NAT is only everywhere because IPs have been rare for a long long time (10+ years). So you either had to pay premium to get a real IP or use cheap NAT behind a dynamic IP.
The real crux with IPv6 is that nobody of the provider wants it, its simple supply and demand thinking. As long as IPs are rare you can get away with charging extra high price for them, if the supply would be close to limitless as with IPv6 on the other side you will have real trouble charging even minimal fees for it.
Neither is true, strcpy(), malloc(), printf(), #defines and friends will give you the same headache as inheritance, virtual functions and friends. The only advantage that a C++ programmer has is that C is a part of C++, so in theory, he might already know it, but in practice there is still a ton of stuff to learn.
So can other languages, I don't think that is the main selling point of C. I think the main selling point of C is that it is by far the most "compatible" language of all. Python, Perl, Ruby and friends are all based on C, if you want to extend the languages, you do so by writing a module using their C API. If you want to simply call C functions, you can do so from many other languages as well be it Lisp, Ada or whatever. If you want to talk to the kernel you do so in C. No matter what language you use, sooner or later you come to a point where you have to fall back and either write C or interface with C code, since C is the 'real thing', while everything else is just an ugly wrapper around C code, trying to hide it, but often failing at doing so properly.
As long as a ton of stuff is based on C code it isn't going away, especially not in the OpenSource world where basically everything is based on C.
Maybe one day some Java or.net based OS will take over, but I don't see that happening for many years or decade(s?) to come.
### their control schemes are so completely horrible.
Actually their control schemes are awesome, since they have a ton of different setting, my favorite being the one where you use two controlers, one for each hand, so that you have two analogsticks.
Kind of, however only for native Gamecube games. Games that got ported from other platforms to the Gamecube more often then not had horrible layouts on the Gamecube controller, sometimes that was to blame on the lazy developers, but often they didn't have much choice, since you can't replicate certain things with the Gamecube layout (i.e. things like StreetFighter-style layout with its soft, medium, hard punches and kicks just wouldn't be pretty on GC controller). That the Gamecube controllers lacked an L2 button, only had its crappy Z-button instead of a R2 and lacked pressable analog sticks created further porting problems.
Overall I liked the Gamecube controller, but for multi platform titles it had a ton of problems and I don't really think its interesting layout really was worth that cost. The classic square layout as used by XBox360, PS2 and such is more flexible, which especially these days where many classics get recycled is important. Clearly seen in that the Classic Controller features the old layout again, not the Gamecube ones.
### To add more buttons and analog sticks would defeat the purpose of simplifying gaming for the uninitiated.
Which is exactly the problem, the Wiimote is dumbed down, nice for the intended audience, but bad for a general purpose controller.
### Which rotation?
All of them. The Wiimote can't detect its rotation, only acceleration. With the help of gravity you can calculate the rotation from the acceleration, but only for two axes, not all three and only as long as the Wiimote doesn't move, when you move the Wiimote around everything gets screwed up and you can't properly map your movements to in-game stuff 1:1.
### All the controllers are asymmetric. The buttons/controls on the left side are always different from the ones on the right side, I don't see why that's a problem, or more of an issue for the wii.
If you would have symmetrical controllers, say a Wiimote for each hand instead of the Wiimote/Nunchuck combo you would have more freedom to combine them, i.e. you could play a two player game with each player having two Wiimotes or a four player game with each player having a single Wiimote, etc. You simply wouldn't need an extra Nunchuck but could just reuse the additional controllers you might have for multiplayer anyway.
### 1. I no longer have to play games with my hands together as though I'd been cuffed.
Definitely a plus, I liked that already back then on the N64 where you could play certain games (Perfect Dark) with two controllers, one for each hand, to get two analogsticks.
### 2. Easy to distinguish buttons, not too many of them, with convenient support for things like "thumb+forefinger = grab", making controls easier to remember.
