While I can't read the article probably because it was slashdotted, the quote above looks like typical media exageration. If you want a study on "addiction" to MMO's to be taken seriously, you might want to classify it on several different levels:
1) Destructiveness of the addiction 2) Severity of Withdrawal 3) Prevalence of addiction in general
Saying 11% of player are addicted to MMOs means nothing without quantifying what you consider "addiction". It's also meaningless without considering the side effects of addiction. 100% of people are "addicted" to oxygen, but that's not a very useful claim since there's no quantifyable affect of that "addiction". The severity of the withdrawal is important to consider, because a destructive addiction that is very hard to drop is more dangerous than one that is easily quit, like MMOs. Lastly, before you go all hog wild about how 11% of MMO players are addicted, I'd like to some useful background material like how many bingo players are addicted to bingo, how many musicians are addicted to music, how many quilters are addicted to quilting, and how many hockey players are addicted to hockey. After all are they amateur atheletes or are they just addicts waiting for their next exercise fix?
Many people have a tendency to invest a lot of time in individual pursuits for a while, whether it be atheletics, school, work, sex, or TV. The question with these studies is always going to be are the people addicted, or just enjoying themselves and socializing with friends online?
I work for an ISP, Windows is more expensive to run and maintain, it takes more time and most importantly has large start up costs. You can fudge these number in any number of ways, by not including any additional functionality in your web hosting. By cutting out the database backend and email, you save money on the Windows side on paper (Exchange and MS SQL costs $$$) but save little on the Unix side. In practice you can't do that and run a real web hosting business, but in theory you can do so to fake the result you want. You can also fudge by using the difference in salaries between Unix and Windows sysadms without using the differences in productivity that account for the difference in salaries. You can also fudge it by not including the cost of down time from worms and other miscellaneous problems that occur on Windows.
Reports like this are just too easily biased by the company doing the study as to be virtually meaningless.
The are Christians and you are your fellows embrace them. If you don't want to be associated with them stand up and denounce them, kick them out of your faith, and stop letting them be your spokespeople.
The only time I see Christians saying "Oh he's not one of us" is when another Christian is in trouble for doing something stupid or downright evil. That's not good enough, if you want to be respected as not being stupid and/or evil, you've got to police your own and punish them for their transgressions.
No, people are just using common sense. Microsoft always buys good reviews for their games, even when they don't need them. You know, just in case they do. It's standard operating procedure for them to determine who can be bought and who can't and then buy out everyone they can.
Like someone else said, it all depends on what you like and what you have available (as a platform). I'm only including games that I've played and liked. Each section is roughly ordered from best to worst game.
If you like brawling action: Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2) Gauntlet: Dark Legacy (GC, PS2, Xbox) Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (GC, PS2, Xbox) Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (GC, PS2, Xbox) Batman: The Rise of Sin Tzu (GC, PC, PS2, Xbox) Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows (PC, PS2, Xbox)
If you like quasi-rpg brawlers: X-Men Legends (PS2, Xbox, GC) X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse (GC, PS2, Xbox) Champions of Norrath (PS2) Champions of Norrath 2: Return to Arms (PS2) Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (GC, PS2, Xbox) Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (PS2, Xbox) Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (GC) Hunter the Reckoning (GC, Xbox) Hunter the Reckoning: Wayward (PS2) Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer (Xbox) Fallout Brotherhood of Steel (PS2, Xbox)
If you like racing games: Super Monkey Ball (GC) Gran Tourismo 3 & 4 (PS2) Jak X Combat Racing (PS2)
If you like first person shooters: Halo (PC, Xbox) Halo 2 (PC, Xbox) Half-Life (PS2)
If you like Roleplaying Games: World of Warcraft (PC x2) Valkerie Profile 2: Silmeria (PS2) Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (PS2)
If you like RTS games: Starcraft (PC x2) Warcraft III (PC x2) Total Annihilation (PC x2) Warcraft II (PC x2) Warcraft I (PC x2)
If you like strategy games: Civilization III & IV (PC) Alpha Centauri (+ Alien Crossfire Expansion) (PC) Master of Orion II (PC) Master of Magic (PC)
I know I'm missing quite a few games from that list, but those are the ones I've played and enjoyed playing.
No, no, due to the major studio cancellation of the movie, Bungie has reached a deal with production company Rooster Teeth to complete the Halo movie project. It will be exclusively released via the Xbox Marketplace for $8 per download.
