>>Demigod itself suffers from the problem of being designed with Microsoft's tools that have been focused on the Xbox, and using similar ideas. For example, running at the speed of the slowest isn't a problem when you have a homogeneous environment. PCs aren't homogeneous.
is wrong. They are using the Supreme Commander engine, which was designed for PCs in mind, and had the same issue. The problem is that SupCom and now Demigod are Peer 2 Peer, which means if one node is lagging and can't keep up, everything has to slow down to that pace or things get out of synch. RTS games in particular seem to suffer from this, with Starcraft having slow players and Warcraft 3 having "laggy" connections as well.
California does not give prisoners access to computers, so that will certainly complicate things for him.
Maybe he can sit down with a pad and paper and work on things like that, but without access to a computer I can't see this being a particularly productive turn of events for Hans and any past / future projects he'd like to work on.
Blizzard is not simply any given studio that has negotiated a publishing agreement with Vivendi. They are a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivendi Universal Games, much like Bungie and Rare are.
In fact, when VUG was being shopped around, Blizzard was the 'crown jewel' in their portfolio of studios and assets. Consider the amount of fans and the loyal following that Blizzard has, and you'll realize why VUG was trying to get top dollar - around a billion for the division, with Blizzard being one of the few standouts. I suppose in retrospect, had anyone known how well WoW would do, a billion wouldn't have been a bad price at all:)
The reason there was such an exodus from Blizzard right before WoW launched was largely all the uncertainty around the VUG situation. Many of their talented and well known developers left since they had the ability to do so, and Blizzard even closed one of their studios. So while it has been a tumultuous past for Blizzard, let's hope that VUG knows well enough to leave them alone and fully fund them.
Gamergod Writes: "it is apparent that gamers would rather play games than watch TV shows about gaming"
No, it is not apparent. G4 has never, ever, actually tried to have a gaming oriented show that treated the source material honestly. Arena was a program where two teams competed in multiple games to see who won. The format was 5v5, but instead of having pro teams or even people who knew eachother, it was simply whoever came to the studio that day. On top of that, the gameplay footage was shown in 30 second clips with simply a summary of who did what and what the score is.
G4 is the first (and hopefully the last) channel that refused to actually show raw, uncut footage of the thing that it was geared around. Imagine a football channel that never showed a whole football game, but simply highlights and nothing else. Imagine a golf channel that never showed anyone actually playing golf, just fast cuts of people swinging at the ball, and it dropping in the hole. Imagine a cooking channel that didn't show any cooking because "that's too boring", and instead showed the person talking about cooking, and a quick 30 second montage of them making a pie or cake.
The reality is, G4 never, not once, took a gamble on showing people playing a videogame. I'd like to watch some good Counter Strike players play a map (and not the idiotic highlight videos that get released either), or watch any relatively skilled competitors go at it, really. Imagine if you could leave it on the in the background while you're doing something. Or, when a popular new game comes out, they run you through the first few hours so you can see some of the gameplay tips you can use down the line. I figured at least once, they would try airing just people playing videogames at 3am or something, in lieu of one of their paid programming/informercial slots. They never did.
People will watch fishing, cooking, billiards, poker, sports, fake courtrooms, eating bugs, fake reality shows, and home redecorating. To say that gaming is somehow more boring than these things and no one would want to watch it is pure crap. Movie files that show people playing games, being distributed on the internet, are simply too large because of the high resolution and the way that they compress poorly. TV is the perfect format for this (and some might argue, HDTV to really appreciate what's going on) and yet no one even tries.
G4 was a terrible channel that tried to be MTV without first establishing credibility. MTV started as a music video channel (that no longer shows music videos) but at least it had a 5-10 year period where that was how it made its money. G4 never actually tried making programming that showed, in context, people actually playing a videogame and that might engage the viewer. The cost of such content would have been very cheap, and if instead of focusing on trying to be like MTV, G4 could have easily been MTV - but the MTV of old, the one that was a favorite of bands and fans alike, not 14 year old girls.
G4 never tried to treat gamers, or its audience, with respect and simply show people playing games. And for that, it failed, and it deserved to.
Gamergod Writes: "it is apparent that gamers would rather play games than watch TV shows about gaming"
No, it is not apparent. G4 has never, ever, actually tried to have a gaming oriented show that treated the source material honestly. Arena was a program where two teams competed in multiple games to see who won. The format was 5v5, but instead of having pro teams or even people who knew eachother, it was simply whoever came to the studio that day. On top of that, the gameplay footage was shown in 30 second clips with simply a summary of who did what and what the score is.
G4 is the first (and hopefully the last) channel that refused to actually show raw, uncut footage of the thing that it was geared around. Imagine a football channel that never showed a whole football game, but simply highlights and nothing else. Imagine a golf channel that never showed anyone actually playing golf, just fast cuts of people swinging at the ball, and it dropping in the hole. Imagine a cooking channel that didn't show any cooking because "that's too boring", and instead showed the person talking about cooking, and a quick 30 second montage of them making a pie or cake.
