I feel that as long as the company's server is online and responsive, that online authentication (like steam does) is a great idea with more benefits than drawbacks.
First of all, let's compare the pros and cons of using something like Steam to play Half Life 2 vs playing a pirated copy.
Using Steam to play Half Life 2, I - get automatic patches - can download all game content from any location I'm at without having to search for it.
Playing Half Life 2 pirated? Well, I - probably won't have the most up to date patch because the crack for it doesn't exist yet - would have to wade through malicious sites trying to find a crack, bombarded with a bunch of annoying pop-ups and banners or (see next) - may have to advertise to the world that I'm downloading a cracked copy of HL2 because my IP address is visible via Bit Torrent - may end up downloading a bunch of malicious software bundled in with the cracked version, because, let's face it, I have NO way of knowing where this cracked version is clean; what is to stop Mr Leet Hax0r from injecting a keystroke logger service along with the crack that he has so "generously" provided?
Using pirated software is so incredibly inconvenient vs using Steam that aside from the legal and moral aspects, it is a complete no brainer for me to purchase the games. I'm currently investing 2-3 hours a day in Valve's Team Fortress 2, a title which you can purchase for __$20__. Who in their right mind is going to try to pirate Team Fortress 2?
And sorry to say, but if I'm a game developer and 10,000 people are pirating my game, I'm not going to care about the 10 people who want to play my game from their internet-less hotel room. That is also a no brainer. Online authentication is here to stay and if/when the developer/publisher goes out of business, as you pointed out, if the game is popular enough, cracked copies will be readily available, so your argument about needing to have a non-authenticating single player game is null.
Science neither proves nor disproves the existence of God, and therefore cannot prove or disprove what God is purported to have revealed to various inhabitants of the earth at various times. Therefore, to imply that talking about God contradicts science is illogical. There are definitely things about our lives that science cannot understand and never will understand and though people may disagree about what these things are, it does not mean that these things have no answers and do not exist.
Having mulled this problem over myself, I'd say make sure that all file formats you use can at least be decoded by open source software (written in something very widespread like C). That way, if the platform becomes extinct, you can recompile the software and recover the files.
So:
Compression: ZIP (no closed-source stuff like RAR) -- even better, don't use compression at all Graphics: PNG (JPG for lossy) Video: HuffYUV (MPEG2 for lossy) Audio: WAV, FLAC (Ogg Vorbis or mp3 for lossy) Documents: plaintext ASCII if you can help it, otherwise I'd go with HTML or PDF.
And top it all off with.PAR2 files to recover data degradation. Make new full backups at least 4 times a year.
And do not underestimate the important of good open source emulators:)
I was thinking of The Edge also. I can't remember seeing another deathmatch map be played so relentlessly.
Other excellent Quake 2 maps included Fury (by ztn) and q2dm8 (for team DM).
Other games that I felt had good maps were Heretic 2 and... Daikatana (the 2nd 'world'... was it ancient greece or something? I thought they were great but since the game was slammed no one really noticed).
Don't forget all the users who have the Hitwise web-tracking spyware installed on their computer! So the stats can be revised to say that spyware-infested machines are visiting myspace more frequently.
This time, Digital Leisure is giving us something that we can't get ourselves: high quality scans of the original film. Most laserdisc game enthusiasts (myself included) have the original Dragon's Lair laserdiscs, so the CD-ROM or DVD releases offer nothing that we don't already have (when you realize that the DVD's are just NTSC, same as the laserdisc).
I've seen the trailer for this HD release and it looks absolutely astounding. The color is awesome, the detail is awesome... I will definitely be looking to get my hands on this one.
While the gameplay probably won't be authentic, I'm sure we'll get it working in Daphne soon enough, and then we will have the best of both worlds (awesome video, authentic gameplay).
Just because it's been remade over and over again doesn't mean you will get the same authentic experience that you got with the arcade. The only way I know of to get the arcade gameplay experience is to play Dragon's Lair using Daphne.
I'm pretty sure that Dragon's Lair was always planned to be a game from day one. I attended a keynote address by the creators of Dragon's Lair and they pretty much said that Rick Dyer had the idea for the game and approached Don Bluth to do the game.
