This is true. Too often games are overpolished, and look sterile to me as well. Hell, once they come up with a "dirt" filter for textures, games will feel a good bit more immersive than they currently do.
You've hit it pretty much on the head. I played EQ on and off for about 2 years, only reaching level 45ish, when all of my friends and my brother were in high 50s or level 60. I didn't play all that much, and it was mainly me playing with the alternate characters of my friends. I enjoyed the social aspect, having fun with friends online, and helping out the newer players.
That's where the addiction comes in. You spend a couple months having fun with the same people online, you become friends with them, and want to continue your communications. Hell, even after I gave my account to a friend, I would log on every month or two to see how my EQ buddies were doing, how their significant others/kids were doing. And since I haven't even logged onto EQ for about 18 months, I got my close EQ friends' AIM names, and talk to them on there when I see them on.
So, in closing: It's not the gameplay, it's the people.
Well, there have been stress tests where people show BSD handling upwards of 2 million concurrent connections, so if they run a good open-source the software is not at fault:)
Well, I try to keep my PC at a good level of upgrading, and if I have copy protection problems, I'll just go grab the crack, I don't get a raging hard-on for having to do some work to make my games work like other people do, it just doesn't get to me.
Well, as a primarily windows user(at home), the one thing I refuse to pirate is games, because I fully support that industry, and don't feel like it is trying to screw me over. I won't even get my friends to burn me a copy of the new game they just bought, I'll just get the demo and give it a try. In fact, I bought the Fallout 1/2 bundle about 4 months ago off of amazon after reading about it, despite the fact that I could have easily pirated it from the net.
Oh good lord man, very few people are audiophiles to that degree. I listen to music on my PC, or on my 200 dollar cd player. No 800 dollar surround sound system for me. 192 MP3s are good enough for me and a large majority of the public. People are going to go for what is cheap, and iTunes may very well be the answer.
You know what, if I can find some way to rig a mouse up to my Xbox, I would give this a shot, just to maybe find some new people to give hell to. CS is pretty much the only game I play nowadays, and since I'm not touching Steam anytime soon, I might give this a rent, just to see how it feels.
That's a damn fine point there, but if they only allow closed source set-top boxes, what's to stop people from hacking those? People thought that the Tivo was pretty good when it came out, but everyone seemed to tweak/hack them after a short time, thereby getting rips from tivo, etc. People are just going to work with what they have, we'll just bitch about it more if they make it tough:)
I don't see the problem with open source set-top boxes. If people want to pirate stuff, they will, regardless of whether or not they use a different PVR system. Seeing as most people who pirate satellite can barely use a computer(as they just know someone who programs the cards.) This is probably just going to be so they can get kickbacks from retail PVR companies.
(very old formmail)
That's your problem there. You can't expect something that is "very old" to be secure. Nothing is going to be released in a perfect form. That's what updates are for.
And yes, you are correct in saying that the IT staff was probably incompetant, and any non-updated system is going to have problems.
Yes, I am quite an enigma. I enjoy both windows and linux, read slashdot, fark, and somethingawful, yet still have an attractive girlfriend who likes anime, but isnt a computer geek. I am a walking contradiction.
That was a damn funny article, about 5 lines into it you can tell that it's not that serious. I read it, and got enough good chuckles, and a few jokes I can "borrow" to use over the next few days, so my friends will think I am "original" and "witty".
I'm all for that. Or, of course, we could make cloning perfectly legal, and make ourselves a few copies of this guy. He's got the skill, drive, and confidence to succeed where many simply back down or say "it can't be done"
It could always turn out in a Logan's Run fashion, where you dont have to be old to die, just no longer a useful contributer to society. Bums? Gone. Killers? Gone. 500 year old doctor? Ok so on and so forth.
He(or she) has a good point here. With enough time and money, we could build a damn nice spam-filter system. The problem here is the time that it would take to integrate the two together, without them fighting overly much. I believe that if AOL and Microsoft were really serious about fighting spam, they could spend a bit of their hard-earned(yeah right) money on this, which could actually gain windows some points in many geeks' eyes. If there was a cheap application to stop this, I'd definitely give it a look, or hell, even as a cheeeeeap fee added to MSN, or for the AOLers(poor guys.)
Just something to think about really, it would curtail some of the hating that goes on directed at the Big Guys(tm)
One can always dream that the powers that be would do something good for all.
Libby Hoeler, you can get the full collection off kazaa/your favorite filesharing program. Ah, sweet, sweet libby, she kept me company many a night before i managed to snag a female...
You sound like someone bitter for some reason or another. If you actually knew any of the people involved, you would know how much this bothered hello. Most people who run torrent sites spend all their free time keeping the server up and working on new code so that YOU can get whatever it is you please, then when something bad happens, you jump on them.
And standing up to the dmca wouldn't matter, as their colo shut them off.
Slashdot Mirror
This is true. Too often games are overpolished, and look sterile to me as well. Hell, once they come up with a "dirt" filter for textures, games will feel a good bit more immersive than they currently do.
Progress quest. It's hilarious to watch your character's items, and the spells/armor you get.
If I had mod points, you would be plussed as much as I could get away with it.
