Re:Was anyone involved in the beta? Excited about
on
Wish Cancelled
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· Score: 1
I think this was precisely the problem. They most likely had a very small turnout for the people that signed up.
I signed up and was accepted for the beta but I was too busy playing World of Warcraft to even install Wish (which I did download the whole thing, 1.2G).
This seems to be mostly the result of "the worst timing possible" mixed with "those graphics are soooo last year". >.>
The only thing "insightful" about this post was the insight given to us about the poster's inability to read the subject matter he's posting about before posting.
Oh, and his keen ability to generalize and stereotype groups of people/things that consist of some of the most non-stereotypical individuals. Not saying that even the majority of the members of the group he's referringn to do not fit his stereotypes, but to dismiss the entire group when even the minority makes up what I consider to be an extremely large number of people.... that's extremely disingenuous.
A less experienced writer is no less qualified to give you a useful opinion or list of facts about a game.
I find that "well experienced writers" simply do not give you the information necessary to decide on the purchase of the item in question. They tend to polish their text and method of conveyance so much that the purported reason for their writing of the article borders on invisible. That and they tend to spend too much effort/time glorifying or destroying a particularly small point of the game instead of covering it completely.
Out of all of the posts in this thread, of course I don't think most of them have read the article (par for the course). If they did, someone would have posted about the simple fact that they are comparing technically savvy Japanese with THE AMISH!
The people they're using for comparison in the USA specifically do not WANT technology... just pathetic journalism. Then there is the admission that "yes, we know this is extreme and inaccurate" (paraphrased). How can you represent the entire US by using the Amish as an example. *sigh*
I could go on for quite a while talking about this game, the ins and outs, the good and the bad, but it really all comes down to one single statement.
I have subscribed to a lot of MMOGs and have spent a lot of time playing them. While there have been MMOGs with flashier graphics or more original gameplay ideas, this is by far the most complete and polished of them all.
The simple fact that you can level from 1 to 60 just by doing quests and never do the same quest twice (you can't repeat any of the quests) is a HUGE deal maker for me. Yes, there's a lot of running around involved, but as long as the areas are aesthetically pleasing (they are) and they're not empty (most MMOGs seem to have these vast expanses of land that is completely barren except for a small amount of vegetation), then I'm happy to run to and fro.:D
Ooops, I wasn't going to run on and on about this./me shuts up now:x
I think what is spurious here are the claims that ATi is releasing false data. The poster specifically states that Anand went through and found the parts of the game with the heaviest load and based their tests on that. If HardOCP's tests give similar results, one could safely assume they did something at least similar.
I don't see ATi's benchmarks as "spurious" simply because they're different than someone who benchmarked only the worst performing parts of the game they could find. >.>
Would it not be more accurate to benchmark the game as a whole?
If anything, I'd consider any results that consist solely of the lowest performing parts of the game to be "spurious".
The cheapest computer on apple's site right now is $799 and that is with the lowest options available, like 256M RAM.
Yes, that's for an eMac, the iMacs start at $1299. >;
One simple fact that you are all forgetting anyway is that a lot more effort is put into the optimization of the PC version of most games (I'd like to facts on this, but it's easy enough to google it yourself) and the Mac ports usually suffer because they just don't have the funding to do so. The reason for this is obvious, anybody that'll actually buy that game on a Mac, that doesn't already have a Wintendo to play it on, is so hungry for games they'll buy it even if it's sub-par and inferior to it's Windows parent.
You should really take that into consideration when talking about how you can buy a system that will play the games equivalent to some cheap, low-end Windows PC.
The original argument still stands though, the quality games are usually not released for the Mac at all. So I don't really see how the price of an effective machine is relevant. The problem is the number of people that have the machines already, not the number of people that would buy one if there were games for it. The reasoning for that statement is that the high end games will never be available in the same quantity for Mac as for Windows unless there were an existing market for it and the market will never be there unless the games were available already...
Who's going to jump first?
Even if one publisher invested a ton of capital into making their top quality games available on the Mac, 1 or 2 big companies games are not reason enough to start switching to Macs (assuming that most Windows users even find Mac OSX desirable). Those companies will still make their games for the Windows market and you'll still have a lot of other companies making top quality games for Windows and no ports to the Mac, or crappy, bug ridden, low performance ports if they do (since there just isn't enough money to spend on the ports).
