1. The best equipment in the game is either looted, player created (through enchantment and alchemy), or a reward for a quest. The time you spent looking in shops is the fault of you and you alone.
2. There was most definitely little "wasted space". If you paid attention, you'd find that you were no further than a couple minutes walk from any tomb, town, dungeon, fortress, mine or shrine, no matter how far out in the wilderness you thought you were.
3. The overwhelming majority of quest givers are in guild houses and public buildings. But why would a "thieving bastard" have any objection at all to breaking into people's houses?
I'm sorry the game was too big for you. Thousands of other people could handle it and experienced one of the most incredible RPG experiences ever created.
Uh... spoiler alert?
on
Kong Lives!
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Does anyone else think it's a little ironic for someone who built a game company on the shareware model to years later be the one of the most outspoken partisans against game consumer rights?
So instead of the millions of dollars being willingly spent on malaria research for foreign benefit, it would be forcefully spent on invading middle-eastern countries, giving unhealthy contracts and subsidies to influential mega-corporations, and funding pork-barrel pet projects for every senator with itchy palms.
Play the Ocean House part with headphones and the lights turned off. IF YOU DARE!
My favorite part was when you fall into the basement laundry room and read a newspaper article about the decapitated child that was found there years ago. Then suddenly the washing machine turns on. THUNK-THUNK, THUNK-THUNK
If these things aren't selling too well, I'll be more than happy to pick one up at a highly discounted price- for the homebrew and Grand Theft Auto if nothing else.
If money = speech, then the I suppose the people with more money are entitled to more speech.
Your thinking is exactly the opposite of what we need right now. Our country is just now coming to the shocked realization that the poor are under-represented. It's ideas like this that have taken the voice away from those "have nots".
For all of these people, democratic participation has been limited to their singlar vote- the extra speech and influence of donation is not an option.
Furthermore, why are corporate entities and interest groups protected by the constitution the same way individuals are? Again, by your rationale, the free speech of a corporation can be greater than that of any individual citizen?
Competitors: FPS = Halo, Nintendo's response? Metroid Prime, about as non-traditional FPS as you can get. An excellent example of Nintendo opting for niche appeal rather than brute competition. Compare the budgets and come back to me.
RPG = Final Fantasy series. Nintendo's response? Again, about as far from traditional RPG as you can get. While other companies try and fail to top Square/Enix with bigger and flashier, Nintendo opts for innovation. Again, look at the savings for Nintendo by avoiding the multi-million dollar arms race within the genre.
Fighting = Tekken, Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat Virtua Fighter and DOA have crowded this genre and set the barrier to entry so high that Nintendo would be stupid to compete directly. SSB is another dramatic departure from genre norms (otherwise known as "innovation").
Sports = EA Sports games, who got their position by tossing ungodly heaps of money for liscensed content. You can't honestly believe that Tiger Woods and Mario Golf share the same genre do you? That's like saying Mario Kart and Grand Turismo share the same market. Again, Nintendo eschews traditional competition and saves a bundle.
Futuristic racer = Wipeout. Frankly Nintendo hasn't needed to innovate much because the genre is relatively content-free, and competition hasn't really made things worse. Ever wonder why the number of tracks in the F-Zero series has stayed roughly the same for more than ten years?
Battalion Wars was released two days ago, so we can hardly know its status as competitive within its genre. I can guess that if the game style gets cloned and a big name steps up.
As for Advance Wars, here's the first freakin' line of its Gamespot review: "Turn-based military strategy sims aren't a well-represented genre in the handheld market." You might be trying to make a case that Advance Wars competes with Strategy RPG's from Square/Enix and Altus, but it's clear that they aren't in the same genre.
In every single genre where the competition has threatened to raise development costs- largely due to increased content (bells and whistles), Nintendo has innovated and moved on, rather than fight for dominance.
