I watched the preview videos when it was announced, and I mean sure it looked cool (and very technologically impressive), but as a game it was unspeakably dull. Now I'm more interested in following the game's progress - if there will be enemies, then at least something engaging will be going on.
Has it been stated whether or not the game will ship with a pre-made campaign / "story" mode, or will it be entirely make-your-own-sandbox?
The dearth of upcoming Wii games is nothing more than symptomatic of its recent launch. Developers are still learning what to do with it. This isn't a phenomenon unique to the system - it happens to every platform for about a year after its release (recall the DS drought, or the lack of Xbox 360 development through all of last year, or that the PS3 is in the same boat right now). Not that that makes the situation any better in terms of enjoying the system, but it's far from a death knell at any rate.
I'm impressed at the level of things that work in the "trial" browser, e.g. I just logged in to my Slashdot account, watched a Google video, and almost everything I have implemented on my own websites - which use some admittedly sketchy scripting - doesn't just work, but works awesomely. (an image with an onClick attribute and an abbr tag around it not only does the proper clicking reaction, but will make the wiimote rumble on mouseover!)
At the same time, I'm frustrated with the unnavigability of the thing. Unless I'm missing something big, you have to go back to the "Home Page" (essentially, your user agreement) to enter a new web address, and cannot do this from any other page. Also, the address entry field lacks an autocomplete feature, forcing you to type out full and potentially onerous URLs (oddly, web form fields do have autocomplete). And there are Favorites, but you have to actually be at a page to Favorite it.
Shows promise, but I don't think it will be anything really usable at least until the final version, unless they plan on releasing updated trials.
In fact, the Wii Opera browser does have such a thing, when you press the '2' button it will compress an entire page into a single vertical column with larger text. But, any site that has a navigation bar makes this difficult to scroll through, since the nav bar will take up the top of the page and then some.
I must respectfully disagree. Consoles have always been more attractive to developers than the PC platform due to the "moving target" dynamic - when you make a game for a home console, there are no system requirements, you don't have to develop for a lowest common denominator (unless you're marketing a game on multiple consoles at once), and you don't have to keep a tech support log of what works and doesn't work with every possible make and model of video card.
Years ago, this was a pipe dream to most developers because of the immense difficulties involved in developing for a home console (usually requiring a full knowledge of the hardware's machine code). But today, they're practically as easy to develop for as a PC. The royalties are a small price to pay for the numerous conveniences a console offers to developers.
I'm inclined to agree. After hearing the "sleeper hit" schtick over and over and over, I bought a used copy of it myself to see what was up, and I just found the game lackluster. I knew from the start that the game was supposed to ride on story, not gameplay - but I didn't find the plot interesting either. Cliche is a pretty good word for most of it. (I thought the ending was well done, but that's rather trite by itself)
The photography element was cool, but eventually I ran out of animals to shoot, and I had to get back to the "real" game. The awkward staff-twirling combat mechanics were terrible at best, the stealth elements of the game felt like free shareware demos of Metal Gear Solid, the puzzles were uninspired and dull, and collecting items... well, we should all know what collecting items is like.
Even if one were to believe that Steve Jobs wakes up one morning with the crazy idea of buying a games company - Nintendo is not for sale. It may sound trite, but this is a company still run by old-school Samurai-style Japanese executives who would sooner take a bullet than let go of the work they've put into their corporation.
When people name their product or company after something that doesn't exist, then claim to have a secret ultra-cool device that works by magic,... I think my point here should be obvious.
Personally I'm beginning to think that these fake companies with "Look, we're not real, teehee" names are all founded by the same guy who just gets a huge kick (and a lot of money) out of it.
This idea is nothing like a real market, stock or otherwise. Whoever claimed it was is an idiot. Take an Econ course.
That said, the idea of lowering prices for less popular music isn't a bad one. You don't need a pages-long essay to explain why: at lower prices, consumers will be more willing to give unknowns a shot. If an obscure band finds fame due to budget-priced songs online, it could potentially become a big hit and grow the industry as a whole. This benefits pretty much everyone.
