according to the developer diary (first link) the first issue of XIII was release 1984.
what I find interesting (and somewhat off-topic) is the list of personnel working on the game (taken from the developer diary):
Elisabeth Pellen, Scenarist
Nathalie Provost, Graphic Technical Director
Nathalie Moschetti, Artistic Director
Jean Zappavigna, Lead Game Designer
Alkis Argyriadis, Lead Sound Designer
at least 3 of the lead designers/directors are female (unsure of the gender of the last 2 names). that seems a fairly high percentage in a field dominated by males...
This is Sierra using the MMRPG model for a type of game that has traditionally been supported for free.
Actually, not quite. you've got to click on the original post in the halflife2.net forums to realize that it's not MMORPG style. As Gabe's email (apparently) states: "But nowhere has there been a suggestion that people pay in the store and then pay a monthly fee on top of that a la the MMORPG." (unless there's another message from Gabe past page 1 of the forum)
It sounds to me that it's psuedo subscription (if you want). You pay 9.95 a month, you get all valve software that ever comes out. You buy the game outright 59.95, you get all HL2 content (patches, mods that aren't retail), but nothing new using the source engine.
So assuming Valve releases a new product every 6 months, it's a deal. I'm guessing CS2 might go retail only, so buying it either with a steam subscription or for an additionl 39.95 in the store would be your only option. That'll probably come out soon after release. Then there's the inevitable expansion which should be out within the year. Then there's TF2. So it's not quite MMORPG. More like, subscribe to Valve and get whatever we release.
I'm not sure what happens if you discontinue your steam subscription. If suddenly the game stops working. That would be the real bummer... I know I've put down HL for years and just recently got back into it, and having to re-pay would absolutely suck.
Valid point. Children are influenced by their surroundings. Media, friends, teachers, parents. In the case of a child with a gun shooting at a vehicle, it's obvious the parent's did not do enough to either a) keep the gun out of the child's hands, or b) teach the child how to use the gun responsibly.
You cannot make a game that will be played by children, and hope that children will not be affected. That is not how children work.
And, you cannot have a child and hope that child will not be influenced by you. That is not how children work. I think that's a more important point.
it seems to me the hard core gamers are going to be less influenced by who is sponsoring an event and more influenced by the latest benchmark scores. who cares if nVidia is sponsoring QuakeCon when their card is 2% slower than ATI in 3Dmark? (and, yes, i am aware of how useless benchmarks are when companies optimize their drivers for them). I can't see anyone dropping $500 on a card just cause they saw the big shiny adverts saying nVidia inside at quakecon...
On the other hand, the casual gamers really don't care as much about the high end hardware, nor are they really aware of computer gaming events or who the sponsors are.
maybe i'm wrong and people really are influenced by advertising. but it just seems that the people who are putting together their computers are savvy enough to know the benchmarks and will go with what is best...
i don't think it's a 'shill' , it's just a very good, free, anti virus prog.
but it's not free. the trial version expires the end of September, while the retail version has a 2 year license fee. (no idea how this compares to symantec in cost or duration).
Every dollar you send to Blizzard simply allows them to pull more stunts like that which they pulled with Freecraft.
conversely, one could look at it as every dollar you send to blizzard simply allows them to create more quality software. Blizzard is one of the few developers who consistently makes quality software. People are still playing (and demanding patches) for software than is upwards of 5 years old. This type of quality / replayability / addiction is rare in the computer game world. so why not reward it?
every company has a legal department that is going to fight against something that the community produces. the question, i suppose, is how egregious you as the gameplayer feel this particular action was?
As the article points out, this is not meant to be an attempt to generate revenue, but merely a promotional tool.
Releasing 3+ hour long movies in 3 successive weeks in few select theatres with little fanfaire (at least according to the article) doesn't sound like over-exposure. Sounds more like a treat for the fans.
As for a 10 hour movie, while that certainly would be interesting, it would a) involve lots of work by jackson et al. to interweave the films (rather than simply playing back to back) and b) would be expensive as hell. (as two sets of different prints would have to be sent out to the theatres, depending if they were showing ROTK or the entire trilogy movie, or both if they having two different sets.) and c) would be financially disasterous for the movie theaters. (as a 10 hour movie for the price of one, means they are losing admission on at least 2 to 4 films).
