Those could cause problems. I mean, if a woman's bra size changed any time someone observed her chest...
Plus I'm pretty sure that the purpose of most breast implants is to increase size. Quantum-sized breasts just don't sound like they'd be very popular for some reason...
Oops, misread your post. Arena is a DOS game and thus neither requires nor can be expected to run particularly well under Windows. The link you mentioned may be for a Windows-based self-extracting archive or installer, however.
The bottom line is that I recommend running it under DOSBox. Both the floppy and CD-ROM versions run fine under the latest CVS (the CD-ROM version has problems in DOSBox 0.63 and may even be unplayable even with tricks)
DOSBox is a cross-platform emulator that uses SDL for most of its I/O. Windows and Linux are officially supported, but as it is open-source, there are many other ports floating around as well.
This is NOT going to happen. Many major game retailers (e.g. GameStop) make a significant amount of money on pre-owned (used) game sales. You can bet that they'll fight Sony tooth-and-nail to keep them from implementing any system that permanently binds a game disc to a single console.
It's also a pretty ridiculous idea, as I know a lot of people who bring together their games and/or consoles to have parties and whatnot. This kind of (legal, by the way) game trading and loaning is a form of free word-of-mouth advertising for game companies.
Going back all the way to my Atari 2600 in the early 80s, I can remember buying way more console games after having borrowed a friend's copy or renting a copy from a store that I have from reading useless magazine ads and reviews.
"...designed with emphasis on dependability instead of performance."
I thought that was the point of Windows NT? So I guess there'll be 3 versions of Singularity and then they'll make a home version (a la XP), and then they'll start over from scratch again?
If they did truly suck, people wouldn't go like crazy to watch them (don't forget, Episode I is 5th on the All Time Box Office for the USA) all.
I wish people would stop making this argument, as it's totally ridiculous and unfounded. I'm sure that if you checked the statistics, you'd see a steep dropoff in ticket sales with each movie.
My own experience: - Camped out at the theater (literally) to get tickets and seats for the first showing of Episode I. Theater was packed. I was excited to see Episode I because I had grown up with the original trilogy and was hoping to see more storytelling of the same style and caliber. In my opinion, the whole experience was much more entertaining than the movie itself, but in hindsight the feeling that I was part of history has been marred by Lucas' disappointing offering. At the time, I felt let down but deluded myself into thinking that Lucas was just a bit rusty and might do better in the sequels.
- Not even sure if I went to Episode II on the first week. Theater had an average number of attendants. After I saw Episode II, I lost all faith in Lucas' ability to make another good Star Wars film. It didn't help that by then I had part of Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy to compare it against (which is especially sad when you consider that I'm way more of a sci-fi geek than a fantasy one).
- Didn't bother seeing Episode III until it had been out for a couple of weeks. Barely anyone attended that showing. My only interest in seeing Episode III was to find out if/how Lucas would climb out of the hole he had dug himself into with the first two disappointing movies. I was again let down with a film that was lukewarm at best, crass at worst, but at least I didn't have any expectations by then.
I want to just be able to extract an archive and run a binary contained within.
Windows allows this too. However, it also gives applications the option of registering themselves with the Add/Remove Programs list for easy installation and uninstallation by the end-user. I think this is something that would be useful for *nix, which doesn't even have a single centralized "Program Files" directory in which most end user applications are installed (but more importantly, programs on any OS tend to scatter files all over the file system, and having a common uninstaller system would make it easier to clean things up).
I don't know why this/. article was posted, as I doubt any of the links add anything to the original. What would be nice is to hear a statement from Sony, who are probably trying to figure out how to damage-control the situation now that their dirty little secret is all over the Internet.
As others have stated, Bethesda's release of TES games on consoles is little more than a cash-cow attempt to generate extra income. I have no problem with this, but at the same time I have to strongly recommend that people pick up the PC versions of their games instead. The TES series has a long history of being notoriously buggy (and justifiably so due to the large yet intricate worlds that Bethesda crafts in them), and of course with Morrowind they released expansion packs which were not available on XBox as far as I know.
