The moderation system has issues - that being the human tendency to claim that any conflicting viewpoint, no matter whether it's expressed in a sane manner or not, is "trolling" or otherwise needs to be censored.
We have meta-moderation to try to help, but all that does is show that abuse exists; it comes far too late to reverse it properly.
This IS, however, a large stumbling block for Microsoft.
There are two competing ideas on how to view Windows Vista.
Lens 1: Windows 2000. Windows 2000 saw poor adoption, at first, in the desktop market. Why? Because Windows 2000 broke a lot of compatibility with earlier Win98 apps and peripherals, items that might not have Win2k drivers. As the driver support improved and those programs and items continued to get older, eventually people switched because the business environment - upgrading from Windows NT - had switched.
Lens 2: Windows ME. Windows ME was Microsoft's "alternative" to Win2k: it was the "last gasp" of the 9x kernel. Instead of slowly bogging down, they fixed the minor bugs, so it would just die - irretrievably. Nobody wanted it, Win98SE was far cleaner and more stable, and WinME wound up in the trash bins. Microsoft's official statement on Windows ME: "Windows ME is not recommended."
Windows Vista combines the worst elements of the Win2k and WinME systems. It breaks easily, it's entirely user-unfriendly, it nags like there's no tomorrow, and there's a good chance the hardware you bought 6 months ago isn't compatible, let alone your favorite recreational/puzzle video game that you've been playing for years.
Our corporate stance on Vista: Nobody gets it except the developers, for at least two more years. Because that's how long it'll take for M$ to even begin to try to fix this piece of crap OS.
Which is silly since Both of mine can go a good 10h continiously on a charge. His are either defective, damaged, or he's charging them for very short periods. I leave mine over night. I have never experienced the problems he's had and It sounds like he's make up a story.
It sounds to me like you's a liar.
I leave my PS3 controller plugged in whenever it's not in use. It pops up with a full charge (I check), I use it. Somewhere between the 5-6 hour mark, I get the first signs of trouble. Battery indicator still has 2 bars. Around 7-8 hours, if I push through the issues, the indicator drops to 1 bar.
Side note: what the fuck is wrong with Sony that they can't put at least a 10-bar indicator, or else just a damn digital percentage readout, to tell what capacity is left in the battery? There are at least 20 modifications to the PSP firmware that do this now - hell, if you're in a game, hitting the Home button does it - and you'd think they'd take the fucking hint that 3 bars isn't good enough.
Then what is the fucking point of it being wireless?
I don't want a "sometimes wireless, sometimes not" controller. I definitely don't want something that is essential routine maintenance, like replacing the battery, to require me to unscrew the back of the controller and void the warranty.
If it's a wireless controller, there ought to be a simple and quick operation where I can simply pop a panel, swap in a newly charged battery (or a set of AA's) and go. If the only way to charge the thing is with the USB cable, that's no help. If the battery can't be reached without taking screws out and exposing the circuitry in the controller, that's no good.
This is basic design 101. The greedy bastards at Sony sealed up the unit, and stuck the battery without access, because what THEY want is for the fanbois and morons who bought a day-1 PS3 to pony up another $50 or so a couple years down the road when the existing internal battery dies.
If I have to, I can plug rechargeable NiMH's into my wireless 360 controller (though I do have the play'n'charge pack). I swap NiMH's from the Wii every few days when they die down, no fuss. WHEN, not If, the PS3 controller craps out I have to plug the damn thing into a cable as the only way to charge it - and that's just a fucking retarded design.
The "sensitivity" tool you pointed out is not a calibration tool. What it does is allow you to adjust the sensitivity of the sensor inside the remote, if your remote is having trouble finding the IR bar. It does nothing for the X and Y-axis visual calibration.
Adjusting the screen type doesn't change the X and Y calibration of the interface, either - all it does is alter whether the 480P visual output is formatted for a 4:3 or 16:9 television, for those games that support a 16:9 mode.