As for other arguments regarding milking the cow, New Line and Jackson have ALL along stated that each DVD would be released as a theatrical and an extended edition. True fans who wanted both could buy both, others could pick which one to get. as I recall, there were even signs up at the stores (or stickers on the dvd) when FOTR came out reminding people that the extended version was still to be released.
I enjoyed MK64 greatly. However, I felt Diddy Kong Racing to be superior in many aspects, particularly single player. DKR had better graphics, track layouts, minigame options, and just so much more content for single player.
However, when friends came over it was always Mario Kart. For some reason, MK64 seemed to be designed to keep opponents always in contention so that races between very good and just good/so-so players didn't feel like absolute blowouts (whereas with DKR, I would invariably win by a landslide).
That and the acid-trip that was the final level...
i am not a socialogist, but it seems fairly clear that the violence problem occurs earlier in a child's development than something induced by violent videogames. There's an interesting article about daycare centers in Melbourne and how they are banning superhero costumes. Why? cause little kids dressed up as superheros have much more violent / aggressive / dangerous play behavior.
Obviously this isn't a scientific study, just observations by daycare supervisors, but it illustrates that violent behavior is being exhibited by children that are presumably too young to be playing the violent video games that are often cited as the cause.
don't know about terrorists, but we can definitely lump flight simulators into the same category as all those FPS games that lead to violent behavior...
The problem, they say, is teenagers who instant message their friends with their verdict on new films - sometimes while they are still in the cinema watching - and so scuppering carefully crafted marketing campaigns designed to lure audiences out to a big movie on its opening weekend.
this is absolute bull. Gigli was receiving horrible reviews months before release. Online, on television, in various newspapers. The week before the movie was released I don't know how many articles I saw regarding how bad this movie was. I knew it contained such gems as "it's turkey time. gobble gobble" at least a week before it was released.
IM influences the 1 other person on the other end of the line. A bad review in the news media is there for the entire world to read.
As the article points out, and most anyone who pays the bills knows, we already have a nationally distributed pipeline system. it ain't hydrogen, but natural gas can be converted to hydrogen where it can be stored. how exactly we're going to be safely storing hydrogen in our homes is another issue.
i seem to recall some synergy in games recently. maybe tomb raider or matrix game had a free ticket for the movie offer? google turns up a now defunct link for a free on-pack movie ticket if you buy the finding nemo game. so some of this synergy is there. actually searching "free movie ticket" + name of game in google turns up lots of deals, one for pirates of the caribbean as well.
I'm a home user. I've applied every critical update MS puts out. I apply practically everything available on the windows update site (even the beta versions of stuff like movie maker). I have never had a piece of software not work after applying an update. I think I'm a fairly typical home user. MS Office, MS Money, a bunch of games, photo editing software, winamp, random shareware. Stuff most people use. and stuff that has never broken on me.
Software breaking is definitely a problem, but how often does it really happen? I'd imagine that the liklihood of these people getting a virus / worm is greater than the liklihood of an ms patch breaking a piece of software...
"Rare have been making quality games for YEARS, and many of their titles for the N64 were superb - Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini, Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64."
I concur. For example, Diddy Kong Racing. Several aspects of DKR beat Mario Kart hands down. Level design, number of levels, gameplay options, variety in gameplay, minigames, graphic quality, character choices (and impact on gameplay). All tilt to DKR. it did have it's downside. I hated the plane levels. plus, I found playing with less experienced players, I totally dominated the game, while in MK, games were far closer and much more interesting (probably do to powerup effects and/or level design).
MK I'd pull out only when I had friend over. DKR I'd get out both with friends and alone (trying to beat the the shadow clock was frustrating, but very rewarding for the few levels i did beat him).
