Try Final Fantasy XI. It's the first MMORPG to actually tell a story where your character is important (well, first one I have played in any case). But more importantly, it is actually fun too (another first in the MMORPG category for me).
haha, yeah, she noticed charisma had an effect on selling/buying. I would have to convince her to upgrade other stats than that one so she didn't have a weak dwarf with buying power. I convinced her strength was a good option because that would allow her to carry more loot. We have been waiting for the second title to come out. If you look at the characters, there is a foul mouthed, treasure hunting, dwarf rougue that I bet she will really enjoy. So, based on our women, I guess the ideal game for females is one that is social (online or console cooperative), allows character appearance alteration through changing of clothes/armor, and has some sort of way of gaining funds (treasure) to purchase new and better outfits (and if they can find a bargain, all the better!).
I actually got Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for my girl friend and I from reading that thread. It worked out great and we have played through it on multiple levels of difficulty. She enjoyed playing the dwarf more (since she is a little less skilled and could take more hits and also carry more loot) and I took the Sorceress (yeah, I know, but she has good spells). I really find it interesting how females really seem to get in to the "finding treasure" and the dressing aspect of these games. She really got a kick on just picking up everything she could and trying to get over a million gold (she eventually did). I think BG:DA has just the right amount of stuff you have to learn to for a new gamer. I would dubt she would enjoy BG on the PC just because there is an overwhelming amount to learn and keep track of for the inexperienced gamer.
Games with bad graphics, when they had to make the gameplay good, because thats all they had, are still played today.
I have to disagree with this. There is some stupid misconception that games back in the day were better because there was less emphasis on graphics. But guess what, the "bad graphics" you are talking about were cutting edge based on the system and the sophistication of the industry. Bad graphics != good games. Good games == Good games. Graphics and gameplay have nothing to do with each other, so get that out of your head. I bet you in 10 years when all of these games we have now have "bad graphics" people will still be playing them too.
I also think there is some sort of nostalgia effect for older titles. When Final Fantasy first came out and I played it, it was absolutely incredible to me as a kid. I can play that game over today and sitll enjoy it. I would never force a kid to play that game though, because even if he could see past the graphics, the game really pales in comparison to games that are out today. So just try to hold back a little and think when you say today's games aren't as focused on gameplay and games back in the day were more fun...are you looking through your childhood eyes that got more excited about everything (e.g. Christmas, new toys, new games) or are you being objective? Personally, I think there are many modern games out there that if I played as a kid would blow away my old Nintendo favorites.
Try FF Tactic on the PS. You can get chocobos in your party and either fight with them individually or ride them in battle. I would hardly say the item you get from breeding and racing chocobos was worthless...I think you should go back and try again:P
Am I the only person that feels that a sequel to a sequel, bearing the name "Final" is a tad ridiculous?
Man, I wish people would stop saying this. Were you really pissed off when you went and saw the Neverending Story and then it ended? I just want to try to help you out here...because if you go around thinking that titles of games and movies are a good way to judge their content, you are going to be severely disappointed for the rest of your life.
I unfortunately did read your post and am tired of people like you constantly whining about every single thing that is posted. There doesn't have to be a well written article or some witty summary for it be something worthy of talking about. You are the self-righteous one criticizing this even though you admit it is news. Not everyone has your "superior" literary and eiditing skills so just give it a rest. You got me on one point though, I certainly didn't know what you submit. But doing a search through slashdot shows that if you do submit anything, the editors thought it too piss poor to put on the page. So I guess our friend Dude has one up on you there. If you actually wanted to make a point, maybe you should have posted that on a Blizzard post that was non-newsworthy. If you have a problem with style, well then, maybe you should go somehwere that doesn't have user submitted material and has journalists that write up to your level.
Well, if you think about it, it doesn't make much sense for a bunch of apples to cause hell to freeze over. Maybe hell would apple sauce over, or apple cider over...but freeze? Come on. Now Blizzard on the other hand...that could really put a dent in hell. That being said, they both are probably over stating the case, and hell is probably just partly cloudy with a slight chance of percipitation.
