Friend, I'm with you, but you're mistaken here. People don't grab power for reasons. People grab power, to have power. Any reasons they give are merely excuses, every last damn time. Or, to quote Orwell (as if that's neccessary on/.), "Power is not a means; it is an end... The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
They're pushing for CPPRM because it gives them a kick in the pants to control and dominate others. Not because they give a crap about "music pirating". The CPRM plans will continue regardless of M$'s success in this attempt.
Don't buy software from such companies. Then they'll sink SOONER, rather than later. And your critical data won't be locked up in proprietary formats you can no longer open.
I'm actually serious folks, not just being a anti-corporate/. whiner (though I am usually;). This could be a viable business plan. When your competitors' software ceases to run and they lose their work, you will be in the lead because your company wasn't foolish enough to accept such a risky business model.
However, as soon as a really major company feels the bite of this, there will probably be a huge lawsuit against whatever company discontinued their software leasing. And that might change things. Until then, about all we can do is boycott such software in the desktop market.
Of course the nastiest thing about mobile phone use in The Matrix is the way the whole team use Nokias, except the backstabbing turncoat who has a Motorola!
Damn, I can't tell if you're joking, I need to rewatch the scene where Cypher ditches his cell in the trash to see for myself. That little Motorola rat bastard!! j/k
But actually, even though there were good shots of the phones (as I now realize on taking a careful rewatch), it still never registered on me, and I think I know why.
Some things are so homogenized that all examples of the art are the same, at least to the uninitiate. To most everyone, any facial tissue is a "kleenex". This is regardless of the fact that to some people, certain other facial tissues are far superior.
To me, all phones are alike. They all do the same thing, and in my experience, there's no real difference in how or how well they do it. To those who know and care about them, they might notice branding on cellphones. To me, it's just "a phone", a prop used in the movie. And to be honest, I think Nokias might be what a crowd of underground hacker-ish guerillas might use, but that's just in my uneducated opinion.
I think the only time product placement really hurts a movie is when it's done at the expense of plot or believability. If Neo had paused in Bullet Time, taking a break from grappling with the Agent so he could suck down a cold, refreshing Coca-Cola, then that would be stupid. But we don't see anyone screaming about product placement when we have that long scene showing all the military hardware Neo is carrying (the opening-the-trenchcoat-"whoah" scene).
Product placement, to rephrase, is only bad when it is done to the extent that it detracts from plot or believability. That is to say, it is only bad when it is used effectively (because if it just blends in to the background, no one will notice it). I think some people should get off their high horses and realize that some things need to be included for believability.
However, I will check up on that motorola cell for Cypher. If so, that IS kinda low. =P
You want to get away from real life? Read a book...
You want to have fun with your friends? Practice a sport...
You want to whine whine whine about the subject? Just keep your actual life style...
Well, THAT tells me about zero useful information.
There were once no ads online. Now there are. If more people read books, I can guarantee you there would be ads on book covers and ads halfway through the pages. And playing sports, one is subjected to an amazing number of nike and adidas logos.
Please, give me a break. No one lifestyle is better than any other. And I feel I have a right to complain, having paid for internet service and having nowhere agreed that that service in any way involved my having to look at ads, and now it's being forced upon me. Before long, there will be nowhere left to escape from them on the internet, which is why I recommend everyone use ad-blocking software (for as long as it remains legal, considering the way corporations currently have the reins of the government).
Yes, reading a book is fun. I've been reading for pleasure all my life. It's a great way to "escape". But the internet isn't an escape, you doofus - it's how I stay in touch. News, email, chat, discussions, research. Who needs Napster and other timewasters when there's so much to LEARN?
I loved Baldur's Gate, it's a great game. It's the closest to being a computer role playing game that any game had gotten to that point. However, even saying that, it's not really a true roleplaying game. My paraphrase was from the old political saying, "Democracy is the worst system, unless you count all those other systems that have been tried from time to time." The quote is in favor of Democracy.
BG & BG2 are great games, but they, like Diablo, still have a long way to go before they are truly roleplaying games. The D&D license was cool (the fire dragon movie clip for TSR ruled), and the game engine was nice, but it still lacks what a true computer rpg will have to one day have - really, really, REALLY good AI. In fact, true AI would be required - you have to have a sentient DM to have a real roleplaying experience. =)
If that was product placement, it sure failed like hell. There was no glimpse of the logo or anything to let you know they were Nokias. The fact of the matter is, product placement is only effective when it's blatant; either blatantly in your face, or blatantly saturated so you subconsciously get used to seeing it everywhere. And either type is extremely annoying.
Try Diablo one. THAT's what Diablo II would have been, if it hadn't sucked.
