But it is true that most mainstream games are either really shallow or have a plot you just don't care about. However, a game that tells a captivating story is one that you might want to replay later just to experience the story again.
For example, I'm going to buy Escape Velocity Nova, not because I'm such a big fan of Elite clones but because in the demo I played halfway through the Vell-os storyline and I want to get that mind-control device out of my pilot's spine and then get back at the Federation. I'm not thinking in terms of "by getting rid of the device I can advance in the game", I'm thinking in terms of "just wait until I can free myself (and hopefully the Vell-os) and Fucking Kill(TM) you assholes". I want to get back at them. I am pissed about how they used me to hurt their enemies (getting those enemies to hate me in the process). That kind of passion is pretty rare with games; I usually reserve it for good books or movies.
Without the storylines (and modability; I love modding) EV Nova would definitely not be worth thirty US bucks to me. But I am willing to spend the money on a game that does such a good job at storytelling. The fact that I want to Summer Bloom the shit out of Commander Krane also plays into that.
When I think about truly good games with high replay value I usually think about games with a good story (off the top of my head: Fallout 1/2, X-Com 1 to 3, Final Fantasy Tactics (NOT Advance), most LucasArts games before Monkey Island 4, the Marathon series...); games that are great without a decent story usually are so because of great modability (Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena). The few games that have neither invariably have outstanding gameplay (Gunbound, the 2D Metroid games (Fusion even has a half-decently told story)).
A brilliant story might not be the best way to drive sales, but it is an excellent way of increasing replay value. If graphics really would become self-upgrading and more developers would focus on things like immersion that goes beyond the visual/acoustic level we'd probably see more memorable games.
Let's see... Presenting the name of the game, check. Linking to the game's website, check. Telling the price, check. Praising the game while giving away teaser-sized parts of the plot, check.
Getting paid for what amounts to a Slashvertisement... un-check. Damn.
That would still cost you the friends you have left in Europe (maybe even the sycophants in London). I once again point out that pissing off an important market that's bigger than you is unwise.
1. All servers on the internet get backdoor'd.
2. Hackers figure out how to exploit the backdoors.
3. All TC servers get rooted. Trusted Computing turns into a massive worldwide system DDOS as no key validates at all, rendering all TC OSes unbootable, all TC protected files unopenable.
4. TC goes down in flames as nobody trusts it anymore.
I think this is one of the best ideas the FBI ever had.
If you add Hitler's death count to that list (NAZI stood for National *Socialist* Worker's Party) you're well over 100 million.
You are misunderstanding the term. "National socialism" is not socialism with the adjective "national" added to it, it is one indivisible term. In German it's called "Nationalsozialismus" as opposed to "nationaler Sozialismus".
The NSDAP (as the party is abbreviated) had a social side, providing the poor with food and promising work (which is why they were so popular), but they weren't really friends of socialism and certainly not communism.
Nevertheless, Nazi Germany qualifies as a prime example of how a fascist state can get away with extreme atrocities without the people even noticing (most people only learned of what happened in the KZs after the war).
Probably the latter one, because we get a spiffy new GPS sattelite network. Teke a look at what would probably happen:
Scenario 1 (no Galileo): You shut off NAVSTAR. Economies everywhere bomb as all businesses reliant on NAVSTAR take huge losses. As a result the rest of the world will demand NAVSTAR to be put under UN control. You lose lots of money and NAVSTAR.
Scenario 2 (Galileo in place): You shut off NAVSTAR and attempt to jam Galileo. Europe overrides your Galileo access. Businesses reliant on NAVSTAR bomb, ones reliant on Galileo take minor hits. You lose a lot of goodwill and money.
Scenario 3 (Galileo in place): You destroy Galileo. Europe shuts down trade with the USA and demands compensation (probably including parts of NAVSTAR). Countries like Russia and China probably support Europe, being affected as well. Since most of the world is against you they can just put trade sanctions on you until you're broke and have to take whichever demands they make. You lose a lot of money, any kind of goodwill left and possibly NAVSTAR.
Twenty years ago the USA were in a position where they could get away with most everything. Nowadays, as Europe and China are approaching superpowerdom, they aren't. Posing with nukes doesn't exactly work when the potential opponents are numerous (Russia, Korea, India, UK, France, Germany thinking about getting nukes...) and regular warfare is slow enough that the economic backlash would hit before the war can take off.