If, for whatever reason, you just want to make online music sales more like a real market, songs should become less expensive as more time passes without anyone purchasing the song. Once a song is digital, there's no way they can lose money (no further production costs), so if no one is buying lowering the price can do nothing but help sales and hence profits.
At the first PAX last August the PA duo said they were working with someone on animated projects, and showed a animated/voiced version of the Cardboard Tube Samurai series of strips they had done that summer. I'm not sure what's taking them so long, but know that when PA debuts animated content it won't be because CAD did it first.
Being considered a "geek" is almost farcically easy anymore. You don't have to possess a mental lexicon of three-letter abbreviations, write a Z80 assembly program, or even understand how an operating system switches processes. No, nowadays someone is a "geek" for simply making a website or knowing the three-finger salute. It's very accessible, and people like patting themselves on the back for being knowledgable ("a geek") even if they only skim the surface.
You know, the need for a patchable hard drive could be emulated on the DS with a simple memory device in the GBA slot (packaged with the game card), and the revolution console could have any number of persistent memory devices still under its sleeve - in addition to the fact that the latter plans on using a robust online network, and the former already has one in place.
I wouldn't be so quick to jump to the conclusion that "Not 360" => PS3.
I'm getting tired of player-driven content. Lazy developers make an open engine, and instead of writing content, "allow" players to make it up themselves. An interesting social simulation, but I for one am becoming bored of paying someone to make up my own fun.
Before I get accused of being an elitist rich kid, no, I'm not slamming public schools from Hoity Toity Private Academy; I'm a product of the coddling and formulaic system too. But somehow I'm too stubborn to admit defeat as easily as the original author.
I'm going through the second year of an engineering program myself (computer, rather than chemical), so I can sympathize with the author's poor professors and TAs, and with overwhelming courseloads. But I have to say that his summary judgment of the problem as bad teachers is in error, for that exact reason. It's not a unique experience. In fact, though I admit I have never attended class overseas, I doubt this issue is unique to America.
If there are not enough engineers in our country, it is either because we coddle too many college students into being wimpy, or because the public school system trains students to expect - to paraphrase the author - formulaic work that could be easily completed by robotic chimps.
If it wasn't evident by the tone of my question, I had cancelled my account a month or two previous to the interview request, and really had my hopes set on playing and enjoying the game again. My roommate (an FFXI veteran as I noted in my question) still plays, and what with the - slow as it might be - trickle of new playable content like Zul'Gurub and Arathi Basin since I last played, I was looking forward to getting a good reason to start playing again.
You see, Blizzard? I gave you my money for months. After I stopped, I wanted to keep giving you money. And now, after sitting on my question for over a month, you have amazingly succeeded in dashing that hope yourself.
Talk about "incredibly stupid" web developers, how about a guy who redirects unsuspecting consumers to his personal diatribe and some intrusive pop-ups?
FFS, complain to the company, move the file, restrict access from that referrer - but jesus, this is the kind of jackassery that makes people hate the Web.
World of Warcraft was the first MMORPG I gave more than a passing play. Everquest, Asheron's Call, Ultima, SW: Galaxies; none of those interested me, because I saw and read about the endless toil and trouble just to gain numbers on your character stats. WoW was different - I saw the simplicity of Diablo/II in it: easy to play, rich in content, and with a wide world to explore.
But then I got to level 60, and all that ended. Now, instead of being able to do most things alone or with a small group of friends, game accomplishments take a full raid of 40 people? You need someone to plan it all out in advance, you need everyone to agree to common rules and to get along with each other; and you need everyone to be coordinated in order to defeat ridiculous enemies. With this, the challenge of the game ceases to be learning techniques and honing skills, and becomes social. The difficulty is not in playing, but in making sure everyone else is playing.