I would rephrase "Not to many of them" to "not enough of them". That you need an additional Classic Controller controller for many games is a clear indication that the controller just isn't good enough for many games. Its lack of a secondary analog sticks makes game control also an issue, sometimes that can be worked around by abusing one of the motion sensors, but often these are already busy with detection of actions, leaving nothing for the camera control (see Zelda)
The Wiimote has some good ideas, but its definitvly not the end to all controller development, it simply has *way* to many flows for that, just to name a few:
- not enough buttons - not enough analog sticks - when hold horizontal very uncomfortable - pointing sensor is useless in horizontal position - rumble only in the Wiimote, not the Nunchuck - rumble is rather weak - asymmetric design, the Nunchuck looks completly different in terms of shape and button placements then the Wiimote - only half wireless, you still need a cable for nunchuck or classic controller - no gyros to detect rotation independent from acceleration, making 1:1 mapping extremely limited
For me the perfect controller would be a XBox360 controller, split into two halves for each hand with motion/pointing sensor added and buttons rearranged so that both half's are symmetrical.
There certainly is a need for more mundane games, however I think the issue is not just 'Halo' vs 'Brainage'. I think the underlying issue is a little different. When I look at todays games by far most of them are simply inspired by other games, it sounds rather obvious, but I think its a major reason why the big publishers produce so little interesting stuff. Developers should not limit their source of inspiration to other games, but simply get the inspiration from real life, books, movies and whatever, but for most part its simply not happening. Games try to hard to be games these days instead of being an interpretation of whatever topic they are about. This restricts games a lot in what they can be, since every game follows the same rules instead of just doing what would be best for the topic.
I am sure that we will see a lot of BrainAge clones in the next years, but its missing the point, since its again just cloning already existing games.
First off, you type "ls -l", rather than "ls -l *".
That was just a simplified example, make it "ls -l *.jpg" or anything like that and you no langer can work around it by 'ls -l', instead you have to use 'find', 'xargs' and friends for ugly workarounds.
It IS a bash issue, since the * is expanded by the shell, and not the kernel.
Wrong, this has nothing to do with bash, in fact bash can expand the '*' perfectly fine as you can see when you use a bash build-in function like 'echo', its only when you need to start another process and that *IS* a kernel issue. If you don't believe it, just look at the source:
$ grep ARG_MAX/usr/src/linux/include/linux/limits.h
#define ARG_MAX 131072/* # bytes of args + environ for exec() */
As for the keyboard, how arcane of an input device is it? Does it not adhere to HID standards?
Its a Microsoft Ergonomic 4000, which of course works, it just that a lot of the extra buttons nor the scroll wheel don't without the patch. I don't know who is to blame for who isn't, fact however is that there was a fix and that this fix was quite time consuming to get working. This really is nothing special, I had similar issues with my XBox360 controller, mice, graphic tablets and all other kinds of hardware over the years. If things are supported, but not in the mainline kernel that is provided by your distribution things get ugly.
why it took you 6 hours to compile a kernel module (really, a 10 minute job, and that's only if you don't have the kernel headers installed).
It was not a module, but a kernel patch, one requiring a newer kernel then Debian unstable is shipping. That meant to do a complete recompile, which, with a standard Debian kernel config takes *hours* unless you have one of those shiny new dual core CPUs. That it took 6h instead of 3h is to blame on another issue with the Nvidia driver that needed a change in the kernel config and another recompile.
Where do human interface designers come in on the kernel development front?
The kernel is something users come in contact with quite a lot of times and a lot of time it horribly fails to meet the users demand. The kernel isn't some thingy that is buried deep down and has zero impact on daily use, it actually has quite a lot.
Simple example, some days ago wanted to make my new keyboard work completly under Linux, not a big issue one might think, but it took a good six hours to get the thing going, since the kernel, as always, is rather picky when it comes to third party code, which in this case meant getting the latest kernel, patching it and recompiling everything and then recompiling it again to disable some thingy that conflicted with the NVidia driver. Ok, let me emphasis that, six hours to get a simple keyboard to work, the same thing took like five minutes under Windows. And no, this isn't a closed source issue, the keyborad driver (needed to support all keys and scrollwheel) is perfectly GPLed like all the rest of Linux, but since Linux doesn't come with a stable ABI or API all this recompiling is needed.
