they should make sure their wireless/wired standard is open and compatible with PS2 and xbox in the next generation.
Sure, right after Sony stops gimping its hardware (the PS2 is a piece of crap hardware-wise), Microsoft makes a controller for ALL ages (the Xbox S Controller isn't 'kid friendly') and Nintendo decides to be a crowd follower instead of being a crowd leader (I swear they could change their name to "Da Video Game Innovators" and people would still know and call them Nintendo).
Is either overly simple and designed for pure function or overly fashionable.
Look at the interior of most modern museums. For the most part their big rectangle rooms with chairs in the center with paintings on the wall. Sure its great when you have 500 different tourists trying to cram into a room designed for 300 people, but its god awful ugly for video games.
Same thing with modern day airports. Why build restaurants, newspaper stands or bookstores into the design? Isn't the goal supposed to be streamlining the process of getting people to and from their airplanes? That sure as hell doesn't happen with all those distractions. A couple vending machines and advertising reminders over time can replace this old design.
Modern day architecture is EXTREMELY overly glamorous. Take a look at medieval castles: tight hallways means easy to defend, towers on the corners means maximum line of sight in 360 degrees, a wall where troops can stand on to defend against attacks either inside or outside the castle. Ugly as hell but it gets the job done with minimal waste of material.
While most people would probably focus on the issue of gold/gil/plat selling here, I think the more important issue here is the failure to curb these types of transactions. Blizzard had been saying that money would not be as important since the best items would be obtain from monsters, yet this happens. Simply put, either money still remains to be a major factor in the game or Blizzard totally messed up their monetary design and made it too difficult for casual players to get money.
That said, it does get really repetitive. If you snap yourself out of the spell for a bit and realize "This is just a game. My status relative to all these other players is totally irrelevant.", the game gets really boring really fast.
That is, unless your real life if even more boring and you're current status in real life is irrelevant. (See: College student stuck on the four year plan).
Sure you can go get a job, but if you play a MMO chances are you already have one and don't want a second. Go back to school? Few people have the time and money to do that. Work overtime? What for? So you waste your life away working some more? Video games are a new avenue of escapism for people. Throw in socialization into the mix (MMO games) and its just like the real world only with less BS. (Little/no taxes, a job you can 'quit' at any time, little/no crime, etc...)
Course, if your a -16, 25+ year old person then yeah MMO games suck ass. Theres better games out there for people with the time and money (disposable income and "$50 is nothing!"). But for people who are stuck in a rut for whatever reason (bad economy, in school, wage worker and can't find a better job...), then MMOs are awesome... That it unless you get addicted and continue playing after you lose your original reason for getting into it in the first place.
The "problem" (a lot of players I talk to try to downplay this) with CS though is the fact that if you rush 'like they should' and you get killed early on, its VERY frustrating for players to watch a match drag on for 2~5 minutes because of some sniping campers on both sides of the team. On some maps is possible to run into the enemy within 20 seconds of the match (not counting maps where both spawns are within line of sight of each other...) so if you're not quick or 'skilled' enough, you can die VERY fast. Eventually, it all boils down to a bunch of nameless, faceless people you've just met online.
At least in a game like Unreal or Quake you can just respawn and 'freelance' anyway you want. Those games are so arcadish as long as you don't stand still and shoot or go AFK on a 0 second auto-respawn server, chances are you'll end up with no worse than a 1:5 ratio. Throw in a bunch of dumb/average bots for extra guns and chaos and that ratio can turn into 1:1 ratio easily for a newbie.
Thats not a very good analogy. What parent is trying to say is that using the product you're trying to sell in order to FURTHER your sales in the same product is insulting and annoying to consumers.
BMW doesn't sell cars and then make YOU download advertisement to watch on YOUR built-in mini-TV screen inside your BMW car, only to have it say "Go to your local BMW car dealer and buy more BMW products!"
True you don't HAVE to download and watch this stuff, but then why did you buy a PSP? Or rather, why did you buy such a big memory stick if you knew it was largely going to be unused until something like this came along?
Like you said its easier, more profitable and quicker to simply promote on superstar over thousands of different no-name, garage bands. But in the long term, you're simply asking for trouble.
