A lot less. I raid twice a week, 3 hours a night. Some weeks that's all I play. The most is maybe 15 hours a week, for some dungeons after raid time or on Sunday nights. I typically log on two to three nights a week. Most of my guild members average about the same although we do have a group that play MUCH more (multiple raid capable character, achievement seekers, pet collectors etc.).
You know the WoW server emulators don't handle most scripted events (such as raid encounters). It isn't really the same thing. There's also the fact that gear can be modified and made deliberately over powered by people running the private server. Not much fun to PVP if mr. admin has a one-shot-and-you're-dead bat.
Private servers make sense for simpler games like FPS (although cheating can still be an issue) but not as much for MMOs. They're okay if you want to dick around but they don't replicate the experience of the MMO fully (at least in most cases) and they generally aren't running on server and network setups that can handle the kind of load that a large company can handle.
They aren't games in the sense of I bought the box and I have it forever. They are SERVICES and like other services, when the moneys no longer there to be made they tend to get shutdown.
I agree that Terraria has more game elements but it's far less compelling as a sandbox to build things. Constructed environments can't be as complex or interesting in two dimensions, and of course this is nothing like redstone circuits in Terraria.
Also as far as the content in Terraria, it doesn't really have THAT much. There are only 3 bosses, all of which can be soloed without the top gear (better gear makes it easier but you don't need the best in the game to kill them). I got kind of bored with just loot farming when I already had good enough items to defeat everything in the game. Even so, it's a lot of fun and easily worth the ten bucks.
With Minecraft I didn't find the combat to be interesting. In fact I found it annoying to have to stop whatever construction project I was working on to go hide inside for the night or risk having a creeper blow up my building. When I want to concentrate on building stuff, I usually turn the monsters off. The "game" portion to me is less interesting than the sand box play.
I love both Minecraft and Terraria but for different reasons. Despite some similarities they don't play the same and each game has its own strengths.
Prior to the first commercial ISPs the Internet wasn't available to the general public. Military, government, educational organizations yes, Joe public, no. My first exposure to the Internet was through Usenet via UUCP dumps to personal BBS systems. It wasn't until I got a university account that I had access to the Internet proper.
The first commercial ISPs came in the early 90s with the rise of the web and HTTP. You are right in saying that the Internet was around, but the commercial Internet was not. If you were in your early 20s in the early 90s and could spell the word "computer" odds are you worked at some company associated to the early Internet boom. I know I did. I know all my friends did. Whether it was at ISPs or infrastructure or at companies that build on top of it such as Yahoo and Google.
You underestimate 10 year olds. Sure there are lots of ways to min/max class builds and gear in Titan Quest but you can get through it without an intimate understanding of the mechanics. It's not really more complex than the games I played when I was ten years old (Ultima series for example). I would have loved Titan Quest's depictions of mythology and the classical Greek and Egyptian environments when I was a kid.
I agree with Torchlight as a move up from Fate though. Easy co-op and nice cartoony graphics. Doesn't require a lot of horsepower to run.
"Both flavors of Cell processor are only slightly customized from IBM's other Cell offerings."
I think the word you are looking for is Power, not Cell. The SPE processors and interconnect bus were the big difference in the Cell architecture. The CPU in Cell and the Xenon chip are Power architecture as for that matter is the Wii's CPU.
If you want to buy or rent a game and play it at your home with people at your home, you can do this with both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 without additional cost. Online play for the PS3 is free, the PS network plus paid option adds additional features but is not necessary (I don't use it). Online multiplayer on the Xbox 360 is a paid only option - so in that case you are correct.
The cloud gui I use has version control, history and version diffing for all scripts. If for whatever reason I don't want to use the gui anymore I can just pull the scripts and roll it the old way.
Expressing disdain for the practice of suicide bombing does not say anything about that person's opinion on using drone aircraft strikes or manned aircraft strikes or assault with an army of bazooka laden smurfs for that matter.
Sid Meier started out with flight sims in the early 80s, well before Civilization. Spitfire Ace, Hellcat Ace and Solo flight as well as the submarine simulator Silent Service. The first game with his name on the box was Pirates though.