You could bring Blizzard into the mix and present things like D2, WC3, WoW. Yes, Blizzard is taking the proper approach and making the Mac verisons simultaneously, but Blizzard is unique in a lot of ways when it comes to development. They take as long as they want to complete a game and they make games that they know from experience will appeal to Mac users as well as Windows users.
Anyway, point being, people aren't going to buy Macs for games without games to buy and publishers aren't going to fund games on the Mac without people to buy them.
He also states that it would not help piracy in some countries. Lower cost hardware lowering piracy only applies to countries that can barely afford computers at all, if they can even afford them.
Well, if EULAs were using standardized clauses that were well known, it would negate any reason for having a "Robolawyer" type application.
I do think this is a great idea as I wrote in one of my comments lower down in the thread.:)
If the government were involved, just to the extent of keeping the records of common clauses, so that a user could click a link to clause 12 and go read it online with a thorough and easy to understand explaination of what it means.
There would still be a LOT of text to go through, since there would be lots of different clauses and modified versions based on different types of products, but it would DEFINITELY solve the problem of being caught by surprise/hidden clauses, as long as you understood the commonly used standards.
Any program that parses data can be analyzed and fed data that is intended to trick the parser.
Even if the parser was only allowed to say yes to certain things and no to anything else that wasn't of this specific text, there would still be two problems.
1) if a company legitimately changes the wording to something "robolawyer" is unfamiliar with, it's going to automatically say no. would you create a "learning robolawyer"?
2) companies could still analyze the way "robolawyer" processes the text and possibly abuse it by putting important clauses into comment like areas for example.
All in all, a horrible idea.
What SHOULD be done is some type of standardized agreement system enforced by the government, put into law, if you will.
Have pre-written clauses for particular types of items, should be easy to cover general software and it's responsibilities relating to screwing up your machine or you reselling the software. The EULA would then consist of links and ref numbers for which clauses they are including and the full text as well, but with the initial guarantee that it is unchanged from the pre-written clauses.
Then users would feel more comfortable knowing that they were not being tricked into something unusual!
Any program that parses data can be analyzed and fed data that is intended to trick the parser.
Even if the parser was only allowed to say yes to certain things and no to anything else that wasn't of this specific text, there would still be two problems.
1) if a company legitimately changes the wording to something "robolawyer" is unfamiliar with, it's going to automatically say no. would you create a "learning robolawyer"?
2) companies could still analyze the way "robolawyer" processes the text and possibly abuse it by putting important clauses into comment like areas for example.
All in all, a horrible idea.
What SHOULD be done is some type of standardized agreement system enforced by the government, put into law, if you will.
Have pre-written clauses for particular types of items, should be easy to cover general software and it's responsibilities relating to screwing up your machine or you reselling the software. The EULA would then consist of links and ref numbers for which clauses they are including and the full text as well, but with the initial guarantee that it is unchanged from the pre-written clauses.
Then users would feel more comfortable knowing that they were not being tricked into something unusual!
Ya know, the day the poster of the first comment has actually READ any of the linked articles before posting, I may just drop dead from surprise.
People apparently would rather get thier post in as soon as possible instead of actually READING WTF they're POSTING about.
WORST OF ALL: This initial news item should have been moderated, since every non-factual suggestion made (about 75% of the post) is wrong.
WHY CAN'T PEOPLE ACTUALLY POST REAL NEWS ANYMORE?!?!
If you'd actually read the article on newsforge, you'd know that:
(a) there was never a contract between Connolley and the developer that wrote this code.
(b) the code given to Mambo was written seperately (with improved features).
Sometimes it is not possible to get a settlement that admits nothing. In this case, DirecTV is in control of the settlement. EITHER party is allowed to refuse the settlement and bring the case to court. The ball is usually in the plaintiff's court... no pun intended. lol:)
Let's face it. You don't get into the software publishing business because you want to be creative and make something really great. You get into the business because you want to make a lot of money.
Take note that the publisher is going to make their money regardless. They get their cut first, before the developer, exactly the same way it works in the music and movie industry.
If the PUBLISHER wanted something really great, something creative, THEY can make that happen with funding, but they're content to put out crap titles that are underfunded and released too early just so they can make their guranteed buck, versus taking the risk.
Just like the music industry, the artists (developers) should be bitching out the publisher for ripping them off. Publishers make most of the money and do the least amount of actual work. Not saying they don't do much work. Everybody involved does a lot of work, but they have by far the largest payoff.
