Sorry for the profanity, but I've been reading about the slow and painful demise of Interplay for *months* now. They haven't paid their employees in months, they're in debt, they were evicted from their building, they were temporarily shut down by the gov't because their workers' insurance lapses, and NOW they want to take the most popular RPG franchise and turn it into a grab-as-much-cash-as-possible MMO game?
They don't have the cash flow (or capital up front) to sustain an MMOG. They don't have the trust of gamers any more. Hell, all their good employees have left the company (Troika)!
Herve, if you're reading this, YOU NEED TO MAKE FALLOUT 3. This will bring in the cash you so desperately need to keep your company afloat, respect from the industry, and a leaping point to resurrect Interplay. The market is saturated with up and coming MMOGs that are going to suck the online market dry - City of Heroes is here, Matrix Online and World of Warcraft are coming, not to mention EQ2, PLUS all the MMOGs currently ON the market. There's no room for you online, but there are some of us who have been waiting years for a proper and wonderful RPG. You've got the freaking goose that lays golden eggs - out with them already!
ACK! Sorry, forget the first sentence - I was going to suggest just leaving wireless on during week days and making students pay the difference, but then inspiration REALLY hit:) Mods, be nice!
Figure how much it would cost to run unlimited wireless access from 8am to 5pm weekdays (times when the classes run, in other words). Restrict by MAC address and allot bandwidth according to classes - one hour per week per hour-long class. This is the net effect you want, right?
Benefits: it's easy to restrict by MAC and time spent, and students get to learn time management - if they use all their bandwidth for the week on Monday, then they're going to be royally screwed for the rest of the week. That, and you don't need a hugely complex system regulating who has what class and allowing their MAC address to connect, but the students whose classes are ending are cut off, etc. etc.
Hark, the technology is here! It's called Opera. Opera can scale *everything* on a page, including graphics - you can make everything fit into a 1" x 1" corner of the screen, or have two words fill up the entire screen. Mind you, scaled graphics are not as pretty, but they're typically ads, so who cares?
"To get the "best" deal, 3000 points (which will get you 5 games on par with Prince of Persia SoT or Civ 3)"
This doesn't even take into consideration that not all game makers are going to want in on this "deal." If you pay $90 for two years expecting to get five great games, well, all you might get are a couple of expansions and a game that was released what, three months ago? I don't see them making any money on this business model. Ykant, great post, BTW.
This is a very noble gesture, one that I've contemplated in the past, but have you actually done it? Be honest, now.
Instead of fighting with computer games and copy protection, I've simply moved on and have begun to use the Gamecube for all my gaming needs. Now, I've played thousands of games ever since Jumpman and King's Quest I in all it's Tandy 16 glory, but I'm just not willing to combat these copyright schemes any more. No, I will not flash my DVD-ROM with a new firmware required to work with your silly copy protection. No, I will not spend hours tweaking my system to make sure that there are no conflicts between Starforce and my OS. I will instead spend a couple hundred on a console and twenty bucks on a game that takes seconds to load up, is easy to play, and is *fun*.
I think the best message for PC gaming houses who agree to use such ridiculous copyright schemes is to simply stop buying their products. It's a sad, sad day when I say that I enjoy playing a GC more than my beloved PC, but alas, what else can be done?
It would make *much* more sense if it was developed for the DS platform - a pointer would simulate a mouse, making it that much easier to snipe, for example, not to mention the better graphics capabilities.
What's up with the "powerful mogul" bit? Are there really people like Bill Gates and Donald Trump out to get you? The only way your little scenario makes sense is if you've ticked off somebody who actually has national media connexions; your typical Bubble Gum Jones doesn't have these kind of connexions.
What about games like Syberia and Syberia 2? Great adventure games in the likeness of the old masters.
Or, if you really miss those old masters, check out Tierra Entertainment, who have remade King's Quest 1 and 2 (so far) so that it's playable on modern computers.
What you're supposed to do is come up with a theory and then prove it. It's assumed that any mathematician/scientist would do so, given enough time (and years of life left). The guy's also dead, so we give him the benefit of the doubt - "If he were alive, yeah, he would have solved it. Good ol' Bernie was always good for stuff like that."
You and I both know that the Internet is not going to replace peer-reviewed journals; however, if an author decides to both publish his article in a journal *and* post it on his web site, well, there's no problems, right?
Authors who maintain web sites usually mention which articles were recently published in which journal; I don't know about you, but I wouldn't read an article on cryptography written by "Bubble Gum Jones," no matter how good his blog was.
Depending on your field/place of employment, those additional lines on your curriculum vitae are necessary for merit increases and raises. Besides, isn't the point to be as widely published and read as possible? Fame and glory, my dear chap, fame and glory.
