Yes there is, I have no desire to dual boot. I don't want to do and thus I choose not to, just like I choose not to give up my XP box because I choose to be able to play games.
To be honest, it's precisely what I do - I'm also a Gentoo person with an XP box for gaming and a few "must have" applications. So it doesn't bother me too much that I can't run modern games on Linux because I have an XP installation.
Yep, it's a bind having to keep two OSes up to date, I agree but to me it's no biggie.
Believe me if NVidia opened up their drivers and game developers started releasing linux binaries for major games I'd have no problem switching over to linux only.
Well, I have four PCs at home, all of them running XP, Gentoo or dual-booting both and I am paying for my stupidity now in having put ATI Radeon cards in three of those machines about a year ago and now deciding I want to game on Linux a lot more. None of the machines are high spec particularly but I've just ordered two of the three nVidia 7600GT cards I intend to buy as replacements for the ATIs because of the ultra-crap drivers ATI keeps churning out for Linux. So whilst neither nVidia or ATI has open sourced their drivers, nVidia has done a whole lot more for Linux gaming already by keeping their Windows and Linux drivers pretty much in sync.
Anyway, it's not just about open source drivers - what about DirectX? To me, that's a bigger factor in restricting gaming on Linux.
eg portage, along with most other package managers sucks, and Gentoo's management is inefficient
Can you please explain the above statement because I fail to see what point you are making?
If you go with a fixed Linux distribution like Ubuntu or Fedora, then what you are getting is a whole heap of source code that has been compiled in a particular way by whomever releases the distro - in some ways you can compare it to the way Microsoft does it with their OSes in that you install the OS as binaries and just download binary updates as you need them. However, when a new version of the OS comes out, whilst you can do some degree of migration from old to new, you're still forced with basically wiping your machine to install the new version.
The other way of looking at keeping a system updated is to just use "rolling" updates - in other words, rather than the distro creator doing all the source code compilation for you, you decide to pretty much do it yourself. So if you have the confidence to do that compilation against countless libraries yourself, then you go for something like Linux From Scratch - otherwise, if you want some "help" with that, then use Portage within Gentoo to give you that assistance.
The point I'm trying to make is that the decision is yours to make, not the distro provider. If you can't handle Portage then don't use Gentoo, use a pre-compiled distro and get on with enjoying Linux that way - but don't make it a fault of the package manager just because you don't understand it.
No software is perfect and, yes, as a long-standing Gentoo user, I sometimes find some of the bugs infuriating - just as I used to find the odd dependency issue in Red Hat or occasional system lock-ups in Windows infurtiating.
But the fact of the matter is that I don't think I've ever come across a major problem in Gentoo that I've not been able to either resolve myself or get an answer to in the excellent Gentoo Forums & Wiki pages. And, yes, using the Gentoo "~x86" branch, I spend a lot of time having my machines compiling updates but I still use the machines while they're doing it, I enjoy running the "bleeding edge" software and for me it's a learning curve sorting out the occasional problem with it.
You need to weigh the "pluses and minuses" and work out a balance before deciding on what distro to use. And if someone comes up with a new distro then, so what? Maybe you have no need for it but someone somewhere believes there is a need for it so let them get on with it.
I personally don't like Ubuntu because I don't like installing binaries and have a real problem with using "sudo" for everything. But I accept it's a fine distro for lots of people, installs in half an hour as opposed to a day with Gentoo and has bought a lot of new people into using Linux so it's a great thing.
As a primarily Linux user, I'm more than happy to help people getting to grips with it if they choose to give Linux a try - but likewise I respect anyone who gives good reasons why Linux is not for them.
But can we please stop with the "I won't run Linux because of lack of games" statements because they are meaningless.
Firstly, nothing stops you dual-booting both Linux and Windows in order to understand some of the benefits Linux could potentially bring to you.
Secondly, the fact that there are so few modern games on Linux is not a fault of Linux itself. Yep, maybe it's because the Linux user base is much smaller than Windows and/or maybe it's because we Linux users are spoilt by getting so much software for free that we've forgotten how to pay for games, both are acceptable reasons to justify the fact that games companies won't port games to it. After all, games companies are businesses and if they see a way to make money, then they will do it.
