1) Be an absolute dick to women until they turn ~25...it's the only way to gain respect, love, or get laid early in life. After she turns 25, be a nice guy, because that's how long it takes for most of them to learn their lesson that assholes are just that...assholes.
2) Be absolutely indifferent...the more you want something, the less of a chance you're gonna get it...this _especially_ applies to women. Never EVER tell a woman how you truly feel, never put her on a pedastal, NEVER use the word "love"...just sorta shrug her off and tell her that _MAYBE_ you can spare some time for her. You'll have your hands full of phone numbers, promise.
3) Be CONFIDENT...that will get you everything you want in life.
4) The world is shallow. Appearances do matter. Deal with it as you see fit, but be prepared for the consequences.
In other words, you'd wipe out everything in one possible universe from the point of contact if you did commit suicide, but not before it, and it would still continue from the point where your message fails to appear as if nothing had happened, which of course is true unless you make the same decisions exactly as you did the first time round from that point onward, in that timeline, leading to you contacting yourself in the past, which is not guaranteed not least of which because of a universal cognisance of the event which took place leaving a dissonance in it's wake, spreading backward and outward, so that at least at some point you'd not comply, realising the stupidity of your behaviour and eventually boring yourself/ves of the repetition of the fundementally self-destructive non-beneficial act and get on with doing something more positive instead, tike putting the telly on or something.
Two things:
1) That has to be the longest sentence I have ever seen.
2) That has GOT to be a run-on.
I've seen alot of posts that claim that elitism and arrogance is the largest cause of geek persecution...that's simply not true.
Most geeks avoid confrontation and cower away from enemies rather than engage them. This is because most geeks lack several things:
1) Confidence
2) Social ability
3) Self-esteem (some)
The first is a killer. I don't care who tells me different...CONFIDENCE gets you popularity...it gets you friends, it gets you jobs, it gets you girls, it gets you anything you could want. Most geeks don't bother with appearances, and are simply too inept socially. They also have little commonalities with the "dumber folk" and thus have even less of a chance of making headway socially. Well, in places like high school, appearances and attitude matter most as far as popularity goes.
The new one i've run into recently is they use some kinda script so that the reply-to address in my address....which makes fintering really easy becuase how often do I send mail from my account TO the same account. However I could see some stuipd user getting very confused.:)
Actually, I do it alot...I email myself back and forth from my work and home email addys with reminders and "todo" lists...sometimes I'll even mail to the same address if it's something i need to do the following day. Email is sortof an answering machine for me:)
If a company in China or Russian or wherever released a game about invading and destroying things in the USA, I'm sure many people in the USA - and especially elements of the press - would be outraged.
Outraged? You've got to be joking!
Rampage was a CLASSIC, and you destroy every major city in the US!
Damn those were fun times. Best part was when you were playing two-player and you "accidentally" punch your friend off a building, so you spend the next five minutes fighting each other and leaving the buildings alone until you call a truce and go back to city devastation.
Do you know the value of information sitting on some hot chick's PC at any random college? Emails, AOL IM chat convo, documents, etc...wow...
I can see it now:
Some Hot Chick: "Wow, we've really connected in the past couple days, it's as if you know me better than I know myself. Wanna go to my room?"
Reading some emails: Fun
Sniffing some credit card numbers: $2000
Having a sex monopoly on all the hot chicks at your college: Priceless
usually dropping floppies isn't something that's desired. I remember the days before CDs, carrying all 27 floppies needed to install WIndows 95, you drop the stack, and, well, you'll never install off that set again
Are you kidding? We used to chuck those things against the walls and drop them out of 2 story windows for fun, and they'd still work.
Additionally, humans have one thing robots cannot: Imagination.
They have the ability to, in a pinch, come up with solutions to problems that no machine technically can. When they had to build a CO2 scrubber from spare parts on Apollo 13, do you think a robot with the same computational power available in those days could have done the same? Of course not.
