witness the uproar over 1 cm^2 of female flesh after a certain kickabout recently...
Actually this uproar seemed to be more of the "I can't believe she did this during a family program" and less "I can't believe she showed her breast on TV". People were rightly upset that this was done during the halftime of a show that is considered family viewing. Of course it would have been interesting to have seen if the uproar would have occured over the rest of the show (described in one article I read as "ritualized sexual assault" if Jackson's over-the-top booby baring hadn't occured.
So I say let Johhny Boy fight his porn war, maybe that'll distract him from doing some real damage.
More likely it'll discredit and humiliate him politically so much that he'll never even hold office as janitor for the DOJ after Dubya's out of office (and perhaps before if this blows up as badly as I suspect it will).
I doubt anything will distract him from his holy crusade to (re)make America comform to his puritanical views, but getting laughed out of DC and reviled and hated by millions of Americans will stop him.
This should be interesting to watch, I suspect a new generation will grow up now despising Ashcroft as much as mine despised Tipper Gore (IIRC, she didn't want just parental warning stickers on CDs, she wanted everything she found offensive banned, or at least that's how we teens took it at the time).
Anyone retarded enough to name their kid in l3375p34k lacks the genes that would make higher learning a possibility anyhow.
True, but what if they adopted and renamed a kid? It'd be sad to see the next Einstein never reach their potential because dumb-ass daddy named them w@nk3r.
It takes only about 30 seconds to recharge the battery enough to allow 80 hours of continuous operation of an MD player, compared with around an hour needed by conventional rechargeables, the company claims.
Bleah, I did misread that. Still, it's not a terribly big change for most applications. I use rechargeables for my wireless optical mouse and portable CD players. I generally get upwards of 16 hours playtime on a single charges on the CD players. That's not 16 non-stop hours though, so it generally lasts me several days. The mouse lasts a couple of weeks at worst, a month at best generally. I've yet to have a problem with the recharge time, and the charger I'm using actually takes more like 8 hours to recharge. I still have batteries charged-up and ready long before I need them.
In the article it says they recharge in 30 seconds, compared to 1 minute for other rechargeable batteries. (At least the type they're comparing these to.) It goes on to say it'd make radio-controlled cars, etc. more convenient to use.
The only problem is that even with the current technology it takes more than 1 minute to run those batteries down. Pretty much anyone using rechargeables has at least one extra set so that there's always a fresh pair to swap to when the ones you're using runs out. In that scenario even halfing the recharge time doesn't matter a bit.
Still this is a nice breakthrough, but what we really need are batteries that last even longer than current ones. Those will make a huge difference!
It is truely quite amazing how far a good (by good I mean good at his/her job) lawyer can get on threats alone. I am really quite in awe.
It's not that surprising really. Businesses have to consider legal threats, even if they appear to be without merit, so they can plan for the worst-case scenarios. IIRC, publically traded companies must also report on the potential impact of lawsuits to their stockholders as well.
Re:What, no editorial?
on
Red Hat Recap
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
How can we accept Red Hat's per-seat pricing and overbearing EULAs that allow them to audit user sites for license compliance? Why does Red Hat get a free pass from the community and from the FSF for constricting our freedom as badly as Microsoft ever has?
While I haven't paid as much attention to the whole thing as some people probably have, I've seen nothing of a "free pass" for Redhat. Ever since they announced the changes to their licensing/business people have been royally pissed and not shy about expressing that sentiment. Take me for example, like I said I've not paid too much attention to it (mostly because I was out of work in the IT field at the time), but now that I'm looking at Linux again, I'm not even considering Redhat. Whatever I use, it won't be Redhat. Currently I'm looking at Gentoo, and from my brief experience (I got started on an install Friday before I left work), I'm already pleased with it, more so than any previous version of Redhat. Take that as you wish, as for myself I think perhaps I'd outgrown the constrictions of a more general distro.
The community's not just sitting around twiddling its collective thumbs about Redhat's actions. People are actively moving away from Redhat, no longer recommending it, and spreading the word about what they think of them. Personally I think Redhat may have destroyed themselves. As Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star infamously said (slightly modified) "[They're] already dead, [they] just don't know it yet."
