Still it must be said - it sold 3 million copies in its first year (according to the book Accidental Empires, and the subsequent documentary Triumph of the Nerds) which was like 10x more than all the Mac's Apple ever sold up to that point.
I remember supporting PageMaker on Mac and Windows - it was awful on both platforms (this was Pre-Quark when PageMaker was pretty much the only app to do layout with). To get really good results on the Mac you have to have an 8-10k machine, to get decentish results on a Windows PC you could get away with a $1200 Dell.
In other words - an 8 meg Mac was worthless for DTP, but an 8 meg Dell did ok at it - I think this was largely for the fact that System 7 just had that much more overhead. 8 megs was a ton of ram for Windows 3.x, but I can specifically remember my 8 meg IICX being horrible at about everything (and it was like an 8000 dollar machine with the nice screen attached) until it was upgraded to 32 (I think) - which was a ton of money at the time.
One other thing that really hasn't come up - I work in education (community college to be specific) and I know that it takes 2-4 years to come out with new text books - and in most cases those textbooks have minor differences from the previous revisions.
Re-writing an entire textbook from scratch to have right wing bias could take a considerable amount of time, effort, resources and money - who's to say the publishers won't tell Texas to get bent? Or in a better scenario publishers tell Texas "ok we'll make those changes, but it will take 8 years".
I run a bunch of labs at a community college lately (hey things are tough all over), and one thing I've noticed is people love to talk at the top of their voice when on the cell phone - that's annoying in a study hall.
I had a similar setup, and witnessed some pretty epic crashes under Windows 3.1 related to DMA. Still it was a pretty nice setup, hardware assisted mod playback (back when that mattered to a cpu), really nice midi sound etc etc.
The rationale for not having to group in WoW was actually explained at the last GDC by Kaplan I think - basically he wanted a game that you could sit down and play for 30 minutes without having to sit in some central hub pleading to join some group for several hours at a time.
WoW does have group quests - but they aren't required. Group quests often have better rewards (more exp, money and sometimes a blue or epic item), but certainly not required to level. Wow has almost 30+ or so lower level dungeons to do while leveling too - something Aion left out.
The problem with most mmo's is if you want to enjoy all the content with your friends it often requires to be max level. Same with PVP - a higher level character does more damage, has more hit points, and general does better in pvp/raids than a lower level character.
Depends - Blizzard did all these things and more (for instance you can buy special gear to give your next character 20% more exp on everything they do) and they keep gaining subscribers.
There is something to the design concept "it really does need to be fun to play" - never mind how hard it is.
I think WoW scales pretty well - there's plenty of stuff to do even if your terrible at the game, plenty of hard modes to do in raids if you're really quite good at it. Leveling shouldn't be the end all to any mmo - neither should gearing up a character (to a certain extent). Most people are still terrible at the game, and making it easier didn't change that, but at least there's something for those people to do.
My experience with Aion is it feels like a Free to Play game in terms of quality and progression, but they charge for it. Its defining feature - you have a character that can fly - completely feels gimped. The grind past level 30 (despite the amount of times they said they'd fix it) is really awful, but you can buy XP boosters and play on double exp weekends (sounds like F2P to me there), crafting is a horrible grind (someone described Aion's crafting system during the beta as the mmo equivalent of cutting yourself - thats bad press for a "game"). The killer for me is the one feature they borrowed from Lineage/Lineage 2 that makes no sense. You grind your way through a farking dungeon (not even a raid) for 4 sodding hours and the boss only has a *chance* to drop loot - he/she may not drop jack.
To me MMO suicide is server mergers. Your admitting as a company your game isn't successful - its a death knell as your game slowely loses interest the playerbase get smaller and smaller and to keep the game going you have to make the server pool smaller.
Its gotten much better, but they still drop the call if you switch from 3G area to edge (which happens a lot), and the service doesn't work so well inside buildings where I live.
Sadly for some reason the carriers here in the US (and I've heard its worse in Canada) take the nickel and dime approach to services - they literally have a line item for every feature on my phone, and how much I can use of each feature.
And they get away with it too because every other carrier does it too.
What killed newsgroups for me was spam. I know they probably have a handle on it now, but back in the late 90's the signal to spam ratio was like 90%.
One of the few times in my life too when spam really started to piss me off - so much so I never went back. People must have bought this garbage they were pushing too - when some rec.arts group shot up to 10,000+ messages a *day* (from 20 or 30 - yes it really was that bad).
Its kind of sad too - unified message boards are now a thing of the past. Same with community BBS's (there was a time - I know its hard to believe, that you knew who in your community was doing what with computers, or radio or model airplanes because of the local bbs's).
