Shadowrun has a bit of something for everyone. Todate it is the only RPG to be able to keep my attention for more than a few years. I have been playing it for about 7 or 8 years. Great game, truely awsome if there is a great GM for it too. It is a shame that the only thing to be done with the liscense for it is a poor game for the SNES and an ok game for the Genesis. It sits there not touched much if at all, yet D&D et al get a new product everyyear or so. FASA needs to market some more I guess.
prohaps they should have picked ones that didn't ride completely on graphics if they wanted it to sell well. Oh yeah I forgot shiney is what sells these days, so I don't know why these didn't sell well. Prohaps anyone who wanted to play the game already had it on the gamesystem it was ment for. BTW, the controls on FFVII for the PC were lacking, doesn't play very well in my opinion without a control pad to bind everything too.
I would have liked it if I hadn't predicted the entire out come of any plot element the minute it was presented. What it needed was a plot that wasn't quite so predictable. The only thing it was to me was a CG fest (much like their games tend to be)
I have no problem with sequils as long as there is something new and inovative involved. The problem with what square is doing with the final fantasy series is proving that chunking out similar games over and over again with out any real inovation will get you more and more money. They are doing exactly what we need to get to stop. I have no problem if they make a new FF game if it isn't a reitteration of something hasn't or currently is being done to death.
Seriously how many games like EQ are we going to see made? Why didn't square try to cut into some totally uncharted territory and offer something that no one had ever seen. They could have done so much more with the idea but they didn't. Might have worked well too if they had done something totally unique. What the game market needs is originallity not rehashes of things that have been and are being done to death.
However show me a MMORPG of Shadowrun (done well please) and I might take interest. Shadowrun has always been a wonderful world to play in, and it is a shame that no one has really done much with it.
I have never had any problems getting parts or service for my Nikon cameras. You are judging a company based on a few scanners. I have no problems getting parts for any of my Nikon and Canon stuff that isn't more than 20 years old. Your argument is about like me complaining that I can't get replacement parts for my Canon FTb (which btw, still is in perfect working order, as is all the other cameras (Nikon and Canon) that I picked up from the 1970s). You are the first person I have even heard of having a complaint about Nikon (and I have been dealing with them for a long time)
cords are also good to make your system look impressive. The snake nest approach to wiring computers is one of the more entertaining ways to keep people from messing with your stuff. Who wants to mess with a bunch of wires that they aren't really sure of the distination.
I remember the old mouses that they made for the AT that came with their own controller card. Infact it is one of my few mice that still works. Granted not to long ago their mice started sucking (probly 5-8 years ago), I switched to Logitech at that point which seemed to last longer for me, and only have replaced one of those. I know that they don't manufacture their own hardware anymore the outsource it, but I don't remember where they go.
I think when I did work in a supermarket photolab it each 8x10 cost us less than a dollar to make, but we sold them for a lot more. Granted it usually took 2 or 3 to make it have no dust. Personally if I had been in charge of that studio you mentioned I would have let the kids have their 8x10s that is just obnoxious to charge $50 for an 8x10 (I usually go for about 15 depending on the amount of work it took to produce it (sometimes to get a really good print you need to employ some tricks in the dark room that can be VERY time consuming to get just the right photo. And I am a big beleiver in doing things till they look perfect.)
First of all good luck finding a photographer who will let you have all the negatives at a reasonable price (I sure as hell wouldn't let you near them). Taking pictures is an art as is printing. If you want reprints after the photographer is dead the rigths pass onto the photographers heir. When they move it stays with the photographer, and if you want reprints you can ask also for a form that lets you get copies made of the picture (not the hardest thing to get ahold of). If they are out of business same deal. There are laws that stipulate how to go about this procress and it hasn't changed much since it was created.
