If you only listed names, you'd probably be OK - so long as the list was understood to be your opinion.
If, on the other hand, you were also listing names and addresses, that might be considered more of a privacy issue.
Spamhaus only lists networks that - IN THEIR OPINION - are spammers or spam friendly. If someone decides to use this list in some way to decide what mail to accept or reject, then your issue should be with the admin - NOT SPAMHAUS.
Many places use your credit score to help decide if you qualify for a loan, credit card, etc. This is basically what Spamhaus is doing, only with IP#s.
FF basically created the J-RPG genre and continues to be its flagship.
CT was unique in that you could replay the game to get different endings - something not seen in other games of the time where you either "won" or "lost".
Also, if by your definition, RPGs are defined by story, depth and mechanics, why eliminate J-RPGs since, by their structure, they tend to have very elaborate stories even if they sacrifice the openess and freedom you see in other games.
Re:This article doesn't even list RPGs
on
Quantum Leaps in RPGs
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· Score: 2, Insightful
J-RPGs are RPGs in the sense that your characters gain levels to improve their stats and can also wear/wield equipment to make them fight more effectively. The fighting systems are also based on the old paper&pencil RPGs, suitably automated of course, but it still comes down to the good old fashioned D&D style fight - "I hit the orc", "The orc swings at me - misses" type of combat.
I agree that J-RPGs tend to be more like "stories on rails" with fixed characters, pre-set dialog, a pre-set story, heavily scripted events, and long non-interactive cutscenes. This does take the "R" out of the traditional RPG. A more accurate description would probably be something like "Adventure Combat Stories".
The overall experience of a J-RPG is somewhat like a movie or novel mixed with various mini-games (the fighting system being key among these.)
Anyways, if you're looking at computer RPGs that follow the paper&pencil style of RPG in that there is actual "role playing" on your part, with a fairly flexible and open-ended storyline then there's been very very few games that can be called RPGs at all. In fact, given that criteria, I might even consider The Sims to be a sort of RPG, since you can create your own characters, "level them up", and make up little stories for them to perform.
What exactly is EBGamestop and others supposed to be selling?
Information on the PS3 has been fairly scarce. There's been almost no playable demos at tradeshows, and people still doubt they've actually seen a "real" PS3 in action.
About the only thing we DO know is that there is a $500 and a $600 model, and that approximately 100,000 $500 models and 400,000 models will show up in the US for launch day.
With Sony using every available blue laser diode they can get for the PS3, there aren't even a lot of Blu-Ray movie players available for stores to try and hype that aspect of the PS3 (or blu-ray in general for that matter.)
If someone's stupid enough to pay for farming, do you think they know anything about password security? Heck, they probably had someone write down their password(*) on their forehead backwards, so all they have to do is look in the mirror to remember their password.
(*) I doubt people like this would use different passwords for different systems, so chances are if you learn their WoW password, you've got their Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, online bank, Ebay, etc. password as well.
I've always wondered how well something like "Final Fantasy - The Good Parts" would sell. It would only contain the movies and cutscenes throughout the game - compressing what's normally a 60-100 hour experience down into the span of 2 hours or so.
Sell it for the same price as a DVD movie, and there you go.
I don't think I've ever seen a clerk argue with a parent about a game. Chances are, they probably tried...once, got yelled at by the parent and the manager, so they never bother anymore.
I've also see more than few kids grab GTA or some other M game off a shelf, hand it to a parent who just puts it into their basket without even bothering to glance at the box - much less read it.
Honestly, ignoring the government and the fundie groups, what would happen if the ESRB just decided to mark *EVERY* game as "early educational" for a month. Would anyone notice? Would anyone even care?
Re:The problem with 100% playthrough
on
Is the ESRB Broken?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I can think of several examples from games where there may be some more questionable material late in the game, or even hidden as an unlockable item requiring multiple play-thrus. Granted the game companies have nothing to gain by lying or hiding such material.
But you've got to remember, what one reviewer may find offensive or "M"-worthy, may not even bother another reviewer. For instance, what if Dead Rising had an easter egg which allowed you to see a semi-nude zombie. Would that bump the game from a "M" to an "AO"? Would the company reps even bother mentioning such a thing? Would they even KNOW about it? (after all, easter eggs aren't supposed to be disclosed!) Would it even matter? I mean, you're hacking up zombies with chainsaws - what possible "damage" could the dead diseased tit of a zombie do to the INTENDED "M" audience for the game?