Completly different issue, lets try to list a directory, shouldn't be to hard you'd guess:
$ ls -l *
bash:/bin/ls: Argument list too long
Whoa, what is that? A little web browsing later you will know that this isn't 'bash' fault, its not 'ls' fault, its the kernel fault, due to some implementation detail it can't dynamically allocate the memory for the argument storage so all your GB of RAM never get touched and the kernel barfs at a list that my C64 might have been able handled without to much problems, totally ridiculous.
The standard answer to the later issue is of course to use xargs, however xargs doesn't fix the problem, it works around it, the real issue is in the kernel, but nobody considers it important enough to actually fix it. Now I am not sure how much influence a human interface designer would have to actually get these issues fixed, but there are heap loads of issues that he could identify, document and do whatever he normally does, since Linux, like every other component, in a computer does have an impact on how good or bad a human can interact with the machine.
If there are laws preventing or removing privacy, the laws aren't fine. Do you think those laws will go away when the laws you consider unjust show up?
The point is that the problem isn't the lack of privacy, but the unjust laws. Lack of privacy just makes it easier to enforce the given laws, which is a good thing in a fair state and a bad one in an unfair one.
I wouldn't have much problem giving up some of my privacy if the politicians make the first step and provide me with a nice 24/7 live stream of there everyday lives, which should make them a lot more trustworthy.
It's not anything like a religion. Many people seem to be unable, much like you, to see that you _need_ privacy to live a happy life.
What do I need privacy for? This guy is broadcasting his live 24/7, he doesn't seem unhappy at all. So what is this privacy good for?
When it comes to an oppressive state and unjust laws privacy of course helps you to hide from the state, but what if the laws are fine and there is no need to hide, why should I care about privacy? What would be the consequences?
The only good argument I have heard for privacy is that it gives to much power into the hands of those that have the information, which is a valid concern, it however doesn't mean that privacy is a holly cow, just that when you give up on it, you should start with those in power first, not random Joe on the street. It also means that the information should be available to everybody, not just one group having all the info and another not having anything, spread it to every person and it will get much harder to abuse.
I've heard of stores (not just Walmart) having policies like this, and inevitably they all dropped it after having the same thing happen with angry parents yelling at the clerks.
Maybe its just me, but angry parents yelling at the store clerks sounds perfectly fine to me, because its not the job of the clerk to do the parenting, thats what the parents are for. If a parent thinks a game is ok for their kids, while the ratings says something different, its the job of the parent to make the final decision, not that of the clerk.
You're obviously not thinking this through, or aren't living in America.
I am living in germany and I am very happy with the state enforced rating system over here.
The publisher can decide if they want to either live without WalMart, or make changes.
What you don't understand is that missing out the big retails can mean the death of a game company. If ESRB decides to give your game an AO, you have lost and can do nothing against it, its after all "voluntary". However it is still de facto censorship, just because its not written in law doesn't mean that it changes the effect of it, if the state actively censors or a private company gives you an AO isn't all that difference when the effect is the same. If you let the censorship be controlled by private companies, the big ones will sooner or later abuse their power to keep the smaller ones out, its a cartel and if you are not with them, then you might have a big issue. I am not saying that this is currently the case with the ESRB, if on the other side I belelive the movie This Film Is Not Yet Rated it seems to be the case with the MPAA.
And by the way, whats up with porn in the USA? Unless I am mistaken a child belove 18 is not allowed to buy one? Is that right? Isn't that a violation of the first amendment? How would a mandatory rating system be different?
I for one would be much happier with a state enforced rating system then one that is enforced by cooperations alone, as is currently the case. The reason is not only that a state enforced could be more effective, since every retailer would have to obey to it, but a state enforced one would also end up being much more transparent and fair then a cooperation enforced one. With a cooperation enforced ones you basically have to follow the will of the big retailers and publishers, if they don't want you, they can simply rate your game in such a way that they will be kept out of the stores and since its all a private thing you really couldn't do anything about it. If the state would do it, you could have quite a bit more control over the whole thing.
Think less of World of Warcraft and more about Four Swords or Secret of Mana to get the idea. I for one love story based small scale coop-games, but am basically not interested at all in MMORPGs.
