It isn't about the hardware, it's what the game developers do with it. The PS3 MIGHT be seen as being a next generation console with last generation games, but with better graphics than we saw on the last generation console.
Game devs are afraid of trying anything new, because the high cost of development makes it a risk many refuse to take.
When "The Sims" first came out, it really was a new game, and not a clone or rehash of other games. The thing that so many people find annoying about "The Sims" is the continued push of new content packs, and the expansions. Others dislike the community that revolves around the franchise because it is very different from the RPG or the FPS crowd, each of which has their own feel and community.
Many people also look at the content that has been made available for the consoles as being what the console is all about(because of marketing). That has to be seen as a very valid opinion, because without games, any console is just a piece of electronic junk in the same way that a PC without applications is a piece of electronic junk. The SOFTWARE is what makes any of these things worth buying. So, are the games for the PS3 or 360 any different in terms of gameplay compared to the last generation? The Wii has changed the gameplay(due to the controller(s) used), and the games available are different, and as a whole are not just newer versions of stuff seen in the last generation of console games.
Make no mistake, new shooters on the new consoles may have new graphics and have notable improvements, but aside from story, how different in terms of gameplay are games on the new consoles compared to game on the old consoles?
I do NOT consider the Wii to be next generation, but it's different. In many ways, the differences are an improvement since there is more to games than running around in a World War II game trying to play the hero, or shooting everything that moves while following a very linear storyline with no options or chance of changing via actions.
Because there are so many gamers who are over the age of 25 at this point, there is a good reason why so many people want M rated titles, because we are mature adults who are sick of seeing games toned down just to get a T rating(to increase the number of sales). There is a huge difference between a game that is focused on sex(the Adult only), and wanting the same level of mature content in games that have been in R rated movies.
I swear, it's idiotic that the entire video game industry is afraid to show a breast, or a bit of sexual content in a game when the target audience is over the age of 18 in the first place.
Have you ever heard of a small to mid sized business that is NOT open 24x7? If a business has under 200 people total, there is a good chance that the business does NOT necessarily allow people to set their own hours. There may be allowances for personal issues and to adjust a schedule, but there are additional costs involved when you allow employees to work on their schedule.
Those who work late into the night require that many things be in place for their security. You may NEED to have security available for example, which costs a good amount(which wouldn't be needed if employees arrived and left at approximately the same time), you have electric costs, you might need things like heat/air conditioning to run at those odd times(to avoid potential lawsuits), etc....
Some jobs may lend themselves to being able to do things at odd times, but most jobs require interaction with others, and those people will NOT want to make YOUR schedule theirs. Keep that in mind.
Oh, the idea of 9 to 5 is that those are the times when most people EXPECT a business to be open and for office staff to be available. Some service based businesses may offer extended hours, but if there are enough incoming calls at 9am, there should be enough people showing up at 9am to handle the call volume. Allowing employees to show up when THEY want, without regard for the needs of the company is how a company runs into trouble.
As for you wanting to come in at 4pm, what is it that YOU expect to provide at 4pm? If people need a password reset and it's a part of your job, you need to be around when other people are. If you can't understand that, then your ego is going to be a problem at any job you have. Also, if your manager has a problem talking to you because you decide to set a schedule, that will also be a problem because you need to be able to interact when it comes to discussions about various things.
When 3rd edition came out, a huge change went in that made D&D more like a video game than a roleplaying system. The idea of boosting stats and such, or picking up a level of some other class when you are ready to advance really feels too much like something from a very weak console game where the players have such a short attention span that they MUST get obvious "power-ups" regularly and often.
A big part of the problem is letting players see their stats. Honestly, let the player decide what class he/she wants, and let the DM create the character based on the rules. Let it be random, but make the player really be clueless about their exact stats. If there will be a system to increase stats, or level up in another class, or pick up non-class skills, make the player say it in advance, and make it obvious that the character is now being judged by their actions toward the desired increase. Or make the different class abilities be skill based, and make it so the system is a skill-based system where people need to use a skill to advance in that skill(training will take care of a lot of this).
If a player doesn't know what the character stats are, then all that matters is the fun of playing through whatever stories the DM runs them through. Letting the player know roughly how much health the character has means more than saying just how many hit points the character has as well. If someone plays an arcane caster and charges in to fight in melee, and then dies because the character only has six hit points, that just isn't playing the character properly, so why encourage playing the game system rather than playing the game?
The problem that many companies/countries have is trying to figure out the value of something. Hmmmm, manufacturing costs $125, but the sales price of the router is $1500 or more. For Cisco, the value THEY place on the router is the manufacturing cost since they can just crank out a new one for a cheap price. So, trying to set the value based on the retail price when everyone knows that no sane company or person will pay the suggested retail price is wrong.
You also see these advertisements where a company will throw something in "for free" that they claim has a very high value. You KNOW that the freebie they throw in probably has a value closer to $1 no matter how much the "value" is that they list. In a way, it is false advertising to say that something is worth so much more than anyone would ever pay. It's like saying a gallon of gas is worth $10 but the gas companies give us a bargain and sell it for $3 per gallon. The sooner there is a legal case that shows what a scam this garbage is, the sooner the nonsense will stop.