The whole point is to calibrate the range of actuity such that the pointing of the remote closely mimics where you are pointing on the screen. If you're going to have a shooting game (Wii Play's shooting gallery, Red Steel, the upcoming Metroid) or a game involving manipulating objects on the screen (elebits, Trauma Center) then what you want is 1:1 correspondence or as close as you can get, because natural instinct for a human is to point where they want the item to go. When the line I point my remote ought to have only moved 2 inches, but the cursor flies off the edge of the screen, that is contrary to Nintendo's claim that the Wii control would bring more "intuitive" controls to gaming - and it's just crappy interface design, too.
If you're willing to chip in by bringing in the mega-pack of AA's we'll need, that is (face it, the Play & charge cord doesn't help when you're out of plugs).
I know the theory on why "stock wireless controllers" are supposed to be grand. I also know where they fall flat: extended play. If you're having to use a charge cable more than 50% of the time to keep the battery in a usable state, you might as well just have a wired controller.
For something that needs a flight controller, you can't go better than the Airstik from the sadly-deceased VrStandard corporation. Light as a feather, didn't have tons of buttons but had enough, on-the-fly switch between 3 sensitivity modes, and will actually still plug in to the default Vista drivers and run flawlessly. How many top-of-the-line sticks do you know that can run on any system's default drivers and run flawlessly?
Sadly, both of the companies are dead. VRStandard killed themselves trying to push 3D glasses and went under during the switch to Windows 2000 when the Win3D company (who'd been their outsource partners for 2000 drivers) went under. Good luck finding drivers for the VRJoy headsets these days - even the independent guys haven't bothered to update them and nobody seems to have archived the older ones.
Interact got bought out by MadCatz (well, the Gameshark stuff anyways) and the rest of the old product lines got dumped completely.
If they'd push it into the system firmware, then all people would have to do is calibrate once, and then only recalibrate again if they moved the TV or adjusted the bar somehow. You could even tune it side to side, to compensate for an off-center IR bar.
Plus, it would then fix the older games that didn't ship with calibration.
This is one thing the Nintendorks software writers need to fix for the next Wii software update: include a goddamn calibration routine.
I have a 50" screen. I was getting really annoyed at how twitchy Zelda was, how twitchy the general Wii response for visuals were. If I pointed to the edge of my screen, the mouse zoomed WAY off to the side.
Then, inside Zelda, I found this awesome feature. It let you select your screen type (4:3 or 16:9), then it displayed a yellow bar. You lined up your IR bar ("sensor bar" my ass, it's a bar of plastic with a set of IR LEDs in it) with the center of it, sized up the yellow bar so it matched the IR bar, and the Zelda interface adjusted itself. Now, in my Zelda games, if I point to a spot, the little cursor goes right where I'm pointing.
NO other Wii game has implemented this yet. Red Steel, had they had this in, would have actually been playable. Trauma Center: Second Opinion would be playable. Wii Play would make a lot more sense in Duck Hunt mode.
Nor have they done us the simple courtesy of pushing a simple recalibration routine out over the system software, which would stop any other software company from having to do so.
- Fail to respond (push button, see result 3 seconds later) - Give erroneous "lost connection to console" reports
These ONLY happen after 5-6 hours of gameplay - with a freshly charged controller, it behaves fine. The fault lies in Sony's crappy construction of their controllers. They could easily have put in an access panel to remove and swap the battery, but no - they want you to waste $50+ on buying a whole new controller when your battery permanently dies, 2 years from now. Fuck that. I just run the damn thing wired all the time now.
But that defeats the purpose of having a wireless controller, now doesn't it?
To me, stock wireless controllers are the worst thing to happen.
Micro$oft screwed it up by only including three USB ports on the 360 (forcing you to go wireless to play Halo with 3 friends).
Sony screwed it up by not having swappable batteries and putting in an absolutely crappy battery in the sealed controller; my PS3 routinely has battery life issues (starts losing signal even while reporting 2 "bars"... WTF is with only having 3 bars to indicate battery capacity left anyways?) if I try to go wireless for more than about 6 hours.
To me, the best innovation has been the move to standard USB connectors. I once spent $35 on a good adaptable controller-extender set (it's one 6' cord with swappable plugs for whatever system, Xbox/PS2/GC, you're using). Now, I can get a 6' extension that's compatible with the 360 and PS2 for around $3, because it's a standard commodity USB extender. Since my couch is about 10 feet from the consoles, that's just about right.
