Why TF would someone play a game to uncover just how lonely/sad they are...?:-/ I guess Russian play roulette in their own style, so I guess almost anything that's interactive could be termed a 'game' per se. Casinos also have many games, expressly designed to separate you from your money, while making you feel like you're having fun or have a chance at 'winning'.
And bad people play games with other people's lives all the time (they're usually called politicians or lawyers, just as an example:), so I guess the limits of the definition are that it's, errr, unlimited? But if we're concentrating on games via electronic/mechanical media, that were specifically designed as a gaming device/object, then anything goes I would imagine.
Not to nitpick this philological/epistemological diatribe we're having, or stretch meanings, but how would you describe and/or measure 'satisfaction' where an electronic, virtual medium is concerned? Is it just good enough to ask people 'on a scale of 1 to 5 how satisfied were you?', without actually understanding the root cause analysis of where that satisfaction is derived from? Just sayin...;)
Ok, this can only be solved with a/. poll. I nominate the following categories for qualities game must have:
- fun - challenging - entertaining/enjoyable - interesting/thought-provoking/educational - rewarding - good value for money - commercially viable/successful, even if free...?
Those are very broad & not all will apply to all games, but let's get a reasonable top 10 list & start a poll: 'Essential qualities and anatomy of a game".
I really wanted to love WoT, but I just can't get used to not being able to strafe. Anyone know if the Swedish, with their weird designs, are planning on making a tank that can strafe sideways...?
Ahhh, that give me nostalgic butterflies of the good old days on Diablo 2 hardcore on closed realms, with potential perma-death at every lag-spike, insta-death just around every pkscum corner (with all sorts of tppk & other hacks)...where a beloved character you had spent weeks or months building & nurturing safely to hell levels could just go *poof* in the wink of an eye.:)
Ok, who plays a game to 'win' anything any more? Oh wait, kiddies and mouth-breathing console cretins I guess...? <EG> *duck*
GW2 is one example of a near grindless mmo, which as IGN aptly put it, "actually respect your time". Almost everything you do in the game is for fun, and you get XP almost as a side benefit, I shit you not. But I'm a casual carebear, so perhaps it's different for the gankers & power-gamers, bleh. I also have alt-o-holism, so play a half dozen or more chars concurrently, which means I rarely get bored, but I also never see the endgame in most mmos.
Gameplay *quality*, per se, has been on the stready decline, since gaming went mainstream & online/mulitplayer became a fate accompli for most commercial games. I don't think we'll again see incredibly cerebral/challenging/interesting games of the likes of BG/PST or other older adventure/rpgs, except as the rare indy title. Hell, even flight sims, which came with 400page manuals, are long gone, sadly (or thankfully?;). I guess 'gameplay' is a very loose term & means different things to different folk. For my money, if I'm not grinding or just playing to see the end or 'win', AND having a good time, if I forget to look at the clock for 2+ hrs, or play a game way past my bedtime, THEN I know the game has good, solid gameplay most of the time. This doesn't include mmo grinds & hamster-wheel games which are more an OCD than games really. Horses for courses...
The other problems with mmos, even great ones, is they can easily devolve into a grind, from what seemed so much fun at the start. Some recent-ish mmos that turned out that way for me were AoC, CoH, LOTRO & SWTOR, as well as D3, which though not a mmo, is certainly a pure gear-grind in its mid-end game. This is not to say those mmos aren't fun for a while after I put them down for a few months & come back to them, which thankfully you can do with the F2P model, but they do tend to lose their luster & gameplay after a while I'll concede.
One could argue that shooters are more about good gameplay, as they are often shorter or have a completely different paradigm to mmos/rpgs (assuming they are half decent). But, there isn't a lot of depth to most shooters these days, unless you count hybrids like Borderlands & Dishonored to some extent.
I'm rambling so will stop before I get to a TL;DR number of chars:).
Hey, I think all politicians, cops, lawyers, judges & any other professions that have significant social responsibility, should be made to wear GPS trackers on their persons at all times while on duty, & perhaps even when not, just to see how they like them apples.
But, we've hijacked this very important thread on human rights for Saudi women enough already, so let's get back on topic;).
I haven't had a chance to read all 582 post to date, but I imagine there aren't many that support this new law, even with the few Saudi men that have posted here from what I saw. Needless to say, this is driven by more traditional (read: old fart) little men with big egos & generations of FUD permeating their Islamic culture, in this regard anyway.
