I got in the beta around 3 weeks before it ended. It was buggy as hell and missions were bugged, graphics, fighting was bugged, etc., . However, the concurrently ran a QA server which was a good few patches ahead. A lot of criticism that arrived at the open beta was because of the sudden influx of people bitching abotu stability when in fact the open beta change was a Stress Test for the servers.
In the 72hrs prior to shutdown of the beta, it was patched up to the QA server updates. There was immediate improvements across the board in tability, etc., . The initial criticism of Matrix Online being a bugfest was no longer warranted but it did suffer the labelling because of Stress Test.
The end of the beta - the almighty Matrix system crash that happened in game was amazing and a very involving MMORPG experience. Agents were spawning from game characters, major player controlled characters were being hunted down which was interaction at a pretty intense level. Major clans that had been involved over the months were summoned to appearances of Morpheus, etc., . Basically, we all got a glimpse of the plot and how it would work with the game.
At the same time, we had Radio Free Zion streaming in with live actors. This was excellent immersion and was not as cheesy as you think. It was all very "real" with this added element, plus with great music streaming in the background on this station.
So it built up over a period of hours, with sightings of Neo, the machines and the zionists breaking a truce with Morpheus insisting on the return of Neos body, etc., . Very well scripted and shows a lot of story potential. I was surprised at how well it actually all came together in the end but I'd recommend it definitely.
WHile the key to the start of the game proper is you being a freshly freed human you choose your side - Merovingian, Machinist, Zionist. Characters from the movies come into play in your missions as you go up in rank. Also, the traditional warrior/magician classes remain but the magician is represented by matrix "hackers" who can fuck with the matrix world, etc., . Very well implemented.
OK, so the whole breakdown of the human-machine truce from the end of Revolutions based on Morpheus demanding Neo's body is a bit lame it's better than humans starting a trade war or something equally Lucas-esque.
That's an interesting response. I know what you mean but surely it's better than what's happening now with people working 80hrs/week and getting screwed?
It would probably be a good idea but this seems a pervasive element to modern America's future. The pressure is on to cut custs as it's a quick-n-dirty way to boost profits so looks good on portfolios for investors.
But the backlash is that although outsourcing can stem rising wage costs, you need to keep that group in jobs to buy the shit your company churns out. As a whole, the greed is simply going to voerpower the likes of EA, etc., .
Now, I'm not even in America so my knowledge of US workers is based solely on Slashdot and The Onion, but even I can see that perhaps nationally agreed minimum contracts negotitated by unions for various professions like games programmers, etc., would help.
They can outsource some of the people some of the time, but they can't outsource *all* the people *all* the time. WOuld they simply be prepared to shut up shop and move base to Mumbai? I don't think the corporate big wigs would appreciate that one bit.
I suppose I'll just mention that Final Fantasy VII had an amazing story and is probably why it was so well loved, made all the more unique with the big heads. I miss that game.
Knights of the Old Republic was the probably the most recent game with an excellent story.
My personal opinion is that the story and plot makes a bigger difference on whether I buy a game or not - and it's part of the reason why I don't find FPS games that great as the depth is lacking (yes, *even* *in* *Halflife* ). Likewise, Deus Ex was hailed as revolutionary as a modern FPS style game but with lots of depth and for once a story that wasn't original but was well told. The sequel was dumbed down bullshit as usual.
The demise of the adventure game has also paralleled the rise of stupidity-sells games like the EA games and so on. Perhaps the "creativity" and "originality" we all moan about from yesteryear is not that we are just old fogey's bitching - maybe it's the the story and effort to create plot (think back to Loom, Monkey Island) is forgotten these days.
Judging from your UID, I'm surprised you even posted that as it's so customary on SLashdot for people to ask thigns that they could find out in 5 mins starting with a phonebook.
It's a new advertising phenomenon, I was reading it's even being used in the medical world at conferences where people casually drop names of products into conversations just to subliminally place it - these people are hired by companies and for example you tell them your occupation and age and they give you a product to "sell".
There is a website someplace where you can register yourself for one of these - I can't think of where I saw it as the dementia is probably setting in early tonight!!!1
No mate, I meant that when XBox's CPU was announced everyone bitched and said it was too slow and outdated *because* it was a stripped down Windows PC.
My comment was to basically skip past that and to compare how these days, CPUs are secondary to performance for graphics and games.
