Why are you protesting? Who gives a shit? As long as they keep their creationist crap out of our schools, that's all I care about.
This museum represents a direct attack on science. I give a shit because I happen to think that science and scientific literacy are important. The stuff presented in this museum is blatantly wrong, and ridiculous, and is a menace to the public understanding and enlightenment even without government support (though, I would not be surprised if the museum has not benefited at least indirectly from the tax breaks our government is too happy to give religious institutions.) The only educational value it has to serve as a case-in-point as to how excessive religious faith can obliterate any trace of rationality in an otherwise intelligent individual.
Also, some schools (hopefully only private/religious schools) are undoubtedly planning field trips to this museum (an earlier article I read noted the parking lot which was designed to comfortably accommodate school buses). It's bad enough that parents and churches poison impressionable, helpless children's minds with this garbage, but now they'll have a multi-million dollar, Universal Studios caliber set of displays and presentations to even more thoroughly inculcate kids to this backwards, pre-medieval nonsense.
The game is real. I know. I've played it, and it wasn't all in my imagination. I recently canceled my subscription though I must admit it had little to do with these scandals.
What I assume you mean to say is that what goes on in the game is not very important in the grand scheme of things, and to an extent, you're right... but then, people get pissed off about all sorts of stupid, minor things all the time. People get pissed off when their order at a fast food joint was screwed up. They get pissed off when a stranger on the street gives them a nasty look. They get pissed off when someone cuts them off while driving. It's human nature.
It's only natural that someone gets "pissed off," enough to go off on a strongly-worded, lengthy rant about a game they've invested hundreds of hours in when the people whose profession it is to keep the game running smoothly and on the level, they find out, have been actively assisting your in game rival's opponents in their cheating, actively thwarting your efforts to try to enjoy yourself by achieving the goals you've set for yourself in the game.
Sure, you can just stop playing, but if you've spent a lot of time playing the game, and if you generally enjoy it, why should that be your first option before expressing an apparently well-founded concern and complaint, hoping to see that concern escalated to the point where something is actually done to remedy it? No, things will never be perfect, but what could happen is that the game management decides to make the integrity of the game a priority and takes a zero tolerance approach to staff misconduct, with a high degree of transparency and openness in terms of letting customers know what is and has been done to thwart and punish corrupt staff members.
People will continue to complain, and yes, some of them will quit playing (as much as they might not want to) as long as these stories keep coming out, brought the the player base by other players who have been running their own investigations, or who have been failed by the official systems and policies of the company. In other words, until the staff gets so subtle and smart about their cheating that no strong evidence can be never be offered that it occurs, or until the company gets good enough about keeping its own house that it can catch the sloppier of offenders and come clean before it explodes into a PR spin/damage control fiasco (like the last scandal) then people will, justifiably, continue to complain.
Also, one thing to understand about EVE is that the stakes are a bit higher than they are in your typical FPS session or even MMO. In EVE, you can go from rags to riches and back to rags again in a virtual eye-blink. You can grind for months to afford a new, decked out battleship and then lose it 25 minutes into its maiden voyage if you're not careful (this is why there is a common adage to never fly anything you can't afford to lose). EVE is also a highly PvP oriented game, not just in terms of combat and territoriality but also in terms of economy. It's all about acquiring and controlling resources, and the best resources require thousands of man-hours of effort and painstaking coordination to obtain and secure. These resources are fiercely fought over and negotiated for by large corporations (much like real life). If your enemies are able to find a chink in your armor, or have a critical advantage at a critical moment, you can lose the fruits of all of those many hours of effort with relatively little to show for it, which magnifies dramatically the importance of good strategy and smart play, but also the consequences of cheating, mechanics abuse and staff favoritism.
If someone uses an aimbot in a FPS, the solution is pretty simple, you find another server or play with people you know are a bit more trustworthy. You don't really lose anything besides a few minutes of your time if you get fragged by a cheater. In a game like Word of Warcraft, a cheater might deny you your rightful fruits of victory (wh
Late response, so you'll never read it, but the wii-mote doesn't send any data over IR. The sensor bar sends data over IR. The sensor bar has no trigger.
In addition to the good points that Chosen Reject already has made, I'll address this point:
So, the message here is that the PS3 sucks and the Wii is good because the PS3 can handle more content?
