The military does use games similar to GR, TacOps, etc to help their special forces with tactics and such. But yea, these guys are already SF material, they're not geeky kids to begin with.
Hobby seems to fit more then an actual job; since only very few in the many thousands of players across the world actually sees any money from this stuff.
If you use their newsbot long enough, I think most people would figure out that.. "Hey, I always get MSNBC hits first, EVERY SINGLE TIME." Maybe some people will like MSNBC but the service will end up being considered an MSNBC search bot instead of a general news search.
ATRAC has been around for a long time, with their Minidisc players. And actually, ATRAC sounds pretty good. My minidisc player can record audio from an optical audio source and the result is outstanding duplication of sound.
The new ATRAC3 might not be as good, though (although I doubt it's worse) so the fault likely lies in two factors: Converting from one lossy format to another, basically you decompress the MP3 to uncompressed audio then re-compress to ATRAC. It's not going to sound even as good as the MP3. The other factor could possibly be that the software itself does not make a good implimentation of ATRAC.
All things being equal, it would take you roughly 40 hours to convert your audio, not 460. It's still a long time, but it's not completely un-doable like 460 hours.
Yes, it's so true. My old "lollipop" qualcomm phone was so good sounding and clear that it was just as bit as good as a land line. The new phones all sound like garbage.
I don't *want* my cell phone to have all these features. It's expendable. I carry the thing everywhere and they get broken. They are utilities for placing/recieving phone calls on the road.
I don't want my MP3 player, camera, and lord knows what, in my phone. It's too liable to be dropped, broken, lost, or stolen. With my expensive MP3 players and my expensive cameras, they stay in my pocket or bag 99% of the time. The phone is in my hand, in the dashboard holder, a lot more.
I'd just have a cheap phone with good battery life and easy menu system to store phone numbers. I don't need anything more then that.
And like one of the other guys mentioned above, the cameras in these things are crap anyways. Who cares if they are 3MP; the tiny optics prevent a great picture no matter how big the sample rate is.
The only problem is that 3Ware cards (the ones with more then 2 drive support) require 64-bit PCI slots.
So, you'll looking at needing a board with 64-Bit pci slots which aren't the easiest to find, and they are expensive.
BUT. The 3Ware cards are cheap. In fact, you can skip the Serial ATA stuff, and go with cheaper IDE ATA drives. 3Ware makes an 8-drive IDE cable raid card that you can get for $360. It will do most raid configurations including RAID 5. It's sweet! Of course, the SATA stuff is a lot cheaper now, so you'll pay only probably $20 more per drive and the controller is about $100 more.
Hook up eight 250GB drives, pay $1200 for the drives, and get 1750 GB of usable space that's fault tolerant. Sure, you could go with one of those Apple server jobs, and pay $0.69 per Gigabyte instead of $2.90. SATA configuration for the same storage would be around $0.79 per Gigabyte. Add in the rest of the stuff, like the PC/board, controller, and case, you're looking at $1700 for a total system.
Expandability? You can put up to four 3Ware cards in a single system.
One of the problems with a game like Everquest, for example, is that when you do high level content you need your guild/raid members to be somewhat reliable. Meaning, you need a certian dynamic online or you won't be able to accomplish the task so you need your people online if something should need to be done.
This doesn't play very well for a very casual player. The only way to make this type of high level content available to everyone is to simply take away raid encounters and replace them with one-group encounters. This isn't something that I'd like to see happen.
EQ has had such longevity because of raiding. Getting 60 or more people together, all working together to get something done - there's *nothing* else that can match that level of game play right now.
We don't know if he has a mouth. You only need fingers to post on slashdot. Okay, that's not entirely true either; there's machines that can read your eye movement for data too.
I agree, it's for fun. And for the majority of raiding-class players in EQ, it's still great fun. Usually the loud people are the ones that discovered that you have to invest more time into the game if you want to get into even more of the content. People aren't happy if they can't see 100% of the game while investing 2 hours a week.
It's a very complex situation and I look forward to every release of new MMORPG's to see what the next guy came up with.
Really, I understand what you're trying to say here, but jesus, you want to be rewarded for simply paying for the game. That's not in the spirit of the game if you ask me.
If you can't invest the time into the game, then don't play this kind of game. It doesn't matter WHAT kind of MMORPG it is, or how it may be geared to the casual player - you'll never be able to do anything with 1 hour a week. Be realistic!
You never have to camp a mob for hours in EQ. EVER. You can have a perfectly great character with the best items in the game and never camp one stupid item. You only do this is you choose to do it.