Now, back to the case at hand, Brazil. If Cisco does what many companies have put in place, there are licenses on the hardware they have sold to companies in Brazil, including the government. Cisco may have the right to disable all of the Cisco routers in Brazil in much the same way that software licenses can be revoked by the software vendor. In the long run it might not mean much, but in the short term, Cisco may be in a position to cost Brazil as a whole a LOT of money in lost revenue, and possibly cut the country off from the outside world until new equipment can be purchased. They may lose future sales, but they could really really really hurt Brazil depending on how much of the infrastructure uses Cisco routers.
Baldur's Gate was pretty groundbreaking at the time, and the sequel was also groundbreaking(the amount of content, and the NPCs who felt more alive than NPCs from other games). Knights of the Old Republic was also a good game, as was Jade Empire, both games that were far from being just a clone of other games(it makes sense that Bioware would use a game engine they developed for a previous game and then expand on it).
Blizzard USED to make some great original games back in the days of Warcraft 2 and the original Diablo and Starcraft. Blizzard has fallen from those golden days since their new games don't feel all that new. It's one thing to use an existing game engine in a sequel, it is quite another thing to make the sequel feel like it doesn't add anything new over the previous games. Diablo 2 for example really needed an improved graphics rendering engine, yet it looked and felt too much like the original to make it really groundbreaking. Maybe Starcraft 2 will be more than just the original Starcraft with new units and buildings, but we will have to see.
What really upsets me is that Dragon Age will probably end up being dummied down so it could be easily ported to the Xbox 360.
The thing about Bioware is that they know(knew?) how to make GOOD games with a good story that are not just clones of existing titles. Even if you didn't like Neverwinter Nights, you should at least admit that it wasn't just some clone of other games out there.
Now, when it comes to MMOs, the big titles(EverQuest and World of Warcraft) share the same basic gameplay design that has made so many of us keep jumping from game to game looking for something DIFFERENT that will also be good and hold our attention. Bioware, of all the developers out there, was the developer that had the best chance to come up with something DIFFERENT, a true MMORPG which might evolve decently over time. Now that EA is going to be in charge, that hope has pretty much died. EA is NOT about supporting innovation and new ideas, but is more about playing it safe and using a formula design to generate money.
Bioware was the company I hoped would come out with games that would bring artistic storylines back to the mainsteam instead of the garbage we see(which centers around violence without any ways to avoid combat). Now....I see myself going back to old games until they no longer run due to changes to Windows.
THQ isn't known as a company that buys and then destroys the companies that make great products, EA is. Everything that EA touches turns to shit over time.
We see less and less inspiration from the remains of Maxis(is The Sims 2 really showing anything even close to inspiration, or is it an improved The Sims with natural updates?). Spore may be good, but it remains to be seen if it will be, or if EA will force it to be released with tons of bugs because of delays.
So, I mourn the slow death of Bioware. I hope it survives to release some great RPGs, but it may disolve before the next great RPG after Mass Effect.
Justice is VERY lacking across the Internet. Think about it, how many spammers(compared to the number of them out there) have ever been caught, let alone properly punished have there been? How about those who are behind denial of service attacks, virus and worm creation, and other crimes against society(yes, viruses and worm creation with the intent to spread them are crimes against Internet society).
So, that's why it is so shocking to so many people, because no one expects ANY justice of any kind on the net.
If you think about it, the vast majority of SPAM is a blanket scam looking to rip off as many people as possible without much if any cost to the spammer. As a result, for all the offensive garbage that is sent out, the time spent by all those smart enough not to fall victim to the scam adds up to billions of dollars worth of time.
As a result, ANYONE who sends out spam mail contributes to this blanket ripoff of the public. If the legal system will not deal with this, then billions of dollars in damages to the public in terms of lost productivity seems like enough to warrant the death penalty. Yes, this may seem extreme, but honestly, can you say that those who contribute to the theft of billions of dollars should walk away with just a few days/months/years in prison? How about the "fair treatment" if they end up in an American prison where criminals get better treatment than millions of people around the world who don't get cable, access to libraries and even the ability to earn a college degree?
In person, if you insult or pick a fight with everyone around them, you should expect to get your ass kicked. The Internet lets too many people feel that they can get away with behavior that would not be accepted in person, and it's good to see any form of justice for Internet crimes.
I was pointing out that Populous: The Beginning was overlooked by many. Sure the original Populous game was much older, but at the same time was very different from the current RTS games that are modeled after Warcraft 2 rather than trying a different game design.
Looking at responses, a big factor would be how good the storyline was. Was the storyline really good enough to bring back to modern audiences?
Now, look at games like Pool of Radiance and the direct sequels. By the standards of the time, and even today, the storylines work well enough to bring them back. Because the size of the areas were so small by the standards of today, the levels would need to be redesigned to make them worth playing again. The entire city where Pool of Radiance was played in, if taken directly into a modern engine, would be the size of just one area of a modern game. The storyline would not need to be touched, but the scale of things would need to be re-worked to make things seem interesting.
There are some games that would be nice to see. Betrayal at Krondor would make for a great re-make because it was so story driven that with a new engine it could be brought in without needing a lot of new features. There have been some remakes out there done by the community, like FreeCiv and free Sim City clones that were close enough to the original to keep the feel of the original.
There were some great games like Starflight 1 and 2, Alien Legacy(many people have never heard of it), Dungeon Master, and many others that really were different.
