"the spend spend spend attitude that is personified by the Democratic Party in the United States"
versus the spend spend spend attitude of the Bush administration? I appreciate your sentiment and I don't like it either but the governments been fucking the economic pooch for a lot longer than just since Obama took office. Who was it who signed the bank bailout? Oh right it was Bush.
It might help if MMO quests where less inane and boring. Maybe one out of 100 of them are interesting in story, game mechanics or challenge. For me most quests in MMOs are a means to an end. I'm not particularly interested in the quests I just need something from them to get to the parts of the game I enjoy (dungeons and raids with groups of players). Single player RPGs generally have more depth. For one thing they can actually show your character impacting the world via those quests.
This is a matter of perspective. I have friends that level slowly and enjoy that aspect of the game. They don't care about end game raids. On the flip side I have friends that burn as quick as possible to level cap in order to raid. In some ways the leveling game, end game raiding and pvp are three are different variations of the same game enjoyed by different types of people. Hell I have one friend who never hit level cap and basically was more interested in working the auction house to accumulate gold than any other aspect of the game.
The only thing I've ever seen used are wireless 3g cards. Which are very useful for on the road corporate users and also for mobile journalists (both the applications I've seen).
Yep. That's why I didn't buy the Orange Box until it was down to $30. And luckily I had someone to gift HL2 and HL2 episode 1 too. At least Portal and Team Fortress 2 were good games. They probably won't release Episode 3 until they can do another bundle that would make it viable as a Xbox 360 release.
The main selling point with L4D was the uniqueness of a 4 player coop zombie survival game.
Which is why I waited until it was on sale for $25 because I thought that was a reasonable price for the content. I wasn't disappointed although I think I would have been a bit underwhelmed if I'd paid $50.
Only when playing with random people did it feel dangerous and exciting again because there would be varying levels of player skill.
Damn straight. Like the first time I played a random game online and promptly threw a Molotov cocktail at a player pinned by a hunter. I think I followed it up with a close range shotgun blast. Nothing like horrible player skills to make your partners more dangerous than the zombies.
Re:Some (probably all) genres need more history.
on
Vintage Games
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· Score: 1
Akalabeth = 1979 Ultima = 1980 Wizardry = 1981 Questron = 1984 (actually licensed the game style from Richard Garriott) Bard's Tale = 1985 Phantasie = 1985 Might and Magic = 1986
I believe Wizardry was already in development concurrently with Ultima. The later games you mention definitely were influenced by Ultima and Wizardry. They expanded on the genre in many ways but basically were close to formula.
"Mac clone companies cannot make because macs are not overpriced. They are priced for what is necessary to deliver the hardware to run the OS"
Most Macs (outside the Mac Pro) have only received moderate speed bumps in recent years. The current iMac runs a dual core 2.66GHz processor. The PC I bought almost 3 years ago when the Core 2 Duo hit has a 2.4GHz dual core. Where are the quad core iMacs? You can get quard core PCs for cheap now. Newer Core i7 chips are in the price range of what you would pay for an iMac. There's nothing fancy about the hardware in Macs. I work on Macs, use Macs and own Macs but it's silly to say that you don't pay a price premium for the form factor and Apple brand.
There's some crowd control in Ulduar trash mobs. Also dynamics like tanks having to keep mobs apart or taunt trade back and forth due to debuffs. I think heroics are the biggest difference between LK and BC. The LK ones seem way easier (even without raid gear). And yes pretty much every trash pull in Naxx is an AOE fest (hell some of the raid bosses are too).
If Snow Crash ever gets done by Hollywood it will end up being directed by Michael Bay and resemble a "reboot" of the movie Hackers. With Megan Fox as YT and the Rock as Raven and yes of course Keanu Reeves as Hiro (with bad makeup asianification). The Metaverse will be recast as "Web 3.0".
Even for one of Dick's "simple" stories they had to completely take out the religious element (Mercerism) and barely eluded to the almost total extinction of animals and the resulting psychological effects on people. If I recall correctly the replicants in the book were also generally not sympathetic characters but utterly cold and inhuman. The one exception I recall being the singer (opera star in the book/stripper in the movie).
You can't rent software programs in the US because of a law passed in 1990:
"The Record Rental Amendment of 1984 and the Computer Software Rental Amendments Act of 1990 both amended Section 109 to prevent all owners of software copies or phonorecords to distribute said copies through the acts of rental, lease, or lending, or by any other act or practice in the nature of rental, lease, or lending unless authorized by the owners of the copyright, with an exemption for non-profit educational institutions and non-profit libraries.
The acts specifically excluded: A computer program which is embodied in a machine or product and which cannot be copied during the ordinary operation or use of the machine or product; or A computer program embodied in or used in conjunction with a limited purpose computer that is designed for playing video games and may be designed for other purposes."
