My MMO playing friends would from time to time claim that the continuing fees of MMOs were there at least in part to ensure that there would be continuing updates and new content, aside from server maintenance costs. Naturally, I'd look at it as a slap in the face if, having that attitude, a company asked me to pay an additional charge for that content in the form of an expansion pack.
Well, there is free new content released between expansion packs. But more importantly, I think you're underestimating the support costs of just keeping the thing running.
I hear in the latest patch PvP players can now start fully twinked up at level 70 so they don't even have to play the game to level up, thereby removing the entire point of the game.
You misheard. That only applies to the temporary "global arena tournament" servers, which will only be running for a limited time. It's almost like a test realm, nothing there carries over to the real game.
Now, if they pushed Verizon to bid higher to win the contract won't they just charge the end users more?
I think spectrum price and end-user price are way too many steps removed to really have a direct effect. Especially since the wireless market has actual, fierce competition
What if, say, Peru plans a solution to US health care problem and decides unilaterally to deploy that solution to the US?
So, like, they'd open a chain of free health clinics or something? Using Peruvian tax dollars? Okay.
Foreign aid is better given as specific goods and services, rather than cash. Money has a way of disappearing when gifted to 3rd-world governments. (Or any government, really, but it's worse in some places.)
Indeed, paper can't lie! Unless your paper ballot gets thrown away or vandalized, or more ballots get stuffed into the process at some point. Where do you think the phrase "ballot stuffing" originated from?
It is simplistic to think that PAPER = SECURE, just because it's paper.
* Design for productivity, and not looks. Sexy is sexy, and we all like sexy things. In the long run however, I want my computer to enable me to work, not prevent me from doing so. Usability studies have shown that Vista's UI slows people down performing the same tasks. Scrolling in the Start Menu?
When any change is made to the UI, I'd expect people to slow down before learning it. Oh, and the Start Menu change is pretty great, IMO. A lot less mousing around.
The problem isn't that the machine is faulty, it's because it is always on. Cops can't be everywhere, but the camera is.
The real problem is that the fines and point penalties were set up in the pre-camera era. So they're far too harsh for the frequency people are caught nowadays.
Serious Sam has the awesome"Kill everything that moves" Fixed that for you. Serious Sam (at least the first two games) refined the art of ridiculous carnage.
Certain people shouldn't be allowed to post comments or edit Wikipedia. We gotta lock the Internet down; it's the only way to preserve freedom of expression.
Fault lays about 90% on EA and about 10% on Valve for trusting EA's coders. If this actually is the case, then it definitely will tarnish Valve's reputation which has been pretty good (barring initial Steam issues) to this point.
Some fault lies with Sony. There's always going to be times when a publisher wants to port some game to a new system. If building an engine from the ground up on the PS3 is the only way to get good performance out of it, then something is seriously wrong. Either the tools are crap, the system design is obtuse, or both.
A friend of mine, also a 360 owner, just bought a Wii. I'll be interested to see how long the system remains active, and how many titles he buys.
More importantly, how many of the Wii games that he buys are Nintendo titles? 3rd party publishers are getting the impression that people buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games, and that's that.
Microsoft sucks at producing hardware as I'm sure you already know.
Hey now, MS doesn't actually produce the tablet PCs. They're just pushing the standard.
What hardware they actually do make is pretty good, IMHO. Microsoft mice and keyboards are pretty well accepted. The Xbox 360 stuff is good, barring the occasional supplier fiasco. I've even heard good stuff about the Zune lately.
Of course, they discontinued all their trackballs, so fark them.;-)
So, is the PS3 closing the gap with the 360 and Wii, or is the gap widening? Because month-to-month, it just keeps getting wider and wider, except for one sales spike after a price drop.
That's the real issue. The PS3 should be catching up, not falling further and further behind.
Oddly enough, the official Games for Windows magazine (Computer Gaming World bought out by MS) has been pretty anti-Vista. At least when I had my free subscription. Their articles were harsh but fair, and in their freeware section they'd warn you if a certain game ran into problems with Vista (they had a little warning/rating system).
I, too keep hearing stories about how bad Vista is, and not just from Slashdot. Cranky Geeks (not a pro-Linux show) went on for five minutes last week about how useless it is.
Still, I walk into any computer store and see only Vista machines for meters and meters. The whole thinig confuses me.;)
It's not confusing at all. What you're seeing is the direct result of Microsoft really being in a monopoly position. People can deny it all they want ("Microsoft doesn't have 100% of the desktop, so they can't be a monopoly!!"), but Microsoft's ability to bend the market against the wishes of the customer and the retailer is precisely what makes them a monopoly.