I don't know what Everquest you played, but in the one I played, you DID get rewarded for fighting and exploring. Explain to me where you did not?
You can't say "There's a reason why people find them to be lame games." No, there's a reason for YOU to find it to be lame. Don't speak for "the people." No matter what it is, from cars to sports to video games, there will be people that don't like whatever it is.
Again, I won't say EQ is perfect, because it sure as hell is not. But they've been trying to remove the things that people like you bitch about so much, and the games aren't being successful.
Everquest has certainly changed a lot. But, it's an old game. They musn't be getting a lot of new players these days. In order to keep the players they do have (which is still significant) they've been doing things just to keep people happy. The teleport systems will get you anywhere and it does take away a lot of things, but it makes it easier for old friends in the game to play together easier. It's a lot easier for raids to assemble quickly.
I was dissapointed with SWG. But, I do have some hopes for Everquest II. I just hope it's not SWG with magic instead of lightsabers.
"Personally, I'd rather "work" for my items by going new places and doing new things.".. and that would take *time* and what's the big difference here? Of course, it would take the active player a fraction of the time that it would take you, and they'd have every single quest completed in no time, leaving nothing to do until the next expansion - at which time you'll still have all the old content to run through and you'll get even further left in the dust.
Your ideas are fine (and pretty much in use now) but they wouldn't change a single thing if they were new ideas.
This is how it works in EQ on some of the PVP servers. You can't attack someone +/- 5 levels of you.
SWG is a little different, because there's no levels, just skills. You have a chance to defeat any PvP enemy, although it's easier if you have good weapons and the skills to use them. It would be very difficult to limit who you can attack in this game because there's so many different mixes of skills you can have.
Slashdot Mirror
And that's different because...?
The military does use games similar to GR, TacOps, etc to help their special forces with tactics and such. But yea, these guys are already SF material, they're not geeky kids to begin with.
Hobby seems to fit more then an actual job; since only very few in the many thousands of players across the world actually sees any money from this stuff.
They are calling it an Internet news search, but it's going to be mostly searching their own site.
I'm not buying anything.
If you use their newsbot long enough, I think most people would figure out that.. "Hey, I always get MSNBC hits first, EVERY SINGLE TIME." Maybe some people will like MSNBC but the service will end up being considered an MSNBC search bot instead of a general news search.
ATRAC has been around for a long time, with their Minidisc players. And actually, ATRAC sounds pretty good. My minidisc player can record audio from an optical audio source and the result is outstanding duplication of sound.
The new ATRAC3 might not be as good, though (although I doubt it's worse) so the fault likely lies in two factors: Converting from one lossy format to another, basically you decompress the MP3 to uncompressed audio then re-compress to ATRAC. It's not going to sound even as good as the MP3. The other factor could possibly be that the software itself does not make a good implimentation of ATRAC.
All things being equal, it would take you roughly 40 hours to convert your audio, not 460. It's still a long time, but it's not completely un-doable like 460 hours.
Not sure how math works where you live..
Yes, it's so true. My old "lollipop" qualcomm phone was so good sounding and clear that it was just as bit as good as a land line. The new phones all sound like garbage.
Not sure I understand. It's a problem now, because I can't see the links!
Who's whining? Me because you disagree with me? That's what I thought. So typical.
/. if you can't handle it.
I'm just stating my opinion, which is what this forum is about, so you can go cry in the corner and stay away from
I don't *want* my cell phone to have all these features. It's expendable. I carry the thing everywhere and they get broken. They are utilities for placing/recieving phone calls on the road.
I don't want my MP3 player, camera, and lord knows what, in my phone. It's too liable to be dropped, broken, lost, or stolen. With my expensive MP3 players and my expensive cameras, they stay in my pocket or bag 99% of the time. The phone is in my hand, in the dashboard holder, a lot more.
I'd just have a cheap phone with good battery life and easy menu system to store phone numbers. I don't need anything more then that.
And like one of the other guys mentioned above, the cameras in these things are crap anyways. Who cares if they are 3MP; the tiny optics prevent a great picture no matter how big the sample rate is.
The only problem is that 3Ware cards (the ones with more then 2 drive support) require 64-bit PCI slots.
So, you'll looking at needing a board with 64-Bit pci slots which aren't the easiest to find, and they are expensive.
BUT. The 3Ware cards are cheap. In fact, you can skip the Serial ATA stuff, and go with cheaper IDE ATA drives. 3Ware makes an 8-drive IDE cable raid card that you can get for $360. It will do most raid configurations including RAID 5. It's sweet! Of course, the SATA stuff is a lot cheaper now, so you'll pay only probably $20 more per drive and the controller is about $100 more.