If it isn't a monopoly how come when I go to the store the stereos on sale only have ipod/iphone docks on them? Not a single one of these systems has bluetooth support to work with my smartphone - just apples stuff.
What are you talking about? Android has the best of both worlds - by default you can ONLY install apps via the marketplace, and some cost - some don't - but billing is unified.
You can fiddle with a preference in the phone and get all kinds of dire warnings about security, but it will let you install from another source if wanted.
Actually, i find it's the other way around. Nobody blinks an eye when Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo brings out a new line of consoles, vendor locked-in to the max, only running apps that require their approval and signature, a process which costs tens of thousands $$. But if Apple does it for their iPhone, bring out the tar and feathers!
True, but I don't really see MS/Sony/Nintendo marketing these devices as general purpose computers - where as the iPad is being marketed this way. I think that's where the line was drawn really. Its all fun and games literally until you can type out your book report on it.
A laptop is still a PC - just miniaturized, and I don't know anyone here in the US personally who gets by with their iPad/iPhone alone - and many still have a full blown desktop.
See thats the way this works - the almighty Steve convinces you 3G isn't in the iPhone because it would drain the battery, despite any factual technical information being presented and the fanboys defend it as a rational because of a pseudo technical explanation from Steve. The reality is (and this is the way Apple appears to be ahead of the competition most of the time) is it wasn't ready, but to ship early the feature was dropped completely.
On a more technical level - radios implemented in silicon are really inefficient - even to this day. Its something a lot of really smart people are working really hard to fix, and even if they do solve the problem they can never get above 50% efficiency (ie - 2 watts in for 1 watt out) with even the best semi-conductors.
For around five years now the Mac has been free of viruses and malware. So who has been more wrong, the person who rightfully believes the platform is free of malware or the person who thinks if something may someday have malware it is eqivilent to having it?
I read that Snow Leopard has a malware scanner - what is it scanning for?
That link might help, but Leopard won't install on my 1GHz G4 Powerbook with 2 gigs of ram because it says I don't meet the system requirements - never-mind that I actually do.
Like I said - nothing like reading the book and then actually trying to start a fire by rubbing sticks together - it requires a great deal of practice and skill.
1) Macbook pro overheat issue when its gpu is under load (google it - it really does exist - had a student finally return a machine over this problem) 2) Quicksilver fan speed issue 3) G4 cube case crack issue (oddly enough I have a g4 cube in pristine condition, but a friend at work wasn't so lucky)
I won't even bring up the hundreds of models of beige models with proprietary expansion slots and all their hardware quirks (ok wth - I will - 3 different kinds of nubus slot connectors, funky all in one expansion slot where you put the ethernet card, the Quadra's you had to disassemble the power supply/hdd rail just to upgrade the memory, the very fist model where you had to use a rubber mallet to pop the case open [yes that procedure is in there service manual], faulty volume controls on beige models - which apple couldn't be bothered to replace for lack of parts [first time I've ever seen a machine sit on the workbench for almost 2 years]). Oh lest I forget - the Powermac 6100 - the crime against nature with its 640k (!) of video ram, and its right angel requiring an adapter and even then the electrical connections where such shite it still didn't work expansion slot.
As someone who has worked on Mac's on a hardware/software level - the only machines they made that were perfect were the original silver powerbooks (those things are ROCK SOLID - if you forgive the scalding heat) and the G5/Mac Pro line which are easy to work on and well built.
Their hardware is made by the same people these days that make Dell/HP/Compaq etc - some factory like Foxxcon in China - get over it. When there stuff was made in the USA (which a lot of it was at one point) I would have given you that, but its not.
Apple's UI accomplishments over the years are obvious, but I guess I'll have to list a few since you are so used to a post-Apple world that you don't realise what they've done.
How? Examples of crap ui:
Their task switcher in System 7 - OS-9 forced you to reach for a drop down menu to switch tasks. Windows 3.1 and Amiga DOS both had more intuitive task switching methods. Amiga's was to click on the page flip button in the upper right to cycle through windows, and MS Windows 3.1 was ALT+Tab and the icon bar at the bottom of the screen - both of which Apple adopted in OSX oddly enough
More recent example: OSX never seems to remember window positions or views in finder - seriously what is up with this? Some icons in the task area go to the right (like the task bar in Windows XP/Vista) others just have an arrow above them but stay in the same place (like Windows 7) - sometimes its confusing as to why. On windows its because the icon is pinned to the task bar, on the Mac some apps it does this - others it doesn't.
There's a big difference between reading a manual, and actually being able to pull something off though.
Most extreme example - how to make a nuclear bomb. Well you need the materials, and it needs to be refined, and at some point you need an reactor to do this. Not for the faint of heart or budget - even if you had all the schematics, blueprints and facilities to do it.