I'm prefectly fine with Sony using the PS3 to push their format, it's a product they built, and using the same technology for their next generation DVD players is pretty much common sense for them. Microsoft was going to do it too, but figured out that HD DVD drives would delay the launch and they desperately wanted to be first to market.
What I don't like is Sony passing on the cost of the Blu-Ray drive to the customer. Everything else is just people griping because they want something to gripe about. Removing the ability of the PS3 to play movies won't make it a better gaming system for anyone.
So Sony is "evil" because the format of their game storage mechanism *can* be used to play movies and *might* become a new standard. They would be less "evil" if their format could not be used to play movies and therefore could not become a new standard?
Is this some new world where a console that costs just as much, but does less is better than the one that does more?
Sony screwed up on the Blu-Ray for sure, I'm sure they expected prices to have already fallen on the components when they started designing and building the PS3. But criticising them because it does play movies, just seems to be sour grapes.
Funny, I have a GameCube and a PS2 and every time I walk into a gaming store, I'm reminded of how many cool games are not available for the GameCube.
Frankly, most of the GameCube games seem to be rubbish.
Re:This is cronyism at its finest
on
More A's, More Pay
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually, when the private corporation gives up, a government would have to step in to take over running the school. Eventually, there'd be enough schools being run by local governments that they'd demand state and federal funding. And eventually they'd have to establish a department of education to regulate all the schools, and they'd start a program to ensure that all children have access to schooling, because an uneducated adult has very, very limited opportunities.
In other words, privatizing the education system will whiplash you right back to where you are right now within 2 generations (my predicition), and then you'd have to deal with a million extra uneducated adults who fell between the cracks of the private system. That likely means higher crimes rates, and a lower economic output for the country as a whole.
Actually, I'm right and you're misquoting. It's not "an entertainment experience" it's "our entertainement experience".
In any case, you seem to misunderstand the point of my criticism, that an HDMI output is not an experience. HDMI is merely a determinant in the quality of the experience. You contention that the lack of HDMI output indicates they would, in fact exclude people is not accurate. No one would have been excluded from partipating in any part of the PS3 on the lower end model, even if they hadn't added the HDMI dongle. There are no games you wouldn't have been able to play and there are no movies you wouldn't have been able to watch.
I believe it's abundantly clear that Sony rep was saying that they wouldn't shut people out of the experience, because someone with a core Xbox can not download movies, not that they wouldn't provide a better experience for more money. So no, the original lack of an HDMI does not contradict that statement at all and it's absolutely clear to anyone who isn't massively prejudiced against Sony that that is the case.
Lastly, people who misquote and distort the truth shouldn't bitch about strawmen.
I didn't Foe you either. You're FoF according to my screen. I don't hate you, I just think you're being a dick because you dislike Sony. I think you know it too, you shouldn't be surprised whent you get called on it.
HDMI is an output, not having an HDMI output port doesn't stop you from doing anything except outputting through HDMI port. Not having a hard drive prevents you from downloading practically any downloadable content. So we're talking prevented from doing "playing movies" or prevented from "playing movies across the HDMI port". Those activities are hardly equivalent and the simple fact that you are trying to equate them, simply damages your credibility.
Wrong Rush, Genius! He's obviously the 4th member of Rush from the days before they decided the tambourine wasn't a real instrument. Too bad, he could have made the big time, if only he'd had talent. Eventually, after a string of failed gigs with other bands, he gave up and fell back on his back-up career, ambulance chaser. Eventually connections got him a position as a judge, where he can punish the artistic world that rejected him.
Oh and an additional note: it seems the professors who conducted this "research" are both former members of a conservative think tank who set out to quantify how much of a liberal bias there was in the media.
Ah, I found it. Frankly I think the methodology of that study is flawed, it didn't find that media has a real liberal bias as much as it found that the media is more liberal than the average politician, and therefore by extrapolation the average voter based on the number of times they cited a politician's speeches.
That methodology just seems fraught with potential problems.
Um.. No. In fact there is a large amount of data which shows that my "theories" ARE fact. It was modded as a troll by Free Speech Suppressors fairly quickly, so you may have missed my earlier post with the link to several studies showing that there is indeed a Liberal media bias in America. My opinion is borne out by scientific study and fact.
Studies carried out by conservative institutes, paid for by conservative political funds, and used for conservative political purposes. With such impartial credentials who could doubt the results?