I don't suppose anyone else has pointed out the stupidity of the government et. al. getting upset about an exposed breast in a game where your goal is to KILL PEOPLE?
And what does "completion" mean to an MMORPG anyways?
Sure, the ratings board people could play around on a beta server to check out the basic game play and whatnot. But human players - unlike scripted NPCs - don't come with ratings.
If I buy an online game that's rated "T", login, and find the server full of players spewing naughty words, does that mean I can now sue the board for not giving the game the "M" I now think it deserves?
I agree that the board should actually play the games rather than just watching a presentation put together by the game company, but not all games are going to be able to be fully played.
So his point isn't that games are too hard, too long or too short, but that there's no accurate way of measuring how long it takes to finish a given game.
And he doesn't even define what it means to "finish" a game. If I get to the ending, but ignore a lot of unlockable bonuses or sidequests, have I really "finished" the game? If the game has multiple endings, but I only play through once, have I really "finished" the game? What about other games, like SSX, where you can play through with different characters. If I do anything less than maxing out every single stat on every single character, unlocking or obtaining every little thing possible from the game, is that really an accurate measurement of how long it takes to finish? What about the fact I don't have the greatest of dexterity, meaning action oriented games may take me longer to finish simply because I don't have the lightning l33t fingers of a 13 year old? What may take an expert 10 hours, may take me 20 - assuming I don't give up first - and there's been a handful of games where I've just given up due to stupid level design, clusmy fingers, or boredom of failing the same task over and over again.
I think he hasn't figured out how to solve the problem that many older folks find - just not enough time. Yeah, in the past, I could easily get in about 4 hours of gaming each night during the week (I didn't watch a lot of TV;-) and then could spend 8-10 hours on the weekend. As a result, a 40 hour game would take about a week to finish.
Nowadays, I can't do that, and yes, I've come back to a game after such a long time that I'd rather start over than try to remember everything.
So now I have to pick my games a bit more carefully. If I want to play an RPG, I know it's going to require me to make an effort to schedule game time on a regular basis, otherwise I'll never finish. Other games, like something more action-oriented, don't require such dedicated blocks of game time and can be also be finished a lot quicker.
So while I feel for the author a little bit, I think he's being a bit unrealistic in thinking that only 6-17 year olds, game reviewers, and no-life gamers have the time to finish a "40 hour game". I managed to finish Final Fantasy X, with about half of the side quests completed, and had just over 100 hours on the game clock. It took me about 2 months to do it. On average, that's less than 2 hours a day. So yes, it's possible - you just have to manage your time.
For games I really liked, I'll obviously spend more time on them. For games i didn't like quite so much, I'd make a best effort to get to the ending but won't bother with things like re-plays, sidequests, unlockable content, etc. If I hate a game outright, I'll just stop playing and toss the title onto my "To Sell" pile.
But the article is about real time vs. the estimated time on the box.
For instance, you CAN finish something like a Final Fantasy title in about 40 hours. This requires you to basically just stick with the main story, skip all sidequests, keep exploration and leveling up to a minimum, blowing through the cutscenes (or just skipping them).
You may be able to win the game this way, but you'll inevitably miss a lot of extra sidequests, items, etc.
On the other extreme, you can easily spend 100+ hours on a Final Fantasy title getting all the items, all the weapons, defeating all the monsters (including the incredibly tough ones) doing all the sidequests, etc. And by the time your characters reach the final boss, you wipe him out with a single blow.
So, when a game says "over X hours of gameplay!" what exactly are they referring to? Which scenario are they talking about? And since no two people play exactly the same way, how do I translate this figure into something meaningful for me?
Game clocks are an inaccurate measurement anyways.
Example:
At noon you start playing a game.
You save an hour later. The game clock reads 01:00:00 and it's 1pm. You meet up with a tough boss.