You were probably mistaking the used games for new ones, since some stores (EB, GameStop) sell used games for more than some stores sell them for as NEW.:p
You apparently don't buy many games at the store then if you are quite certain....
You can frequently find used copies of top rank games a week after they're released.
It would stand to reason that the person most likely to trade in their game is the hardcore gamer that cycles through games like clothes through the wash. They finish the game fast, then they want to trade it in while it's still worth something and move on to the next one.
Then you see the game for $2-$5 less than a brand new one while the game store paid a maximum of $10 for it.
Most people think $2-$5 is $2-$5 they could spend on something else or not spend at all. Especially if they're the same kind of person that just wants to buy it, beat it, trade it in.
I think this is just a reality check showing how the huge media companies don't rule just the music industry. Note that most major game publishers are owned by the same massive corporations that own the music labels.
Developers are next to nothing in today's market without shelf space and that space is owned by the publishers.
You want top shelf, huge promotional posters in stores, TV commercials? Then you need to go to somebody with those capabilities.:x
Unless of course your park doesn't actually suck, but I think it's a given here that this park sucks.... badly.:) Hence the reason they're still making major changes to the park, because people are unsatisfied.
Which is actually another interesting point. What Sony says people want from the game (the changes they're making) and what people generally post on forums that they want from the game never seem to coincide.... It always makes me wonder who these people are that are asking for the changes they're making.....
Companies can't afford to drop the initial price.
A very large number of the people that bought this game when it was first released did not pay any monthly fees as they cancelled their account at the end of their free 30 days.
This isn't the first time we've seen this either. AC2 and ShadowBane suffered much the same fate. HUGE showing the first month out, then the user base just dwindles down to almost non-existant.
It's like letting people into an amusement park where all the rides are either broken or they just don't look fun. If you charge people $50 entry though and enough people pay that $50 the first month, before word of mouth spreads that your park sucks... that's probly about the best income you're going to get from the park.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this was precisely the problem. They most likely had a very small turnout for the people that signed up.
I signed up and was accepted for the beta but I was too busy playing World of Warcraft to even install Wish (which I did download the whole thing, 1.2G).
This seems to be mostly the result of "the worst timing possible" mixed with "those graphics are soooo last year". >.>
Essentially, the only initial content they provided was the newb island that you start on. Past that, there is very little content.
So basically you bought a game engine and a demo level, then you have to pay for the rest of the game in little chunks as you go to complete them.
The only thing "insightful" about this post was the insight given to us about the poster's inability to read the subject matter he's posting about before posting.
Oh, and his keen ability to generalize and stereotype groups of people/things that consist of some of the most non-stereotypical individuals. Not saying that even the majority of the members of the group he's referringn to do not fit his stereotypes, but to dismiss the entire group when even the minority makes up what I consider to be an extremely large number of people.... that's extremely disingenuous.
A less experienced writer is no less qualified to give you a useful opinion or list of facts about a game.
I find that "well experienced writers" simply do not give you the information necessary to decide on the purchase of the item in question. They tend to polish their text and method of conveyance so much that the purported reason for their writing of the article borders on invisible. That and they tend to spend too much effort/time glorifying or destroying a particularly small point of the game instead of covering it completely.
Out of all of the posts in this thread, of course I don't think most of them have read the article (par for the course). If they did, someone would have posted about the simple fact that they are comparing technically savvy Japanese with THE AMISH!
The people they're using for comparison in the USA specifically do not WANT technology... just pathetic journalism. Then there is the admission that "yes, we know this is extreme and inaccurate" (paraphrased). How can you represent the entire US by using the Amish as an example. *sigh*
I could go on for quite a while talking about this game, the ins and outs, the good and the bad, but it really all comes down to one single statement.
:D
/me shuts up now :x
I have subscribed to a lot of MMOGs and have spent a lot of time playing them. While there have been MMOGs with flashier graphics or more original gameplay ideas, this is by far the most complete and polished of them all.
The simple fact that you can level from 1 to 60 just by doing quests and never do the same quest twice (you can't repeat any of the quests) is a HUGE deal maker for me. Yes, there's a lot of running around involved, but as long as the areas are aesthetically pleasing (they are) and they're not empty (most MMOGs seem to have these vast expanses of land that is completely barren except for a small amount of vegetation), then I'm happy to run to and fro.
Ooops, I wasn't going to run on and on about this.
That totally has not been the case thus far.
The original post has nothing to do with that anyway, it's someone editing posts by forum moderators to make THEM look very negative.
