OpenDocument in no way benefits me, as I've tried using Open Office and would only use it as a last resort, and I've never had a problem with incompatibility between version of MS Office. The continued use of the proprietary Microsoft formats benefit me because that's what just about everyone is already set up for. The change is for purely ideological and completely impractical reasons. Down with pragmatism, up with software based on ideology, right?
Nevermind, you probably stopped reading this and labelled me in your microsoft for the win group, or whatever the hell you called it, right? I mean, if someone disagrees with you, why bother thinking about what they have to say when you can just put a label on them so that you don't have to do any thinking.
Aside from pretty graphics and an increase in price, all those games you mentioned have nothing over their XBox counterparts.
What makes you so sure that Oblivion is anything mroe than a prettier Morrowind?
What I find funniest is you bring up the most generic, carbon copy sequels up in your argument. NBA 2k6, Call of Duty, Project Gotham Racing, these are titles that are churned off the programming assembly line after being produced by marketing research tailored to what will cause people to open their pocket books. They are not pushing gaming at all, they are content to make a small profit and call it a day.
Oblivion is so much more than that, its a fully interactive world to the extent we have not seen before. To compare it with titles such as the ones you brought up wouldn't be fair.
Honestly, do you know what I thought when I played Morrowind? Lot of decent RPG content, but absolutely nothing to set it apart from a hundred other RPGs except for the size of the world. Oblivion is not pushing gaming. It's a highly polished RPG sequel. Did you copy the line about it being a fully interactive world to the extent we have not seen before directly from Bethesda's marketing department?
Morrowind had nowhere near as much interactivity with the NPCs in the world as Fallout which came out how many years before Morrowind? It's a good game, but it's not creating a new genre or redifining the one it's in.
2 Years from now, nobody will give 2 fucks about PGR3, NBA 2k6, or Call of Duty 2. They'll all be playing PGR5, NBA 2k8, and Call of Duty 3. But people will STILL be playing and raving about Oblivion.
Don't kid yourself, they won't be, they'll be drooling over Elder Scrolls 5, and have forgotten about Oblivion. I don't know anyone who has played Morrowind more than a year or so after it came out.
If you didn't have a PS2, you didn't go out and buy one just to play GT4.
That's funny, because I know at least one person who did. But more to the point, I was refuting the claim that people stop playing racers right away, and they somehow have less value in a launch lineup than other genres.
No, they're ignorant because they know nothing of the tech side of games (hence, the ignorance they have) and just want something pretty to look at.
This is the first time anyone in this thread has mentioned the tech side of gaming other than graphics. If Oblivion is a superb RPG are you saying it's going to be because of certain non-graphics technology? Such as what? Or did you just throw that sentence in there to puff up your ego, and try and make people think you know more than them? Did you read an article online about A* and suddenly decide people who just play games for the fun of it instead of for the tech behind it are ignorant?
Are you really so arrogant to think that anyone who isn't excited about the Revolution is only lacking in said excitement because they lack as much imagination as you? Yeesh.
I didn't think much of this article. The author seemed fairly biased against Microsoft and for Nintendo. Like the visor thing you mentioned. And how things are disorganized with the Xbox 360 and we don't understand what accessories are going to be in the package. I was pretty clear on the list of accessories and have been since they announced the two SKUs. And we don't know whether HD-DVD games will be supported later on? Yes we do. They won't be supported. Microsoft has already said so. Also, he says that Sony's strategy is a great strategy. Except that they'll be hurt big time if the 360 succedes. Either the assumption is that the 360 will fail, or Sony's strategy isn't that great.
Oh well, it wasn't too terrible of an article, but it doesn't offer much unless you haven't been following the situation at all.
there are thousands of ignorant people who are chomping at the bits to get their console at launch.
What the fuck is wrong with people on slashdot? Just because people are interested in different games than you, they're ignorant?
At launch, racing games are always a system seller. But as time goes on, they're the first games ditched for the next wave, and nobody ever looks back at them.
I guess that's why GT3, GT4 and PGR2 all tanked.
Jesus, how can people spew shit out of their mouths without being aware of it? I would think the smell would bother them. Either way, heads need to be cracked in.
To ignore this fact is to just prove your ignorance.
PGR3 is a good title from an established developer and a resepected series, designed from the start to work for the next generation. COD2 is a good title from an established series and developer, though maybe not as next-gen, but a huge number of people will love it even if it's only marginally better than Xbox games in terms of graphics. How about NBA 2k6? Good developer. Check? Established series? Check. Obviously next-gen? Check.
Oblivion might have a slight edge on other games, but Jesus, it's just one game, in a genre that most people don't give a shit about.