I can't agree with you more on this. It is fine to put out the million camera on the tables (gives the guests something to do, personally I get bored to tears at weddings and like to play with things). But don't let the primary photography be done by guests, that isn't their job. They are there to have fun, not to take pictures. Hiring a professional makes sure that the pictures get taken, and usually taken well. The reason that wedding shoots can be expensive is that they know what to use and when. They have the experiance, but this experience is only gained through practice (which is actually pretty expensive, drugs probly would have cost me less, but I chose to take pictures instead). If you want a bunch of fun pictures put out the little disposables, but I can tell you that the minute you get a dark skined person in a white dress it won't take very well on those. You should deffinately put out the cameras and hire a photographer (disposables for fun, pro for serious)
The greatest bit about being a photographer is when you get your film developed and see that the once in a lifetime shot you took came out how you wanted it too. It really is an art, the light is your paint, the film your canvas, and the camera your brush. It is all in how you combine these 3 tools that you get your final product. Somepeople have asked me how they can take great photos the only thing I can tell them is to go out and take a lot of pictures, expariment with different lightings, filters, and apatures (sp?). To get a good shot in the wild everything has to fall into place and if it happens once every 100 picturs feel good, you are already beating the curve. The variables are incredible and when they all fall into place it is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world (well to me atleast). I sometimes go rolls without something really good and sometimes I get about half a roll of really interesting pictures (minus the studio work which isn't really that much fun as it is all controlled).
There is also darkroom work, and in this phase of operations you can turn a peice of ordinary work into something truely amasing. You can do things like mask part of a frame and expose it at one level and expose another at a lower level to get the right contrast (there are books out there and classes on how to do these tricks, so I won't get into them here). Also the difference between color and black and white can make all the difference in the world (I prefer black and white when I am not working for someone else (at that point it is their choice usually)) And the tricks you use in the darkroom differ from film type to film type.
not only is there the problem of who owns the copyright, but also who owns the negatives. I am not in the business of making prints however, I do not let people just arbitrarily make copies of my pictures. I do however let them make copies if they ask first. However, somepeople ask for the negatives and that is always a strict no (however I have made copies of negatives for people upon request, but usally charge them for that (the equipment for it is isn't cheap and sometimes the film isn't either)).
Another think you might try though is getting a setup where you can make a negative from a print (I do not condone doing this though). You can then make as many copies of it as you want at the local 1-hour photo. Beaware though that this is not a nice thing to do, as you are the holder of the negative and can make as many copies as you want with out the owner knowing. Also, just because you own a print doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want with it, there are legal guide lines, and professional photographers must pay their bills same as you.
Toshiba put out a good laptop a while back (486-p90 area) that had an interal powersupply and a great screen. You basically just used a standard powercable (like the ones you buy for clocks, radios and such). It has all the ports you could possibly want (except USB or Firewire, but why would you want those for this purpose)
There is a Linux client for UT you know. Granted I am not sure how well it works as I don't run linux here anymore, nor did I try UT when I did have it running here. Maybe this time around they won't make it so that you have to download the linux client and put it on the CD instead to make it easier for you guys who hate being in windows all the time.
You know, that might not be as hard as you think. Just imagine a revine and build a really long 3d map from it. You have your 3d record, the rest would lie in a physics model that could be integrated into the player of such a file. Not really sure about how big the source file would be though to make this happen but it would be interesting. Stereo sound wouldn't even be a problem. you just need a set of 3 coordinates and you string them based upon changes along the tracking. Infact you could use the needle on a turntable to generate your coordinates for you. However that is the limiation of my knowlage of how records work. More information could lead to having a working system fairly quickly.
the reason that this won't work right is that it relies on a scanner relaying circular grooves (we won't even get into the fact that you need a 3d scan to get the vertal factor for stareo sound, so we will assume mono). You will wind up with 2 layers of errors that can't be gotten rid of. Remember that records are ROUND, yes, round, and that is significant because while they are easy to read with a needle you need to get your mathematical equations right to get close to a circle with a computer (and bare in mind that unless you recalibrate everytime the 'needle' moves even the slightest you will be off. And that can mean that your plot will be a ridge or so off with out realising it). You may think that you can do a perfect circle with a computer, but you can't, not really.
Now it is possible to get it to stay in the right groove but you won't be able to keep the sound coming out right if you do it. You can sit there and look for slight changes in color and that should keep you in the center of the groove. However you won't be able to check to see what kind of sound should be produced based on this analysis. I would love to be proved wrong about this, but the proof is in the code, and I won't beleive until I see it done. If someone can find an error in my logic here please tell me I would really like to know how it would be possible to correct for it.
There is a program out there that lets you make a recording for the full duration of the song then shows you where it thinks the songs should end (judges by silence in the audio file). From this you can either decide to cut it there or not (it takes the whole silent section with it). I used to use it to bring my stuff from tape to mp3 so i suppose that this would work the same. Unfortunately the program is trapped on a HDD that I can't get my computer to recognise (shot drive or shoddy controler you decide, because I don't really care).