Think about it, theres always going to be people who don't like your superstar actor/actress for whatever reasons so common sense dictates you want a second superstar in hopes of catching those who don't like your first. Obviously you can repeat the same logic an infinite amount of times but you come to a point where you say enough is enough. Now the problem with the RIAA is they don't even begin to think about multiple superstars. Sure there are a few other big names but for the most part those people are on their own with their pitiful amount of publicity and advertisment compared to say Britney Spears.
The end result is simple and obvious. The 'masses' 'supposedly' follow the RIAA and their dictation of whos hot and whos not. The 'pirates' go 'underground' leaving them largely 'out of the loop.' And the courts and government are left trying to sort out the BS from both sides as to what to do. Give power to the RIAA and you risk infringing on constitutional rights. Give power to the 'pirates' and you risk pissing off a multibillion dollar industry with more money than most third world countries, not to mention possible social damage.
Different perspectives, different opinions, different facts distort heavily especially in mass protests. For a protestor on one side of the crowd, he may see a few minor crimes being committed: jaywalking, littering, obstruction of traffic... but nothing major. But this is one pair of eyes with hundreds, sometimes thousands of other people in the crowd. Do you know what the other side of the crowd is doing? For all a casual observer on the ground knows, on the other side there could be fires being started, windows being broken and fights are breaking out.
Unless an observer managed to view the protest from an aerial point of view (nothing to block your line of sight), any opinion of the protest made on the ground can easily be made to EXTREMELY bias. You didn't see anything at your protests? Fine, but can you vouch for the thousands of other people you saw taking part as well?
This story and others (like the Zacharias Moussaoui arrest a full month before the September 11th attacks) point out the intelligence agencies already had more than enough information.
But they did nothing. It was pure and simple incompetence. All their after the fact rationalizations are just noise.
Enough information? Maybe, on this topic it'd depend on how you look at it. Pre-9/11, Al-Qaeda wasn't even a blip on even the most 'liberal' and 'independent' news reports. No mass support means the President can't lift a finger without the public screaming "OMFG, the U.S. isn't allowed to kidnap people without due process/an extradition treaty/without permission from the U.N./a long lengthy trial/Senate hearing/etc!!!11!!1") Impeaching ensues for mis-use of power and even if he survives it, the President would be a yes-man for the rest of his presidential term. Assuming he doesn't outright resign.
Internationally, prove it. Did/does Bin Laden REALLY have a hand in Somalia, Sudan, and Afghanistan? This isn't an accounting audit where you have a paper trail of evidence to prove this, 99% of whats important is either in the hands of dead men or the people who took part in it and still live (I'm pretty damned sure Bin Laden didn't have a cameraman at all his meetings for 'historical purposes.' U.S. courts can't touch them without looking like the President AND the Senate have an illegal agenda. ie. The system of checks and balances is severly weakened, minimum damage: the Supreme Court loses credibity.
Why should the public care? The U.S. hasn't been attacked directly pre-9/11. Sure there was the truck bomb in the parking lot of the World Trade Center several years ago but in the grand scheme of things, that was nothing. More people died in a day on average from shootings in the continental U.S. than from that. Other than that, theres nothing, damage was small compared to the stupid things people do in the U.S., the cost was pennies even without inflation and for the most part life went along as usual for 99.9% of the country. The public doesn't know, doesn't care and doesn't write/push their Senators and Congressmen to do something about Al-Qaeda. Lack of support means any attempts to do so is political career suicide. Congress doesn't touch the subject knowing it would get destroyed even before the evidence could be discussed.
If anything, the PUBLIC should be blaimed for the 9/11 attacks. The military has been a joke since the Vietnam War since the public is unwilling to stomach a few casualties (compared to the number of dead and wounded in past wars, we fight nameless skrimishes.) Protesters line the streets of Washington on birth control but leave when the topic is on genecide in foreign, far away countries which some people don't even know exist. We complain about the censoring on the public U.S. media today (ie. Howard Stein) but its been YEARS since China started monitoring and censoring the INTERNET and the U.S. and the U.N. barely make an issue out of it. With this kind of ignorance among the public, its no wonder the government doesn't trust the masses. They're too lazy and blind to do anything until someone walks right up to them, punches them in the gut then walks out of the house with the jewelry.
Increasingly, our customer service department has had to bear the brunt of futily attempting to assist these players when they are cheated by unsecure transactions.
