If something's not ready, it's not ready. You can't push something out the door and un-label it's beta status.
People have big dreams, and they create software for that. Then they realize that there are issues with the current version, and decides to leave it in beta status for a while. Why do software have to be released within three years?
There's nothing wrong with that.
If they were to release beta software just because it's been three years, they'd be accused of releasing crap.
Adaware and Spybot doesn't catch everything, in fact, it catches probably less than 50% of the spyware variants out there. That's why most people run multiple versions.
This is not the case for virus scanners, usually one virus scanner is good enough to protect your system.
"free alternatives" will never be as up to date as commercial software. If virus scanner was free, it just wouldn't cut it.
You need people on the look out to develop and catch all the different variants that are popping out like daisies, then, you need to pay these people.
I always thought anti-spyware will be solved by an anti-virus company.
I sometimes wonder if MS bought Giant because Bill got fed up with the spyware.
From the article, the island has 60 slots which can be further sold to other players for profit, this can help recover the 26k funds easily (article says $30k).
I'm not sure what the profit from mining and hunting, or taxes on these activities will be, but these will all be additional profit. If the buyer managed to sell off the land plots, all these profits are essentially free $$$.
In the view of investment, this is a very clever move.
That is if the game is that popular, I have not done the market research for this game.
Everything is demand and supply, if you know your market, you can make a profit. Playing with virtual real estate is the same as playing with real estate. Except, $26k usually can not buy you a real island - try $26mil.
I was absolutely blown away by ArtRage, designed for Tablet PC. If you haven't seen it, grab it. Every Tablet PC user should have it even if it's just to show off to your friends when they ask, oh, so what's so cool about Tablet PC?
Anyway, recognition of my asian handwriting kicks butt too.
By default, you run around in WoW with your AWSD keys. Space bar is for jump.
You can turn on the mouse movement, but it's not as good. I tried it and then turn it off again. (I came from Lineage 2 where mouse movement was far superior than their AWSD movement)
Tab selects the nearest enemy. Number keys 1~0,-,+ executes your hotkey actions/skills, Q/E for stride, x for sitting.
Mouse for looking around, left click to select, right click to "action"
I disagree. I've seen lvl 55-60 PvP in the contested areas. It is very heated, and involves lots of skills, to both kill or to survive.
It is definitely strategic and skill intensive.
I do think PvP in the low levels, or so-called "alliance/horde raids" are kind of pointless. Essentially, it's lots of player "horde" vs lots of players "horde".
Not being able to talk to the opposing faction I think is a good thing. It restricts players from opposing factions from banding together in order to promote the story.
I've tried GW - the PvP there is totally unrelated to the story. I'm actually quite disappointed that PvP in GW doesn't have any theme element to support it. Let's form a party and go kill another party.
Same goes for Lineage 2, another game I've played. Unrestricted PvP with no theme to support it. Dark Elves & Light Elves are supposed to be enemies, but in a guild they party together like buddies.
If you want pure PvP, might as well play Counter Strike or something (actually, even CS gives you a motive for killing the other team). In a fantasy world, the world's story should support your PvP motive.
Have you ever paid for any subscription based contents? I can understand how you can make that kind of comment if you haven't.
Anyway, I've paid for things much less than WOW (Lineage 2, have I mentioned I hate NCSoft?), I think if any MMPOG is worth it, it'd be WOW. If I don't eat out as much, $15 is quite easy. Besides, I hardly spend money on PC games anymore.
I'm sure the original poster is genuinely interested, but I bet a company can introduce rumours just as easily. Let me demostrate, pretending below is a seperate response. BTW, I'm not endorsing any of these companies, nor have I used their products.
Yes! LCD refresh rates are getting so fast now that motion blurs are now a thing of the past.
For a long time, I had the same puzzling believe that MS can't fight in the Japanese market because they don't know how Japanese think.
This is not true at all. MS hires Japanese people to market XB in Japan.
I thought then perhaps, they weren't sucking up to the Japanese developers as much, so there were no developers, and thus, no games made for the Japanese for the XB.
I did some follow up and read a few articles by Japanese developers (one in particular, is an interview with Namco, who did really well with Dead or Alive 3, Ninja Gaiden on the XB)
The story goes like this.
When XB was being released, lots of Japanese developers wanted to try it out. You never know, if it was going to be successful, they could sell more games, or even break into the US/Europe market.
But, they develop the games, and only market it within Japan. With already a smaller market of XB units (compared to PS2), these early Japanese games didn't do so well.
And they never bothered to sell their game overseas which is where the XB have major markets (Namco did, and they did well). They just got scared and decided XB won't earn them money, and went back to make PS2 games.
Thus, there are hardly any Japanese XB games, which means not that many people will want to buy XB.
You can link your XBL gamertag with your MSN account, that way, you can msg your in game buddies, and see what they may be playing now.
