I was disappointed in the mini iPod announcement but people will buy them.
Most people focus on "for $50 more you can get 15 more gigs" but there's more to it than that. People will buy the mini ipods for design.
It is smaller and lighter. iPods are already small. Many consumers value smallness hugely. To a consumer who cares more about unit size, than hard disk size, the mini iPod is better and cheaper.
There is also the cuteness factor. Mini iPods come in color. For students in particular, I think this is going to be a big thing. If you think the mini iPod looks better, and it's cheaper, it's a great deal.
Like many iPod consumers I don't care too much about the size of the hard disk, because 4 gigs is enough for me. I don't need to carry my whole music collection around. Sure, I might do that, but it's not a huge deal to me.
So we're left with a smaller, cuter, cheaper iPod that costs less and carries enough music. I'd buy that.
Go into an apple store and try handling one, see how you like it, you may find that 4 gigs vs 15 gigs becomes the least of your concerns.
But I will close with, still disappointed, really wanted to see a 2 gig in the $99-149 range.
I seriously doubt the $115 iPod will look exactly like the 10gb model, but with a smaller hard drive (and form factor). It makes sense that the $115 iPod will lack some of the features that the higher end models have. This will better enable apple to upsell people to higher end iPods, and believe me, they want to do that.
So what could we potentially lose from the iPod?
- Firewire. It seems unlikely apple would cut their technology from a product, but this is something obvious to cut. These cheapo iPods are going to be heavily focussed on iTunes users, which are largely windows based. USB could be good enough.
- Built in rechargable battery. A good way to lower production cost is to make the unit require conventional batteries.
- The unit interface. The iPod's screen and dial for selecting music are great. A good way to cut production cost would be to remove these features.
In summary, my expectation is that apple will design their iPod jrs without many of the features which we have come to expect from iPod products. This will lower their production costs, and provide additional motivation for people to buy higher priced units.
Apple doesn't need to provide any of these features to sell iPod Jrs, the larger storage capacity, iTunes, and apple chic design will ensure these things just fly off the shelves.
The sims 2 is long overdue. The sims game engine is so ancient it should have been shot long ago.
It doesn't take a genious to know that remaking the sims basic with a decent 3d graphics engine will result in a tremendous hit. While they're at it they can architect the game so re-implementing all the add-ons they added to the first sims franchise can be done without hacks and mess.
Of course they'll need a couple new flashy features to make the game seem new, but it shouldn't be hard to have a shortlist of such features, based on the massive play of the previous title.
The article uses the Magic the Gathering CCG as an example. Bad example. The pokemon CCG is the most popular CCG of all time (I'm serious). While wizards (makes of MTG) do distribute this game in North America, they do not create it, and in fact I've heard that Nintendo wants to cut them out of the deal. Why does pokemon break the rules? Because it appealed to a widely different play base that was not interested in the original produce at all.
But wait, there's more.
D&D is currently in version 3.5. If you compare that to D&D 1.0, you're going to see a lot of differences. D&D continues to dominate the market because it is willing to reinvent itself completely, while retaining the brand name and tone. Everquest is doing the same thing. Everquest 2 is in development, and by all accounts it's going to be very different from a mechanical perspective. This kind of reinvention will be required for Everquest to stay ahead in the marketplace, and Sony knows it. The reason why it is required is legacy issues. As sony releases each new expansion, that makes characters more powerful, the game world becomes more and more imbalanced. The game world becomes bloated with more and more content - there is no content expiry in Everquest. The Rathe Mountains never get retired because Sony has introduced enough new places to adventure. At some point, you just have to check it all out and start fresh, or you will not have a game that will last 10 years, 20 years, or even longer.
The reason I wrote that long winded bit above is because the article never mentioned everquest 2, and how it's a key strategy, instead focusing only on expansions.