As a man, if I was really drunk and had sex with someone and then in the morning was disgusted by the act could I then claim rape?
I fail to see the difference between that and your example using a woman.
Of course as a man I would be laughed out of court.
Also I find the implication that a drunk woman having sex is any different than a drunk man to be degrading to women. You are implying that women are weak and if they do something stupid they aren't able to take the responsibility for it.
Yeah except that with street drugs (in particular heroin and morphine analogues) you can get dramatically different doses. Shoot up an especially pure substance and you can immediately OD. No one buys a bottle of wine and dies because it's extra potent.
The same can be true of purity of stimulants. Cocaine and amphetamine overdoses can cause cardiac arrest.
Besides if you are partying like Ozzy you probably don't just use one substance at a time. Using cocaine and alcohol at the same time can be very dangerous. You can get very high blood alcohol levels without feeling anywhere near as drunk.
I'm not trying to downplay alcohol or tobacco but it's hardly fair to say that other drugs aren't as dangerous.
Except that every class gets hit with the nerf or buff bat over time. So rerolling to be the uber flavor of the week ends up being a waste of time when the inevitable nerf comes along. I'm not talking about huge nerfs, oftentimes a single talent or ability that is overpowered can have a huge effect.
Some of the current item level 264 crafted items are superior to anything outside of 25 man heroic ICC (which a lot of people will never see outside of lootship). Of course there are only worthwhile recipes for a couple of item slots per tier, so yeah you can't deck yourself out in crafted items alone.
Healing addons make for a much more streamlined experience but the in game raid frames can be used with mouseover macros as well. Yes, this requires something beyond the default ui, but it's not a full addon. Clique essentially makes this even easier to implement so there isn't really any reason to roll your own macros.
Instead of using key modifiers you mouseover the persons raid frame and press one of your ability keys. I prefer Healbot myself but I know healers that solely use mouseover macros and the default raid frames.
Uh, at least on the healing side patches for stuff like Vuhdo and Healbot were available on patch day. You might have had to look for the cataclysm alpha/beta versions (which you would have used on the PTR) but they were there.
Duke 3D stood on it's own as a great single-player FPS game but was only okay as multi-player.
Personally I don't agree with that. Back in my LAN party days Duke Nukem became the multiplayer game of choice because of all the unusual power ups. Rocket packs, shrink rays, fooling someone with the holo-duke = good times.
It didn't hurt that the system requirements were less severe than Quake either.
Re:but $2500 for a 1 cpu base system is too high
on
The Hackintosh Guide
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
There is still a large gap in Apple's product line between consumer iMacs and professional Mac Pros. There is no consumer grade Apple computer that is very expandable or upgradeable in the sense an average Windows desktop is.
I don't think Apple really cares about that market segment. If they did have a decent i7 desktop that handled a large amount of memory it would cut in to their Mac Pro sales. A magazine publisher I used to work for is currently dealing with this now. They don't have the budget to replace their older PPC G5s. The IT department is actually trying to get them to use Mac Minis!
There was a 2003 adaption that was a failed pilot for the Riverworld series. While not one hundred percent faithful it did have many of the elements from the books including Mark Twain and the riverboat. I can't say it was very good.
I've avoided the 2010 version as I've heard it's worse.
I understand your point. It does seem that with guild leveling Blizzard wants to reinforce the importance of a guild over pugging. This comes sort of contrary to the dungeon finder and ICC nerf policy.
Personally I don't do random PUGs. I'm in a top 10 guild for my server and generally either raid with them or with invites to other top tier guilds.
I don't think Blizzard will go back to the earlier strategy where the last 20% of content was only ever seen by 1% of their subscribers (i.e. Sunwell in BC). Odd are they will nerf the raids like they have done to make them more PUG/casual friendly. Keeps the hardcore happy pushing their first kills and eventually allows less skilled or dedicated players to experience the content.