Thirdly, if you're into modern graphics intensive games then, yes, it's probably a bad idea to use Linux. But software like DOSBox, Wine, countless platform emulators & Open Source games means that there is actually a *HUGE* catalogue of games you can play perfectly on Linux. Yes, that catalogue probably won't include Call Of Duty 4 but as you start going through the back catalogue of games, the further you go back the more ways you will find to play them on Linux.
I think you've missed the point about the evolution of PC gaming.
A lot of PC gamers do bemoan the fact that they miss a lot of good console titles that won't get a release on the PC but the fact is that it is of our own causing.
For starters, the popularity of World of Warcraft means a lot of PC gamers are now paying monthly subscriptions to Blizzard rather than spending their money on new games. Nope, WoW isn't my scene but because that's what a lot of PC gamers want now, sales of other games has dropped meaning that the economies of developing for the PC are not as clear-cut as they were, say, 5 years ago.
Secondly, PC games are "lasting" longer. Just about every game released now has free mods available for it that means it gets played for a lot longer rather than just being put on a shelf after two weeks once it has been completed. Not to mention the additional features of online play which, again, extends a game's life.
Thirdly, I think eBay has a major effect on this also. Now you can buy a game, finish it in a couple of days & sell it second-hand on eBay - then spend the money you made on buying another second-hand game. And the reason why I think eBay has had that great an impact on PC games sales is because games companies are now tightening up registration keys to tie each copy of a game to a specific user or a small number of PCs. Wasn't it Bioshock that had an "install up to four times before renewing your key" policy?
And finally, the speed of PCs and the popularity of free software means you can download an emulator at no cost & once again play some of those old games that have been in a box in the attic for years - especially when nice companies like ID open source the game engines to allow others to improve them, as has been the case with Doom and Quake.
So, yes, consoles are convenient & don't need upgrades - but it's we PC gamers ourselves who have decided the ultimate fate of PC gaming. Especially remembering the fact that console gaming itself is probably OLDER than PC gaming & that the two have happily lived side-by-side for many years anyway.
Nobody is denying that console gaming has its merits but the fact is that for genres like FPS or strategy games, consoles do not "cut the mustard" when it comes to having a PC keyboard & mouse for controlling both types of those games.
I've been gaming since the heady days of the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 & spent years playing games using a keyboard, mouse & simplistic 4-way joystick - I find console controllers to be okay for games like Zelda or Monkey Ball on my Gamecube but really struggled with the Metroid & Medal Of Honour games on it.
Personally, I just want things left as they are. Let the console gamers enjoy their games & leave me on my PC enjoying Half-Life 2 & Galactic Civilizations 2.
It ain't broke, AMD, so please DON'T try to fix it!
Let's assume for one minute that this God entity exists. Then it's his "divine influence" that gave us the free will to decide for ourselves what we consider moral or ethical. So why give us free will in the first place if all it creates is an ability to decide that we reject the existence of God anyway?
It is immoral to sacrifice one life to benefit another
Ooh, let me think about that one for the moment. What about if you had the chance to kill Adolf Hitler in the womb? Would it be immoral to sacrifice him in favour of those that died in battle or in concentration camps?
You know that nice cheap computer you're reading Slashdot on? I bet more than a few bits of it were made in China.
Or that flatsceen TV you have. Or your DVD player?
No, I'm not suggesting that we only send aid to countries that bring benefit to our own economies but likewise don't sit there thousands of miles away from it and throw out such inane comments.
People have died so do something. Get on a plane and help. Or donate some money. Or even just shut the hell up if you can't even find any sympathy.
As a long term Slashdotter, I don't recall too many "Quake" logos or humorous comments being thrown about after 9/11 - yet more than three times as many people have died in the Chinese earthquake and out comes all the sick humour.
As a born and bred Brit, I was in the States (on holiday in Florida) when 9/11 happened. I was appalled by the events, I comforted American people who were overwhelmed with grief at what happened and will never forget where I was that day.
Likewise, I was appalled when my own countrymen died in terrorist bombings in London and when hundreds of thousands died during the "Boxing Day" tsunami of 2004. And now the Tibet cyclone & Chinese earthquake.
Call me old fashioned but when people die unexpectedly, it's a tragedy - whether they are white, black, whatever skin colour.
So GROW UP everyone! Show a little respect and if Slashdot considers it right to cover stories of human tragedy, then it should do so with dignity and WITHOUT the stupid "Quake" logo on the title! I'm sure the likes of John Carmack and John Romero won't be too impressed at such a cruel usage of that logo...
