I've always liked some form of rating system, be it five stars or out of 10 or whatever, especially from magazines and the like - someone earlier in the thread mentioned amazon, but I believe these ratings are fairly useless as the individuals have probably had much less exposure to the high number of games that are now available and therefore can't give a score that can be used in any kind of objective comparison.
However I think we're running into trouble now, because at many points in the past milestone games have received, with hindsight, what we can now see as slightly overinflated scores which have owed more to their groundbreaking new effects than actual gameplay. Perusing the scores of early PS2 games can easily confirm this, as the typical average score has come down (I particularly hate when games get marked down because they're only marginal improvements over predecessors). I'm sceptical as to whether games are actually going to look that much more impressive in the next generation, and contention in the industry is squeezing the poorer software houses and titles out, which should lead to an overall level of quality increase.
This will (hopefully, IMO) lead to production quality being a virtual given, and allow scores to more accurately represent how good the game is, with 5/10 being average, and worth getting for fans of the genre (like I believe how most Final Fantasy games should score!). For example, if you were a big fan of a certain band, then you'd probably buy their CD even if a selection of music magazines gave them 4/10, as you know you want to hear it anyway; however if Mario 128 came out and received a 4/10 average you'd definitely have to think carefully about getting it.
Lets hope the portion of your tax that goes towards policing helps prevent your shack from getting broken in to, or that which goes towards the fire service that will be available should your shack catch fire. Or the army that provides the country your shack is in with the security against invasion from neighbouring countries. Or the public roads that you travel on from your shack to your office or grocery store to work or get food. Do you have a toilet and running water in your shack? etc.
I could go on if I could be bothered to think of any more of the umpteen examples that ungrateful whelps take for granted when it comes to moaning about taxes. Welcome to society, you can opt out and live like a gypsy if you want and I hope you enjoy your rootless life of poverty, but if you want to opt in then I'm afraid you're going to have to pay for the things that you take advantage of every day without even realising.
Possibly a bad sector in whatever slice you were compiling in that boggled the kernel somehow? Shouldn't really happen. It's not like there's anything special about compilation that it should be unstable on one distribution and not others.
Unless something's changed a whole lot in the past couple months, the online aspect of the other two current consoles is very visible, but the number of people who actually are participating is incredibly small in comparison to how much we hear about them.
There's enough for me to always get a well matched game on PGR2 or a sound drubbing on TH:UG (TH:UG seems to have no skill level policing, and I suck very badly at it), and I'm based in Europe, which is seen as lagging in the online stakes. There's also tens of thousands of high scores that I'll probably never be able to beat on PGR2 (the only game with ranking that I currently own), which suggests more than a few people are actually paying for the privilege of playing online.
Considering the subset of how new this technology is and how many people who actually have the requisite broadband to get involved, there is a surprisingly high amount of online activity in my experience. To me it seems to be reaching critical mass and Nintendo appear to be missing the boat. Online gaming is not an 'extra feature' like a DVD drive or PVR, it's very much a core feature and even drives genres - MMORPG's for example.
Mario Kart was a wonderful opportunity to take a massive step into multiplayer gaming - all the original afficianado's will now be well into their 20's and would probably jump at the chance with plenty of dollars just to play it head to head again, but as it stands it's not the best game you can stick on when you're sat at home on your own, and I fear they'll just just plump for an Xbox with PGR2, which is a bloody good game offline before you get Live!
System notification methods - you are kidding yeah? I've recieved some of the most down to earth explaitions in linux from a message from dselect saying not to do what I was about to do, or maybe abcde telling me I'd not put the CD in the draw!
No. I mean system things, like a drive being too full, or a USB device drawing too much power, or some form of disk write failure, or when another machine is using your IP address, etc. Messages that you simply wouldn't see at all on Linux unless you were tailing/var/adm/messages. You mention dselect, but in reality any mature desktop aimed at users shouldn't expect them to be working in a console window. I agree that Windows doesn't do this in an ultra-informative way, but at least it does, and OS X has (so far) been excellent in this respect as far as I have used it.
5 fairly pointless features for 95% of computer users, but OK I'll bite.
-have multiple desktops, as many as you like
This is a hangover from the bad window management days like in twm or the CDE. While it's possible under Windows and Mac it's not enabled by Microsoft or Apple because it's confusing, and a pointer to bad design. Do you think it would be difficult for them to add this feature?
-console switching
Again, this has always been an escape clause on desktops when X screwed up. Of no real benefit when you can start console/command prompt windows. As an aside, you can get a text only login on OS X by logging in as '>console' in the login prompt, and although I haven't seen it I believe windows server 2003 also has a command line only mode. As this is only really useful on a server it doesn't apply to a desktop argument.
