If you create the character, yes, it engages you more.
Except for Planescape:Torment. A character is pre-made for you. You will develop it over time, but you have a name ("nameless one") and an appearance (boy he's ugly). Talking about P:T would be a bit off-topic here. After all, it is a great game with a great plot AND great characters.;-)
RPGs (in the broader sense) with bad plots can be enjoyable, however. Diablo 2 has a great replay value, because a character can develop in several ways. An amazon can specialize in spear, javelin and archery. Dungeon Siege, apart from being a weak D2 with better graphics, has that same idea, although -like D2- it has a very weak plot. DS character development is more primitive though and that's why I gave it away.
I tell my PHB that I want to use Linux as an OS, and I won't mention 'debian unstable' or something. He does not know much about Linux and if he sees a CLI, it will be sufficient for him (he is after all PH).
Discworld has to be one of the hardest graphic adventures ever, what with its creators completely abandoning any semblance of logic in the solution to half its puzzles. At least Sam & Max had some sort of logic to it... if a rather twisted one.
Well spoken. In DiscWorld II, many references were made to DW1 being too hard:
Rincewind: *Cough*hint*cough* . (pause) All right: this is a hint. Get it?
First: mod parent post up. Trillian has some good points. One thing:
Customers like getting extra cool stuff for free, and will remember you for it.
You mention Blizzard. I personally think, that Blizzard is (was) one of the few companies who need not have done such a thing. The XCraft series was brilliant, and so was the Diablo Series. At that time, there was one computer game I actually bought for the full retail price and it was a Blizzard title.
Of course, it is a good thing that they did give free stuff away, which was cool even when you already had paid for the retail game.
In the past, I've actually considered buying Quake I for its soundtrack. The game wasn't really interesting to me (lots of shades of black, wowie!), but the music kicked some major uhm.. behind. It's good to know that Trent Reznor will be making the music for Doom III.:-)
This is BS. It's my peers that have and are having kids these days. We're the generation that grew up on video games first. You can't tell me that we don't know about video games, pure BS all the way.
You and your peers (which includes me) were among the first to play video games. I totally agree. But in our generation, we were among the happy few who actually used computers. Even 10 years ago, there were more households without a computer than households with one.
Still, ignorance is no excuse. If prople were less ignorant about video games, video games would be less demonized. On the other hand, people do not know which sites are visited by their children, which games are played and which software is used.
It's laziness, plain and simple. Take some responsibility parents, I know I do.
I would gladly lower my calories entries if only I could cut my appetite. What science needs to create now is a pill that cuts appetite without any side effects.
Either that, or you could *burn* more calories. Three years ago, I was getting overweight. I started running and have managed to keep a regular running schedule. I still eat much, but my weight is steady and my BMI is perfect.
A somewhat more useful advice for you is to search for chromium tablets. Chromium regulates your insulin levels somewhat, so you have less need for snacks. As far as I know, it has no by-effects.
Another good advice (it was stated earlier) is to have more meals, but make them smaller. So, instead of 4 slices of bread in the morning, and 4 in the afternoon, you eat 2 sliced of bread in the morning, 2 at 11 and 2 at 15 hours. It actually works.:-)
There were some very weird things in SC. In the meat locker level, there is a dense fog. You, the kick-mule good guy, need a thermal visor to see your enemies. All bad guys are not thus equipped and they see you immediately from a large distance. Yeah, right.
The turrets were a nice touch, but 'hacking' them by clicking a checkbox is lame reminischent of the movie the Net, in which hacking screens look like your average Outlook version. Oh wait...
The oil rig level was bad, but the exit was there. Somehow you had to find a way back down where you started and find your way to the lifeboat. The programmer is waiting there and you just have to punch him a bit.:-)
The Sneak-em-up versus shoot-em-up approach was well thought-out. I really liked the game. It would have been much better if the details were better thought out.
