On average though, how many games does a person buy a year? I'd guess only 3 or 4. Sure, I know some people will pick up 3 or 4 games a month, but we're talking about the massses. They probably pick up the annual Madden game, maybe a basketball or hockey game and then a fighting and action game.
Would you want to spend 25% of your gaming budget for online play? I wouldn't. Not until all of my friends have the same console and broadband at least.
X-Band maybe? Made by Taito or THQ? I can't remember which, but I'm pretty sure it was made by someone who had no business making it. I remember thinking about getting the Sega version so I could play 12 player NHL 94.
Sega also had the 'Sega Gaming' channel which was like a PPV cable channel that was offered by Time Warner around the climax of the Genesis. I believe it let you download games to play and they had a cable box that you could plug controllers into. Not positive.
Is there a way to just show one subsection on the main page with the regular front page news?
Is it possible to see regular front page news + games? I've played around with my settings before, but I either have to show all the subsections on the front page, or block all the sections except games, which filters all the front page news except the games subsection.
I skimmed the article and it only stated that they were playing on a 17" monitor.
I usually play games with old college friends until about 11pm most nights. I have a 20" CRT. I've heard in several other articles that LCDs are a lot easier on the user since they're not firing the pixel gun constantly at your head:) Anybody with experience on both types of monitors?
In Phoenix/Firebird, you can seperate your homepage URL with pipe characters (|) to automatically open up multiple tabs on startup.
Example, I have this as my homepage in Phoneix: www.slashdot.org | www.yahoo.com | www.fark.com | www.cringe.com
And I get 4 tabs with mentioned sites opened up when I fire up Phoenix. I know this didn't work in the last version of Mozilla I used (1.2.1). The only aggravating thing is that if you click 'New Window' it will open up all the homepage tabs in the new window too. So I can never get a 'blank' new window. Frustrating, since I'm too lazy to find a solution;)
Ditto that. I remember paying $74.99 for the Squaresoft game 'Secret of Mana' on the SNES. I also know I paid $69.99 for Street Fighter II Turbo. I understand the manufacturing costs for carts are a lot more than DVDs or miniDVDs, but then again they didn't have to worry about fancypants sound recording studios and video capture studios.
I have no problems paying $5 or $10 more for a game if it's worthwhile. I paid $54 for Warcraft III when it came out last summer.
It doesn't have to taint the original, but more than likely it does:) There's been some games I've played that have been 'boosted' originals. Like Super Mario Brothers All-Stars on the SNES was an amazing product.
I'm really not trying to be bitter and jaded here, but sequels and remakes (just like in movies for the most part) are usually less than stellar. Sure, there's exceptions to the rule, but they're just that, exceptions.
Don't re-make Out of This World. Please. Or Syndicate. I want warm fuzzy memories. Not new 3d polygon models in these classic games. I want to remember Out of This World in the proper context. Being in middle school, sitting in a dark bedroom being freaked out by that lion thing with the red eyes.
Call me anti-progress, but I'll never forgive Nintendo for ruining the Zelda series with their 3d based worlds. Just give me an epic 2d overhead.
I've been to a few medium sized (about 50 people) lans in the great state of ohio, and there are ALWAYS power issues. tripping breakers left and right, not enough extension cord / surge protectors.
If you have a power issue (like only 3 stations per extension cord) for the love of god, TELL PEOPLE WHAT IS GOING ON. I know geeks dont like to communicate in general, but I've seen so many breakers tripped because no one was ever told how much power one outlet could take.
I myself, have hosted several smallish (~10 to 15) lans at my house and have had pretty good luck. It's friends and friends of friends only. So if some jackass shows up, we know exactly which friend to blame;)
Other things that you may run across depending on setup:
Have enough shower towels if you don't explicitly tell people to bring their own. I live by myself so I have about 4 bathroom towels. 12 people fighting over 4 (wet) bathroom towels is a major issue. Keep people clean!
Lay out ground rules right away. Don't decide to charge people or raise the price halfway through the LAN. Or decide to cut deals with friends. It just makes for an ugly scene. For the LANs I host, there's no entrance fee. I usually end up taking about a $50 loss, but everyone has a good time. I buy food to throw in the crockpot and meat to toss on the grill. Everyone is fed cheap. By not charging people you don't have to listen to anyone complain about food choices or lack of food. I understand this isn't feasible for huge LANs.