I'll throw in a comment here about how someone with intelligence is capable of stringing a sentence without the word "fuck" or "jerk wad" in it and then you can have your final reply to this and I promise NOT to reply to you, okay?
I've got karma to burn but I'd rather waste it on someone who has at least a smidgeon of a sense of humour.
So off you go then... that's two-nil to you, I'm off to bed.
What? you think the other people there just spend all there time staring at the 50" 1080p plasma screen with 7.1 sound?
Erm, yeah! Let's face it, if you're not watching the screen while fiddling with your plastic guitar, you're not going to be very good at the game now, are you?
Correction, you were playing a timing game to the beat of a Black Sabbath song.
Clue, Programming is boring to almost every one, listening to music and playing a game is boring to almost no one.
Clue number 2 - I program because I enjoy it & because it pays a salary so I can afford to buy CDs, go to concerts to see proper musicians (including Black Sabbath incidentally) and to buy games to play.
Considering real Rock Stars ALSO play and enjoy Guitar Hero, I think They get that it's a game to.
Yep. So by your logic you also treat yourself to the occasional bag of cocaine because Keith Richards does?
Guess what? Wii tennis, isn't real tennis either! And GTA IV isn't killing real people.
***REALLY, SHERLOCK???*** And there was me thinking for all these years that "Manic Miner" Willy was a member of the National Union of Mineworkers. Thanks for destroying the illusion.
I can play Guitar Hero, AND go to a concert.
Yep, and you probably take BOTH of them far too seriously as well.
As a bonus, my children and I are now talking about music, and I can engage them in a conversation about guitar rifts on the radio, using Guitar Hero as a point of reference.
Hey, guess what? You could also play them a Black Sabbath CD and end up doing precisely the same thing. Good isn't it?
My children are 10 and 7, both know more about music than I did.
Good luck to them. But your point is what, precisely?
So Guitar Hero: Epic Win You: Epic Lose
So be it. I personally don't need to turn everything into a competition. Yes, you win, enjoy yourself.
I've met a quite a few girls at rock band "parties" actually. Just last weekend the guy hosting the get together hooked up with a girl who came. Maybe someday MY number will be called:P
Just to correct you - a few people going round to someone's house to gather round the TV is called "having the guys round for a beer".
Playing loud music, drinking excessively, sneaking out to the back garden to toke on a joint and couples copulating in the bedrooms is called a "party".
Do you think Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton or Slash play "Linux Kernel Compilation Hero", "Perl Programmer Hero" or "Microsoft Service Pack Hero" in their spare time?
No.
And why?
Because they are ***NOT QUALIFIED*** to do all those wonderful things with operating systems that we Slashdotters are.
This should be a ***REAL BIG HINT*** to you.
So put down the plastic guitar, go back to your computer screen, earn some money and go buy a CD or a concert ticket.
...rather than staying in a "guitar wanking" in front of a TV playing a musical computer game, how's this for a neat idea?
Go and find a friend or two, buy a ticket each to a good concert, go out and get some fresh air and a few beers, watch someone who's job it is to play a guitar properly - and if you're as lucky as I am, you'll meet a nice girl, get laid and still be totally in love with her 15 years later.
You "hip young axe hero wannabees" are all well and good but you are also guaranteed to have these three things - a plastic guitar, a surround sound system and your virginity.
One of my work colleagues this evening told me he's just bought a Macbook Pro. He does quite like it but when he went to get a price quote from Apple for upgrading from 2GB to 4GB memory, he was quoted £500.
And the Apple crowd wonder why so few people buy them over here in the UK.
...unless DirectX comes to OSX. Mac's make up 10% of the market, something like that, right?
I own a Dell XPS M1710 laptop. It's a big machine with a 17 inch screen, not very portable but I sometimes take it with me on business trips instead of my work laptop if I'm going to be stuck in a hotel somewhere and need a decent game or two to amuse me.
The other week, I flew out of Gatwick airport (London's second airport behind Heathrow) and had to take the XPS out of my bag to go through security. Having an airline Gold Card, I was able to go through Fast Track security which wasn't busy. When I took the laptop out of the bag, as I was packing it after the scan, one of the security guards remarked on what a big but nice looking laptop it was. He asked me its price and what type of graphics capabilities it has, when I told him it was nVidia he knew that they were "better" than ATI cards. We chatted a while about laptops, it turns out he was looking to buy one and explained that he sometimes talks to other travellers when they come through if they look relaxed and in not too much of a hurry.
