What really amazes me is that you seem to think there are only 20,000 people in Sweden. Sweden is home to more than 8 million people. That's closer to.2% of the population of the Western world (ignoring China and India, you've knocked the world population back to 4 billion people).
Why do I suddenly feel I'm about to be booted out of the village as a small butterfly flits by?
Take one part Usenetserver account ($3.00 a day for a 3 day trial, or $15.00 a month), and mix liberally with one part NewzBin usenet archiving service. Add your favorite y-enc enabled newsreader to flavor to taste. Serves an entire campus, until your OIT decides to block port 119.
H2G2 TV-series on DVD: Check H2G2 Radio show on CD (and subsequently, mp3): Check H2G2 Leather bound, goldleaf singlebound volume: Check H2G2 Comics: Check New H2G2 Radio Shows: Coming this fall. H2G2 Movie: Coming next year.
It's a good time to be a fan.
Now, if only we could get some news on the new Dr. Who series, or the Red Dwarf movie, or Red Dwarf Series IX...
Whenever I've seen those figures of "The game industry lost x kajillion dollars last year to evil pirates," I wind up asking myself "How does that figure stack up to money spent on failed advertising, ineffective copy protection, or some useless novelty packaging feature? How about bloated development costs due to a rushed schedule?"
But then again, I'm not buying the bulk of these games, so I must be an evil pirate.
All that said, the article doesn't really address much. Mostly it's little "fight the power" and "I'm for the little guy" throwaway remarks interspersed with plugs for products. Shame about Strategy First not paying royalties. I wanted to like them.
It's not revisionist unless it depicts only the scope of the original. If it continues past the end of the original, anything goes.
Besides, since when are video games considered "history?" How can any specific event be canon if the entire story can end with the death of the main character at any time? Mario dies on world 1-1, and so he never rescued the princess, and Super Marios 2, 3, World, Land, RPG, and 64 never happen (although Paper Mario could still happen, since that seems to be a different "Mario"). I don't know how that would affect Mario Kart, Tennis, or Super Smash Bros., though.
Don't tell me your actually taking continuity within video game series seriously.
In the linked article, it is stated that Amano and Inoue are likely collaborators: Not that they are or definitely will be linked to the company.
And, strictly speaking, doesn't Kingdom Hearts count as a Final Fantasy property, what with all the characters it uses? I think it most likely that Squarenix plans on making a fourth Kingdom Hearts game.
However, should they decide to do something else based around themes and characters from FFVII, a flat out update of the PS1 game to PS2 (or PS3) graphics and gameplay would be a welcome addition to the lineup. Especially if you could resurrect Aeris. Fanboys have been drooling over that idea for a few years now.
Okay, this horse seems pretty thoroughly flogged, but here's a few fresh kicks: Anyone already owning a modded PS2 can't be prosecuted (one assumes: If not, this sets an ugly precedant, and anything can suddenly become illegal with past violations counting), and how are they going to prove that you didn't have the thing before the decision was made?
Now, on a slightly more down-to-earth note, the defendant had sold over 1500 Messiah 2 modchips. I'm guessing that this case has been in the courts for more than a year, so he probably sold them for their old asking price of close to £25.00 per, netting him a nice £37,500 just selling Messiah 2 chips. Odds are, he was probably also selling chips for other systems, and possibly other grey- and black-market devices, and it's doubtful that the sale of the chips was what attracted the attention of the authorities.
Okay, the 419 scams are pretty weird to start with, but this... something about it just doesn't ring true. So far, there only seems to be one of these emails out there. It's pretty well known among the web-savvy that if you mention Nigeria in combination with any sum of money, you're probably talking about a scam. Throwing in assassination seems overkill.
This seems more likely to be a "Joe Job" to get someone else in trouble.
Unless they're providing an on-site server, GWU's office of IT will probably start blocking access to it in order to limit bandwidth usage. Some recent OIT antics on other campuses have included cutting off access to port 6667 (Claim: "30% of our traffic was occuring on that port."), dropping Usenet support (Claim: "No one was using it, and it was tying up too much bandwidth."), and blocking all forms of P2P, including bittorrent.
My only conclusion: OITs like having huge, tall towers of unused bandwidth.
That's hardly surprising, since it was only released on the PC and XBox. In Japan, the PC gaming industry is dominated by Hentai games, creating a public perception that PC gamers are perverts, and seriously damaging the mainstream PC market.
It wasn't even released on the Japanese XBox, although that hardly would have improved sales.
Then there's the whole "Eastern RPG vs. Western RPG" can of worms.