That CPU is a very good CPU to run. By comparison, the X-Box CPU was very very dated on release c/t the going CPUs in PCs because everyone was playign MHz catchup.
These days, there seems to be far less pressure on CPU and more ephasis on GFX chips. I, of course, didn't give a toss and never bothered to read to the article so how about someone tells us what chip it is and then we can bitch about that instead? The CPU is non-bitchable IMHO.
I mean, Snoop Dogg was actually a crack dealer, so when he is on TV talking about having the Roly on his arm and pouring Chandon and rolling the best weed, with pictures of the RR Phantom in the back, well, of course he will be looked upon as a hero (a workign class hero if you will, the John Lennon of the 2000s).
So if John Lennon is the working class hero, but he's basically a bad man with a lot of hoes, it's like he is the working class hero meets Wall Street.
The modern life is that you must rebel (as usual) but instead of living "free" and so on, you basically live it up with bling and fish-egg coloured $300,000 cars.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is progress. The "system" has finally ironed out the rebels. This new version of The Matrix means that tyhose that rebel and try and fuck things up by killing people or selling drugs sell out and become pop-culture icons and never do we hear the likes of Snoop complain. Hell no, he's loving it. The modern "system" works. You can no longer rebel against anything.
I'd also like to add, that as a late 20s white male, I like Snoop Doggs new album a lot. So how's that for street cred? Huh? You badass mofo's like *my* type of Top 40 music?
So....with the FBI *not* having Corel and say, the CIA *does* have it, is this a reason why interagency cooperation is difficult? E.g., Some agent gets info of a terrorist plot and his comp crashes and all he has is the stupid fucking happy-dog in Office to help him? Does the FBI send stupid Outlook HTML emails to the CIA saying look this crazy fucker is going to Guatemala to buy suitcase bombs so stop him, but the CIA get it and can't read crappy illegible Outlook mail, so they send it to the NSA who with their l33t sk1llz transfer it to.txt but they can't get the information out because it's deep inside loads supid meta bullshit from Outlook.
How about no-one buys anything for any amount and just uses Open Office.
The anti-antivideogamers have regularly responded that "pyschos will still be psychos" many times. I am absolutely against the overt restriction on video games and I love GTA.
But to suggest for a moment that kids don't learn from watching violence is very incorrect. Experiements on such vicarious (and this is a form of it, although it does "involve" the child) learning shows that it increases with the reward pattern of video games.
While it wasn't a concern back when games were Final Fantasy I monsters and it was just reward/token to keep playing, the realism in modern games does have a contribution to violence, just as kids who observe violence on TV by characters whom they perceive as being higher in status to themselves, richer, more popular, etc., . This is basic psychology from the 1960s.
Again, it is indesputable that children are affected by observed violence on TVs or videos. This is an issue with video games as the graphics have become realistic. GTA might seem cartoonish but it's far beyond the exaggerated effects of Tom & Jerry - it is a mimic of Scarface, etc., .
The certification system must be maintained and improved. Parents should not be punished for a transgression of their children but brought into the solution. The purveyors of the games - the rental stores, the game stores who supply to minors should be punished as a bar would be for supplying alcohol to minors.
I'm sure in some MBA marketing exec's boardroom meetings the graphs show endless profits from adopting the "rental" method (pay per month of use). It's undoubedtly justified to expand global dot-com collaborations and network sharing expansion. And other marketing bollocks.
What they are forgetting is that the lowest common denominator is the console - only a minority and that's a real definite minorirty but a *minority* none the less have or give a shit about online play
I dont have FFXI, because I liked FF games due to the plot and story created and the playability which while not hard was entertaining and kept you going.
The move to online-only games = the computer equivalent of reality TV. They don't need plots and people will kill each other (almost) to produce the content the developers don't need to anymore. The character interaction, etc., is what makes RPGs and l44t sk9i11z kids don't exactly imply adequate value.
But it's $60 + $15/month. You might cancel after a few months, probably 3-4 I would guess is what the board of directors figures. This means up to $120, well worth it even with a smaller userbase.
Replying to my own post is bad but TMS is Transcranial Magentic Stimulation. I was thinking of something else at the time and put Ultrasound in instead. Sorry!