Just out of curiousity, does your knowledge of the "prohibition era" come from watching films? Not every laundromat or funeral home opened into a secret casino parlour full of hot chicks, booze and a brass quartet.
You're assuming that the distributers/siteops are all freaks. What about the people that are in it simply to make a profit? To these people supply/demand is applicable.
"The real question is what if they can individually mark the music you purchase, and hold you liable if that music shows up on the net?"
If it's an analog recording, and the music is fairly popular, then there's no way that any company can trace back a particular watermark to an individual user. The MPAA can do it because a watermark is not detrimental to the entire movie experience, but an audio watermark in a 3 minute song? People are going to complain about that.
Even if they put it in a region which a human can't hear, doesn't MP3 and OGG take out those areas anyway for compression purposes? I just don't see how this could happen.
"Digital lends itself much to easily to what we call "machine gun photography" Shoot 50 shots in a burst to get one good one. The film shooter will shoot 3, and get it."
Just one point on this and I'm done: machine gun photography does not build any skill. Heck, if you want to do this you might as well buy a video camera and select the frames that you want to keep. If somebody wants to *learn* photography, then they need to take their time with each and every shot, then examine the results once they're done.
Look at the terminology you used, "machine gun photography." Does one learn how to be a shootist with a fully automatic M16 blasting away at a target? No. You learn how to shoot with a Remington 700, one shot at a time.
I may be wrong, but it sounds like you don't have a lot of experience with photography. That's okay, but before leaping into the $1000+ world that is DSLR, may I suggest trying out a film SLR first? You can get a Nikon N75 or Canon EOS Rebel for 1/4 of the price, and if you decide to stick to the brand (YMMV, my experience is with Nikon) you can take the lenses you buy for your film SLR and use them on your digital one. Then, if you really want to get these prints in digital, develop your film at Walmart (or wherever) and pay the extra $2 to get the prints on CD.
The digital market is still relatively new, and big camera companies have DSLR prices pretty high in order to recoup R&D costs. Film cameras have been around for the better part of the 20th century and are tried and true.
Also, when you upgrade to a digital SLR in a few years, you can keep the film one around just in case. One more thing to keep in mind: some old school cameras (Nikon FM3A, older models) can be used without a battery, so battery life is not an issue. Good luck!
Nope, not true. There's a statement from the tour guide elsewhere that states that she moved around items in order to take pictures - instead of a shot with a picture frame on its side, supposedly fallen over from a stampede of Chernobylees leaving the city, she put it there. Also, you can't ride motorcycles through Chernobyl.
So, the only part of her trip that was actually *true* was her taking a few pictures of buildings, pictures that couldn't be faked. The rest - a motorcycle trip that was taken alone through Chernobyl in order to capture the city as it really is on film - is a lie.
Well, damn! Whenever there was any mention of the N-gage, I'd always bring up that Sidetalkin site and get modded to infinity, but now that people can backtalk, what's the frigging use? Excuse me while I crawl up into a ball and cry for a while; my social life as I know it is now over.
Hate to break it to you, but most of Elena's trip has now been definitively been proven to be a fake, specifically the part where she actually rides through Chernobyl on her bike. She (her husband? can't remember) also apparently re-arranged some kitsch to make a better shot.
Slashdot Mirror
They don't have the cash flow (or capital up front) to sustain an MMOG. They don't have the trust of gamers any more. Hell, all their good employees have left the company (Troika)!
Herve, if you're reading this, YOU NEED TO MAKE FALLOUT 3. This will bring in the cash you so desperately need to keep your company afloat, respect from the industry, and a leaping point to resurrect Interplay. The market is saturated with up and coming MMOGs that are going to suck the online market dry - City of Heroes is here, Matrix Online and World of Warcraft are coming, not to mention EQ2, PLUS all the MMOGs currently ON the market. There's no room for you online, but there are some of us who have been waiting years for a proper and wonderful RPG. You've got the freaking goose that lays golden eggs - out with them already!
ACK! Sorry, forget the first sentence - I was going to suggest just leaving wireless on during week days and making students pay the difference, but then inspiration REALLY hit :) Mods, be nice!
Benefits: it's easy to restrict by MAC and time spent, and students get to learn time management - if they use all their bandwidth for the week on Monday, then they're going to be royally screwed for the rest of the week. That, and you don't need a hugely complex system regulating who has what class and allowing their MAC address to connect, but the students whose classes are ending are cut off, etc. etc.
First time I ever heard of a warez group not only releasing a game before it's in stores, but releasing a game that WON'T be released in stores :)
Hark, the technology is here! It's called Opera. Opera can scale *everything* on a page, including graphics - you can make everything fit into a 1" x 1" corner of the screen, or have two words fill up the entire screen. Mind you, scaled graphics are not as pretty, but they're typically ads, so who cares?
