"I found this interesting because it looks like an idea I threw out there long ago: a light gun with a built in joystick for the thumb of your left hand where it supports the gun. This would have allowed the light gun to be used for natural aim while navigating environments with the thumb in an intuitive manner."
GunCon, anyone?
The examples throughout Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" are pretty handy too. At one point Dr. Waterhouse has to put the chain back on his bicycle, and from there we get into an example of (as I recall) how the Enigma worked on a basic level. Bits and pieces on public/private-key encryption and EM snooping are just some of the other interesting sidetrips the author takes.
LOVE? Don't talk to me about love... Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and I'm stuck being the butt of jokes that obviously don't understand my character. And I STILL have this pain in all the diodes down my left side.
I seem to remember back in the mid 90s, during one of the Baseball strikes, some TV station was simulating games on Genesis. Google isn't being my friend today, but I have a very clear memory of EGM running a news item about it at the time.
I can guarantee you that within an hour of the episode ending, someone will have it up for download. This is the Internet we're talking about here. Hell, I use it like most people use TiVo if I miss something on the telly.
To quickly paraphrase the article: Players of DX1 found that the skill point system tended to shaft them a little unless they took the time to go explore every little room, so in DX2 they're reducing the complexity by limiting it to just the bio-mods and upgrades.
Now, my question is this: Did anyone else find that the bio-mods were almost as out of the way as the XP bonuses? That said, I really don't see how removing the skill system fixes anything.
I understand how the skill system tended to screw you over if you picked the wrong skills, especially since certain skills (Environment Training or Swimming come to mind) were only of any use at a couple points in the game. But couldn't this have been fixed simply by taking a look at the skills you have, removing the really useless ones and then tweaking the levels so that every skill can be useful?
For example, instead of just having a security system you can disable, doors that can be picked, and electronic locks to hack, why not put Enviro-Training to use by having electrical conduits to crawl in?
As for other skills like Melee combat which were of extremely limited use as you got further in DX1, I would've thought the best thing to do might be simply not including items like the Dragon Tooth sword that quite simply turn your skill system on its head.
Back more to the point of my comment, how does limiting it to just the bio-mod system help? Personally I found bio-mods to be the less-useful of the two systems, but that might be just me. If the system is going to be something along the lines of "You got this far, here's another powerup to make you happy" then I feel much of the original's open-endedness is being taken away in an effort to cater to those who just want to blaze through the game.
Again, this all might just be me, but as someone who played through, managed to miss about half of the experience bonuses and still have a damn fine time, I really think that the developers should be rewarding those who take the time to look around, hack anonymous office systems, and make the effort to see what's on the other side of things that would otherwise just be set-pieces.
Yeah, there's lot of need for patches. All my buddies keep talking about their GF2s and 3s, and I keep asking them "what the hell, where'd you get the upgrade? Mine keeps sleeping around and claiming I don't love her enough."
They tend to slowly become obsessive over finding more Red Pills so they can maintain the game's illusion of reality, generally becoming so addicted to it that when they can't afford any more they start selling off all of their best equipment and artifacts, completely forgetting the point of the game and usually ending up on the street begging for more GP.
Or, through a glitch in the game's coding, they'll sometimes become fascinated with bright colors and glowing lights, hanging out together at giant parties with loud, pulsing music.
Trust me. You don't want the Red Pill. Stick to your Flintstones vitamins instead.
Quite true, but sadly... I think the majority of users being hit with these ads aren't all that computer-savvy. I mean, AOL is still the most widely used ISP isn't it? Wouldn't that logically imply that since it's well-known for being granny/kiddie/etc friendly, a good chunk of internet users are in fact "retarded" in the context of this topic?
The problem, as I see it, isn't with Bonzi. They're a company, if they can do something to increase their profits I say more power to them. The problem arises when people can't distinguish between your advertising and messages from their OS that seem to be rather urgent.
Someone needs to beat whoever okays these ads as "a good idea, people will really like it I bet!" with a heavy stick. The average consumer these days may not be all that sharp but that doesn't mean we enjoy being exploited.
Slashdot Mirror
"I found this interesting because it looks like an idea I threw out there long ago: a light gun with a built in joystick for the thumb of your left hand where it supports the gun. This would have allowed the light gun to be used for natural aim while navigating environments with the thumb in an intuitive manner." GunCon, anyone?