Then, you have games that were a lot of fun that many people have never paid much attention to. Populous: The Beginning was a real time strategy game that did what other RTS games just refused to do, deviate from the design of Warcraft 2. The difference in Pop: TB was that instead of just dumping resources into making units from nothing, your people would reproduce(as long as there was housing), and then you would have them train and turn into the unit you wanted them to become. The sad thing is that DirectX support was a bit too weak to let me continue playing without feeling that the game was running in software emulation mode.
Ok, no edit feature...after re-reading the parent, I realize that he/she was talking about how these elements being the primary focus is the problem, not just having them in games in particular.
For moderators, yes, the preview button is there, but that doesn't stop people from mis-reading a post, responding to it, and then realizing it after the fact and wanting to go back to edit their post.
My own feeling is that backwards compatibility is needed because great games are not re-written/updated to run on the newer consoles. Many people would probably be willing to buy a new PS3 version of great PS2 titles even if the graphics and sound were not updated to take advantage of the new technology.
From a PC gamer perspective, many/most of the games from the Windows 98 era run under XP and even Vista without the need for patches. Sure they may not look as good as newer titles, but great games are still worth going back to years and years later if they have a good storyline and/or gameplay. With consoles, you don't have this option, and really, it's not a good thing. If you want to check out the earlier Resident Evil titles for example, and don't have the older consoles still sitting around, you can't play them and are SOL. Game companies would have a market for doing updates of older "landmark" games, they just don't want to run a risk of not getting the sales. What they don't realize is that if they make the older titles available, or even update them with better graphics and sound, it will draw players into the older franchises that they may not have experienced previously. In movies, while Die Hard 3 may have sucked compared to the first two, it would have done even worse if people had never seen the first two movies in the series. Allowing game players to catch up to the story by playing the earlier games before playing the next in the series would boost sales significantly as a result.
Strange that you say this about swearing, nudity and gore when most movies have these elements to a certain degree. The difference between most(not all) movies and computer games is that there are very few games that include nudity, swearing and violence from an artistic point of view.
Take a show like The Sopranos for some great examples of what works and what doesn't. In some cases, you have nudity, not as the focus of a scene, but in the background(in a strip club for example). Sure, you have nudity in the scene, but the focus is on the dialog between characters. The nudity is there due to the environment, and in and of itself is NOT the reason people watch. You have other scenes where there is violence, but a big part of much of the violence in the show was more about the character reactions to each other. Violence is a part of the show, but really isn't a focus in much the same way nudity and adult situations are not the focus. The focus is really on the characters.
Computer games on the whole tend to make the violence the focus of the entire game, rather than making it a side-effect of the story.
Now, an example of a game that did a somewhat better job of putting these elements in was Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. That particular game had swearing and adult situations(no real nudity though), plus a good amount of violence and gore. A real difference between Bloodlines and most other games is that in many many situations, violence could be avoided. The player can choose to use dialog options to avoid fights and situations. In many areas, the quest given is very specific about not killing anyone as well. This leads to a game that may have player controlled violence, but does not require it for every moment of the real gameplay. The dialog is also clearly aimed at a more mature audience, and isn't toned down. The "F" word is used as appropriate in NPC dialog, and dialog isn't toned down just to hold to a certain rating. That is the real key, nothing about the game feels like it was toned down just to get the M rating the game ended up with(and deserves).
This concept that violence can be avoided and avoiding violence may be even more rewarding than jumping into every fight possible is the one thing that I(and hopefully others) wish was the norm and not the exception in games. Most games out there have a focus on violence, but have no rewards for those who look for non-violent ways to get past a situation. This is a big part of the perception problem that games have today. In the real world, if you act like an ass, there is a good chance that you will get your ass kicked. In games, the general concept is that the character you play doesn't run this risk, or that the character will survive the fight and that there will be NO downside to acting like a criminal.
Even in movies, there is always the idea that criminals need to avoid doing certain things or they will attract too much attention from the different organizations in the area(police, other gangs, etc...). The Grand Theft Auto games for example really need to have the main character become the target of MANY attacks on a regular basis if the player does certain things. That is the thing missing, the punishment for unacceptable behavior. If someone beats up a whore, a pimp would become involved in a very short period of time, and not someone who can easily be handled or avoided either. Even in organized crime, that sort of thing is looked down on, and might provoke some people to provide some justice that tends to be a bit more severe than anything the police might do. The balance in games just tends to be....off. When the police get involved, they don't just send one or two cars for a major incident, they send dozens. The roads get blocked, and so on. Games NEED this if they want to lose the current negative view they have with certain groups.
Considering the changes in the computer industry over the past 20 years, it should scare people that this sort of thing is going on right now. There have been an increasing number of hacking attempts from China, and there are also an increasing number of businesses that are based around infecting computers with spyware/adware.
As a result of this, paying hackers and cyber-terrorists(which is really what worm creators are) for their expertise in this sort of program is a VERY VERY bad thing. The culture in that part of the world is different from "western" nations, and as a whole tends to be more accepting of illegal activities(look at pirated software being sold on store shelves). Many people are worried about scams from Russia, but those are nothing compared to some of the scams that originate in Eastern Asia.
If you look at movies, there is a lot of variety when it comes to subject matter. You have your movies that go from the movies for the kids(G rated), to movies with some nudity, to violence of different levels of gore, and then to the seriously adult oriented movies with a LOT of sex. Note that there are very few movies rated X for violence when it comes to movies.