Plenty of beta players post very negative things, but only ones that break the rules (racism, foul language, etc.) are ever deleted.
And please, for the love of god, do not ever mention Blizzard as being anything like Sony.
>.>
I think what is spurious here are the claims that ATi is releasing false data. The poster specifically states that Anand went through and found the parts of the game with the heaviest load and based their tests on that. If HardOCP's tests give similar results, one could safely assume they did something at least similar.
I don't see ATi's benchmarks as "spurious" simply because they're different than someone who benchmarked only the worst performing parts of the game they could find. >.>
Would it not be more accurate to benchmark the game as a whole?
If anything, I'd consider any results that consist solely of the lowest performing parts of the game to be "spurious".
donut hat
The cheapest computer on apple's site right now is $799 and that is with the lowest options available, like 256M RAM.
Yes, that's for an eMac, the iMacs start at $1299. >;
One simple fact that you are all forgetting anyway is that a lot more effort is put into the optimization of the PC version of most games (I'd like to facts on this, but it's easy enough to google it yourself) and the Mac ports usually suffer because they just don't have the funding to do so. The reason for this is obvious, anybody that'll actually buy that game on a Mac, that doesn't already have a Wintendo to play it on, is so hungry for games they'll buy it even if it's sub-par and inferior to it's Windows parent.
You should really take that into consideration when talking about how you can buy a system that will play the games equivalent to some cheap, low-end Windows PC.
The original argument still stands though, the quality games are usually not released for the Mac at all. So I don't really see how the price of an effective machine is relevant. The problem is the number of people that have the machines already, not the number of people that would buy one if there were games for it. The reasoning for that statement is that the high end games will never be available in the same quantity for Mac as for Windows unless there were an existing market for it and the market will never be there unless the games were available already...
Who's going to jump first?
Even if one publisher invested a ton of capital into making their top quality games available on the Mac, 1 or 2 big companies games are not reason enough to start switching to Macs (assuming that most Windows users even find Mac OSX desirable). Those companies will still make their games for the Windows market and you'll still have a lot of other companies making top quality games for Windows and no ports to the Mac, or crappy, bug ridden, low performance ports if they do (since there just isn't enough money to spend on the ports).
You could bring Blizzard into the mix and present things like D2, WC3, WoW. Yes, Blizzard is taking the proper approach and making the Mac verisons simultaneously, but Blizzard is unique in a lot of ways when it comes to development. They take as long as they want to complete a game and they make games that they know from experience will appeal to Mac users as well as Windows users.
Anyway, point being, people aren't going to buy Macs for games without games to buy and publishers aren't going to fund games on the Mac without people to buy them.
He also states that it would not help piracy in some countries. Lower cost hardware lowering piracy only applies to countries that can barely afford computers at all, if they can even afford them.
READ
THE
DAMN
ARTICLE
YOU
NEWBS
Well, if EULAs were using standardized clauses that were well known, it would negate any reason for having a "Robolawyer" type application.
:)
I do think this is a great idea as I wrote in one of my comments lower down in the thread.
If the government were involved, just to the extent of keeping the records of common clauses, so that a user could click a link to clause 12 and go read it online with a thorough and easy to understand explaination of what it means.
There would still be a LOT of text to go through, since there would be lots of different clauses and modified versions based on different types of products, but it would DEFINITELY solve the problem of being caught by surprise/hidden clauses, as long as you understood the commonly used standards.
Any program that parses data can be analyzed and fed data that is intended to trick the parser.
Even if the parser was only allowed to say yes to certain things and no to anything else that wasn't of this specific text, there would still be two problems.
1) if a company legitimately changes the wording to something "robolawyer" is unfamiliar with, it's going to automatically say no. would you create a "learning robolawyer"?
2) companies could still analyze the way "robolawyer" processes the text and possibly abuse it by putting important clauses into comment like areas for example.
All in all, a horrible idea.
What SHOULD be done is some type of standardized agreement system enforced by the government, put into law, if you will.
Have pre-written clauses for particular types of items, should be easy to cover general software and it's responsibilities relating to screwing up your machine or you reselling the software. The EULA would then consist of links and ref numbers for which clauses they are including and the full text as well, but with the initial guarantee that it is unchanged from the pre-written clauses.
Then users would feel more comfortable knowing that they were not being tricked into something unusual!