On the Wii, I survive by using a set of rechargeable NiMH batteries. But the Wii controller's wacky enough that a corded version would probably not work.
Come on now, a little critical thinking will do wonders.
If you have the hands of a 6 year old kid, a controller like the NES or like the small/close buttons on a Game Boy / DS model will probably be perfect for you. If you have larger hands, something like the SNES controller might feel better.
There's also the issue of how you hold the controller. Some people like something that fits firmly into the palm of their hands. Others try to rest it by curling the 4th and 5th fingers around to give it support.
It's not "one size fits all." Multiple companies sell snap-on parts that make various Game Boy/DS models have a bigger base, so that people with larger hands or issues with mobility (arthritis, carpal tunnel, etc) can still use them without discomfort.
Personally? I absolutely loved the original Xbox controller. It fit comfortably into my hands, resting the sides in my palms, and I could still reach the buttons from there.
The PS2 controller, PS3 controller, the "S" controller, and even the 360 controller to some extent, makes my hands ache after a few hours of play because I have to rest the friggin' thing on my fingers instead. I'll probably buy a couple of old, broken original Xbox controllers soon and try to transplant the guts of a 360 controller into it just to fix that.
The Wii controller is a whole different ballgame - for most of the games, it's great. I'm getting that same issue with Paper Mario, however - it's just too thin to hold comfortably sideways while using the buttons.
If the game companies were smart, they'd market 2-3 different sizes of controller, and that way people could get the controller that fit them best rather than being forced to use the one crappy, small-sized-for-whiny-idiots-and-japanese-hands controller that comes with the system.
If you don't suck up to the Wikipedia jerkoffs, they start a watchlist on you and start randomly attacking your posts. Why else put "overrated" on an UNMODDED POST?
...is that corn ethanol is such snake oil and yet the corn lobby keeps managing to buy off those traitors we call Congress.
Facts on Ethanol: #1 - It rots fuel lines. Ethanol - aka Ethyl Alcohol, aka Grain Alcohol, aka drinking alchohol - is one of the few substances that actually reacts with the rubber that fuel lines are made of.
Well, what did you fucking expect? It's corn alcohol. All you're doing is pouring whiskey into your gas tank. It's not that good for you either, but you at least have a liver to process it in. Your poor car doesn't.
#2 - It clogs injectors. Ethanol, as well as the residue from the aforementioned degradation of fuel lines, builds up and gets stuck in the injectors and decreases their performance. Been in a gas station and seen all the bottles of injector cleaner that are stocked there these days? Ethanol is your reason why.
#3 - it takes 1.8 units of energy to produce and distribute 1 energy-unit of Ethanol to the consumer.
You're paying extra in grocery bills, and extra $$$ at the gas pump, so that your gas can be polluted with a product that gives no environmental benefit whatsoever and reduces your gas mileage, causing you to buy more gas.
And the corn lobby/gas companies are laughing all the way to the bank.
Just like you and your buddies haven't been organizing to abuse mod points on this discussion (don't lie now, I have the record of it from your IRC channel).
Prime example - nothing "trollish" here, but the wikicultists just have to try to mod down anything that's not complimentary to their beloved trash heap.
But that's to be expected. After all, if you can't control the flow of information, you can't indoctrinate the populace.
Prime example - nothing "trollish" here, but the wikicultists just have to try to mod down anything that's not complimentary to their beloved trash heap.
Slashdot Mirror
Been on Slashdot long?
The moderation system has issues - that being the human tendency to claim that any conflicting viewpoint, no matter whether it's expressed in a sane manner or not, is "trolling" or otherwise needs to be censored.
We have meta-moderation to try to help, but all that does is show that abuse exists; it comes far too late to reverse it properly.
This IS, however, a large stumbling block for Microsoft.
There are two competing ideas on how to view Windows Vista.
Lens 1: Windows 2000. Windows 2000 saw poor adoption, at first, in the desktop market. Why? Because Windows 2000 broke a lot of compatibility with earlier Win98 apps and peripherals, items that might not have Win2k drivers. As the driver support improved and those programs and items continued to get older, eventually people switched because the business environment - upgrading from Windows NT - had switched.
