You might have had a case in your linked post, but the moment you called the OP a "moron" you revealed yourself as a bully. Which means, of course, that you fit in with the current government just fine.
Back to the point. Try this as an experiment: Go to a doctor (preferably with a condition that you know you already have) and tell them that you don't have insurance. Describe your symptoms in detail. Be as articulate and calm as you can be. See how much help you get.
Better still, get a friend of color to try this, too. Compare your findings afterwards.
Or you could do what I did as a business owner: Go and buy your own private insurance. Suck up your ludicrous monthly premium with a grin, because you're "free", have an enormous deductible, and then still face being refused service for medical conditions because your provider won't actually cover pretty much anything.
In the words of Eddie Izzard "That's fun!"
I actually had procedures refused by Medica for the reasons I mentioned above. Eventually, I even had my insurance revoked because I developed GURDS -- GURDS -- and they wouldn't deal with the added cost. That left me wondering how to cover my family. Me, a guy who works out four days a week, doesn't smoke, drinks rarely, pays his taxes, and is a veteran.
The solution to my situation was that my wife moved into a corporate job with good benefits. This was a huge sacrifice, as she had to give up her own lucrative business just becauuse we needed insurance coverage.
Tell me again how this makes our system better than one that treats its citizens with freaking respect?
Oh, and for the record, I lived in Europe (Britain and Germany) for eight years, too. So don't even try to pull any of the FOX News-fed "They have it so bad!" tripe. It was bollux then, and it's bollux now.
Addressing the central point, the only thing that socialized medicine would do to this country -- if it was done right, mind you -- would be to give citizens the freedom to walk away from abusive employers at will in order to make the life that they want. You know, the whole "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," thing that somehow gets lost inside NeoCon tomes like Anne Coulter's Feasting On the Blood of the Innocent, and Other NeoCon Tricks. Unfortunately, in a country where a genuinely free and educated citizenry has come to be feared ("How else will we be able to control them if we don't keep them stupid and dependent on our jobs?!"), I doubt it will change anytime soon.
Of course, I'm not responding to your original post. Like I said, you're a bully; bullies don't care for truth. They only care that they have power. No, I'm responding because people need to hear professional, educated business owners and veterans like myself stand up and respond to the utter untruths being spouted by the Right Wing media outlets and their cronies. Sure, we don't have Murdoch's money to back us...but we do have truth. Unfortunately, unless its nurtured properly, the truth will easily be buried under loads of crap.
Good health, and God speed.
P.S. To the original topic I say this: Ludicrous. If this kind of posturing doesn't reveal Clinton to be a big business, power-hungry cronie, nothing will.
As a longtime MMO player (EQ, EQ2, WoW, and beta testing PotBS), T20s response to this bug is reason enough for me to never, ever spend a cent on EVE. I doubt I'm alone in this feeling.
If I were the development house, I'd fire the idiot. Not only was his work so sub-par that boot.ini was effected, but his apology was both arrogant and insulting. That's simply unacceptable.
Yes you obviously must be a WoW player. Sorry but not every game is going to allow you to be uber l33t in just a week. You have to actually work hard in this game. That is one of the many reasons I love EVE. It does away with the carebears and WoW players, and has a more mature player base.
As a World of Warcraft player, I have to disagree with these comments:
1. My wife and I play WoW to have fun. It's our "cheap date night", and allows us to laugh, have some coffee with Bailey's, and relax.
I should also point out here that my wife and I have been married for twenty years, that we're both IT professionals, and that we have other hobbies outside of our PC gaming. I point these things out to establish that it's not a real stretch to say that we represent at least part of the "mature" player base.
2. We created these characters in November of '06. In a year of casual play -- with six months off for Spring and Summer to get outside to hike and bike -- we've just reached level 52. That's hardly "uber l33t" in a week.
3. We chose WoW because it encourages casual play. We don't have to "dedicate ourselves" to the title. Instead, we log on to have fun.
I get that some people really enjoy the number-crunching, ship-tweaking, asteroid-mining game play of EVE. Good for them. I'm glad they have something that they enjoy. But, having tried the title myself, I'm going to have to agree with the OP and say that it's definitely a niche market title.
4. In my opinion -- and that's all this point is -- EVE's gameplay wasn't terribly compelling. This coming from a guy who preferred Starfleet Command II because of its micromanagement. This from a guy who loved Elite. This from a veteran MMO player. I never felt "hooked" by the title, so I left after my 14 day trial.
I think that was the OP's point. The game could be a lot bigger if it addressed that central issue. What's the hook to keep a new player around? If they're satisfied only appealing to their niche market -- which, I admit, has grown -- well, good for them. But with WoW hovering near 10 Million subscribers, and the quarterly report indicating that EVE has a subscriber base of approximately 195,000 users, something tells me that appealing to a broader base might not be a bad business decision.
I just wanted to offer up a WoW player's perspective here.