I agree with the AC who nominates B&W, but Peter Molyneux (sp?) had another equally overrated game: Dungeon Keeper II. DK1 was a wonderful game. It had good gameplay, loads of sick humor, decent graphics and it ran on my Pentium 75 with ease. DK2 was noisily announced with bimbos dressing up as Dark Mistresses (heh heh), a bombastic trailer and when I bought it, it sucked. Gameplay had deteriorated. The graphics were decent, but too overdone, and the humor found in DK1 had evolved into look-how-funny-we-are mode.
There has been a distinct lack of retro combat flight sims which, IMHO, are a lot more fun to play.
Although I rarely play simulators, just a hint. Have you ever played a game by Jane's? Last year, Jane's released a very realistic WW2 flight sim. It's calles Jane's Attack Squadron. Of course, I do not know whether it is retro enough for you, but it looks decent. One of the nice parts is that when you fly a bomber in a LAN game, every player can man one of the positions (eg pilot, tailgunner etc).
Maybe it's just that Vietnam is still fresh in our minds
Ahem. My grandparents were there when the Germans bombed Rotterdam, the Netherlands on May 10, 1940. That is over 63 years ago, but does anybody think that makes the memory of that any less tarumatic? I think not.
To get back on topic, I did read the article and I could not help shake the feeling that the real question should be: Is it OK to make a game on a war that the US actually *lost*?
Jerry Seinfeld has recently made a movie. See its trailer at IMDB or something. You can actually take a look at the man who is the voice behind the trailer. I will not give too many spoilers, but I can suffice to say that the spoiler has absolutely no images from the actual movie itself.:-)
Oh yeah, the name of the movie is The Comedians or something like that.
Find me a USB key that holds 40GB for under $200 and we'll talk.
At the moment, the development in capacity for USB drives is way faster than for HDDs. USB storage is getting bigger and cheaper at a fast rate. Furthermore, as another poster already stated, life expectancy isn't that bad either. I would not be surprised if in a few years the good ol' HDD would be replaced by some kind of flash memory.
My computer would be a lot more silent, would probably consume less electricity and it would be lighter (nice for LAN-parties).
You mentioned that you want to use the usb drive as a replacement for a floppy. What about using your cdrw drive instead?
I have a 2 yr old burner, and reusing a CDRW is just a pain in the bum, for being very slow. Besides, I hate having around a shitload of half-written CDRs. Furthermore, a 256 Meg USB2 drive is cheaper than a new burner.
As a long-time WW player, I have a bit of an ambiguous feeling about The End (tm). On the one hand, it is a good thing to end the WoD as we know it. The VtM setting was complete enough; there wasn't much to say anymore. It is exhausted. As far as I've heard from others, WtA and MtA had the same problem. It is good that the folks at WW finally wrap it up.
OTOH, I sincerely hope that this is not an excuse for *another* revised version of all their WoD games. Furthermore, this whole End of the World business reeks of marketing.
I hope that WoD V2.0 will be something worthy. Please don't let it be a new WoD with just some other names.
3.5) Developers firmly tell sales/marketing no and why not, cc owner
Why not make it 4)? I am serious. Sometimes, the client does not even know what (s)he wants and/or (s)he wants something which is either impractical or utter nonsense. It is the job of the consultant to correct these problems.
Okay I know, consultant != coding, but I (coder) know something about user-interface design, which is a definite advantage.
They're not protecting consumers from themselves, but rather from poor manufacturing.
Not necessarily. People do stupid things all the time. If you drive a car while drunk, is it the car manufacturer's fault if you drive into a tree and are severely wounded? No. The same goes for household appliances. If a consumer is doing potentially dangerous things with his or her household applicances, it is (at least it should be) his or her own responsibility if something bad happens.
Unfortunately, these things happen all the time.
In the netherlands, several thousands of such accidents are reported. Darwin would turn in his grave.
Does anybody have an educated guess about the amount of computer enthusiasts whow rite shareware versus the "professionals"?