A machine wouldn't have needed the CO2 scrubber in the first place:)
Games like this already exist.
They are merely few and few between.
Baldur's Gate developed something of a growing narrative, where your actions would generate different behavior from good or evil people depending on what you did.
Black & White was somewhat adaptive.
It's just not exactly easy to code a game with that sort of flexibility.
So they can talk all they want, I'll believe it when I see it.
After playing the origninal Gran Turismo, I became fixated on the Mitsubishi Eclipse as a relatively affordable performance car that matched my driving and personal style
Heh, I felt the same way about the 3000GT
(especially with a stage 3 turbo!!!)
Bought those when they first hit the market so I paid a premium for them. They were top-o-the-line at the time
There's your problem...never buy anything top of the line in the computer market. It becomes mid-grade in a matter of months (however, that which is mid-grade stays mid-grade for quite some time - easily over a year)...you're essentially just tossing away hundreds of dollars.
I can think of a dozen that gave me fits when I was running Win2K.
There's also your problem...Win2K isn't a gaming platform. I've never had an issue with Win9X...I run Win98SE myself (I hate the XP interface)...though I've heard XP had little problems with games (though I expected many more...it is relatively new)
C&C Red Alert won't run at all
You're talking about a game that existed before XP was even around (hell, before 2K was around I think)...I'd make the same comparison in trying to get a Super Nintendo game to run on a Gamecube. There haven't been many generations of Xboxen yet, but I doubt they're going to have several generations of backward compatibility. Luckily, PS games can be played on a PS2...i don't know if this trend will continue to the PS3
Even using your numbers, the cost is much greater. You said $1300 for your pc. A console costs about $200. That's an $1100 difference right off the bat.
You don't mention a save cartidge, which is like $50, and an additional controller for like $50 or so...network interface module thing if you wanna play online..hell they're even selling hard drives for these things now. If you're gonna pretend to be a computer, why not just use one? anyways, I built a _nice_ machine for $1300...i could very easily go Gforce4Ti -> Gforce4Mx, smaller hard drive, less RAM, etc...and price the same box around $600 or $700 and still put a console's performance to shame.
I have a total investment in my PS2 and games of around $1200. I have an investment in my computer of around $4000
A computer worth $4000?
Man you got gyped.
You can get a mid-to-high range full system nowdays _easily_ under $2000.
I built one without monitor for about $1300.
That's roughly comparable, and my computer can do a HELL of alot more, and much better too.
They also work right out of the box
Rarely, if ever have a had a game not work out of the box (assuming the person is smart enough to know how to install a program)
Also, how often do you upgrade your computer?
As often as you buy a new console + accessories, for comparable costs.
It's much more expensive to upgrade a computer than it is to buy a new console
Maybe slightly, hardly "much"...gforce3 cards still run all current games and they're over a year old now. Processors rarely ever need to get upgraded. Hard drive capacity is exceeding that of game makers to take up space, etc.
Step 1: Take any PC
Step 2: Invent PCI Card to allow multiple Controller connections
Step 3: Install PCI Card
Step 4: Buy Controllers
Actual course of action:
Step 1: Develop unique hardware
Step 2: Develop games unique to your hardware
Step 3: Make hardware almost impossible to upgrade without completely replacing
Step 4: Make the graphics laughably comparable to that of a PC
Step 5: Call it a console
Step 6: Profit
Companies who know they have control of their consumers have no need or desire to "soften" their image for fear of losing a market segment. They're afraid. They're beginning to see that their bullying scare tactics and slimy business practices aren't as effective as Microsoft's. They're pissing off ALOT of people, and they simply aren't as important as they think they are.....and I think they're finally starting to get frightened. The good ol days of juicing the public are gone.
Girls statistically outperform boys overall in grade school and make up 57% of college graduates
Those statistics mean nothing for actual CS ability.
