Actually the problem is the closing of port 25. Chances are you've never played FFXI since its IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAY THE GAME WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE PLAYONLINE VIEWER. Yes, thats right, just like how you can't use Windows without Internet Explorer, you can't play FFXI without PlayOnline Viewer. So when PlayOnline Viewer has a problem, FFXI has a problem.
PlayOnline Viewer uses port 25 for its Friends List and won't let the user in until it fully connects. End result : PlayOnline Viewer cannot 100% connect and therefore won't let the user play FFXI. Its not just the e-mail client.
Actually, the real reason why retails thought no one would want this game is because of lack of publicity and marketing. I could walk down to my local game store and pre-order a copy of Quake 4 even if theres no publicity out for it or anything right now, but if you ask them directly and its in their database they'll pre-order it for you.
Its just a matter of being in the database and you, the consumer, asking for it. The only difference is, which game do you think Joe Average is going to know more about? Half-Life 2 or Wild Arms: The 4th Detonator? (Actual game, look it up.)
Sony did itself and it's devs a favor by providing this little kit.
How did Sony do the devs a favor by tossing the task of managing the battery onto them? Considering the amount of data those discs can hold, I don't think even a gig of RAM in the PSP will be enough to satisfy most games beyond the RPG and Puzzle genres. Every single Action game developer will go insane trying to code for this, as well Racing and Shooting genres.
I won't comment on the other add-ons but the Gamecube has done a pretty good job at offering some connectivity. The empty slots at the bottom at used for an add-on modem and ethernet adaptor but supply is insanely low and I suppose theres a demand for it somewhere (the only to my knowledge that uses them is Phantasy Star Online and that still sells for $~50 so someone out there is buying it). Also theres also the Gameboy Player which connects to the bottom of the GC, which I'm sure gets plenty of use.
As for why light guns are underdeveloped, thats for a ton of reasons. For one, they're very limiting without seriously detracting from the experience. Take a game like Time Crisis and the original Guncon. Two buttons, or one button, one trigger. Given the PS1's hardware (and not just 'theorical' numbers), how could you make the game better without simply extending its length?
Actually its very easy to please Vivendi in this case. If the only problem is the Steam distribution system (which 1. bypasses retailers and producers, and 2. pisses off everyone who wants the game but doesn't want to use/cannot use Steam) then this problem is VERY easily solved. All Valve has to do is wait a few extra days for the game to be sent off to the CD copiers and wait for the games to be shipped to retailers. The other difference with this (other than the obvious time factor) is the loss of money with the use of the middleman.
Depending on the contract between Vivendi and Valve, the argument could swing either way. If Valve is doing this and it turns out that this is a breach of contract, hats off to Vivendi. If Valve can do this and its within the contract, truckloads of extra money for Valve for cutting out the middleman. If nothing else, Vivendi has the whole 'Steam sucks and is unreliable' argument on their side, so this doesn't look good for Valve.
This is newsworthy? No, seriously on the part of Sony.
No details have emerged on the pricing of the PSP, but Kutaragi stated that plans for movies on the UMD - the disc format the PSP will use , are now in the final stages.
Thats it? The disc format? Comon Sony, Nintendo just bitch slapped you with a release date AND a price of $150! At least give us a price range. Compared to the DS announcement this is a 'so what' announcement.
Sony certainly needs the PSP to make an impression at the Tokyo Game Show after mounting speculation that the handheld will slip to 2005, and rumours of discontent amongst PSP developers surfaced recently.
Personally, I think Sony should stop trying to beat Nintendo at its own game and get its act together first. They're not going in during the golden age of DVD players flying off shelves, nor are they going in with an entire library of games behind it. Best case scenario for Sony at this rate? They fight a long drawn out battle only to go down in flames a la Sega Game Gear.
