If gadgets can't crash planes, then the ban is costing billions of hours per year of lost productivity by business people who want to work in flight.
What the author completely fails to address is the noise that ensues if you have ten businesspeople in first class all "doing business" on a cell phone at the same time. Are they supposed to wander the aisles and pace as they talk? Or merely talk over one another in increasingly loud voices?
There's something about a long tube that seems to suggest to people that maybe conversation should be kept to a minimum. Not only planes, but buses and subways and trains too. In my experience riding public transit, most people do not chatter on their phones endlessly. In part, I think, because there's an unconscious realization that the guy standing 6 inches away (that you can't move away from) does not want or need to hear your prattle.
How do you compare Super Mario Brothers and Super Mario Brothers 3? Obviously Super Mario Brothers 3 was much more polished, but it only owes its success to the originality of the first. How do you compare Star Wars and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back? Obviously Empire was much more polished, but it only owes its success to the originality of the first.
While it has many flaws as a book, I think overall the score of 6 is warranted, based on Slashdot's own guidelines for scoring:
6. Decent and useful (or enjoyable), but difficult to strongly recommend for reasons outlined in the review; run of the mill.
In short, I think the book is better than Mediocre at presenting some interesting pictures and discussion about pixel art. As a coffee table book and an idle distraction I think it's decent enough, "but difficult to strongly recommend for reasons outlined in the review".
Perhaps "Medieval Fantasy" or "Fantasy RPG" is a better distinction, then, because I doubt most people would say Doom, Street Fighter or Fahrenheit counted as fantasy as most people define it. Hexen, however, is a bad example anyway, considering that the character class options are Fighter, Cleric and Wizard. Straight out of D&D, that And the Discworld setting, of course, has all the fantasy archetypes in place, though since it's satire it does also poke fun at those very archetypes. I can't speak for the games, never having played them.
Nor can I speak for The Longest Journey, as I could never get the darn thing to run on my machine at the time.
One of the points made in the book I review here is that according to a study, Genre is the number 1 factor in the purchase of a game. ie., "Fantasy"
All the differences you mention here between WoW, Vanguard, etc. are mechanical. They don't erase the underlying issue which is that they all mimic the same general look and feel. A dwarf is a dwarf is a dwarf. They're all short stocky fighter types with beards.
My point ultimately is even the wide variety of fantasy games all come back to the same core clichés. Every game has its elves, dwarves and halflings. They all have swords and armor. They all have spellcasters and healers and rogues. The variations seem to be along the lines of "well our elves don't live in trees, they live in the desert" most of the time. You may have a shelf full of books (I have one myself) but it doesn't change the fact that most of those books are built upon the same foundation of elves and hobbits, of fighters and wizards. Hot dogs and Wonder Bread.
There are no popular fantasy games (pen-and-paper or computer-based) that I am aware of which deviate from the norm, to any measurable degree. Talislanta's boast that it "has no elves" doesn't change the fact that it adheres to dozens of other fantasy tropes. WoW adding Blood elves recently only goes to show that even the expansions stick with comfortable territory. And why? Because most players don't want to play a Xzflrbg or a Gbrhsts. They want to play an elf or a dwarf or a human. Why? Because they understand it. It's a familiar taste.
People don't want fantastic fantasy. They want familiar fantasy. The equivalent of peanut butter and jelly on Wonder Bread or a hot dog while mom and dad eat that weird lasagna stuff. Fantasy gamers have the taste of a 4-year-old.
With good reason, 1UP.com gave the game a 4/10 because you can overuse the kick, dubbing it "The Adventures of Sir Kicksalot Deathboot in the Land of the Conspicuously Placed Spike Racks".
My own opinions were mixed, though I fully agree that the seemingly excellent environmental components are actually quite silly. I mostly panned the game in my review of it at http://www.gamegrene.com/node/691
I don't know whether to be gratified or insulted that Ninja Burger didn't make the cut, as silly as it is.