I donno what EQ2's policies are towards item buying/selling in the EULA, but in FFXI if you buy/sell an item for real money through a 3rd party system and you get scammed, you're basicly screwed. So why can't SOE simply follow this same policy? Why go through the hassle of trying to deal with it even though they've tried before (*cough*EQ1*cough*) and failed? This just makes SOE look shortsighted and trying to cash in on something they won't or can't fix.
You're paying for a service (to play the game, right?)... why does it not make sense to pay more for better service?
How about this, lets do a PVP duel on EQ2 on one of these new servers. YOU are a middle-class guy who plays EQ2 'for the fun of it', never buys or bought any virtual items online for real money nor do you care about getting these ph4t-l3wt items. I am rich upper-class kid who plays EQ2 to '0wnz0rz n00bz', I often buy ph4t-l3wt items so I can pwn0rz people with ease and I love to brag, gloat and make fun of people for their lack of ph4t-l3wt.
Would you show up to the duel knowing that my Super Heroic Sword of Flaming +2 and my Blessed God Armor of Light +3 would crush you like a dragon eating a level 1 beginner? Of course not. Not only wouldn't you show up, you would probably quit since I'd just be one of many on one of these new servers. Multiply this by thousands of players over the course of a few months and its not hard to imagine the game closing down within a year or two.
The Japanese are attempting to impose their imperialistic reign over China once again! Let us rise together and fight off the evil aggressors as our ancestors have done before!
/sarcasm
Its humorous to see how a lot of posts here on/. seem to have this idea that the Chinese are seriously informed about what they're 'fighting' (read: rioting) for. China is still a Communist country with a censored press and is subjected to a censored internet (something few outsiders could probably comprehend). Regardless of what it looks like from the outside, people need to think of what the average Chinese citizen sees from the inside. Once you do that, its not TOO much more difficult to see why the Chinese would/are doing such things.
Japan is attempting to join the security council at the U.N. China is the only MAJOR U.N. player in Asia (Russia doesn't count since its focused domestically and to its southwest right now). Throw in political (North Korea), economic (U.N. sanctions on China for human rights issues to cut competition?) and historical (WWII fears) and you have a nasty case of mass backlash.
For those who can bear waiting, the Killtacular Pack will be free on June 28.
Unless you plan on canceling your Xbox Live subscription before June 28, you're going to get 4 new maps whether you bother to learn them or not. (The first 2 are free immediately, the other two become free on June 28 if you read the report.)
Unfortunately, it doesn't say whether the last 5 will eventually be free as well.
Considering people use empty cans of Pringles as directional antennas and people were using their PCs as 'home entertainment systems' for YEARS before the first ones 'mainstream' ones hit the market, you're basicly asking companies to build something which can do 'everything' right out of the box.
TV remote control? Make it convertable into a keyboard. A computer wireless mouse? Make it a garage door opener as well. SUV? I want to be able to remove the roof and lower the sides to turn it into a flat-bed truck. The list goes on.
analysts also said Sony Corp.'s new PlayStation Portable handheld gaming unit sold 620,000 units of hardware in the month and 1.1 million pieces of software
If those numbers are right, that means people only bought one or two games to go with their PSP...
Keep in mind it was/is nearly/completely impossible to buy a PSP without the bundle so you're really looking at about 50% of the people either picking up the PSP as 'early adopters' and probably not using it much due to the sheer lack of use so far (1 game, 1 movie, and unrefined hacked software doesn't make a iPod, GBA:SP or DS killer). The other 50% probably doesn't use their PSP much either for the same reasons...
Not to mention dead pixel issues, returns, broken systems, systems resold online...
How do you know that they didn't just break their network infrastructure yet again?
Again? The game has been out for over 2 years in the US (3+ in Japan) and has run smoothly since then (don't forget its also designed for the PS2 so they have a VERY stable system). FFXI isn't Ultima Online where server problems plagued the game after two generations of MMORPGs passed it. FFXI isn't World of Warcraft where server problems can be justified (to an extent) to the 'we're just getting started, give us a chance' argument either.
If you paid attention to the server status on the PlayOnline website, you also would've noticed that some servers were randomly going down also. Non-heavily populated servers going down? Can't be an overload of players. No server patch updates recently? Can't be a lag spike. Some script kiddie decided to try to 'hack' the game? Been there, done that, hasn't crashed a server either and if they did it would've crashed ALL the servers, not just one of them (they would've also had to hack PlayOnline before they could manipulate any important data). This isn't something you can just chalk up to 'hackers getting lucky this one time' so lose the 'FFXI SUX0RZ!' attitude.