In almost all movies, there is an ARTISTIC element to the material though. With the exception of your typical porn film, nudity and even violence are done in many movies with an artistic approach to telling a story.
So, looking at the game market, what game titles have been out there that have any level of nudity that can be considered an artistic addition to the story, rather than as a very poor way to try to sell more copies to the young male audience? Is it about just trying to put sex in to draw those ONLY looking for more porn? This is why the game market doesn't get the same treatment as movies when it comes to material, a lack of art when it comes to nudity in games. This is not the same as saying the anime/hentai inspired games don't require artistic talent, but the overall story-telling in games tends to not include the addition of nudity in a way to enhance the telling of a well rounded story.
Games tend to focus on violence, but you never see heroes with a semi-realistic love life in games. Honestly, if a game is rated M due to violent content, then adding a bit of nudity that isn't a part of some sex game within the main game should be considered natural. The fact that so few games are out there with this sort of thing just shows why adult-only is never seen in retail outlets.
If people would get the idea that sex and violence were done in games with the same attention to story and artistic expression, they might accept AO titles. The problem is that there really hasn't been a lot of attention to artistic nudity in games, and as a result, AO titles get treated like rated X movies which tend to have their own room in video stores. If this situation ever gets addressed, attitudes may change.
Emulation can be nasty because there are different levels to it. Are you looking at Glide support just for Windows titles, or for DOS titles as well? If you want to make something that is an all-around emulation, then possibly doing it as a device driver would work, except that support for 16 bit applications has been going down starting with Windows XP.
So, the only way to do it would be as a part of a true emulator for whatever environment you want your Glide support to be in. For DOS, you would want it to be a part of a true emulator like DOSEmu since the detection for the hardware addresses would need to be there. For Windows applications, a wrapper MIGHT work, as long as the game title in question doesn't try to do it's own low-level detection of the hardware to decide if it should turn on or off Glide.
Of course, it would also be nice if the game companies for ancient Glide titles would open the software so Direct3D rendering could be put in rather than being stuck with Glide.
Re:If the journalist was stupid enough to sign it.
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There are a number of things going on here that may be going on. It is impossible to really know based on the article, but EVERYONE knows the culture gap between East Asia and "The West" means that some things may be needed there that would not be needed here.
If you were really concerned about information getting out, wouldn't YOU want to make sure any stories written be free of NDA violating information? This isn't censorship as much as security.
HD really comes into it's own on a larger screen. With lower resolutions, the lower quality video needs to be up-sized to fill the screen, and you can tell there is a distortion from the original.
If you really want to check out the difference in quality, rent a DVD of a movie, and then order the same movie on pay per view. The DVD will show a LOT more detail due to having a higher resolution from source to screen than the pay per view(unless you get it in HD where you live).
So, it's about the source image and how clear it is. Do you want to notice that there are jagged edges in the movies you watch, or would you rather see things as they are intended to look?
This is the primary problem the USA has in terms of our "image" in other countries. People don't seem to understand that the PEOPLE in the USA are as a whole a lot more rational than the government of the USA.
The people in this country really just want to survive and improve our situation in life. Wars and military action that do not help support this goal are generally not supported by people. Most of us have NO real argument with people of other religions as well, but when the majority of terrorists come from a certain religion or ethnic group, that paints a very negative view of people from that group.
The people in the Middle East(or at least the terrorists) don't seem to understand the difference between governments and people as well. As a general "rule", attacks on political and military targets in a war are considered "acceptable". If anyone targets a civilian, that is what makes them a terrorist and not a true soldier.
While as an American I would not want to see US soldiers killed, it is a lot more offensive to have people just trying to live their lives without fighting being attacked. That is why the World Trade Center attack is so horrible, because it was not an attack on a military or political target.
Too many people fail to realize how easy it is to prove that the music on the computer and the music out there on the file share network(s) are the same. Just check the file size and MD5 of the version on the computer and the versions out on the network.
Now, if you have ripped the track from a CD yourself, the MD5 hash will be different, even if you name the file the same thing as an online version. This then proves that either you have downloaded the music illegally, or you are the source of the versions found out there on the file sharing networks. Either way, you are caught, and if you are in a RIAA lawsuit, you are in trouble.
Once you have been shown to either have been the source of the version out there, or you downloaded it, the continued use of a file sharing application shows that if you planned on it or not, you ARE uploading it, compounding the crime of the illegal download.
Yes, there are ways to protect yourself, but most people just don't THINK. They figure they are downloading stuff for free, not thinking how these things are available.
The file sharing networks themselves may not be subject to being shut down or made illegal, but that does not mean that people who do illegal things with those networks should be immune to prosecution. The whole issue of the VCR possibly being used in an illegal manner, or guns, or anything else follows the same logic. Just because a device MAY be used for illegal purposes does not mean that by its nature it IS an illegal product.
I think the issue needs to be split into the two pieces in order to really address the word "innovation" in this context.
Improvements to the fab process requires innovation. So from a process perspective, there is innovation.
Chip design innovation is what most people think of when computer chips are mentioned. A 45nm chip running at 3GHz vs. a 65nm at 3GHz with the same design will not run any faster for example will not be seen as being innovative. There are technical issues that require innovation to overcome, but the design isn't innovative if it is the same design, just on a newer process.