The USA can enter a pissing contest with the EU, but they wouldn't win. A military approach could yield world war sized trouble (and probably mass demonstrations of people demanding that the current administration resigns) and economical warfare is difficult when your opponent has the bigger economy.
BTW, scenario 4: The USA shoot down Galileo. France gets pissed and nukes Washington, DC. "It's Christmas at Ground Zero" record sales skyrocket all over the world.
It gets even worse. In some cases Paypal forces you to provide a credit card and in some cases it doesn't. I use Paypal for eBay and for micropayments (paypaling money from Germany to the States is cheaper/easier than trying to do a wire transfer). They have permission to take money directly from my bank account if the Paypal account doesn't have enough (and yes, I do check whether they do anything bad with my account, in which case I demand my moey back and kill off the agreement), which makes things rather convenient. However, in some cases I ge errors saying that the receiver doesn't accept anything but CC transactions. Which makes tunneling the stuff through Paypal rather pointless.
It'd be less irritating if Paypal would tell my that a credit card is needed right away instead of making me go through the whole process first.
And no, I won't just get a credit card. In Germany CCs are not popular enough to be available without fees or a whole lot of strings attached.
It has to involve Microsoft buying in some other company to get into that market.
By the way, is there any market MS is not trying to get into? It seems they are trying to inject themselves into any market they can find. Maybe...
...they are trying to diversify as a redefinition measure as they expect their main business to take a huge hit? ...they are trying to become so ubiquitous that nobody can fight them anymore? ...they are lacking any kind of direction and just try to expand at any cost?
Step 1: Throw MSoE's top execs in jail
Step 2: Seize MSoE's assets to cover the debt. That should be about all offices Microsoft has in Europe and probably a number of patents which MSoE is forced to sell
That would amount to a complete dismantling of Microsoft in Europe. If they are indeed forced to sell patents they'd even take an even bigger blow, as suddenly much of their patent litigation power in Euope gets nullified, opening the doors for competitors to implement the stuff.
Microsoft can't afford to just ignore the EU's courts. Doing so might get them into much more trouble then they already are in.
Or, less WIPO-unfriendly, just mandate a switch away from Windows everywhere. And when I say everywhere I mean everywhere. EU-wide legislation that states that until 2010 all governments, agencies, schools etc. are to switch away from Windows would hurt Microsoft like hell. As would the adoption of ODF as the new document standard, with Microsoft's offer not being accepted anywhere.
The EU has countless weapons in stock, from migration plans to subsidies to large-scale grants. If Microsoft pisses off the EU enough Brussels might just decide to pump a couple hundred million Euros into Mandrake in order to develop an alternative to every product Microsoft sells, including the XBox controller. Or they make a law that keeps Microsoft from bribing institutions with free licenses. This is a big game of Nomic and Microsoft is not allowed to make up rules. The EU is.
The european (incl. polish) system is actually worse - it would be just as good if it was coherent (quintilliard, etc.),
At least in Germany it is:
Million = 10^6
Milliarde = 10^9
Billion = 10^12
Billiarde = 10^15
Trillion = 10^18
Trilliarde = 20^21 ...
Nonillion = 10^54
Nonilliarde = 10^57 ...
Septenquadragintillion = 10^282
Septenquadragintilliarde = 10^285
Actually, according to the 'Pedia, both long and short scales are internally consistent. Inconsistencies only appear when a country moves from one scale to the other (like Turkey, which uses the short scale but has stuck to the milliard).
So what? It doesn't sound revolutionary or innovative in the least.
But it's like, totally Web 2.0, dude. Adding AJAX to something makes it completely new and innovative, just like in 2000, when taking a grocery and putting it on the internet was completely new and innovative.
I wonder whether this new config panel also includes "digg this configuration" links.
Heh. Windows networking is, and always has been, a joke. The only really solid Windows networks I have ever seen are the virtual networks between my host OSes (Linux and OS X) and the Windows VMs.
The strangest thing that has happened to me so far: Ever since the last reinstallation of my parents' Windows (on a clean hard drive, no less) NTLOGON refuses to accept any login from the network. No configuration issue, no nothing. All requests get denied with a "wrong password", even for the passwordless, permissionless guest user (which I re-enabled for testing purposes) or entirely nonexistant users. That, of course, makes getting files onto that computer (which is the one connected to the printer) pretty much impossible; using the thing as a print server is beyond all feasibility.
