1) Recordable compact discs have their own logo and are considered a different, but analogous, media format. A player that will play compact discs, with no mention of recordable or rewritable versions in the packaging, doesn't have to play anything.
2) A DRM-crippled "CD" will not bear the Compact Disc logo, as it doesn't conform to the standard. It is a separate format that just happens to sometimes sort-of work in CD players.
Meanwhile, the movies mentioned in the article all come with a "blu-ray disc" logo on them, despite there being two distinctly different formats involved. That's misleading advertising, and I hope he wins his case. You can't create a so-called standard and then say "whoops, need to change a few things here, sucks to be you if you were an early adopter!" I understand that the bleeding edge sometimes cuts, but that's usually a result of bugs in the players or the manufacturing process, not because some idiot changed the specs of the format!
Wow, this has to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen posted on the Internet, much less Slashdot, much less modded to +5. So your argument is we should build cages in such a way so that if the tigers decide they really want to kill someone, they're allowed to do so unimpeded? That the enclosure should only contain the animals unless they really want to get out?
The tiger is a giant killing machine. At some point, regardless of what's going on out in the crowd, it's going to decide it wants to kill someone. Preventing a captive from wanting to escape is not the crux of sane prison design. And it's viewed daily by an endless parade of snot-nosed kids; I find it difficult to imagine any "taunting" that could fall outside of normal daily routine (even ignoring, as has already been pointed out in other replies, that the victim in this case wasn't taunting at all).
Indeed, it's a pity they had to put it down. The fault lies in the zoo designers, not in an animal not only doing what it's evolved to do, but apparently doing it very well. And while it has a sickening Fox-news-esque logic to it, a zoo with an authentic mankilling tiger would attract a lot of spectators, giving the zoo a better chance to do what it's meant to do: educate.
When I began playing Mass Effect, I knew it was mostly very well reviewed, but I hadn't read any specifics (on purpose, to avoid spoilers). And I agreed with the numerical values in said reviews at first glance; the game is definitely a lot of fun, and well done overall. However, after having watched my brother play his "good" character most of the way through the game then playing my evil character through on my own, I was certain the thing it'd be losing points for every time was the dialogue system. How confused I was to discover it touted as a major selling point!
For those unfamiliar with the game, you're given up to six responses in any dialogue, represented by a short sentence (usually 5-6 words) indicating the gist of your response. The problem arises when, quite often, this tiny summary bares little or no resemblance to the several paragraph response your character actually chooses. It became a running joke between my brother and me: he'd take a guess at what he wanted the character to say, pick the option, and we'd laugh as Shepherd just randomly shot off in some totally unrelated direction.
The only real control you have is in the good/evil dialogue choices. When you're presented with the response wheel, the upper left choice is always the good ("Paragon") choice, the middle left is always the neutral choice, and the lower left is always the evil ("Renegade") choice. The three on the right side are a crapshoot. So given that your character will say whatever the hell he wants to regardless of what you think the summary implies, after about an hour into the game the player realizes he just needs to pick either Paragon or Renegade and always select that option. It's not long before you stop reading the response text on the wheel altogether.
As for the aforementioned neutral option, that's a suckers bet, and might as well have been left out. You can play a neutral or balanced guy, sure, but doing so nerfs your character. Basically, if you're an asshole you get Renegade points and you can threaten people better, and if you're a pansy you get Paragon points and can cajole like a pro. Almost without fail, any time you're allowed to talk your way through a situation, you'll be able to do so with either threatening or cajoling at a certain level. The point being that if, rather than getting either one or the other to "10" you got them both to "5" (Renegade/Paragon are opposites, but it's possible to build up both point pools; it's not a scale), at some point you'll start seeing all dialogues as being solvable by either threatening at level 6 or cajoling at level 6, meaning you're screwed; that'll teach you not to be an archetype!