The fact that the PS3 can handle more content is a good thing. The fact that it's difficult and expensive to unlock the console's full potential is somewhat of a drawback. Developers will be compelled to create the most detailed character models, textures, animations, etc. possible, because they can, and they assume players will enjoy it. And players will enjoy it, but it's coming to the point where we're seeing diminishing returns.
This is why you see so many derivative, unoriginal titles these days. When publishers invest in games like this, they don't tend to want to try something new and exciting, they want to stick with what's tried and true. Game-play might be enhanced or changed somewhat to appeal to a broader audience, but game design will be influenced by publishers wanting to produce a "safe" title.
That's not entirely a bad thing, a game with great graphics that's derived from another great game can still be an awesome experience.
But it's not exactly what Nintendo is trying to encourage with the Wii. With the Wii, we'll probably see a lot more experimentation, more "niche" games, etc. A forced emphasis on game-play because the graphics won't be as dazzling as the best of what you'd see on the other consoles.
I won't say that the PS3 sucks or that the Wii owns all, but that's why the apparently weakness of the Wii can be interpreted as a good thing.
I totally agree. For instance, most/. comments on this story fail to critique the validity of the test's questions or whether there was any bias in the study's selection of test-takers.
Those were the first questions that popped into my mind: what exactly did these questions look like, who exactly were they testing, who exactly was doing the test taking, etc.
Yours is one of the first commments on the story that I've read so I'm not sure yet whether these questions have been asked -- I'll have to scroll down more. What I do see is that your post comes only about 20 minutes after the posting of the article, which isn't a lot of time for readers to fully read the article (to see if these questions are answered in the article itself) and then articulate their critiques. You have to kind of expect the first few posts to be pretty much garbage.
What I often find is that when I do have questions about an article like this, someone posts my concerns in a more eloquent, thoughtful and informed manner before I ever have the chance. So while maybe "most people" including slashdot readers have poor "critical reading" skills, I'm not sure the comments you've seen on this article so far is what you'd call a good "representative sample".
They may rehash their portable hardware, but it's not something they've done with their home console systems often, and even more rarely do they add new functionality to the systems instead of improving aesthetics or ergonomics.
Like one of the other posters said, as much as this is an attempt to keep the cost of the console itself down, it is probably an attempt to get developers take their focus away from graphics and instead on gameplay and actual content, and to keep the development costs of those games down by not requiring the games to display at resolutions where a large amount of detail is necessary. Is bumping up the resolution of a game really going to improve its appearance that much if all of the models, textures and art haven't been designed with that resolution in mind? Probably not so much, and in some cases they might even look worse.
In my opinion, this is a smart move on Nintendo's part, as HDTVs are still too expensive for many of us to justify their purchase, and will likely remain that way for the majority of this console generation. They've said that their next gen console will be HD, but I would be surprised if it's something they included in a revision of the Wii.
I'll grant you that some of the questions and the quizes are horrible. The only "quiz" that plays any role in your match score is the main "OkCupid Quiz", which I agree, spews out some pretty silly/stupid results. The rest of the quizes are user created or staff-created ones just there for fun (the "gaydar" test, etc.) that have no bearing on your match percentages, though it can still be interesting to see what a prospective match scored on some of the better user-created quizes, and just seeing what quizes they've taken can say a bit about them.
Their matching systems gives a lot more weight to the "match questions" (not quizes), some of which are asinine as well, but you can choose to skip any question or mark it "irrelavent" if you want. By ranking the handful of salient questions as mandatory/very important (and those that may be salient but less important as "a little important" or "somewhat important") after about 250-300 questions answered, their system seems to do its job pretty well. All of the women who match me at 75-80% or higher tend to be women who seem cool and interesting to me, while the 50% or lower girls tend to be the ones who, by reading their profile, I can tell I would not much enjoy spending time with.
It's not the most professionally constructed site, I will give you that. But in my experience, it is very effective for finding and meeting compatible individuals.
Agreed, I've had good experiences with the responsiveness of people on OkCupid. A great match site can't have policies that excessively hinder people's ability to get in contact with each other, no matter how good their matching algorithims are.
On OKC, I think all of my messages except one have received a response, and most of those responses from single women within my geographical range were receptive to the idea of meeting up for a date. I'm sure the fact that the site is free helps a lot in that regard. It may not also hurt that it's also a blog site of sorts, that's not just about dating, so people have at least some compulsion to log on and check their messages, even if they're not feeling super lonely.
