... an overly-obsessive commitment to quality or it's sheer wanton incompetence.
Either way, the trouble with DNF's bloated development time is that it can now never be good enough. The longer people wait (under the promise of "we'll release it when it's perfect") the higher their expectations will be. Games, films, albums, etc have an upper limit to how good they can be. People's expectations can go much, much higher. I fear that 3DR are setting themselves up to have a turkey with this game, irrespective of how good it actually is.
I wonder if a possible film tie-in has anything to do with DNF's delays? If there's a film in the works then it would help both the film and the game if they come out at around the same time. Maybe the game's delays are due to the (unannounced and purely speculative) film's delays? Considering the antiquity of the game's engine and the outdated character, I'm sure 3DR would appreciate the guaranteed mass-market sales that a big summer action movie tie-in could generate.
Well let's see, we can safely assume that it fits into only ONE of these categories...
1. It has a message of anti-violence. Players are discouraged from seeing violence as a solution to a problem. Players are encouraged not to fight and are taught that they should just put their fists away and get on with their fellow man.
2. It's a fighting game with a focus on violence and the violence is intended to be fun.
Shock revelation time: The developer will make the game that will sell best!
Call me crazy but I'm guessing that a game that is said to "portray the brutality of street fighting while encompassing the action and story elements from the movie with intense visuals, untraditional moves, and bare-knuckle destruction" will NOT be anti-violence.
According to the director/actor commentary on the Fight Club DVD, the film is anti-violence. So doesn't a beat 'em up game tie-in completely miss the point?
Patents such as the example given at the top of the page should be illegal. They are without merit and are effectively premeditated malice as the company intends to play "law suit roulette" by suing as many companies as they can with the hope of winning more cases that they lose. Such patents are unhelpful to the human race as a whole and are damaging to the ethical companies who get caught up in the malicious law suits. Doesn't that sound to you like it should be a crime?
Sorry but I hate it when anyone refers to their admirers as "fans".
You know when you hear a singer/actor saying "I owe it all to my fans"? I pretty much lose all respect for that person as soon as the word comes out of their mouth. I mean, can you imagine ever reaching a point in your life when you could comfortably describe another person as your "fan"? The implication, in current times, is that the person is somehow inferior.
Saying "I'm a fan of so-and-so" is fine because it's an expression of admiration and respect. But saying, without any embarsassment and maybe even with some pride, "that person is a fan of me", reveals a grossly inflated self-image.
All of this in my not-so-humble opinion, of course!:-)
A GameSpot story quotes a Turbine spokesman as saying the move presents a "total shift in [our] business model. We're taking out the middle man between us and our fans."
Yikes, that's quite an ego we're dealing with here!
I think Mr Turbine Spokesman will find that gamers are generally fans of a *game*, not the developer. Sure there are a few exceptions, Id for example, but it's kinda creepy to hear someone at a development company talking about the company itself having "fans". Surely he means customers? But then maybe that would be a bit too respectful.
And don't you forget that this story has nothing at all to do with Scotland.
MSN, Yahoo, AOL and Google are all used by people in Scotland so their censoring of content has everything to do with Scotland, same as it has everything to do with any other country where those services are used. They may be American companies but that doesn't mean that everything they do is solely an American issue.
Meanwhile, anyone can cross the border, walk into a Mexican pharmacy and buy whatever they want.
Well if I crossed the border then I'd be in England, unless you mean "cross the border in a plane and then fly several thousand miles". Kindly remember that Slashdot is read all over the world, including quaint little backwaters like my own home town of Scotland, UK.:-)
What is a sex offender anyway? A kid I knew in highschool was a registered sex offender because he kicked his little brother in the balls while they were wrestling and they decided to go tothe doctor to get him checked out.
I forget the exact ages but there was a case in the UK when a 14 year old boy had pictures on his computer of a 15 year old girl. The girl was under 16 so the boy was put on the sex offenders register.
As I said, I forget the exact ages... it may have been that he was 12 and she was 13 or whatever, but the point still stands that he is legally considered a paedophile, risk to children, etc, even though the girl he found sexually attractive was older than he was.
Several ideas worth discussing, some good, some irrelevant.