And once again to you, moron, if you find things more worthy of being submitted, then why aren't you submitting them? I hope simoniker doesn't listen to people like you, because if he did this page would disappear. And I really enjoy it. But to make this on topic, Blizzard is one of the biggest names when it comes to making games. Hundreds of thousands of people have played Diablo 2 and I am sure at least tens of thousands of people are still playing it today. This is not a minor patch release, this is altering it in a significant way. For many people, this will make the game enjoyable to play through again at no added cost from their original purchase. This is news. If you have a problem with games.slashdot.org, don't come here. Obviously you aren't submitting anything so you are useless to this whole process.
I totally disagree. Your complaint is valid and I don't think anyone would mind a drop in price, but I don't really think that is the real problem with MMORPG. If you want to fix your problem, then people need to form sort of boycott not buying until they do this. While people are willing to shell out the cash, there is no need to change (even if you think they would profit in the end). I think they would lose money for exactly the reasons discussed in the article. Most players are going to quit because they get bored. Therefore if the company loses that $50 chunk up front, they will be losing money when everyone quits after their free trial period is up or after the first month of playing.
These games need to be fun in both the earlier stages when everything is new and fast and the latter stages (right now when you are high level everything is slow and tedious). If the game is fun to play for a longer period of time, more people will stay, giving more profit to the company. But how do you do this? The article brings up good points. I also think if MMORPG stole some ideas from single player games. Stick in some major quests, when you beat it throw in a CGI sequence that continues the plot for your character. Keep adding these for higher levels and maybe have some quests that are so tough, only the highest level players could dream of completing them and make it actually have an effect on the overall game world. For example, have a giant dragon ravage the country side. Everyone will have to run from it except the highest levels. Eventually, when someone beats it, it is gone. Maybe make it explode treause all over the whole viftual world. Or have some quest that would be incredibly difficult to solo. And the first character able to do it gets to build their own castle adding more npcs and quests for all. I think these features are something that would keep me in a game, because like the author, I quit these things after a month too.
or C) most of the people who buy gaming consoles have already bought a PS2.
I don't care who "wins", some would probably say the winner has already been decided (as far as sales and profit goes). But to think that Nintendo and Microsoft are a big factor in this and then accuse people of not knowing anything about economics...well, I will refrain from making any insulting comments.
Because its not. The drop in the Gamecube's price was too recent to have any real effect on Sony's profit. I am sure it is just because everyone who was in the market for a console already has a PS2. Most people now are getting a second console (since they already have a PS2). So now is the time for Nintendo to shine by outselling Xbox due to the price drop. There are always exceptions to this (someone just has an Xbox, etc.) but Sony's gaming hardware profit will continue to slide until it comes out with its next version of the PS2, the PS3, or the PSP. I'd like to see Nintendo do well too, but let's not give it more credit than it's due.
I don't know...someone else posting on here said this was an old exploit and the systems weren't patched. If that's the case, then they got what they deserved. I am not an MS fanboy, but I don't think having Outlook is that big of deal. Our government (for the most part) uses Outlook. Most businesses use Outlook. I think they should have had a developer only internal network. Any OS is going to be vulnerable if it isn't patched though, that's just nuts.
Look, if management gave up control most techs would have their networks and systems completely secure.
I don't know where you work, but my CEO sure as heck doesn't touch the network. Admittedly, they should have had a better firewall or intrusion detection system up to watch for external connections, but from the sounds of it, this was an Outlook exploit that no one even knew about. I find it interesting that it was used to get a game. I would think an exploit like that would be used by hackers to get in to top secret government data. Or maybe it has been and we don't even know about it...scary. But in all reality, if your boxes are patched early and often, it shouldn't be a problem. It is hard for any network admin to defend against a security hole no one knows about.
