Yeah, I still have it. Got no plans on parting with it, even though it sells pretty high.:) But I do know it has indeed kept its value. My friend keeps looking at buying one, but is never willing to cough up the money for it.
.... but as of the last couple of years, I have been playing console games a lot more.
Why?
1. PC games are a hassle: We all know the story: patches, patches, patches. The fact is that it's just hard to develop a game for countless hardware configurations that you can't possibly all test.
2. Consoles are closing the gap: The bleeding edge of PC gaming will always be technologically superior. However, while the difference between an average "gaming PC" and a console used to be unthinkably night-and-day, it's just not as big of a gap anymore.
3. Decline of PC-centric genres: If you're over 20, you probably remember when everyone used to play military sims on their PCs. You know, Falcon 3.0 and M1 Tank Platoon and such. Lots of Microprose stuff. Well that genre is all but dead now (ironically, now when we have the technology to do it justice). Real Time Strategy games are getting hopelessly vanilla - we need another game on the order of Total Annihilation to kickstart the genre. The point-and-click adventure genre, much like the military sim genre, has been relegated to a small niche audience, despite recent gems like The Longest Journey and Syberia (and even Grim Fandango a few years ago, which got lots of critical attention but did not garner the kind of sales it needed). Probably the only real PC-centric genre that still stands strong is the first person shooter. And even there, the Halos and SOCOMs of the console world are helping to close that gap (though the fragheads will always, of course, desire the fast-twitch gameplay of a mouse-driven FPS).
4. Cost: Competition is driving hardware prices down, down, down. New game prices have stayed put for years now (not even adjusting for inflation), and in fact have gotten cheaper in many cases (not only the Greatest Hits/Platinum/Player's Choice serieses, but games aren't ever hitting the $70 price point that I paid for Street Fighter II and Chrono Trigger back in the SNES days. Also, even non-discounted games get marked down very often these days, after being on the shelves for 3 months or so). PC games have gotten cheaper too, although often in a forced, "this damn thing isn't selling" kind of way. And while gaming PCs can be had cheaper than before, it still falls well short of the inexpensive nature of consoles.
Personally, I would love nothing more than to see a PC gaming return to glory. I loved the genres that have now all but died out. I love the limitless potential of PC gaming. But developers must find a way to make things more stable, and must be less demanding in hardware requirements. Ever notice how a small sequel (like a new entry in the Madden series or something) will have very modest improvements in video/sound/etc, but often significantly higher hardware requirements? Not acceptable.
The console kiddies naturally have no clue, but Fallout on the PC solved this long ago.
When "in" the game world (i.e. not travelling on the "overworld" map), all enemies are visible and never random.
When travelling on the overworld map, there are occasional random encounters (although we're talking maybe 1 or 2 in the time it takes to get from one town to another - nothing remotely like a Final Fantasy game).
Plus, your character had a stat attribute that affected these encounters. If your stat attribute was high, you would "see" the enemy before the encounter, in the form of a dialog box popping up, informing you of the pending encounter. If you wanted to avoid it, you clicked a button to do so. Now, this would be annoying if there were the number of encounters on the scale of a FF game, but Fallout simply did not need such a design crutch.
Unfortunately, most Japanese RPGs still prop themselves up with the crutch. Even though some notable ones in the past have partially side-stepped the problem (like Chrono Trigger, which at least greatly reduced it, although the "ambush" encounters were still a bit too frequent), most ignore all other options and happily fall back on the regressive design.
Meanwhile, BioWare games, like Baldur's Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, learned from Fallout and have perfected the approach.
Right now, GNOME simply needs to get better. It is pointless to try to be original just for the sake of being original. Original is not automatically better.
Original approaches to solving problems should be encouraged. Still, in lieu of those, I would like to see GNOME model itself after the best ideas the developers can find. If Apple is the source of many of them, so be it.
GNOME doesn't have to stay the same forever. It can copy a lot of Apple stuff, and simply use that as a springboard for further development, perhaps in more original directions.
Well multiplayer's not there because multiplayer wasn't in Final Fantasy Adventure (Seiken Densetsu). It is, after all, a very prettied up port of that game.
And for what it's worth, the original game was superb, and I have long been meaning to re-purchase it. I will definitely get Sword of Mana, and I probably will pick up a copy of the original as well (I suppose I should bite the bullet and get a cheap copy from eBay - I keep looking in local stores but they charge a bit too much for it IMO).