One of the things I remember very well from Zelda:TP is how Telma turned into a single-always-repeating sentence NPC for the last 10 hours or so of the game after first being build up to seem somewhat more important. Don't get me wrong, there where moments when I thought they would have finally nailed it, however only a few moments later they did their best to kill of what they had build up. The ending kind of shows that very well, first they build up Midna and Zand and everything and then boh, boh, look here is Ganon please forget the last 30h of the game so we can have list last fight in the tradition of Zelda games. Oh, and Midna suddenly grew quite a bit as well.
For everything that Zelda:TP did right, there where like ten that it did wrong, either due to 'tradition' or due to pure ignorance. After being delayed for a solid year I really did expect somewhat more.
I don't think there exist any unofficial mods for the PS3 yet. You can install Linux on it, but that is officially supported and the hypervisor stops you from meddling with data to which you shouldn't have access.
* voice acting, no I don't care if Link talks or not, but the cutscenes in Zelda:TP just looked awful without any voice action, it was just way to obvious that something was missing * seamless terrain, I don't want to ride from one litte 'room' to another little 'room', I want a large world that I can freely explore, Windwaker got somewhat close, Zelda:TP was a step back, they should have a look at Shadow of Colossus, which terrain was completly seamless without loading times and huge, I want to have something like that in Zelda * less useless items, new items are all nice and good, but unless you can actually use them outside of the dungeon they are just a waste of inventory space, Zelda:TP had for to many of such inventory-space-waster-items * proper NPC interaction, I am just sick and tiered of every character having exactly one sentence that he repeats add infinitum, where are the multiple choice dialogs? * team play, in Zelda:TP you had a group of friends that helped you, but they only did so in a cutscene, how about having a real party when going on adventure to fight with? Maybe even make that online multiplayer, Link alone against the rest of the world just isn't all that interesting * non-respawning enemies, fighting against the same enemies over and over and over again just gets boring, especially when those are ridiculously easy, give me some hard ones, really hard ones but don't let them respawn instead * Zelda, give that girl a little more active role, just haven't her in the last boss battle is nice and good, but she really needs a more important role in the game * a better horse, sorry, but Epona was just boring in Zelda:TP, not only was that horse unneeded since you could teleport yourself around long before you actually got the ability to freely call her, the gameplay mechanics also felt like lifted right out of OoT, Shadow of the Colossus did much better then that and presented a horse that actually felt alive * jump button, Zelda:TP already had for to many jump'n run elements, so just give us a proper jump button instead of that stupid edge-jump thingy and while add that, give us some new climbing mechanics, something along the lines of TombRaider and the like to get some more vertical movement into the game * realism, maybe this is just me, but game mechanics that worked in 2D, often just don't work as good in 3D, its basically what a lot of problems are rooted in, i.e. the non-talky NPCs, the separation into 'rooms', respawning enemies and such, I would like to see a Zelda that presents me with a believable fantasy world, not a fantasy video game, if I can bomb a wall, I will bomb it because it looks instable, not because it has that trademarked you-can-bomb-me crack-texture painted on it, I also would like labyrinths to actually have more of a purpose, i.e. not just puzzle rooms connected together, but if its an ancient ruins it shall look like as if it had a real purpose once, TP already did a little bit in that direction, but the puzzles still felt to much forced.
### Twilight Princess was, IMO, the best game in the series, because instead of concentrating souly on new gameplay elements, they actually gave the game a SOUL.
Where was that soul you speak of? Zelda looked pretty in parts, but sometimes it just felt like a lifeless recycle-ware, I simply have already played way to many Zelda games to be impressed by that little new that TP offered. The story again was as weak as ever, the ending downright sucked and in between it was the most linear Zelda of all times. Now it wasn't a bad game, it just was a game that didn't ever manage to impress.
WindWaker on the other side had quite some nice moments, what it however failed to accomplish was to have gameplay that keeps up to the intended game, i.e. having a world that is full of water but then sailing gameplay that is so utterly uninteresting that you fall asleep after five minutes is just unacceptable. Why didn't they add some WaveRace like wave-mechanics, make storms actually matter and such, so that you would have to do something while sailing around. The game also had a certain mismatch in terms of story and atmosphere, which a king that has flooded his kingdom you would expect to see a little depression in the people, but instead everybody was quite happy and didn't seem to care.
