Um, he probably meant kids who lost their parents or had some sort of physical or mental disability. I doubt you can blame EA for crippling children, though I am sure you would love to. Listen, EA is not forcing people to work for them, they can freely leave, and should if they feel they are treated poorly. Exclusive deals with the NFL absolutely should be illegal...as far as that goes, it's bad. Other than that, they are just another company out there. There are more great games out there than I could even dream of playing. The quality has shot up so much, it's amazing. A lot of people have this romanticism with when they were young and games. They play old games and re-live that youth. But really, gaming today is better in every aspect. You get tried and true genres, and every now and then you get something unique like Pikmin. The guy was just saying that supporting some small business that makes games that you really don't care about is stupid. Buy the games that you like playing...whether it's from EA, Square Enix, or some small business. If you really want a cause, yeah, helping disabled children would be a wonderful way to do that. Man, you talk about what this guy says as "crap", and then you turn around with bull shit on how EA is destroying the middle class and causing kids to become disadvantaged. You may hate EA, but you don't have to make idiotic exagerations to make a point.
Ok, so this isn't on my thread...but it was interesting enough...I had to reply. I looked at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs...and it made me interested and will read deeper in to it lately. I don't necessarily agree the humans are basically good, but we can ignore that part. It is pretty clear that MMORPG actually provide people with their needs. Once you have gained the physiological and safety level...you can let the MMORPG take over. You join guilds/linkshells and whaver to gain love (you feel needed by people you help and your friends are excted to see you and want to talk to you). You gain esteem as your character progresses. People are impressed by your armor and in game achievements. So it is satisfying those needs. You can argue that they lose that when the game goes away...and it would be much more healthy for them to try to climb the ladder in the real world...but these people achieve self actualization...just its in a game. A lot of the people who are drawn in to a game are people who lack social skills...so they probably get stuck at the love part of the ladder. That's why these games suck them in so hard. It's interesting. Maybe it's unhealthy for them to do this, or maybe this is the only way they would ever become self actualized. The game gives them a chance to feel true happiness...and is that so bad?
I still am not sure what you want, though. It sounds like you don't want to ban the games, you just don't want people to play them or make them. Maybe you are making a call that for people to be more responsible with their pass time? I'm not sure...I still would say these games, while addictive, are not as bad as you make them out to be and that people can attain self actualization in their real life while playing them. I don't think it is possible to measure "wasted life". And wasted is only to the eye of the beholder. You may look at someone who dedicated their life to playing this type of game and say "he/she must regret all the things they missed out on". But maybe they wouldn't trade that time for the world...since that is the only place they felt accepted and happy. I still think you are being biased...that you need to take a step back and see this as more grey than black and white. That for some people it can be a good thing. You can not look at someone else and tell them they would be happier doing x instead of y. You don't have right, nor do you know if they really would be happier. I think it is best to respect how other people want to spend their pass time, and help the ones where it truly is harmful to them (like an alcoholic).
As an aside, I really do find your posts interesting. The whole Maslow Ladder...it seems flawed to me though. From what I read, it makes the person who is self actualized be a pacifist. It's the people who are lower on the ladder that do the wicked acts. But I don't agree with that at all...you could say Hitler was self actualized, but he did great acts of evil. I can agree that self actualization makes you reach your full potential...but I don't necessarily belive that it makes you "good".
I love the people on here complaining how this is unpaid advertisement...where are you guys when they have Slashdot does a book review? How is this any different? Because it has to do with gaming it is a shameless plug...but hey, review books all you want..that is TOTALLY different.
That was the most eloquent piece of garbage I have read in a long time. It is a stretch to say watching TV makes us more stressed and tired. Sure, sitting in front of the television for hours straight and ignoring things that need to be done can cause this, but for normal people it is just a break from the constant moving around we are doing.
As far as MMO games go, you are criticizing the set up of the leveling tread mill. You claim that we need sit down and analyze how "healthy" this is. That it gives us a false sense of accomplishment that we may lack in our real lives. It's a great argument, because you can look at it and say...yeah, that is a part of why people enjoy it and get sucked in. But compare it to television. It's interactive, it's social, it is a lot more "healthy" than a lot of activities out there. The whole trick is having balance in your life. You can play these games and still be in fantastic shape, have a great social life, and do well at work/school. Some people can't cope, but is it because of the game...or will they find something else (like reading) to escape from reality. I would say the people who have real problems with MMO games are going to be sucked in to something else just as easily. The people who harm themselves or others would have done it anyways because they are depressed and messed up mentally.
