The more money is involved, the less creative it gets. Because creativity is a risk and risk scares investors away.
So, a lot of people tap their games's ideas from the little pond of type of games that are successful like RPG, Shooters and GTA style.
As soon as games starts fading out (if they ever do) then we will see creativity because developpers will fight themselves to obtain funding from the rarer investors.
Hum yes, Its not fair for Oblivion to compare it to FF4-5-6-7-9 because they're just all better in my opinion.
But lets not mix apples and oranges. FF & Oblivion are not the same type of RPGs. They're both beautiful games (in terms of graphical eye candy - for when their time anyway).
Oblivion is more about freedom, exploration and interactivity while FF is more about your classical RPG where the hero saves the princess from the raging dragon.
But i have to admit that square enyx has done a good job at disapointing me with some of their latest installments, notably, FFVIII and FFX (and x-2) I havent played the online game and not quite looking forward to play FFXII, because they've become shallow - compared to my beloved 4-5-6-7-9 whose story was quite compelling.
What this really means to me...
on
DDO Goes Solo
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
What this really means to me is that unfortunately, Turbine's got a bad product on its hands (again) and now they're entering survival mode by just giving up and altering the game they made. You know, when game gets old, its normal that it receives an overhaul to give it some fresh air but...at the beginning like that ? hum...scary...
In fact, im pretty sure DDO can be quite a cool game with various strategies..meant for the true D&D fan at heart. The cold hard fact is that people dont play online to play the way they do on the table with P&P. They just wanna bash stuff, get loot and fat xp:)
I said it when turbine came up with AC2 and I'll say it again, they need a game that offer an immersive solo player experience and not only for the beginning of game, for the WHOLE game. You know, another poster said the same thing in this thread. When i go online, what i like to do is chat with my guild, trade with people and go hunting on my merry own or maybe with two or three personal friends. I rarely have more than two hours in a row so I cant afford big groups with lots of coordination, nature calls, laundry breaks and knockings at the door, not that its bad, but on the large scale, thats very time consuming.
playing a mmo for me means interacting with people not being forced to be with a big bunch of PUGs just because my quests forces me to group. That is immensely why wow is so successful. Sure for high end instances you are forced to group for the majority of the quests, you can solo them if feel like so.
People keep saying that soloing quests defeats the purpose of playing a mmo but i disagree, I like to play alone or with close friend but I like mmos because I can interact with people. that is what mmo means to me.
It's easy, if you cannot make a good argument against VB, or preferably, a good argument for your preferate language, then just stick to VB.
After all, he's your boss and he's got the right to decide which language he prefers.
Look at it this way, of course, vb 6.0 (i assume thats the vb you speak of) is not so great, mainly because its not scalable, its single-threaded with a truckload of overheads that kills the performance.
*but* IT IS possible to write something efficient in VB6, its just harder. So you can think of it as a way to test your skills.
Plus, learning a new language, especially for a small company, has a lot of risks involved because the company may not have the backbone to support the financial delays associated to the learning curve of a new language. Moving from VB6 to VB.net isnt that bad (and vb.net is FAR more efficient than vb6) but there's still a learning curve to it, mainly because the programmer really has to start thinking in terms of OOP, which VB6 doesnt support at all (it merely lets you implement interfaces).
lets say there are 5 programmers on the team, all earning 40k per year. and lets say the average programmer will take about 2 months before being comfortable and productive in the new language (vb.net, c#, ruby....whatever you choose) then the financial burden on the company, the risk is :
for a small company, $33,000 is a lot of money, so right there you can see why your boss is reticent.
not to mention it may cost more if for some reason the team is forced to go back to VB6 because say.... there's component only compatible with VB6 that needs to be used and you only find out after a month or so.
So in fact, what he's saying is that games arent the greater evil that drives our teens nuts ? That in fact parents should take responsiblity and raise them better... wow, I must be dreaming....