Um. Even if they aren't, they can't continue working on it until security problems have been addressed. This disrupts a lot of work. Computers have to be cleaned, maybe even formatted to make sure that all back doors are shut, the network needs to be set up differently, or not at all. A lot of things are going to change, and that causes delays. It really is a big deal as I am sure any network security administrator would tell you. My main point, though, was that everyone needs to relax. People act on here like there is some sort of conspiracy here so that VALVe has to wait 4 more months to get profit. If people don't buy the game because of this, good, they probably are the ones who would whine that I was cheating when I beat them down online;)
How many whiny posts do there need to be on: "Why did they have to delay it? This is BS". Well, here is a reason. If your company just got hacked in to and important information was stolen and leaked, instead of working on the product, you have to find what the vulnerability was, how to do damage control, how to re-structure how you do business so it doesn't happen again (i.e. redesign the network and create new security policies), and then have to get back to work on finishing the product while trying to make sure that anything cheaters would have gained from the source is fixed. I would say that is pretty large amount to do in a few months. Don't you think they would love to get it out so they can make money? Just use some freaking common sense here. If you are surprised by these delays, then you didn't think very hard. If you are upset by the delays, join the crowd, hunt the hackers, whatever. Just relax, it's a game, go buy a different one. It's not the end of the world.
It's a game, who cares? This is not some business critical application that has to ship out on x date or the company they work with will get pissed or lose money. They missed their ship date...so what? They release it later and make money then instead of now. The only people who care are generally young people. They can't wait to spend their 50 bucks on the next great game. I know, I used to be one of them. It is so much easier now just to see there are a million other games out there to beat, and when hl2 is released, great....but until then I have about 20 games in my collection I still need to beat or want to play again. So just relax. It will be out when its out. As long as it isn't DNF, stop freaking out.
Ahh, you may be right. It is sort of implied. Here is another link to a nytimes article on the topic: click
It states the following:
Harrison also said the fact that gamers could buy a GameCube and three games for the same price as a PS2 with no games made it a more compelling value for the holidays.
It goes on to commment that the industry was hoping other hardware makers (xbox, ps2) would slash prices, but instead they are offering special bundles. In any case, the answer is no, they do not come bundled with anything.
I don't know what the heck you did, but I didn't have a problem at all. Downloaded steam, it convertied my CS to 1.6, found a server using steam, double clicked on it, and was playing right away. Some items are popular to download on the web, that's not valve's fault. Just run the download over night like every normal person out there. I don't doubt you had/have lots of problems with it...but I think the majority of people don't have any problems at all. The people who do have problem are the minority, they are just very vocal about it.
You imply with your post that the security of a system is inversely proportional to the scale of the deployment of that system. I'd love to see some evidence of that.
I would like to see evidence of that too. Well, other evidence than already exists (e.g. Windows has more attacks and is more deployed...that's evidence, right?). In any case, I am not sure why this seems like some huge shock. It's not really that security is worse on OSs that are less common...it's that if you have a million boxes running one OS, and 2,500 running a different OS, if you are a hacker, which target are you going to gun for? There was an article posted a week ago (sorry I don't have the link) that said that linux web servers were more hacked than windows web servers (more evidence of the more prolific, more attacked). Though it was a bit of a questionable article, it wouldn't surprise me if it was the case. One thing Linux has going for it is its strong seperation of user and administrative priveledges. That doesn't exist on *most* windows boxes out there hence they ARE inherently less secure (there are other factors of course). Why doesn't windows do this? It caters to the ease-of-use first. su isn't a complicated concept to us, but it isn't so accepted to joe the user who would get pissed if for some reason he couldn't install his new p2p program. I can almost guarantee you, if Linux (one flavor of it anyways) gained market dominance, and they all ran the same apps (like windows office, etc) you would see a larger number of attacks that did more damage. It would have a lot to do with unpatched systems, and let's face it, when it comes to patch security holes, Windows has a better method of notifying and distributing the patches. I hope Linux will have something similar soon. In any case, an OS is an OS, use your favorite one for moral, technical, gaming, whatever reason, just don't be so defensive about Linux that you blindly accept that security is already perfect. Linux users should not be surprised to see more attacks that are more significant scale as it gains marketshare and has more comonly used apps.