Think you are a company about to buy some software solution for something.
You have 3 options, all of them have the same features and the same price.
Which one you will buy? The one who are being sued? I think not. And we know that Microsoft solutions aren't the best and the price... well I don't need to talk about the price.
Think about the effect of all those sues on there shares?
Well seeing as WordPerfect office is out there and cheaper than MS Office, and there's Open Office (for free but minus a database), and Star Office (also cheaper) and companies keep buying MS Office, even though MS is still being sued...
I'd say it's not having much if any effect on their shares.
WFW3.11 and NT had it going on back in the day. 95 came to market too soon (and no, I didn't buy). 98 wasn't any good until the se release. Me was nothing but a money grab. 2K is barely usable and XP is a joke (IMHO:).
I know this is just your opinion, and I'm not a Microsoft fan, but you seem to be saying Windows 2000 and XP are worse than 98se, WFW3.11 and Windows NT. 2000 & XP have proven to be far more stable than any previous OS from Microsoft for me, as long as you keep the patches uptodate. (To be fair though you have to keep UNIX and Linux machines patched or they'll get hacked as well.)
There is nothing to stop the EU from retrying them and upping the fine if they keep it up. That's like saying you should get life for your first parking ticket.
Did you actually RTFA? Cringley points out that even that won't matter. The justice system moves so slowly that by the time the new trial winds down and MS has to pay the fine, they'll have earned billions more than the fine costs them, even adding in interest from the original fine date. The EU's max fine isn't enough to even dent MS.
I hate to say it (because I don't care for Microsoft's actions) but I'm afraid Cringley is right, MS will win no matter what as far as the courts and anti-trust goes. Ironically the biggest threat to them is possibly Wal-mart's new PCs coming with Sun's Java Desktop on them. What's so ironic about it is that Wal-mart is another example of a company so huge that it can just ignore compliance because it'll cost it less to pay the fines.
your comments sound like the creative meeting at Microsoft for Microsoft Bob, see how far that took them...
You know, I still have an install CD for MS Bob (it came with my first computer, never used it, in fact uninstalled it pretty fast). I wonder if it's worth anything.:)
SuSE 'limiting' your choices? Oh that's funny, considering they have one of the largest distributions on the market. SuSE 9.0 fills an entire DVD before you add in the source files.
...
Furthermore, SuSE/Novell are shooting for a corporate market and corporate markets do not want choice, they want a standard. Most sysadmins will further reduce the available choices even more.
If you've been reading the posts about this, the general feeling is that Barr was actually reviewing a beta of the Personal edition. That edition is NOT aimed at the corporate market, but at the individual user at home. As far as limiting choices, your comment about SuSE 9.0 filling up an entire DVD is a non sequitor, the DVD could be full of videos showing you how to configure things or some-such. I'll assume (because I'm pretty sure it's true) that it does come packed with software. That's great, now when Joe Average installs SuSE and it boots up with all his programs set and doesn't even ask him if he'd like to change them, where's the choices? Joe Average won't even realize there are alternate choices ON the DVD, much less how the hell to change the defaults.
It's this type of attitude that hinders Linux adoption by the general public. You seem to forget that the vast majority of computer users are doing good to find the power switch some days. We can't assume we know which programs are good for them either, because if they feel like the only program they can use to browse the web is Konqueror and they absolutely hate it, then they're probably going to hate Linux and go back to Windows. That'd be a shame because they might find Mozilla/Firefox to be perfect for them if only they knew there were choices and could figure out how to change them.
Having something offer to allow you to change the defaults not only allows power users to change the defaults, it alerts the user that there ARE alternatives if they don't like the default. Then they'll know to look for a way to change it, and not only may end up loving linux for it, but will learn more about linux as they look for and find how to change their defaults.
As far as complaining, I certainly wasn't. You sound like you're complaining because someone dared say SuSE wasn't perfect though, so calm down. SuSE's doing great, we're just commenting on things that could make it even better. Everything can be improved, so don't even try saying SuSE's perfect as is.