The Baldur's Gate games are an attempt at an RPG for the PC; a weak attempt, but like democracy, better than everything else that's been tried.;)
Diablo was an action adventure game, a fact which has escaped many people. It is in NO sense a role playing game. I've been playing Diablo 1 on battle.net for almost 3 years now, and I can assure you of this. Diablo characters are not roleplayed at all, they are treated like avatars of the players. I've met maybe 5 roleplayng Diablo players, ever.
Diablo 2 is an action game much like Diablo 1, except with all the fun and challenge removed. Whee. I don't feel like re writing it all here, and it's offtopic enough as it is. But if you're interested, here's my take on The real reasons D2 sucks
And of course, if we're talking about truly innovative and cool games, nothing more need be said than, "Black & White".
Adds Heather Berry, editor at Happypuppy.com, a gaming fan site, ''If gamers like the game, they don't care about the product placement.'' So I guess I'm in the minority there, too. Wow, do I ever have the market cornered on THAT one! But, seriously, what I'm wondering is, will Gamespy and the other mass information and preview "outlets" start warning us about ad-riddled games before we buy? If not, there will soon be a need for a game ad warning site, where they list the newer titles and how invasive the advertising is. With that on our side, it will be possible to boycott the companies doing this. If not, then you wouldn't know until you played it that a game pauses every 5 minutes to show you an ad for a fscking burger.
Apparently no one at NASA is superstitious, good on them. Odyssey was the name of the Apollo XIII command module, for the NASA-uninitiated. (The LEM was Aquarius). Apollo XIII's motto was "Ex Luna, Scientia"... can anyone tell me if the Mars mission has a latin motto? =P
Everyone in this thread is saying things like "this game is great" or "My system can't handle it", and saying this like they HAVE it.
Is B&W actually OUT, or are these people just talking out their asses? Or, perhaps, a beta test is out, or it is only available in the UK yet, or what? (in the US here)
It is actually inferior to the original in many, many ways. Blizzard worked on it for over 3 years and just couldn't get the job done.
The following is a repost from the Diablo Strategy & Tactics forum on battle.net, where I originally posted it to try to explain why I uninstalled D2 two weeks after I wasted my $40 on it.
(repost begins)
...The thing is, D1 was amazing for its time,
whereas D2 is very mediocre for modern times. D1's graphics were
top notch when it came out, and still have a nice feel of gritty
realism D2 lacks. D2's are just: "Oh... Er... Blizzard
obviously felt no need to bring the graphics into the new
millennium. Ok..."
Gameplay? Mostly the same. I suppose this is ok, except for the
insane "no level load" mistake, which hideously punishes
anyone who doesn't have 256 megs of RAM, a T1 connection, and a
hefty dose of blind luck. (Can you say, "Lagcore"? Can
you say, "Waypoint PK'd"? I knew you could!)
Sound? Improved very slightly, I'll admit, though my system,
alas, is sucking too bad to handle it now.
The whole skills thing is cool, and would be amazing if it
weren't so buggy and RIDDLED with apocryphal, inaccurate, and
missing information. Also, the ratio of usable to useless skills
has decreased a LOT since D1. In D1 the only spells I never use
are Inferno, Blood Star, and Bone Spirit; in D2 I can think of 4
or more skills in EVERY class I never use. If there is ever a
JG2, it will be about 100% more different from the D2 manual
than JG was from the D1 manual. Seriously. The only other
drawback is that one must rise to a very high level before the
game actually becomes FUN, in my experience - in that at level
20, if you're playing for power, you probably only have 2 or 3
skills to play with. Yay, now that's excitement.
Playerkilling... don't even get me started. Once again, Blizzard caters to 15 year old punks with bad attitudes by keeping playerkilling in the game. And then they do 10 million "balance" changes, as if pkilling in a fight where whoever sees the other guy first wins, makes any sense. At least they got rid of "ears". =/
The plot is semi-ok, except for the fact that the entire thing
was kept secret for about 3 picoseconds. Hurrah. The trouble
with the multiple towns is that I was unable to ever CARE about
any of them or their people, just as soon as I started to get a
handle on the various townies' characters I was off again, always
to the east...
Plus the tacked-on fourth act and the callous treatment of
Tristram's destruction really left me cold. I think Tristram's
destruction deserved an FMV more than Diablo's meeting with
Marius. I *really* would have enjoyed watching Wirt die.
>:) Of course, the absolute WORST, unforgiveable, thing
about D2's plot is that it trivializes your victory in D1. So
what if you beat Diablo? Your precious character failed in the
end, and so did Tal Rasha, and oh by the way we lied to you about
what the Soulstones are for. So there, nyaah. Gee, thanks
Blizz...
Oh, and the items... lots of good (though highly confusing to
the D1 mind) ideas here. The set items are, I think, one of the
only truly great improvements over D1, but the game does not
allow enough inv/stash space to store set pieces until you find
the rest, so instead you get people using set items like they
would any other rare. Oh well. It might have been nice to have
an extra stash with the general store owner in any town, like
having items "in hock" that you'd have to pay a little
fee to retrieve, but have like 20x20 more storage. Or something.
