> "You cannot pirate an MMO. Period", said Johsnon.
I'd like to point out that in a general sense this is correct in that in an MMO you can pirate or copy the software but cannot pirate the content that is in the server world. While that may be true, however, it is often possible to pirate whole MMOs in the sense of private servers running leaked server code and people connecting to these servers on cracked/modified clients. While these players cannot communicate with people playing the "legitimate game," it doesn't mean that they can't enjoy a "good enough" experience and not pay for it.
Everyone knows what's great about Wikipedia. But people in the education system should especially be for improving it rather than working against it.
Here's an idea for professors: have one of your assignments be to make or substantially improve an article relating to the topic you wish to teach. It's no surprise that the goal for ideal Wikipedia articles coincides exactly with the goals for well-written papers in University-level classes. In particular, Wikipedia pushes for established, cited sources; clear presentation and logical flow; and accurate, unbiased reporting.
It kills two birds with one stone- students must research and write their papers, and Wikipedia becomes that much more of a well-written, credible source of information.
I actually use google calculator a lot. I can't remember the last time I needed to know how much a Newton was in slug-hands per month squared (1 Newton = 4.66403422 x 1012 (slug hands) per (month squared)), but it's actually invaluable to me while I'm studying in Japan, and namely, trying to adjust myself (and mostly my recipes) to metric.
I swear, cooking is probably one of the biggest things holding the metric system back, with its much-prized teaspoons (~5 mL), tablespoons (~15 mL), cups (~200 mL), and ounces (~30 grams). Fortunately, I have accustomed myself to cooking by eye (I can measure a teaspoon pretty accurately in the palm of my hand), but still, it's important to know just how hot to make a 350 oven (180 C).
I personally have a laptop that I would haul around to one of my campus's many network ports. Now, all my fun stuff is on my desktop, so using my comparatively underpowered portable version doesn't seem very appealing, but with such remote-access tools like VNC, on the college's local network system, I could use my desktop as if I were sitting in my room from the student union. Sadly this doesn't help if you want to be having a frag-fest, but it's much better than sitting in a dark room trying to type as quietly as possible.
And now the kind of people who bought PDAs when they were extremely expensive are going to get tablet PCs. Even though digital heralded the "death" of analog, we're still using phones. It's more of the same.
I remember every time I played Half-life the sound of the klaxons. One of the more annoying sounds ever, a grating, nasal ENNNNGH ENNNG ENNNNG
Speaking of annoying, there was baby Mario's ceaseless crying in Yoshi's Island, which as if not annoying enough, had a chirping warning tone behind it.
And of course, there were games with ambient or warning noises that cause a hairtrigger panic reaction. Such as the sound of the static radio from Silent Hill, or the screaming guys with bombs from Serious Sam. It's great to freak people out with after they play that game by making a subvocal screaming sound and gradially get louder until you're screaming. oooooowwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AUUUUUGH!
Well despite the fact that Hudson has that wide array of IP, I hope you're not arguing that those characters are recognizable or anything but esoteric nostalgia for the classic gamer. I mean you pretty much summed it up by mentioning the Turbo-Grafx 16. I'm sure they know how to make a fun game, but that doesn't change the premise of the game.
And you know, I joke about that kind of thing (Konami plus go-karts) because it's about as absurd as I can think of, yet something every company has done it seems. The fact that it was something they actually made just makes it sad.
I'm not saying this sounds like a bad idea per se, but I can't see it as taking off either. It's just that Konami and Hudson don't have quite the stable of immediately recognizable mascots that Nintendo or Capcom have. I mean, it's not like they're going to bust out the Gradius pilot all Captain Falcon-style.
Let's think of the Konami games of fame I can think of (I'm not even counting Hudson because most of their stuff is so old it'd only end up evoking nostalgia):
Castlevania Metal Gear Solid Silent Hill Zone of Enders Gradius series Contra and the laughable were-beast fighter Bloody Roar
Now perhaps either I can't imagine what a game with that kind of cast would be like or I can and it's not what I'd consider a very cohesive kind of game. Add to that the fact that the list of characters mentioned above is nothing short of esoteric, and it means that they'd be selling a game full of random odds-and-ends intellectual property rather than what Nintendo and Capcom do in their super cross-over brawlers do which is grab people's attention with easily-recognized and still-famous characters.
Of all the companies out there that have the kind of pull to do this, I think Sega is probably the only one left I can think of. Square too, perhaps, but we all remember Ergheiz and Chocobo Racing were bad ideas. Or a great ideas, I can't decide. Let me just say that if I ever see a game where Solid Snake and Alucard are driving around go-karts is the day I stop purchasing video games.
