In Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, The Field Ops class (ammo guy) on the Allies side is black. Though oddly there are no black soldiers on the Axis side.
I'll play devil's advocate and use this as the reason why there aren't any more ethnic minorities - in this game, having a large number of dark skinned characters (e.g. a 50/50 split) would look awkward at the time (e.g. the US wasn't known for equality at the time.) There are two solutions - either multiple skins per class (which would take up more space and memory - generally a bad idea), or just stick it to just one class and hope the ratio would be correct. (since they usually need a unique model and/or skin anyway.)
Now, for the "issue" - there are some people out there that would claim that since the Field Ops model is Bloack, there game developers are giving propaganda that blacks should be placed in a serviant role as they have to run around giving ammo packs to everyone across the map. (Or some other similar scenario - take your pick). Even though this "issue" is really a strawman, it doesn't take much to set it off.
Remember that this is a real issue that companies have to deal with. Those of you that have a long memory may remember one MMORPG that implemented a sexist NPC that refused to do business with female characters - the result was a massive in-game riot.
There are some cases where discrimination is accepted in-game, such as in Arcanum. In this case, racism is directed to a specific imaginary species, such as Half-Orcs - the player is also given the option in kind to react negativly to racism (e.g. attack), or to perform racist behaviour (e.g. prefer not to talk with "inferior" races such as Halflings.) But this is generally an exception rather than the rule.
This is the same question as "When do I get my kid a car" and "When do I let my kid play violent games" so on, etc... Not quite - there's another factor not found in other examples - in this case, the maturity of other students.
Some high school students are generally mean - they batter others, they steal, they vandalize, and so on. The worst thing is that they receive no real reprocussions for destroying valuable equipment, especially in some countries that implement a variation of some young offenders act (when combined with social engineering where kind don't know any better.)
Other than that, your statement stands - the only difference is that you have to judge the maturity of others.
As the poster below me said, I too had to quit becuase of no ammo. I was stuck in a warehouse area of the ship with no Psi left (Think magic...just not so easily replenishable.) and painfully few bullets left. And the melee weapon just didn't cut it.
You might have better luck scumming Deck 2 for additional supplies from enemy respawn. Most of the enemies are a minimal threat with a melee attack - not a problem when you can hit first (and harder). There are shotgun hybrids that you have to deal with, but if you plan correctly (hit them as soon as they turn a corner), you can collect their shotgun ammo (by unloading their weapon) and any other items that could be recycled (e.g. beer).
I think the mazes in Zak, while not horribly "logical", maintained the sequence of rooms you'd entered and which exits lead to which new room.
In case of Zak, there were at least two wilderness mazes. Anne was capable of going through the maze normally - Zak was not, and struck out randomly upon reaching an exit.
The indoor maze did not appear to have this problem.
For the record, I've tried Deus Ex because everybody talked about how you can choose your way in that game, I abandoned it after finding that not using stealth is not an option.
You might consider using a lower difficulty setting, which reduces damage from enemy attacks. Most cases where non-stealth isn't an option is if it is not natural to do so (e.g. attacking the first guard during the prison escape - your equipment was taken.) Likewise, there are cases where stealth is not an option, such as trying to reach the subway - you need to take out at least a few guards in open terrain.
The only case which is close enough to forced stealth would be Mission Eight - if you kill a cop, two soldiers come in as reinfocements. Even so, it is still possible to take enough of the enemies out that you don't have to worry about sneaking around for a while.
The trick is to play naturally - the stealth/non-stealth areas do not feel like a break in gameplay. This is in contrast to Jedi Outcast, where the player is capable of slaughtering massive amounts of soldiers (including Jedi-equivalents) but gets captured the instant an officer hits a button on an alarm panel - in this case, the gameplay feels artificial.
System Shock 2 had resurrection chambers. A really lame concept (on par with Star Trek physics), but at least they tried.
The developers had to include these - they appeared in the original System Shock 1, and removing them would cause too many questions on what happened to the resurrection technology.
They were used as a plot device in the first game, where SHODAN modifies the resurrection chambers to create the cyborg army. Because of this, there isn't any way the developers can say that it's inclusion was a mistake.
The biggest cliche is extra lives.