Yes, after 2 years you could have 10 authorized computers at the same time. The reset feature is important though when I install a new OS and forget to deauthorize iTunes first, which has happened enough times that until I found out about the reset feature I couldn't play my songs on any computer. Of course, it only took me about five minutes of searching to find how to reset the count.
If the majority of people vote for terrible leaders, then how does having the right to cast a vote which doesn't have any effect make me more free than under a dictator? So the dictator is a large group of people (the majority) instead of one person. It doesn't make the minority any more free.
So in response to your hypothetical, I would rather be ruled by a fair dictator than a corrupt but popular democratic government.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that who cares it it's Free, free, open or whatever if it sucks?
Do you have any evidence that I'm wrong or are you just full of it? So Sony has a lot of games. People learned to deal with it because so many people owned PS2s.
I lose at what? Trying to convince you to buy an Xbox 360? Oh noes. Seriously, I will cry myself to sleep tonight because some AC disagrees with me.
The dev tools will always be at least six months behind then, but more importantly, Microsoft has far and away more experience writing dev tools than Sony and consistently has provided some of the best tools available in the software industry. Plus a huge complaint against the PS2 was how hard it was to develop for and as far as I know, they never fixed that, developers just learned to deal with it. Why would you expect Sony to catch up?
Ok, then that makes it even less likely that I'll by the PS3. Well, until FFXIII but FFX was out like 4 years ago so the next single player FF after FFXII should be in like 2010?
You've clearly never tried playing a PS2 game online. I have. I couldn't get the network adapter to work with my router via DHCP, so I had to set all of the connection properties manually. Then it worked for Madden, but the same connection information wouldn't work when I tried to play online in Tony Hawk Underground. So I had to manually enter all of the connection information for that game separately. Plus there's the pain of having to create an account with every different game company, etc. I don't have an Xbox but I'm eagerly awaiting November 22, largely because of Live. I will probably get a PS3 too, because I'd hate to miss out on MGS4 and FFXII, but hell, I don't know if I'll be too eager to spend $400 for just those games.
Were the first games in the DOA and Burnout series both Xbox exclusives? Because I have Burnout 3 and DOA 2 for my PS2 (I think DOA2? I'm not sure which, but it was definitely some DOA).
If I had never seen Linux source code and independently wrote the exact same code, it would not be copyright infringment for me to sell it as closed source. So if entire functions look pretty much the same, unless you looked at the other source code first, you still aren't violating someone's copyright.
Copyright law unlike patent law, does not penalize people who independently come up with something similar/identical.
Do you honestly think a higher percentage of blogs have anything but useless shit to say than the percentage of good content in mass media? OMG, I can find out who got dumped today by reading everyone's Live Journal! I have yet to find a blog which contains "journalism" which I thought was worth reading twice. The only blogs that don't make me ashamed to be involved in technology are written by people who have something entertaining to say, or people who have technical information to share.
Oh, well, if you say Adam Smith backs you up, then you must be right. Government can't regulate something into freedom. With few exceptions, government is the only entity taking away freedom.
And here's a thing: a nation doesn't maintain free markets to enable companies to do whatever they want. Free markets are maintained for the benefit of the common good, so that prices are kept sane, product can't be embargoes on personal whim, and we the people have a market responsive to our needs, NOT THE COMPANY'S.
Here's another thing. Just because sane prices and so on are good things, does not mean that when you have them, you have a free market. Government regulation tries to promote these things, specifically by limiting the freedom of the market.
Also, your argument in this post is really, really stupid. Let's look at it. Wait... you don't actually, make an argument. Other than a more verbose "coorporations are bad, people are good, mmm'kay?"
the market is not kept free for their benefit, but for ours.
First of all, thanks for making this bold. It would really have helped emphasize your point, if you had one worth making. It doesn't matter who benefits from a free market, since I'm not arguing whether the market should be free, but rather whether regulation leads to freedom.
Corporations are licensed legal fictions
In what way are they fictional? There's no concrete thing or person which you can call a corporation. But then the same could be said of the government. Or a church (speaking of the organization, not the building). People depend on corporations for their livelihoods, so it's not like by going strictly pro-consumer and anti-business with your policies will do anyone any good because they'll all be unemployed.
The only people "free" in a world without business regulations will be the owners of the businesses.
Wow. That's uhh... an interesting way to look at things. Are you trying to assert that without business regulations, businesses would be able to force you to buy whatever they decided to sell you? That they would be able to enslave you to work for them? I don't really consider either of those things that need "business regulations" to establish their illegality, but whatever. Even if Microsoft is a monopoly, you don't have to buy their products. The same can be said of every other business I can think of.
That's not just Adam Smith, it's the law.
Well, unless you're saying that all laws are correct, that doesn't support your argument in the least.