Shuttle goes through atmosphere. Heat shield fails and shuttle rises above safe parameters. Metals begin to fuse. Electronics overload. Remote flight control lost. Shuttle crashed into California at thousands of miles per hour because the shuttle did not make any attempt to slow its decent.
Shuttle crashes in California, public outrage is loud and swift because some guy managed to get killed by it somewhere, somehow.
What they're trying to do, in my estimation, is to create a portfolio of 'goodwill attempts' to combat online copyright infringement. Once they have enough of these attempts thrown back in their faces, they'll be able to go to court and say "See? We tried, we really really tried, but they just aren't willing to compromise. Please step in and help us!"
First there was the closing of Napster without offering a new (or legal) alternative which spawned a bunch of copycats. (See Kazaa.)
Then they tried to take down the copycats and failed (remember the Kazaa case?) with still no alternative in sight (the new Napster was still in business limbo, iTunes wasn't released yet, everything else was poorly done or launched and died quietly).
Then they tried strongarming ISPs into revealing information about their consumers so they could 'warn' them.
Then they sued them (90 and 9 year olds beware!).
Then they said they were winning (they reported a drop in P2P software usage).
And NOW their trying to do THIS. Not exactly a 'goodwill attempt' portfolio in my opinion. If they tried the 'goodwill' thing back during/before Napster, I MIGHT have accepted it, but NOW? AND after they've SUED people?! What the hell are they smoking?! You don't burn down someone's house then come back 5 years later after driving a bulldozer over their lawn repeatedly and expect them to welcome you in open arms.
If it doesn't fit, don't force it on. As long as the advertisement don't seem out of context, Coke and Pepsi signs in Everquest? Uh uh. In The Matrix Online? I can accept that. Simple as that.
Obviously there are problems in some cases (what are you going to advertise in a world like World of Warcraft?) but thats a problem for another discussion.
Simple money making scheme? Buy stacks of brandy and sell them at a nice profit at remote locations. The makers of brandy don't want to spend the time to distribute their wares and the customers don't want do spend hours shopping.
The problem with this comparison is that you can justify this kind of 'scheme' by say its a 'service charge' (I'm pretty damned sure I don't burn $5 in gasoline while riding a taxi a mile in New York City.)
The problem with this 'scheme' is when you always buy out your competition to keep the prices high. We all know this happens in the real world (Microsoft killing Netscape, EA Games absorbing just about everything it can, etc.) so its just a matter of time before the same thing happens to you. On top of this imagine if you were selling raw materials. The obvious result of higher priced raw materials means higher cost of refined materials and thus higher cost of finished products (weapons, armor...). End result is simple, inflation rises due to people buying money on Ebay, you make a minor profit in the long run and everyone in the world bitches some more.
The Xbox didn't add the second analog stick, since it already existed in PS* controllers.
You got me there, but lets ask ourselves this. How many games ACTUALLY used the right analog stick on the PS2? I'm willing to guess a small number compared to the total number of games released since the Dualshock controller design was made the standard controller.
You can't play FFXI on the new PS2 minis, which makes this a bad April Fools joke when you think about it. If you listened to the community when Sony announced the PS2 mini you would've heard talk of people hoarding the old PS2 models due to their unreliability/the fact that the only other way to play would be on the PC. Among the PC players, theres random rumors/jokes/talk about the game eventually becoming PC only after the next expansion (if there is another expansion considering how late it is in the PS2's life).
Look at the SNES controller design, near perfect. Sony sees that and copies it for the PS. Why nintendo didn't continue using that idea is beyond me.
Thats because after Sony copied the SNES controller design to make the original PS1 controller, Nintendo one-upped them by blowing people away with the thumbstick AND a Z-trigger. Suddenly people could play FPSs on their consoles and not get bashed on by their PC playing brethen (at least, not as much). Soon after, Sony releases the 'analog' sticks and after Starfox64 is released with a free packaged rumble pack, the 'dualshock' is created. Fast forward to today and Sony is still basicly using the same controller design they basicly ripped off of Nintendo. Course other game companies aren't innocent of this either. The Dreamcast took the Z-trigger a step farther removing the shoulder buttons in exchange for a second trigger and the X-Box simply added a second thumbstick and the black and white buttons.