Seriously, why would anyone want to play in a game where you have to worry that your leisure time will be wasted hiding from some psychotic tard-bot with carpal tunnel syndrome and a cable modem? Reading about the PK gangs in UO -- and having experienced the gank-fest that is WoW PVP servers -- I don't understand the appeal. I log in to unwind, not to get annoyed.
Why dismiss the OP for using a PC for gaming? How is that a less legitimate use for a PC than using one for Word Processing, email, browsing the web, or working with 3D graphics? How is farting around with a makefile to get a kernel compiled just so any less of an "addiction"?
People own computers for their own reasons. If gaming is a priority, then XP is frankly the way to go. If not, well, Ubuntu is pretty much a given as the better choice for everything I listed above. But neither choice is more "right" than the other.
Unfortunately, there just isn't enough of a market for Linux gamers out there to make the effort worthwhile.
Remember when iD released their stuff on Linux?
Remember when we had good company creating ports?
Remember that neither happens any longer?
Seriously, if the Mac can't garner decent games development even after it's been moved to an Intel-based architecture and a really nice OS, what kind of chance does Linux have?
For the record, if I could run Flight Simulator 2004, World of Warcraft, Silent Hunter IV, Lightwave, and Premiere Pro on Ubuntu, I'd switch and would never look back. Alas...
Yes, but it's an interesting point if the original article is, in fact, true.
Consider this: I bought a Wii for my family last Xmas. (Yes, we actually got one.) For about two months it was the only system that we played, despite having a 360 and kick-butt PCs in the house. Wii sports was fantastic, Zelda was good, the rest...okay, the rest sucked, but it was an amazing gaming experience.
Then winter ended and we stopped playing. We haven't touched it since.
My kids came up to me the other day and asked whether we should sell the Wii to upgrade the Xbox360's HD. I was relieved; I was wondering if I could sell it, too, because I didn't want it any longer, and I noticed they never played it either.
I asked them why they wanted to sell the Wii. Simple: They were bored with the system. They the the titles were gimmicky and shallow, and the graphics -- which, I know, shouldn't matter -- were so crude as to distract from the gameplay.
My point is this: I saw this before this article was published. Though I represent just one family, I have to wonder how many others feel this way, too.
Sadly, I'm ashamed that, in order to make ends meet, I actually wrote ad copy for Geek Squad for a while.
Worse, it involved Vista.
When the first available long-term tech writing gig came my way I nabbed it. Then I bought a Mac. And lo, I felt better.
Just wanted to share my shame.
Yeah, but did your company close up overnight when the owner fled the state? With no notice to the customers?
Ah, the early days of ISPs. They were a bit Wild West.
I was long out of the ISP business by the time that the owner skedaddled. Back in the mid-nineties I'd set up one of the first three ISPs in Grand Forks, ND. Unfortunately, it was for a business furniture and computer reseller that had all the scruples of a starving piranha. Since they didn't see fifty-five percent profit on their computer business (which implies that, yes, Steelcase resellers get that, folks) they considered their technical personnel to be "dead weight". Think I'm kidding? One day my server was down and I ran in to find out why. I found the power strips behind the racks on fire. So I put them out, and called the owner.
The owner's response? He gave me a dirty look, and wouldn't talk to me for two weeks. To this day I'm not entirely convinced that I didn't thwart some insurance scam at the time.
I was aware of the other company because they were initially my "competition". When I eventually resigned to finish my degree, the competitor hired me on as a consultant. I lasted three weeks. It would be an insult to poorly-run organizations to call this place a "Mickey Mouse Operation". This was a bunch of gamer-dudes looking to score cash while they played Team Fortress Quake on the company dime.
It amuses me to think of those days now. All of the big cable providers and big telcos are our internet links now. Back in those days, all you needed was a Linux server, a router, a dial-up box, and scruples. Alas, the last piece seemed to be the toughest thing to find.
My wife and I are pretty much poster children for casual WoW players. Started our mains back in December of '06, and have just hit 45 this past week. Now, bear in mind that this was after six months off because, hey, we're not about to be inside from March through September.
For us, reducing the patch sounds like nothing but good news. We actually play to level, to see the game world, and to have fun. Yes, we group with others occasionally, but for the most part it's just the two of us and a couple of other real-life friends.
I bring this up because there are actually players out there who really are casual fans, but who are dedicated as well. It felt like it needed to be said.
Speaking as a former UNIX Admin who ended up leaving the field because of sleep-related issues, I just wanted to add a hearty "What, you've just noticed this now?"
To be clear, I never fell asleep at my desk. My employer was actually smart enough to let us just work from home on the days following middle-of-the-night work or emergency calls. Regardless, I'm here to tell you that I was utterly worthless every day after a late-night page or unscheduled evening work. My productivity dropped into the sewers, and I felt like crap, too. I was sick to my stomach and felt guilty that I wasn't able to provide more to my firm. (I worked for a great team and a good company, so I actually wanted to do good work for them.)
After suffering through this for over nine years, I finally left the field voluntarily. Took a cut in pay and became a Tech Writer. I eventually got diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, and a nifty thing called Shift Work Sleep Disorder. The diagnosis both explained why I'd felt so bad, and left me unable to go back to the field even if I'd wanted to.