Besides extolling the virtues of the game, I mostly wanted to note: story-wise it will take you hundreds of hours to see the game all the way through. Actually, AFAIK doesn't have a distinct "endpoint". I've been playing for 3 months and still feel like a "n00b" some days.
One of the articles I read recently about it said it does have an endpoint story-wise, but you can keep playing after you finish the story. The same article did mention it'd take hundreds of hours to get there as well.:) I don't remember what magazine it was definitely, but I think it was the April issue of The Official Playstation Magazine. FFXI was the cover story for that month. In any case, I figure I'll be a n00b forever since I won't get to play too much, but I will probably be picking up FFXI and a network adaptor by June. (Just started a new job, but since I'm in transition, and was basically unemployed for a year and half before I got this one, I'm fairly broke.) I hope the story's more engrossing than FFX-2's was. I enjoyed that game, but the story just didn't pull me in as much as FFX or Xenosaga did.:)
Let alone "graphics-whoring" games. The ones which play slow (because you don't always have the be$t, hardware-wi$e), with a short plot.. and very short gameplay! They seem to be taking over the place...
Yep, I refer to them as playable graphics demos. They seem to exist only to show off your $500 video card, and that's it. I suppose if they came free with said card they'd be ok, but it's pathetic to see them on shelves selling for $50!
i think one of the serious pros of multiplayer is that what you really get is cheap AI. developing AI gets extremely complicated as the complication of the game increases, and you may have noticed that games are really complicated these days! AI for pong was easy.
as broadband becomes more common, this becomes a more viable strategy. it may be easier to develop good multiplayer code than to develop a complex AI.
pathing issues are common with many game AIs, but if a real opponent gets stuck in a corner, you can just shoot him/her, type in "n00b" and get on with your life. i find this infinitely preferable to playing against a computer that sometimes has to cheat in order to present a sufficient difficulty level.
You bring up an excellent point, and this is very true. At least in games that have online multiplayer the developer has an excuse for the lousy AI. What's really disgusting is when it's a single-player game with no multiplayer and the computer AI has no intelligence -- it just cheats.
I accept that the AI's gotta cheat a little, after all we still don't have human-intelligence level AI at all, so expecting my console or PC to pull that off would be pretty arrogant of me. I do expect the cheating to be kept to a minimum and not used as a way to just make my life miserable. Some examples: In the original Railroad Tycoon the computer had to cheat to build its rail routes. It would start at the middle and build out. Sometimes it would end up with a curve or something you couldn't have pulled off yourself. Still, this was minor and didn't make it impossible to win. While the computer had to use that method to build its routes and you had to start at a city and go towards the other, both you and the computer paid the same per mile, and your trains ran the same speeds (assuming the same engines of course). You might lose to the AI, but if you did, it wasn't because it cheated, it was because you hadn't really figured out how to get everything right yet.:)
An example from the other side would be most of the Command & Conquer games. Don't get me wrong, I loved them, but if you put in the cheat to turn off the fog of war you'd get to see how the computer functioned. It would build things faster than you could, and its units would make a bee-line for you as soon as they were created. Considering that it took the same amount of time for the computer's units to find you when fog of war was on, it's a safe bet that the AI didn't have to deal with it. So the AI could build faster, didn't have to deal with fog of war, and also seemed to start out with a huge amount of resources already (even before mining any). Winning some of the missions was so incredibly frustrating that the game stopped being fun.
Personally I'd rather have a single-player game with great AI than a multi-player game with lousy AI.
Considering that this edition is aimed at least partially at first-time users... how do you expect them to know?
Computer: "Do you want to use Firefox or Galeon?"
User: WTF? This is weird... I just want to get the internet...
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, I agree that a question like that would confuse the hell out of newbies. What I had in mind was a question like:
Computer: "Would you like to choose a different program to browse the web with, or will the default be ok?"
except more of a single question that when you answered yes would take you to something to chose. If you said no, it'd just go away and that'd be that. Given that type of choice, most newbies would just accept the defaults, but power users could go in and tinker to their heart's content.