Simple as that. You can make the world's greatest FPS/RTS game/Turn-based strategy game/Puzzle/Flight sim/RPG in the world, but if its too complicated to figure out or handle or manage, the mass majority of gamers simply won't like it.
Doom 3's flashlight turned the scaryness factor up threefold with the darkness yet people bitched (No run and gun?! Flame on!.) Warcraft 3 has on average three or four new spells to manage per tier (sentinal, defend, canniblize, pillage are all abilities for tier 1 units so yes there is a system in place to encourage their use late in the game), not counting heroes which results in a stagnation of mixed units in multiplayer (no hero has more than 2 passive abilities). Total Annihilation? Too many units, insanely huge battles makes it hard to see whats going on/whos winning and advanced systems such as waypoints and artillery which can shoot across the map made things VERY confusing from the traditional "mass tanks up, throw at enemy base" system.
1. Forget 'the people.' Dead pixels are turning Sony into an electronics joke. They sell a system for $250 in a bundle with dead pixels?! This isn't 1998 when LCDs cost more than your own computer and getting less than 10 dead pixels was considered to be 'lucky'!
2. No, Sony isn't fixing them straight out. Theres a Walkthrough/FAQ on GameFAQs explaining step-by-step on how to bypass Sony's wall of BS. Not exactly a shining example of customer support.
3. If people have to disassemble their non-PC gaming systems to get it to work the way it should, something's wrong.
4. Considering there are stores in the U.S. that recieved less than 10 units and others recieved over 100, I have two words for you. Bad logistics.
5. In Japan, pre-orders were forbidden because they didn't want people pre-ordering them just to resell them at inflated prices online. Which happened anyway. Just like with the PS2.
6. The PSP sales are pale compared to the DS's. Sony didn't launch a Halo 2-like marketing blitz so unless the Japanese are buying them as fast and they can manufacture them, theres no way the PSP is outselling the DS.
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Sure, right after Sony stops gimping its hardware (the PS2 is a piece of crap hardware-wise), Microsoft makes a controller for ALL ages (the Xbox S Controller isn't 'kid friendly') and Nintendo decides to be a crowd follower instead of being a crowd leader (I swear they could change their name to "Da Video Game Innovators" and people would still know and call them Nintendo).
Look at the interior of most modern museums. For the most part their big rectangle rooms with chairs in the center with paintings on the wall. Sure its great when you have 500 different tourists trying to cram into a room designed for 300 people, but its god awful ugly for video games.
Same thing with modern day airports. Why build restaurants, newspaper stands or bookstores into the design? Isn't the goal supposed to be streamlining the process of getting people to and from their airplanes? That sure as hell doesn't happen with all those distractions. A couple vending machines and advertising reminders over time can replace this old design.
Modern day architecture is EXTREMELY overly glamorous. Take a look at medieval castles: tight hallways means easy to defend, towers on the corners means maximum line of sight in 360 degrees, a wall where troops can stand on to defend against attacks either inside or outside the castle. Ugly as hell but it gets the job done with minimal waste of material.
While most people would probably focus on the issue of gold/gil/plat selling here, I think the more important issue here is the failure to curb these types of transactions. Blizzard had been saying that money would not be as important since the best items would be obtain from monsters, yet this happens. Simply put, either money still remains to be a major factor in the game or Blizzard totally messed up their monetary design and made it too difficult for casual players to get money.
That is, unless your real life if even more boring and you're current status in real life is irrelevant. (See: College student stuck on the four year plan).
Sure you can go get a job, but if you play a MMO chances are you already have one and don't want a second. Go back to school? Few people have the time and money to do that. Work overtime? What for? So you waste your life away working some more? Video games are a new avenue of escapism for people. Throw in socialization into the mix (MMO games) and its just like the real world only with less BS. (Little/no taxes, a job you can 'quit' at any time, little/no crime, etc...)
Course, if your a -16, 25+ year old person then yeah MMO games suck ass. Theres better games out there for people with the time and money (disposable income and "$50 is nothing!"). But for people who are stuck in a rut for whatever reason (bad economy, in school, wage worker and can't find a better job...), then MMOs are awesome... That it unless you get addicted and continue playing after you lose your original reason for getting into it in the first place.