Have extra patch cable and 10/100 switches. People will bring 6' patch cable and whine. Someone will dig up a 10 base T card and whine when it won't get a DHCP address. These are my friends. I can't imagine what strangers would do.
Have a free game downloaded that's fun to play. The most fun we ever had at a lan was playing the Wake Island demo map for Battlefield 1942. Even though it was a one map demo, we probably played it for 6 hours straight. Check out the new Wolfenstein game people have already brought up.
Post what versions of a game you are playing. Playing Age of Mythologies is okay. But are you playing v1.05? or 1.04? Or 1.00?
Headphones. Headphones. Headphones. Someone will bring a 5.1 dolby speaker setup. Hand him a pair of $.99 CVS headphones.
Take a break after each game / few rounds. The big advantage of a LAN is being with friends / making new friends and socializing. My friends and I are lushes, so we're always getting drinks between rounds and talking trash.:)
Pricing:
* Only exception: if a song is over 7 minutes long, they won't offer it as a separate download. It will be available as part of the album only.
What you CAN'T do:
* You can not sell an album as album-only format without allowing the purchase of single-songs.
So what about those albums that consist of songs that all over 7 minutes longer? You can't sell the songs seperately because they're over 7 minutes. But according to the rules, you can't just sell an album. What overrides what? And what about pricing. Example time:
Band has 3 song album that clocks in at 75 minutes. These do exist, I own several.
According to AppleRules, they can't sell the songs seperatelym since each song is over 7 minutes. However one of the other AppleRules:
* Album price must be less than or equal to the sum of their tracks. So if you have a 5-song album, it can't be more than $4.95 to buy the full-length album.
So does this 3 song album cost $2.97 to buy? That's a whole lot of bang for the buck. Why can't they just offer.99 for each 7 minutes of a song? My brain hurts.
I'm going up to Cedar Point this weekend with some friends. Should be a good time.
For those of you that have never been to Cedar Point. You have to go. Not only do they have about 7 or 8 'oops i crapped my pants' class roller costers, but they have one of the better vintage arcades that I've ever seen. Out Run, Galaga, Space Harrier, etc..
If you're an AAA member, you can get an all-day pass for $32 or so. It makes a lot more affordable, especially if you're broke and/or have a family.
I work for a company that sells handheld computers to EMS (emergency medical service) agencies and this is what we've found out about Stylus' (styli?)
They will lose them. Then agencies started buying those 4 in 1 pens with the stylus. Those were 'cool' and started to disappear from the medics very fast.
Finally we gave them a bunch of 4.5 inch golf tees. You can get them at a golf store or a lot of promo vendors can put your copmany logo on them. This is what we've been handing out to agencies and it's worked great. They also use them for plugging leaks in pipes in Hazmat situations.
I have no idea how file systems work, but the more and more I hear about 'SQL driven' file systems and IIS built into the kernel.. this new Outlook/IIS worm pops into my mind: 'delete from files'.
I know it will not be quite that simple, but IIS in the kernel? Ickies.
I really hope that Apple discloses their plans to let the independent labels in on this ASAP. I know Matador has been in contact with Apple trying to get something worked out.
If Apple can get a lot of the independent labels aboard, the indies will be in direct competition with the majors. It would also give Apple a bargaining chip when it comes time to renegotiate it's contract with the majors.
I could go on about how Return Fire on the 3DO drove me pretty darn close to killing a close friend, but the game that really struck a chord with me was Squaresoft's Secret of Mana on the SNES. It was like Zelda 3, but there was a lot more of the role-playing element involved. The story was incredible and the little things, like naming your character got you even more involved. I tried playing the sequel(s) and a few of the Final Fantasy games, but nothing ever made me want to play a game like Secret of Mana did. In fact, it's the only RPG I've ever finished. I never played RPG games before that game and haven't played any that seriously since.
Secret of Mana also had one of the best soundtracks ever. I'm amazed what that little SNES sound chip (was it a Yahama?) could do. Between that game's music and the music from Super Metroid, wow.
I always get a chuckle out of these lists. Some of the games are listed because they're one of the first games in their genre (or created the genre) and some of them are just recent games with great graphics and good gameplay.