I think this post took a harsh turn. Let's start over: I wouldn't pay money for it.
How about we take a poll: Is there anyone out there that doesn't want to sue Take Two or Rockstar games for something? Everyone raise your hands high so we can see them. Nobody? What gives?
There is a series of games available at cheap-ass games that explores something everyone can relate to- the drudgery of food service, where the workers are literally zombies. By far my favorite is Give Me the Brain, in which you have to try to finish all of your tasks so you can go home. However, there's only one brain to go around all of the employees, and some tasks (though hardly all) require it to be completed. I'm sure you can get the gist of it from their product description.
Anyway, if you like shouting "Braiiinnnn" a lot, which I always do, this is a great party game. In addition to being fun and having relatively simple rules, this game is hilarious. If you can't make zombies funny, though, you're obviously not trying.
I've fallen in love with the artform as a means of telling a story. There's so much more intensity and subtle language you can use in graphical storytelling, and while similar to American comic books, usually the content is drastically different. But I'm not here to be condescending about comics vs. manga, rather to simply advocate it as an enjoyable entertainment medium.
Of course it's popular entertainment, so there are hacks and crap that's just shat out at furious pace. But if you separate the wheat from the chaff, you can find some truly amazing stories and some truly beautiful artwork. Like good movies, there are an endless supply of genres and themes. Anyway, I'm sure you get the gist by now. I usually dislike shameless butt-kissing, and feel a little hypocritical already.
Drawing manga, on the other hand, is stressful, time-consuming, and very hard. I would not reccomend it as a casual hobby.
I'm not sure what kind of game you're doing, but if you're out to do an RPG, you might consider RPG Maker. From what I've gathered, you're making your own engine, but there's a big RPG Maker community out there (since it got translated by Don Miguel) and they contribute a whole bunch of circa 1995-style sprites and so forth.
But if you're looking for help with a more modern (i.e. 3d) game, if you're really on the lookout for talent, you should see if there are any universities around with graphic arts programs. If you're in it to make a product that can make money, you'd likely be able to find people willing to help, but of course they'd be a big slice of your pie. If you're just looking for a free project, perhaps try posting links to it on bulletin boards asking for volunteer help. If your idea is good enough, people should come.
I really relate with the poster of this Ask Slashdot (college student, 3 years of Japanese, studying in Japan) except I personally am on the software side of the coin. But I have heard about the amount of xenophobia and racism present in Japan, and frankly it scares me. I feel like I might be throwing lots of time and energy on study in vain, because of the language, culture, and acceptance barrier. I suppose at least I could comfort myself in the fact that learning Japanese is neat for its own purpose, and I could still use it for hobbies.
At least there is a decent industry for development in America, but I lament that it's not as strong for console, mostly favoring PC. If I keep it up, I could at least take my skills here for more practice.
Even though there are all sorts of disaster warnings, my city had microwave power for a good 50 years (until the power plant naturally self-destructed harmlessly) and not once did we ever have a mis-alignment. Perhaps if I set the disaster rate up though...
Seriously, I think the biggest issue would be to make a line-of-sight that would unlikely be crossed. Like mountain peak to peak. Convential cables can carry it along more dangerous paths.
I can do anything at Zombo.com!
on
HTML: Is it Art?
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· Score: 0
I wonder if the guy got tired of reading "Welcome to Zombo-com" in various voices...
I think that myself and many slashdotters are up on "a good cause" enough to be willing to pay for a subscription. Heck, I know that TheGIA once made a request for money, not even a subscription system, and got tons of money just from people who readi t and enjoy seeing the content.
If even the 1% of hardcore slashdotters payed for a subscription, it'd be more money than one could ever generate through ad banners.
If there's anything about the open source geek community, it's the adhesive-like properties it shows, especially for people who routinely give so much for so little. So I think if Slashdot did such a thing, its financial troubles would most likely be indefinately alleviated.
Slashdot Mirror
> "You cannot pirate an MMO. Period", said Johsnon.
I'd like to point out that in a general sense this is correct in that in an MMO you can pirate or copy the software but cannot pirate the content that is in the server world. While that may be true, however, it is often possible to pirate whole MMOs in the sense of private servers running leaked server code and people connecting to these servers on cracked/modified clients. While these players cannot communicate with people playing the "legitimate game," it doesn't mean that they can't enjoy a "good enough" experience and not pay for it.
