Not many people realize the effects of having too many lights in the sky. There are many animals out there that navigate using the night sky.
I'm from South Carolina, USA, and we get a fair share of sea turtles. They lay their eggs on the beach. Once those eggs hatch, the babies head for the sea using starlight. Unfortunately, they mistook some hotel's parking lot lights as stars and went the wrong way. Many were killed by being run over or just being too far from the ocean. A lot of volunteers spent the night trying to turn the little buggers around. They did convince the hotel to turn off its lights but by then, it was too late for many of those turtles.
I don't mind people having fun with lights. I just hope this isn't a permanent fixture. We aren't the only ones on the planet.
"Ha ha ha, you dumb bastard. It's not a schooner, it's a sailboat."
"A schooner is a sailboat stupidhead!"
"YOU KNOW WHAT, THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY, OVER THERE, THAT'S JUST A GUY IN A SUIT!!!!!"
First up, Bad Dudes: What's not to love about a game that asks "Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?" They couldn't use, say, the FBI, CIA or the NSA. Nope, they just pick 2 "bad" dudes off the street and send them to rescue the president.
Second, Master Blaster: One of the best games ever for NES. But also, one where you wonder, how much does one risk for the love of a frog. We witness a boy lose his pet frog. It lands on this radioactive box IN HIS BACKYARD!!! Then it jumps down a very, very deep hole and he follows. Luckily, he finds a kickass ride and perfect sized suit to go with it. Then he begins his journey to destroy vast amounts of robots and mutated creatures to rescue his pet frog only to find, his frog has mutated too and he must destroy. Can you feel his pain? Yeah, I didn't think so either.
ICO was one of the first games I bought for PS2. I've been sorely disappointed by every PS2 adventure game afterwards. There has been no PS2 game that I've felt more attachment to than this one. This is what games should strive for. It's short and there is barely any dialogue but dang, what a fantastic story this game delivers!!! By the end of the game, you are totally involved in the relationship between the boy and Yorda. You actually care about the characters.
Let's think about it this way. What systems are currently the most popular and have the largest user base? The Gameboy/Gameboy Advance and the Playstation/Playstation 2. Is it a coincidence? It could be. But a fact that I'm sure every game console manufacturer has noticed. More than likely, I see at least 2 out of the 3 next generation consoles implementing backwards compatibility. For Sony, it just makes sense. They've done it before, seen the benefit, and will do it again. Nintendo has also seen in their GBA. I'm sure they've learned their lesson and will port it to the home console. Then there is Microsoft. I heard rumours but nothing substantial. With the change of their chip, it may prove too costly to add that feature. Yet, in the long run, I believe it would be beneficial for them to include it. But in the end, I've seen manufacturers make some crazy decisions before (Virtual Boy, CDi, etc.) so I wouldn't make any conclusions until the announcements have been made.
Though I love bit torrent and how it provides a fast way to access different types of media on the net, it does have its problems. One of the biggest I've seen on college campuses and several ISPs is that it is being throttled down or even totally blocked off because of its use as a form of P2P sharing software. I hope this doesn't present a problem for Blizzard but I'm thinking that a lot of college student testers aren't going to be able to download the WoW beta very fast, if at all.
I agree, matchmaking services would be great. If anything, they should put a variable on the server that tells the clients what skill level the server is playing at.
I have been kicked, banned and cursed at so many times that it drives me nuts. Just to play Counter-Strike, it takes me half an hour to find a server that allows my skill level to play. I've never and I mean never cheated at any online game. Not even out of curiosity. I don't like cheaters in the least, but, I do like playing against them. My friends used to use cheats against me all the time. I'd start out with scores like 1 kill and 30 deaths. Slowly, I would start catching up until we were about 50% kill/death ratio. I guess I see why people think I cheat all the time.
Even worse than cheaters tho are team-killers. Because, no matter how much skill I have, I can't protect myself against someone I think is ally walking up to me and putting a bullet in the back of my head.
The latest game I play is Natural Selection. I love it because it's not all about skill. Strategy and team play is a heavy factor. Also, most servers run with FF disabled. I think you need a plugin to run FF. That way, I don't have to worry about TKers. Of course, we do get our cheaters every once in a while, but I can deal with that.
The other thing I like about NS is that though the learning curve is high, most of the users are willing to teach (I know I am). The reason for this is that the better your teammates, the more likely you'll win and have fun.
