ask any car salesman. in america, horsepower sells. sure a 75HP Geo would get Mr. Guy to work just fine, but you see a lot more 340HP Chrysler 300C's on the road than your theory would account for.
if it's not in the game, the game should not be judged on that criteria. in order to see the pornographic content, users had to VIOLATE THEIR TERMS OF USE of the game. those pornographic images weren't in the game that rockstar sold. they were locked away and completely inaccessible, unless users broke the user agreement they agreed to when they installed the game.
it is the same as rating a movie based on scenes that were cut out, only visible by breaking and entering the studio editing room.
let's say i go out and buy the lateset harry potter book. very nice. i find it in the children's section. then i decide to draw naughty pictures in the margins. uh oh! the book is now pornography! pull them all off the shelves and burn them!
yeah i was thrilled to find out my new homeowner's association pays for "cable internet" through our homeowner's fees... until i found out that it was artificially limited to 256 kbps unless you paid extra! that's worse than doing nothing for us.
still, you can't deny the myriad things you CAN do from your chair now that just five or ten years ago required a phyical trip to the library, DMV, government center, washington DC, or the mall.
this is the most ridiculously flawed logic i've ever heard. if something is worth defending, it's obviously broken? you're assuming that all criticism is always valid. in my experience good systems are often compromises, and pleasing everyone is impossible.
the tauren aren't evil in any way, as you said. orcs aren't either, though. they were once manipulated by demons into their bloodlusted state, but that has disapated and the orcs in WoW are more akin to Star Trek: The Next Generation Klingons. aggressive, and they enjoy battle, but valueing honor above violence, and ultimately desiring peace over war (but not being afraid of war).
the forsaken are pretty sympathetic characters, if you talk to them most of them are pretty depressed and hopeless, they've had this horrible curse thrust upon them. from what i understand of the lore, some of them want to wipe out all life on the planet. so i guess there's that, but most just seem to be trying to find some kind of life to lead, if not live.
the trolls, well, they're just mean-spirited nasty creatures, for the most part, and the only race i would actually call evil.
and i think this is the only real conlcusion that can be drawn. the difference was not in how kids and chimps learn, but in how they perceived the situation. the kids are obeying their elders by performing tasks that don't make sense to them. same thing they always do. the chimps aren't hampered by the disadvantage of having been told every morning by an adult to make their bed even though they'll just be un-making it that night to sleep in it.
To use the line analogy, since farmers are only 10% of the people in the park, they can't make the lines more than 10% longer.
unfortunately, the theme park line analogy doesn't hold up here. although they may only make up a tiny percentage of the population, the farmers (could potentially) create a large percentage of the gold in existence in the game world, thus contributing to the destruction of the game economy. firstly, the farmers are not constrained by trying to enjoy their experience. they will embark upon and repeat a task for hours on end that is too mundane and repetitive even for your most dedicated MMORPGers, if it gains them slightly more gold per hour. in addition, since they are part of an organized business, you better believe they have access to professionally-designed tools, bots, analysis, and (most likely) cheats and exploits.
what a freaking joke. does anyone -- ANYONE -- give the VGA's even the tiniest amount of respect? if only someone could do something like this properly. i hate hate hate this.
The real reason Blizzard charges anything for the client software is because if they gave it away, then brick and mortar stores like EB, walmart, best buy, etc, would not give it any shelf space. these stores are where the vast majority of games are sold. blizzard doesn't want to risk going at it without that face-time and marketing that those stores provide.
well it certainly brought in a lot of players who had never played a mmorpg before, but i think most had played some incarnation of starcraft, warcraft, or diablo in the past.
not only that, but it comes from a rich and popular franchise, and from a company with a reputation for only releasing fun and incredibly well polished products.
you're thinking of "Warcraft Adventures", which was a non-action Adventure game, like King's Quest or Monkey Island or whatever. it got canned several years before World of Warcraft development began.
as far as how they come up with what to make for a game... i think the process is exactly as you described.
actually, complicating game mechanics does not lead to deeper strategy. in fact quite the opposite.
the more you increase the complexity of the game mechanics, the more it becomes a contest of who knows the rules the best. surely you wouldn't say chess is less strategic than starcraft simply because starcraft is demonstrably more complex. (has more types of units, a larger board, several different types of damage and unit abilities, flying peices, etc.)