I have no idea how we enlighten much of the rest of the world on the oh so many, many inhuman & unjust things we (try and) do to each other & the other species on this planet, not to mention the planet itself. We have an internet with almost instant global communication, but still no fucking enforceable, universal bill of rights...? There is something very, very wrong with us I have to conclude *huge Shrek sigh*.
(disclaimer: I'm an old fart & a grumpy old bastard who generally doesn't like other people or their children, BUT, this kind of thing *really* gets my goat!)
Fair nuff. But are there wave-based 'storms' well below the surface anyway? Apart from regular ocean currents, I thought I read that once you get a few metres down it's all status quo. Certainly as far as temperatures are concerned, which don't vary by more than 3 degrees or so once you get 3 or more metres under the surface, same depth vs depth, all the way from the equator to the poles. But what I read may have been full of shit.
Clearly Sacha Baron Cohen is THE right man for the job!:)
I find it interesting that all the long-lived societies/cultures in our history were all monarchies or empires e.g. Egypt, Rome, China, Britain, Mongols, etc. I wonder if that tells us something about modern democracy or other forms of government (e.g. Communism), or whether we are doomed to failure, as these are just passing 'fads' or unsustainable in some way...? Have we had a true people's democracy since ancient Greece btw?:-/
Australia is going down a similar path unfortunately. Though there have been more SE Asian migrants over the past 20 years or so, we are now seeing a shift & a large increase in middle-eastern & African muslim ethnic groups coming into the country, which is noticeably affecting poorer communities & our labour market.
Going back to EU, let's not forget that this is still very much a continent of widely disparate cultures, beliefs & nations, a melting pot of explosive ingredients just waiting to go off. Getting them to agree on anything as big as this will be much harder than a unified country like the US or Aus, say, which is running under one set of leadership & laws (I come from EU originally, for ref).
We KNOW wind, solar, wave & geothermal work. We know a number of alternate bio-fuels work. We know natural gas works. We know hydrogen & electrical power sources work, the ultimate power source notwithstanding. We know nuclear fission reactors work, are relatively safe (I don't want to argue the point) & produce far less pollution & environmental damage per Gigawatt than fossil fuels. We know that nuclear fusion works, we just haven't invested seriously enough into it to make it practical, which we could have done 20-25 years ago. We know a number of other fuel sources & methods that could work, if adapted to varying degrees.
However, we also know that oil works far, far more easily & cheaply than any of those right now & into the foreseeable future & is far more profitable, both in a monetary and geo-political sense. Not to mention the very deep pockets half the world's politicians & corporate heads have that touches on the oil industry in one way or another. It would perhaps be easier to get rid of electricity & copper wire as the main delivery method that powers all our devices, than oil as a primary fuel source right now. And that's saying something...
"Political Correctness" - top oxymoron of the 21st century! How did those two words even get into the same phrase/sentence orignally? *boggle*
My main exception to sharia law is that it makes women cover up all their good bits in public. So the only spank mag you can get in the middle east is 'Play Ankle". There, politically incorrect enough for you?;)
There is so much wrong with people in the world today, I'm not even sure why I bother talking about it, thinking about it or worrying about it. I think we need a total wipe & reset personally & have no doubt someone will start the cascade sequence fairly soon, perhaps in my lifetime. Game over.
Really, do muslim men have such small dicks & huge, over-inflated egos, that they cannot keep their wimen in check with flowers, chocolate & pretty lies? *duck*
Seriously, this is an entire country supporting gender-terrorism (there, I said it first!), but that's ok, because they have a 'state religion' to hide behind & rationalise an oppressive law??? Isn't it high time you yanks stopped chasing the oil/money & started disbanding all state religious leaderships in the world with your anti-WOMDs & laser-guided asshole destroyers...? Just please, for GOD'S SAKE, don't turn them into representative demoncracies FFS!
