That sounds like a lot of work for a CSR to be doing, but it does bring up an interesting idea of having MMORPGs with honest to goodness DMs. Of course, that's a lot of cost in running a game, and you've got a minimum wage dude with a lot of power running around. Also, is there round the clock survalence of these things? Who's watching the watcher? Still, as a side job, a professional MMORPG DM would be pretty neat.:)
Yeah, Bioshock is a good game there. Of course it doesn't have anything to do with the article, seeing as how it was made by Irrational (now 2K Games). Yeah, we're talking about BioWARE right here.:)
I think the Sims expansions make sense. The "game" is more like a doll house or train set. They're just adding to the kit because a) people like playing with it, b) people want to do more stuff with what they're doing.
Exactly right - the real revolution in PC gaming is not going to be at the game store. Its going to be in direct downloads off services like Steam, Popcap, etc. The unfortunates without internet connections will need to mailorder the packaged good. Game consoles have to be a packaged good or at least in a walled garden like xbox live. That's how the game maker gets their cut - that's how its going to stay. PC gaming is wide open and things like Portal show it - we've now got better tools for creating and distributing games than ever before, and a wider audience than ever before. What exactly is missing from this equation that makes previous eras better for PC gaming?
Its too bad Ponce De Leon didn't live in the modern era. He would have finally found the fountain of youth in the Internet and its magical ability to make its users sound like 12 year olds.
I've read here on \. that the RFIDs were going to be used by the government to track my sneakers from space and that the second I walked into the Gap I was going to get bombarded with ads based off the stuff I was wearing.
After reading that, I became extremely paranoid and started wrapping myself in tinfoil every day. But then I realized the RFID could be in the tinfoil itself. So I rewrapped that tinfoil in other tinfoil. They told me I could kill it with microwaves, so I took the tinfoil I was wrapping the other tinfoil in and put that in the microwave. That didn't really work out to well. Now I've been walking around looking like some 1950's space alien comfortable that my previous purchases of BVDs would be safely hidden beneath my shorts and you're telling me that these guys can't even read an RFID out in the open?...
You guys are just big jerks you know that?
Re:Woud be better if not constrained
on
ZOMG New Zunes
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'm not saying its a fantastic feature, and not a killer app, I'm saying its _better_ than the current sharing the iPod has, which is 0. So to turn those around:
1). 0 plays on an iPod is rediculous. I can't even hear the song once!
2). Both of you need an ipod!
Of course, if iPod did have this feature I'm sure they'd do it in a better way, but DRM doesn't seem to be one of those things that's up to Apple (see iTunes and pricing schemes for DRM free music). I don't own a Zune or an iPod, but I'd probably go with iPod just because they seem to be a better overall experience from trying them in stores. But either way, my whole point was defending something as "well, it sort of has that which is better anyways and is another form of" makes you sound like a frothing zealot. Just concede the point that "yes, it has crippled sharing, so what?" and move on. Its the same arguments with arguments like "Wii has worse graphics which actually makes it better because...because...because of the wonderful things it does!"
Anyways, we've strayed to offtopic and I think I'm just procrastinating doing work!
Re:Partly wrong
on
ZOMG New Zunes
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Wait, are you for Apple or MS? Because
"Being able to buy songs right on your device is a more powerful form of sharing,"
sounds like spin out of the MS PR department: "Paying a license fee to see our source is more powerful form of open source because you know what you're getting is supported code"
Just admit its a better feature than the iPhone/Pod and move on with it. You'll still get into Apple Heaven when you die, and be greeted by a hundred user-friendly black turtlenecked angels blowing their iTrumpets.:)
Eh, half the pretenders here (and myself included) would get stomped by old timers who laugh at our interactive debugger tools and high level abstractions like C. Just as people who cut their teeth on C/C++ scoff at Java/C# newbs who don't know what pointers are. Of course, the more powerful computers get, the more powerful the language gets, such that at some point down the road programmers and regular people will collide with natural language inputs into the machine. "Computer, compile a list of this" - "Computer, show me this", "Computer - create a server process that takes in this type of message", etc. Sounds far fetched, but its the natural evolution of better and more powerful tools.
Heh, but that's the point. VB lets you take an idea for a windows program and implement it pretty quickly without much programming knowledge. Gamebuilding tools like the one mentioned can help someone who's not a hardcore graphics programmer make a nice looking game quickly and allow them to focus on their design ideas, not the graphics.