In the end, a skill level variable would help out alot. The casuals and beginners could stay on the low level servers to see how the game plays. That way, they aren't turned off by the more proficient players.
Here's what I've garnered from the rumours:
Cloud is back and is trying to figure out this new illness afflicting people. Aparrently, it has something to do with the "Holy" materia (that which was used to repel Meteor). Holy was meant to protect the world from anything that threatens it. Meteor was the immediate threat but humans can be regarded as a threat as well, especially after abusing materia like Shin-ra did. During his investigation, he runs across 3 Sephiroth look-alikes (clones maybe), which we see him sword fight with one and then later on, we see two (one with spikey hair and the other with medium length hair) of them shooting at him. Barret is back as well as Vincent. No word on Tifa, Yuffie, Nanaki or a resurrected Aerith.
Interviews suggest that the story is more about survival than the cure for the illness and the healing of the planet. From the end of FF7 we know things will turn out fine albeit, humans may longer exist. The location of the story is secret but is supposed to be hidden within the logo for the movie. The movie is planned at being only 60 minutes and depending of its success, could lead to a more FF7 productions such as a new game or another movie.
For one, they're already using S and O and neither have been crossed out. They've already missed 18 times. Unless they're counting every bone in the hangman's body, the game should be over.
Re:It's the power consumption that'll kill ya...
on
Dell's Gaming Monster
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Now all they need to do is attach an ethanol reactor to it, that or a MR.FUSION.
I think you make a very good point. If MS were to lower the price of the XBox that significantly, there would definitely have to be something to tie you in. Another possibility is that MS will support backwards compatibility with XBox 2. By lowering the pricepoint on the XBox to $99, they significantly increase the amount of users for XBox and lay a great foundation of users for XBox 2.
This is one of the reasons why Sony did so well with the Playstation 2 and will most likely continue to do well with the Playstation 3. I believe Sony is making backwards compatibility a foundation of their consoles.
Nintendo also did really well when they let the Game Boy Advance be backwards compatible. Look how huge a lead they have in that market. Hopefully, they've learned and will have backwards compatibility on their GameCube Sequel
I think MS is trying to follow that trend. They just want to build up their user base right now (if they do drop the price).
Hmmm... I suppose you could say that the films may have influenced the graphics of WoW. However, it might be more appropriate to go back to books themselves rather than the films. The original Warcraft (and many other fantasies, both books, movies and games) have close ties to Tolkien's stories. Though he wasn't the first to write fantasies with dragons, orcs, etc., he is widely regarded as the father of modern fantasies. So in a sense, yes the films probably influenced WoW, but it would be more appropriate to say Tolkien influenced WoW even more.
I wholeheartedly agree that Serkis should get an award of some type. But the problem is what category would he belong too? Best Supporting Actor? The problem is that the Gollum character isn't just him but a team of artists, animators, etc. Then it becomes more of a Best Visual Effects award which LOTR is nominated for.
I've played racing games where if I'm dominating the track, the 2nd place driver all of a sudden can go 50 mph faster than me and turn on a dime in order to catch up. I've also seen the effect where if I make a mistake and wreck, the competition slows to a crawl to allow me to catch up. I can understand this in games such as Mario Kart or other arcade racing games but I don't want this in my Gran Turismo or other "real" racing games.
Also, in some of the RPGs I've played, the monsters get stronger as I get stronger. That's ridiculous. I understand meeting new monsters that are stronger but when the little slime you had a hard time with at level 1 is still giving you a hard time at level 20, that's just plain ridiculous. Even worse is that you still get the same xp and gp.
There may be some really good reasons out there to have auto-adjusting difficulty, but for me personally, I don't believe it's that great a feature.
There are some nicer boxes out there though. I really liked the artwork on some of Blizzard's boxes. I know on some collector's edition software, they come in metal tins which can be used for other stuff. Of course, there are the really bad boxes that are twice as large as everyone elses just so they stand out on the shelf. It was pretty ridiculous for a while. I'm kinda glad that pc games are coming in standard sized boxes now.
I hope they don't. They really need to just bury Star Wars while it's still mediocre. There are some really good books in the EU (Extended Universe) but I don't think any are worth a movie except the Thrawn series. But the problem is that even though there are 3 books in the first of that series, I think it would be difficult to make those movies. In any case, having more SW sequels is a bad idea all around. Unless George steps down and they find someone a little better in the direction. Maybe like Peter Jackson from LOTR. Although, a Tim Burton Star Wars sounds really intriguing as well.