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It isn't about the hardware, it's what the game developers do with it. The PS3 MIGHT be seen as being a next generation console with last generation games, but with better graphics than we saw on the last generation console.
Game devs are afraid of trying anything new, because the high cost of development makes it a risk many refuse to take.
When "The Sims" first came out, it really was a new game, and not a clone or rehash of other games. The thing that so many people find annoying about "The Sims" is the continued push of new content packs, and the expansions. Others dislike the community that revolves around the franchise because it is very different from the RPG or the FPS crowd, each of which has their own feel and community.
Many people also look at the content that has been made available for the consoles as being what the console is all about(because of marketing). That has to be seen as a very valid opinion, because without games, any console is just a piece of electronic junk in the same way that a PC without applications is a piece of electronic junk. The SOFTWARE is what makes any of these things worth buying. So, are the games for the PS3 or 360 any different in terms of gameplay compared to the last generation? The Wii has changed the gameplay(due to the controller(s) used), and the games available are different, and as a whole are not just newer versions of stuff seen in the last generation of console games.
Make no mistake, new shooters on the new consoles may have new graphics and have notable improvements, but aside from story, how different in terms of gameplay are games on the new consoles compared to game on the old consoles?
I do NOT consider the Wii to be next generation, but it's different. In many ways, the differences are an improvement since there is more to games than running around in a World War II game trying to play the hero, or shooting everything that moves while following a very linear storyline with no options or chance of changing via actions.
Because there are so many gamers who are over the age of 25 at this point, there is a good reason why so many people want M rated titles, because we are mature adults who are sick of seeing games toned down just to get a T rating(to increase the number of sales). There is a huge difference between a game that is focused on sex(the Adult only), and wanting the same level of mature content in games that have been in R rated movies.
I swear, it's idiotic that the entire video game industry is afraid to show a breast, or a bit of sexual content in a game when the target audience is over the age of 18 in the first place.
Have you ever heard of a small to mid sized business that is NOT open 24x7? If a business has under 200 people total, there is a good chance that the business does NOT necessarily allow people to set their own hours. There may be allowances for personal issues and to adjust a schedule, but there are additional costs involved when you allow employees to work on their schedule.
Those who work late into the night require that many things be in place for their security. You may NEED to have security available for example, which costs a good amount(which wouldn't be needed if employees arrived and left at approximately the same time), you have electric costs, you might need things like heat/air conditioning to run at those odd times(to avoid potential lawsuits), etc....
Some jobs may lend themselves to being able to do things at odd times, but most jobs require interaction with others, and those people will NOT want to make YOUR schedule theirs. Keep that in mind.
Oh, the idea of 9 to 5 is that those are the times when most people EXPECT a business to be open and for office staff to be available. Some service based businesses may offer extended hours, but if there are enough incoming calls at 9am, there should be enough people showing up at 9am to handle the call volume. Allowing employees to show up when THEY want, without regard for the needs of the company is how a company runs into trouble.
As for you wanting to come in at 4pm, what is it that YOU expect to provide at 4pm? If people need a password reset and it's a part of your job, you need to be around when other people are. If you can't understand that, then your ego is going to be a problem at any job you have. Also, if your manager has a problem talking to you because you decide to set a schedule, that will also be a problem because you need to be able to interact when it comes to discussions about various things.
When 3rd edition came out, a huge change went in that made D&D more like a video game than a roleplaying system. The idea of boosting stats and such, or picking up a level of some other class when you are ready to advance really feels too much like something from a very weak console game where the players have such a short attention span that they MUST get obvious "power-ups" regularly and often.
A big part of the problem is letting players see their stats. Honestly, let the player decide what class he/she wants, and let the DM create the character based on the rules. Let it be random, but make the player really be clueless about their exact stats. If there will be a system to increase stats, or level up in another class, or pick up non-class skills, make the player say it in advance, and make it obvious that the character is now being judged by their actions toward the desired increase. Or make the different class abilities be skill based, and make it so the system is a skill-based system where people need to use a skill to advance in that skill(training will take care of a lot of this).
If a player doesn't know what the character stats are, then all that matters is the fun of playing through whatever stories the DM runs them through. Letting the player know roughly how much health the character has means more than saying just how many hit points the character has as well. If someone plays an arcane caster and charges in to fight in melee, and then dies because the character only has six hit points, that just isn't playing the character properly, so why encourage playing the game system rather than playing the game?
The problem that many companies/countries have is trying to figure out the value of something. Hmmmm, manufacturing costs $125, but the sales price of the router is $1500 or more. For Cisco, the value THEY place on the router is the manufacturing cost since they can just crank out a new one for a cheap price. So, trying to set the value based on the retail price when everyone knows that no sane company or person will pay the suggested retail price is wrong.
You also see these advertisements where a company will throw something in "for free" that they claim has a very high value. You KNOW that the freebie they throw in probably has a value closer to $1 no matter how much the "value" is that they list. In a way, it is false advertising to say that something is worth so much more than anyone would ever pay. It's like saying a gallon of gas is worth $10 but the gas companies give us a bargain and sell it for $3 per gallon. The sooner there is a legal case that shows what a scam this garbage is, the sooner the nonsense will stop.