We have to admit that movies & games *are* getting more and more explicit & gory in days where we actually attempt to control that very same violence. ESRB just being there to relieve the non caring parents from having to decide what's good for their kids or not. Sure I could believe that a mentally challenged kid could see a movie like...hum..Doom, Silent Hill or play a game like God of War and start thinking its right but we know that the kid is...not right to begin with so you can't really blame the media but the person who allowed the media to be in contact with the mentally challenged kid.
I've been playing countless violent games and watched even more violent movies and yet my last fight goes back to when i was in high school and merely resulted in a bloody nose and a hand that hurted like hell.
I can sense the pun here.... man, i just WISH!!! i had access to the girls dorm when i was a student.... wouldnt have had to go thru so much trouble to get in and stay in overnight:)
Wow, is it me or Sony is doing all the wrong moves lately ?
I'm beginning to think they're relying too much on their reputation now. When the 360 came out, I thought I'd just wait for the PS3 since I loved the PS2/PSOne so much
but now.... I think I'm gonna jump on the Wii bandwagon or possibly the 360.
Well... they might as well make owning cars illegal because bank robbers will typically be using them to escape.
They should also consider forbidding the sale of nylon socks since a lot of criminal do use them to hide their face.
That's pretty sad that they ready to forbid everyone to use something because hackers uses them. Because in the end....hackers already have these tools and will still find a way to get their hands on it which will make the situation globally unchanged.
well, the fact that previous consoles who sold for a high price failed is not a guarantee that selling a console for a high price will make it fail. What these consoles failed to prove is that a higher price would provide a higher customer experience, a better gaming experience.
I guess all we can do right now is speculate and wait to see if the PS3 will deliver, I can't see myself buying it for the blue-ray or the HDTV capability since i dont even have a HDTV, but if sony proves me that their Ps3 will deliver more excitement than a 360 or a Wii would, then they're gonna have my cash.
Right now, I'm leaning toward the wii, even if i prefered its previous name:) Nintendo lost its leader position when Sony entered the market, but something tells me that this time around Nintendo will come out as the winner even if it offers the least powerful console for this next-gen console war. but not because its cheap but because it concentrates on the user experience AND highly family-oriented whereas MS & Sony are more hum... teen oriented ?
I havent seen Twin Peaks so I wouldnt know but I think I know where you're going, there are genuine good animes out there. Either because they're original or just lovable (like Ebichu.. lol)
I'm not saying all animes are in the same basket, I'm saying animes arent largely different from the kind of culture we're being submitted to on this side of the continent. There are plenty of US-made shows I liked too - Carnivale for instance, or Schindler's list in the movie department.
But now you got my interest, I'll find out more about Twin Peaks.
Hum... well... I'm a lot into animes too but I have to tell you that I think you are dead wrong when you say that animes dont carry the same popular crap & cliches that american shows do.
It is in fact a huge nippon pop culture invasion on the american land. what i mean is, this is to japan as what jerry springer is to america.
Mangas are the pulse of japan, it reflects their values, what they like, dont like...etc.. just like what american shows do here.
I have to agree that it is different, thats what i like about it but i dont kid myself, i know what whenever I watch something like this, I'm filling my mind with the same crappy quality as if I'd be watching survivor or whatever other american show.
My guess is that only RPGs appeal to gamers as MMOs. Or maybe its the only type of game they can successfully scale on tens of thousands of players at the same time ?
Personally, I'd love to see
Hockey MMOs, Driving MMOs (actually, EA tried that one, I remember buying the game, playing it, it was fun but it never picked up as a whole - LOL cant remember the name either)
I'd also love to see games like Ages of Empires on a MMO level. I mean... *really* conquer the world this time:) but the problem with games like that is what happens once you leave the game ? how do you protect your empire ?
That's why RPG are the perfect genre, once you leave, the world goes on like you never logged in to begin with. -- Not to mention Asian people just crave RPGs --
But I'm sure that at some point, someone will realize that the RPG MMO market is getting saturated... or stolen by WoW and someone will try something different.
Assuming this "study" has anykind of seriousness, this is bad news for sony because they're trying to build the ultimate living room entertainment system (Blue-ray, cell cpu, big hd, wireless...etc) but if the sony fan base doesn't care so much about what they offer, not a ton of people will be ready to buy the console just because they're longtime sony buyers.
