Microsoft alone employees about three times that "20,000 'more'" figure. Let's not even mention all the OTHER software companies which, all told, probably employe ten, fifteen, maybe twenty times this awesome "20,000" figure. This is a reduction in employment, not an increase. This argument supports creating 'free' (tax payed) versions of a lot of 'commodity' software which pays a lot more than 20,000 salaries.
Also, a government-funded agency with 20,000 software developers might be able to produce Windows 3.1, given the nature of government agencies and mediocrity.
Adds Dinosaur: "Ask them [members of the younger generation] HOW the things work, and they have no idea. They are really riding on the backs of the 'old folks' like us that built the goodies they enjoy.""
Okay, go explain how the Cotton Gin, steam locomotion, automobiles, electricity, the telephone system, the over-the-air broadcasting system you use to watch Wheel of Fortune, etc work. Oh, you can't? Then shut up and stop whining.
Games that use the network card (which you must buy as an add-on on older PS2s) do not allow network play for those without one. Think SOCOM here.
I have not heard anyone at Microsoft saying they want to have HD-DVD games "later." It would be pretty silly, in one fell swoop they would piss off their current userbase AND encourage people to buy more hardware which is probably going to be break-even at best in terms of profit to them. I don't think their marketing guys are going to let that happen.
The smaller PS2 added built-in networking. The HD-DVD Xbox 360 would add built-in HD-DVD *video disc playback*. Games would still come on DVDs. Can you please tell me who gets screwed and who doesn't?
The PS2 has optional networking capability. You can't depend on it being there.:) I do not see the distinction, I'm sorry to say.
The GBA SP wasn't quite the same, but it is roughly the same as adding an HD-DVD drive for media playback. That is, the old GBA "worked", but the SP had a nicer feature-set (was smaller, frontlit screen) that was appealing to folks.
Point being: if Microsoft says "code for DVDs and no hard drives but feel free to make use of them as *optional features*" how is that different than Sony saying "code for the original PS2 but feel free to make use of the networking or hard drive as *optional features*." Where's the distinction, other than Microsoft saying they plan to do it in the future vs. just doing it in the future without pre-announcing it?
I read through the comments here and saw a lot of very confused people saying very confused things. After reading TFA here's what I gleaned:
- Microsoft is making sure game-developers treat the HD as optional. - Seeing as the HD is optional, those who do not want the functionality will be offered the opportunity to purchase the console at a lower price. - Microsoft may offer an HD-DVD drive in the Xbox 360 in later revisions (SPECULATION: to drive sales in the latecomer camp who are intrigued by the added bonus of playing HD-DVD content.)
Now here's what wasn't stated, but what I believe: - Consoles are loss leaders for the major manufacturers. It is not desireable to sell hardware repeatedly at a loss. So what? Microsoft isn't going to encourage people to re-buy something that actually costs them money. Instead they will push for software titles to work on every Xbox 360 so that the maximum number of consumers can pay them licensing fees. - Microsoft is going to (at minimum) STROGNLY encourage all software vendors not to code to the hard drive or the HD-DVD drive (when it arrives). While such coding may occur (FFXI will almost surely require a hard drive) it will not be the norm. They want the Xbox you bought on launch day without the HD to continue to get them licensing money through your continued purchase of software (see above). - Confusingly, while many people replace the 's' in Microsoft with a '$', they accuse the same company whose success is so obvious of being incompetent at selling things. Whatever you want to argue about Microsoft, it is hard to argue that they are bad at making money. To that end, please re-read the above two points. They will not restrict their income artificially. - Consumers LIKE new hardware revs. How many folks bought that cute miniature PS2? Enough to show that a re-rev of hardware (with different functionality) can be accepted by users. There's also the wild success of the Gameboy Advance (and SP) to this end. Did all your peripherals work with the SP? No. How many people still 'upgraded' from the Advance to the SP? Lots! It offered a compelling reason to upgrade, without breaking backwards compatibility for what matters (the games).
My conclusion: I'll buy an Xbox 360 on launch day because my lust for a new console is high, and because I am confident that the 360 I buy will work with games released until the Xbox 1080 (or whatever). If you do not believe that games will work then you are welcome to wait it out. A lot of people I know hesitated on huying an Xbox because it was a "second class" console to them. Then they ended up buying one because it had a few compelling games that were "must play" to them. If you don't want the 360 at launch then don't buy one, but don't be too shocked if there is comeplling (to you) content released that is Xbox exclusive and you end up wanting one in the end.