I still think 'Alone in the Dark', 'Out of This World' and 'Bomberman' are 3 of the most overlooked games of all time (at least for me in the early 90's). Heck, 4 player Super Bomberman on the Super Nintendo is one of the best 'gaming with friends' experiences ever.
It should also be noted that some games age really poorly. Like Doom. I love Doom as much as the next gamer but if you play the original version it's pathetic. What? I cant crouch?? How do I climb ladders? I appreciate Doom for what it was in it's day, but it's no fun now that I've played better:)
I see DVD-R's (I dont know if they're +R, +RW, -R, -RW or whatever) go for about.90 in bulk (100 packs) now.
Normal.7 gig CDR is.10 each in bulk.
Normal 4.7 gig DVD-R is.90 each in bulk.
That's not that much of a difference in price per gig. Plus the convienence of only storing / keeping track of 1 disc, instead of 7. I'm just talking out my ass. I don't have a DVD writer, I'm still using my bulletproof Plextor SCSI 12x burner.
My first (actually my second, I had a 486 DX4@120) experience with AMD processors was very bad. It turned out to be the craptastic Abit KT7 RAID Board I bought. All sorts of problems with it. Random lockups, HAL errors, etc. I swapped out every piece of hardware and it would still crash and hard lock randomly. I wrote it off as a demonic board and gave it to my friend. He now suffers with it, convinced he's only step away from getting it to run stable.
Since then, I've stuck to buying Asus and Shuttle boards and have had ZERO problems. Maybe that Abit board had a flaky chipset, who knows. I have an XP 1600 and a Thunderbird 1.33 running at home and they run fine. Never had a problem. They run just as stable as my PII@300.
I just can't resist the price/performance ratio of AMD chips when I go to upgrade my machine.
The secret to higher quality live recording is not running into drunk friends at a show or standing next to someone who keeps yelling 'more rock! less cock!'. Both seem to happen to me way too often.
I know when I dump DATs onto my hard drive after taping a show, the 44.1khz/16 bit/stereo.wav file is usually about 800 megs for a 75 minute set. I see plenty of 1 gig compact flash cards at retail.
Then again, if you're talking about taping a 4 hour long Ween set, I totally agree:)
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Would you want to spend 25% of your gaming budget for online play? I wouldn't. Not until all of my friends have the same console and broadband at least.
Sega also had the 'Sega Gaming' channel which was like a PPV cable channel that was offered by Time Warner around the climax of the Genesis. I believe it let you download games to play and they had a cable box that you could plug controllers into. Not positive.
I was too busy setting up atdt strings for Doom :)
I don't mean to stand on the grassy knoll, but wasn't ATI rumored to have the Xbox2 GPU contract? I'm sure this would help the cause out.
Is it possible to see regular front page news + games? I've played around with my settings before, but I either have to show all the subsections on the front page, or block all the sections except games, which filters all the front page news except the games subsection.
Anyone?
I usually play games with old college friends until about 11pm most nights. I have a 20" CRT. I've heard in several other articles that LCDs are a lot easier on the user since they're not firing the pixel gun constantly at your head :) Anybody with experience on both types of monitors?
Example, I have this as my homepage in Phoneix:
www.slashdot.org | www.yahoo.com | www.fark.com | www.cringe.com
And I get 4 tabs with mentioned sites opened up when I fire up Phoenix. I know this didn't work in the last version of Mozilla I used (1.2.1). The only aggravating thing is that if you click 'New Window' it will open up all the homepage tabs in the new window too. So I can never get a 'blank' new window. Frustrating, since I'm too lazy to find a solution ;)
I have no problems paying $5 or $10 more for a game if it's worthwhile. I paid $54 for Warcraft III when it came out last summer.
I'm really not trying to be bitter and jaded here, but sequels and remakes (just like in movies for the most part) are usually less than stellar. Sure, there's exceptions to the rule, but they're just that, exceptions.
Call me anti-progress, but I'll never forgive Nintendo for ruining the Zelda series with their 3d based worlds. Just give me an epic 2d overhead.
Although it's basically just hex editing to update stats, it's still pretty cool.
Isn't Guided by Voices a Who cover band? They would get some pub.