I was seriously looking forward to the GC update, Donkey Kong Racing. Don't know what's going to happen to it (whether nintendo took over or it just died, I haven't been following the news at all)
microsoft buys rare, hoping to add another one of the better known development houses to their xbox exclusive list and the first game said developer releases is for a competitor's product?
did someone not read the fine print somewhere? obviously its about profit. gba games are probably easier to develop, were probably in development when the acquisition took place, and don't technically compete with the xbox. but it just sees odd.
a more informative write up can be found at nature (there's a link to the actual research at the bottom, for those whose institutions suscribe).
rather than infect the host with dead/weakened ebola, they took the ebola gene that is responsible for making the coat protein (the capsid which surrounds the nucleic material), and inserted that gene into the adenovirus genome. andenovirus infects cell. ebola gene is activated and starts making lots of ebola coat protein. host response kicks in and starts making antibodies for both adenovirus proteins as well as ebola proteins (apparently adenovirus triggers big host response, although adenovirus really isn't that dangerous). host now has a plethora of ebola antibodies.
this particular trick should be useful for almost any virus for which the coat protein genes are known.
not with frequent balance changes....
on
Are Game Guides Dying?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
buying a guide for RTS games is probably an absolute waste. Blizzard games, for example, go through major revisions before release, so that the artwork on the box is usually out of date by the time the game goes gold (as boxes are done months in advance) (siege tanks shooting battle cruisers on the SC box, for example). i imagine books are on a similar schedule, so the information in such a guide would be useless.
then you get into the whole realm of strategies which are very much an evolutionary thing, changing dramatically over time, particularly with each balance change introduced.
their partners in this venture, Nihilistic, seem fairly competent. Besides, one of the founders of Nihilistic was a former Blizz employee who worked on Starcraft (page 3 of the IGN preview). So this partnership should be about as successful as possible...
Soon after Lord of the Rings was released, Cinefx (a journal dedicated to special effects in movies) had an issue entirely devoted to LOTR. What really suprised me, was how much of the movie was made conventionally. A large number of the landscape shots (Rivendell, Orthanc, etc.) were miniature sets that were created. As I recall, some of these miniatures were so large that they couldn't fit them inside a studio and required all sorts of special equipment to actually get the shots Jackson wanted (the camera panning up Orthanc was one such shot, IIRC).
As I was watching Attack of the Clones, I was struck with how fake everything looked. All of the setting seemed unreal (particularly the droid factory planet). I would imagine they were all created digitally. Contrast that with the beautiful and (IMO) realistic settings in LOTR and you can see that CGI effects, while nice, still aren't there entirely, yet.
I think this rant may be a bit misguided. On the most recent Harper Collins softcover printing of the complete Chronicles of Narnia, it clearly states that "the books are presented here according to Lewis' preferred order." said ordering being: Nagician's Nephew (1955); the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950); The Horse and His Boy (1954); Prince Caspian (1951); the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952); The Silver Chair (1953); The Last Battle (1956). Not presented in published order, but rather chronological order.
So unless the editors are inventing the author's preferred order, it sounds like Lewis wanted the story told in this manner...
Re:Servers are the key to growth
on
EFF Takes Bnetd Case
·
· Score: 2, Informative
currently (5 pm EST), there are 133771 users on battle.net. on gamespy there are 101650. Blizzard's 6 games draw more online users than all of the FPS games offered by gamespy. I think Blizzard clearly understands how to make demand for their products skyrocket. Besides, EVERY Blizzard title released sets sales records. Diablo 2 set the record for most units initially shipped, at around 4 million (?).
maybe home-grown servers foster a better community, but they definitely don't beat the demand for Blizzard games (and remember, the majority of Blizzard gamers don't even play online).
The Dark Winter scenario apparently was based on some screwy statistics regarding rates of infection. Steven Milloy of Junkscience fame wrote an editorial on the subject.
Dark Winter assumed every infected person would infect 10 additional people. This was based on a couple of statistically abnormal infection events. A more reasonable infection rate of 2 people is what the CDC believes more likely. This obviously would reduce the catastrophic victims exponentially.
A number of the detainees aren't being held on any sort of charge, but rather are being held as material witnesses. so much for innocent people and their rights...
What's even worse is that no one really knows how many people are still being detained in this manner.
I find it quite hard to swallow that the "lack of traditional Christian morals" is one of the root causes of school problems. Consider the following:
On the 7th of March, soon after the Santee school shooting, there was another school shoting, this time at a Roman Catholic High school. Clearly Christian morals didn't stop this person from committing an incredibly stupid action.
Even if we do buy into the myth that a Christian upbringing would eliminate the problems with todays youths, you're neglecting some basic facts. Namely, that America is an incredibly religious nation. According to a recent Gallup Poll 88% of Americans feel that religion is fairly to very important in their lives. Americans attend religious services at a far greater rate than many other western countries, such as Italy, Sweden or Great Britian; yet those countries have lower rates of violent crimes and societal problems.