Speaking of the PC version of Oblivion, when is it supposed to be released? Is Take Two publishing it as well?
Lastly, I've probably mentioned this before, but despite being a long-time fan of Bethesda and TES (I've spent a lot of time playing Arena, Dagerfall, Morrowind and even Battlespire over the years), my primary interest in seeing Oblivion released is that it will clear the way for Bethesda to finish Fallout 3.
I've seen plenty of XBox and PS2 games that don't perform vertical retrace synchronization on TVs and result in horrible tearing artifacts. In addition TVs are limited to 60Hz (NTSC, or 50Hz on PAL). On my PC, however, I can set my video drivers to force every game to use VSync for a smooth 75Hz (or any other arbitrary refresh rate that I want to force) refresh.
I'm not sure whether nicknames in WoW are separate from character names, but if they're not then CmdrTaco is not a very realistic name for a fantasy character anyways.
I've been using my HunterZ handle in a lot of places on the 'net for quite some time as well (as you can tell by my low-ish Slashdot ID), but being a Pen-and-Paper role-player in a addition to a video gamer, I decided I should make up some standard fantasy character names for use in MMORPGs and the like (because I felt that "HunterZ" would be too silly). As a result, I usually use "Hevin Moonhunter" in games like Guild Wars, Diablo 2, and probably WoW too if I ever play it.
You should try this; you'll find that a more realistic name helps you get more "in-character" when you're playing, and it will become just as familiar to you as CmdrTaco if you use it in all the fantasy games you play.
The problem is that I'm an explorer. I have to turn over every rock and complete every subquest that I find. Even if I hate them, I can't skip mini-games without feeling like I'm missing out on some useful item or experience.
To me "going straight through without exploring" is a boring waste of time. It's also the reason I don't finish many games despite spending more time playing them than many who do finish those games.
I apologize if I misrepresented the overall fan reaction to Chrono Chross - I'm just going off of my memory, which is probably highly unreliable. On the other hand, I'm suspicious of Gamerankings' PSX list since it doesn't mention Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which was so good that it has influenced almost all subsequent Castlevania titles.
Yes, I beat Chrono Trigger actually. I guess I must have missed that one dialogue amongst all the prehistoric dancing and whatnot...
I heard they also explain it more in Chrono Cross, but that nobody liked it due to the fact that it was more of a spinoff than a sequel. I might check it out someday though (if I ever get desperate enough to try a JRPG that apparently even the fanbois don't remember fondly).
If it's any consolation, it was posted in the Games category where the/. gods have decided that 95% of stories are not worthy of beeing seen -- except by the dozen or so of us who bothered to look at what categories were available and checked the Games box. We should totally start a "/. Games category readers' club" or something.
Anyways, back on topic: I don't think that writer has played enough video games. My roommate has a morbid fascination with scary games and she could probably list off several that are way scarier than FF7 -- a game that I've tried seriously to play at least three or four times over the years but keep putting down because of all the silliness that kills the dark mood (mini-game carnivals, beach resorts, whorehouse humor, etc.).
On the topic of Japanese RPGs: It'd be great if some western-world company were to do remakes of JRPGs in a way that appeals better to non-asians. This is how we got Robotech; I guess it's also how we got Lunar, which I still didn't care much for (mostly because the plot was still too cliche). The development of Japanese RPGs was derailed at some point, and now they've all got the same recycled plots but with some new battle system gimmick. The sad part is that gamers eat it up and talk about how great each new JRPG is instead of calling the game companies out on the carpet for it. Chrono Trigger came frustratingly close to being a good game, but they screwed it up by not tying up loose ends in the plot (like what the hell is Lavos other than some spikey thing that wants to eat the world?). Final Fantsy 7 was close, but had too much cheesiness and more mini-games than regular combat encounters (it's almost like the designers had ADD and couldn't stand the idea of a consistently dark, deep plot).
