"How long do you think it will take for Symantic, etc to file antitrust against microsoft. 6 months? 12 Months?"
Boy, Microsoft can't win with you guys, can they? You bitch every single fucking day that there's some security exploit, and when Microsoft addresses that, suddenly you're crying anti-trust. It really is hard to take anything you guys say seriously when it's all about bringing Microsoft down.
"You know, the more you hate the French, the more I love them. I seriously think they should ask for their statue back. You don't deserve it any more. Vive la France."
There's a difference between being playfully mischievious and hateful. I'll give you a hint about which category I fall under: Your comment hasn't offended me.
This question is so dependent on the game that's under development that it's not really worth trying to answer. If the game's good, and the demo is made to reflect that goodness, then blammo you've got a marketig tool. If the game's good, but the demo sucks, then blammo, you've got an uphill battle with the final product. Don't worry, I'm not going to run through all the permutations of what could happen here. Just pointing out that it really can go either way.
Can your game be successful with a demo? Yes. Can your game be successful without a demo? Yes. Do some of us want to play a demo before buying the game? You betcha. Are some of us more likely to buy it if the demo goes over well? You betcha.
I've answered a few things here, but I'm not sure my info really pushes anybody in any particular direction. It's just too vauge. I do have one piece of advice, though: If your game relies on the "Open your mouth and close your eyes" profit strategy, don't put out a demo.
"Well, if you have some brains up there you'd be smart enough to buy the cheaper of the two equally performing processors."
You're forgetting a major factor in this whole thing. The future. People buy computers worrying about what they'll be useful for 2 years from now. Intel's still the big name there, so people worry about the new stuff they get being optimized for it, yadda yadda yadda.
It's also worth mentioning that Intel virtually owns the laptop market, and gee whiz, lotsa them's machines are selling lke crazy. AMD would be smart to compete a little more seriously in that market. When I went laptop shopping, the AMD-based laptops felt like "laptops trying deperately to be really cheap", when really what I was after was "mid-range + useful performance". That laptop may be out there somewhere, but I wasn't able to find it. So I'm running Intel.
"We treated Columbia as a national tragedy, yet when six unknown Indians die, most people won't even notice. "
The Columbia was a national tragedy. Most of America watched the shuttle burn up on TV, and a good chunk of the South West was littered with debris from it. The explanation of what happened took a month to figure out, and in the process, our shuttle program was stalled.
I'm sorry to say this because I don't want to sound like I'm belittling the deathes of those that died in India, but what happened with the shuttle was a much bigger event. You're absolutely right. These people should be grieved for too. But don't you dare use the Columbia disaster to imply that people are uncaring. That may not have been your intention here, but it's a story I've heard a number of times here, so I hope you'll understand some of the frustration preceeding my post.
" I don't remember any evidence being produced to the public that there was a threat on any of the planes that were grounded."
Besides that the one passenger with the name they were worried about fled?
" The events of 9/11 happened because of broad agency incompetence at handling the power they already had at the time, not because of a supposed lack of power. "
It happened because people are determined to attack us. The 'incompetance' wasn't due to stupidity, it was due to lack of information. Could TIA have helped it? I don't really know. I don't have a strong opinion either way at the moment. I do know, though, that something has to be done. So if you've got an alternative suggestion, I'm all ears.
"A much better option is microbes. If you can get some microbes to start changing CO2 into oxygen, a lot of the O2 will be absorbed by the soil. I can't say how much (or if it will even be enough), but it would be a start."
"I seriously wonder how long before we have another civil war. There is already civil unrest. We have it too good right now to take up arms...but I wonder if it will happen within my lifetime. "
The USA is a wonderful place to live. It would take a catastrophic set of events along with nobody trying to fix them in order to cause people to fight the government. Frankly, with 300 million people in this country, the chances of that are VERY low, even if we were to look towards 2050.
For a civil war to happen, the bads have to outweigh the goods we have. We take them for granted, but we have a LOT to be thankful for here.
"How about that US CITIZEN that is currently being held with out trial and who has been denied a lawyer? "
Bad example.
a.) The operative word here is 'one'.
b.) It's being fought, as opposed to it just happening without any checks and balances in place.
c.) Shit happens.
I'm not arguing that it's right or that it's harmless. Rather, I just want a more substantial reason to be afraid. I'm not a "whoah I better join the crowd" kind of person, I'm a "give me the info so I can judge" kind of person. So please, help me out so I can understand.
(P.s. Modding the guy down for asking "What harm has it caused" is ridiculous. Not everybody (including myself) stays on top of every little thing that happens. Questions like that are never harmful.)
"I don't see what Douglas Adams's problem with digital watches was. They are slightly cheaper, easier to read, and capable of having alarms in them."
Think about the early 80's/late 70's when digital watches were the newest fad. In the early/mid 90's it would have been pagers, and today... or maybe a handful of years back, it'd be cell phones.
"That's not saying much and doesn't really indicate taht either show was actually good scifi either. Maybe from a camp perspective, but that's about it."