Though looking at their list, it appears they really weren't interested in silly anyway; sites that were intentionally silly number only 5 (by my count), the bulk qualifying as dumb (which I read as unintentional silliness or lack of quality):
Dumb 23. InmatesForYou.com 22. Digital entertainment network (den.com) 21. Golden Palace Casino 20. Hotmail.com 19. WebVan 18. Beenz.com and Flooz.com (tie) 17. Boo.com 16. Microsoft Windows Update 15. Neuticles.com 14. BidForSurgery.com 13. Whitehouse.com 11. Rabies for Kids 10. MyLackey.com. 7. Pets.com 6. Pixelon.com 5. AllAdvantage 4. CD Universe 3. Cartoonnetwok.com 2. CyberRebate 1. MySpace.com
As a small publisher of RPGs myself, I feel compelled to point out that there's much more out there than WOTC and White Wolf. There are a slew of small publishers putting out great, critically acclaimed material, both in PDF and print format. I draw your attention to the ENnie awards (complete list of 2006 winners can be found right here, which this past year rewarded not only big guys like Paizo Publishing and White Wolf, but smaller pubishers like Green Ronin and Guardians of Order, as well as really little guys like Atomic Sock Monkey Press (for the excellent super-hero game Truth & Justice and Dog Soul Publishing (for their Baba Yaga book, which I penned.
Check us out. We may not be as well known as the other guys but we're just as good.
"As Hiro approaches the Street, he sees two young couples, probably using their parents' computers for a double date in the Metaverse, climbing down out of Port Zero, which is the local port of entry and monorail stop. He is not seeing real people, of course. This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to the specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. The people are pieces of software called avatars."
Role-playing games have the same issue; while there have been science-fiction themed games over the years (Cyberpunk, Traveler, Star Frontiers, etc), none of them has come close to approaching the widespread appeal of the fantasy games (D&D, White Wolf's stuff, etc.). The ones that seemed to achieve the broadest appeal were those with crossover potential, like Rifts and TORG.
The one place sci-fi does better seems to be television. There have been fantasy TV series, but they don't come close to the number of sci-fi series that have a relatively large following.
It appears my parentheses didn't make it through. This is how it read originally:
The Information Revolution (subtitled "The Not-For-Dummies Guide to the History, Technology and Use of the World Wide Web") is the second in a trilogy by J.R. Okin, the first book (The Internet Revolution) covering the Internet in general, and the third (The Technology Revolution) being a guide to "the Impact, Perils and Promise of the Internet. I have not read either of those two books, but I believe that each can be read independently, and this review should be viewed in that light.
I could have gone more opinion; I felt the material warranted more structure. Sorry it didn't work for you. I would add that Slashdot offers the built-in opinion of the Book Rating (a 7 here), which has its own meaning if you pore through the book review guidelines (5 being average, anything more being positive, 10 being sheer perfection).
I will also add here (before someone else points it out) that this review has also been posted on Gamegrene.com. The last time I had one of my reviews posted on two websites I was accused of plagiarizing myself, and since I don't want to have to sue myself again, I thought I'd clear that up.
I'll stick my head in here and mention that the 2nd Edition of the Ninja Burger RPG is now available at DriveThruRPG, RPGNow and SJGames' e23 as PDFs, with a Print-on-Demand option through Lulu.com at RPGNow.
The new edition is based on the PDQ system that's used in the cult hit Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot from Atomic Sock Monkey Press, which is obviously what inspired the current Slashdot Poll.
Slashdot Mirror
If gadgets can't crash planes, then the ban is costing billions of hours per year of lost productivity by business people who want to work in flight.
What the author completely fails to address is the noise that ensues if you have ten businesspeople in first class all "doing business" on a cell phone at the same time. Are they supposed to wander the aisles and pace as they talk? Or merely talk over one another in increasingly loud voices?
There's something about a long tube that seems to suggest to people that maybe conversation should be kept to a minimum. Not only planes, but buses and subways and trains too. In my experience riding public transit, most people do not chatter on their phones endlessly. In part, I think, because there's an unconscious realization that the guy standing 6 inches away (that you can't move away from) does not want or need to hear your prattle.
