As several others pointed out, there are many games that already have better voting methods; usually one player calls a vote and everyone gets a little message at the top of the screen telling them what the vote is, and to press one button for "yes" and the other for "no". Unfortunately, it's my experience that these votes hardly ever pass. I'm not sure if this is because of bad vote-counting algorithms (it seems that some systems count abstention the same as voting no, rather than disregarding it entirely) or what, but clearly something isn't right. Even when someone is blatantly and obviously cheating, it's almost impossible to get them kicked off.
A quick examination of this post reveals that the author has mistaken the true "I find UT more fun than Q3" for the subjective, unverifiable, and essentially meaningless "UT is more fun than Q3".
This is what the vast majority of posters in this thread are missing: fun is subjective! It's not a quantity that can be measured or calculated. Some of you obviously feel that a game must be innovative in order to be fun. Bully for you. I have no problem with a game refining a time-tested formula. You play your games, and I'll play mine.
I think you need to read the story again... Verany/Sony isn't suing anyone. They're just deleting accounts (I think that's what they're doing... maybe it's even less severe). It's the EQ players being punished who are suing Verany/Sony.
As far as creating solutions in the game go, I think denying the characters of cheaters is sufficiently "in-game". You could make the argument that the game is too vulnerable to this kind of cheating... I wouldn't know; the whole basis of EQ seems non-fun to me, so I can't tell what would change the game without ruining the attraction.
Now, I don't now nor will I ever play EverQuest, but I'm an ardent MUDder, and I despise people who do this sort of thing. It completely undermines the point of the game, substituting one's personal wealth for skill or time investment. It's highly unfair to people who actually play the game as intended.
Of course, the real reason is probably 'cuz they don't want to lose the accounts of people who abandon the game out of disgust of this sort of cheating. (They are a corporation, after all.) Nevertheless, I'm firmly on their side no matter what their motive. Buying your way into success in a game is just lame.
(And yeah, I know it's "just a game". I take games fairly seriously.)
The author isn't getting the model confused with the display. The argument against motion blur is that players would not know where to aim their weapons, because what they see would not match what is "really" (within the pseudoreality of the game, that is) happening.
A few Cowards have hit this point already, but I'll take the risk of redundancy in order to present it with some sort of minimum elegance.
Simply put, you need to look more into what games are available on both systems. There are, of course, plenty of PC games that don't require any more thought than the console games you're denouncing, but more importantly, there are plenty of console games that require just as much thought as any PC game.
There's at least one passel, maybe more, of RPGs for consoles(Final Fantasy 1-8, Chrono Trigger/Cross), as well as strategy-based games (Fire Emblem, Ogre Battle Tactics), puzzle games (Chu Chu Rocket, Daedalian Opus [I know it's a really old game, but damn does it take thought...]), and more...
At the risk of appearing a nitpicker, I'd like to say that - unless the Claw supports chording as someone suggested - it won't work for Counterstrike. Just count necessary commands:
4 movements, jump, walk, crouch, use, reload... well, that's 9 buttons already and we don't even have one key for weapon switching - and in my experience, you really want buttons for all 5 slots. I'll assume we use the keyboard for buying.
Now of course, we could theoretically use the keyboard to supplement the scant button selection on the Claw, but is this really feasible? I couldn't get a good look at 'em from those pictures, but it sounds like it would be very difficult to get a finger out of one of those grooves, to a given key, and back while still playing.
(We can use the keyboard for buying anyway 'cuz that happens before the fighting starts.)
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As several others pointed out, there are many games that already have better voting methods; usually one player calls a vote and everyone gets a little message at the top of the screen telling them what the vote is, and to press one button for "yes" and the other for "no". Unfortunately, it's my experience that these votes hardly ever pass. I'm not sure if this is because of bad vote-counting algorithms (it seems that some systems count abstention the same as voting no, rather than disregarding it entirely) or what, but clearly something isn't right. Even when someone is blatantly and obviously cheating, it's almost impossible to get them kicked off.
A quick examination of this post reveals that the author has mistaken the true "I find UT more fun than Q3" for the subjective, unverifiable, and essentially meaningless "UT is more fun than Q3".
This is what the vast majority of posters in this thread are missing: fun is subjective! It's not a quantity that can be measured or calculated. Some of you obviously feel that a game must be innovative in order to be fun. Bully for you. I have no problem with a game refining a time-tested formula. You play your games, and I'll play mine.
I think you need to read the story again... Verany/Sony isn't suing anyone. They're just deleting accounts (I think that's what they're doing... maybe it's even less severe). It's the EQ players being punished who are suing Verany/Sony.
As far as creating solutions in the game go, I think denying the characters of cheaters is sufficiently "in-game". You could make the argument that the game is too vulnerable to this kind of cheating... I wouldn't know; the whole basis of EQ seems non-fun to me, so I can't tell what would change the game without ruining the attraction.
Now, I don't now nor will I ever play EverQuest, but I'm an ardent MUDder, and I despise people who do this sort of thing. It completely undermines the point of the game, substituting one's personal wealth for skill or time investment. It's highly unfair to people who actually play the game as intended.
Of course, the real reason is probably 'cuz they don't want to lose the accounts of people who abandon the game out of disgust of this sort of cheating. (They are a corporation, after all.) Nevertheless, I'm firmly on their side no matter what their motive. Buying your way into success in a game is just lame.
(And yeah, I know it's "just a game". I take games fairly seriously.)
The author isn't getting the model confused with the display. The argument against motion blur is that players would not know where to aim their weapons, because what they see would not match what is "really" (within the pseudoreality of the game, that is) happening.
A few Cowards have hit this point already, but I'll take the risk of redundancy in order to present it with some sort of minimum elegance.
Simply put, you need to look more into what games are available on both systems. There are, of course, plenty of PC games that don't require any more thought than the console games you're denouncing, but more importantly, there are plenty of console games that require just as much thought as any PC game.
There's at least one passel, maybe more, of RPGs for consoles(Final Fantasy 1-8, Chrono Trigger/Cross), as well as strategy-based games (Fire Emblem, Ogre Battle Tactics), puzzle games (Chu Chu Rocket, Daedalian Opus [I know it's a really old game, but damn does it take thought...]), and more...
At the risk of appearing a nitpicker, I'd like to say that - unless the Claw supports chording as someone suggested - it won't work for Counterstrike. Just count necessary commands: 4 movements, jump, walk, crouch, use, reload... well, that's 9 buttons already and we don't even have one key for weapon switching - and in my experience, you really want buttons for all 5 slots. I'll assume we use the keyboard for buying.
Now of course, we could theoretically use the keyboard to supplement the scant button selection on the Claw, but is this really feasible? I couldn't get a good look at 'em from those pictures, but it sounds like it would be very difficult to get a finger out of one of those grooves, to a given key, and back while still playing.
(We can use the keyboard for buying anyway 'cuz that happens before the fighting starts.)