Something I find quite interesting (but I can't recall where I read it), is that the majority of the school shootings (which are essentially public suicide attempts) take place in suburban settings. They aren't occuring in the inner city schools, places traditionally held to be full of crime.
Slashdot Mirror
what I find interesting (and somewhat off-topic) is the list of personnel working on the game (taken from the developer diary):
at least 3 of the lead designers/directors are female (unsure of the gender of the last 2 names). that seems a fairly high percentage in a field dominated by males...
This is Sierra using the MMRPG model for a type of game that has traditionally been supported for free.
Actually, not quite. you've got to click on the original post in the halflife2.net forums to realize that it's not MMORPG style. As Gabe's email (apparently) states: "But nowhere has there been a suggestion that people pay in the store and then pay a monthly fee on top of that a la the MMORPG." (unless there's another message from Gabe past page 1 of the forum)
It sounds to me that it's psuedo subscription (if you want). You pay 9.95 a month, you get all valve software that ever comes out. You buy the game outright 59.95, you get all HL2 content (patches, mods that aren't retail), but nothing new using the source engine.
So assuming Valve releases a new product every 6 months, it's a deal. I'm guessing CS2 might go retail only, so buying it either with a steam subscription or for an additionl 39.95 in the store would be your only option. That'll probably come out soon after release. Then there's the inevitable expansion which should be out within the year. Then there's TF2. So it's not quite MMORPG. More like, subscribe to Valve and get whatever we release.
I'm not sure what happens if you discontinue your steam subscription. If suddenly the game stops working. That would be the real bummer... I know I've put down HL for years and just recently got back into it, and having to re-pay would absolutely suck.
And, you cannot have a child and hope that child will not be influenced by you. That is not how children work. I think that's a more important point.
it seems to me the hard core gamers are going to be less influenced by who is sponsoring an event and more influenced by the latest benchmark scores. who cares if nVidia is sponsoring QuakeCon when their card is 2% slower than ATI in 3Dmark? (and, yes, i am aware of how useless benchmarks are when companies optimize their drivers for them). I can't see anyone dropping $500 on a card just cause they saw the big shiny adverts saying nVidia inside at quakecon...
On the other hand, the casual gamers really don't care as much about the high end hardware, nor are they really aware of computer gaming events or who the sponsors are.
maybe i'm wrong and people really are influenced by advertising. but it just seems that the people who are putting together their computers are savvy enough to know the benchmarks and will go with what is best...
i don't think it's a 'shill' , it's just a very good, free, anti virus prog.
but it's not free. the trial version expires the end of September, while the retail version has a 2 year license fee. (no idea how this compares to symantec in cost or duration).
Every dollar you send to Blizzard simply allows them to pull more stunts like that which they pulled with Freecraft.
conversely, one could look at it as every dollar you send to blizzard simply allows them to create more quality software. Blizzard is one of the few developers who consistently makes quality software. People are still playing (and demanding patches) for software than is upwards of 5 years old. This type of quality / replayability / addiction is rare in the computer game world. so why not reward it?
every company has a legal department that is going to fight against something that the community produces. the question, i suppose, is how egregious you as the gameplayer feel this particular action was?
As the article points out, this is not meant to be an attempt to generate revenue, but merely a promotional tool.
Releasing 3+ hour long movies in 3 successive weeks in few select theatres with little fanfaire (at least according to the article) doesn't sound like over-exposure. Sounds more like a treat for the fans.
As for a 10 hour movie, while that certainly would be interesting, it would a) involve lots of work by jackson et al. to interweave the films (rather than simply playing back to back) and b) would be expensive as hell. (as two sets of different prints would have to be sent out to the theatres, depending if they were showing ROTK or the entire trilogy movie, or both if they having two different sets.) and c) would be financially disasterous for the movie theaters. (as a 10 hour movie for the price of one, means they are losing admission on at least 2 to 4 films).
As for other arguments regarding milking the cow, New Line and Jackson have ALL along stated that each DVD would be released as a theatrical and an extended edition. True fans who wanted both could buy both, others could pick which one to get. as I recall, there were even signs up at the stores (or stickers on the dvd) when FOTR came out reminding people that the extended version was still to be released.
