Re:It maters not what the review says
on
Review: Spore
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Despite the DRM fiasco, it's definitely worth picking up.
No. Allow me to misquote you on this.
Because of the DRM fiasco, it's definitely worth keeping well away from this game.
Let me now step into a different role:
I don't know much about computers, but here's what my friend who knows tons about this stuff had to say, "Its decent. It has DRM though. That's a real shame, because DRM is bad - really bad. Just stay away from games that use DRM and your machine will thank you."
So, if I understand correctly, all you really need is to hack the system that stores the RFID challenge/response pairs to say that your RFID chip matches whatever other chip you want it to be. It wouldn't matter whether your chip is a clone or not.
What prevents them then, from having RFID chips that act as master keys to everything? Or for that matter, from the government or certain security agencies getting master keys because of national security?
Seems like this is more of a gateway to insecurity.
Interesting you mentioned this. Spore Creature Creator had exactly that effect on me. Till I used it, I thought it would be extremely cool. Now, I'm not so enthusiastic at all.
I might have tried out Spore if it didn't have DRM. Now, I know that I may not like it and I know that it has DRM. My computer's health is far more valuable to me than me being able to play a game that doesn't seem that great to begin with.
I DO NOT want to go through the patching/activating/restarting/configuration hell that is re-installing Windows if something goes wrong (seriously, Linux is now a breeze to install in comparison). DRM implementations from other games that I have paid for have messed up my computing experience in the past. If I buy a game, I want to be able to play it and then get rid of it. I do not want it to interfere with anything else, especially the functioning of hardware, THAT I OWN.
So, if you have played a part in the decision to wrap Spore in DRM and are reading this, you have just lost one more potential customer. I will instead be buying games that I know have no DRM in them. If they're your competitors, too bad. Time to get with the times.
Well, I think a simple start would be to come up with a nice polished compiz theme and desktop (like a good avant dock with some nice icons) that uses this driver to its fullest. We are now at the point where a Linux Desktop can look as good as, if not better than, Windows or the Mac.
Give the average Joe Bloggs a PC running Linux that is relatively immune to viruses and auto-updates Firefox, Flash, Java, GNOME/KDE and VLC when its not being used and you have one happy computer user.
Build computers that use VIA chipsets for all the family that you run tech support for and lets start driving Linux adoption up! The drivers are here.
Three years can do a lot. Remember what Linux was like 3 years ago. Be patient and if you want it to improve, CONTRIBUTE. If the majority of games can work on even one distro out of the box, the other distros will lose users. It is the simple model of evolution at work - the other distros will adapt to suit the environment they are in. Open source will make sure the knowledge is shared.
Yes. We are very quickly getting to the point where we don't need much more eye candy in a game. I think in 3 years, the focus will not be on flashy games anymore, but on original ones. No better platform than the PC for that.
I agree 100% - wild and cute enough to make you want to play with it.
Linux has laid the foundation.
Firefox has taken good care of our browsing.
OpenOffice + Google docs have given us portable information.
KDE 4 has given us a flashy desktop, GNOME has given us a simple yet powerful one - both are beautiful in their own right.
VLC/Mplayer have given us independence of video formats.
Linux + Firefox + KDE 4/GNOME + OpenOffice + VLC/Mplayer = desktop independence. Only piece of the puzzle left is gaming. Once we have gaming, drivers on Linux (for anything consumer oriented atleast) will no longer be a problem. I definitely see that happening within the next 3 years, but we as a Linux community HAVE TO back whichever video card manufacturer gives us the best Linux drivers. Make them work for our cash and very soon, Linux will be a standard platform to release for.