I'm sure the researchers appreciate your clear, concise, thorough, expert and well-reasoned explanation of why some of their ideas are irrelevant. They must be kicking themselves.
Methinks we'll be seeing a lot more of this in future, ie: release software for free, let it become established for a few years, then discontinue the "free version" so people are, to some extent, forced to buy the commercial version.
Companies should either do free or commercial software, or both. They shouldn't establish their product as free and then start charging for it once people rely on it.
This strikes me as more of a long-term market-share strategy rather than a recent change of policy.
I just came across this fine site, 419Eater, wherin people counter scam the Nigerian 419 scammers that have been plaguing our spam filters for the past few years. The UK paper The Guardian is also running a fine article on this site.
I don't like the fact that they charge you $9.99 for an initial three years, and then if you're still alive you need to keep paying top-ups to keep your account open.
Generally, people don't know that they will die in the next three years. There are exceptions of course but the majority of people, even the elderly, expect to be alive in three years. So the result will be that most people don't sign-up because they're waiting "until nearer the time". What if they get run over? Or they're killed? Well I guess their friends and loved ones won't get that last message because this company decided to charge a subscription fee rather than a one-off payment.
I want to use the phrase "emotional blackmail" but I don't think that's quite accurate. There's certainly something ugly about this service, though.
several anonymous commentators made some allegedly libelous statements
This is one of the most curious terms given to us by the current era of media and law suits. If I accuse you of something then it should be up to me to prove it, otherwise I've libelled you. But if you deny it then suddenly my accusation becomes "allegedly libelous", ie: you're the one making an accusation about me and now you have to prove it. It's getting to the point that anyone can say anything about anyone, and as soon as the person denies it, the accuser is seen as the victim.
If you ask me where Fred lives and I tell you he lives next door, that's fine. If you ask where you can hire a hitman and I tell you that Fred can do it for you and he lives next door, I could be an accomplice to murder.
Same with linking. If a site posts links to other sites and one (or more) of them contains something illegal, but the illegal content was neither the overt or covert reason for the link, then that should be fine. But if the purpose of the link is solely or primarily to help you do something illegal then the person posting the link should be regarded as an accomplice.
Obviously this requires discretion on the part of law enforcement agencies and, specifically, judges.
1. Last week I used RealOne's "check for updates" feature and it said there was a patch available so I told it to update. The update consisted of a full reinstallation, during which I had to give all of my details again and reset all of my settings and preferences to how they were before. Nice.
2. On my WinXP system, RealOne changes the "start navigation" setting in my sound scheme. (This is the sound that is played when, for example, you open a folder in Explorer. It's usually a click.) Worse, it doesn't just change the current scheme, it changes the *saved* scheme. For some reason it just doesn't want me to have a "start navigation" sound. It wants silence and it does everything it can to get it!
I use RealOne to listen to audio on the BBC's web site, mainly plays and comedy. Last week I contacted Real's customer support and asked (a) why it changes my sound scheme and (b) how can I stop it. Thankfully they wrote back and told me to simply... oh, hang on, no, they just ignored me.
However, I'm going to go out on a moral limb here and say that I don't feel much anger towards Real. But I *do* feel anger towards the BBC because they only make their audio available in a proprietary format which, in practical terms for most users, can only be used with Real's own software. The way I see it, I pay my license fee and I should be able to use the BBC's services without installing a piece of software that I don't like and don't want, made by a company with questionable ethics and poor customer service. The BBC should not be pushing their listeners/viewers towards a company like that.
I'm not best of friends with Adobe at the moment...
The other day I wanted to convert some audio files so I went to download Cool Edit, software which I last used several years ago. Turns out that Adobe bought out Syntrillium Software and have now discontinued Cool Edit and rebranded Cool Edit Pro as Adobe Audition. Fair enough. But now this $30 piece of software costs, wait for it, $300.
I'd guess that Adobe has improved the interface and now ships the product in nice packaging with a good manual. They also include 4,500 royalty-free loops. But a 1000% price hike?!
Too many of these pro-end companies have forgotten about the concept of price correlating to value. Cool Edit Pro was worth $30. Has Adobe really made it 10 times better?