This doesn't even take into consideration that not all game makers are going to want in on this "deal." If you pay $90 for two years expecting to get five great games, well, all you might get are a couple of expansions and a game that was released what, three months ago? I don't see them making any money on this business model. Ykant, great post, BTW.
If by manga you mean pr0n, and if by reading you mean staring fixedly at one page for a few minutes, then yeah, I read manga!
Trust me, Penny Arcade's DivX machine is the *ONLY* one you want to get.
Instead of fighting with computer games and copy protection, I've simply moved on and have begun to use the Gamecube for all my gaming needs. Now, I've played thousands of games ever since Jumpman and King's Quest I in all it's Tandy 16 glory, but I'm just not willing to combat these copyright schemes any more. No, I will not flash my DVD-ROM with a new firmware required to work with your silly copy protection. No, I will not spend hours tweaking my system to make sure that there are no conflicts between Starforce and my OS. I will instead spend a couple hundred on a console and twenty bucks on a game that takes seconds to load up, is easy to play, and is *fun*.
I think the best message for PC gaming houses who agree to use such ridiculous copyright schemes is to simply stop buying their products. It's a sad, sad day when I say that I enjoy playing a GC more than my beloved PC, but alas, what else can be done?
It would make *much* more sense if it was developed for the DS platform - a pointer would simulate a mouse, making it that much easier to snipe, for example, not to mention the better graphics capabilities.
What's up with the "powerful mogul" bit? Are there really people like Bill Gates and Donald Trump out to get you? The only way your little scenario makes sense is if you've ticked off somebody who actually has national media connexions; your typical Bubble Gum Jones doesn't have these kind of connexions.
Or, if you really miss those old masters, check out Tierra Entertainment, who have remade King's Quest 1 and 2 (so far) so that it's playable on modern computers.
Long Live The Adventure Game!
What you're supposed to do is come up with a theory and then prove it. It's assumed that any mathematician/scientist would do so, given enough time (and years of life left). The guy's also dead, so we give him the benefit of the doubt - "If he were alive, yeah, he would have solved it. Good ol' Bernie was always good for stuff like that."
You and I both know that the Internet is not going to replace peer-reviewed journals; however, if an author decides to both publish his article in a journal *and* post it on his web site, well, there's no problems, right?
Authors who maintain web sites usually mention which articles were recently published in which journal; I don't know about you, but I wouldn't read an article on cryptography written by "Bubble Gum Jones," no matter how good his blog was.
Depending on your field/place of employment, those additional lines on your curriculum vitae are necessary for merit increases and raises. Besides, isn't the point to be as widely published and read as possible? Fame and glory, my dear chap, fame and glory.
Perhaps you should move away from Wisconsin, then!
Just out of curiousity, does your knowledge of the "prohibition era" come from watching films? Not every laundromat or funeral home opened into a secret casino parlour full of hot chicks, booze and a brass quartet.
You're assuming that the distributers/siteops are all freaks. What about the people that are in it simply to make a profit? To these people supply/demand is applicable.
If it's an analog recording, and the music is fairly popular, then there's no way that any company can trace back a particular watermark to an individual user. The MPAA can do it because a watermark is not detrimental to the entire movie experience, but an audio watermark in a 3 minute song? People are going to complain about that.
Even if they put it in a region which a human can't hear, doesn't MP3 and OGG take out those areas anyway for compression purposes? I just don't see how this could happen.
Just one point on this and I'm done: machine gun photography does not build any skill. Heck, if you want to do this you might as well buy a video camera and select the frames that you want to keep. If somebody wants to *learn* photography, then they need to take their time with each and every shot, then examine the results once they're done.
Look at the terminology you used, "machine gun photography." Does one learn how to be a shootist with a fully automatic M16 blasting away at a target? No. You learn how to shoot with a Remington 700, one shot at a time.
The digital market is still relatively new, and big camera companies have DSLR prices pretty high in order to recoup R&D costs. Film cameras have been around for the better part of the 20th century and are tried and true.
Also, when you upgrade to a digital SLR in a few years, you can keep the film one around just in case. One more thing to keep in mind: some old school cameras (Nikon FM3A, older models) can be used without a battery, so battery life is not an issue. Good luck!
So, the only part of her trip that was actually *true* was her taking a few pictures of buildings, pictures that couldn't be faked. The rest - a motorcycle trip that was taken alone through Chernobyl in order to capture the city as it really is on film - is a lie.
Well, damn! Whenever there was any mention of the N-gage, I'd always bring up that Sidetalkin site and get modded to infinity, but now that people can backtalk, what's the frigging use? Excuse me while I crawl up into a ball and cry for a while; my social life as I know it is now over.
Hate to break it to you, but most of Elena's trip has now been definitively been proven to be a fake, specifically the part where she actually rides through Chernobyl on her bike. She (her husband? can't remember) also apparently re-arranged some kitsch to make a better shot.