I've never used Brasso before, but I'd imagine that a can of polishing compound from your local hardware or automotive parts store would work as well. Just be sure to get the least abrasive variety possible, and don't rub too hard (especially on the screen as it can potentially cause cloudiness). I don't own an iPod of any sort, however, so I can't verify any of this. I can say that I've used polishing compound to get scratches out of all sorts of things, and that it's similar to the compound included in CD scratch removal kits (the latter is usually watered down so that it can be packaged in a bottle instead of a can).
Seriously, is DNS control even necessary? My 'utopian' internet future doesn't see much need for DNS. Bit-torrent doesn't need it, Google lets me find information anywhere without needing to remember domain names, and portable bookmarks make my life simple.
Are you kidding? - Most BT torrents reference trackers by domain name. Of course this could change, but existing torrents would break instantly if DNS went down. - Google links pages by domain names when they have them. They might be able to reindex everything by IP address, but it would certianly be nontrivial. Also, I'll bet you load Google via its google.com domain name and not by its IP address. - I'd also wager that over 95% of your bookmarks link domain names instead of IP addresses. Expect every one of them to break if DNS were to suddenly disappear.
DNS will never go away simply because business don't want to put raw, hard to remember IP addresses on advertisements when they can put www.mcdonalds.com instead.
The article doesn't cite any sources. I guess gamespot got a copy of the "complaint"? I'd like to know more about the "numerous precedents of video games being qualified as free speech in other circuit courts and states" (quoted from TFA).
Slashdot Mirror
Those could cause problems. I mean, if a woman's bra size changed any time someone observed her chest...
Plus I'm pretty sure that the purpose of most breast implants is to increase size. Quantum-sized breasts just don't sound like they'd be very popular for some reason...
Oops, misread your post. Arena is a DOS game and thus neither requires nor can be expected to run particularly well under Windows. The link you mentioned may be for a Windows-based self-extracting archive or installer, however.
The bottom line is that I recommend running it under DOSBox. Both the floppy and CD-ROM versions run fine under the latest CVS (the CD-ROM version has problems in DOSBox 0.63 and may even be unplayable even with tricks)
DOSBox is a cross-platform emulator that uses SDL for most of its I/O. Windows and Linux are officially supported, but as it is open-source, there are many other ports floating around as well.
This is NOT going to happen. Many major game retailers (e.g. GameStop) make a significant amount of money on pre-owned (used) game sales. You can bet that they'll fight Sony tooth-and-nail to keep them from implementing any system that permanently binds a game disc to a single console.
It's also a pretty ridiculous idea, as I know a lot of people who bring together their games and/or consoles to have parties and whatnot. This kind of (legal, by the way) game trading and loaning is a form of free word-of-mouth advertising for game companies.
Going back all the way to my Atari 2600 in the early 80s, I can remember buying way more console games after having borrowed a friend's copy or renting a copy from a store that I have from reading useless magazine ads and reviews.
That statement doesn't make any sense because the act of changing it would by definition make it become a different license document.
"...designed with emphasis on dependability instead of performance."
I thought that was the point of Windows NT? So I guess there'll be 3 versions of Singularity and then they'll make a home version (a la XP), and then they'll start over from scratch again?
If they did truly suck, people wouldn't go like crazy to watch them (don't forget, Episode I is 5th on the All Time Box Office for the USA) all.
I wish people would stop making this argument, as it's totally ridiculous and unfounded. I'm sure that if you checked the statistics, you'd see a steep dropoff in ticket sales with each movie.
My own experience:
- Camped out at the theater (literally) to get tickets and seats for the first showing of Episode I. Theater was packed. I was excited to see Episode I because I had grown up with the original trilogy and was hoping to see more storytelling of the same style and caliber. In my opinion, the whole experience was much more entertaining than the movie itself, but in hindsight the feeling that I was part of history has been marred by Lucas' disappointing offering. At the time, I felt let down but deluded myself into thinking that Lucas was just a bit rusty and might do better in the sequels.