So I asked him if he sees many Macs go through security - his reply was "Those are the slim white laptops with the silver Apple logo on them?" When I nodded he said "Maybe one or two a day, usually carried by Americans or the occasionally German but a tiny amount compared to the hundreds of Dell or HP ones."
So bearing in mind this is an important airport and I was going through the Fast Track security channel used by big business types, your estimate of 10% of the market, at least here in the UK, is a gross over-estimate.
Yes, I'm sure the proportion is higher in the US but travelling a lot in Europe for the past 20+ years, I've actually seen a total of 3 Macs in use myself.
So the iPhone gets a game or two? Big deal - just about every other mobile phone out there can play games.
Just look at the evidence...
Just because mobile phones have built-in cameras, have they killed off the sales of digital cameras? No. And why? Because digital cameras take better pictures and because the more "abilities" you throw into a single device, the more complicated you make it to operate for Joe Public.
Has the iPhone killed the iPod due to the ability to play music on it? No, because an iPod does a better job of playing music than a phone does.
So what does this tell you? It tells you people don't mind following the UNIX philosphy of having a number of different tools, all of which do a single job well - rather than having a single tool that, no matter how pretty the GUI is, is still complicated to operate for Joe Public. And not to mention the fact that having separate devices means that when one device breaks, Joe Public loses the ability to do one thing for a while, rather than everything.
Apple has completely and totally missed an opportunity that Microsoft are currently missing - namely tiny PCs or netbooks like the EEEPC. Microsoft slipped up with pushing everything into Vista without the realisation that there's no chance of getting it to run on a Netbook - Windows XP, yes (with a bit of slimming down) & Linux definitely. Plus Netbooks will play games quite well and are pretty portable.
Sorry, Apple freaks, but ask yourself a question. Imagine Joe Public in the computer shop with his mobile phone in his pocket that already makes phone calls "quite well". In front of him on one shelf is an iPhone, on the other is a EEEPC and a "normal" Nokia phone which both, combined, cost less than the iPhone. So what do you think he's going to buy?
Putting the fanbois aside, the reality of the situation is this - despite my personal disdain of iTunes and DRM stopping me ever buying a closed platform player like an iPod, the reality is that Joe Public likes the iPod because to him it's a good product at a reasonable price that *just* plays music.
However, Joe Public is not buying Macs because as far as he's concerned, a PC is cheaper and lets him surf the Internet and play a few games. Therefore, Macs are not good value products which is why they are marketed as fashion accessories and "geek toys" to appeal to those people who need to make outward displays to others. (Otherwise, why would the Apple logo need to be so big and visible on a Mac?)
Yes, maybe if Macs were half the price they are, people would buy them in their droves - but then the fanbois wouldn't buy them because they wouldn't be "exclusive" enough for them.
So let's not beat about the bush here - iPods sell because they play music well at the right price. But Macs are aimed at an exclusive market and iPhones are aimed at people who have already bought Macs. Therefore Macs and iPhones will never be particularly viable gaming platforms whilst Joe Public can buy stuff that's half the price or less and plays games as well or better.
(Sung to the tune of "Since You Been Gone" by Rainbow.)
Whhooaa, whhooaa, whhooaaaa
I throw the same old chair, same time every night Falls to the ground and I kick it I start my laptop up, wait for an hour, and Vista's there Thoughts fly back to the cock-ups
The Vista sales are closing in Look at the fix Yahoo's put me in
Since Yahoo's gone, since Yahoo's gone Thrown my last chair, can't take it Could I be wrong, but Service Pack 1 Doesn't fix Vista but breaks it Oooohhh - Whhooooaaa - Ooooohhh Since Yahoo's gone
And Games For Windows Live, we charge a monthly fee But PC gamers won't pay for it I gave them DirectX, version 10's come around too soon They won't buy Vista to try it
You Linux users, your Ubuntu Just ganging up on me like Yahoo
Since Yahoo's gone, since Yahoo's gone Thrown my last chair, can't take it Could I be wrong, but Service Pack 1 Doesn't fix Vista but breaks it Oooohhh - Whhooooaaa - Ooooohhh Since Yahoo's gone
[INTERLUDE]
If Yahoo comes back Billy you know I'll never do wrong
Huhhhhh
Since Yahoo's gone, since Yahoo's gone Thrown my last chair, can't take it Could I be wrong, but Service Pack 1 Doesn't fix Vista but breaks it Oooohhh - Whhooooaaa - Ooooohhh Ever since, Yahoo's gone
[GUITAR SOLO OUTRO]
Since Yahoo's gone, since Yahoo's gone Thrown my last chair, can't take it Since Yahoo's gone, since Yahoo's gone
Slashdot Mirror
To be honest, it's precisely what I do - I'm also a Gentoo person with an XP box for gaming and a few "must have" applications. So it doesn't bother me too much that I can't run modern games on Linux because I have an XP installation.