The reality is, G4 never, not once, took a gamble on showing people playing a videogame. I'd like to watch some good Counter Strike players play a map (and not the idiotic highlight videos that get released either), or watch any relatively skilled competitors go at it, really. Imagine if you could leave it on the in the background while you're doing something. Or, when a popular new game comes out, they run you through the first few hours so you can see some of the gameplay tips you can use down the line. I figured at least once, they would try airing just people playing videogames at 3am or something, in lieu of one of their paid programming/informercial slots. They never did.
People will watch fishing, cooking, billiards, poker, sports, fake courtrooms, eating bugs, fake reality shows, and home redecorating. To say that gaming is somehow more boring than these things and no one would want to watch it is pure crap. Movie files that show people playing games, being distributed on the internet, are simply too large because of the high resolution and the way that they compress poorly. TV is the perfect format for this (and some might argue, HDTV to really appreciate what's going on) and yet no one even tries.
G4 was a terrible channel that tried to be MTV without first establishing credibility. MTV started as a music video channel (that no longer shows music videos) but at least it had a 5-10 year period where that was how it made its money. G4 never actually tried making programming that showed, in context, people actually playing a videogame and that might engage the viewer. The cost of such content would have been very cheap, and if instead of focusing on trying to be like MTV, G4 could have easily been MTV - but the MTV of old, the one that was a favorite of bands and fans alike, not 14 year old girls.
G4 never tried to treat gamers, or its audience, with respect and simply show people playing games. And for that, it failed, and it deserved to.
The beta version is significantly larger (30-40%) than the production version.
The PS2 has been plagued with reliability problems, both at launch and afterwards. It had similar heating issues and a lot of the same problems were reported. It's a mix of people not understanding that higher powered consoles are more sensitive to placement and heat ventilation, and the production issues that comes with first mass producing something.
All these same rumors were present at the Xbox launch. Units being returned in droves, DVDs being scratched by the disc player, and all other kinds of malarkey. It ended up being untrue and just a couple of problems being blown out of proportion, and this will as well.
I think there are more iPOD nanos having problems than there are 360s at the moment, but we're not jumping all over our sacred cow Apple, now are we?
I don't understand the way that gaming is covered and portrayed in shows that aim to show it. This is most obvious with the way G4 conducts itself, and the programming they select. Consider this: There is not a single show on the G4 network, or anywhere else outside of South korea, that shows a game being played. Oh, you can find clips and montages of a game being played, in 10 second chunks, on many shows. Try to find a program that will show you an entire 15 minute session from start to finish, or a single round of an FPS shooter, all 3 minutes of it. It won't happen.
The fishing channel shows fishing. Sure, some of the shows have big cuts between when they cast the bait and when the fish bite, but that's because literally nothing happens. The NFL channel shows football games all day long, some from the 1980s. And yet not a single gaming channel or show will actually show people playing videogames, outside of South Korea.
When MTV started, they simply showed music videos. It took them some time to build credibility and to change format whereby they now simply pander to the screaming 14 year old girl demographic. All the gaming related shows I'm seeing try to skip this step, and skip directly to the pandering.
Making a show that simply shows gameplay footage instead of endless highlights would be cheaper, more exciting, and respectful to the audience. There are many games out there that I simply don't have the time to play, but I would like to see the story/conclusion of (Metal Gear Solid: 3, for instance). The main point is, this is a segment of viewers that has no programming to watch, and I hope that sooner or later someone would try to fill that need. G4 for god's sake, how hard would it be to show people playing videogames at 3AM instead of infomercials? Let me tivo it!
At early levels, Bejeweled is fairly easy. You will generally get the pieces you need, and you won't knock yourself out too easily.
At the higher end of the difficulty spectrum, the game really attains a rubik's cube aspect to it which is quite interesting, although too challenging for me. You can't simply destroy jewels, you have to constantly be aware of what pieces you're moving down, and whether they're the kind you need or not. So an early game of Bejeweled would be like a chess game between amateurs - responding to the immediate moves your opponent plays. High level bejeweled would be like chess between masters, where you have to think many moves ahead, and there's time pressures that prevent you from taking too long.
I enjoyed that simple, fun aspect of bejeweled that the early game gave, but I had less and less fun as I got better at it. It moved from something I could do while relaxing to something that took a lot of concentration and effort, and that's not why I play short time wasters.
Live still costs $59.99 for a one year plan, or in other words, $5 a month. You also get a free "Silver" service that allows you to try out the features, download content, etc without paying for the "Gold" membership which allows matchmaking.
And just as a carrot, Microsoft will be offering free "Gold" weekends just like the weekends where HBO and Showtime are free. So you can test out live from time to time without paying anything, and you'll have an account for free when you get the box. The only thing you'll have to pay for is to play online with people, and even then it will be the same $5 a month blanket fee it is now.
The Ipod owns 80% of the digital media player market.
Of the MS employees who own a digital media player, 80% of them own Ipods.
So this means that MS employees are just regular people who happen to work at Microsoft?
This story is analogous to a breaking headline such as "Pizza hut driver seen eating Dominos!" "Adidas executive wears Nike for his morning run!" "Pepsi bottler drinks Coca-Cola at hot dog stand!"
The devs yanked the 1.3 reinforce system because it ruined balance. A dev posted this on the relic forums:
"The reason we removed the reinforce time modifier in 1.4 is that it threw unit balance completely out of wack. We'd spent months balancing all the units against one another using an established reinforce time, and changing that time basically threw all that work out the window (the Orks in particular suffered with this change). We would have had to re-balance the units practically from scratch, and that was far too great a risk so close to shipping."