Add to this the buggy items, the weird items, the dupable (sigh!)
items, and the completely missing items... And the fact that it takes over 200 times the disk space of Diablo 1, for about 2/3 the fun value.
D1 had its
problems, I'll admit. Its buglist is also ridiculously long for
a game that's been patched so many times. But cmon, gimme a
break. I played D2 until I beat it in Open. A week later, it
was off my HD. Diablo 1 has never left. D2 is simply not worthy
as a successor, and if I tried to point to a reason for its
failure, it would be this:
Blizzard tried to do too much, and didn't have enough time or
resources left over to polish and debug. So some areas of it
shine, and the rest suck abominably. Oh, it's a playable game,
but there's no way it's on the level of Diablo. If they had been
a bit less ambitious (ie., if they had managed to put a sock in
their marketing guys before they could promise too much), it
would have been a FAR better game.
... and oh yeah. Serverside SUCKS. I'm amazed they thought it
would work.
(repost ends)
I've been playing D1 for years, and D2 just isn't worthy. The reasons it's more popular than D1 are:
1.) you can run - SERIOUSLY!! I know people who prefer D2 for no more reason than this! However, they fail to remember that there were much smaller distances in D1, and thus no reason to NEED running. Plus, D1 success requires tactical thinking, running (or teleporting) around like a chicken with your head cut off is an excellent way to get mobbed and killed. D2 is completely lacking in tactical or strategic thinking. "Put on magic items. Go click on monsters. WHEEEEEEE!" As a Diablo old timer, Pete, puts it, when there's no challenge then all the game is, is an hours-long mouse test. Have fun left clicking.
2.) It's shiiiiiiiny. Typical "newer must be better" attitude, plus a lot of folks have never tried D1. However, though the graphics may be better, they're not 3 freakin' years better. And the "atmosphere" has been lost... where D1 was gothic and creepy, D2 is cartoonish and dull.
3.) The Diablo patches. Blizzard has deliberately released a "patch" v 1.08, as well as several server patches, in a more or less successful attempt to kill Diablo 1. Before v 1.08 and the server patches, despite the presence of D2, there were usually between 5 and 8 thousand D1 clients online. Now it's a heavy day for D1 when there are 1000 clients on.
I'm sorry to be a wet blanket, but it's just been too many years since I've seen anyone at Buzzard do anything to deserve the great reputation they got off Diablo and WC2.
People treated Mozart like a freak, like a dancing bear. He was the 9 day wonder, the 6 year old who composes piano concertos and plays them blindfolded for emperors. He wasn't actually respected for his talent, any more than the fireswallower at a circus.
Sure, maybe the public didn't appreciate the full extent of his genius, but people recognized him as a great composer.
This is exactly the case with Kubrick: there are those who realize his talent, but the vast majority don't know what's good.
It's been many years since the Academy knew the first fucking thing about what makes a movie good. Whatever movie grosses the most, gets the most oscars. This is called "elementary capitalism", children!
Get real. Kubrick is among the greatest directors of all time. Mozart was among the greatest composers of all time. Mozart died penniless and was buried without a coffin in a pauper's grave.
Genius is almost never recognized in its own time.
We could have had every last damn thing Clarke predicted, and launched the Discovery mission yesterday, if the U.S. government hadn't decided in the early 70's to just let the space program drop, and then start actively killing it in the 90's.
The reason the predictions don't come true is not that they can't be done; it's just that we're too lazy to live up to the dreams of men like Clarke.
What if I SEND email to a hotmail account? That TOS wording is very vague; could it be interpreted that if you yourself are running, say, Pine under Linux and send your manuscript TO a hotmail account, will Micro$oft be able to steal the IP?
This has got me worried. If this is the case, it's time to break off all communications with hotmailers. Thanks Microsoft for another 'net schism.
... it's all quantifiable algorithms and equations and so forth.
So, just because we can understand the inner workings of an AI, it means it has no rights?
What happens on the distant day when the final mysteries of the human brain are unlocked, and scientists can accurately predict anything anyone will do by mathematical algorithms based on the way the brain works? Will we all no longer have any rights once we become so explicable?
Rather, I think Isaac Asimov had it right in his novel "The Bicentennial Man" (now a weak rip-off movie with Robin Williams! Read the real thing).
In the novel, a U.S. supreme court justice finally granted full civil rights and citizenship to an advanced robot (basically, an AI) with the wording that "It is wrong to deny freedom to any mind advanced enough to grasp the concept and desire the state."
'Nuff said. Beautiful, Dr. Asimov, beautiful. =)
If aliens or AI ever arrive on earth, I hope we overlook the facts of whether they're living, mechanical, equipped with 30 tentacles or merely a hyperintelligent shade of the color blue - we should respect them as kindred minds, thus as equals.