Preventing any form of extra lives tends to cause more problems than it fixes. As you will learn as soon as you attempt to design a game, requiring the player to "Ironman" as in the various Roguelikes requires making sure that the game balance is correct throughout the game, and making sure that there are no impossibilities or difficulty gaps.
Well it kinda was 'E' - i don't see anyone else on that list who overthrew the German government, executed several million people, took over half of Europe, started a world war, and influenced a conflict with America and Japan which ended in the first ever use of nuclear weapons.
But then you could probably make a case for all of those people.
Actually, it is 'E', and I can't see any alternative around it.
A. Pope John Paul II - while it is true that he was an influencial leader of the Catholic Church, his influence isn't B. Franklin Roosevelt - A simple leader in the US during WWII era. While it seems that he found the United Nations, it's merely a renactment of the League of Nations. C. Ronald Wilson Reagan - While it is true that he was a US president that helped the country's prosperity, there isn't much outside the walls of the US border (aside from bombing Libya as a retaliatory strike). D. Ghandi - While it is true that his messages of peace have been spread far and wide, there is one major flaw with his message: It does not work if people are too apathetic or rendered powerless (because the rulers don't give a damn about lower classes, or if the middle class gets a benefit for staming on whatever is below them.) See below: E. Hitler - as you mentioned, he basically started World War II. This has lead to countless WWII movies (such as Schindler's list) that give an excellent example on why evil dictatorships and racism should be stopped - it is really used as a starting point for those who want to seize power.
I did a biography on him when he was young - during the depression (where Germany was the hardest hit), he convinced the populace that Jews were to blame (as they were the most well off). In addition, he was a well supported leader because he was the first to cause a country to recover from the depression (by forcing goods to have a specific value), and had massive propoganda campaigns to keep children brainwashed into supporting the regieme.
This is ignoring the fact that the poll isn't a measure of reality - in theory, the inventor of the modern computer (or an operating system that runs on it) could be more influencial, but is generally forgotten as a generic boffin or "nerd".
Bosses with obvious weak points and patterns are not avoidable in a practical game- they are essential to keeping the game fun (for most people). A boss with no obvious weak points or any way for the player to anticipate its actions- and figure out how to defeat it- is just frustrating.
The problem is not with bosses having weak points and/or predictable patterns: the problem is with the fact that boss fights rely on either of those two things.
For example, Quake shows the worst example ever - the boss enemy is invulnerable to everything else other than the lighting generator that he stores in his own lair. Likewise, the final boss is invulnerable to everything else other than the teleportation system included in the lair (ignoring the unpatched versions and various cheat codes).
Quest For Glory V does the weakpoint system correctly - the final boss has a weakness that may be exploited (but only during the first stage). If you do so, the second stage of the fight starts immediatly after stripping away it's massive resistance bonus. If you instead hack away at the hitpoint sponge, the resistance to damage will be retained during the second stage.
what's subway's new idea? smart cards. they'll swipe a card that keeps track. i keep telling the owner i know that there will be fradulent smart cards because someone's gonna crack the system on the card.
You can't be sure about that.
All that has to be done is include a unique ID on the card that contacts a central server to check how many subs have been purchased. If online games can keep track of which CD-Keys are valid, then SubWay can just as easily keep track of something similar.
The most basic (if not the best performing) database can store one byte per card in a flat file - an ID of a 32-bit-integer (plus checksum, etc) can handle up to 4 billion cards. A 36-bit integer hamdles up to 64 billion cards - more than enough for any company. In both cases, the database fits on a standard hard disk.
Plugging in a wire is no less userfriendly than putting it back in the recharger. The only people who have trouble plugging stuff in are those who never encountered a wall outlet.
Other than that, it's a matter of persanal taste on whetheryou want to worry about wire length, or to worry about battery life.
I'm trying hard to think through grandma's logic here. I'm getting something like, "Well, I was OK when he was having sex with prostitutes in a stolen car and then shooting them to get his money back, but now that I find out you can take out the murder and the car theft, I don't think I can support this game anymore.
That might not be correct reasoning (assuming that is the case), but her conclusion is correct. The correct reason she no longer wants her grandson to have the product is because it is now marked as adults only for sexual conduct (making the game considered to contain pornographic content, as opposed to just skimpy clothing.)
