When did gaming become cut-scenes and graphics, while gameplay and innovation get shoved under the bed
By my best estimates, about the same time gaming became synonymous with "first-person shooters" (and very similar games). Most of the games that everyone seems to be so hot about these days look to me like just YAFPS--maybe they've got graphics a bit cooler, and physics a bit better, but they're all just rehashes of PiD, Marathon, Wolfenstein, and Doom, when you get right down to it. Most of them don't even have the kind of story that Marathon had--though I've heard that Half-Life does actually have *some* story to it (haven't played it, so I can't really judge).
It will pass, though. It may not be until the technology slows down a bit, but people will start to realize that it's really not *that* cool to have whatever the latest-and-greatest 3D features are, and start to think about the difference in gameplay and story. We will see a gaming renaissance, and I'd put it about 3-5 years down the road.
...saved them. Apple sells hardware. The OS and the apps are the incentive to buy that hardware. If you can't see this, you're a fool.
to kill Copeland
Also, if I remember my Apple history right, saved them. It was a project that had gotten *terminally* bogged down, and way too much money was being poured into it. If they'd been able to pull it off, it would've been great, but by the time it was killed, it was way too late.
to only make machines out of clear shiney plastic
A legitimate complaint, if it's not to your taste; however, there are the PowerBooks and the G5s if translucent plastic is not to your liking. Mere style would never keep me away from a computer if it was good on the inside, though.
And, last but not least...
and most importantly that I can't play the games that I want to play on a Mac
YOU'RE AN IDIOT!!!!!!!
What the heck makes you think that was Apple's decision??? I guarantee you Apple would love to have all the games everyone wants to play. Don't blame Apple for that. Blame the stupid developers who don't bother to port or even let someone else port it (especially the ones who use the abomination that is DirectX, rather than nice, clean OpenGL).
Maybe you should actually think a little, about your reasons, and about who's to blame for them....or is that a little too much to handle for a two-bit, anti-Mac TROLL?;-P
I could just be showing my total ignorance here, but the 8-10 hours I get out of my iPod is usually more than enough. I don't see how I could reasonably listen to it more than I do--after all, I do have to actually listen to people some of the time at work!
You make a lot of good points; I would like to reply first in general, then to a couple of specific parts of your post.
First, I guess the heart of the issue is this: it's about courtesy--the courtesy to say, "Well, I'm here to have fun, so you probably are too. Thus, so that we can both have fun, I won't use repetitive, annoying techniques that will simply prevent you from acting." (that being, essentially, my definition of cheese) Whenever I play against someone whose skill level is significantly lower than my own, I will, often only semi-consciously, reduce my own ferocity (for lack of a better word) to compensate.
While winning is fun, it's only part of the fun: playingshould be the primary point, and where most of the fun lies. If I found a technique that could let me win 9 out of 10 Warcraft III games within 2 minutes with no possibility of a counter, I'd never use it, because it wouldn't be fun for me (or for my opponent). (Well, all right, it'd be fun to use against my brother, so I could see his face when he died. But only once, because after that he wouldn't be surprised, he'd be mad.)
I will grant that there is less potential for cheese in more recent games...and I haven't played so many of them, so I don't really know what's out there.
* I've never played in a ladder or ranking system, but in theory this would solve much of the problem of disparate skill levels being associated. I still think that this doesn't perfectly solve the problem -- I think that people like winning at a greater rate than losing.
I've played in the Starcraft and Warcraft III ladders, and each time, even though I was supposedly being matched against someone of "similar skill level" (ie, someone totally new to the ladder), I was blown away within 5 minutes. Neither I nor any of my friends who play these games on LANs have ever been able to build up that fast.
* I would be curious to see the introduction of multiple "win" goals, so that in a game with ten characters, six might get medals -- "sneakiest", "most kills in defense of flag", "most enemy infrastructure destroyed", etc. This solves the "50% win rate" problem, while still providing a challenge that can be arbitrarily hard.
Now that's a good idea! Marathon did this, to a degree. When you played a netgame other than pure kills, like King of the Hill, there would be a (for instance) Time on Hill ranking and a Total Carnage ranking. While I often won the latter, I almost never won the former.
Actually, I attacked your credibility after I presented a counter-argument.
And, like I said, you have totally missed the point. There are plenty of people who feel that camping and cheesing are not "legitimate and good techniques." I refuse to use techniques like that, and so do most of the people I play with, at least when they play with me (obviously, I don't know how they play otherwise). They are techniques that game the system, rather than actually trying to build up a real strategy. Sure, you can win like that, but if you have to use techniques that entirely negate the skill of the other player to do so, then what's the point?
It's one thing if, when you're playing against someone with much more skill and experience, you use clever strategies to minimize the situations where he can bring it to bear. But camping and cheesing (which, by my definition, is generally repeated use of techniques that prevent your opponent from actually doing anything) entirely remove the skill element.
Someone else remarked, quite cogently, that cheesers are very much like script kiddies. Since they don't have any real skills, they find a predefined formula and follow that over and over again.
