Well, yeah. That's the point. It's basically IRC with a centralized location for storing pictures, char sheets, combat maps, etc.
I mean, sure, you could set up your own wiki and your own IRC channel and have them both open at the same time.
I'd like to see a more thorough investigation with this method. The paper says they used 33 reviews from Gamespot UK to collect the data, and while I don't disagree with its findings (Gotta have good controls, bad plot doesn't matter), I wouldn't turn Table 5 (categories by importance) into a Game Design Bible.
Then again, the paper does say "This paper is primarily intended to inspire further work in the field."
I AM GLAD you are doing this. Because now you open up the dialogue in which we discuss what I am going to CHARGE YOU per kilowatt hour that I GENERATE.
The power companies would love to have this discussion but (as pointed out elsewhere) federal law has fixed the price at exactly the same price they charge you.
High prices at launch are a tax on impatient people.
Also, the FPS genre is relatively overcrowded, so if you have a good/new product come out for half what the other guys are charging that's a great way to stand out.
If by "grid" you mean "public waterworks", then sure. I was thinking you could build it into a new house and not have to deal with local water at all, but then you have to worry about waste water, so you can't really save the costs of laying pipe. I'm stuck trying to think of an area that's humid enough, has power, but can't rely on filtering/storing rain water or desalinization.
I think what's going on here is a play on the fear of local tap water, where no amount of filtering can substitute for completely removing yourself from the source.
...Wikipedians will be able to access and cite Knols with far greater ease than other more traditional sources.
Probably not. Knols are (for the most part) one-man articles, without any practical fact-checking mechanisms or other safeguards that make traditional sources cite-worthy. In fact, I fully expect Knol to fill up with cranks, pseudo-science, conspiracy-theorists and other questionably-scientific articles that, when brought to the general community's attention, don't hold up under pretty basic scrutiny.
The real value is in the sources they cite, just like a Wikipedia article.
Is it really that surprising that a campus that hosts some 20,000 students will have more than a few students that don't trust LARPers with anything even remotely resembling a gun? Especially considering:
* They tend to travel in groups and wear matching armbands (interpreted as "gang-like" behavior)
* The average LARPer is already something of a social deviant (not quite anime-convention-strange but strange enough)
* Recent high-profile college shootings, which some people were personally affected by (or knows somebody who knows somebody who was)
It's basically a recipe for raising suspicion and paranoia, especially in the first year when very few people on campus knew about the game until the police started arresting people.
When Penny Arcade linked to it, it had just opened up its BETA testing. And that means, yes, there are bugs, but that's the point of having an open beta, so Three Rings can find and fix the bugs. I'm so sorry you went into an open beta expecting a polished, 100% finished product.
The best implementations of context-sensitive actions have NEVER been built around the environment, but rather focused on the enemies being fought. Zelda: Wind Waker does this with a big shiny A is for Counter button. Kindom Hearts 2 uses triangle as a more general-purpose "action" button (which is only unique by being separate from the dedicated "Smack things" button) but the majority of battle actions are relative to either the environment, or more usually the enemies, but never really both.
Trying to coordinate the environment AND the enemies such that the player can quickly, easily, and regularly put the two together generally means the player has very little freedom to break outside of the "script". Dragon's Lair is the perfect example of this taken to an extreme.
I thought it already existed, just that World of Warcraft called it a "rested state" and made you actually, y'know, play your character to get the extra experience.
(for those who don't play WoW, leave your char logged off for a few weeks and when you come back you get double experience up until your next level or so)
And besides, the power levelers are going to run circles around "casual" players any day of the week.
(Guess who just got -1 redundant! Oooh! Oooh! I know! I know!)
If you care at all for puzzle-styled MMO's, try one of the green oceans (Viridian or Sage) in Puzzle Pirates. Instead of making you pay every month, you can buy doubloons (think "Tokens") with real money and every time you buy a major item (many of which are merely decorational), you pay an additional "token" fee. If you don't play much, you don't pay much.
But also mind that Puzzle Pirates is vastly different from the majority of MMO's *because* it is puzzle-based, and not the "kill stuff, get bigger, kill bigger stuff" model.
(that sucking sound you hear is my karma plummeting)
If Ardour doesn't have a feature I need, I can code it myself.
Unless, of course, you don't know how to code it yourself, either because you don't have the technical know-how or the willingness to invest time investigating and learning how it works.
This is becoming a pet peeve of mine when people espouse the benefits of FOSS; it only applies to tech-geeks. Great, programmers can do things with it that they can't do with closed-source. Now how about everyone else?
I'd say FF6 and Chrono Trigger jointly defined the game-as-storytelling subsection of RPGs (most "console" RPGs). Ultima and later refinements like Baldur's Gate helped define the game-as-storymaking subdivision (most "PC" RPGs).
It's worth noting TFA was split between the FF series and the Baldur's Gate series, though.
That's a bit like saying Sega would sooner publish games for Sony and Microsoft than for Nintendo. Holding a grudge is just not good business, especially in hard times.
But that's a developer's solution to the problem, not a player's. It's not like you can just force the game to spawn you at something other than a spawn point.
So the question is, what can you do while waiting for someone to make a game with fully random spawn points?
The skill required to counter "cheesy" moves often requires more skill than either player actually has. If the "cheeser" had more skill he wouldn't spam one move. If the "cheesee" had more skill he wouldn't be suckered into being killed by it.
(Cue "WELL DUH!" from the article)
The thing is, skill isn't acquired immediately. It's not like you can just "get better" as the article suggests and start kicking ass. If that was the case everyone would be tournament-level material. It takes time, and in the meanwhile, you're faced with a "cheesy" move you can't find a way around.