There are exactly three predictable ways mankind will react to First Contact:
* If the aliens are massively more advanced than we are and can crush us like the primitive little pre-warp fools we are, then mankind sucks it in and kisses ass. There will be dissident whacko groups trying desperately to foment war on both sides, but the majority of mankind will prefer to survive juuuust long enough to duplicate the alien super-weapons. Then mankind will try to turn the tables, because they'll be damned if a buncha slimy communist aliens are gonna tell THEM what ta do! The likely result in the end is mankind's destruction through its own consistent congenital stupidity. Either that or the aliens will bore of having such conniving and all around useless slaves, and destroy mankind anyway.
* The aliens would be powerful as above, but in this scenario mankind decides to go xenophobic and attack them anyway, that or some terrorist's bomb kills the Xorfunian leader and either way the Earth gets turned into a nice glowing heap of slag. So long, humans.
* The aliens are not too greatly advanced and/or don't have much in the way of military technology. This is very much the least likely possibility. In this case mankind will ruthlessly subjugate the aliens, including I predict attempts to torture secrets of alien technology from them for "National Security" reasons. The alien technology thus gleaned will then be turned on the rest of mankind. Final result: glowing heap of slag, see above.
Makes me want to play that stirring soundtrack to ST: First Contact again! =) If any aliens are reading this, I'll simplfy: Humans bad. Humans stupid. Humans kill anything that's not human and much that is. Don't waste your time with humans.
Of course, any alien race that can't tell what we're like just from the past 50 years of our TV broadcasts in space, deserves to get it. =P
Well, I've already taken care of Javascript. But defeating HTML? I'm using an http proxy called the The Proxomitron, and it's a very useful tool... an http filtering proxy. I've noticed when Outlook is reading emails, this http proxy registers open connections. Does this mean it's filtering html emails?
Just curious to see if I'm already "safe" from this (ie., as safe as you can be running Windows), or whether I need work. IE 5.0, too - probably vulnerable to this, though MS just couldn't be *bothered* to mention on their page.
I went to the MS webpage using my IE 5.01, since I need to get the patch... and suddenly a message popped up saying "BillG 0wNz Yu0!" and Windows Update started up. As I post this, it's upgrading my system into I know not what...
Maybe what the recording industries and publishing industries fear so much is that the technology of the internet has made them obsolete. File sharing and cheap digital recording and publishing tools, like mod makers and players, means everyone can be his own musician, and there can be a true democracy of art appreciation - vote with your dollars, and the best artists will make the most money. This is probably scaring the marketing and advertising guys shitless.
We no longer need middlemen. So why should they still be in jobs? They're fighting for their survival here. Now that I think of it, if they do what the/. crowd wants them to and "go with the flow" of modern technology, their jobs will vanish like smoke.
Note: I have not been able to find any article by any major publisher that describes what the publishers are doing (distributing copyrighted works without permission, for money) as "piracy", please post a comment with a link if you know of one.
EVERYone knows consumers are the pirates, thieving from the honest, hardworking company presidents that need to put bread in their hungry children's mouths.
On a more serious note, I really doubt this to happen. Publishers, recording industry or no, seem to have gotten this notion that their customers are "the enemy", or out to despoil them or rip them off, so obviously they have to rip the customers off FIRST... to protect their profits. I will be quite surprised if any publishing group, no matter HOW small, describes themselves or for that matter any other publishing group as pirates. They seem to be presenting a unified front on this one.
And there they are in the article, talking about how great Freenet would be as a Napster successor.
AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH!!
Why can't people leave this ALONE until the RIAA finishes destroying itself? It's still quite powerful enough to do away with Freenet, be certain of that. You're all going to snidely remind me of Freenet's intricate security features... Folks, that doesn't mean a damn if the physical machinery used to constitute it is put a stop to. The RIAA can and *will* destroy Freenet if it becomes the "new Napster".
Jeezus Christ!!
Salon.com pisses me off frequently, but Today Is Special. No amount of beautiful and inspiring speeches from Messrs. Boucher and Moglen can save us if something isn't done. The only thing I see at the moment that is do-able within the time frame we're talking about, is sitting back and pirating on GNUtella and letting the RIAA finish bringing about its own doom.
Instead, we have the whole jolly Napter crew giving a big hearty "nyuck nyuck" and charging off to Freenet. The RIAA's lawyer-guns merely require a slight adjustment in aim and declination, and the bombardment recommences. =/
Slashdot Mirror
Friend, I'm with you, but you're mistaken here. People don't grab power for reasons. People grab power, to have power. Any reasons they give are merely excuses, every last damn time. Or, to quote Orwell (as if that's neccessary on /.), "Power is not a means; it is an end... The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
They're pushing for CPPRM because it gives them a kick in the pants to control and dominate others. Not because they give a crap about "music pirating". The CPRM plans will continue regardless of M$'s success in this attempt.