If I was suffering from an undiagnosed sleep condition, how many others in IT are dealing with something similar?
In my case, though I miss the IT field, treating my problem (both with a CPAP mask, weight loss, exercise, and finally just sticking to a normal diurnal schedule) turned my life around. I feel ten years younger, and regret the time I lost. And yes, it does feel like lost time. Those years are all one big gray blur to me. That's time with my wife and kids I'll never get back.
My advice: If you feel excessively sleepy after being on-call or doing evening work, go see a sleep specialist. You'll be happy that you did.
To the industry I say this: I you expect your people to be up in the middle of the night, no-notice, you officially have no room to complain if they fall alseep at their desk the next day. Learn to deal with it.
My one gender-bending MMO experience in City of Heroes was an enormous eye-opener.
One day, when the game was still new and fun, I grouped with a bunch of guys using my main character, a male blaster. I was the highest level of the bunch, and the group lead, so I handled the tactics, the coordination, the works. It was a blast, mostly because the guys I worked with were attentive, on-the-ball, and focused.
A few weeks later I ran into these guys and formed these guys up for a group again. Big difference, though; I was playing a one of my wife's alts -- "Bealzu-Babe" -- and was, in game, "female". I decided, just for kicks, not to tell them who I was.
As before, I was the highest level of the group, and it was my team. Big difference, though; the guys didn't listen to me. They ignored my calls, did their own thing, and in the end even insulted me. Only when I told them who I was (and that I was leveling my wife's alt) did they start listening again.
When I told my wife this she just smiled and said "Now you know what it's like for me in the game."
The bottom line here is that I actually learned something from playing a female character. It's not something I think I'd do again -- I felt pretty silly, and got tired of being gawked at -- but I still would like to have the option.
Re:Hey, give it some respect
on
DOS 5 Upgrade Video
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I, too, remember making custom AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files to play games on my then-screaming 386SX/20 and 486DX/33.
They were not good times. They were tedious, painful, and aggravating times. To this day, when people mention the video game Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Final Unity, I shudder and say "Yeah, and it took me most of a Sunday dialed into the ISP I ran, searching Alta Vista to create the custom.BAT and.SYS files I needed to play that naffing game!"
For those reasons alone I was happy to embrace Windows 95 games. They made my life sane again.
Um...WOW was released at practically the same thing as the sequel to the previous 800 lbs gorilla, Everquest. A lot of people thought EQ2 was going to big the next big thing. These people turned out to be dead wrong.
For the record, my MMORPG time has been spent in EQ (briefly; it was a grind), SWG (the one and only "Uncle Owen" simulator!), City of Heroes (fun game, nice polish, all ruined by a harsh XP "debt" system and repetitive, empty game play), EQ2 (pretty game, but zones, high system requirements, and an oddly rude player base drove me away) and, of course, WOW.
IMHO, WOW has 10 million players because it's simply the best game in the genre. It's fun to play. The other games often weren't. It's as simple as that.
In short, though I agree with your comments about SWG, I think WOW won entirely on its strength as a product.
I've tried Second Life twice. It was dreadful both times.
1. The User Interface: Yes, it's really as bad as you've heard. Here I am, an ex-IT, lifelong computer-using guy, and I couldn't figure out how to do squat.
Fix it, Linden.
2. The Graphics: The very best that 1999 has to offer.
Of course, this is probably due to number four below.
3. The "Content": User-created content? Intruiging. Pity it turns out to be mostly empty buildings, shops pushing expensive and difficult-to-use items (seriously, even putting on clothes is hard!), and, of course, porn, porn, porn.
4. The Streaming World: Virtual World? Destroy your immersion with real-time streaming content!
Okay, so, streaming makes the front-end client teensy tiny. Thing is, it also means that you always have to wait for the world to actually show up. Even if you do master the poor movement controls, hostile interface, and confusing content management system, you'll still be left waiting for something to actually do.
4. Porn: I'm not a prude. I likes me my porn. But the way it's handled in SecondLife was uniformly tacky. The constant barrage of images, vids, animations (yikes!) made me feel like I'd stumbled into a low-res version of Larry Flynt's brain.
That being said, all that content did make the world slightly more immersive: It made me imagine that the streets of Second Life were sticky.
5. Lack of Users: Except for the newbie entrances and the porn palaces, the world seemed completely empty. Vast shops with no one inside. Replica starships without any visitors. Interactive games waiting for users. It was just sad.
Ironically enough, I do plan a return visit. This time I plan to try out their 3D Modeling and Scripting tools. Maybe I can create an interactive "Maybe You Should Be Playing WoW Instead!" sign...
Yuh-huh. The reviewer's admission that he'd been a critic of Oblivion's design since before it was released said more about his attitude than that lengthy diatribe.
Oblivion is a terrific game, IMO. Lots of people agree. Leave it to Slashdot to harbor the demographic that would whine about its quality.
My wife and I tried EQ. The grouping requirement and assholic players drove us away.