Plus, fighting a "cheeser" isn't going to increase your skill in the least: The only thing you're going to learn is how to win by spamming one move.
Slashdot Mirror
Neighbors pool destroyed your house? SUE THEM! It's not hard.
Suing them isn't hard. Getting recompense after lawyers' fees, in a timely manner? That's the hard part.
Well, yeah. That's the point. It's basically IRC with a centralized location for storing pictures, char sheets, combat maps, etc. I mean, sure, you could set up your own wiki and your own IRC channel and have them both open at the same time.
I'd like to see a more thorough investigation with this method. The paper says they used 33 reviews from Gamespot UK to collect the data, and while I don't disagree with its findings (Gotta have good controls, bad plot doesn't matter), I wouldn't turn Table 5 (categories by importance) into a Game Design Bible. Then again, the paper does say "This paper is primarily intended to inspire further work in the field."
I AM GLAD you are doing this. Because now you open up the dialogue in which we discuss what I am going to CHARGE YOU per kilowatt hour that I GENERATE.
The power companies would love to have this discussion but (as pointed out elsewhere) federal law has fixed the price at exactly the same price they charge you.
Because all the people boycotting Blizzard over bnetd has surely done them a lot of harm, right?
High prices at launch are a tax on impatient people. Also, the FPS genre is relatively overcrowded, so if you have a good/new product come out for half what the other guys are charging that's a great way to stand out.
Also on my list of words whose use has been corrupted of all meaning, "Paradigm".
I think what's going on here is a play on the fear of local tap water, where no amount of filtering can substitute for completely removing yourself from the source.
Probably not. Knols are (for the most part) one-man articles, without any practical fact-checking mechanisms or other safeguards that make traditional sources cite-worthy. In fact, I fully expect Knol to fill up with cranks, pseudo-science, conspiracy-theorists and other questionably-scientific articles that, when brought to the general community's attention, don't hold up under pretty basic scrutiny.
The real value is in the sources they cite, just like a Wikipedia article.
Is it really that surprising that a campus that hosts some 20,000 students will have more than a few students that don't trust LARPers with anything even remotely resembling a gun? Especially considering: * They tend to travel in groups and wear matching armbands (interpreted as "gang-like" behavior) * The average LARPer is already something of a social deviant (not quite anime-convention-strange but strange enough) * Recent high-profile college shootings, which some people were personally affected by (or knows somebody who knows somebody who was) It's basically a recipe for raising suspicion and paranoia, especially in the first year when very few people on campus knew about the game until the police started arresting people.
When Penny Arcade linked to it, it had just opened up its BETA testing. And that means, yes, there are bugs, but that's the point of having an open beta, so Three Rings can find and fix the bugs. I'm so sorry you went into an open beta expecting a polished, 100% finished product.
It's certainly not like you paid for it.
The best implementations of context-sensitive actions have NEVER been built around the environment, but rather focused on the enemies being fought. Zelda: Wind Waker does this with a big shiny A is for Counter button. Kindom Hearts 2 uses triangle as a more general-purpose "action" button (which is only unique by being separate from the dedicated "Smack things" button) but the majority of battle actions are relative to either the environment, or more usually the enemies, but never really both. Trying to coordinate the environment AND the enemies such that the player can quickly, easily, and regularly put the two together generally means the player has very little freedom to break outside of the "script". Dragon's Lair is the perfect example of this taken to an extreme.
(for those who don't play WoW, leave your char logged off for a few weeks and when you come back you get double experience up until your next level or so)
And besides, the power levelers are going to run circles around "casual" players any day of the week.
(Guess who just got -1 redundant! Oooh! Oooh! I know! I know!)
But also mind that Puzzle Pirates is vastly different from the majority of MMO's *because* it is puzzle-based, and not the "kill stuff, get bigger, kill bigger stuff" model.
(that sucking sound you hear is my karma plummeting)
Unless, of course, you don't know how to code it yourself, either because you don't have the technical know-how or the willingness to invest time investigating and learning how it works.
This is becoming a pet peeve of mine when people espouse the benefits of FOSS; it only applies to tech-geeks. Great, programmers can do things with it that they can't do with closed-source. Now how about everyone else?
While you're waiting for hell to freeze over, try Evil Genius, which is the same concept with James Bond instead of King Arthur.
I'd say FF6 and Chrono Trigger jointly defined the game-as-storytelling subsection of RPGs (most "console" RPGs). Ultima and later refinements like Baldur's Gate helped define the game-as-storymaking subdivision (most "PC" RPGs).
It's worth noting TFA was split between the FF series and the Baldur's Gate series, though.
Last time they "brought back" the Chrono Trigger series we got Chrono Cross.
That's a bit like saying Sega would sooner publish games for Sony and Microsoft than for Nintendo. Holding a grudge is just not good business, especially in hard times.
>"If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
I think of a rave every time I hear that quote.
> That will actually force readers to REAd the mag. Or not read it at all.
I think of a rave whenever I hear that quote.
I was wondering how they could actually have *fewer* games, myself.
So the question is, what can you do while waiting for someone to make a game with fully random spawn points?
(oh, wait, they did.)
The skill required to counter "cheesy" moves often requires more skill than either player actually has. If the "cheeser" had more skill he wouldn't spam one move. If the "cheesee" had more skill he wouldn't be suckered into being killed by it.
(Cue "WELL DUH!" from the article)
The thing is, skill isn't acquired immediately. It's not like you can just "get better" as the article suggests and start kicking ass. If that was the case everyone would be tournament-level material. It takes time, and in the meanwhile, you're faced with a "cheesy" move you can't find a way around.
Plus, fighting a "cheeser" isn't going to increase your skill in the least: The only thing you're going to learn is how to win by spamming one move.