No, I lose consistently because I just can't move as fast or as accurately as the "serious" gamers. I will never be able to understand how people can build up an army so fast in Starcraft. I've looked for tips on best balance for a fast startup, and not been able to find anything particularly helpful. That doesn't mean I say "20 min no rush"--it means I've stopped playing Starcraft on Battle.net, because dying in under 5 mins isn't much fun. I only play LAN games against people I know have similar skill levels to my own.
I will admit that I haven't played most of the more recent FPS games--my favourite will always be the Marathon series. It's possible that the newer ones have made camping less profitable with balance changes, I don't know. But what's never changed is these 2 facts: 1) people do it, 2) it detracts from everyone else's fun.
It's not that I believe in some "artificial standard" unique to me. As you can see from many people here, and as you would know if you paid attention to the people yelling at you when you do it, it's quite broadly accepted that camping and cheese are bad.
I have been a casual gamer for about 9 years. I have *always* been by far the worst among the people I play with, at least until a couple of years ago. I never objected to losing, since I knew I was bad at it, and was likely to lose a lot--UNLESS the person who fragged me was camping.
Even when playing against someone of totally unknown relative ability, I don't mind losing so long as they adhere to the same standards as me, which are unwritten rules of polite gaming: don't cheat, don't camp, don't cheese. I enjoy the game, even if I'm losing horribly, but if the reason--whether or not it's the only reason--I'm losing is because my opponent uses cheesy techniques, then it's not so much fun, because the point of those techniques is to never give you a chance to do anything, and thus removes any element of fun from anyone but the cheeser.
I would guess you either never play games, or you are one of these cheesers simply trying to defend your right to keep beating us without having to learn to really play the game.
I apologize for the rant-y tone of my post; it was a rant, and one I've needed to give for some time. I've read and heard far too many people who seem to be suggesting exactly that money won't help schools at all, and it does make me mad...
But your fundamental error is assuming this describes most conservatives, when in fact you are actually discussing a fringe element so statistically insignificant it is not even worth discussing.
Actually, I've met people like this. However, I did try to word myself so as to not be so blanketing: "those Republicans who" as opposed to "those Republicans, who". I meant the subset of Republicans who do think this way.
I object to what are commonly called school choice programs because they tend to take so much money away from public schools, and from what I've seen, their basic premise is that the public school system is broken. Also, they can't possibly get *every* kid into private/parochial/other alternative schools. My philosophy on this subject is to try to do the greatest good for the greatest number, and since everyone has access to public schools, to me, that means make the public schools as good as they can be. Don't take money away from them unless they clearly don't need it, and someone else does, and that means for vouchers or for penalties for "failing" schools. And I strongly suspect that those schools that have had large amounts of money thrown at them and it hasn't made a noticeable difference haven't had it put in the right places, or really, truly haven't had enough money put into them.
You can probably tell by now that I'm a strong liberal Democrat, and I can tell that while we agree on more than I thought at first, there are clearly some things we'll have to agree to disagree on.
But if you were part of such a union, you'd have a say in it. History seems to show (though I'm neither a historian nor in a union, so I'm not exactly an expert...) that unionized workers can, on the whole, get better employment terms than non-unionized workers. That's not to say that you, with your mad negotiating skills (which you may or may not possess; just an example) can't negotiate a better contract, just that for the majority of workers, the contract the union can get them is better than the one they could get on their own.
I've also heard some pretty stupid stuff that unions have done. However, a union is neither better nor worse than the people who make it up--which means that at worst, it can be a royal nuisance to the people in it and outright dangerous to the people not in it, employees and employers both. But you can always try to change it once it's there. Without it there, we won't have nearly as much clout as a group.
Sure, the teachers' unions would love teachers to be paid more. They do have something of an ulterior motive here.
But they are also a collection of teachers, and in my experience, what teachers generally want most is to be able to teach their students effectively. Now, money may not be the sole solution to the problems with public education in America, but I'll tell you this:
Saying that giving schools more money won't help is the most inaccurate, irresponsible statement I've ever heard.
There are some things that money can't solve. The inequalities between advanced-placement type students and more "normal" students is one of these: they can't be put in one class because either the former will be bored to tears or the latter will fail all the time, and once you start putting them in separate classes, there are serious status issues, as well as the problems with switching between honors and non-honors (or whatever) tracks. That is one basic structural problem with the generic public school system that money won't do much for.
But there are many things that money can help, especially in places where there is very little of it. There are plenty of schools, often in inner cities, where the textbooks are 30 years old, the buildings aren't up to code, and the teachers are uncertified and far too scarce. Money can obviously help fix these problems! Being able to hire really qualified teachers and buy new textbooks will improve the quality of education quite a lot.
I don't know much about the distribution of money to schools except in New York, so that's what I'll talk about. Here, we have a ridiculously byzantine system of calculations to determine how much money a public school gets from the state. It's also terribly unfair, with many rich schools getting a lot more money than a lot of poor schools. Recently, our Republican governor did his level best to avoid, then ignore, then block a court decision ordering the state government to revise the system to make it fairer, giving more money to poorer, inner-city schools that really need it. That doesn't sound to me like he really cares more about public education than taxes...or, in fact, like he wants the money that's already in public education to go where it's really needed.