Lens 2: Windows ME. Windows ME was Microsoft's "alternative" to Win2k: it was the "last gasp" of the 9x kernel. Instead of slowly bogging down, they fixed the minor bugs, so it would just die - irretrievably. Nobody wanted it, Win98SE was far cleaner and more stable, and WinME wound up in the trash bins. Microsoft's official statement on Windows ME: "Windows ME is not recommended."
Windows Vista combines the worst elements of the Win2k and WinME systems. It breaks easily, it's entirely user-unfriendly, it nags like there's no tomorrow, and there's a good chance the hardware you bought 6 months ago isn't compatible, let alone your favorite recreational/puzzle video game that you've been playing for years.
Our corporate stance on Vista: Nobody gets it except the developers, for at least two more years. Because that's how long it'll take for M$ to even begin to try to fix this piece of crap OS.
Which is silly since Both of mine can go a good 10h continiously on a charge. His are either defective, damaged, or he's charging them for very short periods. I leave mine over night. I have never experienced the problems he's had and It sounds like he's make up a story.
It sounds to me like you's a liar.
I leave my PS3 controller plugged in whenever it's not in use. It pops up with a full charge (I check), I use it. Somewhere between the 5-6 hour mark, I get the first signs of trouble. Battery indicator still has 2 bars. Around 7-8 hours, if I push through the issues, the indicator drops to 1 bar.
Side note: what the fuck is wrong with Sony that they can't put at least a 10-bar indicator, or else just a damn digital percentage readout, to tell what capacity is left in the battery? There are at least 20 modifications to the PSP firmware that do this now - hell, if you're in a game, hitting the Home button does it - and you'd think they'd take the fucking hint that 3 bars isn't good enough.
Then what is the fucking point of it being wireless?
I don't want a "sometimes wireless, sometimes not" controller. I definitely don't want something that is essential routine maintenance, like replacing the battery, to require me to unscrew the back of the controller and void the warranty.
If it's a wireless controller, there ought to be a simple and quick operation where I can simply pop a panel, swap in a newly charged battery (or a set of AA's) and go. If the only way to charge the thing is with the USB cable, that's no help. If the battery can't be reached without taking screws out and exposing the circuitry in the controller, that's no good.
This is basic design 101. The greedy bastards at Sony sealed up the unit, and stuck the battery without access, because what THEY want is for the fanbois and morons who bought a day-1 PS3 to pony up another $50 or so a couple years down the road when the existing internal battery dies.
If I have to, I can plug rechargeable NiMH's into my wireless 360 controller (though I do have the play'n'charge pack). I swap NiMH's from the Wii every few days when they die down, no fuss. WHEN, not If, the PS3 controller craps out I have to plug the damn thing into a cable as the only way to charge it - and that's just a fucking retarded design.
The "sensitivity" tool you pointed out is not a calibration tool. What it does is allow you to adjust the sensitivity of the sensor inside the remote, if your remote is having trouble finding the IR bar. It does nothing for the X and Y-axis visual calibration.
Adjusting the screen type doesn't change the X and Y calibration of the interface, either - all it does is alter whether the 480P visual output is formatted for a 4:3 or 16:9 television, for those games that support a 16:9 mode.
The whole point is to calibrate the range of actuity such that the pointing of the remote closely mimics where you are pointing on the screen. If you're going to have a shooting game (Wii Play's shooting gallery, Red Steel, the upcoming Metroid) or a game involving manipulating objects on the screen (elebits, Trauma Center) then what you want is 1:1 correspondence or as close as you can get, because natural instinct for a human is to point where they want the item to go. When the line I point my remote ought to have only moved 2 inches, but the cursor flies off the edge of the screen, that is contrary to Nintendo's claim that the Wii control would bring more "intuitive" controls to gaming - and it's just crappy interface design, too.
wouldn't have been so annoying?
Seriously. Goldeneye had you aiming with the stick, and moving with the "C-pad" as they called it. Would it have been that hard to flip it around?
party then.