Yep, it's a bind having to keep two OSes up to date, I agree but to me it's no biggie.
Believe me if NVidia opened up their drivers and game developers started releasing linux binaries for major games I'd have no problem switching over to linux only.
Well, I have four PCs at home, all of them running XP, Gentoo or dual-booting both and I am paying for my stupidity now in having put ATI Radeon cards in three of those machines about a year ago and now deciding I want to game on Linux a lot more. None of the machines are high spec particularly but I've just ordered two of the three nVidia 7600GT cards I intend to buy as replacements for the ATIs because of the ultra-crap drivers ATI keeps churning out for Linux. So whilst neither nVidia or ATI has open sourced their drivers, nVidia has done a whole lot more for Linux gaming already by keeping their Windows and Linux drivers pretty much in sync.
Anyway, it's not just about open source drivers - what about DirectX? To me, that's a bigger factor in restricting gaming on Linux.
Can you please explain the above statement because I fail to see what point you are making?
If you go with a fixed Linux distribution like Ubuntu or Fedora, then what you are getting is a whole heap of source code that has been compiled in a particular way by whomever releases the distro - in some ways you can compare it to the way Microsoft does it with their OSes in that you install the OS as binaries and just download binary updates as you need them. However, when a new version of the OS comes out, whilst you can do some degree of migration from old to new, you're still forced with basically wiping your machine to install the new version.
The other way of looking at keeping a system updated is to just use "rolling" updates - in other words, rather than the distro creator doing all the source code compilation for you, you decide to pretty much do it yourself. So if you have the confidence to do that compilation against countless libraries yourself, then you go for something like Linux From Scratch - otherwise, if you want some "help" with that, then use Portage within Gentoo to give you that assistance.
The point I'm trying to make is that the decision is yours to make, not the distro provider. If you can't handle Portage then don't use Gentoo, use a pre-compiled distro and get on with enjoying Linux that way - but don't make it a fault of the package manager just because you don't understand it.
No software is perfect and, yes, as a long-standing Gentoo user, I sometimes find some of the bugs infuriating - just as I used to find the odd dependency issue in Red Hat or occasional system lock-ups in Windows infurtiating.
But the fact of the matter is that I don't think I've ever come across a major problem in Gentoo that I've not been able to either resolve myself or get an answer to in the excellent Gentoo Forums & Wiki pages. And, yes, using the Gentoo "~x86" branch, I spend a lot of time having my machines compiling updates but I still use the machines while they're doing it, I enjoy running the "bleeding edge" software and for me it's a learning curve sorting out the occasional problem with it.
You need to weigh the "pluses and minuses" and work out a balance before deciding on what distro to use. And if someone comes up with a new distro then, so what? Maybe you have no need for it but someone somewhere believes there is a need for it so let them get on with it.
I personally don't like Ubuntu because I don't like installing binaries and have a real problem with using "sudo" for everything. But I accept it's a fine distro for lots of people, installs in half an hour as opposed to a day with Gentoo and has bought a lot of new people into using Linux so it's a great thing.
But can we please stop with the "I won't run Linux because of lack of games" statements because they are meaningless.
Firstly, nothing stops you dual-booting both Linux and Windows in order to understand some of the benefits Linux could potentially bring to you.
Secondly, the fact that there are so few modern games on Linux is not a fault of Linux itself. Yep, maybe it's because the Linux user base is much smaller than Windows and/or maybe it's because we Linux users are spoilt by getting so much software for free that we've forgotten how to pay for games, both are acceptable reasons to justify the fact that games companies won't port games to it. After all, games companies are businesses and if they see a way to make money, then they will do it.