I've been a sony fan for quite some time and I am beginning to wonder where exactly is sony going with its PS3.
People are all too early to talk against Quebec people. But from my point of view, both western canada & eastern canada hate themselve. if you go to western canada and start speaking french you'll be hated just as much as if someone from alberta lands in quebec city and starts speaking english.
most of the young adult's population of quebec province, which i am part of, doesn't give a rat's ass about separation, because in the end, there's nothing to be gained and too much to be lost - all for what, a political statement.
Yeah, sure, we're surrounded by english people, us having to learn english is kind of annoying but that's the way it is. And you know what, I know a lot of english people who learned french, which I think is great.
maybe the younged people of canada are more aware of the stupidity of fighting over language ?? i dont know, but Quebec separation isnt gonna happen and over time it will all be settled. I don't think it means we'll lose our french all together, it only means a lot of quebec citizens will be bilingual, where's the harm in that ? does that mean we can't speak french between each other? of course not! it will allow us to do more business with the rest of canada and the U.S. - what is there to lose ?
I work for federal government of canada, I speak, write & read english everyday, maybe that's why i see things this way, but trust me, when i get home, when i go out with my buddies im as quebecer as it gets when i get on MSN, ICQ or even on good ole phone, I curse like there's no tomorrow and I speak french just the same way a texan speaks english.... and i dont feel one bit less quebecer because i work in english all day.
After completing the registration and putting some comments I was denied registration because i dont live in the US....why did they let me speciy a province/country/postal code if they only accept U.S. people ?
These guys thinks too much. We've read it before, we've seen that before.... movies based on games are, more often than not, crappy.
Not because the producer fails to grasp the concept of game or because it lacks the player involvement or any sense of reality.
Let me break the hard truth on you : budget.
There are 2 scenarios : 1. A small producer trying to get some movies under his name because it fits nice on a resume. Its like acculumating hours of flights for a pilot. He'll take a quick project, small budget movie just to get experience
2. Big producer accepting the project for a big budget movie, but he'll use only a fraction of that budget because people tend to except low quality anyway. He'll use the remaining budget to fund a big movie that will catter to a much bigger audience, rewarding him with more money.
I'm so annoyed at what G4 became... and is becoming even more. SpikeTV already requires a very low IQ to remotely appreciate and it seems G4 now wants to appeal to the same public.
Are they trying to tell us they think gamers/techies have low IQs, that we like shows filled with cliches and pop crap ?
OK, so now we need a new tech tv, where we'll be able to watch... tech stuff because I really don't care about jessica alba's latest iPod!
Personally I think its great. Any price drop is great in fact.
My personal bet is that they're trying to "pre-compensate" for the lost of money they'll make when they start selling the PS3's because you can bet your ass they'll be losing money on it to catch up on XBox.
Besides, at 129$, that's not too bad, It'll allow me to play the games I can't play anymore because my current ps2's len is too worn out to read anymore.
I find it funny how people like to believe its a leak.
I am much more enclined to believe the big N is building up hype around its now famous revolution controller. Which makes perfect sense since they're getting close to release now.
At least SL is true to its name.... second...life.
would you expect anything else from a game mimicking real life ?
Although I find it strange and wouldnt use that service, I have to admit if those people find satisfaction using those services, so be it, good for them....i prefer my inflatable doll:)
Slashdot Mirror
You know, it was bound to happen.
The more money is involved, the less creative it gets. Because creativity is a risk and risk scares investors away.
So, a lot of people tap their games's ideas from the little pond of type of games that are successful like RPG, Shooters and GTA style.
As soon as games starts fading out (if they ever do) then we will see creativity because developpers will fight themselves to obtain funding from the rarer investors.
Hum yes, Its not fair for Oblivion to compare it to FF4-5-6-7-9 because they're just all better in my opinion.
But lets not mix apples and oranges. FF & Oblivion are not the same type of RPGs. They're both beautiful games (in terms of graphical eye candy - for when their time anyway).