I am not prejudiced or bitter, as it may seem to you (particularly the way I started this post I could understand why you think that). I am angry at you for thinking that you know what's better for other people. Do not mourn for people who do not need it or want it. Do not judge other people's free time when you don't actually delve in to these things and experience them yourself. And if you have (you just use the normal FUD arguments I have seen in past articles), then why don't you try to release your predjudice against this pass time and let people choose for themselves what makes them happy. It does not matter if they achieve happiness from the game or from things in "real" life. You can try to argue that working harder outside of the game would be more lasting and true happiness. But you can't prove that. Some people don't have the social skills/ability to succeed that others have. And if they find happiness anywhere...how can you say this is bad? You can pick out the extreme cases of how it sucks people away, but for the majority of people, they are just fine. This is just like anything else people enjoy to do, it's all about moderation!
I certainly can't write as persusaviely as you do...which is a shame. But use your gift in a way where you defend people's right to do what they want. That sounds very libertarian...but I promise you I am far from one. I am not saying we all shouldn't take a look at people who have problems with these games...opposite, we should try to help them get out. But when other people come out and say these games should be banned because a minority of people get addicted to them, we have every right to attack them. We aren't "defending the healthiness of something just because they are trying to ban it". We are attacking the fact that it is the person who has them problem, not the game that is causing it. It's like you say it is ok for these people to ban it, but when we defend it, suddenly we are bitter and predjudice. That's why I say your post is bull shit. There are people who are nymphomaniacs. Also, with STDs, sex is extremely dangerous. Why don't we ban sex? More people have died from it than MMORPGs. That's how stupid the argument it is to ban these games as well.
Close! It stands for Notorious Monster. These guys drop highly sought after items that can be sold for a lot of gil in the Auction House. Don't think any drop large sums of gil!
While I have never spent money for game items or money, I still get pissed off when I read your "Insightful" post. Buying items online has nothing to do with intelligence. If we went through what you spend your money on, I bet I could easily find stuff that I would disagree with. If someone makes $100 an hour at work, dropping a few hundered dollars so they can buy everything they want is nothing to them. Instead of playing the game non-stop for a month to get what they want, they used their resources to get it in a couple of minutes. Ultimately, they just saved themselves a lot of time. To them, it is all about enjoying the game...and if they don't want to do the tedious stuff, then more power to them. People go to these sites not because they are stupid, but because MMORPG are flawed in that the way you can earn money is slow and uninteresting. I understand there really is no good way to fix this given the type of game, but it's the truth. Just because you are jealous that other people can afford to do this and you can't does not make them stupid. My advice to you is stop being a prick and understand that people find enjoyment and value in different things than you.
lol...there is no way this should be modded anything but funny....do the people who mod even read anymore? He says his own interest in Opterons and clustering prove that the home user is moving in this direction. How does that prove anything about a home user? The rest of what he wrote...I mean, just read it...it is either hilarious or a troll.
Actually, while I hate all the bots and tactics people use to make money through IGE, I actually think IGE is right on this. There is a huge difference between buying squares on boardwalk and buying money or items for MMORPG. First off, you can not beat a MMORPG. So by buying some item, it doesn't help you to "win". Also, in MMORPG, generally a big part of it is grouping with others. If you have better items that make you more effective in battle, you are actually helping the party, not harming it. In a way, this evens things out for a casual gamer. Someone who can spend 30 hours a week in the game is going to be able to make more money and progress a lot faster. A casual gamer may just want to join a party and gain experience, rather than spend 3 hours making the small amount of money so he isn't insulted for his equipment. This allows a casual gamer to buy those items, and just focus what he has fun doing in the game and avoid the money grind. If buying money and items had no other effect than allowing people to get more powerful at a personal cost, I would not see a problem. Only people who are jealous they can't afford to buy stuff too would object. And really, it isn't that big of deal. If your life revolves around having the best equipped player...then you need to take a break from the game.
The sad part is that these companies harm gameplay for others not because of what I mentioned before but becaue of the tactics people use to gain money/items to sell. This is particularly true in FFXI where money sellers will camp the best NM, use bots (creating more money and items causing inflation on everyone), drive up auction house prices, etc. But really, if that stuff didn't happen, I wouldn't mind IGE at all. It's just life...people with more money have access to things poorer people don't. It's amazing how much people complain about that in a game, and just take it as par for the course in the real world.