I enjoyed MK64 greatly. However, I felt Diddy Kong Racing to be superior in many aspects, particularly single player. DKR had better graphics, track layouts, minigame options, and just so much more content for single player.
However, when friends came over it was always Mario Kart. For some reason, MK64 seemed to be designed to keep opponents always in contention so that races between very good and just good/so-so players didn't feel like absolute blowouts (whereas with DKR, I would invariably win by a landslide).
That and the acid-trip that was the final level...
i am not a socialogist, but it seems fairly clear that the violence problem occurs earlier in a child's development than something induced by violent videogames. There's an interesting article about daycare centers in Melbourne and how they are banning superhero costumes. Why? cause little kids dressed up as superheros have much more violent / aggressive / dangerous play behavior.
Obviously this isn't a scientific study, just observations by daycare supervisors, but it illustrates that violent behavior is being exhibited by children that are presumably too young to be playing the violent video games that are often cited as the cause.
perhaps we should ban superheros first...
don't know about terrorists, but we can definitely lump flight simulators into the same category as all those FPS games that lead to violent behavior...
The problem, they say, is teenagers who instant message their friends with their verdict on new films - sometimes while they are still in the cinema watching - and so scuppering carefully crafted marketing campaigns designed to lure audiences out to a big movie on its opening weekend.
this is absolute bull. Gigli was receiving horrible reviews months before release. Online, on television, in various newspapers. The week before the movie was released I don't know how many articles I saw regarding how bad this movie was. I knew it contained such gems as "it's turkey time. gobble gobble" at least a week before it was released.
IM influences the 1 other person on the other end of the line. A bad review in the news media is there for the entire world to read.
As the article points out, and most anyone who pays the bills knows, we already have a nationally distributed pipeline system. it ain't hydrogen, but natural gas can be converted to hydrogen where it can be stored. how exactly we're going to be safely storing hydrogen in our homes is another issue.
i seem to recall some synergy in games recently. maybe tomb raider or matrix game had a free ticket for the movie offer? google turns up a now defunct link for a free on-pack movie ticket if you buy the finding nemo game. so some of this synergy is there. actually searching "free movie ticket" + name of game in google turns up lots of deals, one for pirates of the caribbean as well.
but, then again, you don't want too much synergy or you end up with the "new tomb raider game brought our movie down" logic.
how often do MS patches actually break things?
I'm a home user. I've applied every critical update MS puts out. I apply practically everything available on the windows update site (even the beta versions of stuff like movie maker). I have never had a piece of software not work after applying an update. I think I'm a fairly typical home user. MS Office, MS Money, a bunch of games, photo editing software, winamp, random shareware. Stuff most people use. and stuff that has never broken on me.
Software breaking is definitely a problem, but how often does it really happen? I'd imagine that the liklihood of these people getting a virus / worm is greater than the liklihood of an ms patch breaking a piece of software...
"Rare have been making quality games for YEARS, and many of their titles for the N64 were superb - Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini, Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64."
I concur. For example, Diddy Kong Racing. Several aspects of DKR beat Mario Kart hands down. Level design, number of levels, gameplay options, variety in gameplay, minigames, graphic quality, character choices (and impact on gameplay). All tilt to DKR. it did have it's downside. I hated the plane levels. plus, I found playing with less experienced players, I totally dominated the game, while in MK, games were far closer and much more interesting (probably do to powerup effects and/or level design).
MK I'd pull out only when I had friend over. DKR I'd get out both with friends and alone (trying to beat the the shadow clock was frustrating, but very rewarding for the few levels i did beat him).
I was seriously looking forward to the GC update, Donkey Kong Racing. Don't know what's going to happen to it (whether nintendo took over or it just died, I haven't been following the news at all)
microsoft buys rare, hoping to add another one of the better known development houses to their xbox exclusive list and the first game said developer releases is for a competitor's product?
did someone not read the fine print somewhere? obviously its about profit. gba games are probably easier to develop, were probably in development when the acquisition took place, and don't technically compete with the xbox. but it just sees odd.
a more informative write up can be found at nature (there's a link to the actual research at the bottom, for those whose institutions suscribe).