He also mentions his intention to try to see the "reinforcements come much more slowly in battle" system reimplemented at some point (in a different post)
"The most frustrating thing about this whole issue for us is that I think we're 'all' in agreement. Reinforcement mods were a great addition in 1.3, and I want them back right now. That very fact should show how serious we consider this balance issue to be that we would stall putting in a change that we all agree will make the game better in the long run.
I say stall because no, we aren't going to let this one rest. We can't re-visit this issue for release (which should give you an idea of how close we are), but unless lightning strikes me down we will re-visit it."
So there you have it, why the reinforcement system in 1.3 was removed.
Any company with $50 billion in the bank must be poorly managed. I mean, when your net profit is only 1.5 billion per quarter or so, you can tell things are slowing down.
I sure hope those MS shareholders make it clear to the inept management at just how unacceptable this performance is.
The reason it's illegal is that most people pay per minute used, and have a limited pool of minutes. If you get 20 telemarketing calls, and your company charges you 1 minute even if you hang up right away, then they are literally costing you money.
I'm not aware of any local phone company that charges for incoming calls or connect time, so the telemarketers can say that the only thing they cost you is time, you can hang up, etc. With cell phones, unlimited plans are very expensive, and most people have a limited pool of time, which means it can be clearly demonstrated how the telemarketers are costing you time AND money.
This is why they're not allowed to call cell phones, not because of plans where you pay an extra charge for incoming calls.
Re:The C++ Programming Language
on
Practical C++
·
· Score: 1
I think you just dried all my laundry with that spin.
Next thing you know, buggy patches will be "good for administrators" because obviously they will test the patch, and it will fail, so that will teach them something about life. And then, a shoddily built volvo will break and cause you and your family harm, which will teach you not to buy those crappy foreign cars.
Rationalizing screw ups as a teaching tool is just that, rationalizing. If students wanted buggy code examples, they would buy books that offered that intentionally. Excusing slopiness by saying it is useful is a pretty big reach.
You (or your friend) are overlooking the fact that all those ethnic groups you mentioned were native to a piece of land, and homogenous within the group.
In the United States, no one has really been here over 225 years, and a lot of the people who live here immigrated here by choice. While there seems to be more and more of a nationailstic streak as the country matures, it's still light years better than in any other country.
An immigrant/outsider is integrated into US society when they speak english and have a job. While there will be discrimination and racism, the fact that most anyone living in America is considered an American first, foreigner second is a good thing. Try moving to Germany as an American, and wait and see how long it will take until you become a "German." You will never live to see the day - but your kids might, if you marry well.
I can tell you from personal experience, in the balkans at least, that while the groups were organized into a greater unit, the homogenous core groups (Croats, Serbs, Slovenians, Macedonians) still remained, which is why the flames have been fanned. However trendy it may be to assume that blacks stick together because they're black, and so on with whites, America is probably the most integrated country in the world - though there is much, much room for improvement.
You can purchase any Xbox failed part, and get lots of FAQs on how to do repairs, at this site:
http://www.llamma.com/xbox/
And a few specific articles:
http://llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/xbox_dvd_repair.htm
They also sell all the parts, so you can replace your defective DVD drive with a non-defective one, and since you're out of warranty, no one will stop you.
I know the whole "I have to pay MS hundreds of dollars to fix my unit!" cry is an easy one to make, but it's untrue if you do a little digging around.
The more eclectic you make your system, the more you limit who will spend the time maximizing its performance. If you remember the Dreamcast, they decided to go with a PowerVR type tile based architecture. It caused problems with ports and some of them required quite some rewriting before they would work properly. End result? Limited third party support, and part of why the console did so poorly.
The PS2 is the 800 lb gorilla so of course it's not going to miss out on any ports. That being said, when Sony chose to get cute with their architecture, they also chose to limit the amount of people that would maximize its power. Was it worth the (hypothetical) 5-10% speed increase in highly specialized apps if non-optimized code runs 20% slower? I'd say no, but for that answer you'd have to ask Sony.
The above post is flat out wrong. The SWG forums always required a valid account to POST, but they allowed anyone to read them. In other words, all the off-topic flames and various floatsam the poster is saying would be removed by making it subscriber only were in fact never there. The only negative posts came from active subscribers unhappy with the trail of broken promises and expectations. Sony now wants to sweep it under the rug as best possible, and is closing the forums from being readable unless you have an account.
They're excercising their right to close the forums, and I'm excercising the right to not pay for their game.
It's sad that Lum the Mad degenerated into a soapbox and drama fest once Lum left, because the idea of shining the light on the dysfunctional world of MMORPGs is a good one.
The saddest part of all is that I really, really like MMORPGs as a concept. I love muds, mushes, moos, you name it. Sadly, most commercial companies seem unable to reconcile the high cost and the idea of taking risks by including innovative gameplay. Galaxies failed in it's promise, and since then it's been almost non-stop spin. Despite tons of promises about all the content that would be included post launch, things are still mighty barren, and customer satisfaction is dropping steadily.