Occams Razor dictates that the simplest answer is most likely the correct one. What is more likely; That a national conspiracy involving Diebold, The Republican party, and THOUSANDS of election workers of all political stripes banded together to hand elections over to the Bush and the Republicans, OR, that a company has made an inferior product that sometimes causes irregularities in the voting records?
I love Occam's Razor games. However, what you've done is create a strawman argument. First you need to add the "unfortunate" declaration by the Diebold that he was personally going to hand victory in Ohio to Bush. Then you subtract the election wokers of all political stripes, because they're not involved. Then you add Diebold employees who admit to having secretly modified the code days before an election occured, and having been deliberately lied to about what the patch did, and being instructed to keep the changes secret from the election officials. Now which explanation is simpler? That the liberal media is making this stuff up, or that just maybe there's something the should be seriously investigated.
Oh right, you don't give a fuck as long as your side is winning, asshole.
Of course, a different point of view is that you won't find one because it doesn't happen.
Suppose for a second that votes were actually being deliberately flipped using Diebold voting machines. What would you expect to be different? The "liberal" media actually has said very little about the possibility of vote theft. In fact, the has been no mention of the possibility of malfeasance by the major news media. It's only a few sporadic small papers, some online papers, and some magazines that have even looked at the issue.
Unlike the propisition that the systems have been deliberately rigged, there is direct evidence, which you ignore, to show that your theory doesn't fit the facts. You make allowances for partisanship on behalf of the people counting the votes, and then insist that the media is making a big deal about it. Guess what it is a big deal. It is simply unacceptable for the campaign directors of any political party to be solely in charge of counting the votes. It invariably creates the appearance of impropriety even if there is none. It's a significant problem and anyone who think it isn't either has an agenda or is in denial.
Random error is only a plausible excuse when it affects all parties equally. When the error is consistantly for one party or against another (or worse both) there is a real problem whether or not it's deliberate. Anyone who claims otherwise is being disingenous.
Slashdot Mirror
While I can't read the article probably because it was slashdotted, the quote above looks like typical media exageration. If you want a study on "addiction" to MMO's to be taken seriously, you might want to classify it on several different levels:
1) Destructiveness of the addiction
2) Severity of Withdrawal
3) Prevalence of addiction in general
Saying 11% of player are addicted to MMOs means nothing without quantifying what you consider "addiction". It's also meaningless without considering the side effects of addiction. 100% of people are "addicted" to oxygen, but that's not a very useful claim since there's no quantifyable affect of that "addiction". The severity of the withdrawal is important to consider, because a destructive addiction that is very hard to drop is more dangerous than one that is easily quit, like MMOs. Lastly, before you go all hog wild about how 11% of MMO players are addicted, I'd like to some useful background material like how many bingo players are addicted to bingo, how many musicians are addicted to music, how many quilters are addicted to quilting, and how many hockey players are addicted to hockey. After all are they amateur atheletes or are they just addicts waiting for their next exercise fix?
Many people have a tendency to invest a lot of time in individual pursuits for a while, whether it be atheletics, school, work, sex, or TV. The question with these studies is always going to be are the people addicted, or just enjoying themselves and socializing with friends online?
Remember as long as Microsoft doesn't acklowedge the bug exists, it doesn't count!
I work for an ISP, Windows is more expensive to run and maintain, it takes more time and most importantly has large start up costs. You can fudge these number in any number of ways, by not including any additional functionality in your web hosting. By cutting out the database backend and email, you save money on the Windows side on paper (Exchange and MS SQL costs $$$) but save little on the Unix side. In practice you can't do that and run a real web hosting business, but in theory you can do so to fake the result you want. You can also fudge by using the difference in salaries between Unix and Windows sysadms without using the differences in productivity that account for the difference in salaries. You can also fudge it by not including the cost of down time from worms and other miscellaneous problems that occur on Windows.
Reports like this are just too easily biased by the company doing the study as to be virtually meaningless.
The are Christians and you are your fellows embrace them. If you don't want to be associated with them stand up and denounce them, kick them out of your faith, and stop letting them be your spokespeople.
The only time I see Christians saying "Oh he's not one of us" is when another Christian is in trouble for doing something stupid or downright evil. That's not good enough, if you want to be respected as not being stupid and/or evil, you've got to police your own and punish them for their transgressions.
... and therefore there are no reasonable grounds to threaten people with punishment in what is very likely to be an imaginary place.
No, people are just using common sense. Microsoft always buys good reviews for their games, even when they don't need them. You know, just in case they do. It's standard operating procedure for them to determine who can be bought and who can't and then buy out everyone they can.