I don't think a new user of a linux system would mind having some simple defaults to choose for. Since SUSE is aiming to please more than just hard core linux enthusiasts, I think that having a single choice is important.
The only thing bad about this is having only a single choice for apps is very much a Microsoft mind-set. We want to see Linux to succeed, but I don't think any of us want to see Novell/SuSE turn begin acting/thinking like Microsoft. There are ways to give choice while providing easy single options. For instance the first time you log in, a script could ask if you'd like to change what programs you use for chat/E-mail/Web Browsing/etc. If you're more familiar with Linux and have preferences you'd say yes and pick out your favs. If you're a newbie, or just don't care, you'd say no and get the default options. I doubt this would be terribly hard to do, and shouldn't confuse new users.
Who says prices are falling? In my experience they've been going up for the last couple years. Of course, comcast has moved in where I'm located.
Same where I'm at, also Comcast country. We see at least one rate increase a year. I'm beginning to think it'd be cheaper to just run my own TV network.
Non-approved things can't be used, ergo closed source wins.
Maybe, maybe not. Unapproved drivers/video codecs/etc. in Windows XP still get installed -- a lot. Most people just ignore the warning and continue, and it seems quite a few companies haven't bothered to get their drivers certified by MS. Don't forget the millions of idiots who keep clicking on attachments in E-mails from people they don't know either. I doubt those people would even NOTICE the approved by thing.
I'm a programming dork myself mostly, I hardly play games at all, and I must confess I like singleplayer the best. When I'm finding myself playing, it's mostly because of relaxation. I don't want to communicate with other users. I don't want to play stressful FPS's against other computer/tv-games player. It just gets my nerves going in a spin I can't controll and that's actually exhausting, I can't play for more than an hour or I'll get all fuzzy in my head.
I just want to sit down, drink some coffee and run a few laps around the course in GT3 or bash some cars in GTA3. If I want to play multiplayer, I'd much more prefer to do it together, like playing the "Pro Evolution Soccer" game at my friends house or batteling eachother in "dance dance revolution" or such similar game.
I certanly see why people enjoy multiplayer, but I don't like the idea that I need to cough up with $50 more for the network adapter and god-know-how many hours of development which goes into the console for developing this.
Maybe I'm just "old fashioned", after all, I'm closing 30;-) But what's bad with a choice?
You're not alone or old fashioned, nor old (I'm 32, so don't even say you're old.:) I too prefer playing single player, or co-op multiplayer with friends I know (generally at one of our places, not online). However, a few of the online games out now are tempting me. FFXI is supposed to have a story that each player can experience on their own. I want to see the story of FFXI, and I can see joining up with others for leveling between "episodes" (for lack of a better word) as useful. I don't see my playing it after I've finished it story-wise though.
Still, the focus on multi-player and online gaming worries me too. I'm afraid game companies are going to forget that there are still plenty of people happy playing single-player, offline games.
My point is, Sony has a history of saying stupid things about their future consoles. Remember the hype about the ps2? Did the ps2 really ever live up to the hype? Is it just me or are colors on the PS2 dull?
It may be how your TV's adjusted, the colors on mine aren't dull at all.
I kept eye-balling PS2s on sale here there and yonder. I'm very tempted to buy one. Then I think about how long the PS2 has been on the street and I decide that maybe I should wait until the PS3 comes out. The only question is when?!
Honestly I'd get the PS2 now and not worry about the PS3. Estimates so far place the PS3 no earlier than 2006, and their are tons of great games for the PS2. You can also play most of the PS1 games (there's a list of ones that don't work quite right, but it's only about 20 or so, and most aren't very popular ones. Final Fantasy Origins is one of the popular ones that won't FYI.). You can also use it as a DVD player if you don't have one, or if you want one in your gaming room.
The PS3 will be backwards compatible with PS2 and PS1 games, Sony's already announced that, so if you decide to get one in the future you can use it on all the games you already bought. The main reason I suggest buying the PS2 now is price. When the PS3 comes out, it'll probably cost at least $300. Right now you can get a brand new PS2 for $180, and if you get the network adaptor bundle (also comes with a copy an ATV racing game you can play online) it's just $200. The network adaptor alone is $40, so the bundles the best deal if you intend to play online.