Endgame is a different game, and I don't care for it. It's not the game I bought. Rather, it's the games I declined to buy in the past. Friends of mine who played Everquest and Final Fantasy XI are right at home, but I'm decidedly out of place, and don't really want to invest hours, days of my time on goals with exponentially increasing difficulty and exponentially diminishing rewards.
The early game is brilliant, and playing it was a joy. Why is that so hard to retain in level 60 play?
How are the other two of the big three doing with their video game divisions?
See, this is the obligatory slow year. The new consoles are coming out soon. Developers are shifting focus and resources to them. Not many games, period, are coming out at all. This has pretty clear implications on sales for current-generation hardware.
As for the DS, development still hasn't revved up for the handheld yet. But Nintendo plans to do just that later this year, with the start of their online initiative.
So forgive me if I'm not ready to buy the age-old "Oh noes Nintendo is dying!" wolf cry quite yet.
Not to offend the guy, I mean it's nice to make something like this as a tutorial, but this technique has been implemented for many years. Saying that the lack of CSS coverage for radios and checks has been "conquered" by the Javascript image-swap is rather stretching it.
On the one hand, if we "export national rivalries" into space colonization, of course there will be strife in space. And we all know that in space, no one can hear you scream. This fact may very likely be the impetus behind massive space wars, and since we're already bordering on autonomous droids and human clones, George Lucas can tell you where that one's going.
On the other hand, if space colonies are thought to be a "free" land, they will inevitably become their own faction. Life will be luxurious in the majority of space colonies, simply because it's more expensive to get out there and the ritzy will be in a higher proportion. As such, with the colonies thinking themselves better than those down below, and the earthbound resenting those above them in both a financial and literal sense, we will undoubtedly come to blows with giant mechanical killing machines called Gundams.
Slashdot Mirror
I watched the preview videos when it was announced, and I mean sure it looked cool (and very technologically impressive), but as a game it was unspeakably dull. Now I'm more interested in following the game's progress - if there will be enemies, then at least something engaging will be going on.
Has it been stated whether or not the game will ship with a pre-made campaign / "story" mode, or will it be entirely make-your-own-sandbox?
The dearth of upcoming Wii games is nothing more than symptomatic of its recent launch. Developers are still learning what to do with it. This isn't a phenomenon unique to the system - it happens to every platform for about a year after its release (recall the DS drought, or the lack of Xbox 360 development through all of last year, or that the PS3 is in the same boat right now). Not that that makes the situation any better in terms of enjoying the system, but it's far from a death knell at any rate.
I'm impressed at the level of things that work in the "trial" browser, e.g. I just logged in to my Slashdot account, watched a Google video, and almost everything I have implemented on my own websites - which use some admittedly sketchy scripting - doesn't just work, but works awesomely. (an image with an onClick attribute and an abbr tag around it not only does the proper clicking reaction, but will make the wiimote rumble on mouseover!)
At the same time, I'm frustrated with the unnavigability of the thing. Unless I'm missing something big, you have to go back to the "Home Page" (essentially, your user agreement) to enter a new web address, and cannot do this from any other page. Also, the address entry field lacks an autocomplete feature, forcing you to type out full and potentially onerous URLs (oddly, web form fields do have autocomplete). And there are Favorites, but you have to actually be at a page to Favorite it.
Shows promise, but I don't think it will be anything really usable at least until the final version, unless they plan on releasing updated trials.
In fact, the Wii Opera browser does have such a thing, when you press the '2' button it will compress an entire page into a single vertical column with larger text. But, any site that has a navigation bar makes this difficult to scroll through, since the nav bar will take up the top of the page and then some.
I must respectfully disagree. Consoles have always been more attractive to developers than the PC platform due to the "moving target" dynamic - when you make a game for a home console, there are no system requirements, you don't have to develop for a lowest common denominator (unless you're marketing a game on multiple consoles at once), and you don't have to keep a tech support log of what works and doesn't work with every possible make and model of video card.