I'd also like to note that while Everquest has a huge market share, it think it's down to less than a 50% market share, which is lower than it used to be. Also keep in mind that Everquest subscription figures will always be inflated by people who buy Sony's MMO pass (which allows access to all their MMOs, I.E. play star wars galaxies and your EQ characters will not be deleted).
Origins will probably just track down the exploiters and close their accounts, retrieving 90% of the bad gold in the process. It's not too hard to look for people who have disproportionately high gold reserves. Once you identify those people, you can on an individual basis check out what kind of gold reserves they had a few weeks ago, and compare.
It's possible Origin can't do this kind of detective work, but seems unlikely.
Players can tell you if they're having fun. Their feedback is useful, you should consider their feedback in making design choices about the game, this doesn't mean you let the players design your game!
I don't know how anyone could conceive that a useful game development process includes doing everything the players ask. There seems to be a consensus it's a stupid idea amongst the slashdot posters this is the case. Waste of space on slashdot.
I mean by the above, isn't it impossible to revoke an open source license once it was granted?
If that were not the case, then SCO for example could declare any code it owns that it had previously released under an open license, to no longer be open source, and effectively then claim rights on any work based on that code.
So it must be the case that you can't revoke open source status from code (or we're all screwed).
And I'm assuming the alpha code must have been open source as I'm assuming sourceforge requires all code hosted on its servers to be available under an open source license. So, unless someone stole their code and uploaded it to sourceforge, it must have been open source at some point, right?
The World Cyber Games had some kick ass gamer TV. I don't know what G4 shows, but WCG had video coverage of competitive Starcraft/Warcraft/Halo. The players were skilled, the audience was into it, the camera work was decent, the video quality (I as watching an Internet feed, though it's broadcast on Korea on TV) was not bad. I'll admit still not as physically compelling as meatspace sports, but good gamer TV.
By the way if you like gamer tourament coverage you should definitely visit Team Sports Network. They do shoutcast coverage of competitive online gaming. You can browse ahead to see when coverage of your favorite games will be using the little callendar thingy.
i've met several gay male gamers, they're often just not "out" in gaming, especially online gaming which is so str8-male dominated and socially dependant
I used to be a hard core Everquest player, and I well remember the pain of sitting around waiting for the servers to come back off, fuming over "scheduled downtime" that went far over schedule.
Now that I'm no longer playing, I realize our ridiculous this is, it makes much more sense to simply do other things on a patch day. If you're upset that you can't get online to play your MMO, maybe you are taking the game too seriously.
I will say that I don't believe SOE's patching system is very well designed, it seems bizarre it takes them so long to patch the servers, I'm pretty sure I could design a better system for a new MMO game. I'm pretty sure upgrades without downtime are possible, and will in fact become an expected level of customer service in the future.
I may play Star Wars Galaxies some day. I'm thinking maybe two years from now, when I can buy SWG and two or three expansions for the same price it's available for now. When most of the major bugs and play balance issues have been resolved. This is the world of the MMO, launch is a two year long beta, better to wait it out and try it later.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm the original, his was posted 21 minutes after mine.
....
Very strange
I was disappointed in the mini iPod announcement but people will buy them.
Most people focus on "for $50 more you can get 15 more gigs" but there's more to it than that. People will buy the mini ipods for design.
It is smaller and lighter. iPods are already small. Many consumers value smallness hugely. To a consumer who cares more about unit size, than hard disk size, the mini iPod is better and cheaper.
There is also the cuteness factor. Mini iPods come in color. For students in particular, I think this is going to be a big thing. If you think the mini iPod looks better, and it's cheaper, it's a great deal.
Like many iPod consumers I don't care too much about the size of the hard disk, because 4 gigs is enough for me. I don't need to carry my whole music collection around. Sure, I might do that, but it's not a huge deal to me.
So we're left with a smaller, cuter, cheaper iPod that costs less and carries enough music. I'd buy that.
Go into an apple store and try handling one, see how you like it, you may find that 4 gigs vs 15 gigs becomes the least of your concerns.