Replacing NTLOGON or other possibly related system files doesn't change a thing, of course.
In my experience, Windows networking has always been a game of chance and I don't think that will ever change.
I think this might lead to more creative/fun little movies being made.
No, the people crossposting their stuff to Newgrounds, Albinoblacksheep, YouTube, Google Video and/or/f/ will just have another site to which they can upload their shit.
Hey, I have an idea for a new Web 2.0 site: killr.us! It's a glorified portal site linking to other Web 2.0 sites who are trying to kill each other. Users get to vote on which site is the most popular and which one is the most likely to kill someone.
Look at my Web 2.0/Dotcom-compliant features: Web 2.0
- Rounded corners!
- Completely AJAX-based navigation!
- The navigation uses a cloud of words in varying font sizes! Exclusively! Maybe we'll even use varying colors!!
- The site uses XHTML 1.1, even though no browser can differentiate it from HTML 4.01 due to the IE not understanding application/xhtml+xml!
- CSS feeds all over the place!
- Misspelled domain name! (In fact, I should register dethmatch.com as well)
- Stupid, irrelevant tagline! ("Where the killr is the killer killer.")
- Web 2.0 buttons!
- Digg links on every page!
- Links to MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and delicio.us on every page!
- In fact, the links are loaded into an IFrame using AJAX!! Dotcom
- Inane business model guarantees VC attention!
- At least one domain name ends in.com!
- This has "stupid" written all over it! It has to be good!
Come on, dump ten million dollars into my venture! Please!
Depends on the amount of mass flower farming you do. Most perfumes aren't exactly liquid gold - if they're affordable enough for regular people to buy them that means they're cheap enough to produce for the price making sense.
Slashdot Mirror
But it is true that most mainstream games are either really shallow or have a plot you just don't care about. However, a game that tells a captivating story is one that you might want to replay later just to experience the story again.
For example, I'm going to buy Escape Velocity Nova, not because I'm such a big fan of Elite clones but because in the demo I played halfway through the Vell-os storyline and I want to get that mind-control device out of my pilot's spine and then get back at the Federation. I'm not thinking in terms of "by getting rid of the device I can advance in the game", I'm thinking in terms of "just wait until I can free myself (and hopefully the Vell-os) and Fucking Kill(TM) you assholes". I want to get back at them. I am pissed about how they used me to hurt their enemies (getting those enemies to hate me in the process). That kind of passion is pretty rare with games; I usually reserve it for good books or movies.
Without the storylines (and modability; I love modding) EV Nova would definitely not be worth thirty US bucks to me. But I am willing to spend the money on a game that does such a good job at storytelling. The fact that I want to Summer Bloom the shit out of Commander Krane also plays into that.
When I think about truly good games with high replay value I usually think about games with a good story (off the top of my head: Fallout 1/2, X-Com 1 to 3, Final Fantasy Tactics (NOT Advance), most LucasArts games before Monkey Island 4, the Marathon series...); games that are great without a decent story usually are so because of great modability (Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena). The few games that have neither invariably have outstanding gameplay (Gunbound, the 2D Metroid games (Fusion even has a half-decently told story)).
A brilliant story might not be the best way to drive sales, but it is an excellent way of increasing replay value. If graphics really would become self-upgrading and more developers would focus on things like immersion that goes beyond the visual/acoustic level we'd probably see more memorable games.
Let's see... Presenting the name of the game, check. Linking to the game's website, check. Telling the price, check. Praising the game while giving away teaser-sized parts of the plot, check.
Getting paid for what amounts to a Slashvertisement... un-check. Damn.
I predict the Commodore 64 will rise again, although this time, it will be 64 Gig!
That would obviously be the Commodore 67108864.
That would still cost you the friends you have left in Europe (maybe even the sycophants in London). I once again point out that pissing off an important market that's bigger than you is unwise.
I am humbled by your wisdom.
Of course you meant "You = totalpu.ssy" or "You = total~1".
1. All servers on the internet get backdoor'd.
2. Hackers figure out how to exploit the backdoors.
3. All TC servers get rooted. Trusted Computing turns into a massive worldwide system DDOS as no key validates at all, rendering all TC OSes unbootable, all TC protected files unopenable.
4. TC goes down in flames as nobody trusts it anymore.
I think this is one of the best ideas the FBI ever had.
If you add Hitler's death count to that list (NAZI stood for National *Socialist* Worker's Party) you're well over 100 million.