I think you suffer from "things aren't as good as they used to be" syndrome. Play Final Fantasy and compare it with FFX. Is the first one that much more fun to play? Not even close, there is so much less to do and experience. I think games are a lot more fun when you are younger, not that games have gotten worse. So you think game designers back then had to focus on gameplay because they had less space? Give me a break, they had plenty of space. They had less sophisticated grapics and music. But keep in mind that their graphics and sound were cutting edge at that time, so it was all about glitz and glamour for them too. Gah, but why should I bother saying anything, you think Diablo 2 is a good game when the whole thing is just a click fest. Hmm, should I left click or right click? The possibilities are endless.
Examples would include, running a webserver under the System or Administrator account so that once it is compromised, the system is rooted. Installing and activating services by default. These problems are all caused by security having a low priority in the past, and Microsoft is deservedly bashed for these. Nimbda or Slammer may be buffer overflows which could happen to anyone, but there is some deserved criticism as to why it was such a huge problem.
Maybe because Micrsoft is on more machines than Linux right now? No...that couldn't be it.
I wonder how many Linux/Apache systems get web pages defaced via. SQL injection or other PHP related attacks, but do not lead to the box being rooted? Any numbers?
Of course there are numbers, and you can skew them any direction you want. Can't people just understand that all code has security problems and whether it is Linux, Windows, BSD, Mach...whatever, there will be exploits and we need to talk about how to improve security overall. How about we get automated detection and patching of services on Linux boxes? How can we get Windows to separate user and administrative privs on home accounts in a way that keeps its ease of use and still appeals to the majority of users? Otherwise all you are doing is yapping for karma rather than adressing the real issues.
Slashdot Mirror
Try Final Fantasy XI. It's the first MMORPG to actually tell a story where your character is important (well, first one I have played in any case). But more importantly, it is actually fun too (another first in the MMORPG category for me).
haha, yeah, she noticed charisma had an effect on selling/buying. I would have to convince her to upgrade other stats than that one so she didn't have a weak dwarf with buying power. I convinced her strength was a good option because that would allow her to carry more loot. We have been waiting for the second title to come out. If you look at the characters, there is a foul mouthed, treasure hunting, dwarf rougue that I bet she will really enjoy. So, based on our women, I guess the ideal game for females is one that is social (online or console cooperative), allows character appearance alteration through changing of clothes/armor, and has some sort of way of gaining funds (treasure) to purchase new and better outfits (and if they can find a bargain, all the better!).
I actually got Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for my girl friend and I from reading that thread. It worked out great and we have played through it on multiple levels of difficulty. She enjoyed playing the dwarf more (since she is a little less skilled and could take more hits and also carry more loot) and I took the Sorceress (yeah, I know, but she has good spells). I really find it interesting how females really seem to get in to the "finding treasure" and the dressing aspect of these games. She really got a kick on just picking up everything she could and trying to get over a million gold (she eventually did). I think BG:DA has just the right amount of stuff you have to learn to for a new gamer. I would dubt she would enjoy BG on the PC just because there is an overwhelming amount to learn and keep track of for the inexperienced gamer.
Good graphics != good gameplay
True.
Games with bad graphics, when they had to make the gameplay good, because thats all they had, are still played today.
I have to disagree with this. There is some stupid misconception that games back in the day were better because there was less emphasis on graphics. But guess what, the "bad graphics" you are talking about were cutting edge based on the system and the sophistication of the industry. Bad graphics != good games. Good games == Good games. Graphics and gameplay have nothing to do with each other, so get that out of your head. I bet you in 10 years when all of these games we have now have "bad graphics" people will still be playing them too.
I also think there is some sort of nostalgia effect for older titles. When Final Fantasy first came out and I played it, it was absolutely incredible to me as a kid. I can play that game over today and sitll enjoy it. I would never force a kid to play that game though, because even if he could see past the graphics, the game really pales in comparison to games that are out today. So just try to hold back a little and think when you say today's games aren't as focused on gameplay and games back in the day were more fun...are you looking through your childhood eyes that got more excited about everything (e.g. Christmas, new toys, new games) or are you being objective? Personally, I think there are many modern games out there that if I played as a kid would blow away my old Nintendo favorites.