Oblivion is more about freedom, exploration and interactivity while FF is more about your classical RPG where the hero saves the princess from the raging dragon.
But i have to admit that square enyx has done a good job at disapointing me with some of their latest installments, notably, FFVIII and FFX (and x-2) I havent played the online game and not quite looking forward to play FFXII, because they've become shallow - compared to my beloved 4-5-6-7-9 whose story was quite compelling.
What this really means to me is that unfortunately, Turbine's got a bad product on its hands (again) and now they're entering survival mode by just giving up and altering the game they made. You know, when game gets old, its normal that it receives an overhaul to give it some fresh air but...at the beginning like that ? hum...scary...
:)
In fact, im pretty sure DDO can be quite a cool game with various strategies..meant for the true D&D fan at heart. The cold hard fact is that people dont play online to play the way they do on the table with P&P. They just wanna bash stuff, get loot and fat xp
I said it when turbine came up with AC2 and I'll say it again, they need a game that offer an immersive solo player experience and not only for the beginning of game, for the WHOLE game. You know, another poster said the same thing in this thread. When i go online, what i like to do is chat with my guild, trade with people and go hunting on my merry own or maybe with two or three personal friends. I rarely have more than two hours in a row so I cant afford big groups with lots of coordination, nature calls, laundry breaks and knockings at the door, not that its bad, but on the large scale, thats very time consuming.
playing a mmo for me means interacting with people not being forced to be with a big bunch of PUGs just because my quests forces me to group. That is immensely why wow is so successful. Sure for high end instances you are forced to group for the majority of the quests, you can solo them if feel like so.
People keep saying that soloing quests defeats the purpose of playing a mmo but i disagree, I like to play alone or with close friend but I like mmos because I can interact with people. that is what mmo means to me.
It's easy, if you cannot make a good argument against VB, or preferably, a good argument for your preferate language, then just stick to VB.
After all, he's your boss and he's got the right to decide which language he prefers.
Look at it this way, of course, vb 6.0 (i assume thats the vb you speak of) is not so great, mainly because its not scalable, its single-threaded with a truckload of overheads that kills the performance.
*but* IT IS possible to write something efficient in VB6, its just harder. So you can think of it as a way to test your skills.
Plus, learning a new language, especially for a small company, has a lot of risks involved because the company may not have the backbone to support the financial delays associated to the learning curve of a new language. Moving from VB6 to VB.net isnt that bad (and vb.net is FAR more efficient than vb6) but there's still a learning curve to it, mainly because the programmer really has to start thinking in terms of OOP, which VB6 doesnt support at all (it merely lets you implement interfaces).
lets say there are 5 programmers on the team, all earning 40k per year. and lets say the average programmer will take about 2 months before being comfortable and productive in the new language (vb.net, c#, ruby....whatever you choose) then the financial burden on the company, the risk is :
(40k/12 months) * 2 * (5 programmers) = roughly $33,000
for a small company, $33,000 is a lot of money, so right there you can see why your boss is reticent.
not to mention it may cost more if for some reason the team is forced to go back to VB6 because say.... there's component only compatible with VB6 that needs to be used and you only find out after a month or so.
So in fact, what he's saying is that games arent the greater evil that drives our teens nuts ? That in fact parents should take responsiblity and raise them better... wow, I must be dreaming....
...not right to begin with so you can't really blame the media but the person who allowed the media to be in contact with the mentally challenged kid.
We have to admit that movies & games *are* getting more and more explicit & gory in days where we actually attempt to control that very same violence. ESRB just being there to relieve the non caring parents from having to decide what's good for their kids or not. Sure I could believe that a mentally challenged kid could see a movie like...hum..Doom, Silent Hill or play a game like God of War and start thinking its right but we know that the kid is
I've been playing countless violent games and watched even more violent movies and yet my last fight goes back to when i was in high school and merely resulted in a bloody nose and a hand that hurted like hell.
I can sense the pun here.... man, i just WISH!!! i had access to the girls dorm when i was a student.... wouldnt have had to go thru so much trouble to get in and stay in overnight :)
Wow, is it me or Sony is doing all the wrong moves lately ?