-Kasreyn
This is the way Microsoft ends
;-)
This is the way Microsoft ends
This is the way Microsoft ends
Not with a bang but a penguin
Sorry, I just HAD to.
Apologies to the original author.
-Kasreyn
And not you either, if you get some decent ad blocking software. =)
www.proxomitron.cjb.net
Have fun.
-Kasreyn
Don't buy software from such companies. Then they'll sink SOONER, rather than later. And your critical data won't be locked up in proprietary formats you can no longer open.
/. whiner (though I am usually ;). This could be a viable business plan. When your competitors' software ceases to run and they lose their work, you will be in the lead because your company wasn't foolish enough to accept such a risky business model.
I'm actually serious folks, not just being a anti-corporate
However, as soon as a really major company feels the bite of this, there will probably be a huge lawsuit against whatever company discontinued their software leasing. And that might change things. Until then, about all we can do is boycott such software in the desktop market.
-Kasreyn
Of course the nastiest thing about mobile phone use in The Matrix is the way the whole team use Nokias, except the backstabbing turncoat who has a Motorola!
Damn, I can't tell if you're joking, I need to rewatch the scene where Cypher ditches his cell in the trash to see for myself. That little Motorola rat bastard!! j/k
But actually, even though there were good shots of the phones (as I now realize on taking a careful rewatch), it still never registered on me, and I think I know why.
Some things are so homogenized that all examples of the art are the same, at least to the uninitiate. To most everyone, any facial tissue is a "kleenex". This is regardless of the fact that to some people, certain other facial tissues are far superior.
To me, all phones are alike. They all do the same thing, and in my experience, there's no real difference in how or how well they do it. To those who know and care about them, they might notice branding on cellphones. To me, it's just "a phone", a prop used in the movie. And to be honest, I think Nokias might be what a crowd of underground hacker-ish guerillas might use, but that's just in my uneducated opinion.
I think the only time product placement really hurts a movie is when it's done at the expense of plot or believability. If Neo had paused in Bullet Time, taking a break from grappling with the Agent so he could suck down a cold, refreshing Coca-Cola, then that would be stupid. But we don't see anyone screaming about product placement when we have that long scene showing all the military hardware Neo is carrying (the opening-the-trenchcoat-"whoah" scene).
Product placement, to rephrase, is only bad when it is done to the extent that it detracts from plot or believability. That is to say, it is only bad when it is used effectively (because if it just blends in to the background, no one will notice it). I think some people should get off their high horses and realize that some things need to be included for believability.
However, I will check up on that motorola cell for Cypher. If so, that IS kinda low. =P
-Kasreyn
You want to get away from real life? Read a book...
You want to have fun with your friends? Practice a sport...
You want to whine whine whine about the subject? Just keep your actual life style...
Well, THAT tells me about zero useful information.
There were once no ads online. Now there are. If more people read books, I can guarantee you there would be ads on book covers and ads halfway through the pages. And playing sports, one is subjected to an amazing number of nike and adidas logos.
Please, give me a break. No one lifestyle is better than any other. And I feel I have a right to complain, having paid for internet service and having nowhere agreed that that service in any way involved my having to look at ads, and now it's being forced upon me. Before long, there will be nowhere left to escape from them on the internet, which is why I recommend everyone use ad-blocking software (for as long as it remains legal, considering the way corporations currently have the reins of the government).
Yes, reading a book is fun. I've been reading for pleasure all my life. It's a great way to "escape". But the internet isn't an escape, you doofus - it's how I stay in touch. News, email, chat, discussions, research. Who needs Napster and other timewasters when there's so much to LEARN?
-Kasreyn
I loved Baldur's Gate, it's a great game. It's the closest to being a computer role playing game that any game had gotten to that point. However, even saying that, it's not really a true roleplaying game. My paraphrase was from the old political saying, "Democracy is the worst system, unless you count all those other systems that have been tried from time to time." The quote is in favor of Democracy.
BG & BG2 are great games, but they, like Diablo, still have a long way to go before they are truly roleplaying games. The D&D license was cool (the fire dragon movie clip for TSR ruled), and the game engine was nice, but it still lacks what a true computer rpg will have to one day have - really, really, REALLY good AI. In fact, true AI would be required - you have to have a sentient DM to have a real roleplaying experience. =)
Cheers,
Kasreyn
If that was product placement, it sure failed like hell. There was no glimpse of the logo or anything to let you know they were Nokias. The fact of the matter is, product placement is only effective when it's blatant; either blatantly in your face, or blatantly saturated so you subconsciously get used to seeing it everywhere. And either type is extremely annoying.
-Kasreyn
Try Diablo one. THAT's what Diablo II would have been, if it hadn't sucked.
;)
The Baldur's Gate games are an attempt at an RPG for the PC; a weak attempt, but like democracy, better than everything else that's been tried.