Try FF Tactic on the PS. You can get chocobos in your party and either fight with them individually or ride them in battle. I would hardly say the item you get from breeding and racing chocobos was worthless...I think you should go back and try again:P
Am I the only person that feels that a sequel to a sequel, bearing the name "Final" is a tad ridiculous?
Man, I wish people would stop saying this. Were you really pissed off when you went and saw the Neverending Story and then it ended? I just want to try to help you out here...because if you go around thinking that titles of games and movies are a good way to judge their content, you are going to be severely disappointed for the rest of your life.
That's spell checking ;) I must have made my point if that is your best retort.
I unfortunately did read your post and am tired of people like you constantly whining about every single thing that is posted. There doesn't have to be a well written article or some witty summary for it be something worthy of talking about. You are the self-righteous one criticizing this even though you admit it is news. Not everyone has your "superior" literary and eiditing skills so just give it a rest. You got me on one point though, I certainly didn't know what you submit. But doing a search through slashdot shows that if you do submit anything, the editors thought it too piss poor to put on the page. So I guess our friend Dude has one up on you there. If you actually wanted to make a point, maybe you should have posted that on a Blizzard post that was non-newsworthy. If you have a problem with style, well then, maybe you should go somehwere that doesn't have user submitted material and has journalists that write up to your level.
Well, if you think about it, it doesn't make much sense for a bunch of apples to cause hell to freeze over. Maybe hell would apple sauce over, or apple cider over...but freeze? Come on. Now Blizzard on the other hand...that could really put a dent in hell. That being said, they both are probably over stating the case, and hell is probably just partly cloudy with a slight chance of percipitation.
And once again to you, moron, if you find things more worthy of being submitted, then why aren't you submitting them? I hope simoniker doesn't listen to people like you, because if he did this page would disappear. And I really enjoy it. But to make this on topic, Blizzard is one of the biggest names when it comes to making games. Hundreds of thousands of people have played Diablo 2 and I am sure at least tens of thousands of people are still playing it today. This is not a minor patch release, this is altering it in a significant way. For many people, this will make the game enjoyable to play through again at no added cost from their original purchase. This is news. If you have a problem with games.slashdot.org, don't come here. Obviously you aren't submitting anything so you are useless to this whole process.
I totally disagree. Your complaint is valid and I don't think anyone would mind a drop in price, but I don't really think that is the real problem with MMORPG. If you want to fix your problem, then people need to form sort of boycott not buying until they do this. While people are willing to shell out the cash, there is no need to change (even if you think they would profit in the end). I think they would lose money for exactly the reasons discussed in the article. Most players are going to quit because they get bored. Therefore if the company loses that $50 chunk up front, they will be losing money when everyone quits after their free trial period is up or after the first month of playing.
These games need to be fun in both the earlier stages when everything is new and fast and the latter stages (right now when you are high level everything is slow and tedious). If the game is fun to play for a longer period of time, more people will stay, giving more profit to the company. But how do you do this? The article brings up good points. I also think if MMORPG stole some ideas from single player games. Stick in some major quests, when you beat it throw in a CGI sequence that continues the plot for your character. Keep adding these for higher levels and maybe have some quests that are so tough, only the highest level players could dream of completing them and make it actually have an effect on the overall game world. For example, have a giant dragon ravage the country side. Everyone will have to run from it except the highest levels. Eventually, when someone beats it, it is gone. Maybe make it explode treause all over the whole viftual world. Or have some quest that would be incredibly difficult to solo. And the first character able to do it gets to build their own castle adding more npcs and quests for all. I think these features are something that would keep me in a game, because like the author, I quit these things after a month too.
Hey, I live in New Mexico....don't bring that crap down here. Radioactive waste, fine...but I have to draw the line when it comes to the N-Gage.
or C) most of the people who buy gaming consoles have already bought a PS2.