I'm beginning to think they're relying too much on their reputation now. When the 360 came out, I thought I'd just wait for the PS3 since I loved the PS2/PSOne so much
but now.... I think I'm gonna jump on the Wii bandwagon or possibly the 360.
Well... they might as well make owning cars illegal because bank robbers will typically be using them to escape.
They should also consider forbidding the sale of nylon socks since a lot of criminal do use them to hide their face.
That's pretty sad that they ready to forbid everyone to use something because hackers uses them. Because in the end....hackers already have these tools and will still find a way to get their hands on it which will make the situation globally unchanged.
well, the fact that previous consoles who sold for a high price failed is not a guarantee that selling a console for a high price will make it fail. What these consoles failed to prove is that a higher price would provide a higher customer experience, a better gaming experience.
:) Nintendo lost its leader position when Sony entered the market, but something tells me that this time around Nintendo will come out as the winner even if it offers the least powerful console for this next-gen console war. but not because its cheap but because it concentrates on the user experience AND highly family-oriented whereas MS & Sony are more hum... teen oriented ?
I guess all we can do right now is speculate and wait to see if the PS3 will deliver, I can't see myself buying it for the blue-ray or the HDTV capability since i dont even have a HDTV, but if sony proves me that their Ps3 will deliver more excitement than a 360 or a Wii would, then they're gonna have my cash.
Right now, I'm leaning toward the wii, even if i prefered its previous name
>>I wonder why the sequel isn't a PS3 title. Surely it would be appearing about the same time as the new platform making it a perfect candidate.
:)
They figured that since no one will buy the PS3 because of the price they might as well get some money back by selling GoW2 for the PS2
I havent seen Twin Peaks so I wouldnt know but I think I know where you're going, there are genuine good animes out there. Either because they're original or just lovable (like Ebichu.. lol)
I'm not saying all animes are in the same basket, I'm saying animes arent largely different from the kind of culture we're being submitted to on this side of the continent. There are plenty of US-made shows I liked too - Carnivale for instance, or Schindler's list in the movie department.
But now you got my interest, I'll find out more about Twin Peaks.
Hum... well... I'm a lot into animes too but I have to tell you that I think you are dead wrong when you say that animes dont carry the same popular crap & cliches that american shows do.
It is in fact a huge nippon pop culture invasion on the american land. what i mean is, this is to japan as what jerry springer is to america.
Mangas are the pulse of japan, it reflects their values, what they like, dont like...etc.. just like what american shows do here.
I have to agree that it is different, thats what i like about it but i dont kid myself, i know what whenever I watch something like this, I'm filling my mind with the same crappy quality as if I'd be watching survivor or whatever other american show.
My guess is that only RPGs appeal to gamers as MMOs. Or maybe its the only type of game they can successfully scale on tens of thousands of players at the same time ?
:) but the problem with games like that is what happens once you leave the game ? how do you protect your empire ?
... or stolen by WoW and someone will try something different.
Personally, I'd love to see
Hockey MMOs,
Driving MMOs (actually, EA tried that one, I remember buying the game, playing it, it was fun but it never picked up as a whole - LOL cant remember the name either)
I'd also love to see games like Ages of Empires on a MMO level. I mean... *really* conquer the world this time
That's why RPG are the perfect genre, once you leave, the world goes on like you never logged in to begin with. -- Not to mention Asian people just crave RPGs --
But I'm sure that at some point, someone will realize that the RPG MMO market is getting saturated
Assuming this "study" has anykind of seriousness, this is bad news for sony because they're trying to build the ultimate living room entertainment system (Blue-ray, cell cpu, big hd, wireless...etc) but if the sony fan base doesn't care so much about what they offer, not a ton of people will be ready to buy the console just because they're longtime sony buyers.
I've been a sony fan for quite some time and I am beginning to wonder where exactly is sony going with its PS3.
I'm not too sure since I'm not a big pro in the brain waves department but heh, that would be cool.
If someone said its possible its because they saw the beginning of a way to do this.