For that matter, what does "Paragon" and "Renegade" mean? You can't be super-evil; there's no option to just go nuts on your own and start murdering people like traditional games of this type (Fallout + evil char + sledge hammer = kill every NPC in the game was fun as hell). It seems like your choices are more between the D&D "lawful" versus "chaotic," but it really doesn't fit this definition, either. And it varies from scene to scene; sometimes the "bad" option is you being a jerk, sometimes it's following your own rules, sometimes it's following the letter of the law to an insane and hurtful extent, sometimes it's being selfish, etc etc etc. At first glance, you might think this is nice, since you can sort of role play your character: as long as the "evil" option keeps changing what it means by "evil," you can just pick it when it fits your vision of Shepherd. But that's the thing: regardless of what they actually say, the bottom left option results in Renegade points, and the top left option results in Paragon points. So even playing a narrow, "always good" or "always evil" character, you'll find yourself totally in the dark as to what your ethics actually are!
Oh, and while we're at it, whomever decided to make the "skip spoken dialogue" button also automatically select the middle option needs to be fired. Basically, it means that
I, for one, disagree. I'm tired of games that feel they have to be 10+ hours long. There's nothing wrong with a fun game I can finish in an evening if it's priced correctly, which Portal is (particularly if you get it in the Orange Box, which is really where you're meant to pick up the game).
There's an even simpler explanation for why the Internet tends to be full of fucking idiots: kids. Young people, in real life, are generally ignored by adults who aren't specifically responsible for their care, and so most people don't realize that if you just listen to what they say, they're insufferable little pricks. But on the 'net, with anonymity added, these worthless little rugrats are suddenly on equal footing with adults. They go nuts with the power to insult people who would, in an actual meeting, ignore them entirely. And not knowing that they're arguing with a 12-year-old, the adults just think that the guy/gal on the other end is a total fuckwit, instead getting upset and unhappy as if they'd had an argument with another adult.
Next time you're dealing with some Internet troll, don't get angry. Just bring to your minds' eye the truth: it's a junior highschooler angry at his lack of power in his own life and taking it out on the Internet community. It's a lot less frustrating when you see it as kids being kids.
This, incidentally, is why I favor privacy, but not total anonymity. Either keep kids out of the online arena entirely or label them somehow; they bring down the maturity of the discussion as a whole.
Unlicensed doesn't mean uncopyrighted. It just means no company yet has the rights to produce an English-language version for local distribution. The original creators still own the rights to the work, and may enforce it as they see fit.
The "don't torrent licensed anime" rule held by many fansubbers or fans is considered a moral restriction, intended to get more fans turned on to anime in general or a specific series in particular without drawing revenue away from (and thereby discouraging future) English-language versions. It has no basis in law; licensed or not, downloading anime is copyright infringement.
That said, this story is still bizarre. Why care if an unlicensed anime is available with fansubs? I suppose if a future English-language release is forthcoming but not announced, they could think they're making sure they don't lose any customers. But if that's the case, it's still misguided for two reasons: 1) fansubs tend, historically, to increase sales of the released product, since they generate buzz about a show - hell, they're the only reason anime is popular here at all. And 2) the aforementioned "don't fansub licensed work" rule works in their favor, and such a bad-faith enforcement will shatter the basis for what's essentially a tentative moral code. Treat your fans like shit and they'll return the favor.
But even this foolhardy move seems unlikely, since these are releases from different companies being targeted, many of them tremendously unlikely to see a region 1 release. It really does look like Comcast is generating these DMCA notices itself, which is just... bizarre. I'd laugh if they weren't completely without competition in so many markets, meaning for some people this sort of bullshit is effectively inescapable. I'm not a libertarian, but can we get a LITTLE help from the free market here, people?
I don't entirely disagree with you, but I must point out that your example is a bit flawed. Lets extrapolate to real life: governments print money. It retains its value only because it is a limited commodity and because it is traded for goods and services.
If you get money stolen in real life, does the mint print you up new money to replace it? No. Why? Because the surest way to devalue a good whose value exists entirely in its scarcity is to create more.