Uh huh.
"Retarded kids win awards at the Special Olympics. So what."
Oh come on, if you really feel the way you do, you can come up with a better rebuttal than that.
"Oh, I see. This isn't about the crappy BBC shows, this is really about you and defending your career. Ok, whatever. "
Yay, another lame rebuttal. If I were defending my career, I wouldn't be putting down modern digital effects in favor of what was done in the 80's, now would I?
I can see why you posted anonymously. Don't have the cajones do ya?
"What is a quasar? I've never really had a satisfactory explanation for this. "
All I know is that you have to know what a quasar is to to be an officer in the Jupiter Mining Corporation. Those tests are damn near impossible. I failed mine 11 times and I'm still a lowly chicken soup machine technician!
"Since it's not a BBC production, it stands a chance of having production values above that of a 2nd grade art class."
Crack jokes about it if you like. But HGtGttG was and Dr. Who were far better than the scifi we have today. When you have '2nd grade art class' effects, you have to focus more on making the script interesting.
Frankly, I wouldn't complain a whole lot about the fx they had back then. I recently purchased the DVD for Hitchhiker and they actually stunned me with one of their effects. The guide had a full color animated screen. Today that'd be done with either a PocketPC (like in Nemesis) or by digitally adding the imagery later. What they did back then was they found a neat way to funnel light from a projector in that thing. Ingenius.
It's also worth mentioning that the animations they did for the guide won awards. Despite being hand-animated, they were quite effective in selling people on the idea that they were watching a computerized presentation of the information the Guide contained.
As an artist who does that kind of work, I found Hitchhiker to be surprisingly good, even today. I nitpicked it far less than I did Episode II.
Slashdot Mirror
"How long do you think it will take for Symantic, etc to file antitrust against microsoft. 6 months? 12 Months?"
Boy, Microsoft can't win with you guys, can they? You bitch every single fucking day that there's some security exploit, and when Microsoft addresses that, suddenly you're crying anti-trust.
It really is hard to take anything you guys say seriously when it's all about bringing Microsoft down.
The PHB's have to move too.
"So what happens when they come to rely on these techniques - people develop addictions to VR, just like they develop addictions to painkillers?"
Oh just get on the damn transporter pad, Mr. Broccoli.
"You know, the more you hate the French, the more I love them. I seriously think they should ask for their statue back. You don't deserve it any more. Vive la France."
There's a difference between being playfully mischievious and hateful. I'll give you a hint about which category I fall under: Your comment hasn't offended me.
This question is so dependent on the game that's under development that it's not really worth trying to answer. If the game's good, and the demo is made to reflect that goodness, then blammo you've got a marketig tool. If the game's good, but the demo sucks, then blammo, you've got an uphill battle with the final product. Don't worry, I'm not going to run through all the permutations of what could happen here. Just pointing out that it really can go either way.
Can your game be successful with a demo? Yes. Can your game be successful without a demo? Yes. Do some of us want to play a demo before buying the game? You betcha. Are some of us more likely to buy it if the demo goes over well? You betcha.
I've answered a few things here, but I'm not sure my info really pushes anybody in any particular direction. It's just too vauge. I do have one piece of advice, though: If your game relies on the "Open your mouth and close your eyes" profit strategy, don't put out a demo.
"Well, if you have some brains up there you'd be smart enough to buy the cheaper of the two equally performing processors."
You're forgetting a major factor in this whole thing. The future. People buy computers worrying about what they'll be useful for 2 years from now. Intel's still the big name there, so people worry about the new stuff they get being optimized for it, yadda yadda yadda.
It's also worth mentioning that Intel virtually owns the laptop market, and gee whiz, lotsa them's machines are selling lke crazy. AMD would be smart to compete a little more seriously in that market. When I went laptop shopping, the AMD-based laptops felt like "laptops trying deperately to be really cheap", when really what I was after was "mid-range + useful performance". That laptop may be out there somewhere, but I wasn't able to find it. So I'm running Intel.
"When is someone going to focus on the important alternative: how about moving Earth out of the way instead?"
Or we could just spin the planet so we can control where the asteroid will land. "Hey France, CATCH!"
"We treated Columbia as a national tragedy, yet when six unknown Indians die, most people won't even notice. "
The Columbia was a national tragedy. Most of America watched the shuttle burn up on TV, and a good chunk of the South West was littered with debris from it. The explanation of what happened took a month to figure out, and in the process, our shuttle program was stalled.
I'm sorry to say this because I don't want to sound like I'm belittling the deathes of those that died in India, but what happened with the shuttle was a much bigger event. You're absolutely right. These people should be grieved for too. But don't you dare use the Columbia disaster to imply that people are uncaring. That may not have been your intention here, but it's a story I've heard a number of times here, so I hope you'll understand some of the frustration preceeding my post.
"Slashdot isn't quite the place to come for Windows news"
Windows news appears on Slashdot ad nauseum. The problem is getting anything out of it besides "Microsoft is evil/incompetent/arrogant."