Slashdot Mirror
NAT is only everywhere because IPs have been rare for a long long time (10+ years). So you either had to pay premium to get a real IP or use cheap NAT behind a dynamic IP.
The real crux with IPv6 is that nobody of the provider wants it, its simple supply and demand thinking. As long as IPs are rare you can get away with charging extra high price for them, if the supply would be close to limitless as with IPv6 on the other side you will have real trouble charging even minimal fees for it.
We practically already ran out of IPs long ago, the internet however didn't stop working, instead we invented crude workarounds like NAT.
Neither is true, strcpy(), malloc(), printf(), #defines and friends will give you the same headache as inheritance, virtual functions and friends. The only advantage that a C++ programmer has is that C is a part of C++, so in theory, he might already know it, but in practice there is still a ton of stuff to learn.
### C produces fast, tight code that so far,
.net based OS will take over, but I don't see that happening for many years or decade(s?) to come.
So can other languages, I don't think that is the main selling point of C. I think the main selling point of C is that it is by far the most "compatible" language of all. Python, Perl, Ruby and friends are all based on C, if you want to extend the languages, you do so by writing a module using their C API. If you want to simply call C functions, you can do so from many other languages as well be it Lisp, Ada or whatever. If you want to talk to the kernel you do so in C. No matter what language you use, sooner or later you come to a point where you have to fall back and either write C or interface with C code, since C is the 'real thing', while everything else is just an ugly wrapper around C code, trying to hide it, but often failing at doing so properly.
As long as a ton of stuff is based on C code it isn't going away, especially not in the OpenSource world where basically everything is based on C.
Maybe one day some Java or
### their control schemes are so completely horrible.
Actually their control schemes are awesome, since they have a ton of different setting, my favorite being the one where you use two controlers, one for each hand, so that you have two analogsticks.
### The oddly shaped buttons were the best part.
Kind of, however only for native Gamecube games. Games that got ported from other platforms to the Gamecube more often then not had horrible layouts on the Gamecube controller, sometimes that was to blame on the lazy developers, but often they didn't have much choice, since you can't replicate certain things with the Gamecube layout (i.e. things like StreetFighter-style layout with its soft, medium, hard punches and kicks just wouldn't be pretty on GC controller). That the Gamecube controllers lacked an L2 button, only had its crappy Z-button instead of a R2 and lacked pressable analog sticks created further porting problems.
Overall I liked the Gamecube controller, but for multi platform titles it had a ton of problems and I don't really think its interesting layout really was worth that cost. The classic square layout as used by XBox360, PS2 and such is more flexible, which especially these days where many classics get recycled is important. Clearly seen in that the Classic Controller features the old layout again, not the Gamecube ones.
The problem isn't that the shell is hard, but that the kernel is buggy, ignorance of course helps nothing to fix that.
### To add more buttons and analog sticks would defeat the purpose of simplifying gaming for the uninitiated.
Which is exactly the problem, the Wiimote is dumbed down, nice for the intended audience, but bad for a general purpose controller.
### Which rotation?
All of them. The Wiimote can't detect its rotation, only acceleration. With the help of gravity you can calculate the rotation from the acceleration, but only for two axes, not all three and only as long as the Wiimote doesn't move, when you move the Wiimote around everything gets screwed up and you can't properly map your movements to in-game stuff 1:1.
### All the controllers are asymmetric. The buttons/controls on the left side are always different from the ones on the right side, I don't see why that's a problem, or more of an issue for the wii.
If you would have symmetrical controllers, say a Wiimote for each hand instead of the Wiimote/Nunchuck combo you would have more freedom to combine them, i.e. you could play a two player game with each player having two Wiimotes or a four player game with each player having a single Wiimote, etc. You simply wouldn't need an extra Nunchuck but could just reuse the additional controllers you might have for multiplayer anyway.
### 1. I no longer have to play games with my hands together as though I'd been cuffed.
Definitely a plus, I liked that already back then on the N64 where you could play certain games (Perfect Dark) with two controllers, one for each hand, to get two analogsticks.