At least in a game like Unreal or Quake you can just respawn and 'freelance' anyway you want. Those games are so arcadish as long as you don't stand still and shoot or go AFK on a 0 second auto-respawn server, chances are you'll end up with no worse than a 1:5 ratio. Throw in a bunch of dumb/average bots for extra guns and chaos and that ratio can turn into 1:1 ratio easily for a newbie.
BMW doesn't sell cars and then make YOU download advertisement to watch on YOUR built-in mini-TV screen inside your BMW car, only to have it say "Go to your local BMW car dealer and buy more BMW products!"
True you don't HAVE to download and watch this stuff, but then why did you buy a PSP? Or rather, why did you buy such a big memory stick if you knew it was largely going to be unused until something like this came along?
Think about it, theres always going to be people who don't like your superstar actor/actress for whatever reasons so common sense dictates you want a second superstar in hopes of catching those who don't like your first. Obviously you can repeat the same logic an infinite amount of times but you come to a point where you say enough is enough. Now the problem with the RIAA is they don't even begin to think about multiple superstars. Sure there are a few other big names but for the most part those people are on their own with their pitiful amount of publicity and advertisment compared to say Britney Spears.
The end result is simple and obvious. The 'masses' 'supposedly' follow the RIAA and their dictation of whos hot and whos not. The 'pirates' go 'underground' leaving them largely 'out of the loop.' And the courts and government are left trying to sort out the BS from both sides as to what to do. Give power to the RIAA and you risk infringing on constitutional rights. Give power to the 'pirates' and you risk pissing off a multibillion dollar industry with more money than most third world countries, not to mention possible social damage.
Unless an observer managed to view the protest from an aerial point of view (nothing to block your line of sight), any opinion of the protest made on the ground can easily be made to EXTREMELY bias. You didn't see anything at your protests? Fine, but can you vouch for the thousands of other people you saw taking part as well?
But they did nothing. It was pure and simple incompetence. All their after the fact rationalizations are just noise.
Enough information? Maybe, on this topic it'd depend on how you look at it. Pre-9/11, Al-Qaeda wasn't even a blip on even the most 'liberal' and 'independent' news reports. No mass support means the President can't lift a finger without the public screaming "OMFG, the U.S. isn't allowed to kidnap people without due process/an extradition treaty/without permission from the U.N./a long lengthy trial/Senate hearing/etc!!!11!!1") Impeaching ensues for mis-use of power and even if he survives it, the President would be a yes-man for the rest of his presidential term. Assuming he doesn't outright resign.
Internationally, prove it. Did/does Bin Laden REALLY have a hand in Somalia, Sudan, and Afghanistan? This isn't an accounting audit where you have a paper trail of evidence to prove this, 99% of whats important is either in the hands of dead men or the people who took part in it and still live (I'm pretty damned sure Bin Laden didn't have a cameraman at all his meetings for 'historical purposes.' U.S. courts can't touch them without looking like the President AND the Senate have an illegal agenda. ie. The system of checks and balances is severly weakened, minimum damage: the Supreme Court loses credibity.
Why should the public care? The U.S. hasn't been attacked directly pre-9/11. Sure there was the truck bomb in the parking lot of the World Trade Center several years ago but in the grand scheme of things, that was nothing. More people died in a day on average from shootings in the continental U.S. than from that. Other than that, theres nothing, damage was small compared to the stupid things people do in the U.S., the cost was pennies even without inflation and for the most part life went along as usual for 99.9% of the country. The public doesn't know, doesn't care and doesn't write/push their Senators and Congressmen to do something about Al-Qaeda. Lack of support means any attempts to do so is political career suicide. Congress doesn't touch the subject knowing it would get destroyed even before the evidence could be discussed.
If anything, the PUBLIC should be blaimed for the 9/11 attacks. The military has been a joke since the Vietnam War since the public is unwilling to stomach a few casualties (compared to the number of dead and wounded in past wars, we fight nameless skrimishes.) Protesters line the streets of Washington on birth control but leave when the topic is on genecide in foreign, far away countries which some people don't even know exist. We complain about the censoring on the public U.S. media today (ie. Howard Stein) but its been YEARS since China started monitoring and censoring the INTERNET and the U.S. and the U.N. barely make an issue out of it. With this kind of ignorance among the public, its no wonder the government doesn't trust the masses. They're too lazy and blind to do anything until someone walks right up to them, punches them in the gut then walks out of the house with the jewelry.