Now, back to the case at hand, Brazil. If Cisco does what many companies have put in place, there are licenses on the hardware they have sold to companies in Brazil, including the government. Cisco may have the right to disable all of the Cisco routers in Brazil in much the same way that software licenses can be revoked by the software vendor. In the long run it might not mean much, but in the short term, Cisco may be in a position to cost Brazil as a whole a LOT of money in lost revenue, and possibly cut the country off from the outside world until new equipment can be purchased. They may lose future sales, but they could really really really hurt Brazil depending on how much of the infrastructure uses Cisco routers.
Baldur's Gate was pretty groundbreaking at the time, and the sequel was also groundbreaking(the amount of content, and the NPCs who felt more alive than NPCs from other games). Knights of the Old Republic was also a good game, as was Jade Empire, both games that were far from being just a clone of other games(it makes sense that Bioware would use a game engine they developed for a previous game and then expand on it).
Blizzard USED to make some great original games back in the days of Warcraft 2 and the original Diablo and Starcraft. Blizzard has fallen from those golden days since their new games don't feel all that new. It's one thing to use an existing game engine in a sequel, it is quite another thing to make the sequel feel like it doesn't add anything new over the previous games. Diablo 2 for example really needed an improved graphics rendering engine, yet it looked and felt too much like the original to make it really groundbreaking. Maybe Starcraft 2 will be more than just the original Starcraft with new units and buildings, but we will have to see.
What really upsets me is that Dragon Age will probably end up being dummied down so it could be easily ported to the Xbox 360.
The thing about Bioware is that they know(knew?) how to make GOOD games with a good story that are not just clones of existing titles. Even if you didn't like Neverwinter Nights, you should at least admit that it wasn't just some clone of other games out there.
Now, when it comes to MMOs, the big titles(EverQuest and World of Warcraft) share the same basic gameplay design that has made so many of us keep jumping from game to game looking for something DIFFERENT that will also be good and hold our attention. Bioware, of all the developers out there, was the developer that had the best chance to come up with something DIFFERENT, a true MMORPG which might evolve decently over time. Now that EA is going to be in charge, that hope has pretty much died. EA is NOT about supporting innovation and new ideas, but is more about playing it safe and using a formula design to generate money.
Bioware was the company I hoped would come out with games that would bring artistic storylines back to the mainsteam instead of the garbage we see(which centers around violence without any ways to avoid combat). Now....I see myself going back to old games until they no longer run due to changes to Windows.
THQ isn't known as a company that buys and then destroys the companies that make great products, EA is. Everything that EA touches turns to shit over time.
We see less and less inspiration from the remains of Maxis(is The Sims 2 really showing anything even close to inspiration, or is it an improved The Sims with natural updates?). Spore may be good, but it remains to be seen if it will be, or if EA will force it to be released with tons of bugs because of delays.
So, I mourn the slow death of Bioware. I hope it survives to release some great RPGs, but it may disolve before the next great RPG after Mass Effect.
Justice is VERY lacking across the Internet. Think about it, how many spammers(compared to the number of them out there) have ever been caught, let alone properly punished have there been? How about those who are behind denial of service attacks, virus and worm creation, and other crimes against society(yes, viruses and worm creation with the intent to spread them are crimes against Internet society).
So, that's why it is so shocking to so many people, because no one expects ANY justice of any kind on the net.
If the legal system isn't capable of dispensing justice, then a reliance on the justice system isn't warranted.
If you think about it, the vast majority of SPAM is a blanket scam looking to rip off as many people as possible without much if any cost to the spammer. As a result, for all the offensive garbage that is sent out, the time spent by all those smart enough not to fall victim to the scam adds up to billions of dollars worth of time.
As a result, ANYONE who sends out spam mail contributes to this blanket ripoff of the public. If the legal system will not deal with this, then billions of dollars in damages to the public in terms of lost productivity seems like enough to warrant the death penalty. Yes, this may seem extreme, but honestly, can you say that those who contribute to the theft of billions of dollars should walk away with just a few days/months/years in prison? How about the "fair treatment" if they end up in an American prison where criminals get better treatment than millions of people around the world who don't get cable, access to libraries and even the ability to earn a college degree?
In person, if you insult or pick a fight with everyone around them, you should expect to get your ass kicked. The Internet lets too many people feel that they can get away with behavior that would not be accepted in person, and it's good to see any form of justice for Internet crimes.
I was pointing out that Populous: The Beginning was overlooked by many. Sure the original Populous game was much older, but at the same time was very different from the current RTS games that are modeled after Warcraft 2 rather than trying a different game design.
Looking at responses, a big factor would be how good the storyline was. Was the storyline really good enough to bring back to modern audiences?
Now, look at games like Pool of Radiance and the direct sequels. By the standards of the time, and even today, the storylines work well enough to bring them back. Because the size of the areas were so small by the standards of today, the levels would need to be redesigned to make them worth playing again. The entire city where Pool of Radiance was played in, if taken directly into a modern engine, would be the size of just one area of a modern game. The storyline would not need to be touched, but the scale of things would need to be re-worked to make things seem interesting.
There are some games that would be nice to see. Betrayal at Krondor would make for a great re-make because it was so story driven that with a new engine it could be brought in without needing a lot of new features. There have been some remakes out there done by the community, like FreeCiv and free Sim City clones that were close enough to the original to keep the feel of the original.
There were some great games like Starflight 1 and 2, Alien Legacy(many people have never heard of it), Dungeon Master, and many others that really were different.