So why did the Dreamcast fail? Purely because it came out first? If they do it right, they can be like Sony is now. Part of the reason Sony came out on top this round was that it came out first. Sega was in a different position that where Microsoft is. MS can afford failure for a long time, where Sega obviously couldn't.
I think you make some good points...but how much is Nintendo really changing how you interact with games in the console market? Sure, a very limited number of games can integrate with a GBA, but it always reeks more of trying to sell more stuff than of actually enhancing the game. As far as controllers go, I think they have gone too far. I own three consoles, and by far I enjoy the feel of the xbox controller the best. In fact, I prefer the PS2s controller over Nintendo as well. Revolutionary != better. It's good that they try though.
I totally agree with your assessment of Sony.
Ok, so the Xbox is larger. That's not surprising since it is a full fledged computer. For a computer, it is small. The gamecube and PS2 don't have an internal hard drive, so yeah, not surprising that they are smaller. To say the way their console looks demonstrates proof that they were just trying to make profit off the market is pretty ridiculous. What is great about the Xbox is that by far it is the most powerful of the three graphically. If a game is release on all three consoles, I will go for the xbox one just based on superior graphics (unless it was designed for another system and ported poorly). It's nice that it has an internal hard drive and that content can be added and patched to games. They are more focused on bring console gaming online than the other 2 comanies. And of course they will have a killer app...just release another Halo and they will come.
And saying that Microsoft's mission statements and values are the same...please. Like the other 2 companies wouldn't love to get more profit and put the others out of business. You think Nintendo came up with the DS because they love gamers? All three companies are focusing on trying to get the most profit. This is business, pure and simple.
You aren't really breaking anything to me. I don't include the Dreamcast because it was such a flop, which is bizarre because people who had them really liked them. You are right, timing isn't everything. But the reason they had such a massive PS2 title base (just ignore PS titles) is that they had the edge on timing. The other consoles came out after, and by that time, most people already had a PS2. Those who didn't could compare and see a vast number of games on the PS2 side, so that made the choice for them (ignoring the quality of games). So timing is important in this competition. Obviously, everyone says the same things you listed on why the PS2 won over the others. But it already had a solid base over the other before comparing was even an option. But I can always count on Slashdotter to be nit-picky about the little details:P
The most famous example of this came from then Nintendo of Europe MD David Gosen speaking at an ELSPA summit in London last October, where he lambasted Microsoft for pushing a next generation machine to market in 2005, and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit.
I didn't know Microsoft was a not-for-profit organization now. Does all XBOX profit go to tsunami vicitims? Seriously, this seems like a good idea. PS2 came out before the other next gen consoles, and that is how they came out ahead. Microsoft is trying to emulate that. If they can get the titles on it, then they may beat out the other two this time around. But accusing them of doing it for profit is probably one of the stupidest things I have read in awhile. Of course they are doing it for profit...is Gosen and Nintendo doing this from the kindness of their heart? Overall, it is a horrible article with very unprofessional writing. You have to question anyone who uses the phrase "anyone and their dog" when they are writing an article.
On the flip side of all this...bring it on Microsoft. While I won't but an Xbox2 right away (I like waiting for a later rev to get the kinks out and the price to drop) more competition is a good thing. If this causes Sony and Nintendo to innovate more or drop their prices, then we all benefit. I don't understand a lot of people on here who want one company to win (a lot of pro-Nintendo fan boys are on here for some reason). I hope all companies do well so that we have a choice. This always benefits the consumer. Moves like EA getting the exclusive NFL license and aquiring game companies left and right is not encouraging on the software side of things. (Though my friend has made lots of money off his EA stock)
I agree...except Half Life 2..they did that one right. I don't have as much faith with the people doing SC:Ghost though. Who knows, maybe they can prove me wrong.
ack...apparantly it is a bad idea to put things in the pointy brackets when you are doing HTML formatted...I should know better:P it's suppose to be "maxed out your level in [insert MMOG]"
I would say these games are harmless to the average person. There are certainly addicting qualities to the game...so people who have addictive type personalities should probably steer clear of them. I think it can be bad for people who are introverted though...not that it is bad to be introverted (I can even be this way sometimes), just that these games have a community and once you start making friends and such, it's hard to leave. No one judges you for appearance, no one judges you for the way you dress, it's just your personality out there (or whoever you want to be really). And when you get on, and say hi, and all your friends yell out your name because they are happy to see you...it makes you want to come back. Particularly if you are shy and have trouble making friends. But ultimately, these people while making you happy in the short term, most likely won't be there 5 years down the road. It's better to try to get out more and develop bonds outside a game. That is what I think is most dangerous about the game. It really rewards you in the short term...but the long term benefit is low. Very few people are going to care that you maxed out your level in .