Most people who play XBL and uses MSN messenger do this.
To participate on Bungie forum, you login with your MSN account (passport). Most people do this as well, as it's easier than filling in your email, and then fill in some registration form, and then wait for the auth. email.
Yes, politics section is good - for all the political posts.
1. I'm not in US, I don't really understand or care, really, who these people are. But I'm open to accept that Americans probably care about their politics. And they probably want it on their/. front page.
2. A smart/. would have worked that out, may be from my "Time Zone / Daylight Savings Time" information - which puts me in GMT +10
3. I go to my preferences and check off both "Politics" (did anyone notice there are two?
4. As usual, politics posts still appear on my/. front page along with YRO. All of which should HAVE BEEN FILTERED.
Gosh, damn. A nerd website that is broken and buggy? Where's your pride?
I put out a lamp at night, and flies/moths/mosquitos and all swamp it like it's no tomorrow. In fact, they fly towards the lamp and kill themselves. There's always dead insects in a neat circle beneath the lamp in the morning.
How can it be "hard" to get insects to come to you?
Just pack it with a bigger rechargable battery, and recharge at night.
I think a lamp is less power to run than say, a fly-targetting pump that sucks a fly in.
But if a ad would detect a human before turning on the video ad, that would save them money from running the TV all the time when there are no one nearby to notice it.
Slashdot Mirror
If something's not ready, it's not ready.
You can't push something out the door and un-label it's beta status.
People have big dreams, and they create software for that. Then they realize that there are issues with the current version, and decides to leave it in beta status for a while. Why do software have to be released within three years?
There's nothing wrong with that.
If they were to release beta software just because it's been three years, they'd be accused of releasing crap.
I find it a lot quicker to find an Outlook email with Google than with Outlook...
Adaware and Spybot doesn't catch everything, in fact, it catches probably less than 50% of the spyware variants out there. That's why most people run multiple versions.
This is not the case for virus scanners, usually one virus scanner is good enough to protect your system.
"free alternatives" will never be as up to date as commercial software. If virus scanner was free, it just wouldn't cut it.
You need people on the look out to develop and catch all the different variants that are popping out like daisies, then, you need to pay these people.
I always thought anti-spyware will be solved by an anti-virus company.
I sometimes wonder if MS bought Giant because Bill got fed up with the spyware.
From the article, the island has 60 slots which can be further sold to other players for profit, this can help recover the 26k funds easily (article says $30k).
I'm not sure what the profit from mining and hunting, or taxes on these activities will be, but these will all be additional profit. If the buyer managed to sell off the land plots, all these profits are essentially free $$$.
In the view of investment, this is a very clever move.
That is if the game is that popular, I have not done the market research for this game.
Everything is demand and supply, if you know your market, you can make a profit. Playing with virtual real estate is the same as playing with real estate. Except, $26k usually can not buy you a real island - try $26mil.
I was absolutely blown away by ArtRage, designed for Tablet PC. If you haven't seen it, grab it. Every Tablet PC user should have it even if it's just to show off to your friends when they ask, oh, so what's so cool about Tablet PC?
Anyway, recognition of my asian handwriting kicks butt too.
By default, you run around in WoW with your AWSD keys. Space bar is for jump.
You can turn on the mouse movement, but it's not as good. I tried it and then turn it off again. (I came from Lineage 2 where mouse movement was far superior than their AWSD movement)
Tab selects the nearest enemy. Number keys 1~0,-,+ executes your hotkey actions/skills, Q/E for stride, x for sitting.
Mouse for looking around, left click to select, right click to "action"
It's really quite standard.
All keys are re-bindable too.
> no immediate questions about credit cards, home telephone numbers, next of kin... American companies, are you listening?
May be they can get all those details from your National ID, so they don't bother asking.
In America, if a game company can do that from your social security number, I'm sure at least 50 privacy groups will start suing.
Privacy is WAY overrated in America.
I disagree. I've seen lvl 55-60 PvP in the contested areas. It is very heated, and involves lots of skills, to both kill or to survive.
It is definitely strategic and skill intensive.
I do think PvP in the low levels, or so-called "alliance/horde raids" are kind of pointless. Essentially, it's lots of player "horde" vs lots of players "horde".
Not being able to talk to the opposing faction I think is a good thing. It restricts players from opposing factions from banding together in order to promote the story.
I've tried GW - the PvP there is totally unrelated to the story. I'm actually quite disappointed that PvP in GW doesn't have any theme element to support it. Let's form a party and go kill another party.
Same goes for Lineage 2, another game I've played. Unrestricted PvP with no theme to support it. Dark Elves & Light Elves are supposed to be enemies, but in a guild they party together like buddies.
If you want pure PvP, might as well play Counter Strike or something (actually, even CS gives you a motive for killing the other team). In a fantasy world, the world's story should support your PvP motive.
I think $15/month is the norm in MMPOG industry.