Sure it looks funky but heh... I can still read that famous phrase :
"256k of RAM outta be enough for everyone...."
People are all too early to talk against Quebec people. But from my point of view, both western canada & eastern canada hate themselve. if you go to western canada and start speaking french you'll be hated just as much as if someone from alberta lands in quebec city and starts speaking english.
... and i dont feel one bit less quebecer because i work in english all day.
most of the young adult's population of quebec province, which i am part of, doesn't give a rat's ass about separation, because in the end, there's nothing to be gained and too much to be lost - all for what, a political statement.
Yeah, sure, we're surrounded by english people, us having to learn english is kind of annoying but that's the way it is. And you know what, I know a lot of english people who learned french, which I think is great.
maybe the younged people of canada are more aware of the stupidity of fighting over language ?? i dont know, but Quebec separation isnt gonna happen and over time it will all be settled. I don't think it means we'll lose our french all together, it only means a lot of quebec citizens will be bilingual, where's the harm in that ? does that mean we can't speak french between each other? of course not! it will allow us to do more business with the rest of canada and the U.S. - what is there to lose ?
I work for federal government of canada, I speak, write & read english everyday, maybe that's why i see things this way, but trust me, when i get home, when i go out with my buddies im as quebecer as it gets when i get on MSN, ICQ or even on good ole phone, I curse like there's no tomorrow and I speak french just the same way a texan speaks english.
You know a software is off to a bad start when the product isnt even out yet and they're already talking about bugs & features.
I tried to register this morning to offer support
...why did they let me speciy a province/country/postal code if they only accept U.S. people ?
After completing the registration and putting some comments I was denied registration because i dont live in the US.
Looking at your history (http://slashdot.org/~j0nkatz) its obvious you have a way with words.
I wonder why you bother talking to us, you're way too cool to hang with nerds like us.
These guys thinks too much. We've read it before, we've seen that before.... movies based on games are, more often than not, crappy.
:)
Not because the producer fails to grasp the concept of game or because it lacks the player involvement or any sense of reality.
Let me break the hard truth on you : budget.
There are 2 scenarios :
1. A small producer trying to get some movies under his name because it fits nice on a resume. Its like acculumating hours of flights for a pilot. He'll take a quick project, small budget movie just to get experience
2. Big producer accepting the project for a big budget movie, but he'll use only a fraction of that budget because people tend to except low quality anyway. He'll use the remaining budget to fund a big movie that will catter to a much bigger audience, rewarding him with more money.
Its all about the money really.
Well, anyway, that's my 2c
Please mod that parent up!
... and is becoming even more. SpikeTV already requires a very low IQ to remotely appreciate and it seems G4 now wants to appeal to the same public.
I'm so annoyed at what G4 became
Are they trying to tell us they think gamers/techies have low IQs, that we like shows filled with cliches and pop crap ?
OK, so now we need a new tech tv, where we'll be able to watch... tech stuff because I really don't care about jessica alba's latest iPod!
Personally I think its great. Any price drop is great in fact.
My personal bet is that they're trying to "pre-compensate" for the lost of money they'll make when they start selling the PS3's because you can bet your ass they'll be losing money on it to catch up on XBox.
Besides, at 129$, that's not too bad, It'll allow me to play the games I can't play anymore because my current ps2's len is too worn out to read anymore.
I was reading some of the comments on the blog.
I find it funny how people like to believe its a leak.
I am much more enclined to believe the big N is building up hype around its now famous revolution controller. Which makes perfect sense since they're getting close to release now.
At least SL is true to its name.... second...life.
...i prefer my inflatable doll :)
would you expect anything else from a game mimicking real life ?
Although I find it strange and wouldnt use that service, I have to admit if those people find satisfaction using those services, so be it, good for them.
Hum, I won't speculate on whether this will happen or not, because there are just too many variables right now.
:)
but what did strike me when i read it, what were they called in robocop ?
Omegacorp ? one mega corporation controlling every aspect of your life, was that it ?
its funny, all we're shown in the movies, with the big corporations controlling our lives, we can see it coming now, not so sci-fi now heh ? is it