Then there's surviving on your own - I remember doing the survivalist merit badge as a boy scout - it wasn't easy fishing, hunting and scavenging for your own food, never mind making your own guns and ammunition.
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Still it must be said - it sold 3 million copies in its first year (according to the book Accidental Empires, and the subsequent documentary Triumph of the Nerds) which was like 10x more than all the Mac's Apple ever sold up to that point.
I remember supporting PageMaker on Mac and Windows - it was awful on both platforms (this was Pre-Quark when PageMaker was pretty much the only app to do layout with). To get really good results on the Mac you have to have an 8-10k machine, to get decentish results on a Windows PC you could get away with a $1200 Dell.
In other words - an 8 meg Mac was worthless for DTP, but an 8 meg Dell did ok at it - I think this was largely for the fact that System 7 just had that much more overhead. 8 megs was a ton of ram for Windows 3.x, but I can specifically remember my 8 meg IICX being horrible at about everything (and it was like an 8000 dollar machine with the nice screen attached) until it was upgraded to 32 (I think) - which was a ton of money at the time.
One other thing that really hasn't come up - I work in education (community college to be specific) and I know that it takes 2-4 years to come out with new text books - and in most cases those textbooks have minor differences from the previous revisions.
Re-writing an entire textbook from scratch to have right wing bias could take a considerable amount of time, effort, resources and money - who's to say the publishers won't tell Texas to get bent? Or in a better scenario publishers tell Texas "ok we'll make those changes, but it will take 8 years".
So should I put a druid for hire ad in the newspaper? How do you get a job like this?
Did ;) - no-one reads signs.
I run a bunch of labs at a community college lately (hey things are tough all over), and one thing I've noticed is people love to talk at the top of their voice when on the cell phone - that's annoying in a study hall.
I had a similar setup, and witnessed some pretty epic crashes under Windows 3.1 related to DMA. Still it was a pretty nice setup, hardware assisted mod playback (back when that mattered to a cpu), really nice midi sound etc etc.
The rationale for not having to group in WoW was actually explained at the last GDC by Kaplan I think - basically he wanted a game that you could sit down and play for 30 minutes without having to sit in some central hub pleading to join some group for several hours at a time.
WoW does have group quests - but they aren't required. Group quests often have better rewards (more exp, money and sometimes a blue or epic item), but certainly not required to level. Wow has almost 30+ or so lower level dungeons to do while leveling too - something Aion left out.
The problem with most mmo's is if you want to enjoy all the content with your friends it often requires to be max level. Same with PVP - a higher level character does more damage, has more hit points, and general does better in pvp/raids than a lower level character.
Depends - Blizzard did all these things and more (for instance you can buy special gear to give your next character 20% more exp on everything they do) and they keep gaining subscribers.
There is something to the design concept "it really does need to be fun to play" - never mind how hard it is.
I think WoW scales pretty well - there's plenty of stuff to do even if your terrible at the game, plenty of hard modes to do in raids if you're really quite good at it. Leveling shouldn't be the end all to any mmo - neither should gearing up a character (to a certain extent). Most people are still terrible at the game, and making it easier didn't change that, but at least there's something for those people to do.
My experience with Aion is it feels like a Free to Play game in terms of quality and progression, but they charge for it. Its defining feature - you have a character that can fly - completely feels gimped. The grind past level 30 (despite the amount of times they said they'd fix it) is really awful, but you can buy XP boosters and play on double exp weekends (sounds like F2P to me there), crafting is a horrible grind (someone described Aion's crafting system during the beta as the mmo equivalent of cutting yourself - thats bad press for a "game"). The killer for me is the one feature they borrowed from Lineage/Lineage 2 that makes no sense. You grind your way through a farking dungeon (not even a raid) for 4 sodding hours and the boss only has a *chance* to drop loot - he/she may not drop jack.
To me MMO suicide is server mergers. Your admitting as a company your game isn't successful - its a death knell as your game slowely loses interest the playerbase get smaller and smaller and to keep the game going you have to make the server pool smaller.
Its gotten much better, but they still drop the call if you switch from 3G area to edge (which happens a lot), and the service doesn't work so well inside buildings where I live.
Sadly for some reason the carriers here in the US (and I've heard its worse in Canada) take the nickel and dime approach to services - they literally have a line item for every feature on my phone, and how much I can use of each feature.
And they get away with it too because every other carrier does it too.
What killed newsgroups for me was spam. I know they probably have a handle on it now, but back in the late 90's the signal to spam ratio was like 90%.
One of the few times in my life too when spam really started to piss me off - so much so I never went back. People must have bought this garbage they were pushing too - when some rec.arts group shot up to 10,000+ messages a *day* (from 20 or 30 - yes it really was that bad).