Hell, most every "A" high school student was in the 99th percentile in grade school. Anyways, general intelligence estimates are a poor judge of a CS student. I know some very very bright people who would make shitty CS majors. As for college graduates, I know many who got degrees who don't know a stack from a heap. Show me an accurate statistic that says "Girls outprogram boys 9 times out of 10", and maybe I'll give it some merit or even "On average, girls generate faster and more efficient CS algorithms than boys"
Before I type this paragraph, let me point out this is not mere sexism. I do believe that the sexes have an aptitude for particular fields moreso than others.
Quite frankly, if they aren't there, it's most likely because they lack the ability. From my somewhat limited experience, all the girls I know who went into CS struggled through it, normally had to study very hard, and got average marks at best. For them it was a challenge, and an effort. The guys I know, it's like second-nature, they breeze through it, and speak CS like a second language, not like a an ordinary skill. Not to say there aren't exceptions to the rule (I've met some kickass female CS students), but on average, from my experience, guys outperform girls in CS, hands down.
P
What's next? Guys complaining about a lack of male ballet dancers or something? I'm not graceful, I'm not built for it. I acknowledge this. Is it so hard to accept that, in a majority case, a particular gender may not be that great at something? Sheesh, PC these days is a pain in the ass.
"What happened to make us so afraid? You couldn't make a Mel Brooks movie today. I saw Blazing Saddles yesterday." - SR-71
Isn't this why new windows were invented?
Why waste the scrolltime/keystrokes to navigate through back/forward menus, when you could just middle click a new window for any page you know you'll probably be going back to.
I almost never left click when browsing.
Middle-click for new window. Alt-F4 when done with it.
Magius_AR
Re:Zerg Rush
on
Starcraft
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· Score: 2, Informative
Actually, he's saying "My life for Aiur"
Aiur is their home planet.
And the unit name is the Zealot.
is the PERFECT example of what Nintendo does to otherwise wondrous games. The original conceptional drawings of the new Zelda looked amazing...still cartoonish, with plenty of colors, but it looked AWESOME and could be enjoyed by audiences of all ages. The new Zelda, however, looks like crap. I know of grade schoolers that can draw more realistic pictures.
I enjoyed (and still enjoy) games such as Mario Kart and Star Fox, but they've gone too far with this.
Why is this modded +4 interesting? It's totally unfounded. Everything you "want" in RPGs is still OUT THERE, and always HAS BEEN. And frankly, very little or none or it is in Grand Theft Auto.
Grand Theft Auto Killed RPG's
One hell of a statement to make, because although GTA is a great game, it's hardly groundbreaking as far as games go. Stunt/race car games have been around for years, as have violent/shooting games.
The only truly creative addition I saw in GTA was the added "mature" element that was fairly new among games at the time.
I guess you could say that GTA isn't really an RPG but a new genre
It isn't an RPG _AND_ it isn't a new genre. Guns and cars have been around for years.
Compared to Grand Theft Auto, all RPG's suck
Another bold statement...one game vs an entire genre. Good luck defending this effectively.
The reason I play games is so that I can do things that I want to do in reality, but can't because a) they are immoral b) are illegal c) there are rammifications/risks associated that I don't want to deal with
All of these things can be done in RPGs...violence and killing in particular are a common theme in any rpg (hello random encounters?).
So, in an RPG the environment should be as real as possible
Says who? Listen closely...ROLE PLAYING GAME...playing a role is FICTION, it's acting, it's pretending to be in another world...it has no tie to reality whatsoever. As far as naking things LIFELIKE, this is an issue in _any_ game, not just RPGs.
For example, animals in almost all games just appear out of now where or are spawned from some spawn thing
There's a reason for this...find a better way to do it. In many games, monsters are monsters, they don't ever necessarily even BREED (or are two ghosts gonna breed?)...also, different people play rpgs at different rates. Breeding would merely add new annoyances to the game...who wants to wait for things to breed before being able to kill them again? As for having things visibly moving around, I doubt you'd be able to fit all the game monsters on one map at once and not have the vid card choke horribly on all that movement.