PLEASE don't let yourself be brainwashed by those Republicans (and their ilk) who would have you believe that the teachers' union is an evil force that is trying to raise your taxes. You seem to have bought into the idea that every dollar spent on education is a dollar wasted.
Personally, I think that my money could not be better spent than in educating the next generation, if only to avoid the mistakes of this one.
I'm not saying there aren't people who like it. I'm not saying it's not worth it, I'm not even saying I wouldn't like it (though I doubt it could replace my iPod for music or WRVO for local & national news).
All I am saying is that I doubt that it will ever be the death of ordinary FM/AM radio as long as it's a subscription service.
I don't know a single person who listens to XM radio. I listen to FM (NPR).
I seriously, seriously doubt that any satellite radio will make serious inroads into ordinary radio listeners, FM or AM, while it costs money. You don't need to pay a cent to listen to FM radio (except the tiny cost of the radio itself). That's a pretty big advantage over XM.
Also, listening to NPR stations, I don't get commercials (at least, I certainly wouldn't call the regular announcers calmly reading the sponsors' slogans commercials). I'm lucky enough to get 2 NPR stations here: 1 that has news & talk-show-type-stuff all day (Diane Rehm, Talk of the Nation, Day to Day, etc), and one that plays classical music all day. That's all I would ever want from a radio station.
No satellite radio provider will ever get my business so long as WCNY and WRVO are on the air.
I'll admit right off I'm not sure if this is really what you're looking for, and of course, it requires a Mac running OS X. QuickTime Broadcaster seems to be able to do a really good job streaming in high quality over ethernet. Granted, the only tests we've run so far are within a subnet, to the next room; however, I believe it would scale well to greater distances, both physically and logically.
Then you're an idiot, because what he was saying is that their implementation is not weak, it's designed to be exactly what it is so that more people will be able to enjoy it.
I don't even know why I'm replying to a mindless Apple-bashing troll.
Sorry; I was using the Japanese names, since I'm more familiar with them for FF6 (though I renamed most of the characters to names I thought sounded better, the only FF I did that for).
I realize that several of these are quite superficial characterizations, but I didn't want to make my post longer than it already was; I felt pretty long-winded as it was;-)
I don't like Lulu very much, and it's partly because, to me, she seems like a token character, put in there almost to "cater" to guys who like women of that type, and to give a different kind of Black Mage than we've seen before. I think that she could have been a much better character, but the writers of the game didn't give her much chance, and the only real efforts at character development are a few scenes with Wakka and the sidequest to get Youjimbo. I can see her good points (and I do not consider her cleavage one of them!), I just think she wasn't given much thought by the writers until it was too late to do much about it.
I've played some of FF5, and I do vaguely remember Faris. I thought it wouldn't be wise to talk about 4, 5, and 8, since I haven't played any of them all the way through--and, like I said, my post was pretty long already.
...because I can think of several "fair" portrayals of women in games.
First, let's look at the Final Fantasy series. I can only speak to the
ones I've played, so here goes:
Final Fantasy 6:
Tina--strong woman, though she has some emotional baggage due to
being only half-human. Never portrayed as particularly "sexy," though she's
quite pretty in most official images of her (kind of hard to tell from her
sprite;-) )
Celes--definitely a strong woman! She was a general in the army, for
Mu's sake! Not only that, but she can use every bit as big a sword as any
guy in the game (same goes for Tina).
Relm--she may only be 10 (or so; I forget her exact age), but she's
awesome. She takes the womanizing Edgar down a few notches with her wit, and
has more spirit in her than any roomful of "typical" videogame
characters.
Don't see much to fret over there.
Final Fantasy 7:
Aeri(s|th)--She may not be physically strong, but she certainly has a
strong personality. Not to mention she sacrifices her life to save the
planet. A bit more stereotypically "weak needs-to-be-protected girl," but
hey, some girls really DO need to be protected.
Tifa--OK, here we're getting into kind of shaky ground, not for her
character, which I think is fantastic, but for her looks, which are a little
over the top...take that how you will...especially in FMVs.
Yuffie--heh, you've gotta love Yuffie. She's cute, tough, and funny;
what more do you want?
Again, no real indication that men are "incapable" of portraying women
fairly.
Final Fantasy 9:
Dagger/Garnet: She's beautiful, tough, strong, and still vulnerable at times. I can find no unfairness whatsoever in the portrayal of Garnet's character. Nor is she visually portrayed as anything stereotypical.
Freya: Not particularly feminine (and not even human); however, she's also both strong and sensitive. Included because she's technically female;-)
Eiko: Cross Relm with Yuffie, and you've got Eiko. 'Nuf said.
Still not seeing much problem here.
Final Fantasy X/X-2:
Lulu: Let's...not go into Lulu too much. She's the first real example so far of a woman I find quite unrealistic.