I don't feel compelled to support every free/OSS project. Just the ones I want to see continue and get better. I hope projects keep making it easy to do so, and I hope users feel compelled to pitch in. A bunch of $2 donations can go very far.
...that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area....
How do you deal with the inherent evilness of YaST?
Installing software has always been what brings my SuSE tenures to a crashing end. Usually when there's a software package I want beyond what's in the default install, YaST lacks it.
I'm not a Gentoo zealot, and I think Gentoo's install is ridiculously pain-in-the-ass, but once I have Gentoo installed, even some of the most obscure software packages are easily at my fingertips with the Portage tree.
I keep trying out other distros, and SuSE sure is nice, but YaST makes me very unhappy.
The "day of machines" is not when a man-made computer can beat a human at chess. Chessmaster kicks my ass all the time, but that doesn't mean my Athlon PC dominates me. I can still turn the bitch off, or program it to eat itself.
No, the "day of machines" is when machines can create and operate without any human intervention. Clearly, machines can be made to be stronger than humans, and perhaps one day they can be smarter (in everything, not just a highly-specific application). When machines can be both unequivocally stronger and smarter than humans, and do not have to rely on humans to create and maintain themselves, then we'll have a "day of machines".
Meanwhile, my Windows PC can't manage to stay running for a whole day. My Linux server and my PowerBook can, though. Microsoft is fighting to stem the tide of the "day of machines", but Apple and Linux zealots are pushing it forward and will be the death of us all!
>> I'm on the verge of returning to dial-up. Two reasons. #1 I don't have the time to goof off online and #2 my local cable company is a monopolistic blood sucking leech.
>> I've spent the whole weekend in a slump because it recently hit me that Microsoft has flat out killed all progress in browser technologies for the mainstream consumer.
Man, you need to start spending your weekends getting laid instead.
If it makes you feel any better, my source of lovin' (that'd be my girlfriend) has embraced Mozilla after I finally got her to try switching (after IE finally caused her enough grief to consider it). My parents have also switched too. Of course, I haven't gotten them off of Windows machines yet, but my girlfriend is now seeing that big bad Linux ain't so scary - and is even a bit inviting - with a GNOME interface plastered on top of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Why?
1. PC games are a hassle: We all know the story: patches, patches, patches. The fact is that it's just hard to develop a game for countless hardware configurations that you can't possibly all test.
2. Consoles are closing the gap: The bleeding edge of PC gaming will always be technologically superior. However, while the difference between an average "gaming PC" and a console used to be unthinkably night-and-day, it's just not as big of a gap anymore.
3. Decline of PC-centric genres: If you're over 20, you probably remember when everyone used to play military sims on their PCs. You know, Falcon 3.0 and M1 Tank Platoon and such. Lots of Microprose stuff. Well that genre is all but dead now (ironically, now when we have the technology to do it justice). Real Time Strategy games are getting hopelessly vanilla - we need another game on the order of Total Annihilation to kickstart the genre. The point-and-click adventure genre, much like the military sim genre, has been relegated to a small niche audience, despite recent gems like The Longest Journey and Syberia (and even Grim Fandango a few years ago, which got lots of critical attention but did not garner the kind of sales it needed). Probably the only real PC-centric genre that still stands strong is the first person shooter. And even there, the Halos and SOCOMs of the console world are helping to close that gap (though the fragheads will always, of course, desire the fast-twitch gameplay of a mouse-driven FPS).
4. Cost: Competition is driving hardware prices down, down, down. New game prices have stayed put for years now (not even adjusting for inflation), and in fact have gotten cheaper in many cases (not only the Greatest Hits/Platinum/Player's Choice serieses, but games aren't ever hitting the $70 price point that I paid for Street Fighter II and Chrono Trigger back in the SNES days. Also, even non-discounted games get marked down very often these days, after being on the shelves for 3 months or so). PC games have gotten cheaper too, although often in a forced, "this damn thing isn't selling" kind of way. And while gaming PCs can be had cheaper than before, it still falls well short of the inexpensive nature of consoles.
Personally, I would love nothing more than to see a PC gaming return to glory. I loved the genres that have now all but died out. I love the limitless potential of PC gaming. But developers must find a way to make things more stable, and must be less demanding in hardware requirements. Ever notice how a small sequel (like a new entry in the Madden series or something) will have very modest improvements in video/sound/etc, but often significantly higher hardware requirements? Not acceptable.