I want the characters to be where they are for a reason. For example, shops should only be open in the day, and when it is night, the shopkeeper should go have a beer or go see his girlfriend, and when he's tired he should walk back to his house and go to sleep. At night, when I go to a shop, I should find a locked door. And when I break in, I should find a shop keeper dashing for a weapon or sleeping. Not an empty bedroom.
Dragon Warrior 4 had day/night differences...games like Shenmu do too if I'm not mistaken (thus, it's not a concept in older RPGs only). Most RPGs that do day/night close shops at night. You could do everything you mentioned in Baldurs Gate. I don't believe GTA differs much between night and day, and there's a very limited amount of buildings you can actually go into.
And when I see people on the street I should be seeing them because they are on their way somewhere, not because they are handing out the same mission over and over again.
Some games have timed events...be somewhere at some time, arranged appointments and the like. FF8 (i think?) had a moogle that "wandered" the world, giving you new stuff each tiem you met him. You aren't going to do much better with this within reason, or are you honestly trying to argue incredible AI and rich agendas be programmed into _every_ npc? And in GRAND THEFT AUTO, you get your missions from FIXED locations with FIXED people...and if you fail, you can go to the SAME place to do it OVER AND OVER AGAIN...thus, i'm somehow missing your point.
And as far as missions go, they should be based on something and never repeated.
GTA is repetition of the same basic premise over and over (they've done surprising well in the 2nd one with adding new toys and plotlines though)...basicly, steal cars, kill people, blow stuff up. And RPG plotlines are MUCH richer than GTA.
but when the competitor is dead or something else happens, that mission should go away forever.
See Baldur's Gate, or any other of a hundred RPGs.
A moving story spurred by real actions and human-like motivators. I mean, this can be pre-programmed but they should be based on an emotional need and picked out of a pool of possible solutions that fall in line with the NPC's character.
Many RPGs have plot forks, char aligns, and different event progression dependent on how you behave. Some, such as Vampire The Masquerade, even have different endings depending on how you behave.
I always hear the excuse from coders that it's just not practical to code all this stuff in when it doesn't add to the game play
Are you sure it's because of practicality and not reality that all the greatest of everything can't be programmed into any one RPG? To create something with all these qualities, AI, etc would be quite a feat (i've yet to see an RPG that has done so)...frankly I don't think any existing machine would be able to handle the sheer processing/memory/HD requirements. Then there's time...are you going add several months onto a code project just to have a few insignificant npcs walk a few different irrelevant paths for no reason? The closest thing to anything of that magnitude are MMORPGS...maybe you should play some Everquest?
Things will start to appear that will be ultra cool that the programmers didn't even think of. For example, because animals like to drink, they will congragate around the water hole.
Black and White, though not much of an RPG, incorporated such "pet behavior". I'm sure others have, though none come to mind.
Each genre has its ups and downs, if you don't like RPGs, you don't like RPGs. I find them very enjoyable and entertaining. And NO Grand Theft Auto did not make RPGs obsolete in any way shape or form.
Some RPGS, like FF3 (truly the greatest rpg ever) had items (relics) you could equip to lower the chance or even eliminate the chance of random encounters. No one I know ever used them though, because your characters would never fight, and thus never gain xp, and would remain low level forever.
Rather than learning the lesson that doing 70+ mph sitting on a small strip of metal and 2 tires isn't exactly the brightest idea, they're finding ways to try to pad themselves. It's called a CAR.
For the love of mike...
on
239 MPG Car
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· Score: 1
Why do they have to make those things so goddamn UGLY?
Build me a cool-looking affordable one and I'll be the first person to buy the damn thing.
Slashdot Mirror
2) Be absolutely indifferent...the more you want something, the less of a chance you're gonna get it...this _especially_ applies to women. Never EVER tell a woman how you truly feel, never put her on a pedastal, NEVER use the word "love"...just sorta shrug her off and tell her that _MAYBE_ you can spare some time for her. You'll have your hands full of phone numbers, promise.
