May just be wishful thinking on my part, but if Blizzard ever decides to do it, it would probably invalidate this article. I'm not a WoW fan at all, and ever since I quit RO I've placed a moratorium on MMOs for myself. But I don't think I could resist something like this, assuming it's done well.
Not that other sci-fi themed MMOs can't be great. I'm just going off of Blizzard's track record here...
Did you RTFA? This is the first commercial MRAM product which is being produced in volume. They have customers for it, and they've already built up a stock of the stuff. Can't call it vaporware if it supposedly actually exists somewhere and is ready to be shipped.
Personally, I don't find many of those examples particularly useful. I already have both Gmail notifiers and weather indicators elsewhere, and don't see why they need to run inside my web browser. If you were desperate, I bet both of those functionalities could be accomplished with UserJS.
I can see where an IE Tab-like feature could be handy. But Opera keeps managing to improve compatability with shitty IE-only sites. Where it still doesn't work, UserJS can usually fix whatever problems exist--I hardly ever have to use a different browser to view a site. And in cases where I have a choice, I'll usually just refuse a site any business if they're going to design their sites so poorly as to only work in one browser. Fortunately, such sites have been on the decline lately.
Actually, the parent poster who you're apparently making fun of for being a Grammar Nazi was not, in fact, being a Grammar Nazi at all. He was being a Semantics Nazi, as am I.
Of course it's not an original idea, but since when has Japanese anime and videogames *not* borrowed from existing sci-fi/fantasy ideas? At least they do usually try to add their own spin. And while you bring up FFTA,.hack came out well before that.
Personally, the framework strikes me as kind of cutesy and ineffective in a video game context, because the writers have to strive to make us care about TWO levels of characters when it's hard enough to make us care about one.
Having seen the anime and played the game, I haven't found that to be the case really. It's hard to explain, but you don't really see it as "two levels of characters" like that. For the most part it's written well enough that you start to see the online personas and the real people behind them as one in the same. It helps that you never see them (except towards the end) outside of the game anyways. So regardless of whether or not they're "in character" in the game, the way you interact with them is always the same.
Don't lump all Democrats and Republicans into that crowd. There are plenty of Democrats who don't give a hoot about those sorts of "values"-related red herring issues, and actually put a lot of effort into fighting for more freedom. They're just not able to be effective given the current power imbalance in Washington, which is why you never hear much about it from the traditional media.
For that matter, not all Republicans are "values"-whores either. Though I don't agree with a lot of their current policies, there are at least a few Republicans who are focused on real issues, and have the integrity not to pretend to care if kids can buy violent videogames or if gays can marry or whatever. That's why a lot of people are disappointed right now with John McCain--he used to fit that description, but lately he's been pandering to the religious wingnut end of the party.
If you like Xenosaga, do consider seeking out a copy of Xenogears if you haven't already played it. I've enjoyed Xenosaga quite a bit, but I get the feeling that a great many of the plot points have been thrown out there just to please the Xenogears fanboys like me, and that none of it's gonna make a shred of sense in the end.
Xenogears on the other hand, while it got horribly rushed in the end, it was at least created in a cohesive manner, and didn't undergo numerous plot rewrites like the Xenosaga series has.
Me You and Everyone We Know is a strange little independent film, and not exactly the sort that would be likely to be known by the/. crowd.
But I bring it up because it features a lot of instant messaging, with the characters quite obviously using Gaim, which amused me greatly when I saw it.
You are correct. I just checked my classical Japanese dictionary, and while 'wi' is a word (I already knew that anyways--means well), 'wii' is definitely not in there, unless you consider the stem of 'wiiru' which would be 'wii' (meaning basically to enter a room, for example, and sit down), but that would be a stretch.
All of which they add to their page via "HTML codes" the meanings of which are completely lost on them.
I'm on a community related to web standards and all that good stuff, and in spite of trying to be very clear in the faq on what to post about, you wouldn't *believe* the number of lost idiot kids who come wandering in from god only knows where asking for the "codes" to add video to their myspace profile.
I alway tell them to enter Up Down Up Down Left Right Left Right B A Start to get the infinite lives or whatever it is they're looking for the code for.
It's not exactly like Sim Earth. I don't believe you have any direct control over the climate of the planet or any other properties. The only things you directly control are the living things (at varying scales from single-celled organisms up through entire intergalactic civilizations). I know that later in the game you can develop a variety of terraforming tools, so in that respect it is like Sim Earth. But I'm pretty sure that's the only way you can directly affect the climate and biosphere of a planet.