I don't think it really does. Successful teams often start with a small core group that focuses on gameplay, and develops simple prototype models for the gameplay before any of the art direction is even decided, or any production art is even being developed. Generally the gameplay and game concepts is locked down before the real production even starts. This is in an idealized world - you also have to deal with market deadlines and such, and the more time the preproduction is cut, the less time you have to perfect the gameplay specifics.
The other thing is you can't throw money at gameplay. You simply can't throw 10 more people on "gameplay" and have them come up with that killer feature that makes it all that much more fun to play the game. That usually comes from a single designer, and if that guy isn't there, then the idea won't make it to the game. Where the money comes in is putting people on engineering to make the gameplay designs a reality. Those things can get cut based on time and money, but generally the basic rule of thumb is "art is cheap, engineering is not". I can start making art for a game today without knowing how the gameplay will work. The models can be post-processed down to whatever they need to run on, or I can go back in a second pass to apply the necessary elements the game engine requires, but the process of _creating_ the art is one that is "solved".
I actually think the primary reason a game will come off as "unfun" and why the call of what seems to be the 80's 90's generation version of "back in my day" in regards to "games used to be more fun" is that the industry has gone away from having a "director". Some games have them, and not all successful games need them, but there was a time when you could name the designer of a game, often because his name was on the box: Sid Meir's Civilization, Wil Wright's Sim City, etc. This was back when often the game designer was also the game programmer, maybe even the game artist and sound designer. Now a lot of time (like big budget movies) games are done by committee, with multiple people putting their hands in the pot and you get a muddled, water downed version of the original designer's vision. I'm actually very positive about the future of gaming because of the availability of tools and publishing outlets that will let a small, indie shop put something "commercial" together. The Virtual Console, Steam, XNA, XBLA, Sony Home, etc. all are new tools that are in some ways helping to put the ability to produce a commercial quality game back in the hands of the indie developer, and give them a method to actually get a game shipped. Many would disagree, but I think the quality of film and television has increased and will increase with the ability to make stuff for cheaper (digital editing, filming) and get it out to the public (cable, mulitplexes, Youtube). Sure there's a lot of crap, and there will always be crap, because crap is easy and crap can make money. But there are also gems that exist now that didnt' have a chance previously. So to bring it home, stuff like having realistic looking worlds for very little work brings the bar lower for entry into the commercial market. This will only increase the viability of smaller projects that can compete with the big boys and will bring back some of the variety that the industry has lost along the way. To say something that will make good looking games easier to make will detract from gameplay is I think a bit misguided and a little short sighted.
I think the Singularity OS (interestingly enough its being developed at Microsoft Research) has a pretty cool model of forcing components in the system to only interact over a well established contract. They also have the concept of installing built into the OS, such that only verified code can be built into the system. If you can't run a malicious program and it can't get out of its box, what can it do? I just wish they would release more to the public for outside analysis of their ideas.
Umm, probably because the graphics on the Wii and those casual games blow away graphics from 5 years ago? Because in some cases, yes, the graphics do make the game more fun. That's not knocking PacMan - PacMan is fun. But so is Halo. So is Fight Night. So is Metal Gear, Gears of War, and a lot of other games that have cool _immersive_ graphics. Video games are a visual medium. They aren't interactive text, and so like other visual mediums you want to see stuff happening on the screen. Better graphics, better AI can make a good game better. It won't polish a turd, but in terms of AI I guaruntee you that dumb AI can ruin a game, and smart AI can make it Fun.
As in 23% funner in standard Fun Units, which you seem to be able to quantify given you "to be more fun again" statement. That implies that games aren't fun anymore, or that they're quantifiably less fun since some predetermined point at which graphics and AI reach their maximum level of fun contribution before peaking and thus taking away from the funnitude of a game.
That's ok, my karma can withstand the torments and tortures of obviously incensed non-believer moderators. I may suffer now, but their eternal punishment in the hellfires of heterogeneous gaming will know no end.
>Play as many games on as many different systems as you can.
Lalalalala, I can't hear you! I can't hear you! You sir, have commited BLASHPEMY! Video game consoles are a religion, and if you don't pick one and beat people over the head with your brand of Truth (TM), then you're a sicko deviant who deserves to be burned at the stake. Discussions about games aren't for talking about what you like to play, its more about what you _won't_ play on other systems. I don't know whether to label you a frat guy jock, a kiddy gamer, or an drooling I'll-buy-anything-Sony idiot. You confuse and anger me, and I'm going to go on the record saying that I just plain don't like you.