-unlimited customizability in appearance
I wouldn't call it unlimited at all, there seems to be two schools of UI, the sensible type with nice integration and shared features that enable much quicker application development (KDE/Gnome); and the 20th Century throwback designs which don't aid programmers at all ([black/flux]box, etc.). Most of them are quite strict Windows-alikes, KDE has a stab at a Maclike top menu approach but only gets there halfway, and there is really nothing else. Hardly unlimited, and certainly not revolutionary.
-run multiple users in multiple X sessions on a single box
I'm not sure of the exact release dates, but Windows XP can 'switch user' which is effectively the same, and OS X 10.3 added a very similar but much quicker version in its recent release. Also, both versions are much more secure than X's multiple desktops feature, which doesn't require a password to switch to a different desktop.
-oh yeah, and console sessions too
Scraping the barrel a bit now perhaps? Not that this isn't possible in Windows XP or OS X anyway?
Now, my turn. Since when has Linux been able to:
- Allow me to plug in and print to any printer available in my local hardware shop. This is very important to a lot of people. Printing is weak on Linux, and yet so strong on OS 9/X and Windows. The distros that generally do this better are also maligned on slashdot for some unfathomable reason. Debian and Gentoo, which seem to be the slashdot favourites, have terrible printing support.
- I'll extend that last point to ANY device, webcams, scanners, media players, video capture devices. Normal things that just plug in and work on 'winduhs or mac'.
- Efficient forward looking window management. KDE is terrible on smaller screens. Gnome isn't much better. As soon as I have 6 to 8 different applications open it becomes very difficult to find the one I want. Windows at least has it's different MDI documents seperated yet grouped, and Exposé is something else. Tabs, the over-used answer to this problem only hinders matters when more than a few are used. There is little or no innovation in this area.
- Application installation. This is a joke. Deb? RPM? But then which RPM, redhat, SuSE, Mandrake? They're all very nice by themselves, but without some default centralised management it just creates more work for everyone. If this was easier/better I'm convinced we'd see much more Linux or dual format software in the shops, especially if my next point was fixed.
- Proprietary standards. Java, flash, streaming audio/video. These should work out of the box. I'm fully aware of the license issues surrounding them, but you don't see Microsoft or Apple making that excuse or anything similar.
- System notification methods. There is one tenable link between the system and the GUI on Linux, some sort of system window. This is pretty poor compared to either of Windows or OS X, which are fully capable of displaying relevant dialog messages. This is a chief flaw in the modular design of Linux. The
I think at some point in the near future Microsoft is going to make the bigger vendors choose and I fear most of them will shy away from Linux. HP look pretty vulnerable to the will of Bill right now.
I notice Intel's marketing dollar is not wasted on you! Can you provide a list of these many, many applications which are bottlenecked by 3+Ghz of CPU power?
Considering the leaps in quality that consoles have gone through in the past, the new ones will have to be something pretty special. As games get less and less original it won't make much sense to play for instance Halo when Halo 3 comes out.
I've heard that Nintendo have said their new one will be backwards compatible, but given that they never do this simply because in Japan they don't actually stop selling the previous model (they only recently stopped making the Famicom!) I can't really see it happening.
Slashdot Mirror
However I think we're running into trouble now, because at many points in the past milestone games have received, with hindsight, what we can now see as slightly overinflated scores which have owed more to their groundbreaking new effects than actual gameplay. Perusing the scores of early PS2 games can easily confirm this, as the typical average score has come down (I particularly hate when games get marked down because they're only marginal improvements over predecessors). I'm sceptical as to whether games are actually going to look that much more impressive in the next generation, and contention in the industry is squeezing the poorer software houses and titles out, which should lead to an overall level of quality increase.
This will (hopefully, IMO) lead to production quality being a virtual given, and allow scores to more accurately represent how good the game is, with 5/10 being average, and worth getting for fans of the genre (like I believe how most Final Fantasy games should score!). For example, if you were a big fan of a certain band, then you'd probably buy their CD even if a selection of music magazines gave them 4/10, as you know you want to hear it anyway; however if Mario 128 came out and received a 4/10 average you'd definitely have to think carefully about getting it.
I can't even be bothered arguing with such a blinkered, ill-informed trollish rant. Go and read some books.
I could go on if I could be bothered to think of any more of the umpteen examples that ungrateful whelps take for granted when it comes to moaning about taxes. Welcome to society, you can opt out and live like a gypsy if you want and I hope you enjoy your rootless life of poverty, but if you want to opt in then I'm afraid you're going to have to pay for the things that you take advantage of every day without even realising.
Am I rite????????
Possibly a bad sector in whatever slice you were compiling in that boggled the kernel somehow? Shouldn't really happen. It's not like there's anything special about compilation that it should be unstable on one distribution and not others.
$799 actually, including OS X, and iLife. I'm just upset because I've got the older one with the lame Radeon 7500 :(
Considering the subset of how new this technology is and how many people who actually have the requisite broadband to get involved, there is a surprisingly high amount of online activity in my experience. To me it seems to be reaching critical mass and Nintendo appear to be missing the boat. Online gaming is not an 'extra feature' like a DVD drive or PVR, it's very much a core feature and even drives genres - MMORPG's for example.