Diablo was an action adventure game, a fact which has escaped many people. It is in NO sense a role playing game. I've been playing Diablo 1 on battle.net for almost 3 years now, and I can assure you of this. Diablo characters are not roleplayed at all, they are treated like avatars of the players. I've met maybe 5 roleplayng Diablo players, ever.
Diablo 2 is an action game much like Diablo 1, except with all the fun and challenge removed. Whee. I don't feel like re writing it all here, and it's offtopic enough as it is. But if you're interested, here's my take on The real reasons D2 sucks
And of course, if we're talking about truly innovative and cool games, nothing more need be said than, "Black & White".
-Kasreyn
Adds Heather Berry, editor at Happypuppy.com, a gaming fan site, ''If gamers like the game, they don't care about the product placement.''
So I guess I'm in the minority there, too. Wow, do I ever have the market cornered on THAT one! But, seriously, what I'm wondering is, will Gamespy and the other mass information and preview "outlets" start warning us about ad-riddled games before we buy? If not, there will soon be a need for a game ad warning site, where they list the newer titles and how invasive the advertising is. With that on our side, it will be possible to boycott the companies doing this. If not, then you wouldn't know until you played it that a game pauses every 5 minutes to show you an ad for a fscking burger.
-Kasreyn
Apparently no one at NASA is superstitious, good on them. Odyssey was the name of the Apollo XIII command module, for the NASA-uninitiated. (The LEM was Aquarius). Apollo XIII's motto was "Ex Luna, Scientia"... can anyone tell me if the Mars mission has a latin motto? =P
-Kasreyn
Everyone in this thread is saying things like "this game is great" or "My system can't handle it", and saying this like they HAVE it.
Is B&W actually OUT, or are these people just talking out their asses? Or, perhaps, a beta test is out, or it is only available in the UK yet, or what? (in the US here)
-Kasreyn
It is actually inferior to the original in many, many ways. Blizzard worked on it for over 3 years and just couldn't get the job done.
The following is a repost from the Diablo Strategy & Tactics forum on battle.net, where I originally posted it to try to explain why I uninstalled D2 two weeks after I wasted my $40 on it.
(repost begins)
...The thing is, D1 was amazing for its time,
whereas D2 is very mediocre for modern times. D1's graphics were
top notch when it came out, and still have a nice feel of gritty
realism D2 lacks. D2's are just: "Oh... Er... Blizzard
obviously felt no need to bring the graphics into the new
millennium. Ok..."
Gameplay? Mostly the same. I suppose this is ok, except for the
insane "no level load" mistake, which hideously punishes
anyone who doesn't have 256 megs of RAM, a T1 connection, and a
hefty dose of blind luck. (Can you say, "Lagcore"? Can
you say, "Waypoint PK'd"? I knew you could!)
Sound? Improved very slightly, I'll admit, though my system,
alas, is sucking too bad to handle it now.
The whole skills thing is cool, and would be amazing if it
weren't so buggy and RIDDLED with apocryphal, inaccurate, and
missing information. Also, the ratio of usable to useless skills
has decreased a LOT since D1. In D1 the only spells I never use
are Inferno, Blood Star, and Bone Spirit; in D2 I can think of 4
or more skills in EVERY class I never use. If there is ever a
JG2, it will be about 100% more different from the D2 manual
than JG was from the D1 manual. Seriously. The only other
drawback is that one must rise to a very high level before the
game actually becomes FUN, in my experience - in that at level
20, if you're playing for power, you probably only have 2 or 3
skills to play with. Yay, now that's excitement.
Playerkilling... don't even get me started. Once again, Blizzard caters to 15 year old punks with bad attitudes by keeping playerkilling in the game. And then they do 10 million "balance" changes, as if pkilling in a fight where whoever sees the other guy first wins, makes any sense. At least they got rid of "ears". =/
The plot is semi-ok, except for the fact that the entire thing
was kept secret for about 3 picoseconds. Hurrah. The trouble
with the multiple towns is that I was unable to ever CARE about
any of them or their people, just as soon as I started to get a
handle on the various townies' characters I was off again, always
to the east...
Plus the tacked-on fourth act and the callous treatment of
Tristram's destruction really left me cold. I think Tristram's
destruction deserved an FMV more than Diablo's meeting with
Marius. I *really* would have enjoyed watching Wirt die.
>:) Of course, the absolute WORST, unforgiveable, thing
about D2's plot is that it trivializes your victory in D1. So
what if you beat Diablo? Your precious character failed in the
end, and so did Tal Rasha, and oh by the way we lied to you about
what the Soulstones are for. So there, nyaah. Gee, thanks
Blizz...
Oh, and the items... lots of good (though highly confusing to
the D1 mind) ideas here. The set items are, I think, one of the
only truly great improvements over D1, but the game does not
allow enough inv/stash space to store set pieces until you find
the rest, so instead you get people using set items like they
would any other rare. Oh well. It might have been nice to have
an extra stash with the general store owner in any town, like
having items "in hock" that you'd have to pay a little
fee to retrieve, but have like 20x20 more storage. Or something.
