I think there's room for both. Speaking for myself, there are times that I can enjoy a good "casual" game that makes no pretense towards immersion and other times that I like losing myself in another world. Both have their draws; the casual game is a great release when you just want to have some fun and the immersive game is the perfect escapism from your boring, humdrum life. For example, on the Xbox 360 lately I'll start out with a couple of quick games of Uno before diving head-on into Fallout 3.
While it's great to examine roles of various games I think this is a non-issue. There will always be both types of games, there will always be developers for both and there will always be people who want either type of experience at different times.
This argument carried a lot more weight when the cartridges themselves carried a lot more weight. The DS carts are so tiny that any claims of "piracy for convenience" seem more like a facetious justification than anything. I have probably about 15-20 games along with 5-6 favored Gameboy Advance games that I carry around in a ziploc baggie in my laptop bag.
And besides that, how many games do you REALLY need to carry with you? I carry my whole library because I have somewhere to put them. Realistically, I only really need 2-3 games to keep myself occupied for hours.
Okay, I can understand Anarchy Online's form of advertising: you're using our product for free, you're going to see the occasional Sprite or Motley Crue billboard. I could also understand some product placement being thrown into the cheaper games, i.e. this game only costs $20 but all the soda machines in the game are Coke-branded. But when new games cost $50 and there's talk of the next generation of console games costing even MORE, why should we have to pay that much and STILL have advertising?
Although I do agree that the well-placed ad (billboards, soda-machines, etc.) can increase the authenticity of a modern-themed game, I think it's more a sad statement on how raped our society has become by these money-hungry bastards. But the worst part is that we all know it won't stop there. I can imagine five years from now we'll be playing a fantasy-themed RPG and every time we level up, we'll have to sit through 2 minutes of commercials just like TV.
I am bombarded with advertising in every facet of life. Why do I have to be force-fed even more ads during my favorite form of escapism?
I, for one, think this idea of one character per server is really the only way to go. All this talk about muling/twinking is, no matter how you slice it, exploiting the system. There will be other exploits, of course...but at least this one won't be there.
The only thing mentioned that I could actually see as a legitimate issue is the complaint about not being able to hang with your friends if you want to play another character. There's one thing, though, that people haven't taken into consideration: With this rule, your friends will most likely be playing on other servers too! Just share your alternate characters with all your friends along with the server names and you'll be set!
As sad as it is, I think whitelisting is going to be the only way to go until some decent legislation is passed to fight spam. The FTC is going after the fraudulent stuff, but until spamming is actually made illegal, it'll just continue to get worse. Unfortunately, I do not trust the current regime to legislate this...we could end up losing even more civil rights than we already have.
Besides, whitelisting isn't all that horrible of a concept when you really think about it. In an offhand way, many of us use the same concept by using a Hotmail or Yahoo email address for everything and only giving our REAL address out to the people we trust. It's just a different way of thinking from the "good old days" - which definitely sucks, but so do banner ads, pop-ups, et al...and they aren't going anywhere.
I just picked myself up a new box and currently am running WinXP Pro, though I am planning on throwing a Linux partition on it as soon as I get the time to do so. I will probably split my time between OSs, perhaps spending a little more time with WinXP.
To me, one's choice of OS is more philosophical than anything else these days. Personally, I like Windows' hardware detection and ease of use, especially for games. When I install something, I don't have to worry about libraries, dependencies, distributions, package types...I just run it and it installs (for the most part). Linux is getting there, but (other than the Linux-native games) you're running a game made for one OS on another...and that usually takes some tinkering.
That leads me to my love of Linux - the tinkering. With Windows, everything happens behind the scenes...but with Linux, you can climb in as deeply into the inner workings of the OS as you want. Wanna find out WHY something is working the way it is? Use the source, Luke! Want your desktop to look EXACTLY the way you want it...or want to get rid of it altogether without sacrificing usability? Linux is the way to go! But then again, there are times I don't WANT to worry about that stuff...and that's when I use Windows.
The point I'm trying to make in a roundabout way is that I can't see purpose in choosing one or another, other than for purely philosophical reasons. WinXP does a lot of nice things...and as much as I hate Microsoft, they did a good job. Linux also does a lot of nice things, albeit in a much different (and sometimes more elegant) way than Windows...and everytime I use Linux, I get a good feeling about using an OS that was created with a philosophy I can get behind wholeheartedly.
When it comes down to it...use whatever the hell you want. Use one, both or neither. And that, to me, is the biggest strength of Linux - you HAVE that choice.