By the way, your whole post seems to be in response to something other than my original post. You seem to be arguing against someone who said that monopolies shouldn't be regulated. Reread the parent post. I couldn't find anywhere in my original post that I said they should or should not be regulated.
That makes it all the more funny to see how vehemently you disagreed (with the point I wasn't trying to make). Based on your post, I picture you turning beat read and clenching your fists as you formulated your response. Ahhh, the hilarity.
Slashdot Mirror
So OpenOffice no longer is able to open Microsoft Word documents?
That would be the worst bumper sticker ever. It would take up your whole bumper.
Nevermind, you probably stopped reading this and labelled me in your microsoft for the win group, or whatever the hell you called it, right? I mean, if someone disagrees with you, why bother thinking about what they have to say when you can just put a label on them so that you don't have to do any thinking.
Well, neither does Microsoft, but we certainly wouldn't want facts to get in the way of our M$ bashing, would we?
What makes you so sure that Oblivion is anything mroe than a prettier Morrowind?
What I find funniest is you bring up the most generic, carbon copy sequels up in your argument. NBA 2k6, Call of Duty, Project Gotham Racing, these are titles that are churned off the programming assembly line after being produced by marketing research tailored to what will cause people to open their pocket books. They are not pushing gaming at all, they are content to make a small profit and call it a day. Oblivion is so much more than that, its a fully interactive world to the extent we have not seen before. To compare it with titles such as the ones you brought up wouldn't be fair.
Honestly, do you know what I thought when I played Morrowind? Lot of decent RPG content, but absolutely nothing to set it apart from a hundred other RPGs except for the size of the world. Oblivion is not pushing gaming. It's a highly polished RPG sequel. Did you copy the line about it being a fully interactive world to the extent we have not seen before directly from Bethesda's marketing department?
Morrowind had nowhere near as much interactivity with the NPCs in the world as Fallout which came out how many years before Morrowind? It's a good game, but it's not creating a new genre or redifining the one it's in.
2 Years from now, nobody will give 2 fucks about PGR3, NBA 2k6, or Call of Duty 2. They'll all be playing PGR5, NBA 2k8, and Call of Duty 3. But people will STILL be playing and raving about Oblivion.
Don't kid yourself, they won't be, they'll be drooling over Elder Scrolls 5, and have forgotten about Oblivion. I don't know anyone who has played Morrowind more than a year or so after it came out.
If you didn't have a PS2, you didn't go out and buy one just to play GT4.
That's funny, because I know at least one person who did. But more to the point, I was refuting the claim that people stop playing racers right away, and they somehow have less value in a launch lineup than other genres.
No, they're ignorant because they know nothing of the tech side of games (hence, the ignorance they have) and just want something pretty to look at.
This is the first time anyone in this thread has mentioned the tech side of gaming other than graphics. If Oblivion is a superb RPG are you saying it's going to be because of certain non-graphics technology? Such as what? Or did you just throw that sentence in there to puff up your ego, and try and make people think you know more than them? Did you read an article online about A* and suddenly decide people who just play games for the fun of it instead of for the tech behind it are ignorant?
Are you really so arrogant to think that anyone who isn't excited about the Revolution is only lacking in said excitement because they lack as much imagination as you? Yeesh.
Oh well, it wasn't too terrible of an article, but it doesn't offer much unless you haven't been following the situation at all.
Funny, that's the same reason why the Revolution is the one I'm the least excited about.
What the fuck is wrong with people on slashdot? Just because people are interested in different games than you, they're ignorant?
At launch, racing games are always a system seller. But as time goes on, they're the first games ditched for the next wave, and nobody ever looks back at them.
I guess that's why GT3, GT4 and PGR2 all tanked.
Jesus, how can people spew shit out of their mouths without being aware of it? I would think the smell would bother them. Either way, heads need to be cracked in.
To ignore this fact is to just prove your ignorance.
PGR3 is a good title from an established developer and a resepected series, designed from the start to work for the next generation. COD2 is a good title from an established series and developer, though maybe not as next-gen, but a huge number of people will love it even if it's only marginally better than Xbox games in terms of graphics. How about NBA 2k6? Good developer. Check? Established series? Check. Obviously next-gen? Check.
Oblivion might have a slight edge on other games, but Jesus, it's just one game, in a genre that most people don't give a shit about.
Yes, after 2 years you could have 10 authorized computers at the same time. The reset feature is important though when I install a new OS and forget to deauthorize iTunes first, which has happened enough times that until I found out about the reset feature I couldn't play my songs on any computer. Of course, it only took me about five minutes of searching to find how to reset the count.
I'm betting this is four posts in a row by the same troll. Why does slashdot allow posts by ACs anyway?