3) Be CONFIDENT...that will get you everything you want in life.
4) The world is shallow. Appearances do matter. Deal with it as you see fit, but be prepared for the consequences.
Two things:
1) That has to be the longest sentence I have ever seen.
2) That has GOT to be a run-on.
Most geeks avoid confrontation and cower away from enemies rather than engage them. This is because most geeks lack several things:
1) Confidence
2) Social ability
3) Self-esteem (some)
The first is a killer. I don't care who tells me different...CONFIDENCE gets you popularity...it gets you friends, it gets you jobs, it gets you girls, it gets you anything you could want. Most geeks don't bother with appearances, and are simply too inept socially. They also have little commonalities with the "dumber folk" and thus have even less of a chance of making headway socially. Well, in places like high school, appearances and attitude matter most as far as popularity goes.
Outraged? You've got to be joking!
Rampage was a CLASSIC, and you destroy every major city in the US!
Damn those were fun times. Best part was when you were playing two-player and you "accidentally" punch your friend off a building, so you spend the next five minutes fighting each other and leaving the buildings alone until you call a truce and go back to city devastation.
*wipes away a tear* Ahhh, memories
I can see it now:
Some Hot Chick: "Wow, we've really connected in the past couple days, it's as if you know me better than I know myself. Wanna go to my room?"
Reading some emails: Fun
Sniffing some credit card numbers: $2000
Having a sex monopoly on all the hot chicks at your college: Priceless
Leader: Detach the stone of shame!
Homer: Woohoo!
Leader: Attach the stone of triumph!
Homer: D'oh!
A machine wouldn't have needed the CO2 scrubber in the first place :)
Games like this already exist.
They are merely few and few between.
Baldur's Gate developed something of a growing narrative, where your actions would generate different behavior from good or evil people depending on what you did.
Black & White was somewhat adaptive.
It's just not exactly easy to code a game with that sort of flexibility.
So they can talk all they want, I'll believe it when I see it.
You mean OTHER people decided to kill Sephiroth at the end of FF7 too?!? :(
I thought I was unique
Heh, I felt the same way about the 3000GT
(especially with a stage 3 turbo!!!)
There's your problem...never buy anything top of the line in the computer market. It becomes mid-grade in a matter of months (however, that which is mid-grade stays mid-grade for quite some time - easily over a year)...you're essentially just tossing away hundreds of dollars.
I can think of a dozen that gave me fits when I was running Win2K.
There's also your problem...Win2K isn't a gaming platform. I've never had an issue with Win9X...I run Win98SE myself (I hate the XP interface)...though I've heard XP had little problems with games (though I expected many more...it is relatively new)
C&C Red Alert won't run at all
You're talking about a game that existed before XP was even around (hell, before 2K was around I think)...I'd make the same comparison in trying to get a Super Nintendo game to run on a Gamecube. There haven't been many generations of Xboxen yet, but I doubt they're going to have several generations of backward compatibility. Luckily, PS games can be played on a PS2...i don't know if this trend will continue to the PS3
Even using your numbers, the cost is much greater. You said $1300 for your pc. A console costs about $200. That's an $1100 difference right off the bat.
You don't mention a save cartidge, which is like $50, and an additional controller for like $50 or so...network interface module thing if you wanna play online..hell they're even selling hard drives for these things now. If you're gonna pretend to be a computer, why not just use one? anyways, I built a _nice_ machine for $1300...i could very easily go Gforce4Ti -> Gforce4Mx, smaller hard drive, less RAM, etc...and price the same box around $600 or $700 and still put a console's performance to shame.
A computer worth $4000?
Man you got gyped.
You can get a mid-to-high range full system nowdays _easily_ under $2000.
I built one without monitor for about $1300.
That's roughly comparable, and my computer can do a HELL of alot more, and much better too.
They also work right out of the box
Rarely, if ever have a had a game not work out of the box (assuming the person is smart enough to know how to install a program)
Also, how often do you upgrade your computer?