- Not even sure if I went to Episode II on the first week. Theater had an average number of attendants. After I saw Episode II, I lost all faith in Lucas' ability to make another good Star Wars film. It didn't help that by then I had part of Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy to compare it against (which is especially sad when you consider that I'm way more of a sci-fi geek than a fantasy one).
- Didn't bother seeing Episode III until it had been out for a couple of weeks. Barely anyone attended that showing. My only interest in seeing Episode III was to find out if/how Lucas would climb out of the hole he had dug himself into with the first two disappointing movies. I was again let down with a film that was lukewarm at best, crass at worst, but at least I didn't have any expectations by then.
I want to just be able to extract an archive and run a binary contained within.
Windows allows this too. However, it also gives applications the option of registering themselves with the Add/Remove Programs list for easy installation and uninstallation by the end-user. I think this is something that would be useful for *nix, which doesn't even have a single centralized "Program Files" directory in which most end user applications are installed (but more importantly, programs on any OS tend to scatter files all over the file system, and having a common uninstaller system would make it easier to clean things up).
I don't know why this /. article was posted, as I doubt any of the links add anything to the original. What would be nice is to hear a statement from Sony, who are probably trying to figure out how to damage-control the situation now that their dirty little secret is all over the Internet.
As others have stated, Bethesda's release of TES games on consoles is little more than a cash-cow attempt to generate extra income. I have no problem with this, but at the same time I have to strongly recommend that people pick up the PC versions of their games instead. The TES series has a long history of being notoriously buggy (and justifiably so due to the large yet intricate worlds that Bethesda crafts in them), and of course with Morrowind they released expansion packs which were not available on XBox as far as I know.
Speaking of the PC version of Oblivion, when is it supposed to be released? Is Take Two publishing it as well?
Lastly, I've probably mentioned this before, but despite being a long-time fan of Bethesda and TES (I've spent a lot of time playing Arena, Dagerfall, Morrowind and even Battlespire over the years), my primary interest in seeing Oblivion released is that it will clear the way for Bethesda to finish Fallout 3.
I'll start paying attention when they put out a press release stating that it can clean my bathroom for me automatically once a week.
What does POTS mean? I hate when people use acronyms without first defining them.
I've seen plenty of XBox and PS2 games that don't perform vertical retrace synchronization on TVs and result in horrible tearing artifacts. In addition TVs are limited to 60Hz (NTSC, or 50Hz on PAL). On my PC, however, I can set my video drivers to force every game to use VSync for a smooth 75Hz (or any other arbitrary refresh rate that I want to force) refresh.
I'm not sure whether nicknames in WoW are separate from character names, but if they're not then CmdrTaco is not a very realistic name for a fantasy character anyways.
I've been using my HunterZ handle in a lot of places on the 'net for quite some time as well (as you can tell by my low-ish Slashdot ID), but being a Pen-and-Paper role-player in a addition to a video gamer, I decided I should make up some standard fantasy character names for use in MMORPGs and the like (because I felt that "HunterZ" would be too silly). As a result, I usually use "Hevin Moonhunter" in games like Guild Wars, Diablo 2, and probably WoW too if I ever play it.
You should try this; you'll find that a more realistic name helps you get more "in-character" when you're playing, and it will become just as familiar to you as CmdrTaco if you use it in all the fantasy games you play.
The problem is that I'm an explorer. I have to turn over every rock and complete every subquest that I find. Even if I hate them, I can't skip mini-games without feeling like I'm missing out on some useful item or experience.
To me "going straight through without exploring" is a boring waste of time. It's also the reason I don't finish many games despite spending more time playing them than many who do finish those games.