I don't disagree that stylistic games cost more to produce (and the term content goes beyond visual style), but again I question the validity of your "abstract art" example: nothing Nintendo has ever done aproaches what could be called "abstract". What Nintendo does with their visual graphical style can largely be termed as "cartoon". And frankly, cartoons are easy.
You want an apology? Fine. I'm sorry I ever bothered to argue with you or question your credentials. It was futile to try and have this discussion and I should have given up on it long before now. Consider it closed.
And FYI, I would have replied faster but I suspiciously has a lot of new spam in my inbox...
Your credentials still don't mean anything.* Your lack of obvious professional agenda hasn't stopped you from coming on here just for the ego boost you get off telling everyone that you're an expert.
Come on, Mr. Expert. Time to "showcase your skillz" of rhetoric and discourse. Let's go over this again:
Does or does not Nintendo abstain from competition within a genre to keep development costs down? If they don't, please show me where by providing an example of one genre with quality big name competition that Nintendo hasn't opted instead for niche gameplay or abandoned the genre entirely.
You used the examples of car manufacturing and abstract painting- I countered them with reasonable arguments, I'm still waiting to see what you have to say about that.
* I haven't called you a phoney. I truly do believe you've done some writing for Maxim, Stuff, a Playstation rag and probably some other magazines or websites. At least, that was your crowning expertise a month ago. Today, suddenly, your expertise includes market analysis, design, and hand to hand combat.
I would be dubious, but you have that convenience of not linking yourself to any professional venture. So I guess we just have to take all that expertise on faith. The only other thing we have to go on tells us that you're a 25 year old network administrator. Look out, Warren Spector!
Way to stalk me across the internet and bring up shit that's years old. That sure does refute my points.
Oh wait, no it doesn't. It just means you're a creep who is more interested in threats, ad-hominem attacks, and intimidation than actual argument and discussion.
So you go right ahead and stick to your threats, and I'll keep calling you out when you make reactionary claims with only your crappy writing credentials to back them up.
I'm not going to play your stupid little game and start discussing myself. Never once have I claimed to be an expert on anything, my arguments stand on their own without the need to toss around any credentials.
-You're the one throwing your credentials around like anyone gives a damn. Frankly your background as a magazine video game reviewer doesn't automagically make you an industry insider or marketing analyst.
-Similarly, your self-described physical credentials are just as pointless for the discussion at hand, but I guess I'm the childish one.
-Show me where I called you a Nintendo fanboy in this thread.
-Nintendo's art isn't abstract. It's cartoon. There's a difference. Cartoons are indeed much easier to draw than realism.
-I submit to you again, for the fourth time: Nintendo doesn't stay within a genre when its big competitors ramp up competition (and development costs). Instead of competing directly, they carve out a niche within the genre or drop it entirely. Do you or do you not disagree with that?
Yes, way to discredit me by starting your post with a personal threat.
-No one is arguing that Nintendo is or isn't streamlined or profitable. Don't think I'm bashing your new favorite company and react badly.
-Nintendo's development costs, by your own numbers, are less than half of Microsoft's. Where do you think MS is spending all that extra money? Well, even my basic knowledge about video game budgets tells me that the lion's share of that is going into art, sound, cinematics and all that other stuff we call "content".
-Does that mean Nintendo's content is sub-par? No. Nintendo starts out strong in a genre. No one says their graphics are simplistic- just that Nintendo picks up and moves on after competition within a genre would otherwise raise development costs.
Do you disagree? Tell me one genre where Nintendo remains and competes directly.
I pick on you because you wave your "credentials" around like you're some powerful insider, or some objective judge. In reality you're insignificant, easily biased, and rarely insightful. Did you actually say that disagreeing with you is stupid? I guess that makes you egotistical too.
Your automobile manufacturer analogy is incorrect, because the second guy that comes along is going to have to do all the same work that Henry Ford did and add their new content, unless he works for Henry Ford. We'll say he doesn't.