Slashdot Mirror
A lot less. I raid twice a week, 3 hours a night. Some weeks that's all I play. The most is maybe 15 hours a week, for some dungeons after raid time or on Sunday nights. I typically log on two to three nights a week. Most of my guild members average about the same although we do have a group that play MUCH more (multiple raid capable character, achievement seekers, pet collectors etc.).
You know the WoW server emulators don't handle most scripted events (such as raid encounters). It isn't really the same thing. There's also the fact that gear can be modified and made deliberately over powered by people running the private server. Not much fun to PVP if mr. admin has a one-shot-and-you're-dead bat.
Private servers make sense for simpler games like FPS (although cheating can still be an issue) but not as much for MMOs. They're okay if you want to dick around but they don't replicate the experience of the MMO fully (at least in most cases) and they generally aren't running on server and network setups that can handle the kind of load that a large company can handle.
They aren't games in the sense of I bought the box and I have it forever. They are SERVICES and like other services, when the moneys no longer there to be made they tend to get shutdown.
I agree that Terraria has more game elements but it's far less compelling as a sandbox to build things. Constructed environments can't be as complex or interesting in two dimensions, and of course this is nothing like redstone circuits in Terraria.
Also as far as the content in Terraria, it doesn't really have THAT much. There are only 3 bosses, all of which can be soloed without the top gear (better gear makes it easier but you don't need the best in the game to kill them). I got kind of bored with just loot farming when I already had good enough items to defeat everything in the game. Even so, it's a lot of fun and easily worth the ten bucks.
With Minecraft I didn't find the combat to be interesting. In fact I found it annoying to have to stop whatever construction project I was working on to go hide inside for the night or risk having a creeper blow up my building. When I want to concentrate on building stuff, I usually turn the monsters off. The "game" portion to me is less interesting than the sand box play.
I love both Minecraft and Terraria but for different reasons. Despite some similarities they don't play the same and each game has its own strengths.
Prior to the first commercial ISPs the Internet wasn't available to the general public. Military, government, educational organizations yes, Joe public, no. My first exposure to the Internet was through Usenet via UUCP dumps to personal BBS systems. It wasn't until I got a university account that I had access to the Internet proper.
The first commercial ISPs came in the early 90s with the rise of the web and HTTP. You are right in saying that the Internet was around, but the commercial Internet was not. If you were in your early 20s in the early 90s and could spell the word "computer" odds are you worked at some company associated to the early Internet boom. I know I did. I know all my friends did. Whether it was at ISPs or infrastructure or at companies that build on top of it such as Yahoo and Google.
I find it odd that Blizzard offers more security for a World of Warcraft account than your average bank.
You underestimate 10 year olds. Sure there are lots of ways to min/max class builds and gear in Titan Quest but you can get through it without an intimate understanding of the mechanics. It's not really more complex than the games I played when I was ten years old (Ultima series for example). I would have loved Titan Quest's depictions of mythology and the classical Greek and Egyptian environments when I was a kid.
I agree with Torchlight as a move up from Fate though. Easy co-op and nice cartoony graphics. Doesn't require a lot of horsepower to run.
"Both flavors of Cell processor are only slightly customized from IBM's other Cell offerings."
I think the word you are looking for is Power, not Cell. The SPE processors and interconnect bus were the big difference in the Cell architecture. The CPU in Cell and the Xenon chip are Power architecture as for that matter is the Wii's CPU.
If you want to buy or rent a game and play it at your home with people at your home, you can do this with both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 without additional cost. Online play for the PS3 is free, the PS network plus paid option adds additional features but is not necessary (I don't use it). Online multiplayer on the Xbox 360 is a paid only option - so in that case you are correct.
I thought it was the best daft punk video I've ever seen.
iWork supports WebDAV. Most other applications require syncing through iTunes.
The cloud gui I use has version control, history and version diffing for all scripts. If for whatever reason I don't want to use the gui anymore I can just pull the scripts and roll it the old way.
Expressing disdain for the practice of suicide bombing does not say anything about that person's opinion on using drone aircraft strikes or manned aircraft strikes or assault with an army of bazooka laden smurfs for that matter.
Sid Meier started out with flight sims in the early 80s, well before Civilization. Spitfire Ace, Hellcat Ace and Solo flight as well as the submarine simulator Silent Service. The first game with his name on the box was Pirates though.