Rikku: Very much like Yuffie, but shows more real emotion than she does. She's genki, she's cute, and she's fighting against a millennium of persecution of her people. (And she's about the same in FFX-2) I really like Rikku;-)
Yuna (FFX): Now, Yuna in FFX is the only main-character girl in the Final Fantasies I've played who is really the shy, quiet, needs-protecting type. She's still far from one-dimensional, though; after all, her motivation is to sacrifice herself to save the world.
Yuna (FFX-2): In FFX-2, Yuna is very different, though, interestingly, you can see the seeds of her new self in her old. She has become a strong leader, very energetic--but now her motivation is to find her one true love.
Paine (FFX-2): She's kind of Goth, but no one would argue that she's a stereotypical woman of any stripe. No one would want to mess with Paine.
Well, that's all the Final Fantasies I've played through, and in all of that, there isn't a single example of the kind of "unfair" treatment the article was talking about. True, some of them are visually portrayed as "sexy" (though only Tifa, I think, is specifically made sexy without being especially pretty), but this is not at the expense of their character.
Maybe it just goes to show that in the type of action games he's talking about, no one bothers to make the story or characters believable. (I know that's not universally true, but I also know it is true in some cases) RPGs, I have found, tend to make more of an effort than other genres to make their stories and characters if not realistic, at least believable and human. This is probably because their primary purpose is to tell a story.
If a company wants to localize the distribution of their content, it's illegal for you to circumvent it.
Huh?!?!?!
Says who? Besides the companies themselves, I mean? Even the DMCA, so far as I understand it (which is only at a pretty basic level, of course, as IANAL), is only to prevent circumvention of copyright protection devices/mechanisms. This is only very peripherally related to copyright protection. The only direct relationship I can see is the number of Chinese and Hong Kong companies that sell bootleg DVDs...but those are region-free anyway. The reason region protection exists is solely to prevent people from buying a title before it is available in their region, and with video games, I don't even understand how this helps the companies. With movies, if people can buy the DVD when the movie is still (or not yet) in theaters, they might be less likely to go to the theater. But with games...what's the motive?? I just don't see any good reason to stop us from playing games we bought legally from or in another country.
And if you have any sort of real source for your bizarre notion that circumventing region locking is inherently illegal, please tell me; I'm genuinely interested to know what idiots managed to make that a law.
(though if it is a law, it was probably the same idiots who gave us the DMCA;-P)
The other important legitimate reason to have a modchip is to play games from a different region. I have Final Fantasy X, but I hate the people doing the voices (except for a couple of them). I've found a few clips online of the Japanese version, and I love the voices there. I want to buy--legally, from Square--the Japanese version, so I can play it through with the original voices. But I can't play it on my US PS2 without a modchip. Thus, I intend to get a modchip.
I don't have any backups (though, once I have a modchip, I might make some, for exactly the reasons you state), and never plan to get PS2 games illegally. I just want to play games from Japan. If there were a modchip that allowed me to play legal imports, but not backup games, I'd get it.
There is, so far as I can tell, no possible legal argument against this, unless they take the DMCA and twist it even farther than the printer manufacturers have. Having bought the original media, why can I not access it? Heck, I'll even wait until the game comes out in the US (if there are plans to) before buying it, so they don't even have that stupid argument!
I want to give them my money, but Sony won't let me.
Actually, I was thinking more of people who aren't "career" criminals (cue even more lawyer jokes), but those who do stuff just thinking, "They'll never catch me," or whatever. And felonious corporate bigwigs, who I admit could easily be classified as "career criminals." Anyway, people who are basically average, but do stupid stuff without thinking of the consequences, and the rich who steal from the not-so-rich.
I agree, looking at it the way you put it does make it sound pretty dumb, huh?
If I were charged with a crime, and I didn't do it, I'd want a lawyer who could help me prove to the court and the world that I didn't do it, and get me off that way. If there were really no evidence that I hadn't done it, and lots that I had (which, outside of TV trials, seems unlikely), only then would I look to get off on a technicality. My preferred technicality would be finding the SOB who really did it.
If, on the other hand, I were guilty of whatever it was, I would want only to reduce my sentence. I'd probably plead guilty. The only time I'd do otherwise would be if I truly believe the law is unfair (for instance, if I were brought up on copyright infringement charges for having a few episodes of a show that doesn't yet exist on this continent on my computer).
We need more people willing to face the consequences of their actions. If people did, not only would we have fewer scumbag lawyers, I think we'd have fewer people that would need their services in the first place.
That ThinkSecret article has nothing to do with general sales figures: it is purely an issue with the profitability of the Apple retail stores. Basically, from what I read, the independent Apple resellers have gotten their hands on some invoices from the Apple retail stores that give prices the Apple stores pay for the merchandise and AppleCare, and it's quite a bit lower than what they pay. Apple says it's more complicated than that, and I'm nothing like an economic expert, so I'll leave it to more qualified people than myself to pass judgement.
Essentially, it looks like Apple's been giving their own stores fat discounts, the Apple resellers want to sue, Apple says they've done nothing wrong, and the truth is probably somewhere in between.