(Hint: Ninja Gaiden is not Halo, Forza is not Halo, do not reply to this with smarmy comments about Halo being the only popular exclusive game for the Xbox because it isn't, unless you want the standard "anti Microsoft" Slashdot karma over being factually correct.)
okay, my bad on this one. It looks like a (very small) team over in Search is working on this stuff as a dayjob. That said, there's an interviw video link floating around, and if you watch the video they talk about getting firefox compat working, so my guess is more that they haven't really gotten any feedback about Safari/Opera breakage, not that they don't care. They were obviously interested in making it work with FF.:)
I use our Search stuff a lot in Firefox, just because some of my machines have firefox default on them, and by and large I notice zero difference. Contrary to popular belief there isn't some buzz around to cut off the balls of non-IE users. Some platforms just don't run IE (Macs effectively don't, the IE on macs is old and shit) and I can't imagine any desire to turn away customers based on their browser.:)
If this was their day job I'd agree. That said, start.com is more of a testbed project and to my knowledge is not anybody's "day job" (read: sole duty at Microsoft). Also, I was speculating. I'm speculating about this, too. From what I've read / heard two or three folks work on it when they've got time for it.
Believe it or not we actually do a lot over at MSN, like, a lot of actual work. We're not sitting in meetings thinking of ways to enrage the Slashdot crowd, nor are nefarious plots of world domination being unfolded for execution. The devs code, the testers test, and the ops guys operate. It's shockingly like a lot of other places where those people do the same things.
Lastly I'd say this, while it is easy to speculate that we all swim around in our giant moneybin over at Microsoft, we really don't. Everyone is on a budget, and people are fiscally responsible. If you consider this for a moment it really makes sense, seeing as Microsoft didn't go tits-up like so many dotcoms that had lots of money and pissed it all away on frivolity. My point? Just because I want a Mac on my desk doesn't mean Microsoft is going to put it there for me. If Mac compatibility work isn't part of your day job at the office, you're going to have a pretty tough time getting somebody to give you a mac paid for by the company.:) And, like I said before, to my (limited, not researched internally) knowledge start.com is not a day job for anyone, moreover, while it's available for the public to nudge, it is not a production product and isn't treated like one.
No, that's not what it's supposed to be.:/ It works well for me in Firefox and IE6/7. I imagine the handful of guys over on the Search team who work on this don't have Macs or Opera licenses to test browser compatibility, but they can probably do something with some of the (occasionally useful) feedback in this story I bet.:) If you're on a mac I'd suggest getting firefox and giving it a look there, although on my mac I avoid firefox (Safari is much faster) so I can see why you might not want to do that.:)
Sorry to hear that. If you wouldn't mind sending feedback you can to startfb@microsoft.com and let them know what's up. I don't believe (conspiracy theories or otherwise) that it is anyone on the team's intentions to lock out other browsers. Let them know what's up, and I'm sure someone will take a look at this.:)
Correct. I've only been working here (MSN Search Ops) for about three months, but start.com was old news when I got here. It appears to have been in the sandbox for quite a long time. In general Slashdot form it's assumed that this is a copy of Google's thing, but I think they're both copies of Yahoo's thing this time.:) Still, start.com is fun to play with. It makes for a nice homepage.
Except that MDI interfaces exist, OLE existed (and is now COM). I also remember that Microsoft was doing cross-vendor work with IBM and Apple to develop an OLE-alike that was suitable for all three systems for interoperability purposes. The effort stalled, but nonetheless it happened.
I wouldn't doubt that you have good examples of Microsoft touting technology it then failed to produce (WinFS is a really easy target, at least for now) but MDI and OLE are really bad choices.:)
And even without these 'what if' scenarios, isn't there an expectation that, if you're in a public area, you're fair game for being photographed?
Sure, I guess. But uh, even though while I'm in public I must expect that I'm fair game for being farted on, I still don't like it. Just because you're "fair game" doesn't mean you have to enjoy it. I'm fair game for being shit on by a pigeon too, but if someone made an anti-pigeon-shitting device that allowed me not to get splattered by bird feces, I'd take it and run away gleefully laughing.
Just because you CAN take pictures of everything doesn't mean you should. Some of us want to be able to walk around outdoors without the concern of being in someone's photo gallery because they have a camera phone and too much time. I don't see why that's so bad.