Star Trek has always used action to keep the pace moving in episodes. Even episodes like "The Trouble with Tribbles" had a bar brawl scene. Kirk vs the Gorn, Kirk vs, the Mugatu, Kirk vs. Spock (Amok Time and others). The gladiator scenes in both Gamesters of Treskelion and Bread and Circuses. The gangster shootouts in Piece of the Action. The western cowboy shootout in Spectre of the Gun. Hell, they even had Abe Lincoln battle it out with Ghengis Khan! Action has always been one component of the Star Trek formula. I would agree that the current movie is more space opera than is usual. Although Star Trek has been leaning that way since before this movie. As for your comment on Star Wars and Star Trek fans being completely different people. What? Everyone I know enjoys both. They may prefer one over the other. I think the key difference is people who take EITHER series too seriously.
"Star Trek The Next Generation will be a little difficult because, after each episode was shot on film, it transferred to video for editing and effects."
This was the problem Babylon 5 ran into. Although all the live action footage was shot in wide screen on film (good for HD transfer), the special effects were rendered at NTSC resolution. This is sometimes glaringly obvious on the released DVD sets.
"I play City of Heroes, which is as deep and grind-free as WoW"
CoH grind free? What? I don't know how much as changed but I consider repeatedly running randomly generated instance mission maps with one of 4 possible overall type (kill all, escort, click things or kill boss) pretty grind-oriented. Hopefully they've done away with XP debt by now a mechanic that did nothing except increase the need to grind. Level 40-50 was an excruciating grind only mediated to a degree by overpowered classes ability to pull entire mission maps and kill them off. City of Villains did a bit better on the story quests but its still a very grind intensive game. Don't get me wrong, I like City of Heroes a lot, I just found it to be very grind oriented.
Slashdot Mirror
"...on a home computer made in 1985 you will be sadly disappointed by every computer available on the market"
"the spend spend spend attitude that is personified by the Democratic Party in the United States"
versus the spend spend spend attitude of the Bush administration? I appreciate your sentiment and I don't like it either but the governments been fucking the economic pooch for a lot longer than just since Obama took office. Who was it who signed the bank bailout? Oh right it was Bush.
SNAFU was just a take-off on the old Atari 2600 game "Surround". SNAFU was 1981, Surround 1977.
I wouldn't doubt that there is a two player "snake" game earlier than Surround but I can't find one.
The video starts with the "drawing" bonus game mode but further in you can see the standard light cycle play style.
And Tron is a metaphor for Jesus Christ's (Flynn's) arrival and ultimate destruction of the Roman empire by conversion to Christianity.
I'm only half joking.
It might help if MMO quests where less inane and boring. Maybe one out of 100 of them are interesting in story, game mechanics or challenge.
For me most quests in MMOs are a means to an end. I'm not particularly interested in the quests I just need something from them to get to the parts of the game I enjoy (dungeons and raids with groups of players).
Single player RPGs generally have more depth. For one thing they can actually show your character impacting the world via those quests.
This is a matter of perspective. I have friends that level slowly and enjoy that aspect of the game. They don't care about end game raids. On the flip side I have friends that burn as quick as possible to level cap in order to raid.
In some ways the leveling game, end game raiding and pvp are three are different variations of the same game enjoyed by different types of people. Hell I have one friend who never hit level cap and basically was more interested in working the auction house to accumulate gold than any other aspect of the game.
You should see how well this business model works with drugs!
and Lion King 1 & 1/2 was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead!
Did you notice how when gas prices dropped people started buying SUVs again?
American's attention spans are limited to the current price at the pump.
The only thing I've ever seen used are wireless 3g cards. Which are very useful for on the road corporate users and also for mobile journalists (both the applications I've seen).
I don't think SD card comparisons are unfair when you consider just about every phone on the planet besides the iPhone offers SD card expansion.
Yep. That's why I didn't buy the Orange Box until it was down to $30. And luckily I had someone to gift HL2 and HL2 episode 1 too. At least Portal and Team Fortress 2 were good games.
They probably won't release Episode 3 until they can do another bundle that would make it viable as a Xbox 360 release.
The main selling point with L4D was the uniqueness of a 4 player coop zombie survival game.
Which is why I waited until it was on sale for $25 because I thought that was a reasonable price for the content. I wasn't disappointed although I think I would have been a bit underwhelmed if I'd paid $50.
Only when playing with random people did it feel dangerous and exciting again because there would be varying levels of player skill.
Damn straight. Like the first time I played a random game online and promptly threw a Molotov cocktail at a player pinned by a hunter. I think I followed it up with a close range shotgun blast.
Nothing like horrible player skills to make your partners more dangerous than the zombies.