The old infinite resolution trick. Although I could buy your explanation, particularly in futuristic, high tech shows like Star Trek where it isn't totally outside the realm of possibility that people are using 5.8 petapixel cameras, usually the section they zoom in on is initially indistinct and blurry, and only after "enhancing" the image with some sort of supernaturally powerful Photoshop filter does the image become apparent (and of course, it is always absolutely perfectly crystal clear after this "enhancement").
Re:You can't win with the controllers!
on
Will the Wii Work?
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· Score: 1
You must provide enjoyable gameplay and a wide variety of game selections. Gamers do not simply choose a console for its controllers. To base your sales on the controllers is stupid.
The quote says that Nintendo believes the controller will give them an "edge", that's not the same as saying "everyone will buy the Wii solely because the controller concept is cool".
Nintendo knows that the games will have to be there, and they are doing their part to try to make sure the games will be there and have been making much of the support they're getting from 3rd party developers.
I own a DS and I love it, but I still feel like a nerd playing it in public, as I have yet to see ANYONE over 20 playing with one in public. But I see tons of teenagers and young adults with PSPs. Most adults don't even know what the hell a DS is, but everyone knows what a PSP is I find.
How is a DS any "nerdier" than a PSP? Most non-gamers probably don't know enough about them to recognize them on sight and are just as likely to call a PSP a "game boy".
And among gaming geeks, who looks nerdier, the guy who spent $300 to play Ridge Racer on his PSP, or the guy who spent under $200 to play Mario or Tetris on his DS?
Hm. I wouldn't say that people are trying to solve non-existant problems with computers. Computers have the advantage of being impartial (if that is how they're programmed) and unlikely to make mistakes (again, depending on programming). Humans are generally anything but unbiased and infallible.
Personally I'd prefer a system where the votes get counted in every practical manner, or at least allows for such. Electronic voting -- all votes are tabulated by computer over a network, that also provides a human and easily machine readable paper ballot. Have the machines that count the paper ballots and the electronic ballots operate seperately and then verify their results with one another. In the event of a significant discrepancy or the need for a recount, have humans count them, as well as do another paper ballot machine count, using a different machine, perhaps.
It might be a bit expensive, but as our elections are at the foundation of our democratic republic, I think we can afford to "splurge" in this area.
Re:So wait. You expect people to surpass the best?
on
Can Anyone Beat WoW?
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· Score: 1
I think Final Fantasy has a viable world. Setting an MMO in the same world as the other games in your franchise can disrupt continuity in a jarring manner. Star Wars Galaxies isn't going to be perfectly consistent with the Star Wars movies, because you need to make certain concessions to the gameplay necessities of an MMO. Same goes for the upcoming Star Trek MMO, etc.
I think more important than a world is familiar, likable themes. Which Final Fantasy has in spades. Moogles, airships, character classes, Cid, crystals, chocobos, monsters, etc. When you play Final Fantasy XI, you are often faced with reminders that yes, this is Final Fantasy, even if you never meet Cloud Strife or Yuna or whoever else. The world has its own continuity with no spillover aside from themes, and I think that's an ideal way of handling it.
The problem with Final Fantasy XI was in its execution. Too difficult to put together groups; too much item camping/farming necessary to keep your gear up to par and to pay for consumable items; too many punishing, pointless timesinks; too hardcore in general (particularly for a game series that is typically easy to play); along with having an absolutely atrocious user interface, and not allowing the player to alt-tab to other windows; a policy of deleting characters on inactive susbcriptions after only three months; having to pay for every extra character beyond the first; an annoying 15-step (slight exaggeration) login system thanks to their pointless "PlayOnline" portal; somewhat lackluster graphics; putting players of all nationalities on the same servers, etc.
Plus, a stupid name. Final Fantasy XI? Why not call it Final Fantasy Online? It's more accurate, sounds better, and doesn't remind you that the game is obsolete after the release of FF12.
If they addressed these issues, Final Fantasy XI probably would have at least dethroned EverQuest and possibly could have started to approach WoW's level of success years prior to WoW's release.