Then, you have games that were a lot of fun that many people have never paid much attention to. Populous: The Beginning was a real time strategy game that did what other RTS games just refused to do, deviate from the design of Warcraft 2. The difference in Pop: TB was that instead of just dumping resources into making units from nothing, your people would reproduce(as long as there was housing), and then you would have them train and turn into the unit you wanted them to become. The sad thing is that DirectX support was a bit too weak to let me continue playing without feeling that the game was running in software emulation mode.
Ok, no edit feature...after re-reading the parent, I realize that he/she was talking about how these elements being the primary focus is the problem, not just having them in games in particular.
For moderators, yes, the preview button is there, but that doesn't stop people from mis-reading a post, responding to it, and then realizing it after the fact and wanting to go back to edit their post.
My own feeling is that backwards compatibility is needed because great games are not re-written/updated to run on the newer consoles. Many people would probably be willing to buy a new PS3 version of great PS2 titles even if the graphics and sound were not updated to take advantage of the new technology.
From a PC gamer perspective, many/most of the games from the Windows 98 era run under XP and even Vista without the need for patches. Sure they may not look as good as newer titles, but great games are still worth going back to years and years later if they have a good storyline and/or gameplay. With consoles, you don't have this option, and really, it's not a good thing. If you want to check out the earlier Resident Evil titles for example, and don't have the older consoles still sitting around, you can't play them and are SOL. Game companies would have a market for doing updates of older "landmark" games, they just don't want to run a risk of not getting the sales. What they don't realize is that if they make the older titles available, or even update them with better graphics and sound, it will draw players into the older franchises that they may not have experienced previously. In movies, while Die Hard 3 may have sucked compared to the first two, it would have done even worse if people had never seen the first two movies in the series. Allowing game players to catch up to the story by playing the earlier games before playing the next in the series would boost sales significantly as a result.
Strange that you say this about swearing, nudity and gore when most movies have these elements to a certain degree. The difference between most(not all) movies and computer games is that there are very few games that include nudity, swearing and violence from an artistic point of view.
Take a show like The Sopranos for some great examples of what works and what doesn't. In some cases, you have nudity, not as the focus of a scene, but in the background(in a strip club for example). Sure, you have nudity in the scene, but the focus is on the dialog between characters. The nudity is there due to the environment, and in and of itself is NOT the reason people watch. You have other scenes where there is violence, but a big part of much of the violence in the show was more about the character reactions to each other. Violence is a part of the show, but really isn't a focus in much the same way nudity and adult situations are not the focus. The focus is really on the characters.
Computer games on the whole tend to make the violence the focus of the entire game, rather than making it a side-effect of the story.
Now, an example of a game that did a somewhat better job of putting these elements in was Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. That particular game had swearing and adult situations(no real nudity though), plus a good amount of violence and gore. A real difference between Bloodlines and most other games is that in many many situations, violence could be avoided. The player can choose to use dialog options to avoid fights and situations. In many areas, the quest given is very specific about not killing anyone as well. This leads to a game that may have player controlled violence, but does not require it for every moment of the real gameplay. The dialog is also clearly aimed at a more mature audience, and isn't toned down. The "F" word is used as appropriate in NPC dialog, and dialog isn't toned down just to hold to a certain rating. That is the real key, nothing about the game feels like it was toned down just to get the M rating the game ended up with(and deserves).
This concept that violence can be avoided and avoiding violence may be even more rewarding than jumping into every fight possible is the one thing that I(and hopefully others) wish was the norm and not the exception in games. Most games out there have a focus on violence, but have no rewards for those who look for non-violent ways to get past a situation. This is a big part of the perception problem that games have today. In the real world, if you act like an ass, there is a good chance that you will get your ass kicked. In games, the general concept is that the character you play doesn't run this risk, or that the character will survive the fight and that there will be NO downside to acting like a criminal.
Even in movies, there is always the idea that criminals need to avoid doing certain things or they will attract too much attention from the different organizations in the area(police, other gangs, etc...). The Grand Theft Auto games for example really need to have the main character become the target of MANY attacks on a regular basis if the player does certain things. That is the thing missing, the punishment for unacceptable behavior. If someone beats up a whore, a pimp would become involved in a very short period of time, and not someone who can easily be handled or avoided either. Even in organized crime, that sort of thing is looked down on, and might provoke some people to provide some justice that tends to be a bit more severe than anything the police might do. The balance in games just tends to be....off. When the police get involved, they don't just send one or two cars for a major incident, they send dozens. The roads get blocked, and so on. Games NEED this if they want to lose the current negative view they have with certain groups.
Considering the changes in the computer industry over the past 20 years, it should scare people that this sort of thing is going on right now. There have been an increasing number of hacking attempts from China, and there are also an increasing number of businesses that are based around infecting computers with spyware/adware.
As a result of this, paying hackers and cyber-terrorists(which is really what worm creators are) for their expertise in this sort of program is a VERY VERY bad thing. The culture in that part of the world is different from "western" nations, and as a whole tends to be more accepting of illegal activities(look at pirated software being sold on store shelves). Many people are worried about scams from Russia, but those are nothing compared to some of the scams that originate in Eastern Asia.
If you look at movies, there is a lot of variety when it comes to subject matter. You have your movies that go from the movies for the kids(G rated), to movies with some nudity, to violence of different levels of gore, and then to the seriously adult oriented movies with a LOT of sex. Note that there are very few movies rated X for violence when it comes to movies.