Akalabeth = 1979
Ultima = 1980
Wizardry = 1981
Questron = 1984 (actually licensed the game style from Richard Garriott)
Bard's Tale = 1985
Phantasie = 1985
Might and Magic = 1986
I believe Wizardry was already in development concurrently with Ultima. The later games you mention definitely were influenced by Ultima and Wizardry. They expanded on the genre in many ways but basically were close to formula.
"Mac clone companies cannot make because macs are not overpriced. They are priced for what is necessary to deliver the hardware to run the OS"
Most Macs (outside the Mac Pro) have only received moderate speed bumps in recent years. The current iMac runs a dual core 2.66GHz processor. The PC I bought almost 3 years ago when the Core 2 Duo hit has a 2.4GHz dual core. Where are the quad core iMacs? You can get quard core PCs for cheap now. Newer Core i7 chips are in the price range of what you would pay for an iMac.
There's nothing fancy about the hardware in Macs.
I work on Macs, use Macs and own Macs but it's silly to say that you don't pay a price premium for the form factor and Apple brand.
There's some crowd control in Ulduar trash mobs. Also dynamics like tanks having to keep mobs apart or taunt trade back and forth due to debuffs.
I think heroics are the biggest difference between LK and BC. The LK ones seem way easier (even without raid gear). And yes pretty much every trash pull in Naxx is an AOE fest (hell some of the raid bosses are too).
If Snow Crash ever gets done by Hollywood it will end up being directed by Michael Bay and resemble a "reboot" of the movie Hackers. With Megan Fox as YT and the Rock as Raven and yes of course Keanu Reeves as Hiro (with bad makeup asianification).
The Metaverse will be recast as "Web 3.0".
Even for one of Dick's "simple" stories they had to completely take out the religious element (Mercerism) and barely eluded to the almost total extinction of animals and the resulting psychological effects on people. If I recall correctly the replicants in the book were also generally not sympathetic characters but utterly cold and inhuman. The one exception I recall being the singer (opera star in the book/stripper in the movie).
You can't rent software programs in the US because of a law passed in 1990:
"The Record Rental Amendment of 1984 and the Computer Software Rental Amendments Act of 1990 both amended Section 109 to prevent all owners of software copies or phonorecords to distribute said copies through the acts of rental, lease, or lending, or by any other act or practice in the nature of rental, lease, or lending unless authorized by the owners of the copyright, with an exemption for non-profit educational institutions and non-profit libraries.
The acts specifically excluded:
A computer program which is embodied in a machine or product and which cannot be copied during the ordinary operation or use of the machine or product; or
A computer program embodied in or used in conjunction with a limited purpose computer that is designed for playing video games and may be designed for other purposes."
First sale doctrine
Prior to that you could rent computer software both through the mail or from local shops. I used to do it quite often in the 80s.
Hmmmm couldn't convince Kirk:
"What does God need with a starship?"
Star Trek has always used action to keep the pace moving in episodes. Even episodes like "The Trouble with Tribbles" had a bar brawl scene.
Kirk vs the Gorn, Kirk vs, the Mugatu, Kirk vs. Spock (Amok Time and others). The gladiator scenes in both Gamesters of Treskelion and Bread and Circuses. The gangster shootouts in Piece of the Action. The western cowboy shootout in Spectre of the Gun. Hell, they even had Abe Lincoln battle it out with Ghengis Khan!
Action has always been one component of the Star Trek formula.
I would agree that the current movie is more space opera than is usual. Although Star Trek has been leaning that way since before this movie.
As for your comment on Star Wars and Star Trek fans being completely different people. What? Everyone I know enjoys both. They may prefer one over the other. I think the key difference is people who take EITHER series too seriously.
The torpedoes weren't magic. He reprogrammed the simulation to have the Klingon warships drop their shields.
"Star Trek The Next Generation will be a little difficult because, after each episode was shot on film, it transferred to video for editing and effects."
This was the problem Babylon 5 ran into. Although all the live action footage was shot in wide screen on film (good for HD transfer), the special effects were rendered at NTSC resolution. This is sometimes glaringly obvious on the released DVD sets.
"I play City of Heroes, which is as deep and grind-free as WoW"
CoH grind free? What? I don't know how much as changed but I consider repeatedly running randomly generated instance mission maps with one of 4 possible overall type (kill all, escort, click things or kill boss) pretty grind-oriented. Hopefully they've done away with XP debt by now a mechanic that did nothing except increase the need to grind.
Level 40-50 was an excruciating grind only mediated to a degree by overpowered classes ability to pull entire mission maps and kill them off.
City of Villains did a bit better on the story quests but its still a very grind intensive game.
Don't get me wrong, I like City of Heroes a lot, I just found it to be very grind oriented.