Years ago, this was a pipe dream to most developers because of the immense difficulties involved in developing for a home console (usually requiring a full knowledge of the hardware's machine code). But today, they're practically as easy to develop for as a PC. The royalties are a small price to pay for the numerous conveniences a console offers to developers.
I'm inclined to agree. After hearing the "sleeper hit" schtick over and over and over, I bought a used copy of it myself to see what was up, and I just found the game lackluster. I knew from the start that the game was supposed to ride on story, not gameplay - but I didn't find the plot interesting either. Cliche is a pretty good word for most of it. (I thought the ending was well done, but that's rather trite by itself)
The photography element was cool, but eventually I ran out of animals to shoot, and I had to get back to the "real" game. The awkward staff-twirling combat mechanics were terrible at best, the stealth elements of the game felt like free shareware demos of Metal Gear Solid, the puzzles were uninspired and dull, and collecting items... well, we should all know what collecting items is like.
Even if one were to believe that Steve Jobs wakes up one morning with the crazy idea of buying a games company - Nintendo is not for sale. It may sound trite, but this is a company still run by old-school Samurai-style Japanese executives who would sooner take a bullet than let go of the work they've put into their corporation.
Bigfoot Networks, huh?
... I think my point here should be obvious.
When people name their product or company after something that doesn't exist, then claim to have a secret ultra-cool device that works by magic,
Personally I'm beginning to think that these fake companies with "Look, we're not real, teehee" names are all founded by the same guy who just gets a huge kick (and a lot of money) out of it.
This idea is nothing like a real market, stock or otherwise. Whoever claimed it was is an idiot. Take an Econ course.
That said, the idea of lowering prices for less popular music isn't a bad one. You don't need a pages-long essay to explain why: at lower prices, consumers will be more willing to give unknowns a shot. If an obscure band finds fame due to budget-priced songs online, it could potentially become a big hit and grow the industry as a whole. This benefits pretty much everyone.
If, for whatever reason, you just want to make online music sales more like a real market, songs should become less expensive as more time passes without anyone purchasing the song. Once a song is digital, there's no way they can lose money (no further production costs), so if no one is buying lowering the price can do nothing but help sales and hence profits.
At the first PAX last August the PA duo said they were working with someone on animated projects, and showed a animated/voiced version of the Cardboard Tube Samurai series of strips they had done that summer. I'm not sure what's taking them so long, but know that when PA debuts animated content it won't be because CAD did it first.
Extroverts try to convince everyone how smart they are. Introverts assume everyone already knows it.
Vote Pedro indeed.
Being considered a "geek" is almost farcically easy anymore. You don't have to possess a mental lexicon of three-letter abbreviations, write a Z80 assembly program, or even understand how an operating system switches processes. No, nowadays someone is a "geek" for simply making a website or knowing the three-finger salute. It's very accessible, and people like patting themselves on the back for being knowledgable ("a geek") even if they only skim the surface.
You know, the need for a patchable hard drive could be emulated on the DS with a simple memory device in the GBA slot (packaged with the game card), and the revolution console could have any number of persistent memory devices still under its sleeve - in addition to the fact that the latter plans on using a robust online network, and the former already has one in place.
I wouldn't be so quick to jump to the conclusion that "Not 360" => PS3.
Researchers find that college students enjoy eating and sitting down.
Tests are currently being conducted on the effect of both of these situations in tandem.
The researchers suspect that children and adults will behave similarly, but have not yet conducted conclusive testing on the matter.
Blocking under-18s from chat rooms across the board? Uh, sir, I don't think that's what vigilant means...
I'm getting tired of player-driven content. Lazy developers make an open engine, and instead of writing content, "allow" players to make it up themselves. An interesting social simulation, but I for one am becoming bored of paying someone to make up my own fun.
Before I get accused of being an elitist rich kid, no, I'm not slamming public schools from Hoity Toity Private Academy; I'm a product of the coddling and formulaic system too. But somehow I'm too stubborn to admit defeat as easily as the original author.