I do not think "non sequitur" means what you think it means. I was merely pointing out that the alternative examples from history shows us 2 of the greatest mass murderers were in fact trying to stamp out religion in their countries (not that that says anything at all about communism or religion necessarily). Whether Stalin was going to be a priest (as someone else pointed out) or not is only relevant if we know his motivations, fears & underlying ideological driving forces. But hey, I only grew up next door to Russia under the thrall of another communist 'dictator', so what do I know?:-/
Hmmm....not to be argumentative with your inferential logic, but just a couple points:
1. there are some well known Commies who virtually abolished religion in their very large countries and the question worth asking is, did it make those a better place to live & exist...? 2. As far as biblical 'morality' goes, I keep trying to re-educate people on this: the Holy Bible, as far as Christianity is concerned, is not a book of life or any set of teachings on morality or right vs wrong (though it has sections/pasages that are incidentally/anecdotally that). Is it first and foremost a testament of man's failure to save himself. So far, I would suggest that we are not proving it wrong in any hurry.
RE (2): we should actually be able to live in a world as an enlightened species, where our real names/identities never need to be hidden, for fear of any persecution, whether it be religious, political, occupational, media-related or other. So I kinda agree & disagree at the same time, but I have no practical solutions as to how our race gets from A to Z where this is possible.
RE (1): ppl should be arrested in 2012/13 just for still being on Facebook I say!;-p
I still dislike not being able to post AND use mod points on the same article.
Where, oh where, have the good-ol-days of Usenet and divine news clients like Forte Agent gone...? And why has no one been able to copy/create a similar quality threaded news/forum viewer as a browser plugin to date...? *sigh*
Hang on - I still have v5 of Agent installed I think...[RDPs off to home PC to take a look:)]
We will not tolerate any intolerance around here - it must be stamped out ASAP! I propose a hybrid trollerance meter which is collated/aggregated across all posts for a user, so we can see at a glance whether they are pro-tolerance, anti-tolerance, or just trolling for (in)tolerance! I, for one, will not sit quietly on my FA while this kind of schism is allowed to fester & breed in our midst goddamit!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Why TF would someone play a game to uncover just how lonely/sad they are...? :-/
I guess Russian play roulette in their own style, so I guess almost anything that's interactive could be termed a 'game' per se. Casinos also have many games, expressly designed to separate you from your money, while making you feel like you're having fun or have a chance at 'winning'.
And bad people play games with other people's lives all the time (they're usually called politicians or lawyers, just as an example :), so I guess the limits of the definition are that it's, errr, unlimited? But if we're concentrating on games via electronic/mechanical media, that were specifically designed as a gaming device/object, then anything goes I would imagine.
Not to nitpick this philological/epistemological diatribe we're having, or stretch meanings, but how would you describe and/or measure 'satisfaction' where an electronic, virtual medium is concerned? Is it just good enough to ask people 'on a scale of 1 to 5 how satisfied were you?', without actually understanding the root cause analysis of where that satisfaction is derived from? Just sayin... ;)
Yes, covering oral orifices with fists, or baseball bats, or genitals solves the 'failure to communicate' issue 99% of the time. >8^D
Ok, this can only be solved with a /. poll. I nominate the following categories for qualities game must have:
- fun
- challenging
- entertaining/enjoyable
- interesting/thought-provoking/educational
- rewarding
- good value for money
- commercially viable/successful, even if free...?
Those are very broad & not all will apply to all games, but let's get a reasonable top 10 list & start a poll: 'Essential qualities and anatomy of a game".
I would mod you both Insightful & Funny if I had points ;)
Welcome to launch week beta testing lol! ;-p
I really wanted to love WoT, but I just can't get used to not being able to strafe. Anyone know if the Swedish, with their weird designs, are planning on making a tank that can strafe sideways...?
Only if yer grinding against someone who's 2nd name you don't know & don't care to find out :).
Ahhh, that give me nostalgic butterflies of the good old days on Diablo 2 hardcore on closed realms, with potential perma-death at every lag-spike, insta-death just around every pkscum corner (with all sorts of tppk & other hacks)...where a beloved character you had spent weeks or months building & nurturing safely to hell levels could just go *poof* in the wink of an eye. :)
At last, a topic we're all passionate about! :)
Ok, who plays a game to 'win' anything any more? Oh wait, kiddies and mouth-breathing console cretins I guess...? <EG> *duck*
GW2 is one example of a near grindless mmo, which as IGN aptly put it, "actually respect your time". Almost everything you do in the game is for fun, and you get XP almost as a side benefit, I shit you not. But I'm a casual carebear, so perhaps it's different for the gankers & power-gamers, bleh. I also have alt-o-holism, so play a half dozen or more chars concurrently, which means I rarely get bored, but I also never see the endgame in most mmos.