Slashdot Mirror
No, that was when RPGs started becoming more about story, at the expense of gameplay.
There's a difference ;-)
Dan Aris
When did gaming become cut-scenes and graphics, while gameplay and innovation get shoved under the bed
By my best estimates, about the same time gaming became synonymous with "first-person shooters" (and very similar games). Most of the games that everyone seems to be so hot about these days look to me like just YAFPS--maybe they've got graphics a bit cooler, and physics a bit better, but they're all just rehashes of PiD, Marathon, Wolfenstein, and Doom, when you get right down to it. Most of them don't even have the kind of story that Marathon had--though I've heard that Half-Life does actually have *some* story to it (haven't played it, so I can't really judge).
It will pass, though. It may not be until the technology slows down a bit, but people will start to realize that it's really not *that* cool to have whatever the latest-and-greatest 3D features are, and start to think about the difference in gameplay and story. We will see a gaming renaissance, and I'd put it about 3-5 years down the road.
Dan Aris
Their decisions to lock out the Cloners
...saved them. Apple sells hardware. The OS and the apps are the incentive to buy that hardware. If you can't see this, you're a fool.
to kill Copeland
Also, if I remember my Apple history right, saved them. It was a project that had gotten *terminally* bogged down, and way too much money was being poured into it. If they'd been able to pull it off, it would've been great, but by the time it was killed, it was way too late.
to only make machines out of clear shiney plastic
A legitimate complaint, if it's not to your taste; however, there are the PowerBooks and the G5s if translucent plastic is not to your liking. Mere style would never keep me away from a computer if it was good on the inside, though.
And, last but not least...
and most importantly that I can't play the games that I want to play on a Mac
YOU'RE AN IDIOT!!!!!!!
What the heck makes you think that was Apple's decision??? I guarantee you Apple would love to have all the games everyone wants to play. Don't blame Apple for that. Blame the stupid developers who don't bother to port or even let someone else port it (especially the ones who use the abomination that is DirectX, rather than nice, clean OpenGL).
Maybe you should actually think a little, about your reasons, and about who's to blame for them....or is that a little too much to handle for a two-bit, anti-Mac TROLL? ;-P
Dan Aris
?!? Good battery life?
I could just be showing my total ignorance here, but the 8-10 hours I get out of my iPod is usually more than enough. I don't see how I could reasonably listen to it more than I do--after all, I do have to actually listen to people some of the time at work!
Dan Aris
You make a lot of good points; I would like to reply first in general, then to a couple of specific parts of your post.
First, I guess the heart of the issue is this: it's about courtesy--the courtesy to say, "Well, I'm here to have fun, so you probably are too. Thus, so that we can both have fun, I won't use repetitive, annoying techniques that will simply prevent you from acting." (that being, essentially, my definition of cheese) Whenever I play against someone whose skill level is significantly lower than my own, I will, often only semi-consciously, reduce my own ferocity (for lack of a better word) to compensate.
While winning is fun, it's only part of the fun: playing should be the primary point, and where most of the fun lies. If I found a technique that could let me win 9 out of 10 Warcraft III games within 2 minutes with no possibility of a counter, I'd never use it, because it wouldn't be fun for me (or for my opponent). (Well, all right, it'd be fun to use against my brother, so I could see his face when he died. But only once, because after that he wouldn't be surprised, he'd be mad.)
I will grant that there is less potential for cheese in more recent games...and I haven't played so many of them, so I don't really know what's out there.
* I've never played in a ladder or ranking system, but in theory this would solve much of the problem of disparate skill levels being associated. I still think that this doesn't perfectly solve the problem -- I think that people like winning at a greater rate than losing.
I've played in the Starcraft and Warcraft III ladders, and each time, even though I was supposedly being matched against someone of "similar skill level" (ie, someone totally new to the ladder), I was blown away within 5 minutes. Neither I nor any of my friends who play these games on LANs have ever been able to build up that fast.
* I would be curious to see the introduction of multiple "win" goals, so that in a game with ten characters, six might get medals -- "sneakiest", "most kills in defense of flag", "most enemy infrastructure destroyed", etc. This solves the "50% win rate" problem, while still providing a challenge that can be arbitrarily hard.
Now that's a good idea! Marathon did this, to a degree. When you played a netgame other than pure kills, like King of the Hill, there would be a (for instance) Time on Hill ranking and a Total Carnage ranking. While I often won the latter, I almost never won the former.
Dan Aris
Actually, I attacked your credibility after I presented a counter-argument.
And, like I said, you have totally missed the point. There are plenty of people who feel that camping and cheesing are not "legitimate and good techniques." I refuse to use techniques like that, and so do most of the people I play with, at least when they play with me (obviously, I don't know how they play otherwise). They are techniques that game the system, rather than actually trying to build up a real strategy. Sure, you can win like that, but if you have to use techniques that entirely negate the skill of the other player to do so, then what's the point?
It's one thing if, when you're playing against someone with much more skill and experience, you use clever strategies to minimize the situations where he can bring it to bear. But camping and cheesing (which, by my definition, is generally repeated use of techniques that prevent your opponent from actually doing anything) entirely remove the skill element.