Uh, that it's okay to be a planet destroying mass murderer just so long as you have a change of heart at the last moment?
As a man, if I was really drunk and had sex with someone and then in the morning was disgusted by the act could I then claim rape?
I fail to see the difference between that and your example using a woman.
Of course as a man I would be laughed out of court.
Also I find the implication that a drunk woman having sex is any different than a drunk man to be degrading to women. You are implying that women are weak and if they do something stupid they aren't able to take the responsibility for it.
Yeah except that with street drugs (in particular heroin and morphine analogues) you can get dramatically different doses. Shoot up an especially pure substance and you can immediately OD. No one buys a bottle of wine and dies because it's extra potent.
The same can be true of purity of stimulants. Cocaine and amphetamine overdoses can cause cardiac arrest.
Besides if you are partying like Ozzy you probably don't just use one substance at a time. Using cocaine and alcohol at the same time can be very dangerous. You can get very high blood alcohol levels without feeling anywhere near as drunk.
I'm not trying to downplay alcohol or tobacco but it's hardly fair to say that other drugs aren't as dangerous.
Except that every class gets hit with the nerf or buff bat over time. So rerolling to be the uber flavor of the week ends up being a waste of time when the inevitable nerf comes along. I'm not talking about huge nerfs, oftentimes a single talent or ability that is overpowered can have a huge effect.
Some of the current item level 264 crafted items are superior to anything outside of 25 man heroic ICC (which a lot of people will never see outside of lootship). Of course there are only worthwhile recipes for a couple of item slots per tier, so yeah you can't deck yourself out in crafted items alone.
Healing addons make for a much more streamlined experience but the in game raid frames can be used with mouseover macros as well. Yes, this requires something beyond the default ui, but it's not a full addon. Clique essentially makes this even easier to implement so there isn't really any reason to roll your own macros.
Instead of using key modifiers you mouseover the persons raid frame and press one of your ability keys. I prefer Healbot myself but I know healers that solely use mouseover macros and the default raid frames.
Uh, at least on the healing side patches for stuff like Vuhdo and Healbot were available on patch day. You might have had to look for the cataclysm alpha/beta versions (which you would have used on the PTR) but they were there.
There are lots of violent zombie games on the iPhone store. I'm not talking just cartoon ones but stuff like Zombie Infection.
Duke 3D stood on it's own as a great single-player FPS game but was only okay as multi-player.
Personally I don't agree with that. Back in my LAN party days Duke Nukem became the multiplayer game of choice because of all the unusual power ups. Rocket packs, shrink rays, fooling someone with the holo-duke = good times.
It didn't hurt that the system requirements were less severe than Quake either.
There is still a large gap in Apple's product line between consumer iMacs and professional Mac Pros. There is no consumer grade Apple computer that is very expandable or upgradeable in the sense an average Windows desktop is.
I don't think Apple really cares about that market segment. If they did have a decent i7 desktop that handled a large amount of memory it would cut in to their Mac Pro sales. A magazine publisher I used to work for is currently dealing with this now. They don't have the budget to replace their older PPC G5s. The IT department is actually trying to get them to use Mac Minis!
There was a 2003 adaption that was a failed pilot for the Riverworld series. While not one hundred percent faithful it did have many of the elements from the books including Mark Twain and the riverboat. I can't say it was very good.
I've avoided the 2010 version as I've heard it's worse.
I understand your point. It does seem that with guild leveling Blizzard wants to reinforce the importance of a guild over pugging. This comes sort of contrary to the dungeon finder and ICC nerf policy.
Personally I don't do random PUGs. I'm in a top 10 guild for my server and generally either raid with them or with invites to other top tier guilds.
I don't think Blizzard will go back to the earlier strategy where the last 20% of content was only ever seen by 1% of their subscribers (i.e. Sunwell in BC). Odd are they will nerf the raids like they have done to make them more PUG/casual friendly. Keeps the hardcore happy pushing their first kills and eventually allows less skilled or dedicated players to experience the content.