Gameplay *quality*, per se, has been on the stready decline, since gaming went mainstream & online/mulitplayer became a fate accompli for most commercial games. I don't think we'll again see incredibly cerebral/challenging/interesting games of the likes of BG/PST or other older adventure/rpgs, except as the rare indy title. Hell, even flight sims, which came with 400page manuals, are long gone, sadly (or thankfully? ;). I guess 'gameplay' is a very loose term & means different things to different folk. For my money, if I'm not grinding or just playing to see the end or 'win', AND having a good time, if I forget to look at the clock for 2+ hrs, or play a game way past my bedtime, THEN I know the game has good, solid gameplay most of the time. This doesn't include mmo grinds & hamster-wheel games which are more an OCD than games really. Horses for courses...
The other problems with mmos, even great ones, is they can easily devolve into a grind, from what seemed so much fun at the start. Some recent-ish mmos that turned out that way for me were AoC, CoH, LOTRO & SWTOR, as well as D3, which though not a mmo, is certainly a pure gear-grind in its mid-end game. This is not to say those mmos aren't fun for a while after I put them down for a few months & come back to them, which thankfully you can do with the F2P model, but they do tend to lose their luster & gameplay after a while I'll concede.
One could argue that shooters are more about good gameplay, as they are often shorter or have a completely different paradigm to mmos/rpgs (assuming they are half decent). But, there isn't a lot of depth to most shooters these days, unless you count hybrids like Borderlands & Dishonored to some extent.
I'm rambling so will stop before I get to a TL;DR number of chars :).
Hey, I think all politicians, cops, lawyers, judges & any other professions that have significant social responsibility, should be made to wear GPS trackers on their persons at all times while on duty, & perhaps even when not, just to see how they like them apples.
But, we've hijacked this very important thread on human rights for Saudi women enough already, so let's get back on topic ;).
I haven't had a chance to read all 582 post to date, but I imagine there aren't many that support this new law, even with the few Saudi men that have posted here from what I saw. Needless to say, this is driven by more traditional (read: old fart) little men with big egos & generations of FUD permeating their Islamic culture, in this regard anyway.
I have no idea how we enlighten much of the rest of the world on the oh so many, many inhuman & unjust things we (try and) do to each other & the other species on this planet, not to mention the planet itself. We have an internet with almost instant global communication, but still no fucking enforceable, universal bill of rights...? There is something very, very wrong with us I have to conclude *huge Shrek sigh*.
(disclaimer: I'm an old fart & a grumpy old bastard who generally doesn't like other people or their children, BUT, this kind of thing *really* gets my goat!)
Fair nuff. But are there wave-based 'storms' well below the surface anyway? Apart from regular ocean currents, I thought I read that once you get a few metres down it's all status quo. Certainly as far as temperatures are concerned, which don't vary by more than 3 degrees or so once you get 3 or more metres under the surface, same depth vs depth, all the way from the equator to the poles. But what I read may have been full of shit.
Clearly Sacha Baron Cohen is THE right man for the job! :)
I find it interesting that all the long-lived societies/cultures in our history were all monarchies or empires e.g. Egypt, Rome, China, Britain, Mongols, etc. I wonder if that tells us something about modern democracy or other forms of government (e.g. Communism), or whether we are doomed to failure, as these are just passing 'fads' or unsustainable in some way...? Have we had a true people's democracy since ancient Greece btw? :-/
Aha. Care to share your credentials in fluid dynamics with the rest of the class Mr AC...?
Australia is going down a similar path unfortunately. Though there have been more SE Asian migrants over the past 20 years or so, we are now seeing a shift & a large increase in middle-eastern & African muslim ethnic groups coming into the country, which is noticeably affecting poorer communities & our labour market.
Going back to EU, let's not forget that this is still very much a continent of widely disparate cultures, beliefs & nations, a melting pot of explosive ingredients just waiting to go off. Getting them to agree on anything as big as this will be much harder than a unified country like the US or Aus, say, which is running under one set of leadership & laws (I come from EU originally, for ref).
How many men does it take to change a light bulb? None, just let the bitch do the dishes in the dark!
How many men does it take to clean a toilet? None - that's the woman's job!
Why do women have such small feet? So they can stand closer to the kitchen sink.
How do you make a woman orgasm? Who cares.