Someone else remarked, quite cogently, that cheesers are very much like script kiddies. Since they don't have any real skills, they find a predefined formula and follow that over and over again.
Dan Aris
No, I lose consistently because I just can't move as fast or as accurately as the "serious" gamers. I will never be able to understand how people can build up an army so fast in Starcraft. I've looked for tips on best balance for a fast startup, and not been able to find anything particularly helpful. That doesn't mean I say "20 min no rush"--it means I've stopped playing Starcraft on Battle.net, because dying in under 5 mins isn't much fun. I only play LAN games against people I know have similar skill levels to my own.
I will admit that I haven't played most of the more recent FPS games--my favourite will always be the Marathon series. It's possible that the newer ones have made camping less profitable with balance changes, I don't know. But what's never changed is these 2 facts: 1) people do it, 2) it detracts from everyone else's fun.
It's not that I believe in some "artificial standard" unique to me. As you can see from many people here, and as you would know if you paid attention to the people yelling at you when you do it, it's quite broadly accepted that camping and cheese are bad.
Dan Aris
I have been a casual gamer for about 9 years. I have *always* been by far the worst among the people I play with, at least until a couple of years ago. I never objected to losing, since I knew I was bad at it, and was likely to lose a lot--UNLESS the person who fragged me was camping.
Even when playing against someone of totally unknown relative ability, I don't mind losing so long as they adhere to the same standards as me, which are unwritten rules of polite gaming: don't cheat, don't camp, don't cheese. I enjoy the game, even if I'm losing horribly, but if the reason--whether or not it's the only reason--I'm losing is because my opponent uses cheesy techniques, then it's not so much fun, because the point of those techniques is to never give you a chance to do anything, and thus removes any element of fun from anyone but the cheeser.
I would guess you either never play games, or you are one of these cheesers simply trying to defend your right to keep beating us without having to learn to really play the game.
Dan Aris
I apologize for the rant-y tone of my post; it was a rant, and one I've needed to give for some time. I've read and heard far too many people who seem to be suggesting exactly that money won't help schools at all, and it does make me mad...
But your fundamental error is assuming this describes most conservatives, when in fact you are actually discussing a fringe element so statistically insignificant it is not even worth discussing.
Actually, I've met people like this. However, I did try to word myself so as to not be so blanketing: "those Republicans who" as opposed to "those Republicans, who". I meant the subset of Republicans who do think this way.
I object to what are commonly called school choice programs because they tend to take so much money away from public schools, and from what I've seen, their basic premise is that the public school system is broken. Also, they can't possibly get *every* kid into private/parochial/other alternative schools. My philosophy on this subject is to try to do the greatest good for the greatest number, and since everyone has access to public schools, to me, that means make the public schools as good as they can be. Don't take money away from them unless they clearly don't need it, and someone else does, and that means for vouchers or for penalties for "failing" schools. And I strongly suspect that those schools that have had large amounts of money thrown at them and it hasn't made a noticeable difference haven't had it put in the right places, or really, truly haven't had enough money put into them.
You can probably tell by now that I'm a strong liberal Democrat, and I can tell that while we agree on more than I thought at first, there are clearly some things we'll have to agree to disagree on.
Cordially,
Dan Aris
But if you were part of such a union, you'd have a say in it. History seems to show (though I'm neither a historian nor in a union, so I'm not exactly an expert...) that unionized workers can, on the whole, get better employment terms than non-unionized workers. That's not to say that you, with your mad negotiating skills (which you may or may not possess; just an example) can't negotiate a better contract, just that for the majority of workers, the contract the union can get them is better than the one they could get on their own.
I've also heard some pretty stupid stuff that unions have done. However, a union is neither better nor worse than the people who make it up--which means that at worst, it can be a royal nuisance to the people in it and outright dangerous to the people not in it, employees and employers both. But you can always try to change it once it's there. Without it there, we won't have nearly as much clout as a group.
Dan Aris
Sure, the teachers' unions would love teachers to be paid more. They do have something of an ulterior motive here.
But they are also a collection of teachers, and in my experience, what teachers generally want most is to be able to teach their students effectively. Now, money may not be the sole solution to the problems with public education in America, but I'll tell you this:
Saying that giving schools more money won't help is the most inaccurate, irresponsible statement I've ever heard.
There are some things that money can't solve. The inequalities between advanced-placement type students and more "normal" students is one of these: they can't be put in one class because either the former will be bored to tears or the latter will fail all the time, and once you start putting them in separate classes, there are serious status issues, as well as the problems with switching between honors and non-honors (or whatever) tracks. That is one basic structural problem with the generic public school system that money won't do much for.
But there are many things that money can help, especially in places where there is very little of it. There are plenty of schools, often in inner cities, where the textbooks are 30 years old, the buildings aren't up to code, and the teachers are uncertified and far too scarce. Money can obviously help fix these problems! Being able to hire really qualified teachers and buy new textbooks will improve the quality of education quite a lot.