If your current video card meets your needs fine, then I totally agree with you; do not upgrade.
But I personally love new games with impressive, high-powered graphics, and I am willing to pay to get a good framerate. Furthermore, the vertex and fragment shaders (which aren't available on the geforce2) are very fun to play around with from a development perspective.
I currently have a geforce 6800 ultra which I bought at least 1 year after the card came out. I'd never buy one of these things brand new (I made that mistake with a geforce 3 and spent $400.. ouch)
Why would I pay full price for a movie that, due to DRM restrictions, I'd have a good chance of only having on my hard drive for a short period of time, when I can just go down to McDonalds and rent a new movie for $1 from the http://www.redbox.com/ ?
The older the target audience is, the higher the ticket prices can be. That's why Paul McCartney and Rolling Stones can sell outrageously high priced tickets, and also why new acts that appeal to teenagers must charge lower prices.
Ironically, from what I understand, the artist has always made most of his/her money off concert sales and generally does not make much on record sales. It's the publisher who cashes in on the record sales. Therefore, while I do think P2P is hurting publishers' sales, I don't think it's damaging the artist that much...
Accusing a private website of 'censorship' is an inappropriate use of the word, in my opinion. This is why I have a problem with many of the 'censorship' stories that Slashdot posts. Ok, so if it's about China, fine, but a private website? Come on...
One thing I've noticed that some people assume about prayer is that prayer means doing nothing and hoping God will perform some miracle.
Prayer operates on the following principles: a) we have to do everything in our power to make the desired result happen first b) the desired result has to be God's will
When the leader of a nation at war did not send enough troops to the army, the frustrated general wrote to the leader and said: "11 Behold, could ye suppose that ye could sit upon your thrones, and because of the exceeding goodness of God ye could do nothing and he would deliver you? Behold, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain." "21 Or do ye suppose that the Lord will still deliver us, while we sit upon our thrones and do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us?" (http://scriptures.lds.org/alma/60)
That's why the 'religious' person in New Orleans who says "I know a huge flood is coming, but I'm going to just stay here and pray, because I know God will protect me," isn't going to be protected, because they are not doing all they can do to protect themselves first.
Similarly, if I get sick and say "I'm not going to a doctor; I am just going to pray to be healed!" then I am very likely not going to receive any help from God, because I am not making use of the means that He has provided for me (a doctor, medical help, etc).
I definitely know that prayer can and does work. The key is that we have to do all we can do first.
I think that 'religion' exists because God revealed to some chosen servants (prophets) what the purpose of life was, and then told them to pass the information along to the masses.
I just read this entire article and I find it astounding. I never expected porn to actually cause a man to not be able to get aroused by his wife and to prefer to sit in front of a computer monitor masturbating to a women he doesn't know nor has any affection toward. No wonder God has said repeatedly to keep sexual passions bridled between a married man and woman. The consequences described in this article I've just read are absolutely astounding.. and I don't think most of the people who look at porn are prepared to accept those consequences.
And yet, I believe that video games do teach lessons, as do other forms of entertainment such as movies, books, and TV shows. The irony is that it didn't start with World of Warcraft; entertainment has been teaching bad lessons for years. One example is the movie Ocean's 11 which teaches that stealing millions of dollars from casinos is cool. I used that movie as an example, because I like the movie.
"Games are porn in Utah". Ok, so does this mean everyone in Utah defines all games (including Boggle and Scrabble) as porn? I find that suggestion to be silly. One legislator in one city is making one proposal. This does not mean that all Utahns (including myself) are behind this guy's idea. As society tries to find a balance between liberty for the partakers and liberty for the receivers, imperfect proposals like this one can and will surface. Blowing them out of proportion and stereotyping an entire group of people does nothing to advance progress.
Oh, and I suppose 'religion' said killing was bad?
on
Games Are Porn in Utah
·
· Score: 1
I am sure there are many atheists out there who would be offended to hear you say that 'religion' has invented the concept of right and wrong. If you say that, then logically you must include murder as a fabricated standard invented by 'religion', which basically says that atheists have no morals whatsoever.