We KNOW wind, solar, wave & geothermal work. We know a number of alternate bio-fuels work. We know natural gas works. We know hydrogen & electrical power sources work, the ultimate power source notwithstanding. We know nuclear fission reactors work, are relatively safe (I don't want to argue the point) & produce far less pollution & environmental damage per Gigawatt than fossil fuels. We know that nuclear fusion works, we just haven't invested seriously enough into it to make it practical, which we could have done 20-25 years ago. We know a number of other fuel sources & methods that could work, if adapted to varying degrees.
However, we also know that oil works far, far more easily & cheaply than any of those right now & into the foreseeable future & is far more profitable, both in a monetary and geo-political sense. Not to mention the very deep pockets half the world's politicians & corporate heads have that touches on the oil industry in one way or another. It would perhaps be easier to get rid of electricity & copper wire as the main delivery method that powers all our devices, than oil as a primary fuel source right now. And that's saying something...
"Political Correctness" - top oxymoron of the 21st century! How did those two words even get into the same phrase/sentence orignally? *boggle*
My main exception to sharia law is that it makes women cover up all their good bits in public. So the only spank mag you can get in the middle east is 'Play Ankle". There, politically incorrect enough for you? ;)
There is so much wrong with people in the world today, I'm not even sure why I bother talking about it, thinking about it or worrying about it. I think we need a total wipe & reset personally & have no doubt someone will start the cascade sequence fairly soon, perhaps in my lifetime. Game over.
Is this a patented method...? :)
Really, do muslim men have such small dicks & huge, over-inflated egos, that they cannot keep their wimen in check with flowers, chocolate & pretty lies? *duck*
Seriously, this is an entire country supporting gender-terrorism (there, I said it first!), but that's ok, because they have a 'state religion' to hide behind & rationalise an oppressive law??? Isn't it high time you yanks stopped chasing the oil/money & started disbanding all state religious leaderships in the world with your anti-WOMDs & laser-guided asshole destroyers...? Just please, for GOD'S SAKE, don't turn them into representative demoncracies FFS!
I do not think "non sequitur" means what you think it means. I was merely pointing out that the alternative examples from history shows us 2 of the greatest mass murderers were in fact trying to stamp out religion in their countries (not that that says anything at all about communism or religion necessarily). Whether Stalin was going to be a priest (as someone else pointed out) or not is only relevant if we know his motivations, fears & underlying ideological driving forces. But hey, I only grew up next door to Russia under the thrall of another communist 'dictator', so what do I know? :-/
I was referring to Stalin & Mao more specifically. "Religion is the opiate of the masses"...ring a bell? ;)
Does this hypothetical nirvana still have a 2nd amendment...?
Hmmm....not to be argumentative with your inferential logic, but just a couple points:
1. there are some well known Commies who virtually abolished religion in their very large countries and the question worth asking is, did it make those a better place to live & exist...?
2. As far as biblical 'morality' goes, I keep trying to re-educate people on this: the Holy Bible, as far as Christianity is concerned, is not a book of life or any set of teachings on morality or right vs wrong (though it has sections/pasages that are incidentally/anecdotally that). Is it first and foremost a testament of man's failure to save himself. So far, I would suggest that we are not proving it wrong in any hurry.
RE (2): we should actually be able to live in a world as an enlightened species, where our real names/identities never need to be hidden, for fear of any persecution, whether it be religious, political, occupational, media-related or other. So I kinda agree & disagree at the same time, but I have no practical solutions as to how our race gets from A to Z where this is possible.
RE (1): ppl should be arrested in 2012/13 just for still being on Facebook I say! ;-p
I still dislike not being able to post AND use mod points on the same article.
Where, oh where, have the good-ol-days of Usenet and divine news clients like Forte Agent gone...? And why has no one been able to copy/create a similar quality threaded news/forum viewer as a browser plugin to date...? *sigh*
Hang on - I still have v5 of Agent installed I think...[RDPs off to home PC to take a look :)]
Daymn & here I am w/o troll points! :)
We will not tolerate any intolerance around here - it must be stamped out ASAP! I propose a hybrid trollerance meter which is collated/aggregated across all posts for a user, so we can see at a glance whether they are pro-tolerance, anti-tolerance, or just trolling for (in)tolerance! I, for one, will not sit quietly on my FA while this kind of schism is allowed to fester & breed in our midst goddamit!!!