Perhaps a Women's Night (girls get in free) or something to that effect. Special events are a good way to pull in a crowd, especially when you attach the word free into it.
Wow, you really did think about this. I'm impressed.
On the #2, restrooms a definite selling point. I'm not a hypochondriac but I do get turned off by really bad restrooms. I like my restrooms bright and sterile looking.
On #3, I agree that special Events are pretty much mandatory in a place like this. The cost of slow days can be alleviated by closing for the day and just opening in the evening (most kids are out of school and workers are off from their jobs by then). Unless of course it's summer or winter break.
I totally agree on the joysticks. They are bound to be a big waste and easy to break. However, you may want one or two machines set aside with realistic joysticks for things like Flight Sim and/or Mech Warrior (a la BattleTech Centers).
Changing out games can be done by using a server software distribution system but you'll have to find a way to get around cd checks and such. Also, you'll want to keep your most popular games loaded to avoid bogging down the network with users downloading new games. Something else that may become an issue are things like Steam. If you have 100 people playing on Steam and all of a sudden there is a patch release, all I can say is ouch.
You know, I had been thinking about this for a very long time. I think that it would have to have a small cafe area where people can socialize freely and watch current games on monitors (almost like a sports bar). Maybe having it multileveled, gamers downstairs and public viewing/cafe upstairs (almost like an ice skating rink near where I live). Then have several different areas for gaming. A general area with individual gaming units. Some small 4-6 player rooms where teams can play in private. Perhaps another quiet room catering to business travelers and/or students doing research and in need of printers/scanners/fax etc. Have another area set aside to sell software(games, productivity, etc.) and older used computer systems. You may be able to use usb flash drives to store user information (profiles, scores, configuration files) which they can just plug into a computer if they are a frequent user. All nice and dandy but it's quite a bit for just a gaming center. In any case, I wish you the best of luck and perhaps one day, I'll show up ready to frag.
Slashdot Mirror
Not many people realize the effects of having too many lights in the sky. There are many animals out there that navigate using the night sky.
I'm from South Carolina, USA, and we get a fair share of sea turtles. They lay their eggs on the beach. Once those eggs hatch, the babies head for the sea using starlight. Unfortunately, they mistook some hotel's parking lot lights as stars and went the wrong way. Many were killed by being run over or just being too far from the ocean. A lot of volunteers spent the night trying to turn the little buggers around. They did convince the hotel to turn off its lights but by then, it was too late for many of those turtles.
I don't mind people having fun with lights. I just hope this isn't a permanent fixture. We aren't the only ones on the planet.
I believe the quote is in reverse.
"Ha ha ha, you dumb bastard. It's not a schooner, it's a sailboat."
"A schooner is a sailboat stupidhead!"
"YOU KNOW WHAT, THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY, OVER THERE, THAT'S JUST A GUY IN A SUIT!!!!!"
I love that movie.
And, the Pandarens did make it into the Frozen Throne expansion for Warcraft 3.
First up, Bad Dudes:
What's not to love about a game that asks "Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?" They couldn't use, say, the FBI, CIA or the NSA. Nope, they just pick 2 "bad" dudes off the street and send them to rescue the president.
Second, Master Blaster:
One of the best games ever for NES. But also, one where you wonder, how much does one risk for the love of a frog. We witness a boy lose his pet frog. It lands on this radioactive box IN HIS BACKYARD!!! Then it jumps down a very, very deep hole and he follows. Luckily, he finds a kickass ride and perfect sized suit to go with it. Then he begins his journey to destroy vast amounts of robots and mutated creatures to rescue his pet frog only to find, his frog has mutated too and he must destroy. Can you feel his pain? Yeah, I didn't think so either.
ICO was one of the first games I bought for PS2. I've been sorely disappointed by every PS2 adventure game afterwards. There has been no PS2 game that I've felt more attachment to than this one. This is what games should strive for. It's short and there is barely any dialogue but dang, what a fantastic story this game delivers!!! By the end of the game, you are totally involved in the relationship between the boy and Yorda. You actually care about the characters.