My songs stick fine on the mobs too. I can lullaby an IT mob at least nine times out of ten *without* signa on. On the rare occasions where I miss, horde lullaby is a good backup.
Regardless, if my songs are making the difference for all the people I party with who don't have super gear then eating food will do the same. There's plenty of food that will give +atk, +acc, etc, often in big numbers, and a lot of it isn't even expensive.
Still, others in my linkshell around my level or higher have said that super gear is not a requirement, and that they'd rather have someone who plays well and 10% more than someone who plays poorly but hits that extra 10%. I think you're severely overstating the problem. Stuff like kraken clubs, vermillion cloaks, etc is vanity gear. Stuff people buy because they've got that kind of money. It's not required.
As far as BRD rarity.. I can see why. When I play BRD I actually have to pay attention to the whole battle. It seems like a lot of people who want to level don't want to think very hard or make tough decisions, and so they play jobs that are fairly easy and at worst require twitch reactions. BRD requires a lot of timing and finesse and positioning, and that's what makes it fun for me. I think you don't and won't see a lot of BRDs because it is in fact a tough job to play and people don't want that. It has no barrier to entry (quest actually makes you money, and the gear costs next to nothing, same with the spells) so that's definitely not a factor.
Please cite a reference for this mythical 'tab' bug. I hammer my tab key constantly in ffxi, and have since I bought the game. It has never, ever, ever crashed on me.
In fact, ffxi has *never* crashed on me. Once. The game is rock solid.
As far as 'the level grind'.. your example of 326k xp for 60-70, at about 200xp/mob (which is about right, with a decent party) is roughly 1,600 kills. Average five minutes a kill and it will take you about 140 hours of leveling to get that far. Okay, yeah, that's a lot. But you're also pretty much in the endgame too. If you level for about two hours a day (roughly) then you will make those levels in about two and a half months of play.
That doesn't seem so bad to me. And in a good party you're probably chaining for 300+xp every fight, not 200. You can chain up to 380xp/mob or something, so those numbers drop. Square changed the numbers to make leveling past 50 easier, in fact.
As far as this equipment myth, it's just that. I've been in plenty of post-50 parties with people who had what can only be called average gear. They hit fine. I play BRD, and other than one item I have spent virtually no gil on my equipment, my songs are still sticking just fine. The "MUST HAVE LEET EQ" syndrome is a holdover from jerks playing EQ and Diablo who need to feel good about the fact that they play an MMO for 12 hours a day instead of getting out, and so rag on anyone who isn't holding 2x Snipers, Emp pin, rabbit charm, etc. It's total bullshit. Your intelligence as a player will make or break a battle far more often than that extra +5acc or whatever.
The first line of this story reads 'sympleko (Mattwrites "What a beautiful world anthology is. [...]"'. Having read this I decided to put together a little one-question analogy test for my fellow readers.
For those of you who have taken standardized tests you'll recognize the format of this analogy query:
Acting : Kevin Costner Editing : _____________
a) Pizza b) Chrono Trigger c) Slashdot d) None of the above.
If you chose answer 'c' you are correct. The explanation for the answer is that in both cases the degree of quality of the first word as performed by the second is diminishing to levels almost incalculably bad.
Something I've noticed is that these discussions of the PSP (which inevitably lead to discussions about the PSP vs. the GB(A/SP)) leave out the issue of how well complex 3D games are even going to play on a small screen at a low resolution. Games like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D played really well at 320x240, but moving into the realm of stuff like Quake the minimum reasonable resolution was really 640x480. Nowadays people want to play their games at 1024x768 or higher. Even NTSC television has a higher resolution than the PSP. So to the heart of it: are 3D games even going to be very playable at a lower resolution on a tiny screen?
As it is I definitely have to sit closer to the TV playing current-generation 3D games. With complicated (and smalll!) menus and instructional text, not to mention tiny objects which are not all that noticeable even on a regular television I can't imagine the frustration of playing these kinds of games with a handheld, in potentially bad lighting, with hordes of surrounding visual distractions (if I play a portable, it's in a car/bus/train, or somewhere else in public).