Better yet, hire both. Setup a closed network system of computer running your software, outside of your main computers, and let them both run insane. Have the worm-writing kid try to break/hack/destroy/erase/etc your software while gray-hat security genius trys to plug every hole, bug, and mistake in the software while fixing the problems worm-writing kid exploits.
End result : Software is insanely optimized, thanks to worm-writing kid who has insight on the program so you KNOW he's gonna break it at least once a week. And gray-hat security genius doesn't get paid to sit around looking up pr0n on the company's T3 line. Obviously it doesn't mean EVERYTHING is fixed *cough*Windows*cough*, but its better than releasing a full blown program only to have bug reporting coming in 6 hours before its even officially released.
Why does everybody on Slashdot trash everything that Microsoft ever did like it's worse than slime, but celebrate the X-box because of Halo and some other mediocre games? It's totally antithetic.
Because everything Microsoft does or seems to do is worse than slime (kinda hard to defend Windows when it has more bugs and viruses than a fat, unhealthy kids summer camp). But Microsoft somehow managed to do a good job with the Xbox against damned near impossible odds. Oh and Halo's not the only good game for the Xbox, just like SOCOM isn't the only good online game for the PS2. Get with the times.
EA's customer relations gets better later on in the thread.
As I said, I've seen this issue and we are looking into it. Can we solve it today? Nope. But I am here and I do hear you.
But... didn't you just threaten to ban the guy?
if there's a fix you will be able to read about it.
Wait, so EA expects CASUAL gamers who have trouble playing the game to monitor their website to see if they fix the problem? If you were talking about a hardcore community like the Half-Life community or/. community I'd understand, but The Sims's community? Uh uh, not happenin.
In other countries people are dying for it - but getting to the truth.
True, but theres always a third option. In some OTHER countries people are dying for the true, never getting to it, and then never getting recognized for it. Any Iraqi reporter who went around Iraq during Saddam's regime trying to gather or spread information against his rule was no doubt killed yet we never heard about it. Yet we hear talk about the government lying and saying that there is weak or fabricated evidence against Saddam. If push came to shove, who would you believe? A 'media' no doubt swayed by the government or a 'media' that doesn't have a voice yet seems to speak?
You can argue this, but the very fact that we oh so rarely hear about Africa, South America, or Russia's internal problems in mainstream media speaks for itself.
Its more like version 0.1 and say its stable. EA has ALWAYS been hostile to Microsoft's Xbox Live so I'd say its more like EA refusing to cooperate at all. Given how long and how many games EA has developed online capability on the PS2, you'd think they'd be able to make the change fairly easily especially with the much more powerful hardware.
If you've read some of the other comments made on their number of spam messages its hard to take anyone's claim seriously. Some people are reporting getting just one type of virus an average of 1 e-mail every 5 minutes. 288 copies of the same virus in a day? Possible, but doubtful. Others are even claiming a having months where their spams/viruses would reach the 1 gig mark. Who can believe some claims online with numbers like that?
The online giant cited 'lackluster' industry support and compatibility issues with the anti-spam technology SPF that AOL supports."
In this case I'd say the decision was made from the business perspective. AOL could either fall in line and attempt to break away and make billions off their own patent if it succeeds. This so-called 'lackluster' support is probably nothing more than excuse from AOL to prop up their own versions.
Just rename the game Simulated Reality TV and face the fact that you're really just playing a reality game. The only difference is that YOU are in control. Other than that, its the same crap you see on TV which if why the same people who hate reality shows hate this game.
In the case of at least FFXI, the idea to make the game a MMORPG was decided before Squaresoft merged with Enix.
As for the experimenting with new designs, Square/Enix doesn't really have a record of 'experimenting' and more like 'maverick designer ideas'. Parasite Eve was some-what turn-based but the whole guns, move while fighting, 1 character, sorta thing was totally different from the FF games. Same with Vagrant Story. Targeting different parts of the body? Weapons/Armor that change weaknesses/strengths to certain enemies? No more level system? Thats a pretty radical jump from the FF standard 'you attack, I attack' system.