### 2. Easy to distinguish buttons, not too many of them, with convenient support for things like "thumb+forefinger = grab", making controls easier to remember.
I would rephrase "Not to many of them" to "not enough of them". That you need an additional Classic Controller controller for many games is a clear indication that the controller just isn't good enough for many games. Its lack of a secondary analog sticks makes game control also an issue, sometimes that can be worked around by abusing one of the motion sensors, but often these are already busy with detection of actions, leaving nothing for the camera control (see Zelda)
The Wiimote has some good ideas, but its definitvly not the end to all controller development, it simply has *way* to many flows for that, just to name a few:
- not enough buttons
- not enough analog sticks
- when hold horizontal very uncomfortable
- pointing sensor is useless in horizontal position
- rumble only in the Wiimote, not the Nunchuck
- rumble is rather weak
- asymmetric design, the Nunchuck looks completly different in terms of shape and button placements then the Wiimote
- only half wireless, you still need a cable for nunchuck or classic controller
- no gyros to detect rotation independent from acceleration, making 1:1 mapping extremely limited
For me the perfect controller would be a XBox360 controller, split into two halves for each hand with motion/pointing sensor added and buttons rearranged so that both half's are symmetrical.
There certainly is a need for more mundane games, however I think the issue is not just 'Halo' vs 'Brainage'. I think the underlying issue is a little different. When I look at todays games by far most of them are simply inspired by other games, it sounds rather obvious, but I think its a major reason why the big publishers produce so little interesting stuff. Developers should not limit their source of inspiration to other games, but simply get the inspiration from real life, books, movies and whatever, but for most part its simply not happening. Games try to hard to be games these days instead of being an interpretation of whatever topic they are about. This restricts games a lot in what they can be, since every game follows the same rules instead of just doing what would be best for the topic.
I am sure that we will see a lot of BrainAge clones in the next years, but its missing the point, since its again just cloning already existing games.
That was just a simplified example, make it "ls -l *.jpg" or anything like that and you no langer can work around it by 'ls -l', instead you have to use 'find', 'xargs' and friends for ugly workarounds.
Wrong, this has nothing to do with bash, in fact bash can expand the '*' perfectly fine as you can see when you use a bash build-in function like 'echo', its only when you need to start another process and that *IS* a kernel issue. If you don't believe it, just look at the source:
$ grep ARG_MAX /usr/src/linux/include/linux/limits.h /* # bytes of args + environ for exec() */
#define ARG_MAX 131072
Its a Microsoft Ergonomic 4000, which of course works, it just that a lot of the extra buttons nor the scroll wheel don't without the patch. I don't know who is to blame for who isn't, fact however is that there was a fix and that this fix was quite time consuming to get working. This really is nothing special, I had similar issues with my XBox360 controller, mice, graphic tablets and all other kinds of hardware over the years. If things are supported, but not in the mainline kernel that is provided by your distribution things get ugly.
It was not a module, but a kernel patch, one requiring a newer kernel then Debian unstable is shipping. That meant to do a complete recompile, which, with a standard Debian kernel config takes *hours* unless you have one of those shiny new dual core CPUs. That it took 6h instead of 3h is to blame on another issue with the Nvidia driver that needed a change in the kernel config and another recompile.
Care to elaborate how to do any of that faster/easier/better?
The kernel is something users come in contact with quite a lot of times and a lot of time it horribly fails to meet the users demand. The kernel isn't some thingy that is buried deep down and has zero impact on daily use, it actually has quite a lot.
Simple example, some days ago wanted to make my new keyboard work completly under Linux, not a big issue one might think, but it took a good six hours to get the thing going, since the kernel, as always, is rather picky when it comes to third party code, which in this case meant getting the latest kernel, patching it and recompiling everything and then recompiling it again to disable some thingy that conflicted with the NVidia driver. Ok, let me emphasis that, six hours to get a simple keyboard to work, the same thing took like five minutes under Windows. And no, this isn't a closed source issue, the keyborad driver (needed to support all keys and scrollwheel) is perfectly GPLed like all the rest of Linux, but since Linux doesn't come with a stable ABI or API all this recompiling is needed.