Its kind of sad too - unified message boards are now a thing of the past. Same with community BBS's (there was a time - I know its hard to believe, that you knew who in your community was doing what with computers, or radio or model airplanes because of the local bbs's).
What law did they break by listening in on *open* wi-fi connections?
If it isn't a monopoly how come when I go to the store the stereos on sale only have ipod/iphone docks on them? Not a single one of these systems has bluetooth support to work with my smartphone - just apples stuff.
What are you talking about? Android has the best of both worlds - by default you can ONLY install apps via the marketplace, and some cost - some don't - but billing is unified.
You can fiddle with a preference in the phone and get all kinds of dire warnings about security, but it will let you install from another source if wanted.
True, but I don't really see MS/Sony/Nintendo marketing these devices as general purpose computers - where as the iPad is being marketed this way. I think that's where the line was drawn really. Its all fun and games literally until you can type out your book report on it.
A laptop is still a PC - just miniaturized, and I don't know anyone here in the US personally who gets by with their iPad/iPhone alone - and many still have a full blown desktop.
See thats the way this works - the almighty Steve convinces you 3G isn't in the iPhone because it would drain the battery, despite any factual technical information being presented and the fanboys defend it as a rational because of a pseudo technical explanation from Steve. The reality is (and this is the way Apple appears to be ahead of the competition most of the time) is it wasn't ready, but to ship early the feature was dropped completely.
On a more technical level - radios implemented in silicon are really inefficient - even to this day. Its something a lot of really smart people are working really hard to fix, and even if they do solve the problem they can never get above 50% efficiency (ie - 2 watts in for 1 watt out) with even the best semi-conductors.
Oddly enough a lot of them still want to play farmville on facebook. It worked on my Mac, why not my iPad?
I read that Snow Leopard has a malware scanner - what is it scanning for?
That link might help, but Leopard won't install on my 1GHz G4 Powerbook with 2 gigs of ram because it says I don't meet the system requirements - never-mind that I actually do.
Like I said - nothing like reading the book and then actually trying to start a fire by rubbing sticks together - it requires a great deal of practice and skill.
1) Macbook pro overheat issue when its gpu is under load (google it - it really does exist - had a student finally return a machine over this problem)
2) Quicksilver fan speed issue
3) G4 cube case crack issue (oddly enough I have a g4 cube in pristine condition, but a friend at work wasn't so lucky)
I won't even bring up the hundreds of models of beige models with proprietary expansion slots and all their hardware quirks (ok wth - I will - 3 different kinds of nubus slot connectors, funky all in one expansion slot where you put the ethernet card, the Quadra's you had to disassemble the power supply/hdd rail just to upgrade the memory, the very fist model where you had to use a rubber mallet to pop the case open [yes that procedure is in there service manual], faulty volume controls on beige models - which apple couldn't be bothered to replace for lack of parts [first time I've ever seen a machine sit on the workbench for almost 2 years]). Oh lest I forget - the Powermac 6100 - the crime against nature with its 640k (!) of video ram, and its right angel requiring an adapter and even then the electrical connections where such shite it still didn't work expansion slot.
As someone who has worked on Mac's on a hardware/software level - the only machines they made that were perfect were the original silver powerbooks (those things are ROCK SOLID - if you forgive the scalding heat) and the G5/Mac Pro line which are easy to work on and well built.
Their hardware is made by the same people these days that make Dell/HP/Compaq etc - some factory like Foxxcon in China - get over it. When there stuff was made in the USA (which a lot of it was at one point) I would have given you that, but its not.
How? Examples of crap ui:
Their task switcher in System 7 - OS-9 forced you to reach for a drop down menu to switch tasks. Windows 3.1 and Amiga DOS both had more intuitive task switching methods. Amiga's was to click on the page flip button in the upper right to cycle through windows, and MS Windows 3.1 was ALT+Tab and the icon bar at the bottom of the screen - both of which Apple adopted in OSX oddly enough
More recent example: OSX never seems to remember window positions or views in finder - seriously what is up with this? Some icons in the task area go to the right (like the task bar in Windows XP/Vista) others just have an arrow above them but stay in the same place (like Windows 7) - sometimes its confusing as to why. On windows its because the icon is pinned to the task bar, on the Mac some apps it does this - others it doesn't.
There's a big difference between reading a manual, and actually being able to pull something off though.
Most extreme example - how to make a nuclear bomb. Well you need the materials, and it needs to be refined, and at some point you need an reactor to do this. Not for the faint of heart or budget - even if you had all the schematics, blueprints and facilities to do it.
Then there's surviving on your own - I remember doing the survivalist merit badge as a boy scout - it wasn't easy fishing, hunting and scavenging for your own food, never mind making your own guns and ammunition.