COH was fun, but ultimately got dull because the only way to level was to group to do all of the instanced missions.
WOW has been a blast, but we simply don't group with others any more. After the third DEADMINES group whined and bitched non-stop about how things were going ("You're not healing us fast enough, Druid!" they'd yell at my wife, or "Don't ninja the loot!" they'd complaint to me, even though I was selecting 'greed' and not 'need') we swore off of them.
Since then we've been having a blast.
Do we level as fast? Nope. But we only play about four hours per week anyway. For us it's a distraction, nothing more.
Personally, I dread the day that a WOW-killer shows up on XboxLive. You think that dwarf named "Thunder-Nuts" was annoying on General Chat? Just wait until you can hear him bitch non-stop in your ear!
Re:One Year of Xbox360 - One Word: Trainwreck
on
One Year of Xbox 360
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
My, aren't we a fountain of FUD?
Microsoft tried to downplay BC and then at the last minute flip flopped and tried to implement a halfassed way of manually retrofitting small batches of games.
True, but the BC was handled much better than has been reported. I should know; I've played them. Have you?
In retrospect BC didn't freaking matter. I was too busy playing the new games (Oblivion anyone?) to care.
Instead of being upfront about the insanely high defect rate for the 360...
You got a number for the "insanely high defect rate" there, fanboi?
No?
Didn't think so.
For the record, yes, there were a few hardware problems. So few, in fact, that I have yet to meet one single person who actually experienced them. When I've asked if they knew anybody who had the problem I always get "Well, I've heard about it online."
The hardware problems certainly happened. Hell, MS has taken responsibility for the early adopters who had problems by refunding or replacing their equipment. But it wasn't a huge problem. Hell, it wasn't even a large problem.
By contrast, the Wii -- which is a great system -- had problems, too. Nintendo said "oops!" and fixed them.
And the PS3 overheating issues? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?
Going into what should have been its big holiday sales months, Microsoft only has Gears of War.
...and Call of Duty 3, and Madden, to say nothing of the still-freaking-awesome Oblivion and the rest of its catalog. Hell, even launch titles like PGR3 are still a blast.
By contrast, the Playstation 3 -- all 120,000 of them out there -- has one good title and a load of shovelware so bad as to be "E.T.-buried-in-a-landfill" embarrasing.
Oh, wait; your point was that developers don't like the 360, right? Huh. Then what about this article, where an actual developer refers to the 360 as being easier to develop for than the ridiculously proprietary PS3?
We are now learning that more games besides PGR3 are being forced to run at less than 720p so they can avoid having to write tile renderers to fit inside the 360's EDRAM.
Oh, like you noticed a difference.
Seriously, if you're so wrapped up in the exact resolution that your game is running and not on the quality of the actual play, it's long past time that you went outside and talked to a real girl.
Both Nintendo and Sony are offering free online play for their systems.
...and neither of them has a service that even touches Xbox Live.
In short, "Waah! Microsoft is making me pay a few dollars a month for an amazing system that is so good that the competitors can't touch it. Waaah!"
Please.
Peripherals
One word: overpriced
Yes, because Sony and Nintendo have always been known for their charitable offerings when it comes to peripherals.
There is no reason Microsoft is forcing 360 owners to be able to have nothing better than a 20gig drive. Microsoft should let 360 owners upgrade their harddrive to any size they want.
Yes, isn't it terrible that MS didn't put USB 2.0 ports into their device to allow external HD's to be hooked up?
Bottom line here: The 360 is a hell of a product that's worth the price and available now. I have yet to meet a single person who purchased one who hasn't come away happy with the product.
As a happily-married, degree-holding gaming man of 40, I completely understand why the original poster made the comment about not wanting to "hang out with friends".
The truth of the matter is that -- at least in my experience -- my interactions with friends changed drastically after age thirty-eight. I don't know if it's a function of age, or experience, or increased responsibilities, but I no longer have the energy I once had to face other people's issues. My family fills my time. The idea of dealing with other people's baggage -- even during a LAN party or console day -- has become wearisome.
I have a quite a nice circle of friends. Nevertheless, we see less of each other than we used to, and that's really okay. Indeed, I'd rather go out cross-country skiing or hiking than make my ass go numb in front of another marathon game of Starcraft these days.
I just had to raise my hand to say "I get where he's coming from completely."
Slashdot Mirror
You might have had a case in your linked post, but the moment you called the OP a "moron" you revealed yourself as a bully. Which means, of course, that you fit in with the current government just fine.
Back to the point. Try this as an experiment: Go to a doctor (preferably with a condition that you know you already have) and tell them that you don't have insurance. Describe your symptoms in detail. Be as articulate and calm as you can be. See how much help you get.
Better still, get a friend of color to try this, too. Compare your findings afterwards.
Or you could do what I did as a business owner: Go and buy your own private insurance. Suck up your ludicrous monthly premium with a grin, because you're "free", have an enormous deductible, and then still face being refused service for medical conditions because your provider won't actually cover pretty much anything.
In the words of Eddie Izzard "That's fun!"