Completly different issue, lets try to list a directory, shouldn't be to hard you'd guess:
$ ls -l * /bin/ls: Argument list too long
bash:
Whoa, what is that? A little web browsing later you will know that this isn't 'bash' fault, its not 'ls' fault, its the kernel fault, due to some implementation detail it can't dynamically allocate the memory for the argument storage so all your GB of RAM never get touched and the kernel barfs at a list that my C64 might have been able handled without to much problems, totally ridiculous.
The standard answer to the later issue is of course to use xargs, however xargs doesn't fix the problem, it works around it, the real issue is in the kernel, but nobody considers it important enough to actually fix it. Now I am not sure how much influence a human interface designer would have to actually get these issues fixed, but there are heap loads of issues that he could identify, document and do whatever he normally does, since Linux, like every other component, in a computer does have an impact on how good or bad a human can interact with the machine.
The point is that the problem isn't the lack of privacy, but the unjust laws. Lack of privacy just makes it easier to enforce the given laws, which is a good thing in a fair state and a bad one in an unfair one.
I wouldn't have much problem giving up some of my privacy if the politicians make the first step and provide me with a nice 24/7 live stream of there everyday lives, which should make them a lot more trustworthy.
What do I need privacy for? This guy is broadcasting his live 24/7, he doesn't seem unhappy at all. So what is this privacy good for?
When it comes to an oppressive state and unjust laws privacy of course helps you to hide from the state, but what if the laws are fine and there is no need to hide, why should I care about privacy? What would be the consequences?
The only good argument I have heard for privacy is that it gives to much power into the hands of those that have the information, which is a valid concern, it however doesn't mean that privacy is a holly cow, just that when you give up on it, you should start with those in power first, not random Joe on the street. It also means that the information should be available to everybody, not just one group having all the info and another not having anything, spread it to every person and it will get much harder to abuse.
Maybe its just me, but angry parents yelling at the store clerks sounds perfectly fine to me, because its not the job of the clerk to do the parenting, thats what the parents are for. If a parent thinks a game is ok for their kids, while the ratings says something different, its the job of the parent to make the final decision, not that of the clerk.
How is this different then selling porn to minors, which, unless I am mistaken, is illegal in the USA.
I am living in germany and I am very happy with the state enforced rating system over here.
What you don't understand is that missing out the big retails can mean the death of a game company. If ESRB decides to give your game an AO, you have lost and can do nothing against it, its after all "voluntary". However it is still de facto censorship, just because its not written in law doesn't mean that it changes the effect of it, if the state actively censors or a private company gives you an AO isn't all that difference when the effect is the same. If you let the censorship be controlled by private companies, the big ones will sooner or later abuse their power to keep the smaller ones out, its a cartel and if you are not with them, then you might have a big issue. I am not saying that this is currently the case with the ESRB, if on the other side I belelive the movie This Film Is Not Yet Rated it seems to be the case with the MPAA.
And by the way, whats up with porn in the USA? Unless I am mistaken a child belove 18 is not allowed to buy one? Is that right? Isn't that a violation of the first amendment? How would a mandatory rating system be different?
I for one would be much happier with a state enforced rating system then one that is enforced by cooperations alone, as is currently the case. The reason is not only that a state enforced could be more effective, since every retailer would have to obey to it, but a state enforced one would also end up being much more transparent and fair then a cooperation enforced one. With a cooperation enforced ones you basically have to follow the will of the big retailers and publishers, if they don't want you, they can simply rate your game in such a way that they will be kept out of the stores and since its all a private thing you really couldn't do anything about it. If the state would do it, you could have quite a bit more control over the whole thing.
Think less of World of Warcraft and more about Four Swords or Secret of Mana to get the idea. I for one love story based small scale coop-games, but am basically not interested at all in MMORPGs.