The exact same thing can be said about movies. It depends on the movie goer...what genre they like, whether they want to be mentally challenged, etc. And just like game reviews, most people think movie critic's reviews are crap as well. The best thing to do is find a reviewer you like (i.e. someone who has similar tastes as you) and read their reviews (for games and movies). There would be no difference if Penny Arcade put stars or not...it's the fact that they know games, and are able to express their strengths and weaknesses in ways their reader's understand. It's not as if Tycho through up a few stars his reviews would suddenly turn to crap.
The same thing can said for everything in life. The best programmers may not be the best at teaching programming. The best soccer players may be awful soccer coaches. The best prostitutes may not be the best at...ok...well, not EVERYTHING...but yeah, this article is kind of a no-brainer.
Well, if they don't have to pay for it, yeah, try everything! And you are correct, I am having to use an older distro. That's how this business works is that you take the latest and greatest at the time and then make it stable and standard. So I am using something that is just pre-9. But my experience with it scares me off from future use. Like, YAST2 is a real easy way to configure stuff for people unfamiliar with Linux. But it is extremely irritating when you make changes the normal way and they don't take. Everyone I work with who has played around with SuSE has been very displeased. I would hope that later releases improve (they usually do or the product dies), but the lack of quality and stability in the past really discourages me.
Unfortunately, you are missing a key part. The people and groups who are earning a living off of these games are ruining the games for others. They are camping the best items or are agressively taking spots that will earn them money. You are right that if some guy sells some of his stuff it's no big deal. It's the people who do it for a living that skew the economy and make it difficult for others who just want to play the game. So, to answer your rhetoric question of "who cares?" lots of people do. While identifying that this is a problem is easy, finding a solution for it is very complex.
Actually, XP is very stable and is just as secure as anything connected to the network if you understand basic security (i.e. virus protection, firewalls, not downloading stupid stuff). If you are playing games, XP is the way to go. Linux is great because it gives you access to stuff you can never go near in Windows, so I will grant you configurability. But they are different tools for different jobs. The guy wants to live in some magic world where you can join the two together. Someday maybe...right now, the guy who suggested the KVM got it right.
Personally, I would avoid SuSE at all costs. While I don't use it for home use, I have a lot of experience with it at work. I don't use this by choice, just an external company decided to go with it, so we do all our related testing on it as well. I have had so many problems with SuSE, I don't know where to begin. The first one that was really bizarre, is that if you have multiple NICs in it, it will sometimes decide to flip which interface is associated which eth (as in, eth0 and eth1 are now flipped). If these use different drivers, or are on different networks, you have to reassign them. On the current version I am using, man pages seg fault, and it refuses to run a 2.6 kernel. The list goes on and on, it is just an inferior product. I never have any of these weird problems with Red Hat/Fedora...so yeah, I am sure your experience may vary, but I will never touch SuSE again unless I have to.
"Way to let "The Man" know how much of our soles he ownes!"
I didn't know "The Man" was after the bottom of our feet...I will be sure to keep my socks on at night.
Seriously though, what gives you the right to tell people how to spend their money. Gone to or rented a movie lately? Why don't you donate that money to cancer research? Going out to dinner? You should eat in and send the savings to cancer research. Posting on Slashdot? Why waste time when you could be earning more money for cancer research. Do you see what I am saying? Just because you think that how these people spend their money is stupid, you ought to look at your own life and look at all the crap you buy that you could donate to charity.