If the majority of people vote for terrible leaders, then how does having the right to cast a vote which doesn't have any effect make me more free than under a dictator? So the dictator is a large group of people (the majority) instead of one person. It doesn't make the minority any more free. So in response to your hypothetical, I would rather be ruled by a fair dictator than a corrupt but popular democratic government. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that who cares it it's Free, free, open or whatever if it sucks?
How can I be an Xbox fanboy? It's the only current gen console I don't own.
I lose at what? Trying to convince you to buy an Xbox 360? Oh noes. Seriously, I will cry myself to sleep tonight because some AC disagrees with me.
The dev tools will always be at least six months behind then, but more importantly, Microsoft has far and away more experience writing dev tools than Sony and consistently has provided some of the best tools available in the software industry. Plus a huge complaint against the PS2 was how hard it was to develop for and as far as I know, they never fixed that, developers just learned to deal with it. Why would you expect Sony to catch up?
You forgot to mention that Microsoft had no previous product in the console market, which made everyone skeptical.
Congratulations! Between you and the parent poster you've just posted the two most predictable comments in the history of slashdot.
Ok, then that makes it even less likely that I'll by the PS3. Well, until FFXIII but FFX was out like 4 years ago so the next single player FF after FFXII should be in like 2010?
You've clearly never tried playing a PS2 game online. I have. I couldn't get the network adapter to work with my router via DHCP, so I had to set all of the connection properties manually. Then it worked for Madden, but the same connection information wouldn't work when I tried to play online in Tony Hawk Underground. So I had to manually enter all of the connection information for that game separately. Plus there's the pain of having to create an account with every different game company, etc. I don't have an Xbox but I'm eagerly awaiting November 22, largely because of Live. I will probably get a PS3 too, because I'd hate to miss out on MGS4 and FFXII, but hell, I don't know if I'll be too eager to spend $400 for just those games.
Were the first games in the DOA and Burnout series both Xbox exclusives? Because I have Burnout 3 and DOA 2 for my PS2 (I think DOA2? I'm not sure which, but it was definitely some DOA).
Copyright law unlike patent law, does not penalize people who independently come up with something similar/identical.
Do you honestly think a higher percentage of blogs have anything but useless shit to say than the percentage of good content in mass media? OMG, I can find out who got dumped today by reading everyone's Live Journal! I have yet to find a blog which contains "journalism" which I thought was worth reading twice. The only blogs that don't make me ashamed to be involved in technology are written by people who have something entertaining to say, or people who have technical information to share.
You'd also think that bloggers would realize that nobody cares what they have to say. Guess there's a lot of people who don't catch on quickly.
And here's a thing: a nation doesn't maintain free markets to enable companies to do whatever they want. Free markets are maintained for the benefit of the common good, so that prices are kept sane, product can't be embargoes on personal whim, and we the people have a market responsive to our needs, NOT THE COMPANY'S.
Here's another thing. Just because sane prices and so on are good things, does not mean that when you have them, you have a free market. Government regulation tries to promote these things, specifically by limiting the freedom of the market.
Also, your argument in this post is really, really stupid. Let's look at it. Wait... you don't actually, make an argument. Other than a more verbose "coorporations are bad, people are good, mmm'kay?"
the market is not kept free for their benefit, but for ours.
First of all, thanks for making this bold. It would really have helped emphasize your point, if you had one worth making. It doesn't matter who benefits from a free market, since I'm not arguing whether the market should be free, but rather whether regulation leads to freedom.
Corporations are licensed legal fictions
In what way are they fictional? There's no concrete thing or person which you can call a corporation. But then the same could be said of the government. Or a church (speaking of the organization, not the building). People depend on corporations for their livelihoods, so it's not like by going strictly pro-consumer and anti-business with your policies will do anyone any good because they'll all be unemployed.
The only people "free" in a world without business regulations will be the owners of the businesses.
Wow. That's uhh... an interesting way to look at things. Are you trying to assert that without business regulations, businesses would be able to force you to buy whatever they decided to sell you? That they would be able to enslave you to work for them? I don't really consider either of those things that need "business regulations" to establish their illegality, but whatever. Even if Microsoft is a monopoly, you don't have to buy their products. The same can be said of every other business I can think of.
That's not just Adam Smith, it's the law.
Well, unless you're saying that all laws are correct, that doesn't support your argument in the least.
By the way, your whole post seems to be in response to something other than my original post. You seem to be arguing against someone who said that monopolies shouldn't be regulated. Reread the parent post. I couldn't find anywhere in my original post that I said they should or should not be regulated.
That makes it all the more funny to see how vehemently you disagreed (with the point I wasn't trying to make). Based on your post, I picture you turning beat read and clenching your fists as you formulated your response. Ahhh, the hilarity.
Great idea. Nothing like punishing the people because the government has a grudge against Microsoft.