Thirdly, if you're into modern graphics intensive games then, yes, it's probably a bad idea to use Linux. But software like DOSBox, Wine, countless platform emulators & Open Source games means that there is actually a *HUGE* catalogue of games you can play perfectly on Linux. Yes, that catalogue probably won't include Call Of Duty 4 but as you start going through the back catalogue of games, the further you go back the more ways you will find to play them on Linux.
A lot of PC gamers do bemoan the fact that they miss a lot of good console titles that won't get a release on the PC but the fact is that it is of our own causing.
For starters, the popularity of World of Warcraft means a lot of PC gamers are now paying monthly subscriptions to Blizzard rather than spending their money on new games. Nope, WoW isn't my scene but because that's what a lot of PC gamers want now, sales of other games has dropped meaning that the economies of developing for the PC are not as clear-cut as they were, say, 5 years ago.
Secondly, PC games are "lasting" longer. Just about every game released now has free mods available for it that means it gets played for a lot longer rather than just being put on a shelf after two weeks once it has been completed. Not to mention the additional features of online play which, again, extends a game's life.
Thirdly, I think eBay has a major effect on this also. Now you can buy a game, finish it in a couple of days & sell it second-hand on eBay - then spend the money you made on buying another second-hand game. And the reason why I think eBay has had that great an impact on PC games sales is because games companies are now tightening up registration keys to tie each copy of a game to a specific user or a small number of PCs. Wasn't it Bioshock that had an "install up to four times before renewing your key" policy?
And finally, the speed of PCs and the popularity of free software means you can download an emulator at no cost & once again play some of those old games that have been in a box in the attic for years - especially when nice companies like ID open source the game engines to allow others to improve them, as has been the case with Doom and Quake.
So, yes, consoles are convenient & don't need upgrades - but it's we PC gamers ourselves who have decided the ultimate fate of PC gaming. Especially remembering the fact that console gaming itself is probably OLDER than PC gaming & that the two have happily lived side-by-side for many years anyway.
I've been gaming since the heady days of the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 & spent years playing games using a keyboard, mouse & simplistic 4-way joystick - I find console controllers to be okay for games like Zelda or Monkey Ball on my Gamecube but really struggled with the Metroid & Medal Of Honour games on it.
Personally, I just want things left as they are. Let the console gamers enjoy their games & leave me on my PC enjoying Half-Life 2 & Galactic Civilizations 2.
It ain't broke, AMD, so please DON'T try to fix it!
Let's assume for one minute that this God entity exists. Then it's his "divine influence" that gave us the free will to decide for ourselves what we consider moral or ethical. So why give us free will in the first place if all it creates is an ability to decide that we reject the existence of God anyway?
It is immoral to sacrifice one life to benefit another
Ooh, let me think about that one for the moment. What about if you had the chance to kill Adolf Hitler in the womb? Would it be immoral to sacrifice him in favour of those that died in battle or in concentration camps?
Or that flatsceen TV you have. Or your DVD player?
No, I'm not suggesting that we only send aid to countries that bring benefit to our own economies but likewise don't sit there thousands of miles away from it and throw out such inane comments.
People have died so do something. Get on a plane and help. Or donate some money. Or even just shut the hell up if you can't even find any sympathy.
Burma is refusing to accept foreign aid workers into its country - it has nothing to do with other countries not giving aid.
And out of interest, how much have you personally donated to Burma?
As a born and bred Brit, I was in the States (on holiday in Florida) when 9/11 happened. I was appalled by the events, I comforted American people who were overwhelmed with grief at what happened and will never forget where I was that day.
Likewise, I was appalled when my own countrymen died in terrorist bombings in London and when hundreds of thousands died during the "Boxing Day" tsunami of 2004. And now the Tibet cyclone & Chinese earthquake.
Call me old fashioned but when people die unexpectedly, it's a tragedy - whether they are white, black, whatever skin colour.
So GROW UP everyone! Show a little respect and if Slashdot considers it right to cover stories of human tragedy, then it should do so with dignity and WITHOUT the stupid "Quake" logo on the title! I'm sure the likes of John Carmack and John Romero won't be too impressed at such a cruel usage of that logo...
I'll throw in a comment here about how someone with intelligence is capable of stringing a sentence without the word "fuck" or "jerk wad" in it and then you can have your final reply to this and I promise NOT to reply to you, okay?
I've got karma to burn but I'd rather waste it on someone who has at least a smidgeon of a sense of humour.