The point about MMORPGs folding is kind-of valid. It does happen and it's always going to be a risk with the smaller MMORPGs (I guess anything under 100k users has a potential risk, anything under 50k has a serious risk).
and
Don't leap into a MMORPG in the first few weeks;
Okay, so we're supposed to all wait for someone else to jump on the bandwagon before we do. If everybody does that, the bandwagon stays empty. The more people exercise your rules, the worse the situation becomes.
My solution for a simulteneous online/offline persistant world would keep some user info online and some offline. In other words, some quests, items, powers, etc, can only be accessed through the online portion of the game, and any reference to them in the character files would be a call to access the central server. If it can't access the server, you don't get to use the Bow of Myopia, but you still have all the junk you earned offline. Okay, still vulnerable to cheats, but unless the game is basically a video stream from the server with virtually no executable code on the client end, you're always going to have cheating.
When aare MMORPG makers going to start offering single-player offline portions to some of these games? Never? Looks like I still don't care, then.
Lest it sound like I'm whining, let me point out that A) Should the company in charge of Game X decide to stop supporting X, I can't play it anymore. Ever. And even if I could kludge together a pseudo-server, they created the game with the thought of thousands of people interacting, not dozens or just one. With just one person, many MMORPGs wouldn't just be dull: They'd be broken, and B) Most of the biggest complaints against MMORPGs are player-related. Players cheat. Griefers intentionally ruin the game. Power gamers blaze through the game, alienating newbies. Joining in late puts you severely behind even the casual users.
If the online portion of the game was non-essential, I would play.
In fact, I was referring to the popularized (and somewhat innacurate) perception that schizophrenia equates to dissaociative identity disorder (Multiple personalities).
20 is plenty, this far ahead of launch. The Magic Box (And another set here) has screenshots from more than 20 titles, and none of them are Mahjong or any other kind of board game (the closest is something called "Pool Game," but it doesn't look to be billiards). As for "dubious value," I try to stay a little more objective than that. It would certainly depend on the unannounced price per game, wouldn't it?
At any rate, Tales of Eternia, Dynasty Warriors, Armored Core Formula Front, Makai Wars, Ys: The Ark of Napishtim, Gagharv, and possibly Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory will likely be getting my money.
"Sony Shows Wireless Multiplayer, Talkman, New Games For PSP"
Okay, so in less than 24 hours, we've gone from saying that the PSP has virtually no support, and certainly no new games, to saying that it has tons of features, and pleanty of new games. Which I suppose is alright, since the latter is the truer statement.
So let me get this straight: The PSX was basically a PS2 with the hard drive built in, Tivo like software pre-loaded, and the ability to record shows to DVD-R.
They don't need time to make it "more accessable" to US consumers. They need the time to make it less accessable. In the past month, a grey-market pirate product called HD Loader was released, which allows users to run copied games from the PS2 hard drive. Sony needs the time to break compatibility with HD Loader.
I too suffer some colorblind issues, which have similarly rendered all incarnations of Puzzle Fighter utterly unplayable to me. The green and orange all blended together too much for my deutanomaly (malformed green cones).
That was until I figured out that I could simply look through a red lens. I took a pair of 3D glasses, cut out the blue lens, and look like an utter dweeb anytime I play that game. It's fun, but not enough to do often. But at least I can see the colors.
It's times like this that I wish I had a way of embedding sound files in a post. A gameshow-like buzzer sound would work right about now.
The booth babes do not have to be "pleasant, attractive, and vaguely sexualized" to me, because I'd rather simply have a video game expo be about (say it with me) video games!
I don't expect them to like me. I don't expect them to be cuddly with me. I expect them to not be there, getting in the way of the product they're meant to be selling.
I'm probably going to get labeled as gay for this, but:
I have been to E3 once. I have met these booth babes. I still recoil at calling them that.
I find the booth girls actively repulsive, not due to how they look, but how obviously false they are. I value honesty over pleasantries, and truth over superficial beauty.
No, I'm not gay. In fact, I'm rather solidly hetero. However, I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment by investing any amount of emotion or biological impulse in someone who so obviously merely tolerates my existance.
Slashdot Mirror
Jealous?
.2% of the population of the Western world (ignoring China and India, you've knocked the world population back to 4 billion people).
What really amazes me is that you seem to think there are only 20,000 people in Sweden. Sweden is home to more than 8 million people. That's closer to
Why do I suddenly feel I'm about to be booted out of the village as a small butterfly flits by?
Once on DVD, then check. I got rid of my VCR ages ago.
Take one part Usenetserver account ($3.00 a day for a 3 day trial, or $15.00 a month), and mix liberally with one part NewzBin usenet archiving service. Add your favorite y-enc enabled newsreader to flavor to taste. Serves an entire campus, until your OIT decides to block port 119.