Your observation is just confirmation of that.
Microsoft needs a monopoly position to stop selling a certain product? I thought anyone could do that.
Under PS3 linux, you're locked out of low-level access to the GPU. Which is a shame, since it's the GPU that does most of the heavy lifting for the Folding@Home app.
Blizzard usually does a better job making Warhammer-ish games than whoever has the actual Warhammer license. (Though I hear the latest WH20k RTS is pretty cool.)
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Well, there is free new content released between expansion packs. But more importantly, I think you're underestimating the support costs of just keeping the thing running.
You misheard. That only applies to the temporary "global arena tournament" servers, which will only be running for a limited time. It's almost like a test realm, nothing there carries over to the real game.
I think spectrum price and end-user price are way too many steps removed to really have a direct effect. Especially since the wireless market has actual, fierce competition
So, like, they'd open a chain of free health clinics or something? Using Peruvian tax dollars? Okay.
Foreign aid is better given as specific goods and services, rather than cash. Money has a way of disappearing when gifted to 3rd-world governments. (Or any government, really, but it's worse in some places.)
Don't feel bad. I heard he's just going to reroll an undead character.
Burning Fossil Fuels = pumping CO2 from underground.
So what's wrong with putting the extra CO2 back where it came from? Assuming we have an effective method for doing so, of course.
Indeed, paper can't lie! Unless your paper ballot gets thrown away or vandalized, or more ballots get stuffed into the process at some point. Where do you think the phrase "ballot stuffing" originated from?
It is simplistic to think that PAPER = SECURE, just because it's paper.
And ironically, if HD-DVD never got released, we'd all be declaring Blu-Ray a failure by now.
When any change is made to the UI, I'd expect people to slow down before learning it. Oh, and the Start Menu change is pretty great, IMO. A lot less mousing around.
Wanted criminals have always been second-class citizens. Captured criminals even moreso.
What, you mean an innocent person might end up wrongly accused? Oops, better scrap the whole criminal justice system then.
The real problem is that the fines and point penalties were set up in the pre-camera era. So they're far too harsh for the frequency people are caught nowadays.
Certain people shouldn't be allowed to post comments or edit Wikipedia. We gotta lock the Internet down; it's the only way to preserve freedom of expression.
Some fault lies with Sony. There's always going to be times when a publisher wants to port some game to a new system. If building an engine from the ground up on the PS3 is the only way to get good performance out of it, then something is seriously wrong. Either the tools are crap, the system design is obtuse, or both.
More importantly, how many of the Wii games that he buys are Nintendo titles? 3rd party publishers are getting the impression that people buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games, and that's that.
Hey now, MS doesn't actually produce the tablet PCs. They're just pushing the standard.
What hardware they actually do make is pretty good, IMHO. Microsoft mice and keyboards are pretty well accepted. The Xbox 360 stuff is good, barring the occasional supplier fiasco. I've even heard good stuff about the Zune lately.
Of course, they discontinued all their trackballs, so fark them.
The Wii's attach rate is roughly 3 to 3.5, depending on if you count Wii Play (bundled with remote).
The Half-Life series never has cutscenes in the traditional sense of the word. Everything is shown through the eyes of the player.
So, is the PS3 closing the gap with the 360 and Wii, or is the gap widening? Because month-to-month, it just keeps getting wider and wider, except for one sales spike after a price drop.
That's the real issue. The PS3 should be catching up, not falling further and further behind.
Oddly enough, the official Games for Windows magazine (Computer Gaming World bought out by MS) has been pretty anti-Vista. At least when I had my free subscription. Their articles were harsh but fair, and in their freeware section they'd warn you if a certain game ran into problems with Vista (they had a little warning/rating system).
It's not confusing at all. What you're seeing is the direct result of Microsoft really being in a monopoly position. People can deny it all they want ("Microsoft doesn't have 100% of the desktop, so they can't be a monopoly!!"), but Microsoft's ability to bend the market against the wishes of the customer and the retailer is precisely what makes them a monopoly.
Microsoft needs a monopoly position to stop selling a certain product? I thought anyone could do that.Your observation is just confirmation of that.
Oddly enough, in Canada, private insurance is outlawed. That in itself seems pretty repressive.
Under PS3 linux, you're locked out of low-level access to the GPU. Which is a shame, since it's the GPU that does most of the heavy lifting for the Folding@Home app.
Sounds like he's thinking of Everquest. That and the whole no-variety-to-attacks thing too, probably.
Blizzard usually does a better job making Warhammer-ish games than whoever has the actual Warhammer license. (Though I hear the latest WH20k RTS is pretty cool.)