Vagal Nerve Stimulation is OK but as it's invasive I would see it as not being as "good" as alternatives. The reason is it being publicised is because the technology already exists, the theory is decades old and it's a "chargeable" procedure. But it is invasive and as such carries more risks than ECT. It will make certain corporations a lot of money and undoubedtly will lead to a reversal to the macroscopic analogies of psychiatric illness of 50 years ago. It's crude, put it that way.
Possibly a better track is the TMS - Transcranial Magnetic Ultrasound. This is non-invasive and uses magnetic and electrical principles to achieve the neurogenesis seen in ECT which is the best treatment for certain types of depression. It's cheaper and quicker and has none of the risks of ECT which are primarily those associated with a general anaesthesia.
So VNS will lead down a path of the cingulotomies of the past with a GA to implant and complications of that. GA causes enough of the ECT problems like memory loss and disorientation. It will however make procedural money and insurance companies love procedures. Vagal Nerve Stimulation is more invasive and drastic than ECT. The article quotes one of them saying the opposite.
TMS is non-invasive, carries none of the related side-effects of General Anaesthetic (used in ECT and Vagal Nerve Stimulation). It is misleading in this article to suppose that ECT is more "drastic". VNS = corporate money + risk of neurosurgery. TMS = better results for patient with less side effects.
Surgical intervention such as anterior cingulotomy have only been found succesful in very rare cases.
Now, Ubisoft will redirect resources to most likely making shit repetitive sports games only with "euro" commentators for the soccer games, the skiing games and the rugby games.
In the end, all we will have will be a recreation of every sports game on the planet on the same engine with updates every year.
If this software patent passes, I will patent a software process that allows publication through HTML or any machine readable code of any information relating to software patents. It will be akin to a Hello World program in simplicity and this will do
a) Stop these articles being posted every two days (although I realise they are relevant) and
b) Stop the corps who want US-style software patents form ever having an accesible database to ever search for those patents
I will then own the rights to ever have an information page on any patent stored electronically. This is called legislating yourself back to the stone age but is theoretically possible in the age of free-for-all software patents.
They make and sell a "premier order system" called X_TRADER. They claim over 50% of the volume on the "big four" exchanges use it.
The report above says contradictory statements on profitability: they have had $40 million invested between 99-02. Currently have $8 million in the bank and hav been $32million net income loss over the past 6 years. . So the problem is they are losing money, have been trying for years to make it and become the "Microsoft" of trading platforms but have been failing. The 2.5 cent inclusiong they want (as a start) will give them $130 million profit per year.
"We believe in competition within every sector of the futures industry", except, obviously, from other competitors or indeed companies in the rest of the world. To quote again "The 2.5 cent inclusion would create a new era of competition for order-entry by extending TT's intellectual property to the world, forever".
Those quotes are from the press release above. This shows a) how fucked up the patent situation has become and b) how vitally important it is that US business interests are kept out of EU and Rest-of-the-world interests. The TT release is a money grab for sustained income from the rest of the world despite them having no legal basis to do so outside the US.
TT wants the right to an income and wants it enshrined across patent law that they will be the Microsoft of trading software, basically. No company has the right to an income and if they can't profit in 6 years and are net loss making, maybe they should fuck off then.
Could anyone come up with a list of other new and older (like DI) dev companies.
We could take bets on who's next. This purchase/buyout is not because of producing games remember, it's to boost stock at this time of year. If DICE make anything or not, it's almost irrelevant as EA will have sold the idea to it's own shareholders.
So this time next year, or maybe next November when the end of year reports are not looking so good, who's next to be gobbled up?
Slashdot Mirror
In the 72hrs prior to shutdown of the beta, it was patched up to the QA server updates. There was immediate improvements across the board in tability, etc., . The initial criticism of Matrix Online being a bugfest was no longer warranted but it did suffer the labelling because of Stress Test.
The end of the beta - the almighty Matrix system crash that happened in game was amazing and a very involving MMORPG experience. Agents were spawning from game characters, major player controlled characters were being hunted down which was interaction at a pretty intense level. Major clans that had been involved over the months were summoned to appearances of Morpheus, etc., . Basically, we all got a glimpse of the plot and how it would work with the game.
At the same time, we had Radio Free Zion streaming in with live actors. This was excellent immersion and was not as cheesy as you think. It was all very "real" with this added element, plus with great music streaming in the background on this station.