So, that being said.. if the PSP comes out with a big library of 3D games ported from the PS/PS2, I think it may suffer a nasty fate. Nintendo has a huge 2D library, Sony has/licenses enough 2D games to maybe take two hands to count. 2D games to me seem much easier to play (in general) than 3D games in a visually restrictive environment, and I'm not going to buy a PSP if/until I find it playable and it has a good library. One or both of those things might not even occur. I think people without unlimited pockets will hold out for good titles at least, things which make sense to play in limited time frames. Sony may fall victim to the industry shift to "nothing but 3D," and "let's make games more complicated." It will be an interesting event, if nothing else.
The new license applies to XFree86 and anything based on it. This sounds fair until you realize that if you write a program that just uses XFRee86, you are, technically speaking, combining your code with theirs by linking to the xlibs and including the header files.
Just because RMS says that linking to GPLed libraries makes your code GPLed does *not* make it true. Linking to third-party libraries simply means your program works in cooperation with those libraries, not that it is based on said libraries. I'm tired of seeing all this hoopla about programs being based on other programs because they linnk with/interact with them. It is patently untrue.
And tell you what, if you don't want to give somebody the credit they desire for creating a distribution which uses their software as an integral part then don't use their software.
And like the 32X nobody is going to be interested. Either people will buy the 32-bit unstacked version and never change it (but if Windows 64 shows up in 2004, why bother with 32 bits?) or you'll have to buy the pre-stacked system, which will almost certainly cost significantly more than a single-chip AMD x86-64 solution.
I remember in the early 90s the crud you could buy to turn your 486/33 into a 486/66 DX2 processor. Even then these products were not wildly popular, and at that time it was significantly more expensive to do anything else (and there was no real x86 competition). These days, such a product would doubtlessly be unpopular. Hobbyists will know better, and general consumers are sometimes afraid to even look at the back of their computer, let alone open it up and pop something onto their CPUs.
If Intel is really doing this 'add-on' stuff, I think they're going to end up getting hurt in a pretty significant way unless they can keep cost down on the add-on components. Even then it seems like useless complexity, a hesitation to commit to a standard that may well cost them big.
Although I am not possessed of yellow boots or a yellow cap resplendant with blue feather I do like that second theory. I think it is at least as enjoyable as the Iluvitar theory. I'm currently re-reading FOTR, and I just stopped at the beginning of chatper 7 (In the House of Tom Bombadil. I think this will present an interesting point of view from which I can re-read.
There are some indicators that Tom is not the reader, of course, but I'm willing to overlook these.;) Thanks for a new spin on an old favorite!
(As an aside, I'd never seen the original copy of what our AC friend posted, it was ridiculous enough to be funny, but on Slashdot one can't assume that something ridiculous enough to be funny isn't being posted seriously. Forgive me, father, for I Have Been Trolled.;))
Tom Bombadil and the Witch-king of Angmar are the same person.
Actually, well, no. No they're not.
I suspect this is a clever troll, but I'll bite anyways. IHBT, IHL, IWHAND.
1. There's a lot of stuff you don't "hear" about in the First Age. Big deal. 2. You never see Galadriel and the Nazgul together either. So what? 3. The 'there' in Tom's comment was in reference to the pond from whence he retrieved the water lilies for Goldberry. In furtherance of this, according to the timeline, the Nazgul were not yet aware that Frodo had left the Shire at the time he met Bombadil. 4. Just because they knew who the real ring owner was intended to be does not mean they would not have been effected by it. 5. All the Nazgul could see him. Glorfindel could see him. Big deal. Does that make Glorfindel the Witch-King, or Tom Bombadil? 6. Now this is just getting silly. Any number of denizens of Arda could probably have done the same thing.
None of your points prove much of anything, except that the Nazgul and Bombadil were not in the same place at the same tim in LOTR.
A stronger case could be made, I think, that Bombadil was actually a subdued manifestation of Iluvitar (or one of the Valar). In Tolkien's world good and evil are rigidly defined (as they are in all mythologies) and I find it hard to believe that he would intend something this preposterous, when in no other case do you see a being that is both extremely evil and extremely benevolent in LOTR.
Okay, cool. I was a bit sketchy on how this worked exactly. I know my ISP patched their nameservers pretty early on to block sitefinder, and I know we patched them at work damn quick too. Looking more closely at the way this was done, your study seems to account for this.