When you realize that most real money these days is itself intangible, existing entirely within networks of communicating banks and such, the analogy becomes even clearer.
Stores like Gamestop like to dance around this topic, but it's important to remember: if you buy a used game, the creators of the game don't get a dime. That's why, after all, the stores push it so hard: minus the amount they paid for the trade-in, it's 100% profit for them. These days, though, the only reason to pay for a game/movie/whatever is to support the original authors; if you're going to buy used, why not just download the game off the 'net? Pirating a game is actually BETTER for the developers than buying it used, really, as while pirating a game you honestly never intended to buy new is a wash, buying it used supports and encourages the store to try to push used over new copies, resulting in a net loss over time for the creators.
Sure, some will whine about how supporting the store is as important as supporting the devs; I call bullshit. Every Gamestop in the country could close shop tomorrow and I doubt most gamers would bat an eye. Between online venues, digital distribution, and large chains like Best Buy and Target using economics of scale to have more than enough copies at release, there are other alternatives to the pawn shop Gamestop has become.
Frankly, I'm surprised we haven't seen a massive backlash against these sorts of stores by the game publishers; I anticipate one in the near future, as other methods of distribution shrink Gamestop's market share. Why should a game company continue to work hand-in-hand with a store that's stated goal is to push used, creators-don't-get-a-penny versions over new ones?
(Note: I buy games new. You should buy games new, if you'd like to continue to see good games being sold. Please don't take the preceding analysis as an argument to always pirate games.)
It might look like it at first, but while it does share many similarities with the genre, it's not a roguelike game. It's a sandbox-style kingdom-building game of absolutely incredible complexity. They just released a huge update about a month ago that gave your digging a z-axis and, combined with a fluid dynamics engine, you can do some pretty hilarious things to defend your fortress.
Yeeeeah, there are certainly valid reasons not to buy Orange Box - this story being a damn good one - but not being worth the price!? Yeesh, what do you want them to do, include coupons for free beer and blowjobs?
Hrm, while I generally don't mind some WoW bashing, I don't like seeing anyone take bashing they don't deserve. Much of what you mention doesn't apply to World of Warcraft at all.
- No special attacks? Of course there are special attacks. Anyone who just autoswings their way through life will fail to kill mobs as early as level 5.
- Horde helping out alliance? Yeah, it happens pretty frequently. Less so on pvp servers, but it still occurs. Not sure why this is a minus, anyway; war is in the name, after all.
- Fight effectively with items way below your level - of course you can, I do it all the time while I level; not sure what this is referring to at all.
- Ganked in later chapters? Well duh, if you're on a pvp server, pvp happens. Don't like it? Try pve.
- Queue to kill a boss? Since when? Maybe if he's a quest spawn, I guess, but even the nastiest respawn timers for quest mobs are in the range of 1-2 minutes.
- Wait hours for a spawn? What spawn? Certainly no quest mobs, and boss mobs are instanced.
- Interaction with other characters? All the time. It's required for endgame content, after all. Although if you meant non-player characters... no, interact with those a lot, too.
- If people are bunnyhopping, your connection blows.
- Gold spammers? Nope, they've pretty much fixed that entirely. Haven't gotten a spam in months.
What's also funny is that you seem bothered by the perceived lack of plot, yet you're unhappy with a comic that adds story to the universe.
If you're going to bash WoW, there's plenty to bash; it's far from a perfect experience. But if you've never played it, as I suspect you haven't, I'd suggest you at least research your derision.
On a side note, this isn't the first comic they've released for WoW; there was an AWFUL, AWFUL, MY GOD IT HURTS manga-style comic released a while back.
You son of a bitch. You don't include "fallout," "bioware," and "pandemic" in an article title like that, ever. Now I have to change pants, and all for naught.