Any program that parses data can be analyzed and fed data that is intended to trick the parser. Even if the parser was only allowed to say yes to certain things and no to anything else that wasn't of this specific text, there would still be two problems. 1) if a company legitimately changes the wording to something "robolawyer" is unfamiliar with, it's going to automatically say no. would you create a "learning robolawyer"? 2) companies could still analyze the way "robolawyer" processes the text and possibly abuse it by putting important clauses into comment like areas for example. All in all, a horrible idea. What SHOULD be done is some type of standardized agreement system enforced by the government, put into law, if you will. Have pre-written clauses for particular types of items, should be easy to cover general software and it's responsibilities relating to screwing up your machine or you reselling the software. The EULA would then consist of links and ref numbers for which clauses they are including and the full text as well, but with the initial guarantee that it is unchanged from the pre-written clauses. Then users would feel more comfortable knowing that they were not being tricked into something unusual!
Ya know, the day the poster of the first comment has actually READ any of the linked articles before posting, I may just drop dead from surprise. People apparently would rather get thier post in as soon as possible instead of actually READING WTF they're POSTING about. WORST OF ALL: This initial news item should have been moderated, since every non-factual suggestion made (about 75% of the post) is wrong. WHY CAN'T PEOPLE ACTUALLY POST REAL NEWS ANYMORE?!?!
If you'd actually read the article on newsforge, you'd know that: (a) there was never a contract between Connolley and the developer that wrote this code. (b) the code given to Mambo was written seperately (with improved features).
Who in the HELL thought it was a good idea to mod this *** TROLLING *** up to 5 via INSIGHTFUL of all things?!?!?!
OMG!
PLEASE mod this up as Funny! =)
Sometimes it is not possible to get a settlement that admits nothing. In this case, DirecTV is in control of the settlement. EITHER party is allowed to refuse the settlement and bring the case to court. The ball is usually in the plaintiff's court... no pun intended. lol :)
Let's face it. You don't get into the software publishing business because you want to be creative and make something really great. You get into the business because you want to make a lot of money.
Take note that the publisher is going to make their money regardless. They get their cut first, before the developer, exactly the same way it works in the music and movie industry.
If the PUBLISHER wanted something really great, something creative, THEY can make that happen with funding, but they're content to put out crap titles that are underfunded and released too early just so they can make their guranteed buck, versus taking the risk.
Just like the music industry, the artists (developers) should be bitching out the publisher for ripping them off. Publishers make most of the money and do the least amount of actual work. Not saying they don't do much work. Everybody involved does a lot of work, but they have by far the largest payoff.
You were probably mistaking the used games for new ones, since some stores (EB, GameStop) sell used games for more than some stores sell them for as NEW. :p
You apparently don't buy many games at the store then if you are quite certain....
You can frequently find used copies of top rank games a week after they're released.
It would stand to reason that the person most likely to trade in their game is the hardcore gamer that cycles through games like clothes through the wash. They finish the game fast, then they want to trade it in while it's still worth something and move on to the next one.
Then you see the game for $2-$5 less than a brand new one while the game store paid a maximum of $10 for it.
Most people think $2-$5 is $2-$5 they could spend on something else or not spend at all. Especially if they're the same kind of person that just wants to buy it, beat it, trade it in.
I think this is just a reality check showing how the huge media companies don't rule just the music industry. Note that most major game publishers are owned by the same massive corporations that own the music labels. Developers are next to nothing in today's market without shelf space and that space is owned by the publishers. You want top shelf, huge promotional posters in stores, TV commercials? Then you need to go to somebody with those capabilities. :x
Unless of course your park doesn't actually suck, but I think it's a given here that this park sucks.... badly. :) Hence the reason they're still making major changes to the park, because people are unsatisfied.
Which is actually another interesting point. What Sony says people want from the game (the changes they're making) and what people generally post on forums that they want from the game never seem to coincide.... It always makes me wonder who these people are that are asking for the changes they're making.....
Companies can't afford to drop the initial price. A very large number of the people that bought this game when it was first released did not pay any monthly fees as they cancelled their account at the end of their free 30 days. This isn't the first time we've seen this either. AC2 and ShadowBane suffered much the same fate. HUGE showing the first month out, then the user base just dwindles down to almost non-existant. It's like letting people into an amusement park where all the rides are either broken or they just don't look fun. If you charge people $50 entry though and enough people pay that $50 the first month, before word of mouth spreads that your park sucks... that's probly about the best income you're going to get from the park.