This is a change from "not recommended for people under 17" to "not permitted for people under 18". While grandma may think the 14 year old is old enough to handle Mature content, this is not the case for Adults Only stuff as it is assumed to be pornographic.
However, nudity is still perfectly acceptable in video games geared toward young children. (The main characters aren't wearing any pants.)
I practice what I preach. I haven't played HL2. Why? Because I find it unacceptable that when I play a game--even in single-player--it's going to phone home.
Actually, it's part of a package that assumes (incorrectly) that the entire userbase has broadband and is likely to do multiplayer primairly.
Workarounds exist - you can either use Zonealarm to stop internet activity, or disconnect from the Internet (easy on dial-up).
Special CD/DVD drivers? Again, what are you talking about?
I'm not the AC (why would I accuse tho opposition parties of trolling without good reason), but specai drivers appeared recently. Latest one is called StarForce, incleded in games such as Restricted area.
The cost of Q3 for me in terms of hours of enjoyment was so low that I feel like I practically stole money from id.
No, you simply purchased an engine demo. ID Software got their money from engine licences.
The cost of making the games, OTOH, has gone up exponentially. Only when they are trying something new. Most of the cost is put into R&D, and high-poly artwork, whcih takes the most time. If you keep things simple (e.g. character is mostly a yellow sphere), production time is either shortened, or is focused on other tasks (e.g. level design).
They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK. With a high level of computer literacy, it's easy for them to find a game online and download it.
Since when did most people in that age group have a chance to purchase games that are both expensive and are of limited availability?
Besides - most people in that age droup are in high-school. While they could get a job, they don't get much money out of minimum wage work on weekends. For this case, you can say that most teenagers have no effective income.
With whatever income/allowance a teenager is given, the only things that can be bought are the most famous games. If there are hidden gems that he hears about , he has to collect enough money, only to find that the game is unavailable.
Internet distribution is supponed to solve this issue - however, teenagers aren't usually issued credit cards either and thus cannot make online purchases (without bothering their parents.)
While the exact percentage is news, the reasoning is not. Never be suprised if piracy occurs - unless there is a massive effort to get these users to play GPLed games.
Blood-sucking remora like Thompson are the biggest dangers to further acceptance of gaming as a healthy passtime.
No, he isn't.
The best trick is to ignore him - the best they can get is 60 minutes of fame before reality kicks in (i.e. the fact that most sales should be done to 17+ - ignoring pecial exceptions such as young developers needing the engine.)
If necessairy (and only if necessairy), just do minimalistic nudges: - Loss to Janet Reno, where he makes personal attacks. In particular, he claimed that Reno took Sinemet (a narcotic) as part of the election campaign. - In the list of video game cases, there is hardly victory worth mentioning (aside from the Hot Coffee incident, which would have worked without his help anyway.) His other cases were successful, but video games are not one of them. - If a "parent" doesn't their childeren playing violent video games, then they can easily forbid it. It's that simple (aside from your children sneaking around your back to download games without your permission, or playing those games at a friends house - at that point, the parent can ground the child.) - Jack Thompson declined to speak out against video game violence. I don't need to elaborate that further.
The old usenet rule applies - don't feed the trolls. Just let old facts bite him, when they are made to look as if they still apply. (Which they can be, especially when you establish a chain between current events and the older facts.)
You drive around removing voting booths from black precincts....
Won't see the Congress investigating that game.
Maybe because it is would look like a political satire. (In addition to the fact that a game written like that would also contain a disclaimer as well.) It would also be considered criminal in most states, because that would look like an overt form of rigging votes.
A better alternative is to write a "Gerrymandering" game where you have to draw electorial districts to maximize your chances of winning an election. This would be a much better satire since not many people are familiar with this concept - especially as zig-zagging an electorial district along a row of houses turns out to be a winning strategy (at least for the easier difficulties). In addition, "Gerrymandering" is still considered legal in some places, and thus there is no unlawful activity being committed.
I might be somewhat unusual, but my computer is about a foot from my bed when I sleep, and I actually like the quiet drone it makes
That's not the problem. The problem involves the extra-loud fan noise (e.g. 40dB).