Yep.:\ Upgrading your PC to keep pace alone will cost you more than many people are willing to spend on games. $250 for a decent graphics card, $200 more for a processor, $100 more for a perhaps necessary motherboard upgrade, and you're already near to the much maligned $600 PS3 price point. For many, after spending that much money on a PC, the temptation to just grab the games (many of them mediocre and not worth $50 anyway) for free is just too great.
Heck, many of the games I've played recently, even those that have received generally favorable reviews aren't worth the download and hard drive space, let alone the retail price they are supposed to be selling at.
Not only that, but the GameCube was the first Nintendo console to use an optical disc format as opposed to cartridges. What were they supposed to do, hack three cartridge ports into the GameCube so it would have full backwards compatibility with their previous generations of console?
So you can look at it this way too: both Sony and Nintendo have opted for full backwards compatibility in each generation of their home consoles that utilize CD/DVD technology.
It is important that low wage jobs exist, or it would be difficult to get that first job that lets you start climbing the ladder.
In a great number of low wage jobs, there is no ladder to climb.
It's never the people who are supposedly harmed by the low minimum wage crying for an increase,
Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. I am a big advocate of raising the minimum wage and I don't make much more than the minimum wage at present. Since you haven't quoted a study or poll, or even personal anecdotes about the opinions of low-income workers that you've heard expressed, I must think that this comment is a product of pure delusion.
All those people want an expansion of the EITC instead.
Or they want to get rid of the income tax entirely and a person's assets instead.
fantasy is more popular than sci-fi for all rpg's (not just mmo's) because of what the summary says: guns. think of final fantasy 8 and final fantasy x-2. both featured guns, both were not the most popular games in the series. if gamers wanted to play with guns, they would play a fps. would World of Starcraft have been as popular as World of Warcraft is?
Final Fantasy VII is probably the most popular game of the series and it features guns almost as prominently as Final Fantasy VIII.
I don't know about Final Fantasy X-2, but isn't it set in the same "world" as the immensely popular Final Fantasy X? I would think they'd sport similar levels of technological development and use of guns, but I haven't played either. I've heard a lot of complaints and criticism as to the quality of X-2 compared to its predecessors though, enough to account for it's unpopularity without blaming guns.
I'm not saying that guns aren't a factor at all, but I don't really see how the Final Fantasy series corroborates that theory.
Why? Because AI has the potential to speed the development of technologies that can dramatically improve quality of human life (not to mention the existence of human life).
Like most people, I am not a genius or a great artist. I will probably never have a significant part in developing any useful technology or create any other great work capable of wide appreciation. My knowledge of science already comes from the theories and experiments of other, greater minds, and I enjoy many comforts and diversions that, again, I myself had no direct part in developing.
So why should it matter to me if the physics documentry I watch on TV, the video game I play or the medication I take is designed by a computer rather than a smarter/more knowledgeable human? Especially if the AI-designed stuff is light years beyond what any group of human experts could provide me with?
Slashdot Mirror
Why are you protesting? Who gives a shit? As long as they keep their creationist crap out of our schools, that's all I care about.
This museum represents a direct attack on science. I give a shit because I happen to think that science and scientific literacy are important. The stuff presented in this museum is blatantly wrong, and ridiculous, and is a menace to the public understanding and enlightenment even without government support (though, I would not be surprised if the museum has not benefited at least indirectly from the tax breaks our government is too happy to give religious institutions.) The only educational value it has to serve as a case-in-point as to how excessive religious faith can obliterate any trace of rationality in an otherwise intelligent individual.
Also, some schools (hopefully only private/religious schools) are undoubtedly planning field trips to this museum (an earlier article I read noted the parking lot which was designed to comfortably accommodate school buses). It's bad enough that parents and churches poison impressionable, helpless children's minds with this garbage, but now they'll have a multi-million dollar, Universal Studios caliber set of displays and presentations to even more thoroughly inculcate kids to this backwards, pre-medieval nonsense.
The game is real. I know. I've played it, and it wasn't all in my imagination. I recently canceled my subscription though I must admit it had little to do with these scandals.
... but then, people get pissed off about all sorts of stupid, minor things all the time. People get pissed off when their order at a fast food joint was screwed up. They get pissed off when a stranger on the street gives them a nasty look. They get pissed off when someone cuts them off while driving. It's human nature.