If you're willing to chip in by bringing in the mega-pack of AA's we'll need, that is (face it, the Play & charge cord doesn't help when you're out of plugs).
I know the theory on why "stock wireless controllers" are supposed to be grand. I also know where they fall flat: extended play. If you're having to use a charge cable more than 50% of the time to keep the battery in a usable state, you might as well just have a wired controller.
there were two that were ultimates.
The Hammerhead FX (second revision with USB, the first had a D-pad that was way to ridged and tight) gave you everything you needed, for any game; D-pad, two analogs, six face buttons (GREAT for six-button arcade fighting titles), two shoulder buttons and two back triggers. It was my gaming pad for 90% of the MAME library as well as for NES, Genesis, SNES, N64, and PSX emulation.
For something that needs a flight controller, you can't go better than the Airstik from the sadly-deceased VrStandard corporation. Light as a feather, didn't have tons of buttons but had enough, on-the-fly switch between 3 sensitivity modes, and will actually still plug in to the default Vista drivers and run flawlessly. How many top-of-the-line sticks do you know that can run on any system's default drivers and run flawlessly?
Sadly, both of the companies are dead. VRStandard killed themselves trying to push 3D glasses and went under during the switch to Windows 2000 when the Win3D company (who'd been their outsource partners for 2000 drivers) went under. Good luck finding drivers for the VRJoy headsets these days - even the independent guys haven't bothered to update them and nobody seems to have archived the older ones.
Interact got bought out by MadCatz (well, the Gameshark stuff anyways) and the rest of the old product lines got dumped completely.
If they'd push it into the system firmware, then all people would have to do is calibrate once, and then only recalibrate again if they moved the TV or adjusted the bar somehow. You could even tune it side to side, to compensate for an off-center IR bar.
Plus, it would then fix the older games that didn't ship with calibration.
Wii Virtual Console + An Actual Arcade Stick (with GC adapter). There's no WVC game you won't be able to play, and play well.
This is one thing the Nintendorks software writers need to fix for the next Wii software update: include a goddamn calibration routine.
I have a 50" screen. I was getting really annoyed at how twitchy Zelda was, how twitchy the general Wii response for visuals were. If I pointed to the edge of my screen, the mouse zoomed WAY off to the side.
Then, inside Zelda, I found this awesome feature. It let you select your screen type (4:3 or 16:9), then it displayed a yellow bar. You lined up your IR bar ("sensor bar" my ass, it's a bar of plastic with a set of IR LEDs in it) with the center of it, sized up the yellow bar so it matched the IR bar, and the Zelda interface adjusted itself. Now, in my Zelda games, if I point to a spot, the little cursor goes right where I'm pointing.
NO other Wii game has implemented this yet. Red Steel, had they had this in, would have actually been playable. Trauma Center: Second Opinion would be playable. Wii Play would make a lot more sense in Duck Hunt mode.
Nor have they done us the simple courtesy of pushing a simple recalibration routine out over the system software, which would stop any other software company from having to do so.
Bad Nintendorks. No Cookie.
the following things:
- Fail to respond (push button, see result 3 seconds later)
- Give erroneous "lost connection to console" reports
These ONLY happen after 5-6 hours of gameplay - with a freshly charged controller, it behaves fine. The fault lies in Sony's crappy construction of their controllers. They could easily have put in an access panel to remove and swap the battery, but no - they want you to waste $50+ on buying a whole new controller when your battery permanently dies, 2 years from now. Fuck that. I just run the damn thing wired all the time now.
But that defeats the purpose of having a wireless controller, now doesn't it?
when I'm in the middle of a game, and the battery acts up, I don't want to have to take the fucking thing apart to change a battery.
To me, stock wireless controllers are the worst thing to happen.
Micro$oft screwed it up by only including three USB ports on the 360 (forcing you to go wireless to play Halo with 3 friends).
Sony screwed it up by not having swappable batteries and putting in an absolutely crappy battery in the sealed controller; my PS3 routinely has battery life issues (starts losing signal even while reporting 2 "bars"... WTF is with only having 3 bars to indicate battery capacity left anyways?) if I try to go wireless for more than about 6 hours.