As often as you buy a new console + accessories, for comparable costs.
It's much more expensive to upgrade a computer than it is to buy a new console
Maybe slightly, hardly "much"...gforce3 cards still run all current games and they're over a year old now. Processors rarely ever need to get upgraded. Hard drive capacity is exceeding that of game makers to take up space, etc.
Sensible course of action:
Step 1: Take any PC
Step 2: Invent PCI Card to allow multiple Controller connections
Step 3: Install PCI Card
Step 4: Buy Controllers
Actual course of action:
Step 1: Develop unique hardware
Step 2: Develop games unique to your hardware
Step 3: Make hardware almost impossible to upgrade without completely replacing
Step 4: Make the graphics laughably comparable to that of a PC
Step 5: Call it a console
Step 6: Profit
Bah.
Companies who know they have control of their consumers have no need or desire to "soften" their image for fear of losing a market segment. They're afraid. They're beginning to see that their bullying scare tactics and slimy business practices aren't as effective as Microsoft's. They're pissing off ALOT of people, and they simply aren't as important as they think they are.....and I think they're finally starting to get frightened. The good ol days of juicing the public are gone.
Those statistics mean nothing for actual CS ability.
Hell, most every "A" high school student was in the 99th percentile in grade school. Anyways, general intelligence estimates are a poor judge of a CS student. I know some very very bright people who would make shitty CS majors. As for college graduates, I know many who got degrees who don't know a stack from a heap. Show me an accurate statistic that says "Girls outprogram boys 9 times out of 10", and maybe I'll give it some merit or even "On average, girls generate faster and more efficient CS algorithms than boys"
Before I type this paragraph, let me point out this is not mere sexism. I do believe that the sexes have an aptitude for particular fields moreso than others.
Quite frankly, if they aren't there, it's most likely because they lack the ability. From my somewhat limited experience, all the girls I know who went into CS struggled through it, normally had to study very hard, and got average marks at best. For them it was a challenge, and an effort. The guys I know, it's like second-nature, they breeze through it, and speak CS like a second language, not like a an ordinary skill. Not to say there aren't exceptions to the rule (I've met some kickass female CS students), but on average, from my experience, guys outperform girls in CS, hands down. P What's next? Guys complaining about a lack of male ballet dancers or something? I'm not graceful, I'm not built for it. I acknowledge this. Is it so hard to accept that, in a majority case, a particular gender may not be that great at something? Sheesh, PC these days is a pain in the ass.
"What happened to make us so afraid? You couldn't make a Mel Brooks movie today. I saw Blazing Saddles yesterday." - SR-71
Why waste the scrolltime/keystrokes to navigate through back/forward menus, when you could just middle click a new window for any page you know you'll probably be going back to.
I almost never left click when browsing.
Middle-click for new window. Alt-F4 when done with it.
Magius_AR
Aiur is their home planet.
And the unit name is the Zealot.
Magius_AR
I enjoyed (and still enjoy) games such as Mario Kart and Star Fox, but they've gone too far with this.
Each genre has its ups and downs, if you don't like RPGs, you don't like RPGs. I find them very enjoyable and entertaining. And NO Grand Theft Auto did not make RPGs obsolete in any way shape or form.
Magius_AR
Some RPGS, like FF3 (truly the greatest rpg ever) had items (relics) you could equip to lower the chance or even eliminate the chance of random encounters. No one I know ever used them though, because your characters would never fight, and thus never gain xp, and would remain low level forever.
Rather than learning the lesson that doing 70+ mph sitting on a small strip of metal and 2 tires isn't exactly the brightest idea, they're finding ways to try to pad themselves. It's called a CAR.
Build me a cool-looking affordable one and I'll be the first person to buy the damn thing.
Magius_AR
At first glance, I swear I thought Walmart was now stocking the stolen copy of Newton's Principia on it's shelves.
Magius_AR