Somehow I've never really thought of "professional" shareware developing as a means of living. I mean, if you are truly "professional", you probably write uhm.. "professional" software. Then again, it does make some sense to me. I think that this is one of the ways some former "non-professional" shareware programmers evolve into renowned, "professional" software companies.
greetings,
... or is Blizzard past its prime? These days, all they seem to do is make sequels to popular games in the 1995-1997 era (Starcraft, Warcraft, even Diablo). Release dates are notoriously postponed (WC3, SC-G). Granted, some games are still popular, even three years after their release dates (Diablo II).
Don't get me wrong: most Blizzard Games I played were very good. Occasionally, I still play Diablo II (although it looks like shit on 1024x768). I just wonder how long Blizzard can go on building upon previous succeses.
Yes, a LAN-party is the 'new version' of the arcade in that sense. But that wasn't really what this was about. It was about online gaming. A slightly-difference aspect there.
I wan't saying that LANParty == online gaming. I was just introducing a third option.
The big problem I see with LAN-parties though, is the 'effort'. Back in college, I could walk into the campus arcade between classes and pop a few quarters for an hour with a bunch of friends and have that great 'LAN-party' experience, then go to my next class.
That isn't possible with a LAN-party. You have to plan it ahead of time, have everyone drag their computers out, get the infrastructure set up for it, etc. You can't just do it to blow off a few hours.
OTOH I know some people who regularly put their computer equipment into their car, drive to their friends, and build their stuff up. At the end of the evening, they dismantle their computers, throw them back into their cars and go home. Of course, just walking into your arcade is less cumbersome etc, but it's just not that much work to organise a small LAN-party.
Slashdot Mirror
I never listen to music while running. I want to be aware of my surroundings. I want to be able to hear a car coming from the back.
:-)
I never run on treadmills though. I went to a fitness center once and felt utterly bored.
der Joachim
If you create the character, yes, it engages you more.
;-)
Except for Planescape:Torment. A character is pre-made for you. You will develop it over time, but you have a name ("nameless one") and an appearance (boy he's ugly). Talking about P:T would be a bit off-topic here. After all, it is a great game with a great plot AND great characters.
RPGs (in the broader sense) with bad plots can be enjoyable, however. Diablo 2 has a great replay value, because a character can develop in several ways. An amazon can specialize in spear, javelin and archery. Dungeon Siege, apart from being a weak D2 with better graphics, has that same idea, although -like D2- it has a very weak plot. DS character development is more primitive though and that's why I gave it away.
der Joachim
I tell my PHB that I want to use Linux as an OS, and I won't mention 'debian unstable' or something. He does not know much about Linux and if he sees a CLI, it will be sufficient for him (he is after all PH).
der Joachim
Discworld has to be one of the hardest graphic adventures ever, what with its creators completely abandoning any semblance of logic in the solution to half its puzzles. At least Sam & Max had some sort of logic to it... if a rather twisted one.
Well spoken. In DiscWorld II, many references were made to DW1 being too hard:
Rincewind: *Cough*hint*cough* . (pause) All right: this is a hint. Get it?
der Joachim
First: mod parent post up. Trillian has some good points. One thing:
Customers like getting extra cool stuff for free, and will remember you for it.
You mention Blizzard. I personally think, that Blizzard is (was) one of the few companies who need not have done such a thing. The XCraft series was brilliant, and so was the Diablo Series. At that time, there was one computer game I actually bought for the full retail price and it was a Blizzard title.
Of course, it is a good thing that they did give free stuff away, which was cool even when you already had paid for the retail game.
der Joachim
In the past, I've actually considered buying Quake I for its soundtrack. The game wasn't really interesting to me (lots of shades of black, wowie!), but the music kicked some major uhm.. behind. It's good to know that Trent Reznor will be making the music for Doom III. :-)
der Joachim
This is BS. It's my peers that have and are having kids these days. We're the generation that grew up on video games first. You can't tell me that we don't know about video games, pure BS all the way.
You and your peers (which includes me) were among the first to play video games. I totally agree. But in our generation, we were among the happy few who actually used computers. Even 10 years ago, there were more households without a computer than households with one.
