I'm a freshman in college this year, and I'm still going to major in computer science... the idea being that in 3 years the economy will be out of the toilet.
And a second dot-com bubble would be nice, but it won't happen.
And this is why I'm not buying a DVD burner in the near future... not only do I not need that kind of storage (my CD burner does fine for my purposes), but blue laser DVD burners aren't that far away. Oh yeah, and the drop in prices if you wait.
Consider the "peers" of video gaming as a pastime: - Television. You're joking, right? Sit and watch something else happen. No brain activity involved, except maybe if it's a REALLY in-depth show on some big political issue. - Movies. See television, although it's a bit less mindless on the whole. And you pay more per hour for it than you would for a console/PC game. - Books. Books run the gamut from as mindless as TV to actually expanding your world view. And it involves actually doing something mentally.
Are there video games which have as much intellectual value as the "classics of literature"? No. Does that mean they can't? Not by a long shot. We've come a long way since the inanity of Pong (face it, it didn't expand your mind at all), and I actually think at one point games will be recognized as having societal value.
And as for your comment that you're making the same decisions over and over again... how is that any different from real life?
No... that would be an example of BAD use of social commentary in games. There are much more nuanced ways of injecting a social agenda than, say, the Michael Moore approach.
And unlike Xbox, which seems intent on turning the console gaming market into the PC gaming market by porting just about every game they make to the PC, Nintendo actually gives people a reason to buy their system.
Nintendo's big problem is a series of bad business decisions they made back in the N64 generation, which caused a number of third party developers to jump to Playstation.
According to the announcement on the front page of GameFAQs, the contest starts in the beginning of April. For those of you not aware of this, CJayC occasionally does something really off-the-wall to GameFAQs on April 1. Anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?
Since when did mortality ever affect players of video games? Hell, look at MMORPGs... you can be a complete idiot, get pkilled all day long, and it won't affect you in the least except for the loss of half a level and maybe some gold.
Question: If the Playstation was what made it "required" for games to have 3D, why is it that the original "standard" for a 3D platformer (Mario 64) was a Nintendo game?
Sure, the idea of it being exclusively about the survival instinct had its appeal in an arcade game. But I think there's more to it than that: in The Sims, for example, the only way you can be in mortal danger is by your own (possibly intentional) negligence.
The other aspect, which started with MUDs and continues now with MMORPGs and related genres, is immersing yourself in another virtual world. This is a different instinct, the instinct to explore and discover if you want to call it that. In [insert MMORPG here], you enter a virtual world with different rules than your own, and part of the fun is exploring that world and its rules. And yes, you do get in fights with packs of vicious cave trolls who can beat you to a pulp in 3 seconds flat, and that's another aspect of it, but to say that it's all about survival (or indeed that it ever was) is only half the story.
*AND*... once you install the thing... RealPlayer is the most unstable piece of crap I've ever had the misfortune to install on a computer. Try to listen to a stream from them... wait 3 minutes for the player to start up, then watch as it crashes the rest of your computer.
Me? A brainwashed Nintendo Power subscriber? Naw. I was in the SUPER POWER CLUB, which gave you such exciting benefits as... uh... a couple of videos which were thinly disguised ads, and a catalog where I could give them more money, and trading cards with cheat codes on them.
Who knows... I've run into a few of them, and they claim it's more fun, or more strategic, or whatever. Or, like the guy above, they do it because they can see how people react.
I've also had the opposite happen... one of my teammates once tried to backstab us, failed (because he wasn't trying all that hard), then spent the rest of the game telling the enemy exactly where we were and what units we had. We still won the game, and as we got closer and closer to winning the backstabber got more and more furious with the other team. (He then left, so he didn't get a win for his effort.)
Cute. And I suppose movies and music are also more relevant and important. If video games are a form of entertainment, they're as relevant as other forms of entertainment.
I've noticed that the mass media in general has NO idea about anything concerning video games. They consider them a curiosity, a destabilizing element in our country's youth, or simply a pastime that's not worth reporting on. By and large, they're not much better with computer-related stories, unless it's on the business end.
Why is it that scientific stories generally have "science correspondents", weather reports are made by actual meteorologists, and even political stories are made by people who watch politics closely, but video gaming stories are reported by whatever clueless hack happens to be open at the moment?
Put it this way: when idiots like Leland Yee from that article the other day come around saying there's no regulation on content in games, you can point to the ESRB ratings as at least a guideline for parents. Ideally parents will be watching their children play these games, so they'll KNOW what the content is like.