The examples throughout Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" are pretty handy too. At one point Dr. Waterhouse has to put the chain back on his bicycle, and from there we get into an example of (as I recall) how the Enigma worked on a basic level. Bits and pieces on public/private-key encryption and EM snooping are just some of the other interesting sidetrips the author takes.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but you miss one key point: Opera is not free.
But they're just talking about goat, see?
No, they're identical. One has a really ugly white cover, the other has a not-sexy-but-still-good black cover.
LOVE? Don't talk to me about love... Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and I'm stuck being the butt of jokes that obviously don't understand my character. And I STILL have this pain in all the diodes down my left side.
I seem to remember back in the mid 90s, during one of the Baseball strikes, some TV station was simulating games on Genesis. Google isn't being my friend today, but I have a very clear memory of EGM running a news item about it at the time.
I can guarantee you that within an hour of the episode ending, someone will have it up for download. This is the Internet we're talking about here. Hell, I use it like most people use TiVo if I miss something on the telly.
See it, eh? What the hell kind of radio do you have?
To quickly paraphrase the article: Players of DX1 found that the skill point system tended to shaft them a little unless they took the time to go explore every little room, so in DX2 they're reducing the complexity by limiting it to just the bio-mods and upgrades.
Now, my question is this: Did anyone else find that the bio-mods were almost as out of the way as the XP bonuses? That said, I really don't see how removing the skill system fixes anything.
I understand how the skill system tended to screw you over if you picked the wrong skills, especially since certain skills (Environment Training or Swimming come to mind) were only of any use at a couple points in the game. But couldn't this have been fixed simply by taking a look at the skills you have, removing the really useless ones and then tweaking the levels so that every skill can be useful?
For example, instead of just having a security system you can disable, doors that can be picked, and electronic locks to hack, why not put Enviro-Training to use by having electrical conduits to crawl in?
As for other skills like Melee combat which were of extremely limited use as you got further in DX1, I would've thought the best thing to do might be simply not including items like the Dragon Tooth sword that quite simply turn your skill system on its head.
Back more to the point of my comment, how does limiting it to just the bio-mod system help? Personally I found bio-mods to be the less-useful of the two systems, but that might be just me. If the system is going to be something along the lines of "You got this far, here's another powerup to make you happy" then I feel much of the original's open-endedness is being taken away in an effort to cater to those who just want to blaze through the game.
Again, this all might just be me, but as someone who played through, managed to miss about half of the experience bonuses and still have a damn fine time, I really think that the developers should be rewarding those who take the time to look around, hack anonymous office systems, and make the effort to see what's on the other side of things that would otherwise just be set-pieces.
So are multiple-personality cases just Buddhists that hit Select while they were putting the code in?
Yeah, there's lot of need for patches. All my buddies keep talking about their GF2s and 3s, and I keep asking them "what the hell, where'd you get the upgrade? Mine keeps sleeping around and claiming I don't love her enough."
Me too, but half the time the team that okayed it for beta was drunk, or high, or the beta got leaked out.
They tend to slowly become obsessive over finding more Red Pills so they can maintain the game's illusion of reality, generally becoming so addicted to it that when they can't afford any more they start selling off all of their best equipment and artifacts, completely forgetting the point of the game and usually ending up on the street begging for more GP. Or, through a glitch in the game's coding, they'll sometimes become fascinated with bright colors and glowing lights, hanging out together at giant parties with loud, pulsing music. Trust me. You don't want the Red Pill. Stick to your Flintstones vitamins instead.
You're waiting for /. to post a review of T3? Why? About a zillion sites have got reviews of it up already if you weren't too lazy to go look.
"It's almost as if they think we're retarded."
Quite true, but sadly... I think the majority of users being hit with these ads aren't all that computer-savvy. I mean, AOL is still the most widely used ISP isn't it? Wouldn't that logically imply that since it's well-known for being granny/kiddie/etc friendly, a good chunk of internet users are in fact "retarded" in the context of this topic?
The problem, as I see it, isn't with Bonzi. They're a company, if they can do something to increase their profits I say more power to them. The problem arises when people can't distinguish between your advertising and messages from their OS that seem to be rather urgent.
Someone needs to beat whoever okays these ads as "a good idea, people will really like it I bet!" with a heavy stick. The average consumer these days may not be all that sharp but that doesn't mean we enjoy being exploited.