While it has many flaws as a book, I think overall the score of 6 is warranted, based on Slashdot's own guidelines for scoring:
6. Decent and useful (or enjoyable), but difficult to strongly recommend for reasons outlined in the review; run of the mill.
In short, I think the book is better than Mediocre at presenting some interesting pictures and discussion about pixel art. As a coffee table book and an idle distraction I think it's decent enough, "but difficult to strongly recommend for reasons outlined in the review".
I never meant to imply there was a solution. Only that fantasy was the worst offender. Perhaps there's no better option.
Perhaps "Medieval Fantasy" or "Fantasy RPG" is a better distinction, then, because I doubt most people would say Doom, Street Fighter or Fahrenheit counted as fantasy as most people define it. Hexen, however, is a bad example anyway, considering that the character class options are Fighter, Cleric and Wizard. Straight out of D&D, that And the Discworld setting, of course, has all the fantasy archetypes in place, though since it's satire it does also poke fun at those very archetypes. I can't speak for the games, never having played them.
Nor can I speak for The Longest Journey, as I could never get the darn thing to run on my machine at the time.
One of the points made in the book I review here is that according to a study, Genre is the number 1 factor in the purchase of a game. ie., "Fantasy"
All the differences you mention here between WoW, Vanguard, etc. are mechanical. They don't erase the underlying issue which is that they all mimic the same general look and feel. A dwarf is a dwarf is a dwarf. They're all short stocky fighter types with beards.
My point ultimately is even the wide variety of fantasy games all come back to the same core clichés. Every game has its elves, dwarves and halflings. They all have swords and armor. They all have spellcasters and healers and rogues. The variations seem to be along the lines of "well our elves don't live in trees, they live in the desert" most of the time. You may have a shelf full of books (I have one myself) but it doesn't change the fact that most of those books are built upon the same foundation of elves and hobbits, of fighters and wizards. Hot dogs and Wonder Bread.
There are no popular fantasy games (pen-and-paper or computer-based) that I am aware of which deviate from the norm, to any measurable degree. Talislanta's boast that it "has no elves" doesn't change the fact that it adheres to dozens of other fantasy tropes. WoW adding Blood elves recently only goes to show that even the expansions stick with comfortable territory. And why? Because most players don't want to play a Xzflrbg or a Gbrhsts. They want to play an elf or a dwarf or a human. Why? Because they understand it. It's a familiar taste.
All fantasy games are the same fantasy game. Vanguard, DDO, WOW, Everquest...
Elf? Check.
Dwarf? Check.
Fighter? Check.
Rogue? Check.
People don't want fantastic fantasy. They want familiar fantasy. The equivalent of peanut butter and jelly on Wonder Bread or a hot dog while mom and dad eat that weird lasagna stuff. Fantasy gamers have the taste of a 4-year-old.
Not enough has been said about the ending to the game, which nearly tops KOTOR2 in terms of how awful it is.
Not only is it a slideshow of badly pixelated graphics...
Not only does it feature "Jim from the mail room" doing audio instead of a voice actor...
But it manages to pull in the DM cliche of all cliches - Rocks fall, everybody dies.
http://www.gamegrene.com/node/714
With good reason, 1UP.com gave the game a 4/10 because you can overuse the kick, dubbing it "The Adventures of Sir Kicksalot Deathboot in the Land of the Conspicuously Placed Spike Racks".
My own opinions were mixed, though I fully agree that the seemingly excellent environmental components are actually quite silly. I mostly panned the game in my review of it at http://www.gamegrene.com/node/691
Well, I guess that's more reason for them to get it right. :)
Maybe they can get an MMORPG right since there's no ending to screw up (like they did with NWN2 and KOTOR2).
Good point. Let us not forget that WoW also wrecks the lives of the unborn.
I don't know whether to be gratified or insulted that Ninja Burger didn't make the cut, as silly as it is.