First up, the obvious "Boy there sure are a lot of PS2s out there" statement can be thrown into the mix. Most RPG gamers, Sports gamers, and all around game players have a PS2 at this point, so it makes sense that the hardware sales would slow down to a point.
There are two figures being thrown around. That sony's profits dropped 98%, and that Sony's profits dropped 30%. Both are accurate. The 30% figure refers to the games division, and shows that while sales are slightly off, things are still going well. Sony does not make that much money off of each PS2 (though word is that they are no longer selling them for a loss) so the slowdown in base units and increase in software sales were fully expected. The 98% figure refers to Sony as a whole, which includes all their divisions.
Basically Sony's game division is dragged down by the rest of the company, and believe me, Sony is a large company. Japan's still involved in a recession and deflationary conditions, and the Yen has risen strongly against the dollar, cutting into the profits from exports and consumer electronics sold here. So combine a slack marketplace at home, a reduction in profits from your core products due to exchange rate variances(consumer electronics often have razor thin margins to begin with), and a mature product line, and you have a worse quarter than before.
The games division continues to be a bright spot for Sony and continues to help the company stay profitable. It's only a small part in such a large company, but it is a significant one. The games division did have a slightly weaker quarter than before, but I think this can be attributed to exchange rate variance (remember that the PS2s are largely built in asia then shipped over, meaning the real cost of those just went up), less profit per first party game sold (again, exchange rate), and the line-up of third party release.
The problem with role playing in MMORPGs is the limited interaction that exists within them, as a post above me touched on. He attributed the problem to Dungeon Masters, but I think it's a bit more prevalent than that.
The richness of a given social experience is directly proportional to it's significance, and the amount of options you have. If you have the option of acting maliciously if you so choose, then a positive interaction is more meaningful. In addition, a reputation or something that imparts a consequence to your choices is necessary so that you have realistic modes of interaction.
In "real life" social settings, there is no way to predict how a person will react. There is plenty of conflict - if a boss or co-worker takes a dislike to you personally, and attempts to ruin your career, they are allowed to act maliciously against you. In MMORPGs, because of the problem of persistence (I can buy a new account or make a new char, and my reputation is gone) the actions themselves lose value. This causes it to be far too easy to perform the negative actions out of dislike, and combined with the polarizing nature of the Internet.. we've all seen the flame wars via e-mail or bulletin board, you end up with people who only interact negatively, ie "Griefers."
As long as people are forced to interact with kiddie gloves such as no attacking, no stealing, no kill stealing, no harassment, no aiding monsters you are fighting, no disrupting a wedding, then you remove a lot of the conflict and interaction between players. When you remove the conflict, things get boring.
In addition, the worlds themselves are very static and unmalleable. Is it really easy to roleplay killing the 50th spawn at a given camp? What exactly are you doing there? Why are you killing these bandits? Why don't they go away? It's a really forced world architecture, meant to be condusive to one thing: Killing and powergaming, not roleplaying. Are there other ways to do it? Sure. Have any current MMORPGs gotten there? Nope.
I can't imagine anyone rolepaying in an environment as antiseptic and conflict free as one of an MMORPG. To blame the playerbase for repeatedly acting in the same way with the same environment and constraints is to ignore history and then complain when it happens to you as well. The choices that are required for meaningful interaction are tricky ones, because they require treating people like adults and policing the player base. These are two things that most MMORPGs seem unable or unwilling to do currently, so I suspect it will be some time before you see a rich roleplaying environment in an online game. But to blame the players for only interacting with the game in one way (powergaming) when that's really all the options that are given to them, is to assign the blame to the wrong party.
While Heroes may be a flagging series, and it is all too easy to blame "a risk averse culture" for the complete lack of innovation or progress in the series. I always look at situations like this with quite some skepticism.
There are many factors when it comes to original works that determine whether the outcome will be enjoyable or not. Management, corporate culture, the mix of the team, the finances, all of that comes together and formes a unit that either can produce quality titles, or can't. The games industry seems a bit more analogous to the Music industry, in that failures are quite expensive, and successes not necessarily incredibly profitable, than the Movie industry which is a bit more formulaic and stable. In that regard, much like there are some artists that continue to churn out real stinkers, it seems that some game development studios also walk that same path.
I think if there's one thing these folks have shown repeatedly, it's that they cannot produce quality titles anymore, can no longer innovate, and even their flagship series has now slid into mediocrity. Another company that shared a similar fate was 3DO. Trip Hawkins, founder and millionaire, attempted to keep them alive time after time, by injecting money into the company. They even went from being a hardware company to a software company, where Trip claimed the real money was. Yet, no matter how much things changed, their games were quite sub-par. What does that tell you? Whatever problems existed at 3DO, Trip Hawkins was unable to address them despite his cash infusions. Whether they were personell based, or budgetary (perhaps he was just keeping them going on life support) the end result was that time after time, the product that they shipped was sub par.
This too has become the legacy of New World Computing, and while I am sad to see a studio close, I think this is a necessary thing. If the games industry is to move forward in maturity, a certain bare minimum standard needs to be set for what is acceptable. The heroes games aren't bad, but they are quite dated, and clearly aren't moving as many units as they used to. Not only that, but the strategic game market has become a victim of changing tastes, and while Strategy games are still viable, they are approaching Niche status in some ways.