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ask any car salesman. in america, horsepower sells. sure a 75HP Geo would get Mr. Guy to work just fine, but you see a lot more 340HP Chrysler 300C's on the road than your theory would account for.
same with every sims game ever released, and hell just about every other game ever.
if it's not in the game, the game should not be judged on that criteria. in order to see the pornographic content, users had to VIOLATE THEIR TERMS OF USE of the game. those pornographic images weren't in the game that rockstar sold. they were locked away and completely inaccessible, unless users broke the user agreement they agreed to when they installed the game.
it is the same as rating a movie based on scenes that were cut out, only visible by breaking and entering the studio editing room.
let's say i go out and buy the lateset harry potter book. very nice. i find it in the children's section. then i decide to draw naughty pictures in the margins. uh oh! the book is now pornography! pull them all off the shelves and burn them!
stupid stupid stupid stupid.
yeah i was thrilled to find out my new homeowner's association pays for "cable internet" through our homeowner's fees ... until i found out that it was artificially limited to 256 kbps unless you paid extra! that's worse than doing nothing for us.
still, you can't deny the myriad things you CAN do from your chair now that just five or ten years ago required a phyical trip to the library, DMV, government center, washington DC, or the mall.
this is the most ridiculously flawed logic i've ever heard. if something is worth defending, it's obviously broken? you're assuming that all criticism is always valid. in my experience good systems are often compromises, and pleasing everyone is impossible.
the tauren aren't evil in any way, as you said. orcs aren't either, though. they were once manipulated by demons into their bloodlusted state, but that has disapated and the orcs in WoW are more akin to Star Trek: The Next Generation Klingons. aggressive, and they enjoy battle, but valueing honor above violence, and ultimately desiring peace over war (but not being afraid of war).
the forsaken are pretty sympathetic characters, if you talk to them most of them are pretty depressed and hopeless, they've had this horrible curse thrust upon them. from what i understand of the lore, some of them want to wipe out all life on the planet. so i guess there's that, but most just seem to be trying to find some kind of life to lead, if not live.
the trolls, well, they're just mean-spirited nasty creatures, for the most part, and the only race i would actually call evil.
and i think this is the only real conlcusion that can be drawn. the difference was not in how kids and chimps learn, but in how they perceived the situation. the kids are obeying their elders by performing tasks that don't make sense to them. same thing they always do. the chimps aren't hampered by the disadvantage of having been told every morning by an adult to make their bed even though they'll just be un-making it that night to sleep in it.
To use the line analogy, since farmers are only 10% of the people in the park, they can't make the lines more than 10% longer.
unfortunately, the theme park line analogy doesn't hold up here. although they may only make up a tiny percentage of the population, the farmers (could potentially) create a large percentage of the gold in existence in the game world, thus contributing to the destruction of the game economy. firstly, the farmers are not constrained by trying to enjoy their experience. they will embark upon and repeat a task for hours on end that is too mundane and repetitive even for your most dedicated MMORPGers, if it gains them slightly more gold per hour. in addition, since they are part of an organized business, you better believe they have access to professionally-designed tools, bots, analysis, and (most likely) cheats and exploits.
i agree.
what a freaking joke. does anyone -- ANYONE -- give the VGA's even the tiniest amount of respect? if only someone could do something like this properly. i hate hate hate this.
well i guess you're right and 4.5 million subscribers are wrong.
i take it you haven't played much world of warcraft. the game largely eliminates these annoyances.
these responses are scheduled to be fixed in the patch next tuesday morning.
The real reason Blizzard charges anything for the client software is because if they gave it away, then brick and mortar stores like EB, walmart, best buy, etc, would not give it any shelf space. these stores are where the vast majority of games are sold. blizzard doesn't want to risk going at it without that face-time and marketing that those stores provide.
well it certainly brought in a lot of players who had never played a mmorpg before, but i think most had played some incarnation of starcraft, warcraft, or diablo in the past.
not only that, but it comes from a rich and popular franchise, and from a company with a reputation for only releasing fun and incredibly well polished products.
touch a lead from the battery to the starter case and the car [i]will[/i] start. USB won't stop that.
are you kidding? most games required a system reboot to run at all. Remember "DOS MODE" anyone? bleah.
you're thinking of "Warcraft Adventures", which was a non-action Adventure game, like King's Quest or Monkey Island or whatever. it got canned several years before World of Warcraft development began.
... i think the process is exactly as you described.
as far as how they come up with what to make for a game
i thought it was pretty obvious it was staged from the first time i watched it. i still think it's hilarious.
this is a violation of the declaration of independince and shouldn't be able to be a law. if they dont like it they ought to move to FRANCE.
actually, complicating game mechanics does not lead to deeper strategy. in fact quite the opposite.
the more you increase the complexity of the game mechanics, the more it becomes a contest of who knows the rules the best. surely you wouldn't say chess is less strategic than starcraft simply because starcraft is demonstrably more complex. (has more types of units, a larger board, several different types of damage and unit abilities, flying peices, etc.)