It's especially amusing given that one of the common features touted by modern game engines is often "soft shadows," where the shadow is given a false penumbra to approximate the effects of light reflected from a multitude of surfaces. Even if the softer versions were faked, I fail to see how a hard shadow is in any way technically impressive or new.
It's not funny because they changed their minds, it's funny because it was always a lie. They knew people wanted rumble, they just couldn't give it to them due to the lawsuit still in deliberation, so they decided to badmouth the technology as a whole. And now, mere months after the console's release, they're trying to quietly pull back and hope we won't point and laugh at their earlier attempts to sugarcoat their inability to provide a feature their consumers expected.
I mean, they lie to us all the time, of course; that's what PR is. But if they'd said "rumble is nice, but we can't do that due to the lawsuit, sorry. Meanwhile, here's an equally interesting technology called sixaxis..." then we'd be less likely to revel in the Schadenfreude. And really, lets remember this is Sony, purveyor or rootkits and constant attempts to force proprietary formats on unwilling consumers; they've earned no sympathy.
The end of the D2 expansion also saw, iirc, the destruction of the world crystal, with very large hints pointing towards this being a very bad thing. In essence, though destroyed, the evils in D2 actually succeeded in their goal, and we've yet to discover exactly what that means.
Whoah, what game are you playing? My second multiplayer game on Live I found myself up against 3 moronic young men who did nothing but swear constantly (I swear like a sailor myself, but for fuck's sake, there's a LIMIT) and laugh at each and every decision or trade I attempted in the game until I just had to quit. I haven't been back; it turns out a large part of what I enjoyed about Catan when I played it in college was playing it with friends or, at least, people I could expect to be civil.
Slashdot Mirror
1) Recordable compact discs have their own logo and are considered a different, but analogous, media format. A player that will play compact discs, with no mention of recordable or rewritable versions in the packaging, doesn't have to play anything.
2) A DRM-crippled "CD" will not bear the Compact Disc logo, as it doesn't conform to the standard. It is a separate format that just happens to sometimes sort-of work in CD players.
Meanwhile, the movies mentioned in the article all come with a "blu-ray disc" logo on them, despite there being two distinctly different formats involved. That's misleading advertising, and I hope he wins his case. You can't create a so-called standard and then say "whoops, need to change a few things here, sucks to be you if you were an early adopter!" I understand that the bleeding edge sometimes cuts, but that's usually a result of bugs in the players or the manufacturing process, not because some idiot changed the specs of the format!
Admit it, you "benchmarked" with Windows Solitaire.
Wow, this has to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen posted on the Internet, much less Slashdot, much less modded to +5. So your argument is we should build cages in such a way so that if the tigers decide they really want to kill someone, they're allowed to do so unimpeded? That the enclosure should only contain the animals unless they really want to get out?
The tiger is a giant killing machine. At some point, regardless of what's going on out in the crowd, it's going to decide it wants to kill someone. Preventing a captive from wanting to escape is not the crux of sane prison design. And it's viewed daily by an endless parade of snot-nosed kids; I find it difficult to imagine any "taunting" that could fall outside of normal daily routine (even ignoring, as has already been pointed out in other replies, that the victim in this case wasn't taunting at all).
Indeed, it's a pity they had to put it down. The fault lies in the zoo designers, not in an animal not only doing what it's evolved to do, but apparently doing it very well. And while it has a sickening Fox-news-esque logic to it, a zoo with an authentic mankilling tiger would attract a lot of spectators, giving the zoo a better chance to do what it's meant to do: educate.
I'm making a note here: huge success.
When I began playing Mass Effect, I knew it was mostly very well reviewed, but I hadn't read any specifics (on purpose, to avoid spoilers). And I agreed with the numerical values in said reviews at first glance; the game is definitely a lot of fun, and well done overall. However, after having watched my brother play his "good" character most of the way through the game then playing my evil character through on my own, I was certain the thing it'd be losing points for every time was the dialogue system. How confused I was to discover it touted as a major selling point!