Now if the consumers gobble up all this new content, the competitor has upped the ante for Ford. Ford can either spend more and more to implement even more content for his Model T, getting stuck in a content "arms race"- or he can leave his competitors behind with their expensive Model T knockoffs to start building Mustangs or Excursions.
This is what Nintendo does. It is not a criticism of Nintendo's graphics philosophy. It is common knowledge that art and "content" are the areas of game budgets that have seen the most growth over the last 10 years. Nintendo's business model opts for a different path that says: start strong, leave before competition can raise your development costs.
He's not saying Nintendo uses crappy graphics or a limited art budget to cut costs of games- he's saying that as competing budgets within the same genre sprial upward, Nintendo does the sensible thing and moves on to make its mark with innovation. And he backs this up by showing that Nintendo's development costs are about half as much as Microsoft's.
You on the other hand, have no numbers, no analysis and no insight other than "Totally false." Things aren't just true because you say they are. He explains why innovation is cost-effective for Nintendo, so why don't you explain why it's not before you go shooting off your mouth.
Metroid Prime and Halo 2 had vastly different budgets. One game took the innovative road and made a new niche genre, and yet the other game had a much higher development cost despite "simply following suit and making a few improvements". See if you can guess which strategy was effective for Nintendo.
Oh, and you aren't a numbers or marketing insider just because you once wrote for Maxim.
One of the most likely reasons I would buy a PSP is the Emulation/homebrew scene, but from what I hear it was destroyed when Sony updated the firmware for web-browswer support a few months ago.
Is there still work being done on it, or is the scene dead for good?
Slashdot Mirror
that it's others' responsibility to make sure your feelings don't get hurt.
it was called "Fade To Black", but it wasn't very much like the original.
Let's just hope he's not barking up the wrong tree.
I wooden want this to fail, but who am I to birch if it does?
1. The best equipment in the game is either looted, player created (through enchantment and alchemy), or a reward for a quest. The time you spent looking in shops is the fault of you and you alone.
2. There was most definitely little "wasted space". If you paid attention, you'd find that you were no further than a couple minutes walk from any tomb, town, dungeon, fortress, mine or shrine, no matter how far out in the wilderness you thought you were.
3. The overwhelming majority of quest givers are in guild houses and public buildings. But why would a "thieving bastard" have any objection at all to breaking into people's houses?
I'm sorry the game was too big for you. Thousands of other people could handle it and experienced one of the most incredible RPG experiences ever created.
Don't ruin it for me!
Does anyone else think it's a little ironic for someone who built a game company on the shareware model to years later be the one of the most outspoken partisans against game consumer rights?
"Gaming is not a drug. I used to suck dick for coke. Now that's an addiction. You ever suck some dick for a video game?"
Black Hawk Down.
Read it or watch it. Air superiority is important, but in the real world, helicopters make easy targets.
I'm glad to hear the fireball I saw in the sky last night wasn't just a figment of my tequila-soaked imagination.
So instead of the millions of dollars being willingly spent on malaria research for foreign benefit, it would be forcefully spent on invading middle-eastern countries, giving unhealthy contracts and subsidies to influential mega-corporations, and funding pork-barrel pet projects for every senator with itchy palms.
Brilliant!
Play the Ocean House part with headphones and the lights turned off. IF YOU DARE!
My favorite part was when you fall into the basement laundry room and read a newspaper article about the decapitated child that was found there years ago. Then suddenly the washing machine turns on. THUNK-THUNK, THUNK-THUNK
"He's right behind you!"
From what I understand, there's an utility that spoofs newer firmware to let you run new games AND the old firmware.
But it makes me want to kill people. :(
If these things aren't selling too well, I'll be more than happy to pick one up at a highly discounted price- for the homebrew and Grand Theft Auto if nothing else.
You owe it to yourself to finish Planescape Torment.
If money = speech, then the I suppose the people with more money are entitled to more speech.
