So, I didn't RTFA of course, but from the story blurb it makes it sound like if you wear something like an Adidas shirt for example, and Nike is a sponsor and Adidas is not, they will confiscate it. Frankly, I would flat out refuse. This is so ridiculous and is a perfect example of where our culture is going.
Now, fast forward 10 years and imagine that SWAT-like team practicing on the stadium, but instead of looking for actual terrorist threats, they're looking for banned advertising. Think I'm joking? Well, just accellerate current corporate greed and how much power corporations wield, and I think I'm pretty close to the truth.
IANAL, but in previous stories on/. about Best Buy and the like, I have read people claim that they are unable to make you come back in the store unless they have actually seen you do something, and if you refuse and they physically do anything to stop you, they open themselves up to a SHITSTORM of liability.
I wish someone with more legal expertise could post some info on that.
""PC games will never go away, but if the market keeps shrinking due to the increasing ease of piracy... then the number and quality of games will almost certainly decrease.">
And then indie developers who don't care about profit will release games with good, innovative gameplay and gamers will still be happy. Remember, some of the best, most addictive games, are the ones that are small, simple to play but hard to master, and free.
I just got turned on to Soldat thanks to a recent/. article, and have been a huge Subspace player ever since it was owned by VIE. And frankly, I often times find myself getting bored with BF:1942 and its mods and going back to these simple free games.
Remember, this guy has a vested interest in making sure the game companies stick around. They pay his bills. So don't expect him to say anything that might deviate from "the big developers are the only important people in this and we need to protect them at all costs".
Well, my only experience with the BBC tv is from when I stayed in England for 4 weeks this summer, and as I recall Big Brother was on BBC 4. Is that considered part of the BBC?
Unfortunately for us, when a corporation is publicly held, things don't always go according to the morals of the people in charge. In the end, they have to answer the shareholders, and their job is to please the shareholders, and the only way to do that is by making them money.
Now, what some have grasped is that by being a "good" corporation, you can potentially make a LOT more money in the long run than you could by being "evil" for the short term.
Look, there are ALWAYS going to be exceptions. But lets look at a couple things. First, we have VASTLY more channels than the BBC does (I'm not counting Sky). Now, the amount of crap per channel that we have when compared to the BBC is absolutely astronomical. Yeah, Big Brother is horrible reality tv at its worst, but over here in America, we are subjected to god knows how many reincarnations of the same reality tv.
So, while I agree there are certainly some quality programs here in the states, if you look at the percentages, I think the quality of the BBC far exceeds ours, but of course the definition of quality is very subjective.
No kidding, they said 5 grams and IMMEDIATELY my mind switched to drug mode.
I tell ya though, this brings a whole new meaning to "pass the joint". On second thought...perhaps I don't want my stoner friends flying an expensive mini HELICOPTER (one of the most difficult-to-fly machines ever invented) while they're stoned out of their mind.
Trust me, it would be a lot worse than someone breaking your bowl.
"Personally when I'm watching TV(which I almost never have time for as of late), I don't wanna be reading stuff online, I just want to relax and watch a movie or show.
"
What about in the near future when most of the good watchable video will be found on internet TV stations as opposed to traditional television? This would be a great tool for aggregating that.
ATITD attracts a certain crowd. There are many people playing it who do not enjoy the risk that comes with putting a lot of time into a character only to have him killed by a monster due to lack of stats, or worse, lag, or worst, a pk. This game is perfect for us.
It is also perfect for people who like games that give them a gradual guaranteed advancement based on how hard/smart they work. This game facilitates that mentality. That's fine that you may not find that appealing, just realize that many people do.
And Samir knows all this of course because he "works" for Nintendo. I'm surprised you didn't give us any "inside knowledge" this time Samir. Usually your posts get modded up to +5 funny because of how wrong they are.
"but I think corporatist/capitalist countries have in fact gotten to the point where the corporate culture isn't one where one can aspire to promote themselves, but moreso just make sure that they're going to have a job come tomorrow morning."
I don't think this is ENTIRELY the downfall of the culture. I think there will undoubtably be some companies who are smart enough to know this and who treasure their employees and promote the hard working ones instead of the slacking ones. Remember, if the established companies are failing because of this, there will always be another one doing something different to take its place.
Amen. A wise teacher of mine told me of the 80-20 rule. Business is 80% who you know and 20% what you know. If you don't like the game, play a different one.
"How people can show up to a job day in and day out and fuck the dog all day every day is beyond me. In my experience this leads to the LONGEST days imaginable."
" I've come to realize that all of my hard work and loyalty was for nothing. Here I am five years later, starting all over again."
What a lot of people don't realize is that all that hard work is NOT for nothing. Sure it sucks that you got fired, but hopefully you'll be able to get a great reference from your last job and that can help you out getting a new job.
"You can kill 1000 pounds of elk but only carry twenty back to they wagon. Saved my life many a time, helped me preserve those musket rounds."
Wrong. The real lesson to be learned is that you buy 99 boxes of ammo in the beginning, and you hunt until the screen is LITTERED with the corpses of buffalo, bear, deer, rabbits, squirrels, and anything else that moves. Screw the weight limit.
Do you feel that $1 million dollars is fair compensation for the developer when if you were to hire and develop "normally" it would cost many times that?
"I think I mentioned in my post that a game software (server) would make sure that talents are unique. Surly that would be fairly easy to program into the game?