For example, my current video card is (still) a GeForce 4 TI4400, which has the loudest fan in the rig. If I leave the room and go to the other end of the hall, the fan is still audible. I know this, since the fan noise is minimally audible with that card removed.
As far as I know, there aren't that many high performance video cards (now required for most modern games) that are really quiet. The "original" piece is also out of date - good luck finding a GeForce 3.
First: The only difference between the 'species' of butterflies (or theorized 'pre-specisation'} is colour? Not quite. The Monarch Butterfly feeds off of milkweed, which hen causes predators that try to eat the Monarch Butterfly to become sick (basically, it is poisonous.) There is also a Viceroy Butterfly that similar, but has a different diet and is not poisonous. While there is a way to tell a difference between the two, that's not how mates are determined. Basically, butterflies attract incoming mates by releasing pheromones.
This has two meanings - either the scientific study is incomplete, or the written article oversimplified things.
Apparently you have never spilled coffee of the temperature being discussed here on your lap.I had that temperature of coffee spilled on my left arm. Instant second-degree burn, with blisters.
Coffee only has to touch skin to inflict damage. If it has enough kinetic energy to penetrate clothing that touches the skin, a burn will result.
You would be amazed at the what you (or even an elderly woman) can do while in pain in under three seconds. Third-degree burns are painless - the nerve endings are destroyed. If coffee is hot enough to cause a third degree, it's already too late.
You may have small amounts still on your lap and clothing, but most can be brushed off wit a wipe of the hand that is too quick to leave a mark.
Wiping a spill away is ineffective once it is already absorbed by the clothing (in this case, a cotton sweatpant.
Besides - you took an entire week to write your reply - you shouldn't write content where the first paragraph has enough holes to look like swiss cheese.
the videogames industry just can't do scandal. Let's face it, a few laughable scenes of polygonal coupling does not a Watergate make.
This is not correct - the real reason behind the lack of scandal is because there is no scandal.
I've told one of my parents - one who does critical views of politics (which sometimes differ from mine) about this. He simply laughed, because there isn't much difference between the Mature (M:17+) and Adults Only (AO:18+) ratings. The only way it could be a scandel is if the game was rated either as Teen (T:13+), Everyone (E:any age) or any other similar rating.
I said this before, and I'll say it again: 13-17 is considered a large gap, while 17-18 is considered a trivial.
""The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,'' said U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)"
The amount of sunlight depends on the rotation and tilt of the earth, not an arbitrary setting on a time marking device. Nothing, including this law, can change that. You can't legislate nature.
That is true, but he really means "the more daylight we have when we are at home".
Of course, it simply replaces night-time lighting with daytime air-conditioning/furnace usage.
I jumped up and shoke it off with no more than a red mark that went away by the end of the day. For her to get burns as bad as she recieved she had to wilfully sit there.
Are you suggesting that she should jump up *WHILE FASTENED BY A SEATBELT*, causing her to be pulled back down as the electronics/mechanics of the car assume that a sudden forward movement must be an unsafe shock?
In order to shake it off, she would need to unfasten the seatbelt, and open the car door first. Even if she did those actions as soon as possible, she would still get burned by the coffee.
Conceive a sphere constructed with the earth at it center, and imagine it surface to pass through Sirius, which is 8.8 light years distant from the earth... Then imagine this enormous sphere to be so packed with microbes that in every cubic millimeter millions and millions of these diminutive animalcula are present.
Speed of light is ~3.0*10^8 m/s, thus a light year is 1*10^11 meters. Sirius is therefore 8.8*10^11 m away.
Volume of the sphere is 4/3*PI*r^3, or 2.854*10^36 m^3. In cubic mms, 2.854*10^45 mm^3. For there to be millions in one cube, there is 2.854*10^51 microbes.
Now conceive these microbes to be unpacked and so distributed singly along a straight line that every two microbes are as far distant from each other as Sirius is from us... Conceive the long line thus fixed by all the microbes at the diameter of a circle, and imagine its circumference to be calculated by multiplying it diameter by Pi to 100 decimal places.
2.854*10^51 microbes * 8.8*10^11 m/microbe = 2.5 * 10^62 m.
Then, in the case of a circle of this enormous magnatude even, the circumference so calculated would not vary from the real circumference by a millionth part of a millimeter.