It takes many tries but you finally do it and save. Now the game clock reads 1:07:27 but it's 1:40pm. It may have only taken you 7 minutes in the game to defeat that boss, but that's because each time you lost, you had to reload the game whose clock was at 01:00:00.
Another problem, at least for me, with game clocks is that I tend to play late at night and have, on ocassion, fallen asleep playing a game. Yet my nap was recorded as an hour of "playtime" even though my poor character(s) just stood there, bored out of their little virtual skulls.
Well, with Ico, once you've been through it once you know how to solve all the puzzles, so its replayability is sort of short, unless you just like walking around.
I for one remember spending about 20 minute watching the girl run around and chase the seagulls. That was an amazing bit for me.
Other games are like that as well. For instance, the Ratchet & Clank series - which requires you to replay each game at least once in order to unlock everything - can be finished on the replay in less than half what the first playthru took simply because you know where most things are, have most of the power-ups and hidden items, and can just focus on things like obtaining bolts, powering up weapons, and skill points. I put in about 20 hours on the last R&C game. 15 was for the first run-thru, and 5 was for the 2nd. After I managed to get all my weapons maxxed out, I got bored with the game. I'd won it once, but didn't "complete" it (didn't get all the skill points). Still, I felt I was done with the game and had gotten my money out of it.
Actually, with recent announcements, the low-end PS3 looks a lot more competitive vs. the 360 Premium.
For one thing, Sony has announced that the low-end model will also have the HDMI port - this was the biggest difference between the two SKUs. Now, the only differentiating features between the 2 PS3s is a larger HDD, wireless controller (vs. the wired controller) and the 9-in-1-media reader (for your camera's media card.)
Second, Sony announced a price drop on the 360 low-end unit for Japan, dropping to about $430. No word on if this discount will apply for the US or European markets or not. But if it does, it will make the low-end PS3 cheaper than buying a 360 + the HD-DVD add-on drive, which is expected to sell for about $170.
At any rate, I agree - you buy these things for the GAMES. I will probably buy a PS3 eventually - but I can certainly wait until a decent library has accumulated, and maybe the hardware's gone through a price drop (or 2.) The same goes for the 360. I'm still in wait-and-see mode for the Wii.
And $100 games - sure why not? They already go for about that much overseas. So long as people continue to buy, the prices will remain that high. Me? I'll wait for the price drops.
Isn't it sort of expected that the more money you spend on marketing, the more copies you're going to sell?
But this only works right at release. After that, word of mouth pretty much decides the fate of the product.
Look at movies for instance. Almost every movie ends up with a commercial that goes something like "#1 [genre] in the country!". This is because they hype the movie heavily before it comes out all with hopes of getting their big opening weekend. After that, word of mouth will either keep the movie on top, or send it to the bottom.
I dunno, I found that I had much more free time after I graduated from college. No more homework in the evenings and weekends, and my daily schedule was shorter - being only 9-10 hours long, as opposed to the 12+/day in college.
In high school, I was either busy with extra classes on weekends, homework, piano practice, etc.
College was much crazier. Besides classes, I was working 15-20 hours a week (and no, the jobs weren't normally conducive to studying.) I was also heavily involved with a club as well.
Yeah, I still gamed during both of these periods, but it was in small bursts here and there. Maybe 5-6 hours a week.
But when I got out of college, and started working, I found I had much more time considering I no longer had homework to worry about for the evenings and weekends. I could still put in considerable amounts of hours gaming while still not ignoring responsibilties or becoming a total social hermit.
Then I got married and bought a house. There went much of my gaming time. A fair tradeoff, I think.
The article says you can't look at traditional demographics, but then fails to define these new categories/behaviors. The link in the article goes back to the clueless article about the so-called 10 categories of gamers - 5 of which are just different pronounciations of "casual", none of this accuratly describes the behaviors/spending habits of me or many of my friends - past or present.
Slashdot Mirror
If you only listed names, you'd probably be OK - so long as the list was understood to be your opinion.
If, on the other hand, you were also listing names and addresses, that might be considered more of a privacy issue.
Spamhaus only lists networks that - IN THEIR OPINION - are spammers or spam friendly. If someone decides to use this list in some way to decide what mail to accept or reject, then your issue should be with the admin - NOT SPAMHAUS.