I'll close with a reading from the book of Nintendo:
"Lo, and the Lord said 'Let there be Wii'. And the Wii did descend from the Heavens and the people saw that it was good. And they saw that it was great. And lo did they see that no other games were fun, and the controllers turned to ash in their hands. And the Lord did speaketh 'Behold my wisdom, and the gift I have bestowed upon you. Take this Wii and take it out to the world, to show unbelievers my Truth.' And so they did, and so thusly did the Lord's profits grow."
I would say that the goal here is to minimize the quickload function (is that even available in the xbox version?) while upping the difficulty. One way they could add balance is to reduce the number of Vitachambers and up the enemies tendency to heal. This would force you to run back to the area where the big daddy was, but by the time you get back he's reloaded. I still might quickload at that point, in which case the point is missed. You've got two game mechanics here: figuring out the easiest way to beat the game, and using basic FPS skills, reflexes, etc. to win.
I also don't see why everyone puts a jab at the "console audience" like the people playing consoles have never touched a PC before. The main reason console games are (or seem) simpler is because reading text from 20 feet away on your couch sucks. Navigating inventory menus with a controller sucks (not all the time, some people actually make good UI) That doesn't mean the games are any easier. Play some old NES games and tell me if those things aren't brutal and unforgiving as far as beating it == skill. Halo on the hardest setting is rediculously hard - I don't think "hard" games are exclusively on the PC by a long shot. You're telling me that some of the FF games aren't complex in regard to UI or depth?
I'm still playing through it but I'm loving it so far, and I agree with the reviewer that for you to say its too easy because you get revived means somehow that you're telling me I'm playing the game wrong.
There is a penalty - you lose any ammo from the fight, and if the travel back to the space you were at is long enough there's a chance the guys can reheal (which I'm wondering if it goes up later on). The fact is, I don't have 48 hours to put into playing through an FPS - I want to enjoy blowing stuff up and do it in a way where its more than an arcade game. The story and setting of Bioshock are much appreciated. What I find annoying in games is when you have to almost kills something, then go back and do it again because you _almost_ did it, but not quite. Eventually you'll train up enough to handle it and then you're all good. The option is there to play how you want - set the quicksave at the start of an area and then F9 when you get killed. You'll have to start all over again and do everything 85 times in a row to advance past each level. No thanks. The game designers have given a nod to how this stuff is actually played - quick save, die, reload, repeat - and made it so that the "artificial" restore is now part of the natural flow of the game. I really don't ever use the quicksave except if I want to jerk around or something and see what happens if I set bigdaddy on fire in the oil pool, etc.
The game has adapted away from an annoying tendency to show off "learn this repetitive crap" with "difficulty". I think if you _don't_ use quicksave and just roll with the vitachamber stuff, then the game picks up a difficulty in the fact that you have to manage what you do with your ammo/plasmids, and blowing all your EVE on lighting random dudes on fire will screw you for the boss fights. I like this style of play and hope that more designers clue in on it for the future.
Or they have YASWTP - Yet Anothe Secret Wiretap Program snatch one of the posts. And they're really only limited by what they can do in the States (or what they give lip service to as "not being able to do") - in other countries the gloves are pretty much off and only limited by how much the other country can figure out.
Don't think for a second that they aren't trying to actively hack some of the more popular places these things are being posted. If they can get one honey pot and the correlate that guys posts to others, they have all they need.
I tend to do interviews a lot at my company (a very large game company) for engineers, and here's some things I look at:
*Experience - The more the better. Someone who made a game at home I can look at before the interview and see how they code. Game experience is of course a plus and will get you more cred than the guy without it, but if you don't have any then you going out and working on a hobby game is a step above the other guy who has "likes games and dressing up like Final Fantasy" on his resume.
*Ability - You're going to do problems on the board. I like those better than just quizzing people on skills. Often its a design problem, because if you can code really well but someone else can't understand what the hell you did and has to debug it, that isn't so great. I'm interviewing more general programmer types though, so I'd imagine you'd get a more indepth interview on something like graphics.
*Education - Generally which piece of paper you have hanging on your wall at home isn't going to write code for me. Experience and ability are going to show me more than what diploma you have. Of course, we all have biases, so if your degree says MIT vs. some other guy who went to Joe Shmoe's School o' Gamin', I'm going for the MIT grad. That is, if you're both equal in the rest of the interview. I've hired from both backgrounds and found that its all down to the person. We've had guys from game schools blow away guys from top name schools, so its up to what you do once your foot is in the door.