Give me a break. Lots of people in this world who have no religious affiliation also have a sense of right and wrong and strive toward their sense of right. Give them some credit.
This will come as a shock to you, but I agree with Colin Campbell's take on the booth babes. I do think that they are silly.
My problem with booth babes is that while hiding behind 'free expression', these companies are trying to push their moral standards upon me trying to tell me what I should be looking at while going to a game show. I don't associate games with scantily clad women at all and resent these companies trying to merge the two. I say, get rid of the booth babes and make a product that can stand on its own feet. If people want to see scantily clad women, they can go to places that specialize in that.
I haven't gotten spam for years ...
on
Spam is Dead
·
· Score: 1
Ever since I started using TMDA (http://tmda.sf.net/ my spam has dropped to almost zero (I probably received 2 spams in 2005). TMDA isn't a perfect solution because valid senders have greater difficulty in getting through, however, since I don't know they are trying to email me, I don't miss the emails:)
Personally, I prefer losing an unknown amount of email rather than manually checking the Bayesian filter to see if there are any false positives. Is that so wrong?:)
I believe that both science and revelation from God are beneficial to increase mankind's knowledge and intelligence. If science produces truth and revelation from God is truth, then logically both cannot contradict each other, and therefore, there is no reason to fear either one.
Science explains what God did... and relevation explains why God did it. If everyone remembers this, then no one will have reason to argue (or post inflammatory stories to slashdot hehe).
I can explain it to you. The explanation is that any time there is a news story that threatens porn or violent video games, Slashdot will post it in order to generate the maximum # of comments (preferably angry ones).
Being over 18 myself, and not a resident of Indiana, I am 100% with you.. this news story is very unwelcome.
I already know the MPAA is corrupt and that rating systems are not a perfect solution. So what is the point of me going to the extra effort to try to view this documentary? Frankly, I think this news story is blown out of proportion because it implies that there is great value in viewing this documentary, a claim that I question.
Slashdot Mirror
I feel that as long as the company's server is online and responsive, that online authentication (like steam does) is a great idea with more benefits than drawbacks.
First of all, let's compare the pros and cons of using something like Steam to play Half Life 2 vs playing a pirated copy.
Using Steam to play Half Life 2, I
- get automatic patches
- can download all game content from any location I'm at without having to search for it.
Playing Half Life 2 pirated? Well, I
- probably won't have the most up to date patch because the crack for it doesn't exist yet
- would have to wade through malicious sites trying to find a crack, bombarded with a bunch of annoying pop-ups and banners or (see next)
- may have to advertise to the world that I'm downloading a cracked copy of HL2 because my IP address is visible via Bit Torrent
- may end up downloading a bunch of malicious software bundled in with the cracked version, because, let's face it, I have NO way of knowing where this cracked version is clean; what is to stop Mr Leet Hax0r from injecting a keystroke logger service along with the crack that he has so "generously" provided?
Using pirated software is so incredibly inconvenient vs using Steam that aside from the legal and moral aspects, it is a complete no brainer for me to purchase the games. I'm currently investing 2-3 hours a day in Valve's Team Fortress 2, a title which you can purchase for __$20__. Who in their right mind is going to try to pirate Team Fortress 2?
And sorry to say, but if I'm a game developer and 10,000 people are pirating my game, I'm not going to care about the 10 people who want to play my game from their internet-less hotel room. That is also a no brainer. Online authentication is here to stay and if/when the developer/publisher goes out of business, as you pointed out, if the game is popular enough, cracked copies will be readily available, so your argument about needing to have a non-authenticating single player game is null.
Science neither proves nor disproves the existence of God, and therefore cannot prove or disprove what God is purported to have revealed to various inhabitants of the earth at various times. Therefore, to imply that talking about God contradicts science is illogical. There are definitely things about our lives that science cannot understand and never will understand and though people may disagree about what these things are, it does not mean that these things have no answers and do not exist.
Having mulled this problem over myself, I'd say make sure that all file formats you use can at least be decoded by open source software (written in something very widespread like C). That way, if the platform becomes extinct, you can recompile the software and recover the files.