Make doping legal and you destroy the games. Pure and simple. You will effectively turn the games into more comedy than sport when you suddenly start seeing crazy side-effects resulting from all kinds of dope combinations. In addition, you will also be forcing athletes to dope if they ever want to have a hope of winning. That cannot be a good thing because you're forcing them to basically destroy themselves mentally and physically. Finally, if you were the athlete and you were all doped up because you had to and you won a race, would you not wonder whether it was you or the dope? Do we want to take that sense of achievement away from our athletes? Definitely not. The Olympics are there to show us what the human body is capable of when trained. Not when doped. Make that a separate event, where they can dope and then see how many will want to participate when they know others will be too. What encourages doping in an athlete is the drive to win at any cost and a mentality that makes them cheat. Cheating is a reality and will always be a problem that has to be dealt with until we have a way to make it impossible to cheat. Its the mental drive to break rules if necessary. Do you seriously think that new rules will help the cause?
(1) There are enough universally applied usability rules to allow you to design an application for well over 90% of end users. I will go out on a limb and say that if you want your software to grow and evolve, you will make it usable. This means that you will try your best to minimize what your target audience needs to learn in order to use it. Poor usability simply means you hope someone else will do the work.
(2)Designers design. Coders code. Each is good at their own job. What is important is good communication between the two. As long as one does not try to tell the other how to do their job, things will be fine. What is needed is simply a level of respect and appreciation for the abilities of the two fields. When they work well together is when you have successful projects.
I do agree with your point of learning "the Windows way" being pointless. I'd also like to extend it to learning things "the Apple way", or any other way. That said though, I do think that a lot can be achieved by taking the good points of each and iteratively applying them - Apple is good at identifying stuff to do in the background. Windows is good at making everything explicit. While there is no one size fits all solution, open source can learn from the good points (and mistakes) of the others.
I have an 8800GT card. Honestly, my video card is keeping me from moving to Linux totally. Now that ATI's drivers are good, my next card will be ATI. Yes NVIDIA, I have no loyalty. I am a customer who will buy from a company that caters to my needs. Linux support forms a big part of that. If you cannot deliver, I will buy ATI. For christmas. So long and thanks for all the fish.
As for KDE, give the poor guys a break. KDE 4.0 was definitely a messed up release. I'm using KDE 4.1 RC1 and while there are still rough edges to be ironed out, it is definitely usable. I must admit though, that Gnome has definitely impressed me with its snappiness. I will not be moving to Gnome, however, because I like the way KDE 4 is turning out. Even my wife is totally comfortable using it and she has never used Linux before.
In this universe, in this galaxy, in this timeline and on this planet, smartass. Mere mortals can order online right? Heard of 3d Printing services? I'm guessing not. I'm also guessing you did not even bother to search, but just shoot your mouth off insead. Fine, I will spoon feed you, if only for the benefit of other readers.
For those reading this, here are the
OpenMoko CAD Files
Here is info on getting started with 3d printing:
Fab@home
Finally, here are locations where you can order your plans printed:
Fabbers of the World
or
map of fabbers of the world
Next time, do a little homework and maybe you won't look like an idiot.
Mod parent up. The iPhone had a good start because Apple was behind it. The OpenMoko, like most open source software, starts off ugly (remember what Firefox 1.0 looked like? or KDE 2.0?). If enough people buy it, it will evolve into something beautiful. Lock in sucks. I will be buying an OpenMoko FreeRunner, simply because I can set what ring tones I want, I can write my own software for it and I can load what software I like on it. I do not want some company's vision dictating how I should be using my phone. Its a big enough headache that carriers want a slice of that pie, which they will not be able to do with the FreeRunner (heard of a locked FreeRunner yet?) I think the FreeRunner is great as a developer's phone. Most open source software starts out as something developers find great and then evolve into something that users like. The more people that get on board with the FreeRunner, the faster it will evolve. Finally, if you don't like the look, it does come with the CAD plans, so you can shape the case differently. Heck, fork the case design! That's what open source is about. Mutate. Fork. Survival of the fittest. But everything stays free and that rules.
My test for an intuitive interface is simple: If I find that I need to do something that I don't know how to do yet, I use my understanding of the interface so far and see if what I think I need to do is what gets the job done. If it does, I consider the interface intuitive. Of course, I'm very familiar with using computers in general so I do consider my simple test to be valid.