Everyone knows what's great about Wikipedia. But people in the education system should especially be for improving it rather than working against it.
Here's an idea for professors: have one of your assignments be to make or substantially improve an article relating to the topic you wish to teach. It's no surprise that the goal for ideal Wikipedia articles coincides exactly with the goals for well-written papers in University-level classes. In particular, Wikipedia pushes for established, cited sources; clear presentation and logical flow; and accurate, unbiased reporting.
It kills two birds with one stone- students must research and write their papers, and Wikipedia becomes that much more of a well-written, credible source of information.
I actually use google calculator a lot. I can't remember the last time I needed to know how much a Newton was in slug-hands per month squared (1 Newton = 4.66403422 x 1012 (slug hands) per (month squared)), but it's actually invaluable to me while I'm studying in Japan, and namely, trying to adjust myself (and mostly my recipes) to metric.
I swear, cooking is probably one of the biggest things holding the metric system back, with its much-prized teaspoons (~5 mL), tablespoons (~15 mL), cups (~200 mL), and ounces (~30 grams). Fortunately, I have accustomed myself to cooking by eye (I can measure a teaspoon pretty accurately in the palm of my hand), but still, it's important to know just how hot to make a 350 oven (180 C).
So when are we going to start seeing Genome soldiers? I mean, that is until Snake kills them all.
Also, whose footprints are these?
I personally have a laptop that I would haul around to one of my campus's many network ports. Now, all my fun stuff is on my desktop, so using my comparatively underpowered portable version doesn't seem very appealing, but with such remote-access tools like VNC, on the college's local network system, I could use my desktop as if I were sitting in my room from the student union. Sadly this doesn't help if you want to be having a frag-fest, but it's much better than sitting in a dark room trying to type as quietly as possible.
Only 100,000 tracks? I have that much on my computer!
And now the kind of people who bought PDAs when they were extremely expensive are going to get tablet PCs. Even though digital heralded the "death" of analog, we're still using phones. It's more of the same.
At that astronomical rate, it's only a few hundred millenia or so before Waterworld becomes a reality.
Penny Arcade already covered this one... Or I guess you'd have to read the news post. But that's also been made fun of recently.
I remember every time I played Half-life the sound of the klaxons. One of the more annoying sounds ever, a grating, nasal ENNNNGH ENNNG ENNNNG
A AUUUUUGH!
Speaking of annoying, there was baby Mario's ceaseless crying in Yoshi's Island, which as if not annoying enough, had a chirping warning tone behind it.
And of course, there were games with ambient or warning noises that cause a hairtrigger panic reaction. Such as the sound of the static radio from Silent Hill, or the screaming guys with bombs from Serious Sam. It's great to freak people out with after they play that game by making a subvocal screaming sound and gradially get louder until you're screaming.
oooooowwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Well despite the fact that Hudson has that wide array of IP, I hope you're not arguing that those characters are recognizable or anything but esoteric nostalgia for the classic gamer. I mean you pretty much summed it up by mentioning the Turbo-Grafx 16. I'm sure they know how to make a fun game, but that doesn't change the premise of the game.
And you know, I joke about that kind of thing (Konami plus go-karts) because it's about as absurd as I can think of, yet something every company has done it seems. The fact that it was something they actually made just makes it sad.
I'm not saying this sounds like a bad idea per se, but I can't see it as taking off either. It's just that Konami and Hudson don't have quite the stable of immediately recognizable mascots that Nintendo or Capcom have. I mean, it's not like they're going to bust out the Gradius pilot all Captain Falcon-style.
Let's think of the Konami games of fame I can think of (I'm not even counting Hudson because most of their stuff is so old it'd only end up evoking nostalgia):
Castlevania
Metal Gear Solid
Silent Hill
Zone of Enders
Gradius series
Contra
and the laughable were-beast fighter Bloody Roar
Now perhaps either I can't imagine what a game with that kind of cast would be like or I can and it's not what I'd consider a very cohesive kind of game. Add to that the fact that the list of characters mentioned above is nothing short of esoteric, and it means that they'd be selling a game full of random odds-and-ends intellectual property rather than what Nintendo and Capcom do in their super cross-over brawlers do which is grab people's attention with easily-recognized and still-famous characters.
Of all the companies out there that have the kind of pull to do this, I think Sega is probably the only one left I can think of. Square too, perhaps, but we all remember Ergheiz and Chocobo Racing were bad ideas. Or a great ideas, I can't decide. Let me just say that if I ever see a game where Solid Snake and Alucard are driving around go-karts is the day I stop purchasing video games.