It can be improved, certainly, but it's better than no rating system at all in 95% of cases.
Leland Y. Yee - I certainly believe parents have a responsibility here. However, many live very difficult and busy lives and can not possibly monitor their children at all times. Unlike movies, in which parents can easily determine whether it is suitable for their child, many of these games must be mastered before the interaction begins at the most violent levels.
Back up a second. So... parents can't prevent their child playing a violent video game, but they CAN prevent them from watching a violent movie? Then he says that the violence doesn't show up immediately, but what do you think the game ratings are for? It's really no secret if a game is violent or not, much like movies. So he says that it's hard to tell if a game is violent if you ignore the rating, and usually the advertisements and reviews as well? All this means is that Yee doesn't understand how to be a parent.
People seem to gravitate mindlessly to tax-cutting messages, without considering the impact. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but they all want good schools, safe and well-maintained streets, etc.
So... what's really happening is that people are stupid. They seem to think all that money the government spends comes from nowhere, or maybe national park fees.
Although, in all fairness I wish the government wouldn't burn so much of it on idiotic pork barrel...
At least on GameFAQs, 90% of reviews for high profile games are fanboys. You'll see idiocy like 9/10 "This game has a few flaws" more often than you expect to.
Are you sure that's not just because the controls sucked or because you couldn't save your game?
The trick is not length, but making it WORTH that length. Some RPGs are better at this than others, although as a genre they tend to be longer games. Examples of games worth their length: FF6 (because it had two completely opposite halves of the game), Ogre Battle games (which tend to have a good story to string you along).
Dawn is the definition of the term vaporware... I've been playing the "warm-up" game for about two years now, and Jeff (the admin) has recently quit talking about Dawn at all, when they were almost up to beta testing it 18 months ago.
I tend to agree, though, that some of the problem with MMOGs in general is that they place no stigma on death. You die, you respawn somewhere, you might lose some of your experience or equipment, but nothing too valuable that you can't get back relatively quickly. So people aren't afraid to piss other people off, knowing they'll get killed. This is especially acute in a RP-based MUD like Achaea, where you have almost-daily accounts of people acting like idiots because there's no such thing as perma-death.
Slashdot Mirror
Hm... E3 in May, GameOn in November... so game publishers can hype their latest acquisitions twice a year instead of once.
Now, whether that's really a good idea... unsure.
I'm a freshman in college this year, and I'm still going to major in computer science... the idea being that in 3 years the economy will be out of the toilet.
And a second dot-com bubble would be nice, but it won't happen.
And this is why I'm not buying a DVD burner in the near future... not only do I not need that kind of storage (my CD burner does fine for my purposes), but blue laser DVD burners aren't that far away. Oh yeah, and the drop in prices if you wait.
Consider the "peers" of video gaming as a pastime:
- Television. You're joking, right? Sit and watch something else happen. No brain activity involved, except maybe if it's a REALLY in-depth show on some big political issue.
- Movies. See television, although it's a bit less mindless on the whole. And you pay more per hour for it than you would for a console/PC game.
- Books. Books run the gamut from as mindless as TV to actually expanding your world view. And it involves actually doing something mentally.
Are there video games which have as much intellectual value as the "classics of literature"? No. Does that mean they can't? Not by a long shot. We've come a long way since the inanity of Pong (face it, it didn't expand your mind at all), and I actually think at one point games will be recognized as having societal value.
And as for your comment that you're making the same decisions over and over again... how is that any different from real life?
No... that would be an example of BAD use of social commentary in games. There are much more nuanced ways of injecting a social agenda than, say, the Michael Moore approach.
And unlike Xbox, which seems intent on turning the console gaming market into the PC gaming market by porting just about every game they make to the PC, Nintendo actually gives people a reason to buy their system.
Nintendo's big problem is a series of bad business decisions they made back in the N64 generation, which caused a number of third party developers to jump to Playstation.
According to the announcement on the front page of GameFAQs, the contest starts in the beginning of April. For those of you not aware of this, CJayC occasionally does something really off-the-wall to GameFAQs on April 1. Anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?
Best. Game. Ever. == Best. April. Fools. Day. Scam. Ever.
Since when did mortality ever affect players of video games? Hell, look at MMORPGs... you can be a complete idiot, get pkilled all day long, and it won't affect you in the least except for the loss of half a level and maybe some gold.
Question: If the Playstation was what made it "required" for games to have 3D, why is it that the original "standard" for a 3D platformer (Mario 64) was a Nintendo game?