Still, ignorance is no excuse. If prople were less ignorant about video games, video games would be less demonized. On the other hand, people do not know which sites are visited by their children, which games are played and which software is used.
It's laziness, plain and simple. Take some responsibility parents, I know I do.
Amen.
der Joachim
I would gladly lower my calories entries if only I could cut my appetite. What science needs to create now is a pill that cuts appetite without any side effects.
:-)
Either that, or you could *burn* more calories. Three years ago, I was getting overweight. I started running and have managed to keep a regular running schedule. I still eat much, but my weight is steady and my BMI is perfect.
A somewhat more useful advice for you is to search for chromium tablets. Chromium regulates your insulin levels somewhat, so you have less need for snacks. As far as I know, it has no by-effects.
Another good advice (it was stated earlier) is to have more meals, but make them smaller. So, instead of 4 slices of bread in the morning, and 4 in the afternoon, you eat 2 sliced of bread in the morning, 2 at 11 and 2 at 15 hours. It actually works.
der Joachim
There were some very weird things in SC. In the meat locker level, there is a dense fog. You, the kick-mule good guy, need a thermal visor to see your enemies. All bad guys are not thus equipped and they see you immediately from a large distance. Yeah, right. :-)
The turrets were a nice touch, but 'hacking' them by clicking a checkbox is lame reminischent of the movie the Net, in which hacking screens look like your average Outlook version. Oh wait...
The oil rig level was bad, but the exit was there. Somehow you had to find a way back down where you started and find your way to the lifeboat. The programmer is waiting there and you just have to punch him a bit.
The Sneak-em-up versus shoot-em-up approach was well thought-out. I really liked the game. It would have been much better if the details were better thought out.
I agree with the AC who nominates B&W, but Peter Molyneux (sp?) had another equally overrated game: Dungeon Keeper II. DK1 was a wonderful game. It had good gameplay, loads of sick humor, decent graphics and it ran on my Pentium 75 with ease. DK2 was noisily announced with bimbos dressing up as Dark Mistresses (heh heh), a bombastic trailer and when I bought it, it sucked. Gameplay had deteriorated. The graphics were decent, but too overdone, and the humor found in DK1 had evolved into look-how-funny-we-are mode.
der Joachim
There has been a distinct lack of retro combat flight sims which, IMHO, are a lot more fun to play.
Although I rarely play simulators, just a hint. Have you ever played a game by Jane's? Last year, Jane's released a very realistic WW2 flight sim. It's calles Jane's Attack Squadron. Of course, I do not know whether it is retro enough for you, but it looks decent. One of the nice parts is that when you fly a bomber in a LAN game, every player can man one of the positions (eg pilot, tailgunner etc).
der Joachim
Who needs a sonic cannon when you've got 'My heeeaaaart will gooo oooooiiiiioooooooon'?
:-)
Sonic weapons are not outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
der Joachim
Maybe it's just that Vietnam is still fresh in our minds
Ahem. My grandparents were there when the Germans bombed Rotterdam, the Netherlands on May 10, 1940. That is over 63 years ago, but does anybody think that makes the memory of that any less tarumatic? I think not.
To get back on topic, I did read the article and I could not help shake the feeling that the real question should be: Is it OK to make a game on a war that the US actually *lost*?
der Joachim
What will be the MPAA's scapegoat next week?
Terrorists? The French? The Axis of Evil (tm)?
These people are morons.
der Joachim
Jerry Seinfeld has recently made a movie. See its trailer at IMDB or something. You can actually take a look at the man who is the voice behind the trailer. I will not give too many spoilers, but I can suffice to say that the spoiler has absolutely no images from the actual movie itself. :-)
Oh yeah, the name of the movie is The Comedians or something like that.
der Joachim
Find me a USB key that holds 40GB for under $200 and we'll talk.
At the moment, the development in capacity for USB drives is way faster than for HDDs. USB storage is getting bigger and cheaper at a fast rate. Furthermore, as another poster already stated, life expectancy isn't that bad either. I would not be surprised if in a few years the good ol' HDD would be replaced by some kind of flash memory.