Not that Enix is innocent either. Their Dragon Quest/Warrior series is still using the old menu system founded with DQ/DW game.
Better yet, why not simply have college/universities filter viruses/worms/trojans before they reach the students/teachers? A number of schools now have packet shapers or purposely limit bandwidth on students who use a large amount, so the money to build this kind of system should be pennies.
You cannot honestly expect thousands of different teenage kids and hundreds of professors and staff to have the computer knowledge or patience necessary to constantly update and patch and activate every security measure the moment its released. Thats like expecting insurgents to stop attacking just because you suddenly pull troops out of Iraq. Ideal but not realistic.
The bomb-code was only up for a few hours, and reputedly nobody got nailed, so why is this article in existance, anyway?
Maybe because there are people who got bombed but obviously can't post online. Dead men tell no tales, or in this case dead computers make no reports. Don't forget, this is the internet. You post something on/. and a few minutes later your server crashes. Who knows what could happen to the millions of users out there in a few hours?
It's cheaper to educate and train someone than it is to imprison them. But both cost money, both are social spending. It's just that the latter option doesn't even pretend to have a positive effect; it just tried to prevent future harm.
True, its cheaper to educate someone on the topic, but how do you keep a young, energitic teenage from sneaking out of school/home/college dorm to smoke weed? All the money in the world won't teach kids to stop doing bad things without turning schools into prisons (I've seenen high school bathrooms dirtier than road-side pitstops.)
Guess I'm an old fart, but I haven't had fun since Angband or maybe Lemmings; though the Jedi Knight games where quite entertaining, but that's because I grew up on the original films.
So you haven't enjoyed video/computer games since the late 80's/early 90's? Why the hell would the retirement of a programmer who started AFTER you stopped having fun be helpful to the gaming industry?
True given the population size of China they'll be able to compete, but when will they start competing? The US economy won't stay in a rut forever and when Microsoft starts getting pushed back, you can expect some shoving.
Theorically, yes you're right it does follow standard historical patterns (lots of people, government support, good tech). But on the other hand, its not gonna happen (TONS of bootleg copies of Windows, government is Communist so different rules in the political arena, and the fact that they censor the internet suggests serious built-in blocking systems).
Don't forget about the simpler things that even Joe Average has to deal with. Does the keyboard 'feel' right? What about the mouse? Wireless or not wireless? What about the size of the monitor or just hook up to your TV? Oh and, what kind of sound system should you get to hook up into your sound card?
Cid didn't appear in the series until FFIV, and in VI he was originally working for the bad guys. I'd say a more appropiate subject would be the airships/spaceships(FFVIII) since those appeared from THE beginning of the series (FFI)
True but don't forget the #1 reason why people hate EA so much. Because they're a corporation first, and a gaming developer/producer second. When it comes time to decide to, A) fuck your consumers by upgrading the graphics and saying its a new game or B) fuck your investors by repolishing the game for an extra 3 months, we all know EA picks A. Whereas developers like Blizzard say 'we'll delay a game for 2 years if thats what takes!'
Yes, all you 'give' is an e-mail address. But what about what they 'take'? Considering how much data it sends back and forth (why the hell does it take so long just to connect to a server running a 5+ year old game/mod?) its not very easy to say 'I trust them with a totally new and unusual program system on my computer.'
Actually there are some 'open' (but not open source) MMORPGs like Second Life which allows players to create and then implement said content into the game. Despite this the game hasn't exactly been dubbed an 'Everquest-killer'.
If 'open' games like this can't cause some serious breakthrough, on what grounds can you say that an 'open source' MMORPG would succeed?
Slashdot Mirror
PlayOnline Viewer uses port 25 for its Friends List and won't let the user in until it fully connects. End result : PlayOnline Viewer cannot 100% connect and therefore won't let the user play FFXI. Its not just the e-mail client.