Bottom line: What gets you hired is who you are and what you've done, not what school you went to.
No, I think they've figured out that "hardcore" doesn't represent the same group of people across the full spectrum of gaming. I would argue that staying in on Friday night because its the best time to play is "hardcore" behavior (not because they should be out clubbing or whatever instead, but because it shows they've changed behavior for the game).
You don't have to be a stereotypical neck-bearded lives-in-their-parents-basement loser to like gaming. I've seen people who never pick up a game controller (or haven't since they were kids) rush out to buy a PS2 with Guitar Hero or a Wii after playing at their friends house. They now play religously all the time. "Hardcore" just means you spend a lot of time on a particular thing. I can be hardcore about the NFL, golf, boating, chess, knitting, etc. Everyone has something, and I think there's probably a game out there for everyone to be hardcore about. What Blizzard found was how to give people who weren't otherwise hardcore about MMO's a seemingly simple and easy access to a "hardcore" experience they can spend a lot of time doing. Whether they grew the market themselves or took from other gaming segments is debatable, but what's not, I think, is that there's a whole new section of "hardcore" MMO players that weren't there before.
Damn those rich ass game designers! Also those uppity pizza delivery guys who've been known to flaunt their lucritive tip earnings by spending upwards of _1000 SMACKERS_ on cars made AFTER 1987. Some people, sheesh!
Those are tiny runabouts, try crossing the Atlantic even when there's not a storm and you're going to have a problem. Most _ocean_ fairing vessels (that is, cruise ships, tankers, cutters, etc) cut through the water, not ride on top. There are traditional vessels that do this, but its a very very rough ride and you're not carrying much cargo.
You also have to factor in the loaded weight, range, and payload, and cruising speed. That's what's important here - the fact that you can get a stable ride, rest outside of the water while carrying some payload (for comparison, this boat can almost carry the boats you mentioned on top of the framework).
Slashdot Mirror
That sounds like a lot of work for a CSR to be doing, but it does bring up an interesting idea of having MMORPGs with honest to goodness DMs. Of course, that's a lot of cost in running a game, and you've got a minimum wage dude with a lot of power running around. Also, is there round the clock survalence of these things? Who's watching the watcher? Still, as a side job, a professional MMORPG DM would be pretty neat. :)
Yeah, Bioshock is a good game there. Of course it doesn't have anything to do with the article, seeing as how it was made by Irrational (now 2K Games). Yeah, we're talking about BioWARE right here. :)
I think the Sims expansions make sense. The "game" is more like a doll house or train set. They're just adding to the kit because a) people like playing with it, b) people want to do more stuff with what they're doing.
Exactly right - the real revolution in PC gaming is not going to be at the game store. Its going to be in direct downloads off services like Steam, Popcap, etc. The unfortunates without internet connections will need to mailorder the packaged good. Game consoles have to be a packaged good or at least in a walled garden like xbox live. That's how the game maker gets their cut - that's how its going to stay. PC gaming is wide open and things like Portal show it - we've now got better tools for creating and distributing games than ever before, and a wider audience than ever before. What exactly is missing from this equation that makes previous eras better for PC gaming?
EA was already the publisher for Mercs 2 even before the aquisition. You think Lucas is a better publisher? Don't get me started...
"Intercrap Exploder"
Its too bad Ponce De Leon didn't live in the modern era. He would have finally found the fountain of youth in the Internet and its magical ability to make its users sound like 12 year olds.
Oh, they were probably "tagged and bagged" a while back by the MiB. They cared, but not enough to foil up.
I'm also paranoid about people tracking my browsing history so I encrypt the names of the sites I go to.
I've read here on \. that the RFIDs were going to be used by the government to track my sneakers from space and that the second I walked into the Gap I was going to get bombarded with ads based off the stuff I was wearing.
...
After reading that, I became extremely paranoid and started wrapping myself in tinfoil every day. But then I realized the RFID could be in the tinfoil itself. So I rewrapped that tinfoil in other tinfoil. They told me I could kill it with microwaves, so I took the tinfoil I was wrapping the other tinfoil in and put that in the microwave. That didn't really work out to well. Now I've been walking around looking like some 1950's space alien comfortable that my previous purchases of BVDs would be safely hidden beneath my shorts and you're telling me that these guys can't even read an RFID out in the open?