I'm going through the second year of an engineering program myself (computer, rather than chemical), so I can sympathize with the author's poor professors and TAs, and with overwhelming courseloads. But I have to say that his summary judgment of the problem as bad teachers is in error, for that exact reason. It's not a unique experience. In fact, though I admit I have never attended class overseas, I doubt this issue is unique to America.
If there are not enough engineers in our country, it is either because we coddle too many college students into being wimpy, or because the public school system trains students to expect - to paraphrase the author - formulaic work that could be easily completed by robotic chimps.
YMMV, but personally I was more excited about the fake websites than GameTap itself.
If it wasn't evident by the tone of my question, I had cancelled my account a month or two previous to the interview request, and really had my hopes set on playing and enjoying the game again. My roommate (an FFXI veteran as I noted in my question) still plays, and what with the - slow as it might be - trickle of new playable content like Zul'Gurub and Arathi Basin since I last played, I was looking forward to getting a good reason to start playing again.
You see, Blizzard? I gave you my money for months. After I stopped, I wanted to keep giving you money. And now, after sitting on my question for over a month, you have amazingly succeeded in dashing that hope yourself.
Thanks for all the fish.
Talk about "incredibly stupid" web developers, how about a guy who redirects unsuspecting consumers to his personal diatribe and some intrusive pop-ups?
FFS, complain to the company, move the file, restrict access from that referrer - but jesus, this is the kind of jackassery that makes people hate the Web.
World of Warcraft was the first MMORPG I gave more than a passing play. Everquest, Asheron's Call, Ultima, SW: Galaxies; none of those interested me, because I saw and read about the endless toil and trouble just to gain numbers on your character stats. WoW was different - I saw the simplicity of Diablo/II in it: easy to play, rich in content, and with a wide world to explore.
But then I got to level 60, and all that ended. Now, instead of being able to do most things alone or with a small group of friends, game accomplishments take a full raid of 40 people? You need someone to plan it all out in advance, you need everyone to agree to common rules and to get along with each other; and you need everyone to be coordinated in order to defeat ridiculous enemies. With this, the challenge of the game ceases to be learning techniques and honing skills, and becomes social. The difficulty is not in playing, but in making sure everyone else is playing.
Endgame is a different game, and I don't care for it. It's not the game I bought. Rather, it's the games I declined to buy in the past. Friends of mine who played Everquest and Final Fantasy XI are right at home, but I'm decidedly out of place, and don't really want to invest hours, days of my time on goals with exponentially increasing difficulty and exponentially diminishing rewards.
The early game is brilliant, and playing it was a joy. Why is that so hard to retain in level 60 play?
How are the other two of the big three doing with their video game divisions?
See, this is the obligatory slow year. The new consoles are coming out soon. Developers are shifting focus and resources to them. Not many games, period, are coming out at all. This has pretty clear implications on sales for current-generation hardware.
As for the DS, development still hasn't revved up for the handheld yet. But Nintendo plans to do just that later this year, with the start of their online initiative.
So forgive me if I'm not ready to buy the age-old "Oh noes Nintendo is dying!" wolf cry quite yet.
Not to offend the guy, I mean it's nice to make something like this as a tutorial, but this technique has been implemented for many years. Saying that the lack of CSS coverage for radios and checks has been "conquered" by the Javascript image-swap is rather stretching it.
On the one hand, if we "export national rivalries" into space colonization, of course there will be strife in space. And we all know that in space, no one can hear you scream. This fact may very likely be the impetus behind massive space wars, and since we're already bordering on autonomous droids and human clones, George Lucas can tell you where that one's going.
On the other hand, if space colonies are thought to be a "free" land, they will inevitably become their own faction. Life will be luxurious in the majority of space colonies, simply because it's more expensive to get out there and the ritzy will be in a higher proportion. As such, with the colonies thinking themselves better than those down below, and the earthbound resenting those above them in both a financial and literal sense, we will undoubtedly come to blows with giant mechanical killing machines called Gundams.
Yeah, it's quite a toughie.