All the same, a nearly 10% drop-off in sitefinder 'use' within two weeks is pretty phenomenal. I think as time went on and this caused more problems for people, you'd see those numbers go up. Hopefully we'll never find out.:)
Thanks for the reply! It's neat (and kind of surprising) to see the author(s) of studies posted on slashdot actually replying to slashdot comments. That's awesome.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft alone employees about three times that "20,000 'more'" figure. Let's not even mention all the OTHER software companies which, all told, probably employe ten, fifteen, maybe twenty times this awesome "20,000" figure. This is a reduction in employment, not an increase. This argument supports creating 'free' (tax payed) versions of a lot of 'commodity' software which pays a lot more than 20,000 salaries.
Also, a government-funded agency with 20,000 software developers might be able to produce Windows 3.1, given the nature of government agencies and mediocrity.
Adds Dinosaur: "Ask them [members of the younger generation] HOW the things work, and they have no idea. They are really riding on the backs of the 'old folks' like us that built the goodies they enjoy.""
Okay, go explain how the Cotton Gin, steam locomotion, automobiles, electricity, the telephone system, the over-the-air broadcasting system you use to watch Wheel of Fortune, etc work. Oh, you can't? Then shut up and stop whining.
Games that use the network card (which you must buy as an add-on on older PS2s) do not allow network play for those without one. Think SOCOM here.
I have not heard anyone at Microsoft saying they want to have HD-DVD games "later." It would be pretty silly, in one fell swoop they would piss off their current userbase AND encourage people to buy more hardware which is probably going to be break-even at best in terms of profit to them. I don't think their marketing guys are going to let that happen.
The smaller PS2 added built-in networking. The HD-DVD Xbox 360 would add built-in HD-DVD *video disc playback*. Games would still come on DVDs. Can you please tell me who gets screwed and who doesn't?
The PS2 has optional networking capability. You can't depend on it being there. :) I do not see the distinction, I'm sorry to say.
The GBA SP wasn't quite the same, but it is roughly the same as adding an HD-DVD drive for media playback. That is, the old GBA "worked", but the SP had a nicer feature-set (was smaller, frontlit screen) that was appealing to folks.
Point being: if Microsoft says "code for DVDs and no hard drives but feel free to make use of them as *optional features*" how is that different than Sony saying "code for the original PS2 but feel free to make use of the networking or hard drive as *optional features*." Where's the distinction, other than Microsoft saying they plan to do it in the future vs. just doing it in the future without pre-announcing it?
I read through the comments here and saw a lot of very confused people saying very confused things. After reading TFA here's what I gleaned:
- Microsoft is making sure game-developers treat the HD as optional.
- Seeing as the HD is optional, those who do not want the functionality will be offered the opportunity to purchase the console at a lower price.
- Microsoft may offer an HD-DVD drive in the Xbox 360 in later revisions (SPECULATION: to drive sales in the latecomer camp who are intrigued by the added bonus of playing HD-DVD content.)
Now here's what wasn't stated, but what I believe:
- Consoles are loss leaders for the major manufacturers. It is not desireable to sell hardware repeatedly at a loss. So what? Microsoft isn't going to encourage people to re-buy something that actually costs them money. Instead they will push for software titles to work on every Xbox 360 so that the maximum number of consumers can pay them licensing fees.
- Microsoft is going to (at minimum) STROGNLY encourage all software vendors not to code to the hard drive or the HD-DVD drive (when it arrives). While such coding may occur (FFXI will almost surely require a hard drive) it will not be the norm. They want the Xbox you bought on launch day without the HD to continue to get them licensing money through your continued purchase of software (see above).
- Confusingly, while many people replace the 's' in Microsoft with a '$', they accuse the same company whose success is so obvious of being incompetent at selling things. Whatever you want to argue about Microsoft, it is hard to argue that they are bad at making money. To that end, please re-read the above two points. They will not restrict their income artificially.
- Consumers LIKE new hardware revs. How many folks bought that cute miniature PS2? Enough to show that a re-rev of hardware (with different functionality) can be accepted by users. There's also the wild success of the Gameboy Advance (and SP) to this end. Did all your peripherals work with the SP? No. How many people still 'upgraded' from the Advance to the SP? Lots! It offered a compelling reason to upgrade, without breaking backwards compatibility for what matters (the games).
My conclusion: I'll buy an Xbox 360 on launch day because my lust for a new console is high, and because I am confident that the 360 I buy will work with games released until the Xbox 1080 (or whatever). If you do not believe that games will work then you are welcome to wait it out. A lot of people I know hesitated on huying an Xbox because it was a "second class" console to them. Then they ended up buying one because it had a few compelling games that were "must play" to them. If you don't want the 360 at launch then don't buy one, but don't be too shocked if there is comeplling (to you) content released that is Xbox exclusive and you end up wanting one in the end.