You guys are just big jerks you know that?
I'm not saying its a fantastic feature, and not a killer app, I'm saying its _better_ than the current sharing the iPod has, which is 0. So to turn those around:
1). 0 plays on an iPod is rediculous. I can't even hear the song once!
2). Both of you need an ipod!
Of course, if iPod did have this feature I'm sure they'd do it in a better way, but DRM doesn't seem to be one of those things that's up to Apple (see iTunes and pricing schemes for DRM free music). I don't own a Zune or an iPod, but I'd probably go with iPod just because they seem to be a better overall experience from trying them in stores. But either way, my whole point was defending something as "well, it sort of has that which is better anyways and is another form of" makes you sound like a frothing zealot. Just concede the point that "yes, it has crippled sharing, so what?" and move on. Its the same arguments with arguments like "Wii has worse graphics which actually makes it better because...because...because of the wonderful things it does!"
Anyways, we've strayed to offtopic and I think I'm just procrastinating doing work!
Wait, are you for Apple or MS? Because
:)
"Being able to buy songs right on your device is a more powerful form of sharing,"
sounds like spin out of the MS PR department: "Paying a license fee to see our source is more powerful form of open source because you know what you're getting is supported code"
Just admit its a better feature than the iPhone/Pod and move on with it. You'll still get into Apple Heaven when you die, and be greeted by a hundred user-friendly black turtlenecked angels blowing their iTrumpets.
Eh, half the pretenders here (and myself included) would get stomped by old timers who laugh at our interactive debugger tools and high level abstractions like C. Just as people who cut their teeth on C/C++ scoff at Java/C# newbs who don't know what pointers are. Of course, the more powerful computers get, the more powerful the language gets, such that at some point down the road programmers and regular people will collide with natural language inputs into the machine. "Computer, compile a list of this" - "Computer, show me this", "Computer - create a server process that takes in this type of message", etc. Sounds far fetched, but its the natural evolution of better and more powerful tools.
Heh, but that's the point. VB lets you take an idea for a windows program and implement it pretty quickly without much programming knowledge. Gamebuilding tools like the one mentioned can help someone who's not a hardcore graphics programmer make a nice looking game quickly and allow them to focus on their design ideas, not the graphics.
I don't think it really does. Successful teams often start with a small core group that focuses on gameplay, and develops simple prototype models for the gameplay before any of the art direction is even decided, or any production art is even being developed. Generally the gameplay and game concepts is locked down before the real production even starts. This is in an idealized world - you also have to deal with market deadlines and such, and the more time the preproduction is cut, the less time you have to perfect the gameplay specifics.
The other thing is you can't throw money at gameplay. You simply can't throw 10 more people on "gameplay" and have them come up with that killer feature that makes it all that much more fun to play the game. That usually comes from a single designer, and if that guy isn't there, then the idea won't make it to the game. Where the money comes in is putting people on engineering to make the gameplay designs a reality. Those things can get cut based on time and money, but generally the basic rule of thumb is "art is cheap, engineering is not". I can start making art for a game today without knowing how the gameplay will work. The models can be post-processed down to whatever they need to run on, or I can go back in a second pass to apply the necessary elements the game engine requires, but the process of _creating_ the art is one that is "solved".
I actually think the primary reason a game will come off as "unfun" and why the call of what seems to be the 80's 90's generation version of "back in my day" in regards to "games used to be more fun" is that the industry has gone away from having a "director". Some games have them, and not all successful games need them, but there was a time when you could name the designer of a game, often because his name was on the box: Sid Meir's Civilization, Wil Wright's Sim City, etc. This was back when often the game designer was also the game programmer, maybe even the game artist and sound designer. Now a lot of time (like big budget movies) games are done by committee, with multiple people putting their hands in the pot and you get a muddled, water downed version of the original designer's vision. I'm actually very positive about the future of gaming because of the availability of tools and publishing outlets that will let a small, indie shop put something "commercial" together. The Virtual Console, Steam, XNA, XBLA, Sony Home, etc. all are new tools that are in some ways helping to put the ability to produce a commercial quality game back in the hands of the indie developer, and give them a method to actually get a game shipped. Many would disagree, but I think the quality of film and television has increased and will increase with the ability to make stuff for cheaper (digital editing, filming) and get it out to the public (cable, mulitplexes, Youtube). Sure there's a lot of crap, and there will always be crap, because crap is easy and crap can make money. But there are also gems that exist now that didnt' have a chance previously. So to bring it home, stuff like having realistic looking worlds for very little work brings the bar lower for entry into the commercial market. This will only increase the viability of smaller projects that can compete with the big boys and will bring back some of the variety that the industry has lost along the way. To say something that will make good looking games easier to make will detract from gameplay is I think a bit misguided and a little short sighted.