Let's think about it this way. What systems are currently the most popular and have the largest user base? The Gameboy/Gameboy Advance and the Playstation/Playstation 2. Is it a coincidence? It could be. But a fact that I'm sure every game console manufacturer has noticed. More than likely, I see at least 2 out of the 3 next generation consoles implementing backwards compatibility. For Sony, it just makes sense. They've done it before, seen the benefit, and will do it again. Nintendo has also seen in their GBA. I'm sure they've learned their lesson and will port it to the home console. Then there is Microsoft. I heard rumours but nothing substantial. With the change of their chip, it may prove too costly to add that feature. Yet, in the long run, I believe it would be beneficial for them to include it. But in the end, I've seen manufacturers make some crazy decisions before (Virtual Boy, CDi, etc.) so I wouldn't make any conclusions until the announcements have been made.
Does this mean we can't say Barbara Streisand on tv anymore?
Though I love bit torrent and how it provides a fast way to access different types of media on the net, it does have its problems. One of the biggest I've seen on college campuses and several ISPs is that it is being throttled down or even totally blocked off because of its use as a form of P2P sharing software. I hope this doesn't present a problem for Blizzard but I'm thinking that a lot of college student testers aren't going to be able to download the WoW beta very fast, if at all.
Apparently, you've never read Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy. Or maybe perhaps J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter books. You can also try out some of Anne Rice's works (Flash Site). Hmmm... what else? Oh there's Madeleine L'Engel's Time Quartet.
But Enemy Territory was already released and it was free ;-)
I agree, matchmaking services would be great. If anything, they should put a variable on the server that tells the clients what skill level the server is playing at.
I have been kicked, banned and cursed at so many times that it drives me nuts. Just to play Counter-Strike, it takes me half an hour to find a server that allows my skill level to play. I've never and I mean never cheated at any online game. Not even out of curiosity. I don't like cheaters in the least, but, I do like playing against them. My friends used to use cheats against me all the time. I'd start out with scores like 1 kill and 30 deaths. Slowly, I would start catching up until we were about 50% kill/death ratio. I guess I see why people think I cheat all the time.
Even worse than cheaters tho are team-killers. Because, no matter how much skill I have, I can't protect myself against someone I think is ally walking up to me and putting a bullet in the back of my head.
The latest game I play is Natural Selection. I love it because it's not all about skill. Strategy and team play is a heavy factor. Also, most servers run with FF disabled. I think you need a plugin to run FF. That way, I don't have to worry about TKers. Of course, we do get our cheaters every once in a while, but I can deal with that.
The other thing I like about NS is that though the learning curve is high, most of the users are willing to teach (I know I am). The reason for this is that the better your teammates, the more likely you'll win and have fun.
In the end, a skill level variable would help out alot. The casuals and beginners could stay on the low level servers to see how the game plays. That way, they aren't turned off by the more proficient players.
Here's what I've garnered from the rumours: Cloud is back and is trying to figure out this new illness afflicting people. Aparrently, it has something to do with the "Holy" materia (that which was used to repel Meteor). Holy was meant to protect the world from anything that threatens it. Meteor was the immediate threat but humans can be regarded as a threat as well, especially after abusing materia like Shin-ra did. During his investigation, he runs across 3 Sephiroth look-alikes (clones maybe), which we see him sword fight with one and then later on, we see two (one with spikey hair and the other with medium length hair) of them shooting at him. Barret is back as well as Vincent. No word on Tifa, Yuffie, Nanaki or a resurrected Aerith.
Interviews suggest that the story is more about survival than the cure for the illness and the healing of the planet. From the end of FF7 we know things will turn out fine albeit, humans may longer exist. The location of the story is secret but is supposed to be hidden within the logo for the movie. The movie is planned at being only 60 minutes and depending of its success, could lead to a more FF7 productions such as a new game or another movie.
For one, they're already using S and O and neither have been crossed out. They've already missed 18 times. Unless they're counting every bone in the hangman's body, the game should be over.
Now all they need to do is attach an ethanol reactor to it, that or a MR.FUSION.
Be careful when you mention "evolution" in Georgia. Some people might not like it.
I think you make a very good point. If MS were to lower the price of the XBox that significantly, there would definitely have to be something to tie you in. Another possibility is that MS will support backwards compatibility with XBox 2. By lowering the pricepoint on the XBox to $99, they significantly increase the amount of users for XBox and lay a great foundation of users for XBox 2.
This is one of the reasons why Sony did so well with the Playstation 2 and will most likely continue to do well with the Playstation 3. I believe Sony is making backwards compatibility a foundation of their consoles.
Nintendo also did really well when they let the Game Boy Advance be backwards compatible. Look how huge a lead they have in that market. Hopefully, they've learned and will have backwards compatibility on their GameCube Sequel
I think MS is trying to follow that trend. They just want to build up their user base right now (if they do drop the price).