(Hint: Ninja Gaiden is not Halo, Forza is not Halo, do not reply to this with smarmy comments about Halo being the only popular exclusive game for the Xbox because it isn't, unless you want the standard "anti Microsoft" Slashdot karma over being factually correct.)
okay, my bad on this one. It looks like a (very small) team over in Search is working on this stuff as a dayjob. That said, there's an interviw video link floating around, and if you watch the video they talk about getting firefox compat working, so my guess is more that they haven't really gotten any feedback about Safari/Opera breakage, not that they don't care. They were obviously interested in making it work with FF. :)
:)
I use our Search stuff a lot in Firefox, just because some of my machines have firefox default on them, and by and large I notice zero difference. Contrary to popular belief there isn't some buzz around to cut off the balls of non-IE users. Some platforms just don't run IE (Macs effectively don't, the IE on macs is old and shit) and I can't imagine any desire to turn away customers based on their browser.
If this was their day job I'd agree. That said, start.com is more of a testbed project and to my knowledge is not anybody's "day job" (read: sole duty at Microsoft). Also, I was speculating. I'm speculating about this, too. From what I've read / heard two or three folks work on it when they've got time for it.
:) And, like I said before, to my (limited, not researched internally) knowledge start.com is not a day job for anyone, moreover, while it's available for the public to nudge, it is not a production product and isn't treated like one.
Believe it or not we actually do a lot over at MSN, like, a lot of actual work. We're not sitting in meetings thinking of ways to enrage the Slashdot crowd, nor are nefarious plots of world domination being unfolded for execution. The devs code, the testers test, and the ops guys operate. It's shockingly like a lot of other places where those people do the same things.
Lastly I'd say this, while it is easy to speculate that we all swim around in our giant moneybin over at Microsoft, we really don't. Everyone is on a budget, and people are fiscally responsible. If you consider this for a moment it really makes sense, seeing as Microsoft didn't go tits-up like so many dotcoms that had lots of money and pissed it all away on frivolity. My point? Just because I want a Mac on my desk doesn't mean Microsoft is going to put it there for me. If Mac compatibility work isn't part of your day job at the office, you're going to have a pretty tough time getting somebody to give you a mac paid for by the company.
No, that's not what it's supposed to be. :/ It works well for me in Firefox and IE6/7. I imagine the handful of guys over on the Search team who work on this don't have Macs or Opera licenses to test browser compatibility, but they can probably do something with some of the (occasionally useful) feedback in this story I bet. :) If you're on a mac I'd suggest getting firefox and giving it a look there, although on my mac I avoid firefox (Safari is much faster) so I can see why you might not want to do that. :)
Sorry to hear that. If you wouldn't mind sending feedback you can to startfb@microsoft.com and let them know what's up. I don't believe (conspiracy theories or otherwise) that it is anyone on the team's intentions to lock out other browsers. Let them know what's up, and I'm sure someone will take a look at this. :)
Correct. I've only been working here (MSN Search Ops) for about three months, but start.com was old news when I got here. It appears to have been in the sandbox for quite a long time. In general Slashdot form it's assumed that this is a copy of Google's thing, but I think they're both copies of Yahoo's thing this time. :) Still, start.com is fun to play with. It makes for a nice homepage.
Except that MDI interfaces exist, OLE existed (and is now COM). I also remember that Microsoft was doing cross-vendor work with IBM and Apple to develop an OLE-alike that was suitable for all three systems for interoperability purposes. The effort stalled, but nonetheless it happened.
:)
I wouldn't doubt that you have good examples of Microsoft touting technology it then failed to produce (WinFS is a really easy target, at least for now) but MDI and OLE are really bad choices.
And even without these 'what if' scenarios, isn't there an expectation that, if you're in a public area, you're fair game for being photographed?
Sure, I guess. But uh, even though while I'm in public I must expect that I'm fair game for being farted on, I still don't like it. Just because you're "fair game" doesn't mean you have to enjoy it. I'm fair game for being shit on by a pigeon too, but if someone made an anti-pigeon-shitting device that allowed me not to get splattered by bird feces, I'd take it and run away gleefully laughing.
Just because you CAN take pictures of everything doesn't mean you should. Some of us want to be able to walk around outdoors without the concern of being in someone's photo gallery because they have a camera phone and too much time. I don't see why that's so bad.