I've frequently defended Adobe over the price of Photoshop. Now I'm not so sure.
A male friend of mine always plays as a female character, even to the point of using a female name in single player games. I've never understood the appeal.
But recently I've been thinking a lot about how much I'd like there to be a Matrix game that would allow me to play as Trinity, because she's my favourite character in the films. (In fact she's my favourite character in *all* films.)
So is it a gender thing or something else? I mean, I don't want to play as Trinity because she's female. I want to play as her because I like what she represents to me. So maybe all the guys who choose to play as a female characters are in fact attracted to the strengths and perceived weaknesses of females, rather than simply wanting to "be a girl" for a while.
Remember, men have an almost entirely positive, albeit somewhat idealised view of women. In a role-playing scenario, it is natural that you would want to play as a character that you like. Men instinctively like women.
Slashdot Mirror
... an overly-obsessive commitment to quality or it's sheer wanton incompetence.
Either way, the trouble with DNF's bloated development time is that it can now never be good enough. The longer people wait (under the promise of "we'll release it when it's perfect") the higher their expectations will be. Games, films, albums, etc have an upper limit to how good they can be. People's expectations can go much, much higher. I fear that 3DR are setting themselves up to have a turkey with this game, irrespective of how good it actually is.
I wonder if a possible film tie-in has anything to do with DNF's delays? If there's a film in the works then it would help both the film and the game if they come out at around the same time. Maybe the game's delays are due to the (unannounced and purely speculative) film's delays? Considering the antiquity of the game's engine and the outdated character, I'm sure 3DR would appreciate the guaranteed mass-market sales that a big summer action movie tie-in could generate.
Well let's see, we can safely assume that it fits into only ONE of these categories...
1. It has a message of anti-violence. Players are discouraged from seeing violence as a solution to a problem. Players are encouraged not to fight and are taught that they should just put their fists away and get on with their fellow man.
2. It's a fighting game with a focus on violence and the violence is intended to be fun.
Shock revelation time: The developer will make the game that will sell best!
Call me crazy but I'm guessing that a game that is said to "portray the brutality of street fighting while encompassing the action and story elements from the movie with intense visuals, untraditional moves, and bare-knuckle destruction" will NOT be anti-violence.
According to the director/actor commentary on the Fight Club DVD, the film is anti-violence. So doesn't a beat 'em up game tie-in completely miss the point?
Patents such as the example given at the top of the page should be illegal. They are without merit and are effectively premeditated malice as the company intends to play "law suit roulette" by suing as many companies as they can with the hope of winning more cases that they lose. Such patents are unhelpful to the human race as a whole and are damaging to the ethical companies who get caught up in the malicious law suits. Doesn't that sound to you like it should be a crime?
Weeeell... it's still creepy :-)
:-)
Sorry but I hate it when anyone refers to their admirers as "fans".
You know when you hear a singer/actor saying "I owe it all to my fans"? I pretty much lose all respect for that person as soon as the word comes out of their mouth. I mean, can you imagine ever reaching a point in your life when you could comfortably describe another person as your "fan"? The implication, in current times, is that the person is somehow inferior.
Saying "I'm a fan of so-and-so" is fine because it's an expression of admiration and respect. But saying, without any embarsassment and maybe even with some pride, "that person is a fan of me", reveals a grossly inflated self-image.
All of this in my not-so-humble opinion, of course!
I think Mr Turbine Spokesman will find that gamers are generally fans of a *game*, not the developer. Sure there are a few exceptions, Id for example, but it's kinda creepy to hear someone at a development company talking about the company itself having "fans". Surely he means customers? But then maybe that would be a bit too respectful.
As I said, I forget the exact ages... it may have been that he was 12 and she was 13 or whatever, but the point still stands that he is legally considered a paedophile, risk to children, etc, even though the girl he found sexually attractive was older than he was.
I'll order my copy tomorrow!
As will thousands of other people when they read this news.
Methinks we'll be seeing a lot more of this in future, ie: release software for free, let it become established for a few years, then discontinue the "free version" so people are, to some extent, forced to buy the commercial version.