This example will suffice to show that the calculation of Pi to 100 or 500 decimal places is wholly useless."
You don't need to do more math to know that he is correct in his first statement. However, all you have to do is pick a more distant body, such as the andromeda galaxy. At that point, the variation is approximatly 1 am (attometer, 10^-18) - while still small and negligable, it is within the scale of standard measurement prefixes.
Just because it seems useless at first doesn't mean it is useless for all time.
Appallingly, so many people still insist on static linking of published binaries, with no more compelling reason for this than a barely measurable performance boost they could make up for ten times over by profiling the app and recompiling with that data. This of course assumes that they're testing the final binary.
I'm sure that someone else already mentioned this, but DLLs have their own set of problems.
- Windows 3.11 through Windows 98 have a problem known as DLL hell. Most applications insist on installing their own DLL version, breaking applications that require a newer version. - Windows XP SP1 had a "critical update" in the autoupdater that fixed a minor bug (KB824141) but caused instability in some applications. - If you need a DLL file for each individual task (e.g. a DLL for Zlib, DLL for TAR files, DLL for Gzip, DLL for TGZ fgiles, etc), you'll end up with a ton of DLL files in your system directory. You can't remove one without knowing whether or not your system will break. - Finally, there are some cases where the application relies on an existing DLL to be installed (and doesn't include a copy or otherwise give a list.)
There is this arcade sidescrolling shooter: Jets'n'Guns. A simple, well balanced game, with really GREAT gameplay. It's around 10h of gameplay, but it's soooo addictive.
I wouldn't entirely agree - some advanced weapons feel underpowered for their price. Other than that, I'd say that it should hold players enough for two passes.
It's nothing like doom3, which is costy and, once you've gone through, you don't play again cuz you "know where the monsters are hidden". Doom 3 had a price drop. However, it is still true that replayability doesn't exist in the base package. That's way you begin to hunt for singleplayer mods. Alternativly, you can write your own random level generator.:)
Seriously, that's the main strenght in Doom 3 - while the base game isn't popular or replayable, iD Software has made sure that their games are almost always customizable (ever since Ouake, which is after they discovered that DeHacked modified the monster and weapon activity.)
GPL is a bridge that lets competing companies work on the same code without worrying that the other part will just screw it up making it incompatible with everybody elses.
While there's plenty of advantages with the GPL, that's not one of them. In the case where two companies have to implement their own feature, which is either reduces efficiency of a "normal" configuration or is incompatable with the change by the other company.
This has happened before, and in can easily happen again.
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I'll play devil's advocate and use this as the reason why there aren't any more ethnic minorities - in this game, having a large number of dark skinned characters (e.g. a 50/50 split) would look awkward at the time (e.g. the US wasn't known for equality at the time.) There are two solutions - either multiple skins per class (which would take up more space and memory - generally a bad idea), or just stick it to just one class and hope the ratio would be correct. (since they usually need a unique model and/or skin anyway.)
Now, for the "issue" - there are some people out there that would claim that since the Field Ops model is Bloack, there game developers are giving propaganda that blacks should be placed in a serviant role as they have to run around giving ammo packs to everyone across the map. (Or some other similar scenario - take your pick). Even though this "issue" is really a strawman, it doesn't take much to set it off.
Remember that this is a real issue that companies have to deal with. Those of you that have a long memory may remember one MMORPG that implemented a sexist NPC that refused to do business with female characters - the result was a massive in-game riot.
There are some cases where discrimination is accepted in-game, such as in Arcanum. In this case, racism is directed to a specific imaginary species, such as Half-Orcs - the player is also given the option in kind to react negativly to racism (e.g. attack), or to perform racist behaviour (e.g. prefer not to talk with "inferior" races such as Halflings.) But this is generally an exception rather than the rule.
This is the same question as "When do I get my kid a car" and "When do I let my kid play violent games" so on, etc... Not quite - there's another factor not found in other examples - in this case, the maturity of other students.
Some high school students are generally mean - they batter others, they steal, they vandalize, and so on. The worst thing is that they receive no real reprocussions for destroying valuable equipment, especially in some countries that implement a variation of some young offenders act (when combined with social engineering where kind don't know any better.)
Other than that, your statement stands - the only difference is that you have to judge the maturity of others.