Though looking at their list, it appears they really weren't interested in silly anyway; sites that were intentionally silly number only 5 (by my count), the bulk qualifying as dumb (which I read as unintentional silliness or lack of quality):
Dumb
23. InmatesForYou.com
22. Digital entertainment network (den.com)
21. Golden Palace Casino
20. Hotmail.com
19. WebVan
18. Beenz.com and Flooz.com (tie)
17. Boo.com
16. Microsoft Windows Update
15. Neuticles.com
14. BidForSurgery.com
13. Whitehouse.com
11. Rabies for Kids
10. MyLackey.com.
7. Pets.com
6. Pixelon.com
5. AllAdvantage
4. CD Universe
3. Cartoonnetwok.com
2. CyberRebate
1. MySpace.com
Silly
25. Rentmychest.com.
24. IKissYou.org
12. The Dancing Baby
9. HamsterDance.com
8. BonziBuddy
As a small publisher of RPGs myself, I feel compelled to point out that there's much more out there than WOTC and White Wolf. There are a slew of small publishers putting out great, critically acclaimed material, both in PDF and print format. I draw your attention to the ENnie awards (complete list of 2006 winners can be found right here, which this past year rewarded not only big guys like Paizo Publishing and White Wolf, but smaller pubishers like Green Ronin and Guardians of Order, as well as really little guys like Atomic Sock Monkey Press (for the excellent super-hero game Truth & Justice and Dog Soul Publishing (for their Baba Yaga book, which I penned. Check us out. We may not be as well known as the other guys but we're just as good.
"As Hiro approaches the Street, he sees two young couples, probably using their parents' computers for a double date in the Metaverse, climbing down out of Port Zero, which is the local port of entry and monorail stop. He is not seeing real people, of course. This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to the specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. The people are pieces of software called avatars."
-Neal Stephenson
They have to be -- anyone who raids as much as they do has to be turning down sex.
I'm going to GenCon for the first time this year and I was just sorting out what to pack.
It's good to know that I can leave the shampoo and deodorant at home.
More room for dice!
Woot.
Role-playing games have the same issue; while there have been science-fiction themed games over the years (Cyberpunk, Traveler, Star Frontiers, etc), none of them has come close to approaching the widespread appeal of the fantasy games (D&D, White Wolf's stuff, etc.). The ones that seemed to achieve the broadest appeal were those with crossover potential, like Rifts and TORG.
The one place sci-fi does better seems to be television. There have been fantasy TV series, but they don't come close to the number of sci-fi series that have a relatively large following.
It appears my parentheses didn't make it through. This is how it read originally: The Information Revolution (subtitled "The Not-For-Dummies Guide to the History, Technology and Use of the World Wide Web") is the second in a trilogy by J.R. Okin, the first book (The Internet Revolution) covering the Internet in general, and the third (The Technology Revolution) being a guide to "the Impact, Perils and Promise of the Internet. I have not read either of those two books, but I believe that each can be read independently, and this review should be viewed in that light.
So do you still want to be friends?
I could have gone more opinion; I felt the material warranted more structure. Sorry it didn't work for you. I would add that Slashdot offers the built-in opinion of the Book Rating (a 7 here), which has its own meaning if you pore through the book review guidelines (5 being average, anything more being positive, 10 being sheer perfection).
I will also add here (before someone else points it out) that this review has also been posted on Gamegrene.com. The last time I had one of my reviews posted on two websites I was accused of plagiarizing myself, and since I don't want to have to sue myself again, I thought I'd clear that up.
For a moment, I thought that said "A primary goal of the upcoming expedition... will be to search for marine orgasms..."
I was much more interested in the article until I re-read that sentence.
I think what you're referring to is Serpentor, The Emperor, who was made *by* Cobra Commander from the DNA of the world's most evil people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpentor
I'll stick my head in here and mention that the 2nd Edition of the Ninja Burger RPG is now available at DriveThruRPG, RPGNow and SJGames' e23 as PDFs, with a Print-on-Demand option through Lulu.com at RPGNow.
The new edition is based on the PDQ system that's used in the cult hit Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot from Atomic Sock Monkey Press, which is obviously what inspired the current Slashdot Poll.