I don't know much about the distribution of money to schools except in New York, so that's what I'll talk about. Here, we have a ridiculously byzantine system of calculations to determine how much money a public school gets from the state. It's also terribly unfair, with many rich schools getting a lot more money than a lot of poor schools. Recently, our Republican governor did his level best to avoid, then ignore, then block a court decision ordering the state government to revise the system to make it fairer, giving more money to poorer, inner-city schools that really need it. That doesn't sound to me like he really cares more about public education than taxes...or, in fact, like he wants the money that's already in public education to go where it's really needed.
PLEASE don't let yourself be brainwashed by those Republicans (and their ilk) who would have you believe that the teachers' union is an evil force that is trying to raise your taxes. You seem to have bought into the idea that every dollar spent on education is a dollar wasted.
Personally, I think that my money could not be better spent than in educating the next generation, if only to avoid the mistakes of this one.
Dan Aris
I'm not saying there aren't people who like it. I'm not saying it's not worth it, I'm not even saying I wouldn't like it (though I doubt it could replace my iPod for music or WRVO for local & national news).
All I am saying is that I doubt that it will ever be the death of ordinary FM/AM radio as long as it's a subscription service.
Dan Aris
I don't know a single person who listens to XM radio. I listen to FM (NPR).
I seriously, seriously doubt that any satellite radio will make serious inroads into ordinary radio listeners, FM or AM, while it costs money. You don't need to pay a cent to listen to FM radio (except the tiny cost of the radio itself). That's a pretty big advantage over XM.
Also, listening to NPR stations, I don't get commercials (at least, I certainly wouldn't call the regular announcers calmly reading the sponsors' slogans commercials). I'm lucky enough to get 2 NPR stations here: 1 that has news & talk-show-type-stuff all day (Diane Rehm, Talk of the Nation, Day to Day, etc), and one that plays classical music all day. That's all I would ever want from a radio station.
No satellite radio provider will ever get my business so long as WCNY and WRVO are on the air.
Dan Aris
I'll admit right off I'm not sure if this is really what you're looking for, and of course, it requires a Mac running OS X. QuickTime Broadcaster seems to be able to do a really good job streaming in high quality over ethernet. Granted, the only tests we've run so far are within a subnet, to the next room; however, I believe it would scale well to greater distances, both physically and logically.
Check it out.
Dan Aris
Then you're an idiot, because what he was saying is that their implementation is not weak, it's designed to be exactly what it is so that more people will be able to enjoy it.
I don't even know why I'm replying to a mindless Apple-bashing troll.
Dan Aris
Sorry; I was using the Japanese names, since I'm more familiar with them for FF6 (though I renamed most of the characters to names I thought sounded better, the only FF I did that for).
Dan Aris
I realize that several of these are quite superficial characterizations, but I didn't want to make my post longer than it already was; I felt pretty long-winded as it was ;-)
I don't like Lulu very much, and it's partly because, to me, she seems like a token character, put in there almost to "cater" to guys who like women of that type, and to give a different kind of Black Mage than we've seen before. I think that she could have been a much better character, but the writers of the game didn't give her much chance, and the only real efforts at character development are a few scenes with Wakka and the sidequest to get Youjimbo. I can see her good points (and I do not consider her cleavage one of them!), I just think she wasn't given much thought by the writers until it was too late to do much about it.
I've played some of FF5, and I do vaguely remember Faris. I thought it wouldn't be wise to talk about 4, 5, and 8, since I haven't played any of them all the way through--and, like I said, my post was pretty long already.
Dan Aris
...because I can think of several "fair" portrayals of women in games.
First, let's look at the Final Fantasy series. I can only speak to the ones I've played, so here goes:
- Tina--strong woman, though she has some emotional baggage due to
being only half-human. Never portrayed as particularly "sexy," though she's
quite pretty in most official images of her (kind of hard to tell from her
sprite
;-) )
- Celes--definitely a strong woman! She was a general in the army, for
Mu's sake! Not only that, but she can use every bit as big a sword as any
guy in the game (same goes for Tina).
- Relm--she may only be 10 (or so; I forget her exact age), but she's
awesome. She takes the womanizing Edgar down a few notches with her wit, and
has more spirit in her than any roomful of "typical" videogame
characters.
Don't see much to fret over there.- Aeri(s|th)--She may not be physically strong, but she certainly has a
strong personality. Not to mention she sacrifices her life to save the
planet. A bit more stereotypically "weak needs-to-be-protected girl," but
hey, some girls really DO need to be protected.
- Tifa--OK, here we're getting into kind of shaky ground, not for her
character, which I think is fantastic, but for her looks, which are a little
over the top...take that how you will...especially in FMVs.
- Yuffie--heh, you've gotta love Yuffie. She's cute, tough, and funny;
what more do you want?
Again, no real indication that men are "incapable" of portraying women fairly.- Dagger/Garnet: She's beautiful, tough, strong, and still vulnerable at times. I can find no unfairness whatsoever in the portrayal of Garnet's character. Nor is she visually portrayed as anything stereotypical.