What I assume you mean to say is that what goes on in the game is not very important in the grand scheme of things, and to an extent, you're right
It's only natural that someone gets "pissed off," enough to go off on a strongly-worded, lengthy rant about a game they've invested hundreds of hours in when the people whose profession it is to keep the game running smoothly and on the level, they find out, have been actively assisting your in game rival's opponents in their cheating, actively thwarting your efforts to try to enjoy yourself by achieving the goals you've set for yourself in the game.
Sure, you can just stop playing, but if you've spent a lot of time playing the game, and if you generally enjoy it, why should that be your first option before expressing an apparently well-founded concern and complaint, hoping to see that concern escalated to the point where something is actually done to remedy it? No, things will never be perfect, but what could happen is that the game management decides to make the integrity of the game a priority and takes a zero tolerance approach to staff misconduct, with a high degree of transparency and openness in terms of letting customers know what is and has been done to thwart and punish corrupt staff members.
People will continue to complain, and yes, some of them will quit playing (as much as they might not want to) as long as these stories keep coming out, brought the the player base by other players who have been running their own investigations, or who have been failed by the official systems and policies of the company. In other words, until the staff gets so subtle and smart about their cheating that no strong evidence can be never be offered that it occurs, or until the company gets good enough about keeping its own house that it can catch the sloppier of offenders and come clean before it explodes into a PR spin/damage control fiasco (like the last scandal) then people will, justifiably, continue to complain.
Also, one thing to understand about EVE is that the stakes are a bit higher than they are in your typical FPS session or even MMO. In EVE, you can go from rags to riches and back to rags again in a virtual eye-blink. You can grind for months to afford a new, decked out battleship and then lose it 25 minutes into its maiden voyage if you're not careful (this is why there is a common adage to never fly anything you can't afford to lose). EVE is also a highly PvP oriented game, not just in terms of combat and territoriality but also in terms of economy. It's all about acquiring and controlling resources, and the best resources require thousands of man-hours of effort and painstaking coordination to obtain and secure. These resources are fiercely fought over and negotiated for by large corporations (much like real life). If your enemies are able to find a chink in your armor, or have a critical advantage at a critical moment, you can lose the fruits of all of those many hours of effort with relatively little to show for it, which magnifies dramatically the importance of good strategy and smart play, but also the consequences of cheating, mechanics abuse and staff favoritism.
If someone uses an aimbot in a FPS, the solution is pretty simple, you find another server or play with people you know are a bit more trustworthy. You don't really lose anything besides a few minutes of your time if you get fragged by a cheater. In a game like Word of Warcraft, a cheater might deny you your rightful fruits of victory (wh
I'll do it.
Late response, so you'll never read it, but the wii-mote doesn't send any data over IR. The sensor bar sends data over IR. The sensor bar has no trigger.
Besides, don't lots of devices send data through IR? Like, say, oh just about EVERY TV REMOTE IN THE WORLD?
In addition to the good points that Chosen Reject already has made, I'll address this point:
So, the message here is that the PS3 sucks and the Wii is good because the PS3 can handle more content?
The fact that the PS3 can handle more content is a good thing. The fact that it's difficult and expensive to unlock the console's full potential is somewhat of a drawback. Developers will be compelled to create the most detailed character models, textures, animations, etc. possible, because they can, and they assume players will enjoy it. And players will enjoy it, but it's coming to the point where we're seeing diminishing returns.
This is why you see so many derivative, unoriginal titles these days. When publishers invest in games like this, they don't tend to want to try something new and exciting, they want to stick with what's tried and true. Game-play might be enhanced or changed somewhat to appeal to a broader audience, but game design will be influenced by publishers wanting to produce a "safe" title.
That's not entirely a bad thing, a game with great graphics that's derived from another great game can still be an awesome experience.
But it's not exactly what Nintendo is trying to encourage with the Wii. With the Wii, we'll probably see a lot more experimentation, more "niche" games, etc. A forced emphasis on game-play because the graphics won't be as dazzling as the best of what you'd see on the other consoles.
I won't say that the PS3 sucks or that the Wii owns all, but that's why the apparently weakness of the Wii can be interpreted as a good thing.
I totally agree. For instance, most /. comments on this story fail to critique the validity of the test's questions or whether there was any bias in the study's selection of test-takers.
Those were the first questions that popped into my mind: what exactly did these questions look like, who exactly were they testing, who exactly was doing the test taking, etc.