Your thinking is exactly the opposite of what we need right now. Our country is just now coming to the shocked realization that the poor are under-represented. It's ideas like this that have taken the voice away from those "have nots".
For all of these people, democratic participation has been limited to their singlar vote- the extra speech and influence of donation is not an option.
Furthermore, why are corporate entities and interest groups protected by the constitution the same way individuals are? Again, by your rationale, the free speech of a corporation can be greater than that of any individual citizen?
Competitors:
FPS = Halo, Nintendo's response? Metroid Prime, about as non-traditional FPS as you can get. An excellent example of Nintendo opting for niche appeal rather than brute competition. Compare the budgets and come back to me.
RPG = Final Fantasy series. Nintendo's response? Again, about as far from traditional RPG as you can get. While other companies try and fail to top Square/Enix with bigger and flashier, Nintendo opts for innovation. Again, look at the savings for Nintendo by avoiding the multi-million dollar arms race within the genre.
Fighting = Tekken, Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat Virtua Fighter and DOA have crowded this genre and set the barrier to entry so high that Nintendo would be stupid to compete directly. SSB is another dramatic departure from genre norms (otherwise known as "innovation").
Sports = EA Sports games, who got their position by tossing ungodly heaps of money for liscensed content. You can't honestly believe that Tiger Woods and Mario Golf share the same genre do you? That's like saying Mario Kart and Grand Turismo share the same market. Again, Nintendo eschews traditional competition and saves a bundle.
Futuristic racer = Wipeout. Frankly Nintendo hasn't needed to innovate much because the genre is relatively content-free, and competition hasn't really made things worse. Ever wonder why the number of tracks in the F-Zero series has stayed roughly the same for more than ten years?
Battalion Wars was released two days ago, so we can hardly know its status as competitive within its genre. I can guess that if the game style gets cloned and a big name steps up.
As for Advance Wars, here's the first freakin' line of its Gamespot review: "Turn-based military strategy sims aren't a well-represented genre in the handheld market." You might be trying to make a case that Advance Wars competes with Strategy RPG's from Square/Enix and Altus, but it's clear that they aren't in the same genre.
In every single genre where the competition has threatened to raise development costs- largely due to increased content (bells and whistles), Nintendo has innovated and moved on, rather than fight for dominance.
I don't disagree that stylistic games cost more to produce (and the term content goes beyond visual style), but again I question the validity of your "abstract art" example: nothing Nintendo has ever done aproaches what could be called "abstract". What Nintendo does with their visual graphical style can largely be termed as "cartoon". And frankly, cartoons are easy.
You want an apology? Fine. I'm sorry I ever bothered to argue with you or question your credentials. It was futile to try and have this discussion and I should have given up on it long before now. Consider it closed.
And FYI, I would have replied faster but I suspiciously has a lot of new spam in my inbox...
Your credentials still don't mean anything.* Your lack of obvious professional agenda hasn't stopped you from coming on here just for the ego boost you get off telling everyone that you're an expert.
Come on, Mr. Expert. Time to "showcase your skillz" of rhetoric and discourse. Let's go over this again:
Does or does not Nintendo abstain from competition within a genre to keep development costs down? If they don't, please show me where by providing an example of one genre with quality big name competition that Nintendo hasn't opted instead for niche gameplay or abandoned the genre entirely.
You used the examples of car manufacturing and abstract painting- I countered them with reasonable arguments, I'm still waiting to see what you have to say about that.
* I haven't called you a phoney. I truly do believe you've done some writing for Maxim, Stuff, a Playstation rag and probably some other magazines or websites. At least, that was your crowning expertise a month ago. Today, suddenly, your expertise includes market analysis, design, and hand to hand combat.
I would be dubious, but you have that convenience of not linking yourself to any professional venture. So I guess we just have to take all that expertise on faith. The only other thing we have to go on tells us that you're a 25 year old network administrator. Look out, Warren Spector!
That "fish don't have bones" quote was made by someone named Scav. If you're going to stalk me, at least do it right.