Its just a matter of being in the database and you, the consumer, asking for it. The only difference is, which game do you think Joe Average is going to know more about? Half-Life 2 or Wild Arms: The 4th Detonator? (Actual game, look it up.)
How did Sony do the devs a favor by tossing the task of managing the battery onto them? Considering the amount of data those discs can hold, I don't think even a gig of RAM in the PSP will be enough to satisfy most games beyond the RPG and Puzzle genres. Every single Action game developer will go insane trying to code for this, as well Racing and Shooting genres.
As for why light guns are underdeveloped, thats for a ton of reasons. For one, they're very limiting without seriously detracting from the experience. Take a game like Time Crisis and the original Guncon. Two buttons, or one button, one trigger. Given the PS1's hardware (and not just 'theorical' numbers), how could you make the game better without simply extending its length?
Depending on the contract between Vivendi and Valve, the argument could swing either way. If Valve is doing this and it turns out that this is a breach of contract, hats off to Vivendi. If Valve can do this and its within the contract, truckloads of extra money for Valve for cutting out the middleman. If nothing else, Vivendi has the whole 'Steam sucks and is unreliable' argument on their side, so this doesn't look good for Valve.
No details have emerged on the pricing of the PSP, but Kutaragi stated that plans for movies on the UMD - the disc format the PSP will use , are now in the final stages.
Thats it? The disc format? Comon Sony, Nintendo just bitch slapped you with a release date AND a price of $150! At least give us a price range. Compared to the DS announcement this is a 'so what' announcement.
Sony certainly needs the PSP to make an impression at the Tokyo Game Show after mounting speculation that the handheld will slip to 2005, and rumours of discontent amongst PSP developers surfaced recently.
Personally, I think Sony should stop trying to beat Nintendo at its own game and get its act together first. They're not going in during the golden age of DVD players flying off shelves, nor are they going in with an entire library of games behind it. Best case scenario for Sony at this rate? They fight a long drawn out battle only to go down in flames a la Sega Game Gear.
End result : Software is insanely optimized, thanks to worm-writing kid who has insight on the program so you KNOW he's gonna break it at least once a week. And gray-hat security genius doesn't get paid to sit around looking up pr0n on the company's T3 line. Obviously it doesn't mean EVERYTHING is fixed *cough*Windows*cough*, but its better than releasing a full blown program only to have bug reporting coming in 6 hours before its even officially released.
Because everything Microsoft does or seems to do is worse than slime (kinda hard to defend Windows when it has more bugs and viruses than a fat, unhealthy kids summer camp). But Microsoft somehow managed to do a good job with the Xbox against damned near impossible odds. Oh and Halo's not the only good game for the Xbox, just like SOCOM isn't the only good online game for the PS2. Get with the times.
As I said, I've seen this issue and we are looking into it. Can we solve it today? Nope. But I am here and I do hear you.
But... didn't you just threaten to ban the guy?
if there's a fix you will be able to read about it.
Wait, so EA expects CASUAL gamers who have trouble playing the game to monitor their website to see if they fix the problem? If you were talking about a hardcore community like the Half-Life community or /. community I'd understand, but The Sims's community? Uh uh, not happenin.
True, but theres always a third option. In some OTHER countries people are dying for the true, never getting to it, and then never getting recognized for it. Any Iraqi reporter who went around Iraq during Saddam's regime trying to gather or spread information against his rule was no doubt killed yet we never heard about it. Yet we hear talk about the government lying and saying that there is weak or fabricated evidence against Saddam. If push came to shove, who would you believe? A 'media' no doubt swayed by the government or a 'media' that doesn't have a voice yet seems to speak?
You can argue this, but the very fact that we oh so rarely hear about Africa, South America, or Russia's internal problems in mainstream media speaks for itself.
Its more like version 0.1 and say its stable. EA has ALWAYS been hostile to Microsoft's Xbox Live so I'd say its more like EA refusing to cooperate at all. Given how long and how many games EA has developed online capability on the PS2, you'd think they'd be able to make the change fairly easily especially with the much more powerful hardware.
