Am I the only one to realize that this debate is largely off topic? The problem with the Wind Waker was that it had some serious flaws that made the game so painful to finish, only one of my 4 roomates (including me) bothered to finish this game. More realism wouldn't have changed any of these flaws. Had Nintendo simply substituted more realistic graphics, the game would have been no better. The author touched on the subject about cell-shading vs. realism debate largely being important because the series has such prominence. I'd actually argue that the debate is only there really because the game was not all that it could have been. I fell in love with Wind Waker when I first played it. I felt it was an awesome game. It was beautiful, the controls were clean, the fighting was interesting, and the early levels were fun to explore. Unfortunately, there were a number of things that made the game terrible (the biggest one being the unfortunate amount of time needed spent in the boat along with a number of unnecessary animations). The debate should really be more about what made Wind Waker a bad game. Graphics can definitely make a game bad, but the graphics in Wind Waker were far from bad (I haven't seen any cell shaded games done more beautifully on any platform).
One little understood thing about animals is that they basically act as batteries for food energy. As such, they have historically served a very important role in reducing the risk of major crop failure. Picture a small farm, mostly self sufficient. The farm provides just slightly more plant matter than the farm can produce. Now picture the excess produce going to waste because much of it isn't easy to store the food (canning/pickling can take a good deal of time and effort). Now, instead of letting the food go to waste, feed it to a pig/cow/sheep and let it get nice and fat. If for some reason next years crop fails, you've still got food to live on.
This analogy works on a global scale too. It's always foolish not to diversify at least slightly, and having meat be some percentage of world food production is a smart thing to do. It also keeps the relative price of grain down by increasing the production of grain. Were the meat industry to go away we'd see a lot fewer farmers and grain prices would steadily rise as a result
Read up on your economic theory this is obvious price discrimination in it's purist form.
Joe User only needs a single port hub, and is only willing to spend x dollars. Joe Server can really use that dual port, and he's got a bigger budget, and support costs are always >> initial purchase. So he's willing to spend 3 to 4 hundred times what Joe User will spend.
The NIC manufacturers have found a segmented market and are taking advantage of it. Pure economics.
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Am I the only one to realize that this debate is largely off topic? The problem with the Wind Waker was that it had some serious flaws that made the game so painful to finish, only one of my 4 roomates (including me) bothered to finish this game. More realism wouldn't have changed any of these flaws. Had Nintendo simply substituted more realistic graphics, the game would have been no better. The author touched on the subject about cell-shading vs. realism debate largely being important because the series has such prominence. I'd actually argue that the debate is only there really because the game was not all that it could have been. I fell in love with Wind Waker when I first played it. I felt it was an awesome game. It was beautiful, the controls were clean, the fighting was interesting, and the early levels were fun to explore. Unfortunately, there were a number of things that made the game terrible (the biggest one being the unfortunate amount of time needed spent in the boat along with a number of unnecessary animations). The debate should really be more about what made Wind Waker a bad game. Graphics can definitely make a game bad, but the graphics in Wind Waker were far from bad (I haven't seen any cell shaded games done more beautifully on any platform).
One little understood thing about animals is that they basically act as batteries for food energy. As such, they have historically served a very important role in reducing the risk of major crop failure. Picture a small farm, mostly self sufficient. The farm provides just slightly more plant matter than the farm can produce. Now picture the excess produce going to waste because much of it isn't easy to store the food (canning/pickling can take a good deal of time and effort). Now, instead of letting the food go to waste, feed it to a pig/cow/sheep and let it get nice and fat. If for some reason next years crop fails, you've still got food to live on.
This analogy works on a global scale too. It's always foolish not to diversify at least slightly, and having meat be some percentage of world food production is a smart thing to do. It also keeps the relative price of grain down by increasing the production of grain. Were the meat industry to go away we'd see a lot fewer farmers and grain prices would steadily rise as a result
Read up on your economic theory this is obvious price discrimination in it's purist form.
Joe User only needs a single port hub, and is only willing to spend x dollars. Joe Server can really use that dual port, and he's got a bigger budget, and support costs are always >> initial purchase. So he's willing to spend 3 to 4 hundred times what Joe User will spend.
The NIC manufacturers have found a segmented market and are taking advantage of it. Pure economics.