Way to stalk me across the internet and bring up shit that's years old. That sure does refute my points.
Oh wait, no it doesn't. It just means you're a creep who is more interested in threats, ad-hominem attacks, and intimidation than actual argument and discussion.
So you go right ahead and stick to your threats, and I'll keep calling you out when you make reactionary claims with only your crappy writing credentials to back them up.
I'm not going to play your stupid little game and start discussing myself. Never once have I claimed to be an expert on anything, my arguments stand on their own without the need to toss around any credentials.
Hardly.
-You're the one throwing your credentials around like anyone gives a damn. Frankly your background as a magazine video game reviewer doesn't automagically make you an industry insider or marketing analyst.
-Similarly, your self-described physical credentials are just as pointless for the discussion at hand, but I guess I'm the childish one.
-Show me where I called you a Nintendo fanboy in this thread.
-Nintendo's art isn't abstract. It's cartoon. There's a difference. Cartoons are indeed much easier to draw than realism.
-I submit to you again, for the fourth time: Nintendo doesn't stay within a genre when its big competitors ramp up competition (and development costs). Instead of competing directly, they carve out a niche within the genre or drop it entirely. Do you or do you not disagree with that?
Yes, way to discredit me by starting your post with a personal threat.
-No one is arguing that Nintendo is or isn't streamlined or profitable. Don't think I'm bashing your new favorite company and react badly.
-Nintendo's development costs, by your own numbers, are less than half of Microsoft's. Where do you think MS is spending all that extra money? Well, even my basic knowledge about video game budgets tells me that the lion's share of that is going into art, sound, cinematics and all that other stuff we call "content".
-Does that mean Nintendo's content is sub-par? No. Nintendo starts out strong in a genre. No one says their graphics are simplistic- just that Nintendo picks up and moves on after competition within a genre would otherwise raise development costs.
Do you disagree? Tell me one genre where Nintendo remains and competes directly.
I pick on you because you wave your "credentials" around like you're some powerful insider, or some objective judge. In reality you're insignificant, easily biased, and rarely insightful. Did you actually say that disagreeing with you is stupid? I guess that makes you egotistical too.
Your automobile manufacturer analogy is incorrect, because the second guy that comes along is going to have to do all the same work that Henry Ford did and add their new content, unless he works for Henry Ford. We'll say he doesn't.
Now if the consumers gobble up all this new content, the competitor has upped the ante for Ford. Ford can either spend more and more to implement even more content for his Model T, getting stuck in a content "arms race"- or he can leave his competitors behind with their expensive Model T knockoffs to start building Mustangs or Excursions.
This is what Nintendo does. It is not a criticism of Nintendo's graphics philosophy. It is common knowledge that art and "content" are the areas of game budgets that have seen the most growth over the last 10 years. Nintendo's business model opts for a different path that says: start strong, leave before competition can raise your development costs.
He's not saying Nintendo uses crappy graphics or a limited art budget to cut costs of games- he's saying that as competing budgets within the same genre sprial upward, Nintendo does the sensible thing and moves on to make its mark with innovation. And he backs this up by showing that Nintendo's development costs are about half as much as Microsoft's.
You on the other hand, have no numbers, no analysis and no insight other than "Totally false." Things aren't just true because you say they are. He explains why innovation is cost-effective for Nintendo, so why don't you explain why it's not before you go shooting off your mouth.
Metroid Prime and Halo 2 had vastly different budgets. One game took the innovative road and made a new niche genre, and yet the other game had a much higher development cost despite "simply following suit and making a few improvements". See if you can guess which strategy was effective for Nintendo.
Oh, and you aren't a numbers or marketing insider just because you once wrote for Maxim.
One of the most likely reasons I would buy a PSP is the Emulation/homebrew scene, but from what I hear it was destroyed when Sony updated the firmware for web-browswer support a few months ago.
Is there still work being done on it, or is the scene dead for good?