(... so has everyone else.... )
So what did you think of Gigli?
When "in" the game world (i.e. not travelling on the "overworld" map), all enemies are visible and never random.
When travelling on the overworld map, there are occasional random encounters (although we're talking maybe 1 or 2 in the time it takes to get from one town to another - nothing remotely like a Final Fantasy game).
Plus, your character had a stat attribute that affected these encounters. If your stat attribute was high, you would "see" the enemy before the encounter, in the form of a dialog box popping up, informing you of the pending encounter. If you wanted to avoid it, you clicked a button to do so. Now, this would be annoying if there were the number of encounters on the scale of a FF game, but Fallout simply did not need such a design crutch.
Unfortunately, most Japanese RPGs still prop themselves up with the crutch. Even though some notable ones in the past have partially side-stepped the problem (like Chrono Trigger, which at least greatly reduced it, although the "ambush" encounters were still a bit too frequent), most ignore all other options and happily fall back on the regressive design.
Meanwhile, BioWare games, like Baldur's Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, learned from Fallout and have perfected the approach.
He'd have to burn, re-rip, and re-encode.
That's twice through a lossy compression routine. It that makes you wonder if it will sound like ass, that's because it will.
Indeed. While scans often show brainwave activity at or near zero, these beings still manage to operate on some preprogrammed level.
Right now, GNOME simply needs to get better. It is pointless to try to be original just for the sake of being original. Original is not automatically better.
Original approaches to solving problems should be encouraged. Still, in lieu of those, I would like to see GNOME model itself after the best ideas the developers can find. If Apple is the source of many of them, so be it.
GNOME doesn't have to stay the same forever. It can copy a lot of Apple stuff, and simply use that as a springboard for further development, perhaps in more original directions.
And for what it's worth, the original game was superb, and I have long been meaning to re-purchase it. I will definitely get Sword of Mana, and I probably will pick up a copy of the original as well (I suppose I should bite the bullet and get a cheap copy from eBay - I keep looking in local stores but they charge a bit too much for it IMO).
You're right. Let's kill the girl.
The minute people find their beloved eBay in trouble, the backlash will be massive.
Nothing will help put this patent issue in the critical spotlight than stuff like this.
I don't feel compelled to support every free/OSS project. Just the ones I want to see continue and get better. I hope projects keep making it easy to do so, and I hope users feel compelled to pitch in. A bunch of $2 donations can go very far.
Consume consume consume!
Installing software has always been what brings my SuSE tenures to a crashing end. Usually when there's a software package I want beyond what's in the default install, YaST lacks it.
I'm not a Gentoo zealot, and I think Gentoo's install is ridiculously pain-in-the-ass, but once I have Gentoo installed, even some of the most obscure software packages are easily at my fingertips with the Portage tree.
I keep trying out other distros, and SuSE sure is nice, but YaST makes me very unhappy.
No, the "day of machines" is when machines can create and operate without any human intervention. Clearly, machines can be made to be stronger than humans, and perhaps one day they can be smarter (in everything, not just a highly-specific application). When machines can be both unequivocally stronger and smarter than humans, and do not have to rely on humans to create and maintain themselves, then we'll have a "day of machines".
Meanwhile, my Windows PC can't manage to stay running for a whole day. My Linux server and my PowerBook can, though. Microsoft is fighting to stem the tide of the "day of machines", but Apple and Linux zealots are pushing it forward and will be the death of us all!
"Hey Mike, you hit something"
"It's the Hubble!!"
"Mike killed the Hu-bble! Mike killed the Hu-bble!"
You got Comcast too??
Man, you need to start spending your weekends getting laid instead.
If it makes you feel any better, my source of lovin' (that'd be my girlfriend) has embraced Mozilla after I finally got her to try switching (after IE finally caused her enough grief to consider it). My parents have also switched too. Of course, I haven't gotten them off of Windows machines yet, but my girlfriend is now seeing that big bad Linux ain't so scary - and is even a bit inviting - with a GNOME interface plastered on top of it.
Then I realized you meant Latin America.
Then I realized the triviality of the difference.
> What about the rest of us, who are 'merely' people, and not incorporated profit-driven organisations?
We are employed by those businesses, and live off their goods and services.
Most of them are hit requests.