I actually had procedures refused by Medica for the reasons I mentioned above. Eventually, I even had my insurance revoked because I developed GURDS -- GURDS -- and they wouldn't deal with the added cost. That left me wondering how to cover my family. Me, a guy who works out four days a week, doesn't smoke, drinks rarely, pays his taxes, and is a veteran.
The solution to my situation was that my wife moved into a corporate job with good benefits. This was a huge sacrifice, as she had to give up her own lucrative business just becauuse we needed insurance coverage.
Tell me again how this makes our system better than one that treats its citizens with freaking respect?
Oh, and for the record, I lived in Europe (Britain and Germany) for eight years, too. So don't even try to pull any of the FOX News-fed "They have it so bad!" tripe. It was bollux then, and it's bollux now.
Addressing the central point, the only thing that socialized medicine would do to this country -- if it was done right, mind you -- would be to give citizens the freedom to walk away from abusive employers at will in order to make the life that they want. You know, the whole "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," thing that somehow gets lost inside NeoCon tomes like Anne Coulter's Feasting On the Blood of the Innocent, and Other NeoCon Tricks. Unfortunately, in a country where a genuinely free and educated citizenry has come to be feared ("How else will we be able to control them if we don't keep them stupid and dependent on our jobs?!"), I doubt it will change anytime soon.
Of course, I'm not responding to your original post. Like I said, you're a bully; bullies don't care for truth. They only care that they have power. No, I'm responding because people need to hear professional, educated business owners and veterans like myself stand up and respond to the utter untruths being spouted by the Right Wing media outlets and their cronies. Sure, we don't have Murdoch's money to back us...but we do have truth. Unfortunately, unless its nurtured properly, the truth will easily be buried under loads of crap.
Good health, and God speed.
P.S. To the original topic I say this: Ludicrous. If this kind of posturing doesn't reveal Clinton to be a big business, power-hungry cronie, nothing will.
As a longtime MMO player (EQ, EQ2, WoW, and beta testing PotBS), T20s response to this bug is reason enough for me to never, ever spend a cent on EVE. I doubt I'm alone in this feeling.
If I were the development house, I'd fire the idiot. Not only was his work so sub-par that boot.ini was effected, but his apology was both arrogant and insulting. That's simply unacceptable.
Yes you obviously must be a WoW player. Sorry but not every game is going to allow you to be uber l33t in just a week. You have to actually work hard in this game. That is one of the many reasons I love EVE. It does away with the carebears and WoW players, and has a more mature player base.
As a World of Warcraft player, I have to disagree with these comments:
1. My wife and I play WoW to have fun. It's our "cheap date night", and allows us to laugh, have some coffee with Bailey's, and relax.
I should also point out here that my wife and I have been married for twenty years, that we're both IT professionals, and that we have other hobbies outside of our PC gaming. I point these things out to establish that it's not a real stretch to say that we represent at least part of the "mature" player base.
2. We created these characters in November of '06. In a year of casual play -- with six months off for Spring and Summer to get outside to hike and bike -- we've just reached level 52. That's hardly "uber l33t" in a week.
3. We chose WoW because it encourages casual play. We don't have to "dedicate ourselves" to the title. Instead, we log on to have fun.
I get that some people really enjoy the number-crunching, ship-tweaking, asteroid-mining game play of EVE. Good for them. I'm glad they have something that they enjoy. But, having tried the title myself, I'm going to have to agree with the OP and say that it's definitely a niche market title.
4. In my opinion -- and that's all this point is -- EVE's gameplay wasn't terribly compelling. This coming from a guy who preferred Starfleet Command II because of its micromanagement. This from a guy who loved Elite. This from a veteran MMO player. I never felt "hooked" by the title, so I left after my 14 day trial.
I think that was the OP's point. The game could be a lot bigger if it addressed that central issue. What's the hook to keep a new player around? If they're satisfied only appealing to their niche market -- which, I admit, has grown -- well, good for them. But with WoW hovering near 10 Million subscribers, and the quarterly report indicating that EVE has a subscriber base of approximately 195,000 users, something tells me that appealing to a broader base might not be a bad business decision.
I just wanted to offer up a WoW player's perspective here.
Wild West? Ultima Online?
Someone missing being a technosocipath, perhaps?
Seriously, why would anyone want to play in a game where you have to worry that your leisure time will be wasted hiding from some psychotic tard-bot with carpal tunnel syndrome and a cable modem? Reading about the PK gangs in UO -- and having experienced the gank-fest that is WoW PVP servers -- I don't understand the appeal. I log in to unwind, not to get annoyed.
Different strokes, I guess...
Huh?
Why dismiss the OP for using a PC for gaming? How is that a less legitimate use for a PC than using one for Word Processing, email, browsing the web, or working with 3D graphics? How is farting around with a makefile to get a kernel compiled just so any less of an "addiction"?
People own computers for their own reasons. If gaming is a priority, then XP is frankly the way to go. If not, well, Ubuntu is pretty much a given as the better choice for everything I listed above. But neither choice is more "right" than the other.