You are misunderstanding the term. "National socialism" is not socialism with the adjective "national" added to it, it is one indivisible term. In German it's called "Nationalsozialismus" as opposed to "nationaler Sozialismus".
The NSDAP (as the party is abbreviated) had a social side, providing the poor with food and promising work (which is why they were so popular), but they weren't really friends of socialism and certainly not communism.
Nevertheless, Nazi Germany qualifies as a prime example of how a fascist state can get away with extreme atrocities without the people even noticing (most people only learned of what happened in the KZs after the war).
Probably the latter one, because we get a spiffy new GPS sattelite network. Teke a look at what would probably happen:
Scenario 1 (no Galileo): You shut off NAVSTAR. Economies everywhere bomb as all businesses reliant on NAVSTAR take huge losses. As a result the rest of the world will demand NAVSTAR to be put under UN control. You lose lots of money and NAVSTAR.
Scenario 2 (Galileo in place): You shut off NAVSTAR and attempt to jam Galileo. Europe overrides your Galileo access. Businesses reliant on NAVSTAR bomb, ones reliant on Galileo take minor hits. You lose a lot of goodwill and money. Scenario 3 (Galileo in place): You destroy Galileo. Europe shuts down trade with the USA and demands compensation (probably including parts of NAVSTAR). Countries like Russia and China probably support Europe, being affected as well. Since most of the world is against you they can just put trade sanctions on you until you're broke and have to take whichever demands they make. You lose a lot of money, any kind of goodwill left and possibly NAVSTAR.
Twenty years ago the USA were in a position where they could get away with most everything. Nowadays, as Europe and China are approaching superpowerdom, they aren't. Posing with nukes doesn't exactly work when the potential opponents are numerous (Russia, Korea, India, UK, France, Germany thinking about getting nukes...) and regular warfare is slow enough that the economic backlash would hit before the war can take off.
The USA can enter a pissing contest with the EU, but they wouldn't win. A military approach could yield world war sized trouble (and probably mass demonstrations of people demanding that the current administration resigns) and economical warfare is difficult when your opponent has the bigger economy.
BTW, scenario 4: The USA shoot down Galileo. France gets pissed and nukes Washington, DC. "It's Christmas at Ground Zero" record sales skyrocket all over the world.
OpenOffice has already broken from the ODF spec to accomplish some things.
Interesting. Care to elaborate/give a link?
It gets even worse. In some cases Paypal forces you to provide a credit card and in some cases it doesn't. I use Paypal for eBay and for micropayments (paypaling money from Germany to the States is cheaper/easier than trying to do a wire transfer). They have permission to take money directly from my bank account if the Paypal account doesn't have enough (and yes, I do check whether they do anything bad with my account, in which case I demand my moey back and kill off the agreement), which makes things rather convenient. However, in some cases I ge errors saying that the receiver doesn't accept anything but CC transactions. Which makes tunneling the stuff through Paypal rather pointless.
It'd be less irritating if Paypal would tell my that a credit card is needed right away instead of making me go through the whole process first.
And no, I won't just get a credit card. In Germany CCs are not popular enough to be available without fees or a whole lot of strings attached.
Since when does changing an 'r' to a 'pedia' give you more international feel?
I think it started with Micpediaosoft's recent name change.
It has to involve Microsoft buying in some other company to get into that market.
...they are trying to diversify as a redefinition measure as they expect their main business to take a huge hit?
...they are trying to become so ubiquitous that nobody can fight them anymore?
...they are lacking any kind of direction and just try to expand at any cost?
By the way, is there any market MS is not trying to get into? It seems they are trying to inject themselves into any market they can find. Maybe...
Yup.
Step 1: Throw MSoE's top execs in jail
Step 2: Seize MSoE's assets to cover the debt. That should be about all offices Microsoft has in Europe and probably a number of patents which MSoE is forced to sell
That would amount to a complete dismantling of Microsoft in Europe. If they are indeed forced to sell patents they'd even take an even bigger blow, as suddenly much of their patent litigation power in Euope gets nullified, opening the doors for competitors to implement the stuff.
Microsoft can't afford to just ignore the EU's courts. Doing so might get them into much more trouble then they already are in.
Or, less WIPO-unfriendly, just mandate a switch away from Windows everywhere. And when I say everywhere I mean everywhere. EU-wide legislation that states that until 2010 all governments, agencies, schools etc. are to switch away from Windows would hurt Microsoft like hell. As would the adoption of ODF as the new document standard, with Microsoft's offer not being accepted anywhere.