I donno what EQ2's policies are towards item buying/selling in the EULA, but in FFXI if you buy/sell an item for real money through a 3rd party system and you get scammed, you're basicly screwed. So why can't SOE simply follow this same policy? Why go through the hassle of trying to deal with it even though they've tried before (*cough*EQ1*cough*) and failed? This just makes SOE look shortsighted and trying to cash in on something they won't or can't fix.
How about this, lets do a PVP duel on EQ2 on one of these new servers. YOU are a middle-class guy who plays EQ2 'for the fun of it', never buys or bought any virtual items online for real money nor do you care about getting these ph4t-l3wt items. I am rich upper-class kid who plays EQ2 to '0wnz0rz n00bz', I often buy ph4t-l3wt items so I can pwn0rz people with ease and I love to brag, gloat and make fun of people for their lack of ph4t-l3wt.
Would you show up to the duel knowing that my Super Heroic Sword of Flaming +2 and my Blessed God Armor of Light +3 would crush you like a dragon eating a level 1 beginner? Of course not. Not only wouldn't you show up, you would probably quit since I'd just be one of many on one of these new servers. Multiply this by thousands of players over the course of a few months and its not hard to imagine the game closing down within a year or two.
/sarcasm
Its humorous to see how a lot of posts here on /. seem to have this idea that the Chinese are seriously informed about what they're 'fighting' (read: rioting) for. China is still a Communist country with a censored press and is subjected to a censored internet (something few outsiders could probably comprehend). Regardless of what it looks like from the outside, people need to think of what the average Chinese citizen sees from the inside. Once you do that, its not TOO much more difficult to see why the Chinese would/are doing such things.
Japan is attempting to join the security council at the U.N. China is the only MAJOR U.N. player in Asia (Russia doesn't count since its focused domestically and to its southwest right now). Throw in political (North Korea), economic (U.N. sanctions on China for human rights issues to cut competition?) and historical (WWII fears) and you have a nasty case of mass backlash.
Unless you plan on canceling your Xbox Live subscription before June 28, you're going to get 4 new maps whether you bother to learn them or not. (The first 2 are free immediately, the other two become free on June 28 if you read the report.)
Unfortunately, it doesn't say whether the last 5 will eventually be free as well.
TV remote control? Make it convertable into a keyboard. A computer wireless mouse? Make it a garage door opener as well. SUV? I want to be able to remove the roof and lower the sides to turn it into a flat-bed truck. The list goes on.
If those numbers are right, that means people only bought one or two games to go with their PSP...
Keep in mind it was/is nearly/completely impossible to buy a PSP without the bundle so you're really looking at about 50% of the people either picking up the PSP as 'early adopters' and probably not using it much due to the sheer lack of use so far (1 game, 1 movie, and unrefined hacked software doesn't make a iPod, GBA:SP or DS killer). The other 50% probably doesn't use their PSP much either for the same reasons...
Not to mention dead pixel issues, returns, broken systems, systems resold online...
Again? The game has been out for over 2 years in the US (3+ in Japan) and has run smoothly since then (don't forget its also designed for the PS2 so they have a VERY stable system). FFXI isn't Ultima Online where server problems plagued the game after two generations of MMORPGs passed it. FFXI isn't World of Warcraft where server problems can be justified (to an extent) to the 'we're just getting started, give us a chance' argument either.
If you paid attention to the server status on the PlayOnline website, you also would've noticed that some servers were randomly going down also. Non-heavily populated servers going down? Can't be an overload of players. No server patch updates recently? Can't be a lag spike. Some script kiddie decided to try to 'hack' the game? Been there, done that, hasn't crashed a server either and if they did it would've crashed ALL the servers, not just one of them (they would've also had to hack PlayOnline before they could manipulate any important data). This isn't something you can just chalk up to 'hackers getting lucky this one time' so lose the 'FFXI SUX0RZ!' attitude.
Heat shield fails and shuttle rises above safe parameters.
Metals begin to fuse.
Electronics overload.
Remote flight control lost.
Shuttle crashed into California at thousands of miles per hour because the shuttle did not make any attempt to slow its decent.
Shuttle crashes in California, public outrage is loud and swift because some guy managed to get killed by it somewhere, somehow.
First there was the closing of Napster without offering a new (or legal) alternative which spawned a bunch of copycats. (See Kazaa.)