Many places use your credit score to help decide if you qualify for a loan, credit card, etc. This is basically what Spamhaus is doing, only with IP#s.
Well, I can see listing both CT and FF.
FF basically created the J-RPG genre and continues to be its flagship.
CT was unique in that you could replay the game to get different endings - something not seen in other games of the time where you either "won" or "lost".
Also, if by your definition, RPGs are defined by story, depth and mechanics, why eliminate J-RPGs since, by their structure, they tend to have very elaborate stories even if they sacrifice the openess and freedom you see in other games.
J-RPGs are RPGs in the sense that your characters gain levels to improve their stats and can also wear/wield equipment to make them fight more effectively. The fighting systems are also based on the old paper&pencil RPGs, suitably automated of course, but it still comes down to the good old fashioned D&D style fight - "I hit the orc", "The orc swings at me - misses" type of combat.
I agree that J-RPGs tend to be more like "stories on rails" with fixed characters, pre-set dialog, a pre-set story, heavily scripted events, and long non-interactive cutscenes. This does take the "R" out of the traditional RPG. A more accurate description would probably be something like "Adventure Combat Stories".
The overall experience of a J-RPG is somewhat like a movie or novel mixed with various mini-games (the fighting system being key among these.)
Anyways, if you're looking at computer RPGs that follow the paper&pencil style of RPG in that there is actual "role playing" on your part, with a fairly flexible and open-ended storyline then there's been very very few games that can be called RPGs at all. In fact, given that criteria, I might even consider The Sims to be a sort of RPG, since you can create your own characters, "level them up", and make up little stories for them to perform.
That was exactly my thought as well.
Forget the Major - Sony really needs Jeanie to summon millions of PS3s for Christmas.
What exactly is EBGamestop and others supposed to be selling?
Information on the PS3 has been fairly scarce. There's been almost no playable demos at tradeshows, and people still doubt they've actually seen a "real" PS3 in action.
About the only thing we DO know is that there is a $500 and a $600 model, and that approximately 100,000 $500 models and 400,000 models will show up in the US for launch day.
With Sony using every available blue laser diode they can get for the PS3, there aren't even a lot of Blu-Ray movie players available for stores to try and hype that aspect of the PS3 (or blu-ray in general for that matter.)
But if I don't like Madden (or some other game) why would I care about the accomplishment points from it in the first place?
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm clearly not the market for these services, and I'm just preaching to the choir here.
If someone's stupid enough to pay for farming, do you think they know anything about password security? Heck, they probably had someone write down their password(*) on their forehead backwards, so all they have to do is look in the mirror to remember their password.
(*) I doubt people like this would use different passwords for different systems, so chances are if you learn their WoW password, you've got their Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, online bank, Ebay, etc. password as well.
I've always wondered how well something like "Final Fantasy - The Good Parts" would sell. It would only contain the movies and cutscenes throughout the game - compressing what's normally a 60-100 hour experience down into the span of 2 hours or so.
Sell it for the same price as a DVD movie, and there you go.
I don't think I've ever seen a clerk argue with a parent about a game. Chances are, they probably tried...once, got yelled at by the parent and the manager, so they never bother anymore.
I've also see more than few kids grab GTA or some other M game off a shelf, hand it to a parent who just puts it into their basket without even bothering to glance at the box - much less read it.
Honestly, ignoring the government and the fundie groups, what would happen if the ESRB just decided to mark *EVERY* game as "early educational" for a month. Would anyone notice? Would anyone even care?
Personal responsibility was SOOOO last century.
Nowadays it's all about "It's not my fault!"
I can think of several examples from games where there may be some more questionable material late in the game, or even hidden as an unlockable item requiring multiple play-thrus. Granted the game companies have nothing to gain by lying or hiding such material.
But you've got to remember, what one reviewer may find offensive or "M"-worthy, may not even bother another reviewer. For instance, what if Dead Rising had an easter egg which allowed you to see a semi-nude zombie. Would that bump the game from a "M" to an "AO"? Would the company reps even bother mentioning such a thing? Would they even KNOW about it? (after all, easter eggs aren't supposed to be disclosed!) Would it even matter? I mean, you're hacking up zombies with chainsaws - what possible "damage" could the dead diseased tit of a zombie do to the INTENDED "M" audience for the game?