Unfortunately, there just isn't enough of a market for Linux gamers out there to make the effort worthwhile.
Remember when iD released their stuff on Linux?
Remember when we had good company creating ports?
Remember that neither happens any longer?
Seriously, if the Mac can't garner decent games development even after it's been moved to an Intel-based architecture and a really nice OS, what kind of chance does Linux have?
For the record, if I could run Flight Simulator 2004, World of Warcraft, Silent Hunter IV, Lightwave, and Premiere Pro on Ubuntu, I'd switch and would never look back. Alas...
Sorry, already have a buyer.
It was fun while it lasted.
Yes, but it's an interesting point if the original article is, in fact, true.
Consider this: I bought a Wii for my family last Xmas. (Yes, we actually got one.) For about two months it was the only system that we played, despite having a 360 and kick-butt PCs in the house. Wii sports was fantastic, Zelda was good, the rest...okay, the rest sucked, but it was an amazing gaming experience.
Then winter ended and we stopped playing. We haven't touched it since.
My kids came up to me the other day and asked whether we should sell the Wii to upgrade the Xbox360's HD. I was relieved; I was wondering if I could sell it, too, because I didn't want it any longer, and I noticed they never played it either.
I asked them why they wanted to sell the Wii. Simple: They were bored with the system. They the the titles were gimmicky and shallow, and the graphics -- which, I know, shouldn't matter -- were so crude as to distract from the gameplay.
My point is this: I saw this before this article was published. Though I represent just one family, I have to wonder how many others feel this way, too.
Sadly, I'm ashamed that, in order to make ends meet, I actually wrote ad copy for Geek Squad for a while. Worse, it involved Vista. When the first available long-term tech writing gig came my way I nabbed it. Then I bought a Mac. And lo, I felt better. Just wanted to share my shame.
Yeah, but did your company close up overnight when the owner fled the state? With no notice to the customers?
Ah, the early days of ISPs. They were a bit Wild West.
I was long out of the ISP business by the time that the owner skedaddled. Back in the mid-nineties I'd set up one of the first three ISPs in Grand Forks, ND. Unfortunately, it was for a business furniture and computer reseller that had all the scruples of a starving piranha. Since they didn't see fifty-five percent profit on their computer business (which implies that, yes, Steelcase resellers get that, folks) they considered their technical personnel to be "dead weight". Think I'm kidding? One day my server was down and I ran in to find out why. I found the power strips behind the racks on fire. So I put them out, and called the owner.
The owner's response? He gave me a dirty look, and wouldn't talk to me for two weeks. To this day I'm not entirely convinced that I didn't thwart some insurance scam at the time.
I was aware of the other company because they were initially my "competition". When I eventually resigned to finish my degree, the competitor hired me on as a consultant. I lasted three weeks. It would be an insult to poorly-run organizations to call this place a "Mickey Mouse Operation". This was a bunch of gamer-dudes looking to score cash while they played Team Fortress Quake on the company dime.
It amuses me to think of those days now. All of the big cable providers and big telcos are our internet links now. Back in those days, all you needed was a Linux server, a router, a dial-up box, and scruples. Alas, the last piece seemed to be the toughest thing to find.
My wife and I are pretty much poster children for casual WoW players. Started our mains back in December of '06, and have just hit 45 this past week. Now, bear in mind that this was after six months off because, hey, we're not about to be inside from March through September.
For us, reducing the patch sounds like nothing but good news. We actually play to level, to see the game world, and to have fun. Yes, we group with others occasionally, but for the most part it's just the two of us and a couple of other real-life friends.
I bring this up because there are actually players out there who really are casual fans, but who are dedicated as well. It felt like it needed to be said.
This wouldn't have been the "Quest Internet" in Grand Forks, North Dakota, would it?
Speaking as a former UNIX Admin who ended up leaving the field because of sleep-related issues, I just wanted to add a hearty "What, you've just noticed this now?"
To be clear, I never fell asleep at my desk. My employer was actually smart enough to let us just work from home on the days following middle-of-the-night work or emergency calls. Regardless, I'm here to tell you that I was utterly worthless every day after a late-night page or unscheduled evening work. My productivity dropped into the sewers, and I felt like crap, too. I was sick to my stomach and felt guilty that I wasn't able to provide more to my firm. (I worked for a great team and a good company, so I actually wanted to do good work for them.)
After suffering through this for over nine years, I finally left the field voluntarily. Took a cut in pay and became a Tech Writer. I eventually got diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, and a nifty thing called Shift Work Sleep Disorder. The diagnosis both explained why I'd felt so bad, and left me unable to go back to the field even if I'd wanted to.
If I was suffering from an undiagnosed sleep condition, how many others in IT are dealing with something similar?
In my case, though I miss the IT field, treating my problem (both with a CPAP mask, weight loss, exercise, and finally just sticking to a normal diurnal schedule) turned my life around. I feel ten years younger, and regret the time I lost. And yes, it does feel like lost time. Those years are all one big gray blur to me. That's time with my wife and kids I'll never get back.