For those unfamiliar with the game, you're given up to six responses in any dialogue, represented by a short sentence (usually 5-6 words) indicating the gist of your response. The problem arises when, quite often, this tiny summary bares little or no resemblance to the several paragraph response your character actually chooses. It became a running joke between my brother and me: he'd take a guess at what he wanted the character to say, pick the option, and we'd laugh as Shepherd just randomly shot off in some totally unrelated direction.
The only real control you have is in the good/evil dialogue choices. When you're presented with the response wheel, the upper left choice is always the good ("Paragon") choice, the middle left is always the neutral choice, and the lower left is always the evil ("Renegade") choice. The three on the right side are a crapshoot. So given that your character will say whatever the hell he wants to regardless of what you think the summary implies, after about an hour into the game the player realizes he just needs to pick either Paragon or Renegade and always select that option. It's not long before you stop reading the response text on the wheel altogether.
As for the aforementioned neutral option, that's a suckers bet, and might as well have been left out. You can play a neutral or balanced guy, sure, but doing so nerfs your character. Basically, if you're an asshole you get Renegade points and you can threaten people better, and if you're a pansy you get Paragon points and can cajole like a pro. Almost without fail, any time you're allowed to talk your way through a situation, you'll be able to do so with either threatening or cajoling at a certain level. The point being that if, rather than getting either one or the other to "10" you got them both to "5" (Renegade/Paragon are opposites, but it's possible to build up both point pools; it's not a scale), at some point you'll start seeing all dialogues as being solvable by either threatening at level 6 or cajoling at level 6, meaning you're screwed; that'll teach you not to be an archetype!
For that matter, what does "Paragon" and "Renegade" mean? You can't be super-evil; there's no option to just go nuts on your own and start murdering people like traditional games of this type (Fallout + evil char + sledge hammer = kill every NPC in the game was fun as hell). It seems like your choices are more between the D&D "lawful" versus "chaotic," but it really doesn't fit this definition, either. And it varies from scene to scene; sometimes the "bad" option is you being a jerk, sometimes it's following your own rules, sometimes it's following the letter of the law to an insane and hurtful extent, sometimes it's being selfish, etc etc etc. At first glance, you might think this is nice, since you can sort of role play your character: as long as the "evil" option keeps changing what it means by "evil," you can just pick it when it fits your vision of Shepherd. But that's the thing: regardless of what they actually say, the bottom left option results in Renegade points, and the top left option results in Paragon points. So even playing a narrow, "always good" or "always evil" character, you'll find yourself totally in the dark as to what your ethics actually are!
Oh, and while we're at it, whomever decided to make the "skip spoken dialogue" button also automatically select the middle option needs to be fired. Basically, it means that
I, for one, disagree. I'm tired of games that feel they have to be 10+ hours long. There's nothing wrong with a fun game I can finish in an evening if it's priced correctly, which Portal is (particularly if you get it in the Orange Box, which is really where you're meant to pick up the game).
Just PAST the checkpoint. As in, you get fingerprinted, and they see you walk 10 feet and buy a pair of gloves.
There's an even simpler explanation for why the Internet tends to be full of fucking idiots: kids. Young people, in real life, are generally ignored by adults who aren't specifically responsible for their care, and so most people don't realize that if you just listen to what they say, they're insufferable little pricks. But on the 'net, with anonymity added, these worthless little rugrats are suddenly on equal footing with adults. They go nuts with the power to insult people who would, in an actual meeting, ignore them entirely. And not knowing that they're arguing with a 12-year-old, the adults just think that the guy/gal on the other end is a total fuckwit, instead getting upset and unhappy as if they'd had an argument with another adult.
Next time you're dealing with some Internet troll, don't get angry. Just bring to your minds' eye the truth: it's a junior highschooler angry at his lack of power in his own life and taking it out on the Internet community. It's a lot less frustrating when you see it as kids being kids.