If you have a power issue (like only 3 stations per extension cord) for the love of god, TELL PEOPLE WHAT IS GOING ON. I know geeks dont like to communicate in general, but I've seen so many breakers tripped because no one was ever told how much power one outlet could take.
I myself, have hosted several smallish (~10 to 15) lans at my house and have had pretty good luck. It's friends and friends of friends only. So if some jackass shows up, we know exactly which friend to blame
Other things that you may run across depending on setup:
So what about those albums that consist of songs that all over 7 minutes longer? You can't sell the songs seperately because they're over 7 minutes. But according to the rules, you can't just sell an album. What overrides what? And what about pricing. Example time:
Band has 3 song album that clocks in at 75 minutes. These do exist, I own several.
According to AppleRules, they can't sell the songs seperatelym since each song is over 7 minutes. However one of the other AppleRules:
So does this 3 song album cost $2.97 to buy? That's a whole lot of bang for the buck. Why can't they just offer
Bookpool.com has this book for $30.95. (Hint: search for 'FreeBSD'). It's $49.99 at bn.com. Do the math.
For those of you that have never been to Cedar Point. You have to go. Not only do they have about 7 or 8 'oops i crapped my pants' class roller costers, but they have one of the better vintage arcades that I've ever seen. Out Run, Galaga, Space Harrier, etc..
If you're an AAA member, you can get an all-day pass for $32 or so. It makes a lot more affordable, especially if you're broke and/or have a family.
They will lose them. Then agencies started buying those 4 in 1 pens with the stylus. Those were 'cool' and started to disappear from the medics very fast.
Finally we gave them a bunch of 4.5 inch golf tees. You can get them at a golf store or a lot of promo vendors can put your copmany logo on them. This is what we've been handing out to agencies and it's worked great. They also use them for plugging leaks in pipes in Hazmat situations.
Why are the Tablet PC pens battery powered?
I know it will not be quite that simple, but IIS in the kernel? Ickies.
If Apple can get a lot of the independent labels aboard, the indies will be in direct competition with the majors. It would also give Apple a bargaining chip when it comes time to renegotiate it's contract with the majors.
We can only hope.
I could go on about how Return Fire on the 3DO drove me pretty darn close to killing a close friend, but the game that really struck a chord with me was Squaresoft's Secret of Mana on the SNES. It was like Zelda 3, but there was a lot more of the role-playing element involved. The story was incredible and the little things, like naming your character got you even more involved. I tried playing the sequel(s) and a few of the Final Fantasy games, but nothing ever made me want to play a game like Secret of Mana did. In fact, it's the only RPG I've ever finished. I never played RPG games before that game and haven't played any that seriously since.
Secret of Mana also had one of the best soundtracks ever. I'm amazed what that little SNES sound chip (was it a Yahama?) could do. Between that game's music and the music from Super Metroid, wow.
I still think 'Alone in the Dark', 'Out of This World' and 'Bomberman' are 3 of the most overlooked games of all time (at least for me in the early 90's). Heck, 4 player Super Bomberman on the Super Nintendo is one of the best 'gaming with friends' experiences ever.
It should also be noted that some games age really poorly. Like Doom. I love Doom as much as the next gamer but if you play the original version it's pathetic. What? I cant crouch?? How do I climb ladders? I appreciate Doom for what it was in it's day, but it's no fun now that I've played better :)
Normal .7 gig CDR is .10 each in bulk. .90 each in bulk.
Normal 4.7 gig DVD-R is
That's not that much of a difference in price per gig. Plus the convienence of only storing / keeping track of 1 disc, instead of 7. I'm just talking out my ass. I don't have a DVD writer, I'm still using my bulletproof Plextor SCSI 12x burner.
Since then, I've stuck to buying Asus and Shuttle boards and have had ZERO problems. Maybe that Abit board had a flaky chipset, who knows. I have an XP 1600 and a Thunderbird 1.33 running at home and they run fine. Never had a problem. They run just as stable as my PII@300.
I just can't resist the price/performance ratio of AMD chips when I go to upgrade my machine.
I think the Ogg people should change the file extenstion of Vorbis files to .VBS! Oh wait....
The secret to higher quality live recording is not running into drunk friends at a show or standing next to someone who keeps yelling 'more rock! less cock!'. Both seem to happen to me way too often.
Then again, if you're talking about taping a 4 hour long Ween set, I totally agree :)