So off you go then... that's two-nil to you, I'm off to bed.
Erm, yeah! Let's face it, if you're not watching the screen while fiddling with your plastic guitar, you're not going to be very good at the game now, are you?
Not at all. I use irony and humour to make the occasional funny comment on here. You don't find it funny? Then don't read it.
Gnashing my teeth? Sorry, but who's the one throwing about the "F*** yous" and "jerk wads"?
Correction, you were playing a timing game to the beat of a Black Sabbath song.
Clue, Programming is boring to almost every one, listening to music and playing a game is boring to almost no one.
Clue number 2 - I program because I enjoy it & because it pays a salary so I can afford to buy CDs, go to concerts to see proper musicians (including Black Sabbath incidentally) and to buy games to play.
Considering real Rock Stars ALSO play and enjoy Guitar Hero, I think They get that it's a game to.
Yep. So by your logic you also treat yourself to the occasional bag of cocaine because Keith Richards does?
Guess what? Wii tennis, isn't real tennis either! And GTA IV isn't killing real people.
***REALLY, SHERLOCK???*** And there was me thinking for all these years that "Manic Miner" Willy was a member of the National Union of Mineworkers. Thanks for destroying the illusion.
I can play Guitar Hero, AND go to a concert.
Yep, and you probably take BOTH of them far too seriously as well.
As a bonus, my children and I are now talking about music, and I can engage them in a conversation about guitar rifts on the radio, using Guitar Hero as a point of reference.
Hey, guess what? You could also play them a Black Sabbath CD and end up doing precisely the same thing. Good isn't it?
My children are 10 and 7, both know more about music than I did.
Good luck to them. But your point is what, precisely?
So Guitar Hero: Epic Win You: Epic Lose
So be it. I personally don't need to turn everything into a competition. Yes, you win, enjoy yourself.
You mean to tell me you've separated the umbilical cord between you and your Macbook long enough to pick up a plastic guitar???
Well done! And tomorrow we'll try "going to the supermarket without my iPhone" therapy.
Just to correct you - a few people going round to someone's house to gather round the TV is called "having the guys round for a beer".
Playing loud music, drinking excessively, sneaking out to the back garden to toke on a joint and couples copulating in the bedrooms is called a "party".
No.
And why?
Because they are ***NOT QUALIFIED*** to do all those wonderful things with operating systems that we Slashdotters are.
This should be a ***REAL BIG HINT*** to you.
So put down the plastic guitar, go back to your computer screen, earn some money and go buy a CD or a concert ticket.
And if anyone suddenly decides to dig out "Pink Oboe Hero", I am ***OUT*** of there!
Go and find a friend or two, buy a ticket each to a good concert, go out and get some fresh air and a few beers, watch someone who's job it is to play a guitar properly - and if you're as lucky as I am, you'll meet a nice girl, get laid and still be totally in love with her 15 years later.
You "hip young axe hero wannabees" are all well and good but you are also guaranteed to have these three things - a plastic guitar, a surround sound system and your virginity.
Capiche?
And the Apple crowd wonder why so few people buy them over here in the UK.
I own a Dell XPS M1710 laptop. It's a big machine with a 17 inch screen, not very portable but I sometimes take it with me on business trips instead of my work laptop if I'm going to be stuck in a hotel somewhere and need a decent game or two to amuse me.
The other week, I flew out of Gatwick airport (London's second airport behind Heathrow) and had to take the XPS out of my bag to go through security. Having an airline Gold Card, I was able to go through Fast Track security which wasn't busy. When I took the laptop out of the bag, as I was packing it after the scan, one of the security guards remarked on what a big but nice looking laptop it was. He asked me its price and what type of graphics capabilities it has, when I told him it was nVidia he knew that they were "better" than ATI cards. We chatted a while about laptops, it turns out he was looking to buy one and explained that he sometimes talks to other travellers when they come through if they look relaxed and in not too much of a hurry.
So I asked him if he sees many Macs go through security - his reply was "Those are the slim white laptops with the silver Apple logo on them?" When I nodded he said "Maybe one or two a day, usually carried by Americans or the occasionally German but a tiny amount compared to the hundreds of Dell or HP ones."
So bearing in mind this is an important airport and I was going through the Fast Track security channel used by big business types, your estimate of 10% of the market, at least here in the UK, is a gross over-estimate.