So it built up over a period of hours, with sightings of Neo, the machines and the zionists breaking a truce with Morpheus insisting on the return of Neos body, etc., . Very well scripted and shows a lot of story potential. I was surprised at how well it actually all came together in the end but I'd recommend it definitely.
WHile the key to the start of the game proper is you being a freshly freed human you choose your side - Merovingian, Machinist, Zionist. Characters from the movies come into play in your missions as you go up in rank. Also, the traditional warrior/magician classes remain but the magician is represented by matrix "hackers" who can fuck with the matrix world, etc., . Very well implemented.
OK, so the whole breakdown of the human-machine truce from the end of Revolutions based on Morpheus demanding Neo's body is a bit lame it's better than humans starting a trade war or something equally Lucas-esque.
Seems like a fine balance is very hard to find.
But the backlash is that although outsourcing can stem rising wage costs, you need to keep that group in jobs to buy the shit your company churns out. As a whole, the greed is simply going to voerpower the likes of EA, etc., .
Now, I'm not even in America so my knowledge of US workers is based solely on Slashdot and The Onion, but even I can see that perhaps nationally agreed minimum contracts negotitated by unions for various professions like games programmers, etc., would help.
They can outsource some of the people some of the time, but they can't outsource *all* the people *all* the time. WOuld they simply be prepared to shut up shop and move base to Mumbai? I don't think the corporate big wigs would appreciate that one bit.
Knights of the Old Republic was the probably the most recent game with an excellent story.
My personal opinion is that the story and plot makes a bigger difference on whether I buy a game or not - and it's part of the reason why I don't find FPS games that great as the depth is lacking (yes, *even* *in* *Halflife* ). Likewise, Deus Ex was hailed as revolutionary as a modern FPS style game but with lots of depth and for once a story that wasn't original but was well told. The sequel was dumbed down bullshit as usual.
The demise of the adventure game has also paralleled the rise of stupidity-sells games like the EA games and so on. Perhaps the "creativity" and "originality" we all moan about from yesteryear is not that we are just old fogey's bitching - maybe it's the the story and effort to create plot (think back to Loom, Monkey Island) is forgotten these days.
Judging from your UID, I'm surprised you even posted that as it's so customary on SLashdot for people to ask thigns that they could find out in 5 mins starting with a phonebook.
There is a website someplace where you can register yourself for one of these - I can't think of where I saw it as the dementia is probably setting in early tonight!!!1
It sounds like he quit games and started selling donuts, cola and cigarettes.
My comment was to basically skip past that and to compare how these days, CPUs are secondary to performance for graphics and games.
These days, there seems to be far less pressure on CPU and more ephasis on GFX chips. I, of course, didn't give a toss and never bothered to read to the article so how about someone tells us what chip it is and then we can bitch about that instead? The CPU is non-bitchable IMHO.
So if John Lennon is the working class hero, but he's basically a bad man with a lot of hoes, it's like he is the working class hero meets Wall Street. The modern life is that you must rebel (as usual) but instead of living "free" and so on, you basically live it up with bling and fish-egg coloured $300,000 cars.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is progress. The "system" has finally ironed out the rebels. This new version of The Matrix means that tyhose that rebel and try and fuck things up by killing people or selling drugs sell out and become pop-culture icons and never do we hear the likes of Snoop complain. Hell no, he's loving it. The modern "system" works. You can no longer rebel against anything.
I'd also like to add, that as a late 20s white male, I like Snoop Doggs new album a lot. So how's that for street cred? Huh? You badass mofo's like *my* type of Top 40 music?
We have a lot more inflation in uroland, withnew games costing 60 or even 70.
How about no-one buys anything for any amount and just uses Open Office.
But to suggest for a moment that kids don't learn from watching violence is very incorrect. Experiements on such vicarious (and this is a form of it, although it does "involve" the child) learning shows that it increases with the reward pattern of video games.
While it wasn't a concern back when games were Final Fantasy I monsters and it was just reward/token to keep playing, the realism in modern games does have a contribution to violence, just as kids who observe violence on TV by characters whom they perceive as being higher in status to themselves, richer, more popular, etc., . This is basic psychology from the 1960s.
Again, it is indesputable that children are affected by observed violence on TVs or videos. This is an issue with video games as the graphics have become realistic. GTA might seem cartoonish but it's far beyond the exaggerated effects of Tom & Jerry - it is a mimic of Scarface, etc., .