I think this post took a harsh turn. Let's start over: I wouldn't pay money for it.
How about we take a poll: Is there anyone out there that doesn't want to sue Take Two or Rockstar games for something? Everyone raise your hands high so we can see them. Nobody? What gives?
Now, it may just be me, but putting an easter egg in a virus is just kind of cute.
There is a series of games available at cheap-ass games that explores something everyone can relate to- the drudgery of food service, where the workers are literally zombies. By far my favorite is Give Me the Brain, in which you have to try to finish all of your tasks so you can go home. However, there's only one brain to go around all of the employees, and some tasks (though hardly all) require it to be completed. I'm sure you can get the gist of it from their product description.
Anyway, if you like shouting "Braiiinnnn" a lot, which I always do, this is a great party game. In addition to being fun and having relatively simple rules, this game is hilarious. If you can't make zombies funny, though, you're obviously not trying.
Both reading, and drawing.
I've fallen in love with the artform as a means of telling a story. There's so much more intensity and subtle language you can use in graphical storytelling, and while similar to American comic books, usually the content is drastically different. But I'm not here to be condescending about comics vs. manga, rather to simply advocate it as an enjoyable entertainment medium.
Of course it's popular entertainment, so there are hacks and crap that's just shat out at furious pace. But if you separate the wheat from the chaff, you can find some truly amazing stories and some truly beautiful artwork. Like good movies, there are an endless supply of genres and themes. Anyway, I'm sure you get the gist by now. I usually dislike shameless butt-kissing, and feel a little hypocritical already.
Drawing manga, on the other hand, is stressful, time-consuming, and very hard. I would not reccomend it as a casual hobby.
I'm not sure what kind of game you're doing, but if you're out to do an RPG, you might consider RPG Maker. From what I've gathered, you're making your own engine, but there's a big RPG Maker community out there (since it got translated by Don Miguel) and they contribute a whole bunch of circa 1995-style sprites and so forth.
But if you're looking for help with a more modern (i.e. 3d) game, if you're really on the lookout for talent, you should see if there are any universities around with graphic arts programs. If you're in it to make a product that can make money, you'd likely be able to find people willing to help, but of course they'd be a big slice of your pie. If you're just looking for a free project, perhaps try posting links to it on bulletin boards asking for volunteer help. If your idea is good enough, people should come.
... Shouldn't this be under "Humor?"
Taihensou da yo...
I really relate with the poster of this Ask Slashdot (college student, 3 years of Japanese, studying in Japan) except I personally am on the software side of the coin. But I have heard about the amount of xenophobia and racism present in Japan, and frankly it scares me. I feel like I might be throwing lots of time and energy on study in vain, because of the language, culture, and acceptance barrier. I suppose at least I could comfort myself in the fact that learning Japanese is neat for its own purpose, and I could still use it for hobbies.
At least there is a decent industry for development in America, but I lament that it's not as strong for console, mostly favoring PC. If I keep it up, I could at least take my skills here for more practice.
Even though there are all sorts of disaster warnings, my city had microwave power for a good 50 years (until the power plant naturally self-destructed harmlessly) and not once did we ever have a mis-alignment. Perhaps if I set the disaster rate up though...
Seriously, I think the biggest issue would be to make a line-of-sight that would unlikely be crossed. Like mountain peak to peak. Convential cables can carry it along more dangerous paths.
I wonder if the guy got tired of reading "Welcome to Zombo-com" in various voices...
For another TCP/IP bit story to be posted?
You all'd better hurry before midnight!
Oooh, we finally get a real-life wireframe walls cheat. Now all we need are aiming bots for our soldiers.
I think that myself and many slashdotters are up on "a good cause" enough to be willing to pay for a subscription. Heck, I know that TheGIA once made a request for money, not even a subscription system, and got tons of money just from people who readi t and enjoy seeing the content.
If even the 1% of hardcore slashdotters payed for a subscription, it'd be more money than one could ever generate through ad banners.
If there's anything about the open source geek community, it's the adhesive-like properties it shows, especially for people who routinely give so much for so little. So I think if Slashdot did such a thing, its financial troubles would most likely be indefinately alleviated.
Go Slashdot, I support you wholly.
I'd be all for a drive like this as long as it ends up being cheaper per-gigabyte than a conventional hard-drive.
Even CDs are getting pretty close on a $/MB scale now, assuming around $1.50 for a CD and jewel case.
- WrexSoul
\/.
vvv