I apologize if I misrepresented the overall fan reaction to Chrono Chross - I'm just going off of my memory, which is probably highly unreliable. On the other hand, I'm suspicious of Gamerankings' PSX list since it doesn't mention Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which was so good that it has influenced almost all subsequent Castlevania titles.
Yes, I beat Chrono Trigger actually. I guess I must have missed that one dialogue amongst all the prehistoric dancing and whatnot...
I heard they also explain it more in Chrono Cross, but that nobody liked it due to the fact that it was more of a spinoff than a sequel. I might check it out someday though (if I ever get desperate enough to try a JRPG that apparently even the fanbois don't remember fondly).
If it's any consolation, it was posted in the Games category where the /. gods have decided that 95% of stories are not worthy of beeing seen -- except by the dozen or so of us who bothered to look at what categories were available and checked the Games box. We should totally start a "/. Games category readers' club" or something.
Anyways, back on topic: I don't think that writer has played enough video games. My roommate has a morbid fascination with scary games and she could probably list off several that are way scarier than FF7 -- a game that I've tried seriously to play at least three or four times over the years but keep putting down because of all the silliness that kills the dark mood (mini-game carnivals, beach resorts, whorehouse humor, etc.).
On the topic of Japanese RPGs: It'd be great if some western-world company were to do remakes of JRPGs in a way that appeals better to non-asians. This is how we got Robotech; I guess it's also how we got Lunar, which I still didn't care much for (mostly because the plot was still too cliche). The development of Japanese RPGs was derailed at some point, and now they've all got the same recycled plots but with some new battle system gimmick. The sad part is that gamers eat it up and talk about how great each new JRPG is instead of calling the game companies out on the carpet for it. Chrono Trigger came frustratingly close to being a good game, but they screwed it up by not tying up loose ends in the plot (like what the hell is Lavos other than some spikey thing that wants to eat the world?). Final Fantsy 7 was close, but had too much cheesiness and more mini-games than regular combat encounters (it's almost like the designers had ADD and couldn't stand the idea of a consistently dark, deep plot).
I've never used Brasso before, but I'd imagine that a can of polishing compound from your local hardware or automotive parts store would work as well. Just be sure to get the least abrasive variety possible, and don't rub too hard (especially on the screen as it can potentially cause cloudiness). I don't own an iPod of any sort, however, so I can't verify any of this. I can say that I've used polishing compound to get scratches out of all sorts of things, and that it's similar to the compound included in CD scratch removal kits (the latter is usually watered down so that it can be packaged in a bottle instead of a can).
And here's a Coral Cache link to the same error page:h p?option=content&task=view&id=1891
http://www.cooltechzone.com.nyud.net:8090/index.p
Indeed. It'es almoest like people have something agaeinst useing the letter 'e' ore something.
That's a cool name in terms of mental imagery, but I also like the sound of FreshDot...
Seriously, is DNS control even necessary? My 'utopian' internet future doesn't see much need for DNS. Bit-torrent doesn't need it, Google lets me find information anywhere without needing to remember domain names, and portable bookmarks make my life simple.
Are you kidding?
- Most BT torrents reference trackers by domain name. Of course this could change, but existing torrents would break instantly if DNS went down.
- Google links pages by domain names when they have them. They might be able to reindex everything by IP address, but it would certianly be nontrivial. Also, I'll bet you load Google via its google.com domain name and not by its IP address.
- I'd also wager that over 95% of your bookmarks link domain names instead of IP addresses. Expect every one of them to break if DNS were to suddenly disappear.
DNS will never go away simply because business don't want to put raw, hard to remember IP addresses on advertisements when they can put www.mcdonalds.com instead.
"...has the potential of truely changing the way we read our information."
I'm going to wait for version 2.0, which will include a spell checker.
The article doesn't cite any sources. I guess gamespot got a copy of the "complaint"? I'd like to know more about the "numerous precedents of video games being qualified as free speech in other circuit courts and states" (quoted from TFA).