You might have better luck scumming Deck 2 for additional supplies from enemy respawn. Most of the enemies are a minimal threat with a melee attack - not a problem when you can hit first (and harder). There are shotgun hybrids that you have to deal with, but if you plan correctly (hit them as soon as they turn a corner), you can collect their shotgun ammo (by unloading their weapon) and any other items that could be recycled (e.g. beer).
In case of Zak, there were at least two wilderness mazes. Anne was capable of going through the maze normally - Zak was not, and struck out randomly upon reaching an exit.
The indoor maze did not appear to have this problem.
You might consider using a lower difficulty setting, which reduces damage from enemy attacks. Most cases where non-stealth isn't an option is if it is not natural to do so (e.g. attacking the first guard during the prison escape - your equipment was taken.) Likewise, there are cases where stealth is not an option, such as trying to reach the subway - you need to take out at least a few guards in open terrain.
The only case which is close enough to forced stealth would be Mission Eight - if you kill a cop, two soldiers come in as reinfocements. Even so, it is still possible to take enough of the enemies out that you don't have to worry about sneaking around for a while.
The trick is to play naturally - the stealth/non-stealth areas do not feel like a break in gameplay. This is in contrast to Jedi Outcast, where the player is capable of slaughtering massive amounts of soldiers (including Jedi-equivalents) but gets captured the instant an officer hits a button on an alarm panel - in this case, the gameplay feels artificial.
The developers had to include these - they appeared in the original System Shock 1, and removing them would cause too many questions on what happened to the resurrection technology.
They were used as a plot device in the first game, where SHODAN modifies the resurrection chambers to create the cyborg army. Because of this, there isn't any way the developers can say that it's inclusion was a mistake.
Preventing any form of extra lives tends to cause more problems than it fixes. As you will learn as soon as you attempt to design a game, requiring the player to "Ironman" as in the various Roguelikes requires making sure that the game balance is correct throughout the game, and making sure that there are no impossibilities or difficulty gaps.
Actually, it is 'E', and I can't see any alternative around it.
A. Pope John Paul II - while it is true that he was an influencial leader of the Catholic Church, his influence isn't
B. Franklin Roosevelt - A simple leader in the US during WWII era. While it seems that he found the United Nations, it's merely a renactment of the League of Nations.
C. Ronald Wilson Reagan - While it is true that he was a US president that helped the country's prosperity, there isn't much outside the walls of the US border (aside from bombing Libya as a retaliatory strike).
D. Ghandi - While it is true that his messages of peace have been spread far and wide, there is one major flaw with his message: It does not work if people are too apathetic or rendered powerless (because the rulers don't give a damn about lower classes, or if the middle class gets a benefit for staming on whatever is below them.) See below:
E. Hitler - as you mentioned, he basically started World War II. This has lead to countless WWII movies (such as Schindler's list) that give an excellent example on why evil dictatorships and racism should be stopped - it is really used as a starting point for those who want to seize power.
I did a biography on him when he was young - during the depression (where Germany was the hardest hit), he convinced the populace that Jews were to blame (as they were the most well off). In addition, he was a well supported leader because he was the first to cause a country to recover from the depression (by forcing goods to have a specific value), and had massive propoganda campaigns to keep children brainwashed into supporting the regieme.
This is ignoring the fact that the poll isn't a measure of reality - in theory, the inventor of the modern computer (or an operating system that runs on it) could be more influencial, but is generally forgotten as a generic boffin or "nerd".
For example, Quake shows the worst example ever - the boss enemy is invulnerable to everything else other than the lighting generator that he stores in his own lair. Likewise, the final boss is invulnerable to everything else other than the teleportation system included in the lair (ignoring the unpatched versions and various cheat codes).
Quest For Glory V does the weakpoint system correctly - the final boss has a weakness that may be exploited (but only during the first stage). If you do so, the second stage of the fight starts immediatly after stripping away it's massive resistance bonus. If you instead hack away at the hitpoint sponge, the resistance to damage will be retained during the second stage.
Plugging in a wire is no less userfriendly than putting it back in the recharger. The only people who have trouble plugging stuff in are those who never encountered a wall outlet.