Yes, I'm sure the proportion is higher in the US but travelling a lot in Europe for the past 20+ years, I've actually seen a total of 3 Macs in use myself.
Just look at the evidence...
Just because mobile phones have built-in cameras, have they killed off the sales of digital cameras? No. And why? Because digital cameras take better pictures and because the more "abilities" you throw into a single device, the more complicated you make it to operate for Joe Public.
Has the iPhone killed the iPod due to the ability to play music on it? No, because an iPod does a better job of playing music than a phone does.
So what does this tell you? It tells you people don't mind following the UNIX philosphy of having a number of different tools, all of which do a single job well - rather than having a single tool that, no matter how pretty the GUI is, is still complicated to operate for Joe Public. And not to mention the fact that having separate devices means that when one device breaks, Joe Public loses the ability to do one thing for a while, rather than everything.
Apple has completely and totally missed an opportunity that Microsoft are currently missing - namely tiny PCs or netbooks like the EEEPC. Microsoft slipped up with pushing everything into Vista without the realisation that there's no chance of getting it to run on a Netbook - Windows XP, yes (with a bit of slimming down) & Linux definitely. Plus Netbooks will play games quite well and are pretty portable.
Sorry, Apple freaks, but ask yourself a question. Imagine Joe Public in the computer shop with his mobile phone in his pocket that already makes phone calls "quite well". In front of him on one shelf is an iPhone, on the other is a EEEPC and a "normal" Nokia phone which both, combined, cost less than the iPhone. So what do you think he's going to buy?
Putting the fanbois aside, the reality of the situation is this - despite my personal disdain of iTunes and DRM stopping me ever buying a closed platform player like an iPod, the reality is that Joe Public likes the iPod because to him it's a good product at a reasonable price that *just* plays music.
However, Joe Public is not buying Macs because as far as he's concerned, a PC is cheaper and lets him surf the Internet and play a few games. Therefore, Macs are not good value products which is why they are marketed as fashion accessories and "geek toys" to appeal to those people who need to make outward displays to others. (Otherwise, why would the Apple logo need to be so big and visible on a Mac?)
Yes, maybe if Macs were half the price they are, people would buy them in their droves - but then the fanbois wouldn't buy them because they wouldn't be "exclusive" enough for them.
So let's not beat about the bush here - iPods sell because they play music well at the right price. But Macs are aimed at an exclusive market and iPhones are aimed at people who have already bought Macs. Therefore Macs and iPhones will never be particularly viable gaming platforms whilst Joe Public can buy stuff that's half the price or less and plays games as well or better.
So who's the "happy chappie" now then?
Britney Spears - Prissy bra teen
(Sung to the tune of "Since You Been Gone" by Rainbow.)
Whhooaa, whhooaa, whhooaaaa
I throw the same old chair, same time every night
Falls to the ground and I kick it
I start my laptop up, wait for an hour, and Vista's there
Thoughts fly back to the cock-ups
The Vista sales are closing in
Look at the fix Yahoo's put me in
Since Yahoo's gone, since Yahoo's gone
Thrown my last chair, can't take it
Could I be wrong, but Service Pack 1
Doesn't fix Vista but breaks it
Oooohhh - Whhooooaaa - Ooooohhh
Since Yahoo's gone
And Games For Windows Live, we charge a monthly fee
But PC gamers won't pay for it
I gave them DirectX, version 10's come around too soon
They won't buy Vista to try it
You Linux users, your Ubuntu
Just ganging up on me like Yahoo
Since Yahoo's gone, since Yahoo's gone
Thrown my last chair, can't take it
Could I be wrong, but Service Pack 1
Doesn't fix Vista but breaks it
Oooohhh - Whhooooaaa - Ooooohhh
Since Yahoo's gone
[INTERLUDE]
If Yahoo comes back
Billy you know
I'll never do wrong
Huhhhhh
Since Yahoo's gone, since Yahoo's gone
Thrown my last chair, can't take it
Could I be wrong, but Service Pack 1
Doesn't fix Vista but breaks it
Oooohhh - Whhooooaaa - Ooooohhh
Ever since, Yahoo's gone
[GUITAR SOLO OUTRO]
Since Yahoo's gone, since Yahoo's gone
Thrown my last chair, can't take it
Since Yahoo's gone, since Yahoo's gone
[FADE]
Log into Gmail, download the viagra attachment, stiff as a board and one happy missus.