I don't suppose anyone else has pointed out the stupidity of the government et. al. getting upset about an exposed breast in a game where your goal is to KILL PEOPLE?
Wait wait wait... You're telling me that Oblivion was re-rated because it was discovered that a female character is naked under her clothing objects!?
Has anyone told Brownback that he too is naked under his clothing? Does he have no shame!?
But then, how do you rate an online game?
And what does "completion" mean to an MMORPG anyways?
Sure, the ratings board people could play around on a beta server to check out the basic game play and whatnot. But human players - unlike scripted NPCs - don't come with ratings.
If I buy an online game that's rated "T", login, and find the server full of players spewing naughty words, does that mean I can now sue the board for not giving the game the "M" I now think it deserves?
I agree that the board should actually play the games rather than just watching a presentation put together by the game company, but not all games are going to be able to be fully played.
That's all fine and good - and even many games purchased online will offer to send you a CD with the installer on it.
However, many of these games rely on an online server for registraton.
No server, no registration, no can play anymore.
Pac-man wrist?
Nintendo-thumb?
Carpal-tunnel syndrome?
So his point isn't that games are too hard, too long or too short, but that there's no accurate way of measuring how long it takes to finish a given game.
And he doesn't even define what it means to "finish" a game. If I get to the ending, but ignore a lot of unlockable bonuses or sidequests, have I really "finished" the game? If the game has multiple endings, but I only play through once, have I really "finished" the game? What about other games, like SSX, where you can play through with different characters. If I do anything less than maxing out every single stat on every single character, unlocking or obtaining every little thing possible from the game, is that really an accurate measurement of how long it takes to finish? What about the fact I don't have the greatest of dexterity, meaning action oriented games may take me longer to finish simply because I don't have the lightning l33t fingers of a 13 year old? What may take an expert 10 hours, may take me 20 - assuming I don't give up first - and there's been a handful of games where I've just given up due to stupid level design, clusmy fingers, or boredom of failing the same task over and over again.
I think he hasn't figured out how to solve the problem that many older folks find - just not enough time. Yeah, in the past, I could easily get in about 4 hours of gaming each night during the week (I didn't watch a lot of TV ;-) and then could spend 8-10 hours on the weekend. As a result, a 40 hour game would take about a week to finish.
Nowadays, I can't do that, and yes, I've come back to a game after such a long time that I'd rather start over than try to remember everything.
So now I have to pick my games a bit more carefully. If I want to play an RPG, I know it's going to require me to make an effort to schedule game time on a regular basis, otherwise I'll never finish. Other games, like something more action-oriented, don't require such dedicated blocks of game time and can be also be finished a lot quicker.
So while I feel for the author a little bit, I think he's being a bit unrealistic in thinking that only 6-17 year olds, game reviewers, and no-life gamers have the time to finish a "40 hour game". I managed to finish Final Fantasy X, with about half of the side quests completed, and had just over 100 hours on the game clock. It took me about 2 months to do it. On average, that's less than 2 hours a day. So yes, it's possible - you just have to manage your time.
For games I really liked, I'll obviously spend more time on them. For games i didn't like quite so much, I'd make a best effort to get to the ending but won't bother with things like re-plays, sidequests, unlockable content, etc. If I hate a game outright, I'll just stop playing and toss the title onto my "To Sell" pile.
But the article is about real time vs. the estimated time on the box.
For instance, you CAN finish something like a Final Fantasy title in about 40 hours. This requires you to basically just stick with the main story, skip all sidequests, keep exploration and leveling up to a minimum, blowing through the cutscenes (or just skipping them).
You may be able to win the game this way, but you'll inevitably miss a lot of extra sidequests, items, etc.
On the other extreme, you can easily spend 100+ hours on a Final Fantasy title getting all the items, all the weapons, defeating all the monsters (including the incredibly tough ones) doing all the sidequests, etc. And by the time your characters reach the final boss, you wipe him out with a single blow.
So, when a game says "over X hours of gameplay!" what exactly are they referring to? Which scenario are they talking about? And since no two people play exactly the same way, how do I translate this figure into something meaningful for me?