Other than that, it's a matter of persanal taste on whetheryou want to worry about wire length, or to worry about battery life.
That might not be correct reasoning (assuming that is the case), but her conclusion is correct. The correct reason she no longer wants her grandson to have the product is because it is now marked as adults only for sexual conduct (making the game considered to contain pornographic content, as opposed to just skimpy clothing.)
This is a change from "not recommended for people under 17" to "not permitted for people under 18". While grandma may think the 14 year old is old enough to handle Mature content, this is not the case for Adults Only stuff as it is assumed to be pornographic.
However, nudity is still perfectly acceptable in video games geared toward young children. (The main characters aren't wearing any pants.)
Workarounds exist - you can either use Zonealarm to stop internet activity, or disconnect from the Internet (easy on dial-up).
I'm not the AC (why would I accuse tho opposition parties of trolling without good reason), but specai drivers appeared recently. Latest one is called StarForce, incleded in games such as Restricted area.
No, you simply purchased an engine demo. ID Software got their money from engine licences.
The cost of making the games, OTOH, has gone up exponentially.
Only when they are trying something new. Most of the cost is put into R&D, and high-poly artwork, whcih takes the most time. If you keep things simple (e.g. character is mostly a yellow sphere), production time is either shortened, or is focused on other tasks (e.g. level design).
They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK. With a high level of computer literacy, it's easy for them to find a game online and download it.
Since when did most people in that age group have a chance to purchase games that are both expensive and are of limited availability?
Besides - most people in that age droup are in high-school. While they could get a job, they don't get much money out of minimum wage work on weekends. For this case, you can say that most teenagers have no effective income.
With whatever income/allowance a teenager is given, the only things that can be bought are the most famous games. If there are hidden gems that he hears about , he has to collect enough money, only to find that the game is unavailable.
Internet distribution is supponed to solve this issue - however, teenagers aren't usually issued credit cards either and thus cannot make online purchases (without bothering their parents.)
While the exact percentage is news, the reasoning is not. Never be suprised if piracy occurs - unless there is a massive effort to get these users to play GPLed games.
No, he isn't.
The best trick is to ignore him - the best they can get is 60 minutes of fame before reality kicks in (i.e. the fact that most sales should be done to 17+ - ignoring pecial exceptions such as young developers needing the engine.)
If necessairy (and only if necessairy), just do minimalistic nudges:
- Loss to Janet Reno, where he makes personal attacks. In particular, he claimed that Reno took Sinemet (a narcotic) as part of the election campaign.
- In the list of video game cases, there is hardly victory worth mentioning (aside from the Hot Coffee incident, which would have worked without his help anyway.) His other cases were successful, but video games are not one of them.
- If a "parent" doesn't their childeren playing violent video games, then they can easily forbid it. It's that simple (aside from your children sneaking around your back to download games without your permission, or playing those games at a friends house - at that point, the parent can ground the child.)
- Jack Thompson declined to speak out against video game violence. I don't need to elaborate that further.
The old usenet rule applies - don't feed the trolls. Just let old facts bite him, when they are made to look as if they still apply. (Which they can be, especially when you establish a chain between current events and the older facts.)
Maybe because it is would look like a political satire. (In addition to the fact that a game written like that would also contain a disclaimer as well.) It would also be considered criminal in most states, because that would look like an overt form of rigging votes.
A better alternative is to write a "Gerrymandering" game where you have to draw electorial districts to maximize your chances of winning an election. This would be a much better satire since not many people are familiar with this concept - especially as zig-zagging an electorial district along a row of houses turns out to be a winning strategy (at least for the easier difficulties). In addition, "Gerrymandering" is still considered legal in some places, and thus there is no unlawful activity being committed.
I might be somewhat unusual, but my computer is about a foot from my bed when I sleep, and I actually like the quiet drone it makes
That's not the problem. The problem involves the extra-loud fan noise (e.g. 40dB).
For example, my current video card is (still) a GeForce 4 TI4400, which has the loudest fan in the rig. If I leave the room and go to the other end of the hall, the fan is still audible. I know this, since the fan noise is minimally audible with that card removed.
As far as I know, there aren't that many high performance video cards (now required for most modern games) that are really quiet. The "original" piece is also out of date - good luck finding a GeForce 3.