In almost all movies, there is an ARTISTIC element to the material though. With the exception of your typical porn film, nudity and even violence are done in many movies with an artistic approach to telling a story.
So, looking at the game market, what game titles have been out there that have any level of nudity that can be considered an artistic addition to the story, rather than as a very poor way to try to sell more copies to the young male audience? Is it about just trying to put sex in to draw those ONLY looking for more porn? This is why the game market doesn't get the same treatment as movies when it comes to material, a lack of art when it comes to nudity in games. This is not the same as saying the anime/hentai inspired games don't require artistic talent, but the overall story-telling in games tends to not include the addition of nudity in a way to enhance the telling of a well rounded story.
Games tend to focus on violence, but you never see heroes with a semi-realistic love life in games. Honestly, if a game is rated M due to violent content, then adding a bit of nudity that isn't a part of some sex game within the main game should be considered natural. The fact that so few games are out there with this sort of thing just shows why adult-only is never seen in retail outlets.
If people would get the idea that sex and violence were done in games with the same attention to story and artistic expression, they might accept AO titles. The problem is that there really hasn't been a lot of attention to artistic nudity in games, and as a result, AO titles get treated like rated X movies which tend to have their own room in video stores. If this situation ever gets addressed, attitudes may change.
Emulation can be nasty because there are different levels to it. Are you looking at Glide support just for Windows titles, or for DOS titles as well? If you want to make something that is an all-around emulation, then possibly doing it as a device driver would work, except that support for 16 bit applications has been going down starting with Windows XP.
So, the only way to do it would be as a part of a true emulator for whatever environment you want your Glide support to be in. For DOS, you would want it to be a part of a true emulator like DOSEmu since the detection for the hardware addresses would need to be there. For Windows applications, a wrapper MIGHT work, as long as the game title in question doesn't try to do it's own low-level detection of the hardware to decide if it should turn on or off Glide.
Of course, it would also be nice if the game companies for ancient Glide titles would open the software so Direct3D rendering could be put in rather than being stuck with Glide.
There are a number of things going on here that may be going on. It is impossible to really know based on the article, but EVERYONE knows the culture gap between East Asia and "The West" means that some things may be needed there that would not be needed here.
If you were really concerned about information getting out, wouldn't YOU want to make sure any stories written be free of NDA violating information? This isn't censorship as much as security.
HD really comes into it's own on a larger screen. With lower resolutions, the lower quality video needs to be up-sized to fill the screen, and you can tell there is a distortion from the original.
If you really want to check out the difference in quality, rent a DVD of a movie, and then order the same movie on pay per view. The DVD will show a LOT more detail due to having a higher resolution from source to screen than the pay per view(unless you get it in HD where you live).
So, it's about the source image and how clear it is. Do you want to notice that there are jagged edges in the movies you watch, or would you rather see things as they are intended to look?
This is the primary problem the USA has in terms of our "image" in other countries. People don't seem to understand that the PEOPLE in the USA are as a whole a lot more rational than the government of the USA.
The people in this country really just want to survive and improve our situation in life. Wars and military action that do not help support this goal are generally not supported by people. Most of us have NO real argument with people of other religions as well, but when the majority of terrorists come from a certain religion or ethnic group, that paints a very negative view of people from that group.
The people in the Middle East(or at least the terrorists) don't seem to understand the difference between governments and people as well. As a general "rule", attacks on political and military targets in a war are considered "acceptable". If anyone targets a civilian, that is what makes them a terrorist and not a true soldier.
While as an American I would not want to see US soldiers killed, it is a lot more offensive to have people just trying to live their lives without fighting being attacked. That is why the World Trade Center attack is so horrible, because it was not an attack on a military or political target.
Too many people fail to realize how easy it is to prove that the music on the computer and the music out there on the file share network(s) are the same. Just check the file size and MD5 of the version on the computer and the versions out on the network.
Now, if you have ripped the track from a CD yourself, the MD5 hash will be different, even if you name the file the same thing as an online version. This then proves that either you have downloaded the music illegally, or you are the source of the versions found out there on the file sharing networks. Either way, you are caught, and if you are in a RIAA lawsuit, you are in trouble.
Once you have been shown to either have been the source of the version out there, or you downloaded it, the continued use of a file sharing application shows that if you planned on it or not, you ARE uploading it, compounding the crime of the illegal download.
Yes, there are ways to protect yourself, but most people just don't THINK. They figure they are downloading stuff for free, not thinking how these things are available.
The file sharing networks themselves may not be subject to being shut down or made illegal, but that does not mean that people who do illegal things with those networks should be immune to prosecution. The whole issue of the VCR possibly being used in an illegal manner, or guns, or anything else follows the same logic. Just because a device MAY be used for illegal purposes does not mean that by its nature it IS an illegal product.
I think the issue needs to be split into the two pieces in order to really address the word "innovation" in this context.
Improvements to the fab process requires innovation. So from a process perspective, there is innovation.
Chip design innovation is what most people think of when computer chips are mentioned. A 45nm chip running at 3GHz vs. a 65nm at 3GHz with the same design will not run any faster for example will not be seen as being innovative. There are technical issues that require innovation to overcome, but the design isn't innovative if it is the same design, just on a newer process.