Nintendo is a staple of life for many gamers. Mario and Zelda are characters they grew up with. Even if it wasn't for the innovative controller, the low price point alone almost guarantees that many gamers will pick it up somewhere along the line.
The fact that Nintendo's console is selling for a profit also means that they don't have to sell a bunch of game titles to get into the black -- if a person never buys another product from Nintendo after the console purchase, they've already made money.
I've been very dissatisfied with gaming in general over the past year or two. I would build up this fervor of anticipation over a game, and I would be disappointed with them upon release, time and time again.
One of my friends has had a DS for quite a while now. When a second bought one, I broke down and joined the crowd. It was one of the best purchases I've made.
There's something about the DS and its better games that make gaming feel new again. I felt like I was a kid, discovering Nintendo for the first time. Lounging around the living room with a bunch of friends and playing New Super Mario or Tetris DS is the most fun I've had in ages.
The creative way the hardware of the DS has been put into use in gameplay has only made me more excited about the possibilities of the Wii. I can't wait to see what they'll do with it.
If anyone is going to turn this era into a golden age of gaming, it'll be Nintendo -- again.
The problem is that users aren't able to retrieve RSS feeds as often as they would like. They must wait longer between updates of the feed, to save bandwidth and decrease load on the server that is hosting the content.
This solution, however, would allow one source to poll the server, and use P2P to transfer the content to the many clients as want it - and as often as they want it. No additional strain is being put on the source, and the clients are all happy.
I was always a big fan of MUDs back in the day, but I never seemed to be able to find an MMORPG that gave me as much satisfaction. I tried a lot of them as they came out, but I kept walking away from them a few days later angry that no one could make a good one. Then I tried the beta for WoW.
What a difference. I haven't lost so much sleep over a game for a long time.
The comparison to Diablo is great. This game is basically if you took everything good about Diablo and combined with with everything good from the massively multiplayer genre and rolled it into one big ball of fun. It feels closer to the depth of a single player RPG than most of the MMORPGs I have played, but doesn't lose the elements that make MMO so fun.
It's definitely worth a try, regardless of what you've though of MMORPGs in the past.
I was worried about this, too, initially.
It turns out that it actually works pretty well... the big cities get a lot of people wandering around in them, which can indeed make it hard to notice people you've met before, but it also gives it the feeling of just that - a big city. I can't stand games where you go into what's supposed to be the capitol for a huge area, and it's nearly empty.
However, you do get to live on both sides of the fence. The areas outside of the town have much lower population counts, as generally only people around your level with quests in the area will be there. As you progress in level along with other players you have met, you run into them in these questing areas more than you'd imagine.
It does make for a great experience, to come across someone you met 5 levels ago, see that they've been advancing along with you, and rejoin them for some more adventuring.
Blizzard has discussed this in the past and said they have many plans for world events based around seasonal things and other game world related subjects.
"No property ownership and kingdom duels like warcraft."
Blizzard has also said that will houses will be implemented.
"No end game."
Far from it! What about instanced raid dungeons, or raiding in general? What about PvP?
"No adventures or campaigns."
Seeing as you only got to level 20, I really think that you missed out on a lot of the content, which would lend itself to a comment like this.
For just one examples... when you're playing as Horde, at around level 18-20, the stories of many of the quests in the Barrens and the surrounding areas start to grow closer and closer together, finally threading together into one big ball of trouble - the Wailing Caverns. No less than 6 independent quests lead you into this instanced dungeon, and playing through it is an extremely satisfying experience. This dungeon alone is a four hour adventure.
Re:Finally something to address this....
on
Are You Annoying?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
"I know it's fun to be smug about this, but this is a serious problem amongst programming teams."
This is not the first thing to address this problem. It's been addressed in countless documents and discussions before - just in a different context.
It's not a problem that is specific to programming teams, because the character traits that make someone do that sort of things are not ones that are specific to programmers.
If a person in ANY profession has low self-esteem, and they find something that they can flaunt over others, as a rule - they'll do it. The same goes for low job security. If someone at your work feels like, by telling you something that you don't know and they do, they're at risk of losing their job, they're always going to resort to cheap workplace tactics like this. This feeling is even more evident as an interviewee - no one who feels insecure in their job wants to see a talented new person being hired on.
It sounds like, to me at least, that your problem is more with your management than with the individuals.
I know four people that have gotten it done - 1 is an immediate relative and the other 3 are close friends. None of them had any problems with it, and it went flawlessly. They couldn't have been more happy with the results... one of them started crying when she woke up the next morning and could see the clock clearly without her glasses.
However, one of them told me about a friend of hers who tried to get it done. She wasn't so lucky. The result of her operation was making her legally blind - drastically harming instead of improving her eyesight. The reason this happened is that she didn't look into the doctor before going to him...
Moral of the story: DO YOUR RESEARCH before you let something shoot lasers into your eyeballs.
Actually, how the coffee was spilled is at the core of the argument. If it was an employee who spilled hot coffee on her, it is the restaurants fault. Even if she did know that the coffee was scalding hot, maybe she wouldn't have spilled it on herself, but the employee did. (I'm not saying this is what happened, but just presenting the possibility.)
Slashdot Mirror
Mario Party is dangerously competitive.