If you've read some of the other comments made on their number of spam messages its hard to take anyone's claim seriously. Some people are reporting getting just one type of virus an average of 1 e-mail every 5 minutes. 288 copies of the same virus in a day? Possible, but doubtful. Others are even claiming a having months where their spams/viruses would reach the 1 gig mark. Who can believe some claims online with numbers like that?
In this case I'd say the decision was made from the business perspective. AOL could either fall in line and attempt to break away and make billions off their own patent if it succeeds. This so-called 'lackluster' support is probably nothing more than excuse from AOL to prop up their own versions.
Just rename the game Simulated Reality TV and face the fact that you're really just playing a reality game. The only difference is that YOU are in control. Other than that, its the same crap you see on TV which if why the same people who hate reality shows hate this game.
As for the experimenting with new designs, Square/Enix doesn't really have a record of 'experimenting' and more like 'maverick designer ideas'. Parasite Eve was some-what turn-based but the whole guns, move while fighting, 1 character, sorta thing was totally different from the FF games. Same with Vagrant Story. Targeting different parts of the body? Weapons/Armor that change weaknesses/strengths to certain enemies? No more level system? Thats a pretty radical jump from the FF standard 'you attack, I attack' system.
Not that Enix is innocent either. Their Dragon Quest/Warrior series is still using the old menu system founded with DQ/DW game.
You cannot honestly expect thousands of different teenage kids and hundreds of professors and staff to have the computer knowledge or patience necessary to constantly update and patch and activate every security measure the moment its released. Thats like expecting insurgents to stop attacking just because you suddenly pull troops out of Iraq. Ideal but not realistic.
Maybe because there are people who got bombed but obviously can't post online. Dead men tell no tales, or in this case dead computers make no reports. Don't forget, this is the internet. You post something on /. and a few minutes later your server crashes. Who knows what could happen to the millions of users out there in a few hours?
True, its cheaper to educate someone on the topic, but how do you keep a young, energitic teenage from sneaking out of school/home/college dorm to smoke weed? All the money in the world won't teach kids to stop doing bad things without turning schools into prisons (I've seenen high school bathrooms dirtier than road-side pitstops.)
So you haven't enjoyed video/computer games since the late 80's/early 90's? Why the hell would the retirement of a programmer who started AFTER you stopped having fun be helpful to the gaming industry?
Theorically, yes you're right it does follow standard historical patterns (lots of people, government support, good tech). But on the other hand, its not gonna happen (TONS of bootleg copies of Windows, government is Communist so different rules in the political arena, and the fact that they censor the internet suggests serious built-in blocking systems).
Don't forget about the simpler things that even Joe Average has to deal with. Does the keyboard 'feel' right? What about the mouse? Wireless or not wireless? What about the size of the monitor or just hook up to your TV? Oh and, what kind of sound system should you get to hook up into your sound card?
Cid didn't appear in the series until FFIV, and in VI he was originally working for the bad guys. I'd say a more appropiate subject would be the airships/spaceships(FFVIII) since those appeared from THE beginning of the series (FFI)
True but don't forget the #1 reason why people hate EA so much. Because they're a corporation first, and a gaming developer/producer second. When it comes time to decide to, A) fuck your consumers by upgrading the graphics and saying its a new game or B) fuck your investors by repolishing the game for an extra 3 months, we all know EA picks A. Whereas developers like Blizzard say 'we'll delay a game for 2 years if thats what takes!'
Yes, all you 'give' is an e-mail address. But what about what they 'take'? Considering how much data it sends back and forth (why the hell does it take so long just to connect to a server running a 5+ year old game/mod?) its not very easy to say 'I trust them with a totally new and unusual program system on my computer.'
If 'open' games like this can't cause some serious breakthrough, on what grounds can you say that an 'open source' MMORPG would succeed?