This sounds like classical evolution. You change the environment and the animal adapts to the new environment.
Like someone else said, it all depends on what you like and what you have available (as a platform). I'm only including games that I've played and liked. Each section is roughly ordered from best to worst game.
If you like brawling action:
Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
Gauntlet: Dark Legacy (GC, PS2, Xbox)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (GC, PS2, Xbox)
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (GC, PS2, Xbox)
Batman: The Rise of Sin Tzu (GC, PC, PS2, Xbox)
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows (PC, PS2, Xbox)
If you like quasi-rpg brawlers:
X-Men Legends (PS2, Xbox, GC)
X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse (GC, PS2, Xbox)
Champions of Norrath (PS2)
Champions of Norrath 2: Return to Arms (PS2)
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (GC, PS2, Xbox)
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (PS2, Xbox)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (GC)
Hunter the Reckoning (GC, Xbox)
Hunter the Reckoning: Wayward (PS2)
Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer (Xbox)
Fallout Brotherhood of Steel (PS2, Xbox)
If you like racing games:
Super Monkey Ball (GC)
Gran Tourismo 3 & 4 (PS2)
Jak X Combat Racing (PS2)
If you like first person shooters:
Halo (PC, Xbox)
Halo 2 (PC, Xbox)
Half-Life (PS2)
If you like Roleplaying Games:
World of Warcraft (PC x2)
Valkerie Profile 2: Silmeria (PS2)
Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (PS2)
If you like RTS games:
Starcraft (PC x2)
Warcraft III (PC x2)
Total Annihilation (PC x2)
Warcraft II (PC x2)
Warcraft I (PC x2)
If you like strategy games:
Civilization III & IV (PC)
Alpha Centauri (+ Alien Crossfire Expansion) (PC)
Master of Orion II (PC)
Master of Magic (PC)
I know I'm missing quite a few games from that list, but those are the ones I've played and enjoyed playing.
No, no, due to the major studio cancellation of the movie, Bungie has reached a deal with production company Rooster Teeth to complete the Halo movie project. It will be exclusively released via the Xbox Marketplace for $8 per download.
I'm prefectly fine with Sony using the PS3 to push their format, it's a product they built, and using the same technology for their next generation DVD players is pretty much common sense for them. Microsoft was going to do it too, but figured out that HD DVD drives would delay the launch and they desperately wanted to be first to market.
What I don't like is Sony passing on the cost of the Blu-Ray drive to the customer. Everything else is just people griping because they want something to gripe about. Removing the ability of the PS3 to play movies won't make it a better gaming system for anyone.
So Sony is "evil" because the format of their game storage mechanism *can* be used to play movies and *might* become a new standard.
They would be less "evil" if their format could not be used to play movies and therefore could not become a new standard?
Is this some new world where a console that costs just as much, but does less is better than the one that does more?
Sony screwed up on the Blu-Ray for sure, I'm sure they expected prices to have already fallen on the components when they started designing and building the PS3. But criticising them because it does play movies, just seems to be sour grapes.
Funny, I have a GameCube and a PS2 and every time I walk into a gaming store, I'm reminded of how many cool games are not available for the GameCube.
Frankly, most of the GameCube games seem to be rubbish.
Actually, when the private corporation gives up, a government would have to step in to take over running the school. Eventually, there'd be enough schools being run by local governments that they'd demand state and federal funding. And eventually they'd have to establish a department of education to regulate all the schools, and they'd start a program to ensure that all children have access to schooling, because an uneducated adult has very, very limited opportunities.
In other words, privatizing the education system will whiplash you right back to where you are right now within 2 generations (my predicition), and then you'd have to deal with a million extra uneducated adults who fell between the cracks of the private system. That likely means higher crimes rates, and a lower economic output for the country as a whole.
Yes according to Wikipedia thePS3 has a Component Video out and component video can handle 1080p, though probably not as well as a DVI or HDMI cable.
Actually, I'm right and you're misquoting. It's not "an entertainment experience" it's "our entertainement experience".
In any case, you seem to misunderstand the point of my criticism, that an HDMI output is not an experience. HDMI is merely a determinant in the quality of the experience. You contention that the lack of HDMI output indicates they would, in fact exclude people is not accurate. No one would have been excluded from partipating in any part of the PS3 on the lower end model, even if they hadn't added the HDMI dongle. There are no games you wouldn't have been able to play and there are no movies you wouldn't have been able to watch.