While I defend people's right to waste money as they choose, I do think this is pretty crazy. I watched the show a few times and it was just plain bad. The Captain is just a female version of Kirk. I say that because she just isn't a very good actress. The one think Kirk did have was charisma. A bad actress with no charisma as the main character? eh, I'll pass. I love sci fi as much as the next dork, but I would be surprised if this show would garner that much support.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, he probably meant kids who lost their parents or had some sort of physical or mental disability. I doubt you can blame EA for crippling children, though I am sure you would love to. Listen, EA is not forcing people to work for them, they can freely leave, and should if they feel they are treated poorly. Exclusive deals with the NFL absolutely should be illegal...as far as that goes, it's bad. Other than that, they are just another company out there. There are more great games out there than I could even dream of playing. The quality has shot up so much, it's amazing. A lot of people have this romanticism with when they were young and games. They play old games and re-live that youth. But really, gaming today is better in every aspect. You get tried and true genres, and every now and then you get something unique like Pikmin. The guy was just saying that supporting some small business that makes games that you really don't care about is stupid. Buy the games that you like playing...whether it's from EA, Square Enix, or some small business. If you really want a cause, yeah, helping disabled children would be a wonderful way to do that. Man, you talk about what this guy says as "crap", and then you turn around with bull shit on how EA is destroying the middle class and causing kids to become disadvantaged. You may hate EA, but you don't have to make idiotic exagerations to make a point.
Ok, so this isn't on my thread...but it was interesting enough...I had to reply. I looked at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs...and it made me interested and will read deeper in to it lately. I don't necessarily agree the humans are basically good, but we can ignore that part. It is pretty clear that MMORPG actually provide people with their needs. Once you have gained the physiological and safety level...you can let the MMORPG take over. You join guilds/linkshells and whaver to gain love (you feel needed by people you help and your friends are excted to see you and want to talk to you). You gain esteem as your character progresses. People are impressed by your armor and in game achievements. So it is satisfying those needs. You can argue that they lose that when the game goes away...and it would be much more healthy for them to try to climb the ladder in the real world...but these people achieve self actualization...just its in a game. A lot of the people who are drawn in to a game are people who lack social skills...so they probably get stuck at the love part of the ladder. That's why these games suck them in so hard. It's interesting. Maybe it's unhealthy for them to do this, or maybe this is the only way they would ever become self actualized. The game gives them a chance to feel true happiness...and is that so bad?
I still am not sure what you want, though. It sounds like you don't want to ban the games, you just don't want people to play them or make them. Maybe you are making a call that for people to be more responsible with their pass time? I'm not sure...I still would say these games, while addictive, are not as bad as you make them out to be and that people can attain self actualization in their real life while playing them. I don't think it is possible to measure "wasted life". And wasted is only to the eye of the beholder. You may look at someone who dedicated their life to playing this type of game and say "he/she must regret all the things they missed out on". But maybe they wouldn't trade that time for the world...since that is the only place they felt accepted and happy. I still think you are being biased...that you need to take a step back and see this as more grey than black and white. That for some people it can be a good thing. You can not look at someone else and tell them they would be happier doing x instead of y. You don't have right, nor do you know if they really would be happier. I think it is best to respect how other people want to spend their pass time, and help the ones where it truly is harmful to them (like an alcoholic).
As an aside, I really do find your posts interesting. The whole Maslow Ladder...it seems flawed to me though. From what I read, it makes the person who is self actualized be a pacifist. It's the people who are lower on the ladder that do the wicked acts. But I don't agree with that at all...you could say Hitler was self actualized, but he did great acts of evil. I can agree that self actualization makes you reach your full potential...but I don't necessarily belive that it makes you "good".
I love the people on here complaining how this is unpaid advertisement...where are you guys when they have Slashdot does a book review? How is this any different? Because it has to do with gaming it is a shameless plug...but hey, review books all you want..that is TOTALLY different.
That was the most eloquent piece of garbage I have read in a long time. It is a stretch to say watching TV makes us more stressed and tired. Sure, sitting in front of the television for hours straight and ignoring things that need to be done can cause this, but for normal people it is just a break from the constant moving around we are doing.
As far as MMO games go, you are criticizing the set up of the leveling tread mill. You claim that we need sit down and analyze how "healthy" this is. That it gives us a false sense of accomplishment that we may lack in our real lives. It's a great argument, because you can look at it and say...yeah, that is a part of why people enjoy it and get sucked in. But compare it to television. It's interactive, it's social, it is a lot more "healthy" than a lot of activities out there. The whole trick is having balance in your life. You can play these games and still be in fantastic shape, have a great social life, and do well at work/school. Some people can't cope, but is it because of the game...or will they find something else (like reading) to escape from reality. I would say the people who have real problems with MMO games are going to be sucked in to something else just as easily. The people who harm themselves or others would have done it anyways because they are depressed and messed up mentally.