My advice: If you feel excessively sleepy after being on-call or doing evening work, go see a sleep specialist. You'll be happy that you did.
To the industry I say this: I you expect your people to be up in the middle of the night, no-notice, you officially have no room to complain if they fall alseep at their desk the next day. Learn to deal with it.
My one gender-bending MMO experience in City of Heroes was an enormous eye-opener.
One day, when the game was still new and fun, I grouped with a bunch of guys using my main character, a male blaster. I was the highest level of the bunch, and the group lead, so I handled the tactics, the coordination, the works. It was a blast, mostly because the guys I worked with were attentive, on-the-ball, and focused.
A few weeks later I ran into these guys and formed these guys up for a group again. Big difference, though; I was playing a one of my wife's alts -- "Bealzu-Babe" -- and was, in game, "female". I decided, just for kicks, not to tell them who I was.
As before, I was the highest level of the group, and it was my team. Big difference, though; the guys didn't listen to me. They ignored my calls, did their own thing, and in the end even insulted me. Only when I told them who I was (and that I was leveling my wife's alt) did they start listening again.
When I told my wife this she just smiled and said "Now you know what it's like for me in the game."
The bottom line here is that I actually learned something from playing a female character. It's not something I think I'd do again -- I felt pretty silly, and got tired of being gawked at -- but I still would like to have the option.
I, too, remember making custom AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files to play games on my then-screaming 386SX/20 and 486DX/33.
.BAT and .SYS files I needed to play that naffing game!"
They were not good times. They were tedious, painful, and aggravating times. To this day, when people mention the video game Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Final Unity, I shudder and say "Yeah, and it took me most of a Sunday dialed into the ISP I ran, searching Alta Vista to create the custom
For those reasons alone I was happy to embrace Windows 95 games. They made my life sane again.
Um...WOW was released at practically the same thing as the sequel to the previous 800 lbs gorilla, Everquest. A lot of people thought EQ2 was going to big the next big thing. These people turned out to be dead wrong.
For the record, my MMORPG time has been spent in EQ (briefly; it was a grind), SWG (the one and only "Uncle Owen" simulator!), City of Heroes (fun game, nice polish, all ruined by a harsh XP "debt" system and repetitive, empty game play), EQ2 (pretty game, but zones, high system requirements, and an oddly rude player base drove me away) and, of course, WOW.
IMHO, WOW has 10 million players because it's simply the best game in the genre. It's fun to play. The other games often weren't. It's as simple as that.
In short, though I agree with your comments about SWG, I think WOW won entirely on its strength as a product.
Okay, you owe me a new screen.
I'm still laughing at this one. +5 Funny As Hell
1. Goldeneye 64 -- Protect whatsherface in the Evil Control Room while dozens of bad guys attack.
:)
I lost track of how many times I tried this level. I never, ever made it through.
2. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City -- The Tank mission.
In my defense, this was on a PS2, not a PC. Aiming with that controller SUCKED.
I tried this for a week. I put down the game to take a break. I never went back.
3. Federation of Free Traders -- Everything
This Amiga "classic" was supposed to be like Elite, except better. Instead, it was like being anally fisted by a thick-knuckled dwarf, except worse.
Nothing worked. Nothing. See the pirate? The one shooting at you? Oh, crud, you're dead. Next time I'll...oh, I'm dead again. What about...Crud.
4. Starfleet Command II: Empires At War -- Final Federation Mission
I played that mission a dozen times on one day of my Christmas vacation. Did it matter? Nope. The mission always, always failed.
In my defense, I've since learned that it was bugged.
I've tried Second Life twice. It was dreadful both times.
1. The User Interface: Yes, it's really as bad as you've heard. Here I am, an ex-IT, lifelong computer-using guy, and I couldn't figure out how to do squat.
Fix it, Linden.
2. The Graphics: The very best that 1999 has to offer.
Of course, this is probably due to number four below.
3. The "Content": User-created content? Intruiging. Pity it turns out to be mostly empty buildings, shops pushing expensive and difficult-to-use items (seriously, even putting on clothes is hard!), and, of course, porn, porn, porn.
4. The Streaming World: Virtual World? Destroy your immersion with real-time streaming content!
Okay, so, streaming makes the front-end client teensy tiny. Thing is, it also means that you always have to wait for the world to actually show up. Even if you do master the poor movement controls, hostile interface, and confusing content management system, you'll still be left waiting for something to actually do.
4. Porn: I'm not a prude. I likes me my porn. But the way it's handled in SecondLife was uniformly tacky. The constant barrage of images, vids, animations (yikes!) made me feel like I'd stumbled into a low-res version of Larry Flynt's brain.
That being said, all that content did make the world slightly more immersive: It made me imagine that the streets of Second Life were sticky.
5. Lack of Users: Except for the newbie entrances and the porn palaces, the world seemed completely empty. Vast shops with no one inside. Replica starships without any visitors. Interactive games waiting for users. It was just sad.
Ironically enough, I do plan a return visit. This time I plan to try out their 3D Modeling and Scripting tools. Maybe I can create an interactive "Maybe You Should Be Playing WoW Instead!" sign...