Hook up eight 250GB drives, pay $1200 for the drives, and get 1750 GB of usable space that's fault tolerant. Sure, you could go with one of those Apple server jobs, and pay $0.69 per Gigabyte instead of $2.90. SATA configuration for the same storage would be around $0.79 per Gigabyte. Add in the rest of the stuff, like the PC/board, controller, and case, you're looking at $1700 for a total system.
Expandability? You can put up to four 3Ware cards in a single system.
It might be loud but it's a LOT of space! =)
Yea and there's a whole new set of DVD Drives that do double layer writing now.
The drives are really cheap too, no more then your normal DVD-R drive a year ago.
Of course, the media will need to come down on price; but that happens quickly and I expect the media to be cheap by 2005.
The light beige color makes anything that's a link blend in with the white background too much. I have to strain to read them.
I don't mind the colors in general, but the links need to be a darker color.
Damn, he had the perfect opportunity to call it KASH and he didn't. Moron.
One of the problems with a game like Everquest, for example, is that when you do high level content you need your guild/raid members to be somewhat reliable. Meaning, you need a certian dynamic online or you won't be able to accomplish the task so you need your people online if something should need to be done.
This doesn't play very well for a very casual player. The only way to make this type of high level content available to everyone is to simply take away raid encounters and replace them with one-group encounters. This isn't something that I'd like to see happen.
EQ has had such longevity because of raiding. Getting 60 or more people together, all working together to get something done - there's *nothing* else that can match that level of game play right now.
We don't know if he has a mouth. You only need fingers to post on slashdot. Okay, that's not entirely true either; there's machines that can read your eye movement for data too.
Because the web site has been slashdotted for a week. Now it's probably even worse with this new post.
This is good for Sal, though, since none of us can read anything on Justin's site.
I agree, it's for fun. And for the majority of raiding-class players in EQ, it's still great fun. Usually the loud people are the ones that discovered that you have to invest more time into the game if you want to get into even more of the content. People aren't happy if they can't see 100% of the game while investing 2 hours a week.
It's a very complex situation and I look forward to every release of new MMORPG's to see what the next guy came up with.
Really, I understand what you're trying to say here, but jesus, you want to be rewarded for simply paying for the game. That's not in the spirit of the game if you ask me.
If you can't invest the time into the game, then don't play this kind of game. It doesn't matter WHAT kind of MMORPG it is, or how it may be geared to the casual player - you'll never be able to do anything with 1 hour a week. Be realistic!
You never have to camp a mob for hours in EQ. EVER. You can have a perfectly great character with the best items in the game and never camp one stupid item. You only do this is you choose to do it.
I don't know what Everquest you played, but in the one I played, you DID get rewarded for fighting and exploring. Explain to me where you did not?
You can't say "There's a reason why people find them to be lame games." No, there's a reason for YOU to find it to be lame. Don't speak for "the people." No matter what it is, from cars to sports to video games, there will be people that don't like whatever it is.
Again, I won't say EQ is perfect, because it sure as hell is not. But they've been trying to remove the things that people like you bitch about so much, and the games aren't being successful.
I agree to a large extent of what you've said.
Everquest has certainly changed a lot. But, it's an old game. They musn't be getting a lot of new players these days. In order to keep the players they do have (which is still significant) they've been doing things just to keep people happy. The teleport systems will get you anywhere and it does take away a lot of things, but it makes it easier for old friends in the game to play together easier. It's a lot easier for raids to assemble quickly.
I was dissapointed with SWG. But, I do have some hopes for Everquest II. I just hope it's not SWG with magic instead of lightsabers.
"Personally, I'd rather "work" for my items by going new places and doing new things." .. and that would take *time* and what's the big difference here? Of course, it would take the active player a fraction of the time that it would take you, and they'd have every single quest completed in no time, leaving nothing to do until the next expansion - at which time you'll still have all the old content to run through and you'll get even further left in the dust.
Your ideas are fine (and pretty much in use now) but they wouldn't change a single thing if they were new ideas.
This is how it works in EQ on some of the PVP servers. You can't attack someone +/- 5 levels of you.
SWG is a little different, because there's no levels, just skills. You have a chance to defeat any PvP enemy, although it's easier if you have good weapons and the skills to use them. It would be very difficult to limit who you can attack in this game because there's so many different mixes of skills you can have.
Don't get too excited. WoW is Everquest without the fun and excitement.