I think the Singularity OS (interestingly enough its being developed at Microsoft Research) has a pretty cool model of forcing components in the system to only interact over a well established contract. They also have the concept of installing built into the OS, such that only verified code can be built into the system. If you can't run a malicious program and it can't get out of its box, what can it do? I just wish they would release more to the public for outside analysis of their ideas.
Umm, probably because the graphics on the Wii and those casual games blow away graphics from 5 years ago? Because in some cases, yes, the graphics do make the game more fun. That's not knocking PacMan - PacMan is fun. But so is Halo. So is Fight Night. So is Metal Gear, Gears of War, and a lot of other games that have cool _immersive_ graphics. Video games are a visual medium. They aren't interactive text, and so like other visual mediums you want to see stuff happening on the screen. Better graphics, better AI can make a good game better. It won't polish a turd, but in terms of AI I guaruntee you that dumb AI can ruin a game, and smart AI can make it Fun.
As in 23% funner in standard Fun Units, which you seem to be able to quantify given you "to be more fun again" statement. That implies that games aren't fun anymore, or that they're quantifiably less fun since some predetermined point at which graphics and AI reach their maximum level of fun contribution before peaking and thus taking away from the funnitude of a game.
That's ok, my karma can withstand the torments and tortures of obviously incensed non-believer moderators. I may suffer now, but their eternal punishment in the hellfires of heterogeneous gaming will know no end.
>Play as many games on as many different systems as you can.
Lalalalala, I can't hear you! I can't hear you! You sir, have commited BLASHPEMY! Video game consoles are a religion, and if you don't pick one and beat people over the head with your brand of Truth (TM), then you're a sicko deviant who deserves to be burned at the stake. Discussions about games aren't for talking about what you like to play, its more about what you _won't_ play on other systems. I don't know whether to label you a frat guy jock, a kiddy gamer, or an drooling I'll-buy-anything-Sony idiot. You confuse and anger me, and I'm going to go on the record saying that I just plain don't like you.
I'll close with a reading from the book of Nintendo:
"Lo, and the Lord said 'Let there be Wii'. And the Wii did descend from the Heavens and the people saw that it was good. And they saw that it was great. And lo did they see that no other games were fun, and the controllers turned to ash in their hands. And the Lord did speaketh 'Behold my wisdom, and the gift I have bestowed upon you. Take this Wii and take it out to the world, to show unbelievers my Truth.' And so they did, and so thusly did the Lord's profits grow."
Amen.
I would say that the goal here is to minimize the quickload function (is that even available in the xbox version?) while upping the difficulty. One way they could add balance is to reduce the number of Vitachambers and up the enemies tendency to heal. This would force you to run back to the area where the big daddy was, but by the time you get back he's reloaded. I still might quickload at that point, in which case the point is missed. You've got two game mechanics here: figuring out the easiest way to beat the game, and using basic FPS skills, reflexes, etc. to win.
I also don't see why everyone puts a jab at the "console audience" like the people playing consoles have never touched a PC before. The main reason console games are (or seem) simpler is because reading text from 20 feet away on your couch sucks. Navigating inventory menus with a controller sucks (not all the time, some people actually make good UI) That doesn't mean the games are any easier. Play some old NES games and tell me if those things aren't brutal and unforgiving as far as beating it == skill. Halo on the hardest setting is rediculously hard - I don't think "hard" games are exclusively on the PC by a long shot. You're telling me that some of the FF games aren't complex in regard to UI or depth?
I'm still playing through it but I'm loving it so far, and I agree with the reviewer that for you to say its too easy because you get revived means somehow that you're telling me I'm playing the game wrong.