The EU has countless weapons in stock, from migration plans to subsidies to large-scale grants. If Microsoft pisses off the EU enough Brussels might just decide to pump a couple hundred million Euros into Mandrake in order to develop an alternative to every product Microsoft sells, including the XBox controller. Or they make a law that keeps Microsoft from bribing institutions with free licenses. This is a big game of Nomic and Microsoft is not allowed to make up rules. The EU is.
The european (incl. polish) system is actually worse - it would be just as good if it was coherent (quintilliard, etc.),
...
...
At least in Germany it is:
Million = 10^6
Milliarde = 10^9
Billion = 10^12
Billiarde = 10^15
Trillion = 10^18
Trilliarde = 20^21
Nonillion = 10^54
Nonilliarde = 10^57
Septenquadragintillion = 10^282
Septenquadragintilliarde = 10^285
Actually, according to the 'Pedia, both long and short scales are internally consistent. Inconsistencies only appear when a country moves from one scale to the other (like Turkey, which uses the short scale but has stuck to the milliard).
Well, bummer dude, you wasted a good comment.
You seem to be under the impression that the amount of derisive comments I can produce is in any way limited...
So what? It doesn't sound revolutionary or innovative in the least.
But it's like, totally Web 2.0, dude. Adding AJAX to something makes it completely new and innovative, just like in 2000, when taking a grocery and putting it on the internet was completely new and innovative.
I wonder whether this new config panel also includes "digg this configuration" links.
No, that's due to the CIA's new melting rays.
As for Gentoo, the flakiness of Gentoo ebuilds makes me treat my Gentoo machine like a Slackware box.
;)
Broken right out of the box?
Where is Linux on the desktop again? Just askin'.
~/Desktop/linux-2.6.17.3.tar.bz2
Heh. Windows networking is, and always has been, a joke. The only really solid Windows networks I have ever seen are the virtual networks between my host OSes (Linux and OS X) and the Windows VMs.
The strangest thing that has happened to me so far: Ever since the last reinstallation of my parents' Windows (on a clean hard drive, no less) NTLOGON refuses to accept any login from the network. No configuration issue, no nothing. All requests get denied with a "wrong password", even for the passwordless, permissionless guest user (which I re-enabled for testing purposes) or entirely nonexistant users. That, of course, makes getting files onto that computer (which is the one connected to the printer) pretty much impossible; using the thing as a print server is beyond all feasibility.
Replacing NTLOGON or other possibly related system files doesn't change a thing, of course.
In my experience, Windows networking has always been a game of chance and I don't think that will ever change.
I think this might lead to more creative/fun little movies being made.
/f/ will just have another site to which they can upload their shit.
No, the people crossposting their stuff to Newgrounds, Albinoblacksheep, YouTube, Google Video and/or
Hey, I have an idea for a new Web 2.0 site: killr.us! It's a glorified portal site linking to other Web 2.0 sites who are trying to kill each other. Users get to vote on which site is the most popular and which one is the most likely to kill someone.
.com!
Look at my Web 2.0/Dotcom-compliant features:
Web 2.0
- Rounded corners!
- Completely AJAX-based navigation!
- The navigation uses a cloud of words in varying font sizes! Exclusively! Maybe we'll even use varying colors!!
- The site uses XHTML 1.1, even though no browser can differentiate it from HTML 4.01 due to the IE not understanding application/xhtml+xml!
- CSS feeds all over the place!
- Misspelled domain name! (In fact, I should register dethmatch.com as well)
- Stupid, irrelevant tagline! ("Where the killr is the killer killer.")
- Web 2.0 buttons!
- Digg links on every page!
- Links to MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and delicio.us on every page!
- In fact, the links are loaded into an IFrame using AJAX!!
Dotcom
- Inane business model guarantees VC attention!
- At least one domain name ends in
- This has "stupid" written all over it! It has to be good!
Come on, dump ten million dollars into my venture! Please!
Depends on the amount of mass flower farming you do. Most perfumes aren't exactly liquid gold - if they're affordable enough for regular people to buy them that means they're cheap enough to produce for the price making sense.
So I'll just have to figure out how to fit a HD-DVD burner, a BluRay burner, a 89-way card reader and a stenchotron into my shuttle PC...