I believe it's abundantly clear that Sony rep was saying that they wouldn't shut people out of the experience, because someone with a core Xbox can not download movies, not that they wouldn't provide a better experience for more money. So no, the original lack of an HDMI does not contradict that statement at all and it's absolutely clear to anyone who isn't massively prejudiced against Sony that that is the case.
Lastly, people who misquote and distort the truth shouldn't bitch about strawmen.
I didn't Foe you either. You're FoF according to my screen. I don't hate you, I just think you're being a dick because you dislike Sony. I think you know it too, you shouldn't be surprised whent you get called on it.
HDMI is an output, not having an HDMI output port doesn't stop you from doing anything except outputting through HDMI port. Not having a hard drive prevents you from downloading practically any downloadable content. So we're talking prevented from doing "playing movies" or prevented from "playing movies across the HDMI port". Those activities are hardly equivalent and the simple fact that you are trying to equate them, simply damages your credibility.
Ah, Zonk, just had throw a jab in a Sony into your commentary didn't ya?
Look it's logical fallacy 8: Prejudicial Language!
Bah. If Wikipedia's failing, then I hope it keeps failing. It's doing pretty damn well for a failure.
Wrong Rush, Genius! He's obviously the 4th member of Rush from the days before they decided the tambourine wasn't a real instrument. Too bad, he could have made the big time, if only he'd had talent. Eventually, after a string of failed gigs with other bands, he gave up and fell back on his back-up career, ambulance chaser. Eventually connections got him a position as a judge, where he can punish the artistic world that rejected him.
Oh and an additional note: it seems the professors who conducted this "research" are both former members of a conservative think tank who set out to quantify how much of a liberal bias there was in the media.
Ah, I found it. Frankly I think the methodology of that study is flawed, it didn't find that media has a real liberal bias as much as it found that the media is more liberal than the average politician, and therefore by extrapolation the average voter based on the number of times they cited a politician's speeches.
That methodology just seems fraught with potential problems.
Um.. No. In fact there is a large amount of data which shows that my "theories" ARE fact. It was modded as a troll by Free Speech Suppressors fairly quickly, so you may have missed my earlier post with the link to several studies showing that there is indeed a Liberal media bias in America. My opinion is borne out by scientific study and fact.
Studies carried out by conservative institutes, paid for by conservative political funds, and used for conservative political purposes. With such impartial credentials who could doubt the results?
Occams Razor dictates that the simplest answer is most likely the correct one. What is more likely; That a national conspiracy involving Diebold, The Republican party, and THOUSANDS of election workers of all political stripes banded together to hand elections over to the Bush and the Republicans, OR, that a company has made an inferior product that sometimes causes irregularities in the voting records?
I love Occam's Razor games. However, what you've done is create a strawman argument. First you need to add the "unfortunate" declaration by the Diebold that he was personally going to hand victory in Ohio to Bush. Then you subtract the election wokers of all political stripes, because they're not involved. Then you add Diebold employees who admit to having secretly modified the code days before an election occured, and having been deliberately lied to about what the patch did, and being instructed to keep the changes secret from the election officials. Now which explanation is simpler? That the liberal media is making this stuff up, or that just maybe there's something the should be seriously investigated.
Oh right, you don't give a fuck as long as your side is winning, asshole.
It's clear the reporter doesn't believe that's really true, it's just the excuse that was given to him.
Of course, a different point of view is that you won't find one because it doesn't happen.
Suppose for a second that votes were actually being deliberately flipped using Diebold voting machines. What would you expect to be different? The "liberal" media actually has said very little about the possibility of vote theft. In fact, the has been no mention of the possibility of malfeasance by the major news media. It's only a few sporadic small papers, some online papers, and some magazines that have even looked at the issue.
Unlike the propisition that the systems have been deliberately rigged, there is direct evidence, which you ignore, to show that your theory doesn't fit the facts. You make allowances for partisanship on behalf of the people counting the votes, and then insist that the media is making a big deal about it. Guess what it is a big deal. It is simply unacceptable for the campaign directors of any political party to be solely in charge of counting the votes. It invariably creates the appearance of impropriety even if there is none. It's a significant problem and anyone who think it isn't either has an agenda or is in denial.
Random error is only a plausible excuse when it affects all parties equally. When the error is consistantly for one party or against another (or worse both) there is a real problem whether or not it's deliberate. Anyone who claims otherwise is being disingenous.