Also, Spore goes well beyond Sim Earth in terms of scale. Sure in Sim Earth you also had just single-celled organisms in the beginning, but the entire game was just played on that one scale of viewing the entire planet from above. In Spore, the scale you play at develops along with the creature whose evolution you follow. It would really be better descrived as Sim Powers of 10, in that, as I said, you eventually can develop intergalactic and possibly even inter-species civilizations.
As I recall, at one point in his demonstration Wright does actually mention the possibility. The most advanced part of the game involves whizzing around the universe in a UFO and mettling with the affairs of other planets. One way in which you can mettle probably will be tossing down a few monoliths.
That's kinda what I thought too. Either way it's not like it's a huge delay. Heck, I'd kinda rather they'd wait even longer for
a) The price of some of the hardware to come down b) To watch Microsoft fumble around more and c) To rethink this whole format war business
I have a bad feeling that the last one especially won't happen:( If they're gonna stick a Blu-Ray drive in this thing I sure as hell hope it ends up being the dominant next gen video format, or Sony is fucked, I think.
While I agree that these are all nice features, they're not exactly innovations. Well, I guess they're innovations for webmail, but otherwise I've had threaded e-mail and instant search for years:0
I would also note that even if the thrusters were still working by Ep. V, we're talking a relatively short fall here, with no more than a second to engage the thrusters. I'd have to go back and check exactly how long it takes, but I'd imagine that when he does use them he has a little more time.
However, I hope they were removed for the right reasons, and not for some silly puritanical reason. Also, I hope that the rule about people not being fully clothed applies to *both* sexes.
Slashdot Mirror
World. Of. Starcraft.
May just be wishful thinking on my part, but if Blizzard ever decides to do it, it would probably invalidate this article. I'm not a WoW fan at all, and ever since I quit RO I've placed a moratorium on MMOs for myself. But I don't think I could resist something like this, assuming it's done well.
Not that other sci-fi themed MMOs can't be great. I'm just going off of Blizzard's track record here...
Most of the people I know, myself included, called it "Tär-zhAy." I guess it's not a unique thing after all.
This is perhaps the most profound comment on this entire thread.
I can't agree more.
Yeah, I had to read it like five times before I realized it was "uninterested." "Uninteresting" just seemed sort of obvious.
Note also that Freescale has close ties to Motorola. I would not be surprised if this starts showing up in consumer electronics before long now.
Did you RTFA? This is the first commercial MRAM product which is being produced in volume. They have customers for it, and they've already built up a stock of the stuff. Can't call it vaporware if it supposedly actually exists somewhere and is ready to be shipped.
Personally, I don't find many of those examples particularly useful. I already have both Gmail notifiers and weather indicators elsewhere, and don't see why they need to run inside my web browser. If you were desperate, I bet both of those functionalities could be accomplished with UserJS.
I can see where an IE Tab-like feature could be handy. But Opera keeps managing to improve compatability with shitty IE-only sites. Where it still doesn't work, UserJS can usually fix whatever problems exist--I hardly ever have to use a different browser to view a site. And in cases where I have a choice, I'll usually just refuse a site any business if they're going to design their sites so poorly as to only work in one browser. Fortunately, such sites have been on the decline lately.
Actually, the parent poster who you're apparently making fun of for being a Grammar Nazi was not, in fact, being a Grammar Nazi at all. He was being a Semantics Nazi, as am I.
Of course it's not an original idea, but since when has Japanese anime and videogames *not* borrowed from existing sci-fi/fantasy ideas? At least they do usually try to add their own spin. And while you bring up FFTA, .hack came out well before that.
Personally, the framework strikes me as kind of cutesy and ineffective in a video game context, because the writers have to strive to make us care about TWO levels of characters when it's hard enough to make us care about one.
Having seen the anime and played the game, I haven't found that to be the case really. It's hard to explain, but you don't really see it as "two levels of characters" like that. For the most part it's written well enough that you start to see the online personas and the real people behind them as one in the same. It helps that you never see them (except towards the end) outside of the game anyways. So regardless of whether or not they're "in character" in the game, the way you interact with them is always the same.
Just try to remember when you eat sausage: Theres nothing like minceing up an animal and stuff it into it's own intestines.
Oh big deal. Where I come from (the south) we don't even bother stuffing the intestines!