The certification system must be maintained and improved. Parents should not be punished for a transgression of their children but brought into the solution. The purveyors of the games - the rental stores, the game stores who supply to minors should be punished as a bar would be for supplying alcohol to minors.
My 2c
What they are forgetting is that the lowest common denominator is the console - only a minority and that's a real definite minorirty but a *minority* none the less have or give a shit about online play
I dont have FFXI, because I liked FF games due to the plot and story created and the playability which while not hard was entertaining and kept you going.
The move to online-only games = the computer equivalent of reality TV. They don't need plots and people will kill each other (almost) to produce the content the developers don't need to anymore. The character interaction, etc., is what makes RPGs and l44t sk9i11z kids don't exactly imply adequate value.
But it's $60 + $15/month. You might cancel after a few months, probably 3-4 I would guess is what the board of directors figures. This means up to $120, well worth it even with a smaller userbase.
What a bunch of shit.
Replying to my own post is bad but TMS is Transcranial Magentic Stimulation. I was thinking of something else at the time and put Ultrasound in instead. Sorry!
Possibly a better track is the TMS - Transcranial Magnetic Ultrasound. This is non-invasive and uses magnetic and electrical principles to achieve the neurogenesis seen in ECT which is the best treatment for certain types of depression. It's cheaper and quicker and has none of the risks of ECT which are primarily those associated with a general anaesthesia.
So VNS will lead down a path of the cingulotomies of the past with a GA to implant and complications of that. GA causes enough of the ECT problems like memory loss and disorientation. It will however make procedural money and insurance companies love procedures. Vagal Nerve Stimulation is more invasive and drastic than ECT. The article quotes one of them saying the opposite.
TMS is non-invasive, carries none of the related side-effects of General Anaesthetic (used in ECT and Vagal Nerve Stimulation). It is misleading in this article to suppose that ECT is more "drastic". VNS = corporate money + risk of neurosurgery. TMS = better results for patient with less side effects.
Surgical intervention such as anterior cingulotomy have only been found succesful in very rare cases.
Google search for EA and Ubisoft
Now, Ubisoft will redirect resources to most likely making shit repetitive sports games only with "euro" commentators for the soccer games, the skiing games and the rugby games.
In the end, all we will have will be a recreation of every sports game on the planet on the same engine with updates every year.
I will then own the rights to ever have an information page on any patent stored electronically. This is called legislating yourself back to the stone age but is theoretically possible in the age of free-for-all software patents.
You don't need the online part to activate. The solution was obvious to anyone who's even read the old +ORC tutorials.
Should we wait to start the petition-to-save-galactica now or wait another season?
They make and sell a "premier order system" called X_TRADER. They claim over 50% of the volume on the "big four" exchanges use it.
The report above says contradictory statements on profitability: they have had $40 million invested between 99-02. Currently have $8 million in the bank and hav been $32million net income loss over the past 6 years. . So the problem is they are losing money, have been trying for years to make it and become the "Microsoft" of trading platforms but have been failing. The 2.5 cent inclusiong they want (as a start) will give them $130 million profit per year.
"We believe in competition within every sector of the futures industry", except, obviously, from other competitors or indeed companies in the rest of the world. To quote again "The 2.5 cent inclusion would create a new era of competition for order-entry by extending TT's intellectual property to the world, forever".
Those quotes are from the press release above. This shows a) how fucked up the patent situation has become and b) how vitally important it is that US business interests are kept out of EU and Rest-of-the-world interests. The TT release is a money grab for sustained income from the rest of the world despite them having no legal basis to do so outside the US.
TT wants the right to an income and wants it enshrined across patent law that they will be the Microsoft of trading software, basically. No company has the right to an income and if they can't profit in 6 years and are net loss making, maybe they should fuck off then.
Did I win? Did I win?
Apple iProduct
I'm being an asshole pointing this out, but you get pulses from the arteries, not veins.
We could take bets on who's next. This purchase/buyout is not because of producing games remember, it's to boost stock at this time of year. If DICE make anything or not, it's almost irrelevant as EA will have sold the idea to it's own shareholders.
So this time next year, or maybe next November when the end of year reports are not looking so good, who's next to be gobbled up?