To me, the best innovation has been the move to standard USB connectors. I once spent $35 on a good adaptable controller-extender set (it's one 6' cord with swappable plugs for whatever system, Xbox/PS2/GC, you're using). Now, I can get a 6' extension that's compatible with the 360 and PS2 for around $3, because it's a standard commodity USB extender. Since my couch is about 10 feet from the consoles, that's just about right.
On the Wii, I survive by using a set of rechargeable NiMH batteries. But the Wii controller's wacky enough that a corded version would probably not work.
Come on now, a little critical thinking will do wonders.
If you have the hands of a 6 year old kid, a controller like the NES or like the small/close buttons on a Game Boy / DS model will probably be perfect for you. If you have larger hands, something like the SNES controller might feel better.
There's also the issue of how you hold the controller. Some people like something that fits firmly into the palm of their hands. Others try to rest it by curling the 4th and 5th fingers around to give it support.
It's not "one size fits all." Multiple companies sell snap-on parts that make various Game Boy/DS models have a bigger base, so that people with larger hands or issues with mobility (arthritis, carpal tunnel, etc) can still use them without discomfort.
Personally? I absolutely loved the original Xbox controller. It fit comfortably into my hands, resting the sides in my palms, and I could still reach the buttons from there.
The PS2 controller, PS3 controller, the "S" controller, and even the 360 controller to some extent, makes my hands ache after a few hours of play because I have to rest the friggin' thing on my fingers instead. I'll probably buy a couple of old, broken original Xbox controllers soon and try to transplant the guts of a 360 controller into it just to fix that.
The Wii controller is a whole different ballgame - for most of the games, it's great. I'm getting that same issue with Paper Mario, however - it's just too thin to hold comfortably sideways while using the buttons.
If the game companies were smart, they'd market 2-3 different sizes of controller, and that way people could get the controller that fit them best rather than being forced to use the one crappy, small-sized-for-whiny-idiots-and-japanese-hands controller that comes with the system.
If you don't suck up to the Wikipedia jerkoffs, they start a watchlist on you and start randomly attacking your posts. Why else put "overrated" on an UNMODDED POST?
...is that corn ethanol is such snake oil and yet the corn lobby keeps managing to buy off those traitors we call Congress.
Facts on Ethanol:
#1 - It rots fuel lines. Ethanol - aka Ethyl Alcohol, aka Grain Alcohol, aka drinking alchohol - is one of the few substances that actually reacts with the rubber that fuel lines are made of.
Well, what did you fucking expect? It's corn alcohol. All you're doing is pouring whiskey into your gas tank. It's not that good for you either, but you at least have a liver to process it in. Your poor car doesn't.
#2 - It clogs injectors. Ethanol, as well as the residue from the aforementioned degradation of fuel lines, builds up and gets stuck in the injectors and decreases their performance. Been in a gas station and seen all the bottles of injector cleaner that are stocked there these days? Ethanol is your reason why.
#3 - it takes 1.8 units of energy to produce and distribute 1 energy-unit of Ethanol to the consumer.
You're paying extra in grocery bills, and extra $$$ at the gas pump, so that your gas can be polluted with a product that gives no environmental benefit whatsoever and reduces your gas mileage, causing you to buy more gas.
And the corn lobby/gas companies are laughing all the way to the bank.
Just like you and your buddies haven't been organizing to abuse mod points on this discussion (don't lie now, I have the record of it from your IRC channel).
Pull the other one.
more than I trust someone like you.
You're well known for abuse of power, Gwern.
Wouldn't really surprise me to learn it, either.
Prime example - nothing "trollish" here, but the wikicultists just have to try to mod down anything that's not complimentary to their beloved trash heap. But that's to be expected. After all, if you can't control the flow of information, you can't indoctrinate the populace.
Prime example - nothing "trollish" here, but the wikicultists just have to try to mod down anything that's not complimentary to their beloved trash heap.
Some wiki-cultist's really having fun with mod points today.
Slashdot invaded by wikicultists; film at 11.
Anything said that isn't 100% complimentary to Wikipedia, gets a mysterious 'troll' listing by a wikicultist who got mod points.