.PAR2 files to recover data degradation. Make new full backups at least 4 times a year.
:)
So:
Compression: ZIP (no closed-source stuff like RAR) -- even better, don't use compression at all
Graphics: PNG (JPG for lossy)
Video: HuffYUV (MPEG2 for lossy)
Audio: WAV, FLAC (Ogg Vorbis or mp3 for lossy)
Documents: plaintext ASCII if you can help it, otherwise I'd go with HTML or PDF.
And top it all off with
And do not underestimate the important of good open source emulators
I was thinking of The Edge also. I can't remember seeing another deathmatch map be played so relentlessly.
... was it ancient greece or something? I thought they were great but since the game was slammed no one really noticed).
Other excellent Quake 2 maps included Fury (by ztn) and q2dm8 (for team DM).
Other games that I felt had good maps were Heretic 2 and... Daikatana (the 2nd 'world'
Don't forget all the users who have the Hitwise web-tracking spyware installed on their computer! So the stats can be revised to say that spyware-infested machines are visiting myspace more frequently.
This time, Digital Leisure is giving us something that we can't get ourselves: high quality scans of the original film. Most laserdisc game enthusiasts (myself included) have the original Dragon's Lair laserdiscs, so the CD-ROM or DVD releases offer nothing that we don't already have (when you realize that the DVD's are just NTSC, same as the laserdisc).
I've seen the trailer for this HD release and it looks absolutely astounding. The color is awesome, the detail is awesome... I will definitely be looking to get my hands on this one.
While the gameplay probably won't be authentic, I'm sure we'll get it working in Daphne soon enough, and then we will have the best of both worlds (awesome video, authentic gameplay).
Just because it's been remade over and over again doesn't mean you will get the same authentic experience that you got with the arcade. The only way I know of to get the arcade gameplay experience is to play Dragon's Lair using Daphne.
The original Dragon's Lair players were the Pioneer PR-7820 and the Pioneer LD-V1000 for the US release.
I'm pretty sure that Dragon's Lair was always planned to be a game from day one. I attended a keynote address by the creators of Dragon's Lair and they pretty much said that Rick Dyer had the idea for the game and approached Don Bluth to do the game.
If your current video card meets your needs fine, then I totally agree with you; do not upgrade.
But I personally love new games with impressive, high-powered graphics, and I am willing to pay to get a good framerate. Furthermore, the vertex and fragment shaders (which aren't available on the geforce2) are very fun to play around with from a development perspective.
I currently have a geforce 6800 ultra which I bought at least 1 year after the card came out. I'd never buy one of these things brand new (I made that mistake with a geforce 3 and spent $400.. ouch)
Why would I pay full price for a movie that, due to DRM restrictions, I'd have a good chance of only having on my hard drive for a short period of time, when I can just go down to McDonalds and rent a new movie for $1 from the http://www.redbox.com/ ?
Obscenity isn't protected free speech, even by the ACLU's standards.
I'd really love a way to filter out most of the 'censorship' stories that appear on Slashdot. I find them ridiculous, like this article.
The older the target audience is, the higher the ticket prices can be. That's why Paul McCartney and Rolling Stones can sell outrageously high priced tickets, and also why new acts that appeal to teenagers must charge lower prices.
Ironically, from what I understand, the artist has always made most of his/her money off concert sales and generally does not make much on record sales. It's the publisher who cashes in on the record sales. Therefore, while I do think P2P is hurting publishers' sales, I don't think it's damaging the artist that much...
Accusing a private website of 'censorship' is an inappropriate use of the word, in my opinion. This is why I have a problem with many of the 'censorship' stories that Slashdot posts. Ok, so if it's about China, fine, but a private website? Come on ...
One thing I've noticed that some people assume about prayer is that prayer means doing nothing and hoping God will perform some miracle.
Prayer operates on the following principles:
a) we have to do everything in our power to make the desired result happen first
b) the desired result has to be God's will
When the leader of a nation at war did not send enough troops to the army, the frustrated general wrote to the leader and said:
"11 Behold, could ye suppose that ye could sit upon your thrones, and because of the exceeding goodness of God ye could do nothing and he would deliver you? Behold, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain."