Yours is one of the first commments on the story that I've read so I'm not sure yet whether these questions have been asked -- I'll have to scroll down more. What I do see is that your post comes only about 20 minutes after the posting of the article, which isn't a lot of time for readers to fully read the article (to see if these questions are answered in the article itself) and then articulate their critiques. You have to kind of expect the first few posts to be pretty much garbage.
What I often find is that when I do have questions about an article like this, someone posts my concerns in a more eloquent, thoughtful and informed manner before I ever have the chance. So while maybe "most people" including slashdot readers have poor "critical reading" skills, I'm not sure the comments you've seen on this article so far is what you'd call a good "representative sample".
I doubt it.
They may rehash their portable hardware, but it's not something they've done with their home console systems often, and even more rarely do they add new functionality to the systems instead of improving aesthetics or ergonomics.
Like one of the other posters said, as much as this is an attempt to keep the cost of the console itself down, it is probably an attempt to get developers take their focus away from graphics and instead on gameplay and actual content, and to keep the development costs of those games down by not requiring the games to display at resolutions where a large amount of detail is necessary. Is bumping up the resolution of a game really going to improve its appearance that much if all of the models, textures and art haven't been designed with that resolution in mind? Probably not so much, and in some cases they might even look worse.
In my opinion, this is a smart move on Nintendo's part, as HDTVs are still too expensive for many of us to justify their purchase, and will likely remain that way for the majority of this console generation. They've said that their next gen console will be HD, but I would be surprised if it's something they included in a revision of the Wii.
It may be useful in getting people to actually download and run the client.
I'll grant you that some of the questions and the quizes are horrible. The only "quiz" that plays any role in your match score is the main "OkCupid Quiz", which I agree, spews out some pretty silly/stupid results. The rest of the quizes are user created or staff-created ones just there for fun (the "gaydar" test, etc.) that have no bearing on your match percentages, though it can still be interesting to see what a prospective match scored on some of the better user-created quizes, and just seeing what quizes they've taken can say a bit about them.
Their matching systems gives a lot more weight to the "match questions" (not quizes), some of which are asinine as well, but you can choose to skip any question or mark it "irrelavent" if you want. By ranking the handful of salient questions as mandatory/very important (and those that may be salient but less important as "a little important" or "somewhat important") after about 250-300 questions answered, their system seems to do its job pretty well. All of the women who match me at 75-80% or higher tend to be women who seem cool and interesting to me, while the 50% or lower girls tend to be the ones who, by reading their profile, I can tell I would not much enjoy spending time with.
It's not the most professionally constructed site, I will give you that. But in my experience, it is very effective for finding and meeting compatible individuals.
Agreed, I've had good experiences with the responsiveness of people on OkCupid. A great match site can't have policies that excessively hinder people's ability to get in contact with each other, no matter how good their matching algorithims are.
On OKC, I think all of my messages except one have received a response, and most of those responses from single women within my geographical range were receptive to the idea of meeting up for a date. I'm sure the fact that the site is free helps a lot in that regard. It may not also hurt that it's also a blog site of sorts, that's not just about dating, so people have at least some compulsion to log on and check their messages, even if they're not feeling super lonely.
The old infinite resolution trick. Although I could buy your explanation, particularly in futuristic, high tech shows like Star Trek where it isn't totally outside the realm of possibility that people are using 5.8 petapixel cameras, usually the section they zoom in on is initially indistinct and blurry, and only after "enhancing" the image with some sort of supernaturally powerful Photoshop filter does the image become apparent (and of course, it is always absolutely perfectly crystal clear after this "enhancement").
The quote says that Nintendo believes the controller will give them an "edge", that's not the same as saying "everyone will buy the Wii solely because the controller concept is cool".
Nintendo knows that the games will have to be there, and they are doing their part to try to make sure the games will be there and have been making much of the support they're getting from 3rd party developers.
How is a DS any "nerdier" than a PSP? Most non-gamers probably don't know enough about them to recognize them on sight and are just as likely to call a PSP a "game boy".
And among gaming geeks, who looks nerdier, the guy who spent $300 to play Ridge Racer on his PSP, or the guy who spent under $200 to play Mario or Tetris on his DS?
Hm. I wouldn't say that people are trying to solve non-existant problems with computers. Computers have the advantage of being impartial (if that is how they're programmed) and unlikely to make mistakes (again, depending on programming). Humans are generally anything but unbiased and infallible.