This, incidentally, is why I favor privacy, but not total anonymity. Either keep kids out of the online arena entirely or label them somehow; they bring down the maturity of the discussion as a whole.
I'd love to set up a stand selling gloves just past one of these checkpoints.
Unlicensed doesn't mean uncopyrighted. It just means no company yet has the rights to produce an English-language version for local distribution. The original creators still own the rights to the work, and may enforce it as they see fit.
The "don't torrent licensed anime" rule held by many fansubbers or fans is considered a moral restriction, intended to get more fans turned on to anime in general or a specific series in particular without drawing revenue away from (and thereby discouraging future) English-language versions. It has no basis in law; licensed or not, downloading anime is copyright infringement.
That said, this story is still bizarre. Why care if an unlicensed anime is available with fansubs? I suppose if a future English-language release is forthcoming but not announced, they could think they're making sure they don't lose any customers. But if that's the case, it's still misguided for two reasons: 1) fansubs tend, historically, to increase sales of the released product, since they generate buzz about a show - hell, they're the only reason anime is popular here at all. And 2) the aforementioned "don't fansub licensed work" rule works in their favor, and such a bad-faith enforcement will shatter the basis for what's essentially a tentative moral code. Treat your fans like shit and they'll return the favor.
But even this foolhardy move seems unlikely, since these are releases from different companies being targeted, many of them tremendously unlikely to see a region 1 release. It really does look like Comcast is generating these DMCA notices itself, which is just... bizarre. I'd laugh if they weren't completely without competition in so many markets, meaning for some people this sort of bullshit is effectively inescapable. I'm not a libertarian, but can we get a LITTLE help from the free market here, people?
To be fair, a ship designed to launch waste into orbit is likely to be a much simpler affair than one intended to support the lives of its crew.
I don't entirely disagree with you, but I must point out that your example is a bit flawed. Lets extrapolate to real life: governments print money. It retains its value only because it is a limited commodity and because it is traded for goods and services.
If you get money stolen in real life, does the mint print you up new money to replace it? No. Why? Because the surest way to devalue a good whose value exists entirely in its scarcity is to create more.
When you realize that most real money these days is itself intangible, existing entirely within networks of communicating banks and such, the analogy becomes even clearer.
And that, among other things, is why I always save in a rotating cycle of 3-6 save slots for 10+ hour games.
Stores like Gamestop like to dance around this topic, but it's important to remember: if you buy a used game, the creators of the game don't get a dime. That's why, after all, the stores push it so hard: minus the amount they paid for the trade-in, it's 100% profit for them. These days, though, the only reason to pay for a game/movie/whatever is to support the original authors; if you're going to buy used, why not just download the game off the 'net? Pirating a game is actually BETTER for the developers than buying it used, really, as while pirating a game you honestly never intended to buy new is a wash, buying it used supports and encourages the store to try to push used over new copies, resulting in a net loss over time for the creators.
Sure, some will whine about how supporting the store is as important as supporting the devs; I call bullshit. Every Gamestop in the country could close shop tomorrow and I doubt most gamers would bat an eye. Between online venues, digital distribution, and large chains like Best Buy and Target using economics of scale to have more than enough copies at release, there are other alternatives to the pawn shop Gamestop has become.
Frankly, I'm surprised we haven't seen a massive backlash against these sorts of stores by the game publishers; I anticipate one in the near future, as other methods of distribution shrink Gamestop's market share. Why should a game company continue to work hand-in-hand with a store that's stated goal is to push used, creators-don't-get-a-penny versions over new ones?
(Note: I buy games new. You should buy games new, if you'd like to continue to see good games being sold. Please don't take the preceding analysis as an argument to always pirate games.)
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
It might look like it at first, but while it does share many similarities with the genre, it's not a roguelike game. It's a sandbox-style kingdom-building game of absolutely incredible complexity. They just released a huge update about a month ago that gave your digging a z-axis and, combined with a fluid dynamics engine, you can do some pretty hilarious things to defend your fortress.