Don't lump all Democrats and Republicans into that crowd.
There are plenty of Democrats who don't give a hoot about those sorts of "values"-related red herring issues, and actually put a lot of effort into fighting for more freedom. They're just not able to be effective given the current power imbalance in Washington, which is why you never hear much about it from the traditional media.
For that matter, not all Republicans are "values"-whores either. Though I don't agree with a lot of their current policies, there are at least a few Republicans who are focused on real issues, and have the integrity not to pretend to care if kids can buy violent videogames or if gays can marry or whatever. That's why a lot of people are disappointed right now with John McCain--he used to fit that description, but lately he's been pandering to the religious wingnut end of the party.
If you like Xenosaga, do consider seeking out a copy of Xenogears if you haven't already played it. I've enjoyed Xenosaga quite a bit, but I get the feeling that a great many of the plot points have been thrown out there just to please the Xenogears fanboys like me, and that none of it's gonna make a shred of sense in the end.
Xenogears on the other hand, while it got horribly rushed in the end, it was at least created in a cohesive manner, and didn't undergo numerous plot rewrites like the Xenosaga series has.
Nonsense! I mock all religions, but regardless of whether or not my friends follow some religion I help them out equally.
Me You and Everyone We Know is a strange little independent film, and not exactly the sort that would be likely to be known by the /. crowd.
But I bring it up because it features a lot of instant messaging, with the characters quite obviously using Gaim, which amused me greatly when I saw it.
Agreed. I can quite easily resist the "magic," if you want to call it that (I call it "heresy") of Disney and Square together.
You are correct. I just checked my classical Japanese dictionary, and while 'wi' is a word (I already knew that anyways--means well), 'wii' is definitely not in there, unless you consider the stem of 'wiiru' which would be 'wii' (meaning basically to enter a room, for example, and sit down), but that would be a stretch.
All of which they add to their page via "HTML codes" the meanings of which are completely lost on them.
I'm on a community related to web standards and all that good stuff, and in spite of trying to be very clear in the faq on what to post about, you wouldn't *believe* the number of lost idiot kids who come wandering in from god only knows where asking for the "codes" to add video to their myspace profile.
I alway tell them to enter Up Down Up Down Left Right Left Right B A Start to get the infinite lives or whatever it is they're looking for the code for.
It's not exactly like Sim Earth. I don't believe you have any direct control over the climate of the planet or any other properties. The only things you directly control are the living things (at varying scales from single-celled organisms up through entire intergalactic civilizations). I know that later in the game you can develop a variety of terraforming tools, so in that respect it is like Sim Earth. But I'm pretty sure that's the only way you can directly affect the climate and biosphere of a planet.
Also, Spore goes well beyond Sim Earth in terms of scale. Sure in Sim Earth you also had just single-celled organisms in the beginning, but the entire game was just played on that one scale of viewing the entire planet from above. In Spore, the scale you play at develops along with the creature whose evolution you follow. It would really be better descrived as Sim Powers of 10, in that, as I said, you eventually can develop intergalactic and possibly even inter-species civilizations.
As I recall, at one point in his demonstration Wright does actually mention the possibility. The most advanced part of the game involves whizzing around the universe in a UFO and mettling with the affairs of other planets. One way in which you can mettle probably will be tossing down a few monoliths.
You have a point, and I certainly hope you're right.
Either way, I hope it still at least plays DVDs. If not, that'd be pretty damn annoying.
That's kinda what I thought too. Either way it's not like it's a huge delay. Heck, I'd kinda rather they'd wait even longer for
:( If they're gonna stick a Blu-Ray drive in this thing I sure as hell hope it ends up being the dominant next gen video format, or Sony is fucked, I think.
a) The price of some of the hardware to come down
b) To watch Microsoft fumble around more
and
c) To rethink this whole format war business
I have a bad feeling that the last one especially won't happen
While I agree that these are all nice features, they're not exactly innovations. Well, I guess they're innovations for webmail, but otherwise I've had threaded e-mail and instant search for years :0
I would also note that even if the thrusters were still working by Ep. V, we're talking a relatively short fall here, with no more than a second to engage the thrusters. I'd have to go back and check exactly how long it takes, but I'd imagine that when he does use them he has a little more time.
I'd imagine that is the case for some anyways.
For reasons already elaborated above.
However, I hope they were removed for the right reasons, and not for some silly puritanical reason. Also, I hope that the rule about people not being fully clothed applies to *both* sexes.