New World chose not to reach out (and when they did, to reach out poorly - Heroes of Might and Magic, the game that makes the original Tomb Raider look GOOD), and paid the price for it. They remained in a stagnant market and their console efforts were half-hearted at best, almost as if they knew they were going to fail from the start. I think sometimes it's best if dysfunctional teams like this are broken up, and things simply started anew. I have no doubt that there's plenty of talented folks at New World who will do far better at different studios where their talents may actually contribute to good products.
Slashdot Mirror
Your comment of:
>>Demigod itself suffers from the problem of being designed with Microsoft's tools that have been focused on the Xbox, and using similar ideas. For example, running at the speed of the slowest isn't a problem when you have a homogeneous environment. PCs aren't homogeneous.
is wrong. They are using the Supreme Commander engine, which was designed for PCs in mind, and had the same issue. The problem is that SupCom and now Demigod are Peer 2 Peer, which means if one node is lagging and can't keep up, everything has to slow down to that pace or things get out of synch. RTS games in particular seem to suffer from this, with Starcraft having slow players and Warcraft 3 having "laggy" connections as well.
It has nothing to do with Xbox tools.
California does not give prisoners access to computers, so that will certainly complicate things for him.
Maybe he can sit down with a pad and paper and work on things like that, but without access to a computer I can't see this being a particularly productive turn of events for Hans and any past / future projects he'd like to work on.
In fact, when VUG was being shopped around, Blizzard was the 'crown jewel' in their portfolio of studios and assets. Consider the amount of fans and the loyal following that Blizzard has, and you'll realize why VUG was trying to get top dollar - around a billion for the division, with Blizzard being one of the few standouts. I suppose in retrospect, had anyone known how well WoW would do, a billion wouldn't have been a bad price at all :)
The reason there was such an exodus from Blizzard right before WoW launched was largely all the uncertainty around the VUG situation. Many of their talented and well known developers left since they had the ability to do so, and Blizzard even closed one of their studios. So while it has been a tumultuous past for Blizzard, let's hope that VUG knows well enough to leave them alone and fully fund them.
Gamergod Writes: "it is apparent that gamers would rather play games than watch TV shows about gaming"
No, it is not apparent. G4 has never, ever, actually tried to have a gaming oriented show that treated the source material honestly. Arena was a program where two teams competed in multiple games to see who won. The format was 5v5, but instead of having pro teams or even people who knew eachother, it was simply whoever came to the studio that day. On top of that, the gameplay footage was shown in 30 second clips with simply a summary of who did what and what the score is.
G4 is the first (and hopefully the last) channel that refused to actually show raw, uncut footage of the thing that it was geared around. Imagine a football channel that never showed a whole football game, but simply highlights and nothing else. Imagine a golf channel that never showed anyone actually playing golf, just fast cuts of people swinging at the ball, and it dropping in the hole. Imagine a cooking channel that didn't show any cooking because "that's too boring", and instead showed the person talking about cooking, and a quick 30 second montage of them making a pie or cake.
The reality is, G4 never, not once, took a gamble on showing people playing a videogame. I'd like to watch some good Counter Strike players play a map (and not the idiotic highlight videos that get released either), or watch any relatively skilled competitors go at it, really. Imagine if you could leave it on the in the background while you're doing something. Or, when a popular new game comes out, they run you through the first few hours so you can see some of the gameplay tips you can use down the line. I figured at least once, they would try airing just people playing videogames at 3am or something, in lieu of one of their paid programming/informercial slots. They never did.
People will watch fishing, cooking, billiards, poker, sports, fake courtrooms, eating bugs, fake reality shows, and home redecorating. To say that gaming is somehow more boring than these things and no one would want to watch it is pure crap. Movie files that show people playing games, being distributed on the internet, are simply too large because of the high resolution and the way that they compress poorly. TV is the perfect format for this (and some might argue, HDTV to really appreciate what's going on) and yet no one even tries.
G4 was a terrible channel that tried to be MTV without first establishing credibility. MTV started as a music video channel (that no longer shows music videos) but at least it had a 5-10 year period where that was how it made its money. G4 never actually tried making programming that showed, in context, people actually playing a videogame and that might engage the viewer. The cost of such content would have been very cheap, and if instead of focusing on trying to be like MTV, G4 could have easily been MTV - but the MTV of old, the one that was a favorite of bands and fans alike, not 14 year old girls.
G4 never tried to treat gamers, or its audience, with respect and simply show people playing games. And for that, it failed, and it deserved to.
No, it is not apparent. G4 has never, ever, actually tried to have a gaming oriented show that treated the source material honestly. Arena was a program where two teams competed in multiple games to see who won. The format was 5v5, but instead of having pro teams or even people who knew eachother, it was simply whoever came to the studio that day. On top of that, the gameplay footage was shown in 30 second clips with simply a summary of who did what and what the score is.
G4 is the first (and hopefully the last) channel that refused to actually show raw, uncut footage of the thing that it was geared around. Imagine a football channel that never showed a whole football game, but simply highlights and nothing else. Imagine a golf channel that never showed anyone actually playing golf, just fast cuts of people swinging at the ball, and it dropping in the hole. Imagine a cooking channel that didn't show any cooking because "that's too boring", and instead showed the person talking about cooking, and a quick 30 second montage of them making a pie or cake.