The only waiting I'd recommend is till after E3, there's a good chance Sony will lower the PS2's price to match or beat Xbox's new price of $150.
Slashdot Mirror
-
witness the uproar over 1 cm^2 of female flesh after a certain kickabout recently...
Actually this uproar seemed to be more of the "I can't believe she did this during a family program" and less "I can't believe she showed her breast on TV". People were rightly upset that this was done during the halftime of a show that is considered family viewing. Of course it would have been interesting to have seen if the uproar would have occured over the rest of the show (described in one article I read as "ritualized sexual assault" if Jackson's over-the-top booby baring hadn't occured.-
So I say let Johhny Boy fight his porn war, maybe that'll distract him from doing some real damage.
More likely it'll discredit and humiliate him politically so much that he'll never even hold office as janitor for the DOJ after Dubya's out of office (and perhaps before if this blows up as badly as I suspect it will).I doubt anything will distract him from his holy crusade to (re)make America comform to his puritanical views, but getting laughed out of DC and reviled and hated by millions of Americans will stop him.
This should be interesting to watch, I suspect a new generation will grow up now despising Ashcroft as much as mine despised Tipper Gore (IIRC, she didn't want just parental warning stickers on CDs, she wanted everything she found offensive banned, or at least that's how we teens took it at the time).
-
Yeah, but the problem seems to be that he thinks he was _annointed_.
That's still probably too kinky for him. (Yes I know what annointing is, just making light here to show how much of a prude the man is.)-
Anyone retarded enough to name their kid in l3375p34k lacks the genes that would make higher learning a possibility anyhow.
True, but what if they adopted and renamed a kid? It'd be sad to see the next Einstein never reach their potential because dumb-ass daddy named them w@nk3r.-
Were you reading the same article I was?
Bleah, I did misread that. Still, it's not a terribly big change for most applications. I use rechargeables for my wireless optical mouse and portable CD players. I generally get upwards of 16 hours playtime on a single charges on the CD players. That's not 16 non-stop hours though, so it generally lasts me several days. The mouse lasts a couple of weeks at worst, a month at best generally. I've yet to have a problem with the recharge time, and the charger I'm using actually takes more like 8 hours to recharge. I still have batteries charged-up and ready long before I need them.It takes only about 30 seconds to recharge the battery enough to allow 80 hours of continuous operation of an MD player, compared with around an hour needed by conventional rechargeables, the company claims.
The only problem is that even with the current technology it takes more than 1 minute to run those batteries down. Pretty much anyone using rechargeables has at least one extra set so that there's always a fresh pair to swap to when the ones you're using runs out. In that scenario even halfing the recharge time doesn't matter a bit.
Still this is a nice breakthrough, but what we really need are batteries that last even longer than current ones. Those will make a huge difference!
-
It is truely quite amazing how far a good (by good I mean good at his/her job) lawyer can get on threats alone. I am really quite in awe.
It's not that surprising really. Businesses have to consider legal threats, even if they appear to be without merit, so they can plan for the worst-case scenarios. IIRC, publically traded companies must also report on the potential impact of lawsuits to their stockholders as well.-
How can we accept Red Hat's per-seat pricing and overbearing EULAs that allow them to audit user sites for license compliance? Why does Red Hat get a free pass from the community and from the FSF for constricting our freedom as badly as Microsoft ever has?
While I haven't paid as much attention to the whole thing as some people probably have, I've seen nothing of a "free pass" for Redhat. Ever since they announced the changes to their licensing/business people have been royally pissed and not shy about expressing that sentiment. Take me for example, like I said I've not paid too much attention to it (mostly because I was out of work in the IT field at the time), but now that I'm looking at Linux again, I'm not even considering Redhat. Whatever I use, it won't be Redhat. Currently I'm looking at Gentoo, and from my brief experience (I got started on an install Friday before I left work), I'm already pleased with it, more so than any previous version of Redhat. Take that as you wish, as for myself I think perhaps I'd outgrown the constrictions of a more general distro.The community's not just sitting around twiddling its collective thumbs about Redhat's actions. People are actively moving away from Redhat, no longer recommending it, and spreading the word about what they think of them. Personally I think Redhat may have destroyed themselves. As Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star infamously said (slightly modified) "[They're] already dead, [they] just don't know it yet."