Add to this the buggy items, the weird items, the dupable (sigh!)
items, and the completely missing items... And the fact that it takes over 200 times the disk space of Diablo 1, for about 2/3 the fun value.
D1 had its
problems, I'll admit. Its buglist is also ridiculously long for
a game that's been patched so many times. But cmon, gimme a
break. I played D2 until I beat it in Open. A week later, it
was off my HD. Diablo 1 has never left. D2 is simply not worthy
as a successor, and if I tried to point to a reason for its
failure, it would be this:
Blizzard tried to do too much, and didn't have enough time or
resources left over to polish and debug. So some areas of it
shine, and the rest suck abominably. Oh, it's a playable game,
but there's no way it's on the level of Diablo. If they had been
a bit less ambitious (ie., if they had managed to put a sock in
their marketing guys before they could promise too much), it
would have been a FAR better game.
... and oh yeah. Serverside SUCKS. I'm amazed they thought it
would work.
(repost ends)
I've been playing D1 for years, and D2 just isn't worthy. The reasons it's more popular than D1 are:
1.) you can run - SERIOUSLY!! I know people who prefer D2 for no more reason than this! However, they fail to remember that there were much smaller distances in D1, and thus no reason to NEED running. Plus, D1 success requires tactical thinking, running (or teleporting) around like a chicken with your head cut off is an excellent way to get mobbed and killed. D2 is completely lacking in tactical or strategic thinking. "Put on magic items. Go click on monsters. WHEEEEEEE!" As a Diablo old timer, Pete, puts it, when there's no challenge then all the game is, is an hours-long mouse test. Have fun left clicking.
2.) It's shiiiiiiiny. Typical "newer must be better" attitude, plus a lot of folks have never tried D1. However, though the graphics may be better, they're not 3 freakin' years better. And the "atmosphere" has been lost... where D1 was gothic and creepy, D2 is cartoonish and dull.
3.) The Diablo patches. Blizzard has deliberately released a "patch" v 1.08, as well as several server patches, in a more or less successful attempt to kill Diablo 1. Before v 1.08 and the server patches, despite the presence of D2, there were usually between 5 and 8 thousand D1 clients online. Now it's a heavy day for D1 when there are 1000 clients on.
I'm sorry to be a wet blanket, but it's just been too many years since I've seen anyone at Buzzard do anything to deserve the great reputation they got off Diablo and WC2.
-Kasreyn
People treated Mozart like a freak, like a dancing bear. He was the 9 day wonder, the 6 year old who composes piano concertos and plays them blindfolded for emperors. He wasn't actually respected for his talent, any more than the fireswallower at a circus.
Sure, maybe the public didn't appreciate the full extent of his genius, but people recognized him as a great composer.
This is exactly the case with Kubrick: there are those who realize his talent, but the vast majority don't know what's good.
Thanks for the Mozart link. =)
-Kasreyn
...Robosport!
Sponsored by: Killum Weapon Systems!
...am I the only one who remembers this old Maxis gem? =)
-Kasreyn
It's been many years since the Academy knew the first fucking thing about what makes a movie good. Whatever movie grosses the most, gets the most oscars. This is called "elementary capitalism", children!
Get real. Kubrick is among the greatest directors of all time. Mozart was among the greatest composers of all time. Mozart died penniless and was buried without a coffin in a pauper's grave.
Genius is almost never recognized in its own time.
-Kasreyn
It's the politicians.
We could have had every last damn thing Clarke predicted, and launched the Discovery mission yesterday, if the U.S. government hadn't decided in the early 70's to just let the space program drop, and then start actively killing it in the 90's.
The reason the predictions don't come true is not that they can't be done; it's just that we're too lazy to live up to the dreams of men like Clarke.
-Kasreyn
What if I SEND email to a hotmail account? That TOS wording is very vague; could it be interpreted that if you yourself are running, say, Pine under Linux and send your manuscript TO a hotmail account, will Micro$oft be able to steal the IP?
This has got me worried. If this is the case, it's time to break off all communications with hotmailers. Thanks Microsoft for another 'net schism.
-Kasreyn
... it's all quantifiable algorithms and equations and so forth.
So, just because we can understand the inner workings of an AI, it means it has no rights?
What happens on the distant day when the final mysteries of the human brain are unlocked, and scientists can accurately predict anything anyone will do by mathematical algorithms based on the way the brain works? Will we all no longer have any rights once we become so explicable?
Rather, I think Isaac Asimov had it right in his novel "The Bicentennial Man" (now a weak rip-off movie with Robin Williams! Read the real thing).
In the novel, a U.S. supreme court justice finally granted full civil rights and citizenship to an advanced robot (basically, an AI) with the wording that "It is wrong to deny freedom to any mind advanced enough to grasp the concept and desire the state."