Hmmm... I suppose you could say that the films may have influenced the graphics of WoW. However, it might be more appropriate to go back to books themselves rather than the films. The original Warcraft (and many other fantasies, both books, movies and games) have close ties to Tolkien's stories. Though he wasn't the first to write fantasies with dragons, orcs, etc., he is widely regarded as the father of modern fantasies. So in a sense, yes the films probably influenced WoW, but it would be more appropriate to say Tolkien influenced WoW even more.
"But why not at least NOMINATE an actor for best supporting from LOTR?
Bill"
You message and sig ran together. I thought you wanted to nominate Bill the pony from LOTR: FOTR.
I wholeheartedly agree that Serkis should get an award of some type. But the problem is what category would he belong too? Best Supporting Actor? The problem is that the Gollum character isn't just him but a team of artists, animators, etc. Then it becomes more of a Best Visual Effects award which LOTR is nominated for.
I've played racing games where if I'm dominating the track, the 2nd place driver all of a sudden can go 50 mph faster than me and turn on a dime in order to catch up. I've also seen the effect where if I make a mistake and wreck, the competition slows to a crawl to allow me to catch up. I can understand this in games such as Mario Kart or other arcade racing games but I don't want this in my Gran Turismo or other "real" racing games.
Also, in some of the RPGs I've played, the monsters get stronger as I get stronger. That's ridiculous. I understand meeting new monsters that are stronger but when the little slime you had a hard time with at level 1 is still giving you a hard time at level 20, that's just plain ridiculous. Even worse is that you still get the same xp and gp.
There may be some really good reasons out there to have auto-adjusting difficulty, but for me personally, I don't believe it's that great a feature.
There are some nicer boxes out there though. I really liked the artwork on some of Blizzard's boxes. I know on some collector's edition software, they come in metal tins which can be used for other stuff. Of course, there are the really bad boxes that are twice as large as everyone elses just so they stand out on the shelf. It was pretty ridiculous for a while. I'm kinda glad that pc games are coming in standard sized boxes now.
I hope they don't. They really need to just bury Star Wars while it's still mediocre. There are some really good books in the EU (Extended Universe) but I don't think any are worth a movie except the Thrawn series. But the problem is that even though there are 3 books in the first of that series, I think it would be difficult to make those movies. In any case, having more SW sequels is a bad idea all around. Unless George steps down and they find someone a little better in the direction. Maybe like Peter Jackson from LOTR. Although, a Tim Burton Star Wars sounds really intriguing as well.
Perhaps a Women's Night (girls get in free) or something to that effect. Special events are a good way to pull in a crowd, especially when you attach the word free into it.
Wow, you really did think about this. I'm impressed.
On the #2, restrooms a definite selling point. I'm not a hypochondriac but I do get turned off by really bad restrooms. I like my restrooms bright and sterile looking.
On #3, I agree that special Events are pretty much mandatory in a place like this. The cost of slow days can be alleviated by closing for the day and just opening in the evening (most kids are out of school and workers are off from their jobs by then). Unless of course it's summer or winter break.
I totally agree on the joysticks. They are bound to be a big waste and easy to break. However, you may want one or two machines set aside with realistic joysticks for things like Flight Sim and/or Mech Warrior (a la BattleTech Centers).
Changing out games can be done by using a server software distribution system but you'll have to find a way to get around cd checks and such. Also, you'll want to keep your most popular games loaded to avoid bogging down the network with users downloading new games. Something else that may become an issue are things like Steam. If you have 100 people playing on Steam and all of a sudden there is a patch release, all I can say is ouch.
Thats all I got for now.
You know, I had been thinking about this for a very long time. I think that it would have to have a small cafe area where people can socialize freely and watch current games on monitors (almost like a sports bar). Maybe having it multileveled, gamers downstairs and public viewing/cafe upstairs (almost like an ice skating rink near where I live). Then have several different areas for gaming. A general area with individual gaming units. Some small 4-6 player rooms where teams can play in private. Perhaps another quiet room catering to business travelers and/or students doing research and in need of printers/scanners/fax etc. Have another area set aside to sell software(games, productivity, etc.) and older used computer systems. You may be able to use usb flash drives to store user information (profiles, scores, configuration files) which they can just plug into a computer if they are a frequent user. All nice and dandy but it's quite a bit for just a gaming center. In any case, I wish you the best of luck and perhaps one day, I'll show up ready to frag.