-
Think you are a company about to buy some software solution for something.
You have 3 options, all of them have the same features and the same price.
Which one you will buy? The one who are being sued? I think not. And we know that Microsoft solutions aren't the best and the price... well I don't need to talk about the price.
Well seeing as WordPerfect office is out there and cheaper than MS Office, and there's Open Office (for free but minus a database), and Star Office (also cheaper) and companies keep buying MS Office, even though MS is still being sued...Think about the effect of all those sues on there shares?
I'd say it's not having much if any effect on their shares.
-
WFW3.11 and NT had it going on back in the day. 95 came to market too soon (and no, I didn't buy). 98 wasn't any good until the se release. Me was nothing but a money grab. 2K is barely usable and XP is a joke (IMHO
:).
I know this is just your opinion, and I'm not a Microsoft fan, but you seem to be saying Windows 2000 and XP are worse than 98se, WFW3.11 and Windows NT. 2000 & XP have proven to be far more stable than any previous OS from Microsoft for me, as long as you keep the patches uptodate. (To be fair though you have to keep UNIX and Linux machines patched or they'll get hacked as well.)-
He kept on "paying the fine" until his car met a motorcyle and the person driving the latter was killed.
An apt analogy considering how many small companies Microsoft has killed over the years through its practices (both legal and illegal ones).-
There is nothing to stop the EU from retrying them and upping the fine if they keep it up. That's like saying you should get life for your first parking ticket.
Did you actually RTFA? Cringley points out that even that won't matter. The justice system moves so slowly that by the time the new trial winds down and MS has to pay the fine, they'll have earned billions more than the fine costs them, even adding in interest from the original fine date. The EU's max fine isn't enough to even dent MS.I hate to say it (because I don't care for Microsoft's actions) but I'm afraid Cringley is right, MS will win no matter what as far as the courts and anti-trust goes. Ironically the biggest threat to them is possibly Wal-mart's new PCs coming with Sun's Java Desktop on them. What's so ironic about it is that Wal-mart is another example of a company so huge that it can just ignore compliance because it'll cost it less to pay the fines.
-
Because you can't be thrown in jail for installing them. Yet.
Touche! You know, if MS tries to push for something like that, they'll get along great with the RIAA & MPAA.-
your comments sound like the creative meeting at Microsoft for Microsoft Bob, see how far that took them...
You know, I still have an install CD for MS Bob (it came with my first computer, never used it, in fact uninstalled it pretty fast). I wonder if it's worth anything.-
SuSE 'limiting' your choices? Oh that's funny, considering they have one of the largest distributions on the market. SuSE 9.0 fills an entire DVD before you add in the source files.
If you've been reading the posts about this, the general feeling is that Barr was actually reviewing a beta of the Personal edition. That edition is NOT aimed at the corporate market, but at the individual user at home. As far as limiting choices, your comment about SuSE 9.0 filling up an entire DVD is a non sequitor, the DVD could be full of videos showing you how to configure things or some-such. I'll assume (because I'm pretty sure it's true) that it does come packed with software. That's great, now when Joe Average installs SuSE and it boots up with all his programs set and doesn't even ask him if he'd like to change them, where's the choices? Joe Average won't even realize there are alternate choices ON the DVD, much less how the hell to change the defaults....
Furthermore, SuSE/Novell are shooting for a corporate market and corporate markets do not want choice, they want a standard. Most sysadmins will further reduce the available choices even more.
It's this type of attitude that hinders Linux adoption by the general public. You seem to forget that the vast majority of computer users are doing good to find the power switch some days. We can't assume we know which programs are good for them either, because if they feel like the only program they can use to browse the web is Konqueror and they absolutely hate it, then they're probably going to hate Linux and go back to Windows. That'd be a shame because they might find Mozilla/Firefox to be perfect for them if only they knew there were choices and could figure out how to change them.