The reality is, G4 never, not once, took a gamble on showing people playing a videogame. I'd like to watch some good Counter Strike players play a map (and not the idiotic highlight videos that get released either), or watch any relatively skilled competitors go at it, really. Imagine if you could leave it on the in the background while you're doing something. Or, when a popular new game comes out, they run you through the first few hours so you can see some of the gameplay tips you can use down the line. I figured at least once, they would try airing just people playing videogames at 3am or something, in lieu of one of their paid programming/informercial slots. They never did.
People will watch fishing, cooking, billiards, poker, sports, fake courtrooms, eating bugs, fake reality shows, and home redecorating. To say that gaming is somehow more boring than these things and no one would want to watch it is pure crap. Movie files that show people playing games, being distributed on the internet, are simply too large because of the high resolution and the way that they compress poorly. TV is the perfect format for this (and some might argue, HDTV to really appreciate what's going on) and yet no one even tries.
G4 was a terrible channel that tried to be MTV without first establishing credibility. MTV started as a music video channel (that no longer shows music videos) but at least it had a 5-10 year period where that was how it made its money. G4 never actually tried making programming that showed, in context, people actually playing a videogame and that might engage the viewer. The cost of such content would have been very cheap, and if instead of focusing on trying to be like MTV, G4 could have easily been MTV - but the MTV of old, the one that was a favorite of bands and fans alike, not 14 year old girls.
G4 never tried to treat gamers, or its audience, with respect and simply show people playing games. And for that, it failed, and it deserved to.
The beta version is significantly larger (30-40%) than the production version.
The PS2 has been plagued with reliability problems, both at launch and afterwards. It had similar heating issues and a lot of the same problems were reported. It's a mix of people not understanding that higher powered consoles are more sensitive to placement and heat ventilation, and the production issues that comes with first mass producing something.
All these same rumors were present at the Xbox launch. Units being returned in droves, DVDs being scratched by the disc player, and all other kinds of malarkey. It ended up being untrue and just a couple of problems being blown out of proportion, and this will as well.
I think there are more iPOD nanos having problems than there are 360s at the moment, but we're not jumping all over our sacred cow Apple, now are we?
Disclaimer: I am a gamer.
I don't understand the way that gaming is covered and portrayed in shows that aim to show it. This is most obvious with the way G4 conducts itself, and the programming they select. Consider this: There is not a single show on the G4 network, or anywhere else outside of South korea, that shows a game being played. Oh, you can find clips and montages of a game being played, in 10 second chunks, on many shows. Try to find a program that will show you an entire 15 minute session from start to finish, or a single round of an FPS shooter, all 3 minutes of it. It won't happen.
The fishing channel shows fishing. Sure, some of the shows have big cuts between when they cast the bait and when the fish bite, but that's because literally nothing happens. The NFL channel shows football games all day long, some from the 1980s. And yet not a single gaming channel or show will actually show people playing videogames, outside of South Korea.
When MTV started, they simply showed music videos. It took them some time to build credibility and to change format whereby they now simply pander to the screaming 14 year old girl demographic. All the gaming related shows I'm seeing try to skip this step, and skip directly to the pandering.
Making a show that simply shows gameplay footage instead of endless highlights would be cheaper, more exciting, and respectful to the audience. There are many games out there that I simply don't have the time to play, but I would like to see the story/conclusion of (Metal Gear Solid: 3, for instance). The main point is, this is a segment of viewers that has no programming to watch, and I hope that sooner or later someone would try to fill that need. G4 for god's sake, how hard would it be to show people playing videogames at 3AM instead of infomercials? Let me tivo it!
Bah.
At the higher end of the difficulty spectrum, the game really attains a rubik's cube aspect to it which is quite interesting, although too challenging for me. You can't simply destroy jewels, you have to constantly be aware of what pieces you're moving down, and whether they're the kind you need or not. So an early game of Bejeweled would be like a chess game between amateurs - responding to the immediate moves your opponent plays. High level bejeweled would be like chess between masters, where you have to think many moves ahead, and there's time pressures that prevent you from taking too long.
I enjoyed that simple, fun aspect of bejeweled that the early game gave, but I had less and less fun as I got better at it. It moved from something I could do while relaxing to something that took a lot of concentration and effort, and that's not why I play short time wasters.
And just as a carrot, Microsoft will be offering free "Gold" weekends just like the weekends where HBO and Showtime are free. So you can test out live from time to time without paying anything, and you'll have an account for free when you get the box. The only thing you'll have to pay for is to play online with people, and even then it will be the same $5 a month blanket fee it is now.
Please don't spread misinformation.
The Ipod owns 80% of the digital media player market.
Of the MS employees who own a digital media player, 80% of them own Ipods.
So this means that MS employees are just regular people who happen to work at Microsoft?
This story is analogous to a breaking headline such as "Pizza hut driver seen eating Dominos!" "Adidas executive wears Nike for his morning run!" "Pepsi bottler drinks Coca-Cola at hot dog stand!"