Have you ever paid for any subscription based contents? I can understand how you can make that kind of comment if you haven't.
Anyway, I've paid for things much less than WOW (Lineage 2, have I mentioned I hate NCSoft?), I think if any MMPOG is worth it, it'd be WOW. If I don't eat out as much, $15 is quite easy. Besides, I hardly spend money on PC games anymore.
I don't understand why managers goes out of their way to say silly stuff. I wonder if it comes with the job.
The Microsoft IE Dev team is pretty up to date - see their wiki here.
http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Chan
There's a lot less marketing junk - and the wiki format makes it easy to make comments and discussion constructively.
Let me demostrate, pretending below is a seperate response. BTW, I'm not endorsing any of these companies, nor have I used their products.
For a long time, I had the same puzzling believe that MS can't fight in the Japanese market because they don't know how Japanese think.
This is not true at all. MS hires Japanese people to market XB in Japan.
I thought then perhaps, they weren't sucking up to the Japanese developers as much, so there were no developers, and thus, no games made for the Japanese for the XB.
I did some follow up and read a few articles by Japanese developers (one in particular, is an interview with Namco, who did really well with Dead or Alive 3, Ninja Gaiden on the XB)
The story goes like this.
When XB was being released, lots of Japanese developers wanted to try it out. You never know, if it was going to be successful, they could sell more games, or even break into the US/Europe market.
But, they develop the games, and only market it within Japan. With already a smaller market of XB units (compared to PS2), these early Japanese games didn't do so well.
And they never bothered to sell their game overseas which is where the XB have major markets (Namco did, and they did well). They just got scared and decided XB won't earn them money, and went back to make PS2 games.
Thus, there are hardly any Japanese XB games, which means not that many people will want to buy XB.
It's that kind of vicious cycle thing.
jliu
Nov 9 is Halo 2 day.
FF should really pick a different day.
I ain't taking no sickie for FF. Halo 2 on the other hand...
I'm certain when someone hacks their XBox they've broken some terms & conditions that they've signed away when they purchase the hardware.
If not, I'm sure, they've signed it away when they sign up XBL.
Either way, Hacked XB = !XBL
You can link your XBL gamertag with your MSN account, that way, you can msg your in game buddies, and see what they may be playing now.
Most people who play XBL and uses MSN messenger do this.
To participate on Bungie forum, you login with your MSN account (passport). Most people do this as well, as it's easier than filling in your email, and then fill in some registration form, and then wait for the auth. email.
> Something happen to my HD? I read download it. Problem solved. People want a physical thing they can hold, that's fine for them.
Most people with a CD just re-install it. Non of this re-download silliness.
I'm almost certain I can read off my CD ROM faster than your re-download.
The only way I'd get it from Steam is if I can get it cheaper than at the shops.
I read this article once.
0 24 51586.html
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/10/10921
It just reminds me how a great artist can be, at times.
I can't find any link to the 2003 results.
Don't know. May be I didn't look hard enough.
Even if it was 1/2 as interesting as Warhog jump, I'd download them all. Alas, I can't find anything aside from rants.
Outlook 2003 works really well with Exchange Server 2003.
I don't think I can leave it.
FireFox rocks though.
jliu
Yes, politics section is good - for all the political posts.
/. front page.
/. would have worked that out, may be from my "Time Zone / Daylight Savings Time" information - which puts me in GMT +10
/. front page along with YRO. All of which should HAVE BEEN FILTERED.
1. I'm not in US, I don't really understand or care, really, who these people are. But I'm open to accept that Americans probably care about their politics. And they probably want it on their
2. A smart
3. I go to my preferences and check off both "Politics" (did anyone notice there are two?
4. As usual, politics posts still appear on my
Gosh, damn. A nerd website that is broken and buggy? Where's your pride?
I put out a lamp at night, and flies/moths/mosquitos and all swamp it like it's no tomorrow. In fact, they fly towards the lamp and kill themselves. There's always dead insects in a neat circle beneath the lamp in the morning.
How can it be "hard" to get insects to come to you?
Just pack it with a bigger rechargable battery, and recharge at night.
I think a lamp is less power to run than say, a fly-targetting pump that sucks a fly in.
I did not RTFA.
But if a ad would detect a human before turning on the video ad, that would save them money from running the TV all the time when there are no one nearby to notice it.
WTH, I thought I turned off YRO from my preferences, why is it still appearing in my /.
/. 's AI filter decided to show this YRO topic to me, bypassing my preference settings.
/. programmers are either incredibly brilliant, or they wrote buggy software again.
May be because it's a good news against stupid people,
Anyway, congrats MS. Shame on you UC, to force me to stand on MS's side.
And
> So if I find a guy with no arms, legs or head,
You sure that's a 'guy'? Could be anything really.
That's how I read the post as well. I guess that's why it was moderated 'troll' at one point.
jliu