- Freya: Not particularly feminine (and not even human); however, she's also both strong and sensitive. Included because she's technically female
;-)
- Eiko: Cross Relm with Yuffie, and you've got Eiko. 'Nuf said.
Still not seeing much problem here.Well, that's all the Final Fantasies I've played through, and in all of that, there isn't a single example of the kind of "unfair" treatment the article was talking about. True, some of them are visually portrayed as "sexy" (though only Tifa, I think, is specifically made sexy without being especially pretty), but this is not at the expense of their character.
Maybe it just goes to show that in the type of action games he's talking about, no one bothers to make the story or characters believable. (I know that's not universally true, but I also know it is true in some cases) RPGs, I have found, tend to make more of an effort than other genres to make their stories and characters if not realistic, at least believable and human. This is probably because their primary purpose is to tell a story.
Dan Aris
Hey, mate, ever try one of these?
Sheesh. There are more than 2 platforms out there, you know--and guess who came up with the "just works" slogan?
Dan Aris
OK, I give up...what word are you talking about?
And yeah, I tend to be wordy...comes of trying to get about 5 points across when I really should be paying attention to 1.
Dan Aris
If a company wants to localize the distribution of their content, it's illegal for you to circumvent it.
Huh?!?!?!
Says who? Besides the companies themselves, I mean? Even the DMCA, so far as I understand it (which is only at a pretty basic level, of course, as IANAL), is only to prevent circumvention of copyright protection devices/mechanisms. This is only very peripherally related to copyright protection. The only direct relationship I can see is the number of Chinese and Hong Kong companies that sell bootleg DVDs...but those are region-free anyway. The reason region protection exists is solely to prevent people from buying a title before it is available in their region, and with video games, I don't even understand how this helps the companies. With movies, if people can buy the DVD when the movie is still (or not yet) in theaters, they might be less likely to go to the theater. But with games...what's the motive?? I just don't see any good reason to stop us from playing games we bought legally from or in another country.
And if you have any sort of real source for your bizarre notion that circumventing region locking is inherently illegal, please tell me; I'm genuinely interested to know what idiots managed to make that a law.
(though if it is a law, it was probably the same idiots who gave us the DMCA ;-P)
Dan Aris
The other important legitimate reason to have a modchip is to play games from a different region. I have Final Fantasy X, but I hate the people doing the voices (except for a couple of them). I've found a few clips online of the Japanese version, and I love the voices there. I want to buy--legally, from Square--the Japanese version, so I can play it through with the original voices. But I can't play it on my US PS2 without a modchip. Thus, I intend to get a modchip.
I don't have any backups (though, once I have a modchip, I might make some, for exactly the reasons you state), and never plan to get PS2 games illegally. I just want to play games from Japan. If there were a modchip that allowed me to play legal imports, but not backup games, I'd get it.
There is, so far as I can tell, no possible legal argument against this, unless they take the DMCA and twist it even farther than the printer manufacturers have. Having bought the original media, why can I not access it? Heck, I'll even wait until the game comes out in the US (if there are plans to) before buying it, so they don't even have that stupid argument!
I want to give them my money, but Sony won't let me.
Dan Aris
Actually, I was thinking more of people who aren't "career" criminals (cue even more lawyer jokes), but those who do stuff just thinking, "They'll never catch me," or whatever. And felonious corporate bigwigs, who I admit could easily be classified as "career criminals." Anyway, people who are basically average, but do stupid stuff without thinking of the consequences, and the rich who steal from the not-so-rich.
I agree, looking at it the way you put it does make it sound pretty dumb, huh?
Dan Aris
If I were charged with a crime, and I didn't do it, I'd want a lawyer who could help me prove to the court and the world that I didn't do it, and get me off that way. If there were really no evidence that I hadn't done it, and lots that I had (which, outside of TV trials, seems unlikely), only then would I look to get off on a technicality. My preferred technicality would be finding the SOB who really did it.
If, on the other hand, I were guilty of whatever it was, I would want only to reduce my sentence. I'd probably plead guilty. The only time I'd do otherwise would be if I truly believe the law is unfair (for instance, if I were brought up on copyright infringement charges for having a few episodes of a show that doesn't yet exist on this continent on my computer).
We need more people willing to face the consequences of their actions. If people did, not only would we have fewer scumbag lawyers, I think we'd have fewer people that would need their services in the first place.
Dan Aris
That ThinkSecret article has nothing to do with general sales figures: it is purely an issue with the profitability of the Apple retail stores. Basically, from what I read, the independent Apple resellers have gotten their hands on some invoices from the Apple retail stores that give prices the Apple stores pay for the merchandise and AppleCare, and it's quite a bit lower than what they pay. Apple says it's more complicated than that, and I'm nothing like an economic expert, so I'll leave it to more qualified people than myself to pass judgement.
Essentially, it looks like Apple's been giving their own stores fat discounts, the Apple resellers want to sue, Apple says they've done nothing wrong, and the truth is probably somewhere in between.
Has nothing to do with their computer sales.
Dan Aris