I personally believe that interfaces that try to do the same thing can be made intuitive by simply being consistent : knowledge used/learnt on one interface becomes immediately useful on the other. Good examples : the most basic spreadsheet cell manipulations, the "x" button meaning close window, the right-click menu, basic browser layout - everyone knows how to use the address bar.
Anything can become intuitive if you take the time to learn it. However, how much are you going to force your users to learn? Aren't there enough different interfaces already? Sometimes there is a need for a different interface, but definitely not in in Blender's case. I can start up Maya, 3dStudio Max and Lightwave to name a few and have a model of a sculpted vase in a matter of minutes. It takes me about half an hour in Blender simply because the interface does not make sense! Its more a matter of memorizing the interface than understanding it.
Please Blender devs...I love open source, I want to use Blender for my casual 3D modeling and I have tried for years to understand Blender and retain that understanding. However, every time I need to do something new, I end up spending an hour or so searching on the Web or moving through tutorial videos just to figure out what I need. Please do something about it. I know I'm not alone.
I think you have that backwards. This is exactly why it WILL succeed. Open Source products seem to follow the "survival of the fittest" rule. Users determine what's fit. Forks allow the users to choose and the open nature of both branches allows those from the sinking ship to switch loyalties if they so choose.
Yes, it takes longer to mature than commercial software, but that's only because a user base decides more slowly than a product manager.
IMHO, the ONLY thing now that keeps Windows on PCs is the sheer number of games available for it. It used to be drivers, office apps & games. Then it used to be office apps & games. Now its just games. I think that's the defining nature of Open Source - slow but sure.
It will succeed because it already is succeeding. We just need to be patient and support it as its users.
Slashdot Mirror
Please don't unleash the force.
Despite the DRM fiasco, it's definitely worth picking up.
No. Allow me to misquote you on this.
Because of the DRM fiasco, it's definitely worth keeping well away from this game.
Let me now step into a different role:
I don't know much about computers, but here's what my friend who knows tons about this stuff had to say, "Its decent. It has DRM though. That's a real shame, because DRM is bad - really bad. Just stay away from games that use DRM and your machine will thank you."
So, if I understand correctly, all you really need is to hack the system that stores the RFID challenge/response pairs to say that your RFID chip matches whatever other chip you want it to be. It wouldn't matter whether your chip is a clone or not.
What prevents them then, from having RFID chips that act as master keys to everything? Or for that matter, from the government or certain security agencies getting master keys because of national security?
Seems like this is more of a gateway to insecurity.
Interesting you mentioned this. Spore Creature Creator had exactly that effect on me. Till I used it, I thought it would be extremely cool. Now, I'm not so enthusiastic at all.
I might have tried out Spore if it didn't have DRM. Now, I know that I may not like it and I know that it has DRM. My computer's health is far more valuable to me than me being able to play a game that doesn't seem that great to begin with.
I DO NOT want to go through the patching/activating/restarting/configuration hell that is re-installing Windows if something goes wrong (seriously, Linux is now a breeze to install in comparison). DRM implementations from other games that I have paid for have messed up my computing experience in the past. If I buy a game, I want to be able to play it and then get rid of it. I do not want it to interfere with anything else, especially the functioning of hardware, THAT I OWN.
So, if you have played a part in the decision to wrap Spore in DRM and are reading this, you have just lost one more potential customer. I will instead be buying games that I know have no DRM in them. If they're your competitors, too bad. Time to get with the times.
Well, I think a simple start would be to come up with a nice polished compiz theme and desktop (like a good avant dock with some nice icons) that uses this driver to its fullest. We are now at the point where a Linux Desktop can look as good as, if not better than, Windows or the Mac.
Give the average Joe Bloggs a PC running Linux that is relatively immune to viruses and auto-updates Firefox, Flash, Java, GNOME/KDE and VLC when its not being used and you have one happy computer user.
Build computers that use VIA chipsets for all the family that you run tech support for and lets start driving Linux adoption up! The drivers are here.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of...
omg! Attack of the clones!