H2G2 TV-series on DVD: Check
H2G2 Radio show on CD (and subsequently, mp3): Check
H2G2 Leather bound, goldleaf singlebound volume: Check
H2G2 Comics: Check
New H2G2 Radio Shows: Coming this fall.
H2G2 Movie: Coming next year.
It's a good time to be a fan.
Now, if only we could get some news on the new Dr. Who series, or the Red Dwarf movie, or Red Dwarf Series IX...
Whenever I've seen those figures of "The game industry lost x kajillion dollars last year to evil pirates," I wind up asking myself "How does that figure stack up to money spent on failed advertising, ineffective copy protection, or some useless novelty packaging feature? How about bloated development costs due to a rushed schedule?"
But then again, I'm not buying the bulk of these games, so I must be an evil pirate.
All that said, the article doesn't really address much. Mostly it's little "fight the power" and "I'm for the little guy" throwaway remarks interspersed with plugs for products. Shame about Strategy First not paying royalties. I wanted to like them.
It's not revisionist unless it depicts only the scope of the original. If it continues past the end of the original, anything goes.
Besides, since when are video games considered "history?" How can any specific event be canon if the entire story can end with the death of the main character at any time? Mario dies on world 1-1, and so he never rescued the princess, and Super Marios 2, 3, World, Land, RPG, and 64 never happen (although Paper Mario could still happen, since that seems to be a different "Mario"). I don't know how that would affect Mario Kart, Tennis, or Super Smash Bros., though.
Don't tell me your actually taking continuity within video game series seriously.
I'll beat the spelling-sticklers to the punch here: I meant "hearsay", not "heresay" or "heresey." Sorry.
Rumors and heresay. Must be slashdot.
In the linked article, it is stated that Amano and Inoue are likely collaborators: Not that they are or definitely will be linked to the company.
And, strictly speaking, doesn't Kingdom Hearts count as a Final Fantasy property, what with all the characters it uses? I think it most likely that Squarenix plans on making a fourth Kingdom Hearts game.
However, should they decide to do something else based around themes and characters from FFVII, a flat out update of the PS1 game to PS2 (or PS3) graphics and gameplay would be a welcome addition to the lineup. Especially if you could resurrect Aeris. Fanboys have been drooling over that idea for a few years now.
Same as the old boss.
Okay, this horse seems pretty thoroughly flogged, but here's a few fresh kicks: Anyone already owning a modded PS2 can't be prosecuted (one assumes: If not, this sets an ugly precedant, and anything can suddenly become illegal with past violations counting), and how are they going to prove that you didn't have the thing before the decision was made?
Now, on a slightly more down-to-earth note, the defendant had sold over 1500 Messiah 2 modchips. I'm guessing that this case has been in the courts for more than a year, so he probably sold them for their old asking price of close to £25.00 per, netting him a nice £37,500 just selling Messiah 2 chips. Odds are, he was probably also selling chips for other systems, and possibly other grey- and black-market devices, and it's doubtful that the sale of the chips was what attracted the attention of the authorities.
Okay, the 419 scams are pretty weird to start with, but this... something about it just doesn't ring true. So far, there only seems to be one of these emails out there. It's pretty well known among the web-savvy that if you mention Nigeria in combination with any sum of money, you're probably talking about a scam. Throwing in assassination seems overkill.
This seems more likely to be a "Joe Job" to get someone else in trouble.
Unless they're providing an on-site server, GWU's office of IT will probably start blocking access to it in order to limit bandwidth usage. Some recent OIT antics on other campuses have included cutting off access to port 6667 (Claim: "30% of our traffic was occuring on that port."), dropping Usenet support (Claim: "No one was using it, and it was tying up too much bandwidth."), and blocking all forms of P2P, including bittorrent.
My only conclusion: OITs like having huge, tall towers of unused bandwidth.
I personally prefer the paranoia solution. You aren't allowed to know the rules ;-). Endless crazy fun...
For the GM. For the players, not so much.
That's hardly surprising, since it was only released on the PC and XBox. In Japan, the PC gaming industry is dominated by Hentai games, creating a public perception that PC gamers are perverts, and seriously damaging the mainstream PC market.
It wasn't even released on the Japanese XBox, although that hardly would have improved sales.
Then there's the whole "Eastern RPG vs. Western RPG" can of worms.
Not much... A couple of boards, some nails...
Sweet mother of... You mean you're going to nail Him up again? For crimeny's sake, man, why?