My computer would be a lot more silent, would probably consume less electricity and it would be lighter (nice for LAN-parties).
der Joachim
Now I can own my very own live Jar-jar binks!
:-)
Why on earth would you want *that*? Well, at least you have a very good reason to be an anonymous coward.
der Joachim
You mentioned that you want to use the usb drive as a replacement for a floppy. What about using your cdrw drive instead?
I have a 2 yr old burner, and reusing a CDRW is just a pain in the bum, for being very slow. Besides, I hate having around a shitload of half-written CDRs. Furthermore, a 256 Meg USB2 drive is cheaper than a new burner.
der Joachim
Hi,
As a long-time WW player, I have a bit of an ambiguous feeling about The End (tm). On the one hand, it is a good thing to end the WoD as we know it. The VtM setting was complete enough; there wasn't much to say anymore. It is exhausted. As far as I've heard from others, WtA and MtA had the same problem. It is good that the folks at WW finally wrap it up.
OTOH, I sincerely hope that this is not an excuse for *another* revised version of all their WoD games. Furthermore, this whole End of the World business reeks of marketing.
I hope that WoD V2.0 will be something worthy. Please don't let it be a new WoD with just some other names.
der Joachim
3.5) Developers firmly tell sales/marketing no and why not, cc owner
Why not make it 4)? I am serious. Sometimes, the client does not even know what (s)he wants and/or (s)he wants something which is either impractical or utter nonsense. It is the job of the consultant to correct these problems.
Okay I know, consultant != coding, but I (coder) know something about user-interface design, which is a definite advantage.
der Joachim.
They're not protecting consumers from themselves, but rather from poor manufacturing.
Not necessarily. People do stupid things all the time. If you drive a car while drunk, is it the car manufacturer's fault if you drive into a tree and are severely wounded? No. The same goes for household appliances. If a consumer is doing potentially dangerous things with his or her household applicances, it is (at least it should be) his or her own responsibility if something bad happens.
Unfortunately, these things happen all the time. In the netherlands, several thousands of such accidents are reported. Darwin would turn in his grave.
der Joachim
Does anybody have an educated guess about the amount of computer enthusiasts whow rite shareware versus the "professionals"?
Somehow I've never really thought of "professional" shareware developing as a means of living. I mean, if you are truly "professional", you probably write uhm.. "professional" software. Then again, it does make some sense to me. I think that this is one of the ways some former "non-professional" shareware programmers evolve into renowned, "professional" software companies.
greetings,
Because you broke it first???
der Joachim
... or is Blizzard past its prime? These days, all they seem to do is make sequels to popular games in the 1995-1997 era (Starcraft, Warcraft, even Diablo). Release dates are notoriously postponed (WC3, SC-G). Granted, some games are still popular, even three years after their release dates (Diablo II).
Don't get me wrong: most Blizzard Games I played were very good. Occasionally, I still play Diablo II (although it looks like shit on 1024x768). I just wonder how long Blizzard can go on building upon previous succeses.
der Joachim
Yes, a LAN-party is the 'new version' of the arcade in that sense. But that wasn't really what this was about. It was about online gaming. A slightly-difference aspect there.
I wan't saying that LANParty == online gaming. I was just introducing a third option.
The big problem I see with LAN-parties though, is the 'effort'. Back in college, I could walk into the campus arcade between classes and pop a few quarters for an hour with a bunch of friends and have that great 'LAN-party' experience, then go to my next class.
That isn't possible with a LAN-party. You have to plan it ahead of time, have everyone drag their computers out, get the infrastructure set up for it, etc. You can't just do it to blow off a few hours.
OTOH I know some people who regularly put their computer equipment into their car, drive to their friends, and build their stuff up. At the end of the evening, they dismantle their computers, throw them back into their cars and go home. Of course, just walking into your arcade is less cumbersome etc, but it's just not that much work to organise a small LAN-party.
der Joachim