I'm sorry, but I don't know why you think the fact that a server will make it somehow magically easier to implement. Part of the problem is the insane difficulty of coding something that unique, and part of it is todays computers not being powerful enough to handle the detailed interaction with the world necessary to make the talents actually workable.
I never said that changing the power levels over the course of the game WOULD make it flop, what I meant was that if you had if peoples powers leveled up, it would not be Xanth as we know it, and if they didn't, it wouldn't be playable.
The reason the Bond type games won't work is because everybody wants to be a star, and that just doesn't work. Period. Level grinding to become one of the few top people sucks, plain and simple.
Personally, if I had to pick a franchise, it might be the World of Darkness. PLENTY of customization options, and whole different realms of gameplay as often times vampires, werewolves, mages, etc don't interact with each other as much as they interact with members within their "game". The potential for that world is huge, and already translates somewhat well into videogame form.
As a huge fan of the Xanth series, I would love to play this game. However, I don't think anybody could pull it off successfully. Why?
Simple. The talents would be too difficult to make unique. On top of that, part of the coolness of the series was to see how creatively people could use their talents (which often times relied on puns). Computers really aren't capable of handling that kind of reasoning yet. Another reason it would flop is that part of what created the world and drove it was the fact that people were stuck with the power they got, for better or worse. Magicians WERE more powerful than everybody else, and there really wasn't anything the others could do about it. That element just doesn't translate well into a computer game. I think it'd make a rockin pen and paper game though.
I think that while your version is more likely to happen first, once the MMORPG market matures even further, we might actually see the type I described as companies branch out to go after certain niche markets. Here's hoping that both arrive soon.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, fast forward 10 years and imagine that SWAT-like team practicing on the stadium, but instead of looking for actual terrorist threats, they're looking for banned advertising. Think I'm joking? Well, just accellerate current corporate greed and how much power corporations wield, and I think I'm pretty close to the truth.
I wish someone with more legal expertise could post some info on that.
And then indie developers who don't care about profit will release games with good, innovative gameplay and gamers will still be happy. Remember, some of the best, most addictive games, are the ones that are small, simple to play but hard to master, and free.
I just got turned on to Soldat thanks to a recent /. article, and have been a huge Subspace player ever since it was owned by VIE. And frankly, I often times find myself getting bored with BF:1942 and its mods and going back to these simple free games.
Remember, this guy has a vested interest in making sure the game companies stick around. They pay his bills. So don't expect him to say anything that might deviate from "the big developers are the only important people in this and we need to protect them at all costs".
Now, what some have grasped is that by being a "good" corporation, you can potentially make a LOT more money in the long run than you could by being "evil" for the short term.
So, while I agree there are certainly some quality programs here in the states, if you look at the percentages, I think the quality of the BBC far exceeds ours, but of course the definition of quality is very subjective.
I tell ya though, this brings a whole new meaning to "pass the joint". On second thought...perhaps I don't want my stoner friends flying an expensive mini HELICOPTER (one of the most difficult-to-fly machines ever invented) while they're stoned out of their mind.
Trust me, it would be a lot worse than someone breaking your bowl.
Better they not be camoflaged at all than come in the form of trickery and astroturfing.
What about in the near future when most of the good watchable video will be found on internet TV stations as opposed to traditional television? This would be a great tool for aggregating that.
It is also perfect for people who like games that give them a gradual guaranteed advancement based on how hard/smart they work. This game facilitates that mentality. That's fine that you may not find that appealing, just realize that many people do.
I don't think this is ENTIRELY the downfall of the culture. I think there will undoubtably be some companies who are smart enough to know this and who treasure their employees and promote the hard working ones instead of the slacking ones. Remember, if the established companies are failing because of this, there will always be another one doing something different to take its place.
Bet it seems even longer to the dog.
What a lot of people don't realize is that all that hard work is NOT for nothing. Sure it sucks that you got fired, but hopefully you'll be able to get a great reference from your last job and that can help you out getting a new job.
Wrong. The real lesson to be learned is that you buy 99 boxes of ammo in the beginning, and you hunt until the screen is LITTERED with the corpses of buffalo, bear, deer, rabbits, squirrels, and anything else that moves. Screw the weight limit.
I'm sorry, but I don't know why you think the fact that a server will make it somehow magically easier to implement. Part of the problem is the insane difficulty of coding something that unique, and part of it is todays computers not being powerful enough to handle the detailed interaction with the world necessary to make the talents actually workable.
I never said that changing the power levels over the course of the game WOULD make it flop, what I meant was that if you had if peoples powers leveled up, it would not be Xanth as we know it, and if they didn't, it wouldn't be playable.
Personally, if I had to pick a franchise, it might be the World of Darkness. PLENTY of customization options, and whole different realms of gameplay as often times vampires, werewolves, mages, etc don't interact with each other as much as they interact with members within their "game". The potential for that world is huge, and already translates somewhat well into videogame form.
Simple. The talents would be too difficult to make unique. On top of that, part of the coolness of the series was to see how creatively people could use their talents (which often times relied on puns). Computers really aren't capable of handling that kind of reasoning yet. Another reason it would flop is that part of what created the world and drove it was the fact that people were stuck with the power they got, for better or worse. Magicians WERE more powerful than everybody else, and there really wasn't anything the others could do about it. That element just doesn't translate well into a computer game. I think it'd make a rockin pen and paper game though.