I don't care who "wins", some would probably say the winner has already been decided (as far as sales and profit goes). But to think that Nintendo and Microsoft are a big factor in this and then accuse people of not knowing anything about economics...well, I will refrain from making any insulting comments.
Because its not. The drop in the Gamecube's price was too recent to have any real effect on Sony's profit. I am sure it is just because everyone who was in the market for a console already has a PS2. Most people now are getting a second console (since they already have a PS2). So now is the time for Nintendo to shine by outselling Xbox due to the price drop. There are always exceptions to this (someone just has an Xbox, etc.) but Sony's gaming hardware profit will continue to slide until it comes out with its next version of the PS2, the PS3, or the PSP. I'd like to see Nintendo do well too, but let's not give it more credit than it's due.
I don't know...someone else posting on here said this was an old exploit and the systems weren't patched. If that's the case, then they got what they deserved. I am not an MS fanboy, but I don't think having Outlook is that big of deal. Our government (for the most part) uses Outlook. Most businesses use Outlook. I think they should have had a developer only internal network. Any OS is going to be vulnerable if it isn't patched though, that's just nuts.
Look, if management gave up control most techs would have their networks and systems completely secure.
I don't know where you work, but my CEO sure as heck doesn't touch the network. Admittedly, they should have had a better firewall or intrusion detection system up to watch for external connections, but from the sounds of it, this was an Outlook exploit that no one even knew about. I find it interesting that it was used to get a game. I would think an exploit like that would be used by hackers to get in to top secret government data. Or maybe it has been and we don't even know about it...scary. But in all reality, if your boxes are patched early and often, it shouldn't be a problem. It is hard for any network admin to defend against a security hole no one knows about.
Um. Even if they aren't, they can't continue working on it until security problems have been addressed. This disrupts a lot of work. Computers have to be cleaned, maybe even formatted to make sure that all back doors are shut, the network needs to be set up differently, or not at all. A lot of things are going to change, and that causes delays. It really is a big deal as I am sure any network security administrator would tell you. My main point, though, was that everyone needs to relax. People act on here like there is some sort of conspiracy here so that VALVe has to wait 4 more months to get profit. If people don't buy the game because of this, good, they probably are the ones who would whine that I was cheating when I beat them down online;)
How many whiny posts do there need to be on: "Why did they have to delay it? This is BS". Well, here is a reason. If your company just got hacked in to and important information was stolen and leaked, instead of working on the product, you have to find what the vulnerability was, how to do damage control, how to re-structure how you do business so it doesn't happen again (i.e. redesign the network and create new security policies), and then have to get back to work on finishing the product while trying to make sure that anything cheaters would have gained from the source is fixed. I would say that is pretty large amount to do in a few months. Don't you think they would love to get it out so they can make money? Just use some freaking common sense here. If you are surprised by these delays, then you didn't think very hard. If you are upset by the delays, join the crowd, hunt the hackers, whatever. Just relax, it's a game, go buy a different one. It's not the end of the world.
It's a game, who cares? This is not some business critical application that has to ship out on x date or the company they work with will get pissed or lose money. They missed their ship date...so what? They release it later and make money then instead of now. The only people who care are generally young people. They can't wait to spend their 50 bucks on the next great game. I know, I used to be one of them. It is so much easier now just to see there are a million other games out there to beat, and when hl2 is released, great....but until then I have about 20 games in my collection I still need to beat or want to play again. So just relax. It will be out when its out. As long as it isn't DNF, stop freaking out.
Ahh, you may be right. It is sort of implied. Here is another link to a nytimes article on the topic: click
It states the following:
Harrison also said the fact that gamers could buy a GameCube and three games for the same price as a PS2 with no games made it a more compelling value for the holidays.
It goes on to commment that the industry was hoping other hardware makers (xbox, ps2) would slash prices, but instead they are offering special bundles. In any case, the answer is no, they do not come bundled with anything.