I am not prejudiced or bitter, as it may seem to you (particularly the way I started this post I could understand why you think that). I am angry at you for thinking that you know what's better for other people. Do not mourn for people who do not need it or want it. Do not judge other people's free time when you don't actually delve in to these things and experience them yourself. And if you have (you just use the normal FUD arguments I have seen in past articles), then why don't you try to release your predjudice against this pass time and let people choose for themselves what makes them happy. It does not matter if they achieve happiness from the game or from things in "real" life. You can try to argue that working harder outside of the game would be more lasting and true happiness. But you can't prove that. Some people don't have the social skills/ability to succeed that others have. And if they find happiness anywhere...how can you say this is bad? You can pick out the extreme cases of how it sucks people away, but for the majority of people, they are just fine. This is just like anything else people enjoy to do, it's all about moderation!
I certainly can't write as persusaviely as you do...which is a shame. But use your gift in a way where you defend people's right to do what they want. That sounds very libertarian...but I promise you I am far from one. I am not saying we all shouldn't take a look at people who have problems with these games...opposite, we should try to help them get out. But when other people come out and say these games should be banned because a minority of people get addicted to them, we have every right to attack them. We aren't "defending the healthiness of something just because they are trying to ban it". We are attacking the fact that it is the person who has them problem, not the game that is causing it. It's like you say it is ok for these people to ban it, but when we defend it, suddenly we are bitter and predjudice. That's why I say your post is bull shit. There are people who are nymphomaniacs. Also, with STDs, sex is extremely dangerous. Why don't we ban sex? More people have died from it than MMORPGs. That's how stupid the argument it is to ban these games as well.
Oh yeah....you start off with a mildly amusing statement..but then you insult people with a psychology degree and make it the best post of the year.
Finally, I have found him...though the search was long and difficult.
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/dist3/users/gsellers/
Close! It stands for Notorious Monster. These guys drop highly sought after items that can be sold for a lot of gil in the Auction House. Don't think any drop large sums of gil!
While I have never spent money for game items or money, I still get pissed off when I read your "Insightful" post. Buying items online has nothing to do with intelligence. If we went through what you spend your money on, I bet I could easily find stuff that I would disagree with. If someone makes $100 an hour at work, dropping a few hundered dollars so they can buy everything they want is nothing to them. Instead of playing the game non-stop for a month to get what they want, they used their resources to get it in a couple of minutes. Ultimately, they just saved themselves a lot of time. To them, it is all about enjoying the game...and if they don't want to do the tedious stuff, then more power to them. People go to these sites not because they are stupid, but because MMORPG are flawed in that the way you can earn money is slow and uninteresting. I understand there really is no good way to fix this given the type of game, but it's the truth. Just because you are jealous that other people can afford to do this and you can't does not make them stupid. My advice to you is stop being a prick and understand that people find enjoyment and value in different things than you.
lol...there is no way this should be modded anything but funny....do the people who mod even read anymore? He says his own interest in Opterons and clustering prove that the home user is moving in this direction. How does that prove anything about a home user? The rest of what he wrote...I mean, just read it...it is either hilarious or a troll.
Actually, while I hate all the bots and tactics people use to make money through IGE, I actually think IGE is right on this. There is a huge difference between buying squares on boardwalk and buying money or items for MMORPG. First off, you can not beat a MMORPG. So by buying some item, it doesn't help you to "win". Also, in MMORPG, generally a big part of it is grouping with others. If you have better items that make you more effective in battle, you are actually helping the party, not harming it. In a way, this evens things out for a casual gamer. Someone who can spend 30 hours a week in the game is going to be able to make more money and progress a lot faster. A casual gamer may just want to join a party and gain experience, rather than spend 3 hours making the small amount of money so he isn't insulted for his equipment. This allows a casual gamer to buy those items, and just focus what he has fun doing in the game and avoid the money grind. If buying money and items had no other effect than allowing people to get more powerful at a personal cost, I would not see a problem. Only people who are jealous they can't afford to buy stuff too would object. And really, it isn't that big of deal. If your life revolves around having the best equipped player...then you need to take a break from the game.
The sad part is that these companies harm gameplay for others not because of what I mentioned before but becaue of the tactics people use to gain money/items to sell. This is particularly true in FFXI where money sellers will camp the best NM, use bots (creating more money and items causing inflation on everyone), drive up auction house prices, etc. But really, if that stuff didn't happen, I wouldn't mind IGE at all. It's just life...people with more money have access to things poorer people don't. It's amazing how much people complain about that in a game, and just take it as par for the course in the real world.