Three years can do a lot. Remember what Linux was like 3 years ago. Be patient and if you want it to improve, CONTRIBUTE. If the majority of games can work on even one distro out of the box, the other distros will lose users. It is the simple model of evolution at work - the other distros will adapt to suit the environment they are in. Open source will make sure the knowledge is shared.
Yes. We are very quickly getting to the point where we don't need much more eye candy in a game. I think in 3 years, the focus will not be on flashy games anymore, but on original ones. No better platform than the PC for that.
I agree 100% - wild and cute enough to make you want to play with it.
Linux has laid the foundation.
Firefox has taken good care of our browsing.
OpenOffice + Google docs have given us portable information.
KDE 4 has given us a flashy desktop, GNOME has given us a simple yet powerful one - both are beautiful in their own right.
VLC/Mplayer have given us independence of video formats.
Linux + Firefox + KDE 4/GNOME + OpenOffice + VLC/Mplayer = desktop independence. Only piece of the puzzle left is gaming. Once we have gaming, drivers on Linux (for anything consumer oriented atleast) will no longer be a problem. I definitely see that happening within the next 3 years, but we as a Linux community HAVE TO back whichever video card manufacturer gives us the best Linux drivers. Make them work for our cash and very soon, Linux will be a standard platform to release for.
You wouldn't be American by any chance would you? :) j/k
Make doping legal and you destroy the games. Pure and simple. You will effectively turn the games into more comedy than sport when you suddenly start seeing crazy side-effects resulting from all kinds of dope combinations.
In addition, you will also be forcing athletes to dope if they ever want to have a hope of winning. That cannot be a good thing because you're forcing them to basically destroy themselves mentally and physically.
Finally, if you were the athlete and you were all doped up because you had to and you won a race, would you not wonder whether it was you or the dope? Do we want to take that sense of achievement away from our athletes? Definitely not.
The Olympics are there to show us what the human body is capable of when trained. Not when doped. Make that a separate event, where they can dope and then see how many will want to participate when they know others will be too.
What encourages doping in an athlete is the drive to win at any cost and a mentality that makes them cheat. Cheating is a reality and will always be a problem that has to be dealt with until we have a way to make it impossible to cheat. Its the mental drive to break rules if necessary. Do you seriously think that new rules will help the cause?
Here's another one:
Steve, your organization is now bloated - 640kB of common sense is no longer enough.
"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." - Steve Balmer
eh? no no no...
"Microsoft is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."
yep. sounds about right.
I disagree with both points.
(1) There are enough universally applied usability rules to allow you to design an application for well over 90% of end users. I will go out on a limb and say that if you want your software to grow and evolve, you will make it usable. This means that you will try your best to minimize what your target audience needs to learn in order to use it. Poor usability simply means you hope someone else will do the work.
(2)Designers design. Coders code. Each is good at their own job. What is important is good communication between the two. As long as one does not try to tell the other how to do their job, things will be fine. What is needed is simply a level of respect and appreciation for the abilities of the two fields. When they work well together is when you have successful projects.
I do agree with your point of learning "the Windows way" being pointless. I'd also like to extend it to learning things "the Apple way", or any other way. That said though, I do think that a lot can be achieved by taking the good points of each and iteratively applying them - Apple is good at identifying stuff to do in the background. Windows is good at making everything explicit. While there is no one size fits all solution, open source can learn from the good points (and mistakes) of the others.
I have an 8800GT card. Honestly, my video card is keeping me from moving to Linux totally. Now that ATI's drivers are good, my next card will be ATI. Yes NVIDIA, I have no loyalty. I am a customer who will buy from a company that caters to my needs. Linux support forms a big part of that. If you cannot deliver, I will buy ATI. For christmas. So long and thanks for all the fish. As for KDE, give the poor guys a break. KDE 4.0 was definitely a messed up release. I'm using KDE 4.1 RC1 and while there are still rough edges to be ironed out, it is definitely usable. I must admit though, that Gnome has definitely impressed me with its snappiness. I will not be moving to Gnome, however, because I like the way KDE 4 is turning out. Even my wife is totally comfortable using it and she has never used Linux before.