Another thing that you can do is record the whole LP as one long song and then devide it that way (or if you are really good make a cue chart for it and burn it to CD then rip it from CD to mp3). I have done the Cue chart method before for deviding up a recording of a local band. Cue chart method takes a while but you get a CDA out of it in the process wich is kinda cool, Just besure to get the timing right. You can use CDRWin or Fireburner to do the Cue sheet method, don't know what the non-windows equivilants are off the top of my head.
And that irrationalality on the words is one of the main reasons I don't like the English language a whole lot. Presonally I have been a big fan of idiograms, as they are a lot easier to convey your message with. Kanji really isn't that hard once you get the base symbols down, after that you can kinda think your way through the rest. I also like the syllabol form of righting (such as katakana and hiragana). But the practice of making silent letters and letters that hold multiple different sounds is just evil and wrong. I feel sorry for anyone who has to learn English as a second language.
Actually i have a subtitled VHS of it here. Watched it once, was more than enough of it for me. I personally loved the manga but greatly disliked the movie. I am not really sure if it was just the fact that the movie made little or no sense, or if it had something to do with the guys artwork (I am not really a fan of the movies art style, don't get me wrong though the art was good, just not my style).
We have to effect change sometimes in baby steps. Companies aren't going to make a change that drastic over night, and not see it effect sales. Once they have the technology to make a powerful electric car we might start seeing them be a main stay. Until then we will start seeing more and more efficient hybrids.
Tell it to 'breed' me an orbital weapons platform from which i can take over the world. Or maybe I would just settle with having it 'breed' me a new toaster oven.
what about in Maniac Mansion? do you remember the little gravestones you get? get 3 of them and you lose, even though you can wind up with 3 gravestones and one live person wandering around (2 graves for same person and one of someone else). Though to the best of my knowlage that is the only one that death of character occurs (in game atleast, Grim Fandango (possibly my favorite Lucas Arts game) doesn't count as you are already dead). The Dig is another one of my favorite games (just below DooM and above Quake I). Loom is probly one of the more inovative ones, magic through music was pretty cool.
Slashdot Mirror
Shadowrun has a bit of something for everyone. Todate it is the only RPG to be able to keep my attention for more than a few years. I have been playing it for about 7 or 8 years. Great game, truely awsome if there is a great GM for it too. It is a shame that the only thing to be done with the liscense for it is a poor game for the SNES and an ok game for the Genesis. It sits there not touched much if at all, yet D&D et al get a new product everyyear or so. FASA needs to market some more I guess.
prohaps they should have picked ones that didn't ride completely on graphics if they wanted it to sell well. Oh yeah I forgot shiney is what sells these days, so I don't know why these didn't sell well. Prohaps anyone who wanted to play the game already had it on the gamesystem it was ment for. BTW, the controls on FFVII for the PC were lacking, doesn't play very well in my opinion without a control pad to bind everything too.
I would have liked it if I hadn't predicted the entire out come of any plot element the minute it was presented. What it needed was a plot that wasn't quite so predictable. The only thing it was to me was a CG fest (much like their games tend to be)
I have no problem with sequils as long as there is something new and inovative involved. The problem with what square is doing with the final fantasy series is proving that chunking out similar games over and over again with out any real inovation will get you more and more money. They are doing exactly what we need to get to stop. I have no problem if they make a new FF game if it isn't a reitteration of something hasn't or currently is being done to death.
Didn't FFXI already fail?
Seriously how many games like EQ are we going to see made? Why didn't square try to cut into some totally uncharted territory and offer something that no one had ever seen. They could have done so much more with the idea but they didn't. Might have worked well too if they had done something totally unique. What the game market needs is originallity not rehashes of things that have been and are being done to death.
However show me a MMORPG of Shadowrun (done well please) and I might take interest. Shadowrun has always been a wonderful world to play in, and it is a shame that no one has really done much with it.
and here I thought the reason to mount a big telescope on the moon would be to look in peoples windows while they don't know you are watching.
I have never had any problems getting parts or service for my Nikon cameras. You are judging a company based on a few scanners. I have no problems getting parts for any of my Nikon and Canon stuff that isn't more than 20 years old. Your argument is about like me complaining that I can't get replacement parts for my Canon FTb (which btw, still is in perfect working order, as is all the other cameras (Nikon and Canon) that I picked up from the 1970s). You are the first person I have even heard of having a complaint about Nikon (and I have been dealing with them for a long time)
cords are also good to make your system look impressive. The snake nest approach to wiring computers is one of the more entertaining ways to keep people from messing with your stuff. Who wants to mess with a bunch of wires that they aren't really sure of the distination.