I disagree. I followed Square off of Nintendo and on to the Playstation. So to me, it's all about the game company/games. Who cares about the brand?
So why did the Dreamcast fail? Purely because it came out first? If they do it right, they can be like Sony is now. Part of the reason Sony came out on top this round was that it came out first. Sega was in a different position that where Microsoft is. MS can afford failure for a long time, where Sega obviously couldn't.
I think you make some good points...but how much is Nintendo really changing how you interact with games in the console market? Sure, a very limited number of games can integrate with a GBA, but it always reeks more of trying to sell more stuff than of actually enhancing the game. As far as controllers go, I think they have gone too far. I own three consoles, and by far I enjoy the feel of the xbox controller the best. In fact, I prefer the PS2s controller over Nintendo as well. Revolutionary != better. It's good that they try though.
I totally agree with your assessment of Sony.
Ok, so the Xbox is larger. That's not surprising since it is a full fledged computer. For a computer, it is small. The gamecube and PS2 don't have an internal hard drive, so yeah, not surprising that they are smaller. To say the way their console looks demonstrates proof that they were just trying to make profit off the market is pretty ridiculous. What is great about the Xbox is that by far it is the most powerful of the three graphically. If a game is release on all three consoles, I will go for the xbox one just based on superior graphics (unless it was designed for another system and ported poorly). It's nice that it has an internal hard drive and that content can be added and patched to games. They are more focused on bring console gaming online than the other 2 comanies. And of course they will have a killer app...just release another Halo and they will come.
And saying that Microsoft's mission statements and values are the same...please. Like the other 2 companies wouldn't love to get more profit and put the others out of business. You think Nintendo came up with the DS because they love gamers? All three companies are focusing on trying to get the most profit. This is business, pure and simple.
You aren't really breaking anything to me. I don't include the Dreamcast because it was such a flop, which is bizarre because people who had them really liked them. You are right, timing isn't everything. But the reason they had such a massive PS2 title base (just ignore PS titles) is that they had the edge on timing. The other consoles came out after, and by that time, most people already had a PS2. Those who didn't could compare and see a vast number of games on the PS2 side, so that made the choice for them (ignoring the quality of games). So timing is important in this competition. Obviously, everyone says the same things you listed on why the PS2 won over the others. But it already had a solid base over the other before comparing was even an option. But I can always count on Slashdotter to be nit-picky about the little details:P
The most famous example of this came from then Nintendo of Europe MD David Gosen speaking at an ELSPA summit in London last October, where he lambasted Microsoft for pushing a next generation machine to market in 2005, and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit.
I didn't know Microsoft was a not-for-profit organization now. Does all XBOX profit go to tsunami vicitims? Seriously, this seems like a good idea. PS2 came out before the other next gen consoles, and that is how they came out ahead. Microsoft is trying to emulate that. If they can get the titles on it, then they may beat out the other two this time around. But accusing them of doing it for profit is probably one of the stupidest things I have read in awhile. Of course they are doing it for profit...is Gosen and Nintendo doing this from the kindness of their heart? Overall, it is a horrible article with very unprofessional writing. You have to question anyone who uses the phrase "anyone and their dog" when they are writing an article.
On the flip side of all this...bring it on Microsoft. While I won't but an Xbox2 right away (I like waiting for a later rev to get the kinks out and the price to drop) more competition is a good thing. If this causes Sony and Nintendo to innovate more or drop their prices, then we all benefit. I don't understand a lot of people on here who want one company to win (a lot of pro-Nintendo fan boys are on here for some reason). I hope all companies do well so that we have a choice. This always benefits the consumer. Moves like EA getting the exclusive NFL license and aquiring game companies left and right is not encouraging on the software side of things. (Though my friend has made lots of money off his EA stock)
I agree...except Half Life 2..they did that one right. I don't have as much faith with the people doing SC:Ghost though. Who knows, maybe they can prove me wrong.
ack...apparantly it is a bad idea to put things in the pointy brackets when you are doing HTML formatted...I should know better:P it's suppose to be "maxed out your level in [insert MMOG]"
I would say these games are harmless to the average person. There are certainly addicting qualities to the game...so people who have addictive type personalities should probably steer clear of them. I think it can be bad for people who are introverted though...not that it is bad to be introverted (I can even be this way sometimes), just that these games have a community and once you start making friends and such, it's hard to leave. No one judges you for appearance, no one judges you for the way you dress, it's just your personality out there (or whoever you want to be really). And when you get on, and say hi, and all your friends yell out your name because they are happy to see you...it makes you want to come back. Particularly if you are shy and have trouble making friends. But ultimately, these people while making you happy in the short term, most likely won't be there 5 years down the road. It's better to try to get out more and develop bonds outside a game. That is what I think is most dangerous about the game. It really rewards you in the short term...but the long term benefit is low. Very few people are going to care that you maxed out your level in .