The devs yanked the 1.3 reinforce system because it ruined balance. A dev posted this on the relic forums:
"The reason we removed the reinforce time modifier in 1.4 is that it threw unit balance completely out of wack. We'd spent months balancing all the units against one another using an established reinforce time, and changing that time basically threw all that work out the window (the Orks in particular suffered with this change). We would have had to re-balance the units practically from scratch, and that was far too great a risk so close to shipping."
He also mentions his intention to try to see the "reinforcements come much more slowly in battle" system reimplemented at some point (in a different post)
"The most frustrating thing about this whole issue for us is that I think we're 'all' in agreement. Reinforcement mods were a great addition in 1.3, and I want them back right now. That very fact should show how serious we consider this balance issue to be that we would stall putting in a change that we all agree will make the game better in the long run.
I say stall because no, we aren't going to let this one rest. We can't re-visit this issue for release (which should give you an idea of how close we are), but unless lightning strikes me down we will re-visit it."
So there you have it, why the reinforcement system in 1.3 was removed.
Since when is a slut worse than a whore?
Yeah I'm sure the police chief describing the actual robberies is part of that guerrilla campaign, right?
I sure hope those MS shareholders make it clear to the inept management at just how unacceptable this performance is.
Amstel beer IS European. It's made in the Netherlands.
The reason it's illegal is that most people pay per minute used, and have a limited pool of minutes. If you get 20 telemarketing calls, and your company charges you 1 minute even if you hang up right away, then they are literally costing you money.
I'm not aware of any local phone company that charges for incoming calls or connect time, so the telemarketers can say that the only thing they cost you is time, you can hang up, etc. With cell phones, unlimited plans are very expensive, and most people have a limited pool of time, which means it can be clearly demonstrated how the telemarketers are costing you time AND money.
This is why they're not allowed to call cell phones, not because of plans where you pay an extra charge for incoming calls.
I think you just dried all my laundry with that spin.
Next thing you know, buggy patches will be "good for administrators" because obviously they will test the patch, and it will fail, so that will teach them something about life. And then, a shoddily built volvo will break and cause you and your family harm, which will teach you not to buy those crappy foreign cars.
Rationalizing screw ups as a teaching tool is just that, rationalizing. If students wanted buggy code examples, they would buy books that offered that intentionally. Excusing slopiness by saying it is useful is a pretty big reach.
You (or your friend) are overlooking the fact that all those ethnic groups you mentioned were native to a piece of land, and homogenous within the group.
In the United States, no one has really been here over 225 years, and a lot of the people who live here immigrated here by choice. While there seems to be more and more of a nationailstic streak as the country matures, it's still light years better than in any other country.
An immigrant/outsider is integrated into US society when they speak english and have a job. While there will be discrimination and racism, the fact that most anyone living in America is considered an American first, foreigner second is a good thing. Try moving to Germany as an American, and wait and see how long it will take until you become a "German." You will never live to see the day - but your kids might, if you marry well.
I can tell you from personal experience, in the balkans at least, that while the groups were organized into a greater unit, the homogenous core groups (Croats, Serbs, Slovenians, Macedonians) still remained, which is why the flames have been fanned. However trendy it may be to assume that blacks stick together because they're black, and so on with whites, America is probably the most integrated country in the world - though there is much, much room for improvement.
You can purchase any Xbox failed part, and get lots of FAQs on how to do repairs, at this site: http://www.llamma.com/xbox/ And a few specific articles: http://llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/xbox_dvd_repair.htm
They also sell all the parts, so you can replace your defective DVD drive with a non-defective one, and since you're out of warranty, no one will stop you.
I know the whole "I have to pay MS hundreds of dollars to fix my unit!" cry is an easy one to make, but it's untrue if you do a little digging around.
The more eclectic you make your system, the more you limit who will spend the time maximizing its performance. If you remember the Dreamcast, they decided to go with a PowerVR type tile based architecture. It caused problems with ports and some of them required quite some rewriting before they would work properly. End result? Limited third party support, and part of why the console did so poorly.
The PS2 is the 800 lb gorilla so of course it's not going to miss out on any ports. That being said, when Sony chose to get cute with their architecture, they also chose to limit the amount of people that would maximize its power. Was it worth the (hypothetical) 5-10% speed increase in highly specialized apps if non-optimized code runs 20% slower? I'd say no, but for that answer you'd have to ask Sony.
The above post is flat out wrong. The SWG forums always required a valid account to POST, but they allowed anyone to read them. In other words, all the off-topic flames and various floatsam the poster is saying would be removed by making it subscriber only were in fact never there. The only negative posts came from active subscribers unhappy with the trail of broken promises and expectations. Sony now wants to sweep it under the rug as best possible, and is closing the forums from being readable unless you have an account.
It's sad that Lum the Mad degenerated into a soapbox and drama fest once Lum left, because the idea of shining the light on the dysfunctional world of MMORPGs is a good one.
The saddest part of all is that I really, really like MMORPGs as a concept. I love muds, mushes, moos, you name it. Sadly, most commercial companies seem unable to reconcile the high cost and the idea of taking risks by including innovative gameplay. Galaxies failed in it's promise, and since then it's been almost non-stop spin. Despite tons of promises about all the content that would be included post launch, things are still mighty barren, and customer satisfaction is dropping steadily.