Having something offer to allow you to change the defaults not only allows power users to change the defaults, it alerts the user that there ARE alternatives if they don't like the default. Then they'll know to look for a way to change it, and not only may end up loving linux for it, but will learn more about linux as they look for and find how to change their defaults.
As far as complaining, I certainly wasn't. You sound like you're complaining because someone dared say SuSE wasn't perfect though, so calm down. SuSE's doing great, we're just commenting on things that could make it even better. Everything can be improved, so don't even try saying SuSE's perfect as is.
-
Besides extolling the virtues of the game, I mostly wanted to note: story-wise it will take you hundreds of hours to see the game all the way through. Actually, AFAIK doesn't have a distinct "endpoint". I've been playing for 3 months and still feel like a "n00b" some days.
One of the articles I read recently about it said it does have an endpoint story-wise, but you can keep playing after you finish the story. The same article did mention it'd take hundreds of hours to get there as well.-
Let alone "graphics-whoring" games. The ones which play slow (because you don't always have the be$t, hardware-wi$e), with a short plot.. and very short gameplay! They seem to be taking over the place...
Yep, I refer to them as playable graphics demos. They seem to exist only to show off your $500 video card, and that's it. I suppose if they came free with said card they'd be ok, but it's pathetic to see them on shelves selling for $50!-
i think one of the serious pros of multiplayer is that what you really get is cheap AI. developing AI gets extremely complicated as the complication of the game increases, and you may have noticed that games are really complicated these days! AI for pong was easy.
You bring up an excellent point, and this is very true. At least in games that have online multiplayer the developer has an excuse for the lousy AI. What's really disgusting is when it's a single-player game with no multiplayer and the computer AI has no intelligence -- it just cheats.as broadband becomes more common, this becomes a more viable strategy. it may be easier to develop good multiplayer code than to develop a complex AI.
pathing issues are common with many game AIs, but if a real opponent gets stuck in a corner, you can just shoot him/her, type in "n00b" and get on with your life. i find this infinitely preferable to playing against a computer that sometimes has to cheat in order to present a sufficient difficulty level.
I accept that the AI's gotta cheat a little, after all we still don't have human-intelligence level AI at all, so expecting my console or PC to pull that off would be pretty arrogant of me. I do expect the cheating to be kept to a minimum and not used as a way to just make my life miserable. Some examples: In the original Railroad Tycoon the computer had to cheat to build its rail routes. It would start at the middle and build out. Sometimes it would end up with a curve or something you couldn't have pulled off yourself. Still, this was minor and didn't make it impossible to win. While the computer had to use that method to build its routes and you had to start at a city and go towards the other, both you and the computer paid the same per mile, and your trains ran the same speeds (assuming the same engines of course). You might lose to the AI, but if you did, it wasn't because it cheated, it was because you hadn't really figured out how to get everything right yet. :)
An example from the other side would be most of the Command & Conquer games. Don't get me wrong, I loved them, but if you put in the cheat to turn off the fog of war you'd get to see how the computer functioned. It would build things faster than you could, and its units would make a bee-line for you as soon as they were created. Considering that it took the same amount of time for the computer's units to find you when fog of war was on, it's a safe bet that the AI didn't have to deal with it. So the AI could build faster, didn't have to deal with fog of war, and also seemed to start out with a huge amount of resources already (even before mining any). Winning some of the missions was so incredibly frustrating that the game stopped being fun.
Personally I'd rather have a single-player game with great AI than a multi-player game with lousy AI.
-
Considering that this edition is aimed at least partially at first-time users... how do you expect them to know?
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, I agree that a question like that would confuse the hell out of newbies. What I had in mind was a question like:Computer: "Do you want to use Firefox or Galeon?"
User: WTF? This is weird... I just want to get the internet...
Computer: "Would you like to choose a different program to browse the web with, or will the default be ok?"
except more of a single question that when you answered yes would take you to something to chose. If you said no, it'd just go away and that'd be that. Given that type of choice, most newbies would just accept the defaults, but power users could go in and tinker to their heart's content.