Odd...you are a new kind of slashdotter, you RTFA (well, one of them) but you don't read the little blurb describing the article. I'll help you out:
There's an official press release over at Yahoo which clarifies that the deal includes no bundled games
Too bad. Maybe by Christmas. If I get some spare cash I might pick one up:)
I don't know what the heck you did, but I didn't have a problem at all. Downloaded steam, it convertied my CS to 1.6, found a server using steam, double clicked on it, and was playing right away. Some items are popular to download on the web, that's not valve's fault. Just run the download over night like every normal person out there. I don't doubt you had/have lots of problems with it...but I think the majority of people don't have any problems at all. The people who do have problem are the minority, they are just very vocal about it.
You imply with your post that the security of a system is inversely proportional to the scale of the deployment of that system. I'd love to see some evidence of that.
I would like to see evidence of that too. Well, other evidence than already exists (e.g. Windows has more attacks and is more deployed...that's evidence, right?). In any case, I am not sure why this seems like some huge shock. It's not really that security is worse on OSs that are less common...it's that if you have a million boxes running one OS, and 2,500 running a different OS, if you are a hacker, which target are you going to gun for? There was an article posted a week ago (sorry I don't have the link) that said that linux web servers were more hacked than windows web servers (more evidence of the more prolific, more attacked). Though it was a bit of a questionable article, it wouldn't surprise me if it was the case. One thing Linux has going for it is its strong seperation of user and administrative priveledges. That doesn't exist on *most* windows boxes out there hence they ARE inherently less secure (there are other factors of course). Why doesn't windows do this? It caters to the ease-of-use first. su isn't a complicated concept to us, but it isn't so accepted to joe the user who would get pissed if for some reason he couldn't install his new p2p program. I can almost guarantee you, if Linux (one flavor of it anyways) gained market dominance, and they all ran the same apps (like windows office, etc) you would see a larger number of attacks that did more damage. It would have a lot to do with unpatched systems, and let's face it, when it comes to patch security holes, Windows has a better method of notifying and distributing the patches. I hope Linux will have something similar soon. In any case, an OS is an OS, use your favorite one for moral, technical, gaming, whatever reason, just don't be so defensive about Linux that you blindly accept that security is already perfect. Linux users should not be surprised to see more attacks that are more significant scale as it gains marketshare and has more comonly used apps.
I think you suffer from "things aren't as good as they used to be" syndrome. Play Final Fantasy and compare it with FFX. Is the first one that much more fun to play? Not even close, there is so much less to do and experience. I think games are a lot more fun when you are younger, not that games have gotten worse. So you think game designers back then had to focus on gameplay because they had less space? Give me a break, they had plenty of space. They had less sophisticated grapics and music. But keep in mind that their graphics and sound were cutting edge at that time, so it was all about glitz and glamour for them too. Gah, but why should I bother saying anything, you think Diablo 2 is a good game when the whole thing is just a click fest. Hmm, should I left click or right click? The possibilities are endless.
Ugh, how this crap gets modded up is beyond me.
Before all the Microsoft apologists jump in...
So are you a Linux apologist?
Examples would include, running a webserver under the System or Administrator account so that once it is compromised, the system is rooted. Installing and activating services by default. These problems are all caused by security having a low priority in the past, and Microsoft is deservedly bashed for these. Nimbda or Slammer may be buffer overflows which could happen to anyone, but there is some deserved criticism as to why it was such a huge problem.
Maybe because Micrsoft is on more machines than Linux right now? No...that couldn't be it.
I wonder how many Linux/Apache systems get web pages defaced via. SQL injection or other PHP related attacks, but do not lead to the box being rooted? Any numbers?
Of course there are numbers, and you can skew them any direction you want. Can't people just understand that all code has security problems and whether it is Linux, Windows, BSD, Mach...whatever, there will be exploits and we need to talk about how to improve security overall. How about we get automated detection and patching of services on Linux boxes? How can we get Windows to separate user and administrative privs on home accounts in a way that keeps its ease of use and still appeals to the majority of users? Otherwise all you are doing is yapping for karma rather than adressing the real issues.