My songs stick fine on the mobs too. I can lullaby an IT mob at least nine times out of ten *without* signa on. On the rare occasions where I miss, horde lullaby is a good backup.
Regardless, if my songs are making the difference for all the people I party with who don't have super gear then eating food will do the same. There's plenty of food that will give +atk, +acc, etc, often in big numbers, and a lot of it isn't even expensive.
Still, others in my linkshell around my level or higher have said that super gear is not a requirement, and that they'd rather have someone who plays well and 10% more than someone who plays poorly but hits that extra 10%. I think you're severely overstating the problem. Stuff like kraken clubs, vermillion cloaks, etc is vanity gear. Stuff people buy because they've got that kind of money. It's not required.
As far as BRD rarity.. I can see why. When I play BRD I actually have to pay attention to the whole battle. It seems like a lot of people who want to level don't want to think very hard or make tough decisions, and so they play jobs that are fairly easy and at worst require twitch reactions. BRD requires a lot of timing and finesse and positioning, and that's what makes it fun for me. I think you don't and won't see a lot of BRDs because it is in fact a tough job to play and people don't want that. It has no barrier to entry (quest actually makes you money, and the gear costs next to nothing, same with the spells) so that's definitely not a factor.
Please cite a reference for this mythical 'tab' bug. I hammer my tab key constantly in ffxi, and have since I bought the game. It has never, ever, ever crashed on me.
In fact, ffxi has *never* crashed on me. Once. The game is rock solid.
As far as 'the level grind'.. your example of 326k xp for 60-70, at about 200xp/mob (which is about right, with a decent party) is roughly 1,600 kills. Average five minutes a kill and it will take you about 140 hours of leveling to get that far. Okay, yeah, that's a lot. But you're also pretty much in the endgame too. If you level for about two hours a day (roughly) then you will make those levels in about two and a half months of play.
That doesn't seem so bad to me. And in a good party you're probably chaining for 300+xp every fight, not 200. You can chain up to 380xp/mob or something, so those numbers drop. Square changed the numbers to make leveling past 50 easier, in fact.
As far as this equipment myth, it's just that. I've been in plenty of post-50 parties with people who had what can only be called average gear. They hit fine. I play BRD, and other than one item I have spent virtually no gil on my equipment, my songs are still sticking just fine. The "MUST HAVE LEET EQ" syndrome is a holdover from jerks playing EQ and Diablo who need to feel good about the fact that they play an MMO for 12 hours a day instead of getting out, and so rag on anyone who isn't holding 2x Snipers, Emp pin, rabbit charm, etc. It's total bullshit. Your intelligence as a player will make or break a battle far more often than that extra +5acc or whatever.
The first line of this story reads 'sympleko (Mattwrites "What a beautiful world anthology is. [...]"'. Having read this I decided to put together a little one-question analogy test for my fellow readers.
For those of you who have taken standardized tests you'll recognize the format of this analogy query:
Acting : Kevin Costner
Editing : _____________
a) Pizza
b) Chrono Trigger
c) Slashdot
d) None of the above.
If you chose answer 'c' you are correct. The explanation for the answer is that in both cases the degree of quality of the first word as performed by the second is diminishing to levels almost incalculably bad.
Something I've noticed is that these discussions of the PSP (which inevitably lead to discussions about the PSP vs. the GB(A/SP)) leave out the issue of how well complex 3D games are even going to play on a small screen at a low resolution. Games like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D played really well at 320x240, but moving into the realm of stuff like Quake the minimum reasonable resolution was really 640x480. Nowadays people want to play their games at 1024x768 or higher. Even NTSC television has a higher resolution than the PSP. So to the heart of it: are 3D games even going to be very playable at a lower resolution on a tiny screen?
As it is I definitely have to sit closer to the TV playing current-generation 3D games. With complicated (and smalll!) menus and instructional text, not to mention tiny objects which are not all that noticeable even on a regular television I can't imagine the frustration of playing these kinds of games with a handheld, in potentially bad lighting, with hordes of surrounding visual distractions (if I play a portable, it's in a car/bus/train, or somewhere else in public).