"21 Or do ye suppose that the Lord will still deliver us, while we sit upon our thrones and do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us?"
(http://scriptures.lds.org/alma/60)
That's why the 'religious' person in New Orleans who says "I know a huge flood is coming, but I'm going to just stay here and pray, because I know God will protect me," isn't going to be protected, because they are not doing all they can do to protect themselves first.
Similarly, if I get sick and say "I'm not going to a doctor; I am just going to pray to be healed!" then I am very likely not going to receive any help from God, because I am not making use of the means that He has provided for me (a doctor, medical help, etc).
I definitely know that prayer can and does work. The key is that we have to do all we can do first.
I think that 'religion' exists because God revealed to some chosen servants (prophets) what the purpose of life was, and then told them to pass the information along to the masses.
I just read this entire article and I find it astounding. I never expected porn to actually cause a man to not be able to get aroused by his wife and to prefer to sit in front of a computer monitor masturbating to a women he doesn't know nor has any affection toward. No wonder God has said repeatedly to keep sexual passions bridled between a married man and woman. The consequences described in this article I've just read are absolutely astounding.. and I don't think most of the people who look at porn are prepared to accept those consequences.
And yet, I believe that video games do teach lessons, as do other forms of entertainment such as movies, books, and TV shows. The irony is that it didn't start with World of Warcraft; entertainment has been teaching bad lessons for years. One example is the movie Ocean's 11 which teaches that stealing millions of dollars from casinos is cool. I used that movie as an example, because I like the movie.
I fail to see what you are trying to illustrate by that statement.
"Games are porn in Utah". Ok, so does this mean everyone in Utah defines all games (including Boggle and Scrabble) as porn? I find that suggestion to be silly. One legislator in one city is making one proposal. This does not mean that all Utahns (including myself) are behind this guy's idea. As society tries to find a balance between liberty for the partakers and liberty for the receivers, imperfect proposals like this one can and will surface. Blowing them out of proportion and stereotyping an entire group of people does nothing to advance progress.
I am sure there are many atheists out there who would be offended to hear you say that 'religion' has invented the concept of right and wrong. If you say that, then logically you must include murder as a fabricated standard invented by 'religion', which basically says that atheists have no morals whatsoever.
Give me a break. Lots of people in this world who have no religious affiliation also have a sense of right and wrong and strive toward their sense of right. Give them some credit.
Well, dada21,
This will come as a shock to you, but I agree with Colin Campbell's take on the booth babes. I do think that they are silly.
My problem with booth babes is that while hiding behind 'free expression', these companies are trying to push their moral standards upon me trying to tell me what I should be looking at while going to a game show. I don't associate games with scantily clad women at all and resent these companies trying to merge the two. I say, get rid of the booth babes and make a product that can stand on its own feet. If people want to see scantily clad women, they can go to places that specialize in that.
Ever since I started using TMDA (http://tmda.sf.net/ my spam has dropped to almost zero (I probably received 2 spams in 2005). TMDA isn't a perfect solution because valid senders have greater difficulty in getting through, however, since I don't know they are trying to email me, I don't miss the emails :)
:)
Personally, I prefer losing an unknown amount of email rather than manually checking the Bayesian filter to see if there are any false positives. Is that so wrong?
I believe that both science and revelation from God are beneficial to increase mankind's knowledge and intelligence. If science produces truth and revelation from God is truth, then logically both cannot contradict each other, and therefore, there is no reason to fear either one.
... and relevation explains why God did it. If everyone remembers this, then no one will have reason to argue (or post inflammatory stories to slashdot hehe).
Science explains what God did
I can explain it to you. The explanation is that any time there is a news story that threatens porn or violent video games, Slashdot will post it in order to generate the maximum # of comments (preferably angry ones).
Being over 18 myself, and not a resident of Indiana, I am 100% with you.. this news story is very unwelcome.
I already know the MPAA is corrupt and that rating systems are not a perfect solution. So what is the point of me going to the extra effort to try to view this documentary? Frankly, I think this news story is blown out of proportion because it implies that there is great value in viewing this documentary, a claim that I question.