Yuh-huh. The reviewer's admission that he'd been a critic of Oblivion's design since before it was released said more about his attitude than that lengthy diatribe.
Oblivion is a terrific game, IMO. Lots of people agree. Leave it to Slashdot to harbor the demographic that would whine about its quality.
...and if I were paid six figures to that I'd find plenty of ways to keep myself occupied on company time from 8:00 - 5:00.
Not only that, but you get to go home the house your six figure income affords.
Don't forget vacation time.
Sorry. I ain't feeling bad for this guy.
Preach on, fotbr.
My wife and I tried EQ. The grouping requirement and assholic players drove us away.
COH was fun, but ultimately got dull because the only way to level was to group to do all of the instanced missions.
WOW has been a blast, but we simply don't group with others any more. After the third DEADMINES group whined and bitched non-stop about how things were going ("You're not healing us fast enough, Druid!" they'd yell at my wife, or "Don't ninja the loot!" they'd complaint to me, even though I was selecting 'greed' and not 'need') we swore off of them.
Since then we've been having a blast.
Do we level as fast? Nope. But we only play about four hours per week anyway. For us it's a distraction, nothing more.
Personally, I dread the day that a WOW-killer shows up on XboxLive. You think that dwarf named "Thunder-Nuts" was annoying on General Chat? Just wait until you can hear him bitch non-stop in your ear!
Microsoft tried to downplay BC and then at the last minute flip flopped and tried to implement a halfassed way of manually retrofitting small batches of games.
True, but the BC was handled much better than has been reported. I should know; I've played them. Have you?
In retrospect BC didn't freaking matter. I was too busy playing the new games (Oblivion anyone?) to care.
Instead of being upfront about the insanely high defect rate for the 360...
You got a number for the "insanely high defect rate" there, fanboi?
No?
Didn't think so.
For the record, yes, there were a few hardware problems. So few, in fact, that I have yet to meet one single person who actually experienced them. When I've asked if they knew anybody who had the problem I always get "Well, I've heard about it online."
The hardware problems certainly happened. Hell, MS has taken responsibility for the early adopters who had problems by refunding or replacing their equipment. But it wasn't a huge problem. Hell, it wasn't even a large problem.
By contrast, the Wii -- which is a great system -- had problems, too. Nintendo said "oops!" and fixed them.
And the PS3 overheating issues? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?
Going into what should have been its big holiday sales months, Microsoft only has Gears of War.
By contrast, the Playstation 3 -- all 120,000 of them out there -- has one good title and a load of shovelware so bad as to be "E.T.-buried-in-a-landfill" embarrasing.
Oh, wait; your point was that developers don't like the 360, right? Huh. Then what about this article, where an actual developer refers to the 360 as being easier to develop for than the ridiculously proprietary PS3?
We are now learning that more games besides PGR3 are being forced to run at less than 720p so they can avoid having to write tile renderers to fit inside the 360's EDRAM.
Oh, like you noticed a difference.
Seriously, if you're so wrapped up in the exact resolution that your game is running and not on the quality of the actual play, it's long past time that you went outside and talked to a real girl.
Both Nintendo and Sony are offering free online play for their systems.
In short, "Waah! Microsoft is making me pay a few dollars a month for an amazing system that is so good that the competitors can't touch it. Waaah!"
Please.
Peripherals One word: overpriced
Yes, because Sony and Nintendo have always been known for their charitable offerings when it comes to peripherals.
There is no reason Microsoft is forcing 360 owners to be able to have nothing better than a 20gig drive. Microsoft should let 360 owners upgrade their harddrive to any size they want.
Yes, isn't it terrible that MS didn't put USB 2.0 ports into their device to allow external HD's to be hooked up?
Oh, wait; they did.
Bottom line here: The 360 is a hell of a product that's worth the price and available now. I have yet to meet a single person who purchased one who hasn't come away happy with the product.
As a happily-married, degree-holding gaming man of 40, I completely understand why the original poster made the comment about not wanting to "hang out with friends".
The truth of the matter is that -- at least in my experience -- my interactions with friends changed drastically after age thirty-eight. I don't know if it's a function of age, or experience, or increased responsibilities, but I no longer have the energy I once had to face other people's issues. My family fills my time. The idea of dealing with other people's baggage -- even during a LAN party or console day -- has become wearisome.
I have a quite a nice circle of friends. Nevertheless, we see less of each other than we used to, and that's really okay. Indeed, I'd rather go out cross-country skiing or hiking than make my ass go numb in front of another marathon game of Starcraft these days.
I just had to raise my hand to say "I get where he's coming from completely."
Drat! The temporal fudge gun misfired.
"Why's my zipper sticky?" John wondered.
"Peel my poodle? Why?" asked Ginger.
The nuts burned. The squirrels danced.
Terrorist squirrels. Want nuts. Surrender now.
"Wait. That boot..." began Mr. Crocodile.
Little Cindy thought brains were squishy.
Salt. The slug shuddered. Oy.