you're not going to be picky. Why? Well you can "always go get another one." Or you can buy the 1st game, and still feel like you have a lot of money left to use on other things.
If you don't believe me, look at your disposable income for a month. I bet you've spent more money on items that cost less than $20 than on all things that cost more than $20 combined. How do you think Starbucks makes money off of $5 coffee?