Personally I'd prefer a system where the votes get counted in every practical manner, or at least allows for such. Electronic voting -- all votes are tabulated by computer over a network, that also provides a human and easily machine readable paper ballot. Have the machines that count the paper ballots and the electronic ballots operate seperately and then verify their results with one another. In the event of a significant discrepancy or the need for a recount, have humans count them, as well as do another paper ballot machine count, using a different machine, perhaps.
It might be a bit expensive, but as our elections are at the foundation of our democratic republic, I think we can afford to "splurge" in this area.
I think Final Fantasy has a viable world. Setting an MMO in the same world as the other games in your franchise can disrupt continuity in a jarring manner. Star Wars Galaxies isn't going to be perfectly consistent with the Star Wars movies, because you need to make certain concessions to the gameplay necessities of an MMO. Same goes for the upcoming Star Trek MMO, etc.
I think more important than a world is familiar, likable themes. Which Final Fantasy has in spades. Moogles, airships, character classes, Cid, crystals, chocobos, monsters, etc. When you play Final Fantasy XI, you are often faced with reminders that yes, this is Final Fantasy, even if you never meet Cloud Strife or Yuna or whoever else. The world has its own continuity with no spillover aside from themes, and I think that's an ideal way of handling it.
The problem with Final Fantasy XI was in its execution. Too difficult to put together groups; too much item camping/farming necessary to keep your gear up to par and to pay for consumable items; too many punishing, pointless timesinks; too hardcore in general (particularly for a game series that is typically easy to play); along with having an absolutely atrocious user interface, and not allowing the player to alt-tab to other windows; a policy of deleting characters on inactive susbcriptions after only three months; having to pay for every extra character beyond the first; an annoying 15-step (slight exaggeration) login system thanks to their pointless "PlayOnline" portal; somewhat lackluster graphics; putting players of all nationalities on the same servers, etc.
Plus, a stupid name. Final Fantasy XI? Why not call it Final Fantasy Online? It's more accurate, sounds better, and doesn't remind you that the game is obsolete after the release of FF12.
If they addressed these issues, Final Fantasy XI probably would have at least dethroned EverQuest and possibly could have started to approach WoW's level of success years prior to WoW's release.
Heck, many of the games I've played recently, even those that have received generally favorable reviews aren't worth the download and hard drive space, let alone the retail price they are supposed to be selling at.
So you can look at it this way too: both Sony and Nintendo have opted for full backwards compatibility in each generation of their home consoles that utilize CD/DVD technology.
In a great number of low wage jobs, there is no ladder to climb.
It's never the people who are supposedly harmed by the low minimum wage crying for an increase,
Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. I am a big advocate of raising the minimum wage and I don't make much more than the minimum wage at present. Since you haven't quoted a study or poll, or even personal anecdotes about the opinions of low-income workers that you've heard expressed, I must think that this comment is a product of pure delusion.
All those people want an expansion of the EITC instead.
Or they want to get rid of the income tax entirely and a person's assets instead.
Final Fantasy VII is probably the most popular game of the series and it features guns almost as prominently as Final Fantasy VIII.
I don't know about Final Fantasy X-2, but isn't it set in the same "world" as the immensely popular Final Fantasy X? I would think they'd sport similar levels of technological development and use of guns, but I haven't played either. I've heard a lot of complaints and criticism as to the quality of X-2 compared to its predecessors though, enough to account for it's unpopularity without blaming guns.
I'm not saying that guns aren't a factor at all, but I don't really see how the Final Fantasy series corroborates that theory.
I agree, everything that is annoying or offensive should be illegal.
He didn't choose the MPAA, they chose him.
Like most people, I am not a genius or a great artist. I will probably never have a significant part in developing any useful technology or create any other great work capable of wide appreciation. My knowledge of science already comes from the theories and experiments of other, greater minds, and I enjoy many comforts and diversions that, again, I myself had no direct part in developing.
So why should it matter to me if the physics documentry I watch on TV, the video game I play or the medication I take is designed by a computer rather than a smarter/more knowledgeable human? Especially if the AI-designed stuff is light years beyond what any group of human experts could provide me with?
At least you've retained your inability to spell.
As far as I know, it's a city on the island of Vvardenfell in the Imperial province of Morrowind.