Sure, the idea of it being exclusively about the survival instinct had its appeal in an arcade game. But I think there's more to it than that: in The Sims, for example, the only way you can be in mortal danger is by your own (possibly intentional) negligence.
The other aspect, which started with MUDs and continues now with MMORPGs and related genres, is immersing yourself in another virtual world. This is a different instinct, the instinct to explore and discover if you want to call it that. In [insert MMORPG here], you enter a virtual world with different rules than your own, and part of the fun is exploring that world and its rules. And yes, you do get in fights with packs of vicious cave trolls who can beat you to a pulp in 3 seconds flat, and that's another aspect of it, but to say that it's all about survival (or indeed that it ever was) is only half the story.
Reminds me of ProgressQuest, the MMORPG you don't even have to play. :p
*AND*... once you install the thing... RealPlayer is the most unstable piece of crap I've ever had the misfortune to install on a computer. Try to listen to a stream from them... wait 3 minutes for the player to start up, then watch as it crashes the rest of your computer.
Me? A brainwashed Nintendo Power subscriber? Naw. I was in the SUPER POWER CLUB, which gave you such exciting benefits as... uh... a couple of videos which were thinly disguised ads, and a catalog where I could give them more money, and trading cards with cheat codes on them.
Who knows... I've run into a few of them, and they claim it's more fun, or more strategic, or whatever. Or, like the guy above, they do it because they can see how people react.
I've also had the opposite happen... one of my teammates once tried to backstab us, failed (because he wasn't trying all that hard), then spent the rest of the game telling the enemy exactly where we were and what units we had. We still won the game, and as we got closer and closer to winning the backstabber got more and more furious with the other team. (He then left, so he didn't get a win for his effort.)
And then there's RealPlayer, the most unstable piece of software I've ever had the misfortune to install on my computer...
Cute. And I suppose movies and music are also more relevant and important. If video games are a form of entertainment, they're as relevant as other forms of entertainment.
I've noticed that the mass media in general has NO idea about anything concerning video games. They consider them a curiosity, a destabilizing element in our country's youth, or simply a pastime that's not worth reporting on. By and large, they're not much better with computer-related stories, unless it's on the business end.
Why is it that scientific stories generally have "science correspondents", weather reports are made by actual meteorologists, and even political stories are made by people who watch politics closely, but video gaming stories are reported by whatever clueless hack happens to be open at the moment?
Put it this way: when idiots like Leland Yee from that article the other day come around saying there's no regulation on content in games, you can point to the ESRB ratings as at least a guideline for parents. Ideally parents will be watching their children play these games, so they'll KNOW what the content is like.
It can be improved, certainly, but it's better than no rating system at all in 95% of cases.
People seem to gravitate mindlessly to tax-cutting messages, without considering the impact. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but they all want good schools, safe and well-maintained streets, etc.
So... what's really happening is that people are stupid. They seem to think all that money the government spends comes from nowhere, or maybe national park fees.
Although, in all fairness I wish the government wouldn't burn so much of it on idiotic pork barrel...
At least on GameFAQs, 90% of reviews for high profile games are fanboys. You'll see idiocy like 9/10 "This game has a few flaws" more often than you expect to.
Perhaps you're just not cut out for the pace of Starcraft, and what you call "rush" is just the intended pace. :p
Are you sure that's not just because the controls sucked or because you couldn't save your game?
The trick is not length, but making it WORTH that length. Some RPGs are better at this than others, although as a genre they tend to be longer games. Examples of games worth their length: FF6 (because it had two completely opposite halves of the game), Ogre Battle games (which tend to have a good story to string you along).
I'm not sure I believe the GameFAQs ratings either... people there tend to think according to the following rating scale:
10 = good
9 = pretty good
8 = worth playing
7 = worth a rent
5 = crap
3 = really awful
1 = hockey puck
Notice how the level of "crap" is at 5/10. And the fanboys write those reviews too, so you'll get people give 10s to just about anything.
Dawn is the definition of the term vaporware... I've been playing the "warm-up" game for about two years now, and Jeff (the admin) has recently quit talking about Dawn at all, when they were almost up to beta testing it 18 months ago.
I tend to agree, though, that some of the problem with MMOGs in general is that they place no stigma on death. You die, you respawn somewhere, you might lose some of your experience or equipment, but nothing too valuable that you can't get back relatively quickly. So people aren't afraid to piss other people off, knowing they'll get killed. This is especially acute in a RP-based MUD like Achaea, where you have almost-daily accounts of people acting like idiots because there's no such thing as perma-death.