So, that being said.. if the PSP comes out with a big library of 3D games ported from the PS/PS2, I think it may suffer a nasty fate. Nintendo has a huge 2D library, Sony has/licenses enough 2D games to maybe take two hands to count. 2D games to me seem much easier to play (in general) than 3D games in a visually restrictive environment, and I'm not going to buy a PSP if/until I find it playable and it has a good library. One or both of those things might not even occur. I think people without unlimited pockets will hold out for good titles at least, things which make sense to play in limited time frames. Sony may fall victim to the industry shift to "nothing but 3D," and "let's make games more complicated." It will be an interesting event, if nothing else.
Just because RMS says that linking to GPLed libraries makes your code GPLed does *not* make it true. Linking to third-party libraries simply means your program works in cooperation with those libraries, not that it is based on said libraries. I'm tired of seeing all this hoopla about programs being based on other programs because they linnk with/interact with them. It is patently untrue.
And tell you what, if you don't want to give somebody the credit they desire for creating a distribution which uses their software as an integral part then don't use their software.
ach! mein leiber! (what the hell am i doing?)
And like the 32X nobody is going to be interested. Either people will buy the 32-bit unstacked version and never change it (but if Windows 64 shows up in 2004, why bother with 32 bits?) or you'll have to buy the pre-stacked system, which will almost certainly cost significantly more than a single-chip AMD x86-64 solution.
I remember in the early 90s the crud you could buy to turn your 486/33 into a 486/66 DX2 processor. Even then these products were not wildly popular, and at that time it was significantly more expensive to do anything else (and there was no real x86 competition). These days, such a product would doubtlessly be unpopular. Hobbyists will know better, and general consumers are sometimes afraid to even look at the back of their computer, let alone open it up and pop something onto their CPUs.
If Intel is really doing this 'add-on' stuff, I think they're going to end up getting hurt in a pretty significant way unless they can keep cost down on the add-on components. Even then it seems like useless complexity, a hesitation to commit to a standard that may well cost them big.
The Creator of the Mythology, or the Creator in the Mythology?
Although I am not possessed of yellow boots or a yellow cap resplendant with blue feather I do like that second theory. I think it is at least as enjoyable as the Iluvitar theory. I'm currently re-reading FOTR, and I just stopped at the beginning of chatper 7 (In the House of Tom Bombadil. I think this will present an interesting point of view from which I can re-read.
;) Thanks for a new spin on an old favorite!
;))
There are some indicators that Tom is not the reader, of course, but I'm willing to overlook these.
(As an aside, I'd never seen the original copy of what our AC friend posted, it was ridiculous enough to be funny, but on Slashdot one can't assume that something ridiculous enough to be funny isn't being posted seriously. Forgive me, father, for I Have Been Trolled.
Actually, well, no. No they're not.
I suspect this is a clever troll, but I'll bite anyways. IHBT, IHL, IWHAND.
1. There's a lot of stuff you don't "hear" about in the First Age. Big deal.
2. You never see Galadriel and the Nazgul together either. So what?
3. The 'there' in Tom's comment was in reference to the pond from whence he retrieved the water lilies for Goldberry. In furtherance of this, according to the timeline, the Nazgul were not yet aware that Frodo had left the Shire at the time he met Bombadil.
4. Just because they knew who the real ring owner was intended to be does not mean they would not have been effected by it.
5. All the Nazgul could see him. Glorfindel could see him. Big deal. Does that make Glorfindel the Witch-King, or Tom Bombadil?
6. Now this is just getting silly. Any number of denizens of Arda could probably have done the same thing.
None of your points prove much of anything, except that the Nazgul and Bombadil were not in the same place at the same tim in LOTR.
A stronger case could be made, I think, that Bombadil was actually a subdued manifestation of Iluvitar (or one of the Valar). In Tolkien's world good and evil are rigidly defined (as they are in all mythologies) and I find it hard to believe that he would intend something this preposterous, when in no other case do you see a being that is both extremely evil and extremely benevolent in LOTR.
Anyhow.. IHBT.
Or Sonny Bono.
Okay, cool. I was a bit sketchy on how this worked exactly. I know my ISP patched their nameservers pretty early on to block sitefinder, and I know we patched them at work damn quick too. Looking more closely at the way this was done, your study seems to account for this.
:)
:)
All the same, a nearly 10% drop-off in sitefinder 'use' within two weeks is pretty phenomenal. I think as time went on and this caused more problems for people, you'd see those numbers go up. Hopefully we'll never find out.
Thanks for the reply! It's neat (and kind of surprising) to see the author(s) of studies posted on slashdot actually replying to slashdot comments. That's awesome.