And to get you started, check out the "my first fortress" and other starting guides in the game wiki:
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page
Yeeeeah, there are certainly valid reasons not to buy Orange Box - this story being a damn good one - but not being worth the price!? Yeesh, what do you want them to do, include coupons for free beer and blowjobs?
And for the record, Portal is worth $50 easily.
Cynical.
You're totally right, this youtube thing will never catch on.
Hrm, while I generally don't mind some WoW bashing, I don't like seeing anyone take bashing they don't deserve. Much of what you mention doesn't apply to World of Warcraft at all.
- No special attacks? Of course there are special attacks. Anyone who just autoswings their way through life will fail to kill mobs as early as level 5.
- Horde helping out alliance? Yeah, it happens pretty frequently. Less so on pvp servers, but it still occurs. Not sure why this is a minus, anyway; war is in the name, after all.
- Fight effectively with items way below your level - of course you can, I do it all the time while I level; not sure what this is referring to at all.
- Ganked in later chapters? Well duh, if you're on a pvp server, pvp happens. Don't like it? Try pve.
- Queue to kill a boss? Since when? Maybe if he's a quest spawn, I guess, but even the nastiest respawn timers for quest mobs are in the range of 1-2 minutes.
- Wait hours for a spawn? What spawn? Certainly no quest mobs, and boss mobs are instanced.
- Interaction with other characters? All the time. It's required for endgame content, after all. Although if you meant non-player characters... no, interact with those a lot, too.
- If people are bunnyhopping, your connection blows.
- Gold spammers? Nope, they've pretty much fixed that entirely. Haven't gotten a spam in months.
What's also funny is that you seem bothered by the perceived lack of plot, yet you're unhappy with a comic that adds story to the universe.
If you're going to bash WoW, there's plenty to bash; it's far from a perfect experience. But if you've never played it, as I suspect you haven't, I'd suggest you at least research your derision.
On a side note, this isn't the first comic they've released for WoW; there was an AWFUL, AWFUL, MY GOD IT HURTS manga-style comic released a while back.
You son of a bitch. You don't include "fallout," "bioware," and "pandemic" in an article title like that, ever. Now I have to change pants, and all for naught.
Lightning is Zeus, or possibly Odin. Jehovah prefers biological warfare.
It's especially amusing given that one of the common features touted by modern game engines is often "soft shadows," where the shadow is given a false penumbra to approximate the effects of light reflected from a multitude of surfaces. Even if the softer versions were faked, I fail to see how a hard shadow is in any way technically impressive or new.
It's not funny because they changed their minds, it's funny because it was always a lie. They knew people wanted rumble, they just couldn't give it to them due to the lawsuit still in deliberation, so they decided to badmouth the technology as a whole. And now, mere months after the console's release, they're trying to quietly pull back and hope we won't point and laugh at their earlier attempts to sugarcoat their inability to provide a feature their consumers expected.
I mean, they lie to us all the time, of course; that's what PR is. But if they'd said "rumble is nice, but we can't do that due to the lawsuit, sorry. Meanwhile, here's an equally interesting technology called sixaxis..." then we'd be less likely to revel in the Schadenfreude. And really, lets remember this is Sony, purveyor or rootkits and constant attempts to force proprietary formats on unwilling consumers; they've earned no sympathy.
The end of the D2 expansion also saw, iirc, the destruction of the world crystal, with very large hints pointing towards this being a very bad thing. In essence, though destroyed, the evils in D2 actually succeeded in their goal, and we've yet to discover exactly what that means.
Whoah, what game are you playing? My second multiplayer game on Live I found myself up against 3 moronic young men who did nothing but swear constantly (I swear like a sailor myself, but for fuck's sake, there's a LIMIT) and laugh at each and every decision or trade I attempted in the game until I just had to quit. I haven't been back; it turns out a large part of what I enjoyed about Catan when I played it in college was playing it with friends or, at least, people I could expect to be civil.