rather than infect the host with dead/weakened ebola, they took the ebola gene that is responsible for making the coat protein (the capsid which surrounds the nucleic material), and inserted that gene into the adenovirus genome. andenovirus infects cell. ebola gene is activated and starts making lots of ebola coat protein. host response kicks in and starts making antibodies for both adenovirus proteins as well as ebola proteins (apparently adenovirus triggers big host response, although adenovirus really isn't that dangerous). host now has a plethora of ebola antibodies.
this particular trick should be useful for almost any virus for which the coat protein genes are known.
buying a guide for RTS games is probably an absolute waste. Blizzard games, for example, go through major revisions before release, so that the artwork on the box is usually out of date by the time the game goes gold (as boxes are done months in advance) (siege tanks shooting battle cruisers on the SC box, for example). i imagine books are on a similar schedule, so the information in such a guide would be useless.
then you get into the whole realm of strategies which are very much an evolutionary thing, changing dramatically over time, particularly with each balance change introduced.
mini-preview for the project at IGN, here.
their partners in this venture, Nihilistic, seem fairly competent. Besides, one of the founders of Nihilistic was a former Blizz employee who worked on Starcraft (page 3 of the IGN preview). So this partnership should be about as successful as possible...
Soon after Lord of the Rings was released, Cinefx (a journal dedicated to special effects in movies) had an issue entirely devoted to LOTR. What really suprised me, was how much of the movie was made conventionally. A large number of the landscape shots (Rivendell, Orthanc, etc.) were miniature sets that were created. As I recall, some of these miniatures were so large that they couldn't fit them inside a studio and required all sorts of special equipment to actually get the shots Jackson wanted (the camera panning up Orthanc was one such shot, IIRC).
As I was watching Attack of the Clones, I was struck with how fake everything looked. All of the setting seemed unreal (particularly the droid factory planet). I would imagine they were all created digitally. Contrast that with the beautiful and (IMO) realistic settings in LOTR and you can see that CGI effects, while nice, still aren't there entirely, yet.
I think this rant may be a bit misguided. On the most recent Harper Collins softcover printing of the complete Chronicles of Narnia, it clearly states that "the books are presented here according to Lewis' preferred order." said ordering being: Nagician's Nephew (1955); the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950); The Horse and His Boy (1954); Prince Caspian (1951); the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952); The Silver Chair (1953); The Last Battle (1956). Not presented in published order, but rather chronological order.
So unless the editors are inventing the author's preferred order, it sounds like Lewis wanted the story told in this manner...
currently (5 pm EST), there are 133771 users on battle.net. on gamespy there are 101650. Blizzard's 6 games draw more online users than all of the FPS games offered by gamespy. I think Blizzard clearly understands how to make demand for their products skyrocket. Besides, EVERY Blizzard title released sets sales records. Diablo 2 set the record for most units initially shipped, at around 4 million (?).
maybe home-grown servers foster a better community, but they definitely don't beat the demand for Blizzard games (and remember, the majority of Blizzard gamers don't even play online).
The Dark Winter scenario apparently was based on some screwy statistics regarding rates of infection. Steven Milloy of Junkscience fame wrote an editorial on the subject.
Dark Winter assumed every infected person would infect 10 additional people. This was based on a couple of statistically abnormal infection events. A more reasonable infection rate of 2 people is what the CDC believes more likely. This obviously would reduce the catastrophic victims exponentially.
A number of the detainees aren't being held on any sort of charge, but rather are being held as material witnesses. so much for innocent people and their rights...
What's even worse is that no one really knows how many people are still being detained in this manner.
I find it quite hard to swallow that the "lack of traditional Christian morals" is one of the root causes of school problems. Consider the following:
On the 7th of March, soon after the Santee school shooting, there was another school shoting, this time at a Roman Catholic High school. Clearly Christian morals didn't stop this person from committing an incredibly stupid action.
Even if we do buy into the myth that a Christian upbringing would eliminate the problems with todays youths, you're neglecting some basic facts. Namely, that America is an incredibly religious nation. According to a recent Gallup Poll 88% of Americans feel that religion is fairly to very important in their lives. Americans attend religious services at a far greater rate than many other western countries, such as Italy, Sweden or Great Britian; yet those countries have lower rates of violent crimes and societal problems.
Something I find quite interesting (but I can't recall where I read it), is that the majority of the school shootings (which are essentially public suicide attempts) take place in suburban settings. They aren't occuring in the inner city schools, places traditionally held to be full of crime.