But I will close with, still disappointed, really wanted to see a 2 gig in the $99-149 range.
I seriously doubt the $115 iPod will look exactly like the 10gb model, but with a smaller hard drive (and form factor). It makes sense that the $115 iPod will lack some of the features that the higher end models have. This will better enable apple to upsell people to higher end iPods, and believe me, they want to do that.
So what could we potentially lose from the iPod?
- Firewire. It seems unlikely apple would cut their technology from a product, but this is something obvious to cut. These cheapo iPods are going to be heavily focussed on iTunes users, which are largely windows based. USB could be good enough.
- Built in rechargable battery. A good way to lower production cost is to make the unit require conventional batteries.
- The unit interface. The iPod's screen and dial for selecting music are great. A good way to cut production cost would be to remove these features.
In summary, my expectation is that apple will design their iPod jrs without many of the features which we have come to expect from iPod products. This will lower their production costs, and provide additional motivation for people to buy higher priced units.
Apple doesn't need to provide any of these features to sell iPod Jrs, the larger storage capacity, iTunes, and apple chic design will ensure these things just fly off the shelves.
Lets try this again, here are some sims 2 screenshots.
Not as visually detailed as I'd hoped.
I didn't notice any with the original article
4 81 1.asp
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpagesscreens/91
The sims 2 is long overdue. The sims game engine is so ancient it should have been shot long ago.
It doesn't take a genious to know that remaking the sims basic with a decent 3d graphics engine will result in a tremendous hit. While they're at it they can architect the game so re-implementing all the add-ons they added to the first sims franchise can be done without hacks and mess.
Of course they'll need a couple new flashy features to make the game seem new, but it shouldn't be hard to have a shortlist of such features, based on the massive play of the previous title.
I smell $$$
The article uses the Magic the Gathering CCG as an example. Bad example. The pokemon CCG is the most popular CCG of all time (I'm serious). While wizards (makes of MTG) do distribute this game in North America, they do not create it, and in fact I've heard that Nintendo wants to cut them out of the deal. Why does pokemon break the rules? Because it appealed to a widely different play base that was not interested in the original produce at all.
But wait, there's more.
D&D is currently in version 3.5. If you compare that to D&D 1.0, you're going to see a lot of differences. D&D continues to dominate the market because it is willing to reinvent itself completely, while retaining the brand name and tone. Everquest is doing the same thing. Everquest 2 is in development, and by all accounts it's going to be very different from a mechanical perspective. This kind of reinvention will be required for Everquest to stay ahead in the marketplace, and Sony knows it. The reason why it is required is legacy issues. As sony releases each new expansion, that makes characters more powerful, the game world becomes more and more imbalanced. The game world becomes bloated with more and more content - there is no content expiry in Everquest. The Rathe Mountains never get retired because Sony has introduced enough new places to adventure. At some point, you just have to check it all out and start fresh, or you will not have a game that will last 10 years, 20 years, or even longer.
The reason I wrote that long winded bit above is because the article never mentioned everquest 2, and how it's a key strategy, instead focusing only on expansions.
I'd also like to note that while Everquest has a huge market share, it think it's down to less than a 50% market share, which is lower than it used to be. Also keep in mind that Everquest subscription figures will always be inflated by people who buy Sony's MMO pass (which allows access to all their MMOs, I.E. play star wars galaxies and your EQ characters will not be deleted).
ok but presumedly some of the items were duped? I'm guessing you didn't dupe personally, or did you?
It sucks if you got banned for having duped items on your account, if you did not dupe them yourself.
Ok please describe in more detail why your account was deleted. Being "too godly" is pretty vague.
I'm wondering if your story doesn't sound as sympathetic with the added details.
Origins will probably just track down the exploiters and close their accounts, retrieving 90% of the bad gold in the process. It's not too hard to look for people who have disproportionately high gold reserves. Once you identify those people, you can on an individual basis check out what kind of gold reserves they had a few weeks ago, and compare.