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I think there's room for both. Speaking for myself, there are times that I can enjoy a good "casual" game that makes no pretense towards immersion and other times that I like losing myself in another world. Both have their draws; the casual game is a great release when you just want to have some fun and the immersive game is the perfect escapism from your boring, humdrum life. For example, on the Xbox 360 lately I'll start out with a couple of quick games of Uno before diving head-on into Fallout 3.
While it's great to examine roles of various games I think this is a non-issue. There will always be both types of games, there will always be developers for both and there will always be people who want either type of experience at different times.
This argument carried a lot more weight when the cartridges themselves carried a lot more weight. The DS carts are so tiny that any claims of "piracy for convenience" seem more like a facetious justification than anything. I have probably about 15-20 games along with 5-6 favored Gameboy Advance games that I carry around in a ziploc baggie in my laptop bag.
And besides that, how many games do you REALLY need to carry with you? I carry my whole library because I have somewhere to put them. Realistically, I only really need 2-3 games to keep myself occupied for hours.
Okay, I can understand Anarchy Online's form of advertising: you're using our product for free, you're going to see the occasional Sprite or Motley Crue billboard. I could also understand some product placement being thrown into the cheaper games, i.e. this game only costs $20 but all the soda machines in the game are Coke-branded. But when new games cost $50 and there's talk of the next generation of console games costing even MORE, why should we have to pay that much and STILL have advertising?
Although I do agree that the well-placed ad (billboards, soda-machines, etc.) can increase the authenticity of a modern-themed game, I think it's more a sad statement on how raped our society has become by these money-hungry bastards. But the worst part is that we all know it won't stop there. I can imagine five years from now we'll be playing a fantasy-themed RPG and every time we level up, we'll have to sit through 2 minutes of commercials just like TV.
I am bombarded with advertising in every facet of life. Why do I have to be force-fed even more ads during my favorite form of escapism?
Thanks so much for killing off another good BT tracker, you fucking moron.
With love,
The rest of the fucking world.
I, for one, think this idea of one character per server is really the only way to go. All this talk about muling/twinking is, no matter how you slice it, exploiting the system. There will be other exploits, of course...but at least this one won't be there.
The only thing mentioned that I could actually see as a legitimate issue is the complaint about not being able to hang with your friends if you want to play another character. There's one thing, though, that people haven't taken into consideration: With this rule, your friends will most likely be playing on other servers too! Just share your alternate characters with all your friends along with the server names and you'll be set!
Oy.
As sad as it is, I think whitelisting is going to be the only way to go until some decent legislation is passed to fight spam. The FTC is going after the fraudulent stuff, but until spamming is actually made illegal, it'll just continue to get worse. Unfortunately, I do not trust the current regime to legislate this...we could end up losing even more civil rights than we already have.
Besides, whitelisting isn't all that horrible of a concept when you really think about it. In an offhand way, many of us use the same concept by using a Hotmail or Yahoo email address for everything and only giving our REAL address out to the people we trust. It's just a different way of thinking from the "good old days" - which definitely sucks, but so do banner ads, pop-ups, et al...and they aren't going anywhere.
I just picked myself up a new box and currently am running WinXP Pro, though I am planning on throwing a Linux partition on it as soon as I get the time to do so. I will probably split my time between OSs, perhaps spending a little more time with WinXP.
To me, one's choice of OS is more philosophical than anything else these days. Personally, I like Windows' hardware detection and ease of use, especially for games. When I install something, I don't have to worry about libraries, dependencies, distributions, package types...I just run it and it installs (for the most part). Linux is getting there, but (other than the Linux-native games) you're running a game made for one OS on another...and that usually takes some tinkering.
That leads me to my love of Linux - the tinkering. With Windows, everything happens behind the scenes...but with Linux, you can climb in as deeply into the inner workings of the OS as you want. Wanna find out WHY something is working the way it is? Use the source, Luke! Want your desktop to look EXACTLY the way you want it...or want to get rid of it altogether without sacrificing usability? Linux is the way to go! But then again, there are times I don't WANT to worry about that stuff...and that's when I use Windows.
The point I'm trying to make in a roundabout way is that I can't see purpose in choosing one or another, other than for purely philosophical reasons. WinXP does a lot of nice things...and as much as I hate Microsoft, they did a good job. Linux also does a lot of nice things, albeit in a much different (and sometimes more elegant) way than Windows...and everytime I use Linux, I get a good feeling about using an OS that was created with a philosophy I can get behind wholeheartedly.
When it comes down to it...use whatever the hell you want. Use one, both or neither. And that, to me, is the biggest strength of Linux - you HAVE that choice.