Game clocks are an inaccurate measurement anyways.
Example:
At noon you start playing a game.
You save an hour later. The game clock reads 01:00:00 and it's 1pm. You meet up with a tough boss.
It takes many tries but you finally do it and save. Now the game clock reads 1:07:27 but it's 1:40pm. It may have only taken you 7 minutes in the game to defeat that boss, but that's because each time you lost, you had to reload the game whose clock was at 01:00:00.
Another problem, at least for me, with game clocks is that I tend to play late at night and have, on ocassion, fallen asleep playing a game. Yet my nap was recorded as an hour of "playtime" even though my poor character(s) just stood there, bored out of their little virtual skulls.
Well, with Ico, once you've been through it once you know how to solve all the puzzles, so its replayability is sort of short, unless you just like walking around.
I for one remember spending about 20 minute watching the girl run around and chase the seagulls. That was an amazing bit for me.
Other games are like that as well. For instance, the Ratchet & Clank series - which requires you to replay each game at least once in order to unlock everything - can be finished on the replay in less than half what the first playthru took simply because you know where most things are, have most of the power-ups and hidden items, and can just focus on things like obtaining bolts, powering up weapons, and skill points. I put in about 20 hours on the last R&C game. 15 was for the first run-thru, and 5 was for the 2nd. After I managed to get all my weapons maxxed out, I got bored with the game. I'd won it once, but didn't "complete" it (didn't get all the skill points). Still, I felt I was done with the game and had gotten my money out of it.
Actually, with recent announcements, the low-end PS3 looks a lot more competitive vs. the 360 Premium.
For one thing, Sony has announced that the low-end model will also have the HDMI port - this was the biggest difference between the two SKUs. Now, the only differentiating features between the 2 PS3s is a larger HDD, wireless controller (vs. the wired controller) and the 9-in-1-media reader (for your camera's media card.)
Second, Sony announced a price drop on the 360 low-end unit for Japan, dropping to about $430. No word on if this discount will apply for the US or European markets or not. But if it does, it will make the low-end PS3 cheaper than buying a 360 + the HD-DVD add-on drive, which is expected to sell for about $170.
At any rate, I agree - you buy these things for the GAMES. I will probably buy a PS3 eventually - but I can certainly wait until a decent library has accumulated, and maybe the hardware's gone through a price drop (or 2.) The same goes for the 360. I'm still in wait-and-see mode for the Wii.
And $100 games - sure why not? They already go for about that much overseas. So long as people continue to buy, the prices will remain that high. Me? I'll wait for the price drops.
Sounds to me like they made a mistake, and are spinning the bugfix into a press release.
This is news that matters?
Isn't it sort of expected that the more money you spend on marketing, the more copies you're going to sell?
But this only works right at release. After that, word of mouth pretty much decides the fate of the product.
Look at movies for instance. Almost every movie ends up with a commercial that goes something like "#1 [genre] in the country!". This is because they hype the movie heavily before it comes out all with hopes of getting their big opening weekend. After that, word of mouth will either keep the movie on top, or send it to the bottom.
I dunno, I found that I had much more free time after I graduated from college. No more homework in the evenings and weekends, and my daily schedule was shorter - being only 9-10 hours long, as opposed to the 12+/day in college.
In high school, I was either busy with extra classes on weekends, homework, piano practice, etc.
College was much crazier. Besides classes, I was working 15-20 hours a week (and no, the jobs weren't normally conducive to studying.) I was also heavily involved with a club as well.
Yeah, I still gamed during both of these periods, but it was in small bursts here and there. Maybe 5-6 hours a week.
But when I got out of college, and started working, I found I had much more time considering I no longer had homework to worry about for the evenings and weekends. I could still put in considerable amounts of hours gaming while still not ignoring responsibilties or becoming a total social hermit.
Then I got married and bought a house. There went much of my gaming time. A fair tradeoff, I think.
The article says you can't look at traditional demographics, but then fails to define these new categories/behaviors. The link in the article goes back to the clueless article about the so-called 10 categories of gamers - 5 of which are just different pronounciations of "casual", none of this accuratly describes the behaviors/spending habits of me or many of my friends - past or present.