It's possible Origin can't do this kind of detective work, but seems unlikely.
I thought you might be using OS X given the DIVX DOCTOR comments.
You need Mplayer OSX.
A godsend, plays everything, I haven't had any problems yet.
(attempt to mod parent to +6 fails)
:(
damn
Players can tell you if they're having fun. Their feedback is useful, you should consider their feedback in making design choices about the game, this doesn't mean you let the players design your game!
I don't know how anyone could conceive that a useful game development process includes doing everything the players ask. There seems to be a consensus it's a stupid idea amongst the slashdot posters this is the case. Waste of space on slashdot.
Bounty system, wow, that's a brilliant idea.
Instead of hacking systems, hackers can instead hack systems, frame teenage kids, and make money! Sweet!
With your IT degree you will be perfectly prepared 4 years from now to land a job in India or China doing IT work for American companies.
Blah I'm not even clear, no coffee.
I mean by the above, isn't it impossible to revoke an open source license once it was granted?
If that were not the case, then SCO for example could declare any code it owns that it had previously released under an open license, to no longer be open source, and effectively then claim rights on any work based on that code.
So it must be the case that you can't revoke open source status from code (or we're all screwed).
And I'm assuming the alpha code must have been open source as I'm assuming sourceforge requires all code hosted on its servers to be available under an open source license. So, unless someone stole their code and uploaded it to sourceforge, it must have been open source at some point, right?
I'm confused, once something is licensed as open source, doesn't it remain licensed as open source forever?
As such, any versions of Warp Pipe develop would need to be open source, as they would be a derivative wor of the previous open source alpha code?
I'm assuming (it's not fully clear) that the code was in fact open source at some point.
The World Cyber Games had some kick ass gamer TV. I don't know what G4 shows, but WCG had video coverage of competitive Starcraft/Warcraft/Halo. The players were skilled, the audience was into it, the camera work was decent, the video quality (I as watching an Internet feed, though it's broadcast on Korea on TV) was not bad. I'll admit still not as physically compelling as meatspace sports, but good gamer TV.
By the way if you like gamer tourament coverage you should definitely visit Team Sports Network. They do shoutcast coverage of competitive online gaming. You can browse ahead to see when coverage of your favorite games will be using the little callendar thingy.
Sorry no Tux Racer coverage in the queue
I be hatin' the editorial writing style of that GameSpy article! Peace!
i've met several gay male gamers, they're often just not "out" in gaming, especially online gaming which is so str8-male dominated and socially dependant
- $15 for 1 year (this may be a little expensive these days)
- Web control panel for DNS, email forwarding, page ghosting, everything
I've been using them for a couple years now, 0 problems, they even have decent support.
I want to play this game. I'm in Canada. Where can I buy it?
I used to be a hard core Everquest player, and I well remember the pain of sitting around waiting for the servers to come back off, fuming over "scheduled downtime" that went far over schedule.
Now that I'm no longer playing, I realize our ridiculous this is, it makes much more sense to simply do other things on a patch day. If you're upset that you can't get online to play your MMO, maybe you are taking the game too seriously.
I will say that I don't believe SOE's patching system is very well designed, it seems bizarre it takes them so long to patch the servers, I'm pretty sure I could design a better system for a new MMO game. I'm pretty sure upgrades without downtime are possible, and will in fact become an expected level of customer service in the future.
I may play Star Wars Galaxies some day. I'm thinking maybe two years from now, when I can buy SWG and two or three expansions for the same price it's available for now. When most of the major bugs and play balance issues have been resolved. This is the world of the MMO, launch is a two year long beta, better to wait it out and try it later.
>Which careers are you better-suited for through your use of videogames?
Welfare recipient
The OSX build of MPlayer is very useful, it's the best DivX player for OSX! Of course it plays other formats as well. Thanks MPlayer team!