Nintendo is a staple of life for many gamers. Mario and Zelda are characters they grew up with. Even if it wasn't for the innovative controller, the low price point alone almost guarantees that many gamers will pick it up somewhere along the line.
The fact that Nintendo's console is selling for a profit also means that they don't have to sell a bunch of game titles to get into the black -- if a person never buys another product from Nintendo after the console purchase, they've already made money.
I definitely agree about Nintendo.
I've been very dissatisfied with gaming in general over the past year or two. I would build up this fervor of anticipation over a game, and I would be disappointed with them upon release, time and time again.
One of my friends has had a DS for quite a while now. When a second bought one, I broke down and joined the crowd. It was one of the best purchases I've made.
There's something about the DS and its better games that make gaming feel new again. I felt like I was a kid, discovering Nintendo for the first time. Lounging around the living room with a bunch of friends and playing New Super Mario or Tetris DS is the most fun I've had in ages.
The creative way the hardware of the DS has been put into use in gameplay has only made me more excited about the possibilities of the Wii. I can't wait to see what they'll do with it.
If anyone is going to turn this era into a golden age of gaming, it'll be Nintendo -- again.
The problem is that users aren't able to retrieve RSS feeds as often as they would like. They must wait longer between updates of the feed, to save bandwidth and decrease load on the server that is hosting the content.
This solution, however, would allow one source to poll the server, and use P2P to transfer the content to the many clients as want it - and as often as they want it. No additional strain is being put on the source, and the clients are all happy.
Actually, if you get the collectors edition you can get a neat little zergling pet. :)
I was always a big fan of MUDs back in the day, but I never seemed to be able to find an MMORPG that gave me as much satisfaction. I tried a lot of them as they came out, but I kept walking away from them a few days later angry that no one could make a good one. Then I tried the beta for WoW. What a difference. I haven't lost so much sleep over a game for a long time. The comparison to Diablo is great. This game is basically if you took everything good about Diablo and combined with with everything good from the massively multiplayer genre and rolled it into one big ball of fun. It feels closer to the depth of a single player RPG than most of the MMORPGs I have played, but doesn't lose the elements that make MMO so fun. It's definitely worth a try, regardless of what you've though of MMORPGs in the past.
I was worried about this, too, initially. It turns out that it actually works pretty well... the big cities get a lot of people wandering around in them, which can indeed make it hard to notice people you've met before, but it also gives it the feeling of just that - a big city. I can't stand games where you go into what's supposed to be the capitol for a huge area, and it's nearly empty. However, you do get to live on both sides of the fence. The areas outside of the town have much lower population counts, as generally only people around your level with quests in the area will be there. As you progress in level along with other players you have met, you run into them in these questing areas more than you'd imagine. It does make for a great experience, to come across someone you met 5 levels ago, see that they've been advancing along with you, and rejoin them for some more adventuring.
"No monthly events."
Blizzard has discussed this in the past and said they have many plans for world events based around seasonal things and other game world related subjects.
"No property ownership and kingdom duels like warcraft."
Blizzard has also said that will houses will be implemented.
"No end game."
Far from it! What about instanced raid dungeons, or raiding in general? What about PvP?
"No adventures or campaigns."
Seeing as you only got to level 20, I really think that you missed out on a lot of the content, which would lend itself to a comment like this.
For just one examples... when you're playing as Horde, at around level 18-20, the stories of many of the quests in the Barrens and the surrounding areas start to grow closer and closer together, finally threading together into one big ball of trouble - the Wailing Caverns. No less than 6 independent quests lead you into this instanced dungeon, and playing through it is an extremely satisfying experience. This dungeon alone is a four hour adventure.
"I know it's fun to be smug about this, but this is a serious problem amongst programming teams."
This is not the first thing to address this problem. It's been addressed in countless documents and discussions before - just in a different context.
It's not a problem that is specific to programming teams, because the character traits that make someone do that sort of things are not ones that are specific to programmers.
If a person in ANY profession has low self-esteem, and they find something that they can flaunt over others, as a rule - they'll do it. The same goes for low job security. If someone at your work feels like, by telling you something that you don't know and they do, they're at risk of losing their job, they're always going to resort to cheap workplace tactics like this. This feeling is even more evident as an interviewee - no one who feels insecure in their job wants to see a talented new person being hired on.
It sounds like, to me at least, that your problem is more with your management than with the individuals.
I know four people that have gotten it done - 1 is an immediate relative and the other 3 are close friends. None of them had any problems with it, and it went flawlessly. They couldn't have been more happy with the results... one of them started crying when she woke up the next morning and could see the clock clearly without her glasses. However, one of them told me about a friend of hers who tried to get it done. She wasn't so lucky. The result of her operation was making her legally blind - drastically harming instead of improving her eyesight. The reason this happened is that she didn't look into the doctor before going to him... Moral of the story: DO YOUR RESEARCH before you let something shoot lasers into your eyeballs.
Actually, how the coffee was spilled is at the core of the argument. If it was an employee who spilled hot coffee on her, it is the restaurants fault. Even if she did know that the coffee was scalding hot, maybe she wouldn't have spilled it on herself, but the employee did. (I'm not saying this is what happened, but just presenting the possibility.)