First: The only difference between the 'species' of butterflies (or theorized 'pre-specisation'} is colour? Not quite. The Monarch Butterfly feeds off of milkweed, which hen causes predators that try to eat the Monarch Butterfly to become sick (basically, it is poisonous.) There is also a Viceroy Butterfly that similar, but has a different diet and is not poisonous. While there is a way to tell a difference between the two, that's not how mates are determined. Basically, butterflies attract incoming mates by releasing pheromones.
This has two meanings - either the scientific study is incomplete, or the written article oversimplified things.
Apparently you have never spilled coffee of the temperature being discussed here on your lap.I had that temperature of coffee spilled on my left arm. Instant second-degree burn, with blisters.
Coffee only has to touch skin to inflict damage. If it has enough kinetic energy to penetrate clothing that touches the skin, a burn will result.
You would be amazed at the what you (or even an elderly woman) can do while in pain in under three seconds. Third-degree burns are painless - the nerve endings are destroyed. If coffee is hot enough to cause a third degree, it's already too late.
You may have small amounts still on your lap and clothing, but most can be brushed off wit a wipe of the hand that is too quick to leave a mark.
Wiping a spill away is ineffective once it is already absorbed by the clothing (in this case, a cotton sweatpant.
Besides - you took an entire week to write your reply - you shouldn't write content where the first paragraph has enough holes to look like swiss cheese.
This is not correct - the real reason behind the lack of scandal is because there is no scandal.
I've told one of my parents - one who does critical views of politics (which sometimes differ from mine) about this. He simply laughed, because there isn't much difference between the Mature (M:17+) and Adults Only (AO:18+) ratings. The only way it could be a scandel is if the game was rated either as Teen (T:13+), Everyone (E:any age) or any other similar rating.
I said this before, and I'll say it again: 13-17 is considered a large gap, while 17-18 is considered a trivial.
That is true, but he really means "the more daylight we have when we are at home".
Of course, it simply replaces night-time lighting with daytime air-conditioning/furnace usage.
In order to shake it off, she would need to unfasten the seatbelt, and open the car door first. Even if she did those actions as soon as possible, she would still get burned by the coffee.
Volume of the sphere is 4/3*PI*r^3, or 2.854*10^36 m^3. In cubic mms, 2.854*10^45 mm^3. For there to be millions in one cube, there is 2.854*10^51 microbes.
2.854*10^51 microbes * 8.8*10^11 m/microbe = 2.5 * 10^62 m.
You don't need to do more math to know that he is correct in his first statement. However, all you have to do is pick a more distant body, such as the andromeda galaxy. At that point, the variation is approximatly 1 am (attometer, 10^-18) - while still small and negligable, it is within the scale of standard measurement prefixes.
Just because it seems useless at first doesn't mean it is useless for all time.
I'm sure that someone else already mentioned this, but DLLs have their own set of problems.
- Windows 3.11 through Windows 98 have a problem known as DLL hell. Most applications insist on installing their own DLL version, breaking applications that require a newer version.
- Windows XP SP1 had a "critical update" in the autoupdater that fixed a minor bug (KB824141) but caused instability in some applications.
- If you need a DLL file for each individual task (e.g. a DLL for Zlib, DLL for TAR files, DLL for Gzip, DLL for TGZ fgiles, etc), you'll end up with a ton of DLL files in your system directory. You can't remove one without knowing whether or not your system will break.
- Finally, there are some cases where the application relies on an existing DLL to be installed (and doesn't include a copy or otherwise give a list.)
It's nothing like doom3, which is costy and, once you've gone through, you don't play again cuz you "know where the monsters are hidden". Doom 3 had a price drop. However, it is still true that replayability doesn't exist in the base package. That's way you begin to hunt for singleplayer mods. Alternativly, you can write your own random level generator.
Seriously, that's the main strenght in Doom 3 - while the base game isn't popular or replayable, iD Software has made sure that their games are almost always customizable (ever since Ouake, which is after they discovered that DeHacked modified the monster and weapon activity.)
While there's plenty of advantages with the GPL, that's not one of them. In the case where two companies have to implement their own feature, which is either reduces efficiency of a "normal" configuration or is incompatable with the change by the other company.
This has happened before, and in can easily happen again.