You've hit it pretty much on the head. I played EQ on and off for about 2 years, only reaching level 45ish, when all of my friends and my brother were in high 50s or level 60. I didn't play all that much, and it was mainly me playing with the alternate characters of my friends. I enjoyed the social aspect, having fun with friends online, and helping out the newer players.
That's where the addiction comes in. You spend a couple months having fun with the same people online, you become friends with them, and want to continue your communications. Hell, even after I gave my account to a friend, I would log on every month or two to see how my EQ buddies were doing, how their significant others/kids were doing. And since I haven't even logged onto EQ for about 18 months, I got my close EQ friends' AIM names, and talk to them on there when I see them on.
So, in closing: It's not the gameplay, it's the people.
There's always Photoshop Elements, a good bit cheaper, and can do most of the basics of photoshop, just not all the advanced doohickeys.
Well, there have been stress tests where people show BSD handling upwards of 2 million concurrent connections, so if they run a good open-source the software is not at fault :)
I've actually read that book, it was a damn interesting read.
Well, I try to keep my PC at a good level of upgrading, and if I have copy protection problems, I'll just go grab the crack, I don't get a raging hard-on for having to do some work to make my games work like other people do, it just doesn't get to me.
Well, as a primarily windows user(at home), the one thing I refuse to pirate is games, because I fully support that industry, and don't feel like it is trying to screw me over. I won't even get my friends to burn me a copy of the new game they just bought, I'll just get the demo and give it a try. In fact, I bought the Fallout 1/2 bundle about 4 months ago off of amazon after reading about it, despite the fact that I could have easily pirated it from the net.
Oh good lord man, very few people are audiophiles to that degree. I listen to music on my PC, or on my 200 dollar cd player. No 800 dollar surround sound system for me. 192 MP3s are good enough for me and a large majority of the public. People are going to go for what is cheap, and iTunes may very well be the answer.
You know what, if I can find some way to rig a mouse up to my Xbox, I would give this a shot, just to maybe find some new people to give hell to. CS is pretty much the only game I play nowadays, and since I'm not touching Steam anytime soon, I might give this a rent, just to see how it feels.
That's a damn fine point there, but if they only allow closed source set-top boxes, what's to stop people from hacking those? People thought that the Tivo was pretty good when it came out, but everyone seemed to tweak/hack them after a short time, thereby getting rips from tivo, etc. People are just going to work with what they have, we'll just bitch about it more if they make it tough :)
I don't see the problem with open source set-top boxes. If people want to pirate stuff, they will, regardless of whether or not they use a different PVR system. Seeing as most people who pirate satellite can barely use a computer(as they just know someone who programs the cards.) This is probably just going to be so they can get kickbacks from retail PVR companies.
(very old formmail)
That's your problem there. You can't expect something that is "very old" to be secure. Nothing is going to be released in a perfect form. That's what updates are for.
And yes, you are correct in saying that the IT staff was probably incompetant, and any non-updated system is going to have problems.
Yes, I am quite an enigma. I enjoy both windows and linux, read slashdot, fark, and somethingawful, yet still have an attractive girlfriend who likes anime, but isnt a computer geek. I am a walking contradiction.
That was a damn funny article, about 5 lines into it you can tell that it's not that serious. I read it, and got enough good chuckles, and a few jokes I can "borrow" to use over the next few days, so my friends will think I am "original" and "witty".
It's not the size of the Schwartz, its how you use it.
Grub is another open-source search engine, I have the client running right now, its nice and distributed, I think this kind of idea is great.
I'm all for that. Or, of course, we could make cloning perfectly legal, and make ourselves a few copies of this guy. He's got the skill, drive, and confidence to succeed where many simply back down or say "it can't be done"
It could always turn out in a Logan's Run fashion, where you dont have to be old to die, just no longer a useful contributer to society.
Bums? Gone.
Killers? Gone.
500 year old doctor? Ok
so on and so forth.
at least Cyber-whatever sounds better than E-whatever. I'd much rather be prosecuted for Cyber-crime than E-crim.
He(or she) has a good point here. With enough time and money, we could build a damn nice spam-filter system. The problem here is the time that it would take to integrate the two together, without them fighting overly much. I believe that if AOL and Microsoft were really serious about fighting spam, they could spend a bit of their hard-earned(yeah right) money on this, which could actually gain windows some points in many geeks' eyes. If there was a cheap application to stop this, I'd definitely give it a look, or hell, even as a cheeeeeap fee added to MSN, or for the AOLers(poor guys.)
Just something to think about really, it would curtail some of the hating that goes on directed at the Big Guys(tm)
One can always dream that the powers that be would do something good for all.
Libby Hoeler, you can get the full collection off kazaa/your favorite filesharing program. Ah, sweet, sweet libby, she kept me company many a night before i managed to snag a female...
I think you should built a barn at your mansion in the bahamas, and we will all live in your yard.
You sound like someone bitter for some reason or another. If you actually knew any of the people involved, you would know how much this bothered hello. Most people who run torrent sites spend all their free time keeping the server up and working on new code so that YOU can get whatever it is you please, then when something bad happens, you jump on them.
And standing up to the dmca wouldn't matter, as their colo shut them off.