Then they tried to take down the copycats and failed (remember the Kazaa case?) with still no alternative in sight (the new Napster was still in business limbo, iTunes wasn't released yet, everything else was poorly done or launched and died quietly).
Then they tried strongarming ISPs into revealing information about their consumers so they could 'warn' them.
Then they sued them (90 and 9 year olds beware!).
Then they said they were winning (they reported a drop in P2P software usage).
And NOW their trying to do THIS. Not exactly a 'goodwill attempt' portfolio in my opinion. If they tried the 'goodwill' thing back during/before Napster, I MIGHT have accepted it, but NOW? AND after they've SUED people?! What the hell are they smoking?! You don't burn down someone's house then come back 5 years later after driving a bulldozer over their lawn repeatedly and expect them to welcome you in open arms.
Obviously there are problems in some cases (what are you going to advertise in a world like World of Warcraft?) but thats a problem for another discussion.
The problem with this comparison is that you can justify this kind of 'scheme' by say its a 'service charge' (I'm pretty damned sure I don't burn $5 in gasoline while riding a taxi a mile in New York City.)
The problem with this 'scheme' is when you always buy out your competition to keep the prices high. We all know this happens in the real world (Microsoft killing Netscape, EA Games absorbing just about everything it can, etc.) so its just a matter of time before the same thing happens to you. On top of this imagine if you were selling raw materials. The obvious result of higher priced raw materials means higher cost of refined materials and thus higher cost of finished products (weapons, armor...). End result is simple, inflation rises due to people buying money on Ebay, you make a minor profit in the long run and everyone in the world bitches some more.
You got me there, but lets ask ourselves this. How many games ACTUALLY used the right analog stick on the PS2? I'm willing to guess a small number compared to the total number of games released since the Dualshock controller design was made the standard controller.
You can't play FFXI on the new PS2 minis, which makes this a bad April Fools joke when you think about it. If you listened to the community when Sony announced the PS2 mini you would've heard talk of people hoarding the old PS2 models due to their unreliability/the fact that the only other way to play would be on the PC. Among the PC players, theres random rumors/jokes/talk about the game eventually becoming PC only after the next expansion (if there is another expansion considering how late it is in the PS2's life).
Thats because after Sony copied the SNES controller design to make the original PS1 controller, Nintendo one-upped them by blowing people away with the thumbstick AND a Z-trigger. Suddenly people could play FPSs on their consoles and not get bashed on by their PC playing brethen (at least, not as much). Soon after, Sony releases the 'analog' sticks and after Starfox64 is released with a free packaged rumble pack, the 'dualshock' is created. Fast forward to today and Sony is still basicly using the same controller design they basicly ripped off of Nintendo. Course other game companies aren't innocent of this either. The Dreamcast took the Z-trigger a step farther removing the shoulder buttons in exchange for a second trigger and the X-Box simply added a second thumbstick and the black and white buttons.
Doom 3's flashlight turned the scaryness factor up threefold with the darkness yet people bitched (No run and gun?! Flame on!.) Warcraft 3 has on average three or four new spells to manage per tier (sentinal, defend, canniblize, pillage are all abilities for tier 1 units so yes there is a system in place to encourage their use late in the game), not counting heroes which results in a stagnation of mixed units in multiplayer (no hero has more than 2 passive abilities). Total Annihilation? Too many units, insanely huge battles makes it hard to see whats going on/whos winning and advanced systems such as waypoints and artillery which can shoot across the map made things VERY confusing from the traditional "mass tanks up, throw at enemy base" system.
2. No, Sony isn't fixing them straight out. Theres a Walkthrough/FAQ on GameFAQs explaining step-by-step on how to bypass Sony's wall of BS. Not exactly a shining example of customer support.
3. If people have to disassemble their non-PC gaming systems to get it to work the way it should, something's wrong.
4. Considering there are stores in the U.S. that recieved less than 10 units and others recieved over 100, I have two words for you. Bad logistics.
5. In Japan, pre-orders were forbidden because they didn't want people pre-ordering them just to resell them at inflated prices online. Which happened anyway. Just like with the PS2.
6. The PSP sales are pale compared to the DS's. Sony didn't launch a Halo 2-like marketing blitz so unless the Japanese are buying them as fast and they can manufacture them, theres no way the PSP is outselling the DS.