-
I don't think a new user of a linux system would mind having some simple defaults to choose for. Since SUSE is aiming to please more than just hard core linux enthusiasts, I think that having a single choice is important.
The only thing bad about this is having only a single choice for apps is very much a Microsoft mind-set. We want to see Linux to succeed, but I don't think any of us want to see Novell/SuSE turn begin acting/thinking like Microsoft. There are ways to give choice while providing easy single options. For instance the first time you log in, a script could ask if you'd like to change what programs you use for chat/E-mail/Web Browsing/etc. If you're more familiar with Linux and have preferences you'd say yes and pick out your favs. If you're a newbie, or just don't care, you'd say no and get the default options. I doubt this would be terribly hard to do, and shouldn't confuse new users.-
Who says prices are falling? In my experience they've been going up for the last couple years. Of course, comcast has moved in where I'm located.
Same where I'm at, also Comcast country. We see at least one rate increase a year. I'm beginning to think it'd be cheaper to just run my own TV network.-
Non-approved things can't be used, ergo closed source wins.
Maybe, maybe not. Unapproved drivers/video codecs/etc. in Windows XP still get installed -- a lot. Most people just ignore the warning and continue, and it seems quite a few companies haven't bothered to get their drivers certified by MS. Don't forget the millions of idiots who keep clicking on attachments in E-mails from people they don't know either. I doubt those people would even NOTICE the approved by thing.-
I'm a programming dork myself mostly, I hardly play games at all, and I must confess I like singleplayer the best. When I'm finding myself playing, it's mostly because of relaxation. I don't want to communicate with other users. I don't want to play stressful FPS's against other computer/tv-games player. It just gets my nerves going in a spin I can't controll and that's actually exhausting, I can't play for more than an hour or I'll get all fuzzy in my head.
You're not alone or old fashioned, nor old (I'm 32, so don't even say you're old.I just want to sit down, drink some coffee and run a few laps around the course in GT3 or bash some cars in GTA3. If I want to play multiplayer, I'd much more prefer to do it together, like playing the "Pro Evolution Soccer" game at my friends house or batteling eachother in "dance dance revolution" or such similar game.
I certanly see why people enjoy multiplayer, but I don't like the idea that I need to cough up with $50 more for the network adapter and god-know-how many hours of development which goes into the console for developing this.
Maybe I'm just "old fashioned", after all, I'm closing 30 ;-) But what's bad with a choice?
Still, the focus on multi-player and online gaming worries me too. I'm afraid game companies are going to forget that there are still plenty of people happy playing single-player, offline games.
-
My point is, Sony has a history of saying stupid things about their future consoles. Remember the hype about the ps2? Did the ps2 really ever live up to the hype? Is it just me or are colors on the PS2 dull?
It may be how your TV's adjusted, the colors on mine aren't dull at all.-
I kept eye-balling PS2s on sale here there and yonder. I'm very tempted to buy one. Then I think about how long the PS2 has been on the street and I decide that maybe I should wait until the PS3 comes out. The only question is when?!
Honestly I'd get the PS2 now and not worry about the PS3. Estimates so far place the PS3 no earlier than 2006, and their are tons of great games for the PS2. You can also play most of the PS1 games (there's a list of ones that don't work quite right, but it's only about 20 or so, and most aren't very popular ones. Final Fantasy Origins is one of the popular ones that won't FYI.). You can also use it as a DVD player if you don't have one, or if you want one in your gaming room.The PS3 will be backwards compatible with PS2 and PS1 games, Sony's already announced that, so if you decide to get one in the future you can use it on all the games you already bought. The main reason I suggest buying the PS2 now is price. When the PS3 comes out, it'll probably cost at least $300. Right now you can get a brand new PS2 for $180, and if you get the network adaptor bundle (also comes with a copy an ATV racing game you can play online) it's just $200. The network adaptor alone is $40, so the bundles the best deal if you intend to play online.
The only waiting I'd recommend is till after E3, there's a good chance Sony will lower the PS2's price to match or beat Xbox's new price of $150.