There is a penalty - you lose any ammo from the fight, and if the travel back to the space you were at is long enough there's a chance the guys can reheal (which I'm wondering if it goes up later on). The fact is, I don't have 48 hours to put into playing through an FPS - I want to enjoy blowing stuff up and do it in a way where its more than an arcade game. The story and setting of Bioshock are much appreciated. What I find annoying in games is when you have to almost kills something, then go back and do it again because you _almost_ did it, but not quite. Eventually you'll train up enough to handle it and then you're all good. The option is there to play how you want - set the quicksave at the start of an area and then F9 when you get killed. You'll have to start all over again and do everything 85 times in a row to advance past each level. No thanks. The game designers have given a nod to how this stuff is actually played - quick save, die, reload, repeat - and made it so that the "artificial" restore is now part of the natural flow of the game. I really don't ever use the quicksave except if I want to jerk around or something and see what happens if I set bigdaddy on fire in the oil pool, etc.
The game has adapted away from an annoying tendency to show off "learn this repetitive crap" with "difficulty". I think if you _don't_ use quicksave and just roll with the vitachamber stuff, then the game picks up a difficulty in the fact that you have to manage what you do with your ammo/plasmids, and blowing all your EVE on lighting random dudes on fire will screw you for the boss fights. I like this style of play and hope that more designers clue in on it for the future.
Or they have YASWTP - Yet Anothe Secret Wiretap Program snatch one of the posts. And they're really only limited by what they can do in the States (or what they give lip service to as "not being able to do") - in other countries the gloves are pretty much off and only limited by how much the other country can figure out.
Don't think for a second that they aren't trying to actively hack some of the more popular places these things are being posted. If they can get one honey pot and the correlate that guys posts to others, they have all they need.
I tend to do interviews a lot at my company (a very large game company) for engineers, and here's some things I look at:
*Experience - The more the better. Someone who made a game at home I can look at before the interview and see how they code. Game experience is of course a plus and will get you more cred than the guy without it, but if you don't have any then you going out and working on a hobby game is a step above the other guy who has "likes games and dressing up like Final Fantasy" on his resume.
*Ability - You're going to do problems on the board. I like those better than just quizzing people on skills. Often its a design problem, because if you can code really well but someone else can't understand what the hell you did and has to debug it, that isn't so great. I'm interviewing more general programmer types though, so I'd imagine you'd get a more indepth interview on something like graphics.
*Education - Generally which piece of paper you have hanging on your wall at home isn't going to write code for me. Experience and ability are going to show me more than what diploma you have. Of course, we all have biases, so if your degree says MIT vs. some other guy who went to Joe Shmoe's School o' Gamin', I'm going for the MIT grad. That is, if you're both equal in the rest of the interview. I've hired from both backgrounds and found that its all down to the person. We've had guys from game schools blow away guys from top name schools, so its up to what you do once your foot is in the door.
Bottom line: What gets you hired is who you are and what you've done, not what school you went to.
No, I think they've figured out that "hardcore" doesn't represent the same group of people across the full spectrum of gaming. I would argue that staying in on Friday night because its the best time to play is "hardcore" behavior (not because they should be out clubbing or whatever instead, but because it shows they've changed behavior for the game).
You don't have to be a stereotypical neck-bearded lives-in-their-parents-basement loser to like gaming. I've seen people who never pick up a game controller (or haven't since they were kids) rush out to buy a PS2 with Guitar Hero or a Wii after playing at their friends house. They now play religously all the time. "Hardcore" just means you spend a lot of time on a particular thing. I can be hardcore about the NFL, golf, boating, chess, knitting, etc. Everyone has something, and I think there's probably a game out there for everyone to be hardcore about. What Blizzard found was how to give people who weren't otherwise hardcore about MMO's a seemingly simple and easy access to a "hardcore" experience they can spend a lot of time doing. Whether they grew the market themselves or took from other gaming segments is debatable, but what's not, I think, is that there's a whole new section of "hardcore" MMO players that weren't there before.
Right on both acounts! What, were we argueing about?
Damn those rich ass game designers! Also those uppity pizza delivery guys who've been known to flaunt their lucritive tip earnings by spending upwards of _1000 SMACKERS_ on cars made AFTER 1987. Some people, sheesh!
Those are tiny runabouts, try crossing the Atlantic even when there's not a storm and you're going to have a problem. Most _ocean_ fairing vessels (that is, cruise ships, tankers, cutters, etc) cut through the water, not ride on top. There are traditional vessels that do this, but its a very very rough ride and you're not carrying much cargo.
You also have to factor in the loaded weight, range, and payload, and cruising speed. That's what's important here - the fact that you can get a stable ride, rest outside of the water while carrying some payload (for comparison, this boat can almost carry the boats you mentioned on top of the framework).