The point about MMORPGs folding is kind-of valid. It does happen and it's always going to be a risk with the smaller MMORPGs (I guess anything under 100k users has a potential risk, anything under 50k has a serious risk).
and
Don't leap into a MMORPG in the first few weeks;
Okay, so we're supposed to all wait for someone else to jump on the bandwagon before we do. If everybody does that, the bandwagon stays empty. The more people exercise your rules, the worse the situation becomes.
My solution for a simulteneous online/offline persistant world would keep some user info online and some offline. In other words, some quests, items, powers, etc, can only be accessed through the online portion of the game, and any reference to them in the character files would be a call to access the central server. If it can't access the server, you don't get to use the Bow of Myopia, but you still have all the junk you earned offline. Okay, still vulnerable to cheats, but unless the game is basically a video stream from the server with virtually no executable code on the client end, you're always going to have cheating.
When aare MMORPG makers going to start offering single-player offline portions to some of these games? Never? Looks like I still don't care, then.
Lest it sound like I'm whining, let me point out that A) Should the company in charge of Game X decide to stop supporting X, I can't play it anymore. Ever. And even if I could kludge together a pseudo-server, they created the game with the thought of thousands of people interacting, not dozens or just one. With just one person, many MMORPGs wouldn't just be dull: They'd be broken, and B) Most of the biggest complaints against MMORPGs are player-related. Players cheat. Griefers intentionally ruin the game. Power gamers blaze through the game, alienating newbies. Joining in late puts you severely behind even the casual users.
If the online portion of the game was non-essential, I would play.
In fact, I was referring to the popularized (and somewhat innacurate) perception that schizophrenia equates to dissaociative identity disorder (Multiple personalities).
20 is plenty, this far ahead of launch. The Magic Box (And another set here) has screenshots from more than 20 titles, and none of them are Mahjong or any other kind of board game (the closest is something called "Pool Game," but it doesn't look to be billiards). As for "dubious value," I try to stay a little more objective than that. It would certainly depend on the unannounced price per game, wouldn't it?
At any rate, Tales of Eternia, Dynasty Warriors, Armored Core Formula Front, Makai Wars, Ys: The Ark of Napishtim, Gagharv, and possibly Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory will likely be getting my money.
Monday, July 12 @ 1:52 AM
"PSP Launch May Be Hurt By Lack Of Games?"
Tuesday, July 13 @ 12:01 AM
"Sony Shows Wireless Multiplayer, Talkman, New Games For PSP"
Okay, so in less than 24 hours, we've gone from saying that the PSP has virtually no support, and certainly no new games, to saying that it has tons of features, and pleanty of new games. Which I suppose is alright, since the latter is the truer statement.
"Konami Corp... said they won't offer new games for the device."
"Konami... has said it will release three repackaged games for the PlayStation Portable."
How is it that Metal Gear Acid is not new? What is it a repackaging of? What is the Game Trailer showing, if not footage from a development build?
I've played the previous Metal Gear games, and the footage from MGA is clearly a new game.
So let me get this straight: The PSX was basically a PS2 with the hard drive built in, Tivo like software pre-loaded, and the ability to record shows to DVD-R.
They don't need time to make it "more accessable" to US consumers. They need the time to make it less accessable. In the past month, a grey-market pirate product called HD Loader was released, which allows users to run copied games from the PS2 hard drive. Sony needs the time to break compatibility with HD Loader.
Straying from the issue somewhat, but:
I too suffer some colorblind issues, which have similarly rendered all incarnations of Puzzle Fighter utterly unplayable to me. The green and orange all blended together too much for my deutanomaly (malformed green cones).
That was until I figured out that I could simply look through a red lens. I took a pair of 3D glasses, cut out the blue lens, and look like an utter dweeb anytime I play that game. It's fun, but not enough to do often. But at least I can see the colors.
Now you can have your favorite TMBG music right at your (Say it with me) Finger Tips!
It's times like this that I wish I had a way of embedding sound files in a post. A gameshow-like buzzer sound would work right about now.
The booth babes do not have to be "pleasant, attractive, and vaguely sexualized" to me, because I'd rather simply have a video game expo be about (say it with me) video games!
I don't expect them to like me. I don't expect them to be cuddly with me. I expect them to not be there, getting in the way of the product they're meant to be selling.
I'm probably going to get labeled as gay for this, but:
I have been to E3 once. I have met these booth babes. I still recoil at calling them that.
I find the booth girls actively repulsive, not due to how they look, but how obviously false they are. I value honesty over pleasantries, and truth over superficial beauty.
No, I'm not gay. In fact, I'm rather solidly hetero. However, I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment by investing any amount of emotion or biological impulse in someone who so obviously merely tolerates my existance.