Mario Kart was a wonderful opportunity to take a massive step into multiplayer gaming - all the original afficianado's will now be well into their 20's and would probably jump at the chance with plenty of dollars just to play it head to head again, but as it stands it's not the best game you can stick on when you're sat at home on your own, and I fear they'll just just plump for an Xbox with PGR2, which is a bloody good game offline before you get Live!
Are there more aerospace engineers in the world than computer game players?
I think I remember Joe Blade II on the ZX Spectrum letting you play pacman while the game loaded. In 48kB that was pretty impressive.
I just use OS X and get the best of both worlds with sweet hardware to boot :P
This is a hangover from the bad window management days like in twm or the CDE. While it's possible under Windows and Mac it's not enabled by Microsoft or Apple because it's confusing, and a pointer to bad design. Do you think it would be difficult for them to add this feature?
Again, this has always been an escape clause on desktops when X screwed up. Of no real benefit when you can start console/command prompt windows. As an aside, you can get a text only login on OS X by logging in as '>console' in the login prompt, and although I haven't seen it I believe windows server 2003 also has a command line only mode. As this is only really useful on a server it doesn't apply to a desktop argument.
I wouldn't call it unlimited at all, there seems to be two schools of UI, the sensible type with nice integration and shared features that enable much quicker application development (KDE/Gnome); and the 20th Century throwback designs which don't aid programmers at all ([black/flux]box, etc.). Most of them are quite strict Windows-alikes, KDE has a stab at a Maclike top menu approach but only gets there halfway, and there is really nothing else. Hardly unlimited, and certainly not revolutionary.
I'm not sure of the exact release dates, but Windows XP can 'switch user' which is effectively the same, and OS X 10.3 added a very similar but much quicker version in its recent release. Also, both versions are much more secure than X's multiple desktops feature, which doesn't require a password to switch to a different desktop.
Scraping the barrel a bit now perhaps? Not that this isn't possible in Windows XP or OS X anyway?
Now, my turn. Since when has Linux been able to:
- Allow me to plug in and print to any printer available in my local hardware shop. This is very important to a lot of people. Printing is weak on Linux, and yet so strong on OS 9/X and Windows. The distros that generally do this better are also maligned on slashdot for some unfathomable reason. Debian and Gentoo, which seem to be the slashdot favourites, have terrible printing support.
- I'll extend that last point to ANY device, webcams, scanners, media players, video capture devices. Normal things that just plug in and work on 'winduhs or mac'.
- Efficient forward looking window management. KDE is terrible on smaller screens. Gnome isn't much better. As soon as I have 6 to 8 different applications open it becomes very difficult to find the one I want. Windows at least has it's different MDI documents seperated yet grouped, and Exposé is something else. Tabs, the over-used answer to this problem only hinders matters when more than a few are used. There is little or no innovation in this area.
- Application installation. This is a joke. Deb? RPM? But then which RPM, redhat, SuSE, Mandrake? They're all very nice by themselves, but without some default centralised management it just creates more work for everyone. If this was easier/better I'm convinced we'd see much more Linux or dual format software in the shops, especially if my next point was fixed.
- Proprietary standards. Java, flash, streaming audio/video. These should work out of the box. I'm fully aware of the license issues surrounding them, but you don't see Microsoft or Apple making that excuse or anything similar.
- System notification methods. There is one tenable link between the system and the GUI on Linux, some sort of system window. This is pretty poor compared to either of Windows or OS X, which are fully capable of displaying relevant dialog messages. This is a chief flaw in the modular design of Linux. The
It's a single core POWER4 with less cache but Altivec added. It also flies!
I think at some point in the near future Microsoft is going to make the bigger vendors choose and I fear most of them will shy away from Linux. HP look pretty vulnerable to the will of Bill right now.
Newsflash: Most companies that buy Sun servers don't use them as webservers!
Because you do this 95% of the time you use your computer and cutting it down to 3 minutes from 5 will save you thousands of pounds?
I notice Intel's marketing dollar is not wasted on you! Can you provide a list of these many, many applications which are bottlenecked by 3+Ghz of CPU power?
But until hard drives move on, all this CPU power is pretty pointless.
Agreed, and Nintendo above all others are good at making sequels of complex games anyway, Zelda anyone?
*8D~
Hear, hear. The PC normally has the advantage because of the keyboard/mouse combo in FPS games, but even here on it's home territory it loses out.
I've heard that Nintendo have said their new one will be backwards compatible, but given that they never do this simply because in Japan they don't actually stop selling the previous model (they only recently stopped making the Famicom!) I can't really see it happening.
Just get Launchbar and stop organising your software in ways that the developer can't guess at.
That's the bare minimum for 2-gig biotexturing.
I'm waiting for SCAP. Ten times better.