One of the things I remember very well from Zelda:TP is how Telma turned into a single-always-repeating sentence NPC for the last 10 hours or so of the game after first being build up to seem somewhat more important. Don't get me wrong, there where moments when I thought they would have finally nailed it, however only a few moments later they did their best to kill of what they had build up. The ending kind of shows that very well, first they build up Midna and Zand and everything and then boh, boh, look here is Ganon please forget the last 30h of the game so we can have list last fight in the tradition of Zelda games. Oh, and Midna suddenly grew quite a bit as well.
For everything that Zelda:TP did right, there where like ten that it did wrong, either due to 'tradition' or due to pure ignorance. After being delayed for a solid year I really did expect somewhat more.
I don't think there exist any unofficial mods for the PS3 yet. You can install Linux on it, but that is officially supported and the hypervisor stops you from meddling with data to which you shouldn't have access.
* voice acting, no I don't care if Link talks or not, but the cutscenes in Zelda:TP just looked awful without any voice action, it was just way to obvious that something was missing
* seamless terrain, I don't want to ride from one litte 'room' to another little 'room', I want a large world that I can freely explore, Windwaker got somewhat close, Zelda:TP was a step back, they should have a look at Shadow of Colossus, which terrain was completly seamless without loading times and huge, I want to have something like that in Zelda
* less useless items, new items are all nice and good, but unless you can actually use them outside of the dungeon they are just a waste of inventory space, Zelda:TP had for to many of such inventory-space-waster-items
* proper NPC interaction, I am just sick and tiered of every character having exactly one sentence that he repeats add infinitum, where are the multiple choice dialogs?
* team play, in Zelda:TP you had a group of friends that helped you, but they only did so in a cutscene, how about having a real party when going on adventure to fight with? Maybe even make that online multiplayer, Link alone against the rest of the world just isn't all that interesting
* non-respawning enemies, fighting against the same enemies over and over and over again just gets boring, especially when those are ridiculously easy, give me some hard ones, really hard ones but don't let them respawn instead
* Zelda, give that girl a little more active role, just haven't her in the last boss battle is nice and good, but she really needs a more important role in the game
* a better horse, sorry, but Epona was just boring in Zelda:TP, not only was that horse unneeded since you could teleport yourself around long before you actually got the ability to freely call her, the gameplay mechanics also felt like lifted right out of OoT, Shadow of the Colossus did much better then that and presented a horse that actually felt alive
* jump button, Zelda:TP already had for to many jump'n run elements, so just give us a proper jump button instead of that stupid edge-jump thingy and while add that, give us some new climbing mechanics, something along the lines of TombRaider and the like to get some more vertical movement into the game
* realism, maybe this is just me, but game mechanics that worked in 2D, often just don't work as good in 3D, its basically what a lot of problems are rooted in, i.e. the non-talky NPCs, the separation into 'rooms', respawning enemies and such, I would like to see a Zelda that presents me with a believable fantasy world, not a fantasy video game, if I can bomb a wall, I will bomb it because it looks instable, not because it has that trademarked you-can-bomb-me crack-texture painted on it, I also would like labyrinths to actually have more of a purpose, i.e. not just puzzle rooms connected together, but if its an ancient ruins it shall look like as if it had a real purpose once, TP already did a little bit in that direction, but the puzzles still felt to much forced.
### Twilight Princess was, IMO, the best game in the series, because instead of concentrating souly on new gameplay elements, they actually gave the game a SOUL.
Where was that soul you speak of? Zelda looked pretty in parts, but sometimes it just felt like a lifeless recycle-ware, I simply have already played way to many Zelda games to be impressed by that little new that TP offered. The story again was as weak as ever, the ending downright sucked and in between it was the most linear Zelda of all times. Now it wasn't a bad game, it just was a game that didn't ever manage to impress.
WindWaker on the other side had quite some nice moments, what it however failed to accomplish was to have gameplay that keeps up to the intended game, i.e. having a world that is full of water but then sailing gameplay that is so utterly uninteresting that you fall asleep after five minutes is just unacceptable. Why didn't they add some WaveRace like wave-mechanics, make storms actually matter and such, so that you would have to do something while sailing around. The game also had a certain mismatch in terms of story and atmosphere, which a king that has flooded his kingdom you would expect to see a little depression in the people, but instead everybody was quite happy and didn't seem to care.