Bad link to the fabbers map....here is the right one
In this universe, in this galaxy, in this timeline and on this planet, smartass. Mere mortals can order online right? Heard of 3d Printing services? I'm guessing not. I'm also guessing you did not even bother to search, but just shoot your mouth off insead. Fine, I will spoon feed you, if only for the benefit of other readers. For those reading this, here are the OpenMoko CAD Files Here is info on getting started with 3d printing: Fab@home Finally, here are locations where you can order your plans printed: Fabbers of the World or map of fabbers of the world Next time, do a little homework and maybe you won't look like an idiot.
Mod parent up. The iPhone had a good start because Apple was behind it. The OpenMoko, like most open source software, starts off ugly (remember what Firefox 1.0 looked like? or KDE 2.0?). If enough people buy it, it will evolve into something beautiful.
Lock in sucks. I will be buying an OpenMoko FreeRunner, simply because I can set what ring tones I want, I can write my own software for it and I can load what software I like on it. I do not want some company's vision dictating how I should be using my phone. Its a big enough headache that carriers want a slice of that pie, which they will not be able to do with the FreeRunner (heard of a locked FreeRunner yet?)
I think the FreeRunner is great as a developer's phone. Most open source software starts out as something developers find great and then evolve into something that users like. The more people that get on board with the FreeRunner, the faster it will evolve.
Finally, if you don't like the look, it does come with the CAD plans, so you can shape the case differently. Heck, fork the case design! That's what open source is about. Mutate. Fork. Survival of the fittest. But everything stays free and that rules.
Steve Steve Steve. Throw that chair across the room. There. Feel better? Now shut up.
And hopefully the /. article won't be a dupe.
My test for an intuitive interface is simple: If I find that I need to do something that I don't know how to do yet, I use my understanding of the interface so far and see if what I think I need to do is what gets the job done. If it does, I consider the interface intuitive. Of course, I'm very familiar with using computers in general so I do consider my simple test to be valid.
I personally believe that interfaces that try to do the same thing can be made intuitive by simply being consistent : knowledge used/learnt on one interface becomes immediately useful on the other. Good examples : the most basic spreadsheet cell manipulations, the "x" button meaning close window, the right-click menu, basic browser layout - everyone knows how to use the address bar.
Anything can become intuitive if you take the time to learn it. However, how much are you going to force your users to learn? Aren't there enough different interfaces already? Sometimes there is a need for a different interface, but definitely not in in Blender's case. I can start up Maya, 3dStudio Max and Lightwave to name a few and have a model of a sculpted vase in a matter of minutes. It takes me about half an hour in Blender simply because the interface does not make sense! Its more a matter of memorizing the interface than understanding it.
Please Blender devs...I love open source, I want to use Blender for my casual 3D modeling and I have tried for years to understand Blender and retain that understanding. However, every time I need to do something new, I end up spending an hour or so searching on the Web or moving through tutorial videos just to figure out what I need. Please do something about it. I know I'm not alone.
I think you have that backwards. This is exactly why it WILL succeed. Open Source products seem to follow the "survival of the fittest" rule. Users determine what's fit. Forks allow the users to choose and the open nature of both branches allows those from the sinking ship to switch loyalties if they so choose.
Yes, it takes longer to mature than commercial software, but that's only because a user base decides more slowly than a product manager.
IMHO, the ONLY thing now that keeps Windows on PCs is the sheer number of games available for it. It used to be drivers, office apps & games. Then it used to be office apps & games. Now its just games. I think that's the defining nature of Open Source - slow but sure.
It will succeed because it already is succeeding. We just need to be patient and support it as its users.
You're not talking about Prison Break 1.0 are you?
...and "I don't think so Dave" will be a legitimate washing machine response :)
Oh yeah, ANY torrents are a big no no because they nuke routers and wireless networks. Simple rule and it works.