S
There are two figures being thrown around. That sony's profits dropped 98%, and that Sony's profits dropped 30%. Both are accurate. The 30% figure refers to the games division, and shows that while sales are slightly off, things are still going well. Sony does not make that much money off of each PS2 (though word is that they are no longer selling them for a loss) so the slowdown in base units and increase in software sales were fully expected. The 98% figure refers to Sony as a whole, which includes all their divisions.
Basically Sony's game division is dragged down by the rest of the company, and believe me, Sony is a large company. Japan's still involved in a recession and deflationary conditions, and the Yen has risen strongly against the dollar, cutting into the profits from exports and consumer electronics sold here. So combine a slack marketplace at home, a reduction in profits from your core products due to exchange rate variances(consumer electronics often have razor thin margins to begin with), and a mature product line, and you have a worse quarter than before.
The games division continues to be a bright spot for Sony and continues to help the company stay profitable. It's only a small part in such a large company, but it is a significant one. The games division did have a slightly weaker quarter than before, but I think this can be attributed to exchange rate variance (remember that the PS2s are largely built in asia then shipped over, meaning the real cost of those just went up), less profit per first party game sold (again, exchange rate), and the line-up of third party release.
The richness of a given social experience is directly proportional to it's significance, and the amount of options you have. If you have the option of acting maliciously if you so choose, then a positive interaction is more meaningful. In addition, a reputation or something that imparts a consequence to your choices is necessary so that you have realistic modes of interaction.
In "real life" social settings, there is no way to predict how a person will react. There is plenty of conflict - if a boss or co-worker takes a dislike to you personally, and attempts to ruin your career, they are allowed to act maliciously against you. In MMORPGs, because of the problem of persistence (I can buy a new account or make a new char, and my reputation is gone) the actions themselves lose value. This causes it to be far too easy to perform the negative actions out of dislike, and combined with the polarizing nature of the Internet.. we've all seen the flame wars via e-mail or bulletin board, you end up with people who only interact negatively, ie "Griefers."
As long as people are forced to interact with kiddie gloves such as no attacking, no stealing, no kill stealing, no harassment, no aiding monsters you are fighting, no disrupting a wedding, then you remove a lot of the conflict and interaction between players. When you remove the conflict, things get boring.
In addition, the worlds themselves are very static and unmalleable. Is it really easy to roleplay killing the 50th spawn at a given camp? What exactly are you doing there? Why are you killing these bandits? Why don't they go away? It's a really forced world architecture, meant to be condusive to one thing: Killing and powergaming, not roleplaying. Are there other ways to do it? Sure. Have any current MMORPGs gotten there? Nope.
I can't imagine anyone rolepaying in an environment as antiseptic and conflict free as one of an MMORPG. To blame the playerbase for repeatedly acting in the same way with the same environment and constraints is to ignore history and then complain when it happens to you as well. The choices that are required for meaningful interaction are tricky ones, because they require treating people like adults and policing the player base. These are two things that most MMORPGs seem unable or unwilling to do currently, so I suspect it will be some time before you see a rich roleplaying environment in an online game. But to blame the players for only interacting with the game in one way (powergaming) when that's really all the options that are given to them, is to assign the blame to the wrong party.
There are many factors when it comes to original works that determine whether the outcome will be enjoyable or not. Management, corporate culture, the mix of the team, the finances, all of that comes together and formes a unit that either can produce quality titles, or can't. The games industry seems a bit more analogous to the Music industry, in that failures are quite expensive, and successes not necessarily incredibly profitable, than the Movie industry which is a bit more formulaic and stable. In that regard, much like there are some artists that continue to churn out real stinkers, it seems that some game development studios also walk that same path.
I think if there's one thing these folks have shown repeatedly, it's that they cannot produce quality titles anymore, can no longer innovate, and even their flagship series has now slid into mediocrity. Another company that shared a similar fate was 3DO. Trip Hawkins, founder and millionaire, attempted to keep them alive time after time, by injecting money into the company. They even went from being a hardware company to a software company, where Trip claimed the real money was. Yet, no matter how much things changed, their games were quite sub-par. What does that tell you? Whatever problems existed at 3DO, Trip Hawkins was unable to address them despite his cash infusions. Whether they were personell based, or budgetary (perhaps he was just keeping them going on life support) the end result was that time after time, the product that they shipped was sub par.
This too has become the legacy of New World Computing, and while I am sad to see a studio close, I think this is a necessary thing. If the games industry is to move forward in maturity, a certain bare minimum standard needs to be set for what is acceptable. The heroes games aren't bad, but they are quite dated, and clearly aren't moving as many units as they used to. Not only that, but the strategic game market has become a victim of changing tastes, and while Strategy games are still viable, they are approaching Niche status in some ways.
New World chose not to reach out (and when they did, to reach out poorly - Heroes of Might and Magic, the game that makes the original Tomb Raider look GOOD), and paid the price for it. They remained in a stagnant market and their console efforts were half-hearted at best, almost as if they knew they were going to fail from the start. I think sometimes it's best if dysfunctional teams like this are broken up, and things simply started anew. I have no doubt that there's plenty of talented folks at New World who will do far better at different studios where their talents may actually contribute to good products.