Companies should either do free or commercial software, or both. They shouldn't establish their product as free and then start charging for it once people rely on it.
This strikes me as more of a long-term market-share strategy rather than a recent change of policy.
I don't like the fact that they charge you $9.99 for an initial three years, and then if you're still alive you need to keep paying top-ups to keep your account open.
Generally, people don't know that they will die in the next three years. There are exceptions of course but the majority of people, even the elderly, expect to be alive in three years. So the result will be that most people don't sign-up because they're waiting "until nearer the time". What if they get run over? Or they're killed? Well I guess their friends and loved ones won't get that last message because this company decided to charge a subscription fee rather than a one-off payment.
I want to use the phrase "emotional blackmail" but I don't think that's quite accurate. There's certainly something ugly about this service, though.
LOL!! I can't believe someone wasted a mod point to mod this down as off-topic!
I'm saying that this is how I personally think the law in any country should treat such cases.
If you ask me where Fred lives and I tell you he lives next door, that's fine. If you ask where you can hire a hitman and I tell you that Fred can do it for you and he lives next door, I could be an accomplice to murder.
Same with linking. If a site posts links to other sites and one (or more) of them contains something illegal, but the illegal content was neither the overt or covert reason for the link, then that should be fine. But if the purpose of the link is solely or primarily to help you do something illegal then the person posting the link should be regarded as an accomplice.
Obviously this requires discretion on the part of law enforcement agencies and, specifically, judges.
I agree with you on two counts...
1. Last week I used RealOne's "check for updates" feature and it said there was a patch available so I told it to update. The update consisted of a full reinstallation, during which I had to give all of my details again and reset all of my settings and preferences to how they were before. Nice.
2. On my WinXP system, RealOne changes the "start navigation" setting in my sound scheme. (This is the sound that is played when, for example, you open a folder in Explorer. It's usually a click.) Worse, it doesn't just change the current scheme, it changes the *saved* scheme. For some reason it just doesn't want me to have a "start navigation" sound. It wants silence and it does everything it can to get it!
I use RealOne to listen to audio on the BBC's web site, mainly plays and comedy. Last week I contacted Real's customer support and asked (a) why it changes my sound scheme and (b) how can I stop it. Thankfully they wrote back and told me to simply... oh, hang on, no, they just ignored me.
However, I'm going to go out on a moral limb here and say that I don't feel much anger towards Real. But I *do* feel anger towards the BBC because they only make their audio available in a proprietary format which, in practical terms for most users, can only be used with Real's own software. The way I see it, I pay my license fee and I should be able to use the BBC's services without installing a piece of software that I don't like and don't want, made by a company with questionable ethics and poor customer service. The BBC should not be pushing their listeners/viewers towards a company like that.
I'm not best of friends with Adobe at the moment...
The other day I wanted to convert some audio files so I went to download Cool Edit, software which I last used several years ago. Turns out that Adobe bought out Syntrillium Software and have now discontinued Cool Edit and rebranded Cool Edit Pro as Adobe Audition. Fair enough. But now this $30 piece of software costs, wait for it, $300.
I'd guess that Adobe has improved the interface and now ships the product in nice packaging with a good manual. They also include 4,500 royalty-free loops. But a 1000% price hike?!
Too many of these pro-end companies have forgotten about the concept of price correlating to value. Cool Edit Pro was worth $30. Has Adobe really made it 10 times better?
I've frequently defended Adobe over the price of Photoshop. Now I'm not so sure.
A male friend of mine always plays as a female character, even to the point of using a female name in single player games. I've never understood the appeal.
But recently I've been thinking a lot about how much I'd like there to be a Matrix game that would allow me to play as Trinity, because she's my favourite character in the films. (In fact she's my favourite character in *all* films.)
So is it a gender thing or something else? I mean, I don't want to play as Trinity because she's female. I want to play as her because I like what she represents to me. So maybe all the guys who choose to play as a female characters are in fact attracted to the strengths and perceived weaknesses of females, rather than simply wanting to "be a girl" for a while.
Remember, men have an almost entirely positive, albeit somewhat idealised view of women. In a role-playing scenario, it is natural that you would want to play as a character that you like. Men instinctively like women.