The exact same thing can be said about movies. It depends on the movie goer...what genre they like, whether they want to be mentally challenged, etc. And just like game reviews, most people think movie critic's reviews are crap as well. The best thing to do is find a reviewer you like (i.e. someone who has similar tastes as you) and read their reviews (for games and movies). There would be no difference if Penny Arcade put stars or not...it's the fact that they know games, and are able to express their strengths and weaknesses in ways their reader's understand. It's not as if Tycho through up a few stars his reviews would suddenly turn to crap.
The same thing can said for everything in life. The best programmers may not be the best at teaching programming. The best soccer players may be awful soccer coaches. The best prostitutes may not be the best at...ok...well, not EVERYTHING...but yeah, this article is kind of a no-brainer.
Well, if they don't have to pay for it, yeah, try everything! And you are correct, I am having to use an older distro. That's how this business works is that you take the latest and greatest at the time and then make it stable and standard. So I am using something that is just pre-9. But my experience with it scares me off from future use. Like, YAST2 is a real easy way to configure stuff for people unfamiliar with Linux. But it is extremely irritating when you make changes the normal way and they don't take. Everyone I work with who has played around with SuSE has been very displeased. I would hope that later releases improve (they usually do or the product dies), but the lack of quality and stability in the past really discourages me.
Unfortunately, you are missing a key part. The people and groups who are earning a living off of these games are ruining the games for others. They are camping the best items or are agressively taking spots that will earn them money. You are right that if some guy sells some of his stuff it's no big deal. It's the people who do it for a living that skew the economy and make it difficult for others who just want to play the game. So, to answer your rhetoric question of "who cares?" lots of people do. While identifying that this is a problem is easy, finding a solution for it is very complex.
Actually, XP is very stable and is just as secure as anything connected to the network if you understand basic security (i.e. virus protection, firewalls, not downloading stupid stuff). If you are playing games, XP is the way to go. Linux is great because it gives you access to stuff you can never go near in Windows, so I will grant you configurability. But they are different tools for different jobs. The guy wants to live in some magic world where you can join the two together. Someday maybe...right now, the guy who suggested the KVM got it right.
Personally, I would avoid SuSE at all costs. While I don't use it for home use, I have a lot of experience with it at work. I don't use this by choice, just an external company decided to go with it, so we do all our related testing on it as well. I have had so many problems with SuSE, I don't know where to begin. The first one that was really bizarre, is that if you have multiple NICs in it, it will sometimes decide to flip which interface is associated which eth (as in, eth0 and eth1 are now flipped). If these use different drivers, or are on different networks, you have to reassign them. On the current version I am using, man pages seg fault, and it refuses to run a 2.6 kernel. The list goes on and on, it is just an inferior product. I never have any of these weird problems with Red Hat/Fedora...so yeah, I am sure your experience may vary, but I will never touch SuSE again unless I have to.
"Way to let "The Man" know how much of our soles he ownes!"
I didn't know "The Man" was after the bottom of our feet...I will be sure to keep my socks on at night.
Seriously though, what gives you the right to tell people how to spend their money. Gone to or rented a movie lately? Why don't you donate that money to cancer research? Going out to dinner? You should eat in and send the savings to cancer research. Posting on Slashdot? Why waste time when you could be earning more money for cancer research. Do you see what I am saying? Just because you think that how these people spend their money is stupid, you ought to look at your own life and look at all the crap you buy that you could donate to charity.
While I defend people's right to waste money as they choose, I do think this is pretty crazy. I watched the show a few times and it was just plain bad. The Captain is just a female version of Kirk. I say that because she just isn't a very good actress. The one think Kirk did have was charisma. A bad actress with no charisma as the main character? eh, I'll pass. I love sci fi as much as the next dork, but I would be surprised if this show would garner that much support.