I remember the old mouses that they made for the AT that came with their own controller card. Infact it is one of my few mice that still works. Granted not to long ago their mice started sucking (probly 5-8 years ago), I switched to Logitech at that point which seemed to last longer for me, and only have replaced one of those. I know that they don't manufacture their own hardware anymore the outsource it, but I don't remember where they go.
I think when I did work in a supermarket photolab it each 8x10 cost us less than a dollar to make, but we sold them for a lot more. Granted it usually took 2 or 3 to make it have no dust. Personally if I had been in charge of that studio you mentioned I would have let the kids have their 8x10s that is just obnoxious to charge $50 for an 8x10 (I usually go for about 15 depending on the amount of work it took to produce it (sometimes to get a really good print you need to employ some tricks in the dark room that can be VERY time consuming to get just the right photo. And I am a big beleiver in doing things till they look perfect.)
First of all good luck finding a photographer who will let you have all the negatives at a reasonable price (I sure as hell wouldn't let you near them). Taking pictures is an art as is printing. If you want reprints after the photographer is dead the rigths pass onto the photographers heir. When they move it stays with the photographer, and if you want reprints you can ask also for a form that lets you get copies made of the picture (not the hardest thing to get ahold of). If they are out of business same deal. There are laws that stipulate how to go about this procress and it hasn't changed much since it was created.
I can't agree with you more on this. It is fine to put out the million camera on the tables (gives the guests something to do, personally I get bored to tears at weddings and like to play with things). But don't let the primary photography be done by guests, that isn't their job. They are there to have fun, not to take pictures. Hiring a professional makes sure that the pictures get taken, and usually taken well. The reason that wedding shoots can be expensive is that they know what to use and when. They have the experiance, but this experience is only gained through practice (which is actually pretty expensive, drugs probly would have cost me less, but I chose to take pictures instead). If you want a bunch of fun pictures put out the little disposables, but I can tell you that the minute you get a dark skined person in a white dress it won't take very well on those. You should deffinately put out the cameras and hire a photographer (disposables for fun, pro for serious)
The greatest bit about being a photographer is when you get your film developed and see that the once in a lifetime shot you took came out how you wanted it too. It really is an art, the light is your paint, the film your canvas, and the camera your brush. It is all in how you combine these 3 tools that you get your final product. Somepeople have asked me how they can take great photos the only thing I can tell them is to go out and take a lot of pictures, expariment with different lightings, filters, and apatures (sp?). To get a good shot in the wild everything has to fall into place and if it happens once every 100 picturs feel good, you are already beating the curve. The variables are incredible and when they all fall into place it is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world (well to me atleast). I sometimes go rolls without something really good and sometimes I get about half a roll of really interesting pictures (minus the studio work which isn't really that much fun as it is all controlled).
There is also darkroom work, and in this phase of operations you can turn a peice of ordinary work into something truely amasing. You can do things like mask part of a frame and expose it at one level and expose another at a lower level to get the right contrast (there are books out there and classes on how to do these tricks, so I won't get into them here). Also the difference between color and black and white can make all the difference in the world (I prefer black and white when I am not working for someone else (at that point it is their choice usually)) And the tricks you use in the darkroom differ from film type to film type.
not only is there the problem of who owns the copyright, but also who owns the negatives. I am not in the business of making prints however, I do not let people just arbitrarily make copies of my pictures. I do however let them make copies if they ask first. However, somepeople ask for the negatives and that is always a strict no (however I have made copies of negatives for people upon request, but usally charge them for that (the equipment for it is isn't cheap and sometimes the film isn't either)).
Another think you might try though is getting a setup where you can make a negative from a print (I do not condone doing this though). You can then make as many copies of it as you want at the local 1-hour photo. Beaware though that this is not a nice thing to do, as you are the holder of the negative and can make as many copies as you want with out the owner knowing. Also, just because you own a print doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want with it, there are legal guide lines, and professional photographers must pay their bills same as you.