You got the TOUCH! You got the POWER!!
" I don't remember any evidence being produced to the public that there was a threat on any of the planes that were grounded."
Besides that the one passenger with the name they were worried about fled?
" The events of 9/11 happened because of broad agency incompetence at handling the power they already had at the time, not because of a supposed lack of power. "
It happened because people are determined to attack us. The 'incompetance' wasn't due to stupidity, it was due to lack of information. Could TIA have helped it? I don't really know. I don't have a strong opinion either way at the moment. I do know, though, that something has to be done. So if you've got an alternative suggestion, I'm all ears.
"This is questionable. Mars is substantially warmer, for one. "
That's one hell of a commute.
"A much better option is microbes. If you can get some microbes to start changing CO2 into oxygen, a lot of the O2 will be absorbed by the soil. I can't say how much (or if it will even be enough), but it would be a start."
Let's hope President Skroob submits a resume!
"So, please, remind me again how TIA will prevent a "second 9/11?"
I guess nobody noticed that over the XMAS holidays a plan to attack the US via plane hijackings was thwarted.
"I seriously wonder how long before we have another civil war. There is already civil unrest. We have it too good right now to take up arms...but I wonder if it will happen within my lifetime. "
The USA is a wonderful place to live. It would take a catastrophic set of events along with nobody trying to fix them in order to cause people to fight the government. Frankly, with 300 million people in this country, the chances of that are VERY low, even if we were to look towards 2050.
For a civil war to happen, the bads have to outweigh the goods we have. We take them for granted, but we have a LOT to be thankful for here.
"How about that US CITIZEN that is currently being held with out trial and who has been denied a lawyer? "
Bad example.
a.) The operative word here is 'one'.
b.) It's being fought, as opposed to it just happening without any checks and balances in place.
c.) Shit happens.
I'm not arguing that it's right or that it's harmless. Rather, I just want a more substantial reason to be afraid. I'm not a "whoah I better join the crowd" kind of person, I'm a "give me the info so I can judge" kind of person. So please, help me out so I can understand.
(P.s. Modding the guy down for asking "What harm has it caused" is ridiculous. Not everybody (including myself) stays on top of every little thing that happens. Questions like that are never harmful.)
"I don't see what Douglas Adams's problem with digital watches was. They are slightly cheaper, easier to read, and capable of having alarms in them."
... or maybe a handful of years back, it'd be cell phones.
Think about the early 80's/late 70's when digital watches were the newest fad. In the early/mid 90's it would have been pagers, and today
" They probably moved everything to Area 42 or something."
I heard they moved it toAF#$H20x9934SDF..3jk..ata.[NO CARRIER]
"If we can't see a sugar cude on the moon right now, so how can we tell how this lens is focusing if at all?"
Because with it they found an inscription reading "If you can read this, you don't need glasses".
"That's not saying much and doesn't really indicate taht either show was actually good scifi either. Maybe from a camp perspective, but that's about it."
Uh huh.
"Retarded kids win awards at the Special Olympics. So what."
Oh come on, if you really feel the way you do, you can come up with a better rebuttal than that.
"Oh, I see. This isn't about the crappy BBC shows, this is really about you and defending your career. Ok, whatever. "
Yay, another lame rebuttal. If I were defending my career, I wouldn't be putting down modern digital effects in favor of what was done in the 80's, now would I?
I can see why you posted anonymously. Don't have the cajones do ya?
"Does this mean we can finally see the so called "landing site" on the moon? :) "
Sure! We just need to send a telescope to the other side of the cloud.
"They've found sugar on the MOON!!!"
Great. Now somebody's going to get modded as funny for using the overlords joke in its entirety.
"What is a quasar? I've never really had a satisfactory explanation for this. "
All I know is that you have to know what a quasar is to to be an officer in the Jupiter Mining Corporation. Those tests are damn near impossible. I failed mine 11 times and I'm still a lowly chicken soup machine technician!
"Since it's not a BBC production, it stands a chance of having production values above that of a 2nd grade art class."
Crack jokes about it if you like. But HGtGttG was and Dr. Who were far better than the scifi we have today. When you have '2nd grade art class' effects, you have to focus more on making the script interesting.
Frankly, I wouldn't complain a whole lot about the fx they had back then. I recently purchased the DVD for Hitchhiker and they actually stunned me with one of their effects. The guide had a full color animated screen. Today that'd be done with either a PocketPC (like in Nemesis) or by digitally adding the imagery later. What they did back then was they found a neat way to funnel light from a projector in that thing. Ingenius.
It's also worth mentioning that the animations they did for the guide won awards. Despite being hand-animated, they were quite effective in selling people on the idea that they were watching a computerized presentation of the information the Guide contained.
As an artist who does that kind of work, I found Hitchhiker to be surprisingly good, even today. I nitpicked it far less than I did Episode II.
"And why not cast Darl as a Vogon? "
I'd cast him as Zaphod. His two-facedness would save them $$$ on prosthetic makeup.