'Nuff said. Beautiful, Dr. Asimov, beautiful. =)
If aliens or AI ever arrive on earth, I hope we overlook the facts of whether they're living, mechanical, equipped with 30 tentacles or merely a hyperintelligent shade of the color blue - we should respect them as kindred minds, thus as equals.
-Kasreyn
There are exactly three predictable ways mankind will react to First Contact:
* If the aliens are massively more advanced than we are and can crush us like the primitive little pre-warp fools we are, then mankind sucks it in and kisses ass. There will be dissident whacko groups trying desperately to foment war on both sides, but the majority of mankind will prefer to survive juuuust long enough to duplicate the alien super-weapons. Then mankind will try to turn the tables, because they'll be damned if a buncha slimy communist aliens are gonna tell THEM what ta do! The likely result in the end is mankind's destruction through its own consistent congenital stupidity. Either that or the aliens will bore of having such conniving and all around useless slaves, and destroy mankind anyway.
* The aliens would be powerful as above, but in this scenario mankind decides to go xenophobic and attack them anyway, that or some terrorist's bomb kills the Xorfunian leader and either way the Earth gets turned into a nice glowing heap of slag. So long, humans.
* The aliens are not too greatly advanced and/or don't have much in the way of military technology. This is very much the least likely possibility. In this case mankind will ruthlessly subjugate the aliens, including I predict attempts to torture secrets of alien technology from them for "National Security" reasons. The alien technology thus gleaned will then be turned on the rest of mankind. Final result: glowing heap of slag, see above.
Makes me want to play that stirring soundtrack to ST: First Contact again! =) If any aliens are reading this, I'll simplfy: Humans bad. Humans stupid. Humans kill anything that's not human and much that is. Don't waste your time with humans.
Of course, any alien race that can't tell what we're like just from the past 50 years of our TV broadcasts in space, deserves to get it. =P
-Kasreyn
Well, I've already taken care of Javascript. But defeating HTML? I'm using an http proxy called the The Proxomitron, and it's a very useful tool... an http filtering proxy. I've noticed when Outlook is reading emails, this http proxy registers open connections. Does this mean it's filtering html emails?
Just curious to see if I'm already "safe" from this (ie., as safe as you can be running Windows), or whether I need work. IE 5.0, too - probably vulnerable to this, though MS just couldn't be *bothered* to mention on their page.
-Kasreyn
I went to the MS webpage using my IE 5.01, since I need to get the patch... and suddenly a message popped up saying "BillG 0wNz Yu0!" and Windows Update started up. As I post this, it's upgrading my system into I know not what...
-Kasreyn
Maybe what the recording industries and publishing industries fear so much is that the technology of the internet has made them obsolete. File sharing and cheap digital recording and publishing tools, like mod makers and players, means everyone can be his own musician, and there can be a true democracy of art appreciation - vote with your dollars, and the best artists will make the most money. This is probably scaring the marketing and advertising guys shitless.
/. crowd wants them to and "go with the flow" of modern technology, their jobs will vanish like smoke.
We no longer need middlemen. So why should they still be in jobs? They're fighting for their survival here. Now that I think of it, if they do what the
-Kasreyn
Note: I have not been able to find any article by any major publisher that describes what the publishers are doing (distributing copyrighted works without permission, for money) as "piracy", please post a comment with a link if you know of one.
EVERYone knows consumers are the pirates, thieving from the honest, hardworking company presidents that need to put bread in their hungry children's mouths.
On a more serious note, I really doubt this to happen. Publishers, recording industry or no, seem to have gotten this notion that their customers are "the enemy", or out to despoil them or rip them off, so obviously they have to rip the customers off FIRST... to protect their profits. I will be quite surprised if any publishing group, no matter HOW small, describes themselves or for that matter any other publishing group as pirates. They seem to be presenting a unified front on this one.
-Kasreyn
And there they are in the article, talking about how great Freenet would be as a Napster successor.
AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH!!
Why can't people leave this ALONE until the RIAA finishes destroying itself? It's still quite powerful enough to do away with Freenet, be certain of that. You're all going to snidely remind me of Freenet's intricate security features... Folks, that doesn't mean a damn if the physical machinery used to constitute it is put a stop to. The RIAA can and *will* destroy Freenet if it becomes the "new Napster".
Jeezus Christ!!
Salon.com pisses me off frequently, but Today Is Special. No amount of beautiful and inspiring speeches from Messrs. Boucher and Moglen can save us if something isn't done. The only thing I see at the moment that is do-able within the time frame we're talking about, is sitting back and pirating on GNUtella and letting the RIAA finish bringing about its own doom.
Instead, we have the whole jolly Napter crew giving a big hearty "nyuck nyuck" and charging off to Freenet. The RIAA's lawyer-guns merely require a slight adjustment in aim and declination, and the bombardment recommences. =/
-Kasreyn