Toshiba put out a good laptop a while back (486-p90 area) that had an interal powersupply and a great screen. You basically just used a standard powercable (like the ones you buy for clocks, radios and such). It has all the ports you could possibly want (except USB or Firewire, but why would you want those for this purpose)
There is a Linux client for UT you know. Granted I am not sure how well it works as I don't run linux here anymore, nor did I try UT when I did have it running here. Maybe this time around they won't make it so that you have to download the linux client and put it on the CD instead to make it easier for you guys who hate being in windows all the time.
You know, that might not be as hard as you think. Just imagine a revine and build a really long 3d map from it. You have your 3d record, the rest would lie in a physics model that could be integrated into the player of such a file. Not really sure about how big the source file would be though to make this happen but it would be interesting. Stereo sound wouldn't even be a problem. you just need a set of 3 coordinates and you string them based upon changes along the tracking. Infact you could use the needle on a turntable to generate your coordinates for you. However that is the limiation of my knowlage of how records work. More information could lead to having a working system fairly quickly.
the reason that this won't work right is that it relies on a scanner relaying circular grooves (we won't even get into the fact that you need a 3d scan to get the vertal factor for stareo sound, so we will assume mono). You will wind up with 2 layers of errors that can't be gotten rid of. Remember that records are ROUND, yes, round, and that is significant because while they are easy to read with a needle you need to get your mathematical equations right to get close to a circle with a computer (and bare in mind that unless you recalibrate everytime the 'needle' moves even the slightest you will be off. And that can mean that your plot will be a ridge or so off with out realising it). You may think that you can do a perfect circle with a computer, but you can't, not really.
Now it is possible to get it to stay in the right groove but you won't be able to keep the sound coming out right if you do it. You can sit there and look for slight changes in color and that should keep you in the center of the groove. However you won't be able to check to see what kind of sound should be produced based on this analysis. I would love to be proved wrong about this, but the proof is in the code, and I won't beleive until I see it done. If someone can find an error in my logic here please tell me I would really like to know how it would be possible to correct for it.
There is a program out there that lets you make a recording for the full duration of the song then shows you where it thinks the songs should end (judges by silence in the audio file). From this you can either decide to cut it there or not (it takes the whole silent section with it). I used to use it to bring my stuff from tape to mp3 so i suppose that this would work the same. Unfortunately the program is trapped on a HDD that I can't get my computer to recognise (shot drive or shoddy controler you decide, because I don't really care).
Another thing that you can do is record the whole LP as one long song and then devide it that way (or if you are really good make a cue chart for it and burn it to CD then rip it from CD to mp3). I have done the Cue chart method before for deviding up a recording of a local band. Cue chart method takes a while but you get a CDA out of it in the process wich is kinda cool, Just besure to get the timing right. You can use CDRWin or Fireburner to do the Cue sheet method, don't know what the non-windows equivilants are off the top of my head.
And that irrationalality on the words is one of the main reasons I don't like the English language a whole lot. Presonally I have been a big fan of idiograms, as they are a lot easier to convey your message with. Kanji really isn't that hard once you get the base symbols down, after that you can kinda think your way through the rest. I also like the syllabol form of righting (such as katakana and hiragana). But the practice of making silent letters and letters that hold multiple different sounds is just evil and wrong. I feel sorry for anyone who has to learn English as a second language.
Actually i have a subtitled VHS of it here. Watched it once, was more than enough of it for me. I personally loved the manga but greatly disliked the movie. I am not really sure if it was just the fact that the movie made little or no sense, or if it had something to do with the guys artwork (I am not really a fan of the movies art style, don't get me wrong though the art was good, just not my style).
at which point i have my weapons platform and can now drop bread on my targets :)
We have to effect change sometimes in baby steps. Companies aren't going to make a change that drastic over night, and not see it effect sales. Once they have the technology to make a powerful electric car we might start seeing them be a main stay. Until then we will start seeing more and more efficient hybrids.
Tell it to 'breed' me an orbital weapons platform from which i can take over the world. Or maybe I would just settle with having it 'breed' me a new toaster oven.
what about in Maniac Mansion? do you remember the little gravestones you get? get 3 of them and you lose, even though you can wind up with 3 gravestones and one live person wandering around (2 graves for same person and one of someone else). Though to the best of my knowlage that is the only one that death of character occurs (in game atleast, Grim Fandango (possibly my favorite Lucas Arts game) doesn't